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obeythedemons · 3 years ago

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They Take MC to the Doctor [Obey Me! Headcanons]

Obey Me! Masterlist

Headcanon List

Lucifer

Will argue with the doctor if they dismiss their symptoms or just say they need more sleep or to lose weight

Has a huge list of all symptoms and their occurrences, knows more about what's happening to MC than MC really does

MC never realize just how closely he paid attention to what was going on

Realizes some of the stuff that's going on with them is not normal and is only brought to light because Lucifer realized it

Handles all of the insurance crap and works everything out so that everyone is in-network or takes MC to another country

MC never sees the bills or has to fill out any paperwork, he'll do it all for them.

Mammon

Also has a list of symptoms he's noticed, but is not as organized as Lucifer. He'll bring up things multiple times if the doctor waves it off before he starts yelling.

Keeps track of all of MC's medications and can surprisingly pronounce them correctly and spell them out correctly as well as the dosages - he's good with numbers.

Helps to hype MC up before a doctor's appointment and distract them from anything scary

Will hold MC's hand the entire time if they want, won't complain if they squeeze too hard.

Treats MC to something nice after an appointment as a reward

Leviathan

He's a weirdo that likes going to the doctor and likes the smell there.

He likes looking at the posters and models, he'll even go into depth and explain what they are and how they're different between humans and demons

He info dumps a lot at the doctor, both because he thinks it's interesting and because he's trying to distract MC from what's going on

Will be a blushing mess when he holds MC's hand when they're getting poked, but will do it to help his Henry

Has a list of demon doctors he's seen for a variety of ailments, so if MC needs a recommendation on who to see he'd be more than happy to give them the information

Satan

Knows what's wrong with MC and will make bring it up to the doctor

If the doctor dismisses either of them and says that a diagnosis is not important, he'll drag MC out and schedule an appointment to another doctor

He knows a lot of demons and people, so he'll make sure to find the best doctors for MC, even if it's just for a physical

Carries around a list of things MC takes, their medical conditions, and allergies so that he's prepared in case something happens - very useful when seeing a new doctor

Will read to MC while in the waiting room or examination room from the magazines or books they have out

Asmodeus

Brings his own bandages for MC when they get their blood drawn

He thinks his are cuter and MC deserves the best!

Dotes over MC the entire time, complimenting them and massaging any stress knots out of their muscles

Takes MC out on a self-care date after the appointment to help cheer them up and reward them for being so brave

Part of self-care is also making sure that MC takes care of their mind/body, so he's very good at reminding MC to take their meds, do their exercises, etc.

Beelzebub

Writes down notes so that he doesn't forget anything and listen attentively to the doctor. He'll ask questions if he doesn't understand something and makes sure MC also understands.

Makes sure MC gets a lollipop for being good - yeah, they're an adult, they still need one, right? Asks if he can have one, too.

Will still take MC out for a meal afterward to celebrate them.

Makes sure MC is taking care of their mind/body and will help them with anything and everything they need.

Will gladly hold MC's hand and offers it before MC even needs to ask.

Belphegor

Will get very snarky with the doctor if he thinks for even a second that the doctor is not taking MC seriously.

Knows MC's schedule almost perfectly - when they eat, when they sleep, when they take their meds, etc. He'll sometimes know it better than MC and can help communicate it to the doctor.

If MC is holding something back from the doctor or if they forget, they'll tell the doctor - it's for MC's own good even if they get mad.

Goes to Satan if he needs help finding doctors for MC.

Diavolo

The royal physicians should work well for MC, right? They're the best doctors in Devildom and are very knowledgeable in human medicine.

Want a human doctor? He'll bring in the world's leading experts in whatever fields MC needs - he'll cover the costs, don't worry, MC.

Tells MC he's always wanted to hold someone's hand when they're scared and will hold their hand just in case. He'll have the brightest smile on his face doing so because he can help his favorite human.

Will spend so much money and time trying to find better treatment options for MC if they're struggling with their symptoms.

Barbatos

Will help MC prepare a list of things that need to be covered at the appointment beforehand and will make sure MC is seeing only the best of the best.

Knows how drugs interact with each other just like how teas interact with different foods. He'll be vigilant to make sure MC won't have anything interact poorly.

He'll hold MC's hand and run his other hand through their hair to distract them from any blood draws.

Will praise MC for being brave during the doctor's appointment, even if it was something small.

He'll bake them a cake and serve them their favorite tea afterward

Simeon

Will have blessed MC beforehand so that they don't have to see the doctor too often, their ailments seem to have disappeared - at least their severity and how often they have them.

Is more than happy to go to the doctor with MC and will ask if they would like him to go with them.

Holds MC the entire time unless the doctor needs it. But the moment the doctor no longer needs it he'll hold it again while offering them that bright smile of his.

Also keeps a handwritten list of questions MC has for the doctor in case they want to reference it at any time.

Luke

He's very serious about his duties at making sure MC takes care, so he'll set reminders for MC to make a doctor's appointment or encourages them to make one when something is wrong.

Gets frustrated when he has to leave the room, but respects MC's privacy. Tells them that if they need him to go back and protect them they just need to holler for him.

Also blesses MC to keep them healthy - it's stronger than Simeon's blessing. He just doesn't realize how strong his blessings really are.

Has cookies or MC's favorite dessert ready for them immediately after the appointment - he made them beforehand to reward them.

Solomon

He's studied medicine a lot in his immortal life and is pretty familiar with everything. He can diagnose MC, just not legally. He's not licensed. So he'll tell MC exactly which specialist they need to see to get the medications or treatments they need.

He has connections so MC doesn't have to wait months just to see said specialist.

He can work magic to help MC with their symptoms if they allow him to.

If MC has something and it really bugs or hurts them, he'll work hard to find a cure for them.

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army-of-mai-lovers · 4 years ago

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Jet and Yue’s Deaths: Were They Necessary?

Two of the most common ideas I see for aus in this fandom are the Jet lives au, and the Yue lives au. I’ve written both of these myself, and I’ve seen many others write them. And while yes, fanfiction can be a great way to explore ideas that didn’t necessarily have to be explored in canon (I’m mad at bryke for a lot of things, but not including a Toph and Bumi I friendship is not one of them, even though I wrote a fic about it), it seems to me that people are mad that Yue and Jet are dead, to varying degrees. There’s a lot to talk about regarding their deaths from a sociopolitical perspective (the fact that two of the darker-skinned characters in the show are the ones that died, and all the light-skinned characters lived, is ah... an interesting choice), but I don’t want to look at it that way, at least for right now. I want to look at it as a writer, and discuss whether these deaths were a) necessary for the plot and themes of ATLA in any way whatsoever and b) whether it was necessary for them to unfold in the way that they did, or if they would have been more impactful had they occurred in a different way.

(meta under the cut, this got really, really, really long)

Death in Children’s Media

When I first started thinking about this meta, I had this idea to compare Jet and Yue’s deaths to deaths in an animated children’s show that I found satisfying. And in theory, that was a great idea. Problem is: there aren’t very many permanent deaths in children’s animation, and the ones that do exist aren’t especially well-written. This may be an odd thing to say in what is ostensibly a piece of atla crit, but Yue’s death is probably the best written death in a piece of children’s animation that I can think of. That’s not a compliment. Rather, it’s a condemnation of the way other pieces of children’s animation featuring permanent character death have handled their storylines.

I’ve talked about this before, but my favorite show growing up was Young Justice, and my favorite character on that show was far and away Mr. Wally West. So when he died at the end of season 2, it broke me emotionally. Shortly thereafter, Cartoon Network canceled the show, and I started getting on fan forums to mourn. Everybody on these fan forums was convinced that had Cartoon Network not canceled the show, Wally would have been brought back. And that is a narrative that I internalized for years. Eventually, the show was brought back via DC’s new streaming service, and I tuned in, waiting for Wally to also be brought back, only to discover that that wasn’t in the cards. Wally was dead. Permanently.

So now that I know that, I can talk about why killing him off was fucking stupid. Wally’s death occurs at the end of season 2, after the main s2 conflict, the Reach, has been defeated, save for these pods that they set up all over the world to destroy Earth. Our heroes split up in teams of two to destroy the pods, and they destroy all of them, except for a secret one in Antartica. It can only be neutralized by speedsters, so Wally, Bart, and Barry team up to destroy it. It’s established in canon that Wally is slower than Bart and Barry, and it’s been played for laughs earlier in the season, but for reasons unexplained, the pod is better able to target Wally because he’s slower than Bart and Barry, and it kills him. After the emotional arc of the season has wrapped up, a literal main character dies. There’s some indication at the end of that season that his death is going to cause Artemis to spiral and become a villain, but when season 3 picks up, she’s doing the right thing, with seemingly no qualms about her position in life as a hero. In the comics, something like this happens to Wally, but then he goes into the Speed Force and becomes faster and stronger even than Barry, in which case, yes, this would have advanced the plot, but that’s probably not in the cards either.

In summary, Wally’s death doesn’t work as a story beat, not because it made me mad, but because it doesn’t advance the plot, nor does it develop character. Only including things that advance plot or develop character is one of the golden rules of writing. Like most golden rules of writing, however, it’s not absolute. There is a lot of fun to be had in jokey little one off adventures (in atla, Sokka’s haiku competition) or in fun worldbuilding threads that add depth to your setting but don’t really come up (in atla, the existence of Whaletail Island, which is described in really juicy ways, even though the characters never go there.) But in general, when it comes to things like character death, events should happen to develop the plot or advance character. Avatar, for all of its flaws, is really well structured, and a lot of its story beats advance plot and develop character at the same time. However, the show also bears the burden of being a show directed at children, and thus needing to be appropriate for children. And as we know, Nickelodeon and bryke butted heads over this: the death scene that we see for Jet is a compromise, one that implicitly confirms his death without explicitly showing it. So bryke tasked themselves with creating a show about imperialism and war that would do those themes justice while also being appropriate for American children and palatable to their parents.

The Themes of Avatar vs. Its Audience

So, Avatar is a show about a lone survivor of genocide stopping an imperialist patriarchal society from decimating the rest of the world. It’s also a show about found family and staying true to yourself and doing your best to improve the world. These don’t necessarily conflict with each other, and it is possible for children to understand and enjoy shows about complex themes. And in a lot of cases, bryke doesn’t hold back in showing what the costs of war against an imperialist nation are: losing loved ones, losing yourself, prison, etc. But when it comes to death, the show is incredibly hesitant. None of the main characters that we’ve spent a lot of time getting to know die (not even Iroh, even though he was old and it would have made sense and his VA died before the show was over--but that’s a topic for another day.) This makes sense. I can totally imagine a seven year-old watching Avatar as it was coming out and feeling really sad or scared if a major character died. I was six years older than that when Wally died, and it’s still sad and terrifying to me to this day. However, in a show about war, it would be unrealistic to have no one die. Bryke’s stated reason for killing off Jet is to show the costs of war. I’ve seen a lot of posts about Jet’s death that reiterate some version of this same point--that the great tragedy of his character is that he spent his life fighting the Fire Nation, only to die at the hands of his own country. Similarly, I’ve seen people argue in favor of Yue’s death by saying that it was a great tragedy, but it showed the sacrifices that must be made in a war effort.

Yue

When we first meet Yue, she is a somewhat reserved, kind individual held back by the rigid social structures of the NWT*. She and Sokka have an immediate attraction to one another, but Yue reveals that she is engaged to Hahn. The Fire Nation invasion happens, Zhao kills Tui, and Yue gives up her life to save her people and the world, and to restore balance. Since we didn’t have a lot of time to get to know Yue, this is framed less as Yue’s sacrifice and more as Sokka’s loss. Sokka is the one who cares for Yue, Sokka is the only one of the gaang who really interacts a lot with Yue on screen, and Sokka is the one we’ve spent a whole season getting to know. While I wouldn’t go so far as to call Yue a prop character (i.e. a character who could be replaced by an object with little change to the narrative), she is certainly underdeveloped. She exists to be unambiguously likable and good, so we can root for her and Sokka, and feel Sokka’s pain when she dies. In my opinion, this is probably also why a lot of fic that features Yue depicts her as a Mary Sue--because as she is depicted in the show, she kind of is. We don’t get to see her hidden depths because she is written to die.

In light of what we’ve established earlier in this meta, this makes sense. Killing off a fully-realized character whom the audience has really gotten to know and care about on their own terms, rather than through the eyes of another character, could be really sad and scary for the kids watching, but not killing anyone off would be an unrealistic depiction of war and imperialism. On the face of it, killing off an underdeveloped, unambiguously likable and good character, whom one of our MCs has a deep but short connection with, is the perfect compromise.

But let’s go back to the golden rule for a second. Does Yue’s death a) advance the plot, and/or b) develop character? The answer to the first is yes: Yue’s death prompts Aang to use the Avatar State to fight off the Fire navy, which has implications for his ability to control the Avatar State that form one of the major arcs of book 2. The answer to the second? A little more ambiguous. You would think that Yue’s death would have some lasting impact on Sokka that is explored as part of his character arc in book 2, that he may be more afraid to trust, more scared of losing the people he loves, but outside of a few episodes (really, just one I can think of, “The Swamp”) it doesn’t seem to affect him that much. He even asks about Suki in a way that is clearly romantically motivated in “Avatar Day.” I don’t know about you, but if someone I loved sacrificed herself to become the moon, I don’t think I would be seeking out another romantic entanglement a few weeks after her death. Of course, everybody processes grief differently, and one could argue that Sokka has already lost important people in his life, and thus would be accustomed to moving on from that loss and not letting himself dwell on it. But to that, I’d say that moving on by throwing himself into protecting others has already shown itself to be an unhealthy coping mechanism. Remember, Sokka’s misogyny at the beginning of b1 is in part motivated by the fact that his mother died at the hands of the Fire Nation and his father left shortly thereafter to fight the Fire Nation, and he responds to those things by throwing himself into the role of being the “man” of the village and protecting the people he loves who are still with him. Like with Yue, he doesn’t allow himself to dwell on his mother’s death. This could have been the beginning of a really interesting b2 arc for Sokka, in which he throws himself into being the Avatar’s companion to get away from the grief of losing Yue, but this time, through the events of the show, he’s forced to acknowledge that this is an unhealthy coping mechanism. And maybe this is what bryke was going for with “The Swamp”, but this confines his whole process of grief to one episode, where it could have been a season-long arc that really emphasized the effect Yue’s had on his life.

In the case of Yue, I do lean toward saying that her death was necessary for the story that they wanted to tell (although, I will never turn down a good old-fashioned Yue lives au that really gets into her dynamism as a character, those are awesome.) However, the way they wrote Sokka following Yue’s death reduced her significance. The fact that Yue seemed to have so little impact on Sokka is precisely what makes her death feel unnecessary, even if it isn’t.

Jet

Okay. Here we go.

If you know my blog, you know I love Jet. You know I love Jet lives aus. Perhaps you know that I’m in the process of writing a multichapter Jet fic in which he lives after Lake Laogai. So it’s reasonable to assume that, in a discussion of whether or not Jet’s death was necessary, I’m gonna be mega-biased. And yeah, that’s probably true. But up until recently, I wasn’t really all that mad about Jet dying, at least conceptually. As I said earlier, bryke says that in the case of Jet’s death, they wanted to kill a character off that people knew and would care about, so that they could further show the tragedies of war and imperialism. Okay. That is not, in and of itself, a bad idea.

My issue lies with the execution of said idea. First of all, the framing of Jet’s original episode is so bad. Jet is part of a long line of cartoon villains who resist imperialism and other forms of oppression through violence and are punished for it. This is actually a really common sort of villain for atla/lok, as we see this play out again with Hama, Amon, and the Red Lotus. To paraphrase hbomberguy’s description of this type of villain, basically liberal white creators are saying, “yeah, oppression is bad, but have you tried writing to your Congressman about it?” With Jet, since we have so little information about the village he’s trying to flood, there are a number of different angles that would explain his actions and give them more nuance. My preferred hc is that the citizens of Gaipan are a mix of Earth civilians, Fire citizens, and FN soldiers, and that the Earth citizens refused to feed or house Jet and the other Freedom Fighters because they were orphans and, as we see in the Kyoshi Novels, Earth families stick to their own. Thus, when Jet decides to flood Gaipan, he’s focused on ridding the valley of Fire Nation, but he doesn’t really care about what happens to the Earth citizens of Gaipan because they actively wronged him when he was a kid. That’s just one interpretation, and there have been others: Gaipan was fully Fire Nation, Gaipan was both Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation but Jet decided that the benefits of flooding the valley and getting rid of the Fire Nation outweighed the costs of losing the EK families, etc, etc. There are ways to rewrite that scenario so that Jet is not framed as an unambiguously bloodthirsty monster. In the context of Jet’s death, this initial framing reduces the possible impact that his death could have. Where Yue was unambiguously good, Jet is at the very least morally gray when we see him again in the ferry. And where we are connected to Yue through Sokka, the gaang’s active hatred of Jet hinders our ability to connect with him. This isn’t impossible to overcome--the gaang hates Zuko, and yet to an extent the audience roots for him--but Jet’s lack of screentime and nuanced framing (both of which Zuko gets in all three seasons) makes overcoming his initially flawed framing really difficult.

So how much can it really be said, that by the time we get to Jet’s death, he’s a character that we know and care about? So much about him is still unknown (what happened to the Freedom Fighters? what prompted Jet’s offscreen redemption? who knows, fam, who knows.) Moreover, most of what we see of him in Ba Sing Se is him actively opposing Zuko and Iroh. These are both characters that at the very least the show wants us to care about. At this point, we know almost everything there is to know about them, we’ve been following them and to an extent rooting for them for two seasons, and who have had nuanced and often sympathetic framing a number of times. So much of the argument I’ve seen regarding Jet centers around the fact that he was right to expose Zuko and Iroh as Firebenders, but the reason we have to have that argument in the first place is because it’s not framed in Jet’s favor. In terms of who the audience cares about more, who the audience has more of an emotional attachment towards, Zuko and Iroh win every time. Whether Jet’s actually in the right or not is irrelevant, because emotionally speaking, we’re primed to root for Zuko and Iroh. In terms of who the framing is biased towards, Jet may as well be Zhao. So when he’s taken by the Dai Li and brainwashed, the audience isn’t necessarily going to see this as a bad thing, because it means Zuko and Iroh are safe.

The only real bit of sympathetic framing Jet gets are those initial moments on the ferry, and the moments after he and the gaang meet again. So about five, ten minutes of the show, total. And then, he sacrifices himself for the gaang. And just like Yue, his death has little to no impact on the characters in the episodes following. Katara is shown crying for four frames immediately following his death, and they bring him up once in “The Southern Raiders” to call him a monster, and once in “The Ember Island Players”, a joke episode in which his death is a joke.

So, let’s ask again. Does this a) advance the plot, and/or b) develop character? The answer to both is no. It shows that the Dai Li is super evil and cruel, which we already knew and which basically becomes irrelevant in book 3, and that is really the only plot-significant thing I can think of. As far as character, well, it could have been a really interesting moment in Katara’s development in forgiving someone who hurt her in the past, which could have foreshadowed her forgiving Zuko in b3, but considering she calls Jet a monster in TSR, that doesn’t track. There could have been something with Sokka realizing that his snap judgment of Jet in b1 was wrong, but considering that he brings up Jet to criticize Katara in TSR, that also does not track. And honestly, neither of these possible character arcs require Jet to die. What requires Jet to die is the ~themes~.

Let’s look at this theme again, shall we? The cost of war. We already covered it with Yue, but it’s clearly something that bryke wants to return to and shed new light on. The obvious angle they’re going for is that sometimes, you don’t know who your real enemy is. Jet thought that his enemy was the Fire Nation, but in the end, he was taken down by his own countryman. Wow. So deep. Except, while it’s clear that Jet was always fighting against the Fire Nation, I never got the sense that Jet was fighting for the Earth Kingdom. After all, isn’t the whole bad thing about him in the beginning is that he wants to kill civilians, some of whom we assume to be Earth Kingdom? Why would it matter then that he got killed by an EK leader, when he didn’t seem to ever be too hot on those dudes? But okay, maybe the angle is not that he was killed by someone from the Earth Kingdom, but that he wasn’t killed by someone from the Fire Nation. Okay, but we’ve already seen him be diametrically opposed to the only living Air Nomad and people from the Water Tribes. Jet fighting with and losing to people who aren’t Fire Nation is not a new and exciting development for him. Jet has been enemies with non-FN characters for most of the show’s run at this point. There is no thematic level on which the execution of this holds any water.

