#take a good guess on who the bishop is

[imdoingsortagay]

Rio x reader x agatha smut where the reader is a brat do they punish reader by edging them over and over and they DP reader 🫣

Let's Get Screwed !

Pairing: Agatha Harkness X Rio Vidal x Reader

Word count: 3.0k words

Summary: They weren't paying you any attention and so you took it upon your hands to get it

Warnings: 18+ smut, Mommy and Mistress kink, Kate is here, Anal( R receiving), fingering ( R receiving), double penetration, sort of soft agatha, toys, soft moment.

This neighborhood party hosted by Dottie was getting boring. You didn’t want to go at all and wanted to spend the day at home but your neighbors had begged you to join along as they didn’t want to be stuck hearing about the other ladies. 

Rio and Agatha had taken a bit of a liking to you and you didn’t mind the company on nights where you didn’t have to go to work, which lead to a situationship between the three of you.

They were happily married to each other while you were their third, their perfect little pet who did no wrong.  The young adult just out of college focusing on your career.You assumed they just wanted you as a way to spice up their life not knowing that they had feelings for you. 

“ Are you gonna keep staring at them or actually listen to what I’m saying y/n?” Kate ask you. 

“ staring at who……” you play dumb while your best friend rolls her eyes. You were so bad at faking it. 

“ I’m guessing the three of you are still in the fucking stages them,” she says and you nod and burry your head in your hands dramatically. It had also been 2 weeks since they fucked you and all you wanted was their attention, no matter how you had to get it. 

“ Kate babe you have no idea, like works been up my ass about the new social media campaign and I haven’t had a good fuck in,” you pause to think,” 2 weeks Kate”. One of the moms in the neighborhood hears you cuss and gives you a side eye which you ignore and Kate just holds in her laugh. 

“ have you tried discussing your feelings with the woman? “ she offers up. 

“ nah,” and she rolls her eyes. 

“ texted them about talking ?” 

“ tried but schedules didn’t line up ?” 

“ Carrier pigeon ?” Kate asks sarcastically.

“ Does Yelena know a guy who does that because I’m actually considering it,” and Kate slaps your arm at your stubbornness. 

“ maybe you just need to make them jealous so they can fucking talk about their feelings,” she says sarcastically says, giving you a good idea. 

“ Would you help me Katherine ? Oh pretty please Katherine bishop ? Will you help your bestie friend to-“ and before you can say anything else she lightly slaps your arm to get you to shut up. God you annoyed her sometimes but she was up for the cause. 

“ you’re such a brat,” she chuckles and you smile at the compliment. 

“ hopefully it helps me with them fucking me til I can’t think,” you say, Kate not missing a second at she wraps her arm around your waist. 

The rest of the party , the both of you act like a lovesick couple, Kate holding your hand as the both of you sit together listening to Dottie talk about her plants. Mrs Davis calls you both adorable whenever Kate feeds you a chocolate covered strawberry , all while Rio and Agatha just try to keep their cool infront of everyone.

“ y/n is being a brat Aggie,” Rio says in a quiet tone to her wife as they watch you strut around with Bishop. Both ladies knew that Kate had eyes for Yelena so there was no reason to be throwing yourself at her in front of everyone in the neighborhood. 

“ give it another minute babe,” Agatha says watching you and Kate go off hand in hand,” then we’ll take them home and teach them a lesson”. 

“ you think they saw us?” Kate laughs nervously as she’s in no mood to piss off the milfs. 

“ definitely knowing them they’re on the way the way to come and ‘ talk’ or whatever “ you say. 

“ I’m actually down to go y/n,” and you nod as she leads you towards the backyard exit, not before a soft pair of hands takes you away from your friend.

“ Mrs Harness-Vidal !” Kate’s says while you try to hide your blush. Right on cue.

“ Quite the showing affection the two of you were showing huh superstars?” She curiously asks and before Kate can respond Rio appears with a plate of food to take home.

“ Really Rio ? right now ?” Agatha asks.

“ Mrs Davis offered and I wasn’t gonna say no darling,” she defends herself. 

“ Anyways,” Agatha begins again,” where are you and y/n going anyways Bishop?” 

“ probably gonna go back to my place and watch tv ya know ?” Kate attempts to act cool while you snort at her attempt. 

“ we can take y/n back with us babe,” Rio speaks up,” I know you probably still have to take your dog on a walk right ?” 

Kate gives you one more look before you give her a little nod, signaling to her that you’d be okay. 

“ bye y/n,” she gives you a quick kiss on your cheek before heading back to her place. Oh you were fucked after that.

Both ladies keep their composure as the three of you head over to the married couples place, the sound of Rio humming preventing you from freaking out as to what might happen.

“ on your knees pet,” Rio is the first one to speak and you don’t obey immediately, feeling confident to defy her. 

“ actually I think I’ll sit on the couch,” you say and make your way to the couch, Agatha’s face showing a bit of shock.

“ oh so someone wants to be a brat ? Not listening to your mistress when she’s giving you orders?” Agatha asks and you don’t budge.

“ maybe if you had payed attention to me more at the party mommy I would have behaved you think-“ and Agatha shoves you off the couch to your knees. You let out a huff as the older woman chuckles. 

“ listen here slut,” she has a grip on your chin,” your mistress and I are gonna punish you for being a bad pet for us and throwing yourself at Kate like that. You’re ours til the end of time you know that right ?” 

You nod as best as you can, mind feeling a bit fuzzy at her command. 

“ let mommy use your mouth with her fingers while Mistress undresses herself,” she tells you shoving two of her fingers in your mouth to suck, putting on a show for both ladies in front of you. Rio made a show of slowly taking off the dress in-front of you and her wife, taking her time to taunt you like the way she was an expert at.

“ fuck baby you’re drooling and you haven’t gotten my cock in your greedy mouth, she says with fake pity in her voice,” Rio baby, here or there bedroom”.

“ bedroom,” she answers and the three of you head to their main room, Agatha places you in the middle of the queen size bed while Rio places herself behind you. 

“ Now it’s time for mommy to undress herself for us,” Rio says and you feel her arms wrap around your waist. All you can do is watch as the older woman in front of you makes a show of taking off each of her clothes, mind going crazy whenever you see her naked body and acting like it’s the first time you’ve seen her in all her beauty. 

“ Is she wet for us honey? “ Agatha asks her wife and you feel one of Rio’s hands slowly go to your clothed center and pushing past your panties to feel your wetness. You lift yourself up a bit for the women behind you to take off your shorts and underwear in one swift motion, Rio helping you spread your legs so Agatha can see just how wet you got. 

“ Should Mommy pay attention to that pussy of your pet? Personally I don’t think you after you decided to be a whore at the party and throw yourself onto Kate,” Rio whispers in your ear and you whine as you try to get any sort of friction from her fingers. Agatha gives her wife a look before she removes her fingers and holds you in place again. You wondered what they had planned for you after deciding to act all lovey lovey with Kate and sassing them.

“ Mommy is just gonna run to the closet and grab some items for us okay doll? Stay here with Mistress and maybe if you behave we’ll be easier on you tonight,” and you nod. 

“ Mommy needs your words pet,” Rio holds your chin so you maintain eye contact with the other woman in the room.

“ Okay, Mommy,” and you see the woman smile before she goes to the closet while Rio moves her hand away from your needy pussy. The other hand that was holding you in place goes to your left tit while the other one goes to your mouth and she puts three fingers for you to suck. She might put up a tough exterior on the outside but when the three of you were in the bedroom, she was always the one to be more gentler that Agatha was which you always appreciated. 

“ Just let Mistress play with your body pet,” she orders and you whine around your fingers,” want you to be ready for what Mommy and I have planned for you”. 

It felt like an eternity as Rio took the fingers out of your mouth to go to your other nipple, giggling a bit as she messes with your bread, enjoying the little noises you make and before you try to protest Agatha comes back with two harnesses, a pair of cuffs, bottle of lube and two Dildos. What you don’t see is Rio smile at the idea her wife was proposing. 

“ Someone is feeling adventurous, “ Rio says as the both of them change places for a bit, Rio take a minute to put on one of the harnesses and you feel Agatha sit behind you. 

“ if you even think about using those hands we don’t hesitate to cuff you,” she spits out as her right hands goes to her cunt, two fingers going into your wet cunt with ease. Agatha goes slow and steady as she gets you ready for Rio’s cock. 

Both ladies give each other knowing looks, the woman under you positioning you so that you’re in a comfy position.

“ Mistress is gonna fuck your pussy a bit baby while I play with your other hole okay pet?” 

Oh , anal tonight ? 

“  Mommy needs your word honey,” Rio says as the cock slowly goes into your went cunt, letting you adjust to the size. 

“ Yes Mommy,” you mumble,” I’ll be good”. 

“ Good job pet, who knew I had to mention using your other hole and all of a sudden you decided to be good for Mistress and Mommy” and Rio giggles at your silence. Agatha wasn’t wrong at all, both ladies know you like the back of your hand. 

“ Honey, be a doll and start fucking that pussy while I get their other hole ready for my cock,” and Rio doesn’t have to be told twice as she takes it slow then you feel one one of Agatha’s long fingers tease your puckered hole, feeling the lubed fingers slowly go inside. 

“ Fuck Mistress,” you moan out as Rio fucks your pussy, expertly thrusting into you and teasing your sensitive nipples while her wife get’s to work on you asshole. Agatha groans under you, the feeling of her long fingers bringing you pleasure and without another thought, your right hand goes to your clits for more pleasure but not before Rio stops her movements. 

“ Oh honey, looks like our pet thinks they can touch their needy cunt whenever,” Rio says in a mocking tone, Agatha quickly grabs the cuffs from the right side of her and puts your arms in a comfy position. 

“ We might just be here all night if you can’t decide to be a good pet baby” Agatha says as she starts to thrust the two fingers in your butt, the woman basking in your glory with Rio goes at a slow pace, waiting for what her wife wants to do to you next. 

“ Is Y/N ready for your cock in their ass Aggie? I can tell from the way their legs are slowly wanting to close that our pet is close,” she laughs as she goes just a bit faster to make the point and rubs your clit as a tourating pace. Agatha does want to mess with you just a bit more but she’d rather want you in a more comfortable position first before anything else.

“ Lay down on the bed Rio and then be a good pet for us and sit on Mistress’ lap,” you nod, Rio slowly pulling out of you and going to sit on the bed, Agatha helping you to go back on her cock. No shame as she observes the way your face scrunches up at the feeling of the cock inside of your needy cunt. You lay your head on the other woman’s shoulder as you compose yourself, Rio rubbing small circles in your back while Agatha puts on her purple to use on you.

“ Now just stay still for us pet while I put my cock in your other hole for us,” she whispers in your ear, Rio whispering praises in your other ear to distract you at the toy went in your ass. It’s not like it’s your first time having something inside your ass, both of them training you with small plugs but it’s the first time having something bigger than just a small sized plug in you. 

“ Fuck honey, we should have done with sooner with y/n,” Agatha groans out as you take her cock so easily, Rio taking that as a sign to slowly start thrusting. You moan at the feeling of the woman under you fucking your pussy while Agatha starts to thrust in and out of you as well. You might just cum soon if they keep it up. 

“ Do you like mommy fucking your ass baby?” And you nod. 

“ Pet,” she pulls your hair,” don’t be rude to your mistress and answer the question”

“ Yes Mistress,” you moan out,” I like mommy fucking my ass, I’m so close”. 

“ Unfortunately because you decided to be a brat and whore yourself out, Mommy and I are gonna have fun using you like the little toy you are for us,” Rio chuckles at the fear in your face. The next hour both ladies is filled with begging, several ruined orgasms and so many noises coming from your pretty mouth as the ladies punish you for your actions from earlier, reminding you never to act out in front of them. 

“ Are you gonna be a good pet for us and never do that shit again” Agatha asks and you nod, brain feeling too dizzy and foggy to say any words. 

“ Use your big girl words pet,” Agatha orders,” unless you want to go another round”. 

“ M’sorry, mommy and mistress,” you whine out,” wanna cum, please, wanna cum on your cocks”. Both of them give each other looks, wondering if they should just cave in and let you cum. 

“ Promise not to act like that with Kate pet?” Rio asks and you nod. 

“ Promise to be ours and only ours baby?” You hear Agatha say in a sweet tone and you again nod, finding it hard to keep holding on until Agatha snakes your hand to your clit. 

“ Cum for us pet,” Rio whispers and you scream as your orgasm hits you hard, Rio helping you stay in place as the older woman slowly pulls out of your other hole first before Rio does. She whisper sweet praises in your ear while you bury your head in her chest. Agatha gets rid of her strap in the bathroom then comes back with a cup of water along with a rag to clean you. 

“ I know you wanna sleep honeybee but Aggie needs to clean you off,” and you nod as Rio helps you get off of her cock, your pussy feeling empty while Agatha can’t help to admire what both of them did to you. You whine at the feeling of the wet rag on your sensitive core but Agatha is the one to comfort you and lay with you after. 

“ Aggie? “ 

“ Yeah honeybee?” She asks you, admiring how adorable you look in her arms. Rio quietly makes her way to your right side so that both ladies are in between your tired body. 

“ Did you mean what you said earlier? Bout me being yours and Rio’s only? “ you asks with a bit of hope in your eyes, too tired to go home if they were to say no.

“ Of course,” she says,” Rio and I want you to be ours, we just hope you feel the same way”. 

“ I agree babe,” Rio adds,” We want to treat you like the princess you are, we didn’t like the way Kate was all over you earlier at the party ya know?”

“ I just wanted to see if you would get jealous,” you mumble as they cuddle with you, enjoying the feeling of Agatha petting your hair while Rio rubs your back. Both ladies chuckle at the revelation, a bit shocked they actually took your bait. 

“ I wonder where you got that from,” the sarcasm from Agatha’s mouth as she looks at her wife who acts innocent, making you giggle. For the rest of the night the three of you all take in the comfort of each other before drifting off to sleep in each other’s arms. 

[marvelobsessed134]

R's athletic GF g!p!Kate has been trying to get her already sizable cock even bigger. One day, R hears Kate getting all hype and excited and goes to see what the deal is, and she finds that Kate succeeded.

