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peachsayshi · 6 months ago

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Hey Peach! How are you?

I want to request number 64 (Unexpected kisses that get all hot and heavy) with geto suguru please and thank you 🌸💓

➳ minors / ageless / blank blogs dni

⥽ notes: hello, sweets! thank you so much for sending over this request. I'm sorry it took me some time to write out but I do hope you enjoy this little scenario between geto x reader! I hope you are doing well! tags: non-curse au; geto x reader are "rivals". a little angsty and steamy.

"why do you hate me?" suguru asks, but he's standing far too close to your liking. his pretty boy smile a glow in the shadows, his body closing in as he takes another step forward.

you stutter when you breathe, your chest rising and falling. you place one hand against his heart, feeling it beat as you halt his movements. your eyes shift to the window behind you, watching the rain shower underneath the thunderous applause from clouds above.

there is truly no escaping. a part of you wishing you had left with your group in the morning as intended. but now you're stuck here all by yourself with suguru. with no place to go, and no light to guide you out.

"I don't hate you," you say through gritted teeth, irritation igniting in the depths of your core. you swallow the uncomfortable knot in your throat.

it's a shame that you can't get along with suguru. it's not like you haven't tried, but for whatever reason that man manages to get under your skin in ways you can't even explain. you don't know if it's his infuriating attention to detail, or the fact that he knows what is the right thing to say to send you over the edge.

"you do," he replies, making you catch your breath because he actually sounds disappointed.

two hands come to both sides of your face, his palms pressing against the wall as he looks down at you. a crackle of lighting shatters the sky, illuminating the serious expression on his infuriatingly handsome features.

how did you both end up here after being in a heated argument only a few minutes ago?

"well, you don't like me either," you insist, lifting your head high and turning your chin up proudly.

he taps his thumb against the wall, contemplative. a twitch in his jaw as he takes in your words.

"I never said I didn't like you-"

"of course you did," you bite back, stubborn to believe that these words are true because why else do you both keep getting off on the wrong foot.

"when?"

your brain filters through every memory, every conversation, every exchange to recall any ounce of evidence to validate your statement.

suguru dips his head down, your hand squeezing the fabric of his shirt. so tight your knuckles turn white, and you're ready to push him away. but your spine tingles when you feel him lightly graze his lips over yours, his breath fanning your skin.

"when?" he repeats.

your mind spins, your heart races. you find yourself easing your grip, while Suguru's hand meets your waist.

he must be teasing you, you think. playing a dirty joke. but before you can fight back, he leans in for a kiss, pressing his mouth firmly against yours.

the gesture is soft and kind. so sweet it's like you're eating a spoonful of sugar. he pecks your mouth once, pulls away to give you a second, before returning for another kiss.

waiting, hoping, you'll invite him for more.

and when you do he slides his tongue hungrily, one hand dropping to the curve of your shoulder while the other reaches for your thigh to hook your leg over his hip, keeping you pinned up against the wall.

you rock your hips against him, desperate for friction. and when he returns the gesture it only makes you moan. an explosion erupts from within - engulfing you with a desire that's foreign to your being. there's a clash of lips, teeth and tongue - nips and kisses that make the space between your legs pulse. your hand grips onto his hair, the other curling around his neck.

you don't even want to breathe. you want to keep fighting. keep arguing. and this new form of communication works out nicely for you, you think.

but there's a flicker above, warm light colliding against the cool bolts from the lightning outside. the power returns abruptly, shocking you and suguru when you both stop kissing to stare up at the ceiling.

you're both panting, limbs linked as you remain intertwined in complications that you don't have the time to sift through at the moment.

suguru returns to look at you, licking his lips to taste you once more. he eases his hold, helps readjust your posture as he takes a small step back. his gaze never leaves yours, confusion boiling in his irises. you part your lips to say his name, but instead he cups your cheeks with both palms and leaves one more innocent kiss in his wake.

you are stunned when he drops his hands, a tiny grin a sign of relief.

he hums, "maybe, you don't hate me either..."

your heart is feverish watching him walk away, and for the first time in your life, he manages to leave you speechless.

requests for these prompts are closed.

#geto x reader #geto x you #geto x y/n #geto x female reader #geto fluff #geto angst #suguru geto x reader #suguru geto x you #suguru geto x y/n

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bonny-kookoo · 1 year ago

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Jungkook

𝐒𝐞𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐀𝐧𝐱𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐲 | Part 5

A smile from you is all he needs to feel recharged.

Tags/Warnings: Game Designer!Jungkook, Non Idol AU, established relationship, Angst , emotional kook, suggestive messages, poor Maria pt.1 [Tags will be different for every part!]

Length: 1k Words

There is no taglist for this fic.

Collab with @euphoricfilter ! 💜

-> Masterlist

♥━━━━━━━━━━•.♡.•━━━━━━━━━━━━♥

This is not going to plan at all.

Not only is he behind schedule wise, he's also not thought about the possibility of what this all might look like to you at all. Because why would you even think that in the first place? He'd be absolutely stupid to cheat on you, let alone with a 64 year old married woman of all people!

But then again, you don't know that part- and he also can't really properly explain it as he would surely blow his own cover, and he's just too close to the finish line to give up now. He already almost cried at deleting your face ID and fingerprint from his phone, feeling like he deleted the memory of setting those things up too, but he swore himself it's for a good cause down the line. You'll make so many more memories together for sure, and they'll top those more than by just a little. He'll make sure that they will.

[Alright, I'm so excited! Next time let's do it this way right from the start- no need to make it so complicated!] Maria had wrote him in full, and he reads over it with a bit of worry. Does she really understand what he meant by his worries?

[I'm not sure you understand. I'm planning something big, and I'm also behind when it comes to physical intimacy these days, you know?] He writes the woman, who he's asked prior about the rules and such regarding.. well, sex in the home he's renting out for the upcoming special occasion he's planned. He doesn't want to get locked up for not following some Airbnb laws he overlooked after all. That would just be embarrassing. [And we're very intimate people. I'm taking her pleasure and happiness seriously, if you get the hint.] He texts her as he boils some water on the stove for his absolute accurately made ramyeon.

[Oh trust me, I've been young too! No need to be shy, I can only imagine that emotions will run high most likely!] She responds, and Jungkook pursed his lips for a second, before he starts to play with his piercings deep in thought.

[No, Maria, I don't think you get it-] he begins to type. [-it's been almost two full weeks at this point, that's the longest we've ever gone without any sex, we're talking at least three orgasms a day times fourteen, I've got some major catching up to do..] jungkook sends her, before he puts his phone down for a second as to prepare the instant noodles properly.

[It's fine, really. No need to worry!] The woman responds. But jungkook wants to make sure.

[She's a squirter- you know what that is right? Either way it's gonna get messy so I'm just making sure you REALLY know what you're getting into if you say it's alright because the carpet looked really nice and I'm not sure how to get cum stains out of that] he rambles, not noticing you emerge from the bedroom now as you put your bag on one of the kitchen chairs. [I can replace it too if that happens no problem, you know how my girlfriend gets haha. Well you don't but you will know after we're done with the place-] he taps and accidentally sends out as you call his name, causing him to almost drop his phone into the soup pot on the stove, only barely catching it in time before he can practically throw it into the pocket of his sweatpants. "Yeah?" He asks towards you, and you look at him still way too hostile in his opinion.

He knows you can be a bit of a hot head. It's what he loves about you- how fierce you can get and how you'll always stand your ground. But he also knows that you're a bit of an aklebiter with some serious anger issues sometimes- once you see red, you don't see anything else anymore. So he's got to be careful not to fuck it up any further, because once he loses you, he loses for good.

Because you're stubborn if you've made up your mind.

"The water's boiling over." You mumble, avoiding his gaze as you sit at the kitchen table, arms crossed in defense. He jumps at your words and turns off the stove at that, somewhat awkwardly playing up some food into bowl for the both of you, watching you eat silently across from him with an almost needy gaze.

You're gonna probably try and kick his balls if he asks you to sit on his lap right now, so he swallows down the request to keep them intact.

He's gonna seriously crunch some hours while you're sleeping over at a friend's house so he can still make the deadline, able to pass up on sleep with you not actually home to scold him for it. He hates the fact that the app on his phone constantly reminds him of the lack of intimacy between you two- taunting him with notifications about his streak being broken, his record being topped, his spot up top on the scoreboard being taken. He hates it. He created this app, he should be the one who's best at it too!

God he can't wait to get his hands on you again. He feels like his dick is going to fall off in the next few days.

And it's not just that, either. He doesn't sleep well when you're not with him, he misses all the interactions you usually have during the day, the love, the intimacy of just being close, he misses it so bad. And he kind of doesn't want you to leave right now- he'd love to just call it quits and just cave in, but he's come too far now, and you're also a strong independent woman. You deserve to choose where you want to go or stay, he's got no say in that- or at least he shouldn't try to have it.

"I.. You'll text me when you wanna come back home, right?" He asks as he finishes his bowl, and you shrug.

"Whatever." You mumble. "S' not like you want me home for more than the chores anyways." You huff into your food, and he can't help but feel his eyes tear up. No, stupid Jungkook, don't fucking cry right now. You're gonna ruin it all with your dumb tears and weak heart just like always-

"I do want you home.." he mumbles quietly, blinking harder to avoid you spotting anything off- but you notice. Of course you do.

"...I'll text you." You say, and that at least soothes his mind for the moment as his phone falls out of his pocket, screen cracking and making him cringe.

Fuck. That's the what.. 20th time this year?

But it's all worth it, if it means he can at least see the hint of a smile pull at your lips for once.

The sight alone motivation enough to make him work even harder now.

#bts imagine #bts fanfic #bts fic #jungkook imagine #jeon jungkook x reader #jeon jungkook imagine #bts jungkook imagine #bts smut #jungkook x reader #bts jungkook fanfic #jungkook smut #bts jungkook x reader #jeon jungkook fanfic #bts jeon jungkook imagine #jeon jungkook imagines #jungkook imagines #jungkook x reader smut

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iwritenarrativesandstuff · 2 years ago

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Chapter 105.5 Thoughts: Control, Manipulation and Partnership

Or, how Chuuya is actually the most qualified character to land a victory over Dostoevsky.

I just want to preface this with: I think Chuuya has woken from the brainwashing. We can't see his eyes, he's holding his hat again, and look at the progression of his face and expression from the last few chapters with him (these are in order btw from left to right).

I'm not completely sure how he did this, but I chalk a lot of it up to sheer stubborn determination on Chuuya's part, mostly because it's funny and he was clearly fighting back before Dazai's speech. However, I find it likely the speech did contain some kind of code - others have pointed out how "Goodbye!" might be a reference to the original author's last unfinished book and we know skk's codenames for things generally are based off their real counterparts' works so, maybe he'd already broken out of it, maybe there was something in there that gave him the final push - who knows at this point honestly? Either way, it means Chuuya had the capacity to break out of the vampire curse on his own and that's incredibly funny to me for many reasons but mostly:

Fyodor: "Bold of you to assume Chuuya's ability can't overcome flooding."

Dazai: "Bold of you to assume Chuuya's personality can't overcome brainwashing."

But really, this highlights something interesting here, both in what Chuuya's role is ultimately intended to be in this arc, and in the way Fyodor and Dazai manipulate and value others in very different ways.

I've said it before but it bears repeating: we already know that Fyodor is an excellent long-term planner, while Dazai is effectively able to counter him because Dazai shifts into thinking like his opponent. They're foil characters for a reason; they're both highly intelligent, manipulative, and willing to play the long game for the sake of winning against their opponent.

Thing is, I also stand by the idea that personality-wise, they're not similar at all - and that has serious implications for the people they are connected with. The build-up to the prison escape arc really highlights this. Some examples:

Chapter 46: Fyodor believes that all people are sinful and foolish and that his goal is to remove sin. Dazai believes that all people are sinful and foolish but asks what's so wrong with that.

Chapter 64: They decide to have a "super-happy chit-chat" about their problems. Dazai's solution to Fyodor's issue with his lazy subordinates is to get them to think lazing around is a bad thing so they will put in effort of their own. Fyodor's solution to Dazai being unable to woo the waitress is to isolate her from her job, house and family so that she can only rely on Dazai.

Chapter 77: Fyodor believes god is perfection and harmony, and thus that the people capable of change are the superior ones with most control. Dazai believes god is the accidental and illogical and believes it is the ordinary people who fight and live in that uncertainty who create the greatest change.

So, what's happening here? Fyodor's manipulation is shown to be very exacting and direct. He leaves no room for error and regards people on a hierarchy - God above all, himself as a servant of God's will, and the sinful and foolish humans he has little regard for. Dazai's manipulation involves manipulation of the situation, and is often indirect. It involves people coming to the conclusion he intends for them to on their own. And from his later dialogue with Sigma, we see he doesn't regard the world in that same kind of hierarchy.

Now, look at the way Fyodor picks an item and Dazai picks a person when starting the game. Look at the way Fyodor refers to Chuuya respectfully but brainwashes him entirely and mocks Dazai for not being worthy of "using" his ability. Look at the way Dazai is a complete ass to Chuuya but ultimately lets him make his own choices (begging people to take note of that moment in Stormbringer where Dazai cuts himself off to correct his referring to Corruption as Arahabaki's true power to Chuuya's true power).

So, the actual strength Dazai has over Dostoevsky then, is not really his strength at all, it's the strength of others and their choice and willpower to act in the way they believe is best. It's the only means of getting a leg up on Dostoevsky, otherwise they will continue to go around and around in circles forever.

And Chuuya is the best candidate for finally throwing Fyodor off his game.

Firstly, let's just establish something: no matter how mad he is at Dazai, he's not going to side with Fyodor, not willingly. Fyodor threatened the Mafia in the Cannibalism arc by attacking Mori, first of all. I doubt he's forgiven him for that. Secondly, Fyodor embodies everything Chuuya can't stand about Dazai, at the very least, younger Dazai - the manipulation, the lack of consideration and connection with others, the callousness and lack of regard for life.

Well, perhaps he's not quite as irritating. +1 point for Dostoevsky I guess?

But lastly, it is more advantageous for Chuuya at this point to help fight against Fyodor, especially since most of the Mafia has been vampirized by his organization. Helping the Agency stop the terrorist plot will help the Mafia by extension by undoing that. And we know from Stormbringer that no matter how much Chuuya is personally hurt, he considers taking out the threat to his people a higher priority. Always.

(You could make the argument that he was told whatever Teruko told Atsushi and decided to join, but not only do I find this wildly out of character, but if that was the case then there would've been no reason to brainwash him.)

That said, I don't think this was preemptive "Dazai's master plan #3057", and in fact, I stand by the idea that Dazai had no idea Chuuya was going to be in the prison. It is very, very important to me that for the rest of this arc, no matter what Chuuya does, that his actions are his own. Not Fyodor's, not Dazai's, but his. And not just because I hate that he's being controlled right now and that freedom of choice has always been important for Chuuya.

