#‘ i'm the dark one in my family.’ • dossier! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sinaliciousposts · 1 year

Text

Another day, another prompt I just finished.

This time I ventured into the vast lands of Pandora.

What was my challange? I'm glad you asked.

Sentences to use:

- You're really cute, you know.

- Why can't you be honest with me? With yourself?

- I didn't know where else to go.

Fandom: Borderlands

Pairing: Handsome Jack/Female!Reader

Tags: Jack is being Jack (I hope), a little bit of brief strangulation (it is Jack we are talking about), strained relationship.

And now. On to the story:

That Bastard

Pandora. Relentless, harsh, unforgiving. Life on Pandora was all that. But it was still your home. As much as you hated this stinking planet, you still had to come to terms with it. As the daughter of a notorious bandit clan, your future was actually predetermined from birth. But you had chosen your own path. Your family did disinherit you and chased you away. You did not want to have anything to do with their way of life. Grown up among psychos, the abominable customs of the more sinister corners of Pandora were all too familiar to you. But you had been determined to leave all this behind. And your determination paid off. You couldn't leave this hellhole of a planet, but you were able to build up a halfway decent existence in Three Horns Devide on your own terms. You knew how to defend yourself and your eyes and ears were almost everywhere, building up a network to make your living. Your merchandise? Information.

This day had been particularly hot and you were glad that it was now slowly coming to an end. The sun was already low in the sky and from your elevated house you could see the dark outlines of the drydocks where the sun slowly disappeared behind. If you looked in the other direction, you could see Sanctuary glittering. Your echo made a beeping sound and you turned to examine the device. A new message was displayed. One of your informants. A tip about compromised power cells. No sooner had you finished reading the first message, a new message popped up with another ping. Dossiers about the new Vault Hunters, which had appeared on Pandora a few weeks ago. The only familiar name at first glance was Salvador. You knew that he, too, was Pandoran, just like you. You skimmed through all 6 dossiers and found that they were more than detailed. A few clicks on your echo and the usual amount went from your account to that of your informants. It was always good to pay your people enough. And with this information you could certainly make some money. After you finished the transaction, you threw your Echo back on the desk. You leaned back in your chair and put your feet up on the table. Maybe you should call it a day. You could just get a quick dinner and call it a night. Maybe you could visit Zed and get a few supplies to replace used med kits.

Your mind made up, you took your feet off the desk and straightened up to close your laptop next to you when an alert caught your attention. One of your motion detectors had gone off. A little worried, you pulled the device towards you and began your investigation. It was probably just a skag. But you could never be sure. You didn't want to risk being ambushed. You had seven surveillance cameras around your house. Skipping through all of them, you halted at camera six. At the foot of the ladder to your house, you could make out one person. A groan escaped you when you recognized him. That bastard.

Before he could reach your door, which was only ajar, you spoke your greeting to him: "Handsome Jack. What brings you to my humble little hut?". Your door opened with a squeak, revealing your visitor. He was wearing his usual dark blue jeans and gray jacket with the sleeves pulled up to his elbows. Under the jacket he wore a brown vest with large silver buckles where a white overlong shirt protruded. Underneath you could see his yellow Hyperion shirt peeking out. He casually entered your dwelling in his brown sneakers. On his mask he had put on his usual arrogant grin. While one hand remained over his holster on his right leg, he made a dramatic, greeting gesture with his left hand and clicked his tongue. "Someday I am going to surprise you, kiddo." You rolled your eyes inwardly. You absolutely couldn't stand it when he called you kiddo. And he knew this. Relaxed, he now ran his hand through his graying brown hair. But his right hand remained on his hip. Still not stupid, you realized. Because you were also armed and would not hesitate to give him a shot or two if he so much as put a foot out of place. "I do not often entertain house calls. I handle my business through Echo usually. What kept you from calling like you normally do?" you wanted to know. He could and should keep his games to himself. You didn't want to get involved. "Awww, pumpkin. Is that any way to greet the best thing that could ever happen to you? Hmm?", his voice dripped with smugness. You let out an annoyed sigh. That you had ever gotten romantically involved with him, you somewhat regretted. His arrogance was more than off-putting, but you couldn't deny that he could be extremely charming. If he chose to be. "What do you want, Jack?"

If you could, you wanted to get rid of him as soon as possible. With any luck, this would work out in your favor. Under no circumstances did you want to get wrapped around his little finger. Again. He seemed to notice your reluctance, because a twinkle appeared in his heterochromatic eyes. It gave you a sinking feeling in your gut. Did he now think this is a challenge? That bastard.

Whatever was going through his mind, you had to distract him somehow. "I don't feel like repeating myself," you began, watching Hyperion's CEO as he now flopped down, unwinding on your tattered sofa. "You should definitely do something about your decor. I'd be lying if I called it anything other than disgusting.", he wrinkled his nose while wiping the crumbs of your last meal off the armrest. "I'll have the bill for my dry cleaning and doctor sent to you. Hope I don't catch anything here." His gaze now turned back to you, while he rested his right foot on his left knee. He hadn't been listening to you or he was just ignoring you. Pissed off, you got up from your chair, walked around your desk and leaned on it with your arms crossed. "Jack. Cut the bullshit and get to the point. Say what you want and then get the fuck out of here.", you wanted to make it unmistakably clear to him that you weren't in the mood to play his stupid games today. You were tired and wanted to enjoy your evening off. You did make plans to head to Sanctuary and you wanted to reach it before it turned dark outside. In less than a second Jack had jumped up and had his right hand mercilessly around your throat. The weight of his body pushed you further into your desk, moving it a little in the process. A wave of fear came over you. Perhaps you had been too careless with your annoyed tone and choice of words. It was not wise to infuriate him, for he had learned to stand up for what he wanted and not settle for anything less. "Stop it, Jack. You're hurting me," you choked out. "You're really cute, you know. Giving me attitude one minute and almost shitting yourself in the next. You know exactly why I'm here." His face was very close to yours, so you could understand him even though you were gasping for air. As your gaze slowly blurred, you couldn't help but stare into his mismatched eyes. The left one was blue, as crystal clear as the sparkling ocean in the sun. The right one of a green, which made every other color pale beside it. The intensity in his eyes had always mesmerized you. It cost you immense effort not to lose yourself in his gaze. Before your vision completely darkened, he let go of your throat and took a few steps away from you. Panting and coughing, you took deep breaths as you sank to your knees. Your hands replaced his around your neck and rubbed. Surely there would be bruises in a couple of hours. That bastard.

He clicked his tongue disdainfully, then brought his irresistible grin back to his face. "Naaa, I'm not going to snuff out your little lights. What's the point of that? But I have to remind you: Watch your language, pumpkin." When your breathing had calmed down to some extent, you stood up. With a steady gaze, you looked into his mismatched eyes. "I'm unfortunately not sure why you are here. And I'm asking you to leave now," this time your tone was rather tired. Your voice slightly stricken. You held his intense look and couldn't help but notice something other than the usual intensity and his excessive cockiness flare up in his eyes. Was it doubt? Disbelief? Regret? You were not sure. But you would not flinch. "Why can't you be honest with me? With yourself?", Jack wanted to know in a whisper. This time his tone didn't ooze with smugness. The serious question caught you completely off guard and you couldn't hide your confusion. Slowly you turned your eyes away, took your Echo from the desk and went over to your sofa where you settled down exhausted. That bastard.

"Fifty thousand," was your curt reply. "Per dossier." He took out his Echo and clicked on it a couple of times. A ding on yours told you his money had arrived. You made sure it was the correct amount. Then you sent him a copy of the Vault Hunter's dossiers. Tired, you threw the Echo on the sofa next to you. "I'm not the only one who deals in information, you know," you mumbled to him while resting your head on one arm and kneading the bridge of your nose with the other hand. "I don't do business with bandits. And I have to be more than careful with whom I get involved with. You know me, cupcake. I didn't know where else to go." A little startled, you looked up at him. He was leaning on your desk now, arms leaning on it behind him, simply watching you. On his face, that incredibly charming grin that always made your stomach flutter. You noticed how you blushed when you realized that his last words were one of his rare and rather honest, if awkward, compliments. He could be charming. If he wanted to be. That bastard.

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

And with that, kiddos, I stagger off into the night. I slightly edited it. Got some good constructive critiscm to improve :)

I really hope you did enjoy it.

Anyway, thanks for reading!

#handsome jack #handsome jack x reader #female reader #borderlands fanfiction

50 notes · View notes

scriptores · 1 year

Text

𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐄 : fergus cousland, dragon age: origins

overview: as the eldest son of house cousland ( the ruling family of the teyrnir of highever ), fergus was sent to ostagar on a scouting mission to assist king cailan's efforts against the coming blight. in his absence, arl howe laid siege on the cousland castle, killing fergus' parents, as well as his wife and child. only his sister, alys, escaped the attack, but was conscripted into the grey warden order as a result and likewise sent to ostagar. fergus had been reported missing shortly before the battle, and for weeks he was presumed dead. however, his scouting unit had been ambushed and fergus was found by a chasind who tended him in his lengthy recovery. it was not until the land's meet that fergus was finally able to reunite with his sister and learn of his family's fate. after she ended the blight, fergus took his place as teyrn of highever, and hopes to rebuild his fallen house.

verses

main : for all plots centered around the games. i'm pretty open to playing around with different scenarios and aus (i.e. fergus being picked up as a companion in origins, rescued by someone else in the wilds, considered as an option for king / a marriage to anora during the landsmeet -- which he will loathe you for -- etc. ) but unless plotted otherwise, the default is that he becomes teyrn, his sister is the arlessa of amaranthine, and he enters an arranged marriage with evelyn trevelyan ( @verdraste who is also my default inquisitor, unless ofc i'm writing with other non-trevelyan inquisitors ).

fantasy : very easy to drop fergus and house cousland in any fantasy setting !! so this may be the primary choice. the gist remains relatively the same. his land is on the stormy coast of whatever country applies, and default is that his family is recognized as being second in power to the crown, or close to it. they're known for their highly adept soldiers (great for muses who need allies & reinforcements!), strong network of spies, and breeding and raising mabari warhounds. more than likely, fergus succeeded his father due to a similar tragedy, but we can play it by ear.

regency / bridgerton : fergus is the eldest son of the duke of highever. given his family's legacy in the military, he voluntarily fought in the battle of waterloo, but sustained an injury that left him incapacitated and unable to return home for a few months. during his recovery, his estate was infiltrated by an unknown murderer who killed his parents, but luckily did not find his sister. upon his return home, fergus steps in as the new duke, and is being pressured into finding a wife soon. understandably, this is currently the last thing on his mind. he's besties with benedict and anthony ( when he isn't being a buzzkill <3 ).

dossier

name. fergus cousland titles. teyrn of highever (addressed as "lord cousland") pronouns. he/him age. 27 (da:o), 37-40 (da:i) origin/nationality. ferelden etymology. human noble / warrior of the champion class sexuality. bisexual alignment. lawful good, fealty to the ferelden crown or his sister

relations. alys cousland (sister, @ladygriffon), bryce cousland (father, deceased), eleanor cousland (mother, deceased), oriana cousland (first wife, deceased), oren cousland (son, deceased)

height. 6'1" build. herculean, defined but not chiseled; strong like a bear, not a pretty statue; just enough softness to make for an excellent hugger (also he has great tits idc idc) hair. dark brown, curly eyes. hazel, variety of browns and honey tones scars. riddled with them. he's a tank; it's his duty to battle in the frontlines and take critical hits. his body is a testament to this. he wears them with pride, aside from the worst one: a large crescent shaped gash across his abdomen from the battle of ostagar. he had to cauterize the wound to avoid bleeding out. the chasind took care of the rest when they found him, but not even magic could heal it all the way. scents. petrichor, sea salt and cypress

known languages: ferelden, and most other languages from across thedas. it was required in his noble studies, but frankly he is sorely embarrassed to admit he has not retained most of them and will butcher the conversation on more than a few accounts. his avvar is pretty great though, thanks to aerick, an exiled avvar/highever guardsman, originally from kirkwall, who mentored him through his youth. (also asteria's father, but more on that in a different post)

abilities / skillset. * weapons master. proficient with most weapons (i.e., shields, halberds, crossbrows, axes & mauls). he'll often carry 2-3 depending on the situation and his position in the battlefield, but his sword is the most consistent choice. dual wielding it with a shield or a maul crafted in the shape of two mabari jaws is his other consistent choice.

* great tactician. by the time we get to da: origins, fergus pretty much functions as a commander in his father's stead. he led the forces of the northern ferelden banns and strategized the battle alongside king cailan, loghain and duncan.

* superior survival skills. again thanks to aerick, but, as an outdoorsman who hated being cooped up in the castle, these lessons were mainly through fergus' insistence. he's always taken a great interest in hunting, as well as aerick's avvar roots, so aerick would sometimes oblige fergus and his friends by guiding them through long hunting treks in the mountains, to learn how to hunt, set traps, and survive more practically in tougher terrains. eventually, he made a habit of frequently hiking at his own leisure despite protests from his mother, so at this point you can throw him in the middle of anywhere and he'll be quite capable and adaptable.

* basic nautical skills. thanks to his oh-so-fun summer weeks spent with grandpa fearcher on a warship :))) old man put your boy through it, but he came out with callouses a plenty, knowing the basics of rigging, how to tie excellent knots, star navigation, etc. restrictions. * speed. he is meant to be a powerhouse, and is fast but only to a degree. when faced with someone of the rogue class, this could very well be to his detriment if he can't manage to get in a good hit that knocks them into next week.

* post battle of ostagar. his right leg was broken and poorly set when he was found by the chasind, and while healed, it does still fail on him if he exerts himself too hard. he also suffers from ptsd which can be triggered during a confrontation and compromise his focus. his combat days are much more limited because of this, but he's still a tactician and inspires high morale in the ranks where he can.

* politics. he hates everything about it. while a warm and generally charming person, he cannot abide to be disingenuous and lacks the patience to engage in shallow or false conversations. he's a man, guided by his heart, who acts more quickly than he thinks and will often be brutally honest if there's someone or something he doesn't like. regardless of political consequence. one of the reasons why alys was thought to be better suited for the role of teyrna.

themes. through me (the flood), hozier

#⚔️ profile: fergus

10 notes · View notes

inlocusmads · 11 months

Text

Who is the killer? (On Crimes Ch 3, The Thorne Children and Others)

Disclaimer -> this is just my opinion!!! Also tagging @choicesbookclub because I can go full unhinged and not be judged lmao.

[Spoilers for Crimes Book 2, Ch 2, 3]

Trystan's Half Siblings (aka Mags' siblings)

> Sebastyan:

Granted Sebastyan is the strongest contender for the killer, but it doesn't exactly make sense at the same time. Mostly because Mags says, Seb was a close friend of Juliana and he understood her in a way Trystan didn't.

In the prologue, the hooded killer talks about how "Juliana and them can reach glorious heights" and then when she refuses, they kill her. It is clearly a crime of passion, because the killer didn't exactly mean to kill Juliana per se, unless Juliana had some incriminating evidence, which could've been the result of some nasty fall out.

