#so none of my thoughts about the cast are quite fully formed yet

[cak31ssuperi04]

Do you have any general hcs of the 1bit/1beat cast? Anythings fine

Kind of rough but

-I've played around with the idea with Eruno being from an orphanage/foster home(the "because you've got a proper family" bit) but I go back and forth on this one.

-Nio and Sakuma are friends! He does shifts at Bitwave they hang out there. The poor boy needs someone to fend off the fangirls.

-Eruno and Akitaka accompany Haruya on deliveries sometimes. Pals.

-When Aira's mimetic muscles get installed she doesn't really quite get how to use them immediately. Her expressions start out real stiff(which she expresses dissatisfaction with, and gets help from the others) to real exaggerated and overplayed(think unbridled rage or pained anguish at things that just kind of annoy her).

-Also she has Kiri make her taller so she can grow alongside her friends!

-Also Also by 1beat she has at LEAST one sibling who's just, a really muscled out doll in frilly clothes.

-Meru listens to death metal. She'd hoped it'd help her stay up better but now she just kind of likes it.

-Outside of tending to the shrine, Hakuhi has embroidery as a hobby.

-Izuchi took piano lessons when he was younger(parents made him do it to try and play up the prodigy genius image). He quit.

-That potion thing he made in 1beat was ripped from Kirai's anime but in part he'd made it after Eruno came to him Demanding a way to make her dog live longer.

-He went to Blue sun college(less because he thought he needed to and more for the benefits a degree there would give him) and got into an apprenticeship with Kiri. He keeps the lab when Kiri moves to Coco Alley(easier to skirt by the law). Familiar with the Blue Sun Trio to some extent.

-He has a sweet tooth but doesn't really admit it because he deems it unhealthy.

-While he did have a hand in the creation of the master program, he doesn't stay on the team after it's finished. Does continue to get occasional updates about it from Hiyu and Nanase though.

-His room is all clean and organized on the surface(maybe a few seashell displays, a poster covering a hole in the wall) but he keeps all the goofy weird shit stored away in drawers and under his bed.*

-I've played around with the idea of there being a 3rd Nasuga sibling who's just too young to be relevant in the game(<-no canon basis i just thought it'd be fun) but I'm not sure if I'd keep that.

-Enri has a pet hamster! He's like the band's son.

-The gang Kirara used to be a part of was like a sparkly gyaru girl gang. She never really enjoyed fighting but took a lot of lessons growing up so she was really good at it. The gang is still going strong though and at least a few of her Gyaru Friends are members(and there's at least one member who's just a plain normal ass girl that hangs around them but that's getting into oc territory).

-Rocca ends up growing up to be like Really Fucking Tall. Momori models clothes on her and remarks that she could be a model if she didn't trip over herself so much(not that she'd want to be one anyways).

-Mary has 3 siblings, they've done a way better job at staying out of the public eye(and have grown somewhat distant from her as a result).

-On account of being friends with a lot of the townspeople and having a lot of relatives, Hitohito is just one of those guys with a lot of connections. In a "guy who knows a guy" way.

-Chino is Coco Alley's mom jkasdsa.

--She brings Sora(was familiar with his family and doesn't want him to get too lonely) cookies and flowers sometimes and while he's dismissive about it he does secretly appreciate it.

-Tobari is the heiress to a big tea emporium who dipped because she got bored and/or got into a disagreement with someone over there, but continues playing up her Elegant Fancy Lady image despite living paycheck to paycheck(which I mean, good for her I guess.)

-Although Sagara knows Asuto through Hitohito, they actually interact fairly regularly in anime forums.

-Hitohito, Izuchi, and Sagara were on friendly terms when they were kids but grew distant for reasons. Hitohito and Sagara had gotten back in touch and still hang out. Heat reached out to Izuchi but was promptly brushed off, still looks out for him. Izuchi and Sagara have a weird frenemy/rival thing going on.

-Sagara has no siblings she just kind of lives alone with her mom who may or may not hate her.(although it's less "hate" so much as disappointment)

-Sagara's chicken avatar is modeled after one of her childhood pets.

-Sagara definitely Naruto runs.

-She holds DnD(\Dnd adjacent. Just some ttrpg I'm not an expert) sessions at every couple of weeks. I'm not saying Izuchi willingly participates(those commoners are hopeless without his guidance), just that she didn't exactly have very many other people to invite(Hitohito and sometimes Meu and eventually Nanashi).

-She has a knack for trying to help townspeople as part of some sort of Magical Girl Code but isn't as good at it as she thinks she is.

-She has a compartment in her arm warmers that's full of bird feed, she's made an alliance with the pigeons.

-While she does cool it with the Organization stuff, she never drops the chuuni behavior. Eventually opens a small cake shop with some edgy chuuni-esque title(debated on whether it should be in the same place Little Berry was, like after little berry closes its doors).

-Nomiya and Hiyu butt heads a lot but they both get along fine with Azusa. Somebody needs to be nice to her god damn it.

-The Kujohs have a pet dog but it's actually Azusa's. Following with the rest of the family, it's a big intimidating dog that's actually just really chill. Enri has tried to look past it but he's always very leery about visiting them.

-Nomiya's riding an adrenaline high throughout most of the game but his more calm demeanor in his events is just him going in the opposite extreme as a result of coming down from it. He's usually fairly loud and confrontational, just not THAT loud and confrontational.

-He keeps in closest touch with Tobari after the hackers are disbanded. Somewhat on account of her being able to hold her own in Break Passage the best out of the other three. She views him as a weird little brother.

-The hackers hold gatherings in memory(or what little of that memory they even retained. It's mostly secondhand from Nanashi) of Mikado where they commit minor crimes. The gathering was Kotora's idea the crime was Nomiya's.

-Sagara has a journal that she calls the Abyss Tome that's just full of fanfiction and anime drawings of herself and her friends(/enemies). Has a bunch of spell names listed down in it.

-Saaya and Meu are friends! Saaya comes to her for divinations about her love life a lot and just ends up venting. Meu's happy to listen though and tries to comfort her the best she can.

-Speaking of therapy though, Saaya does get therapy sometime post-canon and distances herself from Nanase(while a lot of Nanashi's friendships that start off on the wrong foot have room for growth, the memory thing makes things kind of... weird with her). She's in a much better state by 1beat.

-Saaya writes a lot of poetry.

-Yoh and Sagara are related. Somehow(I did consider nephew at one point but that didn't really pan out).

-So are Hiyu and Arumu. They've got that green hair and funky eyebrows.

-Akuta and Kaori date briefly(well, she's a fan of his work, and he is rich, and while he can't speak multiple languages he is well-spoken, what could go wrong?) which just ends in them breaking up over a disagreement over a book's ending. That was more the final straw though, actually getting to know him put into perspective just how far from her expectations he actually is and she's not super pleased about it. They do stay friends but something something important lesson about your idols being people.

-I feel like I've said somewhere that Kotora leaves the cafe to Rocca when he retires but I need to clarify that Kotora keeps being the cafe guy well into old age and that Rocca would be a whole adult by then.

-Kaori was the youngest of her siblings and only one to stay with her mother, she sees her dad as a good for nothing deadbeat(it wasn't an amicable divorce) and the ordeal heavily influenced how she views romantic relationships as a whole. Grew up somewhat distant from Kotora and their sister but reconnected in adulthood.

-Her "ideal guy" is just the best traits of her favorite book leads cobbled together like some kind of frankenguy. (And she might be internalizing something... who knows)

-The world did enter a more 'cyberpunk dystopia'-esque futuristic state a long time ago and the return to more traditional old timey ways is sort of in response to that, but Yasune is the only one who'd actually lived through it. Although then again the 2nd oldest character in the game is only 36 so...

The post is starting to not process so I'm going to cut it off here.

[getami]

" Jujutsu in the Kaisen " - What that world means and who are they for real?

This topic has intrigued me for quite some time. During my university years—which are still ongoing—one of our Japanese text-reading classes featured a passage about the Jōmon period. The text mentioned jujutsu and the jujutsushi (shamans). Of course, I was already reading the manga by then, and it was around the time the second season came out, so I actively started researching. Below is what I found.

Let’s begin with a brief kanji overview: 呪術 (Jujutsu)

呪 – SPELL

Reading: Ju

Its core meanings include “spell,” “curse,” “charm,” or “prayer,” often used in connection with malevolent or supernatural things. It belongs to the kango family (meaning it came from China), which is used for traditional terms. Fun fact: During the Heian period, Chinese influence was huge, and this was when most Chinese kanji flowed into Japan, giving us yet another hidden Heian reference from the mangaka. This is also a compound kanji, meaning it was created by combining two smaller kanji in ancient China—the kanji for “mouth” and “brother,” which forms yet another wordplay. The “brother” (which could refer to a monk or shaman) casts a spell or curse through his mouth. One long-standing issue with shounen anime is that characters always have to say their attack names, which can seem cheesy, but not in Jujutsu Kaisen. Gege solves this by introducing the legend of shamans, who could only cast spells through their spoken words, thus creating a logical basis for why attack names must be spoken aloud.

術 – TECHNIQUE

Reading: Jutsu

It is most commonly used to mean “art,” “technique,” “method,” or “skill,” especially in contexts requiring some level of expertise or technical knowledge. It’s also a kanbun word and another compound kanji, though in a slightly different way than the previous one—this might deserve a separate article. It’s used frequently, not just in the word jujutsu (which refers to the technique of magic), but also appears in Naruto, where the same kanji forms part of ninjutsu. You’ll also find it in more sophisticated words like bijutsu, which refers to the fine arts. But enough linguistics—let’s move on to who the jujutsushi were.

JUJUTSUSHI:

The jujutsushi of the Jōmon period (ca. 14,000 BCE – 300 BCE) were not specific historical figures, but rather a term referring to the practitioners of jujutsu. However, jujutsu here should not be understood as a modern martial art, but in its original meaning, referring to the art of curses or magic.

The jujutsushi (呪術師) were individuals who practiced magic, rituals, curses, and spiritual activities. In the Jōmon period, these people were likely spiritual leaders, shamans, or healers who maintained a connection with the natural and spiritual worlds. During this era, people believed only in nature and the things around them, and these shamans were responsible for ensuring the mental well-being of the tribes. They were thought to possess the ability to foresee the future, return from the dead, and influence the weather. In other words, they were considered omnipotent. This is especially interesting because we’re dealing with a time far before the Heian period—the Jōmon can be considered Japan's prehistoric age. Isn’t it fascinating that Heian-era Sukuna could only be defeated by magic much older than his own? In my humble opinion, this is a brilliant idea.

When discussing the Heian period, even 20 volumes would not suffice to fully explore the various magics and shamanism, but since we’re focusing on Jujutsu Kaisen, I’ll highlight two key spiritual traditions:

The first is incredibly interesting in its own right, as it not only inspired JJK but also countless other anime, manga, and games. It’s none other than Onmyōdō and the Onmyōji. One of the most significant spiritual traditions of the Heian period, Onmyōdō (陰陽道), developed from Chinese yin-yang philosophy and astrology. The onmyōji (陰陽師) were sorcerers or spiritual advisors who served the aristocracy and the imperial court. Their duties included exorcising evil spirits, performing rituals to bring good fortune, observing celestial movements, and conducting curse-breaking ceremonies. The onmyōji can be seen as the jujutsushi of the Heian period, as they too dealt with spiritual defense and magical techniques. Some of you may know that the Heian period was named after the capital city of the time, Heian (modern-day Kyoto), so it’s not far-fetched to assume that both spiritual traditions originated from there. And speaking of jujutsu techniques from the Tokyo school, those are more rooted in Buddhist foundations. Megumi’s shikigami also come to mind, which are not particularly Buddhist, but then I remembered that he comes from the Zenin clan, which is based in Kyoto—so we’re still on track.

The second tradition was more Buddhist and spiritual during the Heian period, known as Esoteric Buddhism (Mikkyō). Another major spiritual and magical system in the Heian period was esoteric Buddhism, associated with the Shingon and Tendai Buddhist schools. Priests performed intricate rituals and magic aimed at relieving human suffering and banishing evil spirits. The ceremonies often involved reciting mantras, using mudras (hand gestures), and employing mandalas. This tradition utilized mudras, which can be understood as hand gestures. Many characters in the series use this symbolic system. I wonder if you’ve noticed the sequence of mudras shown one after another in the second opening of the second season?

One last FanFact and that's it for today:

In Esoteric Buddhism, protective deities like Fudō Myōō (Acala) are common. These deities are strong, warrior-like protectors who can be invoked through rituals for protection. Similar defensive techniques also appear in Jujutsu Kaisen, such as the Domain Expansion (領域展開, Ryōiki Tenkai) techniques, which create a user-controlled territory. These resemble the ritualistic circles and protective symbols used in Esoteric Buddhist practices. In Jujutsu Kaisen, these techniques often involve spiritual or magical power to defeat opponents within the controlled area.

That's it for today! This topic might be worth a second part in the future, but we'll see. Do you have any questions? If there's any topic about Jujutsu Kaisen you're curious about, feel free to reach out to me!

Yo,

Getami 2024.09.29

[unbound-dreams]

New Muse Arrival: Taika Virtanen

“I’m a legend on my world, you know, you should take me seriously-.. wait, is that a book of anti-Faery wards? I can help you out if you let me get a peek...!”. 

(Art not by me! Drawn, commissioned from, and uploaded with permission from @queenieboo22 )

Name: Taika Virtanen

Nickname: Tai, 'Ka, Wind Friend

Physical Age: 8 Original Age: 33-38 Actual Age (in terms of Larutan):  600-800 years old

Gender: Female

Race: Fae-Touched (Formerly Human, Changeling)

Abilities: Powerful Wind Magic, ability to conjure powerful winds, affect the weather, flight on good days... But has extreme trouble controlling it in child form. Can temporarily revert to adult form when filled with determination, fully powered in this form

Personality: Paranoid, curious, studious, annoyed, stubborn.

Dream: To never have to worry about being captured by faeries again...

Backstory:

A powerful legend in her home world of Larutan, everyone knew the tales of Taika Virtanen, the Wind Witch who once split a mountain in two with a powerful bolt of lightning. creator of a storm powerful enough to form the great lake Virtanen, and decider of many a great battle, she hailed from a somewhat cold region to the north, famous for drawings of a strange, faery-like creature (Whom she also adores very much... secretly).

Her enemies feared her, her allies respected her, her students looked to her to guidance, Taika was always on the lips of those who knew about her.

Then... one day... she simply vanished. No one quite knew exactly what happened to the powerful wind witch!

Did she give up her physical body to become one with the wind?

Did Faeries take her away?

Did the gods punish her for her hubris and seal her away into Lake Virtanen? None knew... but her legend remained, famous to all, living on into the present day...

...

But, what really happened? She was kidnapped by faeries! And not just any faeries... faeries loyal to the Twilight Princex Maxime, who wished to give the child a playmate who could entertain them with magic, and since she was so powerful and famous... she unfortunately fit the bill.  Maxime at first didn't think she was very entertaining, given her haughty and stuck-up nature. Why was she such a stick in the mind!?

Figuring that if she wasn't so old, she'd be a lot funner to play with, Maxime cast a spell upon the Witch, removing years of life and time from her body, reducing her from a powerful witch into a mere child of eight years old. She still had her wind magic, barely diminished at all, but it became much harder to control, and worse yet, sometimes she fell into childish moments of "empty headed" moments, which shocked and dismayed the witch greatly. But Maxime thought it was such a rousing success, that he "Blessed" his first playmate by making it permanent! Making her an unaging, eternal child.

Though she could temporarily lift the spell and return to her adult form, it took a lot of effort, and she had to spend a lot of that entertaining her new prince, even if she hated it sometimes. Time went on, and Taika's body began to gain some other changes... most prominent being elongated elfen ears... and a prominent star marking on her face, sometimes it was a single star, other times two (Especially when near Maxime), and other times it split apart into what looked like a sea of star freckles Then... after what felt like only two months, the Twilight Prince sighed wistfully and said  "Sorry Taika, I'm bored of you now, you can go! You can keep being a kid, though!" And without another word, Taika was returned to a mortal world... ... But not Larutan! She was deposited onto an entirely random mortal world... still a child, still with semi-diminished magic, and still with some lapses in thought! And worse still, Maxime did not "Sync" her with the Fair Lands, whenever she is in the Fair Lands, days, weeks, months... even years pass by in the mortal worlds, and even when she would return to Larutan, she would five that 400 years had passed since she went missing.

Now something of a wanderer, Taika wanders the mortal worlds, hoping to find a way to lift the curse Maxime set upon her (or at least weaken it), return to her home world of Larutan, and simply attempt to regain the life she once had. But, even so, she still has to be careful, other Faeries seek her, and Maxime has once more sought out to regain his first playmate, feeling horrible for what he did to her, he simply wants to be her friends and make things right! With threats and problems of all kinds, mortal, fae, and otherwise, Taika has a lot to deal with. Sometimes, she's even recaptured by Maxime to be her playmate again, and is forced to wear a horribly gaudy dress by his guardians... ... But, she always escapes and regains her original clothes.

It's a stressful, fast paced life, and despite it alll... She keeps going. ... And sometimes she can't deny... Eternal Youth is pretty great...

[delicrieux]

☆ﾐ 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚜𝚊𝚢 “𝚘𝚑”

PART 13: ...O-OH?

it’s the night of the big stream. y/n uncovers a strange, albeit deep, bond with charlie. corpse interrupts her garden date with sykkuno quite unceremoniously. tensions are high as ever; proximity chat reveals internal monologues and stray thoughts. y/n’s “batshit insane” energy affects everyone. this is, quite literally, the best game of among us bretman has ever played.

─── corpse husband x reader, sykkuno x reader (if you squint, it’s very one sided)  ─── soc. media + written fiction! ─── word count: 6.1k oops ─── ❥ reqs: sum people requested some interaction w bretman + jealous corpse + flirty sykkuno

author’s note: guys....GUYS WE’RE ON THE 3RD “OH” hope ur excited cus i am!!! this was rly fun to write, but then again, everything is better than writing an essay lmao! this is extremely chaotic and a bit seggsy but like a minuscule bit u wont even notice it i swear xx there’s not much social media in this one, mostly written lol. as always lmk wat u think n thank u for all ur kind words n sooo manyyyy ideassss!!! love u lots

ultimate masterlist.  ҉  myso masterlist   ҉   previous. ҉   next.

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It’s happening, you think, picking the discreet, angelic white color for your astronaut - with a halo and all, truly, you are a seraph that stepped through the gates of heaven and descended onto earth to grace these morals with your presence...quite literally, you’re not only donning white in game, but also in real life, cute as a button or more like as a bunny. Cat girls are overrated - cat boys, on the other hand, you’ll ardently defend till your last breath - but bunny girls...Safe to say, your chat had been going feral. Your endless ego is fed well. You even swore on your heart that no devilish trickery would follow in this game - you had left your snake ways behind you.

No one believed you. The Roaches know you too fucking well.

The influx of new subs, however, do not. Look at this cute girl! She wouldn’t hurt a fly! You chuckle at the compliments. At the exact same moment, Rae pipes up on the discord call, “Y/n is leering and cackling evilly. No one trust her.”

Demon woman herself must be watching your stream before starting her own. You pout, all adorable and innocent, but your eyes gleam slyly. Truly, a mastermind of manipulation! Look at you go! The chat is swooning. The viewer number steadily climbs past 16K and you hum happily, welcoming all that decided to join your little clan, “Don’t listen to Rae. Wifey is mad because I said I’m not bringing her back a souvenir. Well guess what, bitch, I’m the gift.”

Your perfect image does not quite align with your tone, nor the affectionate nickname you call your roommate (bitch, not wifey). The new viewers are none the wiser though, just like your new stream mates.

There is laughter from people you don’t quite know. The lobby is almost full, but not everyone has trickled in yet.

“Filing divorce papers right now.” Rae mumbles, but you hear the smile in her voice. It makes you crack a grin, too. 

More hello’s and shy introductions to the people in the lobby. Sykkuno’s green astronaut pops in with a upbeat, “Hey, everyone! Hi, Y/n!” as his character circles around yours. A collective awww echoes in your stream chat as you, quite breathless at the wholesomeness, reply with a “Hi! Hi hi!” as well.

Corpse is next to join, mysteriously ominous. The discord call is pure chaos, everyone screaming over the other variations of his name while stressing different syllables. Silent as a grave, he just stands there, his black astronaut seemingly eyeing everyone in the lobby. 

Alas, when the noise dies down, he utters, “Whaddup, baby.” and it’s pandemonium all over again. You are screeching/laughing along with the rest. His astronaut swiftly glides to Sykkuno, still circling around you, “Hey, Sykkuno.” He says. The latter abruptly stops. The game hasn’t even started, and already - betrayal! Sykkuno starts circling around Corpse now, leaving you in the dust.

“Hey, dude!”

“Yo,” You interrupt, “I’m like here too, yeah?”

“Fight, fight, fight!” Pokimane jeers. You can’t see her, but you’re certain she’s pumping her fists in the air. 

“Let’s leave the bloodshed for the game, yeah?” Dream offers past her laugh ridden urging.

“No, fuck that, let’s start this shit right now,” Charlie declares - his monotone is strangely pleasant to the ear, and you lean back in your chair with a thoughtful hum. Something about his energy just clicks with yours instantly, but perhaps you’re judging too quickly- “Got my fucking knife ready to slit some throats. You can all pretend you aren’t ready to kill on sight, but that’s not me. I’ll teabag your dead fucking body.”

-yeah, no, your initial estimate had been correct! What a pleasant surprise, you feel like you and he will get along beautifully. 

“Way to be subtle, Charles.” Rae snorts.

“Subtle doesn’t make an interesting game, Rae,” He’s quick to bite back, “and if I’m Impostor, you bet your fucking ass I’m going after you first.”

“Noooooo!” She shrieks, rushing to your astronaut, which is still just standing there, abandoned, like the equivalent of that one emoji, “Y/n, protect me.”

“Of course, baby.” You purr. 

There’s mumbling in the discord call, though it’s barely audible. Corpse seems to be repeating the word to himself: Baby...Baby?...Baby...

“You’re gonna stab me in the back the first chance you get, won’t you?” She questions, already painfully aware of the answer.

“You know it!”

“Finally, someone that’s not fucking cowering in their boots and flaunting their real nature.” Charlie says, “Y/n, form a Big Dick Alliance with me.”

“Oh for sure, man.” You agree immediately, trailing to his in game figure, “Let’s show these virgins how it’s done.”

“This is going to be a mess, isn’t it?” Sean’s voice rings with a cheerful laugh, making you flustered. Yes, you’re actually playing with THE JacksepticeyeTM. You still haven’t fully wrapped your head around that part, “I’m very excited to see where this will go.”

“Nowhere good.” You say with unparalleled sincerity - every word you speak to him, the icon, the legend, the one of the few youtubers you actually actively follow, must be genuine. You doubt you can lie to him. He’s too good of a person. You admire him too much. Stuck between wanting to be a shady bitch and an absolute saint, you refrain from addressing him more - you are simply not worthy.

its the y/n trying to act like a normal person in front of jack for me

ikr she looks ready to join the monastery

each day we stray closer to gods light???

Your viewers are snide as always. Gosh, you love them.

The last player pops in, fashionably late, “Hey, y’all.”

“Hey, Bretman!” The call choruses somewhat harmoniously.

“Hi, daddy.” He’s speaking to Corpse now, a smile in his voice - you can hear it even past the static of his atrocious mic. Your eyes widen, eyebrows shooting up. Your friends are cackling, but confusion refrains you from doing the same - were you not the only one Corpse offered, seemingly so long ago!, to be his sugar baby? 

One betrayal after the other. You’re glad for the Big Dick Alliance. The name has a nice right to it, too. 

Corpse laughs, “...Hey, Bretman. How are you today?”

Damn, two sentences for him, but not even a word spoken to you!? You’re already scripting a very melodramatic paragraph you will text him after the stream. With poorly masked discontent, you mutter, “Wow, thanks for such a warm welcome, Corpse, my day’s going great, yeah, loving the company.”

“Now now miss girl,” Bretman chimes, “we can’t be all daddy’s favorite.”

“Careful,” Charlie drones, “I think you just got yourself onto Y/n’s shit list.”

“Right next to Corpse Husband and Valkyrae.” You agree, “Sykkuno!” You suddenly call him.

“Uhm-Uh-Yes?” Is his nervous reply.

“You’re safe.” You state coldly, “For now.”

“You are not going after Sykkuno on my watch.” It must be a belated holiday miracle because Corpse finally decides to address you. His words seem to awake something in him, “Hey-Hey-Hey-” He swiftly glides to you, standing right next to your minute virtuous angel, “When are you coming back to Cali?”

corpse stop acting weird challenge

literally omg lmao

he does bring up a good point y/n y u not in cali yet?!

^pack it up corpse simp he disrespected the queen when he didnt say hi

“Back off, buddy,” Charlie interjects, “this spot is for Big Dick Alliance members only.”

“I’m never returning.” You inform him, your voice cold like the Arctic snow, and the look in your eyes is no kinder. You feel like you’re having a stare down through screen. 

Silence stretches. Is this an intimidation tactic? Because if it is, it’s a paltry one. Your conviction to be petty is stronger than any vulnerability you might feel.

“Then I have nothing to say to you.” He admits and fucks right off with that. Fine, go join Sykkuno and Rae in their little corner of betrayal! Friendship ended with Corpse, now Charlie is your best friend.

“Okay, guys, guys, guys-” Toast, noting this is going to spiral any minute now, tries to catch their attention, “Let’s start?!”

You look into your camera, and the roaches know what you’re thinking. You’re twins like that, communicating telepathically. You are taking back your tender promise of not being a conniving bastard. It’s fucking on. You will destroy everyone in your path, starting with the guy you have a stupid crush on - maybe?! Feelings are confusing, you’d rather just not think point blank period.

With no objections from the cast, the counter ticks away seconds and, for the first round, you’re stuck as CREW MATE.

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Charlie is a gift. Truly, you had not expected such a sudden, wonderful relationship to bloom. How have you not known of him sooner?! It’s a crime that you hadn’t spoken to him earlier. You are a 100% certain if you had found him before you started streaming, he would’ve been a big inspiration. 

The two of you do your silly little tasks and curse like sailors, commenting about this and that thanks to proximity chat. You wouldn’t have been able to stand the claustrophobic silence if it was just a normal Among Us game - to think, missing out on all his foully worded quips! It almost springs a tear into your eye. He’s just as unhinged as you.

worried about this dynamic 

its a trainwreck lol i love it plz collab more plz

Caught in a headed discussion in Electrical - TikTok trends, or audios specifically - you defend the app the best you can. Charlie thinks it’s super cringe, and you insist it’s part of the charm as you connect wires.

“I mean, have...-do you know that one audio, the one that goes, like,” You’re spilling your words, heated, frustrated that he’s so dismissive of the app that literally saved 2020, “it goes like, uhm,” You clear your throat, prep your voice - even take a sip of your favorite drink. Drawing the syllables, you try your best to make it drop an octave - it must sound like you’re doing an atrociously bad and nauseatingly scratchy Corpse impression with an extra dramatic flair, “My assssssss, your cockkk, you do the mathhh.”

“Did-Did I just-” You freeze hearing Corpse’s voice, finally done with your task. Charlie is muffling his laughter behind his palm; Corpse’s astronaut stands in the doorway, “What the fuck did I just walk into?” He seems genuinely confused, though a strangely winded. You’re mortified. Your shoulders are shaking. You look at the stream chat but it’s going too fast for you to follow. Manic laughter bubbles in your chest and you squeeze your eyes shut, mouth split into a toothy grin, lowering your head and trying to hide the blush dusting your cheeks.

