#( for some endgame discussion in tags )

[booksandabeer]

Ramblings on Fandom: Peggy Carter, Steve Rogers, Delusional Shippers, and Alleged Misogyny

So with the release of Season 2 of What If…? emotions are once again running high, the outrage is outraging, and people are up in arms about the whole Captain Carter situation. While I do think that some reactions are a little overblown, even needlessly aggressive in tone to the unfortunate detriment of their otherwise convincing arguments, I share the confusion and frustration about the sudden centering of a long-dead & never excessively popular character, the sidelining of the Steve-Bucky friendship, and the as-inexplicable-as-it-is-total exclusion of Sam Wilson as Captain America. However, I’m not here to talk about the show because (1) I haven’t watched this season and have no plans to (why waste time torturing myself with something I know I’ll hate?) and (2) other people have already written dozens of metas about it, so what could I possibly add at this point.

What I do want need to talk about (lest I explode) is something that has irritated me for a long time and that is now happening again: Every time someone even mildly criticizes Peggy Carter, expresses doubts about her suitability as a heroine, or even just questions her disproportionate importance to the franchise post-EG, inevitably a certain section of fans will come out of the woodwork to immediately throw around accusations of misogyny and yell about how we’re all just a bunch of delusional Stuckies who are mad that she got "in the way" of our ship. Sigh.

This is gonna be a long one, so I’ll put it under a cut. Rant incoming. You've been warned. If you don't want to read, simply keep scrolling.

First of all, let me state very clearly that I’m not debating the existence of misogyny and sexism in fandom spaces—or in the media from which these fandoms originate. At all. It exists, it’s a thing, I’m not denying that. Which is exactly why it frustrates me endlessly to see these accusations thrown around as a gotcha! argument to shut down any and all critical debate around a female character. All it does in the end is escalate rhetoric and radicalize attitudes.  

In the case of Peggy Carter, specifically her treatment by Stucky shippers, I’ve always found 'misogyny as a motive' to be a largely unsubstantiated accusation.¹ Now, I neither presume nor do I want to speak for the entirety of Stuckynation, so I will not claim that there aren't corners of the fandom where people discuss her in ways that I find off-putting and deeply unserious, but I will say this: If you genuinely believe that disliking one (1) fictional female character equals “hating all women” and wanting to suppress and marginalize their presence in fiction and real life alike—then I think we need to take that word away from you until you’ve learned its true meaning.

You might also want to ask yourself how exactly reducing a female character to a mute trophy wife or a heroine who has to act out her love interest’s recycled storylines helps your feminist fight.

As for the “getting in the way of your ship” part of the argument. Very simply put: No character can get in the way of something if there never ever was “a way” to that something to begin with. “Being mad” implies that there was a reasonable expectation that wasn’t met, a substantive hope that was crushed. Now, I’ve said this before and I’ll gladly say it again a million more times: No Stucky shipper in their right mind ever truly thought that there was even the slightest chance that Marvel Studios owned by the Walt Disney Company would allow Steve “Captain America” Rogers and Bucky “Winter Soldier” Barnes to be canonized as an explicitly romantic pairing in their billion dollar franchise. Be serious. That was never in the cards. I wish we all lived in a world where it was, but we don’t, and it wasn’t. The best we could ever hope for was for Steve and Bucky to get a good, satisfying, in-character ending. And if, in Steve’s case, that would’ve included hints (or more) about a possible rekindling of his, uh, aborted romance with Sharon—then so be it. But we never got any of that. The characters never got any of that. Instead they sent Steve into 1950s suburban hell, literally trapped him behind a white picket fence, and condemned him to a life of passivity and lies, all so he could be married to a woman he barely knew a long time ago in a completely different world; who built and ran a top-to-bottom Hydra-infested organization, but apparently never noticed that there was anything wrong with her life's work. For decades. Great. As for Bucky—well, we’ve all seen the devastatingly grim-faced, utterly lonely, and deeply sad version of him that was presented to us in TFATWS. Happy endings all around, I guess.

So. Am I mad that Steve didn’t get to ride into the rainbow-colored sunset with Bucky at the end of EG? No. Because that was never going to happen anyway. Would I have been mad had he ended up with Sharon or another female character in the 21st century? Also no. Granted, I wouldn’t have been ecstatic about it, but mad? No. But am I mad that Steve ended up with this specific female character under these specific circumstances as presented in canon? Fuck yeah, I am.

The thing is: I personally believe Steve and Peggy to be fundamentally incompatible when it comes to the way they view the world and their respective places in it; their morals and values; their capacity for compassion and empathy; their ability and willingness to compartmentalize, compromise, and collaborate with people and institutions whose ethics and/or politics do not align with their own. I have a real hard time believing that a relationship between these two (or worse, a hasty marriage) could be either happy or long-lasting.

I don’t believe Peggy to be inherently evil, I don’t hate her, I simply think she operates within a different moral framework than Steve (and even genuinely believes it to be a righteous one).² Your mileage may vary, but I personally happen to find that framework reprehensible, even indecent, and ultimately dangerous. After all, over the course of the 20th century, we have seen exactly where that kind of “the ends justify the means” brand of pragmatism leads—over and over again. Not to mention that the people who use this line of argument to defend characters like Peggy (or real-life politicians for that matter) never seem to want to look too closely at who gets to define what "the ends" are in the first place and who decides when they've finally been met.

(Never. The answer is never.)

And to be clear, there is absolutely nothing wrong with depicting, and even centering a narrative around a morally (dark)gray character—oftentimes it’s actually the more interesting option—but you cannot at the same time claim that they are purely good and should be only admired as such when their actions literally tell an entirely different story.

So, no. I will not accept Peggy Carter as the shining aspirational heroine that the MCU so badly wants to sell her to me as—while simultaneously continuing to reveal things that paint an increasingly darker picture of her character. And I will certainly not celebrate seeing one of my favorite characters of all time—whose defining trait was that he couldn't ignore "a situation pointed south"; who used to fight for the little guy and against the establishment; who once said about the very organization that Peggy Carter helped build that it was so corrupt, it all needed to go—rendered morally inert for some hollow happy ending that may as well be a conservative’s wet dream full of false nostalgia for an America that never really existed. I cannot find it in me to be anything less but mad about that.

But that does not make me a misogynist. It does not make me a delusional shipper. It makes me someone who looks at what the MCU has been telling me about Peggy Carter for years now—over and over again—and takes them at their own word.

--------

¹ If you’ve actually read a a fair number of Stucky(!) fanfics you will have noticed that the reverence afforded to and "page time" devoted to her character and her relationship with Steve is somewhat disproportionate to anything that's backed up by canon—well, up until EG, where she was suddenly reanimated as The Great Love of Steve’s Life—and in my experience, it's highly unusual for any fandom to put so much (mostly) positive attention on another character, let alone a potential love interest that is not part of the endgame ship.

² I also want to emphasize that if you love Peggy and she's your fave: good for you! I genuinely have no beef with you. People can agree to disagree. All I ask for is that we maybe stop willfully ignoring the less savory aspects of her character. You don't need to pretend she's perfect to justify your affection for her. I LOVE Steve, and yet I have no problem conceding that he is FAR from perfect.

[endawna]

as much as i love the idea of rook pax but with knowing the extent of things now? its almost nigh unavoidable for mercy twisting into a demon. despair or ruthlessness, take your pick.

[bullet-prooflove]

At Your Alter: Frank Langdon x Reader

Tagging: @kmc1989 @julessworldd @yousigned-upforthis @travelingmypassion @julius-ceasar

Summary: You discover Frank's tattoo when you undress him for the first time.

Companion piece to:

Ivy - Frank gets a tattoo to commerate the woman he loves.

Hypocrite - Frank struggles to make amends for a past wrongs.

Crash - Almost getting you fired wasn't the lowest point of Frank's addiction.

Rock Bottom - Frank hits rock bottom when he sees the devastation his addiction's caused.

Little Black Dress - Frank starts to spiral when he realises you're dating.

Every Damn Day - A drunk text leads to a confession.

Wet Dream (NSFW) - Frank sometimes dreams about the life you had together.

War Stories - A realisation about your coping habits leads you to Frank's door.

The Three Cs - Frank and you finally discuss your issues and pave away towards the future.

The Wall - A date at the climbing wall leads to a revelation from Frank.

Commitment - You create a fun way of showing Frank your commitment to the relationship.

Prequel piece to:

All In (NSFW) - You and Frank take a big step forward.

Slut (NSFW) - Frank gets a little bratty after a bad day.

Nightmare Fuel - Frank’s been waiting for the fall to come.

Boo Fucking Hoo - Your forced to defend yourself after you’re attacked outside the hospital.

Frank has a tattoo, you don’t discover that until you’re undressing him for the first time in your bedroom. Your fingertips hook on the hem of his t-shirt, dragging it up over his head and that’s when you see it, the ivy wreath nestled in the space just above his heart.  

“Oh.” You say, your fingertips tracing over it. “When…”

“After I got sober I didn’t know if I would make it.” He tells you, his palm covering yours, clasping it to his chest. “This tattoo, it got me through some really tough times in the beginning and that’s because of you, because of your strength, your tenacity, your resilience. I remembered all of that everytime I looked in the mirror and I knew that I could be better.”

“Christ.” You murmur, tilting your head up to meet his tempestuous blue gaze. “Rehab really did change you didn’t it?”

“Yea.” He says softly. “It made me see what a selfish asshole I was, that I just kept putting myself first even before the painkillers.”

“Frank…”

“No Ivy I did. I know I did.” He whispers, his forehead coming to rest upon yours. “I’m trying to be the man that you deserve, the one you want to come home to each night. I know we are a long way from there right now but that is where I’m heading. A lifetime worshipping the ground you walk on, kneeling at your alter, giving every single part of myself to you. That’s my endgame.”

“You are making a very compelling argument for that lifetime.” You inform him, your lips brushing over that tattoo on his chest. His breath hitches, his head tipping back as your fingertips unfasten the button of his jeans. You guide the zipper down and the denim slips past his hips as you cup him through his boxer briefs. “How about I kneel at your alter and you just give me this part of you for now?”

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Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

[m1ckeyb3rry]

── 𝐑𝐎𝐀𝐃𝐊𝐈𝐋𝐋 // 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄

Series Synopsis: You were once a spoiled duchess-to-be, set to inherit a city on the brink of a war you knew nothing about — that is, until the war came to your doorstep and the aftermath of a brutal accident bound your fate to Seishiro Nagi’s forever.

Chapter Synopsis: Nagi comes bearing news. // Your father makes an announcement about the new family in Maradine.

Series Masterlist

Pairing(s): Nagi x Reader, Yukimiya x Reader

Chapter Word Count: 2.3k

Content Warnings: death, killing, ptsd, reader is not a good person, actually nobody really is??, they all make mistakes as is to be expected, war is mentioned and the build-up/aftermath is discussed heavily but the actual conflict not so much, non-linear narrative, like HEAVILY non-linear there are two timelines for each chapter (pre and post war), probably ooc, angst, nagi is endgame sorry y’all, alternate universe (early 1900s-ish vibe but not in our world because f historical accuracy), original characters (probably…idrk yet but it’s me so)

A/N: hey guys…so here i am…with the prologue to a new story instead of an update to anything i already have out BYE I’M FLEEING FROM SHAME i’ve been wanting to do something a bit more serious for a while though so i’m excited to give this a try!! some more elaboration on the tags/summary: this is like vaguely historical-ish but not completely, and it’s kind of like two stories being told concurrently?? one being reader’s life as an adult post war and the other her life as a child/teen pre war. every time there’s a ‘break’ in the chapter that indicates a timeline switch!! hopefully it’s kinda obvious which is which especially as we go along…anyways hope you all enjoy

“Kenyu Yukimiya is dead,” Nagi said. Medals sparkled against his breast, the gold a harsh contrast to the dark wool of his coat, and his arms were folded behind his back, which he kept ramrod straight, so unlike the slouch you once associated with him. “They thought it would be best if I were the one to inform you.”

He waited for you to say something, looking much like a mannequin all the while, his pale hair lifeless, his driftwood eyes dull and blank. His careful mouth was pursed into a plain expression which might be considered a frown on another person, but not on him.  Never on him. After all, Nagi did not frown. Nagi did not smile. Nagi did nothing.

“It should’ve been you,” you said.

“Yes,” he said, as prompt and detached as always. “It should’ve.”

Barlezia was a sweeping country, and perhaps you were biased in saying so, but there were none in the world that could claim to be its equal. In the north there were towering mountains which scraped at icy skies, a heavy blue-grey fog settled over their peaks, and to the south there was a vast sea, warm and aquamarine, which led to Drieji in the east and Abraria in the west.

It was on this sea, the Canonora, that the shining city of Maradine was located. Far enough from the northern capital of the nation to have taken on its own character, its own wealth, Maradine was the jewel of Barlezia, a place full of men with horses and women with parasols. Built upon a slate cliff, with houses lining the roads winding down to the pebbly sand, it jutted so far out into the water that some people spent their entire lives on their boats, only venturing onto land for the rare storms that might otherwise drown them.

Near the top of the cliff, where the marble government buildings were sequestered away from the rest of the city, there was a villa. It was the largest of its kind, the walls a deep red terracotta trimmed with white, the floors all glazed porcelain, the many colors and shapes painted onto the tiles making up larger designs of flowers, animals, and other such wonders. The villa overlooked the ocean and a canopy of trees, and it was widely regarded in all of Maradine as the most beautiful in that most beautiful of places, the filigree on an already intricate crown, the diamond in a choker of gold.

This was the villa where you were born, and this was the villa where you would, you presumed, die. Some forefather of yours had constructed it in a time where such art had been celebrated, where Barlezia had ruled the world, and it remained as a remnant of that age, a stronghold against modernity, even though your country had long ago bowed in deference to the ideals and traditions of those in the west.

“Child! Get down from there!” 

The woman that took care of you in lieu of your parents, who were often busy — your father with his politics, your mother with her parties — was slender and frail and too old for keeping up with anyone with any measure of youth. Her hair was entirely grey, and her face was perpetually lined, with sun, with shade, with age and wisdom and worry. You knew her simply as Nanny, and as she was the only one who ever had the courage to chastise you, you found you disliked her very much.

“My tenth birthday is approaching, so you ought not to call me a child any longer,” you said, your legs swinging from your perch in the boughs of a fig tree, the collar of your neatly-pressed dress splotched dark with the juice of the fruit you held in your hands.

“If you continue to behave like this, I certainly will!” she said, her hands on her hips. “Shall I call the manservant?”

The manservant was willful and rough; you doubted he would have any qualms about dragging you to the ground with his bare hands, were he so inclined. Taking one last bite out of the fig, you threw it to the ground, where it burst at Nanny’s feet, and then you clambered out of the tree with as much grace as you could muster.

“You horrid creature,” she hissed at you when you smiled at her, your skirt wrinkled and torn at the hem, your fingers sticky and purple. “How am I to present you to your father and mother in this state?”

“How you always present me, I expect,” you said, batting your eyelashes at her, skipping lightly towards the door. “With more fuss than required.”

She grabbed you by the ear before you could get very far, yanking it sternly, earning a howl out of you. Stomping your foot, you glared at her and waited for her to let go, which she only did when she was assured you would not flee again.

“I will send along a message that you will be late to breakfast. To your room, missy, I won’t have it thought that the young duchess is some mannerless, ill-behaved ruffian,” she said, ushering you towards your quarters as if you were a sordid secret.

“Maybe you need to be better about watching me, and then my manners will improve,” you said, and because you were not doing anything untoward, only saying it, the most she could respond with was an exaggerated sigh.

She bathed you for the second time that morning, quicker than the first, and then she dressed you in something without pattern or finery. Certainly it must’ve pained her, for the ruined dress balled up and thrown into a wastebasket had been much prettier than this one, but there was nothing she could do about it, bar glaring at you as she yanked it over your head.

Nanny wasn’t always so foul-tempered; it was only when you tried her patience, as you did today, that she got to be in such a mood. Else she was a tolerable woman, if not a kind one, and generally softer with her motions. She had mentioned to you a long time ago that she had children of her own, two daughters and a son, the youngest of whom was closer to your mother’s age than your own. You supposed it meant she had some experience with child-rearing, hence why your parents had chosen her amongst the many applicants, and you sometimes wondered if she had treated her own progeny the way she treated you.

Once, you had asked her. She had told you, with a click of her tongue, that she was far stricter with them; however, as you could not fathom anything more chafing than her treatment of you, you found it hard to believe.

Although you were older now — nearly ten years of age, as you liked to remind everyone — you were still not considered enough of an adult to eat with your parents and the rest of adults at meals. Instead you would sit in your room and make faces if the food was not to your liking, discreetly glancing at Nanny out of the corner of your eye and throwing away what you couldn’t stand when you were sure she was not looking. The exception was meals which were meant to be occasions or announcements, wherein your presence was absolutely and unquestionably required.

Today was an announcement, not an occasion, or at least that was what Nanny told you. You did not know the nature of the announcement, only that she was more nervous than usual as the two of you walked to the breakfast room, where your parents would be waiting for you. Up until then, you had been convinced that she had only had two modes of being — fed-up and obedient — so the discovery of this third intrigued you far more than whatever news you might be given.

“Nanny,” your father said. “Y/N. Good morning.”

He did not comment on your tardiness, and neither did he have to; his disapproval was the silent type, which radiated into the air and shimmered like steam, cowing in its intangibility. Your mother offered you a half-smile, as trained and perfect as yours one day would be, and you smiled back at her, your entire focus going into ensuring it was not crooked.

“Good morning, father, mother,” you said, settling into the large chair at your mother’s right, your feet just barely brushing the floor when you were settled with your spine to the cushioned back. “I apologize for the delay.”

“It is inconsequential,” your father said, which was as much of a reprimand as you’d ever get out of him. “We have more important matters to discuss now that you are finally here.”

“There is to be a party,” your mother said. This was nothing out of the ordinary, for your mother, as the Duchess of Maradine, was invited to every party that could be reached from the villa in less than a day. What was strange was that both she and your father thought that you needed to be informed of this occurrence.

“I see,” you said.

“It’s that family from Aprissari,” your father said, sneering at the mention of Barlezia’s capital, the city nestled in the mountains to the north of the country, which may have been the center of your nation’s power but was nowhere near as prosperous as Maradine, never had been and never would be. “The Yukimiyas. The wife is an opera singer and the husband is far more involved in foreign affairs than he has any right to be.”

“And they are rich,” your mother said, patiently and coolly. “Richer than mere commoners. Rich enough to be considered members of the nobility, if we are not careful.”

“We must build proper relations. An alliance, so to speak, but also a reminder that they are no longer in Aprissari,” your father said. “It must be clear to them and to everyone that in Maradine, their money is meaningless if they do not have the approval of the L/N family.”

“Their son is only a little older than you,” your mother continued, perhaps noticing that you no longer held much interest in the conversation, which had diverted to topics of which you had little understanding and even less interest. “The party is being held in honor of his twelfth birthday, and you are to befriend him as best you can.”

“It won’t be difficult,” your father said, and the reluctance of his conviction was the first clue you had that the arrival of these Yukimiyas meant something more to your family than you could possibly know. “You are Y/N L/N; there’s not a child this side of the country that wouldn’t want to be your friend. But you must do it.”

If Nanny or the manservant or anyone else in the L/Ns’ employ told you something so harshly, you would’ve protested or found some way around it, but this was not anyone else. This was your father, Duke L/N himself, and so it was as much a royal command as it was a request from someone who loved you. Perhaps it was even more the former than it was the latter; based on the wideness of your father’s eyes and the lowering of your mother’s lashes, you wouldn’t be surprised if it was the case.

“Yes, father,” you said. “I shall do as you say.”

“Good,” he said. “Finish eating and then attend your lessons as usual. We shall leave once the sun sets.”

You ate at a record pace. Your parents were exchanging looks that said they wanted to speak to one another alone, and it was only your presence which was hindering them, so you endeavored to make yourself scarce as fast as you could without seeming rude. 

Excusing yourself quietly, your head bowed until you left the room, you followed Nanny towards your chambers, deep in thought, turning over the directive your parents had left you with. Befriending the son of the Yukimiyas. For you, who had never had a friend your own age, it was more difficult of a task than your parents must’ve anticipated, so with a tug on the end of Nanny’s apron, you halted in your tracks.

“You heard my father, right, Nanny?” you said. “I have to befriend that boy.”

“That you do,” Nanny said, and then there was a fourth aspect to her which you unlocked: sympathy, glimmering in her irises like a sunrise on the crest of a wave. 

“I don’t know how to do that,” you said. She patted you on the head, brusque and perfunctory, like she was dusting flour off of her hands, yet somehow affectionate, in her way.

“You’ll have to learn, missy,” she said. “Ties with the Yukimiyas may be invaluable in the years to come.”

“Whatever do you mean?” you said. She placed one hand against the wall, her thumb tracing an idle circle over it as she contemplated something or another.

“There are as many ideas of what’ll happen to the continent as there are fish in the Canonora Sea,” she said. “Whether by will or force, Barlezia shall, like every other nation, choose which they back. If they choose wrong, then Maradine will bear the brunt of the consequences. That is all.”

“But what do the Yukimiyas have to do with it?” you insisted.

“Nothing and everything, child! You will understand when you are older. Now hush and go to your lessons,” she said, breaking from her trance and pushing you into your room, where one or another of your tutors would, invariably, be waiting for you.

You wanted to rail at her, to tell her that you weren’t too young, that you deserved to know as well as she did what might yet happen to your own city. Before you could say anything more, however, she shut the door behind you, leaving you standing alone by the wastebasket, where a rusty stain the color of fig juice continued to spread down the sleeve of your crumpled dress.

