#what should i do? what should i do? (a) kill them all (b) be like hey friends. yep: that's me. freeze frame. dead :/

[rhaellatully]

B-Side (Fanfiction)

AO3

FF.net

AN/ Congratulation to Arcane for making me write again after 4 years... I really need to get back to my WIPs...

Anyway, a very very big thank you to @beforetimes who beta this fic and made it some much better (and also went through the trouble of correcting all of my mistakes)

She looks at her father in the eye one more time before she pulls the pin. She doesn’t hear the boom, instead she sees this orb, and she is being torn apart by it. The world spins around her. It pulls her in all directions. She can’t tell where is up or down. She wants to throw up. It spins, it shakes, she can’t see, until the kaleidoscope appears. She doesn’t hear the boom, but she hears her screams.

Something escapes her hands, followed by a loud noise. Beer spills on a wooden floor. 

Jinx stares at her hands: something is... different. Are her nails shorter and-

“Everything alright, Powder?”  A familiar voice calls.

She turns around and looks up. And there he is, standing behind the bar, like he always did.

“Vander?”

He looks normal, but older. Grey hairs and wrinkles are accentuated by the frown on his face.

“Are you okay?” He says, a worried look on his face.

Jinx saw and heard him so many times before, but never like this. He looks like he should have been. Like the doctor never found him. Like she never gave him to the doctor. Like she never killed him the first time, or the second. Like she never jinxed him.

What is going on? They should be dead. They were meant to die together. To free Vi from all the pain and suffering they bring. All the horrors she created were meant to be blown away. Reduced to ashes. Nothing but a bad memory. One that the Piltie would kiss away and make better.

So, why?

Vander is stepping away from the bar now. He’s coming toward her. She doesn’t know how to move anymore. She can’t run, but she can’t stay. 

The bell rings. Her head snaps toward it and the air is gone from her lungs. Mylo and Claggor walk toward her. They’re different too. They’re bigger. Claggor’s cheeks are smaller. Mylo’s hair is shorter than it should, and he has this moustache. They never looked like this, she never thought of them looking like this before. They’re different but they’re good different.

Vander’s hand is on her shoulder. It’s warm, so warm. His other hand came to wipe away a tear she hadn’t realised was on her face.

“What’s going on Powder?”

Uh, she made it to heaven, somehow.

She’s good different too, she finds out, looking at herself in the mirror after Vander sends her downstairs. He thinks she pulled one-too-many all nighters lately. Yet, the bags under her eyes are the smallest she’s ever seen. Her cheeks also look fuller. Her hair is shorter- no longer, she had cut it, then Ekko fixed it shorter. And there’s this pink strand, the same colour as Vi’s hair.

And her eyes too, no more shimmer, probably no more use for it here.

She doesn’t get to look at them for long, because a hand comes to cover them. In less than a second she spins her attacker around and he’s pinned against the wall. 

“Ouch! Sorry! Sorry!”

With trembling hands, she lets go of him.

“Ekko?” She asks, and a part of her wants to be wrong, wants him to have survived the battle. He had his time loop thingy, he shouldn’t have been able to lose. He should be alive, he has no business being here. He’s the boy savior. Unless he sacrificed himself to save someone, or everyone. He shouldn’t have died. People like her should die, not people like him. He wanted to make a good world, a better world. That’s what he should be doing, not being dead here with her.

But then, he gives her that kind smile as he rubs the back of his neck.

“Okay, I won’t try to surprise you anymore.” He says, and she doesn’t care anymore.

He’s dragging her through the streets as she tries to keep up while having no idea where they’re going. He won’t let go of her hand. He grabbed it at the Last Drop, and insisted that they had to go. She wanted to ask where, but lost the ability the second they stepped out. 

Zaun is good different, too. There’s so much light. The air smells better and it feels easier to breathe, almost like Topside. The buildings are not on the verge of collapsing. The people are walking around carefree, the children are running down the street laughing.

Heaven is a nice place.

They reach the bridge, there are no barricades, just shops, people and enforcers who look... friendly. She remembers the bridge of her life. She passes the spot where her parents died. A man is selling food there. 

Ekko guides her to where they could have died together and she loses her footing. He catches her. 

“Sorry,” he says, an apologetic smile on his face, “Maybe we should walk.”

Jinx wants to say no, because if they are not running, why would he hold her hand? But he doesn’t let go. 

They reach their destination. It’s the academy. She doesn’t understand what they’re doing here. Or why so many people are trying to get there. Ekko keeps walking but she doesn’t move. He stops rather than letting go of her hand.

He smiles at her again.

“I’m sure we made it. They’ve increased the number of seats available again. And even if they hadn’t, we’re not the ones who need it.”

She thinks she understands what he’s saying, but it doesn’t make sense. It can’t make sense.

He starts walking, and she follows all the way to the walls where the results of the entrance exam are plastered. 

“Let’s start at the bottom.” he says, and she lets him. Because if their names are on the boards somewhere, it has to be at the bottom, right? They’re brilliant, she knows it, but the Pilties and their academies care more for prim and proper language than groundbreaking ideas. Even with all the brains in the world, all it takes is one Piltie with a nice bag of money and their sit goes to someone else. Why bother trying? Just to be stuck in a classroom full of Pilties and fancy professors trying to teach them stuff they could learn on their own from books. They’d have easy access to the library, though.

They make their way up and their names don’t seem to be there. He seems so focused, as if he was looking for the solution to a complex equation. She sees him swallow hard as his hand rises higher. Will she see his face break again?

Then he laughs his hand is at the top of the board, and so are their names. Ekko first place, her second. 

“How?” It escapes her lips before she can think ‘it’s heaven, of course they’re there’. But Jinx never wanted to join the academy. So, why?

“Did you fill out the exam in crayon?” He asks with that damn smile on his face. 

Right, it’s his heaven too.

“We’re in the fucking academy,” she says, and she hears him laugh again.

This time he grabs her and swipes her off her feet. He spins her around once, before putting her down, still holding her. His forehead pressed against hers. She’s crying again. She doesn’t know why. 

Ekko’s hands leave her sides to grab her face again. His thumbs wipe away the tears. And he looks at her, that same way he looked at her toward the end. There’s something she doesn’t understand in his eyes. Until he looks down at her lips. Is he going to… kiss her?

He leans toward her, she leans away. He freezes and looks at her, confused. She leans toward him. Their lips meet. It’s nicer than she imagined.

Heaven really is a nice place.

They return to the Last Drop. The second they walk through the door, silence falls, and all the heads turn toward them. Everyone is here; Vander, Mylo, Claggor, Benzo. She sees more familiar faces around, and even Babette is looking at her with hope in her eyes.

“We made it!” shouts Ekko, and cheers erupt all around them.

Mylo almost runs at her arms stretched out, she expects him to strangle her, but he hugs her. She doesn’t have time to react before Claggor joins him. Jinx feels warm, like the sun itself is holding her.

“Vi would be so proud of you,” Mylo whispers and she feels cold all over.

She thinks she’s going to cry again, but she hears someone say, “Let her breathe.”

She almost fights her way out of their arms to turn around.

He’s here.

And he’s good different, too.

His eye. He doesn’t need her to give him his medicine. His scar doesn’t look as bad as it used to. He stands straighter. His skin is pinker. 

His smile is brighter than she’s ever seen it.

“Well done, Powder,” he says as he hugs her, “I knew you’d do great.”

“Silco,” she doesn’t cry, this time she laughs.

Heaven really is a place worth dying for.

The next day she’s nursing a violent hangover.

“I’ve never seen you indulge yourself so much before.” Vander tells her.

“Oh, she deserves it!” Silco joins in, “Before long, the two of them will be sitting on the Council.”

“Or not, if they don’t want to.”

“Of course!”

“As happy as I am to see the two of you like this, can you go do it elsewhere? My head is killing me.”

“Of course, Powder.”

It feels weird to hear Silco call her that, but she could get used to it.

She feels better in the afternoon when Ekko comes to find her. He says they should go tell Vi. She doesn’t understand what he means. But ever since she died, she’s learned to go with the flow.

They go to her lair. Even that place is brighter and warmer. There are different trinkets everywhere, and railings. It still feels like her, but a different her. A happier her, maybe.

They go to the tent. There’s a shrine to Vi. Why is there a shrine to Vi? She survived, she made sure she survived, so she can’t be here, but why is there a shrine?

“She looks so young,” Jinx comments when she looks at the painting of Vi.

Ekko takes her hand as they sit down. “If she could see you…” He doesn’t finish, Jinx is grateful for it.

She will see me, she wants to say, when she dies too she’ll see all of this and she’ll love it.

Jinx is making her way to Benzo’s shop with food to share with Ekko when she sees her. Her hair is brown again. She’s running around with a group of children, laughing so hard as she does. She knew they would meet here eventually. She skips toward her. Her heart swells with every step that brings her closer to her. 

She sees her trip on the ground. Jinx gaps and starts running, but another woman gets to her first. She picks her up and starts whispering sweet things at her.

They have the same eyes.

It makes sense. It’s heaven, so Isha has her first family back too. She’s safe and happy. And she doesn’t need Jinx. 

That’s a good thing. 

So why does her heart ache?

“Are you okay?” Ekko asks her.

“Yeah.” She doesn’t want to talk about Isha with him, especially when she has no reason to feel bad. Isha is with her other family, and so is she. It would have been better if they had never met anyway.

“Pow-pow,” Ekko calls to make her look at him, “ever since the entrance exam result, you’ve been… different. Are you still unsure?”

“No.” Well, maybe I never wanted to go to this academy anyway.

“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. I just think with it, we can accomplish great things. There’s still so much to do for the undercity. And I know that together, we can do anything.”

Jinx has heard that last one before, when they were getting ready to go kick some Noxian butts. She smiles.

I am glad we died together this time.

After a while in the tunnels she recognises the way they’re going. He’s taking her to the Firelight’s hideout. She remembers when he first took her there, after she had let the grenade fall beneath them and let him guide her out of her lair. He had shown her his mural with her face at the centre. To remember and honour everyone they’ve lost. 

“To keep them in our hearts and move forward,” he had said, handing her paint, “What did she look like?”

And Isha had joined the mural as close to her as possible.

Jinx wonders what this place is now. Maybe there are people living there. Ekko had built this place to be a refuge. People don’t need  a refuge like back when she was alive here, though. It could be a playground, there were so many children there. Maybe here it belongs to them, and they play all day, just like she and Ekko did in the junkyard.

There’s water on the floor, it’s not deep, but it splashes when they walk. Once they’re inside she looks up, and freezes.

This is Vi. Her Vi. She’s not supposed to- Why is she-? How is she-?

Her breath quickens and they all start screaming at her. 

What have you done? You’ve managed to kill one of us after all! Why are you surprised? You’re a jinx. You cannot change your own nature. Jinx! You will never belong in heaven! Why would any God let you in? So that you can burn the place to the ground! You’re going to jinx us all again! This is a special hell crafted just for you! You’re a jinx! You’re not meant to be happy. Murderers don’t get happiness. You jinx everything!

“Shut up!” she shouts, throat raw.

She runs away. When she hears Ekko shouting after her, she runs faster.

She ran but had no idea where to run. She couldn’t go to her lair, it was different, it wasn’t hers. Nothing here was hers. Not the Last Drop and not the wrong Vander, or wrong Silco, Mylo, Claggor, or wrong everyone.

She ran to the cannery, this was a place for her. The place of Jinx’s birth. That’s where she belongs. But as she got closer she noticed the people going toward it. They looked sick and broken. This should have been a good sign but when she got there she saw in large bold letters the word ‘hospital’.

They have hospitals, the fucking cannery became a hospital.

Jinx ran away from that too. She went into the fissures, where the Grey still filled the air. They hadn’t fully eliminated it, they couldn’t fix everything. 

She sat down where she could see it fester below without coughing her lungs out. That’s where he found her, because of course he found her.

