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theblueflower05 · 1 year

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Just a Little Taste

A/N: Welp. Somehow my breeding/breastfeeding kinks manifested themselves into a story. I wrote this sky high on painkillers and I am a little in love with the whole premise. @tiredmamaissy -I hope more than anything that you enjoy this. You deserve all of the goodness on this site. Your Masterlist is my personal spank bank lol

Word Count: 3k+

Warnings: This story is Filthy. Smut with very little plot. Breastfeeding. Pussy Eating. Slight mommy kink if you squint. Very pregnant reader getting pleasured, because pregnant beings can still be sexual. Aged up!Neteyam

You are responsible for cultivating your own online experience, please do not interact if any of these tags are triggering to you. Minors DNI.

Summary: You’re eight months pregnant with Neteyams child, and after a long day, you both need a little relief. Neteyam x Human! Reader

"Sugar, Honey, Iced Tea

Bumble-bee on the scene.

Yeah, I'd give up my bakery to have a piece of your pie"

- See You Again, Tyler the Creator ft Kali Uchis

Life in the village is always busy. Constantly bustling with life and movement as everyone; human scientist, Avatar and Na’vi alike, rush to keep things afloat.

High Camp is so different then Home Tree had been, the rage of war adding a constant edge to long days and restless nights. You miss the comfort of a slow life, of hazy days down in the jungle. The jagged cliffs of the Hallelujah Mountains still don’t quite feel like home to you.

Still, you go about your daily duties.

Being a Pandoran raised human had always given you a different insight, the two massively different cultures you we’re brought up in clashing and mending to create a skill set that was like no other- it had taken many years of painful trial and error to find your place within the Omiticaya, but healing had always come naturally.

Both holistic and surgical alike. You’d spent years shadowing Mo’at and learning the ancient herbal ways of the people, while well as taking advantage of the many PHD toting scientist back at Hell’s Gate. Medicine had no boundaries, was a way for you to feel close to both sides of yourself. To broach the gap between human and clansman.

You find your skills being needed more than ever. The ever constant raids against the RDA means your hands are rarely idle, forever in movement as you tend to the wounded. Some days you sit in the big Healers Tent with Mo’at and the other Taskarem, and others you’re in the makeshift Medi Bay, which is really more of an Avatar Pod Trailer turned OR, with the handful of human surgeons.

The long hours spent on your feet leave you sore and exhausted, but you have to pull your weight.

Even if said weight is far heavier than usual as of late-

“Y/N” you’re broken out of your thoughts by Max- as he enters the trailer with a holo-tab in hand and a concerned look in his dark eyes “What are you still doing here?”

“I was just finishing up inventory- our antibiotic stock is back way up. Jake was right, those helicopter raids were more than worth it” you’d sorted out the tiny vials of vital medicine by hand, not wanting any to be misplaced or mislabeled.

“You don't think maybe you should head home?” He continues and you sigh.

You miss your tent, and the soft bed of furs that lay inside the secure warm flaps. And the man that waits for you inside of the patchwork leather walls-

“I’m fine” you assure. And really, you are.

It's a fact you have to keep reminding people of.

Yes, you’re as big as a Strumbeast, but you are no less competent. No less able bodied.

Pregnancy is one of the most natural parts of life, a base staple in all’s existence. There are plenty of pregnant Omiticaya women who were expected to play their roles, even as the battle raged outside the safety of the mountain cave system.

It was the nature of your pregnancy that was more…fragile then average. Inside your womb grew a child that would be the first of it’s kind. A scientific mystery: no one had even known it was possible for Na’vi and humans to procreate.

And yet all of the evidence now lies under your shirt. Your stomach round and pronounced, full of growing life.

Full of the love between you and the Olo’eyktan’s eldest son.

Neteyam had left his permanent mark on you. Had part of himself growing inside of you. The thoughts we’re enough to make your knees buckle if you focused on them too hard.

“You’ve been here since 6am, you really should get some rest. Take one of the empty bunks if you want. Have you checked your blood pressure-”

You’re a grown woman. You’re not going to huff and puff and roll your eyes, but fuck, do you want to.

Everyone was so overbearing lately.

Norm and Max we’re constantly breathing down your neck; “The baby has a different growth rate then a human child, we need to monitor the way that your body is responding” Followed closely by Jake who watches you with sharp eagle like eyes and Neytiri, who used to all but ignore your presence, constantly checking in on you throughout the day. Mo’at’s always poking and prodigy, and Kiri almost always has her hands on you in some way shape or form.

You are glad for the support, happy that this baby would be so loved.

But really, you missed being treated like the competent, independent woman you knew you we’re.

“My blood pressure is fine. I thought since we ruled out preeclampsia we weren’t going to worry about it anymore” you know that it’s not going to silence his worry, but still. You can try.

Max goes on one of his science mambo jumbo spiels, and by the end of it you’re waddling out of the lab and back to your hut, annoyed as shit but placating your pseudo father figure all the same. Only a month and a half mor of this and then things could go back to normal.

Everything had just…changed so quickly.

You 're a caretaker by nature. Caring for others is easy, feels right. You’d tucked the much older scientists into bed when you we’re just a pre-teen. Made dinners. Looked out for Spider and the other Sully’s-

And the role reversal still didn't quite sit right with you. Your control freak ways didn't do well with not being the one in charge- you’d been stripped of your title so to speak. You we’re supposed to relax into your new role, enjoy being doted over before the nine month’s we’re over.

You and Neteyam’s shared tent is in the centered in the cave, close to his families, but standing on its own. As private as anyone could get in the busy, close quartered camp. The walls of the hut are familiar, adorned with your combined belongings. Cozy and familiar.

You shimmy free of your confining bra, step out of your cargo pants, then toe off your boots, releasing your swollen sock covered feet with a groan before collapsing into your well loved bed, the soft blankets and familiar scent of your mate lulling you into a deep state of peace.

It’s kind of wild how quickly you can fall asleep these days. Growing a little person from scratch tends to burn a lot of energy and the moment you relax, you’re out like a light.

You don't wake up, even when the horns are sounded for the return of the War Party.

Not when Neteyam makes his way through the camp and enters the tent. He’s wearty, grime covered and hunched over. He only softens when he sees you, tucked safely, into his bed. Your eyes still closed and face still scrunched up as he strips out of his battle band and shin covers. He’s quiet, washing off with the large freshwater basin in the corner before making his way over to his much-missed bed mat.

It isn't until he's crawled under the blankets and wiggled his way as close to you as possible that you begin to stir. His large cat like snout nuzzles into the vulnerable crevice of your neck, chuffing hot breaths against the smooth skin.

You’re not upset at him for waking you up, a drowsy half alert smile stretches over your lips as your hands run up his strong back. Gently working the tense muscles.

He gets so greedy when he comes back from the War runs. He needs to be comforted, to be held and you are all too willing to comply.

Everyone else infantiles you now, and yeah, Neteyam could get a little intense and overprotective, but your relationship had always worked because you were the one person in all of Pandora that babied the future chief.

He was such a sweet man, with so much responsibility on his plate. You loved nothing more than holding him in your arms. Letting him release any and all tension because you had him. You, a tiny soft skinned human, were the barrier between him and the ruthless world.

You’d be such a great mother to his children. His hind brain purrs at the thought. That even through all of the controversy, he knows he’d chosen the right mate. Little and fierce, he hopes the baby is just like you.

“Are you okay?” You ask, tone hushed in the darkness of the tent. The only light coming from the small dying embers of the firepit in the center of the space. Hypnotic shadows dance along the canvas walls and Neteyam's breathing grows shallow as he sinks into it.

The way you smell. The way your heart beats, strong against his cheek. The way your plump body feels so good under his wandering hands. He hadn't been okay, just moments ago. He was delirious, so sick of the fighting that he felt ill with it.

But how could any of those bad feelings exist when he had you waiting for him? Ready to welcome him into your body, your heart, your mind. He doesn't think he could survive without knowing the solace of your love.

“I’m okay, narlor(beauty). Just missed you” he mutters, still trying to dig his face deeper into your skin. He wants to escape inside of you, you chuckle at his futile attempts to mend you both into one entity. His large palms rest against your bloated belly, tenderly and your heart flutters “Missed you both so much”

Being so loved is overwhelming.

You wouldn't have it any other way.

“I missed you, my sweet baby. I missed you all day” you assure him with the words you know he needs to hear. “Our son here thought it would be fun to jump on his sa’nok’s bladder all day. It was like was playing the wokau(pendulum drum) all day long- I spent hours in running back and forth to the bathroom”

Neteyam's laugh is deep and rich. Thoroughly pleased to listen to your stories of your day, eager to hear every minute detail. Desperate to drown out visions of blood and gun smoke with your voice.

“Ah, you have to be nice to your momma, little one” he chastises the bump, raising your shirt over your head, wanting that flimsy barrier gone. His lips trail over the tight skin of your bulging belly as he speaks to his child.

Your son, still safe inside your soft body, knows his fathers voice already. Recognizes that slightly accented cadence, and squirms inside of you happily.

Neteyam usually speaks strictly in Na’vi to your unborn child-

“He needs to know the language of our people, first and foremost”

-he’ll spend hours whispering his mother tongue into your flesh. It always leaves you boneless and shaking. Feeling so special and cared for. Na’vi, though your second language, is familiar to you. You’re fluent in the language- but fuck. The way your mate speaks it is the most beautiful thing. It’s musical, he tells sprawling stories with his colorful words.

There is one English he’s very fond of though. Every time it leaves his plush mouth it makes you grin, sharp. Knowingly.

“Are you gonna be nice to momma, Neteyam?” you question him after a while. His ears quirk, swiveling on his head and his tale flicks once, in obvious excitement.

You know what he’s wanted, ever since he woke you up by nuzzling at your chest. Ever since he peeled off your top and left your heavy breasts bare. Did he think you missed the way his golden gaze would flick to them, eyeing them hungrily.

He needs this as much as you do, but as usual, your sweet boy is too selfless to ask. Won't trouble you with his wants unless you bring it up first.

You reach for his big hand that rests on your belly, and drag it to where you need him. His palm enveloping your tits, the rough callus’s catching on your sensitive nipple just right-

Your pregnancy had been different than regular humanoid pregnancies. Your body worked hard, thrown into overdrive in an attempt to keep up with the fast growing fetus in your womb. You’d started lactating months ago, far earlier then normal. Your breasts firm, full with milk. Ready to feed the child that had not yet come into the world.

At first it had been both painful and embarrassing. You had no child to drink what you were producing and the other breastfeeding women in the tribe we’re hesitant to feed their babies your tawtute(human) milk. Already over emotional due to the hormone change, you’d wept at the fact that you had no one to give what your body readily made.

The fact that you couldn't be a bigger part of your community due to your human heritage, combined with the intense pain that came from having backed up ducts had been too much,

Eventually you’d turned to Neteyam, both your eyes and shirt soaking wet. Begged him to help you. And of course, as always, he did.

It should be awkward, or shameful- but connecting with him on any level is something you cherish. Why would this be any different?

“I’m always nice to you, aren't I, love?” Neteyam gruffs as he gently works at the breast in his hands. Its firm and full of milk, his mouth waters “Do they hurt again?”

“Mhmm” you whine pathetically, and you’re not lying. The skin of your chest is now marred by stretch marks and you’d had to stuff precious, hard to come by toilet paper down your bra all day to keep them from spilling over “They’re so full, Nete”

“Oh” He hums, thumbing at your nipple “Poor momma, I’ll help you. Don't worry” his lips are wet against your skin as he kisses his way to your breast, his tongue peeking out to circle your puffy nipple. A pearlescent drop of milk tops the rosy bud and he groans as it hits his taste buds.

He tells you that you taste good, often. The juices of your pussy, your spit soaked kisses. He’s always been greedy for it, his tongue bullying its way into your holes, desperate for your essence. Your milk is just as delicious as the rest of you.

It quickly goes from kitten licking, wide wet stripes against your pebbled nipple to sucking your big breast as far into his mouth as he could. Careful of his fangs as he gorges himself on your flesh.

He’s loudly appreciative as he suckles on your nipple. Grunting and humming and moaning at the flavor. Your arms come around him, cradling his head to your bosom because it feels so good. Having him this close, knowing that he'd do anything to take care of you. That he truly loved the way you tasted-

Many people thought you and Neteyam would never last. It was lust, they’d claim. Curiosity. A childhood friendship that would fizzle out eventually. Na’vi needed Tsaheylu, it was the lifeblood of all their relationships. Why would the much desired future Olo’eyktan stay with you if he couldn't even properly bond you?

While you couldn't deny that there we’re doubt filled moments that you yourself wondered why he’d chosen you and stayed so loyal to you…you still felt your own form of connection to him. While you’d love to make that sacred bond with him, you didn't feel any less close to your mate.

You never thought that you could be so intertwined with another being.

As Neteyam takes his fill from your breast, you massage the base of his Kuru, firm enough that it makes him hiss. You have no special braid of your own, but he’s always been very free with his when it comes to you.

You can do with as you please. Stroke it. Lick it. Massage it. Hell, he’d even let you touch glowing pink tendrils at the end of it before. Let you feel his exposed nerves, so vulnerable and raw in your hands that he had shed tears as you explored.

Nothing was taboo in your relationship. There was no space undiscovered between you.

Your bodies we’re so very different, and yet you knew his like the back of your hand. All of the strong muscles and hard sinew. The cobalt expanse of his skin didn't have one blemish that you haven't memorized. You could point out his striped pattern in a sea of other Na’vi.

And he knows you right back.

Loves to dig his fingers into your doughy hips, into your pillowy thighs. Your wide ass and ample chest. He loves your form, goes crazy for all of your alien curves. He never cared for your human modesty, he’d wanted to part your ass cheeks and stare at plump of your pussy for as long as he could remember. Wanted to strip you of all of those clothes and just stare.

The fact that he gets to do just that, for the rest of your lives, is his favorite, favorite thing.

You watch him eagerly as he slowly nurses. You can't get enough of the sight of him, his hollowed cheeks, the bob of his throat as he swallows your free flowing milk. He's so strong, his muscles flex in the dim light. All of that strength, and yet he’s so very gentle with you, his rough tongue laving at your sore buds every couple minutes. Soothing and tickling you all the same.

You giggle at a particularly quick swipe, letting out a small squeal as Neteyam’s tongue plays with the flesh in his mouth. His eyes peek open, glittering with mirth and low boiling heat as he meets your gaze. Whin his lips split into a smile, a dribble of translucent white milk escapes. Trickles down from the corners of his lips.

Heat pulses between your legs and you know he can smell how aroused you are.

Neteyam has always been able to turn you on without even trying. A well spoken word, or even a pointed look could get you running your thighs together. All desperate to get him alone and put your hands all over him.

You hate that you cant kiss him the way you want to, your Exo Mask, while necessary to your survival can be suck a fucking menace sometimes.

Your thumb traces his lips, the ones you want pressed against your own so bad. You rub the spilled milk from his chin. Cleaning him up in a way that's so simple, and so beyond erotic.

He breaks eye contact first, like he just can't look at you anymore. His brows all scrunched up, his chest raising and falling rapidly. He releases your sloppy nipple, completely covered in his saliva, and presses his face against the damp skin. Making a sound of distress.

Your fingernails skritch at his scalp, tangled in his many braids “What is it, baby?”

“I wanna fuck you so bad. Eywa, do you even smell yourself, Y/N? So good. I have to-”

“Yeah, yeah, okay” You nod, agreeing blindly. He can have whatever he wants.

“Fuck you hard, though. Gotta pound you. I know I shouldn't but it’ll be alright, huh? Won't hurt the baby?” his face is still buried in your skin, you cant even see his expression as he pleads for your pussy. It makes you so hot.

You push at his chest, needing him to get off of you for just a moment. He’s heavy as shit, a dead weight- doesn't really move until you're pouting and demanding for him to just give you a little space.

