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seraphdreams · 1 year ago

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SMILE, YOU'RE ON CAMERA. | YUUTA OKKOTSU.

𓏲 ࣪₊♡𓂃 — synopsis. when taking care of your university finances proves troublesome, the universe grants you your very own savior. but it’s gonna cost you.

𓏲 ࣪₊♡𓂃 — cw. smut, college au!yuuta / bimbo reader (obvi), filming, lots of porn references… a lot, virginity loss, praise, oral n fingering, slight obsession, pussydrunk yuuta, unprotected love making, yuuta’s rich and unsettling. mdni <3

𓏲 ࣪₊♡𓂃 — word count. 5.3k

𓏲 ࣪₊♡𓂃 — dolled up! omg, yuuta? i meant to have this out a few weeks ago but got caught in a little writing slump :( nevertheless, here’s to a new year and a new fic! yuuta’s been slowly creeping his way up my favs list , tehe !! as always, please reblog / comment if you enjoyed this , it’ll fill me with joy. thank u ♡

you’re a pornstar.

albeit, an amateur one with heaps to learn regarding the ruthless industry, but the weight still stands.

the details in which you came to the jarring conclusion were muddled with the convoluted steps that it took for you to get there, murky in your bubblegum-filled mind. all you knew was that yuuta okkotsu was a force, a gentle one, to be reckoned with.

it must’ve played out once you returned to your campus dorm beyond the dusk of midnight, under an unmitigating fatigue from the twelve hour waitressing shift just prior. through abhorrent patrons and the lack of a spendable paycheck, the excruciatingly long night barely made you enough money to even think about buying those dollish pumps you’ve been yearning for. how cruel.

in between working and haphazardly handing your earnings over to university fees and textbooks, you just couldn’t seem to make ends meet.

you would curse the day you took it upon yourself to branch away financially from your parents under the guise of growing up, since now it’d be a blessing to have even a cellphone bill paid off. whatever the issue seemed to be, lady luck was truly never bothered enough to be on your side.

fortunately for you, though, it was that same arduous night, you had been huddled against your stuffed animals in bed, mindlessly scrolling through the various social media apps on your phone; switching from sites like instagram and twitter to youtube then right back to instagram all over again, only to be met with an offer dusted in pink glitter that caught your eye as if it were made for you.

“stars needed — will pay upfront.”

it was a shoddy story post, one that could be clicked past and forgotten forever — yet, a brisk reminder of your situation in the form of borrowed, used textbooks with pages missing or vandalized, and today’s horoscope that said to take risks; you did exactly that, aiming a swipe up that would ultimately rid you of the worries of yesterday.

there were no reasons as to why you couldn’t be a star. certainly, you had the face for it, and you were told by multiple charmers that you were beyond beguiling to get anything you could ever ask for. what dismay could possibly unfold from contacting .. yuuta okkotsu .. about his offer?

hm, that’s funny. the name rang familiarity as it seeded in your mind.

must be one of yuuji’s friends.

itadori yuuji, your best friend of three years now. out of all the time you’d spent together, you came to realize that he could get along with anyone, despite their true intentions. he spoke highly of his friends as well, which earned him a sacred spot in your heart that couldn’t be replaced by anyone.

itadori had briefly mentioned in a ramen-fueled frenzy that one of his peers were “so insanely talented” and that you’d definitely get on with him. but when you asked for validity on that vague claim, all yuuji seemed to respond with was a mere “just meet him, you’ll see.”

from your recollection, the acquaintance he was boasting about, as if it was his own personal victory, was none other than your yuuta okkotsu. he was meek, stuck to a close-knit friend group consisting of maki and toge from your physics class, and the one time you ever spoke to him was to ask about yuuji’s whereabouts, to which he responded that he went back to his dorm after gojo-sensei’s lecture.

he seemed, normal. average, even. that surely had to be the case since your memory was hazy on his being otherwise.

it was true, though, yuuta was gifted. in a way that transcended words, skillful towards visual aesthetics, and careful with the craft. he would spend most of his freetime fumbling with a camera or recording the works of the mundane. overtly, he’d grown such a strong passion in the field of videography in hopes to capture the reality of humanity, the authenticity within intimacy — what could he possibly need a “star” for?

shadiness aside, you were in a tough spot, willing to do whatever to free yourself from the financial burden that was jujutsu technical university. with a swift swipe in tandem with the soft tapping of the pads of your thumbs on the keyboard, you were taking yuuta up on his offer.

within seconds, he responded back with his address and an appropriate meet-up date to start the project.

if only you were aware of how drastically your life would change from here on out.

a cluster of days had passed since you last got into contact with yuuta. he had told you to meet him at his place, claiming it would be more efficient than traveling to an unnamed destination with pounds of heavy photography equipment.

where you stood currently, was in front of the bare oak of his front door, hand wrapped in a loose fist as you knocked gently on the wood. a quick moment had passed by before you took initiative to raise your fist and knock once more. before your touch could meet the wood, a muffled “coming!” chimed beyond the door. from what you had heard on the other side; the scuttling behind the door and jingle of the lock, yuuta had opened the door soon after.

with his hand rubbing away the goosebumps that stood at the back of his neck, he beamed. cordially, warmly.

“you’re actually here. hi,”

upon first glance, yuuta had a distinct look. he stood tall, not tall enough to matter or incite intimidation, and although he wore a black button-up (a bit formal for an occasion as casual as today), his lean build shone through under the thin fabric, ripples of veins dancing up his forearms. what you couldn’t miss, however, were the grey eyebags under his emotionless navy orbs, as if he’d forgone weeks of sleep.

yuuta okkotsu was unsettling.

“hi,” your voice sounded as a sweet croon, dulcet enough that you could barely hear it yourself as it escaped in a breathy breeze. his smile grew softer in response, that monotonous gaze in his eyes fizzling away into something of serenity. “come in, please,” yuuta held the door open wider for you to tread past, caught up in observing the bunch of fabric that hugged tightly around your ass, then closed it gently behind you once you stepped completely inside. he silently cursed at himself for ogling — he truly didn’t mean to stare. you’re just a lot prettier up close. “i was just getting set up. you can have a seat if you’d like.”

as you’d expect from any guy your age, his place wasn’t much to gaze at, nor did it have much personality. in a corner to your right was a houseplant, that of the fern variety, and a few steps deeper into the abode was the living room, where yuuta resumed his fumbling with the transfiguration of his tripod.

you decided to sit on the couch across from him, taking in the bleak sight of his home. you would have almost believed it was unlived in had it not been for the scattered midterm review papers decorating his coffee table. it was obvious he had money from the endless rows of space that surrounded the two of you, although a candle or something would be nice.

he peered away from his tripod to look through the viewfinder of his camera, ensuring that the lens was functioning properly. he grew pleased to see the image of you distracted in fiddling with your thumbs reflected back at him. “are you nervous?” his gaze fell upon you through his own eyes, a concerned expression harboring his features.

you were pulled out of your muse of unfamiliarity to direct your attention to the sound of his mild voice, returning a smile to his that eased the worriment trapped behind dull, blue eyes. “n-not really, i don’t think.”

his lips curled up once more at that, in fact there wasn’t a time so far that you hadn’t noticed him without his signature smile. “here, let me help with that,” reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his phone, tapping away at the screen before ultimately turning it back off and settling it back into its place in his pocket.

your phone vibrated beside you, screen lighting up with a bold alert.

[YUUTA OKKOTSU SENT $1000]

before you had a chance to even process the significance of the notification, he started back up,

“i hope i got the right information, wouldn’t want your hard work to get in the wrong hands.” the tilt of his head in tandem with a chuckle resonated sheepishly, and he returned to watch you through his camera lens.

he was right. the money did soothe your nerves.

“i’ve barely done anything yet.” a ditzy giggle followed soon after your sentence, a sound that yuuta couldn’t possibly ignore. you were already starting to pull at his heartstrings.

“and you’ve done it so perfectly,” his praise left you flustered in that moment and you bit down softly on your lower lip to keep your smile at bay. “thank you, yuuta.”

you would’ve never guessed that your introverted classmate had enough experience in him to be such a flirt, or have your cheeks heating up with fervid affection, no less. but maybe yuuta was just like that; maybe this had been natural.

“no, thank you.” his thumb hovered over the record button just as his eyes met your gaze over the brim of the camera. “would you like to start now?”

he took the nod of your head as confirmation to press the record button, finally getting started with the project.

you blinked blankly at him as he tilted his head and flashed a warmhearted grin. “how old are you?” was his first question. he had asked while rolling up the sleeves of his shirt. as he did so, you took notice of the silver ring donned around his finger.

he couldn’t have been married, no?

keeping your answer as vague as possible for the sake of matching his comforting warmth, you responded, “twenty-something.” he let out a satisfied huff of air as he nodded and moved onto his next query.

“and what’s your major?”

with the question barely having enough time to linger in the suggestively tense air, he added, “you’re very beautiful, by the way. do you mind taking your dress off for me?”

as much as it should’ve alarmed you, you were swayed by his toothachingly inviting timbre, its gentleness pulling compliancy from you in a matter of a few mere words. you only shook your head, forgoing the short piece of fabric that clung to each curve and dip of your body while your nipples hardened under the glacial, artificial breeze of his home. once the silk pooled at your hips, that, along with your panties were dropped onto the floor, leaving you bare and vulnerable under the camera — and yuuta’s watchful eye.

he swallowed thickly at the sight, remaining as respectful as he could despite the monster growing in his pants; his eyes locked right back onto yours as if he’d get striked down for moving them even a millimeter south. “are you a virgin?” he queried, opting to move his hand from awkwardly at his side to fidgeting with the button at his shirt, ultimately undoing it and revealing another inch of skin at his heated chest.

from the nature of what you had signed yourself up for, you were hesitant to answer his question. of course you needed experience to be a star, and with you lacking the preconceived ability, you could kiss your $1000 goodbye..

yet he looked at you with an expectant gaze. no traces of malice in his eyes or frustration from your quick witted silence, but merely, with patience. and in that moment you couldn’t find it within yourself to lie.

“i am,” out of shame, you curled in on yourself, hoping that the sofa would engulf you, and your feelings, crossing your arms over your bare chest as if it’d create a wall of privacy behind your own humiliation. “is that okay?”

yuuta’s being only grew warmer at the response, you figured he’d be hot to the touch by now, from searing pleasure or unshakeable cordiality, you wouldn’t know. “yeah, that’s okay,” it came out breathier than he would’ve liked, a telltale sign of his aching desire. “that’s more than okay.”

truth be told, he had never met anyone as enchanting as you. you looked up at him with such trust in your eyes that it daunted him — fear that the assurance he wielded from you would shatter beneath him, and he’d be drowning. in a sea of his own wistfulness. now that he had you, he couldn’t let you go.

you were on to make a breathtaking star.

now feeling less coy than before, you relaxed your head into the palm of yuuta’s hand. you hadn’t noticed how long he’d been stroking at your cheek, or when he closed the vexing proximity between the two of you, all that mattered in that moment was the roll of his gentle vocables flowing through your ears and the thumb of his that graciously caressed your cheek.

you came to realize that he was much more handsome this way as your eyes toured his own, then down to the sliver of sweat-sheened skin peeking from underneath the black veil of his shirt, then down to his…

he’s so fucking hard.

confined against his slacks was his cock that leaked an ample amount even while it was untouched. you could make out its silhouette, something girthy, perhaps heavy, but nothing like you’d expect from yuuta. uncharacteristically huge.

“yuuta.” you whispered, mainly to yourself, as your mouth began to water at the sight, and his cheeks dusted pink once he realized what you were fixated upon.

“do you wanna,” he started up but faltered soon after when your lidded gaze flitted back up towards his. never had he felt so weak before, it was as if you’d casted a spell on him. “do you maybe want to—” he paused to avert his own gaze and embarrassment. “—put it in your mouth?”

he could’ve sworn he heard the increase of his heartbeat in his ears when you crinkled your brows, pretty face forming into an even prettier pout.

“but i’ve never—”

he stopped you before you could start, interjecting his own voice of reassurance.

“it’s okay. i’ll guide you,” taking his camera off its stand and moving the rest of the configuration elsewhere, he held it in one hand to better capture the scene unfolding before him. “just try your best for me, okay?”

“okay.” when he returned your concern with a small smile, you took it upon yourself to undo the arrangement of his pants, carefully hooking your finger into the elastic waistband of his briefs and pulling down just enough for his length to spring free.

for what felt like minutes, you marveled at his sheer size, wondering how anyone of his nature could possibly be hiding something like that. it curved upwards with a prominent vein or two running up the underside while it continued to leak, so much so, that you had to collect it all at the tip with your finger.

the tip? flushed the prettiest pink you’d ever witnessed and was as bulbous as it was mushroomed, you knew you’d have a bit of difficulty trying to fit into your mouth. it seemed to twitch under the fanning of your breath to which yuuta let out a whine of pure impatience.

“can i..?” your words trailed off when you involuntarily found yourself pressing chaste kisses along the length of his cock until they met with his sticky tip; a recreated scene from the various porn videos you’d seen. the sensation sent a jolt of palpable pleasure through his being, yuuta’s dark hair curtaining over his eyes while he made a damn good attempt at silencing his moans, with his teeth sunken into his bottom lip.

your eyes kept watch at his wavering expression while you wrapped your hand at the base of his length and began to pump slowly, yet another thing you had learned through the fascinating world of porn.

“suck it,” it was clear to you that yuuta had grown desirously impatient from your teasing, looking down at you with a hint of hunger in his beautiful orbs. “please?”

you took his words as an incentive to finally give him what he’s been leaking for, wrapping gloss-sheened lips around the thick inches of his tip, accommodating for the stretch with a dulcet whine that reverberated deeply within him. had you not been caught up in building the gradual bob of your head, he would’ve kissed you, left you with smeared lips and a tongue that ached for only him upon seeing the sinful sight of innocent eyes fixated on his own. you’re beautiful. truly, to die for.

caught all on tape to be watched over and over again.

at the bliss, yuuta’s lip parted open, alotting for a slur of groans turned whimpers to tumble past. “you- you’re already doing, so good.” he praises, the words floating on his breath. his free hand finds itself back at your face, thumbing the warmth of your hallowed cheek while he captured the moment behind his lens. once you came to a comfortable rhythm, you couldn’t stop yourself from dipping your fingers between your thighs to ease the evergrowing ache in your core. in fact, you’d been like this since the moment yuuta spoke a word to you, lightheaded and malleable — what he’s beginning to love most about you.

your digits collected slick at your entrance, the immeasurable amount of essence that you’d pool providing ample leeway for you to sink three fingers inside, pumping at the same rhythm in which you’re sucking yuuta. soft fingertips curling against your gummy walls weren’t enough, though, and when he had caught notice of your weakening resolve, his hips involuntarily bucked into your mouth.

“sorry, ‘m sorry,” he began, with a choked moan. “just- so close, so fucking close. c-can you take me in deeper?”

the hum of assurance that sounded from you sent vibrations coursing through his cock, from tip to base. had you not been preoccupied with chasing your own high, you would’ve missed the pitchy moan he let out just after. with your palm now pressed up against your clit while you worked in tandem to pleasure the nub and your greedy hole, you attempted to swallow another stubborn inch of him.

simultaneous with the bobbing of your head, he matched your pace, abdomen flexing when the white-hot pleasure became too much and he could feel it in his ears. he wanted so badly to throw his head back, completely lose himself in bliss, but he had a job to do. he wouldn’t dare let the sight of your glassy lidded eyes and glossy lips struggling to wrap themselves around the stretch of his dick go unfilmed, unseen.

as his tip continued to prod the back of your throat and your fingers aided you in relieving the discomfort from your cunt, you found yourself just dangling off the dangerous edge of your release, strokes away from making a mess — and yuuta did too.

it wasn’t long until his head started spinning, legs got weaker, and his core coiled tighter; all the signs of a mindblowing orgasm, and blew his mind, you did. “baby- y/n, if you keep doing that- i might cum.” what he was referring to was the way you fondled his balls in the warmth of your soft hands, yet another trick you had learned from porn. “i don’t wanna cum in your mouth but if you—,”

a jumbled slew of curses flowed from his lips as he did the inevitable, shot his load deep down your throat, gently thrusting his cock in shallow strokes to jettison every last remaining drop. the taste on your tongue was nothing like you’d be warned of before. yuuta wasn’t bitter, he went down easy.

hell, you’d use his cum as a condiment for desserts if you could.

in a matter of moments, your own high had washed over you like cold water over a heated body, much needed and refreshing. once he hesitantly pulled out from the heat of your mouth, cock still hard and twitching for more, he gently pushed back strands of loose hair behind your ear.

“can i see?”

you held out your cream-slickened fingers, sopping with your juices as yuuta proceeded to catch how they dripped on camera. he then took your palm, with the cadence of a knight kissing the back of a princess’s hand, and slipped the soiled digits into his mouth. his tongue lavved around your index and middle fingers while he hummed satisfactorily at your taste. “you’re just as sweet as i imagined.” he smiled, finding amusement in your post-orgasmic, dazed state.

“do you do this with a lot of other girls, yuuta?” you queried, taking the time to scan your eyes over his face. it was as if he seemed to get more attractive as your time with him went on. he tilted his head slightly, finding your question endearing. “you’re my first, actually.” yuuta responded softly, as if his normal speaking voice would be too heavy on your delicate ears.

you jumped at the chance to tease him as he did you, placing your thumb back over the slit of his hard-on and lightly rubbing; which resonated within yuuta as a tonal mewl. a little smile pulled at your lips when you got your perfect reaction. “can you be my first?”

“i’d love to be,” he took your request with unadulterated honor as if he’d been tasked by the deities above to serve you. “just- just lay back for me. i promise i’ll take good care of you.”

and that you did; conforming to his call of request with such compliance it made his heart swell. you had positioned your body to rest languidly against the seat of the sofa, shaky legs hesitant to spread fully while your hand roamed up your sternum to find solace in kneading your tits.

he couldn’t deny how beautiful you looked, laid out for him as such. how had he been so lucky to be the only one to have the opportunity to marvel at the scene? with a steady hand, he faintly trails his hand up the expanse of your inner thigh, a silent beckon for you to open your legs wider. involuntarily so, your body had accepted his presence and allowed for the spreading of your thighs.

what you’d come to notice with yuuta was that he was watchful, observant. he seemed to pick up on every detail, even the minuscule bits that were most likely to fly over anyone else’s head, had been taken into account. it’s probably why he’s immensely proficient at what he does. not once had he allowed himself to miss the labored heaving of your chest, or the sheen of sweat thinly coating your body — the twitching of your clit when he stroked featherlight touches at the nub. he couldn’t call himself a true cameraman then.

his fingers had collected remnants of your previous orgasm before they worked in tandem, both middle and ring, to prod at your sensitive hole, slowly sinking themselves in. it was almost embarrassing how quickly your greedy cunt swallowed him in, as if it’d been waiting for his touch for years now. “y-yuuta, ‘m still sensitive.” you crooned in response to his digits exploring your cavern, plush walls gripping him with such tautness that he’d found it difficult to even curl his fingers.

his own mind spun (and cock leaked) at the thought of that same warmth around his length, and when you called his name, all he could think about was how pretty you’d sound moaning it. he wouldn’t mind if you were sonorous, if the neighbors would hear, if inumaki who lived downstairs would come knocking with a mouthful of complaints, if the whole world knew his name; because in that moment, yuuta okkotsu was yours.

yuuta okkotsu was in love.

after some shallow pumping, enough to have your legs attempting to enclose around his arm, yuuta had pulled his digits out and replaced the lost sensation with the fat tip of his cock stroking your slit up and down.

