#regardless of their intentions. good or not

[sikayeto]

I Own U

☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆

[ simon "ghost" riley x reader ]

[tw: suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, accidental narcotic overdose, dub-con]

[summary: you owe ghost, technically.]

☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ♱☠︎︎ ⋆

You’re not depressed. You wouldn’t call what you have, depression. Sometimes afflicted with a melancholy so strong that you become catatonic. That’s called catatonia. Not depression. You’re not suicidal either. No matter what the base shrinks try to imply. Suicidal means that there’s intent to commit suicide. That there’s a plan to harm yourself. And yeah, jaywalking into busy traffic seems really nice once in a while, but that’s hardly a plan. Just because you crave a sweet treat doesn’t mean you go get one. 

But every now and again, you do get a treat. Maybe it was a really hard day, and the bakery is on the way home. Or somebody brought treats to share at the office. Perhaps a coupon finds itself in your email.

A burlap sack over your head, kidnapped by enemy combatants, isn’t what you would constitute as a treat. 

Hands are tied behind your back with rope. Scratchy fibers rub against the skin of your wrists. You don’t know where you are, or where they’re taking you. Dragging you by the armpits, your senses are dulled. Pulsation reverberating in your eardrums. Blood rushes through your limbs, leaving a tingling sensation. The amygdala has taken command, and not a single legible thought runs through your brain. All energy and control is being redirected to try and survive. 

A blunt force and ache bloom in synchronization on your knees, as you’re pushed down on them. Bright, white light invades your vision, and you squint in an attempt to adjust. The last person you thought you would see in front of you, is Ghost.

Unlike yourself, he’s sat on a chair, his own wrists tied behind his back. There’s shoddily wrapped gauze around his right forearm and abdomen. A dark shadow slowly creeps to engulf each count of thread in contact. The lieutenant’s eyes are haggard and unfocused. As they focus on you, they widen and his pupils become pinpoint. Realization strikes him as the bag was removed from your head. You don’t know him outside his position, but somehow, he knows you. 

A cold metal is pressed to your temple, and a chill shoots through your nervous system. You didn’t need to look to know there’s a gun against your head. 

“Talk, or they die”, the voice’s origins didn’t matter. Whoever was pointing the gun at you didn’t matter. If you played this right. Everything was going to be okay.

The lieutenant’s gaze on you is unwavering. His stare is uncomfortable. You're a nobody in the chain of command. Why the hell is he looking at you like that?

There are 2 hostiles in the cellar you and Ghost are being held captive in. Both are armed. No doubt they’re high-strung considering the guest they’re currently hosting. Despite his current state, it doesn’t diminish the feeling of danger that wafts off him. Just because the tiger is caged, doesn’t make him any less dangerous. 

Regardless of the beast barely restrained, your last minute plan can still come to fruition. It’s unlikely that they have another base analyst kept hostage at this location. Grabbing you was risky enough. So you're their only leverage. These men were desperate, and desperate men make mistakes. Whatever information they want from Ghost, they have to get it before he loses consciousness, or bleeds out. Neither of them look to be in good enough shape themselves to have seen a medic. The amateur bandages on your superior officer look rough at best. This wasn’t a prolonged stay then. Ghost must know that too. 

Okay, this looks like the last bus stop. Really, you’re the only one who pushed the stop button and needs to get off. 

You fling your whole body and weight to the person holding the gun to your head. Small you may be, physics is on your side, as he wasn’t prepared to retaliate against your sudden exertion. A shot is taken, and misses. Ringing overcomes your ears. The lack of expectation as he was body slammed, means that your target couldn’t soften his fall. The back of his skull audibly cracks as it impacts with the concrete floor. Blood pools from the fount of the vessels that crowd his occipital. 

Simultaneously, as you took action, Ghost moves his enormous frame with wretched oppression towards the other hostile. Chair and all. Wood flies all over the surrounding area. Ghost breaks free of his restraints, and for a man who’s been shot twice, he moves as if it never happened at all. There’s a wet squelch that repeats in the same rhythm as your heartbeat. Flesh and bone, pounding upon flesh and bone. Fury, wrath, and rage concentrated into one man’s fist and colliding into another man’s face. Asteroids and celestial bodies crashing into each other. 

A moment passes, and the only thing you can hear besides the ringing, is Ghost’s panting. You make an observation of your current situation. 2 hostiles down. 1 friendly injured. You’re still alive. 

Mission failed.

From your prone position on the ground, you attempt to sit yourself up. A sharp, stabbing pain pulses through your left ribs. You press a hand against the area and pull away to reveal blood. Your blood.

He didn’t miss after all. 

The adrenaline is wearing off. You can tell because suddenly your whole body is engulfed in agony. 

The ringing is the only thing you can hear now. You think you hear someone yelling your name, but it’s muffled. Darkness creeps into your vision, an oncoming fog. Eyelids flutter shut.

You get off at the last bus stop.

___

The months following your subsequent kidnapping and near fatal death were, strange, to say the least. After waking at the base med bay, The doctor debriefed you on what happened after you had passed out from blood loss. The Lieutenant had radio’d for immediate med-evac. They said it was a miracle that you survived, having lost far too much blood. You should’ve been dead by the time the medics got to you. But Ghost had kept enough pressure on your gunshot wound to further prevent your precious life from slipping out of your body. 

Yeah fucking right, a miracle. It would’ve been a miracle, if you had actually managed to die that day. Now, you were suffering with a hole in your thoracic and a chance of getting addicted to opioids. 

When you were deemed stable and out of the woods, they put you back on desk duty. No rest for the wicked, especially not in the military. Fellow analysts give you pitying looks and their well-wishes, but none of them actually want to help. That’s the nature of the job, you can’t blame them. But in a community where, even if you get shot, no one helps. It’s a wonder more of the analysts aren’t suicidal. 

3rd week post op, you wake up with excruciating throbbing in your wound. Taking more than the recommended daily dose of opioid analgesics, before you make your way to your station. The pain is dulled, but the side effects of the oral morphine you just took are hitting hard. Bones like fragile glass. Muscles that can barely twitch. Vision that starts to blur as your eyes glass over, staring at the ineligible words on your computer screen. It’s getting more difficult to take deep breaths, your chest is too heavy. Lay your head down on your desk. No one will blame you if you take a nap.

Your short slumber is interrupted by the shaking of the foundation beneath you. An earthquake? Raising your head slightly to figure out what’s going on, you see it’s not a natural disaster, but a man made one. Ghost, is stomping his way over to you. 

Any other day, he would’ve looked absolutely terrifying. But today, you were hopped up on morphine, providing you the sweet sweet bliss of pain relief. Also, effective for pain in the ass Lieutenants who foil suicide plans. 

He stands over you, full of imposition and menace. Giant of a man, used to getting what he wants by showing off the privilege and brute force of his stature. Mustering all your strength, you open an eyelid to look up at him. Your singular glass eye, meets his set of an endless abyss. He gives you a once over, and there’s a look of recognition. It’s pity. He’s pitying you. 

Blood rushes from your head, as your whole being is lifted into Ghost’s arm’s, bridal style. You squint at him in confusion, unable to complete any words of incredulity, much less sentences. He leaves the space the same way he entered. Imposing presence and thundering boot steps. Now, with cargo. 

He brings you to, what you assume, are his quarters. Places you on his bed, and tucks the covers over you. Tobacco and gunpowder flood your nose. It fills your lungs, and infiltrates all your senses. Your mind drifts, and imagines standing in a battlefield, smoking a cigarette. Engulfed and sinking into the mattress. Surrendering to the warmth and comfort. 

Ghost kicks off his boots, and strips down to a shirt and pants. He joins you under his covers, and mirrors your fetal position, facing you. 

Your memories of what happened, during these moments, are fuzzy. The extra dose of morphine you took, peaked at this time. Nothing felt real. Not you, lying in Ghost’s bed. Not Ghost, lying next to you. And certainly, not the one-sided conversation Ghost has with you. 

“You were bloody reckless,” he murmurs, “Think I didn’t recognize the look in your eyes?”

He places a hand on your throat, and his other pressed to your wound. His eyes burrow into your half asleep consciousness. This is just a dream to you. And in this dream, Ghost squeezes your throat and wound with prejudice.

“You don’t want your life, that’s fine.” 

Maybe this isn’t Ghost after all. Maybe this is a figment of your imagination, and the reaper chose to take this form. The last person you see, delivering your soul to the afterlife. If there even is one. You would discover it soon enough. There’s no reason for Ghost to rationally be acting this way. So maybe this is the fever dream that people have before they die. Maybe you are overdosing on the morphine you took. 

He lightens the force against your body. 

“I’ll have it then. As far as I’m concerned, if you don’t want it, then it’s mine.” 