“You’re not my Powder, are you?” She hears him call behind her.

She chuckles humorlessly, “Nope, I’m Jinx.” Now, go away.

“Are you from the same place as the other Ekko?”

She sighs, “I guess.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Was he ever going to leave? “I didn’t realise- he didn’t give me details, okay!”

She needs him to shut up. To stop talking to her as if she was Powder. To not be so nice to her. To not be here. She can feel him standing away from her. She can picture his face, with his eyes full of hope, just like that day on the edge of the turbine. She doesn’t want to see this fake Ekko and his perfect life with his perfect Powder. 

“Are you okay?”

Why does he have to be like this? Why is it that in every universe he’s like that? Always trying to save her.

“I’m not Powder, okay? Now leave.”

“Look, I’m just trying to help you.”

She turns to face him. He looks worried: of course he does. He doesn't understand that she's nothing like her.

“Just because I have her face doesn’t mean you have to care.”

“Actually you have more than her face, you are inhabiting her body.” He says with a cheeky look on his face, as if they were friends.

“Well, I don’t know how to leave it, so…”

“Powder, Heimerdiger and the other Ekko created a machine that could send him back. With their notes I’m sure we can figure it out.”

“Good for you.”

Powder and Heimerdiger aren’t here anymore. If he wants to build his machine, let him have a crack at it, but leave her out of it. Give the machine to her, she’ll probably find a way to blow the entire city up with it.

“Look, Powder-”

“Jinx! My name is Jinx.” She almost screams it at him. He flinches, and that’s how it should go.

“He did say you were different.” He says, not backing down, always the brave one.

“Oh, really?”

“He also said your ideas changed the world.”

She burst out laughing. That’s one way to put it!

“Do you know what I’ve done? Did he tell her?”

He looks at her with the same terror her Ekko used to. She laughs, almost manically. The way only a Jinx would laugh. The laugh that does nothing but scare people.

“I’ve killed them,” Jinx whispers at him and laughs some more, even when nothing feels funny at all. “Vander, Mylo and Claggor, all in one go. Silco too,” she pauses, “But that was later.” She gives him her smile and it makes him flinch. “And I killed so many of your friends in between.”

He stares at her and says nothing. 

“And I killed them on purpose! Unlike everyone else. Everyone who gets close to me dies… one way or another. Except you. The boy saviour always makes it.”

Jinx sits back on her spot. He should leave now: Jinx can tell that he’s scared. He should leave before she jinxes him, too. She can hear his footsteps, but they’re not getting softer. They’re getting louder.

He sits next to her. “I gave her the tip.”

Jinx looks up at him. 

“I gave her the tip, and they all went while having no idea what was actually up there. If I hadn’t they would never have found the crystals. They would never have fallen to the ground. There would never have been an explosion. If it weren’t for me, Vi would still be alive.” He sighed, it’s a heavy sigh, filled with sorrow. “Everyone tells me it’s not my fault, but there’s still a part of me that,” He pauses to take a shaky breath, “That still feels like I killed her.”

There are no tears in his eyes, but she hears them in his voice.

“It’s not the same. You couldn’t have known there'd be an explosion, it was a good tip.”

“Whatever you did to kill them, did you know it would?”

Jinx doesn’t have the strength to answer, so she just cries. Because she didn’t know. She only wanted to help. 

In between sobs, she lets out, “What about everyone else?”

“I don’t know, you’ll have to ask your Ekko.”

Going through the notes is more difficult than she thought. They don’t use big fancy words like Talys and his partner did, but the doodles, the discussion in the margins, all the little things in the pages tell her how much fun they had. He had more fun with me.

Or maybe, he only had fun with her when he thought of the other her.

Other Ekko works dutifully on the project. Seemingly unbothered by her, which still baffles her. He probably doesn’t understand what she is, and what she’s done. 

It’s better not to explain it to him. Just get back and then… 

The first night, when their stomachs start to growl, he proposes to go “home” to eat. She can’t. She refuses, and when he ducks out anyway, he comes back with food. Says he told the others they were working on a project, that they let him come back here, but are worried.

Powder doesn’t go around disappearing. Jinx hopes they finish this fast.

Working with this Ekko is not the same as working with her Ekko, but it’s close enough. There’s something about the way they bounce ideas off of each other. Like the gears inside her head turn faster. It brings her back to when they were children, when they were searching for books in trash, trying to understand mechanisms by taking gadgets apart and rebuilding them. There’s something comforting about it. But it lacks the excitement of working with her Ekko. 

She always ends up thinking of the days they spent preparing to fight the Noxians. Making her lair airborne had been a crazy idea that somehow worked. Jinx couldn’t have done it with this world’s Ekko; he wouldn’t have taken the risk. 

That’s the thing about her Ekko–he’s a daredevil. He’ll jump off an airship to reach his goal. He’d face an explosion again and again to save her. Was he always like that? Or is it just having her around that makes him as crazy as she is? 

She believed that when she pulled the pin, but now, with this Ekko, the one who has never met a Jinx before, she sees cracks. He will redraw the same schematics six times, perfectly identical, always. He will violently rip off pages of his notebook and throw it away when he realizes he‘s made a mistake. He forgets to eat. Apparently it happens when he’s focused and Powder is the one to remind him, usually. He starts breathing really fast and clutching his head one day, because he has just realized he made a mistake yesterday. 

Maybe that’s not something she screwed up, then. Maybe her Ekko was always a bit insane, too.

“It’s the power source,” she says one day, “We’re screwed.”

“What do you mean?”

“What they used were crystal shards, not a real Hex-crystal. That’s why Heimerdiger had to step out to make adjustments during the process.”

“To redirect the energy!” He exclaims before rushing toward Vi’s shrine.

“We don’t have an actual crystal, we can’t-”

Before she can finish, Ekko shows her a bag full of crystals.

“We had sworn to never use them,” he explains, “but given the circumstances, I think she’ll understand.”

She didn’t want to go back to the Last Drop. What would she do there? Talk to the other Vander, Silco, Claggor and Mylo, and pretend that she was their Powder? As if she had any idea how to be like her. She’d probably manage to kill them, too, given enough time. But then the other Ekko had told her, “why don’t you let yourself enjoy some of your time here? your me definitely did.”

They had been humour in his tone and she had no idea what he meant, but her curiosity had pushed her to take his advice. If spending time with those people had led Ekko to want to see her again, then she’d like to know what he had seen.

So now Jinx sits at a diner table with Claggor at her right, Mylo at her left and Silco and Vander across from her.  

“So what’s that project you guys are working on?” Claggor asks with excitement in his voice.

“Secret,” she answers before stuffing her mouth.

The food was rich in taste and homely, Vander must have cooked it, it tastes like something from a memory.

“Since when do you keep secrets?”

A cold chill washed over her. Coming here was a bad idea. They were going to figure out there was something wrong with her. They were going to get mad. They would be scared and confused, all shouting at her. And that’s when it’ll happen. That’s when they all die.

“I think she’s not making anything,” exclaims Mylo, snapping her attention to him “She’s just getting more alone time with her boyfriend!”

She stares at him and feels her cheeks warming. Laughter erupts around her.

“Really?” This time it’s Silco that calls her attention. “You’re about to spend the next couple of years locked with him at the academy, and yet you’d rather spend your time with him rather than with us?”

Mylo and Claggor laugh even harder and she can barely hear herself say, “I’m sorry.”

“Leave her be,” Vander comes to her rescue, “She spent more than enough time taking care of us, let her have some fun.”

She doesn’t know how to describe the look he gives her. It’s the kind of look he would give Vi. She thinks it means, ‘I’m proud of you,’ or something. Definitely not the kind of look he should be giving her.

“Seriously,” says Claggor, “it’s going to be weird not having you around all the time.”

She feels terrified. It must be visible because Claggor keeps sending worried glances over at Mylo.

“We’re grown men. It’s about time we stop holding you back and learn to take care of ourselves.”

Jinx manages to divert attention from herself for the rest of the evening. 

It’s a strange thing. One moment she’s laughing, smiling and content, the next she remembers that this is the life she could have lived, had she not fucked everything up. It’s like being built up and broken over and over again.

By the time Vander asks someone to clean the dishes she volunteers just to be alone. And yet she wants to go back to them: it hurts but it’s also so wonderful to have them alive. It almost feels worth the pain.

She doesn’t linger on this for long because Vander joins her. She’s scared of what he’s going to say but he just quietly helps her with the dishes. She’s not very good at it, mostly because she doesn’t always clean. Hell, most of the time she doesn’t even use dishes. Vander just chuckles and helps her.

“You know you don’t have to feel guilty.”

She drops a plate. It doesn’t shatter, just falls into the water with a quiet splash. 

“Joining the academy is a good thing, and if it means you have less time for your family it’s fine. We can manage on our own and we’re not going anywhere. It’s about time you use all your smarts to make something out of your life.”

Her eyes are watery, Jinx knows those words are not for her but she can’t help but reply, “What if nothing I make is good? What if I just make everything worse?”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” He tells her with a smile. She feels the tears rolling down her cheeks and he quickly adds, “And if you struggle you can always turn to Ekko or your brother, or even Silco and me. I mean, we’re not geniuses but we can give good advice when it’s needed.”

She wraps her arms around him. The tears are still falling but they don’t feel like sad tears anymore.

“You’re not alone, Powder.” He says before holding her tight.

As she makes her way to her bedroom she spots Silco writing in a journal.

“Still working?” She asks.

“Yes, I’m afraid my work is never done,” he sighs heavily, “I’m going to have to leave again in a few days.”

“I’m glad you were here.”

He smiles at her, “Me too. And I’ll be back soon, don’t worry.”

“I’m gonna miss you.”

He gets up and walks toward her.

“Now, now, you’re a big girl, I’m sure you don’t need me anymore.”

She pulls him into a hug and hides her face into his shoulder. “I’m always going to need you.”

He hugs her back and says, “Please, I’ve always needed you more than you needed me. You’ll be fine.”

“Here.”

Ekko hands her a pendant, on it there’s a flower. It’s pretty, and it spins. Looking closer she can see their faces carve in the petals.

Before she can ask him anything he says, “He gave it to her, but she says she didn’t think it was meant for her.”

She stares at it again. It’s meticulous work, detailed but not excessive, his style. A small smile forces its way onto her face. Jinx puts it around her neck.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t blow up in our faces.”

First the lightning comes, like at the cannery, they all start to scream and she doesn’t know if she’s going to be able to stand it. But it’s all cut off when the sphere appears around her. She breathes in and this time, she’s ready.

The last thing she sees is the other Ekko holding the other her in his arms. He smiles up at her.

He keeps himself busy. It’s the best way to avoid falling apart. Scar tells him that they have no one to fight, and they are not alone in helping anymore, that he can take a break. Ekko begs him for a job, any job, instead.     

He needs something to do, anything. The look he, and all of the other Fireslights, gives him feels like a stab in the heart, because it’s just another reminder of what could have been.

He repairs the roof. He teaches the children how to fly a hoverboard. He helps cook dinner for everyone. He talks with Sevika about the meeting and what they could and should be doing. He tries to come up with a new and more efficient energy storage device.

It helps, but never for long. Because, they sat on that roof the first night she spent at the hideout. Because, one of the children has dyed his hair blue and swears he's going to be just like her one day. Because, they cooked together the night before the battle. Because, Sevika has to say that she was easier to deal with than the Council. Because, working on anything reminds him of the time they spent transforming her lair.

The nights are the worst, when nothing can distract him from his grief. It’s the third time. It should be easier by now. But it’s worse. It’s so much worse. This time he’s not just grieving what was, he’s grieving what could have been.

After having seen the other universe. After having convinced her to drop the bomb and step off the ledge. After rallying the under-city together. After fighting side by side. He had hope that they would get a future together.

He knew things would never be as they were. That they would never be like the other Ekko and Powder. But he thought that they could build something new. 

