#but keep in mind we're kinda in a new age too

[mcfcizuku]

i understand everyone who's obsessed with the older f1 grids

[sentientcave]

Retirement Party

Chapter 5 - Wouldn't It Be Nice?

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Contains: No Y/N, Kidnapping, Forcible relocation, Dubcon, Plus-sized Reader/OC, female Reader/OC, John introduces Doll to some normal people, Everyone learns new things about each other, Manipulation, PTSD, Doll has a tragic backstory, Doll is kinda sorta Catholic? Who knew (me I knew)

~3.8k - MDNI - Dark fic! Please mind the content warning above but honestly this chapter is pretty mild all considered.

Ghost, Soap and Gaz come back a few hours later with the blue sports car (a bit scratched up, but tail-light repaired) and a pick up truck that looks a lot like the one John had before, but a generation older, and green instead of gray. John speaks to them briefly before he coaxes you into the truck and drives off, promising that the others will be gone before you get back.

He drives a few miles down the road, and pulls up in front of a little farmhouse. It looks idyllic, children and a dog playing in the yard. Two people on the porch wave, and John hops out and circles around right quick to open your door and help you down.

The couple trots up to greet you both. "Who's this?" The woman asks, looking at you and beaming. "You finally introducing us to a girlfriend?"

"Doesn't feel like the right word, does it, doll?" John winks at you, like your circumstances are all just a funny little blip, nothing nefarious or terrifying about it.

"No, it doesn't," you agree, keeping your face carefully neutral. "I'm Dalisay. Nice to meet you, um, Melissa, right?" You stick your hand out and shake hers. There’s no sense in being rude to them, just because they know John. He’s probably smart enough to keep his old life, and his boys away from his new one as much as possible.

"The very same! We were a bit worried John was going to be an eternal bachelor. Nice to see he's found someone." She introduces her husband, Rob, and her kids, Hannah, Haley and Jackson, who are ten, seven and five, respectively.

"Do you want to see the puppies?" Haley asks, grabbing your hand. Jackson grabs the other one and they pull you along to the garage, not waiting for an answer. You very deliberately don’t look over your shoulder at John, because you’re fairly sure that he’ll be looking back at you with a sickeningly hopeful expression. His comments from last night still ring in your ears, and you’re not willing to indulge that foolish fantasy of his.

The puppies are in a play pen with high enough walls to contain them, but still allow their mother to hop in and out. She hops out to inspect you, sniffing your outstretched hands warily. Her tail starts to wag after a moment, and you give her a proper pat, smiling. The dog has soft ears and a silky, black and tan coat, but you're not sure what type of dog she is.

"What's her name?" you ask, kneeling down.

"Bonnie-bell," Hannah says. "And our other dog is Charaid."

"Proper Scottish names," you say. The kids all have a slight burr, and although Melissa sounds scouse, it's the first hint as to where you are.

"Da said we was gettin' too English, livin' in London," Haley says. "I like it better here anyway. Mum says maybe we can get some coos. "

"I grew up near Aberdeen," you say. "But I've lived in Manchester too long. Lost my accent."

"No' far off, then, aye? We're only about an hour and a bit south and west," Rob says, appearing at the open garage door to supervise. His stern face looks friendlier now that he knows you're not proper English. "Was worried John dragged some poor city girl out'f England to live out here."

You hum. "Well, I am something of a city girl now. Been in Manchester since I was seventeen."

"Weel, welcome home then," Rob says with a wink. "We'll get ye proper re-acclimated soon enough." He leans over and plucks a puppy out of the sleeping pile inside the pen, and hands it to you. The pup is at the age where its somewhere between looking like a potato and a proper dog, maybe six or seven weeks old. "Gordon setter, by the by," he says. "Good dogs."

"Cute too." You settle the puppy in your lap, petting its soft little head. Bonnie-bell licks your wrist and hops back into the pen to lay down next to the others.

"Ye want one? This girl's no' spoken for yet. John's been hemmin' and hawin' about it, but I figure he wouldna want ta leave ye home alone, neither."

"Oh, I'm not sure I'll be staying that long. I'm only here because there was an incident at my apartment and John wouldn't hear of me staying anywhere else." You're not certain why you're stretching the truth to fit around what he and his wife think is happening, but you have no idea what John would do if you did say something. Maybe he would laugh it off like you were making a joke, or maybe he would snap. You don't really think he would hurt these people, but there's a wide-eyed prey animal in the back of your mind that warns you to be cautious, to be careful.

"We'll talk about it," John says from behind you. You hadn't even noticed his approach, with the noise the kids had made when they dashed back outside. "I'm trying to convince her to stay."

"Ye've gotta buy her a ring, ye daft bastard," Rob says, laughing. "A good catholic girl isna goin' ta wait for you ta get yer head out'f yer arse."

"If you don't, I'll introduce her to some lads in town that will," Melissa threatens. "Pretty girl like her has better options than you, old man. Better make your move before she realizes it." She swats John on the arm playfully.

You laugh nervously, touching the little cross around your neck absently. The puppy in your lap seems to sense your discomfort, because she starts wiggling in your arms and trying to lick your chin, little tail wagging. John kneels down beside you so he can pet the puppy too, eyes creased with a smile. "Is that it, doll? You need me to buy you a ring?"

"John," you say warningly. "We don't need to talk about this right now."

"No, I suppose you've had a rough morning. I'll try again later."

"You're impossible."

"Think you might kind of like that about me," he says.

"Not remotely. I think you're an awful, stubborn man," you tell him. Your voice comes out softer and sweeter than you intend, like you don't really mean it, even though it's true. The smile around his eyes grows deeper.

"I am." He picks up the puppy and holds her up in front of his face. "What do you think, girl?" he asks. The little dog's tail wags furiously, and she answers with a high pitched yip. And then she endears herself to you by trying to bite John’s nose. He looks stunned for a moment, but he grins when you start laughing. “Guess we’re all in agreement then,” he says, setting her down in the pen and standing up.

You accept his hand up, and quickly put a little distance between the two of you, before he anchors you to his side with a solid arm, or tries to reel you in close for a kiss. Rob and Melissa invite you in for a cup of tea, and somehow you end up sitting at a dining room table that’s obviously mostly used for crafts, and handed a piece of blank printer paper by Haley, and told by Jackson that you should draw dragons with them. The walls of the dining room are filled with tacked up juvenile masterpieces— Dragons seem to be a particular fixation of Jackson’s, whereas Hannah and Haley have more varied portfolios.

John stands leaning in the door to the kitchen, talking to Rob and Melissa quietly enough that you can’t quite pick up his words over the children’s chatter. You hate him a little for this, dangling Rob and Melissa’s idyllic little life in front of you. The implication is obvious. We could have this, his blue eyes seem to say when you look his way. Wouldn’t that be nice?

It’s frustrating, and confusing. You want to keep him at arms length for your own safety, but he’s already doing his best to roll right past your doubts and better judgment, like they’re just silly barriers between now and the future he’s dreamed up for the two of you.

And worse, you do want it.

“Didn’t know you were an artist,” he says on the drive back. Jackson had been so excited about the dragon that you drew for him that he’d shown his parents and John.

“There’s a long list of things you don’t know about me,” you say.

"For now. We'll get there, sweetheart."

You hum, looking out the window. Spending time with the Stuarts has you wistful and homesick for something you can't get back. Days like this, you'd usually pour yourself a glass of wine, look through your family photo albums and have a good cry before going to bed early. It's been a while since it's caught up with you like this, but you'd always been reliant on your routine, burying grief in structure and familiarity. "Do we need to?"

"I'd like to."

"I'm not going to be what you want me to be."

John drums his fingers against the steering wheel. "What is it that you think I want?"

"Some little housewife. Someone soft and sweet to come home to."

"You seem plenty soft and sweet to me."

You sigh, pulling your arms around yourself. "I'm not consistent. I don't know what Johnny told you I was like, but he only knows me from work. I'm not like that all the time."

"I don't expect you to be."

"You say that now, but you'll change your mind."

"I'm not stupid enough to change my mind based on a bad day or two, doll. You're allowed to be upset. I wouldn't blame you if you spend the next week slamming doors and snapping at me. I'm still going to like you." He puts a hand on your knee and squeezes gently. Men like him shouldn't be allowed to have such attractive hands, and you shouldn't be attracted to hands like his, scarred knuckles, a few fingers broken and healed crooked. You know he's killed people, know it would be so easy for him to kill you. It turns your stomach that you feel any kind of desire for him at all.

Men like him are no different than the ones that killed your parents. Dealing death is not a noble trade, there's nothing honourable about exporting violence.

You push his hand away, and keep your eyes trained on the window.

He sighs, but he doesn't press the issue, just clicks on the radio to fill the silence.

When you get back to his house he sets you up in a cozy room down the hall from the more open main space where the kitchen is, an office of some kind with a couple of arm chairs and a desk with a clunky looking laptop set on top. The room smells kind of smoky, but you're just glad to have a door you can close while he "moves some things around". He opens the laptop up so you can watch something, but you just curl up in one of the armchairs and fall asleep.

When you wake, the door is open, one of your blankets is draped over you, and there's a mug of tea sitting on the desk, alongside a couple biscuits. You uncurl, your muscles stiff and joints cracking from not moving for too long, and pick up the tea. It's cold, like it had been left a while ago, but you drink it anyway, and eat the biscuits. There's a note underneath, explaining that John had run out to the shops, and that he'd be back by 18:00. You shake your head, and check the time on the laptop. 18:00 exactly.

Military habits must die hard. You imagine he’s usually prompt too, so you wander out into the main room, and put the clean dishes in the rack away. You realize that the living room side has been rearranged, condensed to a slightly smaller footprint, with some open space left by the far corner behind the bigger couch. The smaller leather sofa has been replaced with the little red love-seat from your apartment, and your T.V. is sitting on it’s familiar perch on the refinished credenza that you’d painted twining vines and little red flowers up the side of. You’d found it on by the curb on the Kinsey’s street a few years ago, and your friend Ripley had bused over and helped you carry it all the way back to your apartment.

You’re not sure you like seeing more of your things merging into John’s house, like any of it belongs there when you still want to insist that you’ll be leaving soon. You hate him for being presumptuous, but you can’t help but think it’s sweet, too, that he makes space for you so readily, that he’ll happily include your painted flowers and colourful blankets and bright red couch into space that was all his just twenty four hours ago. That he would leave you tea and biscuits for when you woke up, that he would tuck a blanket around you while you slept. You’re not used to someone wanting to take care of you, and it feels strange.

Strange, but nice too.

You glance at the clock on the wall, realizing that it’s twenty past six, and John still isn’t back. It’s getting darker out there, the sun nearly setting, and as much as you try to tell yourself that you’re not worried, it’s hard to deny the stab of relief when you finally see the truck's lights pull up the wooded drive.

You slip on your trainers and step outside as he parks. He grins at you around a lit cigar as he hops out. “Did you miss me, doll?” he asks, insufferably smug.

“Your note said you’d be back at six,” you say lamely. “I just wasn’t sure if you’re usually on time.”

“Usually am. Got caught talking to Wells, down on the corner. Seems someone drove right through his fence last night. Teenagers, like as not. I’m goin’ to help him fix it tomorrow.”

“Oh.” You grimace. He must know it was really you. “Sorry about that.”

“No harm. By the sounds of it, you’re quite the driver. Soap said you nearly ran him off the road. That what they teach these days?”

“Defensive driving is well and good, but offensive driving gets you the last good spot in the lot,” you say.

He laughs out loud at that, and leans over to pick up a big paper bag from the passenger side. “Here, can you take this in while I grab the groceries?”

You take the bag (which is slightly greasy and smells like curry), and shift it to one hip. “Can I take anything else?”

He nods and hands you a second paper bag, this one with two wine bottles inside. “Wasn’t sure if you liked red or white, so I got both.”

You settle the bags in your arms and turn to walk away. “Bad time to tell you I like rosé hm?” you tease, glancing over your shoulder.

“Terrible timing. But that’s alright. One more thing, doll.”

You turn back toward him, and he’s right there. One big hand cups your jaw and then his lips are on yours, pressing a kiss that tastes like smoke against you. You stand frozen, holding onto your cargo for dear life, too surprised to do anything. It’s just as well, because in that moment you’re not sure if you’d slap him or pull him closer.

He pulls away without trying to deepen the kiss, which is a relief. You’re certain that you’d drop dinner and the wine.

“John, that wasn’t fair.” Your feet are still frozen in place, and his hand is still on your cheek, his fingers threaded into your hair.