Enough that you can wiggle out of your panties and spread your thighs wide for him. Your swollen, sticky pussy on display for your mate.

His nostrils flare, and his thin tail whips wildly behind him.

When he swings your thick thighs up onto his broad shoulders, you let out a low, appreciative moan.

“Such a good boy for momma” you praise him the way the people praise the Great Mother. The cradle of your thighs a sanctuary where you both come to worship.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Welp, I should be finishing up Part Three of First Love/Late Spring or plotting out future installments of The Sweetest Sylaung, but here I am writing nursing filth. Lol I truly have zero regrets, this story was so very self fulfilling(even though it partially came from a request). I hope you guys enjoyed though

As mentioned many times before, requests are currently open. Please send in all that good shit. I could use a good distraction from real life!

#neteyam smut #neteyam x reader #neteyam x human reader #neteyam sully smut #aged up neteyam #Neteyam x pregnant reader

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genderkoolaid · 8 months

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Hi!

I (24 nb) am having a serious issue with girls my age being quite misandric and using radfem rhetoric in their speech.

The issue is I understand their fear and mistrust of men in patriarchy and with many of them having horror stories to share about bad heterosexual relationships. But i am deeply uncomfortable with misandry and i don't know how to effectively point out that no it's not good feminism to hate on men.

Do you have any resources you could recommend me to build a good argument? I want to be prepared for this kind of discussion because it keeps happening more and more frequently.

I know it's not the main topic you cover on your blog but as it is closely related to transandrophobia I was hoping you (or your followers) could still give me some advice.

I wish you a wonderful day

My advice would be to start with talking about the negative impact of misandry on women first (although don't use the word misandry, at least at first). Starting off with "it hurts men" in any regard will likely not go over well, but if you first bring up the issue in relation to a group they already really care about, they'll be more likely to listen. Also, I would reaffirm that having trauma or bad associations with men isn't the problem, they aren't obligated to associate with men in ways that make them uncomfortable or exhausted, and that they have a right to feel their emotions, be angry, be annoyed, etc. Affirm that your concern is with how their actions and attitudes could be causing real harm to others, and that anger being valid does not mean you don't need to take responsibility for how you choose to act.

Some potential talking points:

When women are perceived as manly or masculine, they tend to get viewed with the worst traits of masculinity: butches and trans women are seen as aggressive, violent predators who prey on sweet, feminine straight/cis women. The patriarchy doesn't just hurt women through their femininity, but through their (real or perceived masculinity as well.

Even inside queer spaces, butches are expected to fulfill toxic masculinity: they are expected to be sexually dominant tops, not be emotionally or physically "weak," not do feminine things, etc. Butches can get ridiculed by others, even partners, for not fulfilling these things. Things like balding and small penises, that are traditionally seen as failures of masculinity in the patriarchy, are also made fun of in queer spaces; it seems like queer spaces have issues with how they deal with (real or perceived) masculinity.

When spaces make jokes about hating men, put a lot of emphasis on gatekeeping men, etc., it makes it a lot harder for trans women and nonbinary people assigned male feel safe. Some trans women & genderqueers might not realize their gender because they are kept out of spaces that could've helped them realize because of how queer & feminist spaces act regarding men. Butch trans women and genderqueers often face heightened scrutiny because of their masculinity, from both inside and outside their communities. (Also, send them this article.)

^ As a result of all of that, maybe we need to be more careful with how we think and talk about masculinity. It seems like we are reusing a lot of negative patriarchal stereotypes about men & masculinity in ways which hurt marginalized people the most.

From there, you can bring up marginalized men: you can talk about how trans men, multigender/nonbinary men, men of color, Jewish men, fat men, disabled men, etc. are negatively affected by negative patriarchal stereotypes about men & masculinity- I emphasis that because its how I would go about referring to "misandry" or "antimasculism" without actually using a word. Since misandry (and anything that sounds similar) is such a trigger word for many, its important to set the foundation that there is a big difference between the MRA concept of misandry, and the transunitist concept of misandry. Transunitist misandry focuses on how sexism & genderism* is used to target marginalized groups (specifically trans* people). Transunitist misandry does not say that misogyny doesn't exist, or that men are oppressed in the exact same way women are; its saying that the patriarchy (as a part of kyriarchy) uses gender and sex to harm not just marginalized women, but marginalized men too.

My goal with this would be to introduce and try to convince them of the idea that Misandry Is Harmful Maybe, and then once they realize how its harmful, bring up the idea that this kind of stuff needs to be named. Once they generally agree with these ideas, I think it will be much easier to help them understand why misandry is bad even beyond marginalized men: because the patriarchy relies on harmful ideas and expectations for men, even as (dominant/non-marginalized) men have a different place and more rewards; because liberationist feminism must be concerned with universal liberation, and that means it must be concerned with everyone's wellbeing and liberation; because we cannot disnantle the master's house with the master's tools, and letting any patriarchal thinking in poisons the well of your feminist praxis; because it just makes you a meaner and shittier person. In my experience people who think in the ways you described are resistant (not necessarily for bad reasons) to any kind of criticism towards sexism/genderism towards men, so my tactic would be starting with areas (like women) that they are concerned with not hurting and show how misandry hurts that group. Connecting the harm of this way of thinking to something they care about is going to make them more open to seeing it as an issue in general.

*I use "sexism" to describe the system of oppression based on physical sex, and "genderism" to describe the system of oppression based on gender identity/presentation/roles.

#m.#ask box

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hellfire--cult · 11 months

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Baring Teeth {Eddie Munson x Reader} - Chapters and Warnings

Picture for Banner: pitifulbaby

Chapters: Warnings - Ch. 1 - Ch. 2 - Ch.3 - Ch. 4 - Ch. 5 - Ch. 6 - Ch. 7 - Ch. 8 🔥 - Ch. 9 🔥 - Ch. 10 - Ch. 11 - Ch. 12 - Ch. 13 - Ch. 14 - Ch. 15

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

Tropes: Enemies to Lovers, Non-Traditional Omegaverse, Slow burn, Modern!AU

Warnings: Ab*se, Violence, Mental Health, Cursing, Smut, oral sex, p in v, unprotected sex, A/B/O dynamics but not explicit, dirty talking, breeding kink, bdsm, choking, mental abuse, manipulation, depression, self sabotage

Crossposted on: Wattpad & AO3

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Summary:

The world only reigns in Betas, the middle in between an Alpha and Omega, someone who provides children with the adequate amount of treatments and prescriptions in medications, making them fertile. That is how the world procreated and mutated into just this kind of gender.

Alphas and Omegas were a myth.

Normal jobs, normal people, normal life, great friends. That's what you want. But of course, there's always a needle somewhere that pokes and doesn't stop. Yours was called Eddie Munson.

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This has Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics. Let me be clear, NONE of this is going to be relevant till a certain part of the story. It is a very important dynamic indeed, but there's no explicit behaviour in the characters at the beginning or in the middle of it. Like literally, PACKS DO NOT EVEN EXIST.

The smut will be MILD. I know that Omegaverse tends to go EXPLICIT, but I do not write that. There will be at some point, mentions of rut, heat, and other things that I will explain along the way. But if you are uncomfortable at some point, do not read. There will be though, dirty talking, because it cannot really be avoided. But it won't happen in all the smut, I promise.

Just treat this as a normal Enemies to Lovers AU, until the Omegaverse lore appears which won't be too explicit.

No Stranger Things lore involved.

Slowburn, of course.

Specific topics will be included that may be triggering to some: ab*se, violence, drugs, mental health, and cursing.

There'll be no usage of Y/N in this story.

I do not own ANY of the characters involved.

The picture of Eddie in the cover (Which is property of Pitifulbaby on tumblr) is actually how Eddie looks in this AU. Same old metal head, just with a beard and using manbuns.

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Now: Let's go over some definitions if you are not familiar in the Omegaverse universe. (ADAPTED TO THIS STORY, OF COURSE)

- Alphas: In some stories, they may exhibit "dominant" behavior or have other temperamental quirks. They are able to impregnate Omegas. Male Alphas usually have a knot when aroused, and they go into rut for a specific amount of time.

- Betas: Betas are often presented as having "normal" human anatomy, with none of the special attributes of Alphas or Omegas. They may be the peacemakers between Alphas and Omegas. They cannot impregnate or get pregnant if not going through special treatment to do so.

- Omegas: They can get pregnant and go into heat for a few days, depending the person. Omegas are often portrayed as the most fragile of the hierarchy, with frailer bodies and painful presentations.

Alphas and Omegas have SCENT glands. They have them on their neck, wrists, and sometimes on their ankles. While Alphas scents are usually musky, dominant, rough; Omegas have a sweet, peachy kind of smell.

This scent only becomes stronger as they go into rut or in heat.

Alphas and Omegas also have a Mating gland, something that Betas do not have. This is always positioned between the junction of the neck and shoulder, and they have to bite one another to seal their bond, and be forever mates.

It can happen that one of the two might not seal the bond, and not bite the other person. The bite will disappear in time, as well as the bond that the person that bit created, but it is a painful process for the biter.

As there are no Alphas or Omegas in this story, the world is as we know it, except for the fertility treatments people have to go through to get a baby.

There are no packs, no 'pups' as people call the children in this AU.

(If you have more questions, please don't be afraid to ask!)

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Follow me for updates! ❤️

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indierpgnewsletter · 7 months

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What is XP for?

It feels like there’s been a recent spate of discussion in RPG circles about the role of incentives (usually just referring to experience points, or XP). While a lot of that discussion has been mean-spirited (with a lot of conflating preference for “the only correct way to do things”), I would like to contribute by try to describe the role of XP is in modern tabletop RPG design, using Blades in the Dark as an example. If you’re a designer or a player, hopefully this helps you think about the role of a mechanic like this.

1. XP paces out advancement

This is probably the number one reason that we have XP in games. Historically, in this hobby, games have offered players to way to advance their characters, letting them grow in a way that makes them more powerful or interesting. For example, in Blades in the Dark, by requiring 6-8 XP to upgrade your character, the game paces out the process of getting new abilities to around every 2-3 sessions or so. By tweaking the amount required, it could’ve made this process shorter or longer.

The primary critique of this use of XP comes from people who question whether advancement is necessary at all. These usually come from folks who are who are either perfectly happy with their character “improving” in non-mechanical ways (like buying a house in-game) or people who prefer changes rather than improvements (getting a cool scar rather than getting better at punching).

2. XP as recap procedure

As Judd Karlman mentions on his blog, having an end of session xp procedure is a way to give everyone an opportunity to “think back on when they were kicking ass or being cunning – remember it and celebrate it while ticking off a box”. The idea is that the end of session procedure becomes a kind of ritual to share your favourite highlights from the session, aiming to deliver a good note for the game to end on.

3. XP as incentive

Some games use XP to encourage players to do things that they might not ordinarily do. This is quite common in the kind of games that I play. For example, in Blades in the Dark, you get XP when your character is in desperate situations. The game is trying to encourage players to take risks as opposed to playing it safe (because they might be coming from games where taking risks was less fun).

These kinds of incentives are usually criticized for two main reasons. One, it is unnecessary, i.e., it encourages behavior that needs no encouragement. Two, it has a negative effect on freedom of roleplay by pointing at a “right way to play”.

Stepping back for a second, I think these are both good criticisms that can be more or less valid, depending on the specific game or style of play. In my experience, in general, they’re least valid when they are theoretical, armchair criticism and tend to be most valid when they come from direct play experience.

With Blades in the Dark specifically, I think XP for taking big risks does lead to players shifting gears and playing differently. Not by itself though! It works because it fits within a whole system meant for that kind of story. The XP is just a tiny little signal.

As for narrowing the realm of roleplay, I think this is broadly true of hyper-specific storygames. They are a kind of game that actively tries to provide constraints - but in the same way a writing prompt is a constraint. It’s hard to be creative without them! Some of these games - not all - tend to involve some amount of discovering who your character is, rather than coming in with a specific idea.

That said, it can be frustrating in Blades in the Dark to pick a playbook with a particular character concept in mind and find that you’re out-of-sync with the game’s XP triggers. This kind of misalignment can happen, for sure, and it is a limitation of Blade’s specific design. The solutions tend to be some form of hacking or just switching playbooks. But even with that frustration, I would hesitate to say it’s a problem with XP as a mechanic though.

Though XP doesn’t actually need much defending - like so much of game design convention, the main reason games will continue to include it is because games have always included it. Players have come to expect it! But at the same time, I think XP can always do more and be more (or less!) than it's currently doing. I’m excited for people to look at these functions of XP and innovate, keeping what excites them and finding ways of changing the rest.

(This was first posted on the Indie RPG Newsletter.)

#indie rpg #ttrpg #ttrpg community #ttrpgsolidarity #ttrpg design #rpg

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heavenlyraindrops · 2 months

Text

Change With the Seasons| Stardew Valley| Sebastian x Reader

♡♡♡♡♡♡ Chapter One: Moving In

♡♡♡♡♡♡

A/N: This is just gonna be a cute romance between Seb and the Farmer, aka Reader. If It’s also available on AO3 and Quotev. I’d visit the masterlist if I were you, since it contains trigger warnings + the story blurb (summary/ synopsis)

♡♡♡♡♡♡

Chapter Summary: After moving in and getting accustomed to life at the farm, you happen to meet a certain someone on a rainy day by the docks.

♡♡♡♡♡♡

The wind whistled through the trees, snaking its way through your hair and causing the leaves to skitter. Immediately the breeze died down as soon as it picked up.

You had just finished speaking to Major Lewis. Robin, the carpenter, however, had decided to stick around for some more conversation, an idea you weren’t completely against yet weren’t completely welcoming towards either.

“You should definitely get to meeting all the townsfolk,” Robin said, eyes surveying the wooded, overgrown land. They flicked back to yours, and she smiled. “It’s not everyday we get a new person here in Pelican Town. So they’re all very eager to meet you.”

You smiled and nodded, as she continued:

“And you should meet my kids too. They live with me in the Mountains, oh, the mountains…”

As Robin went off on a long rant on how wonderful and fresh the crisp air of the mountains were, you looked out at the farm stretched before you. It was covered in rocks, wood, overgrown grass and trees. You winced at the thought of having to clean it all up.

“Anyways, I won’t keep you any further!” Robin smiled, and left.

You proceeded to dump your luggage on the bed, which creaked under the weight, and rolled your sleeves up. The first thing on your list today, you decided, was to go into town and see how it was. You had, after all, dropped your safe, stable life in Zuzu for this.

The walk to the village wasn’t too long. You picked up a daffodil along the way, with no other reason than finding it pretty. Immediately you arrived at what seemed to be a clinic. You peered in, but it was closed. The building next to it had a large sign. Pierre’s General Store. A calendar nailed to the wall caught your attention- it was listing all the events and birthdays in town. A specific day seemed to jump out at you: Flower Dance.

You’d have to ask Mayor Lewis about that.

You put your hand on the door handle to Pierre’s store and pushed, but the doors refused to budge. It must have been locked, too. You checked your watch. It was only seven. That explained it.

You wandered down a little, taking in the buildings and houses. You squinted at a small figure in the distance, loitering near a couple of flowers. Seemingly very interesting in them.

As you moved closer, you realized that it was a little old woman, tending to the flowers. She smiled at you, and you smiled back. “You must be the new farmer. Welcome to the community, dear. I’m Evelyn. You can call me ‘Granny’ if you like.”

You flushed at her kindness. “Alright, Granny.”

She smiled and nodded, before heading inside a small blue house, claiming to go bake some cookies.

You exhaled slowly, staring at the flowers. The spring sun seemed to glow off of everything, yet the breeze was cool. You felt a faint smile growing on your face. You’d like it here, in Pelican Town. You knew it.

A week had passed. So had your doubts.

Everyone in the town had been kind to you so far- so far, being the keyword as you hadn’t met many people yet. You’d woken up that morning with rain lashing down, pattering on the roof, echoing through the small cottage. With watering your rather small number of crops being taken care of, you’d decided to devote the day to fishing at the docks, ever grateful for the rather flimsy bamboo rod Willy had gifted you.

