#will add more details on some when there are more details on them

[sleepynoons]

hi op feel free to ignore everything under - all you need to know is i love your writing *shakes head vigorously*

there are several things i think were immaculately done, but that'd require me to churn out an entire research paper, which i don't have the brain cells for anymore post-finals. so here are some scattered thoughts yep and yap

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i don't gravitate towards mysterious or reserved characters because my personality simply doesn't mesh well with them. in fact, when i was watching wbk, i was always so wary of suo, and felt lowkey a lil uncomfortable with him LMFAO

but strangely enough, i think this discomfort became a very integral and driving force throughout my reading experience. of course, this was already the case due to the violent and dark nature of yakuzas, underground sex work, etc., but emphasizing suo's yandere-ness and how he doesn't shy away from it really completed the tone of the story. also, i feel like i came to terms with suo's character, which i rarely ever experience in general. really, this is all to say that it makes total logical sense in my brain to imagine a route where suo evolves into a yandere, and part of me strongly believes his real background in the wbk manga/anime won't be too happy-go-lucky either (otherwise the alternative would be like him wearing an eyepatch for the shtick bc he's a chuuni??? idrk????).

anyway, the reoccurring theme of redirection in suo's tactics really sealed the deal for me, and i think it was a good way to tie in references to his relationship to his master, the martial arts that we know he's especially good at, and how all of these things he's kinda exploited and sullied to "become a worse person for you." suo being very knowing and intentional is so snakey and creepy but also, i get a lil fucked up when it comes to men who are obsessed, so also incredibly erotic LMFAO i also just want someone to buy me a luxury penthouse out of concern for my safety *sad fist bump*

one thing i did find unexpected is suo's leadership within the yakuza. yes, necessary for the plot, otherwise he wouldn't be able to pull any strings. but because source material heavily emphasizes leaders as individuals like umemiya or sakura or even hiiragi, it's interesting to place suo in juxtaposition with them. not sure if it's bc i don't find suo particularly reliable in general, but i think this fic made me realize that he's still wise beyond his years and very, very ruthless. it's def very telling that, throughout the story, suo resorts to fear to assert power. anyway, i j think it was a particularly interesting detail to add in his role in the succession conflict.

btw, i do like how suo's change and transition isn't fully told or revealed. it's not a story meant for us, as it's a truth really for suo and reader. but even reader can't really keep up with him at times, and i find that dynamic really charming, as sadistic as that sounds. i like that reader is so vulnerable. i like that reader is not afraid to be vulnerable around him in the ways that matter, even when she's aware that he's fucking insane. and i really like that reader is aware of how much it takes to be vulnerable, so she doesn't push him. i think reader restrains herself (un)knowingly, and that's her way of loving him. obv less romantic in real life lol (don't try to fix anyone, been there, done that, lost myself, and still finding myself), but i do like how reader is suo's salvation :,,, even if she doesn't think she's particularly patient, she really is - like girl, Fuck Him Already!!!!!!

(could go on and on about how juicy the friction and tension is between suo and reader but that's for pt 2 hehehe)

this is kinda my half-assed transition into talking about reader, and honestly, my thoughts from earlier encapsulate the general thesis i have about her: she's really a lot like suo, way more than she thinks. i think she operates in very similar ways, just goes about it differently.

i think reader is way more reckless. she's very self-sacrificing. she's very good at putting up a front, even when she's internally low in confidence and self-respect. i think she just wants to be happy with suo, and hopefully, with their other friends as well.

and truly, i think suo has very similar end goals. i just think, with how things turned out, suo made the very calculated yet risky (also aggressive?) decision to do the things that he did. making their underlying principals and values and reactions so oddly similar, from my perspective, is sooooo neat, and it adds more depth to why they go so well together.

also, reader is so brilliantly the comedic relief in this whole thing. usually, in storytelling, it's someone else and is used as fodder. i really like how reader is a lil awkward and bad with timing and everything else, cause it makes the reading experience flow so much better. really helped with the pacing of the story, gave it the character + breathing space needed to process everything. i also just like my readers a little fucking hilarious.

anyway, op, so beautifully written - see you in pt 2 gg

TOKYO VICE | part 1

You knew that if you agreed to move in with Suo, you'd be setting yourself up for a life without autonomy. You also knew that these alarming behaviours were all signs that he desperately needed therapy to process his master’s untimely death. Living with a man in constant grief, who refused to talk about his trauma unless he was making up a lie related to the nation of China, was probably not a good decision. Doubly so when this man was clearly paranoid about losing you, and triply so when he was a high-ranking member of a violent syndicate. Unfortunately for you, you rarely made good decisions. (Or: After joining the yakuza, Suo develops the concerning habit of controlling every facet of your life. This is somehow less worrying to you than your uncontrollable lust around him.)

8.7k words. suo x fem reader. deeply unserious yakuza au. yandere suo (not abusive and reader is into it), dark comedy, a little angst, smut. warnings: borderline sex work, off-screen criminal violence. nsft – no actual smut in this chapter, but there are still graphic discussions of sex. mdni. thank you to @sleepyqinfei for beta reading and to @/cafekitsune for the banner!

sequel to sincerity and this sakura/reader wip

part 2 here

You’re not exactly sure why you and Suo have never fucked.

It’s certainly strange, given that you're pretty sure that Suo has expressed at least passing interest in you over the years, and you have felt a lot of interest in him. (By ‘interest’, you mean that you feel an insatiable lust around him that you fight to ignore on a daily basis.) You can't exactly pinpoint why nothing has ever happened despite this mutual attraction, especially given your profession and indifferent feelings toward casual sex.

You can think of a number of probable reasons, which are separate from those you classify as stupid reasons. The latter class comprises silly concerns like a fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, fear of not being pretty enough, fear of not being good enough, et cetera. All very juvenile feelings—insecurities that you had in your teenage years, the days in which Suo ran around Makochi as a delinquent while you worked an honest job at a bar. (It was a girls’ bar in the red light district, but that's neither here nor there.) Your circumstances have since changed, and those anxieties have since faded. None of them have any material consequence for your current life, so you don't see any point in thinking about them.

The stupid reasons, then, definitely don't have anything to do with why you've never fucked Suo. But you can think of a few, more concrete reasons that may explain it. For one, Suo has been your friend since childhood and it’s generally a bad idea to have sex with your long-time friends. He was also your roommate for a while and it’s an even messier idea to have sex with your roommates. And now, in your adulthood, he’s your landlord in addition to being your boss, which makes him the worst possible person you could have sex with. You could lose both your home and your livelihood if things go south—both severe, material consequences that should theoretically keep your lust at bay.

Also, he's also a member of the yakuza.

Now, strictly speaking—you're not really opposed to having sex with violent criminals. It’s definitely not a good idea, but you don't usually have good ideas anyway. But for the past several years, you’ve been pissed at Suo for joining the yakuza in the first place, which actually does keep your blatant attraction to him in check. You simply dry up when you think too hard about all the feelings of betrayal.

When Suo was on the cusp of graduating from Furin and thinking about his future, you’d grabbed him by the collar and made him promise not to join the yakuza. They constantly tried to recruit from Bofurin, and they especially wanted Sakura, Suo, and Sugishita. You were adamant about chasing them off from Suo and Sakura whenever they approached—you had no need to worry about Sugishita, as Umemiya had already said he shouldn't talk to them, so there was no chance he was going to—and you begged Suo over and over not to join. Delinquency was fine, but a crime syndicate was something else altogether.

Suo seemed serious about it when he said he'd listen to you. He even applied to colleges, talked about maybe becoming a teacher and eventually supporting you so you could stop working in the mizu shobai industry. Back then, he often teased you by saying that you should marry him and be his housewife (or he could be your trophy husband, if you so wished). You thought he was joking, but with the way he always talked about his life after his degree, you wondered if he would seriously suggest it.

Of course, it was most likely just teasing, and you were fine with that. You were simply excited that he'd found a career that would make him happy. Nirei had also been accepted to university at that point, and even Sakura had an honest job lined up on Keisei Street. The future had looked bright for everyone.

Then Suo’s master died, and he lost his fucking mind.

The two of you buried Suo’s master in a Chinese funeral. He had never had children of his own, having satisfied his paternal instincts by picking up strays, and he didn't have much in the way of family in Japan either, so you and Suo performed the shou ling yourselves. One person kept a constant vigil over his body while the other searched on Google for what arrangements should be made next. After all, while Suo’s master had immersed his foremost disciple in his culture, he had never taught Suo any funerary customs. He hadn't thought there would be a need.

Suo didn't cry nearly as much as you, but he was probably in more pain. Your master had trained you a little bit when you were a kid, and he'd taken you in for a while after your parents kicked you out, so of course you were gutted. But he had practically raised Suo, so it was naturally worse for him. More shattering.

You often think about the first night you decided you'd sleep with him in the same futon because he was crying so much. He insisted he was fine, but he didn't complain when you got under the sheets with him and started thumbing away his tears. When you took off his eyepatch, you found, to your astonishment, that he was crying from his missing eye as well. Both of you thought the tear ducts had been destroyed in either the accident or the enucleation, but it appeared that not even that prior trauma could mask his grief over this one.

Nevertheless, by the time of the funeral procession, Suo had stopped crying.

“Master supported us and taught us to stand on our own two feet,” he said as the joss paper burned. He took your hand in his and smiled. “So it'll be fine. We’ll be okay on our own. I'll make sure of it.”

At the time, you had found this very comforting. You didn’t think too much of it, as you had a bad habit of relying on Suo for your emotional stability. His master had raised him to be an emotionally intelligent person, so it had been fine, even though you had a track record of reckless decisions. He’d still exercised endless patience with you. He never once got angry with you, nor did he ever force you to do what he felt was the right thing. Instead, he gently redirected your self-damaging behaviours—not so different from the martial art that he practised.

He disapproved of the run-down and lonely conditions of your apartment, so he spent a great deal of time there and helped make it into a proper home. He didn't like how dangerous your job at the girls’ bar was, so he walked you to and from work every night until you never left without him. He worried when you started having sex with your customers, especially when you began having nervous breakdowns over it (you were, after all, still a teenager and really only interested in having romantic vanilla sex with Suo), so he staged an intervention with Nirei and Sakura. In this way, Suo convinced you that you were loved and protected and didn't need to do something you hated so much. They would get you out if you felt trapped. And you didn't feel trapped, per se, so you left on your own—but it was still only because of them. You promised them afterwards that you'd never do it again.

This was Suo’s brand of kindness as a teenager. He always taught people, guided them away from harm rather than steering them—a behaviour he’d mimicked from your master. Your master, in general, had defined all of Suo’s values and his way of living, which was honest and gentle and conscientious. It was one where he used his abilities to protect the weak and care for his friends. He even kept his spiteful and alarmingly violent tendencies under control, though sometimes he slipped when fighting genuine assholes. But he still tried. He tried because he strived to be as kind as his master—who represented everything that Suo wanted to be in his adult life.

Thus, the death of Suo’s master meant the death of his principles. It changed the kind of man that Suo wanted to be. You don't want to say that he became a worse person, but he absolutely became a worse person.

He especially became a worse person with you.

As it turned out, Suo’s idea of making sure that the two of you would be fine on your own was, well, not really fine. It wasn’t that he became cruel to you, per se. It was more that whenever he saw a problem with your behaviour, his approaches to redirecting it became—put as nicely as possible—heavy-handed.

After your master’s death, you got a job at a high end, yakuza-owned club. Two weeks later, Suo broke his promise to you and joined the yakuza. So I can stay close to you, he explained gently, wiping away your tears as you cried hysterically, but you're convinced to this day that he did it partly out of spite. So a few years later, when you started having sex with your customers again and he tried to stop you, you decided to spite him back. I need to stay on top of the rankings, you'd explained dispassionately. The mamasan said it's fine, and the manager doesn't care. He even thinks it's good for business.

Suo’s response was to simply become the owner of your club.

This move was very extreme, but also very effective. Any customer who so much as brushed against you on the premises was instantly thrown out, and the mamasan started watching you like a hawk to make sure you weren’t going to any love hotels after work. Douhan were off-limits. For the first time since your teens, you became completely celibate—not only because of your new workplace circumstances, but because you simply didn't want to find out what Suo would do if you got together with a man he despised (and he despised every man you dated).

His most absurd play was when he became concerned about your living conditions again. Your latest apartment was too plain, too small, and the area was too dangerous. It didn't even have a shower, and the other tenants behaved concerningly toward you when you went to the bathhouse at night. But the rent was cheap, and it was still an upgrade from your last place, so you shrugged it off when Suo suggested that you move. Even when someone tried to accost you at night, you were nonchalant about it. You kicked the shit out of them in a fight and continued your routine unbothered.

The next month, Suo bought a luxury penthouse and suggested you move in with him.

His offer (command) came with conditions. One of the bigger ones was that you'd let him accompany you out at night if you ever needed to run errands in dangerous places. Or—nevermind, actually. He should really just accompany you everywhere at night. Maybe during the day too. And—ah, there was no way you'd be going to work alone, nor coming back by yourself—you were now always to be driven by someone in his organisation, if he wasn't available himself. Rent was a point of contention, when you asked about it: you wanted to pay at market rate, and he insisted that there was no need to pay at all. He ended up proposing a highly discounted price, which would give you ample financial freedom, but questionable financial independence.

These were insane terms. You knew that if you agreed, you'd be setting yourself up for a life without autonomy. You also knew that these behaviours were all signs that Suo desperately needed therapy to process his master’s untimely death. Living with a man in constant grief, who refused to talk about his trauma unless he was making up a lie related to the nation of China, was probably not a good idea. Doubly so when this man was clearly paranoid about losing you, and triply so when he was a high-ranking member of a violent syndicate. Case in point—he was likely connected to the brutal accident that later befell the man who tried to assault you.

“I'm not sure what you're implying, but at least he didn't die,” Suo said cheerfully when you confronted him about it. Which really meant: At least I decided not to kill him. This was a flag bigger and redder than any other you've ever known, and you consider yourself an expert in red flags. You knew you should run in the other direction.

So naturally, you put your arms around him, tenderly said, I'm sorry I've been worrying you, and then you moved in the next day.

While Suo treats you with endless patience, you have personal limits to the patience that you exercise with him. Specifically, your patience with how he treats you.

You don't mind the lack of social freedom, nor the lack of personal freedom, nor the lack of freedom of movement. You also don't mind living with a man full of intractable trauma surrounding the death of every parental figure in his life; in fact, you'd rather be by his side than not, if he needs to cope with something so painful. And anyway, your friendship is otherwise unchanged if you ignore the heavy restrictions he's imposed on every facet of your life. So that's all fine.

But the celibate lifestyle that he's cornered you into? You simply aren't built for it. Holy shit, do you need to get laid.

Nearly two years without sex has brought you close to another nervous breakdown (there have been few better sources of entertainment or validation in your life), and worst of all, it has made your profound lust for Suo incredibly hard to ignore. Waking up every morning to him in a towel, his hair still wet from the shower and his broad silhouette exposed, tests the absolute limits of your self-control. The contours of his lean and muscled form are distracting enough; coupled with the vivid colours and lines of his irezumi, the sight of him becomes maddening. It is a horrible thing to be exposed to when you haven't gotten any dick nor strap in over a year. It gives you thoughts about him that are overtly sexual, which is bad, as you have materially consequential reasons for not wanting to fuck Suo.

Things with him must absolutely stay platonic. But with sexual frustration like yours, being platonic with him means that you need to get erotic with someone else. A boyfriend or girlfriend is out of the question; you don't want to be responsible for yet another brutal accident. So you instead decide to quit your job at his club and start working on Keisei Street. At least this way, you can start fucking your customers again.

It’s a perfect plan. Suo’s oyabun is very indulgent toward him, and everyone else in the family respects him too. He consequently has a tight grip on his organisation and the territory they control, despite his relatively young age. Not a single person is ever to touch Keisei Street—largely because Sakura is part of Roppo-Ichiza, and Suo is nearly as weird about Sakura as he is about you. Plus, many of his other fellow Furin alumni are in the gang as well. If Suo’s men ever started fucking with people on Keisei Street, it would not only have grave implications for gang relations—it would be personally upsetting for Suo. This means you can fuck all the Keisei Street customers you want, and not get a single one of them threatened or killed.

A pretty brilliant idea, if you do say so yourself.

Suo’s expression doesn't change when you break the news to him. He delicately places his teacup—custom-made from Yixing, just like the matching clay teapot—down on the mahogany tabletop, and he looks at you with a calm smile.

“Come again?”

“I'm quitting my job at Red Dragon,” you repeat. “I already gave the mamasan my resignation.”

“And she accepted it?” Suo asks, in a tone that is so carefully nonchalant that you know it means he is actually furious with her. “How interesting,” he muses. “What brought this on?”

“I've found a better paying opportunity on Keisei Street.”

“I'll give you a raise,” he says easily.

“A raise?” You cock a brow. “The pay is mostly commission-based at Red Dragon. You know that.”

