#How many implements of shame should I hold against | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

icyschreviews · 2 years

Text

A Review of Dragon Age: Inquisition

Part 1: Playing a Broken PC Port

This is part 1 of a multi-part review of Dragon Age: Inquisition. Click here for part 2 and part 3.

God, why do I keep doing this? I tell myself I’ll only play a game for fun and next thing you know I’m five pages and half a bottle of tequila down a review. It’s you, BioWare, isn’t it? We keep doing this with every other game you release. Andromeda was the reason I got into this futile hobby in the first place. Well shame on you, you and your nerdy DnD mechanics and your campy fantasy drama and your thirst traps you call companions. Yes, I’m going to trash Inquisition now. Consider yourselves responsible.

Where do I even begin with this game? It’s safe to say that I’m a fan of Origins through and throughout. There are many RPGs out there that call themselves old-school, but not one quite like Origins. Sure, I’m into action RPGs as well (I play Dark Souls just like any other hoe), but few games can match Origins’ juicy blend of stellar writing and complex combat.

So let’s not treasure that. Let’s piss all over it and burn it in a dumpster, eh EA? All the cool kids are doing open-worlds now, so we have to follow the trends. Cram as much content as you can in it. God forbid the next Assassin’s Creed has one more minute of gameplay than we do. Give us crafting. Can’t have a triple-A game without that. And bigger maps. I said bigger! Copy-paste the stuff we already have. More quest markers. So many quest markers that they overlap on the map. MOAR!

Oh dear, we got so worked up we forgot about the graphics. There’s no way we’re releasing this game if you can’t see every scale on a dragon’s ass. It’s called Dragon Age after all. Say what now, BioWare? Your engine can’t keep up with that level of detail? Hush baby, we’re not going to license someone else’s well documented and well tested engine. Mama’s got Unreal at home.

Goat’s blood all over you edifice, EA.

Listen, I don’t have anything against console players. People should play games wherever its the most convenient for them. I also have nothing against bringing games to more platforms. Sure, adapt Dragon Age for consoles. Why not make it available to a larger crowd? But why, oh why would you do that at the expense of the PC version? Tell me, BioWare, please.

I booted up Inquisition for the first time, took control after the initial cut-scene, pressed space on my keyboard and almost had a heart attack. Instead of pausing the game my character jumped. Jumped, I tell you! What is this blasphemy in my Dragon Age game? I quickly remapped the controls. Off with you, filthy jump button!

Next came pressing the tab button. Tab. Tab! Tab, goddamn, why is it not responding? Ok, back to the key bindings. How do I highlight items in the area? Right, by pressing the V key. Lets remap that real quick. Now press tab…

It echoed. The highlight is now an echo. Wha— Why? Why would you do that, BioWare? How is that more convenient than the way it was before? You used to hold down tab and all interactable items in the area would stay highlighted as long you had your finger on the button. The new echo only marks objects for a short while. You don’t even have enough time to make a full circle before the highlight starts fading. What am I supposed to do with this? If the highlight didn’t also flash on the mini-map, it’d be practically unusable.

I didn’t realize what caused this change until I switched over to a gamepad (spoiler alert). There the highlight is mapped to L3. Of course it fucking is. Who would want to hold down L3 for a prolonged period of time? Alright, BioWare, but why not have two separate implementations of this feature for different platforms? You can’t tell me the echo was the easier one to implement. At least it beeps differently when there aren’t any items around.

Ok, deep breaths. Remember what you learned in therapy. All of these are just minor inconveniences. I’m sure the rest of the game plays just fine. Look, what’s that item in the corner? Let’s check it out. Click on it. Click. Right click on it. Again. Click…

Oh my god, your character doesn’t automatically approach faraway items to interact with them any more. You have to walk over to them and then click. What’s worse the collision boxes went on a diet. Picking up a slim little elfroot requires a surgeon’s precision. I’d consistently walk over to one, only to overshoot it by a tiny bit. If this didn’t make me blow my brains out, nothing ever will.

Blasphemy!

And that’s not even half of it. The real war crimes were committed against the game’s combat. I can’t even begin to describe it. The combat was desecrated. Defiled. Abolished. Torn to pieces and processed through a meat grinder. The tactical mode is the stuff of which nightmares are made of. It feels finicky at best and rage inducing at worst.

I can’t believe Origins is the oldest Dragon Age game, yet the only one to have its shit together when it comes to the camera. Does regression count as some sort of progress? Dragon Age 2 trimmed the maximum zoom level, but Inquisition went one step further and let the camera clip into the ceiling. Visibility in closed spaces is miserable and it only gets worse in poorly lit dungeons.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the game randomly kicks you out of the tactical mode while adjusting the camera’s zoom level. There’s no pattern to this behavior. Sometimes it’ll do what it’s supposed to and sometimes it’ll slap you in the face and continue the action at top speed. And why don’t orders from the tactical mode carry over outside of it? Do I really have to keep smashing the attack button? Even when I go into the tactical mode and tell someone to do something, chances are they might just ignore me.

To go even further, when you hover over abilities in the quick bar nothing pops up. Am I seriously supposed to pause the game and open up the menu each time I want to check an ability’s description? Alright, Inquisition, I’ll do that. Just tell me, why are all of the UI elements flipping out? I can’t scroll down a simple list without the cursor losing its goddamn mind and jumping all over the place. Similarly there’s no information when you hover over your companions’ images, no health, no XP, no stats, no nothing. Status effect are presented as these small specks in the corner of your screen. I needed a magnifying glass to properly identify them.

Just checking for cobwebs up here.

But wait, humble reviewer, why are you using the tactical mode? Don’t you know it’s useless? No one plays Inquisition like that. Just get into the action and start smashing the buttons. Tactics - who needs them? I finished the game on Nightmare and only had to fire up like two brain cells. Trust me, you should forget about the tactical mode all toge—

No, you forget about the tactical mode! If I wanted to play an action RPG, I would have booted up The Witcher 3. I’m sick of triple-A games converging into this indistinguishable hodgepodge of recycled ideas. This is Dragon Age, goddammit. I won’t let EA trick me into believing this is where the franchise should be heading. I’ll get my share of tactical combat out of this game, so god help me!

…

Ok, but maybe I won’t be doing that with a mouse and keyboard. Once I realized my old approach wasn’t working any more, I decided to try my luck with a gamepad. Lo and behold things started falling into place. Suddenly I wasn’t playing a busted PC port, but a decent console exclusive.

Without a mouse and keyboard in my hands I wasn’t compelled to play the game the way I used to. The gamepad tricked my mind into approaching Inquisition with a fresh set of eyes. The menus started responding to my inputs. I wasn’t looking for overlays because I had nothing I could use for hovering. No more mouse, so no more futile clicking on objects in the distance. Just tilt the stick and press A. Feels good, don’t it?

If someone had told me I’d be playing a Dragon Age game with a gamepad, I would have urged them to take that filth elsewhere. Today if someone else were to put a gun to my head and order me to play Inquisition with a mouse and keyboard, I would tell them to shoot and end my misery. It’s like BioWare unironically developed a console exclusive and then smashed together a shabby port. To think this franchise was once home on the PC.

Well pardon me, but from now on I’ll be reviewing Dragon Age Inquisition, a spin-off from the main Dragon Age series. This time exclusively on consoles and totally not playable on PC. Don’t let Steam fool you, this thing don’t run with a mouse and keyboard.

You have to flip a switch and restart the game just to use a gamepad? Whaaat?

Once I was sure the simple act of picking up herbs wasn’t going to make me blow my brains out, I decided to give Inquisition another shot. The tactical mode was still waiting for me. Oh, you didn’t think I was done with it just because I switched over to a gamepad? Silly you.

The gamepad made me feel like I was playing a completely different game. In the PC version the tactical mode worked more or less the same way it did in the previous two games. Pardon me, it tried to work. In the console version time is stopped by default the moment you enter the tactical mode. You don’t press a button to unfreeze time, instead you hold down the trigger to make time move forward. The moment you release the trigger time stops again.

At first this didn’t seem like much of a change. You still issue commands the way you did before. However this gives an entirely new flavor to the combat. Applying different amounts of pressure on the trigger makes time move at different speeds. This means you can let little bits of time slip by if you want tight control over the combat, i.e. you can let it rip at top speed if you feel comfortable with the decisions you’ve made.

To boot some of the issues which were present in the PC version simply aren’t there any more. You don’t get thrown out of the tactical mode for changing the zoom level. Then why on earth was this a problem with a mouse and keyboard? I quickly grew accustomed to the new control scheme and was able to cruise through the tactical mode with ease. However the more time I spent with it, the more I realized just how many holes were drilled through the sides of this ship.

One of the first challenges was figuring out how to zoom in on a particular party member. When selecting the next person using the D-pad the game would reposition the camera onto that person. At least this is how it works outside of the tactical mode. Inside the mode the camera stays put regardless of your selection. This means switching over between ranged and melee units requires you to move the cursor back and forth across the battlefield. Or you could quickly exit the tactical mode, switch to the desired character and then dive back in. Talk about an ideal solution.

The problems don’t stop there. During combat you can open up a hot wheel with additional tactical options as well as access to potions. The potions work as you’d expect them to, but the special commands can only be applied to the entire party. Meaning if I wanted to move Sera to an advantageous position and tell her to stay put, that command would make the entire party stop dead in their tracks.

Orders that should be simple are thus a headache to execute—except, hold on a minute. It turns out you can tell only one party member to hold their ground. You just need to double tap the desired location. I’m going to give the game the benefit of a doubt and say I missed this information because I played the tutorial with a mouse and keyboard. Still, why does this command work differently when issued from the hot wheel?

At least telling your companions to smack someone on the head is easy enough. Have you seen that new warrior skill tree? It has an ability which lets you pull an enemy using a chain and then ceremoniously kick them in the face. Here, let me show you. Come on, Inquisitor, let it rattle. Wait… Why did my Inquisitor miss her shot? She turned 90 degrees away from her target and flipped the chain towards a rock. What a bizarre bug. Let’s try that one more time. It happened again! And again! Now Sera is also shooting at trees.

What’s going on here? My companions keep directing their shots in random directions at random times. Is it because they’re out of range? I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. Are obstacles a problem? No, my Inquisitor is able to chain-pull people through carts. Elevation maybe? No, then she flips her chain in the right direction, but it sinks through the terrain. What the heck then? Am I supposed to make peace with this as well? At lest the ability doesn’t go into cooldown when you miss.

Never mind, Cassandra, go defend that position. Cassandra? Where are you, girl? Why haven’t you moved at all? Are you stuck? Did someone apply some sort of status effect on you? Not that I’d know since the UI doesn’t tell me… Let me just exit the tactical mode and see if I can move you. Yes, I can. Another bizarre bug, I guess. Wait, why is my Inquisitor stuck now? And now Blackwall! And Bull! Stop it, it’s contagious!

Come to mama.

I remembered somewhere along the way that this was a Dragon Age game and that I didn’t have to manage every single breath a companion takes. So I rolled up my sleeves and opened up the menus looking for the tactical settings. Except there wasn’t much to play around with. The only behavior you can change is potion consumption and the auto-usage of specific abilities.

Where are the in-depth settings that were part of the previous games? Where are the fine-grained conditions? What about behavioral presets? How do my companions act by default? Are they aggressive? Are they defensive? Does this vary based on class? How would I even know?

During this search, I stumbled across a menu letting me tweak various aspects of the gameplay. Among those was an option to toggle friendly fire. Since I was dearly missing the feature in Dragon Age 2, I decided to turn it on. Immediately after Varric blasted me and Cassandra out of Thedas. It did not last long before I relented and turned the feature back off. Some abilities are just to unpredictable to use, chain lightning for example. I let Vivienne zap some poor bastard thinking he was well out of range, only to have the entire party light up like Christmas candles.

The next thing that came to my attention was the cursor and how busted it is. Inside the tactical mode you can move it using a stick. However it can’t go through obstacles. If there’s a log standing between you and your target, you need to circle around it. Why on earth would the cursor be affected by collisions?

Elevations create a new set of problems. You literally have to walk the cursor up the goddamn stairs. But what if there aren’t any stairs? What if my target is perched upon a cliff? There’s absolutely no way to reach them without exiting the tactical mode. The cursor also disappears on slopes. This problem is the most prominent in the desert maps. There’s no way to select a target if it’s standing on the steep sides of a dune.

And don’t even get me started on the cursor’s range. You can’t move it far away from the currently selected character. What if my party members are spread apart? Because of this I couldn’t command my ranged units to attack a target next to my melee ones. So what if they need to move in closer before firing? Make them do that automatically.

Not the stairs again.

Left to their own devices companions can usually find their way. Usually. This is handled rather well during exploration. Even if a companion gets stuck and left behind, the game will teleport them behind you when you’re not looking. This is simple and seamless.

The same magic trick does not work in combat. Once you press the button launching you into the tactical mode, your companions are left standing wherever they were before that. I once slid down a hill straight into combat and left Vivienne and Sera staring down at me from the top. I powered my way through the encounter out of sheer spite while the ladies must have spent their time bickering.

The very worst example of this is a cave up on the Storm Coast. It’s your usual case of spider infestation, but it was the level’s geometry and not the enemies that my companions could not get their heads around. The first time I entered the cave I engaged in combat only to realize I was alone. Upon closer inspection I found my party stuck outside trying to burrow their way in through a solid wall. The entrance of the cave was 5 feet to the side.

On the second go I made sure everyone was lined up in front of the entrance, but only Solas successfully made it in. He then proceeded to climb up a ladder on his own incentive. I switched over to him, wanting to bring Mr elven supremacy down to earth, only for the entire party to be teleported somewhere outside of the cave. My Inquisitor retained their default combat pose and slid down a hill.

Even when I managed to get all of them inside, they constantly kept getting stuck on walls. The camera was losing its mind and entering and exiting the tactical mode teleported me to random corners of the cave. It’s safe to say I never entered that dungeon again.

How the hell did you get in here?

You could say I was perplexed the first time I opened up the skill trees. Dragon Age 2 did a good job of tidying up Origins’ level-up system, but on first glance Inquisition went a bit too far. I counted 4 trees per class which was a downgrade from the 6 you had in DA2. Lots of abilities seemed to be missing. Mages only had 3 elemental skill trees and 1 you could call defensive. What happened to entropy? Or blood magic? How am I supposed to create different builds with all these ability points coming in?

The game just stayed quiet and chuckled until I reached Skyhold. After receiving my first Fade ability I opened up the level-up screen and—wait, what’s this? New skill trees? There was a new one per character. I repeat per character, not per class. Dragon Age, I could kiss you right now.

This is hands down the best level-up system in all three games. Not only is it tidy, not only is it measured, but it also guarantees unique builds across different characters. The first thing I did was re-spec the entire party. Now every member has a specific role to play. Blackwall is my indestructible tank, Cassandra is an expert for handling demons and Cole is my precious little glass canon. The only flaw is that those unique skill trees are the exact same ones used for your Inquisitor’s specialization. This means that depending on your class and play-style someone in your party might become redundant. Since I reveled in ripping people to shreds this ended up being Bull for me.

I also like how they handled your stats. The previous two games worked like most traditional RPGs. After a level-up, you’d get a certain amount of points you could invest in your attributes. However Inquisition doesn’t grant these types of points. Instead unlocking certain abilities automatically increases some of your attributes. This is brilliant because it ensures that your character’s stats stay consistent with your desired play-style. So if you want to be a defensive warrior, the defensive skills will pump up your constitution for you.

Besides the skills you’re already familiar with Inquisition introduces some new ones. I admit, I couldn’t immediately see the use for all of them. Varric is a prime example of this. His unique skill tree is all about setting traps, but to what end? You’re rarely ever in the position to lure someone in. Either you stumble upon a pack enemies or you raid their camp. So what am I supposed to do with bear traps?

The game helped me change my mind during the boss fight against the Grand Duchess Florianne. The damn woman kept jumping behind my squishies, sending them to the Maker’s side and then escaping onto a banister where the pathing system said I couldn’t touch her. That’s when I remembered Varric.

Previously I invested points into an ability that let him scatter a bunch of mines. The catch is that each mine applies random elemental damage to anyone who steps on it. At first I didn’t know what to do with it. Enemies usually have one elemental weakness and it’s that particular one you want to exploit. However it turns out you can go to town with this ability as long as an enemy isn’t immune to a particular element or if you’re trying to cover a wider area. Once I let Varric do his thing, I sat back and watched the Duchess destroy her own health bar just by pouncing around the place. It was like an early birthday present.

Inquisition frequently rewards you for playing around like this. During the last fight in Haven I was tasked with holding out against multiple waves of Red Templars. This was by far the most grueling challenge in the game up to that point. Scouring for options, I noticed a convenient bottleneck in the terrain. A giant trebuchet was occupying a corner of the battlements and Solas just so happened to have his ice wall ability. What ensued might be called cheesing by some. I blocked off one side of the trebuchet forcing the Templars to trickle in the other way around. This let me pick them off at my own leisure.

To list one more example, I often had to deal with shadow warriors and harlequins. Rogues have a cloaking ability which makes them invisible long enough to come slash your tendons. You can sort of make out their silhouette, but it’s much better to flush them out as early as possible. So for example, Vivienne can throw Chain Lightning on the closest visible enemy which will then bounce off hidden ones as well.

Smash his face in, Cassandra!

All of those abilities wouldn’t be as impressive if you couldn’t put them to use. Luckily Inquisition has got you covered. The enemy variety is excellent across the board. For a game of this size it’s remarkable that I only started getting bored of beating people up after the 100+ hour mark. Even then, I’d blame the lack of fun on needless repetition and not on diminishing quality.

There’s a bit of something for everyone. Human opponents come in all shapes and sizes. There are the standard swordsman. There are the bulkier ones with shields whom you have to flank as best you can. Archers are able to knock your head off if you leave them be for too long. Mages are of course as deadly as ever, spawning lethal mines, teleporting out of the way and all in all making your life miserable. Each of the Red Templar variations has something new to offer. Knights are tasked with charging up other units, but they’re sturdy and not so easily taken out. Horrors are dangerous on their own, but instantaneously fatal if you let them get buffed.

There’s also the usual assortment of beasts: wolves, bears, spiders and such. There are a bunch of mini bosses scattered around the world who, unlike regular enemies, are large enough for you to target their individual body parts. This allows for shrewd tactics like crippling a giant’s legs to get access to its head. Overall the enemy variety is so abundant that Inquisition only needs to mix things up a little to keep you engaged long term.

You might have noticed I listed a bunch of things, but still haven’t mentioned the most interesting addition to the combat - the Fade rifts. Not only are they important from a story perspective, but they’re also elegantly designed. Each Fade rift is a perfect combination of known and unknown factors.

A rift usually has two rounds (though I seem to remember encountering ones with three). The first round welcomes you on arrival. It’s a done deal with a set number of enemies. You can gauge the danger from a far and choose to engage of your own accord. The fun starts after you’ve beaten the first round. The rift gives you time for a breather before marking the spots where the next wave of enemies will spawn. It only tells you the number of enemies, but their type and level is up to you to deduce based on the composition of the first round. You only know for certain that the second one will be harder than the first. This allows you to think strategically while also spicing things up with a little bit of randomness.

The game also lets you be cheeky and dispel the demons before they spawn. Only certain abilities can do this, so Cassandra quickly became one of my most valued allies. If you can grasp the opportunity, you can even disrupt the rift to further hinder your foes. Moreover Fade rifts feature enemies you don’t usually encounter outside of them, giving the fights a whole new dimension. You’re already familiar with shades and rages demons, but you’ll soon get acquainted with terrors and despair demons. The former will jump over to knock you on the ground while the latter coats you with a barrage of ice.

Andraste’s tits, what is that thing?

If there’s one major thing I’d like to criticize about the enemies, it’s the spawning algorithm. I usually like to clean out an area and not worry about it any more. However the designers seemed worried that my goldfish brain would wander off if not constantly massaged with stimuli. Random enemies keep spawning around you all of the time. It’s unbearable.

Every map is affected by this disease. Amidst the Hinterlands, bands of mages and Templars spawn in front of your eyes. Yes, I get it, I need to take care of their respected camps, but could you chill for just a sec? On another occasion I was clearing out a Venatori hideout. I decided to peek inside the next room, with most of my party still behind me. The game thought this would be the perfect opportunity to repopulate the room I had just cleared out while everyone was still standing there. Meanwhile in the desert, bloody hyenas keep appearing behind your back.

And don’t even get me started on the bears. There’s one particular area in the Hinterlands where these bastards spawn. Upon entering it they swarm you like freaking barracudas. I decided to run away except they kept spawning in front of me even after I’ve escaped their designated area. I thought reloading would get me to safety, but the game chose this moment to bug out and overflow me with bears wherever I went.

I think I reached the peak of my frustration in the Emerald Graves. I had just discovered the stag mounts and was instantly in love with them. My Qunari Inquisitor looked ridiculous on regular horses, yet the majestic red stag was just my size. I thought I’d have my Princess Mononoke moment riding through the imposing trees of the ancient forest. Except the game had other plans. I didn’t even get past the first curve in the road before two squads of Freemen sprung up in front of me. Why, hello there. Were you getting lonely?

The only upside is that different enemies don’t tolerate one another. If they cross paths, they’ll waste no time jumping at each other’s throats. So Templars will be kind enough to clear out mages and giants might stomp Red Behemoths on your behalf. Though on one occasion I encountered a group of mercenaries relaxing near a Fade rift. Maybe they were enjoying some afternoon tea with the wisps. Who am I to judge?

Run wild, my precious.

Concerning bosses, fighting dragons has become sort of a tradition in the series (rather fittingly I guess). The way Inquisition introduces you to the first one in the game is undoubtedly memorable. You walk through a mysterious cave in the Hinterlands and emerge onto a hidden valley. What’s this pretty place? What sort of things are here to explore, I wonder? Oh look, is that a bird in the sky? No, wait… Five seconds later your whole party is running ablaze, wailing in agony.

I love it when games mess with you like this. The things is, there isn’t just one or two dragons in the game. There are ten of these mother fuckers in Inquisition! This is not even counting the two tied to the main quest and the two found in the DLCs. Emprise du Lion (the second worst map in the game btw) has three, I repeat, THREE of them chained together in one corner of the map. Why on earth!?

This wouldn’t be a problem if each dragon wasn’t more of the same. It’s fine if you fight them once or twice, but it quickly starts loosing its charm after that. Their behavior consists of a couple of things. First, they have a phase where they fly over you and bombard you with their designated elemental attack. Second, they can spew out the same elemental attack while on the ground. Third, they have a couple of melee attacks, none too perilous considering you’re up against a dragon. Forth (now this one is interesting), they have a wing flapping attack.

If you’ve fought the dragons in the previous two games, you’ll know the best tactic is to hit them from a afar. Andraste’s dragon becomes a scared little salamander once you’ve spread out your archers and started harassing it from a distance. Inquisition thought of a neat counter to this strategy.

Once in a while the beast will flap its wings sucking in everyone who isn’t already glued to its ass, all the while doing damage with each flap. As far as I could tell this does nothing to the units at its feet, but it rains havoc on your squishies who thought they were safe at a distance. Running away does not work, so ironically the best strategy is to run towards it and then run back out once it finishes. It’s a good dynamic to break up the otherwise monotone fight against a bullet sponge.

The other notable exception are the electrical dragons. Most of the dragons’ elemental attack are easy enough to dodge. These bastards however have a static cage which they can use to infect everyone in your party no matter where they are standing. This thing will wreck your day. The first electrical dragon I came across was 4 levels bellow me and it still ended up being one of the trickiest fights I had in the game. My poor mage had to keep throwing a barrier over us to try to absorb as much damage as possible.

Hm, do I need a pet lizard?

Considering it regards itself as an open-world game, Inquisition's exploration left me somewhat polarized. There are a dozen of maps for you to explore, ranging from small to absolutely humongous (looking at you Hinterlands). The sheer number of maps is frankly overwhelming. The game sections off most of them until you’ve reached Skyhold, but just glancing at them on the war table made me sweat pin balls.

What’s surprising is that despite their quantity each map has its own thing going on. Crestwood is centered around the submerged settlement, the Fallow Mire’s shtick are its endless waves of undead and the Forbidden Oasis is a maze of arches and hidden passageways. Even the Hinterlands, being the default fantasy map, have a story to tell about the conflict between the mages and the Templar taking over the farmlands.

Despite the fact that each map was conceived with a good premise, some are spread out thinner than the rest. The best example of this might be the Exalted Plains. It’s a map of stark contradictions. The theme of the map is pretty simple: plains that suffered pogroms in the past are once again engulfed in war. Compelling, right?

Well, things get complicated once you start roaming about the place. The Plains’ main highlights are the leftover trenches infested with undead. The army losses were so great that their own fortifications got overrun by corpses of their fallen allies. They present quite a decent challenge and once cleared out are again populated with Orlesian troops. Except… These trenches are huge. There are three on them in the Plains and each takes up a sizeable chunk of the map. Once you’ve cleared them out, they’re teeming with NPCs, none of which you can interact with. They’re just a bunch of fancily dressed props.

The Exalted Plains have the potential to tell a gut wrenching story of war and anguish, but the game barely even tries. If it weren’t for mentions of the civil war in Halamshiral, I would have no idea what’s going on. Imagine coming here before doing the mission at the Winter Palace (although that seems to be the desired order of things). What’s going on in this map? Who’s fighting exactly? Were are these forces stationed? Ok, this guy Gaspard is holding the east bank of the river, but why are his trenches facing one another? Sure, the bridge across the river leading to the opposing force has been destroyed, but is no one guarding that crossing?

What about the local population? There are all these codex entries detailing how the Chantry purified the Plains from the heretic elves. What do these people think of the Orlesians once again torching their land? Where are they even? I came across burned villages, but no refugees scurrying about. There’s only one Dalish camp to the side and they’re chilling in their own bubble as if the war was not raging around them.

It’s even worse when you start filling in the gaps on the map. The designers must have been worried about leaving vast stretches of open terrain, so they copy-pasted the same rocky formation all over the Plains. Over and over and over again. It’s hard to imagine that this is the same map which tucked away ancient elven ruins covered in mist on one side and an abandoned citadel scorched by the literal eye of Sauron on the other.

So nice making all of your acquaintance.

God, I don’t want to do this, but I guess I have to. Spending time in the Exalted Plains just made me think of how much better The Witcher 3 did it. Velen is to The Witcher 3 what the Exalted Plains are to Inquisition - a land torn apart by war. Yet Velen breaths so much life it seems absurd comparing it to the Exalted Plains in the first place.

In Velen villages are filled with hungry and desperate people. Houses are burning or abandoned. The two opposing forces are clearly camped out on other sides of the Pontar river. Refuges are curled up next to army strongholds. Bandits are roaming around taking advantage of the chaos. A monster infestation is breaking out because of the increased number of corpses. You can speak to a whole bunch of people across the land. You can get involved in the little details that make up their day to day struggles. Famine, missing persons, war crimes - you name it. It’s an incredibly potent mix.

Inquisition is so lucky it came out a few months before The Witcher 3. The quality of the The Witcher 3’s open world is so vastly superior to any of its predecessor (and even most games that came after it) that it makes Inquisition feel like it came out of a different era. It’s hard not comparing it to its contemporary competitor and seeing the huge gap that exists in between. The Witcher 3 has quest markers, but it relies mainly on a form of natural exploration. It drops you onto a hill and then lets you guide yourself across the map using nothing by prominent landmarks. It never repeats itself, each small section of the map feels unique and every crossroad a familiarity I could maneuver around with certainty.

Inquisition on the other hand has its hits and misses. I could navigate the aforementioned Exalted Plains with ease, but I could not for the life of me find my way through the Storm Coast. The backbone of that map is a mountainous region covered in forests. There are hills, ravines, more trees and absolutely nothing in sight which could help you figure out your own location. It’s nice of the game to draw out the path you’ve taken across the map. Otherwise the Inquisitor might have forever been lost in the woods.

Come to think of it, Inquisition does have a lot of problems with the design of its terrain. I feel like one team of designers went into the level editor, imported a flat plain and then rustled it up a bit until it resembled mountains and hills and what not. The results often feel like they’re devoid of any real sense of topography. Then another team of designers would come in and try their best populating the maps with content. I imagine this is how you end up with dozens of castles out in the middle of nowhere with absolutely no roads leading up to them.

Where the fuck to now?

When you start counting up the tally it’s up and downs across all of the maps, though the good to bad ratio can vary drastically. For example, the Hinterlands is a hodgepodge of a bunch of different things. Its central area, where the mages and Templars clash on repeat, is a good core premise. I won’t forget the first time I went through the creepy tunnel connecting the Crossroads to the demolished village where the mages and the Templars were dueling it out. You step into this thing overgrown with ferns, cloaked in mist and silence, wondering where it will take you, only to emerge onto a hellish battlefield where everyone’s shooting at you from all sides.

Contrary to that I found a castle crammed in the corner of the map, almost as an afterthought. There’s absolutely nothing leading up to it or anything else of interest in the vicinity. You find a group of apostates held up inside. This particular group believes the apocalypse is nigh, so they’re just waiting for it to happen. There’s only one dude you can talk to in the entire keep. His girlfriend just died, but he’s mostly upset they couldn’t go out in a blaze together. For some reason you offer him to join the Inquisition and he says yes. Pardon me, he says yes? The guy who was determined to die a second ago changed his mind on a whim. This was before I gained the group’s trust by closing the breach in their backyard.