“i’m gonna put it in, okay? if you want me to stop, tell me. if i'm going too fast or slow, let me know.”

he perused your face for a hint of an answer, seemingly nothing going on behind your vacant, large eyes. your initial response was curt, an ode to the simplistic nature of your mind. “mhm.”

how endearing you were to him, just a unadorned reaction weakening his being, causing his heart to figuratively crumble within its confines against his ribcage. he had searched for a heartier answer, something tangible to hold on to, because, lord knows how terrible he’d feel if he took your indication the wrong way. “can you be vocal for me, please?”

you nodded your head. “i’ll let you know, yuuta.”

with a carefulness that only came from the most benign of beings, he had sunken the first inch of himself into your awaiting heat.

he was paused when your hand dashed to his lower abdomen, futilely pressing against the skin.

“wait—” you huffed wantonly. “—‘s too big.”

his eyes wavered with concern, hidden under the veil of pure arousal. in yuuta’s case he had dreamed of a compliment as self fulfilling as yours, for his thoughts of being average were shattered upon first inch. “should i stop?”

you shook your head, reveling in the light of his attentivity towards you and your body. “no,” you moved your hand from his abdomen. “don’t stop.”

one of his arms rested beside your head, helping to prop him up over your body while he dropped his head down to watch the way your bodies connected. gradually, the sight of his length slowly sinking inside, stretching you out further and further until he was in to the hilt flooded his vision. yuuta had caught on to your labored gasps, merely growing harder from your honeyed voice like music to his ears.

he then lifted his head, strands of inky, out-of-place tresses falling over his face and partially covering the depth of lingering eyes, that lingered for a second too long, causing that shuddering sensation you had once felt when you first met him to reappear. he held his camcorder beside his face, an all too cheerful grin masked over his features. “i’m all in!”

creepy.

there was no doubt that you hadn’t felt full. he practically spilled over with how much girth he possessed and throbbed innately within your walls. the swell of your tummy from just how deep he was, was enough to tear away at his composure and drag his length back before driving his hips in at a force unrecognizable to him. the yelp you had let out from his eager thrust dwindled into a blissful moan. “sorry, so sorry.” he whispered, unable to take his eyes off the faultless assortment of breathtaking features that was your face, eyebrows creased together, parted lips and eyes squeezed closed as if you’d been focused solely on the pleasure he was giving you.

his next thrust stroked softer than its predecessor, having no remnants of eagerness but instead, the nuance of a man that’d been simply smitten.

the meticulousness of his ministrations coursed through your body wondrously, each push and pull lathered in lust, savored to be remembered for the rest of his time on earth. it was as if he’d known your body for years, knew every dip and fold, every swell and mast, aware of what exactly it took to leave your body hungry for his touches.

you’d grown comfortable in the pace at which he set, your mind hazing over each time the blunt tip grazed along your gspot. he peppered kisses along your jaw and down your sternum, the fanning of his warm breath against your chest doing the minimum in stiffening the peaks of your breasts. shootable footage forgotten, yuuta took your mound into his mouth, teeth gently rolling against your nipple which caused you to tighten around his cock in response, the sweetest mewl he’s ever heard from you tumbling from your throat.

“at least take me on a date first, yuuta..” the wittiness of your voice had earned a stifled smile from him, finding utmost admiration in the suggestion. he’ll be sure to take you up on your offer, just as you had done for him.

when you felt the familiar coil within you starting to build up once more, you dipped your hand down to rub at your clit in tandem with the increasing vigor of his strokes. the sensation was all too foreign to you, too pleasurable that you couldn’t keep your sounds at bay. “‘m so close, g-gonna cum!” you had warned, yuuta pulled away from your tit with a soft pop. he chose to rest his head at the juncture of your neck and shoulder, mindlessly chanting the words like a mantra.

“i love you, i love you,” his pace faltered, growing sloppier by the second. “love you, love you so much.”

intoxicated by your heat, your scent, just you being you, and being so perfect — yuuta was pussydrunk. incredibly so. never in his life had he ever felt as high as you made him. you were an angel, sent to him from heaven, to defile and mark.

quickly, your release surged through you in torrents of ecstasy, nothing that you’ve experienced before, coating yuuta’s cock in the glorious essence of you. “cumming!” you cry, to no avail particularly since yuuta wasn’t wholeheartedly aware of the situation at hand. his mind was clouded with you, just as you were full of him, wincing in the aftershocks of your fervent orgasm and convulsing around his length with need.

it wasn’t long before his own ununified thrusts came to a sudden close, signifying the warm spurts of cum painting your insides, filling you entirely to the brim and leaking down your ass from riding out his high.

“god, i love you.” he whined, pressing faint kisses to your neck, unable to peel himself away from your fervid body. coming to your senses, his words finally resonated for you. “we only just met.”

he pulled himself up, opting to look down at your flushed face with a vague hint of confusion on his face as he tilted his head. “have we?”

“we have.” you nodded.

to yuuta, he’s known you his whole life. you were the light of his existence, the fire in his heart. had he managed to confuse you with someone else? surely, that wasn’t the case.

once he pulled out of you, he made sure to capture the moment that you leaked his seed on film, but in that time, borrowed jealousy had filled his soul. he couldn’t share the tape as he had planned, no one else deserved to see you in the same way he did. no one.

he tucked himself back into his pants, leaving you bare and oozing for just one second to fetch a warm wet rag to clean you up with. when he came back, you noticed just how chipper he’d gotten, if that were even possible. “you were amazing,” he smiled, gently wiping your folds pristine. “i’m so grateful you came to me.” the smile you returned matched his own, “thank you, you were- really good too.”

he perked up, eyes moving from between your thighs to your face. “really?” and when you nodded to him, you could see the apparent relief flow within his being. “you know,” he started. “i’m very interested in you.”

you tilt your head, jutting your lips in a cute pout. “interested, how?”

the camcorder that now resided on his coffee table, unpresumebly documenting the scene on display was picked up by yuuta, and turned off. he grinned softly, eyes shutting from his ear to ear smile.

“may i take you on a date?”

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gghostwriter · 3 months ago

Text

A Series of Happenstance

Spencer Reid x House!Daughter!Reader

Summary: The three times Spencer loathed to see you and the one time he pleaded to Trope:Angst; think post Tobias Spencer Reid w.c: 5.2k Disclaimer: I am no way a medical personnel, least of all a psychiatrist so there will be medical inaccuracies A/N: this is part one of my house!daughter series and it’s angst, babes. Spencer is just mean and lashing out here which is totally understandable. It also took a while since writing such heavy pieces of fiction takes a toll on me but I hope, especially to the ones who were excited for this series, love it still. Comments and reblogs are greatly appreciated! 💗 masterlist

The first meeting

Spencer didn’t want to be here—here being in this cream colored, four cornered room, facing off the ultimate nemesis of profiler. Not an unsolvable case, not an unsub, but rather a psychiatrist contracted by the FBI for psych evaluation.

He was fine, he insisted to Hotch. He can compartmentalize well, he rationalized to Gideon. He just needed rest and the comfort of his own bed, he stated to the whole team. But protocols were protocols and his unit chief was a stickler to rules especially when it involved the care for his team.

That was how he found himself on a Tuesday afternoon, sitting in silence and watching the ticking of the clock as if it was the most interesting piece of art there was.

The tension was stifling. Spencer could almost see it tainting his vision red. Biting the insides of his cheek, he wanted to keep everything in.

No, he needed to.

He knew he was being rude, petulant even but for once, he didn’t have it in him to care. He didn’t know you. You were a complete stranger being paid by the government to report back any findings that could keep him out of the field. It wasn’t fair. You were just accepting the call of duty but you bore the brunt of his ire and hostile gaze.

In the normal setting, he would have found you intriguing. Your office colored in taupe—cold, distant, and linked to the desire to escape from the world but in the farthest side of the room was a shelf littered with books and small knick knacks that seemed to be collected over the years rather than curated to match the professional setting. The books ranged from published psychology dissertations, medical teaching materials, and collections of essays from well-revered and obscure writers.

You were dressed in black and white, standard for your importance, but your nails were painted in a pale pink color—close to looking natural but not quite. And lastly, your looks.

You were beautiful, don’t get him wrong, he may not have the same experiences as Morgan did with the opposite sex but he knows a beautiful attractive woman when he sees one. No, it wasn’t that, it was how young you looked—almost or maybe even sharing the same age as him.

A genius, then.

A prodigy in your own field just like him.

“Doctor Reid,” the low timber of your voice bringing him out of his musings. It sent a shiver down his spine when he first heard you speak. A reaction that he catalogued in his mind as a mystery to be revisited later on.

He subtly tilted his head to the side, an indication that you had his attention albeit reluctantly.

“Anything you say in this room is strictly confidential,” you gestured with your hand. “No file or notes will be passed to your unit chief or any personnels of the brass. I promise you.”

He scoffed, breaking his vow of silence. “That’s not a hundred percent true, Doctor. Lying to get your patient to talk can only get you so far.”

“I understand where you’re coming from but all I submit to the FBI is my conclusion if you’re fit to go back to work or not, patient-confidentiality still stands—” your delicate fingers feebly holding your pen. “Now, I sensed a little resentment. Is it coming from your self-loathing about having to choose a victim for Tobias Hankel or is it your displaced anger from separating with your team liaison, Agent Jareau?”

He glared at you. How dare you imply the seething anger from within him is directed at anyone but himself. “What? No, no, no. I’m not angry at anything or anyone! Maybe at you and this whole evaluation but never at JJ or—” he cut himself off.

“The suspect,” you continued on for him, jotting down notes on your black leather journal.

“The unsub. Unknown subject.” He corrected, second nature of him to do so. “We call them the unsub.”

You nodded, a lock of hair falling away from your bun. A distracting motion that momentarily rendered him speechless. “Alright. Are you angry at yourself and your decision to separate with Agent Jareau during the case?”

He scoffed but opted to stay silent. Spencer had already given too much of his emotion away by answering the earlier questions.

For any regular citizen, it may seem like the opposite but given the sound of you scribbling away on the pages of the notebook, you beg to differ.

You crossed your pant covered leg and stared into his eyes, a maneuver that could mean two things: 1) you were sizing him up, which was highly unlikely given the dynamics, regardless of his hostility or 2) you were trying to connect with him, a move backed by science that stated eye contact releases oxytocin—a bonding hormone.

A study he didn’t want to prove right at the moment.

“Do you perhaps feel remorse for the unsub?”

His left eye twitched. “Tobias Hankel.”

“Is there a reason behind why you’d prefer to call the unsub by name?” You further asked, having found a sore subject to poke and prod to elicit a reaction.

The answer was yes, of course. Tobias was just a victim as much as he, Spencer Reid, was—the unsub, in his eyes, was a victim of bad fate that resulted in fracturing his psyche but a shrink didn’t need to know that.

To be exact, the FBI didn’t need to know that he, an active and upstanding agent, felt remorse and guilt for not being able to save Tobias. Human emotion rarely had a place in bureaucracy and paperwork.

“How old are you?” Spencer nonchalantly inquired to throw you off his trail. “You look too young to be a Doctor contracted by the brass.”

You scribbled something again in your notebook before answering in a monotone voice as if your reply has been well rehearsed. “24, about to turn 25 and yes, I do look young. I graduated early due to my intelligence which I believe is the same case for you, Doctor—” you clasped your hands in front of you, leaning slightly forward. “—which brings us back to the topic, the anger inside of you, who is it directed to?”

His eyes shifted to the clock—5pm.

A small smile graced his face. The time was up.

“Well, I believe we’re done here, Doctor—” he proceeded to stand up, picking on an imaginary lint as he did so. “—I would say it’s been nice meeting you but that would be a lie you’d no doubt catch and analyze.”

Your lips pressed thinly together, imitating a smile but Spencer knew that move quite well—you were reining in any unsolicited and possibly inappropriate comment regarding his snappy behavior.

A small chuckle escaped his lips. If he, a profiler, considered you, a psychiatrist, his number one nemesis, there was no doubt you consider him the same.

As he was about to step out of the office, your slender fingers brandished a calling card.

“Here’s my number—” he gingerly took it as if it contained some unknown pathogen. “—and my door is always open when you’re ready to talk, Doctor Reid.”

He nodded once, a goodbye. “Doctor House.”

There was little doubt in Spencer’s mind that he’d never willingly stop by your office again but if he had been paying attention to your subtle patronizing words of farewell, he would have picked up that this encounter was far from over.

Especially when he found out on a busy Tuesday morning from Hotch that you had deemed him unfit to return back to the field—effectively barring him from the jet on its way to Idaho.

The second meeting

There was a series of rapid knocks on your office door.

As a psychiatrist with your own practice, it was highly unusual for clients to suddenly show up with no prior appointments or even a customary phone call.

It was a Tuesday morning and like clockwork, you’ve allotted the first half of the day in catching up with paperwork dealing with your office and evaluations for the FBI.

That gave you a pause, remembering a snipping agent who you deemed unfit for duty. Dr. Spencer Reid. The genius profiler who joined the ranks at the tender age of 22. A prodigy in his old field, just like you.

He was closed off, simmering with rage almost, and there was little doubt in your mind that he was the one behind the door, ceaselessly knocking. After all, when you sent in your evaluation directly to his unit chief, the stoic man’s face twitched with concern and maybe a little bit of annoyance in the paperwork it would entail.

“Come in,” you called out, hands clasping together on top of your desk. A perfect picture of professionalism.

The door swung open, revealing a tightly wounded Dr. Spencer Reid.

With a thick cardigan adorning on his body and a leather satchel draped over his shoulders to his front, he looked normal. But you knew better, his choice of outerwear represented a security blanket in the middle of September and his placement of satchel acted as a shield and its’ straps a stress ball. With just that one look you knew he wasn’t ready to back with his team.

“Dr. Reid, what can I do for you?” You asked, hand unclasping and indicating to the seat in front of you. “Please sit.”

Closing the door behind him, he shuffled closer to your desk but made no indication to sit down. “I’d rather stand, Dr. House, and I think you know why I’m here.”

A show of dominance. Right away, he wanted control the outcome of this conversation to his favor. It was textbook psychology, a taunt you wanted no part of.

A slight smile appeared on your face, one that could be translated as friendly for those open and condescending for those closed off. “I believe I don’t follow.”

“My evaluation, you made a mistake,” the left corner of his mouth lifting for a smirk. There was a vein visible on his temple, his anger and will to bottle it up manifesting physically.

You tilted your head to the side, unwavering in your gaze, hands clasped and index fingers tapping together. The pause and silence was a standard tactic to get a patient to break, similar to what law enforcement uses with suspects but results may vary especially when used on a seasoned profiler.

Right away, Spencer understood your tactic. “That won’t work. We use that in every case, I know the standard—” he looked around the room. “—should I lower the temperature too?”

You answered with silence. The agent in front of you now was no longer thinking clearly. His objective mind that would deem him fit to return for duty clouded with emotion, anger and something else.

His right hand touched above his left wrist. A subconscious move provoked by your unrelenting gaze. A move that gave away an important piece of information that his unit chief no doubt omitted in the reports.

Ah.

Tobias Hankel was a drug addict.

And in turn has subjected the agent in front of you to his vices.

You sighed. Suddenly the case no longer felt black and white, it was treading close to home as you remembered your father who’s abusing Vicodin in lieu of his leg pain. It was a sore spot for you—a clink in your armor.

“Sit, please,” you indicated to the chair in front of you again.

Spencer complied this time, having heard a change in your tone.

“Dr Reid,” you started. “I believe my evaluation of you is still correct—”

He opened his mouth to argue.

“—but, please let me finish, perhaps we can compromise. As a psychiatrist, it’s not in my practice to give in to my client’s demands but as you are not a regular client, I believe it would be beneficial for the both of us to reach an understanding.”

You walked towards the locked cabinet to your right. It was where you kept all medical equipments—including medicine for patients. Reaching back to the depths of the lower shelf, your hand brought out a non-descriptive black pouch from its hiding. You sat beside Spencer, effectively communicating that you are both on the same level.

“I will approve your return for duty as long as you come back for a couple of sessions, not FBI contracted, strictly confidential, and you—” handing him the zipped pouch before continuing on. “—get drug tested.”

Spencer narrowed his eyes. Perhaps he knew that his unit chief and mentor kept the delicate nature of his case out of the bureau and wondered how you pieced everything together. He underestimated you, you realized. A mistake on his end.

“I’m a psychiatrist, I know the signs Dr. Reid, and besides, I’m a genius just like you,” you adjusted your posture, slightly leaning back.

Check.

He smiled, one that you could say no longer contained malice. It was instead filled with resignation and relief. “You’re right. I underestimated you, Dr. House.”

Standing up, you dusted imaginary lint from your black pencil skirt before extending your hand out for a handshake.

He hesitated before reaching over shaking it once. His hands were rough and calloused from frequent holding of his gun but felt oddly warm and soothing. It represented who he was in your eyes—prickly and rough around the edges but soft and good on the inside.

As he exited your office with a soft thud of the door behind him, you admitted to yourself that you took a huge gamble. Rather than a checkmate, all you did was check his king. You didn’t ask if he had built his own stash of drugs after the case was finished. It was a risk you were willing to take just to take a step closer in getting the agent to trust you. Baby steps were better than nothing. You could work with that.

There was still the drug test you could rely on. A black and white piece of paper that would tell the truth if done at the right time. After all, the most important teaching your father, the older Dr. House, has imparted on you was—

Everybody lies.

The third meeting

The bar at the corner Main Street on a Friday night was a rare place for you to be. The echoes of its pulsing music could be heard a couple of shops away, luring bodies than the space could ever handle like it were Pied Piper and the people—by extension, you, were the unsuspecting kids. The lights were colored orange, giving the area a tint of good times and bad decisions. The aged brick walls discolored in a multitude of shades and the decorative posters were aimlessly nailed to the wall. There was a section far from the bar that was filled with moving bodies—people letting loose and exhibiting what you’d call a mating dance for anyone interested and beside the bar were two dart boards, popular with the crowd, but had seen better days.

This wasn’t your usual scene as you excused your way to the bar tucked at the center space. It wasn’t due to snobbery, like what your friend Kyle once joked, it was preference.

The sticky floor beneath your sensible nude heels had you wishing that your feet were tucked in a soft blanket with mind numbing television playing in the background instead of navigating the throng of people holding their drink of choice and inhaling the musky scent of liquor and sweat.

“Haven’t seen you around here,” a tenor voice flirted from beside you.

Your eyebrow raised as you took in the source—a burly African-American with a buzzcut. There was something distinct about him that set him apart from the rest. It wasn’t his built or the way his grey shirt stretched to fit around his biceps. It also wasn’t the twinkle in his eye as he tried to entice you to flirt back. One of his hands drifted down to his waist and with his wide leg stance, you knew.

A cop. An off duty law enforcement officer.

You laughed. “Does that line usually work on women, especially from—” you paused for suspense. ”—a cop?”

“Okay,” the stranger chuckled. “Close, want to try again?”

A smile stretched your glossed pink lips. You were never one to back away from a challenge—it was one of the traits you inherited from the other Dr House.

“Well, if we’re basing it on where the bar is located nearby and my fifty percent guess from a while ago, I’d say you were a cop—maybe for a couple of years, before joining the FBI. Maybe counter terrorism—” the memory of Dr. Reid talking about his team found its way to the forefront of your mind. “—or by any chance, the BAU?”

He could no longer hide the surprise from his face. “Right, that’s right. What gave it away? Was it my ruggedly handsome looks or are you just a mind reader?”

You thanked the bartender before trying to find your way out of the surge of people behind you, clamoring to place their order. The stranger stretched out his muscular arms, guiding you away from the bar towards his booth.

