#the ending is shitty I KNOW but i can't write endings to save my life

[altaiiriss]

(tw suicidal thoughts)

thinking about dazai and chuuya slowly doing better together.

they're gradually healing, thanks to therapy. they're happier, thanks to their little domestic life. they are each other's comfort person, the family they never had, the crying shoulder they always had to be to protect others, never allowing themselves to break. they learn how to live together, to open up, to trust the other with vulnerability.

everything's going rather smoothly, you know?

until dazai suddenly relapses.

there's no particular reason. your brain just does it, sometimes.

one day you open your eyes and suddenly nothing makes sense anymore.

he does his best to hide it, because chuuya is actually smiling now—he rarely saw him wearing a genuine smile on his face back in the mafia—and he wants to protect the sweet sound of his laughter.

dazai osamu wants to protect nakahara chuuya from the neverending darkness that claws at his soul and melts on his skin until he's one with it.

until you can't tell dazai osamu apart from the parasite that infests his brain and slowly devours the remnants of fond memories.

so he gradually distances himself from chuuya (and everyone else, really).

he stays at the agency after work hours, his body becoming one with the rough edges of the couch while his thoughts echo in the empty room.

he goes to bar lupin, sharing drinks with the ghost of odasaku until he's coming home so late that chuuya has already left for his night shift.

he starts turning down his coworkers' offers to eat lunch at the restaurant together, preferring to sit alone in the darkness of his dorm room and ignore the way his body is begging for food.

until one night he's coming home half drunk—whisky is way more alluring when it tastes like self-destruction—and he finds chuuya standing in the middle of the living room, arms crossed over his chest.

"i'm not leaving for work until you tell me why the fuck you've been avoiding me for weeks." he says, voice rough.

dazai chuckles. thank god there's plenty of alcohol in his system right now. he wouldn't be able to deal with this while completely sober.

except the alcohol makes him say stuff he doesn't mean, and it doesn't protect him from the harshness of chuuya's words. they're scarring dazai's flesh, cutting through that thick black layer that became his second skin and his first home. chuuya's voice reaches the most sensitive parts of dazai where not even the alcohol is allowed to go.

but it's all going according to plan. chuuya is angry—no, he's furious at him, and dazai can tell he's about to be kicked out of his apartment.

until chuuya breaks down.

"i don't know what to do with you," he says, and the desperation in his voice hits dazai all at once. "you're killing me, dazai."

no, no. this—this isn't part of the plan. why is chuuya hurting this much? why is he cradling dazai's cold cheeks with trembling hands? why is he holding on to him instead of letting him go?

"i never meant anything to you, did i?" he mutters, and dazai feels something in his throat snap.

"chuuya," he breathes, and his name tastes like a curse on his tongue, "i want to die. i want to die."

he frames chuuya's freckled face with his bare hands, holding him so tightly that the redhead's bones might shatter at any time.

because that's dazai osamu—when he finally stumbles upon something he likes, he holds on to it tightly with bruising force because violence is the only form of love he's ever known, until he swallows the object of his desire whole, until it becomes black, until he turns to nothing, just like him.

"i can't die knowing that'll hurt you. i need you to want me dead."

which is ironic, isn't it? they've been bragging about hating and killing each other since they were fifteen, and yet now that they can feel the weight of their words on their hands, it feels inexplicably wrong.

they can't dance around the truth anymore.

"i'm already hurting," chuuya whispers, and he makes sure that the resentment in his words is heard loud and clear, "you're hurting me so much."

dazai's breath gets stuck in his throat. "what can i do to make it stop?" he asks, and he hasn't heard that hopeless tone coming from himself since he held odasaku's dying body close to his chest. "i really want to go, chuuya."

"stay," chuuya pleads, hands shaking as he grips dazai's shirt as if that could prevent him from disappearing, "stop hiding—stay with me."

"to stay is to be hurt," he tries to offer a defeated smile, "i think one of us is destined to hurt."

and i wish it weren't me, dazai thinks.

and i wish it didn't always have to be me, chuuya thinks.

"stay," chuuya says again, as if the world alone could make dazai truly stay, "stay. fucking stay."

"i ca—"

"stay."

ah, it's been a long time since chuuya felt the animalistic urge to claim someone as his.

"i'm not letting go until you change your mind. stay." he says.

"you can't change my mind on this, chuuya."

"stay," he pleads, "stay, stay, stay! don't—" his voice breaks, and dazai knows they've hit the point of no return, "don't leave me."

there's something interesting about the way chuuya remarks the word 'me' rather than 'leave', dazai thinks.

"don't you dare leave me." chuuya says through gritted teeth. he cannot pinpoint the exact moment desperation turned into anger.

"i have to go," dazai mutters firmly, removing chuuya's hand from his crumpled shirt, "let me go, chuuya."

"i—"

the words die in his throat, stabbing his insides like a thousand tiny needles.

his eyes fall to the floor, and in the blink of an eye he's surrounded by darkness.

"you make me want to die." the redhead mumbles, and suddenly his skin is coated in black, and dazai isn't in his grip anymore.

he's been swallowed, hasn't he? at least that implies he's not alone.

how relieving.

[diegosumbrella]

My observations from s4 of Umbrella Academy

I dont even wanna talk about the main plot of whatever the fuck that car crash of a season four was, but heres some plot discrepancies I noticed while watching Umbrella Academy.

!! Season four spoilers under the 'see more' !!

- Luther's unnecessary body change

It's stated so clearly in s1 that Luther never gained his body from the marigold or developed it along with his powers. When he was up on that mission on the moon, he had an accident and Pogo had to donate his blood which resulted in Luther having that monkey body we all know and love.

So as Luther drank that said marigold, why would he suddenly gain back the blood donated from pogo and the body that comes along with that..? It's as if the writers themselves forgot why he had that body. Why write in unnecessary body dysphoria for my poor baby?

- Diego's sudden appearance of ab's

Listen. I am the last fucking person to complain about a Diego Hargreeves shirtless scene, where you see his pecs quite literally bounce BUT why did he change so drastically from 'dad bod' to suddenly 'ripped'?

I read an article interview with Steve Blackman and saw a few snippets from a podcast that explained that David (Diego's actor) didn't want to gain weight for the role, which is totally understandable. But if you have an actor who doesn't want to gain weight for this role, why not just keep Diego as fit?

Due to the short six episodes, it's extremely easy to miss how Diego slowly becomes more fit as time progressed. For most, and also myself at first, that fighting scene just looked confusing as fuck. Like two episodes before, Lila was calling you 'tubby' (or whatever the fuck she said), so why do you have abs now?? Where did the dilf diego dad bod disappear to :(

- Allison's beloved Ray just leaving her

I'm not sure if i'm taking this the wrong way completely but... In the scene after Allison had given Klaus the marigold against his wishes, but also to save his life. As Klaus is calling out every member of the family, he mentions how he 'took care of Allison when Ray walked out'.

Like i'm sorry but the fuck do you mean Ray just walked out?? Why did he leave Allison if she had no powers. She'd clearly built a better life for herself and began to change her mindset for the better, compared to s3 she's drastically better.

It's never explained (probably again for the lack of episodes) and it's never even mentioned again. Like does Allison share custody of Claire with Ray? Does Claire even see her father? I have so many questions and once again, a severe lack of answers.

- Klaus breaking his five year sobriety

As much as us as an audience are aware of Klaus' addictive tendencies and his utter thirst for form of drug in the former seasons, but why establish that he's not only been sober for three entire years but he's also now a huge germaphobe just for him to ruin it in five seconds.

The main problem I had with this is the fact none of the siblings, including and most importantly Allison, had zero reaction to this. They weren't upset, angry, disappointed or fuck it even happy. They practically ignored the fact their brothers three year detox went out the window.

Five's ability to time jump

Before I get you all jumping up my arse, i'm fully aware I could discuss how they completely just fucked his character development and his entire personality as a whole for a shitty romance that made absolutely no sense but I'm gonna make a separate post on that because oh boy do I have some shite to say.

ANYWAY.

I can't even go into much detail with this one but why is it that every time five attempts to do his time jumps, he ends up in that subway but when he does it with Lila in that end episode.. he can suddenly just jump..?? normally?? Like why. Why can he now only just time jump as he used too. WHY WAS THE SUBWAY NEEDED FOR OTHER THAN FOR THAT AWFUL FIVE X LILA PLOT????

It's as if the writers couldn't come up with a way to get the brellies into that building with Ben so instead of using critical thinking and writing them breaking in, they just said 'fuck it make him time jump with Lila'. Like no I have questions??

[sophsicle]

Okay, I understand hating Snape as an adult. He's a bully. But as a kid? As a teen? The result we see of Snape, him as a shitty adult, is an imperfect victim. Someone who had a bad life, made bad decisions, and was impacted by everything that happened to him. Not everyone can be abused, bullied, grow up in extreme poverty, and then pull through to be amazing people. SOME people can, and that's so amazing, but I don't think it's healthy to look at a child/teen with literally every social determinant of health against them and say 'well, they should've been able to do better'.

Does Snape suck as an adult? Yes. Did he also make decisions which saved Harry's life and allowed them to end the war? Also yes. Does he ultimately sacrifice his life for Harry? Yes. Does young Snape have a lot of potential, especially in spaces such as fanfiction, to explore the effects of one's upbringing and subsequent choices/life path (which you have explored so beautifully, carving out a life for a character in your stories with the very same themes)? Definitely.

I'm not saying he is a perfect person, or even a good guy, but a lot of people can and do relate to him as imperfect victims of bullying and abuse. Sometimes you can't rise above life's circumstances on your own, and you aren't this 'amazing' person. And that's okay. It's okay for victims of things like abuse to struggle, and it's good for people to acknowledge that things like bullying AREN'T okay and have lifelong consequences for their victims. Snape is a good example of what happens to a lot of people who aren't able to 'rise above' the things that happen to them and make mistakes. I think blind hatred for him is a very narrow-minded view, and ignores a lot of his story and nuances.

So two things a) I think perhaps you are missing some of the silly fun spirit I was attempting to infuse into my hatred of snape who is a character not a person

b) listen, I think snape is a super interesting character to play with because he offers a counter point to the marauders especially where issues of class are concerned, even the insults the marauders use against him, about him being "dirty" have clear class connotations and I think that allows you to critique the biases of the "heroes" of the story so to speak and that’s something I really like, so I’m not trying to suggest that he should just be dismissed because I don’t think he should be necessarily

What I am suggesting, is that JKR writes a grown adult teacher who abuses his students consistently and brutally for seven books (students he knows are already traumatized because the group he was a part of tortured or murdered their parents) and at the end of the series we are meant to forgive him because he loved a woman one time kind of maybe I guess

Now, fanfiction can do whatever it wants and make characters whoever it wants

But I have a fundamental problem with the way that snape is used in canon and the way that people accept that narrative

His behaviour as an adult towards the children he is in charge of is gross and unforgivable, but is absolutely forgiven by the narrative of the original text (without, I would argue, any of the nuance you are suggesting)

So I just find it less compelling to use fanfiction to continue to forgive this character

And like maybe if JKR didn’t explicitly write him as someone I was supposed to love I would feel differently, but because she does I don’t

I think you’re giving this character a lot more depth than he has

Which you totally can do with any character you wish, but for me, personally, not universally, cause there is no universal truth about a fictional character who does not exist, he deserves to be hated, in my opinion, again, cannot stress this enough, I’m not saying there is a right way to feel about this character because I don’t think you can say that about characters , but this is my way and I hate him and these are my reasons

Like you can hate characters without being narrow minded

I fear this is a thing you can do

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

A few people have defended Chloe and Lila's writing by saying that teenagers being just as capable of heroism as adults means that they need to be just as capable of villainy as adults. I know that's not good logic, but I can't put my finger on WHY it's not good logic, can you weigh in on this?

I actually don't think it's bad logic at all. They're right. Teenagers are absolutely capable of being monsters. A teenage bully may not have the wide reaching impacts of a terrorist, but teenage bullies still do real and lasting harm that can shape victims for the rest of their lives.

This is why you have to be really careful when it comes to redeeming either of these characters (and also Sabrina since she's almost as bad as Chloe in my eyes). You cannot minimize the harm that they've caused by saying "well, they're just kids" or even by pointing out that Chloe and Sabrina were victims of abuse.

Fourteen-year-olds are more than old enough to know right from wrong. Yes, they're not full adults yet, but they're in the stage of life where they're learning how to be adults. That's why we call them young adults! People in this stage of life are very capable of understanding that their words and actions can hurt people. Heck, three-year-olds are capable of that! If you don't think that these teenage characters understood that bullying Marinette was hurting Marinette, then you're arguing that these characters have some sort of developmental disability or psychological disorder or something of that nature that is effecting their development in an extreme manner. If so, then that requires immediate serious intervention by professionals, but I don't think that anyone is making that argument for anyone save, maybe, Lila.

On the abuse side of things: being a victim is not a free pass to hurt innocents. Victims don't get a magic ticket that says, "you may now do one free abuse" every time that they're abused. By that logic, giving Audrey an abusive past would absolve her of everything that she did to Chloe. The same goes for Gabriel and Adrien, which is why this is such shitty logic. Nothing justifies Gabriel and Audrey's actions. What they did to their children was wrong.

The same logic applies to all characters and all types of abuse. Victim status doesn't prevent you from becoming an abuser. It's actually quite common for abuse to lead to more abuse which is part of why you can't grant exceptions on the basis of victim status. If you do that, then you eventually reach a point where no one is accountable because everyone has been abused and is therefore a blameless victim who can do no wrong. No one wants to live in a world like that.

There is of course, a lot of nuance to this topic and a lot of it is heavily situational. For example, I totally believe that certain exceptions have to made for extreme cases that I'm not going to give examples of to avoid triggering content, but you can probably think of some. However, we're not talking about extreme cases here. The characters that we're talking about are reasonably normal fourteen-year-olds. Young adults who have been allowed to be part of society and who know that what they're doing is wrong. And if they don't know that bullying and terrorism are wrong? Then we're back to the concern that something is deeply wrong with these characters and they need immediate serious intervention from trained professionals.

To be fair, Lila may end up being that kind of character, but Chloe and Sabrina certainly aren't. Since Chloe was the character mentioned in the original ask, we'll focus on her for the rest of this. While Chloe has absolutely been abused, she's not some isolated victim who has no idea how the world works. She's been allowed a reasonably normal childhood. This scene from Malediktator is actually pretty solid writing for a character like Chloe:

Ladybug: I'm fine with helping you, Chloé, but first… I need you to tell me what happened. Why is your father— I mean, Malediktator, so mad? Chloé: It's because of this super lame loser named Marinette Dupain-Cheng. She's this horrible girl in my class and she hates me. (Ladybug looks angry, but then contains her feelings) She's ganged everyone up against me and she— Ladybug: Maybe this Marinette girl isn't entirely to blame? Chloé: Uh! Ugh. Okay, it wasn't totally Marinette's fault. She is really mean to me sometimes, but actually, this time, Daddy got angry all by himself. Ladybug:(not buying it) All by himself? Chloé: Yeah, because… there was something he couldn't do… Ladybug:(puts a hand on Chloé's shoulder) Chloé, it's me, Ladybug. You can trust me. You can tell me the truth. Chloé: I— I— Ladybug: Mm-hmm. Chloé: It— it was me. I hurt my daddy's feelings. Because I want to leave Paris, forever.

She knows right from wrong and she knows when she's hurting people. She just doesn't care most of the time because she's never had to face consequences for causing harm so why should she care? It's not like it effects her! This is why she only cares about the damage she causes when it effects her or the people she loves.

That's not a deeply messed up world view. A lot of people only have strong feelings about things effecting those they love. Chloe just needs to work on being more neutral to people outside her circle because that's how we make a happy functioning society. (This is a hint of that nuance I mentioned before. I'll give a few more hints as we go on, but we won't really be digging into it due to word count. Just know that I'm aware of it.)

Giving Chloe an abusive past didn't absolve her of her actions. It just gave us a potential reason for why she does what she does. This actually does make Chloe's abuse important! Once we know the reasons why her character is doing something, we can then understand her character and better guide her story. Understanding that she's a victim means that she can be helped because this isn't some inherent part of her. It's learned behavior and that means that she can unlearn it.

And now we get to circle back to the original ask and discuss why it's still valid to be mad about Chloe and Lila's treatment and why it IS bad even though it's not wrong to have "evil" teenagers.

The reason why Chloe and Lila's lack of redemption is concerning is because full grown adults who have done far worse things are being redeemed based on nothing while these two teenage girls are being treated as beyond hope. If Gabriel Agreste and André Bourgeois are allowed to have happy endings without doing anything to earn those happy endings, then why are Chloe and Lila being treated as devils? What message is this show trying to send to kids? That it's okay to be a terrorist as long as your reasons are good, but be a bully at 14 and you're doomed for life? That's total BS!

It's especially concerning because Chloe's bad treatment of her adult father is being used to justify his redemption while Audrey and Andre's terrible parenting is not being used to give Chloe a similar free pass. Writers, wtf are you doing? No one should be getting a free pass in this situation. They all need to take action to right their wrongs if they want to be redeemed. Andre shipping Chloe off to live with her mother is an adult man saying, "oops, raised that one wrong! We'll let's just pretend that never happened."

Don't get me wrong, Chloe's actions are still fully her own and she needs to own that, but crying, "Daddy" only held power because Andre did whatever Chloe told him to do. He held all the power and was happy to misuse it in order to make his daughter happy. That means that he holds blame here, too. He allowed his daughter to become a total brat by encouraging bratty behavior.

This was not a situation where Chloe was a danger to others for some reason. A situation where Andre was truly doing the best anyone could hope to do in order to keep his daughter placated so that she didn't physically hurt anyone. It was also not a situation where forces beyond Andre's control were effecting his daughter and shaping her personality while he was desperately trying to guide her down the right path. It was just plain old terrible parenting. He spoiled Chloe rotten, got the completely predictable end result, and then threw her out for a better version that someone else raised. What an uplifting message! (That was sarcasm.)

Chloe and Lila would have worked reasonably well in a story where all of the important characters were teens. A story where Lila was always the big bad, Gabriel was a minor character, and Chloe's parents never got any screen time.

That's not the story that the writers wrote, though, so the "teenagers can be evil" defense falls flat because if domestic terrorists aren't evil and child abusers aren't evil, but bratty teenage girls are, then what are we even doing here? This is extra true because the people this show is aimed at are not adult men. They're little girls who may very well relate to Chloe and Lila.

There's also the issue of Chloe being dammed while other teen characters were given a free pass for no real reason. Felix, Sabrina, and Kim have all done equally bad or even worse things. Felix is especially uncomfortable because he's basically a male Chloe who did all of the same actions - and often did them better - yet he doesn't have to give so much as a simple apology for what he's done. He's just good now because Kagami needs a boyfriend.

Chloe outed herself in public while emotionally compromised? So did Felix and he had weeks to plan before hand, too! Chloe did it in a totally reactive manner without any real plan.

Chloe used the miraculous that Gabriel stole? Felix stole the miraculous himself and gave them to Gabriel!

Chloe bulled Marinette? Felix bullied Adrien!

Felix even did some of the same things as Lila! He tried to ruin Adrien's friendships via manipulation and deceit in his first appearance. He knew Gabriel's secret and used it to his own advantage instead of telling the heroes. He used a major terrorist attack as an excuse to further his own goals. The list goes on! So why is he being welcomed onto the team with open arms? And why is no one telling Kagami just how dangerous her new boyfriend is? She wasn't there for most of this so she has no idea who she's dating.

And this isn't even touching the mess that was Derision's terribly delivered message about owning your actions and not blaming others for your bad behavior. That episode makes everything about Chloe's treatment look even more hypocritical.

In summary, the issue is not that teenagers can't be bad guys, they absolutely can! The issue is how all of the other bad guys and bullies are being treated compared to these two and how inconsistent the rules are. Of course, we haven't seen all of Lila's story, so who knows what the end game is for her. Maybe she'll also be trying to restore a dead wife and so she'll get a free pass, too.

