#but the others are actual plot points that moved the needle

[probablygayattorneys]

I am a little confused, though. because in Layton Mystery Tanteisha, Marina has these charms on her bag, and Layton surmises that Luke gave them to her to serve as a means of verification, if she ever needed to turn to Layton for help. He would know that she was truly Luke's wife, because each of the charms represents a case they solved together. The train is clearly the Molentary Express, representing the events surrounding the Elysian box, and the rabbit is Subject 3, representing the events surrounding Future Luke's letter. So what's the bow?

[youreaclownnow]

Banana fish was good but damn that shit hurted. Would recommend to anyone who loves bl that causes pain or just likes very pretty anime👍

[onceuponastory]

closer - tattooartist!bucky barnes x female!reader

Plot: Y/N's feelings towards her tattoo artist intensify the closer he gets to her. Pairing: TattooArtist!Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader Warnings: A few mentions of needles - specifically tattoo needles - and the sensation and pain of getting tattooed (specifically when it goes over a bone). If that sort of thing gives you the squick, I wouldn't read. Notes: Welcome to... whatever this is. I just missed tattoo!artist Bucky and I hc him as a flirt and a slight pain in the ass so here we are!

Not beta'd, so any mistakes are my own.

“Alright.” Bucky grins, loading up his tattoo needle with ink. “You ready to start?” 

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” 

“You’ll be fine.” Bucky reassures. “Besides, it’s not like it’s going to be any different from the other ones I’ve done for you.” He chuckles.

He’s right, of course. This is not her first tattoo by Bucky Barnes. In fact, by this point, Bucky’s done most of Y/N’s growing collection of tattoos, and claims to be the very reason she was ‘bit by the tattoo bug’. And he’s right. Since she got her first tattoo from him, Y/N’s been itching to get more. She doesn’t see skin on her arms anymore, she sees empty space, a canvas for Bucky to fill with his art. And if she could, she’d have him cover her entire body with it.

Of course, the fact that her favourite tattoo artist (his words, not hers... although she agrees with him) is the most gorgeous man she’s ever seen is also why she keeps rushing back whenever she can. And he's also a massive flirt. Yet although it’ll never amount to anything, it never does… that doesn’t mean she can’t spend their sessions hoping for it. That one day he’ll notice her, really notice her, and tell her he’s just as much in love with her as she is with him.

As Bucky gets to work, Y/N turns her head, watching him. Of course, a lot of her sessions are also spent oogling her tattoo artist. Multicoloured tattoos of various designs and sizes cover Bucky's arms, piquing her curiosity. She's always wanted to ask him about them, to tell her the stories behind them, what was going on in his life back then to make him choose that design.

The familiar warm feeling of love begins to pool in her gut again, and Y/N sighs.

There's a lot of things she wants to know about Bucky.

"I can see you staring, you know."

"Just checking you're doing a good job." She lies. Bucky rolls his eyes.

"Oh, please." He looks down at her, trademark smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. "You use that excuse all the time. You just can't resist me."

Asshole.

Thankfully, Bucky soon drops it, going back to working on her tattoo. Today, he’s doing a piece that snakes up her arm and onto her shoulder, meaning he’s frequently getting up close and personal, more so than she’s used to. However, she doesn’t mind that at all. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

As Bucky works, Y/N occasionally glances over at him, still watching him curiously. Both because she actually enjoys seeing Bucky at work, and because again, he’s gorgeous. Thankfully, Bucky doesn't seem to have noticed this time. Or if he does, he doesn't call her out on it.

Some of Bucky’s brunette strands escape his man bun, framing his face. Y/N has to stop herself from reaching up and tucking it behind his ear. Despite how close she and Bucky are, that gesture is too intimate, too close for them… even as he moves further up her arm and onto her shoulders.

At one point, she glances over again, not realising he’s a lot closer than expected. So much so that her skin almost brushes against Bucky’s hair. For a split second, a flash of pink crosses Bucky's cheeks, and she frowns. Was he...blushing? Because of her?

“Oh, sorry.” She murmurs, her cheeks burning. How does he even look hotter up close? “Just tell me to move back if you want… or just move me out of the way.” She jokes awkwardly, only adding to her embarrassment. Hopefully, this session will be over before she makes even more of a fool of herself in front of Bucky.

“It’s okay.” Bucky smirks, running a hand through his few strands of hair, a sight that makes Y/N glad she’s laying down to witness. “You’re perfect, actually.” He chuckles. “Don’t tell the others I said this… but you’re my favourite client.” He winks.

She swears this man will be the death of her some day.

As Bucky continues the tattoo, he suddenly goes over a tender area, and she winces in pain. “You okay? You’re doing great, but let me know if you wanna stop, alright?” Bucky says. Gritting her teeth, Y/N nods.

“I’m good.” She gasps. "I just forgot how much that hurts."

It’ll all be worth it. It always is.

At least, getting to see Bucky makes it worth it, anyway.

“Good girl." Bucky smirks. 

Fucker.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The remainder of the session passes in silence, and Y/N’s head swirls. If she told him the truth, laid her heart out on the line… would it be so bad? 

She braces herself, opening her mouth to speak. But Bucky gets there first.

“You know Y/N, we’ve known each other for long enough that I feel like we’re friends. So the trust between us is solid enough.” He chuckles, refilling his ink. 

In actuality, she and Bucky have known each other for almost three years. Not that she’s been counting or anything. And despite Bucky doing most of her tattoos, she’s been at the shop infrequently enough that she wouldn’t consider themselves ‘friends’. But the thought that Bucky considers them friends makes her heart do that funny thing it always does whenever she sees Bucky - when it somehow beats too fast and almost stops. 

God, she wants him so badly.

“Yeah, that’s true. And besides, you’ve been up close and personal with me a lot.” She chuckles, another batch of heat spreading across her cheeks. Bucky laughs brightly, and Y/N grins just as wide.

“You’re right, I have.” He nods. “To be honest, by this point I’m convinced I could say or do anything, and you’d say ‘yeah!’, tattoos or otherwise.”

“Yeah!” she giggles.

“Okay.” Bucky muses, looking up at her with a smirk. “Go on a date with me then.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

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[ninii-winchester]

Unveiled Sorrows (Part 6)

Pairings : Dean Winchester X Reader, Sam Winchester X Reader (platonic), Dean Winchester X Lisa Braden (mentioned)

Word count: 4.4k

Warnings : angst, so much angst grab your tissues pls, spoilers s1-s6, violence, language, mentions of Djinn. Sam has his soul.

A/n : This series follows canon plot line but some scenes might happen differently or be completely changed. Check the warnings for each part before continuing.

I DO NOT GIVE PERMISSION TO COPY MY WORK, TRANSLATE IT OR POST IT TO ANY OTHER PLATFORM. REBLOGS ARE APPRECIATED.

Sam had been acting strange for the past two days and it wasn't sitting right with Y/n or Bobby. He was anxious, paranoid and jumpy. He acted like someone was out to get to him. And then suddenly Y/n started acting strange too. It was as if the two of them had been going crazy, which scared Bobby and Samuel. Truth is, someone was actually after the two.

"Bobby I swear there was a werewolf in the yard." Y/n panicked holding Adeline to her chest.

"Have you gone mad? Werewolves appear on full moon and at night. It's the middle of the day." Bobby replied throwing his hands in the air.

"Sammy cmon you have to believe me." She turned to her best friend. Sam stood still with his arms crossed against his chest. A knock on the door was heard and Y/n jumped in her place clutching Adeline even more firmly. Sam went to see and came back with Samuel, Christian trailing behind him.

"Anything?" Bobby asked Samuel.

"You two ever run into a Djinn?" Christian asked Sam and Y/n. Sam raised his brow at the question.

"Yeah, a few years back. He took Dean, we had to kill it." Y/n replied flatly.

"It's Djinns that are after you two. Didn't know why they were but now it makes sense. They're here for revenge." Samuel told them.

"Wait what?" Y/n asked. "Why haven't they attacked out front."

"It's easier. The things you two are seeing aren't real. It's them messing around with your heads. And soon enough you two will go insane and kill yourself." Samuel explained.

"What?" The two exclaimed.

"Well luckily for you, we have found an antidote." Christian said showing them a syringe filled with white liquid. "But we have to kill them before they come for you again."

"I'll have it first. Can't be too sure until we've tried." Sam says looking at his grandfather.

"Sammy no." Y/n stopped him.

"Y/n, respectfully. Shut up." Sam replied and then nodded towards Christian who injected him with the liquid.

"Do you feel anything Sam?" Bobby asked.

Suddenly, y/n screamed. Bobby immediately took Adeline from her arms as she backed up against the wall. her breathing laboured as she saw Azaezel in front of her. Her eyes widened, she knew it wasn't real and it was the Djinns doing but she couldn't help but choke as 'Azaezel' grabbed her by her neck. She felt herself being thrown towards a heap of books. The men watched as she was slammed against the window, the glass shattered with loud noise, she groaned at the impact.

"We can't wait Sam, she'll kill herself." Samuel said getting worried.

Sam nodded and Christian went to tranquillise her but she resisted, Sam grabbed her tightly and Christian stabbed y/n with the needle, injecting the liquid and right then she stopped moving completely. A few seconds later she opened her eyes and Sam sighed in relief. The two looked at each other when realisation dawned upon them.

"DEAN."

Dean hadn’t slept well since the night he saw her. She was plaguing his mind whether he was awake or asleep. Every time he would close his eyes he'd see her face, hear her voice. Now it's gotten to the point where he sees her when he's awake. It's like he's hallucinating. Then the appearance of the claw marks all over the neighbourhood. He assumed she might be here to hunt whatever is out here but he hasn't heard of a single death in the area. Not even a missing person's report.

He ought to check. He went to the garage of the house he shares with Lisa. He opened the trunk of the Impala and grabbed his gun. He felt a presence behind him and felt someone throwing him against the garage wall. He watched as Azaezel walked closer to him. Blood trickled down Dean's forehead.

"This isn't possible, i killed you. I shot you with the Colt." Dean said.

"Did you Dean? You might have but you didn't succeed. You can't ever do anything right Dean. You let Sam die. You couldn't save him. Your precious Y/n oh i wonder how she's doing." Dean growled as he heard him say her name. Azaezel grabbed Dean and bashed his head against the wall. The next thing he knew, everything thing went black.

When Dean came back to consciousness, he blinked slowly trying to adjust his eyes to the lighting. He gasped when he saw Sam sitting in front of me.

"Sam?" Dean asked sitting up.

"Yeah it's me." Sam said cutting his arm with a silver knife, showing Dean that he's in-fact Sam. Dean stood up and pulled Sam in a tight hug. "I expected a lot more scepticism." Sam joked as he hugged him back.

"How?" Dean questioned looking at Sam, still not believing he's here.

"I don't know." Sam shrugged. "I've researched for weeks i have no clue how i am back."

"Weeks? How long have you been back?"

"Almost a year, now!"

"You've been back for a year and you didn't come to me? What are you doing here now?" Dean snapped.

"Dean I wanted you to be happy and i knew you were happy here so I didn't bother you. You've always wanted all this." Sam replied.

"I only wanted my brother, alive." Dean replied pacing the room. "What have you been doing all this time?"

"Hunting!"

"With other people?"

"They're...more like family." Sam replied. "Look, I didn't want to come here but I had to, the things you were seeing weren't real. It was the Djinns, they came after us and I knew it was a matter of time they came after you." Sam explained.

"Us?" Dean questioned.

"Y/n and I." Sam replied. Dean stayed silent.

"So she's your only family now? You've been hunting with her?" Dean said with an edge to his voice.

"No Dean, y/n doesn't hunt and I'm not talking about her."

"Don't lie to me Sam, I saw her a few days back, heard her talking about a Vampire hunt."

"That was the only hunt she went on over the past year." Sam replied.

"Where've you been living? Bet its with this family of yours?"

"You might want to come with me."

Sam took Dean to the place where Samuel and the Campbell's lived. Gemma, Will, Gwen, Christian and Mark introduced themselves to Dean. He recognised Gemma and Will from the bar.

"Campbells as in..." Dean trailed off looking at Sam, not mentioning the fact that's met Will and Gemma.

"Mom's relatives." Sam confirmed.

"Dean." A voice called out and he turned to see his grandfather who was supposed to be dead. He looked like he had seen a ghost which is ironic considering he hunted them.

"Samuel?" Dean said walking towards him. The older man pulled his grandson in his embrace. Dean's face showed pure confusion.

"Whatever pulled Sam up, pulled me down as well. Who or why, we don't know." Samuel told Dean. And the latter nodded in understanding.

The group of hunters was now discussing their plan of action to defeat the Djinns. Dean clearly stated that he has no intention of coming back to the business, he just wants to keep Lisa and Ben. Speaking of,

"Lisa and Ben!" Dean exclaimed. "Sam you have to take me home, those Djinns know where I live, they could harm them." Sam nodded in understanding and took Dean back to his house.

Dean rushed the house and called out for Lisa. When he got no answer he grew anxious, he ran all over the house trying to find them. The front door opened and Lisa and Ben walked in. Dean immediately pulled them in his embrace sighing in relief.

Sam's jaw clenched as he watched Dean place a kiss on their heads. The way he was caring for Lisa and her kid like his own, oblivious to the fact that he has a biological daughter who deserves the same affection and love from her father.

"We need to get them out of here and somewhere safe." Dean said looking at Sam.

"Yeah we'll get them to-"

"Bobby's." Dean interrupted Sam.