His eyes practically sparkle. He’s entirely too pleased with himself. “Not fair because I kissed you, or not fair because I stopped before we got to the best part?”

Your cheeks flame hot, and you pray that he can’t feel it. “You can’t just— You’re impossible.” It takes concentrated effort to take ordinary, measured steps to the door instead of running. The effect he has on you is apparently very obvious. He never would have tried it if he didn’t know you were teetering on the edge of giving in already.

Boundaries need to be set-- Set and followed-- before you can really even contemplate letting this get any further. Unchecked, you have no doubt that John will have you underneath him in a matter of days. Once that happens you know he'll never let you go, and you'll never have peace of mind if you don't really get to know him first. You know he's not as good as he makes himself out to be, but you suspect he's a better man than your deepest fears might whisper to you. He's genuine about his wants, but that's not enough. You need to know him before you can trust him.

You set your packages down on the table and turn to open the door wide for John as he carries a tote full of groceries into the house. “Thanks, doll.”

The paper bag rips when you open it to pull take-out containers out, setting them on the table neatly. "John, can we talk?" You ask, glancing at him as he stows things in the fridge.

"Course, doll. What's on your mind?"

Nerves threaten to choke you, so you take a steadying breath, in and out, trying to quiet the sea of dread that pitches back and forth in your stomach. “You can’t just take what you want from me. Not if you’re serious about wanting this to be something. I’m afraid of you, John, and I’m not going to fight you. If you push me, I’ll fold, and I’ll hate you for it.”

He pauses, holding a box halfway lifted to the cupboard. It takes a moment before he moves again, setting the box on the shelf slowly. The silence is palpable in the room, settling across both of you like a thick blanket of snow. You fold the ripped takeout bag flat, nervous, the crinkle of heavy paper hardly breaking through the rush of blood in your ears, the panic that grips you by the throat. It’s as though the admission has given your body the chance to catch up with everything that’s happened in the last two days.

You’d been drugged and taken from your home, you’d been handed off to someone you didn’t know, with no clear indication if you’re free to leave or not, you’ve been picked up and manhandled and shot at.

Darkness flickers in the corners of your vision. All you can hear is the pounding of your own heart, the sick, dizzying drums of war, and high pitched ringing like a flat-lining hospital monitor, and screaming, and the rapid burst of machine gun fire. No. The screaming you hear is just in your head, the gunshots aren’t real, they can’t be. It’s not happening, it’s over, it’s been over for a decade, you’re safe.

Except you’re not safe.

Hands land on your shoulders. You lash out, fists striking something solid, knocking the hands away. You have to get away, you have to hide until it goes quiet again. Arms wrap around you in a tight hug, stilling your thrashing limbs and bringing you down to the floor gently.

“Doll! Dalisay, sweetheart, you’re alright, come back.” The voice has authority. You know that voice. It rumbles, shaking loose memory. “Come on, love, breathe slow. You’re okay.” You breathe in, warm spice and tobacco smoke, not burning petrol, not scorched flesh. You’re kneeling on the floor, and John is holding you tight, thighs bracketing yours.

The fight melts out of your limbs.

You’re not safe, but you’re not in danger either. John loosens his hold on you and cups your face, his worried face eclipsing all else. “Doll, where’d you go?” he asks. “What happened?”

“Panic attack,” you lie, because that’s easier to say than My parents were killed in a terrorist attack while we were visiting London ten years ago and sometimes I get so stressed out that I forget it’s not still happening. “I’m fine, I’m sorry.”

“That wasn’t a panic attack, doll. Worked with Simon long enough to recognize PTSD. You were somewhere else.”

It’s hard to imagine that Ghost is as fallible, as human as you are, but you suppose there’s no shortage of opportunities for even the the biggest, toughest military men to to wade hip deep in trauma. The worst day of your life would be just another mission for them. The worst day of their lives would probably kill you outright.

"Yeah, I guess it was," you admit haltingly. "Everything just caught up with me. I won't let it happen again."

He shakes his head. "Did I set it off? I need to know— I don’t want to hurt you, sweetheart.”

"No, it's not like that. It’s just stress. It's been building since I got here."

"I guess that's what you meant in the truck, huh?"

You nod weakly. "I don't think I can explain it any better right now. But maybe tomorrow."

"Alright." John sighs, some of the tension in his shoulders releasing. " I don't want you to be afraid of me, doll."

"Then you're going to have to give me time, and space. I need to know what kind of man you are. And you should get to know who I am too.” There’s a wrinkle in his shirt, so you fixate on that rather than look right at him, smoothing it out with your fingers. “Let’s worry about becoming friends, for now. And then we can see if there’s something more.”

He doesn’t like that, you can tell by the way he pulls his hands back, reluctant to let go of you. But still, he nods, and smiles ruefully after a moment. “Guess I’m not as patient as I think I am. Too eager to get to the good part.”

You laugh lightly, the sound shaky from frayed nerves. “John, if we can be kind to each other, and come to an understanding, then it’s all the good part. You can’t build the things you want on foundations like this and hold it all together with sheer force of will.”

“You sure about that?" he jokes, trying to lighten the mood. "I’ve heard I’m pretty stubborn.”

Your eyes flick up to meet his. You still feel unsettled, your heart still pounding, your stomach still roiling with anxiety. The emotion in those blue eyes is something you can't identify, something fathomless that strikes you with a foreign kind of fear, the kind that's shot through with hope that you shouldn't feel.

“You don’t know me too well yet, John,” you say gently, “but so am I.”

Image Credits: Banner

Dividers: 1 - 2 - 3 by @/Cafekitsune

[mochinomnoms]

Ok so this is totally inspired by the Ruggie being sick thing but sick Ptm Jade and Yuu taking care of him!!! I feel like somehow Azul would trick them into taking care of Jade (say he was busy or something with housewarden stuff). And when asked why Floyd can't take of his brother he'd butt in and say he hates how whiny Jade gets when sick. Idk I just have a feeling Jade would play up the dramatics when he's sick. And poor Yuu! Stuck watching the sick eel while endless fantasies go through Jade's head about a domestic lifestyle with them! And hopefully (but not likely) they won't have to see any nsfw thoughts this time!

-✨👀

Jade rarely gets sick, so when he does it's a whole ordeal of figuring out who takes care of his usual tasks and who will wrangle in Floyd (despite him and Floyd both stating that he's not Floyd's keeper and he thinks he's hella funny when he's up to shit.)

If we're setting this in ptm, then I can state with confidence that a second-year student named Marino De Reyes takes over Jade's tasks at Azul's request. And he does so beautifully. However, having someone to wrangle Floyd is a whole nother issue. Our sharky friend Tony is pushed to keep Floyd in check, as they're friends and Tony is typically more level-headed. However, when the two get together, their collective brain cells kinda die out and the two become menaces that actively encourage the other to get into shit. Honestly, Azul shouldn't be surprised, last the two were left to their own devices without someone to properly supervise, Floyd and Tony got tangled by a jellyfish's tentacles because, “they kinda looked like kelp and we wanted to see if they tasted good”. They got stung for over 15 minutes before Jade found them and had their fathers get them untangled.

They a little bit unhinged, to put it bluntly. So Azul and Aspen get busy wrangling their two friends from accidentally killing themselves parkouring on the roofs, So Azul, knowing that ptm!Yuu was taught first aid and care from the nurse, asks (begs) them to nurse Jade back to health. He can feel himself aging by the second, please Prefect, HELP.

So they do, and Jade is actually living in a delirious version of domestic bliss. Like, he actually thinks that you two are married and in your cottage by the forest and seaside. It makes the other students in the infirmary confused as hell, and the nurse giddy and teasing. Jade's not just wearing rose-tinted glasses, he got lasik surgery to have rose-tinted vision, because you can do no wrong. The fantasies he's having are actually quite sweet, just dreams of you two living together. You wake him up to take his medicine? He's visioning you hand feeding him breakfast in bed. Pushing his bangs away from his face to place a new wet towel on his fevering forehead? He's imagining you brushing your fingering through his hair. If Jade's sick enough to need someone else to take over tasks and have Azul owe you a favor to care for him, then he's just a bit delirious. For once, he's not filtering his words from his thoughts and just out right saying everything that his mind conjures.

“You're so pretty. A pretty, pretty pearl! Nurse Goethel, aren't they just beautiful? Ethereal, like seeing our galaxy in the night sky.”

“Pfft-oh? You're very correct Jade, wouldn't you agree, Prefect?”

“Um, well I—”

“I love your voice, my pearl. I can hear you speak all day…”

“Aw! How cute, did you know this Prefect? He's such a gentleman, you should go out—”

“You're so cute and sweet, I bet you taste sweet too~ I'd love to hear you moan for me as I—MmPH!”

Smothering a sick man with a pillow is not typically recommended by medical professionals, but you needed to preserve whatever bit of dignity you (and Jade at this point) had left. You thank the Seven that it was only you three in the room at that time. The week ends with Jade discharged and sent to his dorm with some antibiotics, but the nurse's teasing and swoons of young romance were just beginning…

(Now the real debate is whether or not Jade was actually delirious, or if he was pretending so he could say what he thought and gage your reactions. What do you think?)

[melminli]

𝗡𝗼 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗲𝘀 - 𝟬𝟮

pairing: jjk x fem. reader

summery - meeting new people can be nerve-wracking, but that's how you make new friends.

word count: 1.2k

content: x reader, pre canon au, genshin impact inspired themes, crack, fluff, (in the future: manga spoilers, angst, gojo satoru x reader...)

series masterlist | previous chapter! | next chapter!

tokyo, august 21 2005

"i think i'll have the blueberry cheesecake..." you finally decide after thinking about it for a while and looking at the different options at the shop window.

satoru joined you. "yeah, me too."

you looked at him in annoyance in response. "are you stupid? pick something else. we can't both have the same thing." you pointed at something else in the window by tapping on the glass. "take the chocolate cake. i want to try it."

his mood worsened at your statement. "you always do this, and then you don't share yourself, so i always end up eating the things you actually want!" he threw the accusation at you being finally fed up with your behavior.

you laughed lightly and didn't take him seriously. "is that so?" you didn't elaborate further because you didn't really care, to be honest. it wasn't your fault that he always wanted to order the same thing you did. hasn't he ever heard of the rule that when you go out to eat somewhere, you have to pick different stuff?

you waited outside on a bench while he went in to buy the pastries, and you looked a little surprised when he came out a few minutes later with a box too big for just two cakes. "what did you buy?" you asked him a bit judgmentally. though, maybe the right question to ask was how much. you shouldn't have let him go in alone.

he just shrugged his shoulders. "the cakes and a few other things because we're going to meet some of my friends." he casually gave the reason while being very aware of the fact that this wasn't the original plan.

you shook your head. "no, we didn't talk about anything like that. i don't want to meet your friends." you said directly without hesitation. you had a relatively good day today, a good mood, and the weather was nice. you wouldn't ruin that by spending your precious time being awkward around other people.

satoru just rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses. "i know you don't like talking to strangers, but you need to get out of your comfort zone a bit."

there was literally no reason why you had to do that. you didn't know why he made that his mission today. "i'm doing this with you already, isn't that enough?" you complained.

he sent you an offended look at that statement. "we've known each other for ages. that's definitely not the definition of strangers." he said a bit bitter. you always had to unintentionally break his heart like that.

you avoided his gaze. "i'll look up the definition right now if you keep bugging me." you said, being a little petty but also didn't want to risk exposing yourself in case he was right. you guys had been hanging out pretty often since you met two months ago, and he also texts you every day and spams your phone with dumb memes. "besides, i don't want to meet your stupid friends."

"they're not stupid. come on." he ignored your whining and went ahead. he knew you would follow him eventually since he was carrying your blueberry cheesecake. otherwise, he wouldn't have acted so confidently.

you considered following him for a while until you shouted. "wait for me!" you said and ran after him.

a while after that...

you ate your cake in silence and didn't pay much attention to the others. it was kind of relaxing to picnic outside, you thought. especially in the shady place under the trees. but even though you were a person who said what was on their mind most of the time, you were pretty quiet right now. well, you were kinda outnumbered here, so one could say that you felt a little intimidated, perhaps.

was it very obvious that you had grown up isolated and had never actually interacted with others around your age? you hoped not because even if you didn't like to admit it, satoru was the only person you would consider somewhat of a friend, and you certainly didn't want to put that on your resume.