[badkitty3000]

You Can't Go Home Again

Chapters 1 and 2

Link to Chapters 3 and Four

All Five wants to do is rest. But when yet another apocalypse threatens to doom them all, he doesn't have that luxury. This time, the only solution for the Hargreeves to try and save the world is to unite Five with another, alternate version of himself.

Five starts to spiral when he is faced with the alternate life that he could have had, if only he hadn't gone and ruined everything. But maybe, just maybe, there's still time for him to obtain the happy ending he deserves.

An alternate season three rewrite for a request I received.

Warnings: None

More chapters will be posted as I continue writing this multi-chapter fic. Enjoy!

Chapter One: The Other You

So much for being their ringer, Five thought bitterly as he stewed about the day’s earlier events. Lying there in his shitty bottom bunk bed like he was actually 13 years old, and waiting for Klaus to get back with his scotch, he tried to think of what to do next. Everyone was waiting on him, like he knew the answer to everything. It was damned if you do, damned if you don’t with this family, because no matter what Five said someone wasn’t happy with him. He sighed and flopped a pillow over his face, trying to drown out Diego and Luther’s arguing. At this point, he wished that Cobra Girl, or whatever the fuck her name was, would make him hallucinate he was on a tropical island with a fruity drink in one hand and Dolores in his other.

God damn it, he was tired.

Maybe this was for the best, though. Maybe they could just live here and be normal for once. After all, it didn’t seem all that bad. They just needed to avoid Dad’s merry band of Mega Assholes, but that should be easy enough. They could even keep the briefcase. He didn’t really need the reminder of that part of his life, anyway. The more he thought about it, the better it sounded. This was just what they all needed to start over.

Wait, where are all the lobsters? Fuck.

************************************************************************

“I swear there was a great vintage clothing store around here somewhere,” Klaus muttered to himself as he walked down the busy street, a few blocks from the hotel. He stopped and looked around, shading his eyes from the sun. He let out a frustrated groan. “The one time I could actually benefit from Ben being up my ass all the time. That jerk was like freaking Magellan.” He chuckled. “No wonder I’ve always been bad at directions. I usually just followed him.” Klaus caught the side-eye of a woman hurrying past him. “Aaaaand…now I’m talking to myself. Wonderful.”

As he stepped off the curb to try the other side of the street, he stopped dead in his tracks. Coming out of the café across the road, was an absolute dead ringer for Five. Well, an older version of him. But not like his real, 60 year-old version. More like the correct version, if the correct version had been allowed to age normally with the rest of his siblings.

It had to be him. Same dark hair swept to the side. Same lean build and sharp facial features. Same aggravated look on his face.

The one thing that was clearly wrong, besides the fact that he was roughly 30, was that he had two small children in tow, with one of them holding his hand. Then Klaus almost passed out when he saw a very pretty woman follow him out, putting her arm around his waist and kissing his cheek.

And Five just… smiled at her. Like it was the most normal thing in the world.

“What the…” Klaus started to wonder, before almost being run over by a delivery truck that came zooming down the street. “Shit!”

He stepped back onto the curb just in time, as the driver honked his horn and yelled obscenities at him as he drove past. But Klaus barely registered all of that. He couldn’t stop staring at his brother’s doppelganger, trying to figure out what to do about it. Would he even know Klaus? This was probably a completely different version that grew up here, in the Sparrow’s timeline and would have no idea that the Umbrella Academy even existed.

“Five!” Klaus yelled out, not even thinking.

The older version of his brother stopped and turned, looking for who might have called him.

“Fuck, it really is him,” Klaus muttered. “Five! Over here!” He waved his arms in the air, catching Five’s attention.

He watched as Five squinted across the street, then looked at the woman next to him, shrugging. The small girl holding his hand gave a sharp tug to get his attention, and Five let her pull him along down the sidewalk, taking one last confused look at Klaus over his shoulder.

“Fuck…now what?” Klaus said, one hand on his hip. “What would Ben say? He’d tell me I should not follow him and just go back to the hotel and tell Five. So…yeah, I’m going to follow him.”

Klaus stayed on the opposite side of the street, and hung back a little, but he followed Five and his family for a few blocks. As he paused behind a telephone pole, trying to hide for a few seconds to widen the gap between them, he was engulfed in a flash of blue light before being thrown against the side of a building, the front of his shirt clutched in someone’s hands, and a snarling voice speaking to him.

“Who are you and why are you following me?”

Klaus looked into the familiar green eyes of his brother, whose other version he had just recently been reunited with. There was no doubt it was Five now. Even without the spatial jump and the physical assault. When Klaus’s eyes dropped down to the fist that was clenching his shirt, he saw the tattoo that matched his own.

“Holy shit! Five, it’s really you!”

“How the fuck do you know my name? Who are you?” Five demanded again, pushing Klaus further into the brick wall.

“It’s me…Klaus! You know, your brother?”

Five paused, but didn’t loosen his grip at all. “What are you talking about?”

Klaus held his hands up in surrender, while also showing Five the inside of his left wrist. “See? It’s me! Numero Quatro. Remember?”

Five took a small step back, his eyes wide, but he still held tight. “Klaus?”

Klaus laughed. “Yeah! Hey buddy, how the hell are you?”

After a few more seconds of staring blankly at his brother, Five let him go and Klaus smoothed his shirt down. “I don’t understand. How are you here? This isn’t your timeline.”

“I know!” Klaus giggled. “It’s a LONG fucking story, one which my brother…well, you, actually, can explain much better than I can. But after a couple failed time travel attempts, here we are! And Dad was NOT thrilled to see us, let me tell you. Do you know he has a whole ass other family now? And Ben! He’s alive…or a version of him is alive. He seems like a real dick. But then there’s you, and look at you! All grown up and with a family? That’s so great! But how did you get here? How are you not a Sparrow?”

Five pinched his nose between his thumb and forefinger and sighed before smiling at his long-lost brother. “Klaus, it is really good to see you, but please, give me a minute here. I need to think.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“So, how did you time travel here? With what resource?”

“To this particular timeline? A magical briefcase. Before that, it was just you.”

“Ignoring whatever the hell a magical briefcase is, do you mean you used my powers to time travel?”

“Yes, but with varying success.”

“Ok. So, there’s a version of me with you now?”

Klaus nodded. “Yes. And you are ADORABLE.” He saw Five’s frown of confusion. “You’re thirteen. Well, not really. You’re actually 58, since you got stuck in an apocalypse for 45 years and then messed up your own time math on your return to 2019. So, yeah, you’re super cute but, wow, are you ornery.”

Five thought for a moment before quietly mumbling, “So you must be from an alternate Umbrella Academy timeline where I still time traveled at thirteen, but with a different outcome.”

Klaus nodded. “Sure, that sounds about right.” Then he tilted his head in confusion. “Hang on, if you’re here and the same age as me, and you still have the Umbrella tattoo, then how did you get here and how are there two of you?”

Five frowned. “Again, I’m going to speculate, because I can’t be entirely sure. But from what you’re saying, it sounds like there were at least two original timelines where the Umbrella Academy and us and the rest of our siblings existed. I decided to defy Reggie and jump to the future in both of those timelines, except that’s where things went differently. It sounds like in your timeline, that version of me got stuck in the future with no way back. In my particular case, I jumped and instead of going forward in time, I went sideways and got stuck.”

“Sideways?”

“Meaning, I jumped to a different, alternate universe with the Sparrows, but the time remained the same. So, I grew up here, in this timeline but without good old Dad to raise me.”

“Oh right…” Klaus said, nodding as if he completely understood. “So, you’re not the same Five that rubbed hot chili oil in my underwear in retaliation for stealing your sandwich when we were twelve?”

Five looked taken aback, but then he gave a short laugh. “No, but I did dare MY Klaus to touch his junk after cutting up a habanero pepper, then proceeded to take his picture when he started screaming and pouring milk down his underpants.”

“Man, you really are an asshole in every timeline!” Klaus laughed. “Poor me.”

With a grin, Five shook his head. “It really is good to see you, Klaus. The last time I saw any of my siblings I was thirteen. I’m glad to see you made it out and are doing well.”

“Well…I wouldn’t go that far, but I made it out anyway. And what about you? So, you landed here and then what? I didn’t see you with the other assholes who were beating the shit out of us in our own home.”

“Oh, the Sparrows? Yeah, they are a special brand of dickheads, that’s for sure. Even as teenagers, they sucked. Which is why—”

Just then, a pulsing wave of…something…washed over them and the entire city block, only for it to reverse itself and disappear the way it came. As Klaus and Five stood there in shock, a lady that had been walking on the other side of the street screamed loudly. When they looked over, they saw her holding up a dog leash attached to an empty collar. She pivoted in place, scanning all around her while she called out “Winston!” in a panic.

“Well, that’s probably not good,” Klaus observed; head tilted to the side.

“Yeah, no shit,” Five snapped. He glanced down the street, where his family was waiting for him on a bench. They appeared to be intact and he let out a sigh of relief. “Listen, I have to get back to my family. I don’t know what the hell that was, but if I had to bet, I’d say it had something to do with Reginald. So, as much as I’d love to sit here and catch up, I have to go.”

“Oh,” Klaus said sadly. “Yeah, ok. But don’t you want to come meet the rest of the gang? We’re all staying over the Hotel Obsidian, if you know where that is –”

“You’re staying there?” Five asked incredulously.

“Yeah, why?”

“That’s Dad’s place. He owns it. Didn’t you know that?”

Klaus shook his head. “No, I had no idea. Are you sure?”

Five rolled his eyes. “Yes, I’m sure. I’ve been tracking Reggie since I was a kid. That place is basically his evil lair, and even if I haven’t been able to figure out what is going on in there, it’s a safe bet it’s in nobody’s best interest except his own.”

“Sounds about right, actually,” Klaus mused. “But, hey! He’s not there now, and our siblings would love to meet you, I’m sure. And OUR Five…he’s such a little shit gremlin, you should see him…you…well, you know what I mean. Don’t you want to meet your other self?”

“I’m sure there are terrible consequences to that, actually.”

“Oh, come on…just for a minute…”

“Klaus! A mysterious, dog-eating, energy wave from hell just passed over the city and you want to start planning a family reunion? They aren’t even my real family, anyway! So…while this has been fun, I have to go. Good luck with everything.”

In another flash of blue, Five was gone; reappearing at the other end of the street where his wife and kids were still waiting. Klaus watched in fascination as Five hugged them, and then continued down the street in a hurry, keeping them close to him for protection.

“Well, this is some weird-ass shit, even for us, right Benerino?” Klaus closed his eyes and sighed when he realized he was alone again. “Damn it. I keep forgetting.”

************************************************************************

Five was helping himself to the large selection of booze the hotel bar had to offer, trying to find just the right single malt to drown his sorrows and help him forget the happenings of the day. He decided that things couldn’t really get worse, so he might as well get plastered. He rattled off the earlier events in his head as he tipped back a bottle of Japanese whiskey and swallowed down a large gulp.

Lila tried to kill me. BOTH fucking briefcases won’t work. Lila tried to kill me AGAIN. The Commission is dead and the world is soon to follow. My old, one-armed ass died in front of me without giving me one single piece of useful information except “don’t save the world.” Jesus, what an asshole. And now this kugelblitz shit. He took another swig, grimacing as it slipped down his throat and burned his stomach. Oh yeah, let’s not forget that I’m still stuck in this prepubescent body, which is all sorts of fun. Although I think I spied one single hair on my nuts this morning, so things are really starting to look up.

“Fuck,” he muttered before laughing sardonically at himself and taking another pull at the bottle. “I should have listened to you, Dolores. I should have waited until I was one-hundred-percent sure of the math, just like you said. But you know me, always impulsive. I’m glad you’re not here to witness this, my dear, because I really stepped in it this time.”

“Five! Holy shit, I’ve been looking everywhere for you!

Klaus came running up to the bar, out of breath and smiling. Five frowned before taking another sip of whiskey. “Well, I’m not sure where you’ve been looking because I’ve been right here for the last hour.”

“Well, yeah…I mean I just got here. But, still, I have big news!”

“I’m on the edge of my seat,” Five said dryly.

“I met you!”

“Excuse me?”

“You! Well, another you, but it was still you! But like, older, you know? But with the same Umbrella Academy tattoo and surly attitude. And let me tell you…I was right because you did grow up to be hot. So, never fear little bro, you are one smoking piece of ass once you get past this awkward phase.”

“Klaus,” Five said, running a tired hand down his face. “What in the fuck are you talking about?”

Klaus took a deep breath. “I was walking around, trying to find this store I used to like, when I saw you. Another version of you.”

Five set the whiskey bottle down with a hard “thunk.” He crossed his arms on the bar top and leaned in toward Klaus, his eyebrows drawing together. “Come again?”

“You, Fivey!” Klaus repeated, gesturing wildly to his confused, smaller brother. “And get this…you have a family! An adorable wife and two precious little children. You should have seen yourself in absolute domestic bliss.” Klaus put a hand to his chest. “Oh, it was precious.”

Five slow blinked a few times, trying to understand what his moronic brother was babbling about. The whiskey was slowing his processing speed and he needed to catch up. “Hang on,” he squinted, trying to keep things in focus. “You saw another version of me? And you talked to him?”

Klaus nodded. “Yes!”

“This is…” Five muttered, picking up the bottle, but then setting it back down again with a frown. “This is not good.”

“That’s what he said! Well, not those exact words, but pretty close. I tried to get him to come here and meet everyone but—”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Five barked.

“What? I thought he’d like to see the other versions of us, since he comes from a different timeline, apparently. This you didn’t get stuck in an apocalypse, he just landed here instead. I don’t really understand everything and we didn’t have time to get into specifics before the scary energy tsunami killed the vibe.”

“Energy…what? Damn it, Klaus, I’m too drunk for this.” Five sighed heavily, dropping his head onto his arms before raising it again. He passed a hand through his hair, sweeping it out of his eyes. “Ok, listen carefully. Do NOT, under any circumstances, interact with my other self again. Understand?”

Klaus pouted. “Why? Aren’t you curious about this you?”

With a sorrowful look in his eyes, he shook his head slowly. “It doesn’t matter if I am or not. What matters is keeping us safe. You and our siblings. We can’t worry about anyone else right now, and that includes any other versions of ourselves that may be walking around. We just don’t have that luxury.”

“But…your kids…”

“They are not MY kids, Klaus! They’re HIS!” Five snapped, much more harshly than he had intended. He backed down a little. “I’m sorry. There’s too much at stake. Not to mention I can’t be trusted if I’m around another version of myself.”

“Oh, right…the psychosis thing. Yeah, Luther mentioned you went a little..” Klaus made a cuckoo bird noise and circled a finger next to his head. “I forgot about that.”

“Yeah, well I haven’t. It’s not exactly a great feeling to want to scratch your ball sack off while your doppelganger tries to murder you. You tend not to forget those things.”

“Point taken, mon frere.” Klaus grabbed a shot glass from behind the bar and poured himself some of Five’s whiskey. After throwing it back in one go, he looked around. “Alright, I have to go find everyone else and tell them the news. They aren’t going to believe this.”

As Klaus walked away, Five knew he should stop him. He needed to tell him about the kugelblitz, especially since it sounded like maybe he had already experienced a wave of it. But he had just been thrown some very heavy news and he needed time to think. It didn’t help that his brain was foggy with booze and he had already been in a maudlin mood even before Klaus had dumped this on him.

There was another version of himself walking around that city right now, not that far away. Another version that grew up in a normal world. That didn’t spend decades in a lifeless hellscape, scrounging to stay alive and slowly going insane. One that hadn’t fucked up his life, not once, but twice, with shaky math and a too-cocky attitude. And one that had a real family.

That was what Five kept circling back to. Klaus had seen him with a wife and two kids. Just the thought that there was an alternative life for him out there that included a real family nearly sucked the air right out of his lungs. A wife. A real wife that he presumably loved and that loved him in return. Children of his own.

It was too much. He couldn’t breathe and he furiously pulled at his necktie as if it were a noose tightening around his thin neck. Five pulled in loud gasps of air, but it still wasn’t enough. Grabbing the half-empty bottle of whiskey off the bar, he staggered towards the first bathroom he saw off the main floor. Panting with eyes wide, Five trudged to the old, grimy sink and stared into the mirror.

“Fuck you,” Five hissed to the skinny little shithead that was staring back at him. “You’re useless.”

He took a long swig from the bottle, his hand shaking on the way. As two small rivers of brown liquid seeped out of the corners of his mouth and down his chin, he lowered the bottle clumsily, hitting the side of the sink and smashing it into pieces. As shards of glass rained down onto the tiled floor, the pleasant tinkling sound echoing around him, Five laughed. It was a dangerous, demonic laugh that frightened even himself. He stopped abruptly, his hands clutching the sides of the sink, palms digging into the slivers of glass that had fallen there.

“You stupid asshole,” he snarled at the kid-version of himself. “You absolute piece of shit. Look what you’ve done. You’ve ruined everything.” He looked down sadly, then back up again. This time, instead of hate in his eyes there was only bottomless sorrow. “You don’t deserve that life. That’s why you ended up here, looking like this. Because you are the version that shouldn’t exist. You are the version that does not get happiness.”

Five’s cold eyes flitted down to the ground. There, lying next to his polished dress shoes that he had been so excited to complement his tailored suit, was a large piece of the broken bottle. The shard was long and tapered at the end to form a jagged dagger shape. Perfect for stabbing. Or slicing into a main artery so that someone, or yourself, would bleed out in a matter of seconds. Five stared at that piece of glass for far too long before slowly lifting his head again, facing himself in the mirror.

“I know. Don’t worry, Dolores…it was just a thought. Besides, that would be like drinking bleach while your car is flying off a cliff into a ravine. Why bother? Either way it ends the same.”

A few hours later, after cleaning the bathroom of any evidence, and composing himself back into a man in full control, Five found his siblings. It was clear that Klaus had filled them in on his discovery, and they all hushed as Five neared the group, although he noticed Klaus himself was missing. Pausing to grab himself a tumbler of scotch on the way, Five joined them. After stopping to take a casual drink, one hand in the pocket of his suit pants, Five gestured with his glass in hand.

“Alright, let’s hear it. I know Klaus told you, so let’s get this over with.”

“Five, you have a family! That’s wonderful!” Luther gushed.

“I guess I was wrong, maybe you do have a bit of domesticity in you,” Lila snorted.

Viktor shrugged with a smile and Allison rolled her eyes, neither of them saying a word.

Diego nonchalantly flipped a knife in his hand while eyeing Five up. “So now what? We have to deal with two of you? Because I can barely stand one of you.”

Five smiled his usual, acerbic smile. “Well, Diego, the feeling is mutual. But fear not; neither you nor I will be coming anywhere near my other self.”

“Why not? Klaus said the other you seemed perfectly nice after you stopped slamming him against a wall,” Luther said innocently.

Five sighed heavily, wishing for the umpteenth time that he didn’t have the sole responsibility of critical thinking skills in this family. “Because…” he began slowly, to make sure they were understanding, “Not only does it have the possibility of creating even more havoc to this timeline, there’s also the little matter of –”

“Oh!” Luther interrupted animatedly. “I remember! The paradox psychosis!” He turned to the rest of the family. “You guys missed it, but he kind of went a little…” He lowered his voice to a whisper even though Five could hear everything. “…psycho, if you know what I mean.”

“Jesus, Luther, I’m right here!” Five closed his eyes to try and regroup. “But, yes, paradox psychosis is the real deal. And there’s no way around that. So, let’s just focus on the task at hand, which is trying to get out of here before the world implodes with us in it.”

Five’s gaze landed on Lila, and he immediately knew she was up to something. “What the hell are you smirking at?”

She shrugged while sticking her hand up her short skirt and pulling out a small item. Five made a disgusted groaning noise. “God, please, whatever that is, I do not want it.”

“Oh, shut up, you little perv. Here,” she said with an eye roll, shoving the item into Five’s hand and forcing him to take it. “While you were having your little heart to heart with your freshly deceased corpse back at the Commission, I found this.”

