#so a bunch of people who were honestly trying to follow the law end up in a very awkward situation | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

deathmetalunicorn1 · 3 months

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Hello! If you don’t mind, can you do ror family x Teen!Reader who runs away because she doesn’t think she deserves them but with a happy ending? I always love reading your stories and they always brighten up my day (づ ◕‿◕ )づ I hope you’re having an amazing day!

-This wasn’t real- you kept telling yourself this as you swallowed hard, unable to believe it.

-This was the first family who was willing to adopt you- not foster- actually adopt you! Nobody adopted teenagers-especially one that had a track record like yours. It wasn’t that you were a bad kid- heavens no- it’s just that you didn’t take crap from anyone, and when you foster families attempted to turn you into their punching bag, you would always run and go straight to authorities.

-Yes they would get arrested and blacklisted from fostering, but that would go on your record as another failed foster family, which would turn others away from helping you.

-You were to the point you didn’t care; you could take care of yourself, you’ve done it for years now- but these stupid laws that required you to have a guardian, as you were a minor, was BS.

-When your caseworker told you that you had actually been adopted, you laughed in her face, holding your gut, thinking it was a prank, but when you saw her sympathetic face, you were stunned stiff with wide eyes- it wasn’t a prank!

-This new family of yours was absolutely massive! Over 30 different individuals, gods, warriors, and valkyries, made up your new family and it was honestly a bit overwhelming having so many people in such a large house.

-Unlike your other families, which unnerved you, they treated you with so much respect- giving you your own room, your own space, inviting you to join in activities, but not pushing you, making sure you ate and went to school and were just overall very caring about you.

-They were a bunch of weirdos, you determined that the first day when you saw a bunch of them sparring in the backyard, using real weapons, which was unnerving, and there were so many wild personalities that you had a hard time learning about everyone.

-Despite them being so warm and welcoming to you, you kept your distance- you didn’t want to believe that this was real- it couldn’t be. This was just a cruel prank on their part- where they would lure you into a false sense of security and make you think you’re happy, only to pull it away at the last second.

-You convinced yourself this was true, but it was so hard for you to keep believing this- you were treated with so much respect, not like a punk teenager that so many others had treated you like.

-You were struggling to make sense of this, and it was getting harder and harder each day- you were scared to let your guard down- you didn’t want to be hurt again!

-So that’s why you ran, sneaking out of your bedroom window after dinner, taking your stuff with you- you didn’t know where to go, this family didn’t hurt you, so you had no reason to go to your case worker or the police, so you just ran, looking for a place to lay low for a while.

-It’s a good thing you weren’t the stealthiest of people, as many saw you sneak out. They knew that you were hesitant with them, knowing of your past- and they could see your apprehension of getting closer to them. They should have realized that you were scared of thinking this would be like the other times, where you were going to get hurt- you were just protecting yourself.

-Hercules, Lu Bu, Apollo, and Qin Shi Huang were the ones to go after you, to bring you back home, with Lu Bu doing the tracking and the others following after him.

-They found you at the local train station, looking up at the ticket board, trying to figure out a train to take when a hand clapped down on your shoulder. You turned and your eyes went huge, seeing QSH there, “Hao! We found you Y/N!”

-The terror on your face was apparent, thinking they were mad at you before Hercules pulled you up into his arms, hugging you tightly, it was firm but also very warm, “Why did you run? Did something happen?”

-You were hesitant to answer, which they could see before Apollo smiled softly and herded the group to the Starbucks in the station, ordering drinks, including your favorite, for everyone.

-Once you had the drink in front of you, you were wringing your hands in your lap, not wanting to meet their gazes before Apollo spoke, “Are you all right, Y/N?”

-You exhaled softly, not realizing you had been holding your breath as you had been panicking, “You- you guys aren’t mad I ran?” they seemed surprised by your words before Lu Bu, who was sitting next to you, lifted a hand to ruffle your hair lightly, comforting you as Hercules spoke, “Of course weren’t not mad at you- why would we be? You’re just protecting yourself, right?”

-Your sharp intake of air made them all kind of flinch as you lifted your head, finally looking at them, seeing that they had been able to guess why you ran so easily.

-Tears welled in your eyes again, your bottom lip trembling slightly before you finally broke, “I-I don’t… I don’t want to be hurt again! And you guys have all been so nice to me- I’ve never- never felt so safe before- so happy! I just don’t want to… I don’t want…” QSH pulled you into a side hug as they all realized the truth in why you ran.

-They let you cry, sniffling over your drink quietly, before Apollo held out his hand, asking you to take it, “C’mon Y/N- let’s go home!”

-Home… a small smile slowly lifted to your lips as you took his hand and Lu Bu’s hand, holding them both, feeling happy tears lifting to your eyes as you spoke, “Yeah- let’s go home.” They all smiled softly at you. It would take some time, but it was a good thing your family cared about you and were willing to be patient.

#record of ragnarok #ror x reader #ror heracles #ror apollo #ror lu bu #ror qin shi huang

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lexi0widow · 1 year

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Can u write an ArthurTV story where you’re a youtuber/singer (Taylor Swift/Sabrina Carpenter style) and he’s got a huge crush on you that he’s sort of open about and gets bantered with about from the lads (he’s tweeted you before and they’re still up) but you don’t know anything of him. You’re friends with the Sidemen and they get you to do a 20 VS 1 and they invite Arthur along as one of the boys you date (they sneak him in after the elimination stage so you don’t have the chance to say no), the date goes well but nothing happens after that, however you end up doing another video with him in it (like Chips pub golf video) and there’s lots of flirting and either you kiss or end up going on a real date

I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS REQ!!!!!

ARTHURTV x READER

It was no secret to anyone that you had talent, you often wrote songs or did covers that showed off your voice and you weren’t a stranger to compliments. You had also started a youtube account a few years back gaining around 3 million subscribers and therefore a lot of internet popularity and mild paparazzi from time to time.

You were exposed to a whole new life of influencer events, interviews and touring the country meaning that you had not only gained a massive following of fans but a massive following of boys, particularly boys who would fantasise about taking you on dates and asking you out. Over the years you had became pretty good at ignoring this though, a bunch of 12 year olds trying to act hard around you wasn’t the best thing in the world but you knew it could be a lot worse.

However, Arthur wasn’t a fan of the traction that you had gained from all these people. Sure he was super happy for you and a major fanboy but deep down he had intense feelings for you and everytime he would see you with another guy he couldn’t help but feel a twang of jealousy run through him. Arthur had tried everything to get your attention- everything! He had even tweeted at you a few times in a desperate plea for your attention.

And yet still, you had never noticed him! Not to mention the fact that all of his friends tortured him for his crush on you, it was all friendly banter but god they could tear him apart. It felt like no matter how hard he tried he was always gonna be stuck watching from the sidelines. That was until he had gotten a call from KSI and was asked to come on as a date for a 20 VS 1 video he was about to turn him down until he heard who he would be dating. You. How could he pass up an opportunity like that?!

Two weeks later and hes showing up to the filming location excited and terrified at the same time, over those two weeks he had explained to the sidemen how down bad he was for you and they had agreed to sneak him into the game after eliminations so you couldn’t really say no. So he was say backstage bouncing his leg thinking off all the oppertunities he had right now. What if he comes off to weird? Or too forward or to-

‘Arthur?’ Harry knocked onto his dressing room door peeking his head inside ‘You’re up now don’t fuck this up or JJ will kill you.’ Harry laughed before closing the door behind him. This was it. This was his moment to make an amazing first impression and win you over. He could 100% do this.

He could absolutely not do this. He was sat across from you stumbling on his words sweating profusely and shaking. God why was he so nervous? Everything about you seemed so inviting and yet he found himself struggling to even introduce himself overcome with anxiety.

‘So Arthur, what do you do in your spare time?’ You had asked. He was so nervous it was suprising and honestly flattering to see how worked up he was just because he was talking to you.

‘I make youtube videos- a-and I used to study law! I also like to hang out with my friends andtweetfunnystuffontheinternet.’ You didn’t quite catch that last part due to his mumbling but you let it slide.

When his time was over you weren’t even interested in the other boys and what they had to offer. There was just something so captivating about him and his nervous laugh and goofy smile that you found yourself zoning out every so often to think of him.

When filming had come to an end you walked backstage hoping to find his room, strolling along the corridors and checking each door you passed you weren’t looking where you were going and bumped into someone. Luckily for you that someone was the exact person you were looking for!

‘Ohmygod I-I am so sorry!’ He almost shouted as he made sure you were okay,

‘Arthur its nothing- If anything I wasn’t watching where I was going. You are who I was looking for though.’ You exclaimed.

Arthur was taken aback. You were looking for him? Not that he minded he was just confused there was so many other boys you had spoken too- ones he had believed to be better looking than him or be more interesting. However the more you conversed with him the more comfortable he felt around you.

‘Hey Arthur?‘

‘Yeah?’

‘Can we go out sometime? Y’know like a date?’

‘I- Shit yeah. Yeah! Holyshit yeah!!’ Strings of curses fell from his mouth as Arthur hit cloud nine not believing that his dream girl had just asked him on a date. You smiled, happy with your achievement and that you were actually able to score a date.

‘Oh! Arthur one last thing!’

‘Oh? Yeah whats up?’

You grabbed both sides of his face pulling him toward you placing a quick but passionate kiss on the lips.

‘Bye bye Arthur <3’ You had said sweetly before leaving him stood there a blushing mess feeling like he had literally ascended to heaven.

He had finally gotten the girl.

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staytinyville · 7 months

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Jongho

PLEASE REFER TO MASTERLIST TO GET FULL TAROT READING EXPERIENCE

↣ Summary: There was a time when you really wanted to become an Idol. You practiced so hard to reach that dream but when your family told you that it would be better if you studied law you found yourself at a standstill wondering if it was worth reaching your dream. While going to an audition at KQ with your friend you meet someone who told you you should always follow what you want.

↣ Characters/Pairing: Choi Jongho x gn!reader

↣ Genre: fluff

↣ AU/Trope info: idol!au, predebut!au,

↣ Word Count: 664

↣ Warnings: none

↣ A/N: I would’ve loved to do a smut for Jongho because we need more but the card said no. My thoughts were like. Nah, we ain't gonna do that. But for other writers send your Jongho imagines my way man.

DEATH

Endings, Changing, Transformation, Transition

While this card is the most understood of them all, it can signify the end of something but rest assured it's talking about a stage in your life you are ready to give up and move forward from. You should embrace the future that the universe has in store for you.

The card is mostly about things ending and becoming new. Much like a butterfly, you are transforming yourself into something better. Death is something that happens everywhere-not just when signifying the end of a life.

Finally, death comes when you need to let go of unhealthy attachments that might be holding you back. Whether toxic or unneeded. You can't avoid the ending for certain things, especially not when they are not needed in your life.

XIII DEATH

“You sure you don't want to audition?” Your friend asked you as you both stood out in the lobby of KQ.

You looked down at their attire, the number sheet hanging from their chest making something in you clench in sadness.

“I'm sure. I'll wait out here for you.” You told them, giving them a reassuring smile.

“Okay.” They told you skeptically.

“Hwaiting!” You raised your hands in fists, trying to show that you were there to support your friend the best you could.

“Hwaiting!” They repeated back, moving along the line to where they were holding some dancing auditions.

You looked around the lobby for a moment, before finding an empty chair and taking a seat to rest. You knew it was going to be a long while before your friend would come back out. There were a few people waiting out with you seeing as they were going in groups. A few boys were talking with each other and some others were practicing their dance moves. You felt someone come to sit down next to you, causing you to turn your head to face them.

“Are you auditioning too?” He asked you, trying to make small talk.

“Oh no.” You gave a kind smile. “I'm just here for moral support. Are you?”

“Yeah.” He grinned. “I'm very excited about it.”

“Sounds great!” You exclaimed, getting happy for him. “It must be something you love doing.”

“Of course it is.” He turned to you, his arms crossed.

“What about you? What do you like?”

You smiled bashfully at having his attention. He looked so adorable but that was probably due to his age. He sounded like he was much more mature than he let on as well.

“I enjoy music a lot as well.” You told him honestly. “But I have other things I'm going to study.” You sighed, looking down at your shoes.

“Do you like doing them? Do you enjoy studying what you are? If you don't, why study it?” He shrugged, turning back around.

“It's a bit more complicated than that.” You sighed.

It wasn’t that you didn’t want to study law–there was a lot of things that really did call to your attention. But nothing made you happy like music had. You didn’t know if you were cut out to be an idol but you would be more than happy to settle for a producer.

However your parents really tried to tell you that it wasn’t a guaranteed career. You knew they were right seeing as a lot of idols tended to not renew their contracts, but that was for a later time. You still had a bunch of years before you came across the ending. You didn’t want to give up on chasing your dreams. But there were just so many people telling you that other options were best.

“Is it really?” Jongho told you. “You should follow your dream especially if you have the opportunity right in front of your face.” He turned to you, leaning down to get you to look at him.

“Don't let yourself be the reason you never find happiness. Move forward with your choices and keep at it. That's how I got here and it's how I'm going to get there.”

You knew there was a point in your life you were going to have to give up and change for the better. Find new things that would take you to better places rather than holding you back in the same spot. You need to give up with things that weren’t in your mind from the beginning and start thinking about yourself.

“You're inspiring.” You giggled at him.

“Gotta practice to make sure the fans love me.” He grinned.

“I'm sure they will either way.” You told him, knocking your knee with his.

“I’m Jongho.” He stuck his hand out.

“(Y/N).” You gripped his hand tightly, giving it a shake. “I hope to get the chance to work with you then.”

Tags : @cultofdionysusnet , @wonderlandnet , @pirateeznet , @k-vanity

#cultofdionysusnet #wonderlandnet #kvanity #pirateeznet #ateez x reader #ateez fic #ateez imagines #ateez #ateez fanfic #jongho #jongho x you #jongho x reader #jongho x y/n #jongho ateez #jongho fluff #jongho imagines #tarot

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butterflydm · 1 year

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wot reread: towers of midnight (chapter 8-13)

spoilers for towers of midnight

1. Hmm, we open this Mat chapter with him pondering over the (still-sealed) letter that Verin left him and admiring the beauty of the female tavernkeeper (quickly slapping a “but I’m married” bandaid over his admiration). Strike two.

2. I genuinely am very curious about what notes might have been left behind about Mat (and Mat’s marriage) because... from Sanderson’s other writing, this doesn’t feel like an idea he would have necessarily come up with on his own? He admits that he’s a bit of a prude and his main go-to ‘romance’ route in his own books is “wow this arranged marriage is working out surprisingly well!”. So I’m really curious if post-marriage horndog!Mat was noted somewhere in the stuff Jordan left behind. And I’m keeping track of the moments because I want to see how much of a pattern it ends up being over the course of the ~post-marriage~ books.

I am also going to keep track of whether or not Mat notes any specific qualities about ~absent wifey~ that he likes and, if he does, if those qualities are things that we’ve witnessed her actually showing at any point.

3. Also, just to note: while Mat is trying to remind himself that he’s married, his ~wife~ is engaging in hostile combat actions against his friends, and will be enslaving forty Aes Sedai and killing an additional unknown number of Aes Sedai, Warders, and people who live and work in Tar Valon. But, you know, it’s her empire that’s his enemy, not her.

(that line really is... the sad thing is that line is actually great out of context but, wow, it makes absolutely ZERO sense in terms of Mat’s actual relationship with ~Fortuona~. It’s such a bonkers delusional line for Mat to have said at any point during their relationship as it exists in the books. It really does feel like Jordan thought up that line first and then never got around to actually writing a relationship that could live up to its sentiment but jammed it in anyway because he couldn’t let it go even though it didn’t fit with the relationship as-written. But leaving it in really makes Mat come across as extremely reality-denying in terms of his relationship. And, hey, maybe that was what Jordan was going for, idk)

4. Verin is betting here that Mat’s curiosity is stronger than his desire to stay away from Aes Sedai plans, but she doesn’t know that the narrative has spent the last few books beating his curiosity and critical thinking out of him and turning his irrational dislike of Aes Sedai up to bizarrely high levels so that he’s willing to make out with a slaver. Verin should have just ALSO shared the info in the letter with Egwene when she was with her, but it was Verin’s turn to hold the Idiot Ball of Making The Plot Happen, so she did not (honestly, either Mat reading the letter or Verin telling Egwene the contents of the letter would also have saved us a bunch of time in the story).

5. More of weird fey creature Mat here, who acts like he is bound by his Oaths in a bizarre metaphysical way, instead of him just reluctantly keeping his word because he’s a good man. Like... you haven’t sworn on the Oath Rod, Mat. If whatever Verin is telling you to do actually goes against your morals just... break your word. You were willing to do it when it came to the Seanchan Oaths, because an oath under duress is not binding, and you seemed to be aware of that back during WH. The whole “you must follow your oaths to the letter even if they lead you into immoral acts” belief is NOT honorable. But this ties back into the way that Jordan had Mat acting with Tuon in CoT & KoD -- the logic of going “because she’s ~my wife~ (by Seanchan law), I am ~legally/morally obligated~ to support and protect her, no matter what evil deeds she may choose to commit and no matter how much she might be hurting other people”.

So now keeping his promises is about Mat operating by Fey Rules of Literally Obeying His Word, rather than keeping his promises because he’s a good person despite his protests. Because a good man wouldn’t support and protect a slaver, so Jordan had to throw away the part of Mat that was a good man in order for Mat x Tuon to ‘work’. But then (this ties back to horndog!Mat), it also leads to it feeling like Mat doesn’t cheat on Tuon right now only because it might break his Mystical Fey Creature Oaths rather than him actually feeling any personal inclination towards being a faithful husband.