“Just a mind reader,” you simplified—an action that came as second nature to you. In the past, when you would disclose your job as a psychiatrist, people would react in two ways. One, they’d get subconscious that you’d read into every body language they’d have, causing them to shy away or two, they’d become over-zealous and ask you to diagnose them all in good fun like it was some sort of magician’s trick.

A mop of light brown curly hair parked beside a long blonde hair caught your periphery. He had his back turned but it was a presence you’ve slowly started getting familiar with. It was Dr. Spencer Reid, out in the natural setting, a first.

Your eyes slowly widened as you realized where he was guiding you and who he might be.

“Huh,” you uttered under your breath before flashing a smile to the stranger beside you. “Are you by any chance, Derek Morgan?”

“Okay, now you’re starting to freak me out. How’d you do that, Ms. Mind Reader?”

A different timber of voice answered. “It’s because I told her—” a pair of hazel eyes turned to you, filled with accusation. “—Dr. House. Are you keeping tabs on me?”

“Dr. Reid, I didn’t think I’d see you here.”

He scoffed. “In a bar? Near my office? The statistics on seeing me here is actually surprisingly high.”

He was hostile, understandably so as here you were, a stranger, who knows his deepest, darkest secret mixing in with the otherwise innocent parties of his personal life. It was no harm, caused no click in your armor—he’d been cooperative as of the late within the confines of your office but seeing you beyond the four corners of your taupe walls threw him off the loop.

“I’m so sorry, I don’t think I caught your name,” the blonde woman beside Spencer, flashed you a smile, hand stretching out for a handshake. “I’m Jennifer Jareau, but you can call me JJ.”

You shook her hand. “Ah, it’s great to meet you, Agent Jareau.”

“So, how do you know Spence?”

You smiled, unsure on how to disclose your psychiatrist-patient relationship with someone he works with. You didn’t know how much his team members knew about his scheduled Saturday meetings with you or if they even knew at all what Dr. Reid was going through.

From the past appointments, you’ve categorized the agent as an anxious avoidant type—something geniuses who grew up in a non-secure household tend to share. Yourself, included.

Your eyes glanced at Spencer before drifting towards the table behind him, subtly trying to figure out his choice of drink. You hoped it was non-alcoholic. He’d be suffering from withdrawals and if he clung to a substitute vice, you’d have to find a roundabout way to tackle the issue without pushing him to close off again. You didn’t need that, he was just starting to open up after all, plus if he stopped cooperating, you’d have no choice but to bring it up to his supervisors, jeopardizing his career.

A clear glass came into view as he shuffled his weight from one foot to the other.

Water. It was water.

You breathed a sigh of relief before slowly panning up, locking eyes with Dr. Reid. His gaze narrowed, having understood what you were checking on.

Checkmate.

“She’s FBI’s contracted psychiatrist,” he explained, jaw tight from anger.

You flashed him a little smile before averting your eyes in chagrin.

“I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you look a little to young to be a licensed doctor,” Agent Jareau observed.

“I graduated early.”

Morgan’s left hand pats your back while the other pats Dr. Reid’s. “Another genius, then. You’d get along great with our pretty boy over here. He’s always going on and on about facts and statistics—“

“No offense Morgan, but I don’t think we’d get along at all,” Spencer sneered. “I’d rather not get to know someone who has an ulterior motive.”

Your hand tightened around your glass. “It’s great to meet you, Agent Jareau and Agent Morgan but I think my friends would be looking for me,” you flashed the young agent a dejected smile. “Dr. Reid, hope to see you again soon.”

“I don’t,” he sardonically replied.

You nodded once before turning back to where you friends would be, settled in the four seater booth, unaware that you may have just burned the rocky bridge you’ve built with a patient in need.

The fourth meeting

A warbled hum roused you from slumber.

With one eye straining to stay open, the digital clock on your dresser displayed 12:21. Midnight—the time for humans to all be in stupor but based on the humming, subdued underneath your pillow, there was one exception.

You sat up, blindly reaching for the phone. There was no programmed name for the number and right away, an eerie feeling started swirling in your gut. This was no social call. A call this hour could only be one thing, an emergency.

“Hello. Who is this?” Your voice still rough from sleep.

No answer.

You pressed the phone closer to your ear, hard enough to possibly leave a mark. There were light rustles on the other end that indicated a presence, a person that wouldn’t or couldn’t answer your inquiry.

“Hello,” you tried again, voice raising at the end from tension. “Is anyone there?”

There was silence. The dread in your stomach further worsening as if group of bats decided to wreak havoc in its dark crevices. There was no indication that this was a prank call and there was also no indication that it wasn’t.

You bit your lip, torn between hanging up and waiting for an existence to make itself known. It could be nothing or it could be—your train of thought suddenly taking a sharp left turn to the corner that a certain FBI agent unknowingly occupies. You had given him your number, having scrawled it at the back of your calling card during the very first meeting, purely out of the goodness of trying to put back the broken genius that graced and intrigued your doors.

“Dr. Spencer Reid?” You hesitantly asked, hoping that your intuition was wrong. That this wasn’t the agent calling for help.

A deep groan answered.

“Oh gods,” you breathed out. “Okay, okay. Just—shit, just stay on the line. I’m coming, I swear. Just—fuck.” Your feet scrambled out of the apartment, never mind the lights or the chill that the midnight had cloaked the air with.

It was your worst nightmare. You knew what this call was, you knew his state on the other side of the phone by experience.

Hands trembling as you started the ignition of your car and speedily backing up the parking lot and out the streets in little time.

“Spencer,” formality be damned at this point as you turned a sharp right, your GPS indicating 8 minutes away from destination. “Spencer, are you still there?”

A light rustle replied.

“I’m almost there, hang on for me, okay,” your hand letting go of the steering wheel to push the tousled hair away from your face.

Each second felt like an eternity, each time passed threatened to push your mind into the fog of panic and memory of your very own father taking a whole bottle of Oxycodone and leaving a message for you and your grandmother. The panic, the fear, and the dread of that very moment had come back in two folds.

Your clammy fingers leaving pinch marks on the back of your palm. “Not now, not now,” you whispered to yourself. “I can’t have an attack now, keep it together.”

“Dr. House,” Spencer gravely slurred.

You haphazardly parked the car at the nearest available sidewalk space, uncaring if by some miracle you get ticketed. “I’m here, Spencer. I’m here.”

There was a groan as you hurriedly ran up the apartment stairs, grateful that the security below was surprisingly lax.

Third floor, get to the third floor. I need to get to the third floor—you repeated under your breath. You could have called an ambulance or better yet his team member, SSA Derek Morgan, but you felt the urge to make sure he was alright. To make him see that someone else besides from his mother and team care about him. To make him see that life was worth living, no matter the good or the bad.

“Spencer, I’m outside your door,” you tried to catch your breath. “Do you think you could let me in?”

And for a few seconds, there was only the tense silence before a series of gasps and groans crescendo’ed louder and louder from the phone speaker and on the other side of the door.

Shit. You knew what those grunts of pain and pleas meant, he was seizing.

Slamming down on the ground, uncaring if your exposed knees get bruised, you sent a silent thank you to your past self for leaving a hair pin inside the pockets of your sleep shorts. Breaking and entering was yet another skill set you learned from the other Dr House and his team of skilled doctors, you just never imagined you’d be applying that knowledge in breaking and entering a federal agent’s home.

The door unlocked and you barreled your way to the living space where a frightful sight greeted you—Spencer on the floor, laying still as if he was peacefully sleeping.

“No, no, no,” you slid beside him, mind cataloguing every detail for the right action. An empty needle near his exposed right arm and an empty glass bottle of Dilaudid.

No rise and fall of the chest.

And no pulse. Medical training kicking in, you tilted his head up, clearing the pathway, and started chest compressions.

One. Two. Three—

“C’mon, Spencer, breathe,” you grunted in between pumps.

One. Two. Three. Four—

You leaned down to his chapped lips, blowing air to his mouth. “I need you to breathe for me, okay. Breathe, Spencer.”

One. Two. Three. Four. Five—

“Breathe, c’mon Spencer,” you knew there was a high probability for the agent to have his own stash of narcotics and in by agreeing to keep his secret, lest he loses his badge, to get him to open up was a gamble. A risk you were now regrettably paying for.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six—

“Dammit Spencer, I could lose my license for this. Breathe, I need you to breathe.”

A sputtering of coughs escaped his lips.

“Oh thank you, thank you,” you breathed out, arms sagging from the pressure of performing CPR and the weight of fear that you might have been too late.

Spencer groaned. “Dr. House?”

You nodded, the salty tears blurring your vision. The image of him lying still was burned into your memory, the same way the mirage of your own father lying in a pool of his own vomit. He’s alive—they’re both alive.

Your hands angrily erased the rivulets the tears left behind on your cheeks. Now wasn’t the time to give in to relief and emotion. Although Spencer was out of the woods, there was still a huge uphill battle to tackle.

“I’ll carry you to bed, lean your weight on me,” you huffed as you helped him up the floor, making sure to take in most of his weight that you could.

The form of you, tears still streaming down your face and steps away from a breakdown, and his hunched form, weak and pliant, was a sight to behold. It was a sight after battle—after the white flag had been waved and the injured tying their best to find their way back to life.

It was sad. It was hopeful.

It was a brush on humanity’s eternal friend, death. Death that still loomed in the corners of the apartment, biding his time to take what was promised.

You laid him gently on the bed before running back to the spied kitchen, grabbing a glass of water. The smell of books permeated the air as if to try and bring your panicked mind back to the present. If it were any other day, you would have found yourself perusing his shelves of eclectic classic literature but this wasn’t the right time and place.

Your bare feet sliding across the floor to make its way back to the groaning figure on the bed, threatening to sit up.

“No,” you tapped his shoulder to get him back down. “I need you to rest.”

“But—”

“No buts Spencer. Rest, I’ll stay here.”

His drooping eyes reading yours, trying to find any type of lie that would break his being further than it already was. Spencer was a broken man and this was the first time you could see written in his eyes his plea for help and company. “You promise?”

“I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”

His hands blindly groping across the bed spread before it found the treasure it was searching for, your hand. He enveloped his with yours, calloused fingers intertwining with smooth. A contrast that brought him comfort—you were here. You were real. You felt safe. You saved him.

He was alive.

And with that, his eyes closed to fall into a peaceful slumber, one that he hadn’t had in months.

Comments and reblogs are highly appreciated!

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scribeofmorpheus · 2 months ago

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Dragon Age Veilguard: Love, Wisdom and Pride

A very long Dragon Age post!

Warnings for: Veilguard Spoilers, Solavellan spoilers.

Okay, so I will preface this by saying that this ‘analysis’ primarily focuses on Solas’ arc; both romanced and unromanced. It isn’t intended to be a romanticised analysis, though it is very much enamoured with how a romanced Solas and his relationship with Lavellan foils (and informs my reading/reception of) that of Solas and Mythal’s relationship in Veilguard. There is a relationship I will address that I feel does parallel Solas and Mythal! Scroll down to “Reading Between the Lines” if you wanna skip my little intro below. Spoilers follow.

Truth be told, I wasn’t ever expecting much in terms of actually getting a sequel to Inquisition. The game dev market went through a tumultuous reshuffle before the remake madness breathed life back into many studios. Bioware game sequels (Mass Effect Andromeda) were underwhelming and not as fleshed out since the EA acquisition. I absolutely believe Bioware would have been shunted had Mass Effect Legendary Edition not been so successful. EA’s reputation was always lacklustre and underhanded, but laying off or losing several head writers attached to Bioware with almost two decades of work under their belts was the biggest red flag. Trevor Morris not being asked to return in exchange for a ‘bigger name’ was also a grave warning that returning to the atmosphere, ambience and world of Thedas that we knew was getting further and further away from a plausible reality. And on top of that, there’s the fact Solas was never intended as a romance interest during early development of Inquisition.

Solavellan seemed doomed!

Despite this, I still held out hope for a sequel, but I feared we’d always be in permanent Solavellan/developmental hell. Heck, I’m still waiting for a Beyond Good and Evil sequel—the game released in 2003! So, actually witnessing people play Veilguard, seeing reactions to it, seeing memes and gifs and essay pieces (like this one), it’s like my community has awoken again, and I never thought I’d see the day. Yet I am not blind to the fact we were robbed of so much potential. I knew thing’s wouldn’t live up to re-emerging expectations when Dragon Age: Dreadwolf was rebranded to Veilguard—the shift seemed to imply less of a primary focus on Solas (and apparently, according to the artbook, the early concept art proves this implication correct).

Things seemed even more dire when the devs revealed there was no tapestry mechanic. I had only one hope: that with the Inquisitor’s confirmed return, we’d get at least some form of catharsis for our Inquisitors (Lavellans and otherwise), if we couldn’t get the conclusions to so many storylines present in each of our worldstates. My main fear was that they’d go the clichéd Ultimate Sacrifice route (which happens anyway, but in a way that makes thematic sense given the stakes and heavily blighted worldstate).

Suffice it to say, there was a lot of evidence that Veilguard would disappoint me in the end. But it hasn’t. It hasn’t lived up to the many expectations and marks of excellence that the Dragon Age world built itself into with the first three entries, that’s for sure, but I am also just so deprived of conclusions, of endings (whether it be because TV doesn’t exist in a sustainable format anymore or that comicbook movies are made with a sequel in mind, never letting anything just “Exit Stage Left” gracefully; or the fact we live in a regurgitating content cycle with late-stage-capitalism where anything remotely profitable gets turned into a caricature of itself: Squid Game, Star Wars, etc.). The cycle is so exhaustive that I am actually at a point where I can say I am content with the ending we were given (on a Solas/Solavellan front), Veilguard gave me relief, and beautiful, achy pain to boot. Though I would absolutely be disappointed by both the "non-romanced Solas" endings, given that Solas winds up either "dying alone, forever" or turns to Tyranny.

Now onto the actual review of that Solavellan ending, Mythal and themes of Love!

Note: I have only gotten the ‘best’ ending in my first playthrough, but I also thought the consequences of not maxing factions would be more… dire? Another note, pls, if your romanced Inky swore to stop Solas, how does that ending differ, if at all? Let me know, I’m dying here!

Sidenote: I’m working on writing another review about my views on the ‘sanitised’ worldstate, the new companions (and why I think Varric was the wrong choice to have as an advisor in the game, given that the Inquisitor or Morrigan would have been more impactful; and not to mention that Cole or Briala should have been companions), removal of the tapestry and what it means for the future of stories in Thedas (The Story We Lost is such a poignant compilation of the sheer volumes of lost lore and depth that I honestly think I won’t go as in-depth on that review as this one), and why I think Veilguard is my final entry into Dragon Age.

Reading Between the Lines: What Pride Hath Wrought

One thing is for sure, Trick Weekes flourishes when writing within the ambiguities and complexities of meaning. This makes every word uttered by Solas so great to dissect, he's a god of lies not because he 'lies' but because he's so careful with how he phrases things, what he holds back, and what he reveals.

For instance, the famous Trespasser exchange where Solas mocks his own follies with sarcasm by saying:

“What is the old Dalish curse? May the Dread Wolf Take you.”

Then a softer, more saddened and beaten-down Lavellan replies:

“And so he did.”

This irks him. Because he then realises in that moment that he absolutely did take advantage, but for some reason he frames it around sex rather than power because that’s easier to address than the latter. And he rejects the notion, even though he brought up the expression he knows to mean nothing close to a sexual inuendo for being ‘taken’, and yet he has the gall to try and derail the conversation by pivoting and saying:

“I would not lay with you under false pretences.”

When I first had this dialogue exchange, I was baffled, because did this mean that there was another meaning to ‘Dread Wolf take you’ that Dalish clans lost through the years, or was it more of a self-deprecating joke Solas had with himself because he, the Dread Wolf, romanced (took) a Dalish Inquisitor (away from her people’s beliefs, histories, past), and he found irony in the saying?

On the surface, “wouldn’t lay with you under false pretences” could simply mean “we didn’t sleep together” or “we did sleep together, but I wasn’t taking advantage as the Dread Wolf, I was simply Solas in your presence”. But I have recently thought of a more… ambiguous reading. Lay could have been used in a milder, more vulnerable way; to mean to be at peace, to be completely vulnerable, as if to sleep. In that sense, the phrasing becomes: “I could not be at peace with you because I was living a half-truth”.

I absolutely think the moment he feels he is truly beyond hope is when we see his expression of abject horror as Lavellan shouts: “I would have had you trust me!”. He realises then that he did fuck up, he did take the choice away from her because he thought he knew better, him and his pride led to a decision that hurt someone close to him, and he could finally see how wrong he was, how alike the entire situation became to Mythal’s treatment of him. Especially if Lavellan asks to go with him. Because he can see that despite the hurt, the lies and the betrayal on his part, Lavellan still wishing to join him draws too close to his first regret: following Mythal.

Whether he likes it or not, Solas’ love which could burn like a bonfire was directed at a powerful woman—a Herald, an Inquisitor—and inspite of her greatness of character, it still shaped her into someone willing to follow him on his dinanshiral out of love, much like he left the Fade and took physical form for Mythal. So now whenever I hear Lavellan shout “Var lath vir suledin”, Solas replying with “I wish it could, Vhenan,” changes drastically with the Mythal reveal, knowing he always walks away from the Inquisitor in Trespasser.

“I wish it could, Vhenan” sounds heavily like: “You would regret me, as I regret Mythal, and I cannot bear for that to happen us.” More poetically, it could read as: “I wish our love could overcome a duty that has lasted an incomprehensible amount of time, I wish I could change my nature, but then I’d be twisted into a demon, like the spirit of Wisdom in the Dales; and yet again, I would become your regret.” These two readings are very, very romantic. Realistically, given what we know of his kinship with Felassan, and how they were comrades and friends for centuries (“A story unfinished. His back turned!”), and given what we know of the complexity of Mythal’s will that presides over the creation of his very being, and yet he was still able to muster the strength to kill a fragment of her to fulfil his mission, “I wish it could” was most probably a lament: “Do not ask me to hurt one of the two women I’ve loved on this journey, because if it ever came to it…” he would.

Knowing what I know of Solas, of how he was able to convince himself that Varric’s death (avoidable as it was) was just another necessary step, that it was just another sacrifice, another loss that would be worth something only if he completed his ritual, I have no doubt that Solas would also be able to rationalise hurting Lavellan (which is why in his mind, turning away from her, breaking her heart, leaving with no explanation and aiding her in Trespasser so she could live whatever few years remained in “relative peace” is actually an act of preserving that love). I partially think the reason he reveals the truth in Trespasser (especially for a romanced Lavellan) is in the hopes his ‘truths’ will push her away. But on a deeper note, I think he also thinks of it as some twisted form of repaying her for loving him to the point that he could have almost forgotten what it was to be the Dread Wolf, to just be with her as Solas, that night at Crestwood. Maybe his harsh truths would push her to the point where she’d give up her love for Solas, now that she knew he was the Dread Wolf, freeing her from the shackles of their love. He’s very self-flagellating, all about self-sacrifice for the ultimate goal, the ends always justify the means, he will endure any pain and punishment as long as Arlathan returns in the end.

What is his love of a mortal compared to the despair and loss of an entire empire? Solas views himself as selfish for falling for her, and that nearly broke him, if he was selfish enough to leave the dream of Arlathan behind for her, what would that do to his spirit then?

In his way of thinking, perhaps telling the Inquisitor the truth is a way out, a rationale they can use to justify stopping him or to make it easier to hate him as the Dread Wolf rather than love him as Solas (someone he hasn’t been in so long).

