#i really hope the crown keepers survive :)

[unjorts]

i am absolutely gnawing at the bars of my enclosure rn. on my cr c3 catch-up and i just finished ep 91 and 92 im LOSING IT !!!! that was so good but also ?? ???? crown keepers ???? my beloveds ?????? hello ?????????

if (key word: if) the crown keepers survive this i hope they meet with the bells hells :) i just think they're neat :)

idk fearne meeting morrighan who has a past intertwined/linked to morrigan the fatesticher ? i wanna get into /that/ fun little plot point. and the hells meeting opal ?? dorym reunion ?? better yet, the chetney-dorian reunion ?? ugh i can't wait,, it's gonna be a mess. i love these two adventuring parties with my entire heart. doomed-by-the-narrative groups are so ,, mwah. chefs kiss.

anyway speaking of doomed-by-the-narrative,, god that whole scene with fcg's sacrifice actually kinda fucked me up a lil. like,, i was already spoiled by twt notifs (through no one's fault but my own i completely forgot to mute them lmao) but BOY OH BOY DID IT NOT LESSEN THE EMOTIONAL IMPACT AT ALL. if anything it made the entire catch-up worse /pos

(the part in the shattered teeth where they were talking to jirana :( they were gonna have another therapy session :( AND FRIDA OH GOD :(((( love letters :( )

and you're telling me i have to wait?? until friday???? criminal offense, honestly. (i know they say thursday but ahaha asian moment)

[johnwickb1tsch]

The Night Nurse - Ch 9

A John Wick x Helen Fic

When nurse Helen Morgan is caught in the crossfire of a shootout and aids the injured John Wick, she’s faced with two options: serve the High Table, or be executed as a Witness. She tells herself her choice to work at the Continental has everything to do with survival, and excellent pay, and *not* her growing feelings for the Tall, Dark, and Handsome Assassin™ who got her into this mess in the first place, thank you very much. │ Masterlist / Chapter Map │

IX.

Helen made her way back to the guest bedroom, where John had placed her things. She had not mentioned it yet, but the sight of a massive bouquet of cheerful white Shasta daisies upon a side table swelled her heart to bursting. How had he managed it? She reasoned that he must have a house keeper to execute such things. The thought of him running after a house this size, vacuuming and dusting in between fulfilling contracts definitely made her grin.

She noticed his thoughtfulness had struck again in the bathroom, with artisan made soaps and bodywash that smelled like honey, rosemary, and looked like they had been extremely expensive. As she washed the grime of their lessons away she may have lingered a little extra long just to luxuriate a bit.

Not too long, though.

She was eager to get back to John, missing his company already.

She had it bad.

Maybe she should have kissed him earlier, when his arm had been wrapped around her waist like a band of steel. And yet, the older woman in her savored the slowly burning fuse between them, even if it was driving her a little mad. She knew from experience this was the sweetest part. The longing. The desire. The heavy looks and lingering touches. The honeymoon, as it were, when it seemed like the object of your devotion could do no wrong. She’d never been with anyone with whom that did not fade.

Maybe John would be the exception.

Maybe she really was losing her damn mind.

Fresh from the shower, she made her way to her bag. Maybe she’d exaggerated a little about the size of the first aid kit. There was a little something for everything within its confines; she liked to be prepared, and she felt like she’d packed just the right outfit for the moment. Maybe John would be so overcome by her beauty he would finally grab her up and kiss her—she snorted at the absurdity of the thought, even if, in the back of her mind, she kindled the hope.

John took a quick shower, careful of his new dressing, not wanting to displease Nurse Helen, although the thought of getting a rise out of her made the blood rush from his brain to a decidedly less helpful area. When she leveled him with that certain look…god. It made him want to grab her up and throw her down.

***

No, no, no, he scolded himself, looking down. Such thoughts were not helpful at all.

Maybe he would get a reward for being a good boy, and not wrecking the dressing.

The thought of that didn’t help either.

Exasperated with himself and his increasingly unhinged thoughts, he made his way to the kitchen, getting to work. He liked to cook. He found it relaxing, perhaps because he didn’t actually get the chance to do it all that often. Nights at home were a luxury in his business, and he intended to enjoy this one to the fullest.

He was prepping some asparagus crowns when Helen padded around the corner in a wide-necked ivory sweater dress that nearly cost him a finger. He paused in his chopping, his eyes all for her as she slid onto the stool across from him at the island.

“Can I do anything to help?” she asked with a sparkle in her eye that suggested she had an idea of what he was thinking as he looked at her. Little did he know, she was experiencing similar heart palpitations at the sight of him in his simple black button down, the open throat accenting the muscles of his chest to an utterly unfair advantage. Does he even know? she wondered. Somehow, she doubted it. Though he dressed well, he didn’t actually seem vain. Or if he was, he hid it better than any good-looking man she’d ever known.

“No,” John refused. “You’ve had a long day thanks to me. I insist you sit there, and look beautiful, and have a glass of wine if you would like one.”

She giggled at hearing that, propping her chin on her hand. “You’ve had a long day too, putting up with me.”

He started back on trimming the ends off of the asparagus, feeling that tell-tale heat blooming at his collar.

“I’ve had…a wonderful day, with you.” He looked up through his hair after he said it, dark-eyed and a little vulnerable. Helen felt her heart melt a little more for it.

“Me too,” she agreed quietly. “There’s never a dull moment with you, John.”

The corner of his mouth ticked. “I wouldn’t mind a few more dull moments. Or at least, quiet ones.”

“Are you...” She bit her lip. “Maybe I shouldn't ask you that.” 

“You can ask me anything,” he told her, and meant it. 

“Ok. Are you getting burnt out on your job?” 

He tilted his head, really thinking about it. It was all he'd ever known. He'd never even considered quitting, until meeting this woman, and daring to dream about what a life could be like outside the Underworld. 

“I've never actually liked my job,” he admitted. “But I never really had a choice either. Excelling at what I do was the only path to some semblance of freedom for me.” 

“And do you have to keep doing it? Just, indefinitely, forever?”

He sighed. He was so in demand, for Viggo, and those the Bratva boss lent him out to, for the right price. He couldn't imagine them ever letting him retire, even to a quieter post like Charon or Winston enjoyed. 

“I don't know,” he answered truthfully. The Impossible Task was a thing of legend among their kind. He'd never known of anyone who had come out from one alive. He'd considered it before, abstractly. Like something he might pursue when he finally needed one last challenge to cut the boredom. 

That was before he had something to lose. 

Pouring her a glass of red wine, he asked, “What about you? Is nursing what you've always wanted to do?” 

Helen accepted the glass of wine with a grateful smile. “I've been a caretaker for as long as I can remember. It seemed like a natural step, and it was a life line for my sister and I. We left Boston as soon as we could. We lived in the shittiest little apartment in the Bronx while I went to school, and waited tables, and Eve worked in a coffee house and sold her art. God...those days. I can't say I miss them. I was so grateful for my first shift after graduation. It was the first time since my father passed that I felt some sense of stability in my life. I felt, almost, safe.”

“Almost?”

“Almost.”

John found he despised the thought of Helen not feeling secure. It made him want to do something insane, like offer to take care of her forever.

“Hmm. I am going to start the grill, and then you are going to tell me what you like to do when you're not taking care of everyone else around you.” 

With a soft smile she watched him exit out the sliding glass doors to the patio beyond. She found that watching him doing the smallest things moved her. The poetry of his long-fingered hands, even when just chopping vegetables. Walking out a door. More preferably, walking towards her.

It felt alarmingly warm, and cozy.

It felt like... Oh no. Not yet. Leave that bastard of a four-letter word out for now. It only complicated things, unbearably so, in most cases. She just wanted to enjoy this, without jumping out of her skin, or thinking too much about the future.

It had always been her job to think about the future, and it was something that was hard to turn off.

When John returned, sliding the door closed behind him, he offered Helen a small smile that warmed her to her toes.

This man.

It really wasn’t fair.

She watched as he poured himself a glass of wine, inhaling deeply before taking a sip. “Is it alright?” 

“It's wonderful,” she complimented. “Thank you.” 

“My pleasure. Shouldn't be long on the grill. Are you hungry?” 

“Starving.” 

As she looked at him across the island, she knew she wasn't just talking about food. She just couldn't stop herself from looking at him like something she wanted to eat. She couldn't tell if he knew it, too, but those soulful dark eyes staring into hers warmed her from her heart to her toes, and everything in between. 

***

Helen sat at the head of the huge dining table, at John’s insistence. Rather than have a ridiculously removed meal with a league between them from opposite ends of the table, he set a place for himself to her right. She watched as he lit two taper candles in modern wrought iron sconces, smiling softly. “I’ve never had occasion to actually use these,” he confesses, and she wonders if that means he’d never had company here before?

John was a private man, and she supposed that just maybe it was possible.

The light outside the wall of windows was fading as night fell, and the candlelight lent a warm intimacy to the cavernous space around them. Half through her first glass of wine on an empty stomach, Helen was definitely feeling the glow.

Dinner was simple but delicious, the steaks grilled to perfection. She knew that she was perhaps reading into it more than she should, in her state of slight inebriation, but there was something rather primal about a man cooking a meal for a woman. It probably called back to vestigial memories of the hunter laying the kill of the day by the fire. I feed you. Maybe it was silly, but Helen couldn’t help but feel utterly cared for. It was refreshing, to say the least. She wasn’t sure she dared finish the rest of that archaic thought, but maybe in the back of her mind a little voice whispered the rest:  

I feed you, because you are mine.

John’s foot bumped hers under the table. Sitting so close, it was inevitable their mutually long limbs would become tangled. “Sorry,” he apologized, and she simply smiled into her wine glass, pointedly placing her foot over his.

“It’s alright,” she answered, and the warmth in his eyes from across the table sent a thrill through her bones.

“So,” said John, clearing his throat. “You were going to tell me what you like to do in your free time, when you’re not keeping everyone around you from falling to pieces.”

She laughed softly, and the sparkle in her molten-sugar eyes was utterly melting. Wine, John thought. They were definitely going to need more wine.

With a shrug she answered, “I’m not…really that interesting, John. You already know I like to read. I draw a little. I like walking in the woods, and on the beach. Maybe visit the occasional museum. Sometimes I like movies, but usually they’re just too dumb to invest the time these days.” She’s quiet for a moment. “Honestly, most of my life, I’ve been too busy taking care of someone else to have serious hobbies.”

He frowned, thinking he would give her all the free time in the world, if she would let him. He wanted to think that was just the wine talking, but…it wasn’t. He absolutely knew it wasn’t.

 “If you had all the time you wanted, what would you do?”

She pursed her lip, thinking about that, like it had never occurred to her that it could ever be a possibility. “You know, I took a printmaking class in college that I really liked. I always wished I could do that more, but…it takes room, and equipment, and it makes a big mess. But there was just something about the snap of pulling that first print after spending all the time on the prep work, drawing the design and carving the plate. No matter how well you tried to plan, there would always be some kind of surprise on the paper. Something unexpected and out of your control, but usually something beautiful. Like a happy cosmic mistake. I loved that.”

John stared at her as she described this, and for the umpteenth time that day, he thought she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. The subject of making art brought a light to her eyes that he found utterly addicting, and he wondered what it would take to outfit the other half of his binding workshop into a printmaking studio.

“When you make your first series of prints, I’ll bind them for you,” he offered, and she veritably glowed with the suggestion.

“That sounds amazing, John.” She leaned back in her chair, smiling across at him, seeming utterly content. “So how did you get into bookbinding?”

He shrugged a little. “I’ve always loved books. I didn’t get to have any formal schooling, really. They were my window to the outside world. I used to have to hide them, at the—” He almost said Theatre, but caught himself just barely. “At the place where I was trained.”

“Oh, John.” Helen reached across the table to him, sliding her fingers in his. He squeezed her hand appreciatively, grazing her knuckles with his thumb.

“It’s alright. When I was young I found this dogeared copy of Russian Fairy Tales by Afanasyev. It was old. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was actually rather valuable. I took it everywhere with me, all across the world, and over time the binding broke, the pages started falling out. After finishing a job and finally having a little money of my own, I took it to this bookshop to have it restored. The old man who owned it had this wonderful workshop. It smelled like leather and old parchment and glue, and for the first time since my mother was alive, I felt a sense of peace? I knew I wanted to learn how to save old books. To actually…create something, rather than just destroying all the time.”

He didn’t realize that his grip on Helen’s fingers had tightened, almost painfully so, until he’d finished speaking. He let up with a shaky sigh. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. Do you…”

“Go on.”

They had come too far, not to ask anything, now.

“Do you remember your mother?”

“A little,” he admitted. “Though more…a feeling, of being with her? I was very small. She would sing to me, and I remember being in her lap, and feeling like nothing could hurt me.” A bitter laugh escaped him. “How wrong I was.”

“She must have been an amazing woman, for your father to risk running away with her.”

John nodded pensively. The similarities in his own current situation had not escaped him. “Yes, I’m sure she was. But did he have the right, knowing the risk? Knowing the danger he put her in?” He could not mask the feeling behind these words; he knew they spoke in double meanings and of their parallel circumstances, and in a way he was asking her permission, and it was all so heady and terrifying he could hardly stand it.

How do people live like this, he marveled? Feeling so much, all the time?

“That’s a fair question,” agreed Helen, nodding. “But maybe more importantly, I think if you could ask her if he’d been worth the risk…if you had been worth the risk…I think I know what she would have said. I am certain she would have said yes.”

Her eyes met his, the candlelight reflecting in those caramel orbs almost rendering them gold, and it took every iota of self-control John possessed not to drag her into his lap. Instead he settled for pressing his lips to her knuckles, so grateful for this woman who brought such light into his life.

“I don’t deserve you.”

“Yes, you do,” she answered quietly. “And it’s not about who deserves what, anyway.” It was about two people who like each other, who understand the risks, and who make a decision to be together—or not. She didn’t say that part aloud. She hoped she didn’t need to.

A few moments more, and John managed to regain his composure, though he didn’t let go of Helen’s hand. When he found his voice again, it came rough with emotion.

“Would you like to see my books?”

She smiled, and it was like the sun from behind a cloud.

“Yes.”

[popcornpoppin]

Familiar feeling - f. o.

pairing: Finnick Odair x fem!reader

word count: 1.7k+ (sorry that it´s so short)

warnings: s m u t (18+ only!!!!!), swearing

a/n: In this scenario Finnick has won the hunger games but he doesn’t get used by Snow in that way - bc our boy has suffered enough. I´m rewriting history ok. I liked the idea of this prompt but idk how I feel about it now that I´ve actually written it out, but nevertheless I´m posting it before I go insane looking at it. Dedicating this to my fave Finnick lover @andvys​ <33&lt;/b>

You just barely managed to deflect Finnick´s blow to your shoulder. You hooked your foot around his making him fall to the ground but he was quickly on his feet again before you had the chance to grab him. You and Finnick had been training together like this since you were children, in case either of you were to be reaped for the games. Luckily for you your name was never pulled from that dreaded glass bowl, Finnick however wasn’t as lucky - getting reaped when the two of you were just 14. Against all odds he had won and been crowned as the youngest victor in hunger games history. You remembered the day he had won as clear as day. When he was the only one left standing you had collapsed in front of the screen and cried of happiness. You could never bring yourself to actually watch the games, always making your friends tell you if he was still alive - dreading the answer, except for the final day. You had high hopes for him, you knew of his fighting talent first hand after all but there was still this nibbling feeling in the pit of your stomach that something might go wrong. Waiting for him to return to district 4 was pure torture, all you wanted was to see him in the flesh - to really convince yourself that he had survived. The second he had stepped onto the train platform in district 4 during his victory tour, you had jumped over the security railings - ignoring the peace keepers´ protests - and ran over to him to envelop him in a tight hug. You hadn´t stopped crying from the moment you saw him on that platform until he spent the night beside you, making sure you were okay and reassuring you that he was in fact there in front of you and that he was safe now. 

That was 5 years ago and you were now too old to be reaped but still your daily training sessions with Finnick continued. It was a habit at this point and you never really knew what kind of shit president Snow would pull. Especially with the existence of the quarter quell every 25 years, where all rules seemed to be out of the window. If Snow could force someone to fight double the amount of tributes, there was no limit to what he would make someone do to prove some sort of point.

The two of you continued trying to attack the other and avoid the other´s attacks. It was like a dance at this point, a routine you had to get through before one of you emerged victorious. You used all your might to try and land another punch to his body but Finnick was quicker than you. He easily caught your wrists in his hand and pinned your entire body to the floor. 

“If you want to win, you´re going to have to be less obvious.” He laughed, smirking down at you. He always was a bad winner and would tease you about it constantly when he won.

However his cockiness was his downfall because it made him distracted enough that you managed to summon all your strength and flip him over so that you were now the one on top, straddling him. Finnick might've been stronger than you but you were sneakier and more sly than he was. Using your weight and pressing down against him to keep him down, you were making it impossible for him to move - no matter how much he struggled against you. Now it was your turn to grin down at him, the roles reversed. His reaction took you by surprise - he was smiling up at you with that beautiful smile of his, impressed. You were about to laugh happily at the fact that you´d managed to win but the laugh died in your throat when you felt something beneath you - was Finnick getting hard?

Your eyes shot to his instantly and as he looked into your eyes his smile dropped completely, as realization dawned on him. Suddenly you were just staring at each other, neither of you moving or saying a word. You could feel his still very present bulge under you and you didn't dare to move an inch because of what that might do. Finnick seemed to have the same idea, knowing that if he tried to move you off him his crotch would rub against you. There were butterflies pooling in your stomach and you seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. His seagreen eyes bore into yours, trying to read your mind. Carefully and slowly you leaned down closer and closer to his face. His breathing hitched and his eyes frantically flickered between yours. Yours on the other hand flickered between his eyes and his lips, trying to coax his reaction before you eventually pressed your lips to his. His eyes closed, enjoying the kiss and softly kissing you back. Slowly you started grinding your crotch against his bulge. The moan you got in response made your heart skip a beat.

As your kissing started to grow more heated and hungry his hands moved to your hips, rocking you against him. A loud guttural moan tore out of you, making you blush as your eyes shot open to see his reaction. He was smirking widely up at you, enjoying the view of you on top of him. 

“You´re so beautiful, so so beautiful” he murmured as his hand cupped your face and stroked your cheek before his thumb came to rest on your bottom lip, slowly moving it into your mouth.

You held his eyes as you started swirling your tongue around his thumb and sucking on it, moving your mouth up and down as if you were giving him a blowjob. He groaned at the sight, feeling his cock pulsing under his training tights.

When you slowly shimmied further down he pouted a bit before realizing what you were doing. You pulled down his pants and boxers before quickly removing your own pants and underwear. Kissing your way up his thighs and stomach you lined yourself up over his rock hard, throbbing cock. 

“Wait-” he started, making you pause “Are you sure you want this?” He asked, looking up at you with a genuine look.

“Yes” you whimper.

When he knew you were 100% sure that you wanted this as much as him, he slowly placed his hands on your hips again, gripping them tightly. With the support of his hands you lowered yourself down on him. The two of you moaning in unison at the feeling. He felt so good, filling you up completely.

“Fuck you´re tight sweetheart” he swore, rubbing circles into your hips as you started rocking against him. Your walls clench around him as he meets your movements, thrusting into you. “God you're absolutely soaked. Don´t stop, you´re doing so well for me love”

You blushed heavily at his words, getting spurred on to bounce even faster on him. Loving how his touch felt on your body you removed your tank top and your bra, before taking his hands and moving them from your hips to your breasts so he was cupping them. His hands felt so warm against your skin as he started roughly massaging and kneading your breasts, making you close your eyes and lean back in pleasure.

“Look at me sweetheart” he rasped. You whimpered and met his eyes again, once green they were now dark and full of lust,  his pupils fully dilated. 

He met your bounces with thrusts of his own, hitting that sweet spot deep inside of you. It was better than anything you'd ever felt before. It felt safe and natural with him, as if he knew your body as well as you did.

“Fuck I´ve dreamt of doing this with you ever since I learned what sex was” he moaned, thrusting even harder into you.

“Me too” you panted, bouncing on him faster as you approached your high. His cock twitched at your words sending shock waves into your body. He slowly dragged one hand down from your breasts to your slit and started rubbing circles on your now swollen and very sensitive clit. A loud whine left your lips at the sensational feeling, making him groan in response. Moving two fingers down your cunt he coated them in your juices, before moving them to his lips and into his mouth. He held your eyes as he lapped it all up.

“You taste so heavenly baby” he moaned before moving both of his hands to your ass, squeezing it roughly before gripping it and slamming you down on him even harder

You cried out his name as the burning sensation in your stomach overcame you and you came undone on top of him, he helped bounce you on top of him as you rode out your high and he chased his own. A particularly loud moan of his name falling from your lips tipped him over the edge. He busted into you, filling you to the brim, his cum coating your walls that were clenching around him. 

“You did so well baby” he praised, lifting you off of him.

You slumped down exhausted next to Finnick on the floor mat. The room was completely silent except for the two of you trying to catch your breath. Suddenly the silence was broken by Finnick laughing loudly before declaring “This is unbelievable”

“What do you mean?” you asked, turning your head to look at his side profile.

He turned his head from looking up at the ceiling so that he was now looking back at you “Apparently we’ve both had crushes on each other since we were pre-teens and it took us nine years to do something about it” 

“Yeah you’re right” you laughed, turning your head to look up at the ceiling again, before a sly smirk grew on your face “And you know I might have never found out how you felt about me if it wasn't for me feeling your-” Finnick quickly rolled over on his stomach and covered your mouth with his hand before you could say the last word of your sentence. You tried to squirm away but he quickly climbed on top of you, keeping you in place, making you laugh even more beneath him. Eventually he couldn´t contain his laughter either.