[cuppajj]

Beast Ancients AU Askbox Thoughts

Hey! This is just to clear up my thought process revolving around BAAU related asks. Please consider reading everything so you know for later!

When is the askbox open?: Whenever I feel like it, mostly. I usually leave it open, but I close it when I'm not in the mood to receive any.

CJJ's BAAU askbox notes:

I answer whatever ask I feel like! I do not operate on a schedule, and I do not guarantee everyone's ask will be answered, especially with factors like the amount I get, motivation to answer, and other things like if the question has been asked and answered before. Please do not feel entitled to hearing from me!

You are less likely to have your question answered if it has already been answered. This means if I said an answer in a previous ask or if a lore post answered it, I'm less likely to respond. There are some instances where I'll have new information to answer a previously asked question, which is why I'm only saying I'm less likely to answer, not ignore repeated questions outright

You might notice that I'm vague with some responses. This is usually because I want to leave things up to speculation! I don't want to share all of BAAU's story and lore from beginning to end immediately, especially when not everything is planned. So with this in mind, I won't (yet) answer endgame questions, or what happens in certain climactic scenes, etc. That is not to know so early on in baau's development! I like sharing things in a sorta linear format. If I get past the introductory part of the AU then I'd be more open to sharing the deeper heavier moments in detail.

Questions that have very subjective/speculative answers (such as the neobeasts reacting to mundane situations, questions that speculate what happens to a certain character not yet talked about, general headcanon posts that aren't super story focused) are also less likely to be answered, or at least answered vaguely. This is because I want to, again, leave room for people's own theories. I like fostering an environment of discussion!

Please do not expect me to take drawing requests! I know I have drawn for some, but it is not a guarantee nor should it be seen as a likely thing.

"Is it ok if my OC is in the au? ... can we write fanfiction?" etc - yes, it's why the tags exist!

I might answer some questions, but I'm no actual answering machine. I'm just an artist who has motivation highs and lows and answers whatever question jumps out at me in the moment. If I were to make answering everything an obligation, I would burn out real fast - and that's not fun for anyone here!

While it might look like I'm trying to bar people from asking certain things in my inbox, I don't intend for that to be the case. I don't want to undervalue the interest a lot of you have in my au. It means a lot that you have all of these questions and thoughts, and I'm very happy you enjoy what I have so far! This post is mostly just me explaining my thought process when I receive asks. For BAAU, I approach things in a mostly question-answer basis with emphasis on story clarification, and some sillies here and there! If you want to take anything from this, it's that I'd highly recommend scouring the #beast ancients au ask and general #beast ancients au tags (and the masterpost). You might find the answer to the question you were looking for, or at least find something that makes you think!

(I'll add more to this if I think of any)

Hope you understand and thanks!

[elainsgirl]

"it also proves how sensitive gwy/riels are and how they’re the issue 89% of the time." Omg yes, someone said it.

Kind of feel for Eluciens having to be shackled to Gwynriels. That's a bond that should have been rejected! But it seems like Euciens have grown sick of Gwynriels too, at last. Bravo! At least Elucien is a ship based on canon since Elain and Lucien are mates. If I were an Elucien, I'd never tolerate Gwynriels dragging Elucien down to the same level as a literal crackship and then disrespect Eluciens by degrading Elain and literally only using the Elucien ship to validate Gwynriel, literal fanon. Gwynriels have ruined the Elucien tag. I miss the days when it was just Eluciens and Elriels coexisting and discussing canon without a third group mixing in a random crackship and screeching loudly, demanding everyone accept it as canon while they disrespect everyone and their mother. Kindly fuck off.

I mean, I think it's blatantly obvious Elriel is endgame. But at least Elucien isn't pulled out of someone's ass the way Gwynriel is, like anon said. I'll be using that one now btw, that's hilarious.

LMFAO, You had me laughing for a solid minute with “thats a bond that should’ve been rejected!” - im officially going to use this everytine when describing elu/iens and gwy/riels.

Yh, I feel elu/iens are getting over how petty gwy/riels can be. I mean they’re so adamant that a gwy/riel book is next - not even entertaining an elu/ien book, its like elu/iens are getting the short hand of the stick and having to follow along/agree with whatever gwy/riels say bcs how dare they think for themselves and might wanting something different then what gwy/riels have in mind. Its been entertaining to say the least.

Their partnership works because through their ships, Elain & Azriel are seperated from each other therefore there isnt a possibility for elriel but once you get past that - it becomes pretty obvious elu/iens and Gwy/riels are at a odds with how the plots of the books will go, which couple will do what etc. I actually have respect for the elu/iens calling out the gwy/riels that are simply hating on Elain to be petty and whatever else, above everything- I love Elain so to see elu/iens call out other gwy/riels for their treatment of her was nice. You’re so right, most gwy/riels only ship elu/ien so Elain can be away from Az & so she doesn’t pose a threat to their ship. I can imagine how annoyed i’d be as an elu/ien entering my ships’ tag only to see others mock my favourite character, tell me why my ship isn’t possibly next, how unimportant my character is etc. Thank god tho, we dont have to experience that.

Most gwy/riels have genuinely ruined the fandom and they’re always so forceful with their takes and bully those that disagree. I wasn’t here pre-acosf so I dont rlly know how peaceful elu/iens and elriels were before - but tbh, I can imagine us having civil conversations bcs unlike Gwy/riel - at least elu/ien is actually based in canon. There is something tangible connecting elain and lucien together no one can deny or ignore. Also elu/ien at least makes some sense and they have a stronger footing to argue on where gwy/riel dont.

Same. To me elriel is obviously endgame - but I fully understand elu/iens stance and think - if you ignore the last 2 books then their ship has some chance of happening.

[rookinthecrownest]

On Solas & That One Scene in Act I

Discussions of Blood magic + spoilers for endgame ahead (Seriously don't read unless you've finished the game)

I sincerely apologize if this has already been said (I don't keep up with the Solas tag), and not to keep being Annoying on Main, but I've seen a few posts suggesting the Bioware devs forgot how Solas feels about blood magic in DATV and I have to disagree.

In Inquisition, Solas has a neutral opinion on blood magic. He sees it as a tool, like any other form of magic, and no more or less dangerous depending on how its used.

In Veilguard, in that one scene with Rook, he says "I abhor the use of Blood Magic" and people say this is out of character.

I don't think it is.

It only seems that way if you take his words at face value.

Think about it. If he openly says to Rook, who he just met, "Yeah I'm actually fine with blood magic depending on how its used and I may or may not have used it on you" - how well do we think that conversation is going to go. Rook already has no reason to trust Solas. Him openly admitting how he feels about blood magic would destroy any remaining credibility he could build with Rook in order to mold them into a pawn. Rook would shut down and not listen to him because they would be questioning their own thoughts by this point.

Solas has a habit of using people & spirits as tools to accomplish is end goal. Using their blood should be no different.

I actually thought it was completely in character for him to decry the use of blood magic, to disarm Rook by saying 'Had I the power to control your mind I would have used it already' " - which gets Rook to at least listen to the rest of what he has to say. I think that line gave him some buy-in with Rook.

And what do you know, Rook buys it and doesn't realize until the end just how much Solas is actually is fine with using Blood magic - to the point of making them hallucinate a memory of dead Varric to keep them going.

It's all very clever for, and I quote, the Elven god of trickery, lies & betrayal.

[feyrescourt]

This is a long and rambly discussion post for elriel nation btw so strap in

I want to preface this by kindly asking the elriel hive to not use any tags of #those ships if reblogged. I want to keep this in the elriel echo chamber. Please and thank u!

A huge part of fandom culture is to ship canonically compliant characters and crack ships. Everyone’s got them, and it’s totally normal, and it’s usually fun to engage with.

The majority of the time I have no issue with this (I am a wolfstar shipper and even though there is canonical evidence of them in the original HP books, they’re widely accepted online and balked at IRL usually due to homophobia and #that nasty, nasty woman’s bigotry), but over the last few years a certain group of crack shippers have taken it upon themselves to fly a little too close to the sun, and want to make it our (elriels) problem. I am talking about the Glees.

It’s late and this just popped into my head so I want to rant about it.

My friend who got me into ACOTAR gave me a breakdown of the ships (bc I read ToG first and went in blind. I became a doraelin shipper very early on and remained one halfway through QoS, it was a whole thing when I realized they were not end game lol), bc I asked her to after my ToG experience. She told me all the characters names and then told me about feysand and nessian endgames but didn’t mention az or elain’s situation. I asked her about it and she told me that she didn’t want to mention much about Az because “by the end of the series azriel has two options for how his story could go, elain or another way”. She shared some anti elain sentiment with me because she’s “boring and doesn’t do anything”. That went in one ear and out the other with me tbh.

When I started acowar, and feyre returned to the night court, I saw how elain and azriel were interacting and I concluded that mor was the second LI of az bc of acomaf. I was not apart of the fandom online at this point, so I was genuinely in the dark about everything around these two. I was just reading and talking to my friend about what I read. I also want to add that I still liked L*cien at this point in the series (it changed in acofas, I became apathetic towards him rather quickly when I finished reading that whiny ass convo with feyre…..I don’t play when it comes to her) but wasn’t sold on eluce because they had like one interaction and it wasn’t a great intro to a ship.

However this first meeting in acomaf….. :)

‘Can you truly fly?’ He set down his fork, blinking. I might have even called him self-conscious. He said, ‘Yes. Cassian and I hail from a race of faeries called Illyrians. We’re born hearing the song of the wind.’ ‘That’s very beautiful,’

“Rhys chuckled, Cassian’s wrath slipping enough that he grinned, and Elain, noticing Azriel’s ease as proof that things weren’t indeed about to go badly, offered one of her own as well.”

Well imagine my surprise when I finished acowar and it turns out mor (the person az has crushed on for 500 years) comes out to feyre before the book ends and she explains that she can never love az the way he loves her. After three books, and everything that happens in acowar it was clear to me that elain and azriel were being set up as each others love interests, despite the mating bond with l*cien.

After Acofas I was officially on the elriel train. I mean…

“Azriel strode to the lone window at the end of the room and peered into the garden below.”

“Azriel emerged from the sitting room, a glass of wine in hand and wings tucked back to reveal his fine, yet simple black jacket and pants. I felt, more than saw, my sister go still as he approached. Her throat bobbed.”

“But Azriel only took Elain’s heavy dish of potatoes from her hands, his voice soft as night as he said, ‘Sit. I’ll take care of it.’ Elain’s hands remained in midair, as if the ghost of the dish remained between them. With a blink, she lowered them, and noticed her apron. ‘I—I’ll be right back,’ she murmured, and hurried down the hall before I could explain that no one cared if she showed up to dinner covered in flour and that she should just sit.”

“Elain swept in, apron gone and hair rebraided. ‘Please don’t wait on my account,’ she said, taking the seat at the head of the table.”

“He [Azriel] was the portrait of relaxed, an arm braced against the carved mantel, his wings tucked in loosely, a faint grin on his face and a glass of wine in his hand. He slid his hazel eyes toward my sister without him moving an inch.”

“Azriel and Elain remained in the sitting room, my sister showing him the plans she’d sketched to expand the garden in the back of the town house, using the seeds and tools my family had given her tonight. Whether he cared about such things, I had no idea.”

(Damn the more I read elriel’s acofas moments the more I can’t help but conclude that they just hate/don’t understand introverts 😭)

Before I started SF, I decided to look at the online fandom and bitch……my jaw hit the floor with all the elain/elriel hate I saw on TT. And everyone was talking about a newer character in SF, and I was seeing the glee fan art and was like oh shit ok maybe elriel isn’t endgame.

Fast forward to SF……

‘What happened to Elain?’

“Nesta saw the blow land, like a physical impact, in Elain’s face, her posture. No one spoke, though shadows gathered in the corners of the room, like snakes preparing to strike. Elain’s eyes brightened with pain.”

……and I’m thinking ok, az obviously likes her. Then comes az’s BC. When I finished the elriel portion of the BC I was actually crying bc I was like oh fuck I really love these two….I knew it was over for me, and I was freaked out bc I thought I was going to get got with this “new ship” involving az. Plus I was thinking about elain being left alone in the dark without any explanation and feeling like an idiot for finally showing her true feelings towards him😭. It was like 3AM when I read it so I was hyper emotional lol. But then I read the rest of the BC and was still confused because I didn’t see any romantic subtext with g/wyn. I read it and saw a hurt male who couldn’t stand what he had done to elain the night before, was pissed at his brother for stopping it and making him feel bad when he was finally willing to voice what he’s been feeling for the past year or so and hating that he was shut down because we know he never voices his emotions, and couldn’t bear keeping a gift he picked out specifically for her. A necklace…..for solstice……Then I finished SF as a whole, and still, was confused as to why glee is a ship. Nearly all of their conversations were centered around training, and Sarah didn’t use any descriptors in their encounters that elude to any romance or mutual interest. (Btw I have a whole take on rhys’ part in that BC and I think a lot of ppl are dense and don’t understand what he was going through in that book but I can save that for another time)

Cassian and Feyre have more chemistry than those too lol.

I then talked to my friend about the these ships (elriel, eluce, and glee) ((i didn’t talk about eluce much in this post but that’s a lifeless ship too. I mean…..she can’t stand that red head anyway soooo)), and I said “I’m an elriel through and through. Idc that eluce are claimed to be mates you can tell she does not like him. also glee makes no sense to me.” Not verbatim but you get the point. My friend is very sensible so by the end of our convo, she told me that she’ll accept whatever way Sarah goes and that she’ll give elain a chance when her book comes out.

But isn’t that what all of this shit is about in the end: unjustified dislike/distain/hate for elain? That’s certainly how is appears to me. You cannot look me in the eyes and tell me that you love elain if you ship her with a male whom she has expressed, on multiple occasions, zero interest in AND becomes a shell of herself when he’s around because she just doesn’t want to interact with him. (I want to reiterate that I don’t hate L, I don’t think he’s awful or anything. elain just doesn’t want to know him. And that’s her right.) The glees don’t like her bc she doesn’t fit their stereotype for what they want in an FMC and therefore, for azriel. Which is why they have been chirping that the next book will be azriel’s. Not elain’s….WHAT??? You sound fucking crazy. The eluces (even though they claim they like her) dislike her so much that they go on and on about how she needs to grovel and apologize to the male they like because HE deserves to be happy……the same male who she associates with one of the most traumatic days of her life. Who also has not apologized to her for the part he played in that day, but I digress.

I say all that to point out that Glee specifically is in the crack ship category. No canonical evidence in the text can be used to claim they are ‘mates’ or endgame or anything more than acquaintances. And that’s fine, but don’t act as though they’re to be taken seriously as a canon ship when there’s no evidence to support it. Don’t boldly claim that azriel “has two love interests” when he literally doesn’t. He can’t sleep because of elain. He can’t stop thinking about her. He’s short with his family and others around him the days and weeks following solstice. His shadows threaten to strike nesta when she hurts elain and causes her pain. He doesn’t assign his spies to watch L*cien in acofas because he doesn’t want to know if he’s trying to court elain. He goes full lethal when he hears she may have been hurt. He follows the sound of her laugh to see what caused it. He goes on a suicide mission to save her. They communicate through looks alone when their family is around. Have you read an SJM book before? This is how she sets up her relationships. Like, holy fuck.

You cannot claim elriel is a crack ship because they have had background build up that both FMCs in their respective books have noticed and commented on. Cassian has noticed it too DESPITE not being hyper aware of what’s going on with az in SF. (referencing the scene in SF where elain tells everyone at family dinner about nesta’s love for dancing and the ball story from when they were human).

This ship war shit is fucking crazy because really this should only be between elriel nation and the eluces. Anyway, I’m over dealing with the fever dream brigade and their hallucinations. They’re going to come crashing down like Icarus when the elriel bible release day arrives and all our suffering will finally come to an end.

Then after that I’ll need to defeat the tamlin redemption arch threats, bc that is not a claim, that’s a fuckin threat and I won’t stand for it. But let’s tackle one problem at a time.

Pink: side notes/thoughts that give more context to my points

Blue italics: convos I’ve had being referenced

Purple: elriel moments <3

[captain-joongz]

Abraxas; Act 1, Chapter 2 Part 2

Pairing: mafia boss!Min Yoongi x police office!reader

Genre: enemies to lovers, humour, angst, investigation themes, dark themes, eventual smut, slowburn, some fluff

Chapter summary: As spring time comes, the police station finds itself intensely focused on several cold murder cases linked to the gangs. Amidst this chaos, it's hard to find time for anything else except for grappling with the position in the team and the burning ambition to be accepted, but something lovely might just be awaiting right behind the corner. The complicated relationship with the Min gang continues to get even more muddled.

Chapter word count: 18.3k

Warnings: discussion of crimes and murders, mentions of violence and gore (nothing too graphic, they're vaguely describing a murder scene), general anxiety? (our girl is NERVOUS in this one), Yoongi almost isn't in this chapter, start of reader x OC, gets suggestive at the end (it's not with Yoongi but he IS endgame, dw), also this chapter might be a bit slower and investigation and exposition heavy

Previous part | Series masterlist | Next part

A/N: unexpected sleepover kept me busy most of the weekend but here finally comes the second part of the chapter, i'm so excited for you to read the ending hehehe! let me know in the comments or through asks what you think, i'm curious to know your opinions! <3

The early summer heat was already hitting halfway through May, and as I sat in the station that was barely AC-ed, I suffered like a dog through the sudden and surprising rises of temperatures in between of bouts of rains.

Truthfully, looking out of the window, I wasn’t sure whether I’d rather be sitting here in a half empty dead office with barely anyone present (6 o’clock on a Friday afternoon usually not pulling much traffic around these parts) or sitting in full leather on my bike by some seedy club peeping at what Jungkook was doing this particular evening like a creep.

I wasn’t able to put much time into any extracurricular activities, the current task I’ve been made responsible of forced me to spend most of my time behind a desk, scrolling through endless police reports, paparazzi photos and news articles, taking names of cases and trying to find out what kind of people they were and who they were associated with. And after the hours and hours I’ve spent on this I was truly starting to get sick of it, almost missing the few days I spent watching a warehouse in the middle of the winter only to get trolled by Yoongi. Obviously, I wasn’t made for an office job.

With a sigh I finally gave up after trying to focus on the currently opened case on my table and dragged myself to a bistro on the corner. I’ve been drinking so much coffee these past few weeks I was on the verge of throwing up anytime I just saw a brown paper cup, but I soldiered through for the fresh batch of caffeine that would allow me to die a little slower and more painfully. And as I waited in the line, I dreaded returning to the station and continuing in what’s been my sole purpose in life for days upon days.

Still not being able to move anywhere with Jungkook kind of haunted me, it stayed at the back of my mind practically every day, just calling me to go out there and do something. But I couldn’t exactly spend the whole night chasing shadows when I had to show up to work at 7 am. Sometimes I would wonder what Yoongi thought about my sudden absence, whether he was trying to uncover some mastermind psychological warfare plan while I was really just too busy to do anything other than sit in that damn building and sleep, but admittedly it did always put a little smile on my face imagining him being silly over why I’m not following his every step like before.

Occasionally I would tag along with the team for additional interviews and questionings, stand behind Minjoon and listen and absorb their strategies. Unfortunately, all the people we talked to, all the witnesses who were mostly workers from around the warehouse, they knew very well to keep their mouth shut about anything illegal. In the end we couldn’t get more out of them than them hearing shots and calling the police. Nobody saw anything and heard nothing beyond that, as it seemed.

But we knew we were going to hit the wall here, no one in their right mind would snitch like this, especially if this truly was the Min gang. For all the neutral demeanour and suave charismatic energy, people were still terrified of Yoongi. No matter the image he had right now, no matter how much he tried to situate himself as a businessman unconcerned with the underworld, everybody still remembered how he came up, how much violence it took for him to take his place, how much blood was spilt and continued to be spilt any time someone went against him. You didn’t act up against a man like that.

And given the fact the Kims were somehow involved as well, it was double the risk. A single word could cost you your life, no matter which side the hit came from.

That only left us with carefully dissecting the lives of the victims, trying to find out how they got there and who they messed with to end up massacred on a floor of a run-down warehouse in Incheon, which was a feat in and of itself, but Minjoon and Seungcheol worked on that diligently. I sometimes met him just as he was about to leave to presumably go question someone about them, but I haven’t heard much from them yet. So lately we were all mostly stuck behind our computers.

I shook my head at nothing in particular and with one last sigh I picked myself up and went back to the station coffee in hand, resigning myself to another few hours of ruining my eyesight and back at that stupid little cramped desk. These past two weeks really made me realise just how on each other we were in that little space, and how Park sat comfortably in his office doing god knows what.

When I arrived back, I was shocked to see Minjoon suddenly back sitting by his own desk submerged deep into whatever it was he was looking at. He barely even registered my entrance, and I deliberated on going up to him or going back to my own desk to not disrupt him, but in the end decided to procrastinate just a while longer.

Minjoon looked up as soon as he heard footsteps approaching and we exchanged friendly but tired smiles while he pulled out a chair next to him for me to sit at.

“Doing overtime too, I see,” he greeted me with, eyes once again glued to the monitor. I looked over his shoulder to see him reading up on a report of a crime from two years ago. The name was very familiar to me after all these days. It was one of the guys from the warehouse.

“You going over what Park Doyun was involved in again?” I jumped straight into reading the report alongside with him. It was an armed robbery from two years ago, but due to a mess up in the prosecution they were acquitted on some obscure technicality. It was honestly a huge embarrassment, because there was some good evidence, but it all went down the drain. It was the first thing that really smacked us in the face once we put the guys through the police database, because everyone was talking about it around the precinct and Minjoon immediately made the connection.