Then sex. :P

Size difference

I’ve missed writing for Kate so thank you for requesting this. Also my first time writing responsible protected sex??? 😨

Pairings: Athletic!Kate Bishop x Fem!Reader

Warnings: smut, Kate has a dick, dom!kate, mentions of pills (idk if that’s really a warning I’m just putting it here), slight size kink

Ever since Kate found these supplements on TikTok shop-she’s become a TikTok shop victim-she has not shut up about them. Until they finally arrived. They were supposed to increase her dick size even though she already had a sizable cock anyways. It made you both nervous and turned on if they actually worked because how would she fit inside you?

One day you came home from a doctors appointment when you heard Kate shout in triumph from upstairs. So you went to investigate. You walked in your shared bedroom assuming she’d won a game of Modern Warfare or something but instead she was naked looking at herself in the mirror. More so her cock. Your eyes widened at its size. She was about 10 inches now. The raven haired girl smirked when she noticed you staring.

“Hey, baby.” She said and you were still in shock.

“Y-you- it worked.” Was all you could say. The archer had a cocky look on her face, especially when she noticed you not so subtly rubbing your thighs together. “Yeah, and honestly I’m surprised. I was a little skeptical about them but I’m glad it worked out.”

“M-me too…”

“Why don’t you come test drive it?” She asked with a cheeky grin.

Moments later you found yourself on your knees in only your lacy underwear looking up and Kate. She put her cock to the side of your face for comparison, “I don’t know how this is gonna fit in your pretty little mouth.”

“Please, Kate. I can take it.” You pleaded, wanting nothing more than to suck on her “new and improved” cock.

“Awww, you want this dick? Okay, I guess I’ll give it to you.” She positioned her cock against your lips and your opened your mouth, allowing her to slide inside. Your eyes almost popped out of your head with how large she was but you began to bob your head and jerk off whatever you couldn’t fit in your mouth.

The raven haired girl gripped your hair as you worked your magic. “Holy fuck, your mouth is even tighter now. Gripping me like a vice.” Kate moaned.

One of your hands reached down into your panties, rubbing your clit making your girlfriend smirk, “You gonna touch yourself while you suck me off, baby? That’s okay just don’t cum because I need you to cum on this big cock okay?” You nodded as you moaned, rubbing your clit in tight circles while feeling her shaft down your throat.

Suddenly she pulled out of you and your hand retracted outside your panties knowing what was gonna come next. She stroked your cheek, “Why don’t you get on the bed? I know that little pussy is dying to be fucked.” You eagerly got up and ripped your underwear off before getting on all fours on the bed.

You heard the sound of a wrapper tear before she was behind you in an instant, teasing your dripping slit with her tip before pushing in slowly, making sure you had time to adjust. “Ohhh fuck! You’re so fucking small!” She cried out in pleasure.

“Mmm Kate, please fuck me. Need it so bad.” You cried.

“Okay, baby. If it gets too much let me know.” She gripped your hips for leverage before thrusting into you at a medium speed. Soon enough the only sounds in the room were moans and skin slapping against skin.

“Such a good girl. Taking my cock so fucking good.” Kate growled, speeding up her movements. Hee finger snuck underneath you to your clit, rubbing it just how you were rubbing yourself earlier.

“Ohhh Kate!” You moaned.

“That’s right baby, scream my name. Let the whole building know who’s fucking you so good.” The archer continued her hard thrusts, abusing your clit in the process. It didn’t take long before you saw stars, and Kate knew you were close.

“Cum for me. Give it to me, baby.” Your girlfriend commanded and your vision went white for a second as you came harder than you ever had in your entire life. Kate finished not long after, filling the condom full of her seed.

The two of your stayed still for a moment catching breaths before she pulled out to dispose of the condom. She came back to you laying flat on your back with a blissed out expression. She crawls over you and presses a sweet kiss to your lips before saying, “Let me know when you’re ready for round two.”

[mari-the-bimbo]

Checkmate

A/N: This is part of the ‘think I need someone older’ series because I’m very behind on it whoopsie! Also have I watched Queen Gambit? No. Did I use the show as inspo anyways? Yes! :D

MINORS DNI, 18+, blow job, semi public sex? Dirty talk,

“You again Geto?” you ask with a sigh as you watch the older, handsome man with his jet black hair tied back, patiently wait for you at the table.

“Hey beautiful”

You try your best to hide your smile from the handsome man who always managed to win every other chess game to land at a game with you.

“You sound disappointed to see me y/n, I’m hurt” he says playfully as you sit at the table, scanning the board, preparing for a game of chess with him.

“Yet you find yourself here every time” you retort, he chuckles nonetheless as he begins. “I enjoy it” he says.

“I’ll never understand why you enjoy playing chess in a pub full of old men though” he says. You shrug your shoulders “I’m just better than all of you” you say as you move a pawn.

He laughs amusedly, it echoes across the room littered with a few nearly middle aged men, none of them gorgeous as your favourite opponent.

“so cocky” he swoons. “And what if I won today?”

“You won’t” you say confidently with a smile, he can’t help but mirror your smile. He was so lovesick for you.

“You wanna bet on that?” He says, you give a breathy laugh at his eagerness. “Ok bet”

“And what happens if I win the bet?” He asks, causing you to halt your next move on the bishop.

You raise an eyebrow at the mischievous male, debating whether letting the simp have a favour from you is a wise idea.

“What would you want to do if you won?” You ask. Fuck being wise right?

He smiles knowingly, licking his lips, but it’s too late to take back words.

“You let me have my way with you”

Your breath hitches at his statement. You glare at him. “What does that mean?”

“It means you can help me out with something I really need” he says.

“Oh really?” You say as you move another player, your head goes fuzzy for a second. Wait, was that the right player to move?

“Mhm, just a little something under the table” he says dirtily as he confidently moves another player.

You gulp at his suggestive words, you know what a man obsessed with you would want, but you never expected him to have this effect on you “what?” You say as you move your king.

He smiles before leaning in closer to you. You feel his breath on your neck, “is your mouth as good as your hands?” he rasps and you gasp, pulling away from him, glaring at the man.

However Geto’s dark eyes were no longer on you but rather your king who he just put into check.

“Checkmate”

You stare in disbelief at the board. How did he defeat you? He never wins against you, nor does he ever come close to it.

“You-“

“Aww man all the guys have left. They didn’t get to witness this beautiful victory” he mocks with a smile.

You squeeze your thighs together, hating yourself for choosing your desire for the handsome chess genius over your own ego.

He tilts his head and flashes a pretty smile at you as he unzips his jeans. “Well I guess it’s good they’re not here to witness what’s next huh?”

———————————-

You were, in fact thankful that all the other chess enthusiasts left. The pub staff too busy sitting inside, having a cigarette to know Geto’s dirty antics.

You’re not surprised when upon freeing his cock from his boxers, you found it was already rock hard and decorated with pre cum. He was horny this entire game?

“Dirty pervert” you mutter.

He laughs at you while reaching out a hand to caress your cheek, “you seen the faces you pull when you’re concentrating? How can a man resist?”

“You-“

But your sentence is cut off by Geto’s tip which he now shoved against your lips, pre cum wetting them.

“Nu uh, you can run your mouth when you win a game princess, until then, it’ll be stuffed with my cock” he says, leaving no room for protest.

He pets your hair as the pre cum around his pink thick cock gets licked up by you. He moans deliciously, singing your praises from his mouth.

“Ohhhh pretty girl, your mouth is just as good”

He enthusiastically grabs your head with his thick veiny hand to press his cock deeper into your mouth. You initially struggle to fit the girth of him in, but your choking is only music to his ears.

He laughs blissfully at the sound, “so cuteee” he moans, his hips thrusting harder every time, because the wet gummy feeling of inside your mouth was just too good against his length.

Your whimpers vibrate against his sensitive head, his praises is now mixed with curses as he ruts into your mouth as if you were a sex toy. His thick arm grabbing the wooden table for stability, because, oh god, it was so easy to lose his composure with a pretty thing like you in between his legs.

Heavy balls slap against your chin, and the drool trails down your face but you try to keep up with his eager stamina.

Finally he slows his pace when he makes you aware he’s about to cum, the creamy taste of his cum flows down your throat as well as trickling down your chin mixing with your spit.

You’re both panting as you finally take his length out of your mouth and look up at him from in between his legs.

It takes everything in you not to suck him off again as you watch him slump against the chair, black hair strands frame his face dishevelled, his muscular chest heaving as he lets out a satisfied sigh.

“Hey princess” he coos as he grabs your chin, pressing his sweaty forehead against yours, he kisses your wet lips for continuing. “Maybe you should let me win more often yeah? I promise I’ll eat you out next time”

You give him a breathy laugh against his lips, “in your dreams Suguru” you say, even though you know you’ll take him up on the offer.

[pookietv]

online embarrassment | arthurtv

this was a req!! and i think its adorable

there will be a part two to this !!!

being a simple university student, you had simple pleasures - getting drunk on the weekend, binge watching tv shows, and a more strange one, online chess. you liked watching people play, you liked playing yourself, you loved the strategy aspect. on some websites you played on, there was the option of livestreaming your chess game - no faces or voices, but people could chat alongside you playing, and you enjoyed seeing input on your games.

one day you were playing a particularly tricky game, being forked from practically the get go, and being the victim of many pawn trades, you were definitely on a losing streak, even if you were just playing against a bot. it was being streamed, but there were only four people watching, not that embarrassing right? especially because it was hidden behind a chess username and no one knew who you were anyways, so it didn't really matter.

so when a comment came in,

ATV: i wouldn't have played rook to f4 there, leaves an opening for a three move check :)

your head tilted a little, turning back to the game and furrowing your eyebrows, trying to figure what they had meant - and they were right, the move was a little careless and it could lead to checkmate.

you nodded to yourself, trying to amend the damage by playing your bishop defensively, to which another comment came in.

ATV: sorry for backseat gaming here, but you could have check in two

you smiled a little more at the comment, placing one hand on your chin and the other on your mouse, following some moves for what must have been fourty-five seconds before you clicked, they were right again. you made the move, the bot making its response, defending also, before in a few short moves, the game was over, you had won by check.

youruser: @/ATV thank you! i still kinda suck after playing for so long lmao

ATV: @/youruser do you want a game? :)

youruser: @/ATV sure! i'll add you now :P

so you added them, and they requested a game. in the chatbox on the side, you saw another message just as they had moved their first piece.

ATV: so what's your name?

youruser: i'm y/n, what about you?

ATV: arthur :)

he moved with an unusual polish opening, so you played traditional and tried to take control of the centre. within a few minutes, he had one of your pawns pinned, and had taken another.

youruser: damn you're actually really good

youruser: feeling a little defeated here :)

ATV: i'm just a loser with far too much time on my hands

youruser: well i mean me too but still, you're smoking me

ATV: cause you're playing too much attack not enough defence

youruser: i feel i may need you to tutor me lmao

ATV: lets finish up this game rq and then i'll help lol

unsurprisingly, he won, but you actually came closer than expecting, and it was a pretty even match after the poor beginning.

ATV: you're actually pretty good, you were just being modest

youruser: hm well maybe

youruser: suppose i'll have to keep challenging you til i win >:D

ATV: do you have discord or anything? easier to explain and talk on there rather than chess in game chat lol

youruser: i do! i'll link it rq :)

youruser: it's yourdiscuser #1782

and from there, you began talking semi-regularly, you played chess often and spoke tactics and games, he helped teach you and you enjoyed the company.

youruser: isn't it really strange we know nothing about each other other then chess defence strategies

youruser: i mean what if you're the insane chess killer man

ATV: yes, thats exactly who i am, the Insane Chess Killer Man, can't believe you caught me red handed

ATV: i mean what do you wanna know

youruser: i mean, idk,,, where are you from? i mean i know you speak english but you could be from anywhere i guess :O

ATV: i live in england, what about you :)

youruser: me too! i'm in london atm for uni, getting my masters

ATV: i am also in london! so if you're getting your masters, you're like ... somewhere around 24?

youruser: yeah, i'm 23 :P

youruser: what about you? i mean i have a feeling you're not some sixty year old man based on the fact you use discord but idk

ATV: i'm 28,,, getting very old :(

youruser: wow, very old indeed, must be such a shame

youruser: its gonna suck when i'm gonna have to visit you in a nursing home to play chess with you in two years time

ATV: okay i'm not that old you divvy :)

youruser: kidding, kidding ! anyway, i have to go because i have class but,, if you maybe wanna add me on instagram, its @/youruser :)

getting back from your lectures and practically throwing your backpack on the floor and collapsing on your bed, you planned on rotting the rest of the day away in pajamas and consuming far too much social media.

you opened instagram to a new follower: @/arthurtv

you assumed it was arthur from chess, and obviously in curiosity you opened his page straight away, you were nosy and you wanted to know who he was.

the first thing that shocked you was what he looked like: you didn't know what you were expecting but you didn't think it was going to be him.

he was... attractive, you had to admit, and your eyes had widened once you had seen him.

the second thing that shocked you was his followers, and his bio - he was a youtuber?

classically, you had to be nosy and follow the links to his youtube, your eyebrows raised a little as you looked at his channel, giggling to yourself, he did commentary on reality tv? you hadn't seen that before, but once you watched a video, you realised he was funny, too. he made it funny, despite the fact that you had at first felt it was the strangest youtube topic ever.

youruser: why hello arthurtv

youruser: i was definitely not expecting you

arthurtv: why hello y/n

arthurtv: i could say the same about you

youruser: well i mean i don't have any surprises

youruser: but you are apparently known for commenting on 90 day fiance?

arthurtv: i'd argue you have some surprises

arthurtv: and yes, i make commentary videos! wasn't trying to hide it or anything, just was a weird thing to bring up in conversation :)

youruser: no, it seems cool! i wasn't judging :) i don't watch much youtube so i don't know too much about it

youruser: and anyways, what surprises do i have?

arthurtv: i wasn't expecting you to look like that i suppose

youruser: like what ??

arthurtv: i mean, i don't know, pretty i suppose

arthurtv: you're very pretty, i just didn't know what i was expecting to be honest

youruser: wow you thought i couldn't be pretty cause i'm a loser playing chess??? smh arthur

youruser: (i'm kidding, i didn't expect you to look like you either)

arthurtv: you know that's not what i meant!!

arthurtv: what did you expect me to look like then?

youruser: well since you're 28, i suppose i was expecting a zimmerframe or walking stick or something

arthurtv: ha ha very funny

[chiefdirector]

Hiding | Tim Bradford | The Rookie

Act Two| Chapter 30 | Chapter 31 | Chapter 32 | Chapter 33

“Have a nice day off, did we?” the voice of Sergeant Caradine rang out from behind (Y/N), causing her to jump in her seat. Quickly, she whipped her head around to face her boss. “Didn't take you for a slacker, Bradford.”