I'm unsure as to what Seb's true motivations are but it is clear that because he's the son of the king's mistress and Juliana (according to her leaked dossier) had advocated for equal inheritance rights for all children of Maksim irrespective of whether they had Viktoria or Eveline as their mother, it is likely they might have made considerable progress. To have that go all away, I doubt someone who appears calculative as Sebastyan would do it. I feel like PB is setting up for a red herring, like how they did with the imitation cult. They'd have Sebastyan engaging in all sorts of suspicious behaviours and pawn it off as authentic, when really he's a pawn in Eveline's game.

> Mags

Now it is likely PB might pull a fast one and go "Aha! It was Mags all along, you suckahs!" but it would just be out of character for her. Mags was Juliana's good friend, she organised a search party for her, called a press conference at such a young age and she was only sixteen. Sixteen year olds, though scare the living shit out of me, even though I'm only a couple of years older, are not capable of orchestrating a mass murder. They are capable of being manipulated.

I've talked about the schism in the Thorne family many times, about how Viktoria's side and Eveline's side are duking it out and Trystan is the middle person in all of this stuff and they're like the wild card scenario in which the chess game can turn any way. Mags would likely be a pawn in Eveline's game even if she wants to be independent and have her own fashion line. I've also talked about the whole New York/Drakkos arrangement thing as well, because Mags could've chosen powerful fashion houses with the likes of Italy, France, etc but she chose to be with her sibling instead, to make sure Trystan doesn't mess anything up. She definitely comes from a place of concern but I wouldn't be surprised if she's being passively controlled by her mother.

Eveline, though we've never seen her, is likely to do the same thing Viktoria is doing and arrange this elaborate scheme to control as many Thorne children as she can; because technically she is the mistress and we all know affairs tend to be much harder on women than they are on the men. Eveline might just be out there wanting to protect her children, but having a side agenda of her own. It is unclear as to what she might be in want of but with how generational trauma and dysfunctional families work, the children always receive the short end of the stick - however old or young they might be.

> Vasili

Vasili is also Trystan's half sibling. We don't see much of them but they come off as almost like a dark horse-esque character? I'm not too sure, of course. They do mention Juliana was "rallying for change", which seems to be the common theme among Duchess Eveline's children. Of course they want Juliana to be alive. They want her because Juli proposed the whole idea of equality towards all the children and a chance for all of them to be contenders to the throne. Vasili is in direct neck and neck with Trystan, who might be just a few years older than them. Vasili if I'm not wrong, was quick to dismiss Trystan as this partier kind of character, who doesn't care for the crown at all. They painted Juliana in this postive light while pinning the blame on Trystan because the latter was too carefree to properly understand her and that was Trystan's motive, somehow?

I don't know, it just seems like too thin of a pie to really slice into. If we're doing character witnesses, painting Trystan as a rich snob idiot and a carefree kiddo who doesn't care about the crown is completely irrelevant to the case. I'm no lawyer of course, but it doesn't offer enough foundation for Trystan to be an active murderer just because they didn't enjoy the policy making decisions - THEY COULDN'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE! Trystan was largely absent from all of the country's policy making, because it is likely they've never fitted in well with family and were looking for quick cheap ways to get away from all of this bureaucratic squabbling. It is likely Trystan probably doesn't have expertise on it, since they are an entrepreneur and it would be hard for them to take any active stance when you have Viktoria on one side who's motivations are as unclear as the oxymoron - "opaque glass" and Eveline on the other.

It is also hard for T to make a decision too, because they've got Mags whom they are close to and likely the only one who checked upon them from time to time during their exile.

I'm properly convinced this is all a neat Eveline-esque arrangement because they NEED Juliana on their side. It is the only way Eveline can get her children to qualify for the crown or at least the same benefits as the crown. Mags already ruminates about how being the child of a mistress already puts her in a considerable, frown-able position and she's got three siblings with her who are also competing for such kingly privileges. It just seems oddly convenient for all of them to believe Trystan did it because they were all for Juliana and it is the only explanation of "some" of the facts.

Plus because Trystan is Viktoria's child, Eveline might use this as a personal goal to push forth what she had in mind towards Maksim for his approval. I don't know much, but this is treading borderline into a political thriller which I really hope PB doesn't do.

Trystan's Siblings (Aka Queen Viktoria's children)

> Kasper & Emika

I'm thoroughly going by the leak informations and the stuff that was already given to us, so yes I am sorry if this gets somewhat borderline conspiratorial. Anyway, Kasper and Emika are introduced as this dynamic kleptomaniac pair. Kasper is a jewel thief. Emika is his loyal twin who is also an influencer, who is also engaged in shady stuff and it kind of gives me Travis and Connor Stoll vibes from Percy Jackson.

I'd like to think PB introduced these two as comic relief characters because from the very start Trystan's nonchalance about Kasper stealing Amalas' jewels once and then going "stop being such an opportunist" already gives away some information that they're just going to be there as a red herring element or like one of those borderline illegal twin duos who'd help you out if you want to get out of something.

We haven't even seen them yet and I just have this gut feeling they're going to be the ones to bug and bombard MC with questions. I also feel like Kasper would be Trystan's ally at the very least. He has his own personal goals and he is able to relate to Trystan because he himself has been banned from several countries for pickpocketing stuff. I'd like to think Kasper would at least, at the very least, help Trystan out and Emika would follow suit because they're said to be this loyal person and somehow use their influence and trustworthiness to lobby for Trystan's side.

I'm def sure I'm going to love them. I don't care if they butchered Juliana into pieces okay? Maybe I do but that's besides the point. Anyone who gets away with stealing jewels and flipping people off enough to get banned from countries is a massive "for the people" person. I wouldn't be surprised if Kasper was actually as repulsive to this whole royalty business as Trystan is. I'd love for them to share some common goals.

They also oddly remind me of Jean Ralphio and Mona Lisa Saperstein from Parks and Rec.

I can totally imagine them faking their deaths and opening up a casino in Tajikistan and having their own little stealth tunes XD! I'd also like to think they're the troublemakers, sort of your mischievous twins trope in action. They're there to supply the "shipping" bits - going "What do you see in Trystan, MC? They're horrible!"

> Lydea

Okay look. I'm aroace.

But I will let Lydea run me over with a forklift.

LIKE OKAY, THEY'RE LIKE -- I KNEW IT. I FUCKING KNEW IT WHEN I SAID THIS:

Screw Trystan and MC. I will choose Lydea in a heartbeat. Jk jk jk.

Okay look. Lydea, I don't think they even give a shit. They want their job done. They'd fight to death for it. They're loyal, they're dedicated to their duties - I don't care anymore, okay? I also doubt that Lydea would even have the time, because they give off massive "idgaf unless it involves knives and poisons" energy. Even Trystan would rather not mess with them and instead just restrict to verbal rebuttals because they know Lydea can't be bested.

I don't know what their goals and motivations would be, but Viktoria is their boss and their mother. They also haven't talked anything about Juliana as a whole and is very duty-driven. I'd like to think they take a very neutral and militaristic standpoint for this. They would be relieved if Trystan was not the killer but if indeed they were, they wouldn't hesitate to go all judicial on their rear end, because it makes sense. Under Lydea, according to the dossier leaks, the Drakovian crime rates had gone down, which only proves that Lydea is for what is right and what is wrong. But life is hardly ever binary that way or black and white because what is right might be what is wrong to people and what is wrong might be the only way someone can do something.

I would love to see Lydea go through this realisation for themselves and truly see the corruption that starts at home before they go out on the streets to do police work. I'd like to think MC and Lydea would be powerful allies if they ever cleared the air of miscommunication between them and learned some tough truths as the story goes on.

> Astrid

God bless Astrid. I love her. But at the same time PB has this thing where they put the most petite characters on display and call them as the killer. For example, VoS and MW where the characters you don't expect, whom you think are sort of mulled away in the background, would come back to haunt you.

Astrid is nice, but at the same time she was, I presume, the only blood-related sibling of Trystan to give her testimony and she chose to give it against Trystan, which kind of reeks of some suspicion. Because apart from Lydea who didn't give her stance, we haven't seen any of Trystan's direct siblings apart from Astrid give their character witness testimony, so to speak? And Astrid chose to talk about how reckless and irresponsible Trystan was and then she puts a comical twist into it and says people do stupid things when they're in love or drunk or something of that sort, and something about waking up to a room full of people speaking Czech.

I have a fair idea of PB's pattern with murderous mystery villains and most of us do because it is always the one you least expect. Even in TRR, I guess, when Lady Penelope (the one with the poodles) went through her own villain moment, when she seemed such a sunshiney person. Granted I would be crushed because Astrid seems like a lovely adorkable person and with her whole stance on "love makes you go insane" I'd like to think she'd be the captain of the Thorne Rose ship.

> Patryk

I don't think we saw much of Patryk at all. I feel like they are the forgotten last child in this massive family. Little is known about them too and it is told that they're an influencer who has dark humour which stands true because if you're the youngest, forgotten child, you just tend to cope by going full emo. Kidding kidding. (I'm definitely not the youngest kid in my family, no definitely not.) So I'm not going to make any assumptions beforehand.

So who do I think is the killer?

I haven't got a clue. But PB loves wild goose chases and they're going to lead us on one. I have my bet on Astrid because it just seems like the perfect disguise for her. She's like the "airhead who's secretly very very smart" and she was also described as a "serial monogamist who leaves a trail of dead lovers", which is a convincing enough front because who's ever going to suspect the reckless party girl? I don't know lmao. She gives me Hayley Rose vibes from MW and if you've played Most Wanted, then.. you know.

But the killer isn't important. The schism is. Viktoria and Eveline are clearly in a cold war of their own and it kind of boils down to a Eleanor St. Claire situation where she's the real mastermind controlling Tony Kowalski to do her bidding. All the Thorne kids have been told different shit by different people and now they don't know what to believe in. Whoever controls the killer had an active control over Juliana's fate and it is clear that "Your Majesty" might refer to both the Duchess and the Queen, because if in the off chance, Eveline really wants Maksim to recognise her children, she'd have been promoted to a second Queen of sorts and it would make sense for her allies to address her in this precocious, pretentious way.

I don't know what I'm saying anymore lol. But c'mon really, all this fight for a king we haven't even met? Guys you deserve better. Let Trystan go solve cases with MC in New York and you guys can have your fistfight back at home. Don't drag my poor little Trys into this mess, because they deserve so much better and maybe five years' of therapy because no Trystan, you can't solve your problems by getting stabbed, shot at and mauled by people and then sulk about it in your room. Please. Mental health is important, kids.

***

If you're interested in more of this stuff I would absolutely love to hear from you over my other unhinged posts like these:

I've written two pre-Crimes 2 Predictions Posts (Part 1, Part 2) and one about Chapter 1 and my thoughts on it!

They do go on for like.. a lot and I mean a lot, lot and sometimes I just go full on tinfoil hat. (You can also check out the tag #mads pls get back to this in the off chance I don't update this post with hyperlinks and stuff)

It is like sharpening a sword for my own execution at this point after I got knee deep into this book and there is nobody but me to blame. I'd love to hear from you guys! Let's just lose our minds together lmao!

#choices book club #mads pls get back to this later #mads rambles about a bunch of different things

4 notes · View notes

impider · 11 months

Text

DOSSIER CHEAT SHEET. [ let's do this one last time . . . ]

BASICS

LEGAL NAME : kang eun - seong [ named after his mother's long time partner / lover whom he recognizes as a parental figure and refers to as eun - ma ] . NICKNAME[S] : ezra [ primary nickname , given to him by his sister . his mother wanted to allow her children to choose their english names themselves , but when ezra came up with ' fang ' , ' dragon ' and ' scarlord mcchickens ' , his rights were taken away . he really , really dislikes when its shortened , as he has a pet peeve for his nickname being nicknamed . do not call him ez or ezzy , he visably frowns ] . extra / exra [ by shiloh only in response to ezra being overwhelming , impulsive or overall too much to handle ] . SPIDER DEVIL [ the one and only . . . ] . DATE OF BIRTH : the first of september [ virgo sun / leo moon / aquarius mercury / virgo venus / cancer mars ] . GENDER : cis man. PLACE OF BIRTH : in the heart of brooklyn , new york , earth - 4545. [ born in the hyper - religious earth of 4545 that takes place six - hundred years after the end of the world . new york is a hub that has expanded and divided its boroughs in a way reminiscent of the caste system / divided in favor of a person's wealth , health , knowledge and religious purity [ how close are you to being made in god's image ? ] . as the unbaptized and partially deaf kid on the spectrum and the the son of an atheist alchemist , brooklyn is the only place he's welcome ] . CURRENTLY LIVING : a three bedroom / two bath apartment in brooklyn with his mother and sister . SPOKEN LANGUAGES : english [ fluent ] , asl [ fluent ] and korean [ conversational , at best ] . EDUCATION : high school . HAIR COLOR : black . EYE COLOR : dark brown . HEIGHT : 5'10" / 177cm . WEIGHT : 155 lbs / 70.3 kg .

FAMILY INFORMATION

SIBLING[S] : kang areum [ older sister , alive ] . PARENT[S] : kang hana [ mother , alive ] . unknown father [ father , unknown ] . [ his father is another alchemist at alchemax which hana briefly dated / engaged in a situationship with . she wanted to raise her children alone and asked him not to interfere . ezra as well as his sister , areum , have never met their father ] . RELATIVE[S] : kang geumseong [ maternal grandmother , alive ] , kang beom - seok [ maternal grandfather , alive ] , unknown paternal grandparents . CHILDREN : none . PET[S] : a series of stray kittens that he's come home crying / begging his mom to let him keep . [ she let him keep them overnight and then to the humane society they go first thing in the morning . she and areum are allergic ] .

RELATIONSHIP INFORMATION

SEXUAL ORIENTATION : he likes you , don't worry . RELATIONSHIP STATUS : he'll be singleship in the future once his dream girl starts paying attention to him . [ he also crushes a lot / is affection hungry so almost anyone can get it for now ] . SINCE WHEN : well , she'll have to text back first .

tagged by : @hatethepm + @fangwebs [ TY. KISSES FOR MY FRIENDS ] .

tagging : mostly everyone i know has been tagged , but if you haven't and you see this , i'm tagging you ! [ jk , special tag for the love of my life , @spidersiren ] .

#✧⠀⠀━━ ARCHIVED UNDER⠀⠀/⠀⠀EZRA KANG⠀⠀.#✧⠀⠀━━ ARCHIVED UNDER⠀⠀/⠀⠀EZRA KANG⠀⠀:⠀⠀INTROSPECTION⠀⠀.

2 notes · View notes

dulcerre · 1 year

Text

&. — — each moment and everywhere, civilisations rise and fall, much as the stars are born and die.

the paper menagerie, ken liu.

( cha eunwoo, nineteen ) ⸻ it's not often that you hear muggle music in the halls and corridors of hogwarts but when you hear new skin by vérité, you know that it's draco lucius malfoy. the fourth year slytherin is known around the grounds as being sagacious , voluble and industrious but if you know them really well, you know they can be very mordant. there have been some whispers that their family are siding with the dark but right now, all we truly know is that this year is going to be very different.

𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐦𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞,

toujours pur. pure is the heart that throbs in sepsis ; that swells under necrosis, unable to bleed. to be pure is to be unyielding in one's beliefs and worship of that which can only be sworn yet never seen. draco knows this even as he resurfaces from the fever of childhood, transfixed on his father's lips and the small cruelties they shape.

he is sixteen, on the precipice of his first year at hogwarts, and narcissa stands vigil by his bedside when he slips uneasily into slumber. she says, before you go, my love, you must leave the best parts of yourself here. there, they just take and take. pure is the mind that hums with the electricity of unfettered anticipation --- how can he not ? his mother is a phantom whose fretful caution gnaws at his skin. unfailingly doting, he simpers and promises, it'll be alright. i have much to give.

draco's predilection for alchemy and potioneering dawns as surely and naturally as the hat's conviction of his sorting. pure is the pride that buffets him through the changing of seasons, and his mother's words have all but been cast into the recesses of his mind. voracious to learn, and with an appetite for flying to boot, he hurtles through the term as fiercely and undauntingly as the other first - year slytherins do.

as sixteen steals into seventeen, eighteen and nineteen, the condescension and vanity he was bred to wear like a second skin precipitates into something muted and indiscernible. his father makes no remark of it, perhaps for lack of comprehension, but his mother is attuned to him like the string of a bow. her embrace lingers on the platform and draco wonders if she's waiting to be proven right. pure is the intention of love, even when it cannot be reciprocated in kind.

fourth year. the cusp of transition. he feels unwieldy, like a concoction that has failed to yield the appearance prescribed in his newly - varnished textbook. fourth year is an equation with no known variables and an infinite slew of outcomes, none of which draco is certain. pure is the veritaserum that seethes in his cauldron, its inscrutability a thorn in his flesh.

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐢𝐞.

hi loves ! diana here. please excuse the long - form introduction, i promise some concise statistics and a dossier is coming soon ! life has gotten unprecedentedly hectic and i have unfortunately not been able to join in on the first, celebratory bout of plotting, but please leave a ♡ on this post if you'd like to connect and i will reach out as soon as i'm able !

#triwizintro #to tag.

3 notes · View notes

msclaritea · 2 years

Text

ARMIE HAMMER'S life seemed beautiful from the outside—perfect wife and kids, sparkling Hollywood career. But a glimpse into his family's dark past reveals how the shocking allegations of rape and abuse may be the latest chapter in a fraught legacy

MAY 2021 JULIE MILLER

ARMIE HAMMER ALREADY needed crisis therapy.

The world was under lockdown last summer, and Hammer had been quarantining at a luxury villa in the Cayman Islands with his father, Michael, his stepmother, Misty, his two young children, and his wife of a decade, Elizabeth.

"It was a very complicated, intense situation, with big personalities all locked in a little tiny place," Hammer told British GQ. " I think, to be quite frank, I came very close to completely losing my mind." He compared himself to a trapped wolf who wants to "chew his own foot off."

Hammer had been so desperate to escape the Caymans that he booked a flight back to the U.S. A source close to Elizabeth claims that his decision to flee his family during a pandemic was the ultimate affront in a marriage that had already been tested by infidelity; she filed for divorce in July. By January 1, Hammer seemed to have rebounded romantically with a series of short-term girlfriends and was ready to face the world anew: "2021 is going to kneel down before me and kiss my feet because this year I'm the boss," Hammer tweeted. "Now I know what we are up against and it's time to go to war."

Several weeks later, however, Hammer found himself in a darker crisis. Amid the turmoil of divorce proceedings, several women took to social media to accuse the actor of emotional abuse, manipulation, and violence. The scandal ballooned as screengrabs circulated that seemed to show the actor describing sexual fantasies involving rape and cannibalism. Hammer stepped away from two high-profile projects, a rom-com with Jennifer Lopez and a Paramount series about the making of The Godfather. Shortly after, his agency, WME, dropped him.

Then, in mid-March, a woman came forward with detailed allegations of rape and an attack so violent that she thought "he was going to kill me." In a press conference with her lawyer Gloria Allred, Effie (who declined to give her full name), recounted a 2017 assault that lasted for several hours, in which Hammer slammed her head against a wall, bruised her face, and whipped her feet with a crop. Hammer's lawyer, Andrew Brettler, has maintained that "all interactions between Mr. Hammer and his former partners were consensual," releasing correspondence between Effie and Hammer over the course of a four-year relationship. But as Allred emphasized to Vanity Fair in an earlier interview for this story, while adults may "consent to some BDSM practices, they still have a right to withhold consent to other practices."

For the people who know Hammer's family—peppered with Russian communists and American oil tycoons—the allegations are an unsurprising development in a long and sordid history with drugs, sex, dysfunction, and betrayal. Many men in the Hammer family have a dark side, sources close to the family say, one that looms across five consecutive generations.

SINS OF THE FATHERS

THE FAMILY'S FIRST brush with scandal was in 1919, when Armie's great-great-grandfather, Dr. Julius Hammer, gave the wife of a Russian diplomat an abortion. Julius was a Russian immigrant living in the Bronx and a central member of the Communist Party of the United States, according to biographer Edward Jay Epstein, who published Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer in 1996. The woman, Marie Oganesoff, died days later. Julius was convicted of first-degree manslaughter and sentenced to 3 and a half to 12 years in Sing Sing.

With Julius in prison, his 22-year-old son, Armand Hammer (Armie's namesake) , abandoned a medical career to take over his father's other business, Allied Drug. According to Epstein, Vladimir Lenin sent a message to Joseph Stalin encouraging "particular support" for Armand, telling him, "This is a small path to the American 'business' world and this path should be made use of in every way." Armand moved to the Soviet Union in 1921 for about a decade to fortify family connections. While there, he married a Russian singer named Olga and together they had a son named Julian— Armie's grandfather.

"I started watching Succession and I had to turn it off," says Armie's aunt Casey, "because it was like, 'Oh, my God. That's my family.'"

By the 1950s, Armand had divorced Olga as well as a second wife, Angela, who had told the court that, due to his time in Russia and his medical training, "[it] causes him no pain to see the sufferings of others." He moved to Los Angeles, married a wealthy woman named Frances Barrett Tolman in 1956, invested her money in the then failing Occidental Petroleum, and drove the company to incredible success.

Armand tried to distance himself from his Soviet connections, reimagining himself as a self-made industrialist—he even hired a journalist to ghostwrite a memoir, The Remarkable Life of Dr. Armand Hammer. He had a private Boeing 727; palled around with Prince Charles and high-powered politicians (he was a close friend of Senator Al Gore Sr. and attended the inaugurations of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush, among other presidents); collected expensive artwork; and convinced Chinese leaders to lend two pandas to Los Angeles for the city's 1984 Olympics. He died in 1990.

But in 1996, Epstein's bombshell biography exposed the late Occidental Petroleum chairman for wide-ranging grifts, including laundering money, using artwork to fund Soviet espionage, bribing his way into the oil business, and knocking off Fabergé eggs. According to Epstein, Armand bugged his office and home, plus his cufflinks, to record decades' worth of conversations. He had a fixer and was known to do business with a briefcase full of cash. He also made an illegal contribution to the Nixon reelection campaign which, "in all likelihood," according to The New York Times, "went to help pay for the Watergate cover-up." Though he faced a felony charge for obstructing justice, a Washington lawyer helped him plead guilty to misdemeanor charges, and Bush later pardoned him.

Armand had multiple mistresses, including Martha Kaufman—a mother of two who divorced her husband after meeting Armand, and whom he put on Occidental's payroll as an art consultant. When Armand's wife, Frances, grew suspicious, Armand had Martha legally change her name to Hilary Gibson—insisting, according to Epstein, that his mistress wear wigs, glasses, and makeup to change her appearance. The affair lasted more than a decade, with Armand promising to take care of her and her children after he died, she later told Epstein; she drove a car with a homing device, used a tapped phone, and submitted to his sexual demands even when they were "extremely humiliating." When Armand died, she learned that he had left her out of his will.

"Everything he did was public," said Casey Hammer, Armand's granddaughter and Armie's aunt, who is estranged from most of her family and works as a kitchen designer at a San Diego Home Depot. "God forbid you did anything wrong in front of his friends. You couldn't wear the same dress twice to his gala parties. On the outside, we had to be the perfect family." But behind the scenes, Armand required his son, Julian, daughter-in-law, Glenna Sue, and three grandchildren to make appointments to see him, Casey claimed. "I started watching Succession and I had to turn it off," said Casey, "because it was like, 'Oh, my God. That's my family.' "

Julian was extremely bright, but Armand didn't seem to care much for his only child and passed him over entirely when he left Julian's son, Michael—Armie's father— his business empire. Casey believes her father, Julian, caused too much trouble and was an affront to Armand's obsession with appearances. As she said, he "could never get my grandfather's attention unless he resorted to really, really bad behavior."

In the morning hours after Julian's 26th birthday, in 1955, he killed a man inside his Los Angeles home over a gambling debt and supposed advances on his wife, Glenna Sue. The front-page headlines read "Millionaire's Son Kills GI." Armand had a friend deliver $50,000 in cash to a lawyer in Los Angeles. Julian claimed self-defense, and charges were dismissed.

In her self-published 2015 book, Surviving My Birthright, Casey alleges that Julian sexually abused her when she was a child, and that Julian was abusive to others in the family, allegations she also made to Epstein. In an email, Jan Ward, Casey and Michael's half sister, declined to comment on the allegations, instead offering this statement: "I will say that I love my family very much which includes my brother, my sister, and my nephews...I do have wonderful memories of us kids spending every summer at Laguna Beach with our Grandma Olga and spending the holidays with our parents and grandparents. We were all blessed to be able to attend excellent schools thanks to Grandpa Hammer who was a great supporter of education. Our family taught us the value of hard work and I have had a fulfilling career and a wonderful family life."

Like his father, Michael struggled with excess. In 1985, Michael, then working at Occidental, met Dru Mobley on a plane. The lore, as Armie told New York magazine's Vulture: "My dad was supposed to be on a flight, went to the airport, and got hammered and passed out.... He missed his flight, woke up, and was like, 'Oh God, I have a meeting.'" He rebooked, switched seats due to claustrophobia, and wound up next to Dru. They married that year and had Armie the next. The devout Christian Dru seemed to have a tempering effect on Michael's own vice struggles, which he has said included drinking and drugs. "When I accepted Christ," Michael has said, "the [bad experiences] didn't just stop, but they started dwindling."

DADDY ISSUES

IF ARMAND WANTED to keep the empire he built in the family, he didn't have many options. His son, Julian, was addled and unreliable, and his grandson, Michael, by multiple accounts, was not as bright and more interested in a playboy lifestyle than world domination. When Armie was four, his great-grandfather Armand, estimated by Forbes to be worth around $180 million, died. The battle for the estate began almost immediately and still simmers 30 years later. Within hours of Armand's death, police officers who were summoned to the house observed Michael attempting to remove belongings and load them into five waiting cars. (The house, which had been owned by the late Frances, was to be turned over to Frances's niece upon Armand's death.) Casey and Hilary Gibson claimed that Armand had made promises to his family that his estate would take care of them. But at the will reading in a Los Angeles law office, his heirs learned he'd only left behind a piddly $40 million; Casey and her father would each receive just $250,000. In addition to cutting Julian out, Armand name-checked Jan—Glenna Sue's daughter from another relationship, and thereby his step-granddaughter—as having no claim to his estate.

"All of a sudden, I'm in a bad Stephen King novel," Casey said. "My father is worried about why Michael got the Rolls-Royce. And I'm like, 'Dad, you don't understand. You're going to be out on the street, no one's paying for your house, no one's paying for anything.' " The next day, Casey said that she sat with Julian "so he doesn't blow his brains out because now he's threatening to kill me, he's threatening to kill Michael, he's threatening to kill everybody."

"That's got to be true because that's the weirdest fucking thing I've ever heard. Who would lie about that? That's weirder than saying, 'I tied up 25 people.'"

In total, 100 claims and lawsuits were filed against Armand's estate—by Casey, by former mistresses, by charities alleging that the late tycoon owed them, according to The Washington Post. (Casey says that she settled for about $1.4 million. Epstein reported that Gibson settled for $4.2 million.) The inheritance battle tore the family apart. Michael's own mother, Glenna Sue, told The Washington Post that her son "forgot about us," instead favoring Dru's family. Rumors still linger that Armand had stockpiled large sums in cash lockboxes and secret overseas bank accounts, and those were inflamed when Scott Deitrick—Michael's college friend whom Michael appointed vice president of the Armand Hammer Foundation—was arrested after a flight back from London with $60,000 in undeclared cash. "According to Twin Cities news stories at the time, Deitrick's passport recorded nearly 12 trips abroad lasting less than 36 hours," reported The Washington Post. (Michael posted the $250,000 bail and Deitrick was later acquitted of cash-smuggling charges.)

Armand had yearned for a legacy, spending more than $100 million to build the Hammer Museum. But in 1994, according to The Washington Post, Michael turned it over to the UCLA art department. He also asked the Metropolitan Museum of Art to remove Armand's name from the Hall of Arms and Armor rather than pay the remaining $1 million on his grandfather's pledge. Even though Armand had spent his final years recommitting himself to the Jewish faith—he didn't live to celebrate a belated bar mitzvah for himself in his 92nd year—Michael began redirecting the Hammer Foundation's funds to Christian groups like Jews for Jesus and Italy for Christ.

As of 2021, Armand's name no longer graces the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But it fronts the student center at Oral Roberts University, a Christian school where Dru is a board trustee. In the last two decades, ProPublica's tax-record database shows, the foundation has donated over $3 million to the university and more than $4 million more to the Pentecostal Dream Centers, among a smattering of other causes, religious and not.

Julian died in 1996. The year after, Michael moved Dru, Armie, and his younger son, Viktor, to a seaside condo on Grand Cayman—briefly relinquishing his U.S. citizenship in the '90s. The move, according to Armie, was predicated on Michael's having been a big fan of The Firm, the movie in which Tom Cruise travels to the Caribbean tax haven.

Ten years later the family returned to California, but the transition from the Caribbean was rocky. In 2005, the 21-room manor in Pasadena that the family was renovating burned down, resulting in $15 million worth of damages. In 2011, Michael spent the night in a Santa Barbara jail for a DUI charge that was subsequently dropped. Later that year, significantly bigger trouble blew the Hammers' way when the Knoedler Gallery—part of Michael's inheritance from Armand and one of the oldest New York galleries—shuttered suddenly. The next day, the gallery and its former director Ann Freedman were sued by hedge fund executive Pierre Lagrange for selling him a forged Jackson Pollock painting for $17 million. In the years and lawsuits that followed, Knoedler was accused of selling about $70 million in fake paintings—all done by a little-known artist in Queens—in a con that allegedly stretched back to 1994. In total, Knoedler was accused of selling 63 forged pieces. All of the 10 lawsuits filed against Knoedler were settled, one midway through a high-profile trial in 2016—with Domenico De Sole, chairman of Tom Ford International and Sotheby's, and his wife, Eleanor, seeking $25 million in damages.

During the trial, a Knoedler accountant testified that Michael Hammer had essentially treated the 8-31 Holdings group, which owned the gallery, as his personal piggy bank—using a company credit card to buy, among other things, two luxury cars and a trip to Paris for a little over $1 million. When Michael sold one of the cars, a Rolls-Royce, in 2008, he kept the $452,000 it brought, listing it on his W-2 as salary.

