#true to creed fashion

[veryinnovative]

breaking bad au but it's walter whitified minerva mcgonagall and her protégé (+former student) barty crouch jr

[imaybeleith]

had a fnaf lore thought today about Henry and William and Will’s motives for killing Charlie and Sammy being a bit more in depth than they are in what we’ve been provided in canon

we all know part of William’s motive was because he was jealous of Henry still getting to have a family after losing his own, but also consider Henry’s part in this

when William lost CC and Elizabeth, he was torn to shreds obviously, but Henry must’ve gone into shock too, leading me to believe that he would be running on autopilot trying to take care of everything in order to let Will grieve over the death of his two youngest

from Henry’s perspective this is a pretty normal way of different people dealing with grief and loss and shock and whatnot, but to William? he’s angry. he’s so angry because he lost the kids he loved so, so much. he’s angry because he feels at fault for it. but he also feels angry because Henry has spent less time comforting him and trying to sympathize and more time trying to deal with lawsuits

this is the deepest and most destructive pain Will’s ever felt in his entire life, grotesque and heart wrenching, and all he can see is Henry being more worried about legal issues than caring for his best friend. Henry’s trying his best to balance everything and not break, and he knows Will is too incapacitated to handle business, so he’s doing what he thinks would be helpful. But William’s mind isn’t wired that way. Rather he takes it as betrayal, and thus begins war.

Henry’s kids are dead. “Who would do something like this?” and Henry doesn’t know he knows. Eventually he confronts him, he’s devastated, but not quite in the way William was. he didn’t want to exact revenge. He was just in shock. And once he’s broken Henry down to his core, ripping into him about how he “didn’t know how to care and didn’t want to bother”.

Henry is destroyed, and all William can think about is “finally, some real sympathy from a real friend”.

tl;dr I don’t know I just think Henry and William’s arc should be more intricate and emotionally driven than what it’s shown to be in canon past the basic “oh no you were my best friend but I’ve been struck by tragedy and now I’m jealous that you have something I don’t so I have to destroy the thing you love because if I can’t be happy then neither can you” trope because despite their limited appearance in the actual shown canon events their backstory is vital to the plot of the series and I would love to see that elaborated on in depth

[loganbcrnes]

Celebration fuck

Logan Howlett x GN!reader x Cable (Nathan Summers) x Victor Creed No warnings in this, just horny dirty sex. Reader's ethnicity and body type etc is not mentioned, but Cable does call reader Sweetheart. I didn't think i needed to mention this, but i will anyway, this involves Logan/Cable and Cable/Victor as well. Not beta'd Enjoy!

The 3 men were doting on you, feeding you lots of different expensive chocolates. Tonight was your 2 year anniversary of being together so the four of you decided to do something special together. It was after a tough mission with the X-men. Victor thought it’d be a nice idea to have a small romantic getaway at a cabin in Canada, you immediately agreed as you have always loved the mountains.

Nathan walked over to the stereo and put on some soft romantic music. You didn’t like to drink alcohol often, so Victor made some sweet fancy cocktails for you. After severely bottles of root beer and liquor later (even though the 3 men couldn’t get drunk) they felt more at ease.

——

Nathan collapsed onto the couch and tore his shirt off. “Fuckin’ hot in here”. He said as he scratched his burly chest a little.

Victor was a little bit giggly, he always got like this after a dozen drinks, you were beginning to think that alcohol does have an affect on them, because a man like Victor doesn’t just giggle.

Logan remained composed, but his mind was swimming like mad. H ewas horny as hell, the build up to this moment was slow. He wasn’t complaining, it’s nice to have some build up to the main event, but now he was beginning to become impatient.

Already shirtless, Logan went over to you and coaxed you to undress as far as you were willing to go, which ended up being your underwear. It was some fancy underwear you only kept for certain occasions, this being one of them.

“Well now, don’t you look so sweet looking”. Nathan said, licking his lips.

“Well, why don’t you come and have a taste then?”. You asked. You leaned back on the big couch in the living room, spreading your legs a little.

“Mmm, damn right you do, Baby. I’ll let Logan have a go first, you know I like having the sloppy seconds”. Nathan winked. You chuckled at his comment.

Logan shook his head at the comment and pulls you into his arms, placing his giant hands onto your ass. You both moved in an almost slow-dancing fashion as the soft melody of music sang in the background. Logan was a passionate and rough lover, his intense desire to give pleasure to his partner. Most people assume, he just fucks for his release, and leaves without a thought for the other person, but it simply isn’t true.

With the years of experience, it’s taught him that the best kind of sex is with a person he trusts and where both parties are experiencing pleasure. It should be the bare minimum, but it isn’t for a lot of people. You have never had sex with them where you were left unsatisfied.

Logan began sniffing up the side of your neck as if starving for your flesh. He greedily squeezed your ass, and then shoved you onto the enormous couch and climbed on top of you, pinning your wrist to the side of your head. He started licking and sucking on your neck, leaving marks that will show for the next week, but you couldn’t complain. The sensitive places gave you so much pleasure. His ran his hands all over your body, feeling every curve and muscle as they tensed and relaxed under his touch.

Your nipples stiffened from the cool air, Logan drifted downwards to lick at your armpits and inhaling your scent. You felt a growl against your sensitive skin. He moved towards you nippled and continued to suck on them. You wore a look of pain and bliss as they continued his actions on your nipples.

“Filthy lil’ slut, ain’t ya?”. Cable said. You weren’t sure if he was speaking to you or Logan, but you released a moan anyway. You looked to your right to see cable with his legs spread, soft squelching sounds coming from him as he stroked his cock quickly. Logan drifted even further downwards towards the area you want him to be at the most. He kissed your thighs, his big hands squeezing the fat, while holding them open. You down at him, his huge body in comparison to yours, you felt so dominated and taken care of. All of your worries slipped away whenever you were with them, because it meant you could count on them.

Logan looked up at you as he dipped down to lick and suck on your hole, You threw your head back, the pleasure building up as he licked the sensitive areas. “Mmm, taste so sweet, darlin’. Can’t get enough of ya’” Logan mumbled as he continued with his tormenting actions.

“Slow down, Sport. Don’t want it all to end so quickly.” Nathan said while he grabbed Logan’s ass and gave it a squeeze and played around with his balls from behind. Nathan leaned down to kiss Logan’s back. “Fun watching you two play, but I want to shove my face in your sweet ass Lo’ while Victor here can have a turn fucking Sweetheart over here.”

Logan paused his actions, and turned around to look at Nathan. “Fine”, was all Logan said, he turned to give you a kiss, while they moved to the other side of the couch, to give Victor space with you.

Victor walked over to you, his cock swaying, you looked over his body, the hair on his chest going down to his pubic area, it was dark and coarse. You spread your legs even further apart as you grabbed the lube from the small table beside you. “Gonna have some fun with you, Frail.” Victor smirked, as he sat in between your legs. He grabbed the lube and spreads a generous amount onto his fingers.

“Ready?” Victor asked as he positioned his finger to your hole. You nodded and pressed yourself toward his finger. Victor’s finger slipped easily into your sex. Your head fall back onto the couch with a moan. Nathan grabs an extra pillow to put under your head so you can see everything that is happening.

“Fucked this pretty hole this morning, Sweetheart will be nice and open for you.” Nathan said. Victor growled as his finger spearing in and out of your body rapidly, getting you ready for his thick canned shaped cock.

“Mm please, I’m ready”. You said, grabbing onto Victor’s thick biceps. Victor pulls out his fingers with a squelch. He started adding more lube to his cock, slicking it up so you’d be wet as possible.

“Look at you, such a good little cockslut” You hear Nathan say. “So eager…”

You turn to face Logan and Cable and watch as Logan is on his hand and knees while Cable is eating his ass. You moan at how hot the scene is, not being able to stop staring.

Victor aligns his cock at your sex, He places a hand on your check so you would look at him. “Ya’ ready?” he asked. You nod and wrapped your arms around his neck and bring him down to a kiss.

Victor’s cock head nudges at your rim, You cry out as it enters you, back arching off the couch. Victor keeps going until he’s fully in. “God, you feel fuckin’ amazing, Frail” Victor said, with his eyes closed. Victor began to move his hips, pulling out until the head is only inside of you and then thrusting back in.

“You’re doing so well, Sport, make sure they cum first.” Cable said somewhere in the room. Victor began to increase his movements, the sound of wet slapping skin filled the room with the stench of sex. Which made you even more hornier. You grip Victors shoulders as he slams into you, holding your thighs to the side of your head. Getting deeper and deeper.

Victor fucked you hard. Using your body like a rabbit in heat. You moaned, rocking as you took every thrust. You watched as Victors muscles clenched at each thrust, his chest hair becoming sweaty and wet. Excess lube kept squirting out of your already fucked out hole, causing the couch to become wet.

“Jesus, fu-ck”. You screamed out, all you could do is lay there and take the fucking. Victor’s exponential

You look down at where his cock was disappearing into you, his pubes brushing against your sex with every thrust. It was so hot, you felt like you have left the planet, the pleasure building up to the point your close to coming. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. I’m close, please!, oh God”. You continues to scream.

“Tell me how it feels, Kitten.” Victor said, not slowing down his pace.

“So good! Oh, God, aah—ha—ah, fuck, it’s oh, so good!”.

“You want it harder, Frail?” Victor asked. “’Cause y’know I like it hard”.

Tears streamed down your face, every inch of your body quivers like a leaf in the wind. “Yes!, yes, yes”.

“Alright, Frail, you asked for it.”

And then Victor starts to increase his thrusting. Without missing a beat, he starts to pound into your body, getting deeper and deeper, you never thought was possible. His thick cock stretching your hole wide open sloppily,

With every slap of skin on skin, a moan breaks out of your mouth. You turn your head to see Cable fucking Logan. Logan has always been loud in bed, but when he’s the one getting fucked, he’s even louder. You love the sounds he makes, low toned moans, sprinkled in with some light moans, and a whole lot of growling.

Cable noticed you staring and smirks. “Can’t wait to watch Logan fuck your greedy hole after this too, Sweetheart.” Nathan says as he grips Logan’s hips tighter as he goes harder.

You moan loud as you feel yourself come towards the end. The fiery pit in your stomach building up until it explodes. You cum hard and when Victor pulls out, your cum dribbled down onto Victor’s cock. Victor growls as he slides into you again, reaching for his own high. When that comes, hot cum shoots inside you, filling you up to the brim. A man like Victor cums a lot. It goes on for about 30 seconds and you both catch your breath.

Once Victor has emptied his balls inside of you, he slips out. “Fuck”. He groans. He drops to the side, while you catch your breath. You roll onto Victor and pull him into a kiss.

Victor pushes you to the side and gets up. He looks down at you, “Always look so good when you’re fucked out, Frail.” Victor smirked and leaves to go clean himself. You feel empty as you lay there. Watching Cable and Logan calm down from their own overwhelming orgasms.

After a couple of minutes, Victor cleaned you up a little, so Logan could have his turn. “Ya’ lookin’ pretty, Bub.” Logan said to you in an extra gravely deep voice while sitting down beside you. He patted his knee so you could take your place in his lap.

You wrap your arms around him and nudged your face into his neck. Inhaling his sweaty musky scent. Logan spanked your ass. You both make out for a few minutes, until you began to get aroused again. Cable takes a place beside you. “Feeling good?”. Cable checking in with you.

You nod. Couldn’t form any words due to how fucked out you already were, and it was only the beginning. Cable chuckled as he began to insert his finger into your wet hole. “Did you break them? Looks like you could’ve fucked them unconscious”.

“Don’t worry about it.” Victor said, filling a glass with some scotch. “Not the first time that’s happened”

Victor is right, you’ve lost count how many times you went unconscious due to how overwhelmed you were. They stopped immediately of course, but it was always a good laugh afterwards. The sex was that good.

“Logan…” You whine. You reached down to grab his thick cock, wanting to be be filled once again.

“Yeah, Kitten. I know, ya’ just want to be filled with cock all the time, don’tcha?” Logan chuckled, as did the other two men. You whine, hiding your face in Logan’s neck.

“You heard them, Lo’. Nathan smirked. “Hop to it.”

“Don’t gotta tell me twice.”

“Aah-ah!” is the noise that leaves you mouth a few moments later when you feel Logan’s cock enter you.

It still aches a little, though not as sharply. It soon goes away once Logan sets a slow rhythm.

“Are they still tight?” Victor asked. You hear him on the other side of the couch.

“Fuck, yeah still tight. Feels fuckin’ amazing.” Logan moaned. His head falling back against the couch.

“Doing so well, Patch. Ya’ better fill them up. I wanna eat them out after this.”

“Cause’ ya’ do, gross little shit.” Logan grunts and Cable chuckles at the remark. Knowing fully well, Logan can be just as gross.

You claw at Logan’s shoulders. “Please, fuck me, fuck me!”. Whine desperately.

“Your wish, my command, and all that…”

Logan grips your hips and began thrusting into you. His balls slapping against your ass as he quickens up the pace.

“Fuck, fuck. Ahh!” you moan as your head falls back. It’s so easy to fall back into incoherency. It’s so easy to disappear out of your head and onto only your body. No thoughts, head empty. Leaving only sensation and the burning desire to reach your high.

