#wow that's a lot rip my lack of self control

[hopefulpeanuttrash]

Resentment list 4th step

1.being born into an awful divorce, this traumatized me and ruined my self-esteem. This covers so much I'm not sure how I'll get to 20?

2.my shy, timid nature. It would kill me to hurt a fly I'm quite the softie.

3.self-harm. I began cutting myself extensively around 18-19, this really cemented the self-hatred that stalks me all the time.

4.my female friends as a kid knowing I was gay before I did. My dick really controls me sometimes I just wanna get rid of it.

5.Being brought to a psychiatrist at 14(wow this is a big one) and going along with whatever he said because I didn't know better(how could I?). He put me on over a dozen different anti-depressants by the time I turned 15.

6. Poverty and injustice I see all around me, it sucks how unfair this world can be.

7.My father being an alcoholic, although he would never admit this. He used to get drunk and "wrestle" me really aggressively as a kid( like age 9)

8.getting creepily diddled by my family doctor, she said she was "checking me for lumps" but she had this creepy grin on her face and it lasted for at least 20 seconds.

9. My mother refusing any contact with me for the past 6 years. This has been the saddest part of my life, she raised me on her own and I feel so lost without her I cannot bear. I love her more than anything, she's my everything.

10. Crystal meth. You sank your hooks into me and ripped away my kindness, humanity and soul. I will never forgive you.

11.The deep sadness I've felt my entire life. This kindof relates to the first two, but just for context, this is the hole that meth filled. This was caused by an acute lack, of love and kindness/ my upbringing.

12. The demons that Crystal meth brought out of me. I will get more into this as it's really a few things. First of all it made me violent, my first time coming down I punched this small, make nurse as hard as I could. this isn't me, this isn't what my mother raised me to to.

13. This is my blog and there's just no way around this, my dad is kindof a pedophile, or "hebophile" more accurately, I've seen him thirsting over teenage girls. My mother, acutely aware of this did her best to shelter me from him and keep me safe. I always thought my mother's love was enough, I believed it would protect me.

14. When my mother left me at 19, I pretty much immediately began masturbating to the thought of girls a few years younger than me as a coping mechanism. I'll never forgive myself for this, when she left it felt like the good part of me left too.

15. The strange omerta surrounding these, uh, "issues" that make it impossible to actually help anyone and pretty much guarantee someone could get hurt, even though it's 2024, I geuss it's because it only really happens in men and we're in a tough place as a society(COVID)

16. As you may have geussed by now, Crystal meth brought out full blown pedophillc thoughts in me. It was the only thing that made me not suicidal for the first time in years, but yeah after a few months of daily use. I just full on wanted to fuck a child I can't really explain it, I don't act on these thoughts I'd rather jump off a bridge.

17. In conclusion, you may say "LOL UR A P3D0 KYS", and to that I say, alright. I've survived 3 or 4 suicide attempts so don't think you can break me so easily. I'm not here to advocate for pedophiles, but I'm a person, an inconveniently queer one so make of that what you will!

P.S. I'm in therapy and have been sober from meth so since August, I'm doing my best to man-up and solve my issues but if that's not good enough for you, you know what I know exactly how you feel a lot of things aren't good enough for me, including your society.

[starsfallings-archived]

guess who wrote more prose (it was vengeance this time)

curses and dreams; the sea of vyl part two

they say you can't run, can't hide, when she comes; they say you can tell she's here, just by the feeling in your bones; just by how you tremble without knowing why; just someone stepping on your grave, you say. nothing big; oh, but how wrong you are;

for the faerie of aklindow is coming;she is coming, to curse, to kill. to erase all hope from the world, erase it from you; to erase your dreams, erase your wishes, erase everything that makes you you; erase who you were, erase who you are, erase who you would become; curse you so thoroughly there will be nothing left of you but the memories that live on in others;

curse you so deep you cannot run, cannot hide; until all you can do is stand and watch, frozen, shivering, more and more, until you see her face; see her cracked face, her wicked, evil, smile, her bloodred eyes, are they bleeding or is that your fear taking over; watch her stalk nearer and nearer, feel the cold seep into you and settle, seep into you and stay; sense the whispers, of horror, of terror, of fear, hear them run, hear them scream, hear them hide;

the sand is cold now, cold, like the waves, cold, like the wind swirling around you, cold, like her magic; curling, wrapping its deathly, fatal hands around you, you want to run; someone screams for you to run, to flee, before it's too late, but it was already too late; too late when you laughed at her name, mocked it, believing it was all a story; too late when you felt the air shift ever so little around you and you brushed it off;

it was too late from the start, and you knew it; she's closer now, so close, had you reached out a hand, you would have touched; you shudder to think of how that would feel, if her skin was as cold as her heart, as evil and twisted as her magic; she brushes her hand against you, it's like going underwater, you're drowning, you can breathe but you can't breathe; is this what it's like to be cursed, you can feel yourself shifting, changing, morphing, evolving;

your hopes, your wishes, your dreams, they're fading, disappearing, gone, forever, for eternity; gone, to a place no one can visit, to a place of solitude, of pain, of memory, of loss; that's it, then, you wonder, hopelessly, thoughtlessly, no one will want you, who will mourn you; you sink, sink to the bottom, sink to nowhere, to everywhere, attach yourself to aklindow, give up your soul; give up all that you were, all that you are, all that you would have become;

so this is what it's like to be cursed, then.

the quiet side of life, s. f.

[oh-holy-slut]

Bloodlust

Pairing: Damon Salvatore x fem!reader

Warnings: smut, explicit language, blood sharing, mentions of death, oral sex

Word Count: 2,6k

Summary: Stefan forced Damon to try his animal diet. Damon hated it, but didn't had a choice... until Reader makes a suggestion. Suddenly things get steamy.

Being with Damon was complicated. Him and Y/N have seen each other a lot in the past weeks. The two of them had a lot of fun; saw a lot of movies. Actually, Y/N was sure Damon secretly hated many of those. However, anytime Y/N suggested another dramatic, romantic cliché movie like "Last Song" - the vampire groaned, put his arm around her shoulder, let her head rest on his chest and endured every single second of the movie of her choice.

Damon even flirted and teased Y/N here and there, but didn't lead to anything more intimate so far.

Today was another of those days. Y/N stuck around at the Salvatore boarding house, brought a few of Damon's favorite groceries and a bunch of movies, of which she thought that they will suit his taste. Even if they were a little to bloody and brutal in her opinion.

"Pick one!", she demanded, holding all three Blu-ray sleeves in front of him. Damon just shrugged, not bothering to even look.

"Don't be a killjoy, Damon Salvatore!" Y/N sighed.

"Tell me what's wrong or pick a movie. You've got no choice. And besides that... Which number of drink is this?" Y/N frowned, pointing at the liquor in her friends hand. Damon usually consumed his beloved bourbon with pleasure.

But the man on the couch didn't seem pleasured at all. His facial features totally hardened and a look in his eyes like he was ready to rip someone's heart out.

You put the disc's back in your handbag, closing the zipper and put the bag on the floor.

"Fine. No movie night today. Who are we going to kill?"

A small smirk appeared on Damon's lips, finally looking towards Y/N.

"Stefan and his hero hair. He made me go vegetarian... well, for a vampire... and I can't get myself to eat one of those chipmunks, bunnies or bambis." He shook himself with disgust.

"And why did he count you in? You clearly aren't excited about the changing... So, why did you agree?"

"He said, he would kill me, which is kinda funny. But-" Damon made a wide gesture "he stole my daylight ring. And he wouldn't give it back until I stop feeding on innocent people - and kill them."

"So, you truly let your younger brother blackmail you like that?! Wow... I don't know how to feel about your dieting or your new path. Or whatever this is supposed to be."

"You don't like me killing people either", Damon maintained, while taking another sip of bourbon.

"Well, I don't", Y/N agreed, took a step forward, stole the glass from the vampires hand and put it on a small table nearby. "But I don't believe in forcing as a method to get people to change their minds. I believe that change for the better must be an intrinsic motivation," she added quickly, giving the vampire an innocent smile.

Damon's lineaments suddenly turned from annoyed to curious. "Any suggestions, little one?" The vampire raised an eyebrow and a little smirk showed up on his lips. On the one hand, Y/N blushed over the nickname, Damon called her.  On the other hand she felt skittish looking forward to making a deal with him. Not only a deal. It's far more than a simple agreement.

It's Y/N, actually giving Damon a part of her. The red elixir of life. She was about to give him total control of her body and she not even for a heartbeat doubt that Damon will use it against her.

"Actually... Yeah. There's something on my mind." Y/N said chewing on your lip. "I could open up a vein for you. I mean, you could feed on me. And since you have my permission, there's nothing for anybody to have objection about."

Damon frowned and gave her an incredulous look. "You would do that for me?" The vampire couldn't believe, he understood correctly. Why would Y/N want to get involved with him feeding on her? What's in it for her? Damon tried hard to connect the dots, but he wasn't able to. It all seemed to make no sense. Y/N wouldn't have an advantage of that. The vampire hesitated, pinning his dangerously blue eyes on the girl in front of him.

"Is it so suspicious of me, that I'm trying to help my closest friend?" It pierced Y/N's heart, realizing, Damon's trust in her was rather fragile. "Never mind", she waved the pain away and forced herself to keep her composure. "I only had a hasty idea; you really don't need to fee-"

Suddenly Damon appeared behind Y/N, using his vampirism. "Shhhh", he whispered softly. "I never said, that I don't want your blood. I'm thinking about if we are going to cross a line? Blood sharing can be very personal..."

"It can be? It is personal already. Believe it or not - I'm not gonna offer my veins to all the vampires of Mystic Falls." Y/N rolled her eyes, her arms folded on her chest to point out the indignation she felt right now.

"Kinda sensitive today, huh?" Damon gently stroke a strand of hair behind her ear, Y/N could hear this smug smirk through his words. It was a true 'Damon thing' to do. "I didn't mean it like that, princess." He sighed; unsure if he should agree or not. Damon didn't want to act selfish towards Y/N. He compelled a lot of girls for the purpose of drinking blood in the past. He literally used them as long as they weren't too annoying - and then he acted like they have never met. Damon Salvatore couldn't imagine this scenario with Y/N. They've been so close, the vampire couldn't stand loosing her. The offer was risky, but it also could bring each other even closer.

Damon tried hard to avoid any serious attraction between Y/N and him, afraid of messing up. Indeed, he found himself thinking, and even dreaming, about Y/N more than he wanted to admit. She was smart and had this special sense of humor, the vampire adored so much. She was the only one, who could make him feel good no matter what. Needless to say she had that glimmer in her eyes, when she did something she truly loved. In these moments she was even more pretty. Y/N was hard to resist.

And maybe now he could have her like nobody else. At least the vampire gave in. He wanted her blood. He wanted her.

Y/N flinched by the feeling of Damon brushing her neck with his lips.  "Oh, Damon", she gasped. "Bite me." Y/N almost begged for the vampire's teeth breaking through her skin. Damon loved the sound of her husky voice. In less than a heartbeat he turned into his vampire shape. "If you insist", he grinned devilishly, ready to place his teeth on to her skin.

Suddenly Y/N made a slight move forward with the intention to interrupt her friend. "Did you change your mind?" Damon was close to switching back to human, overwhelmed by a mix of emotions. Mostly a lack of understanding, but also a little of disappointment and even anger. Was Y/N playing games on him? While Damon Salvatore was sorting feelings, Y/N turned around, standing now in front of him.

She was so close, not even a piece of paper would fit between them.

Y/N slightly exhaled breath, her eyes darting between the vampires eyes and lips. It was the first time Y/N saw him like this. The icy blue of his eyes, she loved so much, has turned darker. Purple veins appeared under his eyes; Y/N couldn't help herself. Damon's appearance fully intoxicated every fibre of her being. Her fingertips found their way gently brushing over his dark purple veins. She felt heat and softness, while tracing one of them.  It took her a few seconds to get out of trance, realizing what she had done. "Sorry", she murmured with a voice barely audible. "Don't apologize, little one." Damon tilted his head, his lips curled up in a self-assured grin, exposing a perfectly white vampire fang. "I never saw you like this before, you loo-"

"... look like a monster?"

Y/N shook her head. It was nothing like that. Yes, he did look unfamiliar. And she should be scared under normal conditions. Instead, his look hit her in an unexpected way. He looked hotter as a vampire, if it was even possible. 

Y/N cleared her throat, looking up at Damon. "I feel... attracted to you."

"So nothing's changed", Damon teased, raising his eyebrows. The girl in front of him softly slapped him on his shoulder; which was only possible because the vampire permitted. "You are always so full of yourself." She smirked, feeling more confident being to something, they have had been so many times before. Granted, he was terrifying accurate, but she wouldn't serve her feelings on a silver platter.

"I'm still into it. You can bite me; feed on me. I only needed to see you before..." 

A shockwave of electricity flowed through her body the second Damon took her hand and pulled her close.

"I'll be careful", he promised, nuzzling his head into the nap of her neck. Damon once again placed his lips on her soft skin. 

Suddenly a harsh pain made Y/N feel like in a kind of haze. She flinched and let out a groan at the same time, unintentionally biting her lower lip. 

During Damon embedded his fang deeper and deeper, she started feeling dizzy. Her hands searched for the vampires upper body, finally wrapped around his neck. She needed him to lean on. A narrow trickle of blood flowed down her neck. Let Damon feed on her felt like flames licking up every fiber of her body. 

With every passing second Y/N could feel her control slip away. Her body was now firmly pressed against Damon's, like she would want to merge them into one.

Damon noticed her staggering, wrapped his arms around her waist, supporting her.

Bloodlust already messed up the vampires mind, so he continued feeding on Y/N.

A tempting moan escaped her lips, but she didn't care to cover up. Y/N's heart was racing, her eyes flattering. It was almost as if he was about to push her over the edge, but in a different way. "Mmm, this...this… feels soo weird... and so good...", she whispered under a shallow breath.

As soon as Damon heard her fading voice, he abruptly

quitted drinking from her.

"Fuck!" He rapidly laid her on his lap and checked Y/N's vital signs, to make sure she was okay. Instinctively he bit his wrist, pressed it against Y/N's mouth. He knew his blood would heal her, but it wasn't going fast enough. A few seconds passed through, to him they felt like centuries. Y/N finally blinked and Damon was relieved. He cupped her cheeks, his gaze never leaving hers. "I thought, I'd gone-" Damon cleaned his throat. "I'm so glad, you are doing well", he whispered, while trailing her lips with his fingertips. "So, fuckin' glad..." The vampire exhaled a deep breath. 

"It... You made me feel good. Strange, but good", Y/N appeased and flushed over the memory. "Maybe you got a little carried away, but I don't mind. I wouldn't trade the feeling for anything."

Y/N quickly interrupted herself, before she could reveal too much.

However, Damon used his vampire skills, noticing that Y/N was hiding something from him. "Isn't there anything else you want me to know?", Damon asked without taking his eyes off her. Y/N shifted and flushed even more. "It's unfair. You use your vampirism to get everything out of me."

"Well, if that were the case, I could easily compel you." Damon shrugged and found back to his smugly self. "Tell me, what you are hiding". He said in a seductive voice.

"I wanted to get lost in you."

Her confession sent shivers all over the vampires body. At first he could not decide, how to handle this. "Are you sure that's what you want? I could really hurt you..." Y/N hummed.

In the next split second, Damon pinned Y/N against a wall, smashing his lips on hers, kissing her with all the passion he had to give. The vampire devoured Y/N with a new kind of hunger. He didn't know he could crave someone so much.

"Fuck me, Damon..."

The vampire felt him getting hard, only by hearing those little three words out of her mouth.

"Say it louder. Tell me, what you want me to do."

Y/N pulled him closer, gently biting his earlobe.

"Fuck... me, Damon." It took her a second to focus and forming the words again. After she was near to climax earlier, it wasn't a long way getting to the edge once more. "Make me cum... You almost had me there..."

A deep moan got over the vampires lips, once he understood, what Y/N was trying to tell him.

With the next blink Y/N found herself in Damon's bedroom, lying on his bed.

From now on there weren't many words needed. Damon's hand's found their way under her shirt, cupping her breasts and make her moan over and over again.

He closely listened to the rhythm of her heart, making sure he would be able to delay her climax to the point he needed her to.

"Don't cum yet... I want to taste your little pussy first."

Y/N grabbed the vampires head, running her fingers through his dark hair - pushing him down, since she was unable to form a single word.

As Damon got down, he didn't take his eyes off Y/N.

He used a hand pushing up her skirt and lightly stroking over her panties with his fingertips.

"My girl is so wet", he praised in a low husky voice."-and I barely touched you."

His dirty words in combination with his touch lead to another moan, almost turned into a scream.

Damon pushed the fabric aside, leaving sloppy kisses on the inside of her thighs.

Y/N's eyes fluttered, when his soft lips reached her middle.

Damon's tongue licking around her entrance was driving her nuts.

"...so delicious..." were the only words she was able to catch up. Damon knew, he couldn't thrill her forever, so he got back to her. He spit on his palms, stroking his hand over his crotch. In under a second Y/N finally felt this releasing pressure of his cock. It was like a switch went off in her brain and she braced herself for the hard thrusts that would follow.

Damon dimmed the whining noises Y/N made with a passionate, hungry kiss.

He cheated with his vampirism to give it to her deeper and faster, knocking out all the air of her lungs while Y/N screamed out Damon's name. Her walls clenched around him and made him twitch. It was like her pussy massaged his dick the best way possible.

Every time he hit her harder and rougher he was making sure he hit her spot with every thrust.

Damon gathered speed one last time and pushed her over the edge until she was a moaning whimpering mess.

With her last contraction around his shaft, Damon was cumming inside her.

"You are so tight, little one", he whispered under his breath. "We should make arrangements more often."

Please like or/and reblog if you enjoyed reading or/and want me to write more stories about Damon.

Thanks guys ❤️

[phoenixyfriend]

OKAY so on the topic of Star Wars takes wrt “character ends up in an A/B/O universe where they’re an omega, but they were previously a cis male in their canon”

@atagotiak and I had some Thoughts on discord

So, obviously, Anakin would make a good omega and he’s also incredibly murdery. Foregone conclusion that we're using him for this.

There is no preexisting Anakin in the Omegaverse. He shows up JUST as the war is starting. Canon timeline is in the third year of the war (he’s 22), but whatever dumped him into omegaverse also tossed him back a few years. No de-aging, just a bit of mismatched timeline stuff.

He's... really good at war, and clearly a Jedi, so the Temple just kind of goes "WELL OKAY THEN, SURE, YOU'RE IN, EVERYONE PRETEND HE'S BEEN HERE THE WHOLE TIME." The Jedi, by and large, don't care about omegaverse dynamics beyond 'what do you need, medically, to be happy and healthy' and 'what do you need to be aware of so you can be prepared for biases you encounter in the field?’

None of the civilian natborns (mainly politicians) want to put him on the field because of those biases. Anakin, being Anakin, is VERY blatantly an omega in scent, has never been on suppressants (because it wasn't a thing he fucking NEEDED), is incredibly emotional as a person, loves kids, etc.

Like, nobody wants an omega fighting a war anyway, but THIS one is like PINNACLE omega, and those awful Jedi are making him FIGHT just because he's good at stab!

The Jedi: Actually, it's because he's got several years of war experience that we don't, and he's a good tactician that works well with the clones-- Coruscant: You MONSTERS The Jedi: Look, we gave him the option to not stab and he looked absolutely devastated. Anakin, several days earlier: You don’t want me? I’m not good enough??? Jedi: Also he can beat up at least half the temple.

He doesn't know a damn thing about dynamics, but he DOES know that sometimes he's so horny he wants to stab HARDER. The clones are largely disinterested in their generals' dynamics because between mostly-Mando* trainers and no-dynamic Kaminoans, they only really care if a person can shoot.

* Mandalore approves of Fighty Omegas. As far as (traditional) Mandalore is concerned, you want an omega that will kill the threats to your children as well as you do.

Anakin: You know more about being an omega than I do. Rex: ...I'm an alpha. Anakin: Yeah. Let that one sink in a bit.

We have two options for Obi-Wan!

Omegaverse local Obi-Wan (beta) has never met this man before, and is very unnerved that the immediate default reaction Anakin has to his presence is releasing Family pheromones as if Obi-Wan is his DAD and like. This strange, too-tall man from another dimension has got absolutely NO control over what he projects in the Force OR in his dynamic.

Obi-Wan was ALSO transplanted from canon to omegaverse, and is also an omega, for contrast reasons. He is nice and friendly and and likes poetry and that sort of thing... but also he has the highest dismemberment count in the movies. Also he doesn’t prioritize romance.

We went with the second one because it's hilarious.

Someone watching them spar: Wow, omegas from that universe are terrifying.

As previously mentioned, now with some tweaking to account for both: Obi-Wan and Anakin just straight up don't exist until they drop headfirst into the council room, already covered in blood. (It's mostly not theirs.)

Nobody realizes either one is an omega until they "naturalize" to this dimension and Anakin goes into heat... and doesn't realize it, actually, because his primary symptom is heightened protectiveness and aggression. Everyone else with the right nose realizes, because the man has no control over his pheromone production, but Anakin? No. He just stabs. He’s angry and horny and he will cut someone.

Ahsoka has no reaction to human pheromones but basically everyone smells Anakin's "my child!" reaction to her, so... Cool. Have a padawan, we guess.

Anakin ends up sparring a lot with Aayla and Ahsoka, because only humans and near humans have dynamics, so these two don't REACT to the pheromones situation.

(Palpatine is a Kindly Old Beta who tries to treat Anakin the way he EXPECTS Anakin wants to be treated, which is. Not. Accurate.)

(Anakin hates it.)

I'm just so in love with "An omega can't fight." "You wanna fuckin' bet?"

There are plenty of omega Jedi, by the way, it's just... most of them can keep it relatively low-key instead of Anakin's jet-engine broadcast. Some, if they're known to be omega, probably take advantage of being underestimated, like Obi-Wan probably (and especially a version of Obi-Wan that was always an omega, unlike this version). They have a very different way of presenting themselves than Anakin, who's not subtle about being an omega and also not subtle about being all aggressive and stabby.

At one point, Anakin has to protect some Very Traditional Individuals who get all "Stay back, Omega, it's not safe!" and he's just... so tired of this shit. “You are squishy civilians and I'm a trained Jedi Knight and accomplished GAR General who's killed more people in one sitting than there are in this entire palace. Sit the fuck down and let me do my job.”

It starts making the rounds that Anakin insisted on fighting in person, and the rumors shift from "how dare the Jedi force an omega to fight" and over into things that are deeply hurtful in-universe in the vein of "broken omega" and some people try to say it to his face but like...

He didn't grow up here.

He doesn't care.

