#blindspot cast

[ashleyjohnsonoftheday]

Day 511

[zitherfox12]

Happy birthday beautiful woman

[nachosncheeze]

There is just. a LOT of stuff for 5x02. I guess the long wait + lockdown y'all were getting a bit feral lol.... And now we're benefiting, but really, this might rival 3x01 tbh 👀

[stardustedknuckles]

Actually folks aren't making something out of nothing re AAVE in last night's episode (especially poc) and assuming the cast is full of safe people for a woc to call out - even playfully - is a white privilege and downplaying of those real issues. It's delightful and a relief to know that A herself felt comfortable and safe the whole time but it's not on white fandom to decide that was always true whether she'd have spoken up or not.

[fefecantsing]

Shes so cute <3

[mydearlybeloathed]

𝐆𝐎𝐓 𝐌𝐄 𝐒𝐏𝐈𝐍𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐀 𝐁𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐀

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: zoro doesn't dance, but he has no issue in watching you twirl yourself off your feet. so long as you twirl back to him when your feet get tired.

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: opla!zoro x fem!dancer!reader

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 2k

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: use of Y/N, swearing, dancer!reader, fluff

He was terrified, but not terrified enough to deny that you held his very life in your hands. Zoro didn’t mind that, not at all; you were gentle and funny and lovely and kinder than he deserved. Yet, you were real, as he often was reminded when you carded your hands through his hair with a little laugh and a mumbled, “Dumbass.”

No, Roronoa Zoro was terrified of how much he’d grown accustomed to your entire being.

It was also mildly frightening that you knew fully well just what he would do for you. Zoro admitted, he never tried very hard to hide it, not after your quiet little confession of affection some months ago, under the starlit sky, the wind brushing your hair away to reveal your face.

He’d been yours long before then, but only now he didn’t care to hide his adoring stares and relished in the little way you hooked your pinky with his when you were nervous. How your eyes searched him out when you entered a room. How your kisses grew from shy to ravenous as your relationship progressed.

It was safe to say he was certain you were as infatuated as he was, if not more, though that was a heated topic of debate between the pair of you (“There’s no way you love me more than I love you.” “Wanna bet?” “Zo, I literally took a bullet for you.” “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to bring that up… Why the fuck—!”)

A grin ghosted over Zoro’s face at the memory, and how you’d just laughed as he scolded your reckless affection. His grin grew to a smile before he could cool his expression, and then the warmth of your palm was cupping his jaw, drawing his face closer to yours. 

In the low light of the tavern, he swore you glowed. Or maybe it was the three shots of vodka in your system. Either way, you were an angel if Zoro ever knew one. An angel who blessed him with your touch and your teasing little smirk as you asked, “What’s got you smiling?”

“You,” he replied like a reflex. Leaning into your touch, he cast a look around the tavern, scoping out your other crewmates for signs of disturbance. Luffy and Usopp were at the bar, Nami was swindling a woman at the booth across from yours, and Sanji was charming up a brunette in the corner. None of the other patrons minded your crew, so Zoro allowed his shoulders to lose just a bit of their tension, and his hand drifted from his sword to your hand, tugging on it gently to urge you to sit beside him instead of across.

Giddy, you jumped up and hurried to his side, sliding in till your thigh was flush with his. Zoro’s body warmed as you leaned into him, not caring to ask as you took his arm and wrapped it around your shoulder, gazing up at him softly. Your comfortability filled him with confidence; how you moved with such familiarity in his presence, and how it contrasted from when you first met—it was enough to make his ribs crack just to have room for his rapidly expanding heart.

“Good answer,” you teased. You reached up to card your fingers through his hair, gently scratching at his scalp and smirking wider as he grunted and closed his eyes. “Tired?”

Zoro huffed a laugh. “No.” 

It was your turn to reminisce, watching as your swordsman melted before you, guard nowhere to be seen. Yours. Never would you have thought you’d actually get to call him that, but here you were, after all the odds and barriers of character.

You particularly enjoyed how he looked just now, eyes closed as you gazed up at him. Once upon a time, Zoro would whip around to make sure you never stood at his back, always ensuring you were nowhere near his blindspot. Now, you mused, he often slept with his back to your chest, your fingers trailing shivers up and down his arms. 

Now, his dead eyed gaze didn’t instill you with paralytic nerves; you knew he was more bark than bite, at least with you. 

Your dumbass.

“Oi, Y/N!” called Usopp, who had moved from the bar to the wide open space many used as a dance floor. The band of various instruments played a whimsical tune, the rhythm causing your knee to bounce in time.

You raised your brows. “Yep?”

Luffy wrung an arm around Usopp and laughed like a lunatic. “Come dance!”

Your eyes were droopy and honestly, you just wanted some sleep—but who were you to deny your captain? Besides, weren’t you the Strawhats’ resident deathly little dancer? 

Casting your boyfriend a look only to find him pursing his lips, you giggled and kissed his frown away, escaping the booth in his brief surprise.

Zoro watched as you leapt to your feet and practically floated with the grace in your steps. As much as Zoro trained and as hard as he tried, he’d never been as graceful with a sword as you were now. Somehow, that made him love you more.

A fiddle and drum, a flute and dulcimer—from what Zoro could tell with his limited knowledge, the music was exactly your style. A lively sort of sound. 

And as the music blossomed anew, Zoro spotted that tell tale sparkle in your eye; you had something up your sleeve, per usual, and as your toes started to tap against the ground he knew you’d be amazing, per usual. 

Luffy’s enthusiasm drew attention, and soon enough a crowd had formed.

You clapped your hands in a steady rhythm, twirling around in the middle of a circle of people, their gazes trapped by your every move. The crowd soon mimicked your clapping. From the front of the circle, Luffy and Usopp cheered louder than the rest.

Zoro leaned this way and that to keep his eyes locked on you, but it became increasingly difficult as you drew them near like moths to a dancing flame.

With an arabesque leading into a balancé, you glanced over your shoulder and caught Zoro’s eye through the people. His heart stuttered.

You laughed, pure joy in your lungs, and shifted your style from more classical to something looser. You twirled and curved your arms in an “S” shape before pointing your foot and scraping it in the dirt in a wide Rond de Jambe. The movement was swift and agile as you continued to follow the flow of the music, completely in your element. 

Mind elsewhere, Zoro hardly realized he’d stood up, not until he had forced his way through the crowd and stopped between Luffy and Usopp. The clapping all around him was deafening, only made worse by the sweet torture of your laugh. 

Again, your eyes locked him in place as you swept toward him, only to take Luffy by the hands and twirl him around with you. Zoro scoffed and folded his arms over his chest, unable as ever to hide the smirk tugging at his face. 

A giggle left you as Zoro’s face got lost in the whirl of your surroundings. You started a swing dance with Luffy, releasing him a second later to drag a newly approached Nami into the fun.

Your head spun and your feet ached—yet you would never feel happier than when you danced with your friends.

Well, you might’ve been a bit happier when dancing with your special green haired friend, but you knew him well. If you were to drag Zoro into the circle and dance him into the ground in front of all these people, he’d be compliant, but less than pleased.

No. When you danced with Zoro, it wasn’t like this; it was slow and steady, to the rhythm of nothing but the sea. It was deep in the belly of the Going Merry, when the crew was fast asleep, and the moon hung high. When you had the world to yourselves, and could sway in the hold of the other without interruption.

It was simple and plain, but it held a very special place in your heart.

Nami let you spin her around, rolling her eyes before she yelped as you pulled her in and dipped her low. She snorted into a laugh and stumbled a bit, grabbing your arms to keep you from whirling her around again.

Shooting her a wink as she all but ran back to the bar, you danced on light feet once more, starting up a roar of steady clapping. 

Your swordsman stood in awe, his eyes desperate to catch as much of your radiance as he could, like you'd disappear at any moment. He always believed good things never last, but he’d die before he let this one end. Because you were Zoro’s best thing, and he refused to grow a similar policy surrounding best things.

So when you had spun off your balance and teetered off your feet, he was there, his arms scooping under yours and catching you against his chest. Out of breath, you looked up and found his eyes, letting the rest of your weight lean into him as he stood a steady post. 

“Hey,” you giggled. 

“Hi.” Zoro tilted his head. “Ready?”

You were back on your own feet in an instant, thoughts of a warm bed more enticing than dancing through to dawn. So you took his hand and beelined through the crowd, shoving your way through and dragging Zoro along. You winded up collecting Nami by the door, and waited up for Sanji too. The navigator and chef yawned in time, their eyes droopy.

You were no better, your steps lazy as you mindlessly followed after Zoro and the others. It felt as if you’d blinked and you were back on the Merry, gazing up at Zoro who only nudged you with his shoulder. “You up?”

You grunted in reply and promptly led the way to your shared cabin, throwing open the door and letting go of his hand. You plopped into the blankets and at once felt yourself melt into them. The bed dipped a second later. Rolling over, you grinned up at your boyfriend, finding him with his brows met.

“Gonna take off your shoes?” he asked, though it sounded more like an order. 

“Yeah, yeah,” you huffed, lugging yourself back up to undo your laces and rip the offending apparel off. You turned to find him under the blanket, holding up one end to make you room, and you settled in beside him. Your head found its natural place on his chest, sleep just on the other side of the mental door, so to speak.

Lost in thought, you barely registered the words spilling from your lips. “I love you.”

It felt natural, like a breath you needed to survive. You wanted to say it again, then once more, and maybe again just for good measure. 