‘Masking’ as the Dread Wolf

During Trespasser, the Inquisitor has every right to despise Solas after all they’ve learned, and I think he half reveals the truth as a tactic so the Inquisitor can have an excuse to hate him, to be driven to anger and have less pull over his choices, once they learn the truth. Solas is particularly skilled at making other’s play the role that makes his own choices seem inevitable, he orchestrates a lot of events to play out in a manner where it's easier for him to talk himself into bringing down the veil.

He goads Elgar’nan to anger easily. He inspires the spirits to fight for him to the death as a necessary distraction during the war. He absolutely allows the Inquisitor to speak to him one last time so he can offer insight, yes, but also so he can easily frame his actions as just and inevitable. But, Oh boy does he get in for a shock if the Inquisitor shows empathy towards him, it scares him because he’s become accustomed to being seen only as the Dread Wolf. To be understood? That gives way to remorse. And remorse gives way to doubt. And he cannot doubt his purpose, twisted as it is, it is all he has left of his former self. Without it he would most likely change into something different. Someone he doesn’t recognise.

This fear intensifies more so if a romanced Lavellan asks to go with him, and in that case, he takes command and distances himself away (rejecting the help of someone close to him; the chance for a possible betrayal; the chance at another Felassan or Mythal [x]; the chance to twist Lavellan outside of her purpose, in this case, the purpose would be love/empathy) but not without showing remorse at having sacrificed yet another relationship for his crusade.

“Ir abelas.”

Sorrow for what cannot be is at the heart of why the Solavellan romance is so powerful, especially because even though both Solas and Lavellan love each other passionately, love alone cannot be enough when faced with regrets. Love would ultimately be stifled. Corrupted into something else over time. And so, for Solas, having loved and lost tragically is better than having loved and corrupted.

He will not do to Lavellan what was done to him, even if it is her choice, because she knows so little, her naivete cannot close the distance of a millenia’s old sea, and it would hurt him immensely to take advantage of her kind heart [x].

By leaving, he keeps her heart pure. And the yearning! Knowing the love is there, but on its own it cannot be invulnerable to corruption, so it is better to lose it than twist it. Ugh! Him leaving Lavellan is the ultimate show of love! IT IS A WISE DECISION. A rare glimpse into pure wisdom. Which is why he kneels beside Lavellan in Trespasser, he does not “Stand Tall” in the face of Wisdom’s heart. He kneels beside her. And when he stands tall again, he is Solas once more, filled with regret, and once through the eluvian, he returns to masking as the Dread Wolf.

Sidenote: It’s especially confounding that Veilguard allows Rook to push the Inquisitor to save or stop him after you’ve reached act 2 despite your world state choice (I think this was done in case they feared the Inquisitor wouldn’t stand by Solas after everything he was revealed to be responsible for in Veilguard, however it doesn’t work because the Inquisitor wasn’t an advisor, Rook never told them what they learned from the wolf statues, so having a stranger hold the ability to make Lavellan keep her promise or not rings hollow). Personally, I wish the Inquisitor’s presence had more weight in the non-Solavellan endings, too. I wish the Inquisitor could end up being the last friend/former love that Solas destroys (if you don’t collect the wolf statues) which then prompts Rook to fight him because Solas’ last tie to empathy failed to redeem him, that the Inquisitor falling is the last straw and Solas snaps, choosing to be a villain in the hopes of being stopped because he can’t stop himself, and not the ‘I am a God’ ending they gave us. Same for if your Inquisitor vows to stop him. I also wish the Inquisitor was the one to do the wolf statue missions. Would have been a nice secondary protagonist mission like the switching perspectives between Kratos and Atreus in GOW: Ragnarök (the old guard and the new; Inquisitor and Rook). I would have loved if they dedicated more dialogue to Inquisition days too, which is why I think Cole should have been a companion (if he wasn’t recruited, he could simply be a compassion spirit that ‘follows’ the greatest pain in the Fade that yearns to be healed, giving a compassionate viewpoint to Solas’ folly; recruited Spirit Cole could have a greater connection to Solas than even Varric, seeing as Cole was most likely a literal representation of Solas rewriting his own history by preventing a spirit from becoming too ‘real’; Human Cole would have a deeper connection to the world of Thedas, and could have been a great tool to prove how change was inevitable, not always a bad thing, and inevitably out of even Solas’ control. But alas, we live with what we are given! Even Imshael could have served in this role! Spirit/Demon of choice and it wasn’t incorporated into the game that supposedly asks you to make the greatest world-changing choice ever; redeem the Dread Wolf or end the age of the Evanuris entirely?!

Now onto the next segment: I want to talk about Solas’ regrets and how I read the ‘love story’ between Solas and Mythal, and why Lavellan (and what she represented) wasn’t enough to get through to him (and that’s a very believable thing, that’s what makes their love both tragic and epic!).

The High Price of Redemption

A romanced Lavellan has the most agency to see through his guises, if she resolves to save him, but even she cannot undo the shackles that still bind him to Mythal—the binds that twisted Wisdom so far from its purpose it became Pride, even when he burned (Mythal) from his face. (Likewise, A close friend Inquisitor who promises to save him is most likely a parallel to Felassan, again, they cannot undo the shackles of regret either.) I fully believe the vallaslin had a deeper magic than simply marking one as being committed/devoted to an Evanuris, I think it linked them magically, and since Solas was the first to burn the vallaslin away, he probably wasn’t as good at severing the link on himself as he was for other elvhen, so maybe a part of Mythal’s will still lingers in him, twisting him to Pride still.

In Veilguard’s final confrontation, I love the intention of showing how Lavellan approaches Solas slowly, as she doesn’t know who she’ll be faced with up those steps, Dread Wolf or Solas. But when she speaks to him, trying to get him to change his mind yet again, forgiving him for his wrongs, we are reassured that Wisdom hasn’t been completely consumed by Pride despite everything we’ve witnessed in the game because he bows his head at her in reverence as he apologises.

He shows humility towards her. He elevates her and her enduring love as worthy of his respect, but he does not consider himself worthy of hers. Thus, Lavellan pries open the door to acceptance but his heart is still not enough. Which is why love alone cannot turn the tide. He’s too broken to accept it. He doesn’t think he deserves it, so the only way out is through; to continue the ritual, to prove he was right. The shackles persist. Varric’s death weighs on his conscience now more than ever. Possibly members of Rook’s team too if they died on his crusade. But he is vulnerable enough for Morrigan to approach, and now Rook can use Mythal’s essence to make the final push. The only way he could be with Lavellan, the only way he could atone for the past and shed the weight of his armour (his crushing duty to the Elvhenan) is as Wisdom, fully restored, unbound by mistakes.

“Ar lasa mala revas.” He could only find absolution once Mythal (the angered and more brash essence of Mythal, the one unchanged by Flemeth and all the human women’s lives she’s been shaped by, but the closest iteration to that of Mythal in Arlathan, the version that he perceives as having every right to be angry at him for turning his back on her, for not going that last final stretch with her and subsequently, not being by her side when she died) severed the final connection: facing his regrets, showing humility and apologizing, while not taking away the blame but sharing it.

What is Benevolence without Wisdom if not Hubris?

We know Elgar’nan was twisted to Tyranny during the war, and I saw a post somewhere where someone wondered what led to his corruption, and what he was before (leadership/command). Likewise, Mythal was not above corruption.

So far, I’ve seen a lot of takes on Solas’ ties to Mythal, the power dynamic of being a student/disciple enamoured (could be romantic) with the benevolence of Mythal, but not how Mythal’s purpose was possibly also twisted towards hubris the moment she asked Wisdom to turn physical and build weapons from its knowledge, twisting it to Pride. Without Elgar’nan’s tyranny to rally against after the war with the Titans, Mythal would most likely turn a similar route, seeing her ruling as “necessary” for the people: “If not me then who?”. And that is a very short stop and quick drop to “I am your all-powerful ruler, I liberated you, and only I can guide the way”. Benevolence twisted by hubris can easily turn to Tyranny too, only one more subtle, a kind of cultish indoctrination compared to violent subjugation. If Solas had not turned his back on Mythal when she chose to be Evanuris (a god over her people) then they most likely would have made the worst (best) pair in the Evanuris. Pride is the Seventh Deadliest Sin. But imagine Pride next to Godhood?! That is frightening. So, when Solas burns the vallaslin, walks away and works against the Evanuris, I believe that he also inadvertently stops Mythal from becoming a corrupted version of herself. The sorrow at having lost her closest confidant and “love” grounds her, keeps her saintly in Solas’ mind, and in some ways, perhaps saves the Elvhen empire from a worse fate than him erecting the veil to begin with. But neither of them ever consider this. And I think that sort of self-blindness perfectly encapsulates how flawed both Mythal and Solas are. Now onto love.

Solas and Mythal – a Love too complex to simply classify as mortal ‘Love’.

There’s no doubt Mythal and Solas shared a deep bond, one that definitely had love in it, when we hear Mythal calling him ‘love’, without the possessive ‘my’ in front of it, it’s easy to misconstrue what type of love they share. A small nitpick, but like a thorn, it applies sometimes just enough pressure to change a perspective. Not calling Solas “My love” but instead choosing to simply use “love” works within those wonderful ambiguities/complexities that Weekes thrives in.

If one started out as a spirit, it’s safe to say concepts like familial bonds, romantic bonds, and blood ties mean little to nothing. There is no one type of love and there is every kind of love all at once. It is only once physical bodies are introduced, that physical touch, the ability to stab someone in the back, to kiss out of affection, to hug out of empathy, to strike out of anger, that love now becomes this twisted thing too. There are no spirits of love because spirits always possessed love, but there are demons of Desire (Gluttony) and of Rage (love denied).

I believe, from GDL’s acting skills, his soft whisper, his almost submissive smallness in the breadth of Mythal’s already soft voice, that Solas was in love with Mythal, devoted as a student, beguiled by her benevolence, content even in her shadow, and possibly star-struck. He was in love with someone who doesn’t have the possibility to love him back the same, it is not in her nature to love those beneath her in the same intensity that those who look up to her do. It’s like a priest being in love with God. The priest can devote themselves, sacrifice everything, but a God will always love their flock equally, but they can still play favourites.

Benevolence cannot be enamoured with Wisdom because to be truly benevolent they must possess Wisdom but there is also Pride to be had in walking beside benevolence, but they can never be on equal footing. Likewise, Solas’ love is not reciprocated entirely by Mythal, but she does love him back in her own way. While Mythal is definetly Solas’ first love, layered and complex, it is also strangled by regrets and twisted by uneven scales of power. It would never be a nurturing love, only a consuming kind.

When he speaks of Mythal during the Solavellan ending, he calls her his “oldest friend”, much like what Mythal says, (paraphrasing) “would you have me be angry at my oldest companion whose experienced so much with me”. Because friendship is perhaps the easiest way to describe their companionship. They went through many iterations, one certainly holding romantic tensions (specifically from younger Solas), but ultimately, with that much time shared, kinship/friendship becomes the easiest to surmise. You can love your friends, fall in love with them, fall out of love with them, only to love them again, be disappointed in them, etc.

Media today is flushed with romance as a linchpin for driving a hero to make dire choices, and that has warped our perception of how a platonic/non-romance-based relationship can be all-consuming, and sometimes more impassioned than strict romance. But, to make it easier for people to understand Solas’ motivations, it's easier to see their love in the light Taash sees it (an unreliable, somewhat “still juvenile” narrator, in that they are still growing into themselves and their culture and the world): “They were doing it”.

However, Bellara, a companion whose entire companion story is linked to her strong, deeply character-driving relationship with her brother (platonic love) refutes that reading by saying (paraphrasing here): “We don’t know if their ‘love’ is the same type of love we tend to think of in a masculine and feminine relationship.”

Felassan’s letter after the Mythal Dragon fight alludes to Solas having been in love with Mythal, but nothing about how she felt. This is why I consider the Solas/Mythal relationship to be more of a one-sided romantic love, but a requited ‘love’ relationship for them both.

A parallel I find so compelling: Solas and Mythal vs Briala and Celene. Solas and Briala both hold deep emotions for people in great power with the ability to end a tyrannical cycle of subjugation, enslavement and classism, yet for both of these ruler’s charisma and well-meaning intent, they often are swayed to side with tyranny. For Mythal, that was Elgarnan, the Evanuris who made all the other’s worse tyrants; as well as her own hubris for believing her presence alone could dampen the ravenous hunger for power that the rest of the Evanuris held at the small prospect of leading the Elvhen in a time of confusion (being a North Star is hard when all the other lights around you aim to blind the flock into submission). For Celene, this is more about the nuances of retaining favour, pull and power over other noble families, their backing (be it financial, political or simply cut-throat), and their support so she can be the ‘lesser of two evils’ compared to Gaspard’s warmongering personality and Florianne simply being a puppet with no backbone. Both Briala and Solas are turned to pawns despite their immense strength and compassion for their respective elven plights; Briala is rendered a fangless lion (for lack of a better metaphor) if she is reunited with Celene, whereas if she is chosen to puppet Gaspard, there’s every likelihood her story could parallel a ‘power-mad’ Solas if he’d been tethered to Rage (at betrayal) and not Regret (at having not rejected Mythal when she asked him to take a physical body) throughout his tenure as the Dread Wolf.

Solas and Lavellan – a Heart that was never intended to be Given/Taken

Now I will compare the lack of possessives in front of Mythal’s “love” to Solas declaring Lavellan as ‘Vhenan’ and then ‘Ar lath, ma Vhenan’ vs ‘Ar lath ma vhenan'; again, the coma is the thorn, the pause that shapes the quiet unsaid things we can deduce. In the Trespasser cutscene DGL puts the pause after “Ar lath”, even though the subtitles construct the sentence with Vhenan as a proper noun since it’s a nickname often used by Solas: “Ar lath ma, Vhenan”. But I believe Solas actually says “Ar lath, ma Vhenan”.

With “Ar lath, ma Vhenan” the stressor is after the pause, so the line reads: “I love [you], my heart.” And with “Ar lath ma, Vhenan” it makes even less structural sense but can be inferred to mean: “I love you, Heart”.

The possessiveness of “My” is what definitively differentiates the love Solas feels for Lavellan as one more of the romantic side, it is a love of yearning and desire and a wish to have one last good thing that is pure and incorruptible. The one thing he had left to give. His heart. But that does not mean his heart is enough! The rest of him is still bound to the love of Mythal that was twisted through the ages. That changed him. And given how Pride often comes before a fall, I absolutely understand why Solas is actually very brash and ill-considering when he’s romancing Lavellan (“The kiss was ill-considered”/”It would be kinder in the long run”/”I wanted to show you what you mean to me”). He's on a precarious cliff during Inquisition. His first plan failed. He's allowed ancient elvhen magic to fall into a blighted Tevinter magister's hands. Literally everything the Inquisition did could have been for nought if the Mark had fallen to the wrong person. Things could have easily fallen apart for Solas too, so why not indulge in something trifling and fleeting? Execpt it wasn't trifling. Nor was it fleeting. And when he saw that the fall could potentially not happen, that the Inquisitor could do it, save Thedas and retrieve the orb, he was struck by the gravity of his brashness, of letting impulses control him instead of acting according to a plan. But it was too late. They'd both fallen for each other.

Solas didn’t expect to form entanglements within the Inquisition. He was committed. He was angry at the world, “walking through a sea of tranquil”, called flat-ear by the Dalish that later chased him from their village when he proved he was the Dread Wolf. He was despised by people who looked like him. Spirits were constantly being abused and turned into demons. People erected monuments to heroes who slew demons. Mages were caged. Elves were subjugated. The empire fell. Humans razed the lands with their wars and petty squabbles of succession. The darkspawn tainted the land. The dwarves would never dream. Solas awoke to the worst possible fate; in his eyes, it was all his fault.

So when he kisses Lavellan in the Fade, impulsively, he isn’t kissing her there because it is less ‘real’ than if they kissed while she was awake, it makes it so much more real. He’s kissing her in the space where he is most himself. Where he can shed the body he was forced to build and trap himself within, the body of Pride. He is acting on the impulses of an enlivened Wisdom spirit that does not consider tomorrow, for the first time in a long time. It isn’t a long game with Lavellan, like so much of his life has been about always thinking to the future, always considering the outcome, machinating, scheming, the wiles and woes of every trickster god in mythology. It’s being in the moment with her that is all-consuming. It lowers his guard, leaves him vulnerable, and when she enquires about the Fade or spirits or histories, he gets to be useful as pure Wisdom again.

Lavellan challenging him when he first shows animosity or irritation towards the Dalish (a prideful act), and then him being taken aback when she explains that maybe the Dalish could be shown another way (making him consider her words, being given a morsel of wisdom back, reminding him of his old self), these are all small moments where Solas can begin to see springs of hope in the broken world. And that’s terrifying. It means he’s destroying not just himself, but the memory of Mythal and Arlathan too, all for the love of a woman who fell for an apostate.

The best, most genuine unmasking of Solas for me is during Wicked Hearts, when he’s tipsy on wine, has no inhibitions, and revels in the intrigue, the gossip, the dancing, the music (something we now know is important enough to have an entire music room in the Lighthouse), the sex! He is at his most relaxed, and then he asks Lavellan to dance, not caring about how it would look for the “Inquisitor’s serving man, Solas” to be intimate in a fucking Orlesian palace with the Herald of Andraste, right after stopping an assassination attempt! He finds comfort in the world of Thedas at that moment. Something he rarely shows so outright.

When he takes Lavellan to Crestwood to confess, I believe removing her vallaslin wasn’t entirely just for her, it wasn’t just to free her from slave markings or to simply reveal a form of a truth he wanted to tell her, it was to resolve himself of what his first purpose was supposed to be, what she distracted him from. Removing the vallaslin had been something he’d done for the slaves of Arlathan, it was what earned him the mantle of Dread Wolf. When he removes Lavellan’s vallaslin, he resets.

Thedas cannot allow Wisdom to truly exist without fear of corruption to Pride, Thedas the world he was responsible for shaping, literally the Maker of the Veil, and he falls for a woman Heralded as Andraste’s Chosen One, Mythal’s incarnation in the South. The irony. The cruel, cruel irony. The Inquisition is tied to his past, every Andrastian he meets, every Dalish person with vallaslin on their face, every slave or city elf. Tevinter worshiping the dragons that still have the essences of the Old Gods. His heart alone cannot withstand all of the punishing, gruelling, oppressive weight that is Thedas. Even for Lavellan. So he frames their romance as this tragic, short-lived tale that was beautiful but ultimately destined to end. He expects it to pass for her, she’s mortal after all. But he also leaves his heart with her, literally giving her power over the last uncorrupted part of himself. Think Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann at the end of World’s End, but metaphorically. He gives her his heart to safe keep as he goes on a journey that could corrupt a heart, turn it cold and bitter, destroy it.

Ar lasa mala revas. You are free.

He frees his heart.

Lets it go.

Twice!

So only once he is relinquished of his regrets, once Mythal does the same for him, only then is there “Nothing left except their love”. Because Lavellan still held his heart there was still something left after. Something beyond despair and regret and loss. He had given his heart to her to safekeep. And she did. Lavellan returns his heart to him when he is freed. What Mythal had to break so Solas could heal right again (like a bone), Lavellan casts a splint around so it can be set and heal properly. This is the difference between Mythal’s love and Lavellan’s. Both Mythal’s love and forgiveness broke him, but Lavellan’s love gives him the strength to Stand Tall one last time.

Solas, before Pride alone, as Wisdom (perhaps Solas always meant both Standing Tall and Wisdom, for Wisdom can grant one pride to stand tall for what they believe in), finds contentment with the rare and marvellous spirit that endured (his Vhenan). Wisdom endured because of humanity, something benevolence is beyond.

