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twstwinnie · 2 years

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The way you wrote for floyd in a relationship was so well written! Could I request one for Jamil?

♝ With You ~ Jamil Viper

summary: in a relationship with Jamil Viper! Same three categories! Crushing, Confession, and Relationship shenanigans!

tags: hurt/comfort, fluff, mutual pining, gn! reader

a/n: thank you so much for this request!! And I’m glad you enjoyed the Floyd version of this! I’m really glad y’all are enjoying these! I wanted to do one for Jamil, so I’m really happy someone requested it! I hope you all enjoy this one! spoilers for book 4 ahead!

♝ starry - eyed !

» If you want the picture perfect definition of denial, Jamil is it. It takes him incredibly long to actually realizes that he has a crush on you. So long in fact that pretty much everyone else realizes it aside from you and him. It’s clear as day though. The way he looks at you— treats you. It’s clear that he adores you.

» However, it’s not as if his denial comes from a refusal to admit his feelings. Rather, they come from a place of self-preservation. Jamil has never been granted the things he wanted in life. He’s always used to giving up what he wants to serve Kalim— to stay in the shadows. That’s how his life has always been, so why would it be any different with you? Wouldn’t he be a fool to give himself that false hope? To think for a second that maybe he could be with you?

» He doesn’t want to disappoint himself, so it’s better for him not to face his feelings. Though, that proves to be very difficult.

» At first, he can get away with claiming that he just enjoys your company. That he likes being around you because you don’t expect him to act a certain way or do things for you. He likes spending time with you because it’s a break from reality— it’s a break from being a servant. Though, as you two steadily spend more time together, he finds less and less excuses to justify spending time with you.

» He could study on his own, yes, but he chooses to walk with you to the library to study instead. Why? Well… he doesn’t have an answer. He lines up his schedule so that he just happens to be free after your club activities so he can walk you back to your dorm, or maybe spend time with him. Jamil may claim it’s because he wants to keep you safe, but in reality, he doesn’t have a solid answer. He could spend his weekends having time to himself, but before he knows it, he’s texting you, asking if you have any plans.

» Eventually, he can’t deny having an answer as to why. He knows why. No longer able to run from the truth, he just admits it. He adores you. Absolutely smitten with you. The way you always help him without a word— the way you make time for him— the way you treat him not as a spectacle, but just as a normal person— he can’t help it. You’ve made his life easier, given him more reasons to smile. Occasionally, you even help Kalim study or keep him distracted just so Jamil can have a few hours to himself.

» You’ve done so much for him. Isn’t only natural that he develops such strong romantic feelings towards you?

» Once he finally comes to terms with his crush, that’s when his behavior starts to change. He’ll go out of his way to ask you if you need assistance and take pride in being able to help you, no matter what it is. If you’re worried you’re giving him extra work, he’s quick to reassure you. If it’s you, he’s more than happy to help out.

» With his crush, your compliments start to take more effect. If you watch his basketball practices and compliment his skills, he’ll immediately pull his hood up and hide his face to conceal the raging blush on his cheeks. Seeing you in the crowd at his games always makes him incredibly excited and motivated, and it shows in the way he always searches for your eyes after every point he makes. He has more fun when you’re there watching him.

» Although you do see him when he’s having fun, he also knows that he can talk to you about his struggles. You never bat an eye, and you’ll give him your full, undivided attention as he vents about his frustrations. You never judge him, always quick to reassure that you’re there. If you can make his life easier, you will do anything to help. It always makes Jamil’s heart flutter. You already make his life worlds better. He wishes so badly that he could just… tell you.

» Being friends is nice, but he finds himself envisioning what dating you would be like more and more. Holding hands, hugging, kissing you, having you spend the night in his dorm, no longer having to worry that you’ll be swept away before he knows it… for the first time, he longs so badly for something and knows that he has to do something about it.

» But… would confessing ruin what you two have? Would he lose you? He thinks about that one day while gazing at you from afar during lunch. After one longing sigh too many, both of his clubmates groan, having joined him for lunch that day.

» “Sea Snake, just say something to them! Sittin’ here whinin’ gets you nothing!” Floyd insists. Ace nods in agreement.

» “I have to agree, Viper-senpai. I mean— staring from afar won’t do you any good! Pretty much everyone aside from them knows that you like them! If you never say anything, they’ll never figure it out! If you want something, then take the leap! It’s only a matter of time before someone else does and you lose your chance!” Ace insists, a rather annoyed expression on his face. Jamil deadpans at them both and they’re quick to change the topic, but he keeps their advice in mind.

» He knows they’re right. He doubts he’s the only one that adores you— that wants to be with you. Jamil is used to losing for other people’s sake— not showing off or flaunting. You always insist he should, but understand his circumstances. However, he knows that this is something he doesn’t want to miss out on.

» Jamil cannot miss his chance with you. So he will do whatever it takes to confess— to finally take that step forward and have the honor of calling you his.

♝ say the words !

» Jamil wants to go about his confession carefully. He’s always been the type to plan things far in advance, and admittedly, he’s a bit of a perfectionist. He wants to impress you— to show you just how much you mean to him. He can’t just… be impulsive and spew out a confession without another thought. He was sure if he tried, he’d stumble over his words and back out due to embarrassment. He wanted to do this right.

» He scraps many ideas. He doesn’t want to be cheesy, or go with something too fake feeling. It has to be genuine— he wants to be able to portray his feelings in the most honest way possible to you. Being too flashy, overly romantic… it just isn’t him. He could shower you with gifts and flowers, cook you a large feast and write you a beautiful confession to boot, but none of that feels true to him. It’s far too out of character.

» Eventually, he settles less on scripting the confession, and more on giving himself the proper opportunity and atmosphere to confess. He decides that he’ll invite you to the next party at Scarabia, pull you aside to the balcony for a moment alone under the desert skies, then he’ll just let the words flow. A genuine, intimiate conversation alone, away from the fray. That feels more comfortable. More like himself. So it quickly solidifies as his plan.

» The next party comes quickly and he invites you as planned. You insist on helping with party preparations, but Jamil manages to convince you otherwise. He needs the time alone. He comes up with a bunch of excuses, of course not wanting tu admit that he needed some time to mentally prepare and rehearse what to say— how to open up the conversation.

» The entire school day before the party he’s incredibly nervous. He knows that he wants to do this, but isn’t quite prepared for how you might react. His fellow classmates notice, and his club members are quick to realize he’s out of it when a ball hits him square in the face. Floyd and Ace tease him to no end about it, knowing exactly why he’s in the state he’s in. It’s not hard to conclude given his fluster, but he denies it anyway.

» Soon, he’s preparing for the party and stumbling over things he usually wouldn’t. He’s grateful though because his dormmates are quick to assist him— showing him sympathy and wishing him luck. Jamil has no idea how him confessing became such widespread news, but he figures that maybe it’s best not to question it. He needs all of his focus on you.

» When the party comes around, he enjoys it with you by your side for a while. As the night progresses, things get more lively and he’s quick to notice you getting a bit tired. The perfect moment. He invites you to join him outside for a breather and you agree with a smile, following him out onto the balcony into the cold desert air.

» At first, it’s silent. You’re both staring up at the stars, enjoying a quiet moment away from the bustling celebration indoors. Jamil can’t help but look over at you. His heart flutters— seeing you underneath the starry sky, bathed in the moonlight. You look amazing, and that longing sings loudly one more. It’s now or never.

» “Hey… can I tell you something?” He starts, a bit hesitant as he stands beside you. You hum in response.

» “Sure. I’m always here to listen, Jamil. You know that.” You glance over at him. He takes a deep breath, placing his hand over yours on the railing before finally meeting your gaze.

» “I… like you. I have for a while, now. You don’t have these crazy expectations that everyone else does. You know who I really am. You know how much I have to downplay my own abilities because of my job as a servant. You’ve always been so understanding and I… I’m not used to getting things I want. But I want to be with you. I don’t want to give this up. I can’t give this up. I like you. Will you go out with me?” He averts his gaze, afraid of your response.

» After a few moments of silence, he finally looks at you, feeling his face flush upon seeing your wide eyes and bright smile. You nod excitedly, intertwining your fingers with his and leaning against him as you laugh softly.

» “Absolutely. I thought you’d never ask.” You respond joyously. Jamil feels waves of relief, leaning his head atop yours as he enjoys your warmth by his side.

» This time, he doesn’t try to hide the smile adorning his expression.

♝ at last , with you !

» As private of a person as Jamil is, news of your relationship spreads like wildfire. Why? Because Jamil isn’t subtle at ALL with how happy he is to finally be with you. He can brush it off with people like Kalim, who won’t bat an eye, but then club time rolls around. You stop by to drop something off for Jamil, and the way he smiles as he watches you walk away speaks volumes for his peers.

» Floyd and Ace are the first to find out because of this. They tease him endlessly, but he can’t find it in him to care because for once— for once in his life— he got to have something he wanted. A genuine relationship with a person he loves so much. Admittedly, as much as the pair tease, they think it’s nice. Ace looks up to you with how kind you are. You always lend a hand and occasionally, you’ve tutored him when he was too scared to ask Riddle. He’s glad Jamil found you. Floyd finds you just as intriguing as he finds Jamil. Seeing you both together is very fitting, he things. But additionally, it’s nice to see Jamil have a sort of genuine happiness around you. Maybe others don’t notice it, but he usually fakes how happy he is. Floyd thinks you must be fun if you can make someone as serious as Jamil genuinely joyous. So he’s happy for you both.

» However, Floyd and Ace have never been ones to keep quiet, so the news spreads. Floyd tells the others at Octavinelle, Ace tells Heartsabyul, Cater tells Kalim— and oh boy if anyone is excited, it’s one Kalim Al-Asim. He’s wanted Jamil to find someone to make him happy for a while now, and you? You’re exactly what Kalim had in mind for his friend and more. You’re always so patient with Kalim when you tutor him. If he asks, you come to his Light Music club performances— plus, you always help him out when he’s having trouble! He’s so happy that Jamil has someone like you tu rely on.

» So happy that he insists on throwing a celebratory party on Jamil’s behalf. He tries to insist otherwise, but eventually laments and tells you about it. You both laugh about it because it’s so unequivocally Kalim. You help Jamil with the party preparations, so he can’t find it in himself to mind too much. Cooking with you feels so… natural in a way. Having you there, in perfect sync with him, not having to worry about you messing up or anything— it’s enjoyable. You two finish pretty quickly and enjoy a rather upbeat party.

» Honestly though, you both sneak away to spend some time alone. While the party goes on I’m the background, you stay with Jamil in his room, laid next to him, curled into his side. You two talk about whatever to pass the time, laughing together, getting a few hours of privacy to enjoy just… being together.

» Moments alone with you are Jamil’s favorite thing. So many of your dates will reflect that. They’re always private, intimate. Movie nights in, star gazing together in the woods, sometimes even late nights spent in each other’s arms. You don’t need an excuse to spend time together anymore. You both plan out dates when your schedule aligns and do whatever you feel fits best for how you’re both feeling.

» A lot of the times, you two will go off to isolated parts of campus and sit together. During lunch, before clubs— whenever possible. Jamil will lay his head in your lap as you gently run fingers through his hair. He enjoys the attention, and you’re happy because it gives him a break from the countless stresses of his day to day life. You’re more than happy to indulge him.

» Though, your relationship changes after his overblot. Jamil fully expects to lose you. He mentally prepares himself, but you stay. Admittedly, you’re hurt. Of course you are, but you’re able to recognize that Jamil was pushed to this point because he was hurting more. An unimaginable amount. It’s from that day forward that Jamil absolutely trusts that he can tell you anything— even his most venomous thoughts— without judgment. He won’t scare you away. And that’s relieving to him because he couldn’t bear the thought of losing you.

» With you, he’s able to recognize that his hatred for Kalim isn’t that at all. That it’s a projection of his hatred for his circumstances— a desire for things to be different. His relationship with Kalim has to slowly be repaired, and you help with that. You help ease his fears and worries, take care of him when things get rough— hug him tightly when he cries. When he becomes too overwhelmed, when he’s heard people call him a monster one too many times, you hold him, whisper soft reassurances to him, make him food and keep him company.

» You make sure he’s taken care of. You make sure he knows that he’s loved. With you, Jamil feels like himself. He feels like he doesn’t have to face his issues alone anymore. Because in the face of an overblot, betrayal, distrust, and lies, you didn’t turn away. You stood strong and embraced him after he snapped out of his overblot. You stayed by his side during his recovery, and loved him even stronger in the wake of the event.

» You’ve always had him in mind. And Jamil is incredibly grateful to have you. You keep him in check, warm his heart, but most importantly to him—

» You show Jamil that he is more than the circumstances of his birth. That he deserves to be praised for his accomplishments— that he can do as he desires. To you, Jamil isn’t someone else’s shadow.

» He’s your partner. And as much as Jamil hates titles, even he has to admit that being called “yours” is a title he will always be proud to have.

— fin.

#twisted wonderland fanfiction #twisted wonderland x reader #twst fanfic #twst x reader #twisted wonderland #twst #disney twisted wonderland #twst jamil #twst jamil x reader #jamil viper x reader #jamil viper #twst headcanons #jamil viper headcanons #winnie-writes #winnie-wishes

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spiderpussinc · 9 months

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Like holy shit. Like that Poly-Anon, what the hell are they on?

You never said you hate poly people or open marriages or anything. Are they Mr. Fantastic cuz boi if that wasn’t a STRETCH!

But yeah, sure we can have the poly relationship, hell I read that shit all the time. I even have some sketches of it in progress. But by far my favorite is divorce!Peter.

You get so much more ideas and history with that. Peter dealing with no longer being with someone he loves, learning how to deal with that while getting feeling with Miguel. Maybe he never even liked MJ that way and couldn’t realize that he was gay and only saw her as a friend until recently.

Hell for extra spice and drama, have it so Mayday still exists during the divorce AU. Have Peter trying to figure out how to be a single dad while figuring himself. Maybe Miguel is fighting to understand if he likes Peter that way or if he just sees himself in him.

Divorce is so liberating for people and it can be so with these people. So many ideas can come from it. I don’t know why so many people hate it when we write or draw divorce.

I think the answer is a pretty clear and loud "homophobia" and this recent insistence on progressive circles to paint same-sex attraction as "inherently limiting" or "biased"; which are both absolutely /insane/ takes. You can't be a man and *JUST* like men, that's a waste! That's suspicious! That sounds like an ulterior motive! (Being gay is passe to a certain type of terminally online guy. Real enlightened allies would fuck anyone at any time! Words don't mean anything!!!!!)

People's insistence to read any interest in m/m relationships as a malicious attack designed to prod at *them* in particular is so fucking tiresome. The world does not revolve around you. Nobody has to care for straight ships and it's not revolutionary to try to reinforce them as a holy central aspect in characterization or storytelling. It's not more dignified or substantial. You just think straight people are inherently 'neutral' or pure because they dominate the media field.

My preferences and my gay art exist in a minuscule internet bubble that doesn't endanger or erase the fact that Marvel is a rampantly cishet company. I can do whatever I want and it doesn't matter; they will keep publishing the same thing they've been publishing. But I *HAVE* had my art stolen multiple times now to be reposted on tiktok or resold on etsy with any gay/trans elements I've put on it scrubbed out - to appeal to this very same straight audience -and that pisses me off. I am not trying to cater to these people and never will. I *HAVE* had my gay art used as a point of ridicule against me for years; and tbh it does nothing to me anymore but I refuse to quietly accept this treatment as default.

I don't have to center the experience of M/F nuclear family in my gay art and I won't; it does not appeal to me, I don't care for it, and I cannot be talked into changing my mind. Anyone finding an issue with this should go outside and touch grass.

Evergreen tweet, really:

If i say "i like these two gay dudes, I would like to see them kissing" and you hear something else about someone completely unrelated, that sounds like a skill issue

#asks

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kendrixtermina · 1 year

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On Emotional Awareness – The Revenge of the feels.

I hadn’t put these on tumblr & it occurred to me that I probably should

General points.

Overall it tends to be generally assumed that ppl know and can express or tell you their feelings since we’re bombarded from all sides by displays of such if we turn on the radio or TV or just listen to our friends & family expounding upon whatever is, but if you’ve picked up any self-help or couples advice book, or indeed gotten into typology, you’ll find that this is not always self-explanatory.

Now, I personally have never had this problem, but it's worth noting that, though this is not always acknowledged or given its due weight, learning to interpret/ map your feelings is an actual skill that ppl need to learn. All people.

A baby/toddler doesn't know what's happening to them at all - they just start bawling & throwing a tantrum once a certain threshold of distress is reached - if you have younger siblings or cousins you may have oserved that sometimes babies get really cranky in the evening cause they can't yet distinguish anger/irritation from tiredness.

This is where the parents are supposed to come in and help you learn, for example, by mirroring your state back to you – first, through their reactions & responses such as comfort, eye contact, touch, and sympathetic reactions.

You might also notice that sometimes mothers will narrate what the baby is doing - (‚Are we sleepy/grumpy/excited today?‘)

This gives the child some vocabulary to describe their experience & a chance to associate their inner states with words. Paying attention to the child’s feelings also signals that this is important, salient information, just like pointing out colors and shapes teaches a baby to pay attention to colors.

Once the child is a little bit older and has picked up some words, the parent can then ask the child about their feelings, for example by asking them why they engaged in some bad behavior, encouraging the child to reflect on their own motivations.

Eventually a feedback loop arises and the child becomes able to self-regulate.

If you are a parent, this is part of your job as much as potty training or teaching your kids to speak and bathe themselves –

Books or TV shows geared at small children also feature narration explaining the characters’ feelings for this reason.

But sometimes the parents just want the kid to shut up & don't make noise so rather than doing any of the above things they just say „shut up!“ or dole out harsh punitive measures.

In that case, the above learning doesn’t really happen; What the child learns instead is, at best, to shut up, and at worst, that the parents are to be feared.

In some western cultures (founded as they are on the patriarchal and discipline-heavy roman civilization) even well-meaning parents do this because of bogus cultural values like "girls don't fight" or "boys don't cry" etc.

In particular we seem to think that boys don’t need crucial life skills like self-regulation (or cooking or cleaning.)

& due to the bias of male hyperagency even nominally ‚feminist’ sources often phrase this as being about making sure the boy doesn‘t grow up to exploit or be a jerk to his girlfriend.

He may be a lazy jerk if he chooses to do so but most crucially, if your son leaves your house without important life skills you have failed him as a parent – thats why you see so many dudes shooting themselves after divorces or work-related failures.

Obviously some personality type combinations are going to be more or less "talented" at learning emotional awareness (eg. a Fi dom 4 is going to pick up awareness of their feelings even if the parents are horrible and ignore them completely cause this is where their attention constantly goes. Which isn't necessarily a blessing, since they'd mainly be noticing how awful they feel about being ignored by their parents and be stuck constantly "looking" at that pain.)

Even so it’s important to realize that this is a learnable skill that can be practiced & learned despite different talent levels. (with the caveat that there might be conditions such as autism, depression or ptsd creating extra difficulties for some)

Everyone who can do it learned it at some point and if you’re lagging behind you can teach yourself, if not quite with the effortlessness of a well-cherished toddler.

So I’d like to encourage you to think of feelings detection hangups less as something specific to particular types (like, say, the competency triad) and more as yet another fixable self-awareness deficit – though type may of course influence level of talent as well as the particular ways such feelings detection deficits might manifest.

Still if you read or listen to ppl’s experiences on the internet you will find examples of low awareness individuals of almost all types.

Like with the detecting shapes example, not everyone needs to be a master painter or tell apart 30 shades of purple, but everyone ought to leave kindergarten with enough understanding of basic shapes & colors for the needs of daily life.

An interesting contrasting example is the Inuit culture – outside visitors often find the ppl there remarkably even-tempered. That is because there is culturally a great taboo against yelling at children & a big emphasis on teaching awareness of feelings – one example is that if a child misbehaves, the parent might ask at a later point in time why the child doesn’t do the bad behavior – eg „why don’t you hit me right now?“ Usually the kid won’t want to do so when they’ve long since calmed down, which makes them notice the difference between the current calm state & how they were angry during the acting out.

Type-specific hangups.

1 – the chief issue here is that 1s constantly evaluate everything including themselves. Is this the correct feeling for this situation? Is this the appropriate amount thereof? There can be the concern that feeling the „wrong“ thing to an „excessive“ amount could make you biased, „selfish“, „out of control“ or „bad“.

In the extreme you might be clamping down on any impulse no matter what it is before you have a time to „sample“ it – though, even if it doesn’t get that far, pleasure & anger in particular can be treated as suspect unless „justified“. Plus there can be a tendency to convert other things into anger or frustration (that last bit being somewhat common to all the impulse types)

2 – generally a high expressiveness type, but also a positive one. There is a tendency to cultivate positive feelings towards oneself and others (reminding oneself of positive, loveable qualities of either oneself, if criticised, or those one wishes to keep the peace with) so that feelings perceived as „unappealing“ like anger, frustration ambition or need can be repressed out of awareness.

Anger, resentment and disappointed expectations are common candidates… until it can’t be repressed anymore and the person hits the line to 8 and goes poof.

3 – probably the one that most commonly reports/ struggles with getting somewhat numbed out, either because they’re too focussed on the ‚social‘ emotions they’re supposed to be performing, or sort of put them off because there’s always stuff to do. Whereas 1s clamp down on already existing reactions (which is only possible to a limited extent) and 5s try not to get worked up in the first place (but once a reaction is there, its there), 3 is the one type that can really „flip a switch“, that is, squeeze all the attention into the compartment with the planning & impulses. But the „stuff“ is never far behind since one always has to leave one figurative toe in the dominant center (through which one is percieving the environment) so this often leads to busy compulsive activity and a „flight“-style adversity coping style.

Since the heart is in its own „compartment“ there can be the impression that making time for feelings means paralysis – plus, the more counterdependent 3s might see it as a liability/vulnerability or think showing struggles make them unappealing or „weak“.

4 – overall the least likely type to have this problem since its attention pattern is one of constant interpretation of one’s inner experience, (rather more likely to over-focus on one’s feelings), but there can still an issue of disowning or dismissing sentiments that seem too simple, banal or generic, like harmless silly fun or being upset over an everyday triviality. It might help to look for the reasons for your upset in the recent past & everyday circumstances. If anything else, those are more easily solveable. Also, even if you happened to like the same problematic elf as half of tumblr and are somewhat embarassed of this, sometimes authenticity means admitting that. And at least refusing to touch the most popular ship or universally accepted headcannons for him

5 – tends to be inattentive toward and uncomfortable with physical experience, and hence not very plugged into the sort of body sensations that are of course one possible ways to track your feelings. Also, due to a fairly neutral base mood and an not entirely conscious avoidance toward anything that’s distracting or exhausting there isn’t always something to notice, so it doesn’t take that lacking an environment for one of these to make it to adulthood without cultivating much of a sense for this, though it’s by no means universal (outward expressiveness or comfort with talking about stuff being separate variables - Plus on the lower levels most feelings that did happen would center on their pursuits or inner fantasies rather than being invested in external objects or people.)

6 – another type that can easily have low awareness – they’re wired to first look for the source of problems in the external world. Buying a car with a high safety rating as response to feeling scared checks out, but suspecting your gf is cheating just because you feel jealous doesn’t – in that case the cause is internal, it’s just your jealous feeling. But as the thinking can be disconnected from feelings or impulses the person may not realize how they’re influenced by feelings.

Also if they do notice their feelings, they might then endlessly second-guess the feelings and their perception of them or wonder if the feelings are morally correct or „weak“.

Some 6s very much desire to appear (or even suceed at being) stoic & in-control, though warmth, panic or anger are seldom too far from the surface. The more controlled/„rigid“ 6s in particular can sort of the prototypical person that’s calm on the surface but has a lot of passion underneath.

7 – 7s tend to mostly externalize their feelings, expressing them outwardly right away rather than inwardly processing them, plus the heart is their least used center. Normally this mostly means that their feelings tend to be a bit ‚diffuse‘ with not very differentiated labels & distinguishing but a few states. (especially the ExTPs/ Fi polRs) – However they can have a particular avoidance of & sometimes refusal to acknowledge fear & sadness, leading to a constant activity/ „flight“ pattern of avoidance & when the heart gets like really shut down on the lower average levels you do see individuals reporting some rather empty, numb or restless states where nothing quite seems to get them the satisfaction they seek (this is also probably how depression would show in one of these)

8 – Sort of similar to 7 as the other „heart last“ type in that inner perception tends to be somewhat ‚diffuse‘ even in average ppl, and that lower health states can involve feeling restless and numbed-out. Though the most avoided or repressed feelings are rather emotional hurt and genuine attachment or desire for it. (as that could be „exploitable“) and its not avoided through flight behavior but rather drowned out through intensity seeking(„fuck the pain away“), vented through punitive „acting out“ (ie. Covered by anger) or flat out denied.

9 – another one where low feelings awareness is not uncommon, particularly on the individuals that go so hard on the „best not to think too much about challenging things“ assumption to the point that it leads to little follow up questions or introspection. Also 9 tend to sometimes diffuse their impulses somewhat (so that helpful hints like „i want to punch that bastard!“ dont always appear in consciousness), are sensitive to strongly agitated states (like big feelings) and defense wise tend to to calm themselves down „hardware side“ in response to them, using creature comforts, which might be reasonable for short term or genuinely unfixable issues but may prevent the dots-connecting, processing and addressing on issues that should & could be solved.

All of these come with the big blinking neon arrow caveat that generally Fi types in the mbti will have more feelings awareness than others of the same enneagram type. This is because the Fi function gets it „straight from the source“, as in, the brain regions that show high activity in Fi users are known to be directly connected to the midbrain where feelings „come from“.