Zoro stiffened, his face going an embarrassing shade of red, and he was grateful you weren’t able to see it from your place tucked against his side. He barely even breathed, wondering how much time had really passed since you’d uttered those worldbreaking words. It must’ve been longer than a few minutes; you were fast asleep, none the wiser. 

He swallowed thickly and sank deeper into the bed, wrapping his arms tightly around you. He’d deal with figuring out how to say it back in the morning, and decide whether it’ll be the full truth some time later. Or, that was the plan anyhow.

Zoro really couldn’t hold back how you consumed his thoughts—his deathly dancer—and he could deny it all he wanted, but Roronoa Zoro had fallen in love, and apparently, you had as well.

The swordsman grinned, pressing a kiss to your hairline and forcing his eyes shut. How he got so lucky to have you love him, he had no clue. All he knew was you made his life a sweet kind of complicated, and he wouldn’t want you any other way.

[athenahatebots]

i know the creators of worlds beyond number have been clear that they're not exploring a world with our real-life social strata

but that does not exempt *us the audience* from the biases and blindspots of our real-life social strata

every time i see a post that implies that suvi is uniquely unkind or arrogant, or more annoying than either of the other PCs, or that it's the presence of ame and eursalon that influence her towards humanity, i have to wonder if the poster is projecting onto a confident Black woman

the same thing happened with laerryn. xerxes was *actively courting a destroyer god* out of grief for his love, but we had sympathy for him. laerryn went to dizzying extremes trying to save her love, and we get:

"but laerryn cast blight on the tree!" "but suvi was trying to fight orima!" yeah, aabria is an excellent player who makes internally consistent character choices that drive the plot and drama of the whole game forward. stories without conflict aren't going to keep your attention, y'all should be thanking her for telling a good story

in other words: she should not need to be sweet and humble for you to empathize or understand or refrain from public judgment of her character. she should not have to make herself smaller for you to accept her persona.

interrogate your instinct to be publicly critical of her characterization and choices - is it really coming from an honest place, or are you letting some well-established biases that we're all indoctrinated into warp your perception of what all of the PCs are doing? a good indicator: do you extend the same level of critique to all of the characters, or just the one making choices you personally don't vibe with?

it's important for us the audience to be aware of how we participate in the ecosystem of storytelling. we're not just here to consume content for our own gratification. we also have to be good, thoughtful, active listeners.

[kiatheinsomniac]

──── 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄 𝐈𝐒 𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐄 ˊˎ -

☾ ⋆ ﾟ𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 / 𝐑𝐔𝐋𝐄𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐒: a commission from @tired-lime who's always a darling to work with 𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆: Ratonhnhaké:ton | Connor Kenway x Reader 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓: 6.7k 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: MDNI, NSFW content, enemies to lovers, porn with plot, fingering, handjobs, creampies, unprotected sex

You walk as calmly as you can through the narrow alley, not daring to lift your eyes from where they look straight ahead of you and glance towards the rooftops that cast darkness over you, the silvery moonlight gleaming just ahead as the streight leads to the main road. This place is out of sight of the sparse public that might wander past at this time of night, your vision is limited in the darkness it provides and there’s ample opportunity for an overhead ambush. 

All of this puts you at every disadvantage, perhaps, but that’s exactly what you want the man tailing you to think. You keep your eyes straight because Assassins like rooftops. They provide coverage and blindspots, hidden in plain sight as most people simply don’t find themselves looking up with their eyes to the sky as they go about their day and all the tasks that come with it. It’s precisely why you’ll always find an Assassin stalking you from above and never from upon your own level. 

In short, you’re baiting the Assassin above you who has gone to so much care to silence his footsteps and conceal his shadow from your sight. But you’re a Templar. You’re trained to know your enemy. You spotted him not long ago, lingering around a crowd outside an inn, trying to blend in. But your purpose for going out at all today has been to bait him, those are your orders. 

Your ears are kept vigilant for the sound of something small flying through the air and in a moment's notice, you lunge forward to dodge the rope dart that had been aimed at you. There’s a hissed curse and you draw your sword as the Assassin makes his leap down to you, using a ledge of a windowsill garden to lessen his fall. He stands tall in front of you now, white beaked hood up and hiding his face. His hidden blade shoots out as he parries your offensive blow with his gauntlet. 

You’re still not entirely sure what material it is that Assassins make their gauntlets from. Your mentor Haytham has one and he claims that it’s an alloy from a precursor civilization but when your higher-ups start talking like that, you sometimes begin to wonder if you’ve really overstepped your depth as an ex-mercenary and have accidentally joined a cult. 

Regardless, the Assassin stands tall before you now. He is Achilles’ new novice, so you’ve been told. The only member of his ranks as your mentor has told you of how a companion of his wiped out the last generation of Assassins here in the colonies, thus giving your Order ample room to plant its roots. Though you have no name nor face to put to this companion of Haytham’s as he is always very quick to change the subject or to remind you to not speak out of line whenever your curiosity gets the better of you and you start to press for details of this mysterious person’s identity if only to create an image in your mind for all of this information that you are given. 

His free hand takes out a tomahawk and you’re put on defence. You take a step back but make sure to stay in the alley and out of the public space. The last thing you want is nearby law enforcement or civilians to get involved. But the clashing of metal upon metal rings out in the otherwise quiet night. 

He fights cleanly using his sheer strength and towering figure which puts you at a disadvantage. His technique is curated to be quick and efficient but your style often depends on your agility, stamina and tiring out your enemy. You’ve already laid such a foundation by baiting him to follow you from the rooftops – a much more strenuous journey than the one you had taken upon the ground. But there was something to how he was swinging at you with his tomahawk, movements tight to not allow you to get too far, a passion to his every strike and parry. 

You know when you’re outmatched and so you’re now put on defence and wondering what could have happened between intel and being given your orders that could have possibly allowed you to go about this mission alone instead of preparing a sort of ambush in order to put an end to this lone Assassin that has been terrorising the Order once and for all. 

Had you let the higher-ups flatter you over your skills into thinking you were truly capable of this task they had set upon you? Regardless, you’re in this now and your only priority has suddenly become making it out of here alive. You take a risk and do a rescan of your surroundings, looking for anything that might be of aid to you in order to give you just a slither of an opportunity of getting away. But you remain aware of your enemy’s every move, knowing that even a momentary slip up can be the cause of your untimely demise.

But the Assassin trying to cut you down is just as trained as you are – if not more so – and this subtle scrambling of yours does not go unnoticed by his keen, dark eyes. 

“Out of your depth, Templar?” He asks in his smooth and rich tone. 

“You wish I were.” You bite back and manage to take swift steps backwards, enough for you to assess that the risk of lowering your sword in exchange for the gun at your hip is worth it in order to try and create a window for escape. You take aim but don’t fire. You should be firing. You should be killing this man. 

Why did they send you on this mission alone? 

It’s all you can think to yourself as your finger hovers over the trigger. The Assassin knows he’s done for if your finger so much as twitches now and yet he freezes, seeing your hesitation. The two of you are brought to a standstill with you aiming your gun at the Assassin’s head and yet your finger hovers over the trigger, refusing to squeeze. He has no opportunity to strike you down at this moment as in a fraction of a second, hesitation can become a killing blow. 

Your eyes narrow slightly as you repeat that question to yourself: why did they send you on this mission alone? This Assassin is clearly far more skilled than you are and even baiting him here after a journey that should have tired you out has not made a dent in his stamina. He’s been cutting down British soldiers and Templars alike, chipping away at the order for reasons not yet known to you other than the simple explanation of ‘we are Templars, he an Assassin’. Why did you believe your higher-ups when they told you that you could handle this solo mission? Have they sent you here as an execution and if so: why? 

“Why do they want you to kill me?” You murmur. The question is asked aloud and yet you’re not sure if you’re asking him or yourself. This seems to make even the Assassin pause in puzzlement. If they want you dead then what are they doing now? Are you merely a distraction? 

“That’s a good question indeed.” The toweringly tall Assassin raises his hands in a gesture of surrender and you slowly lower your gun but keep a good amount of distance between the two of you, each standing at either side of the narrow alley you had originally lured him into. You tap your toes against the ground as you ponder over questions again: is this a distraction or an execution? Either way you’re clearly expendable and it comes as a surprise to you because you were so sure you were in the Grandmaster’s good books. 

So what has changed to make Haytham use you as a sacrificial pawn in whatever game he’s playing here in the colonies? Neither of you are sure what to do now, having both arrived here late at night with intentions to kill the other. But now you see that the true plan behind all of this was for you to die all along. It’s enough to make Ratonhnhaké:ton stand down and wish to spare you. Someone is pulling the strings here and part of their plan includes your death. So what’s to happen when this plan is interrupted. 

“I won’t kill you today.” He speaks up after finally making up his mind following a few minutes of thick silence wherein you were both deep in thought, trying with your minds to uncover the obscurity of whatever the bigger picture is here. The best course of action is to disrupt the plans of whoever it is that’s painting it. “But when you fall it will be by my hand, Templar.” You shoot the man a glare where his eyes would be, concealed behind the shadow that the beak of his hood casts over his face in order to hide his identity. 

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Assassin.” You quip back but you hear him scoff as he puts his tomahawk away when you set your gun back into its holster. 

“You’re right. Your masters seem to be set on beating me to that.” You open your mouth to protest but he’s already making his way up the wall of one of the buildings you’re between and returning to the rooftops. You’re quick to exit the alley and get into the middle of the main street so that he doesn’t have an opportunity to assassinate you from above should he be bluffing or perhaps change his mind and deal with you now before you become a loose thread. But he doesn’t and you’re left standing in the middle of an empty street at night. 