The reason I got to thinking about this, really analyzing what Jet’s death means (and doesn’t mean) for the show, was this conversation I was having with @the-hot-zone in discord dms. We were talking about book 2 and ways it could have been better, and Zone said that they thought that Jet would have been a stronger character to parallel with Zuko’s redemption than Iroh and that seeing more of the narrative from Jet’s perspective could have strengthened the show’s themes. And when it came to the question of Jet’s death, they said, “And if we are going with Jet dying, then I want it to hurt. I want it to hurt just as much as if a main character like Sokka had died. I want the viewer to see Jet's struggles, his triumphs, the facets of Jet that make him compelling and important to the show.” And all of that just hit me. Because we don’t get that, do we? Jet’s death barely leaves a mark. Jet himself barely leaves a mark. His death isn’t plot-significant, doesn’t inspire character growth in any of our MCs, and doesn’t even accomplish the thematic relevance that it claims to. So what was the point?

Conclusion

Much as I dislike it, Yue’s death actually added something to atla. It could have added much, much more, in the hands of writers who gave more of a shit about their Brown female characters and were less intent on seeing them suffer and knocking them down a peg, but, in my opinion, it did work for what it was trying to do. Jet? Jet? Nah, fam. Jet never got the chance to really develop into a likable character because he was always put at odds with characters we already liked, and the framing skewed their way, not his. The dude never really had a chance.

*multiple people have spoken about how the NWT as depicted in atla is not reminiscent of real life Inuit and Yupik people and culture. I am not the person to go into detail about this, but I encourage you to check out Native-run blogs for more info!

#jet #yue #bold text #italics #death tw #murder tw

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goldenkamuyhunting · 4 years ago

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Ramblings and crazy theory time about GK chap 266 “Pinky Finger Bones”

So... with this chapter we begin digging into what happened in the past. Into what happened to Wilk... but also into what happened to Tsurumi.

He clearly stared into the abyss and the abyss stared back at him... but what’s worse is that Tsurumi became much more scary than the abyss itself.

By the way you might notice a resemblance with the quote “He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” [‘Beyond Good and Evil’ Friedrich Nietzsche] which loosely means “When you confront evil, make sure it doesn’t influence you.”

Well, it’s clear Tsurumi not only let himself influence, he sadly became worse than the ‘monster’ he was fighting.

But let’s go with order.

The cover… is more like part of a flashback scene.

It shows Tsurumi and Tsukishima in Vladivostok, in 1897. Therefore we’re at the point in which Tsukishima was released from jail and was working as an intelligence officer with Tsurumi in Russia.

They are shown alone, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they went there alone, as Tsurumi could have other men with himself, to create a spy network. Or not.

We’ll find out only if it’s relevant to the plot so, for now, I’ll let it on hold.

Anyway Tsurumi and Tsukishima talk of how, since Vladivostok is the only Russian port that doesn’t freeze and can be used all year round, it’s a strategically vital point for Russia but also for Japan. Central had made appoint to let Tsurumi know they need to conquer it if they go at war with Russia.

At that point a Russian man spot Tsukishima and starts asking him if he is Japanese and knows a man named Hasegawa who disappeared without a trace 6 years ago.

As Tsukishima struggles to understand what he says (he’s clearly not well versed in Russian yet) the man talks about the bodies of Hasegawa’s wife and daughter, but we don’t get to hear what he says about them.

Tsukishima turns to discover Tsurumi has disappeared and, searching him, he finds him in front of Hasegawa’s burned photo studio.

Tsurumi’s expression, which Tsukishima can’t see, is interesting. His eyes are shadowed by the brim of his hat (while Tsukishima aren’t) and his eyes are stretched thin, many stress lines under them.

He’s probably lost in painful memories, which are likely now wrapped by the hate he feels for who caused his tragedy.

When Tsukishima reads on the sign ‘Hasegawa photo studio’, he realizes it’s the name the Russian was talking about. I’ll be honest, the coincidence is a little too forced. I mean, to have a random Russian guy asks to a random Japanese (let’s remember Vladivostok HAD a Japanese district so Japanese people is not that impossible to spot there) if they knew Hasegawa who disappeared 6 years ago and, COINCIDENTALLY, this Japanese is with the guy who, in the past, was Hasegawa, a guy who apparently doesn’t hear the question and marches straight to Hasegawa photo studio (they weren’t that close, Tsukishima lost sight of Tsurumi and had to search for him) so that Tsukishima can connect some dots back then and a lot more in the present is... well, way too providential.

It would be different if that Russian had a reason to check all the Japanese he were to spot and had done so for 6 years but no reason is given. We aren’t told he was Fina’s relative (Fina has a family to whom she was supposed to return the day she died)... and therefore pretty invested in the tragedy and it’s clear he’s not part of the secret police or he wouldn’t give Tsukishima random details. Tsukishima isn’t even standing near Hasegawa’s house at the time he was questioned, so it was possible to speculate they knew each other.

That guy who spoke with Tsukishima was just a Russian who woke up that morning and decided, spotting some Japanese, to ask him about a guy who disappeared 6 years ago for... no apparent reason beyond plot convenience.

But okay, let’s go on.

We’ve left Tsukishima connecting the photo studio with the guy the Russian mentioned, relying to Tsurumi the Russian guy mentioned ‘something’ about that man’s wife and daughter.

At this point I wonder if there’s a reason why we aren’t told what that something is. I would think that the fact that their bodies got burned up in the fire wasn’t something to discuss or wonder about but maybe... there’s more?

I don’t know.

Anyway Tsukishima wonders if Tsurumi knew Hasegawa, which really, seems logical enough as Tsurumi came there to watch his burned shop and Tsurumi denies it, saying there’s plenty of Japanese people in Vladivostok (which again make weird how the Russian guy asked them if they knew about Hasegawa). Tsurumi then claims Hasegawa should have been odd for wanting to open a shop away from the Japanese district, his eyes hidden by the brim of his hat and I facepalm here because he’s basically lampshading that Hasegawa had to be a spy for wanting to do so...

which seems uncharacteristically careless from him... unless he wanted Tsukishima to actually question him further... to push him to talk because maybe he too needed to talk but couldn’t... but Tsukishima is evidently ignorant in spy matters so he doesn’t get the hint.

He doesn’t lot go though, as Tsukishima remembers Hasegawa was Tsurumi’s mother’s maiden name, whom he noticed when Tsurumi went to pay his respect to her grave.

Tsurumi compliments for Tsukishima’s good memory and deflects Tsukishima’s suspicions saying it’s a common name in Niigata.

So we’ve some info about Tsurumi to ponder about, like how his mother is dead and how he was an Hasegawa so there’s to wonder if he was related to the ‘Hasegawa senior’ which whom he supposedly came in Russia as a teenager.

Was the guy his father using his mother’s maiden name? Or a maternal uncle? Can it be there was originally an Hasegawa Koichi and Tsurumi and him swapped (swapping identity with someone was a common spy technique)? If that’s the case was Kouichi a cousin of Tsurumi?

Or the guy never existed and it’s just a cover story? Hard to say, interesting to speculate.

Anyway we jump back to the present and to Tsukishima, a vein popping on his check, connecting the dots and realizing ‘that Hasegawa’ was actually Tsurumi.

Tsurumi then goes and says that 50 years ago some of the more extremist Ainu gathered up a great quantity of gold dust and were planning something... and here I pause again.

So, does this mean whose extremists did take a part of the hidden gold? Or that they were the gold’s guardians, aware of where it was hidden?

If it happened 50 years ago, unless the gold was stolen by the hideout, this means the extremists were the same guys who knew about the hideout. So, Ariko’s father could have been one of them as well as Asirpa’s grandfather (my bet is he’s the one who knew where the gold was).

Anyway the Ainu’s plan in order to fight the shogunate was to get a captain of the imperial Russian navy to divert Russian warships, munitions and such to them... and I think Tsurumi is exaggerating matters a bit because it’s really not enough to own warships, you also need men to drive them and I’m not sure how many Ainu there were who could do it but whatever, maybe back then was easier to pilot warships and use them to go to battle... but still, I kind of feel it would be complicate for him to ‘smuggle out’ Russian warships... I mean they aren’t exactly of the size you might ‘lose track of them’.

Going on.

To explain why the Russian captain would be willing to do so, Tsurumi says it’s common among soldiers who’re stationed far from central command to do as they prefer, which is something Tsurumi is intimately familiar with as he’s doing the same in Hokkaido.

However everything ended when the ship on which was the Russian captain crashed into a passenger ship in what’s called the “Russian warship Kalevala incident” of 1867 (which is completely fictional as no such thing happened in the real world) in which both ships sunk carrying everyone on board with them.

Timeline wise 1867 is also the year in which there’s the restoration of the imperial rule, with the Boshin war starting in 1868.

According to Tsurumi, since the Ainu lost the Russian captain willing to sell them weapons they should have felt at total loss about what to do with the gold.

Tsurumi then claims Wilk came in Hokkaido to search for that gold so that this was the start of everything that happened afterward.

Asirpa asks Sofia if this means it was Tsurumi the one who taught Wilk, Kiro and Sofia Japanese.

We can’t see Sofia’s face, as she’s holding her head down, but she’s sweating and panting, thinking back to when she held little Olga.

Clearly that incident of which she felt responsible still weight a lot on her, like an open wound that never healed... which in a way makes her similar to Tsurumi. Tsurumi though is trying to get revenge for that incident... while Sofia is trying to make up for it.

She then notices that Tsurumi has moved really close to her, his hand still holding the finger bones of Old and Fina, rubbing them.

We can see Tsurumi’s head is inclined on a side, in a way that reminds me of how Usami looked at the dead horse... although Usami was tilting his head on the opposite side.

In normal body language, tilting the head on a side indicates sincere interest and curiosity... and it can fit both situations too... only Noda also makes it creepy, as if both Usami and Tsurumi were interested yet completely detached, as if they were watching something alien to them, the angle being just a little bit too much to feel natural.

Tsurumi then goes on claiming that, on the day his wife and child died, he was the only one the secret police was after and if Fina hadn’t picked up Wilk’s wanted poster she wouldn’t have come back. Tsurumi through tried to date the blame to even sooner, claiming that if Wilk and co had never gone to his photo studio, his wife and child might not have been killed.

Sofia’s eyes are locked on Tsurumi’s hand rubbing that finger bone, as if she were hypnotized... and I’ll repeat what I said before.

Sofia has spent all those years after the death of Fina and Olga trying to make amends. As she believes her cause will bring benefit to the Russian people (and therefore to people like Sofia and Olga), she continued to fight for it, giving up on Wilk, the man she loved and on ‘happiness as a woman’ all to fight for her cause and atone for that innocent lives who died that day.

Of course meeting Hasegawa again and being blamed fully for those deaths is a big blow to her, it’s the trauma, the sin, she never overcome but tried to by doing something constructive, something she believed would be positive for the others.

It’s worth to remember Sofia came from aristocracy, she didn’t need a better Russia to live an easy life, she could have just continued being a pampered princess and instead she devoted herself to improving her country.

We can argue the methods she chose might not be the best, and how they put in danger innocent people, but the aim is selfless.

On the other end we’ve Tsurumi, whose family fell in disgrace... likely short after the Meiji restoration and possibly due to it.

He went in Russia as a spy probably in an attempt to prove himself and improve his and his family’s life, likely married in order to have a cover but ended up falling in love with Fina and he clearly adored his daughter, Olga.

Still he continued his job as a spy even if that put in danger his own beloved family, he continued teaching Japanese to Wilk and Co even if he knew they were partisans and, ultimately, for some reasons, he get discovered by the secret police.

Somehow he finds out they’re coming from him so, instead than denouncing himself, he sends away Fina and Olga without explaining Fina nothing.

Even if she promised not to, Fina could have gone back for other reasons, it was coincidence it was just because she saw the wanted poster.

When Wilk and Co shows up at Tsurumi’s house HE LET THEM IN, before telling them they can’t come anymore. He could have denied them entrance and send them away, he could have told them he was a wanted man and the secret police was about to jump on him but no, he let them in.

When the secret police arrives he doesn’t just hand himself to them but stop to talk with them at the door, knowing inside he has three revolutionaries who will realize the police is circling the house and that will feel threatened. When they start attacking the police he doesn’t tell them the truth but let them discover it from the Russian policeman and then he hands them a machine gun so that they can fight the police.

Tsurumi was an ACTIVE cause of the incident as much as Wilk and Co if not MORE because he has something to lose and that he was exposing to risk, Fina and Olga.

Yet now he’s shifting all the blame to Wilk’s party, trying to use Sofia’s sense of guilt to get leverage on her and force her to be cooperative so that he could get the gold and get revenge over Central.

Now... I’m positive that Tsurumi suffered A LOT for the death of Fina and Olga, that it was traumatic for him... but while Sofia is trying to make up for it, Tsurumi is just trying to take revenge, trying to frame the death of his beloved ones as something that has a meaning because it becomes an helpful step in his climbing to get the gold and the control of Hokkaido.

In fact, and I’ll flash forward a bit, Tsurumi wants to know what purpose his wife and daughter served in the world, claiming they died because of Wilk and Co and therefore they should give him some sort of compensation.

In this way he uses his own loss to extort information from Sofia so that he could accomplish his goal.

Mind you, all this is a way to cope with pain that’s similar to Sekiya’s, who wanted to know why his daughter had to die, but, differently from Sekiya who was completely blameless for his child’s death, which was merely an incident he had no control over, Tsurumi was also actively to blame for his wife and child’s death and he’s trying to cope with his pain by shifting the blame on others and by trying to turn those deaths into meaningful steps on the way to his original goal, improving his own life.

Ironically, as he loved Fina and Olga, it’s unlikely reaching his original goal will bring him solace, it’s another copying mechanism to excuse himself, if he can justify his wrongdoing to them as a necessary step on the way to his goal, he believes he will feel better... which is clearly a lie. This is not the way to cope with such a traumatic event but it’s a common mistake, an attempt to dim the pain by not coping with how he’s responsible for his own loss.

I pity him for how terrible his pain should be... but there’s no turning around how his way to cope with it IS terrible in any possible way.

But let’s go back a little to Tsukishima and Koito who’re eavesdropping on the conversation.

Tsukishima remembers how, during the war they tried getting control of Vladivostok... and how Tsurumi told him they should expand the territory for Japan’s sake and that they should make certain that their comrades were sleeping in Japanese soil. Now though he (and Koito if his white irises and vein popping are to be taken as a hint) is pissed off because he fears Tsurumi’s goal is just his own personal way of mourning his wife and daughter...

...and I facepalm again. Hard.

Now, okay, Koito can be pissed off, he made clear he uphold certain values and that he believed Tsurumi was doing it for a selfless reason only, the well being of his own soldiers, plus he had never experienced being poor so he can’t understand why people would want to be rich. He’s young, he was used and lied at but still wanted to trust Tsurumi to be more noble than he was so okay, he can be angry.

Tsukishima though was okay with tailing after Tsurumi even when he didn’t know which is true goal was...

...even when he believed Tsurumi might not have a true goal...

...just because he wanted to believe what Tsurumi was doing would benefit the ones following him... and now he is upset because Tsurumi had a goal... but one that was beneficial to Tsurumi? How was Tsurumi not having a goal better?

And how this change the game, really?

If Tsurumi’s actions were genuinely better for the men in the 7th, they remain beneficial regardless of Tsurumi’s ultimate goal, which isn’t meant to harm them, after all.

And just because Tsukishima decided to sacrifice his love story with Igogusa (which, Tsurumi’s lies or not, was something Tsukishima decided on his own)... well, this doesn’t mean everyone has to do the same as him.

But whatever, as anticipated before, Tsurumi used Sofia’s sense of guilt to ask her to tell him and Asirpa what happened in Hokkaido. He’s clearly talking about the Nopperabou incident and he explains he believes Sofia should know about it due to the letters she got from Kiroranke.

Well, the good thing in all this is that, if Tsurumi is asking her about the incident, this seems to hint that, as I speculated, he doesn’t know exactly what happened (unless he’s sure Kiro had false info which he relied her... but I doubt that’s the case).

In his anger, Tsukishima fails to understand that asking Sofia about what happened in the Nopperabou incident might:

- give Tsurumi clues about where the gold was (the incident took place when the Ainu moved the gold)

- tell him if there’s more people involved who could try to get into Tsurumi’s way

- make Asirpa feel guilty for the dead Ainu and more prone to help Tsurumi,

All this of course depending on what truly happened back then... but I think Tsurumi has some theories in this regard and he’s asking merely because he thinks Sofia’s words, which Asirpa won’t question because Sofia wouldn’t have any reason to lie, would be beneficial to him.

Sofia starts crying at all this, breaking down and admitting what we already knows, that Kiro believed ‘Wilk changed’.

The only new addition to all this is that it confirms Kiro believed Wilk changed because Asirpa was born... but this doesn’t really tell us if Wilk changed the day Asirpa was born or later, as the change could have been gradual and we saw that Kiro seemed to have a good relationship with Wilk after Asirpa’s birth

(and we know, for Wilk’s own admission, he wanted to raise Asirpa to be a guerrilla fighter capable of leading the Ainu...

...and taught her how misplaced sympathy could become a weakness and who’s weak gets eaten, how they can’t hesitate to kill (a bear cub) for fear of being cruel or they’ll die (of starvation)).

Kiro also said Wilk saw a light in Asirpa, a light of hope for the Ainu,

...which also fits with how Kiro himself entrusted the future to Asirpa and Sofia,

...and how Asirpa’s name means ‘future’.

Long story short, we still don’t know anything new as it was clear Asirpa ended up affecting Wilk but how and why Kiro believed this constituted betrayal worth killing him is completely up to speculation.

I stand my ground on the fact I believe if Kiro thought Wilk had to die, it was because he believed Wilk betrayed the partisan cause, which, among partisans, has always been a crime punishable with death.

Still I genuinely doubt Asirpa’s birth caused Wilk to turn into a pro-imperialist or that it caused him to stop caring about the minorities... and since Kiro didn’t try to kill him prior to the Nopperabou incident, I’ll say the problem didn’t exactly start with Asirpa’s birth.

On the other side I don’t think Kiro is lying, he genuinely believed Wilk changed.

We’re clearly missing how Wilk changing became something that caused or was connected to the Nopperabou incident and made him worthy of being killed later, without even being questioned.

Ogata hinted that Kiro might have been afraid Wilk would reveal something about Kiro to Sugimoto...

...but I somehow have troubles seeing Kiro killing all those Ainu since Kiro seemed reluctant to kill Inkarmat, who was clearly a big hindrance and didn’t want Sugimoto, who was a potential hindrance, to be shoot.

Besides Kiro clearly didn’t know where the gold was, so I’ve troubles thinking he would just murder all those Ainu without even trying to get info from them.

Could it really be possible Wilk make a 180° turn and wanted to hand the gold to the Japanese even if, apparently, when he was arrested, he was trying to escape in Karafuto with the gold so that he could bring it to his companions?

Or did he wanted to hand it to the Japanese authorities because he came to believe the Ainu, the partisans and the revolutionaries wouldn’t know how to use it to benefit their cause and would only make matter worse?

Difficult to believe so as, even if we’re to assume he decided that fighting was wrong, the gold could be used in small parts to improve Ainu’s life by buying necessities for them if times were to become harsh (just think at how the locust attack damaged Kirawus’ village food resources... if they had some gold they could have bought the missing food).

Or was Wilk trying to use it to BUY the Ainu’s freedom from the Japanese, not with weapons but with the gold itself, buying the whole Hokkaido island in Boutarou’s style, therefore betraying the Russian cause as they would remain to their own devices? It would seem an aiful naive plan from him besides it was hinted he still wanted to pursue his own dream of a far east federation for minorities by how he clung to those gold coins up till the time he was captured.