About an hour before Michael was scheduled to testify, both parties reached a settlement. Though some in the art world predicted that Knoedler's downfall would damage Michael's—and tangentially, even Armie's—reputation, it didn't seem to.

We call these guys the lucky sperm club here," said a person with ties to the family. "Never accomplished anything. They know a whole lot about spending other people's money." If there is another skill Michael appears to have, it is hiring good lawyers. Various sources who wanted to speak about the specifics of Michael's business and personal tactics—many of them women—say they are frightened to speak on record or have signed paperwork prohibiting them from doing so. Michael's current lawyer, Tom Clare, is representing Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation lawsuits against Rudy Giuliani and Mike Lindell—seeking more than $1.3 billion in damages from each man for claiming the company's voting machines were used to steal the 2020 election.

In spite of the scandals, Michael remains a regular fixture in Montecito society pages, at car shows, and around charity events benefiting the Santa Barbara police. In 2015, the same year the Armand Hammer Foundation made a $1.1 million donation to the Petersen Automotive Museum, the organization added Michael to its board of directors. The endowment he is most proud of, multiple people say, is his own. For years, three people claimed, Michael boasted about a sex throne or "naughty chair," as he has called it, that he kept in Armand Hammer Foundation headquarters in Carpinteria—a warehouse where two people claim Michael lived for several years after his divorce. The structure, about seven feet high, features a chair with a hole in the seat, a cage underneath, and a hook. The Hammer coat of arms—the same one that, for years, adorned the exterior of the headquarters—is painted on the seat. In one photo Michael sits atop the throne grinning while holding the head of a blond woman, sitting in the cage and also smiling. In response to Vanity Fair's questions about Michael's sex throne, drug and alcohol use, finances, and history with women, Clare, counsel for Michael Hammer and the Armand Hammer Foundation, said, "These questions, which ask about unsolicited gag gifts sent by friends, conduct that sounds pretty typical of recently divorced people, and entirely legal financial transactions that were properly accounted for, are absurd."

One former friend who knew of the sex throne said that, when he heard about Armie's alleged kinks, "I was not the least bit surprised."

In 2017—several years after he and Dru divorced—Michael proposed to Misty Millward, a Four Seasons The Biltmore spa "healer," in Michael's words, who helped him recover from back surgery, with a seven-and-a-half-carat diamond on the Fourth of July. Speaking to the Montecito Journal, Michael said that his proposal had a patriotic theme: a red alligator-skin Birkin bag; Armand's white Rolls, in which he popped the question; and the blue of his very own eyes.

CALL HIM BY HIS NAME

ARMIE HAS THE same blue eyes. And the family name tattooed on his wrist. When Armie Hammer broke through in Hollywood, with 2010's The Social Network, the sordid lore of his family backstory was a footnote, whether forgotten or purposely ignored.

To the world Armie was simply a cartoon-prince-handsome scion. It's easy to discount a beautiful person, especially a beautiful person with a famous last name, as one-dimensional. But Armie spent many interviews over his decade-long career telegraphing his own texture.

In 2018, Armie told Conan O'Brien about his own arrest in 2011—the same year that Michael was pulled over for the DUI in Santa Barbara. Armie and a friend had been transporting supplies for Elizabeth's bakery, Bird, through Texas when their truck was stopped at a checkpoint and a dog sniffed marijuana. Armie spent the night in jail. "The inmates were great," Armie said after cameras cut to a mug shot showing him tanned with a popped collar. "The guards were real assholes."

And yes, he was raised in "the fucking paradise"of the Cayman Islands and "used to have a painting of Gorbachev that was given to my family by Gorbachev." But he was also raised with good values, thanks to Dru, he has said.

"My mother's parents grew up in the Depression in Oklahoma, so it was very different," Armie told GQ. "She didn't allow us to be raised like we were wealthy. We were never just told, 'Hey, here's [some cash].... If our friends were getting a $10 allowance, she would make a point of giving us $7."

He has claimed financial independence from his family throughout his career—"I'm really proud of that"—so much so that, in 2017, he confessed he couldn't pay on a bet he had lost to filmmaker Luca Guadagnino. "It would literally bankrupt me, and I need to buy diapers tomorrow."

Armie's ex has been jokingly her marriage to Ted Bundy movie—Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile.

Armie's upbringing, through his own eyes, was picaresque. As a child in the Cayman Islands, he told Details in 2011, he was a machete-wielding, tree-climbing Tom Sawyer. As an adolescent in Los Angeles, after a family move, he was an outcast truant who identified with Macaulay Culkin's Home Alone character, set school property ablaze, and dropped out of high school. His image-conscious and outwardly religious parents, Armie said, disapproved of his decision to act. "My entire life has been this long, pressured conversation about the family I represented," Armie has said, recalling Armand's own ethos: "When you walk out the door, you represent us." Eventually, Armie found success doing it. When Armie booked a starring role as a young Billy Graham in the 2008 biopic Billy: The Early Years, Dru hosted a screening for about 300 friends at the Hammer Museum's Billy Wilder Theater, confirmed two people with knowledge of the event.

The year after Armie appeared as the Winklevoss twins in The Social Network, he costarred with Leonardo DiCaprio in Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar. A run at marquee stardom followed—the rom-com Mirror Mirror with Julia Roberts; the action epic The Lone Ranger with Johnny Depp; and the 2015 caper film The Man From U.N.C.L.E. alongside Henry Cavill—but fizzled. Armie developed a sense of humor about his lack of success as a leading man. Asked about the low box office return of one film, he deadpanned, " That might be the Armie Hammer effect." As if the box office busts weren't ego damaging enough, BuzzFeed piled on with a damning feature by Anne Helen Petersen titled "Ten Long Years of Trying to Make Armie Hammer Happen." The subheading said it all, and still does: "How many second chances does a handsome white male star get?"

Guadagnino saw grit beneath Armie's surface, though, and cast him in 2017's Oscar-winning indie Call Me by Your Name. "It's not just that he's beautiful-looking," said the filmmaker. "It's that plus his inner turmoil that is fascinating to me." The performance earned Armie a Golden Globe nomination—the most acclaim of his career. But he bristled in one press interview, telling Andy Cohen that his religious mother, Dru, refused to see the film—because the drama centers on a same-sex romance. "It goes against a lot of her very strong religious beliefs," he said.

Occasional familial venting aside, Armie looked the part of the perfect movie star. "He's like this classical leading man...somebody who's a little out of time, like seeing Gary Cooper walk into a supermarket or something," said Armie's Lone Ranger director, Gore Verbinski. And in Elizabeth—a tough woman like Dru, but with an entrepreneurial spirit in lieu of an evangelical one—Armie seemingly found his match. "I mean, they are the Ken and Barbie of the world," gushed Kathie Lee Gifford, a friend of the family, recalling the couple's 2010 wedding.

Some people I spoke to described Armie as a sweet, goofy, unfiltered guy who loves his children. A what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of person. Timothée Chalamet once described him as the example of "when people present themselves as they truly are. And Armie is as he truly is." In hindsight Armie was perhaps more unfiltered than he or anyone realized.

To Elle: "One chick tried to stab me when we were having sex.... She was like, 'True love leaves scars. You don't have any.' And then she tried to stab me with a butcher knife." He continued to date her for seven months.

Also to Elle: He recalled a violent altercation with a homeless man. "My wife says I have a frontal lobe issue. Your frontal lobe controls your danger response, like, 'Whoa, I shouldn't be doing this.' "

To Details: He recounted the story of a multiday beer-soaked bachelor party that concluded with an epic bonfire, "a giant tequila bottle full of gasoline," and a machine gun.

To Playboy: He discussed the effect Elizabeth had on his bedroom habits. "I used to like to be a dominant lover. I liked the grabbing of the neck and the hair and all that. Then you get married and your sexual appetites change.... You can't really pull your wife's hair. It gets to a point where you say, 'I respect you too much to do these things that I want to do.' "

After Playboy, Armie expressed regret, explaining that he had learned the hard way not to drink during interviews. But for a 2019 British GQ profile, Armie and the writer drank so many martinis that the writer blacked out.

His reported social media liking habits suggested that he was fond of bondage. And he has spoken profusely about his love of knots to Playboy ("a man's version of knitting"), Stephen Colbert (whom he challenged to a knot-tying contest on The Late Show), and InStyle ("l've never admitted this before... sometimes I carry a rope to practice knots").

A source close to Elizabeth said that, when he was not working, Armie would throw himself into hobbies with great intensity. Several years back, Armie introduced Elizabeth to shibari, a Japanese bondage art form in which people are tied up in intricate patterns. Elizabeth tried to be supportive of the new interest, which Armie allegedly indulged by buying mannequins and inventing elaborate knots. Elizabeth even tried to find a lucrative spin on the obsession: "She suggested he write a book about a hobby called Why Knot?" laughed the friend.

Armie and Elizabeth had two children—a daughter in 2014 and a son in 2017, the latter of whom was given the middle name Armand as an homage to the Hammer lineage. According to a friend close to Elizabeth, Armie confessed to being unfaithful shortly after his son's birth—but claimed it was a one-time offense. Years later, this friend says, Elizabeth found evidence of an affair Armie was having with a costar. The Hammers had been in expensive family therapy, but, to Elizabeth, the indiscretions—and more notably his decision to flee the family during a pandemic—were the final straw. When Armie touched down in the U.S., he mistakenly sent a raunchy text message meant for someone else to his estranged spouse. Elizabeth filed for divorce shortly after.

"THE WEIRDEST FUCKING THING I'VE EVER HEARD"

BY HIS OWN admissions over the years, Armie has enjoyed partying—and, finally free from the restrictions of a decade-long marriage, he indulged. Friends close to the family remark that Armie's separation behavior recalls Michael's. Michael's post-split tear is said to have involved a string of women, illicit substances, and tattoos. It's a popular misconception that the Hammers created the Arm & Hammer baking soda brand—Armand settled for investing in it after his bid to buy the company was rejected—but Michael fuels it with a tattoo of the popular logo on his arm. The slogan for Arm & Hammer is "the standard of purity," while Michael allegedly embodied the opposite. Michael, whom multiple people say has the mindset of a teenage boy, also allegedly documented some of his deeds—texting X-rated photos to friends.

Two people claim that Armie did the same, suddenly getting more than five tattoos in a matter of months—including an outline of the Caymans above his knee; a heart that was inked by the in-house tattoo artist at Kaia Gerber's birthday party to match two teenage boys'; the letters "E.G.B.A.," standing for "Everything's gonna be alright"; and the word chaos because he wants his life to be chaos. Said one friend, "I'm pretty sure he's accomplishing that."

Armie also depicted a new dark side on his secret Instagram feed, @el_destructo_86. One photo, of him taking a drug test, was captioned: "All negative, bitches. My body is a finely tuned toxicant processing unit. To be fair I had THC and benzos in my piss. But who doesn't." Another photo showed a mannequin tied up, with the caption, "If quarantine doesn't start moving more quickly I'm going to fuck this thing."

Two women who knew Armie romantically in the last year say they were intoxicated by his charm—and that he was able to cycle through Romeo and Juliet-style romantic proclamations, teary family confessionals, and kinky bedroom scenarios with disorienting ease.

According to Courtney Vucekovich, Armie was on a flight out of the Cayman Islands—escaping the "intense" lockdown situation last June—when he messaged her on Instagram for the first time. The DMs came fast and furiously; the actor immediately spilled about the tense situation with what he described as his "crazy family"— describing near-fistfights with his father and a short-lived escape plan that involved taking a fishing boat to Cuba.

"Within the first five minutes, he was basically like, this all goes back to my horrible childhood," said Vucekovich, the owner of an on-demand glam app called FLASHD. "It's not the most romantic thing, but we bonded over past trauma."

Armie earned her sympathy, according to Vucekovich, through full-court press. "Day one, he makes you feel bad for him; it's when he makes himself look like a victim. Then he love-bombs you like crazy; you've never felt more special in your entire life. I've never seen anything like it. We're in a restaurant, and I'm sitting across from him, and he pulls my chair over, right next to him, in front of everybody—and is hugging and kissing you. You're the only girl in the whole world. And then he starts the manipulation and the darker stuff.

"One of the most shocking things, that I realized he did to other women, is he says that he never tied up a human being before, only mannequins," she continued. "I remember thinking, like, That's got to be true because that's the weirdest fucking thing I've ever heard. Who would lie about that? That's weirder than saying, 'I tied up 25 people.' "

Vucekovich explained that one encounter, which took place during an evening in Sedona, Arizona, left her with regret. Armie, she said, was drinking heavily and persuaded her to participate in "a bondage scenario that I was not comfortable with." He sulked, "cold and angry," to convince her, and then, she said, "I eventually consented and really regretted doing so."

As messy as it was, Vucekovich said she felt like it was a real relationship. Armie had introduced her to his mother, Dru, and talked about bringing her to the Dominican Republic while he filmed a romantic comedy with Jennifer Lopez. But just as fast as the relationship formed, in June, and intensified—the two were spending nearly every day together, she alleged—it ended, in September. She checked herself into a treatment program for trauma.

In September the then 22-year-old Paige Lorenze met Armie. She, too, got an immediate barrage of sordid family secrets. "A lot of really dark stuff," Lorenze said. "I felt confused why he was telling me this stuff so instantly.... It was stuff I would never share off the bat.... He said his grandfather was this kind of very scary person who had these crazy sex parties where there would be guns." But, said Lorenze, there was an unmistakable tone of awe. "He thought it was cool and was proud of him in a way."

Armie took Lorenze to Texas to meet his mother, like he had with Vucekovich. She enjoyed the trip because it felt like a "normal relationship" thing to do but suspected Armie's relationship with Dru was complicated. His mother spoke of "the devil" trying to "take" Armie, and she worried that he didn't believe in God.

Lorenze said that Dru let the two sleep in a bedroom together—jokingly pulling out a ruler and telling them to stay six feet apart—but immediately started grilling her about her religious beliefs. "She was very, very sweet to me. She instantly started talking to me: Well, have I accepted the Holy Spirit? I've never been to such a Christian household."

After a few days Lorenze said that Dru opened up to her "about how she was so worried about Armie and so grateful for me because she felt like I was a good influence on him. And that she just wanted him to accept God back into his life. And that he had just been fighting everything for a long time."

During their time together, Lorenze said, Armie didn't have any money. She said that she paid for "everything," since Armie was only getting by on loans from friends.

Lorenze broke things off with Armie after "he started making rules for me of things I could and couldn't do, who I could have over, who I couldn't. He told me that I couldn't have anyone else in my bed. And then I just started to feel really unsafe and really sick to my stomach about things," she said. "I was also emotionally dependent on him." Lorenze ended the relationship over text "because you never know what you're going to get with him—he's kind of a scary person."

Lorenze has since moved back to the East Coast and wants nothing to do with the entertainment business. She said she didn't plan to speak—or think—about Armie Hammer again.

Then she saw messages posted on the anonymous @houseofeffie Instagram account, purported to be from Armie and detailing extreme BDSM scenarios. The date stamps ranged from 2016 to 2020—overlapping with Armie's marriage to Elizabeth (who, through a representative, declined to be interviewed for this story).