“Hey? Guys? What the fuck are you talking about?” He questions again.

“Honestly?” Charlie chimes, “No fucking clue. TikTok, I think. Ask Y/n.”

You can’t reply. You’re crying. You cover your face with your palms, muttering a soft oh my god before bursting into a full blow laugh, throwing your head back, the motion accidentally knocking your headphones off.

“Y/n.” Corpse calls you, “Fuck was that?”

You’re howling. Your stomach hurts. There are literal tears in your eyes. You think Charlie might be laughing too, but you can’t really tell over your loud screeching. Hastily fixing your headphones, you wipe away the tears stuck to your lower lashes, heaving, “S-Sorry, I-” You stutter, breaking into another fit of giggles. Corpse patiently waits you to calm down. Catching your breath, you start again with a sniffle, “TikTok, yeah.” You idly fix your hair, trying to bite down a smile, “It’s an audio.”

“What- What kind of videos are you watching?”

“The good kind.” Your reply is instant, merciless, “Also, why are you here? We’re having a BDA meeting, you know.”

“I-I...” He trails off, “I...I heard people talking and...I just came here to check it out, but...I’m regretting it.” There’s a lilt in his voice, and you know he doesn’t regret jack shit. You bet he’s smiling. You wish you could see it.

“Bitch, then leave!” You huff. You aren’t sure what is with him today, and you don’t want to stick around and find out - his playfulness makes your stomach flip at the most inappropriate times! Like when you’re trying to sound threatening. You must retreat posthaste, “No, wait, I’ll do it for you.” You say, brushing past his character. Charlie follows after you.

“Dude, you’re so fucking lucky neither of us are the Impostor because you’d be deader than I’ve been feeling since I was 10.” Your favorite companion comments. Charlie is truly a modern wordsmith. You’re pretty sure you adore him, because you’re nodding your head, so quick to agree with him that even you’re surprised. 

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A meeting is called. You spare a glance at your fallen crew mates. They will be missed. Sean most of all, God, why does heaven always take the good ones?! The game feels emptier without him, even if you really only passed him once on your trek to Cafeteria with Charlie.

You may or may not have been avoiding him, afraid you’d accidentally say something horrible and he would hate you. It’s a silly fear, though a deep one. And with Charlie keeping you company, you had not uttered a single objectively  good, or even coherent, sentence. Your parents can’t watch this stream once it’s uploaded onto your Youtube channel. They know you’re barely keeping it together in most of your videos, but here, now? Yeah, no. Charlie is already hard to listen to on his own for sensitive viewers, and hearing you agree with literally everything he says with your own chaotic ideas? Your dad would stumble into an early grave.

Mom probably wouldn’t mind too much, but you’d have to explain your relationship status again. She is under the assumption that everyone you collab with is your significant other. You’d say it began with Sykkuno, though the exclamation of “Finally! My daughter isn’t pathetically single! We need to celebrate.” had started with Rae. Truly, a scandal.

Speaking of which, Sykkuno is gone, too, but you had time to mourn him already. You found his body roughly ten minutes ago; so torn with the fresh agony of heartbreak, you could not do anything else but cry. It was Charlie, bless his heart, that reported it.

“Someone killed Jack,” You say, voice dripping with venom, “court is now in session. I’m ready to vote the fucker out.”

People speak all at once. Toast roars over them, “ORDER! ODER IN COURT!” as he slams his hand onto his desk repeatedly. That seems to work, though briefly.

“I think it’s Y/n.” Corpse says. You stare at him, hand gripping your heart, mouth falling open in surprise.

flame him

corpse boutta be a corpse fr

beat his ass queen!!!!!

“Pardon my french,” You grumble, “but nani the fuck?!”

“It’s definitely Y/n, I found her and Charlie conspiring in Electrical. Surrealist experience of my fucking life, but it’s definitely her.”

“Dude, we’ve been over this,” Charlie sighs, shushing Rae who was about to comment something - knowing your luck, it was probably in favor of the man throwing you under the bus, “we would’ve snapped your fucking neck the moment you walked in. But we didn’t.”

“Yeah, we didn’t.” Corpse notes, “I said nothing about you, I’m just saying it’s definitely her. She probably didn’t kill in front of you because of your stupid alliance-”

“Someone sounds salty because he wasn’t invited.” Pokimane snickers.

“-or possibly she did tell you and you won’t betray her for the exact same reason.”

“That’s some big brain logic you pulled there, genius,” Charlie says, absolutely unimpressed, “sure you didn’t have an aneurysm trying to connect all of that together?”

“Well,” Rae pipes up, “Y/n and Charlie did say they will kill right before the game started. If you ask me, it’s not unbelievable. And Sykkuno was sorta on the shit list.”

“I’m writing down your name twice, Rachell.” You spit.

“Not helping your case at all, Y/n...” Dream worries, “And Rae makes a good point. Charlie and you have professed desire for murder. I’m just saying! It’s a bit suspicious, you know?”

The next words to leave Corpse’s lips sound incredibly smug, “See?” He drawls.  The pressure is getting to you - you don’t understand where this beguiling talent of his to convince literally everyone comes from, but it doesn’t inspire any confidence. Your fist suddenly feels incredibly lonely, so useless - oh, how you long to swing at him, “It’s definitely Y/n.”

“I dunno...” Toast mumbles.

“It’s Y/n.”

“Corpse-” You try, but he's ignoring you - shocker, as if he hadn’t been doing that from the very start of this stupid game - and chanting your name like it’s a fucking mantra or something, a smile in his voice, knowing, relishing in the fact that he’s grating on your nerves, “FIRST OF ALL,” You scream into the mic, successfully cutting him off; catching your breath, you exhale, and continue, calmly, lowly,  “get my pretty name out of your mouth.” 

There’s a pause full of tense silence. 

Then, there’s a sound, seemingly stuck in the back of his throat, “...O-Oh...?”

“Second of all,” You continue, words like honey dipped in arsenic, “This is the clearest smear campaign I have ever witnessed. By how hard you’re trying to frame me for fuck knows what reason, I’m led to believe it’s you that killed them. You’re the Impostor.”

“Corpse wouldn’t kill Sykkuno, though.” Rae comments, skeptical.

“Then the other Impostor did it.” You counter.

“Maybe you’re both Impostors.” Pokimane chirps.

“Y/n would never betray the Big Dick Alliance like that.” Charlie states.

You grin, “Charlie, I literally love you.” 

“Wait hold up now,” Corpse seems to get his bearings together, “what’s this about love I’m hearing?”

“I have none for you, dick.” You snap, flipping him off. Your chat cheers. While he can’t see it, you hope he senses it through the screen, “I officially hate you.”

“No, wait-”

“Boo, Corpse, you suck.” Toast laughs.

“Y/n, please-”

“Let’s all vote for Corpse Husband, okay?” You say it like it’s his full official name with an encouraging smile and multiple soft nods. Sykkuno can’t be here to nod, so you’ll do it for him. You eye the rapidly decreasing timer before clicking on Corpse’s figure and voting for him. The VOTED icon instantly pops up beside your adorable astronaut.

“Baby, I-” It slips past his lips so easily, as if he’s not even thinking about it, like it’s only natural to call you that and a spike of anxiety shoots up, making you glare. It’s only halfhearted. You try your best to ignore the rapid and uncoordinated pulses of your heart. Replace unwanted feelings with anger and hate - works like a charm, every time.

“You are not allowed to call me that.” You hiss. The chat spams snake emojis. 

“Wait-” Bretman chimes, “Hold up, y’all, slow down a minute. Why does Corpse never call me baby?”

“Yeah!” Pokimane agrees, “I want to be baby, too!”

Pokimane may not have been called baby, but you just single-handedly decided her nickname for her - Target 4. Welcome to the shit list, she is officially your public enemy number 1. You aren’t sure why the thought of Corpse ever referring to anyone else as baby makes you sick to your stomach (you actually do know why, but brain no think at the moment), but you wish this whole conversation never happened. You don’t like it.

20 seconds left. More VOTED icons appear by your friends. Corpse is the last one to cast his ballot at, you assume, you, as the rest wait for his quick explanation before everyone (or not) returns to the game, “...Because she’s my baby.”

Goodbye. Life had been sweet, and there was sorrow, though the amount of embarrassment you feel now is worse than when the internet found your cringe worthy high school pictures on your mom’s Facebook. It’s a mixture of dread and excitement - the pleasure of being noticed, cherished even, though anxious from vulnerability. Someone is screaming a very prolonged “WHAAAAT?!”, or maybe multiple people are, you aren’t sure, your ears start to hurt from the loud, conflicting cacophony of voices as you stare blankly at the screen. You received two votes, just like Corpse, Charlie got one, the rest skipped. With no one flung out, you all find yourself back in Cafeteria again.

Baby. My baby? My baby. My baby. The sentence is playing ping-pong in your mind, reverberating louder each time. You’re actually speechless for the first time in your life; your chest hurts, your heart beating so fast your hands start shaking. Had he meant it? Or was this a some joke? Was he trying to get a rise out of you again? You might just go insane from so many questions. My baby. Holy shit, this is a heart attack, this is what a heart attack feels like, dear God, you figured you at least had ten years before you get one!

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✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

First round ends with IMPOSTORS raining victorious. Your sixth sense had been working wonders since, true to you previous estimate, it had been Corpse. His companion was Pokimane. For absolutely no reason what’s so ever, you change her name once more from Target 4 to Target 1. Normally, you’re all for girls supporting girls. Men don’t deserve anything, really, but now you’re so flustered and still reeling from what you are 80% sure was cardiac arrest that you genuinely don’t care about your established morals.

Round two starts without much deliberation. You get CREW MATE again; the game must sense your growing bloodlust, making sure that once you do get IMPOSTOR, you will not hold back. True power is granted to those who are ready and strong enough to wield it. You wait for your moment with bated breath.

Charlie is taken from you too early. The two of you were once again caught in a discussion - God knows about what, Minecraft, hentai, oh! your server! - as you tried to card swipe for the umpteenth time. The lights blew out and you just knew one of you was getting murdered there and then. Charlie’s voice abruptly cut off, and you think a part of you died with him.

It’s a cold meeting; with your new best friend being the first to go, everyone decides to skip. You proclaim you seek vengeance. When the meeting comes to an end, Sykkuno is the first to offer his condolences.

“I’m sorry, Y/n.” He says, and while he’s not in Brooklyn, you somehow feel him patting your back. You feign a sniffle.

“There’s nothing to apologize for...” You murmur sadly, “Unless...” Your voice turns sharp as the knife that was surely twisted into Charlie’s back, “It was you?”

“NO!” He exclaims, “I would never-you gotta believe me! I would never kill him. I know he’s important to you. I wouldn’t do that, I swear.”

“He was like a brother to me.” You admit, solemn, “Charlie, if you’re haunting me right now, know I will avenge you. I will not let this go.”

Sykkuno hums, circling around you, “Hey, I have a task in Greenhouse. Would you, uh--Would like to, uhm, join me?” Despite the shaky start, he finishes on a firm, pleasant note. He’s trying to cheer you up. Having lost your closest friend, he’s offering you his company. You accept with a soft smile and a cute “Yes, please!” and he releases an airy little laugh. The two of you make your way to your favorite place in map MIRA.

It’s difficult to stay sad for long when Sykkuno’s so sweet; the atmosphere of the Greenhouse is strangely calming; your problems seem to be left behind the shut doors. If you tried hard enough, you could imagine being in an actual Greenhouse - the warm, damp air clinging to your skin, the unmistakable smell of earth and vegetation, the pleasant silence broken only by yours and his hushed voices and clumsy footsteps.

The two of you are talking. Mainly about your choice of attire. Cat first, Sykkuno ponders aloud, doing his task as you watch the plants grow, now bunny, what’s next? You affirm that you will most likely dress up in cow-print next, or as an adorable sheep. He laughs, admitting you’ll look good in anything before he trails off. His awkwardness is really endearing. 

“Or!” You chirp happily, content with being locked away with him for the whole game. The idea must be playing in his mind, too, because he seems in no rush to leave, “I could, like, dress as someone from My Hero Academia. I watched the stream you did with Stella, the one where she made you look like Todoroki. It was really cute. You were really cute.”

“Oh, uhm-well, uh, thank you, thanks, I, uhm-” He clears his throat, and despite his stutter, you hear the smile in his voice, “I-I think you’d look better, though. Not as Todoroki. Or, probably as Todoroki, too. But, uhm, what character are you thinking about?”

“Maybe Momo?”

“Momo!” He yeps, “Momo is good. Yeah, she’s great. You’ll-uhm-you’ll look amazing. Really. Momo is awesome. Very pretty. Just like you.”

You are blushing. A stupid, toothy grin makes your cheeks hurt. Your eyes flicker to the chat, but again, it’s going wild. Giggling, you thank him for his sweet words, so giddy it’s honestly embarrassing. Why can’t you stop smiling? This is incriminating. You hide your lips behind your palm.

“...What’s this?” Corpse question. You had failed to note his sudden appearance, too busy gushing. “Am I interrupting?”

“Hey, Corpse!” Sykkuno greets. For someone so awkward and shy, he sure is good at hiding it when he wants to. Perhaps it’s all an act and you had been deviously tricked! Probably not, but you can’t help but narrow your eyes suspiciously, finally able to calm down. You definitely underestimated him, you just haven’t figured out how yet, “Not really! Y/n was sad Charlie died so I took her here.”

“You interrupted our date, dipshit.” You deadpan. 

“...Fuck you say?” Corpse dares, his voice low and somewhat menacing - for someone who exclusively portrays his emotions through only his voice, he’s incredibly hard to read. This is payback. Your love for wreaking havoc resurfaces suddenly. Serves him right for pulling all this ignoring shit at the start. Maybe you’ll make him say oh again.

Your sly smirk is promptly wiped. Fuck. He said oh, he literally said oh out loud. The Teruhashi fangirl in you is screaming. You had been so caught up in defending yourself you didn’t even register it at first. Alarmed, you look at the camera, then at the chat. First oh, then my baby. There’s no way he had been teasing you, and this proves it. Holy shit. You mouth the words “HE SAID OH!” for your audience only.

now she notices

snail pace baby we’ve been loosing our shit for the past hour 

corpse x y/n saikik au enemies to lovers 500k words slow burn im here for it

opening wattpad rn^

Your heart races in your chest - it might be considered an Olympic medalist at this point; flustered yet again, you wish you could cave into yourself. You should’ve brought your bright blue wig with you to Brooklyn. Turns out it would have been perfect for this stream. Yes, yes thinking about unnecessary details always works in distracting you from the butterflies throwing a fucking rave in your stomach. 

“I guess it is a date!” Sykkuno admits, “Kinda after a funeral, but still.”

Corpse hums. You’re still too stunned to say anything. The black astronaut with adorable cat ears approaches Sykkuno. 

“It’s not.” He states. Your mouth falls open in shock as your date, your companion, the Shoto to your Momo is murdered in cold blood right in front of you. His lifeless body, cut in half, lays on the tiles by the growing flowers, right beside you, “You didn’t see shit.”

“...I didn’t see shit.” Is all you can utter, breathless and terrified.

“Thaaaat’s fucking right, baby.” Corpse coos, “Now I’m gonna report it, and I’ll say we found Sykkuno together. Better stick close to me after the meeting, got it?”

If Sykkuno is Shoto, then Corpse is definitely Dabi. 

why is that kinda hot tho omg

didn’t know i needed dom corpse since now but i do

y/n looks like shes boutta throw up lmao 

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You follow him around like a lost puppy - because what else is left for you to do!? You’re helpless in this situation. He’s got you in the palm of his hand, successfully eliminating everyone you had previously interacted with. First it was Charlie, then Sykkuno, even Sean, who said hello in passing, was shot instantly. Real Sangwoo behavior. You almost want to scream warnings at everyone to not approach you. You cannot mourn another lost crew mate, you don’t think your conscience can take it. But words fail to form. You’re too weak. You fake cry to your audience. They’re quick to remind you to stop acting like a little bitch.

“Mean.” Is all you say, eyeing the comments.

“Hm?”

“Was talking to the roaches.”

“What are they saying?”

“That I should betray you.”

“...Better not.”

A shiver shoots up your spine and you half believe he will bust down your door and drag you into his basement for real. A nervous laugh slips past your lips, “I won’t, I won’t.” You reassure him, “Don’t worry, I’m sticking with you. I haven’t seen shit.”

“I like that you listen to me. You always this agreeable?”

“You’re kinda not giving me a choice right now.” You grumble, vending yourself a drink while he looms behind you, protecting you. From who?! Himself?!

“Oh my fucking God, finally,” Bretman exclaims, “girl, I’ve been running around the whole map trynna find someone, is everyone like, dead?”

You’re scared to reply. Corpse does it for you, “Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, maybe? Not sure. Where have you been?”

“Oh you know,” Bretman grins, “doing tasks, talking shit, the usual. You two are not, like, Impostors right?”

You shoot a look at Corpse, but he obviously can’t see it. Biting your lip, you murmur, “Nope.”

“Just your regular crew mates doing regular crew mate things.” Corpse says, no, purrs. Because that’s not suspicious at all. You’d recommend Bretman to run, and not only because that sounded shady as fuck. But he seems to enjoy danger, or he just doesn’t care.

“Hmmmm, crew mates, sure. Miss girl Y/n,” He’s addressing you now; you smile anxiously, “How come every time I see you, you’re with a different man?! Like damn, leave some for the rest of us, for real!”

You like Bretman. You like his high-pitched whine and drawl. You would like him even more if not for the complex situation at hand. You fear for his life. Chewing at your bottom lip, you snicker, “Sorry, Bret. I can leave you Corpse if you want?”

He laughs, “Girl, I’d say yes so fucking quick, but I know he wouldn’t want that. Normally I wouldn’t care, but y’all are such a cute couple it’s making me not want to be a shady motherfucking bitch. Changing my ways, embracing the lord. Love it.”

 Corpse doesn’t correct him that you are, in fact, not dating. His lack of reaction unnerves you slightly. Does he...? No! No think! Only exist! You catch that train of thought and steer it away from forbidden territory. Looks like it’s up to you to clear the air, and that is exactly what you do after trying to swallow down the lump in your throat, “Uh, we’re not together, actually. We’re just really good friends.”

“Bitch, then move over,” Bretman says snappily,”go like, back to your other boyfriends. Or find another one. I think I saw Dream near Navigation.”

“Near Navigation, huh?” Corpse hums thoughtfully. It’s a subtle warning, but you catch it. Yeah, even if you try running, Dream’s going to join your other ‘boyfriends’ in the afterlife. Granted, killing someone by just talking with them is kind of cool. Or maybe Stockholm Syndrome is finally kicking in, “Bret, the thing is, Y/n’s scared of dying, so she asked me to stay with her.”

It’s disturbing how good at lying he is. It is also really really attractive, as bizarre as that is.

y/n stop being in a toxic relationship with corpse challenge

making fanart of this omg her face

its the blushing for me girl get your head outta the gutter!

^she cant, it lives there

“Baby, you’re gonna fucking die if you stick with her,” Bretman points out, “have you noticed the mortality rate of her partners? Rest in peace, daddy.”

“He’s right, you know.” You mutter, dramatically looking to the side, “I’m no good, Corpse.”

“Not leaving you, end of discussion. Bretman, join us?” Corpse offers, catching you by surprise. He might still be lying, though. Creating a false sense of security before eliminating Bretman. Probably would laugh while doing it, too. Wow, he truly is evil.

Turns out he doesn’t have to do any of that, because when Dream strolls into Cafeteria, he kills Bretman instead. The two Impostors are finally revealed. You promised not to snitch on Corpse, but you didn’t say shit about not exposing Dream. You press the REPORT button and say just that: “Dream just murdered Bret right in front of me and Corpse.”

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The last meeting is called. Dream had been voted out with the help of Corpse, and now only you, he, and Rae remain.

“Baby, you know what to do.”

The VOTED icon pops up beside Corpse’s astronaut. Rae wheezes, “No! Y/n, it’s not me, you gotta believe me, I swear it’s not me!”

“...I really don’t know,” You murmur, “I’ve been with Corpse a lot, and...Rae, I’m not sure...”

“Please! I swear it on my Kagayama cardboard cut out, I’m not the Impostor, please! You know me, I’d never lie to you like this.”

“She’s definitely lying.” Corpse says, sounding pleased.

“Don’t listen to him! Remember, during the first round, when he tried to convince us that you were the Impostor? He’s doing the same shit to me!”

“I also remember you agreeing with him.” You remind her.

“I was stupid! Small dumb brain moment! He was using us to win! He’s using you right now!” She votes, “Please, Y/n, make the right choice.”

You’re silent for a moment.

“I’m gonna...I’m gonna vote for who I think it is.” You lastly say.

A slow, lazy grin makes it’s way onto your lips, eyes gleaming mischievously. You had not forgotten your promise to your brother from another mother, you had not forgotten the pride of the BDA, you had not forgotten your beautiful friendship. Two miniature astronauts pop up by Corpse’s at the exact moment Rae screeches “YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!”

“Fuck.” Is all Corpse says with a laugh.

The screen changes, informing of the first CREW MATE victory.

Your ears are assaulted with different voices as you appear in the lobby.

“Now that’s what I’m fucking talking about.” Charlie raves, “I swear to fucking God, Y/n, you even got me going for a second. Pulled some 1000 IQ shit right there. It was fucking amazing. Best back stabbing I’ve seen in a while, and I’ve seen a lot.”

“That was absolutely fantastic, Y/n.” Sean applauds, “I really thought you joined Corpse like some crew mate accomplice or something. Can’t believe you switched on him at the last second.”

“That’s my wifey!” Rae cheers, strolling to you, “Love you, mwah.”

“Hey, Corpse,” Charlie calls him, “How does it feel to be a fucking loser?”

“I’m surprisingly fine with it.”

yeah he would be lmao

mom is the best snake ever i love you sm y/n

rae and y/n’s friendship....the feeeeeels

As the rest sing your praises for another solid minute or two, the third round begins. CREW MATE again. Though, just because you’re stuck as an underpaid worker in a dying spaceship, it doesn’t mean you’re innocent. Your last round proved that quite well. You can’t help but silently snicker.

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TAGLIST IS CLOSED!

tags (in italics is those i couldn’t tag! make sure all’s ok w your settings!) : @littlebabysandboxburritos - @fairywriter-oracle - @tsukishimawh0re - @ofstarsanddreams - @bbecc-a - @annshit - @leahh19 - @letsloveimagines - @bellomi-clarke - @wineandionysus - @guiltydols - @onephootinfrontoftheother - @liamakorn - @thirstyfangirl - @lilysdaydreams - @pan-ini - @mxqicshxp - @tanchosanke - @yoshinorecommends - @flightsandfantasy - @liljennyx3 - @bingusmode - @unknown-and-invisible - @sinister-sleep - @fivedicksinatrenchcoat - @mercury--moon - @peterparkerspjsuit - @unstableye - @simonsbluee - @shinyshimaagain - @ppopty - @siriuslystupid - @crapimahuman - @ofthedewthesunlight - @mythicalamphitrite - @artsyally - @corpsesimpp - @corpsewhitetee - @corpse-husbandsimp - @hyp-oh-critical - @roses-and-grasses - @rhyrhy462 - @sparklylandflaplawyer - @charbkgo - @airwaveee - @creativedogs - @kaitlyn2907 - @loxbbg - @afuckingunicornn - @fleurmoon - @yeolliedokai

more tags are in the comments bcs tumblr only allows me to tag 50 people max 💙

[justbreakonme]

A whumpee all covered and sticky with blood, concussed and a broken arm and caretaker helping them wash their hair (maybe plus getting into the shower, taking off clothes, if you're comfortable with it. still sfw tho).

(Context because otherwise this would be like 30 pages long: Slave!Whumpee was bought by Owner!Caretaker to help rescue him from the system, however, he doesn’t know yet. He tried to run away, was caught, and basically given bare minimum medical care before being dumped back on her doorstep.)

“You’re a bit of a mess aren’t you?” Caretaker sighed, trying to pretend she hadn’t just been crying her eyes out in worry, “Let’s get you cleaned up before you track it all over the house.”

‘A bit of a mess’ that quite an understatement. He was practically soaked in blood and caked with dirt, shivering and with no shoes on. There was a couple good sized bruises starting to form along his cheek and shoulders, and probably more underneath his clothing…

“Yes ma’am.”

He keeps his eyes on the floor, hoping she’d give him a moment to recover before she punished him. He knew he didn’t deserve it after what he’d done, but he hoped anyway.

“What did the doctor say about your arm?”

“Just not to get the cast wet ma’am.”

“And your head?”

“To avoid any further injury, and to-“ he paused, wishing there was anything else that could treat a concussion, “to avoid excessive movement and light.”

“Hmm, well we’ll work on that. What about medicine? What did they give you and how often are you supposed to take it?”

“Medicine ma’am?”

“Yes, medicine?”

“I- They didn’t give me medicine, ma’am, I swear.”

“None, at all? Not even while they were putting on your cast?”

“No ma’am.”

She sighed sharply, pressing a hand to her forehead, and he would give anything to simply crawl into a hole and die.

“Okay. Go get undressed down to your underwear and wait in the bathroom. The one with the blue walls in my room. If you don’t have some help, that blood is never gonna come out of your hair. I’m going to go find you some medicine.”

“Yes ma’am.”

He paused, trying to process what she had said fully.

Things are going rather slowly…

When he still hadn’t moved, she looked at him again, cocking her head to the side. “Did you hear me?”

“Y-yes, I’m sorry, sorry, yes ma’am.” He nearly bit his tongue off in the process of speaking so fast, and turned to head off, just remembering ‘blue walls’.

He found the bathroom eventually, and wondered why she would tell him to go in here. It was so pretty…

The walls were robins egg blue with cherry wood cabinets, but what his eyes were drawn to was the huge bathtub.

She could drown me…

A noise from the other side of the house jerked him back to the present, and he quickly started to undress, tugging off his blood soaked pants and socks, leaving him in boxers from the waist down. Then, he started on the shirt buttons, knowing he’d never be able to just pull the shirt off over his head with his cast.

It was proving rather difficult, both due to the pops of light and the way his brain seemed to be moving through wet sand, and that he was doing it one handed.

He could hear her footsteps coming towards the bathroom, and he hadn’t even undone the first button.

Oh please, please, why won’t you just work? She’s already so angry, please…

Tears of fear and frustration start to form as he managed the first button, but there was still 5 more to go…

The door opened.

“I thought I told you to get undressed?”

Don’t whine, don’t make excuses, don’t make things worse…

“I- The buttons- I can’t get them undone- I can, it just- I’m sorry!” His voice just broke as he began to sob.

It was too much, everything was too much, he’d ruined everything and was only making it worse and worse…

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Mistress…” he dropped to his knees, finally buckling, “I- I-“

What could I promise? I tried to run. There’s no reason for her to trust me, I’ve got nothing to give…

“Oh-oh dear, alright, maybe this was too much,” she knelt down beside him, her hands hovering above his shoulders, trying to figure out how to handle this. He was like a tangled bird, delicate and struggling and requiring intense precision. Something she didn’t have.

She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and placed two fingers under his chin. “Look at me.”

He obeyed, trying to hold his breath.

“Catch your breath. I’ll handle the buttons, you just hold still.”

He tried, honestly, and part of him just seemed to check out.

Obey. It’s the only hope.

She went down the line, undoing each button, then stood up, taking him under his good arm and guiding him up as well.

“Pull your arm through.”

He obeyed.

“Now hold still as I get it over the cast.”

Carefully, she worked the other sleeve down the cast and off, tossing the shirt over with his other discarded clothes.