"Dean, I don't think that's a good idea. We'll get them to Samuel's."

"Sam no offence but I don't trust anyone else except you and Bobby. And we're going to Bobby's, that's final." Dean stated leaving no room for argument.

It was a rare occurrence when Y/n was happy, like genuinely happy and today was one of those days. She's been trying for while to get Adeline to sit up on her own without any back support or falling back. And today the little baby sat on her own for a few seconda before plopping back on heap of pillows behind her.

"Bobby did you see that?" Y/  asked excitedly, a huge smile gracing her lips. The old man nodded, his expressions mirroring her own. "I can't wait for Sam to come home and see this. He's going to be ecstatic." She smiled.

Y/n thought had she asked for something else she would've gotten because the moment she said that, she heard the sound of Sam's car's horn thrice. He always did that, it was their secret code of sorts. Y/n picked up Adeline from where she was laying and excitedly made her way towards the front door, she heard the car door slam shut more than once indicating Sam brought company.

"See baby Uncle Sammy is hom-" She opened the door and her words got stuck inside as saw the company Sam brought.

Her gaze moved from Sam to Dean and then stopped on Lisa and Ben. None of them spoke a word. Dean's eyes dropped to the little baby in Y/n's arms and his heart dropped to the deepest pit of his stomach. He felt like couldn't breath. The baby looked like an exact copy of him.

"You promised, Winchester." Y/n's gaze turned to Sam who at least looked apologetic but she felt betrayed. She moved her arm behind her back and retrieved her gun from the back of her jeans.

"Y/n look i can explain.." Sam stuttered and she turn the safety off, of the gun. "Wait you can't shoot, Adeline's ears are sensitive." Sam said holding his hands in the air.

Sam's words broke Dean out of his trance, Adeline's ears. Adeline. Adeline. Adeline. It kept ringing in his ears when it clicked. Thats she name she told him at the bar.

"That's why I have a silencer on my gun." And with she shot Sam in the arm. He groaned as the bullet pierced him. Lisa and Ben flinched and Dean rushed to his brother's side still not believing she actually shot him. "I wish I had it in me to put a bullet in your head." She told Sam before turning her attention to the other two people.

"Hi Lisa. How've you been?" She said.  "Hey Ben, remember me?" She smiled at the boy.

"I'm good." Lisa said even more shaken up at this point.

"You're y/n. You saved me from that monster." Ben said happily.

"I sure did." She wrapped her other arm which was not holding Adeline around Ben's shoulder. "You've grown, kiddo." She told him bringing him inside, Lisa followed behind.

Dean helped Sam inside as all of them settled into the main room. Bobby looked at Dean and froze but then jumped into action as he saw Sam's profusely bleeding arm.

"What happened to him?" He asked Dean and Dean eyed Y/n. His gaze again settled on the child in her arms.

"Uh I had it coming." Sam groaned as Bobby cleaned his wound and patched him up.

An awkward silence fell into the room as nobody knew what to say. And Y/n took it upon herself to break the tension.

"I'm assuming we were right about the Djinn? Him going after Dean." She asked and Sam nodded.

"Yeah i barely reached there in time." He grunted sitting in the desk chair. "We had to bring them to somewhere safe and this is safest place we know." Sam looked at Y/n hoping she'd understand why he brought them here. He added 'we' hoping she'd know it wasn't his decision.

"Alright, since we've got no leads on the Djinns at the moment its safe to say you'll be here for a while." Y/n said to Lisa. "I think we've got enough rooms."

Bobby told the group he'd get Lisa and Ben to help settle in and show them to their room, he felt like the tension in the air would suffocate him to death so he opted out. Y/n cradled the little girl who was on the verge of falling asleep. She made her way to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of beer with some painkillers. Dean couldn't keep his eyes off of her or the baby. He followed her every moment and watched as she handed the pills and beer to Sam.

"I'm glad you know you had it coming." She patted his good arm. He chuckled shaking his head. "I'll arrange some food." Y/n said leaving the room. She laid Adeline in the crib in her room and made her way into the kitchen.

Sam avoided looking at Dean and the older Winchester was shooting glares at his brother. Dean was angry, sad, disappointed and heartbroken. He finds out that his brother has been alive for a whole year and he apparently has a daughter too. He couldn't take it any longer and rushed out the back door to clear his head. Sam followed behind him.

"Dean wait." He called out.

"She's mine, isn't she?" Dean stopped and turned to face Sam who looked away. "Dammit Sam answer me."

"Yeah." Sam replied.

"And you've known all this time?"

"I did but-"

"But what Sammy?" Dean yelled. "What could you possibly say to make it better? My brother who I thought was dead has been here the whole time, and now i find that I have a daughter, who I had no idea existed until this day?" Tears were pooling in Dean's eyes and he didn't care at this point.

"I told you Dean I didn't want to ruin what you have. And as for Addy," Sam sighed. "I didn't even know it happened between you two. Y/n said it happened once and it was mistake."

"She said what?" Dean recoiled. "It wasn't a mistake and it certainly didn't happen only once." He growled, now his grief turning into anger.

"What?" Sam exclaimed.

"Why didn't you tell me Sam? I could've had what I so desperately wanted." Dean cried, hurt that his brother kept such a huge secret from him.

"She made me promise not to tell you." Sam confessed.

"Why?"

"I don't know, when I came back she asked her if I met you and I told her I did see you but you were with Lisa and I didn't want to ruin that. When she told me she was pregnant and it's yours I told her to tell you but she told me that you deserve to have a normal life with the woman you love and not some...." Sam paused not whether to continue or not.

"Some what Sam?"

"Some good lay and..a child made out of it." Sam whispered lowly, he wasn't even sure if Dean heard him. This broke Dean's heart and he wasn't sure if he could ever piece it back together.

"That woman is a not some good lay, she's the love of my life, Sam. I was pathetically in love with her. I still am." Dean said with his head in his hands.

"You told her the world doesn't revolves around her."

"I know what I said, damn it. I just wanted her to be safe. I knew she wouldn't have left had I not told her all that. I thought if our plan was to fail, at-least she'd be away from all this. She'd be safe. And if it went well, I would go back to her, tell her everything and keep her safe with me until my last breath. But you made me promise. I kept my promise and I left and I never looked back." Dean breathed heavily.

"Dean... I had no idea. I am so sorry. I wish I hadn't... God this is all my fault, I have to make this right." Sam blamed himself and that's the last thing Dean wanted.

"It's not your fault Sam. You just wanted to die in peace." Dean made a failed attempt to ease the tension.

Y/n was in the kitchen when she heard someone clear their throat. She turned to see Lisa standing in the doorway.

"I hope Ben like sandwiches, I don't know much cooking." She said as she placed the ingredients on the counter.

"He likes them.." Lisa said joining to help her with the preparations.

"I can see why he loves you." Y/n said as she watched Lisa work effortlessly and still look amazing.

"Yeah but he's in love with you." She replied without looking at her.

"Rubbish." Y/n waved her off with her hand. "I think you're still tired from the long drive."

"It's the truth. I've lived with Dean for a year now, you're his waking thought and his dream." Lisa said softly. "I think i know more about you than you know yourself." The woman added with a smile.

"Don't you love him?" Y/n bit her lip. Her asking this question was showing a sign that she still cared about Dean as much as she shouldn't.

"He's a dear friend." Lisa replied vaguely. Loud footsteps were heard as Ben entered the kitchen looking for his mom.

Sam and Dean came back inside and Dean locked eyes with y/n for the first time since he came here. He wants to hate her for keeping his daughter a secret from him but one look at her and he's a puddle, willing to do anything she wants him to do.

"We need to talk." Dean said to y/n.

"I believe there is nothing to talk." Y/n replied without wavering.

"Its your choice, you talk to me while I'm asking nicely or I drag you out, because we're talking either way." Dean said keeping eye contact.

"You watch how you speak to me, Winchester. My gun still has five bullets." She replied. She knew she had to have this conversation at any point in her life, she was hoping she had more time. She let out a loud sigh before speaking, "Ben, honey can you go up and watch Adeline for me?" She asked the eleven year old boy. And he nodded happily running upstairs.

"Now you talk." Y/n ordered Dean, who turned around and walked to the main room. She rolled her eyes and followed him. "I don't have time for your bullshit so if you could get on with it before Adeline wakes up, I'd appreciate it." She snapped as he kept his back to her.

"Why didn't you tell me?" He turned to her, his face red.

"Tell you what?"

"About our daughter! Don't act dumb."

"She's my daughter." Y/n sneered. Sam and Lisa watched from the side. "Why do you even care? You didn't care a year ago."

"I.. how can you even say that. She's my daughter too. You had no right to keep her from me."

"Yeah right." Y/n scoffed. "What did you want to me do, Dean? After you pushed me away time and time again. Did you expect me to get on my knees and beg you to stay?" She said raising her voice. "You left. You left when I needed you the most." She felt a lump forming in her throat and she knew the waterworks were on the way. "You left me at the cemetery without a word. How do you think it made me feel?"

"I'm sorry i left, had you told me about Adeline I would've never..-"

"I don't need your pity, Dean. Nor does my daughter." She yelled. "You had a choice. And you left." She felt a tear drop down her cheek as much as she hated to cry in-front of him she couldn't hold it in.

At that moment Dean hated himself. He never knew he could be this weak. He watched Y/n look so broken, exhausted. It was as if sadness has etched itself on her face permanently.

"Cas told me I was pregnant when we got back from Carthage." Dean's eyes widened as the revelation. "That's why I asked to sit out when you guys decided to hit the road. I thought I'd tell you when you'd come back. But when you did you said awful things to me, Dean. It broke my heart." She gasped taking in a deep breath as cried. "I knew it was a hard time for us with everything happening. When I arrived at Detroit I thought maybe, just maybe things could be different but..." She didn't continue, everyone knows what happened in Detroit.

"I'm sorry, you have to believe me when I say I would've stayed.." Dean's eyes watered.

"Sorry doesn't cut it, Dean. I was scared, every night I was scared for my daughter's life because I didn't have the luxury to sleep peacefully and pretend that's nothing out there. Even the rustling of leaves would wake me up at night." She cried.

"I wish i could turn back time, i would do it a heartbeat. You know that." He cried. He knows he doesn't have the right to feel bad about himself but he couldn't help it.

"I'd do it too. If i could turn back time I'd do it and never associate myself with you."

"You don't mean that." Dean whispered, his voice almost begging her to take it back.

"I do." She looked him in the eye, even though her vision was blurred. "Even for a second if we forget that Addy exists, you left me when I needed you the most. My best friend jumped into the pit and I felt like my heart had been ripped out from my chest." She was now full on sobbing. "I needed you. I knew nobody could've understood what I felt except you. I dug the ground with my hands until my fingers bled hoping the cage was still there and Sam would come out." She cried holding her hand to her heart as if it pained her physically. "I just wanted you to hold me tell me it'd be alright. We'll figure something out like we always do."

If anyone of them wasn't crying before they were now. They hadn't realised she'd been through so much pain. She's suffered and she was carrying a child. She held on for so long. Lisa's heart ached for the sobbing woman in front of her.

"Y/n." Sam spoke having enough. He needs to clear this out. He can't watch them fight knowing it wasn't any of their fault but his'. "It's my fault."

"Sammy." Dean warned sternly.

"No Dean. It was my fault. Let me do this." Sam replied.

"What do you mean?" Y/n asked looking at Sam.

"After you left I asked Dean to promise that he won't find you. I told him to go live with Lisa." Sam stated.

"Why would you even say that?" She whispered.

"Because i knew if you two had been with each other you'd just find a way to bring me back. Even worse make deals with demons or shit." Sam said holding his head down. "It wasn't his fault y/n, if I'd known he loved you i would've never asked him to leave."

"Dean doesn't love anyone but you." Y/n scoffed and that irked Dean. He could listen to her say the worst things about him but doubting his love for her wasn't something he'd take queitly. He took a few steps towards her and grabbed her arm making her look at him.

"Why're you talking about me as if I'm not here? And how dare you say that?" He growled. "How dare you say I don't love you. You're the only woman I've ever been in love with." He said pulling her closer.

"Some way you've got to show it." She scoffed pulling her arm away. "Alright I agree Sam was in the wrong but you don't get to put the blame on him completely. You took the easy way out."

"The fuck is that supposed to mean?" Dean asked, his face contorted in anger.

"Oh please, don't be so naive now." She gritted her teeth. "You're acting like you didn't have a choice."

"I didn't..- " Dean started but she interrupted him.

"You were Michael's vessel Dean, you were destined to be a part of that war. You fought tooth and nail, you told the literal angels to shove it up their ass, that you'd never say yes. YOU FOUGHT DESTINY AND YOU'RE SAYING YOU DIDN’T HAVE A CHOICE?" She yelled having enough of his excuses.

Dean knew she was right. There was nothing she said that wasn't true. But he had been scared. Whoever he gets close to gets hurt. He never wanted any of this to happen. If only he had manned up and told everyone how he felt, alot this could've been avoided.

Y/n felt betrayed. Not only by Dean but Sam as well. All her life the only people she considered her family, betrayed her in every way possible. She wondered has she been naive or they were just too good at using people? If Dean loved her as much as he said he did, then why didn't he stay. Heavy footsteps and loud cries filled y/n's ears.

"Y/n, she woke up and started crying." Ben said carrying little Adeline to her mother.

"Thank you for looking after her, sweetheart." She said wiping her tears and taking her baby into her arms. Adeline stopped crying once she was in her mother's arms.

"Are you okay?" Ben asked, oblivious to the tension in the room, standing beside his mother.