He releases the places where his threat was once imminent, and wraps his arms around you. Pulling you to be smothered by his own large chest, your head under his chin. As the dark fibers of his shirt enter your vision, so leaves your will to be awake. 

tbc

[kesadoll]

♡ CWS MDNI 3.3k ♡ black!femreader, ex-athlete/mechanic!nanami little bit of an age gap {r: 19~20 || n: 25}, fondling, oral {f}, overstimulation, missionary, unprotected but his pull-out game strong, he’s a disrespectful gentleman & such a pleasure dom ♡, {petnames: baby, good girl, darlin' || she calls him ♡ kento/‘ento ♡}

♡ sum. geto's gone ghost, & your car needs some fixing up so you can start racing.... pt.1 ♡

kesa's note idk i need that BAD i think you can def read this without reading pt.1, but still go give it some love! thts where a lot of context is, but if u just here for daddymi I don't blame u babe♡ also here's what i imagine nanami with his lil accent sounding like asks & reblogs always welcome!

it had been a couple of months since you and geto had your little night together. just like you hoped it wouldn’t, it definitely turned out to be a one time thing. yuji and geto had a falling out over him finding out geto had been hanging out around sukuna, and that was that. no text message, no calls, not even a “let me show up at your house cause i see your brother’s car is gone.” you felt used and embarrassed to say the least, but the only person who knew anything of it was nobara, who told you there had to be a reason why, though she didnt think it was right herself. you tried not to think too much of it, still going with your brother to races, occasionally seeing geto who always tried to avoid eye contact with you. bitch.

it was a regular friday for you: wake up, go to class, go to your nail appointment if you had one (you did, opting for pink medium-length square nails), go to your hair appointment also if you needed it (this time you just got a wash and trim, letting your hair breathe), and running some other errands that depended on how much money you had in your pocket for that month. you wore your usual outfit for these types of days, a grey 2-piece set with a pink shirt underneath.

yuji, got you an early birthday present about a week back, and it was a car! now whether or not he did it to flex on geto and sukuna, you didn't know, but you were forever grateful regardless. the car was white and sleek on the outside, the inside pretty much being all back. the car coincidentally was a sports car as well, nobara pushing you to race with her even more. since you decided to promise her you’d race next weekend, you figured you should probably take the car to nanami so he can dope up your car like he’s done with pretty much everyone in your friend group.

you finally pulled into the driveway of nanami’s shop, watching as he began pulling a loop of chains that made the large garage door open. he kept them open until you pulled in, closing it once you were lined up with the car lift.

“nanamiii~” you said as you got out of the car, blinking a couple of times when he turned on the bright fluorescent lights. you watched intently as nanami looked over your car, making sure the tires were buckled before he elevated it enough so he could look under the hood of your car, no problem.

“hey miss y/n,” he spoke quite calmly, his sleepy southern drawl pulling at your heartstrings. this only highlighted the bags that you could see under his eyes, making you frown once you saw he still had a little bit of a limp from his old injury. 

nanami used to be a pretty damn good baseball player. from the ripe age of seven, he’d always had a passion for it. he got so good that by his sophomore and junior years of high school, he had colleges lining up waiting for him to commit to one of them. nanami had initially gone out of state to his home college down south, but during the last game of the season (which so happened to be a championship game), he tore his ACL and MCL, essentially meaning that he’d never run like he used to ever again. it was heartbreaking for everyone; even the enemy team felt bad for him, but it was even worse for nanami himself, vowing to never touch a baseball (or bat) ever again. 

he kept that promise, busying himself working on cars day and night. if he wasn’t working, he’d be at a bar, drinking and watching the games they’d throw up on the tv there. you knew how much it affected him, even 3 years later. “kento, if you’re hurting, i can reschedule; you know we’re all still worried about you.” you said gently as if to not set off a bomb. 

nanami shook his head, offering you the happiest-looking smile that he could muster, which really wasn't much. “i’m okay, y’know that y/n.” he unzipped his coveralls, letting them hang around his waist. you knew he liked to work like this, but it took your breath every time you saw him like this; his white wife beater perfectly hugged his soft muscles, his little silver chain with a baseball bat pendant decorating his broad chest, tattoos sprinkled across his body. 

“mhmm..well you let me know when you’re under the hood, m’kay? i wanna learn a thing or two so you can rest sometime,” you said as you turned, waving off his protests as you went into his office, sitting behind a desk with papers all over them.

you busied yourself scrolling on your phone, not realizing how much time passed until nanami walked in. “y’okay? i called for ya a lil’ while ago,” 

“oh! i’m sorry i got distracted.” you sat your phone down and got up, making your way outside.

“you still don’t have t’help, if i was really hurt you’d know.” he tried reassuring you again, following behind you and fixing his black gloves.

“mhmm, sure.” 

nanami led you over to the front of your car, popping the hood open and propping it up. he had you standing off to the side, handing him tools or dragging a box of parts over (of course he wouldn’t ask you if it was heavy, opting to go get it himself). he didn’t let you do much of the touching on the inside, especially not when you had your pretty nails and clothes on, the southern hospitality in him wasn’t going to let a pretty girl like you dirty yourself doing a man’s work. he already felt a certain kind of guilt watching you walk away from him, especially with how good your hips and ass looked in those pants of yours.

the two of you talked about plenty of things, though it was mostly nanami just listening to you go on and on about things he never thought would concern him before. shockingly, you even got him to open up about his little hometown that, from your understanding, was in the middle of nowhere. nothing was left undiscussed, even the situation with geto though you didn’t go into too much detail out of your own embarrassment. nanami seemed particularly disgruntled after you told him what geto did, so you thought changing the subject would be for the better.

despite not letting you do much of anything, he still made you feel like you were important. he explained to you what certain parts did and why he was modifying them for racing, and you tried to listen, you really did, but some too many thingamabobs and doohickeys did a lot of things for you to even remember their names. the only thing you really could focus on was that sweet accent of his, and the way his biceps flexed no matter what he did. you noticed the sweat in nanami’s hair, the way it made his buff arms shine, his wife-beater sticking to his body. “wanna take a break?” you asked sweetly, not wanting him to overwork himself, especially for your own sake.

“hm?” he looked up, resting his forearms on the car. “yeah, let me finish tightenin’ this n’ i’ll come sit down.”

you hummed, going back into the office, and washing your hands in the little kitchen area before grabbing yourself a water, nanami came in and took his work gloves off so he could wash his hands as well. he dried his hands on a white towel he had laying on one of the counters.

“here,” you gave nanami the water you had in your hand, making sure he had taken a sip before you bent back down in the fridge to grab another. what nanami didn't account for were your pants being kinda low waisted, so when you bent over he got a VIEWW of your lower back including those back dermals you’d gotten not too long ago.

he shook his head at those nasty thoughts that ran through his head, leaning against the counter with the water bottle already half empty by the time you turned around. “you uh, finally gon’ race?”

you nodded, tilting your head up at him, “mmm, yeah. i promised nobara i’d go to the next one, but i still don’t know. i just don’t wanna see geto you know?”

“if he shows up, he shows up. you have a bunch of people around you who want to see you race, not him.” he tossed the towel over his shower, taking another couple of chugs of his water. he closed his eyes, his pretty blonde lashes twitching ever so slightly with every swallow. 

“yeah?..” he was beautifully exhausted if it wasn’t already clear before. his sharp jaw was complemented by a growing 5’oclock shadow, something about it ignited something in you. who knew a sweaty, hardworking man would have you gawking like this, and reasonably so.

“always. all of us are excited for you, not just nobara,” he finally pulled his lips from his water bottle, his eyes now trained onto you. he caught you staring at him most definitely, a certain kind of smirk pulling at his lips that made your stomach flutter, “you can’t go lookin’ at me like that.”

“what? am i not supposed to look at someone when they’re talking to me?” you rolled your eyes playfully, looking away as to hide your smile, though it didn’t do much. 

“no no no, that’s not what that was and you know it.” nanami’s laugh was low, his large hand finding solace on your waist. “look at me.”

you shifted your weight subconsciously to minimize his touch, not because you didn’t like it, but the warmth of his hands sent sparks through your body. you crossed your arms to try and put on a tough front, lifting your eyes to meet his, “hm?”

he looked at you through low lids, those hazel eyes of his twinkling ever so slightly between his lashes. he just took a good look at you, jaw clenching while his eyes flipped between each one of yours then down at your lips..he licked his bottom lip to bring himself out of whatever trance your face put him in, “you’re jus’ really pretty n’ i can tell you got all done up before you got here, i jus’ d’know if i can keep bein’ a gentleman with you lookin’ at me like that.” 

you leaned just the teeniest bit closer to him. the way his pretty teeth shined, his canine so sharp you wondered how it felt against your neck. “well maybe that’s just what i need.” 

“y’not ready for that,” nanami’s eyebrow raised, thinking. he slowly stepped back from you then made his way around the room closing every blind and locking every door as you watched. once done, he stood back in front of you, those butterflies in your stomach stirring, “n’ i can prove it.”