You could get used to this.

[butterflydm]

wot reread: crossroads of twilight (chap 21 - end)

spoilers through crossroads of twilight

Current book ranking (strongest to weakest): The Fires of Heaven; Lord of Chaos; The Shadow Rising; The Dragon Reborn; The Path of Daggers; Winter’s Heart (standalone); A Crown of Swords; The Great Hunt; the Eye of the World; Winter’s Heart (series); Crossroads of Twilight.

This really is the book of Everyone Reacts To One Scene From Winter’s Heart. It’s easy to see how so much of this could get cut away for the TV show. Honestly, Jordan could have used the prologue for four quick scenes of Our Mains reacting to what Rand and Nynaeve did, and then moved on to the next story beat. Even Elayne’s chapters, which I enjoyed, didn’t have much plot movement in them. She visits one of her loyal lords, has a couple of meetings, and gets a prenatal exam. Could easily happen in a handful of scenes in a single episode of the show. Perrin and Mat’s storylines are even worse. Nothing happens in Mat’s early run of chapters - he has a conversation with Egeanin, endures a temper tantrum from Tuon, and then talks to the Aes Sedai but nothing happens. Perrin at least learns where Faile is in his early chapters. Egwene is really the only person who moves the story forward at all the first two-thirds of this book and even she takes a few chapters of dithering before she acts.

It’s funny, when S1 of WoT aired, I was like, oh, yeah EotW is definitely the weakest of the books. And now I’m just... no. I was so wrong. What a fool I was.  Anyway, on to Knife of Dreams (my current plan is to read New Spring after KoD). Let’s see if KoD can make it above EotW. Though I am, by this point, pretty certain that none of the remaining books are going to get anywhere near my beloved TFoH-LoC-TSR trilogy. That was a good run. I hope we spend an entire season on each of those books, I really do.

1. Okay, we are over in the White Tower with Alviarin. Alviarin notes that the Black Ajah has been part of the White Tower “since it’s founding”. Yikes. Apparently, Alviarin was off to visit Tremalking. It is really starting to get on Alviarin’s nerves, being Mesaana’s errand girl. I wonder if Lanfear will get Mesaana’s plot-bits in the show. Because I don’t believe it looked like she made the cut of the 8 Forsaken who made it into the show -- four men and four women and we saw Lanfear, Moghedien, Graendal AND Semirhage all there, I think, so yeah, I think she’s been cut. So Lanfear makes the most sense and she does pop into the Tower briefly in TDR.

3. “With the Chosen, grovel and obey was the only way to survive.” I really do feel like you could say the exact same thing about Seanchan society, just with ‘Blood’ subbed in for ‘Chosen’. Why did Jordan choose to make them so similar? I hate that I will never know the answer to this question lol. Anyway, Alviarin is a Darkfriend because she wants to live forever.

4. As she heads back through the Tower proper, Alviarin notes how silent it all is, even more than she would expect. And when she walks into Elaida’s offices to find information out of her, she is shocked to see that Elaida is meeting with more than half of the Sitters in the Hall, as she had believed that she had Elaida thoroughly cowed. Elaida then orders her to stand in the corner until there’s time to talk to her. Alviarin obeys, worrying that Elaida has figured out that Alviarin is Black Ajah and is about to reveal it.

5. And so Alviarin learns that the rebel army is at their very doorstep and the Sitters in the Hall are considering the offer of negotiation. Elaida’s terms are just as all-or-nothing as Egwene’s - the Blue Ajah is forever disbanded and everyone who followed Egwene must serve a penance before any can be re-admitted to an Ajah.Then the Sitters are dismissed and Elaida lets Alviarin know that she was removed as Keeper in her absence, as she should have been present during such important events as this. Alviarin has officially lost her place of power behind Elaida for good.

6. In an aside, I think this is the first time we hear about the “standing flows” that existed in the Age of Legends, that were a way for even non-channelers to use ter’angreal. Alviarin can’t imagine why anyone would bother doing that, because she is very selfish. Anyway, she uses a ter’angreal gifted to her by Mesaana to call for a meeting of great urgency. Mesaana doesn’t take Alviarin’s warning seriously even though Alviarin has managed to come up with the correct conclusion (there is a Black Ajah hunt happening) with the wrong input (she thinks Elaida believes she is Black Ajah rather than a PERSONAL traitor). She’s about to punish Alviarin when Tall Fade shows up.

7. Oh, Hand of the Shadow is pissed off at Mesaana for not showing up at the cleansing fight. He touches Alviarin’s forehead and ‘marks’ her as his, telling her she will get no punishment from Mesaana. Then he orders Alviarin to figure out who is hunting the Black Ajah in the White Tower, and she leaves as Mesaana is ‘punished’ for not showing up at the battle in WH.

8. Hopping over sideways in the White Tower, we now move to Pevara. She’s having a talk with Tarna (who is the person who was sent to Salidar to talk to them, way back in... LoC, I think?). Tarna is the one who was raised to be Elaida’s new Keeper, now that Alviarin has been ousted. Pevara, of course, is worrying over whether or not she’s Black Ajah. This is a very interesting conversation. And we get a little more background on some of Pevara’s family that was murdered by Darkfriends at least a century ago. I like the way Pevara’s thoughts on her past are written here.

9. On Tarna’s journey back to the White Tower from Salidar, she happened to be in a village that was visited by an Asha’man recruiting party (this makes her wonder how far the Dragon’s ta’veren reach goes). Tarna tells Pevara that she believes that the Red Ajah should take Asha’man as Warders. There are too many of them to gentle them and their reach spreads too far, due to Traveling. The reason that she came to Pevara is because Pevara has been known to support the idea that Reds should have Warders. Pevara reveals to Tarna that she was sent a missive from Toveine (implied: revealing that she was bonded by Logain), which Pevara says will change the world.

10. We are now finally checking in with Rand’s storyline again, but we are in Cadsuane’s PoV and she still constantly thinks of him as ‘the boy’. It would be easier for me to believe that she really wanted to help him if she could think of him using his name more often! They are in an estate in Tear, a day’s ride from the Spine of the World. As Verin is talking to Cadsuane, Min bursts in, apparently having been listening at the door. Note that when Rand does something that Cadsuane feels is rude, she gives him open set-downs and tells him to be more polite but when it’s Min, Cadsuane is just passive-aggressive instead. I guess Min is her spy on Rand, so it behooves her to be a little bit nicer to her. She asks if Min has had any viewings she wants to tell Cadsuane about but Min is actually here as Rand’s errand girl, to let Cadsuane that he is asking to see her.

11. Cadsuane ponders how annoying it is that she has to actually, ugh, GIVE ADVICE to the person that she agreed to advise. The person that she has told us that she wants to teach ‘laughter and tears’ to. Verin acts like she is going to follow Cadsuane to Rand, but then Nesune shows up and draws Verin off for conversation. Cadsuane ponders how odd it is to see people who are on opposite sides of the White Tower split chat peacefully now that they’re both oathsworn to Rand. Lan is here in the estate, which means that Nynaeve likely is too, though she hasn’t been mentioned yet. Ah, she’s mentioned three pages later as watching Lan at his sparring. Cadsuane certainly is taking her sweet time going to see Rand. She also takes her time to (internally) diss Nynaeve for still having passionate reactions to things and not being a model of Aes Sedai calm.

12. Oh, wow, Rand awarded Narishma his Dragon pin and Merise took it away from him. So Narishma is upset and frustrated at her for shitting on his accomplishments and acting like he doesn’t count as an equal. I think she’s also the one who snapped her fingers at her Warder/Asha’man to make him go stand in a corner? “Jahar, he is still at the stage where he has to learn to accept only what I say he can.” Wow wow wow. Hate this. So Merise believes that bonding Narishma as her Warder means he’s not allowed ANY kind of separate life or accomplishments outside of what is given by her hand. I’m pretty sure that when she asked Narishma to become her Warder she did NOT make all this clear. He didn’t go through the Warder training! This was not informed consent! He obviously didn’t realise he was giving up everything else in his life by saying ‘yes’ to her! Cadsuane finds it worrying that Merise is actually considering giving Narishma BACK the pin because “Aes Sedai order and Warders obey”. I will be Keeping An Eye on developments here, but I’m not super-happy with how Merise is treating Narishma.

13. Alivia has appointed herself Rand’s new guard and is sitting outside his chambers. No matter how hard Rand tries, he literally cannot escape the fact that women are people and can make the choice to willingly risk their lives for a cause, the same as men. Cadsuane notes that Min dislikes Alivia but that she doesn’t think it’s jealousy, exactly. Cadsuane has seen Alivia and Rand exchanging glances, with determination on Alivia’s side and hope on Rand’s, but this is one secret that she had not been able to get out of Min (probably because Min is worried Cadsuane might be on Rand’s side lol). The other person guarding Rand right now is Elza (we know she’s a Darkfriend but Cadsuane & everyone else does not).

14. Cadsuane notes that Min has “finely honed instincts” of jealousy that make her snarl at anyone she thinks is horning in on her territory with Rand. Despite being the person in Rand’s bed, despite the bond, Min remains so completely insecure about her place in his life. I feel like that’s probably related to how much this version of her is a facade -- SHE knows that she’s faking almost everything about herself in order to appeal to Rand and part of her is worried that he will see past her dolled-up appearance and her desire to please and see the real her and reject that person in favor of someone who is ‘naturally feminine’ in the ways that Min does not believe that she personally is. Especially since she is aware that Rand is attracted to and in love with other women, even as he shares her bed. Because Min is pretty obviously just as monogamous as Perrin is and is easily driven to jealousy and insecurity and this relationship doesn’t make her feel satisfied and secure. And again, one of the tragedies in all this is that Rand was already attracted to Min before she changed herself for him. And one of the biggest ironies is that Min is only sharing him by her own active choice, even though it makes her miserable (because Rand was totally planning to come and go from Caemlyn without talking to Elayne or Aviendha at all). So all of Min’s unhappiness is something that she caused herself. Which has a lot of narrative irony but I feel like the narrative never actually... notices this?

15. Cadsuane notices that Rand is staggering a bit as if injured and... sort of worries about it? In her way. We are reminded in the narration that Min also let Cadsuane know that Rand believes that he needs her to teach him something. Rand is worrying over the Seanchan. They’ve been fighting among each other for a thousand years and it has honed their instincts for battle (similarly to how the Three-Fold Land honed the Aiel, I imagine Rand is thinking). We also learn that Rand has been talking a lot with Alivia about the Seanchan. I’d have MUCH rather gotten Rand and Alivia’s conversations about the Seanchan than that fawning chapter we got about baby!Tuon.

16. Before Rand can get to the part where he wanted Cadsuane’s advice, their meeting is interrupted. Maybe Cadsuane should have gone directly to see Rand when he asked her to visit instead of wandering around the manor idk. Anyway, some of his oathsworn Sisters have come to tell him that their Warders are abruptly a LOT closer than they used to be.

17. Later, Rand is lying on his bed with his boots on the covers. Moiraine did that in the show. <3 lol

18. Min punches Rand in the ribs again. I hate this relationship. She’s always ‘gentle’ with his unhealable wounds but apparently the rest of him is fair game at all times.

19. lol, Rand thinks about how Min is “good at reading his mind” and it just makes me think of pages and pages of her being absolute SHIT at having any idea of what he was thinking. She doesn’t have a clue how his mind works. Rand really does think that Min knows him so much better than she actually appears to, when we’re in her PoV chapters. Also, I note that Rand is still doing everything he can to hide his vulnerability/pain from Min. As much as I liked the bonding in Winter’s Heart, I’m frustrated at how little it seemed to actually affect Rand or his storyline at all.

20. The people who brought the Warders are Logain & his group (Asha’man and bonded Aes Sedai), plus Bashere & some of his soldiers.

21. Min currently appears to be actively TRYING to stoke Rand’s paranoia? No wonder I assumed it was SUPPOSED to be a bad sign that Rand was resting all his emotional support on her, back when I first read the books. She’s so bad for him! This is a bad relationship! Yet... yet I’m not sure whether or not Jordan was aware of that. Anyway, Min is panicking about Logain’s aura of glory and wondering if that means he’s going to try to displace Rand; she’s worried about seeing something ‘dark’ around Bashere, and fretting about rumors that Lord Dobraine might die. Luckily Rand actually seems to be better at shrugging off her panic than he was back in Lord of Chaos. I think maybe the Alivia viewing was the turning point there -- Min wants him to cut Alivia out of his life entirely because of the viewing and he refuses, because he thinks being ‘helped to die’ is a good thing and, besides, Min’s viewings are inevitable, so no point in fighting them. He basically tells her just that. “If you’ve seen it, then it’s going to happen.”

22. Yikes. When Min finds out Loial has arrived, we get this. “I could have killed Rand for letting you get off to your room before I saw you.” The bond said she did not mean it. Not exactly. Um. Yikes? I’m pretty sure this is supposed to be more ‘lol women, amIright?’ nonsense but... yikes.

23. I’m also trying to remember the history of the Loial and Min relationship, because they seem very close here. Loial did come to Caemlyn with Perrin, so Min would have met him at that point, but I do not remember the text making a big out of them becoming friends before Loial went off again with Karldin. Eh, it won’t be the last time Min is magically friends with someone, I guess.

24.  Yeah, Rand still tries to avoid having anyone (including Min) see him grab hold of saidin, due to the dizziness. So that hasn’t changed as a result of the bond. He still doesn’t want to actually be vulnerable in front of anyone, including the people he loves and trusts. But, yeah, at this point, Rand is just trying to make himself last long enough to die at the Last Battle.

25. Rand notes that he keeps thinking in Lews Therin’s turns of phrase and not his own, and tries to remind himself how he needs to think about things in his own head. I wish he felt like he could talk to someone about this. I really wish. I wish he had someone with him who was actually trying to help him in a way that didn’t seem to be about trying to make him MORE paranoid and worried. *sigh*

26. LOIAL notices immediately that Rand looks tired and Min is instantly defensive about it and saying that Rand IS resting, which Rand takes as her being protective of him. I, uh, don’t have as charitable as an interpretation as Rand does, unfortunately. I’ve noticed in other PoVs that Min doesn’t really seem to notice when Rand is tired or dizzy, etc. even when other characters do, so I think she’s feeling defensive because she didn’t NOTICE that Rand was tired and so Loial pointing it out makes her feel inadequate.

27. Rand is too tired to sit and too tired to sleep. :-(

28. Only some of the stedding agreed to watch the Waygates, which is naturally worrisome. But Loial did his best. He also lets us know that there’s a grand meeting of all the Elders, The Great Stump, but Loial doesn’t know what the meeting is about because he is too young for people to be willing to tell him. So nine Waygates have been left unguarded.

29. I do want to note here that Rand thinks - “Rand knew he was feeling his way in the dark when it came to women, even Min -- maybe especially Min” - which is a far cry from how he USED to think about her as the one non-confusing woman in the world.

30. We cut to Cadsuane being the one to react to finding out that the Asha’man bonding the Aes Sedai who had been sent to the White Tower to gentle them. We also learn that Cadsuane IS capable of being nice to someone when she knows for certain that “the stick” absolutely won’t work with them, but it’s also clear that the stick is her first instinct and she’ll only move to being encouraging if she’s absolutely convinced that harshness won’t do the job.

31. Ah-HA. Rand IS upset about the Black Tower people bonding the Aes Sedai, though he feels like he can’t ask them to undo it at this point, given how the Aes Sedai reacted when he asked them to release their bonds on the Asha’man. I knew he would be upset. Anyway, Rand and Logain’s relationship is not getting off to the best of starts here. Rand is swearing so much here that it really makes me miss Mat. Real Mat, not CoT!Mat.

32. Logain lets Rand know that Taim is giving out a LOT of orders that he is letting people believe are coming straight from Rand and he is, honestly, all but begging Rand to take the Black Tower in hand. And there really isn’t a good reason why Rand is refusing (except that Jordan didn’t want him to handle it yet for Plot Reasons). I really am feeling the creaky hands of the Plot Strings SO much harder in these recent books than I felt them in the earlier ones. People keep doing things for no good reason other than The Plot Needed It or refusing to do things for no good reason because It’s Not Time For That Plot Yet. Logain even tells Rand that Taim’s put the three Asha’man who travel with Rand on his deserters’ list. “No matter what you’ve done, it’s time to turn your eyes to the Black Tower before Taim splits it worse than the White Tower is.”

33. Rand’s philosophical musings are turning very pessimistic, fatalistic, and grim. Anyway, he tells Logain that Taim has to wait but doesn’t actually give a reason why. Literally, there’s nothing keeping Rand from going and dealing with this? His next plan is to send people off to try to set up a meeting with Seanchan for him, so, in other words, he’s just gonna wait around and do nothing for a while. He absolutely had time to go try to at least scout out the Black Tower and feel its vibes for himself.

34. Three chapters of Perrin. The summary:

Faile has now been gone for 32 days, so it’s been a week (ten days) since his last set of chapters.

Berelain deserves to be Rand’s Steward in Cairhien! Not trapped in this plotline! #BerelainDeservedBetter

I also wish Sulin were over in Rand’s plotline instead of Perrin’s. We literally never got an in-story reason for why the Maiden who was most closely bonded to Rand was the one who left with Perrin.

Aram has grown so touchy and easy to set off that Perrin is leaving him behind. Perrin is such a bad leader who never pays any attention to the people following him; I don’t know why the narrative keeps telling me he’s a natural ruler.

I can’t believe that Perrin is STILL (internally) being a dick about Wil al’Seen being a pretty man who is attractive to women. He’s been a soldier under your command for SEVEN BOOKS, please get over your youthful envy of him omg he literally follows your every order.

I’ve talked about this with @markantonys but Perrin’s thing about hating when men smile is SO WEIRD. Let men smile, Perrin! Not everyone is a gloomy gus. I honestly have to wonder what Perrin’s opinion of Mat would be if they met up again, because he kinda seems to hate men who behave similarly to Mat. Mat is 100% a charmer who likes to smile.

A sighting of a raken in the distance freaks out everyone but Perrin, who is dismissive of the Seanchan because they aren’t Faile.

Perrin’s people try to resupply in Sto Habor but all the grain is infested with weevils. There are ghosts in this town too, like Elayne had at the start of her storyline. The Aes Sedai ask him to leave one of them behind to help the town but he refuses, because Sto Harbor isn’t Faile.

Perrin reminds himself that he would do anything to get Faile back, chops off a man’s hand and threatens him to prove it to himself and then decides to make a deal with the Seanchan. “Yes, that would be like taking the Dark One’s help,” he thinks, and then he asks Tallanvor to tell him more.

Tallanvor (who brought the news of the Seanchan) also says he would be cool making a deal with the Dark One to get Morgase (’Maighdin’) back. Yeah, my first guess was wrong and Perrin is DEFINITELY the left hand that strays from the opening quote. Mat is on thin ice, don’t get me wrong, but he’s not yet in ‘would be willing to make a deal with the Dark One if he offered’ territory. Now would have been the perfect time for one of the Forsaken to go after Perrin. He absolutely was ripe to be turned to the Shadow at this moment in time. He’s thought both about how he would forsake Rand and the Last Battle for Faile in this book and now he’s thinking about trying to make a deal with someone he considers as bad as the Dark One.

35. Back to Mat. In his earlier chapters, the themes that Winter’s Heart told us would matter: the sul’dam secret, Seanchan characters questioning the empire, and Tuon being a dormant marath’damane, all had yet to come up in any way in the narrative. Instead we just focused on Mat navel-gazing about his marriage prophecy and not caring about slavery as much as he had the previous week. So, hopefully something actually relevant will happen in this upcoming Mat stuff.

36. They finally leave the outskirts of the city and it’s a rainy hellscape and Mat is glumly miserable. We get a montage of Mat ‘courting’ Tuon. It is painful even to skim through. Mat is making himself so pathetic for her and for no good reason. He is really Min 2: Electric Boogaloo, forcing himself into love with someone that he knows nothing about and has nothing in common with Because Destiny Says So. At least Min forces herself to fall in love with an actual good person and not a slaver. She doesn’t seem to actually APPRECIATE any of Rand’s good qualities (except the physical ones) but at least he actually HAS them. And the dice in Mat’s head have been getting so overused since Tuon showed up. I’m just... either annoyed or bored during most of Mat’s PoV this book and it makes me sad. Reading Mat’s PoVs used to be a delight and now they’re a chore.

37. On the plus side, Tuon is SUCH an incredibly petty asshole to Egeanin here for absolutely no reason that it looks like it may have reactivated at least part of Egeanin’s spine. Tuon literally renamed her because she felt like flexing her power and being a jerk to someone. Egeanin is the only character in this entire storyline who has gotten interesting character development so far this book.

38. Mat does still consider marrying Tuon to essentially be a terrible doomed fate (”when you knew you were going to hang, the only thing to do was grin at the noose” is very similar to a Birgitte quote). Yet he’s staying anyway. *sigh*

39. Oh thank fuck something relevant actually happened in Mat’s storyline. I mean, Egeanin got stabbed, so that sucks, but something actually happened that wasn’t just Mat deciding to roll over for a slaver.

40. We learn from Domon that Renna stabbed Egeanin in the back and then took off running. Teslyn heals Egeanin and absolutely no one says ‘thank you’ to her (#TeslynDeservedBetter). And Egeanin shares the secret about the sul’dam, that Renna, Seta, and Bethamin had all been leashed once, that she suspects any sul’dam is capable of channeling. Teslyn, Selucia, and Tuon all overhear. My eyes roll as Mat has a chance to leave Tuon behind but decides to keep the slaver around because she has ~mysterious eyes~. This is worse than when Jordan had Rand ignoring every red flag about ‘Selene’ back in TGH.