“Then it would be unwise to leave. You have a loyal customer base at Red Dragon. All very rich, and”—his smile grows sharp—“very polite.”

Polite. An interesting word. It actually means: None of them will ever proposition or harass you because they know they'll be maimed if they do. An easy thought to use to your advantage.

“It's loyal but it's small. Everyone who's anyone in this part of town thinks that we’re married. Do you know how hard it is to pull new customers in when they're scared shitless of my yakuza husband? And anyway”—you frown, trying to look as pathetic as possible—“I'm lonely.”

Suo stares. He looks surprised, possibly because you absorb every minute of his free time with silly conversation, new restaurants, and skiing trips. (He likes snow, so you ask for these trips more for him to relax than anything else.) You also text him frequently on days he's working, and he very diligently replies, even if he's in the middle of something like a raid or a hit or brokering a massive deal. Suo still very strictly keeps to his rule of never touching his phone when in conversation with other people—unless he needs to text you.

So his suspicion is fair. Suo is very attentive and doesn't allow you much opportunity for loneliness. In turn, you’ve always been very happy spending time with him, even when it's only him.

“Lonely?” he repeats. “Are you, now?”

“Yes. You work so much,” you complain, which is not a lie, “and I don't have any friends to spend time with when you're gone.”

“You have friends from work.”

“No, I have competition at work. The hostesses are so cutthroat about rankings, they hate me. And each other.”

“You like Shuuhei and Hanzo,” he points out, referring to his men who most frequently chauffeur you.

“Yeah, they're friendly, and they're very funny. I like them, but I can't be their friend.” Suo stares at you, nonplussed, so you spell it out: “They're too scared of you to get close to me. What if it looks like they're trying to fuck the boss’ wife?”

“Hm…” Suo studies you, looking thoughtful. Perhaps for the first time, he's contemplating the consequences of restricting your freedoms and marking you as his. That is to say—maybe he's finally realising that you have no friends and no life.

The beads of his earrings glimmer as he tilts his head at you and frowns. Suo almost looks innocent with that confused face of his. “And how would working on Keisei Street help?” he asks.

“Because all our old friends are there!” you exclaim. “Sakura’s in Roppo-Ichiza now so he’ll definitely be coming by all the clubs. Tsubaki too. And Nirei and Kiryu visit them quite often—and even Tsugeura does sometimes, even though clubbing isn't one of his virtues.” You grab onto his arm, pull yourself close, and give him your most disarming, pleading expression. “Please, Suo?”

“Hm.” He strokes your cheek and looks at you fondly, in the way that one would do with an adorable and slightly annoying kitten. “I don’t think so. It’s not very safe there.”

He isn't wrong. Not only are you untouchable on his turf because of your association to him, Suo has also just crushed all the han-gure and petty criminals in his territory with brutal efficiency. His part of the red light district is, quite ironically, one of the safest places in the city, and certainly safer than Keisei Street.

But undeterred, you point out, “Shuuhei and Hanzo can still drive me there and back if you want. But I don't think it's necessary. Do you really think Sakura would let anything happen to me?”

This is the true brilliance of your plan: capitalising on the fact that Suo is as nearly as weird about Sakura as he is about you. He pauses as soon as you bring up the point, and you can practically see the gears turning. “Well, if it's him…”

“I even texted him about it. Look—here!” You whip out your phone, receipts ready. The corner of Suo's mouth lifts at your obviously rehearsed pitch. “He says he'd make sure I'm taken care of. And he says it'd be nice because he misses seeing us. Can you believe it—Sakura actually admitted that he misses us! Typed it with his own two hands and pressed send! I bet he was super embarrassed about it.”

“Huh. He even used a sticker. I've never seen him do that.” Suo smiles as he reads through the chat. He looks like his old self. You suddenly feel a little wistful, and also a lot bad. This started as a ploy to get laid, but it’s made you realise that you really do miss your friends—and Suo probably does too.

“If I worked on Keisei Street, then you would have plenty of reason to visit,” you point out, feeling somewhat tender.

“I guess that's true,” Suo says. Your heart aches a little bit at the look he gives you. It's a platonic ache, of course. Or at the very least, it isn't an erotic one. It doesn't really make you want to have sex with him anyway. But if you could lean forward and press your lips to his—platonically—then you definitely would.

Suo's civilian friendships are complicated by his double life. Quite unusually for yakuza, Suo’s syndicate insists on using pseudonyms and false histories to avoid anti-yakuza laws, on the off-chance that the police decide to do their jobs and actually enforce those laws someday. Lying for comedy is one of Suo’s greatest passions, so he was happy to manufacture an absurd backstory: his name is Yanzhao, and he learned kung fu in a Shaolin Temple before moving to Hong Kong and working for the triads. He wears the eyepatch because he lost his eye in an altercation with the cops, which he won. By the way, you're his criminally beautiful wife who he met in Macau. The two of you had to leave for Japan since he killed a police officer and now he's wanted by the governments of both China and Hong Kong. Also, he's a very devoted husband, so if anyone lays a hand on you, he’ll kill them too.

Somehow, everyone has bought into this story. Every criminal organisation in the red light district now fears a high-ranking yakuza known as Yanzhao, who is easily recognizable by his eyepatch and tassel earrings, and who is also homicidally obsessed with his beautiful wife.

In some ways, his infamy is convenient. No one wants to fuck with Suo, or with you by extension. But it also poses some issues: Suo has to keep a low profile in areas controlled by rival organisations, or else he might be ambushed. It also means he cannot easily go out and see his old friends. Even though he always masquerades as a civvie when he does, wearing stud earrings and a glass eye, it's still a little risky—especially since he likes to visit the strongest member of Roppo-Ichiza. While Roppo-Ichiza aren’t yakuza, they're still han-gure, so some of its more criminally entangled members might recognize him anyway.

But Sakura himself, bless him, has not put two and two together and figured out that Suo Hayato and Gui Yanzhao are the same person. This is partly because Suo lies very convincingly about his fictional career in the tea industry, but you think it's also because Sakura is so gullible it's endearing.

I use the glass eye now because it's better for networking, Suo had explained before Sakura could interrogate him too much, his voice too smooth and too quick for the other man to get in a word edgewise. My business partners find the eyepatch too silly. The tassel earrings too. By the way, would you like some Baimudan tea? I thought of you when I smelled it—I know you like fragrant things—so I picked some up for you on my last visit to China. I was there for business a couple of weeks ago.

He, of course, neglected to mention that said business involved meeting with the 14K triad.

Despite the enormity of Suo's omission (lie), Sakura is none the wiser whenever he meets with you. He thinks you're just a regular hostess who has freedom of movement and various other human rights, and that Suo’s just a regular guy who isn’t homicidally obsessed with you (a detail of Suo's fabricated life story that is unfortunately grounded in reality). All this to say, Sakura doesn't think twice about mentioning the fact that you have a routine of going to love hotels after work.

Suo, as always, remains calm in the face of unsettling information. He sets down his tea (just tea, without shochu), and politely says, “Pardon?” He's once again using the nonchalant kind of tone that suggests mortal danger.

“She's always going to love hotels after her shifts.” Sakura is frowning at you, pink but scowling. “I thought you said you were done with that stuff. You promised us you wouldn't do it anymore. Suo—are you really okay with this?”

On the one hand, you find it exceptionally sweet that Sakura, after all this time, remembers your promise and wishes to hold you to it. He was so worried about you when you started having those nervous breakdowns as a teenager, and he probably still is. On the other hand, you're shitting bricks at the fact that Suo is now aware of your activities. Because sure, he likely won't fuck with Keisei Street—but you realise, as he stares at you, that you can't be certain of this. After all, your fake yakuza husband has very real homicidal urges.

“Um,” you say. “It's just business.”

“Business,” Suo repeats.

“You don't have to do that stuff to keep good business,” Sakura grouses, unaware of Suo’s carefully suppressed rage. “You're real popular already.”

“Are you?” Suo asks, looking right at you.

“I mean—I told you the pay would be better, right?” you reply, voice oddly high and nervous, and this is when Sakura notices that something is wrong.

“Oh,” Sakura says, looking between the two of you. “Suo, you didn't know?”

“I didn't,” he says. “Actually, she told me specifically that she wasn't going to do that if she worked here.” He turns to you, still smiling. “That's the only reason why I allowed this at all, remember?”

A chill travels down your spine. You did, in fact, commit to a perpetually sexless lifestyle in order to be granted some semblance of freedom: Of course I won't sleep with any customers, you'd said. You know I don't really like doing that anyway. I promise I'll behave! I’ll be out of the clubs and right back home. Sakura said he’d make sure I’ll get to a cab safely after the bar closes and everything!

“Um,” you say again, but this time you have no follow-up.

“Wait,” Sakura demands, “what do you mean by ‘allowed her’? What, do you need to give her permission to work now or something?”

Suo smiles disarmingly at Sakura. Without missing a beat, he says, “Generally no. But we’re dating now, which complicates what she’s allowed to do with other men at her job.”

Sakura spits out his drink. You choke on your spit.

“I… um?!” Sakura’s staring at you, so you quickly recover. This is a mortifying lie, but it's better than Sakura finding out just how batshit Suo has become since his school days. “I thought we were going to keep that a secret, dear?”

“Ah, you're right. Sorry, I got too excited.” Suo gives you an endeared look before turning to Sakura. “We were going to keep it to ourselves unless we got serious about it. But we've been talking about marriage lately, so I thought it was fine to mention.”

“...”

You’re going to have an aneurysm. Why does every cover that Suo comes up with involve a marital relationship between the two of you?!

“Oh… holy shit.” Sakura’s expression is complicated—somehow, more complicated than yours, even though you’re the one getting cornered into a fake engagement. It's unbelievable how shy he still is about this kind of thing. Maybe it’s just particularly embarrassing since he's known you two for so long, you reason. Regardless, he remembers his social cues enough to say, “Congrats, guys. That's great. That's really great.”

Suo gazes fondly at you across the table. “We were thinking you could be our best man,” he adds, and you consider violently kicking his leg.

“O-oh. Uh, yeah! Sure! But what about Nirei?”

“Rather than having a maid of honour,” you say reflexively, used to lying through your teeth for Suo, “we’d like him to be our best man as well.”

“Oh. That makes sense.” Thrown off guard, Sakura completely forgets about the love hotel business. He whips out his phone. “When were you thinking of having your wedding? I'll put it in my calendar.”

“I’m not sure.” Suo turns to you. “What were we thinking again, dear?”

You're going to die. You're going to die and it's a good thing because if you survive this embarrassment, your future will be bleak. As soon as Nirei finds out about this, he’ll want to start helping you with wedding planning, and then it would just be too awkward to cancel things. You’ll have to enter a fake marriage with Suo, which will be completely sexless, because even with a vow of everlasting love, there are still too many concrete and materially consequential reasons for not sleeping with him.

Condemning yourself to a lifetime of sexual frustration, you reply, “I think we were talking about a summer wedding.”

The drive home is awkward.

Hanzo and Shuuhei pick the two of you up. Suo mentioned that he wanted to talk to you and you alone, so they bring the Rolls Royce with the privacy suite. The two of them are entirely cut off from you thanks to the soundproofing, which traps you with Suo, who’s drinking a bottle of oolong tea as the two of you sit in complete silence. You think he's waiting for you to squirm—which you do.

You stay like that for five, agonising minutes before Suo finally says, “So you're sleeping with your customers.”

You swallow. “Yes.”

“For business?”

“Yes.”

“How much do you make?”

You blink. “Huh?”

“How much do you get paid for a single night of work, including gifts that your customers give you in exchange for sleeping with them?”

You're halfway through citing your earnings when you realise where he's going with this.

“So you make less than you did at Red Dragon,” Suo concludes, “and you're very smart with your money, so I know you know that, and you probably went into this knowing that you'd end up at a net loss.” He turns to you, gives you a look so sharp that it almost scares you. All made worse by his civilian disguise, which makes him feel unfamiliar. His glass eye shines strangely in the light, and his scar tissue is hidden by the makeup you helped apply. You wish he'd taken it all off before having this conversation.

“So,” he says, “what’s the real reason you changed jobs?”

Already knowing that he’ll figure you out sooner or later, you admit, “I just wanted to start having sex again.”

Suo blinks. “You… what?”

“I wanted to have sex with people,” you repeat. “I hadn't been touched for nearly two years, okay? I needed to get laid or else I'd go insane.” You cross your arms and look away, suddenly feeling petulant. “I'm sure you've noticed that our arrangement makes it impossible for me to see people.”

He doesn't answer, because of course he's noticed. He’d designed his house rules with precisely this intent. If he accompanies you everywhere you go, then you can't exactly go on dates, and you definitely can't meet people for sex. Not unless you feel like having Suo watch as some anonymous guy fucks you, and you don't. As hot as the idea is, it’s definitely not platonic behaviour, and it would probably trigger the whole homicidal obsession thing.

“Do you like it?” Suo asks, startling you. You look at him, confused.

“What?”

“Do you enjoy having sex with your customers?” he asks. His voice and gaze are even. Unrelenting. “Does it make you happy?”

You stare at him, a deer caught in headlights. You didn't expect Suo to actually care about whether you enjoyed it or not, and you didn't really expect to care yourself either. But truthfully, you hated it. You simply weren't feeling it with most of your customers and avoided intercourse with all but one. Then in that one case you let someone earnestly fuck you, it was a complete letdown. Possibly the worst sex you'd ever had. You spent the whole time watching the clock, wondering how long it would take, and it turned out that your hookup had remarkable stamina but absolutely no technique. To pass the time, and in an attempt to feel something, you tried to imagine it was someone else who was inside you. You cycled through a whole list of people, including all of your exes, a few of your past customers, every single member of BTS, and then—finally, inevitably—your long-time friend, roommate, and landlord.

To your complete horror, when you imagined that it was Suo who had you folded in half, his cock so deep inside you that you could feel it in your throat, you came so hard that you drenched the sheets.

You lay there afterward as your customer showered, alone in the bed. Normally you'd be getting dressed at that point, but you were too distracted. You kept thinking about what it would feel like to be held by Suo after having your guts rearranged by him—embraced tenderly like you know he would do with you, kissing him platonically like you've always wanted to do with him—and you realised that you didn’t actually want to have sex with anyone else. Despite all your life experience, sexual experience, and job experience—in that moment, you felt like a lonely nineteen year old girl who wanted nothing more than to have romantic, vanilla sex with her best friend, but who was instead having impersonal, disappointing sex with various salarymen.

This was a feeling so disgusting that you’ve decided to never tell anyone at any cost.

“Yeah, it's fine. I guess I like it.” You pretend to study your nails. “Sometimes I cum, which is all I really want.”

Suo keeps staring at you. “That’s it?” he asks, voice measured and careful. You raise a brow, playing dumb.

“What do you mean?”

“That's all you want? Just to get off?”

You gaze out the window, trying not to look at his lips.

“Yes, that's all.”

No matter how batshit Suo gets, he always maintains a certain kindness and maturity in how he handles conflict with you. It's a lesson that he learned from his master, which has perhaps been distorted over time, but remains important to him nevertheless.

If you do something upsetting, Suo is never forceful about getting you to act differently. Sure, he has fucked up ways of either getting you to behave or making you understand the consequences of your actions, and perhaps he has his manipulative moments. It was probably not a good thing that he coaxed you into indefinite house arrest, for instance. But he never threatens you, and he never hits you, and he never disrespects you. In fact, more than anything, he makes it a point to never let you feel like you aren't loved.

So when Suo abandons you after that conversation in the Rolls Royce, you lose your fucking mind.

Suo doesn’t come home in the days following that evening, without any note nor explanation. For the first time in years, he stops replying to your texts. Your immediate thought is that he's been gravely injured or perhaps even killed, which sends you into a panicked spiral. But every one of his men who's come by to check on you has implied otherwise—but I'm not allowed to tell you anything else, anesan, I’m sorry, they all say. And when you realise that Suo is actually fine and he's just playing a fucked up mind game with you, one that makes you feel distinctly unloved, you feel simultaneously heartbroken and apoplectic. The man is not allowed to corner you into de facto imprisonment and then just fucking leave. In fact, if he tries, you might imprison him.

You spend a few days sitting at home and crying over this, as well as torturing yourself by thinking about useless things (fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, et cetera). But eventually, you get tired of wallowing in self-inflicted misery, and you decide to just track your fake husband down. His men have been adamant about not letting you out of their sight—presumably so you don’t fuck any more of your customers, because Suo can be spiteful like that—so you have to be strategic about your plan to find him.

You decide to do it during work. You tap out in the middle of a shift, feigning illness, so nobody bats an eye when you put on the most shapeless hoodie you own and throw on a face mask. Your chauffeurs (handlers) don't notice as you sneak off—and for the first time in years, you walk through the red light district all alone.

