#but with not flying under the radar anymore and not being someone that people can write off anymore

[itspileofgoodthings]

.

[courtney-deserved-better]

the mkulia alliance IS in character

ive heard a lot of people, some of them mkulia shippers, saying that while the evil lesbian alliance is great to watch, it isn't in character for mk and julia. however, i believe it is, and i believe it's still consistent from last season, and this is why:

facades

mk and julia were both hiding under facades in the beginning of sesaon one. mk was downplaying her skills to fly under the radar, and julia was posing as a chill influencer both to maintain her online image and not make herself a threat. these two facades had their advantages, but also their downsides. mk's contributions, specifically in the skull challenge, went unnoticed by her team, while julia had to completely hide her true personality. mk expresses frustration at everyone thinking she hadn't done anything when she got her team the win, and julia later goes on to say that it's exhausting to pretend to like yoga and whatnot. for most of the time they interact in season one, mk and julia are not behaving like their true selves.

animosity

did mk and julia have a rivalry once julia's true self was revealed? yes. did it result in mk's elimination? also yes. was mk the one to instigate that rivalry by posting the video of julia's true self? absolutely. and while they definitely had beef while this was going down, in the end, it was better for both of them. julia says that it's freeing to get to be her true self, and she even gains followers from it. the consequences of being her full nasty self don't catch up with her for a while after mk's elimination, and the worst thing that happens is julia too gets eliminated. as for mk, julia revealing that she watched everyone's confessionals means that while mk can't fly under the radar as much as she previously had, she gets to be recognized for her brains and sneakiness. because of their initial rivalry, mk and julia don't have to keep hiding their true selves.

necessity

julia and mk are both smart enough to know that in order to survive on their team, they NEED an alliance to counter the bowie-raj-wayne voting power. and seeing as scary girl was the first boot, and chase and ripper are chase and ripper, it makes sense that they would gravitate toward one another. especially with their underhanded playing styles, and especially being the only girls on the team. julia and bowie did not like each other in season one, and they still teamed up to counter the priya-millie alliance. julia has already proven to be willing to team up with people she doesn't like in order to stay in the game.

friendship

they became enemies in the first season, but after the passage of time, a necessary alliance, and most importantly, the shedding of their facades, it's reasonable that they could become friends. mk only got to interact with the real julia for an episode's worth of time, and julia never really got to see the real mk. now, she's watching mk steal an intern's uniform, sneak into production meetings, stash cheating supplies, and get the challenge answers from computers. julia is seeing a whole new side of mk, and as someone who appreciates vicious, strategic competitors like herself, i can absolutely see julia growing to like the real mk. and mk doesn't have to hide her true self from her team anymore, as she can be very upfront about cheating.

despite her rivalry with bowie, julia also had moments when she enjoyed being in an alliance with him (talking in the confessional about how they both thought they would be in the final after priya and millie were supposedly dead via avalanche) and trusted that he had her back (not thinking that he would double cross her and vote for her instead of millie even though it was the smarter move for him). i think it would make sense for julia to enjoy an alliance with mk and admire her clever thinking.

as for mk, yes, julia got her booted last season, but mk instigated that by exposing the real julia, and i think she's aware of that. i also think that even though she was the first person to see the real julia, mk still didn't understand that she wasn't just a mean girl with an influencer persona, she's a force to be reckoned with. julia loses it for her team in the episode mk is eliminated in, so mk doesn't get to see julia doing great in other challenges before her own screentime is over. i believe mk underestimated julia when she exposed her.

seeing as emma was able to watch the episode where she thought chase was performing an act of love for her when it was really just for pizza, it's completely reasonable for mk and julia to watch or at least know of each other's actions in the last season that they didn't get to witness in person. their first direct interaction is complimenting each other's moves/style, meaning that they have a greater understanding of how the other girl operates than they did last season.

because of how they play/interact with others, mk and julia don't have many friends. the closest thing julia has is bowie, who's more like her rival, while everyone else knows she's mean and doesn't like her. meanwhile nobody on mk's team would like her after she stole their stuff, and nobody else would like her for secretly watching their "private" confessionals. it makes sense to me that not only would they latch onto the other girl out of necessity, but because they're someone who can actually appreciate their play style and not turn against them because of it. not to mention mk can finally hang out with someone who likes her sarcasm for a change.

and while mk and julia definitely act like they have a romance plot in the future (and god i hope they do), i don't think their interactions together are very out of character even though they're praising one another and enjoying each other's company. julia is still mean and enjoys people getting hurt, mk is still devious and has no qualms about cheating, they just get to scheme and sabotage with someone by their side now. and while this development was unexpected even for a lot of us mkulia shippers, it is hardly unwelcome, and to me, hardly illogical. thank you for coming to my td talk.

[landinrris]

i have a question to cleanse your mind from that young royals hot mess on twitter. do you think norrix may in fact be real and if it is when do you think it became real? and if not do you think it might ever become real? my own view is they've not acted on anything right now and would say they're only very good friends if asked and are most likely even still hooking up with women but there are feelings much stronger than normal friends bc well it's crystal clear that it's not a normal friendship but a fair chunk deeper than that like a soul connection or something as an anon said the other day. but i don't know if they'll ever get up the courage to act on it. my projection clearly as we'll never really know how they feel if they don't act on it and go public but they come across like of two of my friends who so clearly care for each other in a non-platonic way and are joined at the hip every opportunity and are physically affectionate with one another but never did anything about it so far at least from what we all know anyway and only one has recently come out as not straight. though i guess even having that deep love even if it remains platonic is a special thing regardless. was wondering what your take on it is if you don't mind being public about that.

Okay, so here's the thing. I'm very hesitant to speculate in an open space about someone's sexuality where anyone can see it. (Sometimes I really wish Tumblr's search function didn't catch literally everything, but whatever). I don't know, I have really complicated feelings on the matter in general because I recognize things from my own life, but nothing is universal etc etc. And maybe I blur the lines on my blog a bit, but at the end of the day, the plausible deniability side, and the side that doesn't really know any of the people I post about, will lean towards these relationships not being real in the romantic sense.

That being said, I will gladly address this question from a more "fictionalized" viewpoint using things that have actually happened. It might be counter-intuitive to write like that, but it hasn't stopped me yet because I am not them, so it's default fiction.

In one of the things I'm writing that utilizes real-world timelines, I have them kind of getting together following the Spa 2023 gig when Lando goes back to Amsterdam and posts the photo to his Insta Story from Martin's balcony. All the feelings from the past year build up until they can't hold them back anymore.

The reason I think Spa (besides the fact that the aforementioned picture kills me), is that following it, and even the event itself really, Lando largely stops posting their meetups on his social media. Someone else brought to my attention that after New York and Canada, McLaren also largely stopped posting content of the two of them. As compared to Miami where there was plenty of content of Martin hanging around Lando's driver's room.

So New York/Canada happens with "Real Love." Then Spa happens with Lando and Max flying into the show and Lando going back to Amsterdam. Lando specifically realizes then that if he wants to avoid scrutiny and rumors and gossip as much as possible, he has to let the psycho girl rumors go wild while he flies under the radar with privacy and avoids advertising who he's with. Hence, a tangible lack of material from both him and McLaren for the rest of the season when Martin is present.

The ski trip is the exception because I think the ski trip is special. Especially because Martin was nowhere near France prior to it. Lando says, fuck it, for a brief moment and posts the photos he wants to post.

But then we have winter break and go back to both of them being very quiet when they're together. Martin gets to post the proof that they've been together while Lando keeps his profile meticulously bare of anyone but himself. The fact that Martin was back in Amsterdam for ~8 hours and posted 3-4 things says a lot. But he's quiet again, now that he's somewhere snowy while Lando's plans of Finland seemingly grow nearer.

They're not sure if they'll ever broadcast anything, but maybe they'll work back up to posting like they used to pre-New York where they were much more likely to show up on one of their Stories at the least.

So, in my world, yes it's happened, and this is why I think so.

In the real, tangible world, who knows. Whatever their relationship is clearly means a great deal to them both. If it's purely platonic, if there's a legitimate romantic element, or if they just sit there and pine for the next few years, I hope they're happy and content they have one another. Finding people you click with that quickly and genuinely is a special thing.

[betweenlands]

wait i forgot i can just write it out. okay, okay hear me out.

----

Split scene. On the right, a room in heavy shadows, maybe a library of some sort, cluttered with papers and gadgets and stacks of records -- on the left, a brightly lit plains biome with exposed mechanical bits strewn broadly about the place.

Starre (its eyes stained purple, brass-and-tinted-glass goggles glinting in the sunlight) speaks from the left side --

Starre: Listen, I'm going to make it work. I just need more time, it's not -- I know this is possible! The pieces are here somewhere, I just need to find them, and-

DJ (face in shadow, hair in disarray falling over their eyes) speaks from the right side --

DJ: -and then what, you'll finish another diversion? I'm running out of time.

We continue switching, left-right --

Starre: That's my line. DJ: Not anymore it isn't.

Starre: Look, you know what to look out for, I've given you those pieces. Stay out of danger- DJ: -Stay out of the limelight. Yeah. You're killing me here. I'll rot in obscurity if I listen to you much longer. Starre: You can't take the risk. DJ: You don't follow your own advice. Starre: I -- that's different! DJ: Oh, yeah, it's real different when you hog the spotlight, yeah. Starre: I can't fly under the radar. It already knows I'm here. I might as well call the attention of everything else while I'm at it. Like I said, it's different. DJ: Yeah. You're different. You'll be remembered. Starre: If it finds you, you're dead. DJ: What were you working on, again? Some immortality machine? When it finds me, I won't need to live forever.

Beat panel.

Starre: ...No. You're not seriously- DJ: -What else am I supposed to do, Starre, just give up? We're not the only ones! Millions of others, suffering in similarity, in utter conformity, and I could break through. Break their chains, just one split, just a single wedge- Starre: Nobody else in your world faces the same dangers! DJ! Think about what you're doing! Someone else can carry out your crackpot plan! DJ: Nobody else. Nobody else can. Nobody else knows the extent of what I've seen. Nobody else but our other selves, scattered across the multiverse.

Not a beat panel this time, rather, each person's background changes. The speech timing here is exactly the same, as if the two are talking over each other.

Starre stands isolated within a dark stone hallway lined with pillars, cold and echoing and imposing, utterly alone --

Starre: An empty expanse. The Song gets closer, not louder. It's not looking for anything else other than us. It affords a unique opportunity, knowing what you're doomed by. You can call on all sorts of other things, knowing they can't offer to save your skin, and get a feel for what they're really like.

DJ stands at the center of a crowd, clustered and choking, everyone's back turned to them --

DJ: Countless faces, crowded until you can't make yourself out anymore. Nothing to set them apart from the pack, no way of knowing they'll never amount to something. The weight of never being special, never being anything important, I could lift that. I could drag people up out of the mire with me.

Back to the usual backgrounds again.

Starre: You're going to kill someone. DJ: You're not going to get enough people killed.

Beat panel.

Starre: Well. Enjoy your fame. DJ: Well. Keep staying low-profile.

Final panel. There's a cracked record in Starre's hand -- it passes the object through the panel barrier to DJ, who takes it in the same panel.

Starre: It won't change DJ: how everything ends.

[oathkeeperoxas]

Today's saintspy kiss has more Cat! And kisses. There will definitely be kisses

99 Kiss to stop someone talking

“Do you think she’ll like being in a car?” Jude asks, peering into the medium sized crate that nonetheless is starting to look a bit small as Cat insists on growing what feels like centimetres per day.

“Why not?” Ethan says optimistically. One of the many, many things that Jude loves about him. His bright outlook on any situation.