To view the glass as half-full again, you’ll see the remains of a decrepit castle perched upon a hill just outside of the Crossroads. You’ll find your way up to it and then beyond a lush lake hidden away from the atrocities of civil war. There are deer jumping around, a small waterfall overflowing into the valley where the mages and Templars are fighting bellow. Suddenly I noticed a red deer hopping through the forest. This one was nothing like the ones I’ve seen before. I chase it after. It must be some special breed, I think to myself. I catch up to it and strike. It turned into a rage demon. Lol, I did insist, didn’t I?

But again, contrary to that the game tasks you with finding a horse master to cater to the Inquisition’s need. I find the guy and his little commune peacefully going about their lives while the FREAKING TEMPLARS ARE BASHING EACH OTHER’S HEADS JUST ACROSS THE RIVER. Pardon me, I didn’t mean to shout. What were you saying, master Dennet? You want me to clear out some wolves for you? What, the angry Templars don’t bother you? You’re also cool with the Fade rift sitting in your backyard? Does it help the crops grow? Oh, I see you’ve got a copy of Hard in Hightown in your attic. Forgive my interruption. Do continue, sir.

The contradictions go on and on and on like this. It all culminates with the worst two maps in the game: Emprise du Lion and the Hissing Wastes. The former is meant to function as an endgame gauntlet. You’re supposed to fight your way up a mountain towards an abandoned castle on the top. The problem is the climb has no business being as long as it is. The aforementioned Suledin Keep is by far the largest fortification in the game, stretching room after room into infinity. The game quickly runs out of ideas, so it keeps throwing the same detachments of Red Templars at you. This is enough to make a woman go mad.

The latter map, Hissing Wastes, is best described by scout Harding’s words: “This space has nothing but… space.” It’s quite literally a desert wasteland. Nothing but vast unending dunes in sight. Playing through it felt like being smothered with a pillow. It was the first time in the game I had to unironically use my mount. Getting from point A to point B would have otherwise been excruciating.

Good boy, Roach.

All of this makes it seem like I hated Inquisition’s exploration down to its rotten core. It might then surprise you that its highlights were enough to push me through the questionable parts. Most of the time I was led through exploration by genuine curiosity and not some forced sense of obligation (except those last two maps). For all of the things it failed to put into place, Inquisition always had something cool tucked away for me to discover.

Quantity definitely ended up being its Achilles’ heel. I was satiated somewhere around the 100 hour mark and everything after that felt like I was stuffing myself with dessert just so it wouldn’t go to waste. Spoiler alert: I clocked around 140 hours for the base game alone. Inquisition is obscenely long in retrospect, souring up your experience the more you’re forced to spend time with it. It would have been miles better if it cut out half of its content and focused on enriching the essential stuff.

To give you an example, I thought all of the game’s dungeons were excellent. Valammar, Coracavus, Dirthamen, you name it. Coming across these places and realizing they’re completely unique content always put a smile on my face. Although I did stumble upon Valammar way, way before Varric’s loyalty mission became available. Varric, don’t tell poor Bianca we’ve been here before. She’s so keen on showing us around the place, we have to make her believe it’s our first time down here. Oh dear, I’ve even glitched through the secret door she was supposed to unlock for the quest.

While we’re on the subject, Inquisition spent no time at all thinking about progression. Sure, it locks out most maps until you’ve reached Shyhold, but after that it doesn’t bother telling you in what order to approach them or even the minimum level requirement. Unfortunately for the game I had enough points to unlock all of maps at once as soon as I got to Skyhold (the inevitable consequence of being diagnosed as a completionist).

Since the game gave me no guidance I picked a map at random. I went for the Hissing Wastes which, I soon discovered, contained end game content. Since I was clearly over my head I decided to try my luck with something else. That something else ended up being the Deep Roads mission which, even worse, is DLC. So I resorted to Google instead. It’s negligence like this that makes the game look stupid for trying to show me around Valammar. Of course I’ve already been here before - it’s right next to where I recruited Blackwall!

You could say the game directs you to some of the maps through the main quest, like telling you to go to Crestwood to investigate the Wardens, but it does no such thing for most. How are you supposed to know when to investigate the Fallow Mire or the Forbidden Oasis or the Exalted Plains for that matter? I went to the Plains after finishing Halamshiral because nothing else directed me to that area sooner. Upon entering the map I was greeted by level 11 tugs. I was level 18. Guess how that turned out for them.

What’s worse is that you don’t gain any XP by fighting enemies which are 3 or more levels beneath you. This made the entirety of the Exalted Plains a futile venture. The only tangible thing I got out of them are the companions’ quests. If I had been there sooner, I might have utilized the area better. Then again that might have made me over-leveled in some other map. Funny, it’s as if the game has too much content.

Say, Solas, what does that statue represent exactly?

This is part 1 of a multi-part review of Dragon Age: Inquisition. Click here for part 2 and part 3.

#game review #review #dragon age inquisition

0 notes

stiltonbasket · 4 years

Note

Beauty & the Beast AU Prompt: Jiang Cheng is the Beast and Nie Huaisang is Belle. Lan Wangji is somehow sent to rescue Nie Huaisang but he refuses to leave - no one is making him train! He can paint and decorate fans all day long! Plus, Jiang Cheng just showed him a library with a very interesting section... Lan Wangji is getting frustrated, and it doesn't help that an annoying candle called Wei Ying keeps following him around and will. not. leave. him. alone!

“I was very beautiful when I was human, Lan Zhan.”

Lan Wangji glares at the smiling candlestick and aggressively reshelves another book. “Indecency is forbidden,” he repeats, wishing he had a tablet of Lan sect principles at hand so he could make Wei Ying copy them down as punishment. “Vanity is a stain upon the mortal soul, and wise men eschew it. Please remember that in the future--whatever you may know of the human world as it is now, we are not all Nie Huaisang.”

Inwardly, Lan Wangji laments the fact that Nie Huaisang had been kidnapped by this beast, of all the rampaging creatures in the countryside that could have run across him. The young Nie scion has as many delicacies as he wants to eat (courtesy of the beautiful porcelain teapot that usually accompanies Wei Ying, who said she was the lady of this empty household, once upon a time) and plenty of paints and brushes and fans, not to mention a whole section of yellow leaflets in the library--which this shameless candlestick, Wei Ying, claimed to have collected himself.

“This is because I gave A-Sang my longyang books, isn’t it?” Wei Ying mourns, while Lan Wangji makes a violent choking sound and piles more cooking manuals--the ones Jiang Yanli lent him, so he could show the kitchen implements how to make his favorite foods--over the shameful scrolls before debating setting them on fire. “You haven’t even looked at me since you found out they were mine.”

Lan Wangji feels his face burn. “Perhaps,” he hisses, “I would be more inclined to look at you if you could go more than two minutes without mentioning them!”

“How can I?” Wei Ying demands. “That’s the reason you haven’t been getting along with me! We have to talk this out!”

“There is nothing to talk about,” Lan Wangji snaps. “You are--frivolous, and shameless, and talking to you makes my forehead ribbon curl.”

And it distracts me from what I’m supposed to be doing, he thinks guiltily. I should have been home with Nie Huaisang two weeks ago.

“Oh?” the candlestick says slyly. “So you don’t even want to stay and see the new portrait I’ve been working on?”

Something aches in Lan Wangji’s chest at the thought of refusing him, even though Wei Ying’s teasing is a deeper source of suffering to him than Nie Huaisang’s refusal to stop wasting time with Jiang Wanyin (current beast, and ex-crown prince) and go back home to his brother. “You may show me your portrait if you promise to behave,” he says stiffly, trying not to blush as Wei Ying leaps up to the drawn curtains in glee. “And then I must go to help the washtubs with the laundry.”

“You don’t actually need to help them, you know,” Wei Ying points out. “Our bodies aren’t human anymore. We don’t get tired.”

“Nie Huaisang and I are two of the only three people in this place who wear clothes. It would only be polite to help them.”

“Ah, that’s right!” chirps Wei Ying. “Well, just look at this portrait, and then you can go.”

He jerks on the tasseled rope fastening the curtains and capers in sheer happiness as it falls back to reveal a portrait of a young man in white robes, seated on a bench with his shimmering gown spread out on the floor around him and holding a fluffy rabbit in his lap.

The youth in the painting has a smile on his lips, and Lan Wangji feels the breath catch in his throat as he recognizes his own face represented above him in ink and brushstrokes and paper.

“Good, isn’t it?” Wei Ying preens. “What do you think, Lan Zhan?”

Lan Wangji never makes it to the laundry that day. But upon later reflection, perhaps the washtubs and irons will understand.

---

Two months later, when Nie Huaisang manages to bring the Jiang household and all its inhabitants back to their former glory, Lan Wangji discovers that Wei Ying is every bit as beautiful in his human form as he always used to claim he was.

“Now I can woo you properly,” his beloved gloats, as the two of them revel in the precious feeling of actually holding each other for the first time. “You won’t be able to resist, sweetheart! I’m never giving you back.”

“I have already been wooed,” Lan Wangji says honestly, smiling as Wei Ying throws his lovely face into his equally lovely hands and wails. “I fell in love with Wei Ying the candlestick, and I love Wei Ying as he is now. You need never do anything to keep me, for I am already yours.”

“You can’t just say things like that!” groans Wei Ying. “Have mercy on my heart! Lan Zhan!”

“I’d advise against kissing Lan-er-gongzi in the courtyard, Xianxian,” Jiang Yanli laughs, appearing in the doorway with her son Jin Ling--the ex-teacup, who liked to wake Lan Wangji up in the mornings by jumping on his back--in her arms. “Nie Mingjue’s here, and I think he might tear the manor down with the way he’s chasing poor A-Sang.”

---

(Nie Mingjue does not get the chance to tear down the manor, because his brother falls to his knees in front of him and begs to be permitted to marry Jiang Wanyin before he can really get started. But that is a story for another day.)

#wangxian #sangcheng #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #beauty and the beast au #my fic

219 notes · View notes

dreadfutures · 3 years

Note

For DADWC: “Promise me. Promise me you’ll stay" for Morrigan/Halevune? :)

@dadrunkwriting - "Promise.”

Pairing: Morrigan x Mahariel

Rating: G

-:-:-:-

“I must go!"

Halevune's sharp voice clattered against the stone walls of his quarters as though he had thrown them.

Morrigan crossed her arms and only planted herself more firmly in between the Warden Commander and his saddlebags. "You needn't do any such thing," she snapped. "There is no—no village in need. No country is threatened by a Darkspawn invasion!"

"Which is why I must do this now," Halevune retorted, dropping leg armor at her feet. "Nathaniel is ready to take command. I leave Ferelden in good hands."

He turned his back immediately, as though he could not himself quite believe his words, but he did not flinch with Morrigan spat. "Psh. You say that as though he is King! Were you not just complaining that this land had gone to the dogs? You could—"

"Do what?" Hal demanded. He yanked open his desk drawers and began rummaging around violently inside. "What more can the Hero of Ferelden do for this country that he has not already done, Morrigan?"

He did not meet her gaze as he returned to her side and dropped added a box of writing implements to the growing pile, then rounded hurriedly to fetch something else from the opposite side of the room.

"Your silence is louder than anything you could ever shout," he muttered over his shoulder. "You know that I am right."

"That does not mean this journey is the next alternative!"

Halevune bent for the loose floorboard where he'd hidden several valuable items in a sack. He loosened the drawstring until it lay flat and began to paw through the precious contents in silence: a small, carved figure of halla horn; a sprig of Andraste's Grace; a ring; a tattered, stuffed nug that had been stained with spittle, and torn open and repatched several times.

"The alternative is dying," he said after a moment. He looked up at Morrigan then, the stuffed nug caught in a chokehold on the floor in front of him. She saw then that his pale grey eyes were rimmed with red, and the dark bruises beneath his eyes had grown even more stark. There was even a slight blue tinge to his cheeks now, as though he stood closer to the grave than to the cradle. "Don't you see, vhenan? There truly is nothing else to do."

His voice cracked, and he dropped his face again, then bowed low over his most precious belongings and sobbed.

Morrigan stood frozen, stunned into silence by a sound she had heard only once before—when the news of his clan's destruction had reached him from afar. She had sworn then that she would not be paralyzed by his grief, should it strike again; she had admonished herself for the awkward way in which she had comforted him. She could do nothing to stop his grief, to shore up the strong walls he had erected for his protection and his dignity. She had only managed to hold him as they fell apart, bit by bit, into a ruinous mess that left them both more vulnerable than perhaps they'd ever been. And she didn't want to feel that way again. Either of them.

And yet here she stood, as her beloved's breath hitched and tore with despair, and she knew not how to act.

The cold anger that she'd summoned in the face of his own began to melt as his sobs battered against her, and she began to move almost in a trance.

Before her thoughts could catch up to her body, Morrigan found herself lowering to her knees beside him. It was not like them: for him to cry, to be so weak, or for her to reach for him like this and pull her into her arms. And yet while some things were the same—Halevune whispering: I don't want to die, Morrigan—many, many more things had changed.

Her thin, wiry arms had learned to hold a child. Her wary, bitter heart had learned that shame and admonishment hurt her to give, as much as it had hurt her to receive, and she had learned instead that tears might be stemmed with gentle sounds, if not words of comfort. And that was all she had to offer her love now. What words might soothe this fear in him, anyway? He was right, after all. His death was not some mysterious, distant thing. It was an inevitability drawing closer with every year, in a way few others might know.

And Morrigan, while accustomed to lying, knew there was no utility in lying to him on a truth he understood better than even she did.

"You can live, Hal," she said. "Come with us. Please."

Halevune's shoulders trembled, and he did not answer her except with a sob.

Morrigan's face was wet.

"Come with us, my love," she repeated, bowing her head to press her forehead against his hair. "Promise me you shall stay."

#da drunk writing circle #morrigan x mahariel #old blood older still

14 notes · View notes

tinyshe · 3 years

Text

COVID Vaccine Mandates Strongly Opposed in Europe, US as Failures Increase Analysis by

Barbara Loe Fisher

August 10, 2021

Since coronavirus pandemic lockdowns were implemented by many governments in 2020, people around the world have held largely peaceful protests against unprecedented social distancing restrictions that are devastating global economies and ruining people's lives.1,2,3,4

Now, faced with being ordered to obey new laws that require them to be injected with COVID-19 vaccines in order to enter public spaces or hold a job, on July 24, 2021 — World Freedom Day — hundreds of thousands of people of all ages took to the streets in Australia, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Greece and Germany to publicly challenge oppressive public health laws.5,6

The messages on the signs they held were diverse but they were united in pushing back against government overreach.

The brave determination of people, in democracies around the world who are publicly defending civil liberties — freedom of thought, speech, conscience and assembly — and the human right to informed consent to medical risk taking, demonstrates that the spirit of freedom lives in the hearts and minds of people everywhere. Both those who gather in the public squares of cities big and small and those who are watching are inspired by this commitment to defending liberty.

In the United States, no large demonstrations have been held yet, but polls reveal the nation is sharply divided about COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

A Politico/Harvard poll taken in late June 2021 found that Americans were evenly split on whether children should be required to get the COVID-19 vaccine to go to school and more than half of employed Americans are against COVID-19 vaccine requirements for holding a job, while almost 70 percent of Americans oppose being required to show proof of a COVID-19 vaccination to enter a store or business.7

A recent CS Mott Children's Hospital poll found that more than half of parents in the U.S. with children between the ages of three and 11 say it is unlikely they will give their children the COVID-19 vaccine.8

Australia: 'The lockdown Is Killing Us, Not COVID'

With a population of 25 million people, Australians have been subjected to repeated strict lockdowns over the past 18 months and the government's "stay at home" lockdown in early July 2021 was imposed on New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, where more than half the country's population lives. The 30-day rigid social distancing restrictions were enacted after 176 new daily infections were registered in the whole country.9

In response, thousands of Australians gathered in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane on July 24 to protest the lockdown.

Social distancing restrictions that have been imposed include compulsory masking in all indoor non-personal residence settings; most schools closed; restrictions on how far people can travel from their homes; no going to work except for designated "essential" employees (who must be tested every three days); exercising and gathering outside only in groups of two; shopping only for essential items; attendance at funerals limited to 10 people but weddings are banned, and other limits on person-to-person social interaction.

In what the U.K. newspaper Daily Mail described as "frenzied crowds" coming together on July 24, there were estimates that as many as 10,000 protesters marched from Victoria Park to Town Hall in the central business district.

Carrying signs calling for "freedom" and "the truth" and "I don't consent" and "Wake up Australia!" and "We are your employers, we are not your slaves" and "unmasked, untested, unvaxxed, unafraid" and "I am not a biohazard" and "Our kids are not your guinea pigs" and "No false tests, no false cases, no lockdowns," one protester said, "We don't give a f*** mate, this lockdown is killing us." Another agreed: "I'm against lockdowns, they're killing my business."

Dozens of protesters climbed onto the roofs of a train station and Woolworths store as the crowd gathered around Town Hall singing the Australian national anthem. One observer said on social media, "Protest stretches right down Broadway! Absolutely massive turnout."

The Sydney protest was mostly peaceful but when mounted police told the demonstrators to disperse or they would be pepper sprayed, some broke through a police barrier and threw plastic bottles and plants at officers. The New South Wales Police Minister confirmed 57 people were arrested and charged and a "strike force has been established to investigate who was in attendance."10

On July 28, the Australian Prime Minister called in military personnel to help enforce social distancing restrictions in Sydney and extended the lockdown for another month after 239 new cases of COVID-19 were detected in the city of five million people within a 24-hour period. Residents will be forced to wear a mask outside their homes and must stay within 3 miles of their homes, only going out for "essential" activities like food shopping.11

On July 30, the Australian government used helicopters and the Army to help police enforce its 'Zero Covid' lockdown in Sydney and issue $500 fines for failure to mask.12 The BBC reported that Australian Defense Force soldiers will begin conducting unarmed patrols of the streets this week.13

According to media reports, sirens could be heard throughout the city and helicopters blared messages that 'this is public health order — do not break rules — you will be found and fined.'

Road blocks were set up in a military show of force in response to the public demonstrations earlier in the week, although soldiers are under police command. Starting this week, military personnel will accompany police going door to door to ensure that people who have tested positive for COVID-19 are isolating.14

Reuters reports that the Australian COVID-19 vaccination rate for adults stands at 18 percent and the Prime Minister has said 80 percent of adults must get vaccinated before the border, which has been sealed since the pandemic began, will be re-opened.15

Britain: 'No Forced Testing, No Forced Vaccines'

In May 2021, a 12 mile procession of tens of thousands of people ended at Parliament Square in a protest against continuing lockdowns and vaccine passports as a condition of accessing public venues.16

On July 19, the British government lifted the COVID-19 lockdown that had been in place for over a year, eliminating masking requirements, work from home, and limits on numbers of people who can gather together, which allowed for the full opening of restaurants and other public venues without social distancing restrictions.17

Just five days after the lockdown restrictions were lifted, thousands of people made their way to Trafalgar Square on July 24 to signal their opposition to potential future lockdowns, as well as to protest against the showing of COVID-19 vaccine passports as a condition of entering public spaces.18

There were banners draped in front of the speaker podium saying, "the public demands live debate" and "Science is not science without discussion" and demonstrators held signs that said "No forced testing, no forced vaccines" and "We are the lions in a world of sheep" and "If you tolerate this, your children will be next."19

Toward the end of the July 24 demonstration, the huge gathering in Trafalgar Square in unison sang, "You'll Never Walk Alone:"

When you walk through a storm Hold your head up high, And don't be afraid of the dark. At the end of a storm is a golden sky And the sweet silver song of a lark.

Walk on through the wind, Walk on through the rain, Though your dreams be tossed and blown. Walk on, Walk on With hope in your heart And you'll never walk alone, You'll never walk alone.

The United Kingdom, which has a population of 57 million, ranks in the top 20 most COVID vaccinated nations, with an adult vaccination rate of over 57 percent.20

France: 'My Body Is Mine' and 'It Is My Choice'

Paris, France and the cities of Marseille, Montpelier, Nantes and Toulouse saw tens of thousands of people take to the streets on World Freedom Day to protest against a proposed law that would require all health care workers to get COVID-19 vaccinations or lose their jobs.

People will be barred from entering restaurants or other public venues, effectively preventing them from participating in public life unless they have a health pass showing proof of COVID-19 vaccination, recovery from the disease or a recent negative COVID-19 test.

A care assistant at a Strasbourg nursing home expressed her disgust with the proposed law, saying it is "the blackmail of caregivers who were at the fronts line during the first wave and who are now threatened with "no more pay" and even being fired."21

A huge crowd of 160,000 people or more, many chanting "freedom, freedom" and carrying signs saying "stop the dictatorship" and "Big Pharma shackles freedom" and "no to the pass of shame" and "vaccines: fake freedom" and "don't touch our children" were met by police deploying tear gas and a water cannon used against some of them.22

Reuters reported that scuffles broke out at the Champs-Elysees and the Gare Saint-Lazare railway station.23 The demonstrators met at the Bastille plaza and marched through eastern Paris and also gathered at Place Trocadero near the Eiffel Tower to protest the required carrying of a "health pass."24

Just two days after witnessing several hundred thousand people voicing their opposition to the proposed new public health law, on July 26, the French Parliament voted to pass the law that will take effect this week.25,26

Five days later, on July 31, several hundred thousand French citizens of all ages again flooded into the streets of Paris with signs saying "We are not guinea pigs" and "It is our choice" and "My body is mine" and "Health terror — I will not submit" and "the 4th wave is us" in opposition to the new COVID-19 vaccine and vaccine passport.27

According to media reports, four marches dovetailed into the Place de la Bastille, with health care workers in white coats leading some of them, and were met by waiting squads of gendarmes and CRS riot police with water cannons. Demonstrators also gathered at the Arc de Triomphe at the top of the Champs-Elysees and at the Villiers metro station in northwest Paris.

Reportedly, about 150 other protest events also took place in cities around France, which has a population of about 67 million and an estimated COVID vaccination rate of about 47.5 percent28 or more.

Italy: 'Enough Dictatorship: No Green Passes'

Thousands of people gathered in Rome, Genova, Milan, Naples, Turin and scores of other cities in Italy on July 24 to voice their opposition to the government's imposition of social distancing and COVID-19 vaccine requirements on citizens, including a requirement to carry the "Green Pass," which is an extension of the European Union's digital COVID certificate.29

The Green Pass will be required to enter cinemas, museums, indoor swimming pools, sports stadiums or eat indoors at restaurants, proving that a person has been vaccinated, has had a recent negative COVID-19 test or has recovered from the coronavirus infection.30

Chanting and carrying signs that said "Freedom" and "No Green Pass" and "Down with the dictatorship" and "Better to die free than live like slaves" and "against vaccination obligations" and "government does terrorism" and "shame-shame,"31,32 reportedly about 80 cities in Italy saw demonstrations on World Freedom Day.

These included an estimated nine thousand people in Milan, who marched in procession to the Piazza Duomo, the Galleria Vittoria Emanuele and to the Piazza Scala in front of the Town Hall. One banner said "Big Pharma out of the state. No to multinationals."

About five thousand people gathered in Piazza Castello in Turin with signs that said "We want to have the freedom to choose – the freedom to go wherever we want without being tied to a sheet."

In Rome, where there have been anti-lockdown demonstrations over the past year to protest then closure of cafes, bars and restaurants,33 an estimated two thousand demonstrated and the police intervened to disperse the crowd with armored vehicles.34 Italy has a population of about 60 million people, with nearly 52 percent vaccinated for COVID-19.35

Greece: 'Hands Off Our Children'

Thousands of people gathered in Omonia Square in the center of Athens on July 24 to express their opposition to the government's COVID-19 vaccine mandate. They carried signs saying "No mandatory vaccinations" and "No blackmail to dismiss" and "No separation of Greeks" and "hands off our children."

The leader of the anti-COVID vaccine movement in Greece, cardiologist Faidon Vovolis, MD addressed the huge crowd, which, according to Athens News, included "not only anti-vaccination activists, but also food and tourism entrepreneurs, clergy, citizens disaffected by the overall government leadership over the pandemic, and vaccinated citizens who view recent government measures as anti-democractic."36

Greek police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse the demonstrators, who had rallied outside the Parliament building to protest COVID-19 vaccine requirements for workers, such as health care workers. Reuters said that about 45 percent of Greece's 11 million population is already vaccinated.37

Germany: 'For Peace, Freedom, Truth'

Berlin has been the site of several large demonstrations against lockdowns and COVID vaccine passports over the past year.38 On Aug. 1, 2021, tens of thousands of citizens marched in the streets of Berlin to protest lockdowns that have restricted dining indoors at restaurants or staying in a hotel and requirements to provide proof of COVID vaccination, defying a ban by German lower and upper administrative courts on public demonstrations.39

Berlin's administrative court had refused to authorize 13 demonstrations, some of which had been organized by the Querdenker (Lateral thinker) anti-lockdown movement.40

Berlin's police department deployed more than 2,000 officers armed with batons, pepper spray and water cannon as the crowds made their way from Berlin's Charlottenburg neighborhood, past the Tiergarten park and on to the Brandenberg Gate.

Reportedly, police in heavily armed vans dragged protesters across roads and into the vans with marchers shouting for freedom and the lifting of mandatory masking and travel bans. Protesters continued to march in the evening through the city streets and 600 people were arrested.41 Germany has a population of 83 million and 52 percent have been fully vaccinated.42

Human Rights Watch: COVID-19 Triggers Wave of Free Speech Abuse

On Feb. 11, 2021, Human Rights Watch published a report called for an end to excessive restrictions on free speech and peaceful demonstration where people are criticizing COVID-19 lockdowns, mandatory masking and other social distancing regulations that restrict civil liberties. The human rights organization said:43

"At least 83 governments worldwide have used the Covid-19 pandemic to justify violating the exercise of free speech and peaceful assembly … Authorities have attacked, detained, prosecuted, and in some cases killed critics, broken up peaceful protests, closed media outlets, and enacted vague laws criminalizing speech that they claim threatens public health.

The victims include journalists, activists, healthcare workers, political opposition groups, and others who have criticized government responses to the coronavirus … Governments and other state authorities should immediately end excessive restrictions on free speech in the name of preventing the spread of Covid-19."

Decentralized Government in US Makes a National COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate More Difficult

Unlike centralized governments in Europe and many other parts of the world, the founders of the United States of America ensured in the U.S. Constitution that this country would operate with lawmaking power shared between national, state and local governments.44

The fact that lawmaking power in the U.S. does not solely reside with the federal government, which is composed of the legislative (U.S. Congress), Executive (President/federal agencies) and Judicial (federal courts) branches, so far has protected the U.S. population from being subjected to the same kinds of uniform lockdown restrictions and now, the same kinds of COVID-19 vaccine mandates that are being implemented in European Union countries and other nations with centralized federal governments.

Since most public health laws in the U.S. fall under the legal jurisdiction of states, if a resident does not like the lockdown, masking, social distancing or COVID-19 vaccine mandates in the state they are living in, they simply can move to a different state that does not have the same kind of oppressive public health laws.

This is one reason why, although there have been smaller anti-lockdown and anti-COVID-19 vaccine mandate demonstrations in the U.S. over the past 15 months, some of them protesting COVID-19 vaccine requirements for health care workers,45 so far there have not been massive national demonstrations in the U.S. like those taking place in Europe and other parts of the world.

U.S. Government Pushes for an 85 Percent COVID-19 Vaccination Rate

As of July 28, about 60 percent of the U.S. population of 332 million people age 12 and older had received at least one dose of COVID vaccine and reportedly 50 percent, or about 165 million Americans, are "fully" vaccinated.46 As the third largest country in the world, the U.S. has a high COVID-19 vaccination rate compared to other countries, with only 25 countries recording a higher vaccination rate than the U.S.47

According to Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center, the country with the largest population in the world at 1.5 billion people — China — has a 16 percent COVID vaccination rate; the country with the second largest population in the world at 1.4 billion people — India — has a 7.4 percent COVID vaccination rate; and Russia, with a population of 146 million people, has a 17 COVID vaccination rate.48

However, U.S. government officials are pushing for an 85 percent COVID vaccination rate in the U.S.,49 even as a former FDA commissioner says that a combination of natural acquired immunity and vaccine acquired immunity is likely rapidly achieving an 85 percent herd immunity rate with the Delta variant in the U.S. population.50

Half to Two-Thirds of Americans Oppose Punitive COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates as Companies Begin to Mandate

Even though polls show that one-half to two-thirds of Americans oppose COVID-19 vaccine mandates, depending upon the setting,51 on July 29, the President announced that all federal workers and contractors must show proof of COVID-19 vaccination or mask and social distance at all times and get constantly tested.52

The federal government also is urging corporations, local and state government agencies, medical facilities and other institutions to make vaccination a condition of employment.

