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skye-huntress · 1 year ago

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I’m in Love with the Villainess Reaction

Episode 12 / Finale

I feel like they could have skipped the OP and just showed the title like so many other shows.

Guess they don’t plan on leaving us in limbo, they skipped straight to Manaria’s confrontation.

Seriously, Manaria, you’re the one who was trying to drive Rae away and now you’re mad at her because you succeeded. Like I get what you were doing, but maybe opening this test of yours up with a magic duel of all things wasn’t your best approach. You beat her so badly and completely you crushed her spirit.

Her methods aside, at least we’re getting to the heart of the issue now. Rae’s love for Claire is not as selfless as she claims, how could it be? She wants Claire to love her back, to be in a relationship with her but she was afraid of being rejected.

In many ways, Manaria and Rae are similar, which is part of why Manaria knows she can’t leave Rae alone, lest she make the same mistake she did.

I hate to say it, but after everything that happened, this had to be the last card Manaria could play. Claire’s safety and wellbeing is still Rae’s priority. The only reason she could even imagine leaving Claire’s side is because she knows Manaria could protect her from any threat, even if that threat is Claire herself. But if Manaria is the one who becomes the threat…

“Again, I wasn’t consulted.” Look, Claire, you were free to step in at any time but you let this play out. You allowed your affection for Manaria to blind you, but everyone else from your minions to the Princes knew what was going on.

Sorry, Claire, you’re too late to stop this and Rae doesn’t have the time to idle about, not with what she’s looking for.

Ah, the tediousness of farming for that ultra rare drop.

Claire kept that necklace Rae gave her the entire time. In fact, she’s been wearing it everyday since. It’s proof that she wants to believe in Rae’s love, if only she wasn’t given so many reasons to doubt.

Woah, woah, woah, that vision of the future! They didn’t just include the two together, and their house, they also showed the twins! Don’t tease me like that, I want to see it all in anime form! If only the odds for a second season weren’t so low, this wouldn’t hurt so much!

Damn, Rae is going all in and all out. That line made more sense in my head.

Yes, Claire, tell us how you really feel! None of this will matter if you’re not even honest with yourself or with Rae.

All those damn expectations of being a noble lady. Let’s be frank, nobles don’t marry for love, marriage is a formal contract between families.

Predictable. This is yet another contest that is practically rigged in Manaria’s favour. There is no offering known to be heavier than the Flower of Flora, so the best you could hope for is a tie, and even that is a difficult feat, given how rare that flower is and how difficult it is to obtain.

Ugh, more poems. And it’s so obviously fake, too. You’re just reciting someone else’s words that don’t carry the same meaning or feeling as the original.

Cutting it a little close there, Rae.

Wow, Manaria actually looks happy to see Rae, meanwhile Claire is immediately concerned by the state she is in.

Manaria has a flower of legend, and Rae has what looks like a random stick. Not hard to imagine the reaction she’d get.

They have no faith in her. As if Rae hasn’t proven that she tends to know more than she could possibly know.

Well, Misha, you got your miracle.

Rod, don’t act like you didn’t have your own doubts not two seconds ago.

YES! THAT’S HOW YOU DO IT! THAT’S A REAL CONFESSION OF LOVE!

That 180 is just as jarring in anime form. It’s like this girl just forgot she’s been playing the role of the villainess for the past few weeks.

Look at Claire’s hand, like it’s still searching for Rae’s.

The most shocking part about this is Manaria is actually serious. In fact, at this point in the novel Rae suddenly remembers a little bit of trivia about Manaria from the game. It was possible that Manaria might confess feelings for the protagonist, not that it actually led to anything if she did.

This is even better than the novels and manga, Claire didn’t just yell her true feelings (and Rae’s name, finally), she actually grabbed Rae and put herself between them.

Oh, how we missed this banter. It’ll take a bit longer for Claire to get over that knee-jerk reaction but now we know she doesn’t actually mean it.

That crowd’s getting a full show today. The following year’s festival is going to be a snore fest in comparison.

Early credit again, I see.

Someone actually made an accurate prediction that the story of Poesie Amour was foreshadowing Rae and Manaria’s fates. Like the two suitors in the story, Rae would go on to marry Claire, while Manaria would go on to be a great queen. I can’t believe it never occurred to me before, not even on rereads when I knew the outcome.

No, no, Rae has a right to feel the way she does. Manaria spent most of the time being a menace to Rae, stomped all over her feelings and even threatened Claire. Even if it was all ultimately for her benefit, that doesn’t erase all the emotional damage or the scars.

Wow, Rae, you just figured it out. And yeah, there very likely was a better way to go about it, but Manaria has already admitted she’s kind of a shitty person.

After those confessions, everyone’s pretty much accepted that they’ll be getting together.

I’m surprised more people haven’t confronted Rae about the things she seems to know. I suppose everyone else is taking the wait and see approach, but since she’s leaving, Manaria had to ask now.

As has been hinted many times, a revolution is coming, and those don’t tend to end well for the people in power. Even if Claire doesn’t turn full Villainess, she’ll still likely be executed for no other reason than that she is a noble. That is the future Rae has been working to prevent.

Look at their classmates, they clearly have no idea how to react, yet all their friends have accepted that this is just the way they are, even as a couple.

And that’s a wrap. While I’ll keep my fingers crossed for a Season 2, I will recommend that novels and manga. The next few arcs are particularly interesting. Personally, I’m a big fan of Chapter 6: Yu’s Secret (FYI, this episode ended Chapter 4: The Scales of Love). That chapter is packed with all sorts of good and interesting stuff.

#i’m in love with the villainess #i'm in love with the villainess

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dynmghts · 10 months ago

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Following from my other headcanon post on what happened with Katsuki's arm, I've decided to dig into the immediate aftermath of the war and his hospitalisation + healing process!

This is possibly subject to change based on how the manga goes. Warning for some heavy hospital and medical talk!

IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH.

In the manga, as you might remember for you manga readers like me, Katsuki has passed out near a playground - I highly doubt that he'll be getting up again, but even if he does (by nothing short of a miracle), the repercussions are going to be immense. When the war draws to a close and Katsuki is taken to the nearest hospital, I really don't think he'll be waking up anytime soon.

We have to remember that he revived himself with his Quirk. Not only that, but Edgeshot was still working hard to ensure that Katsuki was functioning enough on his own before he left him to All For One. Combine it with the damage he's sustained in the previous battle - which Edgeshot could not have repaired all on his own - and the likelihood of Katsuki getting back up straight away from this is exponentially low. He spent two days down after the Paranormal Liberation War.

I'm estimating that he spends at LEAST a week comatose, or drifting in and out of fitful sleep, before he actually maintains any sort of lucid consciousness. Here are my main reasons:

Recovery Girl is not a be-all, end-all cure. Her Quirk uses the energy of the recipient to hasten the progress of healing, yes, but she cannot push the recipient beyond their limit lest she set them back. Katsuki's body is already under stress trying to heal naturally. Beyond her Quirk use to save Katsuki's arm, it's likely that she can't spare more of his energy to heal elsewhere, and thus he needs to continue some of his recovery naturally.

Eri's Quirk does not have the energy for a Rewind that significant. Also, she's just a kid. Let's not use her as a means to heal every single person that's sustained injuries during this war.

There is a lot of damage to cover. Even though Edgeshot repaired his organs and they were perfectly sufficient to ensure he could function again, they still endured a lot of stress and have not had the chance to heal per se. Internal injuries are tricky. This isn't even mentioning the numerous bone breaks, the muscle damage, tendons, complications with joints... Beyond his arm, we're looking at ribs and sternum for other bones. Hell, the musculature system connected to the bones is extremely complex too, and they would've been impacted. We know that Katsuki's lungs and heart took the brunt of the damage in the fight against Shigaraki. Yeah, there's a lot to heal - and with his limited energy, it's going to take a while.

Credit where credit is due: Edgeshot is the reason Katsuki does not need organ transplants. And while I'm definitely considerate of the fact that Edgeshot also repaired any damage to blood vessels that required it (specifically the most vital ones), I doubt he could've done more with the bones save for maybe... Weaving them into place, almost. And THAT would only be a temporary fix to prevent shards of bone re-puncturing the organs.

I would say that in this period, Katsuki is much more susceptible to viral and bacterial infection. Bacterial infection is increasingly likely; even if he was taken to hospital as soon as they found him, and Edgeshot sanitised himself before performing surgeries, it is increasingly likely Katsuki will endure complications because he went back into a fight the moment he woke up. Not only that, but he did so in agony.

Working on the fact that Katsuki had surgery to his heart and lungs, therefore we could call it a sort of thoracic surgery (because, you know, it's the chest region)... No wonder my guy was suffering. Have you ever looked into all the things people are not meant to do post-op for these things?

Dudes, I only considered that he'd need heavy pain medication for his arm - but he's probably drugged to absolute hell and back for his chest ALONE. On top of the fact that thoracic surgery is often described to be excruciatingly painful, but an operation like that still leaves room for potential complications like pneumonia, and it's possible his lungs are still trying to recover from collapsing in the first place. So considering that, he'd need oxygen treatment to ensure healthy oxygen saturation... They'd even have to watch his heart to make sure that there is no cardiac arrhythmia.

There's also the possibility of Katsuki developing post-thoracotomy pain syndrome, which means feeling pain in his chest months after the fact.

To summarise the immediate aftermath:

Katsuki is hospitalised and treated for injuries that weren't initially or completely repaired - or were exacerbated from his fight with AFO.

Injuries that they have to accommodate for include the impromptu thoracic surgery Edgeshot performed on Katsuki, the numerous fractured and broken bones, damage to the musculature and any connecting tissues, as well as torn tendons.

Katsuki likely develops infection; pneumonia, namely. He has no other post-op infections thanks to Edgeshot's use of Wash's bubble and proper care from the hospital.

Recovery Girl is called in to administer treatment of her own, specifically to fix bone placement first, and he is put on oxygen treatment and analgesia (heavy painkillers) to take the edge off.

He remains in a comatose state - or, he is in and out of consciousness - for the next week.

AWAKENING.

After about a week of fighting infection and his energy being poured into healing all of his wounds, Katsuki manages to hold onto consciousness. He can talk, answer questions, and take in a few visitors - though said visitors have to take precautions, because of his recovering state. He's still quite disjointed, but stubbornly coherent enough to ask of the end result for the war, as well as Izuku's whereabouts, then the class, his teachers, etc.

At this stage, Katsuki is encouraged to get up and move with others to promote the use of his organs after being out for so long. He also has to do deep breathing and coughing to keep his lungs active. Overall, though, he isn't doing too much, because his doctors don't want to set him back - they just resolved his previous infection, so it's pain management and post-op care now that he was awake to participate.

The road to recovery is shortened by advancements in medical technology and the presence of healing Quirks like Recovery Girl's, but that doesn't mean Katsuki isn't spending time in the hospital. There are a few intense days of rigorous healing, monitoring, pain management, and overall care before he's discharged to go home. (Without advancements, Katsuki would've been looking at another week-long stay. The combined damage of his arm and his chest makes his hospitalisation period lengthy as it is, but it's a small blessing he doesn't have to stay nearly as long as he might've with the absence of healing Quirks.)

As a generalisation of what his subsequent days would've looked like after waking:

There is frequent pulse checks, heart monitoring, and he often has blood taken to check his levels. If he is low on blood count in general - which is unlikely, as it was one of the first things remedied - then there is a transfusion of platelets and blood cells.

He is given breakfast. On the first day, he is unsuccessful stomaching it, but they wait until lunch to determine if he needs intervention.

After a dose of analgesia and his first deep breathing exercise of the day, Katsuki is encouraged with staff support to get up and walk around. It's difficult with the equipment attached to him, but they make it as easy as they can.

Lunch is served. On the first day, Katsuki keeps it extremely light, and he manages to stomach it on this attempt. He has no complications after this. His second breathing exercise occurs.

He is administered Recovery Girl's treatment after lunch and ends up resting through the majority of the afternoon. His third breathing exercise is just before dinner.

They encourage him to get up and move again after dinner. On the third day of this, he stubbornly attempts to do this himself, and he stumbles a few times without support. He doesn't fall. Doctors and nurses reprimand him for a reckless action, but if he hasn't seen many of his friends by now, he'll insist on their visits as a means of justifying his stubbornness.

The final breathing exercise occurs before he sleeps... Well, part of his sleep. It's broken into three parts due to checks throughout the night.

Note that he's doing this with only one arm in action. It's impressive just how much Katsuki does in this short timeframe.

DISCHARGE.

This one I'm going to try and keep brief, but Katsuki is discharged and left in his parents' care once the doctors have no reason to keep him in the hospital.

On top of the numerous setbacks enlisted about his arm, they tell him to only have frequent walks, no heavy lifting, and to have frequent check-ups with their physicians until he makes a full recovery. The timeframe for the full recovery is hastened thanks to Recovery Girl's treatment (so instead of ~6-12 weeks, look at more 4-8 weeks), but it still takes time - and his contact with the hospital seems unending for the first two weeks after discharge. Longer, when they want to check up on him every few months after he resumes his hero training.

Katsuki doesn't return to the dorms until the end of his first week at home. Even then, the school has to keep a rigorous eye on him to ensure that he doesn't push it beyond what he's been allowed to do - which, thankfully, he doesn't. He's not so reckless that he'll set his healing progress back, especially in knowing the repercussions of doing so.

The main thing is that Katsuki still has to take regular pain medication while keeping up his exercises, and I think that his parents likely agreed that he would have better luck in doing so if he was surrounded by his friends at the dorms. He cannot use his right arm and cannot join on any heroics until his doctors are sure that he is healed enough to do so. It frustrates him, but that's also why he's back at the dorm with his friends: they help him keep a level head while reminding him what he's working for.

(And as for recurrent pain, I think that Katsuki's efforts to stick to the healing process given has almost completely diminished the possibility. However, I like to think that he does experience a sort of phantom pain under specific circumstances.)

#medical /#injury /#hospital /#ask to tag /#💥 ⸍ i. out.#💥 ⸍ ii. headcanon.#💥 ⸍ ii. verse: post-wars.#/ brought to u by my lame ass research trying to make it make sense #/ it really dawned on me that k.atsuki would've had the roughest time out of the students who got hospitalised though #/ (besides probably i.zuku at this point? maybe?? but my god)#/ bc really. i wanted there to be some realism to it. he literally died and came back. his chest took a fatal hit. it was important to me #/ this isn't even mentioning the fact he's fatigued like. all the time #/ like my guyssss ik that e.dgeshot basically fixed the whole problem but there was no recovery period for k.atsuki there yaknow #/ my guy went straight back into a fight. he probably made himself so much worse fighting and winning against a.fo #/ anyway thank u for coming to my ted talk ily

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sunshinyssr · 1 month ago

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DISCLAIMER: Genderswitch, convenient ooc for yuri

Tomorrow, if the snow is thick enough, they can play Stick of Truth once again, or the version Cartman came up with because someone got too OP. They tried superheroes to the conclusion of someone once again getting op. The mini castle defense game lasted at least two months before getting boring and unstable. Guess why? Yeah, op.

He, Cartman, got on Discord to yell about how cool it would be if school became Ice Age survivor, and had no class for an unknown period of time. And someone, Kyle to be precise, almost ruined all the fun. Snow day has a high chance of the canceling cause online classes a real threat nowadays. Nevertheless, all who were there prayed upon the snowstorm and casualties. Girls who were allowed to play with boys also got the same messages. Few here and there put to be extras for main characters as the Grand Wizard or Elf King with their respectful army.

"Yeah, Kenny, you're cool. Go get that princess dress". Butters saw a message on Discord. Kenny, to whom the old cellphone belonged, was showering. Such an awesome privilege of hot water, as she said, like a Christmas miracle. «And, sure, bring Butters, for all I care. Chicks can play too, jeez.»

That's a little upsetting. Marjorine took the message close to heart. Sometimes, she got a bit jealous. Why can't other ladies play games besides static trivial roles? Marjorine remembered time being Professor Chaos. It lasted, didn't it? Superheroes took her villain part seriously, no? But comparing with how Kenny went undercover to play Mysterion with all that voice and street fighting style to the point where boys actually started looking with awe? Yeah.

But then again, she, Marjorine, had fought at the Kupa side, no? Yeah. Grand Wizard allowed her to join. If one chick is already playing, why not invite another? Marjorine hummed. His voice, his tone back then, sounded different as he spoke when clearly a boy new kid joined…

A message on Kenny's phone came again. Apparently, the Grand Wizard started on a plan for what to do with the main rules and how to hold the new kid's OP grind set. And Marjorine's thoughts circled back to the phone owner.

Kenny, even being your typical girl, got her part usually all boys hang out outside of the big games. Maybe, because she was dressed all the time in pants and a parka. There's no way with all that coverage she distracted like Bebe. Or some other cute girl.

Marjorine felt crippling blush on her cheeks. Anyone who knows Kenny knows how she loves boobs. Girls, and all that queerness. Boys didn't get her going, and when other little ladies blushed, she just scoffed. That's why boys feel it's not their territory to obtain and pass her as their own pal.

«What's that?» Voice muffled with a towel on face, distracted from Marjorine daydreaming about holding hands, not like friends do. She threw old phone, cleared her throat. Ah god, is the face still embarrassingly red? Oh, jeez.

«Oh, damn, he's stubborn.» Kenny threw a towel on the bed, while Butters read all the messages Cartman practically puked on about new rules on Discord. «You still have that Paladin costume?»

Butters took a towel. Still wet, it could soil new bed sheets. Not that Kenny got it dirty; objectively speaking, dreaming on wet bedsheets is not so good.

«Yes, it's in my closet. Somewhere» She put a wet towel on the back a chair. «Yours?»

«Yeah, yeah, also somewhere.» Kenny muttered under her nose, not really seeing how close Butters got sitting on the bed.

Wet locks were still tangled. The shirt with pants that Butters gave her fit perfectly. Newly washed skin glowed in healthy pink color. Butters stopped herself nearly inches in proximity. She did get a funny side-eye from Kenny. A second of awkward glances was torn by another message. The war of the sacred rules applied to a game was leading players to break into fractures. The superhero franchise was crushed, not because girls joined (one undercover, another using the new kid as a free pass), but because it all started by arguing over whose rules they need to start a franchise.

Looking at how Kenny was cussing professionally, even for a head-over-heels girl beside her, was still boring. Butters got up with a mission to find old Paladin fit. The closet door slides, and she threw herself inside. Professor Chaos's fit was put aside, then some dresses and pants. Behind all, she found Paladin's robe. Headband together on hanger neatly tied to outfit. It didn't get smaller due to Marjorine's gaining some weight, right? Which is embarrassing for a young lady. Classmates girls did call her fat and flat. She let out an unhappy sigh. Then, heard a voice behind shoulder.

«I can fit in there.»

She jumped.

«What?» Kenny put a headband on damp blond hair. Didn't tie in a proper style, rather put similar to a tiara. Under the hood, it's never a chance to see the length of hair. Up to the shoulder blades length, apparently. Beautiful, but harshly maintained. «Do I look pretty?

She made glassy anime eyes with her hand put to her chest. Long eyelashes blinked in an adorable way. Princess from Kupa Keep born once again. Seriously, the sheer difference between a stoic hero and a cute anime princess often put kids in confusion, and Butters was in that crowd, mouth wide open.