“When I brought her here, I took her in the car,” Jude says, frowning as he digs the keys out of his pocket and opens the back door for Ethan. “She was whining and unhappy the whole time.” It had been terrible, and he’d been certain he was doing it wrong, and that this was a bad decision, and that there was no way it could go right–

Ethan’s joy upon meeting Cat had undone all of that doubt, but looking at the crate in the back of the car brought back some of those memories, despite Cat’s liquid dark eyes peering out at the two of them now holding seemingly no worries.

“She’s had a while to get used to us,” Ethan reassures him. “She was probably worried about everything being so new. But we’re not new anymore, are we Noodle?” He reaches back to put his fingers through the crate for Cat to lick.

Jude feels warmth bloom in his chest as he turns the engine over. “I did research the best vet in town, but if you see anything you don’t like let me know and we can go to my second option–”

“I looked as well,” Ethan says. “I think you picked the right one. And I don’t think that anything will go wrong. I have her medical records – we’re just going for a check up and a microchip, and to get to know the place.”

For Cat and Jude, both. Ethan seems unworried, but nothing seems to worry him these days. Though why should he be – without the insane stressors of his job, or maybe with all those years available for comparison, nothing that he encounters these days is anything he needs to bother raising his blood pressure about.

The trip into the nearby city of Valencia isn’t too long, but Jude keeps an eye on Cat in the backseat and Ethan both. Ethan has his sunglasses on, and is chatting idly away about the specs of some airplane – apparently there’s a stunt show coming to Portugal next month and Ethan wants to go. Most of it goes over Jude’s head, but the easy lull of Ethan’s voice is soothing, and so is the way that he leans back every few minutes to let Cat lick at his fingers and coo to her in a low voice, telling her that she’s a good girl.

They have an appointment, and Ethan picks Cat up again as they walk inside. They hadn’t been sure how she would react to other dogs or other people since she’s only been around the two of them in the past few weeks, but she doesn’t start making noise or look upset upon entering the clinic, despite there being two other dogs and a cat in the waiting area.

“Jude Hunt,” he names himself to the receptionist, and feels a hot thrill at it – at being so publicly Ethan’s, at choosing this name for himself, at choosing this man for himself. The deep seated throbbing happiness sits in his chest even when they sit down, Cat between them, to wait.

Ethan is scanning the other people in the room subtly in that way that he has. You wouldn’t pick up on what it was unless you knew what he was doing. Ethan’s still excellent at flying under the radar, though he’s removed himself from the game. But Jude sees him. And when Ethan’s roving eyes land upon him, Jude knows that he’s seen, too.

“Do you think we could take her out?” Ethan asks. “Keep her on the leash, though.”

“If you want to,” Jude says, and they wriggle open the crate. Cat sticks her nose out the moment that she can, and Ethan catches her as she tries to shoot past him. Jude watches the muscles in his arm flex as he keeps the growing dog at bay, and wonders for a second just how big Cat is going to get.

Ethan feeds her a treat, and she stands stock still, ears pointed, nose up, staring at Ethan and waiting for more.

“She can’t be that worried about the rest of them,” Jude says, accepting the leash from Ethan so he has both hands free. He’s been working on a few behaviours, and he gets Cat to turn around in place after a few moments, then lay down, and rewards her with another treat. Cat huffs and chews on it for a second before closing her eyes and apparently going to sleep.

“Yeah, not worried at all,” Ethan says. “That’s a good thing.”

They plan the rest of the day as one of the other dogs is called up, deciding if they’ll eat in the city afterwards.

“She looks like she’s fine,” Jude points out. “We can always go home if something happens.”

“It would be good to get her around other people,” Ethan admits. “Okay.”

Jude smiles, pleased that Ethan is agreeing to more time with them both, even though he probably should have assumed, but – it still takes him by surprise sometimes. That Ethan wants to spend time with him. That Ethan values him and loves him. It’s always good to linger on proof of that when he is given it.

“Mr Hunt,” the receptionist calls.

The pleasure of the name returns. Ethan lifts an eyebrow at him, and Cat scrambles to her feet when they both stand.

“We should ask about her diet and about her running and training,” Jude says, thinking out loud. “And about what’s best for her claws and coat, washing schedule, socialisation–”

Ethan kisses him. Jude freezes for a second before kissing him back, though he does give Ethan a bemused look when they part.

“What’s that for?” he asks.

“Let’s figure it out as we go,” Ethan advises. “No need to plan this one, baby. It’s okay. We’ve got this.”

Cat is pressed between them, perfectly happy. And Ethan’s eyes twinkle as he looks at Jude, pleased with them both.

“Just thinking about what questions to ask,” Jude murmurs.

“Good!” Ethan says. “But let’s ask them in there.”

Jude laughs. “Fine, fine,” he says. “Lead on, then, Mr Hunt.”

Ethan’s eyes gleam happily. “Anytime you want, Mr Hunt.”

Jude has to smile. Can’t help it. Warmth in his chest. This man – and everything that has happened to lead him to this place – he can’t help but be grateful for it. He’s certain that he doesn’t deserve it, but it is his and he is never letting it go.

“Okay noodle-kitty,” Jude murmurs as they walk inside the consult room. “Here we go…”

Cat sneezes in response. And Jude can’t help but take it as a sign that all will be well.

Send me a kiss for saintspy May 😘

[mythgirlimagines]

There are four ways Ultimate Survivors Miu and Ouma can end up surviving attacks from classmates:

1. Miu and Ouma can end up snapping them like twigs instead. Ofc they ain't killing them, but to think an Ultimate Florist tried to kill the Ultimate Survivors, even if they didn't know it, feels insulting. These are usually spunky main-character participants who decided killing them would protect the rest of the class, and while that might be true in the context of the story, they don't wanna die, thank you. Easy-peasy, just throw them into a wall.

2. Miu and Ouma come up with a logical reason for why killing them would be fuckin stupid. This is usually reserved for the big boys like the Ultimate Soldiers and Martial Artists, people they can't fight off. These people don't intimidate them at all anymore, sorry. Team DR loves to try engineering an "epic fight" between them and these Ultimates at the cost of throwing the plot out the window. Two minutes of talk usually convinces the participant they're being morons in the context of the story. The story might not be real, but hey, they're tryna stay alive, a little lie is fine.

3. Escape. This is definitely the scenario they're the most alert for, because it implies the attacker is too strong to be subdued and too hellbent to be reasoned with. These are usually attacks from Ultimate Serial Killers or Grenadiers or whatever other edgy criminal combat talent Team DR gave their Resident Very Dangerous Psycho (tm) of the class. These talents are also the ones most likely to be someone's "real" talent, if Team DR decides to do that shtick. Miu and Ouma like to play dead with these guys.

4. Luckily, a witness happens to intervene. The rarest way for an attack to end, but it's definitely a treat when they see it. This is usually what happens sooner or later when a particularly stubborn Assassin or whatever keeps trying to argue with Miu and Ouma's logic. The person is their best friend or love interest, who convinces them not to do it by repeating what Miu and Ouma just said, except this time they listen. It's almost always funny when a witness walks in during a Scenario #1, as morbid as that sounds. They're very grateful to the witness in the event of a Scenario #3 tho.

I went overboard writing this out, but no I don't feel sorry. Anyways. With this info in mind, any headcanons for what they think of V3's cast and how threatening it is? Do they think it's gonna be a rough season, or almost filler with how many of them they'd be able to fold in half?

This made me think a lot about the capabilities of the cast lol

The three biggest physical threats, in their eyes, would be Tenko, Maki, and Gonta. They saw through Maki’s “talent” quickly thanks to all of their experience with “real” talent reveals, and Gonta probably wouldn’t make himself a problem.

Of course, the rest of their “class” would probably be able to come up with traps or other ways to kill them. It would be easier to try flying under the radar, but Team Danganronpa hated when they did that.

Probably the best way to avoid being targeted by others was to keep arguing with each other, and make it seem like they would be most likely to take each other out so nobody else would bother.

That said, though, they still needed to be on their A-games, since there were plenty of intellectual people in this cast. They could probably rely on reasoning with a lot of them, though.

It was an exhausting first few days to parse out all of that information and come up with different plans to stay alive, but hey, it was what they were supposed to be best at. Might as well make that count.

[autumnslance]

FFXIV and Mods: Let’s Review

For the newbies unaware, and reminding veterans who’ve gotten slack, Mods of any kind in FFXIV are Not Allowed by the Terms of Service. It is a blanket ban on all third party tools. This is not WoW where mods are expected and even required to play the game. SquareEnix Legal just says No.

“But there are mods….” Yes. Because people do what they will, and the devs know that. Hence the rules about keeping it on the downlow. Don’t post datamined/unreleased stuff in public. Don’t openly post lewd screenshots in public (they have issues cuz of the game rating and legalities in different countries). Don’t stream with mods obviously running. Don’t use mods to harass people—talking both DPS meters, and the spate of lewd screenshots folks took without permission and sent to those players awhile back.

When you do post modded content, best practice is remove the FFXIV watermark (either cropping, photoshopping, or Gshade has a setting to do that). Post lewds on locked accounts, or at least under cuts with appropriate warnings (which one should be doing in many cases anyway, really). Do not ever tag any official FFXIV tags/accounts when posting your modded shots—the official FFXIV twitters are real active and in the basic tags. Don’t link your social media to your Search info in game if you do a lot of modding.

They generally don’t come after folks unless obvious harassment is going on, or someone’s blatant about it in a very public way. Like a streamer who was using DPS meters live on stream, and then using them to make fun of/harass players in the game—and got banned mid-stream. Frankly, they deserved it for being a jerk, IMO.

There is a Lodestone article up again, 5/9/22, about all 3rd party tools due to concerns about Dragonsong Reprise, but it also gives a general reminder and warning, due to datamining of unreleased models and gear (posting things from Anamnesis just cuz it’s in the game files counts if it isn’t officially released yet). They’ve discussed these things before and while the devs prefer to turn a blind eye when they can, they will take actions as needed.

They have adjusted the game to make some mods just stop working before. They made it so waymarkers can’t be changed midfight anymore due to one of those mods being misused in a previous Ultimate progression. Abusing mods, blatant use, harassment, and cheating through their use will get them removed for everyone. For most of us, this would be cosmetic annoyance. For some people, inaccessibility to play as they use mods to expand on the game’s accessibility features.

Most of us will fly under the radar; most of us aren’t going to catch SE’s attention. But a lot of that also relies on following the unspoken rules of mod use and being smart and considerate and quiet about it.

[taleasnewastime]

For the drabble game

Established relationship between mafia leader Tae and reader...just him being soft only for his girl....

Hey! Thanks for the request!! Hope you like it :) 

Warnings: none that I know of

Jealousy isn’t healthy, it isn’t good mentally and it certainly doesn’t look good on a person. Yet as hard as we all may try; we all feel it.

Taehyung is powerful, rich, holds sway with a lot of influential people. He’s also incredibly good looking, is tall and broad, with wide eyes and strong eyebrows, things he had to grow into, but now he has, they only make him that more appealing. And to top it all off, as if he couldn’t be any better, he’s also humble.

It’s laughable. A mafia leader, humble?

But he is. Sure, he attends events wearing thousands of pounds worth of tailored clothing, mingling with celebrity’s people dream of meeting. He has meetings with corrupt politicians and wealthy businessmen who realise his power and want a slice of what he has. He runs his own company – if you can describe it like that – from the front seat, he makes all the decisions even though he could sit back and let someone else run it while he takes all the glory.

People are jealous of him. They want what he has, while others just want him. And that’s where your jealousy stems from. Because you know you have Taehyung, have all of him, but sometimes you can’t help but wonder why.