 “so prove it.”

nanami’s lips met yours with haste. he lifted you like it was nothing, all of those years with baseball and cars not going to waste (bars?). whatever was on the counter he knocked off before his hands moved from your ass to your thighs, wrapping them around him. 

the way he kissed you was akin to a starving animal getting its first meal in a while, but his lips were so soft, he tasted so good, and the way his tongue twirled against yours?? it was something you’d experienced before, but not this good. you brought your hand up to his golden locks, one of his hands placed at your lower back to pull you closer to him. it wasn’t until he brought his other hand up to the back of your neck that you moaned, his lips pulling from yours with that smile of his, kissing down your neck. “so it’s here..” he said in between kisses. 

“kento..” your head fell right on back, giving him the answer he already knew. his lips and tongue twirled and danced against your flesh, the squeezing of your thighs around his waist only confirming his suspicions even more. 

he hummed in response to you, looking up once he finally pulled his mouth away, unzipping your jacket, “i hear you,” he pushed up your shirt over your breasts, revealing the cute white bra you had on underneath. the way you were already splayed out beneath him, pretty brown skin and shy eyes looking away from nanami’s. “you’re jus’ too pretty baby.”

nanami leaned back down and began kissing you again, this time those large hands of his toying with your breasts, hands sliding underneath your bra to toy with your nipples, the noise you made only fueling that ego of his that bubbled in his chest knowing he had you going crazy already. you couldn’t help yourself anymore, your hips grinding forward into him. 

“you need me that bad, darlin’?” he said against your lips, and you helplessly nodded in response. he licked at your bottom lip, moving his hands from your chest down to your bottoms and pulling them down and off with a quick yank. the cold of the counter made you hiss, but you were quickly distracted feeling lips press right above the waistband of your matching panties, “m’gonna fix it for you, jus’ be a good girl n’ relax for me.”

you did your damned hardest, but with the way he pushed your panties to the side and buried his face between your legs, it was hard. with his nose pushed up against your mound his tongue explored every inch of your cunt, lapping up any of your arousal that dared to grace his tongue. he said no words, only humming when you had a good grip on his hair, which he absolutely loved. the way you writhed against his tongue, especially when he sucked your clit up in his mouth, causing you to arch your back so deep you had to hold onto the counter, had nanami feeling full of himself. 

his lil ego was only boosted further when your moans drew out into a long whine when nanami began to tongue fuck you. “kento-!!! ohhhh my godd!~” your entire body tensed up as you came, but nanami never stopped. if anything it only made him keep going besides your babbling pleas for him to slow down, especially when his tongue curled. your next orgasm came just as quick as the last, this one causing tears to bead up at your lashline, thighs almost snapping closed around nanami’s head.

his hands had a firm grip on each of your thighs, making sure you didn’t crush him while you rode out your last orgasm on his tongue. once he pulled away you could finally relax, your breaths heavy, whimpers dripping in ecstasy. “m’sorry baby, she jus’ taste too good.” nanami’s eyes lingered on your pussy for just a moment, admiring how much it was twitching and how wet you were and it was all because of him. “c’mere.”

he got up off the floor, off his knees mind you, grabbing you by the back of your neck and pulling you back into another kiss. tasting both you and him off his tongue was something so nasty, but you loved it. “i need you.” you reached your hands under that wife beater of his, nails dragging down his chest and stomach. you could feel how nanami’s stomach tightened, followed by him untying his coveralls from his waist, and pulling his basketball shorts and boxers down simultaneously.

“yeah?” your words lit an already big fire inside nanami. you heard little lewd squelching noises as he rubbed his tip against your entrance, your brows furrowing once you felt his tip push inside you. “y’gonna take all this dick, baby?” he said with his face just inches away, watching your brain scramble to find words from you feeling so full off that spongey head of his.

when it took you a little too long for you to respond for his liking, putting a hand around your neck. he didn’t squeeze just yet, but he slid in some more, watching the way that your face contorted, your mouth helplessly falling open. “i asked you- fuck. i asked you a question darlin’..n’ you better answer or else i’m pullin’ right back out.”

“y-yes! m’gonna take it kentoimsorryplease-” you blurted out, mustering all the brainpower you had left just so he wouldn’t pull back out of you. it didn’t matter anyway because you felt how that man twitched inside you at your words, pushing himself in a slow, fluid motion just until your hips met. he had your legs thrown over his shoulders already…he was NOT playing around. 

“good fuckin’ girl..’ he cooed at you through gritted teeth. nanami waited until your body relaxed, at least the best that it could, his hips rolling with every slow thrust. you were choking on moans, only able to get out gasps while nanami rubbed your cheek with the pad of his thumbs, to calm you before both hands were placed on your hips. he pulled you down onto him with every thrust and it drove you crazy. he was stretching you in ways you’d never been stretched, his dick reaching places so far back you thought he was in the base of your lungs.

those sweet moans you let out only drove him mad. nanami picked up the pace quite seamlessly, his eyes never leaving your face as yours closed. he was fucking you sooo good words weren’t an option for you, nor were they even a thought. the most you could do was let your pathetic moans fill the room as nanami threw praises at you left and right, loving the way your cunt squeeze around him and suck him up at every word. 

“haaah- gonna cum soo~”

you couldn’t even get that last word out. nanami was plowing into you at this point, a hand reaching down to rub circles into your clit. to say you were fucked out was an understatement. your eyes were now unfocused, mouth stayed open to make way for those slutty moans you were letting out. though your vision was blurred, and the only thing you could make out was nanami’s chain that danced with each thrust, you knew he was right there with you.

“cum f- shit- cum for me baby, please.”

something about that saying please, practically begging you with the way he repeated it under his breath multiple times afterward, pushed you over the edge quicker than the both of you expected, your cunt clamping down on nanami’s dick and causing his hips to stutter. he kept his thrusts going, helping you ride out your orgasm before he had to pull out quickly, finishing on your stomach and chest. 

“fuck-” he groaned, his hip bucking wildly while he fucked himself into his hand, his head falling into the crook of your neck.

“some gentleman you are,” you couldn’t help but giggle as you reached your arms up and wrapped them around him. 

“yeah,” he huffed against your neck and relaxed in your embrace. After some time he finally sat back up, pulling his pants back up before he grabbed that towel from earlier and wet it with some warm water to clean you up. “i know this s’ backward, but i’d like to take you to dinner t’morrow.”

“oh?” you tried to keep your laugh in, knowing it was tearing the poor man up inside. “of course! and i expect you to be on time, mister.”

“i’d never keep you waitin’, ever.”

orignal works by me ♡ reblogs welcome, do not steal/recreate..

exhusband!reiner next

[tendermiasma]

Anonymous asked: What are some of your favorite antique things to collect? Do you have any especially favorite finds?

Strawpage/tendermiasma

That's hard... I love furniture, it's so neat to see how they shaped and reflected trends and values and just the pure craftsmanship is so wonderful. My favorite styles hover around the 17th and 18th centuries-- Jacobean, George III, Federal/Hepplewhite/Sheridan. There's something about the crispness of the detailing of the last four that makes an ornamented piece feel so light and airy. I love Jacobean because every piece looks like it was hauled out of a fire, the dark patina is so rich. I don't actually own any originals from these periods (yet!!!) but fashion is a flat circle and Jacobean had a revival in the late 19th and a couple decades into the 20th century. I have a court cabinet from probably around the 1930s that I found here in Austin that was a part of this revival and you can see the Jacobean influence also carries a secondary Arts and Crafts influence that the US was on the tail end of. The engraving on the panels are a little bit flatter than the traditionally extremely 3D Jacobean carving, and that's what Arts and Crafts brought. They kept the dark patina look and I think it's interesting to think about how much lighter actual Jacobean furniture might have been during its time, and that we're choosing to imitate its aged look as part of its original intent-- sort of like how we thought Roman statues started out white when they were actually originally brightly painted, but we choose to make them white in most of our casual references. Regardless the charred finish looks amazing against light colored walls. It feels contemplative. Welsh 18th century design also has that quality although more pared-down but still warm and welcoming somehow. I love it.

Back to Georgian/Sheridan/Hepplewhite/Federal though, also don't actually own any from that time either, although I have been heavilyyyyyyy eyeing a credenza from one of my favorite antique dealers in Austin who randomly has some incredible pieces. I could't buy it responsibly but they're all free right there for me to study and admire. Sheridan and Hepplewhite are super similar and a good way to tell them apart is the feet. If they're tapered little unadorned pegs, it's probably Hepplewhite, and if they have a ball or box on the end or have some other angular detailing, it's probably Sheridan. THOSE styles came back around almost 200 years later in the woodwork of midcentury modern which I think is so neat. You can also help yourself date a piece with other little things, like screws. There was a period in the early-mid 1800s where screws had machine-made threads while their heads were still cut by hand with a hacksaw; the machinery for cutting screwheads came later. Philips screws weren't widely used until the 1940s so that's another possible way to tell. However you have to be careful because a lot of furniture gets repaired and modern hardware is usually used, so it's good to hunt around on it for signs of the original hardware. You can also tell whether hardware is new or possibly original by the amount of patina built up around the hardware. That's hard to fake. 