All you can do is sit there while Logan penetrates into you. His hips meeting your ass as his big balls slap against them. He switches position by laying back onto the couch. He forces your body up and down onto his cock, the squelching and wet noises would make you blush if you weren’t so fucked out.

“Look at that. Baby all gone again.” Nathan chuckles, squeezing his cock.

“They fucking love it.” Logan said.

And you do. Its amazing. Your skin itching to burst, your body feeling heavier heavier as the sensations overfills you.

“Fuck look at you. All gone, but still squirtin’ like that.” Logan said.

Oh, does that mean you came again?

“They’re perfect, aren’t they?” Logan said, as he continued fucking into you.

“Sure are, Sport. Now hurry the fuck up, I want my turn before they pass out completely.”

“Don’t worry about it. They’ll stay awake. Plus ill show you idiots how to really fuck their throat next time.” Logan said, as he squeezed your ass while he thrusts up into you.

“Well, you now have my attention.” Nathan mumbles.

“Shut up, Logan. Less talking, more fucking. Before we all die of old age.” Victor rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah. Excuse me for enjoyin’ myself.”

Logan changed positions once again, he repositions your legs over his shoulder and began to thrust. He watched as his cock disappeared into you, wet noises fill the room once again. The air was thick and hot.

Victor came over and kneeled down in front of the couch. He began sucking on one of your nipples while he played with the other with his fingers. You arched your back at the intense pleasure that ran through you. Your nipples being so sensitive.

“Mmm, lemme use that pretty mouth of yours.” Cable said. He patted your cheek to open your mouth wider. He kneeled over you so he could slip his cock into your wet mouth. His balls barely nudging against your eyes “That’s it. You know how I like it.”

You reach your hands up to fondle Nathans fat balls as he sped up the speed.

“Fuck, that’s hot as hell. Love being used like this dontcha?”. Logan growled out. You could tell he was close to the end, because the speed of his thrusts were shortening.

Cable began caressing Victors hairy chest, bringing him in by the neck to kiss him.

You continued to lick and suck around Cable’s cock. You fucking loved having their cocks in your mouth. To feel the heaviness them, swirling your tongue as you watched them squirm in pleasure. The feeling was incredible.

“Shit, I’m close, Baby. Where do ya’ want it?” Nathan pulled out so you could answer.

“My mouth, face whatever.” You kept on rambling, unable to form any cohesive sentence. The three boys chuckled at how pathetic you looked.

“Sure thing, Baby.” Nathan began jacking off, wet sounds filled the room, until he spilled his release over your face and tongue. The taste of bitter salt filled your senses. You hated the taste, but you were so far gone and incredibly horny, you didn’t care.

Cable threw his head back with a groan. “Fuck, I will never get tired of this.”

Logan finally reached his release, you could feel the cum covering your wet walls. You moan when Logan slips out, he watches as the cum drips out of you.

Logan sat back against the couch, he reaches for a cigar and lights it up.

“You good, bub?” He asks. You nod your head in response, unable to form any words. Your throat feels so raw from the blowjob.

Nathan came over to your side, he wipes you down with a warm towel. Afterwards he offered from fruit to fill your stomach a little.

“So, how was that for an anniversary?”. Nathan asked. He grabbed himself a cold beer from the table and sat beside your head.

“I could definitely get used to this every year”. You responded, on the verge of falling asleep. All you could hear were your boys chuckling.

[sk-lumen]

✨🧚 Fairy Energy Aesthetics 🧚✨

make-up looks: dewy skin, flushed nose, wispy lashes, glitter as highlighter (length of the nose, cupid's bow, cheekbones, inner corners of the eyes and middle of the eyelids to give depth and glow)

aura: dainty, enchanting and elusive... their presence carries the bubbly liveliness of delight and mischief, and nobody quite knows what they're up to next. if you think you have tamed a fairy maiden or captured her unconquerable heart... think again, for she has wrapped you around her glitter-stained little finger without realizing. she follows no rules but her own, and is loyal most to her true nature

hair: wild, untamed hair, fearlessly embodying its true nature; often adorned with flowers and braids

jewelry: copper and gold, much like the ancient Celts wore

fashion:

emotional, mental and spiritual: embodying the full wildness of their multifaceted nature, they are intimately intertwined with their divine creativity, close communion with nature, animals, flowers and plants

deities: Fairy Queen Niamh, Cernunnos

perfumes: Aura by Mugler, Terre d'Hermes by Hermes, Original Vetiver by Creed,

flowers/essential oils: mint, cedarwood, pine, lemongrass

music: flute, bagpipes, tribal drums

colors: mint green, gold, dark forest green

[iasirene]

A Marxist analysis of Effie Trinket

Effie Trinket is quite the character. She was created by Suzanne Collins as the archetype of the average Capitol citizen. Obsession with manners and appearances, ignorance and indifference to the plight of the Districts, and viewing the Hunger Games as a grand cultural spectacle to be celebrated, while ignoring its true brutality. Despite this, Effie has become a huge fan favorite among fans of the series, myself included. However, I view her with a more critical lens. In Marxist terms, Effie represents a class group called the petite bourgeoisie. Effie enjoys a position of privilege within the Capitol. She has wealth, the latest fashion, and access to exclusive events and parties. In spite of her privilege, let’s just say she is not living in the Corso. Effie is not, and will not ever be, in a true position of power over anybody. She is not a Crane, a Creed, a Heavensbee, or a Snow. Her last name is Trinket. “An ornament or item of jewelry that is of little value.” That’s exactly what Effie is. Not that she has no value as a person, but her position in society is based on servitude. She serves those at the very top while being blind to the suffering of those below her, i.e. The Districts. Effie’s complacency within the larger Capitol system can be understood through the Marxist idea of false consciousness. This means that members of a capitalist society do not see/justify systemic oppression, including their own. “This is the way things have always been.” “Some people are destined to be rich while others are meant to be poor.” In the world of the Hunger Games, Effie demonstrates this in her role as an escort. Her bright and cheery personality, her garish fashion sense, and her being very out of touch with the Districts. She’s genuinely surprised at the level of poverty she sees when she goes to District 12. Although this quote is from the movie, I believe it highlights her misguided way of thinking: “I don’t even think they let them have dessert, but you can!” While it appears that she has “power” over the people of District 12 by reaping their children year after year, she is simply a mouthpiece for the Capitol’s larger authority.

Effie lives and breathes her role as an escort, fully buying into the Capitol propaganda that she has been fed her entire life. She is not an outwardly cruel or violent person, but she serves a system that is built and continues its existence through violence. Effie’s obsession with the spectacle and pageantry of the games prevents her from seeing their true nature, it allows her to ignore the ugliness and focus on the beauty (it could be argued that this is a form of detachment to protect her own psyche). That is her false consciousness. Another aspect that aligns Effie with the petite bourgeoisie is her disposability. Her role as the glamorous Capitol escort is not guaranteed, but Effie does not see that which enables the Capitol to further exploit her and her labor. This is not to say that her character is a faultless, innocent victim. She is not, though she is merely a cog in the machine, that cog still moves. Her role as an intermediary between the Capitol and the Districts allows the games to continue. Who would watch the games if there was no spectacle? No glamor or beauty? Why do you think Snow changed everything? As mentioned previously, although Effie fully embraces her role within the Capitol and swallows up every bit of Panem propaganda, that is not enough to save her from being imprisoned. Her loyalty to the regime does not spare her from its oppression. Reflective of how in our own capitalist society, “hard work” does not save you from poverty.

Through Katniss’s perspective in the novels, we do see her warm up to Effie despite her initial (completely understandable) disdain: “.....Haymitch, Peeta, and I are ignoring her, but she made a real effort for us. Now, I wish I had thanked her for that.” Effie may not have become a Capitol rebel like Plutarch or Cressida, but according to Katniss’s POV, she demonstrates a small change from the woman we meet at the 74th reaping, but it must be noted that this is only because she was personally affected by the Capitol due to her growing attachment to Katniss and Peeta. She does not change because she genuinely questions her role within her society. Despite this, I still like her character. She’s complex, she’s morally grey and I love making up headcanons about her. In a way, many of us who live in the imperial core (the West) are like Effie-simultaneously victims and oppressors. We may be oppressed by our capitalist governments, but our exploitation of the imperial periphery (the Global South) allows us to live comfortably in comparison. But the question remains: are you willing to challenge the propaganda of your youth? Or will you retreat back to your own Capitol bubble?

[sleepyconfusedpotato]

Just finished grinding Assassin's Creed Mirage! WOOHOO! ୧⁠(⁠ ⁠ಠ⁠ ⁠Д⁠ ⁠ಠ⁠ ⁠)⁠୨

I think it's a deffo wonderful game and a refreshment after the RPG trilogy (it does have RPG elements to it, but still), and it also have some things that are lacking. It reminds me of the good 'ol days, but deffo not on par with the good 'ol days.

Here're some of my thoughts and reviews!

🕌 Sleepy's Assassin's Creed Mirage Review 🗡️

(Spoiler Warning ⚠️ Including the ending ⚠️)

Disclaimer, this is just my personal opinion. You may agree and disagree. I’m just gonna talk a lot because I LOVE Assassin’s Creed with all my heart. Here goes.

VISUALS

(+) Basim Ibn Ishaq, the handsome man that you are… HOLY SHIT (yes I’m adding him as the first plus point of this game what of it). Man's fine AF. 

(+) Baghdad’s really beautiful, nuff said. The color palette is PERFECT - displays the warmth of the atmosphere really well, but also just enough greens and many starking hues of flowers. 

(+) The waters and environment textures are CRISPY.  The detailed patterns on the clothes, the engravings and the state of the arts is really cool. I haven’t really looked a lot into the 800’ Baghdad arts, but I can see lots of good details and art styles. SHOUT OUT TO THE ARTISTS!!

GAMEPLAY - Now here’s what I have a lot to comment on.

(+) Stealth -> I think they did quite good with the stealth. One of the many complaints that I saw on the previous RPG trilogy games was the fact that the main characters/players had no reason to be stealthy, because they can just barge in and defeat the enemies easily. Ubi has marketed the game to be more stealth focused and intentionally made Basim a less of a fighter (make sense, since he came from a thief background, unlike Bayek, Kassandra, and Eivor who are actual trained warriors since they’re kids). However, this brings me to the first lacking point.

(-) Combat -> The combat feels janky. I feel like I’m really fucked up in combat situations if I don’t upgrade my sword and dagger. Like I get it, Basim is not meant to be much of a fighter, but in the beginning parts (or… even the middle parts of the game, let’s be real), I feel like combat is HELL. I forgot the Youtuber who said it, but he said something along the lines of “I’m an assassin, I want to feel like an assassin and want to feel like a badass and can take down many enemies with ease.” And that actually rings true with me. When I’m in combat and countless soldiers are fighting or following me (and I don’t have the smoke bomb with the forgetting effect), I’m most certainly FUCKED. 

(+) The fighting style is cool though, it's stylish and the finishing moves are sick af. It could deffo use some work. 

(-+) Parkour/Movements - It’s alright. It’s most certainly better than the previous RPG trilogy, but it’s definitely not Unity or Syndicate. Sometimes Basim can do something that I didn’t want and I’ve lost count on how many times I got caught and died just from a mis-movement. I literally don’t understand why they don’t use the Unity parkours and combat styles. Unity’s parkour is smooth, swift, and stylish. It feels GOOD. 

(+) Stealing - I’m a loot goblin in games, and believe me, I think I’ve spent like hours just stealing from the entire population of Baghdad that by the end of the game I’m probably richer than the Taxmaster and the whole entire Abbasid Caliphate. It’s fun, it’s easy, but it can sometimes be hard enough to miss. I just hope there’s more variety/difficulty in the stealings in different places – Like maybe in the Round City the diamond thingy is much smaller, or in like for stealing merchants (who has particular fashion/silhouette or have wallets/pouches with different colors) can be harder to steal from but have more rewards and money. 

(-+) Map - OKAY. I love the fact that Mirage has a significantly smaller map than that of Odyssey and Valhalla. It’s focused and it’s much more centered. HOWEVER. For a game this caliber, and with this good of a graphic? It’s much too small and it’s too divided between two parts. Hear me out – The graphics are really cool, but I feel like the map is too divided between – either a densely populated city, or just barren lands of desert. I think the map could be much much bigger with much more collectibles and much more variety in the terrains. Like, for example in Black Flag (The S tier game. Argue with a wall), there’re more than one major city, while in Mirage the map is so very centered (Yes I get it it’s the Round City), but I’d love it if there’s another major city that we can travel to, like Damascus, for instace. + I love the Tales of Baghdad. MORE TALES OF BAGHDAD PLEASE. 