"I'm okay." She replied. "Just realised I spent my whole life loving and caring for the Winchesters only to be betrayed by them." She whispered lowly that only the adults could comprehend. She held Adeline up and looked at her face. "I'll have to wait for yours too, it's only a matter of time you do. After all you're a Winchester too." She smiled sadly, breaking Sam and Dean's heart along with her own.

Tags:

@spnfamily-j2 @galway-girlatwork @deangirl96 @queensilber

@s0urw00lf @monkey-d-hoshizora98 @deans-baby-momma @fullbelieverheart @hobby27

[atxxokirina]

Can I make a request where the reader is to be mated with Aonung but Neteyam swoops in and steals her away? Bonus points if it's dark 🤤

Thank you!

Replacement (18+ MDNI) —

Neteyam x Fem Metkayina reader

Contains: ⚠️ CNC, dark/rough Neteyam, daddy kink, creampie, impact play, missionary, cheating reader (sorta). Let me now if I missed anything.

Plot: After finding out you're forced to be mated with Aounung, Neteyam does whatever he can to make sure it doesn't happen.

— 𓆉

You had just returned from your 3rd fitting session of the day with Ronal. Her, and many of the older women in the clan won't stop gushing about how you and Aounung would be such "beautiful mates". But in all honesty, you didn't want to be with him in the first place. The marriage was arranged by Aounung's parents and yours. But of course, you had no say in it.

Going through hours of being pricked by needles, pushed around, and squeezed by the attire she'd sewn for you. It felt endless. One outfit after the other, and if that one wasn't 1000% perfect? You had to stand still for Eywa knows how long, as the Tsahík and elders fit their fabrics on you. It was torture.

Exhausted, you stumble back into your Marui. Collapsing on your cot and laying on your back as you deeply sighed. The sound of wind blowing was like a soothing melody as you began to drift into a restless sleep, desperately seeking an escape from the overwhelming reality that'd been forced upon you.

Just as you were beginning to lose consciousness.. "Knock knock?" You hear a voice tap on the wood outside of your Marui. Shooting up from your cot, you quickly shuffle to the door, instantly smiling at who you see. "Neteyam!" You happily sigh, bringing him into a hug as you wrapped your arms around his neck. He stands still for a second, surprised by the sudden gesture, but still embraces you nonetheless.

Neteyam takes both of your shoulders and tilts your face up to look at his. "Something wrong? You look tired." His that gently holds your chin, runs down your face and rests on the top of your head. You frown, tilting your head with a pout, basically speaking with your eyes. "Was the Tsahík making you try on clothes again?" He let out a small laugh under his breath.

"Yeah," you sigh, rolling your eyes. "Every single day, nonstop. It's so tiring," You huff, turning around to sit on your cot as you burry your face in your knees. "I just want this to end," you groan again. "I didn't even wanna be with him in the first place." You complain about the same thing, for the hundredth time today- almost becoming annoyed with yourself.

Neteyam stood still, body leaning against your wooden walls as he stirred up an idea. "Hey," he starts, voice full of curiosity. "Your father wants just wants you to be mated the Olo'ekytan, right?" He asked. You bring your head up from your knees, peeking up at Neteyam. "Mm- yeah, why?" You mumble with a nod, unsure of what he's getting at.

A sly smirk curls on Neteyam's lips, he knew exactly how to curve you from Aounung. He moves away from the wooden plank, stopping in front of you and kneeling to your level. "W-What is it, Teyam?" You question as your body heat increased, heart beating faster. "Y/n," he sighs. "You do know that I'm going to be Olo'ekytan too, right?" You blink a few times. "Yes.." You reply, staring at him with growing curiosity and anticipation.

"No." You state once you finally understand. "No, I can't do that. My father would never approve, and I'm already expected to be-" He cups your chin, pitying a smile. "It's a shame that I'm not asking. I'm *telling." Neteyam sounds more serious than usual, and it worries you that he actually expects you to go through with this.

Neteyam is picture perfect, there's no doubt about that. He's an amazing warrior, responsible, attractive, muscular, and the list could go on and on. The only problem, is he's basically like family to you. The years you've known each other all you've done was mentor him. Teaching him the Metkayina ways, it almost felt like you were raising him up— which is why it felt so it felt wrong to consider mating with him.

"I-I can't, really Neteyam-" He stops you again. "Didn't you want a way out of this? I'm giving you one, and now you're trying to back out?" He raises his voice as he stood up, causing you to flinch. His large figure is towering over you now, you can see each pore and freckle on his chest.

Looking up at him, you hesitate to speak. "Neteyam, please calm down. I didn't mean to lead you on or anything, I swear." you try to explain, but his patience is visibly running thin.

Neteyam lets out a deep, exhaled sigh. "You may not want this, but you also don't want to be with Aounung, yes?" His voice was melodic and deep. Almost sympathetic.

Barely making eye contact as he loosens his loincloth. You sniffle, nodding in fear. "Mm, that's what I thought." You're practically trembling as you watch him untie his cloth. "I'm your only way out, y/n. It's me or him."

Your ears lay flat in fear. Worried about what he'll do next. "Oh, come on. Don't act all scared now," Neteyam teases. He pulls you closer by your chin, giving a single kitten lick to your neck. "Hmh.." You whine, completely cornered. Neteyam's firm hands wrap around your throat, only gently squeezing. You turn your head and try to avoid his eyes.

He spreads your thighs with his knee, making each move sensual and slow. "Look at me," he hums, weaving his fingers in between your top. You pretend not to hear him, but the slight twitch in your ears gave you away.

"You think you're funny, huh? I said, look at me." Neteyam growls, gripping your chin tighter and forcing it to face him. Your lips quiver, you've no choice but to lock eyes with him. "Don't make this harder than it has to be, y/n."

As his hands travel underneath your top, he groans. Feeling the warmth of your breasts while his index and middle finger roll in between your nipples. Without warning, he rips it your crochet top off. Fully exposing your tits. "Neteyam!" You gasp. "Shut up." He snarls.

After that, he goes for your loincloth. His sharp nails teasing your band before expertly untying it. He completely took his off, as well. Cock standing at attention, pulsing every once in awhile, just waiting to be touched. You reach your hand out, slowly going in for it. You're stopped as he smacks your hand away. "Did I give you permission to touch me?" Neteyam asks, tone stern. "N-No, but—"

He takes you by your neck, throwing you onto the cot as if you were nothing. Your pupils widen as you whimpered, jagged breaths escaping you. "I-I'm sorry, Neteyam. I won't touch you without permission." You whimper, leaning back on your arms as you attempt to shuffle away. He mockingly frowns, stepping over to you.

Your heart rate was at it's peak as he came closer. Crawling on top of you and pinning your arms back. His abs were tense and his breathing was so heavy. You've never seen him this way. Usually he's the sweetest, most careful man ever. But now? He was entirely different.

Your eyes meet each other, and you know he's yearning for something more. "I'm gonna fuck you until you're screaming." He promises "So loud that bitch Aounung will hear." Neteyam shines his fangs, slowly bringing his hands from your arms to your navel. "I bet you'd like that, huh?" He teased, pressing his thumb against your clit. "Mmh! Yes daddy. I-I would like it." You unknowingly mewl. It was almost like he forced the noise from your throat.

He holds his girthy cock with one full hand, making it look bigger than it already was. You gulp again after seeing what was going inside you, squeezing your eyes shut. He sharply inhales before easing his cock in, giving you a few seconds to prepare, before plummetting his dick inside you.

"Oh fuck! Oh f-fuck, stop! Too big, please!" Instinctively, you attempt to push him off. But his so much bigger than you, it was no use. You whine and cry, back arching as your body tries to adjust. "Don't fight it, baby. Take it for daddy, huh?" He shushes you, low moans escaping from him as he pushes the remaining 7 inches in.

Now this felt like actual torture. Like you were being ripped apart, but for some reason your body was begging for more.

Tears well in your eyes while Neteyam's cock stuffs your guts. "Mmmhh, there we go.." He groaned, giving your face a quick slap.

He was rough. And maybe you secretly loved every second. No man has ever made you feel this way. "N-No more," you hiccup. "Please!" His cock pulsed at your cries, only giving him more pleasure while he fucks you out, cock moving out halfway, slamming harder with each thrust.

"Yeah? You like that slut? Tell daddy." He plows into you deeper, your slick juices combined with his precum- making such nasty noises. "I do! I love it daddy!" You struggle another moan, absolutely hating that you're enjoying this. Neteyam holds onto the sides of your ass, clawing into them as his cock drills you. A new stream of tears roll down your face. Breathy sobs and mewls escape from your mouth.

"I like when you cry." He claws deeper, hands clutching the sides of your ass before he smacks it. Leaving faint, flush handprints. "Ah!" You yelp in pain. "You're hurting me, please!"

"Oh, yeah? It's hurting?" Neteyam mocks you again. Grunting as his hips gyrate in you, strokes becoming longer and deeper. You nod as a tear falls. "Yes.."

"It's hurting?" His single second of sympathy was over. His slaps have moved from your ass, to your tits. Leaving a stinging sensation as he pulls your body up— forcing you down on his dick. You scream out, wrapping your arms around his neck as you whimper and mewl. "Keep fucking acting like you don't want this," he thrusts once. Making you gasp for the air that's being knocked from you.

Neteyam snakes his hand to your neck, using it to pull you closer. "I'm gonna cum inside your pussy, and leave my scent on you." He whispers, fangs grazing your neck. "Everyone's gonna smell how much of a dirty slut you are." A newfound wave of arousal and pain runs through your body, you knew that you were gonna cum— no, squirt. It was so close, all you could do was stare into his eyes. Pupils fully blown as it builds up.

You cunt squeezes him, almost like a warning. "Daddy, I'm.." You sharply inhale, electricity moving throughout you. "I'm gonna cum, oh fuck!" He growls. Feeling his heavy load finally get ready to spurt. Fill your womb and invade your ovaries. "That's it. Cum on me, I'll cream this tight pussy and make you mine." Neteyam moaned, pulling you closer if it was even possible.

Tighter.

Tighter.

Tigh.. ter

Tight, tight..

Release

"I'm cu- cumming! Oh, fuck, daddy!" You scream, squirting over his cock. It came out like a waterfall, coating your plush thighs, to his balls. Your bodies were synced with each other. And just as you finished, he started.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck.. Take it. Take all my fucking cum." Neteyam moans, pantint as he holds your hips down on him, the veins in his forearms becoming prominent as he dumps his seed into your warm pussy. You cling into him, melting at the sudden warmish feeling in your tummy. "Nghhh.." You softly moan, weary and ready to pass out.

He notices and props your head up to look at him. "Uh uh, don't pass out on me now." Neteyam grins. "You're all mine now, and you have my scent. You know what that means?" Neteyam coos. "Hm..?" You lazily whine.

"I get to do what I want with you. We're mated for life now, y/n." He pulls out. Letting you fall back before moving around to your face. You're met with his still hard cock, the tip getting ready to part your lips as it's still slightly dipped in his cum and yours.

"Say 'ah'. Open wide for daddy.."

— 𓆉

taglist: @pandorxxx @sweethoneycn @neytirishottie @sullybrotherslover @tsireyafilms @teyamsgrl @encephalitis-on-sundays @sassypain @neongroves @rosyjn @hidingfrommanda @whore-for-hawks @ele-sme @lowryv @teyamsatan @majornaxxx

[whinlatter]

author's note | chapters 13 & 14: the moult & the vulture

now the dust has settled... thank you for reading chapters 13 and 14 of beasts! thank you also to the askbox angels who asked for the author’s note (it is still mad to me someone reads these). now, it's inquiry time, baby - and boy are the gloves coming off, and the secrets spilling out. the wait was long; so were the chapters. sorry, again, about that. so - kindly read on for discussion of some major themes and plot points, a little on song choices, and some juicy deets and a sneak peek of chapter 15... and 16…

✨ spoilers for this chapter below the cut  ✨

writing notes and headcanons

first - a disclaimer: am going to talk about that cliffhanger in a separate post up shortly (i rambled on too long). it will be up shortly!

second - a thank you! the reaction to these chapters has me in absolute bits. i'm a soppy sentimental shit at heart and this really did make me the happiest little girl in the world. so thank you forever and ever for that.

third - an acknowledgement, as ever, to @saintsenara, whom i bounce all the inane details off of, whose takes absolutely slap and who i hope will forgive me for making her boy rookwood such a flop.

divide and conquer/accidentally wrote two chapters again: what am i like! the trouble is - life-stuff aside - i was excited about these chapters (and the reveals), but also put far too much pressure on them to do a huge amount of heavy lifting, and to get the story to a place it wasn’t yet at and needed to get to quick. the writing challenge for these chapters was that i needed a series of plots to hit a rolling boil so we can get to the flashbacks to ginny’s war and all the reveals. and it took fucking ages to work how to structure and serve them as each needs at this point in the fic, and try to find a set of themes/devices to tie those plots together into something cohesive (especially because writing fic is much more like dropping tv show episodes in structure rather than actually sharing a novel, in part because you drop them one at a time at intervals, and i think the more successful ones can stand alone while also serving the overall body of work). i have - i confess - knitted, in my time, and you know when you have really thick wool and thick needles and you’re trying to slowly eek off one stitch onto the other needle and it actually really starts to hurt? it felt like that :) 

two inquiries, both alike in dignity: god, i love an inquiry. the truth being dragged out kicking and screaming by  the state, buffeted by political winds and a rapacious press? inject it. at last, the past is getting properly dredged up, and all sorts of buried secrets are getting unearthed in the process. so: in the present, the hogwarts inquiry is under way, and the wizengamot has assembled to hear what exactly has been going down in that cursed drafty old castle. in the past, though, we have flashbacks to a separate inquiry, into the events of 1992-1993, after the chamber of secrets was opened, where it wasn’t hogwarts on trial, but ginny herself (in a way). the events of ginny’s first year have haunted her in diffuse, quiet, private ways in the flashbacks throughout this fic so far, but we’re moving into the part of the fic where we see just how much they changed the course of her life and who she is as a person. in canon, ofc, we only see harry’s view of the aftermath of ginny’s ordeal in the chamber - dumbledore is reinstated, lucius gets kicked off the governors, ginny weasley is ‘perfectly happy again’... but would that *really* be the end of it? doesn’t it seem perfectly plausible the ministry would investigate given the scale of publicity and threat to student lives, given (as discussed previously) the ministry canonically holds inquiries of varying scales for all sorts of things in canon? wouldn't they hold one for this?