“Please, I’m not a slack-”

Caradine rolled his eyes, “Don’t act like you don't have more coffee breaks than anyone else in this department. And don’t get me started on the amount of times I've caught you playing computer chess.”

(Y/N) guilty looked down at her lap, “So… you’ve come to fire me?”

“Not yet, if you were anyone else I would’ve. But despite your flaws, you're damn good at your job.” Cardaine looked like he wanted to smile, but fought the urge off. Slamming down a file on Bradford’s desk, he continued. “I got a case for you. Homicide. Lopez had already been briefed. You two are going to be partnered for the time being.”

“Cool-” 

Caradine cut (Y/N) off again. “What have I said about the word ‘cool?’”

“That it isn’t ‘cool’”

The sergeant just huffed, demanding that (Y/N)get out of his sight.

—

Lopez tried to keep her focus on the road, focussing on the case at hand even but she couldn’t help herself. Pulling up on a red light, she turned her head to her partner  “Bishop told me that you and Tim went on a date…”

“We’re married.” (Y/N) deadpanned.

“Still. Was it fun? Sexy even?”

“Why do you care, Ange. You're also in a committed relationship. Unless you have something to share?”

Angela lightly punched (Y/N) on the shoulder as she saw the lights turn green. Turning back to the road, she rolled her eyes. “It’s a little dry. He’s a lawyer, he doesn’t have any cool work stories to share. So spill.”

“He took me to where we had our first date.”

“Ooo. Let me guess! Romantic restaurant? Walk on the beach?  Wait no- it’s Tim. Football! He took you to see the football!”

“Shooting range.”  (Y/N) revealed, laughing at Angela’s insistence.

“Damn it!” Lopez groaned, pulling the car to park next to the sidewalk. “That’s not romantic.”

“It wasn’t too bad. But we’re here now, let's be a bit more professional.” (Y/N)  tried to reason as she looked across to Angela who had an eyebrow raised. “And I will tell you more later.”

“Good, let's go.” (Y/N) went to get out of the car before she realised where she was. It shocked her that she did not recognise the address in the file, but looking at the house, there was no way she could mistake it now. 

This was Kade Sullivan’s house.

“Do you know who died, was it the homeowner or…?” (Y/N) said, letting her voice trail off, the implications running through her mind.

“Yeah, the homeowner. Did you know them or something?”

(Y/N) hummed in acknowledgement before getting out of the car and towards the house. 

—-------

The patrol officers shot her strange looks as she made her way directly into the kitchen, (Y/N) had her mind only on one thing only. The bug that she had planted with Harper. Looking over her shoulder to make sure she wasn’t being followed, She ran her hand under the counter until she found the device. Quickly, she pocketed it before heading back out to the living room where the body lay.

Around the body, several patrol officers stood, waiting for the coroners. Most of the officers (Y/N) didn’t recognize. She had never bothered to learn most of their names, most people relocate before bonds were formed, but she clocked onto two standing in the corner immediately. 

“Chen, Bradford. Come here, I have a job for you.” She beckoned, waiting as the two came over. 

Quietly, she told Chen to come to her side, slipping the bug into her hand once she was close enough. “Take this back to the station, don’t stop for anything. Upload any data it may have that hasn’t been looked over and destroy it.”

“Destroy it? Doesn’t it need to be reported?” Chen asked, keeping her voice as low as (Y/N)’s.

“Yes, tell Grey. Don’t give any details. Once me and Lopez wrap up here, we will meet. Don’t tell Grey anything he doesn’t need to know.” She said, before turning to her husband. “You do the talking. I will be back soon. Let Harper know if you see her. And both of you, don’t say anything on the radio.”

(Y/N) walked further into the house as soon as she finished talking, not giving Bradford or Chen any room to argue.

“You heard her,” Tim said, looking at his boot as Lucy stood still, “Move!”

———————

After watching her partner examine the crime scene one to many times, Angela finally managed to drag her partner out of the house and back into the shop. 

They drove in silence for a bit, Angela deliberately taking the scenic route back to the precinct. Eventually the quietness got to her and she couldn’t hold back nah longer. “Are you okay?”

(Y/N) just hummed in response, looking out of the window to avoid Angela’s concerned look. 

“You know this isn’t the end of the world. We will be able to find another way to Dyer.” Angela didn’t need to say the name for (Y/N) to know who she was talking about. “It’ll work out.”

“I know… it’s just-” (Y/N) trailed off

“Just what?”

“It just feels real now. Seeing Sullivan dead… before, I knew the threat was there but I could ignore it. Other cases to work on, you know? But now, with him gone. Another pawn off the board.”

It was Angela’s turn to hum, processing her partner’s words. After a few moments, she spoke again. “This just means we’re one step closer to ending this.”

“But so is she.”

—————

It didn’t take long for the coroner's report to come back; the death was ruled as suspicious. No foul play, just a lonely man, too burdened by the world. Or by guilt. That was how he died but the real mystery came post-mortem. The call had been sent out as a homicide but all violent markings had been inflicted after death. As if someone was staging him. 

(Y/N) sighed as she ran her hand through her head. Looking down at the file, she reread the words over and over, as if she couldn’t fully comprehend them. There was something else that she was missing, something familiar.

Tags:

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[unholyhelbig]

I’ve always been curious about Kate bishops background and would love to hear a paraphrased version if ur okay with it

[Absolutely I can! Just a little disclaimer, I'm doing this mostly from memory, so I may get a few things wrong. But I promise the gist is there, and this has gotten way too long, so uh... part one? I guess? I didn't even get to the vampires. If people are into this. I'll keep going.]

Okay, let’s start with Kate’s backstory.

The Bishop family has issues. Eleanor, Kate’s mom, is distant but portrayed as a generally good person. She and her husband Derek have an estranged relationship. She travels a lot and is regarded as an activist throughout her life until her untimely death when Kate is still just a kid.

Kate develops admiration for her father. He’s a publishing magnate but it’s soon revealed that he has ties to the crime world. Kate, despite her young age, follows her father to a meeting with El Matador. While there, she gets captured by the crime lord to be held for ransom.

This is where she see’s Clint for the first time, who saves her with the rest of the avengers. She took an instant liking to him because he was the only human on the team without advantages. At this point, she does make Clint her role model and starts to distance herself from her family to focus on activism like Eleanor.

Kate didn’t’ truly start training in combat until she was attacked in Central Park. This kicked off her love of self-defense. She originally felt isolated and in some cannon media, this moment in the park still haunts her beyond belief. (Young Avengers Special #1 [2005]  is a great comic that’s stand alone & shows the mentorship between Jessica Jones and Kate. TW for SA.)

Que the Young Avengers.

(My personal favorite Kate Bishop Design)

Kate has an older sister that’s been completely written out of the MCU adaptation. Her name is Susan, and she doesn’t have the greatest relationship with Kate, they’re not openly hostile, but they don’t enjoy each other either. Still, Kate is in Susan’s wedding party.

During the wedding, the church comes under fire and the Young Avengers swoop in to save the day. But they awkwardly become hostages themselves and Kate uses one of Patriots throwing stars to get them out of the situation before the police show up.

Kate very ungracefully demands to become a part of the Young Avengers (The original team is: Cassie Lang, Eli Bradley, Tommy Shepard, Billy Kaplan, Nate Richards, and Teddy Altman). Kate originally doesn’t have a hero identity, so she raids the Avengers Mansion and dawns Mockingbirds staves and mask, swordsman’s sword and belt and Hawkeyes abandoned bow.

Captain America and Iron man were not happy about the team and demanded that they disband. But eventually gave in after the Young Avengers refused to back down. Kate was the only one to stand up to Steve and demand that they get better training. He agreed and put Jessica Jones in charge of the team. This is when Kate becomes Hawkeye. Steve gives her the title and the bow. She’s the unofficial leader of the Young Avengers.

What about Clint?

Dude is dead in the Young Avengers run. Clint makes his valiant return in the massive Civil War event that Marvel comics created. He was resurrected and is absolutely pissed when he finds out that Steve gave his name and his bow away.

Clint actually attacks Kate while she’s on a date with Eli Bradley in Central Park. He’s officially Ronin at this point and is impressed by Kate’s skills after she breaks into his place to steal her bow back. He unofficially (but also totally officially) allows her to take the mantle.

The Children’s Crusade

I’m skipping a lot of small side quests that Kate takes (even though they’re a lot of fun) because Children’s Crusade is possibly the most important part of her journey, and by the looks of it, is the basis for where the MCU is planning to go in the next few years.

Kate has a really strong friendship with Billy Kaplan, aka Billy Maximoff. He’s the strongest magic being to ever inhabit earth and when his powers become dangerous the Avengers decide to lock him up. That didn’t slide with Kate, and they ended up breaking him out of the tower and entering alternate timelines in search of Billy’s mom- Wanda Maximoff.

This was pure, time-warp chaos. Wanda had forgotten who she was and was about to marry Doctor Doom when the Young Avengers showed up and pulled her out of it. She regained her powers and her memories, coming to terms with Billy and Tommy being her sons.

Once in their original timeline, a massive fight breaks out between the Avengers and the x-men. It’s a whole thing that ends up killing Cassie Lang. Her death ends up disbanding the original Young Avengers who go their separate ways to come to terms with how dangerous being a hero really is.

Matt Fraction? Matt Fraction.

Listen, if you’re looking for the inspiration behind the general vibe of the show Hawkeye, this is the run for you. If you read anything from Kate’s comic journey, let it be this. You don’t need any prior knowledge to Kate or Clint to enjoy this one and the artwork heavily inspired the intro to the show.

In this series, Clint is the owner of an apartment building that’s since been taken over by the tracksuit mafia. Kate and Clint have an established friendship and the dynamic is very much like the show. But grittier. The series leans into Clint’s deafness and Kate’s trauma. It’s a basis for their relationship.

Los Angeles, baby

Kate goes to LA a lot. It’s her home away from New York and her arcs there are some of my favorite (it’s a guilty pleasure, honestly). During her run with Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye, she has a particularly bad fight with Clint. She takes Lucky and jets off to the beach to find her niche.

Kate becomes a very cool, very chill private eye for her first solo run; Hawkeye Private Eye. While she does eventually go back to New York to help out Clint, she starts her own business in Los Angeles where she teams up with Jessica Jones and Laura x23. Very fun, very goofy series.

[This took...hours. Literal Hours. But I have access to all the digital archives for Kate so, I'm more than happy to keep going lol]

[yelenasdiary]

Forbidden || Chapter I - Welcome To Blisswater

Pairing: Yelena Belova x Bishop! Reader.

Summary: Just outside of the small town of Blisswater, lives two young sisters, Kate & Y/n Bishop. It's hard not to know who the Bishops are, Kate is the eldest by a year. She is a beautiful young woman, smart, protective and is known to have a talent in using a bow. Y/n, she is shy but quiet as some would say but nevertheless, she holds her own talents and can often be seen tending to the animals of Bishop Ranch. One evening while Kate is out hunting to make some money, Y/n is surprised with an unwanted guest, Yelena Belova. A bounty Hunter from Drybellow who has taken shelter in the young Bishop's barn after being wounded from a gun fight.

Struggling to keep money following, Y/n has no choice but to take the bounty hunter's offer of $5 a day if she is able to help the woman recover. During Yelena's stay, the two grow closer, a little too close if the wrong pair of eyes were to see them.

| No Warnings, I don’t think? | 3.6K |

Forbidden Masterlist

"I'm leaving Lucky here with you" Kate, my older sister said as she entered the dining room, "I'll be gone for a least two days at the most. Will you be okay to handle things here?" she asked. A few, long months ago, our parents went on a business trip and are yet to return. Kate and I have been left to run the ranch and keep money flowing until they return, although we haven't heard from them, not even a single letter. My worries for them are endless. "Of course, I will be" I smiled before taking a mouthful of the porridge I made for us. 

"Do you need anything from town before I go?" she asked while putting her bowl in the sink for me to wash later, "no, I think we have everything we need. Just be safe, please" I looked to her. "Always, rabbit" she smiled. Kate has always called me rabbit, ever since we were younger. It comes from when my adult teeth were still coming through, they reminded her of a rabbit's front teeth when they would nibble on their food. "I'm just going to go get Arrow saddled up then I'll be on my way" she added before walking out the back door.

I'm used to Kate leaving for a day or two, she goes off hunting for us while I tend to the ranch. We have 3 cows, 5 pigs and 6 sheep! All of which have names of their own, of course. I've been saving some money to buy a couple of chickens so we can have our own fresh eggs. My father said we'd get some but that was before he and mother left on their trip. Today seems like it will be an easy day, feed the animals then off to the general store for my shift. 

"Alright, you know the rules" Kate spoke as she returned from saddling up Arrow, "father's rifle is in the case under your bed and please, don't let any of those wandering men stay too long! You can't trust everybody just because they say they've had a long day" she adds. "Yes, I know! You don't need to remind of that every single time, it was just once. Besides, Mr Lang has some very interesting stories to tell" I replied. I wish Mr Lang would return; his stories were almost unbelievable. 

"I guess I don't need to remind you to get some more coffee and canned peaches after your shift then?" Kate rolled her eyes at me as she tucked a few canned goods into her saddle bag. "You just did" I replied, sarcastically. "Let's go Lucky! We don't want to be late" I patted my right thigh after placing my used bowl in the sink for laters problem. "Hey!" Kate stopped me just as I was leaving the kitchen, "be safe, okay? If you need anything Mr Barnes is only a call away" she reminds me, again! 