Bellanaris

When Lavellan offers to go with him, to continue on the dinanshiral that she already considers herself a part of, Solas is legitimately taken aback. His expression is soft yet full of disbelief and awe. He actually stops walking a few frames before Lavellan says this, as if hoping Lavellan would say something to him!

And then she basically proposes to him! “Bellanaris!” I absolutely adore the fact that Lavellan promises them eternity. A vow as sacred as a death right, as protected as an ancient, elvhen, undisturbed burial ground in the face of Orlesian colonialisation. They endured and now they will have an eternity. For once, we have an elvish tale that is not a curse, it is a love story with reunion at its core, where both elves reclaim something precious that was denied them.

Lastly, i am absolutely frothing at the mouth that Solas and Lavellan primarily speak in elvish! And even more feral at the fact Solas does not try to talk her out of joining him (because this sweet talker very well could!). He simply tells her where he is going is terrible. And she shuts that shit down immediately. No repeat of Trespasser. She's standing beside him, the South has all but fallen, whatever ties yet survive are strained, and she has fought the good fight for 8 years. I think the Inquisitor was about ready to leave Thedas behind.

The last decisions Solas makes are of his own volition. Entering the Fade for atonement. Stepping into the Fade with Lavellan (It was confirmed by Weekes that Lavellan’s presence in the Fade prison would fundamentally change it in a way we haven’t seen!). Thanking Rook for giving him one last shot at getting happiness. All his own!

This is the look of a man finally reunited with his wife! So much emotion in ONE frame. God! There’s never been a character like him. A love story like theirs! I’m so happy I got to see this ending. Full circle!

P.S. If you read this far, woah nelly! That’s crayyzeee, so here are some more great pieces: Why it was important for Lavellan to kneel for Solas as he knelt for her in Trespasser in the Solavellan ending [x], and here’s a great deep-dive on Solas as a spirit of Wisdom [x].

#dav #dav spoilers #solas #solas x lavellan #solavellan #mythal #datv spoilers #dragon age veilguard #veilguard spoilers #dragon age #dragon age veilguard spoilers #the dread wolf finally took her #his war has ended #their love may endure for eternity

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blade-liger-4ever · 2 months ago

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Why Cody Burns succeeded where Rafael Esquivel failed

Honestly, Raf is one of those characters I never thought much of, in part because he was so forgettable. More often than not in Prime, Raf was just the sweet baby who everybody thought the world of and wanted to keep out of harm's way, even though the most he ever did in the show was provide technical help with Earth machinery or play the part of innocent child. This was not helped by the fact that he was buddy-ed up with the mute Bumblebee, who's sole contributions up until his two part arc and the series finale was additional man power and adorable mimic. While this was good for background humor, it ultimately did nothing to the overall storyline in the series, both for Raf and for Bee, and for the series itself.

By contrast, Cody Burns - the resident team baby, beloved by all and unwaveringly helpful in rescue missions - stood out far more than Raf. And what's more, is that he never had "his own" Autobot/Cybertronian partner, when literally his whole family had one of their own.

Allow me to delve into this, hopefully, final observatory post regarding the TFP kids.

Of all the humans, we quite frankly get the least out of Raf. We know he's a prodigy, given that he's twelve (and a quarter) and jumped straight into the same classes as Miko and Jack, the former of whom is no slouch as I've already covered. We're shown that his family allows him free reign of Jasper, as he's playing by himself near the road, although he's alone. That tells us that his family is either extremely lax in their attention for their youngest child, or that Jasper is an actually safe location for a kid who's barely filling out his shoes to be on his own. Whether or not either option is true, that's dangerous and shows that Raf goes unnoticed by his family. I'm not saying they're abusive or willfully neglectful of him, but this points us to the conclusion that Raf has a very lonely home life, and we already know that he's got zero friends until he meets the Autobots.

This could have been a great plot-point for the series: by giving Team Prime a small child with no one for company, the writers could have more clearly given the Autobots hope for the future of the War/after the War, while Raf could have gained confidence and security from having people who actually cared and listened to him. It could have been fun, having him be the human cycling through the Autobots for various needs. Imagine Raf going to Optimus for comfort after another day of feeling ignored, talking to Arcee for ideas on how to stand up to Vince (being the sole child in class makes you a target, after all), or coming to Bulkhead for how to struggle through the physical aspects of his school regimen (i.e. the time he brought up the rope climbing to Ratchet.) The possibilities were endless.

But instead, he's specifically handed over to Bee. Bee, who is the disabled child that is also largely forgotten, and who, while he does bond with Raf and provide him with much needed company, offers nothing else in the way of development or storylines. We got something marginally better when Raf started spending time with the grumpy grandpa that is Ratchet, which was great to highlight Ratchet's soft side that nurtures his own character progression, but it's not enough for Raf's development. I greatly prefer the company of the Autobots to the human characters in virtually every series, but there needs to be a noticable human presence to ground the Autobots' protective instincts toward Earth and to push along the story. Raf ended up being a token character not even halfway through the first season, which is a shame given his potential, especially since he and Bee ended up being background décor.

Now, as a counterpoint, we come to Cody Burns.

Like Raf, Cody is the youngest child of the Burns clan - and I say clan because his family has been the one providing Griffin Rock's safety and protection for about...roughly three hundred years? (Correct me if I'm wrong, but his family were the ones in-universe to discover the island. Thus, there's a large claim and respect to his family's name.) His father Charlie is the chief of police; his oldest brother Kade is the chief firefighter; his older sister Dani is the helicopter pilot and primary search and rescue operator; and his brother Graham, who's about eight years older than ten year old Cody, is already a chief engineer and inventor himself. Clearly, Cody has an impressive family. Clearly, they're the best of the best, and he couldn't be prouder of them.

And clearly, Cody feels the need to earn his stripes given their talents and the family's reputation.

A recurring subplot in Rescue Bots is how Cody is insecure about his role on the team, and that often leads him to attempt to provide help and find his place in life in the family. Sometimes, this works; although he's often left monitoring the situations across the island at home through the cameras, Cody finds ways of giving advice or pointing out a hazard that the others are oblivious to that would have likely killed them. And this is a noble occupation his fills, with his aid saving many lives and much trouble.

However, sitting around and merely being an observer wears on him. It makes him restless, and he often seeks aid from the 'Bots to figure out his problems before typical shenanigans ensue that rectify the current episode's dilemma.

This is an important part of Cody's characterization because while he does occasionally feel left out/ignored by his family, he understands it is because of their duties. Charlie has to daily wrangle different criminals and legal offenses while Graham is eagerly going to town on his latest project. Kade and Dani each have their own lives that are beginning and that they're pursuing, but additionally maintain an intense sibling rivalry due to them being not even three years apart. Thus, while they're seeing they're respective girlfriend and boyfriend, they're also competing in various childish ways that, sometimes, result in massive fights. It's no small wonder Cody rarely goes to them for advice.

For this, he's left with the 'Bots, and because they view him as their darling little brother who inspires them every day to give the humans of Griffin Rock and Earth a chance, they listen and advise him. Heatwave is the oldest of the 'Bots, and thus more experienced; additionally, Heatwave more than once nearly threw in the towel in the early days, but only relented due to Cody's convictions and virtues. Therefore, while they have a special bond without it being the sole focus, Cody tends to run to Heatwave the most when emotionally unwell and Charlie is unavailable. Heatwave in turn gives him comfort and advice, and backs him up in most situations. Chase is one he less often seeks help from, mostly due to Chase's nature of being a rigid rulebook. Most times Cody helps Chase understand human expressions and terms when Charlie is busy or otherwise engaged, with both their efforts helping the police 'Bot to loosen up. There are times when he needs Chase's input, as strange as that aid might be, and Cody doesn't hesitate to seek it.

Boulder he goes to almost as regularly as Heatwave, and the two get along fantastically. Boulder provides him with loving company he's hungry for, and sound advice without being overbearing. Blades sometimes needs more encouragement than anything, and thus Cody plays the rare part of helping guide someone through their numerous fears. Because of that, the 'copter 'Bot is extremely loyal and protective of Cody, and when Cody does ask for his help or companionship, Blades readily gives it. Sometimes, Blades will even go above and beyond what is asked, and never asks for anything in return.

These are healthy, constantly growing relationships that Cody develops with the 'Bots, as well as magnificent characterizations that are always expanding. While the focus tends to be shown through Cody's eyes or centered around him, it never fixates on him more than is necessary. Rather, by setting him up as the show's heart, the writing team is able to stretch out towards arcs related to other characters, both the 'Bots and their specific partners, and the other human cast members who interact with the 'Bots on a less frequent basis.

This is how Cody takes the potential of Raf from Prime and not only runs with it, but builds up countless heartwarming moments and strong characterizations over the course of Rescue Bots' run. Cody is positively and rightly shown as the glue of the family element of the show, and is given the autonomy to maintain his own personality and growth without being forgotten like Raf consistently was. That's why Cody stands out, and poor Raf is left hanging.

Well, that's my thoughts on the matter. I felt I should tackle Raf, given I covered his two peers, and Cody is a cute, fun, and constantly evolving counterpart to Raf that explains much of why I feel the poor baby of Team Prime was ultimately misused and unnecessary. I hope you enjoyed this, and that it got some gears turning in your heads.

I'll be seeing you guys!

"Rescue Bots, roll to the rescue!"

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carvinglies · 2 months ago

Text

Soulmate tropes multifandom part one: Hunter x Hunter

part two || part three || part four ||

notes: I wanted to try my hand at writing soulmate au's so hopefully this is decent requests are open.

tw's:Talks of death in chrollos part, immortality in chrollos part, and angst in his part too.

Red string of fate you can tug: Kurapika

Kurapika’s soulmate frustrates him to no end, pulling their string at the worst moments with such force that he wonders how the hell they’re so strong. He could be sleeping and suddenly feel a tug from his pinky moving him to the other side. Kurapika understands he’s not heavy but there’s no way he’s that light! When he finally comes face to face with his soulmate giving them the equivalent of the stink eye.

Kurapika huffs before blurting out, “Why have you been manhandling me for no reason?” They have to stifle a laugh at his bluntness.

Immortal x mortal who keeps getting reincarnated but falls in love with immortal over and over: Chrollo

Chrollo’s soulmate constantly wallows in their own sadness, being immortal has no perks once you begin to live it. They hate having so many chances at life when they have to constantly wait for Chrollo again, watching him die months or days after a confession over and over makes them despise their never ending life Chrollo always dies after falling in mutual love with them making his soulmate swear to never fall in love with him again but always falling to the curse of the never ending cycle of reincarnation and death.

“I’ll always love you no matter how many life’s I live,” was always ringing in their ears in different voices but it was always him.

Really poor description on how you meet your soulmate is written on you: Feitan

Feitan’s face contorted into confusion when he first got the inky writing engraved into his skin, yeah sure he knew what soulmates were but the method whoever chooses soulmates picked out for him was annoying. I mean what kind of description of their meeting is, “bodies will hit it will be hot and sharp.” It threw him for a loop but eventually he decided to just give up on his soulmate. He didn't need romance, he's a thief for god's sake! But he was destined to meet you so when he bumped into someone holding scorching hot coffee that splattered onto him it hurt but it wasn’t bad for a nen user but just for the inconvenience he pulled out a switch knife holding it up to their wrist as a threat.

“Oh so this is what the text meant, how ironic,” the unknown person standing before him chuckled as he withdrew his weapon, coming to the same conclusion.

Someone can not experience true love until they meet their soulmate: Illumi

Illumi used to ask his mother about how he would meet his soulmate; she explained that methods are genetic and he would most likely be feeling no love until they meet the one. But he was quickly told to discard the idea of love and soulmates and encouraged to just marry the strongest person he would meet. Illumi drilled that fact into his head after some push from his parents he began to scout out potential candidates for marriage running into a florist worker their clay pot holding flowers were expected to smash into the floor but Illumi assumed that they were a nen user by the way they gripped their pot. Illumi walked off before hearing the same floral worker calling out to him holding a smaller bouquet, the plastic making a crunching noise as they moved to hold it out to the male's chest.

They grinned at him before hesitating, ultimately deciding to speak, “Here to apologize about running into you sir!” A weird fluttering feeling enveloped Illumi. He glanced at them studying their facial expressions and body language, thinking about them possibly cursing the flowers before giving them the pass, shrugging his shoulders and gingerly grabbing the flowers from them.

Countdown until you meet your soulmate: Uvogin

Never paid attention to the timer until Nobunaga pointed out that it was getting extremely low, in all honesty Uvogin kinda wanted to be in a romantic setting. He had his flings here and there but it wasn’t real love; he never pursued anything more due to his… job. So when he caught their eye during a stroll I mean who wouldn’t notice a 8 foot giant walking around! But then when he bumped into them literally I mean he actually slammed into them kinda, his soulmate was a little intimidated But Uvogin let out a hearty laugh like he always does.

They were the one profusely apologizing before he said, “Nah don’t worry about it I could never be mad at a cutie like you.” Before walking off did they notice the countdown on your wrist was at 00:00.

Speaking to your soulmate during dreams: Shizuku

Shizuku was indifferent towards the whole idea, but she also didn't get the hype people would get with soulmates watching people raving about meeting their soulmate while boasting was confusing. Well that was before she got her soulmate method, falling asleep after shifting in her bed for forever Shizuku dreamt of beautiful scenery with a person whose face was blurred out. Finally the two came to the realization, after a long while, that they can talk to each other and share intriguing conversations but whenever they try to say anything about their personal lives other than nicknames the pair would wake up suddenly like they experienced a nightmare. Shizuku, to her surprise, remembered every little detail about the person who appeared in her dreams, the blurry marks on their body and the way everything but their face looked, finding them interesting but not having enough time to deliberately look for her destined partner she became content with the small moments they shared. While out after a mission she craved a strawberry cake slice she opened the door to her favorite cafe strutting comfortably to the desk worker who greeted her with a smile and voice she was all too familiar with.

“Hello, what can I get you today?” Flashing their signature customer service smile they continued, “Take your time there's a whole lot of options.”

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lackadaisycats · 5 months ago

Note

I’m getting really curious on the whole seemingly complex situation that is Mitzi’s romantic relationships.

Cause like, we got Zib, we got Atlas, AND we got Wick!

As far as I’m understanding Zib and Mitzi was like a situationship?? Or maybe just an unofficial relationship from teens to early twenties?? Like they have history together!

But then Atlas comes in and Mitzi kinda leaves Zib for him? Like did she just lose feelings for Zib all together and now only sees him as a friend in the current timeline?

WHATS THE LOVE STORY THERE??

Was there a messy breakup type ordeal??

Then theres Wick! Who I’m unsure if Mitzi does or doesn’t have genuine feelings for!

Cause like, her husbands been dead for a year? And now she’s smooching around with Wick? I can’t tell if this is simply a tactic Mitzi’s using to keep Wick wrapped around her finger or not.

Not that she’s doing it out of malicious intent! It’s clear she feels guilty when she had to use Wick. All things will go into deeper shit if she doesn’t have Wick around! So maybe she’s playing his heart to keep him around because she is extremely dependent on him money wise?? Or does she have actual feelings too??

Girlie has three (or more) men smitten by her! But does she feel the same way in return? I’m pretty confident she did at least have real genuine feelings for Zib in the past! But did she actually love Atlas or was it a marriage of convenience? Or Wick! Is it only a tactic to keep him around as long as possible or has she also had some feelings for him that she’s now partially showing cause her husbands been dead for a year!

Her love life looks so complex! I feel like she needs a drink with how many men seem to be into her at the same time!

sorry for the slight rant and multiple questions 😭

It is indeed messy and complicated, but I can't think of many romantic relationships that don't have some chaos woven in. Even taking account of meaningful, non-romantic relationships in my own lifetime with friends or family, "It's complicated" is an apt descriptor. She and Zib had a past, yes. There were definitely feelings involved, but the structure of the relationship was uncommitted and wishy-washy. Then some things happened that caught Zib by surprise. For indicators as to how Mitzi felt about Atlas, well, take into consideration that she still speaks to his portrait. You can maybe find some clues about the nature of their relationship in things that Zib and Mordecai say in Volume 2 of the comic. As for Wick, I hope it's clear there's at least some mutual attraction there. Mitzi's got her priorities, though, and Wick is actively trying to sort out exactly what his feelings are and where he draws a line in the course of the comic. Really, details are meant to unfold gradually in the story to paint a fuller picture of the past. Things you surmise about it and conclusions you draw (even if they don't ultimately line up with canon) are likely to be far more interesting than whatever dry explanations I could provide here, though.

#lackadaisy #lackadaisycats #q&a

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javier-pena · 7 months ago

Text

Pairing: Javier Peña x f!reader

Word Count: 5k (so much for short drabble)

Rating: Mature

Summary: You work for the DEA in Colombia. Until one of your missions goes terribly wrong.

Notes: This is the first fic for my 10k follower celebration!!! Thank you, @lokischocolatefountain who requested “I’ll be here when you wake up” with Javier Peña. I hope you like it 🤭 This fic was very much inspired by Gabriel García Márquez' "Noticia de un secuestro" ("News of a Kidnapping") which I highly recommend if you're interested in what Narcos (Season 1) only covers in two episodes, namely the kidnappings of prominent figures in Colombia by the Medellín Cartel in the early 90s. As ever, huge thanks to Dani @alexturner who took the time to ask, "What does this mean?" and made me realize that I, in fact, don't know the answer to that question.

***

It’s night again. Or maybe it’s dawn. You don’t know. The blacked-out windows don’t let in any light. Your days are no longer structured according to the laws of nature (morning – midday – afternoon – evening – night), but according to the laws of your captors (wake up – bathroom – food – nothing – food – sleep). Maybe you’re awake all night and sleep all day. Maybe you only sleep for four hours and are awake for twenty. Neither your mind nor your body can tell the difference any longer.

Right now, for example, you’re in the “nothing” part of your day. It’s just you, rolled up on your mattress in your corner, and your thoughts, looping and looping, making you relive how you ended up here, in this room, somewhere in Colombia. And every single day, right at the end of “nothing” and the start of “food”, you come to the same conclusion: It’s all your fault.

It started with your childhood, you think. No, you can’t blame everything that went wrong in your life on your father, but he certainly did his bid – no matter what you did, it was never enough. Not even when you applied for a transfer to the embassy and you got selected, the youngest woman in DEA history who got an assignment like that. All he had to say to you was, “Huh”. So of course, you had to do better than that.

Here, in Colombia, you found yourself surrounded by men just like your father, old men in suits who sneered at you, confusing you with a secretary, asking you to make coffee and take notes. Old men with guns and enough war stories to fill a book, calling you “little lady” and pinching your cheeks. Old men that were just there, leering at you from corners and doorways. And they all had the face of your father.

Still, no one forced you to raise your hand that Thursday afternoon your floor ran out of coffee, the same afternoon Noonan called you all to a meeting and asked for a volunteer. “Dangerous assignment,” she said, “likely to get you killed.” You should have listened to her. But the looks on all those faces when you raised your hand and said, “I’d be happy to do it,” were worth it. Almost. Because, ultimately, it was the beginning of the end.

One of the men on guard duty today swears loudly and another one growls at him to be quiet. Sometimes they forget there’s a life outside those blacked-out windows and they’re not the only people in this city. You forget that too, but then you hear the voices of people living their lives, the sound of a car backfiring, a dog barking somewhere. If one of you makes the wrong noise, surely, you’ll be discovered.