Say that to one of his friends and he's going to rip out your spleen, probably, but say it to him and he's just staring at you flatly and asking if that's a negative on getting away from the encroaching battle droids, sir?

"You're rather unpleasant for an omega, aren't you?" [deeply offensive] "I literally could not give less of a fuck about your opinion. Move."

It's not that there aren't omegas that act like Anakin, either, it's just that most of them aren't, you know, Jedi who regularly interact with the upper crust, or capable of his level of destruction. Unbeknownst to Anakin, everyone clocks him as Outer Rim based on his behavior, well before his accent gives him away, and certainly before he mentions he's from Tatooine, because Core Omegas Don't Act Like That.

Someone they meet in a more diplomatic setting says something decently passive-aggressive about how at least Obi-Wan acts more like how an Omega should. Then a battle breaks out for some reason, and... well. Anakin and Obi-Wan cause such a scandal by keeping score of kills in a battle, don’t you know?

Turns out sending Anakin to fight Ventress is great because she keeps expecting him to react a certain way but NO he's here to STAB.

I like the idea that Obi-Wan's favorite opponent these days is Grievous because the cyborg doesn't have a nose, and thus gives zero fucks about dynamics or heats. Dooku is a rich old man who has opinions heavily influenced by Sith Juice Making Him More of a Dick, and the Dathomiri can smell dynamics even if they don't have them, and so they have biases about those things. Meanwhile, Grievous is just there to Kill, and Obi-Wan genuinely appreciates the lack of commentary on his dynamic.

Dooku’s probably an alpha, or a beta who's used the whole "we are more level-headed" thing as one of several angles to keep himself the public face and supreme commander of the CIS.

On to more fluffy things that have less to do with political biases.

There's a lot of "I'm upset that my loved ones don't know me," but also please understand the appeal of Obi-Wan marching up to Quinlan like "Yes, hello, I understand you've been read in on the full situation behind myself and my former padawan. I was close friends with your alternate universe self, which I feel is necessary disclosure before I propose the following: Would you like to join me for my upcoming heat, as I have minimal experience with the dynamics situation and even fewer people I actually trust, and I believe I can put my faith in you to treat it as casually as necessary while still having control and respect for my person."

(The Team is in a fairly safe place to process stuff, but having sudden unexpected changes to your biology has gotta be a little traumatizing, on top of ending up in a universe where none of your friends know you and people have a whole host of unfamiliar forms of sexism to point at you.)

Obi-Wan, who wasn't quite touch-averse but was much more easily overwhelmed by physical contact than Anakin (who craved it), suddenly finds his body switching gears and insisting on cuddles with Trusted Loved Ones, which is.... mostly Anakin, on account of nobody else really knowing him yet. Also Ahsoka, who is aware that she's something of a replacement for her alt-universe self, but Anakin explained it as "I love you so much no matter which dimension I'm in or what you're like, and I'd like to get to know you the way I got know her."

(It's rather eloquent for Anakin. He got Obi-Wan to help him draft up the script for when he pitched taking on omegaverse Ahsoka as a padawan.)

Anakin gets a more intensely sexual heat than 'usual' at one point for Reasons (IDK it could be as innocuous as 'we got better food than the usual rations and my body is reacting to the higher fat content with the belief that it's safer to have a baby now'), which nobody takes a whole lot of notice of because they're in a WAR, and also this is only his fourth one so it's not like he's got a lot to compare it to... except then the predominantly alpha clones can't stop themselves from reacting to the pheromones, mostly by wandering past his door and asking if he needs anything, offering up alpha-scented blankets and stuff for the nest to soothe the hormones, bringing snacks and electrolyte drinks, and like, Anakin is flattered, really, but fuck off please.

(He got a warning from medical a few hours before it hit that it would be different, so he actually does have alpha-scented fabrics to help him out. Apparently that's a thing you can just ask friends for, so he asked Rex if he had anything on hand that he could spare. He now has one of Rex’s recently-used sheets and a bodyglove in the nest.)

(Anakin has no idea how to feel about the nesting instinct, but at least it’s warm.)

Tia asked "Oh hey, who has the scared and horny reaction to his carnage?" and like.

Listen. I'm not saying I've been low-key imagining this as Rex being a very subby alpha who's really into Anakin's whole Thing but...

At one point Anakin gets injured in a way that requires painkillers and he ends up whining to the point of almost crying about the fact that nobody is cuddling him right now in medbay and Kix just gives up and comms Ahsoka to come hug her weird older brother.

And Then There Is Purring.

That’s a Thing Now.

Rex ends up in the pile somehow. He came over to check on Things and ended up yanked in by half-asleep, half-high Anakin, who has a grip like an octopus and no impulse control and is purring like a pod motor while NUZZLING HIM.

There’s a lot of blackmail photos featuring Rex’s very intense blush as he’s cuddled by his commander (giggling at him) and general (clinging like a tooka and rubbing himself all over).

Anakin is deeply offended that ANYONE thinks he'd want to get pregnant by just any old person, NO he needs to fall in LOVE there needs to be EMOTIONAL DRAMA and if Padme won't have him (apparently she's in a relationship and no he's not BITTER) then he'll find someone else to have a whirlwind romance with!

People think Anakin's a slut because he can't control his pheromone production (he has NO practice and for health reasons he can't go on suppressants) so he always smells open and ready for flirtations, which Obi-Wan also has to a somewhat lesser degree (he's older so his body just naturally produces less), and then someone tries to cross a boundary and grabs his ass and ANYWAY Anakin has to now fill out an incident report for breaking a civilian's arm.

Again.

[moonctzeny]

Softer than velvet

pairing: magazine co-editor! mark lee x fem!y/n

genre: smut

warnings: office sex

word count:  2,926

summary: “Mark is a co-editor in the fashion magazine you work for, monopolizing everyones attention with his looks, including yours. Prompted by his vast knowledge about lingerie and his tendency to want to rip them apart, you invite him in your office, and you definitely put him to work”

a/n: inspired by the legendary scene from ‘Community’ and a discussion I had with my bf and best friend about lingerie.

----------------------------------------------------

He looked dashing again, as always. 

While Monday morning finds most employees in their tousled bed hair, dark eye circles and crooked buttons from hasting to be on time, Mark Lee looks like he jumped out of the fashion magazine you worked for. He was an editor, like yourself, yet the way he confidently strolled through the hallways, capturing everyone’s attention, had executives and employees alike toying with the idea of having him in their bed.

Mark’s shoulders looked even broader in the white shirt he had chosen for the day, neatly ironed and held together with a bright coral tie. A suede brown vest, that would look plain weird on anyone else that would dare pull it off, showed off his tiny waist perfectly, short enough for the workers on the welcome desk to whisper in admiration about his ‘cute perky butt’.

As one of Mark’s many secret fans, you wanted to join in on their giggling, but as his coworker you had to keep yourself from indulging in those dirty thoughts that kept creeping in your head. It was hard to deny this sweet distraction, that perks you up in excitement and turns up the heat of your body.  Like now, that he makes his way towards you in the main lobby, and you wonder how nice his pink locks would look between your thighs.

“Good morning, y/n”, he says when he’s finally standing in front of you, and you almost spill your mug filled with instant coffee in the sound of his raspy morning voice.

“Lee”, you address him almost coldy, but your smirk as you take a sip of the hot liquid gives you away. You can’t stop yourself from checking him out, his new high-end belt begging to be tugged on and used in other ways that it was originally made for. He bites his cheek when he notices your eyes laying on his crotch a second too long but he decides not to mention it.

“Are you going on a cigarette break soon?”

You sigh, rolling your eyes before making sure to lower your voice. “Didn’t you hear yesterday’s briefing? New boss is trying to cut them and apparently so must we. No smoking allowed here anymore.”

“Then you chose the wrong outfit”

He seems satisfied with the little yelp you let out, internally scolding yourself for getting so worked up over his compliment but hell, there’s nothing more you want than to fuck that smile off his face. If that’s what he wanted that’s what he’d get, but you refuse to look all fucked out here in the open just from the mere words of Mark Lee. Not when so many of your assistants were watching.

“We got assigned the lingerie issue together”, you change the subject and start walking towards your offices at the end of the floor. “ I need you to show me your picks later”

“It was hard finding anything worth including, except for Savage X Fenty nothing new is in the game. The La Perla designs are so outdated, and don’t get me started on Fleur du Mal.”

“Wow, you seem to know a lot about lingerie, huh?”, you exclaim, genuinely impressed, and you let him bask in his pride for a little. He runs his fingers through his hair and you catch a whiff of his shampoo, its scent coupled with his cologne highly addictive.

“I love fashion, and it’s kind of my job so I have to keep up. I’m not really a big fan of them, though.”

You raise an eyebrow at his confession, and halt as you arrive outside his office that is a little nearer than yours. Your body is leaning up against the wall, in a way that accentuates the curves of your body and Mark doesn’t try to be discreet in his staring. He might as well raise his hands, go through the layers and layers of palpable sexual tension between you and run them all over your body like you so desperately want.

“Don’t get me wrong, they’re pretty”, he starts, and you’re not sure if he’s addressing you, your lips or your decolletage.”But if we were getting down to business and I saw you in lingerie, all I’d think about is how to rip it off of you”

It takes every ounce of self control in your body and the thought of how much you need your salary not to pounce at him, and start removing his clothes right then and there. The masks of professionalism have vanished and so has your patience with him, so you fix his tie, tying it up a little tighter than it needs to be and you love the gasp that leaves his chapped lips. 

“Since you are so knowledgeable Mark, I’m not sure if the lingerie I’m wearing is off-season. How about you come to my office later to hand me your picks and give me your honest opinion?”

He chokes on thin air, the angry veins on his neck twitching from the lack of circulation to his head as he huffs out a chuckle. 

“I’ll be there before the meeting starts”, he promises before slipping inside his office, his hands brushing yours as he slides past you. You bet he thinks he’s smooth, but his reflection on the glass door of his neighboring office betrays him, catching him in the act of staring at your ass as you walk away. You wink at his reflection and he winces when he realizes, but you’ll forgive him. This sweet distraction in the name of Mark Lee was all you needed this boring Monday morning, and you can’t wait to see if your coworker is as skillful as he talks himself up to be.

----------------------------------------------------------

The wait wasn’t long, but it sure was painful, your mind wandering at the conversation you had with Mark this morning and eyes checking the time every five minutes. You’d almost miss his figure in your absentmindedness, standing outside your office, nervously shifting his body weight from one leg to the other. 

The glass separating your office with the main hall was tinted, with a few stripes of clear glass on the very top, giving you a limited view of the people hurrying past. Through those lines you also saw Mark, hesitating to knock and giving himself what looks like a pep talk. You think it’s adorable and decide to take him out of his misery, getting up yourself to open the door.

His mouth drops open when you do, looking like a deer in the headlights with his big doe eyes and binder that is placed -strategically- over his crotch. You smile politely and motion him to come in, your meetup not seeming strange to any passerby, as you have worked together many times in the past. The moment he turns the knob behind him to close the door, Mark drops the designs from his hands, pictures of lingerie flying in the air and landing across the carpeted floor. You barely manage to turn the lock before he pushes you backwards with a hand on your jaw, until you feel the wood of your desk digging against your ass.

You close your eyes and immediately are braced with the feeling of his tongue entering your mouth, the strong aftertaste of cinnamon candy tingling your tastebuds. Bringing him closer by his tie, you let him lift you up the table, legs wrapping around his waist and you verify that he was, indeed, already hard behind that binder. 

“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do that”, he murmurs in the kiss and tugs on the roots of your hair suddenly, forcing your head to tilt back and thus expose your neck.

His breath is hot over your collarbones and the feeling of his hardness is driving you insane, so you let your blazer fall from your shoulders before taking off his vest. Mark helps you out by loosening his tie and starts to unbutton his shirt, but you stop him when his chest is almost half-exposed.

“Don’t take it off, you look sexy like that”

He blushes from your compliment, momentarily letting go of his surprisingly dom persona.

“I thought I was supposed to examine your outfit though?”, he asks cheekily and you remove your blouse, revealing the teddy that’s been hugging your body.

It’s black, with a mesh body and velvet lining over the cups and crotch area. The adjustable straps help your boobs look full and round, the velvet strips that are going down, parallel to your body lines, make you look as curvy as ever. 

Mark looks a little lost, like a kid in a candy store and he clears his throat before speaking up again. 

“I need to feel the fabric”, he states, almost too seriously for the situation you were both in currently and he runs his fingers from your belly button upwards to your abs. His fingers toy with the lace adorning the cups and he finally squeezes your boobs. He chuckles at the naughtiness of what you’re doing right now, breaking character, and you’re reminded of how young Mark really is. You free your right boob from its constraint and the sight of your nipple, hard and erect for him, immediately sobers him up. 

His mouth has stayed open in his trance, and you take advantage of it by placing your fingers over his lips, then slowly pushing them in. With his tongue wetting your fingertips, and his big eyes glued on you, waiting for your next move, he really resembles a puppy, and you gloat in the sudden gain of control over him.

When you feel that he’s had enough, or rather, that you’ve had enough, you push your digits out of the comfortable rim of his mouth, coating your nipple with a light layer of his spit.

“So?”, you mewl seductively, “what do you think?”

“It needs to be softer, I think”

You stop massaging yourself, tilting your head in confusion by his critique.

“Softer? What is softer than velvet?”

Mark smirks back at you, hand leaving your breast and travelling south. 

“I can think of something” 

He finds the buttons over the crotch of the teddy, the pieces of fabric they’re holding together damp with your arousal. You shiver when you feel his fingers easily gliding through your folds, teasing your entrance and pinching your clit.

A whine leaves your lips as he removes his fingers momentarily, falling on his knees in front of you. Suddenly remembering where you are, you stretch your body a little in your paranoia, checking if anyone is standing outside your office, witnessing your dirty meetup. But Mark is quick to bring you back up to heaven, with a flick of his tongue over your clit.

“Mmmm, so soft”

He looks so fucking delicious looking up at you, tie discarded on the floor now and lips coated with your wetness and his spit. You can feel the scruffiness of his 5 o’clock shadow slightly scratching the inside of your thighs that are so sensitive and shake in pleasure. Reaching your hands back for any form of stability you knock down some of the stationery, but how can you care when Mark draws circles with his fingers on your entrance?

He pushes in his index, then his middle finger as well, setting a pace that is as slow as it is sinfully pleasurable. Your small office is filled with the sounds of his kissing and slurping, but you can’t ask him to be quiet when you struggle to lower your moans as well. The feeling of the soft pads of his fingers massaging your walls and his tongue sucking on your pussy makes you light-headed, your nails digging in the wooden surface and desperately chasing your high. Your orgasm hits you like a wave, and you bite your fist so as not to make a sound, but Mark’s not done yet. 

He places one hand sturdily on your hips, the other cupping your left boob, successfully helping you keep your balance. He keeps lapping up your arousal, sucking on the swollen bud and you swear you see stars. You’re thrashing around in your overstimulation, too close to screaming from pleasure and you grab Mark’s hair to push him away. 

His eyes are blown out from arousal, mouth gasping for air and chin wet with your juices. The desire to have him is animalistic, and you force him up by his collar, replacing his place on the floor.

“My turn”

Unbuckling his belt in swift moves, you manage to free his member from his boxers, bright red and leaking for you. Placing his tip on your tongue, you can taste the saltiness of his precum, and Mark sighs at the warmth of your mouth. You rest your hands on his thighs, looking up to see his pretty face contorted in pleasure when you swirl your tongue around his length. 

“Oh my god, just like that”

Determined to return the favour, you gulp around him, his cock hitting the back of your throat. You ignore the burning feeling on your knees and throat and keep him there, until tears are threatening to spill from the corner of your eyes. After bobbing your head over his cock, listening to his swears over and over again you can tell he is close, and you start jerking him, slowly picking up your pace.

He lets out a guttural groan when you start palming his tip and he slaps your hand away, taking his dick in his own grasp. “Show me something worth cumming for. I want to see your body”

You fumble with the cups of your lingerie, trying to free your boobs but it’s hard, with the straps getting in the way and the fabric being too sturdy to stretch so far. Mark gets impatient with you taking so long, so he crouches forward, bunching up the mesh in his fists and ripping it in half.

Shocked yet turned on by his action you let the garment drop from your body, leaving you in only your skirt that is bunched up over your hips. Passing the mounds on your breasts you let your hands move lower, and you start to play with your pussy for Mark to see. You’re still so sensitive from your orgasm earlier and you let him know, moaning his name as you expose yourself fully for him.

As he moves his wrist frantically over his shaft, his eyes are glued on your lower lips. They are a raging red at this point, and he’s losing his mind over the look of pure lust painted on your face. He wishes he could paint it with something else but he knows you’re in the workplace, yet nothing can keep him from entertaining the thought.

“Where do you want it?”, he huffs out just a second before he’s reaching his own high and you open your mouth, giving him a silent invitation. He moves his hips closer to you, tapping his tip over your eager tongue and he watches intently at the ropes of cum that are slowly filling up your mouth.

You raise your thumb on your lips, collecting the drops that are spilling from the corner of your mouth and you swallow before Mark can even hand you the metal bin next to your desk. He seems to be in complete ecstasy, chuckling for no reason as he puts his softening member back into his underwear and helps you back into your clothes (or whatever is left from them).

“I’m sorry for ripping your lingerie”, he mumbles finally and you want to coo at how cute he sounds, “I’ll buy you a new one, I promise”

You laugh lightly, helping him at picking up the pictures of the lingerie pieces that are scattered on your floor. “It better be one of your picks”, you tease him, waving the burgundy set you were holding and he licks his lips, picturing you in it.

“Sure. How about I give it to you over some dinner this weekend?”

His offer excites you, so you nod in agreement, and you shuffle awkwardly in the heavy atmosphere of the room. As you pick up the last picture, placing it neatly inside Mark’s binder, you feel his hand wrapping around your waist, bringing you close against him. Instinctively, you kiss him, allowing yourself to get lost in the movement of his lips, that mostly taste like you and you nibble at them lightly. Mark was in the middle of squeezing the softness of your ass, humming in appreciation, when a beep comes simultaneously from both of your phones. It’s the meeting he was talking about this morning and you groan for having to let him go.

He hands you a piece of gum when you both enter the hall and you take it, praying that no one will smell his cologne all over your skin, or notice that you’re going commando under your clothes. One of your co-workers and Mark’s buddy, that you address with a nod every time you cross paths in the office kitchen catches up to you, and throws an arm over his shoulders.

“Mark, my man, you’re glowing today! Wanna grab a bite after the meeting?”

The boy turns his head in your direction, giving you a once over and winking your way, before answering with a smile that is so evident in his voice.

“Nah, thanks. I already ate”

[blackjack-15]

Hunting For Some Buried Story — Thoughts on: Ransom of the Seven Ships (RAN)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD, MHM, TRT, FIN, SSH, DOG, CAR, DDI, SHA, CUR, CLK, TRN, DAN, CRE, ICE, CRY, VEN, HAU

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it. Like with all of the Odd Games, there will be a section between The Intro and The Title called The Weird Stuff, where I go into what makes this game stand out as a little strange.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with links to previous metas.

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: RAN; STFD; mention of FIN; GTH; mention of SPY.

The Intro:

We’re two-thirds of the way through the meta series officially (yay for meta #20!), and what a way to cap off that marker: with the last of the Odd Games.

And my land, how Odd it is. And that’s ignoring that in August of 2020, this game was very quietly discontinued — speculated to be because of the…well, pseudo-brownface in the game.

Oh yeah, we’re starting with that little bomb.

Before we truly begin, however, let me state one fact: the controversies over this game do not make it any more interesting, unfortunately. I don’t know how a game can be both this objectively bad and this objectively boring as a mystery, but RAN is an example of many, many impossible feats in the video game industry (boring yet bad, controversial yet uninteresting, finicky yet sluggish in controls, so it might as well begin as it means to go on.

I’m also stating here for the record that I’m not really going to focus on the social aspect of this game; it’s always been out of the scope of these metas to focus on current events or social issues, and race is such a hot button issue that no matter what anyone says, someone gets mad. Besides that, it’s really not an interesting tack to take with this meta, not when there’s so many things to talk about regarding RAN as a game and/or as a mystery. If you came into this meta expecting a breakdown as it relates to any social issues, this might not be the meta for you.

If you came for a beat-down on RAN, however, you’re in the right place. Get comfy.

Ransom of the Seven Ships had all the pieces in place to make it a great game; we’ve got Bess and George in the (weird, plasticky) flesh, a fascinating and beautiful location, a historical background based in Spanish exploration, the Age of Piracy, and treasure hunting…all of these are great, honestly, and it’s part of what makes RAN so offensively bad — it could have been really great.

Instead of a wonderful game based around pirate treasure, however, Nancy plays games with monkeys, drives on the world’s slowest golf cart, and trusts the only other person on the entire freaking island when he says he didn’t kidnap her friend. Even though he is the ONLY OTHER PERSON ON THE FREAKING ISLAND.

This game is based off of a Nancy Drew mystery entitled “The Broken Anchor”, which actually is fairly close to the plot of the game — the girls win a contest (though in this case it’s one they didn’t even enter) to go to the Bahamas, Nancy arrives (with Carson) and can’t contact Bess or George, there’s a mysterious treasure, etc. etc. In part, I think, RAN’s problems come from following the book too closely, as there’s really very little to the plot of the book. Game plots necessarily have to have a little more meat to them, as you can’t spend the whole time with Nancy pontificating on the scenery or food (as she is wont to do), and RAN is missing a lot of meat.

Specifically, the meat that it’s missing is any suspects at all. Like I said, there’s only one other person (other than Nancy, Bess, and George) on the island, and it’s ‘Johnny Rolle’ — a self-professed fisherman and loner who’s boat has been wrecked by the monkeys.

There are way too many effing monkeys in this game, side note. How I wish the monkeys were a side note.

Nancy, despite her normal M.O when a kidnapping of a friend has taken place, just kinda rolls with his story and accepts it, digging pointless holes in the sand while he definitely has Bess trapped. And then there’s the weirdness with the monkeys trying to kill her as she scales a sheer cliff wall.

Honestly, if I go any more into it, I’m just going to end up tearing it apart piece by piece, and that’s for the Fix section. So let’s move on to the specific things that make this game truly the capstone of the Odd Games.

The Weird Stuff:

This game is, first and foremost, a story about personal revenge — or, at least, that’s the big takeaway, no matter what HER actually intended for it to be about. After being busted by Nancy (and Lillian, and Ralph, but he apparently doesn’t care about them), Dwayne sat in prison stewing over his ignominious defeat at the hands of a teenaged sleuth until he heard about the supposed treasure on Dread Isle. His greed for the treasure combined with his hatred of Nancy began to fester together, culminating in a slightly complex but ultimately stupid plan to get both money and revenge.