But still, we’re missing some big piece of the puzzle... which we don’t get in this chapter as the story kind of goes back a little to show us Sugimoto and Shiraishi in the bottlecar, just out of the church Sugimoto is in.

They had seen Koito get into the church, meaning they got there before Tsurumi started speaking with Sofia and Asirpa.

Shiraishi would like to rush in to rescue but Sugimoto is uncharacteristically prudent, saying Shiraishi they should go call Hijikata, because if they rush in they could be in numerical disadvantage.

Shiraishi though is worried of what Tsurumi could do to Asirpa but Sugimoto insists Tsurumi should know he can’t rely on information gotten with torture so, differently from Tsukishima, he figured out Tsurumi will try to get information from her of her own free will slowly.

Shiraishi is still worried and references how Tsurumi behaved oddly in the volume version of what happened in Karafuto (because in the magazine version the poor guy actually acted in a pretty normal way) then notices Sugimoto is actually wishing badly he could rush in and decides Sugimoto might be right.

Honestly I should give kudos to Sugimoto for managing to figure this out. From after Tsurumi got his hands on Asirpa he had been uncharacteristically smart, analyzing his opponent (Tsurumi) and understanding his moves, from how Tsurumi wouldn’t part with Asirpa to how he wouldn’t torture her but try to get info out of her willingly.

On a sidenote actually you can get reliable info through torture if you manage to keep control of your victim (meaning if he lied to you torture will just start all over) or if you’ve someone to use to blackmail that person but whatever, let’s go on.

Sugimoto and Shiraishi decide them to go call Hijikata, slam the car against a pole and fly out of it.

The chapter ends here but if Nikaidou is really around there to keep guard as Tsurumi told him to do...

...and spot Sugimoto we can count on him to go in berserk mode, scream ‘SUGIMOTO SAICHI! MY NAME IS NIKAIDOU KOUHEI. YOU KILLED MY BROTHER! PREPARE TO DIE!’ and reveal to everyone how Sugimoto and Shiraishi are there, possibly interrupting the whole interrogatory and letting us wonder for many more chapters WHAT IN THE WORLD HAPPENED DURING THE NOPPERABOU INCIDENT. So please Nikaidou, don’t be around or scream discreetly. We don’t really want you to bother Tsurumi, Sofia and Asirpa NOW.

#Golden Kamuy #Tsurumi Tokushirou #Asirpa #Sofia #Tsukishima Hajime #Koito Otonoshin #Hasegawa Olga #Hasegawa Fina #Kiroranke #Wilk #Sugimoto Saichi #Shiraishi Yoshitake #Hijikata Toshizou #Golden Kamuy Ramblings and Theories

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crushzone · 4 years ago

Note

Hi Nin! I know this might be weird of me to ask because you are an artist yourself, but I am rather new here and was wondering if you have any other artists you'd recommend? If not that is ok!

Hi there, not weird at all! I LOVE supporting fellow artists, I find their wonderful talent and dedication incredibly inspiring, seeing their beautiful works on my feed constantly reminds me to take a step back from my exhaustion and to simply remember why I love to draw to begin with: because it’s fun.

I’m usually really picky about artists I follow and their style, but when I find the ones that I enjoy, I go ALL OUT with my support. So without further ado, the following artists listed are those I am not only in love with, but those who I genuinely look up to.

So make sure you stop by their page to show them some love and appreciation for their hard work (because hard work extends beyond the individual pieces they’ve made, it’s also for the countless hours they’ve spent on practicing and perfecting their craft, constantly challenging themselves to learn new techniques). 💛

👇🏼👇🏼 Nin’s Artist Recommendation👇🏼👇🏼

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@aku-jumbi - HQ!!, Various, You all had seen me share a BUNCH of their works on my blog, but it’s just because their art is so SOOOOOOOOO good. Your style leans toward photorealism, while still maintaining its painting-like quality, so if you had ever wondered how your favorite characters may look like irl, they’ve got you!!! Watching your speed painting is so fascinating, idk how you do it, but you’re always killing it every time (Like our process is so different, so it was really interesting to see how you approach your works you know?). This piece of Kei Tsukishima and Oikawa Tooru are two of my favorite works you’ve done!

@achieve-the-sun - HQ!!, Various, Let me start off by saying that I love Morghy’s art so much, that they are the first and only person I had ever commissioned from so far. They drew Keishin and I sooo adorably, it brings me so much joy to look at it on the daily. Your style reminds me of freshly baked cookies, or the warmth of bakeries, I can’t help but feel a sense of coziness whenever I look at your adorable artworks. This piece you did of Kageyama and Hinata was what had drawn me to you. Everything from your color choices, fluid gestures, and expressions are such a delight to look at!

@chaotickatts - HQ!! I am so in love with Katts, you all. I had never seen anyone draw like this, her style is really unique. I can go on forever about why I love your art, but one of the biggest things that drew me to your style is the way you draw bodies. I like the variation and realistic details you include, for instance, I absolutely adore the way you gave Sakusa more moles on his body, and the way you drew dad bod Osamu. Idk, I think there’s so many different types of body shapes and details out there, and it brings me joy to see you being so inclusive of them in your art.

@namusw - Hunter x Hunter. Was drawn to their Hunter x Hunter works and I don’t even watch/read that manga. Honestly, just check them out, I love everything about their works, they are also a killer at both traditional and digital styles. This piece of Hisoka, Illumi, and Chrollo was the one that made me fall in love.

@cranbearly - HQ!! I really adore the way they draw expressions and their coloring style (inspired me to attempt some flat coloring). This piece of Oikawa and Iwa made me follow them instantly. Expressions are so difficult to nail, and you’ve done such an amazing job conveying every emotion the characters are feeling, I’ve learned so much just from looking at your works, so thank you for blessing us with your craft.

@a-zebra-was-here - HQ!! Their art has a very carefree type of vibe and their coloring style brings me so much joy. I’ve really enjoyed your drawings of the Miyas’, this piece of the twin was what got me, and this other piece, the first image of young Miyas’ was so SO well done, I am in love with the way you colored that. 😻

@erionmakuo - Various, dude....I want to cry, I don’t even know what to say, EVERY SINGLE PIECE of your artworks just BLOWS ME AWAY. The way you color your art is just so ethereal, the color schemes you had chosen, the way you mix the color of your lighting, textures, and everything in general, I can go on about this all day but just hop on to their blog and you will know exactly what I mean. I don’t have a particular piece that drew me in because I was blessed by all your works at once.

@uranarino - HQ!!, Your artworks bring me so much joy. If I have to describe your style like an experience in life, I would say it reminds me of how it’s like to fall in love with someone for the first time, if that makes sense. That sudden overwhelming feeling you get when you’re doing the most mundane things with someone you care about, only for time to stop as you realize how in love you are with them? Yea, your art captures that really well. These two pieces of Kuroo returning home with his groceries and of him taking a day nap with his cats was what had drawn me to you.

@queenoftheantz - HQ!!, Various, Their style is really unique, it kind of reminds me of an adventurous graphic novel or something you would see on Cartoon Network (idk, I thought of Chowder, but please, I really mean it as a compliment, I just really love the fun cartoon style you have.) They also do some animations! I really love this piece of Kyotani you did, the landscape and colors look SOO GOOD!!

@noodlemanjpg - HQ!!, Various, love LOVE your style and the way you draw expressions. I also really love how you color, your works “appear” effortless, but I know a lot of knowledge and precision is put into crafting it. This piece of Kuroo x Yaku being all cozy at the couch was what had drawn me to your blog, it makes me smile every time I look at it. Kuroo’s smitten expression is just...ahsdl;adjs I can’t help but smile with him.

@diabolism666 - HQ!!, c’mon, you can’t be in the HQ!! fandom without at least seeing one of their artworks. In fact, I had seen your art even before I’ve gotten into this show, and it was love at first sight, lemme tell ya. EVERY. SINGLE. THING. you had drawn are so good, it doesn’t even matter if it’s a more simplistic drawing or elaborate one, I am just always staring at it in awe. Thank you for being so incredibly active about it too, idk how, but you’ve produced so many amazing drawings and we’re just incredibly grateful for it. You draw some of best Tendou, Reon and Toshi out there. Your works have so much range, I really feel like you can draw ANYTHING hahaha.

@viria - Various, Viria *sobs* your works are so good. The way you draw faces and affection just gives me butterflies. I don’t even watch Fullmetal Alchemist, but this piece you did of Edward and Winry made me fall so deeply in love with your works. Your style has a certain softness to it, even when it is of an angry character, and I love it.

@nipuni - Various, another artist that I am incredibly nervous to tag because your works are just out of the world. You also seem so so nice and is always incredibly helpful whenever anyone sends you an ask. Just...I have the biggest crush on you and your works. EVERYTHING you had drawn is so stunning, and I mean it. The details, pose, composition, and coloring, it is just so perfect, I could pull up particular artworks, but I was really blessed by it all at once. If you are into fantasy-esque realistic looking portraits, check her out, she exudes so much knowledge and talent.

@hinamihere - HQ!!, Your artworks are soo stinkin adorable. Your color choices, expressions and the way you draw hair is just so cute, your art always bring the biggest smile to my face. This piece you did of Akaashi and Bokuto was what drew me to you, when I saw it, I “awhhh”ed so loudly, my hubby had to ask me what’s up, and when I showed it to him, he had the same reaction, even if he’d never seen Haikyuu!!

@oxxuri - BNHA, so SO good, the way you color, light, and draw is so beautiful. Every single detail, down to every lashes and strands of hair is so beautiful. You draw some of the most attractive faces I had ever seen, these drawings of Aizawa and Midoriya brings me so SOOOO much joy, and I don’t even know anything about BNHA.

@amezure - HQ!!, their comic strips always make my day, I was giving their blog a peep so I can pull up specific examples and my statement is instantly confirmed when I stumbled across their newest comic art of Kuroo and Bokuto and started laughing HAHA. 😂 Your self study sheets are incredibly informative and I find myself referencing them often, it’s so nice to see my favorite artists continue to polish their craft through endless amounts of studying, practice, and analysis. It serves as a constant reminder for myself to do the same. I love the way you draw people (check out this piece of Bokuto x Akaashi), but I ESPECIALLY love the way you draw animals. (Specifically anything that has to do with lil owl Bo and Akaashi 🥺)

@obobro - Avatar the Last Airbender, HQ!!, I am absolutely in love with the way you color and draw portraits. Your drawing and detailing has so much range; you have a series of hand drawings, and that alone already displays so SO much range. I was really drawn in by this drawing of Tsukki, Zuka + Azula, and of Sokka + Katara, you can really tell they were related and I love it so much. Your art has so much life to it, it’s truly fascinating.

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I have a couple more artists to recommend, so if you’d like a part 2 to this, please lmk.

But yes, I genuinely stand by my recommendations, these guys are so SO good at what they do and I am currently sweating because the thought of tagging all my artist crushes in one post is actually kinda scary lol.

Hope this helps! ✌️

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a-small-batch-of-dragons · 4 years ago

Text

Peggysous Week Day Seven: Marigold

Read on Ao3 (Please tumblr likes to screw with my formatting)

@fandomsandxfiles-writes

Marigold: Winning the affections of someone through hard work, creativity and the drive to succeed, cheer and good relations in a relationship.

Despair and grief over the loss of love, cruelty and coldness due to jealousy.

***

Peggy Carter deserves the world.

The world doesn’t deserve Peggy Carter, but Daniel’s sure she’s not gonna let it stay that way. Ever since she parted the SSR like the Red Sea, she’s been relentless in driving herself and the others to ‘do their bloody jobs,’ and ensure they want to live in the world they keep saving. And if they weren’t going to do it, then they’d better get the hell out of her way.

Peggy Carter is driven, determined, and relentless. Daniel’s pretty sure the only reason she’s not running the whole damn thing is because she’s a woman and people are idiots, even though he’s also sure that’s not going to stop her for long.

He thanks whatever higher power put her desk right behind his—even though it was probably just the discrimination and prejudice in the office—because it’s the best thing to ever happen to him. Having someone so capable next to you pushes you, makes you want to do better. He knows he has to hit the ground running when he’s working with Peggy because she’s going to be even better than he is, even on his best day.

Daniel knows he’s good at his job. His observational skills are well above average and even in the SSR, his detective work is renowned. Even with all the scoffs and insults and back-handed compliments that get thrown his way. He doesn’t care, he knows he’s good. And he knows he can be better.

It’s when he figures out Peggy’s secret investigation that he really starts appreciating how damn good this agent is. She ran her own covert operation underneath the noses of a spy network and did it well. They didn’t even realize what she was doing until she told them.

Daniel knows he’s got a lot to learn from this agent and he’s more than willing.

‘Trailing after her like a lost puppy’ isn’t quite the words he’d use to describe what he does after that whole Stark fiasco is over, but it works pretty well. Better than he’d like to admit, actually, but hey, at least the rest of the office knows she’s a force to be reckoned with. He figured that out the first week when Krzeminski spat out a cup of coffee that tasted like the bottom of a drainer when the one she’d given him was roasted to perfection.

Somewhere along the line, he’d volunteered for most of the night shifts. Mainly because he could actually get some work done without any of the other agents around, but also because hey, it wasn’t like he had a girlfriend or a wife to miss him. But when Peggy starts joining him…well.

Little notes they’d pass back and forth became conversation starters. Casual greetings grew warmer. Smiles became more genuine. They had inside jokes now, things they’d say to make the other one snort while the poor agent that had no idea what was going on stared dumbly at the two of them. And he…he gets to know Peggy.

He knows Agent Carter pretty well, knows she packs a hell of a right hook and can see things most people wouldn’t dream to think of.

He gets to know that Peggy prefers Earl Grey in the mornings and chamomile in the evenings, with a little honey.

He gets to know that Peggy’s got a wicked dry sense of humor, able to deliver barbs with an absolutely deadpan expression.

He gets to know that he can end up hunched over his desk almost crying from laughter when Peggy does a stellar imitation of one of the big war dogs from D.C. comes in for an investigation.

They settle into a routine, the two of them. During the day, they’re quiet. Reserved. Professional. At night, they drain their cups of caffeine and smirk at the antics of the other.

The SSR calls them the Dream Team at one point, even though Daniel’s pretty sure that’s just Jack Thompson being an asshat.

Then the offer of the L.A. Chief position opens up.

Daniel’s been pushing himself to be better. A better agent, a better person, a better Daniel. Just so he can keep up with the world as it spins faster and faster on its axis. This seems like the logical next step.

Peggy doesn’t come.

And that’s okay, really, it is. They have their separate careers. She’s still taking over New York, one case at a time. Their night shift talks are just to pass the time, friendly because of convenience.

He moves out of New York and tries to pretend the heat in L.A. doesn’t make him long for their cold dark office.

Daniel knows the L.A. office was gonna be green. He just…didn’t really factor in that he’d been so used to being surrounded by extreme levels of competence that this feels a little like kindergarten. Even Rose, who moved out here with him, feels it a little. When they go out for lunch there’s always a brief moment of nostalgia for New York before they dive into whatever’s come up this week.

When the Lady in the Lake case rolls across his desk, he knows he’s in over his head. He calls Thompson for backup.

He gets Peggy.

And once he got over the initial shock of seeing her, standing in the L.A. branch like she was meant to be there—and Peggy Carter is meant to be wherever she says she is—he figures it’ll be easy to slip back into working together.

It’s not.

He knows part of it is just the simple fact that they’re out of practice. They haven’t worked together in a while.

Part of it is he’s in love now.

He loves Violet. He adores her. She’s sweet and charming and mean and relentless and the best PT nurse he’s ever had. When she’s done being merciless and amazing and he’s out of the hospital, he asks her out the second he can. And they blend together. She’s sassy when he’s playful, he’s quiet when she’s buzzing, and goddamn can she bake. They have date nights where they don’t even go out, making their own food at home, and Daniel thinks it might be better than any restaurant he’s ever had.

Violet meets Peggy and Daniel’s in over his head.

They spin around each other like whirlwinds and he thanks Violet’s endless charm and Peggy’s determined work ethic that they manage to keep him on his feet. He manages to stumble back into a familiar rhythm with Peggy and the warmth he gets when she confesses she’s missed working with him makes him kiss Violet more passionately then ever. He loves her.

Daniel’s not especially proud of the fact that he loses Violet’s ring in the couch, but other than that, the proposal goes off without a hitch. Well, kind of. This… this is what he needs. He needs this grounding in the world to keep saving it.

Then Peggy gets impaled.

Get to Violet. He knows he has to get to Violet. Violet is strong and capable and the best nurse he knows and there is no one he trusts more with this. With Peggy. And Violet is brilliant, whipping Jarvis and Daniel into shape as she patches up Peggy.

He loves her.

When Peggy is lying on the couch, as patched up as she can be with a rebar hole through her abdomen, he looks up from his knees, his mouth open to thank Violet, but the look on her face stops him.

He gets up, wondering what’s wrong, what’s happened, when her words shock him to the core.

He’s in love with Peggy.

He loves Violet but he’s in love with Peggy.

His instinct is to deny it. To say no, no, please, don’t leave, but the words get stuck in his throat and he can’t.

She gives back the ring. He leaves. Peggy goes to the Stark mansion.

He…he has to think.

When everything has blown over, he shows up to Violet’s house with flowers. When she raises an eyebrow, he hastily explains he’s not asking her to take him back, he’s here to apologize. He’s sorry he dragged her into this, he’s sorry he didn’t figure all of this out for himself first. He’s been unfair to her and he deeply regrets it.

She looks at him with a soft smile and takes the flowers. Pulls him into a one-armed hug. Tells him he’ll figure it out.

They stay friends. Still have a dinner night once a week.

The case just keeps building and all Daniel can do is hold on. Literally, as it turns out. When he crashes back down to the desert, he breathes out for the first time since Peggy landed in L.A.

He readies himself for Peggy to leave again, fly back to New York, but she surprises him. He should know by now not to try and predict Peggy Carter. She pushes him into his chair and kisses him breathless.

Okay.

He can deal with this.

Getting the transfer to the L.A. office is simpler than he imagined. Though, he’s pretty sure Jack and Rose are high-fiving somehow. Pretty sure.

Now he has Peggy by his side again, both pushing themselves to be better, do better, especially now that they know the cases are only going to get stranger. Peggy moves out of the Stark residence and into a small house in the suburbs, not quite near Daniel’s house, not quite far. He knows she meets up with Rose and Violet—they’re still friends too, and isn’t that terrifying—and Ana, Mrs. Jarvis. He can’t deny the thought of it makes him shudder, just a little.

Those four. They’ll take over the world, you just watch.

They take it slow. Start with the night shifts again. Then they agree to a dinner date with the others, make into a half work, half casual affair. Then it’s just the two of them.

Peggy’s kisses still make him breathless.

She doesn’t move in, they agree that’s not a wise step for them. Not yet. They don’t want to mess it up.

But god, god , he loves her.

She still pushes him, yes, just being close to her does that, but she lets him help her too. Lets him reassure her when she needs it. Lets him see a little of what goes on in the mind of Peggy Carter. He takes all the little things she gives him and holds them close to his heart, where they’ll be safe.

He…he knows she finds the world as scary as she does. She says she hopes she can make it less scary. He promises to be by her side as she does.

Violet and Rose and Ana drag him to the jeweler's when he finally gets the nerve to ask her. They spend hours making sure it’s just right. Howard offered to make something but Daniel shot that down almost immediately. Nope. Not on his watch, thank you very much. He’s not sure Howard wouldn’t try to put some crazy invention in it.

It’s their date night when he works up the courage. The ring box is safely nestled in his jacket pocket, along with the blessings of Violet, Rose, Ana, Howard, Jack, Mr. Jarvis…apparently a lot of people were…eager to offer their blessing.

He pauses in the driveway, leaning on his crutch. He frowns. He…he can hear music.

Peggy doesn’t listen to music. In fact the only time he can remember her having the radio on as anything other than the news was when she was listening to Angie. Or…or when they thought someone was in the house.

His hand goes to his holster, striking a casual pose as he creeps up to the house. He peers in the window.