«Y-yeah» Marjorine said. Fabric under fingers got crumpled, but she cleared her throat to say the next line. «Does Princess still need her paladin?»

The role of close guardian to a pretty lady, even back then, playing lord of the rings rip-off, made her chest flutter in a weird manner. Kenny, without taking the tiara placed in her golden damp locks, put her palm out. Marjorine got lost for a second. Kenny raised an eyebrow, shaking her hand a little.

«Oh.» Marjorine chuckled. «My lady.»

And she placed a kiss on the outside wrist. An absolutely disgusting laugh came from Lady McCormick. How many times in this snowy evening did Marjorine feel her cheeks getting red? Embraced, she looked up to see bright blue eyes shining. Face puffed up, eyes playfully crinkled with a tiny set of wrinkles.

«Don't you wanna be a princess this time?» Kenny took Headband to put it on Marjorine. «Yeah, little role changes? Even though Paladin f**king enemies with the giant hammer is kinda hot.»

Marjorine thought. Role of the pretty lady who takes all the hearts to herself? No. Brave Paladin with a secret crush, more or less her role, even though it's embarrassing to admit out loud.

«I teach you some skills.» Kenny winks. Two palms touching boobs, how she did a while ago. Boys, well, someone who still knew about Princess's dirty queer mind did indeed fall for this vulgar trick. Marjorine bites her lip. Intriguing; better be done by professionals, though. She imagined doing that and cringed. Hard

«No» Pictures of her showering boobs to boys, older boys, which of course six-graders, haunted mind. «It's… ah, suits you more.»

«Mean, being a f**king whore?» Kenny hummed, not pleased. One thinks it's fine when you call some girl a whore; another when it's directed at you. Marjorine negatively shook her head. «Then what?»

«You're more fit into the role of a majestic lady. You have a pretty face and a cunning nature.» Marjorine felt not red, burn. Whole burn on the face. «Yeah, that's what I mean, Ken. Not a whore, no.»

Kenny's hand stopped all the blubbering. Murky expression changed into light teasing. All lousy worries gone, Marjorine felt peace. Of course, her best friend Kenny wouldn't think much into that. Calling her a whore is more of Cartman's way of complimenting Princess's usefulness to the team. Butters, who, like a true paladin, always told her fair lady sincere words of appreciation.

«Don't f**king sweat it. C'mon, let's see what others came up with.» Still distracted, Marjorine sat on the bed right beside Kenny's warm side. She didn't pay attention to remarks about Stan and money. How divided on rules seemed three other guys in Kenny's tiny circle of friends.

On the chair, the costume of the Paladin Butters needed few patches. Snow, a typical kid's violence, could easily destroy blue fabric. She didn't get to patch it; she only lay down, hearing Kenny argue with Cartman on Discord. Some time later, a warm, rough hand took her even closer and put her head on chest. Catching dreams alike to snowflakes outside, Marjorine fell asleep.

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#sp bunny #south park

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cobaltsage · 1 year ago

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Okay I think I can condense this down actually though I’m 99% certain OP is just saying this as a joke and doesn’t want a real answer.

Okay so essentially, in our world, myths and monsters existed, but as faith in them waned, they started to fade from existence until Gensokyo, a parallel world, was created and sealed off with a small village or two of humans lying within its borders. Now when something is forgotten, it ends up in Gensokyo. Unfortunately, most myths and legends are monsters and those monsters like to eat people, who in turn are also the battery for the place to even exist, as their faith that the monsters are real requires people to be, you know, alive to generate that faith.

So to keep the residents of Gensokyo safe, Reimu Hakurei goes on missions to defeat the Youkai who roam the lands. The first five games, normally skippable, and only playable on PC98 emulators, is about how Reimu took back her shrine from demons and then slowly but surely took the war to the demon realm of Makai itself any time something weird happens. In the process she also makes the acquaintance of Marisa Kirisame, a young, kleptomaniac magician.

But by Touhou 06, she’s a lot more tired and jaded because as it turns out, fighting demons who cause trouble in the land of demons causing trouble is a lot of hard work and Reimu needs a break. This leads to her handling problems by beating up as many Youkai as possible and then asking questions when one of them is powerful enough to not immediately be incinerated by her power.

So when the sun is blotted out by a blood red sky, Reimu beats people up until she learns it’s a vampire who wants to walk in the day and beats the shit out of her. When winter has gone on too long, Reimu beats people up until she learns that the essence of springtime itself is being gathered and used by the queen of a ghostly otherworld to try and bring someone back to life, and beats the shit out of her. When the Youkai are acting up one night and Reimu realizes the moon is a fake, she beats people up until finding the moon princess who made a fake moon to hide from going back to the real one, and promptly beats the shit out of her.

Then a rival shrine appears from the outside world, and all hell breaks loose. They want the same faith that powers the Hakurei Shrine, and in general, the Moriya shrine want to maintain the power of the two gods living within it by winning over the people. Reimu beats them all up but that doesn’t stop the Moriya Shrine from tackling various projects. The Moriya shrine gets the brilliant idea of bringing the tech that’s been around since after the creation of Gensokyo, and stupidly thinks that giving hell nuclear energy would be smart. The Geyser that hell set off spews out a flying ship who’s crew is seeking out their master, a bhuddist monk with power over miracles. Before the chaos can die down, a Taoist and militaristic saint resurrects from the dead and now there’s 4 major religious factions in Gensokyo fighting over faith.

From there things unfortunately get weird. Items in Gensokyo are becoming alive and animated. Lack of belief in the moon landing among people in the real world leads to a near war between Gensokyo and the Lunarian rabbit species who live on the moon. Unfortunately, during these chaotic events, the various factions fighting end up becoming the focal point of the god of commerce who starts copying people’s abilities onto picture cards mined from a special stone and sold in a magical market. That’s right. Gensokyo becomes devastated by an NFT crypto scam. And in the latest game, someone seeks to capitalize on all that confusion for their own gain, as now nobody knows who owns anything in Gensokyo anymore after the crazy NFT scandal.

Some lesser important things I skipped over, like how in between games there was a duo of high school girls who investigated random places to try and find Gensokyo who’s story is mainly told in the side notes of released music content, and in a side game, one of those two got permanantly kidnapped into Gensokyo after taking her research too far, which one of the manga illustrated was her downward spiral after the other one fell into and became a permanant resident of Gensokyo, or how the Hakurei Shrine was once destroyed by a drunken oni. I’m also very much glossing over a lot of nuance for the characters involved.

what is touhou about even

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strangerivy · 4 years ago

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The Time Levi Got Jealous

Request: @iamhowieson Hey! Just wondering if I could make a request for a Levi Ackerman x reader. I thought that maybe the reader and Levi had a fight the night before which seriously hurt the readers feelings. then the reader tried to make him jealous, which turned out very successfully and then Levi ends up apologising and then they forgive each other. Probably with a nice cute ending but you can spin it however you like! You don’t have to do this request if you don’t want too. Warnings: Swearing Pairings: Levi Ackerman x Reader (y/n) Genre: 18+ | Fluff | Tiny amounts of Angst Word Count: 1.9K Author’s Note: I really hope this is what you were looking for and I am sorry it took so long! 😊 💜

|| Masterlist | AOT Masterlist ||

The day had been going wonderfully, you had woken up on time which was honestly a miracle. You had a good breakfast and training with the squad was probably the most successful yet. It was a great day. Until you saw the sight in front of you.

You and Petra were on the way back to your shared room after training going over what parts went great and what part you two could improve on as a team when you rounded a corner to see something you wish you hadn’t. Levi was standing there watching over the recently joined Cadets and one of them seem to be too friendly with the captain for your liking. Now you know you didn’t technically have the right to get as angry as you are, seeing as you and Levi had never discussed what your relationship was. But it was also no secret that you two were more than friends. His mouth turned up into a smirk at something she said which only deepened the frown on your face, the girl twirling her hair between her fingers.

“Y/n?” Petra asked a few paces ahead of you, noticing you were no longer following, she followed your gaze and gave you a sympathetic look, “I’m sure it's nothing,” She tried to comfort, your eyes broke away as you felt them begin to water.

“Yeah, your probably right,” You smiled forcing the tears down, she had to be, Levi would not actually do something like that. Right?

You took a deep breath as you stood outside his office, you decided you were going to ask him about the girl and what you saw in a calm manner after having time to calm down. You went to open the door, but it was opened suddenly causing you to stumble forward almost hitting the person exiting. You caught yourself on the door frame looking up at the person to see it was that same girl shooting down a smirk at you.

You watched her walk down the hall with a little too much pep in her step for your liking, you watched till she disappeared down another hallway out of sight.

“Y/N,” Levi almost sounded surprised which only made your suspicion grow, you snapped your head to him looking him up and down. He seemed fine, his clothes weren’t wrinkled in any way and his hair was laid flat nicely. You stepped in closing the door behind you.

“Who’s that?” You asked walking closer to him but still kept a distance. He raised an eyebrow at your odd behavior, usually, you would be smiling when you walked in already talking about your day bring a brightness to the room that you carried everywhere with you. But tonight, was different, something was bothering you.

“She’s just one of the new cadets, seems promising,” He answered, you nodded you turned to leave not really wanting to hang around tonight, the exhaustion of your worries hitting you. It seemed like a better idea just to ignore, easier at least.

“What’s going on with you?” Levi asked just as you grabbed ahold of the doorknob.

“Nothing,” You answered much too quickly and he let out a snort.

“It’s obviously not nothing,” He stated, you turned to face him with a frown going to speak but stopping just before the words left your tongue, he was growing frustrated now. “Well go on, spit it out,”

“I saw you earlier with her and she was just- all over you,” You finally answered not able to make eye contact at him, he let out another annoyed scoff making you look at him as he shook his head.

“That’s what has you so worked up?” He asked his tone making your worries sound more of a nuisance. He clicked his tongue sitting back down at his desk. “I didn’t think you were the possessive type,” This made you frown, you weren’t being possessive, you were just concerned. Especially after the look, that cadet gave you leaving his office.

“I’m not being possessive, I was just –“

“So clingy then?” He cut you off, deepening your frown and furrowing your eyebrows as your temper rose. You opened his office door getting ready to leave before you looked at him once again to see if he would stop you, but he didn’t, just kept his eyes down at his papers that he was working on.

“I was just stating a concerned Levi, you didn’t need to be an ass about it,” You spat shutting the door before he could respond.

You didn’t sleep well the night before and you did your best to not show it, though your eyes did have a slight bag to them. You let out a yawn at breakfast drinking your morning tea with Petra and the others. Levi walked in greeting the table before turning to greet you, but you turned away from him getting up to head out to the training course for the day. It was your turn to train some of the new Cadets.

You leaned up against a post letting out another yawn as you watched the Cadets go through Hand-to-Hand combat.

“Y/N,” You heard your name turning towards the voice to see your old squad mate when you first joined the Scouts, Peter.

“Hey!” You beamed giving him a tight hug, “How have you been? I feel like it’s been forever since I’ve seen you!”

“Good actually just stopping at HQ to drop off a report and thought I would stop by,” He smiled, you had always thought he was charming when you were back in the Cadets training, all the girls swooning over him. You were surprised he choose the Scouts and not the MP’s when the time came.

“They still have you out surveying along the wall?” You asked curiously.

“Of course, I’ll have every damn brick memorized at this rate,” He joked, and you let out a small chuckle. “How are things with the special ops squad, heard you have got yourself quite the kill count!” He nudged you with your elbow and you felt your cheeks up with a shy blush, you weren’t one to brag about accomplishments so when others did you always got embarrassed. You turned your attention back to the cadets making sure they were slacking off without you looking.

“Things are going good, I guess. I’ve been thinking ab- Oh Captain Levi!” You and Peter stood straight saluting to Levi as he walked up to you, you were still mad at him, so you avoided meeting his eyes, crossing your arms in front of you turning your eyes back to the cadets pretending to watch them. When he finally reached you, he eyed you waiting to see if you would acknowledge his presence further than the formal greeting, when he realized you weren’t you noticed his demeanor changed slightly as he looked up at Peter with a deadly glare.

“Are you supposed to be here Cadet?” He asked with a sharp tone, Peter tensed shaking his head.

“Sorry Sir, I was just stopping by to-“

“I didn’t ask for an explanation,” Levi cut him off, Peter gulped from nerves and you honestly felt bad for him.

“No Sir, I’m not,” Peter answered nervously, you raised an eyebrow at Levi as you watched the encounter through the corner of your eye. Levi was always a bit cold when it came to talking with others but never this intense.

“Then get the hell out of here,” Levi spat, and Peter was quick to turn on his heel leaving with a quick see ya to you as he left. “Enough training today! Your dismissed,” Levi shouted at the Cadets not taking his eyes off you as you still refused to look at him. You felt small under his gaze, you could feel your body heating up wishing that someone would come out needing you for something. Where was Hange when you needed her?

Once the field was cleared and no one was around Levi reached out placing a finger under your chin guiding your head to face him but you kept your gaze at the ground. He took a step closer to you so there was almost no room between you. He leaned into your ear and you tensed when you felt his breath on your skin.

“Look at me,” He demanded pulling back and you flicked your gaze up at him, something about him was off right now. His slight frown the furrow in his brow. He looked annoyed dare you say maybe even jealous?

“What is it, Levi?” You asked trying to keep your emotionless expression to him, he smirked knowing the act wouldn’t work for long.

“Who was that?” He asked you, you rolled your eyes, and he didn’t like that grabbing onto your arm to drag you back inside, back to his office where you knew you would have no way of rejecting him, You wouldn’t be able to help yourself. You pulled your arm out of his grip and shot a smirk of your own.

“Are you jealous Levi?” You asked with a grin, his frown deepened. He took two large steps towards you grabbing you around the waist pulling you in, his other hand snaking into your hair pulling your lips to his kissing you with an intensity he’s never shown before out in the open like this. You were shocked, to say the least, but only for a moment before melting into him. Your knees going week your hands gripping onto the edges of his jacket pulling him impossibly closer.

When you finally broke for air both panting lightly as you stared at him, he softly smiled one that you rarely got to see.

“So, what if I am?” He quirked a brow up as kept his hold on your waist tight afraid you might slip away again and ignore him.

“I didn’t think you were the possessive type.” You smirked as you mimicked his words from the night before. He frowned leaning in to rest his head on yours.

“I’m sorry for that,” He apologized, you gave a small nod leaning in to give him a small peck.

“It’s okay,” You forgave him but you still felt uneasy, wanting clarification on what you two were. You both acted like a couple but is that what he saw this as? Levi noticed you still weren’t okay reach up cupping your cheek rubbing it softly with his thumb.

“What's going on in that head of yours?” he asked concern in his voice

You let out a breath “What are we?” Levi's eyes went wide and you could see the blush on his cheeks, it was cute seeing him get so bashful at the question. He dropped his hand reaching up to scratch his neck from the nerves.

“Well- I- I thought you would already know that-” He stuttered over his words that you couldn’t help but chuckle at the once stoic and battle-hardened Captain. He shot a glare at your soft giggles which only made you laugh more.

“Are we together, Levi? A couple?” You asked deciding to make it easier on him, He let out a groan before giving a soft nodded bring a smile to your lips as you pulled him into another kiss and you felt the smile on his lips as you did.

#levi attack on titan #levi x reader #levi ackerman x reader #levi ackerman fic #levi ackerman attack on titan #levi ackerman fanfiction #LEVI ACKERMAN #Captain Levi #levi aot #petra #attack on titan #attack on titan fanfiction

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natedogx15 · 3 years ago

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Miraculous Descendent Chapter 13: Conversations

Previous Chapter

It was the day after Stormy Weather appeared. Things went as expected; people were unsure of whether to leave their homes or not. One good thing did come from this, though. The contest is getting investigated after Alec's confession. So, Aurore may have a chance, later on, to become the weather girl again.

"So, you have a date with Cat Noir?" Nate asks Marinette while playing his handheld game device.

Marinette was at her desk sketching different clothing designs.

"It's not a date. However, we do plan to meet up and want to figure out everything." Marinette explains while working.

"Speaking of that. Can I please try to get a Miraculous from the Miracle Box? I know we've had this conversation several times before, but I think we really need at least one more Miraculous." Nate tells her seriously.

"And I told you that you heard what Tikki said. They may not choose you even if you solve the box. It could make things worse." Marinette tells him with an annoyed sigh.

"Look, you told me what happened during your fight with Stormy Weather. And you didn't technically defeat Stoneheart, Hawkmoth recalled him. Don't you think it's worth the risk to try and get a third teammate to tip the scales?" Nate asks her in worry as he stares at her while lying on his back.

Marinette sighs and puts her pencil down. She then begins to think about Nate's words. Finally, she makes a decision.

'I'd like it if you give me more time to see what Cat Noir is like, Nate. He's my only ally right now, so I'd like to get to know him before we try this plan. That way, I may have one person I can trust if a Kwami doesn't pick you to wield their Miraculous." Marinette tells Nate while turning to look at him.

Nate looks at her and groans.

"Fine, we'll wait and see I still don't like the idea of leaving you two on your own, though. Can I at least try to figure out how to open the box? So, if you want to risk it, we can open one quicker instead of waiting longer." Nate asks his cousin.

Marinette gives Nate a look, and he raises his hands in defense.

"I won't open it immediately after figuring it out. I promise. I think it may be smart if we at least understand how to open it if we need more Miraculous to protect Paris, though. The guy you're fighting can make powerful supervillains from a hiding hole. That is a pretty op power to have." Nate explains his reasoning for wanting to experiment with opening the Miracle Box.

Marinette sighs before calling their third member.

"Tikki, can you come out, please?" Marinette asks while looking towards a doll house.

Marinette had decided to get Tikki a doll house during their time off after the Stoneheart attack. Tikki has been living there since in Marinette's room.

"Yes, Marinette?" Tikki asks with a smile.

"Do you think it's right to let him mess with the Miracle Box?" Marinette asks while pointing towards Nate.

"That's up to you, Marinette. It's your possession and your decision." Tikki tells Marinette.

"But doesn't it have your friends locked inside of it?" Marinette asks in confusion.

"I wouldn't say locked inside it per se. I'd say it's more of a vacation home if we want to take a break from our duties of choosing and teaching humans to wield our powers. Different Kwami wait for someone to open it, and then we go back to work until returned to it." Tikki tells Marinette with a smile.

"So, they aren't trapped in there?" Nate asks, surprised.

"Nope, we've more or less made it a test to see if a certain era is worthy of gaining our Miraculous. If someone in the current time can open it, the Kwami will choose someone to become their wielder. If not, we wait." Tikki tells them.

"Wait, how long have you been in there?" Nate asks curiously.

Tikki taps her chin before smiling.

"If a generation is every 25 years. Then almost seven generations in total, I believe." Tikki states.

Marinette and Nate's eyes widen when they hear that. Nate lets out a small whistle before saying.

"That's a long vacation."

"Yes, your ancestors could not open the box no matter what they tried." Tikki giggled while looking at Marinette.

Marinette takes this information in and thinks about it. However, an alarm goes off on her phone. It was an alert that she should head to the Eiffel Tower.

"We'll talk about this when I get back. I want some more time to think about this." Marinette tells him before standing up.

"Tikki, spots on," Marinette says and transforms.

Once done, she heads toward the balcony and opens the door.

"Don't touch the Miracle Box Nate. I mean it." Ladybug warns with a glare.