And yet he couldn’t care less. He has his money, he’s achieved what he wants, he’s happy. He doesn’t need anything else or want anyone else. He has his power. He has his business. And he has you.

He tries to fly under the radar, goes in through back doors, tries to keep his name out of the papers, keeps his name clean enough for the police to have no evidence on him. But people still know him. And the world wants him. You struggle to understand why, out of everyone, he’s chosen you.

He knows you think it, it’s why he takes every opportunity to remind you that in his eyes it’s only you.

It’s why he buys you flowers whenever he can. A fresh bunch every week. Never a day when one bunch dies that another isn’t there to instantly replace it. His arms laden with flowers whenever he comes home. Your favourite flowers and colours memorised in his mind. A different handwritten message with every bunch.

It’s why, even though you never go to any of his events, he always comes home early. He loves the high life, but ever since he met you there’s something about the parties that doesn’t appeal as much anymore, they feel more like business meetings, things he has to attend, rather than pleasurable. He’d much rather spend his evening with you in front of crap TV than partying with Hollywood’s finest.

It's why he learnt to cook. He’d always order takeout before knowing you, but soon realised the fastest way to your heart was food. He pulled some strings, used to wine and dine you at Michelin star restaurants at the start, and behind the scenes he took lessons. He still doesn’t know how to cook much, but he knows enough to do your favourites, to have a steaming plate ready to apologise after any argument.

It's why he reminds you at every opportunity that he loves you. Why he reaffirms how amazing you look even when you’re just in his old holy t-shirts. Why he always kisses you when there’s a pause in conversation. Why his arms always seek you out even if just to hold your hand while you watch TV.

He can’t get enough of you. And while you may not always understand why, it doesn’t mean he’s going to change his mind. He’ll just have to work a bit hard to get you to understand why.

[hollywoodfamerp]

Hi Famers, 

With our Annual Weekend Trip to Hawaii coming up, there are a few things that the team wanted to discuss with everyone since a couple members came to us expressing concerns about plotting and threads being dropped. Since this was more than one member showing concern about this matter, we wanted this to be a gentle reminder to all of you! 

PLOTTING: If someone posts a plot call in the OOC blog and you respond, please be sure that you are checking your IMs and messages to make sure that nothing is being missed. Unfortunately, Tumblr has been making it harder and harder these days with IMs and notifications not showing, but the last thing we want is for someone to feel like their messages are being ignored so please be sure to double check your IMs. On that same note, please make sure that you're giving people ample amounts of time to respond to messages. If you noticed that your messages haven't been responded to in a reasonable amount of time, you're allowed to send them a respectful nudge to make sure that it didn't go unnoticed, but please be sure that you're checking to see if that mun may be on a hiatus or unable to be active at that time. Communication is always key, especially when you're plotting with someone! If you're having trouble coming up with plots or ideas for interactions, we've noticed that a lot of members have been using plot pages and we definitely suggest developing your own so that it not only can help spark a muse for certain plots you wish to do but helps you give those plots to others as suggestion points. As members, we've found that music, movies, books, fanfiction, or even RP resource blogs have been great tools for inspiration when it comes to developing plots. If plot pages and other RP sources aren't helping, you can always message in and we can help you formulate some plot ideas that might be of interest to you. We are here to help!

DROPPING THREADS: Again, Tumblr updates have been so terrible that activity pages have been a headache to deal with lately. We know that some replies may fly under the radar because of this so we are more than sympathetic if a reply was missed, however, there are some things to be said about replies being dropped due to a thread dying out. It happens! However, we do encourage you to start up something new if you noticed that an interaction is running cold. One of the best things you can do when you notice that there isn't much muse or spark to a conversation anymore is ask the mun if you can start up something new and reach out to them OOC to let them know you're still interested in interacting and plotting. It not only helps start up new conversations but it also is being intentional with maintaining your connections for your FC. Everyone here has always been so good at reaching out for plots and we want to keep that momentum going. If you have a feeling that you may have missed a reply, be sure to reach out to that person to see where you last left off was or if you're the person waiting on a reply, don't be afraid to reach out to the mun to ask they are still interested in that thread or wish to start something new. As we said before, communication is always the best when it comes to connections and plotting so don't hesitate to message someone politely about threads you may have together.

Here in a group setting, role playing is a two way street so please make sure that you're giving your best so that others may do the same. We've been so grateful to each and every single one of you because despite notices like these, you all have always been amazing at making people feel welcomed and forming interactions/connections with others. It never goes unnoticed by us to see how great you all do with new members or even members that have been here since the beginning. You all make this place what it is and we can't thank you enough for all your effort you put into this group and your FCs. Should you have any questions, know we are always here to answer anything and help you with whatever your concerns are. We're here to listen and give our best advice so should you need that, don't hesitate to reach out. We love you all!

PLEASE LIKE THIS NOTICE WHEN YOU HAVE READ IT SO WE KNOW THAT YOU’VE SEEN AND UNDERSTOOD THIS.

[theamberwizard]

i’ve been thinking about black widow and the red room recently, as one does, and i’ve got a lot of thoughts about the effects of the red room on widows who’ve escaped. couple things, just before i begin: i would recommend having watched black widow before this because there are implied (?) spoilers, i use way too fancy language while i write and i don’t have an editor cause this is mainly to catch her off guard, so, uh, whoops sorry

trigger warnings: TW: child abuse TW: restricted eating/starving yourself TW: dehumanization TW: death of a child

so yeah, enjoy my list of 10 personal headcanons about how the red room fucks you up on all the levels.

1) black widows cannot sleep in. like, they wake up at 5:00 am every day. it’s not a physical thing, at least not as far as they know, because they can negate that by just going to bed two hours or less before 5:00 am just from their lack of sleep. if, however, they go to sleep at a fairly normal hour they will, like clockwork, wake up at 5:00. this stems from them doing it every single day of their life since they got indoctrinated in the red room. if they didn’t wake up at 5:00 am ready for more training or missions, for any reason, they would be tortured. sometimes physically, sometimes mentally. eventually, all the widows would get that message. they still can’t shake it. because of that, natasha will often refuse to go to sleep at a normal hour, trying to force her body into submission, trying to rid herself of the painful memories that accompanied sleep and waking up afterwards. only clint knows why, because each day in that vent, natasha would snap up at 4:00 am. she had to explain to him that she just wasn’t accustomed to budapest time, and that actually, it was 5:00 am in russia.

2) for months after escaping the red room, widows practically cannot eat. in the red room, they were fed mushy messes of meals, filled with only the necessary nutrients that they absolutely had to have to survive. most widows can only get down one meal, maybe even a snack if they push it, until they throw it all up. they have to slowly eat slightly more each day for weeks until they can get down a normal intake of food. even then, it’s hard to push that, and every widow relapses into throwing up in those early stages. however, this isn’t normally a problem for most widows until a couple weeks into their life with freedom. that’s about the time that they make an acquaintance, who will eventually pluck up the courage to ask them why every time said friend will eat near the widow, the widow will lean over and whisper: “careful, that’s your whole ration today and i don’t want to do extra training.”

3) each “class” of widows had an extra mentor teacher in their early red room years. this was an older widow, someone who’d been falling behind in her recent missions, and with a look that the red room deemed “motherly”. their sole purpose was to be the person each widow got attached too, the parental figure. they were nice, they were helpful, they taught many different basic techniques. then, one day, the red room would have another older widow, (one already introduced to the children as the metaphorical “bad cop” of this scenario) come in and inform the mentor that she had failed her latest mission and proceed to, in front of thirty eleven year-olds, shoot the mentor. the mentor widow would not die that day- the red room refused to waste such a weapon- but the class of up incoming widows would be informed that she had. the official purpose of this exercise was to demonstrate to both the trainees and the trainer the consequences of failing a mission. the unofficial purpose? that would be the last psychological effects the mentor’s “death” would have upon the class, making them learn what happened to attachments in the red room. the day natasha’s class experienced this was the day she cut off all contact with her sister. the day yelena experiences this is the day she first another widow- because yelena killed that mentor with her own bare hands before the informant ever finished the announcement.

4) towards the start of the red room’s history, there were several attacks on the red room. the first ever attack was from a local police station who had been getting complaints of loud wailing, and, upon further investigation, realized what they were dealing with. they brought several other police and militia groups from nearby towns. the immediate action that was taken was to throw the littlest girls they had at the attackers. it stopped the police in their tracks, obviously, because you really don’t expect to come across thirty little girls while searching through a building of highly trained assassins. the red room then sent their fully trained widows and killed everyone. including the girls. the red room then found that footage from their cameras (because of fucking course they have cameras) and then showed it to the next batch of widows, just to show them how disposable they were.

5) yelena and natasha almost caused a whole fucking mutiny within the red room just because of their names. in the red room, you see, widows do not get names. they instead are bestowed with numbers, and even those are a twisted class ranking. they all wore little name tags with the numbers on them until came natasha and yelena came in. yelena, having just seen her mother get shot, complied almost immediately and was addressed as number 42. on the other side of that coin you have natasha, who had already been in the red room and remembered every gruesome detail, and went “fuck you my name is natalia.” upon hearing of this (word gets around fast in the red room. every girl must know they are being listened to at all times, and no secrets can be kept from the red room,) yelena too announced her name to the class.

6) this was met with blanching from every child in that class, because how on earth can you be called by a word? no, they thought, we are numbers, we are weapons, we are not people and we cannot have our own words, for we are not worthy. but secretly, internally, they wished for a name. slowly, they began piecing syllables together until they formed a coherent name, and for the first time in the red room’s long history, they didn’t have weapons. not anymore. they have two full classes of human little girls. the red room officials heard of this, obviously, and took to the only method they had now. violence. the classes were rid of the named girls, yet natasha and yelena were kept alive. they were kept alive to be ostracized, to be the girl the others pointed at and said “she’s the reason all my friends died.” they were kept alive so they could watch the carnage they had unwittingly caused just by saying their own names. and the worst part? well, the worst part was when the teachers accounted for those kills, and made them top of the class. yelena will never forget the day the teachers stood her and her sister up in front of all the widows-in-traning and told them what a good job they had done, how those tactics were sure to help them graduate. i mean, you’re practically a shoo-in if they rest of your class was killed by your school.

7) the red room could never fully stop the names, and so they decided to make a system, and the names would be the highest reward. they told the young, impressionable girls that while maybe outsiders such as natasha and yelena got names at birth, you had to earn them here. if you are to become a spy, you will take on the name of you very first official alias. if, instead, you become an assassin, you will take on the name of your very first official kill. of course, in reality, the widows couldn’t actually address each other with their new earned names, and instead used “team leader” or other such titles. but it became a small comfort for them, thinking of themselves in third person, with their very own names. in some small part they weren’t fully weapons anymore, no, they were people again. natasha took on the name natalia, because in her mind that life in ohio had been her first mission, even if she hadn’t known it. yelena took on yelena as well, but in her mind that little girl in ohio who was sitting in the backseat, caring only about which song they played, that girl had to have been yelena’s first true kill.

8) the names system worked well in the red room, but when you escaped it caused some serious problems. most would have to announce themselves to the russian government, saying they had been flying under the radar their whole life and never became registered. then, they’d give a non-russian name, and their whole ruse would fall apart. unfortunately, this was the least of their problems, because many a widow would someday meet a relative of their very first kill, and when they introduced themselves as the person they had killed all those years ago, the families and friends would often figure them out.

9) one of the biggest parts of the red room’s brainwashing was their little catchphrases they used. ironically, a lot of them were eerily close to boy scout mottos- “be prepared,” an iconic scout motto, versus “there is no safety, only preparedness,” the most frequently used phrase within the red room. when widows then escaped, the most small phrase could set them off. some unknowing widows even adopted little boys in their new lives, who often became boy scouts. the ensuing misery is something you can imagine yourself.