Five peered down at his open hand. It was a syringe filled with a yellowish substance. On closer inspection, he could make out two words scrawled along the side, in what looked like his own handwriting. Paradox Juice.

“Paradox Juice?” he questioned out loud. He looked back up at Lila. “Is this what I think it is?”

She shrugged again. “Your guess is as good as mine. I assumed it was some sort of concoction to ward off psychosis should you ever have to meet with your doppelganger. The old, decrepit you probably made it during his time at the Commission.”

Five held the syringe up to the light and peered intently at the golden liquid inside. “Where did you find this?”

“On one of the tables in the bunker. When you so rudely had me leave during your existential crisis, I swiped them on the way out.”

“Them?”

“Oh yeah…” she reached up into her skirt again, revealing an identical syringe. “There were two.”

“How did you…where did you have those, because we just…I mean I’m pretty sure I would have found those when we were upstairs doing…what the hell?” Diego stammered; his dark eyes clouded with confusion.

“Don’t worry about it, honey,” Lila answered with a smile and a quick pat on his cheek. “Every girl has her secrets.”

“Well, regardless of this finding, there is no reason for me to make contact with my other self. I don’t see the benefit, and it could possibly do more harm, like speed the kugelblitz along,” Five explained while shoving both syringes into his inside suit coat pocket. He took another drink from his glass. “Let’s just forget it, ok?”

“Guys!” Klaus yelled as he rushed up to the group. “I have some bad news.”

***************************************************

Chapter Two: Homicidal Rage

As the seven of them trudged along the city streets, taking up the width of the sidewalk, and bumping into one another while grumbling and shoving each other in return, the sky began to darken. Another pulsing kugel wave washed over them and the surrounding buildings. They all watched in horror as every other living creature evaporated into ashes and blew away with the wind. In a matter of seconds, they were the only ones around.

“Fuck, this is not good,” Five groaned. “I really don’t see how finding my other self is going to help anything. Besides, for all we know, that wave right there just destroyed me.”

“We don’t know, but we have to try,” Viktor said. “Between the two of you, maybe you can figure out how to get the briefcase working again.”

Five looked dubiously down at the mangled black case in his hand. “I just don’t think my other self is going to welcome us into his home with open arms. I know I wouldn’t.”

“I’m telling you, Fivey, this you seemed much less ragey,” Klaus said. Five glared up at him. “See? That look right there, the one that means you want to rip my throat out? I didn’t get that from this other you.”

“Probably because that version is getting laid on a regular basis,” Diego murmured to Lila.

Ignoring his brothers, Five went back to his own thoughts as they continued down the street. When Klaus had told them Chet was kicking them out of the hotel due to “insufficient funds”, there was a moment of panic. They had no money and their only home was currently occupied by the world’s biggest assholes. Five glanced up at a giant billboard looming overhead featuring those same assholes, before looking back down at the ground. Fucking fuckers.

After a family meeting that involved more bickering and finger pointing, they had concluded that the only possibility, no matter how slim, of stopping the kugelblitz by returning to their correct timeline, was to track down the other Five and ask him for help.  Five had been the last hold-out in agreeing to the plan. He had no desire to find out what this other version was like. The one with the home and a wife and kids. Because he already knew the answer. He had everything and Five had nothing.

Allison, who had been leading the group, suddenly stopped, causing everyone behind her to cartoonishly crash into one another. She shoved Diego away from her with an irritated scowl, while continuing to look down at the piece of paper in her hand. She lifted her eyes to the building in front of them. It was a beautiful brownstone with magazine-worthy flowers and plants covering the front stoop; the gorgeous geraniums and petunias overflowing from their tasteful terracotta pots.

“I think this is it,” she noted.

“Damn, Five…nice digs. You must be doing well for yourself,” Diego commented after giving Allison a shove in return.

“Why do you assume Five is the breadwinner here? Maybe it’s his wife,” Viktor argued.

“I don’t. But Five is all smart and shit, I assume he’s probably some hot shot scientist or something.”

“Maybe his wife is a hot shot scientist,” Viktor shot back.

As the conversation quickly devolved into an argument among the entire group, Five remained silent. He peered up at the house in question. The one where the supposedly more successful version of himself resided. He stared at the flowers and the set of brick stairs that led to the front door with the cheerful looking wreath. He thought back on a time during the apocalypse when he and Dolores were scavenging for supplies. They had come across a destroyed row of brownstones just like this one, and he remembered finding broken shards of terracotta intermixed with the crumbling bricks. The odds that it had been this exact same house were pretty slim, but not impossible. Talk about fucking irony.

Five wiped the sweat from his brow and absent-mindedly scratched at his shoulder. Luther noticed and pointed his big meaty finger at Five.

“Dude! I saw that. You just scratched yourself.”

“Yeah, and you’re starting to sweat again,” Lila added, wrinkling her nose.

“I just walked several miles in a three-piece suit, of course I’m sweating. And people itch, Luther. Stop being dumb.”

“Denial,” Luther said, crossing his arms over his chest and nodding wisely. “Stage one.”

“God damn it! I am not…” Five started before scratching at his ass cheek, “…In denial, ok?”

“You do look a little weird,” Diego said, leaning in closer to Five in curiosity.

Five stuck his hand out, pushing his brother away with a palm to his face. “I do not look weird. Fuck, I need to take a piss.”

There were multiple grumblings around him, and Five was starting to suspect that maybe they had a point. He didn’t feel great. But…

“Hang on,” he said, glancing around and above him, looking crazier by the second. “This could be a trap.”

“How could it be a trap? He doesn’t even know we’re coming,” Allison reasoned.

Five whipped his head in her direction, eyes wide and manic. She took a small step backwards. “Because, dear sister…I am a fucking genius, remember?” He tapped his temple with his finger. “And I would anticipate our arrival. Probably set up some trip wires or something,” he mumbled, looking frantically around him.

“Ok, this is not going to get any better,” Luther told everyone.

Klaus nodded. “Yeah, Five, I think you need to take that shot of paradox juice.”

Remembering he had the two syringes in his jacket, Five took them out and held them up for everyone to see. “I’m not taking this, are you crazy? HE probably made these and poisoned them just to try and get rid of me,” he raged, pointing up at the house. “Paradox juice? You expect me to believe that I would come up with that lame ass name?” He turned to yell up at the windows facing the street. “I’m on to you, asshole!”

“Oh, for fucks sake,” Lila groaned. Mimicking Five’s powers, she blinked over to him, catching him off guard as she grabbed the syringes out of his hands. As Five began to protest, she looked over at Luther. “Hold him still, big guy.”

No stranger to taking orders, Luther immediately complied. Holding Five in place by pinning his arms to his side, he tried to reason with his struggling, smaller brother that it was for his own good. But that was like trying to reason with a cocaine-fueled raccoon, and Five snarled and hissed while trying to get away.

“Get your giant ape hands off of me! You tried to kill me before, I know you’ll do it again! LET ME G—OW! SON OF A BITCH!”

Lila sunk the needle of the syringe directly into the side of Five’s neck, pushing the plunger down and smiling gleefully while he writhed in pain.

“FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCK…” Five screamed as Luther continued to keep him trapped.

“How long do you think it takes to work?” Viktor asked worriedly.

Lila shook her head. “No idea. Might not even work at all. Or I just killed him. But, you win some, you lose some, am I right?”

Everyone watched in fascination as Five slowly started to relax in Luther’s grip. His jaw unclenched and he stopped swearing. After about two minutes, the crazed look in his eyes left and he gazed at the concerned faces around him like a man waking from a dream.

“I think…I think I’m ok now,” he said weakly.

Luther leaned down, studying his face up close. “Are you sure? Because if I let you go and you kick me in the balls again, I am not going to be happy.”

Five shook his head. “No, really. I think that shit actually worked.”

Luther looked around for confirmation, and receiving nods of approval from everyone else, he let go of Five’s arms. Stepping back, he shielded his crotch from any unexpected backlash.

Five took in a deep breath of air and wiped away the last few drops of sweat that had been trickling down the back of his neck. Then he ran a shaky hand through his hair before straightening his suit coat and tie with as much dignity as he could manage.

“Sorry about that,” he told everyone, trying to regain his composure again. “If I said anything rude, I apologize. I was clearly not in my right mind.”

“So, no different than any other day,” Diego muttered under his breath.

Five shot him an irritated look, but said nothing. He turned to Lila. “Even though it was entirely unnecessary to stab me directly in the neck, you lunatic, thank you.”

“Happy to do it,” Lila grinned, slapping him hard on the back.

“Alright, then,” Five stated, rolling his shoulders back. “Let’s do this.”

As he took one step forward, the front door of the house swung wide open, revealing an older, and very sweaty and harried looking, version of himself. In his other self’s hands was a rifle that was trained directly at Five’s head.

“Don’t fucking move,” the other Five warned through gritted teeth.

Five paused, taking in the clearly psychotic version of himself before quipping. “Hey, asshole…the safety’s still on.”

As the alternate version lowered the weapon to check the safety, Five and Lila exchanged knowing glances with one another, before simultaneously blinking onto the porch. Appearing directly in front of himself, Five grabbed the rifle out of his doppelganger’s hands, while at the same time Lila stabbed the needle of the second syringe into his neck.

“AH! MOTHERFUCKER!” the other Five screamed, falling to his knees as he slapped a hand over the pinprick of blood that had started to seep out of the small puncture wound. “WHAT THE FUCK, YOU PSYCHO?”

Five threw the rifle down to Luther, who caught it in one hand, before turning to Lila. “Really? In the neck again? What is wrong with you?”

“I live for your pain.”

With a shake of his head, Five looked down at the panting, cursing version of himself. “Stop being a pussy. It’s not that bad.”

His alternate glared up at him. “Fuck you, Blue’s Clues.”

Lila laughed loudly. “Nice!” She held out her hand for a high five, but when she only received an icy glare from both men, she shrugged. “You’re too close to the situation, but trust me, that was hilarious.”

************************************************************************

“You have a lovely home, ma’am,” Luther said with an awkward smile as he sat scrunched on the couch between Klaus and Viktor.

The seven siblings, plus the older looking, alternate Five and his wife were gathered in the small living room. Five’s wife, who was introduced as Marie, sat perched on the arm of her husband’s chair, rubbing his back while he stared down his younger looking self.

“Thank you, Luther, that’s very kind.”

There was more awkward silence until finally Allison spoke up.

“Ok, so we obviously did not come here just for a friendly visit, although it is lovely meeting you two. However, we have a big problem. Our being in this timeline has caused a rift, so to speak, in the universe and now it’s trying to kill us.” She looked over at her smaller brother, who was standing with his hands shoved in his pockets, glowering angrily at his other self. “Five? Care to explain?”

Snapping reluctantly out of his stupor, Five faced his sister. “Right.” Then he addressed the other Five and his wife again. “So, as I’m sure you’ve noticed there are large energy waves pulsing over the city, erasing dogs and lobsters and now people.”

“Yeah, I have noticed. And I also happened to notice they started when Klaus here decided to follow me.”

Klaus started to protest, but Diego bumped him with his elbow, telling him to shut up. Five continued.

“Well, you are right about that. But it’s not Klaus’s fault, at least not solely. It’s all of ours. I thought we’d be able to remain here, just keeping a low profile, and live out our lives here. But, it seems the universe has other plans. So, we have accidentally created a kugelblitz and in a few short days it will destroy the entire universe.”

“Like a prolapsing rectum,” Lila added helpfully.

Both Fives looked at her with a frown and then turned back toward one another. The alternate Five set his elbows on his knees, leaning forward and steepling his hands under his chin. “So, you’re telling me that you group of assholes are the reason my family is going to be wiped out?”

Five nodded, actually looking a little sad. “I’m afraid so.”

“And you just came here to let me know, why? Just to give me a heads up? Mighty kind of you, thanks.”

Five gritted his teeth. “No, jacka—” He stopped mid-insult when Luther cleared his throat and gave him a look that said “Behave”. “No, that’s not why we came. We came…” He pushed a hand through his hair and he saw Marie bite back a smile as she recognized the same mannerisms as her husband. “We came to ask for help.”

“How am I supposed to help you? In case you forgot, James Bond, Jr., I AM you!” Marie gave him a pinch under his arm and the older Five jumped before looking just a tiny bit guilty. “Sorry.”

Five turned to his siblings, throwing his hands in the air. “See? I told you coming here was useless.” He turned to his doppelganger, leaning in with a caustic glare. “And just to remind you, shithead, I’m 28 years older than you, so watch your mouth.”

“Ok!” Luther jumped in, trying to salvage the conversation. “The thing is, Five,” he said, addressing the older version that was currently looking like he was considering punching his smaller self in the mouth. “We really do need your help. And you need his help. The two of you together are the only chance we have to stop this thing and get back to our correct timeline. Then you and your family, and the rest of the world, will be safe.”

“And how do you propose we do that?” the other Five said, tearing his eyes away from himself and turning to Luther. “My time travel math is just as shaky as his. I’ve been studying it my whole life, so it’s gotten better, but I still wouldn’t trust it. I certainly wouldn’t trust it with my wife and kids’ lives in question.” He placed a hand on his wife’s knee and squeezed it gently.

“Well, luckily, we won’t have to rely on just our powers,” Five explained, picking the black briefcase off the floor and holding it up for the other version to see.

“What the hell is that?”

Klaus piped up. “Remember I told you about the magical briefcase?”

The alternate Five nodded. “Yeah, I remember. So, how does it work?”

“Well, currently it doesn’t. Which is why we need you,” Five said.

The other Five took a skeptical look at the battered case. “How am I supposed to help? I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

Five sighed. “As it turns out, another version of ourselves created it, using our powers as its basic design. It’s one-hundred-percent reliable, unlike our blinks. That is, when the universe isn’t collapsing. Now, it’s a hunk of junk. That’s where you come in.”

“What makes you think I know how to fix it?”

Five’s mouth turned up at the corner with a smug smile. “Because, I know us. And I am willing to bet that you work in some sort of scientific field.” When he received no denial, he continued. “I am also willing to bet you have some sort of lab right here in your home where you’ve been working on time travel over the years, trying to perfect it.”

Marie laughed. “Wow, you are dead on with that. He’s made it his life’s work figuring out how to accurately time travel. Even when he was a teen, his mom said he was constantly in their basement working on it. She showed me pictures of him slumped over his desk, looking just like you actually, having fallen asleep while running his numbers. It was very cute.”

Five paused, thrown for a second by that comment. “His mom?”

The other Five nodded. “I was adopted after I jumped here,” he explained offhandedly. “So, what you’re telling me is that if we can get this briefcase up and running again, you can return to your rightful timeline, the universe will correct itself, and my family will be safe?”

Still dwelling on the fact that his other self had been adopted by different people, Five nodded slowly before collecting himself again. “Theoretically.”

The alt Five turned to look at his wife. “What do you think, darling?”

“Five, they’re your family, even if they aren’t from your same timeline. You told me how much you’ve missed them over the years, and now here they are! They need your help, and I know you can give it to them.” She brushed a piece of hair out of his eye with a sweet smile. “This is what you’ve been working towards. To use your powers for something good and big.” She kissed him, placing a hand on his cheek and he closed his eyes for a moment. “You can do this.”

He nodded and then turned back toward the group. “Ok, I will do what I can to help.”

“Thank you,” Allison breathed out with a sigh of relief. “Thank you, so much.”

“Better go show him your lab,” Marie told her Five. “In the meantime, you must all be starving. The kids were just next door playing, but I’ll have them come back and I’ll make dinner. Sound good?”

“I know I could eat,” Luther said excitedly while Viktor rolled his eyes at him.

“That would be lovely, Marie, thank you. Can we help?” Viktor asked.

************************************************************************

As the two Fives made their way down the basement steps, neither of them said a word. Five was still reeling from the brief bit of information he had just received about his 30 year-old self. This other Five had been adopted by someone other than Reginald. And from the sounds of it, they were nice, normal people. He swallowed down the lump in his throat, trying to clear his head and focus on what he needed to do. But it was extremely difficult when all he kept thinking about was how this alternate version of himself had been given the chance for a normal life while he just kept getting shit on over and over again. It was maddening to think about, and if he let it fester in his mind, he was going to go crazy.

Fuck, he needed a drink.

As his other self flipped the light switch on at the end of the stairs, the overhead lights flickered on with a quiet hum. Five stopped on the bottom stair and took everything in. The space wasn’t huge, but every single usable square inch was filled with something. Long work tables scattered with tools and notebooks, empty coffee cups and paper plates filled with crumbs. The walls were lined with white boards; each one crammed with lines and lines of familiar equations and scribblings. It was surreal to see his own handwriting and obvious work in a place he’d never set foot in before.

As he scanned over the jam-packed computer desk against the far wall, his eyes fell to the framed picture sitting amongst the clutter. It was the other version of himself, with Marie and his two kids. It must not have been taken that long ago, because the two adults looked the same. The kids in the picture looked to be about four and six. A girl and a boy. The four of the them were on a beach somewhere, the sun shining down and making the water behind them sparkle. The girl was perched on her dad’s shoulders, a pink sunhat on her head. The boy was standing in front of Marie, grinning widely with a plastic bucket and shovel in his hand. The other him was smiling directly at the camera, while his pretty wife looked lovingly over at him. Five had never seen himself smile like that before. He had no idea that’s what he looked like when genuinely happy. It was off-putting, to say the least.

“You ok?” the other Five asked gruffly when he realized his older yet smaller self seemed frozen to the spot.

 Five cleared his throat. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. So what is all this stuff?”

“Well, I’m sure you recognize the equations and proofs,” he said, pointing to the white boards. He gestured to the tables. “I’ve been working on developing a type of time travel system, much like that briefcase. Some sort of object that could be programmed specifically to a certain date and time, so we don’t have to rely solely on our powers. Like—”

“A watch,” Five finished for him.

The other Five nodded. “Exactly.”

“I never did understand the briefcase,” Five mused. “It’s so bulky.”

“I assume it’s bulletproof, though?”

Five scoffed. “Don’t get me started.”

“Well, anyways, have a look around. Maybe something here can help, I don’t know. I’ve never really tried it in practical application before. It’s always been theoretical.”

“That’s ok,” Five said, setting the briefcase on top of one of the tables. “We have this as a guide. We can see if the inner workings of the case make sense in comparison to your work here. Then maybe we can piece things together to create a working timepiece.”

The alternate Five nodded thoughtfully again, studying his other self. “Hang on,” he said before striding over to the desk and opening the bottom drawer. He pulled out a bottle of single malt scotch and two glass tumblers. After filling each one halfway, he handed one over to Five.

“I recognize the need for a drink,” he explained with a tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth.

Five accepted the glass, trying to disguise the fact that he was practically salivating at the sight. Needing a drink was an understatement. He wanted the whole damn bottle. But he didn’t need to be getting drunk at a time like this. And he also didn’t need to be showcasing his shortcomings to this clearly sober, well-adjusted, life-is-just-peachy-keen version of him, either. The fact that he was a raging alcoholic with unhealthy coping mechanisms didn’t seem pertinent to the current situation. Instead, he lifted the glass in a toast and took as generous of a swallow as he dared. The whiskey was smooth and it tasted so fucking good, Five had to silently tell himself to not slug the whole thing back in one gulp. He watched as the other him took a leisurely sip from his own glass. He probably goes to church every Sunday, too. Fucking Mother Theresa over here.

“So, where do you work?” Five asked, trying to change the subject.

“Over at the university.”

“Physics department?”

“Naturally.”

Five nodded. “That’s where I always figured I’d end up, too. Just…didn’t work out for me.”

“Yeah, what happened? Klaus said something about a different apocalypse?”

Five paused, staring into his glass. “Let’s just get to work, ok?”

The other version shrugged. “Sure thing.”

[tacitusk1llwhore]

I don’t blame Mary for needing Arthur’s help. We all need help sometimes and Mary was uniquely helpless. She had nowhere else to turn, especially as a woman of her time, but it still feels manipulative in the way she goes about it. 