ginny's guilt: in CoS, young harry never blames ginny for any of it: she was hoodwinked, he recognises, and not at all culpable. it’s very harry, and it’s a compassionate read of the situation. but given how little we know dumbledore tells anyone about what the diary actually was (even lucius didn’t know), wouldn’t ginny expect to face at least some questions about her own involvement and culpability, even if she was clearly to some extent also a victim? (the nod to colin’s mum is there as a reminder that there were real victims of the basilisk attacks: ginny could easily have been responsible for the deaths of several children, including her own friends, and if it were my child i think i’d want to ask at least a question or two). what i wanted to show with these flashbacks was this very formative experience for young ginny grappling with her own guilt and her place between two wars, having to face difficult questions about her own complicity in dark magic and attempted murder; for there to be echoes of ginny’s experiences in the experiences of young death eaters during the second wizarding war, and to start to properly draw these themes about choices, moral agency and grey areas, about children’s radicalisation and wars fought both by and through them, and, in particular, where ginny weasley sat within them. what i wanted to show was how ginny’s political and moral worldview was shaped in those pivotal years: her guilt, her sense of her own failings and inadequacies, how discontent she was to be a victim, how obsessed she is with being an agent and a soldier, how much she feels she has to prove. i might bash out a proper meta on this but i think it’s so telling how ginny talks about her second year later on in canon - how haunted she is by the forgetting (in OotP), and how much she sees it as having ‘[taken] orders’ (in HBP), rather than thinking of her possession as just playing host to another entity. here, it’s dumbledore who points out the key traits that led ginny into riddle’s path: her loneliness and isolation, her many insecurities that made her so vulnerable, her fear, a certain desire for self-preservation. even though we know most hogwarts students don’t seem to really know what happened in CoS, and certainly not ginny’s part in it (terry boot in OotP is like ‘lol did you kill a basilisk with a sword!’ which seems to be the extent of the student body’s knowledge of what went down). but i like the idea of there being a record of ginny’s darkest moment in her file, ink and paper proof of this most formative experience in her life, dumbledore dancing around her defence but keeping his cards close to his chest - and also there to pursue if anyone planning a hogwarts takeover was interested in finding someone close to the order of the phoenix who might be a weak link in the chain and be persuaded to flip…

dumbledore: dumbledore appears here only in flashbacks - he’s still absent from his portrait in the present - but it was sooo fun (re)introducing him as a character for the fic for the first time. what i liked about writing dumbledore’s dialogue (though it’s actually much harder than i expected, and i don’t feel that great about some of the lines) was that it was a chance to get a bit meta with the dumbledore bashing tropes that circle around fandom - you work through child soldiers, you monster etc - and try and do something a bit more interesting with them, or at least ask some questions (child soldiers or human shields? can children fight for what they believe in? how you fight a fair fight when the other side sees children as fair game - do you confine children to victimhood, or do you acknowledge, or even encourage, their own moral agency and desire to fight back?) dumbledore is walking a very difficult moral line here: defending ginny, but declining to disclose information that might conclusively exonerate her - eg. the existence of voldemort’s horcruxes - in the name of his most favourite thing, the greater good. in dumbledore’s mind, ginny deserves a defence, but not the whole truth, because that’s too important and bound up in a much bigger picture. dumbledore is always playing 3D chess while everyone else plays chequers. should dumbledore have revealed the horcruxes to conclusively exonerate ginny here? no, right? and yet. one day ginny will name her middle son after this man, and we might start to think about why. is it just loyalty to harry? or something else? i wanted us to see ginny’s political worldview being built, and her view of war and a soldier’s role in it, all themes that will be super important as we go back in time to see her war as she lived it in future chapters.

the intellectuals: one of the least developed but most interesting parts of the wizarding world in canon are the ideas and the people who have em. the series has a lot of important characters that are supposed to be eminent thinkers, but it doesn’t ever really linger on ideology, in the end settling on a kind of boilerplate liberal universalist good vs evil message which is fiiine but much less interesting than actually playing around with the concept of political thinkers and political thought in wizarding culture. it’s why i find the department of mysteries so interesting and so ripe with potential; the idea of a space of intellectual inquiry and investigation, but also a place where the staff’s moral allegiance is kind of a question mark. i loved introducing rookwood here and playing with a different kind of death eater, especially juxtaposed with dumbledore’s reflections in the flashback testimony. rookwood isn’t a bruising thug for fire, or a self-serving machiavellian real politik type or a coward acting out of fear, but someone who really believes in magical supremacy and has built a robust political worldview around it. there’s something really chilling about that. we’ll be seeing him again and i unfortunately am now so rookwood-pilled i worry i will never recover. i knew i’d get hegel in there somewhere! and they said it couldn’t be done! ariana carl schmidt what are you doing here!

kingsley vs minnie: delicious to reignite the minnie discourse, especially to come out to try and beat the minnie-bashing allegations that have jovially dogged me thus far. so far in this fic, kingsley has been an unrelenting goodie, someone who came to ginny to get her endorsement of the inquiry and framed that approach as the righting of a moral wrong in letting the victims of a death eater-run hogwarts have their day in court. minnie, on the other hand, seemed like ginny’s opp, defending a toxic status quo and making wild suggestions like ‘do your homework’ ‘don’t play quidditch when you might die’, like some kind of fucking idiot. in the series ministers of magic are canonically not to be trusted - harry certainly never meets a minister who doesn’t try to put the squeeze on him - and it’s extremely fun to sow these seeds of doubts about kingsley’s motivations here, especially when using ginny the protagonist as canon harry’s mirror (ie. a narrator who is frequently a dumb bitch). what’s kingsley up to? answers on a postcard. but i’ll die on the kingsley is a slytherin hill i’m so sorry! and speaking of minnie…

mother figures (or: the pitfalls of shipping your mum out to the dominions): look i bummed myself out with this one. i have had that the mrs granger knife crime incident scene written for SOoooooo long let me tell you. i’ve written elsewhere about how much this fic is really so much about the girls, and - especially - the girls and their mums, or the people they make mother figures out of. one of the least satisfying of the ‘all was well’ aspect of the series was that actually, at the end of DH, you have a whole host of people who were probably never going to be well again, and i very much see hermione’s parents in that camp. the world and his wife has an opinion on hermione’s decision vis-à-vis her parents. hermione’s stans see it as her deepest personal self-sacrifice; her haters take it as yet more proof of her monstrousness. even if you imagine the grangers were totally mentally well after having their muggle brains messed around with by powerful magic, it is hard to imagine how their relationship with their daughter could ever really be the same again after hermione played god with their minds. but also - as ron says - hermione was motivated by a desperate desire to protect two people who would never really be able to wrap their heads around the peril (such was their distance from her life in the magical world), and who conceivably did need to be yeeted halfway across the world to get them out of harm’s way. the choices made in war - the inglorious, imperfect decisions not of purist heroes but of soldiers in the grimmest of circumstances - are so interesting to play with writing post-war fic, and i have found it so interesting and so sad to play with; especially the idea of girls coming of age and learning to see their mothers clearly, and - in the case of both hermione but also ginny - having to wrap their heads around the possibility that they may never really be ok again, and asking what that means for them, their daughters.

(also hermione brawling at ballet is a tribute to a very dear friend of mine who was in fact asked to leave our ballet lessons for pulling another girl’s hair in a fight over the barre in a pre-primary exam. monstrous competitive precocious stroppy madams unite!) 

hinny: i’ll answer some of the Qs i’ve had about this in a separate little from the postbag post shortly, but i do want to say: the thing with these chapters is that it was really important they happened after harry and ginny have had some breakthrough in the preceding chapter, where ginny has agreed to be honest and harry has asked her to let him help her and not to protect him from the truth. i always wanted harry and ginny to write these letters each other and promise to be honest to work on bridging the gaps between them and overcoming their own failings to work to do better by each other, and for those letters to now look like contracts they have to hold each other to. how will harry take it? they’ve made a commitment to each other. now they’re testing that commitment, and that’s going to take a lot of work, especially on harry’s part. (also ofc he had to find out at shell cottage, the official place of harry realising stuff. he’s going to start declining bill and fleur’s dinner invitations fr.)

ron weasley is our king: this whole fic is just ron apologism and i will never apologise for it. helping his girlfriend's traumatised mentally scarred mother with a bit of tlc and a spot of gardening! rescuing neighbour's children from trees! you will never be able to convince me ron weasley wouldn't be a great fucking boyfriend to one ms hermione granger. do not ever try!

last thing - sodding quidditch: fucking hate writing it!!! hate it with my whole heart!!! i see why everyone writes hermione now. you don’t have to give a shit about those stupid balls if granger's your gal. the mystery of what’s going on with ginny on her broom continues, with ginny’s apparent ability to seek (just about) but not chase throwing up more questions than answers. what was fun about writing this bit was getting to write ginny the captain and the team player, taking on great risk for the team - of injury, of humiliation -  and also place her in this surround that the trio never really operate in: a character who is canonically very popular and liked by her peers, who has played the thoroughly selfless and unrewarding role of backup seeker and potter understudy for years for her house, and who will saddle up at enormous personal expense not just because she is brave, or inherently self-sacrificing, but because she wants to make the people around her happy - her gryffindor family, but also the hogwarts student body at large. the trio are much less motivated by the well-being of the other children around them - they have higher-minded self-sacrificing tendencies about a more abstract moral good. neville and luna, the other two members of the silver trio, are goodies but unpopular oddities. it’s an underplayed part of the series that harry and the trio turn around in their sixth year and clock that somehow ginny turned out to be very liked and respected by the popular and unpopular of hogwarts alike, admired for being a) a laugh and b) someone who cares about other people and wants to get on with them. (makes you realise how often protagonists are removed from their peers in a slightly lofty they don’t understand me or being popular is beneath me vein.) this isn’t just a Nice Thing: i think it’s important for who ginny is as a character, and will be important for thinking about her wartime motivations, too.

reading list:

not done one of these in a while! but most things should come with a reading list, and these chapters are no different.

on ministry bureaucracy and the state (actually read this after these chapters were done but desperately wish i had read it before ffs):

Subluxation by @saintsenara

on hermione's mum/parents:

alone now by Kyra Along the Way by ElizabethCulmer you were broken-hearted and the world was, too by celaenos

on post-war justice and difficult questions:

what you're not to do by irnan

on the potters and the sea (more vibes than subject matter - this is next gen - but this one is gorgeous, and really got me thinking about harry and ginny's family by the sea):

Eyes like Sea Glass by @clerical3rror

songs from the playlist for these chapters:

for chapter 13 i went all moody, building dread, bit of a throwback to michael corner calling ginny a tryer with the taylor swift choice (i've never been a natural/all i do is try, try, try). that kate bush song basically got this chapter written i swear to god:

she is like the swallow by karan casey | waking the witch (2018 remaster) by kate bush | house of the rising sun by joni mitchell | bane by alt-j | afraid of everyone by the national | mirrorball - the long pond studio sessions by taylor swift | what if the birds aren't singing they're screaming by aldous harding

for chapter 14, much more abstract, a bit more instrumental, and out to sea (watershed moment; the tide is rolling in, kids). tortured poets is a deeply flawed deeply uneven album by a deeply un-self-aware artist convinced she knows herself well but but i'm afraid the albatross is very good (so is guilty as sin but it wasn't the moment for a matty healy wank anthem now was it):

the opportunity passed in less than a minute by roy montgomery | the albatross by taylor swift | first of the tide by erland cooper and benge | wash by bon iver | escapism by a. blomqvist

about chapter 15 (and 16…)

the next chapters are ginny's war. they're (almost) all flashback, and i am sooooooo excited about them (and desperately hope you will like them jfc). i am in the unusual position of now picking up great enormous pieces that i wrote over a year ago and dusting them off and sorting them out and rewriting bits and writing new bits around them. there's probably two chapters in it, so am currently expecting chapter 15 and 16 to drop at the same time (that might change, but for now, that feels right to me). i'm tip-tapping as fast as my little fingers can carry me. here's the least spoilery sneak peek i could rustle up!

'I'm not smugglin' in nuthin", says Hagrid. He raises a large muddy finger at her. 'I want yeh to listen to me, for once in yer life. Keep yer head down. Go to yer classes, have yer dinner, put up, and shut up. They're lookin' fer a reason to go after yer family. Reckon the best thing yeh can do for the Order is to keep to verself and stay out o' trouble. Reckon that's what yer mum wants yeh to do. Reckon that's what Harry wants, too.'