She then swings off and leaves Nate alone.

"Should I go against her orders? Nah, probably a bad idea for now. I guess I'll surf the web while she's gone." Nate mutters before pulling out his phone.

Nate hears a knock at the door and immediately goes.

"Ah, crap."

He says this in a flat but slightly panicked tone. He quickly rushes to the door and sticks his head out.

"Yellow." He says, not letting whoever is on the other side see inside the room.

Knocking on the door was Jean-Yves.

"Your father would like to see you, Nathanial," Jean-Yves tells him.

Nate blinks in surprise when he hears this.

"Alright, I'm coming," Nate says as he comes out of the room and closes the door behind him.

"Is everything alright?" Jean-Yves asks.

"Yep, Marinette is just in the zone with her designs and doesn't want anyone to disturb her." Nate lies to the man.

Jean-Yves accepts that answer, and Nate follows him into the elevator. They head to the lobby floor and walk past reception. Finally, the two arrive in front of an office with a plaque that says Samuel Dupain. Nate knocks on the door and hears his dad say.

"Come in."

Nate opens the door to see his dad.

Samuel Dupain was much slimmer than his bulky brother. He had fair skin, medium height, short brown hair with shaved sides, green eyes, and a small goatee.

He wore a black business suit with a dark blue tie and matching shoes.

When Samuel saw his son, he gained a big smile.

"Nate, glad you came so quickly," Samuel said with a grin.

He leaves his desk and hugs his son. Nate hugs back in surprise.

"No problem, papa. What do you need?" Nate asks in confusion.

"Can't a father just want to see their youngest child and give them a hug?" Samuel asks with a smile as he looks at his son.

"Usually not when the father in question is busy running one of if not Paris's most successful hotel," Nate states with a small smile.

"Ah, you got me there. I'm sorry I haven't been around as much lately. With this Hawkmoth around, Tom and I have been extra busy. Me with keeping my hotel in check and Tom with keeping the city in check." Samuel sighs.

"It's cool, papa. I get it. Anything I can do to help?" Nate asks.

"You could always bring me down some food and water. So I don't die while in my office." Samuel jokes with a smile.

"Sure, sure." Nate nods with a serious expression.

Samuel smiles more at this before saying.

"Actually, there is something I thought you could do," Samuel tells him before going over to his desk and grabbing a flyer.

He hands it to Nate, and Nate looks at it. It was a poster for fencing lessons.

"Why do you want me to learn how to fence?" Nate asks with a raised eyebrow.

"I thought it would be good for you. You only leave the house to go to comic and game shops or arcades. I know I told you that you didn't have to worry about anything but being a kid, but I thought this might be a good change of pace. It's even run by one of your school's teachers too." Samuel explains with a smile.

"And this has nothing to do with the recent attacks?" Nate asks suspiciously.

"Son, how would fencing help you against a supervillain if they attacked you?" Samuel questions back.

"I don't know. Gain quicker reflexes, I guess." Nate shrugs.

"No, Nate, I'm not asking you to try these lessons so you can defend yourselves against a supervillain," Samuel tells Nate in a neutral tone.

"Ah, man. And I was so ready to become the fencing superhero Riposte." Nate snaps his fingers in disappointment.

Samuel shakes his head in fake exasperation.

Ladybug arrives at the top of the Eiffel Tower, looking for her partner.

"Hey, Ladybug." A voice said above her.

She looks up to see Cat Noir sitting on the tower's tip.

"Hey, I see you got here before me." Ladybug said with a smile.

"Yep, I was so excited about getting to test out what we can do." Cat Noir tells her while jumping to her level.

"Alright then, what do we know so far?" Ladybug asks.

"Well, I know my baton has more features than a swiss army knife. Those are my Kwami's words, not mine. So far, I've made it lengthen and found it doubles as a phone. Oh, and I also found out that my nails lengthen into claws. And you already know about my ears." Cat Noir tells her while demonstrating his nails turning into claws.

"Alright, that's good to know." Ladybug nods as she looks at his claws.

"What about you? What have you figured out?" Cat Noir asks excitedly.

Getting to see what his partner in justice can do seems to have taken away all traces of nervousness and shyness at the moment. Ladybug, on the other hand, was surprised by his enthusiasm.

"I guess he's really excited about this meeting." Ladybug thought.

"Well, so far, I understand that my yoyo acts as a phone. The string can also lengthen as far as I want to allow me to swing across the city. That's about it for my weapon." Ladybug tells Cat Noir while rubbing the back of her head.

"What about your powers? The one that summoned the air conditioner and spider? Or the one that transforms your costume? Or the one that fixed this city twice?" Cat Noir asks curiously.

"Oh, you mean Lucky Charm, Seamstress, and Miraculous Ladybug?" Ladybug clarifies what he is asking.

"Yeah, those. I was so surprised when I saw that you had three powers. How do they work?" Cat Noir tells her.

"Well, Lucy Charm gives me an object that will somehow help me be victorious. However, I have to figure out what it means and what it wants me to do. Seamstress allows me to transform my costume and gives me new abilities. Finally, Miraculous Ladybug allows me to repair any damage done under magical influence." Ladybug tells her partner.

"What do you mean magical influence?" Cat Noir asks in confusion.

"I'm not sure, despite the image being downloaded straight into my head. I think if magic causes a set of events to happen, I can reverse it. I'll have to ask my Kwami more about it when I'm back. What about your power?" Ladybug asks Cat Noir.

"Oh, Cataclysm lets me turn whatever I touch into ash." Cat Noir explains.

"Wow, that is a pretty strong power." Ladybug tells him in surprise.

"I know. I am so terrified whenever I use it. I keep asking myself, what if I accidentally hit someone with it? What if I cause a building full of people to die? I really don't like the idea of my power, honestly." Cat Noir tells Ladybug with a worried look.

Ladybug gives him a look of pity when he says that.

"I'm sure it'll be fine if we're careful. At worse, we can rely on my powers." Ladybug tells Cat Noir with a smile.

That seems to calm Cat Noir down, and he nods.

"Thanks. Oh yeah, did your Kwami tell you about the Miracle Box?" Cat Noir asks curiously.

Ladybug's nerves start to rise when Cat Noir mentions it.

"No, what is it?" Ladybug nervously asks.

Cat Noir catches this but assumes she's nervous since it's the first time she's heard of it.

"It's an artifact that holds different Miraculous from this old order." Cat Noir explains.

"Really?" Ladybug fakes surprise.

However, she was inwardly panicking, and her mind was racing.

"Oh no, he knows about the Miracle Box. What do I do? What if he figures out that Nate and I have it?"

Were the thoughts running through Ladybug's head. She didn't know much about her partner, so she was unsure what could come from him knowing about her family heirloom.

"Wouldn't it be cool if we could find it and get more heroes on our side? We could have our own team like the United Heroez." Cat Noir tells Ladybug with a bright smile.

"I don't know about that, honestly. I mean, what if we end up creating more villains instead of more heroes?" Ladybug asks Cat Noir in worry.

Cat Noir stops his excited rant when he hears that and rubs the back of his head in thought.

"I guess you have a point there. I'm not sure how this all works yet. My Kwami just showed up and started eating cheese in my room." Cat Noir tells her.

Ladybug lets out a small laugh before something pops into her head to steer the conversation away from the Miracle Box.

"So, why did your Kwami only give you one power?" She asks in a curious tone.

"Oh, that; he doesn't think I'm ready to have more than one power right now." Cat Noir tells her.

"Oh." Ladybug makes a noise of understanding.

"It's okay, though. Because I don't think I'm ready for one either. I'm already panicking about Cataclysm and what I could do with it. I don't want another power to think about." Cat Noir tells her.

"Besides, you seem to have enough powers to cover for us. All I have to do is support you. My Kwami even said that I've been doing a good job supporting you." Cat Noir happily says as he remembers his Kwami's words.

Ladybug stares at her partner for a minute as she forms an opinion of him.

"He seems nice. When we talked during the attacks, he always seemed pretty shy and nervous like me. Right now, though, he seems pretty excitable." Ladybug thought with a smile.

"Yeah, I think we'll be okay. We've managed to defeat two pretty tough villains, after all." Ladybug agrees with her partner.

"Right, I can't believe we managed to beat those two. Well, technically, we only beat Stormy Weather. Hawkmoth recalled Stoneheart." Cat Noir started out excited before he realized they only beat one villain.

"True." Ladybug nods.

Alya was currently in her room on her computer with a printer hooked up to it.

Her room had almost all black walls, with the wall connected to her door colored white and dark grey floor. In her room was a blue beanbag chair, a grey table holding her computer, two speakers on either side of the screen, a printer, and a shelf with a bluish-black dog statue. Her bed frame was inside the wall with its own walls colored bright red and contained shelves full of books next to her zebra-colored bed.

"Alright, I think this design will catch people's attention," Alya says with a smile as she leans into her chair and stretches.

"Phew, who would have guessed designing posters would be so difficult. Not to mention making a website and getting permission for the club." Alya mutters before releasing a tired yawn.

On her computer screen were two different poster designs.

The first had a ladybug aesthetic to it. It was advertising a blog called the Ladyblog.

The other one had a newspaper-like aesthetic and was advertising for a newspaper club at Francoise Dupont.

"Now, all I have to do is print them out and put them around the school tomorrow," Alya says with a smile as she begins printing her posters.

"Plus. Tomorrow, I'll start trying to find my first big headline. Ladybug's identity will definitely show my capability as a reporter." Alya giddily says as she grabs a cut photo.

The photo is of Ladybug, but her face is missing. It looks like someone cut it out, leaving a hole where her face would be on her head.

Next Chapter

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous descendent #miraculous ladybug rewrite #ml au story

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writing-is-a-martial-art · 4 years ago

Text

Just Your Typical Fantasy Story (WIP re-intro)

Title: Just Your Typical Fantasy Story

Genre: fantasy, comedy, adventure

Genre category: Y/A, N/A

Status: drafting, the first draft currently at 11k

POV: third person.

Themes/tropes: Saving The World, The Chosen One, predetermined destiny, good vs. evil (with subversion of expectations), found family, the world isn't black and white.

Triggers: Blood, fighting, alcohol, minor character death. The list will be updated as it grows.

Description:

In a world that has recently experienced magical disasters, it's hard to maintain peace or even some level of prosperity.

Fortunately, a tired-but-trying-his-best King and a goddess who recently got rid of the overhauling control her religion gained over her are maintaining what remains of a once-powerful empire in acceptable condition.

In these hardly-stable times, a self-proclaimed Dark Empire can do a lot of damage, especially if it was established by the Dark Lord, a terrible, magical menace feared in all of Drognil. They need a miracle. They need a Chosen One. And of course, it's not going to be anyone qualified for the job, because where's the fun in that?

Follow this all-fun, logic-free adventure as:

the Chosen One, a very confused, recently kidnapped 17-year-old girl, sets out on her quest.

A team of a werebear and a spirit-boy search for the mystical Noone of Nowhere.

The Dark Lord's boyfriend, worried by the Dark Lord's absence, goes to find him with a tagalong semi-Eldritch kind-of-monster (very sweet, wonderful cook).

The Dark Lord finds himself on a ghost-pirates' ship with no memory of how he got there, or why the Dark Empire now exists.

Characters:

Team "Chosen One":

Mary, The Chosen One:

Basics: human, she/her, 17, Uzbeki-Canadian, demisexual biromantic

Traits: witty, satirical, skeptical, optimistic.

Yahgur, the werebear:

Basics: human/werebear, he/him, 19, Hetashan, asexual demiromantic.

Traits: aloof, reserved, focused on self-control, a man of few words, secretly nice but don't tell him I said that.

Shimmi, the spirit boy:

Basics: human/spirit, he/them, 16, half-Iktan half-Hetashan, pansexual.

Traits: friendly, outgoing, trusting, caring, sweet, naive, deadly.

Team Dark Lord:

Rukard, Dark Lord's boyfriend:

Basics: human, he/him, 22, Zemugan, bisexual.

Traits: dramatic, overprotective, short-tempered, gloomy, actually cares about people.

Mourisha, Rukard's tag-along friend:

Basics: ??? they/them.

Traits: Caring, reserved, mysterious, friendly.

Others:

Heshiktow, The Dark Lord, currently absent from Team Dark Lord:

Basics: human, he/him 20, one/fourth Iktan two/fourths Hetashan, gay.

Traits: shy, friendly, helpful, tired (almost always), awkward, empathetic.

Ena, the tired Goddess:

Basics: goddess, 200-something, Hetashan/Moograhan, too tired to care

Traits: tired, reserved, disillusioned, disorganized, done with all of this sh*t.

Extra information:

This is pretty slow-burn. You do get lumberjack nuns, ghost-pirate sea battles, jailbreaks, and all that fun, but it starts around chapters 7 to 15. If you like your stories at a nice, leisurely pace, then you'll like this one.

Posted parts:

[1] - Ena and Mary's introduction chapter

[2] - Rukard's introduction chapter

[3] - Yahgur and Shimmi's introduction (this is a link to a masterpost because it's in three parts)

Tag: #jytfs

Taglist (contact me to be added/removed): @chazzawrites @apocalypsewriters @pagesofcursive @47crayons @lady-of-himring @wolfsong02 @annoyingwritingtrash @stardustspiral @zoya-writes @opes-magnas @cookiecutterwrites @run-journalist-run @bryanastar @justapotatowriter

#writing #writeblr #wip #fantasy #writers on tumblr #original story #original content #wip intro #wip re-intro #wtwcommunity #jytfs #writing on tumblr

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kitkatopinions · 4 years ago

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(Rabbithole Anon) Y'know, I was going to send in an ask about just they could have made a compelling way to show how some people may have become hunters through pressure rather than an age excuse if they wanted to say some people weren't ready (joining to protect a friend who wanted to be one, wanting to travel for a variety of reasons, it being a general expectation but the person being hesitant) but it led to me wondering wait, would certain careers require a hunting lisence?

Okay, I love this rabbit hole. XD It illustrates a couple of RWBY problems here and it's the fact that they often are lacking in the character development/character journey department, and that they're often lacking in the world building department.

We actually have plenty of characters that can serve as examples for people who maybe should've thought twice about entering the Academy (when they did.) There are people who entered the Academy for the wrong reasons/not noble reasons, people who entered the Academy during a time they might not have been ready, and people who would be full on dangerous with a Hunter badge, and most of our mains fall under one of these categories (though mostly the first two.)

Ruby - Two years below the standard age of her class. Whether or not she was at the skill level of a first year (she was,) and whether or not she'd received special training from Qrow (she had,) Ruby was still essentially a kid, and her mind and body both hadn't developed completely. Ruby should have been traumatized after the Fall of Beacon and been allowed to show that more as a character, she should've had straight up PTSD, she should've been allowed to have emotion in Volume 4 than Jaune's sidekick who makes sad eyes when she sees him grieving. Weiss - Her main motivation for joining Beacon was to reclaim her family legacy. Yes, her desire was to reclaim it and use it for good, but it was still arguably more about personal and familial glory. On top of that, Weiss has been blatantly anti Faunus and has never so much as addressed that. Weiss's character journey should have reflected more personal growth, and either her unlearning much of her Faunus racism and clearly changing priorities from her name and family legacy and onto the actual people in need, or her flaws should've led her into being more of a morally gray character who displays her selfishness and pride (in a way that's actually addressed and treated like a flaw.) Yang - She expresses admiration for people like Ruby who want to help people and be kind, but her main point in becoming a Huntress was getting thrills and going where the wind takes her. She didn't join Beacon for any sort of serious purpose, and even when she rejoined Team RWBY in volume five, it was to be with her sister and not because of her own morals (not that I think she's lacking in morals, just that her main motive was different.) This could lead to her having to figure out a lot of what she actually wants, being unsatisfied with being a Huntress in Atlas, being in over her head when things get serious, being more mentally exhausted than the others after long days, etc. Jaune - Wasn't ready to enter Beacon. Idk if he just wasn't allowed to go to a lesser combat school like Signal or if he flunked out, but he wasn't up to scratch to get into Beacon and cheated his way in. On top of that, he lacked in the emotional maturity department as well when he entered. Jaune was a little more invested in his own appearance than Ruby was, but still seemed to have similar good reasons for wanting to be a Hunter. And he did grow a lot. But he was much less prepared, skilled, or equipped to deal with the training or the career and it's a miracle he didn't die in the initiation. Granted, Jaune was handled arguably better than anyone else, since a lot of this was addressed, but these days it feels like it isn't actually playing a part in his character anymore that he's way below the people around him, and I feel like it should still be impacting him. Penny: Honestly, Penny seemed very newly born during the Beacon Arc. She might have been combat ready, but she also started spilling secrets to the first person who was a little bit nice to her, and was clearly naïve and childlike. Imagine if it had been Emerald that had befriended Penny instead of Ruby. Penny dying and then getting resurrected should've been deeply traumatizing for her and it should've made her undergo some major changes and been treated with importance in the show. Qrow: Literally wanted to be a Hunter in the first place to try and learn how to murder Huntsmen. He might have changed later and it’s not exactly relevant, but he arguably shouldn't have joined when he did either. Meanwhile, Nora's just one big mystery, because we don't know why she joined, and Ren likely joined for good reasons, but neither of them have ever actually talked about their motivations. The only character we can safely say joined for noble reasons and who was up to scratch and ready when she entered is Blake, who also had good reason to not fully trust the system she was working with, so there could've been complications and character interest there as well.

Please don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean I don't think the others should've been in school, I love that they were! I just think the writers should've explored the various ways they might've been not fully ready, not completely well suited to the job they took. The characters are allowed to be flawed and to flounder and it'd make them more full, nuanced characters imo.

On top of that, we have other Hunters to look to as well, outside of our main cast. Cardin, for example, was a terrible person, still in school and already abusing what little power he had to target a member of an oppressed minority group and blackmail other kids into doing his bidding, while plotting revenge on someone for correcting him on his anti-Faunus answer to a question. People like him should not be Hunters, and he was arguably our first sign (of many signs) that the position of Hunter can and will be taken advantage of and misused by bad people. And although the After the Fall/Before the Dawn books aren't canon, while reading BTD (I haven't finished it yet,) Coco and all her team members but Velvet also struck me as people I wouldn't want to be Hunters and wouldn't want to wield any sort of power. Coco is proudly described by one of her friends as sadistic, lets her unfounded opinions of people cloud her judgement, shows respect and admiration towards criminals, and enjoys her classmates being afraid of her. Fox is self-described as sadistic as well and is a bully who tried to use a classmate's phobia against them in a brute-like interrogation. And Yatsuhashi is leagues above the two of them, but also bullied Neptune despite saying the words 'I don't want to be a bully' and threatened him.