“Yeah, supposedly there was a third accomplice, but I can’t find any mention of anyone else being involved,” Minjoon muttered somewhat dejectedly, the exhaustion showing through his expression and posture. I patted him on the shoulder, trying to bring his spirits up while I was just as sick of this as he was. He only shot me a grateful smile over his shoulder and went back into the report.

The Police Academy truly doesn’t prepare you for the hours and hours of just pure research and paperwork, what a lie.

“Is that what one of the people in the neighbourhood told you?” I queried some more, desperate to distract myself from my own tasks long enough to gain some strength to go back to it. Minjoon hummed absentmindedly, but in the end gave up as well and turned to me.

“Yeah, it was the most I could get from this one old lady sitting by a convenience store on his corner,” the detective said around a yawn, decompressing into the chair and letting the day just wash over him. It was obvious that whatever he was doing today was catching up to him, and it didn’t surprise me much given that he was gone for most of the afternoon.

“What do you got so far?” I leaned back on my chair as well and turned so that we were face to face, and we just lounged there for a moment smiling at each other cheekily, “About the whole thing.”

That got Minjoon sighing again, wiping his hand over his face. “Most is the usual stuff,” the man started, launching into another long monologue brought up by my questions, “out of the six victims, two grew up in the same neighbourhood down in Gojan-dong. You know, the same old – not the greatest families, poor backgrounds, started messing around the block and got into a lot of trouble. That’s where the reports start flying in. The other four are from around there as well, but not as close by.”

I sat on the information for a moment, as this was the first time I outright asked about the details. “So they’re all from Incheon anyway?” I ended up saying, and Minjoon only nodded.

“Two of them lived pretty close to each other, went to the same school, and they have that one record together,” he continued talking, ���but you know how it gets. The people living around there only talk about how pitiful it is they fell off the good path, and if there is something more organised going on beneath, they either don’t know about it, don’t want to know about it or will never talk to a cop about it.”

“But we can be pretty sure they were already tight back then,” I hummed. Minjoon moved a little on his chair to get more comfortable. I saw his eyes jump to the time showcasing on his computer before he turned back to me and the conversation, and I was suddenly hit with the realisation that he most likely wanted to go home and I was keeping him here.

“Yeah, according to the teachers they were troublemakers and there was some violence happening on other students,” Minjoon expanded on that, “and one also mentioned a kid from a school on another block that they used to hang out with a lot that was also known for trouble, but she couldn’t remember his name. She wasn’t very surprised that they died in a gang affiliated murder though, according to her they were most probably dealing already back then between the peers.”

“That’s tough, that’s real tough. Surviving on the streets like that just gets you involved in all kinds of trouble” the empathetic words spilled from my mouth before I could really think twice about it and I panicked a little. I wasn’t sure how much the people around the unit knew about my childhood, but it definitely wasn’t something I wanted to discuss with any of them, even Minjoon. Some things were just better left in the past, especially since it’d probably make my colleagues dislike me more.

“Yeah, but the worst thing is that I just can’t get the name of that third kid,” Minjoon carried on completely submerged into his own world, “I showed her pictures of the other guys, but she didn’t recognise them. Then I was trying to choke some info from an old lady sitting by one of their addresses, but she only mentioned that there were three boys involved in that robbery but couldn’t remember the third one because he was from a nearby neighbourhood, just that these three were always together and didn’t do anything good.”

“And it’s not any of the other four guys?” I asked once more, just to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Minjoon shook his head and leaned back onto his chair, just watching me with tired but smiling eyes.

“But I think it’s a safe bet that these three must have stood at the beginning of everything, I just can’t get the name of the last kid,” Minjoon finished with a sigh, fingers subconsciously playing with the hem of his shirt, “I don’t know how they got into the big game or where the other dude is though.”

“Do you think there’s a possibility he escaped? That he’s alive somewhere but skipped cities or something to get away from the trouble?” I pondered out loud, as we both exchanged conspiratory glances, but Minjoon just shrugged.

“I mean, anything is possible in this game really,” the detective closed the conversation with a definitive nod of his head. I thought that was my cue to go back to my desk and let him leave, but he surprised me with turning the conversation around on me.

“What about the files? How are you doing?” he asked suddenly just as I was preparing to stand up and go. For a split second I looked at him surprised, and then relaxed into the chair again with a smile.

“Honestly, it’s such an annoying work,” I complained a little whinily, allowing myself to be a little more open with Minjoon, “I have to go through every little article, report and a picture on the internet concerning the victim. Some of them are normal working class people who worked around the docks or clubs, but some are wealthy bastards.” Minjoon chuckled at me, fingers drumming a calming beat into the table.

“Some have no ties to Yoongi at all apart from like eating at his restaurant once or staying at his hotel, but some I think are worth investigating into,” I went on, giving Minjoon the opportunity to just listen to me babble for once and not the other way around, “like some businessmen that have done deals with some of Yoongi’s shadow companies or were frequent visitors of his clubs, there was this one dude that was really closely related to some charity events Yoongi put on. I think it’s worth looking into those.”

Minjoon smiled at me brightly, his whole persona suddenly lighting up at hearing me talk about the case. He straightened up and leaned towards me, hand grabbing my shoulder in a gesture that has become very familiar to me coming from him to a point when I had to fight an embarrassed blush and a smile at the warmth and pride it filled me with.

“Good job, Y/N, good job,” he said earnestly, eyes looking straight into mine until the direct contact got a little too intense and I dodged it, “I knew I could count on you with this.” This time I really did blush, an intense feeling of vindication filling me at finally having someone recognise the work I was putting into this case. I mumbled my thanks to him, too overwhelmed to even look up, but I felt his hand squeeze my shoulder in answer before he retracted it back.

“I put them into different groups,” I jumped back into the explanation to escape the atmosphere change, “the ones that are inconclusive when it comes to gang involvement, the ones that are mostly low-tier workers around the gang affiliated hotspots and the big wigs that died under strange circumstances and most likely were closely related to Yoongi’s business in one way or the other.”

I didn’t even realise I had naturally switched into calling him Yoongi even in front of Minjoon, but thankfully he either didn’t notice or didn’t think it strange. Once I clocked it though, I promised myself to make sure to never make the same mistake in front of Hwang or Park, who I didn’t want to risk questioning me about it. Was I paranoid? Maybe, but I had a good reason for it with my track record.

“Have you looked through all of them?” came Minjoon’s question after a few moments of silence and I startled minutely before shaking my head in response.

“Not yet, I’ve got like a case and a half left,” I answered him truthfully, the distaste over having to go back to my desk and keep researching this file still rotting on my table resurfacing and souring my mood. I had managed to forget I’d still need to return to it once Minjoon left and it had me slumping into my chair.

The man must have noticed my change in mood, since he gave me a small encouraging smile and then leaned towards me somewhat conspiratorially before lightly enquiring “you wanna get out of here and grab something for dinner?”. I visibly relaxed at the offered out and nodded enthusiastically basically before he even finished speaking, making him laugh heartily.

In one swift movement he was standing on his feet offering me his hand. I took it gingerly and let him haul me up, the feelings of guilt that have been eating me away for not dedicating more of my time to the task soothed by Minjoon’s approval of ditching work.

It didn’t take us long to turn off computers and collect our belongings before we both headed out into the still incredibly hot air of the parking lot in front of the station. He must have been just as excited to leave as me, with how gingerly he led us out and towards his car, only stopping when I lightly grabbed his arm. The officer turned his whole body to me, surprise and confusion written over his face at my sheepish expression. I gestured towards the other side of the parking lot where a solitary dark car stood parked.

“I’m here by car as well, we could go to the restaurant down the street so we can both leave by car?” I suggested and Minjoon as quickly brightened up and agreed.

Thus we found ourselves sitting over our respective bowls of kimchi jjigae just a few minutes later. This was a known spot for us, as they fed most of the police force from our station with the homely family run restaurant located only three minutes by foot away from our office. When we walk in, the kind middle-aged lady running it already greets us by our names and knows our tastes by heart. It was such a nice feeling to have a place like that, I had to admit that.

We both must have been pretty hungry, because for the first half none of us even spoke, too focused on our bowls and stuffing our faces like a pair of vultures. Once the dust settled and we were handing the empty dishes back to the smiling woman, we found ourselves once again just looking at each other not knowing how to start up a conversation. After few moments of awkward silence, Minjoon decided to break the ice.

“You mentioned you sorted the cases into three groups, right?” he started off the subject of our work again, waiting for me to nod and then continuing, “Once you get through them all, you should pull out the other cases we have connected to Yoongi and look through them again with the new ones in mind. There might have been things lost or not noticed.”

The feeling of disappointment that hit me was almost palpable in the air, and I felt my expression freezing into an awkward smile trying to not let it show outwardly. I didn’t want to anger Minjoon or make him feel bad about this, and I did realise I was a total newbie to the unit and a newbie to this particular investigation, but I would lie if I said it didn’t hurt that I seemed to be eternally stuck behind the computer while the others actually did all the investigating.

Minjoon still must have felt my lack of enthusiasm, even though I tried to show my agreement as happily as I could muster, and he hit me with another sheepish apologetic smile.

“I know what you’re thinking,” the man begun, hands on instinct raising as if trying to console me, “but this could be your own thing, you know? It would be your call and your own investigation. We could also ask the violent crime team to help you out with questionings.” Now, that did sound marginally better, and I found myself swaying. I mean, I really didn’t have much choice, I would still agree even if I was truly just a glorified secretary to them, otherwise I’d be booted of the team quicker than I could say ‘fuck you’. But like this, it at least didn’t feel like a complete lost.

“So, once I went through the cases, I’d have free range and I could try to investigate and close some of them?” I made sure before I truly consented to anything, and when Minjoon nodded and agreed, I relaxed a little bit.

“Okay then,” finally I accepted, “I’ll look through the old cases too.” That seemed to make him very happy, and he made sure to smile at me brightly and shower me in gratitude and praises, but I couldn’t really help the sinking feeling at imagining myself going through more cold cases. At least there was a clear end to that in sight with these.

After that the conversation shifted slightly to lighter topics and Minjoon ended up telling me some funny stories about our colleagues’ mishaps at work. I laughed at them heartily while feeling this strange rift between us deepen even more, realising more than ever that I was truly a stranger in this unit full of people who actually somewhat liked each other.

I promised myself that this time next year, I will be sitting here with the whole unit and be a part of those fun stories as well.

Later in the evening, as we walked leisurely back to our cars after finishing up at the food joint, Minjoon suddenly seemed a little more hesitant and withdrawn. At first I saw it as a reluctance to part after a nicely spent evening, but soon I came to realise that there was something he wasn’t sure how to tell me. I could see it written all over his guilty unsure face, mouth opening for a moment without words coming out and then shutting again. I waited patiently for him to gather his courage, until the man finally broke the suddenly awkward silence.

“So, we were making some plans with the team,” Minjoon opened hesitantly and immediately I felt a shot to my heart knowing I wasn’t a part of whatever discussion they were having as a team, but I kept my mouth shut. I only hummed in response, encouraging him to go on.

“Well, next Friday we’re going to speak to Ms. Kim,” he finally got out, and I froze a little, “I just felt that a heads up was needed for that particular encounter." And I wasn’t going to lie, there was a little bit of panic that seized me at the mention of her name.

Miss Kim, alias Kim Jiyu, alias the sister of the man currently in charge of Kim Enterprises and any other business the Kim family was running legal or not, was notoriously known in both the underworld and the law enforcement sphere as a very unpleasant and harsh woman that people only ever can have the displeasure of meeting. There was a lot of stories floating around about her, and most were extremely unflattering to her character. All kinds of adjectives were attached to her, from spoiled or mean all the way to downright cruel and heartless.

The meeting with her could mean only one thing – they were trying to get the meeting with the Mr. Kim himself, but as most people, couldn’t get through his sister first, as she acted as a wall between him and the rest of the world. Unless you came with a warrant, the chances of speaking to him alone or at all were very slim, most visitors got handled by Ms. Kim before they even made it through the receptionist.

I shuddered a little bit at the thought of meeting her and doing a questioning against her and the crimes her family was involved in. Allegedly. After this thing was over, I had to go to good old Jungkook and troll him a little over parking tickets to decompress from this whole ordeal.

I turned to Minjoon, taking in his worried face, and I put on my bravest expression, nodding with a gentle smile. We didn’t really speak after that again, both of us just processing the information that was traded throughout the whole evening.

When I got home, I was so exhausted I just wanted to crash into the bed and sleep for twelve hours but sleep just wouldn’t find me until the early hours of the morning, and I found myself lying there with closed eyes, brain overheating with everything that’s happened in the last 24 hours.

I nervously shimmied around, earning another judging stare from one of the maids and a warning shake of head from Minjoon, as we waited in the entrance hall to be accepted by the lady of the house.

When Minjoon mentioned going to interview Ms. Kim, I truly didn’t even begin to imagine we would go into her house. That morning pulling up in front of a huge modern mansion and getting greeted by a chauffeur and a gardener before I even made it halfway through the gate was truly a shock. I don’t know why I was expecting maybe an office or something, given the fact it was one of the richest residential parts of Seoul, but still.

As usual, my nervousness made it that I was there first, way before Sunmi or Minjoon got there, who were the two people assigned to this task, Hwang and Seungcheol trying their luck loitering around the office building where Mr. Kim must have been. It was a tactic that was already well known to me in our unit, fighting on two fronts and then exchanging found out info. In my mind I was transported months back, to the first time I was brought along, the “first time” I officially met Yoongi in the VIP lounge in Pied Piper and how I nervously sat in front of him while he laughed at me like my presence was the funniest thing that’s ever happened to him.

The feelings of unease and queasiness that thinking of Yoongi often brought along manifested themselves and I started sweating even harder, slowly gaining Minjoon’s worry as he looked me up and down. I shook my head to him very slightly, hoping it was seen as a comforting gesture and it wouldn’t make him hover over me in an attempt to shelter me or comfort me.

The silence in the hall stretched for several additional minutes and the three of us stood there awkwardly, scrutinised by every member of staff currently on standby. I felt the scolding gazes doubly, as I didn’t make much effort on the visual front, rocking up to one of the most expensive houses in the most expensive neighbourhood in my worn washed out jeans, a simple black tee and a breezy short-sleeved shirt with an aggressive flower print, hair styled in a way that was the most practical and needed the least amount of time to achieve and a face red and sweating both from the hot temperatures and the nerves, the look finished with a pair of old sneakers basically crying for help.

I couldn’t look more out of place in the pristine light green hall with sleek furniture and floors made from massive marble tiles and I felt properly as an outsider, both from the perspective of a kid growing up in an impoverished block and as a colleague that wasn’t properly informed about the details of the visit. Even Minjoon wore a nicer pair of jeans and a shirt, which he never did, and Sunmi looked as elegant as ever in her dress pants, light blouse and beautiful wavy hair let hanging loose around her shoulders. I swallowed my bitterness and regret at not checking up on the area first and not getting the chance to also dress accordingly. And avoiding looking like a beggar accidentally let in from the streets.

My train of thought was broken by the sound of approaching footsteps, the distinctive clacking of high heel shoes on the marble floors carrying to us all the way from deep inside the house, and I found myself almost letting out a breath of relief, as I would finally be able to escape this oppressive atmosphere and disappear somewhere into a corner of a room and just quietly make notes.

With each clack getting closer to us the tension in the air grew lightly, the forms of my colleagues also straightening out, hands last minute fidgeting around their clothes to gather courage and look as composed as we could. From what I understood, from the people present here only Sunmi had the pleasure of meeting our host before, and it was only twice. Not nearly enough for the initial instinctual apprehension to wear off. Therefore we were all probably experiencing similar levels of unease. Most probably. Hard to say, I was pretty strung up.

Finally, the form of a woman rounded the corner and materialised at the other end of a very long corridor, slowly inching towards us with the elegance and prowess of a hungry lion, her form slightly shimmering. At first I thought my eyes were watering or I was straight up hallucinating, but as she came closer I realised it was because she wore a silvery dress that reflected every light and surface around her.

She was taller than me, quite a bit (not a big feat honestly, I barely grew out of looking like an 8th grader) with a small, graceful face, each inch perfect and carefully maintained. Both her make-up and dress looked very sophisticated, showing clearly that she was a member of the higher class, with her beautiful dark hair pulled into a tight intricate bun at the back of her head. She was absolutely stunning and, to be honest, for a moment I got a little starstruck. It felt like meeting a movie star or a celebrity, she had that aura around her, and for a few seconds I completely forgot why we were there and almost started asking for an autograph and a detailed explanation of her beauty routine.

That all shattered the moment she finally reached us though, as her impassive face suddenly broke into a cruel smirk, venom taking over her dark eyes and she scoffed, looking us over like we were pests about to be exterminated. Before even giving us a chance to introduce ourselves, or really say anything, her focus shifted to Sunmi, gaze burning her down intensely.

“I thought we were over this, detective,” she said in a strong voice, sounding just as annoyed as mean, “There’s no need for you to come over and ask your silly little questions. I told you everything you need to know.” I saw the moment Sunmi steeled herself, eyes hardening, readying to play her part of an unshakable detective. And damn, did she do a great job.

“Please Ms. Kim,” she retorted, her body relaxing a little as she adopted a posture to counter the other woman’s stiff elegant figure, “You know I’ll never have enough of asking you silly questions. Just let us bother you for fifteen minutes and then we don’t have to see each other again for a few months.” There was a little impish grin tugging on her lips and I could notice our hostess was starting to get a little bothered by that, her annoyance slowly running through the roof. I watched on with bated breath, both me and Minjoon just hanging back quietly, taken aback by the sudden change in the air.

Ms. Kim’s face turned into a bitter grimace, the disgust obvious in the downturn of her mouth as she stepped aside and gestured down the long hallway she herself came from.

“Fine, you got fifteen minutes, after that I’m not entertaining any other visits unless you have an arrest warrant,” she bit out almost in a bark, before she turned around without waiting and stomped her way back inside the house. We all scrambled to follow her, suddenly thrust into action after just weirdly hanging about for such a long time. Sunmi took the lead, confidently striding after her, but as she passed me I could hear her releasing a huge puff of air as she steadied herself to carry on.

I gazed after her, taking in her stoney face and confident posture, my respect towards the female detective immediately skyrocketing. If Minjoon told me I was looking at her with hearts in my eyes, I would totally believe him. I liked to pretend I looked similar while dealing with Yoongi, but Sunmi clearly perfected the pest bratty power play that just drove these types up the wall, and I hoped I would be able to learn from her before we all had to go our separate ways again. I’m sure the Min gang would infinitely appreciate it. Especially the maknae.

Miss Kim led us only halfway through the corridor before she disappeared into a room on the right, and like ducklings we all followed inside. Minjoon came through last, but immediately went for the chairs, so I took it upon myself to close the door. When I turned, I was the last one to take the room in. It was quite a standard home office space, with a dark desk dominating the space, some shelves with books and decorations, and of course, the two chairs waiting for visitors to be scrutinised from the high table.

Not wanting to pull much attention to myself, I quickly hurried into the left corner where a lone small armchair stood, sitting myself there. I was already pretty much invisible to them as they sized each other up.

Just as before, Miss Kim didn’t seem overly interested in getting our names, getting straight to business without any preamble.

“I cannot imagine what else you’d like to hear from me, Miss Lee,” her piercing voice sounded through the room, taking on a slight whining voice. I jerked slightly in my chair, head immediately flying up to look at the woman before I realised that me and Sunmi shared a surname and she was talking to her, not me. The relief that flooded me at not having to face her yet was quite mortifying, so I just focused on fiddling with my notepad and pen, waiting for something worthy of being written down.

“A multiple homicide took place on your front lawn, of course we’d be interested in getting your perspective as much as we can,” Sunmi replied to her matter-of-factly, holding her own in the intense power battle that was currently taking place between their gazes.

“On my front lawn? That’s news to me,” Miss Kim leaned back into her chair, throwing her arms into the air, “That’s not our warehouse. The Kim Enterprises don’t own it.”

“Cut the shit, that’s your turf. You want to tell me that someone was murdered on your turf, and you don’t have even the slightest idea? Not even if Mins were involved?” Sunmi snapped back immediately and even I was surprised for a split second before I schooled my expression and watched the two of them attentively.

Miss Kim seemed hardly surprised, she didn’t even blink at Sunmi’s approach, just sat there and stared at her blankly with not even a single hair out of place. Then she smirked lightly, fingers drumming a quick rhythm into the desk.

“I have no idea what Mr. Min is doing, but I can assure you he’s doing it far away from me,” she said diplomatically, “We’re not exactly the bestest of friends.” There was a tense venomous smile on her face and I fought back the scoff. That was some understatement. But she was really good at acting as if her whole clan didn’t almost lose their lives to Yoongi’s six after actively trying to sabotage him several times.

But guess they must have gotten a little mercy from him since most of the conflicts happened while the old Kim, her father, was still in power. Since he has died and his son took over, the relationship between the two powerhouses was still considerably strained, but also much calmer.

There was a moment of silence, Minjoon quietly looing to Sunmi whether she wanted to keep going and when she didn’t stop him, he cleared his throat and turned his full attention to the woman behind the desk.

“It might not be your warehouse, but we know the area is pretty much under your rule,” he said seemingly amicably, a stark difference to Sunmi’s irate approach, “We don’t care about any other stuff that’s happening there. We don’t care about drugs or smuggling right now, this is a murder case.”