I got lost again. I also love looking at pottery and dishware because there's so much information and history in its marks. It's always such a fun little forensics game to look at its stamps and writings and symbols on the bottom to track where it's been, who made it, is it a forgery of a well-known artisan? That happened to me really recently when I found a Meissen tea set at a thrift store and it turns out I believe I have one actual Meissen cup in there from mid 1800s. The only way I could figure it out it was genuine and also its general date was because of its imperfections, which is pretty cool. Meissen had a specific way of marking B-grade dishware that they only used during certain time periods, and thankfully there's document of it, and my piece carried it. I don't care if she's not A-grade, she's beautiful and I'm a sucker for blue and white china.

I could talk a lot more but I'm just rambling at this point so feel free to ask more. I love it all so much. I've had a great time learning so much more than I bargained for with every new piece I find. I'm still mourning the Austin Antique Mall closure that happened last May but thankfully there's another great one in Round Rock and I should go back next month.

The smoking-gun wheel marks for the date and authenticity of the Meissen cup

My Jacobean-revival court cabinet from probably the 1930s

In her natural habitat. I built the fake fireplace! None of the existing ones were Georgian enough for me lol

The coffee table is I believe late 1930s and the chair is a 1960s wingback that got recovered in probably the 90s and I want to get it recovered again when I can. I'm at capacity since I'm in a 1-bedroom apartment and my primary goal is a well-designed space but when I can get an office it's going to be so over

[judamars]

Just came to a shocking revelation

If you take one good look at my profile, you don’t even have to scroll far to tell that I absolutely love Gihun. Most of the time though when I talk about it I mention how he’s made crazy stupid decisions in the second season and how I wish he just got on the plane to see his daughter. But, here’s the thing.

Coming from someone who also has divorced parents, and lives with my mom and a stepdad and doesn’t know really know where my bio dad is, if I were Gayeong, I would be able to come to terms with not knowing where he is.

I saw someone mention that Gayeong is in a more stable situation with her mom and stepdad now that her mom and Gihun are divorced, and that’s honestly probably very true. So they’re right, Gihun doesn’t really need to BE there. Gayeong is safer where she is. What irks me though, and i know im not the only person who feels this way, is that when you’re that young and your parents are arguing in front of you and are obviously unhappy with each other, it hurts A LOT to witness it all.

So, my point being, I can understand Gihun opting to stay in Korea and can even slightly understand him ghosting Gayeong. I still don’t know why he would call her, say nothing, and then just wait for her to hang up as that’s just kinda weird regardless, but I can see what his intentions are.

And also, I don’t think Gayeong is hurting as much as we think she is. At least not anymore. It’s absolutely devastating to lose your birth parent in any fashion, but she has a lot more facilities and space in America to get the help she needs to overcome the hurt. As we saw in season one, her stepdad is well off, so surely her therapy bills are being paid for.

On the other side of that coin, I think that’s why Gihun turned around. Maybe he originally was going to go visit, maybe he was going to move to America to keep an eye on her from a distance. But once he knew there were more people about to suffer just as he did, he made one of the hardest decisions a parent could make in a split second by turning around. If my dad did that, I think I’d be proud of him. I’d be hurt at first, but eventually, I’d be happy for him if I knew.

[destiny2-names]

A post for fellow "healer main" warlocks

I'm not sure if it's intentional, and maybe this was already a thing and I just didn't notice it, but there are now some activities where healing rifts don't heal. Defeating the whole point of healing rifts. Which can be quite off-putting for warlocks whose builds prioritize that.

So! What can we do instead?

Healing grenades, especially when combined with the Seeker's Sight exotic helmet, are quite useful in a pinch. They even have the added bonus that, unlike rifts, you can throw them at allies you can't reach quickly. However, healing grenades can only be used by Solar and Prismatic subclasses.

A lot of warlocks, me included, have probably spent a good amount of time trying to get their Recovery stat as high as possible. That's the stat that contributes to how fast your rift recharges, and normally a higher Recovery makes your health regenerate faster; for activities where natural health regeneration is disabled, you might want to focus more on Resilience.

Don't COMPLETELY dump Recovery though, because non-healing rifts are still useful! Empowering rifts buff your weapons, and phoenix dive (another ability option unique to Solar and Prismatic) gives your allies a brief burst of healing.

Things like solar mortars and arc souls still work regardless of what you've got equipped in your rift ability slot, but they won't stick around for as long with phoenix dive.

Remember: you can't help anyone if you're dead. Sometimes, if you can't reach your downed teammates safely, the best way to avoid a wipe is to take cover until at least one other person respawns.

Certain weapons, such as those with a support frame or the Healing Clip trait, can give a little boost to the amount of healing you can do for both others and yourself. Hey, anything counts.

For keeping yourself alive, Karnstein's Armlets can be handy (pun intended) when you're being swarmed by weaker enemies. They're a great combo with Monte Carlo, but even unpowered melee kills should activate the gauntlets' effect.

Don't forget about armor mods! Two leg armor mods, Recuperation and Better Already, give you small bursts of healing when you pick up orbs of power. If one or both aren't already part of your kit, you might want to take a look at them, because that healing really adds up when combined with helmet Siphon mods.

If you're using healing grenades, there are also several armor mods that will help that ability recharge faster, such as Bomber, Ennervation, and Explosive Finisher.

This post is meant to help save fellow players– especially newbies and people who only have time to play casually– some time and frustration. If you have any advice to add, please do! If you have questions, please ask! If I got something wrong, please tell me so I can correct it! And if this all seems super obvious to you or you have a better way of doing things, feel free to comment, but please don't be a jackass about it. Thank you.

[hoiststowline]

Hey, I just broke up with my long-term bf since he refuses to get a job. It's been about 2 years. Can I request some hound lovin? Just some holding and cuddling, please? Reader obviously has been crying but trying to be strong.

Thanks! You're the best!

[a/n: hi anon, im really sorry to hear you’re going through that rn. i also apologize this took a hot minute, I hope you are doing better and I wish nothing but the best for you & your future! 🫶]

hound x reader

If there’s one way to analyze your behavior as of late, it’s distant. Not directly and not with the intention of being mean-spirited, it just appears that when the opportunity arises, you’re a bit slow moving to the situation. Hound would never fault nor blame you for tardiness, he understands better than anyone that things happen unexpectedly and you can’t help it.

But your demeanor changes, into one of a sudden, uncharacteristically different display. Sluggish, no, more…defeated, as if something wasn’t going right and it was persistent in keeping you off balance.

Hound asks, every single time if you’re doing okay. It's done notwithstanding, a greeting to ascertain that nothing is amiss. In this instance, he knows you’re not, but each time you dismiss his concerns. It’s disheartening, but he’ll never pry, never pull the information out of you. It’s not doing anyone any good to do it that way, so he allows you the room to act on your own accord.

But today is unlike all the other times before. There’s been a shift, it’s changed from feeling temporarily downhearted to straight-up miserable, a glassiness within your eyes that he cannot place.

Hound’s never seen you cry, and while you may not be actively doing it right now, it’s evident that you had been. You’d smudged away the rivers that ran down your cheeks, hopeful to keep them well hidden as you muster up a brave face. It momentarily pains him that you feel as if you can’t show your emotions to him so rawly, but within the interaction is understood regardless. You’ve sought him out, on your own terms, looking for his company and perhaps some sort of advice.

"D'you wanna talk about it?" It's hushed, offered to fill the unyielding silence that has overcome the room in a manner of moments. It hadn't taken very long to break your facade, finally giving in to the fact everything was not alright.

The look in your eyes worried him immensely, immediately rushing to your side to ensure you were outwardly alright. The unknown disquieted him down to his very core, feeling a tightness within his chassis that was ill-placed.

Somewhere along the way, he'd scooped you into a hug with your permission, understanding wordlessly that's all you really wanted in that given moment. Hound would happily supply, though there's always the tenacious urge to discover the root of your problems. He'd solve them in a moment if he could, feeling you were underserving to have such burdens to keep you weighed down.

Promptly, you shake your head no, avoiding the discussion you knew was never too far behind. "Not right now," You mumble, leaning your cheek against his shoulder to prolong such a comforting feeling. His hands hold you upright, a single finger running the length of your back in a soothing manner, quietly lulling you into a heavy-lidded stare.

"Later, then?" He tries, knowing you are slowly pulling towards some much-needed sleep.

"Promise," You whisper, fingers fumbling to entrap whatever parts of his plating you can hold, wanting to be closer than feasibly possible. It's an inordinate feeling of safety that keeps you grounded, steadily feeling the sense of apprehension and distress slip from your shoulders.

[rampagingpoet]

This. Regardless of whether the designer is intentionally designs balance tools or not, there will exist groups of creatures that are easy for an average Level X party to fight and groups that are difficult or impossible for a Level X party to fight. There exists a level at which defeating a big old dragon in a straight-up deathmatch is plausible and levels below which it is not. Failing to consider combat balance doesn't make that fact go away.