Some companies, like Google, Facebook, Morgan Stanley, Ascension Health, The Washington Post, Saks Fifth Avenue, Lyft and Uber, Walmart and Disney have already mandated employees to get COVID-19 shots to continuing working for the companies.53,54 On July 30, Broadway theaters announced that all members of the audience will be required to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination and must keep a mask on at all times except when eating or drinking.55

Opposition Grows as CDC Admits Fully Vaccinated Persons Can Get and Efficiently Transmit COVID-19

After lifting national masking recommendations for COVID vaccinated persons in May 2021 with the assurance that the vaccine was effective in preventing symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection,56 on July 27, CDC officials abruptly reversed course and said that Americans, whether vaccinated or not, should wear a mask indoors outside their homes in certain places.57,58

They said they based that policy change on new information that the COVID-19 vaccines do not reliably prevent infection and transmission of the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 and that the viral load in vaccinated persons who get infected is as high as the viral load in unvaccinated persons who get infected.59,60

CDC officials said the new federal indoor masking policy especially applies to adults in "high risk" areas where there are more people being infected with the Delta variant. The masking directive also applies to all unvaccinated children over age two, as well as vaccinated children over age 12 attending school, and additionally includes all teachers, school staff and visitors to schools whether vaccinated or not.61

Reuters reported on July 24 that vaccinated people made up 75 percent of recent COVID-19 cases identified in Singapore, but vaccinated cases were associated with mild symptoms:

"Of Singapore's 1,096 locally transmitted infections in the last 28 days, 484 or about 44 percent were in fully vaccinated people, while 30 percent were partially vaccinated and just over 25 percent were unvaccinated."62

The percentage ratio of infected vaccinated to infected unvaccinated persons in Singapore matches that of a recent SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in Massachusetts. On July 30, Associated Press reported that information in CDC documents revealed that 75 percent of the Provincetown outbreak occurred among fully vaccinated individuals.

About 80 percent of them experienced COVID-19 symptoms, with the most common being cough, headache, sore throat, muscle aches and fever.63

U.S. States Push Back Against COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates

Over the past year, Americans have been taking action at the state and local level to block COVID-19 vaccine mandates. A number of states have passed laws that restrict COVID-19 vaccine mandates and "vaccine passports" that bar people from entering public spaces.

Among the states that have passed laws prohibiting COVID-19 vaccine passports or COVID-19 vaccine mandates in some way are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah.64,65,66

On July 29, the Governor of Texas signed an executive order prohibiting state government agencies from mandating COVID-19 vaccine being distributed under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) and banning public or private entities that receive state funds from denying entry to those who are not vaccinated and, additionally, banning companies, state and local agencies — including school districts — from requiring mask wearing.

He said that Texans, "have the individual right and responsibility to decide for themselves and their children whether they will wear masks, open their businesses, and engage in leisure activities."67

Governors of several other states also have issued executive orders prohibiting COVID-19 vaccine mandates and some local and state governments have prohibited mask mandates.68,69 But some city and state governments, like New York City and California, have created legal requirements that force state employees to get vaccinated as a condition of keeping their jobs.70

On July 26, the nation's largest healthcare worker union, United Healthcare Workers, demonstrated in New York City against employee COVID-19 vaccine mandates.71 So far, the COVID-19 vaccine mandate as a condition of employment is also opposed by the American Postal Workers Union,72 Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, and United Auto Workers.73

It's Up to You to Act Now

With military soldiers patrolling the streets in Sydney, Australia and police with water cannons and tear gas facing tens of thousands of people protesting against vaccine passports and COVID-19 vaccine mandates in the streets of London, Paris, Rome, Athens and many other cities in Europe, there should be no doubt where the enforcement of mandatory vaccination policies are headed in the U.S. if Americans fail to proactively take action now.

There is no question that we are dealing with a global assault on civil liberties and human rights when public discussion and debate about government policy is censored74,75 and peaceful dissent is considered a crime. Public health laws that respect civil liberties and the informed consent ethic can only be secured if the lawmakers we elect value civil liberties and defend informed consent rights. Become fully informed about who you are voting for and never miss an opportunity to vote.

I and the supporters of the non-profit charity the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) have worked since 1982 to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths through public education. We have publicly defended the ethical principle of informed consent to medical risk taking and other human rights that include freedom of thought, speech and conscience.

In 2010, we launched the NVIC Advocacy Portal, a free online communications and advocacy network to empower Americans to work in their own communities to secure informed consent protections in public health laws.

Now more than ever, it is time to get to know your local, county and state elected representatives – from your school board members and county supervisors to your local sheriff and lawmakers – who represent you in your local and state governments. Establish a personal relationship with those who make laws that govern you and your family.

Have a conversation with them now about why you believe it is important to protect civil liberties and vaccine informed consent rights in public health laws. Provide them with well referenced vaccine information from NVIC.org and register and join with thousands of others in your state working to protect the legal right to make a voluntary vaccination decision by becoming a user of the NVIC Advocacy Portal at NVICAdvocacy.org.

Actively participate in the democratic process that has defined who we are as a Constitutional Republic since the US Constitution was ratified in 1788. Be the one who never has to say you did not do today what you could have done to change tomorrow.

youtube

9 notes · View notes

zelenacat · 4 years

Text

Chapter 2- When We Were Young- An Obitine Story

The Duchess was careful the first four months of her first pregnancy, she wore flowing outfits with ruffles and loose-fitting sashes to draw eyes away from her stomach. Satine would appear at state events and cut ribbons, and make speeches on holidays or days of historical importance, and of course, she opened parliament. By now, she had made her political views very clear, she was a pacifist, and she supported the New Mandalorians. Those who were critical of the new Duchess' views claimed she was a shame to her clan, to her War Lord father, and that her sister should be more involved in government. That hurt Satine, but she decided that people had to let their anger out somehow. At least, none of the courtiers had claimed their dissent in her face, though Satine wasn’t sure how long that would last.

In her fifth month of pregnancy, that’s when things got harder.

“Satine?”

Sighing, the Duchess looked up, Khaami had a worried expression on her face.

“What is it?” she asked.

“The Mandalorian Society for Peace would like you to give a speech at their banquet next week.”

Fesma frowned.

Satine rested her hands on her stomach, “That will be tricky.”

“You can’t deny them,” Fesma stated, “you’ve shown yourself to be an advocate for peace.”

“A staunch one at that.” agreed the Duchess.

Khaami huffed, “We need a way to get around this.”

The room got quiet.

“Perhaps,” Satine began, “I could claim I have a former engagement but record a speech?”

Khaami brightened, “That might work.”

“But if you give too many televised speeches,” Fesma fidgeted, “won’t people get suspicious?”

Satine grinned, “Not if we implement my new idea.”

Raising an eyebrow, Fesma asked, “And what would that be?”

“Corsets.”

Khaami gasped.

“Satine,” Fesma sighed, “no.”

“We could work them into my outfits,” the Duchess suggested, “like we did with my coronation outfit.”

“The seamstresses did that.” Fesma corrected.

“And isn’t it dangerous for the baby?” Khaami added.

“I have to take some risks,” Satine swallowed, “I want this baby, but it’s going to be difficult.”

A silence once again descended over the room, Satine’s thoughts riveted through her skull.

“I’ll tell your writers to start drafting a speech then,” Khaami stood, “and I’ll stop at the tailor’s room on the way back.”

“Thank you, Khaami.”

Fesma sighed heavily as soon as Khaami closed the door.

“What is it?” Satine asked.

“This would be much easier if you,” Fesma paused, “if you-”

“I can’t,” Satine’s hands began to shake, “I don’t have the courage.”

“But this will be so much harder.” Fesma urged.

“I know,” tears sprung into the Duchess’ eyes, “but I love the baby’s father too much to get rid of it.”

“Satine-”

“Stop, I won’t have this conversation again!”

Fesma nodded, “Yes, Your Grace.”

In two days time Khaami and Fesma outfitted Satine’s newest dress. It was blue with silver embellishments and a purple sash.

“Ah!”

“Sorry, Satine.” Khaami grimaced.

“Tighter.” the Duchess ordered through ground teeth.

“Satine,” Fesma brought a mirror over to Satine, “are you sure?”

The Duchess turned sideways and stared at herself in the mirror, it looked like she had gained some weight, but it didn’t look like she was pregnant.

“You know what,” Satine gasped, “this will do.”

After recording her speech for the Mandalorian Society for Peace, Satine attended a council meeting with her newly selected advisors. They drew up a list of societies for the Duchess to give speeches at or attend, and advised her on when to hold court.

Looking around the table, Satine committed her advisors’ names to memory and thanked them for their support.

“Of course, Your Grace.” bowed the Prime Minister, Jaru Djarin.

The Duchess waited before all her advisors had left before hoisting herself upward, leaning heavily on the table. Her back hurt terribly these days, and sometimes she had trouble sleeping.

The rest of the day went by uneventfully, Satine sighed, some of these days were starting to blur together and she felt lonely. Hopefully that would change soon.

“How did it go, Satine?” Khaami asked, unbuttoning the Duchess’ dress.

“Eh, same as usual.”

Fesma frowned, “Satine, I’m worried about you.”

“Why?”

The Duchess’ dress fell to the floor.

Fesma sighed, “You’re not yourself anymore.”

Khaami met Satine’s eyes in the mirror as she undid her corset.

“Do you agree, Khaami?”

The lady’s eyes saddened, “You are a little down sometimes.”

Satine sighed as her corset came loose, standing in just her underwear, she turned and stared at herself in the mirror.

“It’s definitely noticeable now.” the Duchess observed.

“Would you,” Khaami began, “would you like to tell us about him?”

Satine blushed.

Fesma picked up the Duchess’ dress, “Satine, we know you wouldn’t do something like this without reason, tell us about him.”

Letting loose a giggle, the Duchess bit her lip and shook her head.

“Satine?” Khaami asked, shock in her tone.

“He was so kind to me,” Satiine said at last, “gentle and trustworthy, and he even had a snarky sense of humor.”

Satine watched as Khaami and Fesma glanced at each other, eyebrows raised.

“At first we only argued,” Satine admitted, “but then we agreed for Master Qui-Gon’s benefit that we should try to be civil.”

Khaami snorted, “Civil?”

“Our first kiss happened on a ledge overlooking a valley,” Satine smiled, “the sun was setting.”

“Satine,” Fesma sighed, “don’t tell me you’re a romantic.”

The Duchess laughed.

“What was his name?” Khaami asked.

Satine let her eyes fall to the floor, “I called him Ben.”

“Ben?”

“Meaning: mine.” Satine explained.

“Here, Your Grace,” Fesma said after a long silence, “let’s get you changed.”

Once Satine was in her nightgown, Fesma went for tea and Khaami clamored onto the Duchess’ bed.

“So,” Khaami grinned, “have you picked out any names yet?”

“Names?”

“You know,” Khaami crossed her arms, “for the baby.”

Satine opened her mouth to speak, the air recycler went on.

“Well I,” the Duchess paused, “I don’t even know if it’s a boy or a girl.”

Khaami was about to answer, when a vent popped out of the wall. Satine turned.

“Don’t move.” came a growl.

On shaky legs, Satine stood.

“I said not to move!”

It was a man, clearly, and he was dressed from head to toe in rusty Mandalorian armor. The man’s eyes fell onto Satine’s stomach.

“Well, Your Grace,” the bounty hunter sneered gleefully, “you certainly have something to answer for, don’t you?”

“Who are you and what do you want?” Khaami managed to stutter.

“I’m just here for the Duchess, little lady,” the bounty hunter pointed his gun at Satine, “and if she comes with me I won’t have to kill you.”

“Her Grace is going nowhere.” said Fesma, appearing at the door, tea tray in hand.

Satine yelped as the intruder grabbed her arm and yanked her in a hold against his chest.

“Move and she dies, they’ll take her dead or alive.”

Satine could not let this happen, she decided to try a trick she’d seen Obi-Wan do before, ram your head into that of your attacker. So, she did.

“Ah!”

Satine held up the bounty hunter’s shooting hand and wrestled the gun from him.

“It’s treason to attack a monarch.” The intruder pulled a knife, “They said you were a pacifist.”

“That doesn’t mean I won’t protect myself.” Satine spat.

“You sure it isn’t the momma bear instinct?”

Satine pulled the trigger, she was lucky, the bullet lodged in the bounty hunter’s neck. Shaking, the Duchess dropped the gun.

“Your Grace?” a voice called.

Thinking quickly Satine hid behind her dressing partition, a few seconds later a guard entered.

“Where were you,” Fesma shouted, “he tried to kill the Duchess!”

“Forgive me, my lady,” the guard said entering the room, “we were in the middle of a shift change.”

The guard spoke quietly into his communication device before calmly stalking towards the intruder.

“What happened here?”

Satine peaked around her partition, she saw Harryn, the captain of her personal guard.

“This assassin tried to kill the Duchess.” answered the first guard.

“And you killed him?”

“No, sir,” the guard shook his head, “he was dead when I arrived, I heard the shot.”

“Then who-”

“I did,” Satine’s words were rushed, “but in the report I would like it said that I waited for professional assistance.”

Harryn bowed, “Yes, Your Grace.”

The Duchess’ personal guards were so focused over the next few weeks, that when a palace nurse came to them with the news of a missing medical droid, they didn’t look into it, even though they said they would deal with it.

“What are you going to do, Satine?” Fesma asked.

The Duchess and her ladies were sitting in her personal parlor, a receiving room connected to her bedchamber. This and her bedroom were the only rooms where there were no microphones, only cameras.

“I hate to do my father this dishonor,” Satine began, “but I have to do this for the baby.”

Fesma tilted her head, “What dishonor?”

“I want to claim this child is my niece or nephew,” Satine lowered her eyes, “that they’re the child of my bastard brother.”

Khaami gasped.

“I know people who can fake the documents-”

Khaami’s mouth fell open, horrified, “You know people?”

Satine hesitated, “I’ve heard of people.”

“I agree with Her Grace,” said Fesma after a short silence, “this seems to be the best course of action.” “We’d have to pay them in kind,” Satine stated, “they can’t accept credits.”

“What could we use,” Khaami asked, “jewelry?” “I was thinking of physical monetary value.” Satine confessed.

“So,” Khaami paused, “bills?”

“Yes.”

The Duchess looked to Fesma, who was mulling over the prospect.

“I think jewelry might be best, Satine,” said the lady, “it’s easily exchangeable and has good value.”

“Alright,” Satine agreed, “we’ll pay them in jewelry, but where am I going to, you know-”

“Give birth?” Khaami whispered.

Satine flinched, “Yes, birth.”

Fesma frowned, “It has to be somewhere no one frequents, and it has to be soundproof.”

“The bombing basement?” Khaami ventured.

Satine grinned, “Unconventional, but it might work.”

By the time her third trimester began, the entire plan was in place. Under Satine’s bed lay a stolen medical droid and a bag of missing pain relievers, on her toilette in a mahogany box sat a cheap set of jewels, authentic, but not the grandest thing Satine owned. Finally, if one went into the bombing basement, they would find an old mattress covered in stained sheets and newspapers surrounded by tapestries on the walls and candles on the floor.

“Things seem to be looking up, Satine.” Khaami commented when the Duchess returned from a council meeting.

“We might actually be able to do this.” agreed Fesma.

Satine swallowed, “My advisors think I should marry as soon as possible, make a political alliance and sire heirs.”

Fesma groaned.

“Just when we thought things were looking up.” added Khaami.

“I told them I would consider it,” Satine sat down, hands on her stomach, “but I’m not sure how long I can hold them off.”

“Just until the baby is born,” Fesma assured, “then, once it’s safe, you can marry.”

The Duchess began to sob.

Khaami ran to her lady, “Oh, Satine-”

“I’m still in love with him, after all these months,” Satine choked on the air in her throat, “and he hasn’t contacted me once!”

“Satine-”

“I kriffing hate the Jedi!”

Fesma heaved a long sigh, “How very Mandalorian of you.”

Satine planted her face into her pillow and screamed.

Khaami tried again, “Satine-”

The Duchess screamed again. Then she groaned, sat up, and wiped her eyes.

“You know,” Satine swallowed, “sometimes I question my life choices.”

The Duchess was met with silence.

“Like why, for instance,” Satine continued, “did I have to fall in love with a Jedi?”

Fesma and Khaami shared a glance.

“It’s alright, you know,” the Duchess crossed her arms, “you can answer.”

Khaami opened her mouth to speak, but it was Fesma who spoke.

“You know, Satine,” the lady placed her hands on the Duchess’, “it’s okay to be upset.”

All at once, Satine’s anger level began to lower.

“I don’t have a heart anymore,” the Duchess began to tear up again, “I’ve given it all to him.”

“That’s alright,” Khaami wrapped her arm around Satine’s shoulders, “it will come back to you eventually.”

“I’ll never stop loving him.” Satine said matter of factly.

“Then the baby,” Fesma assured, “your heart will grow again when the baby arrives.”

Satine nodded, “Thank you, ladies.”

“Of course,” Khaami kissed the Duchess’ cheek, “and now, we must think of names.”

It didn’t take much deliberation for Satine to decide that if she had a boy, she would name him Korkyrach.

“After the warrior king,” the Duchess said, “but we’ll call him Korkie for short.”

“And if it’s a girl?” Khaami asked excitedly.

Satine faltered, “I want to give her a regal sounding name, a hyphenated name.”

“Ooh.”

The Duchess blushed, “I think I like Tyra Satine.”

“Tyra Satine,” Fesma grinned, “it certainly has a ring to it.”

A month later, Satine sent Fesma and Khaami, disguised under heavy cloaks, to a seedy bar in lower Sundari with a chest full of jewels. The Duchess listened in from her room, carefully following the criminal’s instructions on how to spread the news. Then the items were exchanged, three USBs for a chest of jewels. Fesma and Khaami nodded, so did the criminal conspirator, before going their separate ways. Still, Satine was nervous until they arrived back at the palace.

“Oh, thank you,” the Duchess embraced her ladies, “thank you!”

“Of course, Satine,” Khaami smiled, “things are going to be better from now on.”

The next morning, a story broke about the Former Duke of Mandalore, Adonai Kryze, the rumor going around was that he’d had a bastard son who had died in the civil war, and that he’d left a wife and child behind. After a week, the rumors grew so big that Satine was asked about them at a press conference.

“I do not know whether or not what people are saying is true,” The Duchess said solemnly, “I learned of this possibility from the media myself.”

At the end of the press conference, Satine traveled back to her room, claiming she had a slight headache. Khaami and Fesma were waiting for her.

“How did it go?” Fesma questioned.

“Good,” the Duchess paused, “they ate it up.”

Grabbing onto the back of her chair, Satine groaned.

“Satine?”

“I think-”

A burst of water splashed onto the floor and the Duchess swayed.

“Satine!”

Fesma ran to the Duchess and pulled her arm around her shoulder, supporting her just below the arms.

“Khaami, the droid and the pain relievers!”

As quickly as they could, the trio made their way through the less populated halls of the serving corridors down into the basement. The first wave of pain hit Satine two landings from the basement door, it was as if her lower half was burning and decaying at the same time, flaring up and dissipating at the same time. She gasped heavily and faltered, but Fesma held her steady.

“I can’t feel my legs,” the Duchess moaned, “I can’t-”

“We’re so close, Satine,” Fesma assured, “we’re so close.”

Finally, when the pain passed, the Duchess and her ladies continued down the stairs.

“Please,” Satine whined as Khaami struggled with the door, “it’s starting again.”

The door opened with a creek and Fesma flinched, but Satine yanked her forward as she made her way to the bed. Khaami set down the droid and closed the door, then she opened a metal drawer of steaming towels.

“How-”

“Stolen from the guest freshers,” the maid smiled, “I thought we’d need them.”

Satine nodded, lips drawn tightly.

Something buzzed, “I am Oiyo, the medical droid, what seems to be the problem here?”

“I’m kriffing giving birth!” Satine swore.

“Stay calm,” advised the droid, “and please answer some questions.”

The Duchess opened her mouth to yell at the droid again, but a shriek escaped her instead.

“You are a female of the human species, correct?”

“Yes!” Satine gasped.

“Is this your first baby?”

“Yes!”

The droid turned to Khaami, “Nurse, get behind the human female and support her upper body.”

The maid obeyed, and Fesma began to undo Satine’s corset.

“She shouldn’t be wearing that.” the droid observed.

The Duchess heaved a sigh of relief when the tightness left her stomach.

“Spread your legs, please.”

Shaking with the effort, Satine managed to spread her legs.

“If we have any pain relief,” the droid droned, “we should administer it now.”

Fesma stood, “I’ll get some water.”

Satine whimpered as Fesma sped from the room. Khaami rubbed her back.

“Roll up your skirt, please, I need to see my work.”

Satine pulled up her skirt and clenched her hands tightly around the material, hissing as the droid touched its cold fingers to her inner thigh.

“Contractions are progressing nicely,” the droid stated, “you should begin pushing in approximately four point three minutes.”

Satine groaned, the only thing she could feel was pain.

“I’m back!” Fesma announced, shutting the door tightly behind her.

Satine noticed the two water bottles in her ladys’ hands, and the Duchess began to pray.

“This is almost medieval.” Khaami noted as Fesma hand-fed Satine pain relieving pills.

“That will only ease some of the pain.” the medical droid agreed.

“Still,” Fesma frowned, “We agreed to help our lady.”

As the hours progressed, Satine’s throat grew hoarse as her screams grew more violent.

“What time is it?” Khaami questioned.

“Eleven o’clock on the twenty third of Mae Month.” stated the medical droid calmly.

Satine wailed. Fesma, who was assisting the droid with warm hand towels and holding its tools, ducked her head and inhaled sharply.

“What is it?” the Duchess simpered.

“I can see the head, Satine,” Fesma’s face went blank, “it’s a very messy business.”

In response, the droid leaned down and worked silently.

“Push, please.” it beeped cheerfully.

Satine squeezed Khaami’s hands like her life depended on it, and after a tremendous heave and seven quick gasps, Satine had a baby.

“Congratulations, you have a son.”

Bursting into tears, Satine held her arms out. Fesma wiped the baby clean then placed him into his mother’s discarded corset. Khaami leaned over the Duchess’ shoulder and dabbed her eyes.

“Here you go, Satine.” Fesma grinned.

She took the baby in her arms and sniffled, cradling her son’s small body against hers.

“Korkyrach Kryze,” Satine smiled, “it’s wonderful to meet you.”

The baby giggled in response.

“Aw!”

“He should be kept in a blanket.” the droid suggested.

Fesma stood, “I’ll go get one.”

“Bring two!” Satine called, laughing.

The medical droid’s innards began to whirl and soon a piece of paper was ejecting out from its stomach.

“Printing birth certificate.”

Satine stared at Khaami, wide-eyed.

“Please input information correctly,” the droid stated, “it is a felony if you do not.”

“A felony?”

The droid handed Khaami the birth certificate.

“We have to fill this out correctly, Satine,” the lady bit her lip, “we could make a fake one and hide this one in the palace archives.”

Satine looked down at the baby, then nodded.

“I’m back!” Fesma panted.

“Wrap Korkie in the blanket,” Satine ordered, handing Fesma the baby, “we have to fill out the birth certificate.”

“Birth certificate?”

The medical droid beeped and offered Satine a pen. Turning her upper body, the Duchess pressed the sheet against the wall and wrote.

Name: Korkyrach Kryze Date of Birth: 23, Mae, 39 BBY Birth Time: 11:12

Home Planet: Mandalore Mother: Satine Kryze Father: ___________________

Satine’s hand began to shake.

“Why don’t we leave that one blank.” Khaami suggested kindly.

“Something’s wrong,” Satine said suddenly, “it hurts again.”

“Is it the placenta?” Khaami asked, taking the paper and pen from Satine.

The medical droid leaned down and examined its patient.

“Your body is preparing for another birth,” the droid observed, “you’re having twins.”

Satine’s mouth dropped open, then she began to grunt in pain.

“Lay back down,” Khaami suggested, pulling Satine’s shoulders back, “you can do this.”

Fesma offered her lady a quick sip of water before returning to help the medical droid.

“This one’s coming quickly, Satine,” Fesma stated, a mix of shock and fear in her voice, “not much longer.”

The Duchess screamed. Korkie cried, he was back in his mother’s arms now, and Satine was trying not to squeeze him too tight.

Wailing, the Duchess prayed and begged for this to be over soon. Fesma handed the droid a knife.

“One last push, Satine!”

As soon as the Duchess stopped crying, another pair of lungs did.

“Congratulations,” the medical droid beeped, “you have a daughter.”

Fesma wrapped up the baby in the spare blanket and gently placed her in her mother’s arms. Khaami rested her head on Satine’s shoulder.

“Tyra-Satine,” smiled the Duchess, “I think it fits her perfectly.”

Within the next hour, both birth certificates were filled out, and while Khaami helped Satine nurse the babies, Fesma wiped the droid’s memory and began to clean up.

#satine kryze #duchess satine #satine x obiwan #obi wan kenobi #korkie kryze #korkie kenobi #fanfic #obitine

48 notes · View notes

isis-astarte-diana · 4 years

Text

One Of Those Days

Summary: “I can help you, if you want. Give you something to cry about.” Missy always seems to know exactly what you need.

Warnings: NSFW. Mummy kink. Spanking with a kitchen utensil an implement. Dodgy dynamics. MIHOW.

Word Count: 5499

NB: Hey, so, uh, this is a thing I wrote! You literally asked for this, I wash my hands of it. This is a kink that walks a fine line and I know that, so I’ve done my best to keep it on the side that I think is more-or-less palatable, ie. this is some fluffy smut about a rough day made better by spanking, snuggles, sex and submission. I think a lot of us could go for that every now and again!

"Now, what was that in aid of?”

The sound of Missy’s voice behind you would usually make you jump; she has a tendency to appear out of nowhere, catlike and silent on her feet despite her Edwardian heels. There’s a faint glimmer of amusement to her tone that, on any typical day, would have you prickling with delight.

Today is not a typical day.

You scrub a hand over your face, turning away from the cupboard door that you’ve just slammed with vicious force.

“Sorry,” you mutter, your jaw tight. “I’m just in a bad mood.”

“Yes, I can see that much.” The teasing lilt is still there, but you can hear a hint of warning blooming in the words. “Quite the stroppy little thing, today, aren’t you?”

“Missy,” you caution, trying hard to keep the bite out of her name. “Just- don’t. Seriously.”

“If you think I’m going to tiptoe around you just because you’re on the rag then-”

Incensed, you turn on her, snapping back, “I’m not on the fucking-!”

The words die in your throat when her hand slams down on the kitchen counter beside you. She’s much closer than you expected, close enough to make you cringe back until the edge of the countertop digs into the base of your spine. She cocks her head, her eyes sparking dangerously, her painted lips curled into a half-smile with too many sharp teeth behind it.

“Careful, dearest,” she chimes sweetly. “Try again.”

Your gulp is deafening in the stillness.

Tentatively, you make another attempt. Your sour mood still shines through in your voice. “I’m just- I’m having one of those days. I don’t know why.” Missy raises an eyebrow, prompting you to continue, waiting with all the patience of a half-submerged crocodile for you to make another mistake. You turn your face away and take a steadying breath. “Everything- everything is getting to me. Everything’s too much. I feel like I’m gonna scream or break down in tears any second.”

“Maybe you should.”

You scoff wryly at her response and her other hand darts out, cool fingers taking hold of your chin, guiding your eyes back to her. Bristling at her audacity, you shrug her off. Her palm lands on your cheek, not harsh enough to be called a slap, but certainly with sufficient force to remind you that she would strike you if she had to. It pushes you into acquiescence as she turns your head once more.

Her expression has you dragging your bottom lip between your teeth, averting your eyes to avoid her gaze. She’s looking into you, through you, leaving you feeling pitifully exposed.

“I mean it.” Her thumb sweeps across your cheekbone with tenderness juxtaposed to her stern voice. She has a perfect way of doing this, of trapping you between severity and softness, disorientating you so that you never quite know if she’s about to kiss you or bite you. It consumes your attention and starts to unravel some of the throbbing knots in your mind. “I can help you, if you want. Give you something to cry about.”

Only Missy could make such a threat sound like a consolation.

Reaching up to cover her hand with your own, you risk meeting her eyes. Her lips quirk in encouragement. You’ve played this sort of game before, of course, but that doesn’t make it any easier to ask for; and she will make you ask for it.

Regardless of what you do now, pain will come. You were rude - downright nasty, in fact - and while she loves an argument better than anybody, she has her limits. Being snapped at like that is one of them. Your chances of sitting comfortably tonight are already miniscule. All that remains is for you to decide the context.

“Please.” It’s quiet, strained, the best you can manage. “Please... mummy.”

It’s hard to say if it’s uttering the words that knocks the wind out of you or if it’s the beaming smile that spreads across her face.

“Good girl,” she praises gently, her fingers curling under your chin with ticklish pressure that softens your tense posture immediately. It’s remarkable how easy this is for her, how swiftly she can turn you into whatever kind of creature she wants you to be, without even the barest hint of hypnosis. She can have you howling with rage, scratching and swearing and fighting her for all you’re worth, in one moment, and falling to your knees to worship at her feet in the next. If it weren’t so mutually beneficial it might frighten you.

Sometimes it still does.

“Mummy,” your voice is a cracked whisper as you nuzzle into the touch. She gives you a sympathetic pout and a soft click of her tongue. “I’m sorry I was rude.”

“I know you are, poppet.” She brushes a stray bit of hair behind your ear and loops her other arm around you, pulling you into her embrace. You gratefully accept it, tucking your head against her shoulder. “You’re just a sulky little girl, today, aren’t you? It’s not your fault.”