But because it makes narrative sense.

The vampires are a bit silly, yes, but they represent the way Fyodor and Fukuchi think - humanity will commit atrocities. They cannot be trusted to make their own decisions. They want to make a world that is free by... mind-controlling people so their plans work without a hitch. In short, they choose, on behalf of others, to sacrifice human autonomy for peace. So, if we are going to turn this arc around, we need to have characters breaking out of that control and thinking for themselves, in spite of the uncertainty of the outcome.

We already see this with Atsushi in the last chapter! He finally takes initiative and makes that choice to leave the room when he doesn't exactly know what the right thing to do is. And this is also why I don't think Teruko is wholly convinced by the DoA either - she lets him go. She gives him the freedom to choose what he does with that information.

Another one of the focus characters here is Sigma. Sigma is a guy who has no past, whose humanity is questioned, who keeps being used by organizations for his valuable ability, who has no home but desperately wants one... oh wait. Remind you of anyone's younger self? This could go one of two ways: Chuuya fails to assert his autonomy, leaving Sigma to learn from that failure, or, Chuuya succeeds in asserting his autonomy, leaving Sigma to learn from his success.

I think it, by necessity, has to be the latter. Sigma's at a tipping point right now, and I think seeing someone try to assert their freedom only to fail would damage him greatly. And I think it's a waste of Chuuya's character honestly.

Chuuya needs to assert his autonomy in this arc. Not just for thematic reasons but because I can think of no one else who can effectively break the "super-genius stalemate".

I keep hearing "Dazai knows Chuuya" in response to Fyodor calling their bond shallow, and that is absolutely true! But Chuuya also knows Dazai. Incredibly well. Odasaku knew Dazai's soul, but Chuuya knows Dazai's mind, knows his strategies and ways of thinking without even needing words. What's more, Chuuya has thrown off Dazai before and done what he didn't expect him to.

Which is nifty, because Dazai and Fyodor think a lot alike. Chuuya is in a unique position to thwart Dostoevsky because he may actually be able to predict him to a degree. Chuuya can absolutely land a victory against him, and it's excellent because it would be completely unexpected to Fyodor, who apparently thinks Chuuya's strength lies only in what his ability has to offer and not much else.

But listen. This also can't be skk's plan. I need Chuuya to sideline both of them. Both for the sweet, sweet catharsis of putting those two idiot geniuses in their places and also because I need Dazai to have screwed up. He wasn't wrong about people making their own choices in uncertainty. People need to assert their autonomy to create change. Dazai can't be wrong in this regard.

But with going ahead with the trap to drown Fyodor despite also having to drown Chuuya when he promised not to let him get killed... this needs to have been a mistake, otherwise the value of Dazai's emotional speech to him is diminished.

I want Dazai to try to laugh it off. I want him to say he always knew Chuuya would escape and then for Chuuya to deck him because "no, the fuck you didn't".

I really think Dazai hoped Chuuya would make it. Do remember that Chuuya was one of the first reasons young Dazai decided to try giving life a chance. The fact that he flashbacked to all his key memories with Chuuya says a lot. But his survival was no guarantee and it seemed very unlikely.

So, Chuuya is faced with the fact that Dazai nearly sacrificed him to kill Dostoevsky and save his new Agency friends.

And I hope he finally gets mad. I hope he finally expresses hurt on his own behalf for once. I hope they are forced to break their status quo that they have carefully maintained by not talking about anything ever. I hope they are pushed to uncomfortable places and that it is Chuuya who finally spurs this development.

Let Chuuya break the stalemate between Dazai and Dostoevsky. Let him shatter the status quo that him and Dazai have kept going for year after year.

Autonomous action in the face of uncertainty is necessary for change.

#am i assigning too much narrative importance in the main manga to chuuya? perhaps #will i stop? no #unfortunately this meta doesn't include gogol which is an oversight because he absolutely has to play a role as well #i'm just not quite sure what yet. same as chuuya i suppose #either gogol asserts his autonomy or he... fails. yeah. either he gets dostoevsky killed or... he fails.#i just don't know where he fits in with everyone else is the thing #listen though. it is significant that gogol decided not to play his dying role in the doa's plan though.#gogol is the free spirit of the doa and yet he's closer to sigma and bram in terms of how he is more controlled than controller #anyways sorry this is so long. just my two cents on the matter #bsd #bsd spoilers #bsd chapter 105.5 #bsd chuuya #bsd fyodor #bsd dazai #bsd sigma #bsd meta #i don't even know if this makes sense anymore. here.#storyrambles

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covid-safer-hotties · 2 months ago

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Also preserved in our archive (Daily updates!)

Under 1s account for 64 per cent of all childhood hospital admissions with Covid, study finds

By Tom Bawden

Under 1s account for 64 per cent of all childhood hospital admissions with Covid, study finds

Covid is almost as bad for babies now as it was in the early days of the pandemic, while the risk of serious illness among all other age groups has sharply reduced over time, a study has found.

Researchers found that 6,300 babies less than a year old were admitted to hospital, either wholly or partially because of Covid, in the year to August 2023.

As such, infants accounted for 64 per cent of all child admissions for Covid for that year, according to the new study, published in the Journal of Pediatrics.

The study shows the rate of hospital admissions among infants has hardly changed as the pandemic has progressed, with a total of 19,790 under-ones admitted between August 2020 and August 2023 (an average of 6,596 a year) – representing 43 per cent of all child admissions over that time.

Meanwhile, during the period when Delta was the dominant variant, from May to December 2021, infants made up less than 30 per cent of children’s admissions.

Taken together, these figures show that while serious cases fell sharply among children aged one and older, they are little changed among the under-ones.

The continuing high rate of hospitalisations among babies is largely because babies are born with no immunity to Covid and weak immune systems more generally.

This is in contrast to many older children, who have built some immunity from Covid infections and vaccines.

Most infants are only in hospital for a short time – about two days – but about 5 per cent needed intensive care.

“The pandemic is as bad as it ever was for babies. Under-ones are the only age group where admissions have not gone down over time,” said Professor Christina Pagel, of University College London.

“As children over one year old gained some immunity from infection or were vaccinated (with vaccination mostly in teens), their risk of needing hospital fell. But this doesn’t help infants in their first encounter with the virus.”

She expects the picture among infants to have been “about the same” in the year to August 2024 as they were the previous year, “as we’ve continued to see waves of Covid and immunity in newborns remains low”.

This is the first study to show that UK Covid hospitalisations among babies have hardly fallen during the pandemic.

Although a vaccine has been developed for children aged six months to four years, these are only given to those who are clinically vulnerable.

As such, the best protection a baby can get is if the mother is vaccinated during pregnancy – ideally in the third trimester, scientists say.

The baby builds up some protection from the mother’s vaccination “in utero” and boosts this further after birth from breastfeeding, when antibodies are passed on through breast milk. The vaccine also reduces the risk of the mother catching Covid and passing it to her baby.

Professor Pagel points out that vaccine uptake in pregnancy is quite low, at about 40 per cent, and urges more pregnant women to get vaccinated.

“Not enough infants are being offering the protection of a vaccine – from six months – and the benefits of maternal vaccinations aren’t be promoted enough,” she said.

A study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that a vaccination during pregnancy reduced risk of hospitalisation for Covid among infants under the age of six by 61 per cent.

Analysis by the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has shown that Covid hospitalisations in babies under 6 months old are higher than any other age group apart from over-75s – although the difference is that hospital admissions among that age group have fallen sharply over the course of the pandemic, even if they are still higher than for babies.

Dr Simon Williams, lecturer at Swansea University, who was not involved in the research, said: “The findings of this new study are very concerning and help to debunk the myth that Covid is harmless in children. Although a majority of children will not be seriously ill from Covid, this study shows that in some cases it can be serious, and particularly in babies, who are vulnerable and with low immunity.”

Sheena Cruickshank, professor of public engagement and biomedical science at the University of Manchester, who was also not involved in the study, said: “Young babies are exceptionally vulnerable to Covid as their immune systems are still developing.

“This paper shows that even while older children are being hospitalised less, this is not the case for younger children. If mothers are able to breastfeed and have been vaccinated during their later pregnancy, then their maternal antibodies can protect the baby.”

“However, takeup of these vaccines has not been quite as good as it could be leaving a lot of mums and their babies vulnerable,” she said.

Dr Mary Ramsay, director of immunisation at UK Health Security Agency, said: “The Covid vaccine for pregnant women is offered during a relatively short window during Autumn [October to December], so we advise them to take it up when it’s offered this year and not delay.

“This way the vaccine can protect more pregnant women and newborn babies, whatever stage of pregnancy they might be in and if they were to deliver prematurely.

“The Covid-19 vaccine is already offered to ‘babies over 6 months of age and children who have certain long-term conditions’, who are among those most at risk of severe illness.

“For other babies and children, Covid-19 will generally be a mild illness. Our surveillance shows that whilst infants under 6 months of age currently have the highest rates of hospitalisations, the number requiring intensive treatment remains relatively low.”

“As with all vaccination programmes, the JCVI keeps the Covid-19 vaccination programme under review and informed by best available evidence.”

Study: www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(24)00473-6/fulltext

#mask up #covid #pandemic #public health #wear a mask #wear a respirator #covid 19 #still coviding #coronavirus #sars cov 2 #UK

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devilmen-collector · 11 months ago

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WHB Theory: Vessels of God's Sinful Emotions

A theory I have after reading Chapter 5 and discussing with @sparkbeast20

This post ofc will contain spoilers up to Chapter 5 and religious theme

(God, please forgive me for writing this because I have to use Your name for PB's fictional version of You)

God possesses sinful emotions

Firstly, in Story 5-64, we have Bimet says God was greedy and jealous, meaning he had Greed and Envy, to which Glasyalabolas replies by saying God possessed other deadly sins as well, namely rage/Wrath, Sloth, Gluttony, arrogance/Pride. He fails to mention Lust but we still don't know whether it has a deeper meaning or it's just Glasya is making examples and Lust just happens to not be in the examples listed.

Theory

I. God doesn't want these sinful emotions

My theory, God doesn't want the sinful emotions in him. There may be several reasons, maybe because he doesn't want sins, we all know too well why the Seven Deadly Sins are preached against and virtues are praised in real life, the consequences of the Deadly Sins are evil things such as murder, rape, oppression, corruption and many other evil actions. So God decided to keep the virtues within himself while removing the sins. But since those deadly sins are attributes of God, he couldn't just remove them and throw them away carelessly, he needed something to store them.

II. The 7 Kings were created directly by God, not through a pair of parents

We do know that devils don't give birth, but having their children made according to their likeness by Lilith. Even so, the devil child is considered children of the parents who requested Lilith to make a child. Some of the nobles have been proven to be born in this way (Andrealphus, Amon, Buer). Exception is the Unholyc, born through the union of Asmodeus and a human female, their case is procreation just like human.

However, my theory that I have been telling my friends since months before the game's release and the kings are created directly by God.

In Story 5-86, we have an NPC angel telling us about the rumors that subject no. 87 (Leviathan) was created carefully by God. My point here is why is this angel saying God "created it carefully", aren't all created by God? Why making the difference? So there are at least 2 different ways in which one is created by God. The superior one is that one's body and soul are both crafted by God directly. The inferior one is that one's body is created by God but indirectly through procreation of the parents (as in the case of human) or Lilith (as in the case of normal and noble devils), God only infuses the soul the moment life begins.

In Story 5-96, Valefor says that it's difficult to create a body equals or surpasses one that God created for Mammon. (My opinion: it's impossible lol). So Mammon's no different from Levi that he had his body created by God directly.

If it has been the case with two of the seven kings, I think it's safe to assume it applies to other kings too. Lucifer's a little different because he was an angel but since he was God's favorite Seraph, I think he falls into the same category of having the privilege of having God created his body directly.

Another proof is that you have never heard the kings mentioning a parent. For some of the nobles, their parents were mentioned (Buer, Amon, Andre, etc.) But for the kings, just no mention of parents at all (excluding Levi because he was kidnapped as a child), even though devils are immortal (they only die if they are wounded in a battle or a serious accident).

III. God created the 7 Kings for a very special purpose

The next question is why did God have to create them directly, different from all the others? It's understandable if they were the first generation demons whom God needed to create directly then let them make/give birth to the next generation, who would make/give birth the generation after that and so on. However, the kings are not first generation demons, there are demons who are older than them (Gusion is one example). So there must be a special reason why the kings got such a special treament.

Returning to what I was saying at the start, God wanted to remove the sins and he needed something to store the sins. And God, being the omnipotent Creator, he could create the solution himself by making 7 vessels to store the sins. And since demons/devils were made with evil attributes, the vessels were created living devils. And because they are devils keeping God's Deadly Sins inside, they are stronger than any other devils, and God made them kings. Remember the kings and the nobles keep saying they were chosen by God to be kings and nobles but they don't know why. I think the kings are appointed kings to hide the facts they are vessels storing God's Deadly Sins, this only God knows (perhaps Solomon too since God favors our peepaw).

In Lucifer's case, he was created an angel, yes, but remember, God can foresee the future. To explain it in religious term, God can see all the possibilities but he knows which possibility will become the future with 100% precision. God saw Lucifer falling and included him in the grand plan so he only needed to create 6 vessels more beside Lucifer (remember God had Sloth so it makes quick work for him).

IV. The kings are the original and only deadly sins

So that lets to another point of mine, which is the current 7 Deadly Sins are the original and only Seven Deadly Sins and kings of Hell. There is no king before them.

V. Sinful Divine Power

In Story 4-87, after hearing MC could die by Levi's hands, Satan gives in to his rage too much that it affects the surrounding environment, even nearly killing other devils, the only devil who isn't affected is Mammon, another king and Satan's equal.

Since the Deadly Sins came from God, if the kings don't or can't put their sins in check, they could bring disaster, even upon devils who they are supposed to protect.

VI. With Divine Power comes Divine Knowledge

Leraye tell us in the chatroom that only the 7 Deadly Sins know why God disappeared. It could be understood that God told the Sins why he had to go or they saw what happened to him. But I believe in another possibility. God disappeared mysteriously, no one knows where he has gone or why he disappeared, but since the 7 kings have with themselves the sinful attributes of God, they get a glimpse of divine knowledge on why God disappeared.

In the event "Where is Beelzebub?", Beelzebub says while Bael is sleeping about "things that are going to happen soon", which could be understood to be about MC/us. So how could he know that? I used to think Lucifer told him, of which I got the impression after knowing he owes Lucifer something. But could it be that he knows about MC from the Divine Knowledge in which he gets to participate. (Tbh, now I think about it, if Lucifer told him, then where did Lucifer get the info from, God doesn't seem like the kind to tell him, given how he let him fall, so Lucifer must have known it from the Divine Knowledge of his Pride too).

