#prisons of our own perceptions

[chocolatepot]

Ed had been interested in tracking down the so-called "Gentleman Pirate" for months. What sort of gentleman commissioned a ship and fled his life of luxury for one of bloodshed and backstabbing? And by all accounts, particularly Izzy’s, he was a terrible pirate. Completely incompetent. It made no sense … but it was compelling. And the thing was, Ed didn’t find much compelling these days. After being sold out to the Spanish, the Revenge was "rescued" by Charles Vane rather than Blackbeard - and unlike Edward, Vane doesn't see Stede as an equal. After weeks of captivity on Vane's ship, Ed and Stede meet, and something begins ...

50,973 words in total | rated M | 15/18 chapters

Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Recovery, Whump, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Eventual Happy Ending, Stede Bonnet Needs A Hug, Edward Teach Deserves Nice Things, and other tags

Chapter Fifteen has arrived!

In which an exchange is made and plans are hatched.

Pretty big content warning, in case you forgot where we left off last time ... details are in the note in the chapter. M rating certainly earned.

[codacheetah]

The start of the Loop segment of the Siffrin & friends twitter QNA, and the message that flipped Loop's answers from silly to dodgy and blatantly upset.

Loopchat from speaking to Loop 20+ times.

Certified Loop dysphoria post

[reidmotif]

Coffee and Consequences

Summary: Reader joins the BAU, and Spencer seems insistent on being a problem for her.

Request: pls i am such a sucker for angst/smut, can you do one where spencer is closed off and cold to a new recruit, and it upsets her, so she tries to get him to like her, which leads to an argument and confession, with soft smut?

Couple: Spencer Reid/Fem!Reader

Category: Smut/Light Angst (Happy Ending)

Content Warning: Reader POV, little shit Spencer, oral sex (f recieveing), gunshot wound/typical canon violence, unprotected sex

Word Count: 6.1k

Upon starting at the BAU, I believed there was no question about me, especially when it came to my skills and ability to perform my job. From stellar recommendations from my superiors at the Academy, to general demeanor and tact, there was no question about whether or not my success was imminent. Most of the team were more than elated to welcome me to the small family they’d built over the years, despite my younger age than most of them, which I was eternally grateful for. 

Most, being the keyword in that sentence. Since I’d begun, there’d been one thorn in my roses, the bane of my existence, you might say. Spencer fucking Reid. I’m aware of the fact that not everyone could like me, that was a given. I'm an FBI agent, for god’s sake. To expect warmth and friendship from everyone would be naive and lead to disappointment in any given scenario. 

But Jesus Christ, this was getting absolutely ridiculous. 

I consistently replayed the events of our first meeting. In an attempt to make a good first impression, (which seems stupid, in hindsight) I brought coffee to each of my new co-workers, hoping to establish myself as a friendly, non-threatening presence in their lives. I’d covertly asked Emily for help, as within the interviews and background checks required to even be considered for a position in the BAU, there was a certain camaraderie and friendship forged through the continued exposure to each other. 

Emily advised me carefully, understanding the intentions behind the act, and being more than happy to help.  “JJ likes vanilla lattes, nothing too fancy. Rossi is a little simpler, a Caffe Americano.” I spoke, and continued to go through my team’s regular orders, until there was hesitation on a somewhat infamous name, one that I myself was already intrigued by. “Spencer’s an easy order to remember, but you have to make sure you get it right.” 

I found myself nodding, the seriousness of Emily’s words striking me- momentarily finding myself forgetting that they were speaking about something as mundane as coffee. "Emily spoke slowly, as if I was advising a child. 'Reid likes black coffee, but you have to make sure to add extra sugar.'" I nodded quickly, "Alright, black coffee with extra sugar, got it-" Emily interrupted me abruptly. "No, no. You're not hearing me, extra sugar. I mean a lot, okay? Otherwise, he quite literally won't drink it."

I found myself chuckling a little bit, thinking about the image of Spencer Reid I’d built up in my head before I’d even met him. I knew he had been framed and had endured a considerable time in prison. I was also aware of his intelligence, a natural by-product of all the papers he’d written, and how many of his own techniques in geographic profiling were referenced during my time in the Academy. Working with him seemed like a dream come true. The idea of a grown man needing as much sugar in his coffee as Emily made it seem added just a bit of charm to the already positive perception I’d had of him. 

In the coffee shop, I carefully recited the orders of my new teammates, taking extra caution in advising the barista that the black coffee needed extra sugar. I could tell the patrons behind me were definitely annoyed, but it didn’t matter. First impressions matter more. Even after my incessant requests about sugar, I took the time to open the lid of the steaming black coffee to add in 3 extra packets of brown sugar provided at the customization station in the back of the coffee shop. I could tell the barista was boring holes into the back of my head, and I honestly wasn’t surprised or could blame her. At this point, the sugar had to be more than the coffee itself. I gave a satisfied grin to myself, knowing I’d followed Emily’s directions and the possibility of friendship with someone I’d already come to admire wasn’t something far-off to wish for. 

God, was I wrong. 

I approached the bullpen cautiously, being greeted by an assortment of new faces. I quickly matched names to descriptors that had been given to me from Emily. I then noticed one face that hadn’t greeted me yet, sat alone in the back with his nose in a book. I couldn’t discern the title, which I quickly figured was due to the fact that the book appeared to be some European language I’d most likely never even heard of. The man had a mess of brown hair on his head, and even from across the room I could tell it was curling softly near the nape of his neck. He was handsome. More handsome than I had pegged him for. I knew almost immediately that this had to have been the infamous Spencer Reid, and I cautiously approached him, flashing a small smile. 

He heard me a mile away, looking up quickly and putting away his book. His eyes seemed to size me up, and he didn’t seem to return my smile. I knew better than to shake hands with him, being predisposed to his germaphobe nature and instead held out the coffee, almost as if it was a peace offering. 

“Hi, uh. I’m the new recruit, I believe Emily warned you all about me and I just wanted to introduce myself. (Y/N). That’s my name. It’s nice to meet you.” I said, a little dumbly, still holding the coffee out. I quickly realized I hadn’t explained the reasoning behind the coffee cup and quickly added, “Coffee. I asked Emily about how you liked it. And brought it. So, yeah.” I said. I was aware of how awkward this conversation was becoming, considering I was still holding out the cup, like an idiot, and he hadn’t said a word to me yet. He nodded, taking the coffee cup from me and placing it on his desk. “Dr Reid. Welcome.” His greeting was short, but I tried not to let it bother me. Perhaps he wasn’t as forthcoming to strangers, nevermind that. The coffee was enough. I smiled, again, hoping to make my intentions clear. “Nice to meet you, Dr Reid.” 

I turned back, feeling satisfied. I’d done what I’d come there to do. Except a sound from behind me alerted me that maybe I was a bit early to assume that, because when I’d turned around, an incredibly displeased Dr Reid was throwing away his coffee- the coffee I had brought! That I’d waited for in a morning rush for, that I’d taken the time to add even more sugar to- that coffee! In the trash! His eyes met mine as he dropped it into the trashcan near his desk, shuddering a bit as he did so. He didn’t even look apologetic. 

I approached him, a bit upset and sad, but there was caution in my tone, not wanting to offend him before he even had a chance to know me. “Dr Reid, I’m sorry was the coffee-” Dr Reid quickly interrupted me. “Did Emily not tell you my order?” He asked, a little bit of sharpness to his tone. 

Okay, so this guy took his coffee seriously. Emily was not kidding around. 

“Um, yes-” He interrupted again. “Yes? Are you sure?” He said, a bit of condescension in his tone. Okay, holy shit. All this over coffee? “Very sure.” I responded, confidently. “Black, with extra sugar- I even put extra at the counter.” I added this, trying to convey that while I was sorry it wasn’t to his liking, it’s not like I didn’t try. That had to count for something, right? 

Wrong. Spencer Reid did not seem like the type of man who cared about trying. He retorted with, “Well, it wasn’t enough.” And with that, he shuffled to the breakroom, seemingly to make his own coffee. 

It seemed like from there, things only got worse. In one of my first cases, I quickly made a quip about the statistics on suburban murders, hoping to add some valuable information to the conversation. I tried hard not to overpower anyone and stay in my lane as the resident newbie, but Spencer seemed to take personal offense to it, going out of his way to argue that it meant nothing. I fired back, hoping to affront my point but Reid quickly cut me off.

 “You’re new, alright? And young. It’s granted that you should be clueless when it comes to some of these things.” His words, although somewhat true, were accompanied by a harsh tone and a coldness in his voice. What could’ve been well-meaning advice from a senior agent on the team was clearly not that at all. All signs pointed to one thing: He absolutely hated me. 

For all I tried, it seemed like he only disliked me more. It wasn’t unnoticed by my teammates, how he’d dismiss me. I was aware of my newness, of my inexperience, how this team had had years to grow around each other before I was ever even considered for this position, but it seemed with the more time I spent at the BAU, Spencer’s disdain only increased. He seemed to go out of his way to not sit by me on the jet, or how he seemed absolutely uninterested in anything involving me. I understood that not everyone would like me, but a bit of respect would be nice. I didn’t need friendship, just his tolerance, and even that seemed out of reach for Dr Spencer Reid. 

Eventually, this led to the dynamic  we harbored now. A year into the BAU, and instead of a friendship, or even acquaintanceship, it was constant bickering. It’s not like I wanted to argue- he just made it impossible for me to find footing within the BAU. I obviously stood up for myself, but was met with resistance from the doctor, and so the cycle continued. 

Still, despite the obvious dislike Reid harbored for me, it wasn’t like that magically made him dumb, or any less attractive to me. His intelligence was as impressive as I’d expected it to be, if not even moreso. I watched in real-time as the cogs in his mind turned, his slender fingers finding a point on the side of his mouth to tap, before stopping and sharing what he’d just thought of. He was brilliant, and no one could take that away from him

 However, in this particular case we were currently dealing with, it seemed that brilliance simply didn’t matter, because how could someone like him be so absolutely stupid? 

The hostage situation we were dealing with was tricky, to say the least. Multiple civilians, and a trigger happy unsub. Any experienced agent would be at a loss when handling something like this, but Spencer seemed confident. He’d been pushing to storm the building, citing that more people would get hurt the longer they allowed the unsub to continue making demands. I found myself  wholeheartedly disagreeing, attempting to put my foot down and be heard. I found that perhaps, through negotiations, we could not only save the civilians, but walk away with zero people hurt. Naturally, this caused commotion between the senior agent and myself. 

“Reid, I’ve told you for the millionth time that this unsub can’t be approached like this!” I whisper-yelled, clearly fed up with Spencer by this point. He questioned every decision of mine, and it's gotten to me. 

“(Y/N), you’ve dealt with maybe 3 hostage situations in your life. This isn’t something for you to take point on. We have civilians in there, and it’s more important we save them.” He responded, in his own hiss. 

“You’re being ridiculous!” I retorted. 

“You’re naive!” He shot back. 

We’d clearly reached a head when it came to this. Spencer huffed, rolling his eyes. “I’m using my seniority here. We’re going to give the go-ahead to SWAT and make our way into the building.” 

I found myself returning the gesture. “Spencer- '' I began, only to be interrupted.

 “Dr Reid.” He corrected, venom in his voice. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I replied, furrowing my brows. 

“What?” He countered, seeming calm, but his eyes gave away simply how determined he was to win this. 

“This is a terrible idea.” I said, firmly. “Someone’s going to get hurt.” 

“Oh, and how do you know that?” Spencer quipped. “Is it your years of experience in the field? Or your time spent as an FBI agent?” He said, sarcastically. 

“I understand I don’t have as much experience as you, but-” I started, but I found myself cut off by him again. Bastard. He never let me finish my sentences. “Exactly.” He responded, calmly. “You don’t have as much experience. I know what I’m doing. Let’s go.” And with that, he walked, leaving me to simply follow. God, I fucking hated that guy. Forget the intelligence, none of that mattered when he was such a dick. 

As they entered the warehouse doors behind SWAT, I  knew that it was wrong. Something was off. We’d profiled this unsub as the dominant type, and an egotistical personality that wouldn’t allow for a partner. It was a part of the profile that they were sure of. It was part of the reason why Spencer was so confident of going in. 

Upon entering though, the SWAT team had a clear shot of the unsub, but in a split second, there were shots heard from an entirely different part of the warehouse. From the direction in which Spencer was directly in line of. 

It wasn’t like I thought about it, maybe if I had, I wouldn’t have done it. It was based on pure instinct. I found myself in front of Spencer Reid, the man who’d questioned my every decision since I’d begun my job, taking a bullet for him. Maybe he was right, maybe I was an idiot. 

I heard the gunshot first, then felt the cold floor pressing into my cheek where I’d been knocked down. Then a tight pressure in my arm. I finally looked down, seeing a bloom of red appear under my dress shirt where a bullet had struck, away from the vest I wore to prevent this sort of thing. I took in a sharp breath of air, eyes widening as my breathing began to quicken. I rolled onto my back, only to be met with Spencer’s concerned and frightened expression above me. I heard ins and outs of his speech into his receiver, as I faded in and out of consciousness. 

“Yes! We have an agent down. We need medic, now!” He yelled. I watched him in fascination, his face currently seeming to be the only thing I could focus on besides the overwhelming burning that I felt. I heard him speak to me, calmly. “Y/N? Stay with me, okay? You need to stay conscious. Okay?” He spoke to me calmly, but the waver in his voice was unmistakable. I found my eyelids growing heavier as I nodded. 

It wasn’t long until I came to, groggily opening my eyes to see Spencer’s concerned face looking back at me. I heard his voice, soft and distant. 

“(Y/N)..?” Spencer said, cautiously. 

“Dr Reid?” was my response. I was still a bit dizzy, and a bit confused about my whereabouts. 