STORY - nOW THIS… I never liked the stories post - Origins and here's why : 

(-) LET 👏 THE ACTORS 👏 DO 👏 MOTION 👏 CAPTURE 👏 - My biggest complaint for the RPG game styles is always about the facial and motion animation. The cutscenes feel DEAD. The eyes are DEAD. I almost can't feel anything. Ubi is rich af, why not use facial capturing? AC3 was the first AC game to use motion capture, and holy shit… it's one of my fave games. Yes. All games, not only AC series. The emotion in their faces, the gestures, the small glances, the little movements - they all decide every character's personality. The reason why I love every AC since AC3-ACOrigins is because the actors pour all their voices, faces, even body movements into the interactions between characters, because they make the stories feel alive. Let the actors be actors. I can rant more but this is already a long post so I'll stop. MOTION 👏 CAPTURE 👏.

(+) I love Basim's origin story. Dude's a 17 year old street thief who got a bit over his head and ended up becoming a fugitive because he killed the fucking caliph himself. That was crazy HAHAHAH anyway even though I think the beginning felt a bit rushed I love it. I just wish they could milk it more.

(+) I love the side characters! Especially Ali (I think he's hot 👉👈 and he's the absolute freedom fighter). Anyway, even though they don’t really do much, they all feel alive and do lots of things (except Roshan prolly HAHAHAH but there's a reason I guess)

(+) Roshan. Mentor and reminds me of Al-Mualim. I particularly love the fact that after all that wise words throughout the game, she literally threatened Basim if he actually went to the underground temple. And when she showed up covered in blood??? And THE TWIST AT THE END??? "Roshan bint La-Ahad". SHE'S ALTAIR'S ANCESTOR. THAT FUCKING SHOCKED ME YOOOO. She's just amazing. 

(-) Pacing - I feel like this is because they’re speeding things up (which is a good thing), the pacing is pretty standard in the beginning, but the ending is a bit too high of a rollercoaster mount. The ending went from 0-100 real quick. I feel like we need a more of a climbing storyline. This is why I kind of don’t agree with the ‘centering’ storyline instead of a linear story. Centering styles of story has no climb in the intensity, and because of that we can’t feel the character developments because he’s supposed to stay the same even though we’ve killed like 3 bosses already. And then when all the underlings are dead, finally the boss racks up Basim’s curiosity super duper high that it becomes too sudden.

(-) Weak Villains - The villains since Origins are always hidden and unknown, unlike the previous games where the Templars are literally KNOWN by the people. I want more villains like Haytham tbh, where he literally doesn’t care about the precusor sites and only wants stability in his reign as a Grandmaster. Or if the villains do care about the Pieces of Eden or have a prior interest of the First Civ, at least let them have an actual personality and character, let them be a menace and a threat since the beginning of the game instead of being the NPC’s we kill to finish the game. Let them challenge our beliefs as an Assassin/Hidden Ones. Let the villains actually have an impact to the main storyline. Imagine in the end Basim and Qabiha really went to the underground temple together, and got confronted by Roshan. That’s where the conflict in Basim climaxed! Imagine the emotion! The drama~! 

(+) How the stories interlinked with Valhalla. Basim is a sage, and host of Loki who sought revenge to Odin (who wronged him). So I don't think Basim nor Loki are evil per se. They're just gray. Now the stories aren't just about Templars vs Assassin, it's more focused towards the First Civilization. It's a bit hard to keep up but it's nothing a bit of reading/looking up some lore videos wouldn't solve.

MISC

We need more outfits! The outfits are far too few for us to choose from! 

Wonderful and mystifying music. Nuff said. Brendan Angelides and Layth Sidiq nailed it. One Republic and Mishaal Tamer’s “Mirage” in on repeat on my Spotify right now.

I love gear chests hunting and all the collectibles. I just wish the map is bigger and there’re more collectibles T_T I’M A LOOT GOBLIN OKAY.

I learn history of Baghdad LFG. I play largely for the stories and not the gameplays, so if there’s a codex entry or any new historical sites I always read it. Learning history doesn’t hurt! 

How I can really relate to the real world. I live in Indonesia where 90% of the people is Muslim (I’m a Christian), so when I here familiar words like Alhamdullilah, Assalam’ualaikum and Wa’alaikumsalam, or see the people praying, the Adzan sounds throughout the city, the people praying towards the Ka’bah, it kinda feels like home! Just hope that they add more funny shit to it though, like “Yaallah Basim! Istighfar!” Or “WALLAHI.” Or more Arabic sayings so we can immerse more to the world.

MAKE BASIM DO THE 5 PRAYERS (maybe when we pass time or after a big mission we come back to him finishing a prayer).

FINAL VERDICT - 7.8/10 -> It’s a focused game, and it really did come back to some of the original elements of AC before the RPG trilogy. It’s not too long and casuals can play it without feeling like we have to grind like Odyssey or Valhalla. Deffo would recommend playing it!

Once again, BRING BACK MOTION CAPTURE ‼️‼️‼️🗣️🗣️

If you did play it gimme some thoughts in the comments! Thank you for reading! (⁠人⁠*⁠´⁠∀⁠｀⁠)⁠｡⁠*ﾟ⁠+

[nekasu]

Nekasu's Christmas Humble Bundle Giveaway!

I have Humble Bundle's subscription service, and it often results in games I don't really want to play. I have a lot saved up, so if any games interest you, leave a reply with which games you want. There's no explicit limit, but please only list a game if you want to actually play it. I'll decide the winners randomly within a week to give people a chance to join. They're all free, so don't think you have to give me money for them! The only caveat is that you be willing to give me your Steam ID so I can give out the games. Oh, and preference will be given to mutuals.

The games:

December

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk

Old World

Atlas Fallen: Reign of Sand

Crime Boss: Rockay City

The Invincible

Moonstone Island

Inkulinati

Venba

Monster Prom 3: Monster Roadtrip

November

Warhammer 40k Darktide

Persona 4 Golden

Lamplighters League

Cassette Beats

The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales

Karmazoo

Hexarchy

Garden Life

October

Remnant

Persona 5 Strikers

Jusant

Dome Keeper

Jack Move

Station to Station

Remnant Records

McPixel 3

September

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy

Stranded: Alien Dawn

Coral Island

Spongebob Squarepants: The Cosmic Shake

Lost Eidolons

Astrea: Six-Sided Oracles

Infraspace

You Suck at Parking - Complete Edition

August

Sifu

High on Life

Gotham Knights

Blacktail

Astral Ascent

Diluvian Ultra

Universe for Sale

This Means Warp

July

A Plague Tale: Requiem

Ghostrunner 2

Starship Troopers: Terran Command

Sticky Business

Zoeti

Figment 2: Creed Valley

Heretic's Fork

Hyperviolent

June

Knights of Honor II: Sovereign

Lego 2K Drive Awesome Edition

Warhammer 40k: Battlesector

Miasma Chronicles

Stray Gods

A Guidebook of Babel

Empyrion - Galactic Survival

May

Yakuza: Like a Dragon

Steelrising

Hi-Fi Rush

Loddlenaut

King of the Castle

Bravery and Greed

Amanda the Adventurer

Mediterranea Inferno

April

Victoria 3

The Callisto Protocol

Humankind Definitive Edition

Fashion Police Squad

Terraformers

Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga

Coromon

The Excavation of Hob's Barrow

March

Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin

Nioh 2 - The Complete Edition

Saints Row

Citizen Sleeper

Black Skylands

Soulstice

Afterimage

Destroyer: The U-Boat Hunter

February

Life is Strange: True Colors

Scorn

Destroy All Humans 2! Reprobed

Beacon Pines

There is No Light: Enhancecd Edition

Children of Silentown

Oaken

Snowtopia: Ski Resort Builder

January

Marvel's Midnight Suns

Two Point Campus

Aragami 2

Otxo

Roguebook

The Red Lantern

Hell Pie

Twin Mirror

[lokischocolatefountain]

Unveiled || Chapter 1

Fandom: The Mandalorian

Pairing: Din Djarin x Reader

Rating: PG 13 for violence. Subsequent chapters’ ratings may vary

Word count: 1.7k words

Summary: Saving a life was noble. You didn’t expect applause or praise for it. But kriff it would be nice if you weren’t treated as the scum of the Earth for it.

A/N: Gonna make this the SADvent calendar instead of the advent calendar. At this point, I have to admit that I won’t be posting everyday. But I’ll still post when I can. When I have internet and am able. Lot of shit happened. My friend and I got fucked over in three different cities in a very short period of time. We were humiliated in Venice, robbed by an intentionally dysfunctional system in Riyadh, and almost sexually exploited in New Delhi. It’s a round the globe horror story. But some good things happened too- we made friends through our shared trauma and I got to meet my internet friend I’ve been moots with for a loooong time. So in true fanfic writer fashion, here’s a fic I’ve been writing posted during some of the most difficult days of my life

“Go!”

He screamed loud enough to break through the sounds of the intensifying battle. You ignored his heart-wrenching screams and dragged him with all your strength, your own weapon slung over your shoulder and reachable should you need it to defend the wounded Mandalorian. You were a warrior, trained through years of life or death battles. It was why you were sent to the Mandalorian covert on Navarro to train with them. But this was an impossible one. Even for you. Even for the man you were dragging past enemy combatants using your own body as a shield.

You settled him against the walls of the cave you’d dragged him into. You reached into your armor and retrieved the bacta patches you had with you. You took a look at the patches and then at the large gash on his neck that went up who knew how far. The hope you had for saving his life dwindled. But you couldn’t give up. The motto of your teachers back home rang loud and clear in your head.

No soldiers left behind. No life collateral.

“Not s-safe. Not safe you— Listen to me,” he choked out as you leaned in close and inspected his wound.

“Shut up, Din! Shut the fuck up!” You spat as you retrieved more medical supplies from your pouch. You’d done this many times in training. You could do this. You could fucking do this!

“My helmet…” he whimpered too soft to be audible if you weren’t so close to him.

“It’ll be okay, Din. I got you,” you reassured as your brain finally comprehended the exact risk he was in and you knew what you had to do.

“This is gonna hurt at first, alright?” You warned more than asked as you inserted the needle. It was the last thing you did before he lost consciousness in your arms. The last thing you did before making the big mistake that would change the course of both your lives.

———

“Din.”

He looked up at you from his bed, resting after a long session in the bacta tank. You imagined him underneath the helmet, the only face you knew in the covert other than that of the children who were yet to take the creed. His features came to memory, bloodied and bruised and at the edge of life itself. His strong nose, his messy black hair and blood. So much fucking blood. That he was alive at all was a miracle.

“Din?” You called again when he did not respond.

“Why are you here?” He asked, his voice stoic, emotionless as it came through his helmet. It was how it always was. Something about wearing a helmet filtered out part of the humanity of voices. But there was something about the way he spoke this time that was chilling to you.

“I…I just wanted to see if you’re doing well.”

He snorted, turning away from you as though your mere presence disgusted him. Rage boiled through your veins as pain shot up through your legs as a reminder of the blow you’d taken in the process of saving his fucking life.

“You know what? Fuck you, Din. I know you’re hurt and shit, but you have no right to speak to me like that.”

“Get out. Right now. I don’t want to see your face ever again.”

You flinched at the way he spoke. The coldness of his voice and the words themself. You turned away from him and walked out of his room, bearing the pain in your leg as you trodded on to your own room. You didn’t expect him to thank you. No, that was not why you saved his life at the risk of ending your own. But you didn’t expect him to behave so appallingly either. You raked through your addled mind for clues on what you could possibly have done to deserve this. Did you say something before the battle? No, it couldn’t be. You’d exchanged few words before battle and he was…nice. As amiable as could be for a man who spoke in grunts and sighs more than he did words.

You crashed on your own bed, whimpering when the act shot another piercing sensation throughout your body. It did nothing to alleviate your anger for Din, reminding you of what you’d done to yourself for him. For someone you thought a friend until now.

On a strange planet, fighting for space and acceptance, Din was one of the first people to be amicable to you. Well, you took his grunts and sighs as a sign of friendliness. For all his stoicism and his beskar like facade, he never did snap or show signs that he wanted you to fuck right off. So you stuck by. Stuck by when training, when you ate your meals and he sat by listening to your idle chatter. Stuck by when he took a hit and needed saving.

Perhaps he had a concussion.

That should be it. For a man clad fully in beskar, he had a soft heart. Never did he speak to you or anyone else in the harsh manner he just spoke to you. You shivered as images of his dark messy hair and blood so dark it matched returned to your mind. His closed eyes and his limp body collapsing on you as you attempted to remove the shrapnel that has somehow gotten underneath his helmet to his skull. A sharp pain shot through your leg again and you let out a cry. It was a mess pop emotions. You were happy it did not hurt as much as it did on the battlefield yet annoyed that your body was outside your control.

You jumped, both from the pain and from the opening of the door. You looked up, hoping to find the nurse droid that visited you every now and then to check your vitals. The gleaming gold helmet on a tall, strong stature told you that this was no small visitor. Despite all the beskar and the strong shoulders that carried an entire covert, she was very human.

She said you name, in a way that was gentle, calming, yet told you that she could be relied on.

“Did we win?” You managed to ask through the spasms of pain.

“We did,” she said, stopping in front of you. “You did well, warrior.”

You snorted. “I succumbed within minutes of the battle.”

“You did. So did a few others. That does not make you any less of a warrior. You were valiant.”