In conclusion, the 7 Deadly Sins are living vessels of God's sinful emotions. And thanks to that, they get access to powerful divine abilities.

That's all I'm able to put down from my brain for now. Please let me know what you guys think <3

#what in hell is bad #whb #whb theory #whb satan #whb mammon #whb beelzebub #whb leviathan #whb lucifer #whb theories

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saintlucretia · 6 months ago

Text

Melancholy Of a Sinner

Pairings: James Patrick March x Female!Reader

Warnings: Smoking. Alcohol. Mentions of murder. Blood. Killings. Hurt/Comfort. Mr. March.

Summary: Y/N was once James's protege, but got killed by John Lowe.

A/N: I have no idea what is this actually. I'm very unsure about this. Summer vibes yay.

Life became something beyond reality. It was past. Past that faded. Like a fever dream. Something that felt real but wasn't anymore. Cold limbs and infinite longing.

There was no point in food because my tongue had no taste. Fruits weren't sweet, meat wasn't fresh, it all felt dead as well. Maybe that's because I put food in a dead mouth.

Alcohol made my blood colder and sometimes it felt easier to breathe after two glasses of absinthe. But it was probably my imagination.

A few months have passed since my throat was slit. I still feel it sometimes. Cold and rough blade against my skin. Warm and sticky blood on my chest. Smooth and strong hands gripping my shoulders. Nobody could know that John Lowe would get off his bonkers for no fucking reason. Maybe he really believed that I was one of the greatest sinners, who deserved death. Maybe he wanted to be the only protege that Mr. March had. It doesn’t really matter now. I guess they call it the wrong place, the wrong time.

There was little to do at Cortez. The hotel was dying. The only exciting activity here was killing newcomers, but I quickly got bored of it. Killings made sense when I was alive. Now it was just a childish game. Besides, there was no point in getting this place even more crowded.

It was approximately midday. I was walking through a dimly lit hall, passing guest rooms. The carpet made slurping sounds under my shoes, it probably was someone's blood. I pulled out a pack of Lucky Strikes. Nicotine didn't work on my body either, but I liked the habit. I held a cigarette between my lips and tried to light it. The lighter was out. Damn it.

“Let me help.” A deep voice with an almost comical old American accent. In a second a hand was brought to my cheek and lit my cigarette.

I took a deep drag and exhaled a cloud of smoke.

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure, darling.” March chuckled. “Mind my company? Or do you have plans?”

I could see the amusement in his eyes. He found sick pleasure in teasing. Nobody here ever had any plans. We were just walking through the halls and spontaneously murdering poor fellows who came across.

“Stay if you want,” I muttered, exhaling smoke.

“You look like you need a drink,” He said playfully.

“Really?” I asked sarcastically.

I brought the cigarette to my lips again and took another drag.

“Dearest, believe me, a few glasses of the finest wine from my collection, and all your worries will fade away.” James smiled.

I sighed.

“Lead the way.” I took him by the hand.

We slowly walked to his chambers. It was summer. The sun dimly penetrated the threadbare curtains in the hallway. Guests probably were crowding LA beaches. Well, guests that managed to stay alive.

“How long have you been dead already? A hundred years?” I asked and my voice echoed from the walls.

“Something around that number. I see no need in counting. Why so curious?”

“It’s hard to cope with the thought that I am going to suffer for eternity.”

We turned around the corner.

“My, my, such dread thoughts in such a pretty head. Why do you see this as eternal suffering, when it could be an eternal delight?” He sounded amused.

“You can’t be serious.” I sighed.

He chuckled.

"Darling, but imagine the possibilities. You can do whatever your heart desires without worrying about the consequences." James opened the door to his room, letting me go first. "Please, come in.”

The room was dark aside from the light seeping through the curtains, casting a dim glow over the interior. A sense of unreality hovered over the scene, as though the shadows and half-light were playing tricks on my eyes. I have never been here in the daytime. Of course, I have visited room 64 hundreds of times, but it usually was a night business meeting, where we discussed killing plans that I was going to commit. In the daylight it all was different.

"Please, have a seat." He gestured towards the plush armchair beside the bed.

The carpet made a soft sound as James walked over to the small, elegant bar in the corner of the room. The dim light cast strange shadows over the shelves and the various array of bottles, making the place look even more sinister, yet oddly comforting. I sat in the armchair.

He opened one of the cabinets and started to look through his collection of wines.

"Cabernet? Pinotage? Or perhaps a good old classic Bordeaux would be to your liking, darling?" He smirked and took a look at me over his shoulder.

“Your taste,” I answered nonchalantly, looking at the curtained window.

"Glad that you trust me that much." He teased.

James picked up a bottle and took out two crystal glasses. He poured the wine and walked back.

"Only because I don’t care anymore if you poisoned my drink." I chuckled.

He gave me one glass and sat on the bed, in front of me.

“Nonsense, darling.” He laughed, swirling the dark liquid around the glass for a moment, and took a sip. “Poison is vulgar. I’d rather stab you.”

“Vulgar?” I laughed, tasting alcohol on my tongue.

March smiled, his dark eyes glinting in the dim light.

"Poison is rather a cowardly method, you should admit this," he said, his eyes never leaving mine. "Stabbing, on the other hand, there is an art in that.”

“I almost managed to forget how sick you are.” I smiled, crossing my legs.

“Careful, darling. I have a weakness for pretty women with sharp tongues.” He set his glass on the bedside table. “And talking about ‘sick’, my dear,” he said, his tone light and playful, “you have a glint in your eye that suggests you are not entirely repulsed by the idea of being stabbed by me. Not to mention you also find murder entertaining.”

“Don’t put your perverse fantasies on me, March.”

He smiled.

“I got a bit carried away, didn’t I?”

"Oh, just a touch." I chuckled, taking another sip of wine.

“You know, it’s good to have someone with whom I can discuss my… little hobby.”

“Our hobby.” I corrected him. “Even though I am kind of retired.”

He chuckled. I could see him looking at me, studying my every move. I could feel his eyes wandering across my neck, the scar that I didn’t care to cover, my collarbones, and the exposed part of my chest. I was used to men looking at me like I was a piece of meat. But his gaze was different. Gaze of a gentleman, God forbid.

"You know, people call it morbid, but I like to think of it as... artistic.” He said, his voice low, almost whispering. James leaned forward, his hands resting on his own knees. "There is something so... intimate about it, don’t you think? Taking someone’s life."

“Twisted perspective,” I said, lighting another cigarette with matches that were on the bedside table.

March leaned back, a sly smile playing on his lips as he took a sip of his wine.

"Perhaps." He set the glass back. “But tell me, love, aren't we all twisted in our own way? You, me, and everyone who has ever stepped foot in Cortez."

I chuckled softly at his statement, the smoke curling up towards the ceiling.

"I suppose you’re right. I think I lost my grip on 'normal' long ago."

I took a drag, holding the cigarette with my fingers, and looked out the window. It became lighter as the sun was starting to peek past the curtains, casting a warm glow across the room.

“I am glad that you died,” he said quietly.

I looked at him puzzled, my hand frozen holding the cigarette between my fingers.

"Is this your strange attempt to comfort me?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. “Because I thought I was an extension of your career.”

March chuckled at my question, rosing slowly and towering over me beside the armchair. He reached out and gently traced the scar along my neck.

“You were way more than that, darling.” He said, his fingers tracing the rough skin where the blade cut my throat.

My breath hitched slightly as his cold fingers brushed over my skin. The touch felt almost intimate.

"Enough lies, I was nothing more than just a toy soldier on your board game," I said, exhaling a cloud of smoke.

"Maybe in some way you were, but I would never compare you to a pawn though." He said, his fingers tracing lower and stopping on my collarbones.

The sun was shining in stripes between the curtains, falling over the bed and over his face, lighting up the dark irises of his eyes.

"You always had the makings of a queen." He took my hand and left a light kiss on my knuckles.

"And I thought The Countess was supposed to play this role," I mumbled nonchalantly, taking a drag of my cigarette and averting my eyes from his gaze.

I sensed his discomfort as I mentioned her. James leaned in, his face dangerously close to mine. He took the cigarette from my fingers and brought it to his lips, taking a long drag. He exhaled a cloud of smoke in my direction. “Darling, you know very well that she is nothing more than a part of my past.”

“How touching,” I commented.

March raised an eyebrow at my sarcasm. He took another drag from my cigarette, his eyes never leaving my face.

"You’ve never seemed to be jealous, darling, and now I hear bitterness in your voice. What has changed?"

He took his glass of wine and swirled the liquid around, watching it slosh inside of the goblet. I sighed, leaned back in the armchair, and pressed the cold crystal of my empty glass to my forehead.

"Don't tell me you have grown fond of me." He whispered, his tone slightly mocking.

I let my head fall back on the back of the armchair, my eyes gazing aimlessly at the ceiling. The shadows from the curtains danced across the wall, a constant reminder of our ghostly existence. Maybe I deserved suffering. All murderers do, don't they?

I forced myself to chuckle. "Don't flatter yourself. Your change of attitude merely amuses me." I replied.

I watched him take another drag of my cigarette, the smoke curling around his face. I couldn't help but think how he looked like a fallen angel. A damn handsome one. I always admired him. He was my mentor, he taught me everything I knew. Sometimes I looked up at him like he was my God. After all, I had no one except him.

I watched his dark eyes, trying to decipher what he was thinking.

"You seem distracted," March said, his eyes scanning my face.

My hands were shaking. Damn, I needed a cigarette. I looked up at him. Without a word, he handed me the cigarette. His fingers brushed against mine fleetingly as I took it. I exhaled a shaky breath and brought it to my lips. The familiar smell of tobacco filled my lungs as I inhaled deeply.

"Tsk-tsk, darling, you look like a junkie craving their dosage." He said in a condescending tone.

“So what?”

“Cigarettes will not give you what you are craving.” his voice low.

"And what am I craving then, oh, wise one?" I retorted, taking another drag of my cigarette.

March chuckled, sitting back on the edge of the bed. He knew that I depended on him and his opinion. And he used that.

"You and I both have never had a normal life." He said. “You crave peace.”

"And what makes you say that?" I snapped. I inhaled another lungful of smoke and exhaled it out angrily. "You don't know what I want or need."

March chuckled.

"Oh, love, I know exactly what you need," he said. His voice was velvety. “I met you as a scared little girl and now you are a strong and independent woman. I know you very well. I practically made you who you are right now.”

I scowled at his last words. My fingers tightened around the cigarette, knuckles turning white.

"It was easy to manipulate the little girl." I snapped, my tone cold and harsh. “But you can’t do this now.”

March just sat there, his eyes fixed on me, that damn smirk still present in his expression. Like he was enjoying my anger. He was stronger. I felt my eyes treacherously filling with tears.

James got up and approached me, towering over me with his tall stature. “Shh, little girl.” He took the cigarette from my shaky fingers, put it in the ashtray, and pressed me against his chest, his arms wrapping around my frame.

I buried my face in his chest, trying to hide the tears that quietly rolled down my cheeks. My body trembled slightly. I wasn't the type to get hysterical. At least, not one of those who become hysterical while crying.

"I thought I was over this," I whispered, my voice barely above a faint. “I don’t want to be dead. I don’t want to be alone.”

March didn't say anything. He just held me there, one hand holding me against him, the other caressing my hair. I couldn't deny how good it felt to be held like that. Like I was something precious. I closed my eyes, my fingers digging into the fabric of James's shirt. His lips pressed against my hair, and he inhaled the scent of it.

“You can handle it. You are a strong girl,” he whispered. “You always were. That’s why I picked you.”

I hated myself for being so vulnerable. Especially in front of James March. Disgrace for a killer. I have always known that I could never be greater than him. But now I probably don’t even deserve a place at The Devil’s Night.

I looked up at him. “I'm sorry for disappointing you.”

March shook his head, a flicker of something uncertain passing through his eyes.

"You never disappoint me, darling," he said.

James cupped my face gently in his hands and brushed the remaining tears away from my cheeks with his thumbs.

"You committed six murders, being only twenty years old, dear. I am very proud of what you have become.” He smiled gently.

I leaned my cheek into his warm palm, taking a ragged breath. “I shouldn’t have cried in front of you,” I whispered, my voice hoarse.

“There is nothing to be ashamed of, dear. I’ve always known that you are sensitive underneath your strength,” He gently stroked my hair. “That’s why I decided that it would be better for you to stay here with me.”

I froze. “What do you mean?”

“You must understand, I couldn’t let you die anywhere else.” He pulled me closer, his thumb brushing against my bottom lip. “So our friend John just helped me with this problem. But it's okay now, you don't have to worry.”

I felt like my heart died once again.

“No.” I pulled away from him in fear. “No no no. You couldn’t-”

“I could.” He grabbed my wrists firmly, holding me in place. "And I did."

“You ordered him to finish me?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

“Darling.” He cupped my cheek gently. His voice quickly changed back to soothing.

I grabbed an empty glass from the bedside table and smashed it on the edge of the table. The remained part of the crystal glass was sharp enough and in a second I stabbed it into James’s throat.

Blood gushed out of the wound, staining his shirt a dark color. March staggered and fell onto the floor with a gasp. His hands clutched at the wound on the neck. I stumbled back, staring at the image in front of me. The glass shattered into a million pieces. They glittered like little diamonds against the dark carpet. His blood slowly drowned little crystals.

I stood there watching him dying, knowing that he would return in seconds. I pulled out another cigarette and lighted it.

“Feel better now?” I heard his voice behind me.

I shrugged, inhaling the tobacco from the cigarette and exhaling it out. I didn't look back at him.

"A little bit," I answered.

“You have an eternity to forgive me, darling." I felt his hands on my shoulders. “And you know that I can wait.”

I stayed silent for a moment, taking another puff from my cigarette.

"I'm not sure if forever is enough," I muttered.

“I'll always be there anyway,” he said and I felt his lips on my cheek. “I love you.”

One single tear silently rolled down my cheek and disappeared under my chin. Probably I loved him too.

#james march #jpm #jpm x reader #ahs hotel #ahs fandom #american horror story #james patrick march x reader #james march x reader #evan peters

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hms-no-fun · 2 months ago

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Tell us about Dill and Alexander! I kinda picture them in my head as Kermit and that blue eagle Muppet but gay and gamer/greasy mechanic. Is that where you got the idea? Is sburb's frog fascination gonna play into the story of these boyos?

oh what's that? you want to be the captive audience for a lore dump about my very special guys? completely unprompted and with total investment in everything i might have to say? well well, don't mind if i do!