This is a motivation unlike any we’ve encountered. Sure, a handful of Nancy Drew villains have sworn their revenge on Nancy (most notably at this point in the series Helena from VEN), but no one has actually done it — until Dwayne.

This should have made the whole game feel intensely personal — and indeed, bringing back tokens and things from Nancy’s past cases and locations should have built to that. However, the game never really comes to a fever pitch of a feeling of someone is watching Nancy and actively hates her, even though it makes a few attempts. More than any other game, Nancy should have been scared here — and it’s odd that she isn’t.

The second odd thing here is the returning villain. I don’t think this is a bad thing at all — I love the idea of a returning villain — but I do think it was a mistake to pick Dwayne Powers. At this point in the series, STFD was hardly a well-known game, and was generally unplayable due to technological advances.

Yes, later STFD would get a bit of a sprucing up and become playable again (and this game, funnily enough, would be relegated to the ‘unplayable’ pile — Dwayne never can win, I guess), but that didn’t matter at the time that RAN was coming out.

There were several better choices — VEN’s Helena, SHA’s Shorty, DOG’s Emily (who had already received a mention recently in DAN) — so why go with Dwayne? Did they pick him on purpose because no one would suspect (or rather, remember) him? Was he the most obscure villain they could think of? Mitch Dillon (who never appeared really) from SCK would have been an equally obscure but somehow more frightening choice. I’m really at a loss to figure out why they chose Dwayne, of all people.

The third thing that makes this game odd is the lack of suspects. Sure, they give a hat-tip to the Gibsons perhaps being hidden on the island (which, let’s just say, they shouldn’t have — never use as a red herring something that would have made the game so much better), but Dwayne/Johnny really is the only suspect.

I have no idea if they were rushed, if they thought that his different identities counted as extra suspects, or if they just wanted to try something different with this game, but it in no way worked. It’s so mind-bogglingly simple to figure out who kidnapped Bess that it makes Nancy look like she’s quite a few sandwiches short of a picnic.

The last Odd thing that I’ll hang on is how incredibly out-of-character Nancy is in this game. We’ve only seen Nancy work kidnapping (or supposed kidnapping) cases a few times in the series as a whole — FIN’s Maya, RAN’s Bess, and GTH’s Jessalyn — but in both FIN and GTH Nancy takes them very seriously, being harsher and more impatient with less time for people’s lies and stories than she usually is, and really feeling the pressure of the clock.

It makes sense; even discounting the Missing Mom trauma that sits deep within Nancy, the first 48 hours of a kidnapping are basically the only window that she has, statistically speaking, to find the victim still alive and okay. She nearly flies off the handle at the suspects in FIN, and digs uncomfortably deep even at very touchy subjects in GTH.

It then stands to reason that, with FIN in the past and GTH in the future, that Nancy would react similarly in this case. Bess is one of Nancy’s best friends, and the friend that we’re shown most often (think of the flashback in SPY; Bess is the one who comes over after Kate and Carson’s fight) around Nancy, like in CRY.

You’d think that, in the face of Bess’ unambiguous kidnapping, that Nancy would be raising hell — contacting anyone she could, taking no prisoners, ripping Dwayne’s tarp down, turning the island upside down, etc. — but instead, she’s calm, almost relaxed, spending time playing games with monkeys and driving aimlessly around the island.

It honestly makes no sense that she’s like this. This is one of a small handful of games where Nancy is deeply, personally invested, where she has a quick running clock, and where the stakes are deadly yet somewhat unknown.

Nancy comes into this with no background, no contacts, no ability to really look things up, and no help — George’s meager efforts do not count — and yet she acts like there are really no stakes. It doesn’t make me dislike her, it doesn’t make me fold that into her characterization — it just makes me say “wow, the writing is really bad here, huh”.

The Title:

Ransom of the Seven Ships is an amazing title; there’s really no getting around this fact. And for the bare bones of the game, it’s more than a suitable title. You’ve got the word ‘ransom’ doing double duty — meaning both treasure and the price to return someone who’s been kidnapped — you’ve got the ships indicating pirate treasure, and that also tells us we’re probably on an island.

Honestly, this is a far better title than this game really deserved (which is half the reason for this meta: turning the game into something that deserves its title). It’s certainly far better than “The Broken Anchor”, its source material, while keeping a pirate-y nature about it. While it’s a little different than most Nancy Drew games’ titles have been up to this point — as they’re usually “The (Adjective) Noun of Location” or “The Adjective Noun”, that’s not a bad thing at all.

This title really does make me sad with how wonderful it is. It deserved so much better. Same with Ship of Shadows, which is also boss.

The Mystery:

Having won an all-expense paid vacation to Dread Isle in the Bahamas (which should have been their first clue that something hinky was afoot), Bess invites Nancy and George along with her. Nancy arrives the day after the cousins, having stayed for a later flight because of a prior engagement with Carson, and is greeted by a frantic George who tells her that Bess has been kidnapped, that the owners of the resort – the Gibsons — aren’t there, and that she’s been worried sick.

  Nancy, naturally, senses something Amiss, and sets off to explore the islands, beginning from the pink sand beach where Bess’ water powered golf cart (yes, I know) is still sitting. She discovers Bess’ shoe next to the only other person on the island — a fisherman named Johnny Rolle from Jamaica — and sets off to explore the rest of the island.

Along the way she finds notes from Bess’ kidnappers, instructions on digging for treasure, twisting island paths, and monkeys. So many friggin monkeys. All of whom Nancy must appease in order to progress in her hunt for one of her oldest friends.

Yeah.

As a mystery…well, what is there really to say about the mystery? It should have been over the second Nancy found Bess’ shoe right outside Dwayne’s camp where a Suspicious Tarp Just Big Enough To Hide the Body of a Young Adult was hanging. An intelligent way to draw it out would be to have Nancy discover Bess there, but for Dwayne to pull a fast one on her and trap her below…but this isn’t the fix section, so let’s just move on past that.

If you weren’t going to add in any new characters or suspects, it might be best to have this game flip from a whodunnit to a howdunnit/howcatchem after the first third; as it is (aka since I’m going to add far more characters in The Fix section), we’ll move right along to the suspect in question himself.

The Suspects:

Yes, I know that this part should just be “The Suspect”.

Believe me, I know.

Wearing a whole cornucopia of masks, Johnny Rolle — aka John E. Poole — is an Australian accountant, hiding from ‘bad clients’ by painting himself brown and adopting a horrible (and horribly stereotypical) Jamaican accent. Nancy discovers his ‘true’ identity by finding an ID with his name on it while he’s still in the ‘Johnny’ disguise. Of course, this ‘true identity’ isn’t his true identity as all…

Dwayne Powers —aka Owen W. Spayder — is sitting underneath the bad wig, bandana, brownface, and horrible accents, and is voiced in this go-around by HER’s chameleon of many voices, good ol’ JVS. After hearing about Dread Isle’s rumors of treasure and their monkey research lab shutting down from a volunteer at his prison (yes, we’re already way too complicated for this game), Dwayne started planning to get the treasure and get revenge on Nancy at the same time.

As the culprit…man is Dwayne horrible. He’s so stupid that it really kills me that Nancy actually falls for his act, because it makes her even stupider. It’s not a good plan, it’s not well thought out, it’s not even a complete plan — it relies on too many unknowables. What if Nancy and George had just stormed his camp and found Bess? What if Nancy figured out it was him? Like, I know Dwayne is an egotist, but this is just dumb.

Before I eviscerate any more, let’s just move on to the few good things in this game.

The Favorite:

The best thing about RAN (other than its music, which as always is super good) is honestly its location. Dread Isle is beautifully and uniquely rendered, and doesn’t look like any other game with the pink-sand beaches, beautiful horizon line, and foliage all befitting a Bahamian resort.

I also like the idea of a returning culprit; while it wasn’t handled well here, I do think it’s a great idea as quite a few culprits have promised revenge on Nancy at the end of their games. Do I think it would have been better if it was Helena, who promised revenge only 2 games ago, rather than going back 18 games to a game that most hadn’t played due to lack of availability? Of course; but the idea behind it was sound.

I don’t have a favorite puzzle or favorite moment; even Dwayne’s dramatic reveal is ruined by the fact that Nancy is at all surprised that he was wearing a disguise and, once again, that the only other person on the island was responsible for kidnapping her friend.

The Un-Favorite:

As far as this section goes…there’s a lot that I don’t like, but there are a few things that stand out more than the rest as truly un-favorite.

My least favorite thing about this game, as you might be able to guess, is that it makes Nancy seem so stupid. We’ve had 19 games of Nancy (mostly; this meta series does go over the exceptions) figuring out clues, chasing bad guys, and solving puzzles without breaking a sweat, and then for this game she’s fooled by some makeup, a wig, and a bad accent? At least in STFD Dwayne put some effort into his work; this is just sad, and it’s even sadder that Nancy falls for it.

My least favorite moment in the game is probably the first conversation with ‘Johnny’. Nancy finds Bess’ shoe, gets strung up in a trap, and then believes that the guy sitting a few feet away is innocent and telling the truth? It’s a moment that truly sets up what a crap shoot this game is about to become, and that alone is enough to make it my least favorite.

My least favorite puzzle is anything to do with the monkeys; playing games with them, scaling the cliff, talking to them, talking about them — literally anything. I don’t like monkeys on a good day, but to have so many puzzles in the game revolve around playing their stupid little games with them? Not a good thing at all. Especially since getting around the island (and, of course, the monkeys live quite far away from anything else on the island) is so aggravatingly slow and clunky — it makes everything feel like a total slog.

The Fix:

So how would I fix Ransom of the Seven Ships?

My gosh, just remake the game.

More seriously, there are quite a few things that I would do in order to make playing through RAN a little more enjoyable and a lot more story-driven (and in line with Nancy and George’s characters). As always, I’m trying to keep this as close to the actual game as possible with few or no huge changes, so Dwayne will still be our culprit, Bess will still have won his giveaway, and Dread Isle will still be the spot of El Toro’s treasure.

The first thing I would do is get rid of Dwayne’s brownface/first disguise, and have him be the Australian accountant named John E. Poole, running from Bad News clients who he didn’t allow to cheat come tax day. That sets him up as a good guy to begin with (if a little foolish to cross such powerful clients), and gives a reason why he’s not staying at the resort (he’s trying to hide and not leave a paper/money trail at the same time). He should be staying in a little homemade hut, not with a Suspicious Tarp Obviously Hiding Bess, as he would have had to been on the island for a while to perfect his disguise (and seem trustworthy to the people at the resort).

I would also have the game take place on Nancy’s 19th birthday; if we assume she was barely 18 at the time of STFD, that makes it about a year that he would have been plotting and escaping and setting up this contest and such. It also makes sense as to why Nancy would have a banquet-thing with Carson and why Bess invited her and George — it’s a fabulous birthday party trip, even for the well-off Nancy Drew. That would also add to her anger — this was a great present that Bess (and George) gave her, and Dwayne has just straight-up ruined it.

Another change that would help the atmosphere is to have at least half the game take place at night. I would have the game take place over roughly two days — it ends the night of the second day — so that you can see the island at night. A lot of the demands made by ‘the kidnappers’ should be done at night — treasure digging, in particular — so as to not be more disruptive to the island than a missing persons case would already be.

Of course, one of the biggest things to do would be to add more suspects.

The Gibsons — both of them — should definitely be there at the resort. I’d have one half of the couple be in the resort during the day, and the other at night, so Nancy can interact with them both differently and have different tasks/discussions with them. Perhaps Mrs. Gibson is an expert on the island’s ‘lore’ — El Toro’s treasure and stuff — while Mr. Gibson is more up on island life and is the law enforcement liaison for the island (who can effectively deputize Nancy to help with the search for Bess).

I would also add one other guest who was supposed to check out right before the first note from the kidnappers came in, and is now stuck on the island until the case is solved. What I’d probably do is make them a Secret Australian (to contrast with Dwayne’s fake Australian accent) — sporting an English accent due to a posh upbringing and studying in England for most of their school life, living in England somewhere (maybe near Blackmoor Manor for a cool Easter egg) — who is Very Grumpy about this and thinks Bess ran off to explore and just got lost. I’d probably make them unhelpful to the last — even when Bess is found and had definitely been kidnapped, to just shrug it off and to board the plane to get home as quickly as possible.

The last person I’d add in is someone working the desk — specifically, an older teenager who is very cagey about themselves and how they know what they know, but who seems to know a lot more than they let on. This person would, of course, end up being a member of ATAC, and once Nancy figures it out, would be able to connect you with help from the Hardy Boys. This ATAC member would be scoping out the Gibsons for evidence of getting guests under false pretenses, but would ultimately change their suspicions to Dwayne and help Nancy and George catch him. Through this ATAC teen, the Hardy Boys could use outside information to give Nancy information about monkeys, the island, treasure, El Toro, and anything else that she encounters, as well as spread their feelers out about the Gibsons, the other guest, and John E. Poole.

I would of course want to improve the tone, which would be helped by having more people on the island — Nancy should feel scared that Bess disappeared with this many people around, and it should feel personal. As the game goes on, even with the added help, the walls should feel like they’re closing in. I would include way more second chances, traps, threatening notes, maybe even recordings of Bess screaming or scared or in pain — something that might push the rating to E+ because, quite frankly, the situation calls for it.

Mechanically, I would put way less focus on the monkeys; they really shouldn’t control everything on the island. Keeping them for a minigame and location is cool, but they definitely shouldn’t have their place of prominence in the game.

I would also remove the fact that you can control George. Out of all the games where I think controlling people other than Nancy would be great, this is not one of them. As worried as Nancy should be, this is George’s cousin — practically her sister, from how close their families are and how much time they spend together — and George would probably be in a State. Sure, she can help with some of the tech stuff, but the player definitely shouldn’t be playing as her in this game. It just feels forced, and it’s not necessary.

Would these changes make RAN a fantastic, award-winning game? No, honestly, they wouldn’t. In order to do that, you’d probably have to scrap the game entirely and start over with even barer bones. But I do think it would help to make it at least better and more playable, and I think that’s a win. Let RAN be remembered for its returning villain and its kidnapping plot, not for being the game that everyone skips during a replay of the series.

[dabisangel]

Hey boo you write Dabi beautifully! You deserve lots of love💖 if I may, can I please request an angsty fic where Dabi has a near death experience, really thinks it's his end and civilian!reader somehow saves him (right place right time) he think he dreamt her up before he almost dies and they some how cross paths again and becomes infactuated with her ? (Sorry it's super long) if you're not feeling this it's all good 💖💖

OMg thank you for sending this ask. I kind of went out of control and wrote 4k words for it. I hope I did your idea justice! 💖

“Infatuated”

Pairing: Dabi X Reader

Genre: Angst

Warnings: Near-death experience, stalking.

Word Count: 4619

——————————————————————————————————

Dabi was no stranger to being in dangerous situations, but then again life comes at you fast.

His body laid on the cold pavement. Heaving sounds leaving his lips as his chest rose and fell quickly.

‘Is this really how I meet my end?’ his mind began to swirl and every alarm for survival was blaring in his head. 

 He knew that it was only a matter of time before he bled out. 

The bastards that ambushed him made sure of that. 

They’d followed him after recognizing him at the infamous “Blue Flame”, wanting to see if he was as strong as they’d heard he was. 

As he laid on the pavement he retraced the moments in the alley just moments before. He had already been tired before they attacked, and he was nearing his limit with his quirk. Under the dull ache of his stab wound, he could still feel the burning sensation on his skin. They’d attacked him relentlessly, and he couldn’t manage to defend himself. Much to Dabi’s surprise, when it came to the final blow, the tallest of the 3 men stopped suddenly. 

“It looks like you’re not nearly as strong as the media makes it out to be.” The men loomed over his body, making eye contact before crouching close to him. 

“And now…..” he grinned widely. “You’ll die in the street. Like a dog.”

Dabi didn’t have the energy to respond, and he clutched at the deep stab wound in his side. 

The men kicked at him a few times before leaving, snickering as they sauntered away from the alley. 

It had been 10 minutes since then. And he was in absolute agony.

Tears pricked his eyes as he stared up at the night sky. ‘There are so many’ he’d thought to himself as he stared at the stars.  Suddenly he regretted never looking up at the sky like this before. He regretted that he took so many small things for granted. He regretted everything. 

He wheezed more as he heard footsteps approaching. 

———————————————————————————————————

You turned the corner while tapping at your phone tiredly. Your other hand held onto a few grocery bags, which held the ingredients for your dinner. 

As you turned into your usual shortcut alley, you froze. 

Your eyes met the man on the ground, and the pool of blood next to him.

Your whole body froze before something clicked in you, causing you to drop your grocery bags and sprint over to him. As you kneeled next to him you breathed heavily, waving your hands frantically “oh my god are you okay. Jesus. I’ll call an ambulance oh my god.”

His eyes stared blankly at the sky, not budging to look over at you. “D-Don’t.” He struggled to speak.

You ripped a piece of your shirt, pressing it to his wound. From his lack of reaction and the way he laid limp on the concrete, you could tell he’d lost a lot of blood. “Don’t!? Are you crazy? You’re going to di-“

“I never realized.” 

Your eyes moved from his wound and up to his face for the first time. 

“The night sky is so beautiful.”  His words were slurred, and you could tell that he was becoming delirious. 

After a few moments of staring at his bloodied face, you recognized him. His eyes were a clear blue that were all too familiar. You had seen those eyes. Many times on the news, accompanied by flickering cerulean flames. Instantly you recognized him as one of the members of the LOV.

The reality of the situation in front of you set in as you began to shake. A villain was dying in this alley.

And you had no idea how to navigate this situation. 

You hesitated to speak, as you pressed onto his wound. You winced as you felt the warm liquid soaked through the piece of cloth, and you repositioned yourself next to him.

“What’s your name?” You asked.

“Dabi.”The name came out so quiet that it was nearly a whisper. You began to worry he would lose consciousness. Studying his eyes you noticed that were dangerously low and his breathing was becoming increasingly more shallow. The stab wound in his side certainly wasn’t doing him any favors either. 

“Dabi?” You spoke uncertainty

He didn’t respond.

“If I don’t help you. You’re going to die.”

A small smile painted his lips as he hummed gently, closing his eyes completely. “I feel so light. I’ve never felt anything like this before. Can you feel it too?” His words turned into rambling before he wheezed again. 

“Dabi keep your eyes open.” You spoke softly. Fear began to collect in your chest as he didn’t.

He was clearly very delirious. 

You weren’t sure what you should do. You knew that he was a villain, but he was no threat here now. You knew that if you called an ambulance, the police wouldn’t be too far behind to take him away. And as you stared at his broken state your heart panged with sadness. 

“Dabi. Look at me.”

His eyes fluttered open at your words, clearly struggling to keep them open. He glanced over to you, his azure eyes staring straight into yours. 

 “Wow.” He breathed raggedly. “You are an angel”

He continued to stare at your face for a few more moments, studying each feature carefully. “Are you taking me to heaven or hell?” You watched as his eyes flicked up to the sky again.

You were taken aback as he spoke. An angel? A blink was the only response you could muster. 

“You belong up there, you know.” His eyes watered a bit, up towards the sky. “Do you think I do, too?”

He coughed roughly, and you continued to apply pressure, your mind racing.

“I’m…. I’m gonna die here, huh?” He squeezed his eyes shut. 

“No, you’re not. I promise you.” You pulled out your phone and dialed a number frantically, shaking as it rang. Hoping that the number was still in order. Praying they would pick up.

When you heard her voice over the phone you sighed in relief, finally relaxing a bit.

“Hey, it’s y/n.  I need a favor. And I need you not to judge me for it.”

———————————————————————————————————

One month later

He woke from his sleep in a cold sweat, gripping at his side. Slim fingers ghosting over his stitches as small pants left his lips. 

Eventually, he gathered the energy to swing his feet over the side of the bed, as he raked his fingers through his hair. 

Every night since then he had the same dream. Over and over. He was dying in that alley, shrouded in misery and darkness. Until eventually, an angel descended from the sky, taking him into her arms and saved him. She was so beautiful. He was certain he’d never seen the woman in his dreams before, but he couldn’t get the face out of his head. Every feature was so clear as if he’d seen it a million times in person. 

He couldn’t remember if you were real or not. 

Shaking it off and he made his way into the bathroom. The soles of his feet pressed against the cold tile, as he looked into the mirror. That day truly haunted him.

Getting his revenge on the men that attacked him was the first step he took when he regained his strength. It was a spectacle. One that placed a newfound fear into the hearts of anyone that dared to think of harming him in the same way. 

Remembering the way it felt as he laid on the concrete, and the feeling that washed over him in that alleyway confused him. The moments replayed it in his mind more times than he could count. He remembered staring into the sky and feeling absolutely at peace. It sent a shiver down his spine.

The entire situation was something he truly wished that he could forget about.

After shaking his head again, he studied himself in the mirror. 

All he could do was think back to that face. The one that graced his dreams, and how he longed to see it again. He longed to thank you. But he couldn’t tell reality from his dreams anymore. 

He remembered being attacked, and the horrifyingly calming feeling of bleeding out on the pavement. He remembered the delirium. And then nothing. A blank slate, before waking in his bed with toga watching over him nearby. A groan left his lips as he remembered her taunting him and saying something about “it’s about time you woke up.”

The entire time he was out, all he could dream of was your face. And your eyes. And your voice. 

But everyone in the league convinced him that there was no girl that fit the description he gave. And that he was alone in that alley until Toga stumbled upon him. 

He thought he was going mad.

Deciding against more self-reflection he left the bathroom and began to get dressed. 

As usual, he planned on spending his night outside of the hideout, hating the claustrophobic feeling it gave him. He went into town, with his hood up, walking the cold street at night. 

It had been about 20 minutes since he’d departed from the hideout, and he made his way to the only part of town he could stand. It was a small section of the city that contained bars, restaurants, and shops. Tons of things to look at, and keep his mind busy. As he walked toward his usual bar, he stopped in his tracks as he heard your voice. It sounded so familiar. 

Moving to hide behind the corner he brought his hand to the cold stone of the side of the building. His eyes widened as he saw you, and his heart began to race. An unexplainable feeling filled his chest. Happiness, relief, fear? He couldn’t tell. 

As he watched you speak and laugh with your friend he held his position and began to shake. He couldn’t begin to explain the feeling, but one thing he knew for sure was that he was elated.

He watched you for about half an hour in complete awe. His memories of you began to come back slowly, the real ones. Not distorted dreams.

Remembering how you tended to his wound. How you said his name. How you saved his life. 

Some things were still foggy, but one thing that was certain was that he owed you his life. 

Tearing his eyes away from you he decided that he needed to get home. As a wanted villain, he didn’t like staying in one place for too long. But he didn’t want to lose sight of you, in fear of never seeing you again. 

Thoughts jumbled in his head for what felt like an eternity before deciding to stay. 

