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dailycharacteroption · 13 days

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Deity Drop 7: Aksha

And we’re ending off the week with a rakshasa immortal, those rakshasas that have ascended through their cycle of reincarnation to become minor demigods in their own right... wait, no…

Rakshasa immortals are the greatest among their kind, earthbound avatars representing the greatest evils so that evil may be defined… huh?

Ah, well, it seems that at the time of writing, rakshasas are undergoing a bit of a face lift with the advent of the revisions to Second Edition with the Remastered books.

Originally, rakshasas cleaved a little closer to their D&D counterparts what with being reincarnating evils, but Pathfinder actually gave them lore as to why.

Essentially, Rakshasa represent thoroughly evil souls that, through dark ritual or absolute refusal to move on, become twisted into monsters that reincarnate by forcing a fledgling soul out of a newborn and taking over their future, awakening as a rakshasa into adulthood and transforming into whatever monstrous form their current incarnation happened to be. Such fiends are defined by an act of cruelty and theft every time they reincarnate, and depending on the events of their past life, may move up or down in power level and form.

The whole “stealing newborn bodies from the rightful soul” actually lines up with how rakshasa are described in Islam, however, in the original Hindu, rakshasa are akin to demons or fey in that they are earthbound inhuman creatures of great magic and viciousness (though good rakshasa that fight alongside the goodly gods are also mentioned).

I believe that it is the Hindu version that Pathfinder is now trying to emulate with this new lore for the monster group, but the lore for them leaves a little to be desired in depth and interest. “Born to be living examples of evil with no capacity to change or grow (and therefore, no longer able to shift positions on the hierarchy between incarnations). It’s just… lackluster. A creature born to do evil acts over and over again with no variation or free will is just an automaton, and kinda brings into question why they were necessary when so many other fiendish outsiders exist, some of them arguably even older than these new rakshasa, such as the qlippoth.

But that’s the new lore, which means that rakshasa immortals like Aksha here will probably be heavily rewritten the first chance they get.

With that in mind, I’ll detail her and other such immortals as they were originally, but also include notes on how they might be interpreted later.

And with that, I present, Aksha!

I tried looking for any figures called Aksha in mythology, but the only one was one of the male children of Ravana, who was killed in battle, and seems to have little to do with our Aksha.

In any case, Aksha of the Second Breath is a curious creature because while little is known of here in print, she is described as having been a mortal sorceress who sold her own soul to Mephistopheles himself in order to gain the ability to use hellfire as a weapon in her breath. How exactly a perpetually-reincarnating being sold their soul and somehow keeps reincarnating is a mystery to me. Perhaps she exploited a loophole, or the collection will come later. Or maybe the story is apocryphal or a deliberate deception to conceal how she managed to add hellfire to her arsenal. Hard to say.

If we assume she’ll survive the revisions, her Earthbound Evil version may paint her as a rakshasa of sorcery, deception, and theft, and a successful one as she managed to steal the fires of hell for herself. But that’s just speculation on my part.

Very little of Aksha’s appearance has been described, but she is supposedly a tiger-headed rakshasa with two mouths, one of which is a sibilant and eloquent speaker, while the other breathes hellfire.

Her realm is never given, though it can be assumed to be some fancy estate in Vudra somewhere, likely hidden in plain sight.

It can probably be assumed that Aksha is worshipped by those who seek to learn from her and her mastery of hellfire and other magic, as well as those seeking to emulate her deceptive nature. However, that same nature means that dealing with her even in the role of a supplicant is dangerous indeed.

Her relationships are not known either, but it can be assumed that she allies and schemes against other immortals as she sees fit, and ignores all other divinities until the servants of such beings get in her way.

She is likely served by multitudes of lesser rakshasa, particularly marai given their own interest in magic. Additionally, she likely also has many mortal slaves and servants under her control as well.

What is known for sure is her domains, which include Animal, Evil, Law, and Trickery, with the subdomains of Deception, Fear, Fur, and Tyranny. However, it is worth noting that all rakshasa immortals grant the same domains, reflecting their nature as tyrants, deceivers, and beasts.

No information on her has been given in Second Edition, so we don’t know what she might grant there. Probably for the best since they’re still hashing those details out.

She does grant a lesser obedience though, the one part of her divine kit unique to her. Those that mediate under a scented torch for an hour gain resistance to fiery effects. What’s more, her boons are all spells, allowing the faithful to attack with beams of heat, ward themselves with flame, and call down superheated winds on foes.

No info is given on her in Starfinder either, so it is unknown if she still exists or has been permanently killed by now. If she survives, she is likely in the upper echelons of society, having wormed her way in, and probably has easy access to some academy of arcane learning given her interests.

And that does it for this week, and we’ve almost made an entire loop of the various types of divinites in First Edition, so that’s progress! For now though, enjoy your weekend and see you next time with more character options!

#pathfinder #deity #rakshasa immortal #Aksha #Book of the Damned

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helsingvania · 5 months

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Looks around, no one is talking about ahsoka so I think it's a relevant time to be unhinged.

I'm not mad or upset with how ahsoka turned out, I'm disappointed.

I had low expectations going into it, we all did. But the first two episodes genuinely did drew me into the storyline. I don't care about ahsoka herself but the lore expansion, seeing the spectres again, and much of the overarching mystery just drew me in. Baylan and his more reserved, logical, and lawful nature. Even though it hate it, the myths around a new galaxy and the stories told by the Jedi and how it was just merely a fairytale tantalized me.

And this is where the show went down hill for me personally. It's a very you can't have your cake and eat it too, you can't have the grounded orders are orders storyline with the new Republic and the mystical fairytale story of traveling to a lost land to recover a hero banished with his enemy.

Both of them feel disjointed to me and if I had to choose one I would go for bringing whimsy back into star wars because I LOVE that stuff. There is a world where both elements can totally work, but based on the writing of the show alone it can only be one. And even without getting into characters, the Identity of this show is so confused. It doesn't want to know what it wants to be and will change scene to scene.

Is it a voyage into the unknown? Is it a traveling loner samurai story with a society that aged passed them? Is it a critique of bureaucracy and the failure of removing fascism? It's all of them, and yet none of them because none of them build on each other or even interact with each other. It's quite literally one scene its this theme, and the next is this theme. Neither them are expanded upon or even more forwards passed the 'this is bad' stage.

Hell Anakin's episode was only good because it only expanded a bit on Anakin, his relationship with ahsoka, and gaining a new prospective. It didn't do shit as far as meaning or anything. I think it was going for a: I didn't teach you to lay down and die. Type beat but it was so convoluted and filled with remember this from the show that it missed the fact it should've had a point. Like wow thanks filoni! You gave us solid evidence that Anakin will always be Vader and Vader will always be Anakin, and that both he and ahsoka were literally kids in war and he was trying to ensure her safety and life, and now the mortis arc has come back and reared it's head again and now he's chilling in the various realms of the force.

BUT IT LITERALLY DID NOTHING TO DIRECT FORWARDS THE SHOW OUTSIDE OF AHSOKA IS NOW BACK TO BEING A LITTLE SHIT AGAIN

How would I have done it? EASY!

A melancholic tale about realizing the world around you has shifted and coming to terms with everything that has happened to you. Between learning of what Anakin has become, the events of the rebellion and the clone wars, the fall of the Jedi and everything you thought you knew. Even realizing you have been doing nothing but walking forwards until you are finally dead.

Ahsoka acting more like Anakin as a coping mechanism since she couldn't do anything to help or save him. Running hither and yonder foolhardy and recklessly hoping that finally this fight will finally kill her. But they don't so she just continues on with her idea of what her duty is and what she's fighting for. Eventually, she does die and is met with Anakin, Anakin reinforces that he's always been like this and maybe don't take after him as much. And the lessons she taught her weren't just for survival, but doing what you did believe what was right despite the outcomes. This realization breathes new life into her (literally) and comes back and understands the fight all over again. And continuing her mission.

I don't think any of the spectres need much development compared to...the literal title character. Much of what they needed occurred back in rebels, Sabine owning up to her time in mandalore and making it right, Hera's own bravery and mourning Kanan. I still love the idea that Sabine is disaster lineage just so she can wield a lightsaber, but you didn't need to make her FORCE SENSITIVE HOLY SHIT. In fact I think Sabine being the more mature on here would've worked, yeah she acts young but she puts ahsoka in her place.

Baylan and Ezra were perfect. Ezra hasn't changed and still has his charisma and cheek while baylan is a very interesting villain based upon his past and motivations. I would've loved to have thrawn a little more subtle in place of his big introduction give the normies a FUCKING REASON TO FEAR HIM.

Final thing, you guys are cowards for not referencing heir to the empire.

#star wars #ahsoka spoilers #star wars ahsoka #ahsoka #ahsoka series

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ruthlesslistener · 7 months

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I never watched ONS, but I always see you grieving what became of it, so I am interested. Can you tell me what first got you into it, what is it about and why you fell out of it? I don't mind any spoilers because I don't intend to watch, I am just madly curious ^^

[takes a long, deep breath] oh boy where do i even start with this one.

Owari no Seraph is a textbook example of a series with amazing characters and great concepts that then gets completely dicked over by the author's own incompetence with writing. Pair that with blatant queerbait and the guy realizing halfway through that he's lost interest in his own main characters and vastly prefers his mary sue self-insert (Guren) instead, and you've got a recipe for a disaster. Which fucking sucks, because I cannot overstate the fact that the series starts off really strong with really good character and plot concepts, before devolving into an absolute goddamn disaster. Let me try to recount it for you, but keep in mind that it may be inaccurate because I dropped the series in like, 2018 so it's been a Hot Minute(tm)

Alright angry rant incoming. Putting this under a readmore bc it gets long

Basically, the story takes place after a cataclysmic apocalyptic event occurs where almost anyone over the age of 13 drops dead, leaving only a scattered handful of people and a whole fuckload of children behind to survive. After this mysterious event occurs, the vampires that inhabited the world came out of the shadows to round up the survivors and turn them into human livestock to ensure their own survival.

The protagonist of the story is a young orphan boy called Yuuichirou, who- alongside deuteragonist Mikaela and the rest of the orphans in Hyakuya orphanage- are captured and turned into vampire livestock, which the hotblooded and angry young Yuu hates, leading him to swear that he's going to become a vampire hunter and kill them all as revenge. Mika- who at the time was a sort of parental figure to the rest of the younger children and always trying to be sweet to Yuu, who rejected his affections bc both boys were severely abused and traumatized as children- finds a map to escape the underground vampire city that they're trapped in after essentially selling his body to a vampire noble, Ferid. But as it turns out, Ferid was fully aware of their plan to escape, so when them + the rest of the orphans attempt to escape to the outside world, he shows up right before the tunnel to the exit and slaughters them all, leaving Yuu as the only survivor. Yuu runs out, sobbing, and runs facefirst into Guren (the ACTUAL protagonist, apparently, even though he sucks), and a squadron of adult vampire hunters who ~mysteriously~ escaped the apocalypse. As it turns out, these vampire hunters have formed soul-contracts with demons in order to manifest the cursed weaponry required to true-kill a vampire.

(OH AND THERE'S MASSIVE FUCKING MONSTERS THAT MANIFESTED AFTER EVERYONE GOT KILLED RUNNING AROUND RIGHT. THE PEOPLE WITH THE CURSED WEAPONRY HUNT THEM TOO. FORGOT ABOUT THAT ONE BECAUSE THEY BECAME BASICALLY IRRELEVANT LATER. YES IM SALTY ABOUT THAT AS WELL)

That's episode one. The rest of the anime series is basically centered around Yuu trying to become a vampire slayer after a 3-year timeskip, him forming a bond with a demon to get his own cursed weapon, and then getting wrangled into a squad with a bunch of other 16-year-olds to go running around learning how to be a team and murder stuff. This works as well as you might expect, because Yuu is an edgy lone wolf who spends his days crying himself to sleep at night because he misses Mika and is horrifically traumatized by what happened. Then, ding ding ding! As it turns out, Mika WASN'T killed in the attack, but got turned by the vampire queen herself, and spent the three years he was turned trying to find Yuu again so that they could run away together and escape the whole disaster. Except Mika refuses to drink human blood, the catalyst to complete his transformation, and so he's on a timer, too- he's been drinking the blood of his progenitor, but it's been less and less effective at satiating him. And this is a fuckin' problem, because as it turns out, vampires turn into demons when they die. So Mika is basically in full suicide mode trying to save Yuu, then when Yuu realizes that Mika is alive and a vampire he does a 180 on how he thinks about them and goes into full 'no, I'm going to save YOU' mode about Mika, and so on and so on.

Anyways the true hinging point of the series and the greatest strength is centered around Mika and Yuu's love for each other, because when I say these boys were in-love destined-soulmates, I fucking MEAN it. Like, it's straight-up canon that Mika is in love with Yuu, and Yuu is pretty much outright in love with Mika in return. The problem, however, is that this is a shounen manga, so it's heavily heavily implied that Yuu is actually going to end up with Shinoa (a female character who is actually REALLY FUCKING GOOD SO IT REALLY SUCKS SHE GETS SHAFTED SO HARD LATER), despite him talking to her like. twice. And her only ever sending him longing glances and blushes. And then the aforementioned thing of the author getting more interested in Guren than Mika and Yuu comes into play and that's when I dropped it because Guren is the MOST mary-sue a character can get in terms of him being a sheer boring asshole who fucked the whole world up and has zero redeeming qualities and yet everyone in-story (but mika) loves him and follows him for no fuckin' reason.

As for the rest of the plot- It's later shown that the reason why this event occurred was because of a deal struck with a trapped seraphim, and that Guren was the one who caused the whole fucking thing to happen in the first place because he was sad that his squad died (or something like that) so he sacrificed the entire rest of the world to save like, 5 people that get zero character development. There's a really heavy message about found family through the series that felt really great and poignant in the beginning when it was Mika trying to convince Yuu that he was a family group with the other orphans after their own parents both tried to kill them, but then gets twisted later on to be meaningless because Yuu eventually just starts calling fucking EVERYONE family, and Guren uses it as a means of manipulating him. I dropped the manga after this started to happen because the focus turned almost entirely to Guren and everyone else's characterization went out the fucking window to simply 'trust guren he knows what he's doing' minus Mika, who has come to hate all humans left for Very Good Fucking Reasons. Because, as it turns out, the demon-bound vampire-slaying society have the only adults left who survived because THEY were the ones who trapped the seraphim in the first place, and THEY were running experiments on people with certain genetics/affinities to these seraphs to try to turn them into seraphs and harness their near-godly powers. Yuu and Mika and the rest of the kids in the Hyakuya orphanage, as it turns out, were very strong candidates for this type of experimentation, and the reason why Yuu got snatched up by the humans and Mika got turned by the vampires was because they're the human equivalent of nukes in the human-vampire war. Also, the progenitors of all the vampires was a fallen angel and vampires turn into demons when killed because of it. Which is actually really cool.

So it really fucking sucks that the author started neglecting all the other characters to obsess over his beloved Guren and to excuse all of his shitty selfish actions right when he got to the part explaining the whole seraph project thing. And like, the most frustrating part is that Guren as a complex antagonist works really really well, but the author wants nothing more than for him to be the sad, dark, brooding protagonist everyone loves, so that's the treatment he gives him. It's like he decided midway through the story that he's actually really fucking tired of Mika, meh on Yuu, but loves Guren and wanted him to be protag all along, so that's the point where the story goes down the drain. Luckily, this is after season two of the anime ends, and I haven't heard anything about a potential season 3.

That was only half of my problems though- it also had like, the worst fandom I've ever been in by far, and that's saying something because I was in some pretty fucking bad fandoms in my life. It was just full of the most needlessly hostile shit, with my main issue with it being the fact that it was full of ship wars...over the same damn ship. That being Mikayuu. Or Yuumika. Because, as it turns out, fucking NOBODY seemed to be able to get either Yuu or Mika in-character, they had to slap seme/uke stereotypes onto them and the whole war was raged over whether or not someone was mischaracterizing them because Mika was actually the top, not the bottom, or visa versa (I cannot drive home enough that both sides horrifically mischaracterized them either way. And also that Yuu and Mika were 16- not too young to fuck, but certainly too young to know what the fuck they were doing). There were death threats sent and harassment campaigns over this. You were branded as either being on one side or the other and nobody would accept the fact that both views were wrong. And that's even if you were a shipper in the first place- you also had the Yuu/Shinoa shippers who were overwhelmingly homophobic straight men who thought people were stupid illiterate yaoi fangirls for thinking Mika and Yuu were in love (tbf, most of them were weird yaoi fangirls who were simply another flavor of homophobic), or there were the people who thought that Mika and Yuu were adopted siblings because they took the last name of the orphanage they were in (hyakuya) to abandon their abusive parents/called each other 'family' and that EVERYONE who shipped them was an incest apologist (got hit with this one myself). And even if you weren't interested in shipping either, you weren't safe- I've made some of my best friends in that fandom, despite everything, and one of them didn't ship Yuu and Mika, opting for a QPP/adoptive siblings approach. And they got the MOST rancid shit thrown at them for it by the shippers, despite them not caring that other people shipped them. AND there were Mika haters/lovers who thought he was a 'yandere' for being ''''obsessed'''' with Yuu and running off with him despite the fact that it was shown over and over that Mika was severely traumatized by losing everyone he loved and that Yuu was being psychologically manipulated by the army to be a complacent experiment. Granted, this was all my experience in the 2016-2018 fandom cycle, but still. Nasty nasty nasty.

(oh and also Ferid, aka the guy who murdered everyone in the orphanage but Yuu and -partially- Mika, was heavily implied to be vampirically raping Mika bc he was straight-up a pedophile who only drank blood from people under 16 and getting your blood sucked was apparently orgasmically pleasurable/a sex metaphor, was treated as the 'fabulous gay uncle and best mika/yuu shipper supporter' by most of the fandom because after Mika was turned, he continued to emotionally and psychologically abuse him via his love for Yuu. Nasty!)

((Oh and yes, when Yuu finally gets Mika to bite him and drink his blood, that was used as 'proof' that Mika tops and is actually a smirking hardcore seme dom for blushy subby Yuu. Despite the fact that Mika was dying, sobbing hysterically and yelling at Yuu for making him survive as something he despised, and Yuu was stubbornly yelling back about how he'd love him and accept him no matter what and how he'd find a way to save him and thrusting a bleeding arm in his face to try to force him to drink. Nuance and appreciation for characterization was lost on this fandom.))

Anyways. It really really sucks, because the anime is actually very good. I genuinely would reccomend watching it- the animation is amazing and beautiful, the soundtrack gives you chills, and it covers the story right up until the next story beat and it starts swerving down the gutter, so you can feasibly watch it and then stop right there, mentally tallying it as an open/ambiguous ending. But I wouldn't suggest anything other than that, because ohhhhh boy it. it just isn't worth it. believe me. Everything else is worth it for Yuu and Mika and the Shinoa Squad, but that's where it ends

(ofc i could be wrong and the whole thing is looking up by now but i have zero faith thats the case.)

#mrslittletall #ons #reply #[long deep breath] okay i think im done #glord.#can you tell that i still feel very passionately about this subject lol #ons is to me what the firstborn son who was talented in school then drops out and becomes a druggie is to an asian family

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ilovewriting06 · 1 year

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This is a request from @kati-1997

I bite my tongue to keep from screaming as I hide behind a dumpster. Little background story, okay so, I have a cat named Mittens and she got loose and me, being the ever loving mother that I am, chases her into an alley, where I’m currently hiding behind a dumpster watching a man stab another man to death. I look around and think the coast is clear so I take off running and being the clumsy ass that I am trips over a box and catches the attention of the murderer.

I get up again and take off running as he chases behind me. I run into the crowded street and try and scream when a hand is out over my mouth and I’m dragged into another alley. I let the tears fall down my face as I’m slammed against a wall. I look into the face of the murderer and chock on my breath, it’s Marcus Young. Another back story, Marcus Young is the son of a multi millionaire and is suspected in four murders, gun smuggling, drug smuggling, human trafficking, and God only knows what else. There’s been witnesses, but they’ve all mysteriously vanished or turned up dead in an unfortunate accident days before the trial.

I glance down at the knife and back into his face before I do possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever done I scream. I scream at the top of my lungs before kneeing him right in the crotch and I take off running again when he falls to the ground in pain.

I pant as I bust through the door of the HPD. I run to the desk sobbing, “You have to help me, please you have to help me.” An officer comes over to me and tries to calm me down, but there is no calming me down, “Ma’am please slow down, what happened.” I grab onto his arms and shake, “He killed him, and then tried to kill me, I got away but he’s going to kill me, I know he is. Please, you have to protect me!”

By now there are four officers trying to assess the situation and calm me down, “Who? Who tried to kill you?” I sucked in a breath, “Marcus, Marcus Young.”

With those words everyone started scrambling as the officer yelled, “Someone call Commander Steve McGarrett and tell him to get down here ASAP!” I cling onto the officers arm as he leads me to an interrogation room. I sit down and wrap myself with my arms and screech when the door is thrown open to reveal a tall muscular man with black hair and piercing blue eyes followed by a short not as muscular blonde with blue eyes. I quickly recognize them as Commander McGarrett and Detective Williams of the 5-0 task force.

Commander McGarrett pulls the chair across from me out before sitting down. He scans me over and I see his demeanor quickly change from determination and anger to calm and understanding, “What’s your name ma’am.” I wring my hands together, “Y-Y/N.” He nods, “Okay Y/N, can you tell me exactly what happened?”

I tell him and Detective Williams what happened and I gasp, “Oh no!” Commander McGarrett glances at me in alarm and I continue, “Mittens! I didn’t find Mittens! She’s all alone, outside!” Detective Williams walks forward, “Don’t worry it’s just a cat, she’ll survive on her own.” McGarrett spins around and glares at the short detective and I stand up now a little pissed, “No disrespect Detective Williams but my cat is the only family I have and if you think I’m going to leave her outside by one of the busiest roads in Oahu you are sadly mistaken! I would rather die than lose Mittens!”

He stares at me as well as his partner before he splutters, “That’s exactly what will happen if you go looking for her.” I feel my eye twitch before I growl, “Then so be it!” And then I’m storming out the door to go find my cat.

Steve’s POV

I look at Danny irritated, “What the hell Danny!? It’s her cat and obviously she cares deeply for Mittens.”

He scoffs, “Seriously? Of course you’d take the suicidal cat lovers side. You know you and her would get along great maybe when it’s all over and if she’s still alive you can take her out to coffee.”

I roll my eyes before pushing past him and running down the hall after Y/N, “Y/N! Wait!” She stops and spins around, “Yes, Commander.” I sigh and walk to her, “I’ll go with you to find Mittens.”

Y/N’s POV

I smile and hug him, “Thank you!” He awkwardly hugs back as everyone in the station watches, “It’s not a problem but I’m going with you.” I nod, “I could tell I liked you.”

In minutes I’m sitting in the back seat of a black Camaro speeding down the freeway with a pouting blonde and a smiling brunette, “Something tells me Detective Williams isn’t a cat person.” The commander shakes his head, “Oh absolutely not, hates them, thinks they’re the devil himself.”

I glare at the detective, “Well then, I’m glad he has a smart partner.” Williams scoffs as if I just told the biggest lie he’s ever heard. I make eye contact with McGarrett through the rearview mirror and he smiles, “Thank you Y/N and please call me Steve,” he points over to the blonde and continues, “And the pessimistic blonde over here is Danny.” I nod before I recognize where we are.

When I get out of the car I lead them down the alley to see the guy that I watched get murdered. I turn and bite back tears as Steve wraps his arms around me in a comforting manner, “Danny call CSU.”

When everything is taken care of the boys and I go on the hunt for Mittens. Steve pokes up from behind a trash can holding a little black and white cat with white feet and a pink collar, “This Mittens?” I screech and run over, “Mittens! Thank God you’re okay!” I take her from Steve’s hands and pepper her face in kisses.

I cuddle Mittens and look between Steve, Danny, and the rest of their team since Steve recruited them to help find Mittens, “I need to go back to my place.” Steve walks towards me, “No absolutely not, Marcus gets rid of witnesses and I sure as hell am not going to let that happen to you.” I smile at him, “Well, then where am I staying?”

I drop my bag inside the door with Mittens on my shoulder, ��Hmm, nice house.” Steve comes in behind me and nods, “Thanks, look I’m sorry we didn’t set you up somewhere nicer but this is the only way we can guarantee your safety.” I look around, “Honestly, I’d prefer staying here and feeling safe than staying at home or in a hotel worried someone is going to stab me in my sleep.”

He nods, “Yeah I get that.” After the grand tour of the house he shows me into a bedroom that is very obviously lived in and if the smell tells me anything, it’s Steve’s room, “This is where you’ll be staying, I have a spare room but Junior, you met him earlier, that’s his room.” I nod and furrow my eyebrows, “Then where are you sleeping?”

“The couch.”

I frown and shake my head, “No.” He looks at me and chuckles, “It’s okay I was in the Navy I’ve slept on worse and I’m not letting you sleep on the couch even if I wanted to, it’s to close to the door.”

I cross my arms and think, “Fine, you’ll stay here with me.” He blinks a few times before rubbing the back of his neck, “Yeahhh, I don’t know. I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.” I glance at him and shrug, “Trust me I’ve done a lot worse than sleep in the same bed with someone I just met.” He raises and eyebrow and I chuckle, “Oh nuh uh, I ain’t telling a cop half the dumb shit I did.”

Time Skip

I sit outside on the patio with a beer in my hand and turn at the sound of claws hitting concrete. I turn to see a golden lab coming towards me. I quirk a smile and pet him when he set his head on my lap, “Where’d you come from fella?” I look up to see the man I quickly recognize as Junior comes out followed by Steve, “He’s Steve’s dog.” I smile and look at Steve, “A dog and a cat person, I really did find a gem.” He laughs and sits beside me, “Mittens won’t mind him will she?” I wave my hand and take a swig of beer, “Nah, she’ll be fine. She was raised around a dog.”

I laugh at another story Steve tells me from his time with Navy, “Oh that is pure gold! You really did that!?” He nods, “Yeah I don’t do too many smart things.” I laugh, “I don’t either. I’ll tell you a story but you have to promise not to arrest me.” He chuckles and nods, “As long as it’s not murder we’re good.” I laugh, “Well it’s not murder. Anyways this one time when I was in college I got drunk and went streaking through the campus, somehow didn’t get caught but it was fun until the hangover.” He chuckles and I continue, “Another time I did get in a knockout drag out fight with someone, it almost got me expelled from college.” He looks at me in question and I look down and sigh, “It was this dude, Derrick, he uh went out with my best friend at the time and drugged her and raped her. I found out and beat the living shit out of him. There was no proof so he didn’t get charged and I got mad and almost got arrested for it.”

He looked at me not with pity but understanding, something I admired him for, he didn’t hand out sympathy and pity he told you how it was, “What happened to her?” I look down as tears cloud my vision. I look out at the skyline and wipe away a tear, “She uh, she committed suicide a year ago, never got over the memories I guess and one day I came home and found her in our bathtub with gashed wrists. M.E. said she had water in her lungs so she went under before she was dead. She bled to death and drowned all at the same time.”

He turned in his chair and laid a hand on my knee, “It’s not your fault.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t. I can see it in your eyes, it’s the same thing that lived in mine for years. You did everything you could for her. Nothing you did would have changed what happened.” I nod and set my beer down, “God, I’m so pathetic. I’m crying over this when you’ve literally been to hell and back and seen things and done things no man should have to do.”

He shrugged, “It doesn’t change how you feel, yeah I’ve been through hell but that doesn’t mean her death isn’t any less significant.” I nod before looking at him with a genuine smile, “Thank you Steve.”

I sit up in bed with a gasp as I pant for breath. I quickly feel the bed shift as Steve sits up and grabs my arms, “Hey, hey it’s okay. It’s okay, no one’s here.” I suck in deep breaths as he grounds me before I relax into his grasp, “I’m sorry.” He looks at me in the moonlight and shakes his head, “It’s okay, I’ve been there.” I smile and lean into his chest as I nod, the next thing I know I’m drifting off to sleep in his comforting arms.

I open my eyes and wince at the sunlight before sitting up in bed to see it’s empty. I stretch and smile remembering how Steve calmed me down before I get out of bed and start down the stairs. I walk in the kitchen and chuckle when Steve turns around and I notice Mittens perched on his shoulder the way she sits on mine, “Morning sleeping beauty.” I roll my eyes and scratch Mittens’ chin causing her to purr, “How long have you been up?” He glances at his phone before thinking, “Like 15 minutes.” I roll my eyes, “Oh my how could I sleep in soooo late.” He nods, “I know right.”

I skip up the stairs after deciding to go on a swim with Steve, luckily I brought a couple bathing suits. I slip on my black bikini before grabbing two towels out of Steve’s bathroom, per his request, before skipping down the stairs.

I walk back into the kitchen and blush as Steve looks at me. I glance at him and bite my lip since he’s shed his shirt and was left only in his swim trunks. I’m broke out of my daze, “You ready?”

I nod my head and head outside following behind Steve. When we get in the water I watch as Steve disappears below the surface and I screech as I’m pulled under. When I resurface I’m deeper in the ocean and I splutter the water out of my mouth. I glare at Steve while pushing my hair out of the way. He looks at me with a goofy grin and I splash him with water, “You jerk.” He grabs my hips and pulls me in, “It was worth it to see your face.” I roll my eyes and furrow my brows before I bring a hand to his hair to fix it so it wasn’t on his face. As I run my fingers through his hair I start humming ‘Harleys in Hawaii’ by Katy Perry remembering the one part of the song. He pulls back and chuckles, “What are you humming?” I take my hands out of his hair and chuckle, “Harleys in Hawaii.” He furrows his eyebrows, “Why?” I laugh and hold his shoulders, “Because the one part of the lyrics says ‘let me run my fingers through your salty hair.’” He opens his mouth in an oh shape before asking, “Wait aren’t the next lyrics like, explore the island or something?”

I nod and he shrugs, “Doesn’t apply to me I’ve seen the island.” I bite my lip, “Steve?” He hums out a what and I blush, “I’m pretty sure she meant for the guy to explore her, ya know?” He furrows his eyebrows before he gets what I’m saying, “Oh, oh, yeah, I haven’t done that.” I chuckle and sing song, “Yet.” His eyes widen in surprise, “W-what?” I smirk and push off of him to swim a lap before yelling, “You heard me!”

When we finish our swim Steve tackles me back into the water I resurface and spit water out, “Would you stop that!?” He hums as he pretend thinks before tickling me, “Nope.”

I thrash around in the water as I giggle and yell at him to stop. He doesn’t stop and keeps going and I grab his shoulders, “S-st-stop!” “Nope.” I wiggle in his grasp before wrapping my legs around his waist and pulling myself right against his body to block my stomach. He looks down at me and I look up at him and he starts to lean in before we jerk away at Danny’s voice, “Steve! Where are you!?” I jump off of him and walk to shore followed by Steve. When we get there I grab my towel and dry my hair and then my body before looking between Danny, who had just found us, and Steve, “I um, I’m gonna head uh inside.” I don’t wait for an answer before I rush inside and beeline upstairs. Did we really almost kiss? Did I want him to kiss me? Would he actually ask me out after? I think the answer to all those questions is yes.

Steve’s POV

I lower my head to kiss Y/N until Danny yells and she jerks away before untangling herself and rushing towards shore. When she’s in the house Danny looks at me as I glare at him, “What? Did I interrupt something?” I glare before aggressively grabbing my towel and his eyes widen, “Shit I did didn’t I?”

I spin around and throw my towel at him, “Yeah dipshit you kinda did!” He rushes after me as I walk towards the house, “I’m sorry okay, I can leave and come back!?” I walk into the house to see Junior in the kitchen, “Hey, how did you convince her to go swimming with you in the morning?” I shrug, “Said she liked swimming, she’s pretty good.”

They watch me as I grabs a glass of water and I snap at them, “What!” They shake their heads before Junior says, “It’s just you seem agitated…sir.” I put my glass beside the sink before going upstairs. I walk into my room to grab some clothes and spin around when the bathroom door opens and Y/N walks out in nothing but a towel.

Y/N’s POV

I hum as I get out of the shower and smile as I wrap a towel around my body and think about the almost kiss.

I walk out the door and into the bedroom and grip the towel a little tighter when I see Steve staring at me surprised before he apologizes, “I’m sorry I was expecting you to take a little longer, most girls take long showers.” I chuckle, “Its okay Steve, and I’m not like most girls.” I walk a little closer to grab my clothes from the bed and accidentally trip over my shoe and catch myself on Steve’s chest. He looks down and whispers, “I’ve noticed.” I blush as I look into his eyes and see the same look in his eyes as when we were in the ocean. I hold my towel with both hands as I whisper, “Kiss me.”

He glances at me to see if I’m being sincere and when he sees I mean it he grabs me and pulls me into a kiss. I move in closer and deepen the kiss as his hand runs through my hair. I release my towel and grab the back of his head to pull him closer. I shiver as my towel falls around my feet and moan into his mouth as his one hand runs down my back and stops at my hip and pulling me in impossibly closer.

I run my hands across his shoulders before he picks me up and I wrap my legs around his waist before he spins us around. I pull him onto the bed with me and throw my hand back knocking my bag onto the floor. I sit up pushing Steve to stand as I blush before darting to the ground to pick up my towel, “As much as I would love to do this I’m not going to do it with Danny and Junior here,” I walk past him and pat his chest after I grab my bag and head back to the bathroom, “And you owe me a date, and then we’ll continue this.”

One Day Later

I follow Steve into 5-0 headquarters looking around. I smile as I see Tani. Tani and I spent most of yesterday together while Steve and Danny worked a case. I walk over and give her a hug before waving at Lou. He smiles and nods, “Hey Y/N.” I nod before walking back over to Steve and standing side by side. He glanced at me with a small smile before turning to everyone else as they start working on a different case.

I lean back in Steve’s office chair and throw my feet up on his desk while doing a word search. I glance up as my babysitter for the day walks in, “He’s going to kill you if he sees you not only in his chair but with your feet on his desk.” I glance up and shrug, “Ehh, I’ll be fine, Danny.”

He scoffs and circles the desk peeking over my shoulder, “What are you doing?” I throw him a look before answering sarcastically, “Oh I don’t know paper machete.” He glares at me and fights back a smile before I laugh. He laughs and nods, “You spend too much time with Steve.” I smile at the thought of Steve and he plops down in a chair on the opposite side of the desk, “Now that is not a smile you smile when you’re humored rather a smile you smile when you’re thinking about a special someone.”

I blush and look back down at my word search ignoring him but he’s not having it, “Oh no no don’t you dare, tell me.” I chuckle, “Danny we aren’t teenagers.” He smirks, “Isn’t stopping you from having a teenage crush.” I throw him a glare, “It is not a teenage crush.”

“It’s only not a teenage crush if you make a move on it.”

I hum and circle another word and he leans forward, “That is unless you have made a move.”

I shrug, “We sleep in the same bed, what do you expect?”

His mouth drops and I smile as the door opens again to reveal Steve. He comes in and steals my word search and then steals the pen from my mouth and circled a word, “You missed gorgeous.” I click my tongue and steal it back as steve looks at Danny and rolls his eyes, “It was a word on the word search Danno.” I smirk and give Steve a mischievous smile telling him I know that gorgeous was indeed not a word on my word search.

I laugh at a stupid joke Danny made as we ate dinner at Steve’s after Steve got a call and excused himself. I glance at Steve and my smile slips away as he looks at me worried before he gets off the phone. When he comes over and sits back down beside me he squeezes my thigh, “That was Duke from HPD.” I nod my head as I remember the name from the other day, “Yeah, what did he need.” Steve glances around the table before licking his lips, “Your house burned down. Firefighters say it was arson, they think it was Marcus.”

My eyes widen and I get up and step outside as I process that my house and all of my possessions are gone, and there is no getting it back. I turn around as Steve grabs my shoulder, “It’s going to be okay.” I turn around and throw my hands up, “How!? How is it going to be okay!? He burned down my house! I lost EVERYTHING! I have NOTHING!”

He pulls me into his chest as I cry, “You have me, I’m not going anywhere.” I nod and hold onto him for dear life, “What do I do now?”

He pulls back and holds my arms, “We give him what he wants.”

“What?”

“We kill you, not really, but we have the news say that you died in the fire and you stay here until the trial.”

I nod my head, “That’s actually a good idea.”

He smiles and I bite my lip, “Can I kiss you? Because I really need you right now.”

He nods and pulls me into a kiss and I melt into him. I pull away and cuddle into his chest, “Don’t let me go.”

“I won’t.”

Danny’s POV

I watch as Y/N tears up and runs outside and I watch as Steve goes out and comforts her. I look at everyone around the table when he pulls her into a kiss and she automatically relaxes into him telling me that is definitely not their first kiss. I look at Tani knowing if anyone knew she would since her and Y/N are bffs now apparently and see she is as flabbergasted as I am.

Everyone at the table smiles as she cuddles further into his chest and he holds her a little tighter making it clear to me and probably everyone else seeing what I’m seeing is that Steve will do anything to protect her.

Y/N’s POV

I pull away from the hug still keeping my arms around his waist, “We should go back in, tell the team the plan.” He smiles and nods wiping a stray tear off my cheek before grabbing my hand and leading me inside.

When we sit back down I sit a lot closer to him than before and everyone looks at us. I take a sip of water as Steve tells them the plan and everyone agrees and then the heat turns to us, Lou being the first to speak, “The plan sounds great, now when did this happen?” He motions between us and Steve glares and I squeeze his hand that is intertwined with mine under the table before I answer, “Um, the day before yesterday.” Danny nods and Junior narrows his eyes, “A day after you met?” Steve nods and Danny smirks before Steve glares at him, “However if it wouldn’t have been for Danny it would have happened about ten minutes earlier.” Danny looked between us, “You mean to tell me you two decided to go out was while I was still there.”

I blush and look at Danny, “Yeah, when I got out of the shower.” Danny and Junior’s nose scrunches at the thought and Steve cuts in, “Relax you two it didn’t go any further than kissing, Y/N stopped when we remembered you two were downstairs.”

One Week Later

I pace around the house as Junior watches me, “Would you stop you’re making me dizzy.” I groan and look at the man who has become like a brother and complain, “I’m sorry Junes but I can’t take it anymore, he won’t even let me go swimming!” He stands up and grabs my arms and forces me to sit down, “He’s protecting you.” I sigh, “I know and I appreciate it but I just want to go outside.” Instead of Junior talking to me this time it’s a voice I’ve come to love, “And you will, in two days.” I turn around and whine, “Why not now?” He sighs probably getting tired of my whining, “Yes, I know you’re getting tired of staying at home but you’re supposed to be dead which means no one can see you until the trial on Friday.”

I grumble and sink down into Steve’s chair and watch as Junior grabs Eddie and makes a half ass excuse of going on run before disappearing. I pout and look at Steve and he squats down in front of me, “I know you’re getting cabin fever baby, but hold off, just for a couple of days.” I lean forward and cup his jaw, “I know and I’m sorry for complaining.” He smiles and nods, “It’s okay.”

I pull him up and into my lips before I break the kiss, “Since Junes is gone, wanna make tonight a date night?” He smirks and leans over me resting his hands on the arms of the chair before leaning down, “Mmm, I signed on for one date, this would make it three.” I wrap my arm around his neck, “Yeah, but the best part comes after the date.” He hums and chuckles as his lips meet mine yet again.

The Day of the Trial

I bite my nails as I sit in a conference room with Steve waiting on the prosecutor to come get me, “Steve, what if he gets away with it?” He looks to see the worry in my eyes and frowns, “He won’t. Don’t worry about anything other than testifying what you saw and watching his face when he sees he has no way out. It’ll make you feel powerful and proud knowing you are the one that put that scumbag behind bars.”

I nod and before I know it I’m being called to the stand, “For my next witness I would like to call Y/N Y/L/N to the stand.”

I rub my hands on my jeans before looking back at Steve and the rest of the team who give my nods and smiles before walking up to the stand. I glance at Marcus and smirk at the disbelief on his face, Steve was right this does feel fantastic.

“Ms. Y/L/N, could you tell the people of the jury what you saw on the afternoon of August 4th?”

I nod, “Yes sir, I went into an alley near my house and watched a man attack and kill another man with a knife.”

I glance at Marcus and smirk slightly at his deer in headlights look, even the best defense in the world couldn’t get him out of this one, “Did you see the face of the man who murdered the other man.”

I shake my head and hold my hands, “Not at first no, but after I saw the murder I ran and tripped which is what caught his attention. I tried to run away but he caught me and pinned me to the wall.”

“Ms. Y/L/N could you tell me who it was that you saw?”

I nod, “Yes, it was Marcus Young.”

“Ms. Y/L/N, what happened after that? How did you get away?”

I cleared my throat and sat up straighter, “After he had pinned me to the wall he held a knife to my chest but before he could do anything I screamed at the top of my lungs and kneed him in the balls…sorry I kneed him down south. He let go from the pain and I ran until I was in the HPD office.”

The court chuckled slightly at my statement before the prosecution hands me off for the defense to question, “Ms. Y/L/N, why were you in that alley way?”

“My cat, Mittens, had escaped earlier that day and I was looking for her as that is where she has hidden out before.”

She nods, “Is it not true that you lead the people of the public to believe that you had been killed?”

“Yes ma’am I did, but it was for my own safety that the 5-0 task force ran with the story when my house was burned to the ground, something that was proven to be arson.”

I can see in her eyes she knows her case is falling apart but she gets motioned over to the side by a man who had just came in. When she looks at me she has a small smirk on her face, “Ms. Y/L/N, is it true that you have a sexual relationship with Commander McGarrett?” My eyes widen and I look at Steve frantically, this was not something I was prepped for.

The prosecute jumps up, “You’re honor that has no relevance to this case!” The judge glances at the defense attorney and she defends, “It is possible that Ms. Y/L/N was sleeping with Commander McGarrett and was told about my clients failed cases in the past and made this whole narrative up after they found the body to help her boyfriend put him behind bars!”

That is not what happened miss bitch. The judge allows the defense continue and I choke on my spit as I nod, “Yes, I have a relationship with Commander McGarrett.”

She looks at me and smirks, “When did you meet Commander McGarrett?” I smirk as I realize that this bitch really thought I was sleeping with Steve before this, “I met him on August 4th, after I had come into the police department and given a statement. If you don’t believe me you can go through my phone records. I had only heard of Commander McGarrett until the day your client murdered a man in front of me and instead of taking the consequences like a man pinned me to a wall and tried to kill me. The fact you think I would throw a trial or even lie while under oath is highly offensive and no matter my feelings for Steve no man, and I mean no man could ever persuade me to do something as vile as what you are not only accusing me of but also accusing Commander McGarrett of, a man I may point out served this country for years and even after leaving the military still puts on a gun and shield to protect this island, even for those that don’t deserve it. So, to answer the question you really want to ask, no, Steve did not change my testimony by a single word.”

After I’m done I lean back in the chair with a satisfied smirk as the courtroom fell quiet.

After the trial I walk out into the hall to catch my breath while the jury comes to a verdict. Steve and the team come out and I look at him, “How the hell did she know about us?” Steve looks between all of us and shrugs, “I have no idea but it doesn’t matter, you handed her ass to her in there.” Lou nods, “Hell yeah you did, you ever think about being a lawyer, cause I’d sure as hell hire you to be my defense attorney.” I chuckle, “Nah, I’d rather be a stay at home cat and dog mom.”

We stand in the courtroom as the jury files in and the head jury member stands up, “We find the defendant….guilty in murder and attempted murder in the first degree as well as arson.”

I squeal and hug Steve as I watch Marcus get hauled out by the court guards.

After the Trial

I take a swig of beer as I watch Mittens swat at Eddie’s tail and look up when Steve sits beside me, “So, I was thinking,” I cut him off, “Oh no, that’s never good.” He glares at me playfully before wrapping his arm around my shoulders and pulling me closer, “Ha ha, but no seriously, how would you feel about staying with me and Eddie? Mittens loves it here, I think you do and you wouldn’t have to look for a new place.” I smile and look at him before laying my head on his shoulder, “Yeah, I like the sound of that.”

Tag List:

@djs8891

#steve mcgarrett x reader #steve mcgarrett #hawaii five oh #hawaii #hawaii five 0 #danny williams #lou grover #tani rey #junior reigns

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bestworstcase · 1 year

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one thing I would love to see in the story is if, in Vacuo (well known as a place with a LOT of Grimm) someone remembers Menagerie somehow has less of a problem and turns to Blake and asks her "why?" and we get a lot of information about Menagerie as a culture. do you think this would fit in with your "menagerie has less grimm because it doesn't have a huntsmen school" theory? I personally think it makes sense because we know that "Grimm are attracted to strong auras" so naturally if you have a place where they're all grouped together, it'll be worse. Also there are several Faunus that have been shown as fighters who don't have Semblances, which require aura usage, so that probably helps. thoughts? (as an add-on to this, are you the person who said Salem is thematically a faunus? if so do you think that has anything to do with any of this?)

(yeah i’ve been on the salem-is-a-faunus train for a good long while now. not even just thematically, like, socially/culturally she’s a faunus. human + non-human physical characteristics—& i would argue there’s a lot of circumstantial evidence to support the idea that salem at one time had a lot of influence over faunus culture.)

i think menagerie’s relative lack of a grimm problem is almost certainly because menagerie is 1. a kingdom built by civil rights activists where 2. it’s culturally acceptable to express ‘negative’ emotions openly. menagerie’s people aren’t repressed festering balls of all the pain they’ve ever swallowed, because they don’t swallow their pain, and i figure that makes them a lot less interesting to the grimm. it’s like… imagine if grimm were creatures who needed to regularly submerge themselves in water to survive. menagerie has a lot of shallow, fast-flowing little brooks and streams; the vytal kingdoms have a lot of deep wells and dammed-up reservoirs. which kind of place is going to be more attractive to the grimm?

it’s not that the lack of a huntsman school is the causal factor of menagerie not having a grimm problem—it’s that menagerie represents a completely different model of grimm management, one based on prevention rather than warfare, and thus never needed to set up a huntsman academy. because the grimm just weren’t ever that big of a problem.

(mechanically, i think grimm are probably drawn to “negativity” because they need aura for whatever reason, and for humans and faunus aura is at least somewhat responsive to emotion—so to a grimm, a big burst of bad feelings is kind of like the sound of a can opener to a cat. similarly, a huntsman or huntress with an unlocked aura and juiced up semblance is probably more appetizing than your average civilian, which might be why we see behavior like grimm rampaging through the fairgrounds and only incidentally killing bystanders in V3, but rushing students far more aggressively.)

but the thing is. i’m not sure the people of menagerie entirely understand this. like, grimm are NOT well-understood AT ALL. grimm “science” is still at “grimm eat their prey, chase scavengers away from their kills, and ‘mysteriously’ die in captivity; they don’t need to eat, they choose to eat because they’re evil sadistic demons.” menagerie happens to be structured, as a society, in a way that works really well as a preventative measure against the grimm—but that’s because it’s a society built by civil rights activists who want to promote peace and equality and have thought deeply about how best to do that. the grimm prevention is an accidental side effect, and i imagine it’s either kind of a scientific mystery or everyone is putting it down to kuo kuana having good “natural barriers” (the mountains).

so i don’t know how well any menagerian characters would be able to explain any of this, because it’s way, way outside the realm of what modern grimm studies is able to account for. if it does get exposited on in detail, i would actually expect it to come from salem—because 1. she knows astronomically more about the grimm than anybody else by virtue of being both immortal and grimm herself, and 2. part of negotiating peace with salem is doubtless going to involve figuring out how grimm and people can coexist peacefully.

(i know a lot of folks think the grimm will be just… destroyed altogether in the end, but i don’t think that tracks because grimm have been portrayed as social beings with much greater intelligence than the pseudoscientific study of them holds; i think this is probably headed in more of a ‘ending the existential conflict between grimm and humans’ kind of direction than a ‘total extermination of these possibly sapient beings’ one. & if the core issue is that grimm just need a lot of aura to survive, well… one of the main characters is a guy whose semblance involves channeling his aura into other people, and warriors can channel their aura into weapons and clothes as a matter of course, and grimm can siphon aura from living things without causing permanent damage, and aura itself is a renewable resource, so like. this is a Solvable Problem.)

#i think it would be neat if the narrative swerved back to menagerie at some point #but yeah i do think this is going to come up in v10 #either in vale (where salem is) or vacuo (bc all these refugees strain the huntsman system to its breaking point)

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imagine-silk · 2 years

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hullo! May I please request varric dating a reader who acts a lot like a detective? (Basically they really like to solve mysteries and help people and be a bit eccentric)

A strange detective covers a lot of ground, so I went with a noir Sherlock Holmes. I don't know, the thought of a melodramatic noir detective in Dragon Age is so out of place it humors me greatly.

Art by Benjamin Carre

You first met in the Hinterlands when Berand asked the herald to find his lover. They found you over her body reading the letter and you quickly explained you found her like this and needed to find her lover. When they told you where he was you got really sad claiming the hunt and satisfaction of finding him was gone.

You joined them to deliver the news a little displeased but immediately perked up when the party off-handily mentioned this was the second person you were hired to find. Excited you asked who they were and joined the inquisition.

Through all of this Varric wanted to laugh. He knew he shouldn't think this was funny in the middle of a war but you were so strange and Trevelyan thought so as well.

Working for the inquisition satisfied your inquisitive nature. Whenever there was a person or object to find you were on the case and you solved them quite quickly.

Because of the ongoing war with templars and mages you were always busy. So much so you never really talked to the inner-circle or anyone really that much not until after Haven is attacked. During the journey to Skyhold it was Varric who checked on you. He had never seen you distraught about anything unrelated to your work. While everyone is getting settled he notices no one really checks on you so he takes it upon himself to do so.

He learns quite a bit during your talks. Proper checking for cause of death, deducting suspects, talking to the victim's family. You also have more personal talks explaining how much you enjoy your job, your extreme highs and lows, your close relationship with death, your need to figure things out and how all of these things make it difficult to be palatable to others.

You also learn about him. He doesn’t really say much about himself that's not cryptic but for you he doesn't need to. Not saying you fully understand, you probably never will, but you get a general idea. As much as you want to press for detail or find a paper-trail you know he wouldn't like that and a stepping stone in your relationship is you learning to be content with that. (And no, he won't tell you the story of Bianca.)

At some point he writes a book that is based off of you. It becomes very popular even to people outside of his fans because it is one of the only book of his where the main character survives and has regular wins, a lot of losses but consistent wins. It wasn't hard to write, he mostly just rewords what you tell him and embellishes it.

A lot of people saw the change of the MC over time. MC started as a strange excitable person obsessed with solving intricate crimes who was petty and difficult to deal with but later turns out to be a person isolated because of their eccentric nature and constantly working because it allows their mind to run as fast as it can without waiting for others.

Readers also noticed when there was a growing romantic tension, like they were suddenly reading this character in the most flattering light. But they had no love interest. It's not very clear if Varric was envisioning his lack of romance or yours. (Cassandra picks up on it and is ate it up)

The only real reason he allowed it to be published was because his beta-readers loved it to pieces and he knows you won't read it due to your lack of time and lack of interest in it. You hate when writers get something wrong but specifically in Varric's case you already knew what happens. And your right, your not going to find anything new other than things he embellished.

By then people have kind of sniffed out the growing interest you both have. An interest you both don't seem to want to act on. Varric's self-loathing is infamous, he would never give himself a happy ending and you know this. You also have reservations due to your very dangerous job and insane working habits. You both are quite content to keep what you both know unsaid.

It gets to a point the inner-circle start to intervene. They don't succeed but they try. Trevelyan gives you less work so you have more free time but having less work pisses you off big time. Cassandra tries to get you to read his books but you keep telling her no and Varric is irked by her attempts. Cole tries to fix your hurts but for both of you it's too little too late. Josephine and Leliana get you to social events but Varric is a socialite and entertains crowds and you are known as a very impressive detective and a main character in a book, you both occupied the whole night. Depending if your fem or masc, Sera or Dorian will ask if you need any advice for the bedroom to which annoyed you. Vivienne got peeved enough to invite you to a spa day and brought Varric along with her, apparently he was under the same impression, so out of spite you both enjoyed your time using her paid day off to do nothing. Even Blackwall and Solas try to ask if either of you are interested in someone, though they're a lot more teasing.

Funny enough Iron Bull is the only one content on letting things play out. He knows something would need to happen for the spark to turn into a flame.

The beginning of your official romance is not very romantic I'm afraid. You leave on a particularly interesting case and don't come back. And he panics. Fully thinks your dead but doesn't give up on trying to find you. He asks news from the scouts, checks taverns and towns when he goes out, even asks Cole if he knows where you are. Cole says, "Panicked, prancing like a headless chicken, they're probably scared as I am. Or maybe their fine. Or maybe their dead. Just another regret. My answer won't soothe your hurt no matter the what I say." He knows the kid is right. If he said you were perfectly safe he would doubt it and if he said you were unsafe or dead he would never forgive himself.

When you come back bloodied and bruised it's almost like you never left. No one reacts and you don't want them to. Because of this Varric doesn't know you’re back. He spots you sitting on the battlements and runs. You turn to see a flushed sweating dwarf staring at someone he's not sure is a ghost, like if he blinks you’ll wisp away. The conversation starts like all the others and for a long time you sit casually talking. A long pause is broken by Varric, "You scared me." to which you replied a quiet I know, and silence takes over once more. You put your hand on his and he pulls you into a hug. When you pull away you look at each other and with no words see everything unsaid. Neither of you knows who started the kiss but it's long and chaste, sweet and tenderly slow.

After that you're just an item, no real talk necessary. It takes a while for others to figure it out, y'all don't act mush different. All of your kisses are stolen, flirting is no more than usual. Varric takes things slow which is fine by you.

When your gone you send letters back and forth. It's a bit difficult because you're on the move constantly. Your letters mostly consist of current events but as the time apart grows it will detail how you miss one another, sometimes it's spicy.

In your extreme highs he listens intensely. Your excited nature making him feel like everything is right in the world. In your extreme lows he learns how to help you. Lack of work? He tries to get you to focus on doing something, like a puzzle or finding a specific item. Saw something horrible? He'll ask you to talk about it. Just down? He tells you it's okay and either does a little spa day and spends the day pampering and goofing off or he takes you to the tavern to have fun, which usually end in some 'fun'.

Varric is also a bridge to having a better social life. You don't stop being strange but he brings out your sweetness and humor allowing others to enjoy it as well. You are also the muse of his latest book and high society folk are nosy so in places like Val Royeaux you will be swarmed. But in taverns and the like it's just an good time.

#dragon age imagine #dragon age inquisition #male reader #female reader #gender neutral y/n #gender neutral pronouns #varric tethras #varric x reader #Apparently there is a word limit #I didn't know this #when did this become a thing????#I wanted to write more so I'm sorry you didn't get all of it #But I did cramp a lot of it in so you're not missing much #thank you for the ask!#ask and you shall receive #this will be quick #five hours later

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tsuukirana · 1 year

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✦˚ · 𝟎𝟎 | 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄

Teyvat was a weary place, battered and beaten by the history of war. Mortals come across these barren lands to dream. While very few make it out as heroes and survivors, many come and go as quietly as the wind. One woman stands against the story of time, destined to tread upon this unholy ground with nothing more than an outstretched, soft hand. Darkness can rise to her neck but she never once dared to look down. Her followers wish to be beside her as she veers to the land of defeated gods, hoping to solve a forgotten mystery.

The Tsaritsa’s right hand is a lonesome soul, constantly wandering the snow-covered grounds of Snezhnaya. Those serving beneath her swear their loyalty by the blade, guided truthfully by the sound of her gentle voice. Her youthful face shields a thousand years of unspoken torment, yet she continues forth her journey in overseeing the future, hoping there might be change.

Back to 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄 & 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐃𝐔𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒?

Explore 𝐎𝐍𝐄-𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐓 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓?

Inspired by Aponia, the Third Flame-Chaser by Honkai Impact 3rd.

Discipline will help you overcome fears, and raise your willpower to survive. Guiding the younger woman in front of you, your hand stayed hovering over her figure. She grits her teeth in a brutal struggle against her relenting legs, her fingers tightening the handlebars as tightly as she could. She trembled, her breaths becoming heavy alongside your heartbeat. The chirping birds echo their songs through the hospital walls, guiding lost souls to salvation. Sweat dripped slowly down the side of her temple, trickling like new rain as she grunted. Her legs felt numb and she hardly found the strength to bring herself to straighten her back. Though from underneath your guidance, she found herself forcing herself to move. Her legs buckled underneath the weight of her body before she caught herself using the steel walker. You can do it, I believe in you.

She heaved, gasping with every breath as the air around her grew tense. Your eyebrows furrowed in response, turning your attention to her form, your eyes gazing at her with empty pity. Struggle now but do not let it overcome you. It wouldn’t be the first time this happened, despite that, you were desperate to seek hope. Your hollow appearance failed to convey the sense of upbringing that many sought after. The color of (e/c) that had once glimmered underneath the shining moonlight had now dulled, their sparkle was no longer as prevalent as they once were. Several thousand years of rain only brought you closer to the shade of gray that you’ve seen through windows. Did the people of Snezhnaya even see the sun or was it simply an illusion created by Celestia? Holding your breath, you soothe the woman with your soft voice, letting her ears fill with the gentle melody as she readjusted her position. I’ll always be by your side until you are reborn. Her dark-brown hair fluttered as she sucked in one deep breath, her head lifting in determination as her eyes glistened with tears. Her foot moved forward slightly, creating a proud smile that she wore happily: there was progress being made.

Mother (Y/n), when can I leave the hospital? Brushing through his golden locks, you silently allowed him to cough violently against your chest. You wiped away the thin droplets of blood from his lips, your handkerchief soiled with the ominous telling. He only glanced up at you with an innocent look. What was it like to live outside the walls? He pressed his fingers together, his lips curving into a slight frown. It is cold but beautiful, you said, tucking a strand of his hair behind his ear, though worry not, you will be able to see it soon enough. And while you’ve told him these ideas many times, he continues to look back at you with satisfaction, as if you were there to only reassure him that despite his health and displeasures, he may one day see the outside as you promised. You’ll get to see a lot more children and play with them, so try to keep your head up, it is the best thing you can do right now. A smile forms on his face. He knows that you were lying through the skin of your teeth, yet he trusts you anyway, hoping that what you told him would come true, even if it was a lie. You can do it a hundred times over and he’ll put his faith in you.

My wounds don’t hurt as much anymore! At her words, you choose to hold your tongue, allowing her to wave at you with her bandaged arms. Thank you, Mother (Y/n)! The fabric drooped from her shoulders, loosening up as she smiled gleefully. She who was once a soldier of Mondastadt left the field in a bloody mess, coming to your shelter for assistance before her body collapsed to the ground. The woman winced as she forced her body to move forward. Despite her limping form, her infectious laughter filled the gray halls, happiness overflowing through her veins. How strange must it be to see her now than for who she once was. She who had once fought against the evil of Teyvat returned to your side as a desperate beggar, now revitalized as a young woman with ambition. You shift your body to the side, your feet standing close together as you hold your breath. She tells you about the things she discovered while exploring the shelter’s halls, a blossom forming deep within her hazel eyes.

You wish to understand more about her ambitions. What brought her so much fuel to keep pushing forward? Was the desire that leads her to continue fighting for what she describes to be the beauty in life, truly worth the sight? Could you even describe what you saw outside the window as beautiful, or would you rather say that it was pitiful? Rain that freezes into icicles as sharp as blades, snow so thick you find your steps slowing to a steep halt, and dreary sky that is loveless to even the ones who worship them, is that her definition of beauty? Perhaps her aspirations could bring her great fortune. Her wishes that burn as brightly as the stars above may come to fruition, planting their seeds throughout the land as she brings upon the world everlasting joy. Though you find yourself coming to the strict reality that was Teyvat and Celestia.

Humans were much too fragile to last, especially not for eternity as they wish. The war that they bring was not of each other, but a battle to rebel against time and the existence of a powerful, all-seeing God that rests upon the throne of the divine. Whether they committed to the act of survival for themselves was merely volatile in your eyes. Dreaming of something that may never come true left you with a sour taste.

Now I can return to the battlefield! And while you hoped that a bud of hope may form at the base of your heart, you refused to take pride in her words. When I come back, I hope to show you what I find! You averted your eyes away from her sonorous voice, shielding her from the painful expression that lies on your face. Nothing good ever comes out of war, and you knew that nothing will ever change if everyone is at the mercy of fate itself. Pressing your lips tightly to form a thin line, you gaze out the stained windows, remembering the smell of lit fires that sat upon old, withering blocks of wood. A memory that lingers within yourself for as long as time persists. Perhaps, you said to yourself, letting your shoes click against the icy cold grounds, what brings people to continue fighting is a memory they wish to relive and create. And while you may not understand fully how hot that flame may burn, you can only want to see it rest amongst the constellations.

Thank you for taking care of me all this time. The older woman shivered as she leaned back against the snow-colored beds, letting her wrinkled fingers crinkle the pristine sheets. You knew her as a loving and tender woman, who many had always turned to for a sense of wisdom and advice. She would wave to the children early in the morning before leaving for the garden, always tending to the plants as if she was nothing more than a watering plant destined to give others life. You’ve done so much for the people in this town, are you taking care of yourself? It’s not like me to scold you like this but it would be nice for you to take time for yourself. Her hands would always be holding onto flowers, whether by the tips of her fingers or by the handful, she would always have a smile stretching alongside her aged cheeks, her hands lifting the fruits of her labor. I assure you that everything will be fine, please don’t force yourself to talk, you are still recovering. You commended her for such strength and vigor. It is not common to see someone of her age so full of youth.

Yet as you hold onto her hands, looking into her eyes with deep admiration, you are reminded of her fragility. Her back was now much too weak to bend over with her wheelchair, fingers no longer clutching onto flowers that miraculously bloomed underneath the Snezhnayan night. To see her as fragile as her age made your heart ache with a great deal of despair. You wish that she didn’t strain herself for the mundane. Deary, you don’t always need to think about others. What you’ve done for all of us is more than enough, and you should feel proud. It’s not easy. From her words did your hands flinch against hers, unsure of what to say. Her wise words had never struck a chord, yet her voice caused your lips to quiver alongside the shaken leaves. It’s never easy.

You wouldn’t describe your simple actions to be as grand as she or anyone made them out to be. You were merely doing your duty as a devoted Church follower, always doing it for the sake of the people and never for yourself. It was hardly anything to be proud of and yet the look in her eyes made you think that perhaps the work that you produced was something of more importance. Those few words of encouragement gave hope to thousands of people struggling to get out of bed, their souls much too weary and tired to continue going until they were brought forth by a guiding hand. I can assure you that everything will be okay and that I will be fine. You slide your tongue across the edges of your teeth, finding the numbing sensation to be a common trait among liars. Guided by Celestia herself, everything will be fine.

You don’t have to go this far to help others, you are doing enough. She reaches out for you briefly, attempting to break you from this spell. You disdain her words, shifting your body away from her as you tinker with the ends of your rosary, clutching tightly to its edges. Instead of looking at her eyes, you stare towards the cathedral windows, the beautiful stained glass structure becoming muddy and lacking color. Vague figures of snow fade into the background, and what you could only describe as passing melancholy runs past you, a cold breeze drifting alongside your skin. It is never enough, you argued, squeezing onto the black beads as your fingers trembled. If you had tried a bit harder with your powers, you could have at least given salvation to a few more people. They could have made it out of the Church, able to witness children skating along frozen lakes, pick flowers off of the ground when spring came, and see the rest of Teyvat resting. You could have given them the life you had promised. It was never enough, and you’d be a fool to think that there was hope.

The world around you becomes colder, the winds billowing against the window, knocking ever so eagerly. What could you have done to guide such ruined souls? Could you have salvaged what was damned and condemned to a life of solitude with nothing more than a figment of what you call power? Even the fantasy of Celestia cannot pour water into a well whose emptiness spans millennia. With nothing but a candle illuminating the darkened room, you sit alone at your desk, holding your head in your arms. What could you have done to fight against fate itself? If humans were destined to fulfill a short-lived life, there wasn’t much for you to combat the growing darkness. You insist that there is another way around it, praying late at night to a shrine that holds little promise to you. Your fear of dissolving faith leads you to a path many dare not to tread.

“La Strega,” a voice calls, her icy tone holding little shield to her apathetic nature. The Tsaritsa brings forth her right hand, ushering the room to be pin-drop silent and still as to hear your soft-spoken sound. “Let us hear of your suggestion of this. . . Traveler. Share with us your vision so that we may tread lightly.”

You glanced up from the table, finally recognizing your surroundings as you watched your fellow associates rearrange their notes together, pens settled down on the cool surface with arched brows. You are reminded that you were seated for a meeting called upon by the Cryo Archon herself, a relic of what you can only say is the old times. She wishes to dispel any sort of suspicion amongst the people, while not drawing attention to her desire to obtain all the pieces of her game of chess. Tilting your head towards her, you allowed her to stare deep within the empty irises that you hold. To preserve the inevitable dangers that lie ahead, you suppose that you have become great use to her after a momentary demonstration of your ability. You wordlessly rest your fingers amongst each other, interlacing them.

“I see that the world will experience change,” You started, “This Traveler you speak of. . . is in search of something rather unobtainable as of this moment.”

You failed to change anything in the end. The church that you had devoted your life to had dissolved into icy waters, their people unable to raise their crosses high enough to praise a being other than the loveless Archon they once adored. Murals and decorated stones were left to rot amongst each other, withering away as the harsh weather grew stronger. No matter how long it may have been, you cannot wash away the years of torment that you have faced. The callous look in your eyes was unmatched by any of the cold-hearted, battle-hungry seekers that you sit beside. Being alive was a curse. Being sightful gave you only the chance to see what could have been, and you swore one day that you wished you had been born blind. Humanity was destined to crumble at the hands of time and destiny, and that was all. That was all it was made for.

You ask yourself if ‘choice’ was merely an empty lie. Grazing the ends of your finger, letting your nails glide against the surface, you come to terms that you had resigned from the desire to create change. You cannot change what was steadfast and starving. You are tired of the same failure from a game that you couldn’t play.

“It will be no concern to us. . if you give us the chance to pursue this Traveler.”

#♰ ─── disciplinary perdition #scaramouche #scaramouche x reader

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themculibrary · 5 months

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Outsider POV (3) Masterlist

part one, part two

Access Granted (ao3) - Suaine bucky/sam T, 22k

Summary: Redwing comes back to life with an upgraded AI and has opinions. Especially on Bucky.

A Quiet Morning (ao3) - iam93percentstardust bucky/tony G, 751

Summary: Natasha figures it out on a Saturday. She hasn't known up to this point what brought Bucky and Tony together but she figures it out on a quiet morning

As Subtle As Cognitive Recalibration (ao3) - petroltogo T, 8k

Summary: “Your sole job as Director of SHIELD is to keep track of global threats and you’ve narrowed down the whereabouts of the mad god with mind-control Jedi tricks to the planet Earth,” Tony summarizes flatly. “What’s the plan? We wait till he blows up another super secret facility whose mysteriously undocumented existence doesn’t make me suspicious at all?”

“Germany!” Rogers blurts out, interrupting Tony’s epic stare-down with Fury.

In which the surviving Post-Endgame Avengers find themselves back in 2012, trying to stop Loki from invading the Earth. Without tipping their not-in-the-know team members off. Things go— sideways.

At Home With Captain America (ao3) - WhiteRoseCottage sam/bucky G, 7k

Summary: “What can you tell me about how you got to know the Winter Soldier?”

Wilson chuckles. “The first time I met Buck—Sergeant Barnes—he ripped the steering wheel out of the car I was driving on the freeway. He got on the roof, punched through the windshield, pulled the steering wheel off. Just like that.” He mimes with his hands as he describes it.

This doesn’t sound like an auspicious beginning to me, but Wilson is laughing.

Avengers Ameliorated (ao3) - whitchry9 T, 25k

Summary: a·mel·io·rate (verb)- to make or become better, more bearable, or more satisfactory; improve

Miranda thought she was done with dealing with ridiculous patients after Sherlock Holmes died. But apparently word of her medical prowess has spread, even across the ocean. And when Fury shows up in her flat one night, basically telling her that she is going to New York to be the go-to medical person for The Avengers, she figures they can't be too much worse, right? Hint- she's wrong.

Captain America Finds His Fella (ao3) - PR Zed (przed) steve/bucky T, 5k

Summary: When she reached her eighties, Audrey though she was done with change. She thought things would continue as they always had.

Instead, Steve and his friends have brought her more change than she'd gone through in the twenty years before. She gets used to one routine, and then a new one crops up.

Or what happens when an elderly USO showgirl helps her super hero friend and his boyfriend.

darken your door (ao3) - chaosy steve/bucky G, 6k

Summary: A series of visitors to the door of Rebecca Barnes, over the years.

home for wayward (genius) youths (ao3) - ikarakie G, 1k

Summary: there is a kid on tony's couch. it is not peter, and rhodey is having a breakdown.

How do you solve a problem like Maria? (ao3) - orphan_account steve/bucky G, 26k

Summary: Maria knows that the Winter Soldier was a ghost story, and nothing more.

Papa Hawk's Collectibles (ao3) - anarchycox clint/phil G, 27k

Summary: Tommy likes the memorabilia shop that opened a few months ago and he really likes the grumpy owners who love to bicker with each other. Clint and Phil are such dorks. He just wonders how they have such cool Avengers collectibles in amid the baseballs and jerseys.

Reasonable Suspicion (ao3) - Laimelde clint/phil T, 8k

Summary: Clint's new neighbours are a friendly bunch, and enjoy having him and Phil over for drinks on occasion. But pretty soon they notice that Clint often comes home with bruises, and start to worry.

Sauced (ao3) - ABeckoningCat G, 742

Summary: Clint encounters three drunk girls in a hotel elevator.

The Practical Application of the Lives of Saints (ao3) - Sassaphrass G, 1k

Summary: James Barnes and Steve Rogers have just started going to the local Catholic school.

One of the nuns watches in amusement as their friendship forms.

The Public Perception Game (ao3) - Amerna background darcy/steve T, 2k

Summary: Bucky Barnes' return from the dead and the Winter Soldier revelation could have quickly unraveled into a PR disaster for the Avengers. But thankfully they have Darcy Lewis on their team to play press and public like a fiddle.

The Scoop (ao3) - hollimichele G, 5k

Summary: The week after I moved to New York City, aliens invaded. Which is pretty much typical.

User Since (ao3) - rageprufrock

Summary:

To: PC ([email protected]) From: Buck ([email protected]) Subject: Report! Date: May 10, 2012

Phil — where the hell are you, man? Let us know if you're all right, or if there's anything we can do to help. HQ's freaking the fuck out.

#themculibrary #marvel #mcu #masterlists #outsiderpov #outsiderpov masterlist

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ndrogyny · 1 year

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@transfemswagbracket tagging you in a post about my oc mortis sofia fiorentino, they/them, nonbinary transfem

they're an oc for the 4v1 survival horror game identity v, a game with supernatural elements(this becomes relevant later), and their story is set in the early 20th century

having moved from italy to new york city at a young age in the wave of italian immigration, mortis realized shortly after that they didn't feel at home in their growing body. they went to their gay neighbors/uncle figures for advice, and they let them know that being trans was a thing, though in terms relevant to the time. they would identify as nonbinary in current times. and, luckily, their parents were accepting- after all, they're still their child no matter what. things seemed to be going well!

of course, this is an oc for identity v, and no character in that game has a pleasant backstory. only a few years after coming out, their father fell ill, and it was up to 16 year old mortis to get a job to help support their mom. so, they went out and landed a job as an exterminator, fumigating houses and becoming very efficient, even being touted as one of the best in the area. despite a tragic loss, things started to look up again, and they and their mom could continue living fairly comfortably. and in the 1920s, this was during an economic boom, so things were going great! until they were sent on a job up north that no one else wanted to take.

the job site was an old house, even by their standards, with poor ventilation, rusty hinges, the works. but the people living there wanted to have it fumigated so they could renovate. so, mortis and three other people took on the job, inspecting thearea and fumigating the house. unfortunately, a freak earthquake happened, and the way the bookshelves fell trapped mortis in the room they were tending to. banging on the window did nothing. the rusted joints wouldnt let them open it. the last thing they saw of the outside world was their coworkers running out, leaving them behind, even when looking back at the pounding on glass. the support beams fell on them, breaking their bones and their gas mask, which caused them to ultimately die from a combination of the fumes and the house collapsing on them.

but wait, remember when i said that there are supernatural elements? their soul was so full of rage and betrayal, that their ghost possessed their now dead body. they went on a search, hiding in the shadows of the night, to find these three and confront them about leaving them behind. in fact, a mysterious letter came to them, sending them to oletus manor, with the promise to get the confrontation and closure their soul needs to pass on, and also to give closure to their mother, who never saw them again... after all, they're very much a momma's kid, and they miss her dearly.

despite everything, they're a kind soul to most everyone, and just want the world to be happier. they pride themself on trying to be the best they can be, even if it doesn't always work. they can get extremely petty at their worst, but to get that side of them you'd have to piss them off in the first place. they're as gentle as possible, which is especially important when the same supernatural stuff that made them undead also made them 9'10"(300cm). they may beat themself up over a failure, but it doesn't last forever- that gives them motivation to get back and do things right. most of all, though, they're just sweet, doing nice things for people in general, but also just making little gifts for those they care about- even if they're not the best artist. but the love and care they put into things for those they care about is palpable.

why should you vote for mortis? well:

-they're a genuinely good person despite the trauma, heartbreak, and dying horribly

-they'd punch a bigot without hesitation

-theyre as open as possible in the 1920s which is an impressive feat

-theyve been through so much

-you can call them the "extermitheytor" bc they're an exterminator who uses they/them and the pun is too good to pass up

second image was drawn by my friend spookykinzie

#death cw #my ocs #mortis sofia fiorentino

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goddamnwebcomics · 10 months

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Worst villains you've seen in webcomics?

It's surprisingly tough for me despite bad webcomic generally having bad characters.

For me it's not tough. Every villain I've tackled in this blog is either too likable to be a villain, too pathetic to be a villain, or just a generic villain who isn't interesting or cool in any way due to lack of a proper motivation. There really isn't a villain you love to hate or you feel enriches the story in any way, with very few exceptions.

Here is my Top 5 Worst Villains Ever

5. The Hosts (Gene Catlow)

I could've included various one-off villains like Horton or Evil Staggler here, but I feel like Hosts deserve this spot, because they were a clever and unique idea whose execution was completely and utterly botched. These invisible entities who eat the lifeforce of living creatures, especially cats due to their status in Gene Catlow World would've been absolutely terrifying, but they ended up becoming jokes. They ultimately didn't end up affecting the plot in any way, besides Horton killing them and resurrecting them as asskissers. The Hosts really should have been the main threat of the comic due to their nature, because they don't eat creatures for fun, but rather their own survival, and they should've also served as a reason for Gene and Matt to put their differences aside in order to fight them, but, they're all gone now.

4. The Infernomancer (Dominic Deegan)

I feel like The Infernomancer isn't a character. He is more like a plot device. When conflict, gore and death is needed, Infernomancer isn't too far behind. Outside of wanting to hunt down Miranda because Karnak demanded it, he doesn't have motives, any character, any backstory. He just wants to kill for the sake of killing, because this story needs an eldritch horror, when arguably, THE ENTIRE CONCEPT OF MAGIC IN THIS UNIVERSE ALREADY IS ONE. Remember, magic is established to do random shit because it's magic, and just about anybody can learn it, and only few are just completely immune to it. Maybe The Infernomancer is an allegory for the dark side of magic which is why he doesn't have name either, but we have enough bad magicians in this comic already. He's just a generic edgelord in a comic full of edgelords, except this edgelord is powerful and keeps cheating death oooh so spooky! It's like Batman Who Laughs but even worse.

3. Trasik (Alien Dice)

As bland as Infernomancer is, Trasik is probably even worse. I guess I am only ranking her so low because she could've had potential to be a good antagonist but somehow Tiffany fucked up EVERYTHING about her. She is a mysterious woman who also happens to be the sister of Riley, and for whatever reason she wants to hunt Lexx down. We later learn her intense hatred of Lexx is because her father, Kade, was close friends with Lexx's mother, and this led to Trasik just deciding to become racist against rishans. However over the years she has somehow gained a child soldier ring that she actively runs, and also Lexx's mother and grandmother live in secrecy RIGHT NEXT DOOR from her and she somehow has never known this. And if that wasn't enough, she was replaced with a mimic by ADC at some point after they kidnapped Chel, because she didn't attend a wedding. Trasik's entire existence is a gigantic mess, and we don't know why she does the things she does, and if she is even real, and worse than that Riley and other siblings have no issue with her doing these corrupted things. More than anything Trasik should've served as Riley's puppet who took the blame for his shady acts, but this is not about "characters who should have been villains".

2. Dr. Demikhov (Spinnerette)

Spinnerette is horrible at creating political strawmen, not because they're strawmen but because they're not even good strawmen. General Generic is actually a surprisingly reasonable authority figure and thus loops back to being likable. However one character I feel is a waste of time is Dr. Demikhov. Demikhov is the Anti-Universe, he is a proud communist who is somehow in high position at the Russian Federation. However he doesn't really do anything communistic, he just speaks in technobabble with occassional communist word, and this triggers the shit out of Universe. He is also a moron who merged his two assistants together because he wanted to prove something. Spinny has had a lot of bad villains, but even ones like WereQuakko Sisters were entertaining enough because of their fucking ridiculous concepts, Demikhov is a blank slate. He really should've been an oligarch-funded scientist who only uses communist jargon to draw the interest of young people like Manya Sisters, when in actuality all of his science is loyal to the world view of Putin. Having a scientist paid by the state to control their narrative would make him a proper opposite to anti-authoritarian Universe and also would make this arc less of a waste of time. At least he's implied to have straight up died, so we'll likely never see him again.

1. Matt (Gene Catlow)

Yes, Matt is the worst villain in the history of Goddamnwebcomics. But that's not his fault, it's the fault of his surroundings. Due to how every character seems to always read his mind and always seems to judge him as an asshole despite the fact he has more realistic view of the world and he respects his peers, Matt comes across like an underdog. He also has been stripped off his powers and constantly backstabbed, whether it's his former lovers, the puppet he created, his tech support and even his bosses and mentor. Not even his girlfriend is loyal to him as she's more interested in creating the Dog Holocaust than actually make his vision of a cat-ruled world come true, which is implied to be inevitable. Anyone trying to step into Matt's shoes usually fucks up, like how Tane destroyed the family power, and rather than spend all his days hating Gene, he is willing to work with his enemies in exchange of a better life for them, because he knows World of Friends is dangerous. Matt is perfect in every single way as a character, so in order to make him a better villain, everything AROUND him needs to be improved first!

#article thingy

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