#i would still have to do literally any moderation whatsoever and the first time someone who is paying me was a shithead i would be like

[tommyspeakycap]

Please could you write one with Grealish where you’re a Chelsea fan so refuse to wear a Villa shirt with his name on, and for bants Mount gets you a Chelsea shirt with his name and Jack gets all pouty?

omg I love this idea!! gets very smutty at the end ;) enjoy!

Villa Boy

A love for Chelsea had been something you adapted and grew to into as a young girl. Your dad was never entirely sure how to bond with his only daughter and your mother told him just to include you in what he loved. And so came your season pass with a little lanyard that still hung proudly in your childhood room right next to a shirt mounted in a glass photo frame with Frank Lampard's signature scrawled along the eight on the back.

It was actually how you met Jack in the first place, which is the only one single reason that he has for liking your club affiliation. Otherwise, it was one of the most annoying things in his world. It was often a source of teasing and taunting, you saying your team was better than his and him swaggering home and gloating for weeks when Aston Villa take a win over Chelsea. It was the bane of his life that he couldn't get you into that claret and blue. Not even to sleep in or wear around the house, you just would not dare put it on.

"I would feel my dad's shame emanate through the walls, maybe it would kill him. And then I'd lose every morsel of self respect I have, so not a chance." You'd snort, not even giving him a window for more persuasion.

His England shirt? that was fair game. You'd wear that with pride, to the shops, round the house, walking the dog and especially at his games but there was just absolutely no chance of getting you into his Villa shirt.

Though Jack may never admit it, it was one of his biggest wants. Seeing you in his England short was nothing short revolutionary - he'd said. It only made him want to see you in the Villa shirt more. That was his childhood club, getting to captain that was one of his biggest achievements and while he knew you were absolutely proud of him. You were the most proud and encouraging person in his life and there were no ifs buts or maybes in that.

But my god he knew you'd look fit in that claret and blue.

No matter how much it annoyed him, he wouldn't get you out of the darker blue home jersey of your favourite club no matter what he did. It was something he had come to accept over the course of your relationship, it was by and large fine.

Until that jersey said someone else's name across the back.

"Awh come on!" He yelps, mouth dropped open as you emerge into the kitchen with your toothbrush hanging out your mouth and only one shoe on. Jack knows you slept in because he switched off your alarm last night in hopes you'd miss the game, but Jack dropped a bowl when he tripped over the dog and woke you up anyway.

You going to the Villa v Chelsea game in a Chelsea shirt was bad enough, but now he's just clocked something that's sent his mind firing a mile a minute.

MOUNT

19

Not a fucking chance.

"Oi, you!" He calls out, throwing himself off the chair at the kitchen island, his feet fumbling over one another to get after you as quickly as possible. "What's up, Jack?" You hum innocently, a sweet smile playing on your lips as you stand in the doorway shoving on your other shoe. "Is something the matter?"

Jack gawks, opening and closing his mouth awaiting words to find his frazzled brain. "Yes!" He squeaks, a tone you'd never heard from a man before, let along your very deep voiced man. "There's no way that you're- what are you doing? Come back." He groans, his feet shuffling after you as you walk back through the house to find your car keys. "We're going to be late if you don't hurry up." You note sweetly, Jack drops his jaw. "We're not going anywhere until-"

"Hi Mason, yeah I got it. Fits like glove actually. Yeah, we're just leaving now. I'll meet you in the car park."

Jack's face was literally priceless. His agape, eye's wild, brows furrowed. A pout settles itself firmly into his lips the second he sits in the car with his arms folded over his chest like a toddler. You have to physically stifle a laugh at him as you beam the entire drive to Villa Park.

"M' gonna burn that." He states. You cast him a glance out the corner of your eye as you pull into the players parking. A snigger escapes despite your very best efforts and Jack resumes his frontward glare at the dashboard with his lips in a firm line. "Gonna win this game, burn that shirt and knock Mount flat."

You know he's not being serious about Mason. He's very fond of the player when they're on the same side. But you had become very close friends with him through the mutual love for the club he plays at and Jack absolutely despised that. He wasn't the kind to be bothered by your friends even to a moderate degree and even here he trusted you, he just fucking hated the concept of another club and another mans name over your back. It ticked him right off.

You know this very well. You knew what you were getting into the second Mason handed you that dark blue shirt. It was all fun and games really. You loved the club but you only wore the Mount shirt to get under Jack's skin. You thought it might even throw off his game a little.

The second he stormed onto the pitch and scored a goal 5 minutes into the game, you figured that might not be the case.

Every opportunity, every goal, every opening and every single tackle, Jack turned to you. He turned to you with fire in those brown eyes, sending you a cheeky wink. His passion, the very serious look etched onto his features and the way he was looking at you was fuelling a very different kind of fire in you.

Jack played the whole 90 minutes and he took Mason Mount down at every single given opportunity in a careful way that just evaded him getting a yellow card. He finished hot, sweaty and with a man of the match trophy for 2 goals and one assist with a majority of the game spent with the ball at his feet.

The 3 nil win should have been a lot more disappointing that it was, but he just looked so fucking good. The sweat stuck his hair to his temples, his muscles tight and protruding through exertion as he walks off the field after shaking every hand.

You're standing just outside the tunnel with Mason and John McGinn standing with you, talking about the match mostly. John makes a joke about you wearing that top more often, seems to be a good luck charm for Villa even if it's the opposing team. Mason scoffs and says; "More like an angry boyfriend wants to murder me charm."

That's when Jack appears and John barely gets his mouth open to greet him before Jack shoulders through the two footballers. His mouth finds your immediately. Hot, passionate, fiery and filled with his dominance.

He pulls back and grabs onto your hand tightly with his back to the two midfielders. Jack twists his body round with a daggering glare.

"Nobody," Jack growls, "fucks around with girl."

His tone, deep and gravelly, only serves to dampen your panties further in a way that makes your clench your legs together.

Jack's done with pouting, the teasing can resume later. For now, he's dragging you by the hand to a darkened conference room. Hiking you up his body before setting you on the table that sits at a miraculously perfect height that places you right against his bulge.

He wastes no time whatsoever ripping down your leggings and panties, his fingers finding you immediately to swirl pressured motions around your sensitive clit. "Ahh, who's got you moaning like that baby?" He rumbles, words vibrating through your lips.

"You Jack, oh god, you!" You pant as his fingers leave you feeling empty and needy. Jack easily tugs down his shorts and pulls himself out of his boxers to line up with your entrance. His victory sex is hot always, but usually there was a dry spell after a Villa v Chelsea game, so it had never been this hot.

"And who am I?" He grunts, pushing himself into you to hear your shuddering squeak of pleasure. He lays you down over the table, hands following you under your shirt to carefully and tentatively swirl his fingers over your nipples from under your bra. "Oh god, Jack," you move your hands to the hem of the blue shirt to lift it over your head, but Jack's hands stop them before you have the chance.

"No, no, no," he chastises with a smirk, "Want to fuck you in their colours," He continues to thrust roughly into you with each heavy breath, mouth and squeak that escapes you only spurring him on. "Want to fuck you with his name on your back, baby. Remind you who you belong to."

You shudder in pleasure with the feeling of his lips attaching to your neck, letting out a shaky, heavy breath as he snakes a hand down between you to swirl those circles around your more pleasureful spot once again. He knows the intricate details of your body better than any man ever has and he always ensures he uses it to his advantage, but nothing like today. His lips on the sweet spot of your neck, hitting and stretching you perfect between your legs with masterful work of his fingers pushing you closer and closer with each second that passed.

"Fuck , I'm so close-"

"Who's making you feel so good, baby?" He pants, skin slapping and heavy breathing echoing around the room. "You, Jack. You!"

"Not a Chelsea boy eh?" He grunts, teeth nibbling down over your collarbone. "Not a Chelsea boy baby is it?" He reiterates, pairing the movements of his hand only until you snap open your eyes again, "No Jack, it's all you. not a- oh god!"

Jack breathes a chuckle into your ear with an appreciative hum to follow.

"Yeah, Villa Captain isn't it? You're screaming out for a Villa boy, ain't ya?" He coaxes, edging you further and further as he speeds up to a pace he's never quite hit you with before. The adrenaline of the match, the irritation of that blue jersey and the passion for the win colliding to give him an energy he's never yet had. Watching your eyes roll beneath him wearing that stupid blue entices him on, only makes him want to pleasure you more if even possible. "Yes! Yes, I am, oh god just don't stop."

"Go on then," he encourages, voice deep in your ear. "Come undone for the Villa Captain baby."

He didn't have to tell you twice, that was for sure. The sight of your eyes fluttering, the feeling of you clenching around him with a steam of, "Fuck yes Jack!" sends him tumbling over the edge of his orgasm right after you, a strangle cry out of your name as it wracks through him.

When he lays down beside you in the table that very surpassingly withstood the pace of your antics, you're both breathless and shining with sweat. Your legs feel like jelly as you still throb from the pleasure. Jack turns his head to you with a lazy smirk, brushing some hair off your forehead as you turn to look at him.

"Well, I certainly do love a Villa boy."

[singingaboutwishingx]

tww present-day headcanons

okay obviously this is like... if we ignore the offset election years and the mysterious disappearance of the bushes and no 9/11 and that little point in time where santos and obama would have overlapped and the fact that no WAY would the voters have put democrats in the white house for like almost 20 years. anyway, just suspend your disbelief lol

(also quick little disclaimer: i’m still figuring out my feelings about this administration--the real-life one, not the bartlet one. i, as always, don’t mean to glorify/girlbossify/stan politicians, etc. i’m also not trying to bully any members of any generations, simply making statements based on my observations of the world around me).

josh and toby co-wrote a series of op-eds for the washington post that absolutely read 45’s administration for FILTH

congressman will bailey is having absolutely none of marjorie taylor green’s shit. he was throwing verbal hands on any news show that would take him for weeks.

someone made a post about donna being a regular guest on news shows and i don’t remember who it was, but anyway donna shows up on rachel maddow at least once or twice a month

liz divorced doug (that one’s just personally important to me) and is regularly dragging the shit out of ted cruz on twitter because we KNOW she can

charlie and zoey have a youtube channel where they answer questions about politics (both about the political process and current events). they try to keep it as non-partisan and strictly informational as they can.

jed starts a podcast (honestly, how could he not?). every episode is him talking about a different niche topic for 30-60 minutes. liberal gen xers and older millennials think it’s the best thing to ever happen. #unclejed is trending on twitter for a couple days after the first episode

molly and huck have a moderate amount of tiktok clout and they literally ask their parents every single day if they can adopt claudia conway because they are Concerned about her

cj and jenn psaki have a little moment on twitter and huffpost and/or buzzfeed writes an article titled something like “passing the torch: former wh press secretary sends jenn psaki her love on twitter”

there’s a little portion of leftist tiktok teens/twenty-somethings that are like “josh lyman is a war criminal but holy shit he was/is hot”

ABBEY BARTLET-DR. FAUCI TEAMUP!!! there’s an ad that plays absolutely everywhere where they tell you to wear your mask and wash your hands, and they zoom into a few major news shows

less public ellie bartlet-dr. fauci teamup!!! she’s helping with research from home because of her kids and she’s killing it

kate became a foreign affairs correspondent for cnn and there’s this Look she gives the camera (for context, she was talking about how 45’s treasury secretary went to saudi arabia to speak with the crown prince even AFTER he supposedly murdered that journalist) that instantly becomes a reaction gif. there’s at least one tweet or something that’s like “found the female jim halpert on cnn” with her gif and one of his side-by-side

this might be a hot take but i think ainsley voted for clinton (sorry going back a little ways) because she was def supporting, like, john kasich or someone in the primaries, but she can’t fucking stand 45 and thought that someone with absolutely no political experience whatsoever had no damn right to hold the presidency. i mean, listen, she hated clinton, but what else was she supposed to do, not vote? she becomes a very vocal critic and she’s one of the ones that’s like “this isn’t what the republican party stands for”

sam, who was double-masking before it was cool, is just home writing the novel we all know he was meant to write. he’s less involved with politics. there’s a direct correlation between how much news he watches and how high his blood pressure is. he’s compromised with himself by watching rachel maddow every night (mostly in hopes of seeing donna) and nothing else. besides, josh would text him if it was something REALLY important.

[sunareii]

petrichor — rintarou s.

suna rintarou x fem!reader

sypnosis: suna was grown to hate everything within the castle or most likely everything else but when a simple commoner came into the picture.. well.. tags: royal au, TRAGICALLY RUSHED ENDING, fluff and a little angst sunareii is writing . . . this has been in my drafts for almost a month and decided to finish it despite hating it halfway but since it was already in 3k words i had too. i'll proofread this later, i'n tired and in need of shower

word count: 4.3k

suna was never fond of big parties or parties in general, there were countless of times where he told his parents, the king and queen, that there are no need to have some lavish gatherings for something so simple as his own birthday

the two majestys however couldn't fathom of how could their own son that they raised isn't accustomed to the events they hold yearly despite the fact they've been doing that before he was even born

well, maybe because they aren't the ones who practically raised him, the long-time servant of theirs took genuine care for him as a child and as a adolescent more then his parents could possibly give.

suna was never fond of big parties or parties in general, there were countless of times where he told his parents, the king and queen, that there are no need to have some lavish gatherings for something so simple as his own birthday

the two majestys however couldn't fathom of how could their own son that they raised isn't accustomed to the events they hold yearly despite the fact they've been doing that before he was even born

well, maybe because they aren't the ones who practically raised him, the long-time servant of theirs took genuine care for him as a child and as a adolescent more then his parents could possibly give.

he could only frown as he hears the heavy doors swung open from his upstairs bedroom, which was seven floors away from the ballroom where the celebration was being held. at that point he doesn't even desire to celebrate his date of birth if it were to be as mediocre as this. royal gatherings are always so extravagant, too extravagant yet so uninteresting and repetitive, why even waste the time and effort someone worked hard for?

suna rolled his eyes as he finally reached the ballroom and sat down on his own throne. the entire room was covered in gold decorations, chandeliers that only ever bright in a occasion such as this, the guests wore ravashing gowns and suits with silver rings as if they're the host(tess). a few rustles can be heard from the guests then the enormous door slam shut everyone became silent and the day begins but first a long unnecessary speech from the king.