We have a bell that Kate brought, it's rather large. I am to ring it if I'm in any trouble and Mr Barnes, the Salon owner, will come over and see what the matter is. Im not exactly sure how he's able to hear the ringing sound from so far away, we've done a couple of test runs and so far I haven't had the need to use it. 

"Yeah yeah, how about you be safe? I can't do everything around here if you go missing too!" I smiled softly at my older sister, she knows I'm joking. If anything were to happen to her, she knows I'd be okay…I guess. 

Lucky follows me around everywhere, especially when Kate goes off on her hunt. He'll come to the general store and wait outside by the door until I've finished my duties. Mr Wilson doesn't mind, he loves Lucky and even asked Aunt May to bake some of her famous cookies that everybody in town loves, she makes a little extra and dog friendly ones for Lucky. Everybody calls her Aunt May, not really sure why though, I think it's because she's such an aunt to everybody. Almost like a grandma that cooks everybody's favorite treats for the tea party.

The walk to town is always peaceful. In the warmer seasons, it can be rather hot but on days like today when the sun is just starting to peek over the mountains from afar, the wind isn't too cold and the birds sing their morning song, it's relaxing and maybe I tend to take smaller steps just to soak up the morning fresh air before I stay inside for most of it. 

"Good morning young Y/n!" A rather tall and very muscular man smiles to me, it's Thor. Nobody actually knows why his name is Thor, considering it's a very unusual name but he's very lovely. "Good morning, Thor! Keeping well I see" I replied with a friendly smile as Lucky and I slowly make our way past the Salon. "Oh, you know me! Can't resist the great liquor that is served here" the most likely drunken man chuckles. It's barely 7am and he is drinking. I guess that's a hobby for most people around here. 

Blisswater isn't a town for much entertainment, you have your basics. The Saloon ran and owned by Mr Barnes, the General store ran and owned by Mr Wilson, the doctors office with the only doctor within miles, Mr Banner. The gunsmith, Mr Barton owns and supplies Kate with discounts on arrows and sometimes ammunition for us. Mr Fury is the towns barber, my father wasn't a fan of him but when he was desperate for a cut, he had no choice but to see him. Then there's Sheriff Rogers, T'Challa the friendly banker, Peter the newspaper boy (by the way, he's love for me isn't exactly a secret!) and Mr Quill is the towns blacksmith. 

So that's all there really is to know about who lives in and around Blisswater, it's a small town. A town where everybody knows everybody, and word travels faster than you can blink! We all look out for each other here and most don't take kindly to newcomers. Sometimes we have outlaw gangs come passing through, they spend the night at the Saloon, get drunk and make a mess of themselves before pushing on by the afternoon. The walk-through town the following morning is usually a sight of Mr Barnes boarding up the windows of the Saloon from their drunken fights. 

The bell rings loudly as I open the door of the general store, and I'm greeted with Mr Wilson's warm and welcoming smile. "Good morning, Mr Wilson!" I smiled. 

"Please, Y/n, call me Sam! I've known you long enough" he chuckles before reaching down behind the counter for the plate of Aunt May's famous cookies. 

"I'm sorry, it's habit! I see Aunt May has come early this morning" I wandered up to the counter taking one delicious treat. "Lucky's biscuits are back here as well; did you bring him this morning?" Mr Wilson, I mean, Sam asked. "Of course! Kate is out today and left him all to me" I took a small bite out of the homemade goodness. "Parents off again?" he questioned, I nodded lightly. I miss them so much. 

"Well, I've got the perfect job to keep your mind distracted. How about you watch the store today?"  

"Alone? Me? Are you sure?" I asked with a mouth full of cookie. 

"Yeah, I have a couple of things that need my urge attention. I wasn't going to open today but I think you're ready for this. What do you say? You can even bring Lucky inside if you want" Sam smiled proudly. I thought about it for a moment while I finished my morning treat, it can't be that hard, right?

"Sure! I can hold the fort as they say" I replied with a smile, wiping the crumbs from my lips with the back of my hand. 

"I'll be back before closing, earlier I can. If you need anything, slip out the back door. I don't need to tell you this, I know" he chuckled, "Bucky will be around if you need anything" he assures me. I guess that's the handy thing about having your store next door to a saloon. "You're starting to sound like Kate!! I'll be fine, I have Lucky! What's the worst that could happen?" I raised a brow. 

"Right" my boss smirked, "well you already know where the stock deliveries are, and you know your main duties. Just don't leave the store unattended" he reminds me, I playfully rolled my eyes at him as he stepped away from the counter. "Stop stressing, Sam, the store will be fine. Go do what it is that you need to do" I hoped the door, patting my thigh for Lucky to enter.

Mr Wilson left as Lucky made himself welcome in the store, I closed the door and treated Lucky to his own biscuit before starting to restock the shelves. 

——

"Good afternoon, Y/n!" A familiar voice sings louder than the bell as the door fly’s open. "Peter! How are you?" I smiled softly as I was greeted with a smile of his own. "Oh you know how it is, busy busy!" He chuckles, "I ran into Mr Wilson earlier, he mentioned you were here alone today so I thought I'd come by and see if you, uh, needed anything" he adds. A hint of red fills his cheeks while his eyes struggle to stay connected to mine. 

It's no secret that young Peter Parker has a crush on me, the entire town knows it. Although he is a very sweet young gentleman, I guess I've just never found myself interested in him in a romantic manner. In fact, I've never really thought about anybody in a romantic manner now to think of it…

"You're very sweet, Peter. Thank you but things are pretty good. I've had no troubles today and please, thank your Aunt May for the cookies and Lucky's treats!"

"Oh, you're welcome! You know Aunt May, always baking" Peter chuckles once more. I could sense a hint of nerves in his voice and the redness in his cheeks grew deeper. "Peter, is everything okay? Do you need a drink? Some water?" I asked with a concerned frown. "No, no. I'm more than fine, thank you. It's just, it's getting a bit wild out there and I thought I'd walk you home later when you're finished here. Don't want you getting sick or anything" he gives me another soft smile. 

"It's meant to rain?" My frown only grew bigger as I looked out the window. Dark gray skys covered the town and beyond, distant flashes of lighting lit up the darkness for a moment. Wind blew the dry leafs onto the Main Street, horses stomped their hoofs with every crack of thunder that could be heard from the far, far distance. 

"Well shoot!" I sighed.

"Did Mr Wilson tell you when he'd be back?" Peter asked. 

"Sure hope it is soon, I have the animals I should move into the barn before the storm arrives" 

"It doesn't seem like it is far off. Maybe I could watch the store for you? I wouldn't mind at all" 

"You're very kind, Peter but I'm not sure if Mr Wilson would appreciate me leaving the store in somebody else's hands. I know you wouldn't ruin the place or steal from him but he is trusting me today and I don't want him to think otherwise" I explained as I watched the dark clouds darken, it'll be a big storm by the looks. 

"I'd be more than happy to make sure your stock is in the barn then" he offered, I turned to him and kindly shook my head. "I'm sure Mr Wilson will be back soon. Thank you again Peter, you're very kind. If you don't mind, there's a few things I should really get done before Mr Wilson returns" I smiled softly, hoping not to have hurt the boy's feelings.

"I plan on having supper at the Saloon, if you need me, I'll be there" Peter smiles before leaving the store. 

For the rest of the afternoon, I cleaned the store and did some stock take and made sure the store was exactly how Mr Wilson would like to have it when he returns and just my luck, he returns before the storm hammers down. 

"Y/n, thank you for all your help today!" He walks into the store, placing his hat on the  coat rack. He looked rather dirty; a nice bath would be in order for when he gets home if I didn't know better.

"You're welcome, Mr Wilson! I'm sorry to leave in a rush but I really need to be getting home before the rain starts" I grabbed my things, Lucky following closely behind me. 

"Of course, you best be safe now" 

I rushed out of the store, glad the rain hadn't started pouring down as yet but it was coming. You could smell it, the thunder got louder, the lighting got closer and the wind got stronger. The main street was quiet as people already began to make their way indoors until the storm pushed over. 

"Come on, Lucky! We haven't got much time!" I patted my thigh lightly before Lucky and I began to race home. 

——

The rain soaked the dry ground as expected and Lucky and I were able to get the animals into the barn before it came down heavy. I left a lantern in the barn just so I could keep an eye on it from the house, Kate hates when I do that, says it's a waste of resources but she'll thank me one day for it. 

"How long do you think she'll be this time Lucky?" I looked towards him as we both rested by the fire. He tilts his head at me as if he truly understands what I am saying. We listen to the rain dance on the roof and wind whistle outside while the fire cracks and keeps us warm. It's nights like this that I wish Kate wouldn't go off hunting, it's most lonely at night. But I know we need the money, just until mother and father come home.

"Come Lucky, let's check the barn" I stood up from my mothers rocking chair, and wandered over to the window. A frown creeps upon my brows when I notice the lantern, I left behind earlier in the night was gone. I rushed to my room and grabbed the rifle under my bed, grabbed my father's thick coat, a lantern and headed for the backdoor with Lucky right beside me. It was only a short walk from the house to the barn, but the rain was quick to soak me in its gift to the ranchers. Slowly, I pushed the large wooden door open, my rifle tightly in my grip. Lucky entered first, sniffing the ground for anything that didn't belong while I slowly followed behind him, one foot after another. 

Only a few steps in and I saw the lantern I had left behind, in the corner where Kate's horse would've been stabled. "Come out! I have a gun and I am not afraid to use it!" I called out, keeping my distance. Lucky walked quickly over to the empty stable slot, growling. "I said come out!" I repeated. 

"Don't shoot" a thick Russian accent came from the corner of the barn, "I won't hurt you, just call off the dog, please" the unknown voice added. 

"How can I trust you? You're a stranger in my barn! I have every right to shoot you" 

"Trust me, if I were here to harm you, you'd already be dead"

I took a few small steps closer to them, Lucky stood his ground and continued to growl. I wasn't going to tell him to back off just yet. "What are you doing here? Do you always just welcome yourself into other people's properties like this?" I asked. 

"You ask too many questions" the voice replied, "call the dog off, please" they asked once more. 

"Lucky, back!" I called once I laid my eyes on the intruder. A young woman, maybe no older than me. Blonde hair that was braided and she certainly didn't seem to dress how most women dress. Beside her was her gun belt and holster, her hat placed freely beside them. The woman was covered in blood, her right hand pressed tightly against her left shoulder. "You're hurt" you spoke softly while keeping my rifle pointed at her.

She chewed her bottom lip and nodded, "I'll be gone by morning, I just need a place to stay for the night"  

"How can I trust your word?" I asked. The woman smirked like I had just made a joke, an odd joke if my question was funny to her. 

"I know better than to kill a rich small-town girl" she replies causing me to frown at her words. 

"I am not rich girl. So, if you planned on robbing me later, you would find nothing, I can assure you of that" 

She chuckled, "well, maybe not rich but you are well off than others. Besides, I have no interest in robbing homesteads" 

"You know nothing about me" I snapped, pointing my rifle at her a little higher, aiming for her head. "Get off my property!" I demanded. Lucky growled once more, showing the unknown intruder his sharp canine teeth. 

"Maybe we could come to a deal. It seems money is a touchy subject to you, yes?" The blonde hissed in pain when she moved her right hand even the slightest inch. I didn't reply, my eyes were drawn to the amount of blood her hand was covered in. "I'll pay you" she spoke, gaining my attention once more, "$5 a day. If you help me. I'll give you the first three days right now if I could move my hand but as you can see, if I do that, I will bleed out" she offers. 

"Once I have recovered you will never see of me again, I give you my word" she adds. $5 a day would really help Kate and I and by the looks of her wound, she could be here for weeks. "I know you're thinking about it but I do not have time for you to think" her thick Russian accent brings me out of my thoughts, I nodded as I slowly lowered my rifle. 

"We best get you to the house then" 

----

"I'm sorry if that hurt" I spoke softly to the blonde as I bandaged her up, after pulling the bullet from her wound and cleaning the area with alcohol, she suggested cauterizing the wound with a lit candle. The smell of burning flesh is something I will never forget. "Don't stress, I've experienced worse" she looked to me with a soft smile. 

"How did this happen anyway?" I asked as I started to clean up the mess. I offered the woman my room until she was back on her feet, and I hoped Kate wouldn't have noticed when she came home. 

"Just a little miss understanding with an outlaw. I'm a bounty hunter" she informs me. 

"A bounty hunter? That's a little strange for a woman to be doing"

"Well, sometimes women just do a job better" 

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. It's not often I meet women who aren't following the rules of society" My eyes dropped, I knew my comment offended her. 

"You should travel more; you'd be surprised on what or whom you might come across. What's your name?" She pulled the covers up over her, making herself comfortable on my bed. 

"Tell me yours and I'll tell you mine" I looked to her once more. She chuckled, "I'm Yelena, Yelena Belova. Your turn" she replies. I walked towards the bedroom door, my hands full of rubbish from cleaning her wound, "I'm Y/n, Y/n Bishop. I'll get you some water" 

"Bishop" Yelena repeated, "your father is Derek Bishop?" she questioned. I nodded slowly, "you know him?" I asked. Yelena shook her head, "no, just heard of him in passing. Water would be great, thank you" she watched as I walked out of the room. Her tone made me question if she was telling the truth; did she know my father? Maybe she knew where my parents were?

Lucky followed me to the kitchen, I grabbed two cups of water and returned to my bedroom, placing one glass on the wooden beside table next to my lantern. "You should get some rest; I'll make breakfast in the morning" I looked to Yelena who reached for her coat that sat at the end of the bed. "As promised, the first three days" she says before handing me $15 dollars in 1 ten-dollar bill and a 5 dollar bill. 

"T-thank you" I smiled softly, "do you like coffee? I could make some in the morning" I asked. 

"Never start the day without one" she smiled, "goodnight, Y/n" she added. 

"Goodnight" I walked towards the door, "oh, I hope you don't mind" I turned to face the blonde stranger once more, "I'm going to lock the door, you know…for safety" I added nervously. 

"I thought you would. I understand, I need to gain your trust" she nodded slightly. 