The rain was pouring down harder than when you had left as you arrived at the docks. Your hair stuck to your forehead, slick with water, droplets of it rolling down your cheeks. You carefully picked your way across the docks, which had grown slippery. The sea was choppy, and occasionally hit against the supports of the docks but they were fortunately high enough from the water level. Yet still a few salty drops sprayed onto your face now and then.

Being as drenched as you were all ready, you just decided to sit down on the edge of the dock, before casting out your rod. You didn’t even notice the man already sitting next to you amidst the whirling wind and drops of rain and seawater. You shivered, cold, before glancing to the side and-

“Oh!” You jumped in surprised, almost toppling off the dock and into the angry sea. “H-hello.”

The man stared at you in silence, the black strands of hair obscuring his face, making it unable to be seen properly, before turning back to the sea. “Hey.”

You’d never felt awkward with the people in Pelican Town until now. You forced a nervous smile, tilting your head. “Sorry, I didn’t see you there. You don’t mind if I sit here, right?”

He dug his hands into the pockets of his black sweatshirt, the moody look on his face deepening. “Whatever,” he muttered, then said under his breath, “The ocean’s better enjoyed alone, though.”

Your own frown hardened into a scowl. “What’s that supposed to mean?” It hadn’t even been ten seconds since you’d met this guy and you were already starting to feel a growing dislike for him.

“Nothing,” he said. You noticed the eyeliner around his eyes getting slightly messed up from the rain, and stared hard back out at sea. So much for everyone in the twon being nice. You must have jinxed it, or something.

“What’s your name, anyways?” You asked, taking another stab at being friendly.

“Sebastian,” came the blunt reply.

You stared at him again, for a moment. He caught you staring, and raised an eyebrow, an action which for some reason made your heart pound. “What?”

“Nothing.” You turned your attention back to the fishing rod. The weather was becoming harsher now, your clothes completely drenched through with droplets rolling down your face and arms. Thunder rolled and lightning flashed, making you jump and let out a small noise. Sebastian smirked and you glared at him. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said, clearly mocking you in such a subtle way you wouldn’t expect. You scowled, feeling something tug at the rod. It was a soggy newspaper. Feeling your face burn with embarrassment, you picked it up and scrunched it up in your hand before getting up and stomping down the dock, back towards your farm.

“Nothing,” You muttered, mockingly. That day, you decided.

You do not like Sebastian.

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getvalentined · 2 months

Text

FF7 Fandom PSA

This is not a callout post, this is a warning about a genuinely dangerous abuser who uses fandom spaces to acquire victims.

Apparently my abusive ex is ingratiating himself into fandom spaces again, so if you're in the FF7 fandom please keep an eye out for someone calling himself Pix or Pixeled.

The details of what he did to me specifically are available in a post from almost exactly two years ago, readable here. Other people have shared their own stories, but I don't have the energy to dig up all of them. Trigger warnings for gaslighting, emotional abuse, violent threats, forced isolation, manipulation, and more that I'm definitely missing.

Known usernames:

Instagram: midgardsomrnights, pixeledartsy, okgoosefus, pixeledpalace

AO3: pixeled, pixeledxxx

tiktok: pixrexpen, gaywrathlet

FFXIV: sarielperedhil (on Brynhildr)

ko-fi: pixrexpalace

Other: pix pendragon, pixeled pendragon, pixrexpendragon

Some of these are current, most of them are not; he's no longer active here or on Twitter that I'm aware of, so I'm not referring to his usernames there, but he uses some combination of parts from these for his usernames everywhere so they followed the same theme.

This is not "fandom drama," this is a sincere warning to anyone in his orbit to be careful and be safe. Please love yourself more than he wants you to.

With that in mind, there are more personal details under the cut, discussing the fallout of going public with his abuse and more of his behavior; no screenshots on these because it's years in the past, not all of the related accounts and spaces still exist, and back when I was first gathering evidence I had to stop before it lapsed into the territory of emotional self-harm.

Same trigger warnings as above, plus racism, (implied) sexual exploitation, sexual manipulation, and discussion of Body Dysmorphic Disorder.

I want to be very clear that I was not the first person to go through this, I was just the first to go public afterward. I have lost relationships with people I thought were friends by doing so, and actually been referred to as abusive in response to my initial thread on Twitter letting people know what he'd done. I've had people who used his treatment of me as an excuse to join in with hurting me go on to co-opt my abuse to make themselves look like victims, claiming that we were best friends until he drove us apart—or worse, to use him as a complete stand-in for their own behavior, implying or outright stating that he forced them to isolate me from friends and fandom activities and treat me like shit, all while these people have me blocked on every possible platform where I could reconnect with them.

Pix was the Bad Guy of early 2022 on FF7 Twitter, and while he deserved the title, not everything everyone said about him was true. Not everything everyone said about me was true, either, but people tend to take anything connected to fandom as "drama," even when it involves literal abuse.

One thing I never told anyone except my closest friends is that Pix drove me to the verge of suicide multiple times. He put up videos insulting me to be "funny" and got friends laughing along, when I asked him to stop teasing me all the time he exploded and said that he was allowed to express himself however he wanted and if I had a problem then I should break up with him so he could finally kill himself guilt-free, he told me that he wasn't going to placate me anymore by saying "I love you," he told me in public spaces to shut up because I didn't know anything. He used racist slurs against Asian people behind my back and told everyone who called him on it that I'd told him it was all right, leading to a continuing belief among some circles that I have some deep internalized racism toward my own fucking ethnicity.

He told me that his mother saw me as a whore and a homewrecker, because I'd seduced him away from his boyfriend of eight years—in spite of the fact that I told him outright I did not want a romantic relationship with him because he was already in one, and I wouldn't be party to cheating. When I went public with what he did, he claimed that I pressured him into a romantic relationship, neglecting to mention that he'd been pushing for one almost since we met and that I'd shot him down because he was already with someone else. He said that I'd forced him to break up with his boyfriend, and seemed to be implying that I'd somehow sexually exploited him because I'm a cisgender lesbian and he identified as an aro/ace trans man at the time we broke up. When we got together, he identified as a bisexual nonbinary person.

To be completely honest, though, his orientation and gender identity doesn't even fucking matter with regards to the implication that I exploited him because we never had any form of sexual contact—unless you want to count RP, which I don't, and if I did I would be calling him a cheater because I was not his only RP partner.

To be completely clear, we were in a long distance relationship, thousands of miles apart, and we had no sexual contact. We never sexted, we never had phone sex, we never even exchanged dirty pictures. Our relationship had no sexual element whatsoever. He eventually told me in no uncertain terms that if/when we got married, he wasn't going to sleep with me because he didn't have a sex drive anymore due to trauma, and that since I loved him so much I'd have to be happy with that.

He would remind me of this when my Body Dysmorphic Disorder began to relapse constantly from the amount of stress he had me under, because my experience with the condition is rooted on my lack of physical femininity and leads me to see myself as completely sexually repulsive. When I was triggered and trying to untie the knot in my chest that made me want to throw up at the thought of my own body, he would remind me that I didn't have to worry about being too ugly for sex with him, because he was never going to fuck me anyway. That it didn't matter if I was disgusting, because he found all bodies disgusting, so really I was lucky to have him. He didn't even care that I was disabled and that my arms and legs are too long, that my joints slip out of place all the time, that the way I have to move sometimes to keep from hurting makes me look "weird and stupid." I was so lucky to have him, because even though he was very aware of all those things, he didn't actually care. He wasn't going to fuck me anyway.

The last Christmas card he sent me literally had the words "You deserve a high-five!" printed on the front, and on the reverse he'd written something along the lines of "okay but you know I'd be sure to miss and slap you in the face, sorry not sorry."

He made my life hell in every possible way, and people said it was drama because we met through fandom—and that I deserved it, honestly, since I was so fucked up and he was such a good person for even caring about me in the first place. I deserved it, people said, since I turned around and stabbed him in the back after he'd done so much for me for the years we were together. It was just fandom drama, they said, and I was just thriving off the social capital it allegedly earned me.

And now he's back and making new friends, but it's fine because this all happened years ago, and everyone with a brain should be able to see that it's just fandom drama. But it's not. It never was. Don't let him convince you otherwise.

#PSA #personal #abuse tw #should I tag this with the fandom?#should I put it on the block?#it's dangerous #for me #but I think it's worth it #to keep others safe #final fantasy 7 #FF7 #final fantasy vii #FFVII #rufus shinra #tsengru #rutseng #the [redacted] files

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1-800-deactivatednearu · 9 months

Text

woag character design notes

[i.d.: a drawn line up of the half life vr ai characters, from left to right, gordon, dr. coomer, tommy, bubby, gman, and benrey. /end i.d.]

yeah i skipped some guys , i dont draw some of them enough to have much unique designs and some of them are a png of a dog

trust me i am just surprised as the rest of yall that i am doing hlvrai art . design notes below (very long, mind your step)

gordon:

wow this guy dont got no head

i didnt want to give gordon a face because of how unexact the person is as the fandom engages with it. is it wayne rtvs? (well as presented to an audience, yes) is it gordon freeman? (well as seen from an in game perspective, yes) is it a whole new guy entirely? (well as

i cut the confusion and took it a whole new direction: guillotine

hlvrai being treated as a very broken game is fun to me as a design perspective, so if you (the audience) are not supposed to see his face, what happens when you see it anyways? missing texture time

there are eyes drawn over because i did not have confidence in my expressions at first and then it grew on me

i think if i were to draw (and i have drawn) an actual person under the mask i would still censor the eyes because that is where the vr headset sits!!

(i do not like putting an actual flesh to gordon though)

though i really like seeing how other people interpret gordon hlvrai it is not . my gordon ? we are talking about the same guy . but this is my gordo . i made this one . this guy my guy . maybe i should draw other gordon designs

i can draw the hev suit from memory and it is also the entire reason why i can render metal confidently

i liked how people changed the lambda to read ai :] i also have no clue if i wrote the lambda correctly

(i did, i just checked)

dr coomer:

as much as i draw/drew him i find it more fun to not stick to one set design :)

so a lot of my takes on dr coomer tend to jump from idea to idea, especially from what other people are doing, though they could be fitted to the left and right designs!

the left design is mainly based off what i saw in fandom spaces

we see rounder shapes, making for a more friendly and welcoming appearance

i think of this as straying from the more professional uniform of the actual scientist models

enter swimming shorts and bright yellow socks, for some reason

so now he kind of looks like a cool science teacher :)

it might be the lab coat

the right design is mainly based off thumbnails for hlvrai itself

these use a more angular appearance

i want to push how comically buff he is because of strength he shows at times, especially since his left design seems to completely down play it as a comically not buff man who is still very strong

the shadows on right design coomer get so much more harsh and exaggerated because i have comic books on the mind :)

he really does look like a dehydrated comic book character huh

tommy:

stick bug (he gets it from his dad) (this thought process is explained at gman section)

i pushed a lot of the saturation of colours in her design because i think tommy gets to be a little silly with it

fun art story of the day! when you color, try messing with hue! you might notice you can get away with a lot as long as your values are about right

i like pushing this with white because you can get away with a lot of things reading as “off white”

old faithful for me is cool shadows with a warm transition colour to keep things visually interesting

i keep making white objects the trans flag

happy pride

tommys design looks a little like a school boy, with the tucked in button up shirt+suspenders+shorts+jacket tied around the waist . and the primary colours . but like it is really fun to dress up so brightly

i actually was strongly inspired by medieval babies if that is a weird descriptor? i wanted him to both be a middle aged man but also a young adult

do not be like tommy, who has their finger on the trigger of the gun while not even looking at where it is pointing and good god he is squeezing the trigger . top ten firearm safety of all time

bubby:

the absurd part is that i think bubby is tall . he is just between tommy and gman who are exaggeratedly lanky .

i wanted to make bubby a pointy kinda guy, so he is the only one actually wearing the lab coat proper . and the only one actually wearing dress socks but not even wearing dress shoes

i wanted to give him a novelty tie but i was running low on ideas and running high on boreds so we dont get a tie

he does have crocs though!! in attack mode!!

i do think we all kind of saw his model and collectively decided it works for him because i have honestly not seen major divergences from his model?

gman:

stick bug

i wanted to stress the more spooky and unknowable nature of him and took it in the dark souls direction of “make bigger than player character”

maked too bigger

he cannot walk through any doorways but you will have to crane your neck to look up at him

in the opposite direction of tommy, i pulled a lot of the saturation in gmans design

it feels important to make them both not fully match the rest of the slightly less broken npcs because there was so much work to make them look cool so i have to respect that

actually a lot of gmans and tommys designs are made in opposite to one another

gman has a largely stationary face and very stiff line work

while tommy is pushed to expressive as possible

thats pretty fun, way to go me

benrey:

benrey also has two designs

and in both of these i keep getting too lazy to use a reference so the vests are super plain (forgetting the badge and black mesa logo) . i think the helmet is supposed to be darker actually .

the design ethos of benrey was “built like a brick shithouse”

a friend of mine took this cooler and interpreted it as a shield/wall/barrier as a physical (and narrative) obstacle

again the first uses fandom designs

most notably the overcast shadow (seen in video thumbnails but i never noticed it or understood why so many people did it until someone pointed it out to me)

i think hlvrai is such a great medium because it acknowledges it is a game and is able to play into that to great effect! i think the shadow is fun to imagine as solid black as a small reminder of the impossibility of the space :]

benrey is a smug cat in the body of a human . to be honest . and this is the full range of emotion i have ever drawn him with

the second was mostly because as fun as taking creative liberties are, i just really wanted to see benrey as is: the half life security guard model in all its slight wonk :]

i actually do prefer this design . it is a little more uncanny because i choose the worst translations of the model . i like it because it is a little more uncanny !

that can be said for like . every single design in this line up huh .

#hlvrai #my art #gordon feetman #dr coomer #tommy coolatta #dr bubby #gman coolatta #benrey #half life vr but the ai is self aware

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zoeykallus · 8 months

Note

heya! I'm not sure if your requests are closed, and by no means do I hope to overwhelm you further with more requests :'D feel free to ignore this especially bc it's more of a negative request aaa

so as context: sometimes I zone out and due to my childhood I will flinch if I see a movement coming at me which at the time I thought was understandable/normal but my bf has already expressed his disappointment every time I flinched or denied physical affection and left me being the one who apologizes for a reflex and I was wondering how the batch (platonically) would react to the reader (preferably female) telling them that story if the reader was the batch's bffs or smth? :'D (plus Cody if that's okay!) I'd be curious to know if they would just try to calm me down or if they would try to encourage me to get that specific thing fixed maybe?

argh I'm so sorry for the long ass text cRIES

again no pressure whatsoever with this waaah

Aloha! 😊

Interesting question. Personally, I think personal space should always be respected, no matter how close we are with someone. In a relationship, most people tend to loving physical contact in many different forms, and I see how this reaction can be surprising or off-putting for some. But with a little empathy and patience, that really shouldn't be a problem for a partner to get used to and accept. If my partner is jumpy with such reflex reactions, I should be able to adjust. There is a reason for this reaction and I think you shouldn't be, or feel pressured to apologize for it. All in all, communication (and an understanding, open mind) is key, as it almost always is. Then there is also the option to try and get that out of your system, so to speak. Therapy might help, it's worth a try or two. After all, it would possibly make things easier for you as well, giving you more comfort in everyday life. Easier said than done, I know. But that's just my two cents. Either way, I'm wishing you all the best 😊 Let's see...

The Bad Batch/Cody x Reader HCs - The Flinch

Warnings: Implied Trauma / Traumatic Reflex Reaction

_________

Ko-Fi (If you feel like giving me some coffee)

_________

>Masterlist<

Hunter

It can happen casually, maybe he doesn't really think about it, just wants your attention for a moment, but you are busy, and your mind is elsewhere. A brief touch on the shoulder, innocent, gentle, without ulterior motives. Still, you flinch and turn around so quickly, startled, that he flinches briefly himself.