He watched as your friend left you for the night, and you said your goodbyes. 

He watched you as you left the bar.

He watched you as you walked home. 

He almost felt wrong as he followed behind you, aware that you were oblivious to the fact you were being followed. He hated that you took no precautions, and put yourself into danger this late at night. He wanted to protect you. 

After he saw to it that you were safe and sound in your apartment a smile graced his lips and he walked home. 

———————————————————————————————————

One Week Later

When he saw you again, chatting at the bar with your friend he didn’t hesitate. His mind went blank as his legs carried him over to the bar quickly.

“We need to talk.” He interrupted 

You looked up in response to the intrusion and a gasp left your lips as you met his eyes. 

It took you by surprise that he was here, and seemingly recovered. 

He looked different this time. Fully alive and well, and that made you smile. 

You excused yourself from your table and went to the front of the bar with him. 

Neither of you said a word for a while, you figured there was something he wanted to say.

You weren’t sure if you could trust him.

“You saved my life.” He stared down at you with a look you couldn’t decipher. He looked confused. “I thought I was crazy.”

“I’m glad to see that you’re okay.

“Why did you save me?” He furrowed his brows.

You swallowed hard as you remembered the sight of him in the alley, and his continuous ramblings as you stitched him up. You were certain he wouldn’t make it. But you didn’t give up. And here he was. 

“I-I couldn’t let you die.” You spoke honestly.

“I remember you saying my name. You knew who I was. Why would you do something like that for a villain.” 

You gave a half shrug. “You were…” you took a breath “fading in and out.” Your eyes met his.

“In that moment. Things were…different.”

He blinked, waiting for you to finish.

“We were just two people.”

He blinked again.

“In that moment you weren’t the big bad villain they write headlines about. You were a man. And you were dying.”

He felt numb.

“And what about know.” He asked

You blinked and took in a raspy breath.

“You’re still a man. And we’re still just two people. And I’m glad that I was able to save you.”

His heart skipped a beat.

 “Why aren’t you scared of me.”

You shrugged, “I don’t know.” You said with a laugh “I’m just…not? Do you want me to be?”

He stared ahead. “That’s your choice.”

Silence lingered over the two of you for a few moments too long.

“I can’t really remember what happened.”

It felt odd to speak to him so casually. 

Your eyes flicked to the stars above you. “You were pretty fond of the sky.” You looked over at him “you asked if I thought you’d go to heaven.”

He grimaced. 

“I thought of you a lot after that.” You said honestly, which gained his attention. 

“I kept looking at the news. Over and over and over.” A small laugh left your lips. “I kept looking for you.”

His mouth went dry. “I’ve been looking for you too.”

It warmed his heart a bit that you had been looking for him all of this time. It made him feel better about the fact that he had been thinking of you nonstop. At least the feeling was mutual.

“I wanted to….” he shifted uncomfortably “I wanted to thank you.”

You smiled sweetly

“I kept having this dream. Over and over.” He frowned. “Everyone kept telling me I was crazy. And that you weren’t real. But I couldn’t get your face out of my head.”

“You dreamt of me?”

He ignored your question

“I felt like something was missing. I couldn’t stop thinking about you.” 

You couldn’t believe how honest he was being.

His eyes met yours intensely which caused you to shudder. 

“I owe you my life.”

Your eyes widened, and you raised your hands in protest, “Hey hey. No, you don’t.”

His stare didn’t falter. 

“I do. I would’ve died in that alley if it weren’t for you.”

You were flattered honestly, but you were no hero. In your heart, you felt it was just the right thing to do. What kind of person would you be if you let a man die in the streets?

“What is your name.” His voice snapped you away from your thoughts, causing your attention to turn back to him. 

“It’s y/n.”

At that moment he remembered fully and everything clicked into place for him. Every memory of that night flooded in as he remembered you calling someone on the phone, frantically trying to save his life. He remembered as you told him your name, and applied pressure to his wound. He remembered Toga coming to your aid. And he pondered how you knew her in the first place. But above all, he imagined The risk it must have took.

He pulled a box from his pocket and held it out to you. It was a blue velvet jewelry box. His eyes flicked up to yours. 

“This doesn’t even begin to repay you. But I feel like it’s a start.” He pushed the box towards you.

In the past week, he had seen you stare at it in the window of a department store. You groaned to your friends about how expensive it was, and how you would kill to get your hands on one for yourself.

Taking the box into your hands you eyed him curiously. “What is it?”

He nodded at the box “open it.”

You followed directions and slowly lifted the lid. Your heart seemed to stop in your chest as you looked down at the necklace. It was a dainty silver chain, with a beautiful teardrop diamond pendant hanging at the bottom of it. You admired the way it shined in the night lights, your mouth agape. No one had ever gotten you anything like this.

“Y-you got me this?”

He nodded, “I happened to see you staring at it.”

You ignored his mentions of stalking.

“I-I…it’s beautiful. But… I can’t take this. It’s too expensive.”

Your eyes flicked up at him as you remembered the price tag “This was at least $1000.”

“Take it.” He said plainly “I need to repay you somehow.”

You asked him to hold the box as you began to put it on, you caught your reflection in one of the shop windows near you.

He admired you silently. You really were just as beautiful as he’d dreamt. 

He gave you the box back and began to say his goodbyes. You stopped him, grabbing onto his wrist as he turned away. He froze and stared back at you, which caused you to let go quickly. 

“Will I ever see you again?” You asked. You also hadn’t been able to get him out of your head. Since Toga had shown up to the alley and taken him away, you wondered what had happened to him. You really hoped that he would make it. 

And here he was. Standing in front of you.

The corners of his lips twitched, almost forming a smile. “You will.” 

Watching as he disappeared your heart panged. 

Days passed and you never saw him, no matter how hard you searched. There wasn’t even anything on the news.

Days later, when you returned to your apartment, you noticed a box at your front door. You brought it inside and inspected it. Inside was a top that you had admired in a store a few days ago. It was obvious that he had been watching you, which made you feel uneasy. Although you felt as if it didn’t creep you out nearly as much as it should’ve.

Your head immediately snapped up and you rushed to your window, peeking outside. He had to be out there somewhere. 

On one hand, you’d realized how creepy this was. The feeling of being watched, and receiving gifts. It was a textbook creepy stalker. On the other hand, you felt as if you had bonded with Dabi, regardless of his unconventional method of ‘repaying’ you. When someone is in their dying moments, they tend to get very personal. Sharing things that they’d never shared with anyone. You didn’t fear him, though. Even though you realized you probably should. 

This carried on for weeks

Random gifts placed delicately outside of your apartment door. A dress here. A necklace there. Always something.

You had a strange feeling about it, and you knew that you should probably be afraid. 

But as time went on you could tell that these gifts weren’t of creepy infatuation, but rather endless gratitude. They weren’t strange ransom notes covered in blood or a doll made from human hair. Instead, they were expensive. Really expensive.  Thoughtfully picked out gifts, colors of each one complimenting the other. Matching earrings for the necklace he’d given you. Shoes that matched the color of the satin dress you’d received earlier that week. 

You felt guilty that he kept leaving you such nice things. You didn’t feel like he owed his life to you. 

But you could tell he did.

You headed out that night, on a mission. You wanted to put an end to this game of never-ending cat and mouse. And for some inexplicable reason, you just really wanted to check up on him. The plan was already set in motion as you headed to the bar that he’d approached you at the first time. You ordered a drink, sat, and waited hoping that he would show up.

———————————————————————————————————

He felt indebted to you in a way that he had never felt for anyone. 

Knowing that this infatuation was probably unhealthy he knew that he should stop. 

But he couldn’t.

He left you present after present, hoping that he could fill the hole of debt he felt for you. But he couldn’t. 

It would never be enough. 

He headed out to the bar, hoping to drink enough to wash away all of his feelings. The trauma of a near-death experience and his fixation with you were two things that weighed at him like nothing else ever had. 

Taking a seat at the bar he quickly ordered a drink, downing it as soon as it was given to him. 

He groaned as he felt someone slip into the barstool next to him. 

“Hi.” Your voice was soft as you greeted him.

He looked at you in disbelief before giving a wry smile. 

“I’ve got quite the stalker, don’t I?” 

His comment caused you to roll your eyes as you settled onto the barstool. 

“I think I could say the same”

He took a sip of his second drink and raised his eyebrows as if to say ‘touché’.

“Where have you been?” your voice came out a little angrier than you had anticipated.

Taking another shot he ignored you, tapping his fingers on the bar steadily. 

“You told me I would see you again and you disappeared.”

You thought back to all of the gifts he’d left for you. And how he knew where you lived, and how he watched you. Your ears began to heat with a mixture of emotions. Anger? Frustration? You couldn’t tell. You couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t just come to see you, rather than leaving ominous packages.

“And what’s with you giving me all of this stuff?” 

“I told you.” He said taking yet another shot. “I need to repay you somehow.”

Truly, he was struggling. And it was very apparent. He couldn’t begin to wrap his head around the fact that material things wouldn’t be enough to dig him out of this hole. To get rid of this feeling. To wash away his debt.

He knew that drinking probably wouldn’t help either.

“You’ve already repaid me.” Your voice was soft as you broke the silence.

“And not with all of the gifts.” You lowered your voice. “You repaid me by pulling through. By living.”

He turned to you. His eyes narrowed in confusion. 

“I don’t know why. But I feel close to you. Like I understand you.” You trailed off, as you fondled the necklace that rested on your collar bone, instantly feeling guilty. “But please…. stop giving me gifts.”

He didn’t know what to say. He pondered saying thank you again, but he was sure that’s not what you wanted to hear.

“Okay.” He spoke plainly, staring ahead

Both of you stayed quiet 

His hands gripped the glass cup before he spoke low enough for only you to hear. “That night. Was my darkest moment ever.” He took a breath. “It haunts me.”

Your heart skipped a beat as you watched his eyes and the despair that floated inside of them.

You didn’t initially peg him as someone that even had a weakness or would be afraid of anything. But it dawned on you just how deeply a near-death experience could affect someone and the way that they live their life. 

You realized just how traumatic it was for him.

He continued to speak, not daring to look at you. “And out of that darkness, and trauma… the worst experience of my life….” He looked up, and into your eyes. “Came you.”

You felt an emotion that you couldn’t quite explain crawl into your chest.

“I don’t know what fuckin endorphins you triggered in my head but I cannot stop thinking about you.”

Watching as he fumbled over his words you bit your lip nervously. You had never had someone express such deep emotions for you. 

“Every time I see you. It’s. I don’t know.” 

You watched him carefully, in awe. While you weren’t sure you felt as intensely, you certainly felt the same way. Then again, you weren’t the one that almost died. 

His alluring mystery definitely added to the fact you couldn’t stop thinking about him. The fact that no one really seemed to know much about him, including the internet. You knew because you’d spent hours showering the net for the slightest bit of information on him, but of course, not much turned up. 

“I think about you all the time too, you know.” You tapped your fingers on the bar. “You worry me to death.” You cringed at your choice of words, but it didn’t seem to sway Dabi. 

“I watch the news all the time. Just looking for a hint of flames anywhere.” You whispered to him, careful that no one overheard you. “I don’t know. Seeing you like that, it just made me afraid it would happen again. That I might find you like that again. It was really scary.”

He looked over at you. 

”And I know we barely know each other but I think it’s pretty clear that we’re bonded already.”

You stopped your rambling and studied his face. You could tell he was tired. He probably wasn’t getting much sleep these days. 

“Can we just. I don’t know. Stick together?” You blurted, placing your palms onto the cold countertop.

He lifted his eyebrows at the suggestion. 

“Well, clearly you follow me around. And I’m pulling my hair out daily, trying to find you, hoping that you’re still okay.”

He continued to stare.

Realizing that you were rambling, you wondered if he’d ever speak up.

Your words were teetering on the line of desperate. Not really knowing if you could convince him. “So can we at least just stay in contact. Please? No more sneaking around, or gifts.” 

Again, he said nothing. 

“I just want to know you, and to know that you’re okay.” You shifted uncomfortably and began to worry that this was all a mistake in the first place. 

He didn’t speak for a while longer, processing everything that you’d said. He couldn’t help but agree with you. He wanted to stay close. He wanted to keep you in his sight. 

“If you want to give me anything, this is what I want.” You spoke cautiously, hoping that he would finally speak.

He blinked before reaching out for your hand and giving it a light squeeze. 

“Okay,” he replied with a small smile, staring into your eyes. “God, you sure do talk a lot.”

You squeezed back and laughed a bit.

“You have to swear.” You spoke seriously making sure that you didn’t waver

He’d never say it out loud, but there was truly nothing in the world that he wanted more than to stay close to you.

“I swear.” he squeezed your hand again before staring into your eyes seriously. “You have my word.” 

[sugar-splenda]

Green origins (Theory for Ssts)

Okay So analyzing the behavior of the greens and my own interpretation of how the universe works, there's likely two scenarios the green civilization (cuz they are, sadly a civilization.) developed and shaped their stupid ass beliefs.

We'll completely ignore the yellow bio-hazardous alien from Bad Astronaut because they weren't well written and I don't care about them outside confirming the greens were indeed decimated and are desperate to survive. 

The greens were first, obviously. Otherwise we'll never have discovered their tech and would probably 1) exterminate them without mercy since they had the possibility of becoming a threat for us. (likely)  2)Be groomed into some form of slave civilization or a weapon Idk I’m against imperialism (depending on development level). Maybe a little 3) trying to understand each other.  Anyway the point is this ain’t their first road in space, they have electromagnetic pulses and time-space breaking machines.

I believe the greens have multiple hives, just like ants or bees have, and the most developed one started assimilating the other competitors of their species, as evidentiated by that line of Regina kidnapping Wynn. I’m 85% sure she got back into the hive there, probably by force, in that ending. Another scenario is obliterating the competition, because in ant hives, super colonies sometimes end up splitting into two or more colonies that turn on the original one. And Queen bees absolutely hate insubordination, and would kill their royal kids if they don’t get out of the hive fast enough. 

The greens have this… obsession, with putting things that don’t belong together in the same vessel. I feel like where they came from, they used other species as biomass to build vessels. Since they probably hijacked the evolution process of the other species, they accidentally stole the self awareness from the non green species in the planet, and since they work like the fungal international internet network, everyone became self aware at the same gradual (or suddenly fast) pace. 

This was huge because they realized other species had specialized features for tasks they couldn’t complete due to lack of limbs. So they could take over a creature that had the limbs or abilities they needed for I don’t know, survival? Hive building? Hive stuff. Over time they learned how to construct their own vessels by taking the limbs they needed from the creatures around them instead of taking over a new creature each time they wanted to do a new task. 

You could argue that the greens could just assign different types of workers for the job they want to do, but that defeats the purpose of them being uniformly green blobs. Also, I believe it would be more efficient to have all the tools you need with each worker so, let say, you don’t have to wait for the soldiers to arrive to defend a section of the nest-base. There would still be a lot of room for customization since they can detach the limbs by ripping them off the vessel and putting another one that would be better for the job. 

I think of this concept as how humans learned to use the resources of their environment as they continued to evolve. The greens just didn’t have hands and were already parasitic, so it would make sense to use biomass instead of developing limbs capable of manipulating inorganic objects. Remember nature is very lazy and likes to do efficiency so it doesn’t waste energy, so it will take the easiest route to solving problems.

After this the next step for civilization as we know it is to gain energy sources outside the biological adaptations, aka fire and tools. I don’t want to bore myself with the greens discovering how to build societies, so I’ll rush over this part because it’s not really important but all queens should have this present since they’re the ones that store the collective memory of the hive and go around calling the shots so. Greens develop societies divided between the royals and the worker greens.

The royals are the queens. They call the shots, they organize the rest of the colony and act as an information source for the hive. At this point of their species development, there’s usually one queen per hive, but there’s some extraordinary big hives that have five or more queens working together. The workers are the muscle of the hive, mindless drones with a lot of affection/affinity to their queen and basically extensions of her will. They don’t share the same consciousness, though, they’re individuals connected by the internet network and directed by the queen.

They have probably made the species they need for biomass/consumption their cattle and have a dedicated room/space in the hive for them where they’re raised from birth and taken away when they reach adulthood for harvesting. They don’t mind, they’re living their best lives. Inside the hive they’re safe, have proper nutrition and enrichment for improved development AND get to reproduce. Truly the best experience until the greens take you away for parts….. Just like we do with cows! Wow, we really are food for the greens, aren’t we. Anyway. 

Now that they have specialized their vessels for the manipulation of tools, they can actually harvest the inorganic resources without wasting unnecessary energy on, you know, using their tendrils to take a shiny rock back to their nest. But yeah, they probably took a bit longer than humans to reach the copper/iron era of tools. I honestly don’t think they would develop weapons at first, as they can just hypnotize/ assimilate the threat with few exceptions (because this is their native planet, SOMEONE had to prey on them). And even then, the vessels are specialized to deal with threats they couldn’t face when they’re alone.

So no, they probably didn’t make swords. Not even to kill each other, again thanks to the vessel's versatility. Upsetting, I know.

Anyway, they probably fought with other hives for resources, just like we humans stupidly do, until someone realized they could just make a mega colony and take over the planet. So that’s exactly what they did, probably through force, but I like to think they just stopped fighting and joined forces. Again, because it’s the easiest thing to do and conserves the energy of subduing the other hive. And because I like to think the greens are not violent by nature, but depending on the circumstances. 

As I was saying, the greens would have formed a mega hive that became the dominant species in their planet, shaping it at their will and terraforming the place. I don’t want to say they made the same mistake as us humans are doing of destroying our biosphere and draining all possible resources. So they probably ran out of space to expand and began branching to their satellites and neighbor planets.

Now, THIS is the stage where everything starts going wrong because of one thing: Queens share the same consciousness… until they don’t. Queens are born whenever the hive is ready to expand, and at first they are individuals from the Royal mind hive, but when their development is complete they are assimilated into the Royal network and they lose their original consciousness is assimilated into the main one, effectively destroying the individual as they were before and making the blob just another extension of the Royal megamind.

The problem is when the queens don’t assimilate correctly and still retain their consciousness aside from the megamind. I believe while every social being wants to be integrated into a society for some reason, the separation of super ant colonies happens in nature for a reason, and since i’m using the ants as my primal model of the hierarchy of the greens, this is what will cause the eventual collapse of the green civilization. 

The rouge queens join forces and fragment the megamind, weakening it and causing chaos. The reason why they separated is still not understood, but I suspect it had to do with the use of singular queens as colonizers while the megamind constructed the Tipler Cylinder. The colonizer queens encountering different lifeforms that weren’t native to their planet might have caused the rupture of the weak link to the megamind. 

 I don’t think they wanted to use the Tipler Cylinder as a time machine. I’m dead set that time travel is not a thing in this universe, so they wanted it for intergalactic travel. (And yes, they probably had a Dyson sphere powering the Tipler Cylinder, this would have catastrophic consequences later.)

So, while an internal revolution was happening in the Royal hive, the construction of the Tipler Cylinder was complete. They made initial tests and concluded the machine was too unestable to allow a complete activation at the moment. And honestly, they were glad because they had to contain the rebellious queens that wanted to gain control over the whole species. But them being individuals meant that they were vulnerable to the big hivemind and honestly they were being obliterated. 

So one of the rebellious hive, not knowing the Tipler Cylinder was not safe for activation, realized their best course of action would be to escape to another galaxy and start over there. This was Busy’s Hive. She was the colonizer that was the nearest to the Tipler Cylinder and in charge of preparing the ship for the escape, while the others would get into the research facility of the project. The plan was to use the queens to activate the machine, while Busy positioned the ship so they could quickly escape once the portal was opened. One of the queen vessels would stay behind and close the portal so the megamind couldn’t follow. 

Nothing went according to plan, they were discovered and Busy had no time to finish the preparations fully and had to get in position with a very short notice. Then the Tipler Cylinder malfunctioned and the Dyson Sphere star exploded when the ship was half way through.  They made it through, with the ship barely standing. The side of the cylinder they exited through imploded into itself, making the rotating black hole Taylor ends up sucked inside, and the trajectory made them crash into the moon, since the black hole seems very close to Tau Ceti. 

So now, definitively alone (only remaining queen from the rebellious hive that she knows of + different universes make communication break if you make the queen go through enough stress.) in an unknown environment with half the equipment functioning, Regina sets the events of Lifeline by almost destroying her fucking entire civilization. But don’t tell that to the drones, they don’t need to know their queen fucked up big time. 

Now, I’m going to pull something from my ass and say Regina is actually two royals instead of one during the lifeline series. Well, not really from my ass, there’s evidence supporting this claim. First of all, the Tunguska event is definitively Regina arriving on the planet, no doubt, how else did she get there before Taylor brought her home? 

[NO, TIME TRAVEL DOESN’T EXIST, BAD ASTRONAUT CONFIRMED THEY WERE TRAVELLInG THROUGH UNIVERSES. Don’t say Arika did a time travel loop i’m sure the time monks also have some type of mind transferring technology similar to something we explore in the SSTS RP with Neu and the concept of consciousness being detached from the “vessel”, meaning it is not part of the body but rater stored in it. FUCK YOU THE LOrE OF THIS GAME SERIES IS WEIRD AND I AM PATCHING PLOT HOLES. I NEED TO OVeR THINK AND TIME TRAVEL MESSES EVERYTHING UP]

This would explain how Regina infected Choir but was still back home. And why she just let T2 do their thing with Taylor while she was probably dealing with angry witches, PWG and the lifeline being a little shit. Now that I think about it, the greens don’t know about the lifeline until crisisline. Regina never talks /to you/. Just to the characters, which I understand because you only have two options and can’t write a long fucking rant on how her plan is fundamentally flawed, why continuing to infect T2ylor will just make you angrier and that you will definitively make force gasoline down her throat and set her on fire while you stepping on her flaming corpse. 

But my point is, Regina doesn’t consider /you/, the player as the reason why things aren’t going her way. Which honestly, ma’am, open your eyes. The player will fucking kill you if you keep pretending they don’t exist. Ignoring your problems won’t make them go away, It just makes them want to strangle the living shit out of you and then leave you alone in a dark room with an increasingly high frequency sound for months without substance or contact with other beings so you fucking finally beg your problems to end your miserable life. 

But anyway. Point is, while vessel 1 is trying to to figure out how to survive in the moon, vessel 2 is trying to survive in earth without being spotted because she’s even more fucked than vessel 1 who at least have the drones with her and some equipment + cattle that will die out before the humans arrive because she can’t terraform the planet and honestly, the only way for them to save her race is to get them to earth where the planet doesn’t need to be terraformed. 