So, Fi users will typically know their feelings, likes & dislikes unless they’ve been subjected to extreme neglect.

Especially what is said here about 9 or 6 must be read as „...unless they’re a high Fi type.“

This doesn’t go for Fe users to the same extent as Fe users can tend to suppress inner reactions to produce „appropriate“ ones.

Strategies for improvement.

It might help you to find some more emotionally aware ppl with the same wing combo or similar mbti type and ask them how they "track" it as the same method is likely to work for you - there are probably multiple possible methods.

The first step is not to pressure yourself with expectations – sometimes there might genuinely be not much going on, you might not have a reaction where others do or the reaction you find might not per se be the same as others, & that’s by design after all your feelings are part of your individuality.

If your issue is mainly judging particular types of feelings as „bad“ or „selfish“, it might help you to read up on the concept of Radical Acceptance. (I can picture this being helpful for superego and/or positive folks)

Alternatively, you might have the concern that it might be vulnerable, „out of control“, or „too much“ (an issue you might see for, say, 8, 3 or 5) First becoming aware of your sensitive side all at once as an adult can be a handful, especially if you worry that it might change how you think about yourself or you find that there’s quite a bit of touchyness in there.

It probably helps to remind yourself that noticing doesn’t mean you have to act on it or do anything compromising as a result, especially if its just you in your room. It’s just extra information that, if anything, might help you make more informed choices.

Somatic support or self-soothing techniques might also be helpful like hugging yourself, stroking your cheek as you might for a baby who cant speak yet or ye goode olde deep belly breaths.

Finally, there’s the issue of ppl who are strongly extroverted and not used to introspection (7, 3 or 2) and might have a marked aversion to „stopping“ – something that reportedly works is limiting the timeframe like beginning with shorter meditation sessions of just a few minutes.

Other approaches are trying to „triangulate“ it using outer-directed methods, like looking for clues in your behavior, wondering what you might say to someone else in your situation, or writing letters in roleplay scenarious(„Dear Feelings…“ and then trying to reply back in a sense)

For some types like 6 or 9 it might also be helpful to have a ‚projection space‘, like writing a story about some character you relate to or who is in a similar situation.

Some types like 3, 2 and 9 might also benefit from making a point of thinking over life decisions on their own.

Alternatively if the problem is not so much dealing with it but that you can’t even locate the stuff in the first place, there are multiple approaches for that, too.

One might be trying to pay attention to physical sensations, like just trying to sense into your body at random times of the day or in meditation – I know of one person who napped their writer friends’ thesaurus for describing feelings to triangulate their own feelings.

Alternatively you could go a more direct route and try journaling – if nothing pops up, you could just freeflow ramble/ dump for a page or so and see if you notice tendencies,

Or you could get out one of those feelings wheels come journaling time or when you notice you're having some sort of reaction and try to name it up front You could also try meditating & trying to focus if you sense anything - again, keeping n mind that it's perfectly normal if a lot of the time there isn't anything necessarily aside from maybe some vague background anxiety.

The goal is, in the short term, to get some information about what things or people have which effects on you, and in the long term, to build up & reinforce an intuitive sense of associating sensations with words.

This is totally feasible, the neocortex is a wonderfully adaptable thing - ppl have taught themselves to "see" from having a "picture" shown as pressure points on their skin or to sense magnetic/electrical fields by implanting a magnet in their finger & learning to interpret the subtle shifting sensations it makes. And these are completely new things that humans were never "designed" to do, whereas you should have preexisting circuitry for tracking your feelings even if mom & dad didn't train you to use it just as they should've taught you to recognize shapes colors or animal noises.

A case study.

Something that struck me as interesting to think about while pondering the material for this post is:

How exactly DID I learn to do it as a toddler/ child?

Because I definitely did learn it but I wouldn't have had conscious memory of it or the ability to reflect on it yet.

But I am probably using an old, deeply embedded algorithm every day that I first learned as a baby, much as I do for walking or interpreting what I see - and I would have needed to expand it come puberty when sexual desire first came into the picture.

I'd say I'm pretty aware of and even welcoming of my feelings (even negative ones) so long as it's on a level of intellectual processing, but if it ever gets to a level where there is a physical response strong enough for me to notice, which isn't often, thats exhausting & unpleasant.

Though I've only been recently aware of that distinction if you'd asked my teen self she would've told you that she's all for feelings & given you a big rant about how no one wants to give sadness it's proper space nowadays and everyone wants it all to be pretty presentable & superficial, (like no points for guessing the heart fix) and I would have characterized myself as very feelsy sensitive & artistic & shit, even if I still "want to make decisions on logic"- cue rant about the whole romanticism vs enlightenment contrast as a cultural phenomenon & how feelings and reason are not opposites at all.

I suppose this awareness is because it was mirrored to me by my mom I guess. She is very enthusiastic about small children and when we were babies she would talk to us alot and narrate what we were doing. (adorable ld home video where she is commenting on one of my sisters doing typical baby things and enthusiastically ‚conversing‘ with her in a sing-song voice) And she would say stuff like, "soandso has fine, sincere feelings" or tell how she had to explain to me about recycling cause I was so upset that we were throwing the poor poor milk cartons in the trash. If she had said "shut up and dont make noise" instead of giving attention to my being upset, I probably would have turned out quite differently. Especially since I don't even remember this incident.

If anything it is my occasional lack of outward expressiveness that I was kind of in the dark about, or I just counted experiences related to that as me being "bad with people" or others "misunderstanding" me. My family is all head types except for our token 9 so I suppose they didnt find anything missing so long as I expressed myself verbally.

I'd like to stress that my awareness of physical sensations is very much piss-poor and that I find them rather uncomfortable when they do break into consciousness. I very much fit the typical "resents having to have a body" stereotype. Like feeling the blood pounding in my temples when I'm really, really angry sometimes freaks me out a little bit. - in a lot of books you read ppl, especially type 9 book authors, describing fine gradations thereof, whereas I only really notice when it's something really obvious like crying, sweaty hands etc.

I don't very much associate/ connect my feelings with physical sensations at all. If I notice the sensation at all its more like an additional thing.

I'd say my primary mode of noticing my feelings is by my thoughts or intuitive associations. That's also how I would show it if I was writing a story - if the Pov Character is scared then they would be thinking of the bad concequences that will happen if their fear comes to pass, if they have a crush they are thinking about the person alot and wanting to know more, if they are sad they are thinking about all that they have lost, its implications, everything you can now no longer do because of your loss, feeling betrayed is shown through thinking of the discrepancies & contradiction between what the person said vs what actually happened etc.

In a way that’s kind of the most „practical“ thing to do since my attention is normally on them anyways.

i guess reading and creative pursuits is also something that is shown to lead to greater awareness of feelings & empathy toward others if one does it as a child.

Heck, some of the time I even notice being hungry through finding myself thinking about food or that I'm sleepy cause my concentration begins to slip.

Though maybe its easier to build the association between the two if having a 4 wing gives you a bitty bit of "direct" access to feelingsland.

I suppose in my case it also helps that I am not 9 fixed - if impulse-based thoughts pop in your head like "I want to punch that person" or "I want to run away and lock myself in my room", that's a hint, to say the least. For 1 fixers they would be more filtered/processed already like "this is wrong!".

#enneagram #typology

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therandomavenger · 1 year

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The Mindset Trap

I’ve written before how hard the end of last year was for me. I’d accomplished a lot in 2022, but none of it seemed like it was going anywhere. Then I failed to place in a contest and, on the same day, got back some constructive criticism on my novella, and that was more than I could absorb at once.

I realized something. There is an indefinable quality some people have that makes them a success. You might call it charisma. You might say they are ‘lit from within.’ I call it it. Some people have it. Some people don’t. Their work is successful, people just pay attention to them, their posts go viral on social media. Everything they touch turns to gold, just because they are involved in it.

I know, I know …

My books weren’t selling. None of my social media posts were going viral. I was getting rejected both by editors and readers. Whatever it was, I don’t have it. In a way that thought was comforting. If I just didn’t have it, then it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t have to worry about developing better strategies or leveling up my craft. Whatever level of non-success I attained, that was going to be it. I’d given it a good try. I knew my work was good. I am sometimes clever on social media. If I don’t have it, it made sense that nothing was gaining any traction.

I had fallen into a trap. The fixed mindset trap.

Carol Dweck is the researcher who pioneered this area. She found that people who were successful were not necessarily the most intelligent or talented, but people who had the right mindset. She defined two types of mindsets. The fixed mindset believes that some characteristics are innate and unchangeable. You have a certain amount of intelligence and though you can learn new skills and improve some things through hard work, you really cannot grow much beyond that. Those are people who have limited success in their chosen fields. Truly successful people subscribed to a growth mindset. In a growth mindset, you believe that everyone has infinite potential, including yourself. That you can learn anything if you not only work hard, but employ the right strategies. In a growth mindset, you believe that your potential is within your control, and you can improve your abilities in whatever area you choose to focus your attention on and have a learner’s attitude.

Now, none of this information was new to me. I had studied mindset when working with my kids. I even read Dweck’s book and subscribed to its principles. The thought that some people have it, and some people don’t is a toxic idea, and it is very much the epitome of a fixed mindset. It just goes to show you that you can feel like your thinking has evolved, but sometimes you can cling to things that no longer serve you, against your better instincts.

The fact that my thinking in this area was kind of borked was first pointed out by my therapist, who gently reminded me that this was bullshit (not in those words exactly, but …) She also helped me understand that it was understandable that I was feeling this way, and that it might largely be a result of burn-out, and I needed some time to recover from these body-blows. I gave myself that time and found that whatever success I was or was not having, I missed the work. I missed putting down words and developing stories. That had to be my motivation.

I still fall back on that fixed mindset thinking sometimes. Because it is actually comforting. If my potential is infinite, then I have work to do. I can level up my craft and develop better marketing strategies to get my work out there. That takes effort. ‘Oh, woe is me I don’t have it’ so <shrug emoji> doesn’t require any effort at all.

The fact is, I might never become a brilliant success financially. And that’s ok. I have an income. I don’t have to make my living from this, which means I don’t have to care a great deal about sales (though it would be nice if this were paying for itself). I can write the books I want to write, the way I want to write them, and say ‘Fuck You!’ to the market. Eventually, readers who are into my type of thing will find me. Or they won’t. The point is, I can define what success means to me.

But I need to leave behind some toxic beliefs. I think many people seem to have it because of the massive amount of work they’ve done behind the scenes, work, and effort we will never be privy to. The old saying goes, ‘It takes 20 years to become an overnight success.’ Maybe it is a growth mindset and a willingness to put in the work.

I highly recommend Dweck’s Book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. I don’t know if you can ‘positive think’ your way to success, but you certainly won’t fulfill your infinite potential if you don’t believe it exists.

originally posted on chadgrayson.com

#blog post #mental health

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borahaejenn · 2 years

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A HUMAN DESIGN GUIDE FOR OUR JK: THE POSSIBLE PROJECTOR HEHE PT.1

Let me say this again just in case, human design is not a personality thing or personality test. It is like the core of how you go about life and reach a version of yourself that is real, that is you, and makes you see and feel who you can be at your fullest potential. It is like the idea of a love language. It is like the way your soul and drive speak in all the aspects of your life.

Let’s talk PROJECTORS. We are programmed to think that we must follow certain steps to be and feel a certain way and the thing with human design you have to go back and reprogram that. Projectors may feel “lazy,” but projectors don’t have much of an energy source that can be driven by things that other human design types can. When you feel “lazy” it is your body saying to rest so you can go into the flow into the next things you feel invited to dive into.

Projectors don’t carry that rechargeable battery as fast as other types as Generators and Manifestors. Please take this into account. What speeds up others is not for you and you are born different, baby. Honor that difference and find your energy source through experiencing things your way to feel your flow and build it. While others get motivated to get up and do a crap ton of things, you might like to take your time and figure out if it is inviting to you and if it is what you want to do. Don’t let others' way of moving try to tell you that you are not capable. Your form of moving and getting to succeeding in the things you truly want is going to look hella different than others.

Projectors of all types need the most rest. They need to at times be alone to rest and must realize that in order to reach their potential and their ambition, they must find their flow to go in and out of with rest in the mix to not feel burned out and severe amounts of feeling “lazy.” This happens a lot and you just have to find your flow.

As a PROJECTOR you are born to be moved by others and succeed in the process of being in that flow. It feeds your authority when that “invitation” from others both indirectly and directly comes in. The main point I got is that you get moved by others, but you don’t have to move the way they do to complete the same task, skill, or goal. This is key I think.

I read that projectors when in a position of being stuck, may feel bitter and may start to compare themselves to the other types. This can be overwhelming because y’all are moved heavily by your external and it is key that as a projector you need to stop sometimes and do some introspection so you don’t get overwhelmed by what others are doing or accomplishing around you. Refocus, get inspired, and move when you feel it calling you. You have deep leadership skills and the power to master things fast and well. I can see you with this Kook and this can explain why you master things well quickly. It doesn’t have to be the best at first, but you have the skill to master something well. It is undeniable. This is how you bring out that innovation and inspiration to others. You have the power to move and lead others through indirect guidance and no one can copy that from you. If you ever feel overwhelmed, remember that point. Don’t compare your journey to others even though it can be easy to do so. Get out of that mindset by getting back into your flow and honoring your “lazy”/ rest days. If you can I would say to reframe the concept of lazy to what it really is to someone with a projector type of human design.

Also, if anyone calls you “lazy” remember that you are part of 20% of people who are rare with this human design and chances are the person who does call you lazy may be part of the 70% of manifestors and generators who move a lot differently and move more frequently than a projector would. They won’t get it unless they knew this piece of information. lol Also the last 10% is for reflectors. hehe Point is WHAT IS WORKING FOR OTHERS MAY CERTAINLY NOT WORK FOR YOU. YOU ARE A PROJECTOR, YOU ARE A QUIRKY AND RARE AURA COMPARED TO OTHERS. YOUR DESIGN ASKS THAT YOU MOVE DIFFERENTLY THAN OTHERS NOT THE SAME.

Example: I am a manifestor generator lol I am. I move to what comes to mind and I just go for it. I wanted to run a marathon one day and then I went straight into training and kept at it. I got so into it that I allowed myself to be so into it and I did it. People with my type get deep into something and just go for it when they feel their body wants to do it. I don’t need people to motivate me so much. I just do what I feel and I love being in that flow. I go all over the place. lol You are a projector, you may not think this way and may take time to see what goes into running a marathon and may not do it unless I possibly ask you to run with me and train. lol Chances are you may do something if there is a group of people leaning you to do it too and you may just do it and do a very good job of it. I bet if I asked you to run with me you would excel at it, but you wouldn’t know that you excel at it if I didn’t lean you into it. That is how the “invitation” aspect can look. You even said before that you don’t plan trips and like it if you had friends who did and you would go with them if they asked you on the trip. This is projector behavior. hehe I still remember from the personality test videos lol But, it isn’t a personality trait, it is just the way you respond and do things through your soul language. I hope this helps. But, I think it is awesome you may be one. I really feel it in my bones that you are. haha The beauty of this also is that projectors need the manifestors, generators, and manifestor generators in their life to move them but not by force it has to be natural, feel right, and flow to you. lol You like it when others help you to guide you to do more and in return, you excel and show us that you can do amazing at anything. I love that about you. That is a projector at their finest. Projectors may need to be moved by others, but once they do, they guide and move others ten times more in return. Projectors are born to guide and help others. Y’all like to learn but when the time gives the lesson.

Before I add photos of more information lol Let me just say, Jungkook please show us what you can do. I want to see all that you are capable of and I will be here to egg you on and continue to move you in any way I can. I want to see what you got, who you are becoming, and what I can learn from you. I wish to be guided by you in all that you are capable of and just be enveloped in your vision and how you see things for as long as we are all here. Your are our precious PROJECTOR. OWN IT!

Also, I am laughing. I found out that projectors are very prone to napping a lot more. I thought of you lol. Napping comes with the territory.

“ENGAGING AND COMPLEX DEPTH TO THEIR SPIRIT” YES. lol

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missmentelle · 3 years

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Why Smart People Believe Stupid Things

If you’ve been paying attention for the last couple of years, you might have noticed that the world has a bit of a misinformation problem.

The problem isn’t just with the recent election conspiracies, either. The last couple of years has brought us the rise (and occasionally fall) of misinformation-based movements like:

Sandy Hook conspiracies

Gamergate

Pizzagate

The MRA/incel/MGTOW movements

anti-vaxxers

flat-earthers

the birther movement

the Illuminati

climate change denial

Spygate

Holocaust denial

COVID-19 denial

5G panic

QAnon

But why do people believe this stuff?

It would be easy - too easy - to say that people fall for this stuff because they’re stupid. We all want to believe that smart people like us are immune from being taken in by deranged conspiracies. But it’s just not that simple. People from all walks of life are going down these rabbit holes - people with degrees and professional careers and rich lives have fallen for these theories, leaving their loved ones baffled. Decades-long relationships have splintered this year, as the number of people flocking to these conspiracies out of nowhere reaches a fever pitch.

So why do smart people start believing some incredibly stupid things? It’s because:

Our brains are built to identify patterns.

Our brains fucking love puzzles and patterns. This is a well-known phenomenon called apophenia, and at one point, it was probably helpful for our survival - the prehistoric human who noticed patterns in things like animal migration, plant life cycles and the movement of the stars was probably a lot more likely to survive than the human who couldn’t figure out how to use natural clues to navigate or find food.

The problem, though, is that we can’t really turn this off. Even when we’re presented with completely random data, we’ll see patterns. We see patterns in everything, even when there’s no pattern there. This is why people see Jesus in a burnt piece of toast or get superstitious about hockey playoffs or insist on always playing at a certain slot machine - our brains look for patterns in the constant barrage of random information in our daily lives, and insist that those patterns are really there, even when they’re completely imagined.

A lot of conspiracy theories have their roots in people making connections between things that aren’t really connected. The belief that “vaccines cause autism” was bolstered by the fact that the first recognizable symptoms of autism happen to appear at roughly the same time that children receive one of their rounds of childhood immunizations - the two things are completely unconnected, but our brains have a hard time letting go of the pattern they see there. Likewise, many people were quick to latch on to the fact that early maps of COVID infections were extremely similar to maps of 5G coverage - the fact that there’s a reasonable explanation for this (major cities are more likely to have both high COVID cases AND 5G networks) doesn’t change the fact that our brains just really, really want to see a connection there.

Our brains love proportionality.

Specifically, our brains like effects to be directly proportional to their causes - in other words, we like it when big events have big causes, and small causes only lead to small events. It’s uncomfortable for us when the reverse is true. And so anytime we feel like a “big” event (celebrity death, global pandemic, your precious child is diagnosed with autism) has a small or unsatisfying cause (car accident, pandemics just sort of happen every few decades, people just get autism sometimes), we sometimes feel the need to start looking around for the bigger, more sinister, “true” cause of that event.

Consider, for instance, the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II. In 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot four times by a Turkish member of a known Italian paramilitary secret society who’d recently escaped from prison - on the surface, it seems like the sort of thing conspiracy theorists salivate over, seeing how it was an actual multinational conspiracy. But they never had much interest in the assassination attempt. Why? Because the Pope didn’t die. He recovered from his injuries and went right back to Pope-ing. The event didn’t have a serious outcome, and so people are content with the idea that one extremist carried it out. The death of Princess Diana, however, has been fertile ground for conspiracy theories; even though a woman dying in a car accident is less weird than a man being shot four times by a paid political assassin, her death has attracted more conspiracy theories because it had a bigger outcome. A princess dying in a car accident doesn’t feel big enough. It’s unsatisfying. We want such a monumentous moment in history to have a bigger, more interesting cause.

These theories prey on pre-existing fear and anger.

Are you a terrified new parent who wants the best for their child and feels anxious about having them injected with a substance you don’t totally understand? Congrats, you’re a prime target for the anti-vaccine movement. Are you a young white male who doesn’t like seeing more and more games aimed at women and minorities, and is worried that “your” gaming culture is being stolen from you? You might have been very interested in something called Gamergate. Are you a right-wing white person who worries that “your” country and way of life is being stolen by immigrants, non-Christians and coastal liberals? You’re going to love the “all left-wingers are Satantic pedo baby-eaters” messaging of QAnon.

Misinformation and conspiracy theories are often aimed strategically at the anxieties and fears that people are already experiencing. No one likes being told that their fears are insane or irrational; it’s not hard to see why people gravitate towards communities that say “yes, you were right all along, and everyone who told you that you were nuts to be worried about this is just a dumb sheep. We believe you, and we have evidence that you were right along, right here.” Fear is a powerful motivator, and you can make people believe and do some pretty extreme things if you just keep telling them “yes, that thing you’re afraid of is true, but also it’s way worse than you could have ever imagined.”

Real information is often complicated, hard to understand, and inherently unsatisfying.

The information that comes from the scientific community is often very frustrating for a layperson; we want science to have hard-and-fast answers, but it doesn’t. The closest you get to a straight answer is often “it depends” or “we don’t know, but we think X might be likely”. Understanding the results of a scientific study with any confidence requires knowing about sampling practices, error types, effect sizes, confidence intervals and publishing biases. Even asking a simple question like “is X bad for my child” will usually get you a complicated, uncertain answer - in most cases, it really just depends. Not understanding complex topics makes people afraid - it makes it hard to trust that they’re being given the right information, and that they’re making the right choices.

Conspiracy theories and misinformation, on the other hand, are often simple, and they are certain. Vaccines bad. Natural things good. 5G bad. Organic food good. The reason girls won’t date you isn’t a complex combination of your social skills, hygiene, appearance, projected values, personal circumstances, degree of extroversion, luck and life phase - girls won’t date you because feminism is bad, and if we got rid of feminism you’d have a girlfriend. The reason Donald Trump was an unpopular president wasn’t a complex combination of his public bigotry, lack of decorum, lack of qualifications, open incompetence, nepotism, corruption, loss of soft power, refusal to uphold the basic responsibilities of his position or his constant lying - they hated him because he was fighting a secret sex cult and they’re all in it.

Instead of making you feel stupid because you’re overwhelmed with complex information, expert opinions and uncertain advice, conspiracy theories make you feel smart - smarter, in fact, than everyone who doesn’t believe in them. And that’s a powerful thing for people living in a credential-heavy world.

Many conspiracy theories are unfalsifiable.

It is very difficult to prove a negative. If I tell you, for instance, that there’s no such thing as a purple swan, it would be very difficult for me to actually prove that to you - I could spend the rest of my life photographing swans and looking for swans and talking to people who know a lot about swans, and yet the slim possibility would still exist that there was a purple swan out there somewhere that I just hadn’t found yet. That’s why, in most circumstances, the burden of proof lies with the person making the extraordinary claim - if you tell me that purple swans exist, we should continue to assume that they don’t until you actually produce a purple swan.

Conspiracy theories, however, are built so that it’s nearly impossible to “prove” them wrong. Is there any proof that the world’s top-ranking politicians and celebrities are all in a giant child sex trafficking cult? No. But can you prove that they aren’t in a child sex-trafficking cult? No, not really. Even if I, again, spent the rest of my life investigating celebrities and following celebrities and talking to people who know celebrities, I still couldn’t definitely prove that this cult doesn’t exist - there’s always a chance that the specific celebrities I’ve investigated just aren’t in the cult (but other ones are!) or that they’re hiding evidence of the cult even better than we think. Lack of evidence for a conspiracy theory is always treated as more evidence for the theory - we can’t find anything because this goes even higher up than we think! They’re even more sophisticated at hiding this than we thought! People deeply entrenched in these theories don’t even realize that they are stuck in a circular loop where everything seems to prove their theory right - they just see a mountain of “evidence” for their side.

Our brains are very attached to information that we “learned” by ourselves.

Learning accurate information is not a particularly interactive or exciting experience. An expert or reliable source just presents the information to you in its entirety, you read or watch the information, and that’s the end of it. You can look for more information or look for clarification of something, but it’s a one-way street - the information is just laid out for you, you take what you need, end of story.

Conspiracy theories, on the other hand, almost never show their hand all at once. They drop little breadcrumbs of information that slowly lead you where they want you to go. This is why conspiracy theorists are forever telling you to “do your research” - they know that if they tell you everything at once, you won’t believe them. Instead, they want you to indoctrinate yourself slowly over time, by taking the little hints they give you and running off to find or invent evidence that matches that clue. If I tell you that celebrities often wear symbols that identify them as part of a cult and that you should “do your research” about it, you can absolutely find evidence that substantiates my claim - there are literally millions of photos of celebrities out there, and anyone who looks hard enough is guaranteed to find common shapes, poses and themes that might just mean something (they don’t - eyes and triangles are incredibly common design elements, and if I took enough pictures of you, I could also “prove” that you also clearly display symbols that signal you’re in the cult).

The fact that you “found” the evidence on your own, however, makes it more meaningful to you. We trust ourselves, and we trust that the patterns we uncover by ourselves are true. It doesn’t feel like you’re being fed misinformation - it feels like you’ve discovered an important truth that “they” didn’t want you to find, and you’ll hang onto that for dear life.

Older people have not learned to be media-literate in a digital world.

Fifty years ago, not just anyone could access popular media. All of this stuff had a huge barrier to entry - if you wanted to be on TV or be in the papers or have a radio show, you had to be a professional affiliated with a major media brand. Consumers didn’t have easy access to niche communities or alternative information - your sources of information were basically your local paper, the nightly news, and your morning radio show, and they all more or less agreed on the same set of facts. For decades, if it looked official and it appeared in print, you could probably trust that it was true.

