#still not caught up to this point so there are probably gonna be inconsistencies

[mjrtaurus]

I think there's a possibility that Whitebeard and Buckingham Stussy could have been in a relationship, or at least were close enough that he could tolerate her riding around on his shoulder. But the dealbreaker came from Whitebeard not giving her a biological child; either because he didn't have any desire to procreate, he might have been infertile, because he knew the world was already full of orphans who needed a home, or some combination of all of those.

It's why Marco was so certain that Weevil wasn't Whitebeard's biological son. At least, not in the traditional sense *cough clone cough*

Buckingham Stussy, from what I can gather, wanted a trophy son from Whitebeard that she could ride the coattails of into greatness. He knew she wanted children for her own roundabout gain, and not for the joy of having a family.

Fortunately, in a morbid way, the same sickness that eventually contributed to his death had rendered him unable to have biological children, made turning her down a little more easy. Not entirely quick and painless, no, but far more easy than it would have been.

When she saw Whitebeard claim a little stick-thin wraith of a boy as his own after Rocks was killed, she was well beyond fuming. What right did that little bilge rat have in taking on the Newgate name? None!

She had heard about some scientists doing wild cockamamy experiments in cloning technology, and she just so happened to have a strand of that long golden hair she had wanted to run her fingers through… she would have her trophy child yet!

And when she did, they would be coming for that violet eyed brat. Except the violet eyed brat was long gone by the time Weevil was “born”. Ah well. Good riddance. Now just have to clean up the rest of these fake sons and daughters of his and get that inheritance back into the hands it belongs in…

[eldritch-nightmare]

celebrating the holidays.

a/n: hi here's my short replacement for the eyeless jack fic. that one is still gonna get posted!! just may take a while bc it's getting longer than i intended it to be lol. anyways i tried to keep the holiday relatively vague but since i personally celebrate christmas, i may slip up a bit. couldn't decide who to write for so i just spun a wheel six times and went with the ones selected.

includes: the bloody painter, nurse ann, jane the killer (arkensaw), eyeless jack, kate the chaser, and homicidal liu.

warnings: not proofread, very brief mention of helen's childhood, literally just fluff, also inconsistent length but that's to be expected atp, reader consumes meat in jack's section so sorry if u don't, nsfw elements in jack's part my hand slipped guys, blood, lotta kissing.

THE BLOODY PAINTER

He never cared much for the holidays, even when he was a child. Honestly, it was the one time of year that he dreaded the most.

He's an artist, so you know what that means. Every year, without fail, he would always get some art-related gifts. Not that he was complaining about that or anything, it was really, and still is, the only thing he had much interest in.

He just... found it to be draining. Apparently, at least according to his parents, he was supposed to find the holidays to be a fun, exciting time of year. And he was supposed to be oh so thankful for getting yet another sketchbook or paints from his relatives or whatever.

That was just too much work, honestly. So he grew to dread the holidays, even long after he became the killer he is today.

He's... not quite sure how he feels about the wrapped gift you're holding out in front of him. A part of him wants to reject it, and he almost does, but the barely contained excitement in your expression made him hesitate.

Your excitement only seemed to grow when he took the wrapped gift from you. While he didn't necessarily want or need a gift, he couldn't help but indulge you, especially since you seemed genuinely excited over whatever gift you had gotten him.

Honestly, he wasn't sure what he was expecting when he unwrapped the gift. Something art-related, no doubt. And it was art-related, just not in the way he was expecting.

It was something similar to a scrapbook, but it was really... neat. And more so a collection of art rather than an actual scrapbook. The thing that caught his attention the most was that it was just any old collection of art.

It was his art. You... you took or had his art professionally photographed and you put it in this book. It wasn't every single piece of art he's ever made, but it included a lot from different points of his life. It even included pieces from before he had met you.

He does not cry, no. But you do catch the tiniest smile forming as he flipped through the pages. It's... the nicest gift he's ever gotten before.

Helen's not sure how he'll repay you for getting something like this, so for now you'll just have to accept the tighter-than-usual hug and soft kiss.

NURSE ANN

Ann isn't too sure if she's ever celebrated any holidays before. She has no memories of her life before her... death? Is she dead? Well, she certainly doesn't feel alive.

She's rather indifferent towards the holidays, and honestly she probably won't even realize it's that time of year unless you or someone else point it out to her.

If you want to celebrate with her then she certainly won't stop you, just don't expect her to be the life of the party or anything like that.

You will have to guide her through how to celebrate because she simply will not know. But once she gets a hang of how things work it'll be something she retains for the future.

Ann stares blankly at the... tastefully atrocious sweater you were sporting. There were so many colors and the design clashed in a borderline unbearable way but you somehow made it look good.

Her gaze then drops down to the matching sweater you were holding out for her, an expectant look in your gaze. She thinks she understands, though she still glances up at you in confusion.

You explain that while it's not necessary to do in order to celebrate the holidays, you thought it would be fun to wear matching outfits with her. It's something couples do sometimes, apparently.

After your quick explanation, she silently takes the sweater from your hands and puts it on over what she was already wearing.

It certainly looks odd on her, no doubt, but the fabric is actually pretty soft, and the bright smile that lights up on your face makes it hard for her to care about whether or not the sweater looks good on her.

JANE THE KILLER

Jane hasn't celebrated the holidays since all the shit that's happened to her. She's been so focused on hunting Jeff down that it never even crosses her mind. Hell, she hasn't even celebrated her own birthday in years.

But then you come along and you insist on doing something for the holidays. Not because you necessarily enjoyed the holidays, but mostly because you just wanted her to take a break for once.

It'll take a lot of convincing. You'll have to get her to promise you months in advance, if we're being honest.

And if she didn't have such a soft spot for you, she probably wouldn't even humor the idea you had to celebrate. But alas, she loves you, and she finds it hard to say no to you more than she would like to admit.

She huffs in mild annoyance, sticking close to you as you guide her down the streets. She wouldn't normally be in such a crowded place but everyone was so caught up in their own plans for the holidays that no one spared her a single glance.

You wanted to go ice skating. It's not typically a traditional way to celebrate the holidays, at least not for her, but it seemed as if it would be fun. And it would give her an excuse to be close to you, so.

When you guys finally reach the ice skating rink, you're bouncing in excitement and eagerly pulling Jane along to go and put some blades on. She lets you, because your hand is oh so warm in hers and the way the lights shine in your eyes makes her feel... peaceful.

Now, there's no denying that she has never gone ice skating before. Hell, she's never been roller skating. So the moment you two were out on the ice, she was clinging to you to keep herself from falling.

It was embarrassing, and she almost wanted to storm off out of frustration but you never laughed at her. You would help her catch her balance whenever she slipped. You only laughed when you slipped.

You were even fine with sticking to one side of the rink, always keeping Jane behind you whenever another person would skate too close.

And when the two of you decided you had enough, she couldn't help but pull you close right as you go to step out of the rink, planting a deep kiss on your lips and leaving you dazed as she goes to take her blades off.

EYELESS JACK

Similarly to Ann, Jack can't remember if he's ever celebrated the holidays before. However, unlike Ann, he does have a vague idea on how people celebrate the holidays. He's not isolated like her.

He's definitely indifferent towards the holidays. He doesn't care much for them, but he's probably willing to celebrate if you really want him to.

Gift giving is not his specialty, dear lord. You will have to sit him down and tell him bluntly what you want so he can find some odd most certainly illegal way of obtaining it.

Jack is, however, an amazing cook and there is nothing that could change my mind on this, so he will definitely be willing to help you make any holiday meal you may want to try out.

Jack is silent as he watches you cook some meat for the meal the two of you had been spending the past few hours or so making. You had family coming over, and you needed dinner to be done before they arrived, so you had enlisted the help of your demonic, cannibalistic boyfriend.

His nose scrunched up in slight disgust at both the sight and smell of the cooking meat, and he grumbled silently under his breath about what a waste it was to cook it.

His mild disgust only seemed to grow more evident when you cut a piece of the meat off and pop it in your mouth to taste test it. He just couldn't understand how you could eat such a thing. Then again, he can't really judge considering he only consumes raw meat. Typically coming from a human.

You hum in delight at the taste, and perhaps it's an instinctual thing humans do, or maybe it's something else, but you cut off another piece and hold it out for him to eat. He just stares, and it takes a moment for you to realize what you had done, letting out a small, embarrassed laugh.

Before you could eat the piece of meat yourself, he was grabbing your wrist and bringing it back to his mouth, eating the cooked meat and biting your finger in the process. You hissed at the feeling of his sharp teeth pricking your skin, but you don't pull your hand away from him.

The meat was disgusting, no offense. You're an amazing cook so it isn't your fault, he just literally cannot consume cooked meat (or really anything that isn't raw/human) and he's going to feel absolutely awful tomorrow but that's for future Jack to worry about.

Present Jack thinks he deserves a reward for putting up with both the smell and taste of cooked meat, and he licks at your bleeding finger like your blood is the best thing he's ever tasted. To him, it was. It certainly helped to erase the taste of cooked meat.

Once he was satisfied, he was pulling you closer to him and kissing you deeply. He bit at your bottom lip until it was bleeding as well, and he couldn't help but groan as your blood invaded his mouth once more, relishing in both the taste and the little gasp that came from you.

He wanted more. Needed, if we're being honest. He found himself craving for you as his hands fell to the hem of your sweatpants, gently tugging at them. A clear sign of his intentions.

You grabbed his wrists before he could continue, breaking the kiss off and smiling slightly when he chased after you. The two of you were breathing heavily, the air in the kitchen feeling a lot thicker now.

Later, you promised. You still had a meal to finish cooking, and your family would be coming by in just a few hours. You sealed the promise with a quick, chaste kiss before taking the meat off the stove and setting it aside to focus on the next part of the meal.

And he helped you. He was patient, and he knew you could keep your promise.

KATE THE CHASER

Considering her sensitivity to light, it's not exactly easy for her to celebrate the holidays since bright lights seem to be a staple in them.

She's not really much of a holiday person anyway, so it's not something that bums her out.

She's probably the only one on this list that's least likely to indulge in celebrating, and will more than likely turn you down if you bring up the offer.

But she does feel a certain fondness in her heart when she sees you getting excited over something in relation to the holidays. While she doesn't enjoy that time of year, she's glad that you do.

Kate keeps her eyes covered as you carefully guide her through the forest. You had a surprise for her, apparently. Something to celebrate the holidays without actually celebrating.

She wasn't immediately thrilled, but you had promised that there would be absolutely no bright lights involved and that she didn't even have to consider it something for the holidays. That was enough to make her willing to indulge you just this once.

Even with her eyes closed, she could practically feel the excitement radiating off of you as you brought her closer to wherever it was you wanted to take her.

You told her to open her eyes shortly after, and she found the two of you standing in front of one of the many abandoned cabins within the forest. She didn't even hesitate to enter the cabin when you motioned for her to. Kate trusted you.

The sight she saw when she stepped inside was... it was breathtaking, honestly.

The walls and the ceiling were covered in glow-in-the-dark snowflakes and stars, illuminating the cabin in a faint green hue. It wasn't a grand gesture or anything of the sort. It was... it was nice.

The glow of the stars and snowflakes was bright enough to illuminate the cabin but dull and dark enough that she didn't have to shy away from it.

That wasn't the only thing you had planned either. She's not sure how much time and effort you put into doing all of this, but you had set up a little space in the cabin. There was even a small projector set up, as well as some food that you knew she enjoyed.

It's definitely the most romantic thing she's ever experienced. And if this is how you want to celebrate the holidays with her, then she definitely won't mind doing this sort of thing again next year.

HOMICIDAL LIU

Similarly to Jane, Liu hasn't really celebrated the holidays since everything that happened. He knows when that time of year comes around, and it makes him feel nostalgic, but he always found it hard to celebrate alone.

He's the one on this list who'll be most excited to celebrate the holidays with you if you ask him to.

It doesn't matter what you wanna do. If you wanna decorate your home, if you wanna give gifts, if you wanna make a meal, if you wanna just stay in and watch some movies and order takeout then he's down.

Sully doesn't care for the holidays and he finds the whole time of year to be annoying, to be honest, so you'll only be celebrating with Liu.

And you decided that you wanted to decorate your home a bit for the holidays. It was a simple way to celebrate the holidays, and you didn't even have to leave your home to get any decorations since you had some stuffed away in a box in your closet.

When you had told Liu that that was your plan, he was eager to join you. It's been so long since he's been able to do anything for the holidays, and he was just... really excited to finally have someone to spend them with.

You made sure to put on some music to play in the background while the two of you got to decorating, and you'd tell him where to put certain things if he didn't know what to do with them.

You two chat with each other as well during all this, sharing random memories and stories from your childhoods. Some were happy, some were sad. Sometimes, Liu would trail off mid-story and you'd have to change the subject to something lighter.

At some point, when a particularly romantic song played, you set down the decoration you were holding and pulled Liu away from the one he was setting out so you could take a break and dance with him.

It got the brightest smile out of him. The brightest one you've ever seen.

The bitter sadness and nostalgia that comes with the holidays lingered. It would always linger, honestly, but it was easier to deal with when he's with you.

And he was excited to make new memories with you. Ones that'll make him smile when the holidays roll around again.

[mochimouiemarty]

I need your headcanons I don’t care which character which fandom I need headcanons because you seem awesome now give them to me /affectionate

ARGHHHH IM SORRY THAT THIS TOOK SO LONG TO ANSWER?!?!? i was drawing the pookies to go with these hcs

i jumbled all my favs together and yeah have some silly hcs (thisll prolly be rlly short, or not) not in a set order so good luck finding the characters from fandoms you know 😈/hj

CHARACTERS MENTIONED IN THIS!! Idia Shroud, Cater diamond, Mime Bomb, Weeping Clown

- Cater once played this dress up game for fun (or to make some content out of it), got some HARSH constructive criticism, never played again (person who insulted gave him advice was idia)

- Weepy often puts wax on the hair in front of his face to keep it out of his eyes while performing. (totally not based on an oc x canon thing i thought of.)

- Mime Bomb often has makeup residue around his eyes, making him look more tired than he already is. He struggles to get it out and also doesnt see the point bcs 9 times out of 10 hes gonna be hopping on another flight anyway!!!!

- Idia is half filipino. dont try and change my mind YOU CANNOT

- Cater has freckles and used to cover them up around highschool - year one in NRC. maybe because of insecurity or to follow the current "trends". maybe both!!!!!1!1!1!1! probably still does it to this even better if no one actually knows if his freckles are real or nah

- Mime Bomb knows how to draw! always uses himself as a reference when he can. loves drawing hands

- weepy is a jack of all trades, master of none. he'd observe and learn other peoples crafts silently from other people at the circus! even if he's not that good at most of them, he knows the basic stuff.. maybe.

- Cater often puts white eyeliner on to brighten up his eyes!!

- i think idia likes watching those process videos on sculpting and carving, just traditional art in general.

- cater probably likes to deconstruct a bunch of stuff, mainly content-making related things and especially music! I saw someone mention how passionate he seems about music based on the details in his room (might sound like a total idiot rn if those details were disclosed in one of the vignettes or something) so in my heart it seems like something he'd totes do. he's also a very detail oriented person so !1!1!1!1!1

- Joker dislikes popcorn, also smells like stale buttered popcorn(/hj)

- mime bombs skin is either hella sensitive or the complete opposite. I can see him either hoarding this one brand of makeup cuz it's the only one he can use, or his skin is THAT ok with any product that he's fine with using VILE products 😭

- I like to believe that Jokers hair is either a wig (or he dyed it) and he's a brunette. or he's just silly like that yk (the most likely possibility)

- Cater has an old list of piercings he wanted/wants, idk which ones he'd want but yuh!!! maybe he got a piercing when he was younger but got caught soooo

- Idia hates oily foods

this is probably it

also have the drawings that took TOO DAMN LONG.

"one is not like the other!!!!!" ahh favs 😭🙏

these are sort of my hcs on how they'd look? or at least a reference for myself for when I draw them again, I'm too inconsistent

random, but idias hair being so expressive is my most favorite detail about his character

I APOLOGIZE FOR ANY SPELLINV MISTAKES

—

ok these took too long thank you bye

[livetogether--diealone]

It pains me to say but his best possible move would be doing a reverse seb and going to the evil team.

It would be a risky gamble, he might end up crushed by max.... or he might just as well be be the one crushing max. remember their preferences of car are quite similar and aggressive, so I don't think he would struggle like the others

in ferrari he is only gonna get more disrespected and the influence of the spanish will grow now.

they already seemed super influential when charles was the one fighting for the wdc and performing better, so imagine how it will be now

people are too caught up in the whole vasseur and charles are besties to notice that vasseur the other day was calling charles inconsistent compared to carlos. this weekend he said carlos was a benchmark to charles.

charles got reprimanded by ferrari when he spoke once against the team. carlos and his entire family never had to apologize about anything.

this last two seasons I saw more respect and praise for charles coming from red bull than ferrari.

while vasseur is calling charles inconsistent, horner is saying charles is their biggest threath

people said charles is ferrari's favorite but I don't see this at all. even their social media seems to be more pro carlos.

charles is the favorite of fans, which is different, but even that might change. after monza a lot of people turned against him. very similar to how their turned against seb before.

Charles needs a reverse Seb situation so bad at the moment, but please not rb with everything that happened in these past few years i couldn't watch him there and cheer for him, because he'd get sucked in their policies and ways so much, from a moral stand point.

And tbh, him and max might have a probably spot on same preference for how they want the car to be, but he'll get side lined there too, even if he ends up outperforming max which I have no doubts on that because Charles handles pressure 100% better*, he will be stopped because I don't see Horner switching Max for another one right now or ever.

Charles is now in the worst position ever, yeah he's still extremely talented and has what it takes, but this alone in not the right team is worth nothing and he's "getting older" and his reputation is being run through the mud

* sky italy can say whatever charles would handle a real competitive season without making mistakes because he's scared or throwing temper tantrum at random when he's not first, one thing is a driver who's upset he's not winning that's normal another is being whiny and crying about it and calling it an absolutely shocking experience, and Charles loves a challenge

[knowlessman]

lol, forgot this show was a thing for a whole month. um, there's more nomus, there's smart nomus I think, endeavor fucking died except he didn't, anyway now it's movie time so probably nothing relevant to the current plot will happen and also nothing in this movie will become relevant to the plot even if it should. (bnha movie 2, heroes rising)

cg cars I think? ohey it's Lizardman from Every Villain Is Lemons. and some buckethead rando who looks like they wandered in from Dark Souls. and that… dude… the lock guy, forget his name. -- did yall fucking kidnap actual literal vegeta from dragonball

yooo it's fukken happening, Dancing Boy's fighting Frowny Man, I didn't think that was til next season

so they were actually just transporting solid snake?

(intro spiel) ♪ and then one sunny afternoon, All Might came to say... ♪

beach episode stuffs ig, no notes cept why did they have to intro mineta first

...tokoyami can fly? in broad daylight? is that, like... is that legit, or just movie-show inconsistency?

("you took an hour to find a lost kid? I'm gonna leave a bad review") should've scolded that kid back for making a fake call and wasting time that could've been spent responding to an emergency

bakugo: "I'm reserve, that means I can lie around and do fuckall unless a villain shows up" -- "cool, thanks for volunteering for guard duty" 'XD got his ass

"hurry up and master that quirk so I can fight you" bakugo continuing to think he's in dragonball

poor hat kid crying wolf. that sister of his is gonna owe him three buckets of ice cream for the chewing-out bakugo will probably give them

I thought the hero-nerfing darts were, like, resolved? Eri got rescued, but I guess there are still a lot of unused darts? -- ah, maybe they've just managed to replicate All for One.

holy shit they got jim carrey for this movie

"the next time you could come home was in ten days, right?" are these kids just completely unsupervised for ten days? don't they at least have a grandparent watching them? no wonder they can't find anything better to do than make prank calls -- dilf legoshi hates trucks? not clickbait?

k, confirmed then, psycho mantis or wever can steal quirks. …and he has mega-explosive farts that pulverise skyscrapers in the background and throw lightning everywhere whenever he does it. (he should probably take something for that.) -- now, I've never played the Metroid Prime games (cept Hunters and it probably doesn't count), but even I know a Phazon overdose when I see one

"you picked the wrong person to taunt!" "katsuki baku… oh! you're that guy that got taken hostage by the slime monster that one time, right?" -- "what's up with that guy, anyway?" A LOT. -- pokemon npcs, that's who these kids look like. they got "level 4 Caterpie" written all over them.

okay, dilf legoshi is on some cool shit. top-tier design right here for a filler villain

"an invisible wall made of air? wow, I definitely didn't just finish kicking someone's ass who had that exact quirk."

"what? the guy whose power is making explosions exploded his way out of my bandages!"

"I can't steal it… no, I don't have enough free spaces to steal them all…" shoulda bought more ram. that is interesting, tho; the previous avatars won't let One for All be stolen (or it just counts as as many quirks as it's had wielders, or maybe adds quirks to its, like, payload when a wielder has one?).