Mary clearly did love Arthur. She's even shown crying at his grave in the end credits. But, loving someone doesn't automatically mean you can't be shitty to that person or use them, and Mary did certainly take advantage of the fact that she knew Arthur loved her back and she got him involved in her family drama and made him fix things for her. Sure, you can argue that back in those days a widow didn't have many options if the the men in her life (brother, dad, etc) were losers, but getting in touch with an old boyfriend to ask him for help like she did is kind of selfish no matter how much she needed said help. One can cut her some slack due to the circumstances and by assuming that maybe she did on some level want to see if they could get back together but ultimately gave up because she realized Arthur would never quit the gang, but I don't think it's fair to say she was innocent and didn't purposefully use Arthur knowing that he would probably find it impossible to tell her to get lost. And it also did feel a bit… Sad, to have Arthur tell her that he wanted to run away but that he needed to get some things in order first, and while I do understand how Mary might have realized that he had other priorities, it still felt a bit silly to tell him to run away then take it back when he can’t do so immediately. Once again, I don’t blame her for that. Plus, the only reason he could help her with her family drama is the same reason why they can't be together from both their p.o.v.'s: Arthur is an outlaw who is no stranger to violence. I like Mary as a character because of the role she plays in the story and I don't think it's as simple as "bad woman used my precious Arthur" like so many people like to argue, but I also don't think it's fair to say Mary wasn't using Arthur on some level at that point in their lives. If your ex from many years ago calls you to ask for help because she has no one else and that help requires you to do stuff that is the exact reason why your relationship ended back in the day, the exact thing your ex would talk down about, I'd say you might have some complex feelings about the situation and you'd be justified in telling her you don't want to get involved. The game allows you to opt to say no to her request for help, after all.

Now, if you want to define "use" as manipulating someone for your benefit by letting them think you actually care for them when you don't give a crap about them, then sure, I agree that Mary didn't use Arthur. Her actions in today's lens could be looked at as "using" him. But Mary, like most women of that time, were mostly forced to rely on men to simply live in society (someone like Sadie is an exception, as she became an outlaw and thus, lived outside of society.) Mary couldn't just get a job, buy her own property, etc. She truly wanted Arthur but needed someone who wasn't an outlaw, constantly under threat of being jailed or killed. I think looking at it through the lens of 1890s society portrays her actions towards Arthur more out of desperation and desire, and less out of manipulation and/or malice.

But then again, she absolutely did use Arthur. Not in the way Dutch did by getting him to go rob a train or something. But in a way that served her own interests. Saving her little brother from a cult, etc. Just because she wasn't manipulating him into doing illegal things doesn't mean she wasn't using him. In my opinion Mary isn't any more at fault than Arthur is, and vice versa. Sometimes, just loving someone isn't enough. But I don’t agree with the fact that they’re star crossed lovers, nor do I personally think that the writers were trying to ONLY write them as that. It seems that there’s more to it, of another story of someone he loves treating him selfishly, and him trying to give love back. So the writers probably know exactly what they’re doing. Doesn’t mean I don’t think he loves her or vice versa; I just wish we could see that energy go into someone else once it plays out. Well. Someone other than Dutch.

I love this so much because it points out just how complex their relationship is. Mary and Arthur, I don’t think, were ever designed to be these perfect star-crossed lovers. Mary is a woman of high society; she was most likely taught only how to be a mother, wife, and homemaker and has no experience with anything outside of that. She needed help, and I understand entirely asking for it with Jamie. I don’t think at any point was Mary asking for help with malicious intent. I do believe, however, that intentions matter less than the outcome, which did turn into “Oh, I can’t be a part of your rough life, but you’re the only person who can help me because of your rough life.” Which is hypocritical. The running away together thing included.

Their relationship is so full of this push and pull that you can look at it from so many lenses, and really none of them are wrong. But I do truly believe that in some capacity, she did know what she was doing and did use Arthur’s nature against him. She knew he would help her, knew he would at least show up, and while I can’t blame her for asking or using this, I can also say, it’s not my favorite thing for a person to do. Arthur does tend to fall into relationships that are based on someone guiding him for their own bidding, and we can assume that’s because that’s the love he was raised with. Neither of them are at fault; they simply aren’t as compatible as people make them out to be. I don’t think they ever could’ve worked, and not just because of Mary but because of Arthur too. He can’t fight this nature, he has to wrestle with the idea of doing good, of going straight. He’s got a temper and we see it even towards Mary, they’re so complex and when people try and simplify their relationship it drives me crazy.

The love is absolutely there, but the unconditional love is not, and for good reason. I also think they were made to contrast John and Abigail which I might talk about more later!

Love this, love the discussion on their relationship so so much, it’s so interesting to look at! Thank you! :)

[ulteri0rm0tives]

yeah. this is about the temperance ending. actively losing my mind thinking about what it might be like post game for johnny.

the context from the analysis im writing about him would put a lot of this more into perspective, but i need to get this out now. all we need to know is johnny is a creature of habit operating off of shame, grief, and, yes, even guilt.

(CW: couple brief mentions of substance abuse (nothing explicit))

=--{}

Now, does he frame it as remorse? Probably not. Does he ever actually say things like 'sorry'? Mmmah. Does he feel it though? Yeah. Yeah, he does. (I'm firmly on the side of 'Johnny is not some unfeeling asshole'.)

I can go on a whole thing about his guilt but I'm lazy so I'll just point to one of the easiest examples. Alt. I feel like that says enough for itself. Does he blame himself because he got her killed for pulling the cord when he shouldn't have? No. Does he blame himself for getting her killed because of '''his connections to Arasaka'''? Yeah. Yeah he does.

And with that guilt comes grief which manifests as anger for him (evidently). Anger he uses to further his agenda against Arasaka. His grief is angry and violent and quite literally explosive, resulting in shitty, shitty coping mechanisms.

And I'm putting this in the context of the temperance ending, and I just can't stop thinking about it. How V is another person to give their life for him (his army buddy). That he got killed (Alt). And it's gotta be such a mindfuck for Johnny.

I feel like he wants to treat the body with respect, this thing that deserves reverence. In a way of honoring V and his memory almost. But this body is also a permanent reminder of any and all guilt/grief he's felt in his life, a physical manifestation of it.

He looks in the mirror and he constantly sees the lives given up for his.

Johnny loved V, and I'm not even saying romantically. Johnny truly cared for V. He expresses this at the bridge when he opens up and he tells V straight up how he's scared for them. He pleads the whole time you try to cross that bridge because this isn't what he wanted. He wanted to save you. You're life meant the most to him. In a selfish literal way, yes, but I truly think he developed a genuine bond/care for V that is quite literally inhumanely possible for any other person to achieve.

They've seen parts of each other no one else has or even could. Johnny especially, for how guarded he always was. And at the end of the day, all they could do was accept each other for who they were. V ends up liking Johnny just as he is, not something many people in Johnny's life could do (for good reasons admittedly). Johnny ends up liking V, something he didn't allow himself much of, getting close to people.

And to think. The one person who truly accepted you for you, not only tolerated all your bullshit, but liked you for it in spite of, is gone now. They gave up their life for you. You 'killed' them. An inevitability spurred from the day you were slotted in their head and saved their life and ultimately doomed them for it.

That's a lot of guilt to carry. Johnny's shit at coping with guilt. He abuses substances to the point he's switching out livers like nothing, fucking whoever whenever, constantly putting himself in high stakes situations. All these self endangerments to keep him running from all this guilt.

And he doesn't want to do that to V. He still sees them in the mirror and he still hears them when he talks and their smile is still theirs. V never really left him, they're right there right now looking himself in the eyes.

But Johnny's a creature of habit. Decades old patterns and shit coping is something already really difficult to break. That, coupled with the fact he's essentially blacklisted from Night City and so, so isolated makes it even more so. Isolated now more than he ever was before, much more than he ever did to himself.

And I'd like to think he really tries in the first few months, to treat V with that respect the merc gave up their life for. But it's hard. Life and the world isn't what he knew anymore. He doesn't have anyone. He has no support system. He's still a highly traumatized vet. Sure, The Hand not being there anymore probably helps him manage, but it's not like that was the only thing that caused or exacerbated the traumas of being a literal child soldier. He still carries those memories with him everywhere he goes.

Plus, vets without support systems find it hard to integrate back into civilian life. And here Johnny is, having to do it for the second time in his life, in a world not like the old one he knew, in a society that doesn't operate the same anymore, without the people he cared for (no matter how misguided that care was, no matter the reasons or how much he lied to himself about that fact).

And those shit coping mechanisms from his past life? Yeah, they feel familiar. They feel safe. They feel comfortable. There's a certain comfort traumatized brains find in the familiar, no matter how shitty it may be, it's something they'll subconsciously seek out unless properly dealt with and we all know his ass does not properly deal with anything.

So he really tries. He really does. But the stressors of having to settle into a new life, having to build a new one up, without support, without other people, without the one he loved (platonically and romantically and just as a person in general). The stressors of being the thing the one he loved gave up their life for. Yeah. It's getting to him. And he's slipping back into old, familiar habits of self destruction that feel safer than the guilt always peering at him from the mirror.

And it's a cycle of guilt that just feeds off of itself. Wanting to honor V and finding himself unable to. It's uncontrollable and he hates lacking control. But he's got an addictive personality, and the old addictive habits he slips back into is as compulsive as they are destructive and safe and easy and comfortable and predictable. As long as he doesn't get help for them, at least, and I don't think help would be easy to come by for him, due to both external and internal factors.

And he frames it, this slip into old patterns, as a weakness like he pretty much does with anything out of his control. And with this uncontrollable weakness comes shame, and with shame comes guilt. Over and over and over, cycle always turning and turning, feeding its own fire perpetual off itself.

I feel like Johnny just really unravels from all this pressure and stress coming from all sides and the weight of all this grief. I feel like he wants to be better, but now has no one to be better for, has no reason to be. Has no one to challenge him anymore. To be better for anyone but himself.

It's a downward grief fueled spiral. Now he has more anger than he's ever had before, than he's ever known what to do with, and he doesn't know where to put it. Not even anger at the world anymore, but at himself. He feels guilty and he blames himself and he feels angry for it. Angry that he feels guilty, angry that he feels to blame ('it was the kids own fucking choice'). Angry that he did this to V.

It's a grief he'll run from like he always done, with the only way he knows how to.

And he wants to honor V by honoring the body, but that also means honoring himself.

And Johnny does try. Johnny loved V, after all. But Johnny has always hated himself more, and he's fucking selfish for it. He knows that.

It's something he's always been guilty of it.

[delta-lethonomia]

ok depresso week is over, back to deliberate hyperfixation on bg3:

It is absolutely wild to me that people take Astarion to the foursome with the drow twins (romanced, spawn, post-cazador) and are shocked, shocked I tell you, that he has a bad time. But it leads me to think that there's an interesting conversation to be had here about morality applied to video games. I'm going to be using what's a bit of a strawman tbh, what I would consider an archetypical, "good person" gamer for this niche example.

(3k essay under the cut about irl morals vs video game behavior, my take on why Astarion agrees to the orgy, beating the dead horse of Astarion discourse now that the fandom has cooled off enough I might not get flogged for it, and all my election stress being translated into an increasingly bitchy narrative voice that I hope is at least mildly amusing.)

"Good Person Gamer" romances Astarion. They're probably female, which I am mentioning exclusively so I can turn that into "Good Girl Gamer" 😏, or G3. G3 picks nice dialogue options. G3 tries to support their companions, and finds diplomatic and moral solutions to problems. G3 saved the tieflings. G3 still romances Astarion because he's hot, and vulnerable, and it's not like he forces you to be evil - he just complains a bit when you save kittens stuck in trees, but you get that approval back anyway just by being nice to him. Talk him out of Ascension and you've proven to yourself he's got a good soul under all that attitude anyway. He'd healed! You banged on his grave! It's all good now!

The brothel is fun. The drow twins are hot. It's always fun when games lets you do spicy things like have threesomes and orgies! We're sex-positive! Look, the drow twins said they love their job! It's totally fine! G3, as most people, probably does not do these things in real life, but that's the fun in video games: you get to be someone you're not.

And then Astarion noticeably dissociates. He throws himself in the center and lavishes everyone with attention; he's a professional, you know. Even an unromanced Tav/Durge notices something's off, and Astarion replies something along the lines of "you don't have the right to look at me like that," presumably with worry, distress, or sympathy.

G3 is upset. They did everything right - they didn't want to hurt him, and Astarion himself said he wanted this. Why couldn't they stop midway through and remind him that he doesn't have to hurt himself? Why couldn't they talk about it afterwards, and clear the air? LARIAN WHY DO YOU HURT ME

Now, to all the G3's out there: if you were dating a person with extensive sexual trauma, having been raped literally thousands of times, would you suggest having a threesome/orgy? With prostitutes, if that's better or worse? Putting them on the spot before your mutual friends? Would you wait a few years to mention the idea, or would you do so only weeks/months into a relationship? Your first "I love you" might have only been yesterday.

And most people, I think, would say "No." Writing that scenario outside of the lens of a video game makes it sound insane - of course you wouldn't! I'm not saying that they should never have group sex or that it can't be done, but I think most people instinctively get how that would be a shitty thing to do in that context, especially without discussing it in depth beforehand and making sure you're both on the same page.

And this is the meat of the issue. Most gamers play good-aligned characters: there's a strong culture of wanting to play the hero and saving the day. But tied into that cultural monomyth, in society itself, is the idea that sex is a reward at the end. You get sex at the end of the romance arc. The date where you have sex is one of many milestones, and you're not really dating if you haven't done it yet. Some people don't have sex until their wedding night. Threesome scenes especially are a video game classic: old-school God of War, for instance, had a hidden room in every game with scantily-clad women just waiting for you to button-mash away, a little treat for the player's keen puzzle-solving abilities.

Not all romances in BG3 have sex or end with sex, (some even start with sex), but that is because BG3's character writing tries to ground itself in reality despite being a medium people utilize for fantasy. Role-playing a "good" character is mostly easy: you typically know which dialogue choice is the ethical choice, can chide Astarion for being racist, can save the numerous children with moral ease - and BG3 rewards this: a good playthrough is more fleshed out, because you haven't killed off half the cast. You get better gear. You have more allies, better allies. You know what to do.

Or, well, mostly. BG3 is kind of special imo because even the good choices have a lot of nuance, where two people can make different choices but still feel like they both picked the most ethical one. Take Shadowheart's parents, for example: they beg for her to let them go so they can die and save their daughter. Saving them leaves Shadowheart in Shar's clutches - she will experience pain for the rest of her life, but regains her parents, and with luck, Selûne will claim her soul when she dies. Kill them, and Shadowheart is free - truly free, to live her life on her own terms, free from Shar and Selûne both. Both can be the ethical choice, depending on your morals.

"But if Astarion didn't want to have the threesome, the game should have let me stop midway through/made it clearer that this would happen. He said no before Cazador - why couldn't he say no again? Why would Larian put me in this position and make me feel bad when I thought everything was alright? I wanted to be good and have fun, not feel like I pressured my boyfriend." - Strawman G3.

Because BG3 treats it's characters like people. Multiple companions make choices outside of what the player character decides for them - Shadowheart's decision to save or kill her parents, kill or save the Nightsong, or Gale, to go for the crown or not depend on what events they are there to witness personally, or can be informed by conversations you have in camp about unrelated issues. You can fully let them make their own decisions and be surprised each time as they develop into different people with each successive playthrough. A lot of people are surprised when Gale goes for the Crown of Karsus without their input. In my last multiplayer playthrough, we could not prevent Shadowheart from wanting to kill the Nightsong, and so we were forced to kill her.

Astarion is not like that. The way he talks about Ascension changes depending on your relationship. If you're merely friends, he acknowledges it's probably a bad idea, even, in direct contrast to the somewhat obsessive and frightening way he pursues it in a romantic relationship. But Astarion can't decide what to do at the end: he has no hidden point system, no hidden flags - he will always pursue Ascension even if he knows it's a bad idea, because Astarion does not trust himself, has no experience trusting himself, and needs help. As counter-intuitive as it may sound, he needs support to make his own decisions, because in that moment, he cannot be objective.

(If Astarion is ever objective is another story....)

So much of Astarion's reactions and opinions are instinctive and unthinking. "Don't let the pixie out of the lantern, are you an idiot?" -> "A pixie! And honest-to-goodness pixie! *giggles*"

"We don't need a urchin hanging around." -> Astarion approves if you help Yenna

etc. etc. etc. There's so many times he says one thing, the cruel thing, the "fuck everyone else, I've got mine"-thing, and then approves when you do the good thing. Astarion does not live in line with his values (besides pursuing a growing need for freedom) and he frankly does not really know what his values even are.

Astarion doesn't react with glee to finding all the people he seduced - who inadvertently raped him, though they didn't know, some lowlifes and scoundrels and people having a bad day and even some sweet, naive virgins like Sebastian, who took that smoking hot Elf on his word and followed him home, probably in disbelief someone so gorgeous would pay them any attention at all - tortured and locked in a dungeon underground. He's crushed by guilt. He's in pain. Astarion delights in you causing others pain (the torture scene) because it aligns with his worldview, the joy of seeing someone else suffer for once. But he's not a cold-hearted murderer. (And yes, I am differentiating between "adventurer kills a bandit" murder and "deliberately killing someone you know for reasons/no reason" murder.) He doesn't hurt anyone in camp - Shadowheart and Lae'zel are far more dangerous than him. You never have to stop him from drinking anyone else to death. Even if you never feed him again, never use his bite attack, he never bites anyone in camp. Despite being a vampire, Astarion is, effectively, harmless. (Bite night was about checking whether or not Cazador's old command's still worked. It's his first real attempt at freedom, proving to himself that he's free from compulsion. Hence why the roll to get him to stop is a 5, giving you a 75% likelihood of succeeding. He doesn't actually want to kill you. And you get two chances!!!)

Astarion doesn't enjoy death for the sake of death. He's terrified if you side with the goblins and kill the tieflings despite goading you into doing it. I don't doubt that he could hurt others (god knows he's got enough feelings to work out that way), but there's a significant difference between a little knife play and condemning thousands of people to be tortured in the Hells for all eternity. Sacrificing his siblings is different, because they, like him, are guilty, and deserve their deaths. He agrees to sacrifice his fellow spawn as an act of self hatred, of self harm. But all those other people stupid enough to want to sleep with him? Given a day to think about it, I think Astarion would agree that that's not right - and that's why he thanks you for preventing his Ascension. That much murder isn't him. He can be thoughtless, cruel, and unkind, but Astarion isn't a psychopath.

Take him to the brothel, and slipping back into that role, the seductive rake, it as easy as breathing. I don't think Astarion has ever thought about if he's the type of person to enjoy group sex, or even if he wants it. I don't doubt that Astarion enjoys sex, that he wants to have sex (he is, after all that, still shockingly horny), but he's just discovered the idea of having sex with someone he loves. He's riding that high. Of course he says yes: not only is he a different man now (he's free!), it's something he's done a thousand times already - maybe it'll be different this time, maybe something has changed - or maybe, an orgy was on offer, so of course Astarion is there. It's his purpose. He's been doing it for 200 years. Where else would he be?

What I'm saying is that Astarion didn't think about what sleeping with the drow twins meant for your relationship, or how he would feel about it at all. He just went for it. He had a bad time. You then don't discuss it because that would mean admitting that he finally made a choice by himself and it backfired. He didn't think, or maybe he did, and it turns out he just doesn't know himself. Why discuss it? A relationship with G3 apparently means group sex. They probably asked twice. They backtracked all the way to Wyrm's Crossing post-Cazador. Will they ask again? How many times can he say no?

In reality, in the real world, the act of asking can be the problem in and of itself. If your significant other/spouse/lover asks you to do something you don't want to do, be it a threesome, anal, opening the relationship etc, these actions have consequences. The act of asking doesn't happen in a vacuum like it does in video games: there is a cost associated with it, a gamble, and while it may pay off, it may not. Some people get worn down and agree to things they don't want to do. Sometimes you break up because the act of asking is so inherently disrespectful you can't reconcile your differing wants and needs. If you're dating someone who has experienced the gut-wrenching pain of being cheated on, you don't ask 2 months into a new relationship if you can fuck other people. This should not come as a surprise to you, to G3, to anyone. It's common sense.