'is the twenty foot tall entrance mandatory for every palace is there?'              he thought to himself

ting ting ting ting

his father who sat beside him created a noise, loud enough to get everybody's attention with the use of his steel fork and well-made glass just for him. suna grunted silently at him before the king stood up and spoke "welcome and thank you all for coming, we are incredibly delighted for you to be able to come at our only son or as you may know prince rintarou's seventeenth birthday"

suna could feel his father eyeing him in the side as if saying that he should have been the one to speak at that moment, but then why would he be taking responsibility when he didn't wanted this party to begin with

suna shifts his body on the seat uncomfortably as his father continues his fabricated discourse. no, suna was certainly not happy of them coming, how many times does he have to say it? the prince gawped at every side of the room to see many familiar faces, he could only deadpan repulsively—if that's even a thing—the guests looked far too chummy in spite of not even being in a deep relation with his family. suna wanted nothing but to run away from everything.

"yer look down in the dumps for your birthday" atsumu started to babble, his booming of a voice resonates moderately at the empty halls, the only hall that's completely clear, no noisy pigs or bodyguards whatsoever

"yeah, atleast you don't have to share your birthday with this idiot" osamu groused eating the pudding he unquestionably slipped with him, "hey! where did ya get that?" ginjima asked, suna wouldn't confess this to anyone but he particularly like time like these where he doesn't have to use any baffling mannerism along with some close acquaintances that couldn't care less of how he talks.

however unlike the three close acquaintances he doesn't have any brawny accents, suna sighs deeply before looking at them in the eye, "isn't it obvious, the parties get boring overtime, not like it was already boring to begin with" he explains

"and the champagnes got old too, don't they have anything else to drink?" ginjima questions "what's a champagne?" atsumu bewildered "i like parties, one of the only times i get 'ter eat delicious food" "yeah, cause ma puts ya in a healthy diet especially when you started sneaking in some baked goodies from a commoners bakery" osamus twin said who got sunas senses and attention all to atsumu, unbeknownst to him.

"how'd ya find a way to get out, we literally share the same room"

"ever found out yer a deep sleeper?"

"so ya ran away at night then!"

"i wouldn't say 'ran away'"

"the bakery is open even after hours? "

"nah, i made a deal with the baker, he's a good man i'm tellin' ya"

"do you have a royal guard with ya? ya could have been killed not that i would care but— "

"unlike you 'tsumu i am an independent prince, thank you very much!" "and yer exchange his food for what?"

"golds, hundred of them if you have to ask"

"like ma and pa would let ya have that much"

"who said they let me have 'em in the first place?"

"... you didn't!"

"i did!"

"i'm disappointed osamu, thought yer were the better twin" ginjima shakes his head in dissatisfaction.

"see, 'samu? you're a disappointment, snitching in some riches from ma when you possibly know better! just wait 'till aran and even kita hears about this!"

"what'r ya? a tattletale little brat!?"

"let's go back there so i could tell ma ya've been stealin and get yer ass grounded!"

"wait-!" suna cuts in as the blond twin stood with his left foot forward ready to disclose information and see his brothers downfall.

"what is it suna?"

"... you look stupid today" suna says before walking away, leaving atsumu rather astonished in a way. "told ya green tunic doesn't suit ya"

"the least you could do is give lady shiozaki a bit of courtesy" his father taunts at him, pointing at him as if accusing him of something vile, take osamus thieving for example. suna knows that by courtesy he meant kiss the top of her hand, his face grimace at that as his father puts his finger down looking at him with a offended look,

'it's my birthday, if anything they could kiss my— '

"rintarou!" his father shouted in rage, even the platters and cups on the table that laid so still tottered from the kings petty action

"you— you ungrateful child!"

"what did i do?" suna questions, his face stays in a blase even when the royal whatever is about to erupt like a volcano after years in the waiting line

"rintarou, my dear.." the mother finally has spoken through all the sore talk of a father and his son. "you're way too nonchalant but heedless" she says softly like a woman singing a lullaby to her baby, but suna is no baby

to make long story short, the father could only threw a fit as he watched his son, nod at his complaints with an expected apathetic look that irked the king of a guy even more than before, provoked he sends suna to go to his room and lock him there 'till he learns his lessons 'cause you know, parenting 101 logic and stuff.

they wouldn't know but suna is peeved at all completeness and abundance of insignificant orders, sweet cakes that now tastes like stale bread and bogus geniality that even he, had done formerly to many suna would have fought him if he wanted too but he just couldn't bring himself to do it because of hallow reasons

but that didn't matter, he watches from outside as he sees his father soothes himself whilst with his wife brush his hand, trying to cool him down most likely. yes, instead of being in his bedroom he's out there off the foot of the castle grounds. unfortunately for him though, he didn't had the chance to grab any lantern's or candles for him to use as the sun plummet and the blue moon had took a rise.

'now what' he says to himself, there were barely even stars to guide him his way tonight but only the dusky moon ray could help him. he figured it's enough to accompany him for the night since he didn't have any sort of options. he walks forward to southeast with the knowledge that it has the nearest town he could go to before sunrise, atleast he hopes so.

he trails down the bulky grounds of the forest, allowing the eerie sounds of calm or danger to surround him. now's the only time that he begun to contemplate what will he do once he gets to his destination, start a new life maybe or go back after.

'no, i'm sure father eh.. knights will come fetch me soon after they realize i was gone, sadly.. '

the dark element of the skies covered the rain to watch for, thus suna's taken by surprise, the forest surely didn't have any hut or any of the kind, so he lets the droplets patter around him, from his hair down to his chest the raindrop go.

he sits down by the old tree that slope downward, he exhales deeply from frustration, 'i couldn't even go as far as this, the guards probably notice my absence by now and—’  his thoughts were cut off short by a flicker of light coming from behind him.

"there it is! i knew you'd be here!" then came a voice, a figure in the distance not too further away from him moves around in the trees that seems to almost close at them.

"is someone there?" the feminine voice say, the voice sounded silvery-like perhaps fluttery is a better word for it. the girl pulls out her lantern to suna's spot where he sits, the rain grew cold and strong as minutes passes, wind brushed off their exposed skin fiercely. "why are you here all alone, it's dangerous here of all places!" she shouted as she runs towards him not letting the frightening storm throw her body down. "are you okay?" before he could even answer, a tree not that far infront of them went down,falling onto the grass, without letting him answer, she immediately grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him out of the woodland where all sorts of danger could occur

he wakes up with shivering bones, his blanket or what seemed just a rug to him gave him little heat from the cold he was exposed in. "are you awake?" a voice asked in worry, his eyes fixated at the woman infront of him wearing simple dress, length just below her knee along with a stained white apron holding a small basin

'is there two of her?'

he thought as the sight of her doubles suna attempts to stand up but the heat burns his skin all around his body. "you shouldn't stand up yet!" she exclaimed, rushing towards his side, setting the basin to the ground, dipping a piece of cloth before placing it ontop forehead, "you shuld rest then —" her words couldn't be heard anymore as suna could only faint.

subsequently, the fog that enveloped in his head has eased, he's fever isn't gone but he surely gotten better by just a few hours and yet the rain hasn't ceased

"What.. where?" he murmurs rewinding everything that happened the night before. suna finds himself in a strangers house, the living room is combined with the kitchen, no doors or walls to separate both rooms. the living room doesn't have a big fireplace where he used to keep himself warm in during the cold season, there is nothing much to be seen in the kitchen just a few plates and condiments and then a table with a flower vase ontop right by it, suna assumed that that is already the dining area.

he's at the couch with the blanket and wet cloth draped over him, the bowl of water is still beside the him, suna manages to move his arms to take care of himself. just then the door infront of him swings open revealing the same person he saw before, her tangled hair in loose braids that's pinned behind her head, a bit of her hair sticking out of every direction. regardless of her poor housing and clothing suna thought she was pure and alluring

"hi" she greeted rather bashfully

"hello" suna said back with a blank expression

"are you feeling better?" she inquires as she puts the basket she was holding down on the table "better thanks to you" he answers earnestly, she smiles "dont mention it"

"you must be hungry" she says, a bit like a whisper, she starts grabbing the pan and eggs from the basket, getting the stove ready. "no, no. you've done enough, i'm not really that hungry" he claims intensely, but the sound of his stomach grumbling contradicts what he had just said.

she giggles silently before continuing  what she was just doing. the sound of sizzling and occasional water splash engulfs the room, suna proceeds to treat himself 'till when she have finished

"say.. what were you doing out there in the wilds, all alone in the night?"she inquires hesitantly as plates clatter around the kitchen "did you run away?" she asks more

"sort of.."

"here" she says handing him his plate with eggs, bread and pieces of grapes, 'that's a weird match of food' he thoughts but chose to not question it as she already helped him enough already and also because he doesn't have much choice

suna could feel her eyes analyzing him up and down while he eats, growing uncomfortable he stares back

"sorry, i haven't catched your name yet"

"oh.. its..  su..--hibiki.. katsuo"he answers the last minute, he knows that his palace is pretty popular in quite a few places and knowing from some prior experience the person infront of him could give him a threat for money or sell him for ransom which is very unlikely.

his white lie didn't go through and naturally she knew he was lying even so she played along just because.

"i'm y/n l/n, feel free to call me whatever hibiki"

the smile she sent him tug a string to his heart, feeling sheepish with the tense atmosphere around him, they shortly finished their meal.

"y/n, what were you doing there in the middle of the night?" suna asks, the rain slowly winding away as she opens the window from the kitchen side and suna does the other.

"hmm, i lost my house key"

"why would it be in the forest of all places?"

"well, i do pick fruits and berries from trees and such for a living, sometimes i help carry lumber from tree cutters" she explains, tiny droplets of water falling leisurely from her house roof, the rain had passed but on the flip side the clouds are still dyed grey

y/n inhales lively, taking in the good fresh air after the rain. "don't you just love the smell the rain leaves behind?" she asks avidly, suna doesn't know what to say and opted to stay quiet and whiffs the scent y/n was talking about

"do you plan to come back yet, hibiki?"

"uh, no, not really"

"great!" she beams with a smile before walking towards the front door and opening it for him. "you still haven't changed your... quite fancy attire from last night" her words trails down inaudibly as she looks up and down at suna's choice of clothing which was the same dress robe he wore from his birthday partyas

they step foot out of the house, the village is already packed with people. girls chatting, kids playing and men working. the place is productive and conscientious something that his palace guards lack, his bodyguards were anything but a bunch of old drunkards once they have their break and though they are some younger ones just a few years older than him that works as a protector but there's rarely any of them

"hey! daisy, who's that little fella with you?" a elderly man said as they reached a small bakery with great goods. "goro this is hibiki, hibiki this is goro, he owns the bakery shop and has the best one around here" she explains, "well, the others are certainly not all bad" suna has never heard of such a heavy accent before,

'and i thought the twins dialect was the worst'

"so what brings you here today?" goro asked with a deep voice, "he's kinda lost and doesn't have a spare clothes, i was wondering if we could borrow some"

"well of course! happy to lend some help for the new guy, my son has a loads of clothes to spare for a life time!" the mans voice was defeaning to say the least, "haruto can-!" as if his son had already heard him a small pile of clothes is thrown at the stairs that is built just at the side of their house

"here ya go! you can go change at the back room" goro says then another voice chimed in the conversation

"what's the occasion? wearing glamourous outfit in a place like this?" the son sneered as he stood at a narrow terrace attached to the wooden stairs. he looks down at mockingly mocking him for his appearance

"don't let him blow yer gasket" goro says reassuringly while patting his shoulder

"thanks" he deadpans but with a little more emotion than he used to display with his father.

afterwards, y/n gave him a little tour around places, he used to see this small town from his library window pane but diving inside upclose feels alot bigger than he anticipated. saying suna had fun would be an understatement, he feels something larger than just joy.

safety, vulnerability and mostly freedom. he wasn't necessarily held captive inside the castle like the backstory of every damsel in distress, the tables may have turned in this story, the prince who was trained with a sword have been the helpless damsel during the thunderous night whilst dearest y/n being his knight in just a dirty old dress. but what was he gonna do with his sword skills at the stormy evening? battle zeus?

needless to say he doesn't even have his mighty sword with him, how naive.

"when do you plan to go back?" y/n questions randomly at their peaceful stroll back to her residence, "i'm not too sure" he answers back hoping to change the subject.

"your parents are bound to notice your absence being the prince and all" she enunciated casually, suna stops in his tracks

"you.. knew?" he croaked

"from your princely outfit and the place i found you, i stick two and two together"

his mouth curved down in exasperation, his fist clench tightly, his nails almost digging his palms

"your royal highness, i request nothing of you than you might think, to be quite frank i didn't knew how to approach you first-"

"it's okay.. i'm not mad" he soothes with the softet voice he could master, the tight grip of his hands decreased and he exhales slowly to calm himself down

"i mean after today, i never assumed you were the type" and he partially knew his dishonesty was noticeable with just how he stood but he left that part out 'cause he couldn't handle the shame he felt

"are you going back though?" she fretted with a begging tone as if she doesn't want him to go

"do you want me to?" he teased

"no! i mean if you really need too"

"is it okay for me to stay at yours for a little while?"

"of course! you're welcome at my place anytime!" she immediately answered cheerfully

"it just feels nice to have some company again" she mumbles discreetly but suna heard it loud an clear.

and he did stay, longer than he should've, it's like he left his royal crown behind his bedroom and also like his parents have forgotten about him, he learned and loved many knew things such as wood cutting and though he doesn't have much experience but he's working on it

suna had insisted to work for y/n seeing as she was letting him sleep in her house unpaid. he surprisingly have very strong stamina. for most of the week, suna made sure to pay her back for her kindness and hospitality every single day regardless of her resistance

he felt butterflies in his stomach as he recollects the warmth he felt when she suggested him to sleep in the same bed as her and though at first he thought nothing much of it except the berth had little no space between them and he could feel her soft breathing beneath his skin, he possibly spent half the night admiring her face as disturbing as it sounds

oh, and the splinter he had by some means on his first try of using an axe, y/n was there for his aid although it was just a splinter he was bleeding alot. suna had enjoyable memories there and most of it was literally every interaction he has with herhe loves everything about her from her kindess to her boldness even

but of course, suna knew he would be found anytime by now

it was a nice morning whereas suna was alone in the house when suddenly the door bursted open harshly breaking it,

"your royal highness, we have finally located you, the king and queen are worried sick!" the knight explained, "you must return home immediately" he said grabbing into his wrist while suna resisted, "i dont want to!" suna keeps saying but to no avail, the guard buckled him up on the horse between two other guards

this knight was extreme loyal to his father and he follows his commands more than anyone else, suna would admit his father treated him more as a son and loved him more than him but he didn't wanted to leave just yet without seeing her for the last time knowing that he'll most likely forever be locked in the castleand despite suna having to take his fathers place sooner, the knight somehow had power over him.