Could you even go back to your quarters now? Perhaps they’ll use the failed mission as justification to finish you off themselves. You need somewhere to stay until you’ve figured out what’s going on and whether or not you’ve been betrayed by the Order that you had sworn your own loyalty to. But where to go? 

Your eyes rise up to the rooftops that the Assassin had disappeared over. You’ve been set up by the people who this man is set on killing. 

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend…” You murmur to yourself as you spot a nearby ladder and use it to make your way up onto the same rooftop. It’s a risk you’re taking but it seems that every path available to you now has some degree of risk to it and so you’re left with no choice but to weigh your options and gamble. 

Your foot taps anxiously against the cobble beneath you as you consider your plan. If your Order seeks to erase you, it won’t even be safe to go back to your rented room and pack a bag of your belongings. It’s the first place they’ll go to look for you and with the network of spies Haytham has been building across the city, it won’t take long for word to get back to him that you’ve failed your mission. You won’t get far hiding either. All of your tricks, you’ve learned from your mentor and to try and hide would be to put yourself at a disadvantage by playing the game of the man who had so clearly intended to use you as a pawn in whatever grand scheme he’s hatching; not so long ago, you had thought you knew his plans but tonight has changed your course of events entirely. 

Into the belly of the best it is. 

You decide. Now up on the roof, you look with your second sight. It’s your upper hand and even Haytham has admitted that it was one of his greatest factors in considering you as an advantageous candidate for a Templar. The route he’s taken lights up gold and you begin to follow all the twists and turns he took that would have thrown off anyone else who might have been tiling him. Not you though. 

°:.   *₊    ° .   ☆ ☾　 °:.   *₊  ° . ° .•

You find yourself outside a manor upon a homestead. It wasn’t an easy journey by any means and you hadn’t expected him to have covered so much ground either. In the forest, you found yourself wishing you had stopped to hire a horse – you still had some money on you after all. You took a break twice, made a camp once after scouting out the area but you admittedly slept very lightly. You weren’t a wilderness girl and the anxiety of being found by a wolf or bear had kept you from falling into a truly restful sleep. 

And so you found yourself feeling both tired from a long way’s travel and a poor night’s rest during the small hours of the morning, all while heading right into the den of your enemy who, currently and ironically enough, seems to be your only possible ally. 

The manor standing tall in the clearing above you is built in typical colonial fashion with red bricks and white embellishments. Its large size makes use of the spacious land it is upon and your mind wanders back to the stories Haytham once shared with you about the Brotherhood that once lived and trained here. Looking at the size of the place, it’s easy to imagine so many people living here once upon a time and difficult to imagine that today it only houses the old Mentor and the one and only Assassin who still lives by their Creed here in the colonies. 

Though that’s only as much as your Order is aware of. You keep your wits about you, more than aware that you don’t know what you’re walking to, nor do you know how many potential foes reside within those four walls. You may very well be running from one death straight into another. 

But your options are slim and you’ve wagered that your odds are better here. Back with the Order, you’re a pawn that should have submissively been sacrificed. Here, you’re either a target to be taken out immediately or a valuable source of information. After all, you’ve been betrayed and they may consider that you have every reason to surrender all of the Order’s secrets that you possess. 

These are all just possibilities though and death remains a very likely outcome. 

You stand from an awkward distance on the treeline for a while. Surely you can’t just knock on the front door being who you are? Then again, if you take any other route, they might see it as an ambush and you’ll be in combat or even dead before you can open your mouth to explain your intentions. Despite every other instinct within you telling you to turn tail and run to the nearest harbour, to leave the region altogether on whatever boat you can get yourself aboard, you approach the front door. 

A shadow falls over you when you raise your fist to knock upon the door. He’s good at what he does, you’ll give him that. Immediately, you feel the warm, sharp edge of a blade resting against your throat. Warm and so it’s the hidden blade that the likes of him keep tucked up their sleeves, a blade like the one your mentor possessed. You’d always found it rather ironic that Haytham always stands so tall beside his principles and yet he fights with the enemy’s weapon. 

“Did you come here thinking you could finish the job and go crawling back to your master?” His voice speaks up from behind you. You raise both of your hands in the air in a sign of surrender, keeping them far away from your hips where your weapons are kept around your belt. He doesn’t hesitate in unbuckling it and removing it from your body and moments later, you hear it hit the floor some distance away where he’s thrown it. You’re not unarmed in enemy territory and you begin wondering if this really was the best plan of action after all. 

“I actually came with a proposal…” You begin slowly. You’re not entirely sure how to present yourself, your tone. Even you’re unsure if your own plan will work but you need to sound certain or else he may well believe you’re just here to trick him in which case he’ll kill you. 

You don’t need to turn around to know that he’s looming over you. You wonder sometimes how a man of his stature can blend into crowds and hide in plain sight the way Assassins are taught to. And yet he does and it’s truly a testament to his skill. 

“And what might this proposal be?” You swallow thickly. Your life depends on being able to convince him that you’re being honest, which he has every inclination to doubt considering your current standing as enemies.

“It’s been made clear that I’m seen as expendable, so I’d much rather prove just how essential I was. I have information: contacts, travel routes, locations of higher-ranking Templars. Whatever mission you’re on, I’ll speed it up by months, maybe even years.” You tilt your head back a little more, trying to ease the pressure when the blade presses more insistently at your skin. 

“And why should I believe you?” 

“Because I came here. Because I’ve got nowhere else to go at the moment and I’m risking you slashing my throat just for a chance to try and get out of this ordeal alive after what happened last night.” The blade leaves your neck but the threat is not removed as you then feel it poke at your back, spurring you forwards at a slow pace, hands still raised. 

“Step inside.” 

°:.   *₊    ° .   ☆ ☾　 °:.   *₊  ° . ° .•

Months later, you find yourself setting up camp in a familiar cave. These meetings have become familiar to you and nowadays this little cave feels like the safest place in the world. You’ve been working as a double agent for the past few months and being in the Order feels like having death loom over your shoulder all the time now. Being a Templar had once given you such a feeling of purpose and belonging, that you had a key, unshakable place in the world, that you were guiding it in a better direction. 

But the more you’ve been reporting back to Connor and the chats you have in between, the more you have to take a step back and ask yourself if you were being told a one-sided story the entire time. You haven’t set foot on Connor’s homestead since you first arrived and he had to send you back with a split lip, gashed jaw and sprained wrist to make it seem like you really had fought him and not conspired with him. That gash now remains as a scar across the lower part of your face. Each time you look in the mirror, it reminds you of your new mission as the Assassin’s spy. 

And each time, you pray that you’re doing the right thing. 

Your attention is grabbed by the sound of feet on dirt and you look towards the mouth of the cave where he stands tall now, moving to sit on the opposite side of your little fire so that he’s facing you. His gloves come off and he rubs his hands together near the open flames. His hood comes down to reveal a face strikingly like your mentor’s and you can’t believe that this man is now your only ally in the world and you can’t even be entirely sure of his loyalty. All you know is that you need to keep yourself indispensable in order to keep breath in your lungs and a heartbeat in your chest. 

He reaches into his bag and takes out a small, wrapped package. Scaled fish. They’re skewered and set over the fire to cook.

“Thank you.” You say stiffly. Interactions like this are still so unusual to you. He nods his head in a silent ‘you’re welcome’. 

“What’s new?” 

“Lee’s on the move.” His dark eyes quickly flick up to meet yours and you can see the deep interest in them. You haven’t asked why he’s after Lee specifically though it confuses you as you would have been sure he would go after Haytham; to cut the head of the snake, so to speak. But you’ve never asked because this vendetta seems deeply personal and you’re next to certain that he won’t open up to you about it. “They’re making preparations to receive him in Boston so whatever he’s come back with must be important… or they know that you’re after him. I’ve yet to find out which it is because I don’t have direct access to such information and I can’t put myself at risk if this is a red herring and they suspect something. But the moment I find out more I’ll tell you – but take everything with a pinch of salt.” 

He nods, deep in thought and you wonder what’s going through his head. You always worry that doubt will creep into his mind and will ultimately drive him to kill you. You can only hope that he’s instead thinking about exacting whatever revenge he has planned for Charles Lee. His thirst for revenge currently is what’s keeping you afloat. Without his vendetta, you’re worthless to him. 

“How have you been?” You’re not sure if you’re asking out of politeness or loneliness. Are you trying to keep in his good graces or are you seeking out the warmth of a friend, even if what’s between you isn’t really friendship? 

“Busy…” He sighs. “Your Order’s been on the move.” 

“I’ve heard about your meetings with Washington.” You bite your lip as you ponder your next question. It’s personal but a chance not taken is an opportunity missed. “You… You’re meeting with all these generals, men of influence and yet you work in the shadows. Do you truly have no wish for the world to remember your name? You really want to just vanish?” You had been drawn to the Templars partially by glory, by the chance of making a place in the world, a change where you and your fellow members of the Order would be revered for centuries to come. 

“I do not want to be remembered, no. Our creed states that we work in the dark to serve the light. This war will be lost to memory and I will do my part to make sure that it is the Assassins who bury any record of it.” Your first reaction is to think of him as ridiculous: he’s thrown any chance at a normal life away for a battle he will never be credited for. But it’s selfless. He has nothing to gain but what he believes in: no fame, no power, no glory. 