His arm goes numb and his jaw goes slack.

Peggy…Peggy’s dancing.

She’s dancing with someone else. Someone—

…oh.

Daniel…Daniel must’ve missed something, missed a message from Howard or Rose or—

Steve Rogers is in the house, with Peggy Carter in his arms.

He’s too frozen to do anything other than wave, sheepish and dumbstruck, when Peggy spots him. Her face splits into a wide grin and she waves, trying to get him to come inside.

He does.

Daniel’s gonna admit, he’s a little star-struck when he shakes the hand of Captain America, Steve Rogers himself. He smiles and nods his head when Steve introduces himself, not that it’s really necessary. Steve says he’s glad to meet him. Apparently Peggy’s talked about him.

“Me?”

“Her partner, right? The man she works with?”

Right.

He remembers they…never officially started courting.

Pushing all of that down, he smiles and asks him what he thinks about all of…this. Man out of his time, all that. Steve shrugs and says it takes some getting used to, but he’s getting there.

Peggy smacks him on the shoulder and says if he wasn’t so bloody dramatic they could have avoided all of this. Daniel can’t help but commiserate just a little when he sees how Steve reacts. He knows what it’s like to have Peggy Carter scold you for being an idiot.

Steve laughs and says he knows better than to cross Peggy Carter. Daniel agrees wholeheartedly.

Peggy blushes.

She’s…Daniel’s never seen her blush before.

He sees the way Steve looks at her. The way she looks at him. It’s like…it’s like the two of them have come home. Really come home.

Ignoring the ache in his chest, he makes his goodbyes and walks back down the driveway, the ring box a dead weight in his jacket. He makes it to the car before he has to let the mask slide off his face.

He should’ve known, shouldn’t he?

Peggy Carter deserves the world. She deserves the best. She deserves a superhero.

As he pulls out into the street, he can’t help but remember a cold night in the SSR office in New York, before Peggy started joining him. He can’t help but remember a soggy sandwich, a pile of paperwork, and Krzeminski’s voice.

“ No girl’s gonna trade in a red-white-and-blue shield for an aluminium crutch.”

That’s how it ended.

Then Peggy comes into work the next morning and slaps his shoulder with the file in her hand and scolds him for missing their date night.

Daniel frowns up at her, his mouth open in protest. He…he left to give them privacy, didn’t he? Was…was he not supposed to?

Peggy rolls her eyes and says no, you bloody idiot, that was date night. I don’t care if Steve came back to visit, we had plans.

Wait. Hold on. Back up. What?

Seemingly realizing that poor Daniel has a negative idea of what’s going on, Peggy perches on the edge of her desk and explains.

Remember how Daniel said the cases were only gonna get stranger?

Well, that trend apparently has an exponential increase.

So, in the future, the SSR is no more. Instead it’s replaced by SHIELD—which Peggy founds, because hell yeah she does—at least until it gets corrupted by HYDRA and destroyed.

Daniel’s gotta pause for a minute there because that has implications and they’ve got some work to do. Peggy agrees but tells him to shush and let her talk.

After all this happened with SHIELD, some big purple alien decided to wipe out half the universe with a snap of his fingers and now a team of superheroes—including Steve—had to stop him by traveling through time to collect six different colored rocks.

Got it? No? That’s fine, Daniel’s just gonna go with it.

Comes with the job.

Turns out one of the stones was relatively close to them, timeline-wise, so Steve decided to visit and cash in the dance Peggy owed him.

Daniel points out that if he’s the one that asked for the rain check, he owes her the dance.

Peggy smirks.

But…okay, fine, so…Steve’s not staying?

Peggy shakes her head. Daniel looks up at her, having closed his eyes to process all of that, to see she looks…nervous. her hands twist together in her lap and he instinctively reaches out to see if she can help.

She huffs a laugh and says this would’ve been so much easier had he just stuck to the plan from last night and stayed, when she had her courage, Steve’s blessing, and his support.

Wait, what would’ve been easier?

In response, she gets up and reveals the item she’d been hiding behind the file. Daniel’s eyes widen when she gets down on one knee.

No…no, no…

Peggy raises an eyebrow and asks if he’ll at least let her say it first.

Daniel scrambles for his jacket. After last night, he hadn’t worked up the nerve to take it out yet. When he gets down on one knee too, Peggy bursts out laughing. Daniel can’t help but laugh too.

Should’ve stuck around then, huh?

Yes. Yes, you should have. Together then?

One…two…three.

Will you marry me?

Yes .

#fic #dragonbabbles #peggy carter #daniel sousa #steve rogers #peggysous #peggysous week 2020

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capricornus-rex · 5 years ago

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Playing Pretend (4)

Requested by: @calkesttiss | Prompt:

Hi! I just watched isi & ossi (rich girl and poor boxer boy AH) on netflix and now i cant stop thinking about cal and fake dating. Do with that what you will 😂

Cal Kestis x Reader

1 | 2 | 3 | Next: Part 5 | Masterlist

4 of ?

Cal found a way down the building and walked his way back to the Mobara Palace, one of the few cantinas in the Capital that have docking bays. The Mobara Palace was one of the biggest in the city too; occupying a whole block to cover the bar itself as well as the elaborate network of paths that connect the bays to one another, with the cantina at the starting point of it all.

The Mantis’s entrance ramp hissed and lowered, opening the door before him. An aromatic waft was the first to welcome him upon his entry.

“Looks like Greez is cooking something good,” he comments to BD-1.

As he entered the ship, Greez’s dual pairs of arms were all over the pantry and yet each arm was carefully distributed to a certain task in cooking.

“Smells good, Greez!” Cal beamed.

“Oh good, you’re just in time for dinner—with all that wandering around you’re doing, you’re probably hungry,”

He joined the others at the table as soon as Greez lifted the pot from the stove and served everyone their own plates. The meal was solemn and yet there was a warm aura emanating around them. Cal decided to up the mood by striking a conversation.

“How long do you guys still think we’re gonna stay here until this blows over?”

A silence at the dinner table. Cere’s eyes shifted, she searched Greez’s face and studied his reaction toward Cal’s question. There was only one possible and realistic answer, but the boy doesn’t seem to concur with it.

“Cal,” she clears her throat. “You do understand why…”

Before she could even reiterate her question, Cal already knew this mere dinner table conversation was going to be another lecture.

“I know. We’re hiding from the loan shark that Greez borrowed the money from to get this ship,”

It was an embarrassing truth, but a truth nonetheless. Greez felt like the situation required him to say a piece.

“Look, kid, we can scrape by with what we have. I mean, I still got coin on me—but not that enough to cover the loan plus with its interest!”

“Odd jobs, honest jobs, aren’t gonna cut it in a short time, Greez. At least you would know that, of all people,” Cal argued.

Cal had been wandering around the city looking for a quick way to earn some coin in the quickest way possible. The downtown and underground areas of the planet had some questionable methods of earning money—but they were easy money. Although Cal had grown up with street smarts, part of that knowledge is when and where a solution is either a real solution or another problem later on.

“You know the Sabacc, don’t ya?” Greez whispered with the left corner of his mouth directed to Cal.

“Greez, we are not going with gambling!” Cere sternly exclaimed. The impact of her fork dropping against the plate was just as scary as a fist landing on the table like a gavel.

There was another silence amongst them again. Cere continued on with her own piece.

“We cannot endanger anyone in our crew with something that won’t be worth our while. I don’t mind pretending to be some stranger in a different name just so we can have someplace to stay safe together. But I will not allow anybody in this ship to get into something that would jeopardize themselves or the crew altogether, understand?”

Cere’s outburst hardened the silence. Everybody understands that she hasn’t outgrown her military discipline from her days of participating in the Clone Wars—and she’s utilizing them in predicaments such as these amongst the Mantis crew members.

These episodes of hers were occasional, therefore it made her unpredictable, intimidating, but somehow her aggressive delivery doesn’t outweigh her rationale or true motive. Everybody—Cal, Greez, Merrin, and ultimately BD-1—knew that she means well and that she always will.

Cere processed what just had happened with her. She attempted to recompose herself in the midst of the awkwardness. She cleared her throat.

“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to yell.”

“It’s fine, Cere,” Greez consoles.

The dinner proceeds. Cal wondered if the girl he met yesterday and bumped into just now would be a better subject to talk about.

“I met someone last night. Bumped into her again,”

All heads turn to Cal.

“She frequents a pub not too far from here. I always see her near or inside that place. Maybe if I bump into her again, I’ll ask her where I can find a place to get some cash—and a clean one at that,”

“Are you sure she is to be trusted?” Cere maintained her stern tone even after recomposing herself.

Cal was so sure of his judgment about you. He recalled the moments where you two were together. He felt your kindness and compassion—he knew of your good intentions, you meant no harm—but he also sensed some sort of sadness in you.

“You probably have heard of Senator Bail Organa?” Cere takes the conversation reins.

Cal shrugs, “Yeah sure, I know him. I saw him sometimes in the Senate Building in Coruscant.”

“Well, he knows of our presence here—don’t worry, he doesn’t know about the loan shark at our tail—and he’s invited us to a social function,”

“Social function?” Cal raised his eyebrow at Cere’s unusual choice of word.

“Apparently, this party was being held by a colleague of his. Perhaps they needed to fill the guestlist,”

“Proxies,”

“Exactly.”

“How bad can a few no-show guests be? It’s not like it’s gonna dent their bank account when the catering bill comes!” Greez dryly joked and it was the received likewise.

In light of this new announcement, Cal began to wonder how long does he have to stay in the party before he could sneak back out in the streets and find the unusual girl who had to drag him up a rooftop from the Tipsy Taun-Taun just to ask for some self-defense moves.

The following days passed until the day of the banquet has come. That morning, your mother personally made sure that you don’t sleep in and get yourself ready as quickly as possible. She also announced that the stylists are coming in half an hour.

“Mom, I’m perfectly capable of doing my own makeup!” You detest despite still being groggy from being woken up without your consent.

You force yourself out of bed so that you could take a shower. Unfortunately, you didn’t have the luxury of staying too long in the bath—however, you sorely wished you did. You slid deeper into the cold, ivory and gold-trimmed bathtub until only your eyes are on the surface.

A pounding on the door disturbed your watery peace.

“[y/n], hurry up!” your mother growled from the other side.

“Almost done!” you cried back.

You were actually done minutes ago, you only chose to soak yourself for a bit longer with the wishful thinking that they’ll never realize that you’ve locked yourself in your own bathroom. You’d love that though.

“No one could ever go wrong with black,” you muttered as you pulled out an off-shouldered black cocktail dress with stars and planets embroidered with golden thread.

You made quick work of yourself. You did your hair and makeup: applying minimal makeup as possible, you wore your hair down and clipped a silver headband on both ends with four tiers of golden cords hanging over on top of the other. Staring back at yourself in the mirror, a brush in your hand slides down to the length of your hair; with every stroke, you ponder if all this your parents are doing is ever worth it either for themselves or for the family.

You sigh for an answer, or lack thereof. Afterwards, you donned the dress and the shoes—both pieces were in black. The finishing touch—a personal one at that—was a pair of leather fingerless gloves.

“Here goes nothing,” a mantra you tell yourself before exiting your room in attendance to any social gathering you were obliged to attend.

The party started without you. No surprise in that, you thought. Nevertheless, you made your way to ballroom where the chatter of the guests became more and more audible yet incoherent as their voices meddled.

Immediately, you searched for Tazha in the room. She wasn’t easy to miss. Her glittering dress outshines everyone else’s, literally making her a beacon for you to easily see her. You walk up to her.

“Oh you look great!” she compliments.

“Thanks, you too,”

Suddenly, one of the Ithrel sons, Logan who was the third son and was the same age as you, appears ot be walking toward you with what you thought is the stupidest grin you’ve ever seen on a face. He comes in strong by grabbing you by the waist, reel you in for a kiss except you successfully dodged it with your gloved hand.

“Logan? What the hell are you doing?!”

“Well, your mom paid me to flirt with you until you end up falling in love with me, I’ll have a chance in the Junior Legislator’s Program! Plus, we get to support your family until your dad becomes Senator or whatever, I mean, we don’t have a choice on that, we just gotta roll with it,” he beamed with an imbecile’s optimism. “Big bonus if we ever get married though. I mean, she wanted that to happen. So, marry me?”

“Hold up. She did what now?”

Logan repeated your own mother’s plan, he reiterated that this part wasn’t even in the original agreement. Your mother had to negotiate her way through the Ithrels in promising a much stronger bond of support to your family—therefore, you became a sacrificial lamb.

You and Tazha exchanged glances. Both of you communicated clearly through the furrows of your brows and the hard rolling of your eyes. A gradual burst of rage was flowing in your bloodstreams.

“Oh my God, this is just sad and pathetic of you, Logan,” Tazha condescendingly comments.

“I’m gonna give her a piece of my mind tonight,” you growled, your knuckles were white from gripping the bannister too hard.

You searched for your mother in the ballroom. When you spotted her and your father speaking with some guests, you marched through the sea of people until you reached her.

“Mother, may I speak with you?”

Yasina excused herself from her guest and she was in for a surprise with what is about to go down.

“You paid one of the Ithrel sons to date me?! Because you thought that would strengthen your connection with them just so Dad can secure his win in the election? You did this without me knowing? Whatever the hell happened to consent, Mom!?”

“[y/n] Elvas Torvel, I do not allow you to speak to me with a tone like that in an important event like this!” Yasina hissed, struggling to maintain her composure—both mentally and physically—after just being bombarded with questions by her daughter.

“Did you even ever stop to think how I’d feel if you paired me with a complete imbecile?!”

“[y/n], honey, please listen,” your father intervenes but the argument was heating up between you and your mother.

“The Ithrels are a good family. They uphold a clear reputation. We Torvels and Ithrels would be a great collaborative enterprise,”

“You don’t see the problem here, Mom? I don’t want to get married!”

Yasina was silent. Her face was completely aghast: her eyes wide open, her lip was trembling as if wanting to say something but couldn’t because of so much nerves thrashing underneath her skin.

“You will not ruin this event for your own selfish, adolescent needs, young lady. We are not finished with this discussion.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t plan on ending it soon.”

You walked out from your parents. Turning your back on them to wipe away the tears that was welling up in your eyes.

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tigerkirby215 · 4 years ago

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5e Nocturne, the Eternal Nightmare build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by Alex Flores. Made for Riot Games)

In my continuation of terrifying builds for terrifying characters here’s a build for the scariest champion in League of Legends. The prime horror icon on the rift who everyone points to and says “now that is a scary champion!” Nocturne!

Fiddlesticks? How could that bag of twigs and metal be scary?

GOALS

Do I scare you, summoner? - Nocturne is a champion of fear... I mean at least until someone else came along. Still pretty good at making other champs terrified though.

The light is fading - Fighting Nocturne with spells is pointless: cast one and he gets more powerful.

Darkness... - An assassin is scary. An assassin who can turn off the lights, pop up behind you and scream “OOOGA BOOGA!” is even scarier!

RACE

There’s several things Nocturne could be and none of them really fit the description of “shadow spirit demon.” So fuck it may as well be a Changeling, to take the form of whatever your prey fears the most! As a Changeling you get +2 to Charisma and +1 to another ability of your choice... which can be Charisma! So fuck it +3 to Charisma! You also get two skill proficiencies of your choice thanks to Changeling Instincts (take Intimidation and Insight to see through your prey and strike them with fear) and you can learn two languages to compliment your Common language. (Pick whatever it doesn’t matter.)

But of course the main feature of a Changeling is their Shapechanger trait. It’s basically Disguise Self but your clothes don’t change: you still have to have a basic arrangement of limbs, can’t change your size so much that you change size categories, can’t disguise as something you’ve never seen, etc. etc. etc. But even so there’s more than enough shapechanging you can do to strike fear into your foes!

ABILITY SCORES

15; CHARISMA - You are a being of ultimate horror who knows exactly how to get under someone’s skin.

14; DEXTERITY - Nocturne is an assassin who can travel across massive swaths of the map in an instant, and your arm blades don’t seem like they’d be too heavy.

13; WISDOM - To truly terrify someone you’ve gotta know what makes them tick.

12; INTELLIGENCE - You need smarts to be scary. You need to know why they’re scared.

10; CONSTITUTION - Nocturne is a squishy assassin. (Though that being said feel free to swap INT and CON if you want better health but worse RP.)

8; STRENGTH - Nocturne is a ghost so weak that he can only attack you in your dreams... at least until your dreams become real.

BACKGROUND

There’s no background for “Ancient Nightmare Demon” so how about you join an assassin’s club instead? The Volstrucker Agent background from Wildemount gives you proficiency in Deception and Stealth along with a Poisoner’s Kit and a language of your choice. (Again pick whatever.)

Your feature Shadow Network lets you talk to other demons... the worst of the worst... assassin mains. If you write a letter in special ink, address it to a member of the Volstrucker, and throw it into a fire, the letter will materialize on the person of the agent you addressed it to. The ink used to send a letter is the same as the ink to write in a spellbook, and writing a letter in this ink costs 10 gp per page. Tell Talon you’re ganking, or tell Evelynn that she’s a hoe.

This background is fairly easy to adapt outside of Wildemount but be ready to alter it in case your DM doesn’t allow Wildemount content.

(Artwork by Riot Games)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - MONK 1

What? Were you expecting the magical nightmare demon to have magic? Well we need Monk levels for a number of things (notably Saving Throws) but firstly let’s talk skills: take proficiency in Acrobatics and History to jump into people’s dreams and know exactly how to frighten them! You also get a tool proficiency so take Brewer’s Supplies. A spirit making spirits? How droll!

As a Monk you have Unarmored Defense equal to your Dexterity plus your Wisdom. Yeah Nocturne does kinda wear armor, but you’ll have to go without it if you want to use Martial Arts. While unarmored and unarmed with nothing but Monk weapons (which are simple weapons and shortswords - I’d argue that your arm blades are sickles?) you gain the following benefits:

Your fists and Monk weapons can be used with DEX instead of STR.

Your unarmed strike becomes a d4 (and will increase as you level up in Monk.)

When you make an attack with an unarmed strike or a monk weapon on your turn, you can make one unarmed strike as a bonus action.

LEVEL 2 - MONK 2

Second level Monks can chase down their prey with Unarmored Movement, increasing their movement by 10 feet while unarmored (as the name suggests.) But if you need to chase them down faster with Duskbringer then Ki will help with that. You have a number of Ki points equal to your level in Monk which you can use in a number of ways:

Flurry of Blows will let you spend 1 ki point to make two unarmed strikes as a bonus action after attacking, instead of just one.

Patient Defense will activate Shroud of Darkness for 1 ki point so you can take the Dodge action as a bonus action on your turn.

Step of the Wind will let you take the Disengage or Dash action as a bonus action on your turn at the cost of 1 Ki, and your jump distance is doubled for the turn.

This should be more than enough to chase down your foes, but realize that your Ki points are limited. They come back on a short rest though, so you needn’t worry much.

LEVEL 3 - WARLOCK 1

Oh hey look it’s Warlock again. Warlocks can choose their subclass at level 1 so it’s time to go Unearthed Arcana with the Undead patron, not to be confused with the Undying patron which doesn’t have the abilities we want.

Abilities such as Form of Dread: As a Bonus Action you can transform for 1 minute to gain temporary hitpoints and immunity to the Frightened condition, but most importantly all your attacks will force a Wisdom save on the target or else frighten them for a round. You can transform a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

And of course Warlocks get Pact Magic: you learn two cantrips from the Warlock list. To attack around you with your Umbra Blades take Sword Burst, and to let your foes know for whom the bell toles take Toll the Dead, because not taking Eldritch Blast would be a true nightmare.

You can also learn two first level spells: Hex will let you single an enemy out to do more damage to them, and Cause Fear lets you cause fear! Funny how that works. Hit your foes with Unspeakable Horror before cutting them down.

LEVEL 4 - WARLOCK 2

Second level Warlocks get Eldritch Invocations to boost their abilities in the realm of dreams. Devil’s Sight will let you see through magical darkness which is good considering that your ultimate (which we don’t have yet) makes the whole world dark. For your second invocation Misty Visions will let you create an illusion of your target’s greatest fears. And then don’t even have to be asleep!