There are so many ways the writers could've explored people who went to Beacon too soon, weren't ready, or entered for the wrong reasons. Instead, outside of one conversation in season two about the girls’ motivations and Ren exploding that Jaune cheated his way into Beacon all the way in season eight, it seems like the only take away we're supposed to get is 'all these kids are officially the thing they wanted to be in the beginning and they're all amazing at it, woo!' No acknowledgement of the fact that they could use higher education still, that some of them are still immature or naïve, that some of them are still below the combat level they should be in, that some of them kinda haven't done super well since they left Beacon (cough Ruby cough.) It's all just... Flat, lackluster. And meanwhile, characters like Cardin were written out of the show easily. We've had plenty of examples of corruption in the Hunter business, but the show hasn't paid any attention to that and still is treating being a Hunter like the only true noble goal and the only good and non-corruptible way to defend people, despite the fact that it clearly isn’t. Being a Huntress is not better or safer or more noble in-universe than being an Atlas soldier/Ace Op/Atlas hunter. I’m not saying that all of this needed to be featured, but exploring the differences in motivation and how the Hunter lifestyle affected the various mains could really flesh out their characters. Instead, by the time everyone is heading to Atlas in volume six, they all pretty much have the same reactions to everything and the same motivations and the same beliefs. The rare deviation - like Ren in volume seven and eight - is treated as bad and a mistake that must be rectified, rather than... A natural consequence of the group being full of different people with different upbringings and different motivations that result in different opinions. That sort of thing is only ever explored as a problem that makes someone lacking, and it’s really weird and it makes the show feel... Juvenile, and lacking in nuance or depth when it comes to the characters, which is a really big shame, since the characters have a huge amount of potential and exploring the differences between them and their reactions to being in way over their heads would be - I think - the natural place to take their characters? Especially because so far their storyline has been... Not the highlight of the show.

But, as for how semblances and Hunters should impact the world building, there’s a lot to say about that! They don’t explore a lot in RWBY outside of what’s relevant to the mains, leaving the world building feeling flat and like the world itself doesn’t matter much. RWBY often feels more like a video game world than anything else, which I believe @why-i-hate-rwby-now has pointed out, so credit to them for helping me realize it. There’s one large location per continent and a couple small villages where they only really talk to a town leader and village blacksmith, or encounter a fight, relevant NPCs and characters only going to certain locations that can further the plot, characters only mattering through the ways they interact with the protagonists and seemingly getting benched with nothing to do if they aren’t currently plot relevant, health bars that can be monitored over scrolls, every weapon and semblance has a name even if that name isn’t ever mentioned in show or might not really make a lot of sense, frequently encountered enemies of various threat levels who the characters can plow down without remorse because they’re not sentient or don’t have souls... The list goes on. But one of the ways that it feels very video gamey is that the magical powers actually don’t seem to impact the world.

We know people can have auras even if they don’t have semblances (Mercury, Torchwick, Watts,) and we know lots of even grown people don’t have auras (the citizens of Mantle in danger of dying of cold while our aura having mains aren’t,) but also that auras can be unlocked, by well trained seventeen year olds (Pyrrha,) and we also know that semblances can be unlocked from a very young age due to trauma (Ren, Neptune in EU) but some people are born with their semblances (Qrow and notably Blake use language suggesting they were born with their semblances,) and some semblances are passed down or hereditary (the Schnees.) Semblances can be passive (Qrow, Clover, Ironwood in word of author,) and uncontrollable, or active (almost everyone else,) and some semblances have carried personal negative effects like in the case of Qrow who was even named for being bad luck and Robyn who said people were on edge with her because she can sus out the truth via skin contact when she wants to. Also Mercury’s father was able to somehow take away his semblance.

That’s... Pretty much the extent of our knowledge and it doesn’t tell us much. What RWBY does is give each character abilities that make them iconic and different from each other as fighters, with a shield function that wears down slowly to explain how they can take certain hits and keep going while also allowing them to eventually suffer higher damage when that shield wears down. They had a character get this shield ability unlocked to explain the existence and function of it, and featured some characters who didn’t have the super powered abilities like Roman, an early enemy meant to herald in new, harder enemies who are more plot relevant, and Mercury, who makes up for it by having higher speed and functions exclusive to him through his prosthetics. And then they seemingly built a regular world unaffected by these powers. It sounds like a video game. Civilians just don’t have this power or the shield because they act as non-playable characters. In a way, it almost makes sense to me in conception, because when RWBY was originally created, it was high on visual appeal, fight choreography, and character design. The plot elements were small and the character stories seemed to be pretty simple, the only real complication to this being the White Fang plot, which has always been a major blight in RWBY. But one of the reasons why this video-game feel kinda worked at the start of RWBY was because the story and characters weren’t meant to be the focus of the story, so although the world building at the start was definitely lacking, the audience knew that things like auras and semblances were meant to hype up and add interest to the main highlights of the show: Design and fight choreography. At least that’s what I assume. But in volume three, they started to lay the groundwork for more, bigger plots, more focus on the story, the characters journeying to the outside world, undergoing personal arcs, and that’s what V4 and onward started focusing on.

To be clear, I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. I started really liking RWBY for its potential and concepts after getting through the first couple episodes of V1, but I actually really enjoyed quite a bit of V4 and V5 even though the design drastically changed and the fighting had gone way down in quality because I found some of the new focus on characters and the plot to be compelling, interesting, or to also have a lot of potential (though I was let down over and over in regards to pay off later.) However, with the new focus on the characters and storyline rather than design and fight choreography, they really needed to do some legwork on fixing the aura and semblance systems and paying attention to world building and making sure the world felt well put together, nuanced, and real. And I don’t feel like they ever did that.

Why is Pyrrha able to unlock auras? Well, because the writers wanted to explain the concept of auras and used Jaune - the unprepared - to do it. But now, auras are actually an important part of the story - for example, the people of Mantle don’t have unlocked auras, so will die of cold, but it doesn’t affect our heroes because they do have unlocked auras. So who can unlock auras? Is it a learned skill or is it hereditary? If it’s a learned skill, why isn’t everyone eager to learn it especially in places where it’s life or death if they don’t like in Atlas? If it’s a hereditary skill, why aren’t the people who have that skill put on a pedestal and being pressured into using that skill to save civilians in places where having an aura is the difference between life and death? In either case, why aren’t there people who professionally unlock auras? Why aren’t they on the pay roll in Atlas and Mantle? If it’s a skill that all powerful hunters have, why aren’t our heroes (who we’re supposed to think are now more powerful than Atlas’s best) unlocking auras for dying children in Mantle? Why don’t specialists and longtime fighters with Qrow, Winter, Robyn, Maria, or James have this ability if it comes with skill, time, or talent?

Why are semblances unlocking or morphing in times of trauma so rare? Why didn’t the Fall of Beacon unlock loads of new semblances and new semblance abilities? Why didn’t Ruby get a new semblance upgrade when she saw Weiss getting stabbed? Why didn’t Weiss unlock a new semblance ability when her plane was crashing? Why didn’t Pilot Boi unlock his semblance during the same occasion? Why is it that Jaune didn’t get a semblance upgrade when the light bridges were disappearing? Why didn’t Blake get a semblance upgrade when Yang fell into the void? Why did Ren get a semblance upgrade because he was upset while with the Ace Ops after Oscar got captured, but Nora doesn’t get an upgrade while she’s electrocuting herself? If semblances sometimes unlock in times of truama, why is it that some characters like Oscar and Torchwick and Jaune pre-V5 who we know have encountered lots of trauma just still don’t get semblances? If you can train your semblance into upgrading, why is it that we don’t see long time hunters and fighters unlock more semblance abilities, like Qrow, Winter, Robyn, Maria, or James? It just doesn’t make any sense! And I get that stories always have things happening just because the writers want it, but in RWBY, the hand of the creator is so obvious that it’s ridiculous.

And then there are other questions. Do people avoid bad labor practices out of fear of causing a semblance awakening? Well, from what we see of the SDC, the answer is no. So why not? Why weren’t they worried about an uprising? Work rights becomes a lot trickier when you have to add in tons of qualifiers. Maybe it’s illegal to use a semblance at work, but the SDC also has a history of child workers like Adam who can’t always control it (like Neptune couldn’t control his,) so are there laws protecting child laborers? Perhaps not, since you know, they were already child laborers, so were already suffering unchecked. Are there laws forbidding the use of semblances in government buildings, non-combat driven schools, or parks and libraries? And meanwhile, how would any of this apply to people with a passive semblance? How do you figure out that someone has a passive semblance? How do people know if they’re born with a semblance? Are there people that spend their whole lives having semblances that never get discovered? Do people have semblance detection... Semblances, that they get paid to use or do so out of charity? Did the Schnees rise to power due to their powerful and hereditary semblance, perhaps? Are people discriminated against if they don’t have semblances or pressured to become Hunters if they discover they do have semblances? Shouldn’t civilians in Mantle and Atlas be joining combat schools in droves in the hopes of unlocking an aura so they can better survive? And shouldn’t there be discrimination against people with certain semblances? Outside of Robyn saying she’s personally experienced mistrust, and Qrow’s self-hatred, we don’t see any real prejudice against certain semblance types, or for that matter, any praise or extra significance pointed to certain other semblance types. It would go a long ways towards world building if there were things like people having to divulge their semblance or lack thereof before entering Beacon, or for people to have to register a semblance evolution, or for Emerald to have lied about her semblance because “everyone knows illusion semblances automatically draw suspicion,” or for Qrow to comment that he’d never seen Clover in a Vytal Tournament, only for Clover to say his semblance was deemed ‘cheating’ back when he was in school so he hadn’t qualified. And on the flip side, you could have things like semblances being judged as better and more powerful based on how useful it might be, Pyrrha keeping her semblance on the DL because it’ll just bring more unwanted admiration on her, Sun keeping his own semblance on the DL too because it always make people put a lot of expectations on him, while Neptune’s semblance leaks and he deals with people treating him like he’s selfish and cruel for not wanting to use his own “gift of a semblance.” And people like Jaune could be bullied extra because he doesn’t have his semblance yet, and people in the stands at the Vytal Tournament could be chatting about “when are they gonna pull out their semblances?” and get annoyed and pouty when people don’t. To be fair, we do get things like Mercury’s father having declared his semblance a crutch, but... Still. why isn’t there more of this?

And we see the need for Hunter protection in villages like Kuroyuri and the village that Team RNJR stops to help on the way to Mistral. Small villages outside of the four kingdoms fall to Grimm, or are in danger of falling to Grimm. Ships get attacked by large and dangerous Grimm, we see (corrupt) Hunters on the train to Argus, accompanying for safety, and we see that with a rise of Grimm activity in Mantle, Hunters are dispatched to help kids travel to school. In a world like RWBY, fighting is essential for survival outside of the Kingdoms, and became very essential in the kingdoms as well once schools started going down. You’d assume there should be Hunters accompanying everyone traveling outside of the Kingdoms, resident Hunters living in villages outside the Kingdoms as their on-hand protectors (and more than one Hunters seems to be needed.) Hunters also could be extra protection for anything that’s definitely going to increase negativity, like hiring Hunters to bodyguard funerals seems like something that could be normal in the world of Remnant, and for visiting graveyards (we see Ruby get attacked by tons of Grimm when she visited Summer’s grave in the red trailer.) On top of that, celebrities and rich people hiring Hunters seems like it’d become pretty common. But all that we see outside of Dee and Dudley are traveling Hunters stopping to help people out of the goodness of their heart while they go place to place, and Kingdom Hunters who are assigned to things like border control, clearing out Grimm near or in the Kingdoms, and things like that. What we see is a Kingdom-centered morality complex our protagonists are one hundred percent invested in, Hunters are Kingdom driven and anything outside of that is a kindness, a job they can take or leave in passing. And on top of that, it seems like there aren’t a lot of people in the Hunter profession, and I feel like there should definitely be more. There are people like Jaune who didn’t make the cut but accepted that, we can only assume that there are drop outs too, so like... How many kids are there actually in a year at Beacon? I mean, look at where the Relics were found in the forest during initiation at Beacon.

This gives us a rough idea of how many people are in each year at Beacon. Assuming everyone graduates school and there’s no drop outs and no deaths, that’s a graduating class of twenty. That’s a very small number, comparatively. The job of a Hunter is dangerous. We know of Hunters that died (Summer, Pyrrha, Amber.) We know a lot of Hunters that have other jobs that take a lot of their time (Glynda, Ozpin, Robyn,) and lots of people who quit being Hunters too (Maria, Tai, Raven,) and Hunters who aren’t always on the field like Qrow who was a teacher for a stretch and acted as Ozpin’s spy, the Ace Ops who became part of Ironwood’s inner circle and therefore had a bigger picture, and even all of Team RWBYJNR, who got their Hunter licenses but are also more concerned with bigger picture stuff (if you don’t believe me just look at volume eight where JRY stopped defending Mantle to go rescue Oscar, and Team RWBN + Penny, who were involved in big picture stuff like launching Amity and then saving Penny the Maiden/their friend.) So out of a class of twenty, how many of them are even staying on the field? For a show pushing the narrative that Hunters are the ultimate saviors who are the only true good defense for the world, that condemns even the notion of an army... Like they villainized sending Team FNKI onto the battlefield while also treating it like proof of Ironwood’s evil when he didn’t want to stay and fight when Team RWBY said to, and also made Ironwood’s desire to move into having a robotic army to get soldiers off of the battlefield part of his... Over reliance on machinery, which is full on suspicious considering their ableism towards Ironwood and the fact that he literally has to rely on machinery, but that’s a topic for a different post and this one is already so long. But yeah, my point is that we’re meant to see the army as bad. So if we’re meant to see Hunters as the only true and pure form of defense (which is already off because we know it’s corrupted,) there ought to be way more people in the Hunter field.

As for the schools, we only know of a couple of schools that exist outside of RWBY as combat schools that seem to act as basic training before people go to Beacon. We know of Signal, the school Ruby and Yang went to that Qrow was a teacher at for awhile (I have lots of teacher Qrow headcanons, but sadly Qrow being a teacher wasn’t very well explored,) and we also know of Sanctum in Mistral and (in the EU) Oscuro in Vacuo, presumably one of these existing in Atlas as well. I personally headcanon that there are a lot of these smaller combat schools littering the whole of Remnant (but then again, I also headcanon that the Kingdoms of Remnant are bigger than just one very large city, lol) and that a lot of people attend these schools even if they don’t go on to join one of the Hunter Academies, but this isn’t necessarily supported by canon, I think. But as for other schools...I think it’s fair to assume that there are at least elementary schools, since everyone can read, write, and presumably do basic math, and what we do know is that Ilia went to a prep school in Atlas (which was info dropped in Blake’s pre-V5 trailer, not even stated in the show proper,) so we can probably safely say that people who don’t go to the Huntsman academies go to some form of high school, but you’re right that we don’t see this actually in action. I personally always headcanon that Whitley had a tutor, since Jacques wanted to avoid too much outside influence.

I am so sorry that this response got so away from me and I myself got into so many rabbit holes as well. XD I just have a lot to say about the world building in RWBY (or sometimes lack thereof.) Although I admit that I’m not as into or as good at analyzing as blogs like why-i-hate-rwby-now, but yeah, this is... A very long post. Sorry!

#rwde #anti rwby #rwby bashing #rwby hate #this post includes some #pro ironwood #pro james ironwood #also it's not like I've done a lot of extensive research so please be kind #if I missed something #IW antis please leave me alone

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murasaki-murasame · 3 years ago

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Thoughts on Higurashi Sotsu Ep14

Do you ever wanna just watch two little girls who are actually 100+ year old witches beat the absolute SHIT out of each other for 20 minutes straight? :)

Anyway, thoughts under the cut. Plus Umineko spoilers.

Part of this might just be because I’ve been high on painkillers for a few weeks now [long story short, I’ve got a lot of dental work that needs done], but this is perhaps the most entertaining episode of anime I’ve seen all year, lol. Not even in a jokey ironic ‘so bad it’s good’ way.

I feel like this is going to be the most polarizing episode of this whole show, because for better or worse it really crosses the line between Higurashi and Umineko, so whether or not you’re a fan of that whole trajectory the story’s been taking will really change how you feel about this.

Though to be honest I think on one level people are ignoring how Higurashi has always had a lot of these things in it. For one thing, the concept of the fragment space and ‘game boards’ has been a thing since Minagoroshi, and we’ve always had stuff like Hanyuu being a literal god who can manifest in the real world, and the existence of the mythical sword was hinted at in Matsuribayashi and then expanded upon in Kotohogushi. This episode also directly referenced the over the top rooftop fight scene from Tsumihoroboshi, which was just the start of Higurashi having lots of fun and silly fight scenes, like the fights between the club members and the military in Matsuribayashi, or the whole fighting game spin-off arc thing. Even in the VN there was an intentional shift from horror and mystery to high-octane fight scenes fueled by the power of friendship and miracles.

Obviously on the other hand there’s definite Umineko stuff going on here, but in general this feels like a pretty natural progression for this series to take.

Anyway, this was absolutely worth the wait, and it goes a long way toward making up for how bad the pacing in Sotsu has been thus far, lol. I still think they could have cut this down by at least two or three episodes, but still. As a climax to this whole conflict between Rika and Satoko, it was really cool.

Sort of like how Nekodamashi had it’s rollercoaster death montage, I really loved how this whole episode transitioned between fragments in increasingly seamless and surreal ways. The use of transition cuts between scenes was honestly really cool, and made it way more dynamic and engaging than it otherwise would have been to basically have an entire episode spent on one fight scene.

I think a lot of people are hung up on the exact logistics of how the fragment-hopping worked in this episode, but I don’t really think you should read into it too much. It basically operated on dream logic and heightened emotions. In the first few fragments Satoko might have waited a bit before attacking Rika, but it very quickly became one continuous sequence of events for all intents and purposes, with how their back and forth dialogue and their exact movements transitioned from one fragment to the next.

Basically it ended up becoming a fight between voyager witches who have become totally divorced from reality and just hop from one fragment to the next whenever they please.

I was wondering how they’d follow up on the gun scene, since it created this stalemate where they both know what’s going on and thus have no reason to surrender, but I really like how they decided to take this. I know a lot of people have been wanting more of a drawn out battle of wits between them, but the whole concept of them just getting into an endless fight with each other now that everything’s out in the open is extremely entertaining to watch.

It does make me even more convinced that it was a bad idea to have Nekodamashi happen in Gou, though. The immediate resolution to the cliffhanger was more anti-climactic than most people would have wanted after so much time spent leading back up to it, and the whole tone and pacing of Nekodamashi would have flowed very seamlessly into this. It also would have fixed the issue of the last two episodes being almost entirely recaps if this was instead the first time that we saw the Nekodamashi loops.

Anyway, there’s been a lot of debate about whether or not we might get a third season or some other kind of continuation to this, and I think this episode makes me way more convinced that it’s actually just going to end here, whether people like it or not. I think I’ve already said that there’s literally nothing the story needs to do anymore except have Rika and Satoko hash things out with each other, and that’s exactly what they’re focusing on now. Maybe they could spend time recapping Satokowashi, but that’d be extremely pointless. And at this point it’s pretty clear that one way or another the other club members just aren’t going to be very important to this story. There’s a bit of a loose end with their teenage selves showing up in the OP with new outfits, but that might be as simple as an epilogue scene set back in the Matsuribayashi fragment or something, and them looking ominous might be a red herring.

Also, in a more meta sense, there’s certain stuff the staff are doing and saying that make this seem like the finale of the whole series, like how in a couple months they’re going to release a congratulatory book compiling all the official artwork and interviews for Gou/Sotsu, or how they recently released a compilation CD of all of Ayane’s Higurashi-related songs, or how [I think] the artist for the Gou manga said on Twitter that the new chapter that just came out will be the last one to come out while the anime’s airing. We’re also getting two new Higurashi manga arcs starting soon, along with the reveal that the Gou manga will diverge from the anime and go into a new answer arc called Higurashi Jun.