SO, Dill Croaker and Alexander Falcon are members of a now-defunct group called The Falconers. they are modeled after Star Fox (the team) from Star Fox (the video games). we haven't seen Alex on screen yet, but here's @girlpillz's rendering of Dill for B1 verse 1, where Lenore Lehart shows off her sick bouncy ball skills for Dana Straten to get the attention of Dill.

Alex being a blue falcon, i imagine he looks legally distinct from Falco Lombardi from Star Fox (the video games; the team) albeit less cocky and attitudinous.

there are technical reasons for The Falconers' existence. going into 3.2B, i knew i wanted a secondary supporting cast in the margins capable of handling dirtywork off-screen. for instance, they're decrypting and analyzing Lenore's stolen witch data so the main cast doesn't have to worry about it, leaving us more time to luxuriate in what we're actually here for: feelings.

Star Fox 64 is my favorite game, so when it came time to come up with that supporting cast, the possibilities of a knockoff Star Fox team immediately sold me on the idea (especially since this is the only story where i will ever reasonably be able to get away with such a blatant act of self-indulgence. you wouldn't believe it from looking, but i don't actually do a lot of indulging myself with Godfeels. i try very hard to never throw things in without serious calculation. The Falconers are pretty much the only thing i've introduced that came as an inorganic external mandate of my own selfish making, and even then i've worked very hard to integrate them naturally). as a broken up four-person crew, they mirror the Upsilons-- and so, them helping the Falconers reunite in order to find Alphi and Edie gives these guys some juice. their backstory is a shadow of the Upsilons', and a useful point of comparison as the narrative plugs along. i could've made a girl Star Fox team, but frankly Godfeels is just so women-centered, so female-focused, so tgirl-transfixed that i figured it was about time to throw the boylikers a bone.

The Falconers are balanced as a calculated twist on the Star Fox team. the most immediate difference is that here, Alexander Falcon fills the role of Fox McCloud. he's the charismatic team leader, a little surly (especially these days) but good at his job and deeply committed to the care of his team. Dill Croaker is, obviously, only about five runs through the dryer away from Slippy Toad, and fills the same role. my reason for this is that everyone is mean to Slippy and they're wrong. Slippy is a brilliant engineer and programmer, why do you expect him to be an ace fighter pilot too? that's YOUR job, hotshot! Nintendo themselves have been all over the map with Slippy in terms of characterization, pretty much never getting him quite as right as he felt in 64. so, yeah, Dill is my take on Slippy: a clueless gamer frog who plays with a lot of edgelords but is himself impervious to their venom. he never cusses because he's a good boy, and he respects women.

Dill and Alex have lived together on Crime Planet for a long time. are they fucking? no, i don't believe they are. Dill strikes me as something of an ace king, and anyway i don't think he's Alex's type. mostly they work together in the shop and hang out doing bro stuff. maybe Alex lifts weights while Dill plays shitty space MOBAs. but all this begs the question: who is Alex's type?

as of the B1 solo we've learned a little bit about the other two Falconers. first there is Erol [last name unknown], the oldest member of the crew who's likely analogous to Peppy Hare. which leaves us with Yolo Sionnach. a lot of information can be implied about him from this exchange:

yes, a lot of information indeed. but as much as i would love to enumerate the implications, i must hold my tongue. i mean, i would type it all out, but i can't, because i'm literally using my fingers to hold my tongue in place so that i can't say the spoilers out loud

anyway, i like the muppet comparison. that wasn't what i had in mind at all, but now i'm imagining the Falconers as the puppets Nintendo used to advertise Star Fox Zero and........ ohhhh scope creep you saucy temptress

youtube

the Slippy slander is rampant! and that's to say nothing of the ad where muppet versions of Satoru Iwata, Shigeru Miyamoto, and Reggie Fils-Aime slowly transform into Peppy, Fox, and Falco respectively.

i can't say that Sburb/the Universe Engine have much to do with The Falconers' story. they're not godtier, they don't know anything about the UE, they are literally just space mercenary furries. they come from the Lemurian Star System, trained at the Academy on Lemuria, and worked in the Lemurian Sky Corps until starting their own independent outfit as contractors (which i imagine is a fairly common career path in a region racked by interplanetary war and rampant espionage). age-wise, they're in their mid 30s.

thank you for this wonderful question. no one ever asks about the other guys, and i am always dying to talk about the other guys.

#sarahposts #godfeels #homestuck #the falconers #star fox

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limeartichoke · 4 months ago

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limer's slendermansion au masterpost!

mostly made for myself and anyone else who wants to read/is interested! most of my fanart is built around this too ha ha. containing headcanons/a complete overhaul/fanon depictions of my fave creepypastas + the slendermansion au, because i think my brain deserves to think about them

(now illustrated!!)

tws in the tags but there's nothing too serious i think

the slendermansion/slenderman;

- bastard man you will never be a father figure in my eyes

- there is no such thing as any other variant of slenderman (we are not in a Dr Seuss book we do not need the rhyming quartet of evil white men)

- doesn't speak, probably leaning more towards the operator rather than slenderman tbh

- except this guy has exceptional situational humour (it's me I'm the humour)

- not explicitly abusive but like if you don't obey him when he sends you out to do proxy shit he'd probably kill you

- which is a problem especially with a house contained with not only agents/berserkers but also sleepers

- which actually thinking about it isn't that big of a deal except for the like 2 guys where they have DID and one alter is an agent and the other isn't

- the house is kind of like the monster house from monster house albeit a little more lowkey in it having a consciousness (so perhaps a little more alike to the house in encanto, just less friendly)

- you don't age in the house, but it's a situation where you don't really notice that fact until you really think about how the dates never really change properly

- wounds don't heal properly either, but if someone is fatally injured within the house slenderman usually blinks them out of existence for a couple hours before they're found again, perfectly fine, but lost around the woods surrounding the mansion

- the only time you'll actually see him is if fatal injuries happen or if a proxy has fucked up on a mission or something and needs immediate backup (kind of like alex in MH)

- missions are always posted through the letterbox once a month in envelopes along with the four weekly newspapers (maybe a magazine if you're lucky)

- possibly also how the proxies source their wanted posters info, which is usually contained in the paper. they have disputes and contests on whose criminal description is the best (slenderman interferes with cameras so no photo evidence exists of any of these people outside of the mansion, only eye witness accounts)

- only a certain amount of people are used to go out every month, typically in groups of threes/fours - less if the people he's sending out are older (responsible of him, I know)

- mansion is situated in a black void. please don't ask me where this void is because I don't know but it's probably a different dimension from the earth most of them are sourced from

ben drowned;

- the benjamin lawman kind of ben

- seemingly an infinite supply of pondscum he's constantly picking off of himself

- whenever a new zelda game comes out he's always excited because it's a new link skin to use + so when botw came out it was like the equivalent of a wardrobe makeover

- one of the few that doesn't have to share a room with anyone given his physical body is like, semi real and mostly spends his nights in his game cartridge which is in an overheating Nintendo 64 in the tower attic, which is too small for a bed anyway - but ben personalises it as much as possible (it's a pig sty)

- speaking of his body, it's in a weird liminal state of real and not real, because he can make it disappear/reappear but everyone can touch him, he can touch others, etc. i explain this away via slender mansion dead person magic

- he doesn't typically eat, and even though he doesn't need to he likes making his body breathe (as much as it can since it's waterlogged most of the time)

- Ben's body is mostly in a state of flux dependent on his mood, eg: if he's content/happy he looks less drowned, if he's upset/angry he looks more corpse-like

- can spy on people through any electronic within like a 50 ft radius of his console without him actually having to enter the device, so to say

- this has caused many an argument

- along with him being able to phase in and out of reality he can also appear in any digital screen

- constantly electrostatic and will constantly touch people to give them electric shocks to piss them off

- probably one of the youngest there, about 12/13. maybe even eleven - around the age when preteen boys become semi unbearable 364 days of the year and have like one day of emotional realisation

jeff the killer;

- just want to clarify that this jeff has hair and eyelids in this au i feel like that's important

- but he doesn't blink much to put people off so really it's almost as if he doesn't have eyelids anyway

- will not stop picking at his mouth wound & that shit has NOT healed and will not stop oozing plasma/rbc

- ptsd from an ambiguous house fire that probably happened but Jeff won't talk about it (read: I haven't decided on the specifics yet)

- I've seen in some stories jeff and fire are tight but I've always interpreted it as more of an adversion to it

- honestly my reformed fanon version of him is pieced together from a bunch of rewrites I've seen

- mentally ill asshole (emphasis on asshole, he sucks ass)

- like come on sure a few kids bullied him but your first instinct shouldn't be to kill them . that's at least step 27 on a bad day

- tbf he had neglectful parents

- but like so did liu and he only started being homicidal after his brother disfigured him

- killed his parents but was unsuccessful with fully killing liu because, funnily enough, killing someone you gaf about is hard even for dickhead jeff

- shares a bedroom with nina and jane because the house (me) thought it would be funny

- quite disturbed when he realised nina was there to stay and probably tried to kill her at one point (again)

- someone take away the bad graphic tees he wears it's almost a crime against humanity

- he cuts all his t shirts up but like. stylishly

- or as stylishly you can get especially when paired with massive fucking demonias he will not stop wearing . he's had them since he was like 12 the only reason they fit is through sheer force of will (no one talk to him about his feet blisters)

- he's like. nineteen at a push but probably the kinda guy to lie and make himself seem younger for pity points

- "i killed my parents when i was fifteen, god can we not grow from our errors anymore? cancel culture nowadays. [...] when was my hunt? oh yesterday ha ha it was a bloodbath"

-smokes

nina the killer;

- wow! i wonder who she likes the most in this household!

- (amongst other things) bpd, jeff is her favourite person and it's a pretty miserable fucking time for the first like, year she's living there he is so horrible

- on a bad day her preferred state of being is being at least within a six foot radius of him at all times (maybe he might learn empathy being around her, who knows)

- he went on a little killing spree post-woods family murder and killed Nina's parents, & disfigured her w the glasgow smile but before he killed her slenderman intervened (not to save nina but to make sure jeff himself didn't like die from his own injuries)

- she was his only survivor and saw it as a.. "wow... he saved me from my abusive household, i need to get to him"

- this didn't go down well with her case worker

- neither did her running away (which really wasn't a good idea with massive facial wounds but she did NOT want the hospital to heal them)

- (insert probably incorrect medical jargon) she now has a face which healed with big gaps, sometimes keeps the flaps stapled together for easier eating/speaking purposes but they won't heal back together now

- she takes out the staples when on missions though because she thinks it looks cooler

- her and toby probably go through those face staples like wildfire together

- she only killed one guy before being led (by the operator) to the mansion to try and get jeff's attention (unbeknownst to her jeff does not read or watch the news so had no idea of this copycat kill - she was quite distraught by this)

- one of the few that suffers quite badly with self harm

- her parents were awful and when her little brother died (when he was about four and nina was nine) from their neglect they blamed it on nina

- not necessarily unkind to everyone else but she also especially warmed up to ben because from her fuzzy memory she can see a vague resemblance between ben and her little brother

- scene queen +curly hair she flat irons like once a month on special occasions

- she's the one that does everybody's piercings and sticknpokes

- should she? not at all she didn't even google an online tutorial, just guesswork

- probably about. 15 ish? maybe 16. I don't like her canon age of 11 because the thought of an eleven year old going "i love jeff the killer i hope we jeff the kill together" is lame

- jeff is incredibly put off by her whole schtick and was not impressed upon finding out she was there for the long haul (wouldn't it be funny if this happens thrice)

eyeless jack;

- I've heard so many goddamn variations of his story so I'm just gonna riff and make my own

- 16 y/o kid, average in every which way, gets involved with the wrong people who basically feed him on drugs which make him have bad hallucinations, trips to the point where jack gets very fucking frightened while high and it ends up with the aforementioned wrong people unintentionally killing him

- everyone panics and dumps his body which rots for a while (eyes rotted out first)

- guess who picks it up! (unspecified) cult

- they use him for a ritual which goes awry

- jack's corpse proceeds to be possessed by a demonic force which revives him but he's... different now #emo

- kills cultists as his brain, as decomposed at it was, carried on the fight/flight instinct he initially died with

-but whoops! doesn't remember his life at all (as demon nor human) and almost ends up starving to death before like jeff or someone finds him and drags him back to the mansion

- seeing as jack is a (semi) demonic entity slenderman does not appreciate him in the house but the actual house itself does not gaf and provides him a bedsit anyway

- finds out his name when going through the paper with others and they see his missing poster printed on the front page of 2 of the papers (he's since been demoted to a back page story)

- his brain is a weird combination of demonic and human matter (but he's still just one person, just a hybrid now - leaning more human)

-the tar comes from something to do with the specific ritual and it stains like shit

- which was unfortunate to jeff and his previously perfectly white hoodie

- finds out he eats kidneys after being force-fed by jeff and toby the left over meats the house provided for them that no-one else wanted to eat

- so basically take a human corpse with no eyes with tar for blood and stuff in a demonic entity and give both the host and entity amnesia

- atp he's older than 16 but he doesn't know how long his body was dead for + how long he was in the real world so really he just kinda guesses he's probably 18-19 now

- got his mask as a kinda shitty paper mache project from sally at one unspecified holiday (birthday or Christmas probably) and got it cast in a layer of resin to keep it lasting longer

tim wright/brian thomas;

- like maybe twice a month tim is let out to go shopping for everyone, if not for his mental health if nothing else (considering the house realistically could stock it's own shelves) like walking a dog

- never let out together because they will just run away (even if masky ends up dragging them both back it's still a hassle)

- everyone else is much more okay with this living arrangement than tim

- albeit the only reason brian isn't as uncomfortable with the situation is because he died, and has a lingering sense that this is his purpose now (that's the proxy in him, he doesn't actually believe that)

- they push their single beds together to create the most uncomfortable double bed on planet earth

- has a period where they kinda hated each other at first before realising getting over it and making out up

- it's okay now they love each other (i may have skipped a few chapters)

- (said chapters being arguably more than a little traumatic for both of them but it's. fine)

- tim arrived first, brian took a while as the operator takes longer to resuscitate corpses than he does to just guide a living person into his influence

- brian still looks a little fucked up though (one pupil larger than the other, bruising on his back from his blood pooling, + other related non-issue injuries now that he's been reanimated)

- masky is an alter of tim's , in which masky is the operator's agent and tim is not

- turns out the seizures weren't JUST the operators doing. is he allowed his anticonvulsants or antipsychotics though? well, the house doesn't provide them and if he manages to steal some from outside & he's too conspicuous about it they mysteriously disappear so there's a lot of untreated mental and physical illness going on here

- neither masky or tim know if there are any other alters because masky has never cared and Tim's only just finding out that masky isn't the operator's doing (albeit the operator is a front trigger)

- while unmedicated, tim comes to realise there's so much shit that makes him and masky a little cofront-y/switchy when before he just thought it was normal dissociation