Despite disagreeing, you nodded. You were in no mood to start an argument with the leader of the community that was housing, feeding, teaching, and caring for you. No matter how much you disagreed with their way of life.

“So, do you visit everyone who got a little scratch of their leg?”

“I do, yes. But my visit is not just to check on your wellness.”

“Oh?”

“You saved one of ours. Din Djarin.”

You said nothing, feeling too embarrassed to acknowledge it even though it was true. It would sound too much like boasting if you accepted. In poor taste in your dismissed it. It was best to take a sip out of the mandalorian pog soup and remain silent.

“Do you know what this means for his future?”

You tilted your head as you considered her words. What the kriff was she expected to say to that? What if it was a rhetorical question and you’d just acted like a womp rat in the snow about it?

“You removed his helmet, soldier.”

“To tend to his wound,” you quickly interrupted. “You— you didn’t see what— you weren’t there! He would’ve died if I hadn’t done that,” you sputtered, shaking your head in disbelief of the implication in her words. The Mandalorian were quite strict about wearing their helmets. Once a child took the creed and wore their helmet, they would never take it off again. But there were exceptions. Right? There had to be. Receiving emergency medical help had to be one of them.

“I know.”

You waited, not for long, for her to proceed. For her to reassure you that it did not count because you had no other choice but to remove his helmet to save his life. With no words coming from her, you shot up from the bed, pain be damned and dragged yourself to where she stood.

“He would have died!”

“I know,” she said, more sternly this time.

“Go on then, tell me how you are going to punish him for the audacity to be alive.”

“He became an apostate the moment his face was seen by a living thing.”

“An apostate?”

“He has strayed from the way and will be cast out from the covert. He is Mandalorian no more.”

You shook your head frantically. That was some bantha shit! “No. No, no, no. No,” you sputtered. “That is not fair. Look, it’s not his fault. He was unconscious when it happened— when I did it,” you said, thumping your chest. “He didn’t do anything wrong. He told me to go away. He was ready to die. Kriff— you can’t— This is not fair,” you screamed, your voice breaking at the cruelty of it all.

“This is the way,” she said in a manner that was too cold for you to consider calm.

“Oh, for void’s sake, spare me the kriff about the way. What kind of way of life is it to cast someone out for being alive?” You spat, all your reservations about rudeness and your sense of cultural relativism flying off into a blackhole.

“There is only one way for him to remain in the covert and he rejected the proposal. Said he could not possibly do that to you.”

“What is it? Does the way ask for a human sacrifice? Is that what it will take to keep him from being excommunicated from everyone he knows and loves?”

“I understand you think us barbarians, soldier. I will discount it on account of your efforts to save one of our own. And for how you have protected us. There need be no blood. Only the establishment of a riduurok so that he will have been seen by the only being he is permitted to show himself to.”

“What is a riduurok?” You asked, even though you had a sinking feeling about it.

“Marriage.”

.

.

.

Masterlist

[auroramoon-draws16]

Listen, buddy, it’s my post, I’ll say what I want.

Ahem.

So my next crossover idea includes Spider-Mans and Desmond Miles.

Assassin’s Creed x Spider-Verse

So you know how we love throwing Desmond, a man we barely spend enough time with in the games, only for him to be zapped into the past tense and sliced into little murder meat appetizers?

Well in true Desmond Miles fan fashion, we throw him not only into one universe, but a whole ass multiverse.

Is he a spider person? Hell no, my guy is an Assassin with morales and sick bartending skills.

Why is he here? The webs of the multiverse are a little too literal and he is very much wrapped up into it.

This whole thing is fucked up, but by whatever fucked up spider gods that allowed this to happen, he’s gonna be totally chill while internally freaking the fuck out.

Per the Desmond Miles experience™️

Oh, and to help actual children who need help, time to be the father he never got or got to be.

Funny how the Eagle adopts the Spiders

[burnwater13]

Din Djarin speaking with Bo-Katan Kryze, Koska Reeves, and Axe Woves (out of frame) on the fishing vessel on Trask. Image from The Mandalorian, Season 2, Episode 3, The Heiress. Calendar by DateWorks.

Grogu had listened to his dad and Bo-Katan and the other Mandalorians argue about The Way and The Creed and all the other stuff about being a Mandalorian for longer than he liked. He didn’t understand why they even had more than one Way. That seemed wasteful and kind of pointless. As far as he could tell the major differences boiled down to wearing or not wearing your helmet all the time and if you believed possessing the Darksaber automatically made you Mand’alor. 

Grogu would have happily settled the argument. No to wearing helmets all the time. Yes to becoming Mand’alor because you had the Darksaber. Then Din Djarin would be Mand’alor and he could stop the constant helmet wearing by simply saying ‘Make it so’. They would all have to follow him or try to pry the Darksaber from his hands and Grogu was not about to let that happen. 

It’s not that he really wanted his Mandalorian to be the Mand’alor. He didn’t. Grogu knew it was a thankless job the moment he realized that the Mand’alor could make decisions like that. Since when did any Mandalorian want to take orders from another Mandalorian? Grogu was pretty sure that Din Djarin only took orders from the Armorer because, well, she was the Armorer. 

If you don’t listen to her you don’t get new armor, repairs to existing armor, replacement pieces for existing armor, or adjustments to existing or new armor. She really had complete control over the whole armor thing. And strangely enough, Grogu had never heard any other Mandalorian argue with her over The Way or The Creed. Mandalorians were more dedicated to their armorer than to their armor, which was both strange and true.

Grogu supposed that made him a Mandalorian already. She had made him a piece of armor. A nice little shirt made from beskar rings. He liked it. It was comfortable. It was lightweight. It was stylish. Or at least more stylish than his well worn Jedi coverall. He supposed if he managed to get a hold of the Darksaber, he could declare himself Mand’alor and settle these arguments. After all, if the Armorer hadn’t been prepared for such an event, she never would have made him the armor to begin with, right?

It also followed that if she thought he would just be the sort of Mand’alor to settle the differences between the various Mandalorian factions in a way she found unacceptable, well, she would not have made him any armor. Try keeping a good grip on the Darksaber under those conditions. Even as a trained Jedi, Grogu didn’t think it would be that easy. 

He didn’t even have a regular lightsaber to use to defend himself.  And by regular, he meant one that was sized for him. The Darksaber’s handle was practically as long as he was tall. If he activated the thing it would have been much worse than that beskar spear his dad had acquired from Ahsoka Tano. The beskar spear was only a little bit taller than his dad. But the Darksaber was almost three times Grogu’s height. That was a huge difference. He’d actually have to use both hands to wield it! 

And even at that, it wouldn’t be easy. He’d have to hop, skip, and jump all over the place to parry a blow or deflect a blaster bolt or even have people do something other than laugh when he was waving it around. He supposed he could ask the Armorer to fashion a body harness he could use to help him with it, but then she’d have to be pretty happy with him having the thing and he really didn’t think she would be happy about it. 

She hadn’t made mention of it as far as Grogu knew, but if you couldn’t have a beskar spear, because no weapon should be made from beskar, then it seemed logical that you couldn’t have a beskar lightsaber. After all, the handle was beskar and it was a weapon. Even if it was more noble, according to the Armorer’s rules, it shouldn’t exist. He wondered why she didn’t just melt it down like that beskar spear.

But then she didn’t melt down their armor either. It was exempt from the weapon rule, which Grogu considered pretty odd. If you had vambraces with flame throwers and dart guns and the like, your armor was technically a kind of weapon. What kind of Creed covered those types of exceptions? And if it could cover that sort of nuance, then certainly it could deal with sometimes taking your helmet off and not always naming the person with the Darksaber Mand’alor. 

On the other hand, if it was that flexible, it could probably keep a certain Jedi from being Mandalorian too… Uff! But then, who ever was Mand’alor, how ever they became Mand’alor, could fix all that, right? Which probably meant that the Armorer was really the Mand’alor and always had been. Instead of having to deal with these picky little things day in and day out, she had given herself the perfect cover and a job that ensured that all Mandalorians would listen to her no matter where or how they were raised. 

Grogu wished he’d thought of doing that, but he was probably a little short to be an armorer.

[beeboos-creativecorner]

Visionaries - an Assassin's Creed: Mirage found family fanfic

Final day, baby !! This was the beginning to a wholesome, found family story, heavily inspired by a post my bud made about one of her dreams early this year. I was hooked on the concept, it got out of hand, but the story itself didn't carry through to its glorious end </3 One day I hope to return to this fic (if I find inspo or play Mirage again), it was about to get quite deep into spiritual concepts that really hit home for me, while also expanding more on Eagle Vision lore (because I never see anyone talk about it in depth ??). For now, I'm perfectly happy with sharing what's already here - just because it's unfinished, doesn't mean it's not worth something Be warned : side mission where Basim has a massive attitude hehe

Fic under the cut x

“There are no explanations for how or why these mysteries affect our lives. But they’re like imprints, innate, woven into the fabric of our souls so when we walk this earth, we experience the world in its true light. You see things differently, do you not? You need not say so. You read differently, that’s all. You may not know it, but you cast a weary gaze upon the earth. I do not find the same qualities among many of our brothers, meaning our creed, our ideals are taught and applied to the world but not fully understood. It takes a talent many humans have not mastered. Not all can see through the veil that is the physical — the abstract. When we gaze upon a tree, we see its roots. I do, I’ve seen you have, and Sahar will see more of it too as the time passes. I sense the same sensitivity in her. There is no value for the sense we have been given and oftentimes it may feel like a curse to be free of ignorance and exposed to the harsh light of the world and its people. Although we are few, be reassured that your experiences are not misunderstood and are shared by a select few scattered throughout this life.” — Hamid, unused excerpt

'Hasty' and 'with an agenda' were the last descriptors Basim would use to pin to his personality, but coming from the lips of his mentor, almost anything rang true. He may have pushed his limit in arguing his point, true, and as futile as it was, it was worth every word to try — he was right, he'd take that to his grave. It earned him a following jab at his apparent 'growing ambition' and 'if he cannot execute a basic task, he has no place in executing the morally corrupt'.

Within his very essence, Basim knew this was to spite him for his cheeky defiance and even so, he had worn a smile to dress the wound of being outwitted. He'd wrestled with his features to achieve such a slight feat; his face betrayed him even at the best of times, but he denied giving her the satisfaction of any visible sign of defeat.

Incisions aside, he believed Roshan to be above petty, childish constructs like dealing punishments. Today he was proven wrong. Some days she had shorter patience for him than others — that was a topic he never had the courage to broach — and despite being a full-fledged member of the Hidden Ones, his autonomy was lower than he'd hoped for. He wasn’t an initiate anymore, so where was his wiggle room? He could follow a set of directions and traditions just fine, so long as they were reasonable. What he was being subjected to, was not.

Basim wasn't impatient per se, but he found sensibility in efficiency. Anything that wasn't consuming his time in a week-long, leisurely fashion suited him. This newest task, however, was of the painstakingly slow kind.

Holding petty grudges was not worth Basim's time but neither was this supposed 'mission', so he allowed himself to be at least a little resentful towards Roshan. He didn't do mindless things, he hated mindless things. If he wasn't learning, progressing or excelling, what was the point?

If he had no respect, he'd accuse his mentors of being lazy. He didn't see anyone else claim contracts off the board, he didn't see anybody else offer to help out allies in need. The first and final verdict was: "Basim can do this." They were right. Basim can do this. Something sparked up in him, a spur of cleverness and optimism. He wanted them to validate what he already knew and he aimed to win that battle. He planned on doing this errand and doing it so well that his betters would simply have to admit: "Basim is above menial chores" and tell him he can be on his way. Then the invisible rope that tethers him to Roshan would loosen. Wiggle room. Deserved space. So his step lightened as he followed the path he was instructed to take. He'd do it and make light work of it. Although a little begrudgingly.

—

He waited outside the walls of Baghdad, leaning against the post of some merchant's stall, fading in and out of a doze. A sensible rendezvous point, excluding getting over the wall, which happened to be half the mission. It was a necessary precaution. Apparently the guards did not favour someone who looked just as suspicious as the next person that walked past. Getting past the gate was the easy part, slipping past the guards' line of sight was another. It was a post dependent attribute; those posted at gates had a heightened sense of paranoia. There was always something tense about the atmosphere when walking into a guarded gate. He knew not why. His muscles clung to the ghost of a memory of that provocative experience and that was sufficient information to remind him not to repeat that mistake of waltzing in where he supposedly didn't belong.

He wondered how he'd get back in, now that his foggy mind was drifting in that direction. If it was him alone, he'd routinely backtrack and go back the way he came. His dismay was in knowing he would struggle to do so with others accompanying him. Again, proving he wasn't the man for such a mission. One or two allies wasn't a problem, solo tasks were preferable, though. The nature of this mission, however, entailed allies of lesser physical aptitude than he, so he was told. That side note subtly nagged at him. He found himself beginning to reroute in his head to vacate for the newcomers. What a headache. He wished he'd succumbed to sleep instead, a nap would've been more beneficial for the moment. No matter how dwindling his rest was, his thoughts continued to tick, preventing him from absconding reality and forcing him to focus on identifying his new brothers.