She was…gentle?

“Sit down over there while the water fills up.”

He obeyed, taking a seat where she had pointed, and just stared down at his knees.

Now, all he was hoping was that his punishment would be being hit… Starvation or extra work or humiliation or anything… but if she hit him, he was going to shatter like glass…

Another deep breath.

Then she was off, her hands now experienced. She turned the water on and stopped up the bathtub drain, testing the temperature with the back of her hand till it was quite warm, but not too hot. He had been shivering, and his skin was cold to the touch.

“Here, take these. They should help with the pain a bit.” He was shaken out of his stupor by the pills and a cup of water appearing in front of him, and like before, he obeyed.

“Good. Hold out your arm.”

Again, he obeyed.

“Other arm. I’m gonna put this over your cast.” She held up a towel, and when he obeyed, she tucked the towel around his arm, covering the cast completely.

“You’ll need to be careful but that should help. Come on.”

He could see steam rising off of the water, and wondered how hot bath water could get…

Hot enough to burn?

But he knew if she told him to sit in a tub of boiling water, he would do it.

“Step in, hold onto the side there.” she instructed, searching through her cabinets, “Sit with your back to the tap.”

“Yes ma’am.”

He flinched when he stepped in, expecting pain, but instead it was relief.

Warm. Warm, not hot.

He quickly sunk in, carefully keeping his cast hung over the side of the tub, and tried to hide his sigh of relief.

He had nearly dozed off in the few minutes it took for her to find what she had been looking for. A small, wide toothed comb, and a pair of shears. His hair had already been tangled, trying to comb it now was probably going to be a lost cause without a bit of a trim.

“You’re gonna have to lean your head under the tap,” she says, making him jump, “I’m gonna do the rest, just do what I say.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Lean back, and make sure water gets all over. Where did you get hit?”

“Right here, ma’am.” Trembling fingers tap his left temple, and she notes to be extra careful.

He flinches when he feels her hands guide his head into an easier to reach position, but…

Again, why is she being so gentle? What kind of game was this?

She started to work the comb through his hair, pausing at the knots and either just cutting them out or working them through, depending on the size.

Even though he knew he should still be terrified, still be stiff as a board and keep his eyes open and on watch… it felt good…

Whatever she had given him was starting to kick in already, and the warm water felt like it was sinking him to his bones… And if he pretended hard enough, he could pretend that it was someone else brushing his hair, that he was somewhere safe…

She could feel him melting into putty in her hands, and she could have laughed if it wasn’t so…sad. So she just kept working, battling back the surge of emotion that was beating again her.

She was almost halfway done combing when her curiosity got the better of her. “Where were you going?”

He flinched, tensing up again, and she instantly internally smacked herself.

“I didn’t have a plan ma’am… I don’t know where I would have gone.”

“Hmm…”

Now it was his turn to ask a question. If he hadn’t been drugged and sleepy and more than a little okay if she just pushed him under the water and held him there, he probably would have kept his mouth shut.

“Ma’am…why are you being so gentle?”

“You weren’t here long enough for me to explain…” she sighed, carefully snipping away a large knot, “I’ve never been an owner before. I’ve never wanted to be, I think it’s wrong, and I think that the whole system is horrible. But I’ve also seen the man who bid on you buy someone new each month and I never see them again. I usually just push the bidding up a bit to stop him, but… that didn’t happen with you. I don’t really know what I’m going to do. But it’s not going to be anything to hurt you.”

He tried so hard to swallow the lump in his throat, but it wasn’t going anywhere…

How lucky could he be? And how stupid…

“I’m sorry…” was all he could think to say, but she just gently shushed him.

She kept brushing, being especially careful around his left temple, and he didn’t have to pretend when he closed his eyes and let his head fall back into her hands.

She worked in the shampoo, rinsed, then conditioner, letting it sit while he scrubbed off the worst of the dirt and blood.

So tired..

He started to doze off again as she rinsed out the conditioner, but was quickly roused with the instructions to finish cleaning up, then change into the clothes that she was going to find for him.

Soon, he was fully clean and dressed in the softest clothes he’d ever worn, and she paused, looking at him.

He looked…different. In a good way.

And he felt…different. In a good way.

And they both knew things would be…different. In a good way.

And so as he fell asleep, tucked up safely in the spare room with an extra blanket and a pillow to prop his arm with, he didn’t have to pretend at all.

[nyxyxx]

Warm Sunrise

Sorry if its really short i just had this stuck in my head. Just wanted something with Kazoo boy.

warnings!: not rly anything of note just pure fluff

The morning birds chirped as loudly as ever, yet not so loud for it to be annoying. The calming sound began to stir you from your slumber, the slow rising and falling of your chest becoming more noticeable. You slowly opened your eyes to be greeted with the sight of dawn. The orange sun slowly rising above the horizon, casting the land with a faint glow. You had fallen asleep on the grass, after a long trip of exploring. As you began to sit up, you noticed how clean your clothes were. You were sure that you had tossed and turned a lot during your sleep, but there was not even a speck of dirt on your clothing.

The answer to this observation wasn't exactly surprising. You had fallen asleep directly on top of a certain person, who's clothes showed more obviously that they were stained. You sighed, feeling slightly responsible for the defiling of his pretty clothes, and crawled off of his form. You sat onto the grass, holding your body up with your arms as you looked at the sunrise.

It was fascinating, how time seemed to slow when you were by yourself. The day prior felt like a distant memory, like it had happened hundreds of years ago, despite only being yesterday. As you admired the peaceful sun, you thought that your companion would also enjoy the beautiful sight. You still did not want to wake him, but he would most surely not mind all that much.

You smiled, before running your fingers through his light blond hair, occasionally getting stuck in the tangles. It was funny, how he kept his appearance so neat and tidy for you, but now it was all ruined because of sleeping on the dirt. You leaned over him and called out his name. "Kazuha..."

Despite it being so quiet, the proximity made it easier for him to hear your voice. He slowly began to wake, moaning in discomfort when he noticed the change in temperature that his body was used to. When his eyelids fluttered open, you were met with kind, red eyes staring back at your own. He smiled sweetly, happy that the first thing he woke up to was his lovely God's face. "Good morning," he yawned, sitting up beside you.

"Isn't the sunrise beautiful?" You asked, bringing your attention back to the sky. You felt almost lost within the feeling that it gave to you. A feeling of familiarity, like you had been destined to be here. That this place was your home and would always remain that way.

"Why yes, your grace, it truly is a wonderful sight." His voice was still slightly raspy from just waking up, but it was still just as sweet and charming as ever. Kazuha could only think about this moment lasting forever. The two of you, his lovely God and a servant such as he, to gaze upon the morning sun forever. It was such a blissful moment for the two of you, albeit the two of you had different reasons why.

Perhaps this was the place where you did truly belong, where everyone excepted and loved you, a place that you were destined to rule over and govern everyone to the right path. You couldn't explain where this feeling came from, or how it came to be, but it just felt right.

You and Kazuha stayed there for quite some time, within each other's embrace till the sun had fully come up. You knew that you would be in for a handful when you returned to the rest of your followers, worry evident on all of their faces, but at the current moment none of it mattered. All that truly mattered, was this moment. A moment that deserved to last forever.

[husbandohunter]

May I request a Childe X Reader fanfic where the reader has been pushing herself too hard lately and so Childe has to forcefully get her to rest? ty

By my side [Childe x Reader]//Genshin Impact

Synopsis: You were an artist and he was an adventurer. Two people from vast backgrounds and Childe just wants to spend some time of his busy life with you. However, things didn't really go his way...at first.

(Childe x F!reader. Its all fluff)

(A/n): Perfect request anon. I too, would like to have a Childe in my life. Been getting 5-6 hours of sleep on average 😃😁. Yeah kind tossed some extra ideas with artist s/o, its a perfect reason for anyone to be busy.

============================

Once recieving the permission to take a week off from his diplomatic duties, the first thing Childe thought of was none other than his lovely significant other.

The harbinger knew quite well what lays ahead of his ventures to Liyue. During his quest for the archon's gnosis, he encountered many interesting events, such as meeting the rumoured traveller hailing from afar and a broke yet courteous man who turned out to be the ultimate ruler of this very country he walks upon then there was the battle against a dead god until he revived it using the sigil of permission. All of them were great additions to his story as Ajax the hero, something he always wanted to pursue since childhood. In which, also gave him something nice to write about when preparing letters for his siblings living back home. But little did the harbinger know that he'll one day bump into the heroine. A little too soon. Through your little art shop, he met you, a sweet and audacious woman with plenty of humour. That was how it all began.

While he strides down the streets between Liyue's exquisite buildings, Childe suddenly stops in his tracks and looks up to the sky. There, was painted a scenery of an evening dusk, sun rays relfected across until red and orange hues cast a river stream that led to the ends of the world. He watched the birds follow that streak like it was a path made for them to fly towards. A new adventure. You would have loved to captured this in your pictures.

And then he wonders, what might you be painting right now?

"Hey babe, I'm home~"

In a sing-song voice he calls out to you by your nick-name. You knew that Childe was an active member of the Fatui and that his time was limited, hence he made sure to write to you as well. Of course long distant relationships only makes the waiting more anticipated. When he does pay a visit, you'd run straight into his open arms, leaping off your feet to engulf him in one enourmous embrace. Then his hands will hold against your waist as he spins your round and around in the air, stealing the laughter out of your lungs before planting you back on the floor. Sometimes Childe would consider that being far away wasn't be such a bad idea as long as he was able to experience this, the harder the battle, the sweeter the victory. However...

"That's great."

He was met by a response similar to the wintry grace of Snezhnaya.

Huh?

All the fantasies he had from earlier shatters in the background as he stands there frozen. You didn't even spare a glance to the entrance, eyes still glued to the large canvas displayed at your front, too busy to even care. Childe clicks his tongue between the awkward silence with an uncertain expression. When there was no signs of initiation on your part, he shuffled his way to where you were and observes from behind.

"Well you're particularly quiet today," he muses to himself, placing a hand over his hip, "I guess that painting of yours must be really important then."

It was obvious that he was trying to nudge you into his favour. Something that you've found endearing was how quickly your boyfriend can be when he's in a needy state. So you quickly twisted over to peck him on the cheek before going back to work.

"That's better," Childe satisfiedly grins, "So who is this project for?"

"It's a commission requested by a wealthy family serving the Qixing. They're really influential in terms of the market and can really give me a competitive edge. I have to get it done in five days."

His tone flactuates as he squints his eyes, "Five days you say," he disliked the news of your schedule taking over his own, Childe only managed to take a week off and after that, he'll be away for quite some time, "Why don't you take a break? From the looks of your progress, it seems to me that you've been working on it for hours. I've got plenty of interesting stories to tell and you know, nothing can compare to sharing a warm meal within your company," he leans down to your ear level, "How does that sound?"

Several seconds went by as he waits for some sort of reaction, "Oh. Right," you blurted out and the harbinger only smiles, "I made some food earlier this morning. You can go help yourself if you're hungry."

Today was not his day.

Childe pulls out the wooden chair and slumps into the seat, a defeated huff escaping his mouth as he stared at the crystal shrimp placed on the table. It was hastily wrapped by plastic, most likely cold for a while, just like the romantic evening he had planned in his head. Normally you'll be sitting on the otherside while listening to the many tales he went through along the way. Although painting was your passion, it was undeniable that you also enjoyed his kind of lifestyle if you ever had the choice. He was rather surprised on how someone ambitious like him would end up with such a simplistic person but quickly accepted it as life was meant to be unpredictable, just the way he likes it. As Childe entertains you with his stories, he'll listen to your giggles amidst eating the homecooked meals that you both prepared together.

"I wonder if she ate already," he mumbled to his lone self. You most likely did but Childe knows you well. Artists are obsessed and they can go as far as to neglecting their own health for the sake of their masterpieces. Hence, he made sure to remind you to eat properly through the letters he wrote to you.

The harbinger takes a quick glance around the kitchen. It was a mess. The cupboards were slightly opened, metal pots were still displayed on the stone stove and the stench coming from the sink....

Childe pushes himsel up to see what was the cause.

Not even the dishes were washed.

Running his fingers through his bangs, he sighs wearily, "Old habits die hard huh?" And above all else, when artists are obsessed they also forget how disorganized they can become. Childe begins to roll up his sleeves before taking off his gloves. At times like this he'll have to pitch in and take care of it for you, "Looks like I'll be here for a while."

Throughout three sunsets and three moonrises, Childe had no option but to observe you from afar, minus the few attempts he made to regain your attention again. How you would go to bed much later than him, waking up before he opens his eyes and the effort he put into making your food only left with too many leftovers. It wasn't that you were unappreciative, instead, your mind had become too focused that your body was considered a second priority. Like anyone else, Childe genuinely thought you possessed great talent and supports you wholeheartedly. He loved it when you painted pictures just for him as if they were scenes coming out of his hero story, reminded by his adventures, capturing every detail. However he also needed to learn how to deal with this stubborn side of yours.

"Hey babe, I just finished preparing our dinner. Don't you smell that? Such a rich aroma, you should go eat."

"I'm busy."

Your diet were just small bites, the rest being substituted by coffee. Childe could clearly tell that you weren't getting enough sleep either as there were dark circles forming underneath your eyes and slowly, he was starting to become a little irritated.

Three hours passed midnight but you were still awake in the same place doing the same thing. Childe leans against the doorframe with arms folded, already changed into his sleeping clothes. He clears his throat to break the silence, "Ahem."

Your wrist hangs in mid air by the sound of a strange visitor, it was your boyfriend. Gaze in a daze, you lazily turned your head, "What time is it?"

"Way passed the sleeping hours as you can see," he points with his thumb at the table clock in a half-hearted manner, "You should already be in bed by now and don't think you can coax yourself out of the situation this time," his eyes parted in slits as he added with a smile, "Otherwise I might just have to force you myself."

You shook your head, "Give me one more hour? There's some finishing touches I really want to add so," clasping your hands together, you beamed sweetly, "Pretty please? I'll finish up soon."

"Oh really?" Childe challenges, head tossed back like he was interrogating you instead, "I believe that was also what you told me yesterday. And the day before? Adding up all of those days that would be.....four in total?" He deliberately counts upon his fingers before facing you again, this time his expression was slightly more serious, "As much as I find your determination remarkable, there are moments when you need to consider a sufficient amount of rest and this just isn't going to cut it."

"Four days already?!" You exclaimed, "Jeez, I don't even know if I'm halfway done."

Pressing his lips together, Childe glares in an acutely deadpanned countenance, it was also his time too, "Can't you ask this commissioner to extend your due date to next week? In your case, mora shouldn't be the issue since, well...you're dating me anyways."

It's true. Childe was the main reason why you didn't have to live as a starving artist. He had all your expenses fully covered from the marketing aspect to your residence, you simply chose to work out of pure will.

"I don't want to always rely on you so much," you confessed, "This commissioner could turn my whole career around. If I'm able to gain his favour, maybe I'll get promoted to a court painter for the Qixing! Who knows when there will ever be a chance like this again," pumping your fists, you spoke purposefully, "I'll pull an all nighters if I have to!"

Childe brings his hand to his forehead, you looked as if you were nearly about to collapse and yet still considering the option of an all-nighters? The harbinger should've detained you days prior before.

"Hm? Childe, what's wrong?" He suddenly falls deadly quiet and you watched him walk closer towards you, "What are--"

Hooking an arm behind your knees and the other at your back, your boyfriend lifts you up in one full swoop as he tossed you over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

"Guess we'll have to do things the hard way," he remarks cheerfully.

"W-Wait," you flailed your arms and kicked your legs but to no avail. Childe was an experienced combatant indeed, "Put me down! I have work to do."

Your protests fall upon deaf ears as the harbinger carries you to your room. You were oddly lighter than the last time he carried you, the strength less vigor than before, it was obvious that your body was in need of relaxation. He suddenly thinks there was a possibility that you would maintain this habit while he was absent.

I should probably visit more often.

Using his free leg to nudge the door open, he places you upon the shared bed in a gentle manner. You winced at the impact of the soft sheets, surprised by how much it affect you.

"There we go. All done. Man, you really are a stubborn one, aren't you. Makes me a little worried since I can't spoil you all the time."

He quickly invited himself to the empty space on your bedside and wrapped his arms around your figure, pulling you close and feeling you whole. Childe made sure there was no escape once putting his chin above your hairline so that you could feel his warmth as much as possible.

"This is--" you stuttered. His tactic was enough to make your limbs soften and you could almost hear him smirk into the distance, "This is cheating..."

"You think so?" He comments as if pledging innocence, "I don't know babe. Where I come from those who take the initiative are the ones who end up claiming the prize," pulling back, Childe takes the opportunity to observe your pouty face, "I don't make the rules. It's just how it goes."

You wanted to argue back but he suddenly took the bedsheets and covered both of your bodies with, completely trapping you with his presence. He snuggles into you further as if you were a bear made of linen and you felt the drowsiness taking over your mind. The way he gently pats down the back of your head was enough to instantly lull you into a deep sleep.

"Cheater," you mumbled.

He laughs softly, the rumbles emitting through his chest, "I love you too babe."

Even after you've let go of your resistance, Childe continues his actions until he was sure that you were resting. He had been longing to touch you like this since living a chaotic life only made peaceful moments much sweeter, "You're such a hard-worker you know that? I'm proud of you but you have to know when to call it a day," he whispers, "If not, how can I go on trips while knowing that you're still refusing to eat properly?"

You closed your eyes and said nothing in return. All your senses were too cloudy to come up with a reassuring response. Childe listens to the way your breath evens as you intake his scent during the process. It smelled like the soap you used in the showers, lotus leaves mixed with his own unique musk. You could only focus on him. His comforting embrace. His slightly accelerating heartbeat because you were together with him.

Letting out one final yawn, you succumbed to his spell and allowed your energy to drift away.

The corners of his lips tug upwards, "Sleep well princess."

Childe reaches over to your desk drawer and shuts off the alarm clock before turning over to face you again. He couldn't fall asleep immediately, not when he had to consider taking care of the commissioner who gave you an impossible deadline. But that will be saved for another day, for now, he observes in silent serenity.

If he were to quit his job for a year, what would his life be like?

Peaceful. Something opposite of what he was living right now. Something similar to the life he had back home. As you arrange the many paintings in your little home, he'll offer to help you among the places you couldn't reach. Without a doubt, Childe was far taller in comparison. Taking strolls into the streets and trying the new dishes the merchants came up with. Then in the evenings, you'll both go to dinner dates while listening to the storyteller revealing the rumours of the legendary Tianquan Qixing. Although Childe loved the adventurous life he led, he had to admit that your domesticity and family-bringing atmosphere was a tempting idea.

Maybe one day.

He lightly takes a strand that had fallen over your nose and tucked it smoothly behind your ear. The soft snores coming out of your parted lips caused his gaze to melt. And so he steals them with his own, placing a chaste goodnight kiss.

One day I'll be sure to bring my family here with us.

Closing his eyes, he joins you in your slumber, hoping to see all that he envisioned in his dreams.

[parkjimin1010smuts]

Breaking Point || Kth

Summary: Taehyung reveals just how he deals with his stress to his best friend y/n and late one night y/n reaches her breaking point and decides to put Taehyungs tactic to the test, but there is a slight problem she has no one to help her out, or does she?

Warnings: daddy kink, overstimulation, thigh riding, virgin reader, multiple orgasms, fingerings, unprotected sex (yalls stay safe out there though this is just a fanfic), dom tae, sub reader, pwp. Enjoy!!

An elbow nudging into the side of your ribcage pulled you back into the conscious realm. A slight gasp leaves your mouth as you jerked your head back up. Now who the hell thought it was the perfect moment to need your attention.

You gathered your surroundings haphazardly, a subtle frown settling upon your face as you realized just who it was, Kim Taehyung. “Morning princess, I almost thought you’d never wake up,” his velvety voice mocked.

Turning towards Taehyung, the frown on your face only deepened, a small sound of annoyance escaping you. With your eyes now in his direction you unintendedly began to check him out. The cluster of blonde hair that was normally nestled peacefully was a disheveled mess exposing his forehead. His plump cheeks were pushed up due to the goofy grin he had plastered on his face nearly concealing his chocolate brown eyes that were now mere crescent moons. I had to admit he had a very attractive smile, reminiscent of a box.

His body was clad in a pair of black slacks that clung beautifully against his muscular thighs leaving very little to the imagination. His caramel chest peeked at me from the confines of the loose summer shirt he wore. I was brought back to reality when the view of his chest was suddenly obscured by the change in his position as he was now bent over packing his things. Releasing I heavy sigh I began to mirror his actions before throwing my bag over my shoulder and making a beeline straight to the double doors. In true Taehyung fashion he was right on my tail, trailing me like the faithful guard dog he pretends to be.

You and Taehyung  have been best friends now for over 15 years, you both met in the early years of preschool and by the grace of the angels above you have not been separated ever since. Through thick and thin, trials and tribulations, Taehyung has been there every step of the way. Everything you have experienced so has he, that’s how close you two are and, in all honesty, you wouldn’t have it any other way with any other person. 

This closeness however was more often than not met with questioning glances and needless two cent comments, most of them romance related. But Taehyung was always so quick to shut them down with a little more fervor and enthusiasm than you would deem necessary.  It was clear to you that Taehyung simply had no interest in you romantically, and you understood. Who cared if you had a tini, tiny crush on him. Not you that’s for sure.

But I mean it was inevitable, the man who was now glued to you side in a steady march that matched your own was a literal god send. He was loyal, attractive and physically in shape. What more was there to ask for.

“What’s up with you lately, every time I see you you’re either lethargic or in one hell of a mood.” My best friend voiced before abruptly coming to a halt in front of his black pick up.

“Nothing I’ve just been up studying for finals and the stress Is finally getting to me I guess,” you say through clenched teeth. You really do feel like you're reaching your breaking point and seeing how well put together Taehyung just riles you up even further. Its really not fair, we are in the same course, the same exams, the same workloads and yet there he is basking in his ethereal beauty, fair skin with no signs of exertion. While you on the other hand are left to wallow in the deep dark bags that have taken residence beneath your forever dropping eyes. Don’t even get me started on the acne that picks the absolutely best moments to choose your face as their next canvas, please note the sarcasm.

Allowing your curiosity to surface you voice the question that has been eating at you for quite some time now, “How do you do it?” Taehyung shots a quick glance your way before reverting his attention back to the bustling road before us but the slight dip of his eyebrows was enough for you to know he wants you to elaborate.

With a deep breath you laid everything that had been forming a cluster in your mind out on the table for Taehyung to digest. When you was through with your mini rant session an eerie silence danced between you two for a good minute before Taehyung finally released a hearty chuckle. With his head thrown back and eyes closed from the intensity of his smile he was unable to see the way your face twisted in confusion.

“You think I’m ethereal?” Of course, that was the only thing his pea sized brain was able to pick. Suppressing all the swear words you had an indescribable urge to throw his way you simply rolled your eyes while sinking further into the leather car seat.

“I release my stress through other things.” He finally said after calming himself.

“Other things,” you said with a raise of my eyebrow. 

“Yeah, other things, or more specifically sex.” your eyes grow tenfold as you choke on your saliva. Sex?! Should this really have been a surprise to you, I mean he’s young healthy and oh just look at him.

However it still does nothing to subside the slight blush you feel creeping up your neck as you avert your eyes to your lap. While he was indeed your best friend and things not discussed between the two of you were few and far between, one thing he never seemed to ask you about was your sex life. Not that there was much to ask about in the first place. You were a virgin, not entirely from lack of trying but still a virgin none the less.

“Oh,” that was the only logical response your mind could muster given the circumstances.

“Oh,” Taehyung retorted as he maneuvered the car to rest in his driveway. Choosing to remain silent you purse your lips into a thin line, you refuse to falter, even when he turns his body to allow his eyes to have unlimited access to scrutinize you with their chocolate depths. The car suddenly feels so hot or maybe that’s just your face which is now beet red.

“What’s with your reaction y/n,” Taehyung presses fully failing to read the room, or car in this situation.

You have never had any problems confiding in Taehyung but for some reason you feel embarrassed to mention that you're still in fact a 23 year old virgin, especially after he just shared details of his very thriving sex life.

The silence drags on for a good three minutes and knowing your best friend you know there is no way he will ever give in and so you cave. “I’m a virgin, okay. There, are you happy now,” you hastily say with an exasperated sigh. Choosing to save yourself from the snarky remarks you know are about to flow like a river from your best friend you hurriedly make your way out of the confines of his car. You mentally curse the universe as you see we are in fact parked outside his apartment complex and any thoughts you had of fleeing the scene are disintegrated in mere seconds. As if adding fuel to the flame the sound of the car door sounds as Taehyung makes his way out of his car and round to my side.

“Please save it, I’m really not in the mood for your bullshit right now,” you cut him off before he can even part his lips. “Hey what’s wrong with you. Did you seriously think I would judge you just because you chose to keep it locked up.” you simply avert your gaze as his words settled in your head.

“Hey look at me, your virginity is nothing to be ashamed of okay, I’m sorry if I made you feel that way, but you know me better than that. You know I would never shame you for anything so insignificant.” The tone of his voice was calm and collected and shame suddenly washed over you from the way you had jumped the gun. You never realised how your reaction could have been perceived, Taehyung was always so understanding and here you were assuming only the worst of him.

Deciding not to push the conversation any further you simply lowered your head in embarrassment before heaving a sigh. You've been doing that a lot lately. Being the attentive best friend that he is Taehyung was quick to pick up on my signals and thankfully refrained from pushing the topic any further. A silence soon settled between us before Taehyung laced his fingers around your own before leading you back to his car.

“I’m gonna take you home and you just get some rest okay,” The soft nature of his voice just made you feel worse while simultaneously lifting your mood.

~•~•~☆~•~•~☆~•~•~☆~•~•~☆~•~•~☆~•~•

Yet again a frown had found its way onto your face as you stared at the clock that ticked away on your bedside table. It was just past 2am and yet the lights in your room were still on casting shadows over the immense paperwork clustered all over your bedsheets. Yet another sleepless night with your only companion being a cup of coffee made with  three sugars and a gallon of stress.

Grabbing the cup of steaming goodness you throw your head back as you allow the bitter taste to maneuverer its way into your body with hopes of getting your systems back on high alert. You put down the coffee with a soft clang so it’s now adjacent to the ticking demon that serves as a constant reminder of how shit you have it right now.

Fighting the urge to scream you plunge face first into your numerous worksheets. This was it, you had finally reached your breaking point, the tears that stung the corners of your eyes served as confirmation.

Just as you were about to succumb to the severity of it all and just allow yourself to scream and cry to your hearts content a certain blonde haired box smiled adorning goof crossed your mind. Or more specifically a certain conversation shared between the two of you.

Sex.

You felt tingly sensations dance through your veins as the solution to all your problems was now just in front of you. However this feeling of euphoria was only short lived as not long after you realised there wasn’t a single person you could ask for help. Well there was that one guy you met during spring break, but your relationship came to a rocky end as he bumped heads with Taehyung over your relationship with him. He had accused you of slutting around with Taehyung and the man in question did not take lightly to his words. Lets just say his name is most definitely off the table, and so is my relief plan seeing as he is your only ex. Pathetic I know, no need to remind me.

You run your fingers across your laptop giving it a contemplative tap, while trying your hardest to push the most obvious solution to your problem to the back of your head. There was no way you could call him. Seriously, there was no plausible or conceivable scenario in which you went to your best friend, pleading for him to lend you his body to get off. You brought your hands to your face, a shriek of embarrassment escaping you at the mere idea.