[huginsmemory]

First meetings: Wolfwood and Vash

ID: Wolfwood in his introduction chapter pinching a protesting Vash's chin with interest and exclaiming that people are stupid for not immediately recognizing Vash.

One thing I noticed while rereading the manga, is the nature of Wolfwood and Vash's first meeting; that is, Wolfwood isn't targeting Vash as his next mark, nor does he likely know that Vash is his next mark. As a result, I thought it would be interesting to look at how that shapes their relationship with each other in the beginning, especially in comparison to the differences in the anime adaptations. Just a fun lil tidbit to sink your teeth into.

Proof of Unknowing

For the case that Wolfwood wasn't yet targeting Vash, my first point is that it makes sense logistically; if Wolfwood was targeting Vash to kill him as Legato had originally told them to in the manga, it would be assumed that he would have tried to kill Vash. However, instead he doesn't try to at all, although one might chalk that up to Vash saving his life by spotting him while on the bus or some other plot gimmick for Wolfwood to not immediately try to kill Vash.

Secondly, and more obviously, Wolfwood hasn't met Legato yet. This is seen clearly when Legato asks Wolfwood if he's Chapel, who Wolfwood is (later shown to be) impersonating, which means that Legato has never met Wolfwood. As well, Wolfwood is only shown to know the location of his next job- when he mutters about the chapel on the top of the rock- and doesn't seem to know nothing else, making it highly likely he doesn't even know any other details. In fact, Vash actually warns Wolfwood to not get involved with Legato, giving Wolfwood his description, to which Wolfwood when recieving the info doesn't seem to know the man; and upon arriving, and meeting Legato, Wolfwood actually parrots the description from Vash's warning in wariness, recognizing him through Vash's warning.

ID: Collection of three manga pages.

First page: Legato comments, "'Chapel' seems to be missing... Well, no matter. Our target... Has yet to arrive." His words fade into Wolfwood exclaiming, "Huh?! A skull attached to his left arm?" Vash says, "Yep, yep! That's right. And a raised, needle-like torture device on his right shoulder." After a pause, Vash says, "You don't know him? Well, if you see him, let me know."

Second page: Vash tensely remembers a blood spatter and thinks, "Like a shadow, he came. And like a shadow, he killed and slipped away. If he... If he can move in and out of a crowd like that, people can be killed easily..." Wolfwood and Meryl look curious, and Wolfwood asks, "Well? If I see that guy, what should I do? You got a message for him?" Vash makes an exclamatory sound and shouts, "No! No! Never-mind!! Do not get involved. He's a very, very dangerous man. I swear!" Wolfwood laughs, "But I heard you were the most dangerous man in the world!" Vash sighs.

Third page: we see Legato and Wolfwood standing across from each other at their first interaction. Legato says, "That cross... I've been waiting for you. You're 'Chapel,' correct?" Wolfwood's expression is wary, and he says, "The skull... The torture device... I know you..."

Since Legato hasn't met him yet, this also means Legato's precious half-coins which he gives to each of the gung-ho guns hasn't been given yet to Wolfwood, which Legato has been previously shown to inform the gung-ho guns who their target is when he gives it to them (as with the first gung-ho gun). This again makes it unlikely that Wolfwood even knows his mark is Vash.

ID: A panel of Legato touching a broken coin in front of Monev the Gale, the first gung-ho gun and saying intensely, "Do whatever it takes. For twenty years of your master's benevolence, it's time to repay him."

Lending further support, when Legato mentions that they specifically may need to deal with--ie, kill--Vash, this is the moment when we are privy to Wolfwood thought processes, where he desperately rages against his life as a assassin and how he wants to escape this life that causes him to kill. This is especially understandable under the context of Wolfwood just being told that he is supposed to kill a man that he had just somewhat befriended, a man who had just saved his life and payed for his lunch, who clearly has a good heart.

ID: Two subsequent manga pages. Legato (off page) says "We're entering unknown territory here. You must be ready to handle any situation. Especially... Vash the Stampede. By no means may you fail!!" Wolfwood's frowning face is shown as Conrad comments that Vash is coming and that he understands why Knives chose that location. There's a close-up of Wolfwood's narrow-eyed expression before a cut to his shoes stomping up a mountain. He angrily exclaims, "Shit! What the hell was with all th' training?! Once again I'm staining my own hands with blood. God..." He thinks, "Once it's gone full-circle... where will it end?"

Basically, manga Wolfwood and Vash's beginning of their relationship starts with them forming a camaraderie before Wolfwood learns that he needs to kill/betray Vash. This makes it in a way more bittersweet, because their original interaction never had that tension of knowledge that Wolfwood is there since the beginning to betray Vash, and instead, they are simply existing together and form a what might tentatively be called a friendship--at least something where the both of them seem to have made a positive impact on the other-- outside of Wolfwoods mission. As a result, the question of how much of the camaraderie in the beginning of their relationship is Wolfwood having to get close to his mark is removed; you realize the camaraderie they share is honest and organic. In a way it's more tragic, because Vash even warns Wolfwood to remain away from Legato, but Wolfwood is already inevitably heading towards meeting the man, and learns to his horror that his next target is actually Vash. For Vash it also it's bitter because when Wolfwood finds Vash, Wolfwood mentions Knives for his reason of finding Vash; showing that even against Vash's warning, Wolfwood has clearly been entangled in some manner in the fight between Vash and Knives.

Anime adaptions

All this gets cut from Stampede, as Wolfwood is pretty explicitly following Vash to babysit him since the beginning. As Stampede has considerably condensed the story this makes sense since it would take time they don't have to add it in; but I think that cuts out an interesting extra dimension to Wolfwood and Vash's relationship, but so many things have been cut that I'm not surprised, and it's so changed that this being cut is not a big deal to me (compared to other things they cut which were more important).

From what I remember of the 98' anime, it's left a bit open to whether or not Wolfwood already knows from the beginning. However, as Wolfwood appears before Legato appears, it may mean that Wolfwood doesn't know during their first few meetings, like in the manga, but we aren't given a specific scene that shows Wolfwood being told to follow Vash, so we don't know where in the timeline he knows (we are only given the scene where he's told to kill Vash, later in the series). As well, Vash warning Wolfwood about Legato was removed in '98, which then lacks that bittersweetness of the realization that Wolfwood has become entangled in Vash and Knives fight. However, I haven't finished rewatching '98, so I don't have a more confident answer for whether or not Wolfwood knows, so take this part of the analysis with a grain of salt.

Conclusion

TLDR: In comparison to Wolfwood seeking out Vash to betray/observe him since the beginning, Wolfwood not knowing, (as shown by Legato not knowing who Wolfwood is when they meet) makes their whole first interaction in the manga organic, and adds a whole extra dimension of tragedy to their relationship, especially with the way Vash tries to warn Wolfwood away from Legato, which ultimately fails. As a result, the darker parts of both of their lives, which they don't acknowledge in their first meeting, end up intertwined, against their will. This actually serves as part of a huge thematic resolution of monstrousness and rejection but that's not the point here, that's another thing for another day.

Btw! If u wanna read more rambles from me, here's a masterpost of em :)

Edit (Apr. 2): Added photo ID, written by @princess-of-purple-prose

[tb5-heavenward]

Hello!!!!! Just read your fic 'Talented Amateurs' and its soooo totally awesome and the writing is AMAZINGGGG!!!

I completely understand if you're not planning on finishing it but was wondering if you had any ideas about the ending you'd thought of? Was super curious as to how the rest would pan out!!!

Thank you <333333

oh man, I am sorry for how absent I have been lately! I have actually spent the past few years moving home to Canada from the USA, and getting settled at home again with my family. I've been split between semi-single parenthood, immigrating my husband from his home country back to mine, and then three or four different jobs across two different countries, depending upon how one counts that, and the rigamarole of generally getting life back into a manageable state. I've been through so many big changes over the past few years that I more or less have to conceptualize just the whole first half of my thirties as having been about just Getting Settled.

As to TA and writing in general, I would love to get back to it someday, the nature of writing for me is that I do end up taking long breaks in order to Live Life for periods of a few years at a time, but I always do mean to come back. I don't want to promise anything, but theoretically things will start to settle back into a real and actual routine in the latter half of 2024, as I whittle my days back down to just working one job, taking care of one household, and having my kid back in school for the bulk of the day.

It's not the only big project or big property I squared myself up against, but it is one that has a very clear roadmap of a plot in my head, so no fear there. As far as Heavenward having been kind of a jumping off point for what I thought the most interesting aspects of TAG Season 1 were, talented amateurs was really the same as far as what I thought about where Season 2 left things, and where I would have gone with what I thought was the other most interesting aspect of the show as a whole, that is to say Penny/Gordon, and the notion of the whole cast as adults with relationships.

The most terrifying thing about TA as it exists right now is that it's maybe only about 30% of the story I ever intended to tell, which speaks to just how awful it is to have my brain. Basically, the intent was always for it to be three parts long, each about 200k words, one for each trimester of the pregnancy it centers around, and for that to unfold in ways that I thought would be entertaining. As a story it is genuinely never far from my head or my heart (I reread it myself with embarrassing frequency) and the broad strokes of the answer to that question of where it goes next actually hinge on whether or not Jeff Tracy is alive or dead in TA's version of the TAG universe, and I never quite settled that question for myself. After how long it's been though, I think I at least have enough perspective to know which way I'm leaning.

I'm very much due for a rewatch of the series, and hopefully I can carve out time sometime soon to make that happen.

As far as something that may or may not resemble a glimmer of hope for a future where I get my ass back in gear, here's a cut and the first half of the chapter I left off in the middle of writing, for whatever that's worth!

61 - knit and purl

Grandma Tracy hasn't had much to knit in a while, and her fingers ache slightly, her muscle memory for the task having gone somewhat to rust. There's no great call for hats and scarves in the South Pacific, no one particularly in need of cableknit when there's Gore-tex and nanofleece to be had. Still, it had all come back quickly enough, and the bag she'd brought with her is no longer full of knitting needles and yarn, but of a gift for her grandson.

Not, crucially, the one whose birthday it actually is, though she'd caught Alan's sideways glances and nods of approval during the flight over, so it's not as though she thinks he minds.

Alan is presently in the process of very carefully putting TB2 down in an empty patch of farmland alongside a dirt road stretching between two fields. The windbreak around the farmhouse is in sight, as is the hulking green pickup truck rumbling along the road towards their appointed landing coordinates. From over her shoulder, Grandma Tracy can feel the intensity of Virgil's silent attention where he leans forward in one of the passenger seats, not wanting to backseat drive, but equally not wanting Alan to fudge the landing. John's still down in the cargo bay, hopefully buckled in.

Grandma isn't worried, though she can see her youngest grandson's tongue caught between his teeth and poking out between his lips as he concentrates. When the Thunderbird finally settles gently to the earth below, she watches him let out a great big breath and grin to himself, and when he glances across the cockpit towards her, she can tell he's after reassurance, and she's only too happy to oblige. "Nicely done, kiddo."

"Not too bad," Alan agrees, though his smile widens at the praise. He pushes his seat back, unbuckling his harness and stretching before hoisting himself upright and clambering back into the cabin proper. "I'm gonna get changed. You okay, Virg?"

Virgil's slept most of the flight through, and could probably do to get up and move around himself, but with his leg still in a cast and TB2's interior not exactly friendly to those in a state of reduced mobility, he's going to need help getting up and out of the ship. "Fine, Al. Good job. Give Grandma a hand before you go."

Grandma Tracy waves Alan away as he turns around, already extending a hand in her direction. "No, no, I'll sit a minute. Go get in your civvies, sweetheart. We're not in a hurry."

Alan shrugs and reverses course, giving Virgil's shoulder a light punch as he passes by, heading for the lockers and showers tucked back behind the cockpit. Virgil looks mildly disgruntled to have been overruled, but his expression softens slightly when Grandma turns in her seat to give him a gently knowing smile. "Hard to be back in your bird and not be the one flying, hm?"

"It sucks."

There's a blunt, uncharacteristic bitterness there that's hard to miss, the past few weeks have been hard on Virgil, in no small measure because they've been hard on his brothers. The pressure release of Gordon's circumstances seems to have done little to improve Virgil's mood, and it's hard to tell if he wants attention drawn to his attitude. She suspects not, and doesn't comment, only nods sympathetically. "Well, we're all on the ground now, and you can take it easy for a while."

This gets no better answer than an non-committal grunt, and the fact that Virgil's been taking it easy for weeks now hangs in the air, obvious but unstated, and then dissipates into nothingness as the cargo lift hums from behind them, and John returns from the lower cargo bay, with the little plexiglass sphere that houses his AI companion held loosely in one hand. "Al getting changed?" he asks, stooping slightly as he moves through the cockpit, coming to the front just in time to offer his grandmother a hand to her feet.

"Showering first," Grandma informs him, and accepts his help to stand and stretch. "Help an old lady back down to terra firma, won't you, dear?"

"Of course," John answers immediately, and offers his arm in a solicitous and genteel fashion, at odds with the way he's often written off as cold and distant. There's a rarely seen streak of gentility in John, most often only seen by his grandmother, who has the fortune of being one of the few recipients of his softer affections. Her hand on his arm is steadied when his palm closes lightly over her fingers, and he contrives to help her aboard the cargo lift in a way that doesn't make her feel doddering and weak. "I'll be back for you in a minute, Virgil, unless Alan gets you first," John attempts to tell his younger brother, but the only response is another dismissive grunt, and this is lost in the hydraulic hum of the cargo lift.