"If you need anything, just call out. I won't be far" 

"Thank you, again" Yelena smiled once more before I closed the door, making sure it was locked before making my way to Kate's room.

Taglist: @madislayyy | @riveramorylunar | @teganmiller | @kyleeservopoulos | @yelenaslyubov | @kacka84 | @lesbiarmy | @meurgen | @caporal-nino | @sl-ut | @scarletwidowblackwitch | @dogtamer415 | @mousetheorist | @flohouse46 | @boredandneedfanfics | @gemz5 | @randomnessbecausewhynot | @unicorniusfallapatorius | 

If you want to be on the taglist for this series, please see the masterlist. It's link at the top of this post.

[nataliasquote]

This is a snippet (edited) of Cowgirl Nat 🤠 pls tell me you love her as much as I do. That cocky cowgirl. Puts everyone in their place with a tilt of her hat and a shot from her gun 😏

-⧗-

Natasha pushed the wooden saloon doors open, the heels of her boots clicking against the tiled floor as she sauntered in. Her hat was dipped low over her face and she paused, surveying the room with a smirk before tipping it from her head, allowing her red waves to tumble around her shoulders. They were messy from hours of riding in the wind, but it suited her without fail.

Her green eyes darted across every familiar face, occasionally giving a slight smile if she felt that individual was worth her time. She held every single person in a trance, except the bartender who was all too familiar with her ways.

Natasha strolled up to the bar and leaned her forearms against the dark wood, crossing one leg over the other which accentuated the curve of her hips in her jeans. The brunette on a stool to her right choked on her beer and hid her spluttering mess behind her pitcher.

“My usual please, Barton,” Natasha husked with a wink to the bartender who pushed a bottle in her direction. As old friends, they went way back, and Clint was always delighted when she returned to pay him a visit. “Is this seat taken?”

The brunette, dressed in a plaid button down shirt, shook her head and scooted over, blinking in disbelief that she was being spoken to.

“Thanks darlin’.” If Y/n was stood up, she would have crumbled to the floor at those two words combined with Natasha’s southern drawl. She was new to the area, only stopping through to get her horse’s hooves checked over. But my goodness was she glad she picked this particular bar. She owed Clint Barton a massive favour.

Natasha slid onto the velvet-topped stool and sipped her drink, slender fingers tapping on the glass in her hand. She glanced at the woman to her right, taking her in with a simple flick up and down.

“I’ve not seen you before. You not from around here?” Natasha knew everyone who was anyone in this small town. It wasn’t hard to keep track, really, and visitors became fast spreading news.

“I’m only stopping by. Left my horse down at the stable at the end of town- gotta sort her hooves out.” Natasha nodded, knowing Bishop Stables was widely known for their services. “I’m guessing it’s obvious I’m a stranger?”

Natasha laughed around the rim of her bottle, green eyes sparkling in the dim light. “I know my people,” she replied, gesturing to the full tables behind them. “And I’d remember a face like yours, darling.” Y/n’s suddenly darted from Natasha’s face to the fringe on the waistcoat she wore. Never had she been such a mess in front of a stranger before, but this mysterious redhead was far more than just a regular stranger. She was captivating, and judging by the flirty glances she sent to several women scattered across the bar, she knew it.

“And does a gorgeous woman like you have a pretty name to match?” Natasha turned on her stool completely, resting a bare forearm on the bar in order to give Y/n her full attention.

“I’m Y/n. And you are..?”

“Natasha Romanoff, at your service.” The redhead quickly put her hat on and tipped it forwards, eliciting a laugh from the woman opposite. Clint eyed their interaction as he dried some glasses, grinning to himself at how effective Natasha’s charm truly was. She turned it on with the tip of her hat and a flash of her smile, making men and women alike stop dread in their tracks.

“Hey, Romanoff, give us a dance, will ya?” A leering voice echoed above the general hum of conversation and Y/n watched as Natasha rolled her eyes and adjusted her gun that sat in a holster on her hip.

“Give it up, Stark, you’re barking at a knot.” The man in question jeered at her and banged his beer bottle on the barrel table, several men around him doing the same.

But Natasha just stood up, squared her shoulders and fired her handgun in their direction, the bullet slamming into the wall mere inches above Stark’s head. She blew the smoke off her gun with a cocky smirk and shoved it back in the holster. The entire saloon fell silent, aside from Clint’s mutterings about yet another hole to fix thanks to his fiery friend.

Natasha waited a second longer, almost daring Stark and his guys to test her again. But they didn’t, now only watching her warily as she turned back to her new woman and held out her hand with a small flourish. Her other hand grabbed her hat from the bar and set it atop of her flaming hair.

“How about I show you around? And get you away from these coffee boilers before they start on you too.” Natasha nodded over to Stark’s table and Y/n shuddered, practically smelling their beer breaths from where she was sat.

“You’d do that? I haven’t had much of a chance to look around.” Y/n downed the rest of her drink and slid the pitcher back to Clint with a grateful smile.

Natasha helped Y/n down from her stool and rested her hand on her large belt buckle. “Well, lucky for you darlin’, you’ve got the best tour guide this town has to offer.” Y/n blushed and accepted Natasha’s arm, walking beside her as they stepped out into the blazing midday sun, leaving the darkness of the saloon behind them.

“Where do you want to start?” Y/n looked up and down the sandy street, eyeing the wooden and old stone buildings that faced her.

“You’re the guide, you tell me.” Was that just another reason to hear Natasha speak? Y/n would never admit the answer to that.

Natasha rubbed her hands together. “Perfect. My favourite place… the armoury. If you don’t walk out of there wanting a new pistol, then I really haven’t done my job right.” Natasha set off down the centre of the street, her boots crunching the gravel underfoot. Y/n just blindly followed, her hand resting casually on her gun in case anyone tried to challenge her. Small towns weren’t usually all that accommodating of foreigners, but she’d clearly done something right by befriending Natasha.

Everyone gave them a wide berth, gossiping and whispering to themselves as they passed. But Natasha was extremely well respected, so if she accepted a visitor, everyone else would too. The social hierarchy certainly placed her close to the top. And for Y/n? Well… she was just getting started.

[yanderes-galore]

I also have one more request in regards of Cult of the Lamb.

Do you think it's possible to do a (platonic/romantic) concept of naridener(toww)

Towards a cult leader lamb reader?

Ooo! This is another interesting dynamic I think will be fun to explore :)

Yandere! Narinder with Lamb! Darling

Pairing: Platonic/Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Religion, Cults, Manipulation, Possessive behavior, Worship, Ownership, Corruption, Indoctrination, Sacrifice, Violence, Dubious companionship/relationship.

Narinder is the being that gave you another chance.

You were brutally slaughtered by his siblings and the last of your kind.

He's the being who decided you deserved a second chance at life.

A useful pawn... forever in his debt.

A common start of yanderes is usually if the obsession sees them in a light no one else does.

Not in this case... well, not until much later I guess.

Narinder likes the control he has over you as TOWW.

You are his chosen vessel and he originally just sees you as such.

This is different from the typical format as, for most of the obsession, you're worshiping him.

You make a cult in his name because there's no other choice you have.

Narinder is a powerful force in your life, lending you his power to carry out his message.

Just where would you be if you didn't have him?

Narinder, as TOWW, primarily sees you as a pet or just a pawn.

Although... The Bishop does enjoy seeing you conduct sermons and pray in his name.

He praises you for your work and duties.

You grow your cult, sacrifice in his name, brainwash those stupid little followers to work tasks.

In a way... Narinder is proud.

He likes what you do in his name, you'd only do it in his name.

Narinder would feel you're already his, no matter what.

You're forever tied to him in your deal.

After all... You need him to use the Red Crown.

You'd be nothing but prey if he didn't step in.

Narinder feels prideful about this as he feels confident to be in control.

It's hard to pinpoint where the obsession starts.

I feel the moment he realizes you'll be the perfect vessel, he feels he claims you.

You can't do anything against him, can you?

He does everything for you.

Resurrection, upgrades, influence, power...

You need him and he enjoys that fact.

You're so small when you visit him in his realm.

He often summons you to praise you.

He may be in chains, but his grin says everything.

Narinder would have a field day with you.

Even more so when his obsession starts.

This isn't your traditional yandere, of course.

It's the equivalent of a God falling for a mortal.

He is a big presence in your existence.

He will not let any harm bring you down.

You are his strong disciple, loyal to him.

As he watches you take down his siblings, part of him is pained.

But for the most part... He is happy to have developed such a strong lamb.

He listens to your every prayer.

Every sermon meets his ears.

Every sacrifice he takes greedily.

You get power... and he gets you.

His cute little lamb.

This dynamic can work platonically or romantically.

This is primarily just Narinder enjoying your worship.

In a way, the deity is possessive of his lamb.

Part of him wants to thank his siblings for giving him such a... gift.

Them giving you to him was their own downfall.

All revenge for not only imprisoning him... but sacrificing you.

Doesn't it feel good?

You get to feel this good... this powerful... all due to him.

This would be the first half of the obsession, perhaps even most of the obsession.

You worship him and he enjoys every minute of it.

He loves knowing you're his.

Even when you show attention to your followers, he doesn't care.

They're fodder.

Your devotion truly belongs to him.

Your Bishop.

The roles would only reverse when he demands his crown back... when he can finally have his revival, you just need to give yourself to him.

Only for you to refuse.

The nature of his obsession changes once you beat him in combat.

He's made you too strong... he fully expects to die by your hands...

Then you spare him... and he wonders if your feelings are mutual.

Are you still his? Even now?

Narinder's obsession with his lamb changes when you make him a follower.

He's still upset you managed to beat him... but you're still his in his eyes.

After all, you have to like him somewhat if you spare him.

You could've slaughtered him, removed his oppressive presence from your life entirely.

But you didn't.

Now he's in your debt, just like you were with him.

Narinder hates to admit it, yet you mean a lot to him as his lamb.

Now he's forced to listen to your every whim as you're his new leader.

As TOWW, Narinder is sadistic along with being possessive of his lamb.

He has you tied to him due to your deal, you're his to control.

What he says goes.

Now, as your follower, Narinder becomes a possessive worship yandere.

He used to not mind your followers before.

Now he can't stand them around you.

In a way he's happy this new form allows him to interact with you in ways he couldn't before.

Yet he misses his power, that ability to make you listen to his every word....

Now, Narinder dedicates himself to you as much as he can.

He tries to outperform every follower, he sticks right by your side.

While he appears moody... Narinder doesn't want to be away from your side.

He misses when he didn't have competition.

Now he has to try and force it.

Imagine if Narinder had to frame other followers you had to get rid of them.

He does everything to be your favorite.

He needs you... just like you need him.

Narinder wants to be yours, in return, he expects you to be his lamb.

In terms of which version is my favorite, I'm biased towards TOWW.

There's just something more intimidating about a God of Death falling for a follower of his.

You couldn't get rid of him and he'd always be there to summon you back to him.

So, hopefully, during your final confrontation...

Maybe you'll just roll over and give yourself to him...

Then you'll be forever his, his little lamb.

[indieyuugure]

I really really like indie TMNT designs,but it seems there are many scars on Leo and Raph's shells（Especially Leo，omg look his back！）

How did them get these terrible scars？btw Mikey's shell is the most complete，his big brothers must have protected him well（just my guess）

You can also tell me it is a big secret and I have to wait until the story mentions it

I actually intended to say where each scar came from, but I didn’t have enough space on the files 😭 so I’ll tell you guys now.

Leo’s scars are from his fight with the Shredder. I use the “a” and “b” thing on the different models as more like a before and after. Leo got the scar over his eye when he was younger while brawling with Raph and the other scuffs and chips came from training.

The double slashes across his chest, the chunk missing from his carapace and the X scar on his knee are from the Shredder. I can’t reveal exactly what that fight looked like but I think you can use your imagination for now. :\

Raph’s scars are from a variety of different events. Though most of them happened in the past. He had the lightning bolt chips from before he was mutated as a baby, Splinter doesn’t really know where they came from, but supposedly Raph(being so aggressive) had been bought and returned four times before Splinter purchased them, so probably one of his previous owners dropped him after his tried to nibble their finger off.

The various scuffs and chips come from training with his brothers. The scar on his lip was from him and Mikey daring each other to do stupid crap. The one on his leg was from falling off a pipe that had a bolts sticking out of it. He fell off and on the way down ripped open the side of his leg. It wasn’t very deep though, so it looks a lot worse than it is.

The two that came later are the X scars on his cheek and the crack in his carapace. The X was from a foot soldier, and the crack was from taking a Shuragen for Casey. These both happen at the same time as Leo’s scars, during the Invasion.

Donnie has less scars than Leo and Raph, but still has quite a few. The majority of them are very hard to see if not because you can’t. Some of them are the usual scuffs and chips from wrestling, but the other ones that are more like actual scars go along the natural creases in his shell or are under his gear. He got these from the “certain incident” that Raphael and Bishop had words over, aka Raph beat him up and said if you touch my family again, I will torture you to death.

He has a few internal scars as well, mostly in his mind, but also like literally inside him. He broke his arm during the Invasion in a way that damaged the joint, he gets most of it back, but he can’t carry too much weight on it, which, isn’t to bad because he’s ambidextrous, but it still bugs him a lot that his strength isn’t symmetrical anymore.

Mikey, as you noticed, has by far the least scars out of his brothers. He’s got a few scuff and chips from sparing like the rest, though he’s broken his nose several times from falling off his skateboard, crashing into things and miss use of his nunchucks. He also scrapes his knees a lot but refuses to wear knee pads because he says they look “lame.” Mikey has also had several concussions throughout his life from basically all of the above.

His most noticeable scar, of course is the one on his chin that he got fighting a foot soilder who slashed him with a katana. He is very proud of it for some reason, I guess he thinks it looks really hardcore.

Good question! Sorry all this info didn’t fit on the files XD I’ll have to compile it all somehow,(probably in a dox file or something) I’ll figure it out. Lol

[upat4amwiththemoon]

Heyy!! Can I request a Wandanat x daughter reader with Kate x reader? Maybe they are in uni and in a party. Kate and reader separate maybe to talk with some friends or just lose each other, and some guys try to abuse reader (yk drug her drink and then try to… ) then Kate rescues her. Maybe they go to the compound and her moms are there or call them.