"so, why aren't you a jujutsu sorcerer if you can see curses?" the girl next to you asked you in a casual tone.

you shrugged your shoulders and answered without looking her in the face. you were pretty nervous right now, you always wanted to be friends with a girl. "i don't know. why do you ask stupid questions when you can just shut up?"

satoru looked at you with disappointment. "hey, what did we talk about? stop being mean to others as a defense meschanism. you need to let others into you." he said the last sentence in a therapist voice while pointing both his hands to his heart. "this way, you just come across as a total asshole and no one will like you that way."

you just rolled your eyes and wondered why he always bothered you to hang out with him if you were such an ass. "that's what your mom did last night."

the other two friends laughed lightly at the trap that the gojo had set up for himself. he looked a bit betrayed at the two before he started saying something quick to somehow save his honor. "well, unlike you, i have a certain charm that appeals to older women. so i don't know. maybe i actually have a chance with your mom." he countered, emphasizing the last words extra hard.

it was a little painful to watch him try so hard. he just made things worse with that awkward statement. "my mom's dead, actually." she wasn't, but you loved the look on others' faces when you told them that after they made a your mom joke. you tried to stifle your laughter at satoru's expression, but you couldn't help but slightly contort your face.

it was a bit difficult not to be childish when you had lost your childhood to the hands of adults. it was something you would never get back and therefore would always stick with you.

the white-haired boy finally noticed what you did. "stop lying to make me look like a idiot! you really made me seem like a bad person!"

the three of you thought the same thing at what he said. he was worried about that? satoru's best friend couldn't help but add something as well. you think his name was suguru. "you don't need her help for that, i think you can do that all by yourself."

this led to the two continuing to bicker and exchange insults and threats with each other as they butted heads.

shoko ignored them and turned to you again. she didn't really mind your rudeness. you seemed like a good person with a tough shell. she asked you something because she wanted to make sure that she had heard you correctly before. "what did you say your last name was again?"

you looked at her and answered with a disinterested tone after reaching for a fruit roll. "raiden. why?"

she shook her head. "no reason." she looked up through the small gaps in the foliage, which let out pretty rays of sunlight. raiden means thunder and lightning, doesn't it?

to be continued...

next chapter!

[slashingdisneypasta]

Older!Horror Villains x Younger!Reader || Reactions

Reacting to: Someone at the store thinking that they're your grandparent- rather then your S/O. (Just something funny I was considering for Inkubus but decided to just do for all of them ^^ XD 😅)

Characters Included: The gilfs of the fandom 😅 ? I'm thinking 50 years and above. Captain Spaulding, Drayton Sawyer, Granny Boone, Inkubus, Jedidiah Sawyer, Luda Mae Hewitt, Mayor Buckman, Mental Manny / Manual Dyer, Peepaw Michael Myers, Norman Nordstrom, Otis B. Driftwood, Pamela Voorhees, Sheriff Hoyt / Charlie Hewitt Jr, Stuart Lloyd, the Taxidermist / Walter Harris and Winslow Foxworth Coltrane.

Warnings: Major age difference, bad language, sexual references, a really awkward misunderstanding...

Captain Spaulding: Spaulding's a pretty good sport about it XD In fact, he kinda enjoys it. Cuz then he gets to rub it in the persons face what a young, hot thing he's got going here with you and what- what did you say you had again?? Nothin'?? Yeahh, that's what I thought. Fuck right off, why dontcha?

Drayton Sawyer: Drayton goes so red and is about to blow his top. He gets enough shit from his brothers over this! He does not need one more moron bothering him about it! Fuck off! *Grabs you by the arm and storms off*

Granny Boone: "... Grandma, huh? Alright then!~ " *Turns to you* "Come here, sweetie, give grandmother a kiss~ " She's about to ruin that guys whole career 😅😅😅

Inkubus: Inkubus is not amused. Grandpa?? Absolutely not, no. He'll correct the person in the most embarrassing way possible.

Jedidiah Sawyer: Jed does not care at all 😅😅 The only person who's opinion matters to him is yours, so who cares if this guy thinks he's your grandpa? Fine then, he's your grandpa. So go and mow the lawn for him while he sits on the porch and has a sweet tea.

Luda Mae Hewitt: She's is gonna tear that guy a new one. Calling her old?? Son of a bitch, where is that persons manners?? She should set her damn sons on him.

Mayor Buckman: Sorry, Buckman cannot answer this question. He's too busy choking.

Mental Manny / Manual Dyer: Manny loves to correct people. He's got the biggest smile on his face as he goes oh you're mistaken- this is my beautiful partner. A little young, sure, but we sure don't mind~ Oh sweetheart, I think we're going be late for our dinner reservations. Shall we?

Peepaw Michael Myers: Like Jed he struggles to give a shit. Who cares??? He knows that he's not your grandfather and you know he's not your grandfather- that's all that matters. He doesn't care... but he does enjoy giving you a big kiss, with tongue, later when the guy sees you both again. He's a gremlin.

Norman Nordstrom: ... what? Norman is pissed at this idea, he hates it. He feels like a digusting predator (*cough* which he is, though not because you like him ^^) and it hits close to home. He's going to need you to set it straight.

Otis B. Driftwood: "... Ha! Okay, pal, check this out." He'll say, then turn around and basically make out with you right there in front of the guy. Otis is not amused at the poor insinuation and takes it out with lewd efficiency.

Pamela Voorhees: Again- not amused. As far as she's concerned, this total stranger has no business making disgusting insinuations about the two of you, anyway. So she'll ruthlessly take them down a notch with her words- and sweet smile.

Sheriff Hoyt / Charlie Hewitt Jr: "... you think you're funny? No I ain't their fucken grandpa. Didn't your bitch momma ever teach you to mind your business? Oh don't you worry, I can do it for her." Just- my friend- just keep him from taking out the damn shot gun.

Stuart Lloyd: "... oh... uh... n-no, actually- " Stuart forces himself to stutter through a quick explanation- but he wants to crawl into a whole and die (:

Taxidermist / Walter Harris: Gets the nervous giggles 😅😅😅 Doesn't correct them.

Winslow Foxworth Coltrane: Annnnd Foxy loves it XD He was already one kinky mother fucker- you can use this as foreplay. Let him smack your ass while they're still looking but call you 'Hon' or 'Sweetie'- he finds it funny and hot in equal measures.

[that-birdy-chick]

Part 2 of me rambling about s8 of hawaii five 0

Live commentary

ep 6

- did-did Danny really just organize an intervention for Steve? To make him take better care of himself?? I don't know how to feel about this

- Lou really just said "Steve listen to your husband, he loves you" spoken like a true married man

- kinda gotta agree with Dog, not your finest move Danny

- so can we all agree that Danny losing his mind a little over Steve's radiation poisoning is kinda like the whole Steve losing his mind over Danny retiring thing but in reverse?

- I think Steve has never looked more stressed than with this stress counseler person asking him about his sexlife right in front of danny

- awwww now the end of this episode is in my top 3 favorite heart to hearts these two dorks have ever had

- Danny being honest about being scared that Steve isn't taking his radiation poisoning seriously to the point it keeps him awake at night and steve replying that he's scared too but that he doesn't want Danny to change because he loves him the way he is and that he does take things seriously URHGH

THE GROWTH! The genuinely healthy communication! I'm so proud of them 🥹

ep 7

- no no no what is going on between adam and kono? My breakup senses are tingling and I don't like it

- I swear the way Adam and Steve's conversation in the car went is so "let's talk about our respective marriages" coded

Like honestly it's so blatantly obvious - they are literally paralleling mcdanno to kono and adam ffs

- hey and come on adam you too? Why does everyone need to shit on the restaurant thing

- haha Steve is mad people he cares about just walk into a dangerous situation without backup - I love how this season confronts Steve with his own behavior

-hmm l don't know how to feel about Lou literally deleting evidence to protect tani, really most of their shady "police work" really didn't age well

- damn Steve killed a cop, that's definitely gonna fuck with him

- love how Lou is looking out for everyone, he just is the team grandpa

- sooo adam is gonna join five 0 right? This is what all this is about isn't it?

- I swear I am trying to care about junior and tani and what's going on with them but Idk so far I haven't really warmed up to them

ep 8

- eyyy Danny is back and calls Steve babe within 1 min into the episode? This can only be a good one

- nvm I swear to God Steve if you crash land yet another plane-

Seriously dude? Haven't you learned your lesson from the last time?

- naww Danny is so proud of Steves character development, sure hope he isn't gonna do something dumb and risky and ruin it again

- okay so tani and junior huh? They're definitely gonna be a thing soon aren't they

- the dude was killed because he was hiding from a drug cartel that he snitched on and fled with the drug lords daughter, I swear all these people always have the most dramatic backstories

- aaaand steve is doing the dumb reckless thing, Danny my guy I feel you're pain, he is so done with his shit he doesn't even yell at him anymore

- Danny is such a fucking saint, Steve almost went and got himself killed AGAIN and all he cares about is being last and danny husband of the fucking year just goes "yeah yeah you did well let's get a beer maverick"

- okay tani and her brother are kinda cute in their peek sibling behavior, I feel bad now for calling her a kono replacement, girl is much more than that

ep 9

- damn love Jerry's new haircut

- I will never get tiered of Danny and steve bickering about the restaurant, I know they are setting it up to fail but I genuinely think this could have been a good thing to eventually end the show on, like a retirement thing, but oh well

- aww I love Danny trying to comfort neolani with something Steve told him, only to have it backfire and make him anxious again

- pfffff and tani and junior sit in the far back like literal children

- oh great we're doing the biological warfare stuff again, this should be fun

- so they only have 8 hours to live? sounds like a prime love confession set up to me

- love our respective couples comforting each other, have to say tani and junior are doing a way better job tho like seriously Steve "try not to die while I take this call okay?" that's the best you can do, seriously?

- and of course Danny's all time stress response is to bitch about or at Steve, stellar coping skills all around

- omg danny did not just say-and steve didn't - OMG is it actually-

-nvm of course it's a fake out, damn it after 7 season why do I still keep falling for this shit

-the little restaurant talk Danny started to distract Steve and himself with was pretty sweet tho

- hey, wait why is Danny the only one definitely close to death? The others all seem relatively fine

- and of course Steve has to go and needlessly risk himself, so junior has to safe both their ass's instead of him just doing it on his own in the first place

- excuse me people why are there not more fanfics about the crew stuck in quarantine together?? this shit is hilarious and has so much potential for angst!

Please if anyone has some great fic recommendations send them my way please!

-no come on Danny, Steve didn't wanna upset you! That's honestly a pretty mature thing given the situation you were in, and now their arguing

- poor tani and junior they be stuck with these two idiots for a long time

- I could really see tani, just snapping at them after two days to either kill each other or fuck it out already, because their whole shebang is just exhausting for everyone

ep 10

-AHHHHH they finally opened the restaurant!? Progress!

- why does the screen look weird? Please don't let this be a dream type thing

- "Right now grandma Williams is smiling down at you" awww Steve, that is so sweet🥹

- nooo it's a dream thing 😭

- love how everyone makes fun of Steves near mental breakdown haircut, really dude it looks terrible, why does no one stop him?

- wow you really gonna give em kids the judgemental stares for flirting? Steve Danny as if you're any better

- and of course they're getting jumped in freaking quarantine

- really the dude went through all that trouble, just to kill Danny? And didn't even try aiming for the head? amateur

- aww Danny imagining grace wedding, my heart <3

- Danny is hurt, Steve is freaking loosing it, I'm so here for this

- Lou really said "sir, you better have a plan soon because if you don't Steve will come up with one, and only God can help us if that happens" I love you so much Lou

- huh so Danny thinks Charlie will be a cop? That's interesting

- awww and of course Steve is there, sitting next to him like a good husband, and the rest of the ohana

- nooo Danny being there for kono and adams first kid, that is so wholesome 😭

- Steve is straight up having a terrible time, while Danny has some idealistic feverdream about the future, this is so fun

- excuse me Steve you fingering your husband does absolutely not make you even for the liver thing, you nut

- so there gonna blow up a bomb right next to another bomb? Sure that seems reasonable

- yes Lou! Get the sledge hammer!

- poor Eric, don't worry hun we still have 2 seasons left to go Danny will be fine

- no NO you cannot- you did not just show me that while Danny's dying the last thing he hallucinates about is having grown old with Steve 🥺

- "and if I could do it all over again I wouldn't change a thing" I'm done, this is it, that line just killed me 😭❤️

- excuse me, Danny is dying and you people are choosing NOW to tease Steve about his stupid haircut? Seriously??!