6. At the start of this chapter, Mat thought to himself that he wouldn’t give Melli his ~best smile~ on account of him being a married man and... well, guess what he does only two pages later? Yep, gives her his best smile that he personally believes melts women’s hearts. Two pages! Also, he thinks that he’s Not Allowed to stare at her lips (because he’s married) even as he’s calculating the precise fullness of said lips that he’s Definitely Not staring at, lol.

7. Mat notices a pretty serving girl and tips her a coin for her smile. For, um. For Thom’s sake. lol. Strike three. Technically, Mat is already out, but I will continue to count strikes.

8. lol, the bouncer at the tavern, Berg, is as dubious about Mat’s future faithfulness to ~his slaver wife~ as I am. Berg gives Mat a suspicious look despite that fact that Mat. This is hilarious. Mat SAT HIM DOWN and talked to him about how he wouldn’t be wooing away the woman that Berg is in a relationship with because Mat is MARRIED NOW. lol, no wonder the man is so suspicious of him! That just sends so many alarm bells ringing. Portrait of a Man In Denial over how unhappy he is about being married.

9. Strike four, Mat notices the golden hair, nice eyes, and full bosom of one of the women he’s gambling with at the next tavern, and tries to convince himself that he doesn’t actually find full breasts incredibly attractive anymore (he noticed Melli’s “ample bosom” only a handful of pages ago so... um, yeah, that’s a boldfaced lie to himself. Sanderson might mention breasts less often than Jordan does but when he does mention them, it’s been in Mat PoV so far). We’re several pages into Mat’s PoV at this point and we’ve mostly focused on him doing his best to pretend he feels no regret over being married and Not Being Allowed to notice all the women that he’s noticing for, um, Talmanes and Thom. He also tries to give his fellow gambler one of his heart-fluttering smiles (that he said at the start of the chapter he wouldn’t give out anymore on account of being ~a married man~) and tries to pretend that he isn’t disappointed when she doesn’t react.

10. Anyway, the plot important thing that happens here is that Mat finds out that the gholam is in Caemlyn (people found with their throats ripped out). That finally draws him out of his depressed-over-being-married funk.

11. We learn that he’s sent a letter to Elayne and gotten no reply and he’s actually QUITE worked up over it, and over the fact that Elayne has never so much as kissed him on the cheek to thank him for saving her life. And it’s an interesting change that his internal objection here doesn’t end up being “but of course I wouldn’t want Elayne to kiss me because I’m a married man” but is instead “I don’t want royalty to kiss me” which sends him down a spiral of thinking about how he’s trapped into the Seanchan nobility now. Hmm. Interesting. Anyway, that’s strike five.

12. Mat does bring up three positive qualities of Tuon here (that aren’t related to whether or not he’s capable of being attracted to her: as we’ve just been witnessing, Mat is capable of being attracted to the majority of female characters in the books, so physical attraction is fairly irrelevant here):

a. good at stones: verified true

b. keen of wit: no textual evidence that this is true

c. ‘good for talking to’: negative textual evidence that this is true; most of Mat’s conversations with her in CoT & KoD seemed to end up in frustration or unpleasantness (he even mentions here that she’s frustrating ‘most of the time’), with him thinking on at least one occasion late in KoD about how he hates that she treats him like he’s her property

So... we’re at 33% Verified True on Mat’s accuracy scale of Tuon’s Good Qualities, 33% Just Lying To Himself, and 33% is a question mark.

(though I would argue Tuon’s lack of insight or critical thinking in her own PoV chapters argues against her being ~keen of wit~, unless Mat just means she’s good at puns or something, which is also not in evidence. I suspect this is more of an Informed Attribute, where the author(s) hope that just repeating over and over that Tuon has a keen wit will make people believe she does even if she never does anything to prove it).

13. Mat feels guilt over leaving Tylin tied up for the gholam to kill back in Ebou Dar. Tylin’s relationship to Mat really does feel like it’s married so tightly to Tuon’s relationship with Mat, a transfer of ~ownership~ in a horrible gross way. Tylin’s abuse of Mat is what kept him in the situation he was in when he met Tuon, and Tylin’s abuse of Mat really does feel like it foreshadows the way that Tuon treats Mat as well, which is definitely a Bad Omen for his future.

14. Awww, for all that Mat was negatively thinking about royalty earlier, he thinks here about how the right Queen is now on the throne of Andor (with the emphasis Mat’s!).

15. Strike six. Mat sees a stately older woman in the inn where Thom is performing and thinks about how he’ll keep her in mind for later. Hastily adding ~for his men~ onto his thoughts. He tells Thom about the gholam and they leave for Mat’s camp.

16. Mat thinks with frustration about how Bayle Doman and Leilwin née Egeanin no longer have any affection for him (it’s because you’re married to a slaver and they have rejected the empire; hope this helps). We also get a reminder about the holes in his memory (foggy patches from when he picked up the dagger in Shadar Logoth until when he was healed of it in TDR).

17. Mat comes across as pretty desperate for validation & affection here (specifically from people that he already knows and respects). That’s really standing out to me -- he thought about it a lot in the last book too, about how much he wanted Joline, Teslyn, & Edesina to be grateful to him for saving their lives. He thinks the same here about Elayne, and about Doman and Leilwin née Egeanin. And he doesn’t want to think about how his own actions (being abrasive towards Elayne & co; picking the slavers over the slaves) might have made people turn away from him or think less of him. Save someone once, and it shouldn’t matter how you behave in the future, right? (wrong) It’s also interesting how the clear loyalty of his soldiers doesn’t scratch that itch for him at all. Maybe because he attributes that to the memories in his head and his luck rather than himself as a person?

18. When Mat claims to Thom that he’s a good judge of character, he gets a very doubtful raised eyebrow back. Thom’s relationship with Mat in the last few books has been... honestly, somewhat weird. I almost wonder... we haven’t gotten any Thom PoV for quite a long time, I don’t think, so I wonder if Thom is just masking his actual feelings about Mat because he knows that he needs Mat in order to rescue Moiraine. Because, for the most part, Thom has just avoided Having Opinions about the mess that is Mat’s life and choices, despite the fact that Thom is (supposedly) fond enough of an Aes Sedai that he’s desperate to rescue her from captivity, and also deeply fond of Elayne and friends with Juilin. Is Thom playing Mat the way that Mat was playing the Tairen nobles at the start of TSR? Letting himself appear to be a non-critical buddy because there’s something that he wants out of Mat? I will have to keep an eye out to see if Thom shows any affection towards/inclination to hang out with Mat AFTER Moiraine gets rescued and he doesn’t need Mat anymore. Thom is, after all, one of the best players of Daes Dae’mar in the series, we are told.

19. Mat talks to Teslyn here, internally noting that she has lost most of the “nervous skittishness” that she’d picked up when she was enslaved as damane. He likes Teslyn, he thinks, but he does not trust her. Despite Teslyn never doing a single thing to breach his trust, unlike SOME people that I could name. Ah! There are rumors in Caemlyn about the Seanchan assult on the White Tower but (just like he dismissed Tuon’s threats back in CoT/KoD), Mat has dismissed those rumors as just “stories of raken drifting up from the south” (I wonder if I should be keeping track of all of the “Mat Forces Himself Into Willful Denial Over Tuon/the Seanchan’s Evil Choices” moments). Teslyn and the others are planning to leave now to go join the reunited White Tower (which is what most of the rumors talk about).

20. Hmm, Teslyn thanks Mat here for helping her escape the Seanchan but then she talks with him about the importance of maintaining “illusions with yourself”. I actually did wonder, when I was doing my reread of CoT & KoD, if Teslyn’s patience with Mat, even when he was being a complete asshole, was due to her seeing how much he was lying to himself to try to make himself accept his fate. I think I may have been right on that. And she gives him an escape route, if he looks for it in the future -- that if he ever decides to seek out the White Tower, he has a friend there willing to help him. Considering that she knows that he’s married to a slaver (one who actively tried to re-enslave her personally), that is a HUGE offer. A way out of his trap with the Seanchan -- protection at the White Tower. And Mat, who has been desperate for validation since the start of TGS is now “feeling as unsettled as if someone had kicked his legs out from under him”. Teslyn has also, in this one conversation, shown him more kindness than Tuon has shown in their entire relationship. So... Mat has at least one place to run to now, if he runs away from ~Fortuona~ post-canon. Teslyn has seen the worst of him and extends him this offer anyway, so he knows that she won’t turn him away if he comes to her for help. This conversation is SO good. Mat is thrown so off-balance by Teslyn’s kindness and genuine care for him.

21. *sigh* I really wish that Mat were caring more about Nalesean and the Redarms being murdered by the gholam than about Tylin’s murder. I do understand why -- because Mat feels responsible for her death in a way that he doesn’t for Nalesean’s -- but... ugh, kinda sucks that his guilt over Tylin’s death is now the biggest part of how he feels about Tylin, given how much misery and pain she caused Mat when she was alive. Not necessarily... incorrect, in terms of how people’s brains can work in this sort of situation, but it does suck. Anyway, Mat is now the prime object of the gholam’s attention, having been sent to personally murder him (likely by Moridin, I would assume?). Teslyn saves his life during this fight btw, using the Power to pull him back before the gholam can kill him (she can do this because he took his medallion off to fight it). Five people were successfully killed by the gholam in this attack before it runs away (it has been ordered to try to avoid too much attention).

23. Oddly, Tuon is one of the people that the gholam threatens to kill. Honestly, I feel like it would have been smarter for the Shadow to court the Seanchan/Tuon instead of going against them, since ~Fortuona~ is already so hostile to Aes Sedai. But the Shadow cannot always make smart moves, I guess. The gholam doesn’t threaten to kill Olver but does threaten Tuon, Thom, and Noal. Given that it apparently got its information from a Redarm that it killed a few days ago or from observing Mat’s camp, you’d think that Olver would be on the list either way (and it really makes no sense that Tuon would be on the list? She hasn’t been traveling with Mat for at least a month at this point).

I suspect that the general reader is supposed to care that Tuon is under risk of assassination? But it’s baffling to me as to WHY I should care when she literally JUST had her people assault the White Tower, kidnapping and enslaving forty women and most likely also killing more people than that in total. The narrative has never given me a good reason why I should care about whether or not Tuon gets assassinated besides “vague marriage prophecy bs”. The narrative has never shown that Tuon is actually a better candidate for empress for the Westlands Seanchan than some other random High Blood would be, as long as they aren’t a Darkfriend like Suroth; it just wants us to assume that she is. Her behavior has been just as horrible as any other High Blood’s. Why should I believe she’s a better choice as empress than the next High Blood down in rank? We have never been given a reason.

Now, if Tuon had had even a single ounce of positive character development during the circus storyline, then this would be an entirely different ballgame! But she not only didn’t, she has actively doubled-down on her fear and hatred of ‘marath’damane’.

So, yeah... why on earth should I be invested in Mat wanting to save her life? The narrative never gives me a reason to believe she’s capable of becoming a worthy leader of people. She’s petty, arrogant, and cruel. Basically, a younger version of Elaida with even more power and less self-awareness than Elaida ever had.

24. Note that I do not consider Mat acknowledging Joline as pretty to be a strike against his marriage because it’s not him noticing with any kind of intent that he then tries to pretend doesn’t exist -- he genuinely does not find her an appealing temptation at this point, due to their personal history (though said negative history is pretty much entirely Mat’s fault #JolineDeservedBetter).

25. Ah, Perrin and the others have arrived by the statue that Rand told Nynaeve about back in TGS, so I’m guessing that Tam will be leaving soon to go get nearly killed by his son. Anyway, Perrin and Galad meet here face to face and agree to have their armies fight each other. So... that’s going... well?

26. ELAYNE! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

27. Trying to figure out a way to get the Andoran nobles to actually unite before the Last Battle rather than squabbling for power, Elayne decides that it’s time to claim the Sun Throne. Hmm, I do feel like Sanderson’s more casual style of narration is more pronounced here with Elayne than it’s been with the other characters. All off a sudden, it just feels like the narration is in a hurry, almost more like an outline than prose.

28. Ah, we learn that the reason that Elayne never responded to Mat’s first letter is that she never received it. Her secretary, Master Norry, dismissed Mat as just another leader of a mercenary band, which is why he was granted a space outside the city but no audience with Elayne. He does give her Mat’s second letter, telling her that the captain of this mercenary band is being particularly persistent. Elayne is keeping all these mercenary bands around because they will likely be needed for the Last Battle because, unlike Perrin, SHE isn’t a FOOL.

29. Reading the letter (which does have a lot of misspellings, etc in it, but Mat also mentions that he was planning on rewriting it to be pretty if Thom would have stopped laughing at him) gives Elayne ALL the emotions as she realizes that Mat and Thom (and maybe Olver) are alive and have escaped from Ebou Dar. Mat mentions here that he thinks Elayne’s ass is pretty but also that he barely looked because he knows that she would have kicked his ass and also he’s married w/e, which I feel like should count as strike seven even though it’s Elayne again, because Mat has an emotional attachment to Elayne that he doesn’t have to the more random women that he’s Noticing all over the place, but I’ll only count it as an additional tenth of the point and say he’s at strike six-point-one. Birgitte, upon reading the letter, mentions that Mat also has a nice ass, so I guess she was Looking in Ebou Dar.

Confirmed nice butts:

Elayne & Mat (here in ToM)

Aviendha & Rand (in TFoH)

Probably Min too, I guess

Mat being so worked up over Elayne not responding to his first letter actually makes me wonder if he deliberately put in things into this second letter to try to make her react, if only to fuss at him or tell him off -- telling her she has a nice ass, telling her that he’s married. Because he assumes that she did read his first letter and actively chose not to meet with him.

30. Elayne tells Norry to arrange a meeting with Mat immediately and to tell him to make sure to bring Thom as well. She also begins to think about how Mat and the Band could potentially be useful for bringing Cairhien to her. We get some more insight into her reasoning here as well -- after Rand dies, Andor is one of the biggest potential targets for the Seanchan empire to the south, and they cannot afford for it to merely be part of ~the Dragon’s Empire~ that will potentially fall into chaos after his death. She needs to do strong nation-building NOW, before the Last Battle, to try to make sure it will survive after the Last Battle. “The woman in her cringed to think of planning for Rand’s death, but the Queen could not be so squeamish.” She notes that, as far away from Rand as she currently is, all she ever feels from him these days is a cold anger. Don’t worry, Elayne. Min was literally right there with him and that’s all she ever seemed to be able to sense too.

But this is actually very similar to how Rand wanted to make sure that Arad Doman chose its own king to avoid falling into chaos after his death in the Last Battle, so Elayne and Rand manage to be on the same wavelength even if they are still cruelly separated by the narrative. This is one of the things that @markantonys and I strongly agree on: that a big part of the reason Elayne and Rand are separated for so long is because Elayne is the one person who could have helped Rand with his rulership struggles as an trained leader who understands the issues and understands that you NEED to be ruthless sometimes (but also understands when not to be ruthless).

31. With Elayne, we were still pre-epiphany but when we jump to Min’s PoV, it is decidedly post, as she can feel warmth in the bond and not just Rand’s cold anger.

32. “Alanna didn’t often reveal her intimate connection to the Dragon Reborn.” lol, except for all the Wise Ones, in order to wiggle out of punishments. And all the Aes Sedai, to try to establish precedence. Except for that. Anyway, she’s disappeared from her rooms in the Stone of Tear.

33. When Cadsuane and Min point out that Cadsuane cares that Alanna is missing because she’s a ~tool~ to use on Rand, Nynaeve says that Alanna is “no more helpful” to Cadsuane than Min. So... she tells Cadsuane everything and obeys her frequently? Why is the narrative trying to pretend that Min isn’t constantly helping out Cadsuane? It literally just happened again at the end of TGS! She’s been obediently telling all her viewings to Cadsuane for her to dissect! Nynaeve was IN THE ROOM when this was happening! Or is this meant to reflect Nynaeve’s own distorted view of Min?

34. oh, lol, when Min reacts to Rand arriving in the bond, her Maiden ‘guards’ promptly abandon her and race off to find Rand. So, I guess the Min-Maiden relationship is still... not great, lol.

35. Rand shows up and I really dislike that all of this new!Rand is filtered through outside PoVs. It makes it hard for me to emotionally relate with zen!Rand because I can’t see his interior world. This is also a place where the timeline fuzziness kinda hits the worst, because we’re going right from cold!Rand in Elayne’s bond to warm!Rand in Min’s bond. Moving Rand’s epiphany further back in this set of books would help with that. Min actually panics for a moment, upon seeing Rand, because his eyes look older and he doesn’t seem familiar. “Had the Rand she loved been stolen away, replaced by some ancient force of a man she could never know or understand?” Hmm.

And then he smiles and she does recognize him -- responding to her panic in the bond, maybe?

36. I will, uh, note that Rand did not go directly to Min when he arrived in Tear. Just gonna quietly note that down. He waited for her to find him.

37. He talks to Rhuarc (and the assembled Aiel, including the Maidens) and tells them that he knows that he has toh to them and that he is prepared to meet it. And Rand finally seems to have his relationship with the Maidens back (with Min still baffled at the interactions between Rand and the Aiel).