I hope you have a great day ☺️☺️ and can I be 🦭?

College party

Summary: The world is full of despicable people.

Pairing: Kate Bishop x female!reader, WandaNat x daughter!reader

Warnings: drugging, SA attempt, cursing, violence

Word count: 1179

a/n: I’m guessing you are the person who has already used the 🦭, because it took me so long to write this (so sorry), if so, then yes of course you can! :D

Tags: @thought-of-you-and-me @rafecameronswhore @emsmultiverse @natashamaximoff69

masterlists | guidelines

The loud pop music booms through the house, shaking the floor and walls nearest to the stereo system. The living room, that has been changed into a dance floor, is full of university students. Everyone is either drunk, high or both. Y/N is drunk. She’s also alone. Kate, her girlfriend who she came to the party with, parted off thirty minutes ago to go say hi to her friend Gwen. That’s when Y/N decided to go get another drink. Soon she realized Kate, nor Gwen, were nowhere to be seen.

Y/N groans. She is trying to walk through all the people and look for Kate at the same time, but the drunkness is making it difficult to concentrate. Her drink is in her hand, sometimes spilling over the rim of the red cup as people bump into her. She isn’t really paying attention to it, nor to the slightly more bitter taste of her drink.

Finally getting out of the worst of the crowd, Y/N takes a breath, able to breathe properly. She leans against a wall, starting to feel a little dizzy, the alcohol starting to hit more strongly.

A man leans on the wall right next to her. He is looking at her with a smile. “Hey. Why are you alone at a party?” He grins, looking at her up and down.

“‘m not.” She mumbles, her eyelids feeling heavier by the second. She really doesn’t feel like drinking anymore, so she goes to put it down, but the man grabs her arm.

“Hey, hey,” he laughs, pushing the drink up near her face, “don’t waste a good drink.” With a shake of her head, Y/N tries to step away from him, but she doesn’t get far, his hand still tightly locked on her arm. “Calm down, chick. Just wanna talk to you.”

“Gotta go.” She tries to pull away, buy her strength doesn’t compare against him, especially because of all the alcohol.

He starts leading her towards the stairs, “come on, let’s go upstairs. Have a fun time.” Y/N tries to get someone’s attention, so they’d notice she isn’t following him by her own choice, but the music is too loud and everyone is too out of it to notice. To everyone else, it just looks like a boyfriend taking care of his too drunk girlfriend.

When they get to the stairs, Y/N takes hold of the railing with all her strength, hoping he’d think she’s too difficult and deciding to leave her alone. But he seems persistent.

“What the hell is your problem?” His grip tightens. “Stop being such a bitch.”

She drops down to her knees, making herself heavier to pull. The man starts cursing. He goes a few steps down and wraps his arms around her waist, however, before he can pick her up, a punch in the face makes him fall down.

Different set of arms lift Y/N up and behind their back. Panicking momentarily, she calms down once she realizes Kate is standing in front of her. “What the fuck were you doing?” She almost growls.

Y/N tries to grab Kate when she goes to the man, yelling and punching at him, but Gwen stops her. “Let her do it.” She pulls Y/N closer, letting her lean her full weight on her.

After the man has a broken nose and a black eye, Kate comes back to Y/N. “Are you hurt?” She starts looking over her, moving her head around. Y/N just hums, suddenly finding herself too tired to open her mouth. “Thanks Gwen, we’re going now.”

Kate wraps her arm around Y/N’s waist, moving her, so she’s now leaning against her side instead of Gwen’s. They walk towards the front door slowly. She’s constantly keeping her eye on her, and on everyone else around them, ready to pounce id anyone else even dares to look at her girlfriend the wrong way.

As they get outside, Kate helps Y/N to sit down to the curb. She takes her phone from her bag and calls Wanda, Y/N’s mom, knowing her phone has its sounds on even when she’s sleeping. Kate strokes Y/N’s back while she listens to the rings. She only has to wait for five rings before Wanda answers.

“Hello? Is everything okay?” A tired, but alarmed considering the time, voice comes from the other side of the phone.

“This is Kate. Could you come pick me and Y/N up from a party?” Wanda and Natasha weren’t aware they were at a party. “Some shithead tried to hurt Y/N, I think she’s drugged.”

“What?” Wanda’s voice is a lot louder now. Kate can hear her waking Natasha up. “We’ll be there in ten, okay Kate? You send us your address and then wait for us there.”

Kate mumbles out a small yeah and ends the call. She puts the phone back to Y/N’s bag, turning her attention fully to her. She is slumped over, her head on Kate’s shoulder and eyes almost fully closed. “Mom?” She mumbles.

“I called your moms.” Both of Kate’s arms are wrapped around Y/N. They would have a shorter distance to their dorm, but Kate really wants to be around fully grown adults while Y/N is like this. Besides, her moms would be furious if they found out about this later on.

It doesn’t take the two Avengers even ten minutes to arrive, mostly because Wanda drove over the speed limits and probably ran multiple red lights. Wanda and Natasha jumps out of the car, running to the girls. “Hey, sweetheart.” Wanda kneels down to the ground, lifting Y/N’s head up to face her by her chin. “We’ll get you home.”

“Are you okay?” Natasha looks at Kate, her brows raised. She noticed the bloodied knuckles.

“I’m okay.” She helps Wanda lift Y/N up to her feet. “Y/N will be okay too, right?” Her eyes are wet, she finally let herself process the situation.

Natasha sets her hand on Kate’s shoulder, staying there with her while Wanda leads Y/N into the car. “She’ll be okay, you hear me? Because you were here for her, and Bruce will know what to do. Now, I need you to know that it wasn’t your fault. Can you tell me you understand that?”

“It wasn’t my fault.” Kate mumbles.

With a small smile, Natasha starts pushing her towards the car, “thank you for helping her. We’ll clean up your knuckles when we get home.”

“Thank you, Nat.” Kate sits down to the backseat, the door still open.

“Family takes care of each other.” Natasha states before closing the door and getting into the front passenger seat.

Kate smiles, few tears falling down her cheek. She wipes them away and pulls Y/N to lay down over the seats, so her head is on Kate’s lap. Gently, she plays with her hair as they drive towards the Avengers compound, Wanda now driving with slightly lower speed.

[holmsister]

The labru chess meme but like serious: why Kabru bets on Laios and wins

If you're like me (mentally ill (I can say that I'm diagnosed) about labru) you have seen several variations on this meme:

With Kabru and Laios. (To see a small collection of them, please click on the "labru chess meme" tag on this post). Would you like me to hyperanalyse this aspect of their dynamic to death and not even in a shippy manner, therefore sucking all of the fun out of the meme? Keep reading!

Spoilers for the whole manga ahead. Contains also a quantity of Winged Lion.

First of all: as noted several times, it's not that Laios is eating the pieces to win at chess, it's that he's hungry, chess pieces are available, and he thinks Kabru is a fellow chess piece eater as well. Because he offered him a chess piece. And kabru ate it. While still trying to play chess because he thinks Laios is playing chess in some novel way he wants to understand better. If you think I'm beating this metaphor to death now you haven't seen anything yet.

The thing is. Kabru's whole thing is about finding someone who can defeat the dungeon, whatever shape that takes. And Kabru knows he cannot do it. He lacks what it takes, again, whatever exactly that is. And at some point, he makes the call that Laios has that something.

What's that something? Well. He's eating the chess pieces.

In another post I have already talked about the parallels between Kabru and the Winged Lion. Without going into it again: I think that all things aside, those two have very similar types of intelligence. They're fascinated by people and finding out what motivates them. They can be manipulative and even cruel in the quest for what they believe to be the "good ending". And they both think their end can be achieved through Laios.

See, *those two* are playing chess. Have you ever played? It's a very ancient and noble game, you know, very storied.

Two opponents, Black and White, take turns moving pieces on a checkerboard according to rules that depend on the piece itself (Towers move only horizontally but of as many squares as they please, Pawns only of one square at a time and only move towards the opposite side of the board, Bishops move only diagonally, etc etc). Players can only move one piece per turn, once per turn. Two pieces cannot be in one square. When a player moves a piece in a square that is already taken by a piece of the opposing colour, the piece that was there already is "captured" and removed from the board. The rules are actually much more complicated but this is the barest bones.

I hear sometimes the win condition in chess being described as "capturing the King". That's not entirely it. The win condition in chess is putting the opposing King piece in checkmate, that is, in a position in which the King will be captured by the opposing player by the next turn no matter what moves either of them makes.

Chess matches between masters are notorious for being impossibly long. Some last YEARS. Not only that, it's possible to draw in chess - when none of the pieces on the board have legal moves left but nobody is in check. This condition is called a stalemate.

Since the pieces can move in limited ways, mathematically, it's possible to calculate a most efficient way to move them. In 1997, the AI (real AI, not the stuff that passes for AI nowadays) Deep Blue beat then chess world champion Garry Kasparov for the first time in what is considered a milestone achievement.

It's a complicated game with very set rules and almost infinite yet calculable possibilities, is what I'm getting at. It's why it's a favourite mental exercise for mathematicians and people with similar minds. It's a problem to solve in a certain number of steps according to certain rules. There's a solidity in chess reasoning - even when you're trying to guess your opponent strategy, you still know there are things they are NOT going to do. Like eating the pieces. That's why the meme is funny. I think. I've lost sight of what normal people find funny years ago.

This is the game Kabru and the Winged Lion are both in. They are both positioned to move in checkmate (conquering the dungeon/escaping the dungeon), but they have both reached a point in which they cannot move further on their own power. They're in stalemate and they know it. They both need Laios to move them out of the stalemate.

The difference is what they choose to do.

The Winged Lion treats Laios as another check piece. An important one for sure (the Queen, even. That's a chess joke AND a gay joke). But a piece he can manipulate, that moves around in predictable ways.

Kabru, however, has spent enough time chewing on chess pieces to realise thats not where Laios' potential really lies. What he does is step aside and leave the board to Laios. He says "OK, dude. Eat the damn pieces if you must. I trust you know what you're doing."

You see. There's no rule in chess about eating the pieces. I think. Maybe they added one. But still. Most people when teaching someone to play chess would not think to add "and don't eat the pieces!" There at the end because they will assume that goes without saying. It's an unspoken rule that when you are playing a game involving pieces on a board, the pieces are not for eating.

Laios, our beloved autism knight, needs his rules spoken. Otherwise he's just gonna do whatever comes to mind. And that's what he has that Kabru lacks, and what leads him to outsmarting the Winged Lion. Because he does not think in terms of rules and limits. He does not try to guess what's the catch. He does not go after the King.

When Laios figures out what the primary motivation of the Winged Lion is (wanting to eat wishes), he does not wonder about his wider plan. He stops and thinks. That makes human wishes sound so tasty, he thinks, that a creature so powerful can give up on its life of perfect bliss and immortality on another dimension to taste them. I wonder if I could eat them too. I wonder if I could eat away the Lion's desire to eat desires - I could kill two birds with one stone!

He doesn't know or care what the aim of the game is according to the rules. *His* aim now is to eat the Winged Lion's desire. Because it would solve things, because he wants to know how it tastes like, who knows, who cares. The point is: what's the fastest way to get at his aim?

Well. The Lion promises to turn him into his ideal monster... the same one he wrote about in his book. Maybe he can add a line about the monster being able to eat desires. That would work, right?

It's such a stupidly simple plan that almost has no right to work. Neither Kabru nor the WL think about it. Because of a variety of reasons, but most importantly, because *that's not in the rules*. The rules are: Laios makes a wish, the WL realises that wish, in exchange he gets Laios' body. Laios' wish: to be turned into his ultimate monster that he wrote about in his book. It goes without saying that he can't just go ahead and add whatever to the book description. Right?

Kabru would not have thought to add a line in the book in a MILLION years. The WL does not think to check if Laios added any strange condition. It's like using one wish of the genie to wish for infinite wishes - I mean yeah nobody SAID you couldnt do that but it's obvious right? It's basically cheating... Who does that? ...what's this? Laios, what are you eating? Spit the King out!

Ps: in Italian, the word for "capture" on a chessboard and the word for "eating" are one and the same.

[onegayastronaut]

Dinner Date (Kate Bishop x Reader)

Promised another Kate Bishop fic, so here you go!

Words: 1.3k

Kate Bishop was your best friend, but you always felt that there could be something more between you. You don't know why. Maybe it was the way her laugh crinkled the corners of her eyes, or how her focus narrowed endearingly when she was concentrating on something, especially you. Maybe it was the way your hands always seemed to find hers, like magnets drawn to an invisible force. Or maybe it was the late-night talks that stretched until dawn, secrets whispered in the hushed tones of intimacy. Either way, you couldn't seem to be able to get her off your mind.

But at the end of the day, it didn't matter. Kate Bishop was your best friend, and nothing would change that, right? There were moments, stolen glances across a crowded room, lingering touches that sent shivers down your spine. Moments that made your heart stutter, questioning everything you thought you knew. Was this just friendship? Or was there something more, something simmering beneath the surface, waiting to boil over?

But for now, you'd cherish the stolen moments, the unspoken feelings, the quiet understanding that bound you together. Because with Kate Bishop, even the unknown felt like an adventure, an adventure you were ready to take, one hesitant step at a time.

"Are you okay?" Kate Bishop asks as she sits down beside you, handing you a warm drink. "You look really out of it."

"I'm good." You lie. You weren't sure why Kate had such an effect on you, but she did.

"Okay, then." Kate smiles, taking a sip of her own drink. "Do you want to come over to the my place for a bit? My mom has a business dinner, so we'll have the house to ourselves. We can watch movies and talk about girls." She smiles at you, making your mind wander to what it would be like if you weren't just best friends.

You smile back. "Sounds great."

When you arrive at the mansion, Kate takes your coat and hangs it up. "Make yourself at home." She tells you, leading you to the living room. "My room is upstairs if you want to hang out there, too."

You nod and take a seat on the couch. "Your mom won't be home until later?"

"Nope. She'll probably be back around midnight, so it's just us."

You feel your cheeks burn. Kate is your best friend. There's no way you could have those thoughts for her running through your mind.