Of course, we live in a very different world today - today, any asshole can accumulate an audience of millions, even if they have no credentials and nothing they say is actually true (like “The Food Babe”, a blogger with no credentials in medicine, nutrition, health sciences, biology or chemistry who peddles health misinformation to the 3 million people who visit her blog every month). It’s very tough for older people (and some younger people) to get their heads around the fact that it’s very easy to create an “official-looking” news source, and that they can’t necessarily trust everything they find on the internet. When you combine that with a tendency toward “clickbait headlines” that often misrepresent the information in the article, you have a generation struggling to determine who they can trust in a media landscape that doesn’t at all resemble the media landscape they once knew.

These beliefs become a part of someone’s identity.

A person doesn’t tell you that they believe in anti-vaxx information - they tell you that they ARE an anti-vaxxer. Likewise, people will tell you that they ARE a flat-earther, a birther, or a Gamergater. By design, these beliefs are not meant to be something you have a casual relationship with, like your opinion of pizza toppings or how much you trust local weather forecasts - they are meant to form a core part of your identity.

And once something becomes a core part of your identity, trying to make you stop believing it becomes almost impossible. Once we’ve formed an initial impression of something, facts just don’t change our minds. If you identify as an antivaxxer and I present evidence that disproves your beliefs, in your mind, I’m not correcting inaccurate information - I am launching a very personal attack against a core part of who you are. In fact, the more evidence I present, the more you will burrow down into your antivaxx beliefs, more confident than ever that you are right. Admitting that you are wrong about something that is important to you is painful, and your brain would prefer to simply deflect conflicting information rather than subject you to that pain.

We can see this at work with something called the confirmation bias. Simply put, once we believe something, our brains hold on to all evidence that that belief is true, and ignore evidence that it’s false. If I show you 100 articles that disprove your pet theory and 3 articles that confirm it, you’ll cling to those 3 articles and forget about the rest. Even if I show you nothing but articles that disprove your theory, you’ll likely go through them and pick out any ambiguous or conflicting information as evidence for “your side”, even if the conclusion of the article shows that you are wrong - our brains simply care about feeling right more than they care about what is actually true.

There is a strong community aspect to these theories.

There is no one quite as supportive or as understanding as a conspiracy theorist - provided, of course, that you believe in the same conspiracy theories that they do. People who start looking into these conspiracy theories are told that they aren’t crazy, and that their fears are totally valid. They’re told that the people in their lives who doubted them were just brainwashed sheep, but that they’ve finally found a community of people who get where they’re coming from. Whenever they report back to the group with the “evidence” they’ve found or the new elaborations on the conspiracy theory that they’ve been thinking of (“what if it’s even worse than we thought??”), they are given praise for their valuable contributions. These conspiracy groups often become important parts of people’s social networks - they can spend hours every day talking with like-minded people from these communities and sharing their ideas.

Of course, the flipside of this is that anyone who starts to doubt or move away from the conspiracy immediately loses that community and social support. People who have broken away from antivaxx and QAnon often say that the hardest part of leaving was losing the community and friendships they’d built - not necessarily giving up on the theory itself. Many people are rejected by their real-life friends and family once they start to get entrenched in conspiracy theories; the friendships they build online in the course of researching these theories often become the only social supports they have left, and losing those supports means having no one to turn to at all. This is by design - the threat of losing your community has kept people trapped in abusive religious sects and cults for as long as those things have existed.

#missmentelle #askmissmentelle #conspiracy theories #cults #psychology #science #neuroscience

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clairecrive · 3 years

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hi!!! can I ask for darkling smut after he and the reader get in an argument? like it starts out angry but by the end they're super passionate and cuddly? thank you and congrats on so many followers!!

A/n: you ask and you shall receive, hun! I love writing this so so much. I hope you'll like to read it too. Thanks for requesting and for your words xx This is also for this anon.

Warnings: angst, smut, fluff at the end

Word count: 2.9 K

Tags: @blackst0nes7077, @thefictionalgemini, @louweasleymalfoy @jupiterandbutterflies , @for-bebbanburg, @tarkanelima-blog, genre), @pansysgirlfriend, @acciorudolphx, @kaqua , @hannaxmaria, @vintagebitc, @deardiarystuff (if you want you can add yourself to my taglist by filling this form)

SHADOW AND BONE MASTERLIST

“You will not believe what-” y/n had the habit of not knocking before entering his room. The general had been more than annoyed with her initially, but she insisted that it was a way for him to distinguish her from everyone else.

Hear the door open? You don’t have to guess who it is, you’ll know it’s me, she used to tell him.

Now, however, she was wishing she didn’t have that habit in the first place. Stumbling into a room, your partner’s room, to find him standing way too close to another girl, wasn’t on her list for tonight. Maybe a warning would have been nice but at the same time, if she had knocked she wouldn’t have found them this way.

Her initial enthusiasm at the prospect of sharing this gossip with him had suddenly vanished. The smile on her face turned into a frown as Alina cleared her voice and took a step away from the general for decency’s sakes. Too late, y/n wanted to tell her.

It was painfully clear what she had interrupted. She willed her face to set into an emotionless expression but she couldn’t help a glance in Aleksander direction. Arms behind him, he looked nothing but proper and collected. But y/n knew him, probably better than anyone else in this world, and had learnt how to read his body. His jaw was clenched which meant that he wasn’t as calm as he wanted to appear.

Good, y/n thought, let him drown in guilt and misery.

Clearing her voice, she realized she had been standing there without saying anything for too long.

“I’m so sorry, General, I didn’t know you were busy. I should have knocked,” she excused herself without looking at them. “I’ll leave you to it.” With a slight nod, she added before hightailing out of the room.

She could feel Alina’s questioning gaze on her back as she closed the door behind her. There were already rumours going around about her supposed relationship with the General. No one knew for certain, neither y/n nor Kirigan had ever bothered confirming or denying them. Now though, she knew that words of this little encounter would spread, further cementing the already existing gossip.

Oh well, she thought as she walked to her room, by the looks of it there wasn’t going to be a relationship to gossip about anymore.

Her bedroom had lost every sense of familiarity and comfort a private space like this should have. She hardly ever slept in it anymore. Not since she and the general had become a thing. She only went there to change and so slipping into the bed felt weird and anonymous. As if she was in someone else’s bed and not hers.

Her sleep was doomed to be restless, she knew. However, tomorrow’s busy schedule prompted her to at least try and get some sleep. Even if it only was a couple of hours. Shuffling to change position she tried to keep Aleksander out of her mind.

An unachievable task, she was aware but she tried nonetheless. Things between them had been tense ever since he had come back to the Little Palace with her. y/n knew of his plans. She knew why he needed to do certain things and how Alina was involved. That didn’t mean she was fine with it though.

Not only did it bother her the fact that he was stripping the girl of her will and powers eventually but it also bothered her that he had chosen to get to her by manipulating her feelings. They had had countless fights because of this but nothing ever came out of it. A centuries-long existence meant that he was stubborn beyond belief and there was no way of making him change his mind once it was set on something.

After what she had witnessed today though, y/n wondered if the jokes were on him and he did end up feeling something genuine for Alina. Y/n herself had met her and spoke with her a couple of times and she had to admit begrudgingly that she wasn’t that bad.

Lost in her thoughts, y/n was snapped out of it by a loud knock at her door. As soon as she started to wonder who could be bothering her at this hour, the door opened and she stopped guessing.

Of course, it was him.

“I’m in no mood to talk to you, Aleksander. Please go.” She spoke, not bothering to turn towards where she knew he was standing. Y/n knew that while she couldn’t see him in the dark this wasn’t true for him. Shadows didn’t hinder his view like they did everyone else, they were an extension of him.

He didn’t speak but she also didn’t hear him walking away. She let out a sigh and that was the only way she was willing to acknowledge him. He wanted to stand in the shadow and stare like a creep? Fine, two could play this game.

Set on ignoring him, she stubbornly stared ahead of her. She was very aware of his eyes on her, stinging like needles. If sleep was arduous to achieve before now it was impossible. In any case, she closed her eyes and pretended to be at least. He wouldn’t know the difference and would leave her alone at some point.

But of course, she knew him well enough by now and he wasn’t as easily deterred. She didn’t know how much time passed but her eyes flew open as she felt her bed dip. Her breath hitched and she laid on full alert.

Then she felt the shadow of his touch on her neck and knew that he was close. Way too close that he should be. He was probably propped on his arm as she felt her pillow dip too.

“We don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.” He whispered close to her ears, his lips suggestively tracing her earlobe.

Despite the chills that his touch would usually send to her body, y/n stifled a treacherous gasp. Instead, her body stiffened and she almost pushed him away but she wasn’t sure that touching him wouldn’t backfire.

“If you think I’d let you lay a finger on me after you touched her, you’re sorely mistaken.”

“Who says I did?”

“Please, stick to manipulating one girl, okay? Move. away.”

He didn’t reply but the hand that was on her neck moved to her shoulder and pushed back so that she was laying on her back and facing him. Well, the darkness was too thick for her to actually see his face but she could feel his breath.

“Do not push me away.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.” Y/n bite back.

“You’re well aware of my plans, don’t act so betrayed now.”

“Well, maybe I’m tired of being a pawn in your schemes.”

“A pawn isn’t aware of its role nor of the whole plan.”

“Being smart with me won’t help, Aleksander. You want Alina? Fine, go get her. But leave me out of this.” Pulling her face free of his grip, she turned on her side. The shadows around him had dissipated a bit, allowing you to glimpse at his face.

“You cannot do this, y/n.” he growled, pushing her on her back again, “you said you were in this. You said you wanted me, that you were going to be by my side always. You can’t just change your mind. You can’t.” His voice was strangled with emotion almost breaking on some words.

Y/n had never heard his voice so filled with sorrow. Because that’s what he must be feeling. She thought that he was also feeling betrayed by her but then she realized-- no, he was afraid. Afraid of losing her.

He knew what he did and he also was aware that y/n was not one to mess with. She was just as stubborn as he was and just as prideful. What she had seen had hurt her and it was only what she felt for him that prevented him from being mindlessly dismissed and removed from her life. She had not resisted him more forcefully because she cared, because the wound was still french and that meant that there was still a tiny hope left.

“That was before you fell for another woman. I can’t stand by and watch you be with her. You can’t ask that of me.” She whispered, meeting his eyes. No matter how much she loved him, that was simply something she was not willing to put herself through.

“That’s not what I’m asking. That’s not what's happening.” He pledged. Y/n didn’t know if it was a trick of the moonlight seeping in from her window but she saw his eyes well with unshed tears.

“Isn’t it?”

“It isn’t.” He insisted, his hand on your jaw holding it closer. “Alina is a pawn, Alina doesn’t know what is going to happen, she doesn’t know me.” Heaving a sigh, Aleksander held her face, his thumb caressing her cheek.

“There is no one on this earth that has ever seen me more clearly than you do, solnishko. I know what you saw, I know what it looked like because that was intentional. But I trust you to know the difference between what it’s really happening and what it looks like because they’re not the same.” His eyes were alive with an intensity y/n had only seen a few times before. He was ancient and he was skilled at manipulation amongst other things. She always tried to keep that in mind but now, looking at him, she couldn’t help but feel like he was being genuine.

Why would he want me near? There wasn’t an ulterior motive for wanting her by her side. Yes, she was the only one who knew about his plans but that wasn’t it. If it was, he would have simply killed her. Took less time than this. Also, y/n knew that the power was in her hands. If she said no, that she couldn’t do this anymore, she was sure that Aleksander would let her go.

“But the way you were looking at her, Aleks, I just-” a lump formed in her throat as she recalled the look on his face, “you’re spending more and more time with her and I can’t help but fear that- I mean she’s literally the embodiment of sunshine.”

“You’ve never seen the way I look at you, then.” Thumb trailing over her lower lip now, he gave her a weak smile. “I swear that there’s no one dearer to me than you.”

“I’m not sure I can’t stand the idea of you kissing and touching her, Aleksander, I’m sorry.” Y/n insisted as well because she knew him and she knew that the way she worded things was crucial.

“That won’t happen then.” He assured but she was still not fully convinced.

“I promise it won’t come to that.” So Aleks rephrased. It was better but still not good enough. But they could work on that surely.

“It seems to me though, that I have not done a good job at showing you what you meant to me. I need to reinforce it, don’t you think?” He proposed, using the hand on her face to pull her closer to him.

“I agree.” y/n mumbled on his lips before they smashed together. She didn’t wait for him to initiate the kiss. She thought she had lost him tonight and had already been trying to plan her life without him. She wasn’t willing to waste any more time. She was going to show everyone that he was hers and only hers so as not to leave any more doubts around them. Fuck gossip.

Propping herself on her elbow she used it as leverage to reach up to meet him. The hand he had on her face moved backwards to hold her head while her hand did the same in his hair. Both of them pulled the other impossible close, not willing to leave the smallest of spaces between them.

Sitting up, y/n used her other hand to first the lapel of his kefta. She quickly unfasted the buttons to get rid of it before she pushed him on his back.

“She thinks she has a chance, uh.” She taunted as she straddled his waist, roughly gathering her sleeping gown around her waist while his hands instantly shot up to rest on her hips.

“She thinks she’ll be as lucky as seeing you like this?” she continued, her hands caressing his naked chest, “that she’ll have the chance of touching you? kissing you?” she leaned down, one hand at the nape of his head to make him meet her halfway. It wasn’t a long kiss, she needed to make a point after all. Pulling away, she bit his lower lip earning a moan from him.

“To feel you like this?” she whispered in his mouth as her hips wiggled over his clothed member. His hands tightened his hold on her hips, pushing her down on it increasing the pressure.

“She’s delusional,” Aleks gasped as her mouth trailed kisses along his jaw and neck where it nipped and sucked.

“Mh,” y/n agreed, “let’s make sure she knows.” She promised before her mouth went back to sucking a few hickeys on his neck. Aleks only moaned and gave her more space to work on. His hands trailed up from her waist, cupping her breasts before playing with her nipples.

As her mouth lowered on his collarbone, Aleks decided that enough was enough. His hands roughly gripped the end of her gown before hastily pulling it up and off her body. One arm snaked over her waist pulling her flush against him as he sat up.

“Enough teasing,” he warned as the hand that wasn’t on her quickly discarded his undergarments.

“As you wish, moy sovregni,” she whispered sultrily on his lips knowing fully what effect those words had on him. Aleksander growled on her mouth, his hands kneading her ass cheeks as he gently lowered her on him.

Gasping as she felt every inch of him enter her, y/n gripped his shoulders as she started to move. Aleks’ hands guided her as she set a steady pace.

“She’s never going to feel your hands on her body,” she breathed as Aleks’ hips snapped up, setting a rougher pace.

“You’re mine.” She growled possessively on his lips as her hips met his.

“I’m yours, y/n. Just as you’re mine.” His tone matched hers. He sealed his promise with a bruising kiss. The trusting was becoming more and more frantic and Aleks’ could feel y/n clench around him.

With no previous warning, he lowered his hands from her ass to her thighs so that he could hold her while he changed their position. Guiding her legs to wrap around his waist, Aleksander leaned on his knees while he pushed her upper body down with his chest. Y/n gasped on his lips not knowing if it was for the movement, for the change of position that meant that he was now able to reach deeper than before or because she could feel her orgasm approaching.

Whatever the reason may be, Aleks swallowed her gasp as his lips refused to leave hers. Snapping his hips, he moved his hands from her legs. One went to stimulate her clit while the other choked her lightly. He knew that this combo would prove to send her over the edge. Not long after, as a matter of fact, he felt y/n’s nails on his shoulders as well as her walls tightening around him. He was not behind.

While y/n whimpered his name over and over as her orgasm hit her, Aleksander’s thrusts began to falter. With one deep thrust, he emptied inside her, obscene sounds leaving his mouth.

He leaned over y/n’s body, both of their breaths heavy, they basked in the afterglow. Aleks’ head rested over her chest, comforted by her steady heartbeat while y/n’s hands trailed over his back.

Once their breath had levelled and they could regain control over their limbs, Aleks propped himself over his elbow, his nose nuzzling y/n’s making her giggle at the soft touch. She loved these rare moments of softness and intimacy between them. If she could, she’d never let them end.

“I promise you’ll never have to doubt me again.”

“If you keep this up, it’d be impossible for me to.” She chuckled, referring to her limp body. She couldn’t trust her body to move. Sex with Aleksander always had this effect on her.

“Good to know I can still satisfy you.” He smirked as he leaned down for a small kiss. Giggling on his lips, y/n pulled him close, making him rest his weight on her rather than his elbow.

“I’m thoroughly sated, my love. You have nothing to worry about in that department.” Aleks couldn’t see her but could feel the smirk on her lips. Intertwining their legs, he got more comfortable on her. Her arms held him in a tight embrace.

“You’ll do well to remember it, dearest.” His voice came out muffled since his face rested between her breasts but y/n got what he meant anyway. Laughing at the idea that she could ever need anyone else, y/n held him closer to her chest. The embrace her form of a promise to him.

She had everything she’d ever need right here in her arms.

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writingwithcolor · 3 years

Text

What Does Our "Motivations” PSA Mean?

@luminalalumini said:

I've been on your blog a lot and it has a lot of really insightful information, but I notice a theme with some of your answers where you ask the writer reaching out what their 'motivation for making a character a certain [race/religion/ethnicity/nationality] is' and it's discouraging to see, because it seems like you're automatically assigning the writer some sort of ulterior motive that must be sniffed out and identified before the writer can get any tips or guidance for their question. Can't the 'motive' simply be having/wanting to have diversity in one's work? Must there be an 'ulterior motive'? I can understand that there's a lot of stigma and stereotypes and bad influence that might lead to someone trynna add marginalized groups into their stories for wrong reasons, but people that have those bad intentions certainly won't be asking for advice on how to write good representation in the first place. Idk its just been something that seemed really discouraging to me to reach out myself, knowing i'll automatically be assigned ulterior motives that i don't have and will probably have to justify why i want to add diversity to my story as if i'm comitting some sort of crime. I don't expect you guys to change your blog or respond to this or even care all that much, I'm probably just ranting into a void. I'm just curious if theres any reason to this that I haven't realized exists I suppose. I don't want y'all to take this the wrong way because I do actually love and enjoy your blog's advice in spite of my dumb griping. Cheers :))

We assume this is in reference to the following PSA:

PSA to all of our users - Motivation Matters: This lack of clarity w/r to intent has been a general issue with many recent questions. Please remember that if you don’t explain your motivations and what you intend to communicate to your audience with your plot choices, character attributes, world-building etc., we cannot effectively advise you beyond the information you provide. We Are Not Mind Readers. If, when drafting these questions, you realize you can’t explain your motivations, that is likely a hint that you need to think more on the rationales for your narrative decisions. My recommendation is to read our archives and articles on similar topics for inspiration while you think. I will be attaching this PSA to all asks with similar issues until the volume of such questions declines.

We have answered this in three parts.

1. Of Paved Roads and Good Intentions

Allow me to give you a personal story, in solidarity towards your feelings:

When I began writing in South Asia as an outsider, specifically in the Kashmir and Lahore areas, I was doing it out of respect for the cultures I had grown up around. I did kathak dance, I grew up on immigrant-cooked North Indian food, my babysitters were Indian. I loved Mughal society, and every detail of learning about it just made me want more. The minute you told me fantasy could be outside of Europe, I hopped into the Mughal world with two feet. I was 13. I am now 28.

And had you asked me, as a teenager, what my motives were in giving my characters’ love interests blue or green eyes, one of them blond hair, my MC having red-tinted brown hair that was very emphasized, and a whole bunch of paler skinned people, I would have told you my motives were “to represent the diversity of the region.”

I’m sure readers of the blog will spot the really, really toxic and colourist tropes present in my choices. If you’re new here, then the summary is: giving brown people “unique” coloured eyes and hair that lines up with Eurocentric beauty standards is an orientalist trope that needs to be interrogated in your writing. And favouring pale skinned people is colourist, full stop.

Did that make me a bad person with super sneaky ulterior motives who wanted to write bad representation? No.

It made me an ignorant kid from the mostly-white suburbs who grew up with media that said brown people had to “look unique” (read: look as European as possible) to be considered valuable.

And this is where it is important to remember that motives can be pure as you want, but you were still taught all of the terrible stuff that is present in society. Which means you’re going to perpetuate it unless you stop and actually question what is under your conscious motive, and work to unlearn it. Work that will never be complete.

I know it sounds scary and judgemental (and it’s one of the reasons we allow people to ask to be anonymous, for people who are afraid). Honestly, I would’ve reacted much the same as a younger writer, had you told me I was perpetuating bad things. I was trying to do good and my motives were pure, after all! But after a few years, I realized that I had fallen short, and I had a lot more to learn in order for my motives to match my impact. Part of our job at WWC is to attempt to close that gap.

We aren’t giving judgement, when we ask questions about why you want to do certain things. We are asking you to look at the structural underpinnings of your mind and question why those traits felt natural together, and, more specifically, why those traits felt natural to give to a protagonist or other major character.

I still have blond, blue-eyed characters with sandy coloured skin. I still have green-eyed characters. Because teenage me was right, that is part of the region. But by interrogating my motive, I was able to devalue those traits within the narrative, and I stopped making those traits shorthand for “this is the person you should root for.”

It opened up room for me to be messier with my characters of colour, even the ones who my teenage self would have deemed “extra special.” Because the European-associated traits (pale hair, not-brown-eyes) stopped being special. After years of questioning, they started lining up with my motive of just being part of the diversity of the region.

Motive is important, both in the conscious and the subconscious. It’s not a judgement and it’s not assumed to be evil. It’s simply assumed to be unquestioned, so we ask that you question it and really examine your own biases.

~Mod Lesya

2. Motivations Aren't Always "Ulterior"

You can have a positive motivation or a neutral one or a negative one. Just wanting to have diversity only means your characters aren't all white and straight and cis and able-bodied -- it doesn't explain why you decided to make this specific character specifically bi and specifically Jewish (it me). Yes, sometimes it might be completely random! But it also might be "well, my crush is Costa Rican, so I gave the love interest the same background", or "I set it in X City where the predominant marginalized ethnicity is Y, so they are Y". Neither of these count as ulterior motives. But let's say for a second that you did accidentally catch yourself doing an "ulterior." Isn't that the point of the blog, to help you find those spots and clean them up?

Try thinking of it as “finding things that need adjusting” rather than “things that are bad” and it might get less scary to realize that we all do them, subconsciously. Representation that could use some work is often the product of subconscious bias, not deliberate misrepresentation, so there's every possibility that someone who wants to improve and do better didn't do it perfectly the first time.

--Shira

3. Dress-Making as a Metaphor

I want to echo Lesya’s sentiments here but also provide a more logistical perspective. If you check the rubber stamp guide here and the “Motivation matters” PSA above, you’ll notice that concerns with respect to asker motivation are for the purposes of providing the most relevant answer possible.

It is a lot like if someone walks into a dressmaker’s shop and asks for a blue dress/ suit (Back when getting custom-made clothes was more of a thing) . The seamstress/ tailor is likely to ask a wide variety of questions:

What material do you want the outfit to be made of?

Where do you plan to wear it?

What do you want to highlight?

How do you want to feel when you wear it?

Let’s say our theoretical customer is in England during the 1920s. A tartan walking dress/ flannel suit for the winter is not the same as a periwinkle, beaded, organza ensemble/ navy pinstripe for formal dress in the summer. When we ask for motivations, we are often asking for exactly that: the specific reasons for your inquiry so we may pinpoint the most pertinent information.

The consistent problem for many of the askers who receive the PSA is they haven’t even done the level of research necessary to know what they want to ask of us. It would be like if our English customer in the 1920s responded, “IDK, some kind of blue thing.” Even worse, WWC doesn’t have the luxury of the back-and-forth between a dressmaker and their clientele. If our asker doesn’t communicate all the information they need in mind at the time of submission, we can only say, “Well, I’m not sure if this is right, but here’s something. I hope it works, but if you had told us more, we could have done a more thorough job.”

Answering questions without context is hard, and asking for motivations, by which I mean the narratives, themes, character arcs and other literary devices that you are looking to incorporate, is the best way for us to help you, while also helping you to determine if your understanding of the problem will benefit from outside input. Because these asks are published with the goal of helping individuals with similar questions, the PSA also serves to prompt other users.

I note that asking questions is a skill, and we all start by asking the most basic questions (Not stupid questions, because to quote a dear professor, “There are no stupid questions.”). Unfortunately, WWC is not suited for the most basic questions. To this effect, we have a very helpful FAQ and archive as a starting point. Once you have used our website to answer the more basic questions, you are more ready to approach writing with diversity and decide when we can actually be of service. This is why we are so adamant that people read the FAQ. Yes, it helps us, but it also is there to save you time and spare you the ambiguity of not even knowing where to start.

The anxiety in your ask conveys to me a fear of being judged for asking questions. That fear is not something we can help you with, other than to wholeheartedly reassure you that we do not spend our unpaid, free time answering these questions in order to assume motives we can’t confirm or sit in judgment of our users who, as you say, are just trying to do better.

Yes, I am often frustrated when an asker’s question makes it clear they haven’t read the FAQ or archives. I’ve also been upset when uncivil commenters have indicated that my efforts and contributions are not worth their consideration. However, even the most tactless question has never made me think, “Ooh this person is such a naughty racist. Let me laugh at them for being a naughty racist. Let me shame them for being a naughty racist. Mwahaha.”