This was the guy who had seen you at your worst, stumbling into your apartment with puke all over yourself when you were going through your hard liquor phase freshman year of college. There's no way he'd be interested in having sex with the girl he spent many nights holding her hair back as she hurled into her toilet.

No.

You couldn’t ask Taehyung to partake in such an activity with you. Absolutely not.

No way.

~¤~¤~♡~¤~¤~♡~¤~¤~♡~¤~¤~♡~¤~¤~♡

The creaking of your apartment door sent you five feet into the air as the reality of the situation sinfully settled in your brain and the nerves were finally kicking in.

“Taehyung,” you whirled around to face him as his gaze zeroed in as you  shifted your body from one foot to the other, a tendency you displayed whenever nervous. You couldn't fight down the heat that was creeping up your neck as he stepped into your apartment, eyeing you cautiously as he slipped off his shoes.

“Hey is anything wrong, you sounded really anxious on the phone.”

“What, me, I’m perfectly fine!” You responded forcibly, the enthusiasm in your voice misplaced, given the nature of the conversation.

Taehyung simply nodded back at you, not noticing the awkward timber of your words or otherwise not minding. "Well if nothings wrong why'd you call me over to your place at 2am?" He inquired, like the wonderfully kind best friend he was. You pressed your lips together.

"About that, do you remember how you said you use sex as an outlet for your stress in order to maintain a level head, well would you mind having sex with me as I’m a pathetic excuse of a human who has no one else to turn to for my sexual needs." Oh god, there was no way you could ask that. Taehyung was your best friend, and that would be too unbearably awkward. What the hell were you thinking?

“Well i wanted to watch the conjuring 3 again and I remembered that you hadn’t watched it yet so what better time than now?” You swallowed uneasily, a gesture that unfortunately didn’t go unnoticed by your best friend. Your eyes nearly fell out of your head as the man of the hour suddenly took a step towards you, his eyes unmoving on your face.

"What's wrong? Did something happen?" His tone was suddenly low and severe, eyes running all over your burning face as he searched for any physical ailment. There was something off about you, he realized. He wasn't sure what it was, but he could make out how your form was trembling, your eyes wide in panic.

“Do you want to have sex with me.” You reflexively shut your eyes as you allowed the weight if your words to hang heavy between the two of you it's only competitor being the unbearable silence that lingered in the air not long after. You could hear every inhale and exhale of the tall man that stood opposite you. Every passing second of silence made you regret your words and just as you were about to play it all of as a joke and retract your prior request a pair of soft lips pressed gently against your own stopping you right in your tracks.

Just as suddenly as it happened it came to an end. You could feel something stirring in your chest , the feeling of his lips on yours lingered, radiating heat like an old burn. You turned towards him and the look in his eyes nearly knocked the breath out of you, there was a dark sheen to them, one you had never seen. It was intimidating and attractive all the same, the fire in your belly igniting like never before. Before you could even think to stop yourself, you grabbed the collars of his shirt and pulled him down to you before taking his lips with your own.

In no time at all the kiss got heated as tongue and teeth were thrown into the mix. You feel his tongue explore the darkest depths of your  mouth as you fight back the need for air. His tongue reluctantly leaves your mouth all before licking a stripe across my bottom lip before his teeth bite down on it, hard but not enough to draw blood. You let out a whimper as his teeth finally released your lip.

There was a shift in the room, Taehyung could sense it. He knew exactly what you wanted and fuck if he didn't want the same thing. His entire body was on edge, he could hear every heavy exhale you pushed past your parted lips. "You're a virgin." The whine that came from you in response was low. "I don't want this to be something you regret in the morning.  I can't promise I'll be gentle." He licked his lips.

"Please, I just… just this once," Your words were soft and pleading, the sound of your thighs pressing together in search of relief filling Taehyungs ears. "I need you." He could see your hard nipples pressing against the thin material of your white shirt. They were distracting him, and thoughts of his hands cupping your breasts over your shirts, rubbing your cloth-covered nipple between his fingers, corrupted his mind. How easy it could've been for him to cave right then and there.

Your voice was small and dripping in submission. He felt like he was suffocating in the small space you called your living room. Fuck. He felt himself stiffen in his shorts. You were breathing heavily now, hands trembling as you fought the urge to throw yourself against Taehyung and bury your face into his neck. The mere thought of his skin against yours caused your whole body to shudder in want. When did you become like this. Your thoughts and actions almost made you seem unrecognisable but with the heat of the moment you couldn’t careless. You wanted this and how you wished Taehyung would stop being the gentleman he was and just fuck you already.

Taehyung was already heading towards you as he heeded his last warning, "Do you understand? I need to hear your answer."

“Oh god Taehyung just fuck me already!”  you hurriedly said followed by a deep exhale.

Without wasting another second Taehyung plopped himself onto your mustard couch before pulling you onto him. The sudden movement caused you to straddle one of his meaty thighs which had you quivering as your pussy throbbed from the sudden stimulation.  When you finally got comfortable you pulled the shirt over your head quickly, hands coming to fondle your own breasts, desperate for any skin contact.

You let out a cry as Taehyungs palms found the skin of your hips, urging you to grind against his thigh. You whined rocking back against his thigh. “Mm please Tae, I need your cock,” your own words surprised you.

"Hmm? You seem to be doing just fine without me, though." He cocked his head at you, hand coming up to smack the side of your thigh. A sharp moan fell from you, fingers tugging at your nipple as your hips sped up. Then, to your sweet relief, Taehyungs mouth found one of your breasts, taking no hesitation in pulling the hard bud into his mouth. You threw an arm over his shoulder, fingers floundering as they attempted to find anchorage on his sweat-soaked skin. Your other hand reached out to touch his abdomen, preening as his muscles flexed beneath your fingers.

He pulled away from your breast with a loud pop sound. Smirking up at you as your eyes began to flutter shut, he watched in amusement as your orgasm caught up with you quickly, a result of your heightened sensitivity and inexperience. He would have to teach you later how to refrain from Cumming so quickly.

"Fuck, oh god Taehyung" You cried into his shoulder, body jerking as you came unravelled. Taehyung couldn't help but let out a whine of his own, palming over his crotch as he watched you ride out your orgasm. Although he would never admit it the way his name fell from your lips like honey had his cock twitching in his now too tight jeans. " Taehyung, please." You panted once you had caught your breath, bringing your face up to his. “Fuck me" you managed to pant out without breaking eye contact. Thus lead to Taehyung  unconsciously letting out a groan.

"Is that what my pretty girl wants? Want daddy to fill you up, sweetheart?" The intimate pet name escaping him before he could think otherwise. It should have been no surprise to you that Taehyung had a daddy kink. Nonetheless you could feel a new wave of wetness staining his jeans from the pet name, from daddy, right down to the way his thigh was still flexing underneath your heat. It was all too much, you could feel your senses going into over drive.

"Yes daddy, fuck. Fuck me deep and hard until I'm stuffed with your cum.” You breathed into his neck. Taehyung was going to fucking explode. Every damn word you spoke went straight to his groin, his painfully hard cock straining against his Jean’s fabric. And with that in mind, he flipped you over, pushing your legs up into your chest so that he could see your clenched cunt fully exposed for him.

“You don't have any idea what you fucking do to me, do you? I'm so fucking hard for you, and I haven't even felt that lovely pussy of yours." He growled, his fingers coming down to circle your entrance. You didn't even have time to contemplate a response before his fingers rolled over your sensitive bud. His fingers felt so different to yours – your jaw slack as a silent sob fell out, his light but quick motions sending your back arching. Wrapping a hand against his wrist, you groaned, the feeling nearly overwhelming but still too good to pull him away.

Taehyung cursed as your hand came down to rub against the his cock still retrained by his jeans, the small action just gentle enough to have his hips jerking into you. He felt painfully hard and he feared if you didn’t stop he would bust a load right in his pants. His skilful hands were soon lost to his belt as he hurriedly worked to get rid of the only clothing left separating your bodies. "Gonna make a mess of this wet little pussy, okay? Let me know if you want me to stop." Were Taehyungs final words as he pressed himself inside you, hand reaching over to take yours into his.

A cry left you, eyebrows furrowing together as your head fell back, leaving Taehyung breathing heavily through his nose, jaw tense as he fought back a growl. The urge to sink his teeth into your sweat glistened neck was too much to resist and so he bent down and began showering hickeys over the canvas that was your neck.

The stretch stung a bit but he was able to easily slide into you thanks to your prior orgasm and the help of his fingers. You felt full and content, it was such an overwhelming feeling that when he bottomed out and his groin came in contact with your clit you came for the second time.

Eyes rolling to the back of your head you let out a loud moan that had you hiding your face in embarrassment. You could feel the hot breath of Taehyung as he chuckled from his position nestled between your breasts. After deciding you had had enough time to get accustomed to his size Taehyung pulled out almost completely before sliding back into you. You let out a whine as he bottomed out inside you, watching as his expression changed into a lewd one with your walls clamping around his fat cock. "How's that, baby?" You could only moan in response, nails digging into his back as he began to rock himself into you, entirely obsessed with the way your body was readjusting itself as he moved inside you. It was like your body knew exactly what to do, despite the sensation being otherwise strange.

Your fingers found your clit immediately, knowing that this was exactly how you wanted to cum, dripping down the couch and stretched out around  Taehyungs cock. "So big. Feels so good." You mumbled, your hair cascading around you as his pace quickened, fucking you hard and deep.

You let out an incoherent whimper, shuddering as Taehyungs thrusts into you deepened, spurred on by the way you continously moaned his name submissively. Your thighs felt wet and slick, the combined mixture of both yours and Taehyungs arousal dripping down onto them. You felt filthy and dirty and you were loving every second of it.

You could feel all your stress diminishing right before your eyes with every thrust of his hips. You felt elated, almost as though you were in another dimension, oh how you didn’t want this moment to come to an end. "My pretty little girl. You're making an absolute mess on my dick, isn't that right?"

"Yes, Daddy." You sobbed, body more than ready to succumb to your third orgasm of the night. "Such a good girl." He praised, a hand coming up to squeeze one of your supple tits. Your fingers found your abused clit once more. You circled around it liberally, the familiar euphoric feeling creeping up on you once more. "My sweet little girl. My precious girl." He cooed into your mouth, earning him an appreciative moan.

He was so close, fuck. “Cum in me daddy, I want you to come in me,” you whimpered desperately all in hopes of finally pushing him over the edge. And it seemed to have done the trick because with a final thrust he nestled himself deep within your warmth, a string of groans and curses tumbling out his mouth as he emptied his load into you. His release was the final push you needed to reach your most intense orgasm of the night. You shamelessly screamed as your back arched off the sofa and your body writhed in overstimulation.

"Fuck, fuck. I love you, holy shit, I love you." He peppered your face with kisses, breath shaky. Whether he let that slip due to the heat of the moment or whether those were his genuine feelings he had kept bottled up within him much like you, you chose to just revel in the moment stress free. "I love you more." You sighed adoringly, revelling in such an intimate gesture from him.

Thank you so much for reading 💜

[vidalinav]

im so happy you’re accepting prompts!! just know that there’s no pressure at all, and that we love your writing🤍 prompt: cassian and nesta talk about whether they’d still inevitably end up together if they weren’t mates and just alot of fluffy sweet banter

I did yours first because I really appreciated you saying that there was no pressure in completing it. I felt that and I thought it was the nicest thing in the world.

BUT It came out really stupid sorry so... I'm not going to tag anyone. However I will own my shame so here you go.

It's banter in the form of pillow talk, where Cassian constantly keeps Nesta up by asking her questions. In my brain, he goes on tangents and Nesta is the pragmatic one. That's like... okay Cassian. But again. STUPID!!!!!

~

“Do you think it would have been me?” Cassian asks as he tries to count constellations in fresh paint. “If we didn’t have the bond... would it have been us? I guess the real question is did the bond choose us from the start--our relationship destined? Or did the bond see us... how we acted and felt about each other, and some cosmic force recognized our love?

Nesta shifts in the bed, her eyes blinking up at him slowly. “Cassian these are not the type of questions you ask right before bed.”

But he has to ask, he always has to ask. There’s something about the darkness that has these questions bubbling out of his throat. “But think about it Nesta, don’t you think we’re sort of... odd.”

Cassian thinks about it all the time. There's no one more perfect for him then her and yet, he sees the way people look at them. His hands will always be stained with blood and Nesta is more fitted for white gloves and lace. And he knows she can hold a sword and fight with the best of them, but Nesta can fit anywhere and Cassian can’t fit.

“I mean I understand opposites attract,” he rambles on, “and we do have similarities, but we mostly fought in the beginning and yet I still wanted you even then. Was my want for you a part of the bond? Or was the bond part of wanting you? And if it’s the first, in another universe, in another time, would it have been me? And if it’s the second what if you hadn’t wanted me, too.”

Cassian turns to face her, the bed creaking as he moves. He watches as she frowns, her lashes casting shadows on her cheek. “I promised we’d have that time, but I never considered that in another life it might not have been me at all.”

It's not the first time he keeps her awake with some question or another.

Usually, she merely sighs exhausted at what do you think the meaning of life is? Does time even exist if we really think about it... Do you ever think about how you can know a person you’re entire life and only scratch the surface of who they are? Does that mean you can never really know a person truly in the first place and if that’s the case aren’t we all living with practical strangers?

More often than not Nesta’s covering her ears with the pillow, groaning while Cassian tries to pull it from her face. They’ve had a hundred and one nights like this. He wants a million more.

Cassian tries to catch his breath, almost wishing she’d groan or sigh or roll her eyes, play it off like it’s a stupid question because it is. he knows it is.

“So tell me,” he says, his words a whisper of worry, “what do you think? Was it always going to be us?

Nesta's brows furrow quizzically and she purses her lips. “I don’t know if you can tell this about me Cassian, but I don’t like many people.”

Cassian frowns at the words, “Is that an answer?”

Nesta shrugs, “I find it hard to believe I would have loved anyone else.”

“So you’re with me... by process of elimination?”

“Or...” She offers, her gaze alight with mirth, “you’re the exception.”

Hmm.

Cassian needs to think on that one.

“But hypothetically, what would you have done if it wasn’t me?” he goads. “We only exist because you turned fae, what if you hadn’t? There may or may not be a bond but the relationship is impractical if you’re human and I’m fae. You’d just get married to some poor bloke who gives you this large diamond ring and you have 12 children?”

Nesta scoffs, “Twelve?”

“Whatever number,” Cassian dismisses.

Nesta raises her hands to stop him, “we are not having twelve children.”

“That’s... a topic for another day,” Cassian waves off.

“No,” Nesta sings, “that’s a topic I will resolve now. We are not having twelve kids.”

“But I want a big family,” Cassian pleads, grabbing her hands and giving her that look that he knows makes her take pity on him.

Nesta rolls her eyes. “You’re head is big enough to fill up the entire house. We have no room for that many people. No. No!”

“The House is four stories. What are we suppose to do with all those rooms?”

“Cassian unless you are birthing these babies yourself in which I will fully support you emotionally, spiritually, and financially, we are not having twelve children. End of discussion.”

Cassian only grumbles out a response.

“And regarding your other question, I don’t know what I would’ve done. That scenario doesn’t exist. I’m fae, you’re fae. That’s it and unless we plan on dying tomorrow, I don’t know if we’d end up together in the next life. I don’t know if the bond keeps us coming back to each other. I don’t care. I want this life with you. I chose you and you chose me and we’re here together. And I guess, if the bond, or what I deem as love, means I’m going to have to answer these questions every night, then I guess that’s what I’m going to do.”

Nesta reaches for him, and Cassian shifts to make room for her. She settles her head on his outstretched arm. It tickles at his skin, but he can’t believe she’s just satisfied enough with that answer.

“Would you have married someone else though?”

Nesta sighs, but Cassian waits for the answer. She groans, mumbling about not getting any sleep.

“Probably,” she says at last. “Yes. If you want that answer, then yes. But quite honestly knowing my character and knowing the males in my town, we probably wouldn’t have lasted long. I would have killed him long before we ever reached twelve.”

Cassian laughs and Nesta brightens at the sound.

“Or he might have run head first into a moving carriage on his own accord. I wouldn’t have judged him.”

“How would you kill him?”

Nesta smirks, her eyes maliciously bright. “Poison... knives... a trip down the stairs.”

“Make it look like an accident.”

“Of course,” Nesta beams.

“You’ve thought about this a lot,” Cassian says, noting his mate’s excitement.

Nesta sets her hand on his cheek, rubbing her thumb along the rough stubble of his chin. “Murder is always on my mind.”

“I should probably stop keeping you up with my questions, then.”

Her lips are impossibly close to his, and he can feel her breath on his skin. “Maybe you should. I’m sure the House knows how to hide a body.”

Cassian laughs, the sound bright in the shadowed room. He’s sure that’s true and her lips raise at his calm shrug of acceptance. His eyes dart to her mouth.

Cassian wants to kiss her, but he has to tell her first.

“I love you.”

“I know,” she says, her lips nearly touching his.

Being near her is a relief. But hearing her speak is something else entirely. Maybe he asks her these questions because he wants to hear her voice into the last moments of the day. At all hours of the night.

Nesta wraps her hand around his hair and tugs.

But another question forms in his mind. “Would you’re family have approved of me?”

Nesta rolls her eyes, pulling away from him. Cassian grasps her arms, pulling her back. “Hey, come on now. You’ve indulged me this far.”

Nesta pretends to think about her answer, and as he waits she looks to the ceiling as if she’s actually thinking about it. Cassian can practically hear crickets.

“It’s taking you this long!”

“Well... I’m trying to be accurate!” She throws up her hands. “You know maybe they wouldn’t, because you’re not... princely. No offense.”

“None taken,” He remarks. Because he knows all too well the differences between them. Cassian doesn’t mind. She’ll be his queen. He can be her guard. Her knight. Whatever keeps her next to him.

“But then again, maybe they would because you are rich--hey!”

Nesta catches the pillow he throws and she throws it back at him. He catches it easily before it hits his face.

“Who hits their mate upside the head?” She yells.

Cassian rolls his eyes, “You hit me all the time.”

“I smack your butt. That is not the same.”

Cassian scoffs, “You won’t let me smack your butt.”

“That’s because you try to do it in public places!”

“Oh, so you’re okay if I tap your ass in private. You trying to tell me something Nes? Who knew you'd like to be spanked?”

Her cheeks redden and Cassian shrugs, thinking about it. "Actually I should've known that."

“I change my mind," She announces, grabbing his pillow, "they’d hate you and you know what? I would marry that man and I’d have twelve beautiful children!”

Then Nesta simply turns away from him and pulls the blanket over her head.

Cassian tries to pull the blanket down, but she doesn't loosen her grip. “Take that back! Nesta, take that back. I’m serious.”

“Nesta!” He hisses. “Nes, I’m not going to stop bothering you. Nesta!”

But Cassian slumps as the lump of blankets stays still. Nesta doesn’t even make a sound. 

“How about I pretend you didn’t just tell me about one of your fantasies and I'll bring it back up later. I’ll even pretend I found it in one of your books."

He rubs at what he thinks is her ass and Nesta shoves down the blankets with a flourish. Her hair is a mess of tangles all over the pillow.

“I hate you,” she says.

Cassian grins, setting his palms on her reddened cheeks.

“I love you,” He says softly, lightly tracing her soft skin with his thumb. It’s a privilege to be near her, to touch her, to be loved by her. To laugh and laugh and laugh. It doesn’t matter how, when, what, or why. “I wouldn’t want anyone else but you.”

Cassian kisses her lightly, “I still think we should talk about those children though.”

He merely gets smacked in the face with a pillow.

~

Fin.

~

I keep reading this and I can't make it better, so.... you win some, you lose some, you know.

[evarcana]

I See the Moon

Oh when you are looking at the sun

Ev wears some very impractical shoes and learns that she does not know the city quite as well as she thought.

characters: the usual cast of Ev and consul Valerius

words: 2,4k

warnings: none!

notes: I wanted to write something short and sweet to act as a placeholder between the previous part and what is coming next, but I think I got a bit too emotionally attached in the process. The title is from “Be the One” by Dua Lipa and I will leave it open for interpretations.

Darkness strikes Ev’s eyes as she steps out of the theatre doors and for a moment she is completely lost in time and space, staring at her surroundings as if seeing everything for the first time - the disorientation which comes with returning to reality after the magic of the theatre wears off.

A few myopic street lanterns glimmer faintly and the moon, pitched extraordinarily high, is covered by the ragged organza of thin clouds and barely available to light the streets below. Passing groups of people turn into clusters of dark silhouettes, and Ev watches the collars being lifted and scarfs wrapped tighter, as the theatregoers hide themselves from the wind moist with the cool evening dew and disappear into the shadows, leaving only trails of soft footsteps and animated chatter behind them. It is this time of the year when night falls suddenly and way quicker than anyone anticipates.

The impatient tug on Ev’s arm cuts through the hazy darkness. “Are you going to let me leave or what?!” Valerius sounds desperate in his exasperation.

“Just a moment and you are free.” Still watching the dark street, Ev reaches for her bag and throws a pair of flat pointy mules decorated with golden beads and tassels on the ground in front of her. Using Valerius’s arm for support, she lifts one leg to untie the ribbons on her ankle. Somebody behind them helpfully holds the theatre door open, letting the light out, and they both stare at Ev’s bright red toenails as she steps out of her shoes. Ev frowns to herself and curls her toes - it is hard to be an intimidating opponent when you wear a cute sparkly little ring on your fourth toe, when she feels another tug and catches her breath in surprise, losing her balance. The arm slips from under her hand causing her to immediately crash into Valerius. Well, no chance of looking like a menace now. At least Valerius can’t run away, she thinks, because her entire face is smashed into his chest. “So impatient,” Ev rolls her eyes and tucks her heels in the bag.

Valerius hurries to brush off something invisible from his coat and then looks down at Ev’s feet with cynical interest, “Going on a hike?”

She contemplates telling that it took her a very detoured walk from the palace and four nervous circles around the Town Square to finally burn all that destructive energy her body generated in their morning argument, and that right now she is dying to rub her sore ankles, but decides against it. After all, wounded animals are easy prey. “Looks like it,” Ev says, shifting her weight from one foot to another. She scans the road once again and clicks her tongue. There is a carriage pulling away, two people inside, and another one rolling on towards the theatre, the coachman already waving to somebody, but most of the theatre crowd chooses to walk. They all must be locals, or heading to the closest tavern, Ev realises.

“Don’t tell me, -” Valerius’s voice says and Ev looks up, surprised that he is still standing there, “you don’t have a carriage because you were hoping to find a date to continue the night. You shall forgive me for ruining this little plan of yours.” His words are dripping with distaste.

She realises that Valerius must have been following her eyeline. The nervous lough blasts out of her but she manages to catch it and it turns to sound like a cough. A lucky guess on his part? Or did he take inspiration from his own plans? Ev refuses to think about the whole theatre fiasco. The sinking feeling in her chest has started and she puts her hands on her hips in annoyance. “I thought there would be carriages waiting,” she manages to say.

Valerius arches his brow in response, “...how pathetic.” Ev gives him her best withering look and turns away.

The last carriage departs with the din of wheels hitting the worn edges of the stones. Valerius’s eyes are still set on Ev’s face and his brow begins to crease slowly. He is clearly deliberating something but Ev cannot see it. She is watching clouds moving slowly across the moon. “Where do you live?”, he finally asks.

“By the Town Square,” Ev responds automatically, squinting at the sky above her.

“Not in the Heart District?” It sounds like a genuine question at first but the edge of his mouth lifts in a wry grin. “Didn’t you say I wasn’t the only one with the money here?”

“Too close to you,” she smirks back, “the urge of leaving a dead fish by your gate at least weekly would be -,” she leans in closer, turning her voice into syrupy sweet hush, “- irresistible”. This is getting weird. “Anyway,” Ev hurriedly looks behind her shoulder at the theatre doors, “I think it is going to rain later. Have a good night,” the words come in a flat orderly row, she is already concerned with something else, “I will see whether the theatre director can fetch me a carriage.”

“My carriage is waiting down the road.”

“Mm good,” Ev mutters to herself but then the realisation hits and she turns to the consul, eyes wide. “Are you offering me a lift home?” A ‘thank you’ sign lights inside her head but she crashes it with a wave of suspicion. It’s Valerius out of all people. He has no reason to offer her a ride in his carriage besides plotting to murder her and then ditch the body somewhere in the forest. Ev gives him a hard stare.

Valerius breaks the staring game first - his eyes flash with the new unidentified emotion before he regains his usual dismissive look. “Not home,” he snorts, “to the Town Square,this should suffice for a favour.”

“No no, hold on,” Ev raises her hand in protest. “I haven’t asked you anything yet, and hospitality is not a favour.”

“What hospitality are you talking about?”

“You repeat that it is your city all the time! Technically, I am still a guest.” Inside her head Ev is thanking all the available gods for her ability to just keep talking, regardless of whether it makes sense or not, because she definitely has not processed what happened yet.

“Yes, well, just keep your mouth shut,” Valerius says and walks off without a backward glance, his back soon disappearing in the darkness of the narrow lane.

Ev’s eyes follow his path and then she throws another look at the theatre building. The light in one of its rounded windows goes down. She watches the emptying street and feels the goose bumps scatter her forearms. The air is beginning to chill. She looks down at her feet. Ev decides that the consul is the kind of man who would rather pay somebody if he wanted to get rid of her than being involved himself and for the second time this evening she rushes after Valerius. This is so weird.

She is about to call him out to slow down because the sound of duck feet that her ‘emergency’ shoes make is getting on her nerves when she hears a loud thud and a curse. In the darkness of the path Ev is not sure how close Valerius is to her but she knows that he stumbled and it makes her giggle in delight. She stretches her hand out glancing at the strips of warm candlelight coming from the gaps in the window shutters and the ivory glare of the moon. A small globe of light, the size of a plum, forms above her hand. Its light is delicate and warm, as if filtered through the frosted glass, but bright enough to fill the space between the two of them.

The consul straightens up quickly, “Why -”

“I don’t know about you but I like my toes all intact,” Ev walks over to him. “It’s only a small trick, here,” she raises her hand and the light gets brighter, “you can touch it, it’s not hot.”

Valerius takes a step back, looking at the ball of light suspiciously. “You are full of tricks, aren’t you?” he says.

“Don't even make me start on what you are full of.” She bunches her hand in a fist and the light sphere drops down but, before hitting the ground, it bounces back in the air like a small ball and splits into a dozen of smaller lights, startling Valerius. They hover in the air along the path similar to a garland of lanterns as they walk in silence until the lane ends, opening to the canal, and Ev asks, “Is it your carriage there?”

***

The servant opens the carriage door and much to Ev’s astonishment, Valerius waits for her to get in first. She gives him a confused look but complies. There is no evening chill inside and the cushioned seats are invitingly soft, so Ev’s immediately decides that regardless of what is going to happen it was a good idea not to walk home. Valerius takes a seat opposite her and reaches to unbutton his coat and pull his long loose braid from under the collar. His head rolls gently to the side and Ev sees a couple of inches of the neck, soft lines and the glowing skin. She feels her cheeks beginning to heat, suddenly remembering the warmth and the bitter almond fragrance she breathed in every time she got too close to the man, and gods did she get too close tonight.

This is about as far from the real world as Ev can imagine. The carriage is small and the little triangle of her beaded slipper somehow ended up between the consul’s leather boots. If she was to stretch her leg, the bareskin on the side her foot would brush along his shin. They have never sat this close together. Ev thinks about the old lady from the theatre. How would she feel if she knew that she was the only thin barrier stopping them from recognising each other and fully succumbing to the mutual hostility, claiming at least half of the theatre as casualties in the process. This could have been a disaster.