Hunter in no way intended to scare you or offend you, he would never do that consciously. Of course, he apologizes, you are close friends, he knows your past that you confided in him.

"I should have known better, I'm sorry. Are you okay?"

He is patient, gentle and forgiving. Hunter tries his best to be sensitive to you and respect your boundaries. He is careful in his interactions with you, considerate.

Echo

The first time it happens, he is so startled by your reaction that he backs away and looks at his hand as if he expects to see it red-hot, or spiked. He blinks a few times, then says, "Sorry, did I scare you?"

Whether you confide in him or not, Echo will never hold it against you. He can understand that your reaction has a background, and he can respect that you don't want to share it with him. This does not change the fact that he will take it into consideration.

He sometimes seems strict and so serious, but he has an antenna for the sensitivities of others. It is in his nature to be considerate.

Wrecker

He is a bit impetuous and very affectionate. Scaring you or triggering a reaction is never his intention, but it can still happen quite a few times. You can speak openly with Wrecker, he is happy to listen to you, he is understanding even if you don't tell him everything.

He will always apologize if it still happens accidentally, and he will never blame you for these reactions. He will rather make sure that others around you respect your personal space as well.

Tech

He is not a particularly physical guy. On the contrary, Tech values his personal space and usually respects that of others around him. In combat, this may not be possible at times, but in general everyday life, Tech tends to keep a polite distance.

If he does trigger that automatic flight or defensive reaction, he apologizes immediately, and you can assume it won't happen again. He himself is not a fan of surprising touches, which is why he doesn't like Wreckers' little nudges at all and usually lets them pass with rolling eyes or critically furrowed brows.

Crosshair

As almost always, his first reaction is a bit grumpy. He doesn't immediately understand what's going on, but he's a good observer and a bright guy. Of course, he notices that you have these reactions more often, even with other people.

Crosshair reads your body language and realizes that this is a learned, habitual reflex reaction. He understands that there is a real, possibly deep-seated reason behind it. Of course, he adapts, even if he doesn't like to admit it, he can be considerate and very understanding.

So you don't have to worry about him. He certainly doesn't respect or appreciate you less than before because of that. In fact, it awakens a certain protective instinct in him.

Cody

At first, he is surprised, but he is neither offended nor annoyed. But he is attentive. As a soldier, he's learned to read body language, to interpret reactions, and even though you might not say anything about it, Cody understands pretty quickly what makes you tick.

You can count on him to pay attention to that in the future. You don't have to apologize to him, you can just be yourself and relax. Cody is always a safe haven.

He also won't let other people maybe cause you problems because of it. Anyone who teases you about it or makes fun of you should be prepared to get in trouble.

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livelaughlovesubs · 2 months

Text

Study about leviathan

Thanks to the people who replied to my post!

Trigger warning: the things I’m going to mention include child trauma, sexual abuse and other. The language I’m going to use is direct. I do not share that experience, which is why I tried my best to do valid research. I’m not trying to offend anyone, and I’m really sorry if I get things wrong.

My opinion, it could be totally wrong so take it with a grain of salt~

So, right of the bat, I think we can all agree that Levi probably got sexually assaulted as a child.

‘Rough, oppressive hands. Filthy sounds of breathing. Humiliating violence that ensued’ this is probably the biggest hint I’ve found to my previous statement.

Now, I think most of his actions can be understood from his past and if we make some claims. On the surface, he seems like a cold, strict and violent person. Also very mean and rough, and an asshole if you want. Many people weren’t a fan of his ero scene (I think). That scene also made things more complicated, cuz he said that he wanted the mc to hate him. He dislikes people who hate him or love him for no reason. Levi was a dominant bottom, has agoraphobia (fear of leaving their save place), is obsessively into breath play and prideful, jealous but also insecure.

It’s a lot to unpack and he really is complicated, but I’ll try to explain what I found/ what I think would make sense for his character.

Levi got experimented on and assaulted as a kid, got beaten up and tortured while in the company of other children with the same fate. This is important to understand him. The story (chapter 5, towards the end) mentioned that the beating included strangulation, force injection/ in take of chemicals, getting punched etc. and there’s been that speculation (which is true), that trauma can turn into kinks. The reason why trauma can turn into kinks… cuz the brain is weird. Your brain can’t forget that traumatic experience and keeps replaying that scene (cause of ptsd), and your body remembers that feeling you’ve felt. Even if your body feels ‘pleasure’ it doesn’t mean you actually enjoy it, but then your brain does some weird shit and you get a specific kink towards that situation.

I think the reason why Levi is into chocking could be due to that, due to being strangulated by those angels, having his air snapped off from experiments, chocking on his vomit from the aftermath. His ero scene, including how he insulted minhyeok and made mc mad was all planned. Mc also noticed how even though he was the bottom, he was always in control. He also was a huge masochist and wanted mc to whip him or hurt him. You could just brush it off as his kink, though maybe it has some connections like before.

I read that victims of sexual trauma tend to seek out people that are similar to their abuser, actively or subconsciously. Or they are into bdsm cuz they want to role play that experience, this time with a consenting partner. They would never want to relive that experience, but they want to role play it because now they do have control over the situation. It’s as if they are reclaiming the control that they didn’t have. This is comparable with what Levi is doing, wanting his partner to hurt him and treat him horribly like what the angels did. He wanted mc to hate him to recreate the scene with the angels more similarity, while still being in control of everything. He had completely control the entire time, could stop whenever he wanted or overpower you. Also, for him who knows how to lie and betray, who isn’t so naive to trust everyone, it’s easier if they hate you. Then their actions will be easier to understand.

About why he isn’t fond of people who hate or love him for no reason, maybe comes from the angels who hated him for existing and the other ill fated children who lost their lives for him for the same reason. He definitely feels guilty for the children who chose to sacrifice themselves for no reason. He probably thinks it would make him feel less guilty if the people had a good reason for their deeds. If they had a good reason for torturing him, for loving him, he would feel less bad and guilty.

Fear of leaving places he considered safe, that probably came from the trauma as well. He knows he won’t end up in that cage again, but it’s a trauma, his brain won’t forget. Another reason why he might not want to leave his safe place could be because he considers himself different from the other devils. He knows how to lie, be suspicious and fear their own kind. If the other devils think they are agents of heaven, he won’t have a place to call home anymore. Levi had to be strong and build his own nation to protect himself as well as other orphans, he won’t want it to crumble now. He had to live a good life for his comrades. That could also explain why he is so stoic or serious. He doesn’t have the luxury of fooling around, he had to make sure no one would ever get suspicious over them and chase them away. No matter how much you reassure him, he won’t be able to change. Even so there are times where he feels safe enough to smile and be chill. But that’s only when he is in hades, his palace and with his closest allies. This fear of his must also be the reason he is a shut in.

Some people said that having agoraphobia feels like no one understands you. It feels like everyone judges you or is about to hurt you. It fits Levi, who is so wary of other devils.

Many of his personality traits indicate that he is a narcissist. Prideful, insecure and jealous. There are different types of narcissists, he is the kind that is secretly insecure and puts on strong airs. He probably compares himself to others due to that and has a frail ego. That must also be where his jealousy comes from or the fact he can’t take critique well. Being a narcissist doesn’t only mean you feel like you are the worst when you are alone, it’s also actively talking yourself into believing you are better than everyone else. This could be another reason why he’s a shut in, because it’s so much easier, then you don’t need to compare yourself to others.

I also feel like he needs to be the best because the kids told him to live a cool life in their stead. He also had a day where he gets especially horny, right? It had something to do with his trauma and angels, more conformation that his trauma turned into kink. Being hypersexuell is also one of the symptoms.

With such circumstances, it’s no wonder he grew up cold and distant. Anyway, I wrote this on a whim, I don’t know if my thought process even makes any sense, maybe I forgot some aspects too. Just ask for my opinion of anything if you want.

#whb #what in hell is bad #whb levi #what in hell is bad levi #leviathan whb #leviathan what in hell is bad #sub leviathan #whb leviathan #prettybusy what in “hell” is bad?#what in “hell” is bad?

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idyllic-affections · 1 year

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dad!pantalone iii (ft. the harbingers).

summary. the harbingers all have their own choice nicknames for pantalone's child.

trigger & content warnings. dottore clones being... dottore clones. you know? yeah.

tropes, pairings, fic length, & other notes. fluff. dad!pantalone & reader, la signora & reader, acaramouche & reader, il dottore & reader, arlecchino & reader, columbina & reader, childe & reader, pulcinella & reader. 0.7k words. they/them pronouns for reader. prev | next

author's thoughts. i wrote this series quite some time ago but i think about it all the time. it was honestly so fun to write LMAO i miss it sometimes.....

the harbingers rarely seem to call pantalone's child by their name. they all have their own nicknames for the little one. let's see what they are, shall we?

starting off with the man himself, pantalone has a collection of nicknames he uses to refer to his kid, from something as simple and tender as 'little one' or 'my dove' to the more embarrassing 'my gem.' the latter becomes one of those nicknames that begins to embarrass his child as they get older, especially in their preteen years (by the time they're 15, 16, 17... they've gotten used to it). he finds it funny, the way they fluster and stutter and complain about that nickname being very embarrassing when he uses it in public. he's almost pouty when the time comes that they don't find it embarrassing anymore. he also takes fondly to a simple 'darling' or 'love.'

la signora's nicknames are a little more... extravagant, for lack of a better word. after they burned the balladeer's coat, she took to calling them 'my little flame.' all of her nicknames are oddly fire related. she has little shame calling them such things in public, and she likes to think her nicknames function as something of a warning sign; after all, they do have the capacity to be destructive. everyone should be aware that they are no easy target, she thinks. there are some, however, that she tends to only use when there are fewer people around, such as 'firefly.' additionally, she seems to call them 'dearest' rather often. it's the most "normal" of her nicknames.

scaramouche calls them 'pyromaniac,' and does so very bitterly, might i add. end of story. he will never forget what they did despite the fact that they were a child with poor pyro control when they did it.

il dottore, in his omega build... well, nothing he calls them is even remotely affectionate. 'brat,' 'menace,' the list goes on. he could fill an entire book with the mean nicknames he uses on them. they find it quite funny, actually. he can't physically or psychologically hurt them, so he resorts to shitty nicknames? pathetic. this, however, tends to vary between segments. some—keyword: some—of both the younger and older segments are actually quite fond of them, and use 'mon petit monstre' on them... is that a term of endearment or are they being harassed?? they have no clue. they speak the common tongue of fontaine, so they know what it means, and yet... they really can't tell if it comes from a place of fondness or not. zeta, more commonly known as webttore, will not hesitate to call them a bitch but if anyone else does it, he might end up adding another heinous crime to his already extensive list.

arlecchino, the woman who raised them until about the age of five, tends to simply call them by their name, unlike most of the harbingers. sometimes, though, she'll call them 'honey' or 'my dear' in a very gentle, tender tone. now, if any fatui agent catches her doing this... it won't end well. she's soft only for them and columbina but she doesn't need people knowing about that. she has a reputation, after all. the knave isn't all that kind, no, but she did grow fond of them, and she still holds a small grudge against the regrator for leaving them with her for so long.

columbina, oh, her nicknames are easily the sweetest—'angel,' 'sweetheart,' 'lovely,' it goes on. she and dottore are on opposite ends of the nickname scale. every pet name she calls them is laced with only the utmost saccharine sweetness. contrary to popular belief, it comes from a place of genuine fondness.

childe's nicknames are a little different. they're all friendly and perhaps a bit too casual, given the fact that [name] could ruin his life very easily. 'kiddo,' 'bud,' 'kid,' archons... its almost as if childe forgets that they aren't too much like other children their age. what other snezhnayan child their age is the most lucrative target in all of teyvat, yet simultaneously the most untouchable?... perhaps it's simply because he sees another sibling in them. who knows?

pulcinella's nicknames are the typical "old man talking to his grandchild" nicknames—namely 'dear' and 'young one.'

please consider reblogging, it helps me out quite a lot!

#aphelion brainrots 🌸#platonic genshin impact x reader #platonic genshin x reader #pantalone x reader #la signora x reader #il dottore x reader #arlecchino x reader #columbina x reader #childe x reader #fatui harbingers x reader #genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader

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viridianevergarden · 21 days

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The Comforts of the Night

A/N: So I haven’t written anything serious in like 2 years but my elriel hunger is unfathomably ravenous so I decided to take a crack at it. This little fic focuses more on Azriel and is told from his POV. It’s a what if scenario that I hadn’t really bothered to specify precisely when in the story this would ever take place so 💀 Enjoy, I hope.

Word count: 3.5K

Ship: Elriel

Key: light fluff, angst

Possible triggers: Elements of poor self loathing/esteem, light mentions of blood and suggestive things.

• • •

It had been a long day for Azriel, so unbearably long. Such was commonplace for him, however, as being the Night Court's Spymaster unyieldingly commanded the workload.

His muscles had ached from stress nearly all day, though he effortlessly paid no heed, not until now. A part of him had wondered how, after centuries of the same work, his body hadn't become adapted to it. He couldn't deny that he worked more nowadays than he had ever done, especially with the threat of the incoming war growing ever closer.

Work had been unforgiving for a long while. The requirement of always leaving Velaris to go to war camps, courts, or even the continent had always been something Azriel loathed and wished he never had to do. Yet now, for a time, he had returned home to Velaris. As for how long he would stay, he had no idea. Orders alone had determined that factor and even those were ever changing.

The wind's chill nipped at Azriel's wings as he flew across the clear starry sky, peering down at the warm lights that littered Velaris' buildings and streets. Fewer people were out and about at this hour, and yet the city looked as lively as it did in the day. Perhaps some were going home after a fun night at a local bar, or others were merely enjoying the ever-beautiful scenery on a late-night walk. If only he had the free time to do so as well, he'd thought.

After circling the proximity of Velaris once over, he banked into the direction of the Townhouse. He would sleep there only for the night and leave again come dawn. As of late, Azriel had avoided staying at the Townhouse, at least for longer periods. But to his dismay, sleep softly called out to him, just as his shadows so often would.

From overhead, Azriel could see the Townhouse's gardens as he approached, making note of the newly planted flowers and sprouts that rimmed the tall hedges within.

It had been over a week since he was last in Velaris. Being here now, seeing the progress that had been made, he couldn't help but let his mind wonder about the one who tended to the gardens itself. He wondered about how she was doing, what else she was up to, and if she was doing alright.

His eyes continued to scan the gardens until they locked onto a pale mass of lilac, golden brown, and cream sitting upon one of the stone benches. The Shadowsinger knew exactly who it was. It was as if his thoughts of her had miraculously willed her into existence. The very girl that had constantly plagued his mind, plagued his mind just then.

But why was Elain in the gardens alone in the dead of night? On a chilly one no less? He had known Elain to be one to stay up late on occasion but being alone in the gardens at this hour was new.

Thoughts of what to do flit through his mind, contemplating whether to bank now and go inside before she noticed him or to see her— To talk to her and revel in the moment, to see if she is okay.

Desire wrestled with the fiends in his head, the ones that told him he shouldn’t. That told him he should go inside and sleep. To forget what he saw and stay away. That there was no need for someone like him to speak to someone like her.

Although it seemed that his mental war was all for naught. Quiet as his large wings were on the wind, it seemed as if Elain could still hear him coming from miles away. Like she had already known he was coming.

Her beautiful face turned upward in his direction, brown eyes wide in recognition. It was too late to turn away now. The female remained in her place, daring not to move as Azriel had landed a short distance away on soft feet. He flared his wings once before folding them in and tucking them closed.

They stared at one another before Elain bit her lip and spoke, “You’re back.”

Her voice was quiet and soft, and Azriel took a moment to just… Listen. His shadows had pooled to his feet at the sweet sound. Like they were in need of retreat.