What kind of sad person has time for that?*

Racism is structural. It takes time to unlearn, especially if you’re in an environment that doesn’t facilitate that process to begin with. Our first priority is to help while also preserving our own boundaries and well-being. Though I am well aware of the levels of toxic gas-lighting and virtue signaling that can be found in various corners of online writing communities in the name of “progressivism*”, WWC is not that kind of space. This space is for discussions held in good faith: for us to understand each other better, rather than for one of us to “win” and another to “lose.”

Just as we have good faith that you are doing your best, we ask that you have faith that we are trying to do our best by you and the BIPOC communities we represent.

- Marika.

*If you are in any writing or social media circles that feed these anxieties or demonstrate these behaviors, I advise you to curtail your time with them and focus on your own growth. You will find, over time, that it is easier to think clearly when you are worrying less about trying to appease people who set the bar of approval so high just for the enjoyment of watching you jump. “Internet hygiene”, as I like to call it, begins with you and the boundaries you set with those you interact with online.

#PSAs #asker concerns #diversity #motivations in writing #writing with diversity #blog housekeeping #internet hygeine #asks #WWC

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ikeservant · 2 years

Note

Broooo so I just got this funny idea😂😂 ok so what if Mc is actually a really good sniper trained from the future?? Would the bois bring her to battle? Hc with any of the boys you choose please hehe this would be fun I think.. thank you have a great dayyy

Hey thanks for the request @arthotsglasses even though you sent it a long time ago I’m finally getting to it after a busy and rough year. It was fun to write and I hope you like it! Decided to just do Mitsuhide, Hideyoshi, Ieyasu, Masamune, and Shingen for now.

Mitsuhide: When he decided to teach her how to survive, he decided to teach her how to use a rifle like his. She was quite clumsy with horseback riding and her writing lessons were quite sloppy but was able to slowly master it, so he thought with some teasing and a lot of practice she MIGHT be able to shoot near the wooden target by the end of the month. When he brought out the gun, her eyes widened and instantly sat up with enthusiasm, taking Mitsuhide aback. “My my, so the little mouse has a liking to weaponry.” After explaining that she used to be a master marksman, he still had his suspicions and expected her to not be able to hold a heavy gun and shoot it. After explaining how to load it, she quickly got it prepped, aimed, and fired a hole right through the center target. “Like that?” She asked with sarcasm, making Mitsuhide gawk for a second before regaining his composure and smiling. “I think you might be more valuable than I thought, little one.” After her showing him trick shots and even teaching HIM some techniques (making him swoon a bit on the inside), he decided that she should be able to go to certain missions and battles, but only places her in secret and safe locations where she won’t be ambushed and have someone that has her back guarded cuz he’s a softie that still cares about MC’s safety, even if she’s a badass sniper that can make someone’s soul leave their body in a millisecond.

Masamune: When he explained to her that in this world you might have to kill, she was surprisingly more unfazed than he thought. She seemed to be hesitant with sword fighting and thought it was because of her being afraid of violence. “I’m worried about close combat, but at a distance I was trained to hit any target.” Masamune was super impressed and giddy that she had a tough side and wanted to see her skills right away, borrowing (stealing) Mitsuhide’s gun. After showing her how to load it and her gaging the kickback and weight, she aimed at a peach in a tree and shot right into it. (He probably wants to make out with her right then and there bc how cool is that). Brags to everyone about what he saw her do and encourages her to come to any battle. Always has her back and excited to fight anybody trying to attack them from behind. Likes to tag team with short range with her doing long range.

Hideyoshi: He was super worried about MC and her insistence to go to the battlefield to help them. “I know you want to help but you might get hurt and see some unsavory things. If you really want to, you could learn how to dress wounds and be in the treatment tent.” “I think I can do more than that. You don’t know what I did for a living. Yo, Mitsuhide, lend me your rifle!” Curious about what MC will do and wanting to see Hideyoshi panic was more than enough motivation for him to hand her his heavy rifle. Seeing a fruit in the tree across the courtyard, Mc pointed and proclaimed “If I hit the stem of that fruit right there and make it fall down, I get to go as your sniper.” Hideyoshi still in a state of shock and worry that she’s going to dislocate her shoulder or hurt herself with a “you can’t be serious” he sighed and agreed after seeing her determined look. She turned around, breathed in, and shot it with ease. Mitsuhide’s clapping and Hideyoshi’s stunned look caused her to smirk and say that they now have to vouch for her being a part of the team. He’d still be against the idea, but had to give up and realize she wasn’t going to budge. Wants her only to be in places that are guarded by him or a trusted warlord. Even though he’s worried, he’s glad she knows how to make tough calls and has a way to protect herself and those close to her.

Ieyasu: When he said that MC was weak and helpless, her blood started to boil. “Do guns exist here?” “Yes.” “Then I’m not helpless.” He scoffed, not believing that a girl like her could use a gun without dropping it, causing her to grab him and drag him to the artillery. Grabbing a rifle off the wall and asking him where the ammo is, she loaded it and went to the target range with a line of targets. Without missing a beat, she shot, reloaded, and shot in sequence all the targets. Turning to him and his gasping face, she smiled and said “So about that archery practice?” He would be hesitant bringing her on the battlefield with the excuse of her being too clumsy, but in reality recognizes her abilities and knows she is plenty capable of shooting someone to smithereens, but is just worried about her getting attacked from behind. Realizing she’s going to snipe for them anyway, he sighs and says “I guess there’s no choice but for me to look out for you, not that I want to do that anyway.” (Blushes bc he gets to spend time with her and watch her be super cool)

Shingen: Wanting to gain her favor during her stay(kidnapping), he tried gifting her jewelry and clothes, which she refused. “My goddess, is there anything you desire that I can provide for you.” “A gun.” He thought she was being sarcastic until he saw the seriousness and passion in her eyes. “Do you know how to use those things?” “Give me one and find out.” The next day she was gifted a beautiful rifle. “Could you show me how a woman like yourself has a talent for shooting?” She takes him to the courtyard, places a piece of his scrap wood all the way at the end swinging from a tree, walks back, aims, and fires it right through the center. “I believe if you let me do this, I will be more comfortable staying here.” “Maybe if you stay here you will be as passionate about me as you are with your rifle” he said suavely, earning a bullet to the ground dangerously close to his foot. Learning about her past experience as a sniper and how she isn’t as innocent and helpless as he thought, he felt genuine respect and was enamored with her focus and cool in her sniper mode. After joining his side, he’d let her aid only if she was in a strategically safe location with a guard like Sasuke or Yukimura or himself to be there. If guarding her back, likes to flirt and try to get her to break focus until things get serious just to challenge and try to woo her some more. If she’s sniping for him while he’s on the front attacking and shoots those that are trying ambush him from behind or crowd him, he’ll praise and bless her as the Angel looking out and blessing him from above afterwards.

#ikemen sengoku #ikesen #ikesen hc #ikesen headcanon #ikemen sengoku headcanon #ikesen masamune #ikesen mitsuhide #ikesen hideyoshi #ikesen shingen #ikesen ieyasu

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mylordshesacactus · 3 years

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Goals Only Matter In Soccer

A recurring theme I hear from people struggling to “figure out” roleplaying is that they feel their characters are flat, uninteresting, or that they’re otherwise bad at character creation because their characters don’t have “goals.” Or, as the flip side of that coin, that they themselves are bad roleplayers because they either can’t remember their characters’ goals, or can’t/don’t enjoy actually roleplaying those goals.

(A short break for shameless self-promotion: If you want some one-on-one assistance with character creation or are struggling to roleplay, I do one-hour consult sessions to give you specific help in tapping into your RPG character. You get tailored guidance with no attempts to tell you what you “should” do, and I get to ethically keep my therapeutic interviewing skills from getting rusty while in grad school limbo. Everyone wins!)

This is getting a bit esoteric. Let’s use some concrete examples.

Some common “goals” might be: A wizard whose goal is to become more powerful or gain a certain form of knowledge, a noble-born character whose goal is to restore their family’s name or wealth, or the evergreen goal of avenging a great wrong like the death of a loved one.

These are all great character goals! There is nothing wrong with having a character with a clear goal they work toward over the course of the game, and making a character with a clear goal is a great way to get started with roleplaying!

But it is only one method. And it’s not always appropriate.

I’m about to blow your damn mind: Characters don’t need goals.

The idea that a well-rounded character should always have a “goal” is pervasive, and honestly harmful to good character creation and roleplaying! And it’s even more difficult to overcome because if you look for roleplaying or character-building advice, “give them a goal” is generally one of the first bullet points. This is well-meaning, and it’s not bad advice. But if it leaves you feeling like your character is incomplete because they don’t have A Goal—or worse, feeling obligated to tack on a “goal” and struggle to prioritize it in roleplay—then it’s not helpful.

Characters do not need “goals”.

But all characters need motivations.

As usual, I’m going to use my own characters as an example so you don’t feel like I’m lecturing you. I think I only have one major D&D character who could be stated to have a “goal”--my halfling druid/fighter, who wants to repay her debt to the Circle so that she can make a clean and respectful break and live her own life without guilt.

But the others? Benny (Benevolence, but only her mom calls her that), my tiefling bard, doesn’t have a “goal” she works toward; in all honesty, her goal was her pre-campaign life. She likes being a travelling musician, she wants to perform and meet people across the continent! Rinda, my dwarven paladin, has five kids at home--her nieces and nephews, who she adopted after her sister’s tragic death in a mine collapse. She’s got no career ambition because she feels that chasing rank or prestige is inappropriate in a paladin, whose priority should be ordinary people and who needs to be accessible and grounded in the reality of the common folk. Her “goal” is to just keep being an honorable, mid-rank paladin and providing for her family.

That’s not remotely helpful in a tabletop RPG! Those are terrible “goals” for a character in a team-based game! If I followed general beginner RP advice and leaned into those goals, I’d end up that dreaded monstrosity, the player who says things like “but why would my character get involved? She would just let the town guard handle it”.

However, these characters’ motivations are a different story.

Benny doesn’t set out with the goal of becoming a hero; it’s not something she consciously works toward or considers a major aspiration. But she is responsible for what she allows, and at her core, Benevolence was well-named. She was raised by loving parents who taught her how to raise working animals and livestock ethically and with compassion, and who taught her the regret that comes of making selfish decisions. Helping others and minimizing suffering isn’t her life goal. She didn’t set out from home with a dream of being better than her parents, of putting good into the world instead of just mitigating the bad...but sometimes people really do just help others because it’s the right thing to do.

Rinda? Her driving purpose will always be her family. Caring for them is her goal, the thing she intentionally prioritizes, the thing she actively works for. But her motivations are not the same thing. Yes, she wants to stay close to take care of her kids...but her responsibilities as a paladin are important to. She’s a protector who swore an oath, and her children are not more important than children in the next city over who will suffer without her intervention. Her motivation is to make people feel safe, but that’s not really a traditional “goal”. And she’s a stronger character for that!

So: Motivations > Goals.

Which does NOT mean that your character shouldn’t have a concrete goal! That’s not what I’m saying at all. Rather...if your character has a concrete goal, arising naturally from their backstory, and you struggle to roleplay that goal, it may be because you’re not tapping into why your character has that goal in the first place. Are they seeking power because they’re terrified of a specific enemy? To prove a detractor or an abuser wrong? In order to accomplish a specific task--and in that case, who or what made them believe that task was important? Why is your rogue trying to avenge the death of his sister--and you can’t say “love” or “grief”. Many people have lose loved ones; what made this specific person decide that the only way forward was murder, and that his target(s) were responsible, and that he personally had to dedicate his life to killing them?

(This course of questioning may lead you to realize that you don’t have an answer. If that happens, ask yourself--is this a realization that your CHARACTER might have? That they don’t know why they’re doing this? Follow that thread! If not, it’s possible that you’ve tacked on an artificial “goal” for the sake of having one, and your character would be stronger without that anchor weighing them down.)

Sedge, that druid/fighter from earlier--her goal is to repay a massive debt so that she can be free of the Circle’s influence and live her own life. But her motivation? A mixture of shame and honor. The Circle saved her from a lot of predatory loans from bad people, rescued her, saved her life. She’s embarrassed at ending up so deep in debt and too proud to not repay that kind of kindness, but also feels a genuine gratitude for their kindness toward a total stranger. She wants to do right by them--but hates being a druid--but has always wanted to be the kind of hero who helps others exactly as selflessly as they did.

It creates a lot of in-depth roleplay possibilities that wouldn’t exist if I’d just left that goal as simple as “acquire X amount of gold to pay off her student loans” and proceeded to play Sedge as simply money-obsessed.

Even if your character does have a clear goal, their motivations can change and come into conflict with it! A heroic character with debts to repay might easily refuse a huge payday if it requires them to do something shady...but they might not. How desperate are they? A wizard whose goal is to unlock the power to cast Wish might see a path to that goal...but pursuing it would mean abandoning a helpless village in the path of an orc army, and if she stays to defend that village, she loses her opportunity.

What wins out, in the end? And what effect will that choice have on her psyche?

Suddenly it really, really matters why she’s so dead-set on learning Wish. Whether it’s out of pride or fear (which might be easier for her to set aside in the face of innocent lives) or out of a deep-rooted belief that something absolutely essential rests on her learning this spell—something a lot harder to turn her back on.

These conflicts can occur with or without a “goal”. But, whether a character has a “goal” or not, these conflicts and intimate, pivotal character moments absolutely cannot exist in a character without motivations.

#d&d #character creation #rp development

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theartofdreaming1 · 3 years

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My two cents regarding this week’s prompts:

heart: I do believe that Katniss losing it when Peeta hit the force field opened her eyes to how much she had come to care for Peeta at this point. While I think that this moment really made her realize the depth of her emotions for Peeta, I don’t necessarily think that she truly figured out the nature of her feelings for Peeta yet, however

mind: I feel like if it weren’t for the interviews being immediately the night before the Games begin, there would have been a good chance of the 75th Games being canceled due to Peeta dropping the baby bomb - but since there wasn’t that much time for a more organized uproar/protest on the Capitolites’s side, it was easier for the Gamemakers/Snow to push pass any objections

soul: I certainly hope that people like Johanna and Haymitch will be able to find some peace and reconcilliation once the rebellion is over, but they lost so much... it’s gotta be hard to move on from this kind of loss; it would certainly require a lot of time and support so they can heal from what they’ve been through... I feel like Johanna would have been working towards the rebellion/etc soon after she losed her loved one; she’s tenacious and fierce that way; with Haymitch I’m not so sure - I feel like he’s more prone to depression and giving up/in than fighting no matter what; he’d probably require a certain amount assurance that their attempt at rebellion won’t be futile

As usual, my thoughts on chapters 19-21 are below the cut:

Chapter 19

I can’t think straight. The image of Cinna, beaten and bloody, consumes me. [...] What are they doing to him? Torturing him? Turning him into an Avox? Obviously his assault was staged to unhinge me, the same way Darius’s presence in my quarter was. And it has unhinged me. All I want to do is collapse on my metal plate. [...] I must be strong. I owe it to Cinna [...] and I owe it to the rebels who, emboldened by Cinna’s example, might be fighting to bring down the Capitol at this moment. My refusal to play the Games on the Capitol’s terms is to be my last act of rebellion. So I grit my teeth and will myself to be a player. - Damn, despite being so thoroughly shaken after witnessing Cinna getting beaten right in front of her, Katniss still manages to be so focused and aware of the task at hand, the intentions and motivations of the Capitol, Cinna, and the rebels and her own role in the bigger picture... Katniss is amazing

I catch a handful of water as it washes in and smell it. Then I touch the top of my wet finger to my tongue. As I suspected, it’s saltwater. Just like the waves Peeta and I encountered on our brief tour of the beach in District 4. But at least it seems clean. - It’s cool to see Katniss being so methodical here; man, I would have loved to learn more about Peeta and Katniss’s stay in D4... Katniss’s last thought here trips me up - is she implying that the beaches and water in D4 are dirty in contrast to the water in the arena or was she simply evaluating the water quality per se, since the Gamemakers could have done anything to the water if they liked?

When the gong sounds, I don’t even hesitate before I dive to my left. It’s a longer distance than I’m used to, and navigating the waves takes a little more skill than swimming across my quiet lake at home, but my body seems oddly light and I cut through the water effortlessly. Maybe it’s the salt. - We will later learn that Katniss feels light because the belts are also floatation devices, but I love this kind of ‘misdirection’ that is built on pretty plausible assumptions (since Katniss had never swum in saltwater, how would she know?

I don’t let the thought of adversaries slow me down, though. I’m thinking like a Career now, and the first thing I want is to get my hands on a weapon. - all that training like a Career paid off, didn’t it?

My eyes instantly home in on a golden bow just in arm’s reach and I yank it free. - so Katniss’s bow has been upgraded to a golden now (instead of silver like in the previous Games; I wonder whether that has any particular meaning... on a interesting sidenote: Artemis, goddess of the hunt actually is associated with a golden bow (instead of a silver one, as one might be inclined to assume considering the fact that Artemis is also associated with the moon, which evokes more of a silver-y color palette, imo)

Finnick, glistening and gorgeous, stands a few yards away, with a trident poised to attack. A net dangles from his other hand. [...] “You can swim, too,” he says. “Where did you learn that in District Twelve?” “We have a big bathtub,” I answer. - Lol, snarky Katniss strikes again 😄 I’m kind of enjoying how Katniss continually mentions how good-looking Finnick is, as a simple aesthetical fact, but it’s still clear that she’s not romantically interested him at all

“You like the arena?” “Not particularly. But you [Finnick] should. They must have built is especially for you,” I say with an edge of bitterness. It seems like it, anyway, with all the water, when I bet only a handful of the victors can swim. And there was no pool in the Training Center, no chance to learn. [...] That gives District 4 an enormous advantage. - Honestly, a water-based arena is just insanely unfair (and yes, precautions were taken so that not 80% of the tributes die immediately by drowning, since that would be ~boring~, but since the obvious disadvantage for the other districts, I’m not that surprised that a water-arena hasn’t really been a thing as of yet, apparently) - I wonder if Plutarch orchestrated because this way, he’s clearly not creating an arena that supports the Mockingjay and also would make Finnick a more appealing ally for Katniss

Then Finnick suddenly grins. “Lucky thing we’re allies. Right?” Sensing a trap, I’m about to let my arrow fly [...] when he shifts his hand and something on his wrist catches the sunlight. A solid-gold bangle patterned with flames. The same one I remember on Haymitch’s wrist [...] Haymitch gave it to him. As a signal to me. An order, really. To trust Finnick. - We’re barely a few minutes into the Games, and Haymitch and Katniss are already back to communicating with each other through nonverbal hints and signals - a new record! ;)

Finnick drops a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll get him [Peeta].” Suspicion flickers up inside me [...] “I can,” I insist. But Finnick has dropped all his weapons to the ground. “Better not exert yourself. Not in your condition,” he says. and reaches down and pats my abdomen. Oh right. I’m supposed to be pregnant, I think. While I’m trying to think what that means and how I should act - maybe throw up or somehing - Finnick has positioned himself at the edge of the water. - Good move on Finnick’s part to obviously put down his weapon in order to convince Katniss to let him get Peeta and using the pregnancy card as well (Katniss generally tends to be very aware of how the audience must be perceiving her and her actions, so that way he’s gently forcing her to comply withhis plan); heh, Katniss and Peeta maybe should have considered what the pregnancy card would entail for inside the arena, though - all their meticulous preparation and training, and Katniss’s only idea of keeping up appearances is that she maybe should throw up 😂

Finnick has reached Peeta now and is towing him back, one arm across his chest while the other propels them through the water with easy strokes. Peeta rides along without resisting. I don’t know what Finnick said or did that convinced him to put his life in his hands - showed him the bangle, maybe. Or just the sight of me waiting might have been enough. - It would be interesting to know what exactly made Peeta go with Finnick just like that; he’s definitely better at accepting help than Katniss is and since he can’t swim, it’s not like he has got a lot of options (at this point, they don’t know that the belts are floatation devices); but it’s still the Games; would he have enough trust in Haymitch’s judgment (the bangle) to go with Finnick, would he want to join Katniss as soon as possible, no matter what, or would he trust Katniss to have his back while she’s watching (Katniss does have her bow and arrows at the ready, whereas Finnick is unarmed)?; maybe it’s a combination of all these things - When they reach the sand, I help haul Peeta up onto dry land. “Hello, again,” he says, and gives me a kiss. “We’ve got allies.” - Peeta always has the best entrances, I swear 😄

“Well, I can’t leave Mags behind,” says Finnick. “She’s one of the few people who actually likes me.” “I’ve got no problem with Mags,” I say. “Especially now that I see the arena. Her fishhooks are probably our best chance of getting a meal.” “Katniss wanted her on the first day,” says Peeta. “Katniss has remarkably good judgment,” says Finnick. - This exchange is interesting: Finnick tries to play Mags’s inclusion cool, being all joke-y but also with a social connotation; Katniss’s reply is kind of downplaying her actual liking of Mags, instead steering it towards Mags’s technical skill and value for the team, whereas Peeta reveals that Katniss genuinely likes Mags, independent of ‘technical value’, which in turn, actually elicits a compliment from Finnick aimed at Katniss - considering that Katniss’s and Finnick’s relationship at this point is the most strained/hostile of their group, that’s some really smooth navigating of stormy interpersonal-relations-waters ^^ Ironically, while Finnick's compliment isn’t completely off, her judgment of Finnick is not really that on the money

I hand Peeta a bow, a sheath of arrows , and a knife, keeping the rest for myself. - If Katniss hands Peeta a bow and arrows, does that mean she also taught him how to use them (it doesn’t explicitly say so during their training montage; I’ve checked), or is this the equivalent of Peeta holding her purse? 😉

I make Finnick go second because even though he’s the most powerful, he’s got his hands full with Mags. Besides, while he’s a whiz with that trident, it’s a weapon less suited to the jungle than my arrows. - Katniss seems to really have a thing for this particular phrase: Peeta’s a whiz with fires, Gale with snares, and Finnick with that trident

The foliage has hidden the wheel from my sight, so I scale a tree with rubbery limbs to get a better view. And then I wish I hadn’t. Around the Cornucopia, the ground appears to be bleeding; the water has purple stains. Bodies lie on the ground and float in the sea [...] Well, what did I think? That the victor’s chain of locked hands last night would result on some sort of universal truce in the arena? No, I never believed that. But I guess I had hoped people might show some... what? Restraint? Reluctance, at least. Before they jumped right into massacre mode. And you all knew each other, I think. You acted like friends. - I think Katniss is especially shaken that the victors were so quick to return to their ‘kill or be killed’-mindset because they all were sorta friends (and we know that Katniss could never do this sort of thing to her friends; considering being forced to harm Peeta and Haymitch is what stopped her in her tracks when she first thought about what entering this Quarter Quell could mean) - I have only one real friend here. And he isn’t from District 4. I let the light, soupy breeze cool my cheeks while I come to a decision. Despite the bangle, I should just get it over with and shoot Finnick. There’s really no future in this alliance. And he’s too dangerous to let go. Now, when we have this tentative trust, may be my only chance to kill him. I could easily shoot him in the back as we walk. It’s despicable, of course, but will it be any more despicable if I wait? Know him better? Owe him more? No, this is the time. - Having seen how ‘easy’ it was for the other victors to turn on their friends, Katniss decides that she has to kill Finnick now, before she can form a friend-like attachment to him; because while this would make it infinitely harder for her to kill him, she has to assume that it would not be an issue for him (since he’s also one of the ‘other’ victors)

But when I land, I find Finnick’s kept pace with my thoughts. As if he knows what I have seen and how it will have affected me. He has one of his tridents raised in a casually defensive position. “What’s going on down there, Katniss? Have they all joined hands? Taken a vow of nonviolence? Tossed the weapons in the sea in defiance of the Capitol?” Finnick asks. - Hey, that’s what Peeta did at the end of his and Katniss’s last Games! (he threw his knife into the lake, but close enough) and Katniss followed, dropping her weapons as well - “No, I say. “No,” Finnick repeats. “Because whatever happened in the past is in the past. And no one in this arena was a victor by chance.” - All these victors did not only win and survive their respective Games, but they have also all kept on going/enduring the horrors the Capitol had ready for them once they were victors - they are all about survival (but not so much living, except-)

He eyes Peeta for a moment. “Except maybe Peeta.” Finnick knows what Haymitch and I know. About Peeta. Being truly, deep-down better than the rest of us. Finnick took out that tribute from 5 without blinking an eye. And how long did I take to turn deadly? I shot to kill when I targeted Enobaria and Gloss and Brutus. Peeta would at least have attempted negotiations first. [...] But to what end? Finnick’s right. I’m right. The people in this arena weren’t crowned for their compassion. - I mean, in that way Peeta is a fascinating example of a victor because he managed to become a victor through sheer compassion (and basically becoming a victor without ever aiming for that status in the first place) - but that also only worked out because Katniss is very compassionate herself; the two of them are a good example of how being kind and compassionate can be a winning strategy - if other people just would go along with it... Also, reading this section makes that scene in which Peeta overpowers (and kills?) that other tribute in the water in the movie version feel wrong...