"You okay?" Kate asks, noticing the blush.

"I'm fine." You say, trying to brush it off, even though you know she could see right through you.

Kate smiles and sits down beside you. "We can go to my room, if you'd like."

You nod and get up from the couch, following her upstairs.

"So…" Kate starts, sitting down on her bed. "Any girls caught your eye recently?"

You think about it. There was one girl in your calculus class who was pretty cute. "Actually, yeah. There's this girl in my math class. She's really sweet and kind." Something flashes in Kate's eyes before she quickly hides it. Could it be jealousy? "Oh? What's her name?"

"Um… her name is… Jessica." You fumble with your answer and hope she doesn't notice.

"Jessica." Kate repeats. "She sounds nice…what do you think of her?"

"She's pretty and funny, and she makes me laugh when we're together."

"What does she look like?"

You take a deep breath. You can't tell her the truth, so you'll have to lie again. "She has blonde hair and blue eyes. She's tall taller than me, so that's good I guess."

Kate smiles, and it looks forced. Or at least that's what you tell yourself anyway. "Wow. That sounds amazing. As long as I make you laugh the most."

The two of you sit in silence for a moment. "Are you excited for the party?" Kate asks.

"I am. I can't wait to see everyone. It's always nice to have some time away from school."

---

At the dinner party, going to Kate's house feels like you just stepped back in time – not into a dusty museum, but into a vibrant, welcoming scene painted with warmth and laughter. Fairy lights twinkle in the garden, the aroma of roasted herbs greets you at the door, and you can hear the boisterous melody of guests in high spirits. Tonight's dinner party, hosted by the effervescent Mrs. Bishop, is more than just a little; it's a test, a gauntlet, a potential launching pad for your burgeoning love for Kate.

You catch Kate across the room, her radiant smile brighter than the string lights. Dressed in a dark suit with the a carefree confidence, she waves you over, her eyes sparkling with unspoken secrets. As you mingle with the guests, a motley crew of businessmen, academics, and even a retired spy (courtesy of Mrs. Bishop's new branch of security), you feel a nervous fluttering in your stomach.

Impressing Kate's mom isn't exactly a walk in the park. Mrs. Bishop is a force of nature – a whirlwind of opinions, witty jabs, and infectious laughter. But beneath the playful banter, you know she cherishes Kate fiercely, her heart a fortress guarded by love and protective instincts.

Throughout the evening, you navigate the social battlefield with finesse. You trade quips with Kate's eccentric uncle, regale the spy with a (mostly truthful) story about your childhood escapades, and even manage to survive a fierce debate about the merits of abstract art with Mrs. Bishop herself. All the while, Kate's eyes dance with a playful challenge, silently cheering you on.

The dinner table, groaning under the weight of culinary masterpieces made by the catering company, becomes the stage for more lighthearted jousting. You find yourself drawn into debates about everything from Shakespeare's sonnets to the best places to stargaze in the city. Your voice falters once or twice, but Kate, your loyal knight in shining armor, leaps in with witty commentary and gentle support.

As the night deepens, the conversation takes a more personal turn. You share stories of your childhood, revealing vulnerable glimpses into your past. Mrs. Bishop listens intently, her gaze unwavering, searching for something only she can understand. And then, you catch her eyes softening, a hint of approval flickering in their depths.

The evening culminates with a bonfire in the garden, its crackling flames casting dancing shadows on the faces around you. You and Kate steal away under the cloak of starlit sky, her hand nestled comfortably in yours. In the intimate quiet, you confess your feelings, whispering words that have been building for months.

Kate's reply is a silent smile, a tender kiss under the watchful gaze of the stars. In that moment, you know you've won her mother's approval, not through grand gestures or forced bravado, but through your genuine affection for Kate, your willingness to be vulnerable, and your own spark of joy that mirrors hers.

The embers of the bonfire die down, but the warmth of the evening lingers. You leave Kate's house hand in hand, her mother's farewell hug filled with a newfound warmth. This dinner party wasn't just about good food and family; it was about laying the foundation for a future, a future where Kate's laughter fills your home, where her dreams intertwine with yours, and where Mrs. Bishop becomes not just a formidable mother-in-law, but a cherished friend, a woman who sees the depth of your love for her daughter and welcomes you with open arms.

So, as you walk away from the twinkling lights of Kate's house, your heart brims with quiet joy. You may have entered through the gates of nervous anticipation, but you leave a seasoned warrior, the scars of laughter and shared stories on your heart, the promise of a love story nurtured in the warm glow of Mrs. Bishop's dinner party forever etched in your memory.

[liesmyth]

Good morning,

my sister and I as queerish catholicish people* have been fascinated with the the new pope drama.

Anyways we were wondering about context.

When the pope was asking the vatican to "tone down the faggotry" was he

Deliberatly condemning homosexuls in the vatican?

Asking vatican employees to stop gay sex while at work.

Asking vatican employees to stop behaving in a stereotypically gay way at work?

Asking vatican employees to stop being so extra? This is pope Francis after all. He's not really a big luxury guy.....and maybe he finds the drag race aesthetic to be at odds with votes of poverty. (The documentary "Paris is burning" might correct that misunderstanding...but I can see how a general apeal to tone down extragance combined with a new slang phrase in his second language could cause this.

I do understand that whatever the context for the quote was, pope Francis used the wrong term.

But Im really curious what he was trying to accomplish.

Also how do I pronounce your new Url as I relay this information to my family?

*I am a practicing queer raised catholic and she a practicing catholic at a queer independent catholic** church

**yes its existence shocked me to, but they have like 18 members and a local epicable let's them met in thier space in off hours. And they take nor give any money to the vactican and sing the old mass.

Ok your sister's queer independent catholic church sounds honestly cool af. Hope they're having fun in there.

Context: the Pope was telling (Italian) bishops that the Church should discourage gay men from joining, and "there's too much homosexuality (faggotry) in seminaries already." We don't know the context as this was leaked, but if I HAD to make a guess I would say_ 1) This is undoubtedly a homophobic statement 2) this is coming from a guy who feels strongly that clergy should respect their votes of chastity, which a lot of priests straight-up ignore.

So, like. Francis HAS gone on record saying that gay men are likely to falter in their vocations or whatever. But if I had to speculate, and I don't believe I'm being overly charitable here, I think the point of his speech was, "By the way, priests should not fuck, remember that? And maybe men who are into men are more likely to fuck their colleagues and keep quiet about it, we all know it happens way too much."

But yeah tldr: he WAS "deliberately condemning homosexuals" in a "gay people are more likely than straight people to give in to the temptations of the flesh" kinda way. Which IS homophobic but not outrageously so, and I think very much in line with his overall line re: queer people in the Church, kind of when he said "Blessings to same-sex couples are fine! It's not the same thing as a real marriage tho."

I think it was a remark that wouldn't have raised any eyebrows among its intended audience if he hadn't used that word, which gave people who don't like him a lot of ammo to discredit him and motivation to leak the story. That's also why I think there's no way he was aware of the full implications of the word — would this pope say slurs in private? idk. maybe. I don't know him. Would he say slurs in front of an audience of bishops when half the Vatican can't stand him because they think he's a dangerous third-world outsider and a hardass? No fucking way.

At least that's my take. I'm gonna @monstrousgourmandizingcats who may have better insight.

this is how you pronounce it!

[poetrysmackdown]

hi hiii i wanted to say that your account is so refreshing to see, esp with the passion you have for the arts. as someone who's been meaning to read (and write) more poetry, do you have any recommendations? some classics that everyone and their mothers know? perhaps some underrated pieces that changed you? or even just authors you like, I'm very open to suggestions :]]

Hi! Thank you so much for this kind ask :) So exciting that you’re looking to delve deeper into reading and writing! I had to take a little time to answer this because my thoughts were all over the place lol.

For a review of notable/classic poems/poets, I honestly just recommend looking at lists online or, hell, just binging Wikipedia pages for different countries’ poetry if that’s something you’re into, just to get a sense of the chronology. I read one of those little Oxford Very Short Introductions on American Poetry and thought it was pretty good, but online is quicker if you’re just searching for poets or movements to hone in on. Poetry Foundation also has lots of resources, in addition to all the poems in their database. I guess my one big classic recommendation would have to be Emily Dickinson (<3), but really the best move is just to find a poet you already enjoy and then look around to see who their peers were/are, who they were inspired by, who they’ve maybe translated here and there, etc. and follow it down the line as far as you can.

For some personal recs, here are some collections I’ve really enjoyed over the past two years or so. Bolded favorites, and linking where select poems from the book have been published online. But also, if you want a preview of a couple poems from another of the books to see if they interest you, DM me and I can send them over! You can also feel free to pilfer through my poetry tag for more stuff lol

Autobiography of Death by Kim Hyesoon trans. Don Mee Choi

Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings by Joy Harjo

DMZ Colony by Don Mee Choi

Hardly War by Don Mee Choi

Whereas by Layli Long Soldier

Geography III by Elizabeth Bishop

Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine

Mouth: Eats Color—Sagawa Chika Translations, Anti-Translations, & Originals by Sawako Nakayasu

The Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam trans. W.S. Merwin and Clarence Brown

The Branch Will Not Break by James Wright

This Journey by James Wright

God’s Silence by Franz Wright

Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke (the translation I read was by Alfred Corn—I thought it was great, but idk if there are better ones out there!)

DMZ Colony, Hardly War, Dictee, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely, and partially Whereas are all book-length poems with some prose poetry and varying levels of weirdness/denseness/multilingualism—if you were to pick one to start with, I’d say do Don’t Let Me Be Lonely or Whereas. Mouth: Eats Color is some experimental translations of Japanese modernist poet Chika Sagawa, with other translations and some of Nakayasu’s original stuff mixed in—it's definitely a bit disorienting but ultimately I remember having such fun with it, as much fun as Nakayasu probably had making it. It’s a book that emphasizes co-creation and a spirit of play, and completely changed my attitude towards translation.

If you’re less interested in that kind of formal fuckery stuff though (I get it), can’t go wrong with the other books! Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings is the one I read most recently, and it’s great—Harjo also featured in Round 1! Franz Wright also featured, and God's Silence is the collection which "Night Walk" comes from. James Wright (father of Franz) is one of my favorite poets of all time, though his poetry isn’t perfect. Even so, I’m honestly surprised he’s not doing numbers on Tumblr—Mary Oliver was a big fan of his, even wrote her "Three Poems for James Wright" after his death.

I mentioned in another post that one of my favorite poets is Paul Celan, so I’ll also recommend him here. I read Memory Rose into Threshold Speech which is a translated collection of his earlier poems, but it’s quite long if you’re just getting to know him as a poet—fortunately, both Poetry Foundation and Poets.org have a ton of his poems in their collections. There’s also an article by Ilya Kaminsky about him titled “Of Strangeness That Wakes Us” (!!!!!) that’s a great place to start, and is honestly kind of my whole mission statement when I’m reading and writing poetry. Looking at the books I’ve recommended above, a lot of them share feelings of separateness or alienation—from others, from oneself, from one’s country, from language—that breed strange, private modes of expression. That tends to be what I’m drawn to personally, and that’s some of what Kaminsky talks about.

Sorry of the length of this—I hope it's useful as a jumping-off point! And if you or anyone ends up exploring any of these poets, let me know what you think! If folks wanna reply with recommendations themselves too that'd be great :)

[ming-sik]

Please please PLEASE I need to know your thoughts on the characters that got shafted by both the narrative and fanfics. Sylvester. Magdalena. Florencia. Charlotte. Kinda sorta Hannelore (poor girl gets reduced to cutesy cheerleader for Myne to fawn over or smth in fics).

fool that you are, you have unsealed pandora's box and happened upon a topic i have a lot of thoughts about. i haven't read much aob fanfic so this is going to be mostly complaints i have with canon.

the main complication in my thoughts towards charlotte and hannelore is that there's a difference between rozemyne the character and the narrative of ascendance of a bookworm. rozemyne as a character has a LOT of internalized misogyny which compounds with an attraction to women and a disconnection to being a girl herself into the unique maelstrom of her more or less viewing other female characters through how good they are at being a cute girl/how much they like her. this means that while she's very complimentary towards charlotte and hannelore, she's also completely uninterested in them outside of their 1) being cute, 2) liking her, and 3) liking books. when her and wilfried's engagement is first announced she's shocked that charlotte is upset because rozemyne said she would support her because it just didn't occur to her that charlotte might want to aim for the archducal seat. rozemyne puts in a ton of legwork to rescue wilfried and put him back on the path to success, but she doesn't even consider trying to find a solution that allows charlotte the archducal seat without wilfried being ruined. i get that she doesn't want him in the temple initially, but after he improves you really think she would at least try to see if having him serve as the high bishop was an option especially at the dozen or so points in the story where everyone is despairing over the lack of manpower. charlotte is florencia's daughter so she wouldn't jeopardize florencia's position, she's better suited to the role, has no stain on her record, the leisegangs don't actively hate her, and, most importantly, she's the only one who actively shows interest in being the aub! and rozemyne not only doesn't try to help her achieve her dream, she doesn't even take enough of an interest in charlotte to notice it, let alone anything else about her except that she's a cute little sister. in fact, she actively diminishes charlotte's accomplishments and likes feeling superior to her.

the thing is that i have not yet started criticizing the story. rozemyne is allowed to be a deeply flawed character who is sometimes actively cruel to likable characters, but my problem lies with the fact that this cruelty doesn't go anywhere. i genuinely don't think aob realizes that rozemyne is mistreating charlotte or that as it currently stands the ehrenfest archducal family spent like the entire royal academy arc following step by step instructions for Georgine 2. having charlotte just grudgingly accept this because she admires rozemyne and doesn't think she has another option until the engagement gets canceled is, i guess, accurate to ascendance of a bookworm's setting where systemic misogyny means that only evil female characters get pissed off if they're screwed over, but that's... bad, both narratively and if you want your stories to treat women like people. i want charlotte to snap! in my rewrite i would give her and sylvester a running conflict where charlotte's mirroring georgine shows that sylvester still doesn't understand why georgine is the way she is and forces him to either reexamine his sexism or deal with the fact that this time he can't wholly blame the monster he created on veronica. i want them to fight! and i want her and rozemyne to fight, i want charlotte to challenge rozemyne's view of her and force rozemyne to choose between reexamining the way she treats cute girls or losing her adoring little sister. the fact that neither of these conflicts happen mean that charlotte as a character really just doesn't get to do anything. they do not let her cook a single time. she's sitting on the bench with the mountain of really interesting character conflicts and story conflicts she could have had as the first sympathetic major female character who is actually trying to become the aub(which i would have additional machinations for in my extensive "what if aob was communist" AU but that's not relevant right now), and instead everyone's like "let's check in on how wilfried's doing, does anyone wanna see wilfried continue to be bad at a job he doesn't even want".