“S’no excuse,” you mumble into her blouse. It’s awkward, physically, to fold yourself up against her like this, but the soft cotton under your cheek and the scent of her perfumed neck call to you irresistibly. Your fingers press into her corseted back, savouring the warmth of her.

“No, it’s not,” she agrees, without reprimand. “But I’m not cross with you.” Her fingers card through your hair, her nails dragging soothingly against your scalp. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner, hmm? We could have nipped this in the bud first thing this morning, before it ever got this far.”

“I don’t know.” You hold tighter to her, the soft admonition making you feel faintly ridiculous. “I just thought it’d go away on its own.”

“Silly girl.” She sweetens the words with a soft kiss to your ear that sends a pleasant tremor through you. Her palm presses between your shoulder blades, rubbing firmly. “You know that that’s what mummy’s here for.”

You’re already close to tears just from this tenderness, and you nod against her shoulder, sniffling them back. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, none of that, love,” she croons. “It’s alright. I��m here now, and I have the perfect medicine for a fussy girl like you.”

Missy, expertly as ever, changes your mood like she’s flicking a light switch. Desire creeps slow and warm down the back of your neck. The gentle touch of her nose, her lips, against your ear becomes a caress as sensual as anything you’ve ever felt. With one last peck she looses her arms from around you.

Being let go of after she’s peeled back your defences like this, baring all of your rawest parts to the world, is torturous, but she entwines her fingers with yours and squeezes your hand to soften the blow.

“I think that this,” she reaches past your shoulder and plucks something from the counter behind you, utensils rattling together in their holder as she disturbs them, “should do very nicely. Don’t you?”

Smiling like she’s presenting you with a gift, she holds up the wooden spoon and shows it to you.

The sight of it makes your mouth go dry.

You’d always assumed that there was such a thing as a cruel implement; that pain and pleasure hung upon the tools used to create them, in at least some small way. That notion has long since been cleared from your mind. Sensation, in all its guises, is what Missy chooses to make of it. She can kiss you into agonies or beat you into euphoria, depending on her mood.

She’s used this on you before, but only ever with playful intentions. In this moment, playful she is not. The fact that she isn’t cross with you doesn’t mean that you will be spared; only that she’ll whisper words of encouragement rather than sharp reprimands while she takes you apart.

“So quiet, now?” She purses her lips, a soft note of displeasure in her voice. “Cat got your tongue, dear?”

You shake your head, not taking your eyes off of the spoon. “No, mummy.” You have to pause to wet your lips. “That- that would be good.”

Her face softens as if she’d been braced for you to protest. “Oh, my poor girl.” Once more, she squeezes your hand. “You really have had a miserable day, haven’t you?”

Feeling tears tug at your throat again, you nod silently.

“We’ll have you feeling better in no time. Come along.” Letting her chosen weapon hang at her side, she gently tugs you away from the counter. “I think we’ll do this in the bedroom today.”

With your eyes cast down you follow her through the TARDIS, its warbling hum a familiar comfort. Like everything else she does, Missy’s choice of location is always symbolic. If she were to bend you over the kitchen counter you could expect to have your arm twisted up behind your back - not necessarily with unkind force - and your clothes in disarray to expose you best. In the bedroom, things would be tidier. You would, you will, be bare across her lap, your fingers twisting in the duvet, the rhythm of her breaths and the shifting of her thighs reverberating through you like an extra heartbeat.

She’s utterly fearless as she strolls the halls, humming something to herself under her breath, the wooden spoon in her hand for all and sundry to see if you were to be witnessed. You doubt that your private activities are a mystery, as such, to your travelling companions, but the thought of the tableau that you would make as she leads you to the bedroom like this is enough to make you wince.

All shame is forgotten when you arrive.

“Would you be a dear, and fetch mummy’s box of tricks?” Missy lets go of your hand to brush your cheek with her knuckles, her voice a sweet and conspiratorial whisper. The feathery touch has you ducking your head with a shiver. “I’m certain I can find something in there to turn that little frown upside down.”

“Okay, mummy.” She flicks the tip of your nose with her fingertip and makes you squeak. Her smile widens.

“You see? It’s not all so bad, is it?” Her lips follow her finger, pressing a soft kiss to your nose. “Go on, poppet. You know where it is.”

The box of toys that she refers to is, you believe, a reupholstered sewing box, lined with black velvet. It sits on the middle shelf of the armoire, its mahogany grain gleaming in the rosy light of the bedroom, and you bring it to her with nothing short of reverence. It’s heavier than it looks.

It is, of course, bigger on the inside.

Missy takes it from you with a saucy wink and sets it down on the bed, atop the damask sheets, balancing the wooden spoon across its lid. It’s an impossibly tempting sight; she holds relief of every kind in her delicate hands. Something, almost a giggle, anticipation making you giddy and restless, bubbles up from your chest. You bite your lip to stifle more.

“Oh, my lovely girl.” The corners of her eyes crinkle as she takes both of your hands in hers, pulling you closer to stand in front of her when she sits at the side of the bed. “This is all you needed, isn’t it? A little bit of attention. A little bit of discipline.”

The words make your throat feel tight. Your eyes flit from her face down to the shape of her knees beneath the plum skirt. It’s too easy, teetering here on the precipice between symptom and cure, to let anxiety overtake you again, and your face heats with prickling self-consciousness.

“I’m not doing this because I’m cross with you.” She lifts your right hand to her mouth and brushes a soft, damp kiss across your knuckles, her eyes trained on your face all the while. “It’s for your own good. You’ll feel better for it.”

You offer her a shallow nod and murmur, weakened by the tears that bite in your throat, “I know.”

With another encouraging squeeze to your hands she lets them go, lets you brace them on her shoulders as she takes hold of your hips and guides you between her parted knees.

“You really are ever so pretty, you know.” Her fingers creep under the hem of your long shirt, trailing light and ticklish at the bare skin above the waistband of your leggings. You shiver under the touch. “I’m terribly lucky to have you.”

Your breath hitches. “Missy-”

“Ah, ah, ah,” she stills her hands, cool palms flat either side of your waist. One eyebrow quirks. “Mummy’s talking. It’s rude to interrupt.”

She’s almost too good at this.

“Sorry, mummy.” Pressing your fingers into her shoulders, you bend to kiss the dark, unruly hair at the crown of her head. She curls her fingertips against your sides and rubs slow circles there.

“Such a soft little thing, you are.” It’s uncanny, how you can be stooped over her like this, your cheek pressed into her hair, and feel entirely at her mercy. When her fingernails drag across your skin, sending you twisting and whining at the feathery sensation, she titters. “Oh, I could just eat you all up!”

Missy bunches up the fabric of your shirt in her hands and lifts it to your waist, baring a few inches of skin above your leggings. Her mouth descends with unbridled glee. Cool, slick kisses attack your stomach, and you squeal, caught off guard and entirely delighted. Emboldened by your reaction, she pulls you tighter to her mouth, fastens her open lips to the soft flesh just above your navel and blows.

It tickles, of course, rippling through you until you almost lose your breath in a shriek, but it does more than that. You draw tighter around her, wrap your arms around her shoulders, shifting your thighs together as the sensation washes down your spine as well as up. Another flicker of arousal unfurls in your abdomen and licks at your cunt. Obviously aware of the effect that she’s having, she nuzzles her nose just above your waistband, tickling the skin there with her breath.

“You're such a good girl for me.” When she starts to work at your leggings you straighten up, keeping your hands on her shoulders, widening your stance to help her ease them over your hips and down your thighs. It’s impossible to ignore how close her face is to your exposed underwear. “You’re not going to give me any trouble, today, are you, hmm?”

It feels like a lot to promise. Still, you nod.

“You’re going to be a brave girl, and come over my knee without a fuss?”

“Yes, mummy.” That much, you think you can manage. What comes after is anybody’s guess. “I promise.”

Bravery, for so long, meant stoicism to you, as if the two were interchangeable. You’d always assumed that they were. The first time you’d done something like this, been brought to a helpless flood of tears at her hand, the shame of losing control in such a way had almost crushed you; the memory of her fingers combing through your hair as she crooned how well you’d done, how brave you’d been for her, never fails to give you strength now. For all of her madness, there is method, and for all of her sadism there is an odd sort of compassion.

You don’t doubt that she enjoys her role in this. Missy has no pretences about her desires, and even while she soothes or rebukes you in the midst of your torment she makes no bones about how gratified she is to be inflicting it. The pleasure of watching you endure for her is only ever made sweeter by the shrieking, sobbing, squirming evidence of just how much you’re suffering.

Your devotion is paid in blood, in sweat, in boundless tears. Hers is paid in the freedom to give them.

She strips off your leggings and your knickers and leaves you standing there in your oversized shirt, braless beneath it. The hem covers what little modesty you may have.

“On, or off?” Missy toys with the fabric, cocking her head as she gazes up at you. You pause for a moment to consider the question. It’s comfortable, this shirt - one of your favourites, one that smells of her and feels soft and warm enough that you reached for it this morning as soon as you knew what kind of day it was going to be.

“On,” you answer eventually. “Please.”

“As you like, poppet.” She sits further back on the bed and pats her lap. “Come on, then. Let’s have you.”

It should be absurd, this entire scene, the way you eagerly climb onto your knees on the bed and lie yourself across her lap without hesitation. When she lifts the hem of your shirt higher to expose your arse it should make you feel ridiculous, and it does, in a way, but there’s an inexplicable comfort that comes with that. She revels in it, in turning you into this - whatever this is - and you bask in her obvious pleasure with complete abandon.

“So well-behaved for me,” she murmurs, one hand curling into the bountiful fabric of the shirt, resting low on your back with grounding weight. “My good girl.”

You cross your arms on the duvet and cradle your face with them, cheek pressed into the damask. The first touch of her cool palm on your arse makes you shiver, and then sigh contentedly when she begins to massage and squeeze the soft flesh there.

“It’s been too long since we’ve done this, hasn’t it?” Her voice is soft, a little teasing lilt to it that makes you smile. “You know that you can ask me whenever you like.”

“I know,” you tell her again, feeling your toes curl and flex from the gentle stimulation. “I just... I feel silly. Asking you.”

“Oh, poppet.” She presses her knuckles into your back to rub there. “Taking care of you is never a chore to me, you know. It could only ever be a pleasure.”

It’s too much for you to answer to; too much for you to think on, for long, without falling apart. Luckily, she doesn’t wait for you to speak. Her ministrations cease abruptly and she lands a single, hard smack on the left side of your arse.

You jerk across her lap, breath catching. As the sting begins to sink in you hiss, near-silent, “fuck.”

“Such language,” Missy chides, hiding her amusement with enviable skill, completing the symmetry with another swat that makes you gasp. “Do you think that’s appropriate for a little girl?”

She hits you again, and you squeak, shaking your head emphatically “No, mummy. I’m sorry.”

“I should think so.” Another smack; the warmth is slowly building under her hand, a wash of prickling pink heat. Some of the tension is starting to ease from your back, your shoulders, your neck, muscles you hadn’t realised were tight beginning to loosen. “I ought to wash your mouth out with soap.”

“Oh, please don’t!” There’s barely a trace of play-acting in your panicked whimper. The first time she’d made such a threat, you’d assumed that it was in jest; you had, of course, assumed wrongly, and you have no intention of repeating that experience. “I promise I’ll be good.”

“Bold words, my dear.” When she lands a particularly sharp slap low on the curve of your arse, she follows it through, digging her fingers into the stinging flesh and squeezing hard. Your fingers wind into the duvet cover as you turn your head and cry out into the fabric. “I shan’t warn you again.”

Frankly, you’re lucky that she warned you the first time.

With that, she begins to warm you up properly. Because she is not cross, and because this is not a punishment, she doesn’t tease you. The rhythm she takes up is steady and unflinching, a pattern of blows delivered with clinical precision. That sting of warmth blooms into a glow, and then a burn, until your breaths are short and your lips are curled back in a tight grimace.

The sensation is not yet much beyond discomfort, but it’s enough to draw you out of the depths of your own mind, pulling you back into the body that she holds against hers. Beneath you is the soft wool of her skirt, the comfort of the bed you share, the stability of her powerful thighs. Above you she presses the heel of one hand into your back and uses the palm of the other to set you alight. Nothing matters, nothing exists beyond these sensations.

All too soon, she stops.

“There we are,” she coos, rubbing at the sting with tenderness you know better than to mistake for mercy. “Isn’t that nice?”

It’s beyond you to answer, but you offer her a stunted nod, nuzzling into the duvet beneath your face. You draw a steadying breath. Tears sit heavy in your eyes, waiting to fall, impatient for the pain to come.

“You’re so lovely and pink.” Her fingernails drag a spiralling pattern across your sore arse, setting your thighs trembling. “This always calms you down so nicely. You’re such a meek little thing, really. You just get yourself in a muddle, sometimes.”

She tightens her grip on your shirt, replacing the ticklish touch of her fingernails with the cool, smooth back of the spoon. It's the most tantalising threat she can give you.

“Aren’t you lucky, hmm?” She adjusts her position, lifting one leg just enough to tilt your hips and expose you better. “To have a mummy who cares about you so much?”

The first snap of wood against your already-heated skin is like a lit match. You cry out, pulled from your stupor, hands fisting into the duvet cover. It takes all of your strength to turn the expletive that races up your throat into a wordless yelp.

“Oh, you are so cherished, my love.” Her voice is soft when she strikes again, on oh, god, the exact same spot, sharp as anything. “I just adore you.”

Three, four, five times she brings the back of the spoon down in the same place, low on the curve of the right side of your arse. The skin there turns tight with blistering heat. Your throat thickens as the tears gather momentum, pitiful whimpers spilling from your grimacing mouth. Just when you think you can bear it no more, this repetitive pattern of merciless strikes, she switches sides and begins to do the same on the left.

“You really do make me terribly proud, you know.” The cadence of her words is a dizzying juxtaposition to the steady rhythm of her unfaltering smacks. “Entirely vexed, at times, but always unutterably proud.” Without warning, she switches back, catching you off guard with a blazing strike to the red-hot patch of skin she was previously administering to.

The dam breaks with a vengeance.

You shriek, lurching forwards, holding tight to the duvet as the tears begin to fall, it seems, all at once. The speed with which it overcomes you is startling. Your hips shift over her lap, legs kicking weakly, vainly seeking to retreat from the pain.

“Good girl,” Missy croons, winding more of the fabric of your shirt into her fist to keep you from moving too far. “There you go. You just relax and let me help.”

Having achieved what she’d set out to do, piercing the thin skin that held back your cries, she sets to work on turning the rest of your arse as sore as the two spots she’s been abusing with such precision.

You might be begging; it’s hard to tell. It’s hard to notice anything but the faultless way she applies her chosen weapon to your stinging flesh, carrying you on a wave of incandescent pain through that horrifying moment of losing control. You twist, you writhe, you push your face into the sheets until the fabric turns wet and cool with tears, and all the while she feeds the fire in your skin and soothes you with soft praise.

When you finally reach back, overcome by the pain, every square inch of skin tight and blazing, she knocks your hands away.

“Enough,” you manage, through great, hiccupping sobs. “Enough, that’s enough-”

“Almost, poppet.” She presses her hand down into the small of your back again, rubbing firmly, easing the cries from your lungs. “Just a little bit longer.”

“No, no, but-” wiping your streaming eyes with the back of your hand, you squirm in her grip. “I’m done, I- I don’t want-”

“Oh, hush now.” She cuts you off, striking again, this time lower; the sensitive patches at the very tops of your thighs, the spots you feel when you walk or sit, are still due to be paid attention in full. “If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well, dearest. I take my duty to you very seriously. I’d hate to leave you wanting.”

Wanting is, perhaps, a strong word for it, but she does have a point. Being pushed just beyond the limits of your comfort never fails to leave you feeling better, in the end, once the tears have dried up and the endorphins begin to fade.

Fortunately for you, pushing is Missy’s speciality.

You’re a mess before she’s finished. The duvet cover is twisted up in your hands, folds of it stuffed into your mouth to muffle the helpless cries streaming from you. Your shoulders shake with desperate sobs. The heat that radiates from your punished skin seems to flow all the way down, merging seamlessly with the warmth of the slippery arousal that spills from you almost as readily as your tears, until it’s impossible to recall the border between desire and distress. Every nerve is alive and screaming. For half a second you wonder what could have possibly possessed you to ask for this.

And then she stops; and you remember.

“There’s my brave little girl.”

Slender fingers card through your hair, the palm of her other hand sweeping across your overheated skin. You keen miserably into the duvet, struggling to catch your breath, nuzzling against her hands. She clicks her tongue in sympathy.

“Oh, poppet.” The heel of her hand presses into the sore flesh of your arse, making you yelp and jerk, but this deeper pressure helps to ease the worst of the overwhelming sting. “Shh, shh, it’s alright. Just let it go. Mummy’s got you.”

Missy takes to this role as she takes to everything; with complete and utter mastery. She coaxes every drop of pent up emotion from you with her tireless hands, soothing pain as readily as she inflicts it, consoling what feels inconsolable. With immeasurable patience she cradles you in her lap while your wracking sobs die down into pitiful whimpers.

“There we are,” she coos eventually, scratching gently at your scalp with her blunt fingernails. “Do you feel that? It’s all gone, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” you admit with a sniffle. “Think so.”

“Oh, I know so, dearest.” Satisfied that you’ve calmed down, she lightens her touch again, letting her fingertips trail across the intense heat left behind by her ministrations. Her touch feels like ice and you shiver. “Just like magic. I’m really rather good, if I do say so myself.”

It strengthens you, and you roll your eyes fondly, blinking away the last of the tears. Your smile is watery and genuine. “You’re the best.”

“Oh, you know it makes me all tingly when you say things like that.” Her fingers spiral lower. As they creep towards the apex of your thighs you start to shift over her lap again, for an altogether different reason. In the afterglow of pain, the catharsis of weeping, your earlier arousal makes itself known once more. “My sweet little girl. You look delightful like this.”

It’s supposed to be teasing, but the brush of her fingers against the inside of your parted thighs makes your breath hitch, turning the question into a tentative whisper. “Really?”

“Really.” You spread your legs wider, allowing her the space to spider-walk her fingers along the inside of your right thigh, drawing your attention to just how slick you are. “All pretty in pink, and behaving so nicely for me. I could do anything to you.”

“Would you?” You risk a glance over your shoulder for the first time and find her eyeing you with a mischievous twinkle. It makes your heart race. “Please, mummy?”

“Oh, you are incorrigible, my dear.” She pats the back of your thigh, just shy of the sore spots. “Up you come. Let me see that lovely smile.”

Shifting back up onto your knees is awkward, and the hem of your shirt falls back down with the movement to irritate your stinging skin. Missy holds you steady as you sit back on your heels beside her.

“There it is.” Her fingers curl beneath your jaw, gently tilting your face to her. Conscious of the state you must be in, cheeks flushed, eyes red, dry tears cracking on your face, you smile weakly. “Do I get a kiss, now that you’ve finished sulking?”

There’s no trace of admonition in the words. Your smile widens, and you nod tentatively. “Yes, please.”

“Such good manners.” She grins sharply, leaning in to nuzzle your nose with hers. “It’s a wonder I don’t do this every day.”

Her fingernails skim along the curve of your jaw when she kisses you, tickling your earlobe until you giggle into her mouth. In her lips you can feel the curve of a genuine smile; not teasing, not mocking, utterly without performance. It makes your heart flutter.

When you break away your arms loop around her shoulders. “Thank you,” you murmur against her cheek. “Really. Thank you for this.”

“My pleasure, dearest.” Trailing her fingertips down your neck, she adds softly, “I mean it, you know. Every word.”

You hold tighter to her, feeling yet another prickle of tears. It’s easier, like this - easier for her to say it, easier for you to hear it, how deeply she cares for you. When your role is meek acquiescence you can lie still and let her worship you, and she, for her part, can do it, free of interruption or inhibition. In these moments it occurs to you that you are not the only one liberated from shame.

Your lips catch the corner of her mouth. “I know.”

Again, with effortlessness that astounds you, she catches you before you can fall into another well of emotion.

In a vertiginous display of speed she knocks you onto your back on the bed and straddles you to pepper your face with soft kisses. You shriek with delight, squirming underneath her, the raised pattern of the damask duvet cover irritating your stinging skin in a way that feels entirely too sensuous. The plentiful folds of her wool skirt warm your hips and thighs.

“That- ah!” Her hands dart underneath your shirt, fingers wriggling against your sides. “Mummy, that tickles!”

“My goodness, does it really?” Feigning innocence, she shifts lower, working feathery kisses over your throat now instead. “And this?”

“Yes!” You shiver under her touch when she drags her fingers further down, over your hips.

“Oh, well, I suppose I’ll stop, then.” Missy pauses dead still, her fingers curling into the dimples of your hips, her keen eyes fixed on your face as she peers up at you. She’s poised to strike, moments away from slotting herself between your thighs, and you bite your lip.

“Well... no.” Face heating under her gaze, you shift against her, rolling your hips. “I didn’t say that.”

“Make your mind up, poppet,” she teases, but she resumes her journey and swiftly has your legs hooked around her shoulders, her arms looped about your thighs to keep you open for her. Your back arches when you feel her breath against your vulva. “Are we playing, or aren’t we?”

The sight of her, lying on her stomach, her stockinged feet in the air and her ankles demurely crossed as she gazes, catlike, up from between your legs, plucks your spine with desire.

“Yes, please.” Once more, you tangle your hands in the duvet. “Please, mummy.”

“Well, since you asked so nicely.”

Her face splits into the familiar predatory grin and she holds your gaze as the flat of her tongue strokes the length of you. It’s enough to make you quiver, a hoarse cry ripped from your mouth at the heat, the velvet-soft touch of her. You can feel her throaty chuckle in your bones and when she pulls back, the loss makes you whimper.

“If you’re a very good girl, I might even let you choose a toy.”

#mine #nsfwork #missy x reader #the master x reader #gomez!master x reader #mummy kink tw #mommy kink tw #daddy kink tw #request #does it piss anyone else off how much i overuse italics in literally all of my fics????#i have a Lot to Emphasise and i've tried not doing it but it just Feels Wrong

82 notes · View notes

jerseydeanne · 3 years

Note

Joy Behar: Columbus policeman who shot Ma'Khia Bryant could have just shot 'the gun in the air' —— Holy fuck! You cannot make this shit up.

How absolutely ignorant of her!

How many times do we have to tell people to comply with the officer. Are you really that dumb?

You try and stab a cop or someone else in front of a cop you deserve everything you get in my opinion! I don’t give a flying rat’s behind what color you are!

More dumb white people are killed by cops than black. You know what we say? they probably deserved it for not obeying the officer.

Did you guys listen to the 911 call? The person is hysterical on the phone asking for help saying the girl was trying to stab them. You watch that video and the girl was out of control.

https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/crime/2021/04/22/columbus-police-shooting-makhia-bryant-appears-lawful/7318300002/

'No opportunity to de-escalate: use-of-force experts say Columbus officer obeyed training in shooting Ma'Khia BryantJohn FuttyThe Columbus Dispatch

An Ohio criminal-justice professor who studies the fatal use of force by law-enforcement officers didn't hesitate to render an opinion after watching body-camera video of a Columbus police officer fatally shooting a 16-year-old girl Tuesday afternoon on the city's Southeast Side.

"My first impression is that the officer was legally justified in using deadly force," said Philip Stinson, a Bowling Green State University professor who has compiled nationwide statistics on fatal shootings that have led to criminal charges against officers.

Ma'Khia Bryant shooting: Columbus police release 911 calls, ID of officer involved

"It's a terribly tragic situation, and my heart goes out to the girl and her family and friends," he told The Dispatch Wednesday. "But from looking at the video, it appears to me that a reasonable police officer would have had a reasonable apprehension of an imminent threat of serious bodily injury or death being imposed against an officer or someone else. That's the legal standard."

Bodycam video shows an attempted stabbing before shooting

The body-camera video, which the city first showed during a news conference late Tuesday night, captured the perspective of Officer Nicholas Reardon, who shot Ma’Khia Bryant seconds after he arrived outside a home on the 3100 block of Legion Lane on a report of an attempted stabbing.

The video shows Bryant, who is holding a knife, push a female who is falling down backwards at the officer's feet, then turn and charge at another female dressed in a pink outfit. The female in pink is pinned against a car in the driveway while Bryant appears to swing the knife at her, prompting Reardon to fire what sounds like four shots.

'She was a child.':White House comments on Ma'Khia Bryant shooting

Witnesses:'I figured it was just a girl fight.' Neighborhood witnesses saw argument before police shot Ma'Khia Bryant

Police shootings:Here are the names of people killed in police shootings in Columbus

James Scanlon, a retired Columbus Division of Police SWAT officer who spent 33 years with the division, has since trained officers, and served as an expert witness at trials in use-of-force cases, agreed with Stinson's assessment of the video.

"An officer is justified in using deadly force if his life or the life of someone else is at risk," Scanlon said Wednesday. "Few would argue that there weren't at least two lives there that were at serious risk."

In this case, Scanlon said, Reardon wasn't trying to protect himself, "but to save the life of someone he doesn't even know. ... It's a shame that no one has recognized that that officer, in all likelihood, saved one or more lives."

The legal standard by which an officer's use of force must be measured was established by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Graham vs. Connor decision.

The ruling, issued in 1989, gives police officers significant leeway in the use of deadly force when they perceive that a person poses an imminent threat to officers or others, and limits the second-guessing of that decision.

The ruling requires that an officer's actions be "judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight."

Any evaluation of an officer's actions must include "allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments – in circumstances that are tense, uncertain and rapidly evolving," the court found.

Stinson said Tuesday's shooting is "a good reminder that officers sometimes have to make split-second, life-or-death decisions in violent street encounters. ... These situations can escalate in a matter of milliseconds, as we saw here."

Taser, other options not available before Ma'Khia Bryant shooting

Although such shootings inevitably generate questions from the public about why an officer didn't use de-escalation techniques, or deploy a Taser or shoot the person in the leg, none of those options appeared to be available to the officer, both experts agreed.

"I don't know what the officer could have done differently," Stinson said. "Based on what I saw, there was no opportunity for the officer to de-escalate."

Scanlon said use of a Taser isn't an appropriate response "to a lethal-force situation," and police are trained to target only one thing when they shoot to protect themselves or others — "center mass" of the person they're trying to stop.

Use-of-force:Police training cited as defense in many use-of-force cases, but experts say it's outdated.

Officers are trained "to shoot until the threat is neutralized," he said.

Scanlon said the body-camera footage "is a textbook scenario that an officer would see in a film during a 'shoot/don't shoot' training exercise. That's exactly the kind of film you'd see in training rooms where you have to react to a deadly situation."

Stinson said officers "are trained and they're re-trained in use-of-force situations. One problem we see is officers who react in ways that are inconsistent with their training. I did not see that in this video.

"In this situation, inaction by the officer, I believe, would likely have resulted in serious bodily injury or death to one or more persons."

There was some confusion Wednesday about whether Columbus City Council President Shannon Hardin was suggesting that the officer had options other than deadly force.

In a written statement issued that morning, Hardin responded to the shooting by advocating change in "the city's training and hiring process. We must push for a new culture in Columbus where guns are not the final answer to every threat, and we must implement a new vision of safety in Columbus."

Based on that remark, Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther was asked at an afternoon news conference if the officer should have handled Tuesday's confrontation differently.

"A lot of the other reforms and efforts that should be involved will help," the mayor said. "I don’t know if any of those things would have resulted in a different outcome based on what we’ve seen in this footage, but we won't know until this investigation is finished."

The council's chief of staff, Michael S. Brown, said late Wednesday afternoon that Hardin's statement had been misinterpreted.

Hardin was referring to a culture of gun violence "in our society as a whole," not about police officers using guns as an answer to every threat, Brown said.

"It's not about this one case."

[email protected]

@johnfutty

Thank you, Anon

10 notes · View notes

seercayder · 3 years

Text

No but I feel as though artists are probably experiencing one of the most hostile years of posting art online that they’ve ever experienced for maybe forever. And I mean this for both amateur artists and professionals (with maybe a lil bit of bias since I also do The Art).

Tumblr’s nudity ban has crippled any piece that is either NSFW or uses nudity as artistic expression and it ultimately drove away both the artists themselves and a lot of their fans, which destroyed any remaining traction for the artists who managed to remain. Tumblr is no longer an artistic freedom-friendly site and it shows, which is a fucking shame bc they genuinely have one of the better tagging systems than other sites and I believe that most feedback on art there has been positive and friendly, which has now gone the way of the dinosaur much like Deviantart.

Twitter has problems with image compression but their biggest issue is toxic abuse, which I find to be the most damaging to artists out of all the other problems i’m listing here. Both the lure of anonymity and the mindset that ‘Speak Loud In Little Words To Make Point Means You Are Important And Right’ has fuelled the absolutely vile comments I have seen directed at artists on the site. Although it’s mainly aimed at fanartists and ship artists, I have noticed unwanted (even rude) criticism on immaculate, well-done art pieces, which is extremely belittling and insulting because the artist (although they may be open to criticism) if they haven’t asked for criticism then that means that they are not in the right mindset to receive any, and therefore it is not your place to throw disparaging comments at them.