Maybe you really have been misled. 

The Templars had always preached peace but with that peace came the Order having ultimate power over humanity, domination over free will. You had once focused so heavily on how that absolute control would stop war, would stop suffering. But at what cost? It must be a great one for this man in front of you to be throwing any semblance of a normal life away for it. 

“Tell me more about your Creed.” He turns over the fish and glances up at you once again, meeting your curious eyes. You’re sitting down with your legs curled up to your chest, arms wrapped around them with your hin propped on your knees. This isn’t smalltalk or you digging for information, it’s genuine interest. He hadn’t missed your pondering look before, that glint of unsurety in your eyes. 

“Alright…”

°:.   *₊    ° .   ☆ ☾　 °:.   *₊  ° . ° .•

Weeks later and you meet again, having shared many more meetings in the meantime. You understand Ratonhnhaké:ton better now, you understand his creed. He seems different from his mentor that Haytham had told you about, so very different. He doesn’t meddle in the first civilisation that your mentor speaks of so frequently and you wonder if it’s for the best after the stories you had heard of while in the Order. Haytham speaks of them vaguely but you still have a comprehensive enough understanding. 

The more he speaks, the more you doubt your own order who wish to use these artefacts for their plans to shepard humanity towards its best self, the more you wonder if your superiors in the Order are just set on a path to repeat history. You’ve shared with him all the information you have now. You now feel like less of a double agent and more of a spy – having to give away anything about the Assassin you’ve come to secretly think of as a friend feels like a betrayal, even if it’s only for the sake of protecting your ulterior motives for having returned to the Order at all after that night you first encountered Rathonhnhaké:ton for yourself. 

He’s been more open with you too. Haytham is his father – something which both made sense, looking at his face, and shocked you, considering he is an Assassin and his father a Templar. Charles Lee, at Haytham’s command, had burned his village to the ground as a child, killing his mother. You empathise with that deeply. You had joined the Order knowing that you had no family of your own to lose should things get messy. It seems that the two of you are in the same boat for that one. 

Now, he’s picking out the bones from your fish while you prepare some water to boil over the fire. But time has moved on and winter draws near, bringing a chill into this little cave that feels like it’s become your one and only sanctuary in the world. You hold your open palms near the fire and try to chase away the chill but it does you very little good. 

Connor watches you for a moment before he removes his gloves and hands them to you. As he holds them out silently, those well-worn gloves appear like an olive branch to you. This really is for the best, you think. More and more, you’ve come to realise that you were misled by your Order. You were promised to be a harbinger, to be one of the names that would live on forever as a part of the order who had saved humanity. But you were a pawn all along. Even despite your special abilities, Haytham had been more than willing to sacrifice you for whatever gain. You might have a little more value in his eyes now that you’ve ‘proven’ you can take on the Assassin and get away with your life but you’ve seen your old mentor, you’ve heard how he talks of the first civilisation. He’ll stop at nothing and you’re more than sure that should he see another opportunity where your sacrifice and earn great gain for him and his plans, he’ll send you walking straight into the arms of death all over again. 

You take the gloves and slide them on over your hands. 

“Thank you.” You offer a smile but you hold back just how happy this small gesture makes you. They’re far too big but they’re soft and warm. They’re clearly broken in, the fingertips especially worn down from what you can only assume is all the climbing he does in stalking around with the stealth of his kind. But it’s the fact he’s given them to you at all that touches your heart. 

The two of you eat, drink, you share intel and it becomes late enough that you wrap yourself tightly in a thick blanket and curl up on your bedroll beside the campfire. The cave provides enough shelter to keep out the bitter wind but the temperature has still dropped drastically with the change of seasons. You sit up to wrap your blanket around your feet better and you find yourself wishing you had brought another pair of socks or, better yet, a warmer pair. You then lay back down, curled in on yourself to try and gather as much insulation as possible, and close your eyes to try and sleep. But the cold instead bites at your ears and so you pull your blanket up over the back of your head like a hood and shuffle a little closer to the fire so that your nose is warmed by the flame. 

You hear shuffling around you and crack an eye open to see that Rathonhnaké:ton has moved. He’s no longer laid on his bedroll on the opposite side of the fire but has instead moved it right next to yours behind where you’re curled up on your side. 

“I thought you’d be used to camping by now.” He murmurs and you can hear him lay down beside you, so close that you can feel the heat from his body. 

“Not during the winter, I’m not.” You mumble into your blanket which you’ve pulled up by your mouth so that your breath can warm your face. You feel the weight of his arm lay over your waist and he then presses his chest to your back. You can feel the warmth of his breath over your neck, heating the blanket that’s tucked over the back of your head. You stiffen for a moment, surprised by his willingness to be close to you. 

You feel your heart flutter in your chest and you lean into his warmth. How long has it been since anyone held you like this? It’s wonderful and overwhelming and suddenly there’s no more winter, nothing outside of this little cave where you’ve been setting up camp to meet for almost a year now. 

“Thank you…” You say quietly. Whether for the warmth, or the touch, or for the new path he’s opened to you that you’ve set your life upon now, you’re unsure. 

“There’s no need to thank me.” He replies just as quietly. The two of you lay there for a long time and your heart doesn’t slow, beating like a rabbit’s. He’s so close and you hadn’t expected such a thing to be so exhilarating. Rathonhnaké:ton is a toweringly tall man and you’ve always viewed it as an advantage for when he needs to intimidate. But now, you feel safer than you’ve known since that night of your first encounter when your illusion about the Knights Templar was shattered. 

After a while, you can’t take it anymore and you turn around just enough to be able to look at him over your shoulder. Your faces are very close and you can feel his breath fan across your lips. When you look to meet his eyes, he does the same as he had previously been looking at your mouth. 

“Feeling warmer?” He asks, his voice a rumbling murmur. You give the slightest little nod and your eyes very obviously glance at his pillowy lips again. You don’t try to hide it and nor does he miss it. You’re unsure which of you leans in first – perhaps it had been the both of you, little by little, while you were both preoccupied in imagining how it might be to press your lips to the other’s – but he’s warm and the touch of his lips against yours fills you with a bubbling heat. You turn your body to face him and he pulls you closer by your waist, thumb pressing into you through your clothes and stroking over your body while your lips press and meet again and again. One of your hands goes up to cup his face, feeling his chiselled jaw and cheekbones, then your fingers slide into his silken hair and tangle gently into it when your tongue slides against his. 

You pull away for air for a moment but it’s short lived as his teeth pull gently at your bottom lip and his mouth then grazes against your chin and traces the curve of your jaw in kisses. The cold that had previously bothered you is completely forgotten about and he tugs the collar of your layers of clothing aside so that he can kiss against the pulse of your throat. Your hands find his chest and press to try and feel the contours of his body through his clothing but all the buttons and straps get in your way. Your fingers start working to undo buttons before you realise how caught up you’ve got and you pull away for a moment. 

“Is this ok?” He gives a small nod and leans in to kiss you again as you remove his clothes. You leave his shirt and jackets open, revealing scarred, bronze skin to you. His body is shaped like an ancient statue of legendary heroes. You can’t help but take the opportunity to rove your palms over each contour and feel him in his beauty. 

His large hands slide down to your hips and pull you a little closer. To accommodate him, you move to straddle one of his muscular thighs. He lifts it just enough to press against you and feels a deep stirring below his belt when your teeth sink into your bottom lip and you let out a soft moan.

You had never imagined you would find yourself in this position with Rathonhnaké:ton and yet now that you’re here together, it feels so right. It feels like you really have grown close enough to be like this, like stars in their orbit being pulled to one another. His mouth is on yours again in an instant while he presses his thigh between your legs and he starts to pull at your belt to remove the clothing on your lower half. You help him by tugging off your boots between messy kisses. Once your pants are off and your lower half is bare, you shiver as the chill begins to creep over your bare skin. Connor simply pulls you closer and wraps the blanket firmly around your body while you straddle his lap, taking care to tuck it under your legs in an attempt to keep in as much warmth as possible. 

His fingers dance their way down to your mound where he can already feel the intense heat radiating from you. 

“Do you want to keep going?” He asks as his mouth moves to press wet kisses beneath your ear, breathing over the sensitive spot and making you shiver as a result. You nod your head and unintentionally let a needy sound slip past your lips. 

Ratonhnhaké:ton’s fingers glide through your slick folds and he lets out a little breath of wonder at the feeling of touching you in such an intimate place. Experimentally, he pushes one finger inside of you and watches how your spine arches and your body then bows to lean against him. He pushes it as far as he can go and begins moving it in and out. Letting your bodies take over, allowing words to become of little importance, you begin to grind your hips against his hand so that the heel of his palm catches your clit in a sensation that feels like a delicious burn. He adds another finger and you tug at his pants until his length, thick and heavy in your hand, is freed. You gently squeeze and hear how he sucks in a hiss through his teeth. You then begin to massage up and down, matching the pace of your hips moving to meet his fingers as they draw out soft, wet squelches from your pussy. You swipe over the slit at his tip with your thumb and hear how it makes him groan lowly. You glance down to see a little pool of your arousal gathering in the dip of his palm and decide that enough is enough.

You raise your hips up until his fingers slip out of you entirely. You then remove your hands from him and loop your arms loosely around his neck instead. He understands your intentions clearly and strokes himself a few times, covering his length in the slick from your pussy. You bring your hips back down and he guides himself into you. You’re quick to press your mouth to his in another messy kiss in order to muffle the moan you let out upon feeling the stretch of him pushing into you. You pause shakily along the way, deciding you can take all of him once you’re a little more adjusted, and start to ride. 