To that the woman smirked and rolled her eyes. “So what? If I give you information, you’ll overlook anything else that might be going on? You want me to be a snitch?” she drawled out, clearly mocking us all, then threw her hands out into the air, “Not my warehouse, not my problem. Why would I know what’s going on in a house that doesn’t belong to me?” The answer was pretty clear, to be honest. Even as someone from a rival gang, if she knew something she wouldn’t cooperate with the police. The retaliation would be merciless if Yoongi found out. And he always did.

“Anything you say will be recorded as an anonymous tip, it will only push us in the right direction,” Minjoon told her, in what was supposed to be a comforting manner, but his voice was too hard and matter-of-fact to be friendly. The elegantly dressed woman’s eyes jumped from the two with a slyness that left a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. In that moment she looked more like a viper about to strike than an heiress to a huge successful family. An ugly smirk curled around her lips and her face took on a certain savageness, suddenly she looked nothing like the graceful lady that greeted us in the foyer.

“Well, detective,” she started in another drawl, now her voice pitching more towards an almost playful hostility, like she was trying to make herself seem less lethal than she truly was, “all I can say is that they were drug dealers. Which is something you already know. So you probably have to ask… why did they lose their lives because of it? Hmmmm, I wonder… wonder who and where does drug deals that has the reputation of killing anyone that just looks at him bad…” She ended that whole spiel with a sharp grin, and promptly stood up and in a grand gesture flicked her wrist towards the door.

“I didn’t really expect that I would have to do the police’s job for them, should have fucking gone to the academy,” she hissed out in a snarl, “Now get the fuck out of my house and don’t bother me again about bullshit that doesn’t concern me.”

The two detectives didn’t seem to be bothered by her words or sudden turn in mood at all, instead they both stood up almost coordinated and without a single word or a glance back turned to leave the room. I scrambled to follow them, the whole thing replaying in my mind as I absent mindedly smacked about the door to catch the handle. The split second I turned to see where it was, I caught Miss Kim’s eye for the first time that evening. Hers were sharp, face a hard grimace of uncaringness and cruelty. She smirked at me in a mocking way, like she would at an insect right before she crushed in under her heel, her pride and ego clearly displayed like trophies in her arrogant stance and upturned head. I shuddered lightly and decided to leave the door be, breaking into a light jog to catch up to my colleagues much to judging looks of the servants. I didn’t care much, I just wanted to be out of there.

Once back on the street, a weighted silence stretched between us as we marinated on what we were told. Really, these interviews always felt so short and so little information would come from them, and then you’d look at the clock and find out it’s been thirty or forty minutes spend just turning in circles. This was one of them.

“Of course we know the drug deal is an important aspect of the case,” Minjoon suddenly bit out, peeved as the last comment clearly got him, “A group of drug dealers doesn’t just get murdered by accident. But Yoongi is self-sufficient, he has ties across the sea to Japan, he doesn’t do deals with small in-Seoul gangs.” We both looked at him, trying to ignore his petulant outburst, trying to be empathising because all of our emotions ran a little wild at the moment. I looked to Sunmi, studying her calm face that was in contrast to her hand tapping her thigh in a quick rhythm, her mind working fast to slot everything together and re-evaluate what we found out till now.

“Well, then the reason must be there,” I voiced out unsurely, getting nervous when their gazes turned to me, “If what she’s insinuating is that they were doing a deal with Yoongi and got killed, then we gotta find out why. If he normally doesn’t do that, then why now?” Sunmi nodded at my words, eyes squinted both against the sun and in thought, mulling over it.

“Yeah, that’s really the only way I see here too,” she stated finally, voice carrying strong, “We were working with theories that they maybe provoked him or split from him and stole some of his cargo, maybe tried to push his turf somewhere, the usual reasons for this brutal of a punishment, but maybe we should explore the option that they were actually partners. Maybe they scammed him with goods, that could get you murdered in this business.”

I pursed my lips tightly, keeping a neutral face to reign in my surprise, as most of those things she said were total news to me. I had known they were looking into their past and that they were drug dealers, that they missed one guy and maybe he got away. Nothing of what she said actually made it to me, and I had to stand there and pretend like I knew what she was talking about. I mean, I wasn’t dumb, these were the usual reasons for murder between gangs, but it would have been nice if someone actually told me we were looking into these options.

I swallowed my bitterness down and kept my eyes trained on Sunmi, nodding along. I didn’t want my negative experience with my team and unit to tamper down the respect that was quickly growing in me towards her, the detective has in the short period of time I’ve known her become something of a model for me, and I knew that it wasn’t her responsibility to keep me updated since she was from a different unit. No, this transgression was on the side of my own colleagues, so I stubbornly kept my eyes from straying towards the officer in question, who was nervously shuffling next to her.

I let out a tired sigh, the disappointment was so constant with them that I barely even found it in me to be properly annoyed, just felt resignation bleed into me slowly. I knew that I would most likely just keep getting fucked over like this, but still, I stubbornly and selfishly wasn’t prepared to give up just yet, and it hurt. But really, what other option did I have.

“We should get back to the station,” I piped in, cutting short the conversation that started up between them while I was spacing out, and I felt Minjoon’s guilty gaze on me, “Get the info to the others and re-evaluate.” Sunmi once again nodded, patting my shoulder and giving me a friendly smile.

“You’re here by car, right? We could definitely squeeze you in if you need a ride,” she offered easily, and I found myself genuinely smiling back. I thanked her and pointed towards my own vehicle, and she patted my shoulder some more, a little more awkwardly, and made her way to her own. Minjoon lingered behind a little, but whatever he wanted to tell me, we didn’t have time for it anyway, so I shot him a polite smile and went my way too.

The day went by surprisingly fast, considering I didn’t speak much for the rest of it, the earlier realisation weighing heavy on me. The briefing was pretty short, with mostly Sunmi making sure the other two detectives were caught up. They split their duties quickly too. Minjoon and Seungcheol were supposed to keep looking into the mysterious third accomplice while Sunmi and Hwang would start looking more sharply into their mob ties, hoping to somehow trace them to Yoongi if they scrutinised them hard enough. I sat there and watched them awkwardly, until Minjoon turned to me and somewhat sheepishly asked whether I wanted to share my findings. So I did.

I recapped to them everything I said to Minjoon a few days earlier before he stepped in and informed the others I agreed to go through the older cases as well and would try to build a new bigger case. I gulped down my own simmering anger, that was admittedly dwindling down with every hit I took from them, and smiled, nodded, agreed. Minjoon kept glancing towards me as if he wanted to say something more, but I ignored it for the moment. Now was not the time. He asked the other team if they would volunteer to have someone tag along with me. Seungcheol agreed. I shook his hand and thanked him. In my head I clung to the promise Minjoon made me, that this would be my own big case, and kept myself in check.

By the evening, I was finally wrapping up with the original task, a huge boulder falling off of my shoulders and then promptly building back up when I curiously checked how many files I would have to pull up come Monday. It was a lot. I did catch myself just sitting at my tiny desk kneading my face in my hands, smushing my features all together and then pulling them again, as my eyes focused and unfocused on the computer screen.

And that’s how Minjoon found me too. He walked up to me quietly, and at first I didn’t even notice him through the existential crisis I was going through, but soon his hip moved into my field of vision and I jerked back, embarrassed at my antics. Minjoon still looked just as apologetic as that morning, and I couldn’t even be annoyed with him after the day I had.

“Dinner?” he asked quietly, unsure of whether I would want to go with him or not. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but instead I just nodded tiredly, pushing the files under the desk and turning off the computer. I was done, done for the day and done with working on this, so I just wordlessly stood up and glanced around. Just like last week we were the last ones around, even Park already long gone from his office where he basically camped out.

Minjoon waited for me patiently, as I gathered my belongings and then just walked out without looking back. We ended up at the same restaurant, ordering the same thing, the lady behind the counter giving us winks and mischievous smiles while I tried my hardest to push the flustered part of myself as deep as possible. That was the last thing I needed, really.

Minjoon launched into his apology as soon as we sat down, stating how tired and overworked he was and pleaded for me to forgive him just this once for forgetting to forward the information to me. How it just slipped his mind and how Hwang just plainly refused to have to keep running to me with every new little thing and always left it to him and he was just so busy. I sat there staring blankly, not even really in the mood to pretend it was fine like I usually would for the man, and he stewed under my intense gaze, stuttering to find a way to make it up to me.

I wanted to be spiteful, wanted to tell him just how tired I was as well, how if they even invited me to these meetings in the first place, we wouldn’t have this problem, but failed to find the reason why I should bother.

“Then how about this? I have an offer to make,” Minjoon said suddenly after a few minutes of awkward small talk, a mischievous smile slowly stretching on his face. I perked up at the sudden change in mood and curiously nodded at him to continue. “I always have the time to tell you everything when we eat here and I can relax at the same time, so it’s pretty obvious you should keep coming to these dinners with me. Just for the work’s sake of course,” the man suggested slyly, eyes colouring with mirth and something else, something a little darker and sweeter. That insufferable flirt.

That time I did blush full force as soon as the meaning of those words hit me, ducking my head shyly as the negative emotions dissolved confusedly into something a little more excited and jittery deep inside my chest, the anger forgotten under the sudden attention. I found myself nodding and Minjoon rewarded me with such a blinding smile it made everything worth it, all the work and the bitterness long pushed from my mind.

That evening, there was plenty more conversation, none of it about murders or crime which was a refreshing change for both of us, and we both seized the opportunity to actually mention anything that didn’t have any tie to Yoongi, who seemed to have become a constant in my life. For a first time in a really long time I laughed freely with another person, nothing holding me back from the amusement and nothing weighing heavy on my mind.

When I made my way home that evening, the hopeful joy making itself known in my heart seemingly erased all the negativity of the day, of the week, of the month. The only thought that fought its way through was the flash of Yoongi in my mind as I passed the street that would eventually lead me to Pied Piper.

I turned my head straight and drove on.

The days quickly bled into weeks, into a month, until I was sweating my ass off in the office towards the end of May, the sudden heatwave hitting right after a week of storms and rains. The heat always seemed to get even more exaggerated inside the building, something about it just had to be cursed. And with how old and rundown the station really was, hoping for a working AC soon turned into a fruitless endeavour.

I spent the month the same way I spent the month before that, buried neck deep in old cold cases that never saw enough evidence or attention, cross-referencing every little thing down to wearing the same-coloured socks. Similarities started quickly adding up, and by the time I opened the 20th case I could confidently say whether it was truly a Min murder or not. I even had bets going on which one were Jungkook’s and which ones were Hoseok’s. There were even few that I suspected belonged to the Kims, but it wasn’t a theory I felt was strong enough to actually present to others. I had become something of an expert on violence.

Truly, throughout the cases, there were few names that kept repeating – names of companies that could be traced back to Yoongi’s umbrella corporation, names of middlemen that were known to hang about him, names from other cases. They all tied together a nice picture of shady business and in the middle of it all sat Yoongi, like the devil himself.

I was able to painstakingly trace some of the new cases to the older ones, fully incorporating them into the agenda after confirming truly that they were most likely victims of bad deals and finicky power dynamics. Then came the gut punch – the man that was linked to most of those cases, Moon Jiwoo, the middleman whose sole occupation seemed to be to link up wealthy influential men with Yoongi, has gone and turned into a cold case himself. This time a missing person.

Damn you, Jung Hoseok, ruining all my fun.

But obviously this was something worth looking into, given the fact that he was “taken care of” as well. So I started rearranging the files into different groups and sub-groups once again, making a pile that was directly connected to Moon Jiwoo, then a pile of cases that was linked to the victims in the first pile and then seemingly unconnected cases that were still most probably carried out by the Min gang. Thus I ended up with thirteen cases – seven that were connected to the middleman, the middleman case itself and five that had a link to the main seven. Ten more cases sat on the side, for now looking rather random, but maybe I would come to find out that they fell into the intricate web of murders I was currently looking at.

These lucky thirteen mostly had quite peculiar history of travelling between units until they ended up here. Some started off as missing persons cases until a body was found, death undetermined or suspicious enough to have the violent crimes look it over, some were first classified as an accident until someone from ours found it and pulled it over to organised crime. There were two cases that made it straight to us as soon as they were reported – the missing Moon Jiwoo, a known associate, and a dock worker that was employed by an affiliated company. Unfortunately, it was much easier to make a poor man working in the docks disappear than a filthy rich magnate, so those few cases that made it to us were mostly thin and under-investigated.

Stepping into this task, I have to admit that at first I was quite surprised that someone as infamously known for being a dangerous silent killer that almost never leaves any evidence as Hoseok had left this many cases for us to look into, but once I started properly going through them I realised that there was a stone wall at every turn and most of these cases went completely cold only a few weeks after happening. And considering it was a pure stroke of luck that even brought them to us, the chance that they would have been eventually completely forgotten was extremely high. I had to give it to him, he was extremely efficient, enough to make me progressively more annoyed every time I hit a dead end, cursing him in my mind four times a day. And I shuddered to think about the number of cases that never made it to us or that didn’t even get reported.

But now at least I had a firm idea of what would have to be investigated more thoroughly and which avenues I would look into. You bet that I was gathering those thirteen files to bring them home and put them on the map wall, silently sighing at the image of the macabre décor in my own bedroom. It was truly unfortunate it was the best room for it in my tiny tiny apartment, but sadly I was getting used to it by now. So much for calming relaxing mornings.

A cup of coffee landed on my desk and I jumped in fright, realising I had been just emptily staring at my computer screen as I went over everything I would have to do at home during the weekend and my plan starting Monday. I looked up with cheeks coloured by embarrassment, catching Cheol’s amused expression before he tipped an imaginary hat in my direction.

“Howdy, partner,” he drawled out and took a sip of his own coffee, leaning back onto a neighbouring desk and making himself as comfortable as he possibly could with the sharp edge digging into him. I chuckled at him and tipped my head in return.

“Howdy,” slipped out of my mouth easily, “thanks for the coffee.” He only smiled as a response and then nodded towards the computer and the mess of files everywhere.

“How’s it looking?” the detective asked. I sent him a faux annoyed looked, but there was a smile tugging on my lips. In the past few weeks Cheol made it his mission to check up on me regularly. He’d usually come with a cup of either coffee or tea and start asking about my progress. Since he had volunteered to be my partner in this, I understood his reasoning, but the first few times I found myself quite annoyed by his incessant questioning. Until I realised he was doing it on purpose and was just pulling my leg. After that I was able to relax and see the interaction for what it really was – an attempt to build some comradery, not an effort to press and humiliate me.

I found out he was actually pretty easy-going, he had a sense of stability and strength around him and yet still managed to be an absolute goofball, which helped me feel less nervous and I even started catching onto some of his jokes. I liked hanging out with him and I already trusted him as a teammate despite the fact that we hadn’t even gone out to the field together.

“Same as yesterday,” I told him finally, pretending to be annoyed with him, “Monday big briefing, then we can kick off.” My voice turned serious in the second half, conveying that it truly was an information he needed to keep in mind.

“Okay, I’ll be there,” he responded to just as seriously, only a small smile on his face as I nodded at him and then gestured to the mountains of files. “In the meantime I’ll have fun organising this for you, so you better not be ungrateful,” I joked right back at him, “I am not above abusing my power.” That got an amused chuckle out of him.

“Sure thing, rookie,” his voice turned slightly jokingly exaggerated, but I heard the genuineness in it, which pulled an honest grin out of me, “we’ll see about that on Monday.” With that he pushed himself off the table and started walking off somewhere, only waving around the cup in lieu of a goodbye.

On his way out, presumably back to his own unit, he passed Minjoon’s table, and I caught the man’s eye as I watched Cheol dramatically take his leave. Immediately I felt a blush spreading and I ducked my head back between the files quickly. There was a slight grin on his face witnessing my reaction, and I chastised myself to behave while at work. We weren’t highschoolers anymore and I could get in serious trouble sending puppy eyes to my colleague. If somebody caught wind of that, they’d disrespect me even more, it would become absolute hell here and I couldn’t afford to make the atmosphere even more hostile when I was barely making it now.

True to his word, Minjoon took me to the little restaurant by the office once or twice a week to eat and gave me the whole rundown of the other team’s plans and findings to keep me updated on everything going on. He would relay everything to me with care, making sure I wasn’t left out and that he wouldn’t have to awkwardly fill me in under Hwang’s hateful eyes. But we would always end up talking about everything and anything, and soon I started anticipating our dinners not because of the information, but because as soon as that was told, we would start chatting and laughing.

One moment I’d be asking about the next step against Yoongi and the next we were trading stories about the most embarrassing things we’ve done in high school or our favourite childhood spots to play in. Minjoon talked a lot about his family, about his older brothers and parents, and while I tried to avoid that topic as much as possible, I ended up also sharing some childhood stories without many details.

Honestly, those evenings became my favourite moments. The weeks and the work were both so hectic lately and I found myself swamped with cases, searching for the tiniest details, and more often than not I was going home totally exhausted with red raw eyes and a migraine that just wouldn’t leave no matter what I did. I almost perfected sleeping in a way that didn’t aggravate my headache to a point I almost threw up (I did throw up once, after I came home and almost passed out not realising I didn’t really eat anything the whole day).

The moments I spent with Minjoon were a beautiful escape, a few hours a week I forgot completely about my responsibilities and didn’t care about murders and gang activity, and only sat back and traded jokes and bashful flirts. We both have long since stopped pretending we weren’t interested in each other, and it made those encounters even more exhilarating as we danced around the attraction with careful teasing smiles and soft flirting. I was still very much nervous about the unit catching on and realising what’s going on, but Minjoon’s warm presence in my life slowly erased those fears and made me more open to the possibility. The last few meetings toed the line of propriety with more ways than one, flirtation straying further than before and Minjoon’s insistence he drives me home leaving us in a few tense charged moments by my door.

It was exciting and terrifying, but I liked the officer. He’d been the only one that went out of his way to actually accept me and treat me as a human, he helped me and pushed me through to give me opportunities to prove myself to others and he continuously cared about my well-being. I liked spending my evenings with him, he was charming and kind and we both seemed very compatible.

The only problem that stood between us and made us both hesitant to cross a line further than friendly dinners was the fact that we were not only coworkers, but team members. That left us awkwardly trying to navigate the sudden tension that arose between us without giving away how close we were getting. Honestly, every day I was nervous that Sunmi or Seungcheol would look at us and see, like it was written all over my face that I was starting to like Minjoon from a wholly unprofessional standpoint.

It was like there was a huge ticking clock hanging over my head just waiting for a disaster to happen, but it didn’t stop me from looking forward to the Friday evening every week. And Minjoon seemed to be in the same boat. But as long as we didn’t cross over to uncharted territory, we were fine.

Thus, we both just sat there in the office and exchanged timid grins, making sure no one saw us making eye contact, like we were two criminals fleeing from the law.

I tried to focus back onto my monitor, but I was absolutely fried. It was still noon, but the whole weight of the last two months just hit me and I was fighting to stay awake, knowing I was done with one of the most annoying boring tasks I’ve ever had to deal with and that from Monday I’ll be even more busy.

There was both panic and excitement coursing through me at what was waiting for me, all the possibilities from actually doing some real investigating and solving cold cases to finally having the chance to put my energy into something productive and not only sneak around Seoul at the ass crack of dawn hoping to catch a sight of a serial killer working for the most annoying man in the existence.

Finally I’d have a chance. And that was just as scary. It felt like I had twice as much to lose, given the fact I was barely tolerated now. I had everything to gain, but everything to lose. If I failed this, if I messed up or got us into trouble, it’d be the end of me on this precinct. Not successfully closing at least one of these cases wasn’t an option, I had to yield results.

For the nth time that day I tried blinking away the tiredness from my eyes and the early onset of another migraine, but as soon as it started being hard to focus through the pain, I decided it was time to give up on trying to achieve anything today.

Already having great experience with gathering my things to leave as fast as possible, I was ready to leave within five minutes of deciding to go home, the relief coursing through my veins like ice cream on a hot day. And it was a very hot today.

Still, I stopped by Minjoon’s desk, surprising him for a moment before he gave a confused smile, the question marks reflected in his eyes without him even having to ask anything. I grinned at him wildly, no doubt looking slightly insane from this angle of him looking up at me.

“You said that you haven’t questioned Yoongi yet, right?” I enquired out of nowhere, confusing him even more as he fully turned to me, and I could see him trying to figure me out. Then he slowly nodded.

“Yeah,” he drawled out, “we decided to go into offensive and start pushing him, so we’ll start questionings in the following weeks.” I nodded quickly, shooting him a rushed smile before I made my way out into the hot noon air and blasting sun, leaving supremely more confused Minjoon behind, not even giving him a chance to really say goodbye.

There’s been a thought playing around in my mind for a few days now. Was it finally time to go see Yoongi again? Now seemed to be the best time to make my grand return, remind them of my existence and cut the suspense. The team was already planning to go talk to him anyway, come June they’ll be hot on his tail, back to their strategy of annoying him. It would be kind of a sweet little treat to find out how much he knows, whether it already made it back to him and he was onto us or whether he was still blissfully unaware of what we were investigating. I was slightly embarrassed by the amount of excitement that flowed through me at the prospect of teasing the man again, of hearing his remarks, now that I fully had a leg up (though the last time I thought that it went spectacularly wrong).

I wanted to try to throw him off his high horse. To unnerve him, in the same way he always did to me. To return the favour of always finding a way to get under my skin and make me mad. I wanted that. I wanted him to know that I would be getting him behind those bars, just as I promised two months ago in The Rose.

Waiting until the evening seemed almost impossible, not even my own exhaustion that tried to lure me into hours long nap could distract me from the slowly ticking clock, and I was restless the whole day. Sitting around, staring off into space, always wanting to pick something up, some chore or an easy task, but unable to focus on anything except for whether it would be better to catch him still in the office or make a grand entrance to the Pied Piper, where he should be today.