- yes everyone copes differently I guess, but when Steve's life was on the line no one was joking around is all I'm saying

- yes Danny Steve saved your life by fingering you, deal with it XD poor Eric is scarred for life

- love Danny genuinely getting some love for once, this was a good episode

[mister-eames]

how do you think arthur and eames would take in other slowly growing old.. I don’t see either of them as characters being insecure about themselves but how the other person would see it is kinda a mystery and exciting.. so how do you think it would go? hugs xx

Oh my goodness I love this question. I agree on them not being overly insecure in themselves - not much, or too seriously, at least. They may lament a thing here or there but nothing that would take up too much mental space.

I know it sounds a bit cliche, but overall I think they'd fall more in love with each other, tbh. Growing older is a sign of survival against an often unkind world. Of experience. It's the sexiest fucking thing in the world to see your SO earn those signs of age alongside you, to say you made it, you keep making it, despite everything life has thrown at you, you are strong enough to survive.

Though, at first, I can see Arthur having a sort of existential crisis about it.

Not because he finds Eames any less attractive. On the contrary, he loves Eames extra padding, the changes in him; the very real markers that signify that they both have survived and they are experiencing this very real privilege to get older and to do it together; that they get to share a life, full of good and bad memories - to trust someone with who you were, who you are, and who you are going to be.

But in that same regard, I can see it finally hitting Arthur in a very real way (kind of the way it hits all of us); oh... our time here is actually limited... isn't it.

Perhaps it's when they're no longer in dreamshare, risking their lives, but it occurs to Arthur in a strange, sudden sense that some day the world will go on without them. That they are in fact, mortal, despite cheating death so often in their dreams and in real life too.

Arthur might be having this crisis at 35 or 45 (probably has it every ten years after his mid-thirties tbh) and he has literal decades ahead of him, but their own own mortality really hits him. He knew, intellectually, and with Mal and Dom, and with others in his life, that nothing is guaranteed. It's just... he feels like he has earned this life with Eames, after all they've been through together and personally, and it's not even that they're geriatric or "old" by any means, but the signs are there - they are not getting younger. They are visibly growing older. There's the greys, and the aches, and the weight gain here, the fat loss there.

The fact is plain and simple with life: there is no turning this car around.

Time is a real thing. One day it starts tick-tick-ticking away very loudly in Arthur's brain, like a bomb about to go off, setting off the same kind of panic in Arthur that says do something about it -- but there is nothing to be done about it. That's the worst part. It's just life, and not even Arthur, point man extraordinaire can mitigate it or stop it.

So Eames unearths the source of Arthur's panic after Arthur takes up three new languages, asks Eames for the fiftieth time if he's sure he won't regret not having kids, dyes his hair to get rid of the greys, takes up trumpet lessons and books them a cruise or seven - and then Eames is utterly bewildered by Arthur's heightened state of existential panic because he's not even fucking old, they've never been better or happier.

At first, Eames is like, "Calm down, dear. Complain to me when we have liver spots and we're both using walkers to get around. Old is just a state of mind."

Arthur, in the midst of frantically planning a new diet for them both sans-alcohol, is not amused.

So Eames asks him, "What are you so afraid of?"

"I don't know... losing time, I guess." Arthur replies. "Or... not making the most of it."

To which Eames asks plainly, fondly, "Aside from spending your days panicking, what are you gonna do about that? What do you need to do, at the end of it all, on your final day, to look back and say 'I regret nothing'?"

"I..."

"Ask yourself: what does your life without regrets look like?"

Arthur thinks, and after a long pause says:

"I... need us to live... exactly as we are now."

"That's good."

"Maybe tell you I love you more."

"And I will do the same."

Arthur takes the deepest breath he's had in days.

Then Eames adds, "By the by, I hear that not being on your husbands back about folding laundry is the key to a long, happy life."

"Nice try," Arthur rolls his eyes, taking his beloveds face in his hand and kissing that cheeky smile. "Speaking of which. I hear helping your husband fold the laundry does wonders for longevity."

--

The press of his lips against Eames and the quiet laughter between them in that moment, is one he never forgets.

--

Later, once all the laundry is folded and they're enjoying a glass of wine, Eames will Arthur that he is wrong. They are not losing time - that every day is more time they gain together.

Arthur will concede that Eames is right, sometimes.

--

As for Eames, well. He has all the pride, heart growing with love, etc etc, but you best believe he has several canvases and sketches and papers with a timeline of every iteration of Arthur, a visual chronicle of a beautiful man, drawn by Eames, over time, in varying mediums.

Not to say Eames has never felt strange about growing older, or Arthur growing older. But he's very much at peace with it, and earned the ability to be at peace with life - and himself. He's not afraid, not when there is so much to look forward to, and so much to learn.

And so many more versions of Arthur to appreciate and adore; on paper, and in person.

--

They both take the other ageing as something wonderful, something to be cherished. We only get one chance to get old, after all, but we get near endless chances to grow older. They don't get it right every day -- that is to say that sometimes life is an alarm clock that you get up and get on with on first ring, and sometimes in life you just press snooze and both is okay -- but they get it right often enough that they can call theirs 'a life, lived'.

So, yeah, they fall deeper and deeper in love with all the signs of age on each other -- it's all the time they've had, and all the incredible time they still have to gain.

[theflyindutchwoman]

I'm a little afraid the show will go to the Aaron/psy relationship after his therapy end. It was always a weird choice for me to choose someone this young for a psy and their first meeting didn't help. It wasn't "professional". This and the fact it's danielle (the actress). We talked about this one time and the show don't need another regular. I don't like the idea of aaron and celina in couple, I want them to stay platonic bff but ngl I'd rather have them in couple because it save screentime. Celina isn't going anywhere after her rookie year so we might as well saving screentime rather than having aaron and her girlfriend + celina and someone else. I hope alexi don't bring someone new pls and the next rookie will leave after his year. Watch them keeping the next rookie for celina love interest. 💀

To tell you the truth, I'm a bit unsure of how to read Aaron and Blair's interactions yet. Their first scene had some serious flirty undertones, but I don't know if that was intentional or not. Their latest scene felt more subdued… which could easily be explained by the fact that they were in the middle of a session. In a way, it reminds me of Nolan & Genny : I could feel some sparks between them but it turned out to be nothing. So I'm going to need more scenes between Aaron and Blair before making a judgment. I don't mind her being quite young though - for now! After all, one of the core message of the show is that you shouldn't judge someone on their age or their experience. And I'm also hopeful that Blair is going to play a role in other storylines, not just Aaron's. But yes, a part of me does remain a bit suspicious too… especially after that first scene.

So I get your apprehension. The cast is already at maximum capacity (to put it mildly) so I sincerely hope we won't get more regulars. Not without getting rid of a character or two first. We already barely have storylines for some of the main cast, so let's not add more to the list.

As for Celina and Aaron… I wouldn't be against this pairing, but I agree, I'd rather they stay BFF. This show does a wonderful job when it comes to platonic friendships, so I'd prefer this option. They could even be partnered up once she graduates. Though, I'm still not quite sure what they intend to do with her character after her graduation. I'm not even sure where she is in her training for that matter. As much as I have come to like her character, I kinda wish she would transfer to another station. That way, she could still show up from time to time. But at some point, some of the rookies need to leave. I mean, we have never met any of Angela's or Tim's former rookies. While we're at it, I'm hoping that the next rookie will fail. Not on their first day. But after a couple of months. Or during Plain Clothes Day. We were told that 1 out of 3 rookies washes out, so let's see that instead. And it could give Nolan some much needed character development…

[kaija-rayne-author]

Wow. So much dislike about elves generally preferring to be barefoot in the Dragon Age world.

Y'all.

Why elves not wearing shoes in Dragon Age is completely logical.

Okay, so it’s not a huge secret that I grew up poor. We're talking hardscrabble poor. The kind of poor most people don't think even exists in the western world anymore (I guarantee it does).

To someone with very little ability to buy things, shoes just aren't the priority everyone seems to think they are. City elves are poor in most depictions.

The Dalish would likely feel they'd rather use the materials for something else. They may not be as poor as city elves, but they likely wouldn't be wasteful either. Depending on where they wintered, they might not even use them then. I go out barefoot in light snow and frost, you do actually get used to it.

Fenris is a former slave with lyrium tattoos on his feet. The tattoos cause him pain when touched. Of course he doesn't wear shoes.

I never had shoes in the spring/summer/fall. They just did not exist in my understanding of the world. There was no need to buy and ruin a pair of shoes when feet toughen up just fine.

I grew up in the Adirondack Mountains, by the way. There are a lot of bloody rocks there. You can't dig very far down before you hit bedrock up there.

We had horses and dogs too, (yes, I'm aware of the crappy juxtaposition of parents who pay for horses but not shoes) so it's not like we're talking a pristine woodland.

I'd get a pair of sneakers/runners before school started (usually second hand) and a pair of boots in the winter. I remember having to wear bread bags around my feet inside my boots to keep them dry and whole. Less likely to get frostbite that way.

I distinctly remember my first brand new pair of shoes. I remember my second and third pairs too.

Even now, when I have far too many shoes, more than I could ever need, (I've got a thing for boots, my kids tell me my collection is 'extra'. They're right 🤣) I still prefer to go barefoot. From around April to November, I just don't wear shoes unless I have to. Like, to go into a store or public area; I'll reluctantly wear proper footwear to hike in (and even then they usually wind up over my shoulder instead of where they belong) shoes just aren't the absolute necessity so many folks act like.

I'm aware of what Gaider said about it, that he blamed (unfairly) the art team. It's the director's job to approve things like that, so, uh, bad form.

Still.

It is very possible to have a strong preference for no shoes. You don't really miss what you never had. And to me, it feels like y'all wearing shoes all the time is weird and likely unhealthy. In fact, it kinda is.

"Walking barefoot helps to improve circulation which increases the nourishment of nerves, muscles, and bone of the foot and helps minimize swelling of the lower extremities. Walking barefoot may also help improve the strength and flexibility of the muscles and ligaments of the foot which improves the function of the foot, reducing injuries of the foot, and improving posture and balance of the body."

At most, for just every day, I'll wear a pair of flops if I think the terrain is dangerous enough to warrant it. That's very rarely. I do have a habit of watching where I step though.

In spring, I go out on the tarmacadam to intentionally toughen my feet up. And no, my feet aren't calloused monstrosities.

It's just kinda mind-blowing to me how essential so many people seem to feel shoes are. They just aren't.

To me, it makes perfect sense that the elves, a historically repressed and abused people (sort of like a lot of my ancestors) don't feel they're necessary.

In a medivalish world like Dragon Age, where blights or false gods or wars keep tearing civilization to pieces, shoes would be ridiculously expensive. I mean, soldiers didn't take boots because they thought they were cool. They did it for resale value.

And cobblering is incredibly skilled labour. I was lucky enough to find someone who still knew how to keep my favourite boots alive longer. That guy could make those boots look almost brand new.

But in that world, poor elves would absolutely not be likely to wear shoes.

Shoes feel incredibly confining to someone who didn't grow up wearing them. I utterly loathe the way shoes feel.

I've also been a dancer and martial artist for a large portion of my life. Two groups of people you'll frequently find barefoot.

The way you walk in shoes is completely different from how you walk barefoot.

It's also an incredibly privileged viewpoint to utterly insist shoes are necessary and that elves in a video game should absolutely have to have them.

The only thing I'm annoyed about is that the armours often include boots, which my elves just wouldn't wear. I should have a barefoot option.

It may not be strictly cannon, for the whys behind barefoot elves, but it makes complete sense.

The only elf I'll say it doesn't make sense for is Solas. Why he doesn't wear shoes could just be a big commitment to his cover of elven apostate hobo.

Or perhaps his culture didn't think shoes necessary any more than I do. That would also explain why elves could have a preference for no shoes, it could be a holdover tradition because they all descend from the Elvhen.

It's true that you develop a sense for the earth, or trees, or whatever you're walking on if you don't wear shoes. I spent a lot of time with a book in trees, because few people would climb as high as me so I was safe there. It could easily be that elves wouldn't want to lose that sense, too.

You can learn a lot about an area by what the surface feels like under your feet. If you're a hunter, it's sometimes easier to track if you know your quarry prefers a certain type of terrain. You don't need to look down if you can feel the ground.

In fact, despite what people may think, my feet are incredibly sensitive. Tough, yes, but still very 'feely'.

Point made, I'll stop blathering now 😅.

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[serialadoptersbracket]

Round 3, Match 15: Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu vs. Jack Starbright

Submitted kids:

Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu: Zhang Chengling, Gu Xiang, Liang Jiuxiao, arguably also Cao Weining and Gao Xiaolian

Jack Starbright: Alex Rider, Tom Harris, and as of season 3, Kyra Vaschenko-Chao

Propaganda under the cut!

Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu:

1, Wen Kexing: “Look this man shouldn't be adopting kids because he's kinda evil and also the leader of an army of criminals and outcasts, a position where he killed his way to the top at a young age, BUT when he was still just a kid he found Gu Xiang and knew that if he didn't take care of her that she would die and became her father/brother/master (it's complicated). And then many years later when he's off doing his revenge quest he basically ends up adopting Chengling who is freshly an orphan which was kind of Kexing’s fault (it's complicated), but Chengling doesn't mind that his new dads are a little evil (his other dad is Zhou Zishu who basically created the CIA in fantasy ancient China). And then Gu Xiang falls in love with Cao Weining which puts Kexing into protective father mode and he goes all overbearing father-in-law on Weining, but he comes around when he's sure that Weining will treat her right. And then when Weining's family/sect turns on him, Kexing becomes one of the few people left he could call family (also with the rest of the group).”

2, Zhou Zishu: “former assassin who literally just wanted to drink himself to death in peace but then in the span of like 2 day he suddenly obtained 2 kids and a husband(stalker)???? poor man Did Not want this and proceeds to spend the next few weeks/months in denial about it before finally coming to terms with the fact that he cares about all of them (not that he's gonna tell them that) and then he gets a son-in-law too??? the universe really refused to let him die alone and miserable and decided to drop and entire family on him out of nowhere”

Link to the rest here!

Jack Starbright:

“was about to quit her job of looking after alex but then alex's guardian died and she went "guess he's my kid now" and didn't look back. and alex's best friend is always around so fuck might as well adopt him too while we're here. (to be clear, she does become alex's legal guardian at the end of season two, tom is not legally her kid he's just always at her house even when alex isn't home.) i'm almost certain she's trying to adopt kyra as well. jack is a twenty something year old woman who went from "i just look after this one kid when his uncle is away on business trips" to two "i have two teenage sons" pretty much the minute her boss died and she never looked back. she never asked for these kids, but she loves them more than anything and sacrifices so much to keep them safe.”

[kaluxsims]

My Pride post this week is about facial hair...and then some. Beards, mustaches, sideburns, etc are generally associated with men and masculinity, but that's a fairly surface view. Almost everyone has some amount of hair on their face. We're mammals. Being fuzzy is kinda our thing. Hormonal levels and genetics can make that hair thicker or darker on anyone. Today's post takes @simstralia's unisex facial hair and expands on it, giving your sims a broader variety of fuzz for their faces. Like last week, I have more to say after the download.

First, I took the non-meshed beards from @krabbysims' Poppet V2 recolors of @withlovefromsimtown's Beardly set and enabled them for UF as well as UM. Now ALL sims teen and older can use them. Then, I made a few lighter, wispier edits too. They were made especially for sims just beginning transition, just starting puberty, or getting a bit fuzzier as they age. You can see a WIP preview of some of them here.

I wanted to have Body Shop previews for this, but work has been a little more involved than usual this week. The timing didn't work out. I'll try to add them in when I can.

Instead, here's a list of what's included:

NEW - stubble stache

NEW - very very wispy stache

NEW - very wispy chin patches

NEW - very wispy stache

NEW - very wispy stache + patch

goatee chin - "afro" texture

goatee chin - "straight" texture

goatee chin + sideburns - afro

goatee chin + sideburns - straight

sideburns - afro

sideburns - straight

goatee - straight

wispy chin

wispy chin + sideburns

wispy goatee

wispy goatee + sideburns

wispy lip patch

wispy lip patch + sideburns

wispy beard

wispy sideburns

wispy stache + lip patch

wispy stache + lip patch + sideburns

Phew. What a list! Everything is for all sims teen and older (UU), in Poppet colors, and binned properly. You can see previews of the previously existing stuff in Krabby's post. Keep in mind, I only did the ones that don't require meshes. I'm not that confident meshing anything other than clothes and now is not the time to try anything new. Maybe I'll do the meshed beards eventually. Dunno.

Download: SFS or MediaFire

Credits: @withlovefromsimtown for the beards themselves, @krabbysims for the Poppet recolors, @poppet-sims for the Poppet V2 palette, @simstralia for inspiring this in the first place, and @quartta for inspiring the very wispy edits (and for giving me permission to convert something that just didn't work out)

And now for my additional thoughts...

The "bearded lady" used to be a sideshow act, something to be gawked at, and I don't think we've come far enough from that. Women and AFAB people having facial hair is still something many people feel comfortable mocking. That can cause a lot of misery for cisgender women who have more facial hair than they'd like, and it can endanger the lives of trans people who have facial hair, wanted or not. Bigots always feel threatened by people who defy the status quo, and they're empowered when it's not seen as socially acceptable for women and AFAB people to have facial hair.

This isn't just a trans issue, of course. PCOS and other medical conditions can cause darker, thicker facial hair. So can genetics. So can old age. Some shave it off, some accept it, some love it. Frida Kahlo made hers part of her unforgettable and undeniably feminine image.

I really wish I could grow a beard or mustache. Not enough to take testosterone, because I don't really want the other changes that would cause. I deeply envy bearded femmes, because that's my ideal. I want to "do both", and defy the binary. I could probably buy something to glue on, but my skin is sensitive to the point of panic. Simply existing gives me a rash. I also know there are people who might kill me for breaking stupid cultural rules like that. I want to be a gender rebel and look like I imagine myself, but I also don't want my loved ones to suffer if bigots harmed me. I'm in a strange limbo, not really closeted, but also not really feeling able to be myself. I know plenty of nonbinary people share this limbo with me.

I drew a really basic mustache on before going to a drag show last week, but it melted. 😂 I wound up wiping it off on the way to the bar, and not bothering to draw it back on. The drag show, which would be illegal in some other states in the US, was so much fun. It was all drag kings, trans masc, or nonbinary performers. As dark as things are right now, events like that give me a bit of hope. Seeing other people gleefully breaking gender norms was something I needed more than I realized.

Again, my hope is that someday we can all just be ourselves and no one will feel like they have the power to punish others for not being what they see as normal. That's the dream, everyone being safe to be themselves.

[lyloneliness]

A lil Fyodor theory after chap 113 ✨

Hey! For those who already read the chapter 113 of bsd... Fyodor has a scar right? And I won't even bring back alllll the theories that explains he's alive and why on the table... But let's say Fyodor is immortal.

In the present he has the same face as in the untold origins and we're all on point to say he doesn't age. And if he died in Bram's castle, he probably revived in some kind of way right? But there are many kinds of immortals in fiction, and I think that Fyodor isn't the type that heals, at least not exactly. There are two possibilities I'd like to explore :

maybe reincarnate with a whole new body...

his body's 'time' just turns back* to a precise point : the point of his 'first' life (well he isn't dead but you get it) when he looked like he always do. The scar would just disappear as his body turns back to its 'reset point', and he'd certainly grow a new arm.

*For further detail on the logic of that, just search into Eri's power in MHA

As for what happens to the old body or the sectiones arm, we don't have any clues to figure that out yet.

But if the 2nd possibility is true, does that mean his mind too turns back to the reset point? Or does it just exist underneath as a checkpoint to 'when' the body should turn back? Either way, that would mean a part himself is still the way it was at that time.

But seeing Fyodor as we know him, I dont think he forgets what happened prior to his 'death'. Which implies that both state of mind coexist within him : the him from that point of his life, and the him from the present. Doesn't that remind you of something?

Yes. His ability.

He's much different from the Fyodor we're used to, and a lot of people's reaction when seeing him in chap 107 was "He looks so innocent! ". And that would make sense! I mean, it's his ability that brings him back to the checkpoint... So wouldn't it also be his ability's role to keep a trace of 'what' he's supposed to turn back into?

Thanks for reading!

PS: idk if some of you read or watch Undead Unluck, but it's kinda like Andy and Victor : the old one is brought back sometimes and the two of them coexist without getting along

[queenofhearts7378]

Hi there! Any new SQ content? Been down a rabbit hole of then again haha and I always love your work!

I wrote this just for you because it's been ages since I wrote these boys and turns out I have really missed it.

(Do not ask me anything about Miraculous, I have not watched it since season mid-season 3 and have no plans to. I get all my info from tumblr memes and a single person in the SQ discord who doesn't mind giving loose spark notes.)

.....

"So that's what's been up with me lately, how about you guys?"

Adrien gave a bright grin.

The other three boys stared at him in concern and confused horror for a few moments.

"Dude." Randy said empathetically.

Adrien let his head thunk on the table, "I know."

"And I thought my thing was a lot." Danny said, mostly to himself.

Jake leaned towards him, "Yeah, I actually got to talk to you about your thing. Cause it's starting to affect my whole deal."

Danny waved him off, "Later, we're helping Adrien deal with his mental breakdown right now."

"I'm not having a mental breakdown," Adrien mumbled into the wood.

"Buttercup, I think you need to have one." Randy said.

Adrien tilted to the side until he was laying more on Randy than the table, "I don't want to talk about my thing anymore. Let's talk about Danny and Jake's thing."

Jake threw his hands in the air, "It's Danny’s thing that's affecting me!"

"Look it's not the first time all of reality had to get rewritten so that everybody would forget my secret so I don't know why it's affecting you this time."

Now Jake looked like the one who should be having a mental breakdown. "I was talking about your self-appointed Title!"

"My what?"

"You heard the capitals in that too, right?" Randy whispered to Adrien, who just nodded his head.

"What do you mean reality got rewritten?! Danny did you BREAK REALITY?!?!?!"

"No! Vlad did! I fixed it! Can we go back to the titles thing cause that sounded kinda important. Like proper capitalization important."

"Danny I swear on my ancestors-"

"So like chapter titles or movie titles?" Randy asked.

Jake turned to stare at him incredulously and Randy could feel Adrien shaking from giggling.

He opened and closed his mouth a few times in response, before waving his hands in front of him like he was trying to ward off all of Randy's General personality. "Randy please, I can't deal with you and Danny at the same time."

"Hey!" Danny said in offense. Randy just nodded in understanding.

Jake groaned into his hands for a moment, before straightening up and pointing at Danny. "Phantom has been officially Titled as the Liminal Bridge. No one knows how that happened and are miffed about it. And now I have a bunch of restless spirits that keep bothering me because they somehow figured out I actually know you and they don't know how to reach you."

Danny looked confused, "No one has ever called me that. Why are you saying it like it's a big deal?"

"Because it is a big deal." Jake stressed. "In the magical community, things like that are big deals. I don't just call myself the American Dragon for fun. It's an official Title. And it comes with responsibilities only I can do, problems that only I have the authority to solve. These aren't things you can just give yourself either. It's usually done by someone with higher authority over you, it's passed down from previous holders, some very old and powerful mythical beings can bestow one on you, and sometimes the right magical artifact can if it's sentient and impressed enough. You can't just call yourself a bridge and be like "That's a thing that everybody has to call me now!"."

Danny was looking at him wide-eyed, "I uh….I mean that's kinda what happened?"

Jake's head hit the table with a 'thunk'.

"Man I've just been fighting McFist bots this entire time, y’all’s lives are wonk." "Thanks Randy." The other three chorused.

[transingthoseformers]

Pharma looks Vortex dead in the optics and tells him "You're not Tarn." Vortex considers this for a moment and goes "Huh,that is a point." I mean there's not much he can say to that.

I'm just wondering which parts of the situation with Tarn are sending Megatron's Oil Pressure up worst. IDW Megatron is ok with some horrifically heinous stuff but there are other things he remains adamantly against in all cases. And this mess has Megatron triggered. I imagine the DJD's dressing down is starting with "You've read every word I wrote Tarn. You've even memorized most of them. How could you fail comprehend the meaning of...?" Tarn is not safe. Especially not with sending Megatron into a flashback to the worst parts of Golden Age.

Soundwave when he sees the Pet is going to scheming because he has Ravage and that is a beast former. Add Domestication to the Reasons Tarn is on the boss's shit list. Kaon is now on Soundwave's personal shit list because he's a threat to the cassettes. The Pet is confiscated and taken to the Brig. Vortex is less than reasured by Soundwave's asurances it is a Domesticated Autobot not a sparkeater.