Connor’s large hands slide beneath your ass to grab at the soft flesh that spills between his fingers and he uses his hold to support you in moving up and down, holding a lot of your weight with his strength. As you continue to move your hips rhythmically, one of his hands leaves your rear in favour of pulling at the buttons and ties that keep your chest hidden. Once it’s revealed, he lets out an appreciative groan of approval and his mouth latches onto one of your breasts as he pulls you closer and you ride him. Your head tips back to the ceiling of the cave and you pant as the wind whistles outside, joining with the crackling of the fire, the shift of the fabric of your clothing and blanket and the slick sounds of his cock filling you up over and over. 

Ratonhnhaké:ton is big and consequently manages to hit all the right spots at once as he fills you again and again, your hips angled just right for him to brush against the places that have you curling your cold toes. His mouth slathers your breasts in kisses, pausing to nip or suck at your plush flesh and he works your blood into a feverish heat. The two of you pant for breath, moans and groans echoing off the stone walls. 

After a while, his arms wrap around your waist as he lays back, bringing him with you. He kisses you firmly as he brings his knees up and you almost feel the breath get knocked from your lungs when he begins thrusting up into you. You rest your head on his shoulder as he pounds up into your sensitive pussy and your sensitive, teased nipples brush against his chest as your body shakes and wavers with his movements. 

A pressure builds in your abdomen, growing tighter and more intense until your whole body is flooded in pleasure, walls squeezing tightly around his cock as though begging him to come with you. And you’re successful in sending him over the edge, hearing him moan, the whimper in his tone as he releases into you and holds you close as the two of you catch your breaths. 

But then the cold starts to kick in again. He carefully lifts you so that his softening cock slips out of your messy pussy. You watch as he searches his pockets and takes out a handkerchief which he begins to clean your inner thighs with. He looks to you as if asking if you’re comfortable with him looking after you like this but he finds your head tilted back, eyes closed as your legs twitch at having him touch your sensitive folds to clean you up. He helps you redress and dresses himself before helping you into his coat and throwing some more wood onto the fire, wrapping the blanket around the both of you again. 

Once more, you snuggle into his chest for warmth and neither of you are quite sure what to say, hoping the words will just come to you in the morning. 

Ratonhnhaké:ton presses a kiss to your forehead and holds you a little tighter as he closes his eyes, listening to his own pounding heart, the crackle of the fire and the whining wind outside. 

He decides to make sure that the Templars won’t ever have an opportunity to sacrifice your life again. 

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[ashleyjohnsonoftheday]

Day 431

[traumxrei-archive]

【 these battles we live through 】

prompt #5: It’s time to fight an overblotted person and if he don’t tell them now, he might not live to tell them later (ft. riddle rosehearts, trey clover, leona kingscholar)

gn! prefect (you/yours), drabbles, word count: 1.4k

a/n: wooo overblots !! tbh i wanted to make these longer to impress a sense of danger, but it was already plenty long after i checked it with the word counter...so rip.... i hope that you can still enjoy tho <333

Riddle Rosehearts

Riddle was absolutely furious. Not only was he furious at Leona for suddenly overblotting, he was also mad at himself. He cursed as he cast another healing spell, the blood that stained his glove making his own heartbeat thunder in his ears. How incompetent was he to see you get injured in front of his eyes?

"Riddle, I'm...I'm fine." He bit his lips at your words. You were fine. Objectively it was a deep gash to your arm. But Riddle couldn't help but feel like...

"Like I almost lost you," He pressed his forehead against your shoulder. Leona was still rampaging, his efforts now focused on Ruggie and the others rather than him.

"You didn't lose me," You said softly, holding onto his hand. "I'm right here, Riddle." Not even five minutes into the fight, and you had gotten injured. The gravity of the situation weighed on Riddle's shoulders heavily.

"I want you to leave this place," Riddle mumured, his grip on your hand tightening. "I don't think I could bear it if you got hurt again."

"It's a fight," You reasoned. "Everyone's gonna get a bit battered."

"But if I lose you, I..." Riddle tasted ash against his tongue as he swallowed. Maybe he would never get the chance. Maybe this fight would rob him of what he held the most dear. Maybe he would never be able to convey what he really felt.

"Prefect," Riddle said slowly, holding your gaze for a moment too long. "I know it is improper to do this in such a setting, but...I care for you. Deeply. And I wanted to...inform you in case anything happened."

"Then promise me," There was something resolute in your tone. "Promise me that you won't die here, and that you'll confess to me properly after all this over."

"Demanding as always," Riddle chuckled, and he could feel a faint warmth tickling his heart, even in this dire situation. "I promise. I will return to you."

This was a battlefield. Riddle was more than sure of that now. He flexed his soiled glove, pinpointing one of Leona's blindspots before releasing an attack spell. Leona simply roared in outrage, not at all fazed by his attack.

But Riddle had to try. He had to try and succeed. And what better motivation did he have than returning to your arms unscathed?

Trey Clover

Never in Trey's life would he have imagined that he would be caught up in, not one, but two overblots in his lifetime. He was under the impression that such ocassions were rare, but....

"Watch out!" A student shouted as the overblot beast raised its tail into the air, smashing through the trees like they were toothpicks.

He pressed himself against the foliage, watching as the beast passed by silently. And it was exactly then where he found you, crouching in one of the bushes. Relief flooded his chest as he checked you for any injuries.

"Thank Sevens you're safe," Trey said, pulling you into his arms. It was no secret how much he cared for you. It was to the point that Cater and the first year duo had an ongoing bet on who would confess first. But...

You smiled weakly, "I'm glad you're here."

His heart thumped almost painfully in his chest as he turned his head towards the direction of the overblot, "I have to help them."

"You don't have to," You pleaded, your hands mercilessly gripping his shirt. "You'll get hurt if you fight."

"The longer he stays rampant, the more time he has to hurt you, sweetheart," Trey pressed his forehead against yours. "You know....even if I didn't ever say it, you know how I feel about you."

"No, if you say it like that then—"

"I love you," Trey chuckled, though it sounded hollow and afraid. "And I'm deathly scared of dying. But more than that, I'm scared of losing you."

There were tears in your eyes now, "That just sounds like a final goodbye."

"It's not a goodbye," Trey said, gently wiping at your cheeks. "I just want you to know. It's bad timing, I know. I just...we can talk more after this is over, I—"

You leaned forward, wrapping him in an embrace so tight he almost didn't want to let go, "If you're going, then you're better try your best to come back unhurt."

"I'll try my best for you," Trey reluctantly let you go, grabbing his magical pen. "I will be back. Soon."

"Soon," You echoed as he ran off into the clearing, facing the overblotted person unafraid. There were already a few students attacking the beast, and he made sure to yell out his instructions.

Yet all Trey could think about was you. He would return, he vowed then, he would return unhurt, and he would finally be able to tell you all the words that he had been keeping inside his heart.

Leona Kingscholar

Azul overblotting was not a part of the plan. Leona dodged as anothe tentacle came to swipe at him, hauling another bystander behind a coral structure.

Then again maybe he should've been expecting it. An overblot was something he was all too familiar with. And Azul did lose everything that he had built up all of his life. He gritted his teeth as he launched back into action, shooting more spells towards the octo-bastard.

Leona just hoped that you would stay out of the fight for once; that the Leech twins would keep you occupied enough that you wouldn't get caught up in this battle.

But it seemed that there was no God smiling down at Leona today. Instead, here you were grabbing at his arm and tugging him behind a coral structure.

"Why are you here?" Leona hissed, hastily throwing up a barrier to shield you both from the surrounding chaos. "You're gonna end up getting yourself killed."

"Like you're one to talk!" You fired back, bringing your hand up to his head. "Did you even notice that you were bleeding?"

He released a harsh breath, "It's just a scratch. But I need you to get out of here."

"Why would I leave?" Your brow furrowed. "I can't just abandon you here."

"You don't have any magic to protect yourself."

"I won't do anything reckless—"

"Staying in this battle is the definition of reckless," Leona gripped at your arms. "How long will you hold on to your stubbornness?"

"Leona-senpai, I am not abandoning you here." The words felt like needles stabbing Leona right where it hurt.

"Please," The words were laced with emotions that Leona was unequipped to voice. "I can't see you get hurt." Your gaze softened, and for once he thought that you might listen. For once, he thought, that maybe he could keep you safe.

"Then I'll keep hiding," You said quietly, your hand now holding onto his wrist. "You'll be able to protect me. You're Leona Kingscholar, right?"

And Leona was foolish to think that his words could do anything about your bullheaded loyalty to your friends, and as an extension, to him.

"Hah," Leona leveled you with a glare. "What an unlucky thing, for me to be stuck harboring feelings for such a stubborn herbivore." He stabilized the barrier when one of Azul's tentacles thumped against it. He didn't have much time before the barrier fully collapsed.

Your eyes widened, "Did you just...?"

"You can hear the rest of it after the battle," Leona muttered, wiping at the dust caking your cheek. "That is if you don't get any major injury. Otherwise you'll have to wait even longer to hear it."

"Wait, Leona-senpai—"

"I'm casting a radius shield. You step out of it and I'm sending you out of here," Magic sang under his finger tips as he wove together the spell, and he watched as you nodded. "Good. Now shout if you see any openings, I'm not expecting you to stand around doing nothing."