It feels strange not to be protected, and even stranger not to be surveilled. You marvel at the unfamiliar experience of complete freedom, and at the possibility of being able to run off and disappear if you so wished. But you don't, of course. Not only do you care too deeply for Suo to abandon him, you're also pretty sure he has your driver’s licence and ID card locked up somewhere. At least you haven't been able to find them, and Suo was oddly evasive about it when you asked. (I haven't seen them, he'd said, but I don't think you’d need either of those things immediately, anyway, do you? And you nodded in response, because it was true that you liked being his passenger princess too much to care about your licence.)

So rather than bolting for the subway, you head straight to your old workplace. The gleaming doors of Red Dragon welcome you as you cross its threshold, and you're greeted immediately by the scent of luxury colognes and expensive cigars—both evoking a strange nostalgia in you. Even the click of your heels against the marble floor feels familiar. You realise that you've missed the place despite its cutthroat culture and its owner’s authoritarian control over you, which you suppose isn't surprising. This club was more or less your home for years and, thanks to said owner, was the safest place you've ever worked.

And being that you feel you've returned to your very safe home, you don't expect it when you're abruptly stopped by the bouncer.

“Can I help you?” he asks, his arm in your way. You don't recognize him, but you see the edges of his irezumi peeking out from the rolled-up cuffs of his shirt.

“Yeah, actually,” you say. “I'm looking for Gui Yanzhao. Is he here right now?”

The bouncer—or chinpira, you guess—bristles.

“You're looking for who?”

“Yanzhao?” you say impatiently. “Eyepatch, tassel earrings? Owner of the club? Probably your boss?”

The bouncer steps forward and reaches for something in his pocket, which makes you suddenly nervous, and also makes you realise that in a hoodie and a face mask, you ordinarily wouldn't be allowed in this club, let alone into the room of its yakuza owner. You're so used to VIP treatment here that you simply forgot.

You take a step back. “Um. I think there's been a misunderstanding.” You lower your face mask, which doesn't help as you've never met this man, and he must be new. You’ll need to complain to Suo about his onboarding process later, if you aren't killed before you can find him.

It turns out that this yakuza rookie has a knife in his pocket, which is not the worst thing he could have been carrying, but is also not the best. You're getting ready to run in the other direction when a more senior member of the gang comes by. He gives you a startled look, which then turns alarmed when he sees his younger brother’s knife.

“Anesan!” he yells hurriedly, and he snatches the chinpira’s knife straight from his hand. His lunge for the weapon turns into a hurried bow. He pulls his colleague—whose face has turned very white in a very short amount of time—into an even deeper one. They look on the verge of prostrating.

“Oh, Yamashita. Hi! Is this guy new?”

“Yes! My sincerest apologies for my younger brother’s idiocy, and his insolence in raising a weapon at you.” There's a sheen of sweat on the back of his neck. “If you would like him to atone, then he would be more than happy to—”

“No, that's fine. I'd really like him to keep all his fingers.” If you have to see a rookie cut off his pinkie today, you think you might actually change your mind on running away. Fuck your documents—Suo can keep them. Surely life without proof of identity can't be that hard. “By the way,” you say, trying to change the topic before Yamashita can suggest alternative acts of atonement, “have you seen my husband?”

Yamashita hesitates at your question, looks conflicted. You feel a little bad for him, and for every other gang member who needs to worry about accidentally offending Suo. You watch him sweat for a full ten seconds before he says, “You can follow me. But anesan, you might find it unpleasant upstairs. I can find someone to drive you home instead, if you'd like.”

You give him a funny look. This was your workplace for a very long time—you can’t think of many things that would happen here that might seriously upset you. “What, is he cheating on me?” you guess.

“What? No! Aniki would never!” Yamashita seems genuinely shocked at the suggestion. “He's crazy about you!”

“Then I'm sure he’ll be happy to see me,” you say, although given that he's ignored your texts for four days straight, you aren't so sure. Regardless, this seems to be good enough reasoning for Yamashita, and you’re taken to the top floor of Red Dragon. You ponder the whole time, on the elevator ride up, just what exactly Suo’s been up to that's made Yamashita this nervous about letting you see him.

Then the door opens, and you’re given your answer in the form of several body bags—all cleanly zipped up and conscientiously laid out in front of the elevators in a single, neat row. A sight that is significantly worse than a rookie cutting off his pinkie finger.

“Oh,” you say faintly. You try not to throw up. “So this is why he hasn't been home.”

“Exactly!” Yamashita replies, beaming. “See, anesan, I told you. He'd never cheat on you!”

Suo is in the lounge of the top floor, which has been cleared of both civilians and corpses for the night. He's sitting on one of the couches, leaning back with his one eye closed, as if asleep. The golden tassels of his earrings are draped over the expensive leather of his seat, intertwined with his dark hair. A cup of tea sits in front of him, steaming. Even this far away, you recognize it by the scent alone: jasmine, probably from Longjing. One of the most expensive blends he has, and that which he saves for days he’s stressed, though he never admits it when he is.

The sight of him would almost look tranquil, except for all the blood on his knuckles and his cuffs.

Off to the side, two of his younger brothers are chatting away. One is pouring cups of some doubtlessly expensive liquor, and the other is smoking a cigar. There's karaage on the table too. You recognize all of this as part of a ritual that some of the guys like to do after a hit or a shootout, not dissimilar to getting ramen or McDonald’s after going to a club.

You catch a bit of their conversation as you approach. One of them holds up the liquor bottle (Isojiman sake, you now recognise from your girls’ bar days, one of the rarer bottles costing around nine million yen) and asks Suo if he wants to join. “No thanks,” he says predictably, “I'm on a diet.” Then he turns and looks right at you—startling you, because you had thought you were being fairly quiet—and gives you a smile so genuine that it reminds you of his Furin days. “Would my beautiful wife like to drink for me, though?”

“No thanks,” you reply, “but your beautiful wife would like to talk to you.”

The two guys clear out to give you some privacy. You’re left alone with Suo, feeling awkward after several days of resenting him for no reason. (You’d rather die than go to therapy, but the whole fear of abandonment thing is probably something you should start addressing.) You don't even know where you want to sit. Eventually, you settle for placing yourself next to him, which is a decision that Suo quickly overturns by pulling you into his lap.

A flutter erupts in your stomach as he settles you on top of him. This physiological reaction is absurd, as not even ten minutes ago, you were trying not to throw up at the line of corpses in front of the elevator. It should also scare you somewhat that Suo’s hands—delicately adjusting your body—are still covered in blood. But truthfully, you can't help but be happy when he makes you feel so loved.

You take one of the napkins on the table and start wiping at his knuckles. Tenderly, in case they're bruised or skinned.

“You didn't call or come home,” you start.

“I thought it would be too dangerous.”

You frown, thinking of all the bodies outside. “Was this a rival organisation?”

“No. They were ours.” He sighs. “A succession conflict. There are a few people who don't like how I'll run things if I take over.”

You nod. Suo is very old-fashioned in his ideals about the yakuza, which you think is an imprint of his master’s influence, and something that appeals to his current ‘father’. He values chivalry. He likes protecting the weak. His filial devotion to his deceased master has now extended to every member of his yakuza family, especially his oyassan. He’s almost certainly the top candidate for taking over after the oyabun dies, but being that part of his old-fashioned principles excludes lucrative projects such as sex trafficking, you suppose it’s natural that some people in his organisation would prefer him dead rather than in charge.

“You’ve never ghosted me during violent conflicts before though,” you say. “I was worried that something happened to you. Or that you were upset with me.”

Suo’s hand drops to your waist, pulling you a little closer.

“They knew where we live. They tried to get to you, you know.” Your eyes widen in alarm, so he cups your face with a palm. His thumb glides along your cheek, and your response is almost Pavlovian: your heart rate immediately slows at the comfort of his touch. “It’s fine. They won't bother you ever again.” The cheerful smile returns. “And if anyone else ever does, I'll handle them too.”

Your heart swells. Enthusiastic pledges of murder are not a healthy sign of affection, but after so much loneliness—whether from the past several days, or the years before that, you aren't sure—you can't find it in yourself to be disturbed. You feel and sound painfully fond when you reply, “I know.”

Suo’s expression dims a little then. “I thought you'd like the space anyway.”

“What?” You give him a confused look. You have never once given him any indication that you want even an inch of space from him. You'd crawl into his ribcage if you could. “Why would you think that?”

“I thought you felt suffocated. You left my club just so you could have sex with other people.” You blink, lingering on his wording. Other people. He continues before you can ask about it, sighing, “You didn't even ask me who I'd give permission to touch you. You just went ahead and decided on your own.”

“...”

You try not to look disturbed. Suo’s apparent wish to control your sexual decisions is news to you, and somehow more alarming than the murder pledge. And even worse—you immediately clench in response to his words. The thought of Suo dictating who does and doesn't get to touch your cunt is… well, your mind is heading in a distinctly non-platonic direction.

Trying to ignore the heat in between your thighs (but at the same time encouraging it), you ask: “Who would you have been, um, okay with touching me?”

“Sakura or Nirei,” he says immediately. “Though only Sakura would be interested.”

“What.” You gape at him, all arousal forgotten. “Bullshit. He would never.”

“Yes, he would.” Suo tilts his head. “Haven't you noticed?”

“I don't think there's anything to notice? And also—he’s so shy, I don't think he'd ever agree even if he were interested!” You give him a bewildered look. “He couldn't even look at us when we said we were getting married, he was so embarrassed!”

“Embarrassed?” Suo stares at you, an amused glint in his eye. “Is that what you thought was going on?”

“Was there anything else?”

He studies you for a moment, clearly entertained but not explaining why. “Well—it’s fine,” he says. “It doesn't matter for now. Especially since he's helping us plan a wedding and all.”

You make a face. “I still can't believe that's the cover you went for.”

“Are you upset with it?” he asks smoothly, and you huff and say yes, but from his sly look, you think he knows it's a lie.

Naturally, you deflect before he can further interrogate you. “So, given that you are now my fiancé, am I no longer allowed to work on Keisei Street and see customers after my shifts?”

You don’t expect it when Suo says, “No, you can.”

You stare. “What?”

“You can keep seeing customers if you'd like. You said it makes you happy, so why would I stop you?” Suo’s brow furrows, his usual calm replaced with concern. “Do you really think I do the things I do to make you miserable?”

Guilt gnaws at your heart. He looks so disappointed. “No,” you tell him. “I just thought it'd make you miserable that I was sleeping with people without your permission.” It is partly why you hid it from him in the first place, after all. You don't like to see him sad—you’re still haunted by the deep grief he was in, after your master died—and also, his misery tends to bring bodily harm to other people these days.

Cognizant of both concerns, you ask, “You’re really okay with me sleeping with my customers? I can stop, if you want.”

“No, it’s fine. I still don't like it, but you can continue for now if you want.”

Suo’s mouth curls—not in a gentle way, as has been his expression since seeing you walk in, but in a way that sets off your flight or fight response.

“I'm sure we’ll reach a mutual understanding soon enough.”

END PART 1

thank you genuinely if you read all that because this is a deranged au and I still can't believe I wrote it sldfkjsldfkj. please do let me know if you enjoyed my yandere suo delusions. sorry there was no smut in this chapter. I promise there is a ton in the next one (probably too much... lol. it's a 10k chapter and literally half of those words are about orgasm denial sldfkjalskdjdf). it's completely written and I hope to edit and have it up by next week!

also here is glossary of terms and world building notes if you are interested!

tagging @kweenkatsuki-fics !! <3

[taegularities]

colour me in: photograph (teaser) | jjk (m)

Summary: With both your and Jungkook's careers seemingly peaking, the future feels promising and bright. Yet, amidst the glowing hope, one single phone call dims the light in the rooms of your shared home.

➳ pairing: Jungkook x reader ➳ rating: 18+ ➳ genre: fwb/f2l, fake dating; angst, fluff, smut ➳ warnings: [redacted spoiler that shall drop with the chapter], tears, sadness/grief, doubts, tender moments, talk of jk's future and his art, support, jk's dad, surprises, (talk of) a break up oop, mention of children (i guess that's a warning lol), explicit sexual content: let-out-some-steam-sex, dom!jk, big dick!jk, he's actually insane. more details shall be added on drop day; the ending.. <3 ➳ word count: around 760 for the teaser; 25-30k for the chapter ➳ a/n: get ready, it's gonna hurt for a whiiile now :') as always, come n talk to me about this 🤍 ➳ listen to: holo by leehi | full collaborative playlist 🤍

SERIES MASTERPOST | TAGLIST MASTERLIST | WIPs

“You do know that we’re supposed to meet up with them in like,” you drop your eyes to your wrist, pulling back the sweater to unveil your watch, “forty minutes, right?”

“And you think they’ll complain about some extra time alone?”

You deliver a blank stare, not a single blink as you watch him shrug a shoulder. He sports a smirk that you would’ve clenched your jaw to months ago, but today, even if you won’t admit it right this second, it amuses you.

He laughs when you stand there unmoving, like a stick figure silently reprimanding a lethargic boyfriend. You hate to break, but when the contagious chuckle infects you, too, you feel a light wave of relief and serotonin ripple through you violently.

Jungkook hasn’t left vacation mode just yet; while the work for the gallery is still ongoing and he diligent, you catch him slouching ever so often, doodling away at times. You’ll confess, the grey outside is tiring; different from the sunnier countryside you left behind.

There’s a sort of post-bliss blues that even you can hardly shake off.

“You can’t deny that, can you?” he utters amidst his melodious laugh, and you roll your eyes, taking two big steps towards him — much like two days ago.

“I don’t have to deny it to still teach you the importance of punctuality, right? Get up,” you say, smacking his hip — and he uses the opportunity to lift his arm from under his head, reaching for you, but… failing. “Uh-uh. Enough with your tricks. Get up.”

Last night still wasn’t enough — is it ever? You’re not surprised; neither by his thirst nor by your own inner, involuntary reactions. But no time. It’s rude to let people wait.

And you know exactly what Jimin would say — tease — if the two of you arrived at the double lunch date with him and Yoongi too late again.

Jungkook’s voice turns half into a yawn, half into a sigh, tired when he responds, “Yes, ma’am.”

This should do.

But since everything good comes in three, and just for good measure, you add another laser-glance, shooting at him in warning to lift his ass and meet you ready once you are, too. A playfully sigh breathed, you amble to the bathroom, make up awaiting on the sink from when you put it there this morning.

This shouldn’t take long; you’re opting for the minimalistic approach today.

As the hues colour your lips and fill your lashes, you hum a random melody you can’t quite identify. It’s quiet in the apartment until it isn’t — and when Jungkook’s voice chimes, your hand halts mid-mascara-stroke, assuming he’s calling for you.

He’s not; you understand this much when he greets the person on the other end in his liveliest tone at first, volume decreasing as the conversation continues. He’s soon hushed enough for you to not really make out proper words anymore. Hums here and there — Jungkook doesn’t seem to say much at all.

Perhaps it’s Yoongi, or Tae, telling a story. Narrating recent occurrences, the joys and pains that emerged and shrivelled on the vacation that you weren’t part of anymore.

You don’t ask just yet, decide not to disturb.

You finish up whatever is left of your routine, setting the make up and ruffling through your hair, adding volume. When the talk he’s indulging in still remains when you deem yourself ready, you let out a breather and step back into the bedroom.

Still in the same clothes and with the untamed hair as his crown, Jungkook’s gaze is lowered, fingers barely curled into the sheets. He’s sat up now; you see his Adam’s apple bob when you walk in. Instinctively and immediately, you blurt, “Now what did I tell you just a moment ago—”

But the jest dries in your throat and then fades, as dead as Jungkook’s eyes when he looks up at you. Or maybe… maybe they’re not dead.

More so — in disbelief. As if he hasn’t really fathomed what he’s just heard, mind sprinting in circles, attempting to understand.

His chest isn’t moving as it should, and just in general, his body emits inner trouble. Distress. When he lifts his pupils and shifts them towards you, it looks as if he’s hoping that your presence could reverse reality, as if you’re pulling him out of the inevitable quicksand.

But you can’t. You get it; see it right away.

Because the watery gaze and the gap between his lips, this expression, are new to you, no matter how many of his aches you’ve mended. And you guess it has something to do with what his conversation partner just said.

Something that certainly wasn’t part of today’s agenda at all.

the way i even had to change the banner bc it'd be such a spoiler lmaoooo but yeah anyways, what do we think? y'all's thought always help immensely, and life has been so busy that writing took a backseat – getting back into it is hard. but you guys offer so many theories as well as love and always motivate me, so come and let's talk <3

[the-real-loser-otaku-girl]

Different fashions reddit user say is the same thing and why they are not

i cant believe this is a post i am making lol but ima clear up how these reddit users r wrong lol (pls dont harass anyone this is just for educational purposes)

Dark girly vs Jirai

Dark girly kei is a fashion that predates jirai (jirai is a lifestyle!!!) The only reason Girly kei is associated with jirai is cuz the girly kei style is what was trending when jirai became a thing. i go more in depth about jirai here

with the next sections i do not know as much sadly but i shall use the knowledge i do have and please feel to jump in!