- in my head brian is kind of a sleeper agent but remembers what he does when he is acting as the operators proxy, probably similarly to how alex was (oh how the turn tables) but he can snap back out of wanting to kill people where alex didn't/couldn't

- he is the meme "there are two wolves inside of you"

- tim is constantly stressing about everyone going out dressed like they're ready for a night out partying (especially jane and nina, they do not dress practically)

- brian and masky dgaf they're just here hoping to not keel over and die (again)

- probably about 24-27, part of me prefers them being on the younger side for comedies sake

- like the operator finally kidnaps a few adults to take care of these misfit teenagers and the adults have barely entered their 20's themselves

-peak comedy

"ticci" toby;

- hates being called ticci toby or any variant that isn't just his name

- this is of course exploited by his peers (cough jeff) to piss him off

- it really doesn't help that when he's agitated his tics get worse

- because of this he tends to lock himself in his bedroom to get away from jeff being a jackass

- the first proxy slender brought to the mansion

- which was a shit idea because who the hell decided that a kid with schizophrenia and multiple dead family members to hallucinate was a good option to leave by himself with a ghost (sally)

- especially with the issue that nobody in this household is medicated properly

- he has mild asthma that he keeps thinking he grew out of years ago (spoiler, he didn't)

- probably close with nina and liu but otherwise near the beginning he's very reserved

- because he can't feel pain + his bones are pretty weak the amount of times he'll come back home, take off his clothes to bathe or something and only then realise he's completely fucking mangled one of his joints (his left ankle is typically the victim)

- ergo he walks with a limp because the bones sit too awkwardly to really walk very well but running is less of an issue especially when adrenaline is pumping

- ...unless his knees play up and he kind of just crumples under his own weight . he always curses when he finds that he literally cannot get away with no bedrest

- the muzzle was NOT his idea and he is not impressed at being made to wear it like surely there are other options to him biting at his fingers

- eventually jeff becomes less antagonistic (sometimes) and they become closer

- they became pretty close after having to resuscitate jack together

- probably have debates on whose version of blade is better

- probably pretends to have a tic and launches his axe at jeff, who in turn literally never believes when toby's actually having a tic attack

- has this almost gotten them both shot out on the field several times? yeah

- refuses to believe he has cannibalistic tendencies as he eats from someone's liver, "just to try it"

- dressed like it's always the thick of winter

- keeping his canon age of 17 because it fits well with the late teenager aged up situation i got going on

jane the killer;

- holy shit it happened twice

- i kinda dig the original story of jane just hating jeff so much she goes around killing people (specifically men in my mind #misandristqueen) pretending she's killing jeff

- in my head though it wasn't jeff who attacked her, but a copycat instead (not nina, just some other male serial killer)

- hates her face now and the mask is specifically a fitted prosthetic

- by the time she was getting over her hatred slenderman brought her into the woods and got her to the mansion

- she was not happy and neither was jeff

- incredibly hostile the first day before jeff finally stopped antagonizing her because she would have just killed him

- finding out that it wasn't actually jeff who disfigured her caused some conflict but in the end she still settled on hatred

- real

- hardcore goth 40% of the time the other 60% she literally looks unrecognisable

- eventually stops wearing her prosthetic in a casual setting but still uses it while hunting

- probably 19-20 ish, but she acts so much older

characters I've put less thought into:

alex&jay as skully

since the operator took so long to start bringing their bodies back from the dead, when he uses either of them as a proxy there's not yet human life within them, currently 100% operator. As time moves on, this decreases, and they may join the ruckus of the mansion one day. For now, glances of the familiar mask unsettle both Tim and Brian.

sally

corpses when brought back to life still will forever look pretty fucked up ( as mentioned with brian having injuries from his fall + prolonged time being dead)so the reason sally is covered in blood is due to this fact. She was one of the first (after toby) for slender to house and literally no one can find out why tf he's housing a stressed seven year old ghost-corpse - because really she acts more like a ghost, and typically avoids the more masculine newcomers until she can get a good feel if they're okay from everyone else. doesn't necessarily avoid all men, especially if said man is pretty typically feminine (long hair, no facial hair, etc). has taken a liking to hanging around jeff who is probably the quickest person he stopped being fucking horrible too, because she's literally seven and he is a villain not a monster ok

homicidal liu

probably one of the most violent/reactive towards fellow proxies because of his brother (LOL) but if you're chill, he's chill, which is probably why he gets along best with toby who also mostly kept to himself at the beginning. doesn't have DID because i don't think it fits his character (given his main trauma was in his teens) but did probably cause serious fluctuations in mood, being able to go from 0 to 100 quickly. had a grand entrance to the mansion where he tried to kill jeff upon first seeing him (reasonable reaction)

to conclude, i made this all for me but also for anyone who has interest in my au! any and all creepypasta/marble hornets drawings are probably part of this au (whether the art takes before the characters were part of the slendermansion or not ha ha)

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liaromancewriter · 1 year ago

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Stardust

Premise: Ethan and Cassie’s skating date plans go awry, but all hope is not lost.

Fandom: Open Heart/Choices Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Cassie Valentine) Rating/Category: Teen. Fluff. Words: 1,965 Day/Prompt: @12daysofchristmas Day 9 - “I like it out here. It’s peaceful.”

A/N: For @choicesholidays "Best Christmas Ever" prompt, @choicesprompts Holiday rewrite event: inspired by Virgin River's S5 Christmas special where Mel and Jack celebrate their first Christmas and make their own holiday traditions, including the ice skating scene. Also submitting to @choicesdecember2023 prompt "Christmas" and @choicesficwriterscreations Holiday event.

I'm using @choicesflashfics week 64, prompt 1 (in bold), and fluffy dialogue prompt 1 from Second Day of Gift-Giving by @creativepromptsforwriting. Tagging for reblog to @creativepromptfills.

Growing up in New England meant ice skating. One of Ethan Ramsey’s earliest memories was holding his father’s hand as they stepped onto an outdoor ice rink. Light snow fell around them like stardust, and he tilted his head back to catch a snowflake on his tongue.

His father taught him how to skate that night, gripping Ethan’s hand lightly and encouraging him to lean forward and alternately stroke and glide on the ice, letting the blades do the work.

He remembered his father’s deep laughter and his mother’s cheers from the sidelines as he let go of the hand keeping him tethered. Feeling the wind on his face and watching colors blur from the festive lights strung up around the rink, everything in little Ethan’s world was perfect at that moment.

Many years later, Ethan still loved to skate but didn’t have as much time for it. As head of diagnostics at Boston’s Edenbrook Hospital, his duties kept him much too busy. But something about the holidays made him nostalgic for simpler times.

“Earth to Ethan. Anyone there?” Cassie Valentine snapped her fingers in front of his face.

Ethan shook his head to clear the memories clouding his thoughts. “Sorry, I was miles away. What were we talking about?”

“Okay, that was some trip,” Cassie commented, giving him a strange look above the rim of her wine glass. “Holiday traditions from our childhood. You were telling me about skating with your parents, remember?”

“Oh, right,” Ethan said, feeling his face flush.

For a moment, he’d forgotten where he was. He glanced around his apartment and the holiday decorations they’d put up a few days ago, scratching the back of his head as he tried to collect his composure.

A Christmas tree stood in the corner against the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the bay — the first one they bought and decorated together — tinsel and fairy lights winking against the dark. Presents had found their way underneath the tree at regular intervals in the last couple of weeks.

This was their first holiday together, technically second as a couple, but he’d been in Providence last year, and she’d been working. Somehow, without realizing it, he found himself in a relationship that was more serious than anything he’d ever had before.

What else would you call meeting each other’s families and planning together what presents to buy for their respective relatives?

“Do you still skate, or is that in the past?” Cassie mused, her legs curled up beneath her on the couch.

“Not as much as I’d like,” Ethan confessed, picking up the near-empty wine bottle to top up their glasses. “A few years ago, a bunch of us started getting together in the community center rink for ice hockey. Nothing formal, just pick up games to blow off steam.”

“Why am I only finding out about this now?” she said, somewhat disgruntled. “We’ve known each other for almost three years!”

Ethan rolled his eyes at her dramatic response. “Because I have other, more pleasurable things to say and do when you’re around. Besides, I had Naveen’s condition to occupy my mind that first year, and then my mother’s return and addiction last year. This is the first normal holiday season for both of us.”

“You have a point,” Cassie conceded with a regal nod before twisting in her seat to regard him thoughtfully. “I bet you’re a goalie. You’ve got the build for it.”

“You’d lose that bet.” Ethan raised an eyebrow in amusement. “I play center.”

She harrumphed and then tapped her index finger against her lips. “Remember how we talked about making our own holiday traditions when we decorated the tree last week? Let’s add skating to the list. The Boston Common Frog Pond rink is open for the season, and it always looks fun when I go running past it.”

“I’ve been, and it is fun,” Ethan said. “How about Friday? You’re working a double before that, so should be post-call, right?”

“It’s a date,” Cassie smiled, intertwining her fingers with his and nestling against him. “This is going to be the best Christmas season ever!”

When Friday came, Ethan was run off his feet. Herb, one of his oldest patients, had been admitted with an unknown infection. He spent the entire day running tests, frustrated when the results didn’t reveal anything useful.

Deciding to return to the beginning, he sat behind his desk, switched on the monitor and pulled up Herb’s medical history. He wasn’t leaving here until he figured this out.

“You’re still working?”

Ethan looked up at the intrusion, eyes unfocused, the screen’s glare reflecting off his reading glasses. Cassie stood inside the sliding glass doors, wearing a pink long-sleeved sweater beneath a puffy white vest and black jeans. A knitted cap with white and pink stripes sat atop her long blonde hair.

He wondered whether she coordinated her outfits or if it was an innate style. Maybe even both.

He noted the small duffel bag in her hand and cursed internally. He’d utterly forgotten their skating date, and judging by Cassie’s amused expression, she knew it, too.

“You’re important to me. And I want you to know that,” Ethan said, coming around from behind the desk to stand before her. He took her hand in his.

“I do know that, but thank you for telling me,” Cassie chuckled, lightly swinging their clasped hands before letting go. “What’s going on?”

Ethan quickly explained the situation, running frustrated fingers through his hair, his inability to solve the case coming through in the irritated tone of his voice. Before he knew it, he started brainstorming Herb’s condition with her, pulling up test results and walking her through his thought process.

Herb wasn’t the diagnostic team’s patient, but it helped to have someone he trusted from the team working with him.

“Could be GI. Have you considered….”

“…barium follow through?” he said, reading her thoughts as perfectly as she could his. He frowned as he tried to connect the dots to the other symptoms.

“I thought I saw something in his chart,” she said, nudging him out of the chair to take control of his keyboard, her eyes scanning the electronic medical records. “Aha, there it is. Small bowel obstruction, managed through a steroid protocol, so no biopsy was done to rule out Crohn’s or colitis.”

“Good catch,” Ethan said, reading over her shoulder. “I’ll put in orders for a barium test tomorrow. Nothing more we can do today.”

Her light floral scent drifted into his nostrils, and he sighed in disappointment. Date nights were already hard to organize with their erratic schedules. He couldn’t help but feel he’d wasted this one.

He turned the office chair around, placed his hands on either side of her and leaned in. “I’m sorry, Cassie. I not only messed up our plans tonight, but I pulled you into this after you’d already worked a double shift. I heard about the clusterfuck that was last night.”

“That would be an apt word to describe it,” she murmured. “Not sure how I got home this morning, but at least it was quiet in the apartment with everyone else on shift.”

“Still, tonight was supposed to be the start of another holiday tradition for us,” he insisted.

For the first time in forever, he resented work coming in the way of his personal life.

Cassie framed his face between her hands. “I’m here with you. I’m right where I belong. Doing what I’m good at with the man I love and one who taught me that patients come first.”

Ethan closed the distance between them, his lips capturing hers in a slow, sweet kiss, thanking her for understanding with the promise of more to come. Cassie locked her hands behind his neck, and he tugged her out of the chair, reversing their positions without breaking the kiss.

They slowly drifted apart, foreheads touching. Cassie smiled softly, her fingers trailing down the side of his face. “Raincheck on our date?

Ethan checked his wristwatch and noted it was almost half past eight. Where had the last few hours gone?

“We could try to get to the Commons before the rink closes at nine,” he offered, mentally calculating the distance, traffic and parking situation.

“It’s okay,” Cassie said, getting off his lap and stretching her arms upward. “Another night. Besides, we’re doctors. Disrupted plans are par the course.”

“There are other rinks in Boston,” Ethan said, standing beside her. “Let me google what’s open. Tonight doesn’t have to be a total loss.”

“Actually,” Cassie said, taking her phone out and unlocking it. “Rafael’s old neighborhood has a small rink that’s open all night. He invited the Roomies there last year. It’s no Frog Pond, but it was nice. Let me text him.”

While she did that, Ethan tidied up his desk, closed out files and powered down his computer.

“Yes!” Cassie pumped one fist in the air. “It’s still around, and Raf is sending directions.”

An hour or so later, after stopping by his place to change and pick up skates, Ethan parked in the lot on the other side of the community park from where the rink was located. They walked hand in hand down the walkway, the soft glow of street lamps a welcome relief against the shadows around them.

The rink was small, as advertised, and empty, given the lateness of the hour. And yet Ethan liked it all the more for its relative privacy versus other public rinks.

“I like it out here. It’s peaceful,” Ethan commented as they sat on a bench and strapped on their skates.

“It’s popular with local families, so it can get busy early in the day,” Cassie explained, her voice muffled as she bent down to tighten her laces.

Ethan flicked the light switch, the red and green lights bright against the darkness. He stepped onto the rink, gliding effortlessly on the ice, feeling the familiar rush of wind rushing against his face.

“Whoops,” Cassie giggled behind him.

“Are you okay?” he asked, looking back to see her arms flailing before she caught her balance.

“I’m good,” she said, carefully holding herself still.

He laughed as recognition hit. For all Cassie’s bravado, she was not as comfortable on skates as she pretended to be.

“You think it’s funny?” She lifted her chin mulishly, spreading her legs wide and turning her skated feet inward.

“Yeah, I do,” Ethan smirked, skating in a loop around her.

He took her hand as she continued to struggle and wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. “Because I finally found something that Cassie Valentine isn’t good at.”

He grinned as Cassie pretended to be offended. She started to push against his arms, but her skates slipped, and she clung to him like a barnacle. Within seconds, they were both laughing at the absurdity of the situation.

“You figured me out,” she confessed, tears leaking from the corner of her eyes as she swallowed back her laughter.

She placed her gloved hands on his upper arms, her green eyes sparkling as they gazed into his. “I suck at skating. No matter how much I try, I will never be more than passable.”