BG3 giving you the opportunity for a foursome with Astarion not only to give the player their hot'n'spicy sex scene (then playfully bops you on the nose by making it a fade-to-black, you naughty little perverts, you), but also to continue its theme of treating the player like a mature adult, who is dealing with other mature adults, and who can and should live with the consequences of their own actions. Subsequent patches have watered this down, I admit, but I do believe that that was the ethos guiding their work from the beginning. BG3 wants you to interact with the characters like people. If you roll over and tell them what they want to hear, you will Ascend Astarion, and he'll enslave you in turn. If you agree with Gale on everything, he will kill himself and you - or, he'll become a god, becoming the exact sort of god he used to rail against. Agree with Karlach, and she will rather die than go back to the Hells. You get my point.

"But Larian could have let me check in on Astarion midway through. Maybe it was a mistake to ask, but they should have let me check on him and stop it all if he wanted. I was trying to trust him to make his own decisions." - Strawman G3

Ok. We add a dialogue option. "Astarion, love, are you alright? We can stop at any time if you want."

Astarion disapproves (-5)

He's not backing out. Thank you for asking, darling, but fuck off. (I don't think he'd actually say fuck off but the implicit message would be there. I can't see Astarion stopping midway through, nor appreciating you doubting him. Nothing changes.)

"But I still feel bad." - Strawman G3

And I completely understand that. It's a video game. Don't worry! Of course you should get your sex scene - it's a reward! You got their approval high enough! You have enough charisma points! In DA:O, you can also have an orgy, unlocked by giving your companions enough gifts! It's a game! You have enough points, you get the thing!!! You killed Cazador - you win! Have your cake and eat it too! Congrats, you unlocked your hot slutty vampire elf who's basically a trained courtesan, who needs you to be his moral compass, who will never leave you so long as you don't actively rape him - enjoy all the fun orgies in your future!

Your actual choice - the choice the game gives you - is to realize that taking what's essentially a human trafficking victim to a brothel is a dumb idea, but they didn't want to punish you for it.

"Well, Astarion should have said something then. He said no before, he can say no again." - Strawman G3

If you go through life pushing peoples boundaries and expect them to verbally tell you what you're doing wrong, you're gonna be friendless and have a bad time. This ties back to both Astarion having difficulty knowing and defending his own values, BG3 trying to let you make your own decisions without setting out a clear "good or bad" path on occasion, and the hope that you'd use your own morals to make decisions. G3 would never behave in this way irl, and that's where the shock comes from, the guilt from committing an action they thought was without consequence in a risk-free fantasy scenario, and then feeling unpleasantly surprised when called out.

But it's a video game, and you didn't get the little zap, the little sting of an Astarion disapproves in the corner that told you you made the wrong choice. In fact, because he doesn't disapprove, it's not actually the wrong choice!

It really was mean how the Narrator made G3 feel bad, wasn't it. They didn't mean to hurt him. Astarion doesn't mention it, so it's probably fine.

... have you talked to Halsin yet? Surely he had a good time. Right?

CONCLUSION

People think they're good and moral and will typically behave "heroically" in video games. Games support this and reward players for doing so. The "good path" is expected to be clear. However, video games are not real life no matter how much they play at immersion, and multiple games have trained players in a linear "do x, receive y" type fashion. Sex is a reward in games, and is treated that way in real life as well, so players expect the Sharess' orgy scene to be a reward, and are then shocked when Astarion/Gale/Halsin etc reveal during or afterwards that they had a bad time. This is because Larian wants you to treat BG3 like a role playing game and interact with it seriously, and isn't afraid to boop you for your actions in ways that mimic real life relationships. This ethical dissonance makes people uncomfortable especially when they play games to role-play as someone better than themselves, and are surprised when they aren't herded down predetermined "good" paths via instantaneous approval/disapproval mechanics or unlockable "ideal" dialogue.

It is absolutely possible that someday Astarion might be into meaningless group sex with prostitutes for fun and pleasure. However, that is the sort of thing you'd probably either wait for him to bring up by himself organically, or discuss in a long-term trusting relationship after he's had potentially years to process the idea of not immediately hopping into bed with someone, as well as disentangling his instinctive "beaten-in" sexually available behavior from his actual desires. People much more emotionally mature and undamaged than Astarion have destroyed their own relationships by inadvertently pushing a partner (or themselves) into various forms of group sex or other sexual acts. It's not something you do on a random Tuesday on a whim.

Or maybe it is, and I'm just chronically boring and surrounded by boring people lmao

TO THE POSTER THAT INSPIRED THIS: I'm so so sorry if you ever see this, not trying to call you out at all hence no linking, I just wanted to pick apart why I think you felt that way. The thoughts just finally bubbled over after a year+ lol

[galaxy-fleur]

What did you think of Leon and Ada's new relationship in the remakes? Meta wise

I think it's an interesting and more nuanced take on their relationship! Which I definitely like. I see no point in judging OG RE2's love story between them, no matter how cliché and nonsensical it is. It's a product of its time, and it's charming in its own cheesy way. Teenage me cried over Ada's death in there, so I do have a soft spot for it.

But the Remakes offer a fresh interpretation of what happened between them, and I'm definitely interested to see where they will take their relationship in the future (that is if they do, because I wouldn't mind them just having separate story arcs from now on).

If we're talking actual analysis, I'll put down my thoughts. I don't know if you can call it a full-on analysis per se, as it's more just me writing out my personal interpretations on things. So keep that in mind please!

Long post under the cut. I'm talking almost 4k words and way too many shitty gifs (I have no time to make them all polished). I have way too much to say. I'll basically be going over their entire relationship throughout RE2R and RE4R so... yeah.

RE2R and RE4R are two games that offer a full story for Leon's character, and that's a very awesome thing that Capcom has done. I'd even say it's one of the best things they've done with RE recently. Making RE4R feel like a direct continuation to Leon's arc in RE2R makes total sense, and it makes many scenes in RE4R that much more satisfying to play through.

While RE2R does end on a somewhat positive note (much like every RE game has to), Leon's arc in it is very much negative. He loses more than he gains, he's unable to save anyone, and his good intentions end up being used against him. Claire ends her RE2R story by saving a little girl she has come to care for. Leon ends his RE2R story by losing the G-sample, 'losing' Ada without getting much, if any, closure from her, and not saving even a single person he has encountered. Claire and Sherry don't really count in Remake-verse (which I kinda don't like) because their storylines mostly happened separately from each other.

And that's not mentioning that he gets (assumedly, and I am very much hoping we'll finally see more concrete scenes of how it all happened in Remake-verse) pretty much kidnapped and forced into a life he never wanted right after. To say that Leon can't get a break in RE2R is like saying nothing at all. Poor guy gets put through the wringer on every level.

Now, onto his relationship with Ada, and how it ties into everything... It should be said that, while he obviously grows to care about her throughout their short time spent together, he remains suspicious of her. RE2R Leon is naive, but I often feel like people make him too naive. He's not an idiot. He tries over and over again to get answers from her, and he clearly feels apprehensive with her. And I mean... that makes sense. While she does save him multiple times, she keeps her distance from him.

I'd say he starts opening up to her on an emotional level after witnessing Robert having to kill off his own daughter. He directly confronts her, demanding for answers and voicing his drive to do what's right. In a way, that's him showing his vulnerability to her. And Ada uses it against him. After all, it's a perfect opportunity to play on his (rather naive) determination to be the hero to help her achieve her own goals. Ada is also the only figure of 'authority' he has at the moment. Even if her claim of being FBI seems kinda off, she's the only one he has.

And I'll go over Ada and how I interpret her later. For now, just keep in mind that her using Leon is more of a gray area than just some horrible, disgusting thing. I'm just going over the events from Leon's viewpoint here.

So, they team up. Ada starts softening up to him. They share light banter with each other: 'A: After you. L: Gee, thanks.' She expresses concern over his safety (the alligator scene). I'd say that's the point where he starts to care for her on a more personal level from before. As you would.

Him taking a bullet for her was instinctual. I'd say it's a more pivotal moment for Ada's character here rather than Leon's. In Leon's case it's moreso her taking care of him right after that matters. He directly mentions it to her later on (at least I'm pretty sure his 'you protected me' referred to that). I'd say him waking up to find himself tucked in with her coat and his wound taken care of was the moment his 'I care because it's another person who's in this with me' turned into 'I care because I feel genuine attachment to this person'.

Was it romantic? I'd say that's left for you to interpret how you wish. I like to think of it as him just caring for her as a person. Leon is someone who cares very deeply for others, and he's always striving to be the protector to those around him. I kind of think that someone caring for him when he's weak and vulnerable is something that is very meaningful to him. Now, Ada saves him multiple times at that point. But that's the first instance of her arguably going beyond what's needed. Sure, taking care of his wound was necessary, although she could have just let him be as he was for all we know. But tucking him in on top of that? Yeah, that's an obvious 'I care' gesture.

From then on, Leon is following Ada because he wants to trust her. And I do want to ring this home. He wants to trust her. Doesn't mean he does trust her. Because even though he shows genuine care for her, it's clear that he knows she's might not be telling him everything.

He wants her to trust him, so that she'll tell him what she is keeping from him. So that he can trust her.

The kiss scene is a perfect representation of exactly that, I'd say. Honestly, I'll just link this analysis right here, because I pretty much interpret it in almost the exact same way. But I'll go over it in my own words as well.

Leon's growing frustration is in full display here. He turns around from her, he paces, he tries to appeal to her. To just trust him enough to be honest with him. It's clear that he knows Ada might not be telling everything, but he chooses to believe her regardless.

Hence the exchange that follows this:

Ada: 'Hey Leon, trust me?'

Leon, walking up to her: 'Trust me?' (Reversing her question)

Ada: 'Honestly, if I didn't, you'd probably be dead.' (A genuine answer as far as we know, but it's not one Leon wanted to hear, so he shakes his head, mutters 'Right.' and walks off.)

And I do feel like Ada knows that Leon is suspicious of her here. Her reaction once he walks off comes off as kind of panicky to me. She knows she might be losing him, and she can't have that. So, she once again appeals to what she knows is his weak spot. His drive to help others and 'save' the city. It does work. Somewhat. But he's still swaying, so she does the first thing she thinks of. She kisses him.

She, quite literally, cuts off his line of thought so he stops thinking about it. Because him thinking is dangerous for what she's really doing here.

I think it would be very disingenuous to say that that was a kiss of love or affection. It is not presented as such, nor is it addressed that way in all. It was Ada's last attempt at stopping Leon from questioning her any further. How much of it was her focusing on her goals, and how much of it was her effort to 'protect' him from potentially figuring out the truth, is left to your interpretation. But whatever intentions she had, good or bad, it was a kiss of manipulation.

It does shut Leon up, as he's visibly stunned. He doesn't even say anything at that. He just stares at her, then at her hand on his knee. Now, here's the tricky part of it all. Do I think Leon felt romantic affection/attraction to her here? On some level, I'd say yes. But it's definitely no 'love at first kiss' or anything like that. He's confused, mostly. While he spent arguably little time with Ada, it was a time full of meaning. Surviving side by side and protecting one another is no small feat. And Ada did show her care for him.

I think, he chooses to trust her in that moment, because he, once again, wants to believe in her. Even if her kiss felt out of nowhere, and so much of what she says (or rather doesn't say) makes no sense. He chooses to trust her because he wants to think that she's a good person who cares for him.

And so, we come to the pivotal bridge scene once he learns the truth. I do like how he confronts her in a blatantly emotional manner rather than logical. It's not so much about her being a mercenary itself, as it is about her using him and lying to him. That's what he's actually confronting her about, whether he realizes it or not. That's exactly why he tells her to shoot him, fully resolute as he holds her gaze. He wouldn't do that if he was just trying to apprehend a criminal like a good cop would (as he tries to present it at first).

But, he never gets that closure or resolution he was aiming for. Ada lowers her pistol. He breaths out shakily, probably wanting to continue talking, to figure this out. But he doesn't get that.

I do think Ada telling him to take care of himself as her 'last words' is a very painful thing for him. Because it leaves him with no actual closure on what happened between them. Ada chose to not harm him, and her last words to him are ones of selflessness. But she also lied to him and used his vulnerabilities to achieve her goals. And it's not like Leon knows anything about her occupation, and just how much she's involved with it on an emotional level. Maybe she's someone forced to do this against her will. Or maybe she enjoys doing such dirty jobs for all he knows.

That's the thing. Leon doesn't know. And that must be both frustrating and painful. He's basically left questioning all of his interactions with her, how much of it was genuine, whether she was honest with him at all.

And, most importantly, his time with Ada basically proves to him that his drive to protect and save, his willingness to give people the benefit of the doubt - is a flaw, and a weakness. It directly ties into his arc in RE4R. (And his relationship with Krauser, in a way, but I won't go over it here.)

He throws away her bracelet on the train, and I think that kind of shows that he chooses to believe in the pessimistic way of interpreting their time together. He throws it away because he doesn't want to hold on to something that reminds him of her. And, simultaneously, of his mistakes.

Now, let's go through the same events from Ada's POV, shall we? It's a bit more challenging, since we don't get to be in her shoes, but it's still a fun exercise.

Ada's initial interactions with Leon are ones of annoyance. She basically scolds him like a kid for always getting in danger and acts like saving him is a chore. But chooses to help him out regardless. I think it speaks of her humanity despite her line of work. It's an interesting dichotomy that follows her every single appearance pretty much, though not much is done with it (thanks Capcom). But yeah, despite her visible annoyance with him, she saves him time and time again.

She doesn't visibly soften up to him up until that same Robert scene. She's pretty observant from what we can tell, and she probably already had a good idea of Leon's righteous nature, but it's the first instance of her actively playing into it instead of making small snide comments about it ('Trying to save the world?' 'Good luck with that.'). That doesn't mean she doesn't care, though. It's subtle, but the little sighs and changes in her facial expression do show that she's at least a little bit conflicted at the prospect of lying to him on such a huge level (though you can't see most of it with her sunglasses).

It's one thing to say a passing lie about you being an FBI agent, and it's completely another to play the long game by using someone like that. But she needs to accomplish this task, and it already proved to be more difficult than she expected. Remember, Racoon City was Ada's first time dealing with anything of this sort, too. She might be a mercenary, but it's not like she had to deal with zombies and B.O.W's before that. She's out of her depth, and she has someone pretty much offering themselves to her as her assistance.

So, she takes the risk.

While she does join in some passing banter with Leon after that, she still keeps her distance. She's dry and mostly unemotional in her mannerisms. Remember how I said that Leon taking the bullet for her was more pivotal to her in the story? Let's go over that.

It would be disingenuous to say that Ada is a complex character, unfortunately. Most of the complexity she does have, we pretty much have to add on to ourselves. Hell, I'm doing it right now with this entire section! Capcom is doing a way better job with her in the Remakes, but she's still pretty flat as a character. Maybe this'll (hopefully) change in future installments. But for now, we work with what we have.

Either way, we do know that Ada is someone who's self-sufficient and chooses to work alone. She keeps her distance from everyone, and she lives by 'everyone for themselves' ideology. Basically, a total opposite of Leon's 'protector' role. All that to say... someone taking a bullet for her is definitely not something she would expect. On some level, specifically because she would never do that herself. Especially for someone she basically just met. But Leon risks his life for her. Furthermore, telling her to go ahead instead of anything else.

I think that's the moment Ada starts caring for him on a personal level. Maybe she feels like she should repay him for this. Or that she owes him a debt. Regardless, she takes care of him and tucks him in, before proceeding further.

That care only grows once they reunite. Now she's the one injured, and he takes care of her, despite her protests: 'I can do it myself'. Ada is self-sufficient, but Leon offers her his companionship time and time again. We don't know whether that's something she lacks in her life or not. We don't know enough of her as a character to say that. But she's obviously someone who's not used to getting help from others. Again, on some level, because she doesn't do that herself.

Remember, while Ada did save Leon numerous times before, she always acted visibly frustrated by it, like it was a chore she was forced into, despite her choosing to help him herself. Leon, on the other hand, is quick to offer and insist on helping out, very much eager to do that for her. She already made the choice to use him, but now she learns that he's a genuinely good person with a kind heart, and not just some stupid naive rookie.

And so, the kiss scene, again. I already said that her kiss feels like a last-ditch effort to stop Leon from questioning her any further. And I do think she acted on impulse. Thus why she follows up with a hand on his knee and the: 'I'm counting on you'. And I, personally, think she kind of regretted doing that right after. Or maybe felt extra conflicted about the whole ordeal as a whole. The way she slouches and sighs heavily once Leon leaves is very reminiscent of that. It's kind of a mix of 'Fuck, I messed that up, didn't I?' and 'What the hell am I going to do after this?'

It also should be noted that Ada never meant to tell Leon the truth. It would be convenient for both of them. Leon would feel like he did something good, and she would complete her mission with no further issues. Both sides win. But... things go haywire. And she's confronted with the consequences of her initial choice to use him.

It'll be silly to say that Ada doesn't care for Leon. If she truly was this heartless mercenary some would like her to be, she would shoot him on the spot. Her pistol being empty doesn't really matter, either. Leon was basically offering himself up to her, again. Even without any bullets on her hands, she could have easily knocked him out or something.

But, she can't bring herself to hurt him. Because Leon really is a good person that doesn't deserve that. And she knows that, and she cares for him on a personal level on top of it all. We don't know what she was going to do, before Annette shot her. Maybe I'm actually talking out of ass here, and she really was planning on knocking Leon out cold. But, we'll never truly know.

And her last words for him are to take care of himself. Because, in a way, Ada, more than anyone, knows just how selfless Leon is. On some level, it's a wordless 'I'm sorry', if you wish to interpret it that way.

Boy, was that a lengthy mess! Their first introduction to each sure was tumultuous. But we still have RE4R to go through! Though it'll be more about Ada than Leon.

Nevertheless, let's talk about Leon's interactions with Ada. I think we all know he's noticeably harsher and colder to her. It's an interesting change, and it does show that he feels resentment towards her for what happened in Racoon City. We don't know how his initial conflicted feelings morphed into this resentment, but they did.

I don't think nearly enough people mention that he's genuinely being very damn rough with her in their little sparring session. While yeah, you could make an argument that he's holding back, he's not being careful either. Ada has to put in actual effort to fight him off, which she doesn't even succeed in because he takes her off-guard with his intensity.

And he also puts the sharp end of his dagger to her throat. Just to rub more salt into the wound.

I don't think this was him wanting to hurt her or threaten her, though. It was more of a show of strength. Ada approaches him by taunting him and teasing him, like she can do whatever she wants to him. But he's not that same naive rookie anymore. And he shows her exactly that.

A kind of: 'Don't think you can play the same trick on me twice, or you might get burned' message. A message that I think Ada does get.

As for him smirking at her, I don't think that's him being 'happy' to see her or anything. I think that's just him being amused that she still thinks she can play him like that. He grows all cold and distant with her right after.

Leon obviously has a grudge that he hasn't let go of. I actually like how he's almost needlessly petty with her in RE4R. Making snide remarks, calling her heartless and dismissing her on numerous occasions. It shows that he does care. If he didn't, he would cooperate with her with no further complaints on his part. He's purposefully being cold to her to show that yes, he is still upset about what happened, and he will use every opportunity to demonstrate exactly that. It's petty and kind of childish, in a way. But it makes sense for him, and it adds extra flavor to their relationship at this point in time.

Though, he does offer an opening to her in the boat.

'Have you changed, Ada? Or are you trying to use me again?'

It's a good parallel to his: 'Trust me?' In RE2R, and both phrases are used for a similar purpose.

He gives Ada an opening to trust him and be open with him. One that she doesn't take, again: 'What do you think?'

She gives him no answer. Just like she didn't in RE2R. I think, in a way, that kind of gives Leon an answer by itself. He trusts Ada and relies on her when push comes to shove, but he doesn't give her any more openings from then on. I'd say that's his 'I think we both know this is where we go our separate ways' moment.