Ev looks at Valerius again and tries to understand how could she not recognise these features straight away. The signature crease between the dark brows and the sulky mouth. Valerius sits in silence, and his eyes are definitely not the ones she knows. They are so wistful and lonely, and so golden under the lamp light, Ev has to look away.

She puts a hand under her chin and leans to the window. A fine mist of rain has started to grit on the glass, and behind the sparks of its tiny drops - a bridge arches over the canal’s silver curve, both ends of which are clipped by infinity, which, in the dim light of the early night, is only ten feet away. The backdrop is all in flashes of the lit windows and the black outlines of pointed rooftops, round cupolas and slender towers, all together resembling a crown adorned by a single grand jewel of the moon, burning bright white. Then, the skyline and even the moon gets momentarily obscured by the huge wall, deprived of any lights, looking ghostly in the tempered gloom.

“That massive rounded building, what is it?” Ev is surprised with herself for striking a conversation.

“Have you not seen it before?”

“No, I have not really been to this part of the city,” she says, turning to Valerius, “What is it? A hippodrome?”

“It's the coliseum. The count’s favourite place,” he gives a chuckle which sounds bitter. “The man loved... performances.”

“What kind of performances?” Ev asks, watching his mouth twisting in distaste. Something about his look makes her frown.

“Gladiators. Bloodshed which lacked any order or purpose besides the count’s own entertainment,” Valerius rubs the bridge of his nose and glances to the window. Ev cannot tell whether he is looking at the moon or the looming coliseum, considering something. “But it’s not what this place was intended for,” he pauses. He turns back to Ev and the expression in his eyes is softer. “It was built before Lucio became a count, although it was slightly less grand back then. The rituals and ceremonies were conducted there during the festivities and the previous count used to reenact scenes of the famous battles there, using the actors. It brought the whole city together. Nobody wants to remember those days anymore.”

Ev feels a weird tremble inside and she is not sure what has caused it until she realises that it is a strange, unusual affection in his voice. She crosses her arms and seats back to contain the feeling. It’s so freaking strange to talk to him when his face is not a mask of boredom. “Did you use to come to watch?” she asks.

“Only when I had to. As if I would mix myself with the roaring crowd of plebeians. Besides, it was terribly distatestful and the smell inside was disgusting.” His mouth tightens, and a strange shadow clouds his expression this time. “Pointless waste of human life.”

“Oh,” is all Ev can manage. She cannot stop staring at Valerius. There is some kindness beneath this asshole facade, human decency, fairness even. It is not the perspective that she has been prepared for. “I meant before that,” she adds faintly.

“Yes I did, when I was much younger.”

“I cannot believe I have never heard of it.”

“Did you do any research before you came here?” The consul is back to his dismissive tone.

“Honestly? I had other things to worry about.” Ev turns back to the window, suddenly unable to look at him anymore.

She hears an irritated snort from Valerius but then, after a brief silence, he starts talking again, and it is not about Ev’s inadequacy. He talks about the canals named after constellations, traditions which Vesuvia used to have, and what you could find in the city before the plague. His voice is calm and steady, and has this velvet quality to it, which fits the night perfectly. Ev closes her eyes and thinks that maybe if she asked Valerius, as that favour she got from him, to continue his stories sitting by her bedside, she would finally be able to fall asleep before the sunrise.

[imagine-loki]

Midnight Stroll

TITLE: MIDNIGHT STROLL

CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: One Shot

AUTHOR: mooncat163

ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine that you struggle with sleep walking, and one night you manage to get to Loki’s room. The next morning he wakes to find you snuggled against his back, and wonders how you ever got past the security spells he’d cast.

RATING: General

NOTES/WARNINGS: just fluffy stuff, sleepwalking

— —

You’ve been up for close to seventy-two hours straight, copying VHS surveillance tapes to digital in an attempt to isolate and identify players suspected of gearing up for a major weapons heist. Any attempts to make you rest before you collapsed were rebuffed: you were determined to complete the process and make positive ID’s as soon as you could.

“Hey.”

The greeting was soft so that you weren’t startled when Steve came up behind you. He glanced over the monitors before looking at you.

“Hey, Cap,” you replied, and turned your head slightly. “I’m almost done, just have about twelve hours left-“

“That's why I’m here,” he said. “You’ve been at it for close to three days, and you need to rest.”

“I’m good,” you protested. “Jarvis has already isolated footage for me, I just have to-“

“Rest,” he said, firmly. “Jarvis, bookmark where she’s at, but she’s not allowed to start again until she’s eaten and slept.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But I-“ You turned your chair to face Steve after the computer monitors went blank.

“No.” He urged you out of the chair and then ushered you from the room. “Tony agrees, and none of us want you to become overtired.”

You still wanted to protest, but there wasn’t any point in doing so. Jarvis wouldn’t allow you to access the files until Tony or Steve agreed to it, and there wasn’t a way to subvert the AI. You knew this because you’d tried several times, just to see if you could and to see how badly you could annoy Tony.

You had managed one small victory: you’d renamed some of his music files, so that instead of the heavy metal songs he liked to blare at random, Jarvis would end up playing teen bop songs. Tony didn’t talk to you for a week after that, although you could see by the gleam in his eyes that he was slightly impressed by the feat.

Computers had always been your ‘thing’, and you could set up networks and track down problems in record time. When you worked with the electronics, your mind visualized the connections and routes in schematic form, enabling you to pinpoint the failing areas. When it came to analyzing data, you could do so just as quickly.

Steve led you to the elevator, and the ride up to the Avengers’ level was made in silence, then his hand in the small of your back guided to the dining table, where the rest of the team sat.

“Glad you could join us,” Tony said, grinning when you cut your eyes at him.

You sat down across from Loki and Thor, then helped your plate with food as it was passed to you. You offered them both a tired smile, which Thor returned with a wink. Loki nodded, and although he didn’t smile, his green eyes were lit with amusement. A warmth spread through your veins, making it hard to look away from him, but you finally managed.

If only he wasn’t such eye candy, you thought. Or maybe such a snack...a tall, tall, snack…snack-a-licious…

You smothered a giggle that almost escaped, but then strangled on the sip of water you’d just taken. While you coughed into your napkin, Bucky tried to help by patting your back, but his strength knocked you forward enough where you almost face-planted into your plate.

“Bucky!”

“Sorry.”

You composed yourself while keeping your attention on your food. You weren’t very hungry, even though you’d subsisted only on coffee, protein snacks and candy over the last few days. As you began to eat, it became difficult to keep your eyes open. Now that you were still and quiet, the lack of sleep caught up with you fast. The others watched as your head began to drop lower and lower, until your fork clattered onto the plate as you fell asleep while sitting upright.

“Come on, sleepyhead.” Steve scooped you up and carried you to your apartment, where he put you to bed.

— —

Later that night, Tony was still in the common room when you padded quietly on bare feet into the kitchen. You went to the fridge and stared at its contents for several minutes before taking out a yogurt cup.

He watched as you shuffled to a drawer for a spoon, and he started to ask if you needed help when you struggled to open the yogurt, but you did manage to get the lid off after a couple of minutes.

“Are you alright?” He asked as you consumed the yogurt in four large spoonfuls.

You didn’t respond, just dropped the spoon into the sink, and the empty cup into the garbage, and left. Once back in your apartment, you crawled into bed, pulled up the covers and went back to sleep.

— —

Several hours later, Loki stirred from a deep sleep when something woke him. He listened for any movement in his apartment, but all was quiet. Something wasn’t right, though, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

He started to get up, but then realized what had disturbed him: a warmth against his back, along with a bare arm across his waist. To say that he was stunned would be an understatement, since neither should be there.

Loki carefully grasped his bedfellow’s wrist and raised it enough to try to determine who had invaded his space, and he didn’t need three guesses when he recognized the intruder’s bracelet.

Pixel.

He couldn’t help but think of you by the nickname that Tony had burdened you with due to your computer skills. None of that was important, however. What was important was why you were in his bed, and how you had managed to avoid the spells that he cast each night that would alert him to any intruders. It was a habit that he kept, even though it was unlikely that he’d be attacked in his own suite, and he felt a bit uneasy that you hadn’t triggered any of them.

Loki carefully shifted until he faced you, and the movement was enough to turn you on your back. He braced up on one elbow while he looked into your face, and recognized the exhaustion it reflected. He knew that you’d been working hard on the surveillance videos; too hard, it seemed. He frowned at that, and decided to speak to Stark about letting you stay awake for days on end, as it wasn’t necessary since Jarvis could easily help run comparisons.

“Hey, Pixel.”

He brushed hair out of your face before shaking you gently, but you didn’t stir. He tried again, with no success: you were dead to the world. He considered taking you back to your own bed, but an urge for mischief kept him from doing so. He rather wanted to see what your reaction would be come morning. So, he adjusted position slightly so that your head was pillowed on his arm, then he put the other arm across you and pulled you closer.

— —

Early the next morning, well before dawn, you awoke slowly to find that something was very, very wrong.

Your sheets were softer than you recalled, you were curled against someone’s side, with your head on their shoulder, and this someone had their arms around you. Slowly, carefully, you sat up, and the shock when you recognized your bedfellow had you turning toward the edge of the bed.

Loki.

Before you could disengage fully from his embrace, he turned with you, and drew you even closer to his chest, where he held you firmly. You laid still for a couple of minutes, not wanting to disturb him, hoping to escape before he woke. Then you carefully tried moving his arm from across your waist so that you could slide from beneath it.

“What’s the fuss, pet?” Loki asked, sleepily.

“Why are you in my room?”

“Your room?” You felt his smile against your temple.

“My room! And my bed!”

“Are you certain about that?”

Your brow furrowed in confusion while you slowly looked around, then your mouth fell open in astonishment when you realized where you were. Nope, not your room, but his.

“How did I get in here??”

“That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?” He asked, while burying his nose in your hair. “How you got in, and got past my security measures.”

“I don’t—wait, security measures? You mean booby traps?” You whispered, aghast.

He almost laughed aloud at that, and would have if your tone hadn’t been so horrified at the notion of triggering one of his spells.

“Don’t worry, Pixel, there isn’t anything that will cause lasting harm,” he chuckled. “So, first order of business: why did you come here?”

“I’m not...oh...cripes…” you rubbed your face with a groan.

“Yes?”

“I’m so sorry...I must have been sleepwalking.”

“Oh?”

“I haven’t done it in years, though...I guess being up for close to four days straight triggered it.”

“I see,” Loki mused over that for a moment. “But how did you get past my spells?”

“I don’t know, I really don’t,” you replied. “Are you sure they’re still intact...never mind, forget I asked.”

You’d backtracked on the question when his arm tightened slightly; you could imagine that his expression would remind you that he was a master sorcerer who was at least nine hundred years in age, and that he would know if his spells had failed.

“I should go,” you told him as you tried again to move his arm. “I’m very sorry for invading your space…”

“It’s early yet, why not stay?” He asked. “You’re delightfully warm.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I should.”

You were painfully aware that your gown’s thin straps left your arms and shoulders bare, and the hem only reached to your knees. There was no way that Loki hadn’t noticed it either, just as it hadn’t escaped your notice that his chest was bare. Thankfully, you could tell that he had on pajama bottoms. Thank God for small mercies.

“I was a perfect gentleman last night,” he commented. “Don’t you trust me?”

“Of course I do,” you replied, quickly. But do I trust myself?

Loki hummed softly before he ran his hand down your arm and changed your gown into one that covered you from your chin to your feet, and from your shoulders to your wrists. You were quite sure the thing would strangle you, since you were a restless sleeper.

“Geez, did you raid Steve’s grandmother’s closet??”

“Just trying to be helpful,” he replied with a chuckle, before he changed the gown again.

This time it was a green shirt with flowing sleeves, open neckline and a shorter hem which reached your knees. It wasn’t lost on you that he’d put you in his color.

“Better?” He asked.

“Yes, thank you,” you replied. “But I should go....”

He held you more firmly, and drew his legs up behind yours to trap you further. He was reluctant to let you go now that you were in his arms. He’d watched you for months now, slowly warming up since you treated him the same as anyone else, perhaps even better. He wasn’t sure how you’d managed to get under his skin, but he found himself wondering how it would feel to hold you, to kiss you...to have you.

When Loki refused to let you up, your heart began to race at the implications. Was he interested in you? Or just being mischievous because you had accidentally climbed into his bed? Either way, the proximity to his bare skin had you shaking; it wouldn’t take much for you to give in to his request.

“I’d like for you to stay,” he whispered, before he’d turned your face toward him.

When his lips found yours in a gentle kiss, your reticence flew out the window.

Yes, that did it.

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Roman Holiday: A Review

Hello, everyone, and welcome to my review of RWBY: Roman Holiday by E.C. Myers! Given my tendency to discuss this franchise at great length, I thought I'd start with a tl;dr section for those who might just want my general takeaway, not a deep dive into some of the novel's specific flaws and strengths. So with that in mind... 

Did you like the book?

I did! Let me put it like this. I'm incredibly critical of any RWBY material nowadays, I haven't had the energy to read #realbooks for a while, and I still managed to finish this in five days, even while stopping every few pages to take notes. So it was entertaining enough to hold my attention, unlike Before the Dawn. Is it a perfect novel worthy of nothing but endless praise? No and I'll delve into the many problems below. But is it also one of the better RWBY installments I've engaged with lately, including recent Volumes of the webseries? Yeah. If you're still emotionally attached to the show or these characters, I recommend giving it a try for the sake of nostalgia. 

But isn't there a bunch of creepy stuff in it? Didn't Myers turn Roman into a pedophile? 

No, he didn't. As I suspected, the rumors that we've been hearing lately probably came about from taking certain moments out of context, or by blowing up some pretty minor implications, or by straight up reading interactions between an adult and a minor in very bad faith. Purity culture and a desire to drag RWBY combining to create an argument that, frankly, isn't supported by the text. Are there jokes and interactions that some readers might find uncomfortable? Yes, but it’s no worse than what RWBY has already established as a canonical part of their world and writing style. See: Yang's interactions with Junior in her Yellow Trailer. If you're a fan of Roman and have held off only because you're convinced the novel ruined his character, I personally don't think that's the case. Breathe easy. 

I'm still worried about how the novel treats disability though. Specifically Neo's muteness. 

I was too, but I'm happy to report it's a pretty tame portrayal. If anything, I have more to say about the intersection between Neo's semblance and her sense of identity. Suffice to say though, Neo never speaks in the novel, there's no ridiculous reason why she can't speak (no reason is given at all, it’s simply a part of her), and only the bad guys pressure her into talking. Meaning, the bad guys from her and Roman’s perspective. Obviously she and Roman are both villains in the RWBY world, but when it comes to respecting each other's needs they're definitely, comparatively better than the rest of the cast. 

So there were no problems? 

Oh no, there are definitely problems lol. Let's just say they're not offensive enough to bother the average RWBY fan. At least, most of them (probably) aren't. If you're not neck deep in the franchise's struggles and actively thinking about how this novel does (or does not) fit into the larger RWBY-mythos, there's a very good chance you'll like the book, passing over everything I’m about to mention without a backwards glance. Hell, even if you're looking for problems there's a good chance you'll enjoy a lot of other aspects, just like I did. So I recommend taking a chance on the book far more than I recommend steering clear on principal alone. 

Okay, with that out of the way it's time to dive into the nitty-gritty!  

FYI I'm pulling my quotations from the paperback edition and, as is probably already obvious, this is not a spoiler free review. So tread carefully!  

Part One: An Imbalance of Protagonists

Would you like RWBY: Roman Holiday? Well, that might depend largely on which of its main characters you're most interested in. If it's Roman, you may be disappointed, despite the fact that the book is evenly divided between his and Neo's perspectives. This is, fundamentally, a book about Neo. She is the one undergoing all the character development. She is the one who is driving the plot. Roman just sort of exists within a criminal status quo until he bumps into her — almost exactly halfway through the novel's 308 pages — and then becomes caught up in her training, her desire to concoct new schemes, and eventually her family's problems. I don't want to make it sound like Roman is unimportant to the book, he's obviously there and he does things, but we're not given the same level of insight into him like we are Neo.  Frankly, I can think of only two significant revelations, both of which we might have easily guessed based on Roman's established characteristics: his mother abandoned him when he was a kid and he once worked for one of the main crime bosses in Mistrial, specifically Lil' Miss Malachite. Otherwise, everything Roman does and experiences is precisely the sort of stuff we saw him do and experience in the webseries. He commits petty crimes, fights people with his cane, and does it all with a dramatic flare which, notably, Myers writes quite well. 

This lack of impact on the story seems to stem from two decisions. First, Myers never jumps forward or backwards in time (with the exception of two small scenes that explain how characters got to a point we saw in the last scene/chapter). Though this definitely helps to keep things from getting confusing, it means that we never go farther back than Neo at 8 years of age and we're always looking at what both characters are up to at the same point in time. Given that Roman is a decade older than Neo, this means that, unlike her, we never get peek into his childhood. When she's 8 he's 18, already an adult and committing crimes in Mistral. A lot of Neo's development is inevitable, just by virtue of starting her story so young. She has to mature, develop her semblance, go to school, try various ways of being independent for the first time... Roman gets none of that. He's an adult when we meet him, his character fully formed and, since we already know that character from the webseries, we're given no new insight into him or how he developed that identity, just a reconfirmation that it exists. 

More of an issue though is that Roman isn't allowed an arc over the course of the novel. The man we meet on page 9 is precisely the same man we end with on page 308 — with the minor exception that he now has a partner in Neo and that, sadly, is a lesson he learns instantaneously. For the first half of the book, Myers sets up the expectation that learning to trust and, specifically, learning to trust someone like Neo is the great conflict that Roman will have to work though. He's very cynical in his own head, as we might expect: “On the streets, on your own. You only watched out for yourself. Anything else was a weakness. Anyone else was a liability” (14). No sooner is this perspective established than Roman is meeting people who challenge it. While babysitting the Malachite girls, they provide advice on how to improve his chances of pulling off heists: 

Melanie and Miltia, simultaneously: “You just need the right partner.” 

Roman: “Maybe. I just don’t believe anyone is going to watch out for me as much as I will” (41). 

After betraying Lil' Miss and fending off his peer Chameleon, she sadly announces that "you might have gotten what you wanted after all if you hadn’t been in it only for yourself. If you had allowed yourself to trust someone” (87). Myers isn't subtle about the theme here. 

Yet when Roman meets Neo, that trust is immediate, despite spending his entire life rejecting the idea of a partner, despite the viewer having just read about numerous other people who Roman spent years fighting beside and still didn't come to trust, Neo forms an instant, powerful connection with him — one that can't be explained by her saving his life when they first meet. Even Roman himself acknowledges that it's just another debt to repay. They simply click, with no explanation as to how that occurred, or even a serious acknowledgement that this is out of character for them both (what with Neo never having had a friend). Neo gives him the name "Neopolitan," knowing it's her true name now and, thus, a more personal offering than her birth name "Trivia." Roman gives her his entire life story during their first meal together. Roman also spends all of his money on Neo's modified parasol and at the novel's end continually offers to sacrifice himself so that Neo can escape. Neo thinks a lot about how Roman is the only one who can understand her through body language alone which, kudos to Myers again, he does describe her movements with enough clarity to sell that understanding (even if Roman does sometimes make leaps in logic that feel a little unlikely). “She really missed Roman. Most of the time she didn’t need to say anything and he knew exactly what she was thinking” (249). It's heartwarming. As someone who enjoyed their relationship in the webseires, this is likewise a joy to read. It's just that it... kinda came out of nowhere. 

Far from this just being an issue of Roman trusting when he's never trusted before, Myers sets up a conflict of loyalties in Neo that is then immediately dropped. She finds herself surprised by Lady Beat — the headmistress of the academy Neo attends — unexpectedly liking her insights and, in exchange for privacy and a more in-depth curriculum, agrees to help her capture Roman. Prior to this agreement, Neo considers helping the Malachite twins take Roman out when they corner him because then they might be Neo's friends instead of her bullies. That motivation makes perfect sense to me. Of course Neo would be more interested in assisting the two girls who attend school with her and improving her daily life over helping the random guy on the street, even if Roman's vulnerability (that's what Neo latches onto: a moment where his mask slips and he shows true fear) sways her towards helping him in the end. When she reunites with Roman later, he requests that she help him spy on Lady Beat... and Neo turns him down. So there's a very clear precedent here of Neo being out for herself, looking to improve her relationship with the other high society ladies she's spending most of her time with. The road to favoring Roman over them will be a long one. What will convince Neo to switch sides? 

Nothing. Soon after Neo thinks about how she's duping both Lady Beat and Roman (the reasoning there is never really explained) and from then on her focus is entirely on Roman, with likewise no explanation as to why she chose him in the end. “Roman clearly had some trust issues to work out, but Neo was going to prove to him that he could count on her” (219). Why this sudden desire to prove herself to Roman? No idea. The novel skips over the majority of their bonding. Yes, there are a few key scenes — Neo saving him, Roman giving her the parasol, etc. — but a single sentence reveals that Neo has been training with him for months now, bypassing the slow development of trust and Neo's changing thought process about what side she should choose. 

Or rather, there are explanations for Neo's decision, but they all occur after Neo has already chosen Roman. There are two major revelations that we're only told about much later in the novel: that Neo is suddenly dissatisfied with her life at school — “Neopolitan was having second thoughts. As much as life at the school had improved, more and more it felt like it wasn’t giving her what she needed” — and that Lady Beat is the head of a major spying conspiracy across all of Remnant (more on that later). Either one of these could have been the catalyst for Neo giving more attention to Roman and, eventually, growing quite close to him. A general dissatisfaction with her life, the revelation that Lady Beat isn't the kind of criminal Neo wants to support...either would work. As it is, her devotion to Roman seems to immerge randomly, fully formed and unshakable, with these ‘I guess the school and Lady Beat weren't that great after all’ justifications tacked on much later and, thus, presented as incidental to Neo's devotion. “[Roman] was basically the only thing that mattered to her in the world right now" is the conclusion Neo comes to without a lot of work put in to explain how he reached that point in her life (248). 

And I can see how this happened. We already know that Neo and Roman are a tight-knit duo from the webseries — Neo's love in particular has been emphasized since Volume Six — and so Myers banked on the reader applying that knowledge to the novel. He wrote the story of what Neo and Roman did prior to meeting, he wrote the story of their friendship prior to the webseries... but he didn't really write how that friendship came about. It's treated as a given, despite the huge number of reasons why that friendship should be rocky (or even non-existent) at the start, to say nothing of many fans' interest in getting an answer to the question, "How does an established villain who trusts no one wind up partnering with a girl a decade his junior?" The novel tells us that this unexpected outcome does, in fact, occur, rather than taking us through the journey of how such an outcome is possible. This is by no means a new problem in RWBY and, admittedly, Myers' depiction of the relationship isn't as noticeably a problem as some others in the webseries, simply by virtue of Neo and Roman being the focus of the novel and the reader knowing that they do, in fact, end up as partners. It's a lot easier to buy a shaky journey when you already know the inevitable conclusion, but that doesn't mean we couldn't have done a better job of showing it. 

Which, to get back to the original point of this section, means that Roman never has that arc about learning to trust someone. He just does trust, the moment Neo comes on the scene. Personally, I think this rapid-fire growth is particularly egregious given everything else we learn about Neo and Roman’s histories. Meaning, just like Roman's cynicism about trust is introduced early on, so is his hatred for the rich elite. In fact, Roman's poverty and the disdain that has bred are arguably the most prominent aspects that Myers added to his characterization. As seen in the novel's excerpt release, Roman's introduction is robbing a rich man coming out of a club where he shows more interest in humiliating and harming the man than just getting his stuff and running. Which, to be fair, isn't solely due to the man's status as a member of the elite. The novel develops both characters' sadist tendencies — “He’s vicious. He brutally beat a man just for his coat. He was having fun” (21) — but the man’s status isn't a non-factor either. Roman's internal thoughts say a lot about how stupid, rude, gullible, pathetic, and inept he thinks the rich are. At the start he's not just taking the man's coat because he likes it, but because he’ll need it to survive the Mistral winter, what with living in a shelter under a bridge and all. We learn that his obsession with survival is born of poverty — “Ma’am, when you don’t have anything, surviving is more. You’ve gotta start somewhere” (20) — and that Roman will go to any lengths just to meet his basic needs, potentially with a side of some comfort. For example, he knowingly risks his life by pissing off Lil' Miss just to get two days of food, baths, and a bed. As Roman puts it, those two days are worth it, even if it means the rest of his life is potentially forfeit. 

So this is a man driven by a desire to live in comfort, manifesting in a hatred of the rich that is so powerful Roman breaks the man's knee just for the hell of it. He's touchy about any comment on his upbringing too: "Roman froze. 'So that’s it. You think you’re better than me. Because you went to school? Learned a trade?'" (80). And, to be clear, this is a hatred of the high society rich. The kind of wealth that's never earned. Roman has a healthy respect for the well-fed crime bosses who have pushed their way to the top, just as he plans to. Not those living cushy lives at the expense of him and others. 

And wouldn't you know it, his partner to-be is a pampered little rich girl. 

"There's the conflict," I thought. "Roman doesn't just need to learn to trust, he's got to trust someone born into extreme luxury. How is that going to happen?" Well, again, it didn't. Neo and Roman's class difference is ignored for 99% of the novel, with the other 1% used for casual banter between them. It's not that Roman isn't aware of Neo's pedigree, so to speak. He finds her through the uniform she wears, the symbol of an academy that rich girls attend. When they share their first tea together, he notes how daintily she eats the sandwiches, more evidence that Neo has had manners drilled into her at a young age. When he finally gets confirmation that she's not just rich, but really rich — flying to her parents' mansion — Roman is just kinda moderately surprised, throwing in a comment about how someday that money will be hers and isn't that nice. Roman's hatred of the elite disappeared for Neo's sake, just like his trust issues did. There's no working through these differences, just an erasure of them so the novel can jump straight to them being the perfectly in synch duo we know from the webseries. 

As a side detail that I think demonstrates this imbalance rather well, hair is used as a marker of identity throughout the novel. Neo moves from being jealous that other girls are allowed to style their hair how they please, to making her hair entirely pink with her semblance, changing that to half brown instead, buying pink dye so she no longer needs to waste energy on something she wants to be permanent, and ending with her getting some white streaks even as she chooses to leave the name Vanille behind. Each change coincides with an aspect of her development and it works quite well. In contrast though, Roman has only setup, no follow through. Unlike the short cut we're used to in the series, Roman starts the novel with a long ponytail that characters frequently comment on. The twins steal his hat and beg to braid his hair when they're bored. Neo seems iffy about the style choice. A couple other side characters make vague references to imply that he should get rid of it — something, something it doesn't actually suit him. So surely we'll see Roman cut his hair sometime before the novel's end, visually representing his growth, just like Neo's changing color has represented hers (ending with a color mix that reflects neapolitan ice cream)? Nope. Not unless I missed it. The foundation for that change is there, but Myers never capitalizes on it, despite obviously knowing what he's doing with Neo. 

So if you want more Roman content, the kind of content we saw in the webseries, great. You'll love the novel. If you want to read about Roman undergoing any significant change, including a dive into how he came to trust Neo of all people, large chunks of that story are missing. In true RWBY fashion, there are plenty of details that allow readers to fill in the blanks for themselves, but the canon itself is, sadly, lacking. 

Part Two: Neo's Magical Identity 

We've established then that Neo gets the lion's share of the development and, frankly, most of it is good. Knowing she's set to become a villain, I loved reading the gradual move from understandably lashing out — Neo throws an umbrella at her father's face when he's being an emotionally abusive dick — to becoming just as stoically cruel as Roman — she launches a woman out of the back of a plane. Did she have a parachute? Who cares. There's a lot here to like about Neo's characterization, with Myers finding a nice balance between keeping her playful and not making her feel like a caricature (helped immensely by spending so much time in Neo's head). However, the one part that arguably fails is the development of Neo's semblance and, consequentially, her identity. 