38. It actually seems clear here (even filtered through Min) that Rand is still somewhat of a boiling pot, though the wound has been lanced. But now he really FEELS the pain over Lan heading towards Tarwin’s Gap, when before he was able to numb most of his emotions through the general ice-cold/molten-hot anger that he was constantly repressing with the flame & void. Now he’s feeling again and that can be... difficult. But he’s still rush-rush-rush and talking about potentially dying soon. So it’s clear that there’s complicated stuff going on in his head and we are TRAPPED in Min’s PoV and only get hints of it second-hand through the bond! But he does promise Nynaeve that he will send Lan help.

39. Rand gives Min the mission to find out why Callandor is key to the prophecies. lol, sure, whatever. I guess we have to give Min ~something important~ to do because she doesn’t actually have a plot purpose and hasn’t had one in quite a long while. Hey, if it means she’s actually doing something and not just surgically-attaching herself to Rand at all times, then I guess it’s worth it.

40. Anyway, Rand tells Cadsuane that she succeeded by failing, lol.

41. Min bashing on the nobles for not having a purpose when she only has a job because her boyfriend gave her one, lol.

42. Anyway, Rand lines up the nobles and susses out that Weiramon and Anaiyella are Darkfriends. If I recall correctly, I’d guessed on Weiramon back during my initial read of TPoD (way back when it was first published) so it was very vindicating for me when he was finally called out as a DF lol. I remember feeling vindicated, anyway, lol. Anaiyella was one I could have gone either way on, but it makes sense for Weiramon to have an accomplice. I... don’t mind Rand’s Darkfriend-vision because, yeah, let’s move the plot along, lol. I just, again, wish that it had been pushed towards the end of this book instead. But the talent itself kinda goes along with the other stuff Rand has been saying about how he’s a bright beacon for the Shadow now and cannot avoid TDO’s eyes.

Instead of killing Weiramon and Anaiyella, he sends them off to bring a message to the Shadow that they will no longer be able to hide among his allies.

43. There’s a great moment with Rand and his dad, though I kinda roll my eyes at Min needing a ~very special~ formal introduction to Tam (who she already knows at this point because he’s been hanging around Tear for three days).

Ah, well. If I do my best to ignore Min, lol, I really liked that scene.

I really do wish that we’d had even a tiny bit of Rand PoV, though. It’s very frustrating only seeing him through other people’s eyes.

I feel like this has gotten long enough (I spent... a lot of time talking about Mat, as I’d suspected that I might, lol) so I will end this post here.

#wot reread #towers of midnight #wot #wheel of time #wot book spoilers #wot spoilers #mat cauthon #little bit of elayne and rand and perrin

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pininghermit · 1 year

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Heeey, I'd like to make an ask if you don't mind but first I just have to say that I really liked the fic you wrote on alucard, I thought the relationship dynamic was so cute *internal screaming* So I was wondering if you could do a modern au fic with a female monster hunter s/o who's like batman (uses their brains over brawn but definitely knows how to fight) and she works together with alucard on monster hunting missions(if it's possible to make it Genya Arikado version from the aria of sorrow/dawn of sorrow it would be really cool as there's not a lot of content with that but it's fine if not.)

Thanks!

Mr. and Mrs. Tepes (Alucard x Reader)

Pairing: Alucard x Reader

Word Count: 1.8k

Summary: A slightly rushed "Where are you?" greets you as soon as you plug in your Bluetooth. You hear the clang of metal followed by gurgling growls on the other end. "I am on my way," you press harder on the gas as you speed to the site of conflict.

AN: Hi, thanks for requesting such an interesting ask. I am not familiar with the Genya Arikado version that you mentioned but I tried doing some research to pull up something decent. I hope you like it and please forgive any cannon inaccuracies I'm a noob.

"It's just going to be a bunch of mindless skeletons," he said.

"I can handle it myself, he said,” you grumble as you furiously pull back your hair into a tight braid as you try to locate your crossbow.

You chuck your weapons in your trusted Audi. He better be damn grateful for this. You would have never put your darling Audi8 through this rough treatment, but alas, the situation called for it.

Giving your resort one last parting look, you speed your way through isolated roads. Speed limits and laws jump out of the window at 2 am in the morning.

A slightly rushed "Where are you?" greets you as soon as you plug in your Bluetooth. You hear the clang of metal followed by gurgling growls on the other end. "I am on my way," you press harder on the gas as you speed to the site of conflict.

It had been a no-work vacation that you had somehow convinced Adrian to take. After weeks of pleading, he agreed to spend a week of nothingness except for relaxing spas and soothing hot springs in Hokkaido.

You should have known better. Honestly, you had no idea when he snuck out to 'explore' the land. In his plan to be discreet, your very smart fiancé thought it wise to venture into an unknown territory without appropriate weapons or ammunition.

It had been too late by the time you caught on, and your dampir fiancé replied with cryptic texts that told nothing about his whereabouts. While you were busy freaking out about your missing fiancé, Adrian was out there living his best life, scouting Japanese forests.

Giving up on the cocky bastard, you resorted to destressing through the amazing bath at your disposal. And he did text you about how he did not need help fighting mere annoyances.

Next thing you know, just as you undress to hop into water that is just the right temperature, Adrian hits you with a "Need backup" text with the coordinates of his location.

Now here you are, very much away from your therapeutic bath and herbal tea. Parking your baby outside the forest parameters, you double-check your Bluetooth. "Take cover, I'll be there soon," you speak into the mic as you huff with the weight of weapons on your back.

In a matter of seconds, you transform yourself into a killing machine loaded with weapons of every kind at your disposal. Pulling Adrian's location on your watch, you start your trek through the forest or, to better phrase it, through the trees.

While Adrian fought head-on, you preferred to catch your opponents off guard. You lingered in shadows, waiting for a chance to strike. Maybe it was a habit from your past as an assassin that never left you.

Long ago, before you met Adrian, you fought for people who bought others' lives with the money they were born into. You sliced throats, spiked drinks, sniped unsuspecting targets, fabricated accidents. Adrian wasn't in your life back then. It remains a past you wish to forget, but you don't deserve to forget it, not after all the blood you have on your hands. This is your penance, to remember and live with your dark past.

But now, as you blend into the cover of the trees, your past helps you spot Adrian faster than ever. You find him crouched behind a rock. Great, he actually took cover. It must be pretty serious then. As if on cue, he looks up, and you see relief settle into his features.

From your vantage point, you spot about two merman and around twenty skeletons. Adrian could have dealt with this mix... if only Mr. Smartass had enough weapons on him. You could shoot some from your spot, but first, you need to equip Adrian with some ammunition. So, you soundlessly make your way to join Adrian behind the abnormally large rock.

The first thing you do after reaching him is to look for any possible injuries on him. Adrian, for once, lets you do your job with the patience of a saint, at least for him. After making sure that your fiancé won't bleed to death as you fight, you wordlessly hand him refills and the crossbow.

Neither of you speaks about the atrocious number of daggers in your pack. From the look on Adrian's face, you're pretty sure he's dying to present his reasons for the adventure, but it will have to wait.

Adrian feels all the exhaustion leave his body as his senses focus on your hands tying a bandolier around his waist. Your movements are efficient and quick. You separate the poisoned dagger from the normal ones.

Even in such an unexpected situation, you remain undaunted. You scheme and plan, but you do not cower. That's what Adrian loves about you. You're brave. Brave enough to accept your past, your flaws, and live with them.

It's easy to forget the hideous monsters on the other side of the rock as you both huddle close under the clear skies. The cool night breeze sways a wayward strand that escaped your braid, a sign that you probably rushed on your way here.

"Eeek," Adrian squeaks as you pull him closer by the grip on his collar. He's seriously too old to blush like a schoolgirl, but his cheeks heat up when he realizes how close your face is to his, and his eyes meet yours.

"You better make it up for all this," you whisper next to his ear, and Adrian feels the warmth of your breath against his skin. Barely holding back the shudder that runs through him, Adrian nods silently.

With a satisfied smile on your face, you pull back, only to lean in again and steal a kiss before disappearing into the cover of the trees. Your message is clear as Adrian tightens his grip on the gun in his hand. Reeling from the distraction, Adrian tries to focus on your concealed footsteps and the obnoxiously loud monsters on the other end.

Adrian steps into the clearing where the monsters stand, waiting for him. Hidden in a tree, you provide cover as he approaches the two Merman. It's a well-practiced dance, a complex routine of taking the lead and handing it off to the other when needed.

As he fights the monsters, who seem to follow a repetitive pattern of overused attacks, Adrian reminisces about the first time he met you.

It was a grand hall, and he was disguised as Genya Arikado. It was the birthday celebration of a powerful politician's son. The most prestigious individuals in town had gathered to celebrate the man-child's twenty-seventh birthday.

Genya Arikado had been invited by a colleague who he worked with under his disguise's alias. The party had reached a point where Adrian was trying to discern possible faces and shapes in the botched ceiling paint.

Lost in thought, he was looking up when he bumped into another person, causing them to fall upon the impact. "Oof!" Adrian snapped back to reality and quickly apologized, his eyes landing on you.

Red. He saw red when he saw you. Dressed in the deepest shade of red, you sat there, glaring at him. "Watch where you're going, will you?" you muttered as you stood up, ignoring the hand he offered you. In a flurry of motion, you disappeared, blending into the sea of bored people.

Throughout the rest of the evening, Adrian searched for you or any sign of your red dress, but he failed. It was as if the entire interaction, lasting only a few seconds (though it felt longer to Adrian), had never happened.

Adrian's mind was consumed by thoughts of you and the fleeting encounter. Doubt gnawed at his thoughts. Had he truly imagined you? Had his longing for companionship manifested itself in a vivid yet illusory encounter? He replayed the interaction in his mind over and over, dissecting every detail, desperately trying to grasp onto any evidence that would confirm the existence of that brief connection.

The memory of your delicate fragrance lingered in his senses, adding to his confusion. It was a fragrance unlike any he had encountered before—subtle yet captivating, with floral and citrus undertones that momentarily transported him to a world beyond the confines of the party. The scent became intertwined with the image of you, deepening the mystery surrounding your presence.

As the night wore on, Adrian's frustration grew. He wondered if he had been destined to cross paths with you only for a fleeting moment, forever chasing an apparition that could never be captured. The questions echoed in his mind, haunting him with the possibility that he might never find the answers.

Yet, despite the uncertainty and the absence of tangible evidence, Adrian couldn't shake the feeling that the encounter had been real. The emotions stirred within him, the electricity in the air, and the inexplicable connection he had felt—all pointed to a profound encounter that defied rational explanation.

Later in the chaotic night, when the guests rushed out, Adrian found himself reluctantly leaving the hall. Throughout the night, he had been unable to find you. Even his enhanced senses had failed to spot any sign of your presence. The party ended abruptly when the politician's son had to be carried out on a stretcher due to an allergic reaction to a shellfish starter.

Waiting for the valet to bring his car, Adrian paused as the valet got out to offer him the keys. A familiar fragrance flooded his senses. Standing in front of him was you, dressed in a valet uniform with a seamless disguise. Smiling with a knowing look in your eyes, you handed him the keys and rushed back to work as a guy, seemingly your manager, called out for you.

Back in the present, Adrian tackled the last surviving skeleton, realizing he was almost done. From the corner of his eye, he searched for you, wherever you might have ended up during the fight. Lost in handling the final skeleton and looking for you, he didn't notice another set of footsteps approaching.

He suddenly became aware of the presence of another surviving skeleton running toward him and prepared to dodge the attack. However, it never came. The skeleton crumpled down into dust as you tackled it, jumping out of the literal sky.

Standing in the now quiet clearing, Adrian allowed his shoulders to relax. All the tension from the past hours left his body as he observed you collecting arrows from the ground.

"Make haste, Mr. Tepes. You've got a bath to run once we get back," you said, bundling all your beloved knives into their designated packs.

The slight smirk on your face revealed that Adrian would be running more than one bath. His list of chores had just increased exponentially for the week. Sighing in dismay, Adrian cracked his back as he followed you out of the forest.

#alucard x reader #alucard #castlevania #modern au #assassin reader #adrian tepes #adrian tepes x reader #genya arikado #romance

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in-tua-deep · 3 years

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Ok I totally want to hear more about this survivors au/Delores is real! How do the siblings handle having this different version of Five? Five may be better adjusted but he still has to heard his family around like a bunch of stray cats. What happens when Hazel and Cha Cha show up? How do they find out that Vanya causes the apocalypse and how does Five handle that revelation?!

here is the thing, i think the survivors au has the potential to be HILARIOUS

no one knows how to handle a well-adjusted five, and this absolutely includes the commission

So you mentioned Hazel and Cha-Cha?? Five in this au was not nearly as absolutely feral as he is in the show bc he knows how to interact with people - he was raised by a competent adult and a weird best friend and they occasionally saw other survivors as well

please picture old Five hanging around the water cooler and chatting with Hazel

the other funny thing is that Five is competent passing - he is well adjusted emotionally but functionally?? Hazel is out there complaining about dental being cut and office parties and budgets and Five is there sipping his drink having never filed taxes in his life. Five doesn't know what the fuck a dental plan is, he was a child soldier and then lived in an apocalypse.

So please picture for me Hazel being like "okay I know corporate wants us to keep what we're being paid to ourselves but fuck that, workers unite, what do you get paid as a legend old timer?"

and five is like "you're getting paid? i get to not get tossed back into the apocalypse, I think"

"but what about expense forms? what about medical care?"

"I'm like 80% sure i'm being experimented on, actually." Five says nonchalantly, "Don't get me wrong, my idea of medical care is fucked by being a child soldier but I'm pretty sure regular people don't have electrodes attached to their heads every time they get a checkup. Could be wrong though! My ex-dad used to monitor my brainwaves while I slept so like, my idea of appropriate shit is fucked, you know?"

This is a Five who was raised by Rick, he is polite to his coworkers. If Dot asked him if he wanted to grab lunch, Five would have gone and grabbed lunch with her or politely said that he couldn't.

Cha Cha only ever talks to Five when she wants to talk shop, so they've had a couple of conversations about weapons but not much else tbh, Hazel just tends to be more personable

So when they're sent after Five, Hazel is much more hesitant to kill who he perceives as a "work friend" and also is definitely thinking about all the times Five casually revealed a way the commission was being highkey shady about him, such as the potential experimentation, no pay, working under duress etc. He's much more easily turned against the commission because he's even more primed to say "fuck the commission" than he is in canon

Hazel out here like "how did Five break his contract when Five wasn't even being paid? I kind of want to read it."

Hazel out here like "I would unionize if I didn't think the commission was anti-union enough to send literal assassins after me if I suggested it :/"

meanwhile with the siblings

Five just. talks over them a lot and makes so much sense that it's actually really hard to argue with him, and he's weirdly considerate of his family's obligations

Like Diego is like "i have to go see Patch" then Five is like "that's great I'm proud of you buddy, it would actually be really handy to have some law enforcement read into the situation if you think she's up to the task. that goes for everyone by the way! If y'all have people you trust, more bodies would be super helpful I think"

the entire family, collectively, who have like zero trusted social links: uhhhhhhhh

Diego, with this weird permission, probably?? Does? Awkwardly attempt to read Patch into the situation? Patch is, obviously, like "what the fuck, Diego" but probably goes with him to the mansion (????????) because she's concerned and then meets his fucking whacko family with their superpowers and suddenly everything is 100% more realistic

Five is just like "yes hello I'm aware I look like a child, i'm actually in my late 50s or early 60s (apocalypse time amiright) because of time travel stuff. Yes I am Five Hargreeves who went missing in like 2002 or whatever. anyway it's lovely to meet you, i'm so glad diego has someone he trusts, and considering my sibling's shifty looks when i told them to invite anyone they trusted this genuinely makes me concerned that Diego is the most socially well-adjusted of them."

"That cannot be possible." Patch says, like someone who has met Diego Hargreeves.

"You haven't met the rest." Five says sympathetically, "In our defense we were raised in isolation as child soldiers."

"That... explains so much." Is all Patch can say to that, "But you seem..."

"I'm adopted." Five waves away.

"We're ALL adopted." Diego grits out, very aggrieved by this and also not sure if he likes the fact that Patch seems friendly with Five, or at least is listening to him?

"I'm double adopted."

However! With the recruitment of Patch, herding Diego becomes like 90% easier.

Honestly the worst to herd are probably Luther and Allison? Luther because he's Number One and resents Five taking charge and also resents Five's casual dismissal of Reginald and also suspects that Five (or at least the commission) has something to do with Reginald's death?

Allison because she is torn between following Luther and helping him and helping Five but also calling Patrick and Claire at every possible moment while ALSO trying to repair her relationship with Vanya. She's flighty - she'd bail on a Five-apocalypse-assignment if Vanya mentioned being hungry or if Luther called or anything like that

Vanya likes to be included and, if asked, would probably drop as many current obligations as she can. Like she would probably cancel her teaching if Five genuinely and sincerely asked her for her help, which he does because he's 100% sure Dolores would manifest in front of him and smack him if he dared even imply someone without powers wouldn't be helpful

Vanya is like "I'm not sure if i'll be helpful - I don't have powers ):" and Patch is like "wtf are you talking about - my superpowers are Gun, Backup, and Reading Comprehension and i am like the most useful member of this team right now"

Vanya gets a confidence boost just from hanging out with Patch honestly, I think they should be friends

Klaus is thrilled to be included are you kidding?? He says he does it for money but he's just happy to be there and also as one of the most emotionally intelligent siblings he is mildly concerned about the fact that Five looks like he's about to cry and also emotes

Five also gives Klaus positive reinforcement, hugs, and Five absolutely weaponizes the I'm not mad, but I believe that you can do better and I'm going to give you more chances because I love you and fully believe that next time you'll be amazing way that Rick used on him.