But the biggest issue with abuse on Twitter is obviously aimed at fan-artists, especially those those that draw NSFW or “problematic” content. I could go into a whole spiel about how a drawing of a fictional character doesn’t affect reality but in short: If you find disturbing art of a non-existent character (or hey, even non-disturbing art, it’s just something you don’t like) then ignore it. Don’t go and fucking bully the artist you psychopath. If it is truly illegal then report the piece and then see if it gets taken down. Because 90% of the time it won’t be taken down because it doesn’t go against guidelines and you’re just trying to police the site like you’re the thought-police, monitoring other peoples art as if you have the god-given right to. And if you’re a minor stay the fuck out of 18+ accounts. Don’t comment, don’t follow, don’t even look. I am absolutely amazed by the mindset that some children have to waltz into a space not made for them and having the balls to insult the 18+ artist, who have specifically said “no minors”, for posting icky content. It gets even worse when you see how they abuse the Privatter or Curiouscat links the Twitter artists provide, made for anonymous feedback or for being the final barrier for an adult piece that says “hey this stuff is NSFW, don’t click if you are underage, last warning”. I’m gonna go into this more when I cover TikTok in the next few paragraphs. But ultimately, the artists on that site are having to be constantly vigilant against abuse, and it’s not unusual for them having to spend hours going through their 1K+ followers and having to block every underage follower who just didn’t fucking listen to their warnings. Imagine how exhausting and irritating and down-right uncomfortable that must be; having to monitor every fan that sees your work out of fear that they’re a minor seeing adult content or that they could throw abusive comments at you. Horrible.

Instagram is saturated with bots attempting to steal your work or advertise it on their own page and feedback isn’t really a ‘thing’ on there. Also, their algorithm (which may have also been implemented on Twitter, I believe that the Twitter algorithm now avoids promoting popular artist terms, but I can’t be certain bc the Twitter post that pointed this out is long-lost in the depths of my timeline, bc again, no tagging system) is based more around sharing than likes, which can be a huge barrier to artists. Sure, you may like someones art and even leave a nice comment on it, but do you really want to share every piece you come across, especially if it’s not something you would show dear Aunty Susan who follows you? It’s infuriating that a whole site dedicated for images is so difficult to use for artists, and with Instagram implementing features that are similar to Snapchats ‘stories’ it’s clear they’ve moving in a different direction, focusing on momentary attention-grabbing photos. This is simply because Instagram is advertising itself as more of a promotional influencer site nowadays, and anything that could sully their reputation has to be thrown into the algorithm trash. NSFW art or just plain ‘bad’ art? Trash. If you’re not gonna make money for them then why should they bother? You wanna promote your art? Pay for it because the algorithm will absolutely be working against you.

Now, the biggest fucking offender for worst art-sharing site of the year is TikTok (no surprise there), which is absolutely rampant with reposts and uncredited artwork and a gateway for abusive comments against artists. Like the Ouroboros snake, it goes through the same pattern every time; People (usually minors) find art on Twitter or Pinterest and repost it, usually without credit or going against the artist’s wishes about reposting. Then it either goes two-ways: Firstly, if the piece is SFW it will get about five-seconds of interest, a like for the reposter and people will then just move on. TikTok is built entirely around short bursts of satisfaction, feeding a a constant loop of serotonin for a few seconds before you move on. So ultimately, people rarely then hunt down the original artist, especially if their credit isn’t readily available, and usually the original artists doesn’t see any rise in likes, followers or popularity and are usually unaware that their art is even getting any attention on TikTok.

Or, if the art is NSFW, it can go down the second way. It is reposted and, as the majority of TikTok users are under-18, many users find the image uncomfortable, especially if it is a bit more ‘out-there’ or of a ship they don’t like. The reposters sometimes find the image off of Privatter, which is even worse since the piece has been posted to Privatter not just as a final barrier against minors, but also as a form of directing the piece to a specific and niche audience due to it’s... spicer than usual NSFW content. I’m talking really specific pieces with really specific kinks. Now that piece is floating around TikTok, widely seen by the general fans of a fandom, who again, are usually underage. The viewers grow uncomfortable, as the piece is not made for them, especially since sometimes the reposter only posted the piece for shock-value, and would even encourage insulting comments by only posting the credits for the purpose of getting fans to throw abuse at the artist (”The artist is ***** but they ship **** and are icky”) and so the viewers finally decide to make the effort to hunt down the original artist, only to throw insulting and bullying comments at them, made worse by the fact that they are children who don’t have the sense to hold back and have been fuelling their mindset in the echo-chamber that is TikTok.

And as a result of a lot of this hostile feedback for artists, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a space for amateur artists who are just starting out, since the art community is becoming a little bit scary. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that new (or not even new but recently promoted) sites such as Artstation are becoming a better place for professional artists only, but it is very intimidating for learner artists. That’s not necessarily a bad thing - I believe that part of the reason for Deviantarts decline was that the tagging system was horrible, so good art was being drowned out by amateur, fetish content, so more advanced artists were distancing themselves from the site, especially if they were trying to build a portfolio for employment. I also find that fanart usually gets far more likes than more original art pieces, even if the original piece is amazingly good, which isn’t a criticism against fanart but posting your original piece on a site more aimed at professional pieces may help you reach your target audience better and improve likes and interaction. However, that does mean that if you are an amateur, or hell, just an average artists who is still learning, your best bet for exposure is posting your piece across multiple sites and very, very regularly, braving any abusive comments if you try anything slightly “spicy”. Which, obviously, become a very potentially toxic atmosphere and it’s not uncommon for artists to feel burn-out or depressed at their lack of attention or the cyber-bullying they may receive.

I’m not trying to say that posting artwork has always been easy, but there is definitely a more aggressive culture surrounding it and I think artists have to be aware that chances are they will face insulting comments, reposters, frustrating algorithms, cyber-bullying, a lack of interaction and burn-out as they try and appeal to websites that would do the bare minimum for you in terms of promotion.

This isn’t meant to be a post to scare away artists, I just wanted to point out that there is a big fucking problem and it feels as though it’s getting worse. Nowadays, websites have become a bit too comfortable targeting creators rather than fans when it comes to monitoring content and artists have been put under more and more pressure as they face more and more abuse that is rarely addressed, especially by the sites themselves that host the content. Things that are a huge punch in the face for artists, such as NFT’s, are becoming more normalised and it’s honestly just sad.

#art #sorry for the long post but I get passionate about art #and I feel like every day i'm seeing more and more cyber abuse towards artists and it's honestly depressing #artists #twitter #instagram #tumblr #tagging is the best invention and i'm confused why Twitter doesn't even have a better system for it

2 notes · View notes

theexistentiallyqueer · 4 years

Text

It’s been a while, what with me being being more active on Twitter these days, but I had some thoughts churning around in my brain and this felt like a better place to post them rather than threading them over there.

This is a post about Persona 5 and restorative justice. Before I go any further, though, a note: this is meta about restorative justice and prison abolition as ethical philosophies only, how it can be expressed/structured in works of fiction, i.e., Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal, and what the importance of doing so is.

I should also note that I am not a philosopher, a legal scholar, or an activist, I just like to read, and I strongly encourage you to look into the topics I’m discussing in this essay. If you want specific recommendations you can DM me; again, this being meta about a video game, I think linking those titles here would diminish their importance regarding what they’re actually about.

Ready? Okay. Let’s get started.

what is restorative justice?

‘Restorative justice’ is a concept in ethical and legal philosophy that holds itself in contrast to two other kinds of justice: punitive and carceral. Punitive justice is justice as punishment, i.e., an eye for an eye, while carceral justice involves justice as the confinement of criminal offenders. While both have heavy overlaps with one another, they’re distinct in the generality vs the specificity of their outcome: punitive justice can involve the death penalty, property seizure, permanent loss of rights, etc., carceral justice refers strictly just to the incarceration of criminal offenders in institutional facilities (jails, prisons, etc.).

Restorative justice, in contrast, roots itself in the understanding of closing a circle: the best and most holistic way to heal harm one person inflicts on another is to have the person who inflicted the harm make reparations to the person they hurt in a tangible and meaningful way. This can take many forms, and if you’re passingly familiar with restorative justice already, you may have heard about it involving the offender and the victim meeting face-to-face. This does happen sometimes. Personal acknowledgement of the harm you’ve inflicted on someone is important, and direct apologies are important, but these need to also be coupled with actions. The person behind a drunk hit-and-run of a parent could help put their orphaned child through school, or a domestic abuser could be made to take counseling and go on to help deter domestic violence in other households, and so on.

The vast majority of states across the world use punitive/carceral models, though small-scale community trials of restorative justice have been attempted, to varying degrees of success. No one is going to argue that it would be easy to implement, but it is important. Restorative justice is about recognizing that crime, specifically crimes against other people, are fundamentally still about two people: the perpetrator and the victim. And we have to look beyond the words perpetrator and victim to recognize that they are both human beings and challenge ourselves to build a society where our concept of justice means healing hurts instead of retaliation.

It’s not easy, but it is possible. It requires changing your own perceptions of justice and humanity and society and the big wide entire world to have the kind of mindset that allows it to be possible. But it is possible, and I know that from personal experience, because it’s my own mindset and I’ve been through trauma too.

prison abolition and the god of control

Persona 5 has an authority problem. By which I mean, Persona 5 has a problem challenging authority in any way that functionally matters.

The game is drenched in heavy-handed prison imagery, from jail cells to wardens to striped jumpsuits to cuffs and chains to an electric chair. Throughout the long build-up of the main storyline we’re treated to a confectionery delight of punitive justice, stick-it-to-the-man justice: the Thieves find a bad guy who coincidentally has personally hurt or is actively hurting one of their members, and they take it upon themselves to make the bad guy miserable and then send him off to jail. By the end of the arc you’re meant to feel like you accomplished something heroic, that by locking someone up you’re balancing the scales of justice. In the Kamoshida arc Ann even frames this in restorative justice terms, telling him he doesn’t deserve the easy way out of ending his own life and needs to live with his mistakes and repent, but he’s still sent off to jail regardless and Ann and Shiho are left to struggle through the trauma he put them through without anyone to really support them. This repeats itself, over and over: Madarame, Kaneshiro, Okumura, Shido--expose the bad guy, bring him low, publicly shame him, and then send him away (or, in Okumura’s case, watch him die on live TV to riotous cheers from the public).

And what does this all accomplish, in the end? You get to the Depths of Mementos on Christmas Eve to find the souls of humanity locked away in apathy, surrendered willingly to the control of the state, and your targets right there with them, thanking you for helping them return to a place where they don’t have to think of other people as people any more than they did before. In prison, they can forget that they are human beings and that all of the rest of the people in the world are too. The Phantom Thieves march upstairs and defeat the Gnostic manifestation of social control, that being that masquerades itself with lies as the true Biblical god. And then you go back home and the adults tell you that everything is okay now, the system itself isn’t rotten, and you just have to sit back, stop actively participating in the world, and let them take the reins.

It’s one of Persona 5′s most ironic conceits. “Prison abolition....good?” the player asks, and Atlus swats you on the hand and says, “Silly kids, prison abolition completely unnecessary because you can trust the state to not fuck up anyone’s lives anymore ever.” All while using prison imagery to present prisons as institutions inherently divorced from what might constitute actual justice.

Prisons exist because hierarchies exist, and so long as hierarchies exist, inequality will exist and people will commit harm who otherwise likely would not. But you can’t have your cake and eat it too, Atlus. You can’t frame prisons as an inherently unjust institution used to control people because you didn’t do anything to get rid of the hierarchy. You just gave the hydra a few new heads.

restorative justice and rehabilitation

Rehabilitation is Persona 5′s favorite buzz word, and for all that it’s used the game never really clearly defines what it’s supposed to mean. Yaldabaoth uses it as a euphemism to describe the process by which he creates his ideal puppet, but Yaldabaoth bad, and by the end of the game, Yaldabaoth dead. We get barely any time with Igor after that for Igor to define rehabilitation properly on his terms, which is notable in that Igor is the one who’s supposed to be the spiritual mentor of the wild card within the Persona universe.

We can only infer from that that it’s the player who’s meant to define what rehabilitation is by the end of the game, but because the game fails to take any concrete stance on its themes that could in any way undermine the idea that society isn’t functionally broken, it’s hard to figure out what conclusion we’re supposed to draw. As I stated above, the game immediately walks back any insinuations that it’s the institutions themselves that are rotten by having Sae and Sojiro step in and assume responsibility for making the world just by continuing to operate within the rules society itself has created. If you can’t beat them....join them?

If anything the closest we can get to coming up with a definitive understanding of what the game wants us to understand rehabilitation as is when the protagonist is in juvie. During those months we’re treated to an extended cutscene of all of your maxed out confidants taking action to get you out of jail, but because you can trigger this scene even if you haven’t maxed out all of your confidants, and because the outcome (getting out of juvie) is the same even if you haven’t maxed out any besides Sae, then we’re right back where we started.

But that cutscene still has a sliver of meaning to it despite it being largely window-dressing, because the game does push, over and over, the argument that it’s through your bonds with others, through building a community, that you’ll rehabilitate yourself and find true justice.

And that’s what restorative justice is about: community.

the truth: uncovering it vs deciding it

I can’t find enough words to convey how infuriating it is that Atlus comes so close to telling a restorative justice narrative and then completely drops the ball on displaying it at all in Goro’s character arc.

Goro’s concept of justice is fundamentally punitive, the textbook “you hurt me so I’m going to hurt you back.” In doing so he goes on to hurt a whole bunch of other people: orphaning Futaba, orphaning Haru, triggering a mental shutdown in Ohya’s partner Kayo, and also killing countless millions other instances of mental shutdowns, psychotic breakdowns, bribery, and scandal that caused people material harm and, in a handful of cases, killed them.

Yes, Shido gave him the gun, but Goro pulled the trigger. And in a restorative justice framework, you don’t bypass that fact: you actively interrogate it.

There’s been a lot of really great meta about what the circumstances of Goro’s life were like, including the Japanese foster care system, the social stigma of bastardy in Japan and the impact it has on an illegitimate child’s outcomes, and the ways in which Shido groomed and manipulated Goro into being the tool of violence he made him into. These things aren’t excuses for what Goro does, however: they’re explanations for it. They are the complex social issues that create a situation where a child feels his best choice, indeed maybe his only choice, is to take the gun being offered to him and use it on other people. If you want to prevent more kids from slipping through cracks into those kinds of situations, you need to understand the social ills that made those cracks appear in the first place and you need to fix them. Otherwise there will always be another kid, and another recruiter, and another bad choice, and another gun. Systemic problems require systemic solutions.

Even so, none of that bypasses the fact that it was Goro’s hand on that gun, that it was Goro who performed the physical action of killing Wakaba’s and Okumura’s shadows, and that, as a result of Goro’s direct actions, Wakaba and Okumura died. You can say Okumura deserved it all you like, but Haru doesn’t deserve to be an orphan. Haru deserved to repair her relationship with her father. Okumura deserved the chance to learn and make direct, material amends to the employees he hurt and the families of those who died on his watch, and they deserved to have him give them a better way to heal.

But this isn’t about the loss of Okumura making amends to his family or his victims: this is about Goro Akechi, and the fact that even in Royal his fraught relationship with Haru and Futaba is never explored, barely even addressed. There’s not even any personal, direct acknowledgement from him of the pain he put them through.

You can say he doesn’t care, and that’s fine that he doesn’t care. And it is. He’s a fictional character, this is a video game, they are anime characters.

But Persona 5 flirts with the idea of restorative justice and never fully explores it, and it’s a weaker game for that.

the thin place, the veil between worlds, the line in the sand

This is the last part, I promise, and I’ll be short and brief here, because the truth is that none of this matters, at least not in the way that you think. Persona 5 is a story. It’s a lie that we buy. It’s all zeroes and ones and electrical signals and optical images on a blank black screen.

But art can be powerful. Art is like magic, the deepest magic, the oldest kind. We human beings are creatures of art and poetry, of images and patterns, of music and words. Good art, really good art, can allow us to explore new ideas and critique our internal assumptions about how the world works.

No, fiction doesn’t affect reality, not the way that you think it does.

But if you’ve gotten this far, I just got you to read an essay on restorative justice and prison abolition in regards to a Japanese role-playing game, and that is something to think about.

How do you define rehabilitation? What kind of justice do you believe in? Is the way you conceive those things really the best way?

And how much more interesting could a story that challenges those concepts be?

#persona #persona 5 #persona 5 royal #goro akechi #akira kurusu #meta #words

51 notes · View notes

im-pretending-imthere-already · 3 years

Text

Should we re-evaluate the price of honour in the Middle East?

Trigger warning what I am about to discuss mentions themes of violence, suicide and self-harm, sexual, child and domestic abuse and murder. If in need of aid here are some helplines where you can receive it.

Close your eyes with me for a moment, feel the air the surrounds your skin wrapping every crevice and curve of your body, feel the energy that you hold as women, the energy you create, feel the complexion that surrounds this room, now imagine the walls that surround you growing closer and closer, the air becoming dense instilling chills electrifying the atmosphere with tension, the mood shifting with the room closer and closer, the air tighter wrapping its chains around you, the walls pushing onto your organs, your breathing heavier, the walls growing encapsulating you prisoner shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame

With approximately 12 “honour killings'' per year in the UK according to the Honour Based Violence Awareness Network (HBVAN) the issue of preserving honour at any cost is highlighted, with this matter being greatly exemplified in the Middle East with at least 37% of women in Arab countries having experienced some level of domestic violence as seen by a recent report by UN Women. The Middle East has grown to develop an interconnected concept of honour that is ingrained in all levels of society which is supported and enhanced by the implementation of patriarchal norms. The preservation of honour excels beyond marriage and today is projected onto every aspect of a Middle Eastern woman's life with many regions having something as simple as a bike ride bring shame and dishonour onto the women’s family. The consequences of honour can be perceived through the outlook on abuse, the prevalence of “honour” killings and the support of these harmful patriarchal standards by the laws that value power over life.

The prevalence of abuse in the Arab world can be demonstrated in every aspect of a Middle Eastern woman's life, even before marriage is in the picture. Female genital mutilation (FGM) a common practice in Africa, the Middle East and Asia is a blatant portrayal of the recurring violation of women's autonomy. FGM is the partial or complete cutting of the female genitalia which leaves women physically and psychologically scarred for life to enforce conservative values and leave women “pure”. In Kurdistan, women don't even get the privilege of entering libraries, with them being considered a mainly male environment, even though “many young girls are “desperate for books” as explained by a member of the Sofia Society, an organisation working for gender equality in the region. This is due to a fear from families that they will rebel against patriarchal norms, raising the question of how women can truly be free if their basic rights are seen as radical? According to psychologist Dr Sarah Rasmi, domestic abuse takes on one aspect above all others- between partners. Dr Rasmi further explains that many factors can trigger domestic violence, mainly to maintain power within a relationship which is enhanced by patriarchal societies which support these attitudes. Women who go against these norms and stand up against this imbalance of power are often discarded and invalidated, left to fend for themselves with nothing as a result of the society that leads to their downfall and many end up dead, all in the name of maintaining so-called “honour”. The existence of toxic masculinity and patriarchal norms affects Middle Eastern women on every level, with honour being held in her control, the existence of this cultural code in the 21st century is frankly disgusting, there is no honour in being an abuser.

Honour killing; killing in the name of preserving honour. In September 2019 the Arab world was shaken with the news of the violent murder of 19-year-old Israa Ghayreb, who was beaten to death as her screams echoed through the dull hospital walls, a reminder of how deeply rooted and normalised women's murders is in the name of maintaining honour all for posing a Snapchat with her soon to be finance and “disrespecting the honour” of her family. While honour killings are thought to take place in only closed conservative societies, far far away from our comfort zones, the case of Banaz Mahmoud a 20-year-old Kurd eerily reflects the cases that plague the Middle East, raped and strangled to death by two of her cousins and another man on the agreement of her father and uncle. Her crime, leaving an abusive marriage and entering another relationship. Her body was found buried in a suitcase in the home garden, and her new grave was left without a headstone reflecting the unmarked cemeteries of Kurdistan full of betrayed women, just. Like. Banaz. A 2019 survey undertaken by the Arab Barometer research network portrayed the acceptance of honour killings in the Middle East with 27 per cent of Algerians, 25 per cent of Moroccans, 14 per cent of Sudanese, 21 per cent of Jordanians, and 8 per cent of Lebanese finding honour killings justifiable, a further portrayal of the invalidation of victim's experiences.

Laws within the Middle East are riddled with patriarchy that limits women from being able to reach their full potential or get justice when violated. For example, Article 153 from Kuwait’s penal code allows men to get away with the murder of a sister, wife or even mother if caught in a sexual act (Zina) outside of marriage with a maximum jail sentence of 3 years or a fine of simple 225 dinars (US $735), Jordans article 308 which allowed rapists to be protected by marrying their victims and Lebanon's article 252 which allows for the mitigation of sentences from crimes against women. The Islamic Republic of Iran is possibly the best illustration of how rampant and destructive the protection of perpetrators by law is in the Middle East. Women in Iran suffer against a system built on discrimination and inequality portrayed in the country's constitution and penal code. For example, women get 50% less of what their male counterparts inherit, are legally required to satisfy all their husband's sexual needs, and lose all child custody in domestic cases immediately as it is given to the man. Women are often left without justice for example in the case of 14-year-old Romina Ashrafi who was groomed by a 29 year-old-man then got beheaded by her father for it and the execution of Reyhaneh Jabbari for defending herself from a sexual assault which resulted in the death of her attacker, defending her dignity with her life. How do we expect women to progress and call out perpetrators if both taking action or not eventually leads to the same destination?

The plague of toxic masculinity and the heightened importance put on the maintenance of honour through the control and oppression of women which eventually leads to the abuse and deaths of all these victims is the unmistakable and blatantly obvious reason why the value of honour should be redefined. Silencing women, controlling women, killing women are not honourable acts, it is about time we shift our attitudes and speak up for all the victims that are gone and the ones to come.

- hi this was my English oral assignment :)

- btw I am from the middle east

- all feedback and criticism is appreciated

#feminist #womens rights #middle east #honour culture #honour killing #middleeastern #middle eastern women

6 notes · View notes

papers4me · 4 years

Text

Fruits Basket SE02 (ep,2)

starting with teens in domestic lifestyle, then revealing horrible secrets, ending with a wise advice. GENIUS!.

-The development of verbal & physical body language between kyo & tohru:

Verbally: Tohru easily expressed happiness in spending time together. teases kyo abt the stain, asks freely abt his hate for water, his future plans. Kyo, in season 1 couldn’t believe tohru likes the cat, now he readily accepting her words. he used to avoid questions abt himself, now answers her comfortably without holding back, teases her softly abt her awful swimming technique.

Physically: Tohru doesn’t frets or gets frustrated, she cooks with him, runs around him in the way to Kazuma, touches his beads & doesn’t mind him touching her hands, she sits close to him comfortably while they talk abt swimming. Kyo, playfully giving her a teasing hit, comfortably tapping her head, holding her ribbons, fascinated with her hair, leaning forward watching while teasing her, he no longer gets frustrated in dealing with her. He completely trusts her with touching his beads, he didn’t even trust kazuma with that.

-The monster’s right to live?

The cage in ep,24 wasn’t exclusive for kazuma’s grandfather, it’s the fate of all cat zodiacs. What a tragic fate, Kyo living his childhood knowing he’ll be locked away, how crippling is that? No wonder he felt unfit for socializing in SE01,Ep2, monsters should be locked. for what crime? being born? Looking back to season 1, now I understand some of kyo’s actions. him getting angry is the culminated frustration of his fate, basically kyo is denied life. (a) dehumanized & called a monster, literally and figuratively, What does monsters do? cause harm, death! exhibit A: his mom’s death. A loving mother chooses death than to be with a monster. further proving that he deserves this fate, (b) sentenced to be imprisoned, with no hope, evidence: the many cat zodiac before him, no one escaped, & he won’t either. Potential (c), kyoko. So, that’s the message he’s given. NO HOPE. But kyo is a fighter, he wants to live, he’s trying, fighting against his own demons, the monster within, the monsters outside & fate. He stumbles here & there, fails & tries again, goes through toxic thoughts & actions, adopts toxic coping mechanism, & is still lost in depression, but he is trying & improving & accepting help, finally kyo accepts Kazuma & tohru’s help & thinks abt the possibility of a future, can I have a future? Am i allowed to?

-The Real Monster: Kyo’s dad doesn’t have an ugly form or rotten smell, decent looking, born a human, but he’s a monster within. The show awesomely presented kyo’s dad as sickly person, consumed by hate, unable to move on, cant enjoy the music he stacks, a broken record spewing hate repeatedly, shaking his legs with anxiety, such a sad hateful person contrasted with the calm collected peaceful kazuma. Kyo’s dad is a supporter of the toxic system within the sohmas. kyo’s dad didn’t invent the system, he’s honestly crushed by it! mocked & ashamed to be the cat’s father, the real reason the baby is conceived. In order to cleanse himself from the shame & the mockery of this toxic system, he supports it whole hardheartedly & wants it to be implemented to prove he’s not to be blamed. Ingenious writing choice.

-The writer’s ability to skillfully portray what other writers avoid:

This ep is a proof of the writer’s skill, The ability to portray normal domestic lifestyle without making it feel boring or redundant. One of the rare cases in literature tbh. Normally writers avoid such things & use dramatic instances to strengthen relationships. But kyo & tohru’s normal calm day in kazuma’s house is a huge foundation in their relationship. between them, tohru’s excessive politeness is gone & kyo’s reluctant awkwardness vanishes. Beautiful scenes weaved skillfully & linked with the scene at shigure’s house. Kyo doesn’t only see beyond tohru masks, he also could predict her emotions before she allows herself to. It also ties with other scenes in season 1. When it is tohru’s/kyo centered ep, the writer skillfully distance other characters & create opportunities for kyo & tohru to be alone (soup scene, true form), now (Kazuma’s visit, somen cooking).The tone: I have worries & you,too.You are not my guide, you are my equal. Simple & genius.

Side notes:

Kyo’s soup scene mirrors somen scene with tons of development. (Soup: kyo cooks, Somen: both cook), (Soup: kyo supports tohru, Somen: they Both support each other), (Soup: kyo reluctantly peeks at tohru withholding his emotions. Somen: Kyo willingly leans forwards & stares fondly at tohru), (Soup: tohru cries before she shares her worries, Somen: tohru cries as kyo saw her worries before she shares them), (Soup: kyo’s closing teasing line is said awkwardly, Somen: the teasing line is said fondly, with ease & a hint of flirting).

Tohru bowing for yuki as he goes to his room is interesting. Although they are becoming closer, she still treats him with a higher level of politeness, as he still calls her Miss Honda/honda-san.

I love seeing teenage girl tohru! in the true form ep, kyo was intentionally drawn to look younger around kazuma, here tohru acted her age with teasing, cutely explaining her swimming, running & falling, sitting cutely, playing with her hairstyle, crying into a kitchen napkin, nose dripping, the questionable “that made a nice sound”lol! There is no “ my mom advised this” no “ wise tohru”. just teenage girl tohru! playing, worrying, eating! Love it!!

Shigure can be the master of wise advise. He wisely advised kyo in SE01, EP, 2 & now tohru in SE02, EP,2.

That Kazuma’s flashback of crying depressed kyo is haunting.

Kazuma is a KING.

#Fruits Basket #Anime Only #satisfied paper #kyo sohma #Tohru Honda #SE02

28 notes · View notes

writersrealmbts · 4 years

Text

Con Amore: Part 16/Finale

Bulletproof Melody Sequel

Description: Con Amore– A directive to a musician to perform a selected passage of a composition tenderly, with affectionate emotion, or in a loving manner; an instruction to the player of an instrument meaning ‘with love’ or ‘lovingly’. Three years with all seven of your loves, three years of relative peace. But now everything is threatened as darkness surges from the horizon.

Originally Posted: 06/02/2020

Tags: Superheroes, Ot7

4,026 words

A/N: And here it is, the end of this series.

“Did you really think you stand against me?! Fight the Conservatory?” The dean sneered down at the boys, who were restrained by some students. “You and this half-baked plan?”

The Temple fighters were also restrained.

You hummed softly to stay under the radar, slipping through the crowd unnoticed.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t see this coming? It was so obvious a child could see it. And look at what it has gotten you. You never stood a chance, and now you’ll pay in blood. I should start with the weakest link, shouldn’t I?” Her eyes became reptilian, and it was obvious she was trying to shift.

But you didn’t let her.

She hissed. “What did you do?”

You smirked as the boys just looked at her blankly, not understanding.

“Kill them!” She ordered with a snarl.

None of the students moved.

“What are you doing! Kill them!”

“As if I would allow that to happen,” You finally said from right behind her, finding extreme satisfaction in the way she jumped.

And even more satisfaction from the tinge of fear in her eyes.

You smirked slightly. “Hello again. Did you miss me? I didn’t miss you. Them, yes. Very much.”

“But…you left to have a baby?”

“Me? With a baby? Sounds questionable to me,” You replied with a smirk and a shrug. You casually walked down to the boys, tugging the soldier-students away from your loves. “At ease.”

The puppets relaxed, moving to stand at-ease.

The boys got up, blinking at you in surprise with smiles slowly spreading across their faces.

“Miss me boys?” You asked, then spun on your heel to face Ryoko with a smile. “Now, I suggest you surrender.”