"let's go back on the road, hiyah!"                                                                    the lead went up into the air before smacking onto his white horse, the animal hurriedly went west eith just one slap of the rope, suna looked back at the city behind him, many people crowded to watch the prince leave their home waving at him merrily presumbly knowing he was royalty all along

suna did wanted to see y/n for the final time however seeing her beside the audiences watching his leave was indescribable, he couldn't tell what she was feeling from the distance he was in but he certainly felt isolated again and so were she. the continuous sound of a horses hoof racing towards sounded annoying to him and he wanted nothing more but to dismount it

when he finally came home he was only greeted by his mother and a few other maid and butlers to welcome him back. of course, what did he expect from his father. suna went straight to his room without a word, his mind stuck to the question of how was she doing and how did the guards found out where he was, she couldn't have told them.. right?

that night is certainly eventful, when suna walks down the corridor to get a little fresh air only to receive a heavy news once he hears his fathers voice from the dining hall talking to his soldiers and it seems to him the king will send them for battle between another kingdom"but his majesty, the king you are aware that we'll also ambush a town with no involvement into this matter”

"they don't matter having to govern an extra land is even better, the decision has been decided the night before, you'll leave within the next minutes and go straight forward to invade the southeast!" he yells, his plan is rather reckless and is relying to brute strength. knowing his father, suna didn't say anything and hides back to his room

thunder strikes loudly ringing his ear as he tries to cautiously open the stable, he could feel the rain slowly dropping one by one by the second, grabbing his horse before he disappears away from the castle.

sad to say, the fighters on both sides have beaten him to it. even with the rainwater going down suna could still make out a bit of smoke from the town

he grips the lead tightly, it's almost unrecognizable, everything was demolished, burned down and he hopes to atleast see someone alive other than the soldiers who was ordered to fight

"y/n!" he screams piercingly and as if on cue lightning struck feets away from him, almost blinding him. instantly making a beeline to her house that was also gone and burned to ashes

suna dismounts his horse and started yelling like he'd lose his voice by tomorrow while also picking up the wooden pieces of the house

"y/n! goro! haruto!"

rather than the sound of thunderbolt like earlier he heard a gunshot that scares off his great horse away to the darkness

"wait-"

in his mind, he knew he was done for when he hears the rapid footsteps towards his direction, then it stops as the person halted catching their breaths but suna couldn't hear them stopping from the heavy rain that's almost drowning his ears. he takes a step back to turn around and face them only to see the face he loves so much

he may have did lost his voice and could only run towards her, their lips touching each other then and there and the place around them is not the most beautiful place to get your first kiss but when the two finally gets who they truly needed nothing else matters

[kvngjoong]

wooyoung + nsfw a-z

did you know that wooyoung is officially my favourite sub? sorry jisung, you were replaced. wooyoung deserves it. sorry mingi also

A: Aftercare

you’ll be doing the aftercare on him. sure, he’ll make an attempt to check you’re okay but the poor baby just wants you to stroke his hair as he smiles at you with love pouring straight from him. pull a blanket over him and cuddle him. that’s all he wants

B: Body part

wooyoung doesn’t have a favourite of yours. he’s literally into all of you. whilst he’s not a praiser or anything, he looks to you with so much admiration (you’re his queen and his face is your throne, hmm?) that he couldn’t pick just one thing of yours that he liked over the other. as for him, he likes his thighs. not sure why. they don’t really have any relevance to nsfw activities but he does like them

C: Cum

he cums within moderation.. it’s not as much as some others, but he usually is a bit messy with it and covers the sheets anyway. prefers it when he can see it on you/around you. or when it’s on your hands. somehow he likes cumming into your hand but he may never actually admit to that

D: Dirty Secret

he is very careful on keeping this a secret, but wooyoung would really, desperately like to see you with one of his hyungs. he’s not sure where it came from, he doesn’t even know if it’s legitimately a want of his or he’s just got a really vivid dream in his head, but he’d love to see you with one of the other members. he’s not sure if he wants it to be another sub, mingi perhaps, or he wants it to be someone like san so you both get to be sub. he kinda wants to see another guy fuck you senseless so you see how it feels to be sub. does that make him a sadist like you? maybe. san it is then

E: Experience

some - maybe he’s done a few things but not much, if anything. most of it is from researching out of general curiosity and a tendency to be into all things that involve him being topped by someone he loves

F: Favourite Position

when you’re taking him from behind, or when you’re on top and switching between riding his dick and riding his face. would wooyoung honestly know what to do if he was on top? hell no. he would look at you with wide eyes and need you to tell him everything to do. he’s a bottom. let him be bottom so it aligns with the natural order of things

G: Goofy

wooyoung goes into a kind of sub space when you are doing anything nsfw. he has the bratty attitude that he turns on and off like a lightswitch and it means that the last thing on your mind, as well as his, is anything funny. he takes his sub role very seriously - and he expects you to take your position seriously too

H: Hair

he keeps it tidy because he thinks it makes you happy (plus he thinks it looks better too). even if you tell him you don’t care, he’ll still keep it tidy and do a little manscaping here and there in order to make things cleaner. probably shaves every so often, too

I: Intimacy

uhh.. hes intimate but not in the way you may expect? when you guys are playing, he will usually shy away from the whole i love you thing and will instead be more in the place of holy shit suck my dick a little more pls. but when he’s about the cum the first thing he thinks of is you, and when he cuddles up to you straight after the only thing on his mind is you

J: Jack Off

when you’re not around, he’ll do it. even if you ask him not to, tell him not to even, he’ll still do it because he’s a brat and brats just can’t be told no, can they? he’ll take the punishment later, he’d rather think of you doing something nsfw to him instead of biting his lip and clenching his thighs all day

K: Kink

wooyoung’s kinks aren’t complex. he knows what he’s into. he wants to be sub, though can play dom is he needs to (to make you angry and so he can tease you). if it’s not bdsm related then wooyyoung probably isn’t that into it. he likes being tied up (who said shibari?) and he likes it when you spank him for being naughty. he also, surprisingly, likes it when you where pretty underwear and play with yourself in front of him. wouldn’t mind watching you with another guy, too, as long as you go straight back to him after. also a masochist

L: Location

whilst the bedroom is ideal for him, wooyoung understands that isn’t always practical and has decided that he can pretty much do anything, anywhere. from a car to a shower, a bathroom to the changing room, wooyoung is down for it if you are. plus there’s more places for him to get caught, which he secretly enjoys more than he lets on

M: Motivation

Usually, it’s something you’re wearing. Wooyoung is a good boy and he’ll sit with his hands in his lap, teeth pulled between his lips, as he waits for you to show him what you bought. You tell him he can look but he can’t touch, though usually he does end up touching you and you’ll punish him for it. Otherwise he’s just been needy during the day and can’t keep away from you, and he’s particularly clingy in the hopes you’ll see he’s a good boy and give him some relief

N: NO

whilst wooyoung is into a lot of things, he doesn’t like cock rings. he adamantly refuses them each time you bring them up, to the point where you no longer use them and stick to other things instead. they hurt him a bit too much for him to handle, much more than he can handle with, say, a flogger or whip

O: Oral

he really likes it when you reward him with both giving and receiving. sometimes he will be clingy with his hands on your arm the whole day, following you around like a lost puppy, as he whispers to you that he really wants you to suck him off. other times he’ll like it when you sit on his face and he has the opportunity to show you how good he can be to you too - since sometimes he feels like he barely does any giving whatsoever

P: Pace

you control the pace for him, obviously, but he likes it when you fuck him hard and fast. masochist wooyoung enjoys the ache, especially if it’s enough to leave him sore when he dances (and he’ll gush to you about how everyone asked him why he was struggling to do a particular move)

Q: Quickie

doesn’t really happy, not unless he’s adamant about it which isn’t usually. only if something has been on his mind for a while or it’s little teaser for later. that’s often the reason for quickies - if you’re trying to tease him for later and leave him with a boner that causes his problems all during the day

R: Risk

he gets pretty shy when you do anything in public, though he will admit it kinda turns him on.. he’s not sure why, but he really does like the thought of someone catching and him doing something private. he’s into the thrill of what might happen next. depending on your views, he may encourage you to do things in public too

S: Stamina

he can go for a while, but the poor boy doesn’t take long to cum. which is probably the reason he can go so many rounds. his record? he’s cum 5 times in an hour and a half. that’s impressive for him. he’s so sensitive that it’s impossible for him to resist cumming when it comes to you - even if he does get punished for it later

T: Toy

he likes them, a lot. he has his own little collection of favourites that he’ll have for your disposal, if you don’t have your own of course. his favourites are a strap on and a butt plug that vibrates, especially the latter since its one of the first things he ever bought for himself. his eyes will practically light up when you either introduce him to a new toy, or offer to use one on him

U: Unfair

tease is wooyoung’s middle name. he knows how to push your buttons and uses it in his favour - even if it just gets him punished in the end. since he’s a bit of a masochist, he will be happy to accept whatever you throw at him, even if he’s dry cumming into your hand multiple times

V: Volume

he doesn’t give a shit about someone hearing him. he’ll scream until his pretty little throat is sore. he’ll make sure you know how much he loves what you’re doing, and your neighbours know it too. rip to anyone you wanted to have a good impression of you, they now know that your boyfriend subs and he gets so into what he’s doing that he cries and he whines louder than their headphones can cover up

W: Wild Card

one day you came home to find wooyoung sitting on your bed, patiently waiting for you to come home. he has a box in his hand, and he encourages you to open it with a wide smile on his face. it’s then that you realise there’s more to it. when you see the black leather flogger, you realise that wooyoung is probably a bigger saddist than you though - not that you didn’t enjoy using it on him later. though it’s likely he enjoyed it more than you anyway

X: X-Ray

on the smaller side, but it’s enough to work with. probably helps that he’s a sub because his size suits his character

Y: Yearning

he’s needy, but in so many different ways that it’s usually safe to assume that wooyoung probably does want you to touch his dick or something. whilst he is needy, it’s not overbearing and he can deal with things if he needs to. so don’t worry, he’s not going to always be calling you because he needs you. just know that he probably is touching himself thinking of you, if you’re not doing it instead

Z: ZZZ

wooyoung has a habit of laying his head on your chest or your stomach, curling up against you and shutting his eyes and accidentally falling asleep. he’s usually worn out from so much you’ve put him through that it’s best to let him sleep. if you don’t, then you’re not gonna be able to have your fun with him the next morning and he’ll be pouty all day because he’s tired (which is cute but… he’s also kinda annoying when he’s tired)

[tvdversefanfiction]

Canary Carnage

Chapter Thirteen: Killer Carnage

Warnings: I don’t own any of the rights, content or characters belonging to any of the DC content I use within the story along with not owning any rights, content or characters within The Vampire Diaries, Originals or Legacies.

18 Rating: Moderate/Graphic displays of violence, sexual innuendos, sexually charged scenes, SMUT, strong language and potentially triggering scenes.

Pairings: M/M, F/F, M/F.

Elijah Mikaelson couldn’t help but to be left feeling uneasy following Laurel Lance returning to New Orleans permanently although he definitely enjoyed having her back he could help but feel guilty for wanting her back in a city that held so much pain for the both of them.

However it was Lucas Lance’s return or rather the arrival of his Earth X doppelganger Lucas Wayne that Elijah was much more concerned by and so he wasted very little time in getting to know the infamous Blue Canary, quickly discovering that Lucas Wayne was a far cry from Lucas Lance.

Although there were similarities between the two doppelgangers other than their looks: Both Lucas’ were smart and calculating with a determined drive to stay alive, both had complicated relationships with their biological mothers and both had managed to capture the attention of Elijah’s brother Klaus Mikaelson much to everyone’s worries considering how bad the original hybrid’s curiosity with Lucas Lance ended.

“I see your settling into New Orleans rather well Mr Wayne.” Elijah greeted the Earth X doppelganger after vamp speeding into Rousseau's, speeding over to the bar counter to find Lucas Wayne serving drinks to customers with Josh stood by his side. “I believe your also living with the Lance sisters at their hotel.”

“I’ve got this,” Lucas told Josh before walking over to face off with the noble original vampire, leaving Josh to tend to customers as he spoke to Elijah. “The pristine suit which looks pricy as hell must mean you’re Elijah Mikaelson. I’ve met your brother Klaus he’s what I call an original stalker of sorts.”

“My brother Niklaus is merely being cautious you see your doppelganger Lucas Lance proved himself rather troublesome for everyone including himself and we don’t want a repeat of that for everyone’s sakes…especially your mother’s.” Elijah informed the Blue Canary.

“I get it Lucas Lance was the villain in your story but in mine people like you, your siblings and god even my mother were the villains.” Lucas replied to Elijah. “I’m here because I have nowhere else to go and I’m beginning to believe I’m here to save this city.”

“What is it you think that this city needs saving from?” Elijah scoffed at him as he took a seat at the counter.

“First guess would be the vampires who treat humans like walking snacks, the wolves keep themselves to themselves so they’re not on the agenda and the witches are pretty hit and miss.” Lucas answered him before going over to pour the original a glass of straight whisky before walking back over and serving Elijah his drink. “I’m not coming for anyone in particular but I won’t stand by if anyone or anything comes for the few innocents around here.”

“Are you threatening me Mr Wayne or are you threatening my entire family?” Elijah asked him before taking a drink of his whisky, only to smile at the taste of this whisky. “I guess you’re the kind of bartender who knows their customer’s drink.”

“I like Sara and I’m even fond of Laurel so when they tell me somebody’s good I’ll accept it until they prove otherwise however nobody has anything nice to say about Klaus Mikaelson and his stalking of me isn’t helping me think otherwise.” Lucas admitted to Elijah. “As for your drink consider it on me as a thanks for putting your brother in line…unless you want me to do the job for you?”