(giant inflatable-mascot-looking deku illusion) …hehe. kid could have a future in advertising.

"ha! I have air maneuverability, so I can get around your shields!" "in response, I summon yellow eyes blue dragon in attack mode!"

-- "detroit sma-" "holding priority, fartocalypse into forked lightning!"

"what happened to the villain we caught?" "you mean the one bakugo blasted in the face with nitroglycerin at point-blank range? he's tied up in the basement, but he's not talking much. probably because his lungs, teeth and entire fucking head got Galick-Gunned into oblivion"

good pep talk happening, but when does some kinda plan show up -- …okay this is actually an awesome plan, and not only takes into account everything the heroes know, but correctly guesses the villains' whole deal. …how the hell are the villains sposed to compete with this? 'XD I guess psycho mantis probably has some tricks left he hasn't shown, but they'll need some other aces in the hole. or at least to not try to come in via the front door.

dilf legoshi lights his cigar with his own fire breath. …damn this guy's cool. I mean, how many characters have fire breath, and I've never seen one do that.

they seriously have nothing to throw at psycho mantis but rocks tho, huh. they did say they gotta keep their distance, I guess. and it wouldn't be *heroic* to make spears or whatnot.

"we poisoned our weapons with a toxic mucus made by asui, who by the way can also turn invisible now." …hah????? is any of this shit canon? is this movie actually set a few episodes into s5? what gives? aoyama has also been firing lasers from his shoulders and stuff, and I don't think I've seen him do that before either. -- daaamn, dilf legoshi also knows hyper beam?

uh-oh, they got psycho mantis to his limit, but it looks like he's juicing with more Phazon to surpass it -- daaang, he's got cg thunder clouds going now. he's going super fartocalypse god super fartocalypse -- he's also got doc ock tentacles except they're dragons from yugioh

second time this movie these dumbass kids have been told to run from the villain and just sat there -- …kid, your quirk is illusions. like, okay, that didn't work last time either, but still, running TOWARDS the bad guy? and your brother is STILL just sitting there

"you did a good job, katsuma" no he fucking didn't, he ran AT the bad guy, maybe hoping his quirk would suddenly turn into something that could attack -- oh NOW you run

"but how did you avoid the lightning?" "we used kaminari as a lightning rod" 'XD harsh, but a legitimate strategy

"what would all might do?" idk, win? all might doesn't have half the brains you do, deku, I don't think he's ever made a plan in his life -- "the power to transfer power…" oh hell no, bakugo is the LAST person you should be trusting with this. deku, for all your brains, how do you still find it in you to assume the best of a guy who has bullied you relentlessly and unrepentantly your entire life?

(flashback) I forgot all for one doesn't have fucking eyes, wtf, he's got overgrown skin where his eyes should be

"besides, I'm sure all might would say it's fine if it's you" jesus christ, all might is an idiot and even he knows better than that. you may be the plan guy but you got a blind spot bigger than the sun. good thing this is a movie so nothing in it sticks.

"wh-what is this?" …so wait, you both did detroit smash and opened the clouds and shit and some lady started singing the star spangled banner or wevertf and you DIDN'T EVEN HIT THE BAD GUY WITH IT -- YOU BOTH HAVE FUCKING PURPLE ARMS AND YOU DID NOT EVEN HIT THE BAD GUY WITH IT??? HE'S STANDING RIGHT THERE TAUNTING AND POWERING UP WTF YOU JUST WASTED SO MUCH

this is some good-ass animation that they've decided to mute and set to America's football halftime showtune (it's just all slow and loud and showy so it makes me think of that, I have no idea what the actual song is but I think most of it's in English)

I'll say this about the last quarter, I like the bad guy's purple energy butterfly wings

"sayonara, one for all, I leave you in the most abusive, self-centered person I know's homicidal hands" -- "the predecessors gave them a miracle…" okay so maybe all might doesn't know better, but the previous avatars do and rejected vegeta, thank fuck

"good night, Nine. good work." but he didn't do anything here. also can handface eat people's quirks too?

"vegeta doesn't remember anything about the transfer of one for all…" again, thank fuck. I guess they knew he'd be impossible to write from there without officially making him an antagonist. hell, how often does a movie have to specify one character not remembering the events from it? (I know, from the writer's perspective it's just that he would talk about it, but really, they're way too generous to his personality in general)

the kid's only got a healing quirk, stop telling him he'll be a hero, he'll think he's a front-liner when he can do no good there. the back line is just as important.

eh. end part was a little annoying, but was good movie overall. Pretty much everybody got to do cool shit, and the action bits were cool.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

hi I’m here to review the Clementine comic. it’s not good.

Does this even need an introduction? You know why I’ve gathered you all here today. You know the comic exists, and you probably know that it’s not great and we’re all upset about it. 

Myself included. I am not okay. At all. 

Skybound could’ve literally spit in my face and I’d come out feeling better than I did reading this comic, because this comic is an insult to the original Telltale games and Clementine as a character. 

This comic is a fancy fanfic. Glorified fanfiction. It’s not canon, and Skybound and Tillie can pretend that it is, but it’s not. Bold of them to assume we’d just accept this from people who didn’t work on the original games and never wrote for Clementine before, and based on this comic alone, any chance of us taking it seriously is gone. 

I’m gonna go through every single page, every panel, of this comic and give you my review. So I guess if you’re worried about spoilers [though at this point why would you?] then be warned, spoilers for the entire comic ahead. 

I also wanna add that I have nothing against Tillie Walden. I know a lot of dingdongs are harassing her on insta over this comic and that’s not okay. You telling her how much you hate her isn’t going to change anything. If anything, you keep being assholes to her and she’s just gonna block everything out, even things simply critiquing her work in hopes that it helps her improve. 

You’re allowed to be upset about the comic and share your feelings about it, but don’t take it out on the actual human being like that. Besides, like I’ve said before, if Tillie wasn’t gonna make the comic, Skybound would’ve found someone else to do. This was coming no matter what because Skybound wants that coin. 

That being said, I’m not going to hold back my opinions on this comic. Skybound and Tillie made this comic, they put it out there and asked for money for it, therefore I’m allowed to explain why it’s garbage as well as ponder over the questionable intent and whether or not Tillie actually has played these games. Y’know, it’s like how I have nothing against Kent, but sometimes he says things I disagree with and well, y’know how it goes. 

Alright, this is gonna be long, so let’s go--

The first few shots we get are of the school, two people sleeping, and Clementine’s empty bed. Nothing super note-worthy, we have no idea who is sleeping in the beds, it’s just there to establish that it’s early and everyone’s still asleep. 

The drawing of the school looks fine? Not super accurate, but I can give it a pass since it’s a few years later, I assume. What I can’t give a pass is how you managed to already mess up on the first page of your comic. 

Because..... why are you implying that Clementine’s room is upstairs? First of all, seems kinda dumb to put Clem, who has only one leg and has to walk with crutches, upstairs. Also, if you’ve played TFS and paid any attention to where her room is actually located [the dorms] then you’d know there isn’t any stairs leading to their floor. It’s the side building next to the admin building, you walk through the door, go down the hall, take a left and their dorm is right there sooo..... 

Oh right, it’s probably done this way so that we can have such a suspenseful moment where Clementine is sneaking out while the others are asleep and her foot makes a creeeeeeakk that could wake everyone up, thwarting her plans of abandoning everyone quietly so she doesn’t have to deal with any consequences. 

Because yeah, Clementine is sneaking out with all of her supplies because apparently, she’s been planning an escape from this place for a while. 

And just look at how gosh darn happy she is about it. You can’t see or hear me, but know that I’m laughing. Don’t worry, I will talk about her abandoning everyone later.

But first, I have a gripe with Clementine's design in this comic. It doesn’t look like her. This art of her right here is the most accurate we get throughout all 12 pages, and it’s the best looking, too. 

Moving on, she slams the door shut while this walker changes faces and hair between panels, so that’s cool. I will say, I like the idea of the Ericson crew putting spikes on the door. That’s fun. 

Though Clementine slamming the door shut while trying to sneak out seems counter productive but it fits with the theme this comic has of inconsistency, so it works. 

Next we have Clementine going to what I believe is the fishing shack by the river, and she’s going through some things that she’s stashed away, telling us that she’s been planning this escape for a while. 

Oh good, she has a map. Well at least now she won’t get lost out there in the woods while she makes her escape... also that last panel with her profile.... why does it look so funny? Like this page of the comic doesn’t look too bad, but there is something off putting about her eye there and how she has zero expression. 

And it turns out that rustle was a walker, and Clementine is super inconvenienced by this and gives us our first piece of witty dialogue.

Yeah you dumb walker, can’t you see Clementine is busy running away from home and abandoning all of her loved ones without a single goodbye so she doesn’t have to witness the consequences of her selfish actions?? Gosh, so rude.

Just a heads up, the dialogue in this comic is stilted, emotionless, and bland. The words have no flow, no charm, and never feel like they should be coming out of Clementine’s mouth. Then again, the upcoming graphic novels this is tied to are for young adult/middle graders so I guess we have to dumb everything down so their baby brains can process it. 

.....Why does her face look like that? Also, interesting that she decided to move her ponytail to the other side of her head.... which is a thing that happens throughout this comic, her hair will randomly change sides. 

I believe it’s a metaphor for her changing and inconsistent personality. 

So yeah, Clementine is just making off with the supplies she gathered [I’m sure Ericson doesn’t need ‘em anyway] and she’s just so gosh darn annoyed at all these small inconveniences bothering her.... because it’s just too early for this. 

.....Again, why does her face look like that?

I’m sorry, like I get it, Tillie’s style is supposed to be purposely messy yet minimal but it doesn’t work. When you do a comic in a more messy style, usually it has charm and heart put into it. Effort goes into the messy look, and when things are minimal, that usually means more clean, yeah? So you put them together and just..... that is nothing resembling Clementine’s face. 

Can we just--

Look at canon Clementine’s face. Look at the way her eyebrows are shapes, how wide her eyes are with her eye lashes. The dirt on her skin, the lines-- there is so much personality in her features. It doesn’t matter if she’s wearing a neutral expression or she’s expressing anger or joy or sorrow or whatever. 

Now, is it fair to compare a model of Clem from the games to the Clem in this comic? Well, I assume that if Tillie is doing this comic, she would use references from the game to ensure that Clementine is recognizable, especially now that she’s no longer wearing her signature hat. 

So why does she look like this? Why do I look at these drawings of her face and see nothing but a pair of eyes, a nose, and a mouth? You might as well draw me a simple smiley face. And I get that it’s a comic, and it’s a lot of work to draw the same character over and over again and you gotta cut corners somewhere, but maybe put some effort into the close up shots of her face so that we can actually see it’s her? 

Other fan artists have made comics in their styles that shine bright with Clementine’s personality, so what happened here? 

Anyway, surprise..... it’s not a walker annoying Clementine. 

........Why does AJ look like that??? I’m sorry, I hate to do the same thing I just did but--

Just because you put Clementine’s hat on AJ that doesn’t automatically make it him. I just.... wow. This feels like there wasn’t a single reference involved, like if someone gave Tillie a basic description of AJ and she just did this. 

But appearances aside, what is AJ saying? He says that he knew it, that Clementine’s leaving and I cannot stand this dialogue. It’s unnatural. Again, I know you wanna dumb it down for all of us because I guess we dumb.... but this conversation does not feel natural. 

“I knew it. You’re leaving.” “AJ....” “I’m coming.”

Even if you changed it to, “I’m coming with you.” it would sound more natural. Hell, he doesn’t even question WHY she’s leaving, he just stands there like “I’m coming” like??? I’m sorry, have you ever heard a single word this murder baby has said? I assume you have because I assume you actually played TFS, right? Soooo.... what happened here?

.....whY DO THEIR FACES LOOK LIEK THAT KSAJDLKJAS:LKDJLKASJD:L--

So now we’re getting into it.... into the bullshit. 

Clementine tells AJ to go back to the school, and AJ says that she wasn’t even going to say goodbye..... and then more bad dialogue that sound unnatural when you try to fucking read it. 

First off.... AJ’s reaction to Clementine attempting to leave is barely anything. Again, I hate to keep questioning if you actually played TFS, but AJ would throw a fucking fit if he caught Clementine out here ALONE like this, attempting to leave. 

And then he says “Like last time? You were going to come back?” this sentence makes my brain hurt. I just.... “Like last time, right? You’re coming back?” UGH

Wow, I feel nothing. 

I’m sitting here watching these two imposters with fucked up faces who are supposed to be Clementine and AJ and I feel nothing. 

I’m not even going to comment on the faces anymore. You can see it. You know. 

So yeah... AJ tells her the #1 rule, and reminds her that she promised.

Y’know.... she promised that she would never leave him again? Remember? At the McCarroll ranch? That flashback that was in TFS? The one you would watch if you played the game? 

Why is she looking straight at me when she should be looking at AJ as she says this? Is this Clementine’s way of telling me she’s sorry for what a shitty direction this is taking? I wouldn’t know because her face isn’t doing anything. Just because you draw a couple of tears that doesn’t mean I’m feeling the emotional heartbreak you’re attempting to convey. 

I don’t have enough middle fingers for this.

Well, my hat’s off to you. Ya did it. Ya fucked up everything single part of Clementine’s character in the span of two pages, I’m almost impressed. 

First off, the baby thing is weird. Why is she calling him that? She’s never called him that, which you should know.

Second, she’s not happy and that’s why she’s leaving. Clementine isn’t happy, and AJ can’t make her happy. Ericson can’t make her happy. So she’s going to go out on the road to.... what, be unhappy by herself? 

I’m sorry, but apparently we need a few reminders here of who Clementine is, because this isn’t her. 

This is Clementine. 

Clementine fought for years to find a home, something she hasn’t had since she was an eight-year-old girl before the apocalypse. The motor-inn wasn’t a home, the cabin wasn’t home, the ski-lodge, Howe’s, Wellington, Richmond, Prescott, none of them were home. 

She struggled for years, dealing with trauma after trauma while out on the road. She went from group to group, watching people she cared about die and she was powerless to do anything about it. Whenever she let her guard down and become comfortable, it bit in her in the ass and left her heartbroken.

She was there when AJ was born. She grew close to Rebecca while she was pregnant, she let herself do that even after everything she went through with Christa. Clementine had a bond with AJ even before he was born, and after Rebecca died, she did what she could to keep him safe, despite play choice. 

She cried when she thought AJ died and when she found him in that car again. She swore to protect him, to raise him right and love him. All they had was each other. 

And when she joined the new frontier and AJ got sick, she risked everything to save him and she was devastated when they took him away from her. When she found out he was alive, she is willing to go as far as helping Lingard overdose [INJECTING HIM HERSELF IF SHE HAS TO] to figure out his location. She did shitty things to find him, she killed people at McCarroll Ranch to find him again. 

Clementine raised him and he is her family, do you understand that? She went to hell and back for him, she taught him how to protect himself, and even though she made mistakes she sacrificed everything for him. She promised him that they would have a home of their own one day, she talked about how much she wished for a world where she didn’t have to worry about fighting and killing and AJ could just be a happy kid. 

She fought for Ericson, she watched her friends die or become mutilated by someone from her past. She allowed herself to be vulnerable enough to pursue a romantic relationship with Louis or Violet because she felt safe with them, felt safe at Ericson because it’s their home now. 

And when Clementine was bit, she thought she was going to die but she still fought to make sure AJ would be safe and happy without her and it was heartbreaking. She’s dying and the only thing she cares about is AJ. Not herself, not what’s going to happen to her after she dies or turns... no, she tries to make AJ smile again, she makes sure he remembers the rules, and she tells him that she loves him. 

Then he cuts off her leg, and she survives. AJ saved her fucking life, and she got to wake up at home and live to see her family again. She got to push AJ on a tire swing, she got to eat a hot meal and laugh with her friends, she got to make plans with her lover/best friend for what’s next for Ericson, and she got to talk to AJ and tell him the truth... and she asked him if she did a good job, and he’s honest with her right back. 

Hell, she tells him to keep her hat. Her iconic hat. The one thing she has left of her father, possibly her more cherished item. She lets him keep it. 

The last time we see Clementine, she’s happy. She’s sitting on the steps by herself, staring at her family with such fondness in her eyes and a smile on her face because she finally did it. She finally found a home where she can breathe. She has a bed to sleep in, she has AJ with her, she has a boyfriend/girlfriend who loves her and who she loves back, she has friends she can rely on. 

Clementine smiles, and lets out a small laugh. 

She doesn’t have to run anymore. 

And now you have the balls to tell me that AJ and Ericson don’t make Clementine happy anymore. 

She abandons everything to go back out on the road again, and that’s proof enough for me that you don’t understand a damn thing about Clementine or her journey. 

“ I don't even know the person I'm talking about... It's like all we have in common is the same name.” 

....Anyway.

Wow, Clementine found a car and kept is stashed. How lazy and convenient for this bullshit plot. 

And this is the part where I have to tell this comic to fuck off. 

What, you think if you throw in an incredibly inaccurate flashback next to a current pair of hugging Clem and AJ that I’ll feel anything but anger? That flashback is a slap to the face. It’s snowing, but the only time we’ve seen snow is in S2 when AJ was a literal new born, so why is he that big? Is that supposed to be from ANF because that ALSO doesn’t look like that AJ, and that’s not the outfit Clementine had on... AND there was no snow. This is cheap and meaningless. 

Any fan of the series who has played through the games could tell you this. 

So.... AJ runs into the woods and then we get this garbage.

This comic is awful. It misses the point of everything TFS, and the rest of the series, stood for. There is no heart here. I feel no happiness in reading it, and I don’t detect any passion behind it. It’s a lifeless comic that retcons everything in order to throw AJ away and start fresh with a new adventure for Clementine that makes no sense because the cow isn’t profitable unless it’s milked. 

This isn’t canon, and it won’t ever be canon, and honestly? At this point, I have no faith in the graphic novel trilogy. It will take a lot to do a turn around from this, and I don’t even know if that’s possible. 

Again, to reiterate, I don’t have anything personal against Tillie Walden herself. She’s just doing her job, and from what I’ve seen of her as a person, she seems like a sweetheart. I don’t want anyone giving her shit because I think the comic isn’t good or that you agree with me. All of my anger is directed at the comic itself, her work, not specifically her.... and a little bit at Skybound, because they’re the reason this is even a thing in the first place. 

So yeah.... there ya have it. 