Maybe Jinx would have stayed with the Firelight, she had liked it there during the few days before the battle. It might have taken her some time. They could have worked on projects together. That had come to them just as naturally as it had before. Eventually, she would have started to play with the children. That would have won over the few Firelights that were still wary of her. They would have visited Vi together, if only to remind her that she was a Zaunite and always would be. She would have spent a lot of time with Sevika, much to the Council’s annoyance. 

She would have cooked weird things and forced him to try them. He would have fought her, but ultimately conceded, always. He would have taken her flying on his hoverboard, far above Zaun, even higher than the Hex-gate. She would have modified the overboard, in a seemingly superfluous and random way, but a surprisingly useful one. They would have fought about that, and about her idea of games appropriate for children, and about the priorities for the Firelights, and what music to play during the day, and the right flavour of pancakes. They would have laughed, too. About her hair, his clothes, Sevika, Scar, and about the Pilties. They would have spent nights awake making fun of Pilties. 

And on one of those nights he would have looked into her eyes. She would have looked back confused. He would have leaned toward her. She would have frozen at first, but then she would have closed her eyes and leaned back.

But none of that would ever happen. Instead, he would remember all the time they played as children. All the time they fought as teens. Eventually the childhood memories would fade and the only moments left would be those last few days. 

Three days, that’s all he had been given. Three days they spent arguing with the rest of undercity, and trying desperately to build everything on time. They barely had any moments alone together. They never even got to paint together. They transformed her hideout while shouting orders at everyone else. They only got to laugh when painting each other. He only got to hold her twice. Once right after she stepped away from the ledge. And again right before the battle. He only held her hand once, when he brought her to their sanctuary.

He got to kiss her once and it wasn’t even her.

Sometimes he thinks about what it would have been like to kiss his Jinx. It would have been more wild, he thinks, probably with more teeth. It makes him chuckle. Then the hurt comes back, because he doesn’t know, and he never will.

He never told Vi. He can’t. He doesn’t want to burden her with the knowledge of the happiness they could have had. He doesn’t want her to know that their world would have been better if she had died. He hates himself for thinking it, but he knows that, for him at least, it’s true. And he fears it would break her in a way even Caitlyn can’t fix.

He builds her a shrine, like Powder had for Vi. He prays and talks to her, like they had over there. He tells her about his day. About what Vi is up to. He tells her about the changes in Zaun. He tells her he wishes she was here. And some nights, when the pain is too great he begs her to come back. To pull another miracle. You’ve done twice already, why not a third?

He has a lot to tell her today. For starters, mister I’ll-be-just-like-Jinx-one-day thought it would be a great idea to try and jump off his hoverboard mid-flight. He broke his leg. Ekko tried to lecture him. He got too angry, though, and almost yelled at the poor kid. Thankfully Scar took him away quickly. He hates that he lost control like this, especially in front of a child. He barely had time to apologise to the kid before he was informed that Sevika was looking for him. 

Ekko knew that was bad news before he even reached her: Sevika only ever wants to see him when things go to shit. Turns out the Council thinks the factories need to reach their pre-war quotas before the end of the month. How they’re supposed to do that when half of their population is still wounded and recovering, he has no idea. She wants the Firelights to help her make a show of force in front of the Council, to remind them that the undercity is a united front. 

And there’s another problem: A few days ago, the Jinxers put on a little homage to Jinx, to celebrate her sacrifice. Ekko didn’t go. He didn’t want to see what a group of people who never knew her would do. Apparently they just threw a bunch of paint explosives around town, landmarks associated with Jinx, including the building she blew up on Progress Day and the Council chambers. 

Needless to say, the Council are not happy about that. As far as they are concerned this is “in very bad taste” and all those involved “need to be disciplined.” The little dictator that put Noxus on their doorstep can go home scott-free, but a bunch of kids throw paints on their precious building and suddenly there’s a need for discipline. Some things never change. 

After an entire evening locked with Sevika, Babette and her other “advisors” to try to find a solution, he returns home, skips dinner and goes straight to his quarters. 

He wants to go to her, pretend she can hear him, imagine her thoughts, her voice. Give himself whatever comfort she can give him. And collapse on his bed feeling a little bit less shitty about everything.

He pushes the door open and there’s someone before his shrine. She has her back turned to him, all he can see is a cloth wrapped around her skinny frame and short blue air, when she turns around his heart stops.

He thinks he is dreaming. She can’t be standing in front of him. But she’s here. She looks real. Like he had last seen her. His eyes run across her, trying to find a trick, hoping to find a confirmation. That’s when he sees the necklace.

She notices and touches it, “He said she thought you made it for me.”

His breath shakes and he throws his arms around her, his tears run down the crook of her neck. He feels her arms coming around him, Jinx clings to him, just like he’s clinging to her.

He doesn’t know how long they stay like that. He is scared that if he lets go she’ll vanish.

Finally, with her voice shaking she asks, “Can I stay here, at least for while?”

Ekko sobs as he says, “Please don’t leave, not again.”

AN: I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it, writing Jinx pov is difficult I hope I got it right. Writing the alternate universe is also fun, Silco and alt-Silco are two very different people...

[vaguely-concerned]

I've been picking mostly only the essential flirt options with lucanis in the romance so far (I've personally found the dynamic much more natural and mutual when you do that, more like forming a solid friendship slowly and inevitably becoming something else and less like you keep pushing on him and getting little back b/c he seemingly just gets overwhelmed and goes into freeze instead), and I think rye is a pretty hard person to read at the best of times even though he's been Down Real Bad from pretty early on and their chemistry as people is naturally really good. so the way the almost-kiss plays out in this playthrough feels a lot like it has the added layer of lucanis realizing that no but for sure rook is flirting and not just being kind or a good friend* it IS actually happening it's not just wishful/fearful thinking!!! and then uh. maybe going a bit too hard a bit too fast in all the excitement at that revelation haha

*in lucanis' defense he has seemingly literally never had a friend who wasn't his cousin-brother before, under those circumstances I suppose some confusion is extremely natural if not outright expected lmao

[acourtofquestions]

"You'll come back," Manon said.

It sounded like more of a threat than anything

Dorian smirked. "Would you miss me if I didn't?"

Manon didn't reply. He didn't know why he expected her to.

He'd taken all of a step, when Asterin clasped his shoulder. "In and out, quick as you can," she warned him. "Take care of Narene." Worry indeed shone in the Second's gold-flecked black eyes. Dorian bowed his head. "With my life," he promised as he approached her mount and grasped the dangling reins. He didn't fail to miss the gratitude that softened Asterin's features. Or that Manon had already turned away from him.

A fool to start down this path with her. He should have known better.

The hours that passed were some of the longest of Manon's existence.

From anticipation, she told herself. Of what she had to do.

Abraxos, unsurprisingly, found them within an hour, his reins sliced from the struggle he'd no doubt waged and won with Sorrel. He waited, however, beside Manon in silence, wholly focused upon the gate where Dorian and Narene had vanished.

Time dripped by. The king's sword was constant weight at her side. She cursed herself for needing to prove-to him, to herself-that she refused to let him go into Morath for practical, ordinary reasons. Erawan wasn't at the Ferian Gap. It'd be safer. Somewhat. But if the Matrons were there … That was why he'd gone. To learn if they were. To see if Petrah truly commanded the host there, and how many Ironteeth were present. He had not been trained as a spy, but he'd grown up in a court where people wielded smiles and clothes like weapons. He knew how to blend in, how to listen. How to make people see what they wished to see. She'd sent Elide into the dungeons of Morath, Darkness damn her. Sending the King of Adarlan into the Ferian Gap was no different.

It didn't stop her breath from escaping when Abraxos stiffened, scanning the sky. As if he heard something they couldn't.

And it was the joy that sparked in her mount's eyes that told her.

Moments later, Narene sailed toward them, making a lazy path over the mountains, a dark-haired, pale-skinned rider atop her. He'd truly been able to change parts of himself. Had made his face nearly unrecognizable. And kept it that way.

Asterin rushed toward the mare, and even Manon blinked as her Second threw her arms around Narene's neck. Holding her tight. The mare only leaned her head against Asterin's back and huffed.

Manon hadn't dwelled long on what she'd say.

And as the three hundred Ironteeth witches filed into the hall, some coming off their patrols, Manon half wondered if she should have. They watched her, watched the Thirteen, with a wary disdain.

Their disgraced Wing Leader; their fallen Heir.

When all were gathered, Petrah, still standing in the doorway where she'd appeared, merely said, "My life debt for an audience, Blackbeak."

Manon swallowed, her tongue as dry as paper. Seated atop Abraxos, she could see every shifting movement in the crowd, the wide eyes or hands gripping swords.

"I will not tell you the particulars of who I am," Manon said at last. "For I think you have already heard them."

"Crochan bitch," someone spat.

Manon set her eyes on the Blackbeaks, stone-faced where the others bristled with hatred. It was for them she spoke, for them she had come here.

jacket, then hoisting up her white shirt. Rising in the stirrups to bare her scarred, brutalized abdomen. "She does not lie."

UNCLEAN

There, the word remained stamped. Would always be stamped.

"How many of you," Asterin called out, "have been similarly branded? By your Matron, by your coven leader? How many of you have had your stillborn witchlings burned before you might hold them?"

The silence that fell now was different from before. Shaking shuddering.

Manon glanced at the Thirteen to find tears in Ghislaine's eyes as she took in the brand on Asterin's womb. Tears in the eyes of all of them, who had not known. And it was for those tears, which Manon had never seen, that she faced the host again.

"You will be killed in this war, or after it. And you will never see our homeland again."

"What is it that you want, Blackbeak?" Petrah asked from the archway.

"Ride with us," Manon breathed. "Fly with us.

Against Morath. Against the people who would keep you from your homeland, your future." Murmuring broke out again. Manon pushed ahead, "An Ironteeth-Crochan alliance. Perhaps one to break our curse at last."

Again, that shuddering silence. Like a storm about to break Asterin sat back in the saddle, but kept her shirt open.

"The choice of how our people's future shall be shaped is yours," Manon told each of the witches assembled, all the Blackbeaks who might fly to war and never return. "But I will tell you this." Her hands shook, and she fisted them on her thighs. "There is a better world out there. And I have seen it."

Even the Thirteen looked toward her now.

"I have seen witch and human and Fae dwell together in peace. And it is not weakness to do so, but a strength. I have met kings and queens whose love for their kingdoms, their peoples, is so great that the self is secondary. Whose love for their people is so strong that even in the face of unthinkable odds, they do the impossible."

Manon lifted her chin. "You are my people. Whether my grandmother decrees it so or not, you are my people, and always will be. But I will fly against you, if need be, to ensure that there is a future for those who cannot fight for it themselves. Too long have we preyed on the weak, relished doing so. It is time that we became better than our foremothers." The words she had given the Thirteen months ago. "There is a better world out there," she said again. "And I will fight for it." She turned Abraxos away, toward the plunge behind them. "Will you?"

Manon nodded to Petrah. Eyes bright, the Heir only nodded back. They would be permitted to leave as they had arrived: unharmed.

So Manon nudged Abraxos, and he leaped into the sky, the Thirteen following suit.

Not a child of war. But of peace.

[antianakin]

I mean. I don't think there IS a "Watsonian" reason that works. I just don't. If I did, this wouldn't bother me as much as it does. If there was one that I thought actually worked, the writing would probably have simply been better. Sometimes, a Watsonian explanation simply DOESN'T WORK and you just need to settle for the explanation that the writers probably entirely forgot about how important it is that the chip DOES NOT CARE about the technicality of a former Jedi because Palpatine wants them all dead without exceptions, especially within that first night. The ones who end up getting captured later to become Inquisitors should theoretically be spared specifically because they AREN'T captured by clones or something (maybe it's stormtroopers, or the Grand Inquisitor himself, who initially brings them in).