41. Anyway, we finally leave the circus, unfortunately still saddled with the slaver and her devoted slave, to chase after Renna before she can alert the Seanchan as they are worried that she might. They spot her before she reaches the garrison. She’s too far to catch but not too far to shoot with a crossbow, so Mat gives the order. And, annoyingly, just like with Rand, women are ~special~ and Mat swears that he’ll never let a woman die because of him again after this. Honestly, I suspect this is part of why Jordan turned towards the idea of making allies out of the Seanchan -- a. because they are an enemy that is predominately female in the 'known characters' due to the ‘character casting’ choices he made and he has SUCH a hard time killing female villains compared to male villains. and b. He would much rather enslave his female characters than kill them and in order for him to keep doing that, Jordan needs the Seanchan to continue to exist as a slaver culture, so that there’s a place to put the Bad Women.

42. ...and we’re back at the circus, at least for now, except now Tuon is openly placing the circus under her protection as ~High Lady Tuon~ so she will probably be even more insufferable and even more of an asshole next book. Well, that felt pointless. Mat also feels like everything was pointless, but he’s at the hysterical laughter stage of his “walking to my own doom” storyline. It’s so sad that I’m actually relieved that Mat’s plotline for the book is done and I can read someone else’s PoV.

43. As we end Mat’s section, slavery check-in.

Characters who were previously strongly anti-slavery in WH:

Mat, Setalle Anan, Juilin, Noal, Teslyn, Joline, Edesina, Thom, Beslan

Characters who inexplicably softened their anti-slavery stance in CoT:

Mat (knows sul’dam secret)

Setalle Anan

Noal

Anti-Slavery characters who haven’t changed their stance as far as we know:

Juilin (gold star for Juilin tbh)

Teslyn (knows sul’dam secret)

Joline

Edesina

Thom

Characters who are focused really only on their own personal freedom and not anyone else’s:

Renna, Seta & Bethamin (slaves if the Truth Were Known)

Domon (wants to be free to marry Egeanin)

We started strong with the sul’dam in WH, where they were questioning pretty much everything about what they knew about themselves and the empire, and now they’re just kinda... average horrible sul’dam again. Mat should have left them in Ebou Dar.

Characters who show signs of growth and change:

Egeanin (knows sul’dam secret)

Her breaking off the necklace and throwing it away? Wow! Literally the only worthwhile thing that happened in chapter 28. Her parts of chapter 29 were pretty much the only interesting things in that chapter as well.

These characters remain strongly pro-slavery:

Tuon (dormant marath’damane & now knows sul’dam secret)

Tuon questions literally nothing about herself and any of her assumptions about the world; this entire book has been a waste of time with regards to her character. The ending does set up the ~possibility~ that maybe we’ll see some character growth next book but so far Tuon is all hat, no cattle. Winter’s Heart ALSO implied that there would be character growth ~next book~ but it didn’t happen.

Characters in this storyline that I currently care about:

Egeanin, Joline, Edesina, Teslyn, Juilin, Thera. Maybe Thom.

44. We don’t have much of the book left, but we are back with Egwene! We learn that there has been another saidin-based murder of another Blue sister (Aran’gar’s work). This time, the person who was killed was one of the people Egwene was planning to use for Her Plan. We also learn that Nicola ran away four days ago, but her fellow novices covered up for her... because they disliked her and were afraid she’d be found and brought back.

45. Oh! We learn that Egwene DID share one of her prophetic dreams with people -- she told the sisters about the Seanchan attack she’d dreamed about (I can’t tell from context if this means all of the Aes Sedai with her or just her oathsworn sisters). I think it’s all the Aes Sedai Sisters. Hilariously, no one is taking it seriously because no one believes that she’s a Dreamer, possibly because of how she has never shared a prophetic dream before. This really is the opposite of Min’s storyline re: prophecy.

46. Hey, we finally learn the name of one of Egwene’s friends from back home (who, per TGH, were ‘allowed’ to dance with Rand because they wouldn’t try to steal him, and I was trying so hard to think of who on earth that would even be) - Larine Ayellin. It only took us 10 books, but we’ve got the name of one of Egwene’s childhood friends!

47. After talking over the issues that had been brought up earlier in the book with various Sitters, Egwene comes to a decision and sneaks out in the night, riding Bela rather than her own Daishar, with only Siuan aware that she’s left. She goes to where Bode has been set out on her secret mission and takes over for her (and I believe Leane is the other one on the secret mission). Anyway, we finally learn The Plan, which is turning the big harbor chains into cuendillar at night while they’re down, thus blockading the harbor without needing to bring in boats. She succeeds at her half of it... and then is caught, obviously betrayed by someone. I’m gonna guess by Nicola because... I mean, it fits her MO and she did just recently run away.

48. We end on a super-short epilogue. All of the major wounds that Rand has received still hurt, we learn. Not just the unhealable wounds in his side but the heron brands in his palms too. Oh, honey. Bashere has returned and tells Rand that the Seanchan are willing to meet with him -- but it needs to be in person and he will be meeting with a member of the royal family, the Daughter of the Nine Moons (and, of course, we know she’s too busy being an asshole in Mat’s storyline to actually be the person Rand will meet next book).

49. Mostly what reading CoT made me think about were several ways it could be improved. This was... a frustrating book. Honestly, I don’t think it’s out of character for Perrin to go seek out help from the slavers -- he’s pre-established as being ‘anything for Faile’ so he didn’t feel out of character. But so much of the book felt... pointless. And it essentially killed off one of my favorite characters, because CoT!Mat is NOT pre-CoT!Mat. I don’t know this guy and I don’t like this guy. Elayne and Egwene do all they can to hold up the book, but so much of it really is a miserable slog. I hope KoD is better but honestly, I suspect it will be Elayne and Egwene holding up the entire book again, and Perrin and Mat being miserable slogs again. But we’ll see. And after KoD, I’ll reread New Spring, and that one should be genuinely enjoyable at least.

Mat is mentioned by:

Rand x1

Unnecessary scenes in this section:

Perrin’s side quest (shaido): 1 (14 pages), 1 (17 pages), 1 (21 pages)

Mat’s side quest (tuon): 1 (31 pages), 1 (12 pages)

Tuon appears in 15 pages in chapter 28 and 23 in chapter 29.

Toy used:

8x in chapter 29

4x in chapter 29 (she doesn’t talk much in this one)

Tuon is a spoiled brat who is allowed to get away with anything she wants:

Forcibly renames Egeanin just to be an asshole.

When Mat gives her a gift, she gives it away in a manner calculated to be an asshole.

Mocks and humiliates Egeanin for no apparent reason other than to be an asshole (and I guess to push the limits and see what Mat will let her get away with, probably)

Demands that Mat take her shopping

Loads Mat up with all her purchases that she made on Mat’s gold

Tuon is now officially being feted and honored at Luca’s circus since they know she’s An Important Seanchan now

Tuon reminds us she’s a slaver:

Selucia, her slave, is still shadowing her everywhere

she talks about Mat needing to be trained in manners

is able to forcibly rename Egeanin because she has the power to do that in their culture due to being the Top Slaver

Egeanin is forced to kneel, kiss the floor, and beg leave to be permitted to withdraw

Tuon refuses to even speak to Egeanin directly, having Selucia (her slave) do it instead

She refuses to speak to Mat in the same scene, having Selucia speak for her. Since Selucia is speaking ‘for’ Tuon here, I am counting this usage of ‘Toy’ against Tuon

Threatens again to turn Mat into a slave

forbids Mat to mourn Renna because Mat is her hoped-for possession and not allowed his own feelings. I don’t want him to mourn Renna either but step off, lady.

Something from previous books is undermined (this is kinda my ranting section so skip if that doesn’t appeal):

Mat continues to treat both the Aes Sedai & the sul’dam as if they are ‘equally irritating’ and have ‘equally petty’ reasons for ‘annoying’ him, contributing to the idea that being a slaver isn’t a big deal. It’s even the SUL’DAM that Mat is giving apologetic looks to, even after they talk about how they want to leash the Aes Sedai again? WTF WTF WTF 

Mat acts like he’s baffled when Joline, Edesina, & Teslyn glare at him and not the sul’dam - yeah, they’re pissed that you’re treating slavers and their targets the same because you weren’t doing that LAST BOOK. I’d be pissed off too if the person who saved me was suddenly acting like he didn’t see any difference between me and the people who want to enslave me. They don’t expect the sul’dam not to act like trash but they expected better of you, Mat, because you were better last book.

Mat thinks of the a’dam and sul’dam as a lever to use against the Aes Sedai. Wow! Disgusting behavior! He thinks “Not that he really thought about putting those collars on the sisters again. Not often, anyway.” WTF? I kinda hate CoT!Mat. I adored this character only LAST BOOK and just hated that he was trapped in a trauma plotline. How did Jordan manage to completely ruin Mat in a single book?

Mat seems annoyed that Domon isn’t behaving like a good slave and sleeping on the floor, instead insisting that he and Mat trade off for the bed. Again! WTF!

Mat worries about the ‘bad habits’ that Olver might pick up from the Redarms or Thom, but has no qualms about him hanging out with slavers. He even approves of Olver bowing and making much of Tuon. Slavery is a pretty bad fucking habit, Mat.

Mat abruptly starts ‘courting’ Tuon in earnest, despite her giving him absolutely no reason to like her as a person and being open about her desire to potentially enslave him at some point. He lets her get away with being a jerk over and over and over again, despite being harsh with the Aes Sedai for much lesser irritations.

Setalle Anan is absolutely fine with Tuon acting like a slaver asshole in front of her and even is all “oh you silly man” in Mat’s direction when he’s baffled by Tuon’s behavior.

Somehow the entire Mean Girls (tm) event where Tuon and Selucia mock and humiliate Egeanin for absolutely no reason doesn’t make Mat decide not to court Tuon? wtf

Setalle Anan is now literally bodyguard to a slaver, willing to use her knife against people to threaten them to leave Tuon’s presence. What a massive comedown for this character, who was so strongly anti-slavery in Winter’s Heart.

When Mat finds out that Tuon has trained damane, he doesn’t think at all about how sickening he found the way that damane were treated in Winter’s Heart to be but instead treats it as a neutral statement about her hobbies; it makes him find her intimidating but he’s not disgusted by it like he would have been in Winter’s Heart. It has not been THAT LONG and yet Mat already barely cares about slavery, despite caring a LOT in Winter’s Heart.

Mat still appears to be in denial that Selucia is a slave, constantly calling her a “ladies’ maid”. This is kinda the one point where any kind of massaging Mat back into some semblance of actually being in character would hang, actually. Because he KNOWS that she’s a slave but persistently refuses to think of her as one, like if he just closes his eyes and pretends hard enough that Tuon isn’t a slaver, she’ll magically stop being one.

Despite very reasonably NOT considering an oath under duress to be binding in Winter’s Heart, Mat apparently considers accidental wedding vows to be binding??? You are not Seanchan; you have no reason to consider yourself bound by their customs unless you CHOOSE to be. Weddings! Aren’t! Magic! Spells! Why do I say this so often in these books!

Literally there is no point for the narrative to have removed Tuon from her power base in Ebou Dar because everyone still treats her like she’s in charge anyway. What is the point of this entire arc if it doesn’t actually impact Tuon’s character? ALL the circus arc has done so far is completely destroy Mat as a character. What the FUCK happened to Jordan in-between writing Winter’s Heart and writing Crossroads of Twilight? Seriously, even if that is when he decided to punt off all Seanchan-related development to the outriggers, there was no reason to assassinate Mat’s character this way. I’m so pissed off. It’s like being a slaver doesn’t even register as a negative to Mat anymore - he doesn’t even mention Tuon BEING A SLAVER in his list of things about her that he dislikes? wtf. Instead it’s all “oh dear, I might marry a noble” aka the kinds of worries that would make sense if he were fated to marry someone like ELAYNE, not someone like Tuon, who has much greater flaws than being a NOBLE.

When Tuon threatens again to turn MAT into a slave, he gets nervous about the idea but it doesn’t seem to impact his opinion of Tuon as a person??? She’s genuinely horrific (to him and others) in this entire section of the story and it doesn’t seem to impact his desire to ~win her over~ in any possible way? Like, dude, just fucking take a horse and abandon the circus. Take Olver with you and just leave.

And he’s just bafflingly all “oh women are so strange” about her threatening to enslave him. Mat, this has NOTHING to do with her being a woman. It’s because she’s a SLAVER. Also, absolutely mind-bogglingly, Mat thinks about how he needs to trust her. Literally right after she’s threatened to turn him into a slave. ????  We do get that echo of his ancient memories reminding him that trust is the sound of death but it doesn’t go anywhere, so whatever.

You would think that after one of the sul’dam stabs Egeanin and tries to run away, Mat might rethink some of his weird “oh the Aes Sedai and the sul’dam are both just equally annoying sets of people” trains of thought but this does not appear to happen.

When Mat learns that sul’dam can channel, all his focus is on “oh no my future wife can channel” and his tactical military mind seems to have taken a vacation? The fact that the sul’dam can potentially channel is a huge deal with regards to the Seanchan empire, yet this barely seems to cross Mat’s mind?

And, honestly, I don’t even feel like the whole “the prophecy threatens his life if he doesn’t marry Tuon” is a valid reason because Mat HAS risked his life before for other people, quite frequently! So him rolling over for the prophecy and doing his best to fawn and manipulate his way into Tuon’s good graces feels so excruciatingly out of character. Him giving her flowers and trying to court her all while doing his best to just ignore that she’s a horrific person who enslaves and tortures other people for fun is... it’s just out of character. I don’t care that Jordan wrote it. This isn’t the same Mat that we had in Winter’s Heart or the previous books. This is a different character. Mat is the guy who runs back into the burning house to save people, even while complaining the whole time (as Siuan described him in book 3), but this guy is marrying the fucking arsonist instead and just watching as she sets more fires. He comes across as weak and self-serving, which are not words I would associate with pre-CoT Mat. I remember accurately how awful Tuon is as a person and a character but, wow, Mat is shitty too in this book.

I just... I think back to the start of TSR and THAT should have been the energy that Mat had in this book -- he fucking hates the nobles in the start of that book, yet he doesn’t show it at all to their faces because he’s fleecing them for money, but even though he never actively thinks “I fucking hate these people” it becomes very obvious within about 2-3 pages. THAT is what we should have been getting from the Mat-Tuon scenes, but we would actually need to see MAT trying to subtly win concessions from TUON in order for that to be the subtext, rather than just barely keep his head above the water, you know? Because Mat focuses WAY TOO MUCH on Tuon being Prophesied Wife rather than Prophesied Wife being the FUTURE EMPRESS OF THE SLAVER EMPIRE THAT HAS RECENTLY INVADED THE WESTLANDS. Which is a MILITARY concern. Yet we never see Mat treating trying to get Tuon to fall in love with him as if it were a military concern; it’s just treated as a personal thing and THAT is why it makes all this feel like a pointless subplot rather than something that’s actually important. And it sucks because it felt like Winter’s Heart actually set up a good storyline for this plotline really well and then CoT has just completely ignored the bigger picture related to a Mat-Tuon marriage and has made it all about Fated Romance (which is something that Jordan has ALREADY done in other plotlines, so he’s not even bringing anything new to the table). It’s just so frustrating because this COULD have been  compelling story (though I would have felt bad for Mat even so) but instead it’s a limp nothingplot that ruins a good character.

Ironically, Mat being a shitty person isn’t even related to Tuon? Tuon is only in 52 pages of Mat’s chapters, but he’s a shitty person in the majority of his screen time, even before he starts courting her in earnest. I’m so disappointed (in Jordan, not in Mat. This is so clearly NOT pre-CoT Mat that I can’t even hold it against him; pre-CoT Mat is still one of my faves. CoT!Mat can go pound sand. Jordan had to absolutely obliterate Mat as a character in order to make him ‘fit’ with Tuon and it’s so depressing).

I hate everything about this plotline.

Plot-threads that started in CoT or were carried over from WH:

Elayne: Become queen of Caemlyn (second book of task) - NOT completed.

Mat: Escape Ebou Dar and return to the Band of the Red Hand and Rand (second book of task) - NOT completed.

Perrin: Gather up Masema and his Dragonsworn and bring them to Rand (fourth book of task) - NOT completed.

Egwene: Go to the White Tower with her army, confront Elaida, and heal the Tower (fifth book of task) - NOT completed.

Rand: Make a truce with the Seanchan (first book of task) - NOT completed.

Nynaeve: The only thing she does this entire book is watch Lan spar.

Plot-threads carrying over to Knife of Dreams:

Elayne: Become queen of Caemlyn (3/?)

Mat: Escape Ebou Dar and return to the Band of the Red Hand and Rand (3/?)

Perrin: Gather up Masema and his Dragonsworn and bring them to Rand (5/?)

Egwene: Go to the White Tower with her army, confront Elaida, and heal the Tower (6/?)

Rand: Make a truce with the Seanchan (2/?)

Nynaeve: ???

Unnecessary scenes (whole book):

young Sitters ‘mystery’: 3 (9 pages)

too many random PoVs: 5 (63 pages)

Mat’s side quest (tuon): 6 (134 pages)

Perrin’s side quest (shaido): 8 (175 pages)

Being Weird about Elayne’s pregnancy: 3 (5 pages)

Atha’an Miere nonsense: 2 (12 pages)

Egwene waits around for her plot to start: 2 (29 pages)

So that was a total of 427 pages. My copy of Crossroads of Twilight has 823 pages, so that is 51.9%. Honestly, I was expecting it to be worse. Thank goodness for Elayne and Egwene.

Tuon-related annoyances: (whole book; 52 pages)

refuses to use Mat’s name x25

acts like a spoiled brat x9

reminds us that she’s a slaver x11

People that Mat thinks about: (whole book):

Rand x3

Perrin x1

Mat is mentioned by (whole book):

Elayne x1

Egwene x6 (prophetic dream)

Rand x1

Mat is so disconnected from the rest of the cast in this book; it’s like he’s in his own, separate, and more poorly-written novella (which I guess is a ‘romance’ of some kind but one of those romances where you feel like the author only put 5% of their effort into the story).

[northern-passage]

Love your writing! I’ve played a few IFs and very few of them stand out in terms of quality: A compelling plot, three dimensional characters, an enjoyable MC, and relevant player choices. Yours is one of them!

Do you have any favorite IFs?

thank you so much!!

since i've started writing, i haven't really been reading IFs like i used to, and there are a lot of newer games that i haven't had the chance to play, and others that i've not had the time to catch up on. but here are some of my favorites, in no particular order:

god of the red mountain by @friendlybowlofsoup - i love this game so much. there is a lot of replayability here and i love the setting & the huge cast of characters. i could go on and on but honestly just go play it if you haven't!

diaspora by @diasporatheblog - another game with a lot of replayability and a lot of really interesting characters. the opening of this game has always stuck with me. also the game design itself is something i aspire to with tnp.

virtue's end (18+) by @crimsiswrites - my fellow monster hunter... another game where i really love the setting, and the worldbuilding with helvlings and their keepers. currently undergoing a rewrite, & i recommend checking out all the info on the blog before playing through the old demo.

project hadea (18+) by @nyehilismwriting - every time i read this game i get an uncontrollable urge to write sci-fi and watch alien. writing is very compelling and i love the alien designs, refreshing to actually see something... alien!!

scout: an apocalypse story by @anya-dev - i am behind on updates (sorry fake fan) but i love scout so much, one of the few games where i really love all of the companions, also we all know i am weak for friends to lovers.... i also really love apocalypse stories that feel... hopeful? and that are about community, rather than individual survival.

crosshollow foundations by @townofcrosshollow - i love the character creation in this one, and i love being an "observer" and guiding the characters in their choices. i've linked crosshollow's itch.io page here because jasper has a few other games that revolve around the universe of crosshollow.

snakeroot & walk with me by @cerberus-writes - cer has such a beautiful way with words... he knows this i scream about his writing all the time & i can't recommend them enough. snakeroot is a modern horror fantasy, another fellow monster hunter! walk with me is a bit different, with bitsy gameplay, where you take a walk and have a conversation with a god.

a tale of crowns (16+) by @ataleofcrowns - another game i am unfortunately not up to date on (i’m so sorry) but i did stay up super late reading the first three or four chapters all at once! a really great fantasy game with a refreshing setting and a really great cast of characters. also love the attention to detail and the small touches that go into personalizing the crown.

body count (18+) by @bodycountgame - oh this game is so fun, fun writing, fun characters, a fun premise! this is actually my favorite kind of modern horror, where a group of fun young adults are off to have a cute adventure or something but then... something terrible happens! murder! maybe an unexpected twist or two! also i love bad reality television so like... truly it’s perfect.

a limber love by @copperspines - ohh i love this game, i’ve played through for all seven endings and i just love speculative horror fiction like this. good atmosphere and i love the illustrations.

the spirited: origins by @yuveim - my other favorite kind of modern horror: ghost hunting!!! really good horror writing in this, and i’m excited to see how the relationships between all the characters unfold going forward, and how exactly we’re going to deal with the whole demon thing...

the exile (18+) by @exilethegame - another game where i really like the character customization and the worldbuilding, and no one should be surprised i like playing characters like the commander. this game has a lot of replayability and lots of secrets to uncover.

blood moon (18+) by @barbwritesstuff - werewolves, ghosts, and vampires, oh my! updates when the moon is full (yes i am behind on this one barb writes so fast it’s insane). a great cast, lots of choices and branching and replayability. werewolves are the superior supernatural love interest and i will die on this hill.

the goodfellows & creature’s cradle by @thecuriouseye - the goodfellows is so interesting, again the worldbuilding and lore in this one is just chef’s kiss!! dark fantasy with giant monsters and heavy consequences. creature’s cradle is a supernatural post-apocalyptic story with zombies, vampires, werewolves, and more. the current demo is short and sweet but i’m excited for more.

boundary pass by @boundarypass-if - as someone who has worked as both a park ranger and a forest ranger, this game really gets me. i love the kind of horror you can only experience when you’re alone out in the wilderness....

when it hungers (16+) by @roast-ifs - i love the setting of this one: fantasy 1910s. really cool species available for character customization, and some good horror writing. i love the team dynamic of the main cast, and how the main character struggles to find their place in it without their memories.

greenwarden by @fiddles-ifs - yet another fantasy horror game! modern setting this time. really interesting main character, with a past that seems to be haunting them... but right now there’s a mystery to be solved and a monster to track.

contrition by @nihilnovisubsole - i’ve recommended this one before but i really love it, the atmosphere, the writing, everything about it... it’s stuck with me and it’s a great read.

this is by no means a complete list of IFs i enjoy but hopefully there is something new for you in here that you like. i’m sure i’m forgetting some that i will curse myself for later... there’s a lot of talent in the IF community and there are a lot of new stories just getting started that i just haven’t had the time to read, but you can always browse my other games tag for newer intro posts as well.