I feel like Five ends up saying something along the lines of "I understand that x is really important, and we're definitely going to look into it. Is it something that needs to be addressed right now, or is it something that can wait until after April 1st? If it can wait, I can write it down here on this list so we don't forget. If it can't wait then we can figure out a time to address it and help you" a lot

Like Grace malfunctioning and potentially killing Reginald?

"We don't have to make this decision right now." Five says patiently, "Because Grace is a robot, we have some options. Living with a robot who is potentially malfunctioning and homicidal is dangerous, but Luther saying that means admitting that Reginald might have made a mistake or error with Grace's programming or upkeep. I haven't been here for a long time, but I remember Reginald being very precise. Regardless, this isn't a choice between permanently shutting her off or not. We can shut her down temporarily until we can fully address the issue. We can ask and see if there is a 'system reboot' option or some sort of system check that Grace can undergo. We can try find and hire an expert to take a look at her programming to find the issue."

Five gives this speech while like, organizing the weaponry in the house on a table very nonchalantly

Five out here making buzzer noises at his siblings arguments like "yeah no that's a false dichotomy and a strawman's argument, want to try again?"

(Look apocalypse nights were long and they had games that were literally about arguing pointless shit like ranking types of chairs or the best way to break out of a prison without powers and things could get heated)

"Who died and made you boss?" Luther demands.

"Uh, the world? Were you not listening?" Five asks, looking very purposefully confused.

It gets even MORE delightful when Five reads Rick into the situation because a) he promised and b) his siblings really have like, no connections jeeze

Rick fully believes that this is his son from the future, like Five introduced himself, but Five skipped out on a few key details. Such as being adopted.

So Rick spends a solid chunk of time just staring at Five, who looks basically nothing like him, trying to think like, who is his mother ???? if we save the world will Five stop existing? why would I name my child 'Five'? Does everyone have powers in the future? was there like... a radioactive apocalypse? would radiation give future humans superpowers? when did my life turn into a comic book? am i even allowed to ask these questions? will knowledge of the future fuck things up?

and then when Five comes back and is like "what is up everyone this is my dad Rick who will be joining us, he doesn't have any memories of me thanks to time travel but if anyone is mean to him i WILL kneecap them"

"Your DAD?"

Five does kidney punch Klaus for saying that Rick is a DILF but otherwise everyone just is like, warily looking at this Normal Dad Man in confusion because?? This is the dude who raised Five, who they watched take out like an entire commission team by himself yesterday? He looks so. Normal.

Rick is very confused and like, wonders if he's supposed to be the team mascot? But Five keeps involving him and asking his opinion and in return Rick enforces snack breaks and makes everyone sandwiches and has gentle talks with everyone

Every time Five notices someone about to blow he just lovingly makes sure that that person is alone in a room with Rick

Luther ends up crying on the sofa with Rick gently patting his back as Rick calmly states that Luther seems like he's put a lot of time and effort into his family and making his father proud and that since Reginald isn't here to say it, Rick will have to be the one to say that he's proud and that they've been dropped into a difficult and stressful situation - so soon after Reginald's death when they're still grieving! - and he's doing so well

Luther, experiencing unconditional positive paternal regard for the first time in his life: i don't know why i'm crying so much

honestly this is just a comedy of juggling the gang, having impromptu therapy sessions and discussions, investigating the apocalypse and the eye, leonard trying to meet vanya continuously and failing because she's constantly surrounding by family or rick/patch, the commission trying their best to bust up the dream team/isolate Vanya/kill or remove Five, while Hazel lives out his romcom dreams with Agnes and also says "fuck the commission"

#HUH?#survivors au #well adjusted five au #long post #far tua long #five recruits rick to be team dad #rick is DEEPLY confused #but he's the kind of person that rolls with it #dolores probably ends up tagging along as well on at least one occasion #dolores and patch bond #five pretends that dolores is a new sibling and not his dolores #five calls rick 'dad' and it messes with everyone else #patch is on team fuck-the-apocalypse(-and-reginald)#vanya is never alone so fuck leonard #five finds out that vanya causes the apocalypse and is like #vanya: HUH?#luther: maybe we should lock vanya up -#rick: are there are any other possible actions that might be more appropriate in this situation?#vanya: i could try get more meds to take and we could address the powers thing after april 1st #vanya immediately gets validated that reginald sucks #even luther who has had multiple conversations with rick is like 'dad... didn't always make the best choices...'#everyone: :0 #hazel doesn't kill patch so he probably joins team anti-apocalypse at some point #hazel: why are you a child #five: oh you know i'm young at heart and all that #OH forgot to mention one of the main differences in this au is that five like properly grew up this time #so while he is inconvenienced by his body he's not so deeply uncomfortable or angry about it #just resigned #'this might as well happen' - five #five probably makes jokes about it as well

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defractum · 4 years

Text

A thing I've been sitting on for a while so thought I might as well pour it out as a headcanon for post-CQL. (If anyone wants to write this as an actual fic, please do)

So the entire Mo family is dead right? And that kind of gets forgotten, because ~plot happens~ but what if after canon, when WWX has finished travelling the world and come back to Lan Wangji, a very disgruntled messenger arrives at Cloud Recesses looking for Mo Xuanyu

And WWX is like I mean. I guess that's me.

And he gets handed a whole bunch of paperwork, some contracts, a seal, and he's like ?? what is all this?

And the messenger is from the local administrative office and he's been travelling ALL OVER trying to track down Mo Xuanyu because he's the only surviving member of the Mo family, which means that the entire estate and the land and the village is now his

And WWX's like Haha, well I'm not… technically Mo Xuanyu, except the administrative office doesn't care what fucking name he's going by now. So what if he's decided to tell everyone to call him by some dead evil guy's name (they're like '...weird flex, but okay'), he was born Mo Xuanyu and in the eyes of the law, the estate is his

(They just really want to get rid of it: lots of disputes are coming up, the staff have questions about getting paid, someone has to pay for the funerals of all the family members lying around embalmed in the funeral home, and it sure ain't gonna be the administrative office, nope.)

And WWX is like Okay, well, it's kind of not really my responsibility, but also I do feel bad for all the people just trying to do their jobs and survive, and also those dead bodies probably really need taking care of, it's been a year, oops, so he heads down there to take a look at things

LWJ is busy being His Excellency and can't go with him and is super put out because he just got WWX back! They have just about managed to admit some Feelings! WWX was going to stay in Gusu with him! Was the 16 years of misery not enough?? Must he suffer? again?? Woe is him. Giant sulking baby Lan Wangji, essentially

WWX heads to Mo Estate with the intention of sorting everything out ASAP because he is also desperate to get back to LWJ and get dicked, you know? Except legal administration is a bitch. There's taxes, and salaries, and tithes, aka things he knows nothing about because he was never gonna be a Sect Leader

Plus, the villagers hear that they have a new lord and come to pay their respects and also bring all of their problems. He gets through most of it with common sense and an air of sounding like he knows what he's talking about.

He does not know what he's talking about.

(He does, actually, know more than he thinks, because heading up a small village of Wen gave him more practical experience in helping people than being Jiang Head Disciple ever did)

(He also finds out Mo Xuanyu's birth name for the first time because it's on some forgotten, crumpled paperwork and is slightly stunned with the realisation that literally no one alive even knows it, because wow, did you not want to be punched by Mo Xuanyu feelings in this post? Too bad.)

LWJ eventually comes looking for him after a month or so, having finally managed to rearrange all his meetings and clear out a week or two, and finds him holding audiences. LWJ waits, very patiently he thinks, for him to sort out property disputes over pigs and donkeys, and then drags him into one of the bedrooms for some private time

(Sex. It's sex. It's loud, passionate kinky sex, followed by equally loud but slightly less kinky sex, followed by slightly quieter cuddly sex.)

LWJ can see what a great job WWX is doing running the estate, and also has come to the realisation that WWX is now stonking rich! A titled and landed Lord! No longer has he the need to rely on LWJ and his Gusu coffers! He can pamper himself now! LWJ is possessed by a completely irrational fear that WWX no longer has any need for him and, like the uncommunicative gremlin he is, just tells WWX that he is doing a very good job of running the estate

WWX is like Aw, LWJ said I'm doing a good job!! Also, hey, Lan Wangji, you're a competent, competent man, would you like to stick around for the interviews? I'm trying to find someone who is a good match for me and you can give your opinion

LWJ, silently: ME. IT'S ME. I AM A GOOD MATCH FOR YOU. D:

LWJ, outwardly: Mn.

So he follows WWX to these interviews and WWX has all these criteria like Listens carefully to people and Good with numbers and strategy and Level-headed and Fair and Communicative and LWJ is sitting grumpily next to him internally pouting like 'I match all of these criteria, hmph'

(After some self-examination, he maybe concedes on the 'communicative' point.)

Anyway, WWX listens to all his opinions on all of them, and he seems pretty keen on his one woman who, well, under normal circumstances LWJ would also quite like her, she seemed a very practical and intelligent person, but given current circumstances, he's just going to go back to Gusu and maybe cry for a few days

WWX cheerily waves him goodbye, LWJ wishes him all the best and goes home and drowns himself in Chief Cultivator work

When WWX turns up at Cloud Recesses two weeks later, he is super confused. WWX starts telling him off, saying that the juniors told him how hard he's been working and not sleeping and honestly, it's only been two weeks of WWX not looking over his shoulder, but it's okay because he's here now and doesn't intend on leaving ever again, and also he brings treats because he's not poor and he can afford to spoil his Lan-er-gege now!

LWJ: ??

After the nth round of misunderstandings, LWJ finally, finally realises that the interviews were for someone to manage the estate for Wei Wuxian so that he doesn't have to stay there. Understanding dawns. LWJ's crops are thriving, his skin is clear.

There is some shouting, there are tears, there's a fair bit of wailing. There's a cracked teacup and the dramatic thwump of WWX throwing himself across the room onto LWJ's lap. There's some more loud, enthusiastic kinky sex. The end.

(Buy me a ko-fi)

#the untamed #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #cql #wangxian #my fic #kind of not really

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writing-in-april · 3 years

Text

Spooks

Raymond Wadsworth X Female Reader

Summary: Raymond starts sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong at the next haunting he’s investigating.

A/N: Hey heyyy- here’s my second fic for my 30 fics in 30 days for April 2021!!! I had this spur of the moment idea in the middle of the night and ended up writing a pretty long fic for it (at least long for me lol) I had a lot of fun writing it and really liked the idea- I hope you all enjoy it too! Drop something in my ask box here if you’d like!! I’m always looking for feedback and my requests are open as well! Thanks for reading!!!

Warnings: 18+, Ghosts & poltergeists, Smut, Sub Raymond, Unprotected sex, Sex in a car, Slight cum play

Main Masterlist Word count: 3.2k

Your job description wasn’t an easy one to describe, you could say Mulder and Scully would be the most accurate equivalent. Though as with all tv shows it was portrayed with a set of rose tinted glasses, giving a filter to any realities you faced on the job.

You and your department preferred to call yourselves spooks, truthfully only because the pun was funny. In reality your 8 person department were called agents just like the rest of the FBI, you guys were just more secretive than the others.

Most of the time you ended up getting handed the short straw when getting new cases as you were still the newest on the team, despite being there for several years already. Unlike most professionals in law enforcement you did not have a partner, it only slowed you down. Every place that you were scheduled to decontaminate was an in and out procedure streamlined for effectiveness, adding another body to be hyper vigilant about was a hassle. You operated alone.

Any type of paranormal phenomena that you could think of was thrown in front of you. In your opinion the cases you had the most fun on were the ones that dealt with aliens, though some ghosts could be fun on occasion. The most recent case I had to deal with was a nasty poltergeist, the worst type of ghost. They always wreaked the most havoc on whatever house or place they occupied.

The family in this house had moved out a while ago, the request to decontaminate the home had been sitting on one of your supervisors for a while. It was an old house, built around the late 1800s. Old enough that it had a bunch of unnecessary rooms, like the parlor room that you found yourself trapped in.

And, you weren’t on your own either. Trapped with you was a man with fluffy brown hair flying in any direction, his eyes a darker shade of brown that were filled with fear- yet also curiosity. He was wearing a blue romper, it looked good on him, from what you had seen while you were frantic. But, you highly doubted that it would be effective clothes for a paranormal investigation, maybe he had just stumbled across this place out of curiosity. Either that or he was the type of an inexperienced investigator who had probably had one encounter with a ghost. It did not change that he was cute though.

“I’m a paranormal investigator- uhh technically a supernatural detective! My name’s Raymond! Who are you?!” He sputtered out, ranting probably to try to push aside his fear. You were standing side by side holding the double doors of the entrance to the parlor room, pushing them down to prevent the poltergeist from ramming it down and attacking us.

“Not important!” You snapped back at him, throwing a glare at him. Even if it wasn’t such a tense situation, you weren’t supposed to give away your identity or your job description to just anyone.

With another gasping breath he asked another question, even though you hadn’t answered his first inquiry, “I came with a girl, her name’s Becca- did you see her?”

This one you would bother to answer as he was quite obviously worried about the well being of his companion, “I may have seen her speed away in a red car after she was thrown out of the house. Was that your car she took?”

Not that you really cared all that much, but if he had been stripped of his transportation by his partner you’d have to take him in your own car. Not that you really wanted to, you still would have to help him even though he was seriously hindering your decontamination. “No, I came in my own car.” He answered which made you breathe a sigh of relief, you wouldn’t have to deal with another issue after you escaped, “I don’t blame her honestly, if I could leave I would.”

You were about to answer when your pressure on the doors wasn’t enough, making you both stumble forward. When you stumbled forward your keys, along with your badge, fell out of your pocket. Your badge flipped open front and center to reveal your name, plus the exact agency you worked for in a bold logo.

“You’re an FBI agent?!” You could not confirm or deny what he had asked, you were firmly focused on scrambling to get your things and avoid the ghost that was now throwing furniture at the two of you.

When Raymond finally took notice of the being that was pelting heavy objects around you, a ghostly shape in the form of a woman with a tortured look on her face, he screamed bloody murder. It was not unlike that of a scooby doo cartoon, him obviously resembling Shaggy almost perfectly. If only he had a dog to jump into his arms before he comically zoomed away while remarking “zoinks!”

His frazzled response to the ghosts giving a rather mediocre jump scare made you wonder whether he had the credentials to back up his job title as a paranormal investigator- or as he called it a supernatural detective. You racked your brain to try and recall anytime you had seen a Raymond or a Becca on the long lists of people that were being monitored for potential involvement, coming up with nothing. Well, maybe they were new, as his reaction seemed to indicate.

Your own reaction was stoic as usual, your nerves no longer jumped and your heart no longer quickened to the visage of a ghost trying to spook you. It was in no doubt for some arcane reason probably linked to revenge towards people that no longer existed. One would normally say don’t assume anything about people, that it might offend them to assume, but dead people in your view also had dead opinions- plus relying on precedent was usually a good option when a ghost might be trying to kill you. Despite the absence of fear from you there would be no call out of “Let’s split up gang!” either. It was you mostly not wanting to explain to your employer how you lost a citizen in the middle of this place and- besides that you couldn’t deny that you didn’t want him to die no matter how much undeniable extra trouble he was causing.

“Let’s go.” Your voice was firm, no discernible room for argument or questions.

Raymond somehow found a way to wriggle in to asking yet another question, “Where are we going?”

You yanked his hand out of the room that you think might’ve been a parlor room back in it’s day. You shouldn’t have bothered to answer as it would breed more questions from him, you already gave away too much about who you are and what you do. Any extra questions you answer from him was just creating a bigger breach in your security. Yet you found yourself justifying an answer, his eyes that were probably pulled into an adorable curious look laced with fear bored into the back of your skull as you dragged him out of the room and to the nearest exit. It was only a harmless question, it didn’t even have a satisfying answer, “Anywhere but here!”

Weaving my way through the house that was better characterized as a maze was hard to navigate through. At every turn some sort of iteration of the poltergeist tried to capture us, to pull us into death with it.

The two of us did eventually find the front door, only to find that we could not pull it open, the handle was stuck.

“Step back!” You shouted at Raymond to get him to move out of the way while you prepared to kick the door down. He skittered over to be right behind you, looking over his shoulder in paranoia. You used your right foot to kick the door, using all the leg strength you could muster. After three kicks, the door burst open, letting you both free.

Scurrying quickly to your government given work vehicle, looking back for a second to make sure that Raymond was following you. You couldn’t let a civilian die here, no matter how much of a nuisance he was, and he was cute of course.

Pulling out the last resort from the trunk of your car, gasoline, you then shoved a container of it to your unexpected companion.

“Cover as much of the house as you can!” He made no argument with your plan, running right behind you back up to the house to cover it all in gasoline. Once you had both covered it as much as possible you made sure Raymond was standing back before you lit your lighter and chucked it into the wood wet with the accelerant.

As soon as you could confirm with your eyes that the house had sparked with fire, you grabbed Raymond’s arm again to drag him to your car, not even caring about the one he had come here in. You basically threw yourself into the driver's seat, starting to drive away immediately after Raymond had sat down, before he had even shut the side door.