I hold his [Finnick’s] gaze, weighing his speed against my own. The time it will take to send an arrow though his brain versus the time his trident will reach my body. - Geez-ums, that’s a direct and harsh way of voicing this thought, Katniss - I can see him, waiting for me to make the first move. Calculating if he should block first or go directly for an attack. I can feel we’ve both about worked it out when Peeta steps deliberately between us. “So how many are dead?” he asks. Move, you idiot, I think. But he remains firmly planted between us. - Dang, Peeta’s not playing; I mean, he can be sure that Katniss would never shoot him, but what about Finnick? Has Peeta taken notice that Finnick’s definitely not going to make the first move and is basically just reacting to Katniss? I’d love to know how well he’s been able to read Finnick at this point - [...] “Let’s keep moving. We need water,” he [Peeta] says. - A clever move on Peeta’s part: introducing a common goal (finding water)

“Better find some soon,” says Finnick. “We need to be undercover when the others come hunting us tonight.” We. Us. Hunting. All right, maybe killing Finnick would be a little premature. He’s been helpful so far. He does have Haymitch’s stamp of approval. And who knows what the night will hold? If worse comes to worst, I can always kill him in his sleep. So I let the moment pass. And so does Finnick. - Aside from introducing a common goal, introducing a common adversary is also quite helpful in order to bring people closer together; their common goal(s): find water (+ survive the night); the common adversary introduced through Finnick’s observations of “the others come hunting us” re-frames Katniss’s view of who the in-group and out-group at the moment are (originally: Peeta and Katniss vs. Finnick -> now, revised: D12 + D4 tributes vs. the rest); makes me think of realistic conflict theory and the Robbers Cave Experiment which explored intergroup conflicts over limited resources, but also how to overcome these conflicts

My warning cry is just reaching my lips when Peeta’s knife swings out to slash away some vines. There’s a sharp zapping sound. [...] Peeta’s flung back from the force field, bringing Finnick and Mags to the ground. I rush over to where he lies, motionless in a web of vines. [...] I call his name again, giving him a little shake, but he’s unresponsive. My fingers fumble across his lips, where there’s no warm breath although moments ago he was panting. I press my ear against his chest, to the spot where I always rest my head, where I know I will hear the strong and steady beat of his heart. Instead, I find silence. - Katniss has a specific spot on which he rests her head on Peeta’s chest; she knows his (steady!) heartbeat like the back of her hand - and it’s not there anymore 🥺😭

Chapter 20

Finnick props Mags against a tree and pushes me out of the way. “Let me.” His fingers touch points at Peeta’s neck, run over the bones in his ribs and spines. Then he pinches Peeta’s nostrils shut. “No!” I yell, hurling myself at Finnick, for surely he intends to make certain that Peeta’s dead, to keep any hope of life from returning to him. - Katniss is absolutely frantic

From where I sit, I pull an arrow, whip the notch into place, and am about to let it fly when I’m stopped by the sight of Finnick kissing Peeta. And it’s so bizarre, even for Finnick, that I stay my hand. - Lol, Katniss being all confused about Finnick performing CPR 😂 I wonder how much of Katniss’s surprise stems from wonderment over Finnick’s initial ‘reaction’ to Peeta being dead is kissing him - which, granted, would definitely be a weird thing to do - and how much of it is due to the fact that Finnick’s “kissing” another dude (Peeta!, no less!!); Katniss hasn’t really mentioned any same-sex couples so far, if I recall correctly, so I’m wondering how familiar/aware she is with/of homosexuality; District 12 has more small-town vibes, which isn’t necessarily the most open when it comes to that sort of thing (I’m saying that as someone who grew up in a tiny village and went to school in a small town)

And I find the arrow tip sinking to the ground as I lean in to watch, desperately, for some sign of success. Agonizing minutes drag past as my hopes diminish. Around the time I’m deciding it’s too late, that Peeta’s dead, moved on, unreachable forever, he gives a small cough and Finnick sits back. - Oof, that tension! Considering that Peeta is her “dandelion in the spring”, her hope was figuratively dying in front of Katniss 🥺😭

“Peeta?” I say softly. [...] His lashes flutter open and his eyes meet mine. “Careful,” he says weakly. “There’s a force field up ahead.” - Oh really, Peeta? I wouldn’t have known otherwise, thank you 😂- I laugh, but there are tears running down my cheeks. “Must be a lot stronger than the one on the Training Center roof,” he says. “I’m all right, though. Just a little shaken.”- Peeta, hon, you are a talented public speaker, but even you can’t ‘‘tis but a scratch” your way out of here after having literally been just resuscitated - “You were dead! Your heart stopped!”

“Well it seems to be working now,” he says. “It’s all right, Katniss.” I nod my head but the sounds aren’t stopping. “Katniss?” - Peeta, you really shouldn’t be that surprised that Katniss wouldn’t take your death all that well, sweetie - Now Peeta’s worried about me, which adds to the insanity of it all. “It’s okay. It’s just her hormones,” says Finnick. “From the baby.” [...] “No. It’s not-” I get out, but I’m cut off by an even more hysterical round of sobbing that seems only to confirm what Finnick said about the baby. - Katniss is just genuinely shaken over Peeta’s almost-death (because she loves that boy!); that’s not to blame on any hormonal imbalance (although, in this case, Finnick is doing a Katniss a favor by bringing up the pregnancy card - otherwise, I wouldn’t recommend blaming a woman’s emotional outburst on her ‘hormones’ ;)

He [Finnick] glances between Peeta and me, as if trying to figure something out, then gives his head a slight shake as if to clear it. “How are you?” he asks Peeta. “Do you think you can move on?” “No, he has to rest,” I say. - Finnick’s realizing that Katniss actually truly loves Peeta (yay!); Katniss’s fiercely protective response just cements that realization

I notice a gleam of gold on Peeta’s chest. I reach out and retrieve the disk that hangs from a chain around his neck. My mockingjay has been engraved on it. “Is this your token?” I ask. “Yes. Do you mind that I used your mockingjay? I wanted us to match,” he says. “No, of course I don’t mind.” - Peeta adopted Katniss’s symbol! 😭 I wish the movie version had kept this detail - I force a smile. Peeta showing up in the arena wearing a mockingjay is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it should give a boost to the rebels in the district. On the other, it’s hard to imagine President Snow will overlook it, and that makes the job of keeping Peeta alive harder. - Katniss, Peeta just managed to die (briefly) even without flaunting the symbol of his token; if you’re hoping that protecting Peeta will be an easy job - that ship has sailed

“So you want to make camp here, then?” Finnick asks. “I don’t think that’s an option,” Peeta answers. “Staying here. With no water. No protection. I feel all right, really. If we could just go slowly.” “Slowly would be better than not at all.” - Finnick’s being really nice and patient here; and Peeta’s just doing his best, trying to power through - love these boys! 😊

I’m glad Finnick keeps playing the pregnancy card for me, because from a sponsor’s point of view, I’m not handling things all that well. I check over my weapons, which I know are in perfect conditions, because it makes me seem more in control. - As so often, Katniss is super aware of how she must be perceived by the viewers and sponsors

“How did you know [about the force field]?” I hesitate. To reveal that I know Beetee and WIress’s trick of recognizing a force field could be dangerous. [...] I have a very valuable piece of information. And if they [the Gamemakers] know I have it, they might do something to alter the force field so I can’t see the aberration anymore. So I lie. “I don’t know. It’s almost as if I could hear it. Listen.” [...] “I don’t hear anything,” says Peeta. [...] “There!” I say. “Can’t you hear it? It’s coming from right where Peeta got shocked.” [...] I decide to play this for all it’s worth. “That’s weird,” I say. I turn my head from side to side as if puzzled. “I can only hear it out of my left ear.” “The one the doctors reconstructed?” asks Peeta. “Yeah,” I say, then give a shrug. “Maybe they did a better job than they thought. [...]” Perfect. Now all the attention will turn to the surgeons who fixed my daf ear after the Games last year - Katniss is very clever! I wonder whether Peeta was just genuinely asking or he caught on Katniss’s trick here and decided to play into it?

I go forward, wondering about Finnick [...] Who brought Peeta back from the dead. Why didn’t he just let him die? He would have been blameless. I never would have guessed it was in his power to revive him. Why could he possibly have wanted to save Peeta? And why was he so determined to team up with me? Willing to kill me, too, if it comes to that. But leaving the choice of if we fight to me. - Katniss is becoming aware that there is more going on than meets the eye

“Finnick, why don’t you stand guard and I’ll hunt around some more for water,” I say. No one’s thrilled with the idea of me going off alone, but the threat of dehydration hangs over us. “Don’t worry, I won’t go far,” I promise Peeta. “I’ll go, too,” he says. - he doesn’t want to let her out of his sight and instead wants to join her, although he’s already been through the wringer 🥺- “No, I’m going to do some hunting if I can,” I tell him. I don’t add, “And you can’t come because you’re too loud.” But it’s implied. He would both scare off prey and endanger us with his heavy tread. - lol, Katniss just loves to remind Peeta of his heavy tread 😄 But hey, at least she know trusts Finnick to keep an eye on Peeta while she’s gone; that means a lot

Already, swallowing is difficult and fatigue is creeping up on me. I try rubbing my hand across my belly, hoping som esympathetic pregnant woman will becaome my sponsor and Haymitch can send in some water. No luck. I sink to the ground. - Always thinking of how she is going to be perceived 🧠

It’s ugly, all right, a big rodent with a fuzz of mottled gray fur and two wicked-looking gnawing teeth protruding over its lower lip. As I’m gutting and skinning it, I notice something else. Its muzzle is wet. Like an animal that’s been drinking from a stream. Excited, I start at its home tree and move slowly out in a spiral. It can’t be far, the creature’s water source. Nothing. I find nothing. - The protruding teeth and wet muzzle are such a clever, but subtle clue for where the gang is going to find their water

“[...] He [the tree rat] ought to be cooked...” I hesitate as I think of trying to start a fire out here from complete scratch. Even if I succeed, there’s the smoke to think about. We’re all so close together in this arena, there’s sno chance of hiding it. Peeta has another idea. He takes a cube of rodent meat. skewers it on the tip of a pointed stick, and lets it fall into the force field. There’s a sharp sizzle and the stick flies back. The chunk of meat is blackened on the outside but well cooked inside. We give him a round of applause - another proof of Peeta thinking outside the box (also fitting, since he’s generally the one providing the fire normally)... but also quite morbid, that the guy who almost bit the dust because of those force fields now uses them for ‘cooking’ food... what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?

Our conversation trails off because we know what’s coming. We position ourselves in a line at the mouth of the hut and Peeta slips his hand into mine. The sky brightens when the seal of the Capitol appears as if floating in space. As I listen to the strains of the anthem I think, It will be harder for Finnick and Mags. But it turns out to be plenty hard for me as well. Seeing the faces of the eight dead victors projected into the sky. - It doesn’t get easier, this useless and brutal blood-spilling 😢

“Whose [sponsor parachute] is it, do you think?” I say finally. “No telling,” says Finnick. “Why don’t we let Peeta claim it, since he died today?” - How considerate of you, Finnick 😂 - [...] On the parachute sits a small metal object that I can’t place. “What is it?” I ask. No one knows. [...] It’s a hollow metal tube, tapered slightly at one end. On the other end a small lip curves downward. It’s vaguely familiar. A part that could have fallen off a bicycle, a curtain rod, anything, really. - How many bicycles has Katniss seen in her life? For some reason, I can’t really imagine that a lot of people in District 12 would actually have bikes...

I stretch out, pressing my hot cheek on the grass mat, staring at the thing [spile] in aggravation. Peeta rubs a tense spot between my shoulders and I let myself relax a little. - Such a familiar gesture! 💕

I wonder what’s going on back home. Prim. My mother. Gale. Madge. I think of them watching me from home. At least I hope they’re at home. Not taken into custody by Thread. Being punished as Cinna is. As Darius is. Punished because of me. Everybody. - Weeeell... Your friends and family in D12 are not being punished... yet, as far as we know😟 But poor Katniss, she’s always taking on the responsibilty for the atrocities the Capitol is committing against the people she loves

“It’s a spile. Sort of like a faucet. You put it in a tree and sap comes out.” I look at the sinewy green trunks around me. “Well, the right sort of tree.” “Sap?” asks Finnick. They don’t have the right kind of trees by the sea, either. “To make syrup,” says Peeta. “But there must be something else inside these trees.” - I don’t know if I would have been able to figure out what the spile was; the only time I’ve seen a spile and the principle behind it was in a nonfiction book on Native Americans I had as a child... even maple syrup wasn’t really much of a thing when I was small; we primarily had sugar beet syrup

I lie down beside Peeta on the floor of the hut, telling Finnick to wake me when he’s tired. Instead I find myself jarred from sleep a few hours later by what seems to be the tolling of a bell. Bong! Bong! It’s not exactly like the one they ring in the Justice Building on New Year’s, but close enough for me to recognize it. - Huh, so do they celebrate New Year’s Eve/Day in Panem or do they just ring some bells to let people know a new year has begun?

I sit with my bow loaded, watching the jungle, which is ghostly pale and green in the moonlight. After an hour or so, the lightning stops. I can hear the rain coming in, though, pattering on the leaves a hundred yards away. I keep waiting for it to reach us but it never does. - this is already such a good hint for how the arena works (the time limits + space constraints for each horror)! Once you know the arena is a clock it’s so obvious, but when you read this section for the first time, you have just enough information to be able to figure it out along with Katniss and the crew; love these sort of breadcrumbs!

Chapter 21

“Hurry, Peeta!” I urge. I can tell that however much he denied it during the day, the aftereffects of hitting the force field have been significant. - as to be expected, since his heart had literally stopped beating for some time; told you, ti was more than just a scratch, Peeta! - He’s slow, much slower than usual. And the tangle of vines and undergrowth, which unbalance me occasionally, trip him every step. - the tangled undergrowth of the jungle must be so shitty to traverse for Peeta in particular; he wouldn’t be able to feel if his prosthetic leg is entangled until he’d notice the tug, would he? With a non-artificial leg, you would at least feel if there’s something creeping around your ankle or so, but with a prothesis? Must be super difficult... as is later mentioned: - Peeta’s artificial leg catches in a knot of creepers and he sprawls forward before I can reach him.

A terrible impulse to flee, to abandon Peeta and save myself, shoots through me. It would be so simple [...] I remember how I did just this when the muttations appeared in the last Games. Took off and only thought of Peeta when I’d reached the Cornucopia. But this time, I trap my terror, push it down, and stay by his side. - See, Katniss? You’re doing so much better at pushing past your own survival instinct, which is really impressive, tbh - This time my survival isn’t the goal. Peeta’s is. I think of the eyes glued to the television screens in the districts, seeing if I will run, as the Capitol wishes, or hold my ground. - How do you still manage to consider how the rebels and the Capitol will perceive you, Katniss?!!? o.O In that regard, it’s not that surprising how difficult it sometimes is for Katniss to figure out what her actual motivations are (like when she questioning what her motivation for saving Peeta and pulling out the berries was in the last Games) - she’s just always so hyperaware of what the people around her want, that it’s really hard for her to separate them from her own wants (also a reason why she’s having such a difficult time figuring out her boys-troubles)

Finnick, who bounded off initially, stops when he realizes we’re having problems. [...] He shouts encouragement, trying to move us along, and the sound of his voice acts as a guide, though little more. - Finnick’s being a good bean here, trying to help as much as he can

Finnick has Peeta slung across his back now and we move forward, Finnick leading, me following in the trail he breaks through the vines. [...] Although my instinct is to run directly away from it, I realize Finnick is moving at a diagonal down the hill. He’s trying to keep a distance from the gas while steering us toward the water that surrounds the Cornucopia.- Smart move! Finnick is so much more than just a pretty face (and athletic body... which is also an asset in the arena, of course) But I also wonder if, being from District 4, Finnick might be naturally drawn to the water/shore for protection? (We’ll later see how comfortable he feels in the water) - [...] Now I’m so thankful I didn’t kill Finnick, because how would I have gotten Peeta out of here alive? So thankful to have someone else on my side, even if it’s only temporarily. - And Finnick will continue to be a good friend to Katniss (and Peeta!) until his dying breath 😭😢

“No,” he [Finnick] says. “I can’t carry them both. My arms aren’t working. [...] I’m sorry, Mags. I can’t do it.” What happens next is so fast, so senseless, I can’t even move to stop it. Mags hauls herself up, plants a kiss on FInnick’s lips, and then hobbles straight into the fog. Immediately, her body is seized by wild contortions and she falls to the ground in a horrible dance. - Mags 😭😭 And her death must have been painful, too 😢 - I want to scream, but my throat is on fire. I take one futile step in her direction when I hear the cannon blast - Katniss’s instinct was even to go for Mags, into the fog 😩😭

I look up and spot a pair of what I guess are monkeys. I have never seen a live monkey - there’s nothing like that in our woods at home. But I must have seen a picture or one in the Games, because when I see the creatures, the same word comes to my mind. I think these have orange fur, although it’s hard to tell, and are about half the size of a full grown human. - Well, that doesn’t sound like the baboons (mandrills? I forgot) we see in the movie adaptation (although it makes sense; I believe baboons are said to be pretty aggressive); reading this description of the monkeys always makes me think of the ones from the movie Jumanji (1995)

I unbuckle my belt and strop off my jumpsuit, which is little more than a perforated rag. My shoes and undergarment are inexplicably unaffected. - convenient ;) but also, wild how Katniss, Peeta, and Finnick basically spent most of their time in the arena just in their underwear

Finnick slowly begins to revive. [...] I rest his head on my lap and we let him soak about ten minutes with everything immersed from the neck down. Peeta and I exchange a smile as Finnick lifts his arms above the seawater. - It’s cute how Peeta and Katniss take care of Finnick 😊

He [Finnick] dives and surfaces, spraying water out of his mouth, rolls over and over in some bizarre corkscrew motion that makes me dizzy even to watch. And then, when he’s been underwater so long I feel certain he’s drowned, his head pops up right next to me and I start. “Don’t do that,” I say. “What? Come up or stay under?” he says. “Either. Neither. Whatever. Just soak in the water and behave,” I say. - Katniss and Finnick’s bickering is just hilarious 😂 (It reminds me a lot of “Shut up and it your pears.”)

Peeta turns to us, panting from his work on the tree. The tone of my request is so odd that it’s alerted him to some irregularity. “Okay,” he says casually. - See? Peeta didn’t just run straight into the monkeys; he had actually caught on that something was going and was trying to get out of the situation as calmly as possible - He begins to move through the jungle and although I know he’s trying hard to be quiet, this has never been his strong suit, even when he had two sound legs. But it’s all right, he’s moving, the monkeys are holding their positions. He’s just five yards from the beach when he senses them. His eyes only dart up for a second, but it’s as if he’s triggered a bomb. The monkeys explode into a shrieking mass of orange fur and converge on him. - Eeek, that description alone makes me shudder 😨

My heart sinks as my fingers draw back my last arrow. Then I remember Peeta has a sheath, too. And he’s not shooting, he’s hacking away with that knife. - So that answers my earlier musings: Katniss must have taught Peeta (and Haymitch, I assume) how to use a bow!

Weaponless, defenseless, I do the only thing I can think of. I run for Peeta, to knock him to the ground, to protect his body with mine, even though I know I won’t make it in time. - You’re not thinking about how the rebels are going to perceive this move right there, right now, or about running away to safety, but you choose to try saving Peeta by throwing yourself in front of him, even when you’re sure you won’t make it in time - that makes you pretty darn selfless, Katniss, so just learn to accept this fact about yourself instead of constantly telling yourself how selfish you are, missy!!!

#thgagain #thg #katniss everdeen #peeta mellark #everlark #finnick odair #thg meta #my sketches and drawings #thg fanart #catching fire #a little late but I was on vacation and didn't have as much time for drawing as usual #hopefully it's not too riddled with spelling errors

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whiskehorange · 3 years

Text

Arthur Fleck NSFW Alphabet

This is going to be more Arthur centered, of course, but if you'd like for me to do one more Joker based then let me know when requests are open!

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

Aftercare is an absolute must from Arthur. It's one of his favorite part of sex, really. He's extremely soft and gentle with your body, kissing and caressing any mark he may have caused in the process. It's a reward for him as well to see you wrapped around his finger and to be able to lie next to you stress free.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

He doesn't give too much thought into his own appearance, but your softness is his favorite. Smooth and soft to the touch and so comforting to him. He also just refuses to pick a one certain body part because he loves all of you equally.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

Inside 100%, although he'll never admit it to you. It's something that has a lot of meaning to him and he really just wants to be a part of you in a different way.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

I'm sure he'd keep pictures of you, lewd or not, with him at all times for him to peak at from time to time. Especially on days where the two of you are busy and he doesn't get to spend much time with you. Do what you will with this fact. He keeps them well hidden as well, he'd hate for someone else to see them.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

Not a lot, at all. It's going to be a learning experience for him and he's more than happy to either learn with you or have you take the ropes. There's a lot he doesn't know about, but he knows he's missing out on something good.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

I'm fairly certain it's a close tie between a very close missionary or cowgirl. It's about being able to see your face and have the way to touch/kiss your face.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

During sex, Arthur does like to mellow himself out and take a much more serious and sentimental approach. Of course this goes without having a few giggles here and there but he wants to take this seriously to show you how much he'd do for you.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

It's not something he keeps up with at all really, so it's curly and dark brown like the rest of his hair.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

It's very quiet and sensual. He wants to make sure that you're as comfortable as possible and in the mood as well (perhaps some candles and rose petals in the bedroom)

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

Of course he's embarrassed to admit that he does it, but he see's it as more of a stress reliever than from sexual tension or need. You're in his mind when he does it, now that doesn't change, but he doesn't too it very frequently.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Pet names, body worship, praise, eye contact, slight edging, overstimulation, etc.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

Home, and just about in any room for that matter. As long as you're there with him then he couldn't care.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

Overly-nice tasks or favors for each other, sensual eye contact, physical touch, pampering, and seeing you genuinely having a good time with him (extra bonus points if you laugh, he loves your laugh)

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Degradation isn't something he'd be into right away, but give it some time and he could slowly slide into it. He still isn't a fan though,

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

Giving, giving, and more giving! It comes with the whole praise and body worshipping and he's more than happy to do it for you. Not only is it a confidence boost for him, but he loves the way you taste. He'd never pass up an offer to receive because that does drive him absolutely wild.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

It stays around the more slow/moderate pace up until the very end with quick, harder thrusts until he's finished. Arthur is more concerned with your wellbeing and feelings than his own, so if you want it a certain way he's bound to deliver it for you.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

They aren't really his thing, he wants something more meaningful and lasting, he feels as though quickies don't properly show his love for you. He enjoys them while doing them, yes, but it's not something that he himself would ask for.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

It's scary, real scary. Not only does he really want to keep you all to himself but he wants to have no repercussions. It will take him some getting used to and some serious coaxing, but it'll be worth it.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

Depending on the speed, he can finish quite a bit early, but he's also able to pump out a few rounds a night solely driven off of his love for you and nicotine. Max of about...3 rounds.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

You'll definitely have to be the one to introduce him to the idea, but he's not against it. He likes to watch you use them and is a bit curious to see how they might work on himself.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

His teasing is very verbal and he does it quite often. Especially when it comes to telling each other what you want to do to the other. It normally doesn't last very long, but it happens frequently.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

Arthur is a bit more on the quiet side up until the very end. He also whimpers and whines a lot which he normally doesn't realize he's doing. He lives to hear your moans and cries and strives to hear you begging.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

His favorite time of the day is when he wakes up before you, seeing your sleeping body lie beside him to peacefully. It makes him not want to get out of bed but, he's positive you'd like to be woken up with some breakfast made by yours truly.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

Long and skinny/medium width.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

Overall, it can be pretty high, but he knows how to control himself amazingly. You genuinely call of the shots when it comes to sex and if he's in the mood but you're not then he's perfectly okay with waiting.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

You definitely fall asleep before him, but this gives him time to give you gentle aftercare until you fall asleep and hold you in his arms. He'd rather think of the two of you for the time being until he himself drifts off.

#arthur fleck #arthur fleck x reader #joker x reader #joker film

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villainsandvictimsalliance · 3 years

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thoughts on toga?

Sorry, I was putting some good music to do this 😌 our vampire princess deserves only the best.

PERSONAL THOUGHTS ON TOGA HIMIKO :

First of all, I still maintain that she's one of the best written female characters of bnha.

I used to think she was heavily sexualized on the manga, and while I still maintain that she is hyoersexualized on the fandom and still sexualized on the manga, I came to realize some of Horikoshi's choices are not that bad. Of course, it has a lot to do with certain common motives and symbolisms.

I think my main complain about the way some people write Toga (pushing aside the way the ship her with adults), it's that people either put her a a total child or a total woman.

Oh God, Toga is so smart. She's so under-appreciated, so so much.

"She's a murdered". She's what? 16-17 years old? Let's see the facts.

Toga was born in a family with money.

The first memory we got from her is Toga bitting a bird and showing it to her parents. They reacted pretty bad, like it was terribly spooky and told her to put that away, rejecting her.

After that, she created a mask for herself. She started pretending to be normal, smiling a lot, becoming the sweet overexcited girl.

However, the feeling never went away, because it was part of her quirk. The need to bite people to become them, the joy of wanting to taste the blood of someone she loved.

This could be a side effect like a person with wings wanting to fly, or a person with fire wanting to see the flames.

After stabbing her school crush, she ran away and began a criminal career of stabbing other people, hiding from the police.

This all means she lived in a lie for at least 13 years of her life, before becoming a criminal and loving on the streets at least 3 or 4 more years.

Toga has both taste the high-middle class class and the low class. She knows what is like to have too much money and be empty inside because no one sees you or accepts you, as much as she knows what is like being hungry and with cold, but living with people that love you for who you are.

This girl learned to erase her presence from a young age, before any of the UA kids ever dreamed about having that level of skill. She knows how to fight pretty well in close combat, how to fight with knives, how to trick people, how to choose her preys and when to retire from a fight.

She's extremely smart because she has successfully infiltrated in the heroes side at least three times: during the license exam, during the overhaul arc and on the war arc.