To be clear, I absolutely get what Myers was going for and it's basically what I assumed was going on when I read the excerpt: Trivia (Neo's birth name) has an imaginary friend she calls Neopolitan and, over time, she realizes she is Neopolitan. The imaginary friend is who she wanted to be all along, not just the person she wanted to spend time with. I like it! Who among us hasn't imagined a badass, smooth-talking, beloved version of ourselves that impresses everyone with a Mary Sue-esque ease? (Or, if you haven't, guess I'm outing myself here lol.) It's a pretty relatable idea. Trivia imagines a girl with the power to dress how she wants, style her hair how she wants, with amazing acrobatic skills, a take-no-shit attitude, fun ideas to implement... but she also has Trivia's heterochromia and muteness. It's the perfect combination of Trivia's unique traits and the confidence/freedom she longs to have. Of course when given the chance she grows up to be Neo, even going so far as to take that name. It's what she always wanted. 

The only problem here is that in the RWBY world, Neo can't just be an imaginary friend. She's a manifestation of Trivia's semblance. As we learn later, the things Trivia creates are as real as real can be, provided she keeps up their existence. You can touch the wall. You can count the money. You can wear the clothes. They're less illusions than short-term creations — as Team RWBY realizes whenever they wind up attacking a Neo duplicate instead of the "real" thing — and that puts an odd spin on just how imaginary Neopolitan actually is. She's not imaginary at all. She's a real person that exists in the real world, it's just that this existence is temporary and dependent on Trivia's aura. 

The novel supports this by constantly writing Neopolitan as a distinct personality from Trivia. Not just the polished version of who she is slowly becoming, but an individual in her own right. Neo makes decisions that are fully her own, contrary to or even entirely unknown to Trivia. To highlight just a few examples: 

Trivia is unsure about sneaking out of the house so Neo "shoved her into the hall" (25). 

Neo "looked on jealously” as Trivia drinks a milkshake, implying a desire to have one and the knowledge that her current physicality doesn't allow for that. If she is Trivia, shouldn't she likewise be enjoying the shake? 

“She shot Neo a questioning look... before she realized what Neo had in mind” (92). Their thoughts are presented as separate and there's no instant mind-reading. 

Neo catches Trivia when she leaps out of a window, surprising her with the save. Trivia never planned for Neo to do that, Neo did it entirely on her own. 

There are lots of other instances like this, details that establish Neo has a person separate from Trivia (this confusion regarding their names should make that clear enough), no matter the fact that she's made out of aura. I mean, we've got Ozpin existing only as a soul in other's bodies. RWBY isn't exactly in a position to get nit-picky about personhood. More specifically though, Neo is presented as a bad influence on Trivia, an outside force enacting on her in harmful ways. Neo's introduction establishes her as the troublemaker to Trivia's more obedient personality: “But those were her parents’ rules, and Neopolitan never cared about those.... She bounced up and down on the cushions the way she wasn’t supposed to” with a “taunting smile” (2). Her father comments on this multiple times, saying that Trivia can't hide behind an imaginary friend. She's responsible for her decisions. And while yes, that's true, that level of responsibility changes when Trivia summons Neo into the world. During a fight with some other teens, they can suddenly see Neo and Neo, independent of Trivia, punches one in the face, making her nose bleed. That seems like a real person making her own, real decisions to me. So it was never Trivia doing things and then trying to foster responsibility off on an imagined cohort, it's a child bringing another, magically-based person into existence and being influenced by her since before the age of 8 (considering that Trivia and Neo have clearly been playing with each other for a long time when the novel starts). There's even a moment where Trivia seems to realize all this, acknowledging that sneaking out, breaking up her parents' party, causing a scene... all of it was Neo's idea. “That had to be Neo’s influence again. Trivia had to stay in control." 

But the idea of control is never actually explored. Despite establishing Neo's individuality and having Trivia comment on her influence, the second half of the novel abandons that for the expected, 'Trivia was Neo all along' reveal. There's a very strange moment where Trivia's mom slaps Neo, causing her to shatter and... that's it. “Neo had been so much more to Trivia. Now she was gone” (98). Neo is, apparently, gone for good, despite the fact that she should return the moment Trivia's aura does. Neo has been with Trivia since she was a small child, nearly her entire life and at least 7 years by this point in the novel, so why did a single slap send her away? That's not explained and, much like the ‘Why has Neo chosen Roman?’ question, the fact that Trivia did try to bring her back several times and failed is mentioned chapters after Neo's absence is presented as an inevitability. The order of events needs some reshuffling. 

Despite this confusion regarding why this change happened now, the explanation seems to be that Neo isn't really gone, Trivia has just realized for the first time that she is Neo. No need to summon up a separate person when you are that person and the novel, from then on, is peppered with constant reminders of this. 

“Trivia was on the verge of exhaustion, but she kept burning the last of her Aura to hold Neo together. To hold herself together” (96). 

Realizing she is Neo: “Trivia smiled. She took in a deep breath. She felt complete for the first time. She felt like herself” (99). 

“You must be Trivia,” the tall woman said. If I must, I must, Trivia thought (126).

“She wrinkled her nose. Her name still felt like a coat that didn’t fit right. She would need to tailor that, too” (153).

“Losing her friend was Trivia’s first step towards putting herself back together and embracing her true, best self” (152). 

“Wearing this [outfit], she almost, not quite, knew (or remembered?) who she was—not as a student or a daughter, but as Trivia Vanille," except the clothes are “the kind of thing Neopolitan would wear” (152-3). 

On not being able to summon Neo anymore: “She had realized that Neo was really just another aspect of herself” (175).

Though there’s also the occasional implication that she's not actually Neo, just someone highly influenced by her: “No, [fully pink hair was] too much of the other girl [Neopolitan]," so she settles on that half pink (Neo), half brown (Trivia) combo (153). 

As said at the start, it's a "twist" that works perfectly well... provided you ignore the magical elements and the amount of work done to establish Neopolitan as her own person, not just Trivia in a shiny, future glamour. Far from the empowering victory I expected to feel in watching Neo become who she always wanted to be, I found the whole situation to be somewhat tragic. Magic created a fully realized person who egged Trivia towards bad behavior since she was a young child, until Trivia comes to the decision that she should just embrace their personality 24/7. It felt less like the growth of a character into who they were meant to be and more like a manipulated kid taking the place of the person who used to exist alongside her — the only friend she ever had before Roman. Given that Neo is a villain, that's a pretty interesting idea for how the good girl goes bad... but it doesn't feel like Myers meant it that way. Rather, we're supposed to accept the simplest reading, that Neo was just a projection of Trivia's internal self, never-mind her individuality, her pressuring influence, her existence as something real in the world provided Trivia has aura. It's a much messier depiction of Neo's identity than that ‘She had an imaginary friend who she admired and eventually took her name’ setup. When magic is involved and a character's mind is creating fully realized people to stave off loneliness... that's a whole other kettle of fish. I don't actually want to delve into a psychological reading here — I simply don't have the expertise for that — but suffice to say, Neo's muteness might have been handled well, but there's a lot more to interrogate regarding her mental state and how much leeway we give to, ‘It's a fantasy series, just run with it.’ 

Part Three: You're Dodging Those Rumors, Clyde 

I admittedly am. Let's take a break from deep dives into characterization to instead tackle Roman Holiday's — undeserved — reputation. I get it. At this point the RWBY franchise is, frankly, a poster child for offensive content and workplace problems. In the last two years alone we've dealt with horrific crunch culture, sexual harassment allegations, an arguably glorified assisted suicide, bad comparisons to real life politics and dictatorships, a huge reversal on the show's disability stance, one subreddit banning another over criticism, a collective YouTube response to the fandom's behavior, iffy choices regarding Mother's Day merch, accusations of queerbaiting, a resurgence of using Monty's death to forward or dismiss arguments, continued worry over whether the bees will be made canonical next Volume... and honestly, that's just some of the big ticket subjects. RWBY's story, workplace, and fandom have a lot going on, much of it bad, so it's no surprise to me that people are primed to see the worst at every turn. Why wouldn't we be? At this point it's a pretty justified response. 

However, in this case it's unwarranted. Let's tackle Neo and Roman first. Yes, they're a decade apart in age and yes, there are some details that could, potentially, imply romantic interest on both sides. But they really are tiny and the novel confirms nothing. Indeed, the back of the book's summary says, "Just like every story, every friendship has a beginning..." So that's the focus here and all the ambiguous hints, importantly, happen after Neo is confirmed to be 18 years old. Roman takes her to a fancy tea shop only because he owes her. “It certainly wasn’t because he wanted to impress her or anything” (189). Neo blushes when he compliments her semblance. Twice Roman jokes “Don’t worry, it isn’t flowers” when Neo is opening up her parasol present (212). Neo also acknowledges Roman's looks at one point: “With his tousled orange hair, dressed like a street punk, he didn’t look much older than her. In fact, he was kind of cute” (184). The most intimate they get though is at the novel's end: “She leaned over and kissed Roman on the cheek. His face went red," though this is immediately followed by "It was fun to mess with him sometimes” (307). Honestly, the most overt "hint" towards a relationship is probably the title itself, a play on the 1953 romantic comedy Roman Holiday. But upon reading the novel, I think it's clear Myers chose that title only because Roman's name is, you know, Roman and the plot somewhat mirrors the idea of a reporter getting involved with a princess. Only in this case it's a criminal getting involved with a high society girl and "involved" just means a crime spree, not a romance. 

So is there something there? Maybe the start of something, if you're willing to read into it, but to me it comes across more like the two of them poking fun at social expectations — he's the guy so he "must" be getting the girl flowers; she's the girl so she "has" to kiss him on the cheek — rather than anything serious. Even if Myers had developed a relationship, Neo is both an adult and at least Ruby's current age, if not a year older, so if some fans want her to start a relationship with the 14-year-old farm boy housing her ancient headmaster, is a ten year age gap really where we're going to draw the line? I know that makes a lot of people uncomfortable — frankly it makes me a bit uncomfortable too, more-so because of the difference in their life experiences (Neo is still a student, Roman a long-established criminal) than the actual gap itself — but we should be wary about when personal squicks turn into unfounded, "This is a sin!" purity culture. And for the purposes of this conversation, the point is that there is no relationship. If anything, Roman is just as aware of Neo's age as the reader is. He initially thinks he's looking at a “little girl” only to quickly realize “She was also older than her diminutive height suggested, maybe about the same age as the Malachite twins” (168). But, as we'll get to in just a sec, Roman very much treats the twins as the kids they are too. Roman even refers to Neo as a "kid" until she makes it known she dislikes it (183-4). He drops the term, but that doesn't mean the mindset disappeared. 

As for the twins, they're the only other minors that Roman spends time with. Lil' Miss instructs him to act as their body guard while in hiding, which means he spends over a week living with them. Frankly? I think it's a really wholesome part of the novel — or as wholesome as the villains can ever get. That's when the girls get bored enough to steal Roman's hat, toss it around a bit, and beg to braid his hair. Myers does a good job of balancing Roman's bad boy attitude with a clear indulgence for them. He doesn't actively like the twins (who does Roman like besides Neo?) and ends up orchestrating a ridiculous plot to get out of "babysitting" them (another indication that he's well aware that they're kids), but he doesn't wish them any real harm. He even cares about them in his own twisted, villainous way. We get to see a moment where Roman tries to convince the girls to escape from a grimm, leaving him behind. We might have been able to write that off as Roman just saving his own skin in the long run — Lil' Miss would kill him if any harm comes to her girls — but there's no need to fake comfort: “Roman squeezed Melanie’s hand reassuringly. He needed her and her sister to remain calm” (52). As one of the other goons observes, “You’re bluffing. It’s obvious that you care about [Miltia], which means you’re up to something” (51). Much later, Roman's thoughts confirm this when the girls are older, more powerful, and trying to kill him: “He’d had to endure their dance recitals when they were little. He’d clapped for them at gymnastic competitions. Now they were trying to do a number on him... He didn’t want to hurt the lil' brats, despite everything, but he couldn’t let them take him down” (166-7). Really, I like everything about this. I enjoy how this humanizes and complicates Roman without undermining his status as a villain. I like the loyalty to their mother it shows in the twins that they'd turn on a man who was so involved in their childhoods. It's just fun to read about a badass bad guy trying to manage bored pre-teens with superpowers and a crime boss mom. Their relationship isn't something I expected from the novel, but I'm glad we got it. There's nothing here to imply the twins are uncomfortable with Roman, or that Roman is inappropriate with them. Anyone who balks merely at the idea of a grown man, quote, "babysitting" two young girls is working from bias and bias alone. 

There is, however, one inappropriate comment made by a goon and an assumption made by Miltia, both of which Roman refutes. First, the goon asks if Melanie is Torchwick’s “new girlfriend” to which Roman responds, “You know who it is... She’s just a kid, big man” (47-48). Later on, we get

“Cute,” [Roman] said. 

“Flattery’s not going to work on me anymore,” Miltia said. 

“I was referring to your moves, not you” (158).

Now, we could drag Myers for including such "jokes" and misunderstandings to begin with, but that's why I mentioned the Yellow Trailer at the start of this review. It doesn't feel right to single Myers out for something Rooster Teeth has already embraced, especially when he's the one working to mirror their original product. Yang deliberately toys with Junior and Junior willingly goes in for the kiss. Jaune blushes at older moms eyeing him up at the crosswalk. Nora tells Ren not to look up her skirt in the middle of a deadly fight. Neo and Cinder both go to Atlas in scantily clad outfits because it's more important for the women to look sexy than it is for the show to stay consistent about the dangers of the tundra. Much of RWBY has that frat boy energy about it. I'd be shocked if nothing snuck its way into Myers' work too. But Roman the pedophile who ogles the twins and manipulates a kid Neo? That just doesn't exist. 

Part Four: Déjà Vu, Anyone? 

I dithered about whether to include this section, simply because I don't want anyone to misunderstand what I'm trying to say... yet at the same time, I'm not entirely sure how to articulate the problem I have here. Or if I'd even consider it a problem at all. In the end, "déjà vu" is the best term I can come up with. I'm not saying that Myers is lazy in regards to plot and choreography. I'm definitely not saying he's plagiarized. What I am saying — the only thing I'm saying — is that there were a lot of times during the novel where I went, "Okay, we've seen this before." Whether or not that's bad I'm... not sure. 

Let's start broad. When the excerpt dropped I mentioned that Neo's situation sounded pretty very to Weiss' and I stand by that claim. Actually, having read the novel now, I'd say it's a LOT like Weiss' story. Neo is the daughter of an incredibly wealthy family, suffering from an abusive father, a more loving but absent mother, whose only freedom stems from her semblance and combat abilities. Alright, let's dig deeper. Like Jacques, Jimmy's abuse is on full display for the viewer/reader. I could give you a laundry list of examples, but here are just a few: 

Jimmy is frequently described as barely controlling his anger around Neo, “there was rage behind his shadowed eyes,” etc. (4)

There are times when she is "suddenly afraid" of what her Papa will do to her (35).

When Neo is taken home by the cops, they reveal that they didn't even know that Jimmy Vanille had a daughter. That's how sequestered she's been.

He and his wife lock Neo in her room when they go out, which means that when she starts a fire she had no way to escape, no one to open the door for her, no way to call for help (her scroll is engulfed in the flames). Neo ends up chancing a fall from the window. 

He comes very near to hitting Neo at one point before backing down. 

Later he drugs her and, again, locks her in her room. 

As said, I could go on. There are a few inconstancies across the novel that, frankly, I've come to expect of Myers' work and RWBY in general, which I bring up now because it messes with the abuse plotline a bit. There's supposed to be a shocking moment when Jimmy grabs Neo tightly by the arms: "Trivia stepped back, appalled. Papa had yelled at her, punished her, even ignored her over the years, but he had never hurt her before” (97). Except she’s forgetting that, at the very start of the novel, Jimmy grabs her by the ankles, pulls her out from under the couch, and proceeds to shake her upside down while her hand bleeds. I'd say that's a pretty intense, physical interaction, making squeezing Neo's arms fail to have the impact Myers was looking for. Similarly, when Neo finally snaps and throws her parasol at her father's face, it's because “The things she had claimed for herself were just more stuff her parents had paid for," meaning, everything she stole on a shopping spree her father made sure to pay for twice over. It's not the ableism, abuse, isolation, and the like that Neo reacts to, even though she clearly struggles with those throughout the novel as a whole. So there are disconnects at times, but the point is this man is an abusive asshole to his daughter until she learns to literally fight back. Sound familiar? 

What particularly struck me was that both men have built their abuse around how the family is perceived. Both are obsessed with their image and how their daughter does or does not serve it. Jacques yelling at Weiss for speaking out about Beacon could be swapped with Jimmy yelling at Neo for not speaking at all. Jacques has maintained his wealth by exploiting the faunus in dust mines and getting in deep with criminals like Watts. Jimmy maintains his wealth by getting involved in illegal dust trades and getting in deep with criminals like the Xiongs. Both try to justify their actions in the name of perpetuating both that image and that wealth: “the things I have to do for that money” (5). Both lock their daughters in their room when they can't control them anymore. Both keep portraits in the hall that “showed her and her parents posing together as if they were a happy family,” a symbol of this familial deception (271).* Both have more compassionate, terrified, but ultimately enabling wives that, the story reveals, have secretly been spying on their husbands this whole time. Just as Willow set up all those cameras and gave the footage to Weiss, Carmel is using the camera in her pin to acquire information on Jimmy, with plans to use it to help Neo. By the time Neo's solution to the "What now?" question was to fly Roman back to her mansion and drink tea for a while Volume 8 style, complete with a Sun-Blake style shock that this is her house — sure you don't mean the tiny one behind it? — I was honestly wondering just how far we were going to stretch these parallels. I don't want to make it sound like these characters are identical (Carmel isn't an alcoholic for one thing)... but they share enough characteristics and distinct details to feel, well, a little weird. It also feeds the fandom's question, "Doesn't RWBY know any villain backstories except abuse?" 

*(As a side note, I initially thought the book's cover, showing a young Neo with two brown eyes, was a mistake. Turns out her parents had the painter get rid of her pink eye because they were ashamed of it, so kudos to the cover artist for keeping that consistent!) 

The similarities between Neo's backstory and Weiss' are absolutely the most obvious example here, but there were two other, smaller déjà vu moments I wanted to toss out, both involving combat. Myers has, at times, repeated fights almost exactly in order to cover two character's perspectives. I get the need to rehash plot in that manner, but he tends to focus on the exact same details back to back, making for a boring read. That incredibly nit-picky criticism aside, it means that I was already aware of combat moments that I'd seen before, not just in Roman Holiday, but RWBY in general. Does this description sound familiar to anyone? 

Neo hopped up lightly onto the broad blade. Rin tried to shake her off. Neo vaulted away just as the Huntress activated the flames, somersaulting over the Huntress. She planned to land behind her and whack her with her sword, but Rin turned and kicked high while Neo was still in the air. The Huntress’s foot connected with Neo’s stomach, knocking the wind out of her and knocking her clear across the room (199). 

If it's not familiar don't beat yourself up because it really is a minor similarity (and, in fairness, there's only so many ways you can write combat...). But take away the swords, replace them with a parasol and scythe, and you've basically got Ruby and Neo's interaction in Volume 8. Ruby tries to land a hit on Neo, she turns, kicks high while Ruby is still in the air, and she flies across the platform, knocking the wind out of her. We've also seen the 'Landing on a broadsword to get close to an enemy' bit with Tyrian and Qrow. But again: minor. What's a far less minor repeat of combat techniques is seen between Roman and Chameleon. Basically, Chameleon is Ilia, minus being a faunus and thus framing her abilities as a difference she's shunned for. Her semblance allows her to camouflage at will, giving her a major stealth advantage in a fight. Which means that when she goes after Roman, things get exponentially harder when the lights go out. But then it's better for Roman when a fire starts. He beats Chameleon and she helps him in the end because she's always been in love with him, even though Roman didn't love her back. If you're going, "Hey, that's the basic plot of Blake and Ilia's fight!" then yeah, me too.

It's not the whole novel. I don't want to make it sound like Roman Holiday is just a stitched together version of previous RWBY content because it's absolutely not. At the same time though, there were enough major similarities — and enough smaller ones that started standing out as a result — for me to raise an eyebrow. As said, I'm not entirely sure what to make of this eyebrow raising, or even if I want to label it a criticism at all. You all can decide what you think. 

Part Five: Wait, Now There's Not Enough RWBY? 

Yes, I contain multitudes and contradictions. As does this book. Even while Roman Holiday repeated some pretty familiar RWBY elements, there were times when the novel didn't feel very RWBY-ish at all. Part of the problem is that it lacks what's arguably the most crucial part of RWBY’s world building: battling grimm. Safe behind the walls of Mistral and Vale, we only see one grimm in the whole story, a captured Capivara that one of the crime lords uses to dispose of people who have displeased him. Roman and the twins barely get more than a few hits in before it escapes upstairs, leaving the kill to happen off screen (and why the grimm ran is another problem entirely. Again: we'll get to that). So although there are plenty of battles between people throughout the story, it doesn't feel quite like RWBY to me without the show's first and most significant antagonist. 

More than that though, Myers goes back and forth between emphasizing RWBY's unique, cultural elements and putting them aside entirely. When he's including them, it's great. We learn that there's an old saying “You can’t put the moon back together” which yeah, of course idioms would develop around the shattered moon (151). Honey Wine, a night club singer, paints her face with red dust as a symbol of both wealth and her dare-devil nature — one stray spark and the dust would ignite, blowing her and potentially the club up too. Yeah, of course people would come up with foolish, ridiculous ways to use this resource if they had it. During one of Neo's lessons, a passage for diction practice goes like this: 

The gruesome Grimm grew greedy. Get that greedy gruesome Grimm, Gregory. Go, Gregory, go. The greedy gruesome Grimme gorged Gregory. Good-bye, Gregory, Good-bye. The gory, greedy Grimm gave a gruesome grin (175).

Yeah, of course the elite would develop silly lessons using grimm as examples! We've got math problems about Johnny and his dish soap (yes, I'm quoting the Vine), so why wouldn't this world use grimm in the same way? Especially those who are rich and privileged enough to never encounter one. 

When it's good, it's good. When it's not... I don't want to take Myers to task for this because, in his defense, much of what makes the book feel generically modern has been seen in the show. Like computers. Or video games. Still, when these things are mentioned frequently it undermines the fantasy/sci-fi core, especially when Myers keeps the standard terminology. Why is a phone called a scroll, but a TV is still called a TV? Why are cops patrolling normal sounding malls with normal sounding guns? Neo sneaks out at one point and it struck me that, up until she uses her semblance against a bunch of bullies, there's nothing to distinguish this outing from a realistic portrayal of an average girl getting a milkshake. None of this is helped by the times when Myers slips on the terminology that is unique. Roman describes what he steals as "cash" rather than "lien" (105). One moment we're getting phrases like “She wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box," the next it's "or rob a convenience store for a six-pack of Dr. Piper” (44, 239). So is RWBY a world that has all the same products we do — crayons and TVs — a world that's different, but only because the author is making it different in a humorous way — Dr. Piper — or a place with a unique culture and history — scrolls, lien, shattered moon idioms? It's a challenge every fantasy writer has to face. Can you have a French braid in a world without France? Some will say no, others will bank on the reader's understanding that you can't change up every aspect of our language. You'll drive yourself nuts if you try. So I'm sympathetic, but it's nevertheless noticeable when Myers seems to remember that he's writing a fantasy world, tossing in "bullhead," "oh my Gods," and "thank the brothers" in a single scene, as if he’s making up for the whole chapters where that work is missing. Take out the grimm, take out semblances for a good chunk of the plot (since Roman doesn't have one), get iffy about the details... and you're left with a story that sometimes feels more generic Young Adult than it does RWBY. Enjoyable Young Adult, but a little lackluster in the world building all the same. This isn't a book where girls turn into rose pedals, lamps grant wishes, and teenagers fight giant mechs. This is a story where a guy uses a cane to beat people up, a girl uses illusions to shoplift, and the final confrontation is basically a shoot-out. Not bad by any means, just not the level of insane "The gun is also a gun!" nonsense that has become RWBY's brand. 

Part Six: Stupid Plots (and Strange Details) 

If Roman Holiday lacks a lot of that RWBY insanity, then that means nothing stupid and ridiculous happened, right? Lol of course not. The novel suffers from what I think of as the, "Well that's convenient" problem. In its immense defense though, it's nowhere near the level of, say, Amity suddenly being ready to go. The world's rules do not bend for Neo and Roman... they just wind up experiencing things that can test the reader's sense of disbelief at times. For example, how likely is it that two huntsmen will waltz into a bank in the middle of Roman robbing it? Very likely, apparently. Why not just have them respond to a silent alarm? Well, because of reasons we'll tackle in Part Seven, so we're left with the iffy coincidence of two trained professionals being at the right place at the right time to show the reader a fight. It's a fun fight though — love the use of dust in it — so we'll let that pass. After all, if coincidence serves the reader's entertainment, aren't they ultimately a good thing? 

Far more frustrating in my opinion is when disaster is illogically postponed and characters are written as incredibly stupid in order for a protagonist to get by. In this case, Neo. One of the major reveals of the novel is that her father has been stealing dust from the Xiongs and hiding it beneath Neo's bed. We're supposed to believe that a moment of Lil' Miss shooting into her room sets this volatile dust off, resulting in an explosion that kills both of Neo's parents (side note: she intended this), but the dust didn't blow up when Neo started a fire in said bedroom, a fire that then proceeded to consume the entire top floor? ...right. 

When Neo isn't conveniently surviving non-explosions, she's duping people left and right with her semblance, despite the fact that she, of course, can't speak. This trick becomes less and less convincing as the novel goes on. First, Neo drugs her tutor (that poor woman) and pretends to be her to escape the house, holding a one-sided conversation with her father as he walks her to the door. He finds nothing strange in this. Later, Neo sneaks back in by pretending to be her mother and though this time her father catches her, it's because “If you want to know whether someone is lying to you, it’s all in their eyes” (70). Not because, you know, his "wife" inexplicably won't respond to him verbally. Finally, Neo takes the place of Xiong, traveling with his assistant for over thirty minutes, and never once do any of the goons question what's going on with their suddenly mute boss. This includes interactions like Neo holding out her scroll and just staring until the assistant gets that she should follow the GPS, and the need to ignore the fact that Xiong, characterized as quite talkative throughout the novel, is suddenly quiet as a mouse. Neo's muteness should have been a severe limitation on her ability to masquerade as others, not something the story outright ignores in an effort to move the plot along. 

The novel is peppered with such coincidences, small inconsistencies, and just downright strange details. Roman notes that the police haven't arrived to his robbery yet, only for the next sentence to say they were swarming in. Later he "pulled on his bonds, testing whether he could slide one of his hands free, but he’d been tied up real good” but then again, a few sentences later, “He craned his neck to try to look out the front window. He managed to unbuckle his seat and hop to the front” (259). Like forgetting how rough her father has been in the past, Trivia bemoans the fact that she can't wear anything that Neo would, something in pink and white, for example, forgetting that her former "adventuring outfit" consisted of a white tank-top and white sneakers with pink hearts (26).* She also claims that the Roman illusion she sends running from the twins is her first long-distance use of her semblance, even though she just got done recalling the time she created a butterfly and watched it fly until it was "out of sight" (170). The novel writes out Neo's texting as dialogue even when someone else isn't speaking it aloud — something I initially made a note to praise it for. This is her version of "talking" after all — only for the texts to suddenly become bolded halfway through the book. As for strange details, Myers seems to like giving his antagonists a lumpy food to indulge in — Lil' Miss forces Roman to eat her cottage cheese, Xiong oatmeal with the consistency of cement — and Roman, quite oddly, decides to cover his spider tattoo with a grinning pumpkin. (Were they a thing in A Clockwork Orange? It's been years since I read it...) Neo learns to fly a plan by watching Xiong's assistant start it up and then, I kid you not, pulling up a How To article. Perhaps my favorite bit though is when Roman reveals his master plan to gain a monopoly on Vale's coffee industry and successfully does so by attacking one (1) warehouse. This is treated with the utmost seriousness. 