Things happen simultaneously; vessel 1 assess the situation and tries to establish a base on the moon while vessel 2 explores the world and takes over small animals before trying to tackle the humans who are the first sentient species she encounters an honestly that’s terrifying imagine finding a 9 feet tall alien that could possibly crush you if they really wanted to. You don’t even know if they can be affected by your abilities and you’re alone so can’t use drones to experiment.

 Also detection would probably mean death and you don’t even know where this planet is what if it is close to the place you landed and they come around and also kill your remaining hive. So yeah she uses at least a year before making a move on the humans because she needs to have enough time to produce drones. 

I don’t know the timeline exactly, but at some point vessel 1 runs out of cattle + vessels so that’s what motivates vessel 2 to make a move on humans and realizes a lot of stuff about us and just how ALIEN we are to her so she needs to take her time studying us and our lifestyle. I believe she might be overwhelmed with the confirmation that these are sentient creatures and doesn’t know exactly how to proceed since they’re the dominant species of the planet but doing more research she realizes at the rhythm humanity is going they’ll fuck up the only habitable planet at her reach for now so yeah we go from Predator to Prey and, if she wins, to Cattle.

So yeah, she probably orchestrated the ships going to Tau Ceti, maybe she even had a hand on humans developing space travel so soon. It had to seem natural, so vessel 1 and the rest of the hive worked on the peak with the remains of her original ship so they could pull the space ships towards the moon and feed on the survivors, but after they ran out of resources, the greens entered some sort of hibernation state where they conserved energy while waiting for the ships to arrive. 

I think no one knew about the thousands of ships that were sent because Regina was doing an elaborate cover up (ex. they exploded, never reached their destination, went MIA and presumed dead, etc.) to keep this from reaching the masses because by now she knows how humans work and her kind is starving. 

So yeah, the best way to influence the world is by having money so Regina began investing and doing finances so the government had to hear Pearson Corp (she is not very imaginative, leave her be.) and the Green Coalition would control the economy in several countries but she hasn’t fully infected the usa because she was more interested in the monster that’s the Chinese government and the Russians, they’re just bigger and while a bigger challenge, this will definitely give a better advantage if she is capable of infecting the organizations in charge. 

While I know the greens keep saying “UNTIL EVERYTHING IS GREEN” that’s not really true, this is just green propaganda from Regina. She knows she can’t get everyone green because they need the cattle and these vessels don’t reproduce asexually and having sex requires energy you could be redirecting to other things so she will leave the monkeys to mate alone and then she will take them for parts later. Just like in her home planet, but a bit more complex since this cattle is intelligent and doesn’t like to be told what to do. 

So yeah, Regina hasn’t taken full control over the governments of the countries she is trying to take over because 1) PWG, 2) Mages 3) Monkey smart, monkey scary.

There’s a thing I haven’t touched and that’s the magic potential in human beings. Magic is a force of nature just like electricity in this universe, so shut up. Everything is science alright? I like science, it’s easier to take things that already exist than to attempt to make a new system with many inconsistencies on how it works with no other purpose than to make things cool and glue plot holes with “MAGIC”. No easy explanation. We die like men.

Regina suspects the monkeys with high magic affinity were somehow exposed to another entity her species had already encountered but never managed to bend their will to their whims. She doesn’t know how it happened, but she knows the monkeys are too good at the magic to just straight up attack them. They’re not fully human, but I am not sure of what’s the thing that makes them have that affinity with magic when most creatures don’t have it. The greens for sure can’t magic without a vessel that is able to use it. 

But anyway, since Regina somehow managed to infiltrate into the magic communities (headcanon New Tenacity wasn’t the first but hopefully the last to fall in Regina’s hands), she began experimenting with the usages and exploitable nature of magic. Warp and Weft was her primary concern, as she needed it for transporting her hive to Earth. Once she got it, she encountered two problems: One, it kills non mages almost instantly if they attempt to use it. Two, it doesn’t work with large quantities of entities. 

So no only she couldn’t use it to take the hive to Earth. She would have to send mages to the moon if she wanted to be able to get them out with a relatively good chance of success by casting a massive spell to get the greens out of the moon.

Now, this was not only very time consuming, but stupidly difficult to pull out since mages like being reclusive. 

So she started looking for ways to track mages and send them to the moon, somehow. She eventually dipt in family ancestry and probably found suitable candidates that weren’t as dangerous as trained mages. Think of them as persons with an incredible magical potential, but they’re not even aware of their power. Like that creepy little girl Arika talked about (my personal theory is that the hand used her as host for this reason). 

I think this eventually got Regina to pick Taylor as one of the candidates. Of course, the contest was rigged in order to make the student the winner. I firmly believe their fate was planned since the beginning, but neither Regina or Taylor could have potentially anticipated the impact the lifeline would have in the green’s plans.

So Regina sent Taylor as the first of many to be mages to come. They would be the first experiment in the matter, if potent magical non users could even be exploited in the way Regina required. Of course, her plan was fooled by Taylor being more adept than she thought they would be. 

So she focused on the exploration of dark Magic, trying to tear the quintessence(or however its written) in order to achieve more power for her plans. She was unsuccessful, at first. But eventually managed to make a little slave, a golden bird-like creature of solid gold. It was not powerful enough to teleport the whole hive, but small groups of entities could be warped to wherever she desired. This would be helpful, but now she had a loan to pay. 

Ripping the fabric of space and Time itself is bad, very bad. Like apocalyptically bad. And Regina wouldn’t realize her mistake until she was confronted with the lifeline and Alex.

Wynn was an eye opening for Regina, as she realized the potential her mutated freak had. This is why she wanted her back so badly, she needed to reverse engineer that drone’s mutation and use it to make the greens more sneakier, less apparently dead to humans and more livid. The green kept her consciousness and personality. This was unheard of before, this was a breakthrough possibly caused by the exposure to the human species.

Regina probably thought at first she was dealing with a rogue queen, considering her own experience. But I’m sure she realized that was not the case when she produced the next green with that capability. I call these kind of greens “elites” as they’re more capable of blending in than the drones and they get to keep the host’s personality as their own. Regina was very pleased with this development, but it took a while to get vessel 1 to produce the elites.

When Taylor finally was hers, they were infected with the first set of elites from vessel 1. Regina realized she could use the failed Tipler Cylinder to continuously go to other universes and infect more Taylors for her mage project. So she kept the “loop” going until there were enough of them so they were expendable and not really a problem if the experiments went wrong.

Until the lifeline came and crashed the party, again.

At this point Busy and Canon Regina diverge, because while canon Regina disregards the danger that the lifeline is to her plans, Busy takes the threat seriously and immediately moves resources to find this individual that keeps messing with her plans, without much progress, as the lifeline doesn’t exist in the current cluster of universes she inhibits, successfully staying anonymous to the greens.

In the SstS rp, there’s an alternative universe called Murdeline, while Busy makes her first appearance. There are two queen hives in SstS; Peka’s Hive and Busy’s hive (this includes the owos who are another layer that I won’t touch here because believe me, even though their abilities are ridiculously powerful, they’re…. too adorable.). Peka’s Regina is… frustrating to talk to, and honestly does a good job on making her a mysterious threat and still conveys the “I’m improvising and pretending everything is under control” that I keep reading from Regina. 

Peka’s Queen keeps leaving the heavy work for the elites, while she goes to do god knows what (not even Holly knows), trapped in 2016 forever thanks to *vague plot reasons* that i still don’t understand and would rather stayed that way as vessel 2 was on Austin and at this current point on the RP T2ylor is would be in close proximity with one of the vessels. And that’s No Good.

Busy is… very direct. And if something doesn’t go right she’ll risk one of her vessels to make it go the way she wants it to go. Because she played the elite route and was disappointed with T2 performance so she closed the loop and focused on getting more Mage covens under green control to make herself the best magical fleshsuit she could get through eugenics. And she managed to pay her debt through….. other means.

Anyway, that’s enough for scenario one, this document is already 9 pages long.

TLDR; Regina has no idea of what she’s doing because she’s the sole survivor of her kind after civil war. She’s improvising and keeps fucking up but pretends everything is going according to plan otherwise the greens might actually murder her in cold blood because if a queen is not doing her job, another shall replace her.

@pekasairroc Have fun.

[anika-ann]

Think Again (When You Stop Freaking Out) - Pt.1

Good Morning... Me?

Pairing: None                   Word count: 1586

Warnings: language,  hella lot confusion, vomiting, blindness, sensory overload, ... irony and sass? ;)

Summary: Matt doesn’t feel like Matt. Steve doesn’t feel like Steve. How did that happen?

Story Masterlist

━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━

Matt Murdock woke up with a startle and found out he was blind.

Now that wasn’t a strange occurrence. Unfortunately, Matt had been waking up unable to see for the past two decades, ever since he had been in an accident involving messed up chemicals and an act of spontaneous heroism on his side. In return, he had gained extremely enhanced senses and with time, he had learned to use them to see.

Which was exactly what was wrong at the moment.

Matt woke up… feeling blind.

The room he was in was strangely silent, no intrusive smells attacking his nostrils, no distinctive taste on his tongue, no extremely smooth sensation on his skin– gripping the sheets, he was very sure these weren’t his silk ones, this was not how silk felt and yet, the sheets weren’t scratching his skin so hard it would make him cry. Matt would think they were simple cotton, but this was not how it supposed to feel.

And he fucking couldn’t map the room as he couldn’t pinpoint his radar sense; his world of fire lacked fire.

He snapped his eyes open, his breathing raged, sitting up with a jolt.

He was not ready for the picture in front of him.

After all, this kind of picture only existed in his memories. This kind of picture had colours. Sharp edges, painfully so, as if every freaking atom had its place. Then again, Matt wouldn’t be a good judge of the state of his eye-sight, he couldn’t tell if it was 20/20, because he couldn’t remember what it felt like.

What could tell and was hundred percent sure of, was that… yeah, he could definitely see.

It freaked the shit out of him.

Feeling the bile rising to his mouth, his body jumped up on instinct, taking a bee line to the bathroom. It was only after he emptied his stomach that he realized that he had no clue which bathroom it was and how he had known where to go.

━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━

Several blocks over, a man jolted awake, snapping his eyes open, only to be met with darkness.

He gasped, blinking, but there was nothing. His heart started hammering in his chest, a strange sensation vibrating through his ribcage, warmth spreading into his body with each thumb-thumb. A fraction of second later, the noise of the city assaulted his ears and hit him like a train – a train passing him by inches. He jumped back, hitting the wall behind him, quickly rolling over, falling off bed and shooting to his feet, his arms raised and fists curled up.

The noise didn’t fade out, making him raise his hands to his ears.

There was a weak taste of mint toothpaste in his mouth, barely covering other strange tastes he couldn’t quite place. His nose was itching with at least twenty different smells, mingling together and overwhelming his brain, easily causing him a headache. Not to mention his whole body was aching and he felt like every freaking cell of his body was alerting him on pain.

He thought the sweatpants he wore felt soft, yet there was an itch against his skin, as if they were made of the roughest fabric he ever felt. His balance was complete shit – the room around him pounded, the floor shaking with what he was sure was a subway train riding right under his feet and on top of all that, he was still in darkness, a strange darkness that felt somehow vibrant, flashes calling out for him.

What the hell was happening?

Calm down, soldier. You know better than to freak out. Deep breaths- oh god, so many smells, breathing in deeply was so not a good idea-- focus. Think of it as of a recon mission. In a very loud environment that resembles a battlefield, but those you know too.

Yeah, but going in this blind is a bit unusual.

Three quick knocks – and he would swear he felt them echoing in his bones, his ears pretty much bleeding with that sound – snapped his mind from racing.

“Matthew, I swear to God, if you don’t open the door, I’ll—… use my own key,” somewhat familiar voice threatened, apparently changing his mind in mid-sentence and offering a less violent solution.

It didn’t matter. Because he was in some serious trouble. The voice was too loud, joined by cacophony of tens others whispering or yelling in his head, everything felt wrong, his head hurt and apparently, he was in some Matt’s home.

He couldn’t remember drinking last night, but he made himself a promise. Steve Rogers swore that he would not get within a ten feet distance to Thor’s Asgardian liquor ever again.

━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━

Exiting the bathroom after a very long shower – and about an hour spend on the floor, trying to wrap his mind around the fact that the tiles didn’t feel as hard as they should against his knees, his body feeling overall wrong, definitely not his, and oh yeah, he could fucking see –, brushing his teeth for at least three times (why did the toothpaste taste so faintly again…?), and examining himself in the mirror – blond? He was blond now? – he went to examine the space he had woken up in.

The apartment was rather plain, but definitely belonged to a well-situated person, only if judging by the fact Matt found himself in at least thirtieth floor. During his freak-out, he had come to a bit unorthodox and, let’s be honest, totally insane conclusion, that he had been in a body of someone else. A steroid-freak, by the way, because what the hell, Matt was sure this amount of muscle tissue could not be natural, what was the guy doing apart from drugs? So yeah, that was a thing.

The thing was, there wasn’t much else to go on. He discovered an impressive closet, ranging from work-out clothes (wow, so many work-out outfits), comfortable homey sweats and t-shirts  and hoodies (Matt’s clothing of choice for now), to shirts and suits (not too many, which was strange, because again, rich guy, clearly).

In the nightstand, there were two sketchbooks (one extremely well worn) and Matt was no expert, but the drawings in it – mostly pretty random – were quite good. Huh. Rich. Freaky-ripped. Most likely on steroids. Handsome though. Artistic. Matt was surprised he didn’t find a woman’s (or man’s, whatever) underwear lying around at least, because this guy could to be a playboy for sure.

This guy. In whose body Matt was now, waking up, just like that.

He ran his hand down his face.

“Good morning to me,” he murmured, not even startled by the stranger’s voice which was – naturally – not his own.

“Good morning, Captain Rogers,” a female voice with thick Irish accent sounded above him and Matt jumped back, immediately raising his fists to protect himself (not himself) from the intruder (who might actually live here, unlike him). He saw no one.

Saw no one. Hilarious, Murdock.

He squinted, looking around, which was something he was not used to goddammit, he was supposed to sense the person coming, but while he guessed his hearing was alright for an average person, he was definitely not fine.

“May I be of any assistance?” the woman asked and Matt tilted his head in attempt to locate her better, which was perfectly useless.

What, was she invisible? Because that would be so fucking ironic he might even laugh. Able to see after two decades and the first person I meet is invisible. Congratulation, Universe, you managed to fuck it up again.

“N-no,” Matt tried out, hoping the weird… thing? Person? Would disappear and leave him alone to his inspection.

“Apologies, Sir. You seemed confused.” You have no idea. “And you were sick. Shall I inform anyone about your-“

“No, thank you. I’ll do it myself,” he blurted out, not even caring it probably didn’t sound very convincing.

“Understand, Sir.”

Matt slightly shook his head, easing his fighting stance and allowing himself to breathe in. He didn’t even know how he would fight. The self-awareness of his body, his ability to control the incredible mass was way too low, but hell, he would not have had a choice. And who knew, he might be able to pull out few moves, this body clearly remember something..

Because apparently, he was a captain. Captain Rogers. He thanked God he had a name now, at least. Now, if he would meet someone, he would at least know to turn around if someone addressed him.

It actually made sense, this guy being military. Retired maybe? Then again, he seemed fast and agile, which he would expect from an active soldier, but he wasn’t exactly an expert.

He wondered for a brief moment if he should call Foggy, but he quickly dismissed the idea. Firstly, he only found a locked phone, which sucked, secondly, he still had no idea where he was, thirdly, he didn’t want to put his friend in danger, and finally, he was aware that if someone called Foggy, claiming he was his best friend and business partner, but had woken up in the wrong body, Foggy would probably hang up anyway.

With a deep breath, he walked through the room, gathering courage to exit the relatively safe space. Gripping the handle – which cried under his determined hold, the material curving, what the hell, steroids, seriously - he opened the door, feeling like Alice going down the rabbit hole.

“Alright, Captain Rogers. Let’s do some recon.”

━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━ 

Part 2

━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━

Tags: @mermaidxatxheart​ 

If anyone wishes to be tagged as well (to this story, to my fics in general) by any chance, just lemme know.

[glassworkspiderlilies]

a song of the sea (additional notes)

a mess of notes/comments/ideas/expansion on my day 3 fic for giyushinoweek, a song of the sea. :)

- the original idea was to base shinobu off of a stonefish, due to those being one of the most venomous fish in the world, and also their use of spines and stings to administer that venom. They’re not the prettiest fish--maybe a lionfish or something would be more appropriate (lionfish being my second choice) but the lethal spines of the stonefish appealed to me more as shinobu’s weapon, due to her sword/fighting style in canon. i also didn’t do that much research, so if i were to expand the fic i’d probably look into it at least a little more haha.

-giyu is what others in the fic call “sea-touched”; the abilities of those called at such kind of vary, but essentially they all have superior water-related abilities of some kind. giyu has especially good navigation skills and is very good at predicting currents and whatnot. he lives alone by the sea and makes his living as a fisherman and being hired onto bigger ships for his abilities. 

-sabito and makomo are alive, but live far away for some reason. urokodaki taught giyu, but is also no longer around (physically, he’s not dead) for some reason too. hadn’t thought this part out that much, even though i’m like, convinced they’re alive here haha. another vein might be that sabito and makomo are also merpeople, hence why giyu lives alone. 

-in the same vein of canon, kanao doesn’t speak very much due to trauma, and so she doesn’t use her natural abilities that much. 

-the natural abilities of the mermaids/sirens refer to their voice; despite physical combat (which shinobu and kanao are very skilled at) in relation to what kind of mermaid they are, their voices are extremely powerful and can distort the sea and the weather. their voices can lure, and also kill, if the intent is there. this would need more exploration of mechanics and probably something to temper the OP-ness of it. i was also playing with the idea of consequences of using the voice for deeds like what shinobu did--severe interference and destruction. didn’t really have time to fully delve into that possibility.

-oyakata-sama lives in a large house/mansion extremely close to the sea, like he has a private dock kind of thing. he helps when shinobu/mermaids in general come onto land, his family has been sea-touched and particular friends of the sea for generations, and they’ve always assisted in these supernatural affairs. he and his family are also why shinobu is able to integrate fairly easily, to an extent, into human society. he and his family teach her a bunch of things. they’re like....what’s the word....bridgekeepers between the two worlds?? that’s not the word, but you get it.

-kanae is dead in this au, killed by humans. i guess there’s a lowkey parallel of humans in this fic vs the demons in canon. buuuut since shinobu offers giyu her protection, i was thinking the reason why the sister don’t hate humans entirely is because kanae had been friends or in love with a human, but was found out by other humans who had more malicious intentions for her. another vein, in a much more expanded setting, would be that shinobu does hate humans and does hate giyu at first and is far more grudging about offering her protection, but he did save kanao, and so it’s much more of a slow burn.

-if i were to be completely self indulgent, i think it’d be neat if like, shinobu/the sisters were mermaid princesses haha. this also might be why there aren’t really consequences to her using her abilities??

-regardless, the sisters would be the last of their clan/school/type, and they are of the more powerful, if not most powerful, mermaids/sea creatures. 

-if you’ve read xxxholic by CLAMP, ideally the protection that shinobu offers would play out like the smaller, episodic stories there, where people come to get their wish granted but it ends up being granted in like...not a way they expect. this would be why shinobu says that giyu may come to regret protection from one such as her; being a mermaid, and a particularly powerful one, she doesn’t have the same values (those i suppose she’d be aware of them, via interaction with oyakata-sama) and perhaps, a certain lack of control over the way protection is granted. like, “magic does not follow the same constraints” kind of thing. although i did really one at least one really dramatic scene where people come to bully/attack/kill giyu because of the wealth he’s accumulating, and shinobu appears and like. rips them apart and it’s really dramatic and kind of gory lmao. the deep sea isn’t a kind place, and shinobu is.....protective. 

-also ideally is that this fic would kind of play out like a grimm fairy tale style wise? i kind of didn’t want to run with the threads of like...giyu and shinobu falling in love and one becoming entirely human or mer, or “the little mermaid” esque story where shinobu has to give up her voice to be on land, or the one where she’s captured and kept in a tank and interacted with that way before she’s freed somehow, etc. (all of these are good, i just didn’t want to write them LOL) i guess i wanted more of a coexistence kind of thing? i want there to be a cool exciting dramatic plot, but like, i don’t actually have one. i guess this would end up being like, my usual giyushino bonding exploration except mermaid AU LMAOOOOO

-shinobu appears and goes into town with giyu sometimes. she’s not exactly fascinated by human culture, but she finds it interesting enough. maybe she also begins to sell remedies and stuff, in accordance with her canon doctor position. sea secrets. people probably assume that this mysterious girl has also become giyu’s mysterious wife. (they’re kind of baffled and sort of like, talk around it, so giyu is oblivious to the assumption until much much later. shinobu catches on faster than he does.)

-i think mermaid aus are another thing, like soulmate aus, that i love reading but like, don’t actually want to write myself LMFAO

-wow a lot of this is shinobu focused. again. i just love her ;__;

-that’s all i got for now if for some reason you want to hear more of this.......send me an ask i guess LMAO for something i came up with really quickly to work with the prompt there were a lot of things i considered and wanted as backstory........but i really doubt that i’m going to write this au out in full.......it’s too long in my head for the way i want it to build up and i just..........don’t have the willpower for that................

[mallorytaylorblog]

8th January, 2020! My first post of the year.

Wow okay, so about a month since my last blog post. Time flies when you’re having fun I guess.

I’m just gunna go ahead and get a bit word vomitty.

So. I’m going drug and alcohol free. Most likely for good. And I want to share why.

In October last year after about a 12 month break from booze - and I say break lightly because I was a rare drinker to begin with - I started drinking a little red wine with dinner for the health benefits. I mean I do love me some good anti-oxidants. However I’ve realised alcohol is just not for me and I don’t care enough for it to participate. I had my partying fun during my teens and early 20′s but never fully subscribed to the Aussie binge drinking culture. I digress...

The main reasons I decided to give up alcohol include (in no particular order): a) it’s expensive b) it doesn’t taste very nice unless it’s in something sugary c) I hate how I feel when I’m drunk (I don’t like not having control over my body) d) it provides little to no physical health benefits, and e) it used to provide me with confidence and a feeling of belonging that I just don’t need any more.

Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant. It impairs motor and cognitive function. Given its knack for being a social lubricant I had my fun with it as a young adult like most people do, but now it’s not necessary. There’s not much to it than that, really. It’s expensive, doesn’t taste great, hangovers are shit, and I’ve developed a sense of self that doesn’t require boosting with liquid courage. Also, if I’m trying to be my best and healthiest and happiest version of my self there’s just not a whole lot of room in my diet for alcohol. So, cya!