So in general it just comes across like everything’s being wrapped up with Sotsu. I can see why people would be disappointed if we don’t get more, but with how the story’s been going, there’s just not really much material left to work with. Also, we know from TV listings that there at least won’t be a direct continuation in the next season, so if we get anything more it wouldn’t happen until January at earliest, and at this point I’d rather things just wrap up here instead of having to wait even longer to get the actual ending, lol.

I guess we won’t know how things will end until next week, but we really seem to be barrelling headfirst into this being Bern and Lambda’s origin story. Which has been pretty obvious for ages now, but this episode in particular really cements it. This whole fight is really similar to the one they have in Episode 8, and you can see throughout the episode how they’re embracing their looper/witch personas and becoming divorced from reality. You can even see the foundation for how Bern and Lambda have a twisted love for each other based on the fact that they’re basically the only people who can actually understand each other, and they’re so detached from reality that the violence between them is more like a sign of affection.

I feel like this is also going to end up tying into the miracle that Hanyuu is waiting for. At the moment we’re in a situation where it seems like they’re stuck in an infinite stalemate because they’re in a fight where neither of them wants to lose, but neither of them wants to win if it means permanently killing the other. So it seems like there might not really be any way out of this, but if they’re able to truly forgive each other and embrace their identities as witches, then they can basically step away from this entire conflict and just enjoy being with each other. It seems impossible for this to end with either of them ‘winning’ and things going back to how they used to be, so it could certainly be called a miracle if they both decide that they’re OK with that, and they take a third option where they can both be happy in a way that neither of them would have predicted at first.

This could also lead to a situation where Rika is able to ascend to a higher level by letting go of her human side once and for all, which could give her the ability to appear in the part of the fragment space where Eua and Hanyuu are, so she can save Hanyuu from getting killed by Eua’s spear.

And on that note, the whole bit with Hanyuu at the end actually reminds me a lot of the idea of logic errors in Umineko. I think people kinda over-use that term when it comes to stuff in this series where it doesn’t really fit, but that scene was actually extremely similar to the whole set-up where Battler got stuck in a locked room that he couldn’t come up with an answer to get out of, and he had to wait for the ‘miracle’ of Beatrice awakening so that Kanon could arrive and save him. Hanyuu is in a position where she’s already committed to flying straight at Eua, but the spear is right in front of her face and about to kill her once time starts again, and she has to wait for a ‘miracle’ to happen to change her fate. Which is also a lot like how in Matsuribayashi she almost got shot by Takano, but a miracle happened and Rika was able to divert the bullet. So it’d make a lot of sense in general if in the next episode we see Rika show up there and save Hanyuu.

And considering how Featherine acts in Umineko, I could honestly see Eua sticking to her word and rewarding Hanyuu if a miracle like that actually happens and saves her. So even if it’s anti-climactic, this might end with Eua accepting her loss and backing off, and maybe not even doing anything to punish Satoko for losing in her fight against Rika. Which is part of why I think the whole lingering threat of the ‘world without Rika’ might not even lead to anything and might just be a vague threat towards Satoko that never materializes.

Other than that, I think the last episode will probably also involve us going back to Matsuribayashi and seeing what sort of ending Rika and Satoko’s ‘human selves’ get once their ‘witch selves’ leave them behind once and for all. Which will probably just be along the lines of Rika going to the Saiguden to check up on Satoko, and them heading over to the cafe where the other club members [and probably Satoshi as well] are waiting for them, and it’ll just end on the note of them presumably working things out between each other peacefully.

Along those same lines, I think that the whole story of Gou/Sotsu will also get somewhat recontextualized as being a sort of deranged power fantasy that Satoko came up with in her head while visiting the Saiguden. I don’t think that’d be intended to devalue anything that happened here, but it’d be like how Umineko presents enough narrative framework for a non-magical interpretation of everything, while at the same time still acknowledging the value of the magical interpretation.

While I remember, I’m curious to see how the manga version turns out, since it’s clearly diverging a fair bit from the anime. It might just be an alternate take on the story concept, but at this point I think it might be presented as an ‘earlier loop’ of Gou/Sotsu, with how it’s been implied that Eua and Satoko have met before without Satoko remembering it. So maybe this whole series of events has repeated over and over again, presumably with Satoko ‘losing’ each time so things get reset, and Gou/Sotsu is the final iteration of that loop where they’re finally able to achieve a miracle.

I feel like the manga version is probably gonna end up being closer to what people wanted out of Sotsu, since it seems to be going in the direction of Rika knowing everything without Satoko knowing that, so they can have more of a drawn out conflict between each other as Rika tries to figure out how to win. Which is one way to take the story, but I still like how the anime ended up doing it, even if it could have been paced a lot better. I also think that the manga isn’t exactly a straight improvement over the anime anyway. There’s stuff it does well, but there’s stuff it doesn’t do well, like how the whole Nekodamashi arc feels extremely weird in the context of Rika not remembering her deaths [or at least not being given a clear reason for why she can suddenly remember them], her not deciding to go for five more loops before killing herself, and Satoko apparently not having any idea about Rika remembering her deaths, which seems to defeat the point of Nekodamashi’s rapid-fire death loops.

Either way I’m curious to see how Jun goes. I assume that we’ll still get some version of Satokowashi out of it, but I think that unlike with Sotsu they’ll spend much less time on answering the damashi arcs, and I also think at this point that the answers to them won’t be exactly the same as they were in the anime either.

Also, we recently found out that two entirely new Higurashi manga arcs will start in November, called Oniokoshi and Hoshiwatashi, which seem to be collectively referred to as Higurashi Rei, using the kanji from ‘the Reiwa era’, since it seems like the idea of these new arcs is that they take place in the Reiwa era. Oniokoshi seems to be about Keiichi’s son and a new mysterious character, while Hoshiwatashi seems to be about two entirely new characters, so I’m really curious to see how their stories pan out. I’m particularly excited about Oniokoshi since it’s being drawn by Natsumi Kei, who’s basically the primary artist for the Umineko manga, so that kinda makes me biased towards it, lol. And even though there’s basically nothing to go off of except for one preview image, it looks like it might go in a bit of a gay direction, which would be really neat. But we’ll see how it goes.

So yeah, I guess at this point with where things are going I’m gonna be really disappointed if we don’t get something like an Umineko remake after this, lol. It wouldn’t be very satisfying if it just ends on the note of ‘go and read the Umineko VN’ or something.

#murasaki rambles #higurashi #higurashi sotsu

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brideofedoras · 4 years ago

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Under Covers, pt 2

Rating: 18+

Warnings: mentions of masturbation, arousal and sex dreams

Word count: 2900+

Under Covers

Thank you all for the lovely responses to Under Covers, I know that surprise twist was evil of me (but I don’t regret it, it just felt right!). I received a few requests for a part two, and a suggestion for it to be Cooper’s POV.

So... here is Uncer Covers, as told by Cooper...

And, because I’m just as horny for William Cooper, there will be a part three! Mwuah! Love all of ya!

@urban-trek-thru-middle-earth @emily-strange @nora-hewlett @to-boldly-nope @pandaqueen7799 @bakerstreethound @portals-to-a-new-world @below-average-fangirl @writerdee1701 @ladyreapermc

Cooper reached for the travel mug in the console… but his fingers curled around nothing. A quick glance away from the early morning traffic showed an empty cup holder. “Well, that’s just typical,” he snarled grumpily.

His morning was off to a fan-fucking-tastic start, with a burnt Hot Pocket, his much-needed second cup of coffee forgotten on his desk at the office, and a restless night filled with some incredibly hot dreams of the only person he could one-hundred percent trust at work.

Ember.

She was a blessing, whether she knew it or not. Quiet, intelligent, efficient, with an uncanny ability to anticipate his needs. Beautiful. Sexy. A big flirt who had done a lot for his ego and self-esteem these past few months, and making him remember he was still a red-blooded man.

Last night’s solo sex on the back deck with a cigar and bourbon, fantasizing about having her on the glider swing or spread out on the patio table… bent over the deck railing…

“Down, dammit,” he glared down at his crotch when he felt that familiar stir.

Evidently that quick wank in the shower earlier hadn’t helped.

God, he hated waking up horny.

It was going to be a dreadfully, painfully, long weekend, he thought as he signalled to pull into the parking lot for Ember’s apartment building.

When the file detailing the op landed on his desk he had immediately known he would assign Ember as his partner. She did not have a lot of field experience, and had zero undercover experience, but she was a quick learner and self-sufficient. He’d seen her wipe the floor during hand-to-hand combat training under Kordesky (he was supposed to be teaching that course, but at the time he’d been recovering from busted ribs from an op gone wrong). Men three times her size hadn’t stood a chance.

It had both terrified him and turned him on.

But an entire weekend, maybe a tad longer, pretending to be a couple on a romantic getaway to nail a bad guy, with her…

Fuck, I’m screwed.

With a frustrated sigh he plucked his phone from the holder on the dash (strictly for GPS reasons) and pulled up the last text thread.

I’m outside.

His hazel eyes flickered to the old limestone building built in the ‘30s and remodeled, what, twenty years ago, into an apartment complex, wondering which part of the structure her apartment was in.

His phone chirped in his hand.

Be down in a minute.

He groaned, his eyes dropping to his zipper once more. I won’t.

If he survived the weekend, it would be a miracle.

He started to put the phone back on the clip when he realized he needed to tell her he wasn’t in his SUV.

Black Mercedes sedan.

Her response popped up a second later. No Porsche?

He chuckled. “No, no Porsche,” he mused out loud. He’d thought about it, the sweet little Roadster the CIA had confiscated a while back. Gorgeous car… but not ideal for a six hour drive to North Carolina.

Didn’t want to look like a man going through a midlife crisis, he texted back.

A classic sports car and a sexy young woman would most definitely make him look like he was. Well… so would the Mercedes, but it drove like a dream and wouldn’t kill his back or ass for the long trip.

You’re too young for a midlife crisis.

“Oh, you’re flirting, Sweetheart,” he groaned. He shook his head to clear it before pressing his hand hard against his crotch. “Behave, dammit, stay down.”

He had no idea when he’d find the opportunity to handle that particular issue. The little bungalow on the beach they’d be calling home for the next few days only had one bedroom. Light, airy, lots of windows and a door opening out onto a veranda, a king size bed--

He pulled himself from his thoughts when he saw Ember step out of the building.

“Fuck.”

God damn was he screwed.

Ember was dressed in a snug, scoop neck tank top and cutoff shorts that showed off her long legs.

Legs he’d dreamed of wrapped around his hips. Draped over his shoulders. Hooked over his elbows.

“Now is not the time to rehash your favorite fantasies, William,” he scolded himself as he climbed out of the car. He took the opportunity to adjust himself and straighten his plaid shirt to try to conceal the ridge in his jeans before he walked around to the trunk to open it.

Did she nearly trip over her own feet?

He kept that question to himself as he took her suitcase from her and stowed it next to his. He carefully shut the lid before turning his attention on Ember.

“Get in the car, Kid.”

She immediately bristled before storming off.

Oh shit, he sighed heavily as he watched her yank open the passenger door. He quickly rounded the car to climb into the driver’s seat. “Easy there, Tiger,” he looked over at her. “You okay?”

She shut the door and buckled up before taking in a deep breath.

Yeah, Cooper, you hit the wrong damn button by accident, he realized. Better salvage this and fast!

“Yeah. Sleepless night.” Her smile was faker than the phony IDs his buddy had made for them in high school.

Yup, wrong button.

He frowned in sympathy. “Worried about the op?” He was giving her a bullshit excuse for her temper flareup and he knew it, but he also knew Ember would not admit him calling her “kid” had upset her.

Her smile fell, allowing him to see how tired she was. “You could say that.”

“You’ve got the easy job,” he reminded her as he started the car. “Look pretty, flirt, be coy.”

Inwardly he flinched. Wow, Cooper. That was smooth.

“You call that easy?” The blush staining her cheeks was downright adorable. “I can’t flirt my way out of a paper bag if I tried!”

He grinned. Either she’s in denial about flirting or she’s clueless that she’s a natural.

“‘Your tie brings out the gold in your eyes, Boss’ ring a bell? Or ‘You’ve got a bit of powdered sugar on your cheek’?”

God, he could still feel her hand cupping his jaw and her thumb brushing over his cheekbone.

Her blush grew brighter. “A compliment and a gentle warning before a meeting are hardly flirting!”

“You were flirting,” he grinned even more. “And the plate of extra cookies left over from your Christmas dinner?”

“Figured your kids would like some cookies, and I had more than enough left over!”

Uh-huh. A whole plate piled high with monster cookies, his favorite fucking kind?

“That’s what break rooms are for,” he couldn't help but chuckle. “Pretty sure Sanderson would ask you to marry him if you bring baked goods in.”

Please forgive me.

Ember shuddered and turned a little green. “Pretty sure he lives in his parents’ basement.”

“Yeah, he has that personality,” he slowed for a stoplight. “Not your type, then?”

Please say no. You deserve so much better than him. Or me.

“Have you ever heard me flirt with him?”

He busted out laughing at her sassy rebuttal. There’s my girl, he struggled to get the mirth under control so he could speak again. “No, no, I haven’t,” he shot her a look. “You can give Wilkes a run for her money in the ice queen department when you’re dealing with him.”

She finally smiled. “I hope you’re giving me a compliment and not calling me a frigid bitch,” her own voice was laced with a touch of humor.

“She’s the frigid bitch and she wears that badge with pride,” he pointed out. “She made Sanderson cry a couple of times. You’re at least polite.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t be,” she mused. “And I don’t flirt.”

Oh, Honey.

“‘You’re too young for a midlife crisis’?” He struggled to keep another grin at bay.

“Not flirting!” She twisted away from him.

But not before he glimpsed the splotching blush dotting her chest.

His mind went south before he could stop it. Does she blush like that after an orgasm?

God dammit.

“What is it, then?” He mentally shook himself to get his mind back on the conversation. He winced when her head thumped against the window.

“The truth. Thirty-five is still young,” she sighed. “Age is only a number. What matters is how you feel inside. Take Grandpa-- er, Henry, for example. He’s eighty-five, still working downstairs, running circles around the younger desk jockeys.”

“I need to find out what his secret is,” he joked. Sometimes he needed more energy to make it through the day.

“No!” Her voice squeaked. “You don’t want to do that!”

His jaw dropped as he looked at her. “Wait, he really has a secret? What is it?” He needed to know.

She blushed again. “Nope,” she shook her head as if she were trying to shake off an unpleasant thought. “It was bad enough overhearing it. I’m not telling you.”

Oh.

Must’ve been something dirty if she was blushing like that.

“H-how long of a drive is it again?”

Did her voice just crack?

“Six hours if the traffic isn’t bad,” he answered.

“Straight through, no stops?”

He chuckled. “I’ll make a couple of stops, I’m not a monster. You have breakfast yet?” He glanced over to see her shake her head.

“There’s a coffee shop up ahead,” she pointed out. “They have donuts and breakfast sandwiches.”

His stomach grumbled quietly. “Any recommendations?”

“The omelette sandwiches are to die for,” she paused to cover her yawn. “They come with sausage and cheese. You’ve already had their donuts.”

His mind tripped back to the massive powdered sugar donut that had led to her soft touch that fateful afternoon. His unintentional groan at that memory bordered on sinful. “Might have to order a dozen for this weekend.”

“Better make it two dozen. I’m not crawling out of bed before ten a.m. this weekend.”

No, down, he stubbornly told himself off at the images popping into his head. “You’ve already claimed the bed, huh?” He inwardly grimaced at the husky and teasing tone in his voice. Who’s flirting now, Cooper?

“Figured it was a given since I’m a woman and you seem like the kind of guy who would take the couch.”

She had his number. Damn, she really is good. “Sweetheart, my back can’t take sleeping on couches even for a little catnap anymore,” he signaled to turn into the lot for the coffee shop.

Liar, he ratted on himself. He’d spent too many nights on the couch before Michelle asked for a divorce when she finally decided she couldn’t take being a CIA agent’s wife anymore. If it weren’t for his kids he would not have gotten the couch for his new place.

“The bed’s a king, isn’t it? We could share it. I promise to be on my best behavior.”

He coughed to cover a strangled groan. Share a bed with Ember? All weekend?

Fuck.

“What?” She asked.

“You’re flirting again.”

“No, I wasn’t,” she frowned at him. “My brain loses its filter when I’m running on very little sleep.”

“Always an excuse,” he rolled his window down. “What kind of coffee?”

“Just ask for the Emberleigh special, they’ll know.”

Cooper was pretty sure the barista, Tomer, was eye-fucking him. Not the first time that had ever happened, but it sure as hell was the first time a guy was so bold about it. And the not-so-subtle looks he was giving Ember were poorly hidden.

Oh, yes, I’m gonna be the topic of conversation the next time she stops in, he chuckled to himself. It was both amusing and flattering.

By the time they hit the freeway his two breakfast sandwiches were demolished and she was barely finished with hers. He shifted to get comfortable. Long trips by car were never fun, the miles monotonous and the seat unforgiving.

Flying had not been an option. The department could not justify using the jet for a weekend op, which left commercial flights. He personally hated that option. Checking weapons and other tools of the trade through security was a headache he did not want to deal with. It was easier to drive.

“Should we go over the parameters again?”

It never hurt to go over plans a few times, and with this being Ember’s first undercover op he wanted her prepared.

The breathy “no” from her caught him off guard.

He shot her a quick glance. “Seat reclines if you want to take a quick nap,” he swallowed the groan at the mental images of her stretched out on her back in that leather seat, him leaning over her… He shifted in his seat when his jeans grew a little tight again. “If you want to turn the radio on, go for it,” he cleared his throat (and his head). “I listen to just about anything. Except for the new crap.”

“Yeah, I can’t listen to that stuff, either.”

Thank god.

“I can Bluetooth my phone if that’s okay?” She asked softly.

“Go for it,” he nodded.

When the opening guitar licks for one of his favorite songs began to play he grinned.

God, if this song wasn’t the ultimate euphemism for sex. And the tempo. Jesus Christ.

And the fact that Ember had the Scorpions on whatever playlist she had? His crush on her grew that much more.

It reminded him of his high school days, his first car, T-tops off and cruising the strip rocking out to AC/DC, pretty girl in the passenger seat.

Sometimes he missed those days, not having any responsibilities other than keeping his grades up for football.

He drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel and sang along off-key. He found himself really getting into the music and tried to tone it down, but after catching Ember trying not to stare he decided to put his all into it.

And all bets were off when his favorite Def Leppard song came on.

They played random road trip games when he wasn’t rocking out. Counting state license plates. Slug bug (or punch buggie as his little Katie loved to holler, especially when she saw the blue ones). Billboard alphabet. Count the road kill (gruesome but it worked). I spy.

When she yawned for the tenth time in about as many minutes he realized why she was playing the games. She was trying to stay awake despite repeated suggestions to recline the seat back and take a nap. He even threatened to sing her to sleep.

She stubbornly insisted she needed to stay awake to help him watch traffic.

Somewhere along the way she did fall asleep. He smiled to himself when she sighed in her sleep and shifted to get comfortable in her seat. As carefully as he could he reached over to slip her sunglasses off and laid them on the dash.

No way was he waking her up any time soon. She needed to rest up.