10) after clint helped natasha to escape, she immediately died her hair blond.  clint asked why, of course, and she didn’t tell him. (what, you thought i’d have another cute clintasha moment? never.) this was partly because she hadn’t admitted it to herself, though, because natasha couldn’t remember her sister without remembering all the suffering that came with her.

11) when the widows were smaller, more susceptible to the conditioning, the red room would stage infiltrations. older widows, ones who were closer to retirement, would come in in different uniforms, sometimes the uniforms of UN officers or local police, sometimes different organizations, all different types. the most recent uniforms made yelena sick looking at them, because each time the older widows would pretend to be the avengers there would also be one pretending to be her sister. each time she saw the fake natasha she wanted to break that widow’s neck because that’s not how my sister tilts her head, you’re doing it all wrong. you should be doing it like this, you shouldn’t be doing it at all, i should be doing this, i know my sister. each time those exact thoughts went into her head, and each time all she really wanted was for her sister to be there, for natasha to do her little head tilt upon seeing yelena and take her hand and say “you’re safe now, i promise,” and for natasha to be telling the truth. the only problem was that deep down inside herself yelena knew that this could never actually happen while yelena was still in the red room, because while yelena was still in the red room she knew that she would look at natasha telling her she was safe and tell her in return that there was no safety, only preparedness, and then murder her sister in cold blood.

[fanficshiddles]

Tear You To Pieces, Chapter 9

Kelly shut the curtains as soon as she got into the rather shabby B&B room. But it was the best she could afford in the meantime, she had no idea how long she was going to have to be on the run for, so didn’t want to blow all of her money too quickly.

She’d managed to budget herself to last on the run for around a year. She had to include hair dye into the monthly budget. As even though it had been two months, she had no idea if Loki was still looking for her or not, so she only went out in disguise to be on the safe side.

She was still not over what happened, what was still happening. And she knew it was all her fault, she would never be able to get over it. She had unleashed the monster, literally.

Not bothering to turn the TV on, she just got into bed and tried not to think about it all. The news was always filled with Loki now, and how he was conquering the world. Country after country was flocking to kneel under Loki’s rule. Otherwise, he was slaying every country that dared to defy him. Which soon brought them to heel, before they lost everyone.

Kelly was really jumpy, every noise right outside her room had her entire body going ridged, expecting the worst. It took her heart a while to stop racing after each noise. She knew she couldn’t carry on living like this, but she didn’t know what else to do.

Turning onto her side she curled up and cried herself to sleep, like she did every night. But her sleep was never peaceful, it was always laced with nightmares. Always of him. Most of the time, he was looming over her with her sisters’ body at his feet.

She woke up in a sweat, calling out for her sister. How she wished everything was just a nightmare, but no. She was living a nightmare.

Keeping on the move was her plan, so since she was awake anyway, even though it was only five in the morning, she decided to move on to the next place to stay. She had made it all the way up to Edinburgh by foot mainly but also a couple of bus trips. She just kept moving around from city to city, town to town. Wherever she could get to.

As Kelly made her way down the road, there was just a few people going about at that time of the morning. But she kept getting shivers down her spine, and not from the cold. It was like someone was watching her…

When she looked round over her shoulder, she caught a glimpse of a tall, black-haired man amongst a small crowd of early risers heading to work. Her heart started racing in fear, thinking it was Loki, she quickly moved on and walked as fast as she could. When she glanced back in the direction of the man, there was no sign of him anymore.

She tried to shake it off, thinking it had just been her imagination. Surely if it had been Loki, he would’ve made his presence more known.

But as she made her way further into the centre of the city, she still had a really bad feeling that she was being followed. So she rushed into the bus station and bought a ticket to head further North, maybe if she headed out of the cities and tried the quieter villages, she might be able to stay under the radar better.

Just before she was able to pay for her ticket, there was sudden screaming and panic within the station.

‘What the…’ She looked around in confusion, but then she felt pure dread run through her veins as she saw the reason for the panic and chaos.

Loki.

He had stormed into the station in his regal armour, the biggest grin formed on his face when he locked eyes on Kelly.

‘No…’ She gasped out quietly, her legs suddenly turned to jelly as she tried to run with the others that were panicking.

Loki made his way towards Kelly straight away, with large purposeful strides as he towered above everyone else that was scarpering around him in terror.

She started running for the back exit, but Loki reached out towards her and Kelly suddenly felt as if there was a collar around her neck that was suddenly pulling her backwards towards him. She brought her hands up to her neck but couldn’t feel anything there, but there was definitely something pulling her back.

She panicked and screamed as she was dragged back towards Loki, who had stopped and was just pulling her towards him. When she was within grabbing distance, the invisible collar disappeared and she felt like she could run again.

But she was within striking distance. And Loki struck like a snake, grabbing her he forced her to the nearest wall and pinned her against it, his large dominant hand wrapped around her neck firmly. Her lower lip was trembling in fear as he sneered down at her, she tried clawing at his arm but it was futile.

‘Mmmm, I finally found you.’ Loki hummed low and squeezed her neck a bit harder in warning when she continued trying to struggle.

‘Plea… please… Let me go.’ She stuttered out between trying to take big breaths, his hand controlling her breathing wasn’t making it easy to talk.

‘Oh no, my little pet. You should be begging for my forgiveness, for that little stunt of running away from me. You have no idea how much of an inconvenience it was when I came to collect you, to find you gone. Ungrateful mortal.’ He growled, squeezing her neck again for a few seconds, making her splutter.

He could see the pure fear in her eyes.

‘However.’ He purred, easing up a little on his grip he rubbed his thumb up and down the side of her neck. ‘I wouldn’t be in the position I am now if it hadn’t been for you. And whilst I should punish you for being a naughty girl and disobeying me, I will give you the benefit of the doubt. This time. Because I know you’re my good girl really, aren’t you?’

Kelly closed her eyes and tried to tune him out. But of course, that could never happen.

‘Look at me!’ He demanded and squeezed her neck again, making her eyes fly open.

‘Maybe once I get you home, you’ll be more talkative. And I shall give you your reward, and finally claim what you owe me.’ His eyes darkened and he smirked, then leaned in and kissed her on the lips, despite her trying to move her head away to no avail.

She had no choice but to endure his lips moving against hers, he was surprisingly gentle, yet there was an urgency within him too. A very deep part of her was longing at his kiss, like it was a reminder of what she thought they once had… But she remembered that had all been fake, Loki had used her.

Loki pulled back slightly, licking his lips. ‘Now come, pet. Let me show you your new home.’ He grinned wickedly and released her neck.

But before she could even think about trying to run, a collar formed around her neck. Only this time it wasn’t invisible, she could feel it too with her hands as she tried pulling it off. There was a chain leash attached to it that Loki held, so she was going nowhere.

‘Come on.’ Loki growled and tugged her along as he headed out the main entrance.

When they stepped outside, some civilians that saw Loki started kneeling for him instantly. Some ran away. But Loki didn’t care about any of them, he had what he wanted.

Kelly couldn’t stop shaking and crying as Loki slipped his arm around her waist and held her in close, then teleported them both to the airport where Loki had a jet waiting for them. He hauled Kelly onto it, she wasn’t sure why she was even trying to still get away, she knew there was no chance.

Loki had the leash vanish, but the collar remained. As soon as it was off, she ran as far back in the jet as possible and cowered down in the corner. Loki chuckled and took a seat near the front, looking very pleased with himself.

‘There is a much comfier seat down here for you, pet. It might be a bumpy ride.’ Loki called back to her as the jet started off down the runway.

But Kelly was quite happy where she was, as far away from Loki as she possibly could be between some seats. Though she knew it wouldn’t be for long, the jet was already taking off into the sky. She didn’t know exactly where home was for Loki. She really didn’t want to know.

‘You know, it has been ok since I’ve been ruling your world. Not quite as fun and exciting as I had originally hoped, but I realised it’s been because I’ve been chasing you. Now that I’ve found you, the real fun can begin.’ Loki said casually as he opened a bag of salted nuts.

Kelly shivered at his tone and words, she didn’t want to know what he meant by that.

It only took half an hour to get to their destination. But it had felt more like ten hours for Kelly, with Loki trying to make small talk the whole way there, as if nothing was wrong. As if she was there of her own accord.

‘Isn’t this a delightful sight.’ Loki chuckled, looking out of the window.

Kelly was curious as to where she was. So she slowly moved onto her knees and leaned up on one of the seats to look out the window. Her eyes widened at what she saw.

They were coming to land in New York, but it wasn’t the New York she remembered.

For starters, where The Statue Of Liberty should be, was replaced with a ten times larger statue of Loki himself. Then as they headed into the city, where the Avengers tower used to be, a new tower was built. But it was much larger too, and on the side of it was Loki’s name in bright gold letters.

‘No… No.’ She sobbed and put her hand over her mouth in horror.

[ray-ray-writings]

heyyyyy!! maybe a little drabble request of the whole smp x reader? like the reader is the glue that keeps them all together and everyone who has power has like a soft spot for her (dream, techno, sapnap etc) and tommy and tubbo basically see her as an older sister figure, phil sees her as a daughter and everyone loves her? but one day a rival from another smp (you can make up a name for it) sees the reader being adored and wants to kidnap her to get power, so they do and everyone finds out because they go to her house and see an ominous note? (again you can make up the note) and they put their differences aside and go to find the reader? after they get her back they just have like overprotectiveness and treat her injuries? tysm 💓

I love this…. (We’re going to call the evil server the SaintSMP for irony reasons. The main man we’re going to call Peter for more irony… God I hope this isn’t offensive) 

It’s no secret that everyone, and I mean everyone, on the server loved you. You’re soft and sweet and nice to everyone, no matter their reputation. But you also know how to speak up for yourself and not be a pushover. In the early stages of you being on the server, someone tried to take advantage of you and your kindness, but you let them know right away that that wasn’t going to fly. Everyone admired how you handled yourself with such grace and poise, even when you’re putting someone in their place. So you’re very well known and you’re very well adored. Literally everyone has a soft spot for you. If Dream or Techno are raging, all you have to do is smile at them and their anger melts away. If Tommy is causing chaos, all you do is look at him and he stops. If Sapnap, Quackity, and Punz are joking and they take it too far, all it takes is a soft “hey” and they stop. You’re everyone under 18’s older sibling, over 30’s child, and everyone in between’s best friend. 

So it’s no surprise when someone from a different server who hates the DreamSMP forms a plan when they hear about you. What would be the best way to destroy a bunch of people that you hate? Get rid of the one thing that they all collectively love. The SaintSMP has been someone that had been on the DreamSMP’s radar for a while. Dream hated Peter and Peter hated Dream. But nothing ever got done about it…. Until Peter got an idea. He thought that since you were so adored, if he took you, he would have literally everyone bending toward his will because they would want you back and he could finally control the DreamSMP. So he sets out one night and he takes you while you’re dead asleep and leaves a threatening note for whoever comes to your home next telling them what has happened and what is going to happen. And then he’s gone with you. 