With Ada, things are way more complicated, in a good way. Separate Ways gave us so much to work with, and that's amazing.

Throughout Separate Ways, we see Ada bouncing back-and-forth on what she wants to do. She's initially very cold and resolute in her job, helping Leon out more like a passing convenience than anything else. She does still help him, though. She's still dealing with the dichotomy of what she presents herself as, and what she actually acts as.

I really like her confrontation with Luis in particular. She's cutthroat and blunt. Almost chillingly so. And she only relents once Luis mentions her own infection. Him telling her of Leon's infection has little effect.

'And why does that matter to me?'

I think that's a question she's asking herself just as much as Luis here. Though, she's still in her cold, self-sufficient mercenary role here. To be honest, I find her relationship with Luis in particular much more interesting in RE4R, but since we're talking about her and Leon here, I'll just say that Luis is the catalyst to her change (so to speak, Ada doesn't really change as a character per se, I'll elaborate on that later). Not Leon.

She confronts Leon face-to-face, quickly being met with the truth that he is not as easy for her to push around now. And I do think she has zero bad intentions there. She was genuinely just playing around and teasing him. Only to figure out that that approach won't work at all. It's kinda cute, honestly. So, she gives him an opening of her own instead. She tells him to leave Ashley, to prioritize his own safety over hers. Because that's what she would have done in his place. Leon is quick to shut that down. Something that Ada probably expected, as she just huffs and gives a knowing 'Right.' to that.

That's the moment Ada knows Leon hasn't changed. Not really. He might be colder, more ruthless and dangerous, but he's still that same guy, wanting to protect others, no matter what. She knows she'll have no success in swaying him at that point. Hence why she tells him exactly that on the boat later.

The next pivotal scene, I'd say, is her watching Ashley wake up and learn of Luis' death. Ada mostly treats Ashley like a nuisance, something Leon has to protect. Because that's his job. But in that moment, she sees the genuine connection they share with each other. She sees that Leon cares. And not just because Ashley is an innocent person he has to save, but because it's Ashley.

Ada's arc throughout Separate Ways is not that connected to Leon, which is a good thing. Similarly to Leon concluding his story from RE2R by saving Ashley and proving to himself (first and foremost) that he can protect someone he cares about, and that his humanity is a strength, not a weakness, Ada learns to accept herself, too. She's visibly conflicted at the start of SW, but by the end of it, she knows what she has to do, and she made peace with that. Her hesitating before going against Wesker in the facility is one of the last moments of her hesitating with her intentions.

But, again, that scene is more about her and Luis. Luis is very important to Ada's character in SW, and I think that's neat.

While the scene itself is kinda awkward, her encountering Ashley during the final battle is another arguably important one. Her watching Leon and Ashley before that was about her witnessing Leon's care for her. Now she sees that Ashley fully reciprocates that care. They are on equal ground with each other.

And so, the final scene between them. I already said that Leon settled on his answer concerning Ada before that. But Ada makes one final opening to him. It's a selfish one. After all, what exactly would happen if Leon agreed to come with? Would they just leave Ashley to die and fly off into the sunset? On some level, I think Ada knows that what she's asking is unrealistic, especially for Leon. But I think it also speaks of her progression throughout Separate Ways. Ada learns to be more genuine with herself, even if it means being selfish or asking something that she knows will be rejected.

So, she shoots her shot one last time. Leon gives his answer. Ada is not surprised by it. But she is visibly upset by it. She knew it was coming, though.

So, they do exactly that. They go their separate ways. At least for now.

[ponderingmoonlight]

OH EM GEE YOUR REQUESTS ARE OPEN 🙏🙏🙏🙏 fem!reader x megumi fushiguro with a side of injury x angst and hurt but at the end there's fluff/comfort please !! fem!reader gets injured trying to save megumi, (prompt 17) then megumi is like "girl wtf" and then he scolds fem!reader (prompt 2) for getting injured in the process of trying to save him... then fem!reader was like "i was ready to give my heart to you" (prompt 28) and megumi was like "u dont need to do that" and then megumi suddenly confesses ?? (prompt 65) (HELP LMAOOO) and then fem!reader confesses as well and megumi's like "don't leave me." (prompt 61) and then fem!reader's like "dont be silly why would i leave you xo" (prompt 64) so sorry if this was confusing i got too excited 🙏🙏🙏🙏

First of all, I'm so so so sorry this took so long! While I always wrote on this fic from time to time, it wasn't until tonight when I had an idea how to get all of these prompts togehter. While I think it isn't my best work, I hope you still like it <3

Save you

Pairing: Megumi x reader

Word Count: 1,1k

Synopsis: After you recklessly risk your own life to save his, Megumi can't hold back his feelings any longer

Warnings: It's so fluffy I'm gonna dieee and a little shitty writing I'm so sorry guys, proofread, but I'm sick and not concentrated so show some mercy

Rumbling, teeth, blood. It happens faster than you are able to comprehend your surroundings. All you know is that this fucking curse was only inches away from Megumi’s face. Inches away from ripping his skin apart. Inches away from probably killing the boy you are secretly in love with since joining Jujutsu High. It was a reflex, an intuition. Without hesitation, you throw yourself in front of him, hands stretched out in a desperate attempt to shield the merciless attack.

“I’ll get you out of here.”

You did manage to exorcise the curse. But not without your blood splattering everything in vicinity, sharp teeth slicing your delicate flesh open without mercy.

„(y/n)! Why did you do that!?”, Megumi yells at you, eyes widen in pure shock.

Everything hurts. You don’t dare to look down on your own body, instead you just stand there and stare at Megumi.

“Are you out of your mind? You could have died!”, he hollers at you.

In the matter of seconds he stands by your side, frantically taking off his uniform and pressing the fabric against your multiple scorching wounds. Your heart sinks into your chest at the sound of his anger-filled voice.

“Stop yelling at me, I saved you. And you would have done the same for me”, you hiss through gritted teeth, ignoring the pain that spreads around your whole body.

“This was absolutely reckless, (y/n)! I thought you were smarter than that, such behavior doesn’t suit you at all! Don’t you know that I’m able to take care of myself? I don’t need you to risk your own life for me”, he blurts out, every word stabbing into your heart like a knife.

You hate the way your eyes start to instantly burn with tears, completely taking your sight that is fixed on his brown shoes. This is not fair. You did what your intuition told you. And you just know Megumi would do the same for you – maybe not out of love, but friendship. He’d be the first to take a bullet if it means saving his friends.

“And to top it off, you don’t even care about even injured, it’s like yo-“

That’s enough. You can’t hold back any longer.

“If it means that I’ll save you, I’d be ready to give you my heart without even flinching! Because I care about you, idiot”, you yell so suddenly that Megumi flinches at the unusual harsh tone in your voice.

He can’t help but stare at you in disbelief. Megumi has known you for years, long before joining Jujutsu High. And even though he always knew you care for him, he never thought that it would go this far. After all, you’re so breathtaking gorgeous that he never lost a thought about you actually liking him back.

Because for Megumi, it has always been more than a sweet innocent friendship, more than a little sympathy. When he fell, he fell hard, head over heels to be exact. Your words make his heart beat a little louder, world spin a little faster. But still…Still he can’t accept the fact that you’d die so recklessly because of him.

“(y/n), I would rather die than knowing the love of my love got injured because of me…”

Now or never, the way your eyes pierce right through him and the fact that you nearly died because of him let Megumi gather all his courage.

“I can’t hold it back any longer! (y/n)…I think I might be in love with you. No, I’m sure that I love you. I love the way you walk and talk, how you carry yourself with so much elegance. I love the way you make fighting look so effortlessly and the little smile you wear on your face every time you see me. But even though your affection goes far enough to save me, I know you’ll never like me like this…I just needed to get this off my chest. So I hope you don’t leave me, I would totally understand if you don’t wanna speak to be though…”

Minutes feel like hours when all you can do is stand there and stare into the dark ocean of his eyes. All this time, you thought all these things about Megumi himself. That he only likes you as a friend, that he wouldn’t be able to see more in you than his comrade, a simple girl that’s been through some shit on his side. But those sweet words leaving his mouth, him telling you that he loves you…You can’t believe your ears. This has to be a pretty dream, right? Like the ones you desperately try to get back to when waking up, the ones you don’t even have to write down in order to remember.

This is not a dream, though. Your whole body is on fire, limbs burning like hell while your tear-stained cheeks get brushed by an icy wind. No, this is reality. And by the way his eyes glister in nothing but sadness you can tell that he truly believes in his words.

How ironic.

“Don’t be stupid, I’m not leaving you”, you breathe out.

A warm smile creeps up your face as you close the distance between your bodies, fingers intertwining with his. Oh, if he only knew how often you daydreamed about this, how often you told yourself over and over that he doesn’t like you like this, that Megumi Fushiguro will never love you. Little did you know that he felt the exact same way.

“I loved you since joining Jujutsu High. All this time I thought that a wonderful boy like me could never…well…fall in love with someone like me”, you admit shyly.

“You’ve got to be kidding, right?”

He grabs your face, forcing you to look up into his ocean orbs.

“You are the most precious thing walking on this earth. If someone’s lucky than it’s me. Even though I still don’t like that you threw yourself in front of that curse for me. Please never do something like that again.

His breath brushes against your cheek. Is this really happening? Are his lips really lowering themselves at yours, touching them so innocently while all you can do is close your eyes and let yourself sink against his tender touch? No, this is sweet reality.

And all of that because you decided in a split of a second that Megumi is worth all the pain, that your feelings for him are greater than fear.

“I’d always throw myself in front of a curse again if it means that I can do that”, you mumble against his lips.

[itwasntimethatdidit40]

Get to know your moots.

Thanks for the tag @almostempty and @probablyreadinsmut 💗

what's the origin of your blog title?: “When it comes to love I don’t choose sides” y'all know where it comes from, right? Oberyn 💗 it represents me well heheh

favorite fandoms: PPCU and I used to be a huge GOT fan.

OTP(s) + shipname: Braime, Jaime Lannister + Brienne of Tarth (don't talk to me about that shitty ending, it still haunts me in my sleep)

favorite color: black. But also red, white and pink.

favorite game: I don't play videogames since I was a child but I used to love Tetris and Pac-Man lol

song stuck in your head: currently Messy - Lola Young and another couple of songs I'm using for a ff I'm writing so no spoilers heheheh

weirdest habit/trait?: I have a closet full of clothes but I often tend to wear the same ones in rotation (I obviously wash them regularly 😂) out of convenience and habit, especially if I have to go to work. I only make an effort if I have dinners/birthdays/special occasions and things like that lol

And I regularly think that people hate me, so if I don't write to you often it's because I'm afraid of bothering you, not because I don't want to know you 🥲

hobbies: writing, reading, watching show/movies, I used to have a bullet journal and I used to practice hand lettering (can't keep up with it anymore but I still love it)

if you work, what's your profession?: I am the secretary in a medical office. I also have another job related to customer satisfaction.

if you could have any job you wish what would it be?: I'd love to be a writer (lol not skilled or even talented enough but hey, what do you expect from someone who shares her birthday with Emily Brontë?)

something you're good at: I’m quite good at cooking. I’m Italian, baby, it’s in my genes.

something you're bad at: I’m messy. I can draw like a 5 years old kid lol

something you love: concerts. I’ve been to 100+ concerts in my life and some of my favorite memories and trips are related to concerts I've been to.

something you could talk about for hours off the cuff: I could still rant about Braime and GoT ending for hours. lol Also, concerts memories, I have some good stories 😂

something you hate: Lies. God, just tell me the truth ffs. And the majority of cis men. They just suck, you know.

something you collect: nothing. But I love stationary stuff. I could buy everything, I don't do it because I would waste my savings LMAO

something you forget: If I don't write things down on my phone it's very easy for me to forget them because my memory sucks.

what's your love language?: Cooking for someone, calling people a variety of pet names and/or finding a special one for them, being a great cheerleader, shower them with compliments and love. Just being there when they need help, I am a reliable person.

favorite movie/show: too many, jeeez. How am i supposed to choose? Some movies: When Harry met Sally, Parasite, Almost Famous, Fried Green Tomatoes, Brokeback Mountains, Stand by me, Aftersun, Past Lives, Promising young woman, 10 things I hate about you, Love me if you dare, Rear window, Le conseguenze dell’amore (The consequences of love, it’s an Italian movie by Paolo Sorrentino).

Some shows: Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Friends, Fleabag, Jane the Virgin, My Brilliant Friend, When they see us, Sense8, Peaky Blinders, Mad Men, The Handmaid’s Tale, Grace and Frankie, Bojack Horseman, Normal People.

favorite food: sorry to be such an Italian clichè but pasta and pizza. I could eat them all day everyday lol I also love a good risotto, sushi and Pad Thai.

favorite animal: dogs. I love all of them but especially mine (obviously lol).

are you musical?: I can sing quite decently (I sing in in my car all the time hahahah) but I never studied music and I can’t play any instruments.

what were you like as a child?: I used to be bold and chatty, I always loved reading and writing.

favorite subject at school?: Literature and Art.

least favorite subject?: Math. I’m the worst at it.

what's your best character trait?: loyalty and respect. I never make unsolicited judgments about anyone's body or comment on it, I never ask those shitty questions like "when are you graduating, when are you getting married, why are you still single, when are you having a baby" you know, right? I hate them, I hate them deeply and I think people should mind their own fucking business.

what's your worst character trait?: Lack of self-esteem, laziness, my poor memory. And I don’t give second chances, once you hurt me you’re out of my life permanently and I totally forget about you like you meant nothing for me (I kinda love that about me but I know it can be brutal lol)

if you could change any detail of your day right now what would it be?: I wish I was damn rich and not have to work hahah I would like to be more sporty but I hate doing sports lol I promise I’m going to try to force myself to do something for my well being.

if you could travel in time who would you like to meet?: The first person that comes to my mind is Artemisia Gentileschi, (b: 1593 d: 1656) she was an Italian painter. Read something about her, she’s fucking great ♥️ Also, my grandpa, I loved him so much and he passed away when I was 15. I would love to meet him again.

recommend one of your favorite fanfics (spread the love!):

I love so many so I’m going with last ones that I read and I thought WOW, this is amazing and deserves so much more attention:

Yes ma’am - @sizzlingcloudmentality

Law of attraction series - @baronessvonglitter

Pretty boy - @joelmillerisapunk

Npt: @joelmillerisapunk @milla-frenchy @baronessvonglitter @aurorawritestoescape @thundermartini @schnarfer @sizzlingcloudmentality @cvntclip @evolnoomym @msjarvis @arcanefox207 @gothcsz 💗

[bumblebeesfromvenus]

Lost and Found ♧| 2.

Leon S. Kennedy x reader (ft. my girl Ash)

A/N: This... this took me so long lmao I rewrote it like five times. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, though! I don't really write slow burn, so this might suck. I wanna apologize for how fucking wonky the events of Part one are???? They're all out of order lmao anyway, Enjoy!

~Fi 🪻

Warnings: swearing, reader is an idiot (lovingly, of course), mention of a small injury, sucky slow burn

Word count: 2.7k

Part 1 ♧ Part 2 ♧ Part 3 ♧

Please don't copy my work! I put a lot of effort and heart into the things I write.

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It had been a couple of months since Spain happened. Your life has definitely... changed. Both good and bad. You were plagued by nightmares frequently, instinctively grasping your arm every time you shot awake. A faint, pink scar had formed where the gash once sat. Tracing it absent mindedly was a common occurrence ever since the first dream. You'd stare at the blank wall in your living room, gently caressing it.

That mission took a toll on you, so you were granted a few months off to work through your night terrors and process everything. Ashley had been a great help with that. She made sure you hung out at least once a week and always stayed in contact, calling you and you calling her. The events of Spain didn't leave Ashley without any struggles either. But, she had assured you that she was save, protected at all times and getting support from professionals. Talking to her, about Spain or anything really, helped you get out of the hole you were in.

She was your best friend. Whether or not she knew it, she really was. You didn't really have friends. Not since Raccoon City. You stayed inside your dull little home the last few years, working a boring office job for the government. Your only friend had been Dave, a middle-aged man who worked in the security department. So you rotted away for years, mourning your past life. Your past you.

Honestly, you have no idea how you ended up as a special agent in the first place. Your police background increased your chances at scoring the position, but you didn't really have much experience. When you were offered the 'promotion', you didn't think too much of it. Couldn't be that hard, could it? You'd survived Raccoon City after all.

You were so wrong. You basically traded the mediocre lunch breaks you had with Dave, with running for your life from Zombies. Bad fucking trade. And the worst part, your officials didn't give a shit. They just wanted this to be dealt with as discretely as possible. End of the story, they underestimated how big this whole thing actually was, and now you were the one left with the shitty consequences. But you had Ashley! And Leon, of course, but that was a little more complicated.

You still hadn't gotten around to the promise of getting drinks together. He was going away on missions all the time, so although you kept in touch no matter what, he wasn't there. You thought, after some excruciating years, you had found your best friend again. Your person. And you did, but he was so close yet so out of reach. You couldn't take it anymore. You lost 7 whole years with him, and you finally had him back, but he was still gone.

"I don't know what to do, Ash." You sighed, playing with your shirt while you held the phone to your ear.

"Well, have you told him that? I'm sure he wants to spend more time with you too, but you need to tell him that!" She urged. Biting your lip, you hestitated.

"I just... he was my best friend. We did everything together, and now.. I know that it's him but I don't recognize him. He's.. different now. I thought he didn't change, but.. he did. That scares me. What scares me even more is the fact that he's always on my mind, I can't seem to function without him here. I only think about him. 24/7." You mumbled into the phone.

"Sounds a whole lot like you're in love with him."

"I- what? No! I mean, of course I love him, he's my best friend, but that's it. He's just my friend and you can love your friends, right? Like, everyone does, it's not something odd or anything." you rambled.

Sure, your heart lit a flame every time he smiled, and the sound of his laugh was heaven. His dumb jokes never failed to put a smile on your face but that's just how friends are. Yes. Totally. Friends feel like that. Just some regular friendly feelings.

"You're so oblivious! That's NOT how friends feel about eachother. Like ever. I've seen the way you look at him!" She argued. "What look? I don't look at him differently... do I?"

"Yes, you do. Everytime he's near you, that lovesick smile on your face kinda gives it away. Or the blush when he asks if you're okay. Not to mention how you panic when he gets hurt. Just admit it!" Ashley whined.

"I'm not in love with him, Ashley! He's my best friend, that's it!" You argued. She groaned into the phone. "I can't believe you're so smart yet so stupid." She said, clearly annoyed. "Rude." you mumbled.

"I have to go now, Miss Denial. Seriously though, you're not doing yourself a favor by denying your feelings." She said softly. You rolled your eyes and huffed.

"Would it make you feel better if I told you I'll think about it?"

"Definitely. Love you!" She beamed.

"Love you too." You chuckled as she hung up. Maybe you would think about it. If not for yourself, then for her. She was right about suppressing your feelings but about you being in love with Leon... you weren't sure.

Eh, that was a problem for the future you. For now, all you wanted to do was enjoy some drinks with him.

Your teeth gnawed at your lip, trying to decided how to go about this situation. Do you call Leon now? Tomorrow, maybe? Should you call him at all? You hadn't talked to eachother in a while... would it be awkward? Before you can lend any more attention to those thoughts, your phone rang and it was none other than Leon. Speak of the devil. You picked up, your heart racing.

"Hey... look, I'm sorry for not calling more, work s'just been busy. I.. Do you want to go for those drinks I promised tonight?" He sounded nervous. Unsure. He sounded so much like the Leon you knew. Your Leon. Maybe he hadn't changed that much after all. "Y-yeah, I'd love that. Um-  how does eight sound?" You responded, a little more nervous than you wanted to. "Sounds good. See you." And with that, he hung up.

Something's up with him. Your brows furrowed. Maybe he worked more to get his mind off Spain? He was a workaholic, trying to do more and more and not realizing how much it actually affected him. He was hurting himself by trying to protect others from harm. Maybe it's just the stress. You had plenty of time to question him at the bar, supported by a few Piña Coladas.