[angeli-marco-writes]

Harrison Osterfield - A Happy Day (& A Puppy)

A/N & WC - I don't know Haz, nor do I claim to; this is a work of fiction. 3.2k

Warnings - Mentions of a dog rescue centre and poorly dogs, slight anxiety, copious amounts of fluff.

Summary - Today is the day you and Haz get a puppy. It's the next big step in your relationship, and despite your anxieties, you know it's a happy day.

YOUR HEART FILLS WITH GLEE at the prospect of the day. You and your boyfriend, Harrison, have been together for a long time now, by ‘young people’ standards, and have recently taken the giant step of moving in together. Only, after you lived in a flat with various different people for a long time, and after he spent so long in a house with three other blokes (where you also spent a substantial share of your time earlier in the relationship, much to your dismay,) it’s quiet with just the two of you. And not the good quiet, though sometimes it’s nice and peaceful. You’re just both so accustomed to the constant bustle of people. And the only comprisable solution you could come up with, save for moving back in with Haz’s old housemates? Get a dog.

Obviously you want to, you love dogs, but it’s also a bridge to your future.

“Are you ready to go sweetheart?” Haz shouts from the doorway, rustling with his coat, while you’re still in the bedroom.

“Do we have to?” you beg.

“Yeah we do. You want this dog, don’t you?”

“Of course I do... it’s the rest I’m anxious about.”

See, you’ve been conversing with a shelter home for some weeks now, ever since they got an influx of puppies. A big litter of little blighters, separated from their mother and left to die on the side of the road in a damp cardboard box. Thankfully, and by some kind of God-given miracle, they all survived, and many have already been adopted, but your little treasure? You were the only takers. Not that you’re complaining, obviously.

Haz appears in the doorway, his own pea coat fitted to his form perfectly, tailored and tan to suit his complexion. He holds yours out to you and edges closer to your shared bed, made and done up by him.

“I know, baby, but it’s gonna be okay, yeah?”

“Yeah.” You loose a sigh. “Is there any way we can go in the back way?”

Your own puppy eyes convince him and he kisses you. “I’ll see what I can do. If not, just close your eyes and I’ll lead the way.”

Shelters upset you immensely. How anyone could hurt a dog or abandon it is beyond you, they’re the most precious things ever and need to be protected and adored at all costs. You knew you wanted a rescue dog from the get go, but you’d never be able to bring yourself to actually scour shelters to look for a dog. You just hope this one likes you, or else Haz is gonna have to do it all himself. You can’t face the pleading faces and the imploring eyes and the sadness around the whole place. If you could, you’d buy them all, give them a good, loving home, but you can’t, and that harsh reality leaves a pit in your stomach and a hole in your heart.

“Don’t cry darling.” he coos, kissing your tears away with tender brushes of his lips.

You hadn’t even realised you were crying. How emotional can you be? Today is supposed to be happy, but you’re breaking at the first hurdle. To make the pressures worse, you know that, if you don’t take this little bean, it’ll be put down.

“Come on, it’s a happy day,” he prompts once he realises you’re no longer crying. He stands, shrugs your coat onto you, and pulls you to standing, wrapping his arms around your torso as he sways. “We’re getting a puppy!”

His sheer excitement in his voice brings joy to you too, any doubt being left behind as you sway with hum, holding him close. You’re getting a puppy.

A little more pep is in your step once you stand up, ensuring your hands are adjoined the whole time. Concealing your nerves with excitement is a solid step, so you paint on a happier face than before and clutch him close as you tug him to the front door.

“We’re really doing it, we’re getting a puppy,” you say.

He nods, keying the door open, “That we are. Think we’re ready?”

You almost howl laughing. In many ways, yes. You’re mature people in a committed relationship, you’re both incredibly responsible in all the ways that matter, and know when you need to take the next step or hold back. Getting a puppy is a huge leap, though. But you’ve thought about it, planned for it, prayed for it to work, so there’s no reason you shouldn’t be ready, but it feels like a giant step. In the right direction. That’s all that matters; that, and the fact you’ll love this puppy endlessly.

“Y’know what? Yes. We’ve worked for this.”

“That we have, darling.”

Reaching the car, he places a kiss to the crown of your head. “Conserve your energy, honey. How about I drive?”

“Okay,” you answer, pecking Haz on the lips after he opens your door for you and hovers at your height until you answer him. “That means I can cuddle it on the way home.”

“It’s not an ‘it’, remember?” he chides, but the excitement is evident in his tone and the sparkle in his eyes, “we gave it a name.”

“Bixby, and he’s a boy, I know. How long is the drive?”

You fasten your seatbelt, smiling at him as he limbers into the drivers side. He’s attuned to your subtle mood shifts now, and realises that you’re slipping more from anxiety into anticipation, and he needs to work to keep you there, soothe you so that you don’t cry at the shelter. He’s a gem is Harrison, and you know he’ll be a brilliant dog-dad. It’s a huge part of why you’ve lasted so long together. The second you saw him with Monty, you knew he was a keeper.

After strapping his own seatbelt and manoeuvring the car into gear, he reaches over and curls his fingers around your thigh, pulling on that invisible connection between you, tugging you to look at him.

When you do, he spies that your current happiness isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, but is in part a façade. Haz loves you, but you’re the damn most sensitive soul he’s ever come across, especially when it comes to animals. The main reason the two of you got your own place was because living with people you weren’t close to took a real toll on you, as it did him—no matter how reluctant he is to admit it, the forced intimacy of it all, so this puppy is a big step to comfort you both and help you settle down to this new walk of life.

Of course the delight is there, of course you’re happy, but your slight snags and worries are visible to him too. “Love you, baby,” he whispers, leaning over to lock your lips together, applying a certain pressure, sucking on your lower lip gently as his hold on your thigh increases.

Once he pulls away, he sees the true you, calm gracing all of your beautiful features so nicely, happiness in your eyes and a wry smile on your lips, no overt anticipation of any kind.

“You can choose the music, yeah?” is all he says, offering you the twitch of a smirk before he’s locking the key into the ignition and you’re off.

You nod, whether he sees it or not, and plug your phone into the radio, allowing yours and Haz’s playlist to stream through the speakers, the melodies wrapping you in their embrace the whole journey.

One thing Haz has learnt through his time with you is that his touch grounds you. No matter what it is, as long as he’s touching you, you’re okay, your breathing regulated, your nervous habits quieted. And though you’ve never outwardly confessed it, his comfort has helped you more times than you’d ever care to admit aloud. He knows this, but no one else needs to.

Once you park up, Harrison leans over to kiss you again, more gently this time. “I’m gonna ask if there’s a way we can get you around the back, okay? Don’t want you getting upset on such a happy day.”

“Thanks babe.”

You peck his lips, but tug away almost instantly, afraid if you don’t, you’ll be here a while. He smiles, and shuts the door behind him, tapping on your window and pulling a silly face as he passes your side of the car. You wait patiently, scribbling down a list off the top of your head of things to buy for the pup. Basket, bowls, toys, mat, brush, collar, lead… you’ve already got a lot of Monty’s old things, puppy baskets he outgrew, his old crate and such like, but you’re adamant that Bixby needs a basket in every room of your place… just in case.

“Hey dreamer,” Haz’s voice snaps you from your reverie, that cute nickname he uses when you drift off into your own little world easing a smile onto your face. “He’s waiting for us, you can come in now.”

You draw your lip between your teeth, and peek over your shoulder to the little puppy holder in the back one last time, filled with a blanket and a cuddly toy. Completely unnecessary, since you plan on holding him, but Haz thought it’d be a good idea nonetheless.

He holds your hand as you tread out of the car, and the whole way into the building, and you’re glad to find a member of staff waiting to greet you with a warm handshake by the back door, happily guiding you inside to the office, more than likely. And there he is, with his big floppy ears and his droopy eyes, sitting on the chair inquisitively, looking like the prince of the palace.

“Oh my God, he’s gorgeous!” you cry, and with little reluctance, you tug away from Haz, bounding over to the puppy.

You know how startled they can get, so you ensure to stop at a safe distance, tentatively holding out your hand for the pupper to let his black nose sniffle at you, before his long pink tongue laps out and licks your hand heartily, a doggy smile breaking across his face as he pants.

“He likes me. Haz, look, he likes me!”

He chuckles, “I can see that, sweetheart.”

You firstly pat at the chestnut-dappled white fur between his ears, stroking his silken fur, before moving down his body, scruffing a little at the rolls of fat there, completely natural for a basset hound-mix. His paws are huge, though, for such a tiny dog, especially considering his stumpy legs.

“Okay, should we settle down and talk about paperwork?” says the kind lady, a completely rhetorical question.

“Come on baby, if we want Bixby to come home with us, we need to fill these forms in, yeah?”

“Yeah babe.” you nod, and glance at the only remaining available chair. “Well, Bixby, it looks like I’ll just have to pick you up. How about that?” you coo.

His tiny tail wags enthusiastically, and he slobbers another kiss to your hand, so you cautiously scoop him up and settle him on your lap once you’ve sat down.

“First of all, we need to remind you that Bixby is the... runt of the litter, and has more significant health issues than other puppies of his breed, requiring more care, including a limp and slight hearing loss in one ear, and he is small for his breed.”

“We know,” you and Harrison answer simultaneously, his one hand occupied with stroking Bixby also.

He’s dealt with business thus far, bringing Bixby blankets from the house to get him used to your scent, meeting him and meeting with the managers, filling out your application forms, making visits to the shelter. It was actually quite a miracle that you were allowed to get a puppy from here, since you both work, but due to Harrison’s schedule as an actor with press and such, he works from and near home a lot, and whenever he’s working away, despite your own job requirements, you’re able to work from home to hold the fort down. So it worked out okay. And with the compromise, they said you met the necessary guidelines to qualify for adoption with one of you almost always at home.

“And he costs £250, but he’s already been vaccinated and microchipped.” she says. You both nod; you’ve already discussed donating a hearty amount to the shelter to keep it afloat, and because Bixby should be worth a damn lot more.

For the rest of the meeting, you zone out rather a lot, only paying attention when you have to sign papers or a cheque, the rest of the time tickling and fussing your new bundle of joy, already so relaxed within your lap. The time seems to whizz by, as before you know it, you’re clambering back into the car, a towel sat over your lap, and Bixby licking happily at your cheeks.

“You know, I showed him a picture of you,” Haz says, smiling wistfully, “the first time I came to visit him. I told him you were my wife and his mum—” he trails off, and darts his eyes to yours, realising what he just blurted out with a dry mouth and knitted brows. “Baby, I didn’t mean—”

“You want to marry me?” you ask, your voice barely more than a broken whisper.

“Of course I do, sweetheart. One day you’re gonna be my wife, and Bixby can be the ring bearer, and everything will work out the way it should, and you won’t be sad anymore.”

“What makes you think I’m sad, babe?”

He raises his thumb to your cheek, capturing a tear before it falls. Again. He’s been stuck doing this a lot.

“Point taken, but for once these are happy tears. I’m just overly sensitive with… everything, but I promise I’m not sad.” Never with Haz, you think. You look down at the puppy, now half asleep, contentedly wagging his tail at a leisurely pace atop your thighs. “This is a happy day, isn’t it?”

“So happy, y/n. I love you, you know that, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. I love you too, so much.”

He smiles, and slowly pulls out of the parking spot, ensuring to drive extra carefully, avoiding even the smallest of potholes on your journey. You keep one eye firmly on Bixby the whole time, but let the other roam your gorgeous boyfriend; the breadth of his shoulders, the veins in his hands, the intricate details in his blue orbs…

“Stop staring,” he whispers, “I can’t focus when you’re looking so pretty.”

You feel yourself flush, and turn your attention back to Bixby wholly, listening to your music as you quietly say, “I’m sorry.”

He says nothing more, but holds your hand over the gear stick the rest of the way.

*

You get a lot of attention in the pet store, carrying around a half asleep puppy with floppy ears the size of your entire face, meaning that your supposedly swift visit is elongated, but you survive, and are packed into the car shortly with everything you needed and more. A few people wanted to take a picture of Bixby, actually, having never seen a puppy basset hound in real life. You let them, leisurely trailing after Harrison as he got everything on your list, only purchasing if it passed Bixby’s sniff test.

Arriving home for the first time as a three is what makes everything seem so real, your heart overflowing with joy as you get out of the car, and walk to your door, and unlock it…

The first patter of paws on your wooden floor lets you know that this is home now, for all of you, as a family. That much is intrinsic.

“We did it. We got a puppy,” you say to Harrison, placing your hand over his chest where his heart steadily beats at a slightly faster pace.

“And we’re going to love him with everything we have.” he responds, kissing you softly, meaningfully, letting only love fill your embrace.

The skitter of Bixby’s claws coming towards you soon brings you back, though, and you begin to introduce him around the house, never once letting go of Haz’s hand. You show him the living room, where a blanket is already laid out on a sofa cushion for him to join you, and then the kitchen where his food bowls and water are, as well as his exit to the garden, and then to your bedroom, where the fluffiest basket you’ve ever seen sits in the corner, covered with swathes of blankets and scattered with toys. Treats already cover the floor all over your home, puppy training pads laid out just in case, and a hook by the front door with a blue lead dangling off it, as well as a tiny coat. Only…

“I didn’t buy this.” you say, spinning to face Haz, Bixby gnawing at his socks, rolling around at your feet.

You point towards the sturdy hook, embellished, engraved with two words. ‘Bixby Osterfield.’

“No, I did. I thought it was a nice surprise for you.”

He answers you as though it’s the most blatant thing in the universe. And really, it is something relatively small, but so thoughtful at the same time, so you open your arms wide, and nuzzle into him.

“Thank you, Haz. For everything. For this, for today, for loving me, for buying me Chinese takeout tonight.”

A laugh rips from him, his face breaking out into a wide smile, raising one hand to clutch at his chest while the other still securely encircles your waist.

“You’re more than welcome, babe. I’ll always love you. But I'm knackered.”

“Oh my God, same,” you breathe, slumping a little into him as you tickle the dog with your toes. “Who knew playing with a puppy would be so tiring?”

A low chuckle resonates from him, but he just holds you tighter, bending down to pick Bixby up as you trail over to the sofa, Haz’s footsteps silent on the glossy parquet floor of your home.

*

It doesn’t take long for you to get settled down, contentment filling you both, alongside ample Chinese food servings, and a fair amount of exhaustion too. Bixby has been with you the whole time, and while Haz sat down first, tugging you into his lap, legs spread wide as he lounged against the cushions a moment later, he ensured to position himself accurately on the ‘L’ shape of your sofa, so you could both reach the tiny snoozing puppy who curled into your side without a second thought.

“I’m glad we got a puppy,” you whisper into the darkness.

Night has come, the day having slipped away, and the movie you had playing is close to rolling its credits. You didn’t close your curtains but instead decided to watch the sun set and the star sparkle in the onyx sky, a stark contrast of beautiful silver, the light mirroring that that Bixby has brought into your lives.

“I am too, babe,” he replies, his nose burying into the juncture of your neck and shoulder, gently kissing your exposed skin, “how about we just settle here tonight?”

“Hmm, good plan,” is all you can muster, already feeling the tug of sleep, one hand on Bixby’s soft silken fur, the other holding Haz’s hand.

This is it, you think to yourself as you drift off, this is your family. Haz and Bixby, both of them snuggling into you, keeping you tethered, bringing you sheer joy. A happy day. All because you got a puppy.

[power-chords]

love your notes! i've been rereading and "What was he looking for? What was he running from?" really struck me. heat2 has such an insane amount of stuff you can dig into - dreams, grief, fire/water symbolism, irreversible things and hanna's attempts to rewind them, the locket (as religious icon, attachment symbol, betrayer of secrets, hanna's hollow heart with neil and his/their/a daughter inside). plus "Invisible Beings and Their Irregular Manifestation"? good shit, good shit.

Every time I post Heat meta I’m like, I hope my mystery comrade, my anonymous brother-in-Mann, will bless my inbox with their insights… visiting upon my blog like a benevolent ghost in a gray suit… and my message notifications did not disappoint!

The more I pick through Heat 2 the more I’m like, you know what, however preposterously decadent this pop novel specimen may be, there is so much in there that is legitimately clever and sophisticated storytelling. Mann’s such a master of characterization, symbolism, and dramatic structure that I will forgive his most egregious pulpy groaners (and at least they always make me laugh with delight). His sincerity is so total and self-assured that I can’t help but succumb to it every time. It’s infectious.

Also UNBELIEVABLY funny that a 79-year-old straight dude managed to write the shipper’s manifesto for Neil McCauley and Vincent Hanna. The fact that he did this with zero conscious awareness or intentionality whatsoever makes it that much funnier. You KNOW my guy did not sit down at his laptop every morning like, “I am going to generously season my testosterone-irradiated criminal opera with fucking eye-popping homoerotic subtext.” And yet Here We Are. With 480 pages of borderline fanfiction. Featuring a grieving, precipitously spiraling Captain Hanna who is only able to abort his self-flagellating, self-destructive nosedive when given cause to avenge McCauley’s dead lover, protect his surviving stepdaughter, and become the keeper of his memory. He winds up with the goddamn locket at the end! LOL. LMAO, even. Excuse me but What The Fuck. Does he wear it, Michael?? Keep it in a drawer at his bedside??? Christ in a Crown Vic.

Things that I’ve picked up on now that I’m going back over the book, that I didn’t catch on my first ravenously devoured pass: the fire/water symbolism, as you mention (descriptions of Hanna’s combustible rage vs McCauley’s repeated associations with water/tidal flows (& fieriness also being used to describe Elisa and her daughter! SHEESH)); how explicitly Hanna is suggested to be a walking corpse after the events of the film, experiencing a double-death akin to McCauley’s double-blank (Justine even calls him on it again in the book); Chris Shiherlis maturing into a fascinating synthesis of all the best parts of Hanna (passionate, driven, instinctive, adaptable) and the best parts of McCauley (cautious, disciplined, devoted, sacrificial). Can’t wait for Heat 3 when Hanna and Shiherlis finally cross paths again and circle each other like a couple of snarling, jealous dogs over who had the more intimate relationship with a dead guy!!!*

*I have already drafted 8k words of this :|

[wille-zarr]

In Fields of White (SNEAK PEAK): Coming May 4th

In Fields of White ~ SNEAK PEAK ~ Coming May 4th

masterlist for In Fields of White

pairing: din djarin (the mandalorian) x f!reader

word count: 745 words

story summary: fleeing from the life you wish more than anything to forget, you are left to navigate the galaxy alone as a wide-eyed wanderer. in the process of evading the dangers linked to your previous life, your destiny is forever altered when you cross paths with an intimidating mandalorian and his unusually gifted child

a/n: SNEAK PEAK!! COME AND GET IT!!!

also found on: Ao3

In Fields of White ~ Chapter 10 SNEAK PEAK ~ Coming May 4th

If Grandpa was alive to see this mess, he’d roll over and die again.

No.

No-

He’d find Thall.

Kill him.

Then die again.

“Stars,” you groan, leaning both palms on either side of the sink. Lifting your head, you glare at the face staring back at you from the refresher mirror.

Your face… it feels like it’s all you recognize of yourself these days…

You grit your teeth as shame weighs your eyes low, down your bare body, down to the speckled floor beneath your toes. You wiggle them to ground yourself- to reign in the disgrace squeezing at your chest.

…Dank Ferrik.

You press your eyes against the voice pushing, pushing at your consciousness.

…

I told you so…

I know, Grandpa.

I told you Thall was sketchy.

I know! Maker! Do you have to rub it in, Gramps?

Just wanted to point it out. And don’t call me Gramps. Makes me feel ancient.

Kark off. You’re dead.

…

I love you, Grandpa.

….

Kriff.

No one warned you that the worst part of growing up would be the realization your family was blasted correct about a lot of blasted things.

Hissing through your teeth, you fling your hand through the current of water flowing from the faucet, the droplets glittering across the reflected crown of your head.

Oh, fine. Fine!

You twist away- hand snapping up your shirt from the floor.

You’re used to everything going wrong. What’s new?

Another day, another “you’ll maybe possibly probably die.” Only this time, everyone’s survival rests upon you.

Big karkin’ yay.

If you survive this, you’re writing a book.