“You were shot.” He replied, immediately. “In your arm.” He added, as if that wasn’t already obvious. 

I found myself chuckling, “Yeah, I can tell.” I said, my eyes meeting his. His expression was a bit unreadable, a mix between sternness and apprehension. I watched him, as his gaze shifted and he bit his lip. “You took it for me.” He said, suddenly. “The bullet, I mean.” He continued. “It would’ve hit me if you hadn’t gotten in the way.” 

“Gotten in the way?” I questioned, raising an eyebrow. 

“Gotten in the way.” He repeated back to me, his face hard. 

“Are you upset I took a bullet for you?” I said, furrowing my brows, my lips parting in shock. Was this guy serious? 

“Yes.” He said, his voice angry. “What were you thinking?” His voice wavered with anger and another emotion I couldn’t quite discern in that moment. 

“I wasn’t thinking, I just-” 

“Exactly.” He responded, harshly. “You weren’t thinking.” He said, his voice reaching a volume I’d never heard before, granted, it was still collected, but I’d never seen this side of him. 

I contemplated how to respond to this, actually not being able to believe that he could be mad at me for something like this. Yes, it was brash but- he didn’t get shot! Isn’t that a plus? His voice broke my thoughts, now a bit more shaky, softer. “Do you have any idea what that would mean? If you’d been hurt worse, what that would mean for me?” He said, looking right at my face, into my eyes with a blaze. “What you mean to me?” 

I found myself unable to respond, still not being able to grapple with what he was saying. What he was implying. “Sorry?” I asked, softly. 

“(Y/N)..” He said, softly. His own expression mirrored my confusion mixed with longing I’d never seen before on him. Especially when he looked at me. His hand brushed across my face, moving some hair that had drifted near my eye. I held my breath as he did so, watching as his tongue slipped out to wet his bottom lip, still watching intently. I felt my lips slightly part as he came closer, unsure what was going to happen in this moment, but regardless, my gaze was intently trained on his. 

In a split second though, the sounds of the rest of the BAU filtered into the hospital room. They jumped away from each other, Spencer now 4 feet away from me. Emily came up to my bedside, looking at the wound. 

The typical chastisement came, and the general choruses of appreciation that I was still alive. The diagnosis revealed that (Y/N) would be just fine, given I remembered to clean my wound liberally and change the bandages.

In about a week, I found myself discharged. I was given about 2 more weeks to rest at my apartment. I assumed the time would be enough to forget the strange moment I’d had in the hospital room. At some points, if I tried hard enough, I could convince myself it hadn’t happened at all. The tenderness in his eyes, the way his gaze drifted to my lips, so subtle it could’ve as easily been a figment of imagination. I shook my head, as if I could rid myself of all the feelings I’d harbored about that specific moment. I made my way to the kitchen, grabbing a fresh-set of bandages to apply on the recovering wound, wincing as I peeled away the layers of gauze to reveal the injury. As I began to apply the anti-septic, I began to wrap the gauze, until I heard a knock at my apartment door. 

I put down the gauze, looking through the peephole and being surprised to see the senior agent that had been haunting my thoughts for the past few weeks. I opened the door quickly, meeting his pensive gaze. 

“Can I come in?” He said, quickly, almost if he didn’t say the words fast enough, he’d bolt the other direction. I sensed the confusion about his own actions, and opened the door wider, allowing him to push past me into my apartment. He noticed the gauze, and the open wound, and raised an eyebrow. 

“I was changing the gauze, sorry.” I said, explaining the sight on my kitchen table. He immediately took a step towards the table, picking up the bandages. “Let me help.” He said, quietly, motioning for me to sit down. 

I found myself sitting, out of pure habit of obeying him, but still shook my head. 

 “Dr Reid, no, it’s fine.” He quickly shook his head, mirroring my previous actions,  already beginning to take my arm, his light touches on my bare skin shooting a shiver up my spine. This was noticeable to him, him immediately retracting his hand. 

“Sorry, did I hurt you?” He asked, softly. 

I found myself shaking my head. “No, no. Sorry. Just. Continue.” I said, trying to get the words out without looking at him. I suddenly remembered the strangeness of this situation, and forced myself to calm down as he began to carefully wrap the bandages around my injury, swallowing and looking up. 

“Dr Reid, why are you here?” I asked, carefully. I made sure that my tone was neutral, not trying to express displeasement, but still a bit confused about his intentions here. 

“You took a bullet for me.” He replied, simply, as if that explained why he was in my apartment, looming over me as he tenderly wrapped gauze over my arm, looking at me with the gentlest gaze I’d ever seen on him. I sighed, locking eyes with him. “I know, but-” He interrupted. “No, (Y/N), you don’t know.” 

Immediately, the rage returned to my eyes, the months of dismissal I’d faced from him flooding back in a moment, and those emotions came to full light in that moment. my brows furrowed, my face turning sour. “Oh, I don’t know, Spencer?” I said, sneering at him. “Am I too young, too stupid, too inexperienced for you?” I question, sarcastically. “Am I so dumb, that I wasn’t aware of what I was doing when I stepped in front of you?!” I say, my voice practically yelling at him now. 

“Yes.” He whispered, dangerously close. 

“Excuse me?” 

“Yes. You weren’t aware.” He says, repeats, softer this time. “It’s the only way any of this makes sense. That.. that you were so unaware, so blinded that you weren’t thinking when you stepped in front of me.” He said, quietly, remaining just as close as before. 

“I wasn’t.” I said, firmly, my brows still furrowed but the tension slowly left my face, being replaced with a softness. 

“Why did you do it then?” He said, dropping his gaze as he began to focus more on the bandages. “I haven’t been very forthcoming with you since you’ve begun your time at the BAU.” 

“Ah, so you’ve noticed.” I said, trying to make humor of the situation, but it came out a bit more breathless and dry. I was aware of the intimacy of the situation, and it seemed my body was catching up. I could physically feel the way my cheeks were heating up, and how they were close enough that I could see every breath that exhaled from his lips. How, despite everything, I still desperately wanted to kiss him at that moment. 

I couldn’t be crazy, when he secured the bandages and slowly trailed his eyes over my figure, sitting in front of him. I saw the same desire I felt, reflected in his eyes, and I found myself biting my lip. What the fuck was going on?

“So why’d you do it?” He repeated, still looking at me. 

“It felt natural, I..” I trailed off, trying to find the words to explain what I had felt in that split-second, but instead went with the simplest retelling my brain could manage, considering how close he was. “I didn’t want you to get hurt.” I said, looking at him. “I.. I care about you.” 

I felt stupidly vulnerable. His breath fanned over my face, and I bit my lip. I waited for him to say something, anything, staring anxiously at his face. 

“I’m a good profiler, you know.” He says, softly. 

I  chuckle a little at this, moving away so the tension can be relieved. “Trust me, I’m reminded of that every day.” I said, feeling like the distance between them was now more manageable, allowing me to talk.

But in a moment, he closed that distance to its predecessor, just as close as they were a moment ago. “You learn a lot about body language. Not just by learning to profile, but through years of experience. It just comes naturally, reading people. You can’t really turn it off. It’s like trying to forget how to breathe.” I hung onto his every word, and found my breath hitching when he directed his monologue to me. 

He gently inquires, “Do you understand?” 

I nod, looking up at him, as he inches closer. 

“So I hope you’ll understand and not take offense when I say I’ve been profiling you.” He pauses.  “Would you like to know what I’ve found out?” He says, looking right into my eyes at this point. 

My brain is screaming at me to say no, to not take the bait that he was dangling right in front of me, and to not cross that line tonight. Because, surely, that’s where this was going. I had a sneaking suspicion that the man in front of me was going to ruin me, if I let him. 

Instead, I ignore the instinct and intuition I normally rely on, and nod. “What did you find out, Dr Reid?” I responded, a bit shakier than I wanted to sound. 

“Your pupils dilate when I come near you. It’s an involuntary response, but I notice it every time. I’ve seen it in low and heavy lighting, the only commonality in both those situations being that we were in some proximity to each other.” His voice was low, and seductive, something I’d never heard from him before. 

“Your heart rate.” He murmurs, slowly picking up my wrist and pressing a thumb to the pulse point. “This isn’t exactly the best way to measure heart rate.” He explains, “My thumb. It carries its own pulse that can make it hard to distinguish between mine and yours. But right now, (Y/N)?” He mumbles. “I can tell. Because your pulse is going crazy right now. It’d be hard to miss.”  He said, with a low chuckle.

And he’s right, I can feel my heart getting faster with every second he speaks to me, in that hushed tone that seems to be driving me crazy. 

“It’s not just tonight. I’ve noticed it since the day you walked in.” He whispers, getting closer to my ear, his lips brushing against the shell of my ear. “Since you brought that terrible coffee, actually.” 

I pulled back, letting out a noise that was both composed of surprise and amusement. “Oh come on, it was not that bad.” 

“It was, but I can tell you tried.” He said, a small smirk playing on his face. “It was cute.” He said, now taking the time to brush some hair out of my face. It all happened quickly, his gaze tender and soft, before he captured my lips in a swoon-worthy kiss, pressing himself against me. I quickly melted into the kiss, letting out a satisfied sigh as I gripped his forearm, before rising from the chair as he slowly guided me to my couch. I let out a nervous laugh as my knees hit the cushions, tumbling a bit as I fell onto the soft pillows. He immediately pulled back, breathless, looking at me worriedly. 

“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” He murmured softly, kissing me again, a bit more gentle so I could murmur a soft “no” against his lips. 

“Good.” He growled, positioning himself above me on the couch,  beginning to press hot kisses down my neck, eventually reaching my exposed sternum, and looking up at me through hooded lids for implicit consent to continue, to which I nodded, feverishly. 

“Please.” I whispered, hoarsely. 

He took no time in obliging my request, rising a bit to remove the fabric of my shirt in one, clean swoop and continuing his assault on my chest, leaving open-mouthed kissed, eventually switching to nips and playful bites, as he sucked marks into the swell of my breasts, leaving me letting out delighted sighs and soft moans, which only seemed to encourage him to go lower. I arched my back, screwing my eyes shut, until he felt him stop, and come back to my neck. 

He murmured against me, close to my ear. I could feel his lips slowly brush the sensitive skin between my ear and neck, barely giving me any real stimulation, but it was enough to drive me crazy anyway. 

“Keep your eyes open, baby.” He whispers. “I want to see every part of your pretty face when I do this.” He says, returning lower again, leaving little kisses everywhere he could possibly go with his lips. I opened my eyes on command, watching as he went lower and lower, before finding the button on my jeans, slowly undoing them with nimble fingers and moving them off  my legs. I could imagine them so vividly inside me, expertly guiding me to pleasure in a way that mine couldn’t. But right now, if I wasn’t fucked senseless by him right now, I’d just about lose my mind. 

“Spencer.” I whispered, breathlessly. “I need you.” I breathed out. “Please.” 

“You need me to do what?” He asked, smirking as he already began to undo his own belt. 

“Spencer.” I repeated, firmly, not wanting to say the words. 

“Say it.” He says, in a much more commanding tone. 

“Spencer..” I repeat, breathing out again. “Fuck. I need-” I waver on the words, biting my lip. “I need you to fuck me. Now.” 

His smirk turns into a grin of satisfaction and pride, capturing my lips in yet another passionate kiss. “Mm. Wasn’t so hard, was it?” He says, cockily. I whined against his lips, tacitly begging him to just get on with it and he chuckles, moving off of my mouth. 

“Alright. I get it.” He says, moving his lips downwards again, his lips brushing against my underwear, as he began to remove that fabric as well. He nearly moaned when he saw just how wet I really was. It was a bit embarrassing, just from a few touches and words, but it was hard to care when I felt his tongue right on my core, beginning to lap at the hot flesh, reducing me to moans as I knotted my fingers into his hair, arching my back and bucking my hips to feel more of his ministrations. He seemed to understand, hooking his strong arms under my thighs, firmly planting me to the couch we were currently on, continuing. I could feel his moans against me, sending vibrations that only heightened my arousal in that moment. As if that was even possible. 

And then it was, because I heard him murmur against me.“You taste-” he paused, using his tongue to lap up more of my arousal. “So fucking good.” He finished, beginning to now harshly flick at my clit, which caused an entirely new slew of sensations. I recognized my end was fast approaching, and I tugged on his hair, unable to form the words as the white-hot pleasure overtook me quickly, he seemed to understand this without a word, nursing me through my orgasm as my thighs shook around him and he held my hips down. Even then, he didn’t stop, continuing to flick his tongue, lapping up my arousal until I had to physically push him away with a soft groan. “Spencer.. It’s too much.” Even then, he continued, reducing me to nothing but moans, and I heard him whisper. “Come on. One more. Please.” The words unintentionally caused a flutter in my stomach, and in record time I was being pushed towards my second orgasm in a matter of 5 minutes.

His mouth was clearly so much better at this than arguing. 

I felt him lap up the last bit of my arousal, looking up at me with a glistening chin, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was the most erotic sight in the world at that moment. The man that had questioned me at every turn, now in between my legs. He gave a smirk, moving up and giving me a rough kiss, and I didn’t hesitate to moan in his mouth when I could taste myself on his tongue. He smiled as he broke the kiss, caressing my cheek with one of his hands. His thumb moved along the smooth expanse of my cheeks. 

“Are you okay?” He asks, gently, concern in his eyes. 

I couldn’t help but break out into a dazed smile, nodding, a thin cover of sheen over my body, where I was still breathing heavily. “Yeah. I’m good.” 

“Good.” He breathed out. “I’m not stopping.” 

“I don’t want you to stop,” was my response, his shirt coming off before I’d even finished my sentence. 

I watched in fascination as he undid his belt, the very sound of it filling me with anticipation and desire. I could feel myself getting more aroused by the second, despite my previous two orgasms. I wanted him, I wanted this so badly. 