For example, consider the Effective Hit Dice (EHD) standard created by Delta of Delta's D&D Hotspot. He took the original Dungeons and Dragons box set, which predates 3E-style balance tools by over two decades, and built a combat simulator with every published monster. Then he ran thousands of simulations of different levels and numbers of Fighters against all them monsters in the game. From these simulations, the power of a monster can be standardized against the power of an Fighter at some level. Compare a party's total levels to the EHD of a group of monsters, and boom! Balance tool!

Refusing to create the tool as a designer doesn't make combat balance just go away. It exists and can be measured independent of designer intent.

On the flipside, your encounter balance tools and your stocking procedures do not have to be perfectly aligned. Maybe you have charts by "dungeon level", or you know wolves are usually encountered in temperate forests and live in packs of about 4-10 adult members. When you go to sort out who's living on the 3rd floor of the dungeon or what people travelling through the woods might encounters, those procedures will be there. They don't have to care about what level one particular adventuring party you're running the game for currently is. Your party has to care about how dangerous these areas are!

Wolves live in temperate or cold forests. They group themselves into packs of about 4-10 members. When you (as a DM or designer) are building an encounter chart for a cold or temperate forest, it's reasonable to add an entry for "2d4+2 wolves". Other entries on that chart might be "a pixie", "a black bear", or "The 5th-level Halfling Wizard Ribyn Cinderwood, whose tower lies within". Your sense of what lives in the world creates the chart.

Then, afterwords, your encounter balance tools tell you that a 1st-level party will be torn to shreds if they get into an actual fight with anything. It turns out the woods are dangerous, and you should not go wandering off the road if you can help it. Sure, not every random encounter will be a fight. Maybe the wolves just stalk you a little to evaluate whether you'd make good prey. Maybe the bear takes one look at a group of loud, metal-clad humanoids and runs the other way. But maybe they don't. Maybe a hungry wolf pack outnumbers you two to one, and they'll brave your torches to pick off your slowest friend. Maybe by the time you saw the bear cub its mom was already charging. Maybe Ribyn decides she doesn't like the look of these heavily-armed strangers so close to her home and drops a fireball on you. And then, if you're 1st level, you die.

... but you probably live if you're 3rd level. And if you're all 5th level then the wolf/bear/wizard picked the wrong warband to mess with.

So you can have encounter balance and "unbalanced" stocking procedures pretty easily.

The stocking procedures care about what might, logically, be present at location X.

The encounter balance tools inform you at what levels the range of things encountered at location X are easy/challenging/deadly.

Characters within the world aware of some of those risks can communicate the danger appropriately.

Then if the characters choose to go somewhere where the inhabitants are "too easy" or "too hard" by the encounter balance metrics, that's on them. They had the tools to evaluate the risks and rewards available to them.

"But doesn't having a notion of 'balanced' combat inherently imply that all combat encounters are expected to be fair and winnable" well, no – it implies only that the GM has the ability to know whether a given combat encounter is fair and winnable.

There's a story that's been going around for decades about a Dungeons & Dragons party who encountered a large room full of treasure while exploring a dungeon. Immediately suspicious, they asked their GM a series of detailed questions about the room, but no obvious dangers were identified. Satisfied, they moved into the room – and were immediately set upon and eaten by the dragon that had been sitting atop the pile of treasure the whole time, which the GM hadn't mentioned because the players never specifically asked about the presence of living creatures within the room.

While this is obviously an extreme and ridiculous case, it illustrates an important point: as GM, you're the group's eyes and ears. If you don't describe something, the player characters literally can't see it – that dragon was effectively invisible from their perspective. The trick is that active malice isn't the only way to invisible-dragon your players; a group can also find themselves invisible-dragoned because the GM simply failed to provide sufficient information for the risk in question to be identified. This can happen through neglect, but it can also happen because the GM themself was unaware that the risk was present.

Now, hold on, you might be saying: the GM "plays" the entire world. How is it possible for the GM not to know that a risk is present? Well, that brings us back around to the subject of combat balance.

A game in which "balanced" combat is a meaningful thing to discuss is typically going to be one in which both the players and the GM are actually making strategic, tactical, and/or logistical decisions, rather than merely producing a description of their characters making such decisions. Without a good handle on the interplay of these decisions, it's completely possible for the GM to be wrong about the level of risk the scenario they've constructed entails.

That's actually pretty critical, because even if you don't care about the game being fair and winnable (and that's a perfectly valid stance), your players are still depending on you to be their eyes and ears, and to give them enough information to make good decisions about whether the fight in front of them is one they can win. A game where not every fight is expected to be winnable needs to be a game where the players have the opportunity to walk away.

No matter how objective you try to be, your own sense of the answer to that question is inevitably going to colour how you communicate about it. You being wrong about the level of risk at hand inherently increases the chance that your players will make bad choices. The party eating a TPK because they made a stupid decision is one thing; the party eating a TPK because they made a decision that looked reasonable from their perspective based on your unwitting miscommunication of the level of risk involved is quite another!

Sure, once the dice hit the table I'm probably going to realise that I fucked up, and I can adjust things on the fly to bring the level of risk that's actually present in line with the level of risk I communicated – but that's extra work I don't need with everything else that's on my plate. And that's a best-case scenario; if I'm running the game for a hardcore let-the-dice-fall-where-they-may group (and such groups tend to have a pretty significant overlap with groups that are cool with not every fight being winnable), I may not be able to adjust the fight's parameters on the fly without violating the social contract of the table.

Basically, whenever I see an OSR game with tactically crunchy combat brag about how its author never even thinks about "balance", what that's telling me is that running this game is going to create a whole lot of extra work for me as a GM. This is not a selling point.

[micah-of-the-psychos]

I'm begging and screaming for the people that say "attachment doesn't mean love" to rewatch the Prequels. You don't even have to rewatch the fucking Clone Wars. It is literally the most obvious thing that attachment, yes, does in fact mean love. No, Anakin saying "Jedi are encouraged to love" in AotC does not prove you right, it's him saying "well technically I'm allowed to love" in a very tongue-in-cheek manner, blatantly implying that he's actually breaking the rules (on another note, some people on here really like flip-flopping on whether or not Anakin is a reliable narrator, and it seems to solely depend upon whether or not they agree with what he's saying). It's about as subtle as a semi truck. Plus, the entire time that he's married to her he has to keep his relationship secret because his relationship is, y'know, forbidden. He has to hide that she is pregnant because his relationship to her is, in fact, forbidden.

Since y'all love bringing up what George Lucas said about what attachment actually means, riddle me this: why would he write an entire forbidden romance subplot contingent on the Jedi forbidding things like romantic relationships if the Jedi didn't, in fact, forbid romantic relationships? There's two options here: either George Lucas is an even worse writer than we thought, or he's doing the interview version of retconning shit on Twitter. Since people ignored JKR even before she became prolific bigot, I think it's safe to assume most people think Word of God means jack shit if they're actively retconning core aspects of their work. So Lucas's word is utterly worthless in this argument regardless of his intentions.

Another blatantly obvious bit of proof that attachment=love is the fact that Jedi can't have relationships with their birth family. Full stop. There is no ambiguity to whether or not this is true, there is no George Lucas interviews for you to hide behind; this is irrevocably canon. And there is quite literally no legitimate excuse for the Jedi to do this. All excuses for this, canonical and fandom, circle directly back to "attachment is forbidden", and it is so painfully funny to watch the few people willing to defend this. Most don't even try though, and just ignore this issue entirely, because it is a glaringly obvious contradiction to their glorified headcanon on attachments that they so desperately want to uphold.

You know, I remember back when people on TikTok were freaking out about people not having media literacy. And I remember thinking during that entire time "You guys thought people ever had media literacy?" This portion of the Star Wars fandom in particular is walking proof that media literacy never died, it was already dead the second humanity invented storytelling.

Some disclaimers because some people in this fandom are particularly fond of using straw men and ad hominem, as well as just trolling:

-I don't think the Sith are good guys. You should watch me play KOTOR 1 and count the amount of times I call the Sith assholes, dumbasses, or scum. I very much hate them.

-I don't think that Order 66 was justified. This really shouldn't have to be said, but some people on this platform have rendered this necessary.

-People can headcanon that attachment and love are different things. My problem is when people start treating it as canon and try to force other people too as well.

-Criticizing the Jedi does not mean I am criticizing Buddhism. Even if it did, I will criticize any religion I damn well please because the "It's My Religion" card immediately loses validity the second you physically or psychologically harm other people, especially children. However, the Jedi philosophy on attachment and the Buddhist philosophy on attachment are different, so this argument doesn't hold any water to begin with.

-You are free to like the Jedi. I encourage you to do so. I am not, and never will tell you that you can't.

-I really shouldn't have to make these disclaimers to begin with, but since this is the internet and people don't read the words on the page anymore, I unfortunately have to spell shit out with crayon.

Also, I can and will use the block button. If you engage in bullying or harassment, engage in bad faith arguments, or otherwise say fundamentally false or incredibly stupid shit, I will block you. If you can't handle that, then don't engage with this post. I am not making this post in hopes that you will actually listen to me, because the people that this is directed at don't listen, and don't want to. If you truly disagree with what I've said in this post on such a fundamental level that you need to make a long-winded reply about how everything I've ever said is wrong, please just scroll — dealing with that shit is actually exhausting.