“Thall, how about you just kiss my- erf!-” the collar of your shirt catches your nose- “kiss my butt!” You yank on the edge of the hem until your head pops free.

“Just kark off-” you mash on the control panel, and the door opens with a snap- “straight to- YIPES!”

You fling backwards.

“GET OUT!”

Face exploding with warmth, you press behind the door. “What the hell! Can’t you knock?! I’m in my underwear, for Maker’s sake!”

Your shrieks are met with silence… so you peer around the corner…

Your wide eyes are greeted by the back of your Mandalorian intruder, the ends of his cape still twirling around at his heels from his own startled spin.

“Din, get OUT!” you hiss, ducking back behind the frame. You pull on the ends of your shirt, fighting to cover the bare skin of your thighs.

A strained, modulated groan slips around the doorframe.

“….d…r -s unl-ked.”

“What!?” you squeak, head ducking around to gawk at him. “Stop garbling, Djarin! I can’t-”

“Your door was unlocked!”

His words are sharp, strained.

“Anyone c-could have come in while you were showering and- and-”

“-Go away!”

You pat around the refresher counter, fingers gripping the closest thing within reach, and you hurl it-

“Out!”

“I can’t- Ka’r’ika! Is-… fresher paper?”

You bend around the door, watching as his gloved hands pick at the ribbon of white paper trailing across his shoulder.

You can’t help but grin.

“You look like shit, Mando.”

“Damn it, girl,” he grumbles, so low you’re sure you weren’t meant to hear it. “Can- can I… Dank Ferrik. Can I turn around now?”

“Blast it- no! Go away! I’m in my underwear!”

“What are you wearing underwear for-”

“Why am I wearing underwear? Did you really just-”

“I- I didn’t mean-”

“Some of us sleep in our underwear, Din! Gosh! What- do you sleep in your armor or something?”

...

“Oh my Maker. You sleep in your armor.”

...

“…No.”

...

A smirk quirks at the corner of your mouth, and you’re grateful he cannot relax at its sight. Stars, you take too much pleasure in making him squirm…

“Y-you’re not staying in here alone-” his voice strains- “not with hunters-”

“I’m safe-”

“-get in the bed.”

…

You blink.

…

His hands rise to his waist.

“Get in the bed.”

“Hmf.” You purse your lips. “Yes, karkin’ sir.”

Sticking your tongue out for good measure, you spin on your heel to sweep your pants up from the floor.

“Gosh,” you grumble, sticking a leg in as you hop one-legged towards the bed. You glance down at the print on your underwear. “I hope you didn’t get a good look- urg!” You lose your balance, slumping across the mattress.

“Wouldn’t want this to be the way you find out I’m a horse girl…”

“What?”

“What?”

...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴

masterlist for In Fields of White

taglist (i will be tagging only those that showed interest in my last date announcement post): @sana-katarn @greatcircle79 @zapsalis-d @followyourowncreed @missstef23 @thewayofthemandalorian @xwing-baby @awheeler27 @toilet-keeper @bewitchedbodyandsol @tuskens-mando @the-scandalorian @mandosmistress @wonderlandgabby @newflame97 @ohbeloved @betweentwopines @bootyliciousbilbo @snipskixandbeskar @poetichibiscus @sm0key-ravens @altarsw @kjcotton @greeneyedblondie44 @arda-ancalima @jessaminejaylinnreaper @agirllovespancakes @forthesakeofwandering @generouswombyrat @itsnottilly @nexuwhisperer @thosewickedlovelies @justhopeforthebestthingsinlife @gutgoreberries @cottonsheepy @who-the-hell-is-bonky1​

[purplerose244]

My thoughts on Ninjago the Island!!! 🏝🏝🏝

So, gotta be honest... this is not a Blind reaction thing, I actually watched it in French first so I know most of the stuff already 😅 It's entertaining, it got great animation, but nothing more than that in my opinion 🤷‍♀️

Still there is stuff I liked or I want to point out, and finally I'm seeing the English version so I can actually understand what the HECK they are saying 🤩

Alright, nothing else to say, here we go!

UNCHARTED

I haven't actually seen anything Clutch Powers related before Ninjago, is he always like this? I love that he is a jerk honestly, just wondering 😂

Press F for respect for intern Dwaine (at least he seems to like being... used?)

Clutch: It's just a bunch of rocks! It's not alive!

Totem: I'm about to end this man's whole career

Wait, Misako is part of the explorers club? ... that would have come in handy in season 11 to get the scroll of Forbitten Spinjitzu from the club instead of begging uncle Powers for it... *sighs* I don't mind plot holes in Ninjago like most fans I think, but if you wanna make Misako relevant again at least pay attention to the details 😅

Wow, after the end of season 13 I would've thought Wu was going to go through a midlife crisis, not Misako 😂😂

Oww, everytime I hear I get 😢 Bless your soul Kirby, always in our hearts 🖤🖤🖤

Well hello Brian

Always nice to see you 😊

Twitchy Tim must have been pretty interesting to voice 🤔 I like him enough, he's fun and all, maybe not at the level of the characters we got last season

Okay, the place is called the STORM belt, there are LIGHTNINGS, and the sand of the beach is BLUE. Are we gonna address any of these similarities to our Bluebell here or not? 😅

Wait, Tim was giving a hot air balloon tour, does that mean other people where with him? What of them? Are they dead? Did he let them die on the island?... am I reading too much into this? Probably 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Alright, the part of the boats? SO COOL 🤩🤩 I literally can't say anything bad about the animation at this point

Why did they think leaving Kai, Jay and Cole on one boat was going to be a good idea 😂 Also Zane just randomly doing sick tricks on his vehicle, love that nindroid

I'm guessing Nya is keeping her water abilities for her season 🤷‍♀️

Yep, yep, this is why the creators try to keep Pixal out of the adventures, with her everything is way too cool and easy to access to 😎😎

Twitchy Tim: There are statues that become alive!!

Lloyd:... so it's a season 2 stone army ripoff, we've seen worse

It's a cute episode overall 👍

THE KEEPERS OF THE AMULET

OKAY THE INTRO IS SO FREAKING COOL 🤩🤩🤩🤩

So Twitchy Tim has temporarily taken over Jay's role of spazzing out and complain about worse case scenarios... in another occasion they might have bonded over this, maybe 😂

Okay, survival position? MOOD

Nya: DRAGOOON 😱

Me: DRAGOOOOOOON 😍😍😍

Why am I not surprised that Jay was the one that named him Zippy? 💙 Also HE'S SO CUTE 💕💕💕 Love how in every adventure, we always get very different types of dragon in this show 👌 I'm a simple person, I see a dragon... 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩

Oh-oh, it's the "Lloyd's done with this crap"'s face

This means serious business... am I that used to LEGO characters that this way of crossing arms on the chest looks almost normal to me? 😅

Soooo, Master of the Mountain clearly gave Cole too much development... because now he got demoted to "the one who is always hungry" 🤦‍♀️ I'm all for Cole's endearing love for cakes, which is super relatable, but if you're gonna push it on his fun side, at least be coherent 🙃

Is it just me or it feels like the writing of this special was made by someone different from the one of season 13? Like, it's not bad, just less engaging and witty. For now. Maybe I'm being premature 🤷‍♀️

New way of nerfing powers, we got... weird, sucking power totem thingies... OKAY

My gosh I really can't say anything about the animation, look at that! It's all cinematic with such a light! YES!! 🤩

I'M SORRY

WHY ARE WE LOOKING OVER THIS??? IT LOOKS LIKE COLE'S LAVA PUNCHES BUT THEY ARE JAY LIGHTNING FEET??? IT'S A GREAT IDEA AND I WOULD LOVE TO SEE IT AGAIN??? WHY ARE WE IGNORING THIS??? 💙💙💙💙

So they at least addressed that lightning isn't a Jay's thing only anymore 😅

Alright, Jay having a mental breakdown because of a bridge because it always breaks, that's the Bluebell I know and love 😂😂 Nya telling him to keep moving was cute too 💙❤💙❤

Okay, I'm sorry but this really bothers me, what kind of lightning can instantly knock out the MASTER OF LIGHTNING??? Like, my gosh, really??? I hope they give us an explanation, like it's some sort of special lightning, because this really doesn't sit right with me. Jay is lightning proof, we've seen it in Skybound, we've seen it in Sons of Garmadon, I DON'T BELIEVE HE WOULD JUST BE KNOCKED OUT LIKE THAT 😡😡😡

Soooooo, storm amulet? Being one with the lightning? Is that the reason why Jay got to be the sacrifice? 😅

THE GIFT OF JAY

Alright, I am kinda looking forward for this one, what did Bluebell actually say or do to get him into trouble this time 😂😂

Oh, he just... introduced himself... well that was underwhelming

SENSEI👏YOU👏ARE👏A👏FREAKING👏GOD👏STOP👏GETTING👏KIDNAPPED👏BY👏RANDOM👏VILLAINS👏

Bring ooooon Lloyd Grills 💪

Okay I did like the little speech, definitely resonates with how Lloyd survived this long even though everything wanted him to give up, even his father... I'M NOT CRYING YOU'RE CRYING 😭

Jay out there making the real questions 😂

Awwww Edna used to call him gift of Jay? I can totally see it, so cute 💙💙 Makes even more sense if Libber actually left Jay at the Walkers' door...

Pff, Jay made the connection I would've done honestly 🤷‍♀️ Like, him being the master of lightning really didn't give these dudes any impression or inspiration? Any cool idea, full Road of El Dorado style? 🙃🙃

Lloyd out there abusing of the animation budget 💚💚💚

Somehow these ninja never actual sneak in, it's always a huge mess everyone knows about beforehand 😂 It's familiar though, I'm used to it and happy with it 👍

I might not be the biggest Misako fan, but you know what I am a fan of?

LEGO HUGS 😍😍😍😍😍

Dang it uncle Powers, you just got here to make a mess did you 😅

Not the first person of the fandom to say this, but Jay looks absolutely lovely with that flower crown 🌺🌺🌺

Oh poor greenie

Lloyd just has the worst luck 😓

Jay: Why would I be the gift?

Kai: Yeah who would want Jay?

Nya: Huh, me?? 😡

Got some very good Jaya for this little special, can't complain 💙❤💙❤

I mean, not matter how big of a snake Wojira might turn out to be, we've already seen the biggest and the second biggest snake of all so 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Whoa, at last... IT WAS THE FIRST SPINJITZU MASTER THAT HAD SOMETHING HE SHOULD'VE TOLD WU A LONG TIME AGO!! 😱 Wu, you got pulled a Wu, how does it feel? 😂

Again, Jay freaking out, kinda my jam it's too funny 💙💙

Wow Kai way to be hominous offscreen 👏👏 I miss talking about my flame babe, this really isn't his time 🤷‍♀️

THE TOOTH OF WOJIRA

So when I first watched this I was genuinely, really excited about knowing the truth behind all this. It turned out very different from what I first thought, but at least in this case it's okay (besides I was pushing with the lightning meaning just to see Libber again 😅😅😅)

I feel like the guys get their powers stolen or blocked so much it takes them a minute to remember "Oh wait I can literally burn my way out" 🤷‍♀️

SPINJITZU YAY 🤩

I... forgot that Misako knows how to fight 😅 She knows how to do spinjitzu too if I remember correctly...

NYA BEING LIKE "OUT OF THE WAY IMMA SAVE MY BOYFRIEND AGAIN" ❤💙❤💙

Gotta love how they were all crazy worried about Jay, like, this is something that never changes through the show. They really care so so much for each other 💕💕💕

Ooohhhh, okay, so Wojira does seem to be the main villain of next season according to the story. I remember Tommy saying that we needed to have faith and this is probably why. The special was okay, nothing too much, and hopefully that too much we will see in Nya's season 😍😍😍

What the- pff, I didn't notice this the first time 😂

At this point I can't tell if that one short with the chicken of the movie carried a hate or a love for chickens in the actual show 😂😂

Nice to see Jay standing up for himself at least for a little while 💪 Also Lloyd being "He's our trouble", aww family 💜

THERE IT IS

MY BRUISE HEART IS SOARING 🖤💙🖤💙

Gotta give props to the voice actors, voicing an explanation while fighting must be pretty hard! WE ARE BLESSED WITH AN AMAZING CAST!!! 🤩🤩🤩

And there he is, our favorite jerk... shaved Ronin 😂 He does look a little weird, but it's fair, new animation and all. Not the weirdest until now 🤷‍♀️

I genuinely had to make a mental check to see where we are with Ronin now, like, he started as a villain, then a partner, he betrayed us, became an ally, he hunted the ninja, then joined them, that timeline was erased, he was around in SoG and... wow this man is chaotic 😂😂

Yaaaay, Twitchy's last minute redemption act! Lloyd is too good at motivational speeches 👏👏

A bit of Lava OTP/BrOTP

Cause it's good for the heart ❤🖤❤🖤

Okay, Scooby doo reference, why not? Also honestly, I'm confident Ronin has seen A LOT of jails and prisons... probably won't stay behind bars for long 😅

Mammatus: sorry for imprisoning you and almost killing your friend

Kai: no biggie, that's how we make friends in this show

Alright the "And Clutch Powers" gag made me chuckle 😂 ... wait where is he- DANG IT UNCLE POWERS

Okay, this is the last time I say it I promise, but I mean. I MEAN

THE ANIMATION GUYS 😍😍😍

Aaaaand sensei you jinxed it 😅 But you apparently awakened Nya's season so I'm gonna forgive you on this one 😉

FINAL THOUGHTS

There are a few little details that bothered me a little, and it wasn't as exciting as I maybe hoped it was going to be, but it was fine. Enjoyable still. These characters make me like the show, even when it got nothing too impactful 🤷‍♀️

But I got triggered about that lightning thing with Jay 😅 I guess I'll just fanfic whatever I had in mind...

Don't have to repeat myself about the animation *chef's kiss*

The writing was really less engaging, a little normal in a way? Idk just a feeling. Nice to see Ronin again though, I really like him. And nice to see Jay freaking out, I really like that too 😂

To be honest I wanted to put down my thoughts on this one because I REALLY wanna do the same with Nya's season 🤩🤩 I already know that Maya is gonna be there and I am so HAPPY already!!! 💙💙💙

So that's it from me! Thank you for reading me ranting, see you next season! 😊

[selkiewife]

Theon Fic Appreciation || Bingo Square: Share a fic you would want to have with you on a deserted island

Or why not share four? All of these fics are such intriguing canon AUs. I would choose any of them to have with me on a deserted island because, not only are they extremely fascinating, they are also wonderfully long and I assume it would take someone like myself quite awhile to escape a deserted island so... I’d have plenty of time to read them and they would be an uplifting distraction.

Law of the North by theonsfavouritetoy, @owlsinathens (Greysnow/Snowjoy)

Balon Greyjoy has once again declared himself king, sealing his son's fate in the North. Jon doesn't like Theon, never has – but he also cannot stand aside and watch an innocent man being put to death. So he decides to do something that'll change everything.

This is one of the most incredible Greysnow fics I have ever had the pleasure to read. The plot is angsty, the sex is hot, the portrayal of Jon and Theon... I am ascending! This fic really digs in deep to both of Theon and Jon’s psychological issues from their statuses as hostage and bastard and I absolutely adore it. But it is also the most tender love story of enemies to lovers and it makes me ache with how beautiful it is.

Theon, King of the Commons by thecoolestfreak, @thecoolestfreakyouknow (Theonsa)

Theon stared at the grim visage in the mirror before him. He stared long, trying to imagine a day the twin wolf crown would look like it belonged there.

Post-Finale | Theon rules Winterfell

This is such a cool concept and a really beautiful read. It is wonderful seeing Theon get the opportunity to rule when he has the wisdom and experience to allow him to do it well. But oh, the angst of this fic also just about kills me and makes my heart ache. And I LOVE the quotes from Richard III. There are parts of it- like the ending- that reminds me of the Winters Tale as well. It’s amazing.

Monstrous by jayfiend (Throbb)

Robb struggles to find a purpose once he gets back to Winterfell and finds everything changed.

Love this Robb lives fix it fic so very much. It’s told from Robb’s POV as he struggles with trauma, guilt and re-establishing his relationship with Theon, who has been living reclusively as a lighthouse keeper in the Iron Islands. I love this fic because it is such an incredible exploration of healing from trauma and all the messiness that goes with that. It is heartbreaking as hell but so beautiful and hopeful at the same time. I also love how many parallels there are to explore between them since Robb also survived.

Heart of the North by Attaining, @attaining-fic (Poly)

Theon's plan to lead the Bolton hunting party away from Sansa works. Theon is found barely alive in the Winterfell dungeons after the Battle of the Bastards. Meanwhile, Brienne of Tarth finds Robb Stark alive in Riverrun, resurrected by a Red Priest.

This fic is both Theon Centric and a glorious Season 7 and 8 fix it extravaganza. The angst- the beautiful angst of this fic is wonderful! And love the ideas with Bran and the Three Eyed Raven. What I find the most compelling about this fic is the exploration of trauma and healing from trauma. But it is also offering a stunning alternative ending to the series, with all of our favorite characters still alive, and everyone is shipped with everyone and all the characters are queer!

[toomanystoriessolittletime]

Getting away with it (2/?)

Summary: August Walker was dead. At least that’s what people believed for almost 2 years. When the CIA found reason to believe that he was alive they made it their top priority to find him. Including sending one of their best female agents to recruit his twin brother. Walter Marshall.

Pairing: August Walker x Reader (Walker) + Walter Marshall x Reader (Walker)

Warnings: none yet

Wordcount: 2.457

A/N: We’re slowly getting started with the plot. Hope you like it :)

Masterlist

Part 1

Taglist:

@ladyreapermc / @theolsdalova / @greenmanalishi / @itsmydreamlifethings / @palaiasaurus64 / @celestial-vomit / @penwieldingdreamer/ @notyourtypicalrose / @babypink224221 / @fanficsrusz / @solariumss / @starlite13 / @ly–canthrope / @mytbel0st / @oddsnendsfanfics / @ravenpuff02 / @sofiebstar / @chamomilebottom / @keiva1000 / @agniavateira / @peaceinourtime82 / @dearlybelovedluke / @vania-marie / @wildwavehc / @fcgrizi / @mary-ann84 / @ayamenimthiriel / @radaofrivia / @ohjules/ @omgkatinka / @xceafh /  @diehadess / @watermeloncavill

@its-jb86 / @singeramg / @mrrightismrreeves / @mis-lil-red  (I can’t tag you guys. Sorry)

Cemetery, Langley, Virginia, 2 years ago

It was a rainy day. The skies hang dark, the rain pouring down. A typical day for a funeral. But then again it really wasn’t a funeral in the least. August watched the few people that were standing around an empty grave from his hiding spot behind a tree. He could see the silhouette of his wife who was holding Evie close. He couldn’t see her face, and knowing her she wouldn’t be shedding a tear for him. 

She didn’t understand why he had to do, what he was still planning on doing. Making the world a better place for the next generation. His daughters generation.

Ever since he knew he would be a father August did everything with his daughters best interest in mind. Even if it meant lying to Walker about it. Knowing her she would be furious at him for his lies. He knew her like the back of his hand, she would blame herself for everything that happened before she would finally blame him.

But who really was to blame was the world. Their corrupt leaders. The politics. The weak people who didn’t stand up for themselves. That was why he wanted to steal those plutonium cores. So only the strong survived. Like him. His wife. His daughter.

Evie would make a great leader one day, he was sure of it.

“We have to go.” A voice whispered behind him, making his head snap over his shoulder, glaring at one of his remaining members.

“I’ll find you at the drop point.” August nearly growled.

“Yes Sir.” The man stammered, walking away immediately. 

August didn’t know when or if he would see his family ever again. So he watched them for a couple minutes more as they were standing around the empty grave, silently saying goodbye, before he turned around and left them for good.

CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

“You tell me, Agent Walker, that you didn’t know your husband was the leader of a terrorist group? And you call yourself CIA…” The older Agent mocked.

“Like I told you the last 15 times. I haven’t seen August in almost 3 months before he died. Yes I recognized that his behaviour changed, that he stayed out longer, that he changed the passwords of his devices. But honestly? I was thinking he was having an affair. I would have prefered if he had an affair. What would you think if your wife suddenly stayed out longer? Would your first thought be that she must surely be leading a terrorist group?” Walker asked. The older Agent crossed his arms in front of his chest as he looked down at her. It was her fourth constant day of being interrogated. And she didn’t have any answers. She knew this was frustrating for the CIA, but it was even more frustrating for her.

She had been allowed a week for herself after news broke of the attack. She had brought Evie over to her Mom’s place and had spent the whole night drinking in front of the TV watching the news. She kept looking down at her wedding ring. Remembering the day she agreed to be his wife so detailed, she wanted to drink until she forgot it. Forgot what happened. 

Walker knew August had been hiding something. It was in the year Evie was born that he had started to change. He kept being on the phone instead of talking to her. The only time he really was present was when he was taking care of Evie. He was a good father. That probably was the reason she kept her mouth shut, when he snapped at her. She could see how sorry he was after he yelled at her after every single time. 

“I’m doing all I’m doing for your and Evie. I want you to live your life in safety.” 

The sentence kept repeating in her head. It was what he always said when they had another argument. When his arms were wrapped around her and he was kissing her head. After they had sex and he was pressed against her back, his leg over hers, his hand beneath her head. She always felt safe in his arms. She would probably even forgive him if he had a simple affair. But when three weeks ago the CIA was contacted with the real identity of John Lark, and she was sent to London to get through to him…

She would never forget the look in his eyes. How he looked right through her as she talked to him.

“August please. You know this will end with you dead. You know that. There is no way you can escape the CIA. There will be no place on this planet they won’t search for you.” Walker pleaded, standing across from him. August breathed in deep, his whole posture on edge.