I felt him position himself over me, and feeling the head of his arousal run through my folds. I let out a breathy groan, as I felt him push into me. He let out a moan of his own, shutting his eyes. “You feel.. So fucking good.” 

I whimpered slightly as my body adjusted to him and his size. He was so big, and I’d never felt full like this before. He noticed this and placed a gentle kiss against my lips, watching my face as it contorted in pleasure and pain. As the pain began to subside, I looked up at him nodding. 

“Move, please.” I begged, the desperation evident in my voice.

He took no time in obeying my request, beginning to slowly thrust in and out of me. I moaned, feeling his cock stretch me and fill me up in a way I had never been full before. A pleasant sensation bloomed through my lower abdomen, and I could feel him bury his head into my shoulder as he pushed into me, my walls clenching on his length with every movement he gave. He pressed wet kisses into my neck, and I moaned happily at the feeling. In an instant, I could feel him fucking me desperately, placing both of his hands on either side of my face. I could feel my jaw drop, and no sound came out. I was being hurdled towards my third orgasm of the night and it was all at the behest of the man in front of me, plowing into me like it was his job. 

I moaned loudly, my legs wrapping around his waist in an attempt to keep him buried in my deepest point, feeling my release creeping up on me. 

“Sp-Spencer..” I groaned, attempting to alert him of my impending orgasm, but he simply swooped down, kissing me roughly, which only caused me to moan into his mouth. 

“I know, baby.” He whispered, in a deliciously dark tone. “Come for me, baby. Wanna feel you make a mess all over my cock.” 

It took no more provocation from there, as I felt my hips buck up once more and my thighs shake. I came with a loud moan of his name, my free hand gripping onto him and leaving scratches I knew wouldn’t go away for a while. 

My release seemed to spur him on, the wetness allowing him to fuck into me harder. I watched the man above me lose all control, and it was beautiful. He grunted a bit, and I could feel his hips stutter, chasing after his orgasm. 

“Please, Spencer.” I begged. “Fill me up, I need to feel you come inside me.” I whispered. 

It didn’t take long after that, after a particularly hard thrust, a warmness filled me at my hilt and Spencer nearly collapsed over me. He gave me a kiss, murmuring into the skin of my neck. “So perfect, so fucking perfect for me.” 

I smiled at the praise, biting my lip. I let my hand traverse over his back, drawing figures into the warm skin. I looked at the man laying on my sternum, looking absolutely fucked out despite being the one to give me three orgasms tonight. “Perfect, you say?” I teased. 

He looked up at me, kissing my lips softly, before mumbling against them, “Mm. Perfect.” 

I had a sneaking suspicion the next time we were at work, and he’d have something to say about my work, (because he always did), it wouldn’t take long to have him whispering sweet nothings to me in an instant, just like he was now. At least I could do something right on the first try.

hi!! this is my first fanfiction i've written since i was literally in middle school. spoiler. far from middle school right now. leave a comment, reblog, like, whatever! i had fun writing this. my ask box should be open for more requests? if anyone would like. anyway! hope u enjoyed!! :3

[mia-nina-lilly]

As I read Prisoner's Throne, I become more and more impressed with a knowledge about Cardan that I didn't have when reading the three books, even though it was right in front of me the whole time: Cardan is loyal only to Jude. I think my lack of perception occurred because the books were from Jude's point of view, and although our girl is very perceptive in many aspects, her own way of seeing the world wouldn't include concluding a fact like this in its entirety, since Jude, accustomed to betrayal and even disappointment after a while, wouldn't perceive this, nor in relation to Cardan, who used to be the cruel prince.

From Oak's point of view, it becomes clear that Cardan is not only loyal only to Jude but also she is the only one he sees as family until Leander is born, and even that is somewhat dubious, since, given his history, if he had no other choice, Cardan would likely sacrifice him if it meant keeping Jude safe.

[maaarine]

The sexual assault of sleeping women: the hidden, horrifying rape crisis in our bedrooms (Anna Moore, The Guardian, June 15 2021)

"Naming specific acts, rather than using broad – and loaded – terms such as “abuse” or “rape”, her survey asked more than 22,000 women if, for example, they had ever been spat at, or strangled, kicked or bitten.

It also asked respondents if they had ever woken to their male partner having sex with them or performing sex acts on them while they slept.

To this question, 51% answered yes.

This was not randomised sampling – the survey was widely shared online and participants were self-selected. For this reason, it’s hard to extrapolate from the findings.

The results sparked a predictably polarised online response. “This was extremely validating for me after years of thinking, ‘Am I being raped?’ I’m not alone”, tweeted one woman.

“It’s why I now jerk awake if someone even gently brushes against me while I’m sleeping, 13 years later,” wrote another.

Other comments included, “Only chance I get!” and “the other half was OK with it!”

Katie Russell, spokesperson for Rape Crisis, says she was “not massively surprised” by the findings.

“There isn’t a lot of research into the multiple ways women experience violence from known men, but we do know the numbers are so much higher than any official statistics,” she says.

“Rape myths are still incredibly pervasive. It’s commonly believed that if it’s your boyfriend or your spouse, if you’re sharing a bed, if you’re naked, if you consented earlier, then it can’t be rape.

There is a really big difference between gently waking your partner and initiating sexual activity and actually doing something sexual or penetrating someone while they’re still asleep. (…)

In Martha’s case, the rape happened once, but for some men, seeking sex with a sleeping woman is an active preference, a fetish known as somnophilia.

Svein Overland, a Norwegian psychologist, is one of the few to have studied it – his interest sparked partly by his work in prisons, trying to understand the motivations of sex offenders, and also by his work with victims of what Norwegians call “after-party rapes” – attacks on vulnerable women who were either sleeping or drugged.

Overland believes somnophilia is part of the wider growth of what he calls “one-way sex”.

His research into online porn showed a steep rise over the past decade in categories such as “sleeping sex”, as well as other forms of sex that are based on unresponsiveness, on only meeting your own needs.

(“Flexi dolls” is another example – where women pretend to be sex dolls.)

These preferences overlap with porn itself, says Overland. “With one-way sex, with porn, with masturbation, there’s no dance, no seduction, no interaction and no pressure to perform,” he says.

“The more I looked at this area, the more you see that a lot of men are afraid of having sex.

Society is becoming more pornified but, at the same time, many studies show that people are becoming less sexually active. We have young men buying Viagra, unable to keep an erection.”

A sleeping woman is no threat – she’s absent, an object, a receptacle. (…)

“There seems to be a perception that something like this is a ‘lesser crime’ because it might not be at the hands of a stranger but your partner.

But what would feel worse? Being pickpocketed by a stranger or robbed by someone you love and trust?” she asks.

“The idea that you’re asleep so it didn’t require violence is also very dangerous. Penetrating someone’s body without their permission is an inherently violent act.

“Imagine being asleep and waking to find someone going through your personal things,” she continues. “Now imagine it’s your actual body that has been intruded into.” (…)

“When I first left him, I wouldn’t sleep. I’d lie awake all night and have hallucinations – him raping me.

Those flashbacks, that trauma response, was the mind and body trying to piece things together.

Even now, nine years on, I still wake at two every morning. I don’t even need to check the clock.

We know that the body stores memories of trauma – and I think 2am is when it used to happen.” (…)

In February 2020, she told the jury: “There has never been a part of me that has not been profoundly impacted,” and that in the immediate aftermath, she suffered PTSD and had tried to take her own life.

She said she had felt “unsafe everywhere”, frightened to trust anyone, even her parents."

[steddielations]

Flight of Icarus Character List

Lore Part 1 | Part 2

- Eddie Munson: Our boy is 18 years old, lives alone in his dad's house with Wayne checking in on him. By 1984, he's the lead singer and guitarist of Corroded Coffin and the DM for Hellfire. He's known as Freak King at school, and Munson Junior around town, he hates both. His grades are bad, but the only trouble he gets in at school is getting blamed for fights with jocks that he doesn't start or win. He works as a barback at the Hideout where his band plays sometimes. His status as town pariah due to his dad's criminal reputation and being an outcast deeply affects him. He wants nothing more than to escape that image, even if he's trading it for a different image. The story kicks off when he gets a chance to chase a record deal in California and teams up with his dad to get the money to move.

- Al Munson: Eddie’s dad, he comes in and out of Eddie's life. He's been abandoning Eddie alone/with Wayne for long stretches since Eddie was a child. Al's very charismatic and has even made Jim Hopper laugh. He uses that "Munson Magic" to manipulate everyone around him, he's a conman and career criminal. He taught Eddie guitar, but also taught Eddie to jack cars at age 10 and only sees Eddie as his little minion. He comes back to town, claiming he's fresh out of a prison stint in Colorado with a debt he needs to repay, and enlists Eddie into helping him rob a truck carrying drugs from his former boss. He leaves details out of the story that blow up in their faces. In the end, he leaves again when Eddie needs him most.

- Wayne Munson: Eddie’s uncle, factory job guy and the best caregiver as we all predicted. Wayne’s a quiet guy, very emotionally reserved too. Eddie says he’s never even heard Wayne yell, he’s non-confrontational. He doesn’t like Al, says nothing even when Al tries to instigate an argument. He deeply cares for Eddie. Eddie is very stubbornly independent, so used to being on his own because of Al, and Wayne tries to respect his boundaries while also being concerned, as Eddie gets very prickly about it. He tries his best to keep Eddie from getting roped in with Al, but overall he lets Eddie make his own decisions. He seems like he wants to just bundle Eddie in a hug at times, but they're not to that point yet in the book. In the end, Al's scheme gets their house burned down, so Wayne permanently takes Eddie in. He shapes Eddie by telling him he’s not his dad and to stop caring what people think and not to put himself in a box. Some nice tidbits: Wayne has a green thumb, reads Gardener’s Weekly magazine and goes to a bar called the Attic on Fridays.

- Ronnie Ecker: Eddie’s childhood best friend. She lives with her grandma in the trailer park. Her father passed away and her mother is implied mentally unstable. She meets Eddie when they’re 8. She’s described as tall, taller than Eddie since they were kids, always wearing a corduroy hat, and people mistake them for siblings. She’s the first drummer of cc. Ronnie and Eddie formed the band specifically because they had to do the middle school talent show. Then Gareth becomes the drummer when she graduates. She’s also in Hellfire, wants to go to law school and has a full ride scholarship to NYU. She’s sort of implied aro/ace after Eddie tries to kiss her when they’re 13, she says it’s not just Eddie, she doesn’t think she’ll ever have a crush on anyone. Ronnie is perceptive and smart and she teases Eddie a lot but they’re very protective of each other. Eddie gets blackmailed by Principal Higgins into dropping out when he threatens to jeopardize Ronnie's scholarship. Eddie never tells Ronnie this, even when they have a fight about him choosing to end Hellfire because Higgins convinced him his friends would be better off. This causes them to leave off on vague terms when she goes to NYU.

- Dougie Teague: This could possibly be unnamed freak from the show, but there’s an age discrepancy because he’s the same age as Ronnie and Eddie in the books and it says he graduates. So he would have to fail senior year twice along with Eddie to still be in high school in the show as unnamed freak. Dougie is the backup cc guitar player, whereas unnamed freak played bass in the show. Dougie is brash and blurts things out. He lives where Eddie calls the nice side of town and they rehearse in his garage. Dougie’s mom is not fond of Eddie but lets them practice there. Dougie’s dad is an HVAC truck guy.

- Jeff (no last name): Jeff is a sophomore and the bass player for CC, whereas in the show he plays guitar. Jeff comes across as reserved compared to Eddie and Ronnie. He played D&D with his older brothers before joining Hellfire. Eddie says Jeff knows more about bass than him. Jeff is ‘the nice one’ and generally nervous and anxious. He’s reasonable but he looks up to Eddie and buys into what Eddie says about the band getting a deal even if it’s unrealistic. Jeff is awkward around girls, wants to do good in school and he’s afraid of getting in trouble. The owner of the Hideout bar lets the band split a beer and Jeff is nervous the whole time. Also, when Eddie screws up, Jeff is the first to forgive him.

- Gareth (no last name): Gareth takes on the role of Eddie’s first sheep, whereas everyone else are Eddie’s friends, Gareth is like the little kid he’s fond of. Gareth is a freshman, there’s a whole scene of Eddie helping him create a D&D character. He’s hotheaded and a target for bullies. Eddie sticks up for him a couple times, and once, Gareth barrels in shrieking and throwing windmill punches to stop Eddie from getting jumped by Tommy H and crew, which results in Gareth going to the hospital with a fractured wrist.

- Rick Lipton (Reefer Rick): Rick is a very typical laid back stoner character. He's around 35, described as a giant soft guy with big smiling eyes and friendly face, wearing a Smokey the Bear shirt, and not what Eddie expected from a drug dealer. His house is also not what Eddie expected, being pretty clean compared to Eddie's teenage inhabited space. Eddie meets Rick through his dad, who has screwed Rick over in the past and this makes Rick unwilling to be the buyer of what they're going to steal off the drug truck. Eddie however puts on his best "Munson Magic" and convinces Rick. Rick is impressed and calls him Munson Junior, which Eddie hates. He goes back to Rick at the end of the book, needing money and a job. Rick gets him started dealing.

- Elizabeth Munson (maiden name Franklin): Eddie’s mom, he's a certified mama's boy. She doesn't appear in the book, Eddie says she got sick and passed away when he was around 6. She's originally from Memphis, Tennessee, where she met Al and they moved to Hawkins when she was 19, they got married March 12th, 1966. She loved Eddie's dad but Eddie says Al was always leaving her to go off on schemes. She passed her love of music onto Eddie. Her favorite was Chicago blues, Eddie didn't understand why until she passed and he started to feel it in his bones too. Eddie remembers dancing with her to Muddy Waters' "Rollin' Stone" and when the song comes on in the truck while he's doing business with Al, it makes him tear up. He recalls this memory several times, it seems like it’s his happiest memory. He says "When Elizabeth Munson was happy, the whole entire world was happy." His biggest connection to his mom was through her music. Then when Al's scheme goes wrong, the people he screwed over show up and burn down their house in an act of revenge. Eddie almost gets killed trying to save his mom's records, but they burn.