[didalexiabreakupwitholgaisback]

I’ve seen on Twitter that the rfef may be biased against mapi because of the rubiales case/they might be more persuaded to sanction her so that it doesn’t seem like they let other people (her) off easy but were harsh on rubiales. Is this likely do you think? Could it be that mapi is very likely going to be found guilty regardless of if she was or not just because of the refs feelings about her/ history of the rubiales case? (Sorry if this is confusing)

it's not just the rubiales case specifically, but it's the entire rfef organisation. remember that mapi is the only hold out of 'las 15' not to return to the spanish national team. she is basically the last symbol of resistance against them, so of course, this gives rfef an opportunity to go after her for political reasons. the current rfef president is a rubiales and vilda supporter.

now that does not diminish mapi's conduct in this matter, but it does add this political element to any type of investigation that they undertake.

and once again, i ask, how did we get here? and is the club doing anything to fix it? 🙃

no, it's still here.

i'm sorry but i'm going to leave the investigation to the proper individuals at barça, futpro, and espanyol and not some random users on tiktok. 😵‍💫

it does not change the fact that a player felt violated by that conduct.

and intent? so you are saying mapi still intended to touch the player outside of the run of play on the thigh? does that make it better? sorry but unwarranted touching is not okay either. our players should be more disciplined that to retaliate like that.

and the fact that you are making excuses for it is not a good look, anon.

[chrystal-ink]

Shadow x Fem Reader

Regency au part 3

Promenade

Note: part three is finally done! so sorry for the delay, writers block mixed with seasonal depression hit me hard. most of the set up is done so hopefully I can get a bit quicker on getting these parts done. this part is very long so be warned and of course enjoy -Chrystal

The morning was filled with non stop chatter about the news. You were now the diamond of the season not only that but you were also the first Mobian to be named the diamond. Something as big as that surely could not be ignored.

Somehow you had managed to charm the queen and land in her good graces. You were grateful for her majesties kindness but were very confused, you had only briefly spoken to the queen and while it was an engaging conversation she did not convey that you had impressed her enough to be rewarded for this honor.

Regardless of how her decision was made you could not complain about how this would certainly help you find a husband by the end of the season.

However a new problem had presented itself. Dozens of gentlemen had come to call on you hoping to secure you as their wife. Many of which were only interested in your new status and not your interests, your wants or your desires in life. They rambled on and on about their accomplishments and how great their families were, never bothering to ask your opinions on the matter.

During visiting hours you a single question lingered in the back of your mind, would Shadow come to visit you?

He hadn't stated his intentions to marry nor did you want to court him but he said he was going to try speaking to you more, surely a friendly visit wouldn't hurt, especially after how quickly you had fled the ball last night, wouldn't he want answers?

You waited patiently for any sign of him to no avail. It was only after the last gentlemen had departed that you received a bouquet of pale red carnations.

Carnations had been one of your favorite flowers as a child, the way the petals folded in and out of each other like draped silk. The white and red intertwined reminding you of simpler times when anything felt possible and you never thought about suitors or forgotten friendships, it was just you, Shadow, and Maria against the world.

The card attached read "I look forward to our next meeting my dearest friend. - Viscount Shadow Robotnik"

So he did remember your address.

You read the small card over and over expecting there to be more to it. One sentence, that's all? And yet that one sentence clung to your mind.

You couldn't help but feel conflicted. For the first time you had received a response from Shadow the only thing that you had wanted since Maria's passing, and yet the eight years it took for it to get to you made the gesture taste quite bitter.

For the first eleven years of your life you had known Shadow like the back of your hand but now, he was a complete mystery to you. Question after question kept spinning in your mind and you were growing quite sick of it. You needed answers, luckily you were going to the perfect place to gather information.

💎

Madame Rouge was the best modiste in the kingdom, known for her expertise in all the latest fashions and her exquisite taste in jewelry. All the women of the ton relied on her to make them beautiful, and in turn they would reward her greatly making her one of the richest business owners in the land.

Her riches did not stop at monetary ones, working with every lady in the ton she had amassed quite the collection of secrets. She knew everything about everyone including you. Something about her presence made people comfortable enough to speak about whatever was on their minds, even the the things they didn't want others to know.

If there was a place to find out any information on Shadow, this was where you needed to be. The only problem now was how to bring the topic of him up without making it seem as if you had affections for him.

Luckily Rouge solved that problem for you.

"So I heard about your little dance with a mysterious Viscount last night, tell me about it."

"well I'm not sure there is much to discuss." You were trying to play your cards right if Rouge knew you were looking for information she would assume you had fallen for him. Which you hadn't, you swear.

"Don't be ridiculous, it's all anyone can talk about today. Rumor has it you were childhood friends, is it true?"

"Yes, but it was a long time ago. We haven't spoken since we were children. Last night was the first time I've seen him in eight almost nine years."

"ah so you were reunited last night, how did that feel seeing him after all this time? Absolutely smitten I'd bet."

Oh no, she was digging for gossip. you've seen her do this dozens of times, she was good and she could get the truth out of anyone.

"Oh, no it's nothing like that I was just-"

"Ah ah ah no point in lying to me , I can see it in your eyes, they sparkle with that first love glow. speaking of sparkle, this silver lace overlay would look fantastic with this silk what do you think?"

You looked in the mirror the combination of the fabrics draped across your shoulder. Madame Rouge truly was an artist, the color complimented you perfectly, giving you an almost ethereal glow. you didn't know it was possible for you to look that way. was that really you?

"Wow." you stood there in awe of yourself. "I look..."

"Like a Diamond." Rouge finished your sentence for you. " I Never congratulated you on your status. How does it feel?"

"I almost don't believe it. I mean there are so many other ladies of the ton whom I feel are much more refined than me and deserving of the title."

"Well I happen to be an expert on fine jewels and I always find a diamond is much more than it's cut, a true diamond shines it's light not only on itself but on the other jewels surrounding it. You are brilliant and I know exactly how to make you shine. you just focus on reflecting that light. Know your worth miss Y/N it will guide you to the right place."

Rouge's words were reassuring, You supposed that was why she was the best. She knew how to not only make ladies look beautiful but feel beautiful as well.

"I cannot give you the answers you are looking for, only the viscount can." Rouge added.

How had she figured it out? You hadn't even spoken his name since you've been here.

"You'd be amazed at the things a modiste can pick up my dear. unfortunately I cannot be of help in your investigation. But I will say, He will be quite enamored when he sees you in this dress."

Your cheeks heated at the thought, the strange fluttering returning once again, the heat and excitement of the day must have left you feeling ill, hopefully you could recuperate at tea time.

Rouge took your order and you and your mamma were off on your way. the madame gave you a look you couldn't quite place as you left, but you could tell that she knew more than she was saying, and that your conversation wasn't over.

💎

The sweet aroma of roses wafted throughout the conservatory as the sun beamed through the glass giving the room a soft glow. The table was set with the most delicious assortment of finger sandwiches, biscuits, and small cakes; a setup to which the Rose household was known for.

"I am just delighted that you were named this season's Dimond, of all my friend's you are by far the most eligible for the title." Amy poured you a cup of tea to your liking before serving it to you.

"That is too kind of you to say, but if I'm being perfectly honest I would have thought that you would be given the title far before I would have."

"I'm sure if I was offered the title I would have refused it, It would only complicate my plans for this season."

"I Presume your dance with the Duke went well then?"

"More than just well. It was practically perfect."

"Has he called on you then?"

"No, He has not. However I hope to run into him while we are on promenade after tea. How about your mysterious viscount? You left quite hastily last night we didn't get the chance to say our goodbyes or talk even talk about him."

"Yes, my sincerest apologies I was feeling faint from the events of the ball. As for the viscount, I feel conflicted on one hand he is my closest childhood friend but with so many years of silence between us I fear he may have changed completely. I do not know the man he has become, and any attempts I've made to find out thus far have been in vain."

"would the answer persuade you on weather or not to pursue him as a suitor?"

"I would not consider him a suitor of any kind, regardless of the answer."

Amy paused for a moment taking a sip from her tea. this was common when she needed a moment to ponder her next words, choosing carefully what to say as to not offend her company.

"Dearest Y/N, if the answer does not affect your feelings on him then why search for answers at all?"

You weren't sure how to answer. You had thought you had put him in the past with the rest of your childhood. But the moment you saw him again you couldn't seem to shake him from your mind. perhaps it was all the unanswered questions, or the childhood memories breaking free from the cage you had locked them in.

When you saw him you felt the hole that had been left in your heart in his absence that you had tried and failed to fill. You felt the pain of all those years that you had grown numb to suddenly strike you like a knife once again tearing you apart. You felt angry that he had appeared so easily, and scared that he would disappear just as swiftly.

and despite all of the negative emotions a fraction of hope you couldn't ignore cut through all of them. The hope that maybe things were different now, that he could come back to you, Hope that the one thing you had wanted since Maria's passing was here and that your wounds may finally begin to heal.

you knew hope was fleeting, and answers were the only way to ensure that your hope was justified, that he wouldn't disappear on you again. he said he wanted to do better for you but how were you to know weather or not his word was good without truly knowing the man he had become?