[riotwritesthings]

Location Matters

WinterIron, E, 2.6k - PWP, semi-public sex, anal fingering, begging, dirty talk, edging, orgasm delay

Ayyy welcome to the first day of Smutober! Yes that’s right, I’m going with Smutober, Kinktober didn’t quite feel right when I’m much more focused on just writing smut than getting through a list of unique kinks. And I’m not following any prompt list at all, just my heart. And I have no idea how many fics I’ll actually be able to get out this month, I have been having a Bad Brain Time, as the kids say, but I’m gonna do what I can and it’s better than nothing right?! Anywho I’m here to break rules and write smut so lets get to it!!

~~~

“Please,” Tony sobs as he arches his back harder, fingers scrabbling at the shelves in front of him and he really can’t bring himself to care about the several packets of pasta that go tumbling to the ground.

Even if he didn’t consider dry pasta a terrible abomination, Tony has way better things to focus on anyways. Like the solid line of heat that is Bucky pressed in close against him, pinning Tony securely between Bucky’s broad chest and the corner of the shelves as two of Bucky’s calloused fingers slowly press into him.

Tony knows they’re being more than a little ridiculous. They are grown adults with their own bedroom, but here they are in the common kitchen of the compound, barely hidden away in the walk-in pantry with Bucky’s hand shoved down his pants like horny teenagers. He can feel Bucky’s cock nudging hard and thick against the back of his thigh and Tony is well on his way to fully hard himself, rocking back against Bucky’s hand and trying to force him to move faster.

“Fuck, I- you- I need—“ Tony gasps out, voice breaking off into a moan when Bucky’s fingers press a little deeper. His grip on the shelves slips again as he can’t decide between turning to face Bucky or just trying to force himself back onto Bucky’s fingers, trying to get more, and Tony ends up just kind of twitching and thrashing in place.

“Patience, baby,” Bucky rumbles, his lips moving over the skin beneath Tony’s ear and that’s probably Tony’s least favorite thing to hear but oh he loves the way Bucky says it, low and rumbling and burning with intensity.

Bucky shifts his wrist a little and it works Tony’s worn pajamas down a little lower past the curve of his ass, but not enough to free his cock from the clinging fabric. When Tony rocks his hips in place, trying get any friction, or Bucky’s fingers pressing into him deeper, or anything, all he gets is the faint drag of soft flannel over his leaking cock. Tony lets out a desperate groan and tries to buck his hips harder, but Bucky just moves with him, not letting Tony have more than the not-enough stretch of two of Bucky’s fingertips barely working him open. Which, after Bucky thoroughly fucked him into the couch earlier today, it’s not nearly enough.

“What do you mean patience, we are in the kitchen,” Tony finally manages to get out, and his voice might be rough and breathy but he still thinks it’s a decent point.

Sure, it was some ungodly hour of the morning when they finished their latest Star Trek binge and first stumbled down here looking for snacks, but Tony has honestly lost track of time entirely at this point. He has no idea how long it’s been since Bucky kicked the pantry door shut behind them and crowded Tony up against the shelves and or all he knows the damn early birds in the house will be along any second, yanking the door open looking for the pancake mix or something and getting a whole-ass eyeful. Literally.

But in the next second all thought is pushed from Tony’s mind when Bucky’s fingers finally press deeper, nudging over his prostate as they twist inside him. Tony had more good points to make, he swears he did, but he forgets all of them as Bucky begins to finger him in earnest, pressing kisses to Tony’s throat and mouthing filthy paise into his skin, bringing Tony right up to the edge with the almost brutal efficiency that he’s basically perfected.

“’S this what you wanted, baby? Want me to really work you open, make you feel it?” Bucky demands roughly, his lips sliding up to Tony’s jaw and all Tony can manage is a shaking whine, trying desperately to shove himself back onto Bucky’s fingers. “Yeah, always take it so fuckin’ sweet, feel so perfect wrapped around me, clenching an’ shakin’, still tryin’ to fuck yourself back on my fingers even when you can’t barely move.”

As if to prove his point Bucky presses Tony in harder against the shelves, pinning him in place as every twist and thrust of Bucky’s fingers set off new shockwaves of pleasure through Tony’s whole body, pushing him higher. Bucky alternates between deep thrusts that make Tony ache for more and relentless jabs to his prostate that are driving Tony out of his mind.

“Please, please,” Tony begs, shaking as Bucky’s fingers stroke over his prostate again, tension winding tighter in his gut and he’s so close. He’s sobbing out every breath as Bucky’s fingers bear down harder and Tony clenches around them, arching back into the pressure as his balls draw up tight and the knot of pleasure inside him twists tighter, tighter—

And then Bucky’s fingers disappear, withdrawing from him entirely and Tony is left dangling right at the edge without anything to push him over, clenching around nothing and feeling so empty. He can’t even rock his hips in place for the light drag of his pajamas over his cock, Bucky’s free hand tight on his hip to hold him in place and it only accentuates the waves of pleasure still sparking along Tony’s nerves, not quite enough.

“What the fuck,” Tony groans, “you hate me, you hate me and you want me to die like this, is that it?!”

“Tha’s what you always say when I try to take my time with you,” Bucky points out with a low, rumbling laugh as he drags his fingers too-lightly over Tony’s loose hole.

“And I’m still convinced it’s true!” Tony replies, his voice caught somewhere between a snap and a whine. He has more to say, but he’s interrupted by Bucky pressing back into him with three fingers this time, stretching him that little bit wider and he’s so loose, so desperate, that there’s not even a burn. All Tony feels is the stretch of it as Bucky’s fingers sink all the way into him, until Tony can feel him everywhere.

Bucky’s fingers thrust in and out of him in an unsteady rhythm, working him up without ever giving him enough to push him to the edge again and Tony buries his face in his folded arms to try and muffle the sob that bursts out of him. His legs are doing nothing to support him at this point, it’s only Bucky’s hand on his hip and Bucky’s chest pressed flush against his shoulder blades and Bucky’s fingers buried deep inside him, holding him up and taking him apart.

He can’t think past the waves of pleasure that rush through him every time Bucky just barely nudges his prostate, the shudders that run through him when Bucky withdraws his fingers just enough to tug at his stretched rim, making sure Tony feels it. And just when Tony thinks the knot in his gut can’t wind any tighter, that he’s about to come with nothing more than the maddeningly inconsistent press and twist of Bucky’s thick fingers inside him, playing with him, the pressure abruptly disappears and leaves him achingly empty.

“Oh, you absolute bastard,” Tony groans, thunking his head against the shelf in front of him and then sucking in a sharp breath when Bucky laughs roughly and drags his fingertips in light circles around Tony’s hole. “Would you just-“ Tony cuts off into a breathy whine when Bucky’s fingers just barely start to press into him again, trying to arch his back harder like he can force Bucky’s fingers back inside him despite the way Bucky has him thoroughly pinned in place, completely helpless as Bucky’s fingers continue dragging wetly around and around his clenching hole, until Tony’s every breath is coming out as a pleading whine.

When Bucky finally pushes his fingers back in he does it slowly, so slowly, making sure Tony can feel every shift and press, working him back right back to the edge with steady, inescapable thrusts of his fingers and then pushing him higher. Until Tony has no idea how he hasn’t already broken and he can’t even try to rock back into it anymore, can’t move, can only take it.

“Fuck, love the way you shake for me,” Bucky growls, all hot breath and teeth against the line of Tony’s throat as he crooks his fingers a little harder, and then has to crowd in against Tony a little more to help keep him upright as Tony’s legs give out entirely.

Tony’s legs might be useless noodles at this point but that doesn’t stop them from shaking with overstimulation, his hips jerking and twitching in place with every deep press of Bucky’s fingers. Tony’s entire body is shaking like he’s been hit with a live wire and he’s crying out every breath, his fingers going numb from how tightly he’s gripping the edge of the shelf.

“Look so fuckin’ good like this, blissed out an’ shaking’ with it, can barely even hold yourself up,” Bucky growls, pressing down harder on Tony’s prostate and Tony’s entire body jolts hard, his hands sliding off the shelf and his bare feet sliding against the floor.

After a second of scrambling Tony manages to cross his arms across the shelf, burying his face against his forearms to try and muffle his wail. Partially because he’s so close and fuck Tony might just die if they get interrupted before Bucky finally lets him cum, if it’s not soon, and also because he doesn’t want to miss the honestly filthy words spilling out of Bucky’s mouth.

“C’mon sugar, wanna feel you come on my fingers,” Bucky says, a low rumbling growl against the curve of Tony’s shoulder, “always clench down so damn tight around me, sound so gorgeous, wanna hear you sobbin’ for me.” He thrusts his fingers in hard again and then twists, stretching Tony’s loose rim a little more and even that is enough to have Tony’s entire body jolting, another ragged cry tearing out of him. “Fuckin’ love this, don’t you baby?” Bucky demands roughly, “bein’ worked open and stuffed full? Pinned and helpless an’ just takin it, lettin’ me play with you however I want until you’re beggin’ for it just- like- this?”

The final couple words are punctuated with a too-brief drag of Bucky’s fingertips over his prostate, sending bolts of pleasure through him that are right on the edge of too-much and god it’s not enough. Tony is only vaguely aware that he’s trying to beg, but keeping track of the broken attempts at words and ragged sounds spilling past his slack lips is far less important than the sensations rushing through him.

Tony would much rather focus on trying to shove himself back to meet the press of Bucky’s fingers, no matter how little he’s actually accomplishing, right up until Bucky presses in impossibly closer and Tony is left completely immobile. Bucky’s metal fingers disappear from his hip to instead tangle in his hair, yanking Tony’s head back with one hard tug and Tony has no hope of muffling or containing the loud cry that escapes him. All he knows is the deep, insistent press of Bucky inside him, the burning pleasure and ache as his spine is pulled into a sharp arch and Bucky’s fingers seem to press impossibly deeper.

“Fuck-“ Tony chokes out, panting brokenly for air and then whining when even that simple motion lights up his entire body, like he’s just one giant struck nerve and his face is wet with sweat or tears or both as he finally manages to gasp out “please—“

“I can feel how fucking close you are, sweet thing, how much you need it,” Bucky says, lips trailing up Tony’s neck and when Tony tries to wiggle in his hold, to rock himself down onto Bucky’s fingers, anything, Bucky’s teeth catch at the corner of his jaw to hold him in place. “Don’t you wanna come for me baby?” Bucky demands once Tony goes relatively still in his hold, hard tremors still running through him as Bucky’s fingers continue to thrust and press and twist inside him. “Don’t you wanna make a fuckin’ mess of yourself for me? Let me watch you wobble back to our room, legs still shaking’ and cum coolin’ on your skin, flushed and dazed and gorgeous, wanna let me lick you clean and put you to bed still sloppy and reekin’ like sex?”

“I- I- ahh—“ Tony wants to say that god does he want that, he’s so close, but every drag of Bucky’s fingers is melting every thought out of his head and Tony is nearly screaming out every exhale and he can’t stop, shaking too hard to properly fuck himself back onto Bucky’s hand and fuck he’s so close—

“C’mon Tony, give it to me,” Bucky snarls, rocking his hips against Tony and circling his fingers hard over Tony’s prostate and that’s it.

Tony’s loud cry cuts off as his voice breaks, and instead he’s left making hoarse, breathy noises as he comes, wave after wave of pleasure rushing over him, dragging him under. He can barely hear anything past his own pulse throbbing in his ears, his orgasm dragging on and on with every relentless shove of Bucky’s fingers still working into him until Tony’s brain finally whites out to the sound of his own hitching, wailing moan.

When Tony zones back in, both of Bucky’s arms are wound around his waist, holding him steady as Tony continues twitching with fading aftershocks. His pants are back in place, although the front of them is indeed a mess of his own cooling cum, and Tony has to forcibly remind himself why just falling asleep right here is a bad idea.

And it’s not because he can feel Bucky’s cock still pressed hard and warm against his hip, no matter how distracting of a realization that is.

“What time is it?” Tony asks roughly, because his mind might be a little (a lot) blown, and he really wants to do something about the way Bucky is rocking minutely against him while he lets Tony catch his breath, but not as much as Tony wants to not get another lecture about public indecency. It always makes him feel a little too much like he’s back in college.

There’s a tellingly long silence before Bucky clears his throat and says, “Uh… we should probably get back to our own room pretty soon.”

The hoarse, gravely sound of Bucky’s voice has heat valiantly trying to swell in Tony’s gut again, but Tony forces himself to focus on arguing “You should probably carry me back to our room, because what even are legs. I don’t think I have them, I certainly cannot feel them.”

Bucky laughs but seems all too happy to oblige in scooping Tony up off the ground, even if it is more in an up over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes way than Tony would really prefer. He’s about to complain, but then Bucky’s hand settles over the curve of his ass and Tony decides he can live with it, and at least this will keep the rapidly cooling cum soaked through the front of his pajamas from rubbing against his skin.

It’s not until they’re in the elevator that Tony’s brain comes back online enough for him to remember all of Bucky’s filthy promises, and Tony grins at the small of Bucky’s back as he says, “I guess if you really want I’ll try wobbling around like a drunken baby giraffe when we reach our floor, but frankly I’m more invested in the ‘licking’ part of your plan.”

Bucky hums, equal parts amused and thoughtful, and Tony’s breath catches hard as Bucky shifts his grip a little, his fingers easily dipping between Tony’s cheeks through his thin pajamas.

[ladyvesuvia]

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@firewhiskyss: 🎢 harry with either “That’s a little melodramatic, don’t you think?” or “I’m afraid I’ve been thinking…” “A dangerous pastime.” because my heart can’t handle angst rn 😋☝🏼|| for my 300 followers celebration

Pairing: Harry Potter x Fem!Muggle!Reader

Summary: Being stuck in the elevator is bad enough, but being with a stranger makes matters worse.

Words: 3.9k

Warnings: not proofread, light cursing, elevators, power outage + let me know if i missed anything

A/N: too bad u cant handle angst i could’ve found ways to sneak that into this hehe jk anywaaayy ok i felt uninspired sorry hydagjih

Harry held a bag he did not own in his hand. His shirt was a bit muddied and moist on one side, but he didn’t mind. He stood in front of the eighth door he’ll be knocking on in hopes it was the owner of the bag. It still wasn’t, though.

Instead, a woman his age greeted him with a smile. She was pretty, sure, but she wasn’t what he was looking for. He apologized for interrupting and went ahead to knock on the ninth door.

It swung open, and Harry let out a long sigh.

AN HOUR OR SO AGO

“Hold the door!” said a voice from the lobby. Harry pressed the open door button in haste, the doors doing as it was told to do. The figure rushed inside, hair dripping wet on the tiled floor of the elevator. He kept his eyes trained to floor as she moved his way to press the button to the eighth floor. “Thank you,” she mumbled.

The girl next to him began to dry her drenched hair with a purple towel, patting herself dry. Harry risked a brief glance in her direction — she was wearing a floral one-piece swimsuit which she layered with denim shorts. When she caught his eye, they both inched away from each other uncomfortably. To their relief, the elevator started to move up.

Nobody seemed to be coming in just yet. After all, it was six p.m. and most were probably outside biding their time for night swimming. Harry, on the other hand, just came down to get a box of doughnuts for Mr. Weasley, who he can only assume was changing into his swimming trunks in their hotel room. The rest were probably doing the same.

Harry was waiting for it to reach the ninth floor when the elevator lurched to a stop on the seventh. While Harry refused to meet eye contact with the girl next to him, she was busy trying to convince herself it was alright.

It’s okay, she thought to herself as she made a show of more aggressive patting of her hair in more of an attempt to calm her drumming heartbeat than to really dry it. Another passenger was probably just entering.

But she knew better, they both knew better. The lights above them began to blink in an inconsistent manner. To her dismay, the doors did not open nor did they continue to go up.

They both turned to each other with a bewildered look on their faces. Harry made to reach for his wand, but held himself back. Then the lights went out along with the tiny ones coming from the buttons. Harry froze. He heard the stranger next to him shift, probably wrapping the towel around herself. She had stopped pretending to pat herself now. Harry watched as her as she dropped her bag down on the wet tiled floor and pulled out a bulky gray block from it. Harry stood there awkwardly as if a statue while she kept on fumbling with the block thingy he now recognized was a flip phone. A light glowed from it, her face looking similar to that of a ghost.

She pressed it against her ear, but it seemed to not be working. She then raised her hand higher in hopes of getting better reception to no avail. Harry cleared his throat. The girl’s head whipped to his direction. “The emergency call button,” said Harry.

“I know,” she spat, reaching out for the buttons. But instead of clicking that particular button, she clicked the button for opening doors. Harry noticed she seemed to be shivering a bit even with the towel.

The girl was still dripping, albeit lesser now. She kept pressing the open door repetitively with her wrinkly fingers. Harry remained stiff, unsure if he should use his wand. “What floor are we currently?”

Taken aback, Harry didn’t respond for a couple of seconds until she reached out to his shoulder to check on him. “Oh, er — seventh, I think.”

He then heard her click a button he supposed was for the seventh, then a bunch of other buttons the next.

“We’re gonna die, we’re gonna die, we’re gonna die. . . .” Harry found that he preferred the constant clicking noises from the buttons over her constant reminder of their ‘impending doom.’ It was like fourth year all over again when their Divination teacher Professor Trelawney kept telling him he was going to die an early death. She kept chanting to herself in hysterics.

“Have you tried . . . the emergency call button? The one with the bell?”

“What do you think I’ve been doing?” said the girl. To his surprise, she picked up her bag again and aimed it at the elevator door before swinging it right in the middle. She then started banging her fist hard on the doors, pounding. “Help! I’m stuck! I mean, we’re stuck! Hello? I’m wi —”

“There’s a press to call thing here,” pointed Harry.

“Good,” she remarked as she practically run to it when the elevator made a creaking noise from above. The girl let out a shriek as she fell backwards and pulled Harry down with her. “Lie flat or we’re both gonna die!”

“Why — ?”

“JUST DO IT.” He did. Both of them sprawled their legs and he felt the damp floor wet his back a bit, but he was still weighing the pros and cons of pulling out his wand. Of course, if it were up to him, he’d pull it out in a heartbeat but the Weasleys’ vacation was on the line and he couldn’t jeopardize that by—

The elevator whined, and it felt as if it was moving a bit. “We’re gonna plummet to do our death!”

“Calm down,” said Harry, hardly knowing why he even bothered in the first place because he didn’t know what to say next especially with the girl’s expectant eyes on him. He thought of what Hermione had told them when they first came here, who then attempted to calm the others down about their feelings on Muggle Elevators. “Er — elevators are one of the safest ways of transportation with only the fatality rate of zero point zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-something-fifteen percent per trip.”

“Oh, shut up, stranger,” cried the girl. “There’s still a fifteen in that end. We’re gonna die, accept that!”

“You seem to be the one having troubles accepting that,” argued Harry back. She shot him a glare.

“I haven’t written my will and we’re gonna die. You see — you hear that rumble? We’re slowly falling down and we’re gonna die. I should have — should have taken the stairs. Please, please, please let me live! I swear I’ll start eating vegetables! This is it stranger, we’re gonna die.”

“That’s a bit melodramatic, don’t you think?”

“We’re about to die and you have time to think? Lie with your chunkiest bits on the floor to increase our chance of survival.”

He wanted to argue, but he resorted to inching further away from her and stretching his limbs awkwardly.

“Damn it, you shouldn’t have kept the door open!”

“How is that my fault? If anything, I was being nice,” said Harry.

“Being nice? You just sentenced me to my death and now I’m dying in this cramped space in a swimsuit and shorts that aren’t even for swimming!”

Surprisingly, the elevator whined to a stop. They remained on the floor for half a minute. Eventually, she was the first to stand up. Dusting herself and not meeting Harry’s eye, she smashed the bell button with her finger. It buzzed for a few seconds before a guy’s voice answered.

“Hello,” said the operator. The intercom seemed to be having troubles.

“Uh, hello, hi,” replied the girl.

“So are you currently stuck in the elevator?” Harry could hear the girl turn to him in the dark and call up the look of utter disbelief, as if wanting to reply, ‘No shit.’

“Yes, very much.”

“Okay, are you alone?” asked the operator.

“Unfortunately, no. I’m with . . .” she trailed off, turning to Harry with prolonged contemplation. “With stranger. I’m with stranger. A stranger. With a stranger, I mean.”

“May I know your names please?”

“Uh, sure? I’m . . . Papier Matchen and this is —”

“Har — Neville. Neville Longbottom, sir,” answered Harry. The operator did not respond. “Neville Longbottom.”

“Are you both guests?” asked the operator.

“Yes,” said [Y/N]. “Wait, are you a guest?”

“I am a guest,” said Harry stiffly.

“He’s a guest,” she added, as if in an attempt to keep whatever morale is left high. The operator didn’t respond again. “Hey, uh, operator? It would really help if you didn’t keep disappearing on us.” She chuckled nervously.

“What floor are you currently on?” said the voice with a bit more static.

“Uh, well,” she said, turning to Harry, “last time we checked, it was on the seventh but it moved down a bit and we might be in-between floors seven and six.”

“Alright, thank you. We’re currently experiencing a city wide power outage, and it appears that the back-up battery in Elevator Three has not yet been replaced since the last brownout. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

“Yeah, you should be sorry. So, uh, is any of your authorities gonna come and pick us up?”

No response. She pressed the button again. And again. And again. No sound came, not even static. “Hello? Hi?”

When no one responded again, she slumped to the floor once more, her hair still wet but no longer dripping. “Sit down,” she said, pointing at the spot right next to her. Harry obliged. “You can sit across, I don’t care. I know I smell like chlorine right now.”

Harry sat across from her, leaning back against the wall. She didn’t talk either. This went on for about five minutes until Harry had the urge to do something or at least say something.

“I’m afraid I’ve been thinking,” he started.

“A dangerous pastime, you should be afraid. Go ahead,” she said, gesturing a finger gun his way.

“Shouldn’t we try to get out of this?”