And pulling up to said club twenty minutes after 7pm, I did pray that he was there, as I immediately recognised those same bouncers and desperately wished there wouldn’t be a repeat of that whole situation. Though, if I did manage to cockblock Yoongi twice, that would definitely put a smile on my face, that’s how petty we were getting here.

But that hardly mattered, not when I walked up to them and before I could even get a single word out of me, a mean glint present in my eyes to let them know I remembered them and I wasn’t amused by whatever bullshit they would try to pull, they were already opening the doors to me and gesturing for me to enter with smug smirks. My whole actor bit got thrown off and I stared at them shocked for a moment, before I hurried to scramble inside much to the distaste and grumbling of people waiting in the line right behind me. There was some disgruntled shouting, a warning growl and then the door fell shut and I was left in the dark hallway leading deeper into the heart of the club. That was entirely too easy.

From here, I could only sense the loud drums pulsing through the walls, their faint echo thrumming through my very bones, as I mechanically forced a foot in front of the other, pushing myself back into my carefree smug attitude. Stop being stupid, I thought to myself, something like this can’t throw you off. But it did mean that Yoongi was already no doubt alerted to my presence, sitting like a king in that red balcony waiting for me to get there.

Well, I couldn’t let him wait for long, could I? We had a game to play.

Somewhat nervously I shuffled with my clothes, choosing to show up in a little bit more club appropriate attire so I could sell my arrogance and triumph, and flaunt it properly in their face. I had to appear strong, this was a crucial moment between us and I couldn’t fumble here. Though, deep down I felt like this evening, just like all of my other encounters with the man, would inevitably end in disaster. Still, I made sure my skirt and crop top were in place, short heels properly strapped and hair and earrings where I wanted them to be, hoping my makeup still looked as okay as it did when I left my apartment.

This afternoon, as I desperately tried to come up with some sort of a plan, I had realised everyone around Yoongi always walked around in pristine high-end clothes, while I ended up running after them dressed in rags, basically. The encounter with Miss Kim only strengthened this idea within me. I had to step up my game. I had to learn how to play by their rules just enough to get away with it. So, I made sure to dress up a little. Only a tiny bit.

With a deep stabilising inhale and exhale, I set out down the hallway and down the stairs into the main room. I ignored the bar that opened up to my right and went straight for the VIP section entrance. I was anticipating to run into a little more trouble here, as I made my way towards the two unsmiling bouncers all jittery and trying to look more confident than I’ve ever been in my entire life; but upon seeing me, they just stepped to the side, unhooked the red rope and waited for me to walk through.

I did, though my nerves grew with every step I took up those stairs, knees and hands slightly shaking, and I clutched my little handbag until I risked damaging it. The upper floor, the VIP section, was just as intimate and infinitely more pleasant than the downstairs as the last time I was here, and my eyes quickly scanned through the seated guests, trying to make out whether there was someone I recognised, but it was too dark. I caught the barman’s eye and he winked at me cheekily, gesturing at an alcohol bottle he was just fiddling with, attempting to lure me in to buy a drink. My returning smile was apologetic, but it did stop me, and I found myself just awkwardly standing there looking towards the wall where I knew the balcony entrance was.

Trying out the same strategy as before, I loudly inhaled and exhaled, forced my body back into working order, and started moving slowly towards them. With every step I shoved a little more false confidence and condescending attitude to prepare myself, steadily growing surer in those heels and schooling my expression.

Just like downstairs, the bouncer moved out of my way and allowed me to enter the private zone, but as I caught a glimpse of his face, I did a hasty double take. A wry grin made it onto my face, watching the man up and down.

“Good evening, Mr. Choi,” I greeted the bodyguard with a sense of mocking in my tone, a sentiment he gladly returned in his patronising little bow he did towards me, eyes fighting to not roll to the back of his head. I chuckled and moved on, finally climbing those last few stairs.

Coming face to face with the men after such a long time was truly terrifying, especially as I stood there in my ditzy little outfit in front of several of the most dangerous criminals in the city and noted the shock and interest in their eyes as they fully took me in. Several different instincts warred through me – to hide away, to run, to flounder under their attention, to throw my attitude into their face, but all I could really manage was stand there in a manner I hoped that screamed carefully constructed indifference.

Yoongi was spread out on the central sofa, just like last time, comfortably seated in a way that almost made him seem half melted into the soft furnishing, but his eyes were sharp just like his smirk, thoroughly studying me. I could already see the cogs in his head turning, realising this was a beginning of a new game, even more exciting than the last one. I fought the shudder that tried to overtake me under his heavy gaze and instead turned my attention to the sofa next to him.

There was no Jungkook today, his dark sulking mass would be hard to miss, but Taehyung was here, elegantly sitting near the corner of his settee with one arm curling around the top of it and the other gently laid on his crossed legs. Everything about him screamed how comfortable and confident he felt, all the way to the playful smirk and studious eyes. I would have to be more careful around him, he was kind of a whole lot to deal with and I had no idea whether I could take that tonight.

But I couldn’t stop the surprise from displaying clearly on my face as I clocked in the last figure in the room, sitting close next to Taehyung, full body turned to me with a wide smile that had a dangerous edge to it and strangely deep dark eyes that had my fingers trembling in a tinge of fear. It was Hoseok, dressed in a nice suit and comfortably sitting there with a glass of alcohol loosely held in his hand, swirling over his expensive shoes. He was grinning at me like we were old friends, but somehow that made me even more wary of him, an unease setting into my insides that had me reconsidering whether tonight was a good idea.

But I was already here, so. No way but forward.

Gathering my wits back I plastered a smile on my face and regarded the three men with a cheery “Gentlemen” while I made my way towards the little chair sitting straight across from Yoongi. It was my place anyway, we all knew it, he clearly had all the unwelcome guests sitting on it to make them uncomfortable and unsure of themselves, so I had to own it as effortlessly as possible.

“Well, what a pleasant surprise, officer,” Yoongi started with his smooth voice that he only used when he was being intentionally an ass, “Come here to club and destress on a tough Friday night?” His eyes flicked down to my attire and then back to me, the amusement shining through alongside another strange glint to his eyes. He was interested in what my strategy was here, inviting me to set my starting pieces.

I ignored him and turned straight to Hoseok, finding his dark unsettling eyes already on me, but I forced myself to smirk lightly. “Shocked to see you here,” I said with my full voice, a cheeky undertone to my words, “Aren’t there enemies to be murdered? Bones to be buried?” His eyes narrowed slightly, smile turning a bit sharper. I’d never really spoken to him before, and our first exchanged words were a taunt from me? It was as brilliant as it was stupid, but it did throw the man off for a few seconds, his face immediately becoming a little more closed off, the happy smile still dutifully in place.

“Everybody deserves a day off here or there,” he retorted back, drawing an amused smirk to Taehyung’s face. Yoongi was watching us closely, studying the interaction before taking the control back.

“Could I interest you in a drink?” he asked, testing the waters, sharp eyes observing me. I nodded. He smirked. “Perfect,” he hummed, “Finally truly came here on a day off?” I only chuckled in response, watching him wave to someone behind me, presumably to Soobin. I squirmed a little on the tiny seat that simply must have been designed to torture the people sitting on it, always playing a balancing game on the little square with nothing to really lean on. The dark-haired man’s eyes still followed my every movement and he suddenly gestured to the space next to him.

“Of course, if it would be more comfortable for you, you’re welcome to join us on the settee,” Yoongi drawled out with a smirk, Taehyung hungrily watching our interaction with some sort of dark amusement glinting in his eyes. It made me shudder, nerves threatening to swallow me whole under their intense scrutiny, especially since Hoseok was also present. I would have never guessed I’d meet him here, casually drinking with Yoongi. Somehow I gained the idea that he just always crawled around in the dark like some kind of a mythical creature.

I pushed all of the uncomfortableness to the edges of my consciousness and quickly straightened, moving to the sofa in a few confident strides. This suddenly put me much closer to the man than I’ve ever been before, my stomach revolting and filling with lead. I quickly clasped my hands together nonchalantly to hide the slight tremor that started up again in them.

If Yoongi was surprised by my decision, he didn’t let it show and only continued to regard me with rampant curiousness and interest. I felt like a puzzle game that he desperately tried to solve just for fun, and it was increasingly more difficult to not start tensely shifting around; my eyes flitting around the room and lungs seizing until it was hard to consistently breathe.

I figured since I sat like this with Jimin in The Rose when I went there I’d be fine now, but I should have known that Yoongi himself was a completely different ballpark. He shifted around in his seated until he was half turned to me, leisurely lounging on the red velvet with one arm rested on the top and the other playing with a glass of what I assumed was whiskey. He was a picture of aloofness and power, all painted in black and red, and his aura was slowly crushing me like I had found myself at the bottom of the ocean. All I could do was try not to flounder too much and stand firmly.

I had come here to play their little game, to shock them and throw them off, to show them that I can keep up, that I’m not just a stupid little girl that’s in over her head. I needed to be bold, to play with them the same way they play with me. So, I took a few steadying breaths and ignored the way my whole body was screaming at me to leave, instead grinning self-assuredly at the man.

The silence stretched on, the other two men present sat back and watched Yoongi with amusement and something akin to respect in their eyes as he stared me down. For few long moments no one said anything, and Yoongi’s eyes just bored straight deep into my soul, picking me apart and making me squirm uncomfortably in my seat. Unlike the first time he did this to me, I fought to keep myself defiantly staring back but I couldn’t hold the eye contact, every few seconds flitting to something else before I looked at him again, shame creeping into my features. His smile grew larger and more entertained until I couldn’t take it anymore.

Just as I started considering just turning away from him in humiliation the moment was broken by a waiter coming in to serve me a cocktail and I exhaled deeply in relief just as Yoongi chuckled and nodded at the boy. I took the drink eagerly, absolutely ecstatic that I had something to put my attention to instead of those fuckers smiling smugly right next to me. The drink was something very fruity and it tasted sweet, my features immediately perking up in delight as the taste hit my tongue.

Next to me Yoongi chuckled again, and I pointedly ignored him until he spoke. “Your eyes are so genuine,” he muttered, something warmer than just plain amusement creeping into his voice, “Everything’s so clearly written all over your face.” I froze at the tone, my mind transported back into The Rose to the respect he so clearly showed towards me, and I almost fled the club in absolute panic at the reminder of why I distanced myself in the first place.

I wasn’t the only one thrown off though, Hoseok sitting right at the corner of my vision visibly tensed at Yoongi’s words and looked at him in a way that could only be described as a warning glare. Not that the man himself paid him any mind, though I was sure he certainly knew of what Hoseok was doing right to his side.

But even when all of my alarms were going off in my mind and I was so undeniably shown just how much I was losing control of the whole situation (if I even had any from the beginning) and how I got myself into real trouble fraternising with Yoongi and going along with his stupid little whims, trying to outwit him and always managing to play right into his hands, I still stubbornly refused to stop. I still stubbornly refused to back down and admit to myself this was slowly crossing lines I couldn’t afford to cross, I still tried to force myself to believe that it would mean my defeat, my surrender. And I couldn’t surrender, that’s what he wanted. It was pedal to the metal all the way, baby.

I pulled myself back together and shot him a carefully crafted smirk in return. “Don’t try to butter me up with your words, you’re not taking me home tonight,” it took everything in me not to flush at the insinuation, and I cocked my head to the side with a cheekiness I’ve seen from him many times before to sell it properly, giving him back what he always gave me (especially in The Rose with Jimin, those bastards). But the answering grin that immediately spread over Yoongi’s face had me nervous again. He looked like he won the lottery, like I just perfectly played into his cards. The man just leisurely brought his drink to his lips, before a look crossed his eyes.

“Of course I’m not, that police officer is,” he retorted nonchalantly, one eye cheekily looking to me to gauge my reaction over the rim of his whiskey glass. I froze, some spectacular mix of emotions passing through my face, and I had no idea what kind of expression was set there, but it greatly entertained my whole audience, all three of them grinning like wolfs that just stumbled upon a little girl in the middle of the woods. My heart gave a few painful jerks, and I buried my face in the glass again, hoping to regain some composure.

“Been following me too, huh?” I shot back weakly, head still spinning from this particular information coming out his lips. God damn him, god damn them all. The man laughed at that like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Of course, my favourite police officer just suddenly disappeared,” he said in a mock worried voice, “I had to make sure that you were alright. What if you needed help, officer?” Now my whole body trembled as I went over my whereabouts in the past two months. How much did he know? What did he see me do? Does he know what we’re investigating? Is he aware of what we’re trying to spin him into? Did I doom this operation right from the start without even realising it?

Yoongi was blissfully unaware of my inner turmoil and happily continued yapping. “Though I must say you have a rather boring life, somehow I expected a detective’s life to be more interesting,” he mocked some more, but really I didn’t care about what he thought about my life. I needed to know how much he knew about my work.

“Must have been at least a little interesting,” I tried to spin him to talk more, forcing my hands to calmly pick at my skirt to play up my aloofness, “had you interested in why the sudden absence, did I not?” He chuckled lightly, eyes dissecting me carefully with a cheeky look.

“I’m always up to indulging you and your little games, officer,” Yoongi half whispered back to me, leaning lightly forward, “Keeps my life more interesting. At least I have something to do over my lunch break.” I regarded him, spread there on the sofa leisurely like he owned the whole city, smirking himself half to death, and I decided to take a gamble.

“Oh, I have the most interesting game prepared for you,” I whispered too, subconsciously leaning in as well to make sure he heard me, “Trust me, you’re going to love it.” From this distance and under this lighting his eyes looked absolutely consumed in darkness and even as they crinkled in amusement, there was something predatory in them, especially as his lips curled up delightedly. I couldn’t help myself but think he looked almost like a tiger spirit that just managed to catch another poor soul unawares.

But when I searched the black irises for any signs of mockery or knowing, I only found pure interest and eagerness to see how this unfolds. With careful hope I allowed myself to believe that he somehow managed to miss me going to the crime scene or to Miss Kim’s house, for a short moment thanking the unit for not taking me with them as often as it clearly prevented from spoiling Yoongi his surprise.

He probably wasn’t expecting me to push an actual investigation against him at all, and probably also wasn’t warned by the Kims that we were asking around about those warehouse murders. That’s when a true smirk unfurled on my face, all the despicable joy I felt about paying him back surfacing freely onto my face.

There was a new kind of calculation reflected in his gaze, eyes never suspicious but always storing away every little detail about our interaction.

The atmosphere between us grew tense, I almost felt the air crackling, almost tasted the electricity on my tongue. I finally leaned back away from him, mirroring his relaxed posture and took a long sip of my drink.

My eyes flitted to the two other men that have just been silently sitting to the side watching the whole interaction, and suddenly I flushed realising they witnessed my shameless taunting of their boss. Hoping the light would hide any unusual colour on my face, I rather focused on deciphering their expressions.

Taehyung was watching me like a new toy that he couldn’t wait to figure out, like a game that he’s been dying to play and find out how the story ends. It made me shift uncomfortably under such raw curiosity, though I’ve been slowly getting used to the fact that he was just someone that would inevitably always throw me off. The man was basically 85 % deception and 15 % flirting, I’d rather keep myself amused by other means than striking up any kind of conversation with him.

Hoseok on the other hand had during our discussion leaned back into the sofa and he watched me with his face closed off and clean off any smile, only apprehension shining through in his gaze. He watched me with distrust and like I was a problem he wouldn’t hesitate to solve. That sent a wave of shivers and goosebumps down my back, finally giving me the opportunity to see the man behind the mask. This was the man people feared, this was the man the petty criminals respected, or they’d find themselves solved. This was the man that walked amongst the docks, and everybody listened. I fully believed that had Yoongi given the order, he’d be happy to get rid of me right here in the club.

Sitting here, drinking leisurely while these three men grinned at me like hungry wolves, I fully realised just how far deep into shit I shovelled myself with this personal justice route I had taken. Yoongi kept me around only because it amused him to watch me struggle and both Jungkook and Hoseok were firmly against indulging me.

As much as I enjoyed annoying Jungkook cause he was one of the members that always let his anger show, and that was very therapeutic for me, I was aware the reason why I was such a sore in his existence was because he hated how close Yoongi let me. Given the chance he’d prolly kill me even without Yoongi’s orders.

Other than that, Jimin and Namjoon were dangerous to be around and speak with, and Seokjin I haven’t even met, but Jimin insinuated he was also getting a little trigger happy when it came to my meddling. Now gloves were off and I was truly treading thin ice. One misstep and I would turn into a warning, just like any cop that got too close. Up until now it was all fun and games, what’s a little tailing and tracking between friends, but once I put this investigation to life, I’d truly be in danger of retribution.

I once again glanced at the satisfied grin on Yoongi’s face, at his hands gently clasped around a whiskey glass, at his relaxed shoulders and designer suit and shoes, pretty hair curling around a pretty face, and I saw the violence hiding underneath. He was good at masking his, and that made him so dangerous. It was so easy to forget what kind of man you were talking to. And from now on I would risk standing in the direct line of Hoseok’s ire as well.

I threw back the rest of the cocktail I had in my glass, my stomach protesting as I hadn’t eaten much the whole day, and I stood up to leave. I felt their stares on me, all three of them burning through me with those fiery eyes, each of them showing a different kind of craze. The gaze of a puppeteer, the gaze of a honeytrap and the gaze of a killer.

I shuddered and moved away from them, closer to the edge overlooking the rest of the club. Everyone was enjoying just a normal Friday night, having absolutely no idea what was going on just a few metres above them. I envied them a little bit, I envied how carefree they seemed.

“Feel free to enjoy yourself tonight,” Yoongi spoke suddenly into the silent tension, “The drinks are on me.” With his arm he gestured over the railing of the balcony, down to the pit of bodies moving together to the rhythm as one. Suddenly the spell was broken and I once again started to percieve the loud club music blaring throughout the whole space as it reverberated through my bones.

Without me noticing, Yoongi had stood up as well and moved to me, his presence and the warmth radiating off of his body abruptly crowding me in against the railing. I froze in a moment, just sensing him right behind, close enough to make me feel he was there but not enough to touch, as he leaned in close to whisper in my ear.

“You do deserve to let loose and relax once in a while,” he spoke to me in a hypnotising drawl, his voice turning into almost a purr, “So don’t be shy… indulge.” A full body shiver wracked through me, making me jerk in place with the force of it, and for a brief moment I wondered whether this is what it felt like to be sung by sirens into a sure death. Yoongi chuckled again, a low rumbly sound that made me twitch, and then he stepped away from me.

The cool air rushing in broke the spell and I collected my bearings again, throwing a disgruntled stare at him over my shoulder while my knees fought to work again, hands clenching the railing like it was the only thing currently keeping me alive. I just managed to catch a glimpse of the man’s sardonic grin before he turned completely and left.

The two other men stood up as well, both of their faces once again amused by my plight as I was very obviously flustered by Yoongi’s behaviour, before they stepped out right after their boss, leaving me completely alone in the luxurious balcony bathed in red velvet and sin.

Defeatedly I sat down onto the nearest sofa with an ‘oompf’, all bones turned into soup as I decompressed now that the oppressive atmosphere left with them, and blankly stared at a wall for a moment before I was able to process things normally again. My phone started wildly buzzing in my little handbag and I decided that ignoring whatever just happened and taking the distraction it offered me was a better choice than to dwell on it.

Fishing the phone out, I checked the neglected notifications, not much really coming in except for a text from Cheol confirming he read my email about the files and that he’d be ready Monday to go over it once more and some social media pings. And then, a very noticeable slew of messages from Minjoon. The first one was from 19:22, which was around the time I arrived here, asking whether I’d still be up for a dinner. It was currently over 8pm, but there was a few more asking minor questions with the newest one only from a few minutes ago.

I quickly opened the chat and answered an affirmative, my brain just begging for me to distract myself from tonight’s happenings. Minjoon was happy to hear from me and I finally took him up on the offer to drive me, as I couldn’t exactly sit behind a wheel right now.

On my way out I pointedly ignored the bartender’s small smirk, or the bouncer’s curiously raised eyebrows, I ignored Yoongi sitting at the downstairs bar chatting amicably with the guy manning it and sending me very unsubtle mirthful glances, I ignored Taehyung’s flirty wave as I passed him in the hall and most of all I ignored Hoseok leaning against a sleek black car outside of the club with a cigarette between his fingers, icy eyes following my figure for as long as he could.

The second I disappeared behind a corner I half expected him to run after me and grab me, the feeling of being watched slithering along my back in a way that made me shudder in disgust and fear. I hurried towards a bigger road, the Friday evening rush swallowing me and hiding me amidst drunken college kids, foreigners and working folk trying to forget their responsibilities for at least one night. I could relate to that, but no matter how much these meetings took away from me, they always gave me some sick satisfaction in return. And I couldn’t wait for the day I truly bested him.

I waited around for a few minutes, just enough to have the evening chill start setting into me, before a familiar car came into view, slowing down until I could hop in quickly. Minjoon smiled at me warmly, his eyes getting caught on my outfit and he fought for a few moments to keep his eyes on the road. I blushed deeply under his gaze and felt the relief of not having to police my reactions like I did with Yoongi, finally getting the chance to freely feel without fearing his mocking eyes.

“Where were you?” he asked incredulously, voice a little shaky as his glances kept getting caught on my short skirt and exposed legs. There was an electric current going through me at his obvious interest, a fire slowly waking to life right under my skin, and I found myself subconsciously trying to fold my legs in a way that make them look even prettier.

“Just out with some friends,” the lie slipped out of my lips so easily I didn’t even stop to think about feeling guilty about it, too preoccupied with feeling the tension between us slowly cracking, clutching the handbag like a lifeline and revelling in my rising heartbeat. I felt so free, so opposite of how nervous and jittery Yoongi made me. And I wanted.