The next morning comes and the minors arrive at your house, Tommy, Tubbo, and Ranboo. You had told them the day before to come over in the morning so that the four of you could have breakfast together because you just wanted to spend time together. So the three waltz up to your house and waltz in the front door. They make their way to your kitchen and freeze. You’re not there. You’re always there making breakfast when you invite them over like this. “Maybe they’re still asleep!” Tubbo chimes sweetly. He’s trying to keep Tommy and Ranboo calm, but he’s also trying to keep himself calm. Tommy sprints ahead of them down the hall to your room and flings the door open. “Y/N!!” his scream dies on his lips when he sees your bed empty and a small note on your pillow. He lets out a huff. “They left us a note on their pillow,” Tommy announces walking forward to pick it up. He immediately notices that it’s not your handwriting and he feels his heart stop as his eyes scan the note. “We gotta go get Dream,” Tommy chokes out, looking over to his friends. “What’s up?” Ranboo askes, stepping forward. “We gotta go get Dream,” Tommy repeats before shoving the note into Ranboo’s hand and running out of the room. Tubbo and Ranboo don’t ask anymore questions, they just follow Tommy. As they’re running, Ranboo’s eyes scan the note and he gets the gist, causing him to panic. “Here,” he gasps, thrusting the note at Tubbo before picking up his pace. He over takes Tommy and gets to the community house, where Dream has been staying, first. “DREAM!” He screams, barreling into the room. George and Sapnap’s head snaps to him. They’re sitting around the table. “He’s still asleep. What do you want?” George asks, standing up. Ranboo doesn’t respond, he runs down the hallway. As he disappears, Tommy and Tubbo burst into the room. “Where’s Dream?” Tommy gasps out, trying to catch his breath. “He’s asleep. What’s going on?” Sapnap questions, standing up to move by George. Tubbo simply holds out the note to him and Sapnap takes it and reads it out loud for George. 

“Dream!” Ranboo exclaims, bursting into his room. The blonde haired man shoots up with a start, “Ranboo? What the hell do you want?” He asks, laying back down in his bed. “It’s Y/N” and that’s all it takes from Dream to shoot back up and leave his bed. The two join the other four in the kitchen. Dream takes one look at George and Sapnap’s face to know it’s serious. George looks panicked and Sapnap looks pissed. Dream snatches the note from Sapnap’s hand and feels his blood boil at the words written. He sends out a message to everyone in the server to meet them in L’Manberg with their best weapons and when someone sent back “why” he only responded with “Y/N” and no one questioned him further. It takes only 15 minutes for everyone to gather. Everyone is a little nervous because Dream only said it was about Y/N and no one really knows anything else. Dream explains what has happened and the entire demeanour shifts. Everyone is now pissed and it shows. Dream then explains where you’re being held and Techno just goes, “What are we waiting for. Let’s go” and there’s a murmur of agreement. So Dream wastes no more time. He turns on his heel and begin the march to where you’re being held. 

They get there and easily get inside. It’s literally the entire SMP against a few measly guards and with warriors Dream, Techno, Punz, Wilbur, Sapnap in front, it’s quick but it’s a bloodbath. Everyone follows Dream as he goes down to the “dungeons” where he knows you would be held. 

They get down there, ready to fight and kill once again, only to be surprised to see you sitting upright on a cot, eating an apple, a passed out Peter beside you. “Y/N?” Dream asks. Your head shoots up and you grin at the sight of everyone. “Dream! Techno! Everyone! Oh my gosh! Wow, you all came!!” You shoot up off the cot, tossing your apple which hits Peter in the head, and hug the person in front, which is Dream. He doesn’t even get to hug you back before you’ve moved on to hug everyone else as well. “Of course we came, Y/N! You’re our best friend, we’ll always protect you,” George hums as you hug him. “Although it doesn’t seem like you really need us to,” Wilbur teases, poking his head toward the body on the floor. You give Peter a glance and a shrug, “It was pretty easy. He was like “you’re so weak” and “they’ll be here to rescue you because you can’t do it yourself” and so I punched him in the face and knocked him out. I would have left but I got hungry and I realized I would have gotten lost in the woods.” The remaining anger that was in everyone’s body melts as you tell your tale. They’re upset at what Peter has done, but they’re so happy you’re okay. “Let’s get you home then,” Philza says, wrapping an arm around your shoulder. You give everyone a bright smile and a nod, “Yes please. And could we stop by the bakery, I need something sweet right now.” “Of course we can” Niki chimes, also stepping up beside you. So a big chunk of you make your way out of where you’re being held. “You guys coming?” You call over your shoulder at Techno, Dream, Sapnap, and Punz who have stopped. “Yeah… We’ll catch up” Punz calls back, looking over at a still unconscious Peter. “Yeah… What he said” Dream backs up. You give a small nod and continue out of the place. 

The four that remain slowly stock over to Peter who is beginning to wake up. He opens his eyes and sees the four men in front of him glaring down at him. A nervous chill goes down his spine. “Fellas,” he tries, as he sits up, “We can talk about this.” Techno cracks his knuckles as Sapnap leans down and smirks in his face, “Yeah… We’ll talk… With our fists.”

[animeyanderelover]

May I request some shiretoko tomoko hcs?

Sorry for not updating as much, but we’re celebrating the birthday of my mother today with her family.

Tw: Yandere themes, unhealthy mindset, unhealthy relationship, obsessiveness, delusions, clinginess, guilt-tripping, stalking, kidnapping, killing

Yandere Shiretoko Tomoko Hc’s

😹This will play before she lost her quirk. To start with, Tomoko is a delusional and clingy Yandere. Even heroes don't have always the needed awareness to notice that they don't fly under the public radar with their love for the darling anymore and she is one of them. She is just too heavily smitten with the s/o to ever come to the realization that she is too much with her feelings, it all just constantly bubbles up inside of her and she believes her darling to be one of the most lovely person she has ever crossed paths with. For her it is all about the great relationship and that her darling and her are so much in love with each other, she constantly lives in her dream world where both of you are happy together. For that exact reason she barely leaves you at all she can't seperate from your side, it's like it is physically impossible for her.

😹A obsessive kitten and a keeper from things as well. Tomoko does count as the kind of obsessive Yandere who has to know everyting about the s/o the moment she starts having her infatuation with them and since she strikes me as the type who would develop a quick crush, it happens sooner than later. Problem is that she has a hard time stopping herself from asking questions, she is a hyperactive person and once she starts chatting, almost no one can stop her. Whilst she never really realizes it, she can be seen as a manipulative Yandere as well in the sense of guilt-tripping and making her s/o feel bad. It's really rare seeing her deressed, but if her darling manages to hurt her enough, she shuts up and is more distraught. Tomoko might just be a very talented stalker with the help of her quirk since she can monitor and observe people with it. In this case it'll be her darling.

😹The inability to stay still at all makes this situation harder than expected for her darling. It isn't like Tomoko is someone to get in the blink of an eye jealous, it's just that she is more squirmy. Members of the Pussycats are persons she never or really rarely gets jealous off. Other persons experience her jealousy more often, though the woman doesn't intend to come over as rude. But she is just very fond when the attention of her darling is on her and she becomes more fidgety when this isn't the case. She really does manage to somehow not interfere too much for a few minutes, but that moment vanishes quickly and in the next moment she jumps into the scene. She's honestly more harmless since she doesn't threaten or scares the other person, but she is eccentric.

😹Every hero is rady to protect their darling when it comes down to it, some going too far and some not. Ragdoll is in that aspect perfect since she only goes against others in a more vicious way when it is necessary. Normally she might just weird people a little bit out with her behavior, but that's all. She's usually never really alone when she has to face of against someone that might have bad idea since all her teammates are ready to help her since they are after all a team. She wouldn't hurt someone innocent so people she thinks she has to go harder against are most likely what other people would call 'the bad guys'.

😹It is hard to shake her off and it is even harder to break up with her since she won't believe it the first few times she hears it. Delusional Yandere like her might bea the advantage that their s/o has in most cases freedom as long as they believe that the darling loves them. Tomoko is the same, though this freedom comes with the price of her nearly being all the time glued to your side and not wanting to go unless she has her work with the others to do. I do believe that kidnapping would be somewhat hard because her friends might find out and whilst all of them are very eager to help and highly supportive there is a borderline for them as well where they'll start feeling concerned with the methods Ragdoll uses. And the hero realizes this just as much which is why she wouldn't really consider the thought of kidnapping. Everything goes smoothly anyways, doesn't it?

😹You'll be surrounded by a bunch of very active kittens as long as she stays as your girlfriend. She is more than just eager to introduce you to her teammates and all of them know you anyways from all the amount of times she's already talked about you. Ragdoll is overzealous in regards of this relationship and there will always be some sort of action with her which of course means on the bright side that there will never be a boring moment in this relationship. Despite he hyperactivity she still is a fan of cuddles and affection and these are the only times where she somewhat is able to hold still for a while.

[thefanficmonster]

Caution

Corpse Husband & Reader (Female)

Warnings: Swearing, Dark Humor (Lighthearted)

Genre: Platonic Fluff, HUMOR, RPF (Real Person Fic)

Summary: The shenanigans of the two best friends who’ve been roommates and have been spending way too much time together during quarantine.

Requested by Anon. Hi darling! Thank you so much for your request! I’m really sorry it’s taken me so long to get to it and write it but here it finally is! Hope you come across it even after all this time and give it a read - if so, I hope you enjoy it! Love, Vy  ❤

“Why are you calling me when you’re literally down the hall?!“

“You didn’t hear me yelling and I really don’t want to interrupt whatever Satanic ritual you’re in the middle of performing.“

Valid excuse, or so Corpse thinks it is as he grins over the dining table which is set up for dinner - all be it very poorly but Y/N wouldn’t be able to do it any better which comforts him.

“You’ve already interrupted it.“ With that, she hangs up on him. A second or two later, the music that’s been blasting from her room subsides and she walks out in the hallway where Corpse has a clear view of her for the first time today.

“What animal were you sacrificing today, sweetie?“ He asks in a sing-song voice, mimicking a parent asking their child what they did at school that day.

Y/N sits down in her chair, not at all amused by his joke, narrowing her eyes at him, ready to fight sarcasm with sarcasm, “Animal sacrificing is reserved for Friday nights only, remember? On Sundays the sacrifice must be human.”

He sits down as well, twirling his fork in the bowl of noodles in front of him, “Aww, that’s too bad hun, you can’t really find a lot of people on the streets nowadays. However, if you’re thinking of breaking and entering I must say you’ll have to count me out.”

She smirks, “Why would I break into a stranger’s home when I am living with a rather annoying person myself.”

Corpse puts a hand over his heart, ‘offended’ by Y/N’s comment, “Oh come on now, it’s the season of giving dear! Can’t you give me another chance to be a good roommate.”

If she’s being honest, Corpse is a great roommate - best one she’s had or will ever have. A big element of them getting along so well is the long friendship they had even before moving in together. It might not seem like they are too fond of one another to an outsider. But someone who knows them well enough can guarantee the two would do anything for each other. Corpse is a pretty non-confrontational and quiet guy who does look intimidating but would never live up to it. However, if someone upsets Y/N, he’s no less dangerous than a pissed off lion. Y/N is similar - a small neutral and rather unopinionated bean. Very few things fly on her radar cause she’s so done with everything and everyone and has learned how to not allow anything to surprise or shock her. She doesn’t let many things offend her or bother her but mess with the guy who’s basically been her older brother for almost a decade now and - although the whole sacrificing and Satan worshiping thing is a joke - she’d gladly sacrifice you to the Under-lord without a second to consider it.

“Indeed it is the season of given, although early, but I’m still gonna give myself the gift of a new roommate.“ She replies nonchalantly, taking a bite of the noodles Corpse over-spiced for the shits and giggles of it.

He doesn’t reply, just hums in response as he cautiously watches her reaction to the flavor of her food. He’s even filled a glass of water for her and left it by her plate in case she needs it but as it seems she hasn’t even noticed the change in flavor.