“My brother Niklaus isn’t someone who is easily handled especially considering how fond he was of your doppelganger…personally I didn’t see why.” Elijah informed Lucas before downing his drink and placing the empty glass onto the counter. “I much prefer this Lucas standing in front of me however morals are a rare thing around here and they tend to get you killed.”

“I’ll keep that in mind Mr Mikaelson.” Lucas responded with a sincere smile on his face before Elijah vamp sped out of Rousseau's and out of sight.

“Declaring war on the Mikaelson’s doesn’t end well for you trust me my friend Marcel once thought he could survive that family and let’s just say you won’t see him in New Orleans anymore.” Josh warned Lucas as he walked over to his new employee. “He was considered family to them as well.”

“I’ve dealt with murderous mothers, overbearing fathers, endless superhuman enemies and literally Nazi’s in my time I’m sure I can handle a vampire or two.” Lucas boasted to his vampire boss only to be met by Josh laughing at him.

“Funny your less evil than your evil twin but your just as foolish.” Josh scoffed at the Blue Canary. “Forgive me for my advice I’m just the only person in this city that doesn’t seem to have a death wish.”

Josh Rosza was far wiser than his years but hid behind an adorable yet admit-tingly dorky personality which had served him very well as a vampire especially considering everyone around him had died and yet he continued to advise his friends to follow suit only to see them take different paths.

His first greatest loss was the love of his life Aiden who fell victim to the Mikael’s ruthless aunt Dahlia before he found himself losing his best friend Davina several times before losing her for what seemed like for good and in the last five years alone he had lost his close friend Marcel Gerard again due to the Mikaelson’s.

When Davina first returned to New Orleans five years ago Josh’s biggest fear was losing her again to a doomed fate but instead, she gave up her need for vengeance against Klaus as she fell back in love with Kol and got married.

Although the wonder witch still lived in the city their friendship had changed and became strained as Josh made clear his distaste over their handling of Marcel Gerard. Josh was determined to find Marcel being the only one who hadn’t given up on the updated original and that put a strain on his relationship with Davina Claire-Mikaelson.

However, in the last five years he had found himself forming a new friendship with the Black Canary keeping in touch over his mission to find his friend and her mission to save the world and now he had her son, or at least some version of her son, working for him and feared Lucas Wayne would either follow the same path as his doppelganger Lucas Lance or his estranged friend Davina.

Five years earlier Klaus Mikaelson had found himself growing rather close to Lucas Lance despite a determination to do anything considering the Red Canary was selfish, reckless, manipulative and calculating, all the things Klaus used to be before he became a father. It took him time to realize that what attracted him most to Lucas was how much the canary reminded him of himself.

Of course it grew more complicated as he learned more about the Red Canary realizing the meta-human was nowhere near as heartless as he’d have liked people to admit and far more troubled than even he realized unleashing Klaus’ need to want to help Lucas find his way like his siblings and his daughter helped him but unlike Klaus’ long and immortal life the Red Canary’s life was cut short.

Lucas Lance was never a great love of his life and Klaus doubted he would’ve been had they been together longer but his memory did serve as a painful reminder of a time he failed somebody he actually wanted to help and therefore the arrival of Lucas’ Earth X doppelganger Lucas Wayne only served to remind the original hybrid even more and for that reason he had been avoiding the Blue Canary like a plague until he was told to do exactly that and Klaus Mikaelson never did what he was told.

“Listen up Klaus because I’m only going to say this once under no circumstances whatsoever are you to come near Lucas. The last thing we need right now is your undead ass fucking up my sister’s chance of getting to know her son.” Sara demanded as she walked into the compound to find Klaus stood waiting for her.

“Just because my sister has grown fond of you doesn’t mean I’m not going to tear your head off for the nerve of trying to make demands of me besides the last Lucas found more danger with you than he ever did with me.” Klaus snapped back at the White Canary.

“That was different…we had just lost our mother…we thought there was no going back for him.” Sara replied with a clear sense of regret in her voice. “This is our chance to do right by him.”

“The only problem with that logic is Lucas Wayne isn’t Lucas Lance which means he’s not your nephew or your sister’s son. You’ve just let some stranger straight into your home because he looks familiar.” Klaus told her with a hint of judgement on his face, knowing Sara, Laurel and Rebekah were to blame for Lucas Lance’s demise.

“He is Lucas though or at least the way Lucas used to be until everything went to shit. This version of him is kind, loyal and heroic just like the baby brother I grew up with.” Sara admitted to the original hybrid as tears formed in her eyes. “He may have a different history and he may not know me or Laurel but he’s so much like the Lucas I used to know it makes me feel…”

“Guilty that you gave up on the original?” Klaus butted in, all too eager to make the canary feel even more guilty. “He’s not your second chance Sara and he’s not going to make it right how you and your sister plotted to murder your own blood all because he had an episode or two.”

“He murdered our mother that’s not an episode or two!” Sara reminded Klaus, furious that the original would dismiss her mother’s death like it was nothing, also furious that she gave up on her adoptive brother so easily and that he was reminding her of how she failed him. “Please just stay the hell away from this Lucas!”

“I’ll take it into consideration Miss Lance.” Klaus lied, knowing damn fine he was now going to make himself well known to the Blue Canary.

Klaus Mikaelson initially had no intention to have any contact with Lucas Wayne following their initial meeting weeks ago but after learning how much Sara Lance wanted him to stay away he just couldn’t pass an opportunity to put the White Canary in her place still loathing her for murdering his elder sister Freya Mikaelson and holding her just as responsible for Laurel in the parts they played in Lucas Lance’s death.

In fact, Klaus genuinely believed he had moved on from Lucas Lance’s death but the idea of his family being so quick to embrace a purer version of him angered the original hybrid far more than he thought it would and now he wanted to teach the Lance sisters a lesson for dishonoring the memory of a man they helped murder.

Caitlin Snow was a powerful woman long before she discovered she was a meta-human working as a well-respected bio-engineer at S.T.A.R. Labs alongside her fiancé Ronnie Raymond who was a structural engineer for the company but everything changed for her upon her fiance's mysterious disappearance eventually turning her from a loving and caring woman to someone with an ice cold heart as Killer Frost was born.

Caitlin chose a life of villainy following her heartbreak after discovering her powers of thermometric cryokinesis taking on the villainess mantle as Killer Frost leaving Caitlin Snow and all she worked for behind which led to her becoming enemies with some of the most powerful heroes including the Black Canary.

Killer Frost had a long and complicated history with Laurel Lance having once been best friends with the canary only to later become obsessed in bringing her down always failing until the death of the multiverse gave her an opportunity to arrive on Earth X, a world which followed none of the rules that the other worlds did in the now dead multiverse.

The realization that the Black Canary currently residing within Earth X wasn’t the Black Canary from her world hadn’t stopped her obsession especially with Killer Frost’s new friends, all of which were determined to destroy at least one if not all three of the canaries within New Orleans.

“In such a big and busy city, it’s quite remarkable to find such peace in a quiet little place like this.” Frost stated as she walked into the quiet Rousseau's bar to find Lucas Wayne stood behind the bar wiping down the counter. “Either you’re a really bad bartender or people are scared to come into this establishment.”

“I guess you’re officially stopping me from having to close anytime soon.” Lucas greeted the long white-haired woman as she walked over to the bar and sat down at the counter. “You look strangely familiar…have we met before?”

“Nope you don’t exist in my timeline or my world which also doesn’t exist anymore.” She replied, making it clear to the Blue Canary that she was from the multiverse. “This world is quite intriguing, but the only downfall seems to be there’s one too many Lances around here.”

“I’m a Wayne not a Lance but I’m more interested in who the bloody hell you are?” Lucas wondered just as Laurel walked into the bar looking horrified to see Killer Frost, who instantly rose from her chair and turned around to face the Black Canary.

“Killer Frost…you’re supposed to be long dead not to mention the world itself died after you!” Laurel said in shock, clearly uneasy to see an old foe.

“I’m not exactly the Killer Frost you know but I hate you just as much if not more.” Frost revealed to Laurel, as she found herself stood between both canaries. “If you think your Earth X son was the only one to jump ship before the death of the multiverse than you thought wrong.”

“You should leave now before you wind up just as dead as your other doppelgangers!” Laurel warned Frost, with a look of hatred in her eyes, a look Lucas had never seen from the Black Canary but had seen from the Black Siren one time too many.

“My father told me all about you, you were long dead on my Earth too but you were quite the formidable foe before that…in my world you were my twisted mother’s closest confidant so it only makes sense you hate the good versions of her.” Lucas piped in, once again showing a vast knowledge about the multiverse.

“You’re so much more than just a looker if only you were a bit redder instead of blue we may have got along!” Killer Frost told Lucas before lifting her hand in his direction shooting out a large ice blast from the palm of her hands as Laurel released a canary cry in her direction, the ice blast hitting Lucas and throwing him into the glass cabinet filled with alcohol destroying it before throwing Lucas down to the ground, as Laurel’s canary cry sent the villainess Killer Frost flying across the bar before hitting a wall and crash landing onto the ground.

“I warned you to get the hell out of here Caitlin!” Laurel shouted at the doppelganger of her nemesis. “Now I’m going to have to teach you a lesson.”

The Blue Canary and Killer Frost both rose to their feet at the same time, the Blue Canary ready to charge at the villainess white haired woman while the white haired woman had all eyes on the Black Canary but before anyone could attack Klaus vamp sped into the bar, speeding all the way over to Lucas before grabbing a hold of him and vamp speeding out of Rousseau's with the Blue Canary leaving a confused Laurel Lance standing alone in the bar with her nemesis Caitlin Snow.

“Well I was planning on killing you both, but I suppose I’m not totally pissed it’s just you and me now!” Killer Frost told the Black Canary before raising her hand to release another ice blast in Laurel’s direction, just as Laurel released a large canary cry in the direction of the villainess.

If Laurel was going to win against Caitlin Snow’s ruthless alter ego Killer Frost then she had better get her head in the game but with the doppelganger of her son just being kidnapped by Klaus Mikaelson she couldn’t help but worry about Lucas Wayne and what the original hybrid had in store for him.

Klaus Mikaelson had learned a lot about the canaries during the five years in which Sara and Laurel had clashed with him and his family and although his siblings had built friendships with the Lance sisters he had kept wary of them deciding to instead study the canaries and learn their weaknesses.

Klaus was forever paranoid about betrayals and potential feuds after all his family’s worst enemies tended to be close allies at some stage before turning against them and so he found it wiser to study all that came into his life knowing how best to take them both down if he needed to, which he always did.

He knew Laurel’s canary cry was pretty powerful so much so that it destroyed the hollow and their blood was special enough to restore Elijah’s memories and he also knew the canaries could die just like Lucas Lance died or be turned into a vampire like Sara Lance.

The canaries were powerful but only as powerful as their cry or at least that’s what Klaus believed and thanks to a brief alliance with Nyssa al Ghul he knew exactly how to deal with a canary cry putting the Blue Canary exactly where he wanted him.

“This should give us some proper time alone!” Klaus stated after vamp speeding into Lafayette Cemetery with Lucas and putting a power dampening collar around the son of batman’s neck. “Don’t want you getting any advantage over me with that damn canary cry.”

Lucas wasted no time in grabbing a hold of the original hybrid’s arm as he bent himself over and threw Klaus over his back until the vampire hit the ground with force while Lucas twisted his arm, popping the arm out of its socket before harshly stomping his foot down on Lucas’ throat, easing off just enough to let the hybrid speak.

“I don’t need a cry to kick your ass Klaus!” Lucas shouted at him before Klaus grabbed a hold of the Blue Canary and flung him over his body forcing the canary to land on the ground next to the vampire, as Klaus popped his arm back into its socket after a series of groans.

“I hate you!” Klaus furiously stated to Lucas as he climbed on top of his body, preparing to strangle the canary only to be headbutt in the face by Lucas, followed by Lucas kicking the vampire upwards, before Klaus finally found his footing as Lucas stood up to face him.

“You don’t even know me!” Lucas snapped back at Klaus before the original hybrid sped towards him, only for the Blue Canary to deliver a series of punches across the vampire’s face before Klaus threw him to the ground, Lucas grabbing a hold of Klaus, making the vampire fall on top of the canary.

“I…” Klaus said before pausing as he looked into the eyes of the Blue Canary, as hidden feelings began to rise and suddenly the vampire found himself kissing a stunned Lucas only for Lucas to respond by grabbing the vampire and throwing his body over his own, making Klaus hit the ground harshly once again as Lucas rose to his feet.

“What the hell do you think your doing?” Lucas questioned Klaus, as Klaus quickly stood back up, both looking as confused as the other.

“You just look so much like him…” Klaus reluctantly admitted to the canary. “I guess the only reason I want you dead is because your forcing me to feel something I don’t want to feel.”

“I surprisingly understand where you’re coming from I mean I’m not going around trying to kill then kiss people but it’s not easy seeing a doppelganger of my mother whose nothing like her so I can only imagine how hard it must be to see a doppelganger of somebody you were once in love with.” Lucas replied to Klaus, surprising the original with his kindness.

“I was never in love with Lucas Lance…I cared for him, but I never loved him.” Klaus revealed to the Blue Canary, admitting not only to him but himself. “I don’t normally try to be a hero, but I really wanted to save him and not because I loved him but because he reminded me of him.”

“Sara filled me in on how you used to be a lot worse than what you are now which is saying something if this is the filtered down version.” Lucas joked with Klaus as he sat down on a nearby wall. “I guess my doppelganger reminded you of just how bad you were, how far you’ve come and how much better your life is because of it. You wanted that for him because if he could get it someone who was probably nowhere near as ruthless as you once were then in some way it’d be like you deserved the life your living but instead he got took down and you can’t help but think maybe you should’ve been taken out too.”

“Are you seriously trying to psychoanalyze me because I can promise you, I’m nowhere near as deep as you’re assuming, I am nor do I regret any action I’ve made in the past.” Klaus argued with Lucas, refusing to admit there was some truth in Lucas’ words.

“Sometimes heroes last long enough to become villains and sometimes villains find their way back to heroes once more but that’s not on anybody if they don’t find their way back least of all a thousand year old vampire whose actions are morally questionable on a good day.” Lucas explained to Klaus, as Klaus sat down next to the Blue Canary, listening to him despite looking like he wanted to be anywhere else. “I’m not Lucas Lance but I’m not some pillar of purity and goodness either we live in a grey world Klaus although admittedly redder here on Earth Blood. I can’t say what happened to my doppelganger was the right way to handle him nor it was the wrong way but what I can say is he’s not me and he’s not you either…it’s time to let it go.”