The three men with you today (tonight?) know that, and so do you. They’re playing cards by the light of a dirty kerosene lamp, sitting so closely together their knees are touching. If they stretched out their legs, their feet would be touching your mattress. The room you’re in is barely big enough for one person, let alone for four. It’s the only room you’ve seen in months, apart from the bathroom they take you to once or twice a day. It’s across a small hallway you haven’t seen because they blindfold you. Every time, for every trip.

You can barely remember a time when not everything you needed to survive was dependent on another person. The autonomy you prided yourself on, your ability to achieve everything on your own, to survive everything on your own, those have been taken away from you. Could you even use the bathroom if no one gave you permission first? You doubt it.

You didn’t need anyone’s permission to go on that undercover mission that ultimately landed you in this tiny square room that is now your entire world. You were the fastest to volunteer, you fit the profile they were looking for: fluent in Spanish, low level enough to not be able to spill any secrets should you get arrested, pretty. It was supposed to be so easy. Infiltrate the Medellín cartel, gather intel, report back. There was even a plan in place to extract you should anything go wrong. And go wrong it did, and nothing was there to break your fall.

Before that, before you watched boys play cards all day, before your only window to the outside world was a small TV, there was one person who tried to get you to back down. You thought he didn’t think you capable of anything because you’re young, inexperienced and a woman, but in hindsight you should have listened to him. It doesn’t matter that the others called him an asshole and you thought he was trying to dissuade you because he was jealous. He knew what he was talking about and you should have listened to him.

The man closest to you lights a cigarette, his face briefly doused in a gloomy red light. You think of them as men because it somehow makes it easier, but he looks barely 16. Your room quickly fills with smoke and you try to suppress a cough so they don’t hit you again.

That’s how this all started, with you getting punched in the stomach.

Your undercover mission asked a lot of you, maybe too much. You were aware that it might be necessary for you to sleep with some of the men you were trying to get close to, and when they asked you about this back at the embassy, you wouldn’t have any problem with it... Until it was about to happen. The man touched you, breathed into your face smelling of cheap alcohol and expensive cigars, and in a moment of sheer panic, you fought back and blew your cover.

That’s it. That’s all. You ruined the mission because you couldn’t lie still for five minutes, and now you’re paying for it.

You know there have been attempts to find you and you know you’re not the only hostage. Right at the beginning, you shared a room with a Colombian journalist who, before that, had shared a room with a famous Colombian TV presenter. You know there are negotiations, you sometimes see on TV that a hostage is returned to their family. One time, there were shouts and sirens and gunshots, but they blindfolded you and put you in a truck. That’s how you ended up here, in this room.

At first, you focused on the stories of the people who made it out alive, not on the stories of the people who didn’t. You’re DEA, and even though you fucked up, you know those three letters are like a protective spell woven around you. Yes, they will hold you captive for as long as possible, yes, they will use you to fight everything you stand for, but they won’t kill you. The more time passes though, the more you doubt anyone is still fighting for your safe return. They might not kill you, but you also won’t be getting out of here.

With every day that passes, with every day you grow weaker and more tired, those men stare at you more and more. At first, they didn’t dare to look at you, ignored you when you tried to talk to them, acted like you weren’t there. Now you catch their eyes on you frequently, hungrily taking you in. They still don’t touch you – not like that, anyway – but they hit you when you’re too loud, they press their fingers over your mouth, the smell of cigarettes and gunpowder making you gag, and sometimes their hands wander, to the small of your back, to your side. Even if you make it out of here alive, you won’t make it out of here unharmed.

It's a different day. At least you think it is. You sleep more and more during your period of nothing, but it isn’t a restful sleep. If anything, it makes you more tired, wearier. You dread waking up and you dread falling asleep and you dread being awake. But something is different today, something has changed while you were asleep. There are only two men with you tonight, and they look at you more and more, their faces unreadable. It unnerves you more than their openly lustful gazes. You pretend to ignore them as best as possible, but it’s hard when you don’t want to turn your back on them.

A third man comes into the room, one you haven’t seen before. He’s big, broad, a tight shirt stretching over his belly, lines around his eyes, thinning hair on his head. He doesn’t look at you, just steps over the two boys and switches on the TV that comes to life with a static crackle. On your mattress, you come alive too, your heart starting with a painful lurch. Whatever it is, this can’t be good for you.

You barely recognize the face on TV. It takes you about a minute to make sense of what you’re seeing, so unfamiliar you’ve become with the ambassador you used to take orders from. She looks the same – it’s you who has changed. Her suit is still perfectly pressed, her hair is still perfectly styled, she still speaks into the cameras in that calm, no-nonsense voice. It’s you who you don’t recognize, you who doesn’t make sense anymore.

It also takes you a while to understand her, to make sense of what she’s saying. You hear the words “hostages” and “negotiation”, and you know she’s talking about you and whoever else there may be, but definitely you. It would explain your captors’ faces. Something has happened, some new development that’s inconveniencing them. Maybe this is it. Maybe you’re being set free. Maybe even tonight. The thought makes you feel light-headed; you have no idea who you are outside of these four walls and that mattress.

“… end of negotiations. We will no longer regard terrorists as equal opposites in this. Any American hostages they might still have, or pretend to have, will, from today onward, be considered missing in action.”

What does that mean? Surely, they wouldn’t just … they wouldn’t just let you die, would they? You’re DEA, you can’t be missing in action, you’re not a soldier. The cartels can’t kill you, they wouldn’t do that. Just how the US wouldn’t abandon you, wouldn’t go on TV to sign your death warrant in front of a live audience. It doesn’t make sense.

You turn to your captors, as if looking for guidance, but they look just as lost as you. Even the big man. He keeps running his fingers through his thin hair, sweat beading on his forehead. One of the boys looks at him too, as if waiting for orders, the other is running the tip of his index finger through the dust on the floor. Why won’t they look at you?

“So we just kill her?” asks the boy who keeps staring at the big man. His name is Andrés Felipe. You know that because another boy let it slip once. You’re not supposed to know their names, and Andrés Felipe made sure that mistake would never happen again, but by then it was too late.

“Not yet,” the man answers. “We have to wait.”

Andrés Felipe groans. “What for? You heard that woman on TV. They’re done negotiating.”

“You don’t know that,” dust boy chimes in. “It could be a ruse.”

Andrés Felipe laughs at him. “As if you know anything about politics. You can’t even read.”

You look at Andrés Felipe then, truly look at him. You need the distraction. You need to pretend it isn’t you they’re talking about, as if your fate doesn’t depend on these three men. And there isn’t much else to do in this room but look. Andrés Felipe is young, younger than you, but older than dust boy. His face is free of wrinkles, free of the tell-tale signs of hunger and a tough upbringing in the favelas. He isn’t here because he needs to be, he’s here because he wants to be. Which also explains why he dares to speak up in front of the big man, whose maturity puts him in charge.

You don’t like Andrés Felipe, never have. Maybe it’s because knowing his name humanizes him and it’s easier to hate a human than some faceless, nameless villain. Maybe it’s because of the cruel glint in his eyes, or the way he beat up that boy who revealed his name. And now there’s his eagerness to kill you. There is no reason for you to feel any sympathy toward him.

“He’s right,” the big man says then. “Maybe they want us to kill all the hostages so they’ll have an excuse to send in the military.”

“They wouldn’t do that,” Andrés Felipe responds. “Everyone would know they’re liars.”

“They’re not,” dust boy dares to speak up again. “Missing in action also means they can be found. If you’re missing, you’re not dead. If the missing people die –”

He can’t finish his sentence because Andrés Felipe slaps him. “Shut up. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The big man doesn’t come to dust boy’s aid. He just smirks. “Quit it, you two, we’re sitting tight until we get our orders.”

“I’m fucking done waiting!” Andrés Felipe shouts and you flinch. He’s too loud. Someone will hear him. And they don’t have any reason to keep you alive now. It’s easier to shoot you and then run. “All I’ve been doing is waiting. Do you think I don’t have anything better to do with my time?”

The big man shushes him. You wish he would hit Andrés Felipe, put him in his place, but he just crosses his arms in front of his chest. “I say we wait.”

You close your eyes and breathe in deeply. Andrés Felipe says something else in that sharp, nasally voice of his, but you refuse to listen. Nothing good can come of it. Either they will kill you or they won’t. You’re too weak to think about either of these options. And you’re not going anywhere until those orders arrive, so you might as well …

When you wake up, the room is quiet, and you immediately know something is wrong. Even before you feel the cool, sharp blade against your neck, and before you smell the stale breath of the man holding it, cowering above you.

“Not one sound,” he hisses, and you recognize Andrés Felipe’s voice, uncomfortably loud in the quiet room. It’s so quiet, too quiet with just the two of you. The sounds of him unbuckling his belt are like explosions against your eardrums. You fight the urge to tell him to be quiet, but then your brain catches up with what your body already knows, and you kick your legs and shake your head.

You almost don’t feel the cut of the knife, but you do feel the hot drops of blood on your neck. “I told you to be quiet,” Andrés Felipe hisses. “Just don’t move.”

But you do, you do move, at least your hands that you ball into fists. You don’t want your life to end like this, in some shack somewhere in Colombia with a knife against your throat and a criminal inside of you. This can’t be it. They have to put you in front of a firing squad at least, don’t they? Not like this. Please, not like this.

Andrés Felipe touches your lower belly trying to unbutton your dirty pants, and you flinch, a terrified groan escaping your lips. The knife cuts deeper into the soft skin of your throat. “Shut up, you stupid bitch,” he growls.

Then there’s blood. Everywhere. It’s in your eyes, your mouth, you breathe it in, you taste it on your tongue. Andrés Felipe collapses on top of you, the knife landing on the mattress with a dull sound. You try to get out from under the heavy body, but you can barely lift his shoulders before your arm starts to tremble.

“Hey.” You wipe the blood out of your eyes to find a man kneeling next to you, shoving Andrés Felipe’s heavy body aside so you can sit up. You don’t know who he is, you’ve never seen him before, but he has to be someone higher up if he dared to kill Andrés Felipe. Because that is what just happened, you slowly realize. Andrés Felipe is dead and you’re covered in his blood.

The strange man reaches for you and you flinch away. “Ma’am, my name is Javier Peña,” he says, his voice steady and calm as if he’s been in this exact situation a million times before. “I’m with the DEA. I’m here to get you out.”

“The DEA?” you repeat, the English sounds feeling foreign in your mouth.

He reaches for you again, touches your shoulder, and this time you don’t flinch away. “You’re safe now.” He squeezes your shoulder, then stands up and holds out his hand to you. You take it and push yourself off the mattress.

“What happened?” you ask, trying to ignore the dead body, half its face gone.

“Maybe we should discuss this –,” Javier starts, but you don’t hear the rest of the sentence. Suddenly it feels like there are cotton balls lodged in your ears and the whole world turns dark, darker than it already is.

Someone is carrying you. You think you must be outside because you feel a light breeze on your face. You don’t remember the last time you smelled fresh air, but when you breathe in deeply, you’re enveloped in cigarette smoke and gunpowder. It’s not unpleasant, you realize with a start. It comes from a heavy leather jacket you’re wrapped in, and from the man carrying you. They never would have carried you like this, carefully, as if you might break, so you know you must be safe.

When you next open your eyes, you’re inside again. The room is so big it startles you at first. But the longer you let your eyes wander, the more your brain adjusts to help you realize you’re in a normal sized living room, sitting on a leather couch, a knitted blanket wrapped around your shoulders. You must have just sat up because your head is spinning and your limbs are trembling, but otherwise you feel like you can finally breathe again.

“Feeling better?”

You’re proud of yourself for not jumping at hearing his voice. “Yeah,” you answer, swallowing to wet your dry throat. You feel an unpleasant tug on your skin where Andrés Felipe cut you twice. “Where am I?”

You turn to look at him. He’s sitting on the couch next to you but with enough distance between the two of you so you don’t touch. He’s holding a half-smoked cigarette between his fingers, trying to hide the look of concern on his face. It’s something you will see a lot from now on, people looking at you as if you’re about to break.

“You’re in my living room,” he answers.

“Why not,” you have to swallow again, “why not at the embassy?”

He taps his foot nervously so his leg is jumping up and down, takes a drag. “Us coming to rescue you … that wasn’t exactly sanctioned by Noonan.”

“So you really are DEA?” you ask, even though there are a million other things you should ask first. Like if the press conference you saw on TV was really true. If Noonan and the United States were really prepared to let the remaining hostages die. But the longer you look at the man next to you, the more familiar he looks.

Javier nods at the same time as you burst out, “You tried to warn me, didn’t you? Back at the embassy? You told me I was in over my head with this. You’re the asshole!”

The surprise on his face is almost enough to make you laugh for the first time in months. “I’m the what?”

You open your mouth, but instead of an answer coming out of it, you start coughing uncontrollably. Your sides are burning by the time you’re done, but Javier is right there next to you with a glass of water that you accept gratefully.

“Let me take a look at your throat,” he says, watching you swallow down the cool liquid.

If you think about it, you haven’t been touched in months. You know you’ll flinch away before he even touches you, so you stiffen your muscles, determined to remain in place.

He must see it all on your face. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I know,” you say through gritted teeth.

His fingers are rough against your skin as he carefully tilts your head to the side. You barely flinch but you whimper because the movement hurts more than you would have thought. He hums quietly before standing up. “I’ll be right back.”

You raise your finger to your neck to find the skin there sticky with blood. Whether it is yours or Andrés Felipe’s you can’t tell. But the unfamiliar feeling makes you tremble again. You wish you could stop that, or at least suppress it. You wish the world would start making sense again. You miss your small room and your mattress and knowing what comes next. You don’t even know if Javier is telling the truth, if he really is who he says he is. Yes, he looks vaguely familiar, but until a few hours ago, you had no idea what time of day it was.

“Hey, hey,” Javier says softly. He is sitting next to you again, closer this time, but he’s still not touching you. “Breathe. You’re safe. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

“None of it makes sense,” you mumble. You’re not sure if he’s heard you, but you do feel the pressure on your chest lighten.

“You have two cuts on your throat,” Javier goes on, shaking a small bottle of disinfectant. “They don’t look too bad, but I’d still like to clean them. Is that okay?”

How do you explain to him that you just spent months asking for permission instead of giving it? How do you explain to him that you don’t know how to decide anything for yourself anymore?

Not sure what to make of your silence, Javier goes on. “You can do it yourself if you want to. I can show you –”

You tilt your head to the side. “No, please. I want you to do it.”

Javier stops shaking the bottle of disinfectant, grabs a cotton ball, and pours some liquid over it. “Tell me if I hurt you.”

He does hurt you. The second he touches the cotton ball to the cut, you want to scream. It burns so much you can hardly take it. But you grit your teeth and you don’t complain. Because you don’t want him to stop. You know it’s just the isolation and the confusion of the last hours and the fact that your world doesn’t make sense anymore, but the way he dabs the cotton ball across the cut, brow furrowed in concentration, makes you feel safe. And you can’t remember the last time you felt like this.

“You’re being so brave,” he mumbles, and surely you must have misheard or you must have imagined it, because he continues in a normal voice, “Tomorrow, you should go see a doctor. I don’t have any medical training and it doesn’t look too bad, but it can’t hurt to be safe.”

You raise your fingers to touch your throat and briefly brush his as he draws them back. “Thank you,” you say when you find your skin free of dried blood. The cotton ball in Javier’s hand is now a blotchy red. “What happened?”

“I was hoping you could tell me,” Javier says, standing up to dispose of the cotton ball. “I think he cut you with a knife.”

“No, not that.” You sink back against the couch cushions and tightly wrap the blanket around yourself. “With Noonan and the hostages.”

Javier, who is standing in the open kitchen with his back toward you, stiffens. “It was just you,” he answers, pretending to clean some dust off the counter. “You were the only American hostage left. Because it took so fucking long to find you.” He turns to you, cringing. “Sorry. I meant it took us forever to find you.”

“You can swear,” you tell him, your cheeks tingling from the unfamiliar sensation of a smile.

He walks back toward you, and it’s as if you’re seeing him for the first time. He’s no longer the jealous man who was trying to get you to back off from a mission he told you you weren’t qualified for. He’s the man who risked his job – and his life – to save you. And you don’t quite know what to do with that.

To your disappointment, he sits down in a chair, not on the couch, and lights another cigarette. “We had your location eventually. But then, two days ago, the cartel released the businessman, the only other American being held. We had to give them three men in exchange, and the exchange almost went wrong. Someone high up in Washington must have decided that’s enough.”

“So it was true, what Noonan said on TV?” You feel hot and cold all over. “It wasn’t a ruse? They were prepared to let me die?”

Javier nods. “Yeah, but I wasn’t.”

Your heart stops for a short while. “Why?”

He shrugs. “You’re one of us.”

“You warned me. You told me not to go on this mission. I thought you were jealous.”

He barks out a short laugh. “No, I thought it was a stupid mission. Too dangerous. Not worth risking the life of one of our agents for. And it was putting all our other informants at risk too.”

You look down at your hands, barely recognizing them underneath the dirt clinging to your skin. “What happens next? Will you get reassigned?”

“I won’t get a medal, that’s for sure.” He takes a drag of his cigarette and his face lights up with a red glow. “Noonan will thank me privately but reprimand me publicly. And then she’ll send you home.”

“Me? Why am I being punished?” Your voice, still hoarse from disuse, rings in your ears.

He laughs again, loudly this time. “Darlin’, Colombia almost killed you. I wouldn’t call it punishment.”

Your heart kickstarts at the use of the diminutive. “I want to stay here. There’s still so much to do.”

He stubs out his cigarette. “What you need to do is take things easy. You just went through a horrible ordeal you haven’t even begun to process. Even if you do stay here, you need a break first.”

You want to protest, but you can’t find the strength. You feel weary, exhausted, like you spent the last month trekking through the jungle without a break. Your body is a heavy lump you hardly have control over.

The next thing you feel is Javier’s arms around you as he holds you tightly. “Hey,” he says again, and you could get used to the softness in his voice. “Let’s get you to bed.”

“No,” you mumble, trying to push him away, suddenly trapped in the memory of closing your eyes and waking up to a man holding a knife cowering above you.

Javier doesn’t take no for an answer. “You’ll sleep in my bed. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

You’re still not sure this is such a good idea, but there is no alternative you can think of, and your body is begging you to lie down on cool, clean sheets and forget the world for a while. You let Javier pull you up, and you manage to stumble not more than once as he leads you into a dark bedroom. He doesn’t switch on the light.

“I’m going to let you sleep in,” he tells you, sitting you down on the edge of the bed. “Do you want me to leave the door open in case you need me?”

“No, that’s fine,” you answer, weakly kicking off your dirty shoes. You just want him to leave so you can close your eyes.

He runs his hand from the top of your head down to your neck in a well-practiced, automatic motion. “I’m a light sleeper – just shout if there’s anything you need.”

You nod, and he finally steps back with a smile on his face. “Good night, Javi,” you say, your head hitting the pillow before you can stop it. He’s already at the door when you add, “And thank you.”

You can’t have been asleep for more than a few minutes when the sound of gunfire wakes you. It’s not close by, but the echo of it still reaches you, and before your brain has time to process, your body is already responding with a sob that shakes you from head to toe.

“I’ve got you,” Javier says, wrapping you up in his arms. You bury your face against his naked shoulder, trying to steady your breath, but you’re crying uncontrollably now.

“I’m sorry,” you sob.

All he does is run his hand up and down your back. “Shhhh, I’m here. Nothing is going to happen to you.”

His warm breath against the top of your head makes your heartbeat slow down, and you finally manage to swallow your tears. “I’m so sorry,” you repeat, feeling like you’re about to die.

“Come on, lie down,” he urges you gently, trying to lower you toward the mattress.