As for the drugs part of it too... that has been a work in progress. In the past two years I totally became a bit of a stoner. I wasn’t shy about it to those close to me and it was definitely something fun to socialise over/with, but the longer I indulged the more of a shameful dirty secret it became and the harder it was to just let it go. I noticed when I consumed weed regularly I became lethargic, short with my moods and snappy, and stopped caring about or chasing the things I usually loved, like gym or catching up with friends. It made me anxious at times, especially in social situations so I found I occasionally needed to smoke to relax so I could be in public.

It was a fun thing my boyfriend and I did together when we started dating, and honestly it probably made us super close, super fast - we spoke openly about so many things when we started dating and we got to know some deep parts of our personalities and histories. Also, it was just fucking fun. Watching movies and eating food and having sex and giggling your ass off is all enhanced and made better when you’re high. But the novelty wore off after a while, and the munchies became binge sessions that gave me worries my previously disordered eating patterns would be ignited again. It also didn’t feel amazing waking up super tired even though I’d just slept for 10 hours because I ate a whole pizza and some poutine 20 minutes before I promptly fell asleep on the couch. For someone as productive and ambitious and health conscious as myself it became more of a hindrance than something fun to do with my boyfriend or mates. I appreciated the social lubricant affect it had (in different ways to alcohol) but ripping daily bongs isn't conducive to the monumental life I want to live and I’ve honestly been trying to kick the habit for a few months. I also had my first ever panic attack while high on edibles. So I’m saying goodbye to weed as well.

Other drugs, well.. I was never really a fan. I’ve always said I’ll try anything twice, but after trying mushrooms and LSD for the first time in 2019 once is most definitely enough for me.

I’m also reconsidering my uni degree. Doing a psychology degree is so full on and time consuming, and although I love the subject matter I’m really struggling to maintain a quality of life with the study hours I need to commit to, especially on top of working full time, gym and my relationships. Even though I’ve tried to discourage myself from “quitting” uni because the time will pass anyway, it’s honestly super daunting to know I’ll be studying for a minimum of six years and have another minimum two years of supervised practice before I can become a registered psychologist. I’m considering looking into youth counselling and what options I have there as I’d love to work with young adults. I really just want to help people take control of their psyche and when I think of my future career I see myself talking on stage to hundreds if not thousands of people. I’m trying to get over the stigma I have surrounding using the terms “coach” or “motivational speaker” but I do believe my career choice will include me mentoring or coaching others in the area of personal development. I know this is in my path because every time I think about what excites me those images and terms come to mind instantly, and at the same time I feel terrified of being successful; the voice in my head starts to tell me I’m not worthy of or the right person for the job. Which is only serves to further fuel my fire for it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from being a personal development jUnKiE is that that voice inside your head that tells you you can’t do things or you’re not good enough is actually highlighting areas in which you lack self esteem, and therefore must be challenged and overcome so that you can experience radical growth. It tells you exactly where you need to go and what you need to work on. It’s hard to hear the message sometimes because we get caught up in listening to the self-deprecation. We buy into the stories that inner voice tells us about ourselves and our capabilities, but we get to choose what we believe and we get to choose who to listen to. I’m choosing to listen to my intuition and find all the ways the voice inside my head is wrong. I believe I am worthy of success and I believe I have the ability to help thousands of people.

In addition to the bullshit stories, I’m also giving up all the bullshit excuses I’ve made for myself thus far. I believe this wholeheartedly and I’ve said it so many times but I am the creator of my own life, and I am exactly where I am because of the choices I’ve made. And it’s actually bullshit that I don’t even take my own advice. So I’m really working hard this year on making choices that will serve me long term, instead of giving in to instant gratification. I’ll elaborate more on this in another post I think.

Amongst all the chaos going on in the world right now, I figured one way to help the world is to be on my game and my best self every day so that I can help get the best out of everyone else. A little love and kindness goes a long way.

It’s super fucking late and I’m tired. I definitely want to write more on this but it will have to wait for another day. Thanks for reading!

xoxo

[sunlitroom]

Gotham – s5e02 – Trespassers

As I watched it, and some random observations here and there.

Previously on Gotham:

Did you miss the finale of season 4 and only now tune in?  For anyone who somehow forgot, Jeremiah’s bid to get Bruce to notice him helpfully coincided with Ra’s need to speed Bruce’s destiny along by destroying the city.  Jim helpfully tells us that the city is now up for grabs.  Tabitha made an absolute mess of attempting to get revenge for Butch – going out not only irritating and unsympathetic, but really, really dumb. Barbara wailed. Jim shot Oswald in the leg, for which he has put a bounty on his head. We are reminded that Jeremiah shot Selina – and a nurse with very distinctive eyebrows recommended that Bruce go find the witch.  A lisping big-eyed orphan child pleaded with Jim for help.

As always, long post will be long.  There are likely to be rambling digressions. Gobblepot might appear (although I welcome all shippers and non-shippers alike :)).  There will be naked favouritism and naked not-favouritism.  Broader comments at the end on plotlines and parallels and general direction.

We open on the boy, Will, from the last episode.  Jim and Harvey watch from the doorway as he is examined, and fill us in on his situation. His parents were killed in a home invasion and he was taken to a factory, to be a slave alongside lots of other children.  The people responsible are known as the Soothsayers.  

Harvey’s never heard of them before – but can hazard a guess as to the location of the tunnel they’re building near the docks.

Winsome orphan boy begs Detective Gordon to save his friends, because they’ll be punished for his escape.  

Jim and Harvey leave – Jim resolved to go rescue the children.  Harvey reminds him, though, that Oswald has a bounty on his head and he can’t safely leave the station.  Someone appears and tells Jim that there’s a call for him from the mainland

Jim goes to take the call. The voice on the other end tells him that confrontations must be avoided.  Jim tells him to please think of the children.  The voice says that his dedication is admirable but he lacks perspective – he runs the risk of sacrificing many to save a few.  He’s told that it’s the ‘collective opinion’ that he stand down and keep the green zone safe.

Jim protests – and says they need supplies.  The voice says they cannot risk any more pilots.  Jim snaps that they can preserve the lives of a few over many, but he can’t. The conversation is seemingly over and Jim stares consideringly into the distance.

Harvey enters with Lucius. Jim immediately starts to plan a rescue mission. They need to go through the Dark Zone.  Harvey reminds Jim of the ammo situation. Jim says he’ll talk to Barbara. Harvey reminds Jim that she might not be amenable.  Turning to Lucius, Jim asks him to sort out some sort of housing for the children they’ll rescue.  Harvey makes an unhappy face about the general risk of it all.

(An aside – in a desperate bid to extract something of interest from an episode that was pretty turgid.

I know we’re probably not supposed to complicate matters to this extent– but anything this straightforward is boring, so I feel like some over-analytical meta is needed to problematise everything.  

It occurs to me that this desperate time of suffering is maybe the happiest Jim has ever been in Gotham.

St Jim of Gotham.  They love their Jim Gordon.  Detective Gordon can save us.  

He constantly gets to be heroic – Jim Gordon keeping everyone safe, bringing them supplies. His word is law – Harvey and Lucius might pull faces, but they do what they’re told.  He has no boss, no troublesome politics to play.  There’s no awkward shades of grey – just good guys and bad guys.  The voice of authority is just that – a voice – and so perfectly unreasonable and hateable and removed – so absolutely in the wrong.  Hell – Jim should send Jeremiah a bouquet for this.

It’s telling, I think, that when Harvey later spots the candle burning in the abandoned building Jim’s head goes straight to the Wild West.  If you want to sell me that Oswald is enjoying playing benevolent leader over in City Hall, then it must also be accepted that Jim’s equally loving playing Gary Cooper at GCPD)  

We hear night time noises and see Bruce at the gates of an abandoned mansion.  He’s looking for the witch.  As he enters the house, we see ivy climbing over the walls.  As he progresses, we see it weapped around statues, and – more alarmingly – twisted around various corpses.

We see movement behind him. Someone has sneaked up on him – but Bruce had spotted them, and easily disarms him.

Are you with her?

What?  I’m not sure why Gotham went with characters from a Hammer Horror  - but, whatever.  It’s all corduroy waistcoats, flat caps, and English accents.

Basically – they’ve decided Ivy is a witch who can talk to plants and knows magic and can take souls.  They’ve trapped her in a windowless room with no food or water, and salted the floor. Eventually, they’re going to burn her. A few months of isolation and apparently parts of Gotham have turned into small superstitious English hamlets from the eighteenth century.  There’s terrible doings up at the manor!  His Lordship’s up to no good!

Bruce quickly makes up a story about a missing brother.  Credulous villager from another film says he’ll let Bruce talk to Ivy.  Bruce shines a torch into the room – and we see a sleeping Ivy. She’s wearing a sequinned jumper that also impressively manages to look like slimy moss.

Hello Ivy

At Sirens, where people are eating and drinking and generally having a good time.  Barbara, meantime, swigs from a bottle at the bar.

Jim enters.  We see there are lots of other men there.  Jim tries to make small talk about how busy the bar is.  Barbara points at his head and reminds him of Oswald’s bounty.  She asks if he’s out for one last hurrah.  Jim says he wants a favour.

Barbara laughs

A favour?  That’s why you stood back and did nothing while my best friend on this earth was stabbed through the heart?

(Best friend.  Best friend.  Wow.)

Jim protests weakly that he put Oswald down – but Barbara shrieks, eyes bulging with rage.

You restored his limp - he should be dead!

Jim takes what I think the Marquise de Mertueil described as ‘a marital tone’, and delivers an admonishing

Barbara

On this – Barbara starts shrieking

Everybody out!

Jim asks if she’s planning revenge.  Barbara retorts that

Someone has to do something about that freak

(An aside - Again with the ‘freak’ word.  It really does nothing to make her more likeable.  Also – the only things she could pair with it in the warehouse were the fact that Oswald has a beaky nose and a limp.  That’s all it takes for Barbara to decide you’re a freak. Writers - if you want to cultivate any sympathy whatsoever for Barbara and her lost ‘best friend’ – it’s perhaps best not to remind the audience that they’re both beautiful entitled rich girls who looked right down their noses at almost everyone else who failed to fit that description.)

Jim tells her he has an army – it would be suicide.  Barbara angsts it up and tells him to look around – they’re all slowly dying.  Some get to choose how.  I think this is meant to be about how she’d choose to die killing Oswald – but all it does is remind you that Tabitha most definitely opted for her fate – and renders it all less than sympathetic again

Jim tells her he’s sorry about Tabitha, and that things got out of control.  What things?  When she ran into a warehouse filled with Oswald’s men and a bunch of ammunition?

He goes on to say he’s trying to keep the city from falling apart. Barbara stares back at him and tells him he’s too late.  Jim frowns.

She goes on – though, and asks him about the favour.  He asks for trucks.  She asks what for – and Jim stodgily replies that it’s a police matter.  Barbara laughs at the absurdity of it – catapulted back to the compartmentalising days of their engagement – and says they could write that on his tombstone.

She caves, though, and gives him the trucks.  She then bizarrely screams after him, though

Knock yourself out - drive into the nightmare you created.  Here he comes, Gotham – your judge, gaoler, most hated son. Have at him - rip him to shreds.  No-one deserves to die more than he!

So don’t give him the trucks, then.  Make your mind up, Barbara.

Her lip wobbles and she drinks again.  I’d give it a rest, Barbara – that was mental.  You’re one drink away from a self-indulgent karaoke song.

Jim and Harvey drive through the city – specifically under a bridge, where we can see bodies hanging. Apparently, this area was a cesspool before – but is now even worse.  People dressed in gothy, skull-heavy outfits suddenly appear alongside them, flinging Molotov cocktails and firing arrows.

Welcome to the Badlands.

We’re at the location the place Will mentioned, where there’s child slave labour overseen by some tools in gasmasks.   One complains that the oldest boy we see – Gabriel – allowed Will to escape.  He thought Gabriel had promise – and offers a chance to inhale whatever is in his mask for energy or to see the future.

He then witters on about the tunnel they’re building that will give them exclusive access to the mainland for trade.  Until the situation is resolved.  Or, you know, someone just comes in and takes it from them.

Gabriel points out that the tunnel is too narrow.  Progress is slow, the roof is leaking, and it’ll collapse when they hit the river.

Beardy gasmask guy gets cross at this.  He had high hopes for Gabriel.  He points his gun at him, but is disturbed by one of his minions telling him to get out front.

Outside – we see trucks parked.  Beardy irritably asks who was on watch.  One of your tedious stoner mates?

Put your weapons down

Is that the James Gordon?

We get western-style music

Beardy comments that if they kill him they’ll get bullets and be in Oswald’s good graces.  They draw guns – but are surrounded by GCPD. There’s a bit of back and forth – but Jim takes his keys, and goes into the building, telling Harvey to kill him if he moves.

The children all stare adoringly at Jim.  He gives the keys to Gabriel, who starts to release all the other children’s manacles/cuffs/whatever.  It was a pretty tooth-rotting moment.

Outside, leader man asks Harvey why he’d be a cop in this town.  Harvey says the costume shop was out of gas masks – so it was either this or sexy nurse.

As they talk – the leader’s eye flits to one of his men, creeping up.  There’s a disagreement that quickly turns into a full rammy.  Most of the children escape in the trucks – but Jim, Harvey, Gabriel and two little girls are left fleeing on foot.

Back at the mansion, Bruce approaches Ivy.  She seems relieved – asking for his help. She says she didn’t kill the men in the vines – it’s the park. The trees, plants, roots – speaking to one another. The men came to kill her – but the plants saved her

Bruce tells her that he needs help for a friend who was shot – not naming Selina. The nurse directed him to The Witch – and here he is.  Ivy said she would usually help – but this park is behaving so oddly.

We hear a knock at the door – jaunty waistcoat villager.  Bruce asks him to wait. Ivy says there’s a magical seed under the oak – she’ll help him find it if he protects her.

Back at the Library, Ed wakes up.  He's chained himself down – and is exultant that it seems to have stopped his sleep walking.

Doesn’t he…. have the key? Jfc, Ed.

He unlocks the padlock and gets up, heading to the bathroom

No

Why am I seeing this?

I don't need Ed peeing

As he relieves himself – he talks to himself in the mirror about how the sleepwalking was likely just stress.  

We hear grunting from somewhere else in the room.  Ed pulls back the shower curtain, and finds a burly biker man tied up in the bath.  

Ed looks away, back into the mirror and tells himself there’s nothing there – laughing hysterically. His laughing fades and he closes his eyes.

He pulls back the shower curtain again – this time wielding a plunger.  Without washing his hands.

He asks the biker who the hell he is.  The biker is massively disgruntled.

Are you serious?

Ed admits he doesn’t remember.  The man’s name is apparently Tank.  He’s part of the Street Demons gang.Ed asks if he hit him, etc.  Tank is still sullen – and says Ed wanted information, but he wouldn’t give it.  Ed eyes him

I’m gonna guess you gave it to me

Oo-er, missus.

Ed says he can't remember the info – so they’ll have to do it all again, and hauls him out of the bath.

Jim and co running through the streets, hunted.  Shooting Oswald was dumb, Jim.  I know he’ll forgive you shortly – but it’s inconvenient in the meantime.

They run into a nearby building.  Harvey points to the candle burning, and warns that someone else is there.  Jim’s all caught up in the romance of his sheriff fantasy, and says that settlers in the Old West would sometimes leave a candle burning as a sign of sanctuary.  Maybe there’s still good people left in Gotham

Harvey raises an eyebrow at this romanticism, and then complains when Jim sends him to search the basement in this creepy hotel.  Jim meanwhile heads upstairs.  The children are left behind – and we see a shadowy figure pass behind them, looking sort of Victorian.

(An aside because this episode is boring – it’s odd how our collective imagination heads straight to Victorian stuff when it comes to ghosts)

Jim walks along the upper floor.  It’s a nice, creepy atmosphere.  There’s a room with a flickering bulb.  Jim offers a very tentative GCPD.  A small boy dressed in a school uniform runs out.  Jim reassures him.

Harvey in the basement, which is actually a proper kitchen like you would get in a big old house. Less traditional are the containers on the table containing jewellery, glasses, teeth, and fingers.

Harvey starts to quietly panic.  He’s then accosted by the masked Victorian woman wielding a razor, and starts to loudly panic.

Jimmmm!

Back at the library, Ed hits the biker in the face.  Am I expected to believe Ed was able to overpower this guy?  

He caves and passes the info – which is pretty pedestrian: Ed wanted to know where the Street Demon base was and whether their boss, Emmanuel Vazquez, would be there.

Ed asks the man what his demeanour was like last night.  Was he confident, flamboyant, charismatic?  Or a little repressed? Conservative?  Nerdy?

The man says he seemed stiff – in a daze.  Ed digests this, and then they leave.

Back at Ivy's impromptu 60s horror film.  Bruce leaves the room with a faux terrified Ivy.  Bruce tells the villagers to stay calm – he’ll take responsibility for her. Ivy promptly kills them all.

She turns to him – a hand on his throat – and tells him he’s utterly naïve.  Bruce says she didn’t have to kill them, but she replies that she wanted to.

Bruce stares balefully at her.  He tells her the friend he’s here for is Selina – she’s paralysed and has lost the will to live.  Ivy glares back at him.

Good.  That bitch destroyed the last drop of Lazarus water.  Let her suffer

Bruce says he doesn’t believe her.  Ivy avoids answering him like Jim has avoided awkward discussions about killing Oswald. She tells him she wasn’t lying about the park.  She’s been feeding it corpses.  It consumes them then flourishes.  She says she’ll plant Bruce.  What will grow, she wonders.

He tells her those men she killed were right.  She’s a murderous, callous witch. She smiles

Trying to bait me, boy?

Bruce says he wouldn’t waste his breath.  There’s no good left in her.  The park isn’t beautiful and colourful and flourishing.  It smells of death.  

Ivy doesn’t like this. She purses her lips and tells him it’s a work in progress. Bruce says it’s a nightmare.  She looks at him, and says if she helps him, he’s to leave her alone.  They leave for the garden.

Back with Jim and the kid from the room

(An aside – it struck me here that the pacing in this episode felt really off.  This should have been tense – but we spent too long with Ed and Bruce, and now we’ve lost a lot of tension.)

The boy tells Jim that his parents are dead – the woman here found him – the ghost.  She was kind at first.

They’re interrupted by Harvey. He says that there’s a crazy woman here. Jim tells the boy that they’ll protect him.  As they start to run, the boy says she makes him call her mother.

They head into a room off the corridor, but the boy slips out and shuts Jim and Harvey in.  We see the lights in the room flicker and strobe. The boy, stone-faced on the other side of the door tells them

The lights will make you dizzy.  Then fall asleep.  You won't feel a thing

Harvey starts to fold. Jim kicks at the door.  The boy calls that he should give into it.  As he does, we see the woman behind him, and she slashes out at him with her razor.

There’s a scuffle. Harvey smashes the window – allowing light into the room.  Her mask falls off, and the ghostliness is all gone.  She screeches at Jim – she’s the only mother the boy knows.  Harvey tells her she’s a crazy bitch – but she protests that she’s protecting him: she taught him how to survive.

She also manages to kick and slash Jim, and makes her escape.

At the biker hideout, which is apparently deserted.  As we look round, though, we see lots of stabbed bikers – including the boss.  Tank asks if Ed does this, to which Ed honestly responds that he can’t remember

Turning, we see a really boringly painted message on the wall

Penguin was here.

The biker growls: Penguin did this

Ed looks dubious.  I think not

Tank replies that whoever it was, someone started a war

Back at Ivy’s park.  She reaches into the earth as Bruce watches and extracts a seed.  It looks incredibly gross.  

She hands it to Bruce. He asks her if that’s human blood that it’s coated in.  She tells him that if Selina ingests it, it will find the way to the wound.  Bruce asks if it will cure her.  Ivy shrugs. Everyone responds differently.  The only thing that’s sure is that she’ll be altered forever – the darker angels of her nature unlocked and set free.  You very rarely see that one listed in the side-effect section of the information pamphlet.

She asks if Selina can live with it, then eyes him shrewdly and asks if he can.  Bruce tells her he doesn’t know any other way.  Ivy smiles – and tells him to go then, give her the seed. She adds that he still doesn’t know if he can trust her.  Bruce agrees and she replies.

Good – you’re finally becoming a man

Bruce asks where she’ll go, and she says that’s none of his business.  He needs to hurry: the seed will die if exposed to the air for too long.

(An aside - if I desperately scrabble to get more fro this episode - I could say that there’s maybe a Jim and Bruce parallel.  Jim’s doing good - but he’s definitely getting something from what he’s doing now.  Bruce’s actions are to save Selina - but also to salve his own guilt at how she ended up shot in the first place) 

Back at the haunted hotel, Harvey and Jim run downstairs and usher the children out.  As they do, Harvey turns to Jim

Not everyone wants help, Jim Gordon

They run out into the street.  We get a slightly too loud bit of dialogue between Harvey and Jim to let us know that Jim only has two bullets left. It had a real look out for snakes! quality.

The soothsayers and the goths show up.  There’s a standoff where they both have guns pointed at Jim – both keen to collect the bounty.

Bruce is back in the ward. Alfred tells her that Selina’s not great – hasn’t uttered a word since he left.  Bruce tells him the witch is actually Ivy.  Alfred looks dubiously at the seed – which does look really nasty.

Bruce says it might help. Alfred says Ivy is a maniacal cold-hearted killer

Selina suddenly pipes up

Give it to me

Bruce says he has doubts. Selina says that she’s suicidal anyway – so if Ivy wants to kill her, she can have at it.  Bruce hands her the pill.  She asks if she’s just to swallow it, and then does so without hesitation. Bravo, Selina.  That seed looked gross.

They watch. She exhales

Still here

Alfred laughs.

Selina says she knows Ivy has lost her mind – but Selina found her when she was first on the street, after her parents died.  It was a cold winter – and Ivy got really sick. Selina took her under her wing: showed her how to find food, a roof.  Eventually she got colour in her face – and Selina kept checking in with her every day.

I know she looks old now – but she'll always be that little girl to me

Alfred and Bruce look fondly at her – but as they do, she starts to sweat and convulse.  Doctors and nurses rush in, and Alfred holds Bruce back

My God.  What have I done?

Back at the standoff. This is really unforgiveably boring.

Blah blah  - Jim has two bullets.  Basically, Barbara arrives before things can go very wrong.  She’s had a change of mind since their chat.  Beardy guy takes aim at her from the ground, but Jim shoots him.  Barbara comments that it must be love, since it was his last bullet.

She steps closer and tells him to

Help me do what needs doing - kill Penguin

(An aside -I’m so very done with this stupid notion that Oswald is the big problem in town.  It makes absolutely no sense.  If anything, the only reason we don’t have all-out gang warfare is because there’s not enough ammunition to go round, because Oswald has a grip on it.  As for the notion that Barbara is somehow better – she’s hoarding food and drink to run a brothel while there’s not enough to go round.  If they show doesn’t make clear later that Barbara’s stance is entirely personal and irrational, I’m going to be very grumpy.)