“Who are you, Bruce Willis? Need I remind you that you are Nev . . . Bottom?”

“That’s not actually my name,” said Harry.

“Same, I just said Papier Matchen off the top of my head. Like papier mache but witchy. My name’s actually pretty good, I think. I’m [Y/N] [Y/L/N]. Oh, wait, nope, don’t like it.”

“I think it’s good.” [Y/N] turned on her phone and shone it around until it landed on his face. Harry realized he had kept the box of doughnuts in the corner when she made them sit down. “I’m Harry,” he said when she finally turned off the phone.

[Y/N] turned it on again and directed it to the box of doughnuts. “Are those doughnuts to make us super tiny like Alice in Wonderland or something?”

“Oh, those are for my friend’s father.”

“Let’s eat it, I’m hungry,” said [Y/N].

“It’s for my friend’s father.”

“You have to realize that that is so not a good enough point. We’re trapped in an elevator with no means of communication with that musty man and eating that is the only thing we can do. Unless you want to do something else?”

“Er — What?” choked Harry, clearing his throat. “Okay, fine, uh, doughnuts.”

She made a triumphant sound Harry couldn’t explain, but paid it no mind as she reached out to grab the box of doughnuts from the corner. She set it in front of her.

“Hey, these are from my aunt’s bakery.”

“They are?” asked Harry.

“Yeah! The one across the street from here?” asked [Y/N], to which Harry nodded. “Ooh, you got the one with Oreos? Nice! I helped design those.”

“Okay, uh, can I have some?”

“I thought it was against your will to take some of these from your ’friend’s dad?’” teased [Y/N], but she handed him a doughnut anyway. Harry began to eat just like she did. “Sorry I forced you to lie down here. . . .”

She looked at him, waiting for something. What? Harry furrowed his brows, confused.

“Sorry, I mean, what’s your name again?” asked [Y/N], hints of the chocolate stuck between her teeth and some on her lips.

“Harry Potter,” replied Harry, who debated against himself whether or not he should point it out. After all, she seemed to be having a good time and they just started to lose the tension. “You’ve got uh, something on your, you know.”

“I know,” said [Y/N], but she didn’t do anything about it. “Anyway, can you believe six and seven are lucky numbers yet here we are, stuck in the wretched elevator between them?”

“No, that’s why I don’t really believe in those . . . things.”

“I’d say that’s insulting, but I’m dripping in my swimwear while I’m stuck in the elevator with a total stranger, so fair enough.”

Harry didn’t know how long they were talking, but it just went on. He was pretty sure there were times he even laughed. Harry reached out to grab another doughnut when he realized she was holding it as well. They both let it drop back to the box.

“Oh, no, it’s yours,” said [Y/N].

“It’s okay, you can have it,” said Harry.

“I ate more than you did, you can have it. Just go,” said [Y/N].

“You can —”

“You know what? Let’s just split it.”

[Y/N] ripped it in half, handing him the bigger slice. Just when Harry was going to offer to exchange, she swallowed it whole.

“Too late, I ate my half already.”

“I can see that,” said Harry. He began to eat his own half, savoring it with three more bites.

“Sorry I smell like chlorine again.”

“Eh, I don’t know, it’s kind of growing on me,” said Harry. “I shouldn’t have said that, sorry.”

“On a good day, that would sound like an insult but it’s anything but a good day, so, thank you, I guess.”

The two shared a laugh (and most definitely three) the entire time when the lights turned on. They could see each other clearly now. There was no denying they felt quite vulnerable — like finally meeting an friend you only send letters and emails to for the first time, but she smiled to make it feel lighter.

Suddenly, it started to move up again, [Y/N] kept them seated just in case it started plummeting again. It didn’t, though. It opened on the seventh, as the indicator told them so.

The intercom buzzed once more and different operator spoke. None of them stood up.

“Hi, power’s slowly being restored. How’s everyone?”

“We’re good,” said Harry. [Y/N] smiled in the shadows, tossing the towel in the corner. “Wait, you’re — er — good, right?”

“Yeah, surprisingly so,” she said.

“Good to hear, we’re currently doing the best we can to cater everyone’s needs. Has your, uh, elevator moved yet? Sorry, I’m new here. Anyway, has it?” asked the operator.

“Currently open on the seventh floor, but we’re both going up, all’s good now, don’t worry,” answered [Y/N]. She stood up, taking the towel with her.

“Okay, great, thank you and take care!” said the operator before the intercom buzzed off. Harry and [Y/N] stood there as the elevator door closed shut and began to move up and open again to the eighth.

“So,” started [Y/N], “this is me. My floor, I mean.”

“Right,” said Harry

“Well, I still don’t like elevators and I may or may not ride one ever again so I can’t believe I’d ever say this because it’s hella cheesy but thanks for making it bearable.”

“I feel like I should say, ‘you’re welcome?’” said Harry.

“Oh yeah, you should.”

The door began to close, but Harry pressed the open door button.

“Okay, you’re welcome.” The two shared lighthearted laughter. “Anyway, er — thank you, too. See you around?”

“Yeah, yeah, see you around. Bye.” [Y/N] waved as the doors closed between them and Harry was once again all alone in the elevator.

He noticed what a mess the floor was, and went to pick up the empty box of donuts. His hand went to where he kept his wand to clean up and looked around for cameras and found one tucked in the upper corner. Harry let his hand down and dusted his shirt with his hands when something caught his eye. A beach bag in the corner, resting carelessly.

The door finally opened to the ninth floor. Harry was frozen, looking directly at a long hallway of doors. It took a few seconds until it whirred and shut close. Not knowing what to do, Harry picked up the bag and swung it over his shoulder.

He tapped his foot as he waited for the elevator to go up to the twelfth floor until it began going down again. He pressed the button to the ninth floor again.

Ten.

Eleven. A couple his age entered, probably about to go down. Narrowed eyes landed on him and his dirty shirt and pants, but he paid them no mind.

Twelve. The couple started to talk about their plans on the honeymoon tomorrow. Harry busied himself by playing with the straps of the beach bag. He realized just now it had her name inside one of the straps lazily written with a sharpie. [Y/N], it stated.

Eleven again.

Ten again.

Nine again. The door opened, but he did not step out. Of course, the couple began to eye him with suspicion now as he reached out to press the button to the eighth floor.

Eight. When he stepped out, he heard the hushed but relieved sighs from both of the other two behind him as the elevator proceeded to close shut and go down.

Harry knocked on the first door. A man in his pajamas answered. Harry muttered an apology as he walked away to try the second door. He heard the first door swing shut.

The second door was equipped with a sign on the doorknob saying, ‘Do not Disturb.’ So, of course, Harry moved on to the third. He heard loud sounds of children playing inside. When he knocked, a tired woman carrying a toddler in her arms answered. Harry apologized once more and moved on.

Harry’s shoulder was aching, so he let the bag down and simply held it in his hands.

The fourth door was answered by a middle-aged man holding a glass of wine.

The fifth door’s knob held the same message as the the second — ‘Do not Disturb.’

As you may recall, Harry held a bag he did not own in his hand. His shirt was a bit muddied and moist on one side, but he didn’t mind. He stood in front of the eighth door he’ll be knocking on in hopes it was the owner of the bag. It still wasn’t, though.

Instead, a woman his age greeted him with a smile. She was pretty, sure, but she wasn’t what he was looking for. He apologized for interrupting and went ahead to knock on the ninth door.

It swung open, and Harry let out a long sigh.

An older woman greeted him with a pleasant smile. “Hello, dear,” she said. He took a shot and asked if she knew anyone by the name of [Y/N] [Y/L/N]. Unfortunately though, she did not.

Harry finally made it to the last door. He knocked once more, holding the bag tighter now. A little kid answered, with her parents and siblings in the background, eating pancakes. They did not know of someone named [Y/N] [Y/L/N], either.

Shoulders slumping, Harry made his way back to the elevator. He pressed the up button.

“Excuse me?” called out a voice from behind him. His heart skipped a beat. Wait, don’t skip, he thought to himself.

It still wasn’t her. It was the same girl from the ninth door. “Yes?”

“You’re looking for [Y/N]?” she asked. “[Y/N] [Y/L/N]?”

“Er — yes. Do you know her?” asked Harry.

“Yeah, she’s in the shower. Is that her bag?”

“Oh!” He almost forgot that he was holding it. “Yes, yes it is.”

“I can give it to her,” called out the woman. She closed the door behind her, making her way towards him. When she was close enough, she extended her hand.

The elevator dinged open. Harry was about to hand it over to her, when he decided something else.

“Er — no, uh, I was actually hoping if I could see her.”

She let her hand down, grinning. “You must be Elevadork.”

“Oh, yeah, it’s an inside joke,” said Harry.

“You can wait inside,” said the girl. “I’m Karolina, by the way. She’s just showering because she’s, and I quote, ‘will be too unlovable if smelling like chlorine.’”

Harry chuckled as Karolina led him to their hotel room. It was just like every other room he had seen, then he saw the same towel she had with her just a while ago when they were stuck with only each other’s company.

“He was nice, though. I wouldn’t mind seeing him again. By the way, we’re out of hair conditioner. My hair badly nee — Harry!” [Y/N] tumbled backwards to the bathroom with a different towel wrapped around herself. Harry’s eyes widened, and he turned around.

“He wanted to return your bag and ask you out,” said Karolina.

“That’s not what I actually said,” whispered Harry, turning crimson.

“Honey, trust me, it was definitely what you said,” laughed Karolina, patting him in the back. “You might want to change first.”

“I guess,” added Harry.

[Y/N] rushed to the get her clothes from one of the two beds and ran back to the shower, where she hastily pulled on her shirt and checkered pajama pants.

“She’s done changing, by the way,” said Karolina, patting Harry on the shoulder again as she left to pour iced tea for herself.

[Y/N] led Harry out, earning two thumbs up from Karolina, who was beaming up at the two of them. “How’d you find me?”

“Fate,” said Harry mockingly, as if from a show. She giggled. “I knocked on all the doors in this hallway.”

“To return a bag?”

“Sure, that, too. But mainly to ask if you’d like to get some — er — doughnuts with, uh, me. I really want to bring some up to —”

“Your friend’s dad, right,” [Y/N] cut out. “Are we still taking the elevator?”

“Yeah,” said Harry.

They finally reached the elevator, where they stood side by side.

“Aren’t you going to change first?” asked [Y/N].

“Nope,” said Harry, pressing the down button. He turned to [Y/N], looking at her shirt. “Does that say ‘Treacle Treat?’”

“Yeah, like as in Trick or Treat. See the pumpkin?” She pointed at the bottom part of her shirt.

“Oh, there it is.” The two were laughing even when they stepped into the elevator. They exchanged a knowing glance at the sight of scattered crumbs of doughnuts on the floor, not daring to talk about it in front of one another guest.

As the elevator began to go down, Harry realized he might as well believe in the lucky numbers. After all, if it weren’t for six, seven, and nine, he wouldn’t be here right now standing shoulder up to shoulder with the girl wearing a funky shirt.

Taglist: @gingerale2017 @maybanksslut @hey-there-angels @mrzweasley @gwlvr @booksarealwaysbettersworlds-blog @greenlyblue @henqtic @meiitanoia @catching-the-train-to-hogwarts

[neverdoingmuch]

Wait cql lawyer/law school AU

i got you my pal dont worry!!

law school, im gonna be honest and say i know like nothing about law or law school so pls ignore any inconsistencies or inaccuracies

lwj goes to law school and he is definitely the top student in his class. they’ve been there for like a month and everyone already knows he’s gonna be the best

his one and only competition is this dude called wei wuxian but lwj isn’t particularly worried about him

so far they’re still in the stage of the course where they do the fun things to sucker people into doing the class for the semester so there’s been some practise debates and arguments and stuff in their tutorial classes

wei wuxian has that Charisma and like yeah all of his arguments are perfect but also he has an amazing smile and people are like yes i can trust him 

(he’s definitely the sort to be like hm, the easy way to argue this case would be to quote some laws and use precedence to justify this but that’s boring)

lwj is also good at that sort of stuff because his arguments are perfect and everything is so perfectly researched that there should be no ground at all for someone to lodge a counterargument

(wei wuxian manages somehow and it makes lwj so mad)

but that’s whatever lwj thinks,, a lot of people join law thinking it’s gonna be like the tv shows and books and then get completely blindsided when it comes to the rote learning part or like the actual laws 

and for all of wwx’s confidence, lwj hasn’t actually seen wwx so much as touch the textbook/s and he always studies in the law library so he knows that wwx has probably never even been there bc he hasn’t seen him even once (why’s he looking? bc he needs to see which books wwx uses to study,, bc there has to be something going on there,, obviously)

then they do their first like proper written assignment and lwj and wwx tie for the highest scores and now lwj has a Rival and he refuses to lose to someone who thinks that putting a ‘-us’ sound at the end of a word makes it latin (did wwx say habeas corpus and then point at a soft drink and go  sprite-us can-us,,, maybe,,,,)

anyway! lwj and wwx are kinda rivals for the top spot and it’s one of those situations where one test lwj wins by a point but then the next test wwx gets full marks and they just keep exchanging the top spot in class

and this whole time wwx is like The Worst to have in class. he’s always interrupting to ask questions or just straight up not listening and spends the class doodling pictures of rabbits (they’re cute but wwx is terrible and he’s not allowed to make cute drawings)

so after a few months the most horrible thing happens.... they get put together in a project and lwj is like ugh. internally of course but his face is also saying ugh

the first time wwx and lwj get together to work on the project, lwj is prepared with a proper list of tasks to do all nicely split up between the two of them and a schedule for when they should get certain parts done by. 

needless to say, lwj does not expect wwx to be ready, but wwx is definitely on top of things

he rocks up and is like yeah let’s do this, this and this and have them done by this time - basically proposing to do everything that lwj has already written down

and lwj is pleasantly surprised and is like hm maybe i misjudged wwx and decides to like re-evaluate his opinion on him

in doing so he realises that when he’d never seen wwx studying, it wasn’t an exaggeration at all. he’s never seen wwx so much as touch a textbook or spend more than a minute on a laptop doing something that wasn’t minesweeper or solitaire

but wwx is also making all of their deadlines and even adds extra information and resources to their document that could be useful elsewhere and sometimes he shows up to their study sessions and he looks absolutely exhausted

eventually lwj manages to get the truth out and wwx is just like yeah it’s easier to get worse grades than a genius but if you both study and you still get lower grades, it’s not easy,, for jc or for me

so wwx usually studies at night when his brother is asleep and lwj is like that’s bad, you can’t keep that up and just when wwx is about to go off at him lwj is like you can come study at my place

and thus begins the wonderful time where everything is alright and lwj falls in love with wwx

they work really well together and wwx is strangely considerate and nice? when he finds out lwj likes rabbits, he goes out and buys bunny post-it notes for lwj and starts to always bring him a doodle of bunnies every time he comes over. he always gets his work done on time, early even, and his work is always so brilliant and every time wwx smiles at him, lwj feels warm inside etc etc

for a long while lwj is like yes (: this is friendship (: bc he’s never had a crush before but then on the day they submit their project wwx is like hey,, the two of us make a great team,, we should always work together,, now and next year and even when we graduate,, i want to help the innocent people who need our help and i think i’d like it a lot if you joined me and lwj has his oh moment

they get a perfect score on the project of course and even after it finishes, wwx keeps coming over to lwj’s place to study or just hang out and lwj is just falling more and more for wwx each day

they’re best friends now and everyone gets used to seeing them work together on projects and then turn around to try and decimate each other when they’re working one on one and lwj thinks that he might just be the happiest he’s ever been

but then one day wwx doesn’t show up to class. it shouldn’t be strange but wwx has never missed class even once and he ends up hearing from lxc who heard from jgy that wwx was caught sabotaging some other student’s work (the other student was jzxun, who had a fondness for playing devil’s advocate and other than wwx once telling him that his argument was shit, wwx never spoke to him or seemed to know who he was but lwj is a bit too angry to remember that)

he manages to find wwx outside of his dorms as he’s moving out and he’s just like why did you do that? and wwx is like oh y’know,, bc he’s not really sure what’s happening himself,, one second he was at the top of his class and the next he was being brought before a board and being told that he was being expelled but he’s not going to tell lwj that bc lwj would definitely try and stand up for him and then they’d both get expelled

but lwj is furious and just spits out well if our dreams meant so little to you then maybe it’s a good thing you failed now,, bc his mother was a lawyer who took all these little jobs that helped people who actually needed the help and lwj was looking forward to doing that with wwx and he doesn’t even seem to care that now they can’t do that 

wwx flinches and then smiles at him and just cheerily says, that’s me and leaves. he doesn’t look back and lwj doesn’t chase after him.

lwj doesn’t see him again for years (you can do 13 or 5 or however long you feel like)

lwj is a fully licensed lawyer and he’s working for the family company and he spends half of his time working on cases and uses the rest of his time to do like outreach programs where he goes and visits schools and runs sessions on what it’s like to be a lawyer, how to apply, and to provide assistance to any students who decide to study law at uni

and then at one of these programs he meets this kid, wen yuan, who is ridiculously bright and enthusiastic and has a smile that seems oddly familiar

at the end of the second session he comes up to lwj and is like mr. lan, is your name lan wangji? and lwj just says yes, expecting the kid to be a fan of one of his cases or something but then wen yuan is like oh wow! i thought i recognised you from my dad’s photo!

and lwj isn’t expecting much but he asks what the photo looks like and wen yuan pulls out this photo from his pocket and lwj immediately recognises it,, it’s the only photo he has of him and wwx

your father is wei ying? lwj asks him and wen yuan is like yes, hesitates, and then asks, would you like to see him?

and that’s how lwj finds himself following wen yuan to some dinky little office that has a plaque outside that reads wen and wei

(wen ning is the nicest and sweetest person ever and lots of people underestimate him but then he’s an absolute monster on court. he gets up and completely decimates the opponent and then at the end is like (: it was so nice to meet you!! i am baby!! and all that,, you know our boy)

anyway they walk in and wwx turns to greet wen yuan but then he sees lwj and is like woah! you! and he’s not sure whether to hide or go and hug lwj so he just gives him a fist bump,, like a bro,, and immediately wants to shrivel up and die

anyway they get the reunion stuff out of the way, swelling music, tender wrist holding, lots of staring, lwj silently declaring his wholehearted love for wwx and refusing to believe rumours about him again even though he doesn’t actually know what happened, you know how it goes

from wwx’s side of things,, after he got kicked out he went to some small uni. good in its own right but not known for their law program and ended up specialising in family law

the first case he ever won was for the wens to have the right to keep custody of a-yuan and the first case wen ning ever won was to let wwx adopt a-yuan bc i’m soft like that

so wwx has just been kinda vibing,, being a single dad, living with the wens and helping to make that difference he always promised he would

now this isn’t gonna be some au where lwj goes oh my! i must give up my high salary job and work with wwx! bc lwj has been doing good stuff at his current job and for all of his family’s stuffiness, they run a fair and just company 

but! he does end up helping wwx when wwx gets a letter with a bunch of information about the jins and how they’re actually super corrupt and evil (big surprise,,) and how wwx was maybe definitely framed bc he was doing some casual work on the side and stumbled across some bad shit on the jins back in uni

lwj ends up being the one to take the case officially but wwx is definitely the guy leading it and so lwj ends up spending most of his time at the wen-wei office

lwj definitely bonds with wen yuan, who also wants to go into law, and writes him recommendation letters and helps him edit his applications and stuff

(and one day wen yuan is like leaving you was the hardest thing dad ever did and i dont think you appreciated how much he cared about you. he really did think that he annoyed you ‘til the end and lwj is like no! he didn’t! and wen yuan is like yeah i know but you gotta tell him and lwj really does mean to but the time is never right or something like that but also wen yuan is all but calling lwj dad at this point)

anyway they end up going to court, side by side, working as a team just as they promised to do and just as they finish their final day on the case, ended with the jury ruling jgy guilty and wwx’s reputation all but saved, wwx turns around and flings himself at lwj

is he crying? is he laughing? a bit of both tbh but wwx ends up confessing right then and there, still on record and everything (is that how that works??? idk! let’s say it does)

and what can lwj do but make out with him?

did a news crew come in to film the results of this massive court case just to end up with five minutes of wangxian kissing?? maybe! but when it played on tv it meant wwx and lwj didnt have to actually tell anyone they got together

(and does lwj eventually pop the question using wwx’s bad latinification? yes and wwx is too busy laughing to accept at first but he does and they end up being the worst possible tutors for wen yuan as he goes through law school bc they keep being all gross and lovey-dovey and acting like law school is the most romantic place in the world)

[emmys-grimoire]

Lesson 52 analysis + 53 predictions

Turning this into a routine thing now! They’re fun to write and they’re popular (moreso than my actual commentary posts lmao).

Y’all like my ramblings.

Things guessed correctly from prior lesson

The House of Lamentation was an illusion produced by the fairies

The arc culminated in the completion of the Trial of Patience (star received via Simeon)

The illusion did a number on Simeon's feelings as well due to his fondness for Lucifer and the brothers

They shoved Mammon and Luke off to the side and plopped them back in only after the Satan/Simeon arc was complete. There was no arc for Luke. To be fair, though, they did get more content than I expected even so.

Things guessed wrong

The banshee didn't show up at all. It was a red herring.

There was no significance to the geranium found in the mysterious book

Our adventure also completed the Trial of Generosity. (I incorrectly attributed this to Diavolo, who actually gave us the Star of Gratitude)

Still ???

Whether or not there is some kind of transfer of memories/experiences going on between the brothers' past selves and present selves due to our meddling in time. We've confirmed that past angel Beelzebub has turned into a glutton in between the time we last saw him and now, but we haven't confirmed if it *is* our meddling that has induced that. Currently, no change has manifested in the present brothers, nor has the timeline of events seemed to have significantly changed.