He swiftly ducked his head to nod, “I am.” It wasn’t enough of an answer, not for her. “For now. I’ll be leaving again at dawn.”

“Oh… I see.” Elain’s eyes darted away from him as her hopeful expression faltered. “You must be tired, so I’ll–” Azriel shook his head.

She looked him up and down in worry, searching his eyes for some form of an answer.

“I’m fine.” He angled his head toward the flower sprouts across from them. “They’re coming along nicely.” A smile twitched onto Elain’s lips, and Azriel had known then that she was well aware of the subject change.

“I planted them a few days ago.” Right after he left if he had to guess. “They’re moonflower sprouts. They bloom after dusk until dawn.”

Azriel offered her a gentle smile, recalling that they were indeed one of the flowers that she had spoken about a time before. He could remember as much with little effort.

“Sit with me?” The sudden request made Azriel’s brows twitch in confusion. Elain stammered, “If it’s no trouble, I don’t mind the company.”

Azriel shouldn’t— Shouldn’t— but he couldn’t say no, not to her offer. Not to her. He stepped closer as she scooted down the bench a little, allowing him space to sit and move his wings to get comfortable, or at least as comfortable as anyone could get on a stone bench.

Being so close, the scent— Her scent of honey and jasmine was near enough to leave him intoxicated. His heart thrummed and he only hoped that she couldn’t hear it.

“Why are you outside this late?” The words slipped from Azriel’s lips faster than he could contemplate them.

Elain fumbled with the fabric of her lilac sleeping gown like she was thinking of what to say. “I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I would come out here for a bit to get some fresh air.” A partial lie. He knew that much, and judging by her expression, she knew that he was aware.

Was Elain like him too? Did she have endless voices in her head? Were they the ones responsible for keeping her awake at night like they did him?

Azriel blinked, his hazel eyes sliding down Elain’s form. Just in her gown, no shoes or socks, no coat. Long, wavy, golden-brown locks draped over an exposed shoulder, over her creamy skin— “It’s cool out, you should have grabbed a jacket.”

Elain’s cheeks flushed at the realization as she quickly averted her gaze from him once again, taking interest in the moon-bathed pavement. “I didn’t think it would get this cold…”

The male took a moment to think, to think over his immediate thoughts, and determine what to do. Anything to avoid messing this up. But if she was cold—

“I’ll be alright, please don’t worry.” She had known, caught on too quickly. Elain had read him all too well. She always did, he realized.

Moonlit doe eyes stared back at him once more. Doe eyes… How beautiful they were. And her bright reassuring smile— it was more than enough to make him weak in the knees, bright enough to put even his shadows at bay.

Azriel’s lips parted in an urge before they quickly shut again, quickly willing himself to speak. “At least let me keep you from freezing.” He could provide that much at the very least, if she let him.

Before Elain could speak, the Shadowsinger slowly extended his wing behind her back, though careful not to touch her and not to disturb the blue hydrangeas behind them.

An offer.

She sucked in a breath that sent shivers down his spine and glanced back at the sight. She then slid closer to him, just a few inches. Close enough that their thighs nearly touched. That large wing gently— carefully— ever so slowly curled around her far shoulder, as if he thought that any careless movement could harm her.

His wings alone were not incredibly warm but they did help to retain some semblance of body heat in times of need. At the very least, they could protect from the wind.

“Thank you.” Sweet. Her voice was too sweet. Like a song. Azriel dipped his chin in response, not knowing how to respond properly.

“Your wings,” Elain paused for a moment, focused entirely on the one resting against her back and curled around her side. “Do they get cold too?”

A laugh nearly instantly slipped from Azriel’s lips. A low and quiet chuckle. “Sometimes. The cold’s bite can be relentless.”

Perhaps it was due to his laugh or some other thing, but Elain’s shoulders loosened in ease. A smile bloomed back onto her face as she peered up at him. “It was a silly question, I apologize. I’m just curious.”

“Curiosity is harmless. Never apologize for it.” The male smiled back at Elain. “If you have questions, you may ask freely.”

“Even if my questions are frivolous?” Elain joked with a small giggle, raising a curled finger to her lips.

Azriel’s warm gaze softened at the lovely sound— her laugh. “Even if your questions are frivolous.” A silly reassurance, but a reassurance nonetheless.

Elain hummed as she stared up at Azriel, that smile never faltering. The shadowsinger was the first to break eye contact, fearing that if he looked at her too long, he might do something foolish. That he might fall victim to his desires more than he already had this night. He looked up at the stars instead, for any manner of distraction. It was nearing an hour past midnight, judging by the moon’s positioning.

“If I may be so selfish to ask,” Elain’s voice called his eyes back down to her. “Could we stay here for a while longer?” Her tone was laced with meek hope. Azriel tilted his head in inclination, wondering why.

Elain clenched her fists and her lips trembled. She was searching for an excuse, anything not to seem impolite or desperate, it seemed. Before she could speak, Azriel had beat her to it.

“Yes,” He took a breath, “Of course we can.” Elain’s hands unclenched after hearing his confirmation, seemingly relieved by it.

They sat together in a comfortable silence for a while, merely enjoying each other’s company and the scenery that surrounded them. The silence was nothing new between them and it had never been awkward before but tonight, oh this night felt… Different. Here they sat, where only the stars might witness them, while all of Velaris slept.

Sleep. The shadows whispered into his ears. The girl wants to sleep.

Azriel turned his head to peer down at Elain, right in time to witness her dozing figure lean against his arm. He assumed it was hardly comfortable, given that he was wearing his Illyrian leathers, but…

He stared, stared at her. At the way the loose strands of her hair framed her face. At her long lashes and perfect nose. Her soft lips. Her lips—

Sleep. His shadows continued to beckon. Sleep.

Azriel knocked himself out of his trance, a small frown forming on his face.

He didn’t want to disturb her rest but it was getting cooler by the minute and this was no place to sleep safely.

“Elain…” His voice was barely louder than the soft breeze. But her name— Her name rolling off his lips—

Elain merely gave him a barely audible broken hum. She was falling into a deeper sleep by the second.

“We should get you inside.” He received no response and hadn’t expected one.

Azriel sat there for a moment to consider what he should do. He then loosed a quiet sigh and moved to pick Elain up. Carefully, ever so carefully did he crane one arm underneath her legs and the other to support her back. The sudden absence of his wing had caused her to cling to him, to any semblance of warmth she could find against the frigid air.

Her head rested against the black scales of his leathers as the male started for the doors that led back inside from the gardens. Silently, the doors opened for Azriel, by the work of his shadows no less. He passed the threshold and the doors closed, then he began his ascent upon the foyer steps.

The trip to Elain’s room was short and uneventful, thank the Cauldron. If anyone had seen— There would be no excuses to be made, no believable farce to cover how they had looked in the moment. And more importantly, to disturb Elain’s peaceful rest, Azriel wouldn’t be able to forgive himself for it.

His shadows had willed her bedroom door open, and Azriel nudged it further with his foot before heading inside. Hazel eyes scanned the view before them, taking in all the details of the room.

Perhaps it was due to his habit as a Spymaster to do so, to analyze every little thing in sight. Not that Azriel hadn’t long since memorized the entire layout of the townhouse, including the placements of any weapons within, but this room— this room was uncharted territory. He’d kept true about Elain’s right to privacy after all.

Elain’s room was clean and tidy, and had smelled so strongly of her— The old vanity desk in the far left corner was littered with stacks of books, he’d guessed, that covered the arts of gardening and botany. Several seed pouches lay scattered about, each labeled with names of different flora.

On the opposite side of the room was the massive canopy bed, centered against the wall. The bed itself was big enough to accommodate Illyrian wings. Such a thing had been the standard for every bedroom in the townhouse, but Azriel could only imagine how much better the extra space was for those without wings.

The rich wood end tables that flanked the bedsides had been adorned with smaller potted plants. Each were with little budding flowers in hues of pinks and blues, although they were closed for the night.

The ivory covers of the bed itself were a mess, and Azriel had guessed that she indeed must have tried to sleep before getting up— just as she had said before.

Azriel moved through the room and gently laid Elain down in her bed, pulling off the strands of hair that had snagged onto his leathers. Elain had hardly stirred during any of it, to his favor.

Scarred hands pulled the soft covers up to Elain’s shoulders and all the male could do was halt. He couldn’t help but stare. She had looked so… So peaceful. Beautiful. Even bathed in the silver moonlight that the bay windows had offered, she still glowed like the light of the sun at dawn.

He wondered, how could anyone not fall to their knees before her? How could they even think to hurt someone such as her? Someone so warm and sweet— Endlessly giving and full of light— So gentle and yet so strong—

The Shadowsinger thoughtlessly leaned down to take in her features, bracing his hand on the bedside to keep himself balanced. Elain remained ever so still, breathing slow and soft.

Oh, how he yearned to be able to hold her in his gentle embrace. Yearned to make her smile and laugh. Yearned to lay with her in warmth and comfort. Yearned to place his hand on her cheek and lift her chin the way he wanted, to lean down and press his lips against hers—

Azriel’s other hand had lifted, he’d realized, frozen merely centimeters from touching Elain’s soft cheek. His hand— Hideous splotched scars had consumed his vision, and plagued his mind like the terrible fiends did. Calloused and burned hideousness covered in the blood of many. A hand that did nothing but kill, maim, and hurt. One undeserving of anything such as this.

His hand quickly jerked away from Elain’s cheek and formed a fist back at his side, as if his own ugliness would singe her perfect face, her beauty. As if his ugliness would cast a shadow over her light and snuff it out for good.

Azriel stumbled back three steps, releasing a series of shaky breaths. His heart rushed and ached more than anything he had ever felt. Sickness fell to the pit of his stomach.

Leave. He needed to leave.

His wings tucked closer to his body as he turned, quickly and quietly making way for the door.

Stay. His heart pleaded. Please stay.

No.

No— He couldn’t— He shouldn’t—

Shouldn’t— shouldn’t— shouldn’t—

He didn’t deserve her. Didn’t deserve this.

No one could ever hope to deserve someone as perfect as Elain. Not even himself. No matter how much he felt for her. No matter how much his heart had stirred as heavily as the crash of raging tides. No matter how much his heart yearned for her love, her light, for anything at all.

Elain was not his to love. She was a mated female after all. One who was forcibly shackled to that wretched mating bond like a beast locked in a cage. But even then, oh then, she was not his. Never his.

Azriel silently closed the bedroom door and hastened down the hall, desperately needing some form of space. Of air. Anything to calm his raging and hurting heart.

He quickly reached his room on the opposite side of the house and retreated inside without a thought. Azriel couldn’t even bear to look at his hands, the horrid sight they were. How could he? How could he when he had been so close to tainting her flesh?

Fool.

A fucking fool.

He shouldn’t have been so stupid as to linger. To let himself go astray and even attempt to touch Elain. Especially when she was sleeping, when she was at her most vulnerable— Wrong, it was all so wrong. He should have just left her to sleep in peace the moment he tucked her in.

The Shadowsinger sauntered over to his wardrobe and slowly stripped the leathers from his body, unbuckling the countless amounts of leather belts and undoing all of the strings and buttons. One by one, each article was removed and tossed onto an empty table nearby.

This room seemed empty compared to Elain’s. Lifeless. Most of his things had been moved to the House of Wind, they had been for a while now. So this room was no more than a ghost of what it once was, but even so, it served its purpose well enough.

Leaving none but two siphoned gloves on his hands to rest, Azriel grabbed a set of night pants and slipped them on. He then walked over to his bed and laid atop the fixed covers, facing toward his window to view the sky. Near instantly did the pains of the day’s stressors set back in. He’d forgotten all about them when he was with Elain, he realized. That, and his exhaustion too.

Time always flew when he was by her side. All of his pains and worries seemed to go away in her presence. Everything felt so right when he was with her. But it was wrong. Still, it was wrong. So then why? Why was Elain forced with another? Why, when she felt so right with him instead?

Why were his beloved brothers, Cassian and Rhysand, blessed by the Mother? The Cauldron? With something so lovely, so sacred as love itself? As a bond— Something so few could ever hope to have, that many dreamt about, but Azriel was left alone?

Was he truly so horrible, so unlovable and undeserving that not even the gods could give him that blessing? Did Fate itself really hate him as much?

Azriel couldn’t understand, even when he tried so hard to steel his mind to the pain and misunderstanding. When he tried so hard to make himself think that maybe it’s just not meant to be, and that it was okay.

Happy as he was for his brothers, he couldn’t help it. Couldn’t prevent the pain and envy that so viciously ripped and tore and clawed at his heart like some ravaged beast. Like an unforgiving fiend.

Perhaps he had no right to love and be loved in return.

Perhaps he had no right to experience something as sacred as a mating bond. Not with anyone.

Perhaps Elain had never even begun to see him in the light that he saw her.

Azriel’s eyelids grew heavy and he could no longer fight the ever growing fatigue. His view of the moon outside had begun to fade to black.

Elain…

Her smile alone was the last thought that his clouded mind could muster before the darkness took him, just as it always had, body and soul. Just as he knew it always would.

#elriel #acotar #pro elriel #elain x azriel #azriel shadowsinger #elain archeron #a court of thorns and roses #azriel #elriel fic #azriel and elain #elain and azriel #azriel x elain

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thoughtspresso · 10 months

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This Tweet by Aka Akasaka:

I always thought there was something unhealthy about Akane’s relationship with Aqua. And while I don’t think she had ill intent, personally, it’s just like a lot of people you may have met that also either had depression or have very unstable support systems -- they tend to depend heavily on people who did treat them with kindness and gave them affection. Albeit, not by their conscious effort to use people, simply a reflex driven by a personal need to feel useful and appreciated by the people they feel love for.

Spoilers after the break.

In many scenes after Akane’s attempt during the LoveNow arc, it’s shown that she’s become to give a lot of herself to whatever it is she thought Aqua would need of her. She was happy to give those things, including:

Act as his dream girl

Be his showbiz girlfriend even with her awareness that he’s using her

Help him kill somebody in the industry

Bear his emotional burdens

Kissing and sex, even during their showbiz relationship

Listening to her romantic rival brag about their steakhouse date and be cool with it

Being in a relationship with somebody who she knows still bears feelings for somebody else

Being okay with getting bugged/GPS-tracked if only he said so

Tracking down his father for him

Confronting and possibly killing him herself so Aqua doesn’t have to

I do think that Akane genuinely believes she was being helpful. She believes doing these were all good things.

But what she doesn’t really realize is that she was, in a way, being an enabler to Aqua’s darkness, or triggering his traumatic feelings even further.

There was something consuming about their time together.

I felt like, Akane was absorbing him somehow. Not in the literal sense. But their relationship was one where they fed into each other’s darkness. She wanted Aqua to be more dependent on her, and he was kind of glad to have someone enable his delusions--whether that he would find and kill his father, or that it was all over and he should just stay with Akane because it was the safe, scandal-free relationship to have. In Akane he found a brief respit, but also he continued to lie to himself a lot.

He gives this up when he realizes that even with Akane, being with her puts her in danger. It was the very opposite of the thing he hoped to achieve in that relationship, when he said he wanted to protect her.

In really stark contrast, Arima Kana says things like this:

She just snaps him right out of a fucking monologue.

Whenever Aqua tries to bear everything by himself, she reminds him crudely that he never had to protect her, and that he’s supposed to learn how to communicate:

In a way, it’s Kana’s radical honesty and her core understanding of who the true Aqua is all along that will set him towards the path of real freedom and healing.

Of everybody, she’s the one who knows what Aqua is like when he was at his best. And every time they’re together, they draw out the light from each other.

That, instead of Akane who says “I’ll go to hell with you if you ask”, Kana just says, “Wake the fuck up”.

So often, being stuck in your trauma also means that you need help getting out of it. You need good support systems to remind you that your trauma isn’t all that you are. And this all-consuming guilt you’ve borne on your shoulders isn’t really there anymore--you just believe that it is because that’s exactly what trauma does.