Her great goal is to live and live well. This is fucking magnificent because many people with her experience would reject themselves, thinking they're the problem. Toga knows she's not the problem, but society. She knows she deserves to live and love and have friends and family and she fights for it. In fact, even when so many people say she's insane, she's uses her logic all the time, way more than many other members of the League.

She see humans as they are. Not villains, not heroes. She was able to love Izuku and Ochaco even when they were heroes, she was able to hate overhaul while he was a villain. This shows she's outside the hero-villain toxic narrative, clever girl.

She's not afraid to face anyone when it comes to her rights. She faces Tomura more than once (overhaul arc, mva arc), she doesn't let Dabi intimidate her, she protects Twice and sweetly answers to Mr. Compress and Spinner's worry.

And God, maybe she doesn't have a mutant quirk, but almost. See her pupils, see her fangs. The reason why she makes people uncomfortable it's because she doesn't fit their standards. And she's perfectly okay with people not knowing how to categorize her. In fact, her fight in the MVA arc was because someone was trying to frame her.

I don't know how to make this clear but she's not crazy or psycho.

Toga Himiko would have passed the UA test with honors. She's so further above from the rest. She knows the older generations are full of shit and she knows they can't follow their paths, enough to outgrow Stain's legacy and make her own ideals.

I love how she shows that one can be totally feral and go against the system without stop being oneself.

Her speech to Ochaco on the war arc was incredible. She quickly questioned the idea that heroes can decide who deserves to live and who doesn't by saving only the people they think that deserve to be saved. She criticized the heroes decision to forget and dismiss and put away real people suffering just because they were not passive about their pain. She also make Ochaco see that she was a girl, just like her, not some type of hell demon trying to consume her soul.

She refused to say Shigaraki and decided to call him Tomura instead. This is so important!!!! From a narrative point of view, she's rejecting AFO's last name and accepting Tomura, the boy mourning for a father, a family.

She's observant, analytical, good at judging people, great at adapting and changing her mind.

I love how she kept being so happy and vibrant even in the worst moments.

And she's not just a victim, please. Toga Himiko is not some lost child, not a know-it-all woman. She's a teenager that can understand the situation but still needs tsome guidance.

She's actively changing the system. She's not passive or easy to manipulate. Like Spinner said, she's a free spirit.

So I'd love to see more fanfics depicting this. She's an amazing character at the level of most male characters on bnha, just like Ochaco, for example.

I'd love to see more headcanons about her with people her age. Real headcanons.

What about Momo and Toga talking about how boring can fancy parties be? How people with money are crazy sometimes?

What about Toga talking with Jirou about beinf girls that are considered "bros" by her friends?

What about Toga talking about being a little mutant and Tsuyu talking with her about hating cold weather?

What about Toga and Kirishima being overexcited and full of positivity together? About Denki and Toga talking about celebrities and TigTog? About Toga and the people from class 1-B bonding over being considered less when they're as good as class 1-A? Toga and Shinsou? Toga and Koda loving cats? Toga and Shoji playing card games? Toga and Tokoyami loving metal music? Toga and Bakugo loving romance stories?

What about Toga admiring female pro-heroes? Mirko seems loud and determined, Toga would adore her under other circumstances. Fuyumi helping Toga with her self-care because she ran away young. Toga showing Eri that they both have "scary" quirks and it's not wrong! They're both went through really bad moments and they're not bad! Toga being a big fan of the Wild Wild Pussycats. Toga adoring Vlad King and Present Mic.

The potential is there.

Anyway I just want more creativity, maybe. People writing more about Toga and the implications of her childhood, about how insane she is a fighter and a human being.

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y0itsbri · 3 years

Text

Falling for You

ballet au one-shot for @gallavichthings 's a.u.gust

summary: dance instructor mickey! ian keeps messing up the lifts with the dancers, and mickey cannot have his girls injured because of this himbo, even if he is hot. he makes ian stay after class to practice on him -- and he swears there's no ulterior motives. but they're so close and his hands are all over him and he can feel his breath and it is so unprofessional but fuck it.

words: 2k

Mickey had a new guy in his class that wasn't doing... well... by any standards. Alright, the dude sucked. Mickey had been a ballet instructor for several years and not once has he met a dancer as uncoordinated and unbalanced as Ian fucking Gallagher.

Somehow, Ian had managed to not only rip the ballet barre off of the goddamn wall in his attempt at a grand plie, fallen flat on his face after pas de chat gone wrong, but he also managed to launch his fellow ballerinas onto the floor instead of the air.

He was a disaster.

Mickey had better shit to do with his time at the studio than patch up his dancers, and studio, after Gallagher's classes. Svetlana's father would have his ass if she got injured on his watch. And Ian being the only guy in their class, there was no way for him not to share the front-and-center spotlight with Svetlana.

Yeah, Mickey wasn't letting Ian any-fucking-where near Svet if he could help it. At least in his current state. Dude was a piece of work.

Mickey figured he would be a lot more upset about all this if Ian's apologetic puppy dog eyes weren't so goddamn convincing.

Fucking Gallagher.

"Ayo, Mands! Come help me with this!" Mickey called, echoing in the studio, now nearly empty besides the Milkovich siblings and a six-foot-tall ginger man looking both utterly clueless and utterly terrified. Mickey was utterly hopeless.

Mandy popped in the doorframe, sliding her shoes on but leaving them untied.

"Can't! I got actual shit to do! I don't live and breathe the studio like your sorry ass. No offense, Ian, my brother is great, please stay. Full offense, Mickey, get a fucking life!"

Mickey was left speechless and slightly embarrassed by Mandy's outburst and only managed to flip her off before she was out the door.

"Charming sister you got there," Ian let a quiet laugh slip before schooling his expression at Mickey's lack of amusement.

Mickey sighed and rubbed his hands down the length of his face for a moment. Ian and Mickey held eye contact a bit longer before Mickey abruptly straightened up and clapped his hands together. The noise startled Ian from his own amused trance.

"Alright, Clifford, how do you feel about private lessons for a little bit until you're not tripping over your own feet?"

Ian stepped forward to argue, but, proving Mickey's point, stumbled over the shoes on the floor in front of him. He didn't miss the way that Mickey's mouth quirked up on the side.

"Can't afford extra classes," Ian shoved his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants.

"It's on me," Mickey swiped his top lip. He didn't miss the way that Ian's gaze lingered on his mouth,"Kinda need you..." really want you, "to, uh, look good..." as if he doesn't already, fucking red-headed alien-looking motherfucker, "on the floor..." of my bedroom, goddamn it, Mick, get it together! "the, uh, dance floor."

Ian paused, considering the way that Mickey was stumbling over his words in a way that one might call endearing, another might call the-worst-fucking-experience-of-his-life.

"I'll do it."

Do me. Seriously, go drink some water, oh my god.

Mickey literally took a sip from his water bottle, hoping that it would at least calm his nerves. He was a professional!

He crossed his arms over his chest. "You free after class?" A pause, "To work on some skills, I mean."

"It's a date," Ian smirked, leaning down to pick up his shoes from the ground in front of him. By the time he was upright again, Mickey had already started walking away, but the blush on his cheeks and the back of his neck could be spotted from a mile away. He was utterly fucked.

Mickey yawned and got up from his stretching position on the floor. He walked over to the stereo, systematically knocking his dancer's feet on his way over until they were all turned out and pointed.

"No Orange Boy today?" Svetlana asked, meeting Mickey's eyes with a challenging stare.

Mickey ignored the chorus of "He's so hot!" "Have you seen his arms?" and "Ian's the nicest!" from the rest of the girls.

Svetlana raised her eyebrow in question and Mickey's defenses flew out the window. This goddamn power dynamic was going to be the death of him.

"I put him on private lessons until he's no longer a disruption to the class," he shrugged.

"Aww," one brunette pouted.

"Disruption to class or disruption to tiny bulge in your pants?" Svetlana smirked, earning some scandalized gasps from the other dancers.

Mickey flipped her off, "The fucker made me take out a greater insurance policy with all his accidents, don't be fucking absurd."

A blonde nodded understandingly from the back of the class, "My ankle is still a little funky from the last lift we tried."

Mickey held his arms out in a display of I-told-you-so and Svetlana rolled her eyes.

"Great!" Mickey clapped his hands together, earning the full attention of his class as they hurried to their feet, "Now that all the hot drama is outta the air, let's do a quick warm up combo across the floor. Chasse step pas de bourree double pirouette step arabesque, in 5, 6, 7, 8..."

Ian had been waiting outside the studio for the last ten minutes of class, more-so watching his instructor shift around than paying attention to what the dancers were actually doing. That's probably what got him into his current predicament, and he couldn't decide whether that was a curse or a blessing. Mickey's arms flexed as he pointed across the room to call out someone's weak spot.

Yup, it was a blessing.

Oh shit, Mickey was looking his way. Was this a double sided mirror? No, of course not. Why would there be a double sided mirror? Oh, Mickey was definitely staring at him. Fuck. Wait, did he just wink? No way, he must've just blinked. With one eye. Yeah, totally normal. Nothing to overthink, Ian.

Get it together!

Mickey dismissed his class five minutes early and it had nothing to do with the Jolly Ginger Giant standing outside his studio.

While most of his dancers wordlessly accepted the easy out, Svetlana stayed back to taunt. "Have fun with private lessons," she sneered, jerking off an invisible cock.

"Choke on it," Mickey retorted tossing her warm-up jacket at her face, which she swiftly caught.

Svetlana turned and made a show of looking Ian up and down, his cheeks turning pink under her intense gaze. She faced Mickey head on, "You will be vegetable stew by the time this man is done with you."

The fuck does that mean?

Sometimes Mickey thought that Svetlana spoke in riddles just to mess with him. He blamed it on the Russian accent, never mind he was part Ukrainian himself. The languages were similar, but not identical, fuck you very much.

But, damn, forget that, Gallagher looked good. He was wearing his usual white tank top and grey sweatpants, but Mickey never got the opportunity to openly ogle in class. Not that that was what he was doing now.

Ian returned the long look appreciatively before stepping closer and Mickey snapped back into professionalism, well as far as professionalism goes, Milkovich-style.

He turned his back on the bane of his pathetic existence and snapped a quick but polite, "Get your shoes on and we can get started."

"Oh, right."

That seemed to be enough to get the gears in Ian's head going again as he dropped his bag to the floor, echoing in the truly empty studio, and dropping down onto the floor himself to secure his ballet shoes, which may as well be clown shoes for as big as his feet were. Mickey fit into the same brand as the girls, but he had to order special for Gallagher.

"Thanks for doing this, Mickey."

Mickey. The way that this man said his name was making him feel all sorts of flustered that he would most definitely deny.

"Mandy said you don't usually make exceptions."

"Gotta catch you up to speed or you're gonna be dancing with the 5 year-olds, man."

Ian tilted his head considering.

Mickey frowned, "Don't do it."

Ian smirked and Mickey had to look away as a grin and blush creeped up on his own face.

"Alright, so we'll start you off with the basics."

Mickey went through their normal class routine, but broke it down slowly, pausing to explain certain positions in details he couldn't afford to spend time with in class, specifically how not to fall. It should have been fairly obvious in his opinion, but Ian still managed somehow. The first few times, he was on the floor before Mickey even knew he was going down.

But the third, Mickey made a mistake. Mickey instinctively reached out to catch him.

As soon as he realized where his hands were, he pulled them off like he'd been burned, which he may have well been. He pulled his gaze to his feet, studying the floor while he composed himself.

"Mickey," Ian waited until he looked up, and then he spoke so quietly, "You can touch me."

And what made things worse was that Ian's dazzling eyes left little to the imagination. They both knew where this was going, and the moment was too intense too quick. The longer their eyes held, the hotter Mickey felt his neck grow.

"Ya know," Ian stepped closer. "To fix my positions..."

Mickey swallowed, "Uh, I think we're done for today."

He regretted the words the moment they left his mouth. He never meant them to begin with. But if Ian stayed any longer, Mickey was going to climb him like a tree and that really wasn't under his personal code of professionalism, no matter how loose those terms may be to begin with. It was getting late anyways, he reasoned with himself.

"What about the lifts? That's the important part, right?" Ian questioned, eyes pleading like he would die without this one skill being taught to him by his oh-so-unprofessional instructor.

Mickey sighed. Ya know what? Fuck it.

Mickey sauntered over to Ian, pressed his back to Ian's front, and grabbed one of Ian's massive hands and placed it on his own waist.

Ian gave an experimental squeeze and Mickey softened in his grip.

Ridiculous.

"We're not doing the lift are we?" Ian murmured breathily, hot air making the hairs on the back of Mickey's neck tingle.

"What do you think, Firecrotch?" Mickey pushed his weight back into Ian's chest, which would be the second mistake of the day.

Ian toppled over backwards, landing with a painful sounding thud and sending Mickey down on top of him before he rolled off the the side with a groan.

Ian started laughing and Mickey was concerned. Was this idiot actually fucking concussed this time? He wasn't sure how he would explain this to his insurance company.

Mickey straddled Ian's lap, gently slapping his face, "Are you good, man? Alive?"

"Never better." Ian was still smiling like an absolute goof.

Mickey raised an eyebrow in concern.

"Seriously, I just can't play things cool," Ian raised his hips to grind against Mickey's ass, "Obviously."

"You're an idiot," Mickey rolled his eyes, and all Ian could do was grin and reach up towards Mickey's neck, pulling his down until their lips almost touched, sharing breaths and excitement.

"Maybe," another breath, "But I still got you to fall for me."

It was Mickey's turn to laugh, more of a raspy exhale than anything. His "fuck you" was almost lost between them as they fell together at last.

(side note: this was the lift that they were going to do, so i feel like the hand on the waist makes sense -- gotta have a visual lmao)

#i might have an idea for a sequel/series if anyone is interested: mandy pov of this and another one shot in their relationship era???#who knows #shameless #gallavich #ian gallagher #mickey milkovich #mandy milkovich #ian x mickey #shameless fanfic #shameless fanfiction #gallavich fanfiction #gallavich fanfic #svetlana yevgenivna #my posts

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purplellamanator · 3 years

Text

So, I'm sorry I don't really know what to call this and did not give it a name- but, this is a product heavily inspired by these head-canon's created and posted by @detectivegeekshin! Please check them out if you haven't already! (if you're following me though you probably already did :D) This is insanely long though and I hope ya'll like it! Sorry @detectivegeekshin that it took me so long! I've been working on this for more than two months I think- so again, sorry!!! Thank you for allowing me to use your ideas to make, what was supposed to be a drabble, story and I hope I did your head-canon's justice! Please excuse my grammar mistakes! I tried my best to clean it up! Thank you again!

Read below the cut for the story :)

Stealing wasn't exactly the word he wanted to use. He didn't consider himself to be a thief. Was it really even stealing if he was taking it from someone it didn't actually belong to? Shinichi didn't think so.

And it wasn't about giving the wealth back to the poor. He wouldn't necessarily call himself Robin Hood either. It was about returning something to its rightful place; to the rightful owner.

It was wrong. All of it. It went against the very morals he himself created to follow when he first decided he'd be the greatest detective of the era. Stealing was wrong no matter if it was stealing something that was already stolen. It was the law and if the law was followed, then it would work out correctly in the end either way.

But that way of thinking wasn't always true. He realized that the longer he worked in this business and the more experience he gathered. It would be a nice world to live in when the law could fix everything. And unfortunately he wasn't naïve enough to actually believe that world existed anymore.

The first time he did it, it had gone against every fiber of his being. The mental crisis he thrusted his entire being into had sidelined him for weeks. So ashamed, Shinichi couldn't bring himself to work on another case. What right did he have? To expose criminals for killing? For kidnapping? For stealing?

He had no right. He was no better than those criminals. Because that was what he was now- a criminal.

The stress and just anxiety that this put him under- Shinichi considered dropping his dream of being a detective. His morals and guilt had been tearing him apart inside.

Until he turned on the news and remembered why he did what he did.

A woman was crying. They were tears of joy and happiness. And she was thankful. Thankful that the heirloom that had gone missing for decades had miraculously found its place back on her dresser. That she had no idea who or how it happened but she was grateful to whomever had given her this.

And that was when Shinichi was reminded of what finally pushed him to this. What made him crack.

He was a detective and he had done his job. He found the precious necklace that had eluded every private eye hired before him. He located it and all they had to do was retrieve it and return it back where it belonged.

But the police couldn't. They needed warrants and that took time. Time they did not have enough of. It would be sold once more on the black market and disappear likely for another decade before they were even served.

The adrenaline that had coursed through him when he finally decided what he would do. He had never felt more satisfied. There had been no disguises; no gimmicks. Just himself. His own face and his own brain. And they still hadn't caught him. It had been easy. So much easier than waiting on the courts.

After that day he saw the news, Shinichi had walked with his head held higher than any other day. He didn't know why exactly. It wasn't like anybody else besides him knew what he had done. No one but him was aware that the woman got that necklace back because of his own actions. Yet hearing people congratulate and whisper about how amazing the mystery was made him smug.

Shinichi told himself it would be a one time thing. Seeing that woman from before distraught and sobbing that her family's prized possession would likely never be returned in her lifetime- it had done something to him. It made him act. Even though he usually did so well detaching himself emotionally from his cases, that one alone had gotten to him. But he'd do better next time. Even if the outcome would be bittersweet and leave him feeling like he failed, he could not do it again. No matter who the victim was or if they cried.

But he didn't stick to that clearly because he did it again a month later, and then soon after that, and again after that.

His excuse each time- he had done so well not getting caught before. What could it hurt to do it again? It was easier. It was faster. With his genius he was sure he would get away with it no matter how many times he tried this. He couldn't be caught. He couldn't be beat. He was just too . . good at it.

Until he wasn't.

He had gotten too cocky; too arrogant. He should've stopped while he was ahead. He had gotten away with it so many times and yet he kept pushing it. And he pushed the boundaries each time. He got more and more careless than the last. And now he was stuck explaining to the last person he ever wanted to find out, why he was parading around as some law abiding detective when he was really a thief.

In the midst of his newly found hobby, Ran- one of his best friends, had realized he was not acting the same as usual. Shinichi didn't allow her to join him to certain cases anymore. He would be secretive about where he was going afterwards as well as if she had somehow already been there, he had even told her to straight up leave.

He should've known that Ran would notice something sooner. It wasn't like him to ever hide things from her and it definitely was not normal for him to tell her to leave a crime scene- unless it was a rather dangerous one. Cases that had to do with robbery didn't normally fall under that. Those were the cases he'd usually rather her witness. She didn't like anything with too much gore and like any normal person, she got scared if she even saw a corpse.

But each time he told her to leave or that she shouldn't follow him. Most of the time he did lie and say it was because he worried it would turn violent. Other times he didn't give a reason. And he definitely should've noticed her suspicion because he normally loved having her witness his cases and deductions. He liked impressing her.

Unfortunately, he didn't notice in time that he was actually worrying her. His sudden change was concerning to her and she ended up following him when he said the Inspector had called and asked for him to come by the station.

Shinichi never went to the station. There had never been a call. Instead, donning his change of clothes, he took a train almost a full hour out till he reached his actual destination.

When he said he had started pushing the boundaries, he had meant it. No longer did his thefts remain with cases within the Japanese Police. He started digging for unresolved cases in the black markets.

The entire time Ran had been tailing him. She had followed him the entire way and he hadn't noticed a single thing, which he didn't know if he should be annoyed by or impressed.

When he had almost been shot however and Ran's foot suddenly came down on the guards head, he settled on being impressed. Because though he was furious she had followed him into such a dangerous underground location, she had saved his ass. And it didn't help that Ran was aware of that fact.

She hadn't pressured him for an explanation. Shinichi thought she would yell at him and demand to know what he was doing and why. Ran hadn't done any of that. Instead, she took it upon herself to be his lookout as he finished what he originally set out to do.

Ran kept her thoughts to herself at first. It had made him nervous considering he was expecting her anger. When he hadn't gotten it, he didn't know what to expect now. Her moral compass was just as strong as his had been. When she realized what he was doing- and she definitely already had, he could only assume it'd upset her. Why wouldn't it? At this point he was no better than-

"Are you Kaito Kid?"

Kaito Kid. Obviously he knew who she was talking about. And it was actually insulting and ticked him off.

What he did took more skill. He wasn't some magic freak with a couple fog machines and pet doves. He had no disguise. If Shinichi wanted something, he walked in there and took it. With his own face.

With a stony expression, he denied the accusation. As far as he was concerned, he always thought of the Phantom Thief as, exactly that, a thief. Truthfully, he hadn't run into the magician too much after his new found discovery. And at the thought he realized that it must mean Kid wasn't after just any treasure. He must've been looking for something in particular which reminded him that he didn't know the guy's actual motive behind his crimes. Maybe like him, he realized, Kid might have a valid reason for turning to crime.

When he started sympathizing with a criminal however he noticed how far in his own crimes he actually was.

Ran took his denial in stride. She didn't seem all that surprised by his response. She clearly didn't actually think he was the Phantom Thief. But oddly enough, she didn't really ask for an explanation. If he wasn't doing this as Kid, then why was he doing it? She didn't claim to want to know.

Oddly enough, that annoyed him as well. It should be a good thing she wasn't drilling him for answers. She was just accepting what he was doing and not going to stop him.

"You're that vigilante thief they're talking about all over the news. . . aren't you? The Night Baron?"

Night Baron? Out of all the things, that's what they decided to go with? And though it was exactly what he was, the word vigilante left a bad taste in his mouth.

This accusation was different however. Unlike the Phantom Thief one, she uttered this one with confidence. If he denied this, Ran would not believe him. There was no point in trying anyway when she had literally caught him in the act.

It took him aback a little that she had caught on so easily. The Night Baron wasn't as common in the news. He hadn't been doing this nearly as long as the other well known thief. It made him question if she'd been contemplating this for awhile. How long had she suspected him? And how could she not say this without any ounce of anger?

"Well. . . I have faith in you, Shinichi," she finally said when he asked. "I know you and I know you wouldn't be doing this unless you had a good reason or you thought it was right."

"And what you're doing is right. The Night Baron helps people."

The amount of trust she put in his character made him feel warm inside. It was embarrassing but that sentiment made the corners of his eyes almost prickle. Shinichi hadn't realized how desperately he had wanted to hear those words. He thought he had come to terms with his guilt. But clearly he had not if hearing Ran say that almost made him get choked up.

Ran didn't think less of him for losing his morals. She didn't look at him in disgust. She approved of it. She encouraged him for doing it. No explanation given yet and she had already determined that what he did, he did for good. He had no desire or intention for personal gain. And he had never felt like someone had ever seen him so clearly before.

Again, she didn't push for his actual reasonings. Based off her earlier assumptions, she likely already knew them. But though it was clear she didn't think it, he didn't want to risk her assuming he was some mindless criminal. Without her prompting, he gave his explanation.

The law wasn't enough sometimes. And though it was sad and went against what he engrained in his own head, this was the best and more efficient option. After all, if you want something done correctly, do it yourself then, right?

Ran hadn't so much as flinched. And it was staggering.

"You're not upset?" He couldn't help the disbelieving tone he used. It was almost a little concerning she wasn't more opposed to this.

Ran shrugged. "I am a little. Clearly you've been doing this by yourself and lying to me when you could've just told me."

Tell her? Why would he want to tell her?

"Shinichi, you were almost shot. Clearly you need help doing this."

Absolutely not.

That had been his initial reaction. If he ever for some reason got caught, it would likely drag her down with him. And that was the last thing he wanted.

But after sleeping on it for a quite a few days, and also that he couldn't sneak off anymore once Ran realized what he was going, Shinichi began to see the possible perks to working with a partner. And not just any partner but Ran specifically.

She was smart. He was definitely the mastermind behind all of their plans but that was not to say Ran couldn't come up with a plan of her own. Her insight gave another perspective that sometimes, he never would've thought of. If she didn't like an idea, she said it. If she thought they should do something else, she told him. Shinichi wasn't perfect. He missed things sometimes. It was good to have her pair of eyes as well.

It was just as helpful to have her brute strength as well. He assumed most would find it somewhat emasculating to be physically weaker than their female counterpart. Shinichi didn't mind at all. He was strong as well but admittedly, there were things Ran could do that he could not. Like denting a wall with her bare fist.

With Ran added into the picture, it came with even more possibilities. And perks.

The one person he didn't want to have to lie to, he didn't have to anymore. And they worked close.

He liked that too.

Ran was a good asset and made his job a whole lot easier. He really took note of that fact when instead of climbing through an air duct to sneak into some party, Ran had somehow managed to get them clearance through the front door.

And that wasn't nearly all she was able to do.

Ran is gorgeous. It was the bitter sweet conclusion he came to when Ran easily had the host eating out of the palm of her hand. The guy probably would've just given her the painting they were after if she simply asked properly.

The thought annoyed him.

He always knew he had a thing for Ran. He was pretty sure everybody knew that fact besides the girl herself. He had known her for a long time now. They had been friends since the first year of college. Their friend group was also the same and their parents both had ties to the Japanese Police Force. And she was stunning to look at. He'd argue it would be impossible for him not to take a liking to his friend.

He never told her though. He didn't know if she felt the same and after this partnership they just started, he wasn't sure it was worth the risk. If he tried a move and it scared her off, he'd have to revert to working alone. And he didn't want to do that for more reasons than one.

Like he acknowledged before, Ran was beautiful. He was not alone in that belief. It made it all the more difficult to witness guys flaunt their wealth and good looks in her face. He didn't want to see that. They didn't actually know her. Ran was his friend for three years. They didn't deserve her especially when clearly all they wanted was to undress her. And they were arguably worse criminals than half the people he got locked up.