*(Second side note: the color brown is tied closely to Neo's backstory; to the person her parents wanted Trivia to be. She has her brown hair, only one brown eye, is introduced in a brown dress, wears a brown blazer and pants that her parents bought, and attends Lady Browning’s Preparatory Academy for Girls, the school meant to turn her into a 'real' lady.) 

That last bit though, the coffee heist, feeds into my biggest problem with the book's plot. @superzerokarasu​ and I have been talking about this the last two days, acknowledging it as one of the book's bigger flaws. (And, Superzerokarasu, if tumblr actually tags you, feel free to ignore this absolutely massive wall of text. I just wanted to give credit for the conversations 👍). Basically, towards the end of the novel it is, quite randomly, revealed that there is an important Room at the academy. Important enough that the story capitalizes it — that's not my doing. We haven't heard at thing about this Room before but Neo, apparently, has been trying to sneak into it for weeks. She knows Lady Beat is hiding something in there. Did we know this, especially since we've spent half the novel in Neo's head? Nope! No sooner has this mystery been introduced than Neo is solving it, much like how the group solves the problem of using Ambrosius moments after his rules are explained. Neo throws up an illusion of an empty hallway, picks the lock on the door, and discovers that Lady Beat has been spying on everyone who ever attended her school through the small pins students and graduates wear. This means she has access to private information about important people all over Remnant. Shocking! Neo reacts to this discovery by tearing the hard drive loose, there are some confusing suggestions about how this information will save them from Lil' Miss and Xiong, and then Roman sends the information to a news station, revealing all. Thus ends the world-wide conspiracy we just found out about. 

It's muddied. It's ridiculous. It, most importantly, comes out of nowhere. There's absolutely no buildup to this mystery, just a sudden announcement that it exists and, wouldn't you know, here's the conclusion. Superzerokarasu is correct that this problem could be solved by increasing the academy sections and fleshing this mystery out. I'm of the opinion that it could also be solved by eliminating it entirely. Why in the world do Roman and Neo need to grapple with a world-changing reveal, especially when the rest of the novel is so tame? Roman shakes money down from other small-time crooks. Neo learns diction and combat at school. Roman leaves the Kingdom to avoid Lil' Miss. Neo sneaks out of the house and goes on shopping sprees. She saves him from a street fight, he takes her out to tea, they proceed to rob convenience stores. Their conflicts take place on such a small scale that this conspiracy plot feels ridiculous compared to the rest of the novel, even if it did have better setup. In contrast, their big coffee heist likewise feels ridiculous for how small it is. As a duo (not Neo as an individual, now that she's involved with the Relics and such), they operate in a pretty specific niche of small crimes conducted for villains with large plans. Given the number of times the novel brought up that Roman should start stealing dust, I foolishly thought that the novel would conclude with them stealing dust. Why coffee? Why conspiracies? Why shootouts between two crime bosses on Neo's front lawn? Let them pull off an epic dust heist together, tying it back to Neo's family since her father is already neck-deep in the illegal dust trade, all of it setting up the characters we'll meet in the webseries: street crooks now stealing dust for Cinder. That's their specialty. Why not start that specialty here? 

Instead we get a bunch of hurried plot points that, of course, will have no bearing on the first eight volumes of the webseries. Which brings us to... 

Part Seven: Roman Holiday's Impact on RWBY

Quite obviously, this isn't a novel that exists in a vacuum. Roman Holiday, given that it is presented as an official Rooster Teeth product, is likewise meant to fit into the already established canon. This has been a challenge for Rooster Teeth in the past — important lore winding up in card games, mischaracterization in other novels, worry about how the upcoming game will re-tell events we've already seen — but has Roman Holiday perpetuated that trend?  

Well, yes and no. Which is never a particularly satisfying answer, but in this case there are both aspects that are working and aspects that aren't. Let's tackle the good first. 

Myers includes a lot of details throughout the story that help fill in RWBY's gaps. In this case, it's not information the viewer should have gotten in the webseries in order to have a complete understanding of the situation, but rather things that simply help connect the two works together, adding depth to what we already know. For example, there are those before mentioned times when characters suggest that Roman start stealing dust. “You aren’t the first person to suggest that. Maybe I should look into that...” (216). I do think it's a missed opportunity not to make a dust heist the climax of the story, but that doesn't erase the fact that this still functions as excellent setup for the webseries' premiere. We know RWBY opens on Roman robbing a dust shop. Now we have a better sense of how and why he got into that line of criminal work. 

We likewise get to see the origins of Neo's parasol, not just how she got it (Roman), but also what led her to wanting that kind of weapon in the first place (struggling with the heaviness of swords, getting attached to a parasol she stole, impulsively using it to attack her father, escaping the fire with it and realizing that the ability to float from high places is an asset). Something else I particularly like is that Myers was careful to explain how Neo became so adept at fighting. According to the webseries, there are only three paths you can take: go to combat school like Ruby, live on the streets like Roman, or live outside the Kingdoms like Blake. Neo, as a rich girl kept within high society, doesn't fit any of those models, so Myers introduces an Academy that seeks to train young women for any eventuality, even an attack. Neo learns how to smile, sew, cook, courtesy... while also taking classes in acrobatics, combat, ballet, and fencing. All the girls train with a combat instructor — “I know this isn’t a combat school, but by the time we’re done, you will be as skilled as any Huntress in Remnant” (201) — and, not only that, but she undergoes some pretty intense testing. Balance is taught by “balancing on a tightrope twenty feet in the air, with no net below you. Lady Beat believed in ‘though love’—without the love part” (146). It's a teaching method that makes Ozpin's cliff test seem a little less insane and it highlights one of those fantasy elements of RWBY. When your students possess aura that can save them from a twenty foot fall, it's slightly more reasonable to include that as a challenge. So when Neo starts following Roman around, it doesn't feel off that she can keep up with him. She's been trained, has practiced her semblance alone, and gets additional tutoring from Roman himself. Myers neatly dodges the question of how a non-Huntress and such a privileged girl — unlike Nora or Cinder — became to be as talented as Neo is. Privilege actually bought her that knowledge, which Neo then combines with Roman's street smarts, making her the formidable fighter we know and love.  

However, for every nice tether there is between Roman Holiday and RWBY there's a moment of worldbuilding that messes with our sense of the webseries. Or at least raises some pretty big concerns. 

Given that we just came off of Volume 8, it's no surprise that I read the novel with an eye for hints about how these future events — the destruction of Atlas, evacuees in Vacuo — might impact the rest of Remnant. What Myers gave us... doesn't look good for RWBYJNOR's decision, or the theme Rooster Teeth was going for in Volume 8. Meaning, the show took on a very black and white view by the end of the Atlas arc. Ironwood is an irredeemable bad guy, Atlas is full of racist trash and deserves to sink, the heroes made the best decision possible given the circumstances. Myers' novel introduces some nuance that, sadly, doesn't serve that black and white view well. He describes Mistral as, frankly, suffering the exact same problems as Atlas. “The city elevator didn’t come down this far, to keep more of a buffer between the haves and the have nots... people at the base of the mountain had no business topside” (10-11). Sounds like the sort of divide between Mantle and Atlas, huh? With the exception that one elite is stationed on top of a mountain instead of a floating city. It's a class issue Neo confirms as a kid when she sneaks out to the lower districts, thinking that, "she was never, ever allowed out alone. ‘For your own safety,’ they said” (25). Rich, racist elites who think themselves better than everyone else isn't an Atlas problem, it's a Remnant problem. RWBYJNOR solved nothing by leaving the place behind (and having one citizen hold hands with a faunus) and the fact that the story acts as if things are better now that Atlesians can’t have picnics on a floating city is... a problem. We already knew RWBY struggles with its racism and classism themes, but moments like this continue to add fuel to the wildfire. 

Similarly, the novel spends a not insignificant amount of time referencing Atlas as the technological capital of their world. We knew that already too, but hammering it home now, post-Volume 8, emphasizes the damage the group has done. No Atlas, no technology. Pretty much any technology, given how often it’s said to come directly from Atlas, or cloned from Atlas originals. 

Regarding the evacuation, Myers gives us a moment where Roman outright rejects Vacuo as a place to escape to: “Vacuo was a good place to hide, but the desert was probably one of the few fates worse than Lil’ Miss. And while there was a thriving criminal element, it wouldn’t be particularly welcoming to a newcomer. There was no future for Roman there” (88). So the desert is a fate worse than a crime boss and Vacuans are so unwelcoming one individual won't risk going there... and now our heroes have dumped an undetermined number of evacuees in that desert, heading towards a Kingdom that doesn't want them. Obviously Myers needs to come up with a reason for why Roman ends up in Vale where Neo is, but doing it this way just highlights so many of Volume 8's problems. Specifically, that the group made such a world-altering decision when it arguably was no longer necessary and, more importantly, did so without once considering the consequences that seem obvious to everyone else in Remnant. Vacuo is the last place anyone wants to escape to... so why was that the heroes' first choice? "Because the show hasn't gone there yet" isn't an answer. 

There are a couple smaller problems throughout — muddying the waters between semblances and magic again; emphasizing how many people unlock their semblances as kid and rely on their aura to get by, bringing up the question (again) of how Jaune was so ignorant — but I just want to cover two more issues here. 

The first is what I mentioned above about the one grimm the novel has. Suffice to say, the grimm ignores the three fighters in front of it (Roman and the twins) and runs off because... well...

“Grimm are drawn by emotion. You never controlled it. It killed your enemies because most people you drop in here are going to be afraid. They won’t be able to fight back. But as far as I can tell, these girls don’t feel anything. And I’m not afraid to die... Anger can be a more powerful emotion than fear” (54-5).”

Let's tally up the problems with this speech: 

The idea that Roman experiences no fear despite being cornered by a massive grimm, in a tiny room, in enemy territory 

The idea that an ability to fight back increases the chance of the grimm running off to pick other targets (if that were the case, the group would never finish any fights) 

Claiming that they're also left alone because the twins "don't feel anything" which is obviously ridiculous  

Reframing Roman's lack of fear into, specifically, not fearing death. Again, a grimm doesn't care whether you fear death or no

Saying that the anger of the boss all the way up in his office is a stronger draw than the three people currently attacking the grimm

It's just a lot of nonsense, bending one of RWBY's most basic rules to give Roman a cool-sounding speech. Cool provided you ignore what the speech is actually implying, that is. Why bother with this? Just let the grimm break down the door halfway through the fight, moving the fight into a new space with new people causes chaos, Roman either escapes then, or he kills the grimm first and escapes afterwards. Better, in my opinion, to give the story a single grimm kill than introduce a bunch of philosophical complications about how much these characters definitely don't feel fear and one man's anger is suddenly a grimm magnet. It's just a strange scene and, looking back, the only scene where I really went, "What?" As evidenced by this entire review, I have problems with certain aspects of the novel, but none actively made me question what in the world Myers was trying to accomplish. This moment is the exception. 

Finally, I'd like to briefly mention the ways in which Roman Holiday messes with our understanding of the huntsmen profession. Again, this is nothing new. From Blake and Yang shrugging off Adam's death, to Weiss asking if she can arrest her father, the true purpose of the job seems vague, especially when you toss in what they're legally allowed to get away with. At first, the novel seems to support the idea that huntsmen are responsible for defending the people from both grimm and criminals, especially in the cities where walls do most of the work of keeping grimm out. Roman worries that huntsmen will show up to put a stop to his robbery, there's a bounty for him “posted on all the Huntsmen job boards," and then, later, two huntsmen do show up to his bank heist and try to stop him — that coincidental timing (176). "It’s kind of refreshing to fight a bad guy instead of a Grimm for a change," says one, implying that their primary focus will always be grimm, but they're also not going to ignore criminal activity. I get that. I buy that. It fits with what else we've learned about the job from the webseries: students attend school specifically to learn how to fight grimm, but they're capable — and expected — to use those skills for the people's benefit, no matter what form that comes in. Hence, jobs like Jaune acting as a crossing guard. It works.

....Aaaand then Myers blows that understanding right out of the water. 

“[The huntsmen are] being fined for destruction of public property and reckless endangerment. This isn’t the first time they’ve been reprimanded for using excessive force and gross misconduct. The Vale Huntsmen Guild reportedly is considering suspending their licenses (118).” 

So wait, never mind, apparently huntsmen aren't supposed to stop bank robberies that they walk in on. Or at least, they're not supposed to stop them using "excessive force" and resulting in the "destruction of public property." Problem is, there's no way to battle another fighter of Roman's skill without doing property damage and, potentially, putting civilians in danger. The strength of Yang's punch blows small craters into the floor. Weiss uses dust that causes minor explosions. Ruby swings her scythe in such large arcs she could easily hit someone if she's not paying attention. Within the context of RWBY's powers, the huntsmen here didn't use "excessive force" because aura, semblances, dust, and insane weaponry are all staples of combat. So... what are they meant to do instead? Find out if Roman is just a normal dude and, if he's not, back out like, "Oh sorry. We can't fight someone our equal because that would require, you know, fighting. We'll wait for the police to capture you. They'll have a much better time without training, semblances, or any other combat resources, I'm sure..." 

This single excerpt sends us right back into the "Huh?" territory. What are a huntsmen's responsibilities then? What are they legally allowed to do? And why are these expectations so inconsistent across the franchise? I know the answer here is that the group was pardoned by Ironwood, but it still seems absurd that we watched them steal military property, attack an official, cause a major grimm attack, and actively hide from the authorities... and all that's presented as fine. But trying to stop the guy currently robbing a bank? Well, that’s a suspendable offense. And we know this was taken seriously because Roman runs into one of the huntsmen later, a Roch Szalt, and we learn that his license wasn't just suspended, he lost it entirely. These side characters are out of their livelihood for defending the people while RWBYJNOR gained licenses for endangering them. There's something fundamentally wrong with your world building when your protagonists primarily get by on such massive inconsistencies. 

Part Eight: The Last Section, I Swear

This is another aspect of the novel that I really hesitated over including, just because I do think there's a line between legit criticism and unkind nit-picking. In the end though, enough of a trend emerged that I thought I'd toss it out, especially since I've recently been pondering the question, "How does RWBY treat its women?" The answer should be obvious, right? This is a show about four girls fighting evil! Yet as the webseries continues, fans are noticing more and more divergences from that initial premise. Like creating a world where women are almost never in the primary positions of power. Like giving Jaune and Oscar the active, plot-forwarding scenes that should belong to Ruby and her team. Like that frat boy mentality I mentioned earlier on. The purpose here isn't to analyze that aspect of the webseries, I simply wanted to lay out where my thoughts were while reading Roman Holiday. 

The disclaimer? Neo is great. The strange intersection between her identity and her semblance aside, I think she's entertaining, well-rounded, and the fact that she is given not just half the book's chapters, but that focus mentioned in Part One, resulted in a well-developed character. However, outside of Neo the women are frustratingly built around the same thing: sex appeal. Honey Wine is the club singer whose semblance lowers customers' inhabitations, acting like a Remnant version of a siren. The twins — despite those pedophilia rumors about Roman proving unfounded — are the butt of girlfriend/"You're cute" jokes, drawing attention to their developing looks more than their combat skills, strategies, etc. Both Lady Beat and Carmel, Neo's mom, possess that older woman charm expected of high society ladies. They're dangerous because they can acquire information and they acquire that information by looking the part: pretty smiles, fine clothes, figures that catch the eye. Even Lil' Miss, an established character with a lot of power at her fingertips, isn't exempt from this. When Roman first meets her he observes that fashion is clearly a part of her strategic mind, “a plunging neckline and purple corset distracted Roman even more” (19). Distracted, meaning, that Lil' Miss deliberately makes herself look hot so all the straight guys will lose their heads. 

It's a bit more heavy-handed than just some over-used archetypes though, particularly when it comes to making Roman the guy that every girl wants — even when that's just him assuming they want him. Lil' Miss, again, suffers that treatment. “'Is she flirting?' he suddenly wondered. He hadn’t ever considered that she might like him, but if that was the case, he could use that to—” (57). In a similar situation played straight Chameleon, Roman's peer, is introduced with the statement that “She considered him a friend, and plainly wanted more than that" so Roman "continued to string her along” (45). It's that Ilia/Blake dynamic, just with added cruelty and a gender setup that carries completely different implications. Even the minor characters aren't safe from Roman's charms. Lisa Lavender — you know, Remnant's reporter? — receives flowers from Roman after she labels his robbery “one of the most brazen displays of lawlessness” she's ever seen (117). It's not presented as the villain being creepy though. When Roman contacts Lisa directly, we're given a verbal joke about her maybe interest. She loves... the ratings he brings in. Just the ratings. Of course. 

It's worth noting that Chameleon isn't just reduced to a silly crush whose love allows Roman to escape, she's also the character who "has" to be naked in order to make the most of her semblance. Despite writing in an Atlas cape that blends into various backgrounds, Myers still emphasizes the absolute necessity of this woman fighting naked: 

“She didn’t wear much clothing these days, both because it thwarted her natural camouflaging abilities, and because when she chose to show herself, it could be quite distracting... she stripped for added stealth—it wouldn’t be the first time” (81, 85). 

It's a writing choice that I personally despise. And make no mistake, it is a choice. In a world with magical abilities and futuristic tech, there's no reason to make the presumably young woman — we're never given an age, but Chameleon is written to be particularly naïve — getting naked in front of others, especially a man that is stringing her along. Clothes only "thwart" a magical ability when the author says it does. Why can't semblances make outfits camouflage too? Because then there wouldn't be an excuse for the hot women to strip. 

Particularly for more important characters like Lil' Miss or Lady Beat, these aspects are not the sum total of their characters... but there's enough there to be wince-worthy if you're already sick of such trends; already keeping an eye out for what RWBY writes in regards to gender. I think a good way to summarize Roman Holiday's idea of feminism is when Neo is staking out a coffee shop and Roman asks her to bring him a coffee when she comes back. She returns with an empty cup reading, "Get your own coffee." It's clearly meant to be this empowering moment — how dare the man ask for food like she's some servant! — except it's ruined by the context of the situation. Namely, that Neo is already at a coffee shop. And Roman isn't rude about asking for one. And they've already traded presents in the form of a crazy expensive parasol for her and a new hat for him. Asking your crime partner, who just happens to be a women, to pick up a coffee on her way home when it’s clearly not a hassle, is not the outdated insult Myers seems to think it is. And that's what a lot of these choices are: details that don't break the novel by any means, but come across as out of touch none-the-less. 

Part Nine: The End (Okay, This is the Final Section) 

The novel concludes with Roman and Neo flying off together, avoiding the authorities, nothing they have to do except "set the world on fire" (208). It's a rather bittersweet ending given Neo's certainty that no one will ever catch them because we know, eventually, Roman will die and Neo will be left alone. I quite like ending things on that optimistic note, both because it fits their current mindsets and because it adds that extra, emotional punch for the reader. Their story isn't done... but it will be soon. 

And thus ends my review as well! Review? Analysis? Little mix of both, I suppose. Hardly the most succinct thing I've ever written, but what did anyone expect. Final thoughts? I still liked the novel. Despite everything above — despite re-wading through eight major problems I had with the text, ranging from minor preferences to arguably massive mistakes — my overall takeaway remains, "I'm glad I read it." It's been a long time since I actively enjoyed a RWBY story; where my entertainment and appreciation of the writing outweighed the problems I had with it. I know I'm far from the only one currently dissatisfied with the canon, so if you're looking to re-ignite some of that old, RWBY spark? Give Roman Holiday a try. 

And, of course, thank you for reading! 💜

[vintage-writes]

Six Shots Later Tomura Shigaraki x Reader

Word Count: 1 728

Pairing: Tomura Shigaraki

Summary: The League of Villains decide to go bar hopping one night and Shigaraki boasts about his impressive tolerance. Impressive indeed, six shots later and he is literally barely able to function. It is now Y/N’s job to see him home safely.

Warnings: None, It’s all fluff. He’s literally an angel. 

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

The dingy hallway stretched forward in a rather bleak manner. The air feels musty. The lighting is terrible. Most bulbs have burnt out already while others flicker insistently. The paint is peeling off the walls and the distinct smell of urine wafted in the air. The apartment building is absolutely disgusting but funds were low and it is rather inconspicuous. The heroes most probably won’t have the stomachs to search the building or will assume the League of Villains would have more class. Whatever the case, this disgusting sack of bricks is the current residence of the most feared villains in Japan, and it’s ironically fitting. The upside to a building this disgusting is that there are barely any other tenants, and the few who remain in the building tend to mind their own business. Which is exactly what you need right now.

“Move Faster!” shouts Tomura Shigaraki, the head of the League of Villains.

“ ‘I don’t get drunk easily’, he says", You mutter under your breath. Yes, clearly Shiggy has the amazing tolerance he so desperately claims he has. Six shots later and he’s stumbling around the street yelling Christmas carols at random passers-by and claiming that they have no Christmas spirit. He then proceeded to wave using his father’s hand, which effectively created a lot of chaos. You are praying to God that no one who saw thought calling a hero was necessary.

Shiggy moves around trying to get more comfortable on your back. Of course, being the girlfriend, you now have to lug him back to his room while everyone else moves on to the next bar. You can now cross, giving a Villain a piggy-back ride, off your bucket list. Shiggy shifts again and yells out more words. You have no idea what he’s saying.

You finally see the door leading into your shared apartment, you adjust him on your back as he flops forward causing you to stumble into the door.

“Babe?” You ask.

No response. Maybe he knocked himself out. 

After fishing around for the key you’re able to get into the apartment, lock the door and enter your room. You shift Shigaraki onto the bed and he flops onto his back. You can’t help but give a quiet chuckle at his starfish shape. Cotton Candy hair framing his peaceful face. The bags under his eyes are still prominent and yet he appears to be comfortable. The air in the room is peaceful, a rare moment for the villain haunted by his nightmares. His chest rises and falls steadily and his eyelids flutter slightly. 

You leave quickly to fetch a wet towel and upon return you see that he is sitting up. He sways slightly on the bed. His clothes are ruffled and his hair sticks up slightly. His eyes are barely staying open as he rubs at them like a child. The soft expression on his face doesn’t quite surprise you, over the past few months he has slowly but surely opened up to you. His soft nature is often overlooked due to his criminal persona, but it’s always there. Tomura never yells at his comrades, always treats them nicely, and remembers small things about them. A memory pushes its way to the surface of your mind. Three weeks ago, Tomura ordered food for all of you while you were out on a job. It was only him at the warehouse and when you got back you were starving. You fully expected him to just order a few pizzas but what awaited you was a variety of your favourite dishes. Not a single person said it out loud, but you felt it. You all came to a silent agreement. This man is an Angel and you would remain loyal until the end.

If the world could see the Tomura that you see, they would understand. You see it, even now, how delicate he looks lying on the bed. You could blame it on the alcohol for stripping away most of his walls, but this person in front of you doesn’t want to harm anyone, he is vulnerable. You take a tentative step forward and lean down in front of him. Crimson eyes study you gently with vague recognition. You take your cloth and gently wipe across his eyes. 

His nose.

His cheeks. 

His Jaw. 

You pause and breathe in slowly. Strong alcohol permeates the air around him. His clothes also look uncomfortable. Although the material looks soft, it is rather thick. Possibly too warm for the night air. In the past few weeks, you have crossed a lot of boundaries ,respectfully, in this room and on this bed. Surely, he wouldn’t mind losing a few layers of clothing for a short while. 

You move to grab another shirt from the cupboard before settling in front of him again. You blush as it occurs to you that your are Kneeling directly in front of him.

No No No. He’s drunk, pull yourself together!!

You clear your throat. 

“Just Breathe”, you remind yourself. You reach for the corner of his shirt and tug gently.

“Tomura? Hey Baby, I need you to let me take off your shirt.”, You say as you tug again.

He throws his back and lets out a weird whine. You freeze and immediately let go. Crimson eyes stare at you again, however this time, it is not gentle. His expression has completely darkened. You lean away from him and watch as he holds up both hands.

“I..”, he says, but doesn’t finish his sentence. His mouth gaping open and closed like a fish.

You hum gently and watch carefully as his words fail him. He looks like a small child about to throw a tantrum. His face twists as his mouth struggles to form words. Weird huffing noises escape him. For a second, you wonder if he might actually lose his cool and yell at you. Perhaps, you overstepped?

“I Have a GIRLFRIEND!!”, He shouts suddenly. The word Girlfriend is drawn out slowly as if he were talking to a child. You freeze before your lips move on their own. A smile has officially wormed its way onto your lips. You swallow hard.

Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. Even though he is so cute right now. His lips have morphed into a pout. His childlike expression throws you off guard. Your breath catches and his eyes scrunch. How can someone with so many crimes be so adorable? How is he so beautiful? Red eyes glow in front of you, completely incandescent. This villain may kill you by looks alone. You look away feeling flushed.

“Baby, I am your girlfriend.”, You offer gently, “It’s me, Y/N”

“Princess?”

“I’m here”

His eyes light up slightly, his expression calm once again. Until his eyes narrow at you. He’s studying you, you can feel his gaze searing into your skin as he analyses every nook and cranny of your body. His eyes seem half satisfied before he blurts out.

“You’re also very pretty. My princess is so beautiful. She’s stunning. She’s my light. I like the light.”, he babbles. His voice is surprisingly smooth. Your heart leaps forward. He’s going to be the end of you. You suddenly feel the need to hold him. To hear his heartbeat and to feel his breath against your ear while he whispers gently, the sweet sayings that can comfort you in any tragedy. His warmth, that glows strongly in someone that the world has cast away. You reach forward to grab him again but he jerks away again.

He whines again. His hands ball into fists as he raises them. His eyes are wide open. His mouth tilted into a frown. 

“I don’t want you to die.”, he admits softly. 

“You’re not going to hurt me.”

You reach forward again, this time your aim is directed to his jacket but he evades again. He appears more desperate now. His hands are even higher, as they wave around.

“Baby, please trust me.”, you say gently as if talking to a wild animal ready to bolt. He tilts his head and looks at you again. His face blanks. Void of any emotions, his face tilts in the other direction. He huffs out a breath before allowing the faintest smile to grace his chapped lips.

“Ok Y/N, I trust you.” he relents and lowers his arms slightly. The initial wariness has not left him though. You reach again for his jacket and extract his gloves. You gently raise your hand and curl your fingers around his left wrist. You whisper some words of encouragement and slip his glove on. You then reach again for his right wrist and slip that glove onto his other hand. He wiggles his fingers within the gloves.

You burst out laughing at his innocent action. His fingers wobbling about as his face shapes into the brightest smile. It overtakes the room and any uneasiness fades away. He too lets out a low chuckle and throws his head back. It’s surprisingly soft. He leans forward unsteadily and looks you dead in the eye. His right hand lifts ever so gently before running a gloved finger over your head and tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. He smiles again, this time, it feels softer, more intimate. His eyes have drilled their way into your soul. The glow of fireflies entrap you into his world.