“I see, I thought you were going home to rest, so I didn’t want to bother you at first,” Minjoon said, lips turning into another warm smile, which I returned tenfold, my whole face lighting up.

“I’m glad you did, I was getting hungry,” I told him teasingly, “It’s always nice with a personal chauffeur, you know?” He went along with my teasing happily, hands attractively flexing on the steering wheel as he shot me a look with one eyebrow raised, lips playing with as subtle smirk. The whole atmosphere shifted; the tension close to overflowing. Suddenly it became very clear to us that we’ve been dancing around the line for too long.

“So where to, your highness?” Minjoon asked, even though he was obviously already driving with some goal in his mind. I only grinned at him and responded: “Wherever you want, sir.”

The place turned out to be a cute little restaurant, the kind that is open at all times of the day and a girl in full club attire in the evening wasn’t a strange sight there. I had to laugh at Minjoon’s choice, as he clearly improvised upon seeing how I was dressed. But the man was watching me with something I could call fondness in eyes and that was all that mattered to me as he placed his hand on the small of my back and led me inside.

Once seated, I found that there wasn’t really even a need for talking about the team, and frankly I wasn’t even in the mood to be discussing Yoongi when I had just met with him and was doing my best to distract myself from that. Minjoon was still watching me with some sort of fascination, his gaze flickering between intrigued and sensual, and I was sure he also wasn’t particularly interested in work related topics.

We exchanged some more flirty grins while we ordered, but politely waited to be alone before starting up any kind of conversation.

“So… outing with friends?” Minjoon started, gaze once again slipping to my attire before jumping back to my face slightly flushed. I only nodded, too spent to come up with something and spend my evening lying. “I wasn’t really feeling it,” I added after slight deliberation. Minjoon grinned.

“Was feeling up to meeting me though,” the man retorted, flirty expression taking over his face, “Gonna make me feel special. Be careful or it might go to my head.” I chuckled at him, leaning over the table to graze our fingers lightly together. Minjoon’s eyes immediately jumped down and zeroed in on the place of contact before he looked back to me, eyes hooded.

Suddenly feeling parched, I licked my lips, rolling my tongue along them slowly and curled them into a sly smirk. “Everybody deserves to feel a little special,” it came out almost on a whisper, the tense atmosphere setting between us and freezing us into our spots with dark eyes and hungry stares.

I still felt jittery from my encounter earlier in the night and it mixed together with the anticipation of what was to come from this, throwing me into a whirlwind of emotions that made my body tremble slightly. My stomach was all knotted up, but it didn’t feel unpleasant, instead there was excitement brewing and slowly spreading through my bloodstream.

Even after the food arrived, the air kept getting tenser, even as we attempted to have regular conversation, it crackled between us like an onsetting storm. Every word, every sentence inlaid with telling mischievous smiles and expressive eyes. Sometimes during the dinner it started dawning on me that this was inevitable, we both were already too far. With all the flirting we’ve been doing this was really only a matter of time, and it just so happened that tonight the tension was going to explode into something that we probably shouldn’t be doing.

I looked over at Minjoon again, properly eyeing him and his expression, and when his gaze met mine and darkened as he sat there with his cheeks dusted with pink, hunched over like he was ready to launch himself over the table, sitting there like he would rather be anywhere else and preferably somewhere where there were no barriers between us, that’s when I realised he also wasn’t as opposed to this as he should have been.

The small talk flew all stilted between us and we mostly just stewed in our own cocktails of emotions and sensations, trying to chew through our food as fast as possible so we could leave; and even though it was already a little chilly outside, there was a heat coming from within that was enough for a thin line of sweat to bead along my hairline. I couldn’t imagine what picture I painted at that moment, if with one look it was obvious how the arousal was steadily rising in my veins with every another second spent just shyly exchanging heated stares.

Every so often my eyes slipped a little lower, eyeing the young man’s collarbones just peeking out from his dark green tee, sliding up and down his arms as he leaned on the table and ate, and I could see from the delighted sparkles glinting in Minjoon’s eyes that he was aware, and very much returned the favour.

God, this was definitely going to end in disaster. There was no way we could avoid this any longer.

And I was right.

Once done with the food, we sat around for a moment just looking at each other silently, before Minjoon finally gestured towards the door. “You wanna go? I’ll drive you home,” he offered immediately, the kind words that I was already used to by now tinged by something a little more tonight. I nodded and after some flirty arguing over who’s going to pay, I finally surrendered and went outside to wait for Minjoon to settle the bill.

The cold air rushed over me and cooled my burning skin a little and I took a few big breaths to ground myself. The night Seoul was loud and lively, I found myself surrounded by joyful groups and couples dressed in their best sitting in restaurants and eating or walking around the sidewalk laughing, clearly aiming for one of the establishments in the area. It was quite refreshing to see, and I lost myself in the rush and buzz, watching others enjoy themselves.

And that’s how Minjoon found me when he came out, sitting on a little wall by the sidewalk dreamily staring off into the distance. He came over, hand going straight to my face, gently catching a strand of my hair and slowly pushing it behind my ear. He lingered there for a moment, fingertips brushing the reddening tip as all the blood rushed to my face in a mighty blush. On instinct I ducked my head being too flustered and broke the contact, but the man just smoothly moved to my shoulder, pushing me up to stand.

He was very natural in his movements, pulling me to his side and wrapping his arm around my shoulders very lightly, and I just went with it, too shy to express it but too happy to go against it. I fought against the instinct to giggle like a schoolgirl and set out to his car, which was quite a short walk, and unfortunately to my apartment it was a quite short drive as well, even in the restless silence that stretched between us.

Our arrival at my doorstep seemed to have come sooner than I was anticipating, sooner than I was ready to end this little outing. I turned to the brown-haired man and studied his face for a moment. We steadily exchanged eye contact, the tension between us back with vengeance, my throat drying up under his dark gaze. I was fluttering on the edge of propriety, in my head still repeating all the reasons why this was such a bad idea, but it didn’t seem to matter when Minjoon watched me with the same longing and desperation. I felt my skin heating up, my insides stirring with something I haven’t properly felt in such a long time it hit me with a ferocity I wasn’t prepared for.

“Aren’t you going to go home?” he whispered so lightly I almost didn’t hear him. He sounded slightly breathless, tone curious and probing.

“Can you walk me to the door?” I shot back immediately, almost unthinking. He licked his lips, his kind face getting twisted with something akin to intense desire before he quickly nodded, and we both scrambled to get out of his car.

The walk was brief, of course it was. I lived on a second floor and my door was accessible from an outside walkway, so all we had to do was clear two stories of stairs and we suddenly found ourselves by my tiny apartment.

I turned to Minjoon, something expectant in the air between us, and each second ticking by felt like a countdown to the inevitable. I wasn’t ready to end this night here. I knew I wasn’t. And judging by Minjoon’s bottomless eyes, I could confidently gamble on his interest and hit jackpot every time.

As the tense silence stretched out a little, neither of really sure how to tackle this situation as we were caught in the ‘will we won’t we’ and ‘should we shouldn’t we’, until I decided to break the curse. Stepping a little closer and looking up at him through my lashes, my hand latching onto the sleeve of his jean jacket that he put on in the car and tugging lightly, I steeled myself and jumped over the line head first.

“Do you want a cup of coffee before you go?” the whispered question escaped my lips and hung for a few moments between us. I watched as if in slow motion as Minjoon took it in and nodded once, then twice, and then his hand caught mine.

I turned hastily towards the door, jabbing the key in and pushing inside without a single thought in my mind. It turned out, there wasn’t even a need for an awkward pretending of drinking anything, because the second the door closed behind us, we were on each other.

It was like dam broke between us and we suddenly couldn’t stop, couldn’t keep our hands off each other. Minjoon kissed me quickly and desperately and I fought to keep up, hands going around his neck immediately while his snaked around my waist. Taking off shoes long forgotten, we stumbled inside and towards the sofa.

In that moment, I didn’t have the mental capacity to think about the huge maps in my bedroom. I didn’t realise how lucky I was we didn’t make it any further, too lost in the way Minjoon’s tongue was finally sliding against mine and how his calloused hands caressing my sides felt a lot like heaven.

And when he inevitably got his hands on my skirt and I inevitably thought of Yoongi’s eyes taking me in when I arrived at the balcony, and when Minjoon pulled me closer and I thought of Yoongi’s presence caging me in with his warmth against the railing, of his lips turning into a smug smirk as Minjoon kissed me, then I just pressed my eyes closed harder and tangled my hands into his short brown hair, banishing all thoughts of curly black locks far away into the deepest corner of my mind.

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Taglist (open): @wobblewobble822 @viankiss @jjkwifestyle @mortal-body-timelesssoul @fullmetalavatar54

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[katatonicimpression]

It's the middle of the afternoon on New Year's Eve and I have fuck all to do so let's watch the Sam episode of What If?

DISCLAIMER: This is the first, and so far only, full episode of this show that I have ever watched. It did not inspire me to watch more. So, that's my bias I guess.

Background

There was some controversy about all of this. Sam appeared briefly in the zombies episode in the first season of this show. He's already a zombie and is quickly killed (re-killed?) by bucky, who makes a quip about it.

The line feels kinda off, like they're trying to recreate the banter between the characters in the live action (finding each other annoying etc) but it falls flat. There's no love there. In civil war (which takes place before the canon divergence in the show), their banter still has a level of camaraderie to it. They're riffing off each other, and fighting together and saving each other. It's weird to have bucky quip at the prospect of sam's death in a scene that takes place after those scenes.

It feels like reading one of the thousands of "incorrect quotes" posts on this app that write Bucky being horrible to Sam for no reason. It's the exact same emotional experience. Put a pin in that.

There was another controversy related to this, which is that in the same episode, Sharon also dies. Allegedly, one of the main writers (matthew chauncey) said that they should give her a particularly violent death because "no one likes her... he belongs with peggy". This is an open expression of violent misogyny so yeah that's fun. What a piece of shit... allegedly.

Sam does not appear in any other episode of what if s1. When s2 came out, his absence felt conspicuous, and many people commented on it. In particular, there's an episode of s2 that is vaguely medieval/robin-hood vibes, and Sam is noticeably absent from Steve's band of merry men. Steve's best friend, closest partner of over 50 years of comics isn't there. The falconry themed superhero is not in the medieval episode. People rightfully called bs.

The show felt similar to reading posts and fics in the fandom, and the way that people will minimise Sam's existence in Canon. Put a pin in that.

One person involved in making it (I think a writer but I can't remember and I searched for like ten minutes it's NYE gimme a break) responded publically to these complaints. They cited a supposed uncertainty over sam's future in the mcu (specifically whether he was cap or falcon) as a reason for not including him.

This was very funny, because 1) There was no ambiguity over whether Sam would be cap - it was a dead cert since Endgame what are you on? and 2) no one would've been mad if Sam had appeared as Falcon.

This response had the same vibes as when random fans say weird and ignorant things in Sam's tag and, when confronted, will offer weird excuses that don't make any sense. Pin it.

The other bit of context here is the (admittedly heavy) discussion of how What If launched Captain Carter, a decision that had to have been made around the same time that they decided to do samcap. I've talked before about this; it's complicated and the discourse is annoying. But ultimately, it comes across very badly for the mcu that they created a white female british captain america (not captain britain from Excalibur, but specifically a captain america character) specifically to launch near simultaneously with a Black captain america. It looks bad and I don't like it.

Anyway, so after this person who's name i can't find put their foot in their mouth, Marvel released a few stills from s3, revealing that Sam would be in one episode. People were happy to see him, and (aside from the VERY VALID CRITIQUE that WhatIf!Sam doesn't have the eyelashes he so clearly ought to) people were mostly placated.

The Episode

I love mark ruffalo but his voice performance in the opening scene is not it. Also the narration is mixed a lot louder than the dialogue... which is a jarringly amateur mistake. Ok whatever i'm gonna try to keep my salty complaining sam-focused

So, the show opens with a version of the opening samsteve meetcute from CATWS. But this time, without a mutual exchange of vulnerability. This time Sam is just offering Bruce comfort.

Then he literally gives him therapy.

Then he takes him to Louisiana to the boat, a redo of the sambucky scenes in tfatws. I'm not the first person to point this out, but there's a big difference here. Bucky came to louisiana uninvited with a (technically unwanted, but still very impressive) gift for Sam and then spent the day working on the boat as a gesture of friendship. He was performing acts of service (or however you express it) because he wanted to preserve and nurture this relationship. He knew he'd treated Sam badly and wanted to make it up to him.

Then, Sam invited him to stay the night (or, rather, accepts bucky's self-invitation to sleep in his house), because he's nice and welcoming and generous yes sure. But also because he likes Bucky back, despite everything. They both want to be friends and partners.

That's not happening here. It's just Sam offering Bruce his home because he is apparently motivated by a desire to help random white men he meets.

It reminds me of the countless fics and hcs that write Sam exclusively as a caretaker and therapist for bucky or other white characters. It reminds me of the takes that rewrite canon to make him be the one to pursue bucky with a desire to help and nurture him - a thing that has never happened in canon. Urgh. Pin that thought up with the others.

Oh and of course, we can't have a story about samcap without paying tribute to our holy special boy steve for a bit. Whatever it was just a few overly long shots.. still annoyed me though. Wow I really am a hater.

Oh and Bruce is the one with the arc? He's the one the episode is about? But his change of heart happens entirely off screen and with no implicit turning point? Lol. Lmao even.

And "friends who accept us for who we really are." I want to take this entire writers room aside because no. You can't end with a thesis statement that wasn't the theme of the story. Go back to school.

Am I Nothing but Negativity?

It was nice to see sarah again! Shame all she got to do was scream then get violently shoved to the floor.

Ok but in general, once the episode gets started in earnest, it's fine.

I did genuinely like seeing Sam again. I like him in the lead, even if the episode was about Bruce, Sam was still the main character and that was fun to see.

Mackie's voice performance is strong.

I enjoyed the 0.0003 seconds of sambucky. I liked seeing Sam and Monica together.

"The man wants to have tea with Lenin." This line is so bad it's good again. Yeah he probably would. And he'd be fine. Vlad would love the guy, everyone does.

I like the visual of Sam facing down a giant kaiju and just chatting to it. That's very sam coded. That and Sam with the shot of the monsters walking past him and him standing strong.

What is the Point of this Show?

There's nothing spectacular in this episode. The dialogue is astoundingly predictable, the jokes fail to be funny.

At times, the animation style (much like TDP which recently finished) feels like it's holding them back. A lot of the quieter, less actiony, shots are ugly frames with people walking less naturally than sims do. And they do have some more expressive stuff in the busier scenes, so it's not artistically empty, but it's not doing a lot for me either.

Maybe it's an interesting technique for those who know more about these things, but honestly regular 2d animation would've been (i assume) cheaper and potentially better. Then again, if it wasn't visually distinctive, what else would it have going for it?

Conceptually, a mcu what if show is an amazing idea, but in practice IN MY VERY BIASED OPINION, it's done very little with that potential. The comics offer such a rich trough of ideas that could be spun into very entertaining short episodes with versions of the characters that would otherwise not be able to encounter those story beats. Hell, Sam in particular has an entire massive part of his character cut from the mcu (his powers) that they could explore... and that would be really well suited to animation!

But they've stuck to the comparatively shallow mcu lore for most of it.

I've seen people express disappointment that it's ending after only 3 short seasons and I see why. This is obviously the sort of thing that you could do so much more with. But I also feel that the writing is uninspired and betrays a real lack of interest in the worlds of most of these characters.

I Hate its Vibes

So let's take a look at those pins, shall we?

We have:

Ignoring Sam most of the time

Mischaracterising his relationship with Bucky

Writing him as a caregiver, a nurturing therapist only

A lack of an internal world and motivations beyond his desire to help others

Ignorance over his character's history including his powers and the depth and longevity of his relationship with steve

Nonsensical excuses when faced with criticism, unintentionally displaying even more ignorance and incuriosity over the character

I mentioned that writers comment about sharon earlier for a reason. The vibes are not good. They are rancid. They are reminding me of every dumb post I've ever read on this site. Every weird jab at the character for stupid, racist reasons. Every fic with the "magical negro" trope. Every moron i can think of tbh.

Yeah, so maybe I'm not being fair to this show. The episode was uninspired, but not bad. I liked seeing sam do things. If people gif him looking cool in it, I'll reblog it I guess. But I'm not gonna watch the rest of the show, and I won't mourn the fact that it's ending.

I guess my conclusion is that it's very funny that Marvel placated disgruntled sam fans with a still from this episode, and then when it finally comes out, it's everything we've ever complained about.

[freezeyourchill]

I finished Brothership and I have so many thoughts but I'm gonna start with the most divisive: Starlow's character is not just 'an asshole to Luigi for no reason' and here's why

(Spoilers for Brothership and past M&L RPGs but nothing too endgame-y, just Starlow's introduction and an optional sidequest)

I think Brothership showcases everyone at their best in terms of characterisation and it was so so nice to see (I'll probably make a post about Mario after this because I'm so insane about him) but I've seen some people getting mad at Starlow for referring to Luigi as 'Mario's brother' in her intro scene:

So I thought I'd share a bit about what I think of Starlow as a whole. People love to dunk on her because she makes a lot of jabs at Luigi in the past games, and while I agree that some comments she's made were excessive, I don't think people understand her much as a character and dismiss it all as 'being a bitch for no reason'.

Thinking back to BIS, she came to the Mushroom Kingdom to help with an incurable disease. There seems to be no solution, but then the concept of the Mario brothers solving every unsolvable problem is introduced to her. When she finally meets them, her first impression is this:

Mario leaps to action as soon as a threat appears as he's known to always do, and listened attentively to what was being discussed at the meeting. He's proactive, brave, and capable.

Meanwhile, Luigi is sleeping on the job and missed all of this entirely.

I say this with all the love in my heart and as Luigi fan #1, but in this situation I can understand why Starlow didn't like Luigi at first. And the thing about Starlow is that she's not going to be subtle about it if she doesn't like you. That's just the way she is; she's brash, honest, and judgemental. She gives credit where she thinks credit is due and won't hesitate to get sassy with someone if they're being a pain.

Luigi is not at all the only person on the receiving end of this, but it's more noticeable with him for three reasons: 1) He's much more sensitive to what Starlow says, 2) Starlow interacts with the bros the most because she travels with them, and 3) Luigi is Nintendo's favourite punching bag and this was what mostly everyone in the game did.

As the story progresses, she's quick to assess the brothers and this was likely her conclusion, which was at the time an unfortunately common perspective: when 'the Mario brothers' solve a problem, they mostly mean Mario. Luigi tags along because they're brothers and doesn't contribute much because he's a wuss who lets Mario take charge.

Obviously, that isn't true. Luigi can be clumsy and more reluctant to throw himself into danger than his brother but the fact that he deals with at times such debilitating anxiety and still pushes through goes to show just how hard he tries. He also contributes plenty, but the key here is that Starlow didn't know that. Most of the Mushroom Kingdom didn't know that at the time either. The first thing she saw was him sleeping through an important meeting and a fight with an invading Bowser (who she also may not have known did this on the regular, so it's not seen as such a big deal), so she figured pretty quickly that Mario was the actually reliable one here.

Moving along to Dream Team and Paper Jam, Starlow still isn't the biggest fan of Luigi for a few reasons, mostly being that he's kinda the reason the plot of both games happened. She knows now from BIS that Luigi can pull his weight when he absolutely has to, but he's a bit of a klutz and does have a habit of getting into Situations. In her eyes he's a bit of an idiot even if his heart is in the right place, and she doesn't hesitate to make her opinion known because that's the kind of person she is.

I'm not saying she's right to dislike him, but this outlook is fairly reasonable considering 1) she still doesn't understand him or his struggles, 2) again this is how most people in the Mushroom Kingdom regard Luigi, and 3) she's seeing Mario in comparison, something that everyone else is also guilty of.

If a crisis calls for a hero and anyone in the kingdom had to pick between Mario and Luigi to do it, they'd pick Mario every time. Mario is able to roll with the punches and throw himself into danger without letting any misgivings about it show. He's dutiful, responsible, protective, and gets things done without a fuss. Luigi, with all of his kindness and creativity and courage, can't do that in the same way as his brother, because he's not his brother. Starlow sees that in the same way everyone else did: because Mario doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve, Mario is more dependable.

But Starlow also has her nicer moments with Luigi, which people seem to forget about. People like to talk about how she rips into him in Paper Jam when he loses the book to the point of making him cry, but what they don't mention in that discussion is that she apologises immediately:

This isn't Starlow having a grudge against him or wanting him to feel terrible, this is just how she deals with everyone. If someone messes up, she's going to let them know exactly why and how. She's not used to someone like Luigi, filled with anxiety and sensitive to the sass that she would give anyone if they made a mistake. But she also acknowledges that she can come off as a lot meaner than she intends, and this isn't mean-spiritedness as much as just not knowing how else to talk to people.

This is also obvious later in Paper Jam when she gives Luigi an awkward little pep talk:

It's not in her nature to be so earnestly encouraging. She's polite and friendly to those who are polite to her such as Peach, she's to-the-point and pragmatic with Mario, and she's sarcastic and teasing to Bowser because she knows he won't take it personally and that's how she expresses friendship. But when faced with Luigi, someone who doesn't react well to her natural snark, she doesn't know how to handle it. So she gives it her best go, and it works; Luigi picks himself up and goes into the spooky forest to save his brother(s) because his care outweighs his fear, something that Starlow now realises.