Whether or not present Lucifer becoming more "angelic" in season 2, in lieu of past angel Lucifer's growing doubt, will be a significant plot point. The parallels are getting stronger, though. (This is elaborated on further down)

It feels like 50/50? I’ll probably keep a list like this going for future analysis/prediction posts just so I can keep track of how right/mistaken I am throughout the playthrough. Might help me make less mistakes in my analysis!

As a general rule I try not to meander too far off into symbolism or out-of-game lore because what I write begins to sound like this:

And this is an otome game that is light on writing and plot. Nine times out of ten, it’s not going to be that deep. So I work with the details given and the plot points shown and try to draw connections within the framework of the story, in an attempt to try to deduce where the devs are taking the plot. Unfortunately for me, the devs like red herrings, and red herrings are designed to mislead you. With me, they are quite successful! I’d like to get better at spotting them.

The book was consequential -- it’s used to imprison Satan later -- but that’s the end of it’s meaning. Maybe the Bible verse had something to do with it, too -- those were some weird ass numbers to just throw in the title -- but maybe not. Either way, it doesn’t really matter. 

But enough of that, onwards! We have a lot of points to go over that may be interesting to note, right or not.

Satan the Memory Thief

Back in 50-B we learn that it was Michael who taught the brothers the stories behind the human world constellations. 

When we’re tossed back in time-dreamland (?) again, it is Satan who takes the opportunity to teach the brothers the human world constellations. The room had just been remodeled: Michael hasn’t had the opportunity to give them tours yet. Lucifer mosied into the room so he and the brothers can get the first glimpse.

Sooo if in a future lesson we ask them about where they learned the constellations in the present timeline and they say “oh a guy named Sully, who suspiciously looked just like Satan, taught us!” then we know our meddling is having significant consequences.

It IS worth noting that unlike the prior dream sequence, Satan and Simeon remember what they just went through. This particular time-dream could very well just be an illusion meant to give Satan/Simeon some kind of emotional resolution and nothing else. This is kind of why I hate that they’re bring time travel back into the story: it makes stuff like this confusing and borderline inconsistent. Some sequences may have effects and others may not. 

The chat between Lucifer and Simeon could also be consequential.

“Do you *really* mean that?”

There is a parallel at play here!

After you wake up after dozing off, you go off to find Lucifer and Simeon conversing in a forest clearing, evidently unaware that you’re eavesdropping on them. Simeon says although he knows it is just an illusion, that he was glad to see angel Lucy once more. Angel Lucy is predictably confused, and reassures Simeon that they’ll remain like this forever.

Simeon, of course, knows better. He tells Lucifer that he knows he’s been meeting with Diavolo and he’s having doubts about his place in the Celestial Realm -- and if things really will remain the same. Lucy is caught off guard, and starts to explain with some clear hesitation... and of course we pass out before we could hear his answer.

There’s creepy loud heartbeats when it fades out. Normally I associate them with tense, pivotal decisions -- but it could also just be related to us waking up and returning to reality.

If Simeon ends up being wrong -- and there will be real world consequences to this conversation -- they could be very significant consequences. We’re not sure if the conversation continues for a bit longer after we pass out, but Simeon already woke up before we come to.

Obviously the brothers still fell (they’re still demons in the present), but I wouldn’t underestimate the potential of a butterfly effect changing the circumstances of the Great Celestial War. I kind of hope they don’t do that, though, because they haven’t even begun to explain the present details of that event. We know only the broad strokes. Suddenly changing them to make the resolution between the demons and angels more smooth will feel really forced.

And that parallel I mentioned: Diavolo expresses similar worries and doubt in Lucifer’s conviction in season 2.

I have no doubt Lucifer actually means what he says to Diavolo, unlike his dialogue with Simeon, but Diavolo is aware of just how far Lucifer will go for the sake of his family -- and he’s probably #2 on the priority list, when push comes to shove. Lucifer forsaking the Celestial Realm for Lilith was the thing that brought him to Diavolo in the first place.

Of course, this lesson has Simeon suggesting that Diavolo’s influence on Lucifer was significant prior to all that unfolding, and it may have eventually happened regardless. It was only a matter of when, not how.

Still, Lucifer be writing checks he may not be able to cash. We also get this foreboding warning from Barbatos in Season 2:

As I’ve said before, the inevitable conflict the story was hinting to at this point doesn’t happen in Season 2. Lucifer isn’t forced to make a choice like this. The Night Dagger didn’t demand it.

I’ve also expressed my belief that Season 2 and Season 3 were likely written back-to-back due to the small window of time between their releases, so I believe details overlooked in Season 2 may suddenly become more relevant in Season 3.

It’s worth remembering Diavolo’s growing feelings for MC -- and Lucifer’s inner conflict about it -- were hinted at early in Season 2, as well. It doesn’t really get going until the conclusion of Season 2, leading into Season 3.

Do I have any clue of what this is actually leading up to? Not at all! If it mirrors Season 2′s format, though, it’ll suddenly come to a head in the last 3-5 lessons. I remember feeling equally clueless then, and Season 2 had a lot more foreshadowing...

... a lot of which actually didn’t pan out! But it might now. 

Guardian Angels

Another smaller, but interesting detail. Guardian Angels are indeed a thing.

I think they’re gonna become a thing soon. The devs very sneakily changed a small detail in Season 2, suggesting they might have realized that it may interfere with their plans for later seasons. 

Old version.

New version.

I’m thinking they may have decided giving Michael guardianship of an entire swath of the population was cheating, and they may be individualizing the role of Guardian Angels.

Which leads me to who I think Michael’s chosen human squeeze is:

My man has been scoping him out long before we came around.

It makes sense, too. We know Michael gave his Ring of Wisdom to Solomon, which seems to have kickstarted his career as a demon-pacting sorcerer (though he clearly was a sorcerer before this).

This is a very powerful item, described as the Ring of Light’s counterpart, that would be very useful for a high-ranking angel to possess. I don’t think Michael would fork it over to just anyone, particularly when we remember how he felt compelled to interrogate us via dream hi-jack before the Ring of Light fully came into our possession.

Solomon also makes Michael angst in a way a well-meaning but misbehaving child would make their parent angst:

Solomon also really doesn’t seem to regard Michael like some distant, all-powerful alien being who could smite him out of existence.

Contrast this with how he responds when he’s forced to hang out with Diavolo for a day (he gets more comfortable, but he initially wants to punt the responsibility back to Lucifer ASAP).

And he knows a surprising amount of small details about the guy:

I think Solomon is a significant part of Michael’s long-term plans, but he may not even be fully aware of how. Or he is, and they’re in some kind of mutually beneficial agreement -- possibly related to cross-realm peace -- that we simply haven’t been made aware of yet.

Personally, I think Simeon should be made MC’s ‘official’ Guardian Angel if they’re gonna be a thing with official mechanics behind them. I know Michael is supposed to be the Big Cheese and ridiculously hot, so it may make sense to have him linked to the MC of an otome game because they’re super special too, but Michael may already have Solomon. He shouldn’t get to hog everything. It’s not like assigning Simeon to do job would really inconvenience him, either: MC is Solomon’s apprentice. He can easily work with the arrangement.

Luke may feel left out but he’s a kid so...

Seven Brothers Constellation

We learn there’s a constellation representing the brothers in the Celestial Realm. Everyone there knows the legend, but Luke doesn’t know what the three stars ‘watching over them’ represent. 

He, Mammon, and Satan begin to theorize and Satan suggests they may represent the three realms. The other two like the idea, and Mammon insists the ‘human’ star represents MC. 

He’s probably right, but I’m willing to take it a step further: it represents MC, Diavolo, and Michael. The three “guardians” of their respective realms, and the brothers. Season 3 has been repeatedly beating us over the head with how much Michael still cares for the brothers and his relevance to their upbringing, and likely their future.

It bears repeating: Diavolo and Michael are aiming towards the same goal, though their visions of what peace and harmony looks like may be very different.

Solomon could also qualify as a self-appointed guardian, but I think he lacks the connection to the brothers MC obviously has.

Still, he has the same resolve, and he’s not leaving the story any time soon.

Predictions

I sniff out even the smallest Michael details because he’s clearly the key to whatever is gonna blow up.

This might give us some insight on how the initial dealings with him may unfold:

It’s hard to deduce just what this actually means. Either Michael tends to overthink things that just aren’t that deep (can empathize) and that in itself leads to needless complications, or he’s apt to misread situations and as a result gives poor advice. Or a combination of both.

My initial read on him makes me think that he thinks the best of humans/angels but the worst of demons. He is very, very complimentary towards MC as soon as they start answering his questions.

Am I now? Really?

It could just be the game making characters butter up the MC to make the game more enjoyable for the player of a self-insert character, but dude we just met.

When you tell him you did what you did out of love for Lucifer:

That’s a very telling pause/ellipsis. It’s like his brain momentarily short-circuits and he needs to regain his composure before he continues, and he still doesn’t sound entirely sure of what you just said lol

He also just outright admits he initially thought you must be wicked just because the brothers liked you, and this is a guy who is still fond of them himself. I think he’s having a very hard time with it.

So the inevitable bumps in the roads ahead with him will likely be a result of this, and/or his dad being an asshole. Neither he or Diavolo are actually in charge of the realms they’re overseeing -- they’re both de facto leaders -- so maybe the parents will suddenly barge in and try to knock over their sand castles for whatever reason. It is kind of weird that the exchange program has been agreed to in the first place, particularly on the Celestial Realm’s part.

Regardless, I have no clue what the next arc will be. I know we still have three trials left, but they could combine two again to leave more room for the actual storyline to progress. The climax is going to be the last trial of our sorcerer’s exam, or something happening afterwards. Not sure which one I’m willing to bet on yet: I remember Simeon’s play and the silly Blood Moon contest in Season 2 were what kept use preoccupied for Season 2 until SUDDENLY LUCIFER GETS AMNESIA AND THE WORLD IS IN DANGER AND WE HAVE TO STAB HIM TO SAVE EVERYONE. But they did heavily foreshadow that in the very beginning lol. They just didn’t fill in the blanks until much later.

I wonder what the trial of chastity is gonna be like and how hard we’ll actually fail and the game will need to overcompensate for that

[rsgguk]

true love, almost always — jjk

↳ aka — 'cause baby you're perfect for me

summary: y/n didn't know much about her soulmate. She knows that he's artistic from the little doodles that appears on her arm. She knows he's athletic from the scrapes that appears on her knees. She also knows that he has pain in the ass friends from the random dick drawings that appears on her forehead

genre: romance, angst, comedy, fluff

word count: 5.8 k

pairings:

Jungkook + reader | soulmates

warnings: so let me tell you, this is probably gonna be a bit inconsistent, I had written most of this during the middle of the night when I had a severe case of the feels. Now this isn't my usual style of writing, most things are in passive form because I'm trying to focus more on how they feel. I’m not sure if I’ll ever go back to this writing style but I had fun generally not worrying on the dialogue.

Y/n didn't know much about her soulmate. In a system where everything marked on your soulmates skin crosses on yours, she knows from the seemingly many doodles that appears on the plan of her hand that he is an artistic person. She knows from the way her knees would appear scraped at times meant that he was either athletic or desperately clumsy. She knows that by the scar that daunted on her cheek that he got in a ’fight’ with his brother. She also knows from the random dick drawings that appear on her forehead that he has the most chaotic of friends.

Jungkook would like to say he knew a lot about his soulmate. He knows by the way tiny little hearts would appear near his doodles that she wasn't the most artsy person in the world, but she could draw a damn to near perfect heart. He knows by the way that small little freckles would gloss over his skin that she was an outgoing person. He knows by the way that shallow cuts would appear on his arms and fingers that she had an asshole cat. He also knows that by the way tiny reminders would appear on his palm that she had a knack for forgetting things (he also knows that her handwriting might be the cutest thing he'd ever seen, but he may be a little biased).

They're sober to the fact that the other exist by the time they're 11. Jungkook was bored in class and started drawing little clouds, trees, the sun with shades on, the whole package on his arm. And then on the expanse of his palm would appear in large curvy letters, 'can you draw a cat?'.

He thinks back to the day and guesses that he didn't really understand the extremity of the situation back then. Everyone had a soulmate, but it was the first time he'd actually 'talked' to his.

He didn't gasp or scream or shed a tear, only complying with her request and drawing a cute little cat next the tree trunk. He'd think he was hallucinating about the request until he watched as a ribbon was drawn and coloured in the middle of the cat's head.

The next week, he would have a fight with his brother that had ended in him getting a cut on his cheek. He doesn’t worry about it, only locking himself in his room and sulking in his sheets. It’s when a few words appeared on his palm that he finally sat up with a smile on his lips. She would write down if he was okay because a cut had appeared on her cheek.

‘I’m sorry’ he’d write.

‘it’s okay my daddy said I look cool’ she would reply, and his cheeks would flush because his mom had always said that a woman’s face was her pride. Jungkook had never understood it back then, because if he could be covered in dirt after a fun game of soccer, and still be called adorable, why should it matter what a girl’s face looked like?

She’d ask what happened and Jungkook would bite down an embarrassed whine. ’My brother said I played with the computer too much so I threw a pen at him’.

‘did you win?’ She’d ask a second later.

’No it hit the floor and bounced to my face’.

‘and then he laughed at me’

‘your brother sounds stupid’

‘he is stupid’

They didn't talk more than that, they were still young and the whole soulmates thing hadn't made sense yet. Jungkook still drew his doodles on his arm and she'd add little details (mostly hearts) around them, a tiny reminder that she was there.

It was barely considered a means of communication but it had morphed into a sense of comfort for Jungkook. He draws the little doodles, sometimes it was of a cat (He would never admit it but he'd learn how to draw a cat because he knew she liked cats). And each time without fail, she'd draw a tiny ribbon on its head.

And then Jungkook entered high-school and he met his friends. His stupid, chaotic, love them to death friends and his soul mate was still there, drawing little heart across his skin. The boys say its cheesy (as cheesy as it is to the fact that she's literally his soul mate) but he really hadn't given a shit.

He'd considered himself a romantic throughout the years, although he's gotten not a single bit of experience, he cries at the ending of titanic every single time and his ideal way of proposal is during the sunset walking across the shoreline of the beach, nightlights littered in the scenery and him on one knee, asking to marry his one and only soulmate.

He tries his best to keep up a mature kind of facade for his soul mate. Afterall, that was what they were into right? Older and more mature men. Sure, they'd like bad boys too, but honestly Jungkook bruises like a peach. His act of maturity consists of drawing thing with 'deeper meaning'. And yes, maybe a cat surfing on the beach tides has a deeper meaning, you never know.

His act is ruined when one day, he falls asleep during lunch after a long night of overwatch (in which he dominated by the way) and wakes up to Taehyung snickering beside him, looking at him with the largest shit eating grin he’d ever seen. Jungkook would shake his head and roll his eyes, dismissing whatever it was that he did.

Later during class, everyone kept giving him weird looks, and his teacher even laughed at the sight of him. It wasn’t until multiple frowney faces appeared on his arm that he really realized that something was wrong. His heart skipped a beat when he answered back with question marks written along her doodles.

‘there’s a dick drawing on my forehead :(’ she’d rely with the same curvy letters he’d gotten used to. And then there was a sound that had left his mouth. A mix between an angry scream and a surprised gasp with a little bit of an embarrassed groan. He’d then realize he was still in the middle of class and that every one of his classmates were staring at him.

His teacher would give him some sort of look between annoyed and amused, and finally asks ’so you finally realized huh?’. Jungkook would splutter on his words and immediately turn towards Jimin and Taehyung. It was barely a second before Jimin had shook his head and pointed at Taehyung. He would finally lift his hand off his mouth and bursts out laughing for a minute or two before outright choking, tears in his eyes.

That day, Jungkook along with Taehyung and (for some reason) Jimin would be sent to the discipline teacher. Jungkook wouldn’t give a shit about being sent to devil’s incarnate, only silently punching Taehyung’s shoulder and cussing it out at him for making him look like a fool to his soulmate.

When he’s home (after a lecture from his mom, a pat on the back from his dad and a high five from his brother), he locks himself in his bedroom and takes a pen from his bag, writing apologies all over his arm. She’d reply a minute later, saying it was okay.

His fingers would then drum along his arm, his leg jumping up and down, trying to figure out what else to say to her. He’d get up the courage and ask her what was her name. She’d respond with y/n and he’d have a smile riding up his lips, saying her name again and again, realizing that he loved how it felt to say her name.

Then the two of them would keep talking to each other, Jungkook constantly rolling up his sleeve to make some room for more words. They would spend the whole night getting to know each other and filling up a whole decade of silence. When they had run out of room to write, she would go on and ask for his number so they could text instead, and Jungkook would get up to his feet, jumping up and down on his heels. He wouldn’t waste a second to write down his number on the little space he had left.

The next day, he had woken up with an especially good mood. An extra jump on each of his step, a large grin on his face as if he hadn’t gotten into trouble for having a dick drawn on his forehead just the day before. Taehyung would expect a more than pissed of Jungkook, maybe a little bit of pettiness in the mix, but Jungkook shows nothing but adoration for him, even going as far as to buy him the apple juice he knows he loves from the convenience store nearby.

Texting her falls so easily in his routine. One second, he’s hesitant to text her, afraid to show her just how much of a dumbass he could be, another second, he’s called her the fifth time in a day because he swears a baby just gave him a nasty look. They connect quickly. She finds out the reason she suddenly gets eye bags after a full night’s sleep with because her idiot soulmate had spent the whole night screaming at wario for cheating at Mario kart.

Taehyung says it’s sickening to see just how lovey dovey Jungkook was (Jimin says it’s nice to see him so in love, but they both knew he secretly hated it too). The way his eyes light up at the sight of her name appearing on his screen.

He gets in trouble more nowadays though, teachers having caught him talking to his soulmate on his arm, and the most embarrassing time they read out his not-so-failed attempts of flirting off his arm to the whole class. Let’s just say he’d gotten teased for the life of him when it reached his brother’s ears (though he supposes his brother isn’t any better when he would literally be a make shift carpet if his soulmate asked for it). The Jeon boys treat their women like proper queens and won’t settle for anything less.

The first time they video call, Jungkook has fixed his hair for the hundredths time, a comfortable (and new that he bought just for this occasion) sweatshirt hung loosely on his shoulders. She’d asked if it was okay if they could do a video call the day before and Jungkook being as whipped as he was, of course agreed with her, only regretting not to be the one who asked first.

He’s so tense that when his phone starts ringing, he nearly chucks it off to the wall. He forces himself to calm down before setting it up on the table and pressing the green button after taking a deep breath. He looks at the screen and watches as her face appears. His heart almost bursts, because he’s thought of this moment a million times. He’d expect her to be something like a glowing figure, that she’d resemble a star and that her voice would sound like a serenading angel.

She’s nothing like he’d expect. She’s not glowing like an angel. Her camera has bad lighting and he could see a few strands of her hair sticking out. When she says hello, it isn’t like an angel, her voice isn’t smooth, a little raspy. But she still manages to surpass all his expectations, and he realizes she’s so much better than he’d ever imagined. His heart beats faster and faster because she’s only said one word, and Jungkook is already falling for her. She’s not perfect, but she’s perfect for him.

It’s going well, very well. There’s a way that she makes him feel, a way that just brightens up his day, and when they have their video calls and she laughs at one of those lame jokes that he’d gotten from one of his friends, her voice just soothes him, lets him relax into his seat and just watch as her eyes crinkle in joy.

 It starts to become a routine, the video calls are weekly but the texting is daily. Whenever he’s nervous about an upcoming exam, he calls her and just listens to her talk about her day, lets her voice fill his ear and calm his nerves. And then she would get off track and asks why is it that he had called her and he’d brush it off, he called to hear her voice, but he won’t say that because it’s too cheesy and he has a reputation to keep.

It’s during one of his classes that he feels it, a gut wrenching feeling deep in his stomach that has him groaning. It’s a different type of pain, nothing like nausea or a muscle cramp, because he’d always considered himself as a person with a great pain tolerance, but at that moment, he had just felt like curling in a ball and crying. Jimin and Taehyung would take him to the clinic immediately, and he’d just have tears rolling down his cheeks, and he’s sniffling and making these weird choking sounds when he tries to smother down his sobs.

He stays there for a while, the curtains draped closed with Jimin and Taehyung just rubbing his back soothingly. He tries to calm down, but every so and then, a sob bubbles up to his chest and a new wave of tear roll down his cheeks. It stays like that for an hour and the pain in his stomach travels up to his chest. His right arm starts to ache and dizziness starts to seep in his head. He falls asleep in the clinic bed, his whimpers slowing down and his eyes drooping heavily.