"I wasn't planning on being a sitting duck," You huffed, though you stepped closer to him as he aimed another attack spell at Azul.

He should've been more nervous, considering he was facing an overblot; something he had no experience with prior. But he felt strangely calm, especially when he saw you right next to him as he fought. Maybe after all this was over...

Leona gripped his magic pen tighter. He just had to— no, he had to make sure that this was going to be over soon.

ty for reading these slightly hurt/comfort scenarios !! i hope that you enjoyed >:D if you did, go check out the rest of the 600 follower drabbles OR my masterlist ^^

[nachosncheeze]

3x13 Thoughts

For being such a good episode, this one is also surprisingly just. so. icky.

I like Nas as a character overall, but the subtext of the interactions/dynamic among her and Jeller in this episode always left me feeling gross. I feel bad-ish for Nas, because it's made pretty clear here that she really had feelings for Weller... but then, before she made a move, she had a whole radioactive lie detector to tell her unequivocally that Jane loved him, and his man-tantrum and everything he did thereafter to tell her that he wasn't over Jane, either.... Everybody makes mistakes, I guess. I have to believe that she didn't mean to come off quite so patronizing to Jane when she first walked into their flat, or at the end of the episode, but whatever her intentions were, it kind of came off that way, which just made everything else about the trio dynamic so much more uncomfortable. (kudos to Archie for playing the double-edge so well, though.)

Then there's Jane. She's in a bad spot; she's trying to mend her marriage and her daughter doesn't want to talk to her, and the woman who once dragged her back in fresh off the torture circuit, irradiated her, and threatened to send her back to the CIA - while sleeping with her husband in what is now her apartment and possibly even the same bed - has just turned up unannounced, seemingly on their day off. Then her idiot husband puts on nice clothes and wanders off with his ex at a party, leaving her - the person who, you know, not just his spouse here but has basically always been his field partner even when they actively kind of hated each other - by herself. That's all got to bring up a few things, and at the worst possible time, too. No wonder she's channeling Lady Dour of Dourton Abbey.

This episode feels like the final end of Fewer Fucks Jane from earlier in the season, too. Lady Dour feels very immediately-post-CIA Jane, and by the final scene in the coffee shop she's back to something much more like awkward season 1 Jane. It's a completely relatable shift for the character given the circumstances and although I'm not in love with seeing some of her spark go to bed for a bit, I love the progressive way Jaimie played it from around about the end of the Rossi mission/birth certificate reveal, chipping away at 'new Jane' bit by bit up to this moment. She's just less brusque now; she's reevaluating.

Speaking of characters returning to season 2 personalities, Weller. Ugh. He seems awfully at ease with Nas, falling immediately back into "leaders/equals" mode, side by side, leaving everyone else (*cough*Jane*cough*) trailing behind. There's Nas' pointed "Jane and you seem very happy", and the idiot confesses that "We're not, but we're getting there." (Note: I've seen several posts at the time heard the line as "We are; we're getting there" but that's not what I heard, and I checked the subs on both Netflix and iTunes. Please don't come for me :P) We find out that she ghosted him when he reached out for help while Jane was being hunted (although she's apparently over it and ready to be old pals now the minute she needs help, hmm...). His intuition and absolute faith that it was her that took the device, the affectionate way he chuckles when he tells Patterson and Rich that it was her. That flirty phone call at the end, while Jane was out elsewhere. He didn't blink at all on finding out that Nas had quietly acquired and was studying a whole new set of naked pictures of his wife (you'd think this might remind a person, at least a little, of that time she held back for like a whole year or whatever, secretly watching them while Mayfair got killed and Jane was violently dehumanized?? but I guess not *sips tea*). And he had nothing to say at all that her quote-unquote limited "I'm not NSA, my contacts wouldn't have been any help to you [to find Jane]" resources are suddenly good enough that she's able to dig up info on his stepdaughter's family that even Patterson hadn't found.

And WHY does he look so confused when Jane hits on him at the end of the mission?! You've been a bit rude all evening my dude and yet the hottest woman at the party is shamelessly looking you over and planning to take you home you should not need subtitles or flash cards or any further explanation to figure this out!!!

Anyway, not every past flame is as cool and supportive as Allie, and this whole thing would have been an awkward ex situation even without their fucked up history, but the fact that "their history" involved literal murder, torture, and blackmail really dials that up to 11. And here's Kurtis "boners to besties" Weller smiling through it all, leaving Rich to check in on his wife.

Speaking of which, I LOVE that Rich found a way and the earliest opportunity to separate Weller and Nas. xD It was an uncharacteristically subtle approach for him - noticing Jane was alone and approaching on the guise of dropping truth bombs, then failing to lighten the mood with a stupid self-preening joke, and then smooshing Jeller back together, all without specifically calling attention to the distance between the two of them. This is one of those moments I feel like there's an unspoken kinship and understanding between our Butterscotch Buddies. Good job, Rich, good job. :D

At the end of the day, I'm not sure if Weller was actually clueless about all the subtext (which would make him a pretty shit investigator tbh) or if he's just willfully pretending nothing was happening (which would REALLY be early season 2 Weller vibes). But whatever the case may be, the whole thing felt gross and crappy for everyone involved. Ew.

[irenadel]

And if the devil... 3/9

Smut, Aemond x Maid!Reader

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9

“Is he going to marry you?”

You were home again for your fortnightly visit, had left your bag of castle cast offs with your cousins for them to recover old fabric and mend whatever could be mended and hurried to help your aunt with the scrubbing and the cooking and the late night bread making. You were still hauling water for her, conscious of her bad shoulder and your uncle’s temper simmering as he sat by the fire and sulked. You were only too glad to carry heavy buckets and stay out of his house and his sight as much as you could, when your aunt had intercepted you still on your way in, out of your uncle’s hearing, taking her chance with Angus away at his master’s and the older girls out running errands.

“Whoever has got you washing your hair twice a week and smiling even when you’re gutting fish… is he going to marry you?”

And she had said it so kindly, so glad for you in that moment, had not even eyed you suspiciously when you blushed furiously and told her you weren’t stupid enough to get distracted by such a things, that you hadn’t had the heart to tell her any of it.

You haven’t had the heart to tell her anything since you were sixteen and had been desperate enough to do whatever had to be done to get money for your family’s passage to Westeros. Sailed a smelly, old ship in boy’s clothes (paid in more than coin for the chance, in pain and sleepless nights for your moonblood to come). She’s known though. Somehow, she always knows, but you are sure if she knew the extent of it now she would pull you out of castle service, no matter how good the position or how precious the coin you earned was.

A prince was a dangerous thing. A prince’s lust more so, no matter how profitable some fools thought it. But a prince’s heart…

You know better than to let this continue, more aware even than Prince Aemond himself, of the monstrous danger you both court, and who the consequences of it will fall upon. Because this isn’t a man you tolerate to survive. This isn’t the frivolous fun other girls had told you about when you had been too busy and too smart to risk the squalling, tender results a roll in the hay could get you. This has gone far beyond dire need or bullheaded resignation. 

Because Prince Aemond sneaks you out of kitchen duty not to fuck you against a wall or bend you over his royal bed, but to ask you if punches are all you can throw and daggers are all you can hold.

And you know the wise choice. You’ve known what the wise choice has been all your life, dashed your heart against it, over and over, just to quiet the bloody, pulsing thing. 

But he wears you down. In heart-hammering fear and fascination, not with coin or sweet words but with the delicious, sheer stupidity of his courage. He wears you down. Because you’ve never let yourself be this, this thing he doesn’t even think to fear, a thing he wears with pride as if it were his due, along with beauty, and dragons and a life without hunger.

And you can’t turn away from it, metallic and sulphurous, the way you’ve come to know Valyrian skin tastes. Because Aemond’s easy freedom rips from your depths those long forgotten parts of yourself that had been better left dead and buried. 

You remember an arakh your father had been too sensible to teach you, explain to your prince, that precision had never been something you could count on, your eyesight being what it was. So no bow or whip for you, but your father had given you a staff and told you, the closer the better, so you would be able to use your height and strength to your advantage, but still see the face you were aiming for. And Aemond takes up the task, knowing something of blindspots and making up for perceived weakness. He teaches you the ring of metal sword on metal armor, the echo of footsteps on cobblestones and dirt floors instead of grass ones. All the other little tells, so different from the ones found in the Dothraki Sea.

He teaches you the smell of reptile and charcoal that means dragon and laughs when you complain a great big lizard blocking the sun cannot be too hard to miss. You do not know how precious his cruel laughter is or the way he describes the clouds and storms he and Vhagar have lost themselves in.

In return, he drinks in stories of a father who taught you how to break a horse, how to throw a rope without trusting your poor, dead eyes but the thunderous gallop of hooves coming towards you. The father who had yelled at you through his laughter to stop trying to break your neck climbing wild stallions you had no business riding and let you whack him liberally with a quarterstaff just so you’d know what to do if an enterprising boy were to be tempted to haul you onto his saddle. A father who sounded to him, less like a king than a weapons master. But also, in stories of scarves wrapped around your head, rice extract for sun-burnt skin stolen at arakh-point from fat merchants and evil spirits kept away from your crib with knife and deception, Aemond finds his own hungry memories of his mother’s tender care whenever he had fallen sick and been secretly thrilled to get her attention.

He steals these hours to spend with you like he steals your memories of the Great Grass Sea, furtive and guilty in the knowledge that none of it belongs to him. That Ser Criston must be wondering at this sudden renewed zeal for his indoor studies, away from the practice yard, where he had previously been so eager to be.