You also get another spell but we’ll hold onto it until...

LEVEL 5 - WARLOCK 3

Third level Warlocks can learn second level spells like Blindness / Deafness from the Undead list for some more darkness, and Cloud of Daggers, because a spinning knife box is pretty spooky.

Yes I am aware that you can get the Darkness spell proper at this level but wait for a minute!

Of course more importantly you get your Pact Boon at level 3 and for a sword-arm ghost take Pact of the Blade, to make your swords on your arms or somewhere else on your body.

LEVEL 6 - WARLOCK 4

4th level means an Ability Score Improvement, and since you’re going to be doing a lot of slashing take a Dexterity increase.

You also get another spell at this level along with another cantrip: Suggestion will let you mess with a creature’s thoughts a little to make them do things they’d never dream of! For your cantrip Prestidigitation lets you do a bunch of minor major spooky stuff. Because the true fear is not taking a d10 damage cantrip.

(Artwork by Choe HeonHwa. Made for Riot Games)

LEVEL 7 - MONK 3

You’re probably wondering what the point of these Monk levels are. Simple: Way of Shadows Monks are masters of darkness thanks to Shadow Arts. You can now cast spells using your Ki: you can cast Minor Illusion for free and for 2 Ki points you can cast Darkvision, Pass without Trace, Silence, or DARKNESS. You also get Deflect Missiles at level 3, making you an unkillable nightmare. Or at least a resilient nightmare.

LEVEL 8 - MONK 4

4th level in Monk means another Ability Score Improvement: more Dexterity is needed to survive. Speaking of survive: Slow Fall will help in case you get stuck in that dream where you’re constantly falling.

LEVEL 9 - MONK 5

5th level Monks get an Extra Attack, letting them attack an extra time with their arm blades, or their fists as your Martial Arts die also increase to a d6.

But of course to scare your foes to the point that they can barely move Stunning Strike will let you force a Constitution save or stun your target! I mean, it probably won’t work because your Wisdom is so low but...

LEVEL 10 - WARLOCK 5

Quickly hopping to 5th level of Warlock for Shroud of Darkness: grab Counterspell to counter any spells coming your way. You also get another Eldritch Invocation and while Nocturne doesn’t turn invisible in on the rift One with Shadows will let you hide effectively in bushes.

LEVEL 11 - MONK 6

6th level Monks can finally embrace the darkness thanks to Shadow Step. When in dim light or darkness you can teleport up to 60 feet as a bonus action to an unoccupied space you can see, as long as that spot is also in dim light or darkness. You also have advantage on the first melee attack you make after teleporting.

You can make Darkness with your Ki which means that this ability should almost always be available. So let the Paranoia set in before jumping behind your foes to scream “OOOGA BOOGA!” Oh and your Unarmored Movement increases by 5 feet, up to 45 feet now.

(Artwork by Riot Games)

LEVEL 12 - WARLOCK 6

6th level Undead Warlocks are Grave Touched. You no longer need to eat, drink, or breathe, because nightmare logic. Additionally, when you hit a creature with an attack you can replace the damage type with necrotic damage. While you are using your Form of Dread, you can roll one additional damage die when determining the necrotic damage the target takes. So instead of doing bludgeoning damage with your fists you can do necrotic damage instead, and rip at their minds! Wait no that’s psychic damage...

Regardless you can learn a third level spell like Speak with Dead, because what’s spookier than a talking corpse?

LEVEL 13 - WARLOCK 7

7th level Warlocks get another Eldritch Invocation: to never lose track of your prey take Ghostly Gaze for some All Seeing Spirit.

You can also learn 4th level spells like Shadow of Moil to shroud yourself in darkness. Yeah I hope you didn’t think I’d stop linking to that sound clip!

LEVEL 14 - WARLOCK 8

8th level Warlocks get another Ability Score Improvement: maximize your nightmare blades with a capped Dexterity modifier. You can also learn another spell like Death Ward to come back from anything your foes may throw at you. Guardian Angel? What a nightmare!

LEVEL 15 - WARLOCK 9

9th level Warlocks get another Eldritch Invocation. Want to hover? Ascendant Step lets you hover!

You can also learn 5th level spells at this level so it’s time to finally give people proper nightmares with the Dream spell. It’s a fairly complicated spell but in essence you can project yourself into someone’s dreams to talk to them, or to yell “OOOGA BOOGA” at them to make them take Psychic damage while also being unable to get a proper long rest.

LEVEL 16 - WARLOCK 10

10th level Undead Warlocks can leave their Mortal Husk: You gain resistance to necrotic damage, and you are using your Form of Dread, you instead become immune to necrotic damage.

Additionally, when you are reduced to 0 hit points you can explode! Each creature within 30 feet of you takes necrotic damage equal to 2d10 + your warlock level and you get up with 1 HP. Once you revive this way, you receive a point of exhaustion and you can’t do so again until you finish 1d4 long rests. Look: Nocturne doesn’t explode in-game but there’s nothing saying he can’t do so.

You also don’t get another spell at this level, but you do get another cantrip! Mind Sliver is an Unearthed Arcana spell (that’s been confirmed for Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything) which will let you further reach into your prey’s mind, and see their deepest fears of not taking a d10 damage cantrip.

(Artwork by Riot Games)

LEVEL 17 - WARLOCK 11

11th level Warlocks get their 6th level Mystic Arcanum, which is a 6th level slot that comes back on a Long Rest. So it’s basically a normal spell slot but you can’t upcast your Pact Magic or your Mystic Arcanum. There are some good options to choose from (shoutout to Mental Prison) but if you want to freak out your foes with a spooky eye trick take Eyebite. Along with making your eyes (and I quote!) “become an inky void imbued with dread power“ you can force your foes to make Wisdom saves or suffer a variety of effects. I suggest reading the spell over properly to learn everything it can do.

Oh but you know what else is cool? Regular Warlock spells! And you get a third pact slot no less! I’m actually going to suggest hopping back to 4th level for Hallucinatory Terrain to shape the world around you into one of pure nightmares.

LEVEL 18 - WARLOCK 12

12th level Warlocks get an Ability Score Improvement, and seeing as we’ve had an uneven Wisdom score this entire time I’m actually going to suggest grabbing Resilient (Wisdom) this time for some spell defense and some better stats.

But more importantly you can learn another Eldritch Invocation so it’s finally time to get value out of your ability to cause fear! Lifedrinker will let you fill your blade (because technically you only have one) with Unspeakable Horror, allowing you to deal extra Necrotic damage equal to your Charisma modifier when you strike with them!

LEVEL 19 - WARLOCK 13

13th level Warlocks get 7th level Mystic Arcanum such as Power Word Pain to subject a target with less than 100 health to Unspeakable Horror.

You can also learn another Pact Magic spell and have you ever had that feeling of someone watching you? Well Scrying will let you watch people. Cut some claw marks through a girl’s blue dress and use the cloth fragments to watch her when you can’t strike. …That was a Nightmare on Elm Street reference…

LEVEL 20 - WARLOCK 14

14th level Undead Warlocks can truly instill Paranoia with Spirit Projection. As an action you can go beyond your body, leaving it behind in an unconscious state of suspended animation. Your spirit can remain outside your body for up to 1 hour or until your concentration is broken. When your projection ends, your spirit returns to your body or your body magically teleports to your spirit’s space (your choice). While projecting your spirit, you gain the following benefits:

Your spirit and body gain resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.

When you cast a spell of the conjuration or necromancy school, the spell doesn’t require any components as long as they don’t have a gold cost.

You have a flying speed equal to your walking speed and can hover. You can move through creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain, but you take 1d10 force damage if you end your turn inside a creature or an object.

While you are using your Form of Dread, you regain hit points equal to half the amount of necrotic damage dealt with an attack once per turn.

Once you use this feature, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest, but one hour of pure terror should be enough to slay any foe.

FINAL BUILD

PROS

Drip drop; the sound of blood - While it’s mostly tied to your Form of Dread you do a lot of damage. 3d6 + 23 damage with your blade(s and fist) every turn, increasing to 6d6 + 23 with Form of Dead.

Their twilight approaches - You have quite a lot of mobility. 45 feet of movement speed and if you want you can hover. Or even fly! And of course you have dozens of ways to teleport around the battlefield and be everywhere at once.

Are you getting tired yet? - It wasn’t my intention but you are remarkably hard to kill. Good saving throws (or at least good enough), good AC, incredible mobility, and ways to both heal and grant yourself temporary hitpoints.

CONS

Afraid of the dark? - The sad truth about fear in D&D is that most high-level monsters are immune to it. Necrotic damage is thankfully spared but even then if you face an enemy who’s resistant to Necrotic damage (yet alone immune!) you’ll run into a lot of problems.

People are flames to be blotted out - While both your Ki points and your Pact Magic slots come back on a Short Rest a lot of your best abilities are tied to Long Rests. Perhaps it’s the nature of Unearthed Arcana, but even then your pact spells are mostly meant for utility, which is fine and all but it means that you won’t have much for combat. There’s a lot of great combat spells that Warlocks get which you can grab instead of the spells I listed.

I sense fear - All the resilience and mobility in the world won’t save you from Power Word Kill. With a d8 hit die and no Constitution modifier you won’t have much more than 100 health on average.

But as day turns to night it’s your time to strike. Your role above all is to cause fear. Let your victims know that if you want them dead they won’t survive. Stalk them in every moment regardless of if they’re awake or asleep, and let them know that when the world goes dark their time is up. Just be wary of anyone who remembers to bring a flashlight: you don’t want to be blinded while chasing your prey.

(Artwork by Francis Tneh of West Studios. Made for Riot Games)

#DnD 5e #dnd #DnD build #dnd guide #League of Legends #League of Legends Nocturne #dnd warlock #darkness

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mimzy-writing-online · 6 years ago

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Describing Eyes (without Color)

I saw myself in the mirror tonight. I saw my eyes in the mirror tonight and everything else about them. holy shit. i don’t look good. i’m well used to the red-purple coloring under my eyes and it’s usually limited to around the inner corner of my eye but oh my god it GOT WORSE it’s red/purple/and BLUE now. my under eye circles?? (is this the right word for them??) are turning blue and stretching out to the outer corner of my eyes. (I googled it, originally I said eyebags but that’s not what this) but yeah I have not been sleeping well for my entire life and lately I’ve been up until 3 in the morning AND IT SHOWS

I started this post a week ago and then lost momentum and saved it to draft, but the scary sight of my eye circles has me revisiting this. So here it is, describing eyes without color.

Things that make eyes special:

We will all fall into the habit of over describing the color of a character’s eyes, we will all mention rare gemstones and oceans and skies and chocolate and warm and etc.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with mentioning the color of your character’s eyes, but there are a bunch of other cool details you can add into describing eyes that tell more than just color.

Read More about Describing Eyes without Color Below

Details about health, age, and wellbeing

the thin creases at the corners, hints of wrinkles yet to come, years yet to live, but signs of a life well lived and far from over

The purple and red shadows wrapping around tired eyes, this poor person has been working so hard and trying their absolute best and the thing they need most in this world is a full night’s rest

when the skin of their eyelids is so thin and pale you can’t help but see the spiderweb network of purple veins. They look almost frail with eyes like that

the foggy color in the eyes of the elderly, cataracts that build up with time and age

half-open eyelids, eyes that slowly blink and nearly close before snapping open, god they look so tired

dilated pupils from drug use

mismatching pupils after a concussion or head trauma

the whites of the eyes may be read from recently smoking weed

the whites of their eyes are yellow from jaundice or other liver failures

the skin around their eyes is puffy/baggy (other poor health issues)

eyes are shaking/dancing from a condition called nystagmus, which is a condition common with people with vision loss/eye conditions. I don’t have it but Molly Burke does. Here’s a link to a video she made about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBB8nIz9FW0

Here’s a basic article of nystagmus to add to it: https://www.allaboutvision.com/conditions/nystagmus.htm

side note I like allaboutvision’s website for a lot of simplified explanation of vision conditions and they were a huge help to me in research about my illness. Look for multiple sources always in your research

Details about emotion in the eyes

eyelashes matted together and damp with tears

irritated, red tear ducts from too much crying and rubbing

smudged makeup from crying

sloppy makeup because they were in a hurry to get out the door (were they late to work and panicking? Were they late to a date and too excited/nervous to check their makeup?)

the wideness and bright eagerness or surprise, waiting for something big, especially in children

eyes squint shut when people laugh or smile widely sometimes. I have a character with a specific smile like this that most other characters don’t have.

Some people can have a sort of dead/empty look in their eyes, something vacant. Lights off, nobody home. Reasons for this might be: drug/alcohol use, disassociation due to mental illness (early/mid/post anxiety attack? flashback? depression? distress?) or due to grief. It could be due to emotional or medical shock. (those two are very different and you should definitely know what medical shock is if you write about anything traumatic happening to your characters, especially when third parties like cops and medical personnel get involved)

People’s eyes could be “dead looking” because they’re at a point of mental exhaustion, such as a dead-end job sucking the life and energy out of them or because they’ve been up too late studying for a test they feel hopeless for

Details about the character themselves

the color of their eye makeup can say so much about a person’s style. Imagine someone in a hospital gown but with dark eyeshadow and dark purple lipstick, that bit of personal style that can’t be erased by the anonymity of a hospital gown

their eyes are obscured from a scratched, smudged pair of glasses that are several years old now. Are the glasses really that old or are they a bit careless with their glasses and accumulate scratches quickly?

their makeup and glasses compliment each other, they wanted to look nice and put in effort

Actions used with the eyes

Characters roll their eyes when they’re amused or finding a joke not funny or are annoyed with another character. Eye rolling can be very expressive

Eyes drift and fix to one spot when someone is daydreaming, rarely moving from that space (in my experience. My and my dad both have been asked about staring by my mom for this)

Some characters are horrible with eye contact and this can involve many reasons. It is common in autistic people, but it’s also pretty common for autistic people to make too much eye contact to compensate/seem normal. (they shouldn’t have to compensate/seem normal/make themselves uncomfortable for social convention, but whatever)

Or someone might have anxiety and in social situations eye contact is bad

They grew up being abused by an adult or authority figure and eye contact could have resulted in angering their abuser, or refusing to give eye contact could have angered their abuser. Think this over with any of your abused characters and decide where they fall in that.

I (sometimes) struggle to make eye contact with people I’m dating or have a crush on, that’s just personal experience but not all of my life experiences can be that unique, really, not that special

Characters who are nervous and/or in dangerous situations will flicker their eyes between different people in the situation, with a higher focus on possible threats

someone might be good at hiding when they jump from surprise or suppress a flinch, but their eye twitches because evolution and the human body can’t stand the idea of their eyes being hurt... (well aren’t you just a defiant shit giving evolution the middle finger, I think to myself, blind and doing ~just fine, thank you~ with your vision impairment/disability... sorry, I just love pointing out the irony)

eyes can stay pinned to someone specific because they’re worried about that person, whether it’s because that other person is obviously injured or ill or mentally/emotionally distressed.

They might stare/watch that person because they are the true threat in the group.

It might be because that person is enigmatic and your character can’t quite figure them out. It might be because your character is in love with that other person or has a strong crush on them and wants to see and observe every moment of that person’s life

eyes can be calmly shut during meditation

eyes will twitch behind closed lids during REM sleep (research this too) but your characters won’t likely notice unless they’re looking closely

or what if that person is pretending to be asleep but their eyes aren’t moving like that and someone notices

words words words words words...

Some simple one word explanations for eyes so you can be quick/brief in your descriptions (you don’t need to be super descriptive of everyone’s eyes, just when it matters to your character or plot)

Eyes are-

kind, calm, tired, sleepy, weary, sad, haunting, agonized, lonely, happy, energetic, lively, empty, wrinkled, squinting, suspicious, flickering, flighty, angry, furious, fiery, regretful, tearful, crying, wandering, loving, worried, distant, vacant

I feel I should go back to my “How Observant Are Your Characters” post, because knowing how observant your characters are or what their critical thinking skill to interpret the things they see will help you decide what your characters should notice about a person’s eyes and what they should not notice.

How Observant are Your Characters? https://mimzy-writing-online.tumblr.com/post/185322857894/how-observant-are-your-characters

(It’s occurring to me that it’s getting late ~ha, I’m living up to my blog header of late night writing advice~ and that I should be sleeping if I want any improvement on my over-all sleep deprivation issues (I don’t care about the eye circles as much as the needing sleep to not die or lose my sanity bit) so I’ll end it here

Follow this blog for writing advice, relatable writing posts and memes, as well as updates to A Witch’s Memory, my wip.

#writing advice #writing tips #writing #writing community #writeblr #oh look it's well past midnight again #mine #my post

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the-y-generation · 5 years ago

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Not My Type (Chapter 5)

Summary: “Do you know how you stop a craving? You give in to it.”

When she signed on to be a road manager, she had no idea it was going to be for one of the biggest bands in the world, much less how they were going to turn her life upside down, nor how she was about to flip theirs too. Especially one irritating frequently-late vocalist who knew exactly how charming he could be.

Pairing: Idol!Jimin / Manager!Original Character (I personally haven’t written in “y/n” format, so I just gave the reader a name, but barely even mention it)

Genre/Themes: fluff, angst, friends with benefits, friends to lovers

Rating: M for this chapter

Warnings: Unprotected sex (be smart, kids!), oral (female receiving), JIMIN (let’s face it, he’s a warning all on his own!)

Status: Ongoing (Masterlist)

Just like that, without anyone noticing, not even her, a year went by in the blink of an eye.

Her one year anniversary with the band was spent waiting in the wings with near-deaf ears, watching them serenade a sold-out stadium of screaming fans. It was like any other day, and she barely realized it until Manager Sejin congratulated her on surviving. The day started and ended business as usual - Jimin rolled out of her bed in the morning, she rounded them up for breakfast, and ushered them through interviews, rehearsals, then the show. It was a good day.

Since the Grammys, things have exploded for the band, which is ridiculous to fathom considering that they were already the biggest boyband in the world. They were splattered across Times Square, their Twitter crashed from a surge of followers (again), their songs streamed by the millions across every platform, and the band appeared on every major talk show and network in various continents.

And since the Grammys, they didn’t talk about it, like most things between the road manager and Jimin. The night he, for whatever reason, rushed back to the hotel just to watch Netflix and fall asleep next to her. But it did happen, and it sat like an elephant in the room sometimes.

An elephant that sat on her throat and made its presence felt every time Jimin placed a gentle hand on the small of her back. Every time he’d whisper some inside joke, his breath ghosting warmly on the shell of her ear. Every time he’d put a few extra fries on her plate, even when she insists she isn’t hungry because he just knows she wants them (and he’s always right). Every time he’d compliment her over the littlest thing - for looking beautiful even without makeup, for not losing her patience when something took too long, for being scary good at her job and not letting him get off too easy.

Every time she caught herself looking at him too long, entranced by some small detail about him. Sometimes he’d catch her staring.

Just like now.

They were in his hotel room tonight, having decided to finish the series they began watching some two countries or so ago. At times like this, she’d marvel at the difference a year can make.

When she first started, she and Jimin had a strictly professional relationship that bordered on begrudging tolerance. There were countless arguments, cold shoulders, and rough tugs in an effort to get his stubborn ass in line. But now, Jimin was like the slow song that put her into a peaceful sleep. He was sunshine and morning dew.

Granted, as his road manager, he was still a pain in the ass. But once they were off the clock, he was the closest thing to home.

Anna lay on top of the covers, feeling slightly gross as she was still in her “work” clothes while he sat diagonal from her, fresh-faced and showered. Even in this state, he was beautiful, and painfully so. His hair was freshly cut and colored, making him look damn near edible and immaculate.

“Yah.” Jimin softly called out, snapping her out of her reverie.

She blinked her hazy eyes back into attention, averting her gaze back to the TV. “Sorry.” She muttered.

“You were staring for a while.” He remarked casually, but she knew him enough not to miss the teasing tone that underscored his words. “I know I’m sexy, but…”

She rolled her eyes and sighed at him. “Shut up. I’ve just been on edge these days.”