So it was all instinct when he finally cracked. Some guy whom they didn't know was trying to dance with Ran. And he wasn't just 'trying'. He was touching and caressing her arm. Gritting his teeth, Shinichi couldn't help himself when he wrapped an arm around Ran's waist and tugged her back into his chest.

"I thought the first dance was mine, wife."

It was stupid. He had no idea why he allowed that to slip out. If he didn't have better control of his emotions he probably would've turned flustered all the way to his toes.

Ran's eyes bulged. "W-wife?!"

Honestly, her surprise couldn't be helped. He had totally blindsided her. It was his fault. And he definitely didn't have a valid enough reason to interfere like he did.

Sensing something was off between the couple, the other guy raised a brow as he eyed the arm wrapped firmly around her waist. "You don't recognize your own husband?"

Shinichi wanted to bash his own head against the wall. This was why they weren't supposed to go against the plan. Posing as her husband had definitely not been part of what they discussed earlier. It caused too many questions that they did not prepare beforehand to answer-

A hand suddenly slid up and brushed against his cheek softly. "We're not married just yet, Shin-chan. Only engaged so it's a bit too soon to be saying that," she chastised with a giggle; her acting on point.

Beyond his control, he could feel a slight heat rise to his cheeks. The intimate way she touched his face wasn't helping either. He swallowed hard as he looked down at her eyes, meeting her softened gaze.

"Oh, forgive me. I didn't see the ring."

The ring?

Ring?

A ring!

They didn't even have rings to back up their story-!

It was at that point Shinichi didn't know if the guy was actually apologetic for hitting on a married woman or suspicious that they weren't actually a couple that was engaged.

"No, it's our fault really," Ran said sheepishly. "This dummy here didn't get me the right ring size so it's sadly getting resized."

Shinichi was a little insulted. He would've most definitely did his research to get her the correct ring size before proposing.

After the guy walked away, they both found their way to the dance floor with all the other couples and joined in the slow sway. If asked why, he'd argue it was to back up their story even more. Deep down though, Shinichi knew better.

Ran was oddly silent however.

"Shin-chan?" He grumbled with forced annoyance. At the time it had completely caught him off guard. The nickname that his mother used for him. At the time he figured it was payback for the confusion he started. It didn't mean he hated the name any less.

But just as easily, she quipped back, "Wife?" She raised a brow as if to drive her point and he immediately shut his mouth.

It was definitely payback.

Ran never did question why he stepped in that night. They were on a job after all and he deduced that likely she had already forgotten what he'd done. Besides the little hiccup, every thing else went according to plan. Everything else stayed the same.

Until their next job. And the job after that. And the one after that.

Because that one night when they had taken the painting; it had started a trend of sorts. A trend where one or the either would claim to be in a relationship with the other. Before it had started with a dance which at the time, neither had been prepared for and both were too awkward to acknowledge properly. But the next time they are holding hands and eventually it becomes normal for Ran to hug his arm to her chest or for him to hold her waist.

Each time is a mystery to them. Neither have any idea what they'll be. It was a constant cycle of being married, to dating, to two already taken spouses in a very wanton and promiscuous love affair. And the stories they came up with on the spot were more extravagant and extra than the last. And they were never prepared before hand. Suddenly it was a game for them. How deep could they take this? What tale could they come up with this time? It was getting out hand. The stories were getting more detailed each time, he almost believed the lies himself.

Shinichi didn't usually snap back out of it until he saw her again in class the next day. They weren't childhood friends that had been together since preschool days. He hadn't dramatically confessed his love in London while the Big Ben chimed behind them. They hadn't shared a first kiss at Kiyomizu-dera on a school trip to Kyoto.

And it didn't stop there. If they weren't already talking to each other, they would always be touching in some form. Whether that was by a hand resting against his thigh or his fingers dragging dangerously low on her lower back.

It was a very small line they were tiptoeing against and the blatant flirting they joined in with was starting to toy with his emotions. It was one thing to elaborate or give false truths to further their disguises. It was another entirely to grope each other secretly. There was no witness to convince. Who were they showing off for other than each other?

It was getting increasingly more difficult to act like nothing was going on- or at least nothing was going on with his end. He was stressed and constantly filled with anxiety that at some point these lies would eventually bleed into their actual daily lives. Because when he once again had to suppress the urge to grab her hand as they walked from class, he was realizing once again who they actually were.

They were Shinichi and Ran. A Shinichi and Ran that had met three years ago in a shared psychology class. A Shinichi and Ran that were best friends and nothing more. A Shinichi that had been mooning after the same girl since he first met her. A Ran that as far as he could tell, didn't share that same sentiment.

This whole thing was a dangerous idea where his emotions were involved. And due to his argument that they didn't need to stop this 'charade' or whatever was the proper term to call it, it wasn't a matter of if this would affect their personal lives. It was a matter of when.

Surprisingly, it wasn't him that cracked.

It had been an honest mistake- one Shinichi didn't exactly mind. They had been in a study session with Sonoko and Nakamichi. It was a hot day and they had all taken refuge in the campus library. And to also help combat the heat, Shinichi had a water bottle that he was casually sipping on. One that Ran had easily grabbed from his hands to take a swig out of.

Shinichi didn't mind. He really didn't and truthfully, he probably wouldn't of even noticed if it weren't for the fact all their friends froze to gap at her incredulously. She had done this to him numerous times on a job. Asking for a sip of his champagne or simply stealing a bite of food off his plate. It had been a shock the first time but it in the moment he knew that was likely her intention to get a rise out of him. Now however, he was positive that she had fell into that act by mistake. She didn't mean anything by it, he was sure- not like she used to.

Nakamichi whom had been in the process of reading out his answer for one of the questions on the study guide had trailed off slowly, almost completely floored by what he had witnessed. Sonoko looked like she would fall out of her seat.

It was almost laughable that Ran didn't realize the stares that were being drilled into her. Attempting to keep his face neutral, he nudged his knee into hers gently and it was only at that she finally began to realize her mistake.

Features turning a scorching red, she quickly forced the water back into his hands. "I-I'm so sorry!" she burst. "I have no idea why I did that! I don't know what I was thinking," she sputtered. "I-it was just so hot and I-I-"

She was drowning; sinking further into her panic and he tried to save her.

"Ran, it's okay," he said calmly even though on the inside, he was freaking out just as much as she was. "It's hot outside and I've known you forever. We can share a water bottle." Shinichi was trying to play it cool. For the sake of their image with their friends.

Of course it wouldn't be enough to deter the teases they were sure to receive from their friends but what else could he do? He couldn't very well say she grabbed his by mistake. It had literally been in his hand. He had just drank out of it and been going to sip out of it again when she grabbed it. And he definitely couldn't say that she did this to him all the time when pretending to be his wife.

There was absolutely nothing they could say to excuse this. The whole scene had been way too casual even for the two of them. Sonoko, whom had made numerous jokes that they were actually a married couple, looked like this was too much for even her to comprehend. Because whether she knew he had a thing for Ran or not, anything she said before this had been harmless taunts.

"How long has then been going?!" Sonoko having determined that the study session was now over, pointed between them furiously. And that wasn't just an exaggeration. Sonoko looked irritated. Not because they were seemingly dating but because she had both missed and not been informed when it happened.

But there was nothing to tell. Nothing was going on- or rather nothing in the way she was thinking. No matter how many times they both told her that, the Suzuki heiress did not look convinced. Not even Nakamichi seemed to trust it but unlike the other girl, he thankfully kept his accusations shut till they were in private.

"Look- I'm not saying I'm mad or anything. It just sucks a little that you didn't tell me," his friend finally admitted when they left the two girls at the library.

Neither had been worried or surprised when Sonoko said they would catch up with them later. Shinichi felt bad for abandoning Ran but he knew that Sonoko would want to grill her for answers. It would've been more humiliating for both of them to be present for that.

Nakamichi wasn't nearly as difficult as Suzuki to deal with but Shinichi still found himself rolling his eyes. "I already told you," he said tiredly. "Ran and I are not dating." Shinichi wasn't sure how many more times he would have to say just that. He didn't even know if there was any other way to word what he was trying to get through his friend's apparently thick skull.

Suddenly his friend stopping walking, forcing him to do the same. For some reason his eyes were wide and a slight red was forming on his cheeks. "Oh."

Oh? Shinichi raised a confused brow. "What?"

"Well- I just never thought Ran-chan would ever. . . " Nakamichi trailed off, scratching behind his ear awkwardly. "She just doesn't seem the type, you know?"

Huh?

"Her . . type?"

And then suddenly his friend looked concerned, waving his hands in front of him defensively. "Hey- I'm not judging! Whatever you wanna call it- I support it!"

Suddenly Shinichi was freezing himself. "What the hell are you talking about?" he asked aggravatedly.

"You and Ran-chan aren't dating but you're. . . you know," Nakamichi said pointedly. "You still could've told me though. I'm not going to tell anybody. Have some faith man. We've know each other since grade school."

Shinichi's eyes bulged and all the blood rushed to his face as understanding finally hit him.

"Ran and I aren't dating and we're not doing t-that either!" he exploded.

oOo

Without Ran even needing to tell him, Shinichi knew Sonoko must've given her a hard time afterwards. Nakamichi probably wasn't nearly as difficult to deal with but it still had been an uncomfortable conversation nonetheless.

His friend actually thought that he and Ran were having . . . sex on the side.

He wouldn't be so lucky.

Shinichi was flushing at the thought alone. It had been so humiliating.

But what made it worse however was when Ran actually apologized to him again in private. She reiterated once more that she couldn't understand what she had been thinking in the moment. She also suggested that maybe it would be best to stop pretending. It was mixing them up in real life and confusing for both of them.

A small part of him was crushed by her suggestion no matter how logical it was. It hurt.

Shinichi rejected the idea. He agreed that maybe they could tone it down some. They didn't need to be a couple every time they did a job. But he also argued that sometimes the act actually did make their job easier. And deep down there was another reason he didn't want to share.

Because if they gave up their little charade, then he knew what that would mean. There was no logical circumstance that would allow him to touch her and flirt with her like when they were on a job. And he desperately didn't want to lose that. Even if their act escalated each time.

But he knew Ran had a point.

Their next job was once again at another extravagant and fancy party. And this time, they both arrived alone. The two had snuck in separately and at different times as well. And throughout the entire night, neither acknowledged the other. They acted like perfect strangers.

This time the showcase was a pearl. A pearl that would surprisingly 'go missing' by the end of the night. And like every other job they did, he had a plan that they had gone over in detail numerous times. One that didn't work out at all considering the whole night had been derailed by the sudden appearance of the Phantom Thief.

The moment that magician's calling card appeared, Shinichi knew they'd have to make adjustments to their plan and they needed to do it now. If KID followed and stuck by the time on his announcement, then the pearl they were both after would be long gone by the time they got anywhere near it.

They had to improvise which was difficult without them even talking to each other. Besides that factor added in, throwing Kid into the mix only derailed everything further. If they wanted any hope of beating Kid, then they had to act right then.

To be honest, it wasn't very surprising they were almost caught. It hadn't been particularly smart of him to continue with his intentions of stealing the pearl. Just Kaito Kid being there caused too much of a scene. Any calling card that arrived meant it would soon be followed by police and a camera crew. The Phantom Thief brought media attention wherever he went. It was dumb of him to not just give the pearl to the thief. Especially cause-

Kaito Kid had mentioned the Night Baron in his calling card. He had made it clear he was aware that he wasn't the only thief present with their sights set on the pearl. And he had mentioned the other thief by name.

That gave a lot of insight Shinichi wasn't even sure Kid meant to give. That calling card told the detective that either Kid knew what types of jobs the Night Baron targeted or worse- that he knew the true identity of the Night Baron. And if the latter was correct, then it meant that someone had been watching him for a long time. Someone was probably watching him right now. And if that were the case, Kid knew his entire plan.

The right thing to do would be to pull back. To grab Ran and bail. The plans he had made were done without taking Kaito Kid into account. But if the other thief really had been watching him, then those plans could be tossed out a window. Nothing was worth getting both him and Ran caught and possibly arrested. The logical conclusion was to escape while they could.

Shinichi was too prideful for that. And stubborn. This wasn't his first run-in with the Moonlight Thief. Shinichi had dealt with him quite a few times when helping Inspector Nakamouri or Inspector Meguire. This would however be the first time he ran into the guy when he was on one of his own little side jobs.

And he was not prepared. Fighting against him as a detective had numerous resources. He had the Japanese Police Force at his disposal. As well as when he was working his real job- he did not need to hide his own face. Not only could he be recognized by the police, he had also made a name as a criminal. If somehow his face was linked to the scene of all those crimes- he was done for.

But like the idiot he was, he couldn't help but take this as a challenge. The fact Kaito Kid mentioned him by name in his calling card told him that the thief knew he was there and also he didn't really care nor was he stressed by that.

It wasn't like him to panic. But in the end, that was what he'd done. His actions had been panicked and rushed and honestly- thoughtless. Ran hadn't scolded him at all through the night; probably thinking now wasn't the time when they were running from police officers. Shinichi could just feel her disapproval however. He knew the moment they were out of here and alone at his house, he'd receive the yelling of a lifetime.

Getting an earful would be the least of his worries if they couldn't find a way out of this building. All of the usual exit points had been closed or cut off due to Kid's warning for his appearance. The guy was a showoff and frustrating. Shinichi knew it was all part of the guy's show to leave people wondering just how he made his escape.

Shinichi wanted to throttle him.

Because of that hack of a magician, he'd get caught. Because of him, Ran would get in trouble with him. The two of them had been running nonstop and even if they had the layout of the mansion memorized, it wouldn't help with guards standing at every single entrance and exit- which is what they had been doing the moment Shinichi triggered their alarm.

The panic and just straight anxiety that he felt in that moment, could not be paralleled to anything else in his life. He knew they were running out of options. Usually he was the one with all the plans but he couldn't even gather his thoughts to try to formulate one. All he could think was how much of a sad excuse for a thief, a detective, and a friend he was-

No. If there was one thing he would do, it was to save Ran. He got Ran involved in this and he would not allow her to go down with him. Already he had given up on finding escape. Now all he was trying to do was deduce just how he was going to explain Ran's side of things. He'd force her to pose as his hostage if he had to. He would not allow her to be ruined from this-

Abruptly his thoughts caught off when Ran very suddenly gripped his fingers tightly. When he glanced over in her direction, he found she was already looking at him. They were both running as fast as they could trying to put more and more distance between them and the heavy footfalls coming from behind them. Unlike him however, she did not appear scared or stressed. In fact, while he was internally having a meltdown, Ran shot him a quick but soft smile.

And suddenly she was pushing ahead of him; her fingers still clenching his tightly as she tugged him behind her.

She was taking them further in though, he noticed incredulously. In fact she was taking them towards the rooms. Shinichi had to stare into the back of her head, as if wondering if she'd lost her mind. There was no exit to the outside this far in. Nothing but windows which they already realized was not going to be an option. There would be officers outside each window waiting for them. They would not be able to get far.

Just when he had been about to reprimand her himself, he found himself being tugged to the side again. Ran's goal hadn't been the window. She had pulled him into one of the numerous bedrooms that lined the hall. Which he guessed would be nice for shock value but again, he found himself wanting to question her. Sure hiding in a room would be unexpected at first but he highly doubted they would fail to check these rooms. All it would do is buy them some time before they were eventually captured. And a simple search would prove that he was in possession of the pearl that was currently missing.

They had put quite a bit of distance between them and the task force that was chasing them. They would have a few minutes at most. And he knew exactly what he was going to do with those few minutes.

"Ran, what the hell?" he spun on her only for his eyes to grow bigger even more. He had turned to find her turning on the table lamp and he really thought she had lost it. They were trying to hide. They should be turning lights out, he wanted to yell as he watched her come back over to him. Anything he was meaning to say was gone when she was suddenly pulling him again and he only watched in confusion as she seemed to position him just in front of the table she had walked to.

His eyes bulged when she grabbed one of his hands and placed it around her ribs. And when she placed the other very firmly onto her rear, he turned into a sputtering mess.

"R-Ran . . . " The way he said her name this time was unlike before. It was smaller he knew but it was definitely nervous as well. By this point he was less concerned about the police chasing them than he was about his partner's behavior. He had given up on talking when suddenly she was pressing her palm flat against his chest. He followed the movement with his eyes until her other hand caressed his cheek forcing him to look directly at her.

She wasn't saying anything. And even if he wanted to, she didn't give him enough time to try. Palm on his chest scrunching into a fist, all he could do was gasp when suddenly he was tugged down into a kiss.

He froze. His eyes had bulged even more he was sure and he felt his features flood red- redder than they had been. It was hard for him to comprehend what exactly was happening right now. Ran hadn't given him a chance to process anything and the moment her lips touched his, his mind went blank. He was pretty sure he wasn't even breathing at this point.

She must've felt how frozen he was because suddenly she was pushing forward more, her mouth pressing insistently against his own. As if yelling at him to do something. And that was all he needed.

Taking notice that her eyes were shut, he did the same before he leaned into her willingly. His hand that she had pressed against her rear- that he had left there mostly out of shock, grabbed her and pressed her against him more firmly. The movement made her gasp and going off her response, his other hand rose to bury itself in her hair where he angled her face to fit more comfortably against his.

The kiss was slow but it didn't mean it was any less sensuous. Tongues were brushing against each other, their breath intermingling as it panted against the other's lips. Shinichi wasn't sure exactly why Ran felt the need to kiss him now, but as far as first kisses could go- he wasn't complaining. Was a reason really necessary?

No. He didn't think so.

Was he going to ask her why she was suddenly tugging his shirt from where it was neatly tucked into his pants?

Maybe later- definitely not now though. He didn't question it. He didn't question hearing what sounded like a door opening before being slammed shut. He didn't want to. If Ran wasn't, then why should he? All he knew in that moment was that something that he had been waiting for- something he had been wanting, was finally happening and he wasn't going to waste his time trying to get an explanation of why.

But even without wasting his time, it still wasn't enough. All too soon he felt Ran begin to pull away. Her hands released their tight grip on his shirt and hair and came to rest smoothly against his chest. Shinichi felt the retreat. She was moving away from him. And the realization made him panic.

No. He felt his mind shout. That wasn't enough. It's not enough.

Surging forward, just after their lips had completely separated, he found them slamming against hers once more. This time because of him. And when she gasped into his mouth he just couldn't help himself. Arms gripping her firmly, he turned to the side forcing her into the wall just beside the shelf she had him pressed against. His fingers had never left her hair and instead his fingers buried deeper into the long strands. If the grip was painful, Ran didn't say. If anything, it sounded like she liked it with the way she released a moan into his mouth.

Shinichi had her pressed into the wall, the hand that wasn't angling her face closer to his, gripping the bare skin of her thigh. In the moment, he didn't care to process or wonder just how his hand got through the slit of her dress. All he wanted to do was just get closer and closer and as close as he could get, he concluded as he forced her leg to stay raised against his hip. When it got to the point they needed a second to just breathe, he had his lips slanting across the smooth skin of her neck. From this position he could feel her panting heavily against his ear. He could feel her desperately trying to draw in air to her lungs. He also felt when she stiffened.

When he had practically picked her up, forcing her into the wall, Ran's hands had both slid to the front of his shirt. When she gripped the lapels of his suit coat she had used force to tug his mouth closer to her neck. Suddenly however, he felt that grip slacken.

"I t-think. . . I think they're gone now. . "

That was like a wake up call.

His own common sense kicking in, he remembered where they were. What they were doing. Who was chasing them. Gently, he released his hold of her thigh and set her to rest on her own feet. Taking a glance at her he noticed she was redder than he was.

"I-I'm sorry. I knew they would find us either way so I-I . . improvised. . . "

Improvised?

Improvised.

Still sort of stuck in some dazed haze, it took him longer than it should to understand what exactly she meant.

Improvised, he repeated again in his thoughts.

That was what she kissed him for? Shinichi could remember discreetly at some point the door opening and then slamming shut shortly after. At the time he hadn't really cared that much to question it. He had been way too focused and interested in something else.

Something else that she 'improvised'.

The bitter thought left the same taste is his mouth.

Frowning, and face turning a darker shade, he took a step back.

"Right . . . " he agreed swallowing hard.

Of course they couldn't stay there any longer than they already had. There was always the possibility that the police would realize their mistake and return. If they were smart, they shouldn't be here for if or when that happens. There was no time to just stand there awkwardly. Though that was what he proceeded to do.

The reminder she gave for why they had hid in this room in the first place, did nothing for him. He should've been like her; scrambling to fix their appearance to look somewhat normal. But he couldn't be bothered. Shinichi watched as she hurriedly straightened her dress and finally, began the process of cleaning himself up. His motions were slow and sluggish however compared to her quick and hastened ones. It was only after a few moments of him pulling his tie forward that he realized his shirt was untucked.

"Does my hair look okay?"

All at once he was distracted. Again. Pausing with his shirt, and glancing back at her. Did her hair look okay?

"Yes."

Belatedly he realized what she actually meant. Was her hair fixed? Did she look normal? And still looking at the hair that he knew she had styled meticulously beforehand, it was tangled and frizzed. The long strands were very obviously out of place.

He startled a little when suddenly Ran was just before him, brushing her fingers through his hair. He was taller than her so she was on her toes, stretching to reach his height. He acknowledged that but seemed to struggle to realize maybe he should lean down to make it easier for her. The thought didn't occur to him. Not at first anyway. Once the thought hit that maybe she was trying to kiss him again, he found himself bending down. Her face was close to his again and he caught the scent of whatever it was she was wearing.

The sudden movement clearly caught her off guard and his eyes that had apparently been focused on her mouth watched as she didn't pull away, but instead rested flat on her feet again. Her hands were still in his hear however and he had to take a moment to wonder if she was going to use that to grab him again.

"Shinichi! What are you doing?" she practically hissed the question; her movements still hurried. "You look like a mess. Hurry up!"

And with a blushing face he realized that no, she wasn't trying to kiss him again. She was trying to fix his hair because it looked ridiculous. And he was just standing there, taking his time. Like an idiot.

Hearing noises in the distance however, they had run out of time. Immediately whatever stupor he had been in, broke and not willing to use anymore time, they bolted.

Shinichi was sure they looked like quite the pair. There was no way people would look at them and think they hadn't done something. He guessed that meant the plan worked but it didn't make it any less humiliating having to push through snickering guests that 'just knew what they'd been up to'.

They hadn't been up to anything however. Just 'improvising'.

And all he had said in response was, 'right'.

Shinichi hated how that one word was all he said. It gave the impression that they were on the same page. And if that was all that kiss was to her, then clearly they weren't. In the moment he hadn't the brain to make the connection between her actions and the situation they had been stuck in.

He wasn't surprised he didn't get her intentions to begin with. Unlike her, it never crossed his mind to use that as a . . disguise? And the fact that they didn't think exactly alike is what saved them.

But he was still mad.

It was laughable and dramatic and infuriating. Because he couldn't do or say anything in response and he knew it. How could he be angry? How could he complain if her plan actually worked? Yeah, sure his pride was hurt and he was a little embarrassed when he realized they were not on the same page. But he could admit, hurt feelings were easier to deal with than jail time.

It didn't mean he couldn't feel the sting still.

Shinichi knew why it hurt so much. He knew the real reason. Because for once he actually believed that Ran saw him as he saw her. Not just best friends or partners in crime but maybe something . . . more.

They had met years prior in a shared class on psychology. And he didn't want to say it was love at first sight but- it was definitely a lasting first impression.

He knew from early on that he held interest there. An interest that was built upon by the constant joint study sessions and realization that they also held numerous moral similarities. They were just pursuing them in different ways. She wanted to be a lawyer and he wanted to be a detective. Quite often he'd make the joke that they'd be an unstoppable pair in law enforcement; jokes that deep down held a hint of seriousness that, at the time, he hoped she didn't notice.

The truth was much harder to swallow. It had come like a bucket of ice, cold water dumped over his head. It felt like a slap to his face. A stone, hard slap of reality. His subtly backfired or rather- his lack of action did. Because again, how could he be mad when he never made his desires known?

He was a real coward. He never could bring himself to confess no matter how often the thought occurred to him. The excuse being- Ran had never gave any indication that she felt the same. Shinichi didn't want to ruin the strong bond they already had; their friendship that they had built on for years. It just wasn't worth the risk when he couldn't be confident in her answer nor her reaction.

But then she kissed him. His whole mind had shut down. And when they separated, possibilities flooded him. He could confess or was a confession really necessary at this point? Ran liked him. Ran wanted him.

That's what he first thought. So he responded. He had kissed her back. And if that already wasn't an obvious display of his feelings, he had acted like a totally catatonic fool directly afterwards.

Once they knew they were in the clear, Ran had become oddly silent. And distanced. She wouldn't meet his gaze and her cheeks were still a suspicious amount of pink. She seemed extremely fidgety to be beside him and the moment they said their goodbyes for the night, she had bolted.

Shinichi didn't know what he had been expecting exactly. An apology? Maybe even a confrontation over his obvious infatuation with her? But she had said nothing. And she had fled like the police were still chasing them.

Maybe what made it worse was that he couldn't be sure if it was because she had kissed him or, that she realized how he saw her and she panicked. Neither meant well for him. Both gave the impression that kissing him made her uncomfortable.

Shinichi wanted to punch something.

And his shirt still needed to be tucked in.

He got more than halfway of doing that before he remembered he was already home and began asking himself why exactly he was fixing it now. He had no need to do it now and grumbling irritatedly to himself, he instead began taking it off.

They didn't take on another job for almost an entire month after that. Waiting in between gigs wasn't unusual but not planning the next however, was. Normally by this point, he'd already be casing their next event. By this time he would've already consulted Ran.

He had done neither.