- Paige Warner: Paige is a junior scout at WR Music. She's not described beyond having freckles, chin-length dark hair and dark eyes. She has a younger brother on the Hawkins baseball team. At the Hideout, she sees Eddie's band playing and he chalks up the courage to talk to her. (He's squeaky and blushy, no game) Paige is in town for her grandmother's funeral, she remembers Eddie from the middle school talent show, though she is two years older. She likes his band because they're "real". She returns another night and Eddie (after some bad news that makes him desperate to chase his future) propositions her to get them a record deal. She's insulted, having told Eddie that guys use her for that reason, but they agree to work together. Paige pays for the studio time for cc to record the demo tape. In the meantime, Paige meets Al and Eddie is beside himself the entire time, not wanting her to find out the dirty work they're doing to fund his future. Then, Paige's boss only likes Eddie, and when she delivers this news, Eddie expresses that he doesn't want to ditch his band, but she says this will benefit both of them. So he agrees and it's implied they start hooking up, never making things official. She leaves for California and he's supposed to go later for his audition and stay with her. This doesn't happen, Eddie's heist with Al lands him temporarily in jail, and over a heated phone call, things end between them. It's implied that Paige pays his bail but never speaks to him again.

- Tommy Hayes: It's debatable whether this is supposed to be Tommy H from the show, whether his last name was always Hagan or if that was a fanon thing. Given his proximity to the jocks and being bitter that Steve has changed since dating Nancy, it's supposed to be Tommy H from the show. He's extremely violent in the book, which doesn't track so much with Tommy in the show, who's more of a shit-talker lackey. This Tommy bullies Eddie for being poor, a freak, and the son of a criminal. He bullies the whole Hellfire club and beats Eddie up on two occasions, punches Ronnie (accidentally?) when she tries to protect Gareth, and puts Gareth in the hospital. He faces no repercussions because the Principal is on his side, as Tommy's family is influential and rich.

- Principal Higgins: The principal of Hawkins High. Eddie is justified for wanting to flip him off in the show. Higgins has a ton of favoritism toward the kids from well off influential families, like jocks and preppy students, and always takes their side even when Eddie (and friends) are the ones bruised and beaten. He's a Bible thumper and hates Hellfire and also hates Eddie because he's a Munson, considers him a rotten apple that poisons the bunch. He wants Eddie to drop out to rid the school of the Hellfire club. After the brawl between the jocks and Hellfire, Higgins convinces Eddie that it's his fault his friends are considered freaks and get bullied. He blackmails Eddie into dropping out by threatening to jeopardize Ronnie's scholarship to NYU. Eddie eventually comes to his senses and finds his fire again when everything falls through. He gets re-enrolled in school and turns things around by blackmailing Higgins. At this point, he knows Higgins buys drugs from Reefer Rick, and uses that information to force Higgins to let Hellfire continue and leave him and his friends alone.

- Officer Moore: A Hawkins cop who has it out for Eddie. He's described as having a blond buzz cut, a square jaw, Superman level All-American looks. He has a growing mid-forties beer gut. He pulls Eddie and Ronnie over in Eddie's van, Eddie sasses the shit out of him since apparently he pulls Eddie over a lot trying to find reasons to arrest him, just because he's a Munson. But he has to let them go.

- CJ and Toby: These are two goons that worked with Al under the same boss, Charlie Greene, one of the biggest drug kingpins in Oregon. They are transporting the truck with the drugs that Al enlists Eddie to help him rob. Eddie and Al successfully rob the truck, but CJ and Toby show up to their house days later. While holding Eddie and Al at gunpoint looking for the drugs, It's revealed that Al didn't owe money because he borrowed it, he stole it because he got greedy. Eddie was under the impression that he was saving his dad from enforcers that would come to collect the debt eventually, not helping him steal more from them. Al wasn't in prison like he told Eddie, he was living large as Charlie Greene's right hand man, never sending Eddie a dime. At this point, Eddie and Al have already sold the stolen drugs to Reefer Rick, so Al turns over the 15 grand of money to CJ and Toby. They think it's settled, but CJ decides to set the house on fire too, since Al embarrassed them with the boss. The only reason they don't kill Eddie and Al is because Officer Moore shows up, having been following Eddie. Instead, CJ shoots Officer Moore in the leg and then he and Toby flee. Eddie immediately goes to help the officer (despite hating Moore) while Al is telling Eddie to come on so they can run. Eddie feels like its their fault Moore was shot and won't leave him, Al says he didn't realize Eddie was this much of a fool. Eddie tries to get him to stay because he needs him, but Al leaves him anyway and Eddie is devastated and numb. He's arrested when cops show up.

- Jim Hopper: Hopper brings Eddie a cup of water and talks to him while he's in lockup for the night. He calls Eddie "Junior" but Eddie's too numb at that point to care. He says they know that Eddie tried to help Moore, but he's being held for arson because of the house, until he makes bail. Hopper is really trying to give Eddie a break, knowing he helped Moore, and talks a bit about Eddie's dad. He says something cryptic about knowing Al in school and how every time something went down, Al was usually at the center. Hopper does Eddie a favor and lets him use the phone in his office, where Eddie calls Paige. Hours later, Hopper tells him he made bail and that Wayne is there to get him.

- Chrissy Cunningham: Eddie remembers Chrissy from the talent show. Eddie's dad was supposed to be there, but didn't show up, meanwhile Chrissy is disappointed that her mom did show up. A lot like the show, it's minimal but Chrissy is sweet with troubled undertones. Eddie's surprised she even talks to him, but she's nice and says she'd cheer for him if his dad didn't show. Fast forward to high school, when the jocks are giving Eddie flack, Chrissy tries to get them to stop. Then they try to lie to the principal and say Eddie was bothering Chrissy. Chrissy says it's a lie but Jason quickly silences her.

- Bev: The owner of the Hideout bar. She's a very no nonsense drill sergeant kind of lady. She keeps Eddie humble, calls him Junior despite him asking her not to, always tells him to get a haircut and doesn't like his band at all, though she lets them play there as part of the exchange for Eddie working there. The stage is just some rickety wood that her late husband built. It's implied she had something to do with his death. She's strict and doesn't give anything out for free, only Al is able to charm her out of a free pitcher of beer when he's celebrating Eddie (temporarily) dropping out of school, which stuns Eddie. When Eddie quits the job chasing his California dream, she admits she'll miss their band and that's that.

- Janice: Principal Higgins secretary who equally hates Eddie and favors jocks and preppy students. She wears coke bottle glasses that magnify her eyes and has a fanatical obsession with purple.

- Stan: A junior member of Hellfire who had to sneak around his parents to go to meetings by pretending to be at algebra tutoring, as they consider D&D to be Satanic. When his parents find out, they write a letter to the school, condemning Hellfire club and saying they sent Stan to a church program to cleanse him. Higgins shows Eddie this letter to make him feel guilty and responsible.

-Nicole Summers and Cass Finnigan: These girlies are mentioned in one sentence but I don't know where else to put this info. Eddie implies these are the two other hookups he had before Paige, once in grade ten and once senior year, saying that he could tell they were only doing it for the dare of getting with the freak. Though, he wasn't looking to be anybody's boyfriend. He compares them to Paige, who he feels like genuinely likes him

- Steve Harrington: He doesn't actually appear in the book but his balls get a mention so he's going on the list. The only thing to note is that Steve doesn't approve of any freshman getting beat up, to the point where the jocks do it behind his back and Jason Carver is worried about him finding out. Tommy says Steve doesn't have any balls since dating Nancy Wheeler. Eddie defends Steve's balls, saying Tommy can't talk about someone else having no balls when he gets his kicks beating up freshman.

- Will and Jonathan Byers: At the end of the book, in a record shop, Will and Jonathan walk in. Eddie recognizes Will from his missing posters and recalls the events where Will had a funeral yet somehow was found alive. Jonathan goes to the back for a certain record, and while Will is alone, Eddie watches as a few younger jocks come into the store and start hounding him, calling him zombie boy. Eddie takes up for him, goads the jocks and gets them to take it out on him, takes a baseball to the chest and they leave. Eddie tells Will that Zombie Boy is metal as shit and Jonathan thanks Eddie when he comes back. Eddie offers Jonathan weed and says Jonathan is way too offended by the question for someone with his haircut. This whole interaction solidifies Eddie's new sense of purpose, collecting and protecting sheep.

- Granny Ecker: Ronnie's grandmother. She's not a big part of the story at all but she lives in the trailer park too. She's a wooden spoon wielding grandma character. Eddie calls her Granny too and she worries about Wayne and makes Eddie bring him casseroles and stuff. it's just cute so I'm including it.

[strawberri-yan]

Jing Yuan baby trapping trailblazer!reader, coercing them into giving up the trailbazing lifestyle, and the treating them like the finest treasure in all the Luofu!!!

He’s become too enamored of you with 0 intentions of letting you go. You are the only one good thing in his life and he believes he deserves to be selfish too for once. But when he heard the news you were to depart soon, it was as if his entire world was shattered. Reality had hit him hard when he had remembered that you were a Nameless! Your sole purpose was to travel to distant planets light years away. Therefore, the general decides to take matters into his own hands. Spiking your drink in a night of alcohol induced passion in your little get togethers. It was a one night stand that both of you promised to not let anyone else know, especially the Express crew.

As the days pass nearing your time at the Luofu, you notice the abnormal changes in your body in which you soon find out that you had fallen pregnant. The moment you shared the news with Jing Yuan in his private office, the atmosphere shifted as you were met with Jing Yuan’s enthusiasm and joy. Strong arms encircled around you, a warm and possessive embrace that seemed to promise protection and desire all at once before you feel yourself lifted in the air and twirled by the ecstatic general.

Jing Yuan voices how excited he is and couldn’t wait for his little one. Telling him how you and your child will be treated like treasures of the Loufu. He continues on adding that the two of you will wed right away so that the child could have proper parents. Yet you are very hesitant over the new drastic changes and his antics. A domestic, pampered lifestyle just wasn’t for you. You spoke your concerns with the general, negotiating that perhaps you could leave the child with Jing Yuan so that you may continue your trailblazing duties. You had expected the general to become upset yet surprisingly, he was calm and understanding which reassured you.

How wrong you were.

Later, you had found out that the express crew were getting detained over false accusations from the Loufu, their supposed crime was punishable for a lifetime of years in prison. Putting two and two together, you suspect that the general might have something to do with this. So you march towards his studies and demanded an answer.

"Jing Yuan, I demand to know the truth behind these accusations against my crew," your voice held a steely resolve. "You’ve done something, I know you have. All of this points right back to you.”

"(Y/N)," Jing Yuan's voice was velvety smooth, his tone carrying an air of nonchalance that contrasted the gravity of the accusation. "It seems you always had a way of seeing through the surface, don’t you? I'll admit, I've always admired your perceptive nature."

He leaned back in his seat, his golden eyes never leaving your face.

"You're right," he continued, his smile widening. "I did play a role in their detainment. But understand, (Y/N), I did it for you. To ensure your undivided attention and presence here. I see a future where you and our child are forever bound to the Loufu."

Jing Yuan's words were a careful dance, a balance of reason and manipulation. He spoke as if he had already woven a web that would secure you in his grasp.

“What..? “ you were speechless, not wanting to believe that your dear friend and ally would go to such lengths to get you to forcibly stay on the Luofu with him to raise a child you never wanted. “You endangered the life of my crewmates just because you wanted me to stay and play house wife with you?”

The general’s expression remained eerily serene despite the accusations hurled his way. His carefree smile persisted, a facade that concealed the complex tangle of emotions within him. "My dear, you are what simplify matters," Jing Yuan's voice was almost soothing, his words calculated to both placate and disarm. "I assure you, the lives of your crewmates were never in real jeopardy. I merely orchestrated a scenario to ensure our paths remained intertwined."

He gets up from his seat, taking a step forward you which causes you to take one back.

"I did it for us," he continued, his tone taking on a persuasive note. "To create a future where you and our child would be united under the banner of Loufu. A future where we could be together, as a family." Suddenly, your back presses against the cool surface of the wall. The General's cages you in as his freightening height looms over you, staring down like an eager predator. Jing Yuan's breath brushed against your ear as he leaned closer, his gaze unwavering. The General's hands moved with a deliberate slowness, tracing a path along your sides, leaving a trail of tingling sensations in their wake. His lips hovered dangerously close to your ear, his voice a low, seductive murmur. "After all, you have always been mine, even before you realized it."

[metanarrates]

if you choose to chain yourself next to the prisoner, you can survive what appears to be decades or even centuries without ever needing to eat or drink. if you get the "happy ending" after slaying the princess, you survive for so long afterwards that time loses all meaning. and yet, if you kill the nightmare, you starve to death eventually. why is that?

my suspicion is that it has something to do with our own awareness of our physical limitations.

as much as the princess is shaped by our perception of her, we are also shaped somewhat by our perception of ourselves. this is most obvious with the various voices, who seem to represent whatever trait was strongest in the previous chapter we played. but our perception comes up in a few other distinct moments, too. let's take the adversary for example.

and she does, too.

if you choose to fight the adversary, armed or unarmed, the stubborn will urge you to keep getting up, regardless of the narrator telling you you've died. you can survive death itself because you believe you can. pieces of you splattered on the walls, your organs hammered into a shape beyond recognition, your body a shambling, twitching mess - it doesn't matter. you keep getting up.

let's take the wild, as another example. if we reject the wild and turn inwards towards our fear/hatred, our unity with her unravels. as the narrator says, we remember we have a body. we stand on our two distinct feet once more, and encounter her, who is also a distinct, embodied creature. as much as her reality has changed, ours has too.

the prisoner doesn't starve. we don't experience anything physically unpleasant in her chapter if we chain ourselves up beside her. our awareness of our own biological reality and hers is next to nonexistent. but in the nightmare route?

the nightmare route is characterized by the paranoid's constant conscious maintenance of our autonomic nervous system. if he drops his concentration for even a second, the princess' presence will shut our organs down. we have never been aware of our own body more, and have also never believed more in its limitations. surviving biological failure seems like an impossibility. and so, it becomes one. we are only ever as embodied as we believe ourselves to be.