Ethan brushed his hands down her arms and folded her hands in his. “Then it’s a good thing you have me to hold on to.”

He lowered his face as Cassie stretched on her toes, and their lips met in a kiss that chased the cold away. They looked up as snowflakes started to fall from the sky, sprinkling over them like stardust.

And under a starry, magical night with snow falling around them, Ethan looped Cassie’s arm through his and skated them expertly around the rink, making another holiday tradition just for them.

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

All Fics & Edits: @bluebelle08 @coffeeheartaddict2 @crazy-loca-blog @genevievemd @headoverheelsforramsey @lucy-268 @jamespotterthefirst @jerzwriter @lady-calypso @mainstreetreader @peonierose @potionsprefect @queencarb @quixoticdreamer16 @rookiemartin @socalwriterbee @tessa-liam @trappedinfanfiction

Submissions: @choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics @debbiechanclub

Ethan & Cassie only: @cariantha @custaroonie @youlookappropriate @zealouscanonindeer

#open heart #open heart choices #ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x mc #open heart fanfics #open heart fanfiction #12daysofchristmas2023 #choices fanfics #choices fanfiction #choices fic writers creations #cfwc fics of the week #ethan ramsey x cassie valentine

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earthykinous · 3 months ago

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So... What if Crystal Shards Waddle Dee wasn't the only affected?

(I think it is correct to post this here?)

Just like everyone, he would be catched by surprise and since he usually moves around open fields, he is most likely to get surroundered by... those... And unfortunately for him, he was alone. (Dark Matter doesn't look like this in Kirby 64, ups?)

Well... There's two ways of how he would be affected by the possesion, according to the 'canon' he would get turned into a Waddle Doo, just like that Waddle Dee from Crystal Shards (I don't headcanon Bandee and that Waddle Dee being the same)

(Don't worry, he is okay now, at today it is just like a bad dream to him, he is a Kirby character, of course he can overcome something like that!)

The Dark Matter possesion is a thing that still bothers me, Waddle Doo are a Waddle Dee variant, Waddle Doo can be spawned by Krako, but also they are the result of Dark Matter possesing a Waddle Dee? Then does that mean that Krako has some dark matter and Waddle Doo are Waddle Dee with dark matter in them? Idk, perhaps I'm missing something? Correct me if I'm wrong I'm just confused lmao.

I do know that Waddle Dee despite not being "magical" they can be altered when being exposed to magic, they seem to be able to adapt to different environments too, in Kirby Super Star I recall seeing some purple Waddle Dees, I think some enemies were different in colors, it may be something to do with the environment or it's just diversity, or both.

Anyways, of all Waddle Dees, Farmer Dee had a hard time letting his guard down when Gooey is around, at first he was rather chill but after the Crystal Shards thing he would get a little uneasy when Gooey did something that resemble his origins, but at today, he is good.

Idk, I just like to think about how my Dees would be going during the plot of each game, most of time they are out of the picture tho, and... I actually like this idea? I might think it through just for the sake of doing it, ya know, to spice things a little bit, probably this will be the only thing that happens to him, I have no intention of giving my Dees trauma or anything like that, bad things may happen to them but just small things, nothing too serious (Except by the 'Farmer Dee being possesed' thing) they are just little guys.

#earthkinous' rambling about #earthkinous'#kirby ocs #farmer waddle dee(oc)#earthkinous' ocs #kirby dark matter #echoes of the rift #echoes of the rift (worldbuilding)

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meimi-haneoka · 2 years ago

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Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Chapter 75: Comments + JP-ENG translation differences

Hellooooo everyone! Welcome back to my post with the commentary and translation differences for Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card! We finally reached chapter 75!!! I'm glad to inform you all that even this month we didn't have any major (or even little) discrepancy between the ENG and JP versions, there's just some nuance here and there but nothing really impacting the correct understanding of this chapter.

Moreover, we still don't have any announcement for the last chapter of Clear Card, neither on the color spread nor in the editorial text at the end of the chapter (where usually the place for them to advertise stuff related to the next release is). We didn't even get an announcement on the twitter account...

Therefore, I'm confident enough to say that Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Arc won't be over in chapter 76, and they might really keep going till chapter 77 (double 7, lucky CLAMP number!). I know that this month we don't have translation mistakes, but if you still want to read my ramblings about some very important themes in Clear Card, then look at the gif of the month and follow me under the cut!! 😂

(my friends of a certain Discord server will be happy to see this gif, hahah)

The Color Page

The color spread this time is very special, not only because it gives us the opportunity to see the color scheme of ✨The Outfits✨ of the finale for both Sakura and Syaoran, but because there's an additional surprise too! Let's start with the color scheme, which as I strongly anticipated is the same of the costumes for the Alice in Clockland play (white - black - golden). Not only that, but also the poses and elements of the color spread are basically rehashing the color spread of chapter 64!

I absolutely loved this parallel. Especially because you can clearly see some kind of "the situation is very different now" message behind it. If Sakura looked somehow "lost" in the color page of chapter 64, she now looks confident, resolute, she gives off the aura of "leave it to me, I'll make things right!" and I really love it. I love this Sakura who's in charge because she finally found herself and what she wants to do with her powers: helping a beloved one finding her true smile again by bringing back the most important person to her! Syaoran is still looking cool, determined and serious (as opposed to 'snobby' before, but are we really sure that the one in ch. 64 was Syaoran? and not Kaito? 😂the absence of the body -which now is fully visible in the color spread of ch. 75- kinda suggests that that one wasn't the real Syaoran). The clock and clock gears of ch. 64 are now replaced, still in the very same position, by cool metallic elements, Kaito's pocket watch and a big Moon. Precisely the protagonists of this chapter! Now that I listed all the things I liked about this color page, I have also to point out that their expressions kinda look "weird" or "off-model" to me. I can't pinpoint exactly what's wrong, but it's something about the eyes: the irises are probably bigger or darker than usual. Not a big deal, anyway.

Off we go!

We start the chapter immediately explaining the big question that arised at the end of chapter 74: if this is a rewritten world and the Clear Cards have disappeared (and Sakura didn't have any recollection of them), what is the Dream Wand doing there? Kero asks about it and Sakura explains that when she went to open the jewelry box (remember it? It appeared in the very first chapter of Clear Card, and Sakura placed both the hairpin she received from Yukito as a present and the Star Key in there) before going to Yukito's house, she found another key together with the Star one. Sakura thinks that this key is the one that existed in their world before it was rewritten, and Kero can distinctly feel Sakura's power coming from it. Sakura agrees and says that for this reason, this time she'll be going with this wand.

So the Dream Key also survived the rewriting. Makes sense, it either survived on its own (and somehow ended up in the box) or Sakura must have left it at home in the box before the play, probably sensing something and listening to her magic intuition (that got even more refined in the latest period).

Tomoyo intervenes saying that the earcuffs of their outfits are actually transmitters: Sakura and Syaoran can communicate among eachother of course, but also send back audio and video to her device. Nakuru can't help but marvel at the hi-tec device and Tomoyo proudly announces that this is one of the hottest items of Daidouji Toys!! It made me smile to read that company's name again here in the finale, it really feels like tugging at our nostalgic heartstrings (because honestly Daidouji Toy's devices were the coolest thing in the old series!). Sakura can't really help but agree that this is a very special outfit, just like Tomoyo told her! Sakura does something that left me a bit speechless for a second: she summons the Fly Card using the Dream Wand! How cool is that? After all, the Dream Wand is still made of Sakura's power, so it really doesn't change much and she can use the Sakura Cards (also reborn under her power) with that magic tool too! Back with the Clow Cards there was a problem because the wand was made out of Sakura's power, but the Cards were still under Clow's, so that's why she had to make them be reborn under her name. Here we don't have this kind of problem anymore! Sakura supplies Syaoran with a cool pair of wings, and here I really have to say it: fandom, you complained so much about Kaito rewinding time and "erasing" cool winged Syaoran, and CLAMP heard you! Now you can have him back! 😂😂😂Honestly this one made me smile so much because I wondered if they felt guilty about that scene, or they simply had planned to revive it anyway since the beginning 😂I clearly remember Ohkawa said in one of their Spaces that they received quite a number of complaints about that particular scene 😆 Kero asks Sakura why she gave the Fly Card to Syaoran, and what she's going to do for herself: Sakura answers that Momo (how cute, she calls her Momo-san, just like that one time they met back in chapter 49 ❤️) told her that there are still Cards around that didn't disappear, and they used to help her before the world was rewritten (little difference in the ENG version: they made her say "they were by my side").

That said, she confidently calls for the FLIGHT CARD and the cute bow that we learned to love along the series appears on her back, all excited and affectionate like usual! Sakura thanks her for waiting for her and I found that so sweet....this is another one of those scenes that I feel like are catering to the fandom's wishes and preferences, since I've seen countless of disappointed/worried comments during the past months about Flight disappearing along with the other Clear Cards, and this is something that even CLAMP talked about (again in one of their Spaces) so they definitely were aware of it. Eriol and Kaho comment from England, impressed but nonetheless confirming that the Card definitely is made out of Sakura's power, just like the magic circle that appeared under Sakura when she used it (of course it's different from the one that appeared when she used Fly). Sakura walks to Akiho and as I imagined from what she said last chapter, she asks her to let her borrow the precious pocket watch for a while.

Akiho of course agrees. I loved the emphasis they gave to the "handover" of the watch, because it enhances the perception of how important that item is. Akiho is entrusting to Sakura literally the one and last thing she's got left of her most important person, whom she's missing terribly, and the fact that she's willing to separate from it and entrust it to Sakura just goes to show how much she believes in her. And the "handover" is watched carefully by everyone with a smile on their faces.

It's time. Sakura and Syaoran are all ready to go, not before saying "We'll be going, then (See you later)". A word I always loved from Japanese language is 行ってきます, ittekimasu, a word used to announce that you're leaving, but in the same word is also hidden the promise that you'll be back. And I think there's no other word that her loved ones, particularly Akiho, need to hear from her right now. I also love to bits the expression she's having while she says it. Confidence in the shape of a young girl ❤️

Convey your feelings

So off they go, high in the sky, with the big moon in the background and Kaito's pocket watch held tightly in Sakura's hand. Sakura takes the chance to thank Syaoran for coming with her. Her unwavering, loyal beloved boyfriend. He'd never leave her alone, facing something unknown and possibly dangerous like this one. And he takes the chance of their current privacy to thank her too: slightly embarrassed, with a sweet smile, he's grateful to her for saying that he's her most important person, shortly ago. ❤️ This is another thing that I've heard many people being slightly disappointed about last month, the fact they hadn't shown Syaoran's reaction after Sakura said that, and in one of the answers to my asks I said that I would've found it rather inappropriate if Syaoran and Sakura had that kind of conversation and started to be a lovey-dovey mess in front of a person who had just found out that the pain she's been feeling all along was because she was missing her own most important person, but not only that, also that her memories, family and all of her world had been rewritten, it was all a lie. Someone's world is literally crumbling under their feet and I didn't think it was the right moment to show a romantic scene between those two right in front of her. Thankfully CLAMP had already in mind to move that kind of conversation to later on. And since they work on 1/2 chapters ahead of what's been published, they were probably already drawing that scene before chapter 74 was even out.

Sakura, unrestrainable by now in her self-confidence, says something really precious that I'd say is my favorite line of the entire chapter:

JP: "When I've found out that this world had been rewritten, I've thought about it. If there's something I want to say, I have to spell it out. Even if the important words we say were to be rewritten, it's not like they'd be erased, because they'd be staying in our hearts"

Sakura understands that if she wants to make sure that her "important words", her feelings will STAY even after a major rewriting like that, she needs to spell them out. Remember Tomoyo, in the old series? "No feeling will come across if you don't say it aloud". And so in this way Sakura is making sure that the person who hears it will remember it even against the strongest of magic, because those words will never disappear totally. The brain might forget, but the heart doesn't. Syaoran of course agrees with that sentiment. And I really want to say that I think this same concept will be of utmost importance in reuniting Kaito and Akiho too. Their bond, their shared memories, the time spent together, the words that were said (Akiho worked so hard towards the end of the 'old world' to convey her feelings to Kaito in a way that wouldn't scare him), all of that surely stayed inside their hearts and it's only waiting for the trigger to make them remember and reunite.

We switch back to Yukito's home, where everyone goes back inside to spy to check on the flying couple from Tomoyo's tablet (while still in a videocall with Eriol and Kaho), but while Touya is going back in himself, he sees that Akiho keeps standing by the door, eyes fixed on the moon. Out of all of them, she's obviously the most stressed up one. She can't relax and wait like everyone else. Her heart must be in the grips of anxiety, hurt and probably fear too. So Touya, our big brother with a heart just as big as him, tries to comfort her and calm her down, telling her that Sakura might be a tad too impertinent and with a tendency to kick, basically a "monster" (I know in ENG they translated 足癖が悪い with "she got two left feet" and technically it might not be wrong but I've seen the same term used to indicate any kind of bad behavior that makes use of the legs/feet incorrectly, so included kicking - like, using this expression with a horse it would mean that horse kicks a lot. So when I saw that, I was reminded of how Sakura used to kick Touya precisely when he called her "monster" 😂), but she keeps true to what she says. "If she said she'll look (for that person), she'll do so. So let's wait for when she'll call you...together". And while he says so, he pats her head affectionately. Gosh, the way he behaves with Akiho is so different than what he does with Sakura, right? 😂 But that's just an indication of how special the bond with his true sister is...Touya gets tsundere and a bully only with her. 😂 I remember he patted Mirror's head too (while she was disguised as Sakura), back in chapter 38. He's really a kind onii-chan but he only gets stubborn with his little sister 😂 I found so moving the little detail of Akiho wincing for a moment when Touya patted her head....a sign that she isn't used to that kind of display of affection? Definitely. And the more I thought about this, the more the words from the chapter of her backstory came back to my mind, "there was no one who would pat her head".... And then, of course, I just couldn't avoid thinking about all the times Kaito tried istinctively to reach for that head too, to console her, or even to just hold her, and always stopped that hand hurriedly. Seeing Touya managing to do what Kaito always wanted to do on instinct, and sabotaged himself, hurt quite a lot. But it's also a proof of how different their situations are. How different their circumstances are. How different their feelings for Akiho are. No matter how kind Touya can be with basically a stranger that was somehow entrusted to them by another stranger, and how much he can empathize with her situation, he can never be the guy who literally gave all of himself for Akiho.