Picking them from the crowd wasn't an excruciating challenge whatsoever. He gave them credit if they were feigning incompetence to make an innocent first impression to the public. Basim watched them for a minute, stumbling, struggling to carry items, settling the crates down in a spot that looked 'good enough' when it very obviously was inconveniently in the middle of the road — clever. Almost believable. It wasn’t quite 'hiding in plain sight', but one could never be too careful as a Hidden One. Perhaps remaining hidden sometimes meant to call yourself to attention. Oddly counterintuitive, yet effective nonetheless.

Feeling a little guilty he hung back for so long, he approached the pair. He plastered on a smile like he was reuniting with family and not like he was wishing to be curled up, snoozing in the shaded patch he was previously sheltered by.

"Allow me," he offered kindly, taking a box out of the hands of the smaller of the two, lightening the load. His eyes snapped to the corners, searching for the small imperfection that would confirm these were indeed his allies. A little triangular carving, resembling the symbol of the Hidden Ones. He got the right people. The boost of dopamine didn't last long when he honed in on the exact situation he was placed in, regarding present company.

His 'allies' were a man and his young daughter. It all clicked into place. Every letter of the mission briefing was true and didn't hint at any grander, more exciting scheme, despite being so vague. Bothersome and disappointing. The girl — who may have been no more than twelve — shyly thanked him for the assistance but her voice faded into the background of his own internal one. He began to conspire what he'd do when he broke from the bounds of this living purgatory. Deep, undisturbed sleep. If he was lucky.

Poor hospitality, Basim. Ripping himself from his daydream, he turned to the girl's father to introduce himself. The polite thing to do.

"Basim."

"Hamid." His eyes creased with lines of kindness as he smiled. "Sahar." He gestured to his daughter, who perked up but retreated into her father's shadow. He sensed her discomfort and sent the girl a nod of solidarity. She didn't warm to the telepathic message and he understood well enough. He adjusted the crate in his arms and hugged it to his chest to prepare him for the path ahead.

Unnecessary words were not spent and hence introducing themselves, nothing else was discussed. Prearranged missions had a tendency to be smooth sailing if well-thought-out. This one was no exception, considering its low risk of running into danger. Save from the looming gate in front of them. Both dangerous and not thought about at all. No one was to blame for the gate problem, but the responsibility fell to Basim to deduce how to navigate said problem.

They neared the gate and Basim's own inner safety mechanism was already firing off warning shots. He kept himself cloaked between the man and his girl as they walked, appearing as if he was their servant carrying their luggage. Or he hoped that's how he was being perceived by the jittery guards at their designated stations.

"Just to be sure," he raised the question, inclined towards Hamid, in nothing more than a whisper to maintain the ruse he'd made on demand. "What are in these crates? If we are pulled up by the guards, I'd like to know what it is I'm carrying." Routine security checks were common but as long as Basim wasn't hauling a crate full of contraband or smuggling other living beings across the threshold, he wouldn't take issue with it. Surely not, especially with someone so young in his company. He couldn't imagine dragging a child into illegal activities. No child should be raised in an environment like that, he'd never been more adamant about anything.

Hamid flashed a surreptitious smirk and replied, "Secrets." Basim's expression hardened. Any more vague information could get them killed for sure, his gut told him so. He itched to pry the lid open and look inside this burden to reveal these apparent secrets. Were it not nailed shut and in his arms, his thief's fingers would make that happen.

"I must know." Basim grew desperate, his alerted senses picking up every potential threat in the near vicinity. They were within the gate's suffocating grasp and Basim need not even be told. His ribcage felt as if it were curling in on itself and his physical surroundings grew dense. "Some peace of mind," he clarified, wondering if his anxieties were creeping through. He noticed it was beginning to get harder to mask fear when fatigue runs the body and mind down.

"Nothing more than dusty, old books and crafting materials, my friend, you need not worry. We'll pass the guards with ease." Basim wished he felt reassured by those words. He did not in the slightest. "Keep close, Sahar," he instructed the girl and she obliged willingly. Out of apprehension of the new environment, Basim figured.

They all crammed uncomfortably together to indicate they were associated with one another. Hopefully not condensed enough to separate themselves from the normal passersby. They walked on through the crowd, almost making it through the gate entirely before they were singled out by a heavily armoured man seated at a desk. Horribly out of place in any other circumstance, but in the moment he was booming at them to come over, nothing felt contradictory about his cladding and his passion for logarithms.

Hamid advised Basim not to say a word and leave the talking to him and Basim would've loved to verbalise his agreement, if his throat hadn't sealed itself off. His breathing ran shallow and he had to redirect all his energy towards controlling the onset of panic.

They knew his face. He knew they knew his face. Or his robes at the very least. Posters depicting his visage were all over Baghdad. Shoddy depictions at that, but sometimes that was enough for the brain to use as an identifier. His head drooped, staring at the box he held, passing his fear for submission or shame. This is the last time he ever played movers or servants, he swore to himself that. He didn't particularly mind it, but it was always the situation in which he had to do so was what bothered him most. Always a close shave from being sprung. Being that close to death left him in no control, like dangling above molten lava tied to nothing but twine. To say the least, he did not favour it.

It was a falsely polite, drab exchange of 'where are you headed?' Abbasiyah. 'What are you transporting today?' Writing materials, tools, homeware. 'What brings you to Baghdad?' The awaiting world of learning. 'Oh, Abbasiyah is wonderful for that' and 'is that your daughter? That's lovely. There's much to see, young one,' and a threatening, 'I don't want to see her out unescorted; supervise that one.' Amidst it all, not a single eye batted at Basim The Servant and he'd never been so grateful for a small stroke of luck. Hamid offloaded a pouch of coin and they passed through into the light again, into Baghdad.

"How did you do that?" Basim queried, once he'd regained the ability to breathe steadily.

"Do what?" Hamid's tongue phrased it just right to make Basim sound like the fool, although his answer was another question. "Bypass the guards? Simple. Don't act as if you've something to hide." Basim pursed his lips. This new ally had an attitude. "A little honey makes even dirt taste sweet." An odd answer, if not cryptic.

"Bribery?" A guess to decipher the riddle. That pouch of coin...

"Not at all. I paid my fee. It's all in the understanding, my friend. A bit of sympathy for the guards, uh? They get bored and tense, working tirelessly. Give them some small talk, some kindness, make their job easier for a minute and be on your way. It's not only you on edge. To change the energy received, you must change the energy being emitted." Basim almost stopped dead in the way of an oncoming camel. He'd completely froze in puzzlement. Was he a window? Was it so obvious that he was sweating through his robes? Perhaps he was a terrible actor.

"I see," he said, letting the scepticism tint his words. "Unfortunately, some of us do not have the luxury of conversation. Forgive me if I'm wary of being attacked." That, in fact, was a confession. One he didn't want slipping from his mouth.

"Ah. Not a friend of the Caliph?" A joke? "I hope this won't become a problem." The inflection indicated it was more cautious question than statement. Basim followed his eyes to Sahar, who was tailing her father, invisible in the shade of the shadow he cast. Therein lay the worry.

"Nor do I. I will do my best to keep you both safe. You have my word."

"To the letter," he affirmed, nodding a split second before a bag tumbled off the stack of precariously balanced luggage Hamid was hauling. He uttered an obscenity under his breath. "Sorry." Basim wasn't certain on who he was apologising to, so he kept quiet. "Did not think transport through. We'll have to carry everything the rest of the way there, if it doesn't trouble you."

Oh, it did. It did a lot. "Not at all." Lying through his teeth. Basim wasn't one to do such things. Not normally. Being crabby over this mission since the briefing had a domino effect and he'd rather be feigning kindness than maiming with honesty. He'd get over it. Whenever he forgot that it was all Roshan's fault for assigning him this colossal time waster.

From the shade, Sahar peeked out to claim the bag, as her arms were void of baggage, then slinked back to her hiding place. Hamid appreciated his daughter's help and did so verbally, whilst scanning the area for his bearings. His thorough search soon morphed into uncertainty.

Basim was tired of this. He was before, now it was painful. Any more incompetence and he'd lose his mind. For someone who spoke so eloquently, he had no idea how Hamid couldn't discern his north-east from his south-west. Wanting to move this process along, Basim suggested,

"Do you have a map?" He tried not to sound like he had better things he could be doing. Albeit true, anything to minimise lingering out on the streets would be beneficial for everyone, not just him. Hamid peered past the countless boxes and bags to his belt, where many pouches were attached.

"Uh, I don't suppose you could look?" Basim repressed a sigh.

"Of course." Of course you would, he wanted to say, but he knew better. Growing up a pickpocket didn't make him exempt from showing courtesy. He was doing his best to give his new brothers (burdens) a warm welcome, no matter how unhappy he was with the task at hand.

He put the singular crate down at his feet and sifted through the pockets for a map that might pinpoint the location of wherever they were meant to be headed. As he fixed his mitts on a square of paper that could have possibly been a map, a shriek tore through the peaceful bustle of Baghdad.

"Thief, thief! Guards! That man is stealing from his purse!"

"No, no, no. Not now." Retracting his hand in a flash, out of impulse, he scooped up the crate again. Hamid spoke a thousand words with one look, but the baseline was: 'what in the world is going on?' "We should get going," he instructed with urgency, ushering them away as quickly as he could manage with his hands full. So much for ensuring their safety.

Swords drawn, a pair of soldiers spliced through the crowd to pursue Basim and his newfound kin. He placed himself tail-end in defence, hurrying Hamid and Sahar forward with his quickened step. A struggle, factoring in the weight they bore in their arms. Basim hadn't given a second thought as to where they were going, it just had to be a lengthy distance between him and any armed forces. Not the warmest of receptions, but he'd had colder — Roshan earlier that morning, for example. Not that he had the second to spare to ruminate on that instance. Food for thought he had no time to digest.

—

They lost their pursuers eventually. Veering down countless trails and disappearing on something so simple as a bench did the trick. An old trick, yet effective to no fault. Prior to that debacle — the other part of Basim's brain not kicking up adrenaline and spurring him to run, counted at least twenty apologies to the public, all served by Hamid as they pushed past with impudence. He'd changed his tune, resting his forehead against the tower of boxes he had in front of him, speechless and more or less breathless. Basim concurred, his heaving created an offbeat overlay, loud in his ears.

Next to her father, Sahar clutched her one bag like it was precious, making almost no noise as she caught her breath. At intervals, she'd cast her gaze to Basim, full of spite that he'd broken his vow moments after pledging it. Her displeasure with him was fair, Basim accepted that. But the scrutiny of a little girl was unsettling, especially feeling it impact his perception. If he'd disappointed a kid, surely he was inadequate for this kind of job. He didn't even take a glance at her — couldn't bear to. Though his eyes were elsewhere, he could feel her emotion beginning to hang about him like a shadow, reflective of the few moments he spent in her company.

His mind spiralled, remembering friends he'd let down before. How many kids' lives he cut short from his recklessness. He didn't mean to. Just like he didn't mean to this time. Oh no. Guilt. Too deep now. The darkness was familiar, an old friend returning to visit. A resented old friend. Familiar though, and strangely reaffirming. A nightmare was his waking hours. His resting ones too (if he could call it resting these days).

That's it. The jinni. That's what it reminded him of. Sahar's glaring mirrored that of his personal demon and that was a terrorising sensation he thought no person could replicate. His chest was tightening a few notches again, squeezing his lungs, twinging a few heartstrings. His bottom lip jutted out. Perhaps it wasn't just Roshan who was overly sensitive today.

Having had enough of the restrictions, Basim stood up abruptly, without the crate he was responsible for lifting and began a pace in a seemingly random direction. Inner turmoil was no easy conquest. External ones, however, he could deal to and that was a better place to start.

Those posters with his features scrawled on them posed a problem for any future moves he or his companions wanted to make. First thing to tackle: getting rid of those. From there, he hoped, their journey would be less a superfluous plight and more a meaningless meander.

"Where are you going?" Hamid's voice strained with worry. When Basim's reply was dead air, he called out, "Basim?" Suppose his vigour returned.

"Posters. I have to get rid of them," he stated. He didn't mean to sound short and snappy but his patience was wearing thin. His faux perky disposition was corroding.

"Oh, a known face, are you?" His jokes grated on Basim. He wasn't certain if it was the condescending undertones or the fact that it was something he would've said on the other end of the stick. "If you don't mind my curiosity, I'd like to see one. Local art sparks my interest, even if it is so small as a wanted poster." Basim gritted his teeth and prayed no other sign of frustration seeped through. Movers or tour guide, Basim did not sign up for this test of willpower.

"If you can call it art," he muttered. "All right. Keep in sight, I'll show you." Hamid sprung out of his seat with renewed energy. He entrusted the safety of their possessions to Sahar, who was told specifically to stay seated and keep watch until they got back. He felt her uncomfortable presence on him again the second he turned away, leading her father to wherever a poster may be. Being rude wasn't in Basim's nature, but in that beat, he was grateful to be parting ways with her temporarily. Maybe in that time she could fix her sulky demeanour.