- the shifting mound, describing the shackled prisoner route

[vincord]

Borderline Kotoko and why.

(I'm not a psychiatrist, a specialist, or anyone else. Everything that follows is just my own vision of the character as a person with bpd. I like to headcanoning to my favorite characters what I have, especially if I see similarities with their feelings/behavior/relationships. I don't headcanon to the characters and my kins what I don't have myself and what I don't know much about. It's just a hedcanon and you may disagree with it, if you want.)

Since her second MV has been released, I can finally put all my thoughts together and write this post. (thanks to my mutual who told me to post this here. Without her little support, I wouldn't have done it)

I would like to start by saying that it is obvious that Kotoko divides the world into black and white, good and evil, allies and enemies. This is one of the main themes that can be traced throughout Kotoko's narrative. There is no middle ground for her, It's either this or that. This hinders Kotoko in her relationships with others, it hinders her in her relationship with herself and the perception of everything that is happening around her.

A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by extremes between idealization and devaluation.

During all this time, it has been shown how Kotoko is able to idealize people or just treat them well, but then push them away from her if they do or say something that undermines her trust in them. She takes a defensive position, because an opinion different from hers is equated with a threat and danger.

"Lucky"

Kotoko treats the rescued girl quite well only as long as she doesn't read the news.

_ Kazui

The 1st trial. Question 6.

"Who's the prisoner you have the most interest in?" Kotoko: It's hard to say. As of now, if it's about whose character I can't quite grasp, it'd be Kazui with his strong sense of intellectual curiosity.

The 2nd trial. Timeline (2022/08/05)

Kotoko: ……Mukuhara Kazui. Thanks to you, I wasn’t able to properly serve justice to those who did something unforgivable. I’m currently acting as an agent for our prison guard Es. Don’t get in my way next time. Kazui: Oi oi, don’t be silly, Yuzuriha-chan. There’s no way I could just look away from your outrageous display of violence. Anyway, even disregarding the fact violence against those voted guilty isn’t a part of Milgram’s system, what you’re doing is just acting recklessly based on a broad interpretation. As long as I’m free myself, I’ll stop you. Kotoko: ……what a pointless argument. Hmph. Since Es forgives you, I have no choice but to forgive you myself too. If you to keep to your words, then you’d best do what you can to keep being forgiven. If you’re not, then next time you’ll be one of my targets.

She is interested in him and communicating with him. They really have common topics to talk about and maybe they could even get along. But he does something that she doesn't like and is directed against her and her ideals. Kazui stands up for those whom Kotoko planned to punish, thereby turning her against himself, despite the small number of common themes that seemed to make her a little more loyal to him. This act alone is enough for her to instantly begin to see him as an enemy, not an ally. _

Es

Kotoko's idealization and disillusionment with people are best manifested in her relationship with Es. In the beginning, she offers them cooperation, seeing that Milgram is somewhat similar to what she adheres to, only to push them away when her opinion was not agreed.

The 1st trial. Voice drama.

Kotoko: Some scenes.. you can only see it in a cell. Because you and I are the same, always observing the other prisoners.

Es: Kotoko. A person like you.. What have you planned? Kotoko: Heh. Me, I want to be like you. There's no way I can tolerate sin.

Kotoko: To be honest, I don't know your true intentions. And I don't know whether you are a similar person with similar thoughts. Who knows, maybe it's just my delusion of wishful thinking.

The 2nd trial. Voice drama.

Es: Listen to me. You're wrong. Kotoko: What? We've decided to work together, so i've become your fangs.

Es: That's enough. We have different views on it. I'm not continuing to work with you.

Beginning. They make it clear to her that they disagree with her and consider her wrong.

Es: Kotoko. I will not do what you say. I will determine the way i see both sin and punishment as i want it. It may seem wrong from your point of view. And that's understandable. I'm pretty aware of it.

Kotoko: How ridiculous... It's always like this... All of you weaklings always act like this... All of you enjoy seeing someone getting hurt...

Kotoko: You keep asking for it, but as soon as it happens near you by your own choice, you all start complaining and evading your responsibility... You're always like this... Always such idiots!

Kotoko: You have no power, and yet you make no effort to gain it! You're talking about justice, but it just doesn't make sence! You're invested in people's disasters, yet you take a position of "i have nothing to do with it"! You can't even face your true selves!

Ending. After they disagree with Kotoko, she instantly forgets everything she said before. Now they are no longer similar people with similar interests. Now Es is the exact opposite of that. _

It is also worth recalling that since her birthday in 2022 to birthday in 2023, Kotoko has never contacted any of the other prisoners. She isolated herself from her surroundings for quite a long time, only to then offend them all. She didn't trust any of them before, but now, when she sees that no one agrees with her, she has done everything to build a barrier between them and herself.

Most people with BPD react sharply to rejection, disagreement with them, actions directed against them, and so on, which they can interpret as betrayal and something that threatens their own safety. Sometimes it doesn't matter what a person has done or said. The reaction to this can be strong and vivid. ___

Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms.

Here I focus only on paranoia and stress. Kotoko doesn't trust anyone, she's always tense and wary. Even in simple conversations with prisoners, she may feel threatened and something directed against herself. Actually, there is already a post that would fit this point and which is a little more detailed. It says more about PTSD, but still.

The 1st trial. Timeline (2020/05/30)

Mahiru: Hey, Kotoko-chan. There’s something that’s really been bugging me, so do you mind if I ask? ……how do you style yourself so well? Have you always dressed like that? But it also looks like something you’d wear for training. Do you play sport? Ah, or maybe some kind of martial arts? Kotoko: ……you really are carefree. Everyone in here is a “murderer” right? Is this really the time to be asking questions like that? Mahiru: Hmm, I guess so. That’s what they said. But nobody here seems particularly scary or anything, right? If I had to pick someone, then maybe you’re the scariest! Ah, wait, do you do like yoga or something? Kotoko: ……I can’t tell if you’re making fun of me or are just an airhead.

The 1st trial. Timeline (2020/07/09)

Kotoko: Kazui, you do martial arts right. ……what type? Judo? Kazui: Ah, my main is…… judo, and kendo. I also know a little bit of karate. You must have some martial arts experience too, right, Yuzuriha-chan? I can tell by looking. Hmm… probably a combat type…… I’m guessing not karate…… is it Taekwondo? Kotoko: ……I’m not telling you. Stop ogling me like that. It’s gross. Kazui: I-isn’t that a bit unfair?

+ Literally this moment.

___

Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights) +

Emotional instability in reaction to day-to-day events

or

or

In both of her MVs, from time to time there is a sudden transition to wolves, the red moon and Kotoko's inner world, during which she gives free rein to her emotions. It's like emotional outbursts and outbursts of aggression, the appearance of which you cannot predict, which is why they cause damage both to the one who has them, and, perhaps, to those who are around.

Not that I can say anything about symbolism, I don't think i understand it. But since this is my post and my headcanon, I can interpret what is happening the way I want.

For all its secrecy and unsociability, most of Kotoko's outfits are quite open, compared to the outfit with the red jacket. When she's in this outfit, she's either in her inner world, or with an emotional outburst, or hurting someone. Wearing a hood is an attempt to protect yourself from the outside world and the people around you, to keep all your emotions to yourself, which are already suppressed. Kotoko, with her hood up, is cold and aloof from everyone. She builds a kind of wall between herself and the others. When she removes the hood from her head, she breaks down these walls, allowing a bunch of different emotions to break out and mix.

I would also like to mention how she sounds in her second voice drama and second song. She goes from emotion to emotion and pretty quickly. The way she quickly goes from laughter to intense anger, from intense anger to utter despair and is on the verge of tears, only to then return to anger again, and then suddenly quiet down. ___

Identity disturbance with markedly or persistently unstable self-image or sense of self +

Chronic feelings of emptiness

+

The 1st trial. Question 1

"Just who are you?" Kotoko: Yuzuriha Kotoko. Someone who plans to fight for your sake. Well, that depends on you too, though.

Kotoko doesn't perceive herself as a person, but rather as a tool to achieve a particular goal. Someone who will do the dirty work that others won't do. She has a first name, last name, age, and that's all. Her whole definition goes through her own ideals, which she desperately clings to and clings to. Kotoko's views are radical and in most cases don't imply compromises. She's either a hero or nobody, so she always needs a reason to follow her ideals and do everything according to them.

Otherwise, there will be nothing left of her. ___

What can I say at the end? Well, this is my headcannon and that's it. I could have forgotten something, made a mistake somewhere, or not completed it. It's hard for me to keep track of it.

Kotoko is one of my favorite characters and some of the things related to her evoke a strong response in me, even if these things show the negative side of the personality and cause a pang of guilt/dislike. It's like you're being shown those disadvantages of yours that you're trying to ignore.

I like to think that she crushes a lot of emotions inside herself, trying not to let them escape. I like to think that sometimes she's afraid of herself, and sometimes she's not. Her cooperation with someone is both a feeling of being needed, and avoiding loneliness, and a moment of socialization. But she can't stand it, because any little thing or the wrong word triggers a survival mode in her head, which is why she builds high walls between herself and the environment again.

I have a lot of thoughts about her. I just wanted to pour at least a small part of these thoughts out of my head into a relatively structured post and that's all. Thanks for reading it. I've been carrying it all in my head for quite a long time and I don't want to wait for the release of her answers to the questions, you know...

[atomicradiogirl]

Son of a Coma Guy: Unconditional Love is Cutting Your Heart Out

Son of a Coma Guy is leading up to the climax of the Tritter arc of House season 3, only two episodes before Finding Judas, where Wilson betrays House and makes a deal with Tritter, an action that ultimately dissolves their relationship until Season 4. The episode starts with a unique structure, with no patient cold open. Just House having lunch with two patients in comas. Wilson barges in and yells at House for “forcing him to lie to the police” that House didn't steal Wilson’s prescription pad and forge his Vicodin prescriptions. This is all in the first minute of the episode, setting up the intricacies of House and Wilson’s relationship that will soon get pushed in the later events of the season. 

Wilson is characterized as a person who is selfless, giving, loves to be needed, and will do anything in his power to help people he cares about, especially House. House does something that should rightfully break this friendship: put Wilson’s career on the line and possibly send himself to prison. Wilson is mad at House for only thinking about himself and putting himself in jeopardy. Wilson isn’t mad at House for using him and his kindness. House always does this. Wilson likes being used. In reality, Wilson is scared for House, not himself. He lied to Tritter to protect House. House didn't force Wilson to lie for him. Wilson did it anyway. The ultimate act of loyalty and care, the ultimate sacrifice. This is all read between the lines, of course, and this important revelation in the opening of the episode sets up the actions and importance of Son of a Coma Guy. 

We are then introduced to the titular Son of a Coma Guy, Kyle Wozniak, who has a seizure when House induces one. Kyle discusses his medical history and his family history. He says that his dad never liked his mother’s side of the family, and he was raised by a guardian. He only visits his father, who is in a coma. House wakes up his comatose father, Gabriel Wozniak. The last thing he remembers is the fire that killed his wife, something that is revealed to have been caused by Kyle later in the episode. House and Wilson discuss Gabriel. House argues, “Maybe he just doesn’t like his son. The delusion that fathering a child installs a permanent geyser of unconditional love.” Wilson interjects with, “Maybe your father’s feelings were conditional. Not everyone-” House cuts him off, “Yes, of course, that would play into your romantic vision of-” Wilson says, “In terms you would understand, we have an evolutionary incentive to sacrifice for our offspring. Our tribe, our friends. Keep them safe.” To which House replies, “Except for all the people who don’t. Everything is conditional. You just can’t always anticipate the conditions.” Wilson’s argument here mirrors his actions at the start of the episode, sacrificing himself and keeping House safe from the consequences of his actions, even if he deserves them. House says that maybe Gabriel’s relationship with Kyle is conditional, that love and sacrifice can never be unconditional. Referencing his abusive relationship with his father and his perception of love. That it always has to have a catch. This is really important in understand House and Wilson as characters, and especially in their relationship. Wilson views love as being programmed, an innate thing you’re evolutionarily destined to have. House views love as something you earn, something you get, something that has conditions. Wilson might have a romantic vision of love, but his love life is just as unhealthy as House’s. Constantly putting people’s needs in front of his own, sacrificing himself for House, which is left unnoticed and unappreciated by House. Someone who views this sacrifice as conditional when, in reality, it isn’t. This is the dichotomy of House and Wilson. 

House fulfills Gabriel’s last-day request of getting a sandwich and needs Wilson’s car for a road trip to Atlantic City. Wilson of course, lets him have it but decides to come with them. House keeps questioning Gabriel so Gabriel makes a deal with him that for every question House asks, Gabriel asks him one too. Gabriel asks House if he’s ever been in love, House says yes. Says that they met when she shot him in paintball, talking about Stacy. Gabriel asks if House has ever loved anyone else and House deflects saying, “no more questions” but Wilson is of course in the car with them. House doesn’t want to admit that he 1. Either loves Wilson or 2. Is capable of loving Wilson since this would prove his conditional love theory, that he loves Wilson only because he selflessly gives House what he needs. 