Adrenaline was coursing through your veins, causing your heart to pound hard enough that it felt like it could burst out of your chest. It was not unusual in your field of work, to feel death brush right by you.

“My car?!” Raymond screamed, his body turned so he was looking out of your back window.

“Sorry no time to go back! The U.S government will reimburse you for that- maybe…” You said quickly, while trying to step harder down on the gas pedal to speed away.

The house behind you was burning so bright from you could hear the crackling from the house turning to ash. You imagined that the flames and smoke were big enough to be seen for miles, considering how much accelerant you poured on it. So much for being subtle, your boss was definitely going to chew you out for that.

When you had gained a sufficient enough distance away from the flames you pulled off into a parking lot adjacent to a park. Pulling into the parking space fast you then hit the brakes hard, jostling you two a bit.

Taking a deep breath you slumped forward to rest your head on your steering wheel, just for a moment of relaxation.

“You know burning it down won’t necessarily get rid of it.” You only grunted in response to his matter of fact statement. Your lack of response seemed to make him even more anxious, tapping his fingers on any surface that was around him to preoccupy his mind while you took your breather. He tried to fill the silence that was making him uncomfortable, “So what do you actually do?”

You sighed deeply against the steering wheel one last time, then leaning off of it to sit back in the seat. You decided that you might as well give him a small morsel of information that may satiate his curiosity, “That’s highly classified, but you could probably figure it out.”

His insistence to bring up what your job is was making your insides twist with anxiety. You were already dreading what would happen when you got back to the office. It would be a lot of paperwork to explain everything that happened, plus you’d have to submit an application on behalf of Raymond to get his car reimbursed.

The adrenaline that had spiked in your veins born out of fear was still present. It was overwhelming, and you felt the need to use it for something different than wallowing in your fear.

You redirected your gaze to fixate on Raymond, who could surely help you redirect your adrenaline. He was an attractive man, who’s personality did help make him even more desirable. Even though he was a pain in your ass, he was a cute and funny one.

His own eyes were fixated on yours as well, with a different look than what you had seen earlier. His eyes were deepened with lust, not fear, though there was still an ounce of curiosity in them- probably still wondering who exactly I was.

Grabbing the hairs at the back of his neck you then pulled him forward to crush your lips onto his. He reciprocated immediately, though did not try to challenge your dominance over the kiss. He let you slip your tongue into his mouth, exploring him with diligence.

You wanted him closer to you, feeling every inch of him. So you swung your legs over his lap as best you could with the space you had to straddle him. When you did so you barely let his lips come off your own, too greedy to let them separate from yours.

A thought however was nagging you in the back of your head as you continued to melt yourself into the kiss, he had mentioned a companion that he had been worried about earlier. You did not want to step on any toes, nor endorse any type of cheating. You separated your lips from his own, even though you wanted nothing more than to envelop him in another kiss.

“This ok with you?” Your words were said right into his lips, mingling your breath with his, “You’re not with that Becca girl are you?”

“Not anymore- and yes I’m totally ok with this.” He confirmed before surging up to meet his lips with your own again. You wasted no time in starting to grind your hips onto his cock that was swiftly growing underneath his shorts. Just from grinding you could feel how large he was, even through a couple of layers.

He moved his hands to the button of your pants when you moved your lips to start nipping and sucking on his neck and jaw. You tried to kick off the articles of clothing on your lower half, panties included, without removing your lips from him. Unfortunately you had to do so because of the amount of space. You cursed under your breath, wishing that the government had paid to give you a larger vehicle.

You were already slick with arousal, also aided by sticking your fingers into his mouth to get them sufficiently wet. He bobbed his head up and down on them eagerly until you were satisfied. Removing them from his mouth you ran them up and down along your slit, getting you even more wet.

You guided his length to your entrance, not sinking down immediately. You undulated your hips so his length was coated with your arousal as well. When he bucked his hips in impatience you just pushed them down back into the seat. Then you leaned down to whisper into the shell of his ear to be patient- he’d get what he wanted.

“Fuck me.” Was all Raymond could muster up to whimper when you sunk down onto his cock, his head falling back to hit the headrest. You wasted no time in starting a fast pace, bouncing up and down on him with vigor. Raymond grabbed onto your hips when he couldn’t find anything else to hold onto, digging his fingers into your hips hard enough to leave bruises.

His large cock bumped up against your cervix in the most pleasurable way possible as you swivel your hips over him. Your own head tilted back, your mouth opened wide to let out a loud moan when his cock hit a particularly pleasurable spot inside you. You also felt the need to hold onto something as your release began to build inside you, getting ready to snap. So you grabbed onto the best thing you could find, running your hands through his hair and pulling on his strands.

One of his hands then moved to toy with your clit,his movements were a bit fumbled, but it swiftly made your orgasm start to crest. You were almost disappointed about how quickly this was going to be over, you however couldn’t deny that it felt amazing even with the frantic pace. In the back of your mind you couldn’t help but imagine all the other things you could do to Raymond if you were given the chance.

You fell apart above him, your eyes rolling back into your head. The adrenaline still coursed through your veins, and it felt good to have it redirected to a pleasurable experience instead of fear. You kept yourself impaled on his cock for a bit after your orgasm had finished, relishing at the feeling of him inside you.

Slipping out of him was a little bit awkward because of how cramped the space was. Once his cock slipped out of you, both of you groaning at the loss of him inside of you, you wrapped your hand around his length. You started to pump him slowly in your hands, taking your time compared to earlier. Your adrenaline had abated a bit and now you wanted to see how long you could drag this out, in case you never got the chance to again.

However, It still didn’t take much movement from your hands for him to get close, he was already close to the edge from being inside you. His hips bucked up into your hands a bit before he begged, “C-can you put- your hands- around my throat?”

“Should’ve known you’d be into that.” You snarked back a bit in response to his plea. Your tone had no sympathy for him, making him obviously think that you weren’t going to oblige him by the look in his eyes. That look of pure desperation in his eyes, with his kiss swollen lips, and his curls disheveled made you buckle. He groaned loudly when you put your free hand around his neck. You only applied a small amount of pressure, but that was all Raymond needed for him to cum all over your hand.

Once you had helped him ride out his own orgasm you removed your hand from his neck and his cock. You did need to clean up the hand that was covered in his thick ropes of cum, so you brought it up to your mouth to lick it clean.

“Fuck me…” Echoing his previous words, this time with an even bigger whimper. After you had cleaned yourself and him up enough to be decent you flung yourself back to sit in the driver’s seat again.

Raymond was silent for a minute, which seemed odd if you were going off of what little experience you had with him so far. Though maybe he was still going through his post orgasm relaxation just as you were. He then broke the silence, by asking the same question again, even though you had wanted to answer it just about 30 minutes ago. You’d bet money on the reason that he kept asking, being that each time that you answered you gave him a small hint, “Will you tell me now what you actually do?”

“Maybe- if you get to know me better.” You turned the key to start the engine again then asking with another hint as to what your job was, “Consider this your lucky day, you’ve got a spook as your chauffeur. Now, where next Raymond?”

—-

Tag lists (message me if you want to be added):

All works: @shotarosleftpinky @90spumkin @kyra-morningstar @s1utformgg @takeyourleap-of-faith

All MGG characters: @muffin-cup @willowrose99

#raymond wadsworth x reader #raymond wadsworth #matthew gray gubler x reader #suburban gothic fanfic #matthew gray gubler #suburban gothic #raymond wadsworth smut #matthew gray gubler smut #mgg #mgg x reader #30 fics in 30 days

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gayfrenchtoast · 3 years

Text

Okay fine we're doing this. I havent read the books and I'm probably not going to I've only seen the movies so I'm sorry if anything I say is contradictory or has already been stated.

So! Descendants 3 was kinda shit and I dont like it but especially because of the ending because everybody was like "oh yeah island is open and we're all happy with no worries or implications about free villains or people being spiteful about being imprisoned for years!" In fact if anything they joked about those things.

The island is basically its own culture, I can't say how long it's been around, long enough for some almost adult kids to be about and to develop a kind of community.

The Isle is a place of poverty, people are dirty and on the street, eveyone steals from each other and most people don't put much effort into appearance upkeep (personal or of the sourounding area) not because of laziness or being "evil" but because they clearly don't have time or luxury to do such things or possibly even the clean water. Does the Isle have clean water?? How to they get electricity??? Someone tell me!

Another thing that I've noticed is easy to see but is not much explicitly said is the unique style of those on the Isle. As previously stated they don't have much but those who have the most "power" and such on the Isle are the best example of this As they have the most colourful outfits. However these outfits are often made out of patches and ripped things put together, even salvaged things like nets and chains as we can see on thing like Uma and Harry's outfits in D3 they make the best of what they've got and they do fantastic because their outfits are intricate and detailed and just tell you everything you need to know about them. Which is why it's a damn s h a m e when the original VK's ajust their style to be more like Auradon's. That's not an improvement! Be proud of where you came from!! It's like they forgot what it was like being on the Isle in D3!

Moving on, here's something that was touched on in D2 but not enough. Equality. On the Isle there is basically equal opportunity as in saying everything is shit and nome cares what gender and presumably what sexuality you are as long as you can work. Sexism is shown to be almost casual in aurodon from the looks of it, Chad makes sexist comments and litterally none else says anything or seems to see anything wrong with it except Jay who caves to pressure from peers and expectations. He does redeem himself because he's from the isle and he knows you shouldn't give a shit about anyone's gender or anything. If they can do something and ask to be included you give them that opportunity. The sexism is also implied in the way that the rule book has men written specifically in the first place and that it has taken until then for anyone but boys to be allowed on any kind of sports team. We never see it! It seems to be the hetronormative veiw where the boys do sport and girls do cheerleeding and other genders? What other genders? Never heard of that? BAD AURADON!! I bet there's so many trans folk on the island just living their lives, thinking Aurodon is the better place and not knowing that it's a cis het filled nightmare.

Okay no I'm headcannoning now, if their are now a bunch of Isle kids at auradon prep they find it fucking aweful the way all these preppy royals are treating them and make the first LGBT club in Auradon. There is lots of pushback and they get bullied a fuck ton for making themselves the most prominent queer folk in the school until a fight breaks out and the club demand that they should be treated better, taking all the evidence to fairy godmother who is very hesitant because COME ON she's never been that great she is biased to Auradon kids and if putting away those in the Isle is brought up she is all on it, she is jelly spined about doing anything against the royal kids. So the kids are like "Fine, if you won't help us we'll take this to the King himself!" Well mainly the queer mom's of the group (you know the ones I'm talking about) who lead the others and protect the anxious queers as they storm to Ben at his fucking locker and demand an audience because they are being harassed and bullied and none is doing anything. Ben had no idea there was even a LGBT club (too busy ig) and is gassed there is one for a moment before he's like "wait people are harassing you?" So Bisexual King Ben gets his lovely Bi wife and they start coming to club meetings and investing in the pins and stuff the club makes. Most club members are pleased but the queer mom's are apprehensive that this will help until some assholes come to the club to do their usual bullying only to find King and Queen Beast themselves siting there with rainbow bracelets and bi pins and all trying to have a nice old time eating their fucking cupcakes what the fuck are yall doing? The bullying dies down quick once they realise it ain't gonna fly, the other OG VK's that hear about this become members and very protective over their queer children. Did I mention Dizzy and Ceila are a part of the club? They're girlfriend's. Celia is one of the queer moms. Harry becomes one of the biggest protectors over the group as the pan dad. He's been going around snogging everyone and anyone wholl snog him everyone already knew he was queer they just didn't have the balls to try and bully him over it as much as they bullied the lil club members. But now Harry can often be seen in jackets and shit with pan and general queer patches and pins and running around with his gay children yelling "MOVE WE'RE GAY!!" He totally calls them his queer crew. Anyway as a result lots of queer royals start coming out of the woodwork, obvs Lonnie is one of them, and the club eventually serves to bring members of Auradon and the Isle close together.

Where was I? Yada yada auradon expects girls to be pretty princesses and boys to be brave knights or dashing princes. It's shit and should stop being portrayed as good. Moving on!

Food! One of the things we'll established in all movies is that the food of the Isle is shit compared to food of Auradon. The Isle has no fresh fruit which likely means its almost impossible for things to grow there which is fair because again there doesn't seem to be much fresh water and there are always clouds overhead so no sun. Maybe there is some people trying really hard to grow stuff but the general attitude of the Isle seems to be "there is no time for that" and fruits are forgotten so much that the VK's litterally don't knownwhat they are when they come across them. That and anything containing sugar. Actually it's mention by Dizzy and Celia that they enjoy the fact that the cake dosent have dirt or flies so basically food there is terrible. We don't see much food on the Isle but what we do see seems to be beans, eggs, chips and shellfish. Basically protine and carbs that can be easily stored and produced. To be fair beans are kidna good for you but they're likely a sign that if they get any imports from the mainland it is canned stuff. Prison food. There's probably some chef villain that is trying their best to make good food out of the shit but honestly the Isle dwellers should be angry that they've been deprived of good food for so long not happy they're finally been given decency.

Moving on, music! Auradon dosent have nearly as many musical numbers it seems, the Isle songs have a distinct style, to them, the villains that basically "founded" the place were masters of the dramatic songs (with backup or solo) so banging music is basically ingrained in the music's culture, even for battle as we see with the fight between Mal and Uma in D3. Meanwhile Auradon seems to have mainly romance and "I want" songs. Even Audrey's villain song is basically an I want song.

Okay let's talk about the Villains. We've established that the VK's are not inherently bad. However not all of them can be totally good and there are legit OG Villains just kinda chillin on the Isle. They've obviously lost quite a bit of their power, motivation and sanity (isolation will do that to ya as they lost everything and the VKs know no different) but deadass? They were bad guys. You can try to rehabilitate them sure but you've basically just let them free roam, they could make a runner and you wouldn't get the chance. They were also shitty patents which is brushed over/joked about in the interaction between Carlos and...man I feel bad I forgot her name deadass their relationship seemed to come out of nowhere in the second film she didn't seem interested in them at all and friendzoned them multiple times I'm pretty sure Disney did that becaue queer kids were relating to Carlos and headcanoning them as queer (which they deffinatly are) but deadass their mom is an attempted animal murderer and has hurt her child as we can see from how they're afraid of her and her rhetoric and yet it's "haha I'm afraid to meet your ma!" "Me too cus im a dog! Lol!" Fuuuuck offfffff

I think I'm running out of thoughts so here's a last one for now; with the magical barrier down a bunch of magical Villains kids should be coming out for the woodwork. We know Mal has magic basically stored in her so it's is possible, she technically doesn't need the spellbook to do magic it is just inherent to her. So with the diverse range of people from the isle there are deffinatly magic folk in there. Actually if we're following Disney movie law I saw something mentioning Jay being half Genie and yeah! He should be half Genie! Jafar got turned into a Genie he's probably only human because of the barrier! Oh also Ben should be able to go beast on command as long as he had a better beast form than he did in the movies. And give him back the beard and fangs like fuck you he looked so much better

Okay I'm done for now

#decendants #decendants 3 #mal #carlos de vil #jay #harry hook #uma

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arambleaway · 3 years

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Lets pretend the lack of Phoenix backstory isn't a logical mechanical choice and instead treat it as a facet of the character because I think it has interesting implications. I saw a post that I can't find because I'm an idiot that mentioned how odd it really was in a story context that we never hear or see anything about his family and given my personal bias I have some thoughts. So. Treating it as a story feature. Lets begin.

I am extrapolating my ideas from a couple places. The first being that 1) Phoenix never really mentions his family so something happened to cause them to no longer be a part of each others' lives. 2) There is a seeming lack of grief and no mention even while on trial for murder in college. 3) Phoenix does not, to my eye, appear to hold the hallmarks of people growing up in an abusive household. But 4) He latches who he is onto other people with worrying intensity.

I'm merging these facts with my own belief that Phoenix is trans (disprove me I dare you) and my own observations as to what Phoenix is like as a parent. Also the fact that his name is Phoenix. Because honestly. So anyway. My conclusions are thus:

Phoenix is trans, but he didn't pick his name. He was named Phoenix at birth by his exceedingly law-hating hippie parents, which seems to be a popular idea from my narrow exposure. My view is that he was one of those kids that was like 7 and just knew. (Bastards. I love them but ugh. I wish) So Phoenix's parents being the amazingly supportive people they were, immediately swapped pronouns and even relocated him to another school so that he could have a fresh start without having to deal with a bunch of questions. The absolute bastard of a teacher nearly wrecks that (diatribe for another post) but Miles and Larry are enough to make them keep Phoenix in place because of how much the two mean to him.

Huh, guess this means Larry and Miles don't know about the trans thing. And even though they like Miles for hanging with Phoenix they aren't thrilled about Miles's hyperfixation. I bet it would be like when you go to a friends house they try to feed you except whenever Miles is over its like "try art!" or "have you ever thought of opening a business?" You could probably have some funny shenanigans as Miles, Larry, and Phoenix try to follow these kinds of suggestions in the most... them way possible.

So Phoenix's parents are super supportive throughout his childhood even reaching out to get him Miles's address though they aren't thrilled about Miles's Dad's job. Probably part of why Phoenix didn't know anything about Miles vanishing is that his parents didn't exactly care enough to ask.

A note though before moving into the reasons for the rift, are that while Phoenix's parents were super supportive, it was in a very hands off way. I'll get back to this.