Also Megatron's displeasure at Tarn stress him into an early emergence. I can see Hook delivering a tiny pink and orange blue eyed jet that's too young to be away from a creator spark and being kicked out of his med bay, gestalt, newspark and all. Hook passes the Bitlet to Starscream and nopes. Starscream looks at his Trine and gives the NewSpark to TC. TC takes the baby to Pharma because he won't be allowed to keep the baby if it forms a caregiver bond. So he's bringing the poor baby and rations to Pharma so Pharma can fuel the little one from his lines. Vortex is almost as alarmed at the presence of the bitty as he is by the "Soundwave swears it's not a Sparkeater."

Pharma, Dominus, and the baby are being randsomed to the Autobots in a prisoner exchange for as much as Soundwave can squeeze the Autobots for. Just drain Prime's Resources not theirs.

Yeah Vortex doesn't have shit on Tarn levels of suckatude

You're right that idw Megs is finicky with what he can excuse, but weaponizing carrying as a method to force someone to stay with you does seem like a Pre-war Thing™️ and thus something Megatron would object to. The chains part definitely did not help. There's probably also emphasis being put on Tarn reproducing with an autobot during a war, but that's more considered a footnote in this situation.

OO YES ON IT STARTING WITH THAT

Yeahhhh Dominus's Domestication certainly also isn't helping Tarn's case. Soundwave's having emotions about this.

Vortex: gET AWAY WHAT

Soundwave: don't worry he's a person

I can see that happening too, and it's such a scene because this is Tarn. He's always going to make a scene.

Kinda sweet how they make sure to bring the newspark to Pharma, even if he has deep opinions on this situation.

Vortex: so we're just doing this now???? Okay

Makes sense they're being held for ransom, and in my mind the autobots will get them back plus the new addition. Will they have to give something up themselves, yes, but they'll get them.

[thedelusionreaderbitch]

Wanda Maximoff x fem! Reader - Saving you from control

A/n: We're all slaves for Wanda lets be honest

*Vision does not exist within this universe! I don't know how age of ultron works than but we won't get into that!*

Summary: You're just living your life when the first splash of color comes into it, specifically a flash of red

Warnings: spicy (heavily making out), illusions to smut, manipulation, toxic, technically cheating, death, I think that's it? You have been warned!

The three P's:

[Pov: second person] [Pairings: romantic/main! Wanda Maximoff x reader kinda romantic! nameless male character x reader parental! billy and tommy x reader] [Pronouns used: you/your but the reader is meant to be a girl]

Your life seems to be dominated with blacks and whites, there's no color to reveal just a black and white wall of memories. Even you have to admit life is boring, you get up call whatever family member you're supposed to be calling, go to work in your tiny office job, and come back home to your boyfriend. Your boyfriend, who's also awfully boring, you want to think you love him, but you don't really think making up lies will give life to your boring life.

You won't break up with him though, he's safe, and your family loves him. Plus your family seems to be always on edge around you, you can't seem to figure out why though. It's like that piece of information was stripped from you.

It's also tied into the feeling that you were meant for something more, but alas there would be no world saving in your books.

Your in bed with your boyfriend when you see it for the first time.

It's nothing really, just a flash of red from behind you, but all the same you knew that flash's of red don't just happen out of no where. You shift your body more upwards to see if you could see anything.

Nothing there's nothing, of course it's nothing, it must have just been a trick of the light. Your eyes messing with you, or your brain having too much imagination. So you just go back to bed and take your sleeping boyfriend hand in yours and try to take comfort from it.

It happens twice more before something else happens.

After it happened twice more you were a bit paranoid, and on your way to the eye doctor to see if there was anything wrong with your eyesight.

You go to check your mirror and instead of cars you see a woman with red-orange hair with something that looks like devil horns placed as a crown on her forehead.

She was smiling at you.

Your car weavers to the right, you can hear cars honking in the distance, and CRASH! Echoes, as your ears ring and your car somersaults across the highway.

The next thing you know you're waking up in the hospital with that same woman beside you.

Gasping you grip onto the sheets and try to move, but a red mist keeps you down covering everything but your head.

"What the- Where's the doctor!"

She smiles down at you and laces her hand with your own and you can't help the feeling it gives you. It's different from when your boyfriend takes your hand, when he does you feel a small sort of happiness. When this random woman takes your hand the accelerating feeling you get is overwhelming from just a touch.

"Don't you worry your little head treasure, the doctor was just trying his best but I decided it would be better if I took over."

You looked down at yourself and saw no injuries nor did you feel any. Considering you got into a pretty nasty car accident you should be casted up to the brim, yet you weren't. Someone would call you crazy for thinking this but you're pretty sure the person crouching beside you, saved you.

(Your mind doesn't seem to remember very well how she might have just be the cause of the accident in the first place.)

"What's your name?" You manage to say as you gaze upon her beautiful figure.

Laughing she takes her other hand and places it under your cheek like a lover would. "Missy, I'm surprised you didn't recognize me! That's okay precious, they did insist on wiping your mind. It isn't your fault."

A new part of you is unlocked and her words must have triggered something because a flow of memories come back to you and tears surface to your eyes as you start to remember.

S.W.O.R.D had taken you from Wanda, they had said they were saving you, saving you from giving up complete control. Funny how the irony comes back at them considering they didn't give you a choice in the matter.

You remember your powers, similar to Wanda's but nearly the exact opposite of hers. While she had chaos magic, you had order magic, meaning you could place order back into things and see the future.

That's another thing S.W.O.R.D had taken from you.

Then you remember further, with all the little things with Wanda, to all the big things with her. That you had children with her (through both of your magic of course) and how they took you away from them. The things that balanced you and Wanda so well, chaos and order. Now that you had them back though...

"Wanda." You croak tears adorning your face and the red mist dissipates as a dark calming cyan covers the floor.

Standing up she pulls you into her as you sob into her chest.

"Oh, my princess how I've missed you."

"I- I didn't know that they were going to wipe my memories of you. And- and our children. When I started to realize they weren't doing what they told me they were doing I started to panic and I was so scared." You cry.

"Shh," You rubs your back as you shake in her arms. "Everything is alright now treasure, we're together again and no one is taking you away from me ever again."

You don't have the time to analyze her words further with your powers before her lips connect with yours and your mind explodes.

Wanda kisses you hungrily, like you're her last meal and you eagerly reciprocate the sentiment. As she bites on your bottom lip, it surprises you slightly as you feel like you haven't kissed her in centuries so you've forgotten how chaotic she can be. Nothing like your past boyfriend, who when he kissed you was bland and colorless.

Your mouth opens and you let her take dominance, she nearly always did in the past, it's just the way Wanda is.

Pinning you against the bed with her own body her lips start traveling down further and you feel her hand go underneath as they two go further down.

"Did he kiss you like this?" She mutters against your throat.

You blink and her civilian clothes from before are gone and come has the scarlet witch. The deviled horned crown embellished on her head.

You've transformed too though, a suit covers your body much like Wanda's but it has more blue and green under tones. There's a white diamond arched upon your chest and it has a purple point in the center with eight lines different shades of blue, and green.

You don't answer her you just let your head fall back as a halo falls around your head.

________________

Stephen Strange doesn't expect to see you when Wanda finally has America at Wundagore, he thought your memory had been wiped. However you stood in front of him furious, and your mind fully intact.

The cyan magic enveloped America, you shouldn't have been doing this. You were order, you can see the truth if you wanted, if you saw it he's sure you would have been helping him.

So why haven't you?

"You can stop this Y/n!" He calls out to you voice strained. "Look for the truth with you're powers! You'll see that this is all wrong!"

Slowly you're head turns to face him and your eyes glow an unnatural dark teal.

"I already have."

Strange is astonished and terrified. The outcome in his brain that you already had looked into the truth didn't serve him. He didn't think it was possible, Wong even said it was impossible.

Improbable, it was improbable not impossible. Oh god, he's such a fool.

"The only thing that conflicted." You go on as you lift a hand on Miss America's face, stroking it like a mother would a child as Wanda's power envelopes him too.

"Is her."

You tilt your head and a flash of red goes through your eyes and suddenly Chavez is getting prepared for Wanda and the two of you trade off and you block Strange from getting to Wanda and Chavez and from seeing what's going to happen.

"This is you're endgame? You help Wanda and she gets the children? She'll throw you away the moment she gets them!"

Giggling you turn around and behind you is Wanda looking more powerful than ever with America Chavez's dead body behind her.

She pulls you in for a passionate kiss as her left hand flicks to make the portal to the other universe.

"We made our children together." You growl to Stephen right before the portal opens.

He had really underestimated how much the two of you love each other, and would do anything for one another. Everyone did.

Now they would have to pay the price.

Wanda is the one that goes in for the children, you know you'll have to go in later to save her from her own fate but you know that she still has to experience it first. She just needs to think she got over it on her own.

The children throw things at her and she snaps at them and as the next Wanda comes in she something to her and for a second Wanda looks like she's going to stop everything.

Then her eyes flash cyan and she kills the other (weak) Wanda and force the children in her arms into their rightful universe.

With the two of you.

They scream and cry but you crouch down to face them and you gently take both of them into your arms.

"Let's put some order into your minds shall we?" You whisper into their ears.

A dark teal mist covers their eyes and then in another second it's gone and they look up to you and abruptly hug you.

"Ma!" They cry.

You nod Wanda over (as she's now the one who has a hold of the sorcerer.)

Standing up you turn your boys around and when they see Wanda they yell out for their mom and cry into her neck.

Facing Strange you get close and place a hand next to his head.

"You know what I saw was the biggest threat to this universe was?"

You lean in so your lips are right next to the cuff of his ear.

"You."

Instead of saying anything else your hand next to his head begins to move as magic exhumes from it pulling his sorcery into you. Eventually the light fades from his eyes and his body falls to the ground.

Wanda may of been playing the long game with you - manipulating you and making your truth vision weak but so were you. You saw a threat to the universe long ago and back then you didn't want to believe it so you ignored it. Then Wanda came along and showed you something different, Wanda may have been weaken you and manipulated you but you also weakened and manipulated her.

Together though, together to the two of you are strongest thing in the universe.

So you turn back to your happy family, and pull Wanda into a kiss.

Words 1866

-thedelusionreaderbitch

Marvel taglist: No one yet

[canmom]

The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere 049-064 (pt. 1)

Previously: 000-012, spinoff post about entropy, 013-032, 033-048 [all Flower posts]

Hoo boy this is a bunch of chapters. It's time for more Flower.

All together now: no, not that flower.

...yeah, I'm having to reach for flower-related videos to keep up this running gag at this point. But hey, look, hear me out here: Kanae Nozawa is really fucking good at playing the erhu. And it's called 'Flower Dance'. I think that's flowery enough.

...yeah, I will take suggestions for the next one. Send me your favourite flower-related videos. Especially if they're anime and kinda dark.

Anyway, welcome back to my liveblog of The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere, an ongoing serial web novel by @lurinatftbn. Our arc titles today are The Die Falls and Cut-Out Face.

And this time around, Umineko intensifies. I won't say too much more than that above the fold this time, because we're starting to get some mysteries answered (opening more mysteries, naturally). But if you don't mind spoilers, the space elevator awaits.

So where we left off last time, Su had discovered the body of (probably) Neferuaten. It's time to get into that part of Umineko where people are dropping like flies and everyone is desperately trying to figure out who's doing it before it's their turn. However, in this case, everyone involved is a wizard, so this makes things a little more complicated.

There was one important mystery missing from my list of mysteries, incidentally - the pantry with the signs of aging and the tally marks.

Someone on the Flower discord helpfully pointed out that I'd misremembered the rule on red text. I edited the previous post, but just in case: the rule is that if you get a description of a body in red, it's definitely a dead human (and that person is definitely really dead, it's not a spare body or anything). But which dead person? There's no rule that Su correctly identifies the deceased. So while Su definitely found a body, there's no guarantee that it's Neferuaten's body. It's not even guaranteed to be a member of the known cast, since we don't know how many people were already on the island.

Indeed, in this pair of arcs, we start to see characters question the identity of a corpse. So it's definitely intended that you keep that kind of question in mind whenever Su finds a body.

To broadly outline the events in this arc (as much to keep it straight in my head as anything):

Su finds Neferatuen's body and reports it to Linos and Lilith.

They link up with the rest of Su's class and break the news. Everyone freaks out a bit.

A broadcast is made to every computer on the island in which we get an Umineko-style challenge, declaring that everyone on the island will soon be killed by 'heavenly beasts', but it is - sportingly - possible to escape the security system and get off the island. Everyone freaks out a lot.

Fang, who apparently put all of their points into 'chill', takes charge of the situation. Linos explains how the lockdown works.

Linos sends Su and a few others up to get a map. While they're up there, Su bungles her way into confessing the body that she and Kamrusepa discovered earlier. The characters start to compare notes.