But one doesn’t question a prince. Especially a prince who grows no duller in his sword drills, in spite of persistent disappearances.

Ser Criston need not know where Aemond takes the practice swords or that he lets Princess Helaena’s chambermaid have a go at him with a dull blade. Not bad with a sword but still better with a quarterstaff you use to put him in a chokehold that leaves him hard and aching for you. He elbows you in the stomach and takes the chance to throw you unto the soft grass of the little secluded garden you have taken over. Laughs at your outraged struggle and pins you down just so he can watch you bare your teeth at him, ferocious and angry like a dragon hatchling.

And it is you who kisses him first always, because he is not his brother, because he is better than that… but most of all because the thrill of your legs around his waist, your nails against the back of his neck, your hunger matching his, is better, a thousand times better, than the cheap satisfaction of unopposed conquest.

He will stubbornly refuse to think of this when he is dragged to the Grand Sept with his family, to pray for his father’s ailing health. He will look straight ahead and will not meet his mother’s or his siblings’ gaze. Will fiercely despise Aegon who can so easily ignore every reminder of temperance and decency thrown his way, and stare serenely at the candles lighted in their father and king’s honor. He is nothing like his brother, Aemond will think desperately, as he hears the prayers to the Mother, extolling them all to piety and chastity so that her gentle hand will ease the king’s burden. He will tell himself, this has no bearing on him, that it means nothing, even as he remembers the keening sound of your voice the first time his hand found its way into your cunt. 

He’d known nothing but what the women of the Street of Silk had done to him and found himself drunk on the knowledge of his power, this new prowess he could pursue, the moment his fingers had slipped inside you and his thumb had found your nub. He had not known when to stop once he had realized he could make you scream. Not even amidst the incense and candles of the sept, because nothing here could make him forget, and he wondered contemptuously if Aegon could so easily keep a straight face during service, because he had never known what it was to make a woman fall apart for him without his coin.

Gentle Mother, strength of women…

But Aemond Targaryen does not hear the Mother’s Hymn. All he hears is his own cruel voice against your ear, riding too high on his mastery of your body to remember to be afraid of his own, “Tell your prince where you want his fingers.”

And you keen and struggle to steal another kiss from his smiling lips, thin like a blade and twice as sharp.

“Beg,” he had told you as he had rubbed your cunt with his whole palm watching you come undone under him. And it had almost been the end of him when you had choked back a delirious, my prince, right when he had slipped his fingers inside you again and felt your sex clenching around them. He had wanted inside your cunt so badly in that moment, he thought he would go mad of it.

But he couldn’t, had found within himself an uncomfortable excess of prudishness he could not seem to shake off. Because even drunk of the smell of your sex and the sound of your moans, still Aemond knows he is not his brother. He knew it in the brothel even as he refused to back down from the challenge of a grown woman beneath him, consuming his eager, hard sex so quickly and thoroughly he had found himself spilling into her with a child’s delirious cry of joy instead of a prince’s firm edict.

Aemond is not his brother, has far less tolerance for humiliation or a woman’s pain than Aegon ever did… but still, he is only human

“You’re not a whore,” he had hissed against your skin, choking back the angry moan you had ripped from him that day you had tried to take him into your mouth for the first time. He’d yanked you back up, panting wildly, half-outraged, half-terrified, all aflame. He had not known how to tell you that you were more than this to him. The thunderous beating of his blood, in his lower belly, taking root in his cock still hard and ready against your thin skirts. He’d wanted to tell you he did not need your obeisance or degradation, but could not, because even now he craved them so hard his mouth watered at the thought… And he should have known how far from the mark he was because you’d grabbed a handful of his Targaryen silver hair and pulled so hard his prick had jumped for joy. Hauled him to eye level and kept him there just so you could look into his eye while you milked him dry. And it was everything Aemond had never known he needed, panting madly, feeling himself lose control of his own teeth-clenched defiance. His hands burying themselves in your hair, almost smiling, eye wide as you’d reached out for his chest, for the place where he had shown you, and held your hand to, as he came all over your fingers, balls empty, still hard, too far gone to the think of his duty or his crown or anything that wasn’t the burning heat in his groin and your merciless grip around his heart.

It was Aegon who found out first. Unsurprising given his brother’s proclivities and the appalling lack of subtlety Aemond himself was capable of, unused as he was to hiding anything but his resentment. And lowly and larval as he had always been, his brother had not chosen to deal this blow to him when it could have done him the greatest harm, in the Sept or around their mother or their lord father even. No. Aegon had chosen to go for the throat flat on his back in the training yard, Aemond’s mind already far from the brother he had just quickly disposed of, thinking as he was, of you.

Stripped to your small clothes because they were the closest thing to dothraki riding slacks you possessed. Legs splayed apart, firmly planted on the ground, center of gravity low, both hands on the pike Aemond had found for you, akin to, but more deadly than a quarterstaff. Braid hanging severely behind your back, strands of its coarse, heavy hair falling all over your sweat-soaked neck, making Aemond swear to himself and all the gods that he would take it apart the moment he had you on your back on the ground, just to see the stream of pale hair falling over your naked shoulders.

Small clothes and borrowed pike and already a more formidable opponent than Aegon had ever been.

It was his mistake. The memory of you making him feel generous enough to haul his brother back up, suddenly close enough to hear Aegon’s poison right up close to his ear.

“Fucked her yet?”

Aemond had clenched his teeth so hard it hurt.

“Better fuck something other than your hand first, little brother,” he’d said, barely holding in the laughter, Ser Criston already fast approaching at the set of Aemond’s shoulders, arched and poised to strike like a panther. “… if you don’t want to shame yourself the moment you wet your wick in her.”

He should walk away. Scoff. Give it no importance and just carry on. If Aegon could do it then so could he.

He did neither, would will himself not to flush angrily if he could keep his pale Valyrian skin from betraying him. He thought coldly, rationally, he told himself later, considered how much further he could expose himself to humiliation as he heard his brother’s half-heartedly restrained giggle. He didn’t even register when he shrugged Ser Criston’s hand off his shoulder and came to rest his own on Aegon’s neck as his practice sword clattered to the ground.

He squeezed, not much, just enough to make a point, didn’t realize Ser Criston was talking to him, steadily but urgently, didn’t think much of his brother choking back his giggle along with his breath. He smiled, he thought he did, but Aegon’s quickly darkening face and evaporated mirth should have told him otherwise.

“This hand you mean?” He asked and squeezed some more. A faint whistling sound coming from his brother’s throat and Aemond found the corners of his mouth hurting from being pulled too tautly against his teeth. “Spend more time worrying about your training and less time worrying about my sheets, brother.”

Then Ser Criston did pull them apart, Aegon crumpling against the kingsguard, coughing to allow sweet, precious air back into his lungs. Aemond, paying it no mind, walking away, hands clasped behind his back so they would stop trembling.

He is not his brother, he knows. He is better, stronger, more disciplined. If he kisses your lips and hair and not your sex, it is because he understands this. If he has yet to see you unclothed, or even let you undress him, undo him… it is because he knows what he owes his honor, his family, his kingdom… his future lady wife.

It isn’t fear, he tells himself, it isn’t shame. He hasn’t known fear or shame since the day he stared down dragon and death. It is respect.

You are not a whore, he had told you, and proceeded to behave like one himself. He’d known it couldn’t last long, should have been aware always how there was no future to it.

But he thinks of your head laying on his belly, under dappled sunlight, his fingers caressing another darkening bruise on your collarbone. He had promised to take the hand off whoever had dared, with a lazy cat-like smile that had made you smile back. He thinks of Helaena’s laughter behind the closed doors of her rooms, shrill and unexpected, even for her. He thinks of you carrying little Jaehaera, spinning her around the gardens until she shrieked in delight. The mottled red bridge of your nose, the velvet-soft hair of your temples.

He is not like his brother Aegon. Has never been. Could never do the things he does. But Aemond finds himself surprised to discover how much worse he has managed to become.

[fefecantsing]

i was gonna join a Jasmine cephas jones subreddit and i thought it’d be like a really cute place like the hamilton one…. Its just a bunch of dudes straight jerkin it to her ig posts😭

[renatogpadilla]

Ya'll know what would be GREAT?

When the Nein get animated, every member of Obann's "Unkillable Family" being a member of the Blindspot cast as a joke for them keeping Ashley away.

[sweaterkittensahoy]

One of the funniest realizations I have ever had about how fucking blindspotted tv people can have about intended vs. actual audience is--unshockingly--Supernatural.

"why are women watching this show?" they yelled over and over again.

Meanwhile, the show starred the sweetest, nicest boy from Stars Hollow and that guy who'd been on Dark Angel and also been Sammy's twin brother on Days of Our Lives.

Like, you fuckers literally cast "teenage girl first orgasm" leads.

[lokiondisneyplus]

Potential spoilers below the cut, but a super interesting article.

Some non-spoiler pull quotes:

Tom is my producing partner in a true sense. Before we had any writers or directors, it was Tom and I for months building this story out. We had a 30-page document that was like, This is what the show is: TVA, He Who Remains — even Victor Timely was in that first document years ago. And it’s just carried through. -- This is maybe — not maybe — this is the first Marvel series to never have any additional photography. The story that is on screen is the story we set out to make. -- We were casting, and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” was playing in L.A. and in New York, but it hadn’t gone nationwide yet. I think it was going the very next week. We had gotten a call from our casting director who said, “Hey, I’m about to put together a list for OB — just initial thoughts. But before I do that, I really think you guys should meet Ke, and I think it should be Ke. I think you guys should meet with him quick, because probably by Monday, he’s going to have a lot of offers for different things.”