—

Fascination was an odd thing, tailored to the individual through innumerable factors. For Basim it was classical literature and the wonders of the sky above. For Hamid... it was an unintelligible scribble based off who knows what. Some eyewitness who had a hard time remembering faces? Because he was sure he appeared nothing like that in his reflection. They said that was the door to narcissism. They may be correct in this case. Though who was he to complain? The less the image looked like him the better.

Basim scrunched his nose, staring at what Hamid could possibly be so enraptured by. There was a likelihood that there were just some things he'd never understand. For once, that notion didn't string him up. Instead, he gazed off into the blur, blank as ever, save from fatigue's dark circles.

"The line work is incredible, the use of colour is eye-catching — an interesting piece," he mused, then paused to lower his voice for only Basim's ears, "if not a little inaccurate." Basim idly nodded in reply, humming a tune between an agreeing 'yes, thank you,' and a sarcastic 'yes, thank you'. The sooner he could dispose of the target on his head, the sooner they'd all be safe to roam. Not that Hamid was too concerned with that at the minute.

Impatient and bored to no imagination, Basim took hold of the edge of the sheet of paper and yanked downwards, shredding the poster in one satisfying tear. On automatic, he balled it and shoved it in a pouch, out of sight, not bothering to look at how they failed to do him justice.

Hence would be the appropriate time to walk away. A hundred times over he'd have done so. Had Basim had the energy, this unimportant instant would have followed trend. Unaware to himself, his psyche sailed off to distant shores once more, starting a new life away from unreasonable mentors, silly missions, sleepless nights, odd companions and bounties on his head. That was a life worth living. He'd have played the scenario out too, were it not for an obnoxious cough that erupted from beside him.

Another civilian out to try their luck and challenge the limits of Basim's sanity. A stream of accusations flowed from their mouth, whirling around Basim but not threatening enough to strike an alerted response. He phased out of reality again with hooded eyes, unamused. Amusement must have been what this civilian was lacking, for creating all this fuss served no other purpose and drew no eyes their way. It was him on the poster, yes, but his refusal to entertain the drama outweighed his instinctual reflex to be honest.

To his relief, words that would have been wasted were preserved and better utilised by Hamid, whose bearing suddenly exuded a graceful, disarming authority.

[felixravinstills]

oooh ummmm. au where felix (somehow... i have no clue how) becomes president, where festus and artemisia are his first gentleman and lady.

ask game

5 facts about the au (for the uninformed, Artemisia is my oc)

this can be in the Si Deleamini, Deleamur universe. Marius decides to step down from the presidency after a couple years, and Felix takes over. (important reminder: the Games were abolished in that universe)

in true Felix fashion, his first order of business is legalizing polygamy.

In my worldbuilding, the Capitol has always been big on lineage, but with the legalization of polygamy and how that potentially affects inheritance actually heightens with (stipulations about blood heritage for inheritance for clearer lines of inheritance)

How Felix's administration treats the Districts largely depends on his advisors/staff and what issues come to his attention, I think Felix (in my mind) believes in nobilesse oblige, but I also don't think he's that attentive/hands on

Capitolites and potentially District officials will quickly learn that the best way to get the president to pay attention to anything is to get the attention of the first gentleman or lady. This, of course, means the most regulated District is D7 (due to it's connection to the Creeds)

BONUS: The Ravinstills (+ Festus) probably attempt a dynasty. Diana Ravinstill 4 President (again?). Toxic yuri with Alma Coin on a national scale?

[starcrossedxwriter]

Built for Love Part 3 (MBJ x Black Famous OC)

Warnings: angst, emotional distress (there will be more explicit warnings on the next chapter and beyond!)

A/N: I don't know what to say here except this is 4k words of our favs in a mopey sad phase lol

“Anything else for me, T?” Charlotte asked her agent as they sat in her office and reviewed her schedule for the upcoming months. Charlotte was finally back home in LA after filming Creed and a guest spot on a tv show, and was looking forward to a couple months of quiet before the Creed press tour. If she could push that off further, she would.  

Her nails tapped lightly on her phone as she texted her brothers, the siblings coordinating their surprise visit for their dad’s birthday later that week. 

“Just the MGM Productions Gala in two weeks,” Tamika answered as she scrolled through her calendar. 

Charlotte wrinkled her nose in confusion. “What’s that?” 

She waved her head. “Nothing big. Just a gala and party MGM throws for their Q3 and 4 movies. All the actors, producers, and writers are invited. They’ll premiere the trailer for Creed so you’ll walk the carpet with Michael, takes some pictures and likely go on stage when the trailer is shown. Seating chart has you and Michael next to each other. Nothing special but should be an easy and fun night.” 

Charlotte’s heart fell into her stomach as she heard his name, a nauseating feeling consuming her. The gala sounded like torture. How could she spend an entire evening glued to his side when he likely hated her? Would he even want to speak to her? she would not want to speak to her if she were him and now, he would have no choice.

However, she knew those concerns could not make their way to her agent. So instead, she simply nodded. However, she could not stop the quiet question that fell off her tongue, her own desires to know if Michael had raised an issue about the event were too powerful. 

“H-Has Michael heard about this?” She coughed lightly. “You know, reviewed the seating chart and everything?” 

Tamika nodded slowly, her eyes slowly but surely taking in the anxious and concerned look on the young woman’s face. 

“Yea… been emailing with his guy all morning. He said Mike ok’ed everything. Why? What’s wrong?” At Charlotte’s silence and anxious fidgeting, Tamika sat up in her chair, her arms folded against the cool glass of her desk. “Anything happen between you two that I should know about? Something that could bite us in the ass later.” 

Charlotte immediately shook her head. “No, no of course not. We’re good.” 

She knew that was not the truth. Radio silence for months hardly equated to good. She had considered reaching out to him, her regret urging her to open their text thread and type out a message only for her guilt to cause her to delete it once more. A vicious cycle she had been stuck on for weeks after the wrap party. At first, she felt his absence like a gaping wound that would not heal. It ached and throbbed so persistently she could not dare forget it. 

But in true Charlotte fashion, she threw herself into her work and her next project. It was just two months but the late nights and early mornings of tv consumed her life and energy, leaving little to no time to pine after Michael. And so eventually, that wound seemed to heal. Until today. Today, she felt as if she was bleeding out again with nothing around to stop it. 

Tamika rolled her eyes before turning back to her computer. Charlotte could tell she did not believe her. However, she appreciated that she did not push her for an answer.

“Ok well… whatever’s not going on between you two, fix it before October. You’re gonna be spending a lot of time with him to promote the film and films sell better when the cast actually likes each other. Got it?” 

“Understood.”

****

Rambunctious laughter filled Michael’s basement as he and his boys gathered for their monthly poker game. Even though he always lost money, it was one of his favorite nights. Just a night when he wasn’t famous or an actor, he was just a guy unwinding with liquor, weed, and good conversation.

“Nigga… you’d think you’d be better at this shit by now,” Steelo called across the table to Michael who merely shook his head. 

“I know, I know. I’m tryin’. Ain’t my night, I guess.” 

“Nah you ain’t doing shit. This the worst you’ve played and you the worst poker player a nigga has ever seen. It’s embarrassin’,” his trainer and friend, Calliet, told him. “Somethin’s got you preoccupied. Tell us so we can get on with the night.” 

Michael scratched the back of his head. Was there anything he could say that did not make him look like a desperate love sick puppy to his boys? Because the only thing consuming his attention these days was one person he had not even spoken to or seen in months: Charlotte. He tried and tried to push her out of his mind by fucking his way through models and actresses, hoping someone would make him feel even an ounce of what he felt when he was by her side. But none of them held a torch to her. So he tried to avoid thinking about her at all costs, locking his emotions away in a cage for as long as possible. However, when he found out about their upcoming event, the bars on that cage had gotten more fragile with each passing day. 

“Anything to do with seeing Charlotte in a couple weeks?” His brother asked with a smirk on his face. 

Everyone around the table laughed at how Michael’s entire being shifted as soon as her name was mention. 

“Ahhh there we go. It’s a woman�� it’s always a damn woman,” Calliet sighed deeply. “What happened?” 

Michael tossed his cards face down on the table, his hand rubbing his eye for a moment before he shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know? And that’s what’s tripping me up. One minute she seemed like she was all in a-and wanted to be with me. And the next, she pushed me away. Said she didn’t deserve me… whatever the hell that means.” Michael paused. “I dunno. It was fuckin’ weird. She seemed almost scared? Or like the idea of dating me had her in a panic.” 

He tried hard not to think about that night even though it often played in a loop in his head. It played so clearly in his mind like it was a movie. He could still see the tears in her eyes a-and the tension in her body, and hear the brokenness and panic in her voice. Despite his efforts to push it out of his mind, it persisted and he dissected and analyzed it ever since. 

Michael stood up and went to the bar in his basement, pouring himself another glass of scotch. He leaned over the back of his chair, watching the men continue to play. He knew there was no point in him continuing the game. That was just a recipe for him to make himself poorer while his friends got rich of his terrible poker game.

“Sounds like she’s playin’ you bro,” Michael’s brother chimed in. 

“Yep. And honestly, that shit sounds like too much baggage,” Steelo interjected. “You aint got time for that. She might be great but there’re plenty of women out here to fuck and date. No sense in being sad over one of ‘em.” 

The other men except for Calliet and Ryan chimed in with their agreement, though that did not surprise Michael. The rest of his friends were in the same place in life in terms of relationships: single and doing them. Their lives were all about the hustle, which meant love and relationships took a backseat. And he would admit, he was like them before he met Charlotte. However, she made him want more. And though there may be more fish in the sea, there was none like her. And he did not see a future as clearly with anyone else as he did with Charlotte. He knew that for certain. 

Calliet let out a low chuckle. “No wonder y’all niggas is single. “As the only married niggas here, you want our advice?” He gestured at he and Ryan. At Michael’s nods, he placed his cards down. “If you want her, you gotta fight for her. It seems to me like she’s scared - for whatever reason. Maybe you just be there for her and see if she comes around.” 

“You want him to wait around for some pussy?? Nahhhh,” his boy Tyrell threw his cards down in annoyance. “He can do better than that.” 

“Aye, watch yo fuckin’ mouth,” Michael’s tone cut the humorous vibe in the room immediately, his anger evident to everyone.  

Tyrell raising his hands in surrender as the other men snickered quietly. “My bad. No disrespect. I’m just sayin’ you got plenty of options, bro. She really worth chasin’ after?” 

“You told me day 1 she was your future wife, on screen and off. I got the texts to prove it,” Ryan waved his phone in his hand. “If you really believe that shit, then she’s someone worth chasin’. ’N I don’t know what’s holding her back but I watched y’all every day for months. She’s feelin’ you.” 

“Then why won’t she just say that shit?” Steelo argued. 

Michael just watched the men debate back and forth, his love life once again the subject of a riveting debate amongst his friends. He could not even get a word in.

“Who the fuck knows? But it doesn’t matter. She didn’t say that she doesn’t wanna fuck with you. She said she aint deserve you. That sounds like two very different things to me. Seems like somethin’ she’s gotta work through, not that she doesn’t want something with you. I ain’t sayin’ put your life on hold but you ain’t gotta close the door on it just yet if you ain’t ready. Just talk to her.” 

“I dunno,” Michael finally spoke up. “Hearing no once was more than enough for me. I never felt for a woman like I feel for her. And she just pushed me away.” 

“Look. I ain’t saying chase the girl. But you don't gotta close the door on it either just because your pride is bruised,”  Calliet added on, he and Ryan offering the sage advice Michael truly needed to navigate this situation. “At the very least, next time you talk, time as passed, you could get some clarity on why she wasn’t ready and if the feelings were mutual. Get some closure. But who knows, it might be a yes. And if she was worth the risk then and those feelings haven’t changed, she should still be worth it now. Then at least, you’ll have a definitive answer and you can stop being this mopey-ass nigga who I can’t stand. Moping around the gym n shit.” 

Michael bowed his head and laughed with the rest of the group. They were not wrong; he had been “mopey” since returning to LA from Creed but it had gotten significantly worse since he found out he would be seeing Charlotte earlier than expected.  

“Aight aight. I’ll think about it."

“My man!” The boys seated around him clapped him on the back. 

“Hit me up tomorrow, fellas," Stello called out across the table. "I'm taking bets on whether this nigga actually tries again." At Michael's surprised expression, Stello merely laughed. "Sorry man, I've never known you to chase after a woman or even give them a second chance. Relationships are the one area you play it safe." 

His words stuck with him as he slid back into his seat to continue playing. His streak of terrible luck continued as he milled over what his friends said. Steelo was not wrong, there was a part of him that wanted to write Charlotte off for pushing him away. But something stopped him every time he tried. He could not tell who was right: his married friends who told him to not give up or his friends who had known him his entire life. But he knew he only had a week to figure out what path he wanted to take. One certainly saved him potential heartache but it could also rob him of a love that was one of a kind. The other was a risk but a life with Charlotte was a pay off he could not pass up without thought. As Steelo pointed out, Michael took a lot of risks… just not with his heart.

***

“You sure you’re good, squirt?” Her dad asked as they chatted at dinner.

Charlotte glanced up from her plate, her entire family eyeing her with concerned looks. 