Lucas was right about Klaus holding onto the past righter than he could have possibly known as Klaus realized the words coming out of this Earth X doppelganger were wise and if he was wise, he’d take the Blue Canary’s advice.

It was in that moment for the first time since Lucas Wayne had arrive on Earth Blood that Klaus Mikaelson had started to see the Blue Canary for who he was and not just who he reminded him of.

Laurel Lance’s history with her world’s Caitlin Snow was very different to the one she had currently found herself coming face to face with: they had never been friends just enemies and it wasn’t the death of Ronnie Raymond which led to the birth of her world’s Killer Frost it was the death of Barry Allen which was her world’s first flash before Wally West took over the mantle.

Laurel may have never seen a good side to Killer Frost but she knew people who did such as Cisco Ramone and Wally West and it was those friendships that constantly put her at odds with the villainess making the Black Canary very wary of the manic meta-human but not fully unaware of her potential to be redeemed.

The Black Canary and Killer Frost’s fight lasted for a long time much to the expense of Rousseau's which had been destroyed from the inside out with broken tables, chairs and bottles spread across the floor with planks of wood and glass scattered everywhere as Laurel found herself beaten, broken and bruised while laid on a floor covered in the ruins of Rousseau's as Killer Frost stood above her looking victorious.

“I’ve always wanted to kill Laurel Lance, but I never thought it would be this easy.” Frost said while taunting Laurel, ready to kill the Black Canary. “It’s just a shame you’re the one who made it here but oh well every Laurel’s practically the same even the not so pure ones.”

“You are better than this Caitlin! I may not know this version of you but every version of you becomes like this because you lose someone you love.” Laurel told the white-haired woman, hoping to appeal to some humanity within her. “I lost my son my actual son and it broke me more than I ever thought it would but what your doing isn’t going to bring them back it’s just dishonoring their memory and what they meant to you.”

“Yeah here’s the thing I no longer care about anyone or anything.” Killer Frost replied as she magically formed an ice pick above her hand from out of thin air before Lucas sped into Rousseau's and clipped the power dampener collar around the white-haired woman’s neck before throwing her to the floor much to Laurel’s relief.

“You’re not going to believe me when I say this, but Klaus Mikaelson actually comes in handy from time to time!” Lucas declared as he walked over to Laurel, offering his hand to her and helping her get back onto her feet.

“Funnily enough I do believe it he always did have a soft spot for that face.” Laurel admitted to Lucas before the both turned to look at a pissed off Killer Frost whose was slowly getting back on her feet as her white hair turned brown.

“What are we going to do about little miss frosty?” Lucas asked Laurel who surprised him with a smile on her face as she watched Killer Frost’s hair turn completely brown.

“We’re going to help Killer Frost find Caitlin Snow once more.” Laurel revealed to a surprised Lucas, who was in awe of this version of his mother’s sense of forgiveness and kindness.

“Okay…but we’re going to need a cage or something to keep her in the meantime.” Lucas suggested just as Klaus sped into Rousseau's with a sinister smirk on his face.

“I may have a prison or two I’d be willing to lend the canaries…pending negotiations of course.” Klaus was eager to inform them all.

“Of course, you do!” Laurel scoffed while rolling her eyes, as she noticed Lucas and Klaus sharing a smile that made her feel very uneasy.

Laurel Lance had to deal with a lot since arriving on Earth Blood firstly the Mikaelson’s, then her twisted brother, then the Mikaelson’s and her brother only to then find out that baby brother of hers was actually her son before having to watch him meet a grizzly end but as she stood in the ruins of Rousseau's feeling the chemistry between Lucas Wayne and Klaus Mikaelson she had finally realized this was her all-time low.

The Black Canary was never a fan of the original hybrid, but she couldn’t argue with his weird sense of loyalty towards her son Lucas Lance even if it did confuse her she was happy someone was on his side especially considering she couldn’t be. However the Earth X doppelganger of her son Lucas Wayne was kind, honorable and loving, everything she believed Klaus Mikaelson wasn’t and the last thing she wanted was for the Blue Canary to end up just as bad if not worse than the Red Canary.

[ningyotsu]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄 & 𝐍𝐄𝐆𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄;  𝘔𝘶𝘯 & 𝘔𝘶𝘴𝘦 - 𝘔𝘦𝘮𝘦.

fill out & repost ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested  in atm.

𝐌𝐘 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐈𝐒:   canon /  OC  / au / canon-divergent / fandomless /

Is your character popular in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK

Is your character considered strong in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK.

Are they underrated?  YES / NO / IDK

Were they relevant for the main story?  YES / NO.

Were they relevant for the main character?  YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG.

Are they widely known in their world?  YES / NO.

How’s their reputation?  GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL.

𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐓𝐋𝐘 𝐃𝐎 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐅𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖  ‘ 𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍 ’ ? — I DO MY BEST. IT’S NOT EASY. IT’S REALLY NOT EASY. THERE’S TOO MANY INCONSISTENCIES. NASU WHY.

𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐋 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐄! 𝐀𝐤𝐚 𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐜𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐦𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐬.  —   I literally have no idea where to begin even describing Touko, because I’m just (waves hands around and flails them)!!! So to say, she’s one of the most powerful mages within the Nasuverse who literally can’t die even if she’s killed (sorry Shirou), has attained the highest ranking title in the Mages’ Association at a very young age (second youngest at 20, the record having been toppled by Kurogiri Satsuki), owns sports cars and a private jet/helicopter in her garage, can do literally anything and everything......if you can’t tell i really don’t know where to start she just popped out of absolutely nowhere and she has no chill whatsoever ;-;

𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐏𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐈𝐓𝐄, 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐡𝐲 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐬𝐨 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 (𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐦𝐚𝐲 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐞, 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐦 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤?).  —   Mostly, it’s the confusion form canon’s side; is she nigh powerful, or is she not? Has she reached the color Red, or is she Orange? (inconsistencies with Alba’s and Francesca’s statements: Alba said she achieved Red, Francesca said she achieved Orange) Is Azaka more powerful than her, or has she achieved the Third Magic and is secretly the Third Magician? Material suggests that she’s not, but there are other works that show numerous people fearing the mere mention of her name, showcasing her boundless genius (revolutionizing modern Runecraft, reaching the pinnacle of magic, toppling the Rail Zeppelin, etc.)....Personality-wise, she’s not the best; I still can’t wrap my head around her personality switches with her glasses (on, and she’s the nicest person in the world, off and she’s meaner than Mean Girls), and even in the movies, it really doesn’t show much difference because she had her off-glasses personality on.....when she was wearing her glasses in the first place.

She also doesn’t know the meaning of moderation and she’s an overall jerk; just from a nickname, she killed someone at least 30 times before her younger sister had to intervene, killed a batchmate for the same reason, killed her younger sister’s friend as innocent battle collateral....oh, I could go on and on......but overall, she’s very, very inconsistent; unnecessarily extra. She’s like Rin but worse. It’s a headache keeping up with her. 

𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐏𝐈𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐓𝐎 𝐑𝐏 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐄? —  my first thought was bc she’s hot - JKJKJK

Seriously speaking, Touko’s very concept struck out to me as the most interesting among most media that deals with magic and special abilities (e.g. the mahou shoujo genre, Fate, etc.); Honda Takako (Touko’s seiyuu from the KnK movies) was known and said to ‘keep an otherwise extraordinary character grounded’, and I can’t agree more. Touko’s an incredibly overpowered individual who could very well be the most special snowflake in any media like the rest of the lot, but she portrays herself as the most modern lady around - she has an office job, dresses in button-up shirts and slacks, talks about every-day life and her past in a way that ordinary people can relate to (’rocket/push-up pencils’) and so on. The sense of normalcy to the point where she seems to be the most normal person (asides from Mikiya) around in comparison to her employees (not even Azaka can be seen as remotely normal) show that there’s a lot more to life than just being endowed with extraordinary things, because there’s a beauty in being simply ordinary.

come El-Melloi II and she’s not that normal no more my god woman make up your mind

𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐊𝐄𝐄𝐏𝐒 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐏𝐈𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐆𝐎𝐈𝐍𝐆?  —  i actually have boundless inspiration for her; she’s just that flexible to write omg....one time she can be serious and philosophical and another i can have her meme around as if she’s perpetually immature

&

𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐍

Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice?  YES / NO / IDK

Do you frequently write headcanons?  YES / NO.

Do you sometimes write drabbles?  YES / NO.

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day?  YES / NO.

Are you confident in your portrayal?   YES / NO.

Are you confident in your writing?  YES / NO.

Are you a sensitive person?  YES / NO.

𝐃𝐎 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐀𝐂𝐂𝐄𝐏𝐓 𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐒𝐌 𝐖𝐄𝐋𝐋 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐘𝐀𝐋 —  I would very much like constructive criticism about Touko, simply because it’s such a headache deciding who on earth she actually is ;;; but so far, I’ve never gotten anything of the sort! 

𝐃𝐎 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒, 𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐂𝐇 𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐏 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑? — PLS ASK ME QUESTIONS ABOUT HER PLS MAKE ME WONDER AND THINK ABOUT THIS MESS OF A WOMAN

𝐈𝐅 𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐀𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐀 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍 𝐎𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐒, 𝐃𝐎 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐖𝐇𝐘? —   Mm! It’d be appreciated if the reason comes along with it automatically though; something like ‘oh, I disagree because (insert reason here)’ would be pretty good!

𝐈𝐅 𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐀𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐒 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐘𝐀𝐋, 𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐖𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐓𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐈𝐓 ? —  It’s okay, because to each to their own portrayal!

𝐈𝐅 𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐇𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐒 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑, 𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐃𝐎 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐓𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐈𝐓 ? —  IC, it’s okay. OOC, it’s also okay, but please, don’t make it a groundless reason to send anon hate or anything like that ;;; Technically, even if anon hate is sent, I’d most likely just ignore it pff

𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐎𝐊𝐀𝐘 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐏𝐄𝐎𝐏𝐋𝐄 𝐏𝐎𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐄𝐑𝐑𝐎𝐑𝐒 ? — Perfectly okay with it, although I’ve never been corrected on my grammar before....English is my first language, so I hope to not flop on it unless I’m drunk or sleepy.....

𝐃𝐎 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐊 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐘 𝐆𝐎𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐀𝐒 𝐀 𝐌𝐔𝐍 ? —  i’m potete.

𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵’𝘴 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘪𝘵, 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘧𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘶𝘵!

tagged by stolen from @noircisaint​!!! tagging. STEAL IT FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS

[homesteadchronicles]

Happy STS! 😊 How would your characters in their current state react if they were introduced to their original, baseline character concepts? Would they be different enough that it’s like meeting someone completely new, like meeting an uncanny doppelganger, or somewhere in the middle? I’m always a sucker for seeing how characters grow and develop not only within the course of the physical story, but also how they change and evolve as you go about writing them.

You know, I almost said I was done with STS responses for now...but I have to answer this! What a phenomenal question. Thank you so much for sending this in!

___

This is the first incarnation with Briggid, so I’ve decided to instead show her all the drafts where I decided she didn’t need to exist. She wasn’t amused.

Eleazar is disgusted by the fact that I have now given him what used to be his father’s name. But at least he’s a lot more likable and has a personality distinguished from the other protagonists! I’ve given him much more snark and attitude, and shifted his position to something his current iteration would vastly prefer.

Poor Solomon would just be so confused. He would wonder why I could not settle on a race or an age for him. I don’t think he’d even recognize his older counterparts! Heck, this now-military commander was once a pacifist. But at least he was always respectable.

Here’s the thing with Royan: he didn’t start off having any powers whatsoever, and you didn’t have much of a reason to root for him. You’d think he’d be grateful for that, but no - he doesn’t want powers, unlike literally everybody else. So I clearly cannot please him. But at least I gave him a more suitable hair color and also made him lovable instead of moderately tolerable.

Oeden would be surprised how little his past incarnations have changed in terms of personality and occupation, but how vastly they have changed in literally everything else. He went from white to mixed, from brunette to redhead to auburn-haired, from having eighteen hundred plotlines to a controllable amount. He’d probably thank me, because this poor boy had waaaaay too much going on for a while there.

Medea would be SO mad at me. This girl has had so little change from her original incarnation because I knew exactly what I wanted to do with her from the beginning. But her OG self had two powers - Life and Death - whereas she only has death now. Her current self would kill to have both! But that’s why I took it from her. OP, please nerf.

Farukh’s actually stayed pretty consistent, too. The only thing that’s changed ten thousand times over is who his lover actually ends up being. This man has slept with half of Al-Hasan at this point. I think it would be one of the few things to unnerve him, sadden him even, to realize all the people who could have loved him if things had gone differently.

Kasumi might disown me as an author because I somehow made her family issues even worse than in the older drafts. I didn’t know that was possible, but I did. She did keep her butterfly motif, though! And she’s gotten more powers than just “good at spying”, so that’s a plus.

I definitely killed off Carmila’s mom at some point, and she still hasn’t forgiven me. At least her newest incarnation isn’t as serious and stuffy as her old ones! ...but she’s a little more childish and temperamental, so.

[mostlywritersblock]

Dracula 2019 fic

Part 2

****

“You seem nervous.”

Zoe glanced up from the email she’d been reading to lock eyes with him. It’d been a total of 11 days since he’d showed up in her life. To say things haven’t been snowballing since then would be an understatement.

“I’m meeting with the board tomorrow for one final review. It shouldn’t be awful but they’re going to ask a lot of questions.”

“About me.”

“About the organization...but yes about you too.”

Dracula smiled sweetly, “And what are you going to tell them about me?”

Zoe narrowed her eyes and effectively closed out of her email. “I’m going to tell them the truth.”

Dracula’s smile fell.

“That we have absolutely no idea how you survived drinking my blood. That we’ve come to numerous dead-ends and have zero leads.” Zoe finished with a frustrated grunt.

Dracula nodded slowly, a thought seeming to occur to him. “This board, they know of my existence?”

Zoe threw him a flat look. “Of course they know about you, they’re funding the organization!”

She suddenly moved to pace around the room, but Dracula stopped her, placing both hands on her shoulders to hold her in place.

“Essentially then they’re just another organization with information on me.”