“Please leave now.” August growled.

“What should I tell Evie, hm? When she asks about her father? Should I tell her he’s a insane terrorist who wants to kill a third of the world's population?” Walker asked.

“I’m doing this for her.”

“Yeah… You keep saying that, but do you believe it?” Walker reached for her gun. 

“You really think you can shoot me?” August mocked.

“Someone has to.” Walker breathed.

“How will you tell Evie that you murdered her Father?” He asked.

“I will make sure that she won’t remember you.” 

An explosion had interrupted their argument, giving August the perfect chance for his escape. Walker had met with Ethan after she had gotten out, telling him everything that could help him to take August down. With which he had apparently succeeded. Or so he thought.

“You will be helping us to get every detail of his life. We need to be prepared for what’s coming.” The older Agent said.

“I already told you everything I know.”

“You have to tell us about your daughter.”

“Absolutely not.” Walker shook her head.

“There is no room for argument her, Agent Walker.”

“You will leave my two year old daughter, who just lost her father out of this. Me you can have. I don’t care what you do with me. But Evie? No way.”

Minneapolis, Minnesota, now

“She’s not going to bite my finger?” Evie asked concerned, looking up at Walker. Grinning Walker knelt down next to ther.

“She’s not going to bite your finger. Look at her. She just wants that yummy lettuce you are holding.” Walker explained, earning a sigh from her Daughter. They had spend the whole day at the zoo and Evie had been so excited to feed the giraffe. Until she was standing in front of it. 

“Hmm…. ‘kay.” Evie said. Walker chuckled as she got back on her feet again, Evie clutched her hand as she slowly walked towards the giraffe. Walker nodded thankful at the keeper. Holding out the lettuce in front of her, Evie stepped closer to the giraffe who immediately spotted her snack and bend closer, her big tongue grabbing the lettuce from Evie, making her giggle.

“That… tickles.” The little girl giggled excited.

“See? And all your fingers are still there.” Walker smiled, making Evie breathe out relieved.

“Can we do that again?” She asked.

“Next time. If I remember correctly we have a date with the water slide at the hotel…”

“YAY!” Evie jumped

However these plans were interrupted when Walker got back to the space she parked her rental car in, finding it nowhere to be seen. She remembered exactly where she parked the car. 

“Motherf….” She cursed, stopping as she looked at Evie.

“Where is our car?” Evie asked confused.

“I’ve been just asking myself the same question, Buttercup.” Walker sighed. She was already reaching for her phone, calling 911. After a quick call to the local police station Walker had to come clear that her rental car had been stolen. Calling an Uber to the police station she waited while Evie was collecting Daisies on the side of the road. 

“What are you doing?” Walker asked. There was no point in getting upset over the stolen car. That was what insurances were for. It’s not like she couldn’t change it.

“Making you a Daisy crown.” Evie laughed.

With a bag full of collected daisies they stepped inside the police station. Evie was holding her mother's hand in a tight grasp, being intimidated by all these big men walking around her. Evie only really knew her grandfather and Uncle Miller, how she called Agent Miller. Ever since August died Walker hadn’t been involved with anyone. Too afraid of getting hurt again. Walker was just about to tell the police man in front of her why she was here, when she heard her name being called. A shiver ran through her body when she heard that voice. How could she have forgotten that he could be here. Looking down at Evie who was hugging her leg, she thought of what to do when Marshall made his way over to her.

“What brings you here?” Marshall asked, nodding to the other police officer who excused himself.

“It looks like my rental car has been stolen. We came here straight from the zoo.” She smiled uncomfortably, her hand coming down on top of Evie’s head. Evie was looking up at Marshall with a frown. Like she was trying to figure out where she knew him from.

“Well that su…” Marshall looked down at Evie, clearing his throat. “That’s not good.” He continued making Walker nod her head, sucking in her bottom lip to keep herself from laughing.

“Yeah. We had a date with a water slide, didn’t we Evie?” Walker asked. Evie nodded. Marshall got down on his knees to look at Evie. Walker held her breath, trying to control the numerous feelings inside her body as she watched the two of them. It seemed so familiar, yet so different. Even if August and Marshall were twins, the way Marshall smiled at Evie, holding out his hand which Evie took hesitantly to shake. Marshall looked up at Walker, his hair a wild mess on top of his head, a small smile on his face. Swallowing she sighed.

“You have the same hair as I do. Mommy always says I got them from my Daddy.” Evie said, her hand hesitantly reaching out towards Marshall but not really touching him.

“Really?” Marshall asked. Evie nodded.

“He died when I was littleler.” Evie shrugged, hugging Walkers leg closer.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Marshall said to her, then looking up at Walker.She closed her eyes and breathed in deep. He got up from his knees, his musky smell with a hint of aftershave getting to Walkers nose. When she opened her eyes and looked up at him she could see the sympathy in his. For a little moment she let herself get lost in his eyes, recognizing the many things that were different from August, finding so much sadness in them that seemed to mirror her own she had to shake her head after a while to look away from him.

“Let’s see if we can find your car.” Marshall said quietly. 

Sitting in his office Walker knew he was about to find out who she really was, and possibly who she had been married to. Chances were that he already knew who August was. His face had been spread over the news for weeks after the incident. Thankfully her name and Evie’s were never brought up.

“You wanna draw something while we do this grown up stuff, Evie?” Marshall asked. Evie nodded excited as she sat in the chair next to Walker, already reaching for the pencil Marshall handed her, getting right into drawing, oh wonder, a bunny. Chuckling Walker looked from her to Marshall.

“She’s obsessed with bunnies.” She said, making Marshall smile a little.

“I remember Faye being obsessed with bunnies too when she was that age.”

“You have a daughter too?”

“Yeah. She’s living with her mother.” Marshall swallowed, looking away from Walker to type into his computer.

“Now… I need your full name and address.” He said.

“You sure you have time for this? How long has it been since you last filed a robbery report?” Walker asked.

“A while. And yes, I’m sure.” He looked up at her with the hint of a smirk.

“Okay. Then let me make this easier…” Walker sighed, reaching for her badge in her purse, sliding it over the table. Marshall looked down from the badge, up to her face, a line forming between his eyes as he typed her badge number into the computer.

The silence that spread that was only interrupted from the pencil running over the paper where Evie was drawing. Sucking in her bottom lip, a thing Walker only did when she was nervous, she waited if Marshall would connect the dots right away. She heard his calm breathing as he typed and clicked, before he pushed the badge back to her, his eyes still on the computer screen in front of him. 

Seconds stretched into minutes before Marshall finally looked up at her. His eyes confused and cold.

“You were married to…” He looked down at Evie, not finishing the sentence.

“I saw the news back then. It was like looking into a mirror. I tried to find out more, but everything was classified.” He said quietly.  Walker breathed in deep.

“I think I can answer most of your questions. But… not here.” She motioned to Evie who was still drawing. Marshall looked at her a little longer before his eyes were on Walkers again.

“Okay. Then let’s just file that report first.” He nodded.

It only took 15 minutes to file the report she needed to get to the rental car service and her insurance company.  Evie had drawn a whole army of bunnies when they were finished, gifting Marshall one of her drawings, which made him smile.

“I’ll be at your hotel at 9pm, like we discussed.” He said as he escorted Walker and Evie outside.

“Just go straight up to our room. I don’t want to leave her alone.” Walker agreed, seeing him nod.

“Thank you for your help today, Marshall.” She said honestly.

“You’re welcome.” He nodded.

“Thank you Mr. Policeman.” Evie smiled up at him. Marshall chuckled.

“You are more than welcome Evie.” He said, holding out his hand which Evie shook wildly, making the adults laugh.Walker took Evie’s hand to walk away when Marshall looked at her.

“Was he my brother?” Marshall asked quietly. Walker stepped closer to him.

“He is your brother.” She said, her eyes not leaving his, before she nodded and turned around to take Evie back to the hotel.

[leam1983]

Cyberpunk 2077 Thoughts

Having perused Dark Horse Books’ The World of Cyberpunk 2077 over the past few days, I’ve gotten a better feel for the various basic hooks that structure V’s inception as a protagonist. The short of it is the Polish wizards are on the right path to nailing Pondsmith’s treatment the same way they nailed Sapkowski’s works.

Consider the following as half a brain dump, half a series of prospective spoilers, and also half projection, so either skip this, find some other entry to read, or come back to this come late November.

I know I mentioned three halves, but it’s late and I don’t give a shit.

I’m serious - DO NOT PRESS ON IF YOU’RE THE TYPE TO BLOW A GASKET IF YOU’RE INADVERTANTLY SPOILED. 

The latest Night City Wire as of August exposed three incipient “life paths”, or starting branches of V’s path. I’ll tackle my personal narrative approaches to them in the order of my choosing.

Nomads: CP2077 is set in a world where much of what we understand to define a family has been blown up, tossed around by climate change and nuclear fire and then stitched back together using grit, resourcefulness and the last dying embers of human decency. Nomads are less a group of people defined by blood relations and more a cadre of individuals that share something more significant than mere genes. It might be a common history, a set of shared hardships, a yen for similar automotive and engineering-related projects - whatever it is, that something pulls people together in ways Corpo rats and street kids will never experience.

This seems to define even the average Nomad’s degree of education. Surprisingly, Nomads are the most well-read group in Coronado Bay’s greater area, some caravans reportedly including entire RVs packed with books. Nomads generationally elect teachers and record-keepers and seem to care for those cultural remnants of the old world, before Pondsmith’s paranoid alternate sixties kicked off more than a century’s worth of technological progression and rampant dehumanization. To a Night City native, a Nomad’s speech patterns appear precious and uselessly florid, while they might appear almost normal to us - maybe slightly touched by the fact that Grandpa Joe or whatever really wanted you to have your Greek classics down before you were old enough to repair your first CH00H2 carburetor on your own.

That new, mega-clustered version of family matters immensely to the Nomads. You identify to yours the same way Orcs in Shadow of War might refer to their clan, or the same way a Scottish clan might design specific visual cues identifying its members. In normal circumstances, Nomads live, thrive and die in service to the clan - and the opening segment for V’s Nomad origins suggests that something happened to his clan. They’re gone, or so the narration says, without going into further detail. Is V responsible? We don’t currently know. As it stands, however, he is a lone Nomad in a clan of one, and soon finds himself pushed out of the Californian wastes and into Night City’s neon-drenched streets.

Seeing this, I considered the narration as an admission of guilt on V’s part. He feels responsible, and hopes that grinding his way to success will in some way atone for what he’s done. Consequently, my Nomad V would be as gruff as could be, but as moral and upstanding as the setting allows. He considers himself as having been invested with an example to set, and would intend to set his sights on more than just filthy lucre. Honest filthy lucre is what matters to him, if that concept even is possible: he might deal in unsavory types and illicit activities, but he always does so with a certain moral rectitude - as a tough and gruff, lean and stringy type you can occasionally catch in his battered Thornton pick-up truck with his feet up on the dashboard and a dog-eared copy of Plato’s Republic in hand. Jackie honestly wonders how he can put up with that Greek pendejo’s endless words and the lack of scrolling animations, while V keeps his Kiroshi optics’ News ticker locked onto grassroots Leftist RSS feeds that stoke a bit of an ignored Rockerboy ethos in him. Quoting Marx in Night City might feel like trying to teach lab rats in the finer points of string theory, but it at least feels genuine to him, compared to the predigested sociopolitical pap Militech, Arasaka and their ilk are more than happy to spew on the airwaves. 

There’s a lot to be pissed off about in Richard Night’s failed utopia, a lot of fat cats to gut and buildings to burn. Still, he leaves the glowering act and the churning rage to Johnny Silverhand’s imprinted ghost. Being more of a down-low, gun-toting choomba than a classic Street Samurai, Vincent “V” Carson thinks first and strikes second.

Vinnie isn’t much for electric guitars and anarchy in the UK, much less in the Free State of Southern California; but he does love the occasional Leonard Cohen ballad or the occasional shot of Johnny Cash’s melancholy. Having picked up something of a Northern Texas drawl while cruising, he might feel like Harry Dresden’s Good Ol’ Boy cousin, magic tricks here pushed aside in favor of a measure of dermal plating and a good ol’ fashioned twelve-gauge and revolver combo. Not being much of a techno-fetishist, he considers his optics and his skull jack as being begrudging concessions to an era that looks down on fully “ganic” types. Having grown up with TV serials and the occasional visor-based Braindance all depicting cyberpsychosis as something vile that utterly dehumanizes its sufferers, he’s naturally wary around anyone who seems a little too giddy with the prospect of taking a few scalpels to perfectly decent muscles and bones.

His Thornton is where most of his Eddies go, and yes, he’s named his truck Suzie. Suzie’s done right by him, and he’ll do right by her - unless someone else with a pretty smile and a working moral compass makes him swoon.

Street Kids: if you weren’t taught on the highways or in corporate arcologies, odds are you became a positive blip in an otherwise grim statistic, one of the myriad fucked-up kids raised by other fucked-up kids with more seniority than you. With no roads and paid-for nannies, you survived off of grifts, grit, violence, deceit, smarts and gumption - and that, in its own screwball way, creates its own blood ties. You’re wise by Heywood’s standards - streetwise, that is - and you speak the back-alleys’ lingua franca of threats, insinuation and casual intimidation like no other.

If only Jackie hadn’t fingered that Rayfield, huh? This beaut could’ve been paydirt! Well, at least for a week or so, judging by the fact that hundreds of car thefts are reported across Night City on a daily basis. At least, Dean - who also goes as “V” - got to make a new friend while out in the pokey, and managed to shake a few proverbial trees... They’ve got a short-lease in with Trauma Team’s frequency and could maybe hook themselves up with a sweet finder’s fee for anyone who’s on the verge of death at the hands of the city’s Scavengers...

Little does V know, that’s selling Trauma Team as well as their clients painfully short. Shows of gratitude don’t mean anything if you’re not packing the right social status. He barely remembers his birth parents as it is, and grew up the fifth grubby prospect of one of the Valentinos’ “school clubs” (hence the nickname) - where the points of study refer to the proper observances to be held in Jesus Malaverde’s presence, intensive Chicano and Spanish immersion, as well as the handling of common types of weaponry.

Vincent and Dean would be likely to shoot one another, if placed in the same room. One clings onto nearly-lost value systems, while the other commodifies what can be discarded like so much flesh - only inasmuch as his efforts to pacify his unofficial five or six abuelas force him to forego extensive modifications. His knives and wrist-mounted data port are his main tools of the trade, although Dean keeps his hacking creds along the bare minimum. Why bother, when melting an ATM’s ICE wall and whacking the cops with a baseball bat is all you need? There’s a type of gun for nearly anything else, if someone knows where to look...

Dean has no last name, and is consequently registered as “Dean Smith” in the city’s Census records. That doesn’t suggest, however, that he wouldn’t want to make one for himself. As he’s less focused on the city’s legends than on its kingmakers and pawn-movers, Dexter DeShawn strikes him as someone to emulate, watch and learn from - all with a decent degree of caution.

Being on top matters a little less to him than eventually pulling Heywood’s stings. With a little fear and a lot of persistence, Dean “V.” Smith knows that one day, he won’t go hungry on a weeknight. To that end, he’s certainly a hearty eater, here paired with extensive free-weight training regimens and the use of anabolic stimulants. Oh, sure, he’ll speak of family and blood like the best soldier festooned in Santa Muerte visual codices, but his friend Jackie’s got a mind like a slow and steady steel trap.

Either Dean blows his new fellow Street Samurai out of the pond, or he does. Unlike Jackie, however, Dean isn’t realistic about it. Friendships are a rare gift in Heywood, if not the rest of Night City, and Dean’s convinced that Jackie could conceivably look past his final betrayal.

Corpo: nowadays, we’re mostly familiar with the idea of one-percenters creating a bubble of affluence for themselves. Boarding schools, private villas, prebooked vacations across the globe’s priciest spots, access to the hottest trends on the minute of their inception - what this tends to forego is the level of social disconnect that’s required in order to stay relevant. We’re only just waking up to the consequences of letting an aging, crusty first-generation Yuppie be crowned the ruler of the free world, and even someone who’s behind on their Bret Easton Ellis could tell you that Donald J. Trump is a sociopath and a narcissist.

Take that mindset, and cultivate it into an ethos that’s taught to children from a very early age - children who live, eat, shit and breathe in accordance with their parent corporation’s tenets. The more placid, mid-tier lifers in the genre are called sararimen, in reference to William Gibson’s use of the term to designate low-level company workers in Chiba City. A bit like Shenzhen’s factory workers and execs, everything in a corpo’s life is in service to the corporation.

In Night City, as of 2077, two major players have installed this culture of total obedience in their roster. Their names are Militech and Arasaka. One is a juggernaut in the field of military-grade personal defence, the other has a wider grasp and reach, but is more fragile. Arasaka owes that fragility to the last fifty years having involved its re-establishment and reconstruction. Fifty years ago, Night City’s Corpo Plaza was blasted open by a thermonuclear discharge that sent the Japanese giant packing. The charges had been set by three Edgerunners: Rogue, Morgan Blackhand and Johnny Silverhand - accessorily a well-respected Rockerboy and front-line member of the band SAMURAI. Only Rogue survived that fateful night, or so the street lingo goes, having gone on to start a legitimate consultation business as well as a fruitful career in the hospitality business. Her bar, the Afterlife, is Night City’s hotspot for every techie, script kiddie and accomplished cyber-spelunker.

Our gal Vivian knows this. She knows this, because Vivian “V.” Banks lives two lives.

In one of them, she’s a lean and hungry Junior Executive in Arasaka’s Counter-Intel division. In that line of work, you either fuck someone’s prospects or protect your own, or ensure that no up-and-comer just out of the company’s Law School program manages to push you off the board. She knows full well that in centuries past, corpo-speak was made up of mild euphemisms that at best referred to destroying a rival’s prospects or lifelihood. Taking a life was something that required careful deliberation, especially when tossing a fat severance bonus into an aging CFO’s three-piece pockets and letting your erstwhile rival snort cocaine off of the rolling hips of Tahitian dancers was so much cheaper...

Nowadays, zeroing someone is commonplace.

You’re born for Arasaka, and chances are you’ll die for Arasaka just the same. Viv’s killed, lied, cheated and even stole her way to her position, remorse being this vaguely churning sense of coldness in her gut that keeps one-night stands coming in and out of her bedroom. She only remembers her parents as being credit-chip enablers and personal enhancement drug addicts, cutting ties with them so completely on the day of her official hiring that it felt more like a tacit understanding.

On most days, sex and booze keep the cold at bay. On most days, Vivian Banks is a class-act of a sociopath. The stronger she gets, however, and the more paranoid her targets become - which reinforces her own paranoia. Before long, playing the part of one of Arasaka’s several poisonous flowers won’t work anymore.

Unfortunately, she trusts no-one. No Fixer could put her in contact with any hacker she’d trust, no rando fresh off the street with a retro-tinted National Arms plinker would satisfy her. To climb up the ranks and maybe share tea with Old Man Saburo himself, she needs a spotless performance record. She needs skills.

More importantly, she needs a reputation. That means leaving Arasaka Tower and mingling with the experts in their own field - and it means filling out her back book of successful hits. The drinks at the Afterlife are decent enough, but what she’s after is an official in.

If she can get to Rogue, or maybe even hook up with a ripperdoc not bought and paid for by the company, she might be able to score both new skills and increased performance...

If it were as simple as slitting Janet’s throat in HR and diving her way to an orgiastic performance review quite innocently left on the department’s server, she would’ve done that already. Viv is my obvious Pure Stealth build candidate, my main-line hacker and would-be engineer with a thing for black power skirts and designer offensive augments.

With that said, we’re months ahead of schedule, all the good shit’s already come out, so we’re stuck playing the waiting game...

What are your own character or build ideas for Cyberpunk 2077?

[dottiechan]

Finders Keepers Pt. 2 (A SWTOR Imperial Agent story)

Part 1 / Part 2

Wordcount: 1882

Summary: Havoc learns of the survival of SIS agent Dorathine Garza, now classified rogue due to her treasonous acts against the Republic. Months of futile investigation lead Aric Jorgan to finally stumble upon a strange clue.

Warnings: death, mentions of drinking/alcohol

Aric stalks across the ship like a ghost, starting from the ramp and arriving in the armoury without saying a word. Not a single member of Havoc squad dares ask him how his rendezvous with the SIS went – even the usually chipper and socially unaware Forex can sense the tension Jorgan’s arrival has generated, so he lets Yuun run his usual diagnostic scans on him in silence. The last time the war bot did a patriotic speech about destroying the Republic’s enemies, their commander almost put a blaster bolt between the droid’s mechanical eyes. Had it not been for Elara’s and Yuun’s joined effort to hold him back, Aric is pretty sure he would have dropped the clanker then and there. Commander Jorgan knows that it’s not that simple. It’s not the fight of light versus dark. Good versus evil. It’s a fight between one half of the Galaxy and the other, with both good and bad on both sides. And when he’s not seeing red, he knows that Forex’s simplistic patriotic programming could never understand that.

But he can’t help it. Every time Dee’s involved, he loses it.

Even now, he’s not fully himself as he inspects their weaponry that he knows he’ll find in pristine condition. Aric would like to blame it all on having to spend – and thus argue – an entire day with SIS agent Jonas Balkar, but it’s not that simple. The topic was Dee. More specifically the accusations the Republic has been pinning on her for months, now crowned with a sizeable bounty and the authorisation of lethal force should she resist arrest. “Who in their right minds wouldn’t though?” he argued back to Balkar. “Especially if said person is innocent.”