Cutecore vs Jojifuku

cutecore 1 2

jojifuku 1 2

As we can see there is a lot of overlap. Cutecore is a style that emerged around 2020 (🩷) meanwhile jojifuku is from the 2010s (🩷)

Cutecore often has themes of spookier stuff (not always tho!!!)

Jojifuku (女児服) translates to girls clothing. the look of it is to look like youre wearing kids clothes.

(again i dont know much about these styles so feel free to correct me!)

Coquette vs Hime kei

Honestly I dont know what they are really talking about here lol. Hime gyaru? Hime lolita? Himekaji? So ill show how each one is different form one another

Coquette 1 2

Hime gyaru 1 2

Hime lolita 1 2

Himekaji 1 2

Coquette is a style thats super popular on this app (tumblr) and imo its recently gotten pretty popular. meanwhile ive seen styles like himekaji dwindle in popularity (at least from what ive seen) i think its pretty obvious to see the difference with just pictures so i wont go into a lot of detail (unless you would like me to)

yes all styles of similarities but they also have noticeable differences. Some similarities include 1. all being a more feminine style 2. all often having pink colours 3. all are fashions (and more) But some differences include 1. where/when they originate 2. the silhouette/certain parts of the look 3. the popularity (and more)

Kidcore vs Decora

kidcore 1 2

Decora 1 2

Kidcore as the name states is a more "childish" style. Its very colourful and gives off nostalgic vibes.

Decora is a style that is about decorations/accessories. You cant have a decora fit without them.

Cottagecore vs Mori kei

Cottagecore 1 2

Mori kei 1 2

I dont even know where they got the idea these were the same thing lol

Cottagecore is based around wildlife, farming, cottages, nature. it has a "rural and pioneer" vibe

Mori kei is is more earthy. The best way i can think to describe the difference without rambling is cottagecore is the ppl living in the forest and mori kei is the forest? idk lol.

Rococo vs Lolita

if anything its flipped. Rococo inspired lolita. Also there is so many different types of lolita. sigh.

If you take anything from this I hope its to do your research. And not just listen to the voices you agree with. Listen to the history. Listen to the people who know what they are talking about. Pls lmk if I can explain anything better and feel free to add on! have a good day! (also i am just one source pls go do ur own research!!/nf)

[authenticbunni]

There is no mental fighting/struggle

Girl you is lost. Manifesting is not that complicated at all. You just have to simply decide.

Before you scroll, I know you’ve seen people say that all the time, and it just never wrapped around your complexed mind. I used to have that problem too, I feel you. I have a complexed mind, and even though most people say you don’t have to know everything, I did so I can wrap it around my mind and knowing more actually helped me de-complex my mind. Now that I understand it I’m going to explain some reason as to maybe why you’ve been struggling to just decide.

I’ve put it into two parts if you don’t feel like you need to read everything. Accountability and 4D = 3D NOT 3D = 4D

Accountability

I think where you go wrong is not realizing everything in your life that you’ve ever interacted with or did is from your thoughts. You’re still in a mindset of “how could this have happened? This is not my fault? This is not my doing?” Now that’s human, people always try to blame, don’t beat yourself up. But when you’re trying to manifest and blame every single thing in your life on everyone else, you’re never going to manifest because you can’t take accountability. If you can’t take accountability of your own life, how can you even have full control over your own life.

That was a really hard pill for me to swallow, when it came to taking accountability for the doings in my life. TRUST ME! When I had to move away from Florida, when I had a brutal falling out with my bf. I had to realize that was my fault. Both of those were not in my favor or desires, but I thought so much about those outcomes that it eventually happened.

Once you take accountability you realize the only thing you’ve been struggling with is you. The only thing you’ve been fighting off is you. The only struggle you’ve been going through is you. You have accepted those thoughts into your mind, and now you’ve become them. Now, don’t get panicky or feel like you gotta do a whole bunch of stuff to get past this. Just simply let them pass. Know that these are just thoughts and you have the power to accept and decline them with ease, because you’re subconscious mind always follows your lead without thinking twice.

4D = 3D NOT 3D = 4D

What I mean by the equation is. Your imagination controls/creates your reflection. Your mind is your true reality, and your 3D reflects that. Your 3D does not make you, you make you

4D = reality

3D = reflection (of your 4D)

Stop separating the two, they are always in the same equation. Your 3D is as changeable and flexible as your imagination. I didn’t realize this until I actually saw it happen.

Back to the brutal falling out with my bf. Prior we were just friends but he was pretty regular, talking here, having conversations. But due to dwelling in negative thoughts, in less than I think 1 or 2 days he completely took a 180 and flipped the switch. He hated me, and never wanted to talk to me. During this is completely shock on why this would happened because “I thought I was doing everything right” after a few I realize I was more strong on thinking he hated me, saw me as a nuisance. (Okay that’s enough, I don’t wanna talk about it tm cuz I’m manifesting him back) but that was the work of my manifestation.

As of right now that’s all I can think of, I might make another post or add on to this post. But yeah, those are the reasons I think people have a hard time with. If you feel like this wasn’t enough details for you, that’s fine I’m glad I at least helped u a lil bit 😋.

[anim-ttrpgs]

Eureka is an absolute masterpiece of a ttrpg with so much thought and care put into it. I really can't say enough good things about it. I do want to know if you have made/plan to make any other ttrpgs? I would love to see more genres besides supernatural urban mystery from you because of how quality your work is (but it's completely understandable if you have no plans to do other things).

Thank you! It’s taken us years to refine Eureka’s rules to this level of polish, and I do think it shows! A warning to all other aspiring TTRPG designers, though, don’t make your first project something this big! Keep it short! Not “one page rules” type of short, but don’t be like us and make your first real project a full-on trad TTRPG with this many different moving parts.

If you have aspirations to make something as crunchy and fleshed-out as Eureka, maybe try to execute the concept in a more simpler “OSR” style, and then after you’ve gotten more experience under your belt, maybe made some money and/or gotten a team together, then maybe try that concept again with more crunch. Call it “Advanced [Your Earlier Game Title]”

As for the future of A.N.I.M., we are planning to continually release adventure modules for Eureka, and probably also add-ons like extra Traits, Monster Traits, etc. I would love to include some playable monsters from cultures outside “the west” too, but I wouldn’t want to half-ass them, I’d want to give them as much research, attention detail and themes, etc. that I’ve given to all the other monsters. That’s just a lot harder when the best sources aren’t always in English.

Speaking of shorter games, I already wrote a little tiny game on the side called Edge Hedge Arena.

This is a game where you google “[Your Name] the Hedgehog”, choose one of the many Sonic OCs that are likely to come up, then give them stats and battle them against those of other players using the rules provided.

Since I basically have no more rules to write for Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy and I’m mostly just waiting for other members of the team to finish working on their parts, I’ve partially moved on to working on A.N.I.M.’s next big game, too!

We’ve learned our lesson, it’s not going to be anywhere near the page count or crunch level of Eureka, even though you know I love crunchy games. Well, actually, it’s probably only slightly less crunchy than Eureka, but it’s about much more specific scenarios, so it’ll still overall have less mechanics. The scope is much smaller.

This is a dark comedy/satire game that kind of takes the Forgotten Realms “evil sexy matriarchal bdsm slavery society ruled by warriors who fight in lingerie” dark elf concept and asks the question of “What kind of society and circumstances would actually produce this?” (Though it doesn’t actually take place in Forgotten Realms or any other D&D setting)

And then makes the comparison to 20th and 21st century American capitalism. “No, these aren’t slaves, they aren’t chained up and are allowed to leave any time they want. But they only get food so long as they keep working, and if they disobey then can get beaten.” It started out as a joke, but we are probably going to add "media literacy" to the list of requirements alongside dice and stuff hahaha, like, the ability to understand that the world of this game is not supposed to represent the author's idea of a perfect society. We might add that to Eureka too.

Silk&Dagger is about class, gender roles, different ways that forced labor can manifest in a society, and most importantly surviving all of those things.

Going forward to understand what I’m saying you have to know that in this setting, “Drow” is a title, referring to the ruling warrior caste. Most Drow are dark elves, but not all dark elves are Drow. This society is structured a bit like ancient Sparta, with a very small ruling caste of warriors, and a very large servant caste. Social mobility between these castes is possible, but rather than getting into it in detail and making this post super long, let’s just say that many servants consider themselves temporarily embarrassed Drow.

A typical “party” in Silk&Dagger is will consist of one Drow PC and any number of servant PCs working for her. There are regular chores that need to be done around the palace, which provide challenges, but scenarios will also throw major issues into the mix.

A Drow’s Reputation is everything, if the Drow PC’s Reputation stat reaches 0, that is the failure state for the entire party, because it basically means no more food. (Even the servants, for lore reasons that I also won’t get into)

So a typical scenario will be like “Somebody very important is coming to visit, but the lower floor of the palace is starting to flood for an unknown reason.” We’re going to have multi-part tables where you can randomly generate these, but we will also have more in-depth adventure modules for it in the future.

We ran a playtest the other day basically based on this scenario. The intended comedy of the game really came out as we kept switching perspectives, with the Drow upstairs having to constantly come up with new ways to impress her guests and explain away that splashing sound while the servant worked down below trying to find and plug the leak.

So, the PCs will have to deal with all that while also making sure that all the chores get done, and the kicker is, they can’t easily communicate with each other. The massive gulf between the two castes is the real enemy here, along with the behavioral expectations placed on each.

They could’ve gotten a head start on dealing with the flooding if the servant had had permission to speak earlier and could’ve told the Drow that the lower floor is flooding, but

There’s a big list of behaviors that a servant has to fulfill when interacting with a Drow, which are basically designed to be impossible to follow and just get them in trouble, and a Drow who doesn’t strictly enforce this etiquette risks losing Reputation for it.

On the other side, Drow also have to constantly embody a list of six features, which basically means acting as evil as possible, their Reputation depends on it.

One other unique feature of Silk&Dagger is that it is a two-GM game. One GM does most of the normal GM stuff, while the other GM represents the ever-present societal expectations weighing on all the characters, subtracting Reputation points and important things every time the PCs do something that makes them look bad in the eyes of this society.

There may come times where PCs will just have to take the hit to get things done, or find clever ways to make it look like they’re upholding the status quo while secretly treating each other like equals when nobody’s looking.

You can expect, like, an alpha or beta version of this game to come to the patreon in probably January or February, and maybe even itchio if it is far along enough by then. It was actually supposed to be out on the patreon in December, but some personal issues and illnesses really held it up. I am really going to try and make it less than 200 pages.

I'll end the post with one of my favorite little bits from the setting/lore. One of the reasons that Drow dress like that is because it helps them identify each other by thermal vision in the pitch black tunnels. Unique patterns of covered and uncovered skin serve as a sort of personal heraldry.

Elegantly designed and thoroughly playtested, Eureka represents the culmination of three years of near-daily work from our team, as well as a lot of our own money. If you’re just now reading this and learning about Eureka for the first time, you missed the crowdfunding window unfortunately, but you can still check out the public beta on itch.io to learn more about what Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy actually is, as that is where we have all the fancy art assets, the animated trailer, links to video reviews by podcasts and youtubers, etc.!

You can also follow updates on our Kickstarter page where we post regular updates on the status of our progress finishing the game and getting it ready for final release.

Beta Copies through the Patreon

If you want more, you can download regularly updated playable beta versions of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy earlier, plus extra content such as adventure modules by subscribing to our Patreon at the $5 tier or higher. Subscribing to our patreon also grants you access to our patreon discord server where you can talk to us directly and offer valuable feedback on our progress and projects.

The A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club

If you would like to meet the A.N.I.M. team and even have a chance to play Eureka with us, you can join the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club discord server. It’s also just a great place to talk and discuss TTRPGs, so there is no schedule obligation, but the main purpose of it is to nominate, vote on, then read, discuss, and play different indie TTRPGs. We put playgroups together based on scheduling compatibility, so it’s all extremely flexible. This is a free discord server, separate from our patreon exclusive one. https://discord.gg/7jdP8FBPes

Other Stuff

We also have a ko-fi and merchandise if you just wanna give us more money for any reason.

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

[whateverisbeautiful]

I love waking up and reading your Richonne posts. You pretty much hit on every scene and I am so thankful for that.

Could you go over maybe a 2 part take of what you think had happened during the months of them getting to know each other during the prison times. Also, the months they got close together in Alexandria before they became official. Since, the show robbed of us seeing those scenes. I would love to hear your detailed theory on it because you know these two characters so well!

A 2-parter? You’re speaking my language, anon. 😋 Thank you for this message. 🙏🏽 And for some reason my mind read this ask and added in “a detailed play-by-play” of what I think happened and so that’s pretty much what I ended up writing. Starting with Part One - the time in between Seasons 3 and 4 at the prison that led to Rick and Michonne being like this in the season 4 premiere ⬇️💗:

I always like to think about what specific context from the actual show could most inform these type of unseen scenarios and then shape what I envision from there. So I first started thinking about where Rick and Michonne landed in the season 3 finale. 

If I remember correctly they both rode in the car together after saying their goodbyes to Andrea, and Daryl drove the bus. I feel like that car ride might have laid another small stepping stone toward growing Rick and Michonne’s fondness for each other. I don’t imagine that they even talked much in the car because it was a somber vibe after losing Andrea. But I can picture Rick seeing Michonne quietly emotional in the car, and for reasons he’s not fully aware of yet seeing her upset affects him and his want to comfort her is stronger than he’d expect.

I can picture something like when they pull up to the prison after Woodbury, Rick just lets her know that Andrea isn’t the only one who thinks it’s good that Michonne found them. And the silence after is so clearly his “I’m glad too.” But you know how back then Rick tended to say something that felt like it was almost going to be a profession about his fondness for her but then he’d sorta retreat - I think he’d do that and just add that they all are glad she’s with them. And Michonne would just give an appreciative smile and walk away because she’d still be pretty heartbroken over losing yet another person she cared about. 

Then I think going forward, that loss, on top of the loss of her boyfriend and baby, makes Michonne maintain a friendly distance from everyone in team family for a while. Like she’s always keeping herself busy by independently tending to tasks that help around the prison, going on runs, and trying to track down The Governor. But Rick still keeps an eye on her from afar.

And if I remember correctly, because it’s been a minute since I’ve watched these seasons, Rick and Michonne both weren’t members of that new committee that was formed. So I can imagine that maybe there were times when some of the other people closest to them were in meetings or away which may have prompted Rick and Michonne to chat a bit more - but still keeping it light and brief, not having extended conversations yet. Perhaps both would find themselves observing each other at times - Michonne seeing Rick out farming, Rick seeing Michonne out taking down walkers around the prison’s perimeter. Except maybe not watching her with binoculars this time lol.

Then, going off of info from s4, I think during these months that we didn’t see something that might’ve slowly but surely made Michonne lessen some of her lone wolf ways is when Daryl asks her to join him on runs. She agrees to go with him and they build a friendship.

And then whenever Michonne is back at the prison she starts getting closer to Carl too because they bond over things like books and comics. And perhaps Michonne and Carl especially bond when she brings back a bag of candy for him after one of her runs. They share some together and learn Michonne doesn’t mind the stale M&M's, and that becomes a running joke between them. 😊

So with Michonne getting closer to two of the people closest to Rick - Carl and Daryl - that starts bringing Rick and Michonne around each other more often too in a more social context. And this is where that crush we saw had clearly formed by the s4 premiere really starts taking root.

Like Michonne and Carl build this really natural, lighthearted, playful rapport and then it leads to Michonne lightly joking with Rick too. I picture that Rick is a bit bashful around her but they still occasionally have that flirty subtle-but-not-subtle “must’ve been something else then”/“you want to drive” type exchanges.

And Daryl definitely peeps these moments at times and knows you don’t even have to be an observant tracker to pick up on the stuff between Rick and Michonne. But he keeps those observations to himself...for the most part lol.

Michonne has playful banter with Daryl too but subconsciously she can feel that her exchanges with Rick feel different. And Rick loves it whenever Michonne spends time with them around the prison. It feels like family. 

Other TWD scenes that I think give a glimpse into what that time between s3 and s4 might've looked like are when Rick asks if she’s okay after she hurts her ankle, and when Rick washes up and asks if Michonne needs help with cleaning up those walker bodies. Lots of exchanges like that going on. Showing they care and like each other but are moving slowly toward really getting close.

And through these exchanges - of which it’s rarely ever just the two of them in private because Carl or people are usually always around - Rick and Michonne start to pick up on more and more things they like about each other.

I like to imagine that perhaps whenever the community had some downtime in the evenings or nights, it’d so often end up being Michonne, Carl, and Rick hanging around each other. With Judith there too sometimes, who Michonne seems to keep this subtle distance from as the baby triggers too painful a wound. 