So college comes around and Phoenix wants to take some law classes. Which his parent just are not thrilled or happy about. To the point where its like: fine, but we aren't going to pay for them. And then Phoenix sees Miles in the Paper and they are just... appalled. They refuse to pay for anymore of Phoenix's college and spend a rather taxing weekend trying to convince him to go back into art and trying to tell Phoenix that swapping majors for a man is ridiculous and law is nothing for a good sort like him. Oh. hehe, just had the thought that this is when Phoenix first watches Legally Blonde and it does the exact opposite of what his parents were hoping.

So they are arguing and by the end of the weekend they, honestly rather cordially, tell Phoenix that he is their son and they love him but cannot condone his choice. And he can take what he likes from his things in the house. They'll keep it all for him so that he can have it there when he comes to his senses and finds a decent career. But until then, it would be best if they didn't see him. Thus, Phoenix goes back to university heartbroken and seriously questioning if he made the right choice. (He probably watches Legally Blonde more than he'll admit.)

Then Dahlia comes along and the worst possible moment, and he is absolutely gone because he is craving that validation affection offers and hey law must be good for something because the courthouse brought him his darling Dollie. He latches all his insecurity and worry into the idea of loving and being loved by Dahlia/Iris. Which then makes his defense of her make more sense to my demi brain because I cannot comprehend that level of dumbassery for love. Just personally. It also makes sense because he absolutely latches onto Edgeworth after the trial because doing so is safe in a sense. Edgeworth can't hurt him because he isn't there and even if they are saying he is evil, Phoenix can save him after all he proved law wasn't evil, he can prove Miles isn't either. Or actually, he has to prove Miles isn't evil because if he doesn't then his parents were right and he fucked up is a massive way. So it goes.

The parent thing though! Swooping back around to the whole independent, hands off style of parenting, I really strongly believe in that being how he grew up because that is exactly how he is with Trucy. People will emulate their parents' good parts when parenting themselves, so I think he really emulates that part of how he grew up. He trusts her to act independently and lets her have her space. But he is very clearly always there for her no matter what. (which ties into everything above see? Occasionally i have maybe a sense i know something about what I'm writing.)

So yeah. My zigzagging thoughts on why Phoenix is the way he is and the family he comes from. I guess just a last note is I don't think they ever reconcile. Especially not after the disbarment. They would see the news and just... crumple because they knew it, their darling son has been corrupted. Oh. ouch. They see that and empty out his room. And Phoenix sees it all sitting outside when he goes to try and talk to them. Oof. Oh. Why do I hurt myself like this. Maybe they even fucking move. They treat it like the death of a child and just leave. So Phoenix doesn't actually know where they are. Which might also contribute to the whole 7 years of depression he goes through. Ughh. Now I wanna think about that. NO. I have other shit that popped up. Later ramble, later.

#ace attorney #phoenix wright #dahlia hawthorne #iris hawthorne #aa

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chenziee · 3 years

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At the bottom of the sea, chapter 1

I asked before how many Lawlu outsider POV fics are too many and then didn’t wait for an answer. Sorry, Kid, but you knew your turn would come eventually :)

Summary: Kid never would have believed there was a person crazy enough to actually mate with Straw Hat Luffy, the biggest, most selfish idiot on the seas. But seeing as the mating mark on said idiot's neck was very real, Kid had only one question:Who the hell is Torao?

[READ ON AO3 or below the cut]

Part 3 of Until We Drown verse

[Part 1 | Part 2]

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When Kid had first noticed the scar on Straw Hat's neck, he had assumed it was simply yet another injury from his fight with Kaido. After all, when they had first tossed him in the cell with him, he was covered head to toe in bandages, the blood still seeping through in several places. It wouldn't have been so weird for him to have a wound or twenty still visible a week later.

But when all his other injuries disappeared only a few days later, leaving behind the one single, comparatively minor scar, Kid couldn’t stop wondering about it.

Every time the reddish patch of skin caught his attention, his eyes would linger on it, trying to figure out just why. Was it poison? Something to prevent the skin from mending fully? He’d really rather know if there was someone with a power like that among the Beast Pirates before he went back to kick Kaido’s ass. Would make recovery a real bitch.

It didn’t seem to bother Straw Hat much, if at all, however. Most of the time, he went on on his infuriating way of picking fights with Kid over the smallest things as if nothing was wrong so Kid supposed it was nothing for him to lose sleep over.

Yet, there was something that didn’t let Kid completely forget about it. Every single day in the evening, when all the prisoners were sent back to their cells and there was nothing to do, Straw Hat would inevitably end up with his hand on his neck, tracing the scar with his fingers with a complicated expression on his face. Kid would be lying if he said he wasn’t curious as hell.

But he’d be damned if he actually asked so he simply resorted to showing slight concern over his rival's injury. Meaning, he teased Straw Hat mercilessly, riling him up as much as he could during their little competitions.

What could he say, the kid was infuriating and it wasn’t like he didn’t do the same thing to him.

Kid couldn’t wait for the day Kaido was out of the way, so he would be able to fucking show Straw Hat who was stonger, faster, better, and teach him and everyone else that a missing arm was nothing; not with Kid’s power and his crew by his side. But currently, the Emperor was the thing on the very top of Kid’s shit list so Straw Hat was safe. For now.

Unless his stupid charity would get him before Kid could. That would be a damn shame.

Kid rolled his eyes as he watched Straw Hat give a bunch of his meal tickets to the tiny, withered old man again. Seriously, what was Straw Hat’s deal? Did he not get the memo that pirates did not do charity? It was kill or be killed, in labour camps especially.

But Straw Hat didn’t seem to care how much of a joke he was as a pirate. And obviously, neither did the old man.

“Thank you once again, Straw Hat man,” the old man said, accepting the tickets gratefully.

Straw Hat grinned. “Don’t worry about it, gramps. I’ll get lots more.” As if to prove his point, Straw Hat flexed his arm, causing Kid to roll his eyes once more.

But not before taking note of how many tickets Straw Hat had in his hands and how many he gave to the old man, and comparing them to the amount he himself had amassed during the day. Kid smirked. He was pretty confident he won. Just as he did every day.

"Are they okay?" the old man asked then, voice full of concern.

"What?" Straw Hat sounded painfully confused as he replied.

The old man huffed, gesturing to where Straw Hat was once more absent-mindedly massaging his neck. "Your mate. You keep touching your mark. Are they okay?"

Kid did a double take.

Straw Hat. A mate. Straw Hat had a mate. That was what the weird scar on his neck was.

He mentally berated himself for not realizing sooner but honestly, who would ever look at Straw Hat and think, ‘Oh yeah, he's mated.’ No one sane, that's for damn sure.

"Oh," Straw Hat uttered simply before going silent for a moment again. But then his face split in that idiotic, bright grin again. "It’s just itchy. It’s fine, Torao’s strong.”

The old man didn’t look convinced but it was obvious he didn’t want to push it either. It took only a second for him to sigh, shake his head, and change the subject. Probably because he knew that even if there was something wrong with this ‘Torao,’ there was nothing Straw Hat—or anyone else in this goddamned prisoner mine—could do about it.

If Kid cared about his problems at all, he’d say it was a good thing Straw Hat was such an air headed moron. If he had any more brain cells in that head of his, he’d probably go crazy in here, literally climbing walls, trying to get to his mate. This blind trust he seemed to have in people was saving him a lot of energy—while sadly robbing Kid of entertainment. It would have been pretty damn funny watch, whether it be Straw Hat losing his mind, or the guards losing their minds over Straw Hat going on a rampage but oh well.

He’d have to make do with their little fights.

Kid did have to wonder what kind of person this Torao was, however. He didn't recall anyone called that on Straw Hat’s crew, nor did he know of anyone else by that name. Kid wanted to meet them, see what kind of person was stupid enough to bond with Straw Hat of all people; willing to deal with his insufferable idiocy and selfishness for the rest of their lives. At the very least, he'd have liked to give them his condolences.

He was… intrigued by this development. But he wasn't desperate enough for answers to actively eavesdrop, and definitely not enough to ask.

He'd rather stay locked in this damned labour camp than do that.

But seriously, he had better things to worry about—his escape for one, then it was looking for Killer and the rest of his crew. Then it was off to beat up Kaido.

And if he knew anything about Straw Hat, he wasn't about to stick around the mine much longer either. Then he'd pick up his cozy little alliance with Trafalgar Law of all people and go after Kaido, same as Kid. So, if this mate of his was in Wano, Kid was sure it was only a matter of time before he met them for himself.

Kid hoped they wouldn’t cry once he had Straw Hat beaten. He hated it when people cried. It was so very annoying.

No, Killer, it wasn’t because seeing people cry made him want to cry, too.

Shaking his head to rid himself of the image of Killer giving him his best unimpressed look, Kid got up from the dusty ground, shooting one last glance at Straw Hat before he walked away. Having a mate didn’t matter in the end at all. What mattered was strength, power, loyalty, and only trusting the people closest to you.

Everyone else could get fucked. Especially your ‘allies.’ He was sure Straw Hat would learn that the hard way with Trafalgar, just as Kid had with Hawkins and fucking Scratchmen. Straw Hat could only hope that mistake didn’t cost him his mate, the most obvious weak spot.

Kid, for one, was done risking his partner. Done with alliances.

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That was what he had thought at least but of course Killer had to be the voice of reason and insist that if they were to go against Kaido, they'd better wait to join in the large-scale raid the Straw Hats had planned. Or that Trafalgar had planned, more likely. It was stupid and Kid din't want to get involved in anything where those two played a part but he could never win against his first mate and Killer knew it. Asshole.

"So you showed up after all, Jaggy?!" Straw Hat called, sounding way too happy and excited considering the situation.

"Like I'd let you have the glory for taking down Kaido!" Kid shouted back, clicking his tongue in distaste at the very notion.

Just then, someone from the Straw Hat ship spoke up, tone a mix of relief and exasperation, "Luffy, look, Torao's here! You can stop fidgeting now!"

At that, Straw Hat whipped around, making a full circle and looking like an idiot as he searched for something through the heavy storm. The 'Torao', most likely. The mate.

Kid had nearly forgotten about that. But now that the person was there themselves, his previous curiosity came back. Instead of focusing on the enemy ships ahead, he continued watching his fellow captain as he took off to run to the other end of the ship, no doubt to get a better view of the sea in the back. Kid winced when after only a two steps, Roronoa grabbed Straw Hat's collar, making the rubber man's head jerk forward from the momentum, going further from his shoulders than should be humanly possible.

Seriously, Straw Hat and his weird powers.

Shaking his head, Kid focused back on where Roronoa was dragging his own captain towards the side of the ship, pointing him towards something below, in the water. Kid's eyes inadvertently followed in the direction as well until they found Trafalgar's submarine with the pathetic samurai boat perched on top. Was this Torao one of the samurai? Would explain why Kid had never heard of them.

"TORAO! HI!" Straw Hat screamed immediately, waving his hands widely to get the person's attention.

The crashing waves and heavy rain were his only response but Straw Hat didn't seem dettered in the least. Instead, his screaming continued, "Where were you?! I was looking for you but your friends refused to say!"

"Focus on the mission, Straw Hat-ya!" Trafalgar finally snapped with annoyance.

Probably not what or whom Straw Hat wanted to hear but on the other hand, Kid was glad Trafgar hadn't gone completely crazy yet. Even though Kid had to admit he didn't have much room to talk with picking allies, he had his doubts about Trafalgar’s sanity from the moment he heard he had allied with Straw Hat of all people.

Not to mention how long the two had been working together at this point. If Trafalgar wasn't insane before, he had to be by now by association alone. But it was comforting to know he still had it in himself to rein the biggest idiot on the entire Grand Line in.

“Also I’d hate to rub salt in the wound, but today’s banquet will celebrate the official alliance between the Beast Pirates and the Big Mom Pirates!” At the taunting remark from one of the Beast pirates, Kid whipped around, immediately forgetting about Trafalgar, Straw Hat, and the mystery mate.

“Big Mom and Kaido?!!” You’ve got to be kidding. Just one of them was bad enough, an alliance between two Emperors just as they were getting ready to attack was nothing but bad news. Not like it would change the result, Kid was going to beat them both regardless, but it was complicating matters considerably.

“In the name of Emperor Kaido, get this over with and sink them!”

Kid rolled his eyes at how confident these small fries were just because they had Kaido and Big Mom backing them up. As if they would save them from getting beaten up from all the way over at Onigashima.

Raising his fists, flesh and metal, he aimed at the enemy ship, readying himself to haul himself over to show his idiot ‘allies’ how it’s done.

“Why are these underlings getting so cocky!! They’re looking down on us, stand back!!!”

“Idiot, you’re the one who should stand back!!”

Oh no, you don’t, Kid thought. “Don’t get in my way!!!”

----------

“Torao! That power's cheating!”

“Oh, Torao, where did you go?”

“Torao, move the samurai below!”

“Torao, did you guys beat Big Mom?!”

“To-ra-ooo!!”

Remembering all the times that Straw Hat had called his ‘Torao’ over the course of the night, Kid was almost embarrassed that it took him until now to connect the dots. In his defense, it was the heat of the battle and there were a lot bigger things to worry about than Straw Hat and Torao’s love life and honestly, Kid didn’t even really care in the first place. But he would have certainly appreciated a heads up before this.

Upon hearing that Straw Hat was finally awake after passing out from exhaustion, Killer had insisted that checking up on him was the least Kid should do. So, despite his better judgement, Kid had complied and really, this might have had just been the worst advice his first mate had ever given him and that was including the stupid alliance with Hawkins and Apoo.

As he stared with wide eyes at the scene before him, he suddenly understood why all the idiot friends of Straw Hat’s were scrambling off as if running from something, even going as far as dragging a protesting, confused son of Kaido away by force. Seriously, if Kid wasn’t rooted in place as he was, he, too, would have been running from the smell of possessive pheromones and the loopy, content grin on Straw Hat’s face while Trafalgar fucking Law had his face burried in the crook of his neck, his teeth sinking deep into the flesh where Straw Hat’s mating mark was.

Honestly, Kid would rather walk in on them fucking than… this.

“It’s okay, Torao. I’m fine,” Straw Hat said quietly, raising one shaky hand to weakly run his fingers through Trafalgar’s hair.

“When will you stop being so damn reckless? I swear one day I’ll kill you myself,” Trafalgar growled back after a moment, once he finally released his bite.

Straw Hat snickered. “Eh, better you than stupid Kaido.”

Trafalgar groaned in response, frustration with his mate obvious even while his head was still resting against Straw Hat’s shoulder. “Fuck you.”

“No thanks,” Straw Hat laughed, making Trafalgar click his tongue in annoyance.

“You know what I mean,” he snapped, making Straw Hat only laugh harder.

Kid wasn’t entirely sure what this last exchange meant but he sure as hell didn’t need or care to know. Finally breaking himself out of his stupor, he quickly slammed the sliding doors shut once more, then turned on his heel to leave as fast as he could.

As he stormed away, a few last words carried over to him from Straw Hat’s room.

“Jaggy just left,” Straw Hat noted off-handedly.

Trafalgar sighed in response. “Fucking finally.”

Assholes.

Kid all but ran outside then, heading straight for the nearest drinks table and grabbing for the first bottle of hard liquor he could find. He could only hope that would be enough to bleach his entire brain.

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elia-de-silentio · 3 years

Text

Recap on The Decay of Angels

Above, our introduction to the villains that have dominated the Bungou Stray Dogs manga for a few years as of now. It tells us two main things: that they are terrorist, and that they are five. Of them, two are known: Dostoevsky, already introduced in the previous arc, and Gogol, who debuts in this chapter.

As of chapter 88, all of the five members are known, and a few of these identities have been puzzling for the public at large. So, I want to try and recap what we know of them, and maybe make a little sense of it (spoiler, I didn't, but I found a few interesting facts).

We already met Fyodor in the Cannibalism arc, and gained an idea of who he is, how he operates, and what he wants. He's the leader of his own organization, but fights his battles mostly indirectly, by manipulating others into fighting for him.

He aims at destroying Yokohama to find the famed Book, the one to rewrite reality, for the purported reason if creating a better world, one without the 'sin' of ability users. Why he does think like that, or exactly what kind of different world he does envision, is unknown to this day.

Later, in chapter 56, we are shown the Decay of Angel's deeds, four in one week, which our resident nerd Kunikida explains are related to four of the five signs of the imminent death of an angel (or 'deva' in the Buddhist conception):

They skinned a legislator's torso, made a shirt with the result, and put it back on him, all in five minutes = the angel's robes are soiled.

They melted off the face of a deputy commander in the coast guard with a corrosive poison = the angel's garland melts away.

They stuck an air compressor in the mouth of the secretary of a general in the ministry of defense, causing his blood vessels to pop out = the angel's radiance fades.

Lastly, an official for the military police was injected a drug that caused him to kill himself = the angel's armpits start to sweat.

Moreover, they're suspected to have ties in the government; turns out, Gogol was cosplaying as a secretary in there.

He takes hostage a bunch of government officials, and threatens to saw them in two ("losing delight in their heavenly thrones")

The next chapters are dedicated to introducing Nikolai Gogol: an eccentric individual with a powerful ability and the most likely perpetrator of all the aforementioned crimes (since Fyodor was in jail at the time and, as we'll see shortly, the other members aren't particularly suited to these kinds of jobs).

However, he admits that he does feel guilt for what he does, and it's the reason he keeps doing it: he wants to free himself from the concept of morality, from his own conscience.