Moving as a group, they all set out to shut down the lockdown at the admin centre, covered by various types of magic shield. They blunder into a trap which involved Linos's gun being rigged to fire to cause a distraction, and then Bardiya is murdered while the party is split. According to Theo, the only witness, he was attacked by something which dragged him into the window.

The party share various recriminations and perform some diagnostic magic. Theo and Linos are declared Intensely Sussy, but Fang points out a narrow possibility that an external culprit could have dunnit while Linos's shield had briefly been disabled.

Mehit flips out and grabs Linos's gun. She takes Lilith away from the group of arcanists, intending to wait out the crisis in one of the areas where the Power is suppressed.

The gang moves out. Ran challenges Linos on some of his claims about the nature of the lockdown. It turns out he's been telling some fibs.

They travel through a tunnel that runs from the womens' entrance hall into the research dome. There, they discover a big bloody hole in the ground, and also Anna and Zeno are there.

Zeno's back in girlmode and is trying to transport a bunch of boxes. It turns out their actual 'main body' is a kind of a Made in Abyss 'cartridge' situation - surgically minimised, in this case to slow down aging as much as possible, and hidden. All their bodies are (according to them!) puppet bodies. I'm behind 7 proxy bodies or whatever.

Anna, it turns out, has age regwessied! We get a flashback narrated by Ran (notably not marked reliable) in which we find out what happened during Su's amnesiac episode - more on that later, but the upshot is that Fang brought a spike of true iron that they finished on behalf of Su's grandfather, which allows the Order to operate a giant machine built by Su's grandfather to interact with entropy. The Great Work is successful, and Anna was age regwiessed down to a young adult again.

Su has started to suspect Balthazar knows something time loop shaped. She and Ran and Linos go to confront him. Bal pretty much says yes: we are in fact in a time loop, we've already had thousands of iterations, and I get to remember it, and you should remember it too Su. Every single time, everyone dies and someone makes a tally mark in the pantry, which is for some reason not getting reset. Bal intends to wait out the timeloop where he is with a magazine and won't budge. He also says this is supposed to be the last loop. Ran and Su are dismissive. We the readers know better. Although somehow I suspect this isn't the last loop.

Anna hands out tracking bands.

A flashback sequence shows what happened when Ran found out about Su's situation. More on that later.

The gang go downstairs to find the admin console. On the way down, they discover a bloody magic circle with Durvasa's name written in it.

The three present Order members (Linos, Zeno, and Anna) are able to log into the admin console. They discover that it's not a standard lockdown, but a secret time-triggered protocol installed 20 years ago, around when Su's grandfather was fiddling with the computers. This means it can't easily be reset. Also, in a couple hours the security golems will turn on. Wuh oh.

They hatch a plan B. Everyone goes upstairs to 1. get masks from the mask room to bypass the golems (idk if I mentioned the mask room, there's a mask room) and 2. hopefully rewire re-rune the inputs to the security centre to spoof its inputs and activate the exit.

In the mask room, they discover Durvasa has probably been murdered, but the corpse is too severely mutilated to permit positive identification.

All the students are given masks in order to pass as members of the order. Su anticipates that these masks are going to create a situation where it's harder to identify who's who.

I think that's all the main points. Lots of moving around.

Having done what I promised not to do and write a plot summary, let's get on to the actual substance...

Mystery solution unlocked (somewhat): who is Su?

I feel like I should have been able to predict this one, in retrospect.

In logical terms, maybe not deduce it. But with this reveal, the narrative purpose of a lot of earlier scenes falls into place.

So, Su's unnamed childhood friend - the nerdy academic one who she met on the beach and encouraged her. Well, that friend is in fact Utsushikome of Fusai, or Shiko to her friends!

Wuh? Isn't that our dear protagonist? No - the character we're calling 'Su' is the mind of the other girl, our POV in that flashback. Or maybe it's the other way round, I'm a still little unclear on which POV was which in those flashbacks. I'm fairly sure though that POV girl is Su, and the other girl is Shiko. It's confusing because multiple flashbacks are narrated in the first person - the memories of the beach probably belong to Su, while the memories of the doctor's office where she learned about ascension probably belong to Shiko.

Anyway, we're told in chapter 55 a bit more about the mechanics of how arcanists work. Basically, the Tower of Asphodel, in addition to a few hundred thousand human bodies, also has billions of backup minds in the form of 'pneuma', a semi-biological element that interacts with the higher planes and basically amounts to a soul. The pneuma encodes memories (redundantly it seems), as well as preferences and habits - it's something akin to what Seth Dickinson calls the 'inner law'. In modern times, egomancy - the kind of magic that fucks with pneuma - is highly forbidden.

When humans are born in this world (perhaps more accurately 'instantiated'), stage 1 is to block the pneuma in the clone and permit a new one to form. Unfortunately this breaks the Power.

It was found that the new generation, the children born from this process, had no capacity to use the Power. Even though it had no visible effect on consciousness or intellect, this alteration to the nature of their pneumas damaged the ability of their minds to take on an Index, meaning that using the Power was impossible. There were cases where this didn't happen - where the 'trauma' healed just so - but they were one in a million. So rare as to be useless.

So, to set someone up as an arcanist, you download one of these backed up pneumas from the Tower, and install it over the existing pneuma. But the downloaded pneuma is deliberately weakened so that usually the downloaded personality dissolves quickly and reverts back to the identity of the person who became an arcanist. This process is apparently destructive to the backed up pneuma in the Tower.

So when Lilith said that all arcanists are murderers, what she means is that in a 'proper' initiation, you devour the soul of someone from a dead universe in order to steal their admin password.

In Shiko's case, something different happened. Instead of downloading the soul of someone from a dead universe, she's got the soul of a regular living girl from her own universe.

Here's how Su recalls the situation:

"One day, I got a letter. It offered me a whole bunch of stuff... My own house, shares in a bunch of local businesses that'd get me a stream of luxury credit.. If I agreed to go along with something for a couple weeks. That was what it said-- A couple of weeks." Under the table, I was having trouble keeping my legs still. "I thought it was some strange prank at first, but when we met, they seemed really serious. They said it would be best if it was someone who knew her." "Knew who?" "Oh..." I shifted reluctantly in my seat, my voice getting even quieter. "U-Utsushikome, I mean. I'd known her when we were kids... But we hadn't spoken in years." I cleared my throat. I felt so anxious about what was happening that I was shivering. "Anyway. They told me that her grandfather was dying, and there was something he'd been trying to do for years and years, but it was too late for it t-to work out. But they wanted to-- I dunno, do the next best thing, give him some peace--"

So, agents of Shiko's grandfather - who was evidently up to his fucking follicles in conspiracies - approached the girl we're now calling Su (her original name is not given, for reasons we'll see), operating under false pretenses. It's not clear how much they told her, just that it would involve Shiko. She agreed. They extracted the soul from her body and implanted it in Shiko at Shiko's induction. It seems likely that Shiko's grandfather intended to do this with his own soul, but could not for some reason? Why they did this with some random girl remains unknown. It's also not clear why Su of all people should have chmod +x for the Power.

Su was presumably supposed to dissolve back into Shiko's identity, but probably because the induction was far from normal, she retained her previous identity and Shiko was the one suppressed. Su did her best to try and figure out how to pretend to be Shiko, but Ran - not yet an arcanist herself - noticed her sudden personality change and confronted her. Su came clean, and Ran was all 'kill yourself, bitch' over it.

Seriously she does not let up. Here's some quotes:

This time, she did glance at me, a scowl forming on her face. "Don't try to act compassionate, you perverted fucking body-snatcher. You're not my friend." (...) She grunted. "Just be late next time. I don't want you messing with how she looks on your own impulse." (...) It was strange, us investigating it together like this. Even though I went along with it, acted repentantly, and had explained to her that the way things were weren't exactly my fault - that I'd been deceived at the premise of what I'd agreed to do - she wasn't willing to afford me much charity, but in a way, that was comforting. She was like a beacon of sharp reality in the dreamlike, dissociated existence I was now living.

And so on. Even when Su reveals that her original body is now months dead, and there is no body to go back to, Ran will not cut her a break:

"...this isn't you getting cold feet about trying to save her, is it?" she asked, suddenly suspicious. "Because you can't--" (...) Ran must have realized the absurdity of the statement, because a few moments later she spoke up again-- Disgust having crept back into her tone, even if that hint of conflict still remained. "Don't act sorry for yourself," she said. "It's your own fault for going along with something so perverse for your own gain. Blame her grandfather for being such a fucking lunatic, if you want, but don't act like a victim. No one gives a shit about you."

People in the comments start pulling out the word 'abuser' over this kind of thing and yeah, *sucks in air through teeth* they're not wrong. No wonder Su has such a complex nowadays.

It's notable how much Su's fantastical scenario here has in common with the experience of plurality/DID. Certain friends who are plural talk about how they may be able to recall alters' memories, but with difficulty, and it feels like they belong to someone else. And of course there's the process of forming new alters. Manifesting suddenly in a body full of memories of another person seems like a pretty distressing experience all told, but it's also something that the other people you're sharing with can make easier.

I talked a bit more about this in the Baru article on brains, so I won't reprise it all here. Broadly speaking, if someone is plural, their mind supports different 'alters', which are states of being which typically express distinct senses of identity, access to memory, preferences, stream of consciousness etc. Whether you think of them as distinct 'people' or distinct states of 'one person' seems like a matter of philosophical speculation, but 'co-consciousness' of alters is not an unusual thing, and sometimes I've witnessed externalised disagreements between alters. Since we don't have any ability to prove the existence of other minds in general, the only surefire way to know what it's like to be plural is to be plural already. Unfortunately the main way to inculcate plurality seems to be 'go through severe child abuse', so it's not easy to find out. But maybe tulpamancy is real?

Su's situation is not so different from the recent recurring 'lesbians and imperialism' subgenre device of having someone's mind inserted into a protagonist's body through some kind of scifi means. In modern 'plural system' terms, the word used is 'introject': in brief, an alter derived from another person, who often (but not always) understands themselves to be that person even in another body.

The big difference for Su of course is that the other alter she'd hypothetically be sharing this body with has just disappeared. Su can't talk to Shiko, Shiko's gone. It's not actually uncommon for alters to disappear like that, I've known people who very rapidly generate and discard identities in an intense traumatic situation, but the timeline doesn't really fit that here, and it's pretty much nonexistent I think for all alters but one to disappear and leave someone a singleton again.

I admit I'm not familiar with all the modern taxonomy of what psychiatry terms 'dissociative disorders', so perhaps there are other related categories, that are closer to Su's situation. Of course, even ignoring all the flaws and limitations of the DSM approach, this is a sci-fantasy world in which souls are real and manifest in a specific organ (ironic given how I declared they definitely aren't real and 'the body is all that is' in the first post on this book), so different rules apply!

What's not clear to me at this point is whether Samium the egomancer is going to be capable of restoring Shiko's soul in any meaningful way. It seems like when you shove two pneumas into a body, only one survives.

Anyway, as for Ran, she's clearly backed off on the 'perverted fucking body-snatcher' talk, having spent many years building up a friendship with Su and losing sight of her original zeal to save Shiko. Despite this, she really hasn't owned up to the fact that she's a big part of the reason Su is so determined to do a special magic suicide.

We could only suppose that if Shiko was brought back at this point, she would be in the exact same situation Su was - suddenly inhabiting a body filled with memories that are not her own, surrounded by people she does not know, and forced to carry on pretending to be the previous occupant. None of Su's present classmates know Shiko. Shiko's context was the school, and that is now in the distant past.

Su, however, is carrying The Mega Traumas and has spent however many years defining her life's purpose as dying to bring back Shiko. She has fully internalised the idea that she's a monster and doesn't deserve to live, that it's somehow her moral responsibility for the twisted experiment that Su's grandfather performed on these two girls.

At this point, the 'healthiest' outcomes are one of two things. Maybe Samium the egomancer could reactivate Shiko's identity, but without destroying Su, and Su/Shiko can share the body. Being plural doesn't seem to be so bad. (I admit I don't know what it's like, but if there's anything I've observed from knowing people who are plural, it's that once that cat's out of the bag and you recognise that you're plural, you can't really just try and suppress it. Trying to just will yourself into not switching is going to fuck you up much worse than coming to terms with it and developing ways to interact comfortably and share embodiment with your new headmate. Apparently 'integration' or fusion of alters is possible, and was traditionally pursued by therapists, but if it's rushed it just breaks down. And that would be disagreed with by the modern plural identity movement.)