hannelore gets basically the same treatment from rozemyne, and similarly my problem is basically that hannelore has no problem with this. her being a cute petite shy girl despite being from the ditter duchy is at best an interesting starting point for a character, but aob has decided to explore systemic misogyny in feudalism by reducing the majority of its female characters to props who really only exist in relation to their male family members(or rozemyne), which, again, i find boring! i just think it's very convenient how despite rozemyne saying over and over how aggressive dunkelfelger women are, the only active dunkelfelgerian female character for the majority of the story is really meek and quiet. genuinely i would almost entirely write out lestilaut and give the majority of his stuff to hannelore since he's mainly acting on what he thinks hannelore wants anyway. in my mind hannelore's first major character action is to challenge rozemyne to ditter for the ownership of schwartz and weiss, rozemyne takes her lightly because she's a cute girl, and then nearly gets crushed until she pulls out the lord of evil strats before collapsing, after which point hannelore freaks out and it's revealed that she's not an antagonist, she just thought the shumils were cute and wanted to be their owner, at which point rozemyne invites her to join the library committee. in general dunkelfelger having less of a sharp gender divide than ehrenfest because both men and women are expected to be muscleheads is like the most gimme way to actually show cultural differences between duchies and actually iterate on yurgenschmidt's society allegedly prioritizing skill and mana over gender(and this keeps almost being implemented only for aob to never really go anywhere with it). rozemyne keeps trying to fit hannelore into the box of a cute feminine girl by her standards which provides friction between them because hannelore IS a cute feminine girl by dunkelfelger standards. she doesn't have to actively fight with rozemyne over this the way i want charlotte to, but i really wish she had more of a presence in the story and also EVERYONE in dunkelfelger thinking that rozemyne loves ditter and the only reason she has to refuse is because of her physical weakness would be so much funnier if the primary source of misunderstanding is that she keeps not realizing she's agreeing to play ditter until it's too late because she's blinded by hannelore's cuteness. everyone else is like "rozemyne you have to stop accepting her challenges rozemyne you're going to lose trade rights to rinsham" and rozemyne is like "i didn't realize a 'summer tea party' was a dunkelfelger womens' euphemism for ditter :(". this is the only rewrite that i think wouldn't require a total overhaul of aob's structure and that fits with the series' overall comedic tone.

florencia has the unfortunate problem that she exists entirely in relation to sylvester and elvira, which means that when the two of them have their interesting edges sanded away her stocks crash through the floor. florencia serves as the bridge between sylvester and the world outside of the eye of veronica's storm, she is simultaneously the only person he fully trusts and someone who felt the full force of veronica's abuse, so you really think that'd go somewhere and that his arc would involve him realizing there's aspects of her that up until now he hasn't been forced to deal with and her arc would exist. instead mostly she's just written as either elvira's bestie or sylvester's handler, to the point that when aob goes all in on child marriage during brunhilde's proposal florencia isn't even in the room. the end of the stick she gets is so short it can only be seen by a microscope. i don't even really understand how you could hate her aside from i guess wanting wilfried's neglect to be her fault? which it isn't! it's, for the most part, sylvester's.

and oh boy sylvester. his squandered potential is unmatched and i will never not be mad about it. what they did to my man is a crime and if it isn't it should be.

like okay firstly i re-read the brother sylvester segment recently and i was NOT imagining it, there's no way in hell sylvester was always meant to only be against pedophilia because he's a wife guy. during his introduction when myne asks if he's going to the orphanage to look for flowers he is specifically upset that someone her age is thinking about that, and counters it by saying that he's skilled enough to find girls in the noble's quarters. the second part is relevant because it means that it's not the wife guy thing, which leaves only the first thing. firstly, his reaction being disgust implies that this is a moral issue for him, and his citing her age specifically makes it clear that's his sticking point, which rules out it being that it's sex outside of wedlock or that he finds temple girls unclean(in fact it also implies that he only wants girls with equal or greater social status to him who can therefore say no). the reason this is interesting to me is that this is very weird in noble society. ferdinand actually spells this out at one point when benno is similarly disgusted by rozemyne being implied to be his lover, where he says that it's a normal age gap in noble society and that it must not be among commoners, which benno doesn't contest, implying that this is true, and it appears to be! from the pairings we see, it seems that overall, commoner marriages are almost all unrelated adults, which makes sense, because most people do that unless systemic forces incentivize them to do something else, and implies that aob is commenting on the fact that pedophilia/incest in historical political marriages were not naturalistic, but instead something that was mandated by the specific way the system of hereditary feudalism works where marriage is a tool to connect political pieces and therefore you can't afford to be picky about how well those pieces match and in fact the power gaps that come with that are often actively useful to prevent bonds from being broken. that's what i meant when i said awhile ago that i was willing to see where aob was taking things! which made it all the more interesting when sylvester showed up and seemed to be showing that this was going to be a conflict that was explored in more detail.

to go all the way back to foundations, my reading of the prior gen archducal family is that sylvester as a character is the way he is primarily due to the fact that the aggressive favoritism veronica raised him with shielded him from a lot of the abuse their system mandates at the cost of harshening the abuse on everyone outside of him, which puts him in a really paradoxical position. on the one hand, he's fervently idealistic and puts almost no importance on his archducal status, so he's basically never intentionally cruel, but he's also ignorant to a lot of issues and is incredibly bad at reading people specifically because nobody whose life he can ruin is able to chew him out for doing that. he understands noble euphemisms, but the level of emotional concealment that everyone under him has to preserve combined with the fact that veronica actively disincentivized him from learning how to read people means that he doesn't realize when he's hurting people, and almost nobody can tell him. sylvester's quiet "sorry for not noticing" when rozemyne tells him that his attempt to cement her position by spreading printing as fast as possible was actually making things worse is probably the most direct the story gets about this.

so sylvester is a good guy! although he's irresponsible and ignorant, when it's actually revealed that he's hurting people he always tries to rectify it, and is clearly willing to sacrifice for the good of other people... but he's also the archduke, which means that regardless of his intentions, he's in control of a lot of peoples' lives, and no mistake he makes is victimless. the way their society works means that his obliviousness has a body count, including his sister.

his relationship with georgine had so much potential. georgine had her life ripped away from her after being severely abused in service of a future she's been cut off due to the existence of a completely innocent and goodhearted kid and is then forced to watch him grow up in bliss, wrecking the lives of everyone around him in the process. this is veronica's fault, obviously, but it wouldn't have felt that way. we unfortunately don't really get to see her perspective on the training she tried to give him(was she really trying to prepare him? was she trying to drag him down to her level? was it both?), but the thing is that they are both entirely justified in hating each other. sylvester was the recipient of an enormous amount of privilege that he wasn't even aware of and that came at the expense of everyone around him. simultaneously, they're not inherently bad people. there's every chance that if they were born in a different world or even as commoners, they would've been completely normal siblings. and yet they weren't, so they aren't. the first time we hear about georgine from his perspective sylvester actually says that he understands that georgine got screwed over when she was married into ahrensbach, but either that also got retconned or he didn't really understand the weight of it because for the rest of the series he just treats her like a flat antagonist. (which i think is because it was added in the LN, so maybe it just wasn't canon in the webnovel?)

i already mentioned him a lot in charlotte's section but yeah mostly i just want to give the man an actual character arc instead of having him just slowly flatten into "goofy wife guy". have his disconnect with noble society go somewhere! instead of having him realize that despite his intentions to raise his kids in the safety bubble he was raised in, the cycle of abuse is inescapable so long as the nobility persists, and instead of deciding "aw dang i guess the cycle of abuse is just inescapable then" have him question if we should have nobles! i genuinely don't get why people say aob isn't preachy. it is, it's just very conservative so its preaching is "the divine right of kings is fine but we should add capitalism" which is the default for medieval fantasy. which is bad. like is it so crazy to have his reaction to learning that there's no inherent difference between nobles and commoners through rozemyne's mere existence followed by the revelation that even orphans can become literate and skilled enough to match nobles be deciding that this distinction is perhaps completely arbitrary? when rozemyne is explaining how widespread lower class literacy revolutionized the world to ferdinand and she's like "oh but here everyone relies on nobles for mana and nobles can just use it to preach about how awesome they are" i thought that was going to be subverted because as a commoner with mana who understands that the devouring means that mana is not inherent to nobles she should know that's as false as the intelligence argument. but then it just wasn't. i will stop that for now though as i'm currently lying to you about not sneaking in an additional rant about how i would make aob communist.

back on topic, as soon as rozemyne joins noble society, aob panics and starts introducing a bunch of reasons why child marriage is actually totally ethical(i guess freida explaining why being a mistress is actually her best case scenario was supposed to be like "oh phew what a relief" and not "well that's horrifying") but because sylvester(and benno who actually gets the exact same thing done to him) has already expressed disgust at this despite having prior experience with it, suddenly it's that sylvester is just a wacky silly weirdo who only wants to be married to florencia because he just loves her that much. although he is obviously in complete agony when he says that if she and wilfried can't put up with each other she'll have to marry him, why is apparently not worth going into. in fact, it'll never be worth going into again! rozemyne will continue being kinda grossed out by huge age gaps and a lot of other characters seem kinda reluctant to marry kids, but this also never goes anywhere and now that sylvester is just a Wife Guy she agrees with everyone saying that he should just take a second wife. fermyne is its own thing(SEPARATE RANT), sylvester only seems to really care about their potential relationship insomuch as it affects their reputations and by p5vol12 he's been reduced to cutesy teasing them about rumors of their love. really though the nail in the coffin on this front was brunhilde's proposal. firstly, sylvester doesn't even really do anything during it! brunhilde initiates it and rozemyne is the primary opponent(with her objections all knocked down easily and treated as ridiculous), sylvester just kind of sits there outside of being upset at the implication that he'd abuse brunhilde, and then he agrees to it and that's that. tbc i do find this morally abhorrent not least because brunhilde turns to the camera and more or less goes "you might have some objections, but let me explain why marrying a teenager is actually a great idea", but then to add insult to injury it's also narratively really weak.

and while i do think that his final scene with georgine where he's begging her to explain why she hates him when he never did anything to her and she's got "the best life a woman can have" is really impactful and i think better than him already knowing why she hates him, it's actually really weird when outside of that he hasn't had any kind of character arc and his realizations that he's been perpetuating a lot of the harm that veronica and noble society have normalized for him are shut down(mainly by ferdinand which ideally would've GONE SOMEWHERE). and then it's dropped again to go back to the boring action climax, pursued by deus ex machina. it really needed to be a turning point in sylvester's arc where he's forced to accept that georgine does not want to reconcile with him and his never needing to understand her motivations is a big part of why. if he's supposed to be a tragic character he can fail to improve, and keep convincing himself that georgine is just a simplistic force of evil who hates him for no reason, but if he is going to improve he needs to figure out why she hates him by putting effort in himself and being willing to accept that he's not a kid being bullied by his big sister anymore, he's an adult who's responsible for his own actions, a lot of which made the situation worse.

to tie things back into charlotte, the lost potential between charlotte and sylvester is staggering because HE'S DOING IT AGAIN!!!! he's doing EXACTLY what veronica did with opposite intentions, in his attempt to keep wilfried from being abused the way he was by making his future secure he ends up neglecting and exposing charlotte to veronica's abuse and then continuing to neglect her. through his inability to understand what his childhood abuse was actually caused by, he ends up abusing and neglecting all of his children, but especially charlotte. this isn't even really explored through wilfried outside of people being frustrated that sylvester is busting his ass trying to keep the incompetent wilfried as the future aub because it's the best way he can see to keep him from suffering despite it actually harming him more which IS interesting but not the way it's implemented, and rozemyne's specific situation means that she generally interacts with him like he's a boss she's on relatively friendly terms with and doesn't view him as or need him to be a parent(which also shields her from basically all of this). but despite charlotte having unquestionably the most fraught relationship with him, aob again just has her put up with this. sylvester is one of the most well fleshed-out and sympathetic abusive characters i've ever seen so it's really frustrating that charlotte, his most affected victim, just gets shoved to the side because if we had to deal with the fact that despite his good intentions sylvester spent the vast majority of the story leaving her out in the rain to focus on his golden children then he'd have to be a textually morally complex character.

although to try and speculate on why things ended up this way, a lot of this is explained by the fact that afaik aob's webnovel was solely from rozemyne's perspective without a lot of the short stories so basically everyone except rozemyne and ferdinand had all their character development patched in for the LN which is probably why nobody except them has any semblance of an arc so because rozemyne as a protagonist is so disinterested in other people, you kinda can't give characters really detailed arcs onscreen because she either zones out or stubbornly tries to keep fitting people into her boxes. it'd be different if the original story had other POVs and therefore characters could do things that she doesn't care about or that it would be weird for her to be present for(like sylvester and charlotte definitely need to clash on their own; it'd mess with the tone a lot if rozemyne had to be sitting awkwardly on the sidelines so the audience could witness it). it is possible to give characters detailed arcs that the unreliable narrator doesn't pick up on and stories with deep worlds tend to have a lot of characters doing things when the narrator isn't looking, but it's REALLY hard to have entire character arcs that the narrator doesn't pick up on work because you run the risk of either not making it so the reader can actually see that's what's happening or you make it so obvious that the unreliable narrator has to be cartoonishly wrong to avoid just being a narrator accurately describing things. i'm told there's a hannelore spinoff which might be more interesting but this series has torched so much of my goodwill towards it that after the main story wraps up i'm putting my foot down and listening to this excellent advice: