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hirukochan · 9 months

Note

I’d love to request something if you don’t mind I think your writing would be perfect for an interrogation type dynamic the reader has some type of information that snape needs and he essentially edges, teases and all that good stuff too the reader until they give in.

I don’t know if that’s too much but i absolutely love your work and think you’d transform it in to something soooooo good

Took me a bit - I've written something similar during spy training in Your tears are of no relevance to me and wanted to mix it up a bit - I'm not sure I achieved that but I like it anyway xD.

I hope you like it too!

Ministry Documents

Severus SnapexReader

Words: 3415

Warnings: Um....non-con. Because it's an interrogation (duh)...Dark!Snape, reader has a vagina, edging (duh²), rough sex....yeah, I guess that is it.

Summary: You are the Senior Undersecretary to Minister Scrimgeour and Snape a Death Eater who wants senstive information from you.

“You won’t get away with this you bastard!” You shout and tug at the restraints around your wrists behind your back. You put your entire weight into it, but all it archives is the chair you’re tied to scooting over the ground with a sharp screech that makes the insides of your ears contract.

“And who’s going to stop me?” He laughs, glowering, deep and taunting.

“You always were one nasty piece of shit, Snape!”

“Ohhh noo…the woman I drugged and tied to her chair in her own fucking office is mean to me!” He says in a whiny mock voice. “How will I ever recover?” Snape appears in your line of sight and braces his hands against the backrest of your chair, just above your shoulders.

He is grinning, bearing his yellow, crooked teeth. An evil glimmer shines in his dark eyes, half obscured by curtains of greasy black hair.

“You won’t get away with this! I am the senior undersecretary to Minister Rufus Scrimgeour! If you think you can just-”

“I repeat my question: Who’s going to stop me? You didn’t even notice the sedative in your tea, sweetheart.” He straightens back up and slowly undoes the buttons on his sleeves to roll them up. “This is how it will go. I will ask you questions and you will answer them. We don’t need to make this ugly - after all we don’t want anybody knowing you’ve betrayed the Ministry, right? How nonsensical to use you for information once and only once.” He shakes his head and moves on to his left sleeve. “If you are a good girl and answer my question I will reward you.”

“And if not?” You scoff. “I won’t talk, Snape! I work directly under the Minister - we are trained for these things!”

“I am certain you think you are trained to withstand interrogation…”

“Go ahead and kill me - don’t waste your time. I won’t talk.”

“That’s what they always say.” Snape hums. He folds his sleeve over one more time and twists his arm. The flickering light from the candles strewn around the room hits his inner underarm and you clench your teeth, glaring at the jet black mark blemishing Snape’s pale skin.

You knew it. You knew it back in school and you knew it when you were just a small, faceless employee keeping track of paperwork at his trial after You-Know-Who’s fall.

Severus Snape is a Death Eater.

You don’t care for Dumbledore’s talks of repentance and character growth or whatever the fuck he said at that trial.

Snape is not a changed man.

You clench your jaw and inhale sharply through your nose, preparing yourself for the torture that is no doubt going to follow.

“Where are the documents, sweetheart?”

“Fuck off.”

“Don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be. Be a good girl and tell me where the documents are.”

“I won’t tell you no matter what torture you show up with! You people will fail! You’ll lose because you are hateful, small minded, disgusting terrorists!”

“Torture? Oh sweetheart, He would not have send me here to torture you. I told you. We want to continue using your intel. Nobody will know we ever spoke.” He catches a strand of your hair between his fingers, brushing his knuckle over your cheek on purpose. You try to pull away, to escape his touch, but you are only reminded of the ropes digging into your skin. “Mhh..you always were a pretty thing.” He hums and leans down closer. The tips of his hair tickle your face. “And I always did wonder how you’d taste.” You can’t breathe. Your mind is racing. From fear to confusion, to trying to decipher his words back to searching for a way out.

You scream. It’s late, whatever vile concoction Snape dumped into your tea it made you fall asleep at your desk and since the workload recently has been insane it’s not the first time that happens to you so your assistant would not suspect anything of it.

Snape just chuckles.

“Nobody will hear you. Nobody will come to save you either. Where are the documents?”

You don’t respond. You’re fighting tears and the bitter taste in your mouth that comes from considering to just give Snape the documents and save your own skin.

You could.

Nobody would know.

No. No you won’t. This is bigger than you. This is about the kind of world you’ll be living in in the future and you don’t want to see a world in which You-Know-Who rules!

“I’ll tell you nothing!” Snape looks like he got exactly the answer he was looking for. Like a little child on Christmas morning.

He gips the leg of your chair and pulls it over the floor, turning it to face away from your desk and the door. You let out a surprised shriek.

“I was hoping you’d say that. How boring to just get what I came here without playing a little first, hm?”

“Play-” Your pathetic stuttering is cut short by Snape straddling your thighs. His weight is crushing, his proximity uncomfortable. His hand closes around your throat and Snape smashes his lips against yours. You squeak and struggle against him. His grip around your throat tightens. Tears burn in your eyes.

Snape hums, a sound full of dark satisfaction and pleasure. His tongue flicks over your lips and you press them together harder. He spreads his saliva over your lips, slimy and warm. With his free hand he grabs your face and forces your jaw open to shove his tongue into your mouth.

You can’t breathe. Between his hard kiss and pressure on your throat you are trapped in an empty space between living and dying.

“I knew you’d taste sweet.” He coos as he pulls back, but he doesn’t let go of your face. You struggle and try to close your mouth but Snape is entirely unbothered by it or your unintelligible protest. He pulls out a small vial from his robes and unstoppers it with his mouth before pouring its contents into your mouth and pressing his hand over it, pinching your nose at the same time.

“Be a good girl and swallow for daddy, yes?” He says mockingly. You want to scream, but that would only cause the liquid to slip down your throat, but keeping it in your mouth would surely make your body absorb its active ingredients as well, right?

Shit, you were never good in potions, but you know that Snape is a bloody genius.

Your breath runs out. You tear at the restraints but Snape just laughs. Tears run over your cheek. You close your eyes and swallow.

“There you go.” He chuckles and removes his hands. You gasp and greedily fill your lungs with sweet sweet air - so much so you even forget to think about what that stuff was that he made you swallow.

You are not left wondering for long.

Heat grows in your lower abdomen like a wild beast woken from its hibernation by a stupid knight wanting to kill it, thinking in his immeasurable arrogance that he’d have a chance.

“Aww, are we having trouble, sweetheart?” Snape taunts. That evil glimmer in his eyes flares.

You are fucked.

You know you are fucked, but you are also stubborn.

You bite your lip and ignore what’s happening to your body. The heat, the burning, undying, deafening need tearing through your cunt with the force of an unforgivable.

Snape laughs again, clearly enjoying the expression of realisation and horror in your eyes.

“So, sweetheart. Be a good girl and I’ll give you precisely what it is you’re craving.”

You shake your head.

“No?” He pouts and somehow even that looks sadistic on his face. He licks his lips, his eyes darting over your body. He snaps his fingers. You scream, but Snape quickly covers your mouth with his hand.

“None of that.” He says. “How silly. I’ve already told you nobody will hear you. You’ll only piss me off and that should be the last thing you want to do right now. Let’s see…” He scoots backwards on your thighs ever so slightly to have a better look at your body. Your naked body. You groan with the pain of his weight crushing your much smaller form. The wool of his clothes scrapes over your skin and sends shivers and prickles straight to your core.

“Mhhh…what a nice body you’ve kept hidden under these robes.”

“Stop-” You croak, staring at him through your cloudy eyes.

“Stop? I haven’t even started yet, but if you tell me where those documents are I will.” You clench your teeth and shake your head. Snape hums thoughtfully. He cups your breast and you give a small jerk, more at the tingling sensation of his touch, than your horror at him touching you.

A simple touch should not feel so good-

You rip your eyes open and stare at Snape. A pleased expression breaks through the mocking sneer.

“Yes, sweetheart. The potion I gave you enhances all sensations. Pleasure…” He presses his thumb against your nipple, squeezing your breast gently, almost tender. “And pain.” He pinches your nipple and the pain of it explodes in your body and turns to an all consuming inferno of misery and you scream, throwing your head back with the force of it.

As soon as it started it stops. Snape rubs the assaulted nub and makes an apologetic tsk sound.

“If you’re a good girl I won’t have to do that again. If you decide to be a haughty little bitch I will.”

You take deep breaths, each one rattling with fear. You wet your lips and consider Snape’s face. This man is nothing like the greasy, neglected, insecure boy you’d see in the corridors from far away. His mere presence commands respect and deference.

“I can’t tell you.” You whisper. “I’d be fucked if I tell you.”

Snape clicks his tongue. “That’s the problem, sweetheart. You won’t be if you don’t.” He doesn’t give you time to process those words. His hand leaves your breast and drops between your legs, spread slightly due to the way he tied your feet to the legs of your chair.

You can’t press your lips closed fast enough to suppress the utterly pathetic whimper that escapes you as soon as his calloused digit rubs over your clit.

Snape didn’t lie. The potion enhances all sensation.

Within seconds you feel like dying. Snape expertly guides you towards the edge, whispering promises of wonderful pleasure, of highs made up of pure ecstasy and lows made of thundering release. He shows you the way, presents the abyss as though you were a tourist in your own body and he the native.

You cry from horror and pleasure and thrash in your bounds and wish for it to end but also never stop.

You take a step forward, one testing motion, the abyss calls out to you, angels part the clouds and show their heavenly faces and sing their harmonies and you scream because yesyesyes-

Snape yanks you back.

You open your tear-clouded eyes and it takes a second for them to be able to focus on Snape. He is grinning.

“Where are the documents?”

“I hate you.” You pant. He shrugs and closes his lips around his glistening fingers. He hums. “Your cunt tastes even sweeter.”

“You disgust me!”

“Oh keep going, sweetheart. Toss your venom at me like I care.” Snape lets out a grading, cruel chuckle. “Though you might want to put some more heart in it. After all - I am used to people hating me.”

“Is that what this is about? Fuck! Snape, school’s over. Get the fuck over it!” Anger flashes over his face. He grabs your throat and pulls you as close as the bounds allow, causing the ropes to dig into your skin harshly and your shoulders to strain against the unnatural angle.

“The documents.”

“Go to hell.”

“Wrong answer.” He cups your sex roughly, pushing two fingers inside you with no warning and presses the heel of his palm against your clit. He keeps masterfully bringing you as close to the edge as humanly possible. He keeps pushing and pulling, forcing your body to submit to him - all the while watching you with perverse satisfaction. Like he is enjoying making you accept the pleasure he can bring you. Everytime he brings you closer to your orgasm and every time your stupid little brain thinks that maybe, maybe he’ll make you cum this time and every single time he doesn’t.

He raises you up and up and up towards bliss and release and ecstasy and every time he lets go of you and you plummet down into deep dark nothing.

You shiver and tremble, cry and thrash against the restraints and Snape laughs. Everytime he denies you your release he’ll ask “Where are the documents?” in that soft, almost apologetic tone of voice. And every time you will not tell him, but your resistance shrivels further.

Your biting venom trickles out to a displeased rainfall until it’s a sobbing, heaving, pathetic mess.

You are limp in your restraints. The muscles in your thighs tremble from exertion and your tears have run dry, leaving only the messed up, dark residue of your mascara on your cheeks.

You take a shuddering breath, that is cut short by a sob. Snape is thrusting his fingers lazily into your sore, twitching cunt.

“Where are the documents, sweetheart?”

“N-no-” You whimper.

“Is this job worth it? Come one…you are suffering…let me relieve you.”

“I’m- i’m not keeping you- you are-” You bite your lip in hopes it’ll stop you from further embarrassing you.

“But you are.” He says softly and brushes a sweat soaked strand of hair out of your face. “My master would not be very happy with me if I were to return without the documents, hm? I want to help you. I want to let you cum. Be a good girl and I can.”

“No-”

“Such potential. Truly wasted on the Ministry. Does the Minister even know about all the work you put in, hm? Does he even appreciate it?”

“Nnhh- mh- please-” Did you just-

The corners of Snape’s mouth curl and it breaks through his mask of care of sympathy with ugly self-satisfaction and sadistic gratification.

“Yes?”

“Please- please I need-”

“Where are the documents?”

“No-”

Snape thrusts his fingers harder into you, curling them at the same time and pushing up and he hits that sweet sweet spot with expert skill and you cry out and shake your head, squirming underneath him.

Snape leans in. The tip of his nose brushes against your sweat-soaked temple.

“Tell me and I’ll fuck you. I’ll let you cum all over my cock like a good little cocksleeve. I’ll make you feel so good, sweetheart. So good, even the memory charm I’ll use on you won’t be enough to make you forget how hard you came for me.”

“-no…”

“Face it, your colleagues would not fight as hard for you. The Ministry has been doomed to fall and crumble to ashes for a while. We are everywhere, sweetheart. We have already infiltrated the Ministry. We are in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. We’re in every position of power that matters. The Ministry will fall, the Minister will die. It’s your choice whether you die with them.”

“Please-”

“I know, I know.” He purrs and strokes your hair. “You need to cum, don’t you? You’ve been doing so well…You’ve been withstanding me beautifully. But you’re tired, aren’t you? Nobody will ever know you’ve told me. Let me make you cum, make it so I can allow you to rest, hm?” You inch towards your orgasm again and Snape stops his torturous attention.

“Behind the painting.” You whimper. Your voice uneven and croaky.

“Behind the painting?” Snape repeats in such an oddly soft and caring voice and you actually believe him that he doesn’t like doing this to you. You nod. He gets up and your legs scream in relief. The chair under you is wet with your arousal and sweat and your thighs are chafed from the friction of Snape moving on top of you.

Snape goes to the painting and taps it a couple of times with his wand. It swings open and reveals a hidden safe.

“Only you can open it, I assume?” You nod, weak and tired, exhausted and yet painfully on edge. Snape flicks his wand at you and the restraints disappear. He motions for you to come to him. You do, but your legs feel like jelly and protest against movement after being confined for so long.

You place your hand against the safe. It recognises your magic and the internal mechanisms start working, rattling and clicking before the door finally pops open. Snape rummages through it, while you hold onto the file cabinet to not fall.

“Very good.” He says as he flips through a folder. He shrinks it with his wand and stuffs it into his pocket. “What a good girl.” Snape seizes you by your upper arms and you slump against him. He catches your lips in a feral, claiming kiss that you are too tired and weak to either fight - or worse - reciprocate. He turns you both around and slams your back against the wall, putting his hands under your thighs and lifting you. You can’t wrap your legs around him or hold onto him. His weight against yours is the only thing keeping you pinned to the wall and your mind is too far gone to be afraid of falling.

Snape makes quick work of his belt and even quicker of shoving his cock into you. He groans and slams his hips into yours with brutal force. You squeak and limply put your hands on his shoulders.

“A good girl that has earned herself some cock, what do you say?” He grunts. “Isn’t this much better?”

“Snape-” You moan and drop your head against the wall. You can’t even shudder under the force of your orgasm that finally finally is allowed to take your body over, spreading through your entire being, burning hot like molten lava.

Snape pounds into you, grunting and groaning and whispering filthy praise and you whimper and whine with what little life you have left in you.

He makes you cum two more times on his cock, but by the second your eyes keep falling shut against your will and your hands slide down from his shoulders, over his chest.

“We’ll get along just grand won’t we, sweetheart? Yes, you might not remember any of this, but I will come back and when you see me it all will come back to you.” His thrusts falter and he pulls out of you, letting you slip down the wall until you’re a trembling, boneless mess to his feet.

He grabs a fistful of your hair and tilts your head back, pumping his cock, his cockehead pressed against your lips. You force your eyes open and look up, meeting the dark, stormy gaze of Snape. He is smirking.

“We’ll have a lot of fun.” He says and then he cums, smearing his cum all over your lips and cheek and then the world goes black.

You wake up in your bed, sitting up straight. You feel weird. Like you had a nightmare you can’t quite remember, but the bad feeling lingers, following you back into the waking world. You run your hands over your face and groan.

Your assistant is right. You are working too much. All this stress isn’t good for you. You still have vacation days left…perhaps you should take them. You never wanted to out of fear of letting down your colleagues but they don’t share that opinion, do they? Why should you work yourself to death while they don’t….

You scribble a note on a piece of parchment and whistle. Your owl flutters into your bedroom. You tie the letter to her leg and she flutters through the window.

You’ve earned a vacation.

You lie back down, wondering what you did to feel sore? Your knickers feel damp too and you have a weird taste in your mouth.

Maybe you’re coming down with a fever. You always have weirdly erotic dreams when you get sick….yes that must be it.

You close your eyes and let exhaustion and tiredness take you.

#snape x reader #severus snape smut #snape x you #snape fandom #snape x y/n #severus snape x reader #request #dividers by cafekitsune

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ecogirl2759 · 7 months

Text

~~~NEW UPDATE~~~

(I'M A DUMBASS WHO DOESN'T KNOW HOW TUMBLR WORKS SO IF YOU SAW THIS ALREADY NO YOU DIDN'T)

I'm glad people liked my 4コマ KINGS post so much lol. I love spreading the word about obscure lore :)

Under the cut I've responded to some of my favorite tags, given a little more backstory into the source of these pictures, as well as posted a few new ones :D

There's also a question at the very bottom that I'd love to hear opinions on, but no pressure if y'all don't feel comfortable answering ^w^

You're welcome >:D

Same, bro. I was basically thinking that the entire time I was reading these books lol

I feel like I should give a little context to these comics and where they come from lol. I wasn't very clear about the backstory in my original post. I do agree, when I found these, I thought they were super important, too, particularly because I don't think a lot of the fandom knows about these books lol.

The Danganronpa 4コマ KINGS anthology series was published in the early 2010's featuring a bunch of different artists. The series is 4 volumes long and published by Spike Chunsoft, meaning, while these aren't necessarily canon, they ARE official :)

There is another series of anthologies in relation to both the first and second games, but I don't have those.

The first two volumes of this series is relatively well documented. There are sites where English translations have already been added to all of the comics in them (I'm pretty sure), as well as some screenshots popping up on places like Pinterest.

The third and fourth installments, however, are really poorly archived. The third has some content from it floating around, but it's hard to come by. The fourth had almost no information on it no matter where I searched.

I say this because a while ago I found the ONLY pictures of the Mastermind!Taka comic on this really old Tumblr blog from 2014 and REALLY wanted to figure out what it was about. (Didn't help that I couldn't read some of the bubbles in those photos.) First I searched for an English translation (there wasn't (so I'm working on one hehe)), then I tried to find which book it was even from, and NOTHING!

These books, since they were in circulation around 2014-ish, have stopped being printed, so copies of them are very hard to come by. Luckily, I was able to get my copies from a kind stranger on Ebay :)

-NOW-

Here are a few more pictures that I thought were funny/interesting that I couldn't add in my first post because of the picture limit lol.

Sorry for the really long post, I just thought it'd be interesting to share :)

Here's the page of artists that contributed to this anthology! Please go check them out (or see if they have any socials since it's been so long). Some credits change per volume, hence how many photos there are. (And sorry for my hand, it's hard to hold these open lol.)

You've probably all seen the covers, but have you seen what's behind the covers? (Also including the opening illustrations. These have probably been posted online already as well, but they're worth including imo.) (Again, please excuse the fingers, I'm trying my best ;-;)

^ Sayaka came with a smudge :( she still pretty tho

So, uh, remember when I said Hifumi made ship fodder? ......Here it is. Eat your heart out lol

Also remember when I said that Mondo's hair was fluffy and bouncy? Here's the proof:

Sakura has been de-buff-ified twice LMAO

ALSO remember when I said Syo was a fan of BL? ...... :)

ALSO remember when I said Kyoko was kinda socially awkward?

(Context: Kyoko sees Kiyotaka and Mondo calling each other bro and, thinking it'll strengthen their bond as well, calls Makoto "Makoto-oniichan," or "big brother Makoto" lol. Also, second picture says "I have come to save you, Makoto")

Chihiro Shinji chair meme

I'm at my picture cap, but there's a lot I haven't brought up lol

-SO-

For a different thread, would people like me to find pictures of certain characters? (i.e. just photos of the characters looking cool/hot/stupid without a lot of the text.) Because I am totally willing to do that :)

I've already got a lot on Byakuya, Sakura, Aoi and Mondo for all you simps out there, and it's not hard to find even more lol.

So lmk :D

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bob-frank451 · 5 months

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Careful, Humans Aboard

Chapter 1: Imagine

Imagine you are Serenity. Imagine you stand at the front of the first wave, the first wave of humanity to reach the stars. Your father, your grandmother, your great grandfather, your great great grandmother, generations back, stretching millenia into the past looked at those stars, and wondered. Imagine.

All of humanity watched them arrive. Perhaps that is not perfectly accurate. They arrived, and then humanity watched. One moment there was simply a patch of empty space. There was tearing, warping, the sticking of space back together, and there hung a ship.

It would come out in the following three days that the governments of Earth had been informed of the intended arrival, but hadn't passed the message on to the general public, or neighboring nations, due to policy.

The request was simple, it had been simple three months prior, and it was simple now. The ship wanted a human cremate, for "diversity".

When humans send people to space they usually use the space elevator. The ambassador they had recently sent was lifted up to space along that carbon nano-tube mega-structure.

This was not to be Serenity's fate, however. The ship had fired a drop pod down. As the drop pod had hit the outer wisps of the atmosphere a brilliant green structure had blossomed around it, before being obscured by the red-orange-yellow-white fire of reentry.

Just entry, for the first time, her brother might have corrected her, had he been there, but she was not so pedantic. She cranked her neck to the small circle of hardened glass, watching as the atmosphere slowly changed from grey to white, from white to turquoise, and now from turquoise to deep, dark blue.

It reminded her of the ocean. The surface is light, but as one goes deeper the colour depends and darkens, until all that can be seen is black. Space, however, has stars.

The drop pod was comfortable, even for a human. The chair, a human-proportioned chair, was cushioned with what appeared to be the distant descendant of memory foam and some sort of smart fabric. The curved, walls were a deep peaceful blue, the colour of disphotic ocean. At precisely her eye level a screen sat, eerily displaying flight information. The eerie part was not the flight data, but the English labels identifying it.

On another monitor her vitals blinked and winked, documented scrupulously by current medical terms, some of which she was unfamiliar with. The aliens apeared to know English better than she did.

She watched, anxiously, as the time approached the e.t.a.. It was seven minutes, now four...

Now three...

She tugged the kinetic restraint straps holding her to the chair. They yielded slightly, and then tightened again. Everything was comfortable, the light was comfortable, the chair was comfortable, the straps were comfortable, the read outs were in English the e.t.a. was in minutes. Too comfortable, she thought. Something or someone was trying to put her at ease, which in and of itself was uneasy.

Two minutes...

Why was everything perfect for a human? How did they know?

One minute....

The quad thrusters driving the pods progress stopped, and the two g's of gravity ceased, suddenly. The slow rotation of gravity assisted steering turned the tiny craft, and in front, through the edge of the glass portal, an elegant craft slid into view, drifting quietly, and purposely into her trajectory.

There was a hole, in the side exposed to her, a circular hole, like the iris of a camera, growing slowly. If one were to examine it with a clear magnifine class, and an oxy-acetaline torch, one might just be able to make out precisely machined plates sliding across each other, making the most precise of mechanical mechanisms on earth look loose and wobbly. Without such a vantage point it would probably look closer to some organic valve.

The inside of the craft was dark, for just a moment, before the inside became illuminated by a warm light, a cozy light, like a camp fire, or a house.

The little pod drifted inside, and the irise closed smoothly behind it. Suddenly down reasserted itself, and the little pod fell three centimeters, clicking into the floor, almost like it was all planned.

She became aware, slowly, of a faint hissing sound. Outside of the pod, inside of the room in the larger craft, white vapor was pouring in. Nitrogen, her brother might have told her, nitrogen and oxygen, stored under pressure as a liquid, rapidly vaporizing into a breathable atmosphere.

She waited patiently for air fill the cargo bay, as patiently as one can wait aboard an alien spacecraft. The hissing was much louder now, and the vapor much less conspicuous. The air pressure must be higher.

The harness fell away, and she stood, stretching. The seven minute journey had felt like ages. The hatch on the pod fell away, and she stepped out of the pod, into the cargo bay. She took a deep breath, and smelled...

Nothing, of course.

The airlock in the closest wall, an airlock obviously made for giants, six meters in diameter, and the same deep blue of the pod, whirred into life. It seemed she was about to meet her hosts.

ao3 discord

Hey, so this is the first chapter of another work set in the humans are weird universe i have been developing, am setting out to develop, so if you like it check it out on ao3, where I will be publishing the rest.

#humans are weird #humans are space australians #humans are space orcs #humans are wierd #earth is space australia #humans are crazy

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chuuyrr · 2 years

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hello! i have a request for gojo!reader :D what if we were having a spar with someone (but it’s a spar using no powers, just physical strength) and ofc gojo!reader is going to pop off, so imagine if we do that move that maki did in the jjk 0 movie 😭the one where she falls into the splits??! got me screaming and falling down my seat in the theater lmaoo

like that

bungou stray dogs x gojo! reader

masterlist of infinity

╰➤ CW(s): possible spoilers for bungou stray dogs, mentions of violence, reader girlbossing, bsd men falling hard for you, dazai asking to be stepped on, chuuya blushing at you

╰➤ PAIRING(s): dazai osamu x reader, nakahara chuuya x reader (separately with different scenarios)

╰➤ SONG SUGGESTION(s): like that - tobee maguire cover

╰➤ SYNOPSIS: in which they find their darling sparring with someone and pulling off a stunt that leaves them breathless

hii anon! thank you for requesting and for being patient!! honestly, if i wasn't with my dad during the movie, i would be screaming too. i was having a silent gay panic for maki in my seat. she's so badass i literally can't. 😭 ♡

before you read: instead of jujutsu tech, the organization you belong to is called heiwa which means peace and it's kind of like the special division for unsual powers and the military police of yokohama except it's for tokyo. i was supposed to write for fyodor too, but ideas ran out, and mostly because i haven't gotten to the decay of the angels in the bsd manga yet since im reading the yakuza's guide to babysitting & jjk.

dazai osamu !

it wasn't every day that dazai came to tokyo because he's mostly from yokohama, but when fukuzawa told him that he needed someone to pick up important documents from the higher-ups overseeing tokyo, particularly from you, dazai immediately beat ranpo to it, clearly eager to see you in your city.

it was a good thing the armed detective agency had decided to join forces with the higher-ups after the whole descendant of sugawara michizane fiasco. dazai wanted to be with you, not just see you. even though you're paired up with him almost every time by the organizations, the fact that you can't stay in yokohama doesn't help.

dazai is clingy with his belladonna after all.

dazai was in awe as soon as he arrived at your organization's location. heiwa. the structures were constructed in a traditional japanese architectural style. it was well hidden on the outskirts of tokyo, far and high in the mountains, so naturally, there are many trees around the property to further obscure the location. aside from nature, there were several deity statues, shrines, and torii gates in the area. the location was absolutely breathtaking and peaceful, but dazai knows you hated it here because of the elders who were part of the higher-ups.

"you're looking for gojo-sama, right?" one of the organization's staff that was touring dazai, inquired before momentarily glancing at him.

"yes, the armed detective agency has sent me to retrieve some important papers from [name]." dazai nodded with a smile.

"gojo-sama should be in the training grounds. she's often there, either mentoring or sparring with one of heiwa's members." the staff informed him.

dazai followed suit until eventually he came upon the grounds that the staff was referring to, and as soon as he spotted you, your boyfriend couldn't help but smile and just as he was about to intervene, he immediately halted. you were sparring with someone. no weapons or abilities at all as it seemed.

dazai has witnessed your previous fights. in fact, the first time he and everyone saw you, you were beating chuuya's ass, and if it hadn't been for him stepping in, his old twin dark partner would have been completely annihilated by your limitless ability.

today, however, was no exception. you easily countered your opponent's attacks and traded powerful blows. each move you made was sharp and precise, yet graceful in some ways, but the scene that followed left dazai's mouth agape.

you effortlessly did a split instead of simply landing on your feet just as your opponent found an opening to dive an attack in, assuming a landing after you had just performed a flip. taking your opponent and the audience by surprise, you thrust your leg over his bent leg, yanking him down quickly by tugging on his shirt and harshly flicking his forehead.

"congrats, you're dead. i win again." you remarked with a smirk.

"was that flick really necessary, gojo-sama?" your opponent yelped.

you were about to get back on your feet to stretch when you were interrupted by clapping. you turned your head in the direction of the clapping to see dazai staring at you with a lovestruck gaze; his eyes practically sparkled as he sauntered towards you, leaving behind the kind staff who had brought you to him to pull you up himself.

"dazai?" you blinked before grinning, "heya, what'cha doing here?"

"i came to see my belladonna." with a wink, dazai exclaimed, opening his arms for an embrace, which you accepted and easily melted into.

"don't forget about the documents. i know the president needs them, and you're here at heiwa for that," you said as you drew away, pinching his nose and scrunching dazai's face.

"yeah, yeah, but i really came here for you." dazai drew you closer to his embrace, muffling his face into the crook of your neck, causing you to hum happily and pat his back, "god you were amazing, darling."

dazai proceeded to plant soft open mouth kisses in your neck, oblivious to the staff and your sparring opponent's surprised looks and gasps of "is this your boyfriend, gojo-sama?!" which you simply grinned at.

"that was so hot of you just now, my pretty, pretty belladonna. seeing you fight is always a sight for me, you know," dazai said, pressing his lips against your ear and wrapping his arms around your waist, his breath tickling your skin.

"do you mind stepping on m—you immediately flicked his forehead in the same way you had done to your sparring partner, causing him to release you and let out a small whine as you softly chuckled and stuck out your tongue which dazai pouted at.

nakahara chuuya !

chuuya, your boyfriend, enjoys fighting, relishing the opportunity to demonstrate his combat prowess and taking great pride in his status as the mafia's strongest martial artist. however, that title is now shared with you since you two got together and you became affiliated with the mafia despite being under the control of tokyo's higher-ups. chuuya was well aware of your skill in hand-to-hand combat, having almost been beaten by you when you first met him in that café to reclaim the documents you stole from the port mafia.

but don't bring it up with your boyfriend; he's still upset about it, remembering how you sat on him like nothing. you were hot, though, especially when you leaned in and whispered into his ear about how you were going to show off—yeah that's quite enough, chuuya. we understand that you are a simp.

chuuya admires and is very proud of you. he even brags about you whenever he has the opportunity. however, you being an expert combatant sort of upsets chuuya, because he wants to protect you with his strength as well, but he really admires your natural strength and independence. chuuya, in fact, enjoys watching you train, which is why he's overseeing your sparring with a member of the port mafia.

you weren't using your limitless ability; no infinity or weapons, and your six eyes were completely covered by a black blindfold you received as a gift from chuuya, implying that this spar was purely raw strength. you were landing several precise punches, kicks, and open-hand attacks. your combative style was aggressive and domineering, but it was elegant and a sight to behold in chuuya's eyes. in fact, he had never met anyone who fought like you.

you left chuuya and his subordinates, who happened to be your audience, breathless as he leaned against the room's wall and arms coolly folded across his arms as his men watched. you had just flipped to avoid your opponent's punch. while they all predicted you'd be hit because you were giving your opponent the opportunity to hit you once you landed, they were all wrong.

instead of landing on your feet, you extended your legs further, allowing you to perform a split on the floor and cleanly avoid being hit by your opponent. you easily overpowered him afterwards, yanking him down and punching him in the face with a triumphant smile glistening on your lips. chuuya's subordinates cheered for you and gawked at you.

your confidence and everything about you was so goddamn attractive. chuuya came sauntering towards you after you got up and helped your opponent up, handing him a handkerchief because his nose was bleeding. you turned to face your boyfriend, who was looking at you with a lovestruck expression.

"amazing as always, baby." chuuya's gloved hand intertwined with yours as he proudly kissed your knuckles, "you popped off yet again."

"of course, i'm the strongest there is after all." you winked at him as you drew your hand away and placed both hands on your hips.

"so, mind sparring with me this time?" chuuya softly chuckled before loosening his bolo tie and dress shirt by unbuttoned the first two buttons.

"are you asking to be pummeled, hun? or do you just want to see me pull that off to you this time, hmm?" you teased as you tipped your head to the side attractively.

chuuya's face flushed hot at your unexpected flirtatious remark. the gravity manipulator cleared his throat and drew his hat down to cover the growing dust of pink across his cheekbones, clearly not wanting his subordinates to see him in this state. chuuya's small reaction made you laugh.

you were always able to turn the tables on your boyfriend, and he was well aware of this. your personality was endearing yet so similar to his old twin dark partner, who was always the tease, but he preferred it when it was you. only you can make him feel these things.

"goddamnit, [name]." chuuya scoffed, folding his arms across his chest, "so, will you spar with me or not?"

"how can i deny my boyfriend?" you exclaimed as you squatted and began to stretch, causing chuuya to grin.

chuuya knows that when you start stretching before a fight, he knows you're serious and won't hold back, and he appreciates that. chuuya enjoys a good fight and can't wait to dance with you, knowing his subordinates are watching. he actually wants to see you pop off like that again, but this time with him upclose.

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theculturedmarxist · 7 months

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What would the world look like if the pandemic never ended, if Covid was causing widespread, long-term illness, and if all this was being covered up by the government?

You might expect to see record levels of sickness and disability. You might expect to see hard evidence that the ‘herd immunity’ plan failed, with children continuing to die at staggering rates. You might expect record numbers of absences in schools and workplaces, tons of canceled concerts and airline flights, more sudden/unexplained deaths in all age groups, and a rise in opportunistic infections (caused by damaged immune systems), like fungal infections or strep A. There would be a coordinated effort to hide data from the public to obscure the truth of the threat. Hospitalizations, cases, and transmission numbers would all be hidden or manipulated. The government probably wouldn’t try to hide the data all at once, because it would be easier to dismantle reporting over the course of several months or years.

Eventually, updates might cease altogether (despite rising cases). The CDC would likely have to hide death data as well. Powerful people with vested interests in keeping the economy running would probably engage in astroturfing online, spreading misinformation to convince the public the threat has passed (to get people back to work and boost corporate profits). The rich and powerful would continue to take precautions, while telling you everything’s fine. This would take a lot of effort, and there would have to be a pretty carefully-coordinated campaign to confuse (and wear down) the public. They might tell you repeatedly how much you shouldn’t be panicking. Hospitals might prioritize a sense of “normalcy” over infection control, so as not to be held (legally and financially) responsible for their role in the unfolding disaster.

The ruling class (who would have access to the truth of the situation) would use their knowledge of what’s coming to invest in long-term care facilities, nursing homes, disability services, and hospices. Some people would obviously figure out what’s going on (like scientists, for example) and start shouting about it from the rooftops. So you’d probably see extreme censorship measures happening on social media sites. As conditions worsen, government officials might start preparing the public to accept mass death, reassuring us that it will only happen to the ‘vulnerable.' Life insurance companies would take note and move accordingly, denying coverage to people suffering from Long Covid. Meanwhile, the scientific evidence would keep mounting.

We are still in a pandemic.

The pandemic is not over. Basically everything you have been led to believe about the virus is a lie. Covid is more dangerous, more transmissible, and more out of control than everyone in power is telling you. We are not back to normal. We are in freefall.

We were lied to at every step of the way. First we were told not to panic and to stay six feet apart. We were told not to panic, ordered by the surgeon general not to buy up face masks, which we were assured we wouldn’t need. Then, we were told to only wear masks if sick or caring for someone with symptoms. When we were all finally told to wear masks in April 2020, we were given bad information about which masks could keep us safe. Cloth and surgical masks do not protect against aerosols (respirators do). And we were told by the people in power these flimsy masks would keep us safe. This was a lie.

The lies that killed us

Documents show that the World Health Organization knew from the start that SARS-Cov-2 was airborne. They knew that “[a]irflow and ventilation were identified as important factors influencing efficient spread in hospitals,” but did not provide ventilation guidance to the public for years. Instead, this information was withheld from the public; they told the world that Covid spread through droplet transmission and repeatedly insisted Covid was not airborne. Because WHO withheld this crucial information, people around the world did not take necessary airborne precautions, like wearing respirators instead of baggy surgical masks.

Images from the World Health Organization’s publications acknowledging airborne transmission of SARS, juxtaposed with their guidance to the public in 2020. Compiled by Maarten De Cock (@mdc_martinus) on Twitter.

When the vaccines were first made available in late 2020, many leaders and prominent experts told people that the shots would prevent transmission entirely. This was never true; vaccines provide some protection, but don’t stop transmission (and only slightly reduce your risk of Long Covid). Americans were told by the president that they had a choice: “vaxxed or masked,” leading many vaccinated people to stop masking.

Throughout 2021, Americans were told repeatedly that Covid was only a threat to the unvaccinated. The CDC confidently asserted through December 2021 that “Cases of reinfection with COVID-19 have been reported, but remain rare.” While they were pushing this claim, the CDC was conveniently no longer reporting vaccination status alongside information on Covid deaths. (That information would remain hidden until April of 2022).

Once vaccinated people were getting sick with Covid in large numbers and the data could no longer be fully suppressed, the government told everyone that a vaccine plus a breakthrough infection would give you hybrid immunity. Experts declared that this form of ‘immunity’ would be the ticket to ending the pandemic. Then Omicron happened and cases skyrocketed.

The lies continued from there. We were told Omicron was somehow ‘milder,’ we were told that because nearly everyone got it, that we would finally reach population-level ‘immunity.’

But viruses do not automatically evolve to become milder. And Covid did not become milder; it became more insidious, more contagious, and more immune evasive. We now know it is neuroinvasive (even in cases with ‘mild’ acute symptoms), vascular, mass disabling, and far deadlier than what official totals have led us to believe. We know now that most transmission happens asymptomatically, and that reinfections are even more dangerous than initial infections. We know that at least one in ten infections leads to Long Covid, a debilitating neurological disease with no cure. We know this virus dysregulates immune systems, destroys T cells, and directly infects arteries in the heart. And as a result of all of this, we’re seeing unprecedented levels of sickness on a global scale.

We are living through an ongoing democide, being covered up in real time.

Hiding the bodies

The people in power have used every tool at their disposal to downplay, lie about, and cover up the truth of this pandemic. As the cases continued to rise (despite their assurances that things were under control), the US government took even greater steps to keep the public calm and unaware. They changed the way they calculated and shared information about community transmission, changing the scary-looking red map from a comforting green one overnight. The number of cases didn’t go down. But the green map gave people a false sense of belief that things were improving. The CDC called the new map system the Community Levels map. Most people mistakenly thought low Community Levels meant low community transmission, but this confusing system relied on hospitalizations, a lagging indicator.

After, and before. The mostly-green map on the left is dated March 10, 2022 and the map on the right is dated March 9, 2022.

In addition to changing the map, the CDC also made major changes to the ways that Covid cases, hospitalizations, and deaths were tracked. The changes always served to ensure that totals were undercounted. The CDC was manipulating the data, sweeping bodies under the rug. But these changes were made gradually and largely without the public’s awareness. In January 2022, they moved to end daily Covid death reporting by hospitals; by February, they had officially done so. By March 2022, some US states started shutting down daily Covid death reporting altogether.

What the public did eventually hear via the news was that the numbers were trending down. ‘Hospitalizations are down,’ the news told everyone—neglecting to inform all of us of the changes the CDC made to its reporting that artificially deflated these totals in multiple ways.

Hiding the data was not enough to get everyone to accept continued, repeated infections. The government wanted all of us to believe that catching Covid repeatedly was unavoidable and the acceptable cost of keeping everything running. If people were able to avoid becoming repeatedly infected, this lie wouldn’t hold. So they changed the guidance for schools, saying that there was no longer a need for masks, testing, or quarantines. They changed the isolation guidelines so that infectious people were sent back to work after just five days (down from ten)—at the request of the CEO of Delta Airlines. They ended the mask mandates in healthcare and transportation. Allowing people longer absences from work would set a precedent for workers demanding regular sick leave; it was crucial to not let ten-day absences become the norm or the expectation.

Testing moved to the private market, and fewer and fewer people retained the ability to test themselves regularly. And the people who are testing are largely relying on at-home rapid tests—whose results are not being reported anywhere.

On top of all of this, the CDC director called masks the “scarlet letter” of the pandemic. Over and over, the messaging from leadership stated that masks were a burden, masks marked you as an outsider, masks were outdated. They created immense social pressure for people to stop masking. As long as people continued to wear masks in public spaces, the threat remained visible and on others’ minds. Pushing everyone to drop their masks was big business’s way of ensuring people believed the pandemic was over so that they would resume traveling, spending money, and stimulating the economy without reservations.

In August of this year, just three months after ending the global public health emergency, the World Health Organization went as far as to stop sharing Covid-19 Epidemiological Updates. When announcing this change, they stated that “reported cases do not accurately represent infection rates due to the reduction in testing and reporting globally.”

Now, wastewater data is the only accurate data we have left. This data shows the concentration of Covid in sewage wastewater samples from across the country (the virus is shed in our poop when we get sick). And this crucial data is also under threat. Biobot Analytics, the company that provided much of the US wastewater data, lost its contract with CDC NWSS this month. The new contract went to Verily, a company owned by Alphabet (Google’s parent company). The switch is leading to data gaps, as well as changes in sample processing and analysis that will make data from some sites no longer directly comparable with the sites covered by Biobot. Others have noted that, unlike Biobot, Verily offers “little in terms of comprehensible data in regional or national terms.”

Without accurate data on current cases, transmission rates, hospitalizations, and deaths, we have no way of knowing the full scope of the current crisis. Our house is on fire; alarms removed, the public sleeps.

Government mitigations

The government knows that the pandemic is not over. The US Department of Defense is investing in state-of-the-art wearables that can predict if wearers are getting sick. The devices use biometrics and predictive algorithms (trained on hospital-acquired data) to detect infectious diseases up to 48 hours before any symptoms appear. The wearables are part of the Rapid Assessment of Threat Exposure (RATE) project, which recently got $10 million worth of additional funds.

Everyone who meets with President Joe Biden is PCR tested beforehand.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre recently confirmed that strict COVID-19 testing protocols remain in place, saying, "Anybody who meets with the president does indeed get tested." White House interns still have to agree to wear masks when asked.

When Biden gave a maskless speech last year at Richard Montgomery High School during a period of high Covid transmission, gym windows were removed to rig a temporary high-end ventilation setup. Parents at the school were outraged, and teachers took to Twitter to share photos of the air handling units. NALTIC Industrials called the setup “unprecedented.” Meanwhile, the US government continued to insist on the safety of America’s schools, telling parents to send their kids maskless to poorly-ventilated classrooms.

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x5red · 20 days

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New rare Super Klenk images found

Super Klenk, starring Ara Mina, was a Filipino superhero comedy action series that debuted in the final weeks of 1999, and is possibly one of the most obscure superhero tv shows of recent times. And that's a shame... because despite apparently not making much of an impact at the time of broadcast, the show does play an interesting part in Pinoy superhero tv history.

Up until Super Klenk there had been only sporadic appearances of superheroes and superheroines on Filipino tv. In 1977 Darna had appeared in a one or two (depending on who you believe) tv specials. Then in 1986 two companion superhero shows, Kidlat and Zarda Super Filipino, are rumoured to have been broadcast (although details are sparse.) But the heavily fantasy inspired fantaserye and telefantasya genres didn't really seem to take off until the 2004 ratings hit Marina, a series about a mermaid.

Marina prompted a steady supply of fantasy-based shows, including several based on superheroes, that has lasted up until the modern day. Early examples, like Krystala (2004) with Judy Ann Santos, Darna (2005) with Angel Locsin, and Darna (2009) with Marian Rivera, are all fondly remembered. But sadly few remember Ara Mina's Super Klenk, the 1999 superheroine show that was their forerunner.

This blog has been trying to correct the dearth of Super Klenk information by tracking down details of this incredibly obscure tv show. You can see past efforts documented here, here, here, and here. But details have been painfully slow in revealing themselves. Particularly there's still a real lack of images from the show, and only a single tiny fragment of video taken from a trailer advert.

But that has now changed... just a little.

Thanks to a source who wishes to remain anonymous we're able to present a couple of new photos from Super Klenk. And they're pretty decent quality images too -- indeed, the most high quality pictures to date. One image even shows a scene apparently taken from an episode, featuring Ara Mina alongside her co-stars Paolo Fabregas and Jaime Fabregas.

The new pictures throw up some interesting questions about Ara Mina's costume. As it is possible to see from the various assembled images, it appeared to change quite a bit.

In older photos the costume body either appears quite plain with the cape totally detached, or decorated in sparkles with the cape secured under the arms. But these new photos show a plain body with a cape that is attached onto the body itself. (The dark stripes in one photo may possibly be a trick of the light -- or maybe not.) One photo looks like it was taken during filming, so do the other pictures show early prototypes from the costume's development?

Unless we can get hold of more details, specifically clips or images from the episodes themselves, it will be difficult to answer those questions. We can but hope that there's more hidden Super Klenk material out there just waiting to be discovered.

In the meantime, many thanks to the anonymous source who provided the new pictures.

#pinoy #superhero #superheroine #aramina #super klenk #lost media

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e-adlirez · 1 month

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Treasure Seekers 3 Review/Ramble

Welcome to the third and last entry of the Treasure Seekers trilogy :D

"Wait what?" I probably hear you ask. "What about the other four treasures they said the girls would find?"

And to that I say

yeah it do be a bit sad that they never made a book 4

But make no mistake, Legend of the Maze is a doozy of a third book, and I'd say it's almost on-par with book 1 if not surpassing it. Unfortunately there is no free digital copy of the book, so uh if you're down to spend a bit on a digital copy on the E-book site of your choosing or on a physical copy in a bookstore, I salute you for your determination.

As for the rest of you, you're just gonna have to trust me bro :] /j

Ready? Let's go :D (also this is being written by a sleep-deprived E running on hyperfixation juice so if you find any grammar issues feel free to let me know so I can fix them)

The story begins with the Thea Sisters touring the Capelletti House in Verona with their Italian friend/tour guide Sebastiano. Yes, this Verona.

So yeah Colette is fantasizing about Romeo and Juliet as a romantic ship, Vi is trying to kill her Santa by telling her that Romeo and Juliet are fictional characters (which Colette responds to with "oh hush I can dream"), and oop-- loose floorboard-- what's this package under the flo-- LE GAAASSSPPPP LANE LOOORRREEEEE

The girls fangirl about the ABL jumpscare a lil' too loudly and Sebastiano is a lil' confusion, soooooooo the squad goes out for some snacks outside the Capelletti house to explain stuff to Sebastiano

buckle up Sebastiano you're about to get two 300-page books worth of Lane Lore™

While listening to the story, it turns out that Sebastiano may or may not have heard a peep about a legend about a treasure called the Treasure of Eternal Love (adapted Scholastic name is "Treasure of True Love" which ew, snatches the original Italian name instead), which was said to have been owned by Juliet and tho a lotta people are trying to find it, they dunno where it is now. Sounds very Seven Treasures of the World to me :]

How does Sebastiano know a peep about this very obscure legend? Turns out he learned about it from a letter written by his great-grandpappy Jacopo, who was an archaeologist like Aurora :3

So Sebastiano invites the girls to dinner at his place so the girls can look for the letter. Vi don't get too comfy with the house library I know it looks very cool and antique but we got a goal and that is sifting through a lil' box of Jacopo's kept things and find some-- HOLY CRAP LANE LORE™

"Hi Jacopo, tysm for helping me with my research on the Treasure of Eternal Love, you're a real g my guy, regards from me and my sister Linda, also tysm for the tour of Verona."

-- ABL

The girls tell Sebastiano their findings over a dinner of bigoli al pomodoro, give some extra Lane Lore™ about Jan von Klawitz and Aurora's six sisters, and mention the possibility that Linda knows where the treasure is, which means that Luke is probably after it too, but also Linda might know where the treasure is, which means a lead >:3

First stop: Verona's city hall, where Sebastiano's friend Guido works and is able to help them with finding information about a Linda Lane who may or may not have lived in Verona approximately a century ago. They find a document that says yes, Linda did in fact live in Verona once, and also her address is listed there because legalities, y'know how it is.

So the girls head on over to the address, knock at the door, and are greeted by an old lady, and :0 turns out this old lady (her name is Mia) knew Linda personally.

Linda and Mia met when Linda was in her older years and Mia was a smol child. Mia would read for Linda since her eyesight deteriorated in her old age, and they hung out a lot together. When Linda left to return to England, she left the house to Mia, as well as a good chunk of the stuff she had in said house as mementos for Mia to remember her by.

Hey guys you wanna see a trick, it's called "the Lane Lore™ %", aka how fast can we get this old lady up to speed with the ABL drama-- /j

Unfortunately Mia doesn't really know anything about the treasures, but she does have this wack painting of a scenery in Japan that just won't align correctly no matter how much finagling you do to it-- oh there was an envelope inside-- LANE LORE™?

So the letter inside the envelope is a letter from Aurora to Linda basically Aurora telling Linda she found the Treasure of Eternal Love, but because Jan is on her tail, she left the treasure in the "House of the Sun" for now. Now, if you tried looking up "house of the sun", you'd get a hotel in Florida, a manga, a former Incan temple that's now a monastery-- you get the picture, it do be a weird detail and probably not it bro, besides Aurora's too much of a gremlin to be that obvious with her riddles.

At least if you're not a Shakespeare nerd like Colette is (the kind that never read past Romeo and Juliet's wedding), because if you were, you'd know that at one point Romeo equates Juliet to the sun rising in the east. Romeo is simping for Juliet, Juliet is the sun, ergo, the Capelletti house.

But uh, thing is we already went to the house and we already know that Aurora came back for the treasure and took it somewhere else. Sooooo might as well see what the last letter says--

"Hi so I'm on the run rn I can't chat for long because Jan is pissed and he wants to find me and force me to reveal the treasure, and I don't think I wanna know how not-kid-friendly this is gonna get if he does find me. Thanks for introducing me to your friend tho :D she's cool and thanks to her help, the treasure is safe and sound in the shade of the cherry trees! I'll come back for it one day, hopefully that day comes soon. Anyway, hugs and kisses, Linda." - ABL

Spoiler alert, despite having a beeg cherry tree on the painting, there was in fact nothing else hiding behind the painting.

LUKE TRANSITION

So Luke is doing Luke things, not touching grass as per usual. Cassidy comes by to give him a lil' souvenir from great-grandpappy Jan von Klawitz's house in London: Jan's old notes. Luke immediately dismisses Cassidy without even so much as a thank you -- Cassidy girlypop you're not scoring that man no matter what you do, he's the Adrien to your Marinette girlie we're only at book 3, you might as well accept your fate -- and Luke takes a lil' peek into Jan's notebook (he also calls his great-grandpappy "Jan", like just "Jan". I dunno maybe I'm just finding it weird because I'm Asian . .) for the goods.

And goods Luke does find, which he proceeds to consume like a goblin. Bit of Klawitz lore here:

"Grrr grrr stupid Aurora and her smartass tricks grrrrr who does she think she is grrrrr she beat me to the Treasure of Eternal Love in Verona grrrrrrrrrrrr well at least now I know how she works, I managed to find this friend of hers Jacopo, who definitely knows about the treasure even though he keeps playing stupid like I don't know that he knows Aurora. Something something cherry trees, I ransacked every single cherry tree in Verona and there was literally nothing, wth, Aurora why are you like this" - Jan von Klawitz

Luke responds to this seedy lore from his great-grandpappy with "hehehHEHEHAHAHAHAHAHAHH JAN YOU IDIOT, YOU COULDN'T SEE WHAT WAS RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU BECAUSE YOU UNDERESTIMATED THE LITTLE PILOT GIRL, I ALREADY KNOW WHERE TO LOOK"

Cut back to the girls, and they know where to look next, too

It's Japan, i-it's Japan, y'know Japan's relationship with their sakura/cherry blossoms

Turns out Linda has a friend named Kyoko Bianchi, a Japanese-Italian botanist who was raised in Japan. Since Aurora mentions in her letter that Linda's friend came in clutch, she was obviously referring to Kyoko and now the treasure is in Japan.

So Japan transition :D (based on my personal experience in Japan and also a bit of canon continuity consistency, I headcanon that despite being written in English, this segment of the story mostly had the girls speaking in Japanese, a language they would know how to speak a bit of at least (and apparently Vi is conversational in Japanese so c'mooonnnn).)

The girls land at Narita Airport and take a train to central Tokyo (damn Kumi from Cherry Blossom Adventure you came in clutch possibly teaching the girls how to Japanese subway offscreen because they actually didn't get lost using it on their own :D). Kyoko's hometown was Tokyo, so might as well start searching for her descendants/relatives there. First stop: Shibuya.

Colette is playfully ribbed a bit for having a big-ass bag while everyone else only brought smol backpacks around with them, the luck of the girls not getting lost using the Japanese subway must be balanced out so Paulina's GPS decides now is the right time to be a dick, Shibuya Crossing, and finally they make it to the hotel where Amrita Bianchi, their first Kyoko descendant candidate, is at.

And this is the first time the girls come across the concept of cosplaying, I genuinely don't know how they managed to sidestep it for so long especially since they've been to Japan before for a student exchange, all I can really justify it with is that university has been kicking their a-- RATSUNE MIKU??

Gahd even in 2018 Italy there was no escape from her /j

Anyway so Amrita didn't know Kyoko, so their second candidate is Shinobu Bianchi, a guy living in Shinjuku. They find him-- or more accurately run into him (literally) on his way to work, try to explain things to him but this man is running late, so he invites the girls to follow him to his workplace. They find themselves in a cafe on opening time, customers start filing in before the girls can even tell Shinobu what the whole deal is, soooooo karaoke break :D

Vi c'mon it's not like there's much else to do while waiting for Shinobu-- what're you gonna do, sit there and wait? A-actually y'know what that sounds like something Vi would happily do but c'mooonnn Vi where's your sense-a humor :D

Thirty minutes of singing later, they finally get five minutes to explain to Shinobu what they're looking for and Shinobu says "sorry I dunno Kyoko, I am half-Italian on my dad's side, but my mom has a different Japanese surname"

So the girls Peter William a bit emotionally, Pam goes to what Scholastic is telling me is a kiosk but might as well be a 7/11 based on the banger food Pam got from said kiosk, the girls take a taxi to a Capsule Hotel (judging from the illustration it looks like the Shinjuku Kuyakusho-mae Capsule Hotel), and after a bit of dinner, Peter William into their capsule rooms physically.

The next morning, Nicky goes out for a morning jog as usual (she prolly slept with her capsule open so she wouldn't get claustrophobic), and she finds a gardener tending to a Kyoko Bianchi flower :0 like no joke that's the name, it's a K. bianchi, named after a botanist who founded the Fairy Garden (Disclaimer: neither the K. bianchi nor the Fairy Garden Foundation in Japan exist, they're fictional bits for this fictional story and that's fine :3). Nicky gets the address for the Fairy Garden, runs back to the girls who are having breakfast, and they head on over to the venue.

At the Fairy Garden, the girls meet a gardener named Toshio who happily shows them around, and despite not knowing all the Lane Lore™ (yet), he knows enough to lead them to Kyoko's perfectly preserved office, where the late Bianchi has displayed some pictures from Verona, as well as her furniture and encyclopedia collection.

After a search, they find what was presumably a haiku alluding to Jomon Sugi and the writer's voice being hidden in there, and one jaunt to the record of Jomon Sugi in Kyoko's encyclopedia collection and uhp-- a hidden cassette tape inside the volume!

On one hand, victory, the girls have found a VHS tape that is implied to have a personal recording from Kyoko Bianchi herself, so they're super-close to the treasure now :D

But on the other hand, they found a VHS tape in the year of our lord 2018.

Good news, Toshio knows a buddy who's super tech-savvy, and that's including tech things. Bad news, he's in Kyoto, which is about 445 km/283 miles away from Tokyo.

So the girls quickly take a shinkansen and some bento boxes to Kyoto :D (their wallets are probably sobbing in an 86-USD ticket per person)

At Kyoto, meet Ren, are lowkey surprised that his house is a traditional Japanese house as opposed to a modern flat but hey it's a pleasant surprise, and Ren is able to play the tape for them.

In the tape, Kyoko explains the Treasure of Eternal Love, how it ended up in her hands at the ripe age of 20 through Linda and Aurora, and some Treasure of Eternal Love lore, or rather Ring of Eternal Love lore:

Yeah sure Romeo and Juliet were fictional characters, but reality, so it goes, isn't that much different. The Ring of Eternal Love was a courting gift from a suitor to a bachelorette of the Cappelletti household. The suitor and the girl's families had hate boners for each other for a while now, but instead of spiraling into a destructive mess of family feuding and death like in Shakespeare's play, they decided to call off the feud so the two lovers could be happy together. And now the ring, as Kyoko puts it, has been passed down from her to "one who shows love every day, in every way, towards everything that grows from the earth."

The girls are happy they got to see the tape and its contents, but they Peter William emotionally once more because well, they're back to square one now-- literally the only clue they have is the thing Kyoko said, and what is the thing Kyoko said? It's cryptic and weird and h a h ? Ren offers to accommodate them for the night, the girls get to sleep on futons for the first time since Secret of the Snow, and the next day they decide to have some downtime vacay-ing in Nijo Castle. A vacay that results in Vi having an epiphany about the riddle and thus who has the ring.

Meanwhile with Luke, he's planning something. Something that's got Cassidy in Japan and putting her master's degrees in Engineering, Chemistry and Computer Sciences to use by assembling a drone (I'm wondering how Cassidy has so little braincells out on the field despite having THREE MASTER'S DEGREES like holy crap--)

Cassidy tries complimenting Luke on the motherboard he sent in from Alaska and-- ew Omar why are you here I thought Luke fired you-- ooh what's that package thing-- oi don't diss on Japanese people being polite, once you see the ruder options you're gonna be pining for that shnit-- wait what how's this drone gonna find the Ring of Eternal Love--

Anyway the girls plus Toshio and Ren take the train back to Tokyo (istg if they took the shinkansen--) and back to the Fairy Garden Foundation, where they talk to the current head gardener: Mr. Murakami.

Mr. Murakami does in fact know Kyoko personally, and after a bit of persuading (it involves a bord like many good things in this world), he decides to bring them to his hometown Nara (which involves a train to Kyoto and then a train from Kyoto to Nara which on the Kodama plus the cheapest option from Kyoto to Nara is-- CHEESUS CRUST 91 USD PER PERSON AND THEY HAVE TO GO BACK TO TOKYO AFTER THIS???)

ANYWAY Mr. Murakami takes them to Nara Park, where he hid the treasure. He brings the girls to it, he checks the hiding place and

It's empty?

Wait, the hiding place is empty?

WAIT WHAT THE HIDING PLACE IS EM--

Off in Alaska, Luke is cackling in his fancy custom-made not-gamer chair.

Mr. Murakami is distraught, most of the girls stay to comfort him while Nicky and Ren scout out the area. In their search, Nicky and Ren find a big broken drone that seems to have crash-landed in the garden, and oop-- LVK logo. It was probably used to spy on Mr. Murakami to snatch the treasure. "DAAAMMMNNNN YOOOUUUU LUUUKKEEEE" Nicky probably would've shrieked at the top of her lungs if she weren't A. in Japan (it's very quiet generally), and B. within earshot of poor Mr. Murakami, who's still recovering from the horrible shock. The girls, Toshio and Ren take the drone to Kyoto while Mr. Murakami stays in Nara with the fam to recover because man, he deserves the break :(

In Ren's house in Kyoto, Paulina and Ren get to work hacking into the drone to snatch its data, and they find that the drone's memory goes as far back as to being in Alaska for some reason. Why would an LVK drone be in Alaska? Unless-- :OOOOO SECRET BASE??

With that lead, the girls depart for Anchorage, Alaska (if I plugged it into Google correctly the price for the flight totals out at a 567-USD one-way flight holy crap girlies have mercy on your wallets-- not including the mini shopping spree for winter clothes Colette was more than happy to drag the girls on). Ren gives Paulina a little flash drive with some written code that could come in clutch in whatever shenanigans they end up in in that secret base of Luke's. Yes Violet as much as I think you're the only person in the group who seems to be concerned for your wallet, ya'll are nawt surviving Alaska with those summer clothes ya'll are wearing.

Behold, a long rest/14-hour timeskip in the form of the last two letters the girls have yet to read from Aurora to Linda. (Well the girls besides Vi, God's sleepiest soldier over here is eeping in the back before the flight's even taken off--)

(These are the real letters this time around lmao, if you're confused, Aurora addresses Linda in these letters via her middle name Amaryllis.)

Dear Amaryllis,

I'm very sorry that, because of my job, you are taking on a responsibility that is perhaps too great, and that puts you at risk.

It's all because of the greed of my former professor, a mouse who is incapable of recognizing that beauty should be shared. My dear sister, I have thought about it for a long time, and I have come to the conclusion that the best solution is to take the Treasure of Eternal Love from Verona, where it is not safe... and put you at risk. I am sending you a copy of one of the photos I hold the most dear, in memory of the love that binds us. I hope it will help you make the best decision...

Yours, Aurora

Dear Amaryllis,

You wrote me that you are making a decision about the treasure. I agree that the mouse you're planning to entrust it to is worthy of that trust, and I will wait for more news. But you must be careful, even when you write to me, to not mention names or places. We need to watch out, because my former professor is more alert than ever.

It seems that he's building an underground shelter for his riches, designed as a kind of maze to test anyone who manages to enter it...

Professor Jan is clever, and he's always loved riddles, puzzles, and mysteries. I wouldn't wish for any mouse to find themselves in his maze!

Now I must say good-bye, my dear. Sending a big hug.

Yours, Aurora

Once the girls land in Anchorage, Alaska, they rent an SUV, pull out Google Maps, read some of the brochures Ren printed out for them just in case, fangirl over a moose (Nicky that's not something to fangirl about have you seen what they're capable of--), and accidental secret tunnel discovery?

Well, accidental secret garbage chute discovery, anyway, since the one thing that allows the girls to not break their ankles when landing is some garbage bags. Food waste garbage bags no less :D Ew :D

Some old aircraft bits are found too which is nice but it's never elaborated on whose old aircraft bits those were so we're moving on to the girls entering Luke's secret headquarters and Nicky trying not to die from claustrophobia :D

CCTVs pose an initial problem, but Ren's flash drive comes in clutch and allows Paulina to freeze the cameras so they can go in undetected (Ren how do you know how to program that is there something you wanna share to the class--). One lengthy labyrinth later, the girls manage to get out of the "we're walking in circles" loop-dee-loop they wound up in and find this little room with a little lit fire pit and an ominous riddle involving the "elements of nature". Pam has the idea of extinguishing the fire pit, and sure enough, inside the fire pit is a key that fits perfectly into the door across the room.

And right after Pam turns the lock on the door, a trapdoor opens up beneath her and she falls into the pit below. It's padded, it's kinda cozy, but it's way too deep for the girls to reach Pam from above without a rope or attempting to risk falling in and getting trapped as well. The girls are very reluctant to leave Pam, but Pam unfortunately only metaphorically slaps some sense into the girls and tells them to go on because they've gone too far to back out now so COMMIT TO THE BIT GODDAMMIT

(you guys like the rhyme-y bits? They're kinda fun to write I do like the rhyme-y bits a bit <:])

And thus the girls minus Pam go through the door to the next room, where there's this swimming pool with a key inside it, which Nicky swims down for, assuming that the trap in the room will only activate once they get the key into the door leading to the next room. Obviously she winds up being very incorrect, as the moment she takes the key from the bottom of the pool, the water starts to drain away until all you got left is a sopping wet Nicky in an empty pool and the key to the next room, which Nicky tosses over to Paulina while asking for her shoes and her dry clothes that they packed. Colette is devastated, devastated I tell you at the idea of leaving Nicky behind, on top of having to leave Pam behind, but Nicky's got faith that the girls will pull through and come back for her; so Colette, Paulina and Violet move on to the next room.

A LOT of walking down a twisting hallway later, the trio make it to the next room (which they use Nicky's key for), and we got four pots with something or other in them, lighting too dim to discern properly what's in the pots, a button sequence puzzle with no margin for error, and a wack riddle. Oh and Paulina's tablet's finally died after possibly uh, 18-ish hours of not charging it. RIP Paulina's tablet, that's gonna be set aside in the corner for the time being.

The pots turn out to have different types of sediment in them, and the wack riddle turns out to be the clue to the correct sequence to input, so the three figure that out fairly quickly and slide down the chute leading to the next room. Except for Paulina, who had to get her tablet from that corner she set it aside in, and wasn't able to make it to the trapdoor-chute in time before it closed on her face, leaving her trapped "forever", as the wack riddle states. The one time you're told to stop holding it, man, unbelievable. I'm never letting go of my tablet again /j

Now Vi and Colette find themselves in an empty room, and they only realize when they get down that Paulina wasn't able to make it out in time. Now this entire time, Colette has been going through it. Of the girls, Colette's been taking the whole leaving-my-friends-behind-for-the-greater-good thing not well at all, and it culminates in an emotional breakdown. Violet comforts her and reassures her that they'll get the ring, they'll pick up the other girls and they'll get outa here soon, but they gotta be brave now for the other girls. (Kinda hard to capture in short and sweet words what the emotion of the scene was but oh well). After a bit of calming down, Colette and Violet look around to find themselves in a... surprisingly simple room? There's a door on the other side of the room from them, and besides that there's literally nothing but thin air.

The two go to the door and move to open it. Yeah this one's surprisingly simple. Just walk on over, pull the door open, walk o-- a gust of wind slammed the door shut . .

Yeah that's right. You ever leave a window in your room open on a windy day and leave your door also open, and the wind going into the room slams the door shut? Yeah, it's that multiplied by uhhhh how much is a vent opposite the door opening up just to blow f%#ken WIMDY-level winds just to slam that metal door shut? However that much multiplies that. The two find themselves in a situation where had all five of them been there to do this puzzle, it would've been far easier; but it is doable with only two people. The plan is one of them wedges themself between the door and the frame and prop it open, while the other crawls under the first person's leg. Transitioning to the second person propping the door open for the first person is gonna be a bit dodgy, but it is doable kinda.

Now Colette has been going through the ringer emotionally, and if you've seen this trope before, you'd know that it'd be a real damn shame if they lost their emotional pillar and had to carry the entire plan on their own, riiiiggghhttt? She's been the handling this situation the worst (emotionally), and it would bring her a belly of the beast to trump all bellies of all beasts and force her to do a The Next Right Thing (hot take: Anna's arc in Frozen 2 was really good), presumably after a lot of sobbing in the corner! It's perfect for angst, and it's perfect for empowerment to see Colette pick herself up and be strong for the girls and save the day!

Which is why Colette doesn't end up being the last one standing :D

Colette was the one who propped the door open for Violet, who crawled through to the other side. The plan was to have Vi switch with Colette so Colette can get through, but one thing they didn't take into account was the fact that the vent would slowly create stronger and stronger winds the longer the door is held open for, so Colette winds up allowing herself to be trapped in the air room so Violet can do the thing. (Oh and the plan was Colette's idea too.)

Heeyyyy Viiiiiiii~ Do you have some cash left over in your wallet? Because I think it's time for you to put your money where your mouth is :DDD

So yeah Violet continues on alone.

Also if you're wondering where Luke is this entire time, he is in fact in his base, still not touching grass and none the wiser about the whole five lil' rat girls sneaking into his base because of the whole frozen cams situation. He does technically notice something's off, but he thinks that the clock in one of the cameras is broken and he ends up complaining about it to Cassidy, haha L. It is also at this point where we learn that the girls have been in Luke's base for a little over three hours at this point :D

Meanwhile, Violet goes down the narrow metal staircase in the hallway outside of the last room and finds herself reminding herself to stay calm but also inside Luke's treasure room, where treasures of all shapes and sizes reside. From whole dinosaur skeletons to ancient Egyptian statues to paintings to suits of armor and-- holy shnit Luke has the Ark of the Covenant in there too o o yeah this guy means business holy crap--

The Ring of Eternal Love is in there too, the lone treasure in the set of seven empty pedestals that Luke was prolly intending for the Seven Treasures of the World. So Vi, clearly not having watched Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark, attempts to lift the glass case protecting the ring, which sets off the alarms in the treasure rooms, and whoa holy crap there's a robot voice speaking through the alarms? WAIT WHAT DO YOU MEAN FIFTEEN MINUTES TO SELF-DESTRUCTION

Luke, having the shock of his life, comes down to the treasure room to see what's up, and of course it's one of the five brats who's been getting in the way of his endeavors. Hardly a surprise, really, those five have been a pain in the ass from minute one of Luke looking into the Seven Treasures-- from stopping him getting the Alabaster Garden (he didn't even get to see what it was smh), to duping him with the most audacious of gottems to exist only partially due to his goon's stupidity, and now sneaking into the heart of his base without him, his cameras, or his sensors noticing. Strange how there's only one of them, though.

Just like Aurora Beatrix Lane almost a hundred years prior, this young lady is naive, morally stubborn, and idealistic. She is preaching out about sharing these treasures to all, even when the worth of these treasures comes partly in the luxury of not everyone being able to enjoy them. There is value in that sense of rarity, and it's not like any of the uncaring, ignorant whelps working in the museums look at the pieces that sit before them and realize the true value that they have the privilege of looking at everyday. They wouldn't care about them-- they would do the bare minimum to these unique masterpieces and leave it at that. And this naive brat thinks that they are more loving, more caring to these pieces than Luke is?

But as naive and morally pretentious and... ignorant of time and place this woman is (did she really not hear the self-destruct alarm and is thus willing to babble to her grave?)... she is clearly very intelligent. She was able to affect the base's security system such that she could come in undetected. She was able to get past all four traps without getting trapped herself. It is strange how she is alone here, though. She is usually with four other girls-- ah, that's it. They got trapped, and she left them, so she could get to the treasures on her own. What a show of common sense, that is! She must've seen that the traps were designed such that risking oneself to rescue a trapped person is just not worth it, and that first point already makes her far more intelligent than Cassidy or her buffoons could ever be. It could even be on-par with Luke himself. What if... perhaps....

What if they worked together?

Luke, after a bit of back and forth with Violet, gives Violet an offer to ditch her friends and become his partner. If she accepts they can divide everything between each other in the vault, and together, they'll be able to uncover the treasures of the world and enjoy them all to themselves.

I mean of course Vi turns down the offer in favor of sticking with her friends but y'know what it was worth a shot, Luke, kudos to you for spotting a gemstone instead of covering it with mud and pretending it's not there.

Heavily disappointed by Vi turning him down for the sake of "the power of friendship" (I wish I was kidding)(Scholastic!Vi's (?) words not mine)(I would be incredibly disappointed too), he turns to leave her in the treasure room, and it's only then that Vi realizes she kinda effed up. Luke is the only guy here who knows the base inside-out, and thus would know a way to get the girls out so they can Not Die. And to add insult to injury, Luke made a bomb shelter out of his treasure room, so the entire base may explode and the girls might die, but the treasures are gonna be completely fine. Intact, even. Luke leaves, and the robot voice announces ten minutes before self-destruction.

As soon as she's able to, Vi calls the elevator, juggling anxiety and being able to think under pressure. She figures out that Luke oh so helpfully uses pictograms for his elevator buttons instead of numbers, and presses the button for the control room (the heliport floor is locked by a key). She arrives in the control room, eight minutes before self-destruction.

Just as Vi enters the control room, the cameras get kicked back into action, oh so conveniently showing to Violet a timer ticking down to the big kaboom in real time, and footage of Nicky waiting anxiously in the pool room (and Luke leaving), for extra stakes. One Perception check said "yeah, this is a LOT of buttons, TOO MANY BUTTONS", and the tablet sitting on the desk required a password, so oh god what do

Six minutes before self-destruction and one panic attack later, Vi manages to psyche herself up enough to roll for Investigation. She finds a button for disarming the traps, and that allows the girls to get outa the traps and meet up again in the treasure room. Happy reunions aside tho, four minutes to self-destruction

Turns out the girls (thankfully) didn't know about the self-destruct situation. No need to explain tho because Vi is deadlifting the group braincell like she's never done before. She drags them down to the base's... basement, where a train that was probably used to carry the treasures into the base sits unused and ready for the girls to figure out how to work. Three minutes before self-destruction, no pressure :D

Pam sits at the train's controls, Paulina tries to help but immediately brain crashes at the old-timey controls, thus deciding she'd rather help Nicky get the bars off the rails up ahead. Two minutes left, and Pam figures it out and is ready to-- wait they need electricity-- okay cool Nicky and Paulina are taking care of that, cool

Pam gets the train to start up, Nicky and Paulina manage to hop back into the train, and escape the base's explosion range with about ten seconds to spare :D

After stopping the train in a spot where their braincells could afford to deflate, the girls take a minute or two to breathe y'know, just take a minute to breathe, nibble on some wild raspberries growing in Denali National Park, before figuring out what the hell their next move is.

Vi suggests they tell the authorities about the whole secret-base-under-the-park situation and the treasure room and the stuff inside it (since Luke oh so foolishly gloated to Vi about the treasures being perfectly safe), on top of removing the train so it's not getting up in nature's business. They head back to the car talking about their adventure, get a bit sad that they weren't able to find the Ring of Eternal Love-- and oop just kidding, Vi pocketed it in the treasure room right after Luke dipped :D

So on top of the girls escaping with their lives, not only is Luke gonna lose the Ring of Eternal Love as quickly as he got it, he's also losing his entire treasure vault. Can I get a ripperooni

And that's Legend of the Maze :D

I would say that the hyperfixation-that-consumed-these-girls'-lives-for-a-whole-week energy is very strong in this one in the best way, and the girls' personalities are at their most showcased here. The banter is bantering, the girls' dynamics with each other is very believable here, Vi is carrying the group's braincell the entire time and she looks like she's a bit tired from carrying it but y'know wut she's still willing to carry it because it's honest work and she knows how important it is to have it :3 also her trying to kill Colette's "Romeo and Juliet are so romantic" Santa but failing miserably because Colette unashamedly likes believing in the power of love is hilarious

The main thing I wasn't sure about was.... all the infodumpy bits? The infodump goes a significant bit harder in this book than the previous ones (even more than Compass of the Stars, which is an achievement), and it's Scholastic-style infodumping, so you get the girls calling Luke an "evil mouse" or "selfish mouse" and I'm sitting here like "just call him sewer rat please ya'll had no problems calling him that before please for the love of god use that instead it sounds better--"

Don't even get me started with Amrita Bianchi explaining to the girls what cosplay is like she's the damn Merriam Webster dictionary--

Also the Japan segment with y'know Japanese culture and stuff had the terms localized for some reason??? Like haori became "dark jacket", kimono became "long, elegant Japanese dress", they didn't even mention Ren's hakama (he was wearing a very traditional Japanese look), they felt the need to explain bento boxes as "typical Japanese portable lunch boxes" even though "Japanese lunch box" probably would've gotten the point across just fine and also there was an illustration of the bento boxes, Japanese characters became "logograms" for some reason, and dango became "rice dumplings" which became infinitely more confusing for me because the illustration made it look like takoyaki--

I could go on and on but yeah, there are a lot of these and it felt very infodump-y to me. I'm hoping it's just a translation thing, because the story overall feels pretty solid. Scholastic, what happened to the asterisks? Were they just too much for one page? I feel like you would've been able to squeeze them in just fine to make the reading experience a little smoother,,, just like, so it's an optional thing for the reader to read the mini-infodump of the term if they dunno what it means,,,

Other than that tho I don't think I have much to complain ab--

COUGHS GAGS SCREAMS CRIES WRITHES ON THE FLOOR

(I have the magic-of-friendship-invocation tolerance of an angsty teen I'm sorry :'3)

Scholastic, buddy chum pal buddy chum buddy chum pal,,,,

You could've had Vi say "the only way I got here was thanks to my friends", and it would've been fine and infinitely better-sounding and probably more in-character,,, o<-<

Gahd I hate it when Vi's used as the power of friendship prophet -m-

There's a more minor one as the girls are going back to the car and Vi is telling the girls about the deal Luke offered her, and the girls ask her what she said, and she says "I told him I already had the greatest treasure in the world... true friendship!"

Meanwhile I'm sitting there like "MMMMMGGGGGGHHHHHH 'friends like you' or 'sisters like you' or 'my friendship with you' would've sounded better -m-"

(Also the girls call each other like "friends", so like "you were in fact right, friends", which is like, what happened to "sisters" or "girls" those work perfectly fine and get the girls' close relationship across significantly better than "just friends")

Most of what I'm saying here tho are just nitpicks and probably (hopefully) are just stuff with the English translation-- in all seriousness, the book is pretty good.

Aurora's trail here makes sense and is rather logical, and the interesting thing I find about it is that it feels different from the previous two books' worth of shenanigans. Aurora in this one had far less veers and nation hopping shenanigans, and I feel that it was perhaps intentional. Perhaps to give off finale vibes-- Aurora works far more closely with her sister in this one, and the main thing the girls had to work with was not Aurora's diaries, but the letter she wrote to Linda when they were discussing the Ring of Eternal Love. Something about it feels closer, more intimate, more tragic than the previous ones. I felt the need to put her last to letters in the book verbatim because they were emotional dammit -m- Damn you British Amelia Earhart you've done it again /lhj

Luke's character I think is the strongest here. He gives off in a way the most... normal? Vibes here? He's still not touching grass and muttering to himself ominously a whole lot, but his mindset is nice and easy to wrap your head around here. He literally doesn't care about his goons unless he needs something from them, he is more than happy to overanalyze the crap out of a piece of text if he feels Cassidy didn't look through it thoroughly enough, and he wants what he wants right away, and that includes the things he needs to get the thing he actually wants. He as a character literally observes everything happen from his base in Alaska and backseat gamers the crap out of his goons if he sees something they didn't, or if they fumbled the bag and it was perfectly avoidable had it not been for SM being SM--

Also his blatant disrespect for his great-grandpappy Jan is holy crap haha-- it might just be my cultural background, but when I saw Luke call his great-grandpa "Jan" and then say "you disappoint me, Jan", I was flabbergasted haha, not a criticism I just wanted to mention it because I thought it was funny

I really like the fact that Stan and Max (aka SM) didn't show up at all in this book. It would've been easy to have them show up for regularly scheduled hijinks, but in Luke's mind, none of SM's operations have ever been... up to Luke's standards. Especially with how much of a ruckus they tended to make with their presence, they were more of a liability to Luke than an asset; therefore Luke changing up his strategy to be as hands-off and clean and non-intrusive as possible feels like something he'd do, what with how laser-focused he is on min-maxing efficiency to get what he wants as soon as possible.

Omar still being there despite being "fired" might just be a Scholastic oopsie so I can forgive it, Cassidy is still simping for Luke and trying to impress this man and trying to prove she's at an equal level to him, but every time nah. Just nah. Girlie you think you're on the same level as him, which can't possibly be further than the truth. I haven't seen Miraculous Ladybug, but I'd bet Cassidy has even less of a chance of impressing Luke, than Marinette had a chance at getting Adrien to see her as more than "just a friend" before they finally got together.

Now here's something I've been wanting to ramble about for a while: Violet being left alone instead of Colette. It's actually pretty clever when you think about it: Colette is the closest the girls have to a heart (tho she plays hot potato with Paulina when it comes to that role imo), so she's been the most emotional and the most sentimental of the group this entire time. From daydreaming about Romeo, to wanting to believe in love, to happily picking up a microphone to sing karaoke with the girls, to her strong reactions to having to leave the girls behind one by one for the sake of their mission, Colette was being set up for a moment where she is the one who is left alone. You see it a lot in media: the main character is the most sentimental one and as their friend squad make their way to the Big Bad Evil Guy, the supporting characters are forced to get left behind one by one to either hold the evil minions back or because there's no way for the character to move forward with the MC; so the MC is forced to go through the five stages of grief knowing that their friends trust them to get the job they'd set out to do done. It literally happened in Geronimo's third Kingdom of Fantasy book Amazing Voyage, and in that one Geronimo was the one who desperately didn't want to be alone, but he wound up carrying on alone anyway. You see this kinda thing everywhere.

However, in this bit, it makes total sense that Violet is the one who ends up carrying the last leg of the journey alone instead of Colette. Compared to Colette (and honestly the rest of the girls), Violet is the most level-headed. She's the girls' braincell keeper (in this trilogy), the babysitter holding the leash tied to the four gremlins, the one keeping everyone on track and also making sure that the group's collective ADHD doesn't spiral down as badly as it could possibly be. Whenever the girls make a big move that could affect the whole group, Vi is the one asking if it's a good idea or if it's worth doing, and she's the one thinking ahead enough to say "if x happens instead of y, what then?" You get the idea-- Vi is the most capable of keeping herself level-headed even when she's under all this pressure, and she's good at analyzing and planning on account of her often taking the position of the quiet observer.

With this context, it sort've makes you wonder what was going through Colette's head when she offered to help Violet get out of the air room. Violet and Colette in particular get paired together fairly often, and it's probably because of how well they're able to understand each other-- so with the plan, was Colette volunteering herself to prop the door open out of "it was my idea" courtesy, or was she thinking that maybe Violet would be able to figure things out better and thus needed to get to the other side? She probably was expecting to get to the other side with Vi, but would she have thought far enough ahead to a what-if where that wasn't possible? :3c

And Scholastic and power-of-friendship funkiness aside, Violet did handle the situation well, all things considered. The one bit where she only realized Luke was hers and the girls' only ticket out of there was a bit weird, but it can be chalked up to her not being able to take that into account in the moment because of a mix of stress, sheer bafflement from Luke's deal, and the fact that when put on the spot, observers don't exactly handle taking the driver's seat that well :'D (speaking as an observer myself here)

It makes me wonder a bit if Violet and Luke were meant to be foils of each other, what with how similar they are to each other (both of them being observers and planners who delegate more often than they do the work themselves), yet different enough that the contrast between the two is striking. Said difference being

Violet touches grass. Luke does not :)

Anyway so yeah, that's Treasure Seekers 3, and while it is kinda sad that this is where Treasure Seekers ends, y'know what? It gave a solid show as the last installment in the trilogy. I liked it, I liked the canon compliant blorbo angst, I liked the characters character-ing when the dialogue was letting them breathe :]

And of course, we can't forget

God's sleepiest soldier <3

She deserves that nap after what she went through and you know it--

#geronimo stilton #thea stilton #thea sisters #violet conked out the moment she got into the suv and the girls drove off to plan stuff out. change my mind /j #there's a bit where nicky fangirls upon seeing a moose like she suddenly turned ten and like #she inched closer to the window to see it better but violet was like “hey you're squishing me”#and nicky was like “sorry vi.. i got a bit excited.... y'know how much i love nature”#and vi in this moment where she gave straight-up the most mom vibes #was like “here let's swap seats"#like UEUEUEUEUWAAAAA....#also like remember the bit where colette wound up lugging a big-ass bag around with her while the girls had smoller backpacks #well surprisingly it backfired but not in the way you'd think #the rest of the girls were basically stuck wearing the same clothes the entire time #meanwhile colette was happily not having to deal with wearing clothes that weren't accumulating sweat from having to walk around #if not y'know because of japan's heat #i wrote this while i was sleep deprived so maybe i missed more than a few things in this review that i wanted to say because forgor #maybe i'll end up editing stuff in here a bit after like #i'm more awake #but yeah <3 #if the infodumpy bits and dialogue quirks are the same in italian i will cry /hj #*psst hey angst lovers wait for my next post i got something for you*#wait for like #when i wake up and hopefully actually get to sleep tonight lmao #before i go consider #alternate scenarios where any of the other girls end up in that same situation with luke #i'll leave those ingredients on the counter. take them and use them however you wish :3 #book rambles #book rant #book review #rambles

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kenren · 1 year

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The Great Hunt ❄ Aokiji (Kuzan) x Female Reader ❄ Chapter 5 of 7

I cannot tell you now; When the wind's drive and whirl Blow me along no longer, And the wind's a whisper at last— Maybe I'll tell you then— some other time. The Great Hunt, Carl Sandburg

A story of departures and returns. And sex. Of course there's sex.

.・゜゜・Author notes: Deux ex machina in the form of a masked revolutionary. I like to think that it's Sabo but his rank is probably too high to do shit like this lmao. This was originally two chapters but I decided to combine them, as well as the two I was going to post into tomorrow, on Tumblr. The story will now be out of seven chapters on Tumblr but nine on AO3. Obligatory tag for @thehanging-gardens. (づ ᴗ _ᴗ)づ♡

.・゜゜・This chapter is mostly SFT but contains references to previous NSFT acts I guess. Minors, please still don't interact lol.

.・゜゜・Chapter word count: 2334.

.・゜゜・AO3 (See first chapter for tags.)

.・゜゜・

You didn’t get the chance. He was gone by morning, and something in the stillness of the morning air told you it was indefinitely.

Two years and a handful of bitter months passed. Handful after handful of stocky men came by boxed up armful after armful of your stocky piles of documents, unloading them into your new but no less soulless office in New Marineford.

Pressed against one wall was Kuzan’s favorite couch, which you had made enough of a fuss about to convince the higher-ups to salvage. You were pretty sure the rest of the furniture at the old base had been scrapped or left behind.

It was on that couch where you now sat with a huff, smiling wryly at the corner of your office designated for documents related to ongoing and future operations.

You estimated that you had leaked at least three stacks’ worth to the Revolutionary Army by now, and you managed to mail a couple anonymously to Nico Robin. Just because you liked her style, from what Kuzan had told you.

His name made you wince as it crossed your mind.

Well.

Whatever.

At least one of you had to keep fighting the good fight.

And you had kept fighting…until today. When you were finally caught. By Smoker, of all people.

“I’ll let you go if you resign.” You had just stared at him, immediately knowing what he was referring to, but unsure whether to be taken aback by his laxity. “In exchange…don’t think too poorly of him.”

“Who?”

He had fixed you with a look that told you everything. But before you could go to argue, he lit up both of his signature cigars and turned to leave. “I expect to hear of your resignation by EOD tomorrow.”

Did you regret it? No. Did you regret getting caught? That was…a question. You weren’t sure how you could keep contributing to the fight against the World Government in your current situation. You weren’t trained in combat; without your access to classified documents, you had no weapons with which to fight.

But now you were sat in a bar, sipping a stiff drink as you eyed up a television broadcast on the latest in the series of occurrences in the New World. The reporter rattled off a list of “facts”—nothing particularly informative; the World Government’s extraordinarily persistent censorship team made sure of that, but as someone who had had an insider’s perspective until recently, it was enough to make you speculate that things were in motion that could no longer be undone. And…well. You were confident that the harm you had done to the World Government by leaking those documents far outweighed the good you had done by fixing a few typos over the years. You smiled to yourself. You had earned the right to relax for a bit.

“A quick question for you, miss.”

Ah fuck.

Another foiled plan. You briefly wondered whether this interruption was tied to your having been caught.

You eyed up the inquisitor. Their voice was masculine enough, but their face was mostly obscured by an effective albeit poorly-crafted mask. You caught the faint gleam of their irises through the eyeholes, and their mouth was left uncovered, twisted into a disarmingly friendly smile. You scanned their body for any identifying details, but their tall frame was wrapped in a simple black cloak. You cleared your throat and turned back to your drink. “Who are you?”

“I mean no harm, just have a quick question. Answer it quickly so I can get out of this stupid getup.”

You snorted. “What is it?”

“Are you happily married?”

Your eyes snapped to theirs once again, the deliberate wording of their question making your hair stand on end. “And what if I am?”

The person laughed good-naturedly. “That’d be a real shame. But on the off chance that you’re not, I’d like to give you my number.”

They passed you a slip of paper with an address and time scribbled on it. You squinted as you tried to remember Kuzan’s handwriting, but instinctively, you knew it was his anyway. “He’s under the impression that I’ll actually show up?”

“He said you owe Smoker a favor.”

“What, did Smoker tell him what happened already? I know news travels fast, even in this mess of a world we’re living in, but there’s no way he could have planned to meet me within the past…3 hours.”

“Who told you that Smoker only found out today?”

You froze. “How long has he known?”

“Since a little birdie told him.”

“Kuzan ratted me out?!”

“Only when your services were no longer needed. When the finish line was in sight regardless of a few, ehm…misplaced documents.”

“He put my life in danger!”

The person giggled. “You can slap him around for that yourself, if you’d like.” They nodded toward the paper now crumpled in your grasp. “I gotta be on my way.”

.・゜゜・

“You know, I never got to ride your dick.”

It was the basement floor of a pretty generic abandoned building. Concrete floors, a handful of beams, a ratty Oriental carpet forgotten in one corner of the room, a desk pressed up against a taped-up panel in the wall.

From where you were standing, you could see Kuzan stiffen, but he didn’t turn around.

“...”

“You passed out. And then when I got up in the morning you had disappeared. Like, indefinitely.” You couldn’t stop your lips from curling into a smile as you looked upon your…uh…companion for the first time since his departure.

Hearing that smile in your voice, Kuzan turned around. He looked you up and down, but…well. In terms of holding a blank expression, you never could beat him out. “You’re as insufferable as I remember. Wonder if I can talk Smoker into giving you your job back; I don’t get paid to deal with this anymore.”

“Well I was looking forward to it.”

“Hm?

“Riding your dick.”

Kuzan coughed to hide his laugh. “Arara, I’m deeply sorry.”

“Are you?” You squinted at him just long enough to make sure he grasped the hidden meaning in your words, but he chose to ignore it.

“You know I am. Unfortunately I can’t dismantle governments from between your thighs.”

“What’s between my thighs is enough to dismantle governments on its own.”

His lip quirked. “Why do you think I told you to become the Navy’s resident slut? You could have saved us a lot of time, you know.” You snorted, and he smiled at the familiarity of the sound. “My associate informed me that you are, not, in fact, happily married.”

“Mm.”

“So…it wasn’t a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

“Maybe not for me.” His face fell slightly, and you smirked. “Besides, what if I’m unhappily married?”

“Then my point stands.”

Your hands twitched at your sides, your body practically begging you to throw yourself into his arms. You resisted, still grasping at the power you held over him in this moment. You held your smirk like a blade and fixed him with your best unimpressed gaze.

“Why did you come here? Do you have something to say to me?”

“You know why I came here, brat.”

“You have some nerve calling me brat when you’ve been gone for over two years.”

Kuzan fell silent for a moment. “I’m sorry.”

“I was partially kidding.”

“I know. And you’re still a brat; I’m not taking that part back.” He took a tentative step toward you, and you debated stepping back. “I would say I didn’t know it would take so long, but that would be a lie. I was…not unaware of the risks. Just certain that I could make it back to you eventually.”

“Selfish marine, and selfish ‘something else’…did you ever figure out what that ‘something else’ was? Pirate?” You cocked your head. “...Revolutionary?”

Kuzan grimaced. “Both…and neither. We can go over all that happened another time. But now…I am selfishly yours.”

“Another time? You seem quite sure that I’ll want to see you again.”

“...Observation haki.”

“Or a gut feeling?”

“Or wishful thinking.”

Your smirk widened. “Sounds about right.” He stared listlessly at you for a moment. You realized that he looked exhausted. Slightly older, even, which came as a surprise. The sudden reminder of his mortality had you sucking in a breath, and a thought crossed your mind, only partially formed—something about love and wasting time. “Don’t look at me like that. I’ll give you your chance to explain yourself…another time, like you said.”

“I’m not sure what that means. Are you telling me to walk away for now? Sakazuki only left me one leg, you know.”

You snorted, and Kuzan averted his eyes. “I heard about that. But you seem to be managing. Whatever prosthetic you must have MacGyvered out of ice let you run away from me for two years.”

“Not away from you. Just in one large and painful circle. I…” He trailed off, dragging his eyes back to yours. “Am home.”

The enormity of his sentiment hit you with such force that your face fell. Your feet moved as though on their own; without thinking, you pulled him into a tight hug, burying your face in his stomach. “I missed you, you big oaf. Where are you living, anyway?”

He chuckled. “I guess I have to figure that out, don’t I.”

“Were you expecting to stay with me?”

“Expecting is a strong word. Hoping might be more accurate, but it’s not like I’ll get the same sleep anywhere else that I got on that damn couch in your old office.”

“It should still be in my office; I insisted that they have it transferred to New Marineford. Maybe you can have Smoker steal it for you.” You shifted in his embrace. “Kuzan.”

“Yes.”

“You should kiss me.”

Kuzan pressed your head more firmly against his torso, no doubt trying to hide his reaction to your sudden request. “Oh? And why is that?”

“It might make me forgive you.”

He released your head and looked down with a soft smile. “Arara…you’ve sure changed over the years. The woman I know would never give up such an excuse to hold a grudge against me.”

“I want to forgive you.”

“For what, exactly?”

“...Leaving me?”

Kuzan was silent for a long moment. “Would you still want to forgive me if I told you I would make almost all the same decisions all over again? I have no remorse to offer you.”

“Remorse is not what I asked for. You wanna kiss me or not?”

Kuzan looked mildly startled. “You…”

“There you go with that again. You never told me what you were about to say…that time.”

…

Kuzan kissed you slowly, like he was afraid you would disappear before his eyes the second he pulled away. When he finally pulled back, his gaze was fixed on a point somewhere above your head.

“You are it for me.” You froze, waiting for him to continue. He finally looked down, meeting your eyes. “That is to say, you wrenched me from complacency. None of my small acts of rebellion, from the time I spent under Garp until now, could measure up to the enormity of my feelings for you. No empire I could hope to dismantle could produce enough scrap for me to build a barricade high enough to offer the love I bear you the protection it deserves.” He hesitated, then took a seat on the ground. “That is why I left. I am too simple a man to have parted myself from you for any purely political reason.”

“You left…”

“To create a world in which this can be cultivated.” Your eyes widened at the implications of his words. “You should have seen the look in your eye when I went to drop off my report after Marineford. I decided, in that moment, that I would rather turn the World Nobles into snow cones than ever see that look again.”