He was humming along to “In The Air Tonight” and miming the drum solo above the steering wheel (it was a federal offense to not perform the drum solo) when a soft whine came from the passenger seat. He quickly glanced over at the distressed sound. “You okay over there?” He pressed the button on the steering wheel to turn the volume down even more for the radio.

She shifted in her seat, head lolling toward him before a quiet snore reached his ears. He chuckled and shook his head before he turned back to watch the road. They were ten minutes from the nearest fast food restaurant and despite still being full from breakfast he needed to go to the bathroom and stretch his legs. He just didn’t have the heart to wake Ember up quite yet.

A few minutes later she drew in a deep breath and moaned.

That moan sounded suspiciously like his last name.

His grip on the steering wheel tightened.

Ember shifted and moaned again. “We… shouldn’t…”

He felt his cock begin to stir at the soft little sounds coming from her. Sounds he had fantasized about more than once.

“Oh… god…” she squirmed.

Fuck, his jeans were uncomfortably tight. Cooper flipped the turn signal and checked his mirrors before exiting the freeway.

Her moans and gasps were more frequent now, with his name whined out a few times. He drew in a shaky breath, that last guttural moan damn near making him cum right there.

It would be cruel to wake her up, he thought as he pulled into McDonald’s parking lot. But he could not sit in the car and listen to her have a sex dream about him.

“Oh… god… Cooper…”

The way she was panting.

The way his cock was throbbing dangerously.

He hated himself, for having no choice but to listen to her pretty little sex dream sounds and for waking her up before she could…

No. Do. Not. Think. About. It.

“Ember,” he gently squeezed her shoulder before he chickened out. “Wake up, Sleepyhead,” he murmured gruffly when she blinked her eyes open. “We’re stopping for lunch.”

She looked disoriented, and he kicked himself for interrupting that dream.

He pulled away, breaking contact before his body could overrule his brain and pounce on her. “I’m surprised you fell asleep with my singing. Never worked on my kids when they were little.”

When she remained quiet he looked over. “No comment?”

“No!” Damn, that blush was beautiful on her. “N-no, I… I guess a smooth car ride combined with a sleepless night put me to sleep.”

“Yeah, that’ll do it,” he agreed as he pocketed the keys. “Come on, I’ll buy you lunch.”

#william cooper #william cooper x ofc #red #sex dreams

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ncisladaily · 4 years ago

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This Sunday will be twice as nice for fans of CBS’ NCIS: Los Angeles, which is serving up not one but two fresh episodes, beginning at 9:30/8:3oc.

In the second hour, titled “Raising The Dead,” a prison break lets loose a man with designs on killing the President of the United States, so Special Agent Kensi Blye (played by Daniela Ruah) is forced to grill the other, captured escapee, David Kessler, for a possible lead. Thing is, Kessler is a bit of a Kensi Blye “superfan” — and a very twisted one at that — seeing as she was responsible for his prison stint to begin with.

TVLine spoke with Ruah about the intense face-off ahead, acting opposite NCIS: LA writer Frank Military, and her newly announced directorial debut.

TVLINE | What was your reaction when you heard Kensi would be getting her own Silence of the Lambs moment? You know, I don’t know that I even made that connection at first. First of all, when I read the script, I thought, “They’re going to have to hire a really strong actor to play David Kessler,” because the character’s so beautifully written — and it wasn’t until I walked into hair-and-makeup and saw Frank Military, who is the writer of the episode, walk in as well. I was like, “Oh, hey. What are you doing here so early?” He was like, “I’m playing David Kessler,” and it blew my mind.

I was so happy and excited, because who better to play to play this dark, twisted character than the guy that thought him up? Frank was an actor 20 years ago before he became the incredible writer that he is, so to be able to go back to those chops…. It’s interesting because now that he’s a father, I think age gives us a certain gravitas, a certain weight to certain types of storytelling. So he was just incredible, and I was honored, really. That’s the word — I was honored to work with him in this capacity.

TVLINE | How would you describe Kensi’s strategy when she is first sent in to talk to Kessler? You talked about Clarice in Silence of the Lambs, but I think there’s a big difference ��— and when I explain this, you’ll see why. The difference between them is that Kensi is not green in her experience in dealing with sick minds, right? Clarice was in kind of a discovery mode, and it was almost like a weird “love story” between those two, and that’s not what’s happening here at all. Kensi is an experienced agent. She doesn’t have a young mind that is easily manipulated. Much to the contrary, she’s very aware of this man. She’s the one who put him in jail for 30 years, and it was the case that got her into the Office of Special Projects, it was the case that got Hetty’s attention. So, she knows exactly what she’s doing when she’s going in there, and she knows exactly what kind of language he’s going to use, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t crack. When he starts talking about her inability to have children, and how he can tell her “hips haven’t cracked” yet, it’s still sick. It’s still shocking because she obviously is a fundamentally good person fighting for good in everything she does. He definitely manages to create some cracks in her, but that’s so fascinating to me, to watch this journey between them. And then the end is a complete twist.

TVLINE | When I watch a scene like this, I often wonder if there is a moment before you start filming where Frank “pre-apologizes” for all the really awful things he’s about to say? I don’t know how it would work if it were a movie or anything, but not here. I mean, Frank and I are good friends outside of the show. We are couples that go out to dinner together. The incredible thing about Frank is that he writes the darkest of episodes that we have. I can’t remember what season it was, but the young girls were being buried alive, and the guys that were cut up and stitched back together in different body parts. That’s all Frank. So, that’s a pretty dark place to go when you’re writing an episode, and Frank Military in real life is the complete and absolute opposite of that. He is a ray of sunshine! And he is the most loving, calm, wonderful husband and father. It’s really fascinating to see where he’s able to go in spite of his real personality. He once told me that the darker you go, the more the light shines at the end of it, and that just made so much sense to me. He’s essentially super dark so that he can then brighten up.

TVLINE | While all this is going on between Kensi and Kessler, she’s also got some drama going on at home with Deeks. They’ve got financial issues and job concerns to deal with…. Exactly. Kensi and Deeks are looking to buy a house, and they’re wanting to have children, and all that obviously requires some sort of financial planning. But now, all of a sudden with all the police reform, Deeks’ LAPD liaison job is in jeopardy. There’s definitely a lot weighing in on their personal lives, which always seems to ebb and flow. Like, last season Kensi got really paranoid and freaked out about the fact that she wasn’t getting pregnant after three months of trying. But anybody who’s had children knows that it probably takes a lot longer than that. And yet this season, we see her sort of as a ray of sunlight, telling Deeks, “It’s going to be OK. We’re going to figure it out. We’re going to have a baby, and we’re going to get a house.” It’s interesting how he was driving the positivity last season, and so far this season Kensi’s the one who’s turned the page and is like, “This is going to happen for us.”

TVLINE | Speaking of Kensi and Deeks, I was curious: With COVID and everything, is your husband [costar Eric Christian Olsen’s brother, David Paul Olsen] “on standby” to race to the set and do an intimate scene if needed? [Laughs] You know, just like the rest of the season has been adapted to accommodate the pandemic — you’ll notice that you don’t have the whole cast in the OPS Center like you used to, and there are a lot of phone calls — Eric and I are very conservative quarantiners, especially because he has a newborn at home.

TVLINE | That’s right. Yeah. And all four of our kids are homeschooled right now, so there isn’t any external influence. Really, Eric and I are the only ones really going out of the house for work, but we’re in masks all day, the crew is in a mask all the time…. When they come in to adjust certain lighting, we leave the set, and then they sanitize everything, and then we come back in…. The fact that we’ve made it thus far, to Episode 9, unscathed is a miracle, and we’re very grateful and thankful and everybody’s pushing for it to stay this way because we all want this season to go to the end.

TVLINE | Knock on wood. Knock on wood, for sure.

TVLINE | Tell me everything you know about the episode you’re directing, to air in February. Yeah, it’ll be my first experience directing television. It is not a big jump, I don’t think — I mean, living in a show like this for 12 years is essentially like attending film school, right? If you open your eyes, and you open your ears, and you pay attention, you’re going to learn most of what you need to know on a theoretical basis.But then it’s a question of putting it into practice, and I am surrounded by people I trust blindly to help me, to collaborate with me on everything. I know how hard it is to get a job like this to begin with, and I’m very fortunate to have my first experience be with my family because that’s what it is.

TVLINE | Do you know if you’re getting, like, a helicopter chase or…? I don’t think I’m getting a helicopter chase [Laughs], but I don’t think that’s because of me, I think that’s just the general logistics of that. No, I have [the script] for almost the whole episode, and thus far it’s pretty wonderful.

Also, just in the last few years, [showrunner] Scott Gemmill and our other producers have been, I think, more creative with how the show is put together. We are a network procedural and you have to have those boundaries that we fall into, but I feel like they’ve made those parameters a little wider than they used to be, and I find that directors are coming in and being able to be a bit more original with what they are able to shoot, and how they are able to shoot. So, I look forward to being creative and collaborating with my family.

#interview #s12 #Daniela Ruah #ncis la #ncisla #NCIS Los Angeles

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joontier · 5 years ago

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Read or Ride

—> Pairing: namjoon x female reader

—> Genre/warnings: crack basically, joon tryna fite a baby, sMUTTY SMUT SMUT - oral (m and f receiving), riding

—> Words: 5.4k

—> Summary: Unknowingly dissing a novel right in front of its author? We’ll see how that ends.

—> A/N: Comeback is real loves

There's something about airports that Namjoon loves - a satisfactory sensory experience: whether it be the wheels rolling against the shiny tiled floors; children playing along the moving walkways, pretending to be Michael Jackson and doing moonwalks; the sound of getting your passports stamped; or the boarding tickets getting ripped.

But, there's one thing rising author Kim Namjoon distinctively enjoys. People-watching.

Not in a creepy way, of course. Namjoon loves the range of emotions attached to airports and how he witnesses all these first-hand. There are anticipation and excitement from those who were traveling for leisure, sadness from those who have to leave their families temporarily, indifference from people who have to travel for business. For Namjoon, airports are easily on top of the list when it comes to public places, despite having to pay an excessive amount for a bottle of water or a bland donut.

Namjoon takes delight in observing humanity, to say the least. It's what constantly inspires him to write and inspire other people in return. The tall twenty-four-year-old just passed the immigration area and is on his way to the boarding gate to sit down and enjoy the overpriced coffee he bought moments earlier. He doesn't want to brag about finally making it big, but when a lady asked for a picture taken with him and asked him to sign on a piece of paper, he couldn't help the subsequent spring in his step when he continues towards his destination. Namjoon takes a mental note to tell this later to his mother who has a google notification alert set for her son's name.

Only a few people are lounging in the boarding area when Namjoon arrives and looks for a seat near a socket where he can charge his phone. You look up from your seat as he approaches and Namjoon gives you a small smile as he takes one across yours. Moments later, after Namjoon sends a message to both his mother and agent informing them of his soon departure, he notices you pull out a book from your carry-on, the all-too-familiar white cover catching his attention.

Namjoon tries not to laugh at the absurdity of the situation but also attempts not to pump too much air into his head with the photo op earlier and now having to watch someone read his book. He must've hit it big this time, as his third novel has finally reached the New York Times Best Seller List, despite originally having it published halfway across the world and in another language.

Your eyes scan the book's summary at the back and Namjoon feels like he's been punched in the gut as he doesn't miss the way your nose scrunch after going through the short passage. That's a first. The author tries to divert his attention by scrolling mindlessly across social media but still secretly gauging your reaction as you finally start reading the book. He takes a look at his surroundings, enjoying his watching of the never-ending arrival of planes and putting his peripheral vision to the test as he observes your reaction from time to time.

He's thankful that you're focused on reading the book because minutes after looking forward to your facial feedback, he realized he's harboring quite the crush on you. Pretty quick and unusual for a stranger and even more in a public place full of it, but Namjoon claims you're close, if not completely, to his type.

You've gone for an autumn-inspired look, sporting a white sweater, white-washed ripped jeans, oxfords, and a cashmere caramel coat draped over your knees. Not to mention the gold-rimmed glasses perched on your nose, giving off an incredibly homey feel. The way your hair falls from your shoulders as you dropped something or the way you push the bridge of your glasses up also doesn't go amiss. He just finds everything you do endearing, and it takes him all his patience and self-control to not walk over to your seat and introduce himself.

It's been a while since he's been in a relationship, his harshest breakup the inspiration for his first novel. He's tried to go on blind dates set up by his friends, mostly Seokjin, but none of them felt right. Namjoon wasn't sure if it was simply bad timing, or he's gone through a phase of enjoying his freedom from a toxic past.

Namjoon's outright staring is momentarily interrupted when you stand up all of a sudden, placing a random receipt you grabbed from your bag and using it as a bookmark. He takes a look around and sees people forming a queue near the gates, thankful that you hadn't noticed his more than inappropriate staring.

Since a small plane will be accommodating your four-hour flight, the airline staff tells everyone to queue by seat order, calling those seated in the far end of the plane to get in first. There are a few people between where you and Namjoon stand, and Namjoon can't help but hold on to the small sliver of hope that you two will be seated next to each other.

The staff then proceeds to call on those who occupy the mid-section of the plane, and excitement bubbles inside Namjoon as you both move forward in the queue, passing those who were still waiting to be called. The rest of the jet bridge is quiet save the rolling of suitcases' wheels against the plastic flooring and Namjoon's steadily increasing heartbeat. Namjoon was usually suave when it comes to interaction with the opposite sex but God, where is all this high-schooler shit coming from?

He searches for his own seat, chanting the alphanumeric characters in his head like a mantra. Namjoon nearly bumps into you as you stop by the twenty-sixth row, lifting up your carry-on towards the cabin. He would've offered a hand with that but Namjoon's brain was too busy with the fact that you were going to be seated next to him. Almost. Well, you were seated next to the window and Namjoon was next to the aisle, and God forbid someone to take the seat in between.

A couple of minutes more pass and the head flight attendant announces that the plane is doing its final ground checks and will be departing soon. Admittedly, Namjoon absolutely adores airports, but the flight itself? Not so much. He despises the way his stomach lurches during take-off and landing, and can't help imagining that one of the plane's engines will give out, crash head-first in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and if he surprisingly lives, he'd go all-out survival mode on an uncharted island with the minimal knowledge he'd gotten from watching survival documentaries on National Geographic.

He's elated when he figures no one's seated between you, but that fact wasn't enough to calm his nerves as the engines finally roar into life. A part of him curses the person supposed to be seated between you for not showing up, so now you'd have to witness him shaking more vigorously than a rattlesnake's tail.

Namjoon completely misses out on the aircraft's safety regulations, shifting endlessly in his seat and as the plane finally reaches the runway, you can't help but ask him if he's okay. Initially, he's pleasantly surprised by your voice, how it's equally angelic as your face, but the nagging voice at the back of his head overthrows yours and it takes him a few seconds to register that you're trying to talk to him.

"Me? I, uh, yeah," he stammers out, completely at a loss of words. "Sorry, flying isn't just my thing," Namjoon chuckles nervously. Your eyes travel to the way he's gripping onto the armrest, knuckles almost turning white with tightness. "Do you want me to hold your hand?" His head snaps up to look at you, and your cheeks instantly flush with heat while the man looks at you dubiously. "I mean, my Nana gets anxious during flights so she holds my hand all throughout the trip..." the last words come out of your mouth in mumbles.

'Great,' Namjoon thinks. Now, the girl he has a crush on, who, by some miracle, happens to sit right next to him, thinks he has the same flight tolerance as a God-knows-how-old granny. Way to go, Kim Namjoon. He's torn between having a deflated ego and a nearing a nervous breakdown and decides that having to deal with the latter would be easier, considering the situation and his options.

"Um...sure," Namjoon finally answers, reaching out his hand for you. You send him a genuine smile as you link your hands with his. He feels worse than a baby traveling for the first time. Just then, he twists his head to look across the aisle, just to see a year-old baby smiling back at him as if to mock him.

‘Wow’, wonders Namjoon, ‘since when were humans too young to be taught about respect?’

Namjoon wasn't sure when he'd fallen asleep but when he opens his eyes, it's already been three hours since they departed. It saddens him that your hands were no longer linked together, though he did enjoy the short period that they were. Your hands were so soft and your fingers felt like they had the right size just to fit perfectly into his. Under the disguise of rubbing his nose, pretending that there was a small itch, Namjoon finds himself swiftly inhaling the scent of your hand cream, shea butter, one of his favorites.

If Namjoon felt like a creep earlier, there was nothing compared to what he felt now. He tries to keep his thinking straight again, and as his eyes drift back to the passengers seated across the aisle, he finds a pair of big blue eyes from the baby staring back at him, with the same mocking smile earlier.

Namjoon raises an eyebrow at the small human as if taunting him to say something. The blue-eyed baby stares at him back, before sticking his tongue out at the author and bursting into a fit of laughter. The joyful sound caused smiles to etch into the faces of nearby passengers, but to Namjoon, it was the purest form of ridicule he has received for the past twenty-four years of his life.

He opens his mouth to say something intelligible but realizes he's trying to fight with someone nearly a quarter of his height so he closes his mouth and ignores the baby. The pilot announces that you'll be reaching your destination in less than an hour, and Namjoon decides that this was the perfect time to initiate a conversation with you - it was now or never.

The words appear in jumbles in his head, so when he settles on something as safe as "Pretty interesting book you got there," he lets out a long-held exhale of air. You look up from your reading and place the bookmark-receipt on the page where you stopped. Ah, the mark of an avid reader - anything of close proximity can be deemed a bookmark.

"Yeah, recommended and given by a friend. Not into these types of novels though," you answer, lips forming a tight smile. "What's your type then?" Namjoon asks, unsure if he's still on the topic of novels.

"Mystery. Adventure, political or historical, perhaps," comes out your reply, and you tilt your head as if thinking of more. "Romance novels these days... they almost all have the same storyline. Whether they end up together or not."

"So this is a stereotypical novel then?" the latter asks with eyebrows raised.

"Well, I haven't reached the end yet, and I don't really want to prejudice..." she pauses for a moment and turns to book to check the front, "N.J. Kim, whoever he or she is."

Namjoon hopes that you don't skip to the last page of the book to see his face in monochrome and a short paragraph on his journey of being a writer to accompany that. "It's a cute story though, very light mood compared to those I've read recently. A change of atmosphere is appreciated once in a while." While Namjoon wants to convince you that things are about to get heavier in the final chapters and the upcoming sequel despite you being cute and all, but that would've been throwing a year and a half's work straight to the bin.

Before Namjoon decides that it's not his book that he wants to talk about, his bladder starts acting up so he excuses himself for a while and stands up from his seat. His long legs stride down the aisle and he comes face-to-face again with the blue-eyed baby. What has he ever done in his life for little humans to despise him this much?

The year-old boy rests his chin on his mother's shoulder and stares at him, doe eyes adding to the intensity. Then he breaks out into a fit of laughter again causing the mother to turn around and look at the reason. She sends Namjoon a brief smile before heading to the lavatory with her son giving him a two-teethed smile.

When he comes back to his seat ten minutes later, he finds you still reading. Although this time around, he finally builds up enough courage to initiate a proper conversation. That is until you beat him to it. "Quite the line down there yeah?" Namjoon chuckles in agreement, buckling his seatbelt. There's a pregnant pause before you reach out your hand to him for the second time today. You state your name as he returns the gesture, "Namjoon," the author replies along with a dimpled smile.