A couple of hours before, the anxiety hit you like a truck. It was safe to say that you were scared out of your mind right now. How the fuck were you supposed to talk to Leon like nothing was going on? Like nothing happened? You couldn't. And after that conversation with Ashley? Nope. No chance. Panic was bubbling up your throat. You felt like you could never face him again. Everytime you looked at him, or even thought of him, it was just pain. The pain of the building collapsing on top of you. Your pained cries when you realized he hadn't come back for you. The pain when you thought he was dead. The pain that if Ashley was right and you really were in love with him, you could lose him again.

He made your world bright and vibrant and when he was ripped from your grasp, you were lost in a sea of grey. Drowning. Desperately gasping for air, refusing to let the water in. Now, he had brought the color back to your life but all the vibrant hues made your head spin and your eyes hurt. You grew comfortable in your sea of grey. Embracing the cold kiss of the water filling your lungs, making you float peacefully.

Could you let the color back into your world? Could you pull yourself from the tide and cough up the water? Did you even want to? You didn't know. It was all too much. You were pulled out of your head when you dropped your glass of water. You were so consumed in your thoughts and anxieties that it had just slipped out of your hand. Carefully cleaning it up, you felt a sharp sting in your finger.

You had accidentally cut yourself on the broken glass shards. A small stream of blood was running down your finger and along your palm. A drop of blood hit the puddle of water, and it bloomed in red. You haven't felt like this in years. You could actually feel something. It's not like you didn't you feel the last seven years, but your soul was too numb to care. You actually felt something. Not like those times when you hit your head or nicked yourself while cooking. You would react relatively neutral to those incidents, but now... you could feel the burn of the cut, a searing sting in your skin. A small smile tugged at your lips.

It's because of him. Because you had him back, and he made you feel alive again. He had just stumbled into your life and turned it upside down. Like he always does. But you wouldn't want to have it any other way. God, how you had missed feeling like this. So vulnerable. So sensitive. So human.

You cleaned up the glass but hung on to the feeling of the cut. You didn't like it per se, but it made you feel like something inside you had been fixed. A missing puzzle piece that slotted right into place. It just felt so right.

Just like he did. You shook your thoughts, having the habit of spiraling, wether it may be good or bad, and continued on with your afternoon. Your nerves about spending time with Leon calmed, it was just Leon! Your best friend. You had nothing to worry about. Well, with Leon, usually there was at least a little something to be worried about.

You were out the door, into the night, on your way to Leon. You had decided to just walk there since parking was an absolute nightmare in this city. Besides, the fresh air in your lungs and cooling breeze on your face was something you hadn't felt in a while. Fumbling with a small box in your pocket, you continued to the bar you two had agreed to meet up at. It wasn't really a present, more something you wanted to return. You never thought you could.

You took a deep breath before stepping into the warmth of the bar. Your eyes were searching for Leon, looking for that familiar blonde head of hair. Spotting him in the back, an inevitable smile crept onto your face. When Leon noticed you, his face lit up, a hand reaching up to signal you over to him. He stood up when you approached and immediately pulled you into a tight hug.

"Hey." He mumbled, muffled by your hair. "Hi." You said, the joy in your voice evident. The first real hug in seven years. You could've melted on the spot. It felt so good. So right.

You reluctantly pulled away, smiling at him. "Wow... It's been a while, huh?" He said with a small laugh. "Yeah.." you responded with a chuckle. You sat down and ordered your drinks. "So.. what have you been up to? How have you been?" You asked. He pondered for a moment. "Not a lot to be honest. Worked a lot, you know, saved the world once or twice." He joked at which you just playfully rolled your eyes.

"What about you?"

"I uh... I adopted a dog. Her name is Lady, she's a Bernese mountain dog. I couldn't stand being alone anymore so I got Lady and yeah... that's about it when it comes to major life events." You laughed, a little nervous but the tension was fading by the minute.

"You gave in, huh? You used to talk my ear off about wanting a dog back then, remember?" He smiled. You did talk about wanting a dog all throughout your time at the police academy and it seemed like you had finally fulfilled that dream.

"Yeah, I did. She's so sweet, you'll love her." you said with a smile. Leon let out a laugh. "I'm more worried about her liking me." He joked.

You two continued to talk and drink, just laughing and having a good time. The night got closer and closer to ending when you remembered the box in your pocket.

"I have something for you." You mumbled, nervous to how he would react. He piped up at that and raised his eyebrows. "Aw, for me?" He teased. You just gave him a shy smile. Now or never. You pulled out the small box and slid it over to him. "I wanted to return this." you said quietly. His brows furrowed and a confused look fell on his face. "Return? Alright."

Leon carefully undid the bow and opened the lid. Not in a million years had he expected this. His jaw hit the fucking floor. It was his goddamn RPD badge. What the fuck? How did you even get this? It was tattered and faded. He gently ran his fingers across his barely legible name.

You chewed on the inside of your cheek. You had no idea how he would react. Leon looked at you completely bewildered. "I.. How?" He asked, still shocked. You shifted in your chair and fiddled with your fingers. "When... when I got out, I found it on the ground. It was the only thing I had left of you." You mumbled, avoiding eye contact. By 'got out' you meant fighting and clawing your way through infected residents and escaping the ruins of the collapsed building.

You could see the pain in his eyes. Whether it was his own for the pain he felt for you, you weren't sure. You spoke before he could. "I made a promise to myself that I would get it back to you one day, but.. at some point, I gave up and just kept it for myself. I thought you were dead and that this," you gestured to the badge," was the only thing I had left of you. My best friend. But it's yours, I want you to have it back." You said, your voice cracking, trying not to cry.

You could see the tears glistening in his eyes, his knuckles turning white as he tightly gripped his badge. "Thank you..." was all he managed to get out. You quickly wiped the tears that were threatening to fall and let out a sad laugh.

"God... I'm sorry for ruining the mood like that. It probably would've burned a hole in my pocket if I kept it any longer, though..."

Leon placed his badge on the table and took your hands in his. "You didn't. Well, a little maybe, but I'm really grateful for this. Thank you." He assured you, sqeezing your hands.  Your skin lit on fire. His touch was so addicting. And so comforting. A blush made its way onto your face. Oh, fuck. Was Ashley right? No. No way, it's just a little hot in here. That's all. But you couldn't deny the way your heart twisted and turned when he touched you, the butterflies in your stomach were having a fucking rave right now. Jesus, it's just Leon. Get it together You thought to yourself.

Shaking off all those annoying feelings, you returned a smile. "How about I make it up to you with a Movie Night, hm? Ice cream and cuddles from Lady included." You proposed. He grinned and leaned in a little closer. "What about cuddles from you?" He asked, a teasing smirk on his face. It didn't come off nearly was confident as he wanted it to. His voice shook a little, making him sound nervous.

Leon Kennedy? Nervous? Something was definitely up. His nervousness didn't stop the bubbling feeling in your stomach, though. There go the butterflies again. Stupid bugs. This is normal, though. Right? You always cuddled. Friends cuddle. No big deal. He's always been like that. No sweat. Just a little friendly cuddle session. That. Is. It. Is it bad that you wanted it to be more than that? The idea of being in love with him suddenly didn't feel as scary anymore.

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Part three is coming soon~

[mannatea]

I have finished reading every single one of my old FE fics (except that old FE7 college AU, but we don't talk about that). 🎉

Here are the numbers and some thoughts!

Standalone one-shots/chaptered fics: 139 yes || 68 no

FE100 stories: 51 yes || 3 no

Collections stories: 65 yes || 4 no

GRAND TOTAL: 255 to be rewritten || 75 fics that will never see the light of dawn again

Let's talk about the fics that will rot on my hard drive and die with me, or at least with everyone who knows how to use the wayback machine well enough to get them back again. :P

I didn't really have any specific criterion for determining what 'fics deserve saving vs. being buried alive. It was mostly a vibe check, though. Like, was the idea tolerable? Was it well-written? Was there anything about it worth the effort it would take to save?

Let's look at the collections stories first.

Lutte contre l'incendie #4 was "kind of cringe with some pairing bias." This is truly saying something, because this is a Kent/Lyn collection and, as all of you know already, my biggest and oldest OTP. I promise I am not being unfair to this story. It was cringe, and the story felt more like a shit-tier ship manifesto than it did an actual story. Could I save it? No. The point of the story was the issue.

Lutte contre l'incendie #10 was attempting to tackle the theme of jealousy, which I think is fine as a concept—and interesting to write about with regards to Kent specifically. It was poorly done in this story and I could 100% fix it and write something better using the same theme, but there are better stories I could be writing with that theme in mind, so I'm not going to invest myself in trying to fix a 500 word little thing.

Pour l'amour #1 was "boring" and felt unfinished. It was 117 words long, so the whole thing is pointless and I don't think worth the effort to re-do in any capacity.

Love is a Flower #1 was "kind of meh" but was attempting to tackle something with Brendan, Sonia, and Nino. It's 100% salvageable, but the last time I took the time to rewrite a story about Nino and Sonia, despite it being popular when it was first written, it was largely ignored as a rewrite. No thank you; I have better things to do with my time than rewrite something that not only do I not find terribly exciting, but that nobody else does, either.

--

Moving on to the FE100 stories...

#52: conquer, was a Kent/Lyn fic that would have been fun and maybe cute about ANY OTHER CHARACTER SET, but felt ooc and weird for the characters involved. Low-key this was a 'fic I have spent the last decade or more deeply ashamed of, so I was relieved to see that, even though the writing itself was solid, I was right to have spent so much time embarrassed by it. I'm sure I'll keep this as a Kent/Lyn prompt, but just write it about something else (if I ever get around to it). Like, when the premise is OOC it's not really salvageable in the way rewrites usually are.*

#62: unreachable thoughts, was a first-person fic from the perspective of...the Mani Katti. Yep. I literally can't with this.

#99: advent of peace, was ALSO a Kent/Lyn fic (sort of?) where they fall when Bern attacks Sacae, but it's not a very good story and is in Kent's POV after Lyn has already died and he's had a limb amputated to try to save his life (and he's in a terrible mental state). You might think I'm being too hard on this one, but I wrote a lot of shitty tragedy back in the day, and only a few were actually good or interesting; this wasn't one of them, and no part of me thinks this is worth the time to save. (Maybe if you remember this piece, you'll disagree.)

--

*I've had a few rewrites that I've had to truly rewrite, like, from the ground up:

If It Takes a Lifetime (what if the characters survived their canon deaths and then died in a more tragic manner?)

A Rose Is a Rose Is a Rose (secret admirer leaves flowers and is found out at the end)

Luck of the Draw (Mark just got lucky/everyone died in his lifetime anyway + reverse chronology)

Making It Better (silly adventure to find out who is stealing from Caelin Castle's larder)

Waiting for the Rain (Lyn gives Kent one last chance to change his mind as they enter Sacae)

In all of these instances the plot/concept was fine. As a quick example, when I originally wrote "If It Takes a Lifetime", I lacked the skill necessary to showcase the vision I was trying to present. In rewriting it, I adopted the metaphorical tone of the manga, wrote emotional scenes naturally (rather than in a way where I was begging the reader to feel something), and fixed the ending to read as being more in character. But the core idea was still really good and particularly meaningful to me.

However when even the idea behind the story is bad, it can't really be rewritten or considered a rewrite; at that point, if I "redo it", I'm just writing an entirely new story.

--

For my generally large collection of fanfics, uhh...well. I'm not sure where to start with these.

68 stories flung into the dumpster feels like a lot, but I think some of you will just have to trust me that these stories should never see daylight again.

Let's talk about a chunk of them anyway.

Secrets: a fic about Soren's love for pie? No clue why I never posted this, but as you might expect, it was stupid and not that funny.

Indulgence: written for Indulgence Day 2010 and then never posted for some reason. It's a Kent/Lyn fic, it's 2,027 words long, and it's pretty stupid.

(Untitled): One-sided Innes/Eirika where I'm pretty sure he was going to tell her he loved her the day before or day of her wedding to someone else. What I have written of this is actually pretty good, but it's not enough to make me feel positive about finishing it.

Apples: A Serra/Lucius 50-sentences fic that I got 6 sentences into. Not bad but I've no faith in being able to finish this while making it as good as the other 50-sentences fics I did.

Always: a pegasus sisters + robot unicorn attack AU? I didn't actually reread this one, but I don't think the joke being made with it holds up well enough to make it worth my time.

To Have and To Hold: generally very cute modern AU Kent/Lyn fic where he's trying to figure out how to propose to her. This is from 2010, but I don't think it's worth the effort to fix and finish.

The Broken Road: I finished five chapters of this, none of which were posted. It wasn't the first novelization attempt I did, but it was the one I spent the most time on. I went balls-to-the-wall with this one, starting the story well before Lyn meets Mark and getting characters like Serra and Erk where they would need to be for the main story. I just don't have gas in the tank to take this monster of a project on again—and novelizations that don't do anything truly new or interesting bore me, anyway.

Shades of Grey: SHUT UP THIS IS FROM 2008!!! This is the Lyn-gets-poisoned-while-ruling-Caelin 'fic. The only reason this one won't be touched again is because I actually RP'd a FAR SUPERIOR version of this story out with someone and if I'm going to edit the shit out of something to post, it will be the thing we actually finished. :P

Lullaby: Modern AU that rotated first person POVs. Die die die.

Equine Intervention: Story told from the perspective of all of the army's animals. Cringgggeeee.

Deux Flèches: Florina plays cupid story that never went anywhere but was a very cute concept.

And Life Was Changed—Disassembled, Rearranged: Hector and Farina are fuckbuddies and she gets pregnant. Um. I cannot touch this story in our current social climate tbh.

Multiple parodies or stories-that-are-mimicking-jokes (but they suck for some reason) x10 or so. Also trollfics of which I did several. One of these was in VERY BAD TASTE. (iykyk)

Several fics that just aren't good but were trying to be Different and Unique and were only popular/well-reviewed because they seemed novel to readers. Like "Lift" a Serra + Rath fic, "Right vs Wrong" a Hector/Ninian ficlet, and "Erring on the Side of Caution", an Oswin/Fiora fic.

Unwavering Devotion: dogshit story that I'm pretty sure was supposed to be a longfic where Kent follows Lyn to Ostia when she marries Hector and some years later runs away with her or something? Terrible story.

Melodramatic garbage, including several Matthew/Leila fics, several Kent/Lyn fics, and several fics about Sain for some reason.

The World: a fic centering on Hector, Eliwood, and Lyn that's really bad and...maybe OOC? Hector's really mean in this, too, for some reason.

Looking for a Little Canon in D: the dreaded college AU fic. This was rewritten once already under "Improvisation" and it didn't get anywhere. I just hate that this ever existed. I'm sure it's trash but I can't bring myself to reread it.

Several boring/uninspired nothingsauce ideas, like a Zephiel + Guinivere fic called "Faux Fox", an Eliwood + Florina fic called "Blessed Quietness", and a Seth/Eirika called "Between the Lines."

All About Us: the infamous Lyn Marries Erik of Laus fic. Just like the Lyn-gets-poisoned fic, this one was RP'd almost to completion some years ago, so if I put effort into editing, it will be the RP, not my original attempt at the story.

Everyone Loves Soren: a humor/parody fic that I wrote that was going to be a Soren/Everyone But Ike fic, mostly to poke fun at the fans who seemed fine pairing Soren with literally anyone but Ike, despite the way the game treats the ship.

Shitty Valter Fic that I am embarrassed I ever wrote.

a 362-word-long 1950s AU drabble about Geoffrey, Elincia, Lucia, and Bastian as children. WTF? no

Friday. The summary reads as follows: Some people "got down" on Friday, but not Soren. He was too busy." And you might be thinking, that sounds kind of funny even if it is a dated joke—but no. It was boring.

And So It Goes: two part fic where Kent gets le sad being steward of Caelin and goes out to Sacae to find Lyn. Cool idea, but it's old so it needs a lot of work, and I'm going to steal the title for a different story I've outlined that I partially RP'd out some years ago that fits better (where Lyn leaves Caelin very suddenly and Kent becomes steward in the aftermath of that--and five years later she returns to Caelin).

There are others, of course, but that's most of them. I feel pretty confident that almost everything on this list isn't worth the time and effort it would take to save. But maybe you disagree!

--

i'll go over the good fics in another post lol. this is too long haha.

[theepisceswriter]

UNTITLED — TOJI FUSHIGURO

♡ Synopsis: Your shitty emotionally unavailable boyfriend who only has a dick to offer you returns

♡ A/N: This was a quick lil 1AM creative writing drabble that turned into more than it should've. I'm a sucker for deadbeat Toji so I'm always writing him sawry. Also someone help me with a title for this because I can't think of one to save my soul.

♡ W.C: 1.4k

♡ TW: F!Reader, dirty talk, penetrative sex, doggy style, afab body parts, it gets kinda angsty towards the end. Enjoy 18+ bookies!!

You swore you had self control. Hell, some of those closest to you would even say that you’ve helped give them a sense of self control. Years of trials and tribulations that could’ve been avoided if only you put your desires to the back of your mind is what you have to thank for the wisdom you carried.

Or that you thought you carried.

Years of self discipline were thrown away the moment the raven haired heart bandit showed up on your front door with that signature smirk on his scarred lip that let you know he was up to no good. But then again, when was he ever doing anything good? It was him and being put through the wringer of a long term relationship (if you could even call it that) at one point in your life that led to the journey of you rediscovering yourself. You were nowhere near the same woman you were when he ghosted you all those months ago and he knew that which is why he was back. And you knew that too.

Soon as you out of people's lives and start doing good is when they start to miss you, or whatever it was Nicki Minaj said.

“No, I’m not doing this again–” You began to slam the door shut, but of course you were no match for Toji’s strength. In one swift movement he was inside of your apartment with the door closed and locked behind him. To be fair, you didn’t put up much of a fight or restraint. Whether you did so intentionally or not was up for debate.

“You know you missed me.” He teased in a sing-song like voice. Slick like a fox, his arms snaked around your waist and pulled you close against his chiseled chest. So close that you could feel the erratic thumping of his heart in his chest and body heat radiating off of him. Was he nervous?

Before your lips could even part to ask him a question or chastise him for holding you in such a loving manner like he didn’t basically abandon your relationship months prior; he spoke up first.

“I missed you.” His voice is a whisper and a reply from you is stunted once more by him when you feel the soft caress of his knuckles against your cheekbones. They lit up red with each lingering touch, a delicate side to him that you weren't able to see often. A smile forming on his lips knowing he still had you under his effect

If you knew it was this easy for you to fall back into your ex-lover’s warm embrace then you wouldn’t have even moved from the couch when you first heard the doorbell ring.

But, it was too late for all that pondering because your mind was already made. If anything, your mind didn’t have the capacity to think at all at that moment; the moment now moved to the bedroom where you were situated at the edge of the bed with white knuckles from how hard you were gripping the sheets while the madman behind you delivered the most lethal backshots to your sopping cunt.

“Oh FUCK, Toji, just like that, baby!” You did your best to moan out through clenched teeth while biting down on your silk satin pillowcase. Just like clockwork, you were back to oh so fondly screaming his name like he never left. Toji was enjoying every last bit of this. You could tell by the sultry smirk that grazed his lips, threatening to be broken every second by the low growls that left his lips. He was doing his best to contain them, but that was almost impossible from how good your slick walls felt clenching around his girthy cock. And he wasn’t even all the way inside of you yet.

“You kept this pussy nice and tight for me while I’ve been away, haven’t you baby?” SMACK! His large calloused hand came gripping down on your asscheek, his fingers firmly dimpling the soft skin before landing another blow. And then another. And then another until he built up a rhythm similar to the one you had going while you fucked yourself on his cock with little help from his mercy thrusts.

“Answer me, cmon you’re a big girl I know you can use your words.” SMACK!