This is also just such a small line in the episode that I doubt anybody really thought about it as much as I did. It's a throwaway line, more intended to foreshadow that she's going to be a Jedi again by the next episode than anything else. If they'd just left the line out and we never saw a clone speak to her at all, that would've been one thing, we could've just all come up with our random headcanons as to why Barriss was spared. But they GAVE us a reason and the reason is exceptionally stupid and contradicts information we've been given previously. So now there's no way to headcanon around it, you cannot make a Watsonian explanation that works because it just... doesn't. It doesn't work.

But sure. Let's look at this new headcanon and talk about why it doesn't work, either. Obviously if you like it enough to keep it and it's important to you to have it because you loved TOTE and what it did with Barriss, more power to you, but I hope you don't mind that I'm going to analyze it and break down why it doesn't work on this post about why this line is exceptionally stupid anyway.

Ahsoka ISN'T actually made a general, she's officially a civilian consultant during the Mandalore mission. The only reason she's able to act like a general/commander is because Rex and the 332nd know her and choose to give her that kind of authority over them, but technically, REX is in charge and Ahsoka's only real contribution is that she understands more about the mission at hand. The clones really aren't all that confused about what Ahsoka's actual status is here, they know she's not officially a Jedi, and their loyalty to her presumably does not come from whether she's a Jedi or not.

It also just doesn't work for me that the chip allows for the clones to MAKE their own exceptions like that. If it gives that much leeway, this could be a massive problem for Palpatine. Like if the clones COULD just logic their way out of killing one of them somehow, it opens the door for some of them to survive and escape. And also, the whole point of the TCW scene is to show us that the chip CAN'T be worked around through logic. It should not allow for the clones to be able to even CONSIDER what Barriss did or didn't do and whether this does or does not make her a Jedi anymore. TBB chooses to give the clones a little bit more ability to consider their actions later on, once the chip has begun to wear off more, but in the immediate moment of Order 66 and probably the first few days or weeks afterward, the clones should have next to no autonomy over the choice of whether to kill someone that the chip/Order considers a Jedi or not.

It also seems like that would be a really complicated bit of code to try to make it so that the clones only kill people who a) are officially part of the Jedi Order and b) aren't part of the Jedi Order but ARE Force sensitive and act like Jedi sometimes, but NOT c) aren't part of the Jedi Order and ARE Force sensitive but don't always act like Jedi anymore. It's a lot simpler to just say "all Jedi, past and present."

Personally, I feel like the chip should OVERRIDE whatever the clones would've felt about the Jedi in question, not be BASED on what the clones felt about the Jedi in question. That just leaves way too much to chance and I don't see Palpatine being willing to allow that.

So, you know, have your Watsonian explanation if you want it. I'll just still be over here in my corner talking about why TOTE is badly written and makes no sense. I'm not LOOKING for a good explanation, it's not like I WANT to like this show and it's just this one weird line keeping me from enjoying it (honestly if I liked the rest of it and this was the one line I thought was bad, I'd just ignore it or find it amusing probably). I think the show is bad overall and in general anyway, this just happens to be one moment that I thought was particularly stupid. So even if you DID manage to come up with a good enough headcanon to explain it on a Watsonian level, the rest of the show would still be frustrating and upsetting and bad. The stupidity of the line is just an example of the stupidity of the rest of the writing in the show, it's an example of the greater issue with the writing on the show which is that nobody on the writing staff of this show gave a flying shit about writing something that made any sense or was good and meaningful, to the point that they couldn't even do enough homework to know that this kind of exception for Barriss SHOULD NOT HAVE WORKED.

There was an entire major plot element in the Order 66 arc of TCW season 7 about how the chip didn't care that Ahsoka wasn't technically a Jedi anymore and was forcing the clones to want to kill her anyway.

Like.

It's a pretty important part of that whole story that Ahsoka not being in the Jedi Order anymore DOESN'T exempt her from Order 66. It would've been a pretty boring story if that technicality had WORKED.

But somehow the clones guarding Barriss at the prison are totally fine applying that technicality to her.

I guess they just like her better than Rex and the 332nd liked Ahsoka in the end or something. Ironic.

[sskk-manifesto]

!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[diluc33rpm]

the romance/relationship system in bg3 is genuinely some of the worst designed shit i've ever seen in any game with that feature but at least the memes we get out of it are funny. once saw someone comment something along the lines of 'patch note: waving at gale will no longer cause him to buy a house for the two of you to retire in' and i've never recovered since

[quietwingsinthesky]

even has killed people—though perhaps that depends on your definition of people—and it’s not. how do i put it. it’s never cool, you know? it’s never a moment where this puts them in control of a situation, where they can show off some skill in putting someone down. because even is not, generally, very powerful, and they do not know how to do this.

it just gets messy.

which is one of those terrible reasons why they… well, they don’t like the master, but they have to like that she can do it easy, quick, clean. she can give even the ability to, as well, when she wants. if for no other reason than it means that they won’t have to scrub it raw off their skin later, they appreciate that.

[loplainlointhemorning]

I literally told a hot goth girl I wanted to be the narrator to her tyler last night & she rejected me what do I have to fucking do around here

[unproduciblesmackdown]

spinning off of "winston being fantastically (literally fantastical (literally related to fantasy)) clairvoyant (he is also figuratively clear-sighted / figuratively preternaturally perceptive just like, in the show. which is where this all comes from. plus him calling himself cassandra, always seeing the future. he really has always / continued to be thusly) and taylor literally has a broadsword" type fun and games that are very loosey goosey b/c billions aus go spinning off into their own separate dimensions super easily when billions canon is so rooted in its specific Stage Settings of modern day US law n finance battles in the office, sidewalks, and eateries:

the thought of winston & tuk and winston gets to be a fairy. jokes, please. changelings are right there with the common theory of "was this to explain disabilities & go 'something could go Wrong and the baby's not a Person and get rid of that,' unlike nowadays where people do that but go 'b/c that baby's disabled'" and also one goes Thinking Emoji about how apparently New Mothers and New Brides were susceptible along with New Borns to become swapped out with a fairy and now something's wrong with them and get rid of that. had to be about Something given that people apparently did act on changeling lore and martin luther is taking a stance like yeah another thesis, it's important to kill them And okay to kill them b/c they don't even have a soul anyways. okay thanks martin luther....meanwhile also witchcraft and getting after anybody for that too. and fairies generally as Problems, the etymology going back to [fate], the range like "ooh hehe causing funny little inconveniences just because" to more so "yeah they could cause life-threatening illness for that" and "yeah they'll just kill you"....and i think fairy/fey as respective noun/adj re: being gay is of Unknown Origin, like "gay" also is. and you never know, if being fey is like, well something's not right and it's dangerous, whether this is the inspiration....though by the time this slang starts turning up, and even in the time of prior possible origins / the roots in other usages / potential inspirations, theoretical actual fairies are surely becoming more Fanciful, this being around like, the 18th century, rather than "here's martin luther telling you to immolate! that! baby!"

but that like, you can have it all ways out here. the Always Small fairies i think being a later kind of victorian deal, rather than "fairies are shapeshifters & can become animals e.g. & May have a 'tiny little inches or millimeters high mode' but that's just a mode & the fact that generally though they just look like people, maybe with some stylistic variations and tells, means watch out" and i think wings came up ever, across yknow the various centuries and regions of folklore out here lmao and possible origins / influences yet further across time & regions & cultures, but again "always small and always winged" being a very relatively modern victorian deal. but we can draw on that to be sure when, additionally, a Potential mutual [would prefer to avoid] between fairies and humans (as opposed to "if your house or some shit is on a fairy path bestie just build them another door to walk straight through cuz they're Gonna") becomes "no, fairies mostly avoid humans more than the other way around" type of imbalance of any threat means like, well hey sure, the Real Self could then become a tiny little magical guy having fun with wing designs who is shy and elusive but maybe another fun little guy can accidentally become aware but then have a secret little hidden friendship hmm....

but then also just thinking of the version where you just look exactly like everyone else and live amongst them, changeling style. and potentially don't Know you're different, or at least not Why, b/c this is a "from birth" thing like hmmm ya don't say. and the whole thread where in some folklore fairies Aren't nonhuman, the difference is only about the separate fairy Realm you live in, which is different, with like "yeah sometimes fairies come from people who died." and alongside / overlapping with everything like "yeah you could disappear for a few days to that realm and then be like 'don't wanna / can't talk about it'" and whatever all various like "watch out for the liminal and unknowingly wandering or being taken into the fairy world and Then watch out for communing with them b/c then you could be Permanently affected, or permanently continually affected or vulnerable, or just stuck there. and we wouldn't want that" like well don't let them know your name but maybe try to find out their names b/c you can get at them in turn that way, don't get in on any food, don't get in on any parties. though variations, sometimes people getting whisked away for particular tasks that apparently Only humans can do. or forever potential for helpful / sympathetic fairy interventions in life. like fairies raising humans b/c their human parents were awful

also, that some classic Tests for "is your baby a changeling?" were very like, "well i guess if we drowned or burned that person and they just died about it....our bad," in the way that like apparently the way to go could be "put them in the fire. where they'll either burn or fly out the chimney." or "start going tf beating them with objects. so that they go away" like and they never stop beating winston with hammers out here!! or the classic "idk abandon them in the forest so fairies can take them back" like well they do also like [i prefer to pretend winston doesn't exist / forget that he does] lmao. this isn't really related. just the ol "ballpeen hammers kind of goated when it comes to putting someone in a sack and beating them to death" factor out here for your local changelings

also sure thinking of like ohh watch out for winston and his gayass Realm he exists in which is wrong and not of our own and potentially will forever change you with its gayass ways. uh oh don't get corrupted into a whole other powerful magical mode of existence if you commune with him in some deep fundamental nourishing ways. oh nooo watch ouuuut....one of the "you might be a changeling if" moments being "when they think they're alone do they act up?? dance??" like yeah i'm stimming and bursting into motion and making noises and existing wrong when i think i'm alone. Old Souls (theory as well that newborn changelings were secretly elderly fairies)....existence in the Fey Realm just making you different and out of place huh. and it would just be a guy though like either [undetectable except by already trying to kill them] and/or [actually just a human, fairies are just humans, fairies b/c they're in/from the fairy realm] but uh oh don't let him corrupt you. don't go hanging out with him and talking with him and partaking in his activities and embracing his ways. you'll be changed. you'll never fit in around here and be able to do things right ever again. we'll have to start beating you with hammers. and all for what. your weird gayass little guy and a whole possible other dimension of existence? vs all This? smh

[digitaldiseas3]

can't tell if i'm like... starting to dislike these girls because im pmsing and that's pretty typical for me to suddenly not like certain people, or if it's genuinely because they've been giving me weird fucking vibes and did smth i think was shitty :/

[falesten-iw]

To Those Who Still Hold Onto a Shred of Morality and Humanity - Stand with Us and Don’t Forget Us.

Over 40,000 lives have been lost, with 70% of them being children and women. Among these numbers are my own family members—many of whom I’ve already lost.

My family, my cousin, aunt, their children, and grandchildren were all directly targeted by Israeli airstrikes. I’m sharing a video of my aunt and cousin to reveal the harsh reality we are facing in Gaza. In this video, my aunt bravely shares her story about how the Israeli army airstruck them along with their children and grandchildren. Even if you don’t understand Arabic, just watching her speak will help you grasp the immense suffering we are enduring in Gaza. You can see the vedeo in this post.

The few family members who remain are in grave danger, and I’m terrified of losing them too. We have a chance to make a real difference and give my 24 surviving family members a chance to live.

In Gaza, jobs are non-existent, and nonprofit organizations like the UN have drastically reduced their work on the ground. Basic necessities such as milk, food, and medicine are almost as expensive as gold. My family is struggling to afford even the essentials, and my mother urgently needs medication that we simply cannot afford.

I’m also sharing another video that shows the daily struggle people face just to get clean water. The suffering here extends far beyond my family; it’s a genocide affecting every aspect of life in Gaza.