When he’s back at home, he doesn’t try to talk to his parents. They’d come visit now and then, giving a few hugs and pats on the back. His brother would come by when Jungkook had calmed down a bit, ruffling his hair and saying ‘it’s going to be okay’. But that’s the thing, there isn’t an ‘it’ to be okay. For all he knew, ‘it’ was all okay, everything was going okay in class, but then there was this rush of emotion that came over him and he’d just double over in pain. There was this burning sensation in his gut, something that hadn’t been building but more of an eruption. And then it would slowly cascade to his chest, and then he’d start crying and crying, choking on his sobs.

He’s in his sheets, listening to the sounds of pans clanging from the downstairs kitchen. His mom was cooking dinner, but he doubted that he’d go down to have some himself. The sound of the washing machine clashing against itself. That old thing was always just waiting to give out. The sound of the TV running from the living room. There was always some sort of game his dad would be watching, cheering on for teams he’d never even heard of. These are all sounds he’d never realized he’d taken comfort into. Such meaningless things that were just always there, a consistency that had always reassured him in some way.

He’d just lays there, listening to his own heartbeat. For the first time in hours, he feels relaxed and his breath relax into a steady pace. His eyes almost drift to sleep, because It's been a long day and Jungkook feels exhausted, but then there’s this loud blaring noise that breaks the silence. He knows what it is, someone had gone up and called him again. It would be the sixth call he’d get from his friends.

Only it turns out that it wasn’t his friends, it wasn’t Jimin, nor Taehyung or even Yoongi. It was her, and it terrified him because he’d always smile at the sight of her name, but there was this raw and intense feeling that had him wanting to decline the call. It terrified him because she’s his soulmate and supposedly the ’love of his life’ but he had wanted nothing more than to hang up the call. And it just stays like that, him wallowing in the fact as his phone had stopped ringing, and then a few seconds pass and her name appears again. His arm would suddenly feel heavy at the weight of the phone in his hand. Slowly, he would finally tap on the green button.

Her voice hits him like a wave. Jungkook doesn’t even have the chance to say anything when her voice starts filling his ears. Her voice is raspy and broken, there’s sniffling and whimpering as she rushes through her words. ’I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry’ she whispers in uneven breathes, and he would have stopped her, to comfort her and ask her why she was crying and that ’it’ was going to be okay. But then there is this sudden realization that hits him that ’it’ wasn’t going to be okay, and he probably wasn’t going to be okay. So, he just sits there as new tears roll down his cheeks.

When she finally speaks, everything just dawns on him. He felt like he was dying because his soulmate had kissed someone, he felt like dying because his soulmate had kissed someone that wasn’t him, he felt like dying because his soulmate’s first kiss wasn’t him, and will never be him. And then all of her other words just go straight through his other ear. He doesn’t hear it when she says that she didn’t want it, or when she says that she didn’t know it was going to happen until it happened, or when she says that she also felt the pain, the suffocating and unrelenting pain, that she also felt like she was dying.

He hears it when she says she loves him.

Jungkook has always one for cheesy romances and tear-jerking speeches. He imagines their first exchanges of ‘I love you’ to be at night, with a sea of stars sunken in the night sky because that was where they would have their first kiss. She would have his jacket that was a little too big for her on her shoulders because the night was breezy and his mom raised him to be a gentle man. Her hands would be in his because she always has cold hands and he always has warm hands.

He would talk about the ‘old times’ like when he had drawn those little cats for her or when he’d waken up to many frowney faces along his arm because his friends yet again drew dicks on his forehead (he should really get some proper sleep). And then he’d try to coax a few tears out of her and end it off with ’I love you’, and because this was Jungkook’s imagination of how things would go, she would also say I love you, and they’d kiss in the night sky.

Jungkook then realizes that nothing he’d imagined will ever go as planned, that they will never have a first kiss, because she’d already had hers with some random asshole, and that they’d never have their first ‘I love you’, because she had already said it through the phone while they were both out of breath and sobbing every drop of tear from their bodies.

He doesn’t realize it, but when he’d finally gotten out of his phase, the call had already ended and his cheeks had become tear stained and his sobs had calmed down to weak whimpers. He realizes that he’d just hung up on her after she’d said she loved him, and he just panics, because she’s going to think he doesn't love her and he should immediately call her and tell her that he loves her, because he does, he loves her like he’d never loved anyone before.

He’d started talking to her in his sophomore years and he was now a senior, and she'd been there in every step of the way. But he just doesn't, he doesn’t tell her he loves her, he doesn’t call her, because he doesn’t trust himself if he does. And she doesn’t call back either.

There are a few times when Jungkook forgets that y/n is his soulmate. He doesn’t know what he’d expect when he doesn’t talk to her in a week. It starts off small. He catches himself dozing off, looking into the distance and zoning out. His friends would ask him if he was okay and he’d reply with ’I’m fine’, even though he knew he wasn't, and that he knew they wouldn’t believe him anyway, because who the hell would be fine yet walk into the classroom with puffy and bloodshot eyes.

And then when class goes on like normal, he’s moving his leg up and down, fingers drumming along the desk, because he swears class had never been this long before. He realizes later that class had always gone on so fast because y/n was always there for him to talk to. He looks back at it as if it had happened years ago, as if he hadn’t talked to her in decades.

The truth is that they haven’t talked in no less than three days, yet he’s been missing her as if he’d gone days without a limb. A piece of him feels missing, torn apart from him and left out to dry. It’s a weird feeling, a suffocating feeling that has him yearning for her, that has him filling his mind with nothing but her. He supposes that was the thing with soulmates, when they were together, it had felt like he was he was over the moon, as if nothing could ever go wrong in his life, but when they were apart, it felt like he was missing a part of himself.

She would nag at him whenever he was bombarding her with doodles on his arm, waiting for her attention so she could drag him from his boredom of class. She’d say ‘you have class’ and he’d say ’I also have a soulmate, and I’d rather pay attention to her’. His friends would tease for it, for flirting and dancing around with her as if it was a game of push and pull, as if she wasn’t his soulmate.

That’s the thing that terrifies him, because as far as he had ever known, having a soulmate was the best feeling in the world. It’s all rainbows and roses, because it had meant that there will always be that one person that just gets you, that just loves you unconditionally for all your flaws and perfections, all your quirks and mishaps. That one person that will always be there for every step of the way. He yearns that, the comfort of knowing there was someone the universe had picked just for him, the missing piece to his puzzle.

And then he meets her, and he realizes just how perfect she is for him.

And then the whole fiasco happens and he realizes just how much it would hurt if he didn’t get his happy ending, because he knows it wasn’t uncommon for soulmates not to work out, usually from the intensity of their emotions for each other.

Having a soulmate had also meant other things. It meant that when you were together, you’d feel the happiest you’d ever be, but if you weren’t, you’d dread every second of your life. You’d feel pain, you’d feel nauseous, you’d feel your body start to crumble. Having a soulmate was almost like a drug, something so addicting that your body starts to dysfunction when you go a day without.

Jungkook still feels it sometimes, when he’s managed to get her out of his mind. There was this sudden jolt of pain that shoot up his chest, causing him to lose focus. And then all he can think about is her, her, her. He wonders if she feels it too, if she misses him too, if she thinks of him too. He realizes how stupid he is, because his phone is right there in front him, and he could end all of this with just one button.

Truth is he’d stopped mulling over the whole kiss thing a while ago, and that he should’ve called her a long time ago, but he was scared, scared of his own emotions, scared of how much he loved her, scared that this whole thing is going to destroy to him.

He wants to talk about this with someone, to anyone, but then it dawns on him that the only person he really wants to talk to about this was his soulmate, and that she was the only person he should be talking to about this. So, he picks up his phone and presses on the name he’d been missing for what felt like decades now.

She answers after no less than a few seconds. She speaks after a second’s hesitation, and her voice is filled with the sort of hope, as if she has done something wrong. Jungkook cuts her off when she starts on her little ramble (a habit he’d learn she had over the years) and apologizes, two words that hits her as hard as a brick. ‘I’m sorry’ he’d say again, and again and again. He says it until he can hear her start crying on the other end of the call. He knows she’s crying in a way that she’s trying to hide it from him, but he’d still hear her weak sniffles and whimpers.

It breaks his heart because he knows he never should’ve hung up on her that day, that he should’ve said that it was never her fault that ‘it’ happened, that he never thought of ‘it’ as her fault, that he was sorry ‘it’ had to happened in the first place

There’s a lot of things he realizes that he should have told her, so he doesn’t give her the time to say anything before he gets everything off his chest. He tells her everything. He tells her that he had never been upset with her, that he was upset with what happened to her. He tells her that he’s scared, no— terrified of how strong his feeling are for her, that the pain he felt that day was never what he’d ever experienced before. He tells her how much he had missed her during his period of stupidity when he decided not to talk to her, that he’d thought of her every second of the day.

And she just swallows in everything he tells her, listening to every word he says without a single interruption. And then they talk, talk, and talk until they shed more tears, because they’d never realized it, but they had always needed this. It’s a bit like clearing the air, speaking up about every and any hesitations they’d have.

They talk until their voices go dry and their eyes droop heavily. It isn’t until then that Jungkook realizes he hadn’t had a good night’s rest in days. Sleeping had always come easy to him, but during the past few days, he would lay down in his bed and just had this queasy and tense feeling.

When they’re nearing the end of the conversation, he knows there’s this one thing he hadn’t said yet, and he knows she’d been waiting for it too, those three simple words that had meant everything to them. He wants to say it, but there’s this one nerve in his stomach that causes his throat to close up when he tries to.

She finally ends the call after hours and hours of talking about their feeling and what they’d miss. Jungkook would again take out his pen, and write the words he’d meant to say in the palm of his hand. I love you.

Jimin shares a look with Taehyung when Jungkook comes to class the next day (he’s always late and it’s definitely not because of his poor excuse of a sleeping schedule), and the next thing he knows, they’re just screaming and hollering before running towards him. Jungkook swears he’s never felt more scared than he was at that moment, with the sight of his two best friends sprinting as if they were about to run them over like the untimely death of Mufasa.

And then they just hug him, stuff him with pats on the back and intense noogies. Jungkook just stands there, accepting it with the most confused expression ever. They go on about how glad they are that he got over whatever it was that had set him in such a sour and glum mood the past week and it puzzles him because he doesn’t remember being that much of a debbie downer.

They prove him otherwise by listing all the reasons he was such a pain to hang out with, because he’d somehow turned into a dictionary of depressing jokes and emo quotes. They end up finishing each other’s sentences, locking eyes when they say the same words and giving each other a bunch of high fives (Jungkook sometimes feels sorry for whoever their soulmates are, because the two of them are so in sync that they were already each other’s soulmate).

They’re interrupted when the teacher finally enters the class and tells everyone (specifically the two of them) to take a seat. They turn to Jungkook one final time and give him a pat in the back because they’re genuinely happy that the kid had no longer seemed so miserable.

Jungkook hadn’t thought hearing ‘I love you’ would change much for him. He’d heard it a dozen times from his parents (never from his brother, but let’s be honest, that’s to be expected) an amount more than you’d expect from Jimin and Taehyung (although Taehyung would say it more to annoy him and it works every single time), three times from Namjoon (which makes him grin more than it should) and once from Yoongi (now that one he wears like a golden medal).

Hearing it from his soulmate hits him in a totally different way. The conversation they had led them to get more comfortable in their relationships, this time acknowledging each other in a more romantic way. The way she says ‘I love you’ during insignificant moments like during a goodnight text or his after his daily ramble on how his friends are a pain in the ass sends him in a sort of high. It makes him giggle and flush and swoon all in the same time. It makes him feel things in a way he never knew he could.

Jungkook would learn that he shouldn’t plan things out as much as he used to, lets himself enjoy the moment for a while. Takes one step at a time, and this time he’s not as terrified to his wits anymore. It turns out when he's not worrying about all of his 'plans', time happens to move so fast.

When he finally sees her, she's got her back turned towards him, she hasn't noticed yet.

Jungkook takes a moment to take it all in. Sparks don’t fly, his hands don’t sweat and his breathing doesn’t pace. There is no nausea or nervousness that bubbles up in his stomach. When he sees her, his heart starts beating faster, but it beats in a way that you see something familiar after a long time, there is this sort of comfortable feeling. There’s a moment of complete peacefulness and serenity when he sees her. He’d never felt more at home.

When she sees him, her knees almost buckle, because he’s there. The boy, the dumbass, her soulmate that she’d been talking to for years now is finally there, and he’s waiting for her, looking for her. Her eyes almost well up in tears and she hates it because she swore to herself, she’d done cried enough times in their relationship, she doesn’t need to add another one to it.

She cries anyways, and she guesses she doesn’t hate it that much after all. Jungkook had managed to overturn all her expectations of their relationship that she’s not surprised that he pulls this either. She’s always known that her forgetfulness would bite her in the ass one day and she guesses she can’t be mad when this happens.

‘4:30 java time café pick up’ and right below on her palm is his handwriting, the handwriting she’s grown to adore and look forward to all these years, is written ’I found you’.

[out-of-this-dimension]

Hypothetically Rewriting Assault’s Story + Some General Assault Opinions

There’s a game my husband and I like to play when we watch a movie, play a game, or read a book that has a story that we don’t really enjoy or we enjoy certain parts of but not others.  We look at things we’d keep and things we’d change and we build a story from there-- sort of like an AU but we don’t really go into the writing part, we just stick to theorizing and mapping a general story.

I decided to play that game with Star Fox.  Not because I think Star Fox has a bad story but because sometimes I think the stories could have been handled better.  Note: for the rewrite game, I only really look at story, even for video games, I don’t really look at gameplay mechanics, but I do understand those have a lot to do with story potential so I do take it in as a factor... I just don’t bother to “rewrite” the mechanics, if that makes any sense at all.  Some of my list today will include boss encounters but I wouldn’t necessarily say those are mechanic-related... more like “event-related”.

I’ve mused a bit in the past about rewriting Adventures and Command and I do have plans to do a mock up of an Adventures remake eventually.  However, today I was thinking about how I would go about handling an Assault re-write in particular.  Much like Command and Adventures, I don’t have any beef with the core story but I do think there’s a few things that could’ve been better about Assault’s storyline-- like they had good ideas rolling but they didn’t quite refine them.

Under the cut because SUPER long.

My basic feelings on Assault are pretty positive.  I think the game is generally just fun and I like that it feels like the natural progression from SF64.  I liked getting to see planets we haven’t seen since the N64 era in better graphics and I liked seeing Star Wolf return.  I also just thought the aparoids were neat enemies. 

Generally speaking, though, when it comes to Assault, I think it suffers from the thing it tries to push the most-- the story.  I think a lot of people get caught up in thinking the story is better than it is because it’s the first game since SF64 that really follows the same Star Fox vibe without retelling the Lylat Wars.  Don’t get me wrong, the overall plot is great but the execution and pacing are... wonky.  Certain characterizations also take a hit in some regards but no one really talks about that when Command exists. That’s something we’ll talk about later on with this post.

That being said, Assault really does have a lot good going for it.  An absolute banger of a soundtrack, some great dialogue, a neat story synopsis, the introduction of cool characters like Panther and Beltino (who existed but was always off-screen), and just good levels.  

So, here’s what I would add, I suppose, if I were to somehow have the ability to rewrite Assault.  Originally I had this in paragraph form, but I’ve made it into more of a list under topic segments with main points bolded for your viewing pleasure.  Some of these points might be considered nitpicky and while I do understand that yes, this is a game about space animals, I do hold the developers in high enough regard to make a game with a continuity that makes sense.

The Story Changes

- Reduce Pigma’s storyline in Assault.  This is the biggest one for me because a bulk of the plotline feels like a giant chase to just get at Pigma and it feels like it derails from the actual plot with the aparoids.  We only go to Sargasso because of Pigma.  We only go to Fichina and then back to Meteo again, because of Pigma.  That’s 3 levels in a 10 level game devoted to just tracking down Pigma and chasing him.  While it makes the build up to fighting Pigma kind of nice, I personally feel like the plot could be reduced to 2 levels.  If Assault overall was a longer game, I could see them making it 3 levels.  Overall, though, in its current state, I feel like the side plot overstays its welcome and the aparoids promptly get shoved to the side in favor of “Oh no, we gotta get to Pigma!” And I get the main motive here is to show how the aparoids affect people and because of the build up, it does a good job at showing how utterly terrifying the aparoids are.  But it’s still too long given the length of Assault’s story. The only alternative to this is make Assault longer, which... honestly, it should be.  

- Revise the scene with Tricky.  I’m obviously not well-versed in dinosaur biology but I’m pretty sure dinos didn’t grow that fast from what studying I HAVE done.  And why is he suddenly king now?  Did his parents die?  He seems not affected by this at all?  Like it’s a funny scene with him, Fox, and Krystal, but it’s odd if you really look at it.  Give us, as players, more context because I’m still not even sure what happened to make Tricky suddenly the leader and... big.  As a note, you’re gonna hear me gripe a lot about the Sauria level in this post.

- The Star Wolf + Peppy sacrifice is a low effort way to raise tension/stakes and then cop out.  Oldest trick in the book, imo, is to act like you’re going to kill off important characters only for them to be alive miraculously.  And let’s face it, as an audience we all know they aren’t going to kill those characters because it’s Nintendo and those characters are too beloved.  I would’ve forgiven them for only doing this with Peppy or Star Wolf, but when you tack them both together and throw in the fact they make it seem like you’re going to have to kill General Pepper too... yeah, it’s just a bit much of the same trope over and over again.  I wanted to put a note in here about how I’m fine with the Great Fox being “sacrificed” but overall, it needed to return to the series because of it’s icon status, but I think that’s more of a gripe at Command instead of Assault.

- Keep Pigma alive.  This will conflict with a point I have later on about the game consistently having characters cheat death for easy drama points but with Pigma, I would’ve kept him fully alive... but maybe with some physical damage from the aparoids.  I understand he’s semi-alive in Command and tbh I don’t know where I stand on that.  Why keep Pigma alive, you might ask?  I feel like his character has a lot more potential than being “just the greedy guy”.  Like he’s got good potential future villain material for future games and... if I’m honest?  I just don’t see Nintendo wanting to keep Pigma dead so why even bother killing him off?  They couldn’t even commit to him being dead in Command anyways so it seems very moot.

- Bring Bill and Katt back.  Assault is acts a bit like a big reunion of all of our SF64 favorites but our two favorite side characters are suspiciously missing.  Wouldn’t Bill be out on the front lines fighting against Andrew in the beginning?  Or maybe back in Katina?  And wouldn’t Katt inevitably show up in the midst of the invasion, maybe to pointedly check in on Falco?

- Bring Andrew back for the final fight. I think Andrew being defeated early into the game is fine overall but I think bringing him back in for a reunion final fight against the aparoids would serve to really solidify that it’s really everyone vs the invading aparoid force.  It would show that not only is Star Wolf willing to put aside their differences but so is basically everyone in the Lylat System in the name of survival.  Imagine the Venomians and Cornerians working together against an aparoid fleet, giving Star Fox and Star Wolf time to attack the queen?  I just think it’d be neat and it’d open up the potential for some fun banter mid-mission.  I do understand that quite a few people consider Andrew canonically dead after Assault but personally, I feel that his defeat left his fate questionable (I’m a staunch believer that unless there’s a body, they’re probably alive, especially for Nintendo games because, again, they never like to kill people off) so him returning in Command never really bothered me.  