“No!” You cling to him desperately, but he pries your arms off him without much effort.

“I’ll be here, okay?” he soothes you. “Right in that chair over there.”

You don’t know what chair he’s talking about; you didn’t notice one when he led you into the bedroom, but you stopped noticing things a while ago. “Don’t leave me,” you beg.

He brushes your hair out of your face and places a soft kiss against your temple. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

When you next open your eyes, there he is, asleep in an armchair in the corner of the bedroom, the early morning sun dancing across his skin.

#javier peña x reader #javier peña x you #javier peña #narcos fanfiction #pedro pascal #pedro pascal character fanfiction #10k follower celebration

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writingwithfolklore · 11 months ago

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How to Nail your School Essays

Not to brag, but I’m kind of a big deal when it comes to essays at my school. Since I started highschool I haven’t received a grade less than 90% on an essay—so I’m here to share my secret. This works for the classic essay, but you can also use the same advice and fit it to formal reports or other academic writing.

1. Your essay is about 2 things, demonstrated 3 or more times

This is how I’ve always thought about essays. They’re about two ideas, demonstrated as many times as you need to fill the wordcount. Shakespeare + Feminism, Media + Truth versus Misconception, etc. etc. If you’re lucky, your teacher or prof will give you one of your elements. You’ll get assignments like, “write an essay about Hamlet” or “write an essay about the American dream” lucky you, that’s your first thing—now you need to connect it with another.

This connecting idea is my favourite part because you just get to choose a concept or idea you’re interested in. Here’s a tip, if your first/given topic is something concrete, choose an abstract connecting idea. If your given topic is something abstract, choose a concrete.

So, Hamlet (concrete) could be paired with any abstract concept: Loyalty, Truth, Feminism, etc.

However, if your prof gives you something like, “truth” or “race theory”, you’ll find it much easier to connect that with a more concrete thing, like a book, movie, or other piece of media, or even a specific person.

If you are luckiest, your prof will give you both things, “write about the American Dream in The Great Gatsby” in this case, you’re onto the next stage.

2. Stick to the formula

Tried, tested, true. Nothing wrong with a formula, especially not when it gives you A+ grades. Typical essay structure is:

Intro with thesis

2. 1st Body

2a. Evidence that proves it 1

2i. Justify its relevance

2b. Evidence that proves it 2

2ii. Justify its relevance

Etc.

3. 2nd Body

3a. Evidence that proves it

3i.Justification

Etc.

4. 3rd Body

4a. Rise and repeat, you know where this is going.

5. Some may argue…

6. Conclusion

Let’s break it down.

Thesis:

Thesis completely outlines all your points, or the three+ places you’re demonstrating your connection, and why it matters.

Here is an intro + thesis I wrote a couple years ago:

“This literature review will explore the impacts influencer marketing has on the children that regularly consume social media content. Specifically, this review will focus on how influencers can impact children’s brand preferences, dietary choices, and lastly, the influx of children taking advantage of this system and becoming influencers themselves.”

“Burned discusses the human aspect of sex work and reverses reader’s expectations on sex workers, while Not in My Neighbourhood discusses prostitutes as victims of a system created against them. Both challenge readers’ perceptions of sex workers, effectively drawing attention to the ethics of displacing sex workers from their cities.”

So you have your connection (children and social media)/(Burned and Not in My Neighbourhood and sex work), and the different ways you plan on exploring or proving that idea (children’s brand preferences, dietary choices, children becoming influencers.) etc.

You may also have a more specific stance in your thesis. Such as, “In Macbeth, ambition is shown to be Macbeth��s ultimate downfall in these three ways.”

The Body Paragraphs

You start out every body paragraph with the point of the paragraph, or what it’s aiming to prove. Such as, “Influencers often include advertisements within their content, which can encourage children to feel more amiably to certain brands their favourite content creators endorse frequently more than others.”

After this claim, you spend the rest of the paragraph further proving it through examples. This will look like citing a specific source (a book, academic journal, quote, etc.) such as, “The authors claim likeable influencers can associate their likeability with the products they use, influencing children’s perception of brands, referred to as ‘meaning transfer’ (De Veirman et al. 2019)” (super important to always cite these sources!)

The last part is after each example/proof--you need to justify why this proves your point/is important. So, “This proves children are more influenced towards certain products depending on how close of a relationship they perceive to have with the influencer.”

Typically, your evidence will all lead into each other so you can transition to the next piece of proof, then the justification, rinse and repeat until you’re finished your paragraph. You can have as many pieces of evidence as you want per paragraph, and the longer your word requirement, the more you’ll want to fit into each point (or the more bodies you want to have.)

Piece of evidence + why it matters, rinse and repeat.

Some May Argue:

This is a small paragraph just before your conclusion where you anticipate an argument your readers may have, and disprove it. So, for example, you’d start with, “Some may argue that with parent supervision, the impacts of influencers on children could be lessened or moot. However…” and then explain why they’re wrong. This strengthens your argument, and proves that you’ve really thought out your stance.

Conclusion:

Lastly, you want to sum up all the conclusions you came to in a few sentences. Your last line is one of the most important (in my opinion). I call it the mic drop moment. Leaving a lasting impact on your reader can bring your essay from an A to an A+, so you really want to nail this final sentence.

My final sentence was, “Ultimately, it is hard to know in advance how technology and social media will impact the development of children who have always grown up with some form of screen, but until they grow up, parents and caregivers need to take care in the content their children consume, and their very possible exploitation online.”

This sentence is backed by the entirety of the essay that came before it, and usually leaves a little something to chew on for the readers.

Any other tips I missed?

#writing #creative writing #writers #screenwriting #writing community #writing inspiration #filmmaking #film #books #writing advice #how to nail your school essays #essay writing #academic writing

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tumblingxelian · 2 months ago

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Why I Think Chloe is a Skilled CQC Fighter:

So, I wanted to cover in slightly more detail why I tend to think that Chloe is a genuinely skilled fighter and why I feel it is supported by at least the first three seasons of canon materials in MLB.

1: As Anti Bug, Chloe was able to combat, match and then quickly overcome Adrien in closed quarters combat. One could claim this was him holding back due to friendship but that'd be even more of a HC and he looks pretty comfy.

One could claim it was just because he needed to be in peril for the story but the fact is that still means he lost the fight.

2: In Maledikator Chloe demonstrated strong martial art based kick forms, which by itself is fairly minor but these things add up.

3: During Heroes Day, Chloe does demonstrably better than the other two reserve heroes and is even able to cover for them wen they are unable to fight.

She also l lasts even after they begin turning and needed to be ambushed to be removed from the fight.

4: During Miracular, Chloe has a one on one fight with Mayura in which she does very well and given Mayura is one of the top fighters in the setting I feel that says a lot.

5: This is also where she expressly demonstrated Street Savate style martial arts moves which no other character does. This indicates its a Chloe thing not a Miraculous user thing.

6: This last bit is more of a HC than the above, but it does feel worth keeping in mind both Adrien & Felix were expected to learn a martial art. So it seems like this may well have been normalized among them and so would not be particularly unusual.

Conclusion: Ultimately, Chloe shows herself to be very good fighter.

What's more, she does so with enough frequency and in unique enough circumstances and ways that it does not feel like animators just being careless or having fun. Otherwise we'd see more of this from others. The fact that Chloe stands out here is notable and as whether one takes her as knowing a specific martial art or not is besides the point that Chloe is evidently very tasty in a fight.

#cmlb fandom #miraculous ladybug #chloe bourgeois #analysis #Jock!Chloe #If characters demonstrate a skill enough times in a plot important way I am fine with just assuming they have that skill #I don't feel the need for the author a show bible; or the character to give me backstory or confirmation on it #If they show it & its plot relevant & its frequent its there.

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blueiscoool · 4 months ago

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Rome’s Ancient Arch of Constantine Struck by Lightening

During a storm on September 3, lightning struck Rome’s Arch of Constantine, chipping the structure’s marble surface. The 1,700-year-old arch and its neighbor, the Colosseum, were two of several sites affected by the thunderstorm, which produced 2.36 inches of rain in less than an hour. Usually, the city sees a similar amount over the entire month of September.

“A lightning strike hit the arch right here and then hit the corner,” a tourist at the site told Reuters’ Alberto Lingria. “We saw this fly off,” the tourist added while pointing to a fallen block of stone.

Finished in 315 C.E., the Arch of Constantine is one of Rome’s three surviving ancient triumphal arches, each erected to honor a person or event. This arch commemorates Constantine I’s 312 victory over the emperor Maxentius. That same year, Constantine devoted himself to Christianity—the first Roman ruler to do so.

The fierce storm also felled two large trees near the Circus Maximus, flooded the Trevi Fountain and flooded the Colosseum’s subterranean tunnels, reports CNN. After lightning struck the arch, staff of the Colosseum Archaeological Park quickly gathered its dislodged pieces and placed them in a secure location, according to a statement from Italy’s Ministry of Culture.

In the days that followed, some tourists stumbled upon additional pieces on the ground.

“My American group found these fragments, and we’re handing them over to the workmen,” tour guide Serena Giuliani told the London Times’ Tom Kington on the morning of September 4.

Specialists are now examining the condition of the fragments. Officials say the damage was limited to the monument’s southern side, where unrelated restoration work had started just days earlier, allowing for quick repairs.

At roughly 70 feet tall and 85 feet wide, the Arch of Constantine contains three separate arches, each framed by columns. The intricately decorated structure is adorned with recycled fragments, or spolia, taken from other ancient buildings, including monuments honoring Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius.

The arch is also decorated with carvings of Constantine, including a series of reliefs depicting his victorious fight against Maxentius in the Battle of the Milvian Bridge.

In 306, Constantine was leading Roman troops in Britain—then part of the Roman Empire—when his military declared him their emperor. His brother-in-law, Maxentius, also declared himself the emperor around the same time. After years of complex power struggles, the two rulers ultimately faced off in 312 at Rome’s Milvian Bridge, which overlooks the river Tiber. Panels on the Arch of Constantine depict the battle’s conclusion, showing Maxentius’ troops drowning in the river.

The arch’s recent encounter with lightning may have carried spiritual significance for its ancient builders, as “the bolts were believed to be the work of the gods,” per the Times. These spots were sacred for the Romans, who sometimes erected temples at such sites.

By Sonja Anderson.

#Rome’s Ancient Arch of Constantine Struck by Lightening #Rome’s Arch of Constantine #emperor Maxentius #emperor constantine #ancient artifacts #archeology #archeolgst #history #history news #ancient history #ancient culture #ancient civilizations #ancient rome #roman history #roman empire #roman art #ancient art #art history

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meanbossart · 4 months ago

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what would have to go differently in DU Drows story for him to take the bhaalist route? would it be a split second decision in the temple or something he’d have to slowly accept over the course of the game?

EDIT: I slightly misread the question, the answer still holds but the first line is about what has to be done for him to turn AGAINST Bhaal.

Both mechanically and story-wise, it's pretty simple. He just has to be taken into the group kicking and screaming 🤷‍♂️

DU drow rejects Bhaal because he finds the world to be fun, he finds the people in it to be interesting and strange and he doesn't see any benefit to getting rid of it. Wyll may get on his nerves but he wants so badly to see the day where he snaps and stands up for himself, Halsin is annoying but boy have him and Astarion had a riot making fun of him behind his back, him and Jaheira get on each other's nerves for fun and Minsc is a living fascination - not to mention the endless NPCs that provide a moment's entertainment. Yes, Shadowheart sparing the Nightsong and Astarion's lifestory played a big part in his choices, but I think a base had to be set first, otherwise he could have very easily twisted the lesson's he learned from them into something that fit the pro-Bhaal narrative. He doesn't want to kill the world, the world is hysterical to him.

Also, BG3 seems to have a theme about showing compassion and extending empathy even to people who don't deserve it. A lot of its characters are the opposite of nice and personable throughout the vast majority of the game, and what you end up clinging to are glimpses of humanity that they try to hide from you - Shadowheart is objectively exhausting to be around, Lae'zel is literally and figuratively a social alien, Astarion is Astarion and realistically we would have all blasted him into the horizon team-rocket-style if he wasn't funny. I hated all three of these characters going into the game and now they own my balls, because they ultimately charmed me with something or other despite their flaws.

(They are also all hot, to be fair, but this is a fantasy video game so what'reyougonnado. Though personally none of them are my type.)

Sorry about the tangent, but I think that gets my point across well; DU drow needs to be given the benefit of the doubt for absolutely no good reason, as long as that happens, he would have no motivation in the slightest to turn to Bhaal. Even if romanced, a socially ostracized DU drow could not be persuaded to turn away from his father.

In the gameplay, this would translate to the MC encouraging him to see the silver-lining in things, either by showing kindness and understanding or emphasizing the entertaining moments they've provided you with; also, playing along to his mean-streaked humor instead of reprehending him for not always having a kind thing to say about everybody. You have to either see the best in him, or turn people into a joke instead of a threat. Done that, he would move into Act 3 without any inclination to take Bhaals's gift.

On the flipside, I think a romanced partner could persuade a "good" DU drow to consider it, though. By valuing his strength and potential-influence instead of his personality, he would arrive at the conclusion that to keep you, he must continue to pursue power, which would ultimately land you in the place Astarion ends up in his Bhaalist AU.

#ask #du drow #companion du drow #bg3 spoilers

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rikusahoge · 2 months ago

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"But be safe. No reckless stunts."

On Sora and Riku's respective recklessness as showcased in the series, and what it means for their relationship

Under readmore because i am going to talk a lot

As an aside: Im going to be pulling from the Japanese text, though I am not a native speaker or really any kind of speaker, so take what I say with a decent amount of scrutiny. I'm more than willing to be corrected on these conclusions!

One line that has stood out to me in kingdom hearts is the repetition of "no reckless stunts!" and similar phrases. If you examine the original text, three slightly different words have been used to mean "reckless", which I'll include below (pulled definitions from Jisho, mostly)

無謀 (mubou): reckless, foolhardy, rash, ill-advised, mad (scheme)

無茶 (mucha): reckless, absurd, unreasonable, ridiculous

無理 (muri): impossible, unreasonable, unjustifiable

Importantly for what i want to talk about is how "muri" is used in situations where a character wants to express that something is impossible (think of a character giving up all hope due to an insermountable obstacle in front of them, they may mutter something like "muri da...") keep a pin in this, it will matter toward the end.

Also note that each of these words starts with "無" (mu), which usually means nothingness or absence of something. The definition of this kanji isnt super important, it's more important that its presence ties these three phrases together in a really unique way as i hope to demonstrate.

what i propose is that both Sora and Riku are depicted as reckless characters, albeit in different ways. The established pattern I've noticed is that Sora: "mucha" & Riku: "muri". I will tentatively refer to "mucha" as "rash" and "muri" as "impossible" (despite that it does also mean other things in some cases! bare with me it'll make sense)

Dialing back a bit, we have seen countless moments of Sora acting rashly. It is one of his key character traits and it tends to get him in trouble. He has a big heart, and is quick to anger.

Sora's response to loved ones and helpless innocents that have been put in harm's way is to repetitively bash things with his keyblade (and ask questions later).

It's Sora's rashness that allows Org 13 to use him to complete kingdom hearts. The extreme end of his rashness is showcased when he stabs himself to release Kairi from his heart.

Tldr. I think it's pretty well established and easy to argue that Sora is one to leap before he looks.

Now, Riku might be a little harder to sell as reckless, because of how well he tends to hide it. He carries himself as a role model for Sora, and tries to be the responsible friend. But if we look at his patterns of behavior, despite how he carries himself, he is quite reckless!

Without thinking of the consequences, he rushes the open door when destiny islands falls to darkness, eventually succumbing to it himself. He lashes out several times at Sora, particularly dangerously when he fires off a dark firaga in Hollow Bastion. He closes the door to darkness with Sora without knowing what would happen to him if he was trapped in the realm of darkness. When Sora is asleep, he sacrifices his form to defeat Roxas, without any assurance that he would ever be able to get his old form back.

We see Riku's recklessness too in the fight against Xemnas. He recklessly throws himself in front of Xemnas twice, hurling Sora away from danger and taking a very nasty blow to the hip. I'd count his dive to save Sora in DDD among these, mostly due to his risk taking behavior when it comes to saving Sora. Finally of course we see it in KH3, with his ultimate sacrifice. (but i think importantly, this scene isn't just recklessness, but I'll explain in a bit)

So tldr. Despite Riku's mask of level headedness and resolve, he has been shown over and over to take massive risks without caring for the consequences. Which is pretty reckless, in my opinion!

Sora and Riku's recklessness, mind you, is also called into question by Yen Sid, who tells Riku the reason he kept Aqua's fate a secret was to keep Riku and Sora from staging a "half-baked attempt at rescue"

He says similar in Japanese, but i want to just note the word he uses when he describes the rescue attempt as reckless (highlighted for ur convenience):

(the highlighted word here is "mubou", it will come back later in an Important way, so keep it in mind)

he's *basically* saying that if Riku, or worse, Sora, knew about Aqua, they would have recklessly marched into the realm of darkness to rescue her. Because he knows they are both ... Like that.

I would be remiss to not mention that Sora's impulsivity and recklessness is something Riku admires! After Yen Sid tells riku not to be rash, and Riku excitedly tells Mickey he's ready to help save Aqua, Kairi observes that Riku has changed, and he's more like Sora. Riku asks if that's a compliment, but I think it's clear that he feels it is. He says it's more Fun to just follow his heart, which is sora-esque. (;_;) This is also something he brings up to Sora when they're on the dark margin together, that he's jealous of how Sora can just follow his heart. It's clear Riku has started to embrace his more impulsive side, to follow his heart like sora does. This is important later!

So now that I have my premise Mostly set up, I'd like to highlight a handful of scenes that I thought were really telling about how Sora and Riku relate to the terms "mucha" and "muri", respectively.

Let's start with Sora and "mucha".

The first instance i have found "mucha" used is in Olympus Colliseum.

lets recall How Herc initially loses his power in KH2, and compare it to the movie.

In KH2, Herc is tricked into leaving the colliseum unguarded by capturing Meg and hiding her in the underworld so that Herc and Sora must go to her rescue. Hades sends a hydra in to destroy the colliseum while Sora and Herc are busy fighting heartless and Pete and rescuing Meg.

Upon seeing the destruction in the colliseum, Herc falls to his knees, and you can visibly see his colors fade to a more ashen complexion, similar to his appearance without his powers in the movie. He calls himself a piece of shit basically and Meg helps him up to limp to safety, leaving Sora to defeat the Hydra (ahem sora helping riku walk in twtnw after xemnas fight anyone)

(Herc even has a second journal entry for his Desaturared form.)

You leave the world after defeating the hydra and jumping up on its back a few times, and after sora d & g are named true heros. Yay. But Herc doesn't have his power back yet, which will later be addressed in the second episode.

Herc's loss of power is much different from the movie. In the movie, he agrees to let Hades take his strength for a day in order to keep Meg from harm, and release her from the contract she had entered with Hades (iirc). This was all so Herc wouldn't get the chance to save Olympus from the titans that Hades revives in order to take Zeus' throne for himself.

Herc still tries to wonderboy his way into rescuing the town, and fights a giant cyclops. While he lacks physical strength and gets pretty much Pummeled, he ends up beating the cyclops with his wit - but in doing so, a pillar is knocked over. It is about to crush Herc, but Meg pushes him out of the way, and is crushed to death.

She gives her life to save him, which in turn returns strength to Herc, because the contract was only good if Meg remained unharmed.