You grinned. “And that was before you even kissed me.”

“Like I said, there’s been no one else for me since we met. And there will be no one else. You…are it for me.” He huffed. “You are the first and last love of my life. Do with that what you will.”

“Who knew a little time apart could turn you into such a romantic.” You settled onto the ground next to him, although doing so made it harder to meet his gaze. “It’s the same for me. I…I didn’t even try to wait for you; hell, when I heard you joined up with Blackbeard, I even tried to make myself go and fuck someone else out of spite, but…”

“Again, like I said. You didn’t have to try to wait for me.” You looked over at him, just barely catching the teasing gleam in his eye. Your eyes narrowed at the shift in emphasis on the words in that sentence.

“There’s no way you could have known that I wouldn’t move on even if I tried.”

“...Observation haki.”

“Bullshit!”

“Perhaps. The truth is, I didn’t know. Although I am quite enjoying the idea that no one has touched you since I last had you under me.”

“Should have ended with you under me, you damn icicle.”

“Popsic—”

“Shut up.”

Kuzan patted your head and looked down at you with a fond smile. “I wouldn’t mind being under you. I have no other place to sleep tonight, after all.”

“Arara, Kuzan, are you whoring yourself out for a place to stay?”

“Yes. Let’s hope the dissolution of the World Government solves the housing crisis once and for all.”

“Hm…I don’t know. I quite like having you at my mercy.”

“No roof over my head could ever take that away from you.”

You stood up, dusted yourself off, and offered him your hand. A symbolic gesture, since he was obviously too heavy for you to actually help up. “Let’s go home.”

He took your hand. Another symbolic gesture. “Yes ma’am.”

#one piece #one piece x reader #aokiji #kuzan #aokiji x reader #kuzan x reader #this chapter is cheesy af but i can write what i want

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moonlightsonata08 · 12 days

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do u have any headcanons for ickis questionmark

slams the fucking door open

the question is not do i , but its…. how many do i have ;-) keep in mind that aahhh!!! real monsters is a very intense special interest of mine so its extremely personal to me. because of that, my HCs are also personal interpretation and may not be everyone's cup of tea. my experiences inform my perception of media, and thereby i will probably have a lot of biases. please dont make fun of me yall im paranoid as shit clears throat dramatically

look at him... he means everything to me... <3

autistic

so i am an avid autistic "ickis is autistic" truther. i want a fanfic where he gets diagnosed with the monster equivalent of autism and if nobody here will do it, well nelly i may just Do It Myself ! a lot of the stuff the gromble shits on him for, and much of what he is ostracized for by others is actually autistic traits if you look closely. warning this can make you see the show in a MUCH different light. i literally was not the same after i realized it. it kind of makes it about an autistic creature experiencing ableism and being victim blamed for it. story of my life :')

sensory issues. in season 2's "rosh-o-monster," he's quickly overstimulated by the opera singer in the theater theyre in. same season's "mayberry ufo", the harsh rocking of the carriage theyre on clearly stresses him out too.

in the season 2 episode "the ickis box", he develops a hyperfixation on televisions and building one. he also shows an example of stimming in this episode too with the way he starts grooving relentlessly to the television music in the beginning. there's even this quote here:

Ickis: I couldn't help it. I was swept away! It was all so magnificent. (from ahh real monsters wiki, linked later in this document!) i must also mention it's punk/rock music! again! this adds proof to my headcanon that he would probably be a punk enjoyer.

this was pointed out by another tumblr post headcanoning this too but at some point he even says " i wish i was a better judge of character." this is from the season 3 episode "cement heads", in which he's taken advantage of by the taffy gang to break them out of their gargoyle state. the post is here! i credit lots of my opinions to that because the media literacy is excellent here and it gave me Many ideas i did not think of initially.

this, secondly, was also borrowed from the tumblr post. he seems to have a budding possible special interest in human culture. i want to cite these episodes, "hats off", again "the ickis box", "into the woods", in which he even reached out to a human for help (bradley). and "monster blues", in which he develops a bond with a blind man. he seems to have like this general curiosity for stuff concerning it and whatnot. time and time again, hes shown to be the most open to the idea of humans even though his society is not.

this was thirdly also pointed out by the tumblr post. motor skill issues, which can be attributed to problems with proprioception. but i can cite an additional example. [the ep where he like has his foot run over by a car when trying to scare two teenagers. i can't remember the title. my source is: trust me bro. i will edit this when i figure out which one it was]

this is an obscure trait but he has a unique form of vocal tone. it could be called hyperexpressive vocal prosody. or a "sing-songy" tone. i like to attribute his expressiveness to autism as well.

he has had many moments in the series that resemble meltdowns/panic attacks.

different types of stimming as well. throughout the series he tends to pace back and forth, pull on his ears, or makes squeaks and voice cracks.

there is also echolalia present. here is a particular example… in the end of "wake me up when it's over", in which this exchange happens:

Oblina: Ickis, did you eat this skanky stuff? Ickis: Yes, I ate this skanky stuff. Oblina: Well, no wonder you have been sleep-scaring! Ickis: Well, no wonder I've been sleep-scaring! Oblina: And now you should be fine. Ickis: And now I should be fi… Is there an echo in here? (~transcript exerpt from here.)

overall my mind is obsessed with how well it depicts autism for me personally. like he depicts how i was my whole life, being blamed for things i can't really control. i cannot express enough how much ickis means to me as a character. because it means that again as i mentioned at the beginning, the stuff he gets ostracized for is autistic traits, it makes the story so tragic and fucked up when u think about it like this. it means everything to me and i cannot stop thinking about it.

adhd

interest-based attention and cognition. easily distracted and tends to procrastinate (literally transient throughout the series. his common procrastination and seeking for shortcuts on assignments, etc. its a rather common source of plot in the show.)

impulsivity. such as in "this is your brain on ickis."

rejection-sensitive dysphoria such as in season 2 episodes "monster blues", "spontaneously combustible", and other similar episodes. RSD is often associated with autism, adhd, and other types of conditions. i may add more adhd symptoms onto this if i find them when i rewatch the cartoon

generalized anxiety disorder, with panic attacks

in the NICKsclusive aahh!! real monsters interview, he was canonically described by his voice actor (charlie adler) as "neurotic", which is from the outdated psychological term "neurosis". it denotes symptoms of stress or mood disturbance. in colloquial use signifies a rather anxious, obsessive, or nervous person. i just thought this was interesting so i included it here.

his frequent anxiety and worries, especially in the earlier seasons. as generalized anxiety disorder is transient worry across many things in life, (i myself have it!)

okay ! now these next headcanons have less substantial proof than the others.

gender. orientation things

non-binary . he/they/it/xe. possibly also genderfluid or boyflux. again once again in "monster blues", he literally states "i'm not a boy, i'm a monster!". there are times where the show actually uses both masculine AND neutral titles for him. as for orientation i am not entirely sure. maybe bisexual or just queer?

miscellaneous

he would be punk if he had more exposure to it! in the episode with the punk/rock band (there is a clip of it online but i cant remember the name of the episode,) he clearly enjoys the music and is grooving relentlessly. also, the previous example i mentioned of the episode "the ickis box", too.

he would listen to dead kennedys and sex pistols absolutely. i dont know a Lot of punk bands though, so maybe i will add onto this once i listen to more.

i also feel like he would enjoy motorhead, megadeth, and possibly probably deftones and insane clown posse but i could be projecting haha. maybe classics like elvis as well. no i am totally projecting :') okay um that's some of my major ones. i am very autistic this is just over a thousand words. help.

#moonie infodumps

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thegirlwondcr · 7 months

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Continued from x @dogtccth

She wished her Robin training would kick in, if she was on the job maybe it would be easier to deny all he said. Ignore it and take it for simple poking. But she was not on the job. He was not trying to get to Robin, he was trying to get to Emma. The teen still was in deep denial, the statement had come off as completely obscure to her. It came from nowhere. When she’s given the multiple documents that proves it all to be true, she begins to tear up just before shaking her head, forcefully pushing the papers away. “Those are fake. It’s not real. This is just a trap.” It was more for her to tell herself rather than him.

“No. Bruce said it was all a dead end.” She did not want to think further of Bruce’s possible intentions. Had he known the entire time? Did he have some plan? He lost his last kid to the Joker…the timing was too perfect. A kid for a kid. “He would’ve told me.” She felt extremely nauseous, her entire was spinning upside down. It was difficult to tell what was worse: the Joker being her biological father or Bruce keeping a thing like that from her? She trusted him more than anyone in the world and the one answer she had been looking for her entire life he kept locked away. It was a difficult to find a reason.

Then there was the concept alone she was struggling to process. The Joker being her father. What the hell is she supposed to do with that information? Did he have any idea? Should she ever bring it up to him? Could she even encounter him as Robin? Bruce was already very strict regarding the rules of interacting with Joker…was it for her safety or was it because he knew? She hated how now she had to doubt every action Bruce has ever done. Did Bruce even want her? That is when her heart broke. “He would have told me.” She said again, this time confidence leaving her voice and heartbreak filling the void.

#//let the madness begin akskakd

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aaltoh · 2 days

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𝐇𝐎𝐍𝐊𝐀𝐈 𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐄: black/shores operative , a/alto

path: erudition combat type: wind faction: unknown ( black/shores ) on interactions: honestly a/alto can fit anywhere in the story. any time, any place. he already knows what's happened, has inklings on what's going to happen. he is always willing to part with information for the right price. and can offer his skillsets ( god he's got so many ) too, if the deal strikes him as fair. and if you think he doesn't know at least something about every character on the roster... you're sorely mistaken. a/alto is a skilled gunslinger, who has shown a very strange ability to evaporate into mist in the blink of an eye. he's charming, charismatic, and capable of talking circles around most people. that pleasant, welcoming demeanor makes his actual intent and motive much easier. being that he's an information broker by trade; a/alto is very perceptive, intelligent, and good at reading people. not to say of course he can't be genuinely friendly and great to be around...

he is willing to work with ( and has ) just about anybody. but each member of black shores has a great deal of freedom to operate however they see fit. so long as their aim and their actions continue to align with the organization. so that in mind, a/alto does have morals-- and there are lines he will not cross.

often times, a/alto can be seen traveling with a young girl with pink hair. encore is a staple in his story, and very important to him. and when asked he will keep it very simple; she is in a funny way, like family to him, but not. and though she refers to him as uncle a/alto from time to time-- he definitely takes on a direct parental role when he needs to. but does his best not to overstep.

black shores

just like in wu/wa , the black/shores is an organization who's sole purpose is to protect the universe from major threats. they do so however from the shadows, each one of it's members elusive & enigmatic in nature. again, the group doesn't seem to be picky when it comes to alignment. rather, so long as each member aims for their overarching goal-- they don't seem to care how they go about it. meaning some of the members can range in how violent, aggressive, or passive they are.

no one actually knows about black/shores. the ipc has some info, and they have had dealings with black/shores in the past. but are careful about asking too much. attempts in the past to push the black/shores organization into becoming a branch of the ipc has proven nearly impossible. as the black/shores has information on it's activities & methods that would cause a lot of problems for the ipc as a whole.

naturally, the icp keeps a healthy distance from them. and despite how terribly they wish to subsume black/shores-- they know better than to force it.

the aeon black/shores is aligned with is unknown. but it's assumed by the few who do know of the organization it might be nous, or HooH. and there are some who may believe they were once aligned with ena. a/alto argues the lack of importance in who or what the organization follows. all that matters is they mean to help? right?

galaxy rangers

a/alto has a LOT of dealings with various rangers. they are actually one of his main sources of trade. delivering them information on various locations, materials, people and even security codes or illegal documents. all sorts of things. in return he may ask for money, but sometimes he asks for obscure items-- things only he is likely to find value in. one of his favorite clients actually is boot/hill. not only does he always offer the best deals, but the cowboy has been very consistent in the quality of his work!!! now that's hard to find! once in a while he will offer him a 100% discount if the bounty / job he's doing really piques a/alto's interest.

the icp

he will rarely do business with members of the ipc. and even if he does, he tends to be quite picky, and choosy about who he deals with. bias is partially on me, but the ipc also doesn't seem like a/alto's cup of tea. he's not a fan of how they operate, and it's especially so when you consider how much he knows about it's operations...

#𝐀 𝐌𝐈𝐗𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐓𝐇 & 𝐋𝐈𝐄𝐒. / headcanon #gently... so gently sets this down #some spoilers under readmore. but theyre v small... ish #god the way i could make him a carrd #and just put it there #but uh m mm #no...#puts it where everyone can see

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mariacallous · 11 months

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Since announcing his presidential bid, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has made being “tough-on-crime” a cornerstone of his campaign. As purported proof of his track-record on public safety, he’s claimed that Florida “leads the nation” in crime reduction and is experiencing 50-year crime lows.

At the same time, he’s criticized “big progressive cities,” like Chicago, Philadelphia and Portland, Or. and blamed their justice reform policies for crime, while arguing that Florida’s pro-law enforcement stance is responsible for its relative safety.

The problem with these claims is that they are not only factually inaccurate, they also show just how little the presidential hopeful knows about crime in his own state—let alone the nation’s. DeSantis’ arguments deserve further investigation because they rely on inaccurate data that don’t (and can’t) paint the full picture of crime in Florida, obscures place-based variations and upticks in certain forms of crime across Florida, and contradicts the evidence on the relationship between criminal justice reform and crime.

Florida’s crime data are too flawed to claim 50-year lows

DeSantis can’t be sure that Florida has achieved 50-year crime rate lows because the state itself doesn’t know what its crime trends are, due to flawed data.

This is because, in 2021, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) was in the process of shifting from its traditional data collection system—the Summary Reporting System, which reports monthly crime counts and documents only the most serious offense in an incident—to align with new national FBI reporting standards, the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS), which includes a greater number of crimes and allows for the reporting multiple offenses within one incident. While the NIBRS system will be an important transition in the long-term for more accurate crime reporting nationwide, some state agencies, including FDLE, did not meet the FBI’s 2021 reporting deadline and were excluded from national crime statistics.

In the place of accurate FBI data, DeSantis is basing his claims about Florida’s crime rates on FDLE’s 2021 annual crime report. This report is methodologically flawed since a total of 239 agencies (covering about half the state’s population) reported their crime trends using the old Summary Reporting System methodology. Others submitted with the new NIBRS methodology, others did a mix of both, and some—including Hillsborough County, where Tampa is—didn’t enter data whatsoever, meaning they were excluded from the 2021 statewide crime trends that DeSantis regularly cites.

These methodological clashes in Florida’s crime reporting create gaps in information that make it difficult to definitively claim any statewide crime trends—let alone that the state has reached “50-year-crime rate lows.”

Florida cities lagged behind more “progressive” cities in crime reduction

DeSantis’ “tough-on-crime” rhetoric relies on state-level “total crime” data to argue that Florida outperforms more progressive places (particularly cities) in crime reduction. Even if Florida’s state-level data was accurate, this comparison wouldn’t make sense for two reasons.

First, it compares Florida’s state-level data with cities, while ignoring place-based patterns of crime concentration within Florida itself. Meaning, DeSantis’ claims don’t acknowledge the “neutralizing” effect that state data can have on crime trends, if some Florida cities experienced sharp upticks in crime while others saw declines.