“What have you been doing all day? I mean, I get you were working on a song - I had to play my own music to drown that shit out - but what came of it?“

He smiles, knowing full well she bops it full volume when he’s not home. He knows this cause he caught her in the act - it’s not a guess anymore, it’s a full-blown fact supported by not documented evidence which maybe wouldn’t stand in court but it’s enough for him to have some leverage and certainty when she’s being a dick about it.

“I finished the song. Posted it too.“ He shrugs as though it’s nothing. receiving a nod with the same amount of enthusiasm back from Y/N.

Regardless of the lack of reaction from both parties, they’re both thrilled.

“That’s great.“ She gives him a hint of a smile, “We gotta celebrate, no?“

Realizing they’re finally on the same wavelength, he nods with a smile and proceeds to get up and go to the kitchen to grab the red wine they’ve got for special occasions - or to cure breakups, either goes - and two wine glasses. 

He pours them each a bit, knowing many refills will come, and the two clink their glasses, taking a sip before continuing to eat.

Well, Y/N continues to eat while Corpse spits out the bite he just took, appalled by the saltiness of it. “What the hell, Y/N?!”

She snorts and continues to eat while Corpse accepts defeat, realizing he should never leave her alone with his food ever again. 

“You win this round...” He mumbles under his breath as he walks to the kitchen to boil himself a new bowl of noodles.

                                                           *  *  * 

It’s been about three hours since the incident and Y/N’s gone back to her room once again to play Minecraft with some friends as she usually does in the evenings when she’s finished her homework for her college lectures.

She’s in the midst of betting with one of the friends who can build a better makeshift house in ten minutes or less when she gets a text from Corpse, asking to do the her dishes, aka the bowl her noodles were in and her utensils as well as glass of water she did end up taking a sip of while Corpse wasn’t looking - the spice really got to her at one point but she got it under control.

Figuring it’s the least she can do after basically ruining his dinner, she tells her friends she’ll be back shortly and mutes herself on the Discord call. 

Upon walking out the door, however, she doesn’t really get far. Instead, she walks straight into the web of caution tape put on the outside of the door, stuck to the door frame.

Y/N does her best to not lash out as she ‘calmly’ tries to untangle herself from the stripes of caution tape that have wrapped themselves around her like snakes upon detaching from the door frame. Despite her tries, what ends up lighting the fuse of anger within her is the quiet laughter of her roommate coming from the living room.

“CORPSE!!!“ She screams in frustration which only fuels Corpse’s satisfaction, making his laughter louder. “I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!”

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[imagine-loki]

Tear You To Pieces, Chapter 9

TITLE: Tear You To Pieces CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 9 AUTHOR: fanficshiddles ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki was sent to make up for his deeds by helping out The Avengers at the tower. Everyone thinks he’s changed, but he is just biding his time. He manipulates and uses someone who works there, who has a crush on him, to get exactly what he wants.  RATING: M

WARNINGS FOR THIS FIC: DARK LOKI, RAPE/NON-CON, MANIPULATION, MURDER, VIOLENCE, EMOTIONAL ABUSE, KIDNAPPING

Kelly shut the curtains as soon as she got into the rather shabby B&B room. But it was the best she could afford in the meantime, she had no idea how long she was going to have to be on the run for, so didn’t want to blow all of her money too quickly.

She’d managed to budget herself to last on the run for around a year. She had to include hair dye into the monthly budget. As even though it had been two months, she had no idea if Loki was still looking for her or not, so she only went out in disguise to be on the safe side.

She was still not over what happened, what was still happening. And she knew it was all her fault, she would never be able to get over it. She had unleashed the monster, literally.

Not bothering to turn the TV on, she just got into bed and tried not to think about it all. The news was always filled with Loki now, and how he was conquering the world. Country after country was flocking to kneel under Loki’s rule. Otherwise, he was slaying every country that dared to defy him. Which soon brought them to heel, before they lost everyone.

Kelly was really jumpy, every noise right outside her room had her entire body going ridged, expecting the worst. It took her heart a while to stop racing after each noise. She knew she couldn’t carry on living like this, but she didn’t know what else to do.

Turning onto her side she curled up and cried herself to sleep, like she did every night. But her sleep was never peaceful, it was always laced with nightmares. Always of him. Most of the time, he was looming over her with her sisters’ body at his feet.

She woke up in a sweat, calling out for her sister. How she wished everything was just a nightmare, but no. She was living a nightmare.

Keeping on the move was her plan, so since she was awake anyway, even though it was only five in the morning, she decided to move on to the next place to stay. She had made it all the way up to Edinburgh by foot mainly but also a couple of bus trips. She just kept moving around from city to city, town to town. Wherever she could get to.

As Kelly made her way down the road, there was just a few people going about at that time of the morning. But she kept getting shivers down her spine, and not from the cold. It was like someone was watching her…

When she looked round over her shoulder, she caught a glimpse of a tall, black-haired man amongst a small crowd of early risers heading to work. Her heart started racing in fear, thinking it was Loki, she quickly moved on and walked as fast as she could. When she glanced back in the direction of the man, there was no sign of him anymore.

She tried to shake it off, thinking it had just been her imagination. Surely if it had been Loki, he would’ve made his presence more known.

But as she made her way further into the centre of the city, she still had a really bad feeling that she was being followed. So she rushed into the bus station and bought a ticket to head further North, maybe if she headed out of the cities and tried the quieter villages, she might be able to stay under the radar better.

Just before she was able to pay for her ticket, there was sudden screaming and panic within the station.

‘What the…’ She looked around in confusion, but then she felt pure dread run through her veins as she saw the reason for the panic and chaos.

Loki.

He had stormed into the station in his regal armour, the biggest grin formed on his face when he locked eyes on Kelly.

‘No…’ She gasped out quietly, her legs suddenly turned to jelly as she tried to run with the others that were panicking.

Loki made his way towards Kelly straight away, with large purposeful strides as he towered above everyone else that was scarpering around him in terror.

She started running for the back exit, but Loki reached out towards her and Kelly suddenly felt as if there was a collar around her neck that was suddenly pulling her backwards towards him. She brought her hands up to her neck but couldn’t feel anything there, but there was definitely something pulling her back.

She panicked and screamed as she was dragged back towards Loki, who had stopped and was just pulling her towards him. When she was within grabbing distance, the invisible collar disappeared and she felt like she could run again.

But she was within striking distance. And Loki struck like a snake, grabbing her he forced her to the nearest wall and pinned her against it, his large dominant hand wrapped around her neck firmly. Her lower lip was trembling in fear as he sneered down at her, she tried clawing at his arm but it was futile.

‘Mmmm, I finally found you.’ Loki hummed low and squeezed her neck a bit harder in warning when she continued trying to struggle.

‘Plea… please… Let me go.’ She stuttered out between trying to take big breaths, his hand controlling her breathing wasn’t making it easy to talk.

‘Oh no, my little pet. You should be begging for my forgiveness, for that little stunt of running away from me. You have no idea how much of an inconvenience it was when I came to collect you, to find you gone. Ungrateful mortal.’ He growled, squeezing her neck again for a few seconds, making her splutter.

He could see the pure fear in her eyes.

‘However.’ He purred, easing up a little on his grip he rubbed his thumb up and down the side of her neck. ‘I wouldn’t be in the position I am now if it hadn’t been for you. And whilst I should punish you for being a naughty girl and disobeying me, I will give you the benefit of the doubt. This time. Because I know you’re my good girl really, aren’t you?’

Kelly closed her eyes and tried to tune him out. But of course, that could never happen.

‘Look at me!’ He demanded and squeezed her neck again, making her eyes fly open.

‘Maybe once I get you home, you’ll be more talkative. And I shall give you your reward, and finally claim what you owe me.’ His eyes darkened and he smirked, then leaned in and kissed her on the lips, despite her trying to move her head away to no avail.

She had no choice but to endure his lips moving against hers, he was surprisingly gentle, yet there was an urgency within him too. A very deep part of her was longing at his kiss, like it was a reminder of what she thought they once had… But she remembered that had all been fake, Loki had used her.

Loki pulled back slightly, licking his lips. ‘Now come, pet. Let me show you your new home.’ He grinned wickedly and released her neck.

But before she could even think about trying to run, a collar formed around her neck. Only this time it wasn’t invisible, she could feel it too with her hands as she tried pulling it off. There was a chain leash attached to it that Loki held, so she was going nowhere.

‘Come on.’ Loki growled and tugged her along as he headed out the main entrance.

When they stepped outside, some civilians that saw Loki started kneeling for him instantly. Some ran away. But Loki didn’t care about any of them, he had what he wanted.

Kelly couldn’t stop shaking and crying as Loki slipped his arm around her waist and held her in close, then teleported them both to the airport where Loki had a jet waiting for them. He hauled Kelly onto it, she wasn’t sure why she was even trying to still get away, she knew there was no chance.

Loki had the leash vanish, but the collar remained. As soon as it was off, she ran as far back in the jet as possible and cowered down in the corner. Loki chuckled and took a seat near the front, looking very pleased with himself.

‘There is a much comfier seat down here for you, pet. It might be a bumpy ride.’ Loki called back to her as the jet started off down the runway.

But Kelly was quite happy where she was, as far away from Loki as she possibly could be between some seats. Though she knew it wouldn’t be for long, the jet was already taking off into the sky. She didn’t know exactly where home was for Loki. She really didn’t want to know.

‘You know, it has been ok since I’ve been ruling your world. Not quite as fun and exciting as I had originally hoped, but I realised it’s been because I’ve been chasing you. Now that I’ve found you, the real fun can begin.’ Loki said casually as he opened a bag of salted nuts.

Kelly shivered at his tone and words, she didn’t want to know what he meant by that.

It only took half an hour to get to their destination. But it had felt more like ten hours for Kelly, with Loki trying to make small talk the whole way there, as if nothing was wrong. As if she was there of her own accord.

‘Isn’t this a delightful sight.’ Loki chuckled, looking out of the window.

Kelly was curious as to where she was. So she slowly moved onto her knees and leaned up on one of the seats to look out the window. Her eyes widened at what she saw.

They were coming to land in New York, but it wasn’t the New York she remembered.

For starters, where The Statue Of Liberty should be, was replaced with a ten times larger statue of Loki himself. Then as they headed into the city, where the Avengers tower used to be, a new tower was built. But it was much larger too, and on the side of it was Loki’s name in bright gold letters.

‘No… No.’ She sobbed and put her hand over her mouth in horror.

[snowe-zolynn-rogers]

Pairings: Chuuya x Nikolai

Word Count: 4,692 Words

Summary: A routine undercover assassination mission with Sigma and Nikolai goes wrong.

Warnings: Shooting Mention, Blood Mention, Injury Mention, Trans Male Characters, Death Mention, Cursing, Dead Body Mention (Mention Only), Fake Dating, Near Death Mention, Head Injury Mention, Past Animal Death Mention, Past Kidnapping Mention, Human Trafficking Mention (Mention Only), Food Mention, Nightmare Mention, Pregnancy Mention, Miscarriage Mention, let me know if I should tag anything else.

Translations: Layno.: Shit.

Undercover Gone Wrong

Nikolai wasn't stupid, he usually didn't get into these messes. But a mission with Sigma wasn't going well, he'd lost Sigma long ago and then their target, the organizer of this party, had found out about them in this nice fancy gala.

And now, the security had decided that riddling the crowd of people with bullets was a good idea. And he couldn't use his ability or it would be picked up, surely.

Sigma's was so unnoticeable he could fly under this guy's radar, especially when he was wearing that wig to cover his overly notable hair. But Nikolai didn't know where he was, usually he'd find the purple but that was kind of impossible at the moment for a lot of reasons.