Thanks to the generosity of those who have already donated, we’ve raised $535 toward our goal of $190,363- august 17th. I’m deeply grateful to each of you, but we still have a long way to go, and I need your help more than ever. Imagine if it were your family—how would you feel if they were in this situation?

For those who have created special posts or reblogged to amplify my voice, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your support means everything to me and to my family. If you haven’t yet shared our story, please take just one minute to do so. Your voice could be the lifeline my family desperately needs.

You cannot continue to treat human lives as mere numbers. This is a genocide that demands immediate action. How many more should be killed before you all wake up? Will 40,000 lives be enough to stir us to action? 50,000? 100,000? 150,000?

Asking for donations and charity is something we never imagined having to do in Gaza before the war, and it’s heartbreaking that it has come to this. But if everyone who saw my last post donated just $10 or $20, we could reach our goal in no time. If you’re looking for a way to contribute, consider giving up your coffee, tea, or other “cup” for one day, one week, one month, or anything in between. Then, donate what you would have spent to help me. Please help us and donate now!

This is about more than just donations—it’s about preserving human lives and upholding our shared moral values. Your contribution can make a world of difference in our survival and ensure I don’t lose more of the people I love.

Demanding an end to this suffering is a matter of basic humanity. You cannot remain neutral in the face of such genocide. Please, let’s stand together. Enough is enough.

Every donation, no matter how small, brings us closer to hope and healing. Thank you again for your kindness and support. I will never forget it.

Vetted and shared by @90-ghost: Link.

Verified and shared by @el-shab-hussein: Link

Listed even as number 282 in "The Vetted Gaza Evacuation Fundraiser Spreadsheet" compiled by @el-shab-hussein and @nabulsi : Link

Additionally, Al Jazeera News has documented apart of my family's case: Link

Important note: ** 105 Swedish kr is just 10$ ** 1050 Swedish kr is just 100$ ** 10500 Swedish kr is just 1000$

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[mrsriddlenott]

~Teach Me, Please~

Bsf!JJ Maybank x Innocent!Reader

Warnings: oral(m&f receiving), bit of a handjob, praise kink, spit kink, innocent reader but she’s lowkey in control, reader kinda gets bullied in the beginning but not directly. Not proofread.

{masterlist}

————

“She’s like their little sister,” you heard the kook girl you didn’t recognize laugh as she spoke about you, “She follows them around like a groupie, JJ most of all. It’s like she doesn’t know what to do with what she has, I would be flirting non-stop if I was with him as much as she is. JJ is absolutely delicious.”

“I think they’ll always be just friends,” her equally annoying friend giggles, the pair clearly not noticing you behind them or simply not caring, “I mean look at how innocent she is, I doubt she would know how to please him if she had the chance. She has literally never had a boyfriend, she probably has never given head in her life and JJ gets around a lot he has plenty of better options. Hell he probably doesn’t pay enough attention to even notice her raging crush on him anyway. You should definitely go for it tonight, I’ve heard he’s good.”

You huffed, stomping off back towards the couch you had left JJ on. What annoyed you the most wasn’t the shit talking, you knew people talked, especially kooks who somehow had nothing better to do. What hurt was the accuracy. Despite being the same age as your fellow pogues, and knowing JJ and JB since the third grade, you were still very much innocent. Especially when compared to your ragtag group of friends.

You knew they didn’t mind, they all loved you no matter what. Kie helped you as much as she could but it was pointless, you just didn’t know how to be as laid back as them. You had fun and loved to party as much as they did, but you still preferred a nice night in with a movie. And while part of you used to worry you held them back, they made sure you knew you could always come to them. So when you saw JJ wave you back over with a questioning look in his eyes you knew you could ask him to help you with anything.

And your crush on him had totally and absolutely nothing to do with that decision.

“Will you teach me how to give a blowjob?” You blurt out, dropping onto the couch infront of JJ’s outstretched arm as though everything was normal. He gagged on the gulp of beer he’d just taken before looking to you with wide eyes, trying to decipher if he heard you properly.

“What’d you jus’ say?” His voice was breathless as he wiped his face of spilt beer, your eyes tracing the droplets that escaped down his neck.

“I want you to teach me how to give good head.” You stated, stretching the words to make your intentions clear. You watched JJ’s eyes bounce between your eyes and lips, the gears in his brain working overtime to decide if you were joking or not.

“Like- uh.” JJ starts, his voice strained while he needlessly wipes his mouth again, spreading his legs on the coach and making room for himself and letting his knee touch yours, “Like on what though.” He arches his eyebrow to look at you, not wanting to be presumptuous but wanting nothing more than to help you directly.

JJ would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about you like that a million times. He wanted you, he just never admitted it out loud because he thought you deserved better. He messed around and acted out while you and John B cleaned up after him but over the years he started to notice a distinct difference in his feelings for Jonh B compared to those he had for you. However, he decided long ago he wouldn’t act on any of them unless you did first, he couldn’t risk ruining you because you were just so good.

“On you Jay, come on don’t make me feel weird about it.” The whining tone of your voice makes JJ bite his lip, unsure if this was ethical. JB would surely frown upon this and Kie would probably kill him for corrupting you. But he was having a hard time fighting the urge now as you looked up to him with pleading eyes.

“Well I don’t wanna take advantage of you or anything, y’know?” He stutters over his words slightly as he fumbles to find anything to say, making you giggle in that way he loves so much. You had never once seen JJ flustered or worried about a girl asking to suck him off and you honestly couldn’t believe it was you who got that honor.

“But I asked you to show me JJ, I want you to teach me.” You beg him, turning your body on the couch to face him fully, placing a hand on his exposed bicep.

And his resolve snapped.

He tossed his half full beer can aside as he stood, not caring where it landed. His hand took your own hand, gently but assertively pulling you up with him. He held onto you tightly, not wanting to lose you while weaving through the crowd in the Chateau making the way to the bedroom he made his. You caught sight of the first kook girl in passing, noticing the way she tried to catch JJ’s eyes only to be ignored. Her face contorted in surprise and disgust while you laughed softly before JJ was yanking you into his room and locking the door behind you both.

“C’mere,” JJ instructed, waving two fingers towards him. When you turn to him he’s facing away from you, grabbing a pillow from the top of his bed and tossing it on the floor at his feet. The bed creeks from his weight flopping onto it, manspreading while watching your slightly shocked and confused face, unable to hide his smile. “Come on, y’wanna learn or not.”

Your legs carry you to him, anxiously messing with the hem of your dress now that you can make out the bulge in his shorts. “Are you sure you want to do this?” His voice draws your gaze back to his and you can see the excitement whirling behind his blue eyes dropping you to your knees carefully, leaning into the comfort of his pillow.

“Thanks for the pillow,” You whisper, locking eyes with him from between his legs, “I didn’t know guys did that, I’ve never seen it in the porn I watch.”

“You watch porn?! Oh my god this keeps gettin’ better.” JJ groans with a smile, knocking his head back and letting you watch his adam’s apple bob, “I’ve never done it before, I just didn’t want you to bruise your knees.”

“Good to know I’m special.” You laugh awkwardly, wiggling with excited and nervous energy where you leant before him. He released an airy laugh above you, looking down at you again, his pupils dilated.

“You have no idea,” JJ’s voice was breathless and his words caught in his throat slightly, “Do you wanna get started on our lesson Princess?” JJ asked teasingly, running his fingers down your warm cheek, stopping to lift your head up by your chin. You nodded, shell shocked as you stare up at him unable to force your mouth to form words.

“I need you to tell me,” He whispered, leaning forward slowly until his lips ghost against yours, “If I’m going to finally corrupt you I need you to ask Cupcake.” Your eyes fluttered shut, taking in his scent as your heart rapped against your ribcage.

“I want you Jay….T-to teach me, please.” Your eyes flick open just in time to catch a wicked grin spread across his face before your cheeks were cupped in his warm palms, tugging your lips into his in a heated kiss. Your sighs mingle together, finally exploring what you both silently desired for so long. His tongue danced across your bottom lip asking for entrance as you gasped letting his tongue fight yours, forcing a moan from you that vibrated against his lips. He pulled away slowly, spit connecting you for a second before you’re licking your lips subconsciously. JJ observes your furrowed eyebrows and the redness flooding over your skin as your eyes stay closed in obvious pleasure.

“Still with me Gorgeous?” JJ asks, tapping your cheeks lightly, smiling excitedly as he watches you look up at him. His painfully hard erection rubbed against the zipper of his shorts as he adjusts his hips. Leaning back and resting his weight on his forearms, his crotch looming in front of you, your wide eyes telling him you have no clue how to start this. “Put your hands on my knees,” He instructs, shivering under your touch when you listen immediately, your cool hands resting against his steadily warming skin, “Good girl, now I want you to slowly move them up, like you’re not sure you want to take my pants off yet, tease me y’know?”

Your breath hitches at his praise, and he notices. You whimper as you try and follow his instructions drifting your hands across his broad thighs and letting your fingers tease under the fabric of his shorts, “You like being my good girl don’t you?” He asks, his voice teasing only slightly, his breathy voice making your thighs clench, rubbing them together desperate for friction.

“Yes, I do,” His eyes immediately catch onto the movement of your thighs, biting his lip while he watches you wiggle in front of him. He twitches in his shorts at the thought of you getting off to his pleasure, moaning loudly when he takes your hand in his pressing your palm directly into his bulge. Using his larger hand to move yours to perfectly cup around him and uses your palm moving it against his shaft as he swallows, desperately trying to collect himself.

“K-keep doing that until you’re ready,” He sighs, letting you continue at your own pace, moving his hand up to your hair to fix it, not wanting it to fall into your face as he watched your features for signs of distress, “When you want to unbuckle my belt and-“ He gasps cutting off his sentence when your fingers immediately jump to hastily undo his belt. Your shaking hands struggle for a few awkward seconds before you’re tugging his shorts down his thighs exposing his black boxers. JJ lifts his hips to let you discard his shorts fully, tossing them aside as you stare into his eyes triumphantly, “Good girl.”

Your wide smile as your hands tease their way back up his naked thighs just as he taught you has him reeling, practically shaking with excitement. “You like being praised, don’t you Mama?” He asks, tugging his lip between his teeth when your fingers find his cock again. He tugs your hand upward, moaning when he presses your hand into his tip, stopping your movements entirely until you respond.

“Yes Jay.” You whine, your tone impatient as you wiggle your hand under his, making him release a breathy moan laced with a laugh as he releases your hand, letting it continue it’s excited exploration of him. Your free hand started to sneak it’s way up his body, making him jolt forward as your cold hand found it’s way into his shirt.

“Who do you wanna learn this for?” JJ blurts out, not entirely wanting to hear the answer as he tugs his shirt over his head impatiently. Closing his eyes as your nails dig their way back down his chest, part of him wondering how you knew he’d like that.

“Myself.” JJ feels the smile grow back on his face, relief flooding his body as he opens his eyes, locking onto your wide gaze looking up to him expectantly. You want his instructions, and he wants to draw this out.

“So there’s no one in that precious mind of yours right now?” He asks, letting his eyes fall down your face, gazing at your wet lips before eyeing your cleavage and wiggling hips. Trying to suppress that part of him that wants you to stay here like this forever.

“Well,” You giggle, palming him through his boxers just over his tip, loving the way his head falls back with a moan when you apply more pressure, “Right now I have you on my mind Jay.”

“Fuck, you have no idea what that does to me,” He smiles towards the ceiling, imagining all the times he came in his hand to this exact scenario, “I thought you were too good for me, why’d ya ask me?”

“Some girls at the party were talking about me, calling me your groupie and saying I wouldn’t know what to do with you if you ever gave me the chance, and I really wanted a chance.” You sigh, drifting your hand down his toned abs to tease the elastic of his underwear, letting it snap against his skin as your excited eyes find his again.