Then we finally get to Brothership. By this point everyone including Peach and even Mario seems to better understand Luigi's struggles with anxiety (and autism, he is the autism allegory, trust) and Starlow has reached a point where she can respect Luigi despite his differences to Mario. She's happy to see them in Concordia and greets them both properly:

So why does she still call him 'Mario's brother'?

Because jokes and snark are how she shows her affection and she really doesn't know how else to do it. Bullying people is her love language, which is why her and Bowser have such a nice dynamic. Starlow understands now that Luigi tries really hard to be useful and Luigi understands now that Starlow isn't trying to make him feel bad.

Luigi is my favourite character of all time and they could never still never make me hate Starlow. She's just flawed and full of personality like the rest of us.

[caeslxys]

Your tags...you're right and you should say it, honestly. Saying C3 deserved a few more episodes could sound like your average "I wish my show never ended" take, except...what was everything for, if BH don't get to exist in the aftermath? Their endgame choice, everything they've been working towards, was informed by them having been on the moon and met its people. Final episodes aside, if the Ruidus plot is The BH Thing, I really wish the first trip could've had them less in a rush to report back. I wish they had the opportunity to connect even more with Ruidians and, yeah, I wish they had fought the Weavemind. I'm also rambling, sorry! I just can't believe it's controversial or made to sound like hate to say we shouldn't be begging for Moon x BH crumbs in the Moon x BH campaign.

Prefacing this with reinforcing that I truly, deeply adore those final bells hells episodes and what they contain. They’re fantastic critical role episodes in general but more importantly to me they are fantastic bells hells episodes. In a vacuum, i’m extremely happy with what we got.

That said, yeah, c3’s ending on the grander scale of its narrative structure in totality was unbelievably (and, frankly, unnecessarily) rushed. Everything since episode 91 has been in a spiral towards a finish they simply could have chosen not to spiral into so quickly. And this is seen in several things: from how Delilah was “handled” with next to no actual processing or difficulty, to the nein’s inclusion not bearing any narrative weight beyond the vague feeling of having some “avengers assemble” moment i simply did not care for and think ultimately took from bells hell’s story rather than added to it (which, were it not all rushed, is something it could have been given to them and their inclusion in the way that vox machina’s inclusion did), to the hells not even actually being able to participate in what their own campaign was ultimately about beyond quick epilogue scenes and one political discussion that they didn’t even all need to participate in.

I think the decision to have c3 be “the end of an era” irt to critical role’s ten years deeply hurt both its structure and its narrative intent. I still remember them marketing this campaign as a good jumping in point for new critters, and yet the finale doesn’t even end with bells hells. It ends on vox machina. That, to me—and in addition to the vox machina and mighty nein solo episodes—showcases a clear shift in intent that happened way, way too late to feel at all fulfilling as an audience member looking in. I’m sure as players it rocked, which I point out because obviously the fun factor matters substantially as well, but that has no bearing on criticism of the narrative it produces.

All that said: it’s truly incredible to me how much of this would have been fixed very simply by just…having more episodes. You could say this of anything but I feel it’s extremely noticeable in this story—the one thing it needed to make the constant rushing pace of its forward plot land was a denouement that allowed the characters and story to breathe for more than one eight hour episode. Bells Hells needed to learn about the culture on Ruidus. They needed to spend more time with the volition—more time even with Liliana, I would argue. They should have had their story structured in such a way that they fought the weavemind and ludinus both (especially if matt knew ludinus would ultimately make it out). They should have actually had to delve into what the story had set them up to delve into.

I adore, to pieces, campaign 3 and bells hells. I think much of the ire thrown towards it is unwarranted at best and often misplaced. But I will likely also always be at least a little mad that their final act was so clearly rushed.

[loregoddess]

A continuation of my observations of the Octo2 traveler's weaknesses from here, now with fun visual diagrams! The above diagram shows each character's "base kit" (the weapons and elements they have access to w/out a secondary job) on the top row, and their weaknesses from the Dolcinaea fight on the bottom row.

Note that Agnea can't be charmed in this fight, so we don't actually know what her weaknesses are, but given that she has wind as her main element and how the elemental weaknesses tend to work (fire and ice are strong against each other, wind and lightning are strong against each other, and light and dark are strong against each other--based on the other Octo2 cast's weaknesses, and on how CotC usually handles elemental weaknesses, and using Tressa's weaknesses for reference), we can assume Agnea has at least a weakness to lightning. (CotC specifically seems to support this, since one of Agnea's passive skills gives her a buff to her lightning defense, and most characters in CotC who have access to only one element tend to get passive skills that buff their defense against their element's weakness, so I feel confident in saying Agnea should have a weakness to lightning).

As I observed in my first post, all the characters' weapon weaknesses tend to be the "opposite" of whatever their base kit weapon is (in type, i.e. long-range weapon users tend to be weak to close-range weapons and vice versa). The sort of exception to this is daggers, which get treated as both a long- and close-range weapon (the dagger attack animation has a character throwing a dagger--ranged--but it can also be used to stab someone, which we see multiple times in various cutscenes across Octo1, Octo2, and CotC). This means it's hard to figure out what sort of weapon weakness Agnea might have because she only uses a dagger as her base kit weapon.

Now I already discussed patterns in weaknesses and other observations in my first post, so I won't reiterate anything here (although I will quickly add some very astute people noted in their tags that Hikari being the only one we know for sure is weak to lightning is probably a reference to the thing with Rai Mei, which I missed initially but makes so much sense). But I wanted to take a look at who could break who in the party to see if the battle mechanics tied in with characterization, and set up the following diagrams for each character, so I could really dig into weird details.

(Under the cut bc this entire post is so very long, and there are more diagrams; ALSO SPOILERS, I do talk about a few endgame spoilers)

We'll start with Ochette who's actually capable of breaking the most other travelers at six. The only person she can't seem to hit (by herself) is Partitio, which is an interesting detail.

It makes a lot of sense that Ochette is the best at breaking other characters, given that she's a hunter (needs to be able to find critical weak points as part of her job). I've also written in the past how I think Ochette is actually one of the most emotionally intelligent characters in the group, and that she's probably way more aware of what's going on with the other travelers than she lets on--and way more in-tune with them than even they realize--but her ability to break most of them actually seems to support that as well.

I feel this gets reflected in her interactions with the other travelers, since Ochette is one of the few characters Throne and Osvald are pretty open with from the get-go, despite both being a bit closed off to the other travelers at first; the same goes for Temenos, although he tends to mask the fact that he's closed off, so it isn't as obvious at first glance.

Ochette is also the only traveler who ever comes close to finding out about Hikari's Shadow, since she can smell it "in" him. Likewise for Castti, in their second crossed paths the Shadow is able to capture and almost kill Castti, but not Ochette--Castii has a connection to the Shadow due to her exposure to Trousseau's rain (and a mental weak spot from the trauma of loosing patients in the past), and therefore is weak to the Shadow, so it seems fitting that Ochette is the one to "break" Castti free from the Shadow's trap.

As for Agnea, there is the sense that the two are opposites in their athletic abilities, given that Ochette is a very athletic and sure-footed hunter, whereas Agnea, while certainly athletic, still stumbles on occasion despite her years of work.

It also makes sense that Partitio is the only one Ochette can't break, since Partitio's name is also the only name Ochette struggles with, and she doesn't ever use his full name. Despite having a nickname for every traveler except Temenos, in battle Ochette uses their full names after they break an enemy, with the exception of Partitio. After Partitio breaks an enemy, Ochette uses the nickname she gives him ("Good hunting Pardy!") which is, if I recall correctly, unique to Paritio. His job and the entire concept of money is also baffling to Ochette, despite Partitio's best efforts to explain it to her.

It's interesting to note as well that even Ochette's two starting partners, Akala and Mahina, can each break 6 of the other travelers on their own (Akala can break everyone--assuming Agnea does have a weapon weakness we don't know about yet--but Akala can't break Hikari, who's a master of combat; Mahina can break everyone except Osvald, who's a master of magic). By the end of Ochette's story when she has the creatures of legend, she can actually break everyone (Akala + Tera and Glacis who each have elemental attacks that Hikari's weak to), and while Mahina + Tera and Glacis can't break Osvald still, if Ochette were fighting alongside them rather than just provoking with them, she herself would be able to break Osvald.

Given that Ochette is one of the best characters for breaking enemies just from a game mechanics standpoint, it's neat that this is reflected in her ability to apparently break nearly all the other travelers.

Castti can only break four of the other travelers, which is on the lower end (although not the lowest), but this seems to fit since story-wise she's a healer first, a fighter second (despite making an excellent damage-dealer).

The characters she can't break are people she treats like kids (Ochette and Agnea), and Osvald, who's one of the characters to tell Castti to take care of herself. Osvald's also arguably her peer, in that he's the oldest of the group and occasionally a parental figure to the others in some sense, the same way Castti takes on a pseudo-parental role on occasion, so she can't really "parent" him because Osvald is both literally a parent and, to some degree, figuratively the group's parent.

Likewise, all the characters she can break are characters who either get into lots of fights (Paritio and Hikari), or characters who would probably pretend they're not as hurt as they actually are when they do get hurt, or otherwise mask their pain a lot (Throne and Temenos). We see this in some of Castti's banters where she chides Partitio for getting into fights (she also tends to tease him relentlessly, and he's one of the only characters she teases), or how she worries after Throne, giving her check-ups out of the blue in one of their banters. Castti also has a banter with Temenos after the events of his Stormhail chapter where she checks in on his wellbeing, and while he sort of manages to redirect her attention away from him by complementing how well she looks after people, the fact remains that she did know he needed to be checked in on.

Castti really said none of you are getting away with not getting treated for your hurts or so help her.

Throne, surprisingly, only can only break four of the other travelers. Despite being raised and trained as a deadly assassin, the low number of travelers she can break might reflect her narrative "aversion to blood and killing". Throne is, after all, able to non-lethally knock people out as her nighttime path action, so her unwillingness, and inability, to hurt her allies does make sense for her characterization.

The people she can't break make a lot of sense--Throne's unable to sneak up on Ochette in their banters, and is always open and kind with Ochette. She and Hikari share shadowy ancestry, and he's a skilled warrior, so it might be harder for her to find and opening and get the drop on him (esp. considering how his Shadow might react to their shared blood ties to D'arqest).

Agnea's entire character arc is more or less centered around trying to inspire hope in everyone she meets, and Throne herself hopes to be free, so it'd make sense for Throne to follow after Agnea's hope rather than trying to fight against her.

The people Throne can break are interesting as well, especially since she is the most effective against Temenos, covering 3/4 of his weaknesses with her base kit. Temenos really isn't able to hide any of his weaknesses against Throne, which makes sense given their interactions and teamwork in their crossed path story arc.

She's also one of the only characters to throw Castti off a few times (i.e. the banter where Throne almost talks Castti into letter her steal stuff from Timberain's royal family bc Throne thinks Castti would look pretty in the jewelry).

Throne also has a banter with Partitio where she gets him to realize how over-trusting he can be by talking him into letting her take the check from Alrond--which she doesn't do, but she definitely exploited a few of his social weaknesses and could have stolen the check from him easily, in front of his face no less. (Although if I recall correctly, Partitio then has her hold onto the check for safekeeping anyhow, just because he trusts her that much).

Osvald is a bit of a surprise, given how few weaknesses he has and how vigilant he seems to be, but Throne is a professional and given that Osvald was unable to escape prison without Emerald's help (who also seems to be a thief, given that he uses a dagger when playable), it makes sense that Throne could potentially get the better of him. There's also the fact that she's the granddaughter of D'arqest, and Osvald has spent his life investigating the source of D'arqest's magic, the answer to which eludes him till the very end of his story.

Osvald can break five of the other travelers, which is the second-most after Ochette. This matches well with his ability to scrutinize people, and his general observant nature.

He can't break Throne, which as noted previously, may be due to how close her blood-ties are to D'arqest. Studying the Pit of D'arqest and trying to figure out what the source of his magic was is Osvald's life study, the answer to which eludes him most of the story, so it does make sense that Throne, the granddaughter of D'arqest, would also elude him (esp. considering that while Osvald does learn about the Shadow, the answer he finds to the One True Magic is entirely separate and opposite to the Shadow). Hikari has the same blood-ties, but it's strongly implied he is a much further descendant of D'arqest than Throne is, so even though Hikari literally has the Shadow living in him, he's not tied to D'arqest the same way Throne is (as she's the daughter of Vide's "perfect vessel" and was raised in hopes that she could succeed as a vessel instead, even if this ultimately fails).

Osvald also can't break Temenos, which actually does reflect their general relationship well. In one of their banters, Osvald makes a note of how much Temenos talks without ever saying what his point is, and generally seems to find Temenos's whimsical façade to be a hassle to deal with on occasion. It's funny, in a way, that Temenos is one of the few people Osvald can't seem to figure out, but also speaks to each of their personalities--Osvald is honest bordering on rudeness, and always straightforward with how he speaks, whereas Temenos keeps a great deal of his inner thoughts and feelings to himself while speaking in a roundabout way, hiding what he actually wants to say behind stories from the scriptures or lighthearted jabs.

That Osvald can break everyone else reflects his observant nature, for sure, but it's also interesting that he can break characters like Agnea and Ochette, both of whom he treats as surrogate daughters to some level or another...though perhaps the fact that he can break them reflects his parenting style, wherein he wouldn't want to hold back any important lessons, even if they were somewhat unpleasant.

As noted before, Osvald's one of the few characters who points out how reckless Castti can be with her own health, so it makes sense he'd be able to break her. Hikari makes sense, given that he's trained in martial arts rather than magical arts, so Osvald and Hikari are strong in what the other is weak in. And, Partitio is open and honest, almost to a fault, which, like how Throne can get a good read on Partitio, probably makes Partitio fairly easy for Osvald to get a read on as well.

Like Osvald, Partitio can break five of the other travelers. This, paired with his distinct lack of weaknesses, does seem to reflect the fact that, despite being sincere and a starting off untraveled, Partitio is wicked smart and very aware of what's going on around him, skills he needs to be a successful merchant.

Partitio can't break Agnea as far as we know, which seems to reflect their banter where Partitio nearly gives her his money after she explains how she raised enough money to start traveling (Angea notably has enough money for her travels, it's Paritio who needs to come up with more money, but here he is trying to give her more money anyhow).

Partitio being unable to break Temenos may have to do with Partitio truly not being able to get a good read on Temenos because of how Temenos is (re: puts up a façade, keeps his feelings to himself, etc.), but there's also the shared banter between Castti, Partitio, Temenos, and Agnea where, a bit drunk and therefore letting his guard slip a bit, we see that Temenos can be rather cynical, as he shoots down the idea of new paper plays about their travels rather quickly. This puts his personality at odds with both Partitio and Agnea, who are unfailingly optimistic (and optimistic enough they eventually convince Temenos their idea isn't that naïve).

The fact that Partitio can break the rest of the party is just testament to his astuteness and flexibility as a merchant, since he can break more stoic characters like Osvald and Throne (Partitio hits it off pretty quickly with both, not even giving Throne a hard time for her thieving habits and instead bonding over their shared love of fashion, as any merchant good at networking might do), while also finding a way past Hikari's defenses (although Hikari's usually pretty straightforward on matters not related to his Shadow, so Partitio's able to connect with him pretty easily as well). As noted earlier, Partitio is the only character Ochette cannot break without one of her partners, and his name is the only one that really trips her up.

Partitio being able to break Castti comes as a bit of a surprise, given that the majority of their banters have Castti teasing Partitio or chiding him for his reckless behavior. There is the sense that Partitio respects Castti a great deal and is still paying attention to what she does, as seen in their banter during her Timberain chapter, where Paritio reminds Castti that her ability to convince the soldiers to get the people indoors to safety was due to her hard work, and that while it's true there's more for her to do, she shouldn't undersell the worth of all that she has already managed to achieve. From this, we get the sense that teasing and chiding aside, Partitio is still keeping tabs on Castti and is clearly able to get a read on her, even if he doesn't intervene as often in her personal affairs.

Despite being the only one whose weaknesses we don't know for certain, Agnea can break five other travelers as well. This makes sense from a game mechanics standpoint, since Dolcinaea is Agnea's boss fight and Agnea can't be charmed during the fight, so she ideally has to have a chance to break whoever Dolcinaea does charm. But this also reflects well how Agnea is able to win over so many people throughout her travels, as her pursuit of hope and desire to bring joy to people never wavers and inspires others.

The only two she can't break are Partitio and Throne. Given the infamous peaches banter, it makes sense Agnea can't break Partitio, since she didn't realize he was talking about the basket of peaches she was literally holding until the very end of the banter, and by then was too flustered to stick around (Partitio is, notably, clueless to the fact that Agnea thought he was talking about some entirely different peaches).

Throne makes sense as well because she's a slightly older, and definitely more experienced, woman than Agnea. As a country girl coming to the city, Agnea is ignorant to all of the dark things a city could hold, while Throne is a city girl who grew up literally in the shadows of all the wicked things in a city. Agnea's general ignorance puts her at a slight disadvantage to Throne's knowledge, although it should be noted that Throne is also inspired by Agnea's kindness and hope, and supports Agnea rather than looking down on her ignorance and naivety.

While we can assume that Agnea can break most of the other travelers for battle mechanics purposes, and to make sure the player has a chance to retrieve the charmed character even if Agnea is the only character they have to do that, it is interesting that she can break most of the characters from a narrative standpoint.

Characters like Osvald and Castti treat Agnea like a kid (Agnea seems to be a surrogate daughter to Osvald specifically), so it could be she's able to get to both of them because they want to dote on her a bit like a parent might (although for Castti, the resident healer, the fact that Agnea can break her might be due to Agnea's habit of occassionally rushing into things that causes some vexation to Castti).

Temenos notably has a difficult time communicating with Agnea, so Agnea's ability to break him could have something to do with the fact that Temenos is never able to get his point across to Agnea in a few of their banters (i.e. when Agnea forgets that he's the inquisitor and thinks his job is that of a detective or a paper play artist, and all of Temenos's attempts to correct her fail; likewise his attempt to get Agnea to take care of herself--before helping Laila get new shoes--via a story of Aelfric goes right over Agnea's head). It's not so much that Agnea is that naïve, but rather Temenos's roundabout way of doing things seems to make it more difficult for him to communicate clearly with her.

Agnea being able to break Hikari could be explained as well by her unwavering optimism and journey for hope. Compared to Hikari's childhood, Agnea hasn't experienced the same hardships, so her belief in bringing joy and happiness to people may seem naïve at first. But Hikari's entire end-goal for Ku isn't that different, as he wishes for peace and prosperity and an end to the bloodshed and war that's plagued his country and torn asunder his family and the families of his people. So despite the fact that Agnea's coming from an entirely different set of life experiences, her desire to bring about a more hopeful, brighter future aligns with Hikari's own desire for a better future, so it makes sense then that Agnea could break through to Hikari because he believes deeply in her vision even before he meets her. (This is also somewhat reflected in Mikka and Pala's side story in the postgame, as it's Pala who's able to break through to Mikka).

Ochette's the most surprising, although Agnea is one of the first travelers to share cooked food with Ochette in one of their early banters, so in the realm of food at least Agnea knows ways to prepare it that Ochette loves (even though Castti also later cooks for Ochette but can't break her). There's also the banter in Agnea's final chapter where Ochette talks about how much she loves Gil's piano playing, and she mentions several times how much she enjoys Agnea's dances and singing, so it could be that Ochette is weak to the performing arts.

Temenos has the fewest number of travelers that he can break, making him the opposite of Ochette. Now, technically he could break every traveler with his latent ability, but without putting in the extra effort he's not able to break most of the others. This is interesting considering his entire thing is being able to get information by talking with people (the coerce nighttime path action, despite being a battle, is probably supposed to be a metaphor for the "mental battle" waged when trying to get information from someone). Despite his acuity with detective work and unravelling mysteries, he has quite the difficult time unravelling his traveling companions. It's possible that, like Castti, this actually reflects the fact that he is a healer technically (even if, in Temenos's shared banter with Castti and Partitio, Partitio suggests that Temenos's "healing" style focuses more on the spirit, rather than physical wounds the way Castti's healing does).

Who he can break are interesting choices. Throne is the least surprising, since the two are opposites while being quite alike, although Temenos notably can only hit one of Throne's weaknesses while she can hit most of his.

Meanwhile, Ochette is probably one of the least deceptive travelers, never hiding much of anything, so it could be Temenos has an easier time reading her because she's straightforward with her thoughts and feelings pretty much all the time. This might explain why Temenos can break Partitio as well, since while Partitio is capable of using his merchant's gift of rhetoric to inspire people to his cause, he is incredibly honest, straightforward, and open about himself as well, and very trusting of other people (the opposite of Temenos's innate doubt).

If we work off the idea that Temenos has an easier time reading Ochette and Partitio because of their openness, then most of the characters Temenos can't break make sense. Hikari, while not outright deceptive, never tells any of the other party members about his struggles with his Shadow (although he comes close and talks about it indirectly with Temenos and Castti in one of their banters), and therefore we can say that Hikari is somewhat secretive and very good at keeping his secrets.

Castti likewise, while she's not trying to keep secrets intentionally and also isn't deceptive, suffers amnesia and can't remember much of anything of her past at the start of her story (Temenos can't inquire about something someone doesn't know). Even after she regains her memories, it's hard to say how openly Castti would discuss her experiences or not, since we don't see them brought up in detail during her travel banters often.

Osvald doesn't keep anything secret, on purpose or accident, and is very straightforward when he speaks, but he's also taciturn and prefers not to chat, so it makes sense Temenos would have a hard time breaking him since Temenos can't learn something from someone who won't talk to him, and there's the general impression that even Osvald's body language is a bit withdrawn (I say "general impression" bc despite the limits of sprite art, Osvald doesn't move around as expressively or actively as other characters like Ochette or Angea, and even his unique Bewildering Grace dance is the most restrained of the eight).