“Yes–OH! Fuck yes, I’ve been waiting on you. Nobody else can fuck me like you can.” You confessed in a moment of vulnerability, eyes shutting on instinct when his dick hit a new sensitive fleshy part inside of your pussy that left you shrieking into the covers. Propping yourself up on your elbows, you moved in a position where it was easier for you to throw your ass back on him while still maintaining your balance – for however long that would last. 

“Good girl.” He awarded you with a grunt, handing coming down to smack your ass one more time before he placed both of his hands behind his head. Watching intently where his cock connected to your poor stretched-out hole that was gripping on tightly to his throbbing member every time he moved his hips back. 

Through hooded eyes you looked behind you to be met with a scene porn studios wish they portray as sexy on screen; Sweat crystals glistened across Toji’s chest, his raven hair was pressed firmly against his forehead with sweat almost covering his eyes, and cockiness reeked from his body as he thrusts into you with swirling hip movements with no hands to level himself. Making sure you remembered why you crowned him as your best sex experience.

Even with both of his hands behind his head, the loss of leverage didn’t stop him from delivering lethal thrusts to your pussy. If anything it allowed him the correct angle to bottom out in you which sent you and your poor cervix into a frenzy.  The slight sharpness of pain mixed with pleasure was all too much for you after not having sex for so long. Instinctively, your hand went to his lower abdomen, slightly grazing his fuzzy happy trail, and attempted to slow his brutal pace just a bit, but he was quick to shut that down.

“Move your hand.” With the same velocity he had shown your ass cheeks minutes later, he was doing the same with your hand and made sure to pin both of your arms behind your lower back. It was something about seeing you squirm underneath him that made him forget just how crazy you were able to drive him at times.

 Your presence was intoxicating to him and it was scary. If he had the ability to be honest with himself then he would realize that there was truly nothing more he wanted in life than to have you by his side, protecting and providing for you 24/7. He would even go as far as saying he wanted commitment, but how could he when his actions didn’t match his thinking?

He wished, almost down on his knees praying one night, that he could have the emotional availability to love you how you deserved to be. And at this moment, with your bare back now pressed against his solid chest and one of his hands clad around your neck to keep you close to him, it felt as if his tender fantasy could be a reality. One could only hope. 

You had no idea of the tender thoughts swarming his mind, but they manifested physically through soft touches you wouldn’t expect from Toji like the gentle kiss he just placed upon your forehead. It was a juxtaposition to the hate you had been brewing for him in your head for the last couple of months, how could you betray yourself like this? You didn’t have time at this moment to question why you held onto this false hope of a relationship between you and Toji. You just wanted to enjoy the time you were spending with him now, even though it was far from idealistic because you had no idea when he would be in your presence again.

Maybe in that instant both of your tender thoughts aligned subconsciously; The two of you finding yourselves gazing at each other lovingly in the midst of lust and connecting your lips for a passionate kiss neither of you wanted to break away from, ever.

[cottondo]

Hey babes! First of all, let me just say that I ADORE your writing <3333 I can tell you have a lot of passion for what you do!

If it’s alright with you, I’d like to request a Blitzø x fem! reader story. Preferably how he navigates a shy, sweet imp. I was thinking that they could have been childhood friends or something like that. Whatever you decide to do I’ll read (and love) it <3333

Thank you so much!!

aahww thank you sm lovebug🥹💞 I appreciate the kindness !

also,, really hope I got your request right?? I lowkey wasn’t exactly sure on what you wanted LMAO but I hope you like it regardless <3

Blitzo x fem! imp reader | navigate

The sound of your breath in a humid environment was all you could really focus on. Or, more so, trying to control it.

Blitzo insisted taking you on some stupid 'adventure', —if thats what he called it— and of course, it turned into a mission.

Why the hell wouldn't it! You didn't expect much less from him.

You particularly didn't care much for his mission work. Sure, okay, it seemed kinda cool sometimes- - but the,, almost double-dying part, was intimidating as fuck.

Keeping all your limbs attached to your body was really your biggest goal living down in Hell. It was easy enough to end up getting stabbed, maybe break a horn or two, or even end up in a shitty situation with some demon lords that rule rings trying to chase you down. Especially as an imp!

Maybe it was because you actually valued your death-life, and Blitz,, .. just didnt? But, regardless, you didn't wanna be here, doing this today.

A heavy hand rests on your shoulder abruptly, causing a small flinch to react from your figure.

Blitz leans in close, a crazy little smirky smile on his face. If the space between you got any smaller, you thought your oxygen levels would've been completely cut.

He managed to drag you into some hide out, a gun in his hand, army crawl position beside you in a long vent you two crawled inside of together. Shoulders harshly bumping against each other's to prover just how little space there actually was inside.

It was hot in here, and he was hotter, which only added to the uneasiness you felt in your chest.

"Don't tell me you're bitchin' out on me, y/n." He whispers to you, eyes focusing on your nerves. Blitz knew you better than just about anyone. And to be fair, he should. You two have been friends since childhood, so nothing goes unseen around him.

Your frown lightens, vision trailing to look back at him. "Nooo? I'm totally fine," you flash a cheesy smile back.

Blitzo's eyes roll, "Yea- ok, I'm teaching you combat, whether you like it or not, bitch. If youre gonna be working with us, you can't just sit around at the desk looking all cute and shit, everyday." He reminds you, "I need you to learn how to be more assertive!"

He thought you were cute? Ayee, score for you.

Your lips curl into a smirk over at him.

"As cute as I am, I can still be assertive." Now it was your turn to remind him.

It didnt look like he believed that statement. Actually, you knew he didnt.

"What happens when some dick fucker tries being an asshole to you? Pulls out a gun? One day I'm not gonna be able to get there quick enough to save your sorry ass." He frowns, some annoyance clear in his tone.

Your eyes widen, and your lips sound a gasp as you face him. "Oh my god- - is that the sound of you caring about someone other than yourself~?" You tease sarcastically, eyelids lowering casually again. Blitz turns away with a scoff.

"I didn't know that was even possible," you add onto the teasing, obviously getting some sort of rise out of him.

"Listen!" He narrows his vision. "Oka- you know damn well that I—"

His words get cut off. The sound of a door opening, and footsteps entering the room catch both of your attentions. You flinch when the door slams shut behind the figure. It was a short demon. Big horns, and an even bigger snout. He sort of looked like a dead pig. You cringe.

"Oh, fuck." Blitz smirks, raising up his gun. "This is too easy. You comin' or what?" His shoulder nudges yours. You give a dull look in reply. "Do I have a choice?"

"No, you don't." He smirks over his shoulder at you.

You follow close behind his army crawl towards the end of the vent. It wasn't far away at all, just totally felt uncomfortable being on your hands and knees in such a small space for so long.

Blitz quickly kicks out the vent door, and jumps down to the floor with his gun tightly in hand. Your eyes watch his figure as he lands perfectly in the room, alerting the demon who was on Blitz' kill list.

Damn.

It was kind of crazy how good his combat is. You know he has a lot of practice- - which does make you slightly worry from time to time about just how much trouble this job really gets him into. (And how much more it'll get you into if he continues to drag you along for the ride.)

With a small push, you slip yourself out of the vent, and land on two feet with a practiced swiftness. You've gotten enough rehearsal time to do small, crafty things, but you weren't perfect- - nothing like how Blitz was, anyway.

But at least you still looked good doing it.

The listed demon looks quickly between the both of you, Blitz ready with a crazed grin on his face while holding the gun, and you, with your knife strapped to your side, looking nothing as intimidating.

"Y/N! Grab him!" Blitz commands from you.

You hesitate for a second, "Blitz, do we really hav—"

"Cmon!" Blitz tosses his head back and groans, quickly rebounding and aiming the gun to the guys head before he got any bright ideas. "Lets dance, bitch!"

The demon, though all three of you were trapped in a very small room, does his absolute best to dodge each and every bullet. For a porky lookin dude, he was quick on his hooves. He managed to miss most if not all, bullets aimed his way.

You lunge forward, and tackle him to the ground like a tiger pouncing its prey. Blitz cheers you on, fist pumped up in the air as he watches with excitement down at you. "Thats what im talkin about, y/n! Now tie his ass up, we gotta use him as bait for the rest of them."

"The rest of them?" You glare in question.

His hand tosses you down a rope, which you had no idea where he kept it hidden all this time, but look up to Blitz anyway, as you struggled a little, straddling to keep the demon down beneath you.

Your hands desperately grab the rope, and you begin tying. Blitz insisted no helping, as this was his way of teaching you proper ways to hustle- - but you'd gladly accept it if he offered any.

First, you wrap up the struggling mans hands, then, you move down to his kicking feet. He managed to give your shoulder a good hit with his foot, but that only resulted in Blitz raising his own foot, and forcefully bringing the tip of his boot into the guys side. The demon lets out a groan.

"Damn, what the hell, asshole." You glare down at the demon who only glares back up at you through his groans. Your hands take the bandana from around his neck, and retie it around his mouth to prevent any sounds coming out of him.

"Great, now lets get the fuck out of here!" Blitz grins, picking up the hostage and throwing him over his shoulder with a small struggle. You follow along close behind, eyes checking both sides of you with some slight paranoia. It already came to the point in the day where you were very much over this job. Why the fuck couldn't you guys have just stayed in the circus business?

"Y/N! Take out those assholes up on the catwalks!" Blitz points to a few more demons that were going to be next on your list for the day.

While the two of you ran for the far exit, your eyes follow up to where Blitz was looking.

You spot them. "Got it!" Your voice beams, and pulling out your gun, you aim for the straps that kept the walk attached to the ceiling. One shot, you took the one side of the catwalks down, which results in the demons falling and tumbling down to the floor of the warehouse.

"Fuck yeah!" Blitz laughs as he uses the tied hostage as a punching bag for other demons that try to stop the two of you. He swings the hostage demon around, using him as his own personal weapon, causing some slight laughter out of you, to which both you and blitz were surprised about.

The demons you caused to fall, start charging your way. With a quick thought, you take out the knife strapped to your side, and get ready to use it. Blitz grins over at you. "Remember to aim for the neck!" He calls out from ahead of you.

Your smile brightens at the teamwork you both have. "Thanks!"

A hand reaches for you, but with a stealthy slide to the side, you duck under the arms and push the torso of a demon down to the ground.

This was getting . . oddly easy.

You hop over the demon on the floor, and smile brightly over at Blitz.

With you catching up to his side, your lips stretch into a grin as you open the door to the warehouse for him. “Did you see?” Your question was almost eager sounding. Breaking out of the shyness of the situation, you’ve actually gained a bit more combat knowledge.

Blitz grins over at you, throwing the hostage to the ground as the both of you make it out, and find a safer area to catch your breaths.

“Hell yeah bitch!” Blitz looked so happy, giddy, even. It was so freaking cute.

“I knew teaching you my way would pay off.” He crosses his arms, a soft smirk on his face.

Your face flushed lightly, the shyness beginning to take over just a bit. Your shoulders shrug upward, and the smile on your face was light. “Thanks,”

“I’m proud of you.” Blitz’s voice is quieter than his usual loud and obnoxious form, but you still catch it. Your eyes widen a bit, and staring at him in a small shock is all you could do for a second. “Really?”

Blitz looks flustered, so you decide to let any teasing go. It wasn’t often he would give real compliments. Even if he did know you long enough, to.

“Of course, fuck face.” He replies, rolling his eyes with a smile still stuck to his face.

You bump his shoulder, grinning just a little harder than before. “Learned from the best.”

______________________

really sorry its not my best work,, just allot goin on in life rn but I still hope you liked it anyway ! <3

[athenaluciscaelum]

//MINORS DO NOT INTERACT//

Pairing: DMC3 Dante x Fem!Reader

Rated: Mature

Words: 3736 word

Warning: Dark theme, unhealthy obession, over protective behaviours, non-concensual, unprotected sex, fingering, penetration, breeding, forced impregnation

Disclaimer: Content you're about to consume is mature, dark content and has non consensual part. I do not condone such acts, infact, I'm just writing it out of imagination, it is figment of imagination and should be treated as such. Any hate speech won't be accepted or entertained. You are responsible for your own content consumption. Not ypur cup of tea? Scroll.....

I want to be protected

(PART 1 OF 2)

You were celebrating your eighteenth birthday alone, you still got dressed up in a pretty little lilac birthday dress, put on makeup and baked cake for yourself. Pitiful, right? In your mind, to make it more pitiful. You got up and walked to a club. You were eighteen, after all. Even if you are kicked out of an orphanage and live in a shitty apartment with money you saved up from your tons of odd jobs after high school ended. You saved up enough by taking a one-year gap from studies to prepare to apply for a full-paid scholarship and get into a good university. It was all going well. Currently, you are preparing for your entrance into a university in Capulet City. It was a good one. You want to study history there and go into research/academic. And the best part, you were not homeless like your warden in orphanages said you would be, if you did not figure out something soon.

But for now, you were in a bar alone, past midnight. Not a care in the world, even about your safety, to be alone in a club was not a good idea, right? Your only friend ditched you, not because she is bad or anything, she has got her own family problem with her strict parents. You both understand each other. But it didn't dull the pain.

As you were sitting in the bar. Your eyes scan the area, you were not looking for someone in particular, so far you never dated or even entertained the idea of love…Why? Simple, you were an orphan, vulnerable, you did not want to be someone's play thing, you saw the worst of humanity and men. As soon as they get to know you have no one to protect or stand for you. Protect, right, one thing you crave the most, to be protected, someone to hold you and say sleep tight, it will be all right. But this is not your life. It was wrong to see everyone, especially men with the same gaze. Of course, not all of them are creeps. But you were too afraid to take a risk, when a mistake in your life meant never ending poverty or a cycle of abuse or homelessness or all. You sighed, drinking an expansive mocktail, it's your birthday. Why not treat yourself... It's when a man approaches you. He was brunet, tall, muscular and kind, you smiled, you wanted to be friendly, even though you would be so happy to be left alone at your self-pity party.

The man looked at the bartender, "A drink for the lady, please...whatever she is drinking right now." You were afraid of taking anything, the last thing you wanted to be labeled as was 'gold digger'. Let's agree that you were afraid of people in general. You denied it, but it was the reality. You shook your head, "Umm...no, I don't drink more than one. That's it for my today's calorie intake." You smiled. The man chuckled and sighed, "What a world do we live in, can't buy a pretty girl a drink? Are you old enough to be here?" You felt a little fear. "Well, I am eighteen. And I don't drink alcohol, so I think I am good." Man smiled, "I am Marcus... Marcus Servus..." You nodded in acknowledgment, "I am Y/N...." Man thought" Y/N and....?" You let out a nervous laugh, "No last name...just Y/N!"

You felt too uncomfortable, thought Marcus did nothing wrong, you felt your heart beating loudly in your chest...you put on a smile, "Okay, Marcus, good to see you, but I have to go..." Marcus smiled, a smile that was crooked and evil...." But it's your birthday...you are eighteen, I don't have to care about you being underage....now...just let me show you how good I am..."

Your eyes were wide, you fumbled on your seat and stood up..." Who are you?" Marcus smiled, "Aw... don't be scared Y/N! We are meant to be.." You quickly started to get through the crowd to the exit door. A bad decision. You were in the back alley now, 'shit, it was the back door!' You internally cursed yourself. Marcus stood there laughing and smiling, "You smell so sweet! I can't wait to make you mine. It's hard to find a virgin these days" You frowned and as soon as you ran, the man turned into an Angelo and you cried out as he sized you in his arms to take you toward a portal. You were thrashing and crying. But Marcus hardly cares, you really thought your life was done for, you made a mistake. It's when Marcus dropped you, and you saw a sword penetrating from his back to his chest. Your eyes were wide as you were looking at a man who did it- handsome face, icy blue eyes, clad in red, tall, this man was the epitome of beauty. You never felt this way. You should be afraid. This man is capable of impaling a demon just like that, but he protected you! Someone protected you!

The man in red turned to leave, when you got up and your reflex, held the sleeve of his red coat. You spoke nervous, "wait! Thank you...you saved me. I'm Y/N." Man turned sighing, putting his sword back, "You got money to pay me, babe?" You looked at your feet and nodded, "No...but anything else?" Man smirked scanned you up and down, he said jokingly, "You look pretty hot, babe...are you on menu" You laughed, "Sadly no .but please I insist ...." Dante thought," Buy me dinner..." You nodded, "Sure, let's go in.?" Dante and you nodded, he asks you to buy Pizza and you did. Dante was no gentleman, but he found you sweet and kind, he walked you back to your apartment. "So... don't get in more trouble, okay, babe?" You nodded, "Thanks again, I got cake inside, want to come in to get some cake?" Dante leaned in, raising an eyebrow, "Are you trying to get some action? You can ask me directly babe.." You understood his flirty nature by now and poked his cheek, "No... it's my birthday, I'm eighteen today..so you want cake or not?" Dante thought,"What flavor?" You sang, "Strawba-ba-baba-berry-shortcake!" A sing you remember from cartoon, Strawberry Shortcake, he smiled, "I love strawberries..."

That night, Dante tried his best to get into your bed, but you shut him down, you were not going to sleep with a man you don't know. He was not pushy or anything, just trying. From that day, Dante and you were friends. You visited his shop after a bad day at work, and he visited yours for good food or baked goods. You knew the clandestine part of the job. But you wouldn't mind hanging out with him. It was fun playing pool at his shop, playful banter, he showed you how to shoot guns, of course getting too close playfully, but you were quick to swat his hand away, giggling. You knew it was all fun and he respected your boundaries. Dante shop was newly bought. One of his agents, Enzo, got Dante a cheap deal. But for a deal, he pressed him to do jobs even when Dante didn't like him.

Enzo once even tried to flirt with you, and you were quick to shut him down... One day, you come back from shitty day at work. Dante was behind his desk reading one of the porno magazines. It irritated you more, you just sighed and dropped on the couch he stole from a shady apartment. You gave him an earful, and he promised not to steal again. Dante was busy when you took the magazine away from it. He snapped, "Hey! I was reading that!" You gave him a broken look, he was quick at his feet, he spoke trying to act cool, "What!? Jealous, huh?" You put your head on his chest literally crying and wailing, Dante didn't know what to do, he wasn't one for that. He instinctively wrapped his arms around your little delicate frame, he spoke,"What happened?" You clung onto his coat, his skin felt so nice and soothing. You spoke in a broken voice," Dante, tighter, hug me tighter.." Dante tightened his grip just a little. You gulped, "More..." Dante was now literally squishing you against him, "More!" Dante chuckled a little sad, "I am going to crush your bones, silly girl." He tapped your forehead playfully...your eyes gleaming, he could get lost in it... Dante held your face in his gloved hand and leaned down to kiss your lips softly and pull back to gauge your reaction. Your heartbeat was quick and your body hot, your face flushed and lips quivering. Dante caressed your cheek with his thumb, "first kiss?" You nodded, and your fingers were in his soft silver hair and pulled him back, tilting your head for kiss. At first, it was lil pecks on your lips, then licking your bottom lips. When you were overwhelmed and didn't get the cue. Dante sat you on the desk standing between your legs, pulling away. His gloved hands cupping your face, you were both panting, "open your mouth for me, okay?" You were nervous but nodded, as he kissed you. This time you part your lips, his tongue snakes in to explore your mouth, you feel something in your core. But your legs were spread by Dante standing in between them. You smush his head closer to yours, deepen the kiss, your tongue nervously touches his, he coaxes it to play more, and then they swirl, you moan in a kiss and pull away. You were flustered and embarrassed, you touched your lips, they were wet, testament that it all happened and wasn't a dream. You spoke softly, "Dante...." You pressed your forehead to his. He was out of breath too, "Yeah." Your hands pull down his coat to let it fall, and one by one takes off his gloves, you take his hand in yours and kissing each knuckle with love, giving his thumb a little licking and then sucking it. The sight of you sucking on his thumb, letting all hell loose, not like he had any intention of keeping any restrain. He was quick to unzip your dress from your back and pull it down to reveal your plush breast and delicate skin. You were blushing. He was in awe and fondled your lacy black bra-clad breast. You moaned, his thumb spilling out of your lips.

Tagged: @marshmallows-and-champagne