Still, I think this scene reinforced my idea that when they'll bring Kaito back, Touya will be waiting for him with his fist ready to land on his head 😂because he really just can't stand that he hurt his adopted sister this much. No matter if he did it for her. He'll really be merciless with the most important people of his sisters, if they make them cry! 😅

Akiho is finally reassured by Touya's sweet gesture (there's a lot of love in this rewritten world, my gosh! Everyone is so affectionate or displays affection in a more evident way!). But while here we have a poignant scene of brotherly affection, nearby the group of nosy people just witnessed the scene between the two lovebirds Sakura and Syaoran about the "most important person", so Nakuru sighs at the missed opportunity to see Touya's HP and MP go straight to zero, because he wasn't there with them to watch it! 😂😂Yukito of course doesn't skip a chance to join in making fun of his boyfriend, saying that he would've surely made a scary face. 😆The way the little group makes fun of Touya behind his back moves to compassion even Kero and Suppy, who say that they feel bad for him! 😂😂😂 I think all these little comedy skits of this chapter are probably here to defuse the tension a little bit, probably also because of what's about to come. Remember that sensei is balancing the narrative weight on the total volume, so adding more fun scenes now might make up for later, when it won't (of course) be possible or appropriate to insert any (yea, it'll only be time for tears later, right, sensei?).

Back to our flying couple, Syaoran asks Sakura more clarifications about what she said earlier regarding the pocket watch, that it'll "show them the way". Sakura says that she can feel magic power coming from that watch, and it doesn't belong to anyone she knows. The kids, in unison, say that if they trace the magic back to its owner, and they follow it, they'll be able to meet "the person who's missing". Syaoran got the perfect magic tool for that.

He summons his famous compass, and asks Sakura to place the watch over it. In a very cool scene worthy of the next head of the Li clan, chanting the long and famous activation spell for his compass (which includes Chinese characters but spelled with the Japanese "on" reading), Syaoran traces the owner of the pocket watch....back to the moon. The poor guy is confused and thinks the pursuit failed, because he can feel the watch carrying moon power inside of it (yep, reminder that its owner's magic is Moon type, just like Syaoran! And the ENG said there are "traces of it", but the JP doesn't say it's only "traces", the whole watch might be imbued of Kaito's moon power), so probably that's why the compass is pointing at the moon.... But Sakura suddenly figured it out: the compass is correctly pointing at the moon, because that moon....IS NOT THE REAL ONE!

With a swift movement worthy of the coolest ikemen on earth, which startles even her boyfriend (😂 it's already full of comments about how Sakura is particularly handsome - yes, handsome - in this chapter 😂), Sakura summons Sword! Loooong time no see! So long, in fact, that I've been notified that the Sword Sakura is holding a few pages later is the wrong one! Yes, because when Sword was reborn under Sakura's name as a Sakura Card, its appearance changed slightly! 😅The one Sakura holds in this scene is the "Clow Card" version!

This is how Sword was supposed to look...will CLAMP notice the mistake and fix it in the tankobon? Anyway, Sakura jumps towards the giant moon (that at some point we can see it's literally flat, like a cover for something else), and splits it open!!! I mean!!! What did this girl eat for breakfast, today? 😂😂😂She's absolutely cool and keeps showing how much she's grown both magically and in her capacity to listen to her intuition. Eriol and Kaho immediately comment on that fake moon, and Eriol in particular said something that alarmed me at once: "It's something that was created by a considerable amount of magicians. And they used even an ancient magic ritual, at that." There's no trace of doubt in his speech, so my mind immediately runs to them, the real disgrace of this arc: the Association + Squids (Akiho's Clan). When you talk about lots of magicians, and ancient rituals, you can't just avoid thinking about them right away. But why, and how did they create that fake moon? Too soon to have clear answers right now, but our watchers from England point out that for Sakura to see through that deception as soon as her attention was brought onto it means that her powers really became considerably strong! But here comes the comment that sets this situation apart from what we have seen till now in Clear Card: this growth in power is totally intentional! Because Sakura now has something she wants to do.

You see, this task Sakura gave herself isn't only to Akiho's benefit. This situation also probably gave Sakura the key to not cause her powers to go haywire anymore. Because, as I always suspected (and this conversation gave me more elements to make me think I was right), her power previously went out of control because she didn't know what she wanted to do with it. She didn't find a purpose for it. She didn't figure out yet (nor probably even thought about) what she wanted to do with her natural gift... (and here we go back again to the thematic I talked about in my post of last month, the "what can I do with my innate capabilities?" and Sakura right now decided "I want to use it to make the people I love happy"). She used to look at it as some thing "remote" from her, something that she'd rather not use (remember when she had put her Star Key away in the box saying "it's better if I don't use it anymore"?) but magic is literally part of her, so rejecting it would only hurt her more and cause the mess that we have all seen in these 7 years of serialization. And so probably, no matter what training she might have gone through, the problem wouldn't have been solved anyway, unless she'd set her mind straight on what purpose give to her magic, stabilizing it once for all. I think this is a very important part of this story because it all goes back to the search of her identity, which is such a crucial thematic in this arc.

And you can really see it in how beautiful Sakura looks in this panel. This is the beauty radiating from a person who's confident and knows what she's doing, knows what she wants.

Sakura and Syaoran finally go inside the "door", let's call it like that, which originated from the split of the fake moon. They do not know what awaits them on the other side nor what will happen, but they both bravely proceed ahead.

And what they find in front of their eyes is some kind of very weird environment. Eerie, even. The space is completely white, and they're fluctuating among warped clockworks and what looks like disassembled clocks: I found that very fascinating and I can't wait to see how this space will look like once it'll be animated.... The compass' beam keeps indicating where the owner of the pocket watch is, and Sakura and Syaoran follow it diligently, till they finally reach their goal.

*Sigh*

And then they see it. Trapped inside what looks like a circular cage, sleeping peacefully, a black dragon. Yes. That dragon. The one we've seen in Sakura's dreams ever since chapter 2, the one that appeared on the cover of the book they used the day they engraved the artifact in Akiho, the one that appeared as a decoration on the last outfit Kaito wore till he disappeared, and the one that looked like the symbol that appeared when the Seal of D. manifested to engulf Kaito in chapter 70. And this is also how this chapter ends (of course!!! with the worst cliffhanger!). The editorial text in Japanese present on the left of the very last page says "Guided by the pocket watch, what is it that they found...? Next issue, Sakura will appear with a super luxurious furoku!!"

Now, I'd wait before giving for granted that that thing is really Kaito. CLAMP are absolutely no strangers to lead their readers to think something (especially at the end of a chapter) but then revealing in the following one that it was something else.... Moreover, this dragon appeared in such different situations, that it's really hard to pinpoint (and predict) exactly what it represents. So I'm not gonna go out on a limb and say that Dragon-chan is Kaito. We'll know soon what CLAMP have in store for us.

Sure, I keep missing Kaito like crazy, but I think one way or another in next chapter we'll finally see him. Especially cause it's almost certainly the second-to-last one 😅 On that regard, I enjoyed the content of this chapter and even though it might be normal to think "what are they even doing, wasting time and pages like this? get to the point!", I want to trust Ohkawa and let her lead me where she wants to bring me to. I want to appreciate the journey for how she created it, with the pace she thought for it. Once it'll be over, it'll be hopefully easier to see if this relaxed pace ended up producing a series that is easy and interesting to read, or if it caused things to be rushed at the very end. Moreover, I know everyone is somehow expecting a battle ahead, but I'd be actually surprised if it happens at all. If it does, I don't think it'll be against the Association (because they're simply too many and too powerful for Sakura to fight against them). It might be against the dragon or....it might just be that this will be about finding a way to free Kaito, and then putting him in the condition to choose to go back to Akiho's side. And at that moment, Akiho's turn will finally arrive. I think this finale will be mainly based on emotivity and important talks. If anything, the main "battle" they'll have to win will be convincing Kaito that he deserves to live a happy life too.

Chapter 76 will be published on CLAMP’s Youtube channel on August 1st, while the relative Nakayoshi magazine will be released on August 3rd!

Soooo it's time for me to wrap this post up (where I mainly talked about my thoughts and impressions on the chapter, how lovely 😆) and I'll surely be waiting for you all here once again at the beginning of August!! In the meantime, my inbox is open for your asks! 👍 See you!

#cardcaptor sakura #card captor sakura #clear card arc #ccsakura #ccs spoilers #translation differences #chapter 75 #sakura kinomoto #syaoran li

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kay-wren · 3 months ago

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I'll Come Running - R.C. - Chapter 64

"Are you girls ready to go?" Rafe yelled up the stairs, now dawning a loose black button up and jeans. As he fixed the cuff of his sleeve he heard his wife yell back down.

"Coming!"

The two girls walked down the stairs to see what little luggage they had on hand already at the door.

"The rest of our stuff is already on the way to the penthouse." Rafe replied, managing the perfect amount of cold interest. Jessie squinted her eyes with a curious smile.

"Penthouse?" Rafe never mentioned anything about a penthouse. Then again, she never gave him the chance in between her protests and his defenses. He pursed his lips and raised his brows. Jessie could tell some serious sass was about to roll out of his mouth.

"Only the best for my girls." He snapped back with the prissiest smile on his face as he extended his arm for Jessie to wrap herself around. This was something Jessie was not used to... playing house. However, Rafe knew exactly what it meant to play the part of a loving, not at all stressed out husband who has his family perfectly in order and his life completely figured out... he learned from the best.

Despite Rafe playing the part so well, Jessie couldn't get the icky feeling out of her stomach as she walked down the hall of her old apartment arm in arm with her husband. She looked back at the wooden door as she watched it disappear in the distance. This wasn't Jessie. It was so unlike her to be fake. How long was she supposed to keep this up? It was already exhausting. No wonder Rafe is so overwhelmed. On the outside she seemed poised, but on the inside she was screaming.

As they made their way to the car out front the three of them piled in, Charley completely oblivious to the tension and merely just excited about the new adventure her parents told her about. Rafe on the other hand, was once again enraptured in his phone, furiously texting away as if he had only seconds to respond. Jessie gave a subtle side eye to not seem like she was staring, taking notice of Rafe's lip in between his teeth in thought and his eyebrows furrowed in concentration. He finally sent the novel he was typing and looked up at Jessie.

"The museum Pope chose now has the cross in their possession, and the transaction went through."

"Oh, well that's good." Jessie didn't know what else to say, still clearly at a stalemate with her husband. He simply nodded his head in response.

"Tomorrow Pope Hayward and the Pogues should be millionaires." Rafe said plainly looking out the window and up at the skyscrapers.

"I'll try to tell JJ not to spend it all in one place." Jessie attempted a joke to lighten the mood.

"What, like the liquor store?" Rafe reciprocated with a light smile. They both laughed a little and looked down, both of them suddenly becoming nervous at the fact that they just let their guard down a little. They were supposed to still be mad at each other, and yet the act was always so hard for them. Still, Jessie wasn't completely sure they would be able to get over this. Would time heal them? Rafe wondered the same. Yet neither of them were willing to take the blame, or at least willing to admit that they weren't who they used to be. Neither of them could tell who was truly at fault for that anymore.

Both of them played with the skin on their fingers awkwardly to avoid blowing any more holes in their angry facade. The car ride from then on was silent and the air was thick with tension and confusion.

"We're here." Rafe stated monotonously, not bothering to look at Jessie before exiting the vehicle. She noticed the extra force behind the pop of the door handle as he opened it. As Jessie unbuckled the toddler sitting in between them she heard her door open, revealing her husband holding the handle to her surprise. His face was still solid... immovable, yet she read him loud and clear. Even in his frustration, nobody else was going to open the door for his girls while he was around. Rafe was filthy rich, but he wasn't rude. He swallowed the lump in his throat and eyed Jessie as he waited for her to exit.

Not wanting to waste any more time, Jessie slipped out of the car with Charley on her hip. Charley smiled bashfully at her father as she watched him close the door, Jessie didn't crack the tiniest grin, feeling that this was all a game anyways.

"Mr. Cameron! So nice to finally meet you!" A stocky, clean shaven doorman greeted Rafe as he led the two up the marble stair case that was of course lined with red carpet. Jessie thought priceless marble and red velvet was a little much for an outdoor entry way... but hey... when in Rome.

Rafe plastered a smile on his face as he shook the doorman's hand.

"I'm Tony." The doorman introduced himself to Jessie by shaking her hand, he then turned his attention to the girl in her arms, giving her a friendly gentle wave with a wide smile. He seemed like a very sweet man.

"Hi, Tony, I'm Jessie and-"

"And this is Charley. Our daughter." Rafe finished the sentence for her with a bright smile that clearly was only used to annoy Jessie. And it worked, because she wanted to smack the smile right off of her husband's face right then and there for speaking over her... or for her. Rafe knew she didn't need anyone to speak on her behalf, yet he did, just to get under her skin a little more. All Jessie could seem to think is that Rafe was not doing a good job at proving that he wasn't like his father. Jessie remembered the fair share of complaints that came from a teenaged Rafe, specifically about his father always speaking for him. Still, she held her tongue— literally— and faked a smile towards the kind gentlemen.

"Well it's freezing out here! Let's get you inside!" Tony exclaimed with excitement as he rubbed his white glove clad hands together. The second Jessie stepped out of the car she felt the frigid cold temperatures and secretly wished she had the trench coat on that Tony did. Winter in Manhattan was much different than winter in outer banks. She couldn't wait to unpack their stuff.

Rafe guided his wife up the stairs with a hand on her back. Jessie didn't feel it was placed there out of love, but out of control, which she was growing increasingly aware of. Each tiny detail that Rafe was displaying was another tick on the time bomb of Jessie's rage. She physically squirmed at the attempt to control her, and of course, Rafe picked up on it. Oddly enough, he wasn't terrified of Jessie's anger anymore, he no longer felt like constantly walking on egg shells. That feeling was one that he hadn't felt in about four years when they called it quits. He could feel his own disregard for pleasantries coming on at any point as well, and although he should've been afraid, he wasn't. He liked how it broke her down, the same way she would break him down slowly. It was almost as if he was waiting... looking... for a fight.

"Mr. Cameron! Pleasure to meet you!" A prestigious looking man who introduced himself as Mr. Salimony greeted the family in the grand lobby, which was adorned with Christmas trees, live piano, and warm lights. It was then that Jessie just remembered it was almost Christmas. God, she needed to look at the calendar. What would she even buy Charley? Did she even have time? And how much money-

"Jessica?" Rafe waved his hand in front of his wife's bewildered face. He could see that although she was staring at the Christmas decor she was deep in thought about something else. She clearly didn't hear him introduce her to the man the first time, which in his eyes warranted the full name. She snapped her head back towards the conversation.

"Huh! Oh, I'm so sorry! My name's Jessie, it's so nice to meet you." She replied with a half smile. "I was just... amazed at the... beautiful decorations!" She wondered if that was what she was supposed to say. She had never been in a place so extravagant. All of it felt so fragile.

"Yes, well it is our busy season here in Central Park. But not to worry, you will have a private penthouse with your own elevator so as to not be disturbed by our other guests."