“Oh Princess,” he cooed caressing your cheek, “You have always had the chance. You were the first girl I ever imagined doing this for me.” His eyes went wide when he realized what he had said, almost backtracking before you interrupted him to speak.

“Good, because I can’t imagine anyone else teaching me, I trust you, I want it to be you.” You state simply, locking your eyes in his gaze and taking not of the hitch in his breath. In a spurt of confidence you’re tugging his boxers down his thighs, eyeing his thick, throbbing cock as it bounces free, eyes meeting his again in a beg, “Tell me what to do Jay.”

“First give the tip a kiss Baby,” You do as your told, touching your lips against his hot, red tip as it leaks precum onto your lips, “Mmm, fuck now get your tongue nice and wet and lick up the middle, when it feels right slide my tip against your tongue n’suck on it like those Cherry suckers you’re always begin’ me for.”

You laugh, suddenly feeling more and more confident as you watch him come undone above you. “Is that what you want Jay? Or are you goin’ easy on me?”

“If you think you can take me in one go do it Princess, but don’t think I’m pressuring you,” He sighed, watching your tongue wet the side of his pulsing cock, “I want you to go at the pace you’re comfortable with.”

You smile up at him as you separate from him, letting spit coat your tongue before moving to lick up the prominent vein popping out of the other side of his cock. He groans above you, subconsciously moving his hips closer to your mouth in uncontrollable excitement. As your lips caress against his red, leaking tip you slowly let spit drip from your lips onto him, watching as it drips down him and pools in the bit of trimmed hair at his base. His eyes pop from his head when you bring your hand up to spread your saliva over him, pumping your hand slowly and twisting it like you’d seen in videos. You watched his furrowed eyebrows, buying yourself time to work up enough spit in your mouth to take him fully. His lips tug into his teeth as his hips stutter upward into your hand.

“Where did you learn to do that?” JJ gasps, stuttering and twitching in your wet hand.

“Porn.” Your sickly sweet voice has him moaning and tugging at your hair, forcing you’re eyes up to his.

“You’re so fucking perfect.” He states before slamming his lips into yours, moving you back by your hair wrapped around his fist. You gape up at him wide mouthed, your hand speeding up when his eyes bounce between your open, drooling mouth and your blown out eyes as though asking for permission. You nod your head to him, not sure what he wanted to do but okay with it nonetheless. His free hand jumped to your chin, tugging your mouth open wider before leaning down and spitting directly onto your tongue. Rolling your eyes into the back of your head as you moan you shiver in front of him at the feeling of his spit mixing with yours, unknowingly helping you in your previous goal.

JJ chuckles at your reaction, moaning slightly when your hand speeds up again. You savior the feeling of his spit in your mouth for a second, your eyes latching onto his as you smile wickedly. JJ only takes a second’s pause before his eyed widen watching your mouth dip lower, his fingers subconsciously tightening in your hair, moving his other to grip the bed and ground himself. Breath fills your lungs from your nose, prepping yourself before teasing his tip with your tongue for only a second before you slowly slide him into your mouth. His hips jolt forward subconsciously, shuddering breathlessly when your eyes meet his over your lashes again. JJ curses under his breath, watching you take almost every inch of him in one go, sliding your head down his shaft, resting your hand at his base when you can’t fit anymore.

JJ moans loudly when you swallow around him, jerking his hips into you desperately trying to control himself, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you cut him off quickly, shoving your head as far down as you can go, feeling his tip twitching in the back of your throat as you gag around him. You pop your head up, dragging your tongue against the underside of his shaft, moaning at his taste and sending vibrations through him. You suckle on his tip, preparing yourself as you gasp for breath around him. You start to bob your head up and down him, swirling your tongue as you go dropping low enough to feel his pubes tickle your cheeks, his hands moving to the back of your head to tug your hair into his fingers.

“You’re a natural,” JJ sighs, “Feel like imma cum already Gorgeous, fuck.” Gazing up at him you watch his eyes try and stay open, try to maintain eye contact until they flutter shut when the tip of your tongue grazes his ballsack unintentionally. JJ subconsciously pushes your head down, pulling a moan from you as he groans into his bitten lip, hooded eyes watching you intently now as he tugs you off of him with a pop. His hand stays in your hair, his eyes watching the way your spit dribbles down your chin, mixing with your lipstick and contrasting the black mascara running down you cheeks.

“I want you to try something, but only if you’re comfortable okay?” You nod to him desperately, ignoring the fact that your hair’s probably a mess in his hand, “Flatten out your tongue f’me,” His voice was demanding but soft still, a side of him you had never seen before beginning to come forward, “Yea, good girl just like that,” He says as he watches you stick your tongue out for him, spit dripping down the middle and directly onto is erect cock, “Now lean down and suck on my balls Sweetheart.” Your eyes went wide watching how he bobbed infront of your face. “If you don’t want to that-“

A shiver runs down his spine and directly into his rock hard cock when your warm tongue drags against his heavy sack before you suck one into your mouth, his hand tugs into your hair harder instinctively as he shudders. His shaft twitches against your face, your tongue swirlly against his salty flesh, tugging off him with a pop. You look up to him, makeup dyed spit dripping off your chin and down your chest, “Like that?”

“Yes yes just like that,” He gasps, desperation laced in his tone, immediately making you drop your head back. Sucking his other tight ball into your mouth, swirling your tongue while he shakes you slowly move your hand that was supporting your weight on his knee under your dress, circling your clothed clit with two fingers. Moaning around him as your eyes flutter shut feeling the wet patch seeping through your underwear.

“Open your eyes and look at me,” JJ growls when he catches your hands movement, his hand caress your face gently contrasting his hard tone. Despite wanting to listen your eyes stay shut as you speed up your fingers movement, “Thought you said you liked being a good girl, now listen to me.”

Letting your eyes flicker open you feel your cheeks heating up even more when you catch his gaze. His blue eyes only egg you on further, your fingers speeding up subconsciously while he stares at you with a smile. Breathing through your nose you continue your mouths exploration of him, popping your mouth off of his flesh only to immediately suck his tip into your mouth again. JJ’s hand tugs your hair into a ponytail as you bob your mouth on him, his tip hitting your throat each time making you gag and moan on him. The vibrations of your noises make his hips jolt uncontrollably, his body and dick twitching together as your spit pools on his groin and slips down his thighs.

He releases a loud needy groan when you force your mouth off him, his hand falling from your hair and clutching the blanket below him, mumbling incoherently while trying to ask why you stopped. He whines loudly gasping and gripping the bed so hard his knuckles turn white when you drag your wet tongue from the middle of his ballsack directly to his tip. Moaning when he twitched against your face, sucking him into your mouth while you eye his adam’s apple bobbing. Sensing he was close you stop your fingers with a whine around him, moving in order to move your hands to support yourself on his knees as you suck your cheeks in. You drag your mouth down his shaft and JJ whimpers, shoving his hand into your hair and tugging as he cums down your throat, filling your mouth as you moan.

“Fuck I’m so sorry, I didn’t have time to warn you, do you need’ta spit?” He asks, trying to ignore the tingle running down his spine at the sight of his cum dribbling past your lips.

“It’s okay,” You state simply licking your lips clean, the sweet tone in your voice not changing despite the more than inappropriate circumstances, “Your cum tastes so good Jay, look I swallowed it already.” You stick your tongue out to him, showing what little residue remains as he groans above you again.

“If you need anymore lessons, you can always, and i mean always, come to Papa Jay.” His breathless voice makes you laugh as you hop up to sit next to him on the bed.

“Do you wanna take my virginity too.” The burst of confidence making him cum gave you almost wears off at the look of shock that grows onto JJ’s face.

“Damn Mama, you are so fucking bold tonight, you have no clue how many times I have imagined you asking me that.” He smiles at you, his large ring clad hand gripping your thigh as it sits beside him, “Wanna tell me how long you have been fantasizing about your best friend poppin’ your cherry?”

“Forever.”

“Mmmhmm, that’s what I wanted to hear.” JJ groans, pulling your thighs apart and shoving you backwards letting your dress ride up. He rolls over you, settling over you where you lay on his bed, framing your face with his arms. “I think it’s your turn right now though don’t you?” Shivers run down your spine at his tone, subconsciously trying to rub your thighs together earning a teasing laugh from JJ. You brace yourself on his waste, tugging him closer to you as his lips crash into yours, tongues immediately starting to fight for dominance only for him to win with a groan.

“We should save your first time until there’s not a dozen people right outside the door.” Lowering his voice to a whisper as he lightly digs his hips into you, “And I think we need to have a conversation before we….move forward.” Letting his lips graze your neck as he keeps going he smiles at your gasps of appreciation, “But don’t think I don’t really, really want to right now.”

JJ’s teeth tug at the spaghetti strap string of your dress as he crawls lower down your body, letting it snap back against your skin with a sigh, “You’re so fucking gorgeous, so perfect I can’t even look at you sometimes.” The warm feeling of his tongue against your collar bone has you bucking against him desperately, hissing when his teeth nip at the exposed flesh of your breast.

“I love when you wear this dress,” JJ moans against your skin, his head falling low enough to push his face into your chest for a few seconds, wiggling it around dramatically, making you laugh before be continues his decent, “I don’t wanna take it off.” He groans, biting at your flesh through the fabric.

“Then don’t.” You say breathlessly, smiling down to him as you tangle your fingers into his hair. He smiles back to you, quickly pushing himself down the bed the rest of the way so he was face to face with your exposed thighs. With a quick flick of his wrists he flips the hem of your dress up, exposing your damp matching underwear.

“You matched your underwear to your outfit? That’s so cute.” JJ groans, dipping his head to bite at the flesh of your thigh as his hands slowly work their way up your thighs. He pulls back, watching intently as he slips his fingers past the lace hem of your underwear, tugging them down as you lift your hips to help. You watch him as he tosses your underwear behind him, his eyes meeting yours for a second seeking consent as he shoves your thighs further apart, putting you completely on display for him. JJ licks his lips as he eyes you, moving his hands slowly under and around your thighs resting them on his shoulders before shoving your hips down with his large palms. He groans loudly as he bites into the flesh of your thigh beside him, slowly licking his way to your center and leaving a wet trail behind.

His hands hold your hips down hard as they jolt upward with your moan and laughs into you happily. Eyeing the way your head falls back, your chest rising and fallen he quickly speeds up his tongues pursuit of your clit. Watching you as one hand hangs above your head and the other plays with his hair, JJ can’t think of anything that looks better.

“Oh my god,” You yell, the feeling of his tongue flattening against you, slowly licking back and forth over your clit before quickly sucking it into his mouth. You scream a moan at the sensation, tugging at JJ’s hair aggressively not caring if anyone outside the door can hear your pleasure. “Do that again Jay.” JJ’s lips pop off of you into a smile, his lips glistening with your release before he drops his head back into you. Flicking his tongue aggressively against you as he licks up your slit, groaning at the feeling of your nails against his scalp when he sucks your clit into his mouth again. JJ can feel himself growing hard against the blanket at your taste, your shaking legs egging him on as your release quickly approaches.

The feeling of JJ’s tongue prodding at your entrance as you clench on nothing has the tightening feeling in your abdomen worsening, making you whine and wiggle your hips subconsciously. The grip of JJ’s hands on your hip tightens, his nails digging into your flesh as he grinds himself into the mattress at your excitement. He plunges his tongue into you, collecting your juices on his tongue with a desperate groan, his eyes flickering shut as he moves to flick his tongue against your puffy clit again. JJ pulls back quickly making you whine and tug at his hair, trying to shove him back into you and forcing a wicked laugh from him as he spits directly onto you and dives back in. You shudder when he starts to lap against you wildly, your hips jolting and your back arching, your hands tugs on his hair harder as you cum, the almost painful band in your abdomen breaking in a euphoric release. Moaning so loudly you know for sure anyone close enough to the door could hear but you didn’t care as you came undone on your best friend’s tongue, breath shaking as your body twitches.