"So what's your story?" Namjoon inquires, shifting his body so he could lean his elbow on the armrest. "Just taking a break from work...And a friend recommends the place too," comes your reply.

"Ah, the same friend that gave you that book?"

"Yep."

"You seem to trust that friend's judgment."

"Yeah, and now I know not to," you sigh, resting your head against the chair. "Why so?"

"This book is almost like what I expected. The reason I don't delve into romance because ninety percent of it is mostly crap. I enjoy reality. I revel in its authenticity, unlike fabricated ones like these where the female character always seems to come in some form of distress and lacks the confidence to solve her own problems. So here comes Mr. Perfect clad in his knightly armor with two propositions a) he tries to solve all the lady's troubles or b) he'll just add himself to the list and cause more inconvenience."

Namjoon, now sporting a wounded ego, intends to retaliate, but decides on keeping the conversation going rather than defending himself. He lets you rant about previous books you’ve read and your thoughts on it while he tells stories from his travels around the world, smoothly avoiding the reality of him being a writer and you were just criticizing his novel.

There's a pang in your chest once you've parted ways with the stranger you've acquainted with. You've never had an interaction with a guy before who listened intently as Namjoon did, not even at work to say the least. You couldn't deny the fact that he was cute either, so having to know just the name of a possible total catch was upsetting.

It's a quick ride to your hotel and when you reach the building, you make sure to take a snap to send to Ariel. Something feels off once the driver hands you your luggage, remembering that your case seemed to be lighter than your own. You don't put much thought to it as you want to take a nap once you get to the room before heading out to the city.

As soon as the receptionist hands you the key card, you do a near sprint towards the closing doors of the elevator, waving your free hand to the passengers. Sleep was about to overcome you, dozing off during the elevator ride and using your luggage as support but you knew you wouldn't be able to sleep well when you don't wash up after a long trip.

You fall on your knees once you get to the room, dragging the luggage down with you, too tired to exert any more effort. You put in the combination to the lock with one eye open, resting your back against the bed frame. Your head shoots up when you see 1-2-3 on the wheels and the zipper won't slide open. Shit.

You hadn't bothered changing the default combination when you bought the bag two weeks ago. You hadn't found any other reason to do so anyway. Seeing as no one else could've had changed it during that time, you check the rest of the luggage and inspected if it was truly yours. It seemed like yours from the front, the logo still in its place and a red lining along with the zippers.

When you twist the bag to check the rest of it though, you find out that the blue luggage tag you've attached to the side handle with a label 'DO NOT TOUCH' is nowhere to be seen. A thin laminated card has taken its place instead. It takes you by surprise when the card reads 'N.J. Kim' along with his contact information in case of loss. There was no way you could've been on the same flight as the author of the book you were just reading. Not to mention you didn't have anything good to say about the book too.

You find yourself pressing the numbers on your phone regardless, just wanting to get your first day of vacation hassle-free. It takes a few rings before someone picks up, a male voice saying something in Korean. You weren't that all too familiar with the language, although you remember Ariel watching a drama of some sort and came across the phrase.

"Um, hello?" you answer with crossed fingers, wishing that the person on the other line could speak in English.

"Yes hello. Who is this?" You breathe out a sigh of relief as the guy responds.

"I'm ______ and I'm looking for N.J. Kim. May I speak to him please?"

"Sorry but Mr. Kim isn't available at the moment. Would you like me take a message for him?"

"Yes, please. Could you tell him that I've mistaken his luggage for mine? Perhaps he's taken mine by mistake too?" you pause as you think for a solution to meet halfway "Maybe we could meet up somewhere so I can give this back at once."

The man mumbles something in Korean but judging by the way he spoke, he sounded like he was reprimanding a small kid. "Yes of course. I shall relay your message ASAP. Although I have to remind you that he won't be available until after a few hours. Would you be willing to wait until then, Ms. _____?"

"A few hours?!" you can't hide the risen pitch of your voice and you cough as you echo what he said one more time. "My apologies miss, but Mr. Kim is currently at an event. If this is of utmost importance to you, as his agent, I'd like to personally help you if you are willing to pass by the venue now. It's at a hotel in the heart of the city."

Not wanting to prolong your stress any longer, you respond in the affirmative. The guy, who you later learned to be Seokjin Kim, gave you the address of the book signing event.

- - -

A sudden wave of realization hits you when you see a standee by the hotel’s lobby - one around Namjoon’s height and his dimpled smile, holding the book you were just reading. And criticizing. He looks more of a recording artist than a best-selling author with promotions like these, but the thought of openly complaining about a book in front of its author is eating at your conscience and you feel your legs turning into jelly.

You head towards the function room, remembering that you still have the novel in your bag. God, this is going to haunt you like a terrible nightmare. You notice some girls standing a few meters away from the doors and you hear them giggling and talking about Namjoon. It doesn’t surprise you though, knowing for a fact that your seatmate on the plane could easily pass for a celebrity.

The guards let you in when they see your book and as you enter there is an elevated platform with Namjoon seated with a while interacting with his fans while signing the books. A crowd of nearly all girls are seated facing the platform, few are taking pictures and some are cheering him on, occasionally asking him questions while he continues to sign the novels.

You continue to watch the whole scenario, not noticing someone walk to your side. “You must be _____,” he asks. “Seokjin Kim.” Introducing himself as his agent, he leads you to a waiting room behind the stage and asks you to wait as the event is about to end.

Thirty minutes and an awful lot of screaming later, Namjoon enters the room and for a moment you’re taken aback by his presence. He has his hair styled up this time, dressed up in clothes that fit his size more compared to what he looked like a few hours ago at the airport. Not that he looked any less cuter though.

You’re thankful you taken a seat on a couch on the other side of the room openly ogling him. He hasn’t noticed you yet, picking up a few personal things near the vanity mirror. “Hyung, you should’ve seen the girl I sat next to at the plane! She was... fuck. I can’t get her off my-“ Namjoon spins just enough to see you there, visibly swallowing when he couldn’t finish his sentence.

“So you’ve met Ms._______,” Seokjin states as he re-enters the room. Namjoon remains speechless as you answer for him “I’m the girl he sat next to on the plane.” You don’t know how you’ve managed to gather up the confidence to say that, but the smirk playing on Seokjin’s lips is not helping.

“Well done, hyung. Well done,” someone claps from behind Namjoon, checking you out in the most obvious way possible. He waves at you, introducing himself as Jimin and cousin of Namjoon. He extends a hand his hand out for a shake, sending you a wink when you return the greeting.

Jimin, the blonde-haired adonis, reaches something from the pocket of his jeans and slaps it on Namjoon’s chest. You see a hotel key card, and the all-too-recognizable aluminum packet of a condom behind it. “Your luggages are in the room,” Jimin informs, sending a wink to Namjoon this time.

Face paling quickly, Namjoon coughs and quietly asks you to follow him, not meeting your eyes. The elevator doors open, Namjoon walks in first with you following closely behind. Sadly, you didn’t notice the gap between the doors and you trip, landing face flat on Namjoon’s chest which was firmer than your will to live at that moment. You’re sure your face has gone through all shades of red now, the rest of the elevator ride unbearable.

“This is going to be awkward, but, I- um...I’d like to apologize for what I’ve said back at the plane...about your book...” You cringe at your words, a very vivid memory of you ranting now etched permanently inside your brain.

"How about I prove you wrong about my novels?"

He drags his finger along the edge of the lamp by the corner, absentmindedly feeling the smooth surface and not wanting to meet your eyes. When he turns to look at you though, it takes three seconds to register that your lips are finally on his, your mouth firmly pressing against Namjoon's.

It's just as soft as he imagined, the cherry taste of your lip balm leaving him wanting for more as you suddenly pull away. "You have no idea much I've imagined--" Namjoon starts to speak but you place a finger on his lips to shush the man. "Shut up and kiss me already."

His hand finds its way to your neck, while the other supports his weight as he gently pushes you to the wall. Once more, your lips meet together and a shiver runs down Namjoon's spine, sending charges throughout his whole body, especially down south. Namjoon leaves your lips for your cheek, then your jawline and he's thankful that you look up in bliss, giving him more access to your throat.

Slender fingers travel to the hem of your sweater, lifting it a little so his fingertips dance their way onto the expanse of your skin under your clothing. You push yourself off the wall to take off the ridiculous amount of clothing you still have on while Namjoon forcibly opens his button-down shirt, the sound of buttons falling muted against the carpeted floor.

Namjoon curses under his breath when your hand brushes by the erection straining against his jeans. It's almost embarrassing for him to get hard so quickly this time, but no one could've blamed him when a pretty girl was already on her knees ready to suck him off. Namjoon feels the room temperature rising by the second, beads of sweat slowly glistening his forehead. When his cock finally springs free from the confines of his boxers, you grab his length, tentatively swiping your thumb across the slit, a string of pre-cum glazing your finger.

Kim Namjoon is definitely blessed.

He lets out a hiss when you bring your lips to his cock, letting the tip of your tongue trace the singular vein popping from his length. Namjoon isn’t sure which is hotter - your mouth on his cock or the visual you’re generously providing him with.

“Fuck, enough of that.” He guides you up, supporting you by the waist. Namjoon then pushes you down to lay on the bed, hair splayed all over the pillows and your torso hitting the soft bedding. He captures your lips in an eager yet playful kiss while his hands travel along the length of your body.

He growls into the kiss, one hand reaching down to open your thighs. As Namjoon’s cock brushes against your clothed cunt, you helplessly lift your hips to grind against his, desperate for some friction. “Not so fast, baby girl,” Namjoon whispers against your skin, nipping lightly at the shell of your ear.

“Joonie please,” you whimper, his cock twitching at the sound. Pulling down your bra to expose your breasts, Namjoon’s featherlight touches around the area hardens your nipples in an instant and he brings his lips to the hardened nub then blowing cool air against it as he does the same with the other.

Having enough of the man’s teasing, you plan on giving him a taste of his own medicine when your hands travel slowly to his length. Namjoon notices the motion of your hands though, taking both your hands with one hand and pinning them above your head. He then proceeds to revel in the smoothness of your skin until he reaches your thighs and looks up at you, sending you a flirty wink.

Kim Namjoon will be the death of you and you’re sure as hell enjoying every second of it.

He moves closer, nose expertly brushing against your covered clit. You shiver at the feeling, and the moment Namjoon pushes your panties to the side and flattens his tongue against your folds, you instantly let out a cry of pleasure. He wastes no time taking off your underwear for you, feeling and seeing your excitement at par with his. Namjoon continues with his torture, licking his lips when he finally sees your folds glistening, sweet and ready to be divulged. His skilled tongue circles your clit and then slides into your clenching hole to get a taste. You whine, hands tugging at his hair at his ministrations. You almost lose it when his tongue meets your clit again, this time sucking on the bud. You wriggle your hips, trying to free yourself but Namjoon pins you down with strong hands, licking and sucking at the nub.

“I-I’m so... so close,” you moan, breathless when Namjoon suddenly pulls away. Your head snaps up and you stare at him incredulously. “You know, I’d love watching you come apart with my tongue, but I’d rather have you cum on my cock,” he rasps out, manhandling you so that you’re seated on his lap in one swift motion.

"Ride me," Namjoon's voice drops to a whisper, his mind clouding as he feels your center pressing against his cock. You notice him hesitate for a moment, staring at his discarded jeans on the floor, remembering the condom Jimin handed him together with the key card. “I’m clean and on the pill.” You reassure him, getting a soft ‘fuck’ in return. You lower down to let his cock grind against your entrance, the divine feeling making you both shudder and moan. If he already feels like this even before he's inside you, your mind couldn't possibly cope with what could happen moments later.

Once you're positive that you've already coated his length with more than a generous amount of your slick, you give him a quick kiss before pushing him further towards the headboard. Slowly, you sink down onto him, the breach making you gasp out in pleasure. Your eyes close for a moment as he finally reaches the hilt, letting yourself get used to the feeling of him stretching you out.

Subconsciously squeezing around him, Namjoon lets out a broken moan, his line of vision focusing on where both of you are joined as one. You start rocking your hips slowly, placing your hands on his shoulders for support. "Is this okay?" you ask him, his silence causing you the slightest hint of worry. "Yes, oh-" he responds, heaving a sigh when you squeeze yourself around him, the previously articulate man now at a loss for words.

“Shit, if you keep doing that...” Namjoon rasps, hands on your waist tightening when you clench around him again, purposely this time. “Like this?” you confirm, enjoying his reactions. You continue moving your hips, forward then back, reveling in the feeling of his cock a snug fit inside you. Unfortunately, after letting your gym membership crumble to dust, your stamina is not cut out for reaching your highs like this. Namjoon notices your movements stutter, and starts snapping his hips up to help you.

God, he’s reaching in too deep like this and you don’t think you’re going to last that long like this. Slowly, you feel that familiar pressure building up inside you, eyes rolling to the back of your head. When Namjoon’s thumb finds your clit, it finally hits you so strongly that your body bows towards his, hands resting on his chest for support.

Namjoon, desperate for his own release as well, switches your position one more time. “How are you so tight?” He mutters to himself, face hovering above yours as he supports himself on his elbows, snapping his hips as he gets lost in the feeling of having your walls clench around him. “One more time for me, baby.” You’ve come to adore the pet name he’s given you, but when he said that with a particularly strong thrust, your muscles contracting once more.

Namjoon’s hips stutter, and while you mewl against his chest for the overstimulation, he lets out a deep grunt as he reaches his climax, using your pussy to get off. You reach your high again one more time, clutching onto the bedsheets for dear life. He’s still breathing hard while he slips out of you, planting a kiss on your cheek as he heads to the bathroom to get a washcloth. When he returns, he finds you’ve turned to lie on your side, already snoring softly.

‘Guess who fell asleep now?’ He chuckles to himself, proceeding to carefully wipe the remnants of your intimacy on your thighs.

#ksmutclub #bts scenarios #kim namjoon #bts smut #bangtan #bts imagines

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rocksandrobots · 5 years ago

Text

Of Rocks and Robots Ch. 7 - Stories

Varian sat in the spacious den surrounded by piles and piles of books; comic books to be specific. Today was the last day of spring break and Varian was visiting Fred. All of their other friends were busy preparing for tomorrow, but Fred didn’t go to any of the actual classes. He only worked part-time as the school’s mascot, so he had the day free and wanted to teach Varian more about his hobby.

Varian, for his part, was simply bored. He had agreed to meet with Fred since he had spent so much of the last week studying and wanted a break before starting classes for real, but the pages of illustrated stories, about people with god-like powers, just didn’t really interest him.

It made him feel a little guilty really. Fred was so passionate about his interest, much like how Varian enjoyed science, and Varian appreciated that the older teen cared enough to try and include him in that. However, it didn’t stop him from zoning out while Fred rambled on about yet another story or character that Varian had no reference for.

He looked about the room with half-lidded eyes as he rested his face upon his fist. Fred lived in a large mansion. It wasn’t quite as big as Corona’s palace, nor even the size of the castle he grew up in, but it was still very grand and luxurious. Various memorabilia and expensive décor were scattered about and the room he was in now had tons of unique statues, toys, and posters on display referencing various things within pop culture. He assumed they would make for an impressive collection, if he knew what any of them actually were.

“….and so that is how Captain Fancy teamed up with the Fearless Ferret!"

Varian tuned back in just in time to hear Fred conclude his story.

"Oh, yeah, yeah, that’s real interesting” Varian yawned and stretched as he said this, giving away his true feelings on the matter. Then he tried to course correct as soon as he did so.

“Look, Fred, this is all…great, but wouldn't it be better if I just, you know, actually read the stories for myself?” He gently suggested.

“Oh, yeah…I guess I kind of got carried away.” Fred admitted sheepishly. “Ok, then, what did you think about the comics that you’ve read already?” He sat down, facing backwards, upon a swivel office chair as he referred to the two comics that he had bought for Varian on his first day in San Fansokyo.

“They were fine.” Varian said.

Fred leaned in closer, waiting for more but Varian didn’t elaborate.

“Fine? Just fine? You don’t got anything else to add?”

Varian could only shrug in response. He didn’t know what else to say. They were okay stories but not anything to get excited over. They were certainly no Flynn Rider, that was for sure.

“Well what about Miracle Maiden? What did you think of her?"

That was one of the superheroes from the comic he had read. She was a princess from the deep Amazon rain-forest who took an ancient magic spear and armor and traveled from her home to fight against those that wanted to destroy it, helping others along the way.

"Well, she was neat, I guess.” Varian admitted. “I liked how she was also figuring out how the world worked since she’d never left home before. That made her kind of relatable, I just didn’t care for the magic armor giving her super strength. It made her too unbeatable, no one was a real threat; there was no tension."

Fred tilted his head in confusion. He’d never considered that to be a flaw. Superheroes were supposed to be well, super, after all.

"Oookay, so maybe OP golden age style comics aren’t your thing.” Fred consented, “What about the dark aged comic you read, ‘The Avenger’?"

"Oh, I liked that one a lot better. The hero in that had to really struggle and figure stuff out. He didn’t have any powers and the villains were more believable."

"I’d call him more of an anti-hero,” Fred interrupted, “but go on."

The story in question concerned an ex-soldier whose family had been murdered by a rich and powerful man. The villain had used his influence to escape prison and so 'The Avenger’, as he called himself, sought vengeance and along the way helped other poor exploited people get their own revenge against similar oppressors.

"He was relatable too, but in a different way. I just thought the pictures were a little too…graphic.” Varian grimaced as he said that last word. He had always disliked the sight of blood and while the images in the book had only been drawings, they nevertheless were still very in-your-face with the violence and somewhat disturbing to look at. He hadn’t been able to get through the comic without skipping some pages.

“You found a guy, who kills a whole bunch of people, relatable?” Fred asked slowly, trying to piece together what Varian had seen that he had not.

“Well, he lost his family.” Varian said in his defense.

“Yeeeah, but that just makes him sympathetic. In order for him to be relatable you’d also have to have lost … your… ” Fred paused in mid-sentence and looked at the young boy sitting across from himself. Varian held an unreadable expression, something between a pout and a confused glare, and something inside Fred warned him not to continue with that thought.

“Aaaannyways,” Fred said, trying to change the subject, “you like non-super powered heroes, but no gore, so why don’t I lend you one of my Fearless Ferret comics.” And with that the blonde teen hopped up off the chair and went scrounging about the room in search of said book.

As he was throwing various comics and toys around in his quest, Fred tossed a small hardback novel that landed right at Varian’s feet. He had to move them out the way quickly before the flying object could do any harm. He looked down at the offending book rudely, but then his breath caught in his throat at what he saw.

The novel was battered and worn from years of use and the title read The Brothers Grimm on the side. But what caught Varian’s attention was the cover on its front. It bore the image of a girl in a crumbling tower. She sat at the only window forlornly looking out as her long golden hair tumbled down to the ground below.

“Rapunzel.” Varian breathed.

“What?” Fred stopped what he was doing at the sound, but Varian had whispered too low for him to hear it clearly.

“What is this?” Varian asked frantically. His heart pounding in his chest he held up the book for Fred to see.

“Oh that? That’s just an old book of fairy tales I read as a kid."

"Fairy tales?"

"Yeah, you know, old folk tales, like Little Red Riding Hood, Rumpelstiltskin, Hansel and Gretel,” Fred turned back to his original search as he absentmindedly listed off the stories he knew, “The Bremen Town Musicians, Rapunzel, that sort of thing."