“Of course, of course,” she assured everyone, immediately fixing her frown into a half-hearted smile. She hoped it was big enough to draw attention away from her and onto someone else. 

“You sure? You’ve just been quiet all weekend.” 

She rubbed her eyes, annoyance settling in her as her family questioned her words. She understood why. There was once upon a time where she told lie after lie after lie to hide how she was doing. And now, if she seemed even a bit off, they did not believe her assurances that all was well even when it was. She would not believe her if she was them either though. 

“Just tired, dad. Two back-to-back projects has just been more exhausting than I thought. That’s all.” 

“Yea pops, you know how Charlie gets when she’s in the zone. All quiet and moody with all that method shit.” 

The table erupted in laughter, Charlie reaching over and gently hit her brother, Jackson, across his arm. While there was a significant age gap between her, the youngest, and her two eldest siblings, she and Jackson were only a year apart and had grown up virtually glued to each other’s hip. 

“Jack! Language!” Their dad chastised him, though there was no real bite in his bark. 

“Thank you, dad!” Charlotte, forever a daddy’s girl, threw her brother a smirk. “And method, yes! Moody, never!”

At her side glances her entire family shared with each other, her jaw slightly fell open in shock. 

“Seriously??” 

“In your defense,” her eldest brother, CJ, interjected. “I think it’s more so the characters you choose. Loners… moody…or depressed. And that just ain’t you, not when you’re yourself at least.” 

Charlotte could not particularly disagree with her brother’s assessment. It was not every character she had played since she became a professional actress. But she could not deny there was a theme across many of them. She had been drawn to characters who were alone in the world in some way: whether literally alone and without family or alone to contend with pain and struggles no one else knew about or could help with. They were all internally tortured by something. And well, that was a feeling Charlotte knew all too well. 

“So what’s next, movie star?” CJ asked her. 

She shrugged. “Ummm got a gala next week a-and then I’ll be back in LA for a while. Then we’ll have the Creed press tour and that’ll take up most of the fall.” At the mention of the movie, her thoughts drifted back to him. Though it did not take much these days for her thoughts to land her on his doorstep again. All roads led back to Michael. “B-but that’s it. Enough about me. We are here to celebrate dad.” She squeezed his hand, grateful to push the attention away from her and back to their father’s birthday. 

She barely heard the rest of the conversation that carried her family through dinner, only joining in when spoken to or to laugh along with the rest of the group. Her moodiness, as of late, had little to do with her characters and a lot to do with her impending dread at laying eyes on a certain actor again. She knew she would have to eventually but she thought she had more time to avoid him and her feelings about how they ended. That wound was reopened and all of her regret, shame, and pain flowed from it like blood. 

She knew she needed to let him go. She had given up her shot and she would need to find a way to live with that. But knowing she needed to move on and actually doing it was harder than it seemed.

However, it was her dad’s birthday and she knew her family worried about her too much so she tried to force herself to display the cheerful and upbeat disposition she knew her family was looking for. However, at the end of dinner, when she and her siblings and their spouses retreated to the basement, her facade started to fall.

“Open the windows, CJ,” Charlotte called over to him as he pulled a joint out of his bag and she grabbed liquor from their dad’s bar. “Dad’s gonna kill us if he smells weed.” 

“Us maybe,” Jackson mused. “But not his baby girl. He probably thinks you’ve never done drugs. His perfect little Charlie.” 

“Don’t be jealous,” she stuck her tongue out at him playfully. 

“She drew the genetic lottery… Youngest daughter? Best position to be in in the family. You got all us, except Tiffany,” he referenced the eldest Bennet sibling who could not attend their dad’s birthday weekend, “wrapped around your finger since birth.”  

She laughed and flopped onto the couch next to her best friend from college and sister in law, Lauren.  “What can I say,” she took the joint from her brother. “A gift and a curse.” 

Charlotte fell silent as she let the two couples guided the conversation. She rarely engaged, only laughing when necessary or moving to ensure the blunt made its rounds throughout the group. CJ and his husband, Allen, were both attorneys, which meant they tended to stir up lively debate amongst the group. Charlotte rarely engaged in their debates unless the topic was interesting. But Jackson and his wife, Lauren, while not attorneys, loved to go back and forth with them. 

So, she just let them fall into their usual banter while she tried to stop herself from falling into a sea of thoughts about Michael. All she could think about was what she was going to say and do when she saw him again. Should she apologize? Pretend like nothing happened and act like old friends? Take her cues from him? She had no idea. All of them sounded like equally terrible ideas and none of them were actually what she wanted to do, which was admit she fucked up and that she loved him. But that seemed like a terrible idea in its own twisted sort of way.

“Charlie!” Lauren shook her knee lightly to get her attention. Charlotte broke out of her quiet trance to turn to Jackson who had clearly been talking to her. 

“Now don’t hate me, C,” he started to say, causing Charlotte to immediately groan. She sat up a little straighter, her mind already ready to be annoyed with her older, meddling brother. 

“Oh no, what did you do??” 

“I may or may not have given your number to a guy at the office. AND,” he raised his voice to drown out Charlotte’s immediate protests, “Before you say no, it is one date, C. He is really cute, he’s a sports agent, really well established in the industry, and he’s sweet. Don’t fight me on this.” 

Charlotte rolled her eyes, frustration at her sibling’ meddling already boiling over. She immediately turned to Lauren, who raised her hands in surrender. “Did you know about this??” 

“I told him you weren’t gonna go for it.” 

“And yet… here he is… still presenting it.” She scoffed. “You need to listen to your wife more, big head. I don’t need a fucking matchmaker, Jay. I’m good and happy being single.”

She prayed her tone sounded decisive and sure; however, she knew it betrayed her by the skeptical looks on her family’s faces. She desperately wanted it to be true, desperately desired to be satisfied with the waves of loneliness she felt. She used to consider loneliness to be like an oasis. She felt protected and safe in its waters. It’s waves crashed but she welcomed it because loneliness was the only sure sign that no one was around to hurt her again. 

However, now, she felt as if she was drowning in it. Drowning in the frigid, dark waters, desperate for a lifeline and helping hand, someone to pull her out and hold her close. She tried to pull herself out of it, to find her way back to the oasis again, but each wave just pushed her right back down. And she knew one path to escape the waves altogether, but she could not force herself to do it. She was still not sure she was ready. 

“Well now we’re fuckin’ lyin’,” CJ muttered, causing Allen to gently hit him on the shoulder and tell him to hush. “What? She is lyin’.” 

“Alright, alright,” Lauren interrupted. “I think your brothers… and I, are just worried about you. It’s been two years. It’s great to be single and happy if you truly are. But I’ve known you for a minute, Charlotte. I don’t think you are. You don’t want to be alone forever, do you? What happens when the next guy shows interest? Are you just gonna push him and anyone else away forever? You fought like hell to leave so you could be happy. Pushing people and love away isn’t gonna make you happy.” 

Charlotte scoffed at herself, a wave of bitterness hitting her. She hated how Lauren was always right, a habit that incensed her since college. She was not wrong. That was all Charlotte knew how to do, push men who wanted her away, even when she wanted them back. 

“It’s all I know how to do,” she muttered, unable to hide that bitterness and anger at herself in her voice. 

She glanced up at the ceiling as she felt tears sting the back of her eyes. 

“Fuck!” She cried out. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she whispered. She pressed her hands into her eyes to stop the tears from falling. Her family knew she hated to cry in front of people, hated when they saw her cry.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Jackson moved from his perch across the room to sit on the other side of his sister, his arm wrapping tightly around her. “My bad, C. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just want you to be happy.” 

“No, no. It’s not you o-or the date. I j-just hate this! Hate that I found someone amazing and I’m so fucked up, all I can do is push him away. And I t-thought it was for the right reasons but fuck, I am just miserable without him,” she cried out, finally voicing the feelings that plagued her for months. She had not meant to share that with her family or anyone. But in this heightened emotional state, she could not hold it in any longer. 

“Wait, you met someone??” Lauren’s eyes grew wide, an air of excitement settling over her. “Who was he??”

Charlotte’s eyes fell down to her cup. She was not ready to have this conversation. She had never told her friends or family about the feelings between she and Michael, or that she rejected him. She knew none of them would understand. She knew they would merely hear that she turned down THE Michael B. Jordan and think she was a lunatic. But she also knew she would not get an ounce of peace if she did not tell them now. The cat was most certainly out of the bag. 

“Michael…” 

“Wait - Michael B Jordan?? Wallace from the Wire??” 

“Your co-star, THE Michael B Jordan??” 

“Oh shit, y’all hooked up??” 

Charlotte let out a disgruntled groan as the room erupted in shock, exactly what she was trying to avoid.

“No, no. We didn’t hook up. But we got close during filming, spent a lot of time together. We kissed a-and at our wrap party, he told me he loved me. And I… fuck, it was like Shaun was right there, like I could still feel him and h-hear his voice reminding me that no one could ever love me.” Her head fell into her hands. “And I… couldn’t take it. So I pushed him away.” She wiped a stray tear from her face. “I dunno. Guess somethings never change. I’ll always be that girl he said I was.” 

“You always underestimating yourself, Charlotte.” Jackson shook his head. “You are a far cry from the woman who moved into my spot two years ago. That woman could barely fuckin’ look me or - shit - anyone in the eye. You didn’t get out of bed, you barely ate… for months, you were a shell of the woman we knew. And then you put in the work, you found you again. You’re healing and yea that shit takes time. But it’s progress. The Charlotte who was with Shaun and this Charlotte today are two different people. You gotta start celebrating every step forward.”  

“He’s right. And maybe this is the next step in your process. Finally taking a step back into the dating pool. You know the signs, you know what to look for now. You just have to trust your gut,” Allen offered her with an encouraging smile. 

“It’s not that easy, y’all. He… broke me,” her voice fell to a soft whisper. “And I just barely put the pieces back together. And Bakari is… perfect,” the word came out in a strangled sigh. “B-But if he… if he breaks me, I… just don’t think my heart can handle it again.” 

“Do you honestly believe Michael is like him?” 

She immediately shook her head. She would not claim to know Michael that well. But he was nothing like that Shaun, that much she knew. 

“I think he is the furthest thing from Shaun ever honestly. I just don’t think he’d ever do the things Shaun did.” And she truly believed that. Over a year in therapy taught her every sign she missed and when she meticulously examined her interactions with Michael, she did not see a single one with him. 

“OK then. He might hurt you, that’s true. He might break your heart. But that’s fucking life… that’s love. But if your gut is saying he isn’t Shaun then, at least, you can take the plunge knowing he won’t hurt you like that. He won’t break you.” 

“You gotta stop letting him win, Charlie.”

She shook her head. “He already won, Lo. Game’s been over. Probably what keeps him warm at night. Where ever he is, he knows he got what he wanted all the same.” 

“No.” Lauren answered defiantly, refusing to listen to her best friend’s defeatist attitude. “If the game was over, you’d be dead. That’s the endgame for him.” The tension in the room thickened as Lauren spoke, the words were harsh but Charlotte knew they were true. “And you aren’t. You’re here and you’re fucking killing it. Every day, you win by just living your life, being you and loving. Everything he took from you or said you couldn’t have and didn’t deserve? Those are his words, his lies. And every time you believe him over the people who actually love you,” she gestured to their little circle. “And what you know to be true about yourself, you give him power and he keeps taking pieces of you. Keep doing that and you’ll never be happy and you’ll never be free. Then he will win.” 

She glanced at Jackson who merely shrugged. “You and I both know she’s always right.” 

Charlotte let out a pitiful laugh. “I know and I fuckin’ hate it.” She sighed deeply. “I just… even if I deserved him, it’s too late. I have to see him next week a-and h-he probably never wants to talk to me again.” 

“That asshole stole so many good things from you, Charlie. And if there is anyone in this damn family who deserves a good thing, it’s you. If Michael is really what you want, then don’t let him take that too. When you see him next week, shoot your shot. See what happens.” 

“And if that nigga ain’t interested anymore… fuck him,” CJ called from across the room, everyone rolling their eyes at his bluntness but nodding in agreement.

“And you move on.” Lauren added more tactfully. She rubbed Charlotte’s knee gently. “But stop torturing yourself and all of us and just try, sis. Please.” 

Charlotte tearfully laughed, wiping her eyes. 

“I really hate you guys,” she whispered, tearfully laughing as she wiped her eyes. 

“We know.” 

Charlotte’s head gently fell onto her brother’s shoulder as he placed a quick kiss on the top of her head before transitioning the conversation to a lighter topic. She sighed to herself. 

Shoot your shot.

Sounded easy enough. But where Michael was concerned, Charlotte had only played the coward, too scared to face her true feelings and his. This would require her to play a role she had not in a long time, one that she feared she had forgotten entirely: someone who was fearless. While she did not know if she had it in her, her family did. And their faith and confidence in her was enough to overcome her self-doubt. When she saw Michael next weekend, she was going to choose happiness. She was going to choose him. 