JJ’s tongue slows, pushing himself up to get a better look at your post orgasm face, your eyes unfocused and your mouth open in gasping breaths. He slowly crawls up your body, smiling in your face and you smile back at him the best your can, he groans at the sight of your sweaty cheeks, your hair sticking to your forehead as he smash his lips into you. The taste of yourself lingers on his tongue as you both moan into each other.

——————

I might wanna do a part 2 of this for their first time, would anyone be interested in that?

Another Lesson? (Coming Soon)

[notmeowse]

That AMA marks the end of Dragon Age.

In my opinion.

I'll start by saying that I have played all 3 of the previous games repeatedly, I've loved the series for 15 years, more than half my life. These games inspired me to become a writer and they've shaped a lot of my tastes and interests in shows and writing -- to say they were formative is kind of an understatement. Don't want to go on and on about how much I loved them, that's not the point here.

I didn't care for Veilguard for pretty much all of the reasons people have already discussed at length on Reddit and Tumblr. The writing is comprehensively bad, the romances are easily the worst Bioware has written by pure virtue of having the most cookie-cutter pacing and shallow characterization I've seen across their games, the lore has been shafted in every direction, and the nuanced storytelling and roleplay I came to expect from the series has been taken out back and shot in the head.

All, apparently, in the name of a "clean slate". It seems to me that, rather than familiarizing himself with the existing lore of the game he took the creative reins on, Epler clearly had a vision for Dragon Age (or perhaps a different IP entirely) in his head that he decided to transplant into the game (and possibly Trick? But they've said so little beyond defending their work that I can hardly theorize what direction they were coming from). That being a sanitized, wildly self-contradicting, morally absolute shitshow focused on distancing itself from the previous games as much as possible. Now, I know it's unrealistic to blame one person entirely, and I don't blame him entirely. Corinne was there. Trick was there.

But if it wasn't already evident from the numerous interviews Epler's given on the game as well as his participation in the Q&A's (while the actual lead writer of the game has been completely absent in not just the marketing, but in most fan-related interaction pre and post-launch outside of BSKY), this AMA seems to have confirmed, more than anything else, that Epler doesn't understand the game nor does he understand its audience. Neither does Corinne Busche, who despite being Game Director for only the last two years of development, has been answering lore questions a) like she has any fucking clue and b) like she thinks Dragon Age is a cozy-gamer IP, meant to appeal to people that want uplifting stories with uncontroversial characters, morally upright heroes, and unquestionably evil villains.

So as of today's AMA, I think I've finally had enough. We're just outright retconning the lore in Reddit AMA's now, I guess. Among other things. I'll provide a few examples, just so we're all on the same page.

This was part of Epler's response to why Solas didn't have his cult following in the game (insert "We Kind of Forgot" meme here):

Solas' experience leading the rebellion against the Evanuris turned him against the idea of being a leader. You see it in the memories - the entire experience of being in charge ate at him and, ultimately, convinced him he needed to do this on his own. And his own motivations were very different from the motivations of those who wanted to follow him - he had no real regard for their lives or their goals. So at some point between Trespasser and DATV, he severed that connection with his 'followers' and went back to being a lone wolf.

The fact that this (the not caring bit) directly contradicts the writing in the actual game is absolutely INSANE to me, moreso than the lack of Solas's spy network (which he apparently carried with him for 10 years only to conveniently drop right before the ritual? Because he clearly had them research Rook?). But in regards to the not caring -- here's a line from Solas's memory of killing Mythal in Veilguard, which. I'll get to Mythal in a minute:

Why should I not tear down the Veil, and bring back immortality to all the elven people? They deserve it!

Which is it? Does Solas care about the people he's saving (the venn diagram of people he's saving vs. the people following him is surely a circle, i.e. elves) or not? Does he even care about the spirits trapped behind the Veil anymore or is it just convenient to abandon them and have him only care about elves, now? What happened to saving The People? What happened to him not identifying as an elf in his conversations with a Dalish Inquisitor? And what the absolute fuck happened to him wanting to bring back the magical marvels (that the ancient elves did in fact achieve) that were greater than anything we see in Thedas today? Here's what Epler has to say about elven magic, now:

I do agree that the elves have had their place in the sun at this point. [...] The thing about the Evanuris is that, ultimately, they were able to take a very specific type of magic and shape it into doing what they wanted. But even their understanding of magic was only skin deep [...] Even the magic that Tevinter wields, the magic of the Southern mages, is different from what the Evanuris used. The magic of the Evanuris is powerful but it's sterile, and it's constrained. So while the Evanuris have made magic work in a way that's more predictable and understandable, it's not the only kind of magic out there, and even then, I'd say they understood it at a very surface level. People were confidently describing how the natural world worked back in the 16th century. Very few of them were right.

First of all, Tevinter has been stated in previous games to have clumsily adapted ancient elven magic for their own, but they did adapt it. To the point where even Solas is surprised that Corypheus achieved effective immortality -- by binding himself to a dragon the same way the Evanuris did. So, cool, more contradicting the lore here. "They understood it at a very surface level" you mean when all of the magic of the Fade wasn't locked behind the Veil? You mean when magic flowed freely through the world? What do you mean, Surface Fucking Level? The entire point of the Dalish elf culture is what they lost; this wasn't the ancient elves thinking the sun revolved around the earth, the Veil was their fucking Library of Alexandria burning. Oh my god. I still cannot believe he said this.

And how have the elves had their day in the sun? I'm sorry, was Arlathan not given to... the Veil Jumpers? Instead of the Dalish? What happened to all the Dalish clans in the south, who had no infrastructure when the world was apparently blighted to hell? I guess they're just gone now! They've had their day! The story of the Dalish and the Evanuris is over (also confirmed in this AMA), and it apparently ends with the final snuff of the candle that is their culture. Congratulations, Chantry, you've won! Only took two genocides and a double blight, but we're done with the Dalish now! We get your mind-numbingly superficial factions instead!

What happened to Mythal, by the way? What happened to "She was betrayed as I was betrayed, as the world was betrayed! Mythal clawed and crawled her way through the ages to me, and I will see her avenged!" What happened to the reckoning that will shake the very heavens? John's answer to this:

People grow and change over time. Mythal's essence - and in particular, the fragment of her spirit that Morrigan carries, that she got from Flemeth - is not the same Mythal who he knew millennia ago. Centuries of living in this world and being around the kinds of people Flemeth found herself around - the Hero of Ferelden, Hawke, the Inquisitor - changed her views, and made her realize her own culpability in turning Solas into the kind of person he is now.

Oh, right, okay. So she was pissed for like a thousand years, got her big speech about the impending "reckoning" out 10 years ago, and then she just chilled out because the last 3 heroes were neat people. What a fucking joke. And yes, here is the confirmation that the Evanuris story is over --

The story of the Evanuris is done - the gods are dead (or imprisoned) and Thedas is in a state of flux and uncertainty. I imagine that whatever happens next is going to be a surprise to everyone, including the people of Thedas."

So I guess Mythal's reckoning is never coming. One of the most fascinating characters in the series, shrouded in mystery for those first 3 games, PROMISING US a blaze of glory, only to fizzle out in this one. Again, and I can't emphasize this enough, for Epler's clean fucking slate. And we've not just tied up her story, but also the Veil and the Blight:

When Solas bound himself (or, depending on your ending, was forcibly bound) to the Veil, it severed the connection that the Blight had to the waking world. The reality is that the Veil has been leaking ever since the Magisters first entered the Black City, and the dreams of the Titans gave it its terrible and awesome power. Now that the Veil is fully repaired, the Blight lacks that motive force, and being so close to the epicenter of that change has stripped the Blight in Minrathous of its vitality. It's calcified now - dead - and Bellara/Neve no longer suffer its effects. If they'd been anywhere else, further from that epicenter, it would've likely been different and they still would be looking for a cure.

So the Veil is permanently fixed now because our half-dead Dread Wolf bound himself to it (a decision I still don't understand) and that somehow fixed every single hole ever poked in it. Fully repaired. No more holes, no more "Veil is thin here" because tons of people died in the same spot, nope, we're washing our hands and leaving it (and the spirits) behind us because we've wrapped up both the series-long Veil storyline and the blight storyline in a big red bow.

And Epler tells us Solas not only bound himself to the Veil but fixed it entirely in one fell swoop, no ritual required, just a little slice to the hand. Again, all in the name of a clean slate, so any future installments or media centered around Thedas can turn away from this story.

Then there's this. What we can expect from future installments, I freaking guess. The aforementioned roleplay getting taken out back and shot:

Q: "What lead you to the decision to step away from active conversations with the companions as in previous Bioware games, where you can initiate them at any moment and ask exhaustive questions?"

John: "For us, because of tech limitations, it became a choice between exhaustive investigate conversations, or letting the companions move more freely around the Lighthouse. With the kind of experience we were going for, one where seeing the team grow around you is paramount, we felt that seeing them interact in common spaces (and in each other's rooms) made more sense."

Literally confirmed that they chose companions moving freely about the cabin over ... interacting with them outside the handful of cutscenes we got. Who in their right mind would think this was a good call in a Dragon Age game? A series that quite literally prides itself on complex character interactions and storytelling? So they could... sit in different places? Are you kidding me?

They don't see an issue with the game's reception. They don't have any interest in addressing or responding to criticism. They're either happy with their choices or EA's got a gun pointed at their heads, I'm honestly not sure anymore. I used to believe the latter was true, but looking at both Epler's and Busche's responses today, I'm inclined to believe the former.

So I think that's it for the series. Not that I thought it was going to get another game after this, but on the absolute off chance it did, what would be the point? The best stories were ruined. Anything left they have to tell is going to read a lot like Veilguard -- superficial, morally absolute, flagrantly disrespectful to the lore, and delivered in a very poorly written package.

[bi-writes]

can we have like a pov of like what MOB would do if something did happen to simon..? luv you!

mail-order bride

your tea is cold when you pick it up to drink it. it burns you, how cold it is, and you cough a little as you set it down, grimacing as you wipe your lips.

maybe it's just one of those days. the rain is hitting a little too hard against the window. the cats have been restless. the dark one shredded your yoga mat by clawing at it under a doorway, and the orange tabby managed to knock over all of simon's plants from the windowsill (which you frantically put back inside their little pots--would plant murder be his last straw?). you left a red shirt in when you washed the whites (you apologized to all of simon's white tees), and when you noticed holes in your favorite sweats in a pattern that matched a cat's claws, you called it a day and decided to make tea (another fail).

you rub your pounding head, taking a deep breath, but you aren't given long to count down from five when your phone begins to ring.

you pick it up, not recognizing the number, but you put it to your ear as you get up to boil more water.

"hello?"

a throat clears on the other end. "do i have mrs. riley 'ere?"

you frown, leaning your hip against the kitchen counter as you turn a burner on and put the kettle over it.

"uhm...yeah. this is she," you say finally. you look at the clock; it's late, much too late. "who is this?"

"this is john. ah...captain john price, ma'am."

you clench your jaw, closing your eyes. "um...i'm sorry, i...what can i do for you? simon's not--"

"we had to call for medevac," john says lowly. "ahh...should be headin' into surgery soon. i--"

"wait--what?" you cough a little, shutting the stove off, and you're scrambling as you make your way to the bedroom. he's talking again, you realize, but you can't hear what he's saying. your eyes are moving around the room, and you frantically start to pull drawers open, grabbing a sweater, jeans, actual clothes to put on. you shed your pajamas, hopping as you slide your jeans on, and he's still talking, but you still hear nothing.

you run into the dresser, the furniture rattling, and you let the phone go, realizing you can't see because there's tears blurring your vision. you wipe them away, looking around for your purse, and when you realize what this is, an emergency--right?--you head for the bookcase in simon's study.

you toss a few books down onto the floor, your hands shaking as your fingers curl around the spine of a leather bible. you set the book down on simon's desk, flipping through the pages before you find your prized paper nestled between the pages of the book of john.

you head back to the bedroom, picking up the phone again, and you shakily dial the number that's on the back of the card. you take a seat on the bed (because where would you go anyways?), and you close your eyes as you wait for someone to pick up.

it rings for too long. you gasp a little, clutching the phone tight, and you beg for someone to pick up, please, please, please--

"'ello?"