Varian’s eyes went wide at that last title and he tore open the book and desperately flipped through its pages until he found the accursed name. It was printed in big bold letters at the top of the page and underneath was the story itself printed in smaller type. On the opposite page was another illustration. This one featured the titled character using her hair like a rope as a man used it to scale the tower. They were both dressed in clothing from centuries past that would have been considered old fashioned even in Varian’s own time.

Varian just stared at the page for a minute or two as his brain tried to comprehend what he was seeing.

"This, this can’t be.” He whispered to himself, “How is this here? Why is this here?” He grew increasingly louder as his confusion gave away to anger. “How come she gets a story!? "

He jumped up from the couch he was sitting upon as he yelled this last question, which finally drew Fred’s attention away from his rummaging.

"You ok dude?"

"No, I’m not okay! That no-good, lying, boil-brained, misbegotten, dizzy-eyed, promise breaker has been immortalized in print!” He yelled before glancing back down at the book he was holding, “And they didn’t even get the story right!” He whined after.

Fred could only look on in confusion as Varian launched into another rant. This one about the inaccuracies within the folk tale as he sped read through the story; “Where’s the flower? Where are the rocks? Ha! I wish the King knew he was portrayed as a dirty thief. Eugene’s not a prince! Ew, I don’t why but having your eyes gouged out sounds worse than getting stabbed. Does Rapunzel not have powers in this?”

As he was busy loudly complaining, a viewing screen up on the opposite wall turned on and the image of an old man appeared. He had slicked backed white hair, a white mustache, and his eyes were covered by sunglasses.

“Is everything alright son?” The man queried. “I thought I heard the sound of someone shouting an evil monologue over the surveillance system?"

"Oh hey, Dad!” Fred turned to address the viewing screen while Varian continued on, heedless of who was listening or not, “It’s okay. It’s just my new friend Varian here is apparently really passionate about fairy tales."

"Really? Cause he sounds like a super-villain to me.”

“Aww naw, you got it all wrong he’s just upset cause he doesn’t like the story.” As if to prove this, Fred turned back to Varian interrupting him mid-rant. “Hey, Varian, why do you hate Rapunzel so much?"

Varian stopped and turned to them. His eyes narrowed into an intense glare and his voice dropped to low guttural growl.

"She is my mortal enemy.” He said darkly.

He held their gaze for a moment or two in uneasy silence, before once again noticing yet another inaccuracy upon the page. “Oh, that’s not right!” and he launched into a new wave of angry ranting.

As he went on, outraged, father and son could only look on in perturbed confusion.

“Are you sure he’s not a super-villain?” Mr. Fredrickson asked, neither of them being able to tear their eyes away from the sight of the small raged filled teen.

“Preeety sure…” his son replied in a tone of voice that conveyed that he was anything but.

Fred continued to watch Varian raving as his brain tried to process what had just happened.

“Waaait a minute, if you know the real Rapunzel, then that must mean you’re from a world of fairy tales.” He slowly said as he pieced together the clues. “Which means there must be magic and if there’s magic then there must be..” Fred audibly gasped with joy and ran to Varian, grabbing the younger boy by the shoulders and snapping him out of mid-rant.

“Do you have dragons in your world!? "

Varian could only look back at Fred with surprise at first. "What? No!” he snapped back.

Here he was, in the middle of having an existential crisis, and all his friend could do was ask about mythical creatures?

“There’s no such thing as dragons.” He firmly added before Fred could protest. The older teen looked crestfallen but soon perked back up as he started in on a new line of questioning.

“But there is magic, right?"

"Unfortunately, yes.” Varian said through gritted teeth.

“Are you magic then?” Fred asked, as he circled around Varian and picked up his arm by its sleeve and inspected the length of it.

“No.” Varian answered, now disturbed.

“Then how come you got that blue streak in your hair? Do all people from your world have that?"

Varian looked up at his bangs and then quickly covered said streak with his free hand. "No.” He said, this time less assured.

In truth he didn’t know where his defining blue hair stripe came from. He had had it for as long as he could remember, and had always assumed he got it in an alchemy accident when young. But he didn’t know for sure, and he didn’t like to dwell too much on the subject.

“Oh do you know anyone who has magic, then? Like, do you know any other fairy tale people, like Red Riding Hood or Mother Goose? Oh Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk was always one of my favorites!” Fred pressed on.

“No!"

Fred backed away at the sudden ferociously in Varian’s voice.

"My life’s not a fairy tale Fred!” Varian added just to drive the point home.

“Sorry, man.” Fred said timidly. He hadn’t meant to upset the younger teen, but he knew he could sometimes get carried away.

Varian’s anger all but disappeared at that admission. Fred looked genuinely upset and he suddenly felt guilty for his outburst. It wasn’t his new friend’s fault for not knowing what hell his life had been for the last two years.

“Look, I’m…I’m sorry too, it’s just…I hate magic. Okay?” He tried to explain.

Fred looked thoughtful at that, as if he had never considered that point of view before.

“Well, if you hate magic…Oh I bet you would love science fiction then!” He exclaimed.

Varian looked bewildered at the sudden change in subject, but Fred continued on excitedly.

“We should watch the greatest sci-fi show ever!” Fred ran over to a shelf and pulled off a small thin case and held it up for Varian to see, “Professor What!"

"What?” Varian asked, still confused.

“Exactly! It’s about a mysterious professor, who’s really a shape-shifting alien, who has a time machine that’s also a spaceship and he fights other aliens and…”

“Okay, okay” Varian interrupted. He agreed to go along with Fred’s idea if nothing else than to stop the older teen from launching into yet another confusing ramble.

Fred flashed Varian a wide grin at that and then bid his father goodbye before opening the case and inserting a small shiny disc into the viewer screen. He then dimmed the lights and both he and Varian settled down on the couch to watch the video.

“We’ll just watch the first episode and then go from there.” He said to Varian as odd sounding music filtered through the air and the opening titles flashed before them on the screen. But Varian wasn’t paying much attention.

His mind raced as he was still agitated by the existence of the book. He couldn’t explain it. It wasn’t even a case of being an alternate version of Rapunzel herself. Fred had acted like the whole story was simply just made up. As if he, himself, was nothing but fiction. What’s more the story hadn't mention him, his father, nor the rocks and he didn’t know if this made the situation better or worse.

He took a steadying breath and tried to focus on the screen ahead of him, shoving any uncomfortable questions to the back of his mind.

The tv show was more of the moving pictures he had seen on the internet. Only this looked to be a recording of a staged play instead of the simple funny shorts of animals that he had only seen thus far. There was also no color, which Fred explained was because the film was so old.

The story of the play concerned two school teachers, Cliff and Lola, who followed their new mysterious student home one day, only to stumble upon a bigger mystery. The student, Sue, reminded him of himself. She was super smart but ignorant of what was, to the teachers, common knowledge and it was no surprise when it was revealed that both she and her equally mysterious grandfather, the titular Professor, were from another world. What was a surprise was the way they traveled.

The two teachers forced their way into a small box, no bigger than a magician’s cabinet, only to find a larger room on the inside. Said box was called a phone booth, which used to be used by people before cell phones came about, but the inside was called a STARDIS, a Space, Time, And Relative Dimensions Imperial Ship.

“You mean to tell me that a thing that looks like a phone booth, sitting in the middle of a scrapheap, can travel anywhere through time and space?” He heard the science teacher, Cliff, say incredulously before the impish Professor mischievously pressed a button on the console of the machine, locking the doors and turning the ship on.

A swirl of stars and flashing lights appeared on screen, and like a magic trick, the box was no longer in a junkyard but an icy desert. A looming shadow then appeared and the screen cut to black as the odd music from before started to play and names flew up on the screen.

“What, what happened? Why did it stop?” Varian asked Fred. He was just starting to get interested when it had ended.

“Oh that was only the first episode, you gotta watch multiple in order to get the whole story."

"You mean like chapters in a book? Can, can we watch the next one?"

"You mean you like it?” Fred asked delightedly.

“Well I don’t dislike it, besides I’d at least like to know what that shadow was.” Varian admitted.

So they watched the next three parts. The group of time travelers had been transported to an ancient era, back when man still lived in caves. They were captured by a tribe and forced to make fire for them, all the while being caught in the middle of an ongoing power struggle for leadership. Varian didn’t find the politics of the cavemen particularly interesting but he did find himself on the edge of his seat whenever the STARDIS crew were on screen.

He found them all compelling. The shifty Professor and his grey morals, doing whatever he could to survive and keep his granddaughter safe; Sue’s own fear of being separated from her only family and her mysterious ability for premonitions; Lola’s homesickness and exasperation at being cut off from civilization paired with her compassion for all living beings, even her oppressors; and the noble hero Cliff holding the team together while adhering to science and logic even while having his entire world view challenged.

In the last part they finally escaped the violent cavemen and made it back to the ship. They quickly took off, only to land on another planet entirely. The screen hovered over the console and a dial on the dashboard dropped down into the danger zone indicating all was not well before once again cutting to black and playing the ending credits.

“Welp, that’s it!” Fred cheered. He stood up and stretched and went to take the disc out and put it up.

“That’s it!?” Varian asked disbelievingly. “But what about that new planet and the dial? Do Cliff and Lola ever get home? How was Sue able to sense that her grandfather was in trouble? Also why is he only called the Professor? Does he not have a name? Where did he get the ship? Did he build it? Is he a scientist too like Cliff is?” The questions tumbled out of him in a jumble. He had never seen anything like it before and couldn’t remember being so excited to find out more since the time he read his first Flynn Rider book.

Fred laughed, “So you do like it! Don’t worry there’s more episodes, just that’s the end of that particular serial. The next one is a seven parter though, and you got school tomorrow, remember?"

Varian did remember and his stomach did a little flip flop at the thought.

"I tell you what though,” Fred continued, “I’ve always wanted to do a marathon of the whole show in order. If you’re still interested we could maybe meet up sometimes and watch it together?"

Varian had never had a project that he could do with a friend before, nor someone to share his love of stories with, so the idea appealed to him. Therefore it was agreed; sometime next week they would meet up to watch the next serial and then possibly one day every week after that to watch the rest.

So the day ended with Fred dropping Varian back off at the dorms and with him organizing his things for his first day of school. His excitement for tomorrow drove away any more thoughts of comics, tv shows, or fairy tales. Stories were fun, but none compared to the weirdness of his actual life.

#All the illustrations in this chapter are in the public domain #they're either not my work or edited together from PD photos #varian #Fred Frederickson IV #tangled the series #tts #BH6 the series #bh6 #rapunzel's tangled adventure #rta

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alsbesluit · 4 years ago

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peace.

i never had the courage of my convictions as long as danger is near. and it’s just around the corner, darling because it lives in me. “Get me Jace. Find him among the rest. We need him for this mission to succeed. Imogen Herondale would gladly give us whatever we want once she realizes we have her grandson. I’m sure the others won’t mind if the other option is hurting their friends.”

It was a day after Valentine Morgenstern spoke those words, saw his men killed and was arrested by the boy he tried to raise and decided it wasn’t for him. Jace woke up in Lydia Branwell’s bed with sticky eyelashes. The notebook was laying on her nightstand. It had probably been there before, but to Jace it was an answer to the question ‘what doesn’t belong in this room?’ Really, the answer should be him, not the notebook. But he’d never belonged anywhere. Not really. Yet, Lydia’s arms were the safest he felt in years. He knew what to do. He knew he didn’t want to do it. He knew he had to. He’d wasted too much time not-knowing and now that he knew, he couldn’t let anyone else not know. It was unfair. It was unethical. No matter how much he didn’t want to, it didn’t matter. This wasn’t just about him. He was a better man than Valentine. He needed to tell.

Jace kissed Lydia and smiled weakly at her. “I have to go be a responsible -” adult was the usual end of that sentence, often accompanied with a disgusted face expression because Jace didn’t do responsible even on a good day. But this time it didn’t ring true. “Herondale,” was therefore the end of the sentence, giving Lydia an easy way to figure out what he was about to do. She smiled. She didn’t ask question. He’d never loved her more. “Good luck,” she said. She kissed him again. Jace wanted to stay and never leave. He got his leather jacket from where he left it the day prior, smoothed it over and put it back on. He ran his hands through his hair in hopes of it resembling something of a normal style as opposed to a complete bedhead, but him wishing for miracles had never paid off. Another look at Lydia and he exited her rooms, on his way to the basement where Valentine was locked up.

Unfortunately, the only way to the basement was through the Ops centre. Lydia had left instructions for the normal work to continue, Jace knew, as they cleaned up the mess that Valentine and his followers caused. It was busy, every table taken. People looked at he passed by. He moved ahead stoically. He didn’t one anyone answers. He didn’t owe anyone a second look. There were two exceptions, and those two approached. Izzy wary, Alec concerned. They stopped in front of him, making sure he couldn’t just walk around them. Alec folded his arms over each other in a convincing impression of Jace on a normal day. Izzy gave him a look that answered one question and asked ten more. ‘”Where the hell have you been?” Alec was using his matter-of-fact voice, the one he used when he was worried but didn’t want it to be obvious. It was obvious without the undertone. “We were worried about you.“ It had been obvious without him pointing it out, too. “I’m fine,” Jace replied. “I was asleep in a place no one could find me so no one could wake me. You’re one to talk, sleeping at Magnus’ every time that’s more convenient for you as opposed to thinking of others trying to find you.” That shut up Alec, who actually looked offended, but not Izzy. “Were you with the girl?” “What girl? There’s a girl?”

Jace glared at Izzy for saying it with Alec there. Then he glared at Alec for actually responding to it. “I have much more important matters to tend to than talk about my love life, thanks,” he said. “Yes, I was with the girl. Yes, there’s a girl. No, we’re not discussing it. Frankly, again, the two of you have a lot of nerve complaining to me about keeping my love life from you. One of you almost married a girl in an entire ceremony without actually being into girls and the other is attempting to keep from everyone she’s seeing a Downworlder. Get better at suppressing your shit or talk about your shit, but don’t come at me about my shit when I’m the only one in this goddamn family that has it together.”

Alec and Izzy exchanged a glance that spoke volumes for the three of them. Neither of them probably expected such a sharp reaction, but Jace wasn’t in the mood. He wasn’t here to be grilled. He was here to go see Valentine, who should be the receiving end up being ripped a new one. They were in the way. “Are you sure you slept enough? You sound very sleep-deprived,“ Izzy commented. Jace glared again. “I don’t have time for this,” he said, sounding suspiciously like Alec when he was in his denial phase with Lydia. Disturbingly similar circumstances, very different outcome. He’d marry her within a heartbeat if he could. “Jace, what is going on with you?” This time, Alec was unable to suppress an undertone, which was part annoyed and part worried. He looked straight at his parabatai. “Valentine told me who my birth parents are. Now move, because I have to go rip him a new one about the fact. I’ll tell you more once I know more.” Alec was surprised enough to move aside and Jace immediately took the space to move past his siblings. He jogged through the rest of the Ops centre in a louse attempt to create more distance between him and his siblings, well aware they could easily catch up with him if they really wanted to. Thankfully, they didn’t. He could only hope that neither of them would tell Maryse. all these people think love’s for show but i would die for you in secret. When he got downstairs in the basement and made his way towards the glass cell where Valentine was kept, he was surprisingly let in by the guards without a word of protest. He could use the win, so he kept his commentary about the fact to himself and marched up to the glass with the intention to start yelling at Valentine immediately, who was awake and facing him. But then a voice spoke, disturbing him. “Well, well. Mister Wayland. Miss Branwell told me you’re the one that arrested Valentine. Very well.” He didn’t need to turn around to know who was standing behind him. Who else came to talk to Valentine. The reason he was let in so easily. The guards thought Lydia sent him to talk to Imogen Herondale about how he got Valentine imprisoned. He didn’t intend to do any such thing whether Imogen Herondale wanted to or not. Regardless of not needing to turn around to see, Jace turned around slowly and took in Imogen Herondale. He looked nothing like her. She had dark hair, brown eyes and a none too friendly face expression, even if her words had been. He didn’t want to be in the same room as her, never mind her and Valentine. Behind him, Valentine laughed. Jace closed his eyes briefly and prayed for patience, well aware that something cruel was about to come out of his father’s mouth. That was how he knew Valentine was Valentine. He couldn’t go a minute without saying something cruel to Jace, his favorite target. “You’ve taken my light. Your darkness will come.“ That wasn’t cruel, but neither did it make sense. Jace turned back around abruptly and made a beeline for the glass wall of the cell so he was facing Valentine directly. Valentine was, of course, grinning, endlessly amused with the situation despite being the one locked up in a cell. “I don’t want your riddles, so shut the hell up,” he spat at Valentine. “But it wasn’t a riddle, Jonathan,“ Valentine replied, grinning still. The undertone of his voice, too, was amused, and he was clearly none too impressed with Jace’s outburst. “Those are the words that the High Inquisitor here sent me through fire-message when I killed her son. I had taken her light. My darkness would come. I suppose she’s right. Of course, she doesn’t know that I took something else from her and you didn’t tell her. Maybe I did raise you right after all.” Jace’s reply came without thinking about it. “I should have murdered you when I had the chance. Fuck the Clave and their take him alive policy. You’re a parasite, an insect, the sort that itches when it lands on you and that you can still feel hours after the fact. I should have crushed you like the bug you are.” Showing his violent tendencies in front of the High Inquisitor and also his grandmother really wasn’t the way he should have handled the situation. Alas. Imogen Herondale, thankfully, didn’t pay a lot of mind to the outburst. He could hear her approach, but she never came near. In the glass he could see that she was standing a couple of feet behind him and a couple of feet to the right, keeping a careful distance from both him and Valentine but still closer than she had been before. “What did you take from me, Valentine?” the Inquisitor asked with the kind of icy calm that Jace admired and knew he’d never have. Valentine’s face expression then, as well as the way he theatrically leaned back on his chair and pretended to have to think about whether he wanted to reply at all, made Jace want to storm in there and stick Valentine’s dagger through his heart. That seemed too kind, though. It made more sense to rip open a few arteries and watch him bleed out very slowly.

At last, Valentine sighed, smirking still regardless. “You didn’t tell her,” he tormented Jace. “Why not? You’ve always wanted what I finally gave you when you arrested me. Are you afraid? Is the great Jace, the greatest demon killer of the New York Institute, afraid of something? What is it? Failure? Not being good enough? Are you afraid you’ll disappoint? Are you -” Jace was sure Valentine could have gone on a long time if Jace let him. He wasn’t going to listen to it any more. Instead, he turned away from Valentine and towards Imogen. He took a deep breath, folded his arms over each other and spoke. “Valentine took your grandson. He stole him, raised him and eventually, when he turned out to be nice and good instead of cold and ruthless, left him.” your integrity makes me seem small. you paint dreamscapes on the wall. i talk shit with my friends it’s like i’m wasting your honor. Imogen looked like a woman that had seen too much and too little at the same time. Her eyes didn’t leave Jace’s figure, even as she moved backwards to a chair to sit down. Behind them, Valentine also found just enough common sense to shut up for a chance. Jace really didn’t want to do this with Valentine around to comment, but it seemed that they were.

“You look like your mother.” Jace stared. and you know that i’d swing with you for the fences. sit with you in the trenches. would i be enough if i could never give you peace?

#( peace ).#( dash & lily | au ).

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