"I saw these screenshots and my stomach just dropped, like, Holy fuck," said Lorenze. "Because he would say things to me...weird stuff..like, 'I want to eat your ribs.' The scariest part of it is that I did love him in a way. I would've let him kind of do anything. He had a certain hold over me."

Lorenze said that she spoke up for several reasons: to support the other women coming forward, to hold Armie accountable for what she claims he did to her, and to open up conversations about consent. "Consent is really complicated—even if it's consenting to something in vanilla sex that you don't really want to do, and say yes to...it can be really traumatizing." Lorenze said that she hopes to "start an organization that can advocate for safe sex and women learning how to say no."

After a version of this story was published online in March, Effie, the 24-year-old woman presumed to be behind the Instagram account, came forward accusing Armie of raping and beating her. "He also committed other acts of violence against me to which I did not consent," she told reporters, while crying. "During those four hours I tried to get away, but he wouldn't let me."

Allred said her client had turned evidence over to authorities, adding, "It is for law enforcement and for the prosecutor to decide if there is sufficient evidence to pursue it. I will only say that Effie has the courage to cooperate with any investigation that may be taking place." Afterward, Los Angeles police confirmed that they have been investigating Armie since February 3.

The allegations raise a raft of complicated questions about consent, BDSM boundaries, and the intersection of abuse claims and social media. Speaking to Vanity Fair weeks before the press conference, Allred acknowledged that consent is especially complex in the BDSM community, where control and power are kinks.

"The public has not been educated on how to view those who engage in BDSM practices. In addition, those who have heard of the BDSM community may have a negative opinion of those who engage in such practices," said Allred. "Part of the problem is that the victim is extremely vulnerable and trusting," she said, "and is often taken advantage of by sexual predators who know that many of their victims will be afraid to report the crimes against them for fear of being blamed and shamed and not believed when they say that they did not consent to crimes against them."

No criminal charges or lawsuits have been filed against the actor at the time of print publication, although the LAPD's investigation was ongoing. Those in Armie's camp mainly blame the scandal on the unverified gossip account @deuxmoi, which amplified the claims to more than 750,000 users in January. "You used to have to verify facts before making allegations like this," said one friend, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "He's being attacked from all different angles on unverified claims.... It's hard for people around him to watch this."

Armie has never confirmed the texts are his own—but the impulses he purportedly described in messages to various women are unsettling at best:

"I am 100% a cannibal.... Fuck. That's scary to admit. I've never admitted that before. I've cut the heart out of a living animal before and eaten it while still warm."

"I want to see your brain, your blood, your organs, every part of you. I would definitely bite it. 100%. Or try to fuck it. Not sure which. Probably both."

"If I fucked you into a vegetative state id keep you, feed you, watch you, and keep fucking you.... Till you are so sore and broken.... I can't stop thinking of [fucking] your actual brain."

"Brand you, tattoo you, mark you, shave your head and keep your hair with me, cut a piece of your skin off and make you cook it for me.... 'Who's slave/master relationship is the strongest?' We'd win. When I tell you to slit your wrists and use the blood for anal."

"Raping you on your floor with a knife against you. Everything else seemed boring. You crying and screaming, me standing over you. I felt like a god. I've never felt such power or intensity."

If Armie is guilty of anything, his friend insists, it's having a penchant for super-kinky sex. Katharine Gates, a social anthropologist and the author of Deviant Desires, told The Cut in January that there is indeed a cannibal form of sex role play that tends to "involve more realistic scenarios... [but i]t's still fantasy—they're not actually eating pieces of people, but you will have one person be the meat and another is the preparer." Victoria Hartmann, author of I Love Dead People: Inside the Minds of Death Fetishists, told GQ that most people into cannibalism role play are not interested in actually harming anyone. Because of the confusion and taboos, Armie's friend thinks that the actor is being unfairly targeted and embarrassed.

One person who has known both Armie and Elizabeth for a decade thinks Armie's "very dry sense of humor" and a lack of context around the text messages are to blame. When the rib-eating, toe-cutting screenshots first appeared online, the person said, "I was like, this is just Armie making really perverse jokes. And then it got conflated with his [seemingly] newfound interest in BDSM sex, which is his prerogative." Sexual abuse allegations are especially charged in a post-#MeToo climate: "There are a lot of nuances to the subject of sex and consent, and it's just not a topic that people are really patient about these days," the person said. "He's a really down-to-earth guy. I think he's just having a moment."

After all of this, Armie has boomeranged back to the Cayman luxury hotel he was so desperate to flee. "Well...my ex (for a very good reason) wife is refusing to come back to america with my children," he wrote on his private Instagram. "So I have to go back to Cayman...which sucks. Except there are a few silver linings." Above the caption was a video that showed a woman, from behind, wearing black lace lingerie and down on all fours on his bed. "Like fucking Ms. Cayman again while I'm down there." (Armie later issued an apology and clarification that the woman in his picture was not the actual Miss Cayman.) Another post read, "Divorce is so fun. Not as fun as drugs. But what is."

According to Brettler, "Armie's primary concern now is seeing his kids."

ARMIE MAY NOT be the first Hammer accused of darkness, but he could be the first to suffer public consequences. His last film—titled, unbelievably, Crisis—premiered in the quiet shadow of its star's P.R. spiral in February. Another film, Death on the Nile, an Agatha Christie adaptation costarring Gal Gadot, is currently scheduled for a September release. The only statement Armie made came in January, when he told the public why he was leaving the Jennifer Lopez rom-com: "I'm not responding to these bullshit claims but in light of the vicious and spurious online attacks against me, I cannot in good conscience now leave my children for 4 months to shoot a film in the Dominican Republic." Armie's lawyer told Vanity Fair he would not be commenting for this story.

Those who know Armie professionally have had a hard time watching the Armie they knew seemingly implode in a fit of social media posts, bad behavior, and substance abuse in recent months. (Though how would Armie's namesake, Armand, have fared in a social media world?) But neither will anyone speak on record to support him.

Several people in Armie's camp imply that the timing of the allegations, given the divorce proceedings, is suspicious. But a source close to Elizabeth says that she has been "blindsided left, right, and center." She was humiliated enough seeing Armie photographed with a string of women so shortly after filing for divorce, when their children had not even been aware of the split. "The internet is forever, and it kills her that one day her children will see how brazen their father has been, not only with his casual dating and drug use, but with these deeply disturbing allegations."

A person once close to the family has expressed genuine concern for Elizabeth as she moves forward in her custody battle with the Hammers. "I want to tell her to be careful," the person said. " I hope she can just get off that island soon."

Elizabeth has told friends that while she is fearful herself, she is projecting strength for the kids and trying to find occasional humor in the darkness. She's been joking to friends that the only thing that makes sense to her, looking back on her marriage since the allegations surfaced, is the Netflix movie starring Zac Efron as Ted Bundy—Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile.

People are worried about Casey too. She has been speaking openly about her family's alleged secrets in the wake of the public's newfound interest in the Hammers. Recently, she received a text message from a woman who knows three generations of Hammer men

"Don't go out after dark," the woman texted her. "If you do, go in a group. Park under a light and near a store entrance. Valet as much as you can. Be 'aware' and 'beware.' Always check to make sure you're not being followed.... Watch your surroundings for a stranger's face that appears more than once."

Right now Casey has about $100 in her savings account.

"If you would have told me in my 20s that I would end up financially challenged, single, and working at Home Depot, I would have bet you a million dollars that wouldn't have happened." The inheritance settlement lasted her 18 years, and she's been getting by on her own since then, she said, eating Progresso soup and bologna sandwiches.

She joked—sort of—about her own plans. "I'm going to walk into [talent agency] WME," Casey said, "and I'm going to tell them, 'You got rid of the bad Hammer. Now how about you take the good one.' "

If her brother, Michael, had given her even one of the family paintings, she said, she'd be set for life. "I never was taught to save money or to think ahead. I never thought it would end. It's okay, though. Because I broke the cycle, if that makes sense, and got away from the Hammer genetic trail."

Holy shit!

But I find it interesting that TWO Lavender Mafia mags have done takedowns of Hammer. Vanity Fair used to write tabloid crap on Michael Jackson and did/does favors for Harvey Weinstein. Buzzfeed is also a mouthpiece for the Hollywood Cabal. Could be they didn't like the thought of Hammer becoming powerful in Tinseltown but luckily for them, he seems like colossal screw up. Conde Nast also owns Vogue, Anna Wintour Central.

5 notes · View notes

anderwhohn · 1 year

Text

𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐄 𝐑𝐄𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐓, 𝐃𝐎𝐍'𝐓 𝐑𝐄𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐆! feel free to add any of your answers! the purpose is to tell your partners about the way you write! for multiple choice ones, 𝐁𝐎𝐋𝐃 all that apply and, if you want, 𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒄𝒊𝒛𝒆 if it's a conditional answer!

~ 𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐒 ~

NAME : Lexi

ARE YOU OVER 18? : yes / no .

IS YOUR MUSE? : yes / no .

ARE YOU SELECTIVE ABOUT WHO YOU WRITE WITH ON THIS BLOG? : no (anyone) / semi (most people) / yes / highly / private (mutuals only) (while I am mutuals only, I'm generally open to writing with most people, as long as our rules don't clash and our writing styles mesh)

IF YOUR MUSE IS CANON, HOW MUCH DO YOU ADHERE TO CANON? : not at all / a little / some / mostly (i pick and choose from source material) / strictly / ( oc ) I write my own canon. (I take plenty of creative liberties even with the most close-to-canon muses, but canon is just a toybox to play in regardless - there are no set rules)

WHAT POST LENGTHS DO YOU WRITE? : one liners / single-para / multi-para / novella (I tend to get wordy af, especially if expositioning and/or the muse is introspecting, but strictly one liners & single para is hard for me to keep my attention on, so it's very brief if it happens at all)

DO YOU USE ICONS AND/OR GIFS? : no / gifs / icons / gif icons (i sometimes might still use icons if I have them readily available for that muse, but I don't worry about it anymore because I don't have the spoons to keep making them all the time)

DO YOU WRITE ON OTHER PLATFORMS? : no / yes (I only am open to writing on discord with very specific people.)

WHAT LEVEL OF PLOTS DO YOU WRITE? : unplotted / open ended plots / semi-plotted / fully-plotted epics

HOW QUICKLY DO YOU USUALLY RESPOND TO THREADS? : very slow (more than a month) / slow (3-4 weeks) / average (1-2 weeks) / fast (less than one week) / very fast (less than three days)

WHAT TYPES OF THEMES DO YOU LIKE? (feel free to add ) : fluff / angst / smut / action / tragedy / domestic / family / conversational / hurt-comfort.

WHAT GENRES DO YOU LIKE? (feel free to add) : high fantasy / supernatural / science fiction / historical / horror / comedy / romantic / drama / action / adventure / espionage / everything

ARE THERE ANY THEMES YOU'RE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH WRITING ON YOUR BLOG? (not triggers) : yes / no (I'm sure everyone has something they are uncomfortable writing. I will simply say no politely if something like that ever comes up. I'm fine with most heavy/dark themes.)

DO YOU HAVE ANY TRIGGERS? : yes / no

HOW DO YOU REQUEST IT TAGGED? : The common ones that most people tag anyway are listed in my rules. Highly specific ones, I mostly rely on the content filtering, despite potential false positives.

~ 𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐏𝐏𝐈𝐍𝐆 ~

WHAT TYPES OF RELATIONSHIPS ARE YOU OPEN TO? : romantic / platonic / familial / physical / sexual

WHAT TYPES OF PRE-ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIPS ARE YOU OPEN TO? : romantic / platonic / familial / physical / sexual / depends on the partner & muse (those who want pre-established things should fill out my Ships & Dynamics form, so I have a better idea what you're thinking (preferably also using the text fields to elaborate if it's something very specific you have in mind))

DO YOU HAVE OTPS? : no / chemistry only / yes (ship biases are listed for most muses in their dossiers, but I only ship with chemistry, so any potential ships will only happen after we've established a connection between the muses - unless you're Havu, Orion, Ashley, Pops, or Middy, because reasons)

DO YOU HAVE NOTPS? no / yes / I don't know (they're listed in my rules, as are the 'enough-tps' for ships I'm just into without some phenomenal levels of chemistry between our muses)

ARE YOU COMFORTABLE WRITING SMUT? : no / selectively / yes (I only write it with muns whom I'm comfortable with, so we have to have been writing together for a while before it'll even become a possibility)

HOW EARLY IN A RELATIONSHIP DO YOU SHIP ROMANTICALLY? : autoship / during plotting / after a couple ic interactions / several ic interactions / slow burn / depends on partner & muse (usually several interactions and/or slow burn, except for the above mentioned muns)

ARE YOU OPEN TO TOXIC SHIPS? : no / selectively / yes / never tried it (extremely selective with doing so)

ARE YOU OPEN TO PROBLEMATIC SHIPS? (canon history, age difference, complicated, etc.) : no / selectively / yes (so long as the muses are 18+, with plotting behind the scenes, maybe but I'd be highly selective about it, and certain things like noncon/dubcon are right off the table)

ARE YOU OPEN TO POLYSHIPPING? : no / selectively / yes

ARE YOU AN EXCLUSIVE SHIPPER? : no / sometimes / yes (Crowley exclusively ships with one particular Aziraphale in the Good Omens verses, but is open to crossover shipping; other muses may vary as things develop)

DOES CRACK SHIPPING EVER HAPPEN? : no / sometimes / yes

DOES CROSSOVER SHIPPING EVER HAPPEN? : no / yes / depends (quite a bit, actually, given how I write a lot of crossovers)

Tagged by stolen from: @dutyworn Tagging: be gay, do crime

#well guarded truths to seep through ( tagged )#long dark teatime of the soul ( ooc replies )

0 notes

imnotquitesurebutimdoingitanyway · 2 years

Text

Tales of Dreamland: Party's Over

A black man in a black suit paced. They were on top of a skyscraper in a golden dance hall. Behind him his brother tried to assure him. "She will be here." "They were kidnapped an hour ago, man! We don't have time to waste." "We put out the call, Aunt Linda will be here. Count on her."