Reason one, the aforementioned him and Sigma having gotten separated. Reason two, that damned blonde wig blending Sigma into the crowd. Reason three, the bullets taken into the gala members. Reason four, Nikolai was currently coughing blood from the bullets somewhere in his chest or stomach, he couldn't even tell. Reason five, he'd protected a child with his own body to keep them from getting shot.

His chest was tight in the chest binder he wore, which only made breathing harder with the bullets somewhere in that vicinity. His hands were shaking, they'd never screwed up this badly. He felt arms around him, he hoped it was Sigma because he couldn't breathe between his panic, the bullets, and his binder.

"Come on." Not Sigma. Not Sigma at all. It was an angry little redhead with blood on his face from the crowd probably. He was being led away by some random attendee? Was this someone with his victim? He couldn't remember.

"Shh." The redhead hushed him, ducking all three of them into a corner and watching for security. "Okay." He was shaky breathing, he felt like he was dying, he couldn't breathe anymore. "Breathe." The redhead insisted.

"Ca-Can't...binder...bullets..." Nikolai couldn't get it off, he couldn't breathe, he prayed this guy understood.

"Shit." the redhead got his shirt undone, obviously knowing exactly what he meant.. There was definitely an attempt to get it up and off but it didn't work. "I can't get off, I need to rip it. Karma, don't look, be respectful." He nodded, letting him rip the back of stiff fabric and he nearly collapsed with his ability to breathe back.

"Are you okay?" The little redhead asked.

"I'm okay." He croaked, taking off the useless fabric. He saw the bullet through the fabric. He had a bullet in or through his chest somewhere.

"Shit, you did get hit." The redhead pressed the discarded fabric to the wound to stem the blood flow. The albino allowed it, unable to really do anything anyway, he was a little busy getting air back into him.

"Can you breathe?" The kid, Karma, asked. He guessed the redhead knew the kid.

"I can breathe."

"Doesn't seem like it hit anything too vital. Yeah, straight through." The redhead looked at his back.

"Buy me a drink before you snoop what I look like." He joked.

"Maybe next time." The redhead teased back.

"I need to get out of here. I need to find my friend."

"Your friend sent me to get you after you protected my colleagues subordinate. I stopped most of the bullets and he saw that and sent me after you. The blonde guy? Information ability?"

"Yeah, that's him." He was busy buttoning his shirt back up. He really hoped nobody could see through the white shirt.

"They're coming. There's a storage room down the hall, come on." Karma urged them further away, dragging them both by their hands into the storage closet and Nikolai got stuck against them once the door was closed silently.

"Security." The redhead whispered to quiet them as he silently was putting something plastic against his wound to seal it closed for now.

"Target went somewhere."

"How hard is it to fine someone with white hair, Airi?"

"Shut up Touma. You already were almost wrong about the other one and you used to work for him." Nikolai felt panic rise. Was Sigma dead? Touma was the name of a bartender he'd had to fire after he'd gotten stabbed and nearly died twice from the wound. Did Touma point him out?

"Airi, what about the storage?"

"Too small. The other one is taller apparently." Karma looked at him oddly.

"Fine. Go so we can find them then." Nikolai heard the footsteps disappear down the hall.

"They're looking for you." The redhead glared.

"I..."

"Is he bad?" Karma asked.

"Why are they looking for you?" The redhead demanded.

"Okay, I came here and kill the host and he found out. The guy with the information ability is my partner. Was my partner? He might be dead right now, that Touma guy used to work for him and he could've pointed him out and had him killed. And I-" 

"You're trying to kill a Port Mafia executive?" The redhead interrupted.

"Well, not by choice! It's a mission I got, I have to do it or Dostoy will be mad at me. But now he'll probably be more angry because Sigma's probably dead and my cover's blown and-"

"I'll pretend I didn't see you if you get that partner of yours and get out of here." The redhead demanded.

"You're not going to kill me?" He asked.

"No, not yet at least. Get that partner of yours and get out." He nodded.

"Mister, your shirt." Karma warned before he was able to open the door.

"What?"

"It's noticeable." He saw that he was very visible through his shirt, he had blocked the sight of that with his binder.

"Layno." He cursed. "Well, it's a storage closet. Kid, turn around."

"It's all dresses." The redhead told him.

"I can do it. Not pleasant, but I can do it." He sighed, changing from the suit he'd come in to the least tragically distasteful dresses, a black fluffy one with black lace sleeves and silver gems on the arms.

"Here." The redhead helped with the buttons on the back. Nikolai used his ability to turn the dress into a pocket dimension he could grab from and shoved his suit into it.

"You have a storage ability?" Karma asked.

"Yes." He lied.

"Did you store knives in your suit or something?"

"Yes." Kind of, he had stored poison in his suit, but close enough.

"Now get out." The redhead growled and he ran, letting his hair out of the braid as he went, shaking it out to make it look more feminine and the braid had set curls in slightly.

He had to find Sigma, or his corpse at least, an get out. That was a task and a half, or maybe it wasn't since he found that executive had waited to kill him, thankfully. But Sigma was still being held by two guards at gunpoint, thankfully with his wig still on.

He had a feeling Sigma would kill him for taking so long, honestly. He'd have at least threatened it if Sigma had made him wait this long to be not killed. But he couldn't really just whisk him out, so he blended to the crowd.

"Ah, Karma, you're back." Their target cheerfully greeted the child back and Nikolai looked to see the redhead was leading Karma back in.

"The other one's dead, I killed him." The redhead told him.

"So this one doesn't need to be bait?"

"No, their boss might come for them, leave him alive as bait still."

"Good thinking, Chuuya." So his name was Chuuya.

"He isn't dead. He's too stubborn. He probably left." Sigma spat.

"Tell that to the bullet in his lung. I watched him stop breathing." Chuuya growled. Nikolai was very grateful that he wasn't dead by that one's hands, he had no way of getting his partner, though.

Maybe he could come up with something. Thankfully, he could see the hand on Sigma's head tapping, he caught it too. 'Play along.' So he and Sigma both stayed still. Chuuya looked to him in the crowd and smiled.

"How about we dance to wait? He's the helpless one after all and your gala attendees are worried, Ace. Let them have the fun they came for."

"Put him in a cage, Karma." Thankfully, Karma was entrusted with Sigma, handed a gun and everything. "In case he thinks you're weak."

"Care to dance?" Chuuya asked.

"Of course." He had no clue what to do, he let Chuuya take the lead. He hadn't danced in years, especially not waltzing.

"You really like tall women, huh, Nakahara?" Ace teased after the first few dances, while Chuuya had gotten them drinks.

"Yes. My girlfriend, Hotaru." Chuuya introduced him.

"Hmm, you don't look Japanese but have a Japanese name." Ace looked over him, he didn't like the eyes looking over him.

"I'm half Japanese on my father's side. I've been told I look more like my mother." Nikolai lied. He actually didn't look like his parents at all, he was told he looked like his grandmother on his mother's side in reversed colors.

"Interesting. I'd have snatched you up if Nakahara here hadn't. What a catch, truly, you're stunning." Ace was far too close and he didn't like it.

"Hey, mine." Chuuya spat, arm protective around him.

"Apologies. I've been told I come off a bit overbearing." Ace smiled but backed off a bit.

"It's okay." Nikolai excused.

"You look familiar as well. But I guess a wonder like yourself was probably too noticeable to overlook when you came in." Ace smiled. Nikolai smiled back, trying to be kind.

"Dear, didn't you say you needed the restroom?" Chuuya asked.

"Yes. If you don't mind?" Nikolai looked to Ace.

"All is well, I hope you're having fun after that rude interruption earlier." Ace excused them and Chuuya dragged him off to the direction of the bathrooms. "There's guards following." Nikolai whispered.

"He's sending them as protection to make sure nobody gets hurt again."

"Oh, after he shoots me he wants to make sure nobody gets hurt."

"Shh, you're not bleeding again, are you?"

"No, it stopped for now."

"Good."

"Kolya." Sigma growled from around the corner.

"Sig." He smiled at him.

"You're so lucky you aren't dead or I'd bring you back and kill you again." Sigma threatened.

"The prisoner!" One guard warned.

"Knock me and him down now." Chuuya told the two-tone and Sigma did so, hitting both with the gun he'd taken from Karma. Nikolai landed on Chuuya, he had a feeling Sigma had gotten back at him for seemingly leaving him to die.

"Karma, I hope you understand your sacrifice." Ace's voice came and Chuuya moved a bit in panic, moving to try to save Karma from his own colleague.

"Ace, don't!" Chuuya demanded.

"Chuuya, don't interfere, you're already injured. Get your girlfriend out!" Ace insisted.

"Let me go, Nakahara, it's okay." Nikolai didn't like that, not one bit, the smile on his face even less.

He saw the glow from the necklace Karma wore and realized that was part of Ace's ability. Without thinking he created a separation in the necklace and Sigma caught it and pulled it off the kid, who collapsed into him heaving air at the near death he just experienced.

Sigma grabbed Nikolai and held him in front of himself as a shield and Chuuya tried to get him away but was playing that he was too concussed to do such a thing. Thankfully, Sigma had his overcoat and used it to whisk them all outside the building.

"Fuck, Dostoy will be mad, it didn't work, Sig. I don't-"

"You abandoned me for two gingers!" Sigma snapped.

"I got shot!"

"You got shot?" Sigma began looking for it.

"It's not bleeding anymore, Chuuya stopped it."

"You're in a dress. Why?"

"Because I was shot through my binder and my shirt was white, obviously!"

"You got shot in the chest?"

"He's fine, by the way." Chuuya butt into their fight.

"Nakahara, I can't go back there. My necklace." Chuuya sighed.

"I know. I didn't expect him to try to use his ability on you." Chuuya was hugging the boy close, protective.

"We have to go home. Thankfully, I killed those two guards since Touma was on about us and our names when I found them." Sigma sighed.

"Where the fuck are you two going?" Chuuya asked.

"To talk to our boss." Sigma sighed.

"Sig, he and I can't leave but Karma can't stay." Nikolai realized, taking the boy into his own arms, letting him cling on.

"Oh my god, you adopted a kid?" Sigma complained.

"Take him for now and my number, I'll send your partner back." Chuuya assured him as he wrote his number on Sigma's hand.

"Fine." Sigma gave in and left.

"I'm opening your gunshot back up."

"Ugh, fine." Nikolai let him do so, biting his hand at the pain. He very much didn't like the blood making a small puddle below him.

"I'm also going to hit my head into the wall pretty hard, so I'll be out. Act panicked when Ace comes out."

Nikolai took a deep breath and cringed when Chuuya hit his head into the building rather hard and he looked unconscious for sure. Nikolai held onto him as though a weeping widow.

"Chuuya! Hotaru!" Ace came bounding over with security. "Oh, you poor thing. Come here." Ace tried to gently take him away from Chuuya and, the brilliant actor he was, Nikolai began crying, holding Chuuya's arm to stay with him.

"No! Wake him up! Chuuya, wake up!" He feigned his panic and Chuuya groaned and shifted to his lap from the side of the building he was leaned against.

"Call the doctor, they need medical." Ace told a guard and gently got them both up to get inside, into the building again.

"That little thief shot a girl. Killed two guards too." Nikolai heard, more busy getting pressure applied to his gunshot until the doctor came.

He recognized the doctor as Mori Ogai but feigned ignorance for that. He was just glad Mori seemed less interested in him than Ace. He'd patched his wounds and moved onto Chuuya quickly, waking him fully and making sure he was taken care of.

"I'm sorry, sir. He shot my girlfriend, I was distracted. I should've caught him." Chuuya tried to explain.