To suddenly see the boy you once knew like the back of your hand re-appear as a complete stranger, not knowing anything about his adult life, or even what kind of a person he is anymore. what were you to make of that?

Before you could begin to answer Amy's query Her ladies maid interrupted inadvertently saving you from explaining your issue further. handing Amy a news pamphlet.

"Miss Rose the articles you requested have arrived"

"Thank you Pearl."

"News articles? What is this about?" you asked hoping to redirect the conversation.

"Oh nothing much really, I've been following the story of a masked vigilante they have been calling The Black Thorn. Have you heard of him?"

"I can't say I have. with all the preparation I had to do for this season I hardly had any time for independent reading."

"Well they say he showed up mysteriously some months ago and no one knows who he is behind the mask. They say he moves so swiftly that hardly anyone knows when he's coming or going. the only proof he ever leaves behind are the criminals he defeats usually knocked out cold."

"I thought your father forbid you from reading articles like that."

"You know I can't resist a good hero story. Promise me you wont tell him?"

"I wouldn't dream of such a thing."

Amy smiled at you

"So does that mean the Duke has some competition this year?" you teased.

"I don't think anyone could pull my attention from the duke."

"Well that is too bad, I hear gentlemen can be swayed to a proposal when threatened by a rival."

"I may need to keep that in mind for later" Amy Giggled "Now finish your tea, I want to read your leaves."

You smiled at your friend yielding to her request as you enjoyed the beautiful spring afternoon.

💎

Of all the activities of the social season the promenade was by far your favorite. being outside in nature always helped clear your head and you desperately needed to clear your head after the events of the past day.

You walked side by side with Amy admiring the beauty of the public garden together, your ladies maids' trailing behind you.

"I still can't believe you won't tell me my fortune. what is the point in you reading it if I am not allowed to know?" You fussed

"Perhaps you knowing may affect the outcome, I'll never tell" Amy teased

"Well I would hope you would tell me should my fate be disastrous"

"I promise if you were in danger I would inform you swiftly to help avoid such fates."

you giggled "I appreciate that, now please tell me my fortune"

Amy smiled at you. "No, you shall soon find out for yourself I promise."

"And will I be pleased?"

"I'd rather think so" she giggled before turning her attention to her surroundings.

Amy's eyes scanned the garden searching for someone, far too distracted to engage in anymore meaningful conversation which you were grateful for. You enjoyed your friend's presence however you needed respite from all that was plaguing your mind.

You took a deep breath allowing the crisp spring air fill your lungs. you focused only on your senses the smell of the grass, the sound of the water flowing in the pond.

you needed this, to focus on the present moment, to feel nature surround you. The problems of society could wait for the time being the diamond needed her rest.

Unfortunately your rest would prove to be quite brief as the Duke of green hill quickly approached you and miss Rose.

"Good day ladies, have the two of you been enjoying your walk?" He asked.

"It has been quite wonderful your grace, thank you for asking." Amy replied

"Miss L/N would you offer me the kindness of allowing me to escort your friend through the rest of the garden?"

"Of course my lord, should she agree."

"I would be delighted to join you but I would feel awful leaving my dear friend on her own"

"Do not worry about me I'm sure my mamma is around here somewhere she can escort me the rest of the way."

"I may have another solution please excuse me for a moment ladies" the Duke excused himself leaving you and Amy alone once again.

"What are you doing? I thought you were looking to spend time with the duke."

"I do but I don't want to leave you alone either, I mean what kind of a friend would that make me?"

"The kind who wants to be married."

"Y/N, I know the social season can often make enemies of friends, I refuse to let that fate befall us."

"You know just as well as I that is only in the case of two ladies catching the affections of the same gentleman. I do not want the duke so what else is it?"

Amy paused giving you a look you couldn't quite discern.

"Does this have anything to do with my fortune?"

"I am so sorry but I feared if I told you you wouldn't want to come and I knew it was important."

before you could fully comprehend what she was saying the duke returned with Shadow in tow.

"Here we are ladies, Viscount Robotnik has agreed to escort miss L/N through the rest of the garden"

"Only if you'd allow me of course." Shadow elaborated

You shared a glance with Amy her eyes begging you to agree to the arrangement. you would certainly have words with her later on but for now you smiled politely.

"It would be an honor my lord" You responded

"It is settled then, Me and miss Rose will be on our way. Viscount, Miss L/N I hope to see both of you at the symphony tomorrow night. Enjoy your walk."

You bowed as you watched Amy and the duke wonder in their separate direction.

"Shall we?" Shadow looked at you his gaze growing softer

"I suppose we shall."

💎

You and Shadow walked side by side hardly a word being uttered between the two of you for the first few minuets. neither of you knowing where to start. how on earth did the two of you end up like this? So distant, so unfamiliar with one another to the point of being unable to even begin a conversation.

What would Maria think? knowing that her best friend's; her brother, and you were estranged. She must be disappointed, or worse hurt by the fate that befell her friend's in her absence.

You couldn't allow the distance and the years gone by to keep you from the now. You had him back and you weren't going to let him slip away again so easily.

"I was quite surprised to receive your bouquet this morning." you started.

"I felt you needed some token of apology for not calling upon you this morning, Carnations are still your favorite correct?"

"Yes they are, I will say I'm surprised you remembered."

"How could I forget? you were always picking them, requesting your governess to place them in your hair. if I recall correctly you asked your father for a tiara made of them did you not?"

you smiled at the memory resurfacing in your head "Yes, oh I was devastated when he told me it wasn't possible to find someone who could make one for me."

"Maria and I spent the whole day with you in that flower field trying to cheer you up."

"I had so many flowers my father was worried we would cause a floral shortage. And you were covered in petals for days after that."

"well I can assure you that I am completely free of any petals these days"

you smiled at him the Shadow of your childhood peeking out from behind his exterior.

"I must say I am not quite used to seeing you like this, all grown up and so refined."

"I could say the same for you, although I am not surprised to see you become the diamond of your first season, you always had a graceful demeanor even as a child."

"so you have seen the news."

"Yes but I assure you it has no affect on our friendship."

you didn't quite know why but hearing him say that disappointed you. It wasn't as if he was courting you anyway but for some reason you felt a small tug in your chest.

"well, that is good to hear I suppose."

you looked forward fearing your eyes would give away your inner thoughts.

the awkward silence returned once again. It was Shadow's turn to break it.

"I hear you're an excellent rider."

"what?"

"Of horses, I recall you wanting to learn as a girl, I am pleased hear that you learned."

"Oh, yes it took a while but I eventually convinced my father to give me lessons, as it turns out I have a knack for it."

Shadow paused for a moment carefully choosing his next words.

"May I ask you something Miss L/N?"

"I suppose"

"Why did you choose this season to come out? you are only nineteen surely you could have waited a year or two before joining the marriage mart. Didn't you want to see more of the world before settling down."

"What ever do you mean by that."

"Maria and you would always talk about all the adventures the two of you would go on. all the different places you'd see and the people you would meet. it surprises me that you would choose to stay put after speaking of adventure so passionately."

"Yes, but that was before we knew our limitations."

"Your limitations?"

"Women cannot travel on their own Your Grace, not without causing themselves serious scandal"

"What about your studies then? do you not wish to continue?"

"Why are you so concerned about my coming out?"

"Because it doesn't make any sense."

"How do you know what choices make sense for me and what don't. We are practically strangers because of you and your lack of action, my choices are none of your concern." you snapped your frustrations finally boiling to the surface.

"I am worried about you."

"Worried about me? Why would you worry about me after ignoring me for eight years. I didn't even know you were back in town until last night, how long have you been back anyway?"

Shadow grew quiet not wanting to meet your eyes out of shame.

"Three months."

You were in shock, how could he be back for so long and how had no one noticed? knowing he was so close this whole time made his silence sting even worse.

"Three months? And you never bothered to send any correspondence not even a note."

"I feared you did not wish to see me."

"I always wished to see you." tears formed in the corners of your eyes. "How could you say that, after all those years of writing you. How could you possibly come to that conclusion? Did you even read my letter's?"

"Y/N I-"

"No! it is clear to me now that you wish to be strangers, and this rekindling of friendship is all a ruse to ease whatever guilty conscious you may have and I am in no interest of participating."

you stormed away fighting the urge to cry. public tears were sure to spark some kind of scandal one which you couldn't afford not with all eyes currently on you.

"Y/N please" Shadow called from behind you

you kept walking your heart breaking with each step you took.

"Y/N don't walk away please stay."

"Why?"

Shadow catching up to you, grabbed you by the hand and turned you to face him his eyes betraying his stoic demeanor. he reached into his pocket and produced a folded piece of paper.

"take this please"

reluctantly you obeyed, opening it you read.