Jim says they’ll table this discussion for later.

(An aside.  Barbara.  Harvey. Jim is not going to kill Oswald. If you don’t know this by now, then you haven’t been paying attention.  He didn’t do it to placate Falcone. He didn’t do it to string Theo Galavan along and get a conviction. He didn’t do it to guarantee silence after Theo’s murder. He didn’t do it when Oswald’s actions threatened to disrupt his work with the Court of Owls.  He didn’t do it when he was apparently all darkness and rage with the Tetch virus. He didn’t do it at the bequest of Sofia Falcone, and he didn’t do it most recently, when the city is a wasteland and Oswald controls virtually all the weaponry.  It’s a no, guys.   If he changes his mind on this, then it’s an ooc swizz.)

In the Green Zone - where the lighting is all idyllic.  Lucius shows off the new lodgings he’s found/created.  It’s not ideal – but it’s better than anywhere else. Citizens are gathering, and it’ll be full by lunchtime.

A woman approaches with her children to thank Jim for delivering them.  Barbara rolls her eyes and leaves – calling over her shoulder:

See you around, killer.  We have unfinished business

I have to ask – is anyone invested in this?  Anyone?

Back with Selina.  The doc says whatever she took put her into shock – but she’s now stabilised.  Bruce looks solemn.  There’s a statue of Jesus behind him.  Hi Jesus!

Alfred says they should go. He walks on, but Bruce lingers to peek in, and is shocked to see Selina’s bed empty and the window open.  He rushes in and looks out the window.  Selina walks up behind him

Bruce says it's a miracle. Selina’s eyes are closed, and she smiles beatifically.  She says she feels no no pain.  Bruce says he thought he’d killed her, but Seline says she’s even better than before.

They hug, and over Bruce’s shoulder, we see Selina open her eyes – which momentarily look just like a cat’s eyes.

General Observations

Ugh.  With a couple of exceptions, that was a slog.

No Oswald at all.  I’m not sure why this would be the case – but the episode palled badly without him.  If it’s to try and easily paint him as a flat villain in his absence, it failed.  Life in Gotham is mind-bendingly boring without him.

Ed

It’s not that I’m not interested in Ed, but there’s not really much need for interpretation or further examination for what’s going on.  It’s either part of his own subconscious (we’ve seen that this can happen with Ed), or something to do with Hugo’s tinkering.  I’m not quite sure why I feel a sort of weird lack of tension with this plotline, but there it is.

Barbara

Likewise – Barbara’s revenge plot is really just tiresome.  I will admit to being nakedly biased towards Oswald, but even if that weren’t the case - it’s hard to feel real sympathy here.  Babs – Oswald didn’t invade Sirens, seek Tabitha out and then stab her in the heart.  She went looking for him, and then left him with no other options.  Not only that – but she was fully aware that getting revenge for Butch meant leaving you alone.  Last, but not least: She.  Murdered. His.  Mother. I know the big female solidarity thing really only extends to women 18-40 who can turn a profit for you – but still.  Take a moment to think this over.

Look I get that it’s easier for her to be angry at Oswald than it is to be angry at Tabitha – but it’s still a bit tedious.  A lot tedious.

Jim

As previously discussed, there’s more meat to Jim’s story right now – but I’ve no idea whether it’s intentional.  I’m sure Jim does genuinely care about the citizens who need help.  However, Jim is also loving this.  All that murky stuff from the past is gone.  Here, he’s Big Jim Gordon, the heroic sheriff in a Wild West town.  His deputies do what he says, and Miss Kitty who runs the brothel can help out when needed.  Big-eyed children rush to him for help, mothers thank him, and he gets to rush headfirst into fights outgunned whenever he wants.  

I’m not sure where that fancy-dressed guy with the European name and the limp fits in to his story, but maybe Jim’s watched more Westerns than I have.

Hopefully this might head in a more complicated direction.  A couple of the scenes with Jim and the children seemed deliberately too saccharine. Harvey warned him that not everyone wants his help.   Let’s see where things go.

Jim and Barbara

I remember, way back when, commenting that the lack of real closure between Jim and Barbara felt unrealistic.  Jim’s serious-minded and quite traditional (or seemed so at that point, anyway).  He and Barbara were engaged to be married – church booked and dress bought, as Barbara told us.  The relationship did have had its problems: Barbara was depressed and day drinking, while Jim was busily emulating his father and compartmentalising like crazy – but it always felt like they would have more definitively closed the chapter, as opposed to just moving on like it was a short-term relationship.  I think what we’re seeing here is basically unfinished business being played out. Probably better for it to play out with the help of contraceptives, but hey, we know where they’ve decided to go with this.

Again - if you want to make it more problematic in a desperate bid to make things more interesting - killing Tabitha, having Barbara trade in ‘information’ instead of all out violence, masking what goes on in Sirens, putting a nice white coat on her: it’s all to ‘purify’ her character to make her suitable for the pregnancy storyline later.  Not too, pure, though.  My guess is she’ll die nobly at some point, and Lee will wind up raising the baby with Jim.

Recaps are a lot faster and easier when there’s no Oswald and the episode is a bit lacklustre.

Thoughts?

[prettywordsyouleft]

hey i really like the way you write, could you maybe do a different kind of kisses with Ha sungwoon? that would be everything :)))

AnotherWanna One member to explore Different Kisses with! Thank you for requestingSungwoon, and this series!

I hope youenjoy my thoughts!

First kiss:

Your firstkiss with Sungwoon is going to be a memorable one. Sungwoon will have known youfor some time before your first kiss, and you’ll be familiar with him mostlyfor his playful, light side. I reckon Sungwoon is going to be reallycringe-worthy with your first kiss, and start it off with a pick up line,something like “your lips look so lonely, would they like to meet mine?” andbefore you can even register what he just said to you, his lips will be pressedagainst yours, at first waiting to see how you respond to his move, and thenwhen you react, he’s going to deepen it.

This isgoing to give him such a boost in confidence, that he might act up a littlebit, not in an arrogant way, but whilst you’re trying to recover, he’s overhere being the man so much that hegoing to end up ruining the moment with clumsily banging into something, oryou. Wow, so smooth.

But evenwhen you replay the scene over and over in your head, you couldn’t reallyimagine kissing Sungwoon for the first time in any other way.

Public kisses:

Sungwoon isthe type to hold a lot of expectations upon himself out in society, and so whenout in public, he’s acutely aware of how he is perceived. I don’t think he isgoing to be the type to kiss you in public at all. Whilst he’s obviouslysmitten with you, and goofs around with you at home, you will see a differentside to Sungwoon when out. He might peck your cheek, but unless he feels likehe can be himself and is relaxed, his practical need to be prepared foranything will mean kissing you is far from his mind. I think this way of life stemsfrom being raised by his beautiful grandfather and he seems to be the type toknow when it’s the right and wrong place to do certain things socially fromhaving some older styled morals instilled in him.

Private kisses:

Are youdating a man-child?! I mean that with a kind heart, but honestly the switch fromout in public to being at home together is so drastic. This boy is going toenjoy playing around with you so much that kissing him will never be all thatserious 70% of the time. Lots of pecks, playful grabs and chasing you aroundthe apartment when full in play with you is what you can expect from Sungwoonmost of the time.

He’s alsohuge on teasing you, making a point to have you squirming with annoyance justso he can see you frustrated because he likes the emotion on you. It’s not in abad way, but when you let out that little huff of air, and whine at him tostop, he finds you so darn adorable that he cannot help attacking you in kissesto make it up to you… only to find something else to tease lightly about andthe cycle continues.

I also feelhe’s also the type to make a big deal of finding you as soon as he’s home andgiving you a greeting kiss, to let you know he’s back from work, and almostlike a signal that he’s done his part in society today, and now it’s time toget comfy and relaxed with you, playing games on the tv, or with each other. 

Making out:

Becausehe’s the most relaxed when at home with you having nothing to really do, you’llfind he’s a lot more impulsive than you initially expected him to be. Makingout isn’t going to be a slow build up with Sungwoon, and definitely not withmutual intent. You might be doing the dishes and then suddenly, out of the bluehe’s pressed himself up against you, shunting you closer to the sink andplacing kisses all over whatever he can get his mouth on. He’s a bit of amoaner too when in this kind of mood and whilst you might be initially annoyed thathe made you splash yourself with the soapy water as you dropped that knife backinto the sink with his attack, it won’t take you long to rip those kitchengloves off and turn around to meet him. When he’s this eager for you, hiskissing technique may be a little messy, his lips not keeping up with all thethoughts now racing through his mind on how much he wants you, and further,what he wants to happen next. You might need to mindfully take control ofmaking out sessions with him, just to slow him down a little, and set up abetter pace, or you might have to deal with a little more mess in the kitchenthat you planned for that day.

I also feelbecause he is this worked up, that he’ll be unable to regard things in hisnormal practical mindset. The amount of bruises you’ve gained from him nottaking proper care of you as he leads you blindly to your bedroom never failsto amaze you, but it’s okay because he’s all too happy to make it up to you andleave his own kind of marks on your body too.

Also, eventhough Sungwoon acts like he is the one in control, I feel if you initiatedmaking out with him first, this is going to be such an insane turn on for himthat it won’t take him long to lose himself in your lust filled moment.

Morning kisses:

Unlike allthe others I’ve written about, I doubt Sungwoon is going to be the type to wakeyou up with kisses or be even waiting for you to wake up. If anything it’s youstirring him awake in the mornings, he’s all too happy to sleep for as long ashe possibly can. He might seem a little cranky in the morning because he’s notready to get up and start his new day, and there will be no cute snugglymoments, sadly. More like him shoving you away and mumbling into his pillowabout needing another five minutes.Of course when he’s that sleepy he’s going to have no regard for time andyou’re going to have to get a little more forceful to get him up. I imagine himto be the type to eventually groan and roll over, pressing his lips to yoursand then follow it up with something along the lines of you being his humanalarm and having just pressed the snooze button. Depending on your own mood orschedule, this could head down two paths – you kicking his butt to get out ofthe darn bed, or taking that human alarm a little further and kissing him overand over until he’s awake, smiling up at you eventually because even though youinterrupted his sleep, he’s lucky to have you to keep him on task each day.

Making up kisses:

AlthoughSungwoon seems to be the most fluffiest boyfriend, when you’ve argued, you’renot seeing any of that cute stuff anymore. He’s going to be insanely arrogantand petty towards you, arguing his point until you cannot take it anymore.You’re most likely the first to storm out and it will easily take a few hoursif it was a heated argument for you both to come back together.

I feel inthese moments, especially if he didn’t “win” the argument, whilst he’s ready tosomewhat make it up with you; his kisses will lack emotion just because of thepetty thoughts going around in his head. Again, much like you do a lot withyour relationship, you might have to lead him again, kissing him with a bit oflonging and emotion to make him snap out of it. He’ll appreciate you helpinghim put everything back into perspective, and depending on your energy levels,he may seek out a need for further intimacy.

Embarrassed/ distraction kisses:

Sungwoon isthe type to easily embarrass. Things that are said to him he may hold ontountil comfortably at home and share them with you, and you may react in ways toflare up that embarrassment again. Or it will happen when he’s already withyou, he might do or say something that embarrasses himself and so his firstthought is to kiss you with some demand in a way to save face. He’s also hopingyou’re going to forget all about what happened. In some cases he may beembarrassed on his own without you being aware and you’ll ask him why he kissedyou so suddenly, and in these moments, he’ll smile with relief, pecking yourlips again before telling you how much he loves you.

I feelhe’ll realise this is such a good strategy that if he ever needs to distractyou from a topic (like cleaning up and not playing video games so much), he’sgoing to kiss you with a varying degree of pressure depending on your naggingin hopes he can distract you enough.

There’s a50/50 chance of success. Don’t want to be him when you’ve realised what he’s upto.

Shut up kisses:

Much likeSeongwoo, Sungwoon is a talker. This boy could talk in his sleep I swear. Hecan speak about anything and everything with you, or even chat to himself, he’sso content to just be talking. Sometimes though, you need a break from his animatedchattering and like his own distraction methods, you will have the same one upyour sleeve. Kiss him enough and you might just distract him enough to shut himup and ask for more of you. But most likely he’s just going to start up again.Hey, at least you tried, and you will have medication on hand for when hebecomes headache inducing.

Needy kisses:

Because youare dating the sweetest bean ever, your softest kisses are going to be whenhe’s the neediest for you. And I don’t mean this in an intimate way, but justhaving a desperate need for you, for your comfort, your advice, your innateability to make his crazy thoughts calm down, and return him to that level offeeling relaxed, in control and loved. During these sessions, he is going to beconstantly interrupting your conversation to kiss you, almost like he’sattempting to kiss the words you’re saying out of you faster so he feels moreat ease. You will feel a lot of emotions during this time, Sungwoon is alwaystelling you how manly he wants to appear in life to everyone, since his shortheight makes him instantly classed as “cute”. And even though he is absolutelysuch a goofball with you and you adore him when he’s being cute, you know thishas given him a complex. Under the incessant talking and playful side, Sungwoonis very sensitive, and has a lot of troubles that go through his mind. Hestrikes me as a perfectionist, and easily in the self doubt zone if he allowshimself to slip into this state. Knowing you will accept his kisses, even if itinterrupts the flow of your words is the most rewarding thing you could do forhim. It’s in these moments where he realises just how much he is lucky to haveyou on his side always, and he falls more in love with you, even though henever thought he could love you harder than he already did.

Overall, Ifeel like Sungwoon will be the type of kisser that needs you to give him somestructure and tone. He’s very playful with you, but when other emotions takeprecedence, you might be the one who has to lead the way. Because of this hewill have varying ways of kissing you, and will be accepting of leading kissesor allowing you take control.

I hope mydifferent kisses with Sungwoon make you feel as soft as I do. Admittedly I lovehis on stage persona a lot, because he’s so manly to me in his build, but themore I get to know him, he’s such a sweetheart who has some really cute oldschool morals, and if he could just shush it a little more, I think he’d makethe bestest boyfriend, haha!

_______________

Other Wanna One members: Jisung // Sungwoon // Minhyun // Seongwoo // Jaehwan // Daniel // Jihoon // Woojin //  Jinyoung // Daehwi

[Different Kisses Masterlist] | [Main Masterlist] | [Request Guidelines]

[valkyrieelysia18]

(Magic Academia) Familiars

Let it be said up front, Oscar really did like animals. Back on the farm, he may have mostly been involved with growing things, but that didn't mean he didn't enjoy working with animals. Chickens, cows, sheep, pigs; the young man got along with them pretty well.

With that being said, they were just ordinary animals. Not magical beings that had sentience and could cause permanent physical or mental damage if they wanted to.

Which perhaps explains why Oscar felt the increasing desire to slowly back away before running away as fast as he could with all of the familiars' eyes on him. Heck, the little wolf's fangs alone were enough to make him sweat. But he knew that he had to get used to them so when Jaune was about to take the familiars out of the dorm for some exercise Oscar had asked to help.

And now here he was, out in the Courtyard where seven familiars of his new friends eyed him unnervingly.

Right next to him, Jaune Arc eyes the former farm boy with a concerned expression. "Are you sure you want to do this Oscar?"

The young man gulped, but nodded. "Yeah. Professor Port said that I'm almost ready to get my own familiar, so I really need to learn what to expect. Anyway, I'm sorry I'm bothering you."

Jaune shook his head. "Don't be, caring for these guys and girls is one of the things that make it clear I can use magic, but that doesn't mean doing everything on my own is completely enjoyable. Besides, I owe you after what happened with Cardin. First things first, how much do you know about getting familiars?"

"Professor Port said that no one has any control over what kind of familiar they'll get though what animal does end up choosing you can occasionally indicate what kind of magic you specialize in or something about you as a person."

Jaune nodded. "Right, you have no control over what ends up picking you. That's why you could get anything from a harmless little mouse to a fire breathing dragon."

Oscar warily glanced at the golden dragon not too far away. "Well, I think Yang has us covered on dragons."

"Fair enough. Anyway, familiars have a lifelong bond with their magic user. If the magician dies, so does the familiar. It also kind of links them mentally. Don't be surprised if it takes a while to understand your familiar. They don't really understand you until some time has passed. Starting out, it's kind of like taking care of a baby, which I got really used to with my sisters' familiars."

Oscar nodded. "Got it."

Jaune smiled. "Good. Alright, we'll start this from least scary to....well, you get the idea."

Hazel eyes warily glanced at the still glaring wolf. "Can we leave off the wolf for last?"

"You know, if you want a chance with Ruby, you're going to have make peace with her. But alright. Okay first up, Suzu come here!"

A rather big fat grey and white cat preened for a moment before making it's way over to where the boys were. The feline familiar looked up at them smugly before Jaune took out some kitty treats. "Okay, okay; here's your treat."

Suzu snapped them up quickly, licking her lips as she rubbed Jaune's legs before going over to Oscar. The tanned boy sat on the ground to her, which allowed the cat to crawl into his lap so he could scratch her head. "Can't believe this is Blake's familiar. Their personalities are complete opposites."

"Yeah, you should see her get along with Zwei. They absolutely LOVE messing with her."

Oscar looked a tad surprised as Suzu climbed out. "Huh, I guess it's true what they say. Even the worst of enemies can unite for a common cause."

"Yeah, true enough. Next up is Mr. Pancake, but I really don't want to rush her."

Oscar's eyebrow rose as both looked at the sloth, who looked ready to go back to sleep next to a small panda who looked also ready to fall asleep. "I still can't believe Nora named a male sloth Mr. Pancake."

Jaune's expression was incredibly deadpan. "Well, you haven't lived with her long enough. And since Ping looks like he's ready to nod off, I'd suggest not getting close. Pandas are pretty vicious when they want to be."

The blonde then turned to an artic fox, pulling out a pretty looking hair brush and giving it to Oscar. "Okay Celsius, grooming time!"

What would have sent most pets running in fear, sent the little artic fox dashing into Oscar's lap. It's tail wagged for a moment, anticipating being made pretty.

Oscar cautiously began grooming, relaxing a tad with the little white fox. "Huh...Weiss must do this a lot."

Jaune nodded, not noticing a body with four legs rushing towards him. "Yeah, she does."

WHAM!

And with that, Jaune was now beset with lion licking from a young lion cub to which he protested. "Titan! Stop! We talked about this! Besides, Pyrrha isn't here right now!"

The lion did not stop in the least, to Oscar it looked as if the lion liked messing with Jaune.

Finally, the golden dragon roared at the lion, as if admonishing him. The lion seemed to roll his eyes before going back over to where the dragon was.

Oscar felt a tad surprised at the turn of events, stopping his brushing to which Celsius got out of his lap. "Wow, Titan really likes you."

The blonde sighed. "Yeah, but it's kind of getting annoying. I'm pretty sure he keeps getting me and Pyrrha alone together on purpose. Once when I fell asleep in the lounge area, he dragged me back to the bedrooms and put me in Pyrrha's bed while she was there sleeping. Man, waking up that morning was awkward! Though....come to think of it, I think Ping might have done something similar to Nora with Ren back during the Dance."

The hazel eyed teen glanced towards the lion who looked rather smug at what Jaune was saying and the panda whose ears were twitching. Note to self; familiars will occasionally ship their owners.

Then he glanced to where the dragon was, seemingly eyeing everyone. "It seems like Fang is the one in charge here."

Jaune nodded, going over to scratch behind the golden horns which the dragon seemed to love by the way his tail was wagging. "Yeah, he's the one who seems to run these guys when no one is here. Then again, that might have to due with the fact he's a dragon and the most dangerous animal here."

Then came the low growl which had Oscar gulp. He slowly turned around to see the small gray wolf cub eyeing him like she'd love nothing more than to eat him.

He felt his voice crack as he tried to smile. "Hi San....."

San snapped her fangs at him causing the former farmhand to yip and scramble to his feet, hiding behind the Arc.

Jaune sighed before he addressed the wolf. "Now San, do you really think Ruby will be happy if you maul him?"

The wolf did not look happy, but nonetheless stopped snarling.

Oscar peeked out from behind. "I swear she's plotting my death."

Jaune shook his head before getting a pensive expression "No, she's not. She just doesn't like anyone getting close to Ruby; she didn't even like Yang or the rest of her family at first. Actually, now that I think about it aside from Ruby, I was the only one she liked that first week. Maybe she was pitying me for not having a familiar of my own..."

That diverted Oscar's attention, knowing very well Jaune had some confidence issues with his magical abilities given that he lacked a familiar and lacked an elemental affinity. "Hey, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. It's funny, sometimes when I used to think about lacking a familiar, Chronos would come over here."

The name sounded rather familiar that Oscar spoke without really thinking about it. "Ozpin's familiar?"

He nodded. "It was kind of creepy how that owl always seemed to know what I was thinking, but in a way it was like he was trying to cheer me up. At first I thought he liked in checking in on all of the students, but according to Qrow Chronos didn't like leaving Headmaster Ozpin's side. That's why I can say without a doubt that Ozpin is dead since Chronos isn't around any more."

Oscar fell silent for a bit, uncertain why he suddenly felt this wave of sadness over a familiar he had never met before. Finally, he spoke up. "Well, if familiars die when their magicians do, that makes sense."

Jaune nodded, turning away and pointing in that direction. "Yeah, I'm going to go get San's favorite toy, maybe she'll focus on chewing that instead of you."

"YOU'RE LEAVING ME ALONE WITH THE HELLHOUND!?"

He waved Oscar as he left, feeling a little bad but also kind of satisfied at getting Oscar out of his comfort zone. "She's not a hellhound! And like I said, you need to make peace with her if you want any chance of asking Ruby out!"

Oscar was about to call out the obvious crap Jaune was doing by leaving him alone when a sudden bark made him freeze. He turned slowly to see the wolf, not looking all that happy.

He cursed inwardly as his voice cracked. "Mercy?"

Then the wolf just shook it head, her eyes still looking angry. You are so lucky that Ruby threatened to take away my treats if I bite you again.

Oscar shrugged before realizing what was wrong with that line. "Oh good....wait, you can talk?!"

She seemed huff at that. No you dense idiot, but all familiar are capable of telepathic communication. However, normally a magician only hears once they've gained a familiar of their own. You've got quite a lot of magic, Kansas.

Oscar shot a dry look at the wolf. "Don't call me that."

I will call you what I please. And the day you hurt my mistress, I will rip your entrails.

"Pleasant. Anyway, why are you talking to me now?"

Because of Jaune. That young man has done quite a lot for me and the others as well as Ruby. If you can friends with him, I suppose you're not all bad.

He was rather surprised by the wolf's answer. "You really like Jaune that much?"

Of course, all of us do. Mainly because he's.....well, he's different. You see, most magicians by now have grown into their elemental magic and gained a familiar.

"Are you saying know why Jaune doesn't have that stuff?"