- In general, reconsider some of the character portrayals.  Unfortunately, when a series has a different studio for each game, character portrayals will inevitably have inconsistencies.  While I give Namco a lot of credit for putting in oodles and oodles of detail into the game (particularly the levels), I think they failed in their portrayal of Fox, at the least, and Wolf is a considerable offender as well.  While it’s obvious that Fox in Adventures was effectively modeled off of Sabre even in terms of personality, Rareware was at least able to justify Fox’s newfound jaded attitude with the passing of many years and a distinct lack of steady income, resulting in the team being in disarray.  Assault’s Fox is a stark contrast to his cynical interpretation with seemingly no explanation other than maybe “Oh, I have more money and a gf, maybe I should behave myself”.  As if the sudden change in personality wasn’t random, Fox also just seems very blah, like a blank slate stereotypical shooter game protagonist dude with little to no emotion.  Wolf is less obvious but gets slated into a mentor-like role midway through the game and ends up in a respectful rivalry with Fox... which there’s nothing inherently wrong with that except for it happening abruptly (and, I mean, Peppy is right there).  But I take less issue with this and more of an issue with the fact that there’s an entire level establishing that Wolf now runs a crime den with effectively what seems to be an army and no one bats an eye at this.  He doesn’t even call on them to help with the aparoids.  Did they all die when the aparoids attacked Meteo?  Are they safe somewhere else?  Where do they go?  How was Sargasso able to operate without the CDF being on their doorstep with warrants for arrests?

- Don’t kill all the dinosaurs.  A bit of a dramatic statement but the ending screen that showed all the damage to Sauria really bothered me.  While I understand that the dinosaurs had less of a chance against the aparoids than a more technology-focused society like Corneria, I was a bit disappointed that the decision was made to just state that a lot of tribes had been wiped out.  I know this could easily be retconned in a future game and I feel like it should be.  “But why, Amalia?  Why are you disappointed by that?”  1) It’s a little too grimdark for my tastes.  2) The fact it all happened off-screen felt very hand-wavy.  And 3) It brings into question the entire point of Adventures.  Why did we bother to save this planet if it was going to be reduced to rubble and ash 1 year later?  Where were the Krazoa in all of this?  Why did they not make an appearance at all to try to stop the invasion with their alleged powers?  It just raises too many weird questions and I feel like Namco didn’t think it through too much.  Which I mean, sure.  Family, kiddo game.  I’m not asking for bigbrain plot and lore but I’m squinting at this bit because it does feel very contrary to the lore from the previous game.

- Make the aparoids more relevant.  As nice as it is to have a random bad guy from another galaxy, I feel like there was more that could be done with the aparoids in terms of their origins.  Tiny things, mind you, not huge revelations.  Off the top of my head, they could have been tied into Krystal’s backstory to help alleviate some of the complaints that she was too random to be added to the series’ main cast.  Alternatively, they could have been a product of Andross or even a weapon prototype from Corneria that fled the lab (I actually thought the game was leaning in that direction for a bit then just Nothing Happened).  I get that the vagueness of their origins leaves room for people to speculate and speculation is nice but... when you leave too many things unknown, it starts to feel less like giving fans room to interpret and more like just doing random things for the sake of it.  I think a lore tidbit here or there would work wonders for the aparoids instead of leaving them as just borg/zerg clones.

Level-Based Changes

- Add either Aparoid RedEye or Aparoid General Scales as a boss to Sauria.  Given that this level mysteriously lacks a boss, which is just weird compared to the other levels, I think that they had the opportunity to add something cool to go along with the cinematic feel they were going for with Assault.  Assault’s cutscenes do play in a movie-like fashion and it’s clear they’re trying to make the game as epic as possible.  It’s a shame they had so much fodder for a great boss here but they failed to go through with it.  Alternatively: Add a Krazoa-Aparoid fusion.  Why?  Because Star Fox is about cool epic sci-fi and that would be cool epic sci-fi incarnate.

- Add a boss to the Aparoid Homeworld Level, aka the penultimate level.  Another one I felt was personally weird that there was no “final defense system” to challenge the team.  Would be cool to do an aerial battle over the aparoid planet with some giant flying aparoid.

- Be kinder to Sauria.  The level had some good homages but overall was incredibly small and incredibly short.  It felt like a bone tossed to Adventures fans but was not entirely true to the setting built by Rareware.  I’m... not even sure where the Sauria level is supposed to take place?  I presume it’s Walled City but it doesn’t really have the same color scheme or aesthetic?  Also where is my revised Adventures music?  Why do all the other levels get it but Sauria doesn’t? 

- Put some of those funky items from the multiplayer into the main campaign.  I don’t know why some of these things, items especially, were omitted unless it was purely due to time constraints.  I remember having missile launchers and jetpacks in the multiplayer and was a bit sad that they were not in the main campaign.  Retuning the levels and adding those in would be a nice breath of fresh air for the more tedious on-foot missions.

- More levels.  Self-explanatory.  Still sad we didn’t get the Zoness or Titania levels in the single-player mode.  

I think all of the above changes would improve the game, though I recognize all of this is being said 16 years later after lots of time to contemplate Assault’s weaker points.  I’m not entirely certain how long Star Fox Assault took to develop but given that there’s obviously quite a bit scrapped from the game (an entire arcade mode was scrapped as well), I’m going to assume that the studio felt pressured to shove the game out the door and into the hands of customers.  It’s a shame, really, because I think a little bit longer in the oven would have done a lot of good.  Still, the product we got was good in its own right and a game that many people look back on fondly.  I haven’t gotten to replay it in years but I hope to quite soon.

You might wonder why I bothered typing this all out and I guess my point was this-- Assault was great but it wasn’t perfect, and while a lot of other games fall under a crushing amount of scrutiny, Assault seems to dodge it.  And don’t get me wrong-- I adore Assault.  But given that not many takes exist out there about rewriting it, I decided to give it a shot.  For variety’s sake.  

I do want to a mock up of a revised Assault story, which I think I will get to work on after completing this while all my ideas are still fresh in mind.  So stay tuned for that sometime in the near future.  I will also be doing my Adventures mock up at some point but probably not for a little bit as I do wanna focus some of my free time on actual fic-writing.

Anyways, if you stuck around this long, thank you for reading!  Have any changes you’d like to see to Assault if you could time machine your way back to the early 2000s?  Feel free to post in the comments, I’d love to read your ideas!

[trekscribbles]

Triple Threat: A Stones Triplet Fic

Fandoms: Leverage/Leverage Redemption, Librarians, and Almost Paradise Cross-Posted: Ao3 and FF Summary: So I shared some ideas about this fic here, not intending to actually write it. And then people asked for it and I have zero self control, so here you go!

A simple smuggling case. That was all this was supposed to be—just a smuggler looking to set up shop on the island, some place where he'd be able to store and ferry goods to the United States without attracting too much attention. Kai expected to wrap up the case in a couple of days, without Alex's help.

Of course it never works out that way.

She's used to Alex interfering with her cases, but she didn't even tell him about this one. So how did he end up with the smuggler she was supposed to be meeting, and why doesn't the seem to know her?

Or: Eliot and Jake are both in the Philippines for separate jobs that turn out to be related. Kai takes the existence of Alex's brothers as a personal attack on her mental health. Ernesto happily goes along for the ride.

Chapter One: Déjà Vu

A simple smuggling case. That was all this was supposed to be—just a smuggler looking to set up shop on the island, some place where he'd be able to store and ferry goods to the United States without attracting too much attention. Ocampo hadn't even asked Alex for help, even though they suspected drugs were involved. "We need more information," Ocampo told Kai. "Just meet with him and see what you can find out." No need to involve the most annoying man on the island.

Kai didn't tell Alex about any of it. It was only the third time Ocampo trusted her to go undercover, and though she wasn't above using Alex's help when it was necessary, this was something she could handle on her own. Ernesto would be monitoring the meeting from nearby, ready to come to her aid, but she was confident in her skills. It was a simple case. She could handle it.

She made contact with the smuggler, telling him she could get a cargo plane for his use and ensure the attention of the authorities was elsewhere when he was ready to load it. The meeting had gone well, well enough that he asked her to join him in his hotel room the following day to hash out the details. Ocampo had been thrilled, and she'd gotten the proud grin from Ernesto that always made her feel like she could take on the world. "Wrap this up, Detective," Ocampo said, already planning the press release for the end of the case. One more meeting, and it would all be over. A swift ending to a simple case.

The next morning she found the hotel fifteen minutes before their appointed time and knocked on door 211, letting herself in when a voice yelled, "We're on the balcony." The we made her nervous, but she told herself it didn't matter. Once she found out what the cargo was, she'd have enough to arrest him.

But then she walked onto the balcony and found her contact raising a toast to Alex Walker, and it took all of her self-control not to break character and strangle him right there.

The smuggler stood up with a grin. "Ah, Ms. Navarro," he said, motioning for her to be seated next to Alex. "Can I get you something to drink?"

"No," she choked out. "Thank you."

He shrugged and swept his hand toward Alex. "This is my American contact, Marc Rosen. Mr. Rosen, my associate Nicole Navarro."

Alex gave her a polite smile, and his eyes seemed to laugh at her.

"Mr. Flores," she said tersely. "I thought we'd agreed to keep this meeting between us."

Robert Flores shrugged and again gestured to the chair beside Alex. "I assure you, Mr. Rosen is essential to this operation. He has already arranged a buyer in the United States. All we need from you, Ms. Navarro, is to follow through on your promise with the planes."

Kai sat, forcing her tensed shoulders to relax. "The flight is already secured," she said. "But I need to know what it is I'll be transporting."

Flores smiled. "All in good time."

"Time is the problem," Kai said. "We only have three days before the plane is scheduled to depart, with or without your cargo. I can't prepare properly until I know what we'll be loading."

"I will take care of that. Three days is plenty of time."

"Then... once you've made your payment, I will tell you where to bring your cargo." She managed this with only a single glance (not a glare) at Alex, who had returned his attention to Flores. A sand-colored fedora was pulled low over Alex's eyes, shading a face that seemed paler than usual. In an instant her irritation turned to worry. Did he know Flores from his time as a DEA agent? Had he arranged the meeting, or had Flores contacted him?

Why couldn't he just tell her before he did stupid things like this?

"I am glad to hear it," Flores said. He was still standing, and Kai bristled at the imbalance—he towered over them in a position of power while they literally sat in his shadow. "Mr. Rosen was just telling me that his buyer is anxious to get his hands on this shipment."

Alex huffed a nervous laugh. "Well, you know how it is when the guy in the big office wants something. Patience ain't exactly a virtue for my boss."

"Luckily for you, I have what he needs," Flores said, lifting his glass with a chuckle.

"Is that Alex?" Ernesto asked through her earbud. "What's he doing there?"

Kai chanced another glance at him, wishing she could reach over and wring the answer from his throat. His body language was all wrong. His shoulders were drawn in, the fingers of his left hand fidgeting against his palm. His voice had been different too—almost hesitant, self-depreciating. Usually Alex played a loud character, brash and confident, always pushing to keep his mark off-balance. This... this was just another pencil-pusher running an errand for his boss. Insignificant. Overlookable.

And it was working. A hard, greedy glint flashed in Flores's eye as he swallowed the rest of his drink, his gaze lingering on the trembling glass in Alex's hand. "Well," he grinned. "There is much to be done. Wait here. Your payment is in my adjoining room." He set his glass down on the balcony railing and strode into the hotel room. Kai watched him go, but as soon as the door closed she rounded on Alex.

"I'm going to give you ten seconds to explain yourself."

He blinked at her. "What?"

"Why are you here? Did Ocampo tell you about the case? Did Flores contact you?"

"Did—what? Why would—?"

"Or do you just like messing with my life? Because I swear, Alex, when this is over I'm—"

The hallway door opened before she could finish, and two men in black jackets entered the room. Neither of them was Flores. "Your payment," one said, holding out an envelope.

"Oh... thank you." She stood and entered the room, aware of Alex trailing behind her. He stepped to her left, covering her weak side as she reached out for the payment.

But the second her fingers brushed the envelope, Alex flashed past her to strike the back of the man's outstretched elbow. He screamed, staggering, and Alex pulled him away from Kai and hurled him toward the wall. The other man lunged into the room, but Alex met him with a neat punch to the jaw. He dodged a swing and caught the man's wrist, bashing his elbow into the side of his face. The first man had regained his balance by then, steadying himself against the wall before squaring himself to the fight.

That was when Kai reached him. His attention was on Alex, so it was easy for her to get close and grab his forearm. She drove her knee into the man's stomach, using the momentum of his fall to throw him to the ground. She turned as Alex ducked another jab and slammed his fist into his opponent's cheek. The man dropped, sprawling at Alex's feet and lying motionless.

"What the hell was that?" Kai demanded, stomping down on her man's back to keep him on the floor.

"Kai?" Ernesto said in her ear. "Everything okay?"

Alex knelt to pick up the envelope. "They were gonna kill us."

"He was handing over the payment!"

He tilted his hand so she could see inside the empty envelope. "Flores knew you were coming," he said, running his hands over his fallen opponent's waist and producing a long serrated knife. "He should have had the payment ready."

Damn it—she hated when he was right.

"He must have guessed you're a cop," Alex went on, taking off his hat and dragging a hand through his hair. "Probably one of your first undercover assignments? You know what you're doing, I'll give you that, but you pushed too hard for the cargo. You have to let the mark think he's in control."

"What are you...?" Kai started, but she trailed off when Alex put his hand down. Freed from the hat, his hair fell over his forehead and down around his ears, long enough to brush his shoulders. "Are you wearing a wig?"

"Am—am I—?" he sputtered. "Look, I don't know who you think I am, but—" He broke off, eyes widening. "Wait, you called me Alex before. Alex Stone?"

All at once, her vision seemed to shift. The man before her had Alex's face, but now that she looked closer, she could see a handful of inconsistencies. A scar over his eyebrow that hadn't been there before, a leanness about his jaw, a shadow she'd never seen in his eyes. Ernesto kept talking through the earbud, but she was only half-listening.

She stared into the face of her friend, and a stranger looked back.

The door burst open, breaking the tension that had paralyzed the room and tearing Not Alex's attention from her. Ernesto came in with his gun drawn, not quite pointing at the imposter, but not aimed at the men who'd attacked them either.

"Your partner?" asked Not Alex. His voice was calm, but so gruff she could barely understand it. She motioned for Ernesto to put his gun away. He swept a shrewd look over her, checking for injuries, and then knelt beside her man on the floor and pulled a pair of handcuffs off his belt.

The imposter cleared his throat. "Do you know Alex Stone?"

For a moment Kai considered lying, but the sharpness in Not Alex's eyes had softened. The look he gave her wasn't quite pleading, but it was clearly a request. She heard the please in his eyes as clearly as if he'd said it out loud.

So, in a voice that sounded more confident than she felt, she answered, "Alex Walker."

A snort of laughter blew through the imposter's nose. "Walker? He could have picked anything, and he went with Walker? At least I used a family name."

"No," Ernesto said to himself, shooting Kai with a look that somehow contained astonishment, delight, and trepidation all at once.

Kai echoed the denial in her head. This couldn't be happening.

"My name is Eliot," the other man said.

Don't say it. Don't—

"I'm Alex's brother."

No. No no no no no.

There were two of them.

[bagelbright-tok]

Mafioso

Lisa Lisa and her group of hamon users are on the hunt for the stolen Stone of Aja. Turns out, the Nazi's are too. Both groups are at a race to get it first. They've caught up with the train, but when the soldiers look inside for the package, it's nowhere to be seen. Who else is after, and has gotten the item?

Words: 2598 Warning(s): Nazi's, violence, usage of bad, bad words, Mafia, column fellows, guns, threats of violence, mentions of killing, Stroheim, probably a lot of inconsistencies

[FINISHED FIC]

Italics are a different language. Sometimes.

___

You're Welcome. ___

A loud slap was audible as Caesar threw his hand into Joseph's face to wake him up. "Oi! Joseph, get up!"

"AGH-!" Joseph yelled and rubbed his face which had just been assaulted. "You're gonna regret that Caesar."

"Pay attention. The train's stopped." Lisa Lisa pulled their attention onto the train which they had been following.

After the Stone of Aja had been stolen, it was packaged and sent to Kars. It was on the train they were following in hopes of getting the package. Right now, though, the train was stopped. Even worse, the Nazi's had just shown up.

Honking was heard repetitively behind them. Joseph grew annoyed by it and stepped out of their car to holler at the one behind them. "Just go around!" Joseph regretted this immediately when the car did go around, revealing to the gang that the Nazi's were after the stone too.

Aforementioned soldiers stopped just in front of the car Caesar, Lisa Lisa, and Messina were sat in. Joseph remained outside of the car. They all watched in disbelief as the soldiers got out of their vehicle, opened a boxcar, and entered. Everyone was dreadfully expecting them to find their package and take it. Instead, they were all surprised to see the soldiers exit the boxcar empty handed.

"Is the stone of Aja not there..?" Joseph asked in a whisper to Lisa Lisa while simultaneously getting back into their car.

"It has to be. Where else would it be?" Lisa Lisa answered, just as bewildered as everyone else.

"Hey!" One of the soldiers yelled at the Hamon warriors, hopping off of the back of the car. "Where is it?"

His familiar voice hit Joseph. Though, the Joestar could not quite place where he had heard the German accent. "The stone? We have no clue." Joseph responded. "Even if we did know, why would we tell you?"

"Shut up, Jojo!" Caesar harshly whispered to Joseph.

"Joseph. Caesar. Lisa Lisa. Messina," The man listed everyone one of them. "You will all follow us in your car."

"And why is that?" Messina asked, as the driver.

Every soldier there made noise as they brought out their guns and artillery. Most were in the car, but there were a few outside who had their weapons pointed at the Hamon users.

"Well, we insist." The Nazi gave no explanation. Right now, with everyone's lives threatened, they had no choice but to listen.

Everyone remained as calm as they could. Messina nodded, removing the car from parked. The Nazi's returned to their car and began to drive off. Messina made sure to follow.

"Great going, Joseph." Caesar hissed at Joseph.

"How is this my fault?" Joseph retorted back at the blonde Italian.

"Calm down everyone," Lisa Lisa commanded. She was the calmed of them all, like she knew what was going happen, "Be prepared. I think this is the best outcome we could get."

Now everyone was even more confused. The stone was missing, and the Nazis had basically kidnapped them. How was this the best case scenario? Everything would make sense soon. Unbeknownst to Joseph, Caesar, and Messina, Lisa Lisa had written to an old friend of hers. [Y/N] [L/N].

Only 10 minutes had passed when another car came driving down the narrow road. This wouldn't have been much to pay mind to if the car were on the right side of the road. It came storming towards the Nazi car, showing no signs of stopping.

"What the hell!" One of the soldiers yelled.

They tried honking, but it was clear that the car had full intention of crashing into them. All of the soldiers abandoned vehicle and the other car swerved, causing only the rear to crash into the front of the Nazi vehicle. This then propelled the Nazi car to the right of the road into the dirt, flipped and destroyed. The car that had just crashed into the soldier's car had stopped just before hitting Lisa Lisa's car. Messina had slammed on the breaks when the vehicles collided.

"What the hell is happening?" Joseph asked, looking at everyone's confused faces.

The only one not confused was Lisa Lisa. "We must follow them. This is our chance to get the stone back."

The crashed vehicle swerved around, now facing away from the squad and peeled out of there. Though that car was totaled too, it still ran and drove off. Messina hit the gas and sped off as well, following the car that had just saved them.

"Coach, what's going on?" Caesar finally piped up and asked.

"I asked for some help before we left. Seems she's answered." Lisa Lisa vaguely explained. This usually meant that it was not safe to talk about at the moment.

It grew even less safe when shots were fired in their direction. The soldiers recovered quickly and began shooting at Lisa Lisa's car. "Oh shit!" Joseph yelled, as he ducked down.

Everyone had done something similar, even Messina. The car began to lose control, but remained on the road, following the other car. This car's driver signaled for Messina to drive ahead of them. Messina immediately did so. Caesar and Joseph looked behind to see their rescuers pop out of their car with guns. Craziest shit anyone had ever seen. While their driver calmly followed Messina, the passengers stood up and returned fire. By the sounds of it, the rescuers were winning. Taking precise shots, they took down many of the shooters. The rest had run off, unable to provide any resistance. One stood in the road, facing them. He was obviously pissed off, it could be seen, even from a distance. It also appeared as though bullets hit him, but he was unaffected. What was this guy? Mechanical? The rescuer's shooters put their guns away and sat back down. Most of those people were wearing dark clothes and suits. Even large hats that mostly covered their faces. The driver signaled again, this time to tell Messina they were returning to the front. Messina allowed them to do this, even slowing down as they sped up.

***

After an hour or two of driving, there was finally a sign of the destination. It looked to be a small wooden cabin. One an individual would have for camping or sledding. Especially sledding as it was winter and in this area, there was around three to five inches of snow already on the ground. The sun had set and the only thing lighting the area was the moonlight and the light shining from within the cabin. Everyone was tense and nervous. They still had no clue as to what was going on and what was to happen. The cabin had two other cars parked in the front. These cars weren't just casual cars. They were cars driven by the wealthy. The car leading them to the cabin was not like that. It was casual and just resilient enough to take a car accident and several gunshots. This car parked beside the other wealthy cars, being the odd one out of the bunch. Lisa Lisa's car had been relatively untouched if not for the few bullet holes in the back and a few scrapes. The Hamon group parked beside their rescuer's car. First, Joseph hopped out, then Caesar, then Lisa Lisa and Messina. Out of the other car, four strangers popped out. All of them had a gun at their side.

This wasn't threatening however. They meant no harm towards Joseph, Caesar, Lisa Lisa, or Messina. "Please come with us inside. We have what you seek." One of them- likely the leader- spoke.