Disturbed. The very word made her laugh out loud. Jessie was already disturbed, and it was by the lack of freedom she felt from the place alone. A private elevator? She kind of wished she could do something normal with the rest of the public, especially something as simple as taking a damn elevator up to the right floor... her floor apparently. Every passing second that she learned more about this place seemed to be feeling like a trap... an expensive, prestigious trap.

"Look mommy! At the trees!" Charley finally exploded, not being able to take the excitement from all the things she had to look at. Jessie giggled as she pulled her hand down so as to not point. Apparently that's rude in a place like this. She could see her eyes fluttering wildly in between all the masterpieces. Oh how she wished to be that innocent and in love with beauty.

"Yeah, baby, I see it! Isn't it pretty!" Jessi replied with a joyous tone. Mr. Salimony admired the moment and couldn't help but lean over to Rafe.

"You have a beautiful family. If those girls need anything while you're here please do not hesitate to call me day or night." The owner whispered as he slipped Rafe his card from the chest pocket of his suit. Rafe nodded in understanding and patted him on the back to show appreciation for the sentiment.

"Well, let's get you up to your floor!" The bald man whistled over a bellhop, who of course came running right away.

"Right this way." The young man exclaimed as he lead the way to the private elevator. The walk towards the private hall seemed like a maze that Jessie would definitely have to get used to. Charley was still mesmerized by the beautiful, intricate detailing found everywhere, even in their elevator. As they went up to the top floor, which seemed to Jessie to take forever, Charley traced the fine print wallpaper with her fingers. Jessie could tell she wanted to treat it like a coloring book and scribble all over it with her crayons. She made a mental note to always have her arts and crafts supplies put away when they used the elevator, knowing just how quick Charley could be with her antics. The thought brought her to another question in her head: was this place even meant for a child to stay in? Surely Rafe had thought of that? Before Jessie could dive deeper into her questions the door was opened, revealing a gorgeous cream colored hallway, adorned with the finest carpet and the most warming lights.

The bellhop took them down to their door, opening it with the key to reveal what Jessie thought was an illusion. She expected fancy... but this...

Rafe walked through the door first, Jessie had to remind herself to pick up her now heavy feet. He could see she was struggling to comprehend the sight, and he could also tell his daughter was getting squirmy. He decided to take the toddler from her grasp and plant her on his hip, knowing she wasn't ready to be let loose in the house just yet. Rafe had to lay a few ground rules for the little girl.

"You'll find that all your luggage is here. Your things have been put away. Lunch is ready in the dining room when you are, sir."

"Thank you... Timothy." Rafe said kindly, taking a moment to read the young man's shirt before slipping him a twenty dollar bill. The man nodded his head with a closed mouth smile and shut the door quietly, leaving the family to themselves.

Jessie had no words, despite the bright white walls and floor to ceiling windows overlooking the vast New York City, she couldn't help but feel the walls were caving in. Even though Rafe and her still weren't on good terms, Rafe knew her inside and out, and could tell she was crumbling under the weight of it all from the swallowing in her throat to rapid eye movements. He watched her fingers fiddle with the hem of her dress, clutching it tighter and tighter as she slowly walked around the living room.

"What do you think?" Rafe broke the silence. Just like this morning, Jessie paused to choose her words carefully.

"It's... a... amazing." Jessie lied. Rafe knew it.

"What're you concerned about?" He asked, his face expressionless, not wanting to show anymore interest then he needed to for tactical reasons. He observed Jessie smoothing out the white fabric of the back of the couch, boring her soul into it as well.

"It's... it's a white couch."

"And?"

"We have a three year old."

"Well then she'll just eat in the dining room like she's supposed to."

Jessie didn't like that answer, suddenly forgetting her good graces and giving Rafe a look that said really? He couldn't help but look down and laugh at his Jessie coming out in that moment. There she was.

"Orrr we can get a new couch." He reasoned with a slight smile. He immediately bit his lip trying not to seem too overjoyed. He looked out at the city below him and brought his daughter to the glass. Charley immediately fell onto the window, allowing for all kinds of prints to be left on the once immaculate glass. Rafe just laughed as he watched her look down below with her face smushed up against the barrier that she wished wasn't there.

Jessie decided to take the opportunity to dismiss herself, suddenly feeling like she was about to throw up. She went to what she assumed to be the master bedroom, not paying it much attention as she zipped right past the California King to the master bathroom. Before she could lean over the toilet to puke she stopped in her tracks when she noticed all of her stuff meticulously placed in cabinets and shelves. She realized the bellhop wasn't kidding when he said they had put everything in its place... she got a closer look by rummaging through the drawers in annoyance, finding things like her hair dryer, medicine, and everything in between wrapped up perfectly in its place. She was disgusted at the thought. She imagined she would at least be able to rearrange the cage— or house— like she wanted it, but even that had been stripped from her. She suddenly darted back into the bedroom, sure enough finding all her clothes had been perfectly folded and put away how Central Park Towers must have thought it should be. She backed away from the dresser in confusion, eventually running into the bed and having no choice but to sit down on it. She took a deep breath to settle herself and put her head in her hands at a loss of words. Suddenly she realized that sweet Charley's room was probably in the same manicured state. Her eyes went wide and she plundered through the house, her shoes clicking on the true hard wood across the living room as she went over to her daughter's room. Out of the corner of her eye she caught Rafe looking her up and down in confusion at her reckless state. She disregarded it and opened the door to what she assumed was Charley's room, it wasn't. It was the office. She scoffed and went to another door to find the toddlers room, and yes, it was magically set up too. Her toys in a stupid little basket that didn't have her favorite princesses on it, her blankets neatly folded on top of her dresser instead of tangled up in her unmade bed like usual, and the bed was a big girl bed, one that did not match her previous island theme at all, one that was bland and was sure to bore her.

Jessie huffed and puffed and whizzed out of the room with fury written on her face and in her movements. She didn't get halfway out of the door before running into a brick wall that was her husband. She stumbled back.

"Woah, hey..." Rafe exclaimed as he tried to catch her with his one free hand. "What is up with you-"

"Why does my daughter's room look like it came straight out of a damn Sears magazine?" Jessie seethed with a stomp of her foot and point of her finger.

"Woah woah woah." Rafe tried to soothe as he set his child down to walk into her room and explore. He knew nothing was breakable in there. "What's wrong with it looking like that?" He asked innocently holding his hands out.

"It's ... its..." Jessie muttered as she frantically looked around for the words with narrowed eyes. "It's boring! Charley is not boring. And she's gonna get bored of a room that belongs in a black and white film!"

"Jessie, it's the first day... we can get her room rearranged how she wants it." Rafe tried to reason with a clearly softer tone than the one he had previously used. This was not the fight he was looking for today, and he did somewhat understand his wife's frustrations this time.

"Thats the problem, Rafe! They already did all the shit for me! I didn't even get the chance to get the house like I wanted! I just come in here and all my stuff is put away and there's lunch on the table like their..."

Rafe's face said it all. He wasn't quite understanding what the problem was. Jessie sighed as she looked at his confused eyes, knowing she was getting nowhere. Although this time Rafe seemed more receptive than he had been the last 24 hours, which was something she was grateful to see.

"I'm sorry, I'm really not understanding the issue here, Jess. I thought... I thought you'd appreciate one less thing for us to do? I know I sure do."

Jessie sighed again and put her hands up in defeat, clearly unable to articulate what's going on in her head.

"It's not..." Jessie grew frustrated, as she now tapped on her temples like her husband does when he's trying to think. She began to sway back and forth. "It's not that I don't like the idea of having things done for me... it's the principle... of coming into a new house that I didn't get to pick, that I didn't get to decide when we moved, and now I didn't even get to make it ours..."

"Is this really about control right now, Jessie?" Rafe asked now with more disbelief and annoyance in his tone. She grew visibly frustrated as she realized that she once again didn't convey the right message.

"No, it just... ugh... it just, feels like less of a new house and more of a prison sentence... I mean I can't even use the same damn elevator as everyone else like I'm some sort of celebrity!"

"But I thought you'd like the kook-"

"I never wanted full kook, Rafe! Everyone else did! I wanted you!"

The silence was loud between them, and Jessie began to tear up.

"I never fell in love with you because you were a kook! You know I hated that shit! Still do! All the Pogues wanna be kooks and that's fine but not me. That's why I wasn't afraid to leave all those years ago... being broke is what made me rich, Rafe."

Rafe took a step back and sighed in frustration. Jessie could see his jaw clinch as he scratched the back of his head and put the other hand on his hip. He finally looked up with sharp eyes.

"Rafe..."

"What."

"It's not that I'm not grateful," she whispered, "it's just that I wish we could have decided together. Then maybe this wouldn't feel so... transactional."

Rafe looked down and clicked his tongue, now shaking his head slowly in understanding.

"Okay," He replied in a hushed tone. "I hear you." He was still clearly trying to come up with a solution. "Look, Christmas is coming up in a couple of weeks. How about we get the pogues over here and spend Christmas with them. While they're here they can even watch Charley and we'll go Christmas shopping for her? Sound good?" Rafe asked, although he didn't move from his spot across from her. Despite his warm words, his tone and his body language was cold. Still, Jessie tried to take the win.

"Th- that'd be good." She uttered shakily, frantically looking at Rafe's body just to not look him in his disappointed eyes. She could take his sadness, his confusion, even his anger, but not his disappointment.

Rafe simply nodded and sniffled as if to get himself back together with a quick swipe of his nose and adjustment of his button up.

"Alright well..." Rafe cleared his throat, looking back at Jessie with a newfound poise. "Let's go eat."

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terabyteturtle · 6 months ago

Text

Fighter #15 - Ice Climbers

- These two are Ski Ball champions. Their secret? Instead of using their hands to throw the ball, they whack it with their hammers. It's strange, but somehow it works.

- To help save on air conditioning, these two will use their icy moves to keep the mansion cool during the summer.

- These two are the reason that there is now a playground on Smash Mansion grounds.

- Nana and Popo always help each other reach high places. Who needs a ladder or step stool when they’ve got each other?

- When winter arrives, these two could not be more excited. They absolutely love sledding, eagerly building small snow hills outside to slide down. They’ve even gone indoor sledding numerous times, going down stairwells instead of hills. It’s honestly a miracle that neither of them have suffered serious injuries.

- If it’s snowing outside, they’ll hold snowflake-catching competitions, in which whoever catches the most snowflakes on their tongue within three minutes wins. The current champion is Yoshi, whose record is 32 snowflakes.

- Nana has a small crush on Ike, which causes Popo to become protective of her whenever he’s nearby.

- As soon as December 1st comes around, these two immediately start decking the halls of the mansion with Christmas decorations. They have a whole checklist of Christmas-related things that they do each day to keep holiday cheer flowing throughout the month.

- Back in Smash 4, they were kicked out for illegal teaming. Master Hand declared that it was unfair for the two of them to be fighting as a pair, as it technically gave them an advantage. He gave them the option to fight separately and keep their spots on the roster, but the siblings refused to be apart. When Ultimate came around, the fighters felt it wasn't the same without them and begged Master Hand to bring them back.

- Sometimes, Nana and Popo will switch parkas just to mess with the other fighters. Most of the veteran fighters (from 64 to Brawl) can tell who’s who at this point, but folks from Smash 4 onwards can’t figure it out.

- Pit (and, by extension, Dark Pit) is the only Brawl fighter who can’t differentiate between the two. Pit just can’t spot any differences between the Ice Climbers and is beginning to think that there are none. Dark Pit, meanwhile, knows deep down that there is a difference between them, but because Pit can’t figure it out, he can’t either. This makes him extremely frustrated.

- They are the only kids that will willingly eat their vegetables.

- They fight better together. One can’t focus on the battle without the other by their side. By themselves, they’re anxious and frantic, and matches are significantly tougher. Together, they feel more comfortable against their opponent. Master Hand recognized this and, after doing some thinking, figured that allowing them to fight together would make it fairer on their end. This is what ultimately brought the Ice Climbers back to Smash.

- They're siblings with curious tendencies; of course they've tried the classic “two kids in a trenchcoat” trick to get into places. Popo's usually on top, while Nana gets stuck carrying him. Their disguise is good, but unfortunately for them, they're not very good at acting like adults.

- The cold never bothers them. Nor does the heat, apparently. With Samus’ help, they’ve installed temperature regulators within their parkas. Their parkas make them feel safe and snug, which is why they rarely ever take them off.

- Nana has a little doll that she always keeps with her, tucked safe in her parka pocket.

- Nana has a lot of crayons and markers, which Popo usually ends up stealing. One time, her box of markers went missing, and she caught Popo trying to lick them. When asked why, he said he wanted to taste colors.

- Because their heads are usually covered by their parka hoods, it’s easy for them to lose track of how long their hair is getting. Every so often, Bayonetta will give them haircuts.

- Link got Nana and Popo sand seal plushies for their birthday, and they’re both in love with them. Nana’s sand seal is best friends with her little doll.

- Nana has a big appetite, often ordering meals twice as big as she is.

- These two are twins, but Popo is five minutes older than Nana. Despite this, Nana is slightly more mature (emphasis on slightly).

- They love ice cream and, like Kirby, are immune to brain-freeze.

- Nana likes making rock pets for those she really cares about. Remember Donkey Kong’s pet rock Dwayne? That was a gift from Nana. She’s currently working on one for Ike, which is taking her a while because she wants it to be perfect.

- These two are best friends with Ness and Lucas. Whenever they’re all together, wacky shenanigans are bound to ensue. Throw Kirby into the mix and it gets even more chaotic.

- The Ice Climbers are terrible at high-fiving. They can never get it before the third try. Either they miss completely, or they’re slightly off-center and it makes them annoyed.

- Some of the assist trophies really scare them. If they get folks like Mother Brain, Metroid, or Andross, they'll freak out and hug each other.

- These two have run Arcade Bunny’s claw machines dry. For whatever reason, Popo is incredibly good at them and has won nearly all of the plushies there. This has become incredibly handy for gift-giving on special occasions.

- Although they love working together, they also have an intense sibling rivalry. Popo’s usually the one who starts it, saying things to rile up his sister and make her take up the challenge. No matter where they are or what they’re doing, they'll always find a way to make a competition out of something.

- When it comes to cooking, they love helping out! Just tell them what you need them to do, and they'll do it as best as they can!

- The Ice Climbers know a ton of recipes, including one for an amazing vegetable soup.

- When Popo originally met Falco, he thought he was a blue condor and tried to hitch a ride on him.

- Their favorite song from the Smash soundtrack is Ice Climbers (Brawl). They love that there are multiple stages to the song, which they feel reflects their similarities and differences as siblings.

#ssbu #smash ultimate #headcanons #ice climbers #yoshi #ike #master hand #pit #dark pit #samus #bayonetta #link #kirby #donkey kong #ness #lucas #falco

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