On the other hand, it seems fairly plausible that it won't be possible to bring back Shiko. In this case, both Su and Ran need to finally grieve their friend who was effectively murdered at a young age by Su's grandfather, and move on. Easier said than done, of course. And they're definitely not going to get there if they can't have a very honest discussion about it. Which doesn't seem very likely with all these distracting murders.

Anyway, that resolves a few of my list of mysteries...

what skulduggery happened with Su’s ascension that made it go so badly wrong?: Shiki had the soul of her childhood friend, now known as 'Su', instead of some rando from the Tower of Asphodel. why did Ran react so badly to knowing that Su can’t assimilate?: she was not yet an arcanist and did not know about what initiation entails. she sees Su as culpable, even though Su was deceived. Su is a stranger and she will happily let a stranger die to save Shiki, and rationalises this. what did Su’s grandfather have to do with it?: agents claiming to work on behalf of Shiki's grandfather deceived Su. it seems it was too late to do it with his own mind.

it also opens some brand new mysteries.

why did Shiki's grandfather carry out this sadistic experiment? how is this the 'next-best thing'? is it just to prove the body-hopping technology works?

did Shiki's grandfather and co. anticipate that Shiki's mind would be overwritten by Su, or did they expect Su to be killed, the same as minds from Asphodel?

who are the agents who carried out this weird plot? do they have any relation to the current murder spree?

can the mind of Shiki really be retrieved?

Now I've gone through all the ins and outs of it - this plot is really cool and spicy. So much drama to be had. Now I understand the point of those flashback scenes to Su's childhood, and it fits so neatly that I wonder how I couldn't see it before. Not enough imagination! But if this is the wavelength the story is operating on, I should try and imagine similar payoffs for the other mysteries...

Anyway, now that we've established that body transfers are possible, we might wonder if anyone else had one done.

Let me wrap up this section by saying... body-snatcher is a very specific term! It tickles me to think that Ran might have seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).

The time loop

This was described at the outset as a 'control' scenario, but we have several apparent divergences. And supposedly thousands of iterations of this experiment have already run with slightly different outcomes.

Su's memory is slightly leaking info from the other loops, but for the most part she remains immersed in the scenario. Balthazar, meanwhile, obviously has history with Su from previous runs. This explains Su's inexplicable feelings of animosity towards him, his knowledge of the name 'Shiki', and many of his remarks.

As mentioned up above, the pantry is somehow not getting rolled back after each loop. This explains why it's so old. I had previously been assuming it was some kind of 'hyperbolic time chamber' type scenario, and the tally marks were the time that someone was stuck in the pantry, but this is way more interesting and cool.

We have our equivalent of On the ninth twilight, the witch revives, and none shall be left alive. from Balthazar:

"When I said this is a closed circle, I meant it in every sense," he explained. "In absolutely every instance, for every marking made on that wall... By the time this is over, there isn't a single person here left alive."

Presumably either Balthazar or Su is the mark-maker, and they always end up dead after making this mark. I assume they usually mark the wall fairly early in the loop in order to make sure they don't die too soon before making it!

This actually means I think we have a fairly good suspect for the "who knocked out Yantho" case. If Balthazar came here to mark the wall (although why bother, if it's the final run), and Yantho was about to see him, maybe he'd have panicked and knocked Yantho out? I don't think that would extend as far as killing the cook and faking her suicide though!

Anyway, Balthazar claims this is the final run. One commenter had a little hissy fit about this not fitting the standard time loop story mold, but I'm more inclined to wait and see. Admittedly, I have the unfair knowledge, compared to when this chapter came out, that the story is hundreds of chapters long and still going strong, and given the murders are now going at a rapid pace, I feel like we'll surely see at least one more loop. Hard to say though. Just because it's inspired by Umineko doesn't mean it's got the same structure.

Anyway, let's revisit the very first chapter given what we now know...

They were also a woman, though you wouldn't have been able to tell. Everything beneath the head-area was buried under black fabric, without so much as an inch of flesh visible, and their face was covered with a expressionless, androgynous porcelain mask. Otherwise, the outfit evoked something like a funeral gown, with only subtle frills around the cuffs and hem of the skirt.

We can now recognise this is probably the outfit of a member of the Order, back when they hid their identities. The mask sounds similar to how Neferuaten's mask is described in chapter 31:

It took me a moment to realize which mask she was pointing out, since it was so unremarkable. It was little more than an oval of silver, with holes cut for the two eyes and mouth, and a little dent to accommodate the nose.

Though Nef's mask is described as silver, not porcelain.

We can also get to hear Su's victory condition.

"Understand this: Your role in the scenario has been elevated from that of bystander to that of the heroine, and your victory condition is thus," she continued. "You must ascertain the identity of your opponent, the cause of the bloodshed to follow, and prevent it before it comes to pass. In order to accomplish this goal, you must pay close heed to all which transpires, and use deduction, alongside your skills and past experience of the events to follow. Do you understand your role?" (...) "Should you deviate from your role, the scenario will be compromised, and a grave outcome is forewritten. But should you succeed, then you shall open the path to a brighter future." She paused for a moment. "That is all. Should we begin?"

It's not at all clear why this should be the final loop, given that Su seems nowhere near close to 'winning' at this point. It's hard to know whether 'the scenario will be compromised' applies beyond a single loop though.

Two more mysteries to put on the list: who is Su's interlocutor here? And what was Su's request?

One thing I noticed, incidentally, is that chapter 000 was written some time after chapter 1, released 27 July 2020 - the timestamp places it in between chapters 020 (24 July) and 021 (6 August). I don't think this means anything - the intended version of the story is clearly now the one with the prologue attached - but it's an interesting example of how a serial novel can evolve with time.

Anyway, if the time loop is a challenge for Su to solve, it raises the obvious question of why Balthazar gets to remember the loop. (There's also incidentally a thing where most of the students' clocks are mysteriously stopped, with the exception of Ophelia's and Ran's.)

Anyway, Su (like us) has to solve whodunnit and whydunnit. Though howdunnit is probably also relevant.

I'm going to wildly speculate that Su's identity stuff is somehow connected to the timeloop scenario, just because narrative efficiency. Here are some possibilities to consider:

the woman in the mask is Shiko

the woman in the mask is Su. the POV of the first chapter is that of Shiko, and her request is that a scenario could be created where Su has to take on the scenario.

the culprit of all the murders and shit is Shiko. she was not overwritten, but evicted into a different body again.

the culprit of all the murders and shit is Shiki, from Tsukihime.

Ran's chapters and the Great Work

Ran recounts some of the stuff that happened while Su was out of it. This is later shown to be a diegetic conversation.

These chapters are super cool and intriguing. That said, while it starts out fairly believable - Ran's summaries with her voice - there is something a bit weird about how Ran can quote long conversations verbatim. Admittedly, if Su is telling the story, she is also able to remember everything in incredible detail. But Su has been established to have something like an eidetic memory, at least as far as figures are concerned, so I can sorta handwave that part.

Though that said, it's just a minor stylistic quibble. Putting it in Ran's mouth is an interesting device. Ran's inner voice is quite sarcastic, way more so than Su, who is honestly painfully sincere?

More importantly, these chapters are not marked with a first purple letter to confirm they are reliable. This is a narrative that Ran is telling Su. We can probably assume the broad details are accurate-ish, but it's entirely possible that Ran is lying or omitting things according to the rules of the game.

Anyway, the students are all taken down to a huge chamber underneath the Everblossom that's full of fractal cables and complicated magic runes that use a city's worth of eris to interface with the Ironworker entropy machine. So far it lets them essentially perfectly recover information from the past, allowing them to do stuff like de-age Anna.

It's a little bit handwavey how it all works. Anna's memories appear to be intact, so her entire body can't have been rolled back. We could raise all sorts of questions about motion and the interface between brain and body but it's a nitpicking.

What we know is that after Fang brings out a piece of iron and it's integrated into the machine... Anna goes offscreen with the other members of the Order, and then comes back appearing much younger, and they claim the machine worked as intended. Not much time to celebrate though because shortly after, the murders start.

There remains the possibility that the younger individual we're being told is Anna is... not Anna, but someone else acting as her (perhaps even Neferatuen). Though why the Order would deceive the students in such a way I couldn't guess, so it's a pretty dubious theory.

The murders

The murder of Bardiya is fairly extensively discussed by the characters. The two scenarios raised are: Theo attacked Bardiya, then lied about it, or, an unknown party ducked in while the shield was lowered very briefly, then attacked Bardiya through the window.

Given the specifity of the window stuff, I'm inclined to believe the second story. Theo definitely has something going on with him (he's been super cagey about some personal business), but he doesn't have a murderer vibe, unless he's an improbably good actor. The capabilities of the adversary remain unclear.

It's also possible that the death somehow involved an adverse interaction with Linos's shield. This possibility was raised by a commentator.

...actually, fine, let me go into Linos's shield.

Linos's shield (or the inevitable nitpicking)

The main group of characters rely on Linos's high level casting of a shielding spell called energy-nullifying-projecting. This takes incoming energy and redirects it back out. We get more details later:

"The base component terminates all motion in anything that comes into contact with it and essentially acts as a brick wall on top of blocking incoming incantations, while the additional one conjures an electromagnetic repelling force, physically damaging any matter that tries to pass through it."

"Wait, uh, I'm kind of confused," Ptolema said, scratching her head. "If it works like that, wouldn't just moving it around damage stuff? Like, when you expanded it to cover the kitchen, shouldn't it have smashed the wall to bits?" "Mm, well, the energy nullification doesn't actually apply when I move the barrier, so as long as everything I'm expanding it through is motionless already, then it'll just pass through harmlessly. I do have to disable the repulsive component for those times, though--- There's an element of the incantation to give me dynamic control over it."

My nitpicks are two: firstly, Ran mentioned special relativity applies to this universe in an earlier chapter. 'Motionless' is relative, and in Newtonian physics and relativity, you don't have a 'preferred' reference frame in which things can be 'absolutely' at rest. So I wonder how the spell is able to distinguish between 'thing moving towards Linos' (block) vs 'Linos moving towards thing' (don't block).

My second nitpick is thermal motion. Even a solid object is constantly full of random lattice vibrations corresponding to temperature. Negating all motion that touches the barrier would amount to flash-freezing anything that comes into contact. Though perhaps you can 'code' it to identify macro-scale objects in motion and block them.

Neither of these are like important.

Anyway here's how Bardiya's death is described by Theo...

"I... Bardiya was right up near the window at the far side of the room, when I turned. I only saw him clearly for a moment before the lamp fell over... But the window was open, and he was staring out of-- No, rather, it almost looked like he was being pulled by something. One of his arms reached out to try and grab hold of something, but there was nothing." He shook his head. "When the light was gone, I tried to call out, but I couldn't hear a sound from my own mouth... Or from anywhere at all. And then, I... I..." He ran his hands urgently through his hair, as if trying to wipe something off them, and gasped urgently. Mehit, who was sitting next to him, stared wide-eyed. "I couldn't see well, but it looked like something was... Was feeding on him," he went on. "He kept being pulled out through the window over and over again, and every time, there was more and more blood when he pulled back. I could even feel some of it splatter on my face, see the light reflecting off the puddle... And more than anything, I could smell it. It was like a butcher's shop, but sickly sweet." He shuddered. "E-Eventually, whatever it was let him go, and he slumped down. I'd been too shocked to move up until that point, but realized I needed to help him, so... I tried to step forward. I still couldn't hear my own voice, so I tried to turn his body around. That's when I... That close, I could see..."

Getting pulled out of the window by an unseen force and torn to bits definitely sounds kinda like getting caught in a repulsive barrier, right? Then again, there's no reason Bard would stick his hand out the window unless forced.

It's a shame, I liked Bardiya. Had a good head on his shoulders. But hey, I guess that's the point! You always kill the fan appeal character first for maximum tragedy points. (By the same token, I expect Ezekiel will last a long time.)

Durvasa we have less information to go on, since the corpse was arranged decoratively post killing. As we've observed, it might not even be Durvasa.

I'm too tired now to try to solve this one, but I might do a followup, to comment on any other stuff that stands out, later.

Great story, anyway. I'm so intrigued by all that's going on. I accidentally posted this instead of sending it to drafts, so I'm gonna unprivate it now, see you next time for more on these chapters or maybe just advancing straight to the next batch!

Thanks for reading my liveblog! And if you read this Lurina, great work, this book kicks ass, so many intriguing ideas and moving parts, I have no idea how you keep track of it all lol.

Umineko liveblog to pick up after sleep hopefully. We'll see though.