Instead, he went to school as normal and also continued helping Inspector Meguire when prompted. Nothing appeared different except the absence of their little side cases.

And that Ran was avoiding him.

It wouldn't of been as bad if it wasn't for their friends noticing that something was off. It also didn't help that even the media was pointing out the unusually long hiatus for the Night Baron.

"So about this . . . thing . . that's not really a thing with Mouri-san. . . Do you wanna talk about it?"

And there was his other issue. Shinichi had long given up trying to explain to Nakamichi that absolutely nothing romantic was going on between him and Ran. Now, after their earlier predicament, it became even more difficult to deny. His friend was convinced that the two were simply trying to keep it under wraps. That for some reason they didn't want anybody to know they were seeing each other. Nakamichi had already switched to asking why exactly Mouri-san wanted to hide things because he was confident the two were already together and that there was no way Shinichi would be the one wanting to hide it.

Grudgingly, Shinichi wasn't sure if he should be insulted by that last comment. Deeming that Nakamichi was correct and there was absolutely no way he'd want to hide the fact they were dating, Shinichi decided to keep his mouth shut. If they were dating, he wouldn't want to hide it. If they were dating, he'd walk home with her instead of his dork of a friend. If they were dating, he wouldn't have to explain why she suddenly decided to drink from his drink at a group study session. If they were dating, it would've been his idea to kiss the life out of her while running from the police. If they were dating-

Hand flying to his head, he could feel the strands of his hair getting scrunched between his fingers. And just as quickly as the tangent had started in his head, it stopped. As if the only thing keeping it all together was his hand against his head.

What was he thinking? He mentally hissed at himself as his teeth clenched. Entertaining Nakamichi's story. He was spiraling in his own thoughts and elaborating an idea that had not, and by the looks of it, would not be happening. Ran and him hadn't even spoken properly to each other since the last job. If they did, it was curt, in passing, or in the presence of someone else. Meaning it was a guarantee they could not discuss anything that had happened- her actions nor his seemingly obvious to him confession. Which all he could do was assume that was her intention.

He wanted to pull his hair from his scalp, it was so frustrating. Was he supposed to take this as a rejection? Was he not worth the time to say she wasn't interested directly to his face? Or did she think he would not accept her refusal? Did she think that low of him? He wouldn't lie- he liked her a lot. The rejection would hurt but they could at least be friends still. She didn't need to run from him as if he had the plague. Shinichi swore he could see the panic in her face anytime she happened to stumble upon him unexpectedly.

The space that stretched between them seemed to be widening. And worried the gap would become much too big to mend, Shinichi did the only thing he could do.

He found them another job.

At first, his intentions had been different. He had wanted to use this as a way to get her to talk to him; to address what exactly happened between them almost a month ago. If it was on a job, that was a guarantee they would have a moment alone. But at the realization of how that would probably make Ran feel- he paused. He would be cornering her. And that realization made him wince internally.

Shinichi didn't want Ran to feel trapped. He didn't want her to feel like she couldn't talk to him anymore just because she didn't want him the same way. They could be friends still. He wanted that more than anything. The rest, he could learn to deal with. He was well aware more than anybody about how kind Ran was. Her silence was most likely her way of sparing his feelings and easing her guilt about not returning his affections. She didn't need to feel guilt though. She wasn't obligated to feel any certain type of way. Ran didn't owe him anything regardless of how much he wanted it.

If he had considered it, he knew Ran must've come to the same conclusion- that he was trying to force her to talk. It would likely explain why she took her time responding to his invitation of working again. Her response had come in the middle of the night when he must've been dead asleep. Shinichi had only noticed the text message after turning his alarm off that morning.

Shinichi hated to think it, but Ran's presence- in a roundabout way- likely did more harm than good for his well being. He had already gotten a little risker the more jobs he took on. He acted rash and with no regard for his own safety after a certain point. Once Ran's presence in the form of an accomplice was assured, the possibilities became endless. And so did the risk. If Ran hadn't been there backing him, he surely would've been done for numerous times. He knew that. But that was also why he even attempted those risks.

Having their first real interaction since their last job being another mission, was a mistake. Not addressing what had happened between them before starting this, was a mistake. He acknowledged that when Ran still wouldn't even look at him directly. She definitely made sure to keep her distance as well.

Shinichi had already decided before meeting up that he would not be mentioning 'that job'. It wouldn't be right and it wouldn't be fair of him to try that. Clearly however, Ran hadn't grasped that yet. Any moment he would be about to start talking, she would tense. As if preparing herself for the inevitable.

That meant she knew this could've been a perfect moment for him to question her. She knew that, yet she came anyway. Not even the possible awkward conversation of unrequited feelings would she leave him to fend for himself. She had started joining him on these jobs to defend him in the first place. Whether she didn't want him the same or not, it was still nice to know that at least that wouldn't change.

He just wished that she would relax. There was no way for him to tell her he wouldn't talk about it without actually bringing it up. By the time she might've understood that, they had already put their 'plan' into motion. If it could even be called that. How could they plan when neither could even look the other in the face let alone have a conversation?

This whole night was a bad idea. Shinichi had the feeling throughout the night and as things progressed, it only got worse. Why would he even think this was a good idea? Any person with half a brain would've just dodged the bullet and asked to have the conversation. He had already come to terms in his head that clearly she didn't want him that way. He knew that. Her avoidance spoke louder than anything she could ever tell him. Yet he also knew, hearing it aloud and in the open provided a confirmation her silence didn't give.

Shinichi needed to hear it; aloud. Regardless if deep down he already knew. He needed it. If anything for his piece of mind and for closure. He had pined for her for a long time. Moving on would not be easy. It would take time. But the process wouldn't begin until she gave her refusal outright.

Having all of this sit on him, literally weighing down on his mind, just before a job was dumb. Her presence was only making it more difficult as was her refusal to even properly acknowledge him. He wasn't doing much better, he'd admit. But he had tried to bridge that gap and Ran wasn't reaching from her end.

How Ran felt was everything to him. Shinichi didn't want his presence to be uncomfortable for her. He was doing everything- even down to the plan- to show it was okay. She didn't have to feel the same way. It was fine. He would be fine.

Where as normally they would walk in as a couple when it came to balls and galas, he decided they could work this one a little more separately. Shinichi was doing everything he could possibly think of, to show her that he didn't want to make her uncomfortable. And after the revelation a month ago, pretending to be his wife would surely do that.

Ran only got more tense. And that only made him more nervous. Neither a good sign when communication and teamwork was the most important aspect to be able to successfully carry out these jobs. That should've been the biggest indicator that once again, this was a bad idea.

He messed up. He knew that. Even in the moment when he forcibly shoved that guy away from her, he knew he was the one at fault. There was no reason for his actions. No logical one anyway. The only thing that powered him in the moment was jealousy. It fueled and burned through him stronger than anything he could remember. Nothing had ever cut off his thought process so quickly. Not even the time Ran kissed him.

But this was not what he'd been expecting when Ran said she would 'make an opening for him'. The sensation that sunk deep into the pit of his stomach was similar to being sick. That was the feeling he got when watching Ran disappear into a hallway with the 'owner' of this gem.

He didn't trust it. Not the look in the guy's eye nor the impatient tug he seemed to give Ran. Shinichi didn't trust any of it. And no, it had nothing to do with his jealousy. It was for Ran's safety that he followed them; that instead of going the clear way his partner indicated, that he trailed behind the two out of sight.

Nothing to do with his personal emotions at all.

Peeking around the corner to find his partner pushed against a door about to be kissed however was, again, nothing he had been expecting. Yet the reaction was instantaneous.

This anger he felt was different. This was a different kind of rage that reared its head forward. A nasty emotion he had never experienced so strongly. With a mixture of fury, possessiveness, and just about anything in-between, before his brain could even catch up and actually think- he was already across the hall and shoving the man roughly.

Ran seemed as surprised as the guy. Her eyes had bulged when suddenly the arms that had been bracing her weight disappeared. She stumbled in her satin dress but Shinichi was too furious to help her straighten. His attention was too focused on the creep that was still on the floor, mostly in shock. Shinichi had pushed him hard. Probably too hard if it was able to knock the guy off his feet but in the moment, he could care less. There was nothing that could be said to him then that would make him believe this guy didn't deserve it. He had been touching Ran. That was enough for him.

After finally realizing what just happened, the guy's eyes shot up to look at him angrily. Shinichi wasn't sure exactly what made the guy do it. He honestly thought he just initiated a fist brawl. But likely taking one look at the simple fury on his face, the guy stood up while wiping the blood off his bottom lip; the anger gone from his eyes and instead a smirk that was anything but happy. With a promise to get security for the both of them, the guy exited the hall from where they had come.

They couldn't let him go; not if they wanted their plan to succeed. Both of them had to know that. But neither of them did a thing till he was long out of sight.

It was Ran that reacted first. It was his turn to be shoved as she pushed her hands against his chest angrily.

"What are you doing?" She questioned him furiously. And from that alone he realized the shove was more out of panicked frustration than any real anger.

Shinichi was fine with that. He was sure he had enough anger for the both of them.

"No- what are you doing?" His voice was incredulous just like his face.

"I thought my job. You said to get close to him. You told me to make sure he was distracted."

"I didn't mean like that."

Ran sighed as if she were exhausted. "Well what did you mean, Shinichi?"

"I-I don't know- just anything except making out with him," he snapped and in his frustration he couldn't help but stutter.

"Why are you getting so upset?"

It was clear to him then before she even spoke that Ran understood he was mad. He knew that when her eyes softened towards him. But from her question, she clearly couldn't understand why he was mad. And if possible that was making him angrier. Because from his last sentence alone, it should be obvious why he was upset. If they took away everything that had happened between them a month ago, with his words alone that he spoke tonight, her answer was still right in front of her. He wasn't understanding why she just wasn't getting it.

"Y-you can't do something like that!"

"And why can't I? I swear you don't make any sense to me, Shinichi. I was only doing what I thought you wanted."

She was only trying to make his job easier for him. And if he weren't so heated he'd recognize that what she had been trying to do really would've made the job easier. That disgusting lowlife would've been so distracted. But to achieve that in that way was unacceptable to him.

"Why would I want you to kiss him?"

"Why would you not?" she countered.

His eyes blazed. "Are you actually serious?" he asked incredulously.

"You're mad." The way she stated it- it wasn't a question. It was a fact. And he was mad. He was so furious it was almost insane how personally he had taken this. Because this wasn't acting for him. It had never been. He never had to pretend to feel more for her. This was something he wanted. Not just on jobs but all the time. Him and Ran together. Him and Ran being a couple.

And he knew he had no right to be so upset. She never gave any indication that this would happen outside of their side jobs. He was the one that was turning it into something it wasn't meant to be- a reality. But she could at least do him the courtesy of not acting clueless. He had clearly kissed her that night without any other intention except that he simply wanted to. She knew that. She wouldn't of avoided him in their regular daily lives if that weren't the case.

He needed to step back. It was too soon to come back to this when clearly he wasn't over it. There wouldn't be another job until he could get over his feelings for her. And if that never happened, so be it. He was done with this conversation.

Shaking his head, Shinichi went to walk away. "Forget it."

Ran being quicker than him however, shot forward and gripped his arm. "How am I supposed to 'forget it'? You're obviously angry. Just tell me why." And for the first time in this conversation, he saw that she was actually beginning to get mad.

He had already decided what he would do though and instead he just shook his head again. "If you don't get it on your own, then it doesn't matter," he responded calmly.

Ran obviously rejected that idea.

"It matters to me! I played my part in your plan. I was going to do something I didn't even want to do-"

He wanted to argue that he never forced her to join him as the Night Baron. But it didn't matter now because this would be the last time.

"-so you could grab a stupid rock-"

That rock could sell for over 500,000 yen, he wanted to say but instead he remained stoic.

"-and you just storm in here like a jealous boyfriend-"

He was jealous. But he wasn't going to engage in this any further.

"-which we're not together-"

They're not. He knew that. He would work on it.

"-which you made that perfectly clear in your plan-"

He knew they weren't together. That's why he switched up their usual plan-

...

"What?!"

Shinichi was actually stunned into silence. There wasn't a lot that could do that for him either. But to bring up the plan that he made specifically to make her comfortable and complain about it, had him even more aggravated. She seemed like she wanted to continue but he wasn't about to allow that to slide.

"What is that supposed to mean?" he finally cut her off, not even paying attention to what she was currently saying. His earlier idea to just let this whole thing go, vanished as quickly as it had come.

Probably thinking she said too much, her tone got quiet and her face went pink.

Regardless of her obvious embarrassment however, she didn't try to take back what she said. "There's other ways to say you're not interested besides pushing me to the side for some side act. You could've told me how you felt. I wouldn't of left you to do this alone," she said with that hint of frustration still there.

But Shinichi was still stuck. Because now nothing was making sense to him. After all this time and he thought he finally figured out why Ran was avoiding him before, what she was saying now completely contradicted all of that.

"What the hell are you talking about?" he flat out asked.

A frown marred her features. "You know what we usually do as these kinds of parties. You know what . . acts work better here. And you changed that on purpose," she accused.

"You avoided me!" was the only thing he could bring himself to say.

"Only because I didn't know what to do!" she raised her voice with a completely flustered face now.

"How about talking to me-"

"Woah, woah, woah!" Immediately their shouting was cut off; both of them jerking in shock before going on the defensive. They were still on a job after all. But once they saw just who it was that had the audacity to interrupt their argument, they both froze with widened eyes and slackened jaws.

Kaito Kid didn't seem to care if he was intruding or not. For some reason, he looked frustrated as he stormed out behind a pillar.

"Are you two actually kidding me?" And the other pair watched as he came closer without a care.

"Some of us are actually trying to work. I've literally been sitting alone in that room waiting and neither of you came to do anything. I could've bailed an hour ago while you guys were griping during a heist. Not to mention the guy I had to knock unconscious on my way over here," he jabbed a thumb behind him and lo and behold the guy he had shoved to the ground was currently leaning unconscious against the far wall. But the Phantom Thief didn't seem to be through.

"Which- how has this not been resolved yet?"

Shinichi and Ran both flushed scarlet and taking that as his answer, Kid threw his hands up in frustration.

"I swear there has been absolutely no progression between the two of you since the first time I saw you. Do you have any idea how obnoxious that is for a bystander?"

"She avoided you because she kissed you and actually liked it," he pointed a finger at Ran who flushed brighter at his words before turning it to Shinichi next who went pale, "and he changed the plan because he thought you avoiding him meant you didn't like it!"

"Do you see how easy that was? Is there anything that you two do not understand?"

At their mutual silence, Kaitou Kid shook his head aggravatedly before spinning around, his cape billowing out behind him. "And you guys are my rivals?" he grumbled bitterly under his breath. "You guys better have this sorted out before next time."

Even long after Kid left, the two remained standing there completely frozen. They both were staring at where the thief had made his exit but neither seemed to want to break the silence first. Neither wanted to be the first to confirm or deny the accusations thrown at them.

Instead, realizing that they were still very much in the open with an unconscious body and that this job was definitely ruined, Shinichi turned a glance towards Ran. Unsurprisingly she was avoiding looking at him again and her face was still insanely red. But his was too and if it were for the same reason. . . then they had a lot to discuss.

"Do-" he started before cutting himself off. He wasn't sure if now was the right time when they were standing in the hall of one of their heists after having a shouting match. But when her eyes flit up to his quickly at the sound of his voice and saw they looked hopeful, he didn't care.

"Do you want to get something to eat. . . with me?" And then he cleared his throat realizing how informal that sounded and that he better be clear because obviously she didn't go off hints.

"Would like you to go out to dinner with me?"

Her face still impossibly red, she bit her lip before nodding slowly. "I'd like that."

oOo

Months later, Shinichi found himself at another gala. It was the usual type of party he hated attending but he'd have to admit as his eyes followed one figure across the room, this one wasn't too bad.

Until it got closer and certain features became clearer and he realized this was actually the worst one yet.

"Ah, Shin-chan, did you see they have a chocolate fountain?" she beamed excitedly before reaching for him.

Immediately he side stepped the arm that went to link with his own making 'Ran' pout at him. Shinichi didn't care until he noticed the confused stare from across him. He had stated this was his fiancé after all and froze when he caught their puzzled looks.

This time, when she went to link her arm with his, grudgingly, he allowed it. No matter if he was cringing so badly inside, his teeth gnashing together irately. "Yes. I saw," he bit out. And barely getting the whole statement out, his champagne flute he held was snatched from his other hand that wasn't currently wrapped around 'Ran'.

Shinichi had to grit his teeth as he watched her swallow practically the whole thing in one gulp. With a cheeky grin he was sure was meant to seem mockingly innocent considering the actual Ran had done this numerous times before, she held the glass out to him with the one measly sip that was left in it as an offering.

"Keep it," he bit out still trying to keep his cool. There were people still watching them after all. And shrugging she downed the rest of it.

Probably noticing the peculiar tension between the two, it was quite easy to dismiss themselves. And as soon as they were somewhere deemed a little private, Shinichi turned angrily.

"Where is she?"

And mocking him further, violet eyes widened comically as brows scrunched in faux confusion. "Where is who?"

The voice was exact. Purely feminine and a complete copy.

But it wasn't real. It was fake and he could tell.

Or rather he noticed the obvious struggle for Kid to keep his knees bent. It was quite embarrassing and even more infuriating to notice that his girlfriend whom he had been trying to ogle had in fact not actually been his girlfriend. But in actuality a hack of a magician doing his best to maintain the height and appearance of a young woman.

More mortified that he believed for a moment this was his girlfriend enough to ogle her, Shinichi had no patience. Fully irritated now, he gripped Kid's arm furiously while snapping in a harsh whisper, "Where is Ran?" The grip only loosened when he realized they were still technically in the open and he forced a small grin at anybody that looked their way.

"Calm down," the still female voice tried to wave him off. "We had a small issue so we had to do a little switch."

Doing his best to ignore that this wasn't actually Ran though it was her voice, Shinichi prodded further. "What do you mean a 'small issue'? What happened?"

"Well something didn't exactly go according to plan and since we both agree your girlfriend has monster strength, I decided as a last resort we can rely on that," the imposter smiled happily.

He was so proud of himself.

Not really sure if he wants to know what that means, Shinichi began heading towards the hall where he knew Ran would be then. "And you just left her there alone."

"What?" Kid pouted. "You don't have confidence in me, Shinichi?" They were in the hall now and Kid was trailing behind him still in that irritating disguise. He had given up on trying to maintain a shortened height and was walking normally, but out of all the things Shinichi could pick apart about the disguise, it was something else that disturbed him more.

"Do not do that," he spun around angrily. It was one thing to call him 'Shin-chan'. Ran would never call him that except for that single time before. But to speak to him how she actually does- it was starting to freak him out.

Kid frowned for real this time. "Don't do what?"

"Stop sounding like her!" He snapped uncomfortably.

Seeming to finally understand, Kid shrugged before saying in his own voice, "Fine."

But that was just as bad. Hearing that voice with Ran's face.

"Never mind- that's worse," Shinichi sighed heavily and fingers went to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Just stop talking."

This was the first and only time they'd ever team up again. Shinichi couldn't believe they managed to talk him into it in the first place. They had been right. There was no point in the two thieves fighting over who stole the ring first when it was clear the goal was the same. Not like last time when the two men both stumbled into a treasure's room two weeks ago wanting to steal the same thing. And after they managed to almost both get caught last time due to them arguing, Ran had been the one to present this idea.

But Shinichi couldn't get over what the dunce had accused him of. 'Stealing his thunder'- as if they were competing to be the most wanted criminal in the fraud department. He wasn't trying to steal anything. As far as he was concerned, Kid could carry all media attention he wanted. Shinichi would never try to take that. But he couldn't help it if fans of theirs constantly argued over who the best thief actually was.

And yes, amazingly that was a thing.

Shinichi resented that though. He was no thief. And after watching him a little more closely, Shinichi realized that just maybe . . . Kid wasn't either.

Neither one wanted the treasure for themselves. Besides Kid's weird rule that he needed to 'look' at the gem before they decided anything. It was clear the Phantom Thief was looking for a treasure and once he found it, he wouldn't be giving it back. Shinichi wondered if that was likely the reasoning for what Kaito Kid was doing in the first place. He had never thought much of the guy. He had always just assumed that he was some mindless criminal that flaunted and attempted to disguise what he was- a criminal- behind obnoxious magic acts. Because that's all they were. Even if sometimes it took a bit to realize how the thief had done it, he always figured it out. There was always an explanation. And that's why Shinichi didn't understand nor did he care to learn just why Kid paraded around like a magician.

But now working with him, it annoyed him, but his curious mind made it easy for him to at least attempt to analyze his behavior.

Kid was doing this for a reason. A reason other than crime at least. He was positive Kid would never try to actually kill or harm a cop or bystander. He always took the treasure and bailed. And every single time, he would read the next day that the treasure had magically been 'returned' to the rightful owner.

Kaito Kid never held onto a single gem he stole. Not a single time.

It was difficult for him to admit, but Ran was right. The two were very similar. Even if they carried it out differently or if their way of doings things were the opposite of the others, their outcome was always the same. Shinichi wasn't foolish enough to believe they had the same goal; that they did this for the same reason. It was clear that Kid was looking for something and once he found it, he would not be returning it. But though he would never say it aloud, the Magician was not a bad person. He always wanted to believe there was no good enough reason to break the law. There was nothing that warranted another person committing a crime. But if that were actually true- then what were he and Ran doing? He wanted to believe they were doing the right thing. And so grudgingly, he accepted that about the Phantom Thief.

Things were very rarely black and white.

oOo

"Who was your nice date?"

The soft voice called over to him gently from up ahead on the path. Recognition immediately pulled his attention away from his feet he had been watching dejectedly; his hands stuffed inside his suit pockets. The words that filtered in however had him perking up.

Supressing a grin he shrugged. "Just some girl I met in college psychology."

Ran blushed slightly but smiled all the same. It wasn't till he reached her that she began walking beside him. "She seemed to be dressed a bit risqué though, don't you think?"

Shinichi peeked over at her as she stayed beside him. She wasn't looking back but he could only assume she was wondering how he liked her dress.

Which he refused to judge after having only seen Kaito Kid wearing it.

Referring back to her question, he snorted. "Probably because the wrong person was in it."

He would've much rather seen the real Ran wearing it.

Finally breaking composure- stopping whatever roundabout way she was trying to ask, she stopped walking. "But it was a perfect copy!" she protested pouting and Shinichi had to wonder what exactly she was after here. He had a feeling he'd be in trouble no matter the answer he gave her.

But perfect? Perfect clone, his ass.

"There are just some things that can't be copied," he supplied simply even though in his mind, he knew exactly what parts of Ran couldn't be imitated.

Ran was not content with his response. If anything, she almost became suspicious as he leaned forward with narrowed eyes. "Like what?"

Realizing he might've steered this conversation somewhere he definitely didn't want, Shinichi swallowed hard when she raised a brow.

"What did he not copy?" she asked outright.

If she wants an honest explanation . . .

Sighing, he looked away, turning his nose up. "Your chest does not sit that high. Not only does he not have any, but your breasts are large. He most likely had to make them rest higher to disguise that. And though your thighs do have quite a bit of muscle, they are much softer than what he presented- not to mention he was actually walking around with his knees bent slightly to accommodate the height difference."

Ran didn't respond right away. Her silence dragged on and eventually he became nervous. He definitely confessed too much. Even if she was his girlfriend, surely it would make her uncomfortable to realize he watched her that intently. And on every little detail as well. But Shinichi couldn't help but to be insulted that she said Kid was an exact copy. That would never be possible. Ran could not be replicated. Especially when Shinichi could pick out so many things that the magician had gotten wrong in his disguise. Of course the detective knew there was only so much one could do in a disguise. But still, Shinichi was too much of a perfectionist and Ran was perfect in his eyes.

Suddenly his arm was being gripped gently and Shinichi blinked oddly when Ran slowly wrapped her arms around his. At first he thought she would be mad. He had openly admitted to ogling her. And if she asked him to be more honest, he would have to say he'd been watching her long before they started dating.

"Thank you," she said softly, startling him by breaking the silence and catching him off guard with her response. The confusion must've clearly been on his face because she turned red again. Her smile didn't drop though.

"It's nice to know that you could tell it wasn't me. . . that all you see if me."

They had begun walking again and Shinichi couldn't help but think he definitely dodged a bullet. But he would've been lying if he said anything else. And though it made him anxious to know that all his thoughts and feelings were out and on the table, he was sick of hiding them. Ran deserved to know exactly how he thought about her. She deserved to know just how much he noticed her and for how long he wanted to be with her.

And if he was rewarded for honestly. . .

"I guess that means you'll have to wear that dress again so I can actually give you an opinion on it," he said nonchalantly even though his gaze continued to rest ahead of him. He hoped it came out like a suggestion because he really hadn't gotten to see her in it. Currently she was wearing jeans and coat after having to give up the dress for Kid's impromptu disguise.

"Can't. I'm pretty sure Kid went home in it," Ran innocently said completely missing why he wanted her to wear it again and bursting his bubble in the process.

Deflating, he changed his mind. "He really is a thief," he grumbled.

Ran raised a brow. "And then what are you, Night Baron?"

"Alright," he said sternly while narrowing his eyes and she began giggling.

Clenching her arms much more firmly around his arm, he felt her chest press against it even more making him gulp. "Don't worry. I have something else I can wear just for you," she whispered.

#dcmk #shinran #fanfic #fanfiction #shinran fanfic #dcmk fanfic #shinichi kudo #ran mouri #maybe a little phantom thief #kaito kid #;)#og #my wrtitng

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