I think, despite Akane’s best attempts to remind him that things weren’t his fault, and that he doesn’t have to carry burdens by himself, the fact that she enjoyed being useful to him was, in some way, also keeping him there.

I know that there are a lot of great Kana moments after the baseball scene, but I’ve come to love coming back to their first time meeting each other again.

Even in her first re-appearance in the story, when Aqua was being all angsty emo sadboie about his acting career, Kana’s immediate reaction is to hire him, and believe in him.

Kana just wants to see him shine, too.

The way he makes her shine.

#oshi no ko #oshi no ko spoilers #oshi no ko fan theories #aquakana #aqua x kana #arima kana #hoshino aqua

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horseshoegirl · 9 months

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Damn Those Dog Tags: Part 15 - Have You Ever Seen The Rain

📖I need to make two apologies. First, I am so sorry for the long delay. While work was beating my ass, I actually received a rude comment on my Wattpad account for the last chapter that triggered a horrible writer's block. It was taken care of, and it didn't bother me at the time, but I didn't realize how much it affected me until I started to write. Then I decided to use it for inspiration!

Secondly, I'm so sorry for what is about to unfold. This one was planned from the get-go (which is also probably why I struggled because this is the one chapter I dreaded having to write).

(I'll be running from the pitchforks as they come, Woot Woot!)

❗️+18, strong language, godmother reader/original female character, Mentions of an original child, Shitty family dynamics, Angst, verbal fights, sexist implications, one slap across the face, and Jake being Hangman.

#6k words

Part 14 | Masterlist | Part 16

The story behind how you started ego-checking some of the cocksure pilots at Hard Deck is less interesting than one might think.

It all started with a game.

You weren't kidding when you told Jake you were a library, loving geek who'd rather spend her time deep in the stacks. That was the plot of your entire post-secondary experience. You didn't know how to flirt. You stayed clear of frat parties and cliquey groups. And if a guy tried to flirt with you, you ran for the freaking hills without a backward glance.

You only decided to take that bartending job in building H's damp, dark basement because you were dead-ass broke. But the thing about being a bartender on a University campus, there were moments when you had nothing but time on your hands.

You had to get creative.

Looking back, you would blame the writer-orientated part of your mind that decided to create that little game of making up stories for the people who regularly visited the miserable bar.

The quiet girl, always sitting in the back corner, cramming for a test or writing a paper. Did she like the ambience, or was she avoiding the library? Or was she trying to work up the nerve to ask out one of the bussers, waiting for the perfect meet cute?

Maybe the nerds who gathered every Friday at the arcade-style game consoles playing Pac-Man needed to leave their dorm because Friday nights tended to be the one night everyone liked to party.

Those popular girls sitting around a table with their $5 cocktails, lowcut tanktops, and jean shorts, always on their phones gossiping over the latest social media post from their favourite celebrities. Did they have Regina George in their ranks? Which one was sleeping with the other's boyfriend? How much blackmail did they have on each other?

Which one would murder the other first?

That little game you invented for yourself got you out of your shell. It also made it easier to deal with the persistent football jocks who'd try to flirt with you for a free shot.

Ridley would always get a kick out of it whenever you told her. You'd always imagined her curling up in a ball and kicking her feet back and forth while she squealed in laughter over the phone.

"Be a character in one of your freaking stories. Or better yet, act it out! You're a damn writer, Lizzie."

She was right. So you did.

You'd never forget the laughter of that football jock when your rejection of his flirting attempts to weasel a free drink out of you resulted in his childish reply of, "Well, nobody's perfect, Sweetheart, least of all you."

"I never said I was," you had said with a smile.

You must have said something right because a few minutes later, Penny was introducing herself and chatting you up, asking if you wanted a better job bartending.

You were all too happy to leave. But nothing could have prepared you for the hotshot, ego-driven, and stupidly horny Top Gun pilots who frequented the Hard Deck.

Between remembering their drink order or what side of the room they tended to gravitate towards, you needed more than your little guessing game to figure out their tells. You did pick up little things about them, though.

The WSOs were the kindest; ironically, they stood out in the crowds. Always a kind smile, never a bad thing to say about anyone.

The female pilots were always badass. At least, you thought so. Strong. Always commandeering the room the second they walked in. Always nice, no question about it. But mess with them; you got schooled hard.

They were the literal definition behind the saying, 'Do no harm, but take no shit.'

And with each new group that came in, the male pilots, the single flyers you had called them, paled compared to those jocks. They never changed. A pair constantly vied for first place with each new group that came through the Top Gun program.

Always a pair of males. Women always knew there was more at stake than a freaking trophy.

Those guys talked to you. Well... properly flirted at you.

That's where your little game came in handy. Picking out the little things about them, letting your mind do the creative parts next. It's how you turned Jake down so quickly that first time.

But the guy currently approaching the bar? He did not fit the bill of any regular customer you had seen in a while.

Tourists came and went without question. They stood out like a pack of flies, unsure where to go, with friendly faces and always asking what the best places were. They tipped great, and they never returned.

This guy?

Not a tourist.

He was from out of town. The plaid shirt, jeans and cowboy boots were unusual for a California bar. It was also how he gaped at the walls and ceiling, taking in all the Navy memorabilia Penny had collected over the years. If you hadn't been paying attention, you could have sworn there was a look of distaste on his face with each new item he saw.

But what irked you was the sense of familiarity you couldn't place while looking at him. Blonde hair and a sharp face. Something in how he carried that toothpick between his teeth, not in the way god forbid fucking Tyler had, but as if it was a piece of grass. Also, in the way he walked.

Then he openly leered at a woman's ass as she walked by, and it all made sense.

Ah, a Wham, Bam, Thank You, Mam.

He sat in the empty chair directly in front of you, still watching the women's retreating form. You didn't want to serve him, but a tiny part of you hoped your assumption had been wrong.

It had been a while since you had to rebuff flirty advances; the newer pilots going through the Top Gun Program hardly said anything to you except smile and relay their order.

You suspected Jake was behind it.

"What can I get you?" you smiled at the guy. He slowly pulled his eyes away with a sly grin. The second he caught sight of your face, his mouth stretched even wider as he leaned forward on the bar.

"Your number and the name of a good hotel."

You should have known better.

If it looked like a duck, it quacked like a duck too.

Resisting the urge to roll your eyes, you straightened the line of shot glasses under the bar, not once looking up as you answered him. "Well, I can answer one out of two of those questions, but I'm afraid the only hotels around here are resorts. There is a bed and breakfast about ten minutes down the road that will give you a good deal."

"Will they give me a good deal if I mention your name?"

"Only my friends know my name, and you are simply a customer sitting at my bar wanting a drink?" you raised your eyebrow, tapping your finger against the bar.

He made a show of thinking about it, rocking his shoulders back and forth. He finally nodded, leaning forward to answer you.

"Whiskey. Straight."

You recognized his accent as you reached beneath the bar to grab the bottle. It was more pronounced and slightly more profound, but without a doubt, he sounded like Jake.

Good old southern Texas Charm.

Normally you'd engage in small talk, but you wanted nothing more than to leave this asshole alone. Thinking he'd leave it be after you poured him his drink, you slid the glass forward, then made your way over to the other side of the bar.

The words he called out after you made you stop in your tracks.

"You must get attention all the time. Having your pick of the litter each year."

You whipped around, offended. " Are you calling me easy?!"

He shrugged. "I'm just saying a good-looking woman like yourself, in this place... you clearly aren't sticking around because of the pay."

Oh, you wanted this guy gone. That could have been one of the most double-standard comments you had ever received. Old Liz would have sputtered, maybe run into the back fridge and asked one of the other bartenders to handle it.

You now? No chance in hell. If he were going to give it, you would give it right back. You weren't going to play the boyfriend card. You could fight your own battles, and something told you even if you told him you had a boyfriend, he'd think you were lying. He seemed like the type that wouldn't take no for an answer.

"You've got some nerve." You crossed your arms, matching back to him from the other side of the bar. "Let's get one thing straight. I'm not here because I'm looking for attention or have trouble finding a date. You've spent all of two minutes sitting at this bar, talking shit, while I've been fighting the urge to point out your confusion regarding basic anatomy."

He raised his eyebrows at your reply. "My confusion?"

You leaned forward, resting your arms upon the bar, eyeing him sourly. "Is your mouth your asshole, or are you just one?"

It was one of the more cruder remarks you had ever responded with. But this guy was trying to go for gold. Unphased, he leaned back in his chair, throwing his hands up. "Hey, no need to be aggressive. You should take it as a compliment. I never called you anything derogatory."

You huffed, pushing yourself away from him, rolling your eyes. "Calling me good-looking, then proceeding to say I'm only working here because it's 'easy to access' is still calling a woman a slut. You don't need to say the word to imply the meaning."

You ripped the dishrag from your shoulder, running it under the tap, muttering more to yourself, "There's no way that shit works on women."

"It does on the women back home," he answered you.

"Oh, so are you staying? Don't tell me you're a new pilot at Top Gun."

They'll beat that attitude right out of you.

"Oh, I'm just passing through. I figured I'd scout out the area. I heard this was a Navy bar. Don't understand what all the fuss is about."

You didn't answer him. Opening your mouth only led to him replying, and the quicker he finished his drink, the faster he'd leave. He took your silence as a means to continue.

"Still playing hard to get?"

"You ask me a question. I might choose not to answer."

"Wow. Subtle."

You turned, a hand on your hip. "You can't honestly expect me to speak to you, a complete stranger, after the way you just undermined my job because I'm not giving to your attempts. There is nothing to get."

He smiled, holding out his hand. "George Seresin. There, not a stranger."

Well, shit.

You wanted to hang your mouth open like a fish. You were staring down Jake's brother.

Now you understood Jake's reaction to Janet's warning. His anxious behaviour in the back of his truck. His lost-in-thought stares or the way he couldn't stop looking at you and Sadie when he came home from work this week.

George Seresin was a very unwelcome, uninvited and long-awaited guest.

Something snapped in your stomach, a twinge of weariness that Jake didn't confide in you. Then again, your slight disappointment was overshadowed by something greater.

Clearly, you were fated to ego-check both Seresin brothers while standing behind this bar. Because the idea came without warning, without doubt, or any sense of hesitancy.

George Seresin was at the Hard Deck.

He was right in front of you, trying to flirt with you without any idea who you were.

And he was sitting in the best spot in the entire place.

It was too good of an opportunity to pass up.

You stepped backwards, turning to lean up against the bar. As you did with Jake all those months ago, you took the rag and started to wipe.

"So let me get this straight," you said, dragging the damp cloth around his glass, not once looking up. "I tell you my name in some effort to prove we are not strangers. I'm supposed to forget about your 'comments,' so you can use that good old Texas charm to woo me into your bed with a promise of a good time?"

You finally looked up, George only staring back at you with a heated smoulder.

"Something tells me none of those loose cannons cannot even promise you a good time. A quick roll in the sheets before they let some brass monkey in a fancy suit tell them where to shoot. You look like you could let loose for once in your life."

You froze, losing your grip on the rag and fingers twitching. Scanning Jake’s brother, you leaned against the bar, resting your weight on your elbows, throwing the fabric over your shoulder as you got inside his bubble. You never once broke eye contact as you pinned him down.

George bought it, hook, line and sinker. He was so focused on you and your face that he was oblivious to everything and everyone around him, including how your hand slowly reached up toward the rope hanging from the top of the bar.

The second he looked at your lips, you tugged.

Cheers and music flooded the Hard Deck when everyone heard the distinct ring of the barbell. You guessed the song right away, old habits dying hard. Slow Ride, its distinct beat letting you know Jake was here and he had seen the whole thing.

George reeled back, shocked as a few people came up and slapped him on the back, thanking him. You laughed softly at his reaction, pushing yourself away to help the few customers you knew who would take advantage of the free drink.

You had never rang the bell for someone like him. George Seresin would be the only exception.

"What the hell just happened?" he called after you. You didn't bother turning around, flinging your hand to gesture over your head, "Read the sign!"

George followed the direction of your hand, landing on the piece of wood dangling by the silver chain.

You disrespect a lady, the navy, or you put your cell phone on the bar, you buy a round.

You had already helped a few customers when he managed to tear his eyes away to glare at you heatedly. You turned to face him with a gleeful grin. Instead of asking him which one he thought you rang him out for, you started teasingly singing along to the chorus.

You hadn't done that in a while. It felt good.

"What did he do to warrant that?"

You smiled up at Jake as he approached the bar. He never took his eyes off you as he leaned on his elbow against the top of the bar beside George.

"What do you think?" you laughed at him.

Jake smirked. "I'd say he didn't take no for an answer."

"He did a little more than that. Tell him to put his cell phone on the bar, and he'd get three out of three."

"Ouch," Jake dramatically drawled. He finally turned his head, nodding once in his brother's direction. "Hi, Georgie."

You stiffed a giggle.

George huffed, jutting his chin out in your direction. "This one is trouble."

"Don't I know it," Jake said, looking back at you. "Pulled the same trick on me the first time I met her. Only she didn't ring the bell. Guess I did something right, considering she let me come back."

George glanced between you and Jake several times, and you could see the gears grinding in his head.

"Hi," you beamed at him, walking over and holding out your hand. "Elizabeth Beck. Your brother's girlfriend. I guess we aren't strangers after all."

George stared down at your hand, then gritting his teeth, knocking back another gulp of whiskey. He spat out his following words with the glass still to his lips, "So you are real. Jake, there's no way you're dating her."

You didn't try to hide the snark from your voice as you lowered your hand. "You thought I was imaginary? Sorry to disappoint."

George still chose to ignore you. "What's the matter, little brother? Need your girlfriend to speak for you?"

Jake stiffened, and it took everything in you not to ring the bell once more. Cause you knew if you did, Jake would be the one to help throw George out, and you didn't know what repercussions he could face.

"At least he has a girlfriend," you scoffed. "I can't imagine you've ever had a meaningful relationship with how you treat women."

You spied his empty whiskey glass, grabbing it firmly.

"Wham."

Sliding it across the bar's smooth surface, you caught it in the palm of your other hand.

"Bam."

Reaching into the pocket of your apron with your free hand, you slapped his bill down in front of him, rounds and all, attempting your best version of a Texan accent.

"Thank you, Mam."

Not wanting to waste more time on him, you turned to Jake, slightly worried. Some of you didn't know how to act around Jake when he was like this. When he was so... Hangman.

You gently touched his wrist, murmuring softly, "I'll see you in a half hour?"

He twisted his arm in your grasp, sliding his hand down so he could gently squeeze yours. But his eyes screamed a different, intense, unsettling story. As if he was assessing you for any threat.

"Sure."

You tried not to let it bother you, his non-chalent reply. Trying not to frown, you let go of his wrist to serve another customer, calling out as you walked away, "It was nice meeting you, Georgie!"

Jake watched you go with a slight turn of his head, proud you one-upped his brother but wishing you didn't leave him alone.

He knew why George was here. What he wanted him to do. No amount of smirk, cockiness, or even Hangman, could save Jake from this. George was the grave reminder that no matter where the Navy sent him, whether in California or on the other side of the world, there was no end to the metaphorical leash the 'hell bringer' had on both of his sons.

George scraped his chair back to stand. "Come on, little brother," he gruffed out, tossing his credit card onto the bar. "We need to have a chat."

—-

With Ridley's Jean jacket in hand and your bag, you placed them on the bar as you greeted Jimmy after finishing your shift. "Can you watch these for a second, Jimmy? I'm just going to the bathroom before I find Jake. We're going to pick Sadie up from Penny's and take her out for dinner."

The older man smiled. "She's feeling better?"

You nodded. "Mild concussion. She was okay after a few days and back at school. Bummed about not being able to play in soccer playoffs, though. Hence the trip."

"That girl loves her soccer. What a shame."

"Jake's is making it easier on her. I don't know what I would do without him."