“What did you do to me?”

“Oh, right. That. So, you figured out that I’m a former student, but what you failed to put together was that I’m a former student who has her powers, and remembers my time at the school. I think that should scare you just a bit. Because, also, I tend to find trouble. Ask them, where there’s any sort of trouble, there’s me in the thick of it.” You walked past her casually, taking the weapon her second-in-command was holding. “Thank you, you were making me nervous.”

He just watched you in utter confusion.

“You see, they may have been obvious in their intentions to fight you, but I’ve been preparing this for much longer. The timing was finally right to execute the plan. Granted, it wasn’t in my plan for these guys to come up with such a half-baked plan but they were trying to fight on two fronts,” You explained a little, back among the student-soldiers, who parted for you. “Nadya! That armor really brings out your eyes, you should have one of your robes in that color.”

“This isn’t some sort of reunion—” Ryoko snapped.

You turned back to her. “Oh, I know. I’m about to crush you, like a grape in a winepress. This isn’t a reunion, it’s the last battle to end the war. The last hurrah before you’re forced to surrender. Because you will surrender.”

“What did you do to me?!” She said, more desperate.

“I made you into my puppet,” You answered simply. “Just as you’ve continued the legacy of using the students as puppets. Mindless drones, to live or die as you see fit. You were the perfect candidate. My perfect pawn to rise to the top, so that I can tear the whole tower down from its foundation.”

“I am nobodies puppet!”

“Sure, sure, if we’re talking about nobody in the Odysseus sense.” You looked her up and down, then shrugged. “But you’re not that scary of a cyclops, and I’m not stealing a golden fleece. So, perhaps a better analogy or simile or whatever would be the Trojan horse. You’re the horse.”

“How?”

You evaluated her. “Well, first of all, you should never have tried to tell people that Hummingbird and I are the same people. That was very naughty, sly.”

She looked away.

“How they mixed all three of us together—myself, Athena, and Hummingbird—that was truly inspired. I mean, they almost convinced me, but Athena was pretty indignant. Doesn’t like it when people waste her time.”

“And Hummingbird?”

“Well, we’ve worked together now and then. If you remember, I used to be pretty reclusive. I was kind of acting as a point-person for her. Middle man. She gave me that amulet, the one I gave you, remember?”

She ripped off the amulet like it was poisonous, tossing it away from herself.

You scooped it up, pocketing it. “Thanks. Though, that’s not how I’m controlling you. Do you fear them?”

“Them?”

“The students,” You clarified. “If they were no longer your puppets, would you fear them?”

Her face made it clear that she did, though she was in the middle of saying she wasn’t.

“I said that I knew the right songs to tear this place down,” You murmured. “Have you ever seen Pinocchio?”

Laguz grinned.

“You know, the song he sings. They used it for that super-hero movie, ‘I’ve got no strings, to hold me down,’” You started, then laughed a little. “But you know, that’s not the best part of the song.”

“What is?” Nadya asked helpfully.

“‘I've got no strings, so I have fun, I'm not tied up to anyone, they've got strings, but you can see, there are no strings on me,” You turned toward the students, putting everything into it, using the melody to break the hypnosis, knowing you’d have to improvise that last few lines, “‘You have no strings’, your minds are free, there are no strings on thee.”

It was probably the most dangerous plan you’d ever implemented.

But you were still humming a peace-keeping melody under your breath to keep them from causing a mob.

Her second in command blinked, then looked around, before his eyes widened and he stared up at her in horror.

You hummed another song, gesturing for Nadya’s knights to restrain Ryoko as you approached Nadya, handing over a charm. “That should keep her detained for you.”

“Objections to the Temple taking the building?” Nadya asked, looking to the boys as well.

Tiwaz shook his head. “As long as we can continue monitoring the situation.”

She nodded. “Of course. How long will the calming melody work?”

“Two hours? Give or take twenty minutes depending on their response to leaving the long-term hypnosis.” You turned to watch them carry the former dean away. “I’d keep her location secret from them, though. And your healers will be extra busy.”

“I think we can handle it. You should get those guys out of here, they’ve been working non-stop for the past three days.”

Your gaze snapped to her. “They what?”

She shrugged.

“No wonder that plan was so half-baked, idiots.” You huffed. “Thanks for looking after them.”

“Thank you for looking after my acolytes. Are they still my acolytes?”

You shook your head. “Not as such. They want to still work with you, but also independently. I figured I would talk them into helping my boys out a bit, get their feet wet and then both of us could look out for them and make sure that they didn’t get themselves killed.”

She nodded. “Sounds like a solid plan. How have you been?”

“Cabin fever. It’s a shame that I didn’t get to participate in fighting. Well, other than the two guards I encountered on the fifteenth floor in the western wing. They might need some healing.”

Nadya looked to the girl beside. “Dispatch a unit to the fifteenth floor of the western wing. You better get them out of here before they start volunteering to help.”

You nodded, shaking her hand and then turning toward your boys.

They were waiting for you.

You smiled and walked up, picking up the pace for the last few steps to Jungkook to add some force to your punch to his gut.

He grunted, and you could hear his breath come out from the force.

You turned to deliver a blow to each of the other boys, most of them now wary and only receiving punches to their arms—except for Namjoon who received a nice hard slap to the face.

“Why?!” Jimin asked, rubbing his arm.

“You mean besides that half-baked mess of a plan that almost got you killed?! Because I just heard that you guys haven’t stopped working for the past three days, you idiots! How many times am I going to have to beat it into you that rest is important?!” You shoved the nearest one toward the door you summoned. “It’s like you want to get killed. We sleep before battle, we eat real meals, we take care of ourselves so that we can do our jobs better and not end up on our knees with guns pointed at us and hoping that—” You slammed the door behind your sheepish boys, “—our girlfriend is going to show up in time to save our hides, again! I mean, if I was five minutes later you all would be dead.”

“We had a contingency plan,” Namjoon said, taking your hand.

You huffed, not pulling your hand away, but still moving briskly to the next door and opening it. “Contingency plans. Those are always so reliable.”

They passed through, but then effectively stopped you—Taehyung hugging you tightly from behind, Jimin getting his arms around you next, and soon you were at the center of a group hug with your sweaty lovers.

“We’ve missed you so much,” Yoongi said, and you could hear the effort he had to take to not swear when he said it. He only was touching you by the hand, but he gripped that hand like it was the only thing keeping him alive.

Jungkook had managed to get closer to you than Yoongi, and he was pressing soft kisses to your temple.

You could feel Hoseok’s vines wrapping around your ankles affectionately.

“The baby?” Seokjin asked, his voice just above a whisper.

“Perfectly fine and healthy.” You rested against whichever one was holding you up more. “I missed you all more than you can imagine.”

Namjoon’s hand stroked your hair. “It must have been so hard, baby.”

You nodded, leaning into his touch. “But it’s over now. So, come on. I want to get out of the cold and it’s time for you to meet our little one.”

They broke away with nods and murmurs of excitement, though there was also a tinge of sadness at having missed so much already.

You gave each of them a kiss, because you didn’t get to earlier, then led the way to the house while still holding hands with Hoseok and Yoongi.

The safe house was definitely a little worse for wear after a few attacks by the oasis group a few months ago, but there wasn’t much work that could be done to the exterior in the winter, and none of it caused any issues with heating or leaks, so you weren’t too worried about it.

You hummed a little, which would warn the boys that you were returning. You could sense that they were at peace at that moment, and you could sense that the baby was asleep.

Sensing you, Soobin hummed as well, to establish a line of communication, asking if you wanted them out of the house for a while.

You glanced at your loves, then asked if he and the other boys in the house would mind.

You could sense amusement from them, and you saw the snow rise and shift to clear the path you were on—a clear sign from Yeonjun.

“Whoa,” Taehyung breathed, checking the snow out as you all came up to the front door of the house.

You entered the house, helping them strip off their gear after simply shucking off your coat and shoes, leading them into the living room and sitting them down before going into the nursery.

Hoseok saw you first, standing and staring at the bundle in your arms.

The others fell silent, watching you as you brought the baby in.

You nodded for him to sit again, waiting for him to be ready for you to pass the baby off to him before doing so. “Hobi, this is our daughter, Mishil.”

Hoseok held her carefully, looking down at her with trepidation and love.

“It’s a girl?” Jimin breathed.

“We have a daughter?” Namjoon said, sounding pretty emotional.

“She’s so tiny,” Jungkook said, sounding like he was tearing up.

You carefully placed Hoseok’s hands so that he was holding her a little better, more easily. “She was born a little early, but she’s strong and healthy.”

Yoongi had slid closer, and hesitantly touched Mishil’s head, then a little more certainly, stroking her hair. “Her hair is so soft.”

“Look at her little hands!” Taehyung gushed from Hobi’s other side.

“She’s perfect,” Hoseok said lowly, voice thick. “She’s absolutely perfect. Just like her mom.”

Warmth flooded your heart.

“More than perfect, better than perfect,” Taehyung expanded. “What’s better than perfect? What’s a word for that?”

“There is no word for that,” Namjoon answered, hovering but not getting closer.

Jimin and Jungkook quickly pressed in though, effectively forcing you back as they all gushed over the baby.

Jin’s arms wrapped around your waist, and he pressed kisses along the curve of your neck and shoulder. “You did so well, y/n. I know how hard it was while you were with us, I can’t imagine what you’ve been through without us.”

You melted into his embrace. Finally, you could relax and let them take care of you and your precious daughter.

One by one, all of the boys held their daughter.

Jungkook was in tears.

Namjoon looked petrified, holding her so delicately and checking every two seconds that he was doing it correctly and that he wasn’t going break her.

Jimin had turned into a dog in his excitement after having held her, and was now resting his furry muzzle on Seokjin’s leg as the oldest held Mishil.

“Where are the younger boys?” Taehyung asked after you were holding her again, having fed her and changed her diaper.

“They’re outside, I just told Soobin to head back. Now, ground rules, no sexual stuff in front of the boys. They know my true identity. I’m helping them train as a team, so be nice. Also, possibly not all of you fighting for me? We’ll have plenty of time once we’re back to our normal life for that. I’m going to set them up here, just while they’re training.”

Namjoon nodded. “We could help train them. That way they could help us out, maybe take a shift so we can have a night off so that we can have nights together.”

“So we can raise her,” Seokjin whispered. “Better than my parents. Better than Jimin’s parents. She’s going to be so very loved.”

Jimin leaned against Seokjin, letting the oldest pet him. He was still in dog form, gaze following Mishil.

“Y/n-noona?” Yeonjun called tentatively.

“Living room,” You called softly.

The five boys came in after stripping off their winter gear, noses and cheeks red from the cold, but they looked like they had been playing in the snow—eyes bright and sparkly, still the breathy laughter present in most of them.

“Thank you for taking care of her,” You said, smiling at them.

They were grinning proudly.

“She’s the best baby,” Beomgyu said decidedly. “And you weren’t gone that long. I wouldn’t let them mess up in that short time period.”

“We’re not that bad,” Yeonjun pouted.

“I did the best thing and let Soobin-hyung, Beomgyu-hyung, and Yeonjun-hyung take care of her,” Hueningkai said, obviously joking just a little.

Taehyun shook his head. “He got the bottles ready. I stayed away. Especially after last time,” He said, looking slightly traumatized.

“Yeah, probably a good idea,” You agreed, getting them all mugs of hot chocolate. “Took me and Soobin to block that from your mind.”

Soobin was quietly looking at all of your loves until he spotted Mishil in Jin’s arms, then he nodded slightly. “So…the school?”

“Control of the building has been handed over to the temple. They’re going to rehabilitate the students and alter the school into something better.”

Yeonjun nodded. “But…we’re still going to watch it? Just in case the temple…?”

You nodded. “Safeguard, mostly. But we will also ensure that it does not fall into a path of evil again.”

“We’re all safe?” Taehyun asked.

“We’re all safe,” Namjoon confirmed this time, voice strong and confident again. “And we can’t thank you boys enough for protecting these two.”

“You did well,” Yoongi added, a little more quietly, but still in a praising tone. “Y/n told us that you’re forming your own team?”

Soobin nodded. “We work well together.”

“Cute!” Taehyung gushed in whisper. “Can we keep them?”

“They’re not pets,” You told him. “And I already told you we’re keeping them. We’re going to continue training, they’re going to continue living here until they feel ready to venture out and then you boys ,when you agree, are going to help them get their feet a little more wet.”

“Oh? We are, are we?” Namjoon countered, a laugh in his voice.

You nodded. “Yup. Because otherwise I’ll rain hell down upon all of you.”

“How would you do that?” He asked, folding his arms.

“Please don’t wake the baby,” Soobin begged, already covering his ears.

Namjoon’s face went slack and he backed up a few steps. “Right, okay, sounds good. Great even. I was just teasing. We already agreed to helping you and them, and all of that. Please don’t wake her, I am not ready for that.”

You sputtered into giggles. “I wasn’t going to wake the baby. I like my sleep.”

Everyone relaxed, quite noticeably.

You rolled your eyes, then froze as she started fussing. “Then again, she might wake herself up.”

“What do I do?” Jin asked, looking to you desperately. “Jungkook wasn’t this small when we started taking care of him!”

You snorted as Jungkook hissed protests, slipping over between Hoseok and Jin to carefully take her. “You boys have a lot to learn. Did you not read any of the books I left?”

“Four times,” Yoongi said, but still looked apprehensive. “But I think I only registered all of the information once.”

You sighed and shook your head as she started fussing more. “Well, I hope you’re ready for the crash-course of parenting.”

Beomgyu looked worried. “I’ll be on standby, just in case.”

“Appreciated,” You said, looking over all of your boys before getting up with her. “Come on. Lesson one, preparing a bottle.”

——

“Alright, now open your eyes!” Taehyung said excitedly.

You did, smiling immediately. It was perfect. Magical, even. It reminded you of their first base, with elements of all of them in it, but tempered with you and much softer. More feminine.

A perfect nursery for their princess.

“It’s perfect,” You told them, bringing her over to the bassinet and laying her down in it. “You did a great job.”

Jimin giggled and wrapped around you.

The others sort of crowded in to look at her.

“She’s gonna hate us,” Yoongi said softly, so affectionately.

“Why would she hate us?” Hoseok asked, sounding worried.

“Because we’re never going to let any guy within a hundred yards of her,” Namjoon answered.

“So, we really can’t teach her songs like we would other kids?” Jungkook asked.

“Not unless you want to potentially kill us or her on accident. Trust me, my parents didn’t even realize some of the songs that would be bad.” You leaned back against Jimin.

“So what can we sing?” Jin asked.

“ABC’s.”

Taehyung huffed. “What about—”

“Sshhh. She’s sleeping,” You whispered. “Let’s worry about that when she’s old enough to actually sing. Right now, she’s our perfect little baby. Enjoy it.”

They were quiet for a while.

“Can I teach her how to knock a guy out?” Jungkook asked.

“No!” Hoseok protested at the same time you replied, “Of course.”

Hoseok looked at you in horror.

You shrugged. “She’ll need to protect herself, Hobi. She’s an archivist. We’re a dying breed, you know.”

Jin wrapped his arms around Hoseok. “She’s right. Eventually we’re going to be busy and someone will come for her and we’re going to make her the gentlest and yet fiercest fighter this world has ever seen. Like you, Hobi.”

“I thought you were describing y/n,” Yoongi said, frowning. “She’s going to be just like y/n, but maybe with less running headfirst into danger.”

“Um, you realize that it’s sort of in the job description of Archivist to run head-first into danger?”

“Shush, let us dream,” Jungkook scolded softly. “About no danger, and blissful happiness.”

You were quiet for a while, listening to the birds outside. “There is another option.”

They glanced at you, and then led the way out of the nursery, carefully closing the door to let your daughter sleep in peace while you all retired to the living room. The guys had carefully searched and found this house for the nine of you, it was fairly dilapidated when they bought it, but they had been working so hard to fix it up well for you and Mishil. The younger guys had been working hard to help as well, especially when it came to missions and such. It wasn’t completely renovated yet, but it was fixed enough that you could live there safely with Mishil.

“What other option is there?” Jin asked carefully after stopping Namjoon from asking.

“We could never teach her about artifacts and the archives,” You said, looking at your hands. “It’s not…it’s not an easy road to walk. There are secrets, lies, danger, and so much…isolation. It could end with me.”

They were silent.

“No,” Jimin said firmly. “Never. Not that.”

“But—”

“No, y/n. Look, I know…I was really harsh on you back when we are at the school. I shouldn’t have supposed that you could tell us everything. Some things are better left unsaid. But there were so many times when we realized things would have been so much worse if you hadn’t been out here gathering artifacts. If you hadn’t taught Taehyung what you did, we would have all died before we even got to fighting the school. We were following a lead, and it led us to a museum basement. There was an artifact that…it brought out the worst in us. Taehyungie had some of your silk with him, and he managed to get the artifact away from us and teleport it somewhere safe.”

You looked at Taehyung, worried. “Where?”

“Oh, it’s sort of in Antarctica….” He looked like he had completely forgotten about it.

You nodded. “We’ll go get it later.”

“Anyway, if you hadn’t been doing your job and having Taehyung help you with it, we could have died. Your job is so important, even more so now that we have a daughter,” Jimin continued, voice soft. He met your gaze. “We can’t let your job end. We just have to find new ways of making your job, her future job, easier.”

“We don’t want you to change,” Hoseok told you, kissing your forehead. “Even if you make us worry.”

“Oh, and you guys don’t make me worry?”

“Oh, we definitely do,” Jin answered, smiling. “But you’ve never asked us to change—”

“Actually, she has, usually because we’re overlooking details and she wants us to slow down to take care of ourselves,” Namjoon said.

“Asking us to change and asking us to use common sense are not the same thing,” Yoongi contradicted, laughing.

You shook your head as they all started debating whether asking them to use common sense was asking them to change or not, some for and some against.

Your crazy, chaotic boys.

And you loved them so completely.

They were the melody in your heart.

Previous.

Masterlist. ~ Series Masterpost.

Tagging: @ephemeral-mindset, @alex–awesome–22, @bryvada, @missmoxxiesworld, @knjhe, @i-dont-even-know-fck

35 notes · View notes

massistocchifontana · 4 years

Text

The hunting of men… The dissolution of our past through the recognition of our mistakes

I am a man. I am a man who strives to be better every single day but am haunted by my own personal reflection that I have done wrong in the past. Like every man going through their various stages of growth there are moments when we are completely oblivious to why we act in the manner we do and we can analyse these experiences to the point where there is a psychological explanation for every single facet of our behaviour. I do not believe that this is the problem because like every man or woman there are stages of development and growth that we go through and this is essentially a process to become more conscious and aware and steering towards becoming more self-actualised individuals.

In other words, we do not come out the womb with this experiential knowledge of how we should be. This is down to life and the experiences that we encounter along the way. There is no one blueprint to how men should be and this phase we are in currently is highlighting an interesting shift that more and more men are becoming aware of themselves and the mistakes they have made.

Let me rephrase that: Men are becoming more aware of the bad choices they have made!

The problem with experience is that there is no master reset like a video game. We only have one shot at the experience itself and once we make a particular choice, we have to follow through with the chain reaction that follows. No matter how quickly or delayed we may be in recognising these bad choices, once made they will be imprinted in our minds forever.

Men have a different relationship with shame and what I mean by this is that we all have encountered shame throughout our lives but the manner in which we bottle it up and hide it away is very unique to us. We almost dissociate from the actual feeling itself and we will continue to find other avenues of achievement to mask the real knowledge that we carry this shame within us. It is only through very deep self-reflection that we realise how we have attached this shame to something enjoyable like sex or masturbation or work and other achievements. We have an uncanny ability to mask this shame.

Regardless of how many years of therapy I have done for myself and the continual personal development that I embark on daily, there will always be a conscious connection with the shame I feel towards the bad decisions I’ve made in the past. This is not to say that I am a monster or a villain like most men, but the manner in which I have carried myself in the past in relation to anyone or anything still holds an imprint deep in my soul when I compare who I was to who I am today. I believe this is a common feeling for many men, where you will find a common statement heard “can we move past this please”.

This is because there is shame there, and we feel it. But unfortunately we do not have a machine that can quantify how much shame we are feeling to visually illustrate to the person in front of us that we are feeling remorse and are deeply pained by the way we have been.

Most if not all of us going through this process of development can recognise that with hindsight we have probably behaved badly according to the current blueprint of how men should be and we are quickly labelled with the toxic masculinity title, or the narcissistic brand. I too am culpable of using these titles for men but I do so with knowledge of their history and most importantly the desire within them to change. Not using them in a manner to squash the individuals who are doing the work.

I truly sit here struggling to write this piece because it feels that there is a 50/50 split at the moment between men. This split is being maintained by very regressed men who do not want to change because their ecosystem they find themselves in wont challenge them enough to make the necessary changes, so why should they.

There is no immediate gratification in making these changes as a man, especially if it means that we have to change to suite others around us. There is not allure to being more evolved and being more conscious because it is too healthy and not charged enough. There is no draw to making love over fucking like animals where we can appease our ego drive in its fullest. Immersion into our conscious self takes time and patience and perseverance but is not easy.

So the question is why should we change as men?

The simple answer is one of respect. The man who does not try to become more within himself so outwardly he can serve more is a man who has no respect for himself and the world he lives in. There is no denying that men want sex all the time but this doesn’t mean that the manner in which we go about getting it isn’t sullied. We need to become more reflective of the kind of man we want to be and make the changes necessary to achieve that self-image. Because we have a choice in most things, the moment we become more conscious in our ability to make changes, this is where our responsibility towards our self and others becomes paramount and we have to honour ourselves in the quest to achieve this.

We are given a loose blueprint of how to be as men. This blueprint is constantly changing but can be seen to slowly shift towards a better model, but unfortunately still maintains very bad traits. The blueprint that has been bestowed on us may not be a conscious one in its acceptance and its seldom a case where someone has sat us down and explained this is what is expected from us being men. Instead most of our learning is achieved through the collective of men we engage with. It is only within recent years that we can say that men’s groups are becoming more popular and we now have a platform to face up to the varied styles of masculinity and most importantly the shame we harbour.

The importance to change, is not about change but growth. This may be a clever term for the same thing, but I truly view this process as one of growth. Growing inwards towards a more connected and authentic self, grounded in the knowledge that everything we do as men can be founded on a principle of love and kindness. The knowledge that we can still be “manly” and love motorcycles and extreme sports and bars and pubs and all the things that stereotypically have been labelled as things men like to do. BUT, it too means that we have a choice in how we relate and show love in our fullness because in essence we as men want to show this love but struggle with “getting it right”.

The realm of relating and being exposed in our vulnerability is not an easy task for anyone especially men. Unless you’ve been fortunate enough to have these feelings normalised we run risk of not knowing how to navigate the space and in general the masculine mindset is about “getting things right”. This is usually why one of the most common problems in relationships is the man trying to fix the woman’s problem rather than knowing that holding the emotional space will be more effective over the long run in comparison to finding a solution.

We run an additional risk here and that is not knowing against who we should model ourselves on because there is such a variety of masculinity available. We have the tendency to model ourselves against men who are high achievers and unfortunately these are the men that will more often than not have a voice and be bold and stereotypically “alpha”.

We confuse achievement and success with acquisition and forcefulness. We confuse dismissal of the other with knowing how to navigate a debate linguistically and be present in doing so. We confuse our partners emotional turmoil as a task to fix and avoid learning to sit with discomfort. We confuse what society says about emotional expression as a means to express our anger towards someone rather than processing it in a manner that is constructive for you and the relationship you are in. We confuse superficial infatuation with deep love because we are mostly not able to navigate the full range of emotions. Ultimately this list of critique can go on and on, and we can point out all the flaws that men have.

The one thing we must not do is shut down a man who is really trying to change and be better. Because the harsh reality for many men out there is that we are afraid or have been afraid that our shame is provoked through an altercation or interacting with someone and instead of the actual work we’ve done being the primary focus we are hunted for being men on the backs of other unevolved men and on the backs of our forefathers and the mistakes they have made.

Like most atrocities in history, there is a collective reparation that needs to be spoken about and implemented. This doesn’t mean that there should be more segregation between men and women but really a coming together where we can celebrate ones self-actualisation and recognition that we are changing. This is not an easy process for people going through it and especially for the people who have experienced an unevolved man.

My hope is that the more and more men coming together to explore and understand the range of masculinities that are out there are also understanding that there are other more effective ways of being. More effective and fulfilling processes to challenge our ego and shadow and ultimately get to grips with who we are as men.

It is essentially brave for men to embark on this, but it is also incredibly courageous for women to accept and trust this process so that we can evolve forward.

Via Con Dios

#men #masculinity #masculine development

2 notes · View notes

fiction-in-my-blood · 3 years

Text

Switching Sides: Part 14 (HLITF)

if anyone possibly wants to get on a tag list I’d be happy to make one

👉@theshove 👈

👉@kamyru👈

If you wanna catch up, Part 12 is right here! Happy reading :)

And I just want to thank everyone that’s been consistently reading this fic, I know it’s a slow burn but I think it’ll be worth it :D

Premise: Growing up in a life of crime in a Japanese mafia, Atsuko Motomori has seen enough injustice to last her a lifetime. To try and give back to the universe her family has taken so much from, she dreams of being a detective from a young age. Her twin, sharing her disgust for her father and many uncles, just wants an ordinary life away from the crime, paing and suffering. Instead, she wants to be in the spotlight with the soft notes she makes with her cello. In their escape of 2015, on their coming of age birthday, they must split ways, never to be together ever again. If one was found, they didn’t want the other dragged down with them. Atsuko, having changed her name and appearance as best she can without a scalpel, sets off to start her life of car chases and arrests.

Four years in a seemingly dead-end police station in the middle of nowhere, being passed over time after time for promotion, Atsuko finally gets a shot at her dream, having been sent to an academy for the best candidates in the country by her boss who had always kept an eye out for her. After discovering her boss may have made her bite off more than she could chew, Atsuko must become the slave of a dominating instructor!? Who so just happens to be the captain of the most famous police unit in Japan? Not to mention a total knockout! Will Atsuko finally achieve her dream? Or will her new instructor put her through the wringer?

Warnings: Language, Reference to sexual activity, Forceful nature, Abuse, Kidnapping, Torture.

~~~~~~

Another end to another day and again I found myself in the Instructor's Staff Room, diving into any work Kaga could give me. I thrived off productivity and never wanted to put the mundane tasks down, that was until one of the other Instructor's told me I needed to go to bed.

But that night was different. I wasn’t struggling to read a word or trying to figure out if I got Soma's tea and Goto's coffee switched around. It was the end of the week, which meant my test-intensive few days were just around the corner.

Although, I wasn’t as worried about that as I was worried about asking the instructor's to attend Juna's baby shower. She called me every day, demanding an updated report on who was coming and who I hadn't even asked yet. At this point I had Goto, Shinonome and Ishigami down, as well as the first guest of Soma. So now I'm standing in front of Kaga's office door, contemplating if I even wanted to risk asking him out during his private time. From what I had seen, he's got very little of it and when he did, he always found one excuse or another to pile on my workload or follow him to a stakeout. Although, there had been less of that since I returned to the academy.

I had asked Naruko and Chiba to come, just so I could have emotional support through the awkward gathering, but they were just as hesitant as I was about spending my free time with the instructors.

"You didn't gain telepathic powers. You can't open the door with your eyes." Shinonome laughed at me and I threw a scowl his way. It had been surprisingly easy to talk with him now that he wasn't always trying to make a pass at me. He just made fun of me in other ways. Like a more vocal Kaga.

"I know that." I pouted before forcing myself to knock. Luckily, the shutters were down again, so the captain didn't see me standing around like an idiot for the several minutes I did. And with that, I was beaconed in.

"What is it?" He asks, looking over a file. I assumed it was a lesson plan, although he never usually did stuff like that. He always threw us into the deep end, whether he thought we were ready or not. Taking a deep sigh, I asked.

"My sister wants you to come to her baby shower. It's at the end of the week." I explained, referring to the end of next week. His gaze shot up, firing his 'concerned-I-hit-my-head-again' gaze. "You don't have to force yourself. It's a thank you gesture if anything." I explained, sounding nonchalant if he accepted or not when truly I didn't want to see him outside of the academy. I'd be too awkward and shy to even talk. I froze when I saw the moment of silence he took to think about it.

"If you pass the exams next week I'll think about it." He grumbled and quickly turned back to his work. My brows furrowed in confusion and when Kaga noticed I hadn't moved to leave yet, he glared again. "Anything else?" His mouth flipped into a satisfied smirk at my slow reactions.

"N-No, thank you. I'll go now." A blush flushed on my cheeks when I didn't know what to say in return. Did he think I wanted him to go? Why would he bribe me with it? Confusing questions encircled my brain as I finished up the week-long task Kaga had thrown on my desk several days ago.

~~~~~~

After spending all weekend locked away in my room, pouring myself over the textbooks and notes I had made in class and the ones Naruko had made during my absence, I arrived in the Monitor Room with excitement and sky-high nerves. Never had I been happier with my insomnia, it helped me spend more time studying instead of falling asleep at my desk. I did get some sleep, of course, otherwise I wouldn't be able to perform to my full potential. Although, my excitement might have been due to how overtired I was.