While this is a rather interesting philosophy, it doesn't expand much on why and how he joined the Decay of Angels. Was he a 'normal' person with particular ideas on morality that were brought to the extreme by the other members in order to make him useful, or was he already a murderer, and joined the Decay to have a wider choice of targets?

Boh. We'll only know quando Asagiri si decide a recuperare il suo arco porca pupazza with time. Still, the important part is that he doesn't seem to share Fyodor's objectives, nor does he say anything about the greater plan and his ideas on it. This is the first indicator that the Decay is a rather fragmented group, everyone is in for his own goals.

However, the last interesting thing is that the plan involved his own death: those in the Decay have no problems sacrificing their own members (even if I have a little theory that Fyodor might have planned for his survival, but I'll talk about it in another post).

Next, a wounded Taneda adds an information about the Decay of Angels: of the three members still in the dark, one has the ability to exchange knowledge he wants for information the person he touches wants. Namely, they're looking for a book, one that makes so that what is written on it becomes the truth - something already hinted by Fyodor. They managed to locate one page of it, and used it to frame the Armed Detective Agency to create a chaos and instigate a sort of Ability Civil War to destroy the city.

Their 'knowledge broker' is revealed to be Sigma; a reveal that is quite a surprise for the reader, since the manager of the Sky Casino has been introduced rigging a game to allow a person desperately in need of money to win; a very positive introduction, for a member of a 'murder association'. Later, it's revealed that he didn't even want to stab Taneda, only scare him off.

In fact, he hasn't even joined them because of some ideal: Fyodor found him when he had no past nor family nor anywhere to go, and offered him a place to belong in exchange for his services. When it turns out that his colleagues in the Decay have planned his demise (and two!) and Atsushi shows him kindness, he promptly cooperates with the Agency; or tries to, before one of Fyodor's lackeys shoots him.

It's also revealed that the group has created some explosive coins, released to the population at large to make some other acts of terrorism.

After some other shenanigans, we are introduced to their boss: Ouchi Fukuchi, officially the war hero who wants to save the world from the 'terrorists' known as the Armed Detective Agency by instituting an international police force.

Unofficially, a former torturer sanctioned by the government, traumatized by what he found himself doing. He wants to take down every nation, throwing the world into anarchy, because he believes countries and governments responsible for wars; and he also wants to stick it to his childhood friend who wasn't with him on the battlefield and got a found family he didn't have, and so framed him as the leader of the terrorists.

His actual plan was to terrorize the population and the government enough that they would gladly let him create an international armed force at his commands, which he would actually have used to break down the concept of 'State'.

Lastly, the fifth member: Bram Stoker. Another interesting case: like Sigma, he doesn't have any particular ideal that brought him to the group; on the contrary, he dislikes them. He used to be known as a calamity for his ability to turn others into vampires, and swore to never do such a thing again. He breaks this promise because Fukuchi threatened to kill him otherwise, and already keeps him in a state of prisony; personally, he has no interest in destroying the world, and thinks Fukuchi should do it himself. Considering that he interacts only with him, and doesn't keep track of the time well, I wonder if he even knows the other people in the organization.

Another interesting thing, is that he is the first British author to get introduced, except for Agatha Christie, who is hinted to be the leader of an organization of European Ability Users, but hasn't made an appearence since chapter 12/Dead Apple, and insofar hasn't had any impact on the plot. Maybe Stoker will be the element that brings the 'Order of the Clocktower' in?

Anyways, here they are: a group of people with vastly different goals and mindsets, ready to send each other to death and put dents into the others' plan (Sigma being ready to tell everything to Atsushi, Fyodor likely putting intentional mistakes in the Page he redacted to undermine Fukuchi).

Honestly ... it's amazing such a branco di disagiati group of people that want so wildly different things managed to last so long, let alone do this much damage. I mean ... how and why these people came together? What do they have in common?

To try and find answers, I did a little research.

First of all, the name 'Decay of Angels' comes, surprise surprise, from a book.

'The Decay of the Angel' by Yukio Mishima is the last novel in a tetralogy that follows the story of Shigekuni Honda, law student in the first novel and retired judge in the last, as he spends his whole life looking for the reincarnation of his deceased schoolfriend, finding them in people that seem to inevitably meet an early death, and ultimately destroys himself.

In the last installment, Honda decides that the reincarnation is an orphan, Toru, that behind a nice and normal facade hides antisocial tendencies. The interesting thing is that Honda notices them, but dismisses them as 'guile': what makes him decide that Toru isn't the reincarnation of his friend is the fact that he doesn't die on a certain date. And after all he had decided that he could be his friend after noticing a similar mole pattern; both very superficial things to originate and conclude such a fixation.

So what? I don't know.

Is a reference on how Fukuchi envied his childhood friend Fukuzawa for never dirtying his hands the way he had to do, and for having a found family, or a 'path in life', and decided to do a distorted version of such, with a few criminals and a plan to destroy the current order? Not sure.

Let's move to the artist, then!

Yukio Mishima was something of a conservative, and he strongly opposed the westernization of Japan, arguing that it left its people rootless. By this, I mean that he founded a private militia, the Tatenokai, composed of a bunch of students recruited with the newspaper, who until the 1970 did not much more than physical exercise and worship of the Emperor.

On the 25th of November 1970, however, Mishima plus four (!) of them briefly seized control of the Self Defense Force headquarters and tried to encourage the soldiers in a coup d'etat. They failed; Mishima and Masakatsu Morita, one of said four followers, committed suicide by seppuku, the latter despite his commander's wishes. The other three ended up in prison.

So, we have a strong believer in the traditional values of the State; quite the opposite of the 'anarchist' Fukuchi.

However, Mishima does not appear as a character, even if, since he was a writer, he could very well have. Instead, a bunch of appearently unrelated figures compose the terrorist group.

Fukuchi Genichirou was a translator, journalist, and playwriter. He, too, was a conservative: in his youth, he wrote an article criticizing the government and was subsequently arrested; he was released for the intercession of an influent friend, but this is remembered as the first episode of suppression of free speech in the Meiji Restauration.

He later founded a very short-lived political party that pursued the sovereignity of the Emperor, enforcement of a Constitution established by the Emperor and election among limited people. This party disbanded after one year.

Fyodor Dostoevsky is best known as a novelist, short story writer and journalist. He was also involved in politics: initially, he was interested in socialism, fluctuating among several groups due to an interest in social reforms in favor of destitute people.

The last group he joined (despite having been described by Bakunin as essentially a bunch of posers) got him convicted for reading papers that criticized the Russian government and religion, and nearly sentenced to death; the letter by the Tsar that commuted the sentence in prison and hard labour arrived just as the convicts were right in front of the firing squad, leaving them all free to enjoy this deeply traumatizing experience. He was considered one of the most dangerous prisoners (he read some books). Later in life, he moved towards more conservative beliefs (conservative for Russian standards: he criticized both socialism and capitalism, idealized the monarchy, and asserted that every social problem could be solved with Orthodox Christianity); but he didn't try to take an active role in politics.

Nikolai Gogol was a novelist, short story writer, and playwriter of Ukrainian origins. Despite costantly satirizing the government in his works, he was a strong supporter of the tsarist monarchy and criticized those who wanted a costitutional monarchy.

Fittingly for 'a character with no past', researching Sigma was a real pain. Shoutout to @gravitycantstop for pointing me in what is probably the right direction.

Sigma was a pseudonym of Russian journalist and writer Sergey Nikolaevich Syromyatnikov. Appearently, decent information about him is available only in Russian. Now, one day I'll speak every language in the world, but insofar my knowledge of Russian is limited to 'vodka' and 'syrniki', so I can't say much about him. If anyone who reads this speaks Russian and can provide information, please do so!

[Edit: thanks to @heydeliah , now we know about RL Sigma's political inclinations: he was a conservative who supported an authocratic monarchy, just like the above two]

Lastly, Bram Stoker: he had a keen interest in Irish Affairs, was a strong supporter of the Liberal Party, which favoured social reforms, personal liberty, and reducing the powers of both the Crown and the Church of England. He supported Home Rule brought about by pacifist means, was an ardent monarchist, and believed Ireland should stay in the British Empire, which he saw as a force for good.

So? I'm not sure what to make of all of this. The only thing I can say is that a bunch of real-life right-wingers has been turned into essentially a bunch of far left extremists? Sure, Stoker has been around for too little to express any ideology besides 'fanculo 'sta merda I want to sleep', and the lack of information on Sigma means that I can't make theories on him. But still, it's the closest thing I could find that binded them all together.

I admit I'm still unsure about what this could mean. Surely they weren't the only boomers ante litteram strongly conservative authors Asagiri could find, so ... I guess we have to wait and see? I literally made this post as I went, trying to find a common denominator, and this was all I could manage.

Anyways, I hope this can be somehow interesting.

Thanks to anyone who bothered to read my ramblings!

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd meta #bsd theories #bsd spoilers #bsd fyodor #bsd gogol #bsd sigma #bsd fukuchi #bsd stoker #bsd decay of angels #bsd doa #elia's recaps

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thegodwithin · 3 years

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I view myself as a failure to be honest. A liar and someone who struggles to do what others do easily. When it comes to others, I assume they are better unless proven otherwise. I see myself as inferior to everyone like a baby that people have to boss around and have to tell what to do. I feel like I’m stupid sometimes. I see myself as someone who can never make up their mind and I’m just here to please people. I feel like I have to do something in order to win the affection and attention. I feel like when I enter a room, no one turns their head unless I’m doing something fun or exciting and even at that, they look at my face and lose interest. I feel like someone who guys would be like “Eh, she’s a 3/10. Why would you ever let someone that ugly play you?” But I have this false delusion in my head that I’m pretty but everyone else thinks the opposite. I feel like that friend in the movies that everyone knows is dumb and ugly, but continues to lies to themselves to escape reality. I just feel like I’m lying when I’m confident because I mean look at me? Do I really have the right to feel confident when I look the way I look and act the way I act. I feel like the bitch that people force themselves to be around so she doesn’t get hurt when she figures out no one actually likes her. I feel like loser who never wins even when they try. I feel like someone who tries and tries just to be inferior to everyone around them. I feel like someone who is scared and instead of succeeding in the end, they were right and they end up failing like they thought they would. I feel like someone who struggles with shit that comes easy to everyone else. I feel like someone that’s only made to be a stepping stone for others and is only mean to “defend themselves”, but deep down they are just insecure. The opposite of THAT BITCH or an IT GIRL. I can never see myself in that light. More of the best friend or girl that follows the it girl around and follows her every move knowing she will never amount to the true IT GIRL. I feel like everything and everyone is against me and whatever higher power that’s out there (God) is laughing at me for attempting manifestation knowing I used it as an escape from Christianity. I mean how can I be the god of reality when I’m me? I’m just tasha. I can’t be a god when I’m this pathetic. I couldn’t even manifest a simple eye change and it’s been a year LMAO. I’ve seen others manifest what I want in days. I feel like I’ve made up manifestation in my head and I’m trying to use it with no concrete evidence besides success stories to make me feel better about my horrible life. But even if it was real, I will fall out of it like I did with everything else. Like I did with trying to journal or trying to workout because I’ll end up failing and lying to everyone and telling them I succeed so I look good. I feel like someone who fails and fails and someone who the universe is against LMAO or whatever higher power there is. If it was for me, why haven’t I gotten what I wanted? If I’m a god, why do I feel the way I do about myself? If I’m a god, why do I look the way I do? I don’t capture the beauty I’ve always wanted. I have a long face and droopy eyes THATS THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT ANYONE WANTS. And I know people will be like I wish I had your determination. No you don’t because it’s physically hurting me at this point. I keep failing and getting hurt and won’t take no until I finally snap and leave it forever. Until I snap and lie and tell others I finally succeeded. I can’t even decide on what I fucking what. What boss bitch doesn’t know what they want? My determination is all for nothing if I just end up failing and have to cover for myself by saying, “Oh yeah it totally worked out.” Ik self concept but what specifically do I affirm for self concept and how do I affirm it to make it feel natural?

First of all, I'd like to say that I personally understand you, so I know how hard all of this can be.

Now I think you need to start over and really go over the basics of the law. Your external reality will only ever work to prove your assumptions to be true. It will also only reflect to you what you already are. So if you feel / believe that you are unattractive, you will face more circumstances that will make you reaffirm how unattractive you are. It’s pointless to look outside for changes or signs or any evidence that “this is working” because nothing can change before you do. Signs follow, they don't precede. Everything is reflecting your state of being, your awareness. Even your own thoughts and feelings, so pay attention to those.

This is a REALLY long reply so the rest is under the cut

If you were this new person that you want to become, if you were already her, do you think she would be seeing herself in this way? Do you think she would be thinking that she can’t get it right and that she’s a failure and unattractive? If she’s already the person that you want to be, she would know for a fact that she was a success story, she’s living proof of it! She would be focused on enjoying her life the way that she intended to.

There’s only ever one source within you, from which your whole reality is born from. You can’t come from a place of lack and a place of fulfillment at the same time. Like Neville said, you can’t serve two masters. You have to completely let go of your old master, which is your old story. This is the moment to stop everything and really be honest with yourself. Who are you being in this moment? Who were you yesterday? Last week? Last year? And you don’t really need any input from the outside to answer these questions. All of that is within you, in your thoughts, in your reactions, in your feelings, in the way you look at life and others, in your everyday expectations.

But letting go of the old story can be difficult, you’re so attached to it, you identify with it, it’s everything you have ever known. It’s okay, stop punishing yourself and calling yourself a failure over this, that type of attitude won’t help you with anything. I think it’s helpful to understand yourself first, know what you’re feeling and what you want, before you jump into any techniques or quick affirmation fixes that clearly aren’t helping you. You don’t need to be an IT GIRL or a boss bitch if that doesn’t feel right or natural to you. You don’t need to be perfect at everything in order to be successful, fulfilled and happy. Get to know yourself first, understand why you have been thinking and feeling this way and what would you prefer to be, what would you like to feel, in general. We always know what we want to feel, so start there when it comes to your desires.

In my opinion, you can’t really let go of the old story before you accept it first. And I don’t mean to accept it as true and factual of who you are, but accept it in terms of taking responsibility for being the creator of it. You don’t have to love it ofc, but get to a point where you can honestly look at it and say “yeah that sucked but it’s ok, I created it, it doesn’t mean anything else, it was just myself being reflected back to me, it wasn’t anyone’s fault, not even my own really. I didn’t know better.” Make peace with where you are and where you came from before you try to get to any new destinations.

To be god, or the god of your reality does not mean to be perfect and to look like an angel. It means to be the source of everything, to be the one in control, calling the shots. It means that you ARE your reality, you are your experiences, your relationships, your feelings and your thoughts. It means that there is absolutely nothing outside of you, nothing beyond your reach, nothing deciding anything in your life. Whatever you, as god, accepts as true, will be brought to life before your eyes. And you, as god, is the only one keeping everything alive around you, by giving your attention to it. By accepting it and validating it. By believing in it. By feeling it to be true. And your godself, or the god within you is your awareness, your imagination.

Now that you know and accept that you created all this and how you got here, the good news is that you can change it. You can in fact become a different person, that’s part of your power as god. Choose to no longer entertain and accept the concepts about yourself (or about anything else) that you don’t like. It’s only “real” because you accepted it as such, and you proved this acceptance by thinking and feeling from the perspective of those concepts being true. This will probably take a lot of discipline from you, you must become aware of who you are being everyday, and start choosing to think and feel in a different way. No need to “ignore” your 3d world, but rather just remind yourself that you created it, it’s not who you are anymore and it will certainly change, the more you become this new person within. Stop identifying with it and taking it as evidence. It’s not evidence, it’s a side effect.

Ask yourself, who do you want to be today? What do you want to feel like? and then proceed to give it to yourself in your imagination, in whichever way feels best to you (visualizing, feeling, affirming, scripting etc). Make a decision to prioritize giving yourself what you want in your mind everyday, as much as possible. Nothing else matters. Your goal should not be to change the circumstances but rather to change your mind, to change where your feelings and thoughts are coming from. The outside world has no choice but to conform to that, because it’s all you.

You don’t need to add anything into your thoughts (ex: using a bunch of affirmations), but rather just replace what’s already in there with the thoughts you would like to have instead. But know that as you do this everyday, you’re not running away from reality, you are molding it and transforming it, because it simply comes from you.

What you tell others is not relevant unless you assume it is. Remember that your conversations and interactions are also a reflection of you. If anything, take it as lessons, it’s life showing you what you are focusing on and accepting as true.

A key point tho is your discipline and persistence. This is a permanent change and a lifestyle. You can’t jump from one perspective (the new wanted one) and then go back to your old one (the old story, the old master remember?) if you don’t see changes in your outside world after a few days. You must persist in your preferred story. But don’t be forceful, don’t think that “oh i’m in the old state again so this means i’m not doing it right!”. If you catch yourself serving the old master just remind yourself that wait this isn’t true for me anymore, so I don’t even need to keep it up in my mind.

Free yourself to be who and what you want in your mind. Without needing to see it manifest. You want it, so you embody having it, you persist in it and as a side effect of how reality works, it shows up in your life.

Here’s 2 audios that are really helping me lately:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9Sk-ENo650

https://podcasts.apple.com/br/podcast/feeling-twisty/id1473719923?i=1000527543384

I would seriously recommend to go in depth with both of these sources, feeling twisty on apple podcasts and ALLISMIND on reddit.

I hope this helps!