Right on cue, an elderly white woman appeared. She seemed irritated. "What is it Louie?" "Ah! Thank God you've come, I need your help." "You always need my help, you called me just a few seconds ago to help you find your keys!" "When was that?" "Just a minute ago.. Can't have been more than two." "No, you're in the Time Bubble. When did I call you, when I lost my keys in 3046?" "I believe so. Why?" "This is 3048. Linda… My fiancé was just kidnapped from our rehearsal. Grace, she's gone." Her face paled. "I-I think it had something to do with the problem at Lakeview, you know when we lost her sister?" "Tina? What happened to Tina?" "I thought you already looked at that, we talked about it two months ago!" "To you, maybe! But.." Linda sighed, turning and smiling at the other man. "Hello Sean. It is so nice to see you." He nodded, she snapped her attention back to Louie. "You have future analysis, something I don't currently have. Do you know how many hoops I will have to jump through because you couldn't- I'm not trying to cast blame here - why didn't you call for someone ahead of me who already has the results?" "Because.. I-I don't want to lose her too." Tears formed in his eyes. "Please. I'll do anything!!" "Fine. Just don't grovel, I hate that. You're lucky you're my favorite outcome for my niece. I'll see what I can dig up. It may not be complete." "Thank you Linda." "Could have had a dentist for a nephew-in-law if Gracie didn't mind a little light snoring…" She muttered, disappearing from view for a moment. She reappeared, holding a large red dossier. Undoing the thick dark red ribbon she muttered "But nobody can dance like you, she says… Alright, today is a week before your wedding in 3048, April 27th?" "June 4th." "Oh, so you didn't get that promotion… That's ok, that's ok. A lot of this is stream-of-consciousness direct from the Garblebot. It'll take me a bit to sift through it. Lakeview was… 3042. Oh," Her hand flew to her mouth, her face rapidly reddening as tears began to flow. "Oh Tina.." "Linda.." "Just- Give me a moment. I have to give you this news just after I'm done processing it. When was that?" "Two months ago." "Two months ago… So I won't be able to tell you then about this kidnapping. Makes it impossible to change the outcome. Are you sure you don't want to wait for analysis? We can send it backwards once we have it." "But if it's the same as Lakeview, we won't get the analysis until over 5 years later! We have to act now if it is the same ones!" "The realtor Mr. Robert Zumag and his accomplice Kitty Flanchette are serving their infinite sentence in Time Jail already. They won't be temporally released for ten years, and even then it is slated to be for only a few years at a remote cabin in Laos. We don't currently know who did this. I'm not sure how I can help." "Well, just tell me what you can see." "I'll try. You'll just need to correct me if I say something inaccurate; this isn't just the current timelines but several alternate realities too. Here goes:"

The rehearsal went off flawlessly. Everyone got to the blimp in time, no drama - "outside, Leana and Megan did fight over who got to catch the practice bouquet" - Oh, so that continued through the rehearsal. After the ceremony concluded late, the blimp was already docked here. Grace and her bridesmaids got onto their mega plane. They were heading back to the family estate. - "Yes, but they never arrived." - OK, did you notice anything about the pilot? - "No." - Did anyone?

Louie whirled to address his father-in-law "Perry?" "He was taller than me, thin." "Probably because he doesn't have your appetite for sponge cake!" His brother, Marlin, laughed and slapped his belly.

Very well. Tall, thin… Narrows it down. He was either the kidnapper, or someone else did it. -"..That really doesn't narrow it down." - Not from your perspective. When did you realize she wasn't where she was supposed to be? -"Not too long ago, a half hour." - Good, good. For how annoying this is at least you acted promptly. Parallels to Lakeview… Grace and Tina were there looking for a beach house. They found a realtor in a strip mall, the next morning there was a minor flood… Let me check weather patterns. -"What does the weather tomorrow have to do with right now?" Sean interjected - I'm sorry, did you want to sift through Garblebot's garbage? There's whole chunks of this that is just fanfiction of the Great Gatsby. No? -"..Fanfiction?"- Yes. The damn machine found an alternate reality where he is an accomplished writer bot, and a bizarre other reality where he is a terrible hack fanfic writer. Seems to prefer the latter one. We usually edit it out before doing analysis… but there wasn't time if you wanted this fast. That night in Lakeview, Tina went missing. She went back to the realtors office, and her car was later found abandoned in a Target parking lot. No one ever saw her alive again… The poor sweet child. She was always too trusting. The mega plane is still in motion. -"It is?? Do you know where it'll end up?" - I'm not sure yet. It arrives at its destination sometime soon, however. Close to here. Actually very close.

A loud thud caused everyone to turn towards the docking bay. Through the large window they could see it was the same plane. They waited tensely. Finally the dock doors opened. The bride to be and her bridesmaids were happily chatting, carrying large bags from an elite shopping conglomerate. "Grace! My god-" He rushed to embrace her. She was stunned, albeit smiling. "You're alright! Are you hurt?" "No, I'm- I'm fine. Aunt Linda! What are you doing here, I thought you had work?" "Hello dear, I am at work. Your groom said you had been kidnapped, I'm glad so see all is well." "Kidna- Oh, no!" She laughed, "Of course not. We just decided on an impromptu trip to the Skye Malle, as a way to get these two past their bullshit." She pointed to her previously problematic friends. They were now chatting and clearly past their differences. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you darling, we just lost track of time is all. Hope I didn't have you worrying too much?" He flashed a nervous smile. "Whaaat? No, I- was never really worried." "Except you were." "Yes I did. I'm sorry, I freaked out. You weren't answering your phone-" "You called me?" Pulling out the device, she gasped. "Oh my, it was on silent! I'm so sorry honey. I didn't mean to make you worry. And Aunt Linda, I'm so sorry you were bothered at work for this!" "Only a minor bother for my favorite niece. Just glad to see you are ok dear. Could you make me some of your caramel brownies when you see me next?" "Of course! Do you know when that will be?" "I don't. I will have to pick up another shift here to make up for lost time. Pleasure to see everyone; but for me, the party is over."

0 notes

kittyvaltersen · 6 years

Photo

TASK #002: Character Development

“it’s a very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real, actual person, instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless automat of characters.”

― gillian flynn

BASICS

FULL NAME: katherine mae valtersen

NICKNAMES: kitty, kitty kat

AGE: twenty-two

BIRTHDAY: july 4th, 1996

ZODIAC SIGN: cancer

GENDER: cis female

PRONOUNS: she/her

FAMILY

MOTHER: astrid valtersen

FATHER: even valtersen

PARENTS: astrid & even valtersen

FAMILY: astrid watson (mother), timothy watson (step-father). even valtersen (father), holly north-valtersen (step-mom), kristina malki (step-sister), sylvia valtersen (biological sister)

SIBLINGS: sylvia & kristina, though kitty doesn’t acknowledge krissy as being a “sister”.

CHILDREN (if any): n/a

APPEARANCE

FACECLAIM: madchen amick

HAIR COLOR: light auburn

HAIR STYLE AND LENGTH: typically, she keeps it natural. so, because she has thick and semi-curly hair, it’s pretty frizzy but voluminous.

EYES COLOR: dark blue.

HEIGHT: 5′3″ ft. / 1.6 m.

WEIGHT: 104 lbs. / 47.2 kg.

OUTFIT/CLOTHING STYLE: her style varies like none other. one day she’ll look like she just walked out of a 1990′s mystery-horror tv show (wink, wink, cough, cough, twin peaks), another day she’ll look like a very ethereal fairy or enchanting witch. depends greatly on her mood, tbh.

DISTINGUISHING MARKS (SCARS,MOLES): she has quite a bit of softer scarring on her inner wrists, seeing as she has dabbled with self-harm when she was a preteen. she has a huge “battle scar”, as she likes to call it, on her right knee from surgery to fix it’s dislocation. there’s also varying little scars throughout her body from childhood nonsense.

FIRST IMPRESSION ON PEOPLE: people tend to think kitty is very child-like with a bubbly and sweet but almost complex ditzy way. if that makes sense?? lmao. because she’s usually really stoned when first meeting people, they often write her off as a bimbo. however, she’s very philosophical, has assets and layers to her personality that no one would have guessed, and she’s much more wise than your average person. she beats any label anyone wants to place on her with charisma because she has so many facades and contradictions within her that no one can get a clear read, including herself.

DESCRIBE THEIR VOICE: kitty kat has a very groggily voice that’s a bit scratchy and sultry. however, depending on her mood, she can either be very comical and animated in her voice or she can be very deadpan and quizzical.

TATTOOS: tons. not to the point where she’s covered in them, but she has a few which are neatly hidden. most notably, she has a hand holding a blood-dripping knife on the meaty bit between her index and thumb in black and red ink on her right hand, a fairy behind her left ear in faded pink and green (her first tattoo), a intricate and quite large red and black rose on her thigh, and a white mandala on her upper back right below her neck and shoulders.

PIERCINGS: she has her ears pierced nine different ways to sunday on each ear, lmao. she also has a septum piercing.

HOME LIFE

HOMETOWN: technically oslo, norway.

VEHICLE: doesn’t have one. uses buses or her bike for transportation.

PHONE: iphone 6s

PETS: has a pet rose-haired female tarantula named karma.

EDUCATION / EMPLOYMENT

HIGH SCHOOL: dropped out and took the GED.

COLLEGE: n/a

MAJOR: n/a

CAREER/OCCUPATION: con artist first and foremost, but also gunsmith for the reapers.

EMPLOYER: her step-father/the reapers?? idk, lmao.

YEARLY SALARY: under 60k a year.

FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT

BADGE NUMBER:

WEAPONS:

TRAINED IN:

LANGUAGES:

OTHER:

BELIEFS

POLITICAL/GANG AFFILIATION: reapers.

RELIGION: agnostic/pagan.

BELIEFS: she doesn’t have a strict belief system. she follows a lot of what most pagans believe, but she breaks the bounds of following any sort of tradition.

MISDEMEANORS: n/a

FELONIES: n/a

TICKETS AND/OR VIOLATIONS: n/a

DRUGS: smokes marijuana, nothing else.

ALCOHOL: rarely.

RELATIONSHIPS

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: homosexual.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: homosexual.

MARTIAL STATUS: single.

CHILDREN: none.

AVAILABILITY: emotionally unavailable.

LOOKING FOR: nothing.

PERSONALITY AND INTERACTION

PHOBIAS: prev. phobia of the dark

HOBBIES: reading tarot, conspiracy theories, spiritual research, history, painting, sculpting, drawing, writing.

NEGATIVE TRAITS: aloof, depressed, self-loathing, insecure.

POSITIVE TRAITS: loving, quirky, giving, wise.

QUIRKS: taps nose when in thought, picks at cuticles, bites lower lip, grinds jaw when nervous, talks to self, paces, fidgets leg/hands.

SOCIAL MEDIA: n/a.

FAVORITES

LOCATION: on a highway overlooking the city.

SPORT: none.

MUSIC: loooooves, absolutely loves the cranberries.

SHOWS: murder mystery, deadline, stranger things.

MOVIES: cruel intentions, any halloween movie.

BOOKS: TONS! gone girl, girl with the dragon tattoo, this is how you die, sharp teeth, supernatural enhancements, a series of unfortunate events, the diary of sylvia plath, i could go on lol.

FOOD: shawarmas.

BEVERAGE: grapefruit or pineapple soda.

COLOR: emerald green.

MISCELLANEOUS – CLICK THE LINKS FOR MORE INFO

MORAL ALIGNMENT: chaotic good.

MBTI: infj.

ENNEAGRAM: type four: the individualist.

TEMPERAMENT: phlegmatic.

CHINESE ZODIAC: rat.

PRIMAL SIGN: seahorse.

TAROT CARD: reversed would be the magician, upright would be the star.

TV TROPES: deadpan snarker, cute witch, perky goth, the ophelia, the manic pixie dream girl.

SONG: she wants by s.o.s

#gowtask #whaddup got this done in a solid three hours #new record y'all #.... not lmao #i tried though??? lol #‘ i'm the dark one in my family.’ • dossier!

7 notes · View notes

undiscovered-horizon · 2 years

Text

REQUEST: @scorpionchild81 : may I ask for an imagine with James Buchanan Barnes: Imagine Bucky being totally clueless about the pregnancy hints reader had presented to him. So finally, she puts the ultrasound in a empty dossier, marking it and putting it on his desk among his other unfinished paperwork since his last mission...

Author's note: This was pretty difficult for me, to be honest. I don't like children and even thinking about pregnancy sends a cold shiver down my spine. I'm afraid my discomfort spoiled the quality, for which I sincerely apologize.

Imagine Bucky being very oblivious about your pregnancy. Tired of giving him small hints, you decide to drop the news more directly.

His obliviousness would have been sitcom-worthy if it wasn't so frustrating. Truthfully, that frustration was also on you: you could simply tell him but that turned out to be a lot more difficult than Hollywood made it seem. You can't just come up to someone and tell them you're pregnant with their child. Or rather, you can't. It wasn't that you feared him leaving you, no, "family" was something the two of you had discussed even before getting married and agreed that you're ready to pursue it. Logically speaking, it shouldn't be a surprise that you have found yourself in this situation. Both of you wanted to have children and were trying to have them, so why on Earth were you so nervous about it?

You knew that the sooner you tell him, the better. It wasn't okay to keep a father in the dark about his own children. You just didn't know how to bring it up. At first, it was just small hints: pregnancy test in the toilet bin, suggesting that you're sick in the morning, showing clear interest in decorating a nursery or browsing clothes for newborns. The time went by and Bucky's obliviousness seemed to not be going anywhere.

That meant you had to, unfortunately, go for some more drastic measures. If that won't work you will have no other option but to tell him openly that he's going to be a father - an option you wanted to avoid at all costs.

You stared at the ultrasound in your hand. As they usually are, it is hard to tell what it shows. In the centre of the image was a black area with a greyish-white bean inside, circled by the doctor with a red marker. The realization made you feel weird: in seven more months, that "bean" will be a human being, growing inside you. The feeling of odd quickly disappeared as you felt yourself become emotional. You were going to become a mother.

A sigh left your lungs as you made your way to James' study. The two of you had a silent agreement that you generally don't enter the room unless absolutely necessary. He didn't want you to know details about the dangers and malice he has to face every day and, frankly, you didn't want to either. However, this situation called for all measures.

The study was a mess. Orphaned papers and files scattered across the floor and the desk, newspaper snippets stuck to the wall with remarks written in red on them, two old mugs placed in any vacant place that he could find atop the desk.

One of the files, specifically the one you were looking for, had last week's date on the folder. Knowing James, he will go over it once or twice more, to make sure no detail was overlooked. Trying as gently as you might, you lifted the cover of the folder and placed the printed out ultrasound on top of the first page, right in the centre. There was no way he could miss that unless he loses his sight.

A feeling of dread nested in your chest. Now there was no way the information would go unnoticed: the needle was on the record, it was time to face the music.

"I'm home," he called out entering the flat. You didn't have to see his face to know he was absolutely exhausted. Maybe it wasn't the best state for someone to be in when you're going to tell them about their child?

"Hey love," you called back to him.

Bucky came home late, which wasn't exactly surprising. As usual, you were making dinner and he went into his study to put back his belongings. You could hear the shuffling of papers coming from the room. That heart in your chest barely stayed in its designated place. You were becoming hot and your hands started to tremble. How long could it take someone to open one file and see a picture?

You were dressing the table when the door to Bucky's study creaked as he opened them. His steps were slow as if his mind was occupied with something else.

"(Y/N)?" he called out to you.

You lifted your head only to see him standing mere meters away from you, ultrasound in his right hand. The two of you stood in tense silence, just staring at each other.

"Congratulations...?" you said without certainty. What does one even say in a moment like this? "I know I should have told you in a more open way but I just couldn't."

"How long...?" he began.

"Eight weeks."

His eyes went back to the ultrasound. Bucky stared at the picture for a few more minutes without saying a single word. Without lifting his gaze, he spoke:

"I've got seven months to decorate," he said under his breath.

You couldn't help but laugh, feeling the dread and stress leaving your body. He was going to be a father and right now he worried about whether seven months is enough to decorate and paint a room for a newborn.