But when Michonne starts to really care for them and feels herself getting closer to them - finding herself thinking about Rick and Carl while on runs and looking forward to their little exchanges - she starts going out further and further to look for the Governor - and subconsciously, part of that is to distance herself.

Rick isn’t crazy about her going off alone to find a certified madman but only really shows his disagreement in facial expression and maybe an occasional remark to Daryl about how he wants her to be safe. (And Daryl knows Rick wants that and more when it comes to Michonne, ijs.).

Maybe one time Rick does mention to Michonne that she doesn’t have to go out so much or so far but she’s adamant that it is something she has to do - hence why she makes that “It’s worth a shot" comment when she’s talking to Rick and Daryl in the s4 premiere.

She might already know Rick feels a type of way about her going on these missions cuz he briefly mentioned it before (and because he can't help but wear his emotions right on his face lol), but her subconscious also knows that staying around Rick too long is too vulnerable and wakes up too much within her that she thought died a while ago. 

Finally, I picture that there’s one night when Rick, Michonne, and Carl are just enjoying some downtime chatting together as usual but then either Carl falls asleep or somehow he leaves to talk with one of the kids around the prison and it’s a rare moment where it’s just Rick and Michonne together.

And that night they start talking on a more personal level. They don’t divulge their life stories or anything because I don’t think they really deep-dived into getting to know each other like that until the second half of season 4. But in this conversation, they do open up just a bit more and give more insight into how they think and operate, which they refreshingly find to be quite similar. And in the areas they learn that they’re different - they find that refreshing too.

And I like to think that their talk on this one night was one of those things where -  you know how people say they were conversing with their person in the early stages of getting to know them and they just never wanted the moment to end and they could have stayed talking to that person forever and damn near do talk to them for more hours than they realized? It was like that. 

Rick and Michonne both know in the deeper parts of their psyche that spending that time together just felt right. Falling for each other is still something they're doing subconsciously rather than cognizantly at this point, but what they are aware of is that they do enjoy each other a lot. And how right it feels to spend time with each other also subconsciously scares them a bit. Almost like it’s too right too fast. So those walls go right back up after that conversation ends and they don’t really get a chance to talk on that personal of a level again until the prison falls.

Even though deep down both of them really would like to have that time together again, and low-key Rick is so eager for another chance to just be around her like that, that just hearing her riding back from one of her outings has him springing up from his farming session with Hershel in order to run and greet her and ask if she’s going to stay a little while. 

And that’s my take on what I think happened between Richonne in the time between season 3 and season 4. 👌🏽😌

And Anon, you know you’ve tempted me with a good time by asking to have a part two about the time between No Way Out and Richonne’s canon episode The Next World. So I'll try and have a (possibly less lengthy 😅) Part Two on the way soon. 😊

[ro-bee]

Hi!

Could maybe say something more about your Goat Realm?

What is story of Puppy narinder here?

What heretics look like here and how are they behaviour? (I'm curious about it because I love these beans. I'm all ears to any littlest detail)

How other bishops look like?

And anyway anything. I'm all ears to all ramble!

Drink your water!

HELLOOO

It is time for the goatverse yap section ! Everybody cheers!!

Anyway little disclaimers :

1_ is very work in progress... Unfortunately all my focus is on those two gay furries and not much on the world so I don't have many drawings to show :(

2_ it's heavy... And I mean there are strong themes and stuff (I'm not gonna go in details here) ... You'll see it better when I finish one of my many projects but it will require a lot of time... Like a lot, sorry... Anyway :)

Goat's world is very harsh. Here we live by the philosophy of kill or be killed very often, despite that there are some people that manage to live in piece and tranquility (example: goat's family and people that don't venerate any specific bishops or that venerate Kiran)

The world is ruled by the 5 bishops (these design are still concepts expect our beloved wolf lol)

Four of them command on different regions, Kiran being the god of death rules the purgatory

He doesn't have many followers like his siblings but he prefers it like that, it doesn't really matter to him because people souls would end up to him anyway.

His siblings have more of an evil alineament, they use their godhood for bad often, taking entertainment on their followers pain. Kiran is the opposite and witnessing his followers suffering fills him with sorrow, that's why he always gives his followers a painless death, is the last he can do for them... After all their souls gives him power :)

Anyway I think I already explained kiran's plan here , tldr bro is sad people suffer so he thinks that killing everything is a good solution

A little thing I want to add to kiran's backstory thing (idk):

I think that unfortunately we're not gonna have a ratau in this world, since Kiran's objective is to get rid of pain with putting everyone's soul to rest I think he won't let any previous vessel go away after failing (I'm not doing this because I hate ratau, he's my dad I love him so much)

So goat had no guide in what they were doing

Heretics here are just like regular heretics(?), if you wanted to know more about their design unfortunately I don't have anything with them :( I have some sketches in the comic I'm working on but I need to keep it as a surprise

Most of them are just regular people that want to survive...

Talking about people who want to survive:

Goat wasn't always this fucked up in the head, this whole deal changed them for the worst. Before the crown they lived a normal peaceful life with their family, when they lost everything they were forced to learn how to fight back to survive. So they spent many years running away and fighting back, they felt terrible at first but then it started to feel normal, almost enjoyable. Getting the crowns powers made killing people fun for them so yeah lol this is the evolution of goat going from calm Lyra player to killer machine, they have a loooooot of anger issues lol.

About the bishops... I'm currently drawing them better and they still have no name right now...

Their personality is the opposite of the canon one basically

The leshy is calm less impulsive

The geko is a prudent and a bit coward

The kraken is fearless and violent

The scorpion is ruthless and impulsive

Kiran is their older brother and loves them very much!! the feeling is not very mutual but anyway :)

I need to work a little bit more on them ngl

Aaaand I think this is all? Hmm idk feel free to ask more :)

[crosshairs-dumb-pimp-gf]

Texting it out down here cause in video would go by to fast. Also the video for the sketch layer didn't save so it picks up at me starting on Cross's face. Not too much missed, I only rough out some shapes and copy/paste them where I want them from frame to frame.

It takes me about 2 hours or so to make one of these. I'm using a mouse rather than a tablet so you'll notice my style is more like carving with lines rather than drawing.

I fill my background and put down a very rough sketch. I keep it rough mostly do to impatience. The line work does turn out better if I do a more detailed sketch but that doesn't matter. None of this matters.

Things I always do that I know to correct in my line work as I go: "That head too big! Always too big! Eyes too! Shrink erything."

I do the line art in a free program called ProMotion. It's for animation but I don't care, I'm looking for clean sharp lines and tools that let me copy/paste and instantly make brushes of pieces that I highlight. Its a pixel based program and I would normally use it to make sprites for my RPG maker games.

IMPORTANT STEP: ZOOM IN AND OUT OVER AND OVER AND OVER TILL YOU DONT CARE IF IT LOOKS RIGHT ANYMORE.

Then we take that line art and shove it into Photopea for coloring. This is another free program that's a clone of Adobe because I like photoshop tools but hate Adobe as a company with a fiery passion.

Yes I just kind of choose whatever color. I could make a reference sheet with saved colors but TRUST ME. I wont use it. I almost never use references, i forget, okay. Mostly drawing from memory.

Each color gets a layer essentially and then I "paint" them with the burn tool. (Midtones 20%) Cross's armor gets highlights on the ridges with the dodge tool. (Also Midtones 20%)

Add Blush to the skin! Thin points like face, shoulders, finger tips. Blur Blur Blur till it looks right.

Also, remember how I said I was looking for clean clean lines with no blur? That's cause I just clean up the "paint" by selecting with the magic wand and deleting it.

I make my backgrounds out of stock textures mostly. Though this usually takes a little bit more collage work this strip is simple so I just used the gritty/tech wall texture. Blur that bitch. (Gaussian Blur under the filter tab, whatever looks right but the default 7 pixels is usually good for the BG)

To add motion I copy the bits I want to seem like they're moving and use the "Motion Blur" filter, then I put that copied color over the background line art.

Add shadows! Under the coloring layers, that handy gaussian blur again.

Add Lighting! I usually have the overlayer set to "Soft Light" and then I use the gradient tool to filter everything to look cohesive. (You might notice I keep their skin tone pretty dark but it might look different when I change the lighting.)

Warp the action words... just...whatever feels appropriate at the time and set that layer to "Color Burn"

I just use the Oval select tool with the feather set between 3-5 pixels to make word bubbles. Paint it in voila. Add Text. All done!

Cross x Tahny: +A Summary+

My philosophy : Style matters more than skill and you should cheat and cut corners as much as possible. Peace and Love.

-++-++-++-++-++-++-++-++-++-++-++-++-++-++-++-++-++-++-++-

Tags:

@feral-ferrule @eobe @ghostymarni

[whosscruffylooking]

The Purest Things: Envy (Lo-Fi) Part 1

Aaron Hotchner x Fem! Reader Word Count: 5.2k Warnings: Mentions of guns, shootings, bombings, and other canon typical violence. Brief use of alcohol. The Purest Things Masterlist

au! may 2008

Bookend: "Success is not built on success. It's built on failure. It's built on frustration. Sometimes it's built on catastrophe." - Sumner Redstone

The jet hums steadily as you settle into your seat, the team taking their places around you. The weight of the case looms large, even before you’ve touched down in New York. A shadowy figure roamed Manhattan, shooting people in broad daylight. You can already feel the tension building.

Rossi leans forward, his voice cutting through the low hum of the jet. “The victims?”

“Each shot in a completely different neighborhood,” Hotch responds. “Hell’s Kitchen, Murray Hill, Lower East Side, Chinatown, East Harlem.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” you mutter, still trying to wrap your mind around it.

“The killings are happening roughly every two days,” Hotch continues, his voice steady. “The press is having a field day, and it sounds like the mood on the street’s getting pretty tense.”

Rossi, always focused, presses on. “It’s a joint FBI-NYPD task force?”

Hotch gives a short nod. “Kate Joyner heads up the New York field office. She’s running point on the case and called me directly.”

Your ears perk up at the mention of her name. She called him directly. That little detail catches your attention, even though you try not to show it.

“Oh?” You ask, trying to keep your voice casual.

“Kate’s starting to butt heads with the lead detectives and wanted a fresh set of eyes,” Hotch explains, his tone businesslike.

“Joyner, I know her. She’s a Brit,” Morgan chimes in, clearly familiar with her.

“Dual citizenship,” Hotch corrects. “Her father’s British, her mother’s American. She was a big deal at Scotland Yard before coming to the Bureau.”

His quick correction catches you off guard. There’s something about the way he highlights her credentials that leaves a strange knot in your stomach.

“I heard she can be a pain in the ass,” Morgan adds with a grin.

“I don’t think so,” Hotch replies without hesitation.

You can’t help but blink, surprised at the way Hotch speaks about her so easily. It’s not just the words, but the way he says them—like he’s familiar with her in a way you hadn’t realized.

“You know her?” you ask, the words slipping out before you can stop yourself. The question hangs in the air, and you feel a strange hint of something—curiosity, maybe, or something else you’re not ready to name.

Hotch nods, his tone neutral. “We liaised when she was still at Scotland Yard.”

Liaised. You repeat the word in your head, trying not to overthink it, but it sounds so formal. So… familiar.

“You liaised,” you echo with a soft chuckle, keeping your tone light. You’re not sure why it even matters or why you’re suddenly more interested in this Kate Joyner than the case itself.

Hotch’s expression remains indistinct, but there’s a faint twitch at the corner of his mouth, almost like he caught the edge in your voice. “She’s a competent agent,” he says, turning his attention back to the discussion as if that settles everything.

“She must be good,” Prentiss reacts, and you’re almost dreading Hotch’s response. Of course, he replies without delay.

“I think we’re lucky to have her,” he says, a softness creeping into his voice as he speaks her name.

Hearing Hotch speak about her with such ease—admiration, respect—tugs at something inside you, leaving you momentarily off balance. You tell yourself it’s nothing, just the suspense of the case, and force your focus back where it belongs.

•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:••:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:••:•.•:•.

You walk into the field office, curiosity rising inside you—though you’d never admit it. Hotch seems almost… lighter as he steps through the door, and it’s throwing you off. This entire situation feels strange like you’ve wandered into some alternate reality where you’re just an observer in Hotch’s orbit.

And then you see her. Kate Joyner. Blonde, blue-eyed, perfectly put together, down to the last strand of hair. The kind of woman who looks effortlessly in control. You think to yourself, who does she remind me of?

JJ leans in, her voice low and laced with humor as she glances toward you and Penelope. “Is it me, or does she look exactly like Haley?”

Bingo. Your eyes widen as realization clicks into place. “This feels like we are in an episode of The Twilight Zone,” you whisper back, half-joking, half-serious.

And then it happens. “Aaron!” Kate calls out warmly, her British accent smoothing out every syllable.

You blink. His first name? Out in the open like that? You’re pretty sure he only recently gave you that privilege, and now it feels… less exclusive.

Hotch doesn’t miss a beat. “Kate Joyner, this is David Rossi, Emily Prentiss, Jennifer Jareau, Penelope Garcia, Derek Morgan, and Spencer Reid.”

And then nothing. No mention of you. Just like that, you’re invisible.

“And I’m Y/N,” you say, a little too quickly. You try to sound casual, but there’s a harshness to it that betrays your irritation.

Hotch’s eyes flick to you—briefly. If there’s an apology in that glance, it’s buried deep, because he turns his attention back to Kate without missing a beat.

“Thanks for being here,” Kate says, her smile effortless and her tone gracious. “Anything you need, just let me know. No need to stand on protocol.” Of course, she has a perfect accent too. Naturally.

You’re still trying to figure out why this whole exchange has unsettled you when Emily leans closer, smirking just enough to be dangerous. “They liaised at Scotland Yard,” she whispers, drawing out the word.

You shoot her a look, but she just raises an eyebrow knowingly. JJ suppresses a snicker beside you.

Okay, maybe this isn’t jealousy. Maybe it’s just… mild confusion. Mixed with a tiny sprinkle of irritation. You linger near JJ, pretending to review files as you process whatever it is you’re feeling.

Whatever it is, you’re pretty sure you don’t like it.

You find Hotch engrossed in a quiet conversation with Rossi. His focus is razor-sharp, as always, but you can’t shake the nagging irritation from earlier. The question has been bouncing around in your head ever since you introduced yourself to Kate, and you know it’s not going to leave you alone until you address it.

Taking a steadying breath, you make your way over. Rossi catches your approach and gives you a brief nod before excusing himself, leaving you and Hotch alone.

“Aaron,” you say, keeping your voice calm, and casual.

He turns to you, brow furrowing slightly. “Everything all right?”

“Fine,” you reply, though the word feels tight on your tongue. You cross your arms, looking him straight in the eye. “I just wanted to ask—was there a reason you didn’t introduce me earlier? To Kate?”

For a split second, his expression tenses, as though he’s surprised by the question. Then his features settle back into that familiar neutrality. “It wasn’t intentional,” he says curtly.

You raise an eyebrow. “Didn’t feel that way.”

He exhales, glancing toward Kate’s office as if to gauge whether you’ll be overheard. “I was focused on the case, on briefing her about the team. It wasn’t a deliberate omission.”

You tilt your head, studying him. His explanation makes sense—you’ve seen how single-minded he can get when it comes to work. But still, something about being overlooked like that doesn’t sit right.

“Okay,” you say after a moment, your tone lighter now. “But for the record, being left out isn’t exactly a great feeling. Especially when everyone else got the full introduction.”

Hotch’s gaze meets yours, steady and sincere. “You’re right,” he says, and there’s no defensiveness in his voice—just a quiet acknowledgment. “It won’t happen again.”

You nod, satisfied—for now. But just as you’re about to say something else, Kate’s voice cuts through the air, pulling both of your attention toward her office.

“Aaron?” she calls, standing in the doorway, her tone brisk and professional. “Could I borrow you for a moment?”

Hotch glances at her, then back at you. There’s a flicker of hesitation like he’s not quite ready to end the conversation.

“We’ll finish this later,” he says quietly, almost as though it’s a promise.

“Sure,” you reply, forcing a small smile as he heads toward Kate’s office.

You try to focus on the file in your hands, but your gaze keeps drifting toward Kate’s office, where Hotch is standing. The blinds are partially open, giving you an unobstructed view as they talk. It’s nothing inappropriate—just two professionals discussing a case—but something about the way he stands so close to her, his posture relaxed but attentive, gnaws at you.

She says something, and he nods, his expression calm and composed. You can’t hear them, but the way Kate gestures, assured and poised, makes it clear she’s the one leading the conversation. It shouldn’t bother you. It’s work. It’s Hotch being Hotch—focused, professional, unreadable.

Still, you can’t seem to stop watching.

“Tell me it’s not just me,” Derek’s voice pulls you from your thoughts. He’s leaning against a desk nearby, arms crossed as he follows your line of sight.

You blink, trying to shake off the weight in your chest. “What do you mean?”