Of the eight live-action TV shows that Marvel Studios has produced for Disney+ to date, only one has concluded with the explicit promise of a second season: That would be “Loki,” the outrageously entertaining series about Tom Hiddleston’s god of mischief and his metaphysical exploits in the Time Variance Authority.

It turns out, those plans were already in the works before a second of “Loki” had ever streamed. As executive producer Kevin Wright explains to Variety, he and Hiddleston began talking about Season 2 of the show while in production on the third episode of Season 1.

“As we were shooting the ‘Lamentis’ episode, Tom and I started having lots of conversations about how this world could build out, how we dive deeper into it,” he says. “A large part of what we wanted to do was not trying to repeat ourselves, and not try to play the hits.” At the same time, he adds, they also wanted to make sure didn’t start Season 2 by “fast-forwarding through the drama” of the Season 1 finale. 

And so much happened in that finale. To recap: Loki and his variant-turned-potential-soulmate Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) arrive at the end of time, where they meet the creator of the TVA, He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors) — the variant of the supervillain Kang who won a massive multiversal war. To prevent future Kangs from emerging, He Who Remains has used the TVA to maintain a single, sacred timeline — pruning away trillions of potential lives in the process. He gives Sylvie and Loki an impossible choice: Replace him as the head of the TVA, or kill him and bring forth an infinite number of Kangs.

Loki wants the first option; Sylvie wants the second. She wins, kills He Who Remains, and boots Loki back to an alternate version of the TVA, where previous compatriots Mobius (Owen Wilson) and Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku) don’t remember ever meeting him.

Variety has screened the first four (of six) episodes of “Loki,” and without spoiling anything, Season 2 picks up pretty much exactly where the first season left off — before then charting its own storytelling path. The full cast has returned, including Gugu Mbatha-Raw as former TVA judge Ravonna Renslayer and Eugene Cordero as TVA functionary Casey. And Majors returns as well as He Who Remains, in addition to another Kang variant, a 19th century inventor named Victor Timely. They’re joined by new actors including Kate Dickie (“Game of Thrones”), Rafael Casal (“Blindspotting”) and recent Oscar-winner Ke Huy Quan as TVA technician Ouroboros, aka “OB.”

Behind the scenes, there have been some changes from Season 1. The series’ original director Kate Herron and head writer Michael Waldron both stepped back to focus on other projects. In their places, “Moon Knight’s” Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead have stepped in as lead directors, and Season 1 writer Eric Martin stepped up as head writer for Season 2.

To delve into the second season of “Loki,” Wright talked with Variety about casting Quan just before his performance in the multiverse spectacular “Everything Everywhere All at Once” changed the actor’s life forever; what the future of “Loki” the show and Loki the character might be following Season 2; and how Majors’ arrest in March for assault did (or did not) affect their plans for Season 2.

What were the discussions like about how to approach Season 2?

I think we had to just keep reminding ourselves that the TVA is a great world, let’s live in the drama of what we’re creating there. Which means not fast-forwarding through the drama that they just decided to stop pruning timelines, but also staying in the emotional turmoil that Loki and Sylvie are coming into this season with.

Also, there were certain things in Season 1 that felt like they were maybe a risk, and we didn’t know how the audience would respond. Once we realized that they embraced it, it felt like a lot of freedom to go further.

What did you feel was a risk?

In a very early draft of the script that Michael Waldron had written, that first Time Theater conversation between Mobius and Loki was maybe a couple of pages. And then a lot of other big Marvel-y action things happened afterwards, and we all went, “That’s not the interesting stuff. This Time Theater conversation is interesting. That’s what the show could be.” If we are really diving into the character-driven philosophy and introspection of self, that’s quite different than the last 10 years of Marvel movies. Would the audience follow us along on that? 

Tom Hiddleston famously held seminars on the character of Loki for Season 1. Did he do anything like that for Season 2?

No, because we tried to bring back as much crew as we could from Season 1. It was largely the same team. Obviously, we went from Atlanta to London [for production], but a lot of our department heads carried over, so there was an institutional knowledge that was built in. And Tom is my producing partner in a true sense. Before we had any writers or directors, it was Tom and I for months building this story out. We had a 30-page document that was like, This is what the show is: TVA, He Who Remains — even Victor Timely was in that first document years ago. And it’s just carried through.

So even as Kate Herron kind of handed the reins over at the end of Season 1, there is an institutional knowledge that comes with us being the glue between the seasons.

You mentioned He Who Remains and Victor Timely. You finished shooting Season 2 in 2022, but did Jonathan Majors’ arrest for assault in March resulted in any changes to the show? 

No. This is maybe — not maybe — this is the first Marvel series to never have any additional photography. The story that is on screen is the story we set out to make. We went out there with a very specific idea of what we wanted this to be, and we found a way to tell it in that production period. It’s very much what’s on screen on Disney+.

It’s clear that Majors plays an integral role this season, and you just alluded that Marvel usually does additional photography on all its titles. So was there any discussion about making changes to the show, given the uncertainty about what was happening with Majors?

No. And that mainly came from — I know as much as you do at the moment. It felt hasty to do anything without knowing how all of this plays out.

How early into the writing of Season 2 did you decide to cast Ke Huy Quan as OB?

We were in London, so I had at least some version of our scripts. The way the process works, they’re always being rewritten, but OB was in there, and his introduction scene was almost exactly as originally written. I would like to say it was in early spring, which was maybe just two months before we started shooting. We were casting, and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” was playing in L.A. and in New York, but it hadn’t gone nationwide yet. I think it was going the very next week. We had gotten a call from our casting director who said, “Hey, I’m about to put together a list for OB — just initial thoughts. But before I do that, I really think you guys should meet Ke, and I think it should be Ke. I think you guys should meet with him quick, because probably by Monday, he’s going to have a lot of offers for different things.”

So that that Friday, myself, Justin and Aaron, two of our directors, had gotten on a Zoom with Ke. We pitched him the show and this character. We shared that introduction scene with him and maybe the full script. And then we called in the big guns that Monday; Kevin Feige got on the phone with him and said, “Ke, I know you read the script. I know you talked to the guys. We really think you should do this. I really want you to join the Marvel family.” And he had already made up his mind over the weekend. It was like, “I’m there. I’ve been a huge fan of this for a long time.”

In Season 1, the show explored several time periods and locations outside the TVA, but in the first four episodes of this season, you stick to just 1880s Chicago, 1970s London and 1980s in the Midwest. How did you come to that decision to focus more on the TVA and building out its history?

Because that felt like where so much of our core character conflict was going to come from. There was so much intersectionality of our characters and what they think of the TVA. Sylvie wants to burn it down because the apple is rotten, as she says. Loki sees it as potentially the only form of defense against whatever else is coming in a war with Kang. Mobius and B-15, they’ve dedicated their whole life to it. They’re not quite ready to give it up. Renslayer feels like she’s been keeping it together, and you get a real understanding of why she thinks she should be the one to get this thing back on track.

We want everybody to be in the gray area — they’re neither good nor bad. They might make bad choices or heroic choices, but they are trying to figure out who they are. The TVA felt like the place where we could maximize that storytelling and learn more about those characters through that. But also stay tuned, because we are going to more places [in Episodes 5 and 6].

Do you think the TVA could start to appear in other titles in the MCU?

I would love that. Look, I’ve been siloed in on “Loki” for almost five years now, by the time this show finishes, and with every filmmaker who has put their hands on the show, we’ve all had the same conversations: It feels like the TVA could really be this exciting connective tool for all of this storytelling. And we’ve only seen a fraction of it. We’re dealing very specifically with this one smaller department with Mobius and B-15 and Renslayer, but you look out at those vistas — this place is infinite. The exciting thing to us is there certainly are more stories to be told there. We’ve carved out our own little corner of the sandbox and built something cool. We’re hoping that other people want to come and play with it.

One of the things I’ve most enjoyed about “Loki” is how it’s telling its own story, but have you considered bringing more of the MCU into it?

Yes, in both seasons of writers’ rooms. It always felt wrong to go too far outside of the box of things that would directly contribute to Loki’s character arc in these two seasons. So that’s why we get [Jaimie Alexander as] Sif in there [in Season 1], we play with the variants in the void and various levels of Asgard-specific storytelling. But while we’ve had nearly 12 hours of storytelling, it never feels like we have enough time. Eventually, just handling the stories of our ensemble and not shortchanging them has always been priority number one.

Now, Season 1 and 2 were always built to be two chapters of the same book. The hope would be going forward, there are more books that we can tell these stories with. I certainly think that we could start doing that.

Would there be a Season 3 of “Loki”? Is the future of the show finite or more open-ended?

I think it’s open-ended. We certainly did not develop this season going, “We have to tee up Season 3” — in the way that we did with Season 1, where there was a very specific, “Hey, we’re coming back.” But I also think that where this show goes, there certainly can be many, many, many more stories told with Loki in the “Loki” world, and in other worlds connected to Loki, the character.

Do you think Loki would ever rejoin the larger world of the MCU? 

That’s the hope. I don’t want to — yeah. I think the the sun shining on Loki and Thor once again has always been the priority of the story we’re telling. But for that meeting to really be fulfilling, we have to get Loki to a certain place emotionally. I think that’s been the goal of these two seasons.

This interview has been edited and condensed.