Oh, he actually does. But the thing is, he's not ready.

Oscar felt midway between surprised and confused. "Excuse me?"

It's not the fact he doesn't have power. In fact, his latent potential is quite astonishing. The problem is that his elemental power, the eighth element, usually surfaces only one in a generation, occasionally skipping it, and that power is a late blooming one.

"Wait, what do you mean? I thought there were only eight elements."

San seemed to grin at that. Get me some treats and maybe I'll tell you more.

Yeah bad cut off point, but I can't write anymore than that right now.

Familiars: San(Ruby), Celsius(Weiss), Suzu(Blake), Fang(Yang), Mr.Pancake(Nora), Ping(Ren), and Titan(Pyrrha). I may go into why I choose those animals for them in another post.

But next time, I think it'll be either a Rose Garden or Flown North post.

[antthonystark]

can you talk about your fave alec moments from 2a?

Oh man. There’s so much, there’s basically too much – I didn’t actually think therewas that much, but wow there’s actually so much because literally every Alecscene is my favourite scene as I am a simple girl with easy standards. But I’ll try to, like, not talk for six thousand years. Let’ssee how it goes lmao.

#1 Best Top Alec Scene of All TimeEver: Alec v. Aldertree, 2x09

Oh man. Oh man. This was…this was such a gift…Ican’t even describe how I feel about it adequately. Like our boy is a saltineat the best of times, but that aspect is sort of is tempered by his forcedrespect for authority (which is a whole nother conversation which I’ve talkedabout a few times) – so against an authority figure, in the past, Alec has beensort of passive-aggressive (for lack of a better word); like in 1x09, he staresdown Lydia and hands the folder to his mom against her command, and in 2x01 hestill takes Lydia’s dismissal instead of contesting it. So I like this sceneespecially because you see him coming out of that, but it’s not OOC oranything, firstly because shedding his adherence to authority has been a partof his arc since 1x12 (and was reinforced in 2x08 with his conflicts with hismother), and also – and more significantly imo – it’s because of his family.Isabelle specifically. 

So that “I’ll do anything for my sister,” authoritative,salty as fuck Alec just taking his Institute back that thisscene brought out is my favourite ever Alec and I hope he’s here to stay.(Actually, I hope we see him struggle a bit more with his identity as aShadowhunter, his duty to the Clave and his parents and following orders andthe like, since that was a key part of his character in S1 and it would be socool to see him actually deal with that, but that’s a whole nother thing aswell). And leader!Alec has always been my favourite Alec, and there’s nothingmore I want to see than Alec being the head of the institute like he deservesto be (seeing a struggle for power between Alec/the Lightwoods/Aldertree wouldbe SO NICE too, and I’m actually really interested to see how power is going toshift hands in 2B in the Institute. Maybe seeing Alec have to navigate themessy quagmire of Shadowhunter/Clave politics which puts him at odds with theothers who don’t get how complicated it is because the consequences of any insubordinationare going to fall on his shoulders as the leader sorta like how it was in S1. And I’m also kind of interested to see how Alec navigates the whole “preserving the Lightwood honour” thing from last year - how much he values that now compared to the huge lengths he went to for the Lightwood name in the first season. That would be so cool).

Andhonestly, that smirk and that salty little pat on Aldertree’s shoulder ended mylife. It ended my life.

I just put the rest in chronological order but i just had to mention this one first lol so here we goooo

EPISODE 2x01 (and that punching bagscene in 1x02):

I’m justnaming this whole episode okay sorry (I’m probably gonna do this with mostepisodes lbr). There was just so muchgood Alec in this episode it’s hard to unpack it but let me try.

I’dprobably say my favourite moment overall is the very first one, with the wholegang in the institute. This is weird and most people would probably go for theAlec/Maryse confrontation or the Magnus/Alec scene later on, but there’s justsomething so Alec about this scenethat I love. Like, Matt did such a good job in this scene imo because you couldliterally feel the stress and panic radiating off of Alec and it just cut medeep because man oh man those parabatai feels always get me. More than that, though,you can see the fear and frustration because of the realization that the way hehas dealt with his feelings his whole life is starting to fail – in the wake ofJace’s absence, suddenly he isn’t able to bottle up his feelings and put themin a place out of his own access, so he doesn’t have to deal with them –suddenly, it’s too much to just shove out of sight and push down withoutexamining (as he tries to articulate it for the first time when he says “withJace missing, it’s like the ground has shifted and I can’t keep my balance—”). Andthroughout the first couple of episodes, you see him having to deal with thisand becoming more volatile as these feelings that he never learned how tohandle burst out of him without him being able to exert that control that he’sbeen having to do his whole life.

Relateddirectly to that, one of my other favourite scenes is from 2x02 when he’spunching the punching bag, and I love thisdetail because you saw him trying to do the same thing in a few instances inthe first season, using his physical body (and inducing physical pain, but moreon that in just a moment) as a way of trying to exorcise his feelings without dealing with them in a significant emotionalway. And that little moment when he rests his head against the punching bag –that’s when he realizes that it’s not working, that this is all too much, thathe can’t punch this away. (Leading into his decision to endanger his own lifeto get Jace back which man oh man I loved that scene too but guy we’re gonna behere all day if I keep doing this.)

I really supermega love the scene on the balcony with Magnus as well, but to try and makethis not a million years long I’m trying to focus in-depth on Alec-only scenesrather than relationship-related scenes. But know that this one is definitelyone of my faves as well. (My favourite Alec quote probably ever is “Thanks, I’vebeen working on [my apology skills]” BECAUSE WHAT THE FUCK THAT’S ADORABLE ANDI LOVE IT. And that smile.)

2x04: The fight with Izzy and thesubsequent cuddle pile

(The ending of 2x03 is another favouritemoment but everything I think about it I just cry and I have nothing good tosay so I’m skipping on to 2x04).

Okay sothe fight with Izzy is deadass one of my favourite Lightwood scenes EVER, and I’vetalked about it so much before so I’ll try and keep this brief but oh my god it’sjust perfect to me in every way. Mostly I can’t stop thinking about how he justcannot even so much as bruise Isabelle when she would literallyrip his heart out if given the chance (I mean, the demon possessing her but youfeel me right). Like, he can’t hit her with a non-lethal shot and instead oftrying to force her off of him he’s just trying to reason with her (Izzy please ugh my heart) and try to gether to overcome the demon and it kills my soul. This is my true favourite Alec,the gentle big brother Alec, and that’s why I love this scene so much. Add thatto the whole “you’re the favourite child” rumination which I love because itjust shows how poorly both the Lightwood kids have been treated by theirparents so that there’s really no favourite child at all, but I talked aboutthat a lot once too lol.

Butspeaking of gentle big brother Alec oh my lord the scene right after Izzy getsunpossessed and the way he holds her and applies the iratze on her (and laterthe way he scoops her up) oh my god I die every time (I don’t think I canestimate to you how many times I’ve watched this scene tbh lol). And when Jacecomes in that little soft hug that passes through all three of them is myfavourite thing in the entire world honestly I can’t believe we were blessedwith a Lightwood group hug in my lifetime. It’s just my favourite thing aboutthem, how they were made to be weapons from childhood and how they’ve had tofend for each other, and how they’re soldiers raised in this militaristic andoppressive society that forces them to be cold and hard and yet they are sosoft and sweet and loving and kind to one another……idk if I’m articulating thiswell at all but I’m just I love itbye.

2x05: Rooftop scene with Jace/fireescape with Magnus

If I hadto pick a solid second favourite, it would probably be these two scenes, when Ithink about it. Ever since season 1, I was very interested in Alec’srelationship regarding the physical and the emotional, because of that wholepile of stuff I wrote under the 2x01 heading right up there (but more examplese.g.  punching Jace when he insinuatesAlec’s feelings for him, and the punching bag scenes in 1x06, 1x08, 1x09). Butthis is another facet to that, which is trying to avoid dealing with the emotionalpain/trauma  that he never ever taughthimself how to handle properly by trying to translate it into self-inflictedphysical pain and injury just to tryand make it go away, and it breaks my heart. I know this is a sensitive issue,so I don’t want to talk about “loving” it or anything like that, but Iappreciate it because it’s very in line with Alec as a character, not only inhis struggles with self-worth that were very apparent throughout the firstseason, but because of the way he was raised informing the way he navigates his emotions(i.e. with a lot of difficulty, and as it becomes apparent, a certain amount ofanguish), as he was both brought up in the emotionally repressive militaristic society of the shadowhunters, and struggled with being gay in an openly homophobic society, which makes it even worse for him compared to the other shadowhunter characters we see. 

Just theimage of Alec’s blood-soaked hand reaching for arrow after arrow that keep further wounding his hand was a very strong one, and it’s the reason whythis scene has stayed with me as a strong Alec moment. And his whole conversationwith Jace added to it just makes it even stronger to me, because it hammershome the guilt and the self-loathing that Alec is feeling not only for Jocelyn,but for apparently failing Jace, and you can feel his shame at hisself-perceived shortcomings coming to light and it’s heartbreaking and just sogood. (I’m not gonna keep saying “yay Matthew” but yay Matthew because he’s sogood he’s so good).

Also sincewe’re talking about 2x05, I loved the little moment with Madzie (that smile curedmy depression im p sure)

2x06: Yeah, the…the whole thing.

Yeah, sothis episode was amazing. Great Alec, great Magnus, great malec, everything sogood.

One of thethings I liked about this as a Matt stan more than anything is just the waythat Alec was allowed to have a little bit of comedy, since he’s usually such aserious character, and Matt just nailed the subtle comedy in lines like “youcan round down, if you want” and the ICONIC “17! 1700? …17000?” moment which wasjust so spectacularly done. And the best acting moment of S2A when Matt “drinksvodka straight out of the bottle” Daddario does the most perfect impression of a non-drinker drinking alcohol (as a nondrinker this was especially special to me lmao).

But morethe actual Alec moments, I think the way his insecurities were portrayed is whatI really loved in this episode? I don’t usually relate to Alec in ways that are less superficial than not drinking alcohol, but in this single specific way only (only this) I find him relatable to the sole extent that asa 20y/o with basically no relationship experience for certain reasons (yeah sadlife whatever leave me alone). But even apart from that and just focusing on Alec, one of my favourite lines was when hesaid “I didn’t want you to think that there was something wrong with me” and “…becauseI knew I could never have what I wanted” or whatever it was) because that’sjust heartbreaking and basically I just love it, I don’t have anything good or profoundto articulate here, I just love this because I’m so happy Alec can finally have what he wanted for so long, after so many sad lonely years of thinking he could never be this happy and i love him and this whole episode okay bye

On ahappier note, I also really loved the pool-playing scene between Magnus and Alec.I love how they showed his competitive spirit and that playful flirty side toboth of them,  it was really cute and Iwant a lot more of it in the future. Like, you don’t see a lot of Alec being competitiveoutside of this moment, and I feel like some of it was dulled a little bit bythe fact that he would always measure himself up against Jace and perceivehimself as coming up short, but I like when you can see his smugness andcompetitiveness come out in certain moments like this one, esp in the way that you can see Magnus making him happier and more open which yes. (And I also likeAlec talking about archery and i want more of that too).

2x07. omamori

I know2x07 was a big giant mess, but I have to give it the omamori scene. I’ve talkedabout it so much because I love it so much, so I’m deadass just going tocopy-paste something I “wrote” before on it (my grammar in this post is weirdly good and mixed up because i had to write it on MS Word and that autocorrects and capitalizes but the following is more indicative of my actual thought processes lol):

the “yesyou” especially killed me like………he’s so sweet, so obliviously sweet?? likethis is alec’s first relationship ever, and it just strikes me as so lovelythat on their second date ever, he’s like “here have this present” like!! forso long he’s never let himself do any of this, indulge in not only love andattraction and desire, but also all of the small relationshippy things - soliterally the first opportunity he gets, he gives magnus a little present:)))))) it makes me almost sad because there’s so much love in this boy and forso long it had nowhere to go and it choked him from the inside out and now hefinally gets to show it and embrace it and give it to somebody special,somebody who will appreciate and return it in kind

and hedoesn’t register or understand magnus’s surprise? he’s like “yes you duh” likeit’s just par for the course, like “this is what you’re supposed to do, isn’tit?” it’s just so fucking………..alec that it hurts

and thatthe omamori represents protection???? oh god i love it so much b/c alec is thisyoung and relatively un-special shadowhunter (in that he doesn’t have any extraspecial angel powers or whatever) and then there’s magnus who’s immortal andamazingly, endlessly powerful, but alec’s instinct is still towards protection.how sweet is this boy

So yeahthat’s that.

2x08 – Runer ceremony & the endscene with Maryse

Okay LASTONE I promise. 2x08 was again chock full of some NICE Alec scenes, and Iespecially love when Alec has scenes with his parents because as a viewer it’ssuch an interesting dynamic that I really want the show to explore a lot.

Anyway, Ilove love love the Rune Ceremony scenefor a lot of reasons, but speaking about Alec particularly I!!! love!!!!proud!!! big!!! brother!!! Alec!!!!!!! and seeing him smile at Max like that made my entire life ho my god.  And there was something very affecting aboutthe fact that since Robert couldn’t be there, it was Alec who had to accompanyMax up to the Silent Brother. idk exactly but I just really love that moment,because I guess it’s this visual representation of the emotional neglect fromthe Lightwood parents, and the way that the children had to start looking outfor each other at such a young age, and the almost parental protectiveness thatAlec has had to develop over his siblings (and his siblings over him as well) becauseof the lack of emotional support from their parents? I love this song tbh and bigbrother Alec is my favourite Alec (and the visual contrast in height betweenJack and Matt in this scene especially is just SO GOOD for this aesthetic too).You can see this dynamic in terms of some other interactions with Alec and Maxthroughout the episode (which, by the way, I loved.) And this whole idea isjust underscored by the fact that Max is so young and is already being sworn into be a soldier, basically, so it really hits home how young Shadowhunters arewhen they’re indoctrinated into this life.

And I lovethe Alec/Jace/Maryse scene at the end because the Lightwoods are such a good family, in that they’re so fuckedup and there’s so much bad shit that goes on, there’s resentment, there’sthinly-veiled homophobia, there’s emotional abuse, there are lies and secrets –but the realness of it is that they’rea family. They’re a complicated, ugly family (when it comes to parent-childdynamics), but there’s love there, even after everything. And there’s the possibility of apology and maybe, maybe, of eventual healing (as testified to by Maryse and Jace’sconversation earlier).

I know theLightwood parents are awful and often emotionally abusive, but Alec’s hug andsupport to Maryse showed so much more about Alec’s character – how heimmediately forgets all the shit he’s been put through when his mother needed ashoulder to cry on. It’s not beautiful and it’s still indicative of a fucked-upfamily dynamic, but Alec and his protective, gentle, and comforting instinctkills my soul – and I love the sort of irony, I guess you could call it, thatit’s this woman that made Alec repress those instincts in an attempt to makehim a perfect soldier, but they were too strong and too much of a part of himfor his kindness and gentleness to completely be stamped out by his upbringing,and now that’s what Maryse needs fromhim in this moment. idk where I’m going with this but you feel me right?

And I’mreally excited to see Alec’s relationship with his father unfold and get moredevelopment. Because Robert was kind to Izzy and wasn’t as openly awful aboutMalec as Maryse was, people got the idea that he was “better” to Alec thanMaryse, but if you look at season one, Robert did his fair share of mistreatingAlec (not to mention that thinly-veiled dig at Magnus being a “lothario”). SoTodd & Darren teased that Alec/Robert scene and my god they better deliveron this and deliver properly becauseit’s all I want.

2x10: REAL QUICK so I really really likedthe “I love you” malec scene from 2x10 but I wrong a long-ass answer on that back then, so I’m not gonna get into it nowI literally have no more words to say about it lmao

AND YUPTHERE IT IS. These are my favourite Alec scenes. I think I did okay, all thingsconsidered.

[dwtsfun]

Dancing with the Stars Season 24 Week 9: Yep. That Happened

*slow claps* Let’s give it up for this show completely and totally stooping to a new low. Wow. You really needed Simone gone so much that you went through all of that last week to get her down and then backpedaled this week and then had those same judges that were extremely critical of her last week, feign shock and pull out these looks of horror that she actually was eliminated this week. Wow. I’m impressed by how low this was. I didn’t think they could get any lower. But they prove it to me time and time again that they can. Those producers knew what they were doing. That EP was in Tom’s ear and told him to ask Simone why she didn’t look happy. Oh they knew what they were doing. And you can’t tell me that the judges lack so much self awareness that they don’t understand the damage that their comments can do. You can’t tell me that all four of them are that stupid. CAI? Maybe. But the other three? Julianne was a former pro. She knows this game and has been on the other end many times. Her brother and friend were on the other end. You can’t tell me that she doesn’t understand the weight that their comments hold. You cannot get me to believe that this was shocking to them. You just can’t. They wanted a reaction out of Simone last week. They wanted one that would finish her off. That’s why the producer asked that question after the first dance. It wasn’t enough to hear CAI complain about her being too on beat and too perfect and not smiling enough while just saying previously that she was smiling too much. You had to tell your host that she didn’t look happy (meaning ask about it) and ask her why she wasn’t after those “compliments”. And they got the soundbite that they wanted. They got it. Remember when I told you all that racism would play a role in why both Normani and Simone couldn’t make the finals? Well, there it is. That was a nice and healthy dose of misogynoir for ya right there. And it was led by TPTB and the judges. Also remember when I said that Mandy Moore’s stupid comment about emotion was gonna haunt them? Welp, there you go. If you’re wondering how and why Simone got eliminated, there it is. In fact, I’ll bold those few sentences for you all. Now let’s get into the rest of this even though I really don’t want to.

Judges’ Challenge (I really don’t understand why this was a thing)

Normani and Val- Viennese Waltz (Score=36)- So this dance was a perfect example of what not learning the basics can do to you in the later stages of the competition. I think that most of these issues that Normani had could have been sorted out 6 weeks ago, had her pro given her way more content in her ballroom dances and made sure that they did more than two bars in hold for each dance. She was not comfortable at all dancing with Val. Something that Simone, Rashad and David had no difficulty with. All I could do was shake my head. The judges did her a disservice all season long by not properly critiquing them. This Viennese waltz could have been great. But there were a lot of issues with it. That prevented it. I’m surprised they actually scored her the way they should have been all season versus throwing 10s at her for 4 weeks straight.

David and Lindsay- Foxtrot (Score=34)- This was a really good dance. I was surprised at how much David improved from just last week. Up until this point, I thought it was his best dance. Julianne had the right idea by making him focus so much on getting his butt under. Yes, he had some technical issues and his butt still needs to be tucked in a little bit (even though he can’t help that he has a big butt). But it was fun, a major improvement and he did some pretty neat moves.

Simone and Sasha- Jive (Score=40)- I don’t really think Simone did all that much different in terms of emotion or whatever the heck CAI was working on her with. I mean it’s a jive. What kind of depth can you show? Now I will say that maybe Sasha’s choreography was a little better this week, but I don’t think Simone’s performance quality changed all that much. She let loose a little bit more but I think that probably had more to do with her trying to prove herself and being a bit upset than CAI coming in and working with her. Anyway, I thought the dance was great. Simone did a great job and hit everything perfectly. She deserved that perfect score (even though she should have gotten one long before week 9).

Rashad and Emma- Rumba (Score=38)- I am really mad that they cannot seem to get a perfect score. This was perfect. The fact that Len keeps harping on feet problems that aren’t even really a big deal at this point makes me mad. I looked at his feet. They were no worse than other men that he’s given 10s. And I don’t understand why CAI gave him a 9 either. Makes no sense to me. But whatever.

Round Two

Normani and Val- Lindy Hop…I mean Jazz (Score=40)- So many of us predicted that this was gonna be a 40 once we learned that she got it. Regardless of what she did, it was gonna be a 40. And it was a good dance. But I mean that wasn’t a jazz. It was a Lindy hop. See what we mean when we say that jazz is just another way to do a freestyle well before the freestyle round and get a good score. You see why that’s a problem? Especially in a semi-final when everyone else has difficult Latin and ballroom dances with rules that are enforced. With jazz, you can do whatever you want and get a good score just for showing up and looking alert. And look. She’s the only person to get a salsa (very relaxed rules), Argentine tango (lifts are allowed and is typically is a high scoring dance), contemporary and jazz. No one else had that luxury this season.

David and Lindsay- Tango (Score=36)- This was David’s best dance ever. I am not sure where this came from, but he came alive and showed everyone that still had doubts, that he deserved his place in the semis. He had so much attack but he was also very controlled. His posture and frame were great. His technique was good. His butt was under. Everything came together perfectly for this dance. I wish they had been rewarded with at least one 10. Oh and CAI conveniently pulls out the lift police this week even though they were suspiciously silent during Normani’s jive last week.

Simone and Sasha- Rumba (Score=40)- I loved this dance. At first I was a little bit scared because I was thinking Sasha had put too many contemporary-esque moves in and not enough rumba basic steps. But as the dance went on, they really went into the rumba and I enjoyed it. I thought the hip action was there, the connection was great, the performance was great and the technique was, as always, flawless. I’m glad Simone got to go out on a good note. Last week was treacherous and I know this won’t really make up for it. But, at least she didn’t get the same treatment that Bonner did (which I’m still disgusted by). Sad that I have to even worry about stars getting treated like garbage on their way out now.

Rashad and Emma- Quickstep (Score=39)- I want to fight Len. I don’t care if he’s 70. He’s pissed me off all season. I didn’t get a chance to see the critiques for this dance because I had to go take a movie back for my mom and Quantico was on when I got back. I didn’t wanna stop that to finish the show, because I mean Quantico is better. So my question why did he withhold the 10 this time? What was the issue? Was it the fact that they broke hold in the middle of the dance? Because at this point, with the amount of crap they have let one couple slide with this season, that didn’t bother me. Was it his feet again? Something tells me that it was. And I’m so irritated. Whatever. It was one of my favorites of the night.

So that’s it. We all know Simone and Sasha were eliminated. And I’m still mad over that. And I’m even more mad at the judges acting like it’s our fault. Nope. Not at all. This falls all on your shoulders. And I hope they have issues sleeping because of it. I hope they’re haunted by it. I don’t care if that sounds mean. They shouldn’t have ripped a 20 year old apart for stupid things. But the show will look back on this moment in about a year and a half. They’ll realize that this is where they finally shot themselves in the foot. I don’t know how the come back from this season. They’re already having issues casting celebs. And when you have 6 celebs talk about bad experiences on the show, including Simone Biles, I don’t see how that invites people to come on. In fact, all it does is scare people off. So yeah, when you start seeing celebs like one of the guys from LMNT, and one of the stars from Naturally Sadie, remember this season and what happened. That will explain why no one of importance wants to come on.