"Never mind about him," Grandma says, tipping her head lightly against her grandson's shoulder when he sighs aloud. "Gordon will cheer him up one way or the other, mark my words."

[meta-squash]

@callivich came up with this idea of doing DVD commentary for fic on @shamelessdvdcommentary, which I think is brilliant because I love reading the thoughts and creative process of other fic writers, so I want to try!

The Needle And The Burning Body Summary: They're supposed to be running away together. Ian hates whatever fucking nurture-over-nature compass Fiona somehow instilled in him that means the one thing he's running back to is never the thing he wants to want. That Mickey's love makes him want to run away as fast as he can because this thing, this solid thing is so much. And he's already so much on his own. Mickey had two burning torches for hands but he knew what to do with them. Ian's head was on fire and all he knew was how to run and keep running. How to find a cliff and jump off. How to make Mickey chase after him, again and again. And in a cold cell in prison, Mickey catches him.

Give us some stats - (when you wrote it, word count, how long it took to finish, is it a one-shot/multi-chapter, etc) I wrote it in winter of 2018. I switched laptops around that time so I don't have the metadata for exactly when I made the doc/how long it took, but I remember bashing it out fairly quickly. I tend to get a flash of inspiration and then bang out fics in a couple of sittings. This one is a one-shot, 10,623 words.

What was the initial inspiration for your story? I wanted to explore Ian's POV, why he went all the way down to Mexico with Mickey and what made him turn around and go back. I had this idea that the way Ian grew up, so dependent on his family, put a compass inside him that always pointed back to them, even when he'd rather it point somewhere else. And that metaphor just took on a life of its own.

If the story is written from a character’s POV, why did you choose this character? Ian is so WEIRD and hard to pin down and I wanted to try. Part of it is the Shameless writers' bad writing, but I think Ian also goes through such drastic and traumatic experiences that he has no control over, and it really messes with the way he acts. A lot of what happens to him has less to do with his choices or actions and more to do with either his mental illness or just circumstances. Plus he's actually the quietest of all the Gallaghers, which is kind of crazy. I wanted to try and explore why Ian is so often contradictory or weird. I also really wanted to explore his confusion and insecurities that he doesn't voice.

What was your favourite scene to write? The moment where Ian is sitting in the prison cell waiting for Mickey to get back and thinking about their past. I came up with imagery of Ian jumping off of a series of cliffs with Mickey chasing him to try and catch him at the bottom completely in the moment of writing, and it's one of my favorite things.

How did you come up with the title? I'm terrible with titles, I usually end up using song lyrics or a bizarre jumble of words, but this one is so straightforward. Ian gets the needle metaphor in this fic, and Mickey's metaphor is being a constant burning. So it fit.

Are there any little moments or references you hope readers will notice? I have a line in there, "Ian was better at finding whole things that weren't his and clinging to them. Mickey could make wholes from the smallest of pieces." I think it's a way of looking at their relationship that really explains well why it was the way it was pre-season 9.

Was there anything you struggled to write? If so, how did you overcome this? The smut. I don't tend to write smut because I either find it unsexy when it's not done well or when things logically would be uncomfortable/physically impossible/unhealthy in a not-even-sexy-in-the-moment way. If I write smut I like it to be poetic and for it to mean something in terms of moving plot along. I tried to make it both sexy and poetic, and tried my best to infuse every action with emotion and also intent. A bit like the advice my drama teacher gave us in high school: a character should not move from point a to point b for no reason. If you want to go to a different spot, you have to have some sort of reason or motive or intent. In this case, it's more about sex than walking, but it fits. I think I did pretty good in this one, but I think the smut I wrote in my other fic Proof Of What You Want was better.

Favourite line in the story? Well, it's more of a paragraph: It had all felt so far away when he'd asked, foggy and dull, ready to push. You gonna want to be with me even if I don't? Everything far away. Watching everyone for betrayal the way Monica taught him. So Mickey's sigh had no written all over it, and that no meant reading all the other signs wrong. But when you think you've lost everything except an identity you never wanted to have in the first place, you're bound to misread things. Really, the sigh was the same Mickey always seemed to breathe into his mouth. The same way he'd mutter jesus fucking christ like he was so annoyed even though he wasn't, and then he'd hold on and jump after him.

Did the storyline change in any way as you wrote the story? A lot of times I start a story in the middle and work outward, or start with whatever scenes popped into my brain first and work to connect them. I think this was one fic I actually wrote linearly from start to finish. I always intended the first half to be the ride to Mexico and the second half to be Ian and Mickey in prison together. But the metaphors and imagery I used really solidified as I was writing it. I had Ian's compass needle from the start, but Mickey as a pair of burning hands didn't come until later, and a lot of the other imagery just developed as I was writing. I didn't know I was going to have the two of them sit down and have an actual Talk about their relationship, and I'm glad I had Mickey basically saying like, 'I love you and I still want to be with you, but things are still fucked up and we gotta work on them.'

If you are writing a particular trope or genre, was it your first time writing this? This was my first time writing solely Ian's POV (as opposed to an omniscient POV or Mickey's), but it's not a specific trope or genre.

What are you most proud about in the story? (plot, characterisation, dialogue, twist/cliffhanger, etc) The metaphors! I'm sooooo happy they worked the way I wanted them to and came together so well and I'm soooooo proud of the last paragraph of the fic, which literally gave me chills as I wrote it.

Are there any deleted scenes that didn’t make it to the final story? No, but I tend to do the opposite. I post the fic and then reread it once it's already posted and add to it. So I'm fairly certain there are at least a few sentences if not a whole paragraph in the fic on AO3 that doesn't exist in my original doc.

Are there any ‘behind the scenes’ info you’d like to share - e.g. what’s going on in a characters head in a certain scene or how you came to write a certain line? The one I quoted above as my favorite line came about because I always felt like Mickey's reaction to Ian's questions in the breakup scene aren't a rejection at all or even disappointment or whatever. It felt to me like that sigh and Mickey's body language were more in line with his actions in 5x09 with the b vitamins and stuff. Like he realizes that he'd rather have Ian in whatever way and he'll be there for him, whether he's on his meds or not. It's not a sigh of "no I don't want to be with you", it's a sigh of "I'd rather it was some other way, but I'm not going anywhere." And I wanted to have Ian realizing that, and realizing that he'd interpreted Mickey's actions in the context of his siblings' actions, but Mickey's motivations and feelings are totally different from the Gallagher siblings. He doesn't have the context of growing up with Monica and he's willing to stick beside Ian, manic or not.

Reading back the story now, is there anything you’d change or add? I don't think so. I actually frequently read back stories in the months after posting them and add bits and bobs. There's a oneshot fic I have in a different fandom that I wrote in 2015 and have been adding to ever since as inspiration strikes. So I tend to just add things if I decide something should be added. This fic in particular came out pretty much complete, though.

Would you ever write a sequel to this story? I don't think so. Especially considering where canon went with the storyline of them in prison and their relationship in general.

Are there any ‘easter eggs’ in your story - e.g. references to other stories you’ve written, a trope you often use etc? Not in this one. Mostly because it's the only fic I've written solely in Ian's POV. And all the easter eggs I use for Shameless fics are for Mickey's POV, so I couldn't easily slot them in here.

If you’ve chosen your most popular story, are you surprised by the popularity? This was my most popular story for a long time, and I'm not at all surprised. It's the one I'm probably the most proud of in terms of all the imagery and also the denouement.

Were you nervous or excited to post this story? Oh, excited, definitely. All the other Shameless fics I'd written before this one were shorter and more straightforward, less poetic. This was the one that felt the most artistic and that I felt really inspired the whole time I was writing it.

(This was really fun, I might do this with my other Shameless fics! Thank you so much for the idea @callivich!)

[slavishslap]

The Razor Tickle Box | Saw Fanfic

Here's my first public fic! Let me know any improvements or stuff I could make, it's all appreciated! Not overly too much plot here, just some tickles and an idea I've been obsessed with for some weeks.

And just to note I've written this so that the razor box doesn't actually have razors in it, just some sort of suction to keep the wrists in place.

‐‐--------------------------------------------------------------------------

A sudden sharp pain in her neck shot Addison awake. Great, still stuck in that room, her wrists cuffed to the glass box above her. She tried craning her head round, turning it to either side, attempting to get a look at what was happening behind her.

"Hey! What the fuck are you doing?! Who's there!?" She knew there was someone there, she could feel their presence, but had no idea who it could be. "Let me out! Please!" She begged, looking up at her arms, which had surprisingly not started to tire out yet.

"There..." A voice behind her spoke gently, and to Addison's left, a person emerged. She recognised the woman immediately, from the short hair and the all blue outfit. Addison thought hard, trying to recall her name.

"You?! I-It's Amanda right? Get me out! Please!" Amanda looked up at her, and smiled, something that both confused and terrified Addison.

"Shut up will you... I just saved you." Amanda held up a needle, one that must have been containing the antidote that Addison had gotten stuck trying to get. "Did you seriously put both hands in that?" Amanda raised an eyebrow, pointing up to the box Addison was stuck in.

Addison watched as Amanda's eyes drifted away from her face, up to the box, and then sideways to her... armpits? Addison was only getting more and more confused, as she watched Amanda, who without speaking another word, dissappeared to behind her back.

"Wait! Where are you going?! Help me you bitch!!" Addison wondered if she would regret saying that.

"Yeah yeah, I will. But first, I just wanna test something out." Amanda was whispering up into the taller girls's ear, and if she hadn't just been in an intense death house, Addison probably would have been sightly turned on, evident by her cheeks now blushing brightly red.

"Just fucking get me out!" Addison watched as Amanda's hands appeared from behind her, and slowly made their way towards her armpits, all ten fingers beginning to gently wiggle inside, her short nails barely grazing the skin. "H-Hehehey!! W-Wahait!" Addison begun to giggle, whipping her head round wildly, her hair occasionally smacking Amanda in the face.

"What's the matter, hmm? Are we ticklish?" Amanda bit her tongue, watching as she was already trying to escape. "You're going nowhere." Amanda brought her head up to Addison's neck to whisper, the girl able to feel her breath on her ear.

"NoHOhohO! A-Ah-Amanda!" Addison was giggling like a little kid, squirming around upright, trying to move to escape the tickles, her clamped wrists prohibiting her from doing so.

"Awe, how about we go a little harder?" Amanda's fingers then begun to rapidly scratch and poke into Addison's armpits with more force, seeing an immediate reaction, as a squeal left her lips.

"AAAAH!! NONONOHOHO!! P-PAHA-PLEASE!!" Addison was now walking back and forth as far as she could, but nothing could get her away from Amanda's fingers. "I CAHAHAN'T!! I CAHAN'T!" Her words were squeaky, a pitch higher then her normal voice.

"Ohoho, you're really ticklish! I'm gonna have fun with you..." Addison's neck fliched everytime Amanda's whispered breath tickled her ear. "Hehe... tickle tickle! God you're pathetic." Amanda in an instant swapped the wiggling of her fingers to her drilling and twisting one finger into each armpit, seeing what would get her the best reaction.

"PLEEEEEEASE!! NOHOHO MOHOHOHORE!! STOHOHOP IT!!!" Addison was almost hopping on the spot, jumping around on one foot to the other. She could hear Amanda giggling behind her, not once letting up her tickling torture.

"Will you please stay still! I'm not even doing anything." Amanda retracted one hand from Addison's armpit and wrapped it around her waist, essentially holding her still. "Now... now you're fucked." She could feel Amanda's lips touch her ear as she softly whispered. A single hand drifted upwards, scratching all five fingers into one of Addison's armpits, making the woman squeal once again.

"EEK!! NONONOHOT THAHAHAT!! PLEHEHEASE!!! STOHOP STOHOHOP STOOOOOOP!!" Amanda internally congratulated herself, managing to reduce her subject to a flustered, squeaky mess with ease. Meanwhile, Addison was as red as a tomato, insanely embarrassed about the way she was jumping on the spot, screaming with laughter.

"Jeez you're fucking ticklish. You're like a little baby!" Amanda brought her lips back up to her ticklee's ear. "You a baby? Little baby Addison? Little ticklish baby Addison can't handle a few pokes?" Addison was hating how flustered Amanda's teasing was making her. The few whispered words made the torment so much worse.

Surprisingly, but thankfully, Amanda ceased her tickling in an instant, also unwrapping the arm round Addison's waist. A face appeared out the corner of her eye, and she turned to see a smirking Amanda looking at her, raising a finger to point to her face.

"You blushing? Is my teasing getting you?" Amanda was right, not that Addison would let her know.

"P-Please... Amanda... I cannot do any-anymore." Addison was breathing deeply in and out, trying to regain her composure.

"Why do you think I'm giving you a break silly." Amanda's face was plastered with an absolute shit-eating grin.

A break. Addison realised that meant there would be more to come, and judging by Amanda's head disappearing once more, they were coming now. And this time there was no teasing, no warm up, no gentle start. Amanda's hands whipped round to immediately dig all fingers into the exposed armpits, wanting to give Addison one last torture.

"FUHUHUCK YOU!!! HAHAHAHA!! I-I CAHAHAN'T!! AHAHAMANDA!! NONONONOHOHOHO!!" Addison was almost screaming now, twisting rapidly at the waist, her legs dancing around, trying turn her body away from Amanda's tickling hands any direction she could.

"Oh come on, you can take just a little longer, right? Not that you have a choice..." Addison's hair was slapping Amanda straight in the face, the taller girl resorting back to swinging her head around, seemingly with no idea of how to better cope with her torture.