Dear Y/N,

Hello, I am sorry it has been so long, i have been busy with school. I miss you with each passing day. my teacher keeps a flower pot on his desk it's a carnashion carnation. everytime i see it I think of you.

I hope this letter reaches you before your twelvth 12th birthday. mother always told me that it is rude to make people wait for a birthday gift.

I wish Maria and I could be there with you

I wish I could help you celebrate

I wish

that's where the letter ended. So he did try to write you.

"Every time I tried to start it always ended like this." He spoke. "I know now my absence has been painful to you, more painful than I anticipated. I am not asking for your forgiveness only a second chance. please I cannot lose you."

he seemed earnest, steeling yourself you prepared your answer.

"If we continue you need to make a promise to me."

"Anything."

"You have to be completely honest with me and answer every question no matter how sad it makes you, or how negatively you may think I'll react."

"I promise."

"And another thing, you must meet with me every Wednesday from now on to promenade, if you truly want this friendship I wish for commitment you must speak with me in person at least once a week. Do you accept these terms?"

Shadow took your hands in his and looked you in the eyes. he looked beyond your face and stared into your soul.

"With all my heart." he stated, the warmth in his voice seeming more like a vow than a promise.

the flutter once again returned to your chest feeling more welcome than it was before.

"Good." you stated "Then let's get started."

Shadow smiled at you in a way you couldn't help but return. all the tension from the day melted away you were on the path to get your answers and you finally had your friend back.

[jaybejaybeyes]

Thanks for your response! I just want to clarify a few points.

Why should he grieve Salo’s death?

A year passed between acts 1 and 2, and even if Salo didn’t join Viktor’s commune right away, I think he was there for a couple of months. And leaving didn’t seem like an option (I’ll get back to that). If Viktor truly saw the commune members as people worthy of respect, it’s only natural to assume he would’ve formed some kind of bond with them — especially as their leader, living alongside them all that time. Or did he deliberately keep his distance, never engaging, while they unquestioningly existed around him? That’s a rhetorical question — canon doesn’t answer it, and I don’t expect you to either. But if that’s the implication, it only makes things more unsettling.

Now, about leaving not being an option — based on Salo’s unusual behaviour, I’d argue that Viktor’s healing process altered more than just people’s bodies. It also changed their personalities. That’s why, IMO, none of them ever had a choice to leave after the transformation. And that’s the point I’ve been making — both here and in my original post. Viktor never saw the commune members as individuals. But not in a “they’re my lab rats” way. More like a “they’re my fish and I gladly take care of the fish tank” way.

Nope, you are definitely wrong.

I think the key misunderstanding here is the idea that having good intentions and being a control freak consumed by fear and delusion are mutually exclusive. They’re not. I never said that Viktor consciously thought this way. His fears are simply his blind spot. Yes, he genuinely wants to help people, but he also fails to recognise his deeper motivations.

That’s why he ends up not just healing them, but altering their appearances, possibly their personalities, and making them entirely dependent on him. Whether or not he meant to, he severed them from their past lives and gave them new ones, all based on his vision of what’s good, while seeing no issue with it. Sure, in his mind, he’s pursuing a goal that is undeniably noble: making the world a better place. But that exact mindset, coupled with his failure to recognise his blind spots, is what leads to the final battle. That’s what makes Viktor’s symbiosis with Hexcore so dangerous.

That said, none of that makes him an evil mastermind bent on ruling the world. He’s a flawed human who makes mistakes, and he just happened to wield a power that could reshape human souls. I think Viktor is a great example of how even the best and most genuine intentions can end up causing a lot of harm.

The theory that he was mind-controlled by Arcane is interesting and valid, and I agree that Arcane played a role in his changes. But I don’t think that’s the whole story. Viktor was always a complex character with both good and bad traits, and I believe Arcane’s corruption did no more than amplify some of them while dulling others. I don’t see why the fear of losing control would be OOC for him. People can fall into extremes, and Viktor’s extreme (regardless of his connection to Arcane) was the belief that peace could only be achieved by eliminating any potential source of conflict in people — including their literal free will — and imposing that belief on everybody around. Personally, I like to view his arc as his response to the trauma of dying in the bombing rather than his possession by Arcane. But that’s just me.

Oh, that is interesting. Did suddenly "the end justify the means" or becomes murder a great deed, if the right character is killed?

And I feel like I should address this as well. First, with all due respect, I’d appreciate it if we could avoid passive-aggressive language. Second, no, I never said Jayce did a great thing by killing Salo (though one could argue that by then, Salo was already dead — overtaken by Viktor — and was essentially just a robot).

What I did say is that I was surprised by how people reacted as if Jayce had destroyed something pure and sacred when he killed Viktor, because I found the commune suspicious from the start and assumed Jayce had a deeper insight into what was really going on. And as we saw later, Jayce did see the commune as the lifeless constructs Viktor was turning them into. But remember, except for Salo, Jayce didn’t touch any other commune member. His goal was to prevent the world from becoming the nightmare he saw in the parallel reality — in other words, to stop Viktor. And stopping Viktor was exactly what he did.

Viktor’s commune always gave off creepy vibes, but for me, the path it was taking became crystal clear at the start of ep6. That first scene basically spells out the extent of Viktor’s corruption and how far his actions and mindset are from any kind of altruism.

Think about it: Viktor sees Jayce kill Salo through Salo’s eyes. He’s connected to Salo but doesn’t even try to comfort him, verbally or mentally, or ease his pain with magic in his final moments. He just stands there, watching. Waiting for Salo to die, staring at Jayce. The only time he flinches is when Jayce lunges forward, and Salo dies abruptly — his vision cuts to black.

And look at Viktor's face when it happens. That’s not horror. That’s not astonishment. That’s not grief. It’s… mild annoyance, I'd say?

Like, ugh. Jayce didn’t get it. He didn’t appreciate my work. And now he’s also destroyed one of my puppets. Sounds pretty frustrating, doesn't it, Viktor?

Then Sky says, “poor Salo”, and Viktor? Immediately pivots to, “That’s not Jayce. It’s another will at work within him”. And a moment later, he’s fascinated by the Anomaly. Salo’s gone, and no one spares him an extra thought.

And that’s the thing about Viktor’s commune — it was never about the people who joined it. It was never about understanding them, helping them, or connecting with them. It was all about Viktor’s desperate need to be in control, about his refusal to confront suffering, pain, and all the messy, complicated parts of being human. From the very beginning, it was about Viktor going, “well, the end justifies the means”, but there’s nothing kind or humanistic about that philosophy, because it always comes at the expense of people’s lives. The end never justifies the means.

And honestly, I was surprised to see how many people were mad at Jayce for blasting Viktor at the end of that episode. In my opinion, by then, it was quite clear that Viktor didn’t care much about his Arcane-modified toys. He wasn’t even pretending he did. Salo wasn’t a person to him. None of them were. They were just tools, stepping stones for his glorious evolution.

And all of that was right there in the first scene of ep6.

[hanasnx]

thank goddd ive been blocking people even more liberally than i had before. tag cloggers, idea stealers, friends of ppl i think shouldn’t be on tumblr, anything that remotely annoys me or pisses me off. god it’s fantastic. this is what stopping and smelling the roses is like

[lazycranberrydoodles]

getting back into the untamed and i had a thought. / follow for more yllz babygirlism

[generallemarc]

It would be like if Wolfenstein had Nazis be accepting of gay characters.

That was kinda going to be my next example, although I'd have gone with Jewish Nazis.

It doesn't make logical sense that they would accept one type of historically oppressed minority and not another without an in-universe explanation. I guess I just have a knee-jerk reflex to defend queer characters in any form of media regardless of how well implemented they are,

Real talk, not being ironic or mocking or anything-it takes a mature person to not only realize that but admit it publicly, and I appreciate that you are one.

In my defense, though, this entire reblog chain did not come off as a good-faith analysis

My intentions were always to denounce such absurd historical inaccuracy, but I'll admit that my tone was certainly acidic. In my own defense, you came off as thinking it was perfectly fine to portray a cruel autocracy that oppressed everyone but focused that oppression harder onto any dissidents or nonconformists as being accepting of gay/trans people, and given that this is tungle.fuck where actual communists who genuinely believe the USSR did nothing wrong abound(an actual defense I saw was "they repealed the Tsar's anti-gay laws!", not taking into account that what they actually did was throw out the entire Tsarist legal code, meaning you could just as easily say they repealed the laws against murder and rape, and also that they re-criminalized homosexuality shortly thereafter), I made the assumption based on your rhetoric that that's what you were. I was wrong, however, and I am glad to be so.

...This seems somewhat improbable.

[ohnoitsz1m]

Uhh post canon Barney

Man who has not had a break since the rescas and refuses to start now. Alyx and Gordon are hiding his gear as we speak while Kleiner distracts him.

I was sposed to do Alyx too but I blinked and it was 3 am so. Next time

Oh also I forgot to make a note but he does carry a sidearm

[withthewindinherfootsteps]

mdzs tumblr post au but it’s just “what were you doing at the devil’s sacrament” (nightless city)