He tilted his head towards the bathroom hall with a knowing grin. "Go get ready for your date."

You blushed, walking away, calling over your shoulder, "It's not a date!"

After freshening yourself up, you took a few moments to stare at yourself in the bathroom mirror. You saw the famous callsign board hanging on the wall behind you. You scanned the names from the mirror, looking for Jake's, doing a double take when you couldn’t find it. You turned, properly facing the wall.

Like the sign in the bar, it was a piece of wood with the words engraved into the top, “Ladies Beware: Navigate the Hard Deck with Care!” and underneath that, “Pilots who fly solo.” Several metal slots were glued to the surface, designed so she could easily slide plastic slate with a pilot’s callsign into place.

You recognized a few, even Rooster's, though his was listed way further down, out of harm’s way. But Jake's was nowhere to be found.

Then you realized - Penny had taken his name off.

She didn't do that for a lot of people. You could only recall one other instance when she removed a pilot's callsign from that board. She prided herself on it, so much so she never removed Maverick's at the top of the list, even after they got back together.

You needed to tell Jake.

With a hint of a smile, you eagerly walked out of the bathroom to find him. He was standing with George at the pool table, the elder Seresin brother lining up a shot as he spoke. As you approached them, you honed in on Jake, realizing he looked uncomfortable. Stiff, shoulders square, and his fists were clenched tight.

The closer you got, the more you heard of their conversation, and when you heard Sadie's name fall from George's mouth, you froze. Hearing him utter her name, especially in that hardened tone, was a punch to the gut. The urge to hide behind one of the support pillars in the middle of the room at the last second was too great to ignore, and you made yourself as small as possible.

You had stumbled upon a conversation you weren’t supposed to hear. George’s voice accompanied the sound of the eight-ball scattering the balls across the table.

"Come on, man," he said, his tone laced with arrogance. "Think about it. She threw her whole life away for her niece. She's tied down now, and you deserve someone who can give you more than that."

Jake remained silent. George continued, encouraged by his lack of protest. "You're a Navy pilot, for crying out loud. You could have anyone you want. Why settle for a girl with so much baggage?"

You weren’t stupid. You knew enough about George to realize he was the golden child, the favourite used to getting his way. George would only see you as Jake’s attempt to one-up him on something.

“You know why I'm here,” you heard him say firmly. “Dad doesn’t approve. He wants you to know if you continue on with her, you will never be welcomed back home.”

You swallowed hard, a knot forming in your stomach. There would never be a time when you asked Jake to choose you over his family, even with what you knew. You wanted to go out there, but this was Jake’s battle. Storming out to threaten anything but a kick to the balls was out of the question.

But when Jake finally spoke, his words were like shards of ice piercing your skin.

"Yeah, you're right."

A strangled noise escaped from you, a sound of raw pain and disbelief. You clapped your hands over your mouth, trying to muffle the sob threatening to escape. George’s reply triggered the blood rushing through your ears, the pain in your forearm from your nails biting hard into the skin.

“You know I am,” he laughed, another clack of the pool balls sounding out. “

There was only one way you saw this - Jake played you like he played those other bartenders.

You couldn’t hide any longer. You pushed yourself away from the pillar, swerving around to confront them.

“So Sadie and I were just a game to you?”

Jake turned sharply, shock in his eyes. “Liz,” he held his hands out in front of him. “It’s not what…”

“Not what?” you said heatedly, tears streaming from your eyes. “I heard plenty!”

He opened his mouth to say something, but the words died in his throat, confronted with your beat red face and tears. You were not supposed to hear all that.

The shock on his face was not enough to erase the sting of his words.

"Come on, Liz. You don't understand... it's..."

"What's there to understand, Jake?" you interjected, your voice seething with a volatile mix of pain and anger. "That I'm just another one of your bartenders?"

“Liz, don’t.”

“Enlighten me, Jake.” You crossed your arms. “Tell me all the reasons why. That bringing me flowers wasn’t a game. That getting close to my niece wasn’t a game. Asking me to give you a chance, taking me out on a date.”

You sobbed. “Taking me up in that damn plane.”

The thought was erupt, tearing itself from the deepest part of your mind. You couldn’t help it, the words spilling out in blinded anger. “Was my grief an opportunity for you to get into my pants? Telling me it would be alright so you could leave me high and dry? Telling me it was going to be okay?”

There was a sudden shift in his expression, his gaze hardening. As if a switch had been flipped, the warm, understanding man you knew disappeared, replaced by a stranger draped in defensiveness and sarcasm.

"Oh, excuse me," he declared. "I didn't realize I was your knight in shining armour, rushing to your rescue the second you need all your problems fixed. The girl who never had a relationship, thinking a man would solve all her issues."

The words hit you like a physical blow, your knees nearly buckling beneath you. Jake's harsh gaze didn't match his usual soft and protective demeanour. It was like looking at a stranger, someone you didn't recognize. The man before you was not the Jake you'd fallen for.

This man reminded you of your father.

Was this his plan all along? You racked your mind, searching for any indication this had been coming. But what only stood out was Rooster's words echoing in your head where you found none.

Did you really only add your name to the list of women Hangman had pursued?

Because here and now, those months of working through the trauma of losing Ridley didn't matter.

Was anything about this past year even worth it? The moments you worked through when you would avoid anyone mentioning her because acknowledging her in the past tense was too much. Avoiding the things that reminded you of her. Till helped you through it.

She would know what to say right now. She would be the one beating his ass with verbiage and scathing remarks. She would nail the moment and get it right.

It hit you, the hidden weight of how desperately you missed her.

Suddenly, you were that girl again, starting her first shift in that basement bar, wondering what to say to the students who saw you as a mere bookworm with no character or class - because you couldn't compare to the girl sitting in the corner writing her paper, actually having the courage to ask that busboy out.

Or the geeks in the corner cheering as hard as they did when they beat their high score on the console, uncaring of strange looks. Or that girl, finally standing up to her 'so-called friends' when one had been spreading rumours and crude remarks about her to the others behind her back.

He really did leave you out to dry.

"Stay the fuck away from my niece," you managed to gasp through your tears. "And stay the fuck away from me."

You wanted to believe your assumption that Jake was merely putting on a front. Hangman, his alternate self, was his attempt at protecting himself.

You had a hard time doing so.

There, plain as day, across his face was the most condensing grin you had ever seen as he dramatically drawled out slowly, "No fucking problem, sweetheart."

You didn't believe in thinking about everything you regretted throughout your life. Ridley was the only exception; if you had done more, moved back home after school, or gone to the police the day you kicked Tyler out, maybe she'd still be here. You couldn't change what had happened in your life, so spending time thinking about it in the present wouldn't do you much good.

So it was no surprise to you when you followed through with your knee-deep reaction, your hand coming up out of nowhere, open and firm, slapping Jake hard enough across the side of his face, his head turning with the force of it.

You knew you shouldn't have. You weren't a violent person by any means. Next to Tyler, you never had raised a hand to anyone. You were too hurt to care you just slapped him.

That should have scared you shitless.

Rather than voice the obvious, you remained silent, allowing every repressed thought, every buried emotion to resurface.

Ridley - dead.

Sadie - hurt.

Tyler - lurking.

Bradley - damaging.

It was all too much.

George's figure stood out from behind Jake amongst your blurry vision, tears creating a vignette in your line of sight. You tore past Jake, sticking your finger out only to push George square in his chest. He stepped back at the force, hand shooting out to balance himself against the pool table.

Jake wouldn't have done that had George not shown up. Had he not played with Jake's emotions.

"You need a fucking ego check and to grow the fuck up," you seethed at him. "I don't know whose got your balls on a very tight leash, but you have no right to go around and fucking up other people's relationships."

George didn't answer you, taking his hand off the table to stand properly. You pressed him again. "Does it give you some sick fucking pleasure to hurt your brother? Dad loves me best, so I'm going to remind everyone just cause I can?"

George was still avoiding your heated glare, fixating on his football ring, twisting the piece of metal back and forth. It only pissed you off further.

"My eyes are over here, Jackass! Have the decency to look me in the fucking eyes when I'm talking to you."

If nobody had been watching when you slapped Jake, you clearly had their attention now. Even with the music blasting from the speakers, every conversation in the Hard deck had gone quiet. You could feel everyone's eyes on you, but you couldn't care less.

You were too far gone.

George slowly cocked his head to face you. Your breath was harsh, your body jolting with each gasp as you gave in to the anger. "My sister died, and I took in my niece. What's so fucking wrong about that? That I threw my life away, that I have no future?"

He shifted on his feet, about to transfer the pool stick into his other hand, when you reached out and snatched it out of his grasp, tossing it behind you with a clack.

"You're damn right I did! That's what you do for people you love. I would sacrifice my entire life so she could have hers. And I would do it again in a fucking heartbeat. I will stay on the other side of that bar for the rest of my so-called miserable life, getting catcalled and dealing with assholes like you if it gives her the best shot with the shitty hand she's dealt. You, George Seresin, have no right to judge the choices I've made in my life."

Your breathing was harsh, ribs aching with effort. Every vein, every pore, was consumed with pure white rage. And yet, you still found yourself growling out, "You have no right judging your brothers either."

Even after breaking your heart, you still stood up for Jake.

"He risks his life every single time he goes up in that jet just so the whole world can fucking survive. So you can go on day in and day out and let your father control what you want to do with your life. So you can gallant around letting someone who has lived their life decide what you do with the rest of yours? So Jake’s here for you to bully and control every time he comes home? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

The burning sensation in your cheeks mirrored the fire in your eyes, unshed tears making them shine brighter. The salty sting of tears blurring your vision did little to diminish the searing gaze you levelled at George.

"My sister believed everyone deserved a chance. That people cared, regardless of what they did or who they were. I had forgotten that until my niece invited Jake to a barbeque, till she invited him on a hike because he was being treated differently. Despite what I heard and everyone telling me otherwise, listing off why I shouldn’t. That he will hurt me and my niece, and I still gave him a chance.”

Squaring your shoulders and balling your hands to fists at your side, you take a step forward, a dangerous glint in your eyes. You lean towards him, your face close enough to feel his breath, your jaw clenched and muscles tight.

"You are the first person ever to prove my sister wrong,” your voice is dangerously low, underlying anger accompanying each word. “You sure as hell don't deserve that sentiment."

As you stepped away, George lifted his head to glance around the room, everyone's eyes pinning him down. The older Top Gun instructors had stood at their tables and chairs, arms crossed. Some of the current students in the program also stood, the others sending him the most scathing glares they could manage. Even some regulars who weren't aviators were casting him a scornful glance.

You spun, ready to leave him in embarrassment and escape this literal fucking mess, when you caught Jake's bewildered gaze, his mouth hanging open in slight shock.

You weren't sure whether it was that look or the dying embers of your outburst that made you spin back around to snarl, "So, leave your brother the fuck alone! Live your own goddamn life without judging others for the choices they make! Cause you sure as hell don't know what it means to sacrifice something for those you love. If you need an example, look around this goddamn room."

Jake reached for your wrist as you charged toward the front door. The second you felt his touch, you shook your hand loose, a wrenching sob tearing through your chest.

"Don't fucking touch me!"

You didn't bother seeing his reaction to your remark, rushing to grab your bag and Ridley's jean jacket off the bar.

The skin around your wrist burned from his touch, the rough callouses once a comfort but now felt like coarse sandpaper. You wanted to get under a shower or jump in the sea, hoping to remove the feeling of every memory, kiss, and word.

God, you let him touch you. Do things with you.

You were going to throw up.

God forbid you didn't want to walk home. But you needed to go, be anywhere but here, and you didn't have your car. Barely keeping it together as you took off toward the door, you had half a mind to look up to watch where you were going, deaf to Jake's shouts of your name.

There was Bradley, sitting in the first booth by the door. His brow furrowed as you made your way over to him, probably having witnessed the ordeal. You were too upset even to question why he wasn't marching across the bar, ready to knock Jake to next Sunday.

It had been weeks since the fight, with no communication in between. But it was a distant memory compared to this.

It didn't matter what he implied. It didn't matter what happened in your hallway.

It didn't matter.

You just needed your friend.

With each step you took toward him, your shame only grew greater. You couldn't even look him in the eye when you stopped, standing next to his side of the booth, hugging yourself tighter.

"Can you take me home, Bradley? I don't want to be here anymore."

Bradley's opportunity to act smug had finally arrived. But he didn't do anything other than frown. Standing up from his booth, he threw a few bills onto the table before blocking everyone's view of you. He placed a comforting hand on your back, gently pressing you forward as he uttered quietly, "Of course I can, Liz."

You kept your head down as you stepped towards the door, but Bradley, so willing to help you without so much of an 'I told you so,' made whatever resolve you had, crumble. Your knees wobbled, and your heart dropped into your stomach. You fell, and Bradley's arm whipped out, gripping your hip and pulling you tight to his side to support your weight.

Burying your head into Bradley's shoulder, you hid your face. You didn't want to see the looks of everyone in the Hard Deck, whether pity, concern, or applause, as another wave of tears wrecked your body.

Closing your eyes seemed better than reliving the truth.

And because you kept them shut, you didn't see George place a hand on Jake's shoulder, preventing him from going after you. Nor did you see the look of devastation wreck his face; the weight of every wrong decision he had ever made coming back to haunt him.

Whether Jake turned on a dime to punch George square in the jaw, you heard none of it. You hadn't even bothered to turn back to look as Bradley carried you out the front door.

.... So... Who is going to pitchfork me first? 👀

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Part 16 - In the Blood coming soon

Wickett ;)

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cirilla-fiona-riannon · 2 months

Text

Galileo Galilei Main Story

Translations may not always capture the exact nuances or tone of the original text. This is just a rough translation. Not proofread.

Mitsuki: "Is this a Blanc flower!?"

My eyes were glued to the picture of the flower in the book.

(It looks similar. It's the same as the flower I saw in that garden.)

Comte: "You won't find them at normal flower shops, and they don't bloom in places where people can easily see them."

Comte: "Only vampires know about the existence of this flower."

(Only vampires?)

Mitsuki: "So this flower is incredibly rare, huh?"

Comte: "Yes. In fact, some vampires secretly cultivate them."

Comte: "Although it's just a substitute, for us vampires, the Blanc is the only thing that can serve as nourishment."

Mitsuki: "So, do you have these flowers somewhere too?"

Comte playfully smiled and put his index finger to his lips.

Comte: "Who knows? Maybe?"

After finishing work, I headed to the mansion's garden, where the flowers that Sebastian and I were tending were swaying lazily in the breeze.

(I wonder if the flowers in the garden where Professor Maury was were Blancs. Or just similar?)

(If it really is Blanc, given its rarity, that would mean it's intentionally being cultivated.)

(A flower known only to vampires...)

As I pondered, the words we exchanged came back to me.

------------Flashback-----------

Maury: "You said the other day that stopping by that garden was just a coincidence." Maury: "I ask again. Is that true?"

(Was he checking to see if it was a coincidence that I went to the garden because those flowers were blancs?)

(Also...)

Maury: “What’s the point if I don’t stop the bleeding? Or are you going to leave it dripping everywhere?” Maury: “It’s annoying to have the smell lingering around.”

---------Flashback Ends--------

(Can you even smell blood from an injury of that size?)

I started noticing trivial things and began connecting the dots.

(Is Professor Maury a vampire?)

(Maybe Drake, who lives with him, is also the same. Or maybe I'm overthinking it.)

(They say that some vampires live among humans.)

(Even if they are both vampires, it's not my place to interfere.)

As possibilities raced through my mind, I suddenly remembered the red flowers blooming in the garden.

(That reminds me... ever since I visited that garden, I started dreaming about being a dhampir.)

The moment I saw the deep crimson flowers, I suddenly felt dizzy.

(If that was the trigger, then is there any connection between the garden and my dreams?)

Several days have passed since I started questioning things.

(I couldn't help but be curious, so I came here.)