He tilts his head toward the office. “Her. Joyner.” His mouth pulls into a slight frown. “Something about her makes me feel uneasy. Can’t quite put my finger on it yet, but…”

You glance at him, surprised. For a moment, you consider agreeing outright, but your reasons feel different—murkier—than his.

“I don’t know,” you say carefully, tearing your gaze away from the office window. “Maybe it’s just her style. She’s confident and assertive. Maybe that throws people off.”

Derek gives you a look, one that says he knows you’re deflecting. “Nah. It’s more than that. She’s got this energy. It's ikeshe’s not afraid to step on toes. It puts me on edge.”

You hum in response, keeping your eyes on the case file now instead of the window. “Or maybe it’s just because she’s new and already running point.”

It’s a plausible enough answer, but you can’t help the tug of discomfort in your chest, the one that’s been sitting there since Hotch introduced her—since she called him Aaron.

Derek doesn’t let it go so easily this time. He pushes off the desk and strolls over, dropping a heavy hand onto your shoulder with a grin. “She’s not my Y/N. You’ll be bossing us all around soon, even Hotch.”

You snort at that, shaking your head as his words pull a reluctant smile from you. “Oh, please.”

“I’m serious.” He pulls you into a brief, reassuring hug, his voice low and genuine. “Give it time, hot stuff. Nobody’s got what you’ve got, and don’t you forget it.”

His words settle something in you, even if only a little. When you glance back toward Kate’s office again, you don’t linger. You still feel that tug—something strange—but maybe Derek’s right.

Maybe it’s not about her at all. Maybe it’s about you and where you’re headed.

•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:••:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:••:•.•:•.

For the first time in months, Hotch has assigned you to work separately from him. It’s odd—like a piece of your routine has shifted without warning. Adjusting isn’t easy, but you remind yourself that versatility is part of the job. Still, you can’t shake the feeling that his decision wasn’t entirely random.

At the field office, you’re working with Emily and Spencer, pouring over files and maps. The case feels impossible—five neighborhoods, five victims, no clear connection. Every lead seems to dissolve as quickly as it appears.

“Okay,” you sigh, leaning back in your chair. “Five victims, five locations, zero correlation. It’s maddening.”

Emily nods, tapping her pen against the table. “Tell me about it. Could this really be random?”

Spencer shakes his head. “No such thing as true randomness, not in cases like this. The Unsub is making deliberate choices. We’re just not seeing the pattern yet.”

You glance at the map, your frustration brewing. “What if the victims aren’t the point? What if this isn’t about who they are but what they represent? This could be a test—a way for the Unsub to refine their methods before escalating.”

Spencer pauses, considering your theory. “That would explain the lack of a clear victimology. If this is a precursor to something bigger, they don’t need specific targets yet.”

Emily raises an eyebrow. “So we’re dealing with someone in training. That’s comforting.”

You gesture to the map. “Think about it. Hell’s Kitchen, Murray Hill, Chinatown, East Harlem. These aren’t personal locations for the victims, but they’re all high-traffic areas. If this is a test, the Unsub is challenging themselves—choosing chaotic places where they can prove they’re in control.”

Spencer nods slowly. “It fits. The precision of the killings—broad daylight, crowded areas, no witnesses who can pin them at the scene. They’re perfecting their process.”

Emily sighs, crossing her arms. “And when they decide they’re ready? What then?”

“They’ll escalate,” you say grimly. “Target specific victims, make bigger statements, maybe both.”

Spencer taps his pen against the desk. “If this is a test, we’re looking for patterns that have nothing to do with the victims. Timing, locations, routes in and out of the crime scenes.”

Emily leans back. “So we’re chasing ghosts. Great.”

You glance at the files again, determination hardening in your chest. “Maybe we’re thinking too much like investigators. If we want to stop this, we need to think like the Unsub. What are they getting out of this?”

Spencer’s eyes light up as he nods. “If we figure that out, we can predict their next move.”

Emily sighs, brushing a hand through her hair. “Looks like another long night staring at maps. Lucky us.”

You smirk faintly, trying to lighten the mood. “Glamorous life of the BAU.”

Spencer smiles briefly, but you can see the wheels turning in his mind. You glance back at the map, if this Unsub wants to play a game, you’re going to make sure they lose.

•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:••:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:••:•.•:•.

Another killing. Another killing, and somehow, Hotch remembered to inform everyone but you. You arrive at the scene, scanning the cluster of agents and officers until your eyes land on Hotch. He’s standing next to Kate, speaking quietly, while the rest of the team is scattered nearby. You linger on the edge of the scene, unsure whether to join them or not.

Derek notices you first and heads your way, his brow furrowed. “Where were you, hot stuff?”

You let out a scoff. “Funny, I was wondering the same about all of you.”

He tilts his head, confused. “What do you mean?”

“No one told me there was another killing,” you say, your tone sharper than you intended. “I was sent to look into some security footage—missing timestamps from the last murder—and when I got back, everyone was gone. No message, no call, nothing.” You shift from one leg to the other, the frustration bubbling to the surface.

Derek places his hands on your shoulders, his voice steady. “Talk to me.”

You glance over at Hotch, then back at Derek, hesitating. “I just don’t get it,” you admit, your voice quieter now. “On every other case, Hotch makes a point of keeping me in the loop. He’s always made sure I feel like part of the team. But the second we land here, it’s like I don’t even exist. He forgets to introduce me, doesn’t give me a clear assignment, and now I’m out of the loop on major developments. It’s bull crap.”

Derek’s eyes soften. “You need to talk to him.”

You shake your head. “Why should I? He won’t talk to me. So what’s the point?”

“Because you’re stronger than this,” Derek says firmly, pulling you into a quick side hug. “And because letting it stew won’t do you any good. You’re a badass, hot stuff. He knows it, I know it, and soon enough, the whole damn field office will know it too.”

Despite your frustration, his words draw a reluctant smile from you. “You think?”

He grins. “I know.”

For the rest of the day, Derek stays close, making sure you’re involved in conversations and helping you stay engaged with the case. His steady presence eases the frustration building up inside you, but every time you glance at Hotch and Kate, the knot in your chest tightens again.

What you don’t notice is how often Hotch’s gaze shifts toward you—always quick, always subtle—but Derek sees it. He catches it the third time and leans in with a grin. “He’s watching you, you know.”

You look up at him, confused. “What?”

Derek smirks. “Hotch. He’s been glancing your way all day. Maybe he’s finally realizing he’s been neglecting you.”

You sneer, brushing it off. “He’s just focused on the case.”

Derek raises an eyebrow, not convinced. “I don’t think that’s all of it.”

•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:••:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:••:•.•:•.

As the team regroups back at the field office, Emily signals that there’s new surveillance footage to review. She pulls up the most recent shooting first, then switches to the footage from the previous murder.

“This is the latest shooting,” Emily says, then switches the footage. “And this is from the previous one. Anything stand out?”

Derek squints at the screen, leaning forward. “He sprints off in one, and walks calmly in the other.”

You nod, your mind racing. “It’s two entirely different demeanors.”

As Garcia shows you her analyzed footage, a thought starts to form. You look at the images more closely and it hits you.

“We’ve got more than one unsub,” you say at the same time as Hotch, your words overlapping.

You both glance at each other briefly before quickly looking away.

“This fits perfectly with what Y/N profiled earlier,” Emily says, looking between you and Hotch.

Hotch turns toward you, his gaze steady. “Care to share?”

You feel a flash of frustration at his sudden interest—finally giving you a chance to speak. You bite back the urge to snap and instead take a deep breath. You’ve been holding this theory all day, and now it feels like you’re finally being heard, but not without the irritation of waiting so long.

“The victims aren’t being targeted. They’re just part of something bigger. I think these killings are a test," You take a deep breath, " after the last killing, I think they’re testing something. It’s not about the victims, they're collateral to them—it’s about the timing, the reactions. I think this is all just a distraction from their end goal.”

The room falls silent, the weight of your words settling over the team.

Kate nods thoughtfully. “Do you think we have enough for a working profile?”

You glance at Hotch, hoping for some acknowledgment.

He meets your eyes briefly before turning back to the team. “I think we need to go in a different direction with the profile. Let’s focus on refining the behavior patterns we’ve seen so far.”

Your stomach tightens as he brushes past your theory without a second glance. You stay silent, the words you want to say sticking in your throat. You had worked hard on that profile, and now it feels as if it’s been dismissed without much thought.

As the team begins to disperse, you try to shake off the aggravation that rises in your chest.

Derek steps into your personal space, his voice lowered so only you can hear. “You need to talk to him, Y/N. Don’t let this simmer.”

You hesitate, biting your lip, unsure. “I don’t know if it’ll even matter.”

Derek places a hand on your shoulder, his gaze steady as he looks you in the eye. “Trust me. It will. Talk to him.”

Your heart races at the thought of confronting Hotch, but Derek gives you one last reassuring smile before shifting his focus back to the case.

You find Hotch standing near the whiteboard, looking over the latest updates. The sight of him, the way he stands so tall and composed, only makes the knot in your stomach tighten. You’ve been avoiding this moment for too long, but Derek’s words keep echoing in your mind. You can’t let it go on any longer.

You take a deep breath, making your way toward him. The sound of your footsteps seems to get louder the closer you get, and for a moment, you hesitate. But you push through, walking up to him with purpose.

“Hotch,” you say, your voice stable, though there’s a trace of annoyance that you can’t quite mask.

He turns to face you, his expression neutral but his eyes betraying a touch of surprise. “Y/N,” he responds, his voice tranquil, as always.

“I need to talk to you,” you begin, your tone a bit blunter than intended.

His brow furrows slightly, but he nods, gesturing toward the office. “Let’s go.”

Once inside, you close the door behind you, feeling the weight of the space between the two of you.

“What’s going on?” he asks, his voice low and controlled.

You take a breath before speaking, the words tumbling out before you can second-guess them. “Why haven’t you been including me? I’ve been sidelined, Hotch. You completely disregarded introducing me as a member of the team, didn’t give me a proper assignment, and even kept me in the dark about updates. Now, you don't even consider my profile. I don’t get it.”

Hotch’s eyes darken slightly, and he exhales slowly like he’s been expecting this. “It’s not about you, Y/N. It’s about Kate.”

You blink, caught off guard by his response. “Kate?” you repeat, your voice rising in disbelief. “What the hell does Kate have to do with this?”

Hotch shifts, clearly uncomfortable. “She’s been under a lot of pressure from higher-ups. Her job’s on the line, and the two top contenders for her role are you and Derek. She sees you as the biggest threat. You're new blood and rising fast in rank among the top FBI prospects.”

Anger flares in your chest. “So you’re just going to let her undermine me because you don’t want to hurt her feelings? You’re sacrificing me and the team for her job security? What about the safety of innocent people if my profile is right? Because I know it is.”

His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t interrupt, so you continue, your voice shaking with bitterness. “I’ve worked my ass off to prove myself, Hotch. I’m not some fragile rookie, I’m part of this team. I don’t even want the damn job, but for you to throw me under the bus to spare her feelings? That’s not just wrong—it’s disrespectful.”

You can see the conflict on his face, but it only makes you more upset. “And you want to know the worst part? For someone who’s supposed to be one of the best profilers out there, you have zero concept of how to be a good friend. You’re so focused on making sure everyone else is okay that you’re neglecting the people who actually have your back.”

The words hang between you, sharp and raw. Hotch doesn’t respond immediately, his gaze intense as if he’s trying to process everything you just said. It feels like an eternity before he speaks.

“I’m not trying to make you feel insignificant, Y/N,” he says, his voice more delicate now, tinged with regret. “I didn’t want to add more pressure to Kate. I didn’t want her to lose focus. I wanted to protect the team.”

“I get that you’re trying to protect her,” you cut in, your frustration still simmering. “But Hotch, please remember that I had other job offers before joining the BAU—offers I worked years to even be considered for. I chose the BAU because I wanted to, not because I had to. I’d like to pull my weight here. You said it yourself—I have nothing to prove.”

Hotch stands up, closing the distance between you. His eyes searching yours for any sign of understanding. “I’m sorry. I should’ve handled it differently.”

“You should’ve been honest with me,” you say, the offense still lacing your words, though it’s starting to fade. “Don’t sacrifice me, Hotch. I’m not asking for special treatment, I’m asking for respect.”

With that, you turn to leave, the door clicking softly behind you. But before you step out, you pause, glancing back at him one last time. 

•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:••:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:••:•.•:•.

You and the team arrive back at the hotel, and you find yourself lazing in the lobby, doing your best to avoid Hotch. Then you spot Will LaMontagne, JJ’s boyfriend, sitting off to the side.

“JJ?” you ask, gesturing over to him.

“Will!” she says, but her voice doesn’t quite match her usual tone of surprise. It’s more apprehensive.

“I’m sorry for showing up like this,” Will says, clearly uncomfortable. “I know you’re working, but… I can’t stand you being on this case and me not being there.”

Hotch steps forward, ever the professional. “Is something the matter?”

JJ takes a deep breath before turning to you all. “Uh… I’m pregnant.”

You and Emily gasp in unison and rush over to her, enveloping her in a tight hug. “Congratulations!” you both exclaim, genuinely excited for her.

Will then drops a quiet bombshell, revealing that he’s also asked JJ to marry him.

“Well, uh, we’ll give you both some privacy,” Hotch says his demeanor different. Something’s weighing on him since your conversation back at the office. He quickly excuses himself, and JJ follows after him.

You make your way to the bar, where Derek is already seated. You take a seat next to him, your thoughts still tangled in the events of the day.

“Did you know?” you ask, looking at him.

Derek tilts his head, confused. “Did I know what?”

“When you told me to talk to Hotch, did you know why he sidelined me?” you question.

He shakes his head, leaning back in his chair. “No, I didn’t. I just hate seeing him treat the one person who really gets through to him like this.”

“Well,” you chuckle softly, “after I finished with him, I don’t think anything’s changed. You gonna take the job?” 

“That’s why I’m here,” he replies. “Rossi asked to talk with me about it.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Well, it’s yours. They’d never choose me now, anyway. That’s what I don’t get about her jealousy. I’m too young, too new. Now, replacing you? That’s a different story. I’m coming for your spot in a couple of years.”

He laughs, handing you his drink. “You never fail to make me smile, hot stuff.” He pauses for a moment before leaning in a little, his voice lowering. “Now tell me, what did you say to Hotch in there?”

You groan, regretting the onslaught of words. “I told him that for one of the greatest profilers in the world, he has no clue how to be a good friend.”

“Damn,” Morgan smiles, his eyes wide with admiration. “Respect.”

You can’t help but smirk. “Even if I did have a shot at that job, he definitely won’t be recommending me now.”

Derek grabs his drink back and takes a slow sip of his drink, swirling it in his glass before answering. “Something tells me he wouldn’t have, anyway. I don’t think he wants you leaving his team.”

•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:••:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:••:•.•:•.

The next day, another shooting occurs. Even worse, the detective Emily was paired with was shot during the pursuit of the unsub. Thankfully, Emily managed to take him down.

At the scene, you and Derek approach Emily, eager to hear her side of the story.

“I shouldn’t have had to shoot him,” she says, her voice tinged with disturbance. “He was ahead of us. He would have gotten away, but he stopped and waited.”

You scramble to connect the dots to your profile, trusting your instincts that you’re still on the right track.

Emily continues, “His hands were steady. His eyes were dead calm. These guys have been hyper-vigilant, organized. They do pre-surveillance. What are the odds they’d shoot someone two blocks from where Cooper and I were standing?”

“It was deliberate,” you say, the pieces finally falling into place. “He knew you were there.”

“It’s almost like suicide by cop,” she concludes, her tone heavy.

You rush to find Hotch and Rossi, finally catching sight of them. “Hotch, my profile…”

Rossi cuts you off. “She’s on the right track. We have multiple unsubs. They’re disciplined, using counter-surveillance. They know the FBI’s movements. There’s a hierarchy. What does that usually mean?”

Hotch turns to you, his expression grave. “Terrorism.”

•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:••:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:••:•.•:•.

Back in the office, the team gathers to present the profile, though it’s clear they’re pulling heavily from the theory you provided earlier. Emily steps forward to address the group.

“The murderers simulate a bombing,” she begins. “They station someone to watch and gauge police response times. Once they have the timing down, they know when the perfect time would be to deploy a second bomb to target first responders and civilians alike.”

Derek nods thoughtfully. “It’s organized, calculated. Just like Y/N said, it’s all a practice run.”

Spencer adds, “The precision makes sense. They’re testing variables: response times, panic levels, and procedural weaknesses. It’s not just random—it’s tactical.”

Kate folds her arms. “It’s lo-fi but brilliant. A perfect way to plan for a larger terrorist event. Good work.”

You remain silent at the back of the room, arms crossed as you listen. The profile is solid—but something feels off, a subtle gap they’re missing. The foundation is yours, but the execution isn’t quite there. The unsub’s true intent still eludes them, and you can feel it, grinding at the edges of your mind.

Hotch steps in. “Keep in mind, this is just a working theory. We’ll adjust as more evidence comes in.”