Zoe peered at him quizzically.

“Maybe they know something we don’t, maybe they have the answer?” He wasn’t sure why he was feeling so giddy suddenly. Was he that desperate to find a lead, to finally have a means to scratch the metaphorical itch he’d been feeling since the moment he was conscious. In short.

Yes. Yes he was desperate.

Or maybe just hungry

Maybe both?

****

Zoe wouldn’t let him come to the board meeting, not with the staggering amount of people and guns at the ready. Not that he minded. It was more out of precaution for them than anything.

And with good reason, Dracula thought.

He could definitely go for another bloodbath.

****

Zoe returned with a sour look and stomp in her step. She relayed to him the days events. Apparently the board was satisfied with the foundation but when one of them had broached the subject of Dracula’s location, Zoe had to stay tight lipped, least they treat her like she’s harboring a fugitive.

Dracula should really track down his lawyer.

Eventually one of the board members pulled her aside and delivered a tantalizing bomb in disguise. They claimed they saw right through her her attempts at denial and demanded she bring Dracula back in. They suspected she was hiding him somewhere and that she was somehow under his control-

Dracula laughed loudly at this part because let’s face it. It was ridiculous. Agatha would never allow it.

-Anyway, Zoe used her quick thinking and decided to strike up a deal with the board representative and-

“What kind of deal.” Dracula asked crossing his arms.

“I was just about to get to that part if you’d stop interrupting me.”

“Well then by all means, please. Carry on.”

Zoe rolled her eyes but continued.

“Basically they said they’d keep you a secret from the rest of the board and organization if you agreed to meet with their exc and exchange information regarding all things Vampire. They might also want to run some more test.”

Dracula pursed his lips, “So basically just another foundation/organization, we’re just cutting out the middle man, middle man being the -“

“Jonathan Harker Foundation, yes, also meaning we lose a huge chunk of our sponsors if we go through with the deal. The foundation is struggling as it is, I don’t know if it’ll survive another pay cut like this.”

“Yes, terribly tragic. Oh well, I see no other option than to proceed forward with the deal.”

“Of course you would say that, does my work mean nothing to you?” She meant it in the rhetorical sense but Dracula didn’t seem to realize.

“Zoe, if I make this deal there will be no more work at the foundation to do. You can simply just do so at this other organization.”

Zoe was about to comment that that wasn’t the point, that is was the principle, that her family and the Murrays had put so much-

“Zoe, this could be our one chance to learn more about what happened. I-I need to understand Zoe. After.” Here he took a deep breath unnecessary as it was, “after you made me realize that it was my fears holding me back and once I became aware of my circumstance after the incident I have this-this desire to understand what happened, this need to know why. It’s, It’s driving me insane Zoe. I can’t explain it. Just, Please.”

Some very old voice inside of Zoe told her she was being manipulated, but for some reason she didn’t care.

**

They agreed to the deal and plans were set in motion to meet with the excs the following day.

*****

Zoe can count on both hands the amount of times she has legitimately been nervous in her life; the past year she’s known Dracula making up at least half of them.

Still she shouldn’t be feeling as nervous as she was now, sitting in the lobby of a very nice, very posh building in downtown London. Dracula was sitting beside her, dressed to the nines per usual looking as cool a fucking cucumber.

Zoe suspected it wasn’t possible for him to get nervous in the same sense as she was. No fast pace beating of the heart, sweaty palms, or feeling the blood rush to your ears.

No, she suspected he didn’t have any of those symptoms.

******

When they reached the offices of the executives, Zoe assumed it would be the top floor. It was not.

The excs immediate reaction upon meeting Dracula was surprise, followed shortly by awe, and then finally disgust as it registered that this being killed people for a living.

Literally.

At least they all seemed moderately ashamed with themselves.

‘You’re one to talk,’ the old voice quipped. Zoe chose to ignore it.

*****

Every second they wasted idly chattering was a second more Dracula felt his brain wasting away. Weren’t these people supposed to be experts on all things Vampire? Weren’t they supposed to help him? Not the other way around. They asked all manners of questions, some teetering on the edge of rude to obscene, to downright idiotic and foolhardy. It was as if all information regarding vampires was the swill found in, what was it? The media? The television? Either way it was similar to the books of old that always portrayed vampires poorly.

Dracula was half tempted to give them a live demonstration of his so called ‘powers’ just to get them to shut up, when he remembered he was in public, in a very public building in a very public city.

He decided he’d just have to show them another time.

Probably on their days off.

*****

Leaving the executive room was something close to fresh air, if he needed to breath. Zoe was walking a little quickly, rushing on her way to the elevator. When she paused mid step and rounded on him.

“Was that or was that not odd to you?”

“You mean because we just wasted thirty minutes of our time with a bunch of imbeciles who knew nothing of vampires whatsoever.”

“Oh good so we’re on the same page.”

Dracula held up his thumb and index finger. “I was this close Zoe, this close to ripping off one of their heads!”

“Calm down it wasn’t that awful.” Zoe turned back towards the elevator.

“You’re right, it was worse.” Dracula followed quickly in after her.

“Look. I’m not sure why but the whole situation just didn’t sit right with me, I mean they were our sponsors for Christ sake, how could they not be informed.”

“I don’t know Zoe and frankly I don’t care at the moment I just want to leave here as soon a-“

“Hold on, notice that.” Zoe pointed to the number of floors inside the elevator. “We’re not on the top floor.”

“I don’t understand.” And he meant it to.

“We’re not even on the excs floor, look you need clearance to go up further.”

“Zoe I don’t thi-“

“Shut up, somethings not right here.” Zoe looked around once before stepping back onto the previous floor. She motioned for him to follow. Reluctantly Dracula walked out of the lift.

Zoe glanced around for a few more seconds before deciding something.

“Do me a favor, see that mechanic over there.” She nodded to other side of the office. “Distract them for me will you.”

Dracula let out another small sigh before moving but turned back around briefly, “You know I expect something in return for all my trouble in helping you.”

“I’d expect nothing less. Now hurry up.” She whispered.

Dracula made his way over and grabbed the mechanics attention with soft words and gentle hands. Zoe rolled her eyes as she approached from behind. Ever the charmer. Silently she searched for the key card. Finally she spotted it on the tool kit off to the side, not even on their person. Too easy.

Zoe swiped it.

*****

Back in the elevator Zoe ran the card through a security reader and the lift gave a small jerk as it moved upward.

“My, my Zoe, I hadn’t had you pegged for a petty criminal.”

Zoe flashed him a grin. “Not a criminal, just a Helsing.”

Dracula let out a soft chuckle.

A loud buzzing filled up the space suddenly and Zoe once again tore around in search of her phone. She froze though when she looked at the screen.

Dracula didn’t need to be a vampire to see her tense. Instantly he was on alert.

“Zoe, what’s wrong?”

She glanced up at him briefly before looking back at the buzzing phone.

“It’s Jack.”

“...Lucy’s friend?”

At the mention of the girl’s name Zoe flinched slightly.

Dracula felt himself relax, Jack wasn’t a threat. No matter how much the kid wish’d to be.

The elevator doors suddenly slid open. Zoe seemed torn before placing her phone on silent and stowing it away.

“I’ll call him back later.” Whether she was telling him or herself that, Dracula wasn’t sure.

They stepped out and instantly Dracula wonder not for the first time if Zoe had some sort of sixth sense for uncanny situations. They were in another office, bigger, nicer and far more expensive than the one several floors down.

“I knew it, I knew something was off earlier, someone or ones is trying to keep us from something.”

“The missing puzzle pieces maybe?” Dracula questioned hopefully.

Zoe made a beeline to the largest office in the room.

“I don’t know why, but I feel like we’re really close to something, of discovering something big and - and it’s here in this office.” Zoe didn’t wait for him before stepping through the glass doors. Dracula, finding his curiosity piqued followed after her.

****

TBC

[pokeshippingflashfic]

One word prompt: Tabloids

“It looks like they’re on to you, Mr. Pokemon Master.”

Ash Ketchum nearly choked on his too-hot coffee, whirling around to face the redheaded young woman who’d just relayed such a cryptic truth to him in confusion.

“Wha… what’re ya talking about, Mist?”

Lacking any delicacy whatsoever, Misty Waterflower of Cerulean City unceremoniously tossed the paper she’d found outside before him on the table, where it lay flat with the headline: Kanto Champion Heartthrob Enters Tryst?! Details inside… staring boldly back at him.

“What the…? he muttered with a scrutinizing glare, haphazardly replacing his coffee mug and picking up the newspaper instead. That was, until he noticed the logo… “Kanto Canvasser? Misty, this is garbage! A tabloid! They’ve been calling the league for months trying to write some fake or over-embellished story on me and I kept saying no so they probably got fed up and wanted revenge. Lance told me it would happen eventually but since the last half a year’s been so quiet, I thought…” he ended in a ramble, looking like quite the guilty party.

“They say they have pics though,” his brunch partner pointed out, tapping the paper from her side of the small round table, then paused almost too patiently while Ash straightened up in his seat in a moderate panic, flipping through the pages until he stumbled upon the details and the photographic evidence against him.

It wasn’t a very good shot of him but even he could definitely tell it was him thanks to the telltale Pikachu perched on his shoulder and the official league cap on his head. What’s more, even though the whole thing was taken from a rear point of view, he could make out the urban strip of Pallet Town in the background and… what looked like his mom’s restaurant in the direction he seemed to be walking.

“Holy… When was this even taken?!” he yelped, eyes squinting before going wide in horror. “And wait…”

It was time to take in the other party of the so-called tryst he’d been rumored to have engaged in. Straight, somewhat thin dark hair that fell halfway down the young woman’s upper arms; a long, clingy darker dress; her skin contrasted drastically both with her attire as well as his own complexion in the photo, which was easier to tell since they were holding hands as they walked.

Again, considering it was from behind and clearly taken stealthily at night, it wasn’t a very good photo of him… but it was definitely him, which meant he’d been caught going to dinner and holding hands with a woman.

“Misty,” he told her firmly as he breathed deeply in through his nose, “I know… what it looks like but I’m telling you it’s not what it looks like.”

“Well, Mr. Pokemon Master, you can’t be telling me that’s not you, right? I mean, Pikachu is right there!”

“No, no, I’m not talking about me! That’s definitely me! I’m talking about her!”

“Her?” the redheaded young woman blinked bemusedly at his scandalous and suspicious tone, eyeing the picture as he turned the open paper around for her to get a decent look. Ash couldn’t help noticing the odd twinkle in her eye despite her more obvious stiff upper lip.

“This is the picture?” she asked after a few seconds of examination, and she seemed much less amused than she did at first. “Ash Ketchum, are you kidding me?” she gaped up at him with a slightly furrowed brow.

“I - I’m not but, like I said, I swear it’s not what it looks like! Maybe they edited her in or something? I dunno! I mean, you gotta know me well enough to know I wouldn’t step out on you, right?”

“I would have said this morning that I knew a lot of things! I thought I knew you well enough to know you didn’t even have the audacity in you to cheat, first of all! I thought I knew we felt the same, were on the same page, and that that,” and she paused just long enough to point it out on the page laid before her, “was our special spot! Your mom’s restaurant, ya know? I thought I knew what we were doing, and that we still had some time before we were exposed…”

“Uh…” the champion trainer responded, both somewhat guilty and much more baffled. What was she on about now? But it was best to let her get it out of her system first. If he tried to interrupt her now, chances were she’d just talk over him in order to be heard.

“… And, lastly, I thought for sure that you knew me well enough to recognize me from the back after all this time, you - you dummy!” she finished in a timely manner, up on her feet with hands on her hips as she stared him down with pursed lips and blotched red cheeks.

“I… wait, what?” he replied, gaze jumping repeatedly from her to the photo in the tabloid. “How is that you? Her hair is too dark; almost black!”

“Ash, c’mon, the photo is in black and white! It’s timestamped underneath as being from two nights ago when we went to your mom’s restaurant for dinner together! You’re literally holding my hand there! Don’t you remember doing that earlier this week?”

“Well, truthfully, I’ve held you a lot lately and definitely more than just your hand…” he muttered somewhat begrudgingly, or perhaps it was the shame hitting him full force for not realizing the truth sooner.

Misty’s somewhat dark expression softened at the tender memories, having the decency to blush at his forwardness as she regained her seat.

“It’s goo - great to have been able to spend some of my vacation from the league together,” he went on, staring avidly her way from across the table, “with you. I didn’t think someone would finally catch us though, ya know? Now what do we do?”

“Well, there are really only two options. We can step up our game - ‘cause you know they’re gonna step up theirs now they’ve gotten a peak - and keep acting discreetly. Or you - er, we - can just… come out. Tell ‘em everything. It might be a good time to do it. I mean, there’s no way your mom was gonna let us elope anyway and I doubt we’re good enough to keep an entire wedding secret.”

“And you’re okay with that? Aren’t you the one who said it was too much hassle to spend your whole time with your love life under the press microscope?” he asked her concernedly.

“Well, I don’t like being harassed… but I guess… I’ve been thinking on it some lately and I know I’ve been unfair to you. I’m not trying to reject your lifestyle or your choices. I’m proud of you for becoming a champion level trainer, Ash. I know it means everything to you…”

“Well,” he told her, pointedly reaching across the table and covering her hand in his own, “it does mean a lot. Mostly everything, I’d say,” he added, allowing her to interpret what he meant.

“… Anyway, I originally had a lot of reasons to keep our relationship - and our engagement - hidden… but most of them have lost their value in comparison to what we’ve been trying to build up these last two years. I’ll be joining you at Indigo Plateau soon enough and we can’t be obligated to keep everything under wraps while we’re there. So I guess what I’m saying is that I’m ready if you are.”

“Ready?” The shock was so overwhelming that Ash hadn’t actually said the word, more exhaled it from between his lips while remembering to breathe. “Mist, I’ve been ready since the day we started this relationship! This is great ‘cause my mom has been hounding me about wedding planning details! Now I can tell her to hound you instead!” he guffawed to his fiancee, leaping up and around the table to throw his arms around her enthusiastically.

“… Ooh, good,” was the far less energetic response. Nevertheless, she wrapped her arms around him too and smiled softly into his neck.

It was finally time to take on the world, she thought, as she remembered the ring sitting on her dresser back home. Together.

(Since I haven’t posted for a few days, I thought I’d crank out a couple at once to make up for it so here’s this.)