Wanting to confirm if the Blanc flowers are related to my dreams, I visited Professor Maury and Drake's house once again.

Nobody answered the front door, so I circled to the inner garden and was greeted by the same gorgeous, pure white flowers.

Mitsuki: "Hello, Professor Maury? Drake, are you guys here?"

Getting no response, I crouched down and stared at the flowers.

(They're just like the ones in the book. These are indeed Blanc flowers.)

Despite my hesitation, I continued toward the back of the garden, where the red flowers were densely clustered.

(Comte told me the flowers are white, but why are the petals red only in this area?)

(It's as if they've absorbed blood.)

I pictured the image of Professor Maury with empty eyes, eating the red flowers.

Then, at that moment,

Maury: "What are you doing here?"

Mitsuki: "!"

I turned around at the cold, sharp voice and saw Professor Maury.

Mitsuki: "I'm sorry, I went to the front door a moment ago, but..."

Maury: "Answer the question. Why are you here again?"

Mitsuki: "Because I wanted to see these flowers."

Maury: "Why?

(Why?)

Faced with these questions, I hesitantly decided to speak up.

Mitsuki: "I've been having strange dreams."

Maury: "Dreams?"

Mitsuki: "Since I came to this garden, I've been having nightmares."

Mitsuki: "I thought there might be some connection, so I came to check."

Maury: "You think your nightmares are because of these flowers?"

Mitsuki: "I think it's possible."

Maury: "On what basis?"

Mitsuki: "It's merely a small similarity, but..."

(The dreams and the Blanc flowers are both related to vampires.)

Maury: "So you have an idea based on something, even if it's uncertain."

I shrank before him as his frown deepened.

Maury: "I'd like to say it's just a coincidence, but I'm more interested in the coincidences that happen to you."

Mitsuki: "Eh?"

Maury: "Tell me about the dream you had."

He frowned when he saw that I was surprised.

Maury: "What's wrong? Are you lying about the dreams?"

Mitsuki: "No, I'm not lying. It's just that… It's not a very pleasant dream."

I proceeded to tell him about the dreams I'd had so far.

How I became a being called a dhampir, how I was targeted by humans and vampires, and how I eventually lost my life.

Maury: "........."

After I finished speaking, he fell silent.

His expression revealed nothing about what he might be thinking.

(He's a scholar, so he might think it's absurd.)

Mitsuki: "I'm sorry for rambling on. Maybe I was overthinking about connecting dreams and reality."

Mitsuki: "It's just 'a dream' after all, right?"

As I said this, he gazed at me.

Maury: "Do you think it's just a dream?"

(What does he mean?)

I recalled the details of the dream, and my chest tightened again.

Mitsuki: "I want it to be just a dream."

Mitsuki: "Because if those were real, it would be too sad."

Mitsuki: "I couldn't do anything in my dream, but if something like that happened right in front of me, I would help the dhampirs and their families."

Maury: "Help them?"

For some reason, his voice becomes even lower.

(Professor Maury?)

Maury: "Do you think you can save those Dhampirs?"

Maury: "Do you think you can save them from persecution and their eventual disappearance with your own hands?"

The atmosphere around him now clearly carried a sense of frustration.

Facing this, I was bewildered.

Mitsuki: "Regardless of who they are, if someone is suffering, I want to help them."

Mitsuki: "I won't abandon them."

Mitsuki: "Have you never wanted to help someone?"

Maury: "........."

(You were the one who called it foolish when the puppy was being bullied.)

(Even if it was out of obligation, you still treated my injury. I'm pretty sure you still care about people.)

He lowered his gaze slightly.

Maury: "What can you even do?"

Mitsuki: "Huh?"

The moment he said those words, he tightly grasped my wrist.

Mitsuki: "Professor Maury!?"

Maury: "Come with me. So you can see how shallow your words are."

Feeling his cold hand like a shackle, I was half-dragged and taken deeper into the building.

After a while, we arrived at a place where there was...

Mitsuki: "Is this...?"

(A door that transcends time and space!?)

Although the atmosphere was slightly different, its structure closely resembled the one in the mansion.

(But there's no way it's the same.)

Maury: "You should know well what this door is."

(---!)

His words seemed to affirm that this was indeed the same type of door found in the mansion and the ancient castle.

Mitsuki: "What are you talking about?"

Maury: "There's probably one in the mansion where you live as well."

(How does he know about the mansion?)

(Does he also know that the residents are vampires?)

(Just who is this guy?)

He is a university professor who can be somewhat intimidating but reasonable. And for some reason, he occasionally seems to exude a sense of sorrow.

As if the impressions I had held about him until now were being painted over in black, I found myself unable to understand the person before me.

Still in shock, he reached for the door.

Mitsuki: "Wait! Are you planning to go through it!?"

Maury: "That's right."

Without waiting for my response, he opened the door.

The space beyond it was distorted, like the one in the mansion, but...

(Huh!?)

The moment he stepped through, the mist cleared, revealing a hallway.

Mitsuki: "Why?"

Maury: "If you don't want to be thrown into an unfamiliar place, don't let go of my hand."

Why was there a door? Why did the space suddenly stabilize?

Without understanding any of it, Professor Maury and I arrived at...

Mitsuki: "A forest?"

(But somehow, this place feels familiar.)

Girl: *pant, pant, pant*

Father: "This way, let's run this way!"

At that moment, my eyes widened after seeing the figures coming out of the forest.

(Those two!)

A man was desperately running, with a girl following him behind.

The man was no doubt the "father" I had seen in my first dream.

And the girl was “me.”

(I was that girl in the dream.)

(Why am I seeing the same scene as in the dream?)

(Wait. If it’s the same as in my dream, then the vampire hunters...)

I felt a chill run down my spine as I remembered the scene ahead.

Mitsuki: “Professor Maury! That family, they’re being chased. We have to help them!”

Maury: “It’s futile.”

He said it coldly as I instinctively tried to rush out.

Mitsuki: “Why?”

Maury: “This is the past.”

Maury: “In other words, what happens now is a reality of the past. We can no longer change it.”

(Was that dream an actual event that occurred?)

Maury: “Besides, trying to help won’t change the fate of the dhampirs.”

Did he also know the tragedy that would unfold later?

Despite this, his indifferent attitude infuriated me.

Mitsuki: “We won’t know unless we try!”

Mitsuki: “No matter what happens, I will never abandon them!”

I left Professor Maury behind and dashed away.

Maury: “You’re truly naïve.”

Father: “Let’s hide in this cabin!”

Mitsuki: “Wait! It’s not safe in there!”

I stopped them from hiding in the old hut, but the father looked at me with surprise, fear, and confusion.

Father: "Who are you!? Are you also a hunter!?"

Mitsuki: "No, I'm not! Anyway, if you hide there, the pursuers will find you!"

Mitsuki: "Run in a different direction. Please trust me."

Girl: "Papa."

Father: "Okay. We'll run into the forest."

Feeling my desperation, the father and daughter didn't enter the shack but fled deep into the forest.

(Thank goodness. I need to leave here as soon as possible.)

(Any minute now, the hunters will stop by the cabin. At that time, I'm sure those two have already escaped.)

Just as I let out a sigh of relief...

Vampire hunter's voice: "Found you, you monsters!"

(What!?)

From the direction the family fled, I heard the voice of what seemed to be a hunter.

(The hunters were ahead of them? How?)

Girl's voice: "Papa! Ahh!"

Vampire hunter's voice: "You creatures should not exist in this world."

All the blood drained from my body as I heard the same conversation I had seen in my dreams.

Then...

Father’s voice: "Stop, please don't kill my daughter. Stop, please!!"

A scream resonated through the forest.

(No way.)

I didn't want to think about what happened to the family.

Maury: "You understand now, right?"

Maury: "Your sense of justice is powerless against fate."

Previous Part ╎ Masterlist ╎ Next Part

#ikemen vampire #ikevamp #ikevamp galileo #ikevamp jp #ikevamp translations #galileo galilei #cybird

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chen-feiyu · 1 year

Text

The impact of Chu Wanning and his values on Mo Ran's morals in the second timeline of 2ha

When I read 2ha, one of the most satisfying things about the story for me was observing how Mo Ran's growth as a person was intrinsically linked to the way in which he perceived Chu Wanning and his values since, deep down, he has always been his reason for existence and the force who restores his faith in humanity.

1.0 is complicated in terms of morals, in the sense that he has no interest in helping others and shows contempt toward Chu Wanning and Sisheng Peak for caring about injustice and the common people so fiercely - albeit with Chu Wanning, there's the added resentment that he devoted his life to helping anyone in need, yet let Shi Mei die during the heavenly rift and refused to acknowledge Mo Ran during all of the time in which he was his disciple.

He loathed to be dismissed by Chu Wanning when he was Taxian-Jun too but at this part of the novel, Mo Ran's PTSD opts to repress most of Chu Wanning-related thoughts for avoiding emotional pain, to the point in which he even comes up with a different retelling of Chu Wanning's death in 0.5, where it occurred by his own hands.

Unlike Taxian-Jun, Mo Ran 1.0 has no desire to trample over the weak or perpetrate suffering. He's merely self-absorbed and focused on enjoying the moment and newfound positive emotions, considering he didn't have any for decades.

Mo Ran is, however, fully aware of the gravity of his actions since the beginning. He doesn't sugarcoat it, doesn't pretend that he had any justification for the pain that he caused, and deliberately makes the choice to not take revenge on Rong Jiu in chapter 2 of the novel, giving us a glimpse of the Mo Ran who strived to stand by Duan Yihan's maxim of repaying gratitude and not holding grudges.

The novel starts with Taxian-Jun being suicidal, talking about his crimes, calling his life sinful, stating he has blasphemed and that his hands are stained with blood. In this regard, Mo Ran is an outlier in comparison to characters like Song Qiutong and Rong Jiu, who don't hesitate to explain their behavior and justify themselves with their circumstances. In Mo Ran's eyes, he's someone who sinned irreversibly and it's a miracle that he got a second chance when he didn't do anything to earn it.

Mo Ran tends to describe himself as a simple person who doesn't like to overthink and has difficulty grasping complex things, especially emotions, yet he knows what he craves the most is acknowledgment and acceptance. He can't overlook when someone does something for him, which is why his feelings for Chu Wanning tend to be so conflicting after the injury in Butterfly Town arc.

After this, Mo Ran begins to observe him closely and is unable to stay away entirely. Instead of feeling sheer hatred at Chu Wanning's lack of ability to take care of himself, he's concerned and takes him food he can actually eat since he really doesn't want Chu Wanning to starve or suffer, and rationalizes his need to protect by thinking he's only doing things because he doesn't want to owe Chu Wanning anything.

At random parts of Book 1, Mo Ran would make passing mentions about how when he looks back at some of the things he did in his previous life, he's horrified and unable to understand how could he become so cruel.

It is important to mention that while these are attempts for Mo Ran to truly reflect on what happened enough to make amends, it isn't until he hurts Xia Sini, realizes how selfish he was, and is able to see Chu Wanning in Xia Sini's words, that he stops being able to repress the influx of guilt, regret, and confusion over the person that he used to be and the things he did. Chu Wanning's figure as his moral compass begins to shape in full form over here, given it is his memory that triggers the need for repentance.

Something I must add about Mo Ran being different than RJ or SQT is that during Xia Sini's soup incident, is very clear that the reason he made Xia Sini wait was due to Shi Mei's insistence on Mo Ran to stay by his side, yet Mo Ran takes full responsibility for what happened and doesn't excuse himself at all. Accountability is something he definitely doesn't struggle with.

It is a common belief in the fandom that without the heavenly rift event, it'd have been difficult for Mo Ran to change his mind about Chu Wanning, and I'm inclined to agree here because as I stated before, disliking Chu Wanning's hypocrisy about the common people and his disciples WAS one of his values.

Hypocrisy is a trait that Mo Ran detests profoundly in any person regardless of the timeline where he's at. It's precisely the reason why Ye Wangxi will always be worthy of respect in his eyes and not Song Qiutong.

Knowing that Chu Wanning died for him changes his paradigm and shatters his reality entirely.

Mo Ran 1.0 used to be a person with no purpose who barely reflected on things, tried to remain in the present as much as possible and assumed that because he already experienced many things in the past, he could take advantage of what he knew and keep going mindlessly as long as Shi Mei was around. He didn't feel the responsibility to help or make amends. Caring about humanity wasn't even an afterthought, but an absurd concept overall in his mind.

2.0 is the exact opposite.

Before Duan Yihan left, she took good care of providing Mo Ran with a maxim that he could hold on to since the world was cruel, and she was aware of what could happen to him if his values didn't remain strong.

The flower removed this and broke Mo Ran's biggest value, leaving him with no sense of self other than spite and resentment over all of the tragedy he had to experience. There was nothing to feel grateful about: Shi Mei and his mother were dead and his Shizun always hated him, so indulging in destruction, debauchery, and revenge was all he could do, regardless if he found it enjoyable or not, if it made sense or not.

Mo Ran 1.0 is the middle ground between a bitter, tired adult who had been drowning in hatred for decades and a teenager who was acquiring new experiences and slowly developing empathy as a consequence.

Mo Ran 2.0 is a profoundly traumatized and broken man who doesn't know what to do with all the pain he carries inside and the voices in his mind who tell him he's dirty, irremediably evil, and undeserving of the sacrifice that Chu Wanning made for him. He can't exteriorize any of this, and can't give up on life either because it was a gift that Chu Wanning granted him.

He's worthless in comparison to Chu Wanning, but if he can dedicate his days to acting in half the decent way that Chu Wanning did, then maybe that would be enough to clean the stains on his soul, if only a little, at least.

In 0.5 Duan Yihan gave Mo Ran a purpose, the flower took it away from him and Chu Wanning tried to restore it, with no luck, when he asked Taxian-Jun to think about kindness and not harbor evil.

In the second timeline, Mo Ran starts his new life with no purpose, Chu Wanning gives it to him by showing him genuine kindness, by letting him see that he had always been acknowledged and protected from the shadows. A pure soul took care of him and gave him another chance, and his purpose in life became to not fail him in return.

Chu Wanning turned into Mo Ran's pillar. He was the person Mo Ran thought about before making any decision, the one who gave him strength during lonely days, and the God of salvation who visited him as he hallucinated during his episodes.

Doing good deeds in Chu Wanning's name became his second nature. Anything Chu Wanning would do, he'd do it too without hesitation and with this, he forged an unbreakable moral code, impulsed both by his devotion to Chu Wanning and crippling guilt.

As the story advances, Mo Ran is able to see that his lack of understanding about his feelings toward Chu Wanning and the inexplicable, obsessive things that Taxian-Jun did over Chu Wanning in 0.5 strived from a misconception about the relationship between sex and love.

Once this is clear to him, all 2.0 can see in Taxian-Jun's actions is nonsense which only works to reinforce his beliefs about his lack of intelligence. I'll discuss his sense of self further in future posts.

In conclusion: Chu Wanning has had a different, yet consistent impact on Mo Ran's morals throughout all of his life stages.

In 0.5, Chu Wanning started as a force who restored Mo Ran's faith in humanity and then gave him a strong sense of identity over being the disciple of the man that he perceives as the embodiment of justice, goodness, and compassion. In my next series of meta posts, I'll be exploring how this is the reason behind Taxian-Jun's cognitive dissonance around him.

In 2.0, Chu Wanning and his sacrifice disrupt Mo Ran's misconceptions created by the flower and external manipulation.

Chu Wanning's selflessness used to be annoying for him, then unsettling because he didn't understand it properly, and in the end, it devastated him so much that it shattered his reality and helped him to forge a moral code.

#first post for my series of 2ha meta!#the first series will be fully focused on mo ran but I'll be addressing other themes in the future #long post #2ha meta #2ha #the husky and his white cat shizun #2ha spoilers #mo ran 1.0 #mo ran 2.0 #mo ran #chu wanning #ranwan #二哈和他的白猫师尊 #mine #erha #erha spoilers #my meta

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