"Morning, Instructor!" I waved at Kaga who strolled in lazily, hands shoved in his pockets. He frowned at my volume, asking me how I always had so much energy. Once I apologised, the other instructors trailed in for my first exam. Because no one was willing to retake with me, the PSD teams had to partake. We would be going to a casino to gather information about the dark underbelly of the hotel it resided in.

"This is Eisuke Inchinomiya. He owns the hotel and is usually found on the casino floor. Goto will go into his private room and plant a wire. You two will be out on surveillance." Ishigami announced, pointing at me and Kaga. I tried to hide the blush growing of my face remembering the last time we went undercover again.

"No surprises this time?" Kaga smirked at me and I pout at him.

"There was no possible way I could have helped that." I scowled but surprisingly he just chuckled. Then, we left to change and went for the hotel-casino.

~~~~~~

Once we arrived, with me dressed in a lavish, floor-length, flashy and not to mention curve-hugging, dress, Kaga held onto my waist to guide us around the room. Ayumu was in a room upstairs with the equipment to check if the wire was working and we all had earpieces so we could communicate with each other. Soma was dressed in a server's uniform, undercover so he could get closer to Ichinomiya if we weren’t able to distract him.

"Keep an eye out," Kaga whispered in my ear as he sat at a dice table, still holding my body close to him. Even though I was more... experienced with men than last time, my heart still raced and I hoped that he couldn't hear it with my chest so close to his. Trying to be as discreet as possible, I found the target gambling a few tables away, women either side of him.

"10 o'clock," I mumbled, letting my gaze fall back to the table as he threw the die. Ishigami gave us a few chips to play with in order to help us fit in more. Kaga looked up to see the owner winning.

‘Couldn't he just fix the games?’ I thought, my brows frowning slightly in confusion.

Suddenly, a man approached Eisuke and started leading him away.

"They're going to the room," Kaga announced and I could tell there was a certain panic in his voice that no one would have noticed.

"I'll distract him." Soma spoke up through the earpiece and I watched him approach the two, both very handsome, men and offer them drinks. Eisuke rejected him and kept walking without much regard to the offer or the server’s presence.

"I'm not done yet," Goto explained, having already broken into the room. My shoulders tensed up, but I removed Kaga's arm from my side and grabbed one of the chips in his hand. Discreetly sliding my earpiece into his pocket so that Ichinomiya wouldn't discover it when I approached him, Kaga gave me a look, asking what I was doing, and I steeled my nerves before discreetly rushing over to them.

"You seem pretty lucky today. Would be a shame to put that blessing to waste so early." Sliding in front of the men, I tilted my head and put on a teasing smile, letting my lip brush between my teeth. A light sparked in Eisuke's eye when he looked down at my body, the slit from the top of my thigh forcing my leg out of the confines of the dress. Luckily, I was able to cover up most of my scars.

"Come on, play a game with me?" Crossing my arms, I tap the chip between my fingers against my cheek. He smirked at the way I was trying not to blush as I spoke so suggestively. Because I didn't have my earpiece, I couldn't hear Ayumu's teasing tone at how much I had grown since the beginning of the year.

"I'm pretty lucky as well." The young blond man beside him stepped forward with a gleeful smile. Looking away, I pretended to ponder for a moment.

"Hmm, no. I want him." Stepping towards the hotel owner and grabbing the opening of his suit, I guided him over to a poker table with a lot my assertiveness than I was used to implementing.

"You should be careful what you ask for." He whispered in my ear as I took a seat next to him and a grossed out shiver ran down my spine.

‘I asked for it but, geez, is he creepy.’

"I think I know what I'm looking for." I smiled, looking at the dealer to exchange my singular expensive chip with more, less expensive ones. Luckily, Juna and I played poker a lot as kids with candy we were able to get on our few outings from the house. It was one of the only pass times my father would allow because we wouldn't make much noise.

The game was short, Eisuke won the table, but it was enough time for Goto to get out safely with the listening device planted.

"So, what's my prize?" Eisuke leant over me and I leaned back, using my bare leg to keep my balance behind me. His smirk was flirtatious and it was easy to see what he wanted.

"I think the money is enough." I smiled, stood up and walked back to Kaga, who was still sitting where I left him. Breathing a heavy sigh next to him to ease my racing heart, I didn't feel the arm that snaked around me again.

"You did well," Kaga whispered in my ear again, his warm breath brushing against it. I blushed, gulping at the more satisfying reaction I had to him than to Eisuke.

"Give me a second." I put my hand over my mouth, trying to stop myself from gagging at the memory of Eisuke's hand easing closer to my leg when we played. Kaga sighed at that and returned to watching the owner leave the casino, the young man following him. At some point, he had replaced the earpiece in my ear and I could hear Ayumu's silent chuckling.

~~~~~~

Once we knew the wire was working, we returned to the academy.

"So, how did I do?" I bounced over to Ishigami, who stayed behind, still dressed in my undercover outfit. He looks at me, and then to the other instructors.

"You will know by the end of the week." He explained, neither sounding tired of how pushy I was being or teasing me and returned to his work. My shoulders slumped knowing that I would have my nerves racing for at least five straight days.

"Katsumi, you did well today. Go back to the dorm and relax." Soma came up from behind me, placing a comforting hand on my back. I tensed up from the shocked of someone touching me so suddenly but quickly tried to calm myself down from the surprise the shock it gave me. Quickly nodding and bowing to the instructors, I left the room to return to studying.

~~~~~~

When we returned to the academy, Katsumi was still making a racket. Although, when Ishigami shut her down, she finally silenced herself. It was when Soma touched her that I really realised how on edge she must have been all the time. Once she left, he sighed, as if disappointed she reacted that way.

"She surprised me," Ayumu announced as we put away our equipment into their cases. I looked at him with a confused expression to find him smirking at me. "She jumps up to save Seiji without even thinking and then is a complete wreck when she comes back to you." He laughed, likely remembering how she stuttered when I got close to her. I frowned, not liking how observant he was becoming with her.

"Don't worry, boss, I'm not allowed to make a move. She's all yours." He laughed, putting his hands up defensively and I scowled.

"What are you talking about?"

"She's your aide. Wouldn't want to distract her from her work. Even if she can't read." He laughed again and my brows furrow.

‘Since when couldn't she read?’

"Her concussion was that bad?" Soma interjected through the glaring match I was having with the lieutenant.

"It went untreated for a long time. She's lucky she just got poor eyesight." Goto commented as he walked into his personal office. I was left in the room, contemplating why I was the only one that didn't know how much she was struggling with returning to society.

~~~~~~~~~~

After I got out of the bathroom, having had a quick shower to wash the makeup and perfume off me, I hear a knock at my door.

"Hold on!" I called out, pulling my pyjama trousers on with a hop and running to the door with the towel still over my wet hair. There, I found Kaga leaning on my door frame. "I-Instructor? How can I help you?" I instantly started to panic, wondering what I could have done so incredibly wrong for him to come to the dorms.

"I'm coming to pick up the files from the weekend." He grunted and tried my hardest to think of any tasks he could have given me, but I couldn't remember anything. My gaze darted back to the coffee table, where all my notes were sprawled out, but I didn't see any with the colourful tags I used to organise specified crimes.

Suddenly, Kaga pushed into my room, heading for the table.

"In-Instructor! I... I'm not sure what you're talking about." I panicked, following after him as he picked up one of the clearly outlined pieces of paper. Because I've been basically teaching myself how to read again, there are tiny post-its next to the word I struggled with.

"So you can read." He grumbled to himself and I felt my face combust into a heated blush.

"Ayumu told you about that?" I cried out, not noticing that his face didn't scowl at my volume. "I-It's not really a problem. I just needed to be reminded sometimes. I can read." I argued, staring at the blur of ink on the page because I didn't have my glasses on. They were on the table beside my studying material. I was only able to make sense of the playing cards today because I could count the coloured dots. Not that I could differentiate which were hearts and which were diamonds, the same goes for the black cards.

Then, as I'm pouting to myself, Kaga's gaze falls around the room, settling on the bottle of pills on my nightstand. His long legs brought him over quickly and he picked them up. Inspecting them, I grew more aware of how curious he seemed.

"Um, sir, what're you doing?" I stammered out in a low voice, panicking about angering him for interrupting his investigation into my personal life.

"Tomorrow's test will be held in the Staff Room. Sleep early." He commanded, putting the bottle down with a soft rattle of the pills and walking out the room.

"What about the-?" Before I could ask about his reasoning for being here, the door slammed shut behind him.

~~~~~~

The next day I was sitting in the Instructor's Staff Room, reading over my theory test. I was given a series of scenarios and had to write down how I would react. I had pretty much memorised the textbook better than the names of my classmates. But what really put me on edge was the person holding the exam.

Instructor Kaga.

He was sitting at the head of the table, staring at me like I was a suspect. I couldn't help but be intimidated. My pen wagged over the sheet of paper as I think about what I would do if a child was taken hostage.

"I want to be here as much as you do. Hurry up." Kaga spat and my heart raced at the venom in his voice.

‘He's annoyed.’ I'd been struggling so far, but I was so close to the end that I was starting to get sleepy. Which was strange. I rarely felt tired, it was the pills that sent me into oblivion. So, why was I so relaxed now? In an exam that determined my future.

Sighing, I just decide to write down the answer that had been on the tip of my tongue for about ten minutes now. I wasn’t sure if it was right, or detailed enough, but it was what I remembered from the textbook.

When finished, I slammed the pen down and threw my head back. "I'm exhausted," I complained to no one but myself as I yawned, stretching my arms above me and behind. Kaga jumped up, taking the paper and scanning the text. So far he seemed to understand my handwriting.

Then, he made an agreeing grumble and took it into Ishigami's office. I didn't know if that was a good thing or bad, but the wave of relief for him leaving the room was enough for my eyelids to clamp shut. Waiting for him to come back out and dismiss me, I rested my head on my arms and decide it's a good idea to just rest for a bit.

~~~~~~

"You're the one that volunteered," Ishigami growled at me after I complained about all the work I had been missing out on because of Motomori's test. I frowned, going to argue but reframed because he had a point. I said I would watch her because I was curious to see how she would cope with some of the scenarios. And, she looked exhausted. I wanted to make sure she wouldn't fall asleep halfway through.

Exiting Ishigami's office, I find Katsumi resting her head on the desk.

"You can go," I grumbled but she didn't make a move to leave. I repeated, wondering if she was stuck in her absent mind, but I heard a whimper in response. Frowning my brows, I stepped closer to her and peered at her expression.

Her face was screwed up and the arm she was resting on was flexed as she clenched her fist. I could see her chest rising and lowering quickly as her breathing raced. There was a shine on her forehead from sweat. It wasn’t even that hot in the room, the heating was hardly on.

"Stop." Her voice was breathy, almost silent. I could only hear her because I was so close. "Don't know... She's dead..," she continued. She was having a nightmare.

‘It's probably a memory.’ But, who could she be talking about? My face contorted into further confusion as she repeated herself.

‘She's gonna have a heart attack at this rate.’ Staring down at her person, I saw the wires of the MP3 player hanging out of her back pocket. Pulling them out and trying to get the device without touching her ass, I slipped an earbud into her ear, making sure the volume was on low before I played the music. After a song, her face eased a little.

"Hm." I chuckled at how easy it was to ease her and placed the player on the table, making sure the playlist I made for her was on a loop and returned to the work I was already behind on.

~~~~~~

As I faded into consciousness again, I heard the familiar tune of my sister's cello, accompanied by the rest of an orchestra. I felt my face scrunch up in confusion, wondering why I was hearing this. I had never been to any of her shows. I wouldn't have fallen asleep during one, I would be too proud of her, and there was no way I would be watching tv when I could be studying or doing Kaga's work. That's when I remembered I was in the Instructor's Staff Room.

With a sudden breath, I lifted my head with a start to find I was still in the office. I blushed, wondering how long I had been here when I felt something fall out of my ear. Looking down, I saw my headphones.

"When did I..?" I led off, my mouth too dry to finish my sentence.

"Finally awake?" A voice spoke up from one of the doors behind me and I spun around to see Ayumu. I frowned and blush for him to be teasing me, but then I realised it wasn’t a nightmare that woke me up like every time I had fallen asleep since my rescue.

"What time is it?" I looked back at the table for my glasses, feeling around until I found them. To be honest, I hated wearing them. They were a hassle and an annoyance that I really wished I didn't need. And Juna somehow talked me into getting these silver, Harry Potter-esc glasses which make me look 'cute'.

"You're lucky Ishigami didn't catch you." He hummed, not answering my question. Slightly disgruntled, I pick up my MP3 player and shoved it into my back pocket, grabbed my pen and walked out the room to call my doctor.

~~~~~~

"You're worried that you fell asleep without your medication?" The surgeon's questioning tone sounded amused and I pouted, explaining how sudden it was. "This is progress, Katsumi, don't freak out. Although, you should try to do it on your own time." He let go of his professionalism and laughed out loud.

"Okay." I frowned my brows, still uneased by the fact.

‘It’s like, whenever Kaga is in the room, I can fall asleep without any guards up. I almost feel safe.’ Hanging up with a sigh, I blew my hair out of my face.