What I'm mostly trying to say here on this tangent is Herc's loss of power in KH2 specifically is very reminiscent of Sora losing his keyblade in Hollow Bastion, which is later echoed in the keyblade graveyard when he feels he loses his strength to fight after losing his friends. I bring up the movie to show how bizarrely different it is from the Kh2 plot, perhaps precisely to make the parallel between Sora and Herc stronger (and the parallel between Herc and Riku, by the way - Herc falling to his knees, losing his power, and giving up, only for Meg to walk him to safety, is a parallel to Riku losing his will to fight and press on after the battle with Xemnas - Sora refuses to let him and in the same Exact way he helps Riku walk on)

So Hercules, when faced with the impossible wavers, and loses his strength and will to fight. This is important so keep it in mind. Impossible/Muri isn't stated here as far as i know, but it's important that he is feeling utterly defeated and unable to win.

The second visit to the world is when we first see the term "mucha"/reckless used as far as I was able to find. Hades casts Meg into the Soul Hole and Herc dives in to save her without hesitating (mechanically to write Herc out of the boss fight, but)

We later see Herc emerge with Meg, his godly aura restored (he is Radiant!) something that *should* have killed him. and should have been impossible. But his desire to save her was so great, he recklessly dives in, without knowing that he will succeed. Luckily, all he had to do to prove he was worthy of godhood and power in both the game and the movie was to use the strength of his Heart rather than his fists, as a true hero does:

Sora scolds him and tells him not to do anymore crazy stunts after this reckless dive to save Meg (screenshot makes it look like herc is saying it sorry lol) and that is where we can see the term "mucha" being used in Japanese:

instead of crazy stunts, Sora moreso says "but don't be reckless (mucha)":

to which herc responds:

"people always do stupid things when they're in love" (note he doesn't repeat reckless, he says "baka" lol)

so here we have a direct link between herc's sacrifice when he dove in to save Meg, the restoration of his power/Godhood, and acting recklessly (mucha), without Fear or Doubt, to save someone he is In Love With. put a pin in this because it's all connected.

Now moving onto KH2.9 and KH3. From the start of the game we are told Sora has lost the Power of Waking, and his Entire goal in the game is to regain it, wake Ventus, and prepare for the battle in the KBG with Xehanort.

The Power of Waking is already a very vague, disney-esque power, essentially the power to free sleeping hearts from slumber (and first introduced to us in DDD, particularly in terms of Riku waking Sora up in a sleeping beauty retelling but I'm getting ahead of myself)

Yen Sid suggests that Sora go to Olympus for clues to regain his power, as Just Like Sora, Hercules also lost his power, but was able to regain it.

It's pretty straightforward, but in the interest of not making this post a fucking novel ill try to keep it short. Herc tells Sora he's not sure just *how* he got his powers back, just that he wanted to save Meg with all his heart when he (recklessly) dove in to save her. The game is trying to tell Sora that it's the Power of Love that brought back Herc's strength, and that Love will be key in bringing Sora's PoW back, too.

Specifically, I think that Herc's story and the other worlds Sora visits are saying that it's True Love that will bring Sora's powers back. Acts of true love in KH3 are framed as courageous, selfless, and performed unconditionally.

Despite the visit to see Hercules, Sora still doesn't gain the PoW. He has an idea of what he needs to regain it, but he has to visit multiple Disney worlds to learn more about the power of true love and sacrifice (well also separation but thats not as important to this post) before he's ready to test it out for himself.

After Arendelle (i think) we get to another important cutscene where Riku, Sora, donald, goofy, & mickey meet up with Yen Sid to discuss the progress they've made on their respective journeys. Sora wants to go to the Realm of Darkness with Riku & Mickey because he's worried, but they Won't let him because he doesn't have the PoW. Riku does the fondest laugh known to man, eliciting a bit of anger from Sora, but explains it's because of what Yen Sid had told him earlier - that had Sora or Riku known about Aqua being trapped in the RoD, they would have recklessly gone in to save her.

he's pretty much directly quoting yen sid here, just like he does in English (saying half-baked instead of reckless too). So basically saying here Sora would have marched into (the dark world) recklessly (had he known where Aqua was) - again using "mubou" like master yen sid.

Interestingly, when we get to Sora telling Riku to not be reckless in the dark world to Riku, he's not repeating the same word for Reckless that Riku is using (Now this might be just a flow of the conversation thing, which i certainly cant confirm as a non-native speaker but i think it's still notable)

Sora says something similar to what is said in English; with a few distinctions. A rough translation would be "but don't overdo it, call me if anything happens" (need I gripe one more time that english localization cuts out sora telling Riku to call him; which is why he spends the rest of the time apart from Riku wanting a call, and why its so unhinged that Riku triangles for sora and basically summons him. I DIGRESS)

This line is translated as "but be safe, no reckless stunts" in English, which serves as a callback to what Sora tells to Hercules in KH2, (further solidifying a herc/riku parallel) but IMPORTANTLY, Sora is NOT even saying the same thing he said to Hercules in the Japanese script. He's saying something else - 無理しないで (muri shinai de), which is usually translated as don't overdo it - but literally means "don't do the impossible". This will be important later when I talk more about Riku so keep this in mind.

We immediately get Donald saying "Sora's the reckless (muri) one" (abbreviating for simplicity) but Jiminy disagrees. In English he says "He's not reckless, he just doesn't think!" but in Japanese he says this:

Which i know im going to butcher any translation I do, but Jiminy is basically saying "[Sora's] not muri he's mucha". That distinction is important enough for Jiminy to make a joke about it. That Riku might actually be the one who is overdoing it/trying to do the impossible (muri), while Sora is the one who runs headfirst into danger recklessly (mucha). Which, i think, is quite fitting, given the actions theyve done through the series.

Importantly we get one more instance of "mucha" which I think really ties Sora's trait "recklessness" together nicely, and puts into perspective what the repetition of these phrases is doing from a story telling perspective.

After Sora finishes up the remaining Disney world visits, S, D, & G find out that Chip & Dale have lost contact with Riku & Mickey. Sora is very upset at this, and is Determined to save them (Riku) (with all his heart). Sora has NOT GAINED THE POW at this point, and they don't know how to even get into the RoD, so Sora opts to "let his heart be his guiding key" to find his way to Riku and the RoD. (Recklessly I might add, he hasn't called or talked to Yen Sid or consulted anyone about it lol)

He arrives at Destiny Islands and mysteriously finds Master's Defender which happens to be the key to getting him into the RoD. Right? Well. We know from the glossary that the established method of reaching the RoD is with a keyblade of darkness, through dark corridors, or with the Power of Waking.

Others have argued this (see SRT) but it's heavily implied that Sora regained the PoW on his way to rescue Riku. That he used it explicitly to get into the RoD is where people tend to be a little caught up in the details, because it *does* seem like Master's Defender plays a role, which begs the questions - is it a keyblade of darkness? What the fuck was it doing there? etc. (literally saw on a kh wiki that sora got into the RoD because Masters defender was a keyblade of darkness, which is unconfirmed currently lol) It's also not traditionally what the PoW looks like. There's a huge door that appears, Sora isn't using the kingdom key, he doesn't burst out of Riku's chest. Etc.

HOWEVER. I think with the context of the narrative arc Sora is going through, the foreshadowing present in the game, and The Reckless Rescue angle can at least prove that he DID regain his power here, regardless of whether or not he explicitly used it to get into the RoD. I'll try to briefly summarize the points I've seen made before I add my own.

After the visit to Olympus, Sora explains to Yen sid that he didn't regain his power but he still learned a lot. Yen sid stresses again that sora needs the PoW, Sora gets pouty, and Goofy cheers him up by saying "maybe something will trigger it real soon". Shortly after a bit of banter, there is a knock at the door, and Riku and Mickey walk in. The camera kmakes a point to show Mickey off to the side, then pan up to Riku as he walks in to close the door, who is centered in the view (almost as if we are watching from Sora's POV, who is anticipating Riku's appearance in the door).

Putting this side by side is a little unfair, since it's not an immediate jump from Goofy saying this to Riku's entrance, but it's pretty in your face about just what (or who) might be key to reawakening sora's PoW.

We also get some heavy handed foreshadowing in the next visit to Yen Sid's tower, right before Sora tells Riku to not overdo it:

Yeah. and he does, importantly, get the power of waking, not BEFORE he comes to the rescue, but BECAUSE he comes to the rescue.

Now for my contribution since I stole the last two/three points from other posts. Just before Sora enters the RoD, he tells D & G to stay behind and that he has to go alone. (Sigh, yes, this scene is a parallel to Riku using the PoW to save Sora in DDD - it *has* to be him, and him alone) D& G protest, but eventually relent. But Donald doesn't let Sora go without saying this:

(In English, Donald says "you promise to be good?" inexplicably) but in Japanese he tells sora (basically) "Don't be reckless" - aka. No Reckless Stunts, complete with the use of "mucha" (recall Donald in the previous scene was the one to call Sora "muri" before being corrected by Jiminy). This is similar to what Sora tells to herc, so we are pretty much full circle on this scene being a callback to Herc rescuing Meg in KH2.

Like Herc, Sora does the reckless thing. Like Herc, he heroically dives into the abyss to rescue his loved one with all his heart.

Like Herc, Sora regains his power the moment he resolves to rescue Riku, even if it is not made explicitly clear to Sora OR the audience (perhaps the fact that he regained the PoW is why he is able to save aqua, too)

I could probably go on about this and what it means for Sora for a long time, but I think it's high time I actually wrote about "muri" and Riku's recklessness, so let's rewind a little.

I've already brought up how Riku relates to Herc in terms of his recklessness and heroics, but theres a few more things to add. of course. I'll recap with pictures of one of the parallels i've already discussed:

So here i think at least metaphorically, we can argue that Riku has lost a bit of his "power"- or rather, his drive. After everything is over, he just collapses, ready to die or be left behind. Sora WONT let that happen. So Riku asks Sora to lead. He confesses to some of the jealousy and superiority he'd been feeling over Sora for the past few years, and seems to be trying to find a new direction in his life, having now repented Quite a bit for the sins he committed in KH1.

Riku's entire purpose for fighting after KH CoM and KH2 was to wake Sora up, keep him safe while he does his keyblade weilder duties, reunite him with Kairi, and send him on his merry way. Sora refuses to let him leave, and demands that he comes home with him. So he does. but without his jealousy over his feelings toward Sora, or without his feelings of guilt and feeling he needs to make it up to Sora, what is left to drive him to keep fighting?

DDD gives him a pretty strong answer - it's where he both rediscovers his sense of purpose and gains the Power of Waking in the process. And his dream eater powers too. btw

Riku's journey in DDD is, simply put, not really about passing the mark of mastery exam and becoming a keyblade master. it's about remembering What he lives for. remembering his promise to Terra, and how those feelings have evolved - from wanting strength to protect the Stuff that matters as a child, to, in DDD, discovering that the "stuff that matters, like his friends" was Sora the Whole time, and that Sora is actually a "precious best friend" that he wants to protect. It's About recovering his strength, like Herc needs to do in KH2.

So how does Riku regain his "strength"? By Sora-style taking a reckless dive into the deep abyss of Sora's heart to wake him using the PoW.

(Not once was I able to find any mention of "recklessness" here, or any particular language that ties this moment together cleanly with what happens in Olympus Colliseum in KH2, but the repetition of diving down into an abyss to rescue someone (with all your heart. etc) is Enough of a parallel to make the connection between this scene and Herc's dive to save Meg)

It is within the deepest depth of Sora's heart where Riku is interrogated by three pieces of Sora's heart about what he's afraid of, what he cares about more than anything else, and what he wishes - All canon answers involve the mention of "precious" - "taisetsu" (sorry im not explaining this one im going to just assume you know what im talking about if you are a soriku that reads meta you should know.) - to lose something precious, my precious best friend (fuck da english localization for this one), to recover something precious that I lost. It is here that we see Riku's simple "protecting important stuff" become "protecting something precious/my precious best friend" (note that this hasn't quite become "taisetsu na hito"/precious person but hes getting there)

Ansem the wise is there i guess and he tells Riku that his 3 answers are what were the key to waking sora up, and I think, importantly, are what give Riku his "strength" back. He has rediscovered his purpose, which is, to him, protecting Sora (with all his heart)

Continuing into KH2.9 we have another couple scenes that will both complete Riku's development from protecting stuff that matters to protecting a precious person and also continue to make a strong connection between him and Hercules.

It's been pretty well established that these two scenes are deceptively mistranslated, but i'll go over it again

Herc here is saying "taisetsu na hito" which is translated to "person I love most"

The EXACT phrase Mickey uses to tell Riku why he's feeling more powerful and fearless in the RoD, in the literal next scene in 2.9. They were supposed to be VERY CLEAR hit you over the head parallels but, well. SENA said fuck gay people i guess.

Riku repeats what Mickey says into his hand ("strength to protect my precious person") and recalls his promise to Terra, to protect the things that matter. (again it's implied it's always been about protecting sora, he just didn't have the language or understanding of himself yet to know how to say it)

There is absolutely no room for nuance here. This is explicitly framing Riku's feelings for Sora on par with Herc's feelings for Meg eg. explicitly romantic. And that it's his ROMANTIC LOVE for Sora that is what gives him his strength - not just to protect Sora, but also to do THE IMPOSSIBLE

phase ??? of my argument will now commence hang on to your butts. (i wrote this all in one night im tired)

Now that ive Exhaustively set that up. lets actually get back into discussing what I initially set up - riku doing the impossible "muri" thing.

As a reminder, Sora tells Riku to not "attempt the impossible/overdo it" in the RoD. And to call him if he needs him.

So Riku, instead of attempting the impossible in the RoD by facing the demon tide, does call Sora, which ends up being what saves the day! Yay!

I have bad news though! Riku is terrible at listening to advice when Sora is in trouble.

Now recall what I mentioned earlier about the fall of the guardians in the KBG and Sora's subsequent breakdown being a parallel to Herc losing his power in KH2. Sora *fails* everyone here, and he explicitly states he is worthless, without strength, when he loses them. It's very in line with Herc losing his powers in KH2.

(just putting these in here to hurt you and myself)

So, we get the Herc parallel, but it stops here for Sora. He doesn't do some grand self sacrifice for Riku to prove his heroism and regain his "power", but i think theres a reason for that beyond it just being Riku's time for the spotlight but I am getting there.

In the english localization, Sora says "we've lost, it's over". It's a subtle change from the Japanese, where instead of "it's over", Sora simply utters "muri da--" ("its impossible") (in the wettest saddest voice you can imagine)

It's at this moment where I do truly think we're meant to make the connection between Sora saying "its impossible" and Sora telling Riku to not attempt the impossible. It fits in nicely with Sora telling Herc to not do reckless stunts, with the slight change in language from "reckless" to "impossible", and with the impending self sacrifice. Riku knows that beating back the demon tide is impossible. But he does it anyway (compare to how, when faced with a much smaller demon tide, and he was losing, he listened to Sora's advice and called Sora for help instead of attempting the impossible)

So we have Riku's ultimate true love sacrifice for Sora, which both takes his life and grants him a spot upon an alter in Olympus, perhaps symbolically giving him some sort of ascension for his heroic deed. And again tying his sacrifice intimately to Herc's.

Because Sora and Riku are both "herc" and "meg" here I am going to make a little bit of a reach. Recall that I went through the effort of recapping the climax of the hercules movie. for no reason. There is a connection though even if it's loose, and i would kick myself for not including it.

In the movie, Meg, like Riku, protects a powerless Hercules from impending danger in her own act of true loves sacrifice. Her death gives Hercules his strength back (partly due to contract BS but it's still a romantic moment). And her death is what drives Hercules to dive into the Soul Hole to rescue her soul at a potentially great cost, which is what ultimately restores his godhood (showing his strength of heart). Riku sacrificing himself for Sora can be seen to be more like the events of the Hercules movie, Riku standing in for Meg - Sora does have to restore Riku's heart after it's been taken by the Lich, after all, much like Hercules brings Meg's soul out from the Hole. And Riku's sacrifice is what gives Sora the resolve to keep fighting. (not arguing with anyone who thinks it was only kairi because it wasnt lol)

So Riku attempts the impossible here, and ultimately he is rewarded. An interesting nuance is that the phrase "attempting the impossible" isn't meant to be taken as a challenge. From what ive read from native speakers, the phrase Sora uses really is better translated as "don't overdo it" as it is less about proving yourself to be able to overcome crazy obstacles and more about keeping your expectations in check. But Riku is reckless, and following his heart, which he learned from Sora.

I hope I've properly illustrated how Sora and Riku are both painted as reckless in different ways, and how the language used in KH3 is making direct references to Herc's reckless heroics in KH2 and in the actual Disney movie. And how these reckless acts are showcasing how much these two love each other, because I still have one more point to make. Namely, how this ties into Cinderella, and ultimately KH4.

In Terra's route of Birth By Sleep, he happens upon a distraught Cinderella, who has had her dress torn up by her step sisters. She was planning to go to the ball, but cannot, because it is "impossible" (muri)

Terra tries to console her. It's all very reminiscent of the scenes of Herc's, Sora's, and Riku's defeats.

After Terra fights off the unversed summoned by Cinderella's negativity (toxic much..), Out of the blue, the fairy godmother appears and makes everything better. She fixes up Cinderella with a dress and a ride to the ball, and sends her on her merry way.

She explains to Terra that she appeared to Cinderella to show her that her dreams *can* come true and that she typically appears only to people that have a strong belief in their dreams. Terra says he believes in dreams but you have to work for them, to which FGM responds that simply believing in dreams is already a difficult thing on its own. (Ventus also compares Terra to Cinderella. btw. because of his strong dreams)

Now. Sigh. Im not the only person that has pointed this out. The FGM quite literally appears to Riku, but only after a year has passed and they have no leads on Sora, and after it's implied that Riku is starting to lose hope.

In the limit cut, you can see Riku's sad wet puppy dog face as he talks about how hard everyone is working, and how they haven't found anything at all. He says "if Sora is really out there, don't you think we would have found something by now?" - Again, he's losing faith in his dreams of Sora's return. This is important.

I do not have the strength to go through and find all the times Riku told everyone to believe in Sora in KH3. It's a lot. And the last thing we hear him say Near Sora, is to let him go on his suicide mission to save Kairi - to BELIEVE in Sora (#wish).

So one, we know the dream Riku believes in is Sora, and two, we know he is starting to lose his belief in his dreams, like Cinderella before the ball, when he dress is destroyed.

Right after it's clear their is no lead through the data from Org 13, FGM appears, just like she did for Cinderella. And she tells Riku that His Dreams Are Literally A Key To Find Sora (that hes quite literally been #dream drop distancing into sora's dreams while hes in unreality is already so much without the FGM being there to explain this to him but KH is crazy!)

One last thing to really drive this home. The FGM brings Riku and Kairi to the nameless star to bring the three keys together.

And what does she tell Riku, before he leaves?

"Be careful. Do not attempt to do the impossible."

---------

if you read this whole thing... well... im proud of you. I know i definitely missed stuff, because it would be so hard to go through all the games and really dig for the use of this term especially when I dont speak japanese at all. and because i wrote this all in one night. But dont hesitate to comment or reblog if you have anything to add. I freaking love kingdom hearts

#soriku #kh meta #kingdom hearts meta #long post #it was not going to be this long 🥰#i might make an abbreviated versuon #i could not be assed to read this for errors so sorry if i make mistakes i wrote this in chunks thru the night #barely scratched the surface on how this all ties in with believing and shit #i thoguht about including the hollow bastion kh1 riku and sora reunion and the beast resolving to keep going #for belle #and how he ended up there by believing #against the impossible odds #but theres already so much here #I will probably come back and edit this post later but i just want to post it now

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