There’s undoubtedly blood on her hands now. Fifty, sixty military personnel and civvies. It’s reason enough to demand her apprehension, Aric agrees with that. But Dee cannot be doing it willingly – she must have been tortured, beaten into submission, controlled by fear. There’s got to be a reason, because the soldier he helped advance, the young woman he shaped to become who she is cannot with good conscience commit war crimes so remorselessly. Aric taught her discipline, morals, enjoying the fruit of hard labour. He never concerned himself with the wild streak in the girl, because she continuously delivered what she promised. Then one intelligence op that went a little too well, and the blasted SIS swooped in to claim her like a shyrack grabbing prey. He cannot truly vouch for who she is now, but it doesn’t lessen his responsibility – he gave her the foundations of being a loyal soldier, a military asset. If she failed, she failed because his teachings didn’t take root in her. And that is something the Cathar refuses to face. That, and the fact that he would have given her all the stars in the Galaxy had she ever thought to ask. But she never did. She never asked him for a damned thing.

Admitting that he might not have known her as well as he thought is another recognition that causes pressure right behind his eyes, and he can feel two ways this strictly ordered R&R night can go for him – either he takes a speeder to the Coruscanti army base and wrecks as many training dummies as he can, or he knocks back the rest of the booze he secretly stashes in his footlocker underneath his cot in the commander’s quarters and passes out. What he wouldn’t give for an Imperial spymaster to sink his claws into now! Maybe then this constant buzzing in his mind would finally stop. It has to. He’s been stretched out too thin lately, chasing an enemy of the Republic that seemingly does not want to be found. And he’s wearing down Havoc in the process, he knows. Quiet Elara is more elusive than ever, always locked in her coffin-sized quarters listening to medical lectures and holojournals. Yuun busies himself with the ship, and the droid. Blast, even Forex is quiet now when he enters. Only Tanno Vik seems to be taking it well, but Jorgan never liked the man. Then again, he doesn’t really trust his judgement when it comes to people anymore.

The whirring static of the holotable draws him away from his thoughts and he abandons the blasters to investigate. It’s soon plain to him – despite being quite the layman when it comes to technological equipment – that someone is trying to slice into their comm channel. Aric wants to call for Elara, but by the time he remembers she’s left not ten minutes ago, it’s too late.

She’s luminescent, blue, static and fraying. Audio a little distorted. But it’s her.

“You really need to up the security of your ship, LT.”

“It’s captain now, actually.”

“I heard. It’s just difficult to let go of old habits.”

“And what should I call you?” he asks cautiously, arms crossed over his chest, pacing up and down like a caged nexu. “Dee? Agent? Traitor?”

“I didn’t call you to trade names.”

“Then why are we talking? Surely you’re not interested in my wellbeing all of a sudden?”

“You’d be surprised... But no. I’m calling because this has to stop. Because you need to stop coming after me like that. I had a clear shot at you on Kashyyyk, but since you and I go way back, I thought I’d give you a warning first.”

...

“Are you listening, Sergeant?”

“Yes, LT. Hanging on every word.”

It’s late at night, but she’s being loaned temporarily for an intel mission in a week and Aric wastes no time to prepare one of the finest troops he had the honour of training. Such raw talent and potential, paired with such an attitude – if only she could tone it down. But she’s young, and reckless, and not broken in properly yet. The years will do that job for him, Jorgan knows. They’ll teach her what words cannot.

“Good. Then name the key infiltration points of the listening outpost.”

She lists them effortlessly, though the slight hesitation in her voice here and there gives him cause to believe that she’s guessing more than telling. He’s had to learn how to weed out the untrustworthy, deceitful candidates in the army, so he knows what it sound like when someone lies to him.

“Educated guess, but it shows your lack of preparation.”

“Did I get them right though, sir?”

She’s smirking now, leaning back, hands moving to the back of her neck to support the weight of her head. If she wasn’t wearing 30 kg of Republic issue reinforced plastoid armour, she’d look like a senator’s daughter enjoying a round of Sabacc at the Star Cluster Casino on Nar Shaddaa.

“That... is beside the point. You can’t always rely on quick wit to save you.”

“That’s why I always bring a big gun and a few thermal detonators with me.”

“I’m hoping to still be around when you realise weapons aren’t everything. That being a soldier is much more than just aiming and pulling the trigger.”

“Oh, you’ll be around, LT. Just not sure I’ll be too.”

That smirk forms on her lips again, head lolling lazily to one side. Aric feels tightness in his chest – concern over her words, and quickened heartbeat due to corners of her mouth being tugged up into a smile that is enough to make him completely unbalanced. He says a silent prayer to the GAR for keeping Dee mostly on the right path. Stars know what this young woman would turn into if she didn’t have the moral guidance of the military life. She’d waste her potential on something lowly, his rational mind tells Aric. But there’s an even bigger, more suppressed fear in the back of his head – he’s afraid she’d turn into someone he couldn’t like anymore. Someone he couldn’t respect. Someone he couldn’t love.

“Nonsense. Your mother would court martial me if I ever let anything happen to you.”

He regrets the joke as soon as it’s out, because it wipes the smile right off her face. “Or she’d give you a medal. There’s a fifty-fifty chance, if you’re brave enough to take it. Now, where were we, sir? Not five minutes ago you were like a broken reg manual spouting your military wisdom on repeat, and now somehow we’re analysing my relationship with my mother.”

“Dee... If you ever needed someone to talk to... It couldn’t have been easy, growing up in her shadow...” Aric starts cautiously, pained voice trailing off. It’s his turn to hesitate, and hers to pick it up and scorn.

“I hear the Crater is still open at this time of the night. If you want to talk family, I’ll need an optimal level of alcohol first.”

Greedy. Exploitative. Unprofessional.

Jorgan scolds himself as he agrees before they walk across the now quiet Fort Garnik, saluting the troopers on guard duty as they head over the small, dirty watering hole in the camp.

But he just cannot feel bad about it when it all feels so good.

...

The cot feels smaller and colder than usual. This solitary life is no stranger to the man, but to hear her voice again after so long is enough to make his body inject itself with more adrenalin than what it could handle. He has already submitted his request for leave – it shouldn’t surprise the higher ups, especially General Garza, that he needs some time away after learning of the GAR approved, SIS issued bounty placed on Dee’s head. By his calculations, they will accept it effective immediately, leaving him just enough time to take a shuttle to Nar Shaddaa, shed his armour and slip into something less conspicuous before heading to the rendezvous point as agreed. She knows how to pick a good spot – it’s where they ended a massive organ harvesting ring back in the days. Now, it’s nothing more than an abandoned warehouse rusting away in the slums of the Hutt-controlled world. But to them, it’s the peak of what they could achieve if they worked together.

He wants to believe that they can restore that state. That whatever it is the Empire has on her to keep her obedient can be broken by him somehow.

Just as he’s about to shift and turn onto his other side on the mattress, his datapad blinks in the dark. He reaches out and turns it on, yellow eyes skimming through the formalities of Garza’s message to get to the bottom of it. As anticipated, he is granted a leave of four days starting tomorrow. Aric switches the lights on, stretches, and abandons the datapad on the bed in favour of getting dressed. He knows he would never be able to sleep in such an ecstatic state that he finds himself in now, so he prepares, stocks up his personal supplies. He then studies the holomap of the Nar Shaddaa district while chewing on a ration bar absentmindedly. Like a soldier prepping for a battle.

To anyone else, this might sound like a brewing confrontation. But no, not to Aric. To him, it’s an extraction mission. One where he’ll use words rather than guns in the heat of the battle. One that should have happened a long time ago.

[datarevived]

   -- Ⅶ : ᴅᴇғɪɴᴇ : ɢᴜᴀʀᴅɪᴀɴ

The next few days ran by like a haze. 

With only one objective in mind, a constant prowess around the Tower and watchful eye towards a single individual. The Hunter cautiously kept her distance between the target, taking notes and listening in on conversations that did not belong to her. An earnest attempt to find an opening that she might be able to step out of the shadows without disapproving glare -- nay, the time never came, but the information that guarded it gave her something more.

She would find the truth about the Ward and it's keeper.

" You did what?! "

" I followed him, " the Awoken replies bluntly, blinking amiss the torn Exo as the Warlock stood dead center of the room. Both of their Ghost idly hovered in place next to one another, just short of the dresser that sat pushed against the wall as their Guardians spoke -- a disappointed glow in Data's own hold as he shook his shell.

" I tried to tell her otherwise that it was a poor idea, " the deep-purple shell sighed, cyan optic slant. " Truly, if he's still without suspicion after so long, I'll be amazed. "

" If he was on to us he would have already snagged us aside, " Selene argued, sitting upon ones' own mattress that met to concrete floor, waving a hand in defense. " He doesn't seem the type to just let things go. -- He's not. He's planning something big, and he's trying to do it alone and it's just going to get him killed. "

" And why is that any of our problem?! " Bex pleaded, throwing both hands in front of him in question. " You're over your head this time, Sel! You're putting yourself in someone elses' problem, this isn't your fight! "

" And neither is the Red War, but we're fighting that, aren't we!? " hands slam against the covers in retaliation, wilting expression now staring upward at her companion. " You said it yourself -- he's alone, Bex. Who even wants that!? And the Twins -- they said the rest of them died out a long time ago! And the few who did survive just ended up dying trying to recon some other big mission that ate up another Fireteam because they were alone. "

" You don't know what happened back then, Sel, " the Warlock sighed heavily, tone having switched at the mention of other Fireteam. " Just don't do this, okay? I'm beggin' you. I'll even get on my knees, right here, right now, and we can just act like this was just some whole big' rouse -- "

" And let Valdourin go out on his own to die?! Are you insane? "

" You don't even know this guy, Sel! "

" I know he's a Guardian and we're suppose to watch each others' backs! "

The twos' bickering damped in the background as the two Ghost continued to watch, Screws's shell whirling an unnoticed cog as yellow optic blinks. As if debating whether or not to speak -- not directly, but in retrospect. It's monotone voice scraping at the sounds of altered unit.

" ʜᴇ ᴅᴏᴇs ɴ0ᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ... ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴀʀᴅ. "

The statement naturally having caught Data's attention, at least. Quirked hue turning in favor of the other Ghost, " What was that? -- A bit hard to hear with all the yelling.  "

The response being nothing more than silence 'pon mislead rage, the multi-colored Ghost remaining kept to its' thoughts now. Data's own curiosity, tracing his audio backlog to revisit the statement. It was still too hard to decipher between the noise of Guardians.

" People die every day, Selene -- and if this guy wants to go out on his own, don't you think he wants to be alone?! " Bex's voice picked back up, the Awoken now standing on her mattress to meet at risen height, nearly eye to eye with the other as she glared.

" Just because he wants to doesn't mean he needs to! I heard it, from the Bazaar and from the Twins -- this isn't something he'd do unless he was desperate! And the people who want to help him -- can’t!  "

" So why are you so desperate to help him! You didn't even want part of this whole Guardian thing, remember!? So why are you so interested now?! "

. . .

. . .

. . .

Perhaps, in theory -- words that had been taken too far.

The Exo's snap leaving the other tight-lipped and in shock. He, who had been her friend from the start of this mess, calling out on something that was dreadfully personal. Something she struggled to keep up with, true -- a façade she was trying to mend real, this folktale story. With not a care in the world for what the Traveler wanted or intended with their immortality -- it was by the words of the Hunter Vanguard that made her settle for what was done. To help those who couldn't help themselves. To do what others can't -- what others won't. That's what being a Guardian was about, right?

' We take care of one another. '

So why?

Why was this suddenly so difficult to understand?

A tightening grasp clutched at her chest now -- arms still held to the side in white-knuckled fist as she frantically tried to find the words to argue back. But this stun, this spell the Exo had trapped her in -- an improper time of evaluation and truth. Why was she so desperate to help this man? What was in it for her? Why simply him? Would it have been the same, if it was someone else?

" ...Sel, look, m' sorry -- "

" Don't. "

" --What? "

A sharpen inhale as her chest inflates, the Awoken holds it there for a moment before exhaling in locked decision. Brows pinched against her forehead, with threatening light behind the blues of her eyes -- she could do this. She would do this.

" I'm going, with or without your help. "

" Excuse me? " Data's voice quirked back.

" I still don't think this is a good idea -- " Bex attempted, though as quickly cut off before he could proceed.

" No. It probably isn't. But I'm going anyway. "

What else was there to say?

If she had her decision beneath lock and key, nothing more to discussion in the matter, what else could he have done to change the outcome? For what he knew of Selene so far, she was certainly a type. One in which once her mind was set, there was no going backwards. A foot forward, each and every time -- it didn't have to make sense. It just had to move.

Was that how she always bested him?

Or was it how he always lost, not taking the step before hand? 

. . .

If faceplate could replicate a grimace, it would be his very war paint. Sun-set hued optics shifting slight, his attention now placed anywhere but the Hunter's face. Her eyes, as if thrown daggers from pocket -- she was a Hunter, thick and thin. Heart worn 'pon sleeve and ambition leading the forefront. 

But more importantly -- she was his friend.

And as such, he couldn't simply just walk away from it. 

Not this time.

" ...Do you even know when he's leaving? "

" Tonight. Soon as the City lights turn on. "

"  You got a location? "

" Io... something about... " she shifts in place now, expression relaxing against a new coat of melancholy. " -- I don't know, really... he mentioned something about the Hive. That they were crowning a new King or something... I haven't been able to get all the details, but -- "

" And how are you even getting there? " the Exo's head tilts, crossing his arms at his chest as he shifts a leg for balance.

" I... I've been to Io, once. "

" Oh dear, " Data sighs.

" Uh-huh? "

" ...I uh... sneaked into a ship. I figured if I was careful enough, I'd be able to sneak onto his... "

" You want us to stowaway on his ship? "

" It's worked before!? Throw me a bone here, man! "

" Ugh -- you know, Hunters have quite a reputation in their life spans because of this nonsense, " the Warlock shook his head, raising a hand in pinch against the metal of his would-be-if-he-had-one nose. " We're not sneaking onto a Ward's ship. We need a better plan. " 

" I don't knoooow, " Selene grumbles, now placing both hands against the sides of her head. " I just assumed at this point you weren't coming and I could sneak into a box or something -- "

" You're hilarious. "

" I'm trying! "

" Yeah, yeah, " Bex pulls the hand from his face in a wave, offering another sigh. At least they'd be going down together, worse case scenario. Dying alone just seemed so... out of  date. " Look -- ya'got a few hours before the lights. We figure out a plan, we execute plan, we go to Io and participate in whatever the hell this mission is. Given the Hive, we'll probably die -- a lot. Permanently, maybe. But if we live? We come back, everyones happy? We take a month break from doing bad ideas. Capeesh? "

" I was really hoping you had a better plan, " the Awoken mumbles, crossing her own arms. " --But fine. We fix up a plan... we go... we come back alive, " she points, offering a glance of uncertainty, " ...who knows, maybe he'll turn out to be a nice friend and the we can all three go do bad ideas. "

" After the break. "

" ...Sure, for now, " she shrugs.

" ...Yer' terrible. "

" I know. ♥ "

[sweet-evie]

Sea Witch

Original Publication Date: September 18, 2019

Original Link: Sea Witch FFN

He hated how hopelessly he had fallen in love with this creature. But he couldn't deny the wishes of his own heart — and how it called her name with every beat. [AU Lelouch/CC story]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It grieved her young heart to know that her brother would not be returning. Her beloved older brother, Crown Prince of Britannia, heir to Emperor Charles; such greatness would no longer grace the massive walls of the throne room.

Her people lost a noble leader. The commoners had given up hope for their Champion…

And the Imperial Naval fleet was a wreck without their Commander-in-chief.

Word had reached the homeland just this morning, and the members of the Imperial Court had been in an uproar. Remains of the Prince's ship's massive hull and bits of its mast were all that was left of her brother's beloved Lady Marianne. Crashed against massive boulders along the northern seas, Britannia's band of dispatched search-and-rescue ships had turned up empty.

No survivors. Not one of her brother's crew members survived. Even her brother's escort — Seventh Knight Suzaku Kururugi was reported dead.

There had been nothing but bits of splintered wood, rotting food, clumps of seaweed, and bird droppings — as one of the men had said.

Not a soul from his Royal Highness' crew had been spotted — not even corpses.

And that was the most disappointing news of all.

Nunnally hated it. She hated how vast oceans and leagues of water had separated her from her brother. She loathed the heavens for shackling her to her home — unable to do anything but weep for her brother's short-lived existence. Not even a body. How devastating.

The worst part was that it had taken two months' of her brother's delayed return before her father, the Emperor, finally decided to send search-and-rescue ships to find the Crown Prince.

She felt so powerless and so useless… And now there was nothing left to do but weep for the wasted life that was Prince Lelouch Lamperouge-vi Britannia's.

vVvVv

"Do you not wish to return to your people?"

One lock of raven hair after another fell and floated atop the shimmering water, creating small ripples, and effectively distracting him from the dangerously alluring voice murmuring words into his ear. He failed to suppress the pleasant shudder that skittered down his spine when her cold fingertips barely brushed the skin at his nape.

He refused to answer her query. Out of spite, and out of denial of the disgusting truth that haunted him at every waking hour.

It was irresponsible. And treasonous.

Because the truth was, he didn't want to return to his people anymore.

Perhaps his foolishness had grown after months of staying in this half-submerged grotto tucked away at the foot of the mountains that connected to the sea. Maybe he was simply tired of carrying the burden that belonged to Crown Prince Lelouch. Perhaps his in-most desires had always been this.

Or was it because his treacherous heart had helplessly fallen victim to his lover's call?

He watched locks of hair fall into the water and float away — one after another. She was surprisingly adept at trimming his raven locks with his dagger — the only remnant he had of the life he had once led. Maybe that was why she was asking him that question again. He knew that she knew that he hated it when she asked that. But he supposed it couldn't be helped. Not when his Princely identity still cast shadows in this new life..

But what was he now, exactly?

A prisoner? A lovesick fool under a spell? Or simply a savage brute who had chosen to discard his responsibilities and shed his name and honor for the sake of infatuation?

"We've discussed this."

Her sigh was melancholic. And he still hated how charming it sounded. But he caught himself short of being completely surprised. He shouldn't really. Not when he knew her voice was her weapon. "No. You never once gave me an answer."

"I don't have one."

Liar…

"Or perhaps you simply refuse to give me one."

The blade rattled against the smooth stones as she carelessly dropped the weapon. There was a quiet splash just behind him, before he felt a pair of now-familiar cold arms wind around his torso. He could feel every line of her form against his; every scale, every bare brush of the fin, the ripples against his legs as her tail moved back and forth. He tried to ignore her, even as her lips latched on to the skin at the crook of his neck. But he failed anyway when he whirled around and held her to him instead, his fingers threading through locks of shimmery green hair floating in the chest-high ocean water.

"You've shown quite a devotion for choosing to stay."

He scoffed; the facial expression mismatched with his actions as he rested his cheek atop her crown of hair. "Don't flatter yourself."

"Then I must be excellent at pleasuring you."

She dangled her seduction above him like bait. Normally, he'd gladly bite. But not today… Not today.

"Of all the men who have been unfortunate enough to hear my song and perish, only you have survived and defied me at every turn. That willpower is extraordinary."

Her lips moved against his skin, fingernails brushing against his back, and he knew she was soaking up what little warmth his human body had to offer.

"And that is why you keep me as your prisoner and convince yourself that you're in love with me."

"Modesty has never been your strong suit." She tittered and left a kiss above his beating heart before she extracted herself from him and proceeded to float on her back above the water. "I don't keep prisoners, Prince Lelouch. You keep choosing to stay when I've been so willing to let you go."

That was a lie too, and they both knew it.

So damn her and her soothing voice. Her sweet lullabies. The charming lilt in her eyes. The deadly gleam of her serrated canines. The glow in her otherworldly eyes. Damn her for saving his life when he had been about to die. And damn her for being so caring and compassionate towards him.

Damn her for stealing his heart and keeping it for her own… Damn her for revealing her truth.

This exquisite, ancient, and wondrous creature.

Unattainable and wise. Keeper of the secrets of life and death. The embodiment of the ocean and mankind's twisted ways. A treasure trove full of wisdom gathered through the ages.

A regrettable killer and a desirable lover.

And yet somehow, past the powers and the physical beauty, a part of him had seen how lonely she was. Confused and lost. Cursed to wander the ocean waters for all eternity, sorrowfully singing her requiems and odes to the skies, the stars, and the moon — her only audience. And even then, any human who chanced upon crossing with her sweet siren's call would inevitably meet their doom.

She asked questions about him returning to his Palace. But he couldn't bring himself to even if it was true that there was nothing but her presence keeping him here.

He had a duty to his family, to his people. He shouldered the Crown and the throne. But he couldn't leave her…

"I have duties to my kingdom. To my family."

She swam towards him again, placing her hands against his chest. "So go. I never stopped you before. Why should I now? If you ask, I can guide you through the endless ocean to see you safely to your home."

"But I don't want to leave you too." Was the quiet answer as he touched his forehead to hers, his hands cupping her cheeks, their lips barely brushing against one another.

"You have to if you're going to survive."

She was right. He wasn't like her. He couldn't live like this forever. And sooner rather than later, he would be forced to traverse the ocean waters just to get home. But not yet…

He shook his head, displaying the stubbornness she had come to love over the days they spent together. "I will find a way."

"The heavens have blessed me. And yet, it has been so cruel to offer me a taste of sweet and true love when we both know it will not last."

Glimmering tears fell from eyes swirling with gold and blue, an expression of sorrow and regret — one he couldn't bear to see in such a lovely face. So in comfort and in love, he stole another siren's kiss, fusing their lips together — an embodiment of a wish to be wholly united. A want to become one being and dissolve into the ocean that had birthed their impossible love affair.