"YOU NEED TO STOOOHOHOHOP!!!!" Addison let one final bellow out, barely managing to fit it between her laughter. The intense tickling had really tired her out, not even having the energy to wriggle around now, standing completely still.

Noticing how breathless that scream for mercy was, Amanda figured enough was enough, and gradually reduced her tickling to a light scritch on the armpits, before removing her hands completely, resting them on her own hips.

"Alright alright..." Amanda spoke softly, leaning her head back around one of Addison's sides to look the poor girl in the face. "I'll let you go now. Well, I'm gonna have to... uhhh... chloroform you first." Amanda had a smug smile on her face, looking like she was about to leave, before giving Addison one more comment. "I... uhm... I'll keep an eye on you, I'd like to do this again." With that, she headed out of the room.

Addison really hated herself for this, but she did kinda hope she would see Amanda again, just preferably with less laughing.

‐‐--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for reading! Let me know any potential improvements you may have for me. I am a huge shipper of Amanda x Addison (x Laura too) so couldn't help but include some more "romancy" things. (Lynn x Amanda supremacy though)

[eclipsedrawsthings]

Alrighty I finished so let me just type my nerdy analysis through my tears

First off, I went in knowing this was a tragedy (unlike my poor partner, who got smacked over the head with the ending), and this granted me the ability to See The Foreshadowing. Man this show uses the structure of tragedies well.

We are entering the nerd zone. Final warning. I am about to bring up Shakespeare.

In Romeo and Juliet, there’s a specific tipping point that changes the play from a comedy (in the Shakespearean sense) to a tragedy—Mercutio’s death about halfway through act three. After Mercutio dies, there’s no hope for a happy ending; the dominos are in motion and there’s no way to stop it.

Shorter is Mercutio. After he dies, there’s no way to have a happy ending. Heck, he even dies at about the same point in the story—roughly halfway through!

Speaking of Shorter’s death, it’s a perfect example of a tragic scene: one small change could have changed the outcome, but there’s no way of knowing of it would be for the better or for the worse. What would’ve happened if Ash had shot him in the arm or the shoulder, instead of the heart? Maybe it would have stopped him, at least long enough for another solution to come to light, but maybe it wouldn’t have! Maybe he would’ve grabbed the knife in his other hand and killed Eiji—Ash only had one bullet. Maybe the outcome we got, as heartbreaking as it was, was the best possible outcome!

I can’t stop turning the scene in my head, tugging on all the threads to see if anything could have been different, but at the same time… Shorter was already dead the moment he got dosed with Banana Fish. (Another very well-done scene by the way—extremely visceral, especially for someone like me who’s squicked out by needles.)

Moving on from Shorter, Ash and Eiji’s relationship is done fantastically. It’s so easy to imagine them together and happy a few years down the line, partly because they already seem like they’ve been together for years. I love all of the scenes of their morning banter—they’re so full of this feeling of “I love this person so much but goddammit do they know exactly how to get on my nerves” that I love in fictional couples because it’s so real. It’s Han Solo and Princess Leia, it’s Miracle Max and Valerie, it’s my mom and my dad.

And I love the way Ash grows as a character, and how it ties into his relationship with Eiji. Just—the way Eiji meets Ash at his lowest and sees something in him worth loving, which in turn makes Ash want to prove him right—it’s the way loving and being loved by someone makes you want to be better, so you can be the person they see when they look at you.

And the fact that they work so well together makes the ending hurt all the worse. If you’ll excuse my quoting The Princess Bride: “You truly love each other, so you might have been truly happy. Not one couple in a century has that chance.”

Switching gears to the art style—there was something about it that was tugging on my brain, and about four episodes in I realized what it was: stylistically, it looks vintage. If you slapped a noise filter over it and maybe changed how the eyes are rendered, Banana Fish would look like it came from the same era as AKIRA. Based on my vary vague knowledge of AKIRA (I read the first volume of the manga, didn’t particularly like it and understood very little of what was going on 😅) I have to wonder if that was deliberate, since my vague understanding is that AKIRA’s plot also involves shadowy organizations and super soldier drugs.

Not really sure how to end this ramble… basically my thesis statement is that this show hurts you by coming so close to a happy ending that was never actually in reach. Also, as cool as the art style is, it makes it a pain for me personally to try and draw these characters, since my own style is very different XD

Peace out, I’m gonna try and stop crying before I have to leave for work ✌️

[susandsnell]

Movies with Scarecrow vibes?

Ahhh, thank you so much for sending this! This might be long-winded, as I tend to be, but such is the way of Cranerot!

Naturally, Brian de Palma's Carrie. Aside from the plot and thematic matches almost eerily to Scarecrow: Year One to the point I'd be shocked if it wasn't a direct inspiration, de Palma's camp balanced with heartrending drama and tragedy and a horror where nearly everyone involved is a monster has Crane written all over it. I actually have several tracks from the score on my inspiration playlist for when I'm writing him!

Hellraiser (1987)! Jonathan Crane is so, so, so Cenobite-coded (highly recommend @acapelladitty's Cenobite!Crane AU, incidentally)! An old house filled with secrets, a plucky heroine whose sanity is doubted but who wins the day (at a great cost), and creatures that want to bring you to the height of sensation until the joy is inextricable from the anguish...it very much suits his more sensual reverent speeches/quotes about fear. "We have such sights to show you" could so easily be a Scarecrow quote, and likewise, "Eventually, the victim desires the horror" could very believably be a Pinhead line!

Since you mentioned it in The Most Poetical Topic, Night of the Hunter (1955) as a Southern noir quasi-folktale thriller absolutely suits the more charming, insidious iterations of Crane, in atmosphere, setting, antagonist, and in the themes of corrupted religion. The themes of childhood fears and defeating your demons while also struggling with their humanity both suit different phases of Jonathan Crane in his life, and the responses to and from the people he knows and terrorizes.

On the note of the South, O Brother Where Art Thou provides heavy atmosphere that give off Crane vibes, bringing a mythic epic to the setting of his backstory, with the music and monsters therein giving a good feel of everything that built the man and the monster.

Also naturally, many a mad scientist movie! The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari gives us a corrupt asylum director who torments his patients until he eventually becomes one of them, and Re-Animator gives us an actual former Scarecrow actor, Jeffrey Combs, in a very Crane-like role when it comes to being penalized in academica for horrific and unethical experiments. (It's even set in the original Arkham for which Gotham's is named!!) The Fly isn't quite as on point, but it does still give those vibes as well. And although the degree of 'madness' when he plays him is debatable, any of Cushing's roles as any member of the Frankenstein family come to mind since he's very much an old school!Crane figure.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984): yes, yes, 'look out for Mr. Pricky-Fingers', in the words of Codotverse!Scarecrow, but fear gauntlets/needles gloves aside, Freddy is the boogeyman who is literally fed on fears, and he much better gives the feel of a distinctly Scarecrowish tormentor than, say, your average Pennywise or other. Nancy's speech to him at the end is highly reminiscent of those who've managed to successfully stand up to Crane over the years, too.

Halloween (1978): On the note of boogeymen, and other than the "one good scare" quote you yourself have mentioned, I imagine Scarecrow to move and function a lot like Michael Meyers; slow, creeping, inevitable. Every kid in Gotham City thinks this place is haunted. They might be right!

For the pure fanservice of it/JonBecky vibes, let's say both the Lon Chaney and Charles Dance Phantom of the Operas, Death Takes a Holiday (1934), The Shape of Water, and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir inspire how I conceive of the more romantic side of our beloved Scarecrow. I'll throw in Silence of the Lambs as well, since that gives us an incarcerated evil psychiatrist meeting his match in an intrepid young woman involved with the law who he forces to face her formative traumas, but who manages to come out on top despite his machinations.

A few Hitchcocks, honestly! The Birds is outright referenced in Year One and definitely gives life to the visceral horrors he underwent in the old Keeny chapel, whereas Vertigo more in atmosphere and obsession captures a lot of torment he experiences. I also do see shades of crane even in Norman Bates' "private traps" speech!

Thanks so much for sending this along!

[wuxiaphoenix]

Book Review: Dressed to Kill

Arrrrrgh.

Dressed to Kill, by Crown Fall. I’m giving this a solid 3 out of 5 stars, because despite weird typos in the second half of the book I was enjoying everything up to about the last two chapters. At which point the author very obviously railroaded the characters and apparently forgot the key point of their own worldbuilding.

Warning, there be spoilers ahead.

(Am I salty about this? Yes, yes I am, I was having so much fun. And then....)

The main character is Gwen, a person originally from Earth, reborn into a world with dungeons and a System. This has little effect on the plot besides giving her an outsider’s perspective on how the world works, leading her to try things (almost) no one else would. Like clearing a dungeon without a combat class. Because the village she’s in shrinks and decays every day the dungeon isn’t cleared. The Noble who owns the town as Mayor won’t clear the dungeon; he appears to want the place to collapse, and the inhabitants to move to a larger city. If Gwen wants to save her town, she’s going to have to do it herself. She has a plan. First, if you’re a Seamstress, get a really big needle....

And it works, a step at a time. She finds out along the way that other commoners have had the same idea over the centuries; and in the past, it may have even been common. Something went wrong with the world. But what?

Saving the town takes priority, and for a few pages near the end they actually have-

And then Our Heroes are arrested, chained, and shipped off to the Academy where all those Chosen as Nobles are sent. Because, as the Mayor claims, if they get through that, they’ll legally own the town.

Me: Great. Except according to the rules you already established, if someone isn’t in the dungeons trying to clear them every day, the whole town will decay into the Chaos outside. And you just took everyone who was clearing.

Academy training supposedly takes at least two years. At the established rate of decay, if they’re gone a year - even if they’re gone only a month - there won’t be a town to come back to.

This is not how the story promised to end.

A story like this, with a heroine fighting against incredible odds, should end with a victory. The town should have been saved. At least for the end of the book. If you wanted to have a gloom and doom character observe how many laws they just broke and that there would be Consequences, fine. Use the Consequences to start the next book, and give Our Heroes a time limit, so they’re racing the clock to save the town.

As it is, the ending is a tragedy. And a tragedy is not what was promised by the opening of the book and over forty chapters of struggle and hard-earned success afterward.

This story, in short, did not stick the landing.

Don’t do this to your readers. Check your ending; beta-check your ending. Have another reader, if possible more than one, honestly tell you if the end is consistent with what you promised at the beginning. If you start it as an Adventure, it should end an Adventure. If your desired ending is a Tragedy, then it should begin with the seeds of sorrow clearly sown. Readers remember betrayal. Trust me.

Side note: Given in this world monster meat is not only edible but tasty and good for you, why would anyone stop clearing dungeons? Most humans are pretty relentlessly carnivorous. An endless supply of fresh meat, there for the slaughter every day? That you don’t have to feed, muck out, fence in, nurse when it’s sick, or try to keep pastured? That is worth so much investment to a society! There would be dungeon crawlers everywhere. Guaranteed.

[daisycassy]

Multifandom Fic Recs list- Dashka's favourites

Okay everyone, strap in, Newmann discord made me do this, here is my rec list, consisting of, in my humble opinion, solely of fantastic and high quality fics you should read even if it is not your fandom. Mostly longer fics, so be warned. More things may be added over time.

Pacific Rim

Inside Here (The Worst Things Come) by Orphan

" Three months, five days, and sixteen hours since the Tokyo Incident and Hermann is sitting white-knuckled in a cold, austere office, being told that, contra what he’d originally been lead to believe, the body of one Newton Geiszler is still alive."

Part 1 of Omeletteverse

This fic and the whole series is my favourite take at what happened post PRU. It is entirely told from Hermann's point of view and is so horrible, gutwrenching, tender, desperate, but also kind and hopeful. Precursor emissary Newton is fun and I love these sort of fics that talk about inevitablity of change and our sad inability to turn time back and avoid said change. Includes a wide cast of people who are all amazing.

Frankenstein, the Newt, and Vi by Orphan

“Um. Hi? My name’s Vivian Lee. I’m supposed to, um...” Vi looks down at the phone in her hands, at the email showing on the screen. “I’m newly assigned to the K-Science Lab? I was supposed to ask for Doctor Gottlieb?” The guy behind the reception desk looks up with an expression hovering somewhere between fear, pity, and disgust. “Oh, man,” he says. “Who’d you get killed to wind up posted to K-Lab?”

Part 1 of Frankenstein and the Newt

Another fic by Orphan, and trust me, there is a reson for that because they are fantastic. This one is from third person POV, Vi (who si the absolute sweetheart) a new biologist hired to K-science division. Story takes place after the first Pacific Rim movie, and you will get to find out why the fight still continues.

Warning for some body horror and people turning into Kaiju. The whole series is perfect, so fun, with great plot, and many, many feelings.

Anthology by irisbleufic

"The first thing [Newton] does when he gets to his office, smarting from the needle and high on endorphins, is email the eccentric mathematician in Cambridge, the other Cambridge a non-creature-infested ocean away, with whom he’d been corresponding for a while and whom his colleagues have begun to call Newt’s Internet Boyfriend.

Hermann, Newton types, tell me you’ve crawled out from under your rock for long enough to realize your disdain for monster movies is now scientifically invalid.

Please don’t call me that, Gottlieb writes back. I’m already working on it."

Part 1 of Anthology 'Verse

Set primarily right after the events of the first Pacific Rim movie, where we follow our favourite scientists dealing with the result of drifting with kaiju and each toher, starting their life together, and continuing after the war. Inclused flashback, as they deal with the years of angry arguing and misunderstandings.