"johnny--" you hiccup, standing up. "johnny, he...he told me--"

"wha--who--" on the other end, johnny shouts at someone to get a move on, "--bleedin' christ, who is this?"

"it's me," you whisper. "i'm...simon's--"

"ach...fuckin' hell..." there's a long, deep sigh on the other end. "oi, lass, listen, he's alright--"

"he's...b-but someone said surgery."

"right, i..." he sighs again, and you hear a door shut on the other end. "ye sit tight, luv. i'll come get ye, okay?"

you sniffle, wiping your face, "just tell me he's gonna be okay. tell me i'm worrying for nothing."

johnny chuckles a bit, and the sound soothes you just enough. "gonna be alright. lad's fuckin' dramatic, i'll tell ye tha', big brick fuckin' stepped in front of--"

"okay, johnny, please don't tell me how simon almost killed himself and get your ass over here, okay?" you snap, and johnny halts his laughing.

"right, yeah, forgive me." you hear the rattle of keys. "'m coming."

"mrs. riley?"

your head lifts up. you blink the sleep out of your eyes, rubbing them gently, and there's a petite woman in scrubs smiling at you with her mask hanging around her neck. you have two sergeants at either side of you, captain price settled leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. you have a blanket around your shoulders, and when you slip it off, johnny takes it from you gently.

"you can see him now."

you get to your feet, and when you pass simon's captain, he tips his hat at you respectfully. you hurry and follow the doctor down the hall, and when you see simon's name scribbled on a makeshift sigh on the wall, you eagerly pick up the pace until the door is opened for you.

he looks peaceful laying there. the monitors beep quietly around him, little wires and tubes falling around him, and you let out a breath when you see him blink those dark eyes awake blearily.

"tha' an angel?"

you start to cry. "you're such an asshole."

you come close to the side of the bed, taking his outstretched hand, and you clutch his big hand to your chest. you curl his hand into a fist, pressing your face against the back of his hand, kissing his knuckles there gently. he uncurls his fingers and wipes at your tears gently, shaking his head.

"gave ya a right scare, didn't i?"

"yes, you dickhead," you sniffle, and simon chuckles lowly, wincing a little as he clutches his lower stomach. you use your foot to bring the chair behind you closer, taking a seat in it as you look up at him. he turns his head to face you, giving you a pained smile, and you let out the breath you've been holding since johnny came to get you. "what's the matter with you, simon?"

"shit happens."

you try not to roll your eyes, but the anger is not lost on simon. he squeezes your hand gently, his eyes flicking up to the clock, and he grimaces when he realizes it's nearly six in the morning. you must have been here all night, waiting for him.

"is this how it's gonna be?" you ask in a whisper. when he meets your eyes again, it's more difficult this time. what you're asking isn't predictable. it isn't a straight answer. and if he gives you anything that isn't the truth, it feels like a lie, and he can't do that to you. "w-waking up in the middle of the night? hoping that the call isn't...that...hoping that--"

"not that simple," simon interrupts gently.

"well, make it simple, simon," you say firmly. even through your tears, your voice doesn't shake this time. "make it very simple for me, then."

simon purses his lips, and for the first time since you've met your husband, he hesitates. he doesn't have an answer, at least a good one.

"don't wanna lie to ya, swee'eart," simon murmurs, and you stare right back at him.

"then don't."

he sucks on his teeth, looking away, and you tug on his hand, pulling his eyes back to you.

"look at me, simon," you say, and he looks sad. he's going to tell you something that you won't want to hear. he's going to tell you something that's been the truth since he enlisted, a reality that never bothered him until he realized he had a responsibility to keep a roof over your head. there's someone waiting inside of his house. there's a place that's waiting for him on one side of the bed he shares with you. there's someone else's shoes always next to his, and someone else's name that will always be beside his own.

family.

he has a family.

"i'll try and keep ya outta here," is all simon murmurs. you smile at that. it's a promise, but he won't lie to you. always honest, your husband. he tells you things as they are. he doesn't pretend. everything with simon is the truth as he presents it, and it's eerily comforting, even if the truth isn't one that you like.

"i love you, simon," you whisper, and when you touch his face finally, the sting of the gold of your wedding is a welcome distraction.

he vows to make this the last time you see him this way. nothing is worth seeing that face of yours like this--tired, disheveled, the angry crease in your brow. you're not meant for these things. for the waiting, the crying, the worry, it's not a life he meant to give you.

for a moment, he wonders if you'd ever ask him.

will you hang it up for me? will you leave for me?

the most terrifying part, he realizes, is that he isn't sure of what his answer would be. and he isn't sure of what you would do if he told you no.

[hyperions-light]

Someone was being a fucking hater on my explicitly positive DATV post AGAIN (u all know I can see your tags right. They get delivered to me express mail style) so here’s an essay about how I thought the Grey Warden plotline was great:

First, it was extremely lore-consistent. I don’t know how to tell people this, but the Grey Wardens simply are sort of shady— it’s part of their charm. In DAO alone we found out they:

- kill anyone who refuses the joining

- are definitely using a blood magic ritual to induct people

- tried to usurp the throne of Fereldan

In DA2 they:

-Forced Malcolm Hawke to perform a blood magic ritual against his will to contain Corypheus, by threatening to kill his family

- Built a giant prison in the mountains they didn’t tell anyone about and that someone could wander into and not be able to escape

- the entire Corypheus thing. They didn’t even tell the other Wardens like what he was or how dangerous he was.

DAI:

- the demon army thing was pretty bad

And that’s not even mentioning any stuff from the books or comics or shows! That’s just stuff in the games!

So they’re shady. It’s okay! They’re my little woobie guys, idc if they’re sort of shady!

But the plot in DATV is about all of those previously established issues coming back to bite them in the fucking ass, as they should! Knock knock, it’s the consequences of your actions, baby! The chickens are home to roost

(Which is just good storytelling. Like if you set up a bunch of issues and then never pay them off or anything that’s bad.)

Destroying Weisshaupt was inspired! Firstly bc Davrin is Weisshaupt, metaphorically (bulwark against the darkness, etc, I already made a post) so it serves his character arc. But also because it strips away the pageantry and the grandeur from them; no more castle for you! No more myth!

Davrin explicitly tells you that the First Warden is a traditionalist; he represents the historical attitudes of the Wardens. They do not accept help, they do not give up their secrets, they are standing alone against the dark. And it doesn’t work! He’s fucking wrong (and very punch-able). Being secretive and isolationist is a mistake that costs them nearly everything.

But also, and I’m not sure how many people experienced this on the first go-around, the game does ultimately come down on the side of the Wardens always trying to do the right thing. You CAN talk the First Warden down, because in the end he’s a Warden, and he might be stubborn and curmudgeonly and miserable but he CARES about the world. He came to do good. He admits he was wrong and he helps you. Because the heart of the Wardens is about selfless service to other people. In Death, Sacrifice.

Stripping away Weisshaupt and the glory and pageantry leaves the Wardens at their most vulnerable and forces them to return to their fundamental principles: helping people. That’s what Lavendel is about. Helping individual people and preserving every life possible even if it doesn’t feel that glamorous or heroic. Lavendel isn’t a significant place; it doesn’t matter, but it matters so much.

And then, the Cauldron.

First off, do not at me about Last Flight. I don’t think people should have to read external materials to play this game and understand it. If the information is vital it should be presented to the player in the text.

The Cauldron is the repository of the Wardens’ secrets; it’s where the keep the bones of the Archdemons, the secret to the Joining, ancient and dangerous weapons, as well as the bodies of the griffons, which represents their most shameful errors. Isseya is the avatar of the Wardens’ mistakes; she’s been hurt by what they made her do, and her pain was never acknowledged by them. They buried her story and her suffering like they bury everything they don’t want to deal with and are ashamed of. They left the bones of the griffons, whose deaths they directly caused, to rot because they were too sad to acknowledge them.

But it was wrong to walk away, it was wrong to bury it. Isseya makes sure that they can never do that again, that they have to own what they did and take responsibility. By discovering who she is and by restoring her personhood to her, by reminding her of her love which drove her to her anguish in the first place, Davrin saves her and he saves the griffons. He doesn’t do it using violence, because another sin of the Wardens is just assuming that they can kill their way out of their problems, which the game disproves by revealing the origin of the Blight. You can kill as many darkspawn as you want, you will never fix it! The Titans’ dreams do not need to be slain, they need to be healed.

Isseya is in so much pain because of her incredible love for both the griffons and the Wardens, and because of her guilt. Look what she builds! An alternate Weisshaupt, a distorted reflection of her home. She entreats both Davrin and Assan to join her, because she doesn’t think she’s trying to destroy anything. She’s trying to save them! She wants them to come home. “I am their mother,” she says, and she’s right. She saved them, then, and she ends up saving them now! Because she made Davrin and the other Wardens look, unflinchingly, at what they had done, it will never happen again. She was going about it wrong during the game, but she was ALWAYS trying to save them.

Davrin, Antoine and Evka represent the Wardens’ commitment to being different. They let Flynn undergo the Joining without becoming a Warden, they reveal secrets to non-Warden Rook, they offer to help the Viper without asking for anything in return. They ask for help and offer it freely. If the Wardens are going to persist into a world without Archdemons, they HAVE to change. They can’t be what they were anymore. The game is asking what a Warden is when they have to be more than their oath, when they have to live. It’s a great exploration of and expansion on previously established lore.

Anyway, my advice if you hated the plot and the game and the characters is to a) make your own post b) don’t bother me about it, because I have the time and I will be loudly positive in response!

[colorisbyshe]

I just came across a tweet saying that Aaron Bushnell--the man who burned himself to death while yelling Free Palestine until he couldn't anymore--will be "in the history books" and that phrase has been coming up a lot. And it chafes me every time I read it, every time I hear it.

Cause, a. no, a lot of this won't be in the American history books. American atrocities, especially those overseas but even those against American people (especially American people of color), don't go in the literal history books. Or the figurative ones. Most American atrocities are wiped from the collective memory... sometimes as soon as they happen. They go unreported (like the first person to self immolate to protest this genocide), they go erased, they go whitewashed, they go falsely recontextualized, and they get twisted into pro-America sentiment--we were right for those atrocities, we were wrong for them but we learned, we didn't learn from it but we felt bad about it and should be comforted for that soreness.

And b. is harder to verbalize but I'm gonna try. It feels... performative in the literal sense. Like we only value what is happening today out of deference for how people in the future will perceive it. We aren't doing anything to change anything NOW, to care about other people NOW, but so that one day... we'll be remembered a caring. Like this man killed himself as gesture, as a move for his legacy.

And I see this phrase--"this will be remembered in the history books"--whipped out in extremely horrific contexts. A child's dead body hanging off a wall, "oh, this will be in the history books." What does that even mean? Was her death worth the historical context? Was it necessary to embellish the horror of it all?

Would the people reading these hypothetical history books not get the wrongness of the genocide without the death of a little girl that you're using as... window dressing?

It just seems so weirdly self satisfied. Like you're eager to note you just witnessed a real moment that people will remember decades from now. When... a lot of people won't which is what is so tragic. A lot of people don't even know it's happening right now.

Because, again, it's not being reported. And when it is being reported it's not being reported honestly.

I'm not saying this well but it just feels like such a gross reaction to things we're seeing in real time.

Why does it have to matter later to matter now? Why is the hypothetical reaction of a history book reader the thing you think about?

A lot of people won't live to read those "history books" because people, right now, aren't doing anything to help them.