James lunged at you, his arms engulfing you in a tight hug. You were quite sure you saw his eyes become red, glistening with tears.

"I'm going to be a dad," he whispered.

"You're going to be an amazing father, James."

You just made a hundred-year-old man cry. What do you have to say for yourself?

140 notes · View notes

sirthisisa-wendys · 3 years

Text

The Enforcers Part 8 (Geto Suguru x Fem!Reader)

wc: 1.7k

tw: dark content (self-harm)

masterlist

a/n: By no means do I condone self-harm or want to glorify it in the light of this chapter. As a person who struggled with physical self-harm in her early teens, I know the destructive nature of this type of activity. However, as my characters are not perfect and complicated, I see this particular mode of action as something she would try to do in order to alleviate her pain and confusion. If you have questions or concerns, my inbox is always open to having a discussion about it.

If you so wish, you may skip this chapter altogether. There will be a recap on the next one if you choose to skip for your mental health. Take care of yourselves and see you soon. (ALSO, I know I promised smut but I gotta give y'all a raincheck this go-round. SORRY PLS DON'T KILL ME)

You're on your forty-seventh file of scandals, coverups, and secret dossiers that you finally feel it. The fabric of your identity begins to unravel right before your eyes.

Everything you've known is a lie.

The CSB has covered up so many things. So many lives lost. So many people forced to flee. So many families ripped apart--

An email makes its way over to the server, and you open it, the words across the screen coming from Suguru.

I know it's late, but send over Yu Haibara's files when you can.

You hit the reply button and begin to type out: "You mean the boy you killed?" but you stop yourself, deleting the words rapidly. Instead, you attach the files and send them over, not even bothering to look at them. You can't do it. Not another file could be stored away in the annals of your brain.

Nothing is as it seems anymore. The lies... they pile up in your mind, flooding the spaces where you used to hold what you thought was true, what you thought was real. Now, they're overflowing out of your brain and into your heart and soul, plaguing you like the nightmares that face you down night after night, more like demons that lurk in the corners of your mind than full file cabinets.

You always wake up in a tangle of sheets and sweat, one of your various enemies' faces hovering over you right before you stare down the barrel of a gun and --

You stumble out of the chair, eyes wet with tears, and go to the sink in the bathroom to wash your face. After you splash water on your skin, you look up at your reflection, anger rolling through you at the way you look. Weak.

You're fucking weak.

The voice in your head that usually told you that you were doing okay, that you had it all under control, is now turning on you, spitting nasty words that stick in between the synapses of your brain a muddy your rational thoughts.

The voices rise to a fever pitch, and you suddenly see red, the entirety of the world descending into blood-colored madness. The shattering of the glass mirror only becomes a reality when you're standing above the sink, chest heaving as your thoughts silence one by one, like shutting off lights in a house.

But only one stays behind as a shard of the mirror clinks into the sink.

Escape.

The light at the end of the tunnel.

You could get rid of the feelings here. You could get rid of the thoughts. You could escape. Why hadn't you thought about this before?

"Do it."

Your fingers grip the jagged shard of glass carefully, and before you can stop yourself, you drag it across the inside of your wrist, end to end, leaving behind a red line of blood that immediately blooms. Crimson dots drop into the sink, and you stare at the color, mesmerized by the way the blood runs down your arm and into the porcelain bowl. But there's no relief.

No sense of freedom.

Maybe you didn't do it hard enough?

Maybe you didn't--

The door to your room slams open, and you turn your head just as Suguru comes rushing into the bathroom. The shard of glass is still in your hand, as well as the blood running down your arm, and Suguru catches this immediately.

"Fuck," he breathes, and you turn to him, shard extended.

"Don't come any closer."

"Y/n," he calmly whispers. "You don't look so good."

"I wonder why that is," you reply, and Suguru stares back at you, hands raised in surrender.

"What're you doing?"

"What does it look like, Suguru?" you state in a trance. Your bullet wound begins to throb dully, but you ignore it, just like you're ignoring the blood dripping onto the tile flooring.

"Y/n, let's think about this."

"I don't want to think anymore!" The shrill scream is loud enough to make Suguru flinch, and you softly repeat, "I don't want to think anymore," over and over again as tears run down your face.

"I know," Suguru whispers. "I know. Will you let me help you?" You hiccup and drop the piece of glass to the floor, dissolving in a heap of tears and moans. You feel hands pulling you up from the floor and into strong arms, your head being cradled against a broad chest you've felt before. "Go ahead," Suguru encourages you. "Cry it out."

He carries you to another room in the building in silence, laying you on a firm bed and disappearing as you heave painful sobs into the sheets.

"Everything... hurts..." you gasp, and when Suguru reappears with a white bundle of cloth, a bandage roll, and some water, he nods.

"We're going to make it better, don't worry." He takes your injured arm and carefully wipes away the blood, examing the cut slowly. "Doesn't need stitches, thankfully." He turns to open the water bottle and hands it to you, silently telling you to drink while he bandages your wrist.

You drink the water greedily then lean back on the headboard, eyes closing down as Suguru works diligently on your wound. And then you remember the first time he did this for you and the mistake you made in your pridefulness.

"Thank you," you murmur, and Suguru looks up at your face, finally seeing some form of clarity cross your tear-streaked cheeks.

"You're welcome," he replies tenderly. "I have to keep you safe, remember? I promised you that I would." You don't answer him, but he finishes at that exact moment anyways, standing and placing the remnants of the bandage roll on the nightstand. The wound is now covered up completely, with no sign of blood seeping through the cotton and staining the white cloth dark red.

You watch as Suguru crawls into the bed beside you, sighing deeply as he runs his fingers through his locks. "Should I stay awake with you or do you want to try to sleep?"

"Sleep," you answer - albeit not confidently - and the black-eyed man obliges, pulling the thin sheet over you.

"I'll be right here," he affirms, but you reach out your uninjured arm and touch his hand. He instantly turns his palm up to let you grab his fingers, and you pull him closer to you in the king-sized bed.

"Hold me." A second passes with no movement, and Suguru whispers,

"Are you sure?" You nod, and he wordlessly scoots closer, wrapping an arm around you as you nestle into his side with your bandaged hand resting on his chest. His fingers rub a soft pattern up and down your skin, soothing you to the brink of sleep. "I've got you. We'll deal with everything else in the morning," Suguru murmurs as you slip off into a dreamless - and nightmare-less - sleep.

_____________________________________________________________

Morning comes and goes.

Midday arrives, and you awaken from your terrorless sleep still encased in Suguru's grasp. Your eyes flick up to his face, which is peaceful in the midday light streaming in from the windows. The Leader of the Fallen Sun District is asleep and dead to the world around him, but the sound of his breathing lets you know he's on the brink of waking up.

Part of you doesn't want him to. You want to lay there without any responsibilities to him, without any concern, or further harm to either one of you. Maybe if you continued to sleep, all of this would become a distant memory. All of this would go away, and you could go back to living in ignorance.

But Suguru's stirring makes you stiffen, and you feel his arms tighten around you before sliding away.

"You're awake."

"Yeah," you whisper, and he sits up, pulling his knees to his chest.

"We need to talk about last night." You sit up as well, staring at the edge of the bed blankly. "Why didn't you tell someone about your declining mental health?"

"I didn't realize it until it was too late," you admit, looking at the bandage on your wrist. "But I won't be doing that again."

"Doesn't matter," Suguru interjects, looking over at you. You choose to avoid his gaze and stare at your feet, inhaling deeply. "I have to have someone watch you now. I want you to be safe, and now I'm not sure if I can ensure that without some oversight on my part."

"No," you exhale quickly, looking over at him in fear. "I'm better now, I promise."

"I'll have someone move a few of your things over here. That way I can keep an eye on you, just in case." Suguru continues, standing from his position on the bed. "I won't bother you. But I made a promise to you, and I'm going to keep it at all costs." He turns back to you, stating, "Today we'll take a day off and go into the town. I've been wanting to show you around for a while anyway."

You conclude the argument is over when he places a kiss on your temple, then walks into his bathroom, shutting the door and leaving you on the bed alone.

_____________________________________________________________

A car picks both of you up from the building, and when you slide into the backseat, Suguru points to the expanse in the distance.

"Take us to the marketplace." The driver nods, scars running up and down his pale face and his blue eyes looking up at you in the rearview mirror. Does this man even know that he's sitting next to the leader of the Fallen Sun district? Or is Kenjaku a faceless man, hiding behind walls of ones and zeroes?

The scenes that pass by you look identical to those of the city you know and love. There are children playing on the sidewalks, people carrying groceries, life carrying on as if the majority of their names aren't on some rejected list of people who defected from their previous society. Suguru notices your awe at the way things are, and looks over at you, smiling brightly.

"You'd be surprised what you can build from ashes, y/n."

_____________________________________________________________

TAGLIST: @missbonekitty @wack0-genius @thankuary @jsqeeut @r-i-m-f-009 @sunfloweroranges @leanne-tamashi @girlruby23 @rein-icu @brownskinnedgirll @chanelmalandro @savantsoulfinder @jibe-gajima @chilledlucifer @amnxsia @kontentious @fuyuko26 @everybodylovescayrayray @flare-on @sammytamaki @meena-in-a-nutshell @falling-through-pages @naoyasdarling

#geto suguru x reader #jujutsu kaisen geto #getou suguru #jujutsu kaisen getou #geto suguru #jjk geto #jjk #jujutsu kaisen

74 notes · View notes

ignyxdaughter · 3 years

Text

𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄 - 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐈𝐈

(𝐦𝐨𝐛 𝐛𝐨𝐬𝐬! 𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐬𝐨 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 / 𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐬𝐨 𝐱 𝐤𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐬)

MASTERLIST

READ ON WATTPAD!

A/N: English is not my first language. I don’t own The Punisher and Legacies characters; they’re, respectively, Stan Lee and Marvel Studios, L. J. Smith and Julie Plec. Also, this is my Billy and some The Punisher events will be changed due to the story's course!

word count: 1043

warnings: none

────────── ★ ★ ★ ──────────

The green leaves are starting to fall from the trees and cover the park's floor with its beauty. The sky is blue with a few clouds, people hike and chat in the walkway, and even with cars, the streets do not have the terrible traffic and annoying sounds like the big cities. I breath the air of this peaceful atmosphere, smiling a little with the thought of some days off. Savannah is really an amazing place to relax from the stress of work.

"Never thought you'd like such a... small city."

I don't need to turn to know who is it, already recognizing the voice. However, even with the acknowledge of the person behind me, I can't help to feel a little disappointed with myself for haven't heard the steps of the woman approaching. Damn it! Got distracted for just a few minutes, but enough time to get vulnerable.

Never let your guard down. Never keep your mind off.

"Usually Katrina is the one to piss me off", I say with a calm voice. "Couldn't wait for my return to New York?"

"I need your help."

I take a deep breath before open my eyes and turn around. Katarina is wearing a silk flowering shirt and a light pink skirt, with brown heels and a hat over the hazel hair. Her dark green eyes analyse me, but we both know this will be a waste of time. After all, I am the brain.

"Entering the spring mood, sis?", She smirks, and I arche a brow. "You're in grey."

"Dark grey", I correct.

"Is still grey."

Resisting the urge to roll my eyes, I turn around and begin to walk without any announcement. I know my sister is following me, and through the reflection of the sunglasses, I see her trying to be soundless, stepping carefully on the cement floor.

A laugh threats to leave my throat. She never was a good spy. "What do you want, Katarina?"

"I need your help."

"Already got that. But what do you want?"

She grunts, frustrated, making me smirk a little. Everything that piss Katrina or Katarina off, is music to my ears.

"Can you please stop?

"No."

She sighs. "You haven't changed a little. Still the arrogant bitch you're raised to be. Always one step ahead others, right, Katherine?"

I stop, blood starting to boil through the veins. How dare she mention my creation in such a rude way?! "I'm not one step ahead others, Katarina. I always am a mountain ahead everyone. Besides, I deserve a good life after such a suffered childhood, right?"

She gives a mocking laugh, which makes me more irritated. "Suffered childhood? Oh, please! You were raised with nothing but wealth around you, and, somehow, still managed to get na inheritance."

"Last time I checked, you were raised with a good amount of money too."

Katarina stops right in front of me, rage starting to rule the dark green orbs. She's upset, however, she still want something. And that something will not be available anymore if her emotions win her sense and split out every thought — usually insults — in her head.

Oh, siblings' love. Is there something more beautiful than that?

"I want you to steal a dossier."

I eyes go wide. I certainly wasn't expecting that, and for inspect better her facial expressions, I take my sunglasses off.

"I steal something for you?"

"C'mon, Kat, you've already done worse than that."

"Yeah, but not for you."

She takes a deep breath, trying to stay calm and, probably, find a way for me to agree. "Of all of my thieves contacts, I came to you. You know I'd never do it if it wasn't important." I open my mouth to reply, but she's faster: "It has information about powerful criminal families, like their police alliances or where do they hide money besides the bank."

"Who's with the dossier?"

"Decario." Son of a bitch.

"And the delivery?"

"Detective Mikko. They made a protection deal."

"Who told you that?"

"I listened to a conversation in a restaurant. Turns out it was true."

I raise an eyebrow. Is suspect a person talk about this in such a close distance to unknown people. They could be spies or detectives or officers eating.

"Who else knows?"

"I think it already caught some mafias ears, like the New York's."

This has to be a joke. Since when do my services apply to playing thief around mafias? I take a deep breath before saying: "I'm not a rental thief, Katarina." I put my sunglasses back and begin to walk away. "Find another person."

"The Mikaelsons are there."

Four words. One mention. It's all it takes to get all my attention.

"It will not be cheap. My services are not of thieving."

"Thought you'd say that. I give you $2 million."

"That's the normal price. Give four, and we have a deal."

"Three."

"Three and a half, plus all the informations: maps, documents, dates..."

The silence rule around us for a few minutes before my sister says: "Deal."

"I want everything in my hotel room today's night, and payment in check. Details tomorrow, 1:30 PM, in The Olde Pink House. Be late, and say goodbye to the opportunity to have the dossier in your hands."

Ignoring all Katarina's fury due to my bossy posture, I don't even look back while walking through the park. Vacation: out. Stress: in.

Another job and another wealth for your account, Katherine. Maybe now you could buy the new poison and antidote kit you want it so bad. Simpleton, but fierce. The best weapon of all, especially when it comes with its cure in case I ingest some. Or better, if I'm in the mood for mercy.

I take a deep breath as soon I enter the hotel room. Laying on bed, I pick up the ruby ring in the baggage and stare at it, tracing a finger through its silver arabesques on top of the red stone, the letter M on the center. It's been two years, and still there isn't a day I don't think about them.

Many would say that my life is the dream anyone could get, however, why have that amount of money and not have anyone?

#a trap for broken souls #mafiastories #assassin au #spy au #original character #fanfic wattpad #the punisher #billy russo #billy russo x oc #billy russo x reader #billy russo x y/n #billy russo x female reader #the originals #legacies #the mikaelsons #mob!billy russo

10 notes · View notes

inlocusmads · 1 year

Text

Even more predictions for Crimes of Passion 2

Check out the first one here

[SPOILER ALERT FOR BOOK 1]

Okay so I might've gone a little crazy here. This is based on the leaks we've gotten so far with Trystan's siblings' dossiers and the post about Trystan's family among various other theories. Here we go.