As noted earlier Temenos also has a difficult time communicating his point to Agnea in several of their shared banters. It should be noted as well that Agnea is the youngest character in the group, and Temenos tends to be "weak" to children, with how he lets Ochette talk him into reading Acta a story because Acta is a baby, or with the children of his church teasing him for his mistakes in his paper plays (although I think his mistakes are intentional, as I explained in this post here, but Temenos does seem to have something of a soft spot for children, possibly because they tend to be more honest or possibly because he takes his duties teaching/guiding them more seriously than he lets on).

Surprisingly, despite his martial prowess, Hikari can only break four other travelers. Like we see with Throne, this could speak to his nature, as Hikari is very kindhearted and values his friends dearly, and his desire not to hurt anyone but especially the people he cares about is what allows Hikari to stave off, and eventually defeat, his Shadow. Indeed, like how Castti is a healer first, fighter second, there's the impression that Hikari--despite being a warrior--is a protector first, and a warrior second.

Hikari can't break Castti, which is interesting, because Castti was "infected" by Trousseau's poison rain and carried a bit of the Shadow around with her, it's possible Hikari couldn't break her even if he wanted due to his blood curse. Likewise Hikari can't break Throne, just as she can't break him, and with their shared blood ties to D'arqest and Vide, and I wonder how much of the Shadow being something of an offshoot, or "servant", to Vide, alongside Throne being the daughter of Vide's intended perfect vessel, potentially has to do with this.

Hikari's Shadow, and Castti and Throne's connections to it, don't explain why he can't break Agnea, but it could be that Agnea's earnest journey for hope and continual optimism even in the face of darkness is something he respects enough that he would never and could never bring himself to harm her, since he believes deeply in her vision of hope.

It's interesting then that he can break Ochette, who is canonically the character who seems to be closest to the Flame, but at the same time both are warriors of a sort, so it could be more of a friendly sparring thing. Osvald makes some sense, in that Hikari is a master of physical combat and Osvald is not, so naturally they're both weak to what the other is skilled in.

Partitio is a bit surprising, but if we take into considering that it's implied Partitio gets into fights on impulse due to being a bit hot-blooded, it does make sense that Hikari, who's always cool and calm under a fight (when he isn't staving off the Shadow) could get the upper hand on Paritio if they sparred.

Hikari being able to break Temenos makes sense in regards to his shared banter with Temenos and Throne, where the three play poker and try to needle each other into giving up, with Throne and Temenos failing to throw each other off, before Hikari ultimately gets them both to give up the game, potentially getting Temenos to cry in the process (which is an incredible feat on Hikari's part, given that Temenos is never shown or implied to cry during the events of his story despite two people he cared deeply about being murdered, and just how careful Temenos is in general with keeping up a certain façade around others).

One last thing I'd like to talk about is the number of other travelers each traveler is weak to, which I think has more to do with game mechanics than with characterization. Every character is weak to five other characters, with the exception of Throne and Partitio who are only weak to four. This is really excellent in terms of mechanics balancing, since the only reason these weaknesses exist is because characters can be charmed during the Dolcinaea fight, so it makes sense that the player should be given a fair shot to break the charmed character with whichever team setup they went into the battle with, especially so for players who go in blind.

Agnea obviously is the major exception to this, being unable to be charmed means we can at best guess at her weaknesses. Which is fitting because the player wouldn't have to worry about losing Agnea in the battle (and generally speaking, in my experience Agnea's usually able to output enough damage by this point in the game that she can retrieve the charmed character with a fully boosted attack without even needing to break them, meaning I, as the player, didn't even have to really worry about who Dolcinaea charmed in terms of strategy). In theory if she could have been charmed, I imagine she would have had 4-5 characters who could break her with their base kit, just for gameplay balancing purposes.

Aaand, that's...all I think I wanted to jot down for my continued observations. With the bonus battle updates to Octo2, I plan to put together a similar post (or two) for the Octo1 travelers, since we now have access to their weaknesses as well. I'm still not trying to make any point per se, just rambling on things I observed and how the game mechanics seem to tie in with story characterization, which I always think is a neat thing when it occurs in games. Thanks for reading if you made it this far, bc this got way longer than I was expecting!

[conundrumoftime]

Fandom grandma tales: how I survived canon ruining two of the ships I liked.

(Written after a discussion with some of my TROP fan pals about how canon can break your heart re: shipping, and how fandom manages. There are spoilers here for the entire run of Babylon 5, and for one story JMS wrote after it. yes, that story. sorry.)

Babylon 5 was a sci-fi space opera show that ran from 1993 to 1998. It is sci-fi of the era of 22-episode seasons, of huge ensemble casts with characters who get their own B- and C-plots, with an effects and casting budget that doesn’t always match its ambition, and - something it was quite pioneering in, at the time - grand pre-planned story arcs. 

It’s the first fandom that I was involved with in internet spaces as it was running, or at least when its final season was (there’s Discourse and drama from earlier years that I missed). Its showrunner, J. Michael Straczynski - ‘JMS’ - was very active in (non-fanfic) fan community spaces, and you always knew exactly what he was thinking about things because he was part of the discussion around them. There was also fanfic, which he didn’t stop but didn’t go near on the grounds of legal liability for story ideas. 

Most of the fanfic in the early days as the show was airing was focused around two big ships, of which one was canon endgame (Delenn/Sheridan) and one was canon all-ends-in-despair (Marcus/Ivanova). I, as a teenager discovering a developing online fandom for the first time with all the overwhelm and excitement that causes (ask me anything about what reading fic was like before the days of tags/ratings/warnings!) got into Marcus/Ivanova and also into one of the minor ships, Delenn/Lennier.

Delenn/Lennier was never, ever going to happen in canon. This is obvious; it clashes with Delenn/Sheridan which was JMS’s baby darling OTP, the show’s big love story. Delenn is married for the later part of the show. Lennier is her diplomatic aide, is absolutely devoted to her, and they have a very intense mentor/student relationship, which it seems is kind of standard in their culture (when Delenn’s own mentor died she went briefly insane with grief and started a genocidal war over it) but is still Very Intense. He is canonically in love with her, but that’s as far as the explicit canon statements go.

However. HowEVER. Canon also gives us, for that relationship, some wonderful ship fuel. Lennier knows about every bad thing Delenn has done, including all the stuff she doesn’t/can’t tell her husband. He’s her link to her previous world and culture and stands by her even when they kick her out. She says at one point, “without him, I would stumble and fall and never get up again.” 

And then… we had Season 5, the final season.

Season 5, for various complicated production reasons, was operating a little outside of pre-planned story arcs and in this season the Delenn/Lennier stuff ramped up about three gears in one go. It was still very obviously never, ever going to be canon, and was almost certainly not intended by the creator (who wrote most of the episodes himself) to look like there was even anything there. At this point Delenn is married; any relationship with her aide would not only be going against the show’s OTP, but going against it in the sense where she’s cheating on her husband, and there is Just No Way JMS would have gone there. And yet! Season 5 gave us:

A scene where Lennier says he can’t stay, it’s too painful to be around her now she’s married, and she’s devastated and has the following conversation with her husband about it:

S: I got your message about Lennier. Is there anything I can do?

D [snapping]: Almost certainly not.

S: Is it because of me?

D: In part, I think so.

S: Yeah, I was afraid of that. Well, as we say back on Earth, three’s a crowd.

D: On Minbar, three is sacred.

S [slightly uncomfortable laugh]: Well, I don’t think I’m ready to handle that one, Delenn.

Delenn then calling Lennier back to the station to do some secret mission thing for her, which involves her sneaking out of her bed while her husband sleeps to meet Lennier in a darkened alley behind a bar, where she tenderly strokes his face and they have a whole conversation about whether her husband understands her or not.

A scene where Lennier comes back from his secret mission to meet both Delenn and Sheridan, Delenn goes to greet him with a hug, and Lennier does this very pointed step back and nod in the direction of her husband, and she pulls back and just sort of pats him on the arms instead. 

I MEAN.

But, the issue here is not what fans did about it but what canon did about it. Canon did the canon equivalent of dragging that ship outside and shooting it in the head. 

In the final few episodes of the entire series, Lennier tries to kill Sheridan, runs away in shame, and then someone finds his diary in which he’d been writing for ages about what a bad decision he thought Delenn had made and how her whole marriage was an awful idea. Even to this day, it’s fun/awful watching people go through a first-time watch when they get to season 5 and hit that. ‘Character assassination in the form of a diary’ was a whole thing for a while. It’s been 20+ years and the actor who played Lennier is stilll mad about it (not because of shippy stuff, but because he - correctly! - thinks Lennier absolutely would not have done that). 

What *fandom* did, on the other hand, was Fixed The Problem.

Delenn/Lennier was not at all a big ship when the series was airing, and for a few years after. Then the fandom dynamics started to change. With less pressure on what canon was going to do, it felt like fandom had more space to play around with things it didn’t do. Fanfic got less interested in trying to fit within the overall story being told and started spinning off in all its own directions. And *this* ship started getting bigger and bigger. People did really interesting things with it, canon divergence went in all directions, everyone wrote a fix-it story of some variety, some authors did a great series of connected stories based on an idea that Minbari have three genders, the quality of the writing has been brilliant. And I think without that absolute whiplash feeling of what happened in canon, there would never have been this feeling of “well I’m not having THAT” which led to all this.

We did not need canon! Canon had done its thing. And canon had broken our hearts enough ways with many of the other stories it told (entirely on purpose) and we weren’t just going to sit back and let it ruin us forever.

By comparison, the other ship I was into was Marcus/Ivanova. This is entirely doomed. Susan Ivanova’s love life is just perpetually doomed. The first partner of hers we meet is an ex who’s interested in getting back together, but then it turns out he’s just using her to infiltrate the station for the fascist terrorist group he’s secretly joined. Then she falls for an archrival of hers, Talia, who works for Psi Corps, the organisation she loathes most of all things - but it’s okay because it turns out Talia is starting to question them too! Maybe these crazy kids can make it work! They have one night together and then OOPS turns out Talia was being secretly controlled by a sleeper personality implanted in her by Psi Corps the whole time. Ivanova’s love life is doomed. 

So for two seasons, she has this sort-of-flirty, sort-of-bickery, sort-of-friendship going with Marcus, who is on the surface of it very much “why not fall in love at first sight like a true romantic, YOLO!” but it turns out is actually deeply messed up himself and full of survivor’s guilt and pain and, you get the clear impression, would have died of shock if she’d actually called his bluff on the OTT flirting and said “yeah, let’s go for it”. And then he sacrifices himself to save her life. It is a very tragic ending, it is absolutely the way he would have wanted to go, she wakes up both furious and absolutely distraught, says that the last thing she heard was him saying “I love you”, says she wishes she’d at least slept with him once, and says that in a way all love is unrequited. PAIN. 

So, lots of fix-it fanfic, lots of ‘Marcus comes back to life’, lots of canon divergence AUs where he doesn’t die and they live happily ever after and both get over their huge levels of unresolved pain. Pretty standard for that kind of pairing. And as a pairing it doesn’t get in the way of any big canon pairings, it doesn’t imply anything icky like mentor/student power imbalances or adultery. And JMS clearly quite liked it. So that’s better, right?

NO. It was WORSE.

JMS wrote an Marcus/Ivanova story himself, published in one of the sci-fi magazines, to try to give them a happy ending. This happy ending involves Marcus, many many years in the future, waking up from the cryogenic suspension he’s in (it’s sci-fi, keep up, keep up). Ivanova is long dead, but he isn’t about to let this get in the way, so what he does is to *create a new Ivanova* by getting some kind of DNA + computerised memory/personality bank thing, finding a doctor who will clone her, putting himself back into animated sleep until the clone reaches the age Ivanova was when she died, then - THEN, I’M STILL GOING - takes her to a distant planet where, with her memories wiped and their spaceship having deliberately been crashed BY HIM so there’s no way back, they live out their lives in peace.

WHAT.

That pairing still does okay in fandom but it’s not really taken on a post-show world of headcanons and riffing on other people’s ideas and tropes in the way that Delenn/Lennier has (and we all just pretend that story never existed). 

So! This has been my experiences in the field of What We Do When The Show Has Thoughts On That Non-Endgame Ship We’re Into. Fandom manages. Fandom will see you through. And in the words of Susan Ivanova:

Babylon Five was the last of the Babylon stations; there would never be another. It changed the future, and it changed us. It taught us that we have to create the future, or others will do it for us. It showed us that we have to care for one another, for if we don’t, who will? And that true strength sometimes comes from the most unlikely places. Mostly though, I think it gave us hope that there can always be new beginnings - even for people like us.

[bidonica]

So yeah about what I was saying in the tags to @metalgearstranding's post about Ocelot's parentage here. I finished the TPP side quest involving Paz and I have Thoughts on the topic of character development being pushed to the periphery of the Metal Gear games, which also include BIG BIG SPOILERS about the endgame of MGSV so if you've managed to get into metal gear unspoiled about that and wish to remain so, don't read beyond the cut. And if you decide to read, content warning for discussion of sexual violence.

So I've basically finished the main storyline of TPP -- reached the "Truth" mission, lost Quiet (I also got her back btw. Yes you can. Love wins) and now I'm two repeat missions away from finishing the main list, while I still have a few side ops to unlock. One of the side op series I finished first is the "find the wandering Mother Base soldiers" one, where you have to capture lost soldiers from the old Mother Base and collect memento photos in the process. The "mementos" are scenes you can trace back to Paz's diaries in Peace Walker, and I thought they were some side material whose purpose was to nod at the players who actually played PW without making it integral to the game. As a matter of fact, a lot of people skipped on Peace Walker, being a portable game and all -- even my brother who is a lifelong fan of the series and introduced me to it never played it, which I like to hold over his head because I am now Doing Metal Gear Better.

Then I recently ended up on this article and found out there was a whole side plot involving those mementos and the unexpected reappearance of Paz at Mother Base. If you played Ground Zeroes, you'd know Paz died a gruesome, gross death, with two bombs planted into her body by Skull Face -- one that had to be surgically removed from her abdomen without anaesthesia and the other in, well, her vagina, that exploded when she threw herself off the flying chopper Big Boss was carrying her on, causing or at least exacerbating the incident where BB and the Medic ended up in their nine year coma.

So in TPP there's this door on the third floor at the main Medical Platform. You can open it and find a room with Paz in it - alive, but with a V-shaped scar on her abdomen and her mind stuck in 1974. Ocelot and Miller will explain that the Medic was able to extract the second bomb at the last minute(*) and save her, never mind that she looks like she barely aged.

(*)I reiterate: from her vagina. Not sure how I feel about how sexual violence is used in this game, because on the one hand it is true that it disproportionately affects women POW and it would probably be disingenuous to not address it altogether, but at the same time these aren't the games most suited to handle this topic because they tend to be very, uh, adolescent when it comes to women and their bodies even when the context is rather dramatic. You also see it in the lingering shot on Quiet's breasts during her attempted onscreen rape (then there's also, of course, the implied offscreen ones) and don't get me started on whatever is going on when you defeat the Beauty & Beast unit in MGS4.

This triggers a flashback from Venom, where he basically overwrites the scene as you experienced it in Ground Zeroes with the scene as recounted to him by Kaz and Ocelot, and his point of view shifts between Big Boss and the Medic. Which is honestly pretty clever if you're playing this unspoiled, because if you unlock this early on in the game the point of view shift foreshadows the twist from the "Truth" mission. And if you, like me, play it after, you get to be like "aha!" at it.

The twist being, of course, that Venom isn't Big Boss but rather the Medic, brainwashed into becoming Big Boss' Phantom.

Again, there are hints -- when you start bringing Paz the memento photos, she will comment on them with a nostalgic, sugar coated version of what she said in her Peace Walker diary entries, because if you look at those, her tone is a lot more critical and at times snarky, because Paz was a double agent. Sure, she eventually had a change of heart and 1984 Paz might be reflecting that. But her phrasing, combined with her repating "I'm a student... I'm an angel of peace..." the whole time, points at this being the Medic piecing together a version of Paz that he knew; it's unlikely he got the full intel on her at the time of her rescue in GZ, and what with Ocelot not being there at the time of Peace Walker, it might be he also didn't include it in his mental conditioning at all.

The Paz side plot is possibly the only one that fully engages with Venom as his own character and not as a Big Boss proxy. It's about the Medic's trauma and guilt for not having been able to save Paz, who in his eyes was just an innocent girl. Which was a lie, but isn't at the same time because she certainly didn't deserve what happened to her. The last picture you find is called "Morpho butterfly" and Morpho was the name of Pequod's predecessor as the chopper pilot. It's all about Venom's mind struggling to deal with the loss of his old comrades, not to mention his own identity.

It's also the most effective demonstration you get of his brainwashing, because you see him being unable to trust his own memories, rewriting them in real time.

Paz, of course, isn't real. Venom hallucinated her the whole time. Her words in the audio files are actually his thoughts, which has some interesting repercussions, like was it actually the Medic who witnessed this?

Me finding a way to make this about Kaz aside, what I'm getting at is: this whole subplot is the only one that tackles Venom's situation as a PTSD ridden, brain damaged, brainwashed person head-on. It also highlights his compassionate nature by making his guilt towards Paz be the only thing that resurfaces from his old life.

The mental and neurological issues, the seizures, memory loss are all things that are established with Venom's introduction; when you rescue Kaz, Venom asks him to talk to him and help him remember, but in reality the mission support Kaz gives you is merely about logistics, and in most cutscenes he and Venom talk of the matters at hand, or of Kaz's desire to get back at Skull Face and Cipher. Venom's brain issues don't really factor significantly in the story segments or the gameplay (except for the color blindness that was meant to be a sort of Checkhov's Gun in the unfinished Kingdom of the Flies mission. My Roman Empire). Yeah they couldn't pay Kiefer Sutherland for more than three line readings or whatever yadda yadda, but this very Paz subplot proves that you can give him character development without him saying much.

It's that, in order to do it, you have to (casually?) find that one door that you can open at Mother Base, and go through a whole side quest that is entirely optional. You could technically finish the game -- or at least what we have of the game -- and never have to contend with the protagonist's specific trauma and actual personality.

You could argue that it works on a meta level, because Venom is the player and the player themsef is Big Boss' phantom, his impersonator. Metal Gear rarely misses with this sort of metanarrative, fourth wall breaking stuff. So keeping Venom the actual character to the periphery to center Venom the avatar of Big Boss, who is the avatar of the player, makes sense in that context.

But it becomes frustrating when you engage with Metal Gear as a story, which isn't just plot, but also the personal, emotional motivations for the characters to make a choice rather than the other. Which is... what drives the plot. It's something that happens again and again throughout the games -- character development as something that is, essentially, happening in another room. It's not that it doesn't exist, but it's stored away elsewhere and you don't get to see it. Which is made even more frustrating by how bits and pieces of it randomly emerge, and they are compelling -- I'm thinking of Kaz recounting his personal history in the Peace Walker tapes, or Strangelove's dying monologue (kudos to the voice actors on both accounts though, because they definitely contributed in delivering the emotional punch of those scripts). But it's always just flashes and rarely something you get to experience in full.

(the frustration is magnified in TPP when you have the main storyline just. Ending at a certain point -- because it's unfinished et cetera -- and then find all this arguably juicier material at the periphery of the game.)

[februaryfangfest]

That's right, it's that time of year again! Time to start thinking about February Fangfest because it's time to get the family back together once more, right where they belong!

This coming February, join us for our second annual Fangfest and celebrate the Fanged Four and all their gleefully gory glory. We’re looking for all kinds of fan creations. Fanfic, artwork, vids, meta/essays, icons, poetry, gifs, wallpapers, crossword puzzles, anything that shows your love for the vamily.

The theme this go 'round will be Love Language and we hope you'll have lots of fun with it!

Wanna take part?

We’ll be taking sign-ups until the 15th of January, Check out our signup sheet! Multiple submissions are welcome. Our submission deadline will be the 1st of February and we’ll be revealing your creations during the event, one per day - or more, if there’s enough!

Don’t wanna create a thing? Commenters are adored and will get all the cakes.

Rules:

The theme will be 'Love Language'

All submissions must be your own creation and shouldn’t have been posted anywhere else beforehand. We wanna encourage fresh creative blood to be spilt!

Our Ao3 collection will be opening shortly for you to submit entries.

Stories and artwork can be set at any point in the past or future, in hidden glimpses we never saw in the show, reunion stories, worlds where Darla’s still around. They could be souled, unsouled, or in any what-if or AU your heart can dream up.

Your work needs to incorporate the theme in some way, however small, and we encourage creative interpretation.

Works should involve at least two members of the Fanged Four. The main ship and primary focus should be the Fanged Four or one of the sub-pairings (Spangel, Dangel, Sprusilla, Darsilla, etc). Any romantic endgame for a member of the Fanged Four should include at least one other member of the Fanged Four.

Minimum word count for fic is 100 words and there’s no maximum. One shots and chaptered works are equally welcomed, but they should be complete and not part of a pre-existing fic series. There’s no rating limit but you should tag responsibly. No bashing of the group or its members please, we’re here to show them love.

The same goes for artwork, adult content is very much allowed but please tag accordingly. 'Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings' is a valid warning.

And, of course, please be excellent to each other.

We have a discord server, Runs In The Blood . Come have fun there too, share the hype, discuss the gang, maybe find some new friends, join our workshopping space, ask us questions if you have them, and we’ll be running watch parties during the event!

Our 2024 Masterlist can be found here if you'd like to check out the wonderful works from last Fangfest.