“Why’s that?” Jimin absently asked, crawling from his cross-legged position to lay down next to her. There was enough space between them to wiggle around without actually touching each other.

“I dunno,” She shrugged, settling into the bed and closing her eyes. “Maybe it’s been too long since I’ve had sex.”

It’s not a maybe, it’s a fact. It’s been waaaay too long since she’s had some, and hey, a girl has needs too! She used to be able to tide herself over on her own. But in recent months, the itch became too much for her to fix by herself. In the showers, or nights when Jimin wouldn’t insist on invading her bed space, she’d try to chase the high with her hands. But each orgasm became less and less satisfying, her body only reacting to stimulus instead of real pleasure.

Jimin didn’t answer right away, She didn’t really expect him to. The words easily fell from her lips, and passed between them along with the onscreen dialogue. It still surprised her sometimes how nothing seemed to intimate or intimidating to be shared with Jimin.

“Well, why haven’t you had sex?” He chimed in. Enough time had passed that she turned to look at him, mildly confused that that was where his mind was still at.

“Um, hello? You realize I have a 24/7 job, right?” She smirked sarcastically at him. “It’s not like I have a lot of time to go out on dates, or at least find a decent one night stand.”

“You have off-days.” Jimin countered.

“Which I spend sleeping.” She huffed. “And anyway, I’m not you. I don’t have an endless line of people wanting to fuck me.”

“But men do want to fuck you.” He answered casually, almost crassly, that she lifted an eyebrow at him. He chuckled and looked back at the TV. “Don’t look at me like that. You’re gorgeous; even a blind person would say so.”

“Pfft.” She childishly replied. “You’re just being nice. And besides, I’m resigned to my sexless life while I work for you-”

“With us.”

He hates insinuations that she, or anyone for that matter, is inferior to him.

“Ugh! With you, fine.” She waves him away. “But the point is, no guy in their right mind would want to sleep with me. Being on the road with 7 of Korea’s most attractive men, surrounded by males 24/7, doesn’t exactly call all the boys to my yard.”

In the middle of her little rant, she caught the way Jimin’s eyes rake over her body slowly and registered the strange direction of the conversation.

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable by staring at you, okay? I’m sorry. I didn’t even realize I was staring.” She apologized, looking away again. “I wish I had hormones to blame, but it’s not that time of the month. I’m just really...craving, I guess.”

Jimin smirked, turning on his side to face her. “Do you know the best way to stop a craving?”

She shook her head.

“You give in to it.” He said, a devilish grin tugging the side of his lips. There was something in his tone that sounded an alarm in her head, but she simply looked back at him, confused.

“Duh, genius. But haven’t you been listening? The problem is, who am I supposed to have sex with?” She challenged.

Jimin simply stared at her, his eyes getting darker by the second with amusement and a tinge of something she couldn’t decipher.

“What?” She asked, unnerved by his stare and his silence. But he maintained his wordless gaze, patiently waiting for the pieces to click in her head.

Eventually, they did.

“Are you-?” She began, her mind slowly arriving at a conclusion. “No, wait a minute. What are you implying?”

“What do you think I’m implying?” He bit his plump lower lip in an effort to keep a straight face.

“Uh-uh.” She shook her head. “I’m not playing this game with you.”

Jimin laughed out loud, pushing his head into the pillow as his eyes disappeared into crescents and mouth hidden behind his hand. She tried not to take offense at his apparent joke and salvaged her pride by ignoring him. But when the laughter subsided, Jimin’s eyes became serious again, glinting with mischief that tickled something below her navel.

“You know what I’m trying to say.” He said, voice low and gravelly. Her breath caught in her throat, but she managed to save face.

“Actually, no, I don’t because you haven't said anything.” She bit back.

He laughed again, earning a glare from her.

“Okay, okay.” He managed to wheeze out between chuckles. “What I’m saying is...if you have a craving, I’d be a willing participant.”

She let his words sink in, settling heavy between them. He watched her turn his offer over in her head, and then-

“That doesn’t make any sense.” She replied. “That won’t work. You don’t even find me attractive.”

“Are you crazy?! I just called you gorgeous!” He argued, mock offended.

“That doesn’t mean you want to have sex with me!”

“For your information, I have thought about having sex with you.”

Whatever argument she had died in her throat, thoughts chased away by his revelation. Jimin smirked cockily at her, evidently pleased at his ability to render her speechless.

“And I know you’ve thought about it too.” He continued, referencing the earlier fact that he caught her staring.

This smug prick.

“No, thank you. I don’t want your pity fuck.” She scowled. It angered her that any reaction just seemed to amuse him more.

“It’s not pity. There’s something in it for me too.” Jimin said softly.

The shift in his tone prompted her to look him, finding only sincerity and, if his blown pupils were anything to go by, simmering arousal.

“You’re serious.” She remarked, more of a statement than a question.

Jimin chuckled, the sound deliciously reverberating from his chest, as he rolled over to cut the distance between them. He landed right next to her, on his stomach and propped up on his elbows to look down at her.

“I thought it would be an easy choice. Should I be offended that you’re taking so long to decide?” He teased, close enough now that she felt the warmth of his body next to hers.

She pondered his offer again, schooling her face in careful nonchalance just in case he doubled back and admitted to playing a joke on her. But the other shoe didn’t drop. Instead, he peered at her with wide eyes.

"But...why?" She couldn't help but ask. The logic didn't add up in her head.

"Why not?" Jimin smiled, brushing her hair from her eyes. He had done this before, but in the context of their situation, she shivered at his touch. "We're two consenting adults with needs. I'm attracted to you - no, don't even fight me on this - and you're attracted to me. What's there to think about?"

She bit her lip, turning his proposition in her head. On one hand, it made sense. People have this sort of arrangement all the time, and they both seemed up for it, so why not? It’s not like she had better options, and let’s face it - even if she did, can she really do any better than Jimin? But on the other hand, it could go terribly wrong. He was her good friend, maybe even best friend if she was feeling extremely sentimental. Engaging in...extra-curricular activities...with him might endanger the relationship they had worked so hard to build over the past year.

But the optimism in Jimin’s face was infectious and altogether confident that she couldn’t help but believe that he knew what he was doing.

“You have to promise me that things between us won’t change?”

“I promise.” He nodded dramatically. “This is for biology.”

“Pinky promise.” She demanded, raising a pinky at him.

At the sound of his pained groan, she smirked, knowing how he hated any allusions to his pinky. But nonetheless, he gave in and intertwined his pinky with hers.

With the promise sealed, she looked at him expectantly, unsure how to proceed. Do they go at it now? Should they schedule something?

To her surprise, Jimin rolled over and jumped out of bed. When she looked up, he leveled her with a gaze that shot electricity down her spine. It was a look that made countless hearts race, tore excited screams from hundreds of throats, and even made hetero men question their sexuality. But in the stillness of the hotel room, with no one else around and the inevitable hanging in the air, Jimin was even more potent and dangerous.

“And...is this just one time or…?” She asked as he sauntered out of sight. She looked down and fiddled with her hands, immediately regretting having asked the follow-up question.

Her ears perked up at the sound of a latch clicking into place. The door was now double locked.

Then the lights switched off, leaving only the bedside lamps to bathe the room in a warm incandescent glow.

“I’ll guess we’ll find out,” Jimin replied, making his way back to her. His graceful gait was effortlessly fluid as if every particle of his being was meant to stir desire. She watched him with a racing pulse, blood roaring in her ears in anticipation of what was to come. The room was suddenly a million degrees, yet her skin itched to be touched.

Standing at the foot of the bed, Jimin gestured to her, wordlessly prompting her to come to him. She sucked in a calming breath, trying her best to maintain composure as she stood up and made her way to him. She stopped before him, just a breath away, holding his dark eyes. The way he hypnotized her, it was almost like he could already see all of her, despite both still being fully clothed.

Sparks danced on her skin as Jimin cupped her cheek, thumb tracing her lips until they parted for him. Before she could say the words he could just feel were trapped in her throat, he dived in and cut the remaining inches between them.

His sigh ticked the back of her throat as she latched onto his mouth, succumbing to his direction. He gripped her firmly, an arm around her waist and the other tangled in her hair, gripping her head to his as he controlled the fervent kiss. She let him lead, melting instinctively against him, allowing the initial spark to develop into a full blaze that ignited her core with need.

While she reciprocated timidly, there was no hesitation or doubt. Her hands clasped the front of his shirt like an anchor, keeping her flush against his chest to keep her knees from giving out under her. Jimin, to his credit, was patient. He set the bar then remained steady, giving her time to adjust and catch up to his pace.

Logic threatened to break her trance, but with a swipe of his tongue over hers, all thought disappeared. The world narrowed into a single room, and there was now only Jimin. Fear and adrenaline coursed through her veins, but fuck, he left her breathless with the exhilarating and mind-numbing things he did to her mouth. She let her hands wander - one reached up to lace a hand through his snow-smooth hair, while the other ran low to wound to his back. She marveled at the feel of his body beneath her fingers, muscles moving and contracting, reacting to her touch.

Feeling her compliant and at ease with him, Jimin tugged at her blouse, easing it out from its perfect tuck in her jeans. Once the material was loose, he moved his hands up, momentarily cupping her jaw before traveling south. Jimin pulled away slowly, leaving her with one, two, three pecks until he was far enough for her eyes to gain focus on him.

Her lips were pink and swollen from his needy sucks, her pupils dilated with unfiltered want. She looked absolutely delicious, and the sight of her licked the flames below his gut.

Jimin’s intentions were clear, his desire apparent and digging into her hip, but he looked her in the eyes as his fingers traveled down her collarbones, giving her the chance to plead out before he went any further. But she gave him no indication that she wanted him to stop. She grabbed him by the collar and locked her lips on his, kicking his senses into overdrive. Throwing caution to the wind, Jimin nimbly undid her blouse buttons, and she wasted no time in discarding the material once it was fully open.

Tossing the garment to the side, she grabbed at the end of his shirt and greedily pulled it up, needing his skin on hers. Needing him as open and vulnerable as she was. Jimin seemed to be thinking the same thing, breaking the kiss to help her tug it off in one fluid movement. She stole a quick look at him, unable to stifle the soft gasp that escaped without consent.

See, the thing is Jimin is hot. That’s old news. Yes, he has a toned chest, and abs, and a v-cut that ran low into his pants to make the imagination run wild. That’s all well and good, and common knowledge since the early days of BTS.

But what struck her was how truly beautiful he was. Jimin was a stunning shade of moonlight, with tantalizing lines and curves that begged to be ravished and kissed. He was soft and smooth to the touch, neither too muscular or lean, but perfect.

Jimin grabbed her by the waist, momentarily startling her at the contact with her bare skin, pulling her flush against his torso. He was warm, and she wanted to burn in him. Her thighs clenched as a flame tickled sensually below her navel, and her pulse roared in her ears.

He reached down and made quick work of her pants, undoing the button and zipper. He gently eased it off her waist and ass, moving away briefly to allow her to step out of the material. When she straightened back up, Jimin melted her to him again. He ducked his head to suck at a tender spot under her jaw, and she felt him chuckle smugly against her skin when this earned a needy whine from her.

She scratched at his back, hands moving lower to slip into his sweatpants, palms resting on the curves of his ass. She tugged him closer so he stumbled forward, pressing his length against her to warrant a lusty groan.

Without needing to be told, he moved quickly moved out of his sweatpants, leaving them both in their underwear. As she kissed along the length of his throat, Jimin maneuvered them back until her knees hit the bed. He pushed her gently down into the mattress and crawled over her, feasting on the skin of her neck and collar with wet sucks and gentle nips.

Her nerves set in again at the realization that they were now in bed, almost completely bare to each other. Her muscles seize when Jimin reached behind her to unclip her bra. Feeling her tense against him, he pulled back, hands still on her back, to look at her imploringly. But her worries were quickly squashed by the blazing concern in his eyes.

Not wanting him to stop, she leaned up to capture his mouth in another searing kiss, thrusting her hips up to grind against him, to chase his concern away. Once her chest was bare to him, Jimin slipped downwards, taking a peak into his eager mouth while gently kneading the other. He relished at her moan that ghosted across his hairline.

Without thinking, in between moans, she pressed a feather-light kiss on his forehead. Jimin tried his best to ignore the pleasurable pain that twisted in his chest at the gesture.

Unable to keep his restraint any longer, Jimin reached a hand down between their bodies to wriggle out of his boxers, eager to feel her flesh on his.

Her eyes widened as he sprung free, her mind still processing that this was all real. Before he could settle over her, she pushed at his shoulder, prompting him to turn them over so that he lay on his back this time. Straddling him, she balanced a hand on the side of his head while the other reached between them to take him in her hand.

Uncertain of herself but wanting to at least try, she furrowed her brows in concentration as she pumped her fist around him, reveling in the sinful sounds that rumbled from his chest and throat. She looked up to find him staring at her, jaw slack and gorgeous lips parted as he breathed heavily through his pleasure.

His hips twitched and Jimin thrust in her hand, simultaneously bending upwards to pepper kisses on her chest and breast. Perhaps it really had just been a while, or perhaps because it was Jimin. But she swore that the sight of his needy, beautiful man underneath her may be enough to make her climax.

"God, I need to be inside you." Jimin groaned, abruptly stopping and flipping them over so that he was on all fours over her.

He slipped his thumbs under the waistband of her underwear, and with stunning patience, he slowly slipped them off her thighs, knees, and feet.

Feeling the cold rush of air sweep over her bare skin, she instinctively felt self-conscious at her nakedness. But there was something about the way Jimin looked at her, feral and hungry, at made her feel powerful and beautiful in her exposed state.

Jimin moved back up to cover her body with his, and now, completely feeling his flesh on hers, her entire body was aflame with his heat and desire. A small part of her brain worried at what he must think of her, visibly vibrating in pleasure and need as he traveled south of her body again, licking and sucking his way over her breast, stomach, abdomen. When she realized what he intended to do, she hastily grasped at his shoulder.

"You don't have to." She said. He peered up, lips already at her hip bone, to give her a curious glance. "If you don't want to."

He smirked up at her, resuming downwards.

"Haven't you ever had this done to you before?" Jimin murmured hotly against her skin. He hovered over her center, breath ghosting hotly over her flesh. Despite her many worries, her body was reacting to him well, her center glistening with her need.

"I have but-" She choked on the rest of her words, feeling him press a finger on her receptive bud. She moaned gracelessly, shamelessly, as he stroked her gently.

"But?" He paused his fingers between her thighs, waiting for her to continue.

"But they never seemed to want to." She admitted, chest heaving from the sudden on-and-off of sensation.

Jimin smiled slyly, and she watched as a devilish expression took over his handsome features. "Don't worry. I want to."

She should have been embarrassed at the guttural sound that ripped itself from her chest when his lips met her center. Her fingers threaded into his hair, hips quivering to chase and deepen his ministrations. She hissed when he slipped a finger inside her, helping her prepare for him.

"Fuck, you're so tight." Jimin groaned as he circled a digit inside her. It wasn't meant to be dirty talk, it was a fact. Her walls were clenched at a fever pitch around his finger.

"Like I said," She gasped. "It's been a while."

Jimin opened his eyes and slowly made his way back up locking onto her mouth again, letting her taste herself on his tongue. He felt her clench around his finger, practically suffocating it, when he pressed his thumb over her most sensitive spot. He could already tell that she was going to feel fucking fantastic, but he wants her to enjoy this too.

Jimin wrapped her legs around his waist, stretching her wider for him, and slipped a second finger inside her. He shoved his impatience aside and ignored his throbbing length, praying to whatever deity there may be to help her relax. After a few long minutes of her delicious sighs, Jimin felt her unclench around him, and decided he had done all he could to prepare her.

Pulling his fingers out, Jimin aligned himself over her entrance. He locked his eyes on her as she wrapped her legs around his waist, urging him on.

"Go slow." She requested, leaning up to steal a chaste, calming kiss from him. Jimin nodded, understanding just how much she had given him in that moment.

"Trust me?" He asked, locking his eyes on her as he rubbed comforting circles on her side.

"I trust you." She replied.

He finally entered her, unable to help his velvety hiss as she dragged him in. All sensation rushed south that he barely registered his nails digging into his back. He was right; she was wet and tight, and it felt blindly fantastic. But the uncomfortable way she bit her lip was like a shot of cold water in his veins.

"Relax." Jimin breathed, pressing his forehead against hers. "I got you."

He knew that she needed time to adjust, so he reigned in his urges and forced himself to hold still. He pressed his lips against the sensitive spot under her jaw, remembering how she moaned when he sucked there earlier. She sighed against him, panic slowly leaving her body as she succumbed to the pleasure of his touch.

Jimin carefully eased in and out, giving her time to get used to the sensation, until her nails eased up from his back.

Sensing she was alright now, he quickened his pace gradually. She began to lose concentration as the pain subsided, replaced only by the swell of desire in her gut. With each stroke, getting deeper and harder, Jimin fanned a flame inside her, and she thrust her hips up to meet him there, eager for more. He lifted his head, hovering his mouth over hers, tasting her breath on his tongue as he pushed into her.

Their glazed gazes locked as she felt the knot in her gut swell and tingle.

"Are you close?" Jimin asked, his heaving chest brushing against her breast.

Too lost in a haze, she could only nod at him. Jimin snaked an arm around her waist and sat up, bringing her up with him. He rested back on his haunches as she fell flush against his chest. He adjusted them to the new angle, holding her head to kiss her fervently, like a madman in need of oxygen. He rocked his hips against hers quickly, barely pulling out now, knowing it would rub against her bud.

The room was filled with her dulcet moans and his pleasured grunts, the sounds of skin on skin, as he freckled open-mouthed kisses over her chest and breasts. Her hammering heart beneath his lips, and her quivering walls around him told Jimin that she was close. Reaching up, he pushed her hair back, needing to see her come undone for him.

The knot in her navel snapped, and she sputtered out a cry as heat exploded from her core all the way to her fingertips. Her insides clenched around him, and it took everything Jimin had not to let go at the sensation. She shook in his arms, allowing the tides to consume her, barely registering Jimin's tight grip on her waist as the waves washed over.

With a few more pounds of his hips, Jimin knew he wouldn't last any longer. He quickly rested her back down on the mattress and pulled out of her. She shuddered at the loss of contact, still light-headed from her orgasm. With hooded eyes, she absently stroked his back and hair as she peeked to see him take himself in his hand.

With a few purposeful pumps, he let go too and pour himself over her mound and abdomen. He was hot on her skin, but she didn't mind, too lost in the wonder in his eyes as pleasure overtook him. She soothed him as he muffled his growl in her neck, body shaking as he rode out his high and he nuzzled his face against her when he came back down.

When the buzz began to fade and his breathing calmed, Jimin's limbs were suddenly lead-heavy. He let himself rest his weight on her, as she stroked easy patterns on his back. He was weak in her arms and they rested their heads together as she trickled lazy kisses over his shoulders, allowing the comfortable silence to envelop them.

When he had gathered some strength, Jimin disentangled himself from her and began to roll away.

"You don't have to hurry." She whispered quietly, almost as if she hadn't meant for him to hear her. The way she nervously chewed on her lip made him wonder what she meant by that, but something inside him told him it wasn't the right time to ask.

"I just need to clean up." He replied, gesturing to the mess he made over her skin.

"Oh, right."

He didn't say anything, but Jimin could swear it was relief he saw in her eyes. So for that reason, and that reason alone, he leaned over to press a quick kiss to her lips before he bolted to the bathroom. He returned with a warm washcloth to clean herself up with.

Once that was done, Jimin turned off the bedside lamps and climbed back into bed, absently pulling the covers over them both. Now that their bodies and nerves have settled, the cold of the room began to seep into their bare skin.

Jimin turned to her when he had settled, observing the nervous girl next to him as her eyes fluttered and she bit her lip again. An awkward silence seemed just around the corner, and he waited patiently for her to explain herself.

"Do you want me to go?"

Her question stunned him, and Jimin found himself opening and closing his mouth several times, unable to provide a quick answer. Contrary to the perception of easy fucks and one night stands, he had never been asked to leave nor asked anyone to leave. Sure, mornings after can be awkward, but never so much as to avoid staying the night altogether.