In the hotel in Atlantic City, Wilson asks House why he used his pad, not Cameron’s Foreman's or Chase’s. Wilson says that it’s because his association with House is voluntary. That he chooses to be close to him. “Any relationship that involves choice you have to see how far you can push before it breaks. And one day our friendship will break and that’ll just prove your theory that relationships are conditional and you don’t need human connection or deserve it or whatever goes on in that rat maze of your brain.” House deflects this, of course. Incapable of being truly honest about his feelings at this stage. House, throughout the show has a deep insecurity about deserving love, deserving to live, and deserving to be happy. Wilson’s unconditional loyalty to him pushes against this. Yes, there are moments when their relationship wavers but it never truly fully breaks. He always comes back to House and in the end, he relies on House. House is all Wilson has, and Wilson is all House has. Son of a Coma Guy is the first proof that House can bend Wilson and his relationship and Wilson will bend with him. Their social contract of push and pull. Bending but never fully breaking. 

House questions Gabriel about his family history, eventually determining the illness that is inherited throughout their family. Gabriel asks House why he became a doctor, and he decides to be honest with him. Saying that when his father was stationed in Japan he went to one of the hospitals as a kid and he was inspired by a doctor, a buraku, one of Japan’s untouchables. Someone whose ancestors were slaughterers and gravediggers, he wasn’t accepted by his staff, but they needed him because he was right so nothing else mattered. Gabriel is asked about the fire that killed his wife, and he explains that Kyle when he was 12, knocked over the kindling which started the fire. He didn’t blame him because he was just a child and it was an accident. Gabriel isn’t with him because he blames himself for failing to keep his family safe. He couldn’t stop the fire and save his wife. He doesn’t want to see his son die too. This goes into Wilson’s evolutionary love argument. Gabriel loves his family so much that he can’t bear to lose them, to fail to protect them.

Gabriel decides to perform the ultimate sacrifice, to give Kyle his heart to save him. House decides to go along with it, telling Gabriel how to kill himself so that the heart can be saved, by hanging. Before he aids Gabriel, he asks Wilson to leave the room. Wilson says no, but House says, “You’ve lied to the cops enough for me. Maybe I don’t want to push this until it breaks.” To which Wilson leaves, accepting that House appreciates his sacrifice and is willing to put himself on the line for someone else. Something that House rarely does. Gabriel asks House if he could hear one thing from his father what would it be? To which House says “I’d want him to say You were right. You did the right thing.” What this is truly about we don’t know and never really find out but House’s abusive relationship with his father isn’t truly revealed until One Day One Room a few episodes later, which puts new context to this line. House has to kill a father who loves his son so much, even though he accidentally caused the death of his wife, that he is willing to sacrifice his heart for him. Gabriel unconditionally loves his son, but House’s father’s love was conditional. This is what Wilson argued previously. Gabriel is willing to sacrifice his heart, (do I have to mention Wilson’s Heart) also mirrors Wilson’s sacrifice at the beginning of the episode. Both Gabriel and Wilson prove their unconditional love. Wilson wordlessly sets up House’s alibi for him and they wait together for Gabriel to die. When Gabriel’s heart saves Kyle, Kyle asks House for any message from his father, something to give him closure. House tells him what he wishes his father would have told him. “Right about what? What does that mean?” Kyle asks. “How would I know? He’s your dad,” House tells him and leaves.

“You know what I learned about this case?” House asks Wilson at the end of the episode. “That it proved that people can love unconditionally and you can tell yourself it’s not true, but you’ll just end up in a hotel room in Atlantic City asking someone to cut your heart out?” Wilson says. 

Son of a Coma Guy is an episode about unconditional love and sacrifice. Gabriel and Wilson are the givers, those who sacrifice their hearts (literally and not literally) for the people they love. Kyle and House are the takers. Those who don’t think they deserve the love they receive but are forced to take it. Kyle, to live, House for growth. I adore this episode and it is a prime highlight of House and Wilson’s relationship and the peak of House’s writing.

[chocolatepot]

Prisons of Our Own Perceptions is now complete!

Read from Chapter One | Read the last chapter

Rating: Mature | Words: 60,231 | Chapters: 18

Ed had been interested in tracking down the so-called "Gentleman Pirate" for months. What sort of gentleman commissioned a ship and fled his life of luxury for one of bloodshed and backstabbing? And by all accounts, particularly Izzy’s, he was a terrible pirate. Completely incompetent. It made no sense … but it was compelling. And the thing was, Ed didn’t find much compelling these days.

After being sold out to the Spanish, the Revenge was "rescued" by Charles Vane rather than Blackbeard - and unlike Edward, Vane doesn't see Stede as an equal. After weeks of captivity on Vane's ship, Ed and Stede meet, and something begins …

Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Recovery, Whump, Kink Meme, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Trauma, Stede Bonnet Needs a Hug, Hurt Stede Bonnet, Protective Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Blackbeard | Edward Teach Deserves Nice Things, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Pining, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, No beta we die like Lucius, Eventual Happy Ending, POV Stede Bonnet, POV Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Fluff and Angst, Fluff, POV Lucius Spriggs, canon-typical travel inaccuracies, Hurt Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Protective Stede Bonnet, Blood and Violence

[pinkfestivalpeanuttree]

augh damsel-prisoner-spectre/smitten-skeptic-cold parallels my beloved

damsel/prisoner parallels obviously

smitten and cold being foils obviously

getting smitten/cold and skeptic/cold in both gray routes-- unlike the other chapter IIIs, cold is the only voice you can get in the gray

the prisoner route and chapter 1 leading to the spectre being the only routes where you can get the "good ending" (i think)

not really a thematic parallel i think but i've been sort of keeping track of which chapter 2s share a chapter 3 and possible themes they share and interestingly besides stranger and razor those three routes are the only ones without their own unique chapter 3

which. actually. that's like half the chapter 2s BUT stranger and razor are the odd ones out for different reasons

you can't get any other chapter 3 in the damsel or prisoner besides the grays However! both the prisoner and the damsel have varient endings: the deconstructed damsel and the prisoner's head

(also just a side thought but you would think getting beheaded would make for a bad ending but that varient feels more like the "good" option to me, in part because there's not a lot of dialogue if you get chained up with the prisoner but also because the Themes™. the route is all about skepticism and distrust and by trusting the princess and giving her the blade and her trusting you to take her head you are able to escape the cabin! the prisoner's also very proactive in getting herself out, which feels interesting in comparison to the damsel and how she's completely dependent on the protagonist to get her out- and another parallel, the prisoner takes action to get rid of her own chains which have multiplied since last time, and the damsel is reliant upon us to save her despite the fact that her hand slips out easily from her chain (although then again that could just be our perception changing things with the help of smitten brute forcing fairytale tropes and happily ever after logic onto the world) idk it's like the prisoner has more. autonomy in this route? more agency?)

and of course the spectre can only lead to the wraith which you can get with nightmare as well

sorry spectre and skeptic i feel like i did you guys dirty in this post i also love you guys but there are more parallels between damsel/prisoner and smitten/cold

you know what though i would LOVE to see spectre skeptic interactions. i think it would be Interesting.

(modern au murder mystery with skeptic as a detective and spectre as the murder victim who's become a ghost...)

[justforbooks]

Who was Lee Miller?

Why the model-turned-war photographer is finally getting her due

A surrealist with an incisive eye, finding the beauty and absurdity of everyday life. A model who posed for Vogue and sat for Pablo Picasso and Man Ray, but whose fashion career was suddenly cut short. A war photographer who embedded with the US military to chronicle the harrowing events of World War II — and posed defiantly in Hitler’s bathtub on the day of his death.

Lee Miller was an American artist who remade herself many times without straying from the principles that guided her life and career. When she died in 1977, her photographic work had largely been forgotten; her own family was unaware of the scope of her practice, and what she witnessed in the war, until they found her cache of negatives. Now, five decades later, she’s the subject of the Kate Winslet-led biopic “Lee,” which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, as well as a recent monograph of her work and an exhibition at mega-gallery Gagosian in New York, where some of her prints were for sale.

Her son, photographer Antony Penrose — whose father was the British surrealist painter Roland Penrose, whom Miller married in 1947 — has made it his life’s work to bring attention to his mother’s legacy. He co-directs her archive with his daughter, Ami Bouhassane, and has authored multiple books about Miller, including the most recent, “Lee Miller: Photographs.” For the past decade, he’s consulted on “Lee” as it came together, and has finally begun its run in both the United Kingdom and Spain.

“There were movies proposed and very nearly made before,” Penrose said. “This is the one that we’ve been waiting for, because I feel it is a brilliant rendition of Lee’s life, values and personality.”

He still recalls how “bewildering” it was when he and his late wife, Suzanna, found some 60,000 of her negatives and prints in their attic shortly after Miller’s death. She had developed a unique surrealist way of looking at the world, capturing everyday eccentricities that play with the viewer’s perception: a scratched-up door at a jewelry store becomes a small explosion of sparks; tar spilled on the street glistens darkly like some deep-sea or cave-bound creature.

But her range was staggering. Here was Elsa Schiaparelli supine among two cheetah sculptures, and Marlene Dietrich posing in dramatic sun in the designer’s ruched house coat. Here was a crowd of people spitting on four women, their heads shaved, as they went to trial for accusations of associating with Nazis. Here were the bodies of concentration camp victims in Dachau, and the liberated prisoners standing over a pile of human bones.

“None of us — and that includes my father — knew the scope of Lee’s work, particularly her war work,” Penrose said of his mother. “She deliberately didn’t tell him what was going on, because she didn’t want him to be worried.”

After the war, Miller struggled with depression and alcohol dependency, decades before post-traumatic stress disorder — and its symptoms — was officially recognized. When the occasional curator or art historian would turn up to better understand the depth of her work, Penrose said Miller would deflect the focus and downplay her career. It’s only been through her archive that he was able to understand the life she lived.

“It was a voyage of discovery,” Penrose added. “It was like finding a person that we had not known before — way beyond our kind of understanding and knowledge.”

Reinventing herself

For many years, Miller was remembered primarily for her modeling work in New York and with the reductive label of “muse” during her time in Paris. She sat for Pablo Picasso as he painted her in lurid yellow and green, illustrating her “extraordinary wit and liveliness… and a very bold, confrontational approach to life,” according to Jason Ysenburg, a director at Gagosian and co-curator of the gallery’s show “Lee Miller and Friends”.

She was also often remembered — but not credited — for her portrait collaborations with Man Ray, with whom she was romantically involved and remained friends throughout her life.

“Those images of Lee were as much by Lee as by Man Ray,” added Richard Calvocoressi, the show’s other co-curator.

Miller has been described by many as a supermodel on the cusp in her early twenties, a period just before she met Man Ray. But she was seemingly blacklisted by fashion clients overnight, after a portrait of her by the photographer Edward Steichen was licensed for a Kotex ad promoting menstrual products.

“She absolutely came to a crash stop. Nobody wanted the Kotex girl modeling their frocks,” Penrose said. “She didn’t even know that the photograph was going to be used for that purpose — it was bought through an agency.”

Though Miller used the setback as a sign to shift her practice, sexist social structures continued to shape her career. Art historians and curators of the 20th century relegated female surrealists — many of whom appear in Miller’s images, like the painter Leonora Carrington and the photographer Dora Maar — to the sidelines of the movement when they were, in actuality, crucial figures; Penrose recalls that his own father referred to them more as “muses” than artists in their own right, despite their prolific outputs.

But despite the imbalances within their group, Miller’s time with her friends ahead of World War II was seemingly idyllic. She’d left Paris in 1932 for New York when her relationship with Man Ray ended, and then unexpectedly married Egyptian businessman Aziz Eloui Bey and moved to Cairo. When she spent the summer of 1937 back in Paris and met Roland, it sparked a two-year affair (and series of love letters when they were apart), that eventually resulted in the dissolution of her marriage.

Some of Miller’s emblematic images of the period show their vacations across the south of France from beach outings with Roland, Picasso and Maar and the model Ady Fidelin, to a picnic that has drawn comparisons to Édouard Manet’s famed painting “Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe” as a topless Fidelin is pictured alongside Man Ray, the poet Paul Éluard and artist Nusch Éluard.

But as Ysenburg points out, the tumult of the era had already begun — Nazism brewed in Germany and the Spanish Civil War broke out, prompting Picasso’s monumental and career-defining work “Guernica” which was painted the same year Miller returned to Paris.

“It was a community that in the sense that they were friends and lovers,” Ysenburg explained. “It seemed a very carefree time for them in a world that was changing very quickly.”

She saw ‘what we’re missing’

Many artists fled Europe in the 1940s, and Miller could have gone back to New York to safety, Penrose said. But she’d settled down with Roland in London and refused to leave, instead becoming a photojournalist for British Vogue, documenting women who were contributing to the war efforts, and taking both fashion and street images during the Blitz.

Later, she was accredited as an official correspondent with the US armed forces — one of just four such female photographers. During this period, in Normandy and in Munich she worked closely with the Life photojournalist David E. Scherman. Together, they entered Hitler’s apartment with soldiers on April 30, 1945, the same day that Hitler shot himself in his bunker in Berlin. Just that morning, Miller and Scherman had taken photographs in Dachau; Miller tracked mud from the concentration camp all over the apartment’s floor before stripping down to pose in the bathtub. She took the same photo of Scherman, who was Jewish, as well.

“Those boots carried her that morning around the concentration camp, and now she’s grinding the filth of that place into Hitler’s nice clean bathroom,” Penrose said. “They prove that she’s not there as a guest in his house. She’s a victor.”

Even as Miller faced the harrowing effects of the war across Europe — sights that would take a toll on her in its aftermath — she still maintained her keen artist’s eye. After all, she believed there was nothing “more surrealist, more mad, more nightmarish” than the war, according to Calvocoressi.

“Even in the most dangerous and demanding circumstances, she’s still looking out for weird, quirky images,” Penrose said. “I find that that so endearing — the hallmark of her artistry is just to see what we’re missing.”