"I need a haircut." With my mood deflated, I made plans to get a haircut at the end of the week, after Juna's shower, which is the only time I'd have free for ages.

~~~~~~

By the end of the week, I. Was. Exhausted. With the stress of exams finally relieved, I was sitting in one of the many common rooms in the dorms with Naruko and Chiba, eating snacks they smuggled in. With the nightmares I had been having about my mother, I found my temptation getting the better of me, and I looked her name up in the policing database, just to see if something would come up on her, the screen of my computer facing away from anyone else in the room. I had never looed her up before, mainly because I was scared to know if she was alive or not.

Scrolling through all the files the government has on her, I found she was once noted down as a testifying witness. Frowning my brows, I was about to click on the link when my name was called out. My gaze flew up as I closed the tab I had open.

"What can I do for you, Instructor Ayumu?" I flashed a smile at the man who had called out to me.

"Just checking where the party is." He smiled his usual, untrustworthy smile. I told him the address of my sister's apartment.

"I have to help set up, so I'll see you there." Forcing my 'let's-just-get-along' smile, I watched the instructor leave.

"I can't believe you get to see all the instructors in their casuals, Katsumi!" Naruko cheered once the lieutenant had left the room completely, not wanting to overhear her talk about him behind his back.

"You could too." I threw her a teasing eyebrow when I noticed her joking hesitance.

"I wouldn't want to get in your way."

With the others distracted by another classmate coming over, I returned to the file I had clicked away from. The case was from ten years ago, around the same time my mother went missing. I read that it was a homicide case and my mother was in court to accuse the murderer. I didn't recognise the man, but his history recorded that he was suspected to be a part of my father's mafia.

"What?" I whispered under my breath when I saw the evidence used. The ring left on my pillow that night was on my screen with notes from an interrogation my mother was in.

"Lana gave it to me before she died. She said it would lead me to the answers. I don't have a clue what she's on about." There was no record of the ring being returned to any relatives or her, so she must have stolen it from the police department.

‘There was a message in the ring?’ My brows frowned further as I thought about how I had given the ring away months ago. Kanto hadn't proposed to Juna yet, I didn't know if he was planning to, but I needed that ring before Juna got her hands on it.

"Everything alright, Katsumi?" Chiba peered over as I turned off the computer and stood up, startling everyone with my suddeness.

"Yeah, I think I'm gonna get an early night. You guys have fun." Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I looked through my contacts to find my sister's boyfriend's name. The others waved me away as I put the phone to my ear. I’m sure they understood, seeing as I had just had a weeks worth of whistle-stop exams and my sister’s baby shower was the next day.

"Katsumi? What's up?" Kanto's voice echoed from the other end. He didn't sound rushed, so I guessed I hadn't interrupted their evening.

"Is Juna with you?" I kept my voice low as I headed up to my dorm room. Kanto told me he was, in fact, alone. "I need that ring back. Do you still have it?"

"Well, it's under our bed bu-." I interrupted him, asking if he could give back it to me tomorrow.

"Please Kanto. It's urgent." My mind raced with thoughts, wondering why my mother would steal evidence from a murder she testified in.

‘How did she testify when my father would hardly ever let us leave the house?’

"Fine." He sighed, saying he had to go because Juna was calling him. With that, I unlocked the door to my room and got ready for bed.

#voltage fanfic #voltage games #her love in the force #hlitf #hlitf ayumu #hlitf goto #hlitf ishigami #hlitf kaga #crime #hlitf fanfic #hlitf soma #mob #detectives #hlitf shinonome

1 note · View note

boogiewrites · 5 years

Text

Love’s Liaison

Characters: Bane (TDKR) x Mina (OFC)

Summary: Mina has known Bane since his capture from prison. After the setback of losing in Gotham, what new changes will they both implement as they face starting over after almost losing one another?

Warnings/Tags: Violence. Sexual Content. Fluff, Angst. Medical jargon. Injury.

Click on my icon then go to my Mobile Masterlist in my bio for my other works and chapters. (Had to do this since Tumblr killed links, sorry.) Please like, comment and reblog if you enjoyed it! It helps out us writers A LOT!

As she sat next to the hospital bed where Bane lay bent and broken she couldn’t help but be reminded of the last time she’d seen him in such a way.

He had been brought to the league by Talia and her father. That was where she had first taken care of him. She spent her days and nights nursing his wounds, having far better means to heal him than they had in the prison. She watched him form back into one piece, his face losing the discoloration and swelling, scars forming as his natural shape came back to him thanks to her. He didn’t speak much, but it would’ve been detrimental to the healing of his mouth if he’d tried. He didn’t need to speak to show how deep his intelligence ran. His eyes remained bright, and she watched them formulate so many plans for their deeds.

They sat for hours in silence, her kneading out his back, working him through the painful process of his spine forming to completion.

Every time she saw the scar that ran from his thick, muscular neck down the expanse of his bulked-up back she was reminded of having her hands on him. The time spent so close and skin to skin with him at his most vulnerable.

But then Ra’s Al Ghul interfered. Mina was secretly and silently heartbroken when he was excommunicated from the league. Having had put in so much time with him, having found a way for him to function with the mask, an idea that turned out just crazy enough to work. He was becoming strong again, his body as sharp as his mind when he left. Talia was vocal about her distaste for what happened, but Mina was left to stay silent. She wasn’t a member of the league, only taken in for her healing talents and to be an indentured servant for the members. She had no real power and had to watch someone she thought she had a real connection with disappear.

Then Batman would intervene, killing Ra’s Al Ghul and bringing Talia and Bane back together. With Ra’s gone, Talia allowed Mina to learn to defend herself, finding her years of watching to be beneficial to her in the endeavor. As a plan was formed to carry out Ra’s Al Ghul’s destiny, she found herself to be among the ones named to join Bane and Talia in their work.

In the sewers, she was kept mostly hidden. Bane didn’t want just anyone knowing about Mina. He considered her an understated but vital piece of the plan. He kept her close where he went, having her in masculine tactical gear. But instead of the plethora of weapons, one would expect to be in the numerous pouches and pockets, she kept the secret to Bane’s endurance and strength with her. She supplied him with his analgesic gas to keep him functioning so highly despite his body being broken underneath that threshold of pain. She helped him heal, being the one alone with him after confrontations, using her mixtures and knowledge to further aid his body in repairing the damage he inflicted upon it. Once again she knew him at his most vulnerable. He found himself trusting Mina, confiding in her plans and theories and intently listening when she gave her feedback. He was a master of strategy but she gave a distinct point of view from being the voiceless ears and eyes of the league for so many years. She had nursed so many who thought themselves invincible back from death that she knew where every one of them went wrong. Bane knew this information was priceless, and thus it made Mina that in turn.

So when she saw Talia leave, finding Bane in a heap against the wall after being shot she knew what she had to do. She did as she had time and time again, and saved him.

After gathering a handful of other mercenaries and taking one of the stolen Bat tech flying vehicles to get Bane out of Gotham, she took him to a small isolated island in Ireland to a bunker so she could put him back together again.

And here they were now. The steady and quiet beeping of machines, the painkillers being pumped in at high levels for him at her request. She stayed by his side, not trusting anyone else to watch over him.

He came and went, the sheer force from the blast making his insides displace and rupture. Slowly those who escaped Gotham found their way to them again. She found herself the highest-ranking person left and she made decisions she’d never had to before. She was training men, reaching out to other mercenaries for support as Bane healed. Failing in Gotham had left a bad taste in a lot of their mouths but she still believed in him. She knew no man smarter than him and she fought to keep his name clear of shame while he could not.

During one of the earlier nights alone, the trauma still fresh from fleeing Gotham, she sits by his bed in her casual civilian clothes. She reaches out and holds his hand, scorch marks still visible on his skin as she lets her sadness breakthrough for the first time since he was exiled from the league.

She lets herself cry alone in the room with him, her face pressed to his big hand, the hands she’d splinted so many years ago. The hands that broke necks and the bats back and destroyed their enemies without so much as fracture thanks to her. She stroked his arm and wondered if she’d ever know his hands to be anything but fierce. He had never been unfair or forceful with her. She had long wondered, since the days before he was this beast of a man in his size and reputation. She wanted to know if there was the sort of softness he held for Talia left to be shown to her. She had only ever shown him softness. But he had never called her weak for it. Only praised the things she did for him. She wondered when it was that she let her heart get in the way of her work. And why was it a man like Bane to make her thoughts so foolish?

She leans over him, wiping the tears she sheds for him as they fall to his pale skin. Her fingers feel the indentions on his face from the mask, her fingers tracing the thin pink scars she’d helped make barely visible over his nose and mouth. In a moment of weakness, when it was still uncertain if he would ever wake, she kisses him gently. She doesn’t linger long, her lips pressed to his forehead after his lips affectionately.

“I won’t give up on you. I never have and I never will. You’re going to come back to me, Bane. The world still needs you and so do I.”

———

“What are you doing up?” Mina turns to ask Bane as she could hear his forced heavy footsteps as they came down the hall and stopped in the lab's doorway. She moves towards him, trying not to show her concern for his pain as there were others around. “Aren’t you hurting?” She asks with a quiet voice, her face showing her worry.

“Yes but...you weren’t there when I woke.” He answers with squinted eyes, his brow still furrowing under the center strap of his new and improved mask.

“I was here looking to see what progress had been made with your new braces.” She explains with a confident nod.

“And?” He demands, taking a deep breath with the analgesic gas pumping through his lungs to ease the intense pain that was currently gnawing away at him from his injuries sustained in Gotham.

“The new vials are ready, they’ve passed all the necessary testing. The braces will match your new body brace as well, not that you care about that sort of thing.” She remarks with a subtle smile, the matching of new pain-relieving arm braces to his newly formed and reinforced body brace had been a purely aesthetic choice that she had made. She thought his image was important and while he agreed to a degree, he didn’t think the production should have been slowed for such a thing.

“When will they be ready?” He asks, holding his form up against the doorframe, his still large body looking as if it may even bend the metal of the sterile looking wing of the bunker.

“By tomorrow. They need to be installed and then another round of tests. Then I would feel comfortable having you try them. Then there’s the nasty business of having you come off the gas and adjust to the injectables. But as always I have complete faith in your full recovery within 4-5 days.” She gives another nod to confirm her words.

“Good.” He nods with a curt tone. He lumbers and turns, making his way back to his room down the hall. She knew he was in pain, so she didn’t take his short words personally.

——-

“How are you doing this morning?” She inquires, with a tender voice. She was the only one left now to dare to speak to him in such a way.

He’d been angry ever since he’d woken up. But she didn’t blame him in the least. His plans had failed, he’d lost the woman he’d sworn to protect from birth and now he was injured severely. It was more than an acceptable and understandable setback. With his men now in the Gotham prison, he was left with a scattered arsenal. And though he thought Mina was worth the cost of a hundred men, it didn’t change the fact that those men he had conditioned were now oppressed by the very structures he tried to take down. His anger for the turn of events was always under the surface, and the unpleasant change from his tried and true mask was going to be something he had to adjust to. He had no doubt he could, but he knew it wouldn’t be easy.

Mina stayed by him continuously, as she had ever since she brought him there. She oversaw the connection of the new arm braces, interchangeable for damage and reloadable for medicine and thanks to her stern demands, and the technology she’d taken from their heist of the Batman’s weapons arsenal, they were practically indestructible.

Bane wasn’t a creature for wallowing in his emotions. He was a force that nothing stopped, always forward on a mission. But as he found himself now without one, without a clear and precise prerogative and plan, emotions started to surface. For even though he knew only darkness from a very young age, he was still human. There were emotions from being an abandoned child, living in fear every moment as he grew strong and resilient that he could recall. And in that youth and initial betrayal, there was softness. This is why he had protected Talia as a child. This is why he kept Mina so close to him. They represented things that seemed so out of touch for him. With Talia now gone, something he found coming back to him in anger-inducing waves, he was left with only one other person now that had ever shown him such care and tenderness. And she reminded him of this unintentionally every time he woke up and she was there next to him, every time she touched him with a look in her eyes he hadn’t seen anyone else have for him. She had always been a source of softness in his life when there was room for none. She had reminded him of the child he once was, the boy who craved warmth and affection in a world where there was no such thing for a creature like him. And unbeknownst to her, in his weakened state, in her dedication to his survival and thriving, she had made him feel more like a man and less of a war machine. She’d made him feel like this pain and failure he put upon himself in such heavy doses were something that he wouldn’t drown in. If she were there to be a lighthouse on the shore guiding him to land.

He watches her with curious eyes, delicate hands he’d seen do such violent things, now so lightly adjusting the braces on his arms which were now pumping new serum into his system. She asks him if it’s comfortable. He doesn’t recall the last time someone took this into consideration.

She then instructs him to rest, as the medicine will make him tired soon as she lowers the amount of gas the mask puts out and his mind panics, a trained response to reach for the mask and fix the problem.

She shushes him, the only one in the room to see his wide eyes and still marked hands reach up in desperation to his face. She takes his hands, and even though she was not stronger than him, he’s compelled to not fight her back as her grip is strong and certain as she takes both of them into hers.

“You will sleep soon. We don’t want too much in your system at once unless you need it. It will be okay. There will not be the pain you are accustomed to with less gas. No reason to worry.” She comforts, without a look of disdain or judgment as she runs her fingers over the taut center strap on his still shaved head. Something else she had done while he had been in his comatose state. As was her role, and what she enjoyed more than most anything else, she took care of him in every way she knew how.

His breathing slows, the lump in his throat bobbing as he accepts this instruction. Wasn’t it so strange that the only one to speak to him without bite and demands was the one a man like him listened to?

———

Mina makes adjustments to Bane’s mask, being placed on so he could address the men and fight and overpower without pain if need be. They were all expecting the man in the mask, and he wasn’t ready to be without it yet.

“You will instruct with me today Mina.” He informs with a nod, eyes avoiding her large ones that held no fear when he spoke.

“Yes, Bane.” She responds simply in a curt tone acceptable for the men to hear.

“You will show me their progress. I want to see what I have to work with. Weed out the weaklings, promote the strong.” His voice drags, he knew she knew the drill, but it made him feel back in his element to say it all out loud again. He’d been away from the only existence he knew for months now, and he was ready to make some progress.

As she was trained to do, Mina takes control of a room when she walks into it. The men at first lazily reacting, but reacting to her voice barking over the large gymnasium where they trained. When they turned and saw Bane behind her, the scurried like scared rabbits into line as he stood on a small raised platform and she, at his side.

As he always does, he fills the space he moves around. A loud booming charisma and unmistakable power shifts with his wide powerful gate. His hands matched into the new dark metal and leather panels that surrounded his torso and forearms. He looked broad and strong and she felt pride for having helped get him to this point again.

Another introductory move, something she had to do when she took command in his absence, he challenges a man who seems to be questioning his ability to do the things he claims he will if any of them go against orders. And as it always went, with a single hand and not a bead of sweat, he picks up the man by the neck and tosses him into a pile of crates by the wall. A friend of this now injured man twitches too much for Banes liking and he comes to the defense of his fallen brother. Even with a weapon in his hand, he is no match. With the braces giving theatrical sparks to the display as the edge of the sword comes down against it time and time again, Bane shifts and attacks like a glorious beast that was born with no other motive than to kill. The man finds himself on the floor next to the man he had defended. The sword now bent and broken in his hand.

As Mina stands at attention and never flinches, she watches diligently. The other men with their wide eyes and white knuckles as they watched Bane made her suppress a fleeting smile. She knew some would doubt him after Gotham, but she was happy to see that all concerns would be quickly forgotten as they always were when Bane had to defend himself in combat.

He stands tall and in control, his arms with their bulbous musculature, unmatched in strength by any adversary as they hang after a shake of his shoulders.

“This is Mina. She will be the second in command here now that I am back. If she gives you orders. You obey. It is simple. If she speaks on my behalf, you ready as if it were my voice saying the same words. She will be in charge of you. I will be moving forward with our plans for the next venture.” He speaks without looking at her and she artfully hides the shock on her face for the announcement. She’d always been kept in the shadows before. Now she was his second, a title she never expected to hold. “She will oversee your every move. We need soldiers who can listen and learn. If you cannot do that...you are free to leave.” His tone doesn’t agree with the words he says, a threat hanging in the air. “But if I hear a word of anyone speaking ill of Mina due to the nature of her gender, you will have no choice but to leave. You could only dream of being the soldier she is. She is someone for you to strive to emulate and any treatment of her, verbal or otherwise will not be tolerated. There is no room for such nonsense in my work. Is this agreed?” His words tell that there is no other option, that it isn’t really a question, merely a formality, a warning. “Now then...Mina. They are yours. We will convene later to discuss these....men.” He says with disdain in his voice, letting them know he was not impressed. Even if he had been he wouldn’t show it. It was nearly impossible to reach Bane's level of expectancy, but that ethic is what got him as far as it had.

—————

Leaving her behind he entered his quarters, his door shut and locked behind him, curtains pulled in the white and grey minimal room with only the essentials for work and rest. He slumps, hands on his desk as he takes in filling breaths of air. His body had taken just fine to fighting again, but the exhaustion from the new medicine was quick to settle in after he exerted himself. Something he was promised would cease, and yet he waited. He moves his bulky frame to sit in the simple metal chair in front of the desk of the same material. His breathing slows, the faintest of hints of the smell and taste of gas easing his mind which rushed to tell him more, that he needed more. He gathers himself, posture back to straight and commanding as he saunters towards the window, hearing shouting outside.

Below was Mina, her face contorted as she shouted commands, running the men over the obstacle course in the courtyard. She ran alongside them, sharp claps and glances to her watch kept her occupied. Bane sank back, careful to not be seen. He didn’t want his personal quarters known to any who didn’t need to know. He also needed to appear busy, and all he was doing at the moment was recovery from an inconvenient, temporary weakness, and he certainly didn’t want that sort of information getting out either.

He hoped that his promotion of Mina would show her his gratitude for all she had done for him. He knew that this particular offering was not one that didn’t come with great work, but he knew she could take it. As she was demonstrating below to him on the rubberized ground that held the metal and wood obstacles. He knew there was much to thank her for, and short of saving her life he knew of nothing he could do that would appeal to her softer side, the one that he wished he could have her show more. But thanks to him they had lost that option. Now they had to be harder than ever.

———-

Mina’s room was not without its comforts. The same simple base as Banes, as their quarters were both shared in the same wing. But hers had touches of coziness. A simple addition of a painted vase and flowers, a colorful set of pillowcases against a maroon comforter instead of the standard stark white. She had also gotten a small portable speaker, which she was currently syncing to a phone and letting the tones mellow out the white and sterile looking bathroom. She had been able to get a single scented candle, and she had used it sparingly, but it was still almost gone. Another secret import of bubble bath is poured by her tired hands into a warm bath in a stand-alone tub of white and with silver hardware like the rest of the room. A navy bath mat on the floor, something also not standard that added a small touch of softness to the otherwise uninviting space.

Dinner had passed and Bane was now being tended to by the inventors, taking a survey of what he’d experienced with his new injections and hardware today. He had seemed to take to them well and lets herself let go of the tense feelings she had held onto for so long about the introduction of the new elements.

This time alone was crucial to her. As the only woman in the bunker, she had to do these small things to keep herself from becoming something sexless and mechanic. Little things like applying a tube of cherry lip balm became ritualistic for her. Lighting a candle, soft music playing and submerging in a hot bath of salts and oils to ease her muscles from the strain she put on herself was something close to holy for her. Something that reminded her she was, in fact, a feminine and delicate creature underneath the loosely fitted uniforms and training clothes. With Bane being occupied, and previously keeping to his bed by this hour she finds time for herself. Before coming to the bunker she had more time alone with how Bane kept her out of sight, protecting her as she was crucial to his pain control during their isolation in the sewers and after the riots started breaking out. But in those conditions, she did not have the amenities or luxuries this hideaway was providing. So while she has this brief time where she was not holed away in some unreachable part of the earth, she was taking advantage.

A soft sigh escapes, head resting on the lip of the tub, her body submerged to her nose as she moves her limbs, feeling the silky water caress her skin. Soft things were so rare in her life now. She couldn’t believe she actually missed the mountainous hideaways of the League of Shadows with their hot springs. She missed the company of other women. She missed the understanding that came from another’s willing tenderness. She also misses dresses. She huffs out an amused sound at the thought. Such a silly thing to miss. Now her only indulgence was a nightgown and nothing with the sheer and feminine touches that she had cherished before. Nothing that made her feel sexual at all. Her life was painfully devoid of sexuality truthfully. Except for the rare occasions, she would let herself think about Bane. His size and dark charming nature appealed to her inner craving to feel small and coddled by a man in her personal life. A woman like her who had to be in charge in such a strict way needed an outlet, a way to let go of that performative facade she slipped into. She found that touching herself, whether thinking of Bane or not, was as good of a release as any. And certainly better than none at all.

“MINA?!” Bane’s rough voice from behind his mask interrupts her small sanctuary with a jolt as her eyes widened and her back stiffened.

“Just a moment!” She calls out and purses her lips, raising out of the tub.

“What is that smell?” He speaks slowly and moves with heavy feet towards the bathroom. Since it was an isolated room with an en suite, it had no door, and thus no protection from the barreling beast coming her way with no hesitation.

“Bane, I’m-“ she begins before his large form fills the doorway and stands at the end of the tub at her feet.

There’s a heavy moment for Mina. Her heart feeling stuck in her throat as she stands in the tub, bent at the waist to place her hands on its edge to get out. The bubbles cling to her skin in her attempt at a rushed exit.

Bane realizes his intrusion in an instant. But it doesn’t take away his surprise at the state he finds her in, the nudity was the last thing to raise questions in his mind.

Her face is more inconvenienced than scared. Although he hadn't seen her naked before, they were taught to think nothing of it if it occurred. Her eyes glare up into his from her a lowered brow. “Do I need to stand at attention at this arrival?” The words laced with sarcasm would possibly annoy him if he hadn’t seen he was, in fact, the one being troublesome.

His mouth parts and holds open as he thinks, luckily for him she can’t see it and read any pause. She blinks and her face holds steady. The bubbles only mildly distracting from her body glistening with iridescent color as the candlelight flickers against them. It had been since he first arrived at the League that he had seen her look so feminine, he realizes. When they were in the thick of plans for domination and destruction, it was easy to forget such things.

But now they were both acutely aware.

“I see I’ve interrupted your...leisure time.” He chooses his words and lowers his eyes from hers. His hands hang low off broad shoulders, wishing he had his brace on to hook them into.

“Yes.” Her voice lacks the usual bite, her face remains stoic as he doesn’t turn from her.

“You may resume.” He extends with a nod of his head as she sinks back into the water. But the moment had already shifted the dynamic between them.

He stands with wandering eyes, as she checks that her hair, piled on her head in loose falling pieces was still in place. “Did you need me for something?”

“I came to discuss strategy. After today’s events.” He begins, second-guessing his entry into her quarters now. “But I did not know you were...doing this.” He excused at a slow pace, seeing his brows shift as he takes in the unexpected scene.

“In the evenings after dinner, I like to do this when I can.” She explains.

“I was not aware.”

“That was purposeful. For the sake of keeping things... equal between us. Between everyone and myself, actually.” She informs him with eyes that don’t waver from him, trying to read his body language.

“What do...bubble baths have to do with that?” His eyes are less tense, a lilt of teasing in his voice.

“I do things like this to remind myself that I am in fact, a woman. But I work to hide and make that fact irrelevant to the others. It doesn’t serve a purpose here.” She shakes her head. “And since I am the only woman now, it has become more important to me to take time to remind myself. As it’s easier to forget.”

“That is understandable.” He agreed. “Is this...crucial for you? This feminine focused time?” His words lack his usual demanding tone, one of a genuinely curious man is heard instead.

“I do not wish to always be an emotionless machine. I was once made for tenderness, not violence. I like to entertain the idea I could be without this violence in my life someday. To keep that hope alive... it is crucial yes.”

“That is where you and I differ.” His head nods, a heavier breath heard through his mask.

“I’m aware.” She responds quietly.

“Since you are of the utmost importance to me and my work, is there anything that can be done to help you with this, feminization?” He offers, seeing a possible means to help her, to repay her for her work and her loyalty.

“I must remain a soldier. A leader to the others. I do not wish to be treated differently.”

“I agree. Remaining sexless is important. Especially with these newer inductees. They have much to learn.”

She nods in agreement. “Is it not their place to remind me I am a woman. It is not something our work allows.” Her eyes finally move from his and to the water. He could see sadness, reluctance in them. Things he was not accustomed to witnessing with Mina.

“They should not remind you, no.” He pauses, choosing his next words carefully as she sits in the bath. He puts on a hard brow and knows his next movement is crucial. He sees her face, can read her body language, hear her voice, knows by the book what he could do or say next and its chances of being accepted or rejected. He decides to show the softness he admires so much in her. As he approaches the side of the tub, standing with a relaxed posture as he waits for her to meet his eyes, “But would you like for me to?” He boldly suggests.

A blush rises to her cheeks, the pink noticeable in the white surroundings as the steam framed her soft-looking features. “You?” She finally responds, only her eyes shifting up to meet his gaze which held strong as always.

“Yes.” He answers curtly. “Do you see me as someone who could have that kind of role? Not in a...professional manner but a personal one.” He still spoke as if in a meeting, and she found his approach endearing. His voice was gentle, his palms showing as he inquires further with his hands speaking to engage her.

But she still couldn’t believe what he was suggesting. After all this time. Making her feel like a woman? In a personal way? She only knew one way to interpret his words and she audibly swallows. “You would… like to… remind me that I am a woman?” Her voice is quieter, he could hear the disbelief in it. “This would require such softness, Bane. A degree of tenderness that you are not accustomed to. Both emotionally and physically.” She warns him but does not tell him no.

“I am accustomed to receiving it from you. You have shown it to me, Mina.” He says with a slight tilt of his head before kneeling by the tub to connect with her, to prove that he could. “With your care, I know it intimately do I not?” He asks with a more stern tone, only proving her point as he tries to defend his abilities. “I have the capacity for such things. But as you said, it does not have its place in our work.”

“But we aren’t talking about work. Are we?”

“No. We are not.”

She blinks slowly, eyes moving across the bubbles. “Have you… do you wish to know me with tenderness Bane? To treat me like a woman and not a soldier? As a friend, a companion?” He can so clearly see the want and fear now within her. He knew only honesty would prove his long-time suppressed interest.

“Our time spent alone has led me to consider it. You have always touched me with care and consideration. Our time here now, after Gotham, has made me consider touching you in the same way. A creature with such depth deserves to know it the same. I do not wish you to hide what you are. It does not serve either myself or you to do so.”

“I did not know.” Is all she manages, and he sees she truly did not. Perhaps he had been harder on her than he realized.

“That is how I intended it to appear. There are sacrifices to be made for our work. The same as you, yes?”

“Yes.” She admits.

“So I ask you again. Knowing now of my intention. Would you like me to remind you that you are a woman? I would not allow any other man to do it.”

“Why is it that you feel this way? Why tell me now?” Her narrowed eyes are sharp as he smiles behind his mask, she was always inquisitive. Never trusting at a glance. Something he always admired about her.

“Because we’ve always belonged to one another in our way haven’t we? You mended me. Twice now. We trained together. Planned together, fought together. Always as a team. A cohesive unit. One of the best partnerships I’ve had. And that does go beyond the professional. You are not only skilled and irreplaceable to me, but you are also loyal and a friend. I never interacted with anyone in such a casual way as I have you. You allowed a few moments of informal behavior and conversation. You reminded me that I was also a man, not only this machine the world has created. It is only right I’m the one to make you feel like a woman. As you’re the only one to make me feel like a man.” His head nods softly her way in confession. He sees her shoulders lose their tension. She was truly touched by his words and the sentiment behind them. She had no idea of the depth that he was capable of. She could see her error now. He was only hard for protection, for himself and those around him. Same as her. Who was she to tell him what he was capable of? A man like him who did such great things. She believes every word he says as she always does.

“You have always made me feel like a woman.” She admits with a small voice. “With our work, I’ve never had the luxury to explore feelings like the ones you have awakened in me. It has never been a part of our plans. “ she shakes her head, her eyes far away for a moment.”But when I thought I had lost you… when I had to take control and protect you… ever since I have had a harder time separating our work and the inconvenient emotions that this turn of events has caused me to have. “

“It has caused the same in me little Mina.”He replies, moving his forearm to rest on the tub edge, his large hand somehow light as it touches her hair, causing visible bumps to bloom across her skin. “Let us find the answers together. For we have been suffering in silence separately. In the interest of showing you more, would it not make sense for us to work together on these emotions neither of us are accustomed to? I trust no one else in this way.”

“We do make a very good team.” A small smile appears on her face. “One would think the compatibility might translate to pleasure from the professional.”

“We do know each other most... intimately.” He chooses his words to reflect something softer and more personable.

“We do.” She nods subtly. “And I have thought of what you and I would be like together. Intimately. Although I admit I pictured more of a frenzied unraveling than a discussion.” She chuckles. “But this does leave no room for misinterpretation. Which for people like us, in positions we find ourselves in, is more valuable than any quick tryst.”

“You know I prefer a deep discussion of important matters.” His shoulders move slightly as a small huff of amusement escapes him.

“And do you prefer other things deep Bane?” She asks, a less sweet smile appearing on her face. One he had not seen before.

“With you Mina, I have always wished to know what depths I could reach.” His voice has an inkling of that charm he uses to get his way. Almost cheeky and boyish that makes you second guess yourself. But she was past that, and she only found the confidence he held to be arousing as his knuckles grazed her cheek.

“We have been so very close all these years. And I have often wondered who the man was behind the mask. If the depth in your eyes was past mere intellect. And I have wanted to know if your brutality had an opposite side to it. If you had the power that lies in gentle and tenderness and not just violence” she puts her hand over his on her face and touches his face lightly, fingers tracing the tubes of his mask.

“I once knew it. But it was taken away and made into a weakness, a luxury someone like me couldn’t afford. So I tried to show it to Talia. And now I wear the mask. But when I was taken from the prison, when I was given to you, I was reminded that it existed again in others besides myself. And you have shown it to me without the expectancy of repayment all these years.” He stands, a hand outstretched to her that she doesn’t hesitate to take into her own now. “Let me repay it to you starting tonight.” He remarks, pulling her up and keeping his eyes soft as he lifted her from the tub and onto the mat by her waist. The water ran audibly down her body, plinking into the tub and tapping into the floor. With a steady hand he takes a towel and dries her off, limb by limb, one hand gently to her skin to move her as he needed and the other gliding the towel. Finishing with a soft once over of her face, hands to her cheeks as he looks over her gracious face. “You are as soft and lovely inside as you are outside Mina. As I imagined.” A soft hiss through the mask as his hands travel down her jaw, over the curves of her breasts and hips, his bare hands taking in every bit of her. Every scar and divot he touched lightly and with care, as she had when he was healing. He’s never run from anything that could be interpreted as a physical imperfection. He only wanted to make her feel as he believed a woman who was loved and cared for should as if she was perfect and the only woman in his eyes.

His thumbs circled and traced her raised nipples, a slight rise in pulse and rate of her breathing as he cupped and pinched. A soft sigh escapes her, eyes shut and hands reaching out for his arms to feel him. His hands roam, from her hair to her back and hips he touched her softly. Against his chest, she could hear his heart, the decompression of the mask she’d helped design to keep him with her in the hopes she’d know him like this one day. With her chin up to see his face, he presses his forehead to hers before dipping down and lifting her up.

She felt small but not weak in his arms. Her nose nuzzles his head and kissed his temples before he placed her in front of the bed. “I want to see you.” She softly asks of him, her hands at the hem of his basic black shirt.

A nod and a shedding of his layers commenced on her suggestion as she gets to see the breadth of him for what felt like the first time. The first time her body could react how it wished. He could see her hips twitch, her nipples harden at the sight of him. He was not a shy man and stood at attention for her to trace her fingers along his masculine lines as he held her.

“My god look at you.” She whispers, kissing his barrel chest. Hands feeling greedy as they explored the breadth of his shoulders, the musculature of his ass and thighs. She felt the need to please him, falling into a role she hadn’t expected and one she never got to play. She wanted to serve him. Moving to her knees he doesn’t stop her, letting her do as she pleased. He wasn’t one to judge how she wanted to feel like a woman. As she explored below his hips with a nuzzling of her face into his hair and skin the last thing he wanted was for her to stop.

As she always had, she touched him with care. Gentle hands stroked his length and cupped his balls, a hiss of pleasure from the mask as she took him into her mouth. Her soft lips and tongue worked against him hungrily. Small sounds escaping her as she sucked and licked him into her mouth and throat that told him she needed him there. He didn’t feel any need to be harsh with her, his hands only pushing back her hair to see her face, meet her eyes when they opened as she caught her breath. The steady audible breathing from the mask all the while. She could’ve stayed and worshipped him on her knees to completion but she withheld. She rose and with a gentle stroke of her hand still on him, she leaves messy kisses with trails of saliva behind them across his chest. “I’ve had my fun, now have yours.” She smiles, chin up to face the dark eyes that bore into her.

His hands lift and toss her to the bed gently as she smiles with soft waves of hair surrounding her face. A blush of happiness in color across her cheeks as he lay by her and teased her with fingers down her stomach.

She put her arm around his thick neck, bringing him close, temple to temple as he began exploring her body. Those strong hands, ones that snapped bones and took lives were gentle against her. She was the exception.

His fingers were large just like the rest of him and proved it as they parted her lips and legs with ease. She wasted no time giving herself over to it. Feeling the cold metal of his mask pressed to her throat where she wished his lips to be. But she had the heat of his skin, that handsome face pressed to her and it was enough to pretend the hiss was simply his breath tickling across her bare skin. With an arching back and open mouth she sighs and calls out his name. He pulled her to him, chest to chest as she grasps at his shoulders, leg over his hip as he kept pressing forward, stretching and stroking and making her feel how she needed, what she could never make herself feel.

“Bane, please. I want you. Let me feel you inside me when I come.” She whines, a tone he never thought he’d heard from her, but keeping her on the edge of orgasm she lets her needful nature show through. Her hands stroke him, already hard from feeling her hot and writhing against him. The call of his name so sweet makes him groan. Had his name ever been moaned in such a way?

With a lift of leg, he enters her fully sheathed and being pulled on top of her by her strong arms around his neck. Forehead to forehead he fucks her. Two column sized arms she clenches onto, his traps and shoulders daunting, she could reach around him and every bit of that muscle giving her the pressure and push she needed. With every call of his name, every arch of back and squeeze around him he felt closer to coming. Sex was something he did alone and only for the purpose of killing distraction. This was different, this was a connection being made. Something he hadn’t done with anyone else but her. Sex was performative, functional with anyone else. This was something different.

She sang his praises, “Bane, you feel so good. Better than I imagined. And oh how I imagined all these years.” She confesses into his red ears, flushed with effort. His own sounds, wordless carry into her sternum where his mask presses, holding her hips up and using the leverage of his knees to work her body against his. She circled her hips, hands back on the bed to push back onto him. His head hung down and hers back, both more animalistic now, growing only more so.

With clenched teeth and sweat dripping they locked eyes, holding an intensity they both knew the other held, and now it was for each other. She reaches for him and he scoops her up to ride him on his knees and arms around his neck. He lifts her hips and pounds her into him, both gasping the other's name, her's a light and delicate call and his a groaned and desperate warning.

“Bane, please love just… I’m going to come, finish. I want you inside me.” She mewls out with her lips latched to his neck.

He hadn’t expected it, and that was a rare event. Which is why it caught him deep in his gut and forced him to feel every breath she gave him as she came around him. Shaking and trembling, tears squeezed from clenched shut eyes as she felt it all so intensely overtake her. He follows suit, giving her what she asked, as he had always done within reason, and her plea of him was more than reasonable at the moment.

A mix of the two of them, cum, sweat, tears, and friction lay with them in the heap they created on the bed. Now with clear minds and relaxed muscles, they lay together, her kissing his chest and tracing her fingers across old scars. “Would you stay? Can you stay without arousing suspicion?”

“Those that would notice know better than to say anything.”

“Anyone who did would have to answer to my blade.” She chuckles and he feels her snuggle into him. “We are the leaders. They do as we say.” She adds with a tone that tells him she means it.

“Good to see you’re still the Mina I need in battle.”

“I can be the Mina you need in bed as well.” A smile crosses her lips and he pushes back her hair affectionately.

“You are many things to me, Mina. And all are important.” He nods in approval. “Now we rest. We have training in the morning.”

“Yes, sir.” She said playfully, wrapping herself around him and feeling him bare against her as she fell asleep, something she’d never really thought possible.

—————————————————

Time passes and it’s business as usual. He treats her no different around anyone else. He calls her to his room one night and gives her the report on his vitals for the new injections. Everything had stabilized and he no longer needed the mask.

She can see his reserved body language as he sits on the edge of the bed. She places the paper down, moving towards him slowly like a frightened animal. She kneels in front of him and puts her hands over his that clasp together between his knees.

“Are you ready to take it off?” She asks with no demand.

“I was no one before it. Will I still hold the same power and fear without it?” He asks her.

She’s touched by his honesty for the concern of how he presented himself, he did have a point. “I believe no matter what you look like or wear you are powerful and worthy to be feared.” He senses no lie in her sweet words. She truly believed in him. “Is it your appearance without it that bothers you?”

“No.” He swings his head. “Such things are of no consequence to me.” He explains. “The mask is a symbol. A character head for a movement, a belief that goes beyond myself. I am not the movement, it will go on after I am gone. But without the mask, I am only a man to them. With it, I am more. It will not be the same without it.”

“No, it will not. But you do not require it any longer for pain.” She shakes her head as she stares into his eyes that had so many thoughts running behind them. ”I do have a proposition.”

“Yes?”

“You can wear it out there... for them. You are Bane and the mask has been as big a part of you as any since your inception. But you are not only who they know. You are who I know as well. Perhaps you can be without it in private? Have it serve as only a mask now. No longer an aid.”

“Is this something you would prefer? As you would be the only one to witness it.”

“I will admit I want to see all of you. In every way. Every incarnation. I have dreamed of kissing your lips and feeling them on my skin.” He feels her words brush against him in a caress as tender as her own.

He nods and furrows his brow, finding her advice to be as solid as it always had been. “I have wondered what you taste like. What the soft flesh of your breasts would feel like under my tongue, between my teeth.” He begins and exhales with a hiss. His hand raises her chin, speaks of her lips as his thumb runs across them, knuckles grazing down her chest to her hardening nipples, her body reacting to him with words alone.

“I want you to know what it feels like too. I want to taste your lips and feel the tongue that commands army’s against mine. I want your breath and sounds unfiltered against my skin. I want us to devour each other with nothing between us.”

Her words of lust encourage them both, a solid thrumming through their veins as their eyes meet and hold boldly, her face set with a confident expression and wanting eyes, lips parted just slightly, begging to be known by his.

“Then I’ll make it so.” He decides, standing and letting his hand trail through her hair as he moves to a mirror on the wall. His strong fingers pull the straps, release the holds and a whisper of air escapes. He suppressed the learned panic from not having it on his face. Usually a sign of immediate and intense pain to follow, but Mina's ingenuity had led him to be able to exist as he was before the mask, something he never thought possible.

He stares at himself, the mask now sat on the tabletop growing cold. His eyes were curious and unafraid. His face as he recalled beneath it, having been shaved recently as the existence of facial hair was cumbersome to him. The same scars were there, the same snare in his lip that split the top one unevenly. White lines around his mouth, his nose still strong and a bit crooked. She waits on the bed for him, letting him have his moment of reflection.

“There’s the face I remember from so many years ago.” She beams as he moves towards her. “The mark of a true warrior. Scars and proof of survival as a man such as you should be.” She raises her hand to touch his face. He simply closes his eyes and doesn’t recoil at the feeling. Never flinching as she touches the unexpected softness, “I cherish mending every scar.” She whispers moving closer. “You’ve only grown more wise, depth in your eyes where fear lay then.”

Her words make him feel secure. He wasn’t a person who needed others to stroke his ego but having the approval of another person he admired as much as Mina felt good.

He opens his eyes again and she hums with content for what she finds there. “And hunger now.” She gives a broad and confident smile to his almost expressionless face. His eyes were always the way to understand him and she was fluent in it. “Tell me, Bane.” Her voice was low and full of clear intent to tempt. “What are you hungry for?” She asks as she removes her top, leaving her uncovered. “What do those lips want now that I’ve given them their freedom?” She challenges as she takes off each article of clothing, confronting him with an unwavering stare. “They can take anything they wish, just like you… your hands… your cock has before.” She touches his body before undressing him as he stands with a devilish glare to meet her precocious one. Stroking him now in her hands, she bites her lip and moans for the hardness she feels. “Let the flesh bleed between your teeth, my love. Take it how you wish. Know what this pussy tastes of as it starves for your touch. Only yours.” She taunts.

Bane has never let a worthy taunt go unanswered, and Mina was the most worthy person to receive his hunger. So he gave it to her. In full.

It’d been so long since she’d sparred with him she’d almost forgotten the speed that accompanied his strength. He had her mouth to his in an instant, hand in her hair to yank back her chin as he licked at her throat, drawing a moan from her. “Mina you minx I’ll eat you alive.” He threatens as they groan into the others mouth, hands fierce on each other as the kisses skip affection and go straight for desperation. Tongues outside of mouths, teeth drawing blood from lips and gnashing continues through the rolling they do on the bed. Nails leave marks on their bodies and they lap away at each other like beasts. He kisses her throat, teeth biting at her shoulders. His eyes rolled back, panting after the sound she emits when he takes her nipple into his mouth with a hard and biting suck. She only pleads for more, pressing his head into her chest.

He leaves a trail of marks down her body, on her thighs before he proves his appetite and takes her into his mouth. She’s left breathless, a starving man between her thighs he is as he laps and sucks and bites. He fucks her with his tongue first, tasting as deeply inside her as he can, a messy display of need as he slurps and grunts into her. His fingers follow, his lips attached to around her clit as they nursed and his tongue worked the sensitive and swollen bud between his teeth and lips. He earned every sound of pain and pleasure he wanted to hear. His enthusiasm is contagious and causes her to cum. He drinks her in, licking her clean before nipping and kissing his way up her body to meet their mouths again.

Only for a second a tender kiss is shared as he aligns himself and begins a brutish pace that her body eagerly welcomes. She was louder than he’d ever heard her as he engulfed her nipples, kissed her mouth and neck and couldn’t decide where he wanted to touch and taste next. The need was relentless, her hot and wet around him, both around his cock and his mouth now as she cried against him. He needed it harder, he needed her conquered and his jaws on her in new places.

He moves her without effort as she’d always fantasized. Turning her over and taking her from behind which made her roar out for him. Holding onto the headboard she braces herself, head knocking from the power and every breath a moan as he pounded into her full strength. His hand held her tightly, feeling her skin began to darken under his fingertips from the force. His mouth moved along her shoulders, as she cried for more from him. Always more.

He bites into her shoulder. She growls out approval and tries to push back onto him but he’s controlling her hips and the sounds were surely echoing around the base of their bodies hitting together. But who gave a fuck?

He yanks her up by her neck, one hand encasing it entirely as he holds her tightly by the hip with the other and pounds into her with his lips at her ears. She heard every breath and felt ever drop of spit on her skin as he groaned her name. He fucked her relentlessly as she came around him, giving it no mind as she yelped and shouted. He kept going, her legs spreading until she was flat on the bed, him with his heavy hands on her back, knees planted to hit into her impossibly deep. She moaned like a banshee for him, deep and guttural as she came again, him hitting and stretching every spot she craved.

He comes with a roar. The weight of him on her back and pressing her into the bed in the most comforting way. She was safe, he had her, she was his. She feels the heat and wet from his mouth in her hair, the lion-like roars now purrs against her skin. He had let out the beast in himself that had felt caged from the mask. He gave her a piece of himself, no one else had ever had, something that would frighten anyone else, and she took it as hungrily and desperately as he gave it. She was his match.

He rises and dips her over, her face with hair plastered with sweat, mouth open and arms already reaching for him. “You are… delicious.” He sighs as he leans in to kiss her again, this time taking his time, lips and tongue soothing and affectionate against one another.

“You are a beast.” She giggles against him. “You are as much of an animal as a man should be, Bane. You are… a force to be reckoned with.” She honors, hands on his cheeks to feel him even as he kissed her neck.

“Do you wish to tame it, Mina? Me?”

“Never.” She sways her head and he kisses up to her temples.

“That is why you are the only one to know him in this way. You’re the only one to ever know him, see him and accept it as it is. A part of me.”

“All parts of you are the ones I want. I’ve known them all. And I fear none because I know them. I know you.”

“You do. You see me now. As I am. As a man. No mask, no Bane, only a man.”

“And it is such a man that makes me feel like a woman.” She whispers against him. “Every part of me, woman and soldier are yours, my love. The only man to earn my heart.”

“And I’ll fight to keep it. I’ll bleed for you and our vision.”

“May the gods have mercy on our enemies, Bane. Because we never will.”

Click on my icon then go to my Mobile Masterlist in my bio for my other works! Please like, comment and reblog if you enjoyed it! It helps out us writers A LOT!

#Bane #TDKR #bane fanfic #bane fic #bane fan fiction #Bane x ofc #BAne x reader #Bane fluff #Bane Angst #the dark knight rises #The Dark Knight Rises fic #The Dark Knight Rises fan fiction #tom hardy #Bane Tom Hardy #Bane Smut

242 notes · View notes