"No trouble. Karma would never reveal anything to him, he would die sooner with his devotion to Ace and our organization. Your girlfriend, the one with the gunshot, is she aware of your job?" Mori asked.

"Not really. She doesn't know much, just that it's dangerous." Chuuya assured.

"Darling, we're sorry for what you had to witness tonight." Mori directed to Nikolai.

"As long as Chuuya is okay, I don't mind." He was kind of trying to kiss up to them, he didn't want Chuuya losing his job, he wouldn't allow it, actually.

"I'm fine, Hotaru." Chuuya pulled Nikolai into his arms.

"Get home, Chuuya, you should rest, so should the lady." Mori told him.

"Thank you, Boss." Chuuya thanked him, taking Nikolai to an apartment. "Get comfortable, I'm taking you home tomorrow probably, when your friend calls." Chuuya told him.

"What? Find a pretty girl and get her in bed?"

"Nah, but you can sleep in the bed if you want." Chuuya offered.

"I think I need to use your shower. I have blood everywhere."

"Yeah, do that. Towels are in there." Chuuya told him. Nikolai took a shower, and came out in a towel when he realized he had to now had to get dressed. Nikolai pulled his suit from the dress and then pulled the spare sleep clothes he'd stored in the jacket.

"Real funny, are you a clown or something?" Chuuya commented as he pulled on his underwear.

"I used to work in the circus." Nikolai smiled for him.

"A useful ability for a clown. Did you ever do the bunny in the hat trick?"

"Yes, sadly Carrot didn't really come out unharmed. He ate a rhubarb someone put in there and he had an allergic reaction." Nikolai sighed.

"Poor baby." Chuuya huffed.

"Yeah, the kids didn't like that trick. No more bunnies in hats to say the least."

"Oh god, there were kids?"

"Yeah, I got hurt a lot when I was in the circus so I'd get stuck with the kid's section a lot. It wasn't fun to say the least, but that's what I got raised in."

"You were raised in a circus?" Chuuya asked as he got his sleep pants on.

"Yes. Got kidnapped when I was two and got sold to a circus two years later. The ringmaster raised me." He got his shirt on and began drying and brushing his hair.

"Why'd you get kidnapped?" Chuuya asked.

"I'm a Ukrainian politician's son, well, daughter. But still, guess they didn't want to pay to get me back after I got kidnapped so I just got sold to whoever bid highest, which was traffickers, and they sold me to the circus once my ability surfaced when I was four."

"Seems overcomplicated."

"It was, the ringmaster had to explain it at least ten times before I got it."

"Well, I'm showering, behave." Chuuya told him and Nikolai began putting his hair up into two braids to sleep in. He saw cat and one sat on the chair next to him looking in the mirror to do his hair.

"Hello." He looked to the tag on its collar. "Hello, Hime." She sat pretty and patient as he braided his hair together and rubbed herself on his arm when he was doing the second one.

"Yes, I'm doing my hair, Hime. You're pretty, huh." He smiled at the black kitten. She sure looked like a princess, or at least like she got treated like one. "Does Chuuya baby you?" He asked, petting her head once he tied off his braid.

"I do." Chuuya confirmed. "She's like my daughter, she deserves the best." He smiled, maybe being temporarily stuck with Chuuya wasn't bad until he realized-

"Do I have to pose as your girlfriend from now on?" Nikolai asked.

"Unfortunately, probably. So we're both stuck fake dating for a bit at least." Chuuya confirmed. Nikolai groaned, taking Hime and laying on the bed with her.

"Hime, I'm stuck dating your dad." He complained.

"Never said it'd be pleasant. Take it as a punishment for trying to kill Ace or whatever."

"I hate you now."

"Yeah, I get that a lot." Chuuya laid on the other side of the bed. Nikolai was out before he knew it, probably the blood loss. But he woke up with Chuuya looking over him.

"Did you even sleep?" He moved and found Hime had gotten up at night and moved so his arms were empty.

"Yes. Just woke up."

"And decided to stare at me?"

"Well, I have to get used to seeing you, you're my partner temporarily."

"Fair enough. If they ever think you're lying or whatever, I have a birthmark on my hip shaped like a bat, the animal, not the sports equipment."

"Noted. I have a birthmark that looks like a moon on my thigh."

"Ha, we match. Destiny or whatever."

"Yeah, must be. To get stuck with you." Chuuya smiled.

"Did Sigma call?" Nikolai asked.

"Not yet."

"Hm. Probably working mornings. He promised me he wouldn't work so early anymore."

"Where does he work?"

"Sky Casino. General manager."

"Oh. He your best friend?"

"No, not even close." He began laughing. "Me and Sigma hate each other, fight like a married couple even. But he's responsible and I'm a little bit chaotic, so we work together a lot."

"Sounds like a best friend to me. You two sound just like me and that shitty Mackerel."

"Your friend's name is Mackerel?"

"No, it's Dazai, but he always smells like mackerel so I call him Mackerel."

"Force him into a bath. Use a loofah on a duster or something if he bites."

"Tempting." Nikolai smiled. At least his fake boyfriend wasn't that bad to be around. A sudden ringing startled them both from their joking.

"Hey Sigma." Chuuya answered. "No, he's not dead." Nikolai laughed. "Yeah, I can bring him to a helipad tomorrow." Chuuya paused. "Now, we have to fake date, my coworkers were at that gala and I had to introduce him as my girlfriend to them so they wouldn't be suspicious." Another pause. "He wants to talk to you."

"Hey Sig." Nikolai turned onto his back and Hime climbed onto his stomach.

"Is he forcing you to stay?"

"No, if anything, the cat is forcing me to stay. Plus, you know full well that I need to work on Monday anyway, you can come bother me or something."

"Me visit a government official? Why?"

"No, say you're my ex or something. You can even bring Karma. How old is he by the way, Chuuya?"

"He's just turned twelve."

"Yeah, it could work. Say you're dropping off our son. He's harassed me enough to know I'm trans."

"Oh please, I'm not that desperate to find out if you're okay. But he didn't drug you? Isn't going to turn you in? Didn't hurt you? Fyodor will kill me if anything happens to you right now."

"Oh please, he was busy with a concussion and I have a gunshot, there isn't much fighting, much less turning in, that either of us could do. Did you forget the Port Mafia is full of criminals? Why would a criminal risk turning in another criminal?"

"Be safe down there, dumbass."

"Be safe up there, smartass."

"Yeah, bye."

"Hm, treat our son well." He mocked, giggling when he heard Sigma groan in annoyance.

"Shut up, I hate you."

"Love you tooooo." He crooned as Sigma hung up. "Yeah, he hung up." He handed Chuuya's phone back.

"Yeah, sounds like me and Mackerel."

"Sounds like we get bonding time, boyfriend."

"Yeah, I guess. Boss gave me the day off for my head. I'm making breakfast. Any allergies?"

"No."

"Good." It felt oddly domestic, Nikolai kind of liked it. It wasn't fake feeling happy around Chuuya, after all. He rather liked him, actually. Oh, oh no. Nikolai felt a blush creep onto his face while Chuuya went to make breakfast and looked at Hime in panic.

"I think I like your dad." He whispered. Hime tilted her head in response, seemingly understanding but simply not caring. Nikolai calmed himself, he could work past this, he could ignore it.

"Here, since Hime won't let you up." Chuuya came back to the bed a bit later with two plates.

"Thank you."

"Hime, off." Chuuya picked her up with one hand and put her on the end of the bed. "You know you're actually pretty." Chuuya quietly told him once he was done.

"Huh?"

"You have something on your face." Chuuya told him louder.

"No, before that?"

"Nothing."

"No, you called me pretty."

"Well, I mean...yeah? You are, to be fair."

"I know that, just didn't think you'd flirt with me."

"Well, I mean, you're my partner for now. If I would take you to a gala where my coworkers were, surely we need to have been together a while. Our 'relationship' would probably be pretty serious. We need to be able to flirt."

"Want to practice kissing too?" He joked.

"If you're comfortable with it." Nikolai was sure his neck might've cracked with how quick he whipped his head to look at Chuuya.

"Are you trying to seduce me into information or something? Maybe get me to turn myself in? Keep me in one place? Did you call Ace while I was sleeping?" He fired off, glaring at him. This didn't feel like fake flirting for some fake relationship, it felt too real.

"No, none of that. I just...Look, you're pretty, we get along. I don't think I've felt this comfortable around someone in a while. I'm trying not to make you feel awkward but I think I like you and I'm trying not to let it complicate anything."

"Oh." Nikolai looked back to Hime standing staring at her owner, glaring. "I mean, it's not horrible. I feel that too. There's a connection." Nikolai sighed.

"So maybe we can turn the fake dating into real dating one day?"

"I say we go on a date tonight and see."

"That sounds great." Nikolai smiled at him.

"Now, about that kissing practice." Nikolai heard him laugh and got a kiss to his cheek.

"Forward."

"Oh please, we're not getting far in front of the cat." Nikolai laughed, pulling him in to kiss on the lips. He felt bubbly and a strange twinge of love in his chest. He was happy here with this stubby stringbean of a redhead and the cat lurking over them to monitor their interactions.

He got to go to Sigma in the Sky Casino after work on Monday and laze in his office bragging that he got a real boyfriend and an adopted child and endlessly claiming Karma was now his son and he would spoil him senseless.

Karma had quickly become Sigma's assistant, which meant Nikolai got to claim his son was the manager's assistant to the guards at shift change. He eventually got delivered to his own room once Sigma decided to go to bed. Karma hesitantly came to his room that night, quiet and knocking.

"What's up?" He asked, ushering him inside.

"Nightmare. I can't sleep."

"Tell Mama about it." He sat him on the bed, arm around him.

"When I was younger, before the Port Mafia, I was sold to a slave dealer. The things he did..." Nikolai tightened his arm.

"Hey, I get it. You know, me and Sigma were both trafficked too."

"You were?"

"Yep. Got sold to a circus."

"I got sold to the Port Mafia."

"Well, they can't get to you. I won't let them, neither will Sigma. Believe me, Sigma knows."

"But what if the Port Mafia finds out I've run away?"

"I'll protect you then."

"Why did you save me? By the way?" Ah, the difficult question.

"You know how I was originally a girl?" Karma nodded. "Well, when I was young, I got pregnant, but I lost the baby. My baby would be twelve this year too, just like you." He saw Karma look concerned.

"You lost the baby?"

"Yes, I didn't know yet and I got hurt and lost the baby." It didn't hurt as much to talk about, he noted, at least not yet.

"So I remind you of that baby?" Karma asked.

"Yes. In fact, you look a bit like my grandfather on my father's side as well. He had red hair and grey eyes."

"So you think of me like I'm the baby?"

"Not a replacement, certainly, I could never replace my child. A second chance, more like."

"And if I don't turn out to your expectations? Would you be disappointed?"

"What expectations? For you to be happy? Because that's my only expectation. I want you to be happy."

"That's all?"

"That's all." Karma gave a little smile.

"Thank you, Mom." Nikolai felt pride at the title, actually.

"Of course, son." He smiled back, ruffling through his kid's hair.

"I should go back to my room."

"Sleep here. You seem tired."

"But I'm not a little kid, I don't need to cry and run to my mother and hide here."

"Have you ever run to your parents after a nightmare?"

"No, I don't even remember them."

"Than humor me. I've never had a kid come running for comfort at night."

"Okay." Karma was probably more tired than he thought if he gave in that easily but Nikolai laid with him tucked up safely into his arms. He was proud, he thought his grandmother would be too.

He rather liked the direction he'd forced his life this time. He got a son and a boyfriend out of the failed mission and, sure, Fyodor was upset at the failed outcome, but he was perfectly happy reclaiming a family of his own.