Miller took her last assignment for Vogue in the early 1950s, as Penrose notes that she could no longer meet deadlines because of her declining mental health. But she didn’t stop photographing, taking some 1,000 photographs of Picasso as Roland worked on his biography, which published in 1958.

Penrose said that throughout the course of her career, she was always “looking for the metaphor” in her surroundings. Of the many poetic moments she captured, one took place in front of the Vienna Opera House in Austria’s capital in late 1945 amid the lingering destruction of war. Framed by twisted metal support beams and rubble, the soprano Irmgard Seefried is photographed singing an aria from the Italian opera “Madame Butterfly,” in what Penrose believes to be an image set up by Miller — who captured her with arms outstretched, completely in silhouette.

“In a way, it’s a reversal, because you would have expected the singer to be beautifully lit from all kinds of sources.” Penrose explained.

“Gone is the costume. gone is any kind of glamorization… what we have is this absolute passion, about the triumph of art over destruction.”

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[maniacwatchestheworld]

A Basic Guide to Harvey "Two-Face" Dent for Misha stans

With love, from a Two-Face fan who hasn't watched Supernatural and doesn't really intend on watching Gotham Knights.

Now before getting into this, you need to keep in mind that Harvey Dent (at the time of his creation, Harvey Kent) was a character first introduced to comics in 1942, and even within Batman canon, he is one of the most wildly inconsistently written characters. If you pick up any two stories that feature Two-Face in them at random, you are very likely to get two entirely different characters. As such, there are dozens of entirely valid ways of interpreting and writing his character, so what I write here is either based off of general consensus or my own personal opinion on the character.

If you are already a Two-Face fan who is reading this, I'm not trying to diminish your preferred way of interpreting the character and would be perfectly happy with discussing our differences in opinion in a separate post, but here I'm just trying to make a somewhat digestible guide to his character for newbies based off of my own perception of him and what I've heard about his character from Gotham Knights and what might appeal to his fans. If you disagree, you're welcome to write a similar post about him yourself.

Overview

Harvey Dent is Gotham City's District Attorney. He's actually a legal genius and savant. (He is also just generally DAMN smart when written well!) He became District Attorney at a very young age (~26 years old, making him the youngest District Attorney that Gotham has ever had,) and is the best damn lawyer in all of Gotham! At his best, he was locking up criminals left and right no one could stop him, and this ended up ticking off Gotham's criminal underworld. As District Attorney, he would work alongside Batman and Commissioner Gordon to make his convictions stick, which is something other District Attorneys before him couldn't do. For this, the public loved him. This also makes Arkham Asylum and Blackgate Prison exceedingly dangerous places for him to be, as a good percentage of their residents are there because of him.

Harvey Dent is Bruce Wayne's best friend. Sometimes they are even childhood friends! At the latest, they became friends after Bruce had already become Batman, but usually they are long-time friends, sometimes meeting as kids, though also often meeting in college. (They both went to Gotham University.) I think there are some iterations where they're even college roommates! They tend to have been very close in college. Regardless of when they met, they found kindred spirits within one another as they each sought to bring justice to this city that they love in their own ways. Because of this kinship, the two got extremely close and were the best of friends before Harvey's incident.

Harvey Dent is an abuse survivor. When he was a kid, Harvey's father would beat him and his mother. But his father made a game of it. The details sometimes change a little, but in essence his father would flip a coin. If it landed heads, he would beat Harvey. If it landed tails, then he wouldn't have to be punished. The coin was heads on both sides.

Harvey Dent is neurodivergent. Most iterations of Two-Face have OCD and many (but not all) are plural, presumably with some form of Dissociative Identity Disorder. It is generally thought that his childhood abuse caused him to have these conditions. After leaving his father's control, Harvey was able to get a handle on his OCD tendencies and deeply suppressed his one other disassociated identity. However, if Harvey experiences high levels of stress or anger over a prolonged period of time, that could make these two conditions show themselves again. When the incident that melted half of his face off happened, these conditions came back to stay. He is indeed legally insane. But this is because of his OCD (specifically how he flips a coin to make all of his decisions), and NOT because of his plurality! Note: Plurality is more common that you probably think it is. It's estimated that 1-5% of people are plural. I've also spoken to at least 2 people who are plural or system members that dearly love Two-Face as a character. Two-Face is very unusual as a system (you are a lot more likely to find a system of 12 members than one of as few as 2), but I have no doubt that systems that work like him are out there. Because of all of this, I try my best to be sensitive and understanding towards plural people at all times while in this fandom space. I can not speak for them as I am not plural myself, but I am always trying to listen to plural voices and learn from them. I would ask that while you're in this space that you try to do the same. All of the plural people and system members that I've spoken to and know want to be thought of and addressed to as different people, and therefore I try to think of Harvey and Two-Face the same way that I would a real plural person, and see them as different characters. When I say "Harvey Dent" (full name) I'm usually talking about the general character and in-universe legal identity or the body. When I say "Two-Face" I usually mean their shared criminal identity or Harvey's "dark side" as this is the generally accepted way to refer to him by. For the sake of this post I will try to generally refer to "Harvey's dark side"/"Two-Face" (the character) as "Harvey's associate" or "the Associate" to more clearly differentiate him from Harvey. Harvey is Harvey.

Duality and the Number 2

Since Harvey and his Associate have OCD, they get compulsions and obsessions that they can't entirely control. In their case, they have a particular fixation on the concept of duality and the number 2.

They often theme their crimes around the number 2, be that having them take place on the 2nd or 22nd of the month and starting at 2:00 am, the locations having 2 in them like 2222 Doubleday Street or the Second National Bank, or conceptually relating the to number 2, like kidnapping twins, or stealing two-of-a-kind, matching artifacts. If the scheme can do two things at once, like receiving a payout AND killing Batman (killing two birds with one stone), that's even better!

They think in very dualistic ways and try to apply those themes to themselves. Harvey is good, the Associate is evil. Harvey is clean and calculated, the Associate is messy and unpredictable. Harvey is friendly and polite, the Associate is mean and rude. The Associate might also do things that he knows Harvey wouldn't for the sake of 'balance' or being Harvey's opposite. They might also try to apply this duality when it comes to their relations to other characters. Batman is good, they are evil. Batman represents order, they represent chaos. Whether these statements are actually true or not may not reflect the reality of their characters, but they want it to.

Expect lots of puns around the number 2 and for them to get agitated when other numbers that don't relate to the number 2 to get brought up.

The Coin

The origin of Two-Face's coin varies between iterations. The original story from 1942 had it as a piece of evidence. It was the good luck charm of a mob boss that Harvey was trying to put away and was a piece of evidence that placed said mob boss at the scene of a crime. This mob boss was the same one that tried to melt Harvey's face off. Harvey would keep the coin after the incident, for some reason. Later on, the coin was rewritten to previously belong to Harvey's father as I wrote about above. In this iteration of the coin's backstory, Harvey's father gave Harvey the coin and Harvey kept it as a good luck charm.

The coin is usually a silver dollar, minted in 1922 and has the heads side on both sides. However one of these heads has been defaced and is all scratched up, making the coin fair again. Clean heads is considered to be the 'heads' side and is often referred to as 'good heads.' The scratched side is considered to be the 'tails' side and is often referred to as 'bad heads.' Harvey and his Associate feel a kinship with this coin, Harvey being represented by the good heads, and the Associate being represented by the bad heads.

Often times their OCD leaves Harvey and his Associate unable to make decisions and so they have a compulsion to flip their special coin to make their decisions for them. This will sometimes be used as a tie-breaker between Harvey and his Associate- if they get good heads, they do what Harvey wants, if they get bad heads, they do what the Associate wants. Other times when it comes to more neutral decisions, good heads will represent yes and bad heads will represent no (Example: Do we talk to this person? Good heads, yes. Bad heads, that person can fuck off). However most famously, they flip the coin to choose the morality of their actions with good heads being they do the moral thing and bad heads meaning they do the immoral thing. They are known to flip their coin to decide whether or not to kill. Good heads, the person lives. Bad heads, the person dies.

Because of their compulsion to flip their coin to make decisions, they will often end up doing things that they don't actually want to because the coin told them to. This also does occasionally lead to Harvey and his Associate helping Batman out and actually doing the right thing.

About the cooler Harvey (aka "Harv", "Two-Face", "Big Bad Harv", "Harvey's Associate" or "Harvey's dark side")

In plural terms, the Associate usually starts off as a Protector- a system member that protects other members of a system from harm (external or internal), but has become a Persecutor- a system member who does harm to others, be that to the body, other system members, or people outside the system, often because they think this will somehow help the system.

It is very likely that the Associate also holds Harvey's anger and trauma, and may have experienced the brunt of the abuse they have been subjected to. Because of this, the Associate is known to lash out and hurt others.

Before Harvey becomes Two-Face, his Associate will sometimes come out to the front, but only a little. He may pop up when Harvey is under a lot of stress for a long period of time or when he gets exceedingly angry. He may also come out any time Harvey gets into any kind of physical altercation with someone.

Where Harvey usually keeps his temper under control and is not likely to fly off the handle, the Associate has MAJOR anger management issues! The Associate WILL fight you with his fists if you provoke him enough.

The Associate is NOT nice! He is mean and cruel and sadistic. He is usually more brutal and violent than Harvey. Where Harvey might want to do things nice and clean, the Associate isn't afraid of letting things get messy. When they kill, you can usually assume that the Associate was the one to pull the trigger.

The Associate HATES Harvey for suppressing him for so many years. The Associate tends to see Harvey as weak, ineffectual, and a coward, unable and unwilling to do what actually needs to get done. For this, the Associate does not like it when Harvey gets to front and will often do what he can to shove Harvey into the back. Because of this, Harvey may not be seen fronting for long periods at a time.

The Associate and Harvey are often seen to be co-conscious and may co-front.

In many iterations of these characters, Harvey has often tried to get rid of his Associate, but it never tends to stick.

The Associate often REVELS in their compulsions where Harvey is upset and disturbed by them.

While the Associate is often a viscous and cruel thug, that doesn't mean that he is entirely unsympathetic. The instances of him being genuinely sympathetic are rare, but they are out there! Therefore he should be thought of as more than just an 'evil alter ego.' Just like real life Persecutor system members, they shouldn't be considered to be purely malicious and evil, but should rather be a character who deserves understanding and help just like any other system member character would!

Harvey Dent's Love Life

Just so you know, BruHarvey/TwoBats (Bruce Wayne/Harvey Dent) is indeed the most popular ship that Harvey has. To you people who immediately started shipping the two, just know that you're not alone in feeling the gay vibes from them and that these two do indeed refuse to be straight about their relationship in a lot of the media that they share! Most Harvey fans that I know do indeed ship BruHarvey, and there is some good media out there that have a lot of BruHarvey vibes!

Harvey is often married or engaged at the start of his story. His wife is usually Gilda Gold who (when we know that she has a job) is a very skilled sculptor. She likes sculpting Harvey's face because he's beautiful, even sometimes calling him by the nickname "Apollo."

Gilda may or may not be the Holiday Killer- A serial killer who targets mobsters and kills them on holidays (Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Valentines Day, etc).

In the current mainline DC continuity, Gilda is dead. Harvey is a widower. In previous continuity they had gotten (understandably) divorced.

Other characters that Harvey has dated include Poison Ivy (who wanted to kill him) and Catwoman (who wanted to steal from him). Given that and how Gilda is sometimes the Holiday Killer, and you can comfortably say that Harvey has questionable taste in women.

Harvey falls in love HARD and FAST! As an example, in Batman: the Animated Series, he knew Ivy for a week before proposing to her. He does something similar with a different woman later in the series (a Gilda analogue, so that one partially works out).

Often Harvey wants to have kids. He seems pretty down with the idea of adopting.

Harvey Dent's relations to other characters that may appear

Dick Grayson (1st Robin): They hate each other. Early on in his career as Robin, Two-Face almost beat him to death. Dick has decidedly not forgiven him for this.

Jason Todd (2nd Robin): Not always the most friendly with each other, but have worked together in the pages of Task Force Z (which is a specialized Suicide Squad task force that consists of undead supervillains). In Task Force Z, there were kinda vibes that Harvey was the team dad who was just trying his best (but sucked at his job) while Jason was his angsty son with anger issues. Jason's biological father was killed by Two-Face (he worked for/owed money to Two-Face. He didn't pay back, so he was killed), but at this point Jason doesn't really seem to hold a grudge over it. Probably Two-Face's favorite Robin since he's the second Robin.

Tim Drake (3rd Robin): The story that introduced Tim Drake (A Lonely Place of Dying) was a Two-Face story, so in a way, you could say that Two-Face pushed Tim into taking on the role. (Otherwise I personally don't know much about their relationship.)

Commissioner Gordon: They used to be good friends back when Harvey was Gotham's District Attorney. They used to work together a lot, but now they seem to have 0 issues with the idea of killing Gordon.

Other notes:

He has almost no consistent visual design outside of 'male,' 'face is half messed up,' and 'split suits'. While he's usually supposed to have brown hair and green eyes (to make him look different from Bruce), this isn't always stuck to. Hell! There are a handful of iterations of Two-Face that are black!

Harvey Dent/Two-Face are decently influential characters within popular culture. You know the quote, "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." ...? That quote comes from The Dark Knight (2008 film) and is said by Harvey before he becomes Two-Face and ends up being about him. Also the quote of "He isn't the hero we deserve, but he is the hero we need" relates to Harvey as well, though it's spoken about Batman. Also apparently this is a meme that exists and was apparently popular on Reddit, and I only just now learned of it soooo... Pop culture contributions yay?