Your jaw tightens at his words. That’s it—no acknowledgment of your initial input, no recognition for the groundwork you laid. Just the same dismissive tone, the same lack of validation. Your irritation builds beneath the surface as the team begins to disperse.

Derek claps you on the shoulder as he passes. “Good work, hot stuff. Don’t let it get to you. We couldn't have done this without you.”

Spencer offers a small nod, his quiet approval something you’ve come to appreciate. Emily flashes you a brief, supportive smile, while Kate exits with her usual morale, already discussing next steps with Rossi.

You linger, watching as Hotch strides toward the hallway, Kate falling into step beside him. Their voices are low, and professional, but seeing him leave without so much as a glance in your direction feels like a punch to the gut.

The room empties, leaving you alone with your thoughts. They’re close—but not close enough. The missing pieces feel just out of reach, and the weight of being unheard settles heavily over you.

Nothing has changed.

Hours pass, and the office quiets. You’re alone with your thoughts, replaying everything in your head, when suddenly you hear the sound of hurried footsteps. You glance up and see an officer rush to the television, changing the channel.

“Explosion in Manhattan—” the newscaster begins, but before he can continue, you’re already on your feet, adrenaline surging.

You reach for your phone, dialing Garcia’s number, but before it rings, the officer shouts, “Federal Plaza. FBI field office 26.”

Your stomach drops.

You can’t breathe.

Garcia picks up on the second ring. “Y/N, I—”

“Tell me who was there,” you demand, your voice tight with panic.

“I don’t know,” she answers, a shakiness in her voice. “But we’re trying to get the footage. Just… just hold on.”

You don’t wait. You’re already running for the door, heart pounding in your chest.

The cold reality of the situation crashes over you, but you can’t stop now.

As you rush to your car, Garcia’s voice crackles through the phone: “Y/N, I—wait, I have it. It’s… Hotch. And Kate.”

[kbthebearcat]

Very rare drawing here of my naga girl Zepuh! I haven’t drawn her in ages, so it was nice to finally give her some attention again. She’s honestly always been a fun character for me to work with when I’ve been able to. It was also nice to draw a female character for a change. This has been sitting as a WIP for quite some time, until I finally got around to coloring it and doing some minimal shading. I had intended to add more detail, buuuut…. I think I may just leave this as is… I kind of lost the desire to do much more with it, but I like what I did make. I especially like how Zepuh came out here. I gave her design a slight tweak. Added scales on her back. I pretty much tweak her design every time I draw her because I just can seem to figure out a definite one for her yet… but I think I’m getting close.

I kind of have a WIP story in mind for her with the lady there… Like, she’s supposed to be an older woman who’s an explorer that’s interested in myths and legends, and she ends up meeting Zepuh. Then two of them eventually become friends. Very loose plot/story right now but, if I can I’d like to try and explore it more when the desire hits. 

[rakumel]

First of all, I would love some asks, any asks, even the freaky ones. How dare you. Just send them over here and I'll roast, befriend, or ignore as necessary.

Second of all, uh-oh. You asked for it. I don't just have one favorite game, y'see. Having said that, I actually haven't played a wide range of them, for cost reasons, time reasons, and brain reasons - I tend to latch onto a game and play the shit out of it before moving on.

I guess you could say any game that I like enough to actually buy or download is my favorite game. I don't really waste time with games I don't click with. Occasionally it's pretty obvious why I like a game (I bought Xenoverse 1 and 2 because watching DBZ Abridged relit a nostalgia pilot light in me that hadn't been touched in literal decades and boy howdy, did it ever fuckin' BURN after that). But most of the time, why I like a game is just as much a mystery to me as it is to you. Although I have noticed that a lot of my favorites have female leads, or give you the option to make one.

I already did a series of posts on the Pocky and Rocky SNES games, but in short I like them because they were unique (at the time and place where I lived, anyway) - charming graphics, lovely music, and yes - a protagonist who was a girl. A shrine maiden, to be exact. No love interest, just fun adventures with a bunch of monsters. And that meant a lot to a young girl who didn't have a whole lot of video game lady heroines to choose from.

Never in a million years dreamed they'd remake the first one, but they did, and it made me so happy!

Threads of Fate/Dewprism on the PS1 is another favorite. Outstanding soundtrack; I can still listen to Rasdan on a loop without getting sick of it. The game itself has the same low-polygon look as most PS1 games do, but please look up the artwork because it's awesome - or at least, I love the style.

I love the main characters: Rue (dude on the left) is a bit of a sap but not too much, and while I do like his story arc, it does get kind of overshadowed by Mint's. Mint is just badass. She's an absolute brat who - with a straight face - says she's going to take over the world, and at no point does she apologize or feel silly about it, and it's GREAT. Plus she can shoot magic and kick the shit out of people, so she can actually kind of back up her tough talk.

The supporting characters are fun, too. There just isn't enough love in the world for Belle and Duke ("Milady's only 30...if you round down!"), or Rod and his Pinto.

Shadow of the Colossus. I was so, so, so, SO thrilled when I first heard it was getting a remake because it abso-fucking-lutely deserved one. There was nothing like it then, I think there's still nothing like it even now. In a time when almost every game wants to add on, add on, here's more characters to unlock, here's more DLC to pay for, and so on - Shadow of the Colossus is an excellent example of just how much a bare-bones game can still do. There's not much told in the way of story, but in this case they don't really need to. There's a lot of showing and atmosphere over explaining; I like that the game assumes we're smart enough and/or creative enough to fill in the details ourselves.

Much of the game is silent and calm aside from ambient sounds and occasionally calling your horse. But when you enter a battle, then the music and the action ramp up, and suddenly you're trying to find the glowing weak spot on a massive behemoth before it smashes you to death. (And don't think Wander will get up super fast if he narrowly avoids getting smashed to death, either. He'll clumsily stand up, which is a nice realistic touch but kind of rage-inducing if you're trying to keep him from getting hit again.)

The contrast works: the calm makes you appreciate the battles, and the battles can often be so nerve-wracking you appreciate a break.

The world isn't super huge, but it's enough for me. All ruined and abandoned and desolate and slightly melancholy, yet calm and beautiful (especially with the remake).

Skyrim. Ah yes, let's be vanilla as hell, shall we Raku? Let's like that one game that everyone else and their brother and their cousin and their dog likes. This one probably does deserve its own post, though, because there's a lot to unpack. Are there problems surrounding it and Bethesda? Oh hell yes. Was it also a game that provided comfort and humor during a time when I desperately needed it? As well as fertile ground for characters I made and still love? Also yes. Sorrrr-y.

I'll be honest; I have no idea why Dark Cloud 2 is one of my favorites. I don't even remember how I heard of it or why I bought it. There's legit criticism to be had - a few of the voiced lines were clearly mismatched, the weapon upgrading system is fun at first but turns into an utter slog by the endgame, and in general the game tried to do way too much and got in over its head.

But Max and Monica here have good chemistry, the music's pretty good, you get to build your own towns and move people in them, the art style has its charm, and for a time travel plot it's not terrible. Overall the game mostly works, is pretty fun, and the story has its moments.

Okami!! The style, the music, the everything. Just...everything.

Heard there's a sequel in the works, but nothing else about it. But something I want to keep an eye on.

Ys 8. Dana, my beloved. Actually everything here is solid - some time in the future I should scrap the review I did and do another now that tumblr allows better quality pictures. (Plus my tone was...kind of weird in it, honestly. All over the place.)

I love her and the supporting characters - Sahad is best fisherman Dad ever, Ricotta's adorable without being annoying. I thought at first I'd hate Laxia, but she redeems herself pretty quickly, and Hummel's...well, okay, he's basically fine. Even the minor characters are interesting and endearing to me. Lady blacksmith! Gladiator grandma! And of course, as always, best buddy Dogi.

The twists and turns in the story, the graphics are gorgeous, the controls are smooth and feel great, Ys games almost always have excellent music and this one's no exception. Honestly I can't think of anything I dislike about it off the top of my-

Oh right, the fucking wasps in that one dungeon. Those sucked. But everything else? Amazing. 9.99/10.

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Picking a favorite Pokemon game is like asking me to pick a favorite child. Nope, I refuse.

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I'm going to force myself to stop here. Otherwise I'm pretty sure I'd hit the word limit halfway through talking about Death Road to Canada. (I'm assuming there IS a word limit.)

(Death Road to Canada is also very fun, by the way. As long as you're okay with dying a lot in the process.)

no more freaky asks..........tell me about your favorite video game in detail.............

[queerwelsh]

Pride in Wales! Balchder yng Nghymru!

Here’s a list of the Pride events happening in Wales this year, in 2023. (click the links for more information)

Dyma rhestr o ddigwyddiadau Balchder yng Nghymru blwyddyn yma, yn 2023.

22 April/Ebrill - Aberystwyth Pride / Balchder yn Aberystwyth

29 April/Ebrill - Swansea Pride / Balchder Abertawe

30 April/Ebrill - Mini Pride and Swansea Anti-Capitalist Pride (1pm Singleton Park)  / Balchder Bach a Balchder Gwrthgyfalafol Abertawe (1yp Parc Singleton)

14 May/Mai - Colwyn Bay Pride / Balchder Bae Colwyn

17 June/Mehefin - Hay Pride

17 June/Mehefin - The Big Queer Picnic

17-18 June/Mehefin - Cardiff Pride / Balchder Caerdydd (Pride Cymru)

19 June/Mehefin - Cowbridge Pride / Balchder y Bontfaen

24 June/Mehefin - Caerphilly Pride / Balchder Caerffili

24 June/Mehefin - Abergavenny Pride

24 June/Mefefin - Balchder Gogledd Cymru / North Wales Pride Caernarfon

29 June/Mehefin - 2 July/Gorffennaf - Balchder Neath Port Talbot Pride

8 July/Gorffennaf - Llandeilo Pride / Balchder Llandeilo

15 July/Gorffennaf - Llanelli Pride / Balchder Llaneilli

29 July/Gorffennaf - Llandovery Pride / Balchder Llanymddyfri

12 August/Awst - Barry Pride / Balchder y Barri

12 August/Awst - Balchder Glitter Pride Cardiff

26 August/Awst - Merthyr Tydfil Pride / Balchder Merthyr Tudful

2 September/Medi - Pride in the Port Newport / Balchder Casnewydd

9-10 September/Medi - RCT Pride

15-17 September/Medi - Trans Pride Cardiff

16 September/Medi - Carmarthen Pride/Balchder Caerfyrddin

[imerian]

Vr46 academy keychains

Set of five charms that all match in different ways

˚　　　　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.　　　　 . ✦　　˚　

Open for detailed pictures of each one

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ *ੈ✩‧₊˚

ִֶָ 𓂃˖˳·˖ ִֶָ ⋆★⋆ ִֶָ˖·˳˖𓂃 ִֶָ

:･ﾟ✧:･.☽˚｡･ﾟ✧:･.:

˖⁺‧₊˚⭒✮⭒˚₊‧⁺˖

. ݁₊ ✶. ݁ ˖ˎˊ˗

I ran out of tags so I'll say it here but i would greatly appreciate a reblog, especially if you share your thoughts on these pieces in tags (⁠｡⁠•̀⁠ᴗ⁠-⁠)⁠✧

(Also i forgot that bez have matching part with luca so I didn’t add that to tags sorry

[shrews-art]

I could write a whole essay about how Victor Vale and Kell Maresh are two sides of the same coin, opposites yet somehow similar when it comes to their relationship with pain

[puhpandas]

You Stress Me Out

(4,135 words)

Gregory shows up at Evan's house during a storm with a wood carving knife stuck in his stomach. It may not be that bad of a wound, but that doesn't mean having a knife sticking out of you is any less scary. Or that Evan will freak out any less.

warnings: blood, mentions of a fistfight, an unsafe home environment, stitches, and of course, a blade being stuck inside flesh

Evans incredibly on edge right now. Which, nothing new here. But this time, it's less of his normal state and more of a genuine, rational kind of edge.

First off; a storm is on it's way. Not only does a storm mean that outside is a no-go, meaning that Evan is trapped inside his house with no way to leave, but hes absolutely terrified of thunder.

Which is why as soon as he'd heard about the bad weather, when his fathers back was turned and Michael had been focusing on something other than messing with him, he'd snuck to the kitchen, grabbed all the snacks and water he could need, and took them to his hidden stash in his bedroom.

This way, he didnt have to leave his room. And he could do his old trick of blocking the door leading from the shortest route to his room with his dresser, which could give him enough time to shut Michael out if he decides to persist on the other side.

Unlockable doors. The bane of Evan's existence.

The other reason hes on edge isnt because of himself, even though his body is locked up and sense, waiting for the thunder to start booming outside and send him flying off of his bed from how hard he flinches. Its because of Gregory.

Evan's brows furrow from his place on his bed, curtains drawn, but just open enough to see the rain start so he can brace himself. He takes one look at the gray clouds and white sky and frowns deeply.

Evan knows all about his friends... situation. Honestly, after being friends for almost a year, you'd think he would have known sooner, but nope. Evan had just been giving Gregory the benefit of the doubt too much. when Gregory'd refuse to let Evan go to his house, he'd assume he had parents like his, who he didnt want Gregory to have to see either, which was why he had been asking. When Gregory would have new bruises and cuts and rips in his clothing the next time Evan would see him, he would deliberately choose not to pry, or wonder, because he would think maybe it was worse than he thought.

But Evan had figured it out eventually, and he'd understood why Gregory kept it from him so long. Evan wouldnt want Gregory to see him differently for being a certain way.

But like Gregory, Evan had made it clear he didnt. He understands, really. Like he understands that with the knowledge comes the worry.

Evan knows Gregory doesnt always have stable shelter. The city and it's people arent so kind to homeless people like Gregory, even when hes outside and theres about to be a hurricane. Which is why Evan is hoping, wishing, praying that Gregory will come to Evan, this time.

It's why he's reading a book, sitting on his bed next to his window instead of on his phone like usual. Evan's on edge because he cant stop thinking about what would happen to Gregory if he didn't come, and if he does, will Evan hear him to let him in.

Evans room is on the ground floor, which makes it very easy for Gregory to come and go as he pleases (also for Evan to make an escape when he needs to. It's not rare for Evan to ditch his room to flee to the city with Cassidy, sometimes).

Evan's eyes trail over the words on the pages, but he isnt taking them in. He huffs, letting the book drop to his lap, and tries to ignore how cold-but-on-fire his stomach feels. He can't focus. Not when Gregory's supposed to trust Evan enough to come to him when he needs help and he hasnt yet.

Evan only waits a while longer, foot tapping on the side of his comforter and fingers drumming. When the first few thick drops of water land on his window, he goes for his phone.

Gregory said to never call him unless it's important. But right now, with how much Evan's stomach swims with nausea over uncertainty about Gregory's safety, Evan thinks this is important enough.

Evan only has enough time to enter his fifteen digit pin and tap the phone app before the sound hes been waiting for rings out by his window.

Evan can feel his shoulders drop when the familiar jingle of a Fazbear song is knocked on his window. He smiles, hurrying over to his window and almost ripping the curtains off the wall with how fast he opens them.

When Evan reaches to open the window, Gregory's there, if not a bit weary, if his half lidded eyes and the cut on his cheekbone are any indication, but Evan doesnt worry too much. Just unclicking the locks on his window and helping Gregory step inside when its apparent he needs help.

He has a hand clutching at his stomach, which is worrying, but Gregory looks like hes okay. Not about to die, which is what Evan's thoughts always end up going to, so he thinks that's a good thing.

Evan shuts the window and locks it just as the rain starts to drop harder, and he shuts the curtains, sending a glance at his door (the one not covered up with a dresser) out of paranoia. When his father doesnt burst in and send Gregory away like Evan's imagining, he turns his attention back to Gregory.

Hes huffing, like he cant catch his breath, which makes Evan furrow his brows. Gregory's bent over, like when you have a stomach cramp and try to curl in on yourself as much as possible. If Evan looks hard enough, he can see the inklings of bruises on Gregory's knuckles.

Evan frowns. Okay, probably a fight, but it wouldnt be the first time he would have to pull out the first aid kit.

"Gregory." Evan catches his attention. Gregory's eyes dart up to him, and he offers a shaky smile. "Hey. You had me worried sick."

"Me too." Gregory says, but it sounds strained. He still has that hand pressed firmly over a spot on his stomach, and when he looks pained, Evan guides him over to his bed, letting him sit down. "I know you don't like thunder and stuff. A-And you'd be stuck with Michael.

Evan crosses his arms, trying to look stern but coming off as incredibly worried instead. "Gregory. You're acting weird." He points out. "Listen, I know you're hurt. You know I've seen you get into fights before. Can you just tell me what's wrong?"

Gregory, suspiciously, looks away, focused on one of Evan's toys hes had since he was younger that he never bothered to put away. "Um. I-I dont think this is like those times, though."