[infires-fanfic-blog]

Witness Protection - Namjoon x Reader (18+) (6)

CHAPTER 6 - THE SCOLDING

(Word count: 2,134)

       After driving in silence for a while, we arrived at a moderately sized white house. Namjoon parked the car and got out, walking over my side to open the car door for me like a nice gentleman.

My legs were quite unsteady and shaky still from my previous fright, so Namjoon had to support my weight a bit to help me walk up to the front door. I was thankful for his help, but also a bit embarrassed that my legs had decided to not work properly.

With me still hanging on to his arm, Namjoon got his keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door, ushering me in as carefully as he could, leaving my belongings in the trunk of his car for now. However, as soon as we entered the house we were met face to face with a very distraught looking Mrs. Kim.

"KIM NAMJOON, JUST WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU-" she started to yell, but quickly caught sight of me and lowered her voice to a much less angry and more worried tone of voice. I was thankful that she stopped yelling, as me and yelling do not mix well whatsoever. She knew that all too well.

"(Y/N)... What are you doing here? Namjoon, what is she doing here?" She asked, quite dumbfounded.

Namjoon sighed and motioned for his mother to follow us as he led me to his living room and sat us all down on the couch so that we could talk.

"Sorry to make you bring your work home with you, but we have a bit of a predicament. It seems that the men who have been looking for (Y/N) have found the safe house. I was with her all night, since they spent a great amount of it trying to break down the door. Luckily, they didn't succeed." Namjoon explained with a tired look on his face. I felt really bad for keeping him up the rest of the night. I bet that he was exhausted.

"And you didn't think even once to call the police?" Mrs. Kim asked in an annoyed tone of voice, her arms crossed as she shot lazer beams at her son with her eyes.

"I left my phone in my car, and (Y/N) was in no state to think clearly. You know how traumatized she is, honestly I was so startled that the thought didn't even cross my mind to look for her cellphone. I however, will not make that mistake again. I'm sorry, mom." he responded as he put his head in his hands.

Mrs. Kim sighed a long drawn out breath and rubbed her face vigorously with her hands before getting up from her seat and placing her hands on her hips, once again staring at her son with an annoyed and frustrated expression.

"And you brought her here? Namjoon, did you not think that they could have been staking out the area until someone left? What if they followed you here? You just don't ever think how your actions could have horrible consequences on those around you, do you?" his mother quickly retorted as she sat down once again, clearly not knowing quite what to do with herself at that moment.

Her comments made me shrink in my seat. She was absolutely right...

"I wasn't about to just leave her there by herself after all of that, mom... I looked around for any suspicious vehicles and made sure that we were not followed. I am not an idiot." Namjoon said in a sure, quiet voice.

Mrs. Kim let out a frustrated grumble before getting up to leave the room, but before she left, she turned back around once more.

"I will leave her in your care for now. You two aren't going to school today until I figure all of this shit out. I have to call the office, the police... Damn, I am going to have so much paperwork to deal with..." She said before leaving the room.

In the distant echo of the house I could hear her keys jingling, the door opening and shutting behind her then locking, and her getting into her car and driving away until the sound of her vehicle faded away the further it got from the house.

I looked up a Namjoon who had now turned his head to me, and I was met with a weak smile from him. I felt absolutely horrible to get him mixed up in my crazy ass hell of a life like this.

I didn't want anything bad to happen to him because of me. I couldn't lose anyone else, but that is all I could think of as I stared into his eyes. I am dangerous. It is not safe around me. He would get hurt or worse, and it would kill me even more inside. Many thoughts bounced around my head, causing me to tear up once more.

"It's going to be alright, (Y/N). I won't let anything bad happen in your life anymore. I swear to you. I will only let you smile from now on..." Namjoon said as he rested his hand on my cheek, causing me to close my eyes.

That caused the tears that had welled in my eyes to be released in one singular streak, and I was taken aback a bit as I felt his lips meet mine for a soft and caring kiss.

I opened my eyes and looked at him, and then nodded my head in understanding. Although I could not let him know how I truly felt. That the safest place for him was as far away from me as humanly possible. That I didn't know if I had the strength to stay by his side. I am not selfish enough to blindly think that everything would be fine from now on..

"Namjoon. I am tired." I said quietly, still staring into his warm, chocolate-colored eyes.

"Okay. I will take you to my room. You can sleep there until I clean out the guest room. It's kind of filled with boxes of my mom's files right now." Namjoon said with a dimpled-smile and a small chuckle as he ran his hand through his hair.

Namjoon soon led me up the nearby staircase to his bedroom and opened the door, inviting me in. His room was racked full of shelves that held very curious looking figurines on them, and others held books of various subjects. He had a desk with some musical equipment hooked up to it and his bed was simple, yet filled with stuffed bears of a particular kind. It seemed a bit childish for a boy of his age to have so many toys, but I found it immensely cute for some reason. I walked up to the bed, picking up one of the orange, sternly eyebrow-ed bears and smiled.

"Well, this is embarrassing." Namjoon chuckled as he paced a couple times in a bit of a circle.

"No need to be embarrassed. I think it is interesting." I said quietly as I sat down on his bed and returned the bear to his place. His bed was very soft, and I bounced up and down slightly on it, causing my smile to grow.

"Ummm, well, goodnight then. If you need pajamas, there are some in my closet. Just please don't look in the boxes in there. I'm not even sure what is in some of them and I think that I am embarrassed enough for one day." Namjoon said with a slightly awkward laugh before turning to leave the room.

However, I reached out and grabbed his arm to stop him.

"Can... you please stay here with me? I don't want to be alone." I asked with pleading eyes. I do not fare well in unfamiliar environments by myself and although I had only just met him yesterday, I trusted Namjoon for some reason.

In the span of one day, I had already grown so attached to him. I believed everything he told me and would probably follow him off of a cliff if he said I could fly. I know that it is completely irrational and crazy to think this way over someone you literally just met, yet strangely I did not care. He is the first and only person to treat me like an actual human being. The first person to see me not as a freak, but to see me as an attractive girl.

As much as I wanted him to stay away for his own safety, I just wanted this for now. I wanted us, if he would want for there to be an us. I know that kissing and saying that he liked me does not automatically translate to girlfriend, and I would not pressure him to see me as such. However if he would start to see me that way on his own accord... I would not protest in the slightest.

Namjoon looked down at me and smiled, letting his dimples show in their full glory.

"I mean, my mom might kill me... but since we already almost died last night I don't think I really care." He said as he plopped down on the bed, bringing me towards him into a hug as he kindly stroked my hair.

After a bit, Namjoon got me out a pair of pajamas and a pair for himself as well before leaving to the bathroom to change while I did the same in his room. His pajamas were much to big on me, and when he came back he laughed at the size of the sleeves on them as I cutely flapped the excess fabric about like a small child.

Namjoon turned off the lights, causing the room to be dimly lit by the small amount of sunlight that struggled to pierce it's way through his black out curtains.

We settled into bed, and he held me close to him as I rested my head on his chest. I was calmed by the steady rhythm of his heartbeat and the feeling of his chest going up and down as he breathed.

His eyes were already shut, so I assumed that he fell asleep quite fast due to being overly tired from last night, but I was taken by surprise as he suddenly started speaking.

"(Y/N)... What I said earlier. You know, before all of the bad stuff happened... I really meant every word of it. I don't really know how you feel about me completely since you didn't really answer in words. Not that I am complaining, I liked that a LOT, it's just... I kind of want to hear it from you. Do you like me romantically?" He asked. I heard his voice resonate through his chest as he spoke, giving me a pleasant warm feeling mixed with butterflies in my stomach. I could not hold back my smile.

"Namjoon. I literally just met you..." I started to say. Namjoon held his breath, and I could tell he was expecting me to say something hurtful.

"But Even though I just met you, even when I first saw you in class... I could not get you out of my mind no matter how hard I tried." With those words, he began to relax again and returned to breathing almost normally.

"What do you mean exactly?" He asked in a still curious voice as he waited for me to get to my point.

I rolled over on top of him and cupped his face in my hands as I kissed him softly before looking down at him. Both of our faces were hidden in the long shroud of my hair.

"You know, you were my first kiss... I think you might have to take responsibility." I said in a teasing voice. "I would not have acted the way that I did if I did not have feelings for you. So of course I like you. A lot in fact." I said as I laid down on top of him, nuzzling myself into his neck.

Namjoon then wrapped his arms around my waist and rolled so that I was now underneath him, causing me to squeal from the sudden turn.

"So... does that mean that you are mine now?" Namjoon asked in a low sultry voice, causing me to shudder.

"Only if you are mine in return." I responded quietly as I ran my fingers through his hair.

He suddenly smiled quite big and chuckled lowly before leaning down to kiss me yet again.

"Deal."

With that, Namjoon layed down on his side and pulled me close to him. I soon fell soundly asleep in his warm, comforting embrace where I felt the safest I had in a long time. Not even the nightmares could hurt me now.

(part 7)

[ganymedesclock]

i'm trying to understand where the idea that lotor is self-serving and only cares about himself and what he wants came from? we still don't even know his real plan, and his motive over going to voltron is to like... live, probably.

This is actually an interesting question, so, I wanna break this down a little and talk about Lotor, and reads on him, and what I think they’re playing off of.

1. History

I’m not sure how strong an influence this is, but the idea of Lotor as a pampered, materialistic, vain asshole is actually completely founded in other continuities. Quite a few of them- GoLion, DotU, and DDP in particular, depict Lotor literally keeping harems of beautiful women who waited on him, massaged him, poured him wine- and he drank a lot of wine.

Voltron Force broke away from the harem thing, but he was still shown drinking that’s-probably-an-alcoholic-beverage-but-they-won’t-say-so-because-cartoon in the bath while allegedly important things were going on. Admittedly with Force Lotor, this is moderately more understandable since he was undead and needed repeat exposures to a specific substance in order to keep the “un” part in there- and chose the sauna option over injection or radiation because he was sick of the alternatives.

It still comes back to, frankly, prior incarnations of Lotor absolutely deserved to be identified as spoiled, or at least used to the good life. While I’ve yet to find a single incarnation of Lotor that has a good relationship with Zarkon, in most other continuities, Lotor had ample resources separate from him (in a few, such as Force, Lotor is in charge as Zarkon is long dead) and was very inclined to indulge in them- and, as the very nature of a slave harem necessitates- often directly at others’ expense.

Of course that’s only as logical an explanation as making assumptions about VLD Lotor based on other incarnations of the character, when Lotor, like every other character in VLD, is a very different creature from his prior selves. Never in VLD’s canon have we witnessed Lotor doing anything that looks like partying or relaxing- or even not immediately related to his ambition. This continuity sets him up as a counterpart to Shiro, after all, and Shiro is a rather dedicated workaholic.

The only pleasant company Lotor entertains is the generals, and that’s about the furthest thing from a “harem” as you can get- the generals are autonomous, ambitious people, and, like Lotor, they spend their onscreen time working. Their relationship is businesslike in nature, and while Lotor clearly considers them friends and is more personal with them than mere coworkers, we have no evidence their relationship ever moved out of the territory of allies and conspirators. And Lotor hasn’t shown romantic or sexual interest in anyone else, much less acting on it.

It’s a facelift very similar to Zarkon, when prior incarnations of his character were also inclined to extravagant opulence. However, while in VLD Zarkon’s case, his spartan inclinations still come with their own flavor of ostentation, and it’s simply that he has nothing to prove as he’s already considered something approaching a god- in Lotor’s case the specific lack of pampered settings is used as one word in a different ongoing message- that Lotor’s ambition and calculation in this continuity is rooted not in entitlement, but a deep, abiding bitterness.

Other incarnations of Lotor were selfish people, and their unhappiness rooted in Zarkon’s abuse drove some of their selfish grabs, but even then, their behavior was neither understandable, nor sympathetic. (GoLion’s Sincline, for example, lusted after Allura out of misplaced grief over the traumatic loss of his mother, but he was still trying to abduct and forcibly wed an unrelated teenager who happened to look like his mom)

And that leads into my second point…

2. Self-serving versus selfish

Talking purely VLD here, Lotor is established as a manipulator, and someone who’s not afraid to lie through his teeth to other people. Given that this is the same context in which his more noble, political reform ambitions also come to light, I think many people have come away with the assumption that Lotor is inherently selfish- that his manipulation and behind-the-scenes discarding and mockery of Throk is evidence that Lotor is ultimately a cruel person.

And this very flavor of guile, on prior incarnations, did have the take-home that Lotor was ultimately a nasty guy only in it for himself.

However, again, in VLD, Lotor is a good deal more desperate, and more vulnerable, than his prior selves.

There is no Altea left. It’s dead and gone. And Lotor is not only biologically half-Altean, but frankly, from a cultural perspective, even down to his accent- he’s basically an Altean with a thin coating of just purple and pointy enough to be palatable to the average galra. This puts a very different spin on his relationship with the empire, and with his father, especially given the latter very actively and deliberately is trying to complete his earlier genocide of the Altean people.

Prior incarnations of Lotor didn’t have this problem- even Sincline, who was half-Altean, still felt safe enough that he acted as a conqueror in furthering Zarkon’s empire, and actually, before he started to struggle against Voltron, entertained a fairly cozy position.

VLD Lotor, however, is a vulnerable minority neck deep in the heartland of the empire and he has basically no illusions whatsoever that his title won’t save him. He’s not scheming against Zarkon because “boy, it sure would be neat to have more power here, too bad my smelly old dad is immortal, is there any way I can help the natural process along here” nearly as much as “it’s inevitably going to be me or him, and if I don’t shoot first, he will.”

Lotor’s a survivalist. And in that sense, he is self-serving, but not in the way of someone who’s gonna use your tears to salt his martini, so to speak. We see this a lot in, say, his interactions with Puig, or in s4e5 when he bails on the generals.

Lotor does, in fact, make decisions that serve himself. Sometimes this is at others’ expense. His attitude, virtually always, is “I don’t particularly want to be doing this. I can tell you’re hurting, and I don’t really want you to be. But… if I don’t take this, I’m going to die, and I also don’t want that. Well, then. take care of yourself.”

The only people Lotor’s consistently shown to have no sympathy for is Zarkon, Haggar, and people like Throk who are gleefully and unabashedly part of their empire. And that’s not really surprising, and it’s certainly not a villainous trait. Our heroes are the same way- they really don’t have much empathy for the commanders and generals that are happy under Zarkon.