Recovery is precedented for Harvey! In his original appearance in the 1940's, Harvey actually decided to turn away from his life of crime for the sake of the woman who became his wife and got his face fixed after she proved that she still loved him in spite of his disfiguration. Apparently in the 1980's newspaper strips, Harvey went on to recover there as well! And he even kept his scars that time! (You can actually read this story on Tumblr here!) However in most iterations, when Harvey 'gets better' he usually takes the turn for the worst at some point and sadly goes back to being Two-Face again. But for the most part, Harvey wants to recover and get better, but his Associate wants them to get worse.

A long post, I know. But I hope that you find this helpful or at least mildly interesting! If you have any other questions, feel free to ask! I'd be more than happy to try and answer to the best of my ability! If you made it this far, color me impressed! And if you are indeed a Misha stan who's new to this space, I'm happy to see you here! I hope you have a good day! Love you!

[spacebarbarianweird]

Dhampirs of Faerun

We had a discussion about dhampirs with @marcynomercy on Discord recently.

Dhampirs are known to be secretive. They know how to blend with mortals and not to attract the attention of either regular people or vampires. But if you release spawns into the Underdark, dhampirs will be much more common in the decades to come. Much more common than they have ever been.

Now imagine this paranormal comedy fuel.

Masterlist

Headcanons

A group of adventurers gathers in a tavern, tasked with killing a shady villain.

They've never met before, each harboring secrets they don't want to share.

Seven members compose the team.

Berserk - Human

Tiefling Bard who fucks everything that moves and if it doesn't move he moves it and fucks.

A Dwarf Paladin.

A silver-curled Elven maiden skilled with daggers.

A Half-Orc ranger who looks at the sun with awe of someone who has never seen the light.

A Half-Elf Rogue.

And an autistic wizard kid they've picked up for fun.

They carefully plan their tactics and embark on the adventure.

For a month, they travel through the wilderness, bonding and befriending each other.

They learn to trust each other and share some secrets.

There's even a love couple whose relationship will probably last longer than this adventure.

They fight the villain, restrain him, and drag him to their camp.

At night, the villain tries to talk to the wizard kid.

"Kiddo, listen, we have much more in common than you think. Have you ever felt the bloodlust? Have you heard the night singing for you?"

The wizard kid feels uneasy; no one must know his secret.

In the meantime, the Rogue decides to look around the camp for potential threats. The Berserk follows him, looking drunk.

"FUCK!"

A loud yell from the woods awakens everyone in the camp.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" the Rogue tries to stop blood leaking from his arm. "Are you a fucking Dhampir?!"

"And what the fuck is wrong with your blood?!" bellows the Berserk. "Wait... you too?!"

The group of seven young adventurers steps around the restrained villain, looking at each other with shock and surprise.

"So," the Bard finally composes himself. "We are all Dhampirs, aren't we?"

The whole group stays silent, realizing they've been succeeding in Stealth checks for the entire month but failing the Perception one.

"Wait, I don't understand," says the Paladin. "The Ranger and the Rogue are dating, and I can't sleep the entire night because, please, learn the Silence spell! The Bard has fucked at least three of us! How come no one noticed anything?!"

"Well, I was busy looking at other things," the Bard shrugs.

"Oh, I knew something was off with all of you. I just wanted to see how long you can pretend!" says the Elven maiden, playing with her dagger.

Astarion's daughter is blatantly lying. She is just embarrassed with the fact she has traveled with a group of her own kind and never guessed that.

"Soo," the Berserk says. "What are we going to do with our prisoner?"

"I am one of you! Let me go! There must be some dhampir solidarity among us!"

"No," the Ranger snaps back. "There is a rule in the Underdark. If a vampire kills a sentient being, they are executed because murders attract monster hunters. If we let this asshole go, he will keep ruining Dhampir reputation, and we will suffer, too!"

"Wait, you grew up in this Vampire Spawn City dad told me about?" asks the Elf.

"Yeah, I did."

"My sincere condolences."

The next night is spent in conversations and discussions.

In the morning, they all return to the city to get their reward for catching the bad guy.

They gather in the tavern once again, discussing what to do next when the Elf girl suddenly sticks a dagger into the table with a piece of paper on it.

"There is a vampire lord on the loose, kidnapping and torturing people. Let's kill him for profit!"

--

Tag List

@tragedybunny @caitlincat-95 @tallymonster @astarionsbeloved @lumienyx @fayeriess @elora-the-slutty-songstress @veillsar @astarion-imagine-archive @micropoe10 @starlight-ipomoea @herstxrgirl @theearthsfinalconfession @ashrio20 @not-so-lost-after-all @vixstarria @wintersire @marcynomercy @tugoslovenka

[sinfulequity]

There’s one thing I’d like to note about Amane’s thumbnail, outside of the confetti (+ the thread wrapped around the pole, as @gunsli-01 pointed out) being colours associated with the cult. And it’s something that everyone else has noticed; the lack of any other colour.

Gunsli, a friend of ours and I was talking about it and I remembered that colour deprivation was a form of torture. Or, to use another name for it,

White torture!

“Electroshock, waterboarding, and a thrashing- These were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect little girl- But the cult accidentally added an extra ingredient to the concoction White Torture!” - Gunsli (This is a joke.)

For those unfamiliar, white torture is comprised of denying the victim any sensations, slowly eroding at their mental state and their sense of self until they break. Though, to use better descriptions (which, again, thanks to Gunsli for finding and formatting some of these for me)-

The prisoner is locked in a completely white, soundproof room. The color white is used to hit all the senses:   The sight: White lights are coming from neon tubes positioned in a way not to create any shadow, and the prisoner is dressed in completely white clothes.   Hearing: The room is soundproof or alternatively it is located in a remote place where voices cannot be heard. In this latter scenario the guards stand in silence and use special padded shoes in order to avoid causing any noise.   Tact: All surfaces are smooth   The taste and smell: Each day they are served white food, usually unseasoned rice to deprive them of the senses of taste and smell. Although it may seem less formidable than other corporal punishment, this torture leads quickly to hallucinations and has long-term adverse effects. The prisoners can be kept in this state for months or even years, and once outside the room the psychological consequences will be permanent.

All in all, it can be emotionally devastating at best, and definitely not something people would expect a 12-year-old to be put through. This form of torture would propagate the kind of mentality that the cult would want in Amane. It would not only shake her faith in her own perceptions of reality but create a vulnerability in her. They can then exploit this to strengthen her faith and commitment to their cause. Or to use marketing ideas, creating a need for the product they’re selling; albeit, more proactively.

“Oh, yeah the reason that the pipe/baton may have the thread around it is because white torture involves the removal of textile sensations as well as color. Guards even wear padded shoes so the prisoners can’t even hear their footsteps. The fact that the thread is not only colored but a textile sensation may allude to Amane adding it for comfort or so the baton had some physical sensation.” - Gunsli

I wanted to touch on this comment here, in conjunction with the thread colour.

With the idea of white torture in mind, I believe that there’s a chance the member that represented Green(Gachata) was the one who directly inflicted this on her. However, I’d like to explore all the possible interpretations. Before that though- There’s another thing to note, the member represented by Yellow(Yuri) has the most “conventional” form of punishment out of everyone here. That, including the fact that Yuri is the one that looks the most upset about having to punish Amane,

could indicate that he did try to provide support while the punishments went on. Hence her usage of yellow as the only tactile thing in her thumbnail. To be more specific, the only tactile thing that she had some sort of agency interacting with. Though you could also argue that, since his punishment was physical beatings, that it was the only one with heavy/hard physical contact. Especially when taking into account the other punishments were electroshock, waterboarding and white torture. All things that can involve minimal or no contact with the victim.

Something else to note, is while Yuri and Gachata have secondary colours (Yuri having a splodge of green and Gachata having red highlights), Red (Riyone) and Blue(Gozake) do not. That, included with Amane having all of their colours on her, would indicate the influence that each member has on the other. In other words, Amane was influenced by everyone. Yuri was influenced by Gachata. Gachata was influenced by Riyone, and Riyone and Gozake weren’t influenced by anyone. Incidentally, Amane’s “wings” are also the softer pink on Riyone’s outfit, despite the fact that she already has the more vivid red.

On the colour sharing thought, Gunsli pointed out that it might be how each member is connected to each other (i.e. Gachata being Riyone’s kid and having pulled Yuri into their association). Going off of the colors alone she speculated that Riyone was possibly Amane's mom and Gatchata her older brother. Yuri is more than likely a friend of Gatchata's or someone they met and brought into the cult and Gozake a higher up within the cult that works alongside Riyone. (Possibly even a second husband but she said that's just an assumption.)

However, she does disagree with me in regards to who enforced white torture. Gunsli feels as though it would make more sense for Riyone to be the one to do so, since she’s already associated with light. This, in conjunction with the pink on Amane and how it’s hidden under the white of her outfit until the “transformation” scene, makes a more cohesive narrative. There’s also the fact that there’s no pink confetti depicted within the thumbnail. Secondarily, while Riyone’s colour is red, with pink highlights, she is mostly depicted in white. With pink, red and grey highlights, in order of how frequently they show up in her design.

Another possibility is that Amane was consistently being punished through the use of white torture, and each member’s punishment was an intentional breakage of that. This would make Gachata’s punishment more likely to be something like sound torture. If it was done this way, it would subconsciously reinforce the idea that the only people who contribute to her sense of self are the other members of the cult, while also amplifying the impact of their actions being a punishment for her transgressions.

The cycle of punishments starts with Riyone. She either uses light torture or electroshock. The main colours depicting her form of punishment is a luminous yellow with a backdrop of a duller yellow. We’ll get back to this, but this seems to represent her specific type of punishment. Her expression changes from when they found Amane, being at peace/harmony as opposed to the dead eyed stare that was given before. This is a tad unnerving, since out of the four, this is the expression closest to happiness we see in this loop.

Secondly, we have Gozake. He appears to have picked waterboarding as his style of punishment, though we are unsure which form. The main colours that appear here are various shades of blue, save the bubbles that have highlights of white. This makes it possible that he was acting on his own ideologies. His expression on this scene is also different from the discovery scene, which appears to be more upset/disheartened. Though I do have to state the caveat that his expression is a lot harder to read since we don’t see his mouth in either expression. It would be interesting to find out how much context would be changed if we see his mouth.

Thirdly, we have Yuri. He goes for a simple pummeling for his punishment. The colours used for the physical effects here are some small yellow ones and a large overall pink one. This likely indicates that Riyone suggested this punishment to Yuri, and that Yuri is following Riyone’s ideology with regards to this punishment. This doesn’t stop him from looking upset and uncomfortable, however. This is an expression that stays consistent from the discovery to the actual consequences; the only one to do so out of the whole group.

Lastly is Gachata, who seems to have used sound torture. The colours used for the sound effects are red and green, in the order of how frequently they are used. Though I believe it should be noted that the green ones are closest to Amane’s body. It is extremely likely that Riyone also suggested this for Gachata to use. His eyes are closed,  and he looks like he’s either concentrating on his actions or trying not to focus on the implications of what he’s doing. Another thing to note is the fact that he has the same expression as Riyone in the discovery scene (a dead-eyed stare), though it is undercut by the glasses he wears.

(To add on the idea that Yuri and Gachata were unwilling participants, Gunsli wanted to point out how Amane was punished by them as a group of three.

As you can see, here Gachata flicks her on the forehead as a punishment instead. And while the background is the same yellow that's used in association with Riyone's punishment, the actual impact is more of a light blue. This is a blue that is associated with Amane. Both in her prison straps and on her birthday art. It is then followed up with all of them hanging out happily-

"Will you laugh with me and forgive me? I promise! I can only become a better girl!"

-until Riyone and Gozake show up.

Incidentally, as Gunsli spotted, while Riyone is looking at Amane. Gozake is looking at Riyone, as if awaiting orders.)

In the Magic MV, it loops through this cycle of punishment five times, though the last two are zoomed in on Amane. From what Gunsli and I put together, the most likely option is that the punishment escalated until reaching white torture. This seems to be depicted by this scene-

Along with the line that leads up to this scene,

"Only if, only if, only if I could be a good girl. I hope, I hope everyone can be happy and smile. Forever, forever together would be a dream."

As you may have realized, the black is used as the main backdrop for Amane’s punishments, so the fact that she’s shown isolated, save for a single spotlight is… telling. And even after she transforms, to the joy of everyone, the stage is still a solid black, denoting the place she’s standing currently is a place of punishment.

Gunsli would also like to note that it's interesting that when the punishment ends, there's a lightning strike (also known as natural electricity) behind Amane and she is bestowed a lightning wand. The element related to Riyone's punishments. This, in addition the full reveal of pink on Amane, also makes this scene come off as a passing of the baton of sorts. Possibly showcasing that Amane may now have the power to punish people with her wand/lightning rod and the ideology of Riyone acts as her "wings", carrying her higher up the ranks.

After that it departs from chibi to the regular style. Amane waves her wand, background transitioning via star wipe into a blue, before walking out of it, the stage returning back to normal. This is likely meant to represent her leaving the white torture room. Again, this is a similar blue to her birthday art and prisoner strap. The stars, on the other hand, resemble the luminous yellow in Riyone's punishment. Stars are also a natural form of light, one of the possible methods of reprimanding Riyone used. Another important detail is that in this scene, the white on Amane's clothes gets illuminated, washing out everything else.

After that, she blows a kiss at the viewer, joining hands with the other members before the credits roll-

-before it glitches out, reflected in Amane’s eyes. However, the only thing reflected is the empty stage, the cult’s symbol on full display.

Closing Notes:

It very much appears that Amane has undergone several forms of torture as a punishment. Not to mention that, if we're right, this was coordinated by her mother. It would be a good idea to keep this in mind, especially since Amane has likely been re-traumatized due to the voices the guilty prisoners have been hearing.

“How about we not continue to torture the literal torture victim this round. That'd be great.” - Gunsli

As for me, I agree with Gunsli. Amane’s been through enough, as is.