Tag List: @certifiedlesbianbaddie @bangtanxmegan @reelwriter19 @prettyisasprettydoes1306 @msniaimani @hi888888sworld @lynaye1993 @destinio1 @cawi00

Read Part 4

A/N: Ok sorry for no scenes with Els/Bakari together this chapter but for my own sanity, I had to break it up into two chapters lol we will get our Els/Bakari reunion in chapter 4. We got a little bit more of Charlotte's backstory and got to meet her family who will be around… what do we think? How is "shooting her shot" gonna go? Is Michael gonna be receptive or are his feelings still too hurt from rejection? And do you think she actually follows through this time?

[maranzalla]

longtime readers know that the version of assassin's creed II that rotates in my head is wildly different than what we got, but one of the many places i think Ubisoft fumbled the chance to have some great fun is the siege of Forli.

sure they gave us Caterina Sforza's famous line, but we could have gotten the absolutely hilarious and historically-true gag of the Orsi brothers besieging Caterina in her fortress for days, holding her kids for ransom, and then one day a twink dressed in extremely expensive and fashionable Viper livery walks up to the conspirators like "the duke of Milan wishes to respectfully inquire after the well-being of his nieces and nephews". the Orsi absolutely shit their whole breeches, everyone panics and someone says uuuuhhhh we killed them all? piss off

so the herald of the dukedom of Milan says "Oh I guess we have no choice but to raze this town to the ground then, i'll tell the duke's huge army to go ahead"

you could have Ezio do one of those timed missions, if you don't bring Caterina's message that all is fine and / or save the kids and bring them to the Milanese camp in time, the whole town gets razed.

[marta-bee]

Continuing on with book-Good Omens. Let me just start with two general observations.

Neil Gaiman, or possibly Terry Pratchett, or both, are just ridiculously funny. The humor shot throughout here is some of the cleverest things I’ve read in a long time. The parentheticals! Mister Dowling being so painfully British in a provincial way given the antichrist meant to be cosmopolitan and international, just.... all of it.

Those chapters are just so durned long. Any editor worth their salt would break this one into at least three or four, and boo on them, because I can’t imagine anything being quite so fun as the way the different sections weave together in such interesting ways. It just keeps going.

More substantively, let’s talk about Crowley again, and evil, and people being people. Because one of the aspects I’m finding most interesting in this opening chapter is how it’s not being good or evil that makes you good or bad. Or destructive. Or the characters I should root for or against at an intuitive moral level. I’m actually having a failure of language here, but speaking as a philosopher even so early it’s something that strikes me as a very interesting take on the concepts. True, and also real.

Take this description of one of the chattering nuns:

Sister Mary Loquacious has been a devout Satanist since birth. She went to Sabbat School as a child and won black stars for handwriting and liver. When she was told to join the Chattering Order she went obediently, having a natural talent in that direction and, in any case, knowing that she would be among friends. She would be quite bright, if she was ever put in a position to find out, but long ago found that being a scatterbrain, as she'd put it, gave you an easier journey through life. Currently she is being handed a golden-haired male baby we will call the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness.

And then later:

Most of the members of the convent were old-fashioned Satanists, like their parents and grandparents before them. They'd been brought up to it and weren't, when you got right down to it, particularly evil. Human beings mostly aren't. They just get carried away by new ideas, like dressing up in jackboots and shooting people, or dressing up in white sheets and lynching people, or dressing up in tie-dye jeans and playing guitars at people. Offer people a new creed with a costume and their hearts and minds will follow. Anyway, being brought up as a Satanist tended to take the edge off it. It was something you did on Saturday nights. And the rest of the time you simply got on with life as best you could, just like everyone else. Besides, Sister Mary was a nurse and nurses, whatever their creed, are primarily nurses, which had a lot to do with wearing your watch upside down, keeping calm in emergencies, and dying for a cup of tea. She hoped someone would come soon; she'd done the important bit, now she wanted her tea.

It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.

Usually when we talk about good and evil not being as starkly different, there’s an element of moral nihilism, or at least relativism, this feeling that that means everything is equally right or wrong. And again I’m struggling with language here because good/evil and right/wrong are usually thought to be, if not synonyms, at least strongly parallel concepts. So if you don’t have good and evil or they don’t function in the same way, then of course you affect right and wrong in much the same way. But this seems to be doing something quite different. Good and evil are more like warring tribes than moral distinctions, what we should root for and against. But there’s still something of morality shot through here. People may be people which means liking dressing up on a Saturday night apparently, and that may explain why they’re just as likely to dress up in white sheets or jackboots as tie-dye; but of course the result is nowhere near the same.

And Crowley gets that, probably better than anyone.

Crowley had always known that he would be around when the world ended, because he was immortal and wouldn't have any alternative. But he'd hoped it would be a long way off.

Because he rather liked people. It was a major failing in a demon.

Oh, he did his best to make their short lives miserable, because that was his job, but nothing he could think up was half as bad as the stuff they thought up themselves. They seemed to have a talent for it. It was built into the design, somehow. They were born into a world that was against them in a thousand little ways, and then devoted most of their energies to making it worse. Over the years Crowley had found it increasingly difficult to find anything demonic to do which showed up against the natural background of generalized nastiness. There had been times, over the past millennium, when he'd felt like sending a message back Below saying, Look, we may as well give up right now, we might as well shut down Dis and Pandemonium and everywhere and move up here, there's nothing we can do to them that they don't do themselves and they do things we've never even thought of, often involving electrodes. They've got what we lack. They've got imagination. And electricity, of course.

One of them had written it, hadn't he . . . "Hell is empty, and all the devils are here."

Crowley had got a commendation for the Spanish Inquisition. He had been in Spain then, mainly hanging around cantinas in the nicer parts, and hadn't even known about it until the commendation arrived. He'd gone to have a look, and had come back and got drunk for a week.

That Hieronymous Bosch. What a weirdo.

There’s an interpretation I read years ago, that Crowley’s brilliance as a demon comes down to project management, not hatred or bile or the like, and that that doesn’t make him less demonic. I like that and quite agree with it; it makes him much more modern, and much more influenced by humanity I think, than Hastur and Ligur; but it’s obviously not getting in the way of him doing a good job. What’s so interesting here is this isn’t a project that requires a lot of management at all. 

Is it the deep affect of sin? The world is corrupted and broken etc.? That seems completely wrong for this book, and, for the record, my personal moral and theological intuitions. Or is it that there’s something about the demonic that’s integral to the Great Plan that it’s sort of hard-coded into humanity? The asking of questions, the breaking of things so change is even possible? Or, more uncomfortably, is this need to hurt somehow more natural than we’d like it to be? The flipside of the urge to protect, perhaps, paired with the much less admirable tendency to divide groups too large for us to really bond with into us and them, our side and people our side needs to be protected from?

Maybe. I don’t have hard answers here for myself, let alone for Neil and Terry. But what I do see is Crowley is sd about that. He’d torture and hurt because that was his job, but I think he also wanted humanity to be better than that. Which they are, some of them and some of th time, but when they aren’t: hoo boy. It hurts him. It hurts me. But damned if it isn’t also compelling. I’m definitely looking forward to how this distinction (or lack of same) develops. 

.... And on that note, I just saw Aziraphale’s name mentioned for the first time since the Garden. This seems like a good place to stop and read other things so I can return refreshed, because as I said these chapters are long. 

[likeakiss]

licking blood from your teeth. a raised scar. the old east end. testing the cut on your lip with your tongue. a loud bang from somewhere in the distance. ringing in your ears. refusing to change. slicking back your hair. whiskey and cigarillos. shoot first, ask questions later. remembering where you came from. having to fight for everything you’ve got. violence as a language that everyone understands. exit wounds. the pig-headed belief that you’re always right. struggling to let things go.

statistics.

full name:  joaquin vidal nickname(s)/alias(es):  keen, the crooked hand name meaning:  established by god age:  fifty-seven date of birth:  april 16th star sign:  aries place of birth:  poplar, london (now tower hamlets) current location:  lambeth, london gender:  cis-male pronouns:  he/him sexual orientation:  bisexual religion:  raised catholic (not a very good catholic) occupation:  mob boss family:  david flores (father, estranged), alejandra franklin (née vidal, mother), bernard “bernie” franklin (step-father, estranged), ricardo “ricky” franklin and antonio “tony” franklin (half-brothers, estranged), emilia franklin (half-sister, estranged) “sweeney todd” (ex-wife) education level:  didn’t even get his o levels (old man equivalent to gcses) living arrangements:  a modern warehouse conversion in stockwell financial status:  wealthy spoken languages:  english, spanish

inspirations.

reggie kray (legend) harry (in bruges) tyler durden (fight club) euron greyjoy (game of thrones) maxwell roth (assassin’s creed: syndicate) reyes vidal (mass effect: andromeda) bill sykes (oliver twist)

biography. (tws for poverty, xenophobia, violence, unhealthy relationship dynamics)

A third generation Peruvian immigrant, Joaquin Vidal has never known any home but London. Born and raised in Poplar (a notoriously impoverished area of the city) life was always going to be a struggle for his family - for stability, for money, for respect - but struggle they did. Joaquin’s grandparents went about things the old fashioned way, sacrificing every last shred of their dignity to scrape together enough money to take over the lease on the local newsagent after the previous owner passed away. They managed it, just barely, but even at the tail-end of the sixties, Poplar wasn’t the most tolerant of places, and the shopfront was regularly graffitied or worse.

By the time Joaquin was born, the Vidals had come to realise that London’s streets weren’t paved with gold, as they had hoped they would be when they arrived in England. They had their shop, true, but it wasn’t enough - the family was still living on top of each other, three generations packed into two rooms, living hand-to-mouth. His mother, Alejandra, was only sixteen when she discovered she was expecting, and a wedding was quickly organised in a desperate attempt to hang on to the precious little respectability the Vidals had garnered within their community. It was only two years before Joaquin's father vanished into the night, never to be seen again.

Joaquin was still young when he started looking for trouble (or when trouble started looking for him, as he’d always insist). He was a handsome, charismatic teenager, with a swagger in his step and an appetite for violence that only comes from feeling like you’ve got something to prove. It seemed as if he was destined for gang life from the get go, smoothly transitioning from playground bust-ups and brawling in the streets to the well-paid world of underground fighting. Joaquin was a workhorse in the ring, a surprisingly lithe figure that categorically refused to stay down, and it made him a hugely valuable commodity as a prize fighter. He would do whatever it took to win, and then some.

It was around this time that he set his sights on a woman known to the Jolly Rogers as Sweeney Todd. The former Crooked Hand, a man by the name of Alistair Winchester, had heard of Joaquin’s success on the underground fighting circuit, and was actively trying to recruit him to his cause. Sweeney was Alistair’s niece, and had been embroiled in the workings of the gang since she was very young, meaning she was already well established as a career assassin. Joaquin was drawn to her immediately - he knew they were made for each other.

As his relationship with Sweeney developed, Joaquin became as assimilated into the Jolly Roger lifestyle as she was, working his way up from pit fighter to contract killer in a matter of years. He would always prefer working with his hands (or, rather, his fists), but he learnt to wield a gun with precision and deadly force. As a rule, Joaquin and Sweeney were not supposed to work contracts together - they were both experts in their craft, but their dynamic was volatile and unpredictable, entirely inexplicable to anyone but themselves. People used to say that one day they’d either kill each other, or end up married - they chose the latter.

Realistically, it was never going to last between them - in fact, it’s some kind of miracle (or maybe a curse) that their marriage survived the eleven years it did. After one, final, explosive argument, the Vidals separated for good, but angry as they were, they couldn’t stay away from each other for long. Joaquin started taking contracts abroad, furthering his reputation with the Rogers while doing his best to forget about Sweeney. But he couldn’t, he couldn’t move on from her. He’s never been good at letting go.

When Alistair Winchester shit the bed and got himself nicked, it was only a matter of time before someone was called in to clean up his mess. Following the customary vote between senior members of the gang, Joaquin was compelled to return from his work overseas, not so much stepping into Alistair's shoes as kicking them out of his way. He never sought the title of the Crooked Hand, and his election came as a surprise, but who is he to spit in the face of democracy? If the Jolly Rogers wanted a show of force, Joaquin Vidal would be the one to give it to them.

He's been the head honcho for coming up on four years now, driving the Jolly Rogers into an era of prosperity that puts old man Winchester's legacy to shame. The treaty is starting to chafe at him, though, his patience for niceties running dangerously thin. No, he thinks its high time his people start making some more aggressive plays - show the Jabberwocks and everyone else who really runs the streets of London.

other things.

Before he was the Crooked Hand, Joaquin was known as Sykes, after the character from Oliver Twist. Not the most flattering of code names, but he’s never been much of a reader, and didn’t understand the connotations until much later on. 

Joaquin calls in on his mother approximately once every six months. They didn’t have the best of relationships after she remarried and started a new better family, but she’s old now, and the only surviving relative he’s still in touch with.

He's not usually much of a gambler, but he goes out of his way to attend the Royal Ascot every year, delighting both in betting on the horse races and terrorising the unfortunate toffs forced to share space with him for the duration of the event.

He’s a passionate West Ham supporter, and will thank you not to remind him how poorly they’ve been performing in the premiere league.

To date, Joaquin has never seen a cow in real life.

There isn’t a single event that could convince Joaquin to wear a tie. He didn’t even wear one to his wedding.