Joseph still felt he couldn't trust them. Caesar felt as though they didn't really have a choice. Lisa Lisa had full trust in these people. Messina trusted Lisa Lisa and in turn trusted these people. Lisa Lisa and her warriors were led into the cabin. It was warm and brightly lit. Furniture was neatly placed around in the living room.  From the living room, there was a flight of stairs to the second floor. Movement could be heard from upstairs. It sounded like pacing.

"Aspetta un momento." (Wait a moment.) Another of the four asked politely in Italian

That same one went up the steps and opened a door, shutting it behind them once they were in the room. The pacing stopped and the murmurs of speaking could be heard. A small stomping was heard until it went quiet again.

"What is happening up there?" Joseph inquired quietly to Caesar.

"No clue. We just have to wait." The blonde explained what he could.

Footsteps came towards the door. It opened and shut again and the individual came down the stairs, slightly disheveled. Their hat was tipped up to the back of their head and their clothes were wrinkled.

"Adesso.. puoi salire." (Now… you can go up.) The- now clearly a lady- stated, now very shocked and confused.

Joseph was about the only one who didn't know Italian, so just followed everyone when they started moving up the stairs. All of them were going up to what was assumed to be just one person. Even if it were a threat, four against one would surely allow them to win. Lisa Lisa, however, had no intention of fighting. Neither did Messina. Lisa Lisa went up first, opening the door and entering the room above. Then Messina went in, Caesar followed, and Joseph came in last. They all stood in a horizontal line, facing the person who had brought them there.

They turned around, their large black coat swaying with them. "I'm so happy you guys got here safely!" The lady said excitedly, raising her arms up with joy.

"And it's so good to see you safe, [Y/N]!" Lisa Lisa responded, throwing her arms up too.

The ladies hugged each other with happiness. They removed themselves from each other.

"You gonna introduce yourselves, gentlemen?" [Y/N] was a very happy and affectionate individual. This took everyone, even Messina, off guard.

"C-Caesar Zeppeli, ma'am. Nice to meet you." Caesar spoke up first, putting his hand out to shake [Y/N]'s.

She immediately slapped Caesar's hand, grabbing it in the process, and throwing it up and down like a madman. "It's so nice to meet you, too! I've heard so much about you from Lisa Lisa!" She chuckled, genuinely happy.

Caesar was shocked by the amount of force this lady put into a handshake. After it ended, he was left hunched over and confused.

"Joseph Joestar. Pleasure to make your acquaintance." The Joestar winked at the lady.

She responded by laughing and grabbing Joseph, hugging the life out of him. [Y/N] was a very strong woman, physically and mentally. "A pleasure to meet you too, Joseph! Un piacere!" (A Pleasure!)

She finally put him down and he braced himself onto his knees to catch his breath.

"Messina." Messina got smart and immediately signaled to [Y/N] that he wasn't up for the physical greeting.

"I know you're busy, [Y/N]. Sorry for the last minute request for help." Lisa Lisa apologized,

[Y/N] shook her head and hands, "Don't be! It's an emergency. I know how long you've been working to defeat the Pillarmen." So, she was in the know. Was she a Hamon user too?

[Y/N] reached into her coat pocket and brought out a familiar package. "I got something for you guys." She chuckled.

"The Red Stone of Aja!" Both Caesar and Joseph were shocked. No wonder it wasn't in the train. [Y/N] had intercepted it before the Nazis had.

"Thank you so much, [Y/N]. We are truly in your debt and Passione's." Lisa Lisa accepted the package, opening it to reveal that the Stone was indeed now in their possession.

"You're welcome." [Y/N] chuckled a bit, taking off her hat.

"Hang on.. Passione? The Passione?" Caesar asked, now extremely concerned.

"What's Passione?" Joseph asked, not being knowledgeable in any Italian history.

"You didn't tell them?" [Y/N] looked back at Lisa Lisa from Caesar and Joseph. She had a light smile on her face.

"I planned on it." Lisa Lisa admitted.

"Oh." [Y/N] nodded, turning back to Caesar and Joseph. "To answer your question, Caesar. Yes. The Passione." She looked at Caesar to answer him. Then she turned to Joseph. "Passione is the name of the Italian mafia. We run the cities and many of the businesses within Italy."

Both Caesar and Joseph were dumbfounded. They were in the presence of a very powerful lady. Which was very surprising. It was the late 1930's. It was bizarre to see a woman with a high powered position. It was also very impressive.

"What? Seriously?" Joseph asked. "Yup. Seriously. It took a while but I made it!" She chuckled happily. [Y/N] was very proud of herself.

Messina was wondering in the corner for his safety since he didn't allow the Passione boss to give him any physical affection. A sudden pounding was heard moving up the stairs. A man, missing his hat, came up panting.

"La signora [L/N]! Siamo sotto attacco!" (Lady [L/N]! We are under attack!) He yelled, obviously terrified of the threat at hand.

"What!?" [Y/N] was surprised by how quick it happened. "Non impegnarti. È troppo pericoloso!" (Don't engage. He's too dangerous!) The man nodded and went back down to fetch those still alive.

"What's happening?" Joseph, now panicked, asked.

"The Pillarmen. I believe Kars is here." [Y/N] turned to Joseph. Her bright demeanor turned serious and concerned. "Allow me to handle it. My people are in trouble."

[Y/N] bolted down the stairs, leaving everyone safe upstairs. The scene downstairs was horrendous. The neat furniture had been destroyed and turned inside out. The walls were torn, the floorboards had been scraped and scratched. Worse of all, the blood of [Y/N]'s soldiers and capo were splattered everywhere. She was horrified by the dead bodies of her workers. The horror turned to anger when she laid her eyes on Kars. The blade in his arm spinning, tossing the blood from it onto the walls and floor.

"You have something I want. Give it to me, or you'll die too." Kars demanded and threatened.

[Y/N] scowled at the pillarman. "Is it a brutal beating? Because that I can give to you."

"You are strong. Very… confident. And very stupid." Kars commented, his tone being very sinister. "Where is Joseph Joestar? I'd rather fight him than you."

"Is that so? Pick an easy fight rather than a fair one?" [Y/N] insulted.

Right on cue, Joseph, Lisa Lisa, Caesar, and Messina came down the stairs. They tried to step forward to fight, but [Y/N] blocked them.

Kars had his focus on Joseph. "You will pay for what you did to ACDC."

"Sorry Kars. You aren't dealing with Joseph today. Right now, I'm your biggest worry." [Y/N] pointed at Kars.

"Not for long." Kars slashed his blade around. He'd done this same move to kill all of [Y/N]'s colleagues.

She didn't move. 

"[Y/N]!" Lisa Lisa cried out, concerned for her former student.

"Please. Go upstairs. I got this." [Y/N] smirked, having nothing done to her. "I think you underestimate me, Kars."

The pillarman was confused. Not even the area around [Y/N] had been sliced. This was no Hamon use. She took a step forward and threw her coat off to reveal her suit underneath. White button down shirt, black dress-suit vest, and matching black leather pants.

"My mistake to do so." Kars admitted, preparing himself for the fight to come.

___

E N D

A/N: I was gonna do a fight scene and all that but decided to leave it at that. The suspense. 

[midasinc]

Okay I'm gonna jump on the "should Enjolras be blonde" thingy as well because of a headcanon I've had for a while.

So imagine, Enjolras with strawberry blonde hair. I know that I guess in a way it's still blonde (kinda. It's probably up for debate), but I just love it so much.

Enjolras who gets asked whether he dyes his hair whenever the seasons go from spring/summer to autumn/winter cause the sunlight doesn't lighten his hair anymore and it turns more ginger when it's darker. (I know that sounds ridiculous, but as someone with strawberry blonde hair I can confirm that you absolutely get this question a lot.)

On that note his hair happens to look just a slightly different shade on ever photo ever because the way the light falls just makes such a difference for some reason. (In modern au).

However if the light hits it just right (usually around the evening) his hair can literally look like straight up gold.

Grantaire dies a little every time this happens.

Enjolras growing up seeing almost no one with the same haircolour and feeling a bit weirded out. Especially when people start to tease him for being a redhead while another person could go what do you mean red? He's obviously blonde.

But eventually he starts to realise how cool and interesting and beautiful his hair colour actually is and he becomes proud of it.

Enjolras, Jehan and Feuilly just making redhead jokes "well yes of course we're prepared to do whatever it takes to win this revolution. We're redheads, we don't have a soul anyway."

Actually he can make both redhead and blonde jokes and you know he absolutely does.

I had more points but I can't think of them right now :( should have written them down somewhere.

Anyway, strawberry blonde Enjolras is just 👌🏻 in my opinion. Especially since I've seen so many fanfics say stuff like "Enjolras's hair falls around his face like a halo" or "the sun caught fire in his hair." It just makes sense to me.

Aaaand maybe I also just want some representation for my own haircolour :')

oh my god wait this is like my natural hair colour but mine is darker. where half of the people think im ginger and everyone else thinks im brunette and it’s just the most inconsistent colour skcnskcnsoxn

BUT THIS IS SO CUTE!!!!! I REALLY LOVE THIS

[maddiefriendlovesbilly]

Back by literally zero request:

Once More, This Time With Feeling: Pt. 2

Rating: PG13 for violence and graphic descriptions, SFW

Ship: Ghost/Spooker

Warnings: Graphic Descriptions of intense panic attacks and dissociation, derealization, depersonalization, implied traumatic events, similarities to alters switching (Jimmy and Gregory, not intentional but is still there due to the nature of the scene), Graphic Descriptions of violence, Major Character Death (temporary) and probably more (please tell me if there is anything else that needs to be tagged!)

Summary: Ghost learns that watching someone die in front of you is a very quick way to find out how much you actually care about them - even if you're not quite ready to admit it just yet. (Contains lots of fluff with a decent amount of angst mixed in! Could be considered hurt/comfort)

Wordcount: 2634

Nothing can be compared to the sound of an axe splitting a head clean open. Ghost can’t move. He can’t think. This can’t be happening. He’s gonna wake up now...Now...Now.

But nothing happens.

He glances down, numbly, at Spooker’s lifeless body on the ground. Blood spills from the crevice in his skull. Ghost’s stomach lurches, so he looks back up at the doorway, wondering if he’s next. It barely registers that there is no enemy. Just an axe swinging gently back and forth on a rope attached to the ceiling. A trap. It was a trap all along, and they fell for it. Distantly, he wonders if brains can be repaired once they’re split open like that. He thinks, Probably not.

Ghost feels like his world is sinking, crashing, burning. Why isn’t he getting up? Billy’s powers should still hold up here - they’re well within range of the Acachalla house, so why?

He realizes he’s been staring vacantly at Spooker for the past who knows how long, and when he looks up Katrina is standing in front of him, staring at him from behind her mane. She gurgles, sounding somehow both sympathetic and smug despite saying no actual words, and Ghost wavers between collapsing to the ground and sobbing, and strangling her on the spot. Something twitches inside of him, vile and immoral, waiting for its moment to strike. He considers indulging it just this once; doesn’t get the chance to decide whether he really will because Katrina pounces, claws digging into his ribcage like she’s searching for something - and in his last moments of consciousness, he watches something pulse in her hand, once, before all goes dark.

Even in death, it seems he’s not allowed to rest.

As soon as his eyes close, they blink open. He can’t see anything, but he feels a doorknob under his hand and feels his mouth finishing the words, “--what about the others?”

Behind him, Spooker’s voice replies, without a hint of caution or worry, “No luck over he-Woah!”

The door hits the wall and Ghost’s eyes widen with fear. He hears himself stutter out, “H-Hey, you good?”

He mouths the words as Spooker says them, glad at least that the room is too dark for Spooker to see it. “Yeah...yeah, I’m alright, just caught me off guard. Let’s go.” He pivots, lunging blindly for where Spooker’s voice came from, tackling him. Something sharp nicks his cheek, and he feels a slight breeze pass overhead. They hit the ground hard, but Ghost decides he prefers that over the alternative.

“Ghost! Wh-What was that for?”

He fumbles for his emergency batteries and reloads his flashlight as fast as he can, knowing Katrina could appear any second. He shines his light towards the doorway, where the axe takes a final swing inwards, before disappearing behind the door for good.

“Holy crap Ghost, how...how did you know that was there?”

“Instincts or something, I guess…” He pants, out of breath.

His mind buzzes and whirs, and he can hardly think through it, but he can’t just lay on top of Spooker forever, so he forces himself to stand, peeking around the corner cautiously.

Katrina is nowhere in sight. His chest aches with how coiled his muscles are - ready to spring at any moment.

Spooker dusts himself off and peeks over Ghost’s shoulder, searching the room and finding the exact same thing Ghost did — nothing. Ghost just barely restrains himself from putting a protective arm between Spooker and the empty room.

Cautiously, he steps inside, Spooker close behind. The only sound is that of their boots clicking against the tile floor. Despite everything, he finds time to thank any gods watching that Spooker has been too distracted by the new surroundings to baby him about the second cut across his cheek. It’s only a matter of time though, he knows.

Glancing around cautiously, Ghost takes in the decrepit machinery dominating the room’s layout. Most of it has decayed beyond recognition. In the far right corner sits a row of industrial shelves containing what at first looks to be scrap metal and wires, but as they approach them, turns out to be an assortment of batteries and other miscellaneous electronics.

“Score!!” Spooker shouts, and by some miracle Ghost quells his roaring panic into a tense, “Spooker, be careful, we don’t know if the entity is nearby.”

Spooker appears duly contrite, so he lets it go this once, if only because he doesn’t fully grasp the peril they are in. Hell, even Ghost’s not sure what the bigger picture is. If that entity is truly Katrina, then what are her motives? And if it isn’t, did the others see someone else?

Spooker is currently loading some new batteries into his flashlight, so Ghost feigns at inspecting some old flip phones on one of the shelves near Spooker and asks hesitantly, “That girl earlier, you saw her too right?”

“The one with the sharp claws and hair all in her eyes? Yeah, why?”

“Hm. Interesting,” is all he can say.

So if it’s something pretending to be her to toy with him, why did everyone see Katrina, instead of their own illusions? Is it just another layer to the deception? Why bother?

What is the point?

“Is that Nokia particularly thought-provoking, or are you gonna tell me what you’re thinking about?” Spooker had apparently appeared over his shoulder sometime while he was lost in thought, and Ghost jerks around, slamming into the shelf of Nokias, now behind him.

A loud CLANG resonates throughout the room, reverberating off the surrounding machinery in ways that seem almost staged -- it’s hauntingly ethereal.

Spooker’s hands fly out to steady him immediately, a look of concern clearly written on his face. For some reason, despite all logic, the first thing he notices is how close they are to each other. The second is the pain in his back. He hisses.

Spooker’s hands flit about nervously, from Ghost’s shoulder to his face before he curls his fists at his sides, nails digging into his palms. “I didn’t mean to scare you like that -- okay maybe a little but-” Ghost’s mouth twitches upwards in amusement involuntarily. “-I didn’t think you’d startle that badly! Really! I’m so so sorry-”

Ghost realizes that Spooker could probably apologize all day if allowed to, so he cuts in, “I’m fine Spooker.” it’s mostly the truth, he’ll probably bruise like hell tomorrow morning, but other than that he’s okay. He’s been through much worse on a mission, so he tries to seem sincere when he smiles slightly and says, “Seriously, it’s nothing to worry about, I’m alright.”

Spooker seems placated for all of two seconds before he suddenly squints at Ghost with heavy suspicion. “Are you saying that because you’re actually fine, or because your pain-rating scale only has the options of ‘not bleeding out or missing limbs, so doing fine,’ and ‘currently bleeding out or missing limbs, might need assistance if the situation is truly dire?’”

Ghost glances away, he’s not exactly wrong - not that he’ll admit that. “It’s actually fine, just a small bruise.”

“Uh huh.” He doesn’t sound convinced. “Turn around, let me see it.”

“Wha-Why? I told you it’s fine!” He is not whining right now, that would be childish. He’s just...objecting loudly. Yes.

“Yeah, and I totally believe you. Turn around.”

Ghost eyes the space under Spooker’s arm, calculating possible escapes. “We have much more important things to do than play doctor Spooker. Like finding a way out of here perhaps? You can swaddle me in bubble wrap when we get out of here for all I care, but right now I’d like to keep moving forward.”

Spooker seems to debate this for a few moments before blinking a few times and replying, “Fine, but if you start struggling to keep up I’m not going to be so nice.” He moves back, letting Ghost slide past him and out from between the shelves. Ghost has to push aside the very strong feeling that he’s had that conversation before.

Ghost ignores the inexplicable heat in his cheeks and starts scanning the room for an exit. For some reason it feels like the temperature has risen quite a bit since they entered, maybe the next room will be cooler. It could be some sort of elaborate trap to slowly boil them to death without them noticing. Who really knows with ghosts.

The walls around the machines are solid grey concrete, smooth and uniform. Ghost searches for some sort of inconsistency, a flaw somewhere, and eventually he finds a small notch in the otherwise perfect walls, and moves to investigate.

As he starts to approach it the sound of something metal hitting the floor ricochets from behind the shelves. “S-Sorry! My...My bad....”

“You alright?”

“Fine! Fine! Everything is fine!” Spookers voice is an octave too high to be deemed truly fine, but Ghost chalks it up to being startled by the loud noise. He looks back at the notch in the wall. Suddenly, he realizes that engraved just above the notch is a long string of symbols he’s never seen before. He wonders how he didn’t notice the intricate carvings until now.

“ᚱᛖᛋᛏ ᛁᚾ ᛏᚺᛖ ᚨᚱᛗᛋ ᛟᚠ ᚹᚺᛖᚱᛖ ᛃᛟᚢᚱ ᛋᛟᚢᛚ ᛁᛋ ᚱᛟᛟᛏᛖᛞ. ᛒᚱᛖᚨᛏᚺᛖ ᛁᚾ ᛏᚺᛖ ᚨᚢᚱᚨ ᛏᚺᚨᛏ ᛃᛟᚢ ᛋᚺᚨᚱᛖ. ᛟᚾᚲᛖ ᛏᚺᛖᛋᛖ ᚲᛟᚾᛞᛁᛏᛁᛟᚾᛋ ᚺᚨᚹᛖ ᛒᛖᛖᚾ ᛗᛖᛏ, ᛏᚺᛖ ᛈᚨᛏᚺ ᚹᛁᛚᛚ ᛟᛈᛖᚾ.”

Squinting at it, he decides to call Spooker over. Spooker scampers up, yet again hovering just over his left shoulder. Ghost is starting to think he just likes being there. For some reason this doesn’t bother him. He doesn’t know why.

Spooker looks at the symbols for a few seconds like they’re familiar, before finally he exclaims, “Oh! I know what those are - Those are Nordic Runes - specifically Elder Futhark!”

“You just...knew that?”

“I’ve always been into occult stuff, y’know? Apparently people still use these for divination today! But it’s also a language - like right here...” He points at one that looks like a fancy M over Ghost’s shoulder, and he’s beaming so brightly that Ghost is pretty sure he’s found the reason it’s so hot in this room - the warmth in his smile as he talks could rival the sun. Spooker keeps talking, explaining what different runes mean and their individual names, and Ghost realizes he’s been staring at Spooker’s face instead of paying attention, so he looks back at the runes and hopes he hadn’t noticed. Spooker doesn’t mention it if he does, just keeps talking about runes and their meanings, and it settles a part of Ghost he hadn’t even realized was jittery until now.

Something in the notched section of wall clicks twice, and not a second later does the wall slide open in one smooth motion. Behind it lies a rather dull looking corridor, with plain, dark walls, and a sharp turn about twenty feet ahead. They both jump slightly at the sudden change, but just as quickly steel themselves and enter, unwilling to test how long it would remain open. “Do you know what opened it?”

Spooker’s eyes flick side to side like he’s debating with himself. “Well, the clue was really vague...So I’m not really sure..” He scratches his chin. He’s pretty sure Spooker is hiding something, but asking what the clue was when he probably said it earlier is practically announcing that he wasn’t actually paying attention, so instead he just replies, “Huh, weird. Well as long as we’re making progress it can’t be a bad thing. Let’s go.”

Spooker, for one reason or another, stays silent.

Oh. It seems he forgot where he was.

As they round the corner they are met with the one and only Katrina - or whatever it is that’s pretending to be her - standing about thirty feet down the hallway. Ghost could swear she’s smiling under her mop of hair. He wants to run, or scream, or just, at the very least, move, preferably somewhere where the blood red eyes piercing through her veil of hair can’t follow him. But he can’t. He’s stuck to the spot, like he’s been sautered to the floor. He feels a presence behind him - and it can’t be her because he’s staring right at her; so it must be Spooker hovering just over his left shoulder, just like always, and if he wasn’t frozen in place he might have cried with relief. He manages to drag a shaking hand backwards until it meets Spooker’s, intertwining their fingers with a bruising grip. Katrina observes this, before nodding her head in what looks like approval. She turns on her heel and shambles back the way she presumably came.

“Wh-” His voice cracks, forcing him to pause and gather himself. “What was that. Why did she-I don’t, I don’t understand. Why-Why would…I don’t understand-” The jittery fragment grows restless, feeding off of his panic. He doesn’t understand what it is, he doesn’t understand what just happened, he doesn’t understand anything at all.

The fragment is growing agitated now. He doesn’t know why or how or what it is. It’s hungry. It’s so hungry. How did he end up on the ground? When did he start laughing? There’s someone talking somewhere. They feel familiar, safe. Who were they again? He’s still holding their hand. A face has come into view, or maybe they lifted his head. He feels like he’s watching through a window. The face - so so familiar, yet completely unrecognizable - wipes tears from his cheeks. Is he crying? They look worried; it looks wrong on their face. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong--

It’s all wrong.

This isn’t happening. It can’t be. It’s not real.

Spooker - that’s his name - looks at him with a frantic, desperate, fearful look in his eyes. He’s still laughing, he realizes.

“I saw you die,” falls from his mouth, unbidden. He doesn’t know why. “The axe. It killed you.” He giggles hysterically, but it’s choked off by more tears.

“I know,” Spooker says in a soothing voice, like he’s talking to a caged animal, “I know, I’m sorry.” They’re still holding hands, even after all of this. He looks down to see that his nails have dug deep enough into Spooker’s hand to draw blood. He starts to pull away, but Spooker catches his wrist. “Hey, it’s okay. I’ll be fine. You can hold on for as long as you need, okay?”

“Okay. Okay.” Everything is still so foggy, but the red haze is gone. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing. Nothing is wrong with you okay?”

“But, normal....normal people don’t.” He swallows thickly. “Don’t do this.”

“No, no they don’t,” Spooker agrees.

“So why am I?”

“We’re gonna figure it out, okay? We’ll figure it out together.”

“Okay.” He feels very small. Vulnerable. Scared. He finds himself longing for a mansion he’s never seen before; tall and green and empty, so empty. Home.

He suddenly feels exhausted. “I-I can’t,” he blinks rapidly, trying to stem the drooping of his eyelids.

“It’s okay, you can rest. I’ll still be here when you wake up.”

“Alright…”

The next time his eyes close, he drifts off into a dreamless sleep.