[pug-bitch]

That’s not why I’m going (31)

The lengths he’d go

Book: The Royal Romance

Pairing: Drake Walker x Amara Suarez

Rating: some foul language, some extremely suggestive. This is absolutely NOT appropriate for people under 18. This also alludes to pretty disturbing content, regarding Amara’s backstory.

Word count: about 4,100 (let me know if the ‘keep reading’ cutoff isn’t working well!)

Notes: This picks up pretty much where we left off, during the first night in Penelope’s estate, right after Liam saw Liv and Rashad, starting with Drake’s POV.

*****

Maxwell had just left for the night, after a fun evening of movies and chats, and Drake was just about to turn in when someone knocked on the door. He was secretly hoping it would be Amara, but he knew that they were being prudent. Maybe Max had forgotten something?

‘Hey Max, coming!’ he yells out.

‘It’s me, Drake.’

Liam’s voice. Not like his usual self, though, his voice is broken and sad. Trembling, even. Drake rushes to the door. ‘Hey man, come on in.’

Liam looks like shit. His eyes are bloodshot, and he’s holding a sad, slightly wilted bouquet of roses, as well as a jewelry box. Oh no, Drake thinks. Who rejected him this time?

‘Thanks for opening. I know it’s late.’

‘Hey, no worries, Li. I was up, Max and I were watching movies.’

Liam nods. ‘Any chance you were also drinking whiskey and there’s some left?’

Drake chuckles. ‘Yeah. Sit down, I’ll pour you a glass.’

*****

‘Maybe it’s better if we go our separate ways here,’ Liv whispers as Rashad parks his car in the garage where they met up earlier.

Rashad nods and smiles. ‘Whatever you say. I had a great time. Thank you for coming out with me, Nevrakis.’

Liv sighs, unable to keep the smile off of her lips. ‘I had a great time too. Sorry I’m not inviting you up, I just-’

He puts his hand on her arm, ever so gently. ‘Stop. This is perfect.’

She stays like this for a few minutes, taking it all in. He obviously wants her, she realized it on the beach, when they made out for a while on that rock --how cliché?-- and she felt his hard cock against her. But he didn’t try anything beyond kissing. 

Not that she didn’t want it; of course she wants it. He’s so fucking attractive, and respectful, and kind --oh fuck, since when have those been positive criteria for her? Still, she doesn’t want to rush into something new. She’s loved Liam for as long as she can remember, and cannot jump into something head first right now. But maybe just dipping her toes is fine. 

Plus, since Ilya’s nude picture was leaked, she’s been feeling...violated. It wasn’t even her picture, of course, but the intent behind the text exchange was clear, and plain for everyone to see. Her personal life, on a shelf, for the whole court to judge. Fuck that. 

No, she’s not ready. She would love to shed her inhibitions and jump his bones right here right now. Just say fuck it, and straddle him, in the driver’s seat. She could ride him immediately if she wanted, and on some level she does want it, but… not yet.

‘Liv,’ Rashad murmurs, as if reading her mind, ‘there’s nothing I would love more than spend the night with you, but there’s no rush. So, we can keep hanging out, and in a little while, if you want, well, if you’re still into it, I’ll be there.’

She smiles and captures his lips in a passionate kiss. ‘Good night, Domvallier. See you very soon.’

*****

Liam looks at his best friend process what he just told him. Drake’s eyes are the size of saucers as he’s reacting to the thought of Liv with Rashad. Liam’s thoughts exactly.

‘Li, this is crazy… are you okay?’

No, he’s not okay, he thinks. Bit late for Drake to worry, huh? But he can’t tell him that. ‘I’ll be fine, Drake. I’m just disappointed, as you can see, I was going to make a grand gesture, and my plans were completely derailed.’

Drake is responding, with words that Liam is not listening to. All he can think about right now is Liv’s lips tangled with Rashad’s. Amara’s rejection of him, very clear, very business-like. Drake’s budding friendship with Maxwell, which had taken over Liam’s own friendships with the two men. When did the actual Crown Prince become everyone’s third wheel? Even Bertrand seemed more integrated to the group than he was, when they had lunch at the cabin. 

‘Liam? Are you listening?’

‘Hm? Oh, yeah. I know, crazy, right?’

Drake squints. ‘I was saying, you should talk to Liv. Be upfront with her, ask her if she is serious about Rashad. Maybe it’s all a big misunderstanding, maybe she’s just hanging out with him because she thought you would never propose to her. You’ve gotta at least try.’

Liam plasters on his fake smile, the one he’s been showing off 24/7 these days. ‘You’re right. Thank you.’

But what he means is, why is it always my job to clarify everything with everyone? Why can’t people just be upfront with me, and that way I don’t have to constantly ask them how they really feel? 

But Drake wouldn’t understand. No one fakes anything with Drake. No one feels obligated to pretend to like Drake, people just show him their true colors.

So, he gets up from the bed, downs his whiskey, and heads towards the door. 

‘Hold on,’ Drake says as he gets up to follow him, ‘are you leaving already? I don’t think you should be alone, Li.’

But Liam’s always alone. ‘I’m fine, Drake. I’ll see you tomorrow at the fishing activity, ok?’

*****

‘Are you sure, Suarez? You can take as much time as you need, prolong your leave of absence, but don’t quit now.’

But Amara has made her decision already, no way she’s going back. 

‘Thanks, Captain, but I don’t plan to come back. No need to string the NYPD along. Thank you for everything.’

She holds out her hand, and Captain Braugher shakes it vigorously. ‘Take care, Detective. Thank you for your service. Please call if you change your mind.’

As she walks away, she can’t block the voices in her head, the gunshots that repeat themselves in an infinite pattern, killing her brother over and over in her memory. 

She closes her eyes as she tries to repress the recollection of her own voice, the one that screamed ‘Sergio!’ at the top of her lungs, almost inhumanely, hoping to God her brother had survived. 

She hears those sounds all day long, everywhere, no matter who’s talking to her. 

They distract her so much, up to the point where she has no idea what is going on around her. Up to the point where she absolutely does not see the bus driving towards her as she crosses the street.

‘CAREFUL!’ a voice screams at her.

She wakes up in a sweat. Hana is next to her, her brow furrowed with concern. ‘Amara, are you okay?’ she asks.

Amara catches her breath. ‘Y-yeah… I had a nightmare…’

‘Damn,’ Hana says, sitting up in the bed. ‘You fell asleep so peacefully I didn’t want to wake you up, I didn’t realize your nightmares were so bad.’

The thing is, this one wasn’t even bad. She didn’t even dream of the fateful day, she didn’t even see any images of her dying brother. This was one of the good nightmares. 

‘I’m ok, hun, thanks for letting me crash, I should probably go back to my room.’

‘Nonsense,’ Hana replies. ‘I bet your nightmares get worse when you’re alone, huh?’

Amara’s eyes well up. She nods silently. She doesn’t want to tell her that, for every night when she hasn’t been near Drake, she’s gotten about two hours of undisturbed sleep.

‘Alright then,’ Hana says in a determined tone, ‘you’re staying here, and that’s final. I’ll make us some chamomile tea.’

*****

‘Grampie!’

‘Mijita! Come give me a hug!’

Michael’s heart grows two sizes every time he sees his daughter smile. When she’s around her grandparents, Callie’s face never fails to light up.

‘Hi Jorge,’ Michael says as he hugs his father-in-law tightly. ‘Sorry we’re here so early. I wanted to beat traffic.’

‘Mikey, good to see you. Don’t worry about it sweetie, you know we wake up at 6am every day.’

Michael goes to the kitchen to greet Nancy, who already has an armful of Callie, who can’t get enough of her grandmother. 

Alright, he thinks. No funny business, he can’t tell them anything. These two are the worst secret keepers, and he was told to remain discreet so as to not ruin the surprise. He was evasive on the phone, asking them to watch Callie for about a week as he had a work trip to take. They didn’t ask any further questions, however unbelievable it sounded. Michael’s an attorney, he doesn’t take work trips, not really, but Jorge and Nancy were not the type to doubt him. 

He’d have to be careful not to mention Amara too much, which would be hard, given that Jorge usually talked about her every ten minutes. And given that there were around 20 pictures of her in the living room, including her giant quinceañera photo on the mantel.

He’d arrived a couple of days early, so he could visit with his in-laws and ease Callie into her sleepover week. She and Michael were basically inseparable. 

Of course, he could have brought her along, which his contact person had encouraged, but Michael didn’t want to subject his daughter to the long trip, especially since he really had no idea how things would be once he got there.

‘Grammie, is this me?’ Callie asks Nancy, pointing at a baby picture of Sergio. Nancy glances at Jorge, who looks like he’s about to cry.

‘No, baby, this is your Papi. You look exactly like him.’

Michael looks away before he makes eye contact with Jorge and they both end up weeping. Yes, Callie looked exactly like Sergio. Michael blesses the day when they both had their sperm count tested, and Sergio’s had slightly better odds. If things had gone differently on that day, they wouldn’t have decided to use Sergio’s, and Callie would not look like him. As hard as it is to look at her painfully-Suarez little face every day and be reminded of his husband’s death, Michael wouldn’t have it any other way. Like this, he lives on.

Ten minutes later, Jorge is already showing Callie the wooden toys he’s been making her in his shed. The two are off in the garden, and Michael hears them laughing from afar. The more he thinks about it, the more he wants to move to the Philadelphia suburbs to be close to Jorge and Nancy. Callie would love it, and Michael already has had offers from lawfirms in Philly. He just has to bring himself to sell their apartment in Williamsburg.

‘Tell me honey,’ Nancy says softly as she refills his coffee, ‘are you taking care of yourself? You look tired, and I don’t mean it as a passive-aggressive mom thing.’

He knew she didn’t. Nancy is not like that. If she says he looks tired, then he does, and she’s probably just really concerned. But he also cannot tell her what’s been keeping him awake, because she would tell Jorge instantly.

‘I’m fine, Nance, thank you. I’m just anxious about leaving Callie.’

She smiles at him. ‘Honey, you know she’ll be in good hands, right? Plus, Lauren and Matthew are coming this weekend with the twins. She’ll have a nice playdate.’

Michael nods. Matthew is Nancy’s son, and he and his wife were incredible with Callie after Sergio passed. Their twins, a boy and a girl, are lovely little kids, just a year older than Callie, and they all get along beautifully. ‘That will be good. I know she’ll be fine, but we’ve never been apart so long.’

Nancy nods. ‘I know. But you have to rebuild your life, sweetie. You’ve got to think of yourself.’

Michael nods but hopes they don’t think he’s going somewhere to meet a man. That’s literally the last thing on his mind, always. When he met Sergio, ten years ago --jeez, ten years--, he knew that was it. Boom, done. The one. That’s why they didn’t wait long to get married. Two years into their relationship, they were about to tie the knot. Two years after that, they were looking into surrogacy. And finally, four years ago, Callie was born. 

It wasn’t supposed to go this way. Michael was not supposed to be a widower at not even 35 years old. And yet, here he was. 

*****

The second day in Portavira seemed extremely long to Drake, who usually enjoyed fishing, but didn’t really feel like being among the whole court today. He exchanged a few words with Amara, but they couldn’t be seen together for too long, for fear of being discovered. Although, as Drake recalled Bastien’s words, discovered or not, something shitty was coming Amara’s way. All they needed to know was what, and when.

Liam had barely spoken to him all day, and looked even worse than the night before. It was obvious that he had been ruminating Liv’s new relationship all night. Did Drake do enough? Probably not. But he’s starting to feel tired of it all, and specifically of managing Liam’s expectations.

What did he think? That he could play with Liv’s feelings for twenty years, and that she would in turn be at his disposal? That was a real underestimation of Nevrakis, and it confirmed to Drake that Liv deserves better.

Maybe Rashad would treat her better. Maybe this was for the best. 

Fuck, he misses Amara. It’s been only a day since they were happy and free at the cabin, but it feels like a year. Every time he catches a glimpse of her, his breath intensifies, and he finds himself irresistibly attracted towards her. 

‘Drake!’ Hana exclaims, walking towards him with her little fishing rod in one hand, and her straw hat in the other. ‘Can you show me how to catch a fish? I haven’t been able to do anything all afternoon!’

‘What? Hana Lee, as I live and breathe, are you…’ he fake gasps, ‘are you NOT TRAINED in something?’

Hana laughs earnestly, ‘You can laugh all you want, but this was not very high on my parents’ priority list. Believe it or not, they’d rather I catch a husband!’

He shows her how to prep her line, and as she’s closer to him, she looks all around for eavesdroppers.

‘Everything ok?’ he asks.

She nods. ‘Have you spoken to Liam?’

He wonders whether he should say anything, but he doesn’t want to talk about Liv and Rashad in public. It’s not his place. ‘Last night, yeah. He came to my room around 1am.’

If she was surprised, she certainly didn’t show it. ‘How did he seem?’

Drake hesitates. ‘Not good. I think he’s unraveling. I can tell you more about it tomorrow when we get back to Ramsford.’

She sighs. ‘I can’t wait. This is stressful. We’re all waiting for the other shoe to drop.’

‘Exactly.’ He pauses. ‘Hana, can I just ask--’

She interrupts him. ‘She’s ok. She slept over last night, and she had a pretty severe nightmare, though. I think she’s on edge.’

Fuck, he thinks, the nightmares are back. Weird, because Michael has stopped calling. But maybe she’s been talking to her dad, or to Mia. Or maybe it’s even the tense atmosphere that’s getting to her. Drake wouldn’t be surprised. ‘I was hoping the nightmares would fade away,’ he says to Hana.

She smiles kindly. ‘All we need to do is be there for her. And love her.’

Drake grips his fishing rod tightly and scoffs. ‘How can I do that if I can’t even talk to her without raising suspicion?’

‘Hey, be patient. Tomorrow we’ll have a couple of days off until the rehearsal dinner on Friday. We’ll do something fun, recharge our batteries.’

Drake nods. He’s all for recharging his batteries, but a few days away from the Decision Ball, it feels more like one last treat you give a dying dog. 

*****

Amara took the first opportunity she found to escape the crowd and walk on her own. She had some fun fishing, specifically spending time with Max, Bertrand and Olivia, with whom she hung out for most of the activity. But now, as everyone is gathering around to have yet another tea time with pastries and cider, she needs a break. She doesn’t want to wander too far, in order not to be rude, but she figures a light stroll around the gardens can’t hurt. 

She’s still reeling from everything. The everlasting threat of her personal business being leaked, the ongoing pressure from a competition she doesn’t want, the anxiety of wondering whether or not she’ll be able to be with Drake completely, and of course, the habitual agony over her nightmares. 

So, for now, if she can grab a minute to herself and literally smell the flowers, she’s gonna do it. 

‘Amara?’

She turns around nervously and relaxes a bit at the sight of her interlocutor. ‘Oh, Penelope, you scared me.’

Penelope smiles. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to. I was just getting some air.’

‘Same. Your place is beautiful, thank you so much for having us all here.’

Penelope’s smile broadens. ‘Oh thank you for saying this! It’s been great having everyone here. It’s just…’ She stops.

‘What is it, Penelope?’ Amara inquires.

‘Oh, nothing.’ She pauses and looks at Amara intently, as if to judge her intentions. After a long pause, she continues. ‘It’s just that it feels it’s all for nothing.’ Amara chooses to remain silent and nods vigorously until Penelope continues. ‘The competition, I mean. It’s pretty obvious that I’m not going to be chosen. I think we all know that.’

Amara’s heart breaks a little at Penelope’s confession. She studies her face for a minute. She’s probably around Amara’s age, but she looks so young and naive, that Amara feels the need to protect her all of a sudden. People talk about Hana’s innocent temperament, but few of them realize how strong she actually is. With Penelope, the naiveté is probably not an illusion. Plus, if her parents’ overprotective attitude is any indication, Penelope has probably led a pretty sheltered life so far. 

Still, Amara decides to play the supportive card. ‘You can’t say that. Liam might choose you.’

Penelope waves her off. ‘Oh, I don’t even want to be chosen. My parents and I only decided for me to enter the competition because it would be suspicious if I didn’t. But we all hope I won’t make it. My place is not in the Capital, really, it’s here with my family and my dogs.’

Amara nods understandingly. Parts of her can’t help but feel relief, because this means she’s probably not involved in Hana’s and Liv’s leaks, since she’s that disinterested. ‘I get it,’ Amara says. She wishes she could say more, commiserate in their non-love of Liam, but she decides not to. After all, Penelope is still friendly-ish with Madeleine, who could make her life a living hell at the drop of a hat. ‘If you don’t want the prize, the whole shebang must be quite agonizing,’ Amara continues.

Penelope laughs. ‘Not really, because I do like hanging out with everyone and having fun at court. I do miss my family and my dogs but I know it’ll all be over on Saturday night.’

Amara smiles silently. She fucking hopes it’ll all be over after Saturday night.

‘But I didn’t mean to discourage you,’ Penelope continues. ‘You have all your chances, Amara!’

*****

No one seems to have noticed that Liam slipped out of the tea time. He went to the bathroom a good twenty minutes ago and never came back, and no one came after him. He can only see Bastien, always a good twenty feet behind him. 

So, he just stays at the balcony, far from the crowd, and refuses to go back until someone, anyone, comes for him. 

Bratty? Maybe. But that’s how it is. 

He plays on his phone. No one has texted him, either. Just a few emails, mostly boring ones. One from Ioanna, the assistant to the Greek ambassador, thanking him for the reports he’s sent. As he’s about to press ‘Reply’, he hears footsteps, and his heart rate increases, in the hope that they belong to someone he wants to see.

‘Hello, Your Highness.’

He turns around. ‘Oh, hi, Madeleine. How are you?’

She smiles weakly and plants herself right next to him on the balcony. ‘I should be asking you this. You left a while ago, I was worried.’

He sighs. Just his luck. The only person worried about him is Madeleine. ‘I’m fine. I’m just feeling a bit…’ he looks at her. ‘Restless.’

She puts her hand on his forearm. ‘It happens to the best of us. It must be hard being the center of attention while no one really pays attention to you.’

Yeah, spot on. ‘Very well put,’ he chuckles.

She wrings her hands together. ‘I wanted to apologize for the other day, too. Sincerely.’

‘Apologize for what?’ he asks, all the while knowing exactly what she’s talking about.

‘For being too forward and entitled the other day. For giving you the impression that you owed me a date. For being shamelessly flirtatious. For all of it.’

He can’t help but smile. She’s never admitted fault before, so that’s a first. He can get behind that. ‘Apology accepted.’

‘Thank you,’ she smiles. ‘I’m not trying to find excuses for myself, really, but the truth is…’ she blushes, ‘you’re so attractive and so perfect in every way, it’s difficult to resist hitting on you.’ She shrugs. ‘I’m only human.’

Liam laughs wholeheartedly for the first time in a while.

*****

Madeleine walks back to the tea time with Liam on her arm. She tries not to appear too smug, although old habits die hard. Thankfully, she and Liam are facing the same way, so he can’t see the self-satisfied look on her face.

She just had to schmooze him a bit and apologize to get him to finally give in a little. She almost tried to kiss him again, to seal the deal, but decided against it at the last minute. Too much too soon can never be good. Plus, she could give two shits about kissing him or fucking him. All she wants is the crown.

*****

‘Hey little blossom, are you ready to go?’

Amara smiles from ear to ear when Max enters her room with his suitcase. She finishes zipping hers up, excited to get back to Ramsford. The previous evening in Portavira had been uneventful, except for the fact that Liam and Madeleine had appeared unnaturally close, and then again at breakfast this morning.

She’d worry about that later. Or maybe there was nothing to worry about at all. She couldn’t tell anymore.

All she knows is that Wednesday is finally here and they can all get the fuck out of courtly duties for a whole 48 hours. Everyone is going home, and she, Drake, Max, Bertrand, Hana, and Liv, are going to Ramsford.

‘I’m all packed!’ she announces proudly.

‘Alright, let’s go then! No time to waste, it’s a long drive!’

*****

After saying goodbye to Penelope, her parents, and her poodles --Drake had to admit those little bastards were really cute--, the gang piles up in Maxwell’s and Bertrand’s cars. 

‘Max,’ Drake says, ‘can you drop me off at my cabin so I can get my car?’

‘Sure thing, let’s go!’

Drake had thought about this moment all morning, and also all of yesterday. Just sitting in the backseat next to Amara feels illicit. Liv is in the front seat, and Hana rode with Bertrand. Drake catches a glimpse of Amara’s smile the moment they settle down next to each other, and he wonders how he’s gonna be able to hold off from kissing her, from holding her, until they’re out of sight. But he does. Eyes on the prize.

As soon as Max’s car exits Penelope’s estate and passes the gates, Amara’s hand inches closer to Drake’s until their fingers touch. The much awaited contact sends shivers down Drake’s spine. ‘Fuck, Suarez,’ he murmurs. ‘I’ve missed you.’

‘Ugh, guys, you’re gonna make me carsick,’ Liv complains. ‘Unless Beaumont’s driving gets to me first.’

‘Hey! I’m a great driver!’ Max yelps as he swerves to avoid a bird.

Drake squeezes Amara’s hand. She turns around, looks behind them to look at the Portavira estate, which is getting smaller and smaller in the distance. She looks at Drake, a look that could melt his heart, and their lips crash together. 

‘For fuck’s sake, Suarez,’ Liv sighs, ‘keep it in your pants.’

But Drake can’t hear anything. All he’s aware of is the touch of Amara’s lips, the warmth of her embrace. The love he feels for her. The lengths he’d go for this woman. 

*****

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