Second, DeSantis’ claims rely on statewide “total crime” rates, which can also be misleading if certain minor crimes (like shoplifting or drug possession) went down across the state, while more serious crimes (like murder or rape) went up.

To help determine whether Florida cities have truly made progress in reducing serious crimes—and to see how they stand up to “more progressive” peers—we analyzed local police department data from the state’s four largest cities’ and compared their crime reduction rates with four other cities (Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Richmond, California) that are relatively “progressive” on criminal justice, many of which have shouldered their share of criticisms from DeSantis.

Our analysis finds that place matters when talking about crime trends, and the story DeSantis is telling about the state of Florida versus “big progressive cities” in other states is much more complex than he makes it seem.

Looking at changes in violent crime rates between 2019 (the year DeSantis took office) and 2021 (the most recent year data were available), we found that three of Florida’s largest cities—Jacksonville, Tampa, and Orlando—had significant upticks in violent crime. Tampa led the bunch with a 37% spike, then Jacksonville at 21%, and Orlando at 19%. Miami, on the other hand, saw its violent crime rate decrease by 8%.

Looking at other cities deemed “progressive” on criminal justice—Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Richmond, Ca.—all made more progress on reducing violent crime rates than Tampa, Jacksonville, and Orlando.

For instance, Richmond— which has embraced public health and community violence intervention approaches to reducing crime—reduced its violent crime rate by 20% during this period (during which violent crimes were spiking nationwide).

And New York City—one of DeSantis’ favorite targets and a city that has, for decades, championed safety through environmental design (such as cleaning up public spaces and train stations)—had the lowest violent crime rate of any in the sample in 2021 at 439 violent crimes per 100,000 people compared to Orlando’s 832 violent crimes per 100,000 people.

Our analysis makes it clear that there is no one “statewide” story that can be told about crime—and that many of Florida’s largest cities are not achieving the violent crime reductions that DeSantis claims.

“Progressive” criminal justice reform policies do not cause crime

DeSantis’ “tough-on-crime” message hinges on blaming progressive criminal justice reforms, like ending cash bail or electing a progressive prosecutor, for rising crime rates.

But the evidence on the relationship between criminal justice reform and crime rates do not support his claims. New York’s 2019 bail reform legislation, for instance, was found to have a negligible effect on crime rates. Progressive prosecution practices in cities like Philadelphia, too, have not led to crime increases. In fact, some cities like Boston and Baltimore, have actually reduced violent crime by stopping the prosecution of lower-level offenses, like nonviolent misdemeanors, which often make it hard for individuals to obtain a job or a loan due to criminal records, and can increase their likelihood of further criminal justice system involvement.

Importantly, the non-Florida cities in our sample have made significant strides in reducing violent crime through the kinds of “progressive” non-punitive approaches that DeSantis would call “soft-on-crime.” In Philadelphia, for instance, efforts to transform and clean vacant lots in high-poverty neighborhoods were associated with a 29% reduction in gun violence. Similar strategies are working in Chicago. And all four have “violence interrupter” programs, which have been associated with a 63% decrease in gun violence in the Bronx, and a 43% reduction in Richmond.

On the other hand, many of the “tough-on-crime” policies that DeSantis proposed in his criminal justice package—including permit-less carry and stronger penalties for drug crimes—are associated with higher violent crime rates and lasting reductions in social mobility for communities of color. So, when DeSantis argues that reducing crime requires punitive approaches over root-cause ones, it may be time to ask him what his tough-on-crime stance has done for Tampa, where violent crime rates are up nearly 40%.

When DeSantis compares “crime-ridden” cities like New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia to his “safe” state of Florida, it is important to remember there is much more context, nuance, and evidence underlying the picture he’s painting. DeSantis’ flawed statements on crime and safety matter—not just for winning campaigns—but for ensuring the safety and well-being of all Florida residents.

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lungthief · 11 months

Note

i saw you reblogged the post about insane stucky fic and was wondering if you had any old favorites… totally for science and not for recommendation purposes…

of course…there are a few stucky fics I hold very near and dear to my heart (granted i haven’t actively looked for stucky fics since like 2017 so these were a few of the Big Ones back in the day, nothing that obscure)

all the angels and the saints is my personal fave of all time <3 lots of catholic imagery/theology talk (which is kind of a running theme in these recs) w a really interesting exploration of how faith/lack thereof informs steve and bucky’s relationship alongside all of the events that make up their storyline (takes place pre-TFA through post-TWS). fun fact: this fic taught me who bertrand russell was

4 minute window is by the same author and i also adore it—mostly about steve and bucky trying to find each other and run away together post-TWS. fun, suspenseful, nice interactions w the other avengers too. the entire series of 4 minute window fics holds a special place in my heart, i reread them relatively frequently

ain’t no grave (can keep my body down) is a DOOZY. oh man. you gotta be in the right mindset to read this one bc it can get Intense when it comes to depictions of violence/bucky’s mental & physical health/how he was treated as the winter soldier/etc., but there are parts of it that are also really fuckin funny. takes place post-TWS as bucky is trying to deprogram himself and steve is trying to find him. it’s a very interesting fic stylistically—you get a lot of different writing styles based on the various POV characters. i haven’t read it in a while so im sure there are parts of it that have aged kinda poorly but i also just remember it being heart-wrenching and evocative and an overall very engaging read.

the last one i’ll mention is the not easily conquered series, which were like THE stucky fics back in the day. AU where steve doesn’t get frozen and instead goes on to marry peggy. lots of “found documents” in addition to typical narrative storytelling. really impressive series of fics even though ive only read them once

anyway. love stucky big fan of those guys unfortunately i don’t have any super varied recs bc i enjoy reading basically the same premise over and over again LOL

#ri answers #marvelous-goose

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rynmaru · 11 months

Text

Graduation

“Alright, that’s enough! Take five and get some water.”

Morien reached to help his sparring partner to her feet, slapping her on the back and earning a grin in return as he jogged over to the side of the ring to grab a water bottle and take a long swig. What he didn’t finish he poured over his head where it quickly soaked his buzzed blonde hair.

“Sir Morien.”

He turned, seeing a page standing at attention nearby.

“Yeah, that’s me,” Morien offered a reassuring smile, hoping to get the boy to relax.

“Lady Galahad has requested you meet with her in her office immediately,” the page said, eyes darting around to avoid looking at the almost-knight who towered over him. Morien remembered what that had felt like, though his sympathy was completely obscured by the feeling of his stomach twisting into anxious knots at the message.

What did his mother want with him in the middle of a training day?

He masked his anxiety smoothly, however, and nodded.

“Thank you. I’ll be right there.”

The page gave him an awkward salute and scurried away towards the drill instructor, presumably to inform him that Morien would be leaving the rest of that training session.

Heaving a sigh, Morien began the walk to the headmistress’s office, exiting the courtyard of the barracks and turning towards the north administrative wing. His long strides brought him through the series of uniform hallways to a more ornate section in a matter of minutes. He stopped in front of a huge mahogany door, carved with an intricate design of vines and flowers, and took a steadying breath.

He wiped his hands on his pants to make sure they were clean before he knocked.

“Come in.”

Opening the door, Morien stepped inside, blinking in the brilliance of the sunbathed room, illuminated by the floor to vaulted ceiling windows. Calista Galahad sat behind her desk in an imposing leather chair that managed to dwarf even her tall frame. Her gold and lily-white dress looked almost out of place in its elegance considering her position as head administrator for Round Table, the top personal guard training facility in the system, but Morien knew her better than that. He was well aware of the steel resolve and rapier intellect she wielded. It was the reason she had sat behind that desk longer than any other administrator.

He saluted, “Good afternoon, Lady Galahad.”

His mother barely glanced up from what she was working on.

“Morien, good. I’m glad you came. We need to talk.”

His stomach dropped. That never boded well. Perhaps his training scores had dropped or maybe he had been too rough with a classmate. Mother never took a personal interest unless it was something serious.

“At ease. Please, take a seat.”

Doing as he was told, Morien crossed to the one chair set directly across from his mother in almost the dead center of the room, his footsteps muffled on the plush carpet. He should have double checked that he had wiped his feet well before entering.

He wanted to know why he had been called in, but knew better than to speak up. The extended silence and the perusing of documents on her desk may indicate that the floor was open, but in this office it never really was. So he sat mute. As always.

Finally his mother looked up, turning her dark brown eyes on him, her gaze raking him from head to toe, searching for any flaw, no matter how minuscule.

He somehow managed to square his shoulders and straighten his spine even more.

“Your graduation is this weekend, isn’t it?” The cool, detached tone made Morien’s throat tighten with an emotion he couldn’t name. Maybe anger. Maybe hurt.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And how do you feel about that? Qualified? Nervous? Excited?”

Morien hesitated, unsure where the unusually personal questions were coming from.

“I feel as though I’ve been thoroughly prepared to step into my role as personal guard for my ward.”

“I see. So you’ve tailored your skills to be the perfect bodyguard for him?”

“No, ma’am, that would be shortsighted. I’m more than prepared to handle any situation regardless of if I’m guarding my ward or him and his family as a whole.”

“More than prepared…” Calista Galahad gathered the papers she had been reading over, tapping them against the surface of the desk to bring them into a unified whole. “Confidence is commendable, but be careful it doesn’t turn to arrogance. Arrogance gets you killed.”

Morien tensed, that had been a stupid choice of words on his part.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“It’s a good thing you have prepared yourself for an array of potential wards.”

“Ma’am?”

A pause. A held breath. The second before the gavel strikes.

“I��m afraid I have some bad news regarding your future employment.”

Calista leaned on the desk, folding her hands together as she gazed at her son across the barricade that was her desk. Her gaze softened, and Morien knew this meant the news was something catastrophic.

“Theodore Triumvirate is dead.”

The bottom dropped out of Morien’s stomach and he gripped the arms of his chair tightly.

“Excuse me…can you say that again…?”

Calista sighed softly and nodded, “Theodore Triumvirate is dead, Morien. He was killed in an attempted kidnapping last night.”

Morien stared at his mother, a storm of emotion brewing on his normally neutral face. Shock. Confusion. Grief. Anger. Fear.

“I understand that this is a lot to process,” standing, Calista walked around the wall of her desk and approached her son, resting a hand on his shoulder. “Before we discuss anything further, I want to remind you that his death is not your fault. It did not happen while he was your ward, you were not capable of stopping the attack from here, and this will have no poor reflection on you for your future prospects. You will, of course, receive the highest recommendation from the Galahad family wherever you go seeking employment.”

Looking up, Morien had to turn his head to properly see his mother. He recognized the expression of sympathy she wore, it was one skillfully created for just such occasions. His mother never ceased being the daughter of a diplomat it seemed, even after marrying into the Galahad family.

“What do you mean “seeking employment”? I…I can be transferred to another Triumvirate ward, right?”

The crafted expression his mother wore softened around the eyes and the mouth into something far more complex. Sympathy. Regret. Concern.

“There are no other Triumvirates requesting personal guards at this time.”

Her words simply did not register. That couldn’t be right.

“If…if it’s a lot of paperwork I can help with that, I don’t mind.”

“Morien-“

“Or I can squire for Lance or Kay. Just until one of their wards have children. Be ready for when that happens-“

“Morien.”

“Or maybe-“

“Morien!” His mother’s raised voice snapped his focus back to her, eyes pleading, hands gripping the arms of the chair tight enough to crack the lacquered polish on the wood, clinging to the last shred of hope that perhaps the situation was not completely unsalvageable.

“There are no other Triumvirate wards to guard and squiring is beneath someone of your skill set. Should the time come where a new child is born or a new family is brought in, you will be the first we call to connect with them. But for now you will have to seek out other employment.”

Morien’s head dropped down, his grip on the chair relaxing as he slumped forward and put his head in his hands. Calista gave his shoulder a squeeze and then returned to her desk, sitting down and reaching for one of the many folders stacked before her, pulling it from the lower middle of the pile.

“Your father and I have discussed this situation and have agreed that you may stay at the family home for three months, during which time you are expected to be actively seeking out new employment and accommodations. With your skill set, finding such things should not pose much of a challenge. We will also provide you with several contacts who may be able to get you in touch with potential wards, but the burden of action is on you. Your stay at the family home ends a month from your graduation date, no exceptions.”

Morien lifted his head and sat up straight, the clipped, briefing style communication woke the soldier in him and the soldier knew how to control his emotions. These were just orders, and orders he could act on.

He nodded as his mother paused to allow for a response.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Calista tapped the folder with one finger, “I will give you this when you graduate, it will contain all the pertinent information to get you started.”

She fixed him with a stern gaze. “And one more thing, Morien. We do not need to know where you end up, but I would remind you that your duty to the Galahad legacy is something that remains paramount regardless of who you work for. Your actions will always reflect on the family. Never forget that you are a Galahad. Always act like one. Understood?”

Jaw set, Morien nodded again, curtly.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Sitting back, Calista’s shoulders relaxed, a sure sign that the conversation was wrapping up. For once, Morien wished it wouldn’t. He needed the distraction. Something to hold his focus other than the utter ruin of his future.

“I’m sure you have a lot you would like to process. I’ve cleared your schedule for the rest of the day-“

“Excuse the interruption, ma’am,” Morien spoke up quickly. “I would like to continue with my schedule for today. My training is my priority and I want to make the most of the time I have remaining here at the barracks.”

Calista paused, raising an eyebrow, then nodded, seeming pleased with his response.

“Very good, Morien. Your dedication is admirable. You may return to your training as usual.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Morien stood, shifting to a position of military ease as he waited to be told he could leave.

“One last thing, Morien. Have you submitted your callsign request?”

“Not yet, ma’am. I’ve not…decided.”

“The deadline to decide was yesterday, Morien.”

So why did she ask if she already knew he had not submitted the request? Typical.

“I know. I’m sorry, ma’am.”

“The time for deliberation is over. If you have an idea, that’s what you’ll have to go with or we will have one assigned to you.”

The very suggestion of that made Morien sick. Just one more thing he wouldn’t have control over.

“I…I can provide one now.”

Calista nodded and picked up a pen as she took a sheet of paper from his file and pushed it across the desk towards him.

“Permission to approach, ma’am?”

“Permission granted.”

Morien loosened his posture and walked over. He had to stoop to write his name on the page. It was underlined in red, but his mother still tapped it with one French manicured finger like he would miss it. He hesitated as the nib of the pen touched the paper, ink pooling and spreading in the fibers. Hesitation was not becoming of a Galahad. He wrote his name and pushed the paper back to his mother.

Calista took it, looking it over as she put the pen back in a black and silver container and lined it up with the others within perfectly. A complete matching set, not a single member out of place.

“Mordred.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“An interesting choice.”

Morien did not respond to that. He doubted his mother cared to hear the reasoning behind it.

The silence stretched as Calista filed the paper away neatly and put Morien’s folder in a nearby filing drawer.

“Dismissed, Mordred.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Turning sharply on his heel, he exited the office. The massive mahogany door clicked shut behind him, but he did not allow himself time to linger or decompress from the conversation. There was no time for that. Squaring his shoulders, Mordred returned to his training.

#the gemini paradox #lancer #lancer rpg #lancer battlegroup #lancer ttrpg #morien galahad #stream team #my oc shit #original character #lancer pilot #lancer the mech rpg

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