“Now I can’t hurt you.”, his voice flutters against your ear. His breath is hot. Heat spreads across your face and your tiny voice of reasoning begins to soften ever so slightly. He pulls back slightly and your eyes immediately lock onto his lips. Chapped ever so slightly but full and soft nonetheless. 

Shiggy’s head sways forward, forehead resting against your own. Powder blue hair curtains around us. His breath fans against your face, fluttering against your lips. Mouth only inches from my own. Your lips part. You’re ready. Heart Beating. Head pounding. Blood rushing.

“Goodnight Love”, he whispers, before turning away.

What?

He flops onto the bed. Head first and still shirtless. 

Are you kidding right now? He proceeds to bury his nose into the cushions and before you know it, he’s fast asleep. 

Did he just?

Sure whatever.

You climb onto your feet and hop onto the bed next to him. It’s fine, You’ll get him in the morning.

[revengeisourlullaby]

If I Never Knew You Pt.4

Pt.1   Pt.2   Pt.3   Pt.4   Pt.5   Pt.6

Warnings:18+, angst, secret relationhsip, kinda royal au, arranged marriage plot

a/n: Part 4 everybody! I will be posting part 5 this evening bc this one is kinda fillerish so I don’t wanna leave y’all hanging for too long. If you wanna be tagged let me know! I’m sorry it gets a little bit more angsty before its resolves, but I promise it will resolve. 

Word count: 1.7K

Loki x female!reader

Sun shone through the arches in Loki’s bedroom, the fresh Asgardian air whirling through the room. You rolled on your side to get a look at your lover to see if sleep had evaded him yet. His eyes were still closed, lids flickering back and forth causing a smile to form on your face because you were wondering what he could be dreaming about. 

You returned to your back staring at the ceiling imagining that this atmosphere of serenity would soon be all yours to have until the end of days. Closing your eyes you tried to relish in it for a little while longer, but your thoughts would soon be rapping at your fantasy. Eating away at you with shame, guilt, and unfortunately a heavy dose of fear.

You grabbed the top silk sheet and pulled it over your exposed body. Sliding to the edge of the bed, you hang your head in disappointment. Knowing that in a few hours you would have to fight not only for your freedom but for your love. It was a nightmare come to life but you had to remember that nothing worthwhile in life came easy and if that meant losing in one aspect or another you felt that you could muster the courage to go through with it. You turned your head to gaze at Loki still sleeping and with a snap of a finger, your worries seemed to pale.

He was your strength, your rock, your whole world. He taught you more than you could ever have hoped to learn and most importantly he taught you how to be annoyingly persistent to get the things that you wanted in life. Not to say that you gave up easily but he showed you how to weasel your way into ensuring you got what your heart desired. Life is full of losing but he showed you how to make the best of it.

“Perhaps we should get someone to make you a personal statue of me so you can stare at it as long as you want.”

Loki’s voice pulled you from your thoughts and you felt heat rise up in your face.

“My apologies, I was just lost in thought. Didn’t mean to be staring at you as you woke up.”

Loki chuckled, finding your fluster endearing in the situation. Sitting up in the bed he patted the space on the bed where you were laying through the night. You scooted back into the bed making your way to Loki where he wrapped his hands in yours and stared at you. 

A gentle seriousness cast upon his face.

“Understand that by mulling over the situation you dread to confront, you will make it harder in the process to assemble the resolution you seek. You mustn't fear what you fear, but rather take it head-on like a bull. And with the stubbornness you harbor, I know you have it in you.”

You snorted a little extra air out of your nose at his ending comment. Knowing he was always at the receiving end of your stubborn nature. At first somewhat annoying but became something he loved about you in a little time.

“I would run to the edge of time for you Loki. Even though it’s just my childhood home I’m going to have to run in and declare my objections, love, and fears to the people that brought me into this world. It feels like I’m running into a rabid lion’s den, but I would be lying if I didn’t say the preemptive catharsis I’m feeling is liberating.”

You squeezed his hand and looked up at him, his eyebrows furrowed and eyes soft. It looked as if he was about to cry.

“Not for nothing but I always figured I would be alone, especially in a romantic fashion. Then you came quite literally out of nowhere and I never grasped the thought that finding you in that garden a year ago would make that fear wither away. For that, I am eternally grateful to you.”

Your eyes and face softened from its initial confused form to that of warmth and admiration. You even failed to realize the tears beginning to prickle at your water line. Not of sadness but rather pure happiness. At this moment you knew that Loki was the soulmate you were meant to meet in this lifetime. The words he spoke struck a chord within you because you too felt the same way. 

That loneliness was just a card in your deck you were left to bear, but Loki let the hopeless romanticism within you survive the trials of life.

“Eternally yours, Loki. I am eternally yours. Through all either of our falls, we are each other’s stone. Let’s rewrite this acrid end and finally enjoy our story.” Loki’s hands wrapped around your face, looking into your eyes searching for any falsity in your being and he found none. 

You brought your hand up to his face and moved a strand of hair out of his face, allowing for him to be on full display to you. You opened your mouth to say words but they fell off, afraid that they would feel foreign on your tongue. You tried again and Loki’s mouth parted at the same time.

“I love you.” The words echoing from being said at the same time. The meaning ringing throughout each of your ears becoming fully aware that the truth was being shared between the two of you. Loki placed a tender kiss upon your lips and you relished in the sincerity of it. Pulling away you decided there was no better time than the present.

“I suppose I should be heading back home to face the one last hurdle for us.”

“Right. Let me fix your dress for you.”

Standing up from the bed you waltzed around the rail of the bed and found the shredded pieces of fabric that once was your dress.

“You sure you can magic this back together?”

You cocked your eyebrow unsure of the possibility of the repair of your dress. Opening his mouth, nothing but a squeak escaped from his throat realizing the predicament you two were in.

“I may have another idea. Just wait here for a moment.” Loki got himself dressed and left his quarters to head somewhere you knew not of. Before he left he turned his head behind the door to look at you.

“Help yourself to anything in the bathroom and get ready otherwise besides your clothing.”

You nodded your head and waved him off to wherever he was going. Walking to the bathroom you stared at your reflection in the large grandiose mirror that adorned one of the walls. You were glowing. Your eyes actually held something other than resentment and fear. You looked like yourself. 

Something you hadn’t seen in years. Smiling you finished getting yourself ready and when you were getting ready to turn on your heel you heard the door open. Stopping in your tracks you hid in the corner, but soon hearing Loki’s voice you released a sigh of relief. Stepping out of the bathroom Loki had a midnight blue dress draped over his arm.

“I figured my mother would’ve had something she could spare and she did and I feel that it will suit you just right.”

Tentatively you reached out to grab the dress from his hands

“And you’re sure she’s okay with this?”

“Yes darling, she’s the only one besides Thor that is aware of what’s going on. I can’t wait for her to meet you. Now, go ahead and try it on.”

Rolling the dress up in your hands you pulled it over your head and wiggled your arms into the sleeves. 

Letting the dress fall down to the floor after fitting it over your torso you were in awe. The color complementing your skin, the sleeves falling off your shoulders and the gold accents on the neckline was much more beautiful than what you were imagining.

“You look stunning. Well, you always do but especially today.”

“Thank you, Loki.”

You smiled and wrapped your arms around Loki’s neck.

“Wish me luck?” “Luck is for losers, I’ll wish you strength and perseverance.” “Good enough.”

Standing on your toes lightly you brought yourself to his lips and shared what you were to find out to be the last tranquil and harmonious kiss. You pulled away and smiled at him. Bending over you grabbed your satchel and shoes that you threw into the room earlier yesterday. Walking to the door, Loki sped up behind you to open it.

“What are you doing?”

“What kind of man would I be if I let my lady not only walk alone but to open her own doors?”

“Chivalry isn’t dead!”

You smiled at him knowing your sarcasm was endearing. Walking you out to the front of the palace where you came in yesterday you turned to look at him and little worry apparent in your features. You reached for his hand squeezing it in your own in search of some type of reassurance. Loki reached for your other hand and turned you to face him fully.

“Whatever happens Y/N, I’ll always be with you. Forever.”

Placing your hand upon his cheek, you thumbed his soft skin and placed a strand of hair behind his ear. Sighing you found your fire once again and you looked at him. Silently letting him know that you were ready.

“I’ll see you, hopefully, this evening Loki...and hopefully with good news.” 

Removing your hands from each other you walked down the steps and your feet crunched the earth beneath your shoes. Getting one last look, you waved at Loki and you began the walk back to your home. Preparing for the worst but foolishly wishing for the best.

[secret-ssociety]

Behind the scenes

Pairing(s): Aaron Tveit x Reader, Les Mis (2012) cast x Reader

Warnings: This is just fluff. Like one curse

Summary: It is never intended for Enjolras and Eponine to fall in love in the original story, but a lot of things can happen when the cameras are turned off

A/N: I know everyone is waiting for more of the Let Me Down series but I have wanted to do this for a long time bc I am utterly in love with this man and I've always said I don't want to just write Peter Parker's stuff. Might make this several parts, who knows, I like things with parts.

masterlist

requests are open!!

For the first time in the whole day, silence fell upon the set of Les Mis, being only vaguely interrupted by the quiet chatter of everyone else who, unlike you, still had energy to talk. It's not like it was your fault, though, you had no idea of how much running around implied to play Eponine.

Huddled in a quiet corner of what had been built to be the Café Musain, you pushed your knees against your chest and hid your face between them, hoping to catch some rest before Tom decided he wanted to do a scene again. Was it maybe two in the morning? Three? You didn't even know anymore, you weren't allowed to carry a watch around your wrist and your phone was charging in your trailer, but the last time you had checked it was midnight and that had been a few hours ago.

Doing a movie, you had come to learn in your first few days of filming, was quite different from putting up a show. Interacting with your surroundings, going over scenes and even directing your eyes to a certain place while saying your lines was a world away from your common place on stage. You'd had to repress a loud squeak on your first day on set when you saw just how real everything looked, and when you started to try on your garments... you might as well have been a street urchin on Paris, 1832.

A small finger touched your shoulder timidly, waking you up from your fragile sleep and making you lift your head from its place. Your eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the light and you even had to squint a little to recognize Daniel standing next to you, looking just as tired, but with a small flame of caffeine dancing in the back of his eyes. Who the fuck gave the kid coffee? You wondered.

"How long do you think they'll keep us here?" he asked sitting next to you. From all your cast mates, Daniel was probably the first one you had grown fond of, but then again, so had everyone.

"Maybe not much longer, unless they want us to be here at noon tomorrow," you answered raising an eyebrow. Being the youngest person on the whole set, you could tell he was trying to hold his own like the adults, drinking coffee and doing his best to stay awake.

The problem with that, you knew, was that caffeine reacted differently on kids and adults: when an adult drinks coffee, it gives them energy for a long period of time, the caffeine is distributed in order to serve the body for good while. When a child drinks coffee, on the other hand, the caffeine gives them a rush of adrenaline that gets them jumping up and down and running circles around the adults, very much like Daniel was doing a while ago, thus burning all the energy they had acquired as fast as they had engorged it.

"You want to rest for a minute?" you asked him, stretching your legs so that he could rest his head on them. He shook his head tiredly, but didn't put up a fight when you grabbed his shoulder and started to lay him down.

Softly, you caressed his hair, while carefully trying to undo the tangles the dirt had made onto his hair to give him that street gamine I-live-in-the-elephant-of-the-Bastille look. In a matter of seconds, he was fully asleep, snoring quietly against the fabric of your skirt.

You heard some of the boys approaching, laughing loudly with cups of steaming coffee on their hands, and were quick to lift your finger up to your lips, to let them know of the resting boy that would be quickly awaken by their laughs. They apologized in whispers, handed you the cup they had brought for you and sat around you.

"Helena is trying to convince them to let us go to the hotel," Alistair commented, although he didn't look tired at all, more like he was amused by everyone else's exhaustion.

You sighed in relief against the cup, which was held close to your lips, making the steam hit your face in a warmth that made you aware of how cold your nose was. Only one gulp of the bitter liquid was enough to warm the blood flowing through your veins and take you back to life, you could open your eyes properly and the first the landed on was one of the most distinctive of your cast mates: Aaron Tveit.

Was there something special about him that made you think of his full name instead of just the first? Yeah, everything. He was the embodiment of the Enjolras Victor Hugo had wrote, the one that had been nicknamed Apollo by his friends. Maybe it was the way he held himself, somehow taller than everyone else, with that revolutionary fire in his eyes and walking around the set like he was actually going to get the people to build a barricade.

Wherever he happened to exist, you couldn't help but feel the presence of an olden god amongst mortals, the time go slower and light to travel in a bliss. There was just something so ethereal about him...

"He's talent, isn't he?" Alistair commented, having followed the direction of your eyes. "Among other things," Eddie joked, perhaps having caught on on the repressed smitten nature of your gaze. Stubbornly, you rolled your eyes.

As if saved by the bell, your director announced that everyone was allowed to go and get some rest, under the condition that you had to be back the next day before lunch. You were so tired, you almost forgot you were on your costume, being remembered by Eddie when you walked straight to the exit.

Up until that day, you had followed you stylist's skincare routine religiously every day after finishing filming, but once you found yourself in your sweatpants and Alistair's sweater, you simply poured water in your face and wiped all the makeup away with a paper towel.

Outside of your trailer, you found at least half of the Amis waiting for you to go grab some pizza while forming a wall to shield a newly caffeinated Daniel from your accusatory eyes. "I just left my cup unattended for a second!" George said quickly. You didn't know if you should laugh or yell at them, but you decided you were too tired to do either, so you simply took his hands and walk with the boys to the minivans the studio had hired for your transportation.

Eating pizza after having barely washed the makeup off of your face and only having a few hours to sleep after? You knew you were going to break out, but that was a tomorrow's problem.

Perhaps it was the magic that gravitated around Aaron that made you look back to see him, walking several feet behind the lot of you and clearly immersed on his thoughts. What you did next wasn't exactly a conscious decision, but it felt as natural as if it were.

"Hey, Tveit," you smiled, stopping before him. He looked surprised for a second, since he hadn't heard you approach him, but then smiled softly at you.

"Hello, Y/L/N," he said back, looking at you with those piercing eyes of him.

"We're going to grab a bite, wanna come?" You asked with a bright smile, one so cute that made it hard for him to say no.

"I don't know, it's late..." he said with half a smile.

"Did you know that pizza wasn't invented until the late half of the 18th century," you said, persistently, making him raise an eyebrow at the random fact, "that means all of our characters died without having ever eaten pizza. Shouldn't we, in order to honor them, do the things they never got to do?"

Aaron tried as hard as he could to fight back a smile at your argument. He had heard from the other guys about your occurrences and funny yet charming way with words, but he still hadn't had a chance to delight himself with it all too much. Maybe you were both too busy, maybe he wasn't as good as he liked to think to break the ice and Alistair had beat him to it.

He was practically convinced already, but still you added, "come on, Enjolras is still going to be here tomorrow morning... er, today a little less morning." You corrected checking the time on your wrist watch.

He was tired and not really hungry, but sill he nodded and followed you to the exit, where the rest of your friends cheered upon his joining.

Thankfully, the place Fra Fee knew was not too far away from the hotel, because none of you would have managed to walk too much after the day you'd had. Pulling a couple of tables together with the help of a waitress who pretended not to be a little starstruck, all of you sat down and ordered. You personally tried to ignore the way Eddie gave you his sit so that you would end up sat next to Aaron.

After ordering three large pizzas and some lemonade, and having grudgingly remembered that you couldn't order a beer or anything of the sort, you resumed your chattery. You soon found that, while you weren't the only theatre actress on the room, you were the only one who had never been on a film before. Still, that didn't mean your previous work had gone unnoticed.

"I was really excited to meet Y/N," Eddie commented on Daniel's side, "because I went to see her in The Phantom of The Opera, in London and I was" he made the gesture of his head blowing up, making you laugh.

"Yes, I knew I had seen you somewhere! You're Christine Daaé!" George exclaimed, interrupting the bite he was about to give to his pizza.

"Didn't you say on the first table reading that your dream role is Esmeralda, from the Hunchback?" Aaron perked up, making you blush a little.

"Esmeralda, Christine and Eponine," Alistair numbered, only giving you time to nod, "are you planning on becoming the Holy Trinity of French Theater?"

"I'll be able to say the Holy Trinity of French Theater died in my arms!"

You almost spilled your lemonade at the exclamation, unable to contain your laughs, very much like everyone else on the table. You didn't mean for your face to be as red as it was in that moment, but you couldn't help it when everyone seemed to be so interested in your past work. Despite attention being your line of work, you didn't know how to handle it that good.

It was when Daniel's adrenaline burnt off, as you had predicted, and he was found too tiresd to even keep his head up that you came back to the hotel, with the quiet company of Aaron, who had also offered to take the young boy back to his room. You were both in silence, though it was not an awkward one, it just wasn't necessary to talk to enjoy the other's company.

"We're getting a cow," he said suddenly, when you were approaching the entrance of the hotel.

"What?" You asked with a confused smile.

"We're getting a cow, on the set, tomorrow," he clarified grinning, "she will be there for the scenes of the barricade."

"Why would a cow be on a barricade?" You questioned with a laugh, opening the door for Aaron, since he was carrying Daniel, and receiving a little thank you in return. "Not that I'm complaining."

He laughed in return and followed you to the elevator, making sure neither the young boy nor the jacket he had put over him fell from his embrace. The cow thing had just been to start conversation and be able to ask what he really wanted to know, although he was a little pumped up about the cow.

"Do you want to do what Alistair said?" He asked curiously, "About being the Holy Trinity of French Theater, it is."

"I had never thought about it that way, but it sounds quite nice," you answer thoughtfully. "Though, I believe I would have to play Eponine on a stage, rather than a set to really earn that title."

"You're not liking movie making so far?" He asked somewhat amused, specially when you whipped your head to look at him with wide eyes.

"No! That's not what I mean," you talked so fast you nearly stumbled through your words, but the kindness on his eyes made you sigh and calm down. "This has been amazing so far and I would never underestimate the huge effort it takes to make one of these. I mean, I've only been doing this for a couple days and I'm already beyond exhaustion. And yet it has been wonderful, the set and the preparation and just seeing all the work it implies is... unbelievable."

You knocked three time on the door, to see Daniel's mother not two seconds later. Aaron had been worried that maybe she would be concerned and even a little mad at how late her son was coming back, but you had been texting her throughout the extra hours of shooting and to let her know you were going to take him to eat something before coming back to the hotel.

She kindly thanked you both, took Daniel (who was still sound sleep) on her arms and gave Aaron his jacket back, to then close the door. Without saying much, he walked you to your own room, prompting you to continue.

"Where was I? Oh, yeah! So filming a movie is... I'm running out of adjectives, but it's really great," he chuckled slightly, "but I don't think it can top the feeling of being on the theater," you sighed dreamily.

"On stage, there is no take two, the things you're doing can only be done once. There's..." your tongue ran through your lips, an action Aaron found almost mesmerizing, as you tried to find the words to describe the thing you loved the most in the world. "There's this feeling, when the show is about to start, the lights dim, the overture starts and you get goosebumps and you heart starts thumping at the moment you come on stage, there's something about that moment being unrepeatable and having the eyes of the crowd on you, the adrenaline is just... is like the identity line that divides the actor from their character disappears and in that moment you're not quite them, but you're not you, you're just..." you let out a breath at the inability to find the word and, for a moment, you worried you might have bored him with your rambling, but he had that bliss over his face, the one only a theatre actor knows and has, that told you he knew exactly what you're talking about.

The next morning, back on set and with your costumes again covering your backs, Aaron found himself so hypnotized by the sight of you rehearsing with Amanda his tea got cold and was utterly scared when Eddie's palm fell onto his back, dragging him out of his day dream.

"Is this the part when the Phantom is stalking Christine?" George asked jokingly, making Aaron roll his eyes.

For someone who made so much fun of him for becoming Enjolras, he had certainly developed Grantaire's mocking nature.

"She's really talented," the blonde man answered nonchalantly, drinking from his tea and making a face when he found out the drink was cold.

"I see," Eddie said handing him his tea, "are you seeing our dear Y/N under a new light?"

Was he? It would be a lie to say he didn't come back to his room with you occupying every single one of his thoughts, his heart fluttering who had managed to put his passion for theatre in words. Had his hands always became a little shaky around you? Yes. But today it was even worse.

Today, your voice giving life to Eponine's thoughts and emotions could make his cheeks blush or bring tears to his eyes in a matter of a second. Today, you walked around with a strange light over you, one that didn't allow him to look away while, at the same time, reprehended him for staring. Today, you were more than an artist, an actress. You were something more than human.

"Nonsense," he replied stubbornly, "I have always known how talented she is."

Before he could get a sarcastic comment or a snide yet friendly remark, the three men's chatter was interrupted by the two previously mentioned ladies rehearsing The Robbery, one of the scenes you planned on filming that day.

"It's the police! Disappear! Run for it!" Your strong soprano voice cut all chattery in one swift motion. "It's Javert!"

He probably held his breath for as long as you held the note. Once you opened your eyes, you seemed a little embarrassed at all the eyes on you, but Aaron didn't understand just what did you have to be embarrassed about.

Eddie shook his shoulder, "breathe, mate!"

[kakashi-tsukuyomi]

In Your Warmth

A/N: Okay, I made a quick, short fic on this scenario I was imagining a while ago. I couldn’t get it off my mind so I knew I had to write it down. Hope you all like it! (Also a warning: it’s actually very self-indulgent, and I might have inserted myself a bit LOL). This wasn’t beta-read, sorry! Please be nice T_T

Kakashi x FemReader, Canon Universe (After the war, maybe?)

Warnings: none

Fluff, fluff and more fluff, First Kiss, Kissing

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The sun bathed the sky with a warm, brilliant orange tint, and it turned everything it touched inhabiting beneath the heavens with the same hue. It made everything look beautiful, and because of it, it had made the village you had always loved and known more endeared to you. The sun’s warmth made it look like a setting from a movie -- the place being more warm, inviting and cozy than it already was. It casted a warm glow on both of your clothes and skins, causing you both to fit in the movie scene, and if only you weren’t aware that this was reality, you would have thought it actually was.

As you walked side by side, your hand accidentally -- although much to your delight -- brushed against his. The growing warmth in your face doubled the heat you felt caused by the sun. You thought if this had affected him, too. You couldn’t really tell from the cloth covering half of his face, but as you stole a glance, the soft, contented look on his eyes told you it did.

You didn’t know how it started, but you just felt it grow, anyway. The harmless admiration that had turned into unrequited infatuation for quite some time eventually turned into mutual respect. It slowly progressed into fondness and sympathy, which lately blossomed into understanding and affection. It had grown deep. You couldn’t describe it, but you just knew. You knew he did; you both did. It was never spoken between the two of you, but you knew it was there. At times you might have doubted if it was reciprocated, but when he invited you for a walk that late afternoon with just the two of you alone, quickly the doubts had wholly dissipated.

It was a nice day, and he wanted to watch the sunset. Maybe you wanted to take a walk with him, he had asked. He just came home from a mission earlier that afternoon, and even though you initially protested that he rest at home, he smiled and assured you he wanted to unwind with you instead. As you both passed by Izumo and Kotetsu sitting behind the guard post, they acknowledged you both, waving cheerily and giving Kakashi mischievous looks and a playful salute. You couldn’t suppress your giggle as you notice a blush forming on his exposed skin.

He led you to the edge of a forest just outside the village. You noticed there were a few benches installed along the way, but there weren’t anyone else in the place besides you two. It was an unpopular place, he said, and only a few people ever stayed much there. But the view in the late afternoon was beautiful, and he had always spent most of his afternoons here. You wondered that in the long time that you had known each other, he had never shown you this place before.

You both stopped by the bench, and with a smile, he motioned for you to sit down. You took your seat, and he sat beside you, a bit too near for comfort yet still providing a considerable distance between you two. From the corner of your eye, you saw his hand rest on top of the backrest, and you could feel the fabric of his sleeves barely touching the skin on your neck. You weren’t sure if it was an invitation, but you felt the atmosphere change. You didn’t know if it was just the warmth that the setting sun emanated, but everything felt so cozy, and you scooted over next to him, resting your back against his side and your head on his shoulder. You felt his body suddenly turn rigid, but you continued to gaze at the view before you, settling comfortably against his body. Eventually, you turned your head to look at him, and you saw him staring at you as if he didn’t know what to do. You gave him a tender smile, and you felt his body relax, his eyes returning your tender gaze and his arm behind you finally curling around your shoulders.

The sun was now setting lower, and the view before you was sublime. There was now a red tint added to the orange hue of the sky, and the sun blazed majestically on the horizon. You marveled at the scene’s beauty, and you couldn’t help but let out a soft sigh of content.

“It’s beautiful,” you breathed, enamored by the view before you.

“Yeah. It is…” you heard him softly say, and if only you weren’t too engrossed with the scenery, you would have caught him looking at you instead of at the sky.

Pleasant thoughts were suddenly cut short as you felt fabric barely touching your cheek. You froze, and through the fabric, a warm breath caressed your skin. Both of you didn’t move. Time passed for what seemed like an eternity, until finally, you felt the fabric touch your cheek, accompanied by what felt like warm lips hiding behind it.

It lingered for a while on your skin until you felt it pull away from you. You moved your head slowly and turned to look at him, moving to settle more comfortably on his shoulder. There was now only a small distance between your faces, and for a long moment, you were both staring at each other’s eyes rather intensely.

After a while, his eyes searched your face, looking for signs of hesitation. You wished he would just return his gaze at you, and when he did, you held his gaze piercingly, making sure to communicate your feelings of longing and affection. He took this as a sign of affirmation, and as he leaned in closer, he slowly pulled down his mask. You heard yourself softly gasp at the sight, but he didn’t give you more time to take in the view as you felt his warm lips pressed against yours.

He moved his lips delicately… softly, as if he was afraid to break you. His kiss was tender yet firm, with a gentle authority as if to say that you were his, and he was yours. His palm rested in between your jaw and cheek, and he cradled it ever so gently. You reciprocated the kiss just as tenderly and sweetly, and you found your hand trailing towards the back of his neck, softly grabbing the hair just above his nape. He let out a soft, content sigh against your mouth, and you felt his hand tenderly hold your waist, and with your other hand, you did the same to his.

You broke away from the kiss and smiled against his lips. So you were right, he did return the feelings, after all. You knew there was a mutual understanding even before, but you couldn’t help but feel elated at this culmination of your mutual pining. It always felt like he was so hesitant before, and you knew that he wanted you as much as you wanted him. But you never really pushed him nor pressured him into acting. With everything that had happened in his life, you knew he deserved to have time and space to think about everything. And you waited for him patiently, and with that unwavering patience, you were rewarded so greatly.

“Why did I wait this long?” he murmured against your lips, and he moved them again, placing another sweet kiss on your upper lip, slowly moving downwards towards your lower lip. You couldn’t help but giggle, and you pulled away just slightly, staring tenderly at him. You took in the sight of his face -- his perfect nose, his thin yet soft lips, the scar that ran down to his cheek, and the adorable mole on his chin. You cupped his cheek with your hand, your thumb grazing his skin. You had always thought he was good-looking even with the mask, but you never imagined he could be this handsome. You continued to stare at his face, and as he watched you, his lips curved into an amused smile.

The sun had nearly set fully in the horizon. Indeed, he was stupid to have let it drag on, you mused to yourself. And yet you knew that you were more foolish. Deep inside, no matter how long it would take him to confess, you knew you would still wait for him. And if he had asked you again to wait a little bit more, you knew you would. Perhaps, it was a fault; you had always loved him. There was really no one else but him.