On the other hand, they were different. He's had sex with strangers and acquaintances, but never someone he considered a friend. Best friend even. And there's no handbook that tells you what to do when you go from friends to friends-who-fucked in the pan of a night.

He took too long to answer.

She took his silence as a yes, and smiled sadly, trying her best to maintain composure as she began to roll out of bed. At her movement, Jimin panicked and grabbed her wrist.

"Stay." He gasped out, tugging her gently back under the covers.

She looked at him in confusion but complied. When she rested back down, the truth slipped from his lips. "I always sleep better with you."

She smiled softly, and relief flooded his system. The spike of panic drained from him, and he absentmindedly brushed her hair away from her eyes as he let out a long yawn.

"Rest now." She whispered, tracing his brows with a gentle finger. "You have a 10am interview tomorrow."

He chuckled lightly, finding humor in the fact that she still managed to remember their schedule despite having just been fucked senseless. But the waves of drowsiness pulled him in and sleep stole Jimin before he could respond.

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skippie89 · 5 years ago

Text

Secreting Shadows #3

Aithlyn wasn’t shocked using blood magic to get into the guild, it was used quite often in Vih’thras. Raiden hadn’t appreciated her joke about using his blood since it was spilling out everywhere. As the blood loss was getting to him his flirting was coming on stronger, she had lost count on the amount of times she had to slap his hand away from her ass.

Layla had taken Raiden into another room to get him healed up. Aithlyn couldn’t help but chuckle as he clung on to her and whined that he didn’t want to leave her. His reaction was priceless and thinking back on it only made her grin wider.

“No… I don’t want to go! Aithlyn is staying here so I am too. Bring the healer here!”

Layla looked over to Aithlyn and rolled her eyes, used to his antics already, “Rai, Aithlyn is meeting the boss and you’ll only be in the way.”

“Don’t care!” he declared as he used what little strength he had left and wobbled over to Aithlyn to wrap his arms around her shoulders, “Staying right here!”

Aithlyn bit her lip to contain her laughter, “scary assassin my ass, he’s just a big baby” she thought to herself. She mouthed at Layla over Raiden’s shoulder, “I got this.” Layla just raised her eyebrow and crossed her arms, interested in how she was going to play this out.

“Raiden…” she could feel the intake of breath at her flirtatious tone. Tilting her head slightly she was able to run the tip of her nose over his ear, he shivered in instant reaction, before stopping her lips beside it and coyly whispering, “If you’re a good boy and go with Layla to get healed up, I’ll do something real nice for you.”

The response was immediate, and he lifted himself off her and staggered over to Layla, not before Aithlyn was able to get a look at the deep blush on his face. Layla’s eyes had widened in surprise, clearly not used to Raiden doing what he was told.

“What did you say to him??”

Aithlyn winked, “That’s a secret.”

“Damn!” Layla laughed, “If you can get Raiden to do as he’s told we’ve gotta keep you around.”

“Oi! I’m right here you know!”

“Yes, yes. Now let’s get you all healed up.”

So here she was, sitting in the weapons room waiting on the Guild Master. She had sat down on the only available bench, but impatience got the better of her. To distract herself she walked around the room and examined the different weapons. Aithlyn stopped at the beautiful set of sais, picking them up she decided to test them out. They had good balance, heavy enough that they’d assist in adding impact damage but light enough that they wouldn’t hinder her speed. They were certainly well cared for, for how clean and sharp they were.

Aithlyn took up her training stance and went through the practice motions of attack. Her mind emptied as her body went through the moves. She realised that someone had entered the room and was watching, but she didn’t stop and followed through with her routine. She had been kept waiting, and so shall they. She felt much better when she finished and returned them to their stand before the person behind her started clapping causing her to turn and eyes to widen.

“You’ve improved Lyn.”

“Adri!”

Screw protocol and appearances, Aithlyn ran at the dark-haired man and jumped into a hug. It had been years since she had last seen him, and he hadn’t changed much. His hair was longer, and he kept it tied back in its usual braid. There were a few new scars, but his body looked as well trained as before. She tried not to scowl at his choice of clothing, they weren’t exactly protective and given his position there would be assassination attempts. You’d think he’d take more care of himself. She knew just how skilled he was, but it didn’t hurt to be careful. Raiden’s injury flashed in front of her eyes and her stomach tightened.

Adri laughed and caught her, crushing her in his arms. For the first time in weeks he felt relief. If she was the one who had been sent, he wouldn’t need to worry anymore. He stood her back on her feet, but they didn’t break body contact.

“Nanethe didn’t tell me that you were the one who put in the request.”

“Well he also didn’t tell me you were the one taking it up. I shouldn’t be surprised though, it’s just like him.”

“True,” Aithlyn took him by the hand and pulled him to the bench. Sitting down beside each other but not relinquishing hold of his hand, “I should have expected it though, Raiden has a lot of your mannerisms.”

“Ha! That happens when you practically raise him.”

Aithlyn smiled and squeezed his hand, “So, Viper, why do you need my help? I’ve met or know of most of your snakes, and they’re not incapable.”

Adri snickered, “That’s a compliment coming from you,” Aithlyn nudged his shoulder with her own, he smiled but then his face turned serious.

“There’s something going on with my network. I know what time the Queen takes a shit to when the Knight Commander tucks herself into bed at night, but there’s a void.”

“A void? You think one of your snakes has betrayed you?”

“It’s still a possibility, that was what I first looked into. It’s like someone stuck a knife into my system. A system that hasn’t failed for going on thirty years.”

“So, you need a fresh pair of eyes.”

“Exactly. I want you working with Raiden on this, he’s one of the few that I truly trust and his skill and intuition rivals even you.”

Aithlyn sniggered, “You don’t need to try and charm me. You can count me in.”

“Thank you, Lyn.”

They sat in silence for a moment longer before Aithlyn decided to broach the subject that they were clearly avoiding.

“He misses you.”

Adri sighs, “I miss him too Lyn, but Nanethe is the King and it’s not like I can give him an heir.”

“Cut the bullshit Adri. We both know that the heir doesn’t need to be his blood, and if it does, he can name one of Valkyrie’s kids as the heir.”

“Valkyrie has kids?!” Adri was suddenly disturbed that his network’s blank spot was bigger than he thought.

“Not yet, she got married last year and I’m pretty sure she’s expecting going by how smug Calen has been looking recently.”

Aithlyn watched as his shoulders sagged in relief and she could see the loneliness and hope in his eyes.

“Let’s make a deal.”

“Oh?”

“I’ll help solve this problem, no charge, and you go visit him.”

“Lyn I’m the Master of the Assassins Guild, I can hardly take a holiday.”

“I’ll stay while you see him, or you can nominate someone to take over things for a while. I don’t care what you do, just go see him. He’s a pain in the ass when he’s moping around missing you.”

Adri laughed, “He bugs you for information, doesn’t he?”

Aithlyn sighed in defeat and put her head in her hands, “Every damn day…”

Adri laughed heartily as he patted her back in condolence. It felt good, he hasn’t been able to laugh or act like this in so long, but then again Aithlyn had always managed to relax people.

“Deal. But can you afford to be away for so long? You’re not exactly unimportant you know?”

“Sure, I can, Calen’s in charge whenever I’m away and he’s used to me disappearing every now and again.”

“You’re a pretty shit Spymaster,” Adri snickered.

“I’m a great Spymaster. I have a nice little system going, Calen deals with the paperwork, jobs and such and I get to be in the field, keeping my skills sharp and protecting the people I love.”

“I feel sorry for Calen.”

Aithlyn laughed, “Don’t. He gets to stay close to Valkyrie so it’s a good arrangement.”

Adri chuckled, “Right, well you better go catch up with Raiden before he does something.”

Aithlyn nudged his shoulder again before standing and walking towards the door that Raiden and Layla had gone through. Adri called out her name, so she stopped and turned her head to look back at him.

“A word of warning, he’s not fond of mages.”

Aithlyn raised her eyebrow but didn’t say anything. Lifting two fingers to her forehead she gave a mocked solute and walked through the door.

When Aithlyn entered the room she looked around, from the cluttered treasure stuffed into almost every available space she could only assume that it was a vault of sorts. The treasures certainly were interesting, and she briefly wondered if their previous owners were murdered or if they were simply stolen. Her fingers itched as she noticed what looked to be an alchemy table, some of the ingredients were very hard to come by, but then a slight shift in the air around the painting of the ocean drew her attention. Staring at it a moment she noted that she could see the sea moving and a skeletal hand slowly reaching out.

“Haunted,” she thought to herself.

She could hear Raiden from around the corner and he sounded whinier than usual, followed by the sounds of a much quieter and less whiny second person, probably the mage. She walked towards the sounds. Raiden was lying back on a bed of sorts, as the mage stood beside him, his hand glowing blue with healing magic. She noted that at this point he looked exhausted, a combination of the attack and blood loss.

Realising that she was in the room Raiden sat up and swung his legs over the bed, doing everything he could to make her believe that he was fine. Aithlyn knew better though, which was confirmed when he winced as the mage continued healing his wound.

“Well, well, look who survived the viper pit.”

“That was never a worry. How are you feeling?”

“Better for having laid eyes on you. You have nice hands, would love to get stabbed around you again some time.”

Aithlyn scoffed and rolled her eyes, “And here’s me thinking you wanted to stop being a pin cushion…”

“Ha! Honestly though, I’m fine. You get used to it after the first few.”

“I thought you assassins were meant to avoid getting stabbed.”

“We’re meant to avoid death, keep up.”

Raiden winced before turning to start grumbling at the mage and trying to wave him away. From the frustration on the mage’s face he wanted to say something, and Aithlyn was impressed by his restraint when he didn’t. She definitely would have.

“Mi dispiace per lui. È solo un bambino grande.” The mage started at Aithlyn speaking to him, clearly not having expected it, but chuckled as she finished her sentence.

“È vero. Digli semplicemente di tenere la mano sulla ferita e lasciare che la magia funzioni.”

“Lo farò.”

With that, the mage took Raiden’s hand and placed it over the wound and giving him a fierce glare. He turned to Aithlyn and gave a small smile before bowing and walking out the door. Raiden, who had been watching the entire interaction narrowed his eyes in suspicion as he looked at her.

“I didn’t know you spoke mage.”

“You didn’t ask.”

“Mages are weird.”

“Well that mage healed you, you could stand to be a little nicer. He said to keep your hand over the wound as it heals.”

No sooner had she spoken, he moved his hand back a bit to look at the wound and grimaced at the sight before looking back at her. Aithlyn realised that she’d need to distract him a bit, so she pointed at the tattoo, “Why flowers?”

Raiden lifted his arm to angle it better for him to see, “I thought the normal design was rather boring,” he blushed slightly, “there used to be a field where they bloomed, but only a few days every year, and I used to pick them as a child and bring them back to Adri.”

“Interesting that you’d gravitate towards the death flower. A bit morbid.”

“What I do is a bit morbid, isn’t it?”

At that point Raiden yawned before glaring down at the magic still knitting his skin together, “too bad this thing is as annoying as fuck, gonna take a while to get to sleep.”

Aithlyn shook her head as she chuckled, “Lie back pin cushion.”

Raiden tilted his head in confusion, and Aithlyn had to admit he looked slightly adorable in that moment.

“I promised you something nice, didn’t I?”

Raiden’s eyes instantly darkened as his face flushed but he did as he was told. Aithlyn felt his eyes watching her intently as she walked closer to him. His brow furrowed when she went to kneel at the top of the bed.

“What are you doing?”

“Something nice.” Aithlyn smirked at the glare she received, “I never said it was something sexual pin cushion, you imagined that all by yourself.”

“Cheater.”

“Yep! Now close your eyes.”

“Uh huh…” Raiden quirked his eyebrow but continued to watch her.

“This works better if you closer your eyes, it will help you sleep.”

“Hopefully not sleep permanently,” he joked.

Aithlyn scowled at him and flicked his forehead, “If that’s what I wanted I’d could easily have let you bleed to death earlier. Now shut up and close your eyes or I won’t bother and will just leave.”

Raiden was startled by the look of hurt the briefly flashed across her face and quickly did as he was told. For a moment nothing happened, and he briefly thought she did it to trick him and had walked away. He was about to open his eyes again when he felt her fingers running through his hair.

“Fuck that feels good.”

Aithlyn chuckled but shushed him, telling him to just relax. He was not going to argue with her if she kept doing that. It felt amazing. She applied just enough pressure for him to melt into a relaxed puddle. Raiden fell asleep to Aithlyn playing with his hair and gently humming.

Aithlyn smiled as she watched Roux walk away from her home. They twirled around and winked at her as they conjured a yellow flower in the palm of their hand and showed the delighted children that were chasing after them, giggling at their antics.

“So, they like daffodils huh?” she thought to herself.

Turning back into the dwelling and closing the door behind her, Aithlyn looked at the scroll that Roux had delivered on behalf of Raiden. She didn’t know why, but she was a little annoyed that he wasn’t wary enough to go out and steal the jousting invitation but was too wary to deliver it himself.

“Whatever,” she muttered to herself.

The joust would happen in two days. That was plenty of time to gather information. First things first, she had promised Roux some baked goods and she was going to deliver. Moving to her kitchen she looked at the ingredients that she had. Holding her chin with her right hand she contemplated what she could bake. Light suddenly moving in the corner illuminated the lemons in the fruit basket and she grinned. Pulling out the rest of the ingredients that she would need, Aithlyn began measuring the amounts that she would need. It was a recipe that she had made countless times and no longer needed to look at a book for the methods, especially having tweaked certain areas to get a better taste.

Many people began to slow as they walked past her window, the smell wafting on to the street was nothing short of delicious. The baker nearby had come out to see what the commotion was and once smelling what was being baked glared in the direction of Aithlyn’s home. It wasn’t the first time that she had shown to be the better baker. Intending to give her a piece of his mind he stormed up to the door and pounded on the wood, only to be shocked as Aithlyn invited him inside. Over an hour and multiple baskets later, the baker left with a delighted grin holding two baskets of goods to sell and a new recipe to start perfecting.

Raiden had decided to meet Roux in the Pauper’s Crown mid-morning. Not many shadows would be out and about and therefore he was afforded some protection, no matter how little that was. He felt amazingly refreshed for a man who had just been stabbed. Running his hand through his hair he stopped halfway and flushed, remembering just how good it felt when Aithlyn had done it the night before.

Slamming his hand back on the bar he grumbled as he lifted his ale to his lips and took a long dreg of the liquid. He appreciated the way it warmed his stomach, although he’d have to be careful not to drink too much. He needed to keep his wits about him to get back to the guild later. A familiar presence walked into the tavern and it was solidified with the hand clapping his back before Roux took a seat next to him.

“Did you give it to her?”

Roux raised an eyebrow as they gave Raiden the side eye, “of course I did. First thing this morning.”

This caused Raiden to groan and slump against the bar, “And exactly how early was that?”

“It wasn’t that early; she was already up and making coffee.” Roux hummed to themselves as they rested their head into their hand as they placed their elbow on the bar, “she looks really cute in a nightdress.”

Raiden tensed and internally cursed himself for not dropping the invitation to her himself. Raising the drink to his lips he took another long dreg. Shit. He was going to need a second drink soon. Roux continued like they hadn’t noticed the sudden shift in atmosphere.

“Did you know she also likes daffodils? But then again that would make sense with the pattern that was on the nightdress.”

Raiden’s eyes widened and he inhaled the remaining liquid causing him to go into a coughing fit. Roux startled and began to hit his back, trying to ease his discomfort. Before they could ask if Raiden was alright, Nemesis cut in.

“Oi! Elf! I’ve got a delivery for ya.”

Roux turned to her puzzled, “for me?”

“Ai, Lyn dropped this off earlier. Said she figured you’d be here at some point today.”

Leaning down she grabbed what was hidden underneath the bar and lifted a basket covered in tartan cloth and plonked it in front of Roux.

Raiden watched as Roux’s nose twitched at the slight smell emitting from the basket.

“Wait a second! Is that… drool?!” Raiden thought as he watched Roux quickly lift the material.

Hidden under the blanket was an abundance of baked goods. They were the shape of daffodils! The pastry was a golden yellow and the filling smelled like lemon curd. Roux licked their lips as they tentatively reached forward and pulled one from the basket. Raiden watched as they lifted the pastry to their mouth and took a bite. Roux’s eyes widened and let out THE most sexual sound Raiden had ever heard from them, and Raiden had known them since he was a child.

He suddenly grasped Roux’s wrist and pulled the pastry towards him to take a bite. His eyes closed in bliss as the taste assaulted him. The filling melted on his tongue, coating his mouth in lemon that was sweet enough that you craved for more and tart enough that the pastry complimented fantastically.

“Fuuuuuuuuck…”

Roux watched him with disbelieving eyes. Before Raiden could even comprehend what was happening Roux had grabbed the basket and cried out “Mine!” as they ran out the tavern.

(Translations:

“I’m sorry about him. He’s just a big baby.”

“That’s true. Just tell him to keep his hand on the wound and let the magic work.”

“I will.”

I don’t speak Italian, so I don’t know if they’re 100% correct)

#lunaris games #errant kingdom #lgbt #raiden #fanfiction

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blackleatherjacketz · 6 years ago

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Snake Charmer

Negan (The Walking Dead) x Jake Peralta (Brooklyn 99)

Summary: Jake questions Negan about the death of a young pizza delivery boy and bites off more than he can chew.

Word Count: 1463

Notes: This is for @annablack1102 and her “Teeny Tiny Writing Challenge” My prompt was Crime AU, so I brought him into my favorite Crime show with my favorite bisexual male detective.

Warnings: MLM Flirting, Mentions of Glenn’s Death, Negan’s Mouth, Captain Holt, Sexual Tension, Manic Jake, My take on Negan’s Real Name

Tags: @genevievedarcygranger @letsby @negans-network @collette04 @mblaqgi

Captain Holt folded his arms across his chest, his tired lungs slowly releasing an exasperated sigh. “This is Nicholas Egan; owner of the night club on 4th Street known as ‘Honey Bunz’.” He looked over at Jake before bringing his gaze back to the handsome man in the interrogation room. “Boyle and Jeffords took him in for questioning after they found the mutilated body of a young pizza delivery boy in the dumpster of his establishment early this morning.”

“So why isn’t Charles on the case?” Jake asked, pointing to the man through the double-sided mirror.

“Detective Boyle said that the man was ‘scary, and reminded him of his mother’.” Holt uncrossed his arms. “I sent Sergeant Jeffords in there to pick up the pieces, but Egan kept complimenting him on his impeccable physique, and didn’t actually answer any of his questions.” He paused and looked at Jake. “The man is a charmer, Peralta, he hasn’t even had to ask for a lawyer yet because had Jeffords practically blushing, the snake.” Holt spat out.

“His physique IS impeccable, though,” Jake whispered, staring off into the corner while he thought about Terry’s arms. “Have you seen him in the battle gear of Return to Skyfire?!”

“Peralta,” he pointed to the man in the hot seat. “A young man was brutally beaten and then tossed in the trash like he was nothing!” Captain Holt’s voice rarely faltered, his emotions coming through only once in a blue moon.

“Right right right right, there’s a horrible monster of a man out there beating people to death, and you think it might be him? Good. Got it!” He bit his lower lip and nodded, taking the case file from his superior officer. “Time to charm the snake!” ——————-

“So, Mr. Egan,” Jake waltzed into the interrogation room with a spring in his step, hoping to throw the man off guard.

“Call me Negan,” he smiled, turning in his chair to face him.

“Oh! Okay,” Jake glanced at his file then back at the suspect, raising his eyebrows. “Negan.”

He could suddenly tell why Terry was charmed out of the interrogation room and why Charles was too scared to even attempt to approach the table. Negan’s hair was dark, complemented by perfectly tanned skin and glowing amber eyes, his smile electric. Jake was pretty sure it was just a tactic, but he felt himself wanting to get closer, even if that meant getting electrocuted. He was big, from only his seated position Jake could tell that he would tower over him if they were on a level playing field. His tall stature wasn’t the only grandiose feature on this man, though. Something about him, the way he looked, they way he spoke, the way he was simply projected an enormity of presence Jake couldn’t quite explain.