On the Thorne family:

So Vasili means "kingly/noble", Lydea (a version of Lydia) means "noble and beautiful", Sebastyan means "honourable" (usually used to describe kings and queens and just emperors in general), Astrid meaning "strength" Marguerite meaning "pearl", Emika meaning "charm" and Kasper meaning "bringer of treasure", Patryk meaning "nobleman" - all very royalty names, with allusions to grand treasures, the qualities of a good ruler and so on and so forth. Meanwhile you've got Trystan Thorne here with a name that means "sorrowful".

Now clearly there's a distinct divide between Trystan and the rest of the family. If I'm going to pull off some predictions here, based on the dossier leaks as well, Emika and Kasper are going to be the red herrings.

They're going to lead you on into believing that they're the ones who have done shady stuff. It doesn't help that Kasper is a jewel thief, according to the dossier and is known to conspire with his twin, Emika and they're both very close to each other. Emika has also been portrayed as a fashion icon and I can see them and Mags either getting along or not at all.

It reminds me of Olivia from TRR. We see her as this mysterious figure from Lythikos. I believe Kasper and Emika would be hurdles at first and I believe they might take an interest in MC because of the Calloway Museum incident and they might try to work together at the very end.

At least that's what my prediction is because PB has this thing where they downplay the antagonist's involvement (i.e taking Eleanor St Claire from a couple of sparse scenes and putting her into this villain jacket). I also feel like Kasper and Emika would play into the "meddling twins" archetype. Mysterious, alluding but goofy at the end.

Then you have Lydea who's literally my favourite. They can run me over with a truck and I'd still go, "Yas queen!". They single-handedly played actual politics and brought down crime rates and basically did their father's job.

I've also noticed this pattern where the Thorne children get roped into this lifestyle of royalty quite quickly. I'd like to think that's where Trystan's childhood trauma (if that's the right word) would've stemmed from. Mags arranged a boat search when she was sixteen. Lydea joined the Royal Guard when they were 13.

I feel like the dossier Luke compiled of Trystan would be a little incomplete, because most of their childhood is left in the dark.

Back to Lydea. I'd like to think they might be a little threat, especially since they are "the right hand to Queen Viktoria", who is Trystan's mother and it is likely they have a strenuous relationship with their mother, considering they talk about how all the negative press from the case might affect their publicity and how Queen Viktoria wouldn't like that.

So maybe a person to watch out for? I don't know. I still am kind of sold on Lydea's Lena Rys arc? The whole thing where even Lydea is kept in the dark and Viktoria is secretly pulling the strings.

I'm still unsure as to what Duchess Eveline's place is in the kingdom. It is clear Drakovia, being a traditional monarchy, possibly believes in polygamy (not to be confused with polyamory which is different) where a king can take multiple wives, perhaps to strengthen political alliances or even just have a couple of children.

We know that Marguerite is Trystan's half sister, so even Sebastyan and Vasili would be their half siblings. I believe Duchess Eveline might be another pawn in the game or she could equally have chances of being the central antagonist.

Clearly Maksim favours Trystan over others and it is even discussed briefly in Book 1. And from the family tree, if Trystan weren't there, the crown would go to Vasili, Eveline's child. Or it could also go to Lydea, Viktoria's child, who's shown to be the Queen's right hand person. It is clear there's a lot of political dynamics at play here.

Anyone could've wanted Juliana dead and both these sides of the schism hold strong contenders for the antagonist position. Duchess Eveline, I believe, would've wanted a more traditional Drakovia - perhaps when they were at their glory days, before the rebellion. Viktoria's side, simply because Lydea brought Drakovia to the 21st century, would want a new future, new bold vision for Drakovia as a champion in all the arts, sciences and military fields. Ultimately the new ruler after Maksim will change the future of the country and they're all after Trystan's position.

It is clear that Trystan did go to search for a partner in the nobility at the age of 18, according to their dossier and they were known for leading a "reckless lifestyle" which makes sense why Trystan is now a very influential pawn in the game. Something might've happened that would've made Trystan's parents and the government call them back home (towards the end of the first book). It was clear they dealt with the problem by dumping Trystan far away from home under exile, but it could be possible that old wounds are coming back to haunt them.

Trystan never really asked for this lifestyle, as shown in how sparingly they talk about their crown prince/princess title and only ever resorting to talking about Drakovian culture or Juliana or what their interests were. It is clear they didn't really want this, which makes them a perfect neutral ground for both sides to manipulate.

I'd kill for an Evil!Trystan arc and it is upto MC to race against the clock and figure out the real truth, as Trystan gets pulled into all sorts of rhetorics, gaslit into thinking they tied the topsail while others made them feel guilty - argh, it has so much potential and it also highlights how toxic family relations can lead to terrible things.

I also wish we had a Detectives Score system tied to how many allies we can sort through and how many people we can choose to trust. I really wish CoP 2 was truly choices-driven and there's this choice that goes, "Trystan will follow your advice and choose whatever path you tell them to" and that would be neat as frick, because then we'd get to explore how corrupted the Thorne family truly is and see how many people are actually being kept in the dark, with Trystan being one among them.

On the possibility of MC's father's murder being tied to the Thorne family:

It is clear they've got to be related. Trystan even says so at the end. These cold cases don't go away and they're willing to forge a stronger, permanent partnership to resolve all of that when they have the time.

I have two possible theories about this, since it came out of nowhere. Now, MC has always been ambitious about finding their father's killer. It's been recurrent that they're channelling all of that angst into their present cases and it has been nearly 10+ years since that happened. The same with the Juliana case as well.

I have a feeling that Trystan might know something about this. They've grown up in a household where noble kings brushed shoulders with dangerous criminals, sometimes even being the criminals themselves. It isn't uncommon that the mob might be tied to Drakovia, considering Bird, a Drakovian drug dealer, had his roots in New York, selling Glitter.

You also had that belladi salesperson. It is clear that Drakovia has some of its culture out there in the States and maybe in other places too, despite them painting it to be this mysterious country who are reluctant in teaching their culture to foreigners. Who's to say Kasper and Emika aren't tied to some underground crime ring?

Trystan might know something about this and they're probably a little convinced with that theory, enough to implore MC into doing this partnership with them. Or it is just an utter coincidence and that, in their eight years' time here, Trystan probably genuinely knew nothing about it and they just wanted to make a thing out of this "new opportunity" after Sonja's case.

If at all, Trystan had a vague idea about Jimmy Rose, I'd like to think they would inform MC about it in Book 2. Otherwise, it would open up the possibility for a fantastic angsty scene with MC going "fuck you man, I trusted you!". (Maybe I really am a glutton for angst.)

Now there are of course, a lot of theories as to why and how Jimmy was killed but it is shown that he was a noble police officer who wouldn't rest until everyone got their justice and the victims and survivors were paid back for their trouble. It might be a speculation, but he might have stumbled into something big.

Drakovia obviously isn't like a huge cultural phenomenon like say, the UK is for instance. Trystan could walk into random shops and just go about New York and only some would recognise them. But imagine finding out a thread of scandalous information tied to one of the most powerful, mysterious monarchies in the world. Imagine stumbling onto something insanely huge that Drakovia might have to send in reinforcements to kill; perhaps contact their local assassins and dirty cops to finish the job for them.

If Trystan and MC were threatened with death from a very traumatised grandma, who also deserves jail time after figuring out about a secret cult that carved people's hearts into diamonds, imagine the sheer level of threat a country in Europe known for their torture chambers and executions would pose.

Or maybe the Hand of Mahra is the mob. I don't know. It is clear that both the actual cult and the imitation cult had their fair share of powerful people who could also kill. Eleanor was the last surviving member of the cult but it would be risky even for her to simply have counted on Tony to kill the victims. It is clear that Eleanor built this from the ground up and it must've taken her years to find Tony and brainwash him into doing her job. It is also unclear as to how they even met.

Either way, it isn't Eleanor's first rodeo. Things could've been happening way before Eleanor could've even met Tony and she is powerful. She's got a political son-in-law, she's got so many ties to people and maybe, just maybe, she's got some royal connections too.

I want to preface the next couple of points by saying I'm not a religion expert. I don't know what Drakovia believes in or if they even believe in a set of religious beliefs. I'm making the general assumption that they have Slavic roots, being situated in the Baltic mountains and would maybe draw some of their own culture from Eastern European roots. Anyway, let's go:

The Hand of Mahra is based on Mahra, the Celtic goddess, who shares some similar characteristics to a character from Irish mythology known as Morrigan, who also has three faces or forms and is called "the great queen".

The only triple-headed deity I found in Slavic mythology, specifically tied to Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina is the deity of Triglav which translates to "three-headed". This is what they had to say- The three heads of this Slavic deity represent the sky, the earth, and the underworld. Ancient Slavs believed Triglav’s heads meant he ruled the three kingdoms of this Earth, which were the present life (earth), the future that awaits us (the sky), and the underworld (the kingdom of the dead or the past).

This sort of is reminiscent of the Mother, the Maiden and the Crone. The Crone being the past, with her wisdom and knowledge. The Mother being the present - all protecting and serving and the young Maiden standing in for the future as a symbol of hope.

Now is this all a massive plot to prove that the Hand might be a fraction of Drakovia's shall we say, interests, since Bird gets Drakovian Nightshade and makes Glitter and has sold it to them. Is Drakovia actively involved in cults? According to Emika's dossier, it appears they started this "community" over social media which was termed as a 'cult' in this ambiguous, unhelpful way.

Does that imply that Emika and many others have shown an interest in these affairs? It would make sense too, because it is likely Trystan would've got upto a lot of hijinks in his time in New York and they would've made the Press many times (the caller on the phone at the end of the bonus scene talks to the hooded person about how "they had to bring Trystan back home because they couldn't rely on gossip rags to keep track of them") and that, they only chose to bring them back home only after they made the Press about Sonja's murder?

It just seems interesting. For a reckless royal that they desperately wanted to control, they did let Trystan go off the hook many times but only chose to show an interest in them when the opportunity popped up.

It is likely we'd see a cultist sort of theme going on throughout the story because if PB pulled off a Foreign Affairs (advertising it as a political thriller but serving teenage angst instead) or a TRR Sigrid Plot Line instead, it would just change the direction of the whole story. It wouldn't make much sense for MC to jump ship and go solve crimes to a royal degree, rather they'd hone their craft and specialise in these kinds of things, such as a massive organisation, espionage sort of thing

. I definitely smell a cultist, mythological theme going on throughout the story or at least, a large enough group of people to imply that there's a cultic connotation.

It is also likely that Jimmy would've stumbled onto something like this too. The Hand of Mahra went back years and years ago into the past. Way back in the 60s and 70s. Even in the 90s, when it is likely Eleanor could've picked it up after her parents passed.

The whole thing with the baseball game also seems like a random string of events. Jimmy was stabbed at the parking lot, near Box 32. It definitely didn't seem like it was planned because it isn't your typical abandoned warehouse story or this kidnapping thing. It felt too much like a crime of passion, which by definition is a "crime committed due to a sudden strong impulse rather than a premeditated crime".

Whoever the perpetrator was, they never planned on killing Jimmy, rather they could've been provoked. Killing Jimmy was *a* plan, but maybe they wanted to negotiate. Maybe Jimmy Rose knew something about it and they were elated that he was a man who held a position of power in the NYPD and they were thinking of making him an ally and when he could've refused, they might have stabbed him.

And maybe Eleanor and the Drakovians knew about it too. Maybe they wanted Jimmy gone, if he couldn't have been an ally. And maybe that's why Eleanor didn't butter up MC or Trystan, despite her knowing that she could easily manipulate them like she did with Tony and make them become her followers. She could've done that.

She could've done that in the past. She probably tried the same diplomatic approach with Sonja, Bethany and Reese and when they refused to cooperate, she had Tony kill them. Sonja did stumble onto this massive secret. She knew about the old cult and she knew too much and soon enough, she became a threat.

I feel like Drakovia would have this pattern of squashing up the witnesses. Heck, they coached a confession out of Trystan and gaslit them into believing they killed Sonja. If they did that to their own heir/heiress to the Throne, who's to say they wouldn't enforce the same to a random cop in New York?

It is also strange that Trystan got exiled to New York. Granted yes, the Homeland Accord does provide Drakovia an advantage since they clearly do a lot of business with the US and it would seem comfortable to send Trystan to one of the biggest cities in America, considering they have a lot of connections there but it also doesn't make sense because the mysterious caller from the bonus chapter "still relies on gossip rags" to get their information about Trystan?

Or maybe Trystan is that uncooperative. In the very first chapter in Book 1, Trystan upon meeting MC, goes - "Who sent you? Vincenzo? Marius? My mother?" and it only adds to the suspicion that Viktoria Thorne might be the mysterious caller and the central antagonist to the story, but that's besides the point.

It is clear that Trystan does show a considerable amount of resistance to assassins and spies, which makes sense why Drakovia would've stopped sending more of them. It is also likely they might have tried something with Mags but because she finds even the smallest of sluice ways to get out of Drakovia and come to New York to check upon her brother, they wouldn't have had much luck with her either.

Either way, the whole "Why New York?" question would likely be answered. Maybe they really did see Jimmy Rose as a massive, massive threat and maybe they sort of put Trystan there, as this strategic move to sort of lure whoever is related to Jimmy in any way to stumble upon this.

Maybe they aren't quite done with him either, so this is all just a personal case now. It would make more sense too because MC can't catch a break, they don't have a lot of closure, it's terrible for them and they keep taking care of others not knowing when it is time to put themselves first. It would be interesting if the reason was a personal issue because it would add more relevance to what it means to commit "a crime of passion".

I know it is too thin of a pie to slice because Jimmy is dead and MC doesn't know so even if there's a chance that Drakovia is involved, they wouldn't care much for it. They'd probably care for the fact that Trystan is spending so much time with a detective and that might alter their perspective about things. It is clear they also have some worries over "the detective sniffing around here" and it is likely they would've already done a background check on MC.

The one thing I'm sort of banking on, is the whole red herring plot. When we were first introduced to the Imitation Hand of Mahra, we saw people with the same mask as that of the killer. It is likely there are many hooded figures from the bonus scene and that they're all being told different things.

Even the Thorne children would've been fed all the wrong information, or maybe only parts of a whole and that, nobody knows what the other knows. It is upto MC to fit the puzzle pieces together and somehow see the bigger picture and that seems to be the likeliest theory that might happen.

On the identity of the Hooded Figure:

We know that the hooded figure is tied to the Drakovian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and maybe there are more of these hooded figures spread throughout each branch of the government. Considering Trystan is technically 'a foreign diplomat' kept under exile, it is clear that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would be seeing over their well, affairs.

Maybe there's a possibility of seeing all sorts of these hooded figures everywhere else. I already suspect Lydea, even though they're cool as fuck, mostly because they are Viktoria's right hand person and I'm still subscribing to the theory that Viktoria might be one of the central antagonists.

Anyway that's it. That's all for now. I'll see you with even more theories! Bye.

#mads pls get back to this later #mads rambles about a bunch of different things

6 notes · View notes