Well. If Gregory can be this difficult, he cant be feeling too bad. Doesnt do anything for the anxiety digging a hole in Evan's stomach, though. "No matter what it is, you need help, okay? I wont judge. Just let me patch you up."

Gregory doesnt respond for a moment, then, "Promise not to freak out."

"What?"

"Promise not to wig out." Gregory meets his eyes, looking pained. "This is gonna make you freak. I know it. Just... try to stay calm. It's not that bad, I swear."

"Just show me already!" Evan presses, getting jittery from nerves. "You saying that is already making me freak out!"

"Okay! Jeez." Gregory huffs, and takes a deep breath. "Just dont look at it too hard."

"Gregory!" Evan yells.

"Okay, okay!" Gregory says placatingly. He doesnt say anything else, just takes his hand off of his stomach like ripping off a bandaid.

Evan's eyes blow wide, and his legs turn cold. "Oh my god."

"There it is." Gregory sighs.

"Gregory." Evan says, just above a whisper, because he cant manage anything louder at that moment. He stares at Gregory's stomach, feeling a pit in his own stomach when he cant tear his eyes away. "Gregory!"

"I told you you'd freak out." Gregory mutters, like he doesnt have a literal knife sticking out of his flesh.

"Why would I not freak out?!" Evan whisper yells, because wow he does not need his father or Michael to walk in right now. He gestures wildly, trying to put all of his emotions I into the single movement. "You have a knife in you!"

Despite what Gregory said not to do, Evan looks hard at it anyway. It isnt super deep; it's one of those really tiny pocket knives, like what you would use to carve wood with. He can still see some of the blade sticking out, which means the inch and a half long blade isnt plundged very deep.

"I know." Gregory says. "Can you help me get it out?"

Evan gapes. "Help you--" He giggles maniacally. "Gregory, if I pull it out, I'll have no clue how to make it so you wont bleed out."

"Well," Gregory glances away. "I cant really go to the hospital, and I cant just leave it in." He says. "You're my best bet. Besides, I promise it isnt that bad. It could have been way worse. I dont need a hospital."

Wow. No pressure, or anything. Evan implodes, shaking his hands out and doing laps around the room. "I'm gonna have to pull a knife out of you."

"Okay. Stay calm, remember?" Gregory repeats, and when Evan's facing Gregory's direction again after another lap, he can see him wincing. "Look, I know you're wigging out, but I really dont want this knife to me stuck inside me anymore."

"I would assume so!" Evan hisses, coming to a stop in the middle of his room and wringing his hands through his sweater sleeves. "Gregory--"

"Okay, listen." Gregory sounds strained, and Evan takes a moment to pause, worry taking ahold of his stomach like a giant hand and squeezing. "You have a phone, don't you? I need you to Google what to do, and pull this stupid knife out of my stomach."

Evan gets queasy just thinking about it. "Gregory."

"I know." He says. "But, look. I'm not gonna be awake much longer, since I pretty much ran from the city to here while I was bleeding, and the guy who attacked me had already beat me up a bit before stabbing me."

Evan's heart seizes at that. He returns to Gregory's side, sitting down with him. "But, isnt it not good if you're unconscious--"

"I dont know." He interrupts, eyes squeezed shut. "Look, I'm feeling kinda woozy, so I dont know how much longer I have left, but I'll try to stay awake."

Evan frowns. "You're acting like you're gonna die or something." He jokes, but his hand shake at the thought. "...Okay. Come here."

Gregory perks up, sitting up with great effort and putting an arm around Evan's neck when he gestures to. "We're doing this?"

"Yeah." Evan says shakily. He supports Gregory as he leads him lay down, pressed up against the wall, where if the door opened, hed be hidden behind it. Evan grabs a few of the towels he hides in his room to always have a clean one, -since he can never rely on laundry being done in his house-, and lays them under Gregory to soak up any blood. His father would kill Evan if he got the carpet stained with blood.

Evan grabs the first aid kit he always has hidden under his bed, and clicks it open, settling on his knees in front of Gregory's slack form on the floor with hovering hands as he glances at each of the kits contends uncertainly.

He grabs his phone, fingers trembling and pressing all the wrong buttons. Gregorys harsh breathing doesnt help.

"How did this even happen?" Evan asks as he desperately types in 'how to pull a wood carving knife out of your stomach at home' into the search bar. "Like-- I know you get into fights sometimes, but this?"

"Okay okay." Gregory coughs a bit. "Ill tell you. So, you know how it's about to storm?"

Evan glances at the crack through the curtains just enough to see the dark gray clouds swirling. "Yeah."

"So, I wasnt at my usual spot, but it was really close to starting to pour. And getting sick is like, the worst case scenario." Gregory says while Evan reads the random article he found at the speed of light. "So, I had to find some other place closer to where I was to wait out the storm, because I couldnt travel that far in the rain."

Evan pauses in reading, frowning and looking at Gregory's face. "You know you can always come here, right?"

Gregory frowns, looking away. "Yeah, but..." He trails off. "Its not fair to dump my problems on you like that."

Evan scoffs, breathing out a light chuckle. "Like you didnt dump your problems on me right now. And even then, I dont mind. I would much rather you come to me then be in pain somewhere else. Okay?"

Evan doesnt look at Gregory's face, too busy looking down at the article he has pulled up on his phone in his trembling hand, but he can tell hes smiling.

"Also, don't act like you don't make my problems your own, too. Im allowed to do the same as well, you know."

"Okay, okay." Gregory huffs. "I get it. I'll come to you right away next time. Happy?"

"Yes." Evan says, and he really is. Knowing that Gregory is sure to come to Evan when the weather gets bad, or something happens that makes the city unsafe, Evan will be able to sleep soundly knowing Gregory will either be safe with him, or he will be if need be. "You never finished telling me how you ended up with a pocket knife stuck in you, though."

"Right." Gregory chuckles. "So, I find this kind of hidden away spot, right? And I'm thinking I got really lucky, and set my stuff down. But then this other older kid shows up, and its obvious hes like me. But he gets really mad that I'm in his spot and starts yelling at me to get out."

"Jerk." Evan says, pulling the things he needs out of the first aid kit. "You should help eachother out, not fight. I'm sure he could have lended you some space."

"I'm sure you would have." Gregory chuckles. "But anyway, I'm packing up my stuff to leave, because this guy hurting me is a bigger concern than the weather at this point, and I dont want to mess with him."

Evan nods along, and goes to begin, but pauses when the first step is to take out the knife. Nausea curls in his gut, and he winces, glancing at Gregory.

"Hey." He cuts Gregory off in his story, and tries to look as apologetic as possible. "I, um. Have to take the knife out."

Gregory's eyes blow wide, and he frowns. "Oh."

Evan fidgets, having no idea how to make this better for Gregory. "Do you want me to count to three, or...?"

"Just do it." Gregory puts that steely exterior on. "I can handle it. Just do what you need to do."

Evan feels awful; this must suck for Gregory. Even if the knife is small and not very deep, having something sharp ripped out of your flesh cant be fun. "If you're sure."

He props himself on his knees, getting as close to Gregory as possible, and wraps a hand firmly around the small handle of the wood carving knife.

He can see it in Gregory's eyes. Neither of them want to do this.

"Keep telling your story." Evan says softly. Maybe itll distract Gregory from it, even a little bit. And Evan, as well. He can already feel bile working it's way up his throat at the thought.

Gregory nods minutely, jaw locked and tense. He breathes out a bit. "...Kay. So, I'm trying to tell him that I'll leave if he let's me get my stuff, but hes really impatient, and when I dont leave right away, he tries to scare me away faster by beating me."

Evan winces, pointedly twisting his neck away from the knife, as he tightens his grip, anticipation sending lightning through his veins. "That explains the bruises." He says shakily.

Gregory pauses, waiting for something that doesn't come. "...Yeah. He uh, he got me pretty good... but he didnt leave unscathed either. But, I think I got it worse."

"Definitely." Evan agrees ghastily, his stomach rolling when he feels the cold handle of the knife pressing idents in his skin. "Keep going."

Gregory gives him a look, but continues. "...So when I start fighting back, even though I'm smaller, he took that as a bad thing, apparently, and wanted me gone so he didnt get hurt. So what does he do?"

Evan doesn't respond, just squeezing his eyes shut, biting his tongue, and ripping off the bandaid.

Evan rips the knife out with a quick flick of his shoulder, and gags when it makes a fleeting metal-on-flesh sound as its removed. Gregory lurches lightly next to him, making a garbled, suprised sound, and when it's over, just lays flat on the floor.

"G-God." Gregory coughs, stuttering. "Okay, that wasnt that bad. I guess."

"I'm sorry." Evan frets, flinching and dropping the knife on the towel when some of Gregory's blood drips down his fingers. "I'm sorry, Gregory."

"You didnt do it." Gregory chuckles, his face white as a sheet. He brings up an arm to clutch at a spot just above the wound on his chest. "Jesus."

"I'll fix you up." Evan says softly, setting a hand on Gregory's own and taking it away just as quickly when he rushes to go wash his hands. "Okay? It might hurt, but you'll be okay. I'll make sure of it."

"...Kay." Is all Gregory says, and Evan rushes faster when he just let's his head fall against the floor.

When Evan comes back, he all but dives onto the floor, grabbing the things he layed out on the carpet and beginning. "Gregory, hey!"

"What?" Gregory asks, and Evan sinks in relief when hes still awake. He rolls up Gregory's shirt, inspecting the wound, and he finds it looks more like just a deep cut than anything. "I know you're trying to stay awake, but I'm probably gonna have to find a way to close this cut, so you might want to go ahead and go to sleep."

Gregory pales. "Like, stitches?"

"Probably." Evan shudders. A wave of sickness washes over his body when he realizes hes probably gonna have to find a needle and thread, and stitch Gregory's flesh closed, even if the cut is only an inch or so long. "Better safe than sorry. And I really dont think having a wood carving knife stabbed into you, even if it wasnt that deep, is okay to just put a bandaid over."

"...Alright." Gregory sighs, and his head rolls against the floor, his body relaxing. "I don't want to be awake for that."

"Me neither." Evan huffs, and Gregory breathes the air of a laugh through his nose. "But I think you'll be okay. Just sleep, and you'll be patched up when you wake up."

Gregory sighs a deep sigh, and Evan thinks it sounds like deep relief just settled. "Okay. Thank you, Evan."

"Of course." Evan replies, and when Gregory shuts his eyes and no doubt falls asleep pretty quick, Evan glances around his room, and realizes hes gonna have to go on a scavenger hunt for a needle and thread.

He sighs, hoping and wishing that he wont run into his father or Michael when he has to venture out of the safety of his room, but he relaxes at the moment, taking in a deep breath and reaching for some supplies.

First, he has to clean the wound.

🐻

When Gregory creaks his eyes open, it's not to Evan's carpeted floor like he had expected. Well, he is on the floor, he finds when he finally takes in his surroundings. But he isnt laying down completely. Some pillows and blankets have been posed and laid around him, like a nest, and Evan is sitting next to him in the middle, scrolling and watching something on his phone.

Gregory twists his neck and puts pressure in his arm, trying to prop himself up. He yawns, and Evan startles, taking out the crappy Walmart earbuds he'd bought. "Gregory!"

"Hi." Gregory groans, feeling the effects of his fistfight and intense sprint take hold, his body groaning and aching with soreness at his movement. He feels warm; which is something he wasnt expecting when he'd initially thought he'd spend the span of the storm outside in it. "Ugh."

Evan shuts his phone off lays it and his earbuds on the blanket, twisting his torso and shimmying in his spot laying against a pillow against the wall and legs covered with a throw blanket to face him. "You probably dont feel too good."

"Like crap." Gregory agrees. When he shifts again, back and head cushioned against two pillows without cases on them, he can feel the sore sort of throbbing pain of whatever stitches Evan had sewn in him. He wrinkles his nose at the thought, feeling guilty on Evan's behalf. "But... the stitches feel secure. I'm sorry you had to do that, it must have sucked really hard."

"It did." Evan shudders, but chuckles at the same time. "You know, I had to go in my Moms room to get the needle and thread and steal the pills from my Dad."

Gregory quirks a brow. "What pills?" He asks at the same time Evan hands him a small bottle of Advil. "Oh."

Evan hands him some snacks, too. A water bottle and some crackers. He smiles softly and takes them, taking two Advil with a swig of the water bottle. "You did all that for me?" Gregory asks, voice small. "...I know you hate your Dad, and your parents would get mad at you if they saw you snooping."

"I know." Evan says, fidgeting with one of the blankets and laying his head on the pillow propped against the wall. "But I wanted you to feel better more than I was scared of my parents."

Theres a short stretch of silence after that, only the harsh rain and wind against the house being heard. Gregory stays silent, turning over Evan's words in his head.

His eyes burn slightly, but he pushes it down with precise practice. "Thank you" Is all he can find in him to say. Theres too many feelings, too many emotions he has to put them into words.

But Evan knows him, and Gregory knows he understands when he nods, and smiles that small, kind smile that just screams 'and I'd do it again'. "Of course." Evan insists, and looks away for a moment. "I want you to trust me, okay? I want to show you that if you come to me because you need help, I'll be here, and I wont discount you, or-- or shrug you off."

Gregory doesn't smile, but he feels warmth spread through his chest at that. Gregory knows Evan, so he knows exactly why he would want Gregory to feel that way. He knows exactly why Evan holds himself to that, even though Gregorys confident a lot of it has to do with just the kindness in Evan's own heart.

"I-I know." Gregory whispers. "I came here because I do trust you. I came here because I know that."

It's really hard for Gregory to say that, and he knows Evan understands, because he doesnt comment, just nods, relief sagging his shoulders.

Theres a short burst of silence for a moment, the two of them just soaking up the atmosphere of being warm and comfortable, despite the circumstances.

"You're staying here, by the way." Evan's voice rips him out of his thoughts suddenly, and Gregory snaps to attention to see Evan looking at him sternly, but worriedly. "I know you're gonna try to say something stupid about how you're fine to go back into the rain. You arent going anywhere near the city, alright? I don't care if the storm lasts a week. I'll find a way to hide you so Michael or my father dont find you, okay?"

Gregory snorts at Evan's intense voice, but his heart bursts all the same. "Okay, Evan. I promise."

"Good." Evan sounds appeased. He twists his body, reaching for something, and grabs his phone, putting one earbud in and giving Gregory the other. He opens YouTube, handing the phone to Gregory. "You can pick. Honor of the patient."

Gregory grins, giggling. "Thanks, Doctor Evan."

ao3 link

[wonder-worker]

are there any books you'd recommend for Isabelle of Angouleme?

Hi! I’m really not an expert on Isabella of Angouleme so I'm probably not the best person to ask for recommendations for her. Here are some I've heard of, though I haven't read all of them:

"Isabella of Angouleme: John's Jezebel" by Nicholas Vincent (King John: New Interpretations). I haven't read it myself but I've heard good things!

“Maternal Abandonment and Surrogate Caregivers: Isabella of Angoulême and Her Children by King John” by Louise J. Wilkinson (Virtuous or Villainess? The Image of the Royal Mother from the Early Medieval to the Early Modern Era). It focuses more-so on Isabella's tenure as queen, the period shortly after John's death, and her decision to leave England. Despite what the title may imply, it's sympathetic to Isabella and analyzes her situation in detail.

“Co-Operation, Co-Rulership and Competition: Queenship in the Angevin Domains 1135-1230” by Gabrielle Storey, her PHD thesis which collectively focuses on Isabella of Angouleme along with Empress Matilda, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and Berengaria of Navarre. You can read/download it here, it's an excellent piece for all four women.

Sally Spong has written/is writing:

Isabella of Angouleme: The Vanished Queen (Norman to Early Plantagenet Consorts). You can see her conclusion here. It's nuanced and sympathetic, though not without its issues and pre-conceived notions.

Isabella of Gloucester and Isabella of Angouleme: Female Lordship, Queenship, Power, and Authority 1189-1220 (PHD thesis University of East Anglia).

“Isabelle d’Angouleme, By the Grace of God, Queen” by William Chester Jordan. You can read it online here, though I will say that it's ... very very questionable, accepting the sensational claims of lot of unreliable sources (including the idea of John abducting Isabella in a fit of uncontrollable infatuation) entirely at face-value.

“The Marriage and Coronation of Isabelle of Angouleme” by H.G. Richardson, available here on JSTOR.

Isabella has also been the subject of two complete French biographies till date:

"Isabelle d’Angoulême, reine d’Angleterre" (Aquitaine: 1998) by Sophie Fougere.

"Isabelle d’Angoulême, comtesse-reine et son temps (1186-1246)" [Actes du colloque tenu à Lusignan, 8 au 10 novembre 1996] by Gabriel Biancotto, Robert Favreau and Piotr Skubiszewski.

There are also a few blog posts about her (here and here) which may help if you want a brief overview of her life, though they can get a little sensationalistic sometimes.

Hope this helps! If anyone knows any others, please feel free to add on!