Get it together, Jake! You’re a detective, he’s a suspect! He probably killed this poor pizza guy! He thought to himself, sitting on the chair backward. He remembered that Charles had told him something about reversing bad Juju by putting your sock on inside out or sitting on a chair backwards.

“Well then you can call me JPeralta… JP… Jay…” he tried to think of something comparable before deciding to wave it off. “You know what? Nevermind, you can just call me Detective Peralta. You’re a suspect, you know this.” He scooted himself closer to the table, opening the file in front of him to display the grotesque photographs of the crime scene.

“Oh my God!” Jake shouted, closing it and wishing he would have seen the photographs when he was in the other room.

“Shit, you okay?” Negan leaned forward, folding his hands together as a smirk crept over his lips. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

Jake paused as he kept his hand on the worn and overused folder, noticing the glee this man took in his fear and surprise. He smiled and didn’t even pretend to be shocked or sorry that something like this happened on his property. He didn’t seem to be sorry that something like this had happened at all.

“What can you tell me about Glenn Rhee?” Jake regained his composure, sitting up in his chair and clearing his throat.

“Who?” He licked his lips and smiled, a row of perfectly white teeth electrifying the air around him amidst the dark walls of the interrogation room.

“Glenn Rhee: 27 years old, loving husband and soon to be father was found beaten to death in the dumpster behind your establishment. That… sound familiar? Ring any bells?” His eyes widened as he looked for more reactions from him. The husband and father angle usually warranted at least a fake frown from most people, but not this guy; this guy was either really dumb or really smart.

“Sweetheart, I honestly can’t say I know who you’re talking about.” He smiled and rubbed the salt and pepper stubble on his chin before chuckling under his breath, a tell-tale sign of deceit.

“Sweetheart?! Eyes up here, Daddy... erm... buddy!” Jake pointed to his eyes. “Look, you’re a smart man, you know that a dead body on your property isn’t good for business. I just want to help clear everything up so you can get back to business as usual.”

“You like my line of business, Peralta?” He leaned into him, dark eyes covering him in a blanket of warmth as he touched his hand. “All the ass and tits you want, whenever you want, wherever you want it.” He licked his lips again, making Jake wonder what those lips might taste like.

“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” Jake felt a rush of warmth pulse between his legs, causing a familiar strain on his pants he only felt when Amy spoke Spanish in the bedroom. Wait a minute, what was happening?

“Not just my mother, and not only on the mouth.” His fingertips teased their way up Jake’s knuckles, sending another exciting rush up his arm and into his spine. “How about you?”

“Listen, I resent the derogatory way you’re speaking about your mother and women in general, but you’re kind of sending me mixed signals, and I’m not really sure how to handle it, so I’m just going to keep going with my questions, mmkay? Mmmkay!”

Jake pulled his hand away and started writing on the folder in front of him, stopping only as Negan took the pen from between his fingers and grabbed his hand. He smiled that snakelike smile Holt had warned him about and kept his eyes on him, holding him hostage as he massaged his palm before writing a set of characters on it.

“What kind of signals are those, darlin’?” He asked, letting go of Jake’s hand and clicking the pen shut.

“Darlin’?” Jake laughed and felt a bead of sweat drip down his forehead. The intoxicating smell of his cologne drowned out any linear thought process he might have had a second ago. “I bet you call all the girls that… I mean, do you know of anyone who might have enemies… or… that are bad at…doing things…?” Jake shook his head and stared at the man’s handsome features, his prominent jawline only accented by his well-groomed beard and thick lustrous lips. “Are you wearing Drakkar Noir, by chance?”

“Peralta!” A very angry Captain Holt opened the door. ————————— “Drakkar Noir?” Captain Holt’s eyebrows were high on his forehead.

“Awe, come on, Captain, I almost had him!” Jake defended, pointing back at him.

“You got less accomplished than Sergeant Jeffords! He at least talked about physical fitness and found out where the suspect goes to the gym! All you managed to do was bat your eyelashes like some hussy on the school yard.” He pointed an angry finger at him.

“Hussy?” Jake gasped, grabbing his chest with his palm. Sure, the man was distracting, and sure, it was hard to concentrate or do anything in his presence, but Jake wasn’t acting like a hussy when he walked in the door… was he?

“Show me your hand, Peralta,” Holt held out his own for Jake to put his in.

“My what?” He gripped his flannel shirt tighter in defense.

“Your hand, Peralta, what did he write on it?” He beckoned for him with his fingers.

Jake was so nervous when Holt burst into the interrogation room that he had forgotten to check what Negan wrote on it. Maybe it was a clue, maybe it was a smiley face, maybe it was the blueprints of his building, or an admission of guilt. He let go of his flannel shirt and lifted his palm up to his face, glancing at it briefly before defeatedly placing it in his captain’s hand.

“Well?” Holt asked.

“It’s his phone number.”

#Negan #negan fan fiction #negan's thirst squad #Negan x male #annablack1102jdmchallenge #jake peralta #negan x jake peralta #brooklyn nine nine fan fiction #the walking dead fan fiction #twd fan fiction #Jeffrey Dean Morgan #Andy Samberg

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lovemesomesurveys · 5 years ago

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What is the most expensive thing in your room at the moment? My MacBook Air. Do you ever read for fun? Yes, I love to read. I haven’t been reading for the past few months, but I do love it. I don’t know why I haven’t, I need to change that. Who is the most famous person you’ve met, if any? Jamie Lee Curtis. If you had the choice to meet three famous people, who would you choose? Alexander Skarsgard for sure. If I could only meet 3, I’d have to really think about the other 3. Do you own any animals that aren’t domestic? No. What is your school schedule, if you’re still in school? Forever. Done. With. School.

Would you rather carry a purse, or a clutch? Purse. Do you have a cell phone? If so, who is your carrier? Verizon. Do you think people under fourteen should have sex? No. How old were you when you had your first alcoholic beverage? I think when I was like 20 I tried a little sip of something, but I really didn’t drink until I was 21. What is something most people think of as lame, but you don’t? I never understood the Nickelback hate. When was the last time you had a bruise? *shrug* Have you ever feared that you would lose a body part? No. Do you like gore? It pretty much comes with the territory when you like scary movies, but there are some that are too excessive. What is one subject you believe you’ll never succeed in? Blah. Do you usually get jealous of your significant other’s friends? Absolutely not. They should have friends and a life that doesn’t just revolve around me. If I had a significant other, I’d encourage them to have friend time. Who did you last hug? My mom. Where are you the most ticklish, if anywhere? I’m not that ticklish except for my neck. Are you the kind of person who is sick the majority of the time? Yeah. What is your favorite holiday of all-time? Christmastime. Would you rather receive a kiss on the cheek, or on the forehead? Depends who is giving the kiss. Do you usually use correct punctuation and grammar on the internet? Yes. What is your favorite season and why? Autumn and winter cause I like cold and rainy weather. I also love wear hoodies/sweatshirts and being cozy. Do you ever get stuck with terrible chores at your house? What kind? No. Do you live with both of your parents? Yes. Along with my younger brother and doggo. Is there someone you like, who you think will never acknowledge you exist? I don’t like anyone in that way currently. What has been your favorite gift received, so far? All of them. Are your nails painted at the moment? Nope. I haven’t painted my nails in years. Are you typically a fast texter? Somewhat. I’m a fast typer on my laptop, but when it comes to texting on my phone I’m fast, but not as fast. What has been the highlight of your day so far? Nothing special happened today. Do you like the rain, or does it sadden you? I love it. Are you a blogger? If so, which blogging website do you use most frequently? This is my blog. Have you ever had a friend’s boyfriend/girlfriend flirt with you? No. Do you like pie? If so, which is your favorite? Only cheesecake. How many times a day do you eat a full meal? Typically 3. Where is your biological mother at the moment? She just got off work. Do you wear perfume every day? If so, which kind? Nope. I do occasionally wear body spray, though. I recently bought one from Bath & Body Works called “Midnight Peony.” Favorite store to shop at? Boxlunch and Hot Topic. Who is your favorite actor? Actress? Ya’ll already know. Would you rather go to the theater or watch a movie on Netflix? I enjoy both. Certain movies I have to go see in theaters cause it’s something I’m excited about and looking forward to seeing. Others I’m not so sure about or that look okay, but I can wait until they come out on DVD or on streaming platforms. Who was the last person you texted and what did it say? I sent my mom a video of something I recorded on TV earlier that she would like. Do you enjoy going places with your mother, like running errands? Yes. Do you have any annoying siblings? I’m the annoying one. How many people are in your immediate family? There’s 4 of us total. When did you last take a picture with someone? Who with? Recently with my brother. What was the last thing you drank? Is it your favorite? Starbucks Doubleshot. The white chocolate one is the best. Would you say you have good or bad luck? I don’t believe in luck. What is your favorite color? Pastels, yellow, mint green, and dusty rose. If you’re wearing shoes at the moment, what is the brand? I’m not. How many stuffed animals would you say you have? A lot. I should one day count all my giraffe stuffed animals. :O Are you more of a personal or outgoing person? I’m shy and introverted. Have you ever been bullied? Have you ever been the bully? No. What holiday is your birthday closest to? 4th of July. Do you like your laugh or have people complimented it before? It’s whatever. Have you ever gotten someone to cheat on someone else with you? No. How many social networking sites are you on? The main ones. Do you hate it when people ask you how their survey was at the end? I mean, they’re most likely never going to see my response, but *shrug* What are your plans for the rest of the day? Just more Tumblr, surveys, and YouTube until I go to sleep. My mom and I might watch an episode of Marianne when she gets home if she’s not too tired. Can you speak any foreign languages? Only some Spanish. I’m pretty rusty now, though.

#personal #text #survey #surveys

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justgotham · 6 years ago

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Fox’s GOTHAM is now in the midst of its fifth and final season on Thursday nights. The series, developed by Bruno Heller from DC Comics, chronicles the rise of Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz) from troubled, orphaned pre-teen to the adult Batman. It also shows the development of some of his allies, like detective-turned-police-captain (and one day police commissioner) Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie), frenemies like Selena Kyle/Catwoman (Camren Bicondova), and foes like Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor) and the Riddler (Cory Michael Smith).

Executive producers Danny Cannon and John Stephens have both been with GOTHAM for its entire run. Cannon directed the series pilot and has been supervising the directors ever since; Stephens has been part of the writing staff since the inception and has been show runner, with Cannon, since the beginning of Season 3. The duo have created METROPOLIS for DC’s online streaming network. Cannon will also be working with GOTHAM creator Heller on the new Epix series PENNYWORTH, which examines the adventures of the young Alfred Pennyworth.

Cannon sits down in a quiet area of Pasadena’s Langham Hotel for a discussion of what makes GOTHAM all that it is; Stephens joins the conversation partway through.

ASSIGNMENT X: Did you know at the beginning that you would be with GOTHAM for its entire run, because it’s a little unusual for a directing producer to stay with a series for so long …

DANNY CANNON: It is, yeah. There are so many things that are unusual about producing and directing, but I think I’m the only director writing on shows, which I find very strange sometimes. But I think you stick with something when you know how hard it is to maintain the integrity. That is the only way to protect the integrity, visually and tonally, and casting-wise, on a show, is to stick with it. And sometimes that’s a little hard, but on this occasion, it was just such a fun job that I didn’t want to leave, because if you’re gone for a certain amount of time, you do notice things that wouldn’t have happened if you’d been there. It was such a hard world to maintain, and the standard of the acting was so high, that I just wanted to maintain that by being around. There is only me and John. There was Bruno at the beginning, but there was only me and John, and with him stuck writing, a lot of post-production and production and first-hand contact on set was really down to me.

AX: With the other directors who came in to do episodes, were you instructing them, “This is GOTHAM, that is not GOTHAM”?

CANNON: Constantly. And that’s why you’ll see so many of our directors repeat, because once it is lodged in their mind what world they were in, then we had to keep ahold of them, because you don’t want to reeducate somebody. And they became real fans of the show. What was amazing was how many directors wanted to return, because compared to the other things they were directing, this just visually had a lot more going on. The palette was bigger and the scope was bigger.

AX: What did you find that the biggest thing that the other directors needed to know – don’t be afraid to let the actors get big, or, please shoot the sets in a certain way, or, please use these kinds of shots?

CANNON: Right from the beginning of me doing television, even at C.S.I., when [other] directors came in, they would be very complimentary of the pilot and everything, but I would always say, “Well, great, now we’ve seen that. Now kick my ass. That’s your job. I want to watch your episode and come back next week and say, ‘I just got schooled, I have to up my game’.” And I think that friendly competition [was helpful]. We did it with d.p.s [directors of photography], too, we did it with production designers, editors. Everybody was trying to get the best episode, everybody was trying to do that thing that nobody had done before. Sometimes, though, we had to stop people going over the top. Sometimes that was not right for that story. When we brought directors on, we’d always talk about the theme of that [episode], and who to concentrate on, and who not to. But I always find you get the best out of people when you set them free, and you encourage them, and you love them, and you want them to love what you have as much as you do. I don’t think it makes a show better to restrict people and tell them, “We don’t do that, we don’t like that.” It just makes everybody feel a little – it’s the opposite of creativity, isn’t it?

AX: How would you describe GOTHAM’s visual style?

CANNON: I think when we were doing the pilot, nobody really understood what we were doing. I did a visual effect off my own back [on my own] and I did many drawings I did myself, and my designer did some to try and sell the world, but still, that wasn’t getting it across. I was like, “On the pilot, it was Dickensian, circa 1979 New York City, un-gentrified, if the cops were all corrupt, and the gangs had taken over.” There was that, but that felt political. The look of it that I kept going to was that Dickensian thing, that I knew that if I drew, and my production designer helped me with the GCPD [Gotham City Police Department headquarters], if we got that right, that was the [core]. So we took it upon ourselves those first few weeks, before anybody came along, while Bruno is still pitching. He brought me on very early, because he just didn’t want to do a project like this alone. The kind of stuff I do, the kind of stuff he does, are completely different. So he wanted the world being imagined while he wrote, so he could be inspired by what I was doing. It was a nice way to work. And when we got that GCPD right, it straightaway – and it’s funny, I drew one, and Doug Kraner [the initial GOTHAM production designer] drew one, and they were almost identical. But his staircases were better.

[John Stephens laughs.]

CANNON: It was based on St. Pancras Station, a Victorian building, in London. And all of a sudden, that, with the different look of the wardrobe, which was the other thing I was drawing at the same time, was what got us over the edge.

AX: When did you take over entirely from Bruno Heller?

JOHN STEPHENS: Well, I would never say I took over entirely from Bruno Heller. They say the term “show runner,” but really, Danny and I were doing it together these past three years after Bruno kind of took a step back. It’s really at the end of Season 2 that Bruno took a step back, and then Danny and I – it was a great partnership, I felt like, because we complimented each other��s strengths. We were talking about the look of the show, and to me, one of the things I found so appealing about the show is, I think a lot of people can do grim. I think what Danny and Doug, and Richard [Berg] afterwards, were able to do, I mean, everybody, [current GOTHAM production designer] Dan Novotny as well, is to make it look scary and dirty and grim, but also romantic in a way. I still want to be in that world, as downtrodden as it seems. And that’s a very secret little bull’s-eye that’s very hard to hit.

CANNON: As English people, myself and Bruno both wanted to visit New York and see SERPICO New York, THE WARRIORS New York. I wanted to see MEAN STREETS, I wanted to see TAXI DRIVER. It was all gone by the time I got there, but it was the poem of New York, it was the idea of New York. So that’s what GOTHAMbecame, and “romantic” is a good word. We were making this romantic poem to a city where Batman will be necessary one day.

AX: It’s sort of like GOTHAM is a dream of New York that’s on the verge of being a nightmare?

CANNON: Right, right.

STEPHENS: It’s like those opening scenes of TAXI DRIVER, when that Bernard Herrmann score is playing, and those bright, garish lights are moving, and it feels like Hell, but it also feels very suffused with sex and violence, and it’s really exciting.

CANNON: It [TAXI DRIVER] is one of my favorite films of all time, and Bernard Herrmann was such a strange choice for them to make, but Scorsese knew what he was doing, because he aged the film down by putting Bernard Herrmann’s score in. They say he was old-fashioned. That’s exactly why he did it. We wanted old-fashioned music. When we had to put pop music into the show, we went back to the ‘80s, and to the ‘70s, to the Stooges, to Alice Cooper, and to the Sex Pistols, because music now is too polished and refined and wouldn’t work.

AX: You mentioned the word “grim,” but if I may say, GOTHAM doesn’t feel grim. How do you keep it feeling maybe dark but somehow ecstatic …?

STEPHENS: “Gritty” I think is probably a better word than “grim” in many ways. We speak about these things, particularly in terms of metaphor. It’s like when people talk. I just recently saw this documentary about World War I [THEY SHALL NOT GROW OLD] that Peter Jackson made. It was incredible. And at the beginning, they have all these voices of soldiers who were there. And they say, “Four years, it was horrific, I never would have traded it for anything. I felt more alive during those four years than I did in the next fifty years of my life.” And I feel like life in GOTHAM may be cheap in many ways, but it feels very alive to the people who are there. And that was always our point. You want to feel the beating heart of the people who are there, and that they’re living life right on the edge. I always think of that line – I’m [approximating], I apologize – there’s a beat in HEAT, where Al Pacino is talking to his wife, and he says, “I need to be on the edge, it’s where I’ve got to be.” And you always want the characters to be right there on that edge.

CANNON: We watch plays, John more than me, but when you’re doing a Broadway play, and you need to introduce a character, they will always do something with the scenery, they’ll always do something with the lighting. I think what doesn’t happen enough with movies and television right now is, they don’t give characters a good platform. How do we stop it being grim? I think everybody in the show gets a visual introduction. I remember talking about seeing Episode 2, when I had the confidence of the pilot behind me, about the body language, with every cast member. “We should know you’re coming in silhouette.” And I said the same thing to the directors. “Give everybody an intro. Give them that moment where that guy walks in, in CABARET. Give them that moment where you realize the king is entering.” You start to think about things on a grand scale, and all the writers ended up coming around and asking for those little visual tidbits, because they had the story down, and they knew where it needed to go, but everybody just needed a push to show people the cinema of this moment.

STEPHENS: You did that in the first Alfred [played by Sean Pertwee] appearance, when he’s walking down the alley, and there’s crime tape there, and Sean doesn’t slow down. Because he just knows they’re going to raise it up for him because of the authority that he carries. He tilts his head, just a tiny bit. I was, “Oh, he’s in command.”

AX: Now, what are some of the things that have surprised you about the way the characters have turned out? I think one of them would probably be Barbara Keane, played by Erin Richards. She started out as Jim Gordon’s fiancée and then went to some astonishing places …

STEPHENS: Yeah. Erin as an actress continually surprises us. We took her so dark. [Barbara] killed her parents, she became a gang lord, she was completely psychotic, and it became the question, “Can we bring this person back?” One of the themes of the show is transformation. A person changes into another thing. “Can you take someone that dark and still bring them back again? Is there any hope in them?” She does. She finds that way back, and that was so surprising to us.

AX: And Morena Baccarin’s character, Dr. Lee Thompkins, as well?

CANNON: Oh, my God. Amazing. And when Morena showed up, it’s funny how, from that first show she did, you know you want to do some things with a great actress. That’s it. That’s simply it. She can do the same thing over, or she can keep testing you. GAME OF THRONES is the only other show I can think of that has characters do terrible, awful things and you love them the next time they’re punished. The back and forth – we love to hate everybody in the show.

AX: And what would you most like people to know about the rest of GOTHAM? We know there will be a ten-years-forward time jump episode in the finale …

STEPHENS: I think they need to watch every episode, because I think in every single episode, an enormous bomb drops, both for the characters as they live right there, and also things that are going to play out not just ten years, but twenty years in the future, because we all know where those characters are going to end up, and we plant things that real fans of the material are going to go, “Oh, that’s what they were doing. I thought they weren’t going to do that, but they are going to do that.”

CANNON: Everything we’ve done for five years pays off in the last episode.

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