Also Newt tattoos, they both teach at unviersity and charm everyone, this is my favourite Hermann characteriyation and I lvoe the whole ensemble cast. It will punch you in a gut but also feels like a warm fuzzy blanket. Absolute treasure of a fic.

Daredevil

Lying by Omission by deniigiq

"I know I said I was up for anything--” he told Hogarth carefully, trying to surreptitiously slide the files back onto her desk.

She slapped a hand on them and pushed them back towards him.

“Mr. Nelson, you are one of the best lawyers on staff, and I am seriously considering the pros and cons of a potential partnership here,” she told him, staring up at him without moving her face or hand. Somehow, the files continued to dig into the meat of his palm.

“--but it turns out,” he valiantly carried on, “I am actually and suddenly extremely busy with the destruction Jessica will cause in approximately twenty minutes, which will have nothing to do with me or any favors or bribes or anything like that—”

(Someone brings Team Red's (and the Punisher's) loved ones back from the dead to torture them for information on their vigilantes. Hogarth coerces Foggy to handle the resulting legal fallout and he is both the worst and best person for the job.)"

This fic includes badass as fuck Foggy, fun ensemble of characters, Team red excellence, and so many jokes, hijinks, and perfectly in love Matt and Foggy. One of my most favourite comfort fics out there.

I fully recommend anzthing written by deniigiq, because their fics are the absolute greatest at capturing what is fun about comics and the many characters you get to encounter in them, while mixing in fantastic writing, characterization, and great feelings and plots. Love all their characters and I cannot highlight how much you should read everything they have ever written.

Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy by Werelibrarian

"I should probably tell you I’m going to sniff anything you show me."

The shopkeeper’s smile actually grows.

"How interesting. Can you tell me what you’re sniffing for?"

Foggy already likes this guy, who looks to be about a hundred and ten but stands straight as a flagpole, but he's not about to admit that he's trying to make himself pretty for a blind man with four super-human senses, so he just smiles.

"Complexity."

A shorter fic than most on this list, but absolutely perfect as the rest fo them. Tells the story of Foggy seducing Matt using all his heightened senses to his advantage. Includes ton of pining and poor Matt almost combusting.

Captain America/Marvel

Known Associates by thingswithwings

"Steve Rogers isn't a self-made man.

Or, how a tough little Brooklyn fairy got turned into Captain America, and then turned back."

This is one of those fics that I wish I could make people read, that I truly wish was published as a novel we could all share and buy for our friends. It is a story about Steve Rogers as he grapples first with life as a queer man in the pre-war US, in his full socialist glory, and later as he tries to find his place in the 21st century where his image and story was coopted and turned into something completely different from him. This fic is in my opinion the best examination of the sheer horror, stress, grief, and clusterfuck of Steve Rogers' situation. Includes polyamory, genderqueerness, lots of organizing and angry socialist Steve. The author also included bibliography at the end of the fic. I name this fic every time people ask me about quality of fanworks and I wish I could make everyone read it.

Ain't No Grave (Can Keep My Body Down) by spitandvinegar

"It's six in the morning, and Steve is heading out on a run when he nearly trips over a bouquet of sunflowers on the front steps of his brownstone.

For a second paranoia takes over, and he kicks the flowers a little, waiting for them to explode. They don't. They also came with a card, which he picks up. The front of the card has a tasteful picture of the Brooklyn bridge at sunset. It's very nice and sedate, like the kind of card you would buy to give to your boss. On the inside someone has written a short message in big, shaky block letters.

I AM SORRY FOR SHOOTING YOU.

Steve sits down hard on the steps."

This fic starts after Winter Soldier, and belongs to the category of Bucky Barnes recovery fics. Bucky has many issues in this so I will warn you for mental illness, drugs, lots of trauma. But Bucky also adopts two homeless kids, loves Tupac, gets on with Tony, and he and Steve find love after eternity of pining.

I love Steve in this, his characterization, and I wish I could finally find time to paint those paintings he does in this, in oil. I love all the characters in this nad who they are and how they feel. Includes cameo from my favourite lawyers.

United States v. Barnes, 617 F. Supp. 2d 143 (D.D.C. 2015) by fallingvoices, radialarch

"The Associated Press @AP

Winter Soldier set to stand trial for Washington D.C. massacre and treason apne.ws/1og6SWE"

Putting this fic in because I love literary works that play witht heir format and this is told solely through news and social media coverage of the Winter Soldier trial. Includes Steve and Bucky being cute.

Good Omens

Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma: An Integrative Approach by Nnm

but also

[Podfic] Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma: An Integrative Approach by StarcatcherBetty

"As soon as Aubrey Thyme, psychotherapist, had opened her office door and seen her new client, Anthony J. Crowley, sitting in her waiting area, she was observing and assessing him. At first glance, she paid attention to the following:

--His clothing was expensive and stylish;

--He wore very strange but noticeable cologne;

--His relationship to the seat he occupied could only, very loosely, be described as “sitting;”

--He looked angry;

--He was wearing sunglasses.

What Aubrey Thyme, a professional, thought, upon first seeing her new client was: you’re going to be a fun one, aren’t you?"

So this fic, is another one of those that I wish I could get everyone to read. Or even better, I wish I could get everyone to listen to the absolutely perfect and amazing podfic version of it, done by StarcatcherBetty.

It is told from the point of view of Crowley's therapist, Aubrey Thyme, and once you read it, you will forever wish that this was canon. Because in my head, it absolutely is. I love Aubrey dearly and strongly, I adore both Crowley and Aziraphale, and I am so so glad they finally get some therapy. The ending to this is perfect, and I keep returning to this fic, specifically in its podfic form, again and again.

[felikatze]

andaron saga screaming

I KNEW BAUD WAS GONNA GET SIGURD'D I FUCKING KNEW IT

like "haha baud is so disorganized that's why jakka is the convoy character

i know what you're doing

i know

also if you dont take the dawncaller mortimer gives you a SILVER SWORD. HEY

also also like. as soon as aylanda says she's pregnant it's like. yeah baud is gonna die

i really didn't expect morty to be the one to do it

logical brain: yeah out of the steel brothers morty really is most suited to be king. he's the only one with any intelligence

emotional brain, sounding a lot like jakka: MORTIMER STEEL YOU ARE A DEAD SON OF A BITCH

it's so fucking funny how i. saw baud's corpse thru the cell. i checked his stats. all zero. "ah yeah cuz he's unconscious right. this is gonna be an escort mission" checks his con. "still 7? theodor can carry him easy then"

aylanda: "my husband is dead"

me: "ah"

and like. it feels SO logical that morty would be the one to betray him. at first i was ragging on samuel in the scene where baud and morty get "captured" cuz i thought it was just sam but

it's entirely logical that when sam came back to house rose to heal theo that morty would catch wind of baud and aylanda. and that morty could use a) baud hurting theo and b) sam's hatred of aylanda to turn ol' sam against baud

cuz it was morty needling baud into taking the throne when all he wanted was to elope. morty's arguments for killing baud makes sense. baud has the most legitimate claim to the throne of andaron since the rebellion. what really sealed his fate was having a kid, cuz it proved he and aylanda are for realsies. everyone fucking hates the lightbringers, everyone fucking hates house steel, but the worst thing about tradition is that it has weight

morty cant kill aylanda and the kid cuz of the whole "only a lightbringer can stop darkness" thing, which he WOULD know about bcuz he's the biggest momma's boy and lady maria was besties with the lightbringers. (didn't he also learn illusion magic from a lightbringer tome?)

on the other hand of course you're on jakka's side here. from the game you know that baud is just a good guy who dreams of a simple life with the people he loves. there's the whole backstory that he was a bit of a scoundrel, a gambler and a player - but falling for aylanda really changed him, made him want to shape up and do right by her. it's a shotgun marriage after 3 months yeah but that's also game limitation you cant build the relationship up for half the game since you gotta keep the plot moving.

so seeing how baud changed and that he was only convinced to take on randall with the argument it would keep his family safe and then he's killed by his brother. augrh.

and jakka's been his right hand through everything. jakka's a piece of shit in a lot of ways but he cares about his crew and he DOES soften up to jaheira and garram throughout the game. all it really took for him to start dismantling his prejudices was actually meeting the people he kept talking shit about and seeing them as. also just people. like he's not all there he still keeps calling jaheira a scalie but he respects her at the very least.

also the convo with ashley where she asks him if baudimon was really a brother to him and he gets so worked up about it. like i dont think he has a crush on baud NOW but he definetly did at some point. but also this convo questioning jakka's feelings right before he finds baud dead AURGH

and jakka's skill being loyalty. When within 2 spaces of Baudimon-

it's a skill that gives him bulk earlygame when jakka really needs it but now it's just. a dead skill slot. it's nothing. it's just gonna sit there. Loyalty. When within 2 spaces of Baudimon-

I had Baud and Jakka on B support and as for any dead character that's just gone now. AURGH.

rip to everyone who took the dawncaller and didnt get zakarias cuz i am THINKING abt his talk with jakka in 12x. how he said jakka's gonna come to a choice soon and jakka said he'd put baud's life over his own. and zakarias tells him it's always easy to choose in your own head but would jakka really? would he put baud over his family? over femke, a character we've never seen and only know through how much jakka loves his sister?

and i think that can still apply and i am betting RIGHT NOW that jakka will have to choose between his friends/family and his desire to avenge baud. it wont be baud's life he puts first, it will be his war brother's ghost. i am saying this now i am speaking it into existence.

Good game moment jakka vowing to kill mortimer really really hurts. morty i trusted you. i'm gonna kill you so fucking dead. if it plunges andaron into a civil war because the entire royal family is dead then so be it.

[indigozeal]

Kei Shigema wrote up a proposal for a Lunar 0, and other Lunar news

I've been systematically translating the Lunar interviews from Beep21, but there's news that I think can't wait.  In the second part of his Eternal Blue interview, series scriptwriter/visionary Kei Shigema talks about having drawn up a treatment for another Lunar—and it's not the story you might first think.

- Do you think you'll be able to be present the tale of the Four Heroes era (the so-called Lunar 0) touched upon in the PSP version of Silver Star in a game or other media?

Shigema: Lunar 0 has become a story of a bit different era!   As for the tale of the Four Heroes: the emotions and conflicts and fated bonds involved are released and resolved in Alex's story, so I don't think there's any need to depict it independently. However, I'd like to write a little bit about Laike's story after the end of the game.

- Be honest: is there even a 0.1% chance of Lunar 3 in the future?  I'm on pins and needles!

Shigema: I think the statute of limitations is up, so...  (Actually, about 21 lines of grown-up stuff was deleted here...)   ...So several years after the above was suspended, there were talks about whether we could now create a Lunar 0 about the details of how humanity moved to Lunar, and for consideration, we created a simple plot and characters.  Mr. Kubooka even drew up rough sketches of the main characters.   These were just for consideration; they didn't go to production. That means that, as for as the 0.1% chance goes: I don't think it's zero. However: an extraordinary amount of manpower and funding is necessary to create an RPG from scratch in this day and age, and when I think of getting to the point of getting that all together, I think it would be enormously difficult. I myself still want to hold out hope, so let's give Game Arts our support!

He also talks about his ideas on what may have happened after EB, which include a number of surprising concepts...

- What happened to Hiro and Lucia afterward?

Shigema: Welllll, I don't know—I suppose they went on a variety of adventures together? Lucia may have awakened the Blue Star, but I don't imagine it would have revived immediately just like that.  I wouldn't be surprised if an exhausted Hiro & Lucia had two or three more adventures on the level of Eternal Blue!  Making new comrades from people sleeping on the Blue Star—maybe everyone on Lunar coming to help, of course.  I also kind of doubt whether that would've really been the last we saw of Ghaleon-sama.   And perhaps at the end of Hiro and Lucia's adventures, the frozen earth would have changed to green...

Shigema also thinks that the spiritual successor to Lunar has already been made:

Incidentally, while it's not a sequel to Lunar, Tales of Destiny 2 (TOD2) is its spiritual successor—its emotional heir.

I'd wanted overseas Lunar fans to play it, too, but, alas, there was no overseas release! Abroad, Tales of Eternia was sold as "Tales of Destiny 2".

The role of TOD2's lengthy animated cutscenes; the expressions; the characters and story construction; the thematic material; the position of the heroine; the music production; and on and on—I think they're all connected fairly directly to Lunar.  The element of romance between the characters etc. too is that way.

Particularly thematically, Lunar is, as an action-adventure tale, thoroughly about how the hero fights to save the girl he loves and saves the world in the process. With TOD2, we tried to go further and depict the decisions and growth of a hero forced to choose between the girl and the world.

Shigema is credited as a “script producer” on Tales of Destiny 2.

So, to recap:

Kei Shigema spoke with an unspecified somebody (Game Arts seems likely, but it's not explicitly specified) about making another Lunar game, to the point where he drew up a rough plot and characters (for which series character designer Toshiyuki Kubooka drew up rough sketches).  Nothing’s gone to production, and he thinks funding would be a major obstacle.

This proposed Lunar game, "Lunar 0," would be about how humanity came to live on Lunar.

Shigema does not want to do the Four Heroes story as a standalone work.

Shigema thinks Hiro and Lucia might have had adventures after Eternal Blue in order to revive the Blue Star fully.

There are other people sleeping on the Blue Star, apparently.

Ghaleon might have shown up in some manner after his passing in Eternal Blue.

Shigema considers Tales of Destiny 2 (the Japanese title, not Eternia) to be the spiritual successor to Lunar.