#law of assumption #neville goddard #manifestation #o #tag #answered asks

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ladyloveandjustice · 4 years

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Belated Spring 2020 Anime Overview: My Next Life as Villainess

For the Spring 2020 anime season, I mostly watched continuations of shows I was already into. The one new show I did pick up was My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! follows Katerina Claes, a spoiled young noble girl deviously scheming to win the heart of a prince- oh wait, never mind, she hit her head and remembered her past life! Turns out she’s an eighteen year old Japanese otaku chick who died and got reincarnated as the villainess in her favorite otome game.

If you don’t feel like reading the wiki article, an otome game is basically a female- targeted dating sim where you play as a blank slate main character and date a bunch of pretty boys (and sometimes girls, but usually only if you go outside the mainstream ones), unlocking their backstories and collecting all the romantic endings.

Having played this game, Katarina is well aware that the Villainess character- who constantly tries to interfere with the game’s heroine and whichever boy she’s pursuing- is either exiled or killed in all of the games endings. And now she IS that villainess, living in the world of the game and all its characters! Does that mean she’s doomed to a horrible fate? What’s a girl to do?

Well, if you’re Katarina, what you do is be supportive and kind to the people around you and in doing so accidentally get every single character in the game to fall in love with you. And yes, this includes all the boys the heroine is supposed to date, the other female romantic rivals the heroine is faced with and the game’s heroine herself.

That’s right, we finally got us some bisexual romantic comedy hijinx last anime season, my friends! My Next Life as a Villainess was the delightful little show I really escaped into during these anxious pandemic times . All these girls casually falling in love with Katarina without it being treated as ‘weird’ was what particularly drew me to this show and warmed my gay little heart to see. It was honestly the perfect fluffy, low stress watch during these high stress times.

Anime has long been oversaturated with ‘harem’ stories- where a usually unwitting protagonist somehow gets a bevy of beauties in love with them- but it’s still unfortunately really unusual to see bisexual harems, especially ones with a girl at the center, so right away there’s a big draw to this story that helps it stick out from the rest. (And worry not, the story is largely focused on Katarina having fun with these pals-who-are-not-so-secretly-in-love-with-her, rather than having a ton the dubious shenanigans you see in more sexually charged tales.)

Harem protoganists also famously tend to have the personality of potatoes, being so painfully bland it’s unclear why so many people would fall in love with them in the first place. But that definitely not the case for Katarina. She’s brash, ridiculous, kind and INCREDIBLY dense, and that for a pretty dynamic combination in this setting! She does genuinely come off as a fun person to be around. Unlike a lot of modern isekai shows, she doesn’t stumble into having incredible magic powers or skills, so her compassion is genuinely her greatest strength and what saves the day and wins hearts time and time again.

Katarina’s five brain cells doing their weekly check-in

(The moment she won my heart was when she responded to a tragic Frozen style situation with her friend locking himself away from people because he believed his magic was dangerous by taking an axe to his door. My kinda girl!)

The premise also allows for some plausible built-in reasons for the characters to take such special notice of Katarina- having been raised in a different world, she isn’t beholden to all the social rules, class divisions and noble family drama all the other kids in this very specific midevial-esque fantasy world are so embroiled in. This combined with her naturally earnest, accepting and straightfoward nature means she’s able to cross boundaries and reach out to them in a way they aren’t accustomed to. She was significant in each character’s life because she genuinely was the first to show them acceptance and affection without pretense, if only because she isn’t even aware there was supposed to be a pretense.

Katarina’s focus on trying not to die and her fear she’s going to meet the same fate as the villainess in the game also at least gives some kind of a basis to her comical obliviousness to everyone being in love with her. She assumes that everyone has to be into Maria (the heroine) and terrified of her because that’s how the game GOES okay, that’s CANON! Of course, this logic stretches thin as time goes on and it would be abundantly clear to most people that things have diverged greatly from the game’s storyline, but the show makes it clear that Katarina’s determined, one track mind is as much a gift as a curse.

Her bullheadedness when it comes to picking up how everyone REALLY feels about her is an intentional gag on the show’s part and even her love interests are well aware of what a colossal dumbass she is and not afraid to point it out!

My Next Life as a Villainess isn’t without its flaws, and the personalities/backstories of some of the ‘love interests’ Katarina gathers may be a stumbling block on some- mostly the male ones. Geordo, “the black hearted prince” has a bit of the “ possessive shoujo bad boy” archetype about him, and though he’s far from the worst that genre of love interest has to offer (there’s not much bad he can get up to due to Katarina’s obliviousness, the lighthearted nature of the show, and his rivals constantly getting in his way), the way he refuses to break Katarina and his engagement off despite her repeatedly asking him to, as well as some of his lines here and there, are definitely NOT cute.

Keith is Katarina’s adopted brother, but clearly has a thing for her too. On one hand, they only first met when they were nine and he fell for her pretty immediately. On the other hand, he still refers to her as “sister” constantly which is kinda eesh.

The other two guys are all right- Nicol’s big thing is he’s inexpressive and doesn’t talk much which, considering show doesn’t spend much time inside his head, doesn’t make him a very interesting character in the ensemble (maybe he comes across better in the novels) but there’s nothing wrong with him. Alan is undoubtedly the Best Boy in my book. He’s another common trope- rambunctious and competitive with Katarina but clearly soft for her- but he’s done well and they have a lot of cute moments together.

I find the girl love interests to be a much more interesting group overall, though this may be my obvious bias talking. Sophia has the strongest connection to Katarina, their backstories being intertwined in a surprising and touching way (I’m told in the novels her affection for Katarina was treated as more platonic, but the anime definitely plays it up as having romantic elements). Maria’s original role as the game’s heroine puts her in the most interesting position (and would make her the most narratively satisfying choice of love interest, if the show was actually interested in choosing). And while Mary is comically tenacious in her pursuit of Katarina, she’s doesn’t ever act ‘sinister’ or overstep boundaries in the way Geordo does, her “scheming” only really amounting to straightforwardly asking if Katarina wants to ditch her fiance and run away with her.

As I mentioned, one thing that really contributes to My Next Life as a Villainess being a relaxing watch is that the queer characters are treated with casual acceptance. Mary in particular isn’t subtle about her crush on Katarina, but nobody bats an eye at her and she’s completely open and comfortable with herself too. The observing maid notes that the girls are in love with Katarina with the same bland affect as when she notes she notes the guys are. And while the social practices of the nobles are pretty heteronormative- girls are always engaged in arranged marriages to guys, the guys are expected to dance with the girls (something Mary complains about!)- there’s apparently a booming queer romance novel industry that inspires our young wlw.

Katarina, having grown up in a different world, seems to be the one most prone to heteronormativity of her group. She never really considers that a girl would ever fall in love with her, but is also never hostile to the idea. It’s telling that when Mary very clearly indicates her desired romantic partner would be a girl, Katarina’s the only one that gets tripped up and has to walk back her assumption that Mary would be talking about a guy.

Mary LAYING DOWN THE LAW

Also, Katarina has SEVERAL “she’s so cute! My heart is beating faster!” moments with the other girls, on par in frequency with her moments with the guys. This strongly hints she’s an oblivious bisexual disaster.

So, My Next Life as Villainess is a fun, frothy watch and the rare positive example of silly wish-fufillment that’s inclusive to a wlw audience. But is the actual plot good, or remotely complex? The answer to that is no, the plot is fairly predictable and one definitely shouldn’t got into this story expecting a deep examination of the nature of fate or anything like that.There’s no real explanation of big reason as to why why Katarina was reborn into this game world and so on.

The antagonist that does eventually emerge plays off otome game tropes a bit, but ultimately isn’t that interesting or built up all that well. . The attempts at drama the show makes towards the end fall a little flat, especially since it tends to rely on very-late-in-the-game-exposition-dumps (dark magic isn’t even MENTIONED as existing in this world until like, the second to last episode where it becomes relevant and we get a vague infodump explaining its mechanics). The conflict honestly almost feels shoehorned in and the climax is pretty standard and doesn’t really utilize the big cast of characters all that well

But in the end, that’s okay! The show makes it abundantly clear from the beginning it’s not here to be Deep, but to be some silly fun. And it really fulfills that purpose well, from it’s catchy, peppy theme tune to its consistently warm tone. It MAY get repetitive at times for some, and I do have some quibbles- like how I found the childhood segments to be some of the shows best material and wish we could have stayed in that section for a bit instead of rushing through it, how I wish Katarina had kept her cute little scar, etc- but overall, it was definitely the soothing balm I needed during a very rough time and I absolutely recommend it if you’re looking for a chill, feel-good watch.

And hey, a second season’s supposed to be on the way too, so there’s something to potentially look forward to!

#my next life as a villainess #my next life as a villianess all routes lead to doom #destruction flag otome #otome gemu no hametsu furagu shika nai akuyaku reijo ni tensei shiteshimatta #anime overview #katarina claes #catarina claes #my reviews #spring 2020 anime

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steve0discusses · 3 years

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Yugioh Season Zero: The Yo-yo Crimes of Jounouchi Pt 2

OK, last we left off, we were in a different Youtube video. This one I grabbed off of 2 different videos (you’ll see their watermark in the corner change) and it makes me appreciate the quality that our other episodes have been, honestly. A little bit of compression going on in these, just to give you even more of that nostalgic feel of watching a bootleg anime from the 90′s your brother got from his weird high school friend’s Napster account.

Because this is done with subtitles on, it takes more caps to cover it. Part of why I rewrite the dialogue in these recaps is to help abridge stuff, and so consider yourself warned...there’s a lot of caps in this one. For most of you, that’s probably not much of a problem. But I’m just letting you know because...I sure wasn’t expecting it to be over 40 caps for half an episode, and I’ll probably just type less to make up for that. (Tumblr keeps Erasing All My Words anyway, so this is for the best, but that’s a tech issue I already went into in another post.)

(read more under the cut)

So, to start off, Yugioh and co. walk up to a bar like a really weird version of a bar joke and are like “do you know where we can find the yo-yo gang?” And, much like a video game npc, the bartender was like “I know EXACTLY what you’re talking about, and I heard every part of their intimate conversation. Let me give you all the details, children.”

Hey, PS, there’s an entire Wikipedia entry about the bar joke. And that is wild. Apparently the first bar joke was from Ancient Sumeria, and Wikipedia was like “Here is the Sumerian joke, but we Do Not Get it. Please don’t try to get it.”

The joke being: "A dog walked into a tavern and said, 'I can't see a thing. I'll open this one'."

Damn. I can’t believe the Sumerians were onto meme humor before we ever invented memes. They were in the Galaxy brain over there in the land before time, holy crap. Depositing their memes knowing that 7,000 years later mankind would look at the world’s first joke and be like “I don’t get it!” while all the millennials and zoomers with our MB of nonsense memes on our phones are like “No. I get it.” Good on you Sumerians, that is freakin the best joke ever made. 7000 years to get to the punch line of confusing the hell out of all us. Bless.

They promptly tell Miho that everything was resolved and that she should go to bed and she was like “Cool!” and exited stage left. Bye, I guess. Anzu also went home, but she didn’t have to be tricked into doing it, she just went the hell to bed.

(PS, I just realized that if I want to write less...I should probably not look up Wikipedia articles about the world’s first ever bar joke. But y’all, habits die so freakin hard, and I just feel like it’s very pertinent to this Yugioh recap, although I know it’s really not.)

Yuugi and Honda decide to visit the warehouse and harass Jounouchi. In the context of the show, they’re going out of their way to pull their best friend out of society’s systemic downward pull of a life of crime and most likely turning into exactly like his Father. But, the way that it’s storyboarded makes it look a lot like these kids just show up out of the corner and this gang was like “Damn it, again? OMG small children, please leave us alone!”

Honda hands over the symbolism sash, to which Jounouchi symbolically says “Nyeh.”

And Honda didn’t take it very well.

After tending to his kidneys for a little while, Honda decided to go back at it again at the Krispy Cream and do some sort of insane parkour over this completely ordinary fence.

Ah, the very first instance of real duel law where you duel over a relationship. In later seasons duel law is invoked for things like Mai’s marriage and the right to date Tea (and then just kind of forgetting you ever won the right to date Tea twice). But to think the very first time was Honda dueling for the right of Jounouchi to be part of nerd gang because Jounouchi had fallen to the dark side yo-yo gang across the street run by some 40 year old man with blue hair.

How many times is Honda gonna fight with a broom? Like are they just magnetized to his location? where are they even coming from?

Freakin janitor powers over here, put him in a Final Fantasy style RPG. I want to see what his limit break would be.

Not like it matters, because Hirotani very quickly explains why these yo-yo’s are at all a threat.

Which honestly shouldn’t be...so lethal? Seems like the weight is all you need, not really the spikes. But it’s at least stronger than Honda’s janitor stuff.

Unfortunate for Honda that he just destroyed an antique.

So with lightning reflexes, Yuugi does what he does most:

The death yo-yo ricochets back and does this little itty bitty scrape to this guy’s face and he’s real bothered by it. Although it’s like...well dude, you’re a 50 year old high schooler, I don’t think people will notice the scrape compared to everything else falling apart in your life.

And so then the Yugioh Season Zero team was like “oh shoot is it time to torture Yuugi???” and they got hella excited.

Like I thought it was just Yuugi’s class that were a bunch of disturbing criminal disasters, but I guess it’s the whole city. Like...was Yuugi’s class the good school?

I mean, it can’t be, there’s no way...

but like...is there a good school in this universe? How does anyone survive till graduation? If you so much as disgrace a yo-yo, you will get the torture treatment that I sure did expect in Yakuza games, but not so much in Yugioh, tbh.

Just a reminder: This is the third time we’ve beat up Yuugi this episode. Within the first meeting of Yuugi and Hirotani, he beat the tar out of Yuugi within eye shot of Jounouchi. So like...Jounouchi was reallllllllllllllllly lax on that deal, right? Like...he took his toot sweet time to realize “yeah this just ain’t ever gonna happen.”

And then the yo-yo wars begin.

Just like Solid Snake crawling through the radiation chamber.

Hirotani throws his Fyper-yoyo, Jounouchi intercepts with his Eireboy, and Hirotani’s completely terrible yo-yo just flies off the string again because Hirotani should have just sticked to using his fists. No wonder they wanted to recruit Jounouchi so badly, their yo-yo game is so off.

We never get a door to darkness in this episode, dipping our enemies into mind horrors. Instead, we get home-alone style traps. But, this makes sense. Not only do the show makers have to make Yuugi avoid solving problems with magic in front of Jounouchi, they also have to make it Jounouchi’s choice to leave Hirotani behind. If Yuugi did it for him in like...some sort of duel law situation...then that sort of leaves out Jounouchi’s choice in the equation.

Not like this ever really comes up in later seasons, since who even follows through with duel law and marries Mai? But like, it does feel like Season Zero calls out the later Seasons a bit in this regard. Honda got beat up because he tried to win Jounouchi back by force (or game, I guess.) That was just another form of coercion on the heels of Hirotani’s. What Jounouchi actually needed was to make his own decision to leave.

...most other anime I’d be like “I’m sure that’s just a translation error” but not this one.

So Yuugi runs to the roof where Jounouchi will never see this.

My audible sigh reading this line about fight club roof.

These stupid gang members went into Yuugi’s native territory, not just a fight club roof, but on a warehouse? They were dead before they arrived.

This was like maybe 3 frames of animation in just rapid succession, it was pretty silly and good.

Reminder that like 4 minutes ago, Yuugi was about to get like executed on a meat hook.

Speaking of getting executed on a meathook:

Hope you like the idea of glass in your eyes, because this anime’s got it.

They chase Yuugi around, in a sequence that was done mostly to conserve frames, so you rarely saw the ground until this shot:

Lots of falling down this episode, but unlike Tea, who fell from a warehouse ceiling once and just kind of rubbed her ass after and was like “ah damn it.” these guys won’t come out of it virtually unscathed.

Also, Honda is here now:

Jumping off of his symbolic sash trapeze, he decides to do in Hirotani for good.

Hey so like...walk the dog is a fairly gentle walk that a yo-yo does slowly on the ground right?

Just pointing out how sensitive Hirotani’s fingies are.

And he...didn’t appear to be dead, so I don’t have to add to the bodycount...but it’s gonna be a real long road for recovery.

And now, with the gang back together Jounouchi is back at school knee deep in make up assignments he’ll probably completely ignore since we know that in a years time, these fools are going to be trapped on Pegasus’ island, and at that point school will be just that place you talk about when you try to remember why you’re friends with Bakura.

---hey aren’t those chairs attached to the desks?

Because...holy crap, Anzu.

Honestly this is what you see before you die, but I guess Jounouchi died off screen after the episode ended, so I don’t have to add him to the deathcount (again). RIP.

Alright! That took like...8 tries to get Tumblr to save this one, but it managed! (well...I guess “managed” isn’t the word you’d use for a typing program that takes 8 tries to save)

Next time, we’ll be back to S5, for an arc I’ve heard is kind of boring. We’ll see. If it truly is, I can condense episodes into fewer posts. Or maybe it’s a secret gem? I guess we shall see.

And if you just got here this is a link to read all the Season Zero recaps from the start:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yuugi-muto/chrono

(there’s also a link to read all the Yugioh posts we wrote from the start in chrono order but straight up, this file won’t freakin save, and I just can’t even will myself to look up that link again. It’s on the home page of this blog on the right.)

#YGO #yugioh #yu gi oh #Yuugi Muto #Jounouchi #Honda #Anzu #Miho #yo yo gang #Hirotani #Yuugi and the gang do serious property damage

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