The specific way Throk frames his criticism of Lotor in s3e1 boils down to Throk perceives Lotor’s more merciful approach as a threat to the empire. Compassion and empathy are hazards to Throk, who is, in short, an aristocrat who bought his way to the top with other people’s blood and tears. He brings this up repeatedly when fighting Lotor- that he has hurt others, that he is proud of his violence and cruelty onto others.

And Throk? Throk is the guy Lotor genuinely throws under the bus, chews him out and spits him out coldly, and I’m willing to bet there is more than a little bitterness and vengefulness in there. But pulling this back to our original topic:

Guile, manipulation, scheming, are in short, not stereotypically heroic traits. Seeing Lotor lie to Throk, from a viewer’s perspective, awakens a reflexive discomfort in us, because seeing people lie to each other and undermine them behind the scenes is stereotypically villainous behavior. The audience becomes suspicious and on edge towards Lotor, and this causes them to read the rest of Lotor’s behavior in a very cynical light- any compassion or empathy we see out of him going forwards has to be a lie, has to be a trick.

The thing this read misses is that Throk again, defined himself by his cruelty and vindictiveness. He isn’t a guy we should be weeping for all that hard. Our heroes would have messed him up just as much had they gotten their hands on him first. That’s why Throk is given so much time to speak for himself, and establish that yeah, he’s a violent bigot and proud of it, and how heavily, thematically, Lotor’s manipulation of Throk is framed as a counterattack.

Because both practically in the duel and in the larger situation, Lotor hangs back and lets Throk pound on him, only focusing on blocking and protecting himself. He doesn’t even come out of it unscathed- there’s a notable moment of Throk clipping Lotor’s hair, which Lotor doesn’t once acknowledge.

The entire time Throk and his friend are speaking of Lotor, we see Lotor in the ring, set upon by his larger opponent- dodging, evading, weaving around. This is a very direct visual allegory- Lotor is an underdog. If there’s anyone who picked this fight first, it’s the thousand injuries of the galra empire Lotor’s endured first.

So what this all comes back to, I think, is that there’s a failure to distinguish prior continuities’ selfish, arrogant Lotor, who had plenty and wanted more, from VLD’s Lotor, who’s more of a starving wolf on the prowl. Both are dangerous- both will take what they want and if need be hurt you to get it. 

But one of them wants without any real need behind it- wants, in the way that someone sitting in a comfortable room surrounded by beautiful people sees someone that doesn’t belong to them and salivates. And that’s unsympathetic, even if it’s rooted in genuine tragedy- because GoLion’s Sincline made the choice to fill his void by trapping other people inside of it.

VLD Lotor is not a selfish person. He’s aggressive, he’s ambitious, he’s calculating, the same way prior incarnations of his character were. But need and want are really the same for Lotor- there’s nothing he doesn’t try to hold onto that he doesn’t need, and those needs are unfulfilled.

It’s actually really kind of a fascinating contrast to look at DotU Lotor who has so many people waiting on him hand and foot that he throws them away and basically ignores them (I don’t think we ever learn any of his attendants’ names, nor are they treated as full characters who have lives outside of him, with the exception of other people he tries to kidnap, such as Romelle) and compare that to Lotor where the only four people whose company he genuinely seems to enjoy, all named and full characters, all left him one way or another, partially through his own actions, but with an overwhelming sense of helplessness from him the entire time. 

People have compared the generals’ betrayal of Lotor to the fall of Azula, when one of the meaningful differences is that Azula was completely outraged and shocked to lose Mai and Ty Lee.

Lotor, once he gets over the initial surprise of being shot? Just kind of takes it as a given.

It comes down to the difference between a glutton and someone who’s been living on the street without reliable food for years. Both of them are going to be preoccupied with their next meal, but in very different contexts- one goes “ho hum, what shall I eat today,” and the other one is going “will I be able to eat today?”

And to me, I think sympathy entirely aside, that’s something that makes VLD Lotor a lot more dangerous than his DotU self. Because DotU Lotor could be counted on to indulge (the oft-quoted birthday party episode) and this was something his enemies could exploit- he’d lower his guard to have a good time.

VLD Lotor is a terrified, embittered person who takes almost nothing for granted and even if he’s far more ethical than his older incarnations, Narti’s fate alone is a magnificent case study in how far Lotor will go doing things he doesn’t want to because he lives his entire life with his back to a wall knowing if he doesn’t personally carve a way out here through whatever might be in his way, he’s not leaving.

[np254]

No, it’s not a click bait. I quit social media and am in rehab.

Let me explain:

What

I deactivated my Instagram account.

I deleted the Facebook app on my phone. I cannot completely deactivate my account, because I am administrating a page (hence the responsibilities). I only access FB from my phone in case of emergencies. Everyday, I check my notifications once or twice from my laptop.

I logged out of Tumblr on my phone and deleted the app. Visits reduced to 2-3 times a week.

The only social-networking app I am still using on a daily basis is Messenger, which is more like a messaging app.

When

From October 13th. Undecided end date.

Why

1. My clean history with social media

I have been socially active all my life and been using my social accounts very consciously for years. Ever since my childhood, my parents have taught me about the importance of moderation when it comes to social media. Even though I have had 2 emails (not one, but two!) for 11 years (and I am 20), my parents have given me guidance on managing these from the very beginning. It was the same with Facebook (which I’ve also been having for about 10 years) – during the first few years, I never went online without parental controls. And for that I was thankful.

Even when I gained full control of my socials, which was about 7 years ago, everything was still going well. Although I have a lot of friends in school and from my social activities, social networks have always been there for its initial purpose – to help me stay in touch with people.

Even when I took charge of my social media accounts, I still used them with caution and consideration. On Facebook, I only connect with people whom I have actually met in real life or whom I have heard about/talked to or with whom I have many mutual friends. My Instagram account has been private from the beginning and I have my own “rules” when accepting new followers. It explains why my social circle is not massive but the interaction rate is remarkable.

At once I could confidently state: “I am a Digital Native, I know my way around social networks”.

2. The addiction

In the beginning it was very subtle. The addiction.

The addiction is young. It started since I went to Germany to study abroad 2 years ago. At the time, I wouldn’t say that it was an addiction. However, it was definitely slight overuse. As I started my “adult life” on my own in a country far away from home, away from any kind of supervision whatsoever, I allowed myself to do whatever I want as long as it’s justifiable.

Somehow I felt the need to update my life online constantly, mainly because: – of the distance. Being so far from each other, I wanted to keep my family informed about my new life – of the time-zone difference. Being online constantly helped me stay informed about family and friends at home. – Germany is beautiful, I had a good life and I wanted to brag about it So I ended up being online a lot. Luckily, I had a group of five girlfriends and we spent a lot of time together cooking, chatting, baking and studying, so I was distracted from my phone and laptop.

After the first year, I moved to Hamburg. Around this time, I started my hobby with analog photography and this blog. I also started my course at the HAW. Here we learned about the importance of our online presence – whether it is necessary and what are the risks. I decided that an online presence is inevitably necessary, since I am a hobby photographer and later on want to work in the media.

I think I did a good job maintaining my online image. I am on every social networks and my profile on each network is carefully though-over and well-drafted. They coexist in harmony with the same username and together they portray different aspects of my personality exactly how I want them to.

It would be nice if I stopped there. But I didn’t.

I craved validation, but my craving was the worst type – I didn’t actually need validation, I just wanted to put myself and my life online, and for that I would feel satisfied enough. The thought that everyone knew how great/not great my life was fed my ego. In my head, I told myself that I am doing a great job sharing with people the often unnoticed moments in life (very noble, I know). Of course, I was ecstatic when someone responded, but that was not the main point.

Now, I will include another factor that played a role. But I also want to disclaim that I do not intend to put all the blame on it. It was only unfortunate that among many other reasons, a long-distance relationship also contributed to the growth of my addiction. Along with my own craving for validation, I had another justified reason to post about every little thing in my life.

From there, everything went downhill. I was online all the time, and I mean the literal  meaning of the phrase. 24 hours a day. 7 days a week. The first thing I do every morning was checking my phone for messages from the night, notifications on every social networks, emails, Facebook newsfeed and Instagram feed. This ritual took at least 30 minutes every morning, often an hour. If I didn’t do this, I could not wake up. You can say that my brain delved into new notifications to wake myself up.

Then, during the course of the day, I was online constantly, even when there was nothing more to check. Social networks are programmed to be addictive, to this I agree. Even when I had something to do (e.g. am in a lecture), I would still occasionally pull out my phone, completely unawared, and aimlessly scroll through the feeds. When I had read everything, I would turn to the “Discover” tab, which both Facebook and Instagram have. The vicious cycle went on and on.

Besides from checking the feeds, I also posted content. I trust my taste and my aesthetics, so I invested a lot of time in choosing and editing the photos that I post. A little while ago, I reached the peak of my addiction, where I spent excessive time on content for my Instagram story. I would edit the photos in 1-2 apps then design the layout with beautiful text description in another app. Just to post to a virtual story that will only last for 24 hours. When I was bored, I would write quotes. To have nice hand-writing by smearing your finger on the touch screen is not the most efficient thing to do. I wrote and rewrote until the quotes looked decent and met my aesthetic standards. All that too, served the Instagram story that is only visible for 24 hours.

I agree that there are people who have to do this for the sake of their career. They could be professionals who do this for a living. Considering that I am neither a professional nor  earn any cents from my social accounts, I was wasting so much time for nothing.

A few examples of my “creations” for my Instagram story:

Each of these took about 30 minutes.

The bad thing about the situation was that, I didn’t actually posted a lot on Facebook and Instagram. I only checked the feeds too frequently. Therefore, my addiction went unnoticed for a long time, since nobody, even myself, ever addressed my overuse.

It came to the point where I could not part with my phone or my laptop anymore. I would switch between my phone and laptop. Either one of them was always on, sometimes both. I would even check my phone while my laptop was booting or loading something. From time to time, I found myself in distress because I could never finish the book that I found interesting, or invest time in self-improvement as I did a year ago. Despite my distress, I never succeeded in cutting down my online time to spend time on other things. I just couldn’t.

3. The breakpoint

A month ago, something that happened had shaken me awake and rewired my way of thinking. My apologies for not explaining what this “something” was, for it is a personal matter.

I realised that I would waste my entire future if I didn’t make a change. I felt my mental capabilities deteriorated. I saw that I was not missing out on the virtual world, rather the actual world.

I did not want to live my life anymore, and I was the one who caused it all. 

I have thought about seeking help, but I figured, maybe I could still cure myself, as long as there is a strong self-discipline. With this mindset, I started out on my personal rehab. It is still happening. If it goes wrong, here you can read in black and white, i promise that I will seek professional help.

How’s it been? What have I learned?

It has been difficult, of course.

Like every other addiction, the cravings are unbearable. It’s especially hard when I check my socials in the morning or before I go to bed. If I lose control, I can scroll on forever.

The most noticeable thing are random moments. Sometimes when I find something funny, or an interesting thought passes my mind, I feel a very strong urge to post something onto my Instagram story. Other times, I would open the “Social Networking” app folder on my phone, where I have remembered the positions of every app, and tapped intuitively, only to choose the wrong one (because I deleted some).

From this experience, I learn that the nice moments in life should be enjoyed in person. Even when there is no friend around to share with. I learn to find joy in them. Getting used to not instantaneously share everything online is hard, often times I find myself reaching for my phone, then put it away, then look around to find a familiar face, then look up to the sky and smile to myself. As if there is a sacred secret between me and an unknown Significant Power.

Solitude and happiness may seem like they will never go together, but happiness is actually in its purest form when you can share it with yourself and the universe. The happiness you feel is a whole, and you feel it with your entire heart and attention. Most often, we try to share our happiness, forgetting that it should be felt by us first, before it can be shared with others. Otherwise, the happiness would lose its purpose: to fulfil one’s soul.

Another thing I’ve learned, is that I do not need to prove my emotions.  Honestly, people do not give much attention to what they see online, because the flow of information is endless, so they jump from this to that, quickly forgetting what they have seen. No one has noticed that I stopped using Instagram, even though I had been posting actively. As my account is deactivated, you can’t find me or tag me. From this I learn that life is not a stage and you don’t need an audience. Nobody will judge you if you are not happy, and the fact that you are happy and you show it does not do anything for anyone else, if they don’t truly care about you.

And people who care will go out of their way to make sure that you are fine. Even if you do not post anything on social networks, they will try to reach you. Such a short and simple message like “Hey, how are you doing? Haven’t heard from you in a while.” can light up my day brighter than 50 likes on a pic on Instagram.

Do I feel FOMO?

“Fear of missing out” has become a chronic disease. Funnily, I felt like I have always been having FOMO ever since I started using social media. No matter how often I check my feeds, I would still miss out on something.

To me, it doesn’t make any significance when I stop using social media in comparison to when I still used them in terms of FOMO. It’s not like I have stopped informing myself about the world. Quite the opposite, I read the newspaper regularly to know what is going on in real life.

The only problem that I currently still can’t solve is that I do not know what my friends abroad are doing. I have very good friends from school, with whom I do not talk very often but like to keep up with them via their social media accounts. Now that I am going completely sans Instagram, I don’t have a clue how they are doing, and simply hitting them up via Messenger just to ask if they are fine seems awkward and weird.

So far, this is my experience from one week with massively restricted social media usage.  The struggle and the journey continue…

Deep down I wish that something good will come out of this.

I quit social media

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

I’m closing my ask box

Sorry to do this to you, all of my awesome creative inspiration-generating followers who still have questions, but I am going to close my ask box for the next 2 - 3 weeks to try and clear out the 40-odd waiting asks I still haven’t gotten around to, some of which are months old.  This blog is also the thing I do for fun/relaxation/sanity during my rare and precious spare time, and thus I need to keep its demands to a minimum or it will lose its beautiful sanity-inducing properties for me.

If you have Animorphs questions, http://ladysugarquill.tumblr.com/, https://miraculoussparrow.tumblr.com/,  https://wtfanimorphs.tumblr.com/, http://fyanimorphs.tumblr.com/, and https://andalite-angel.tumblr.com/ might be interested in answering them.

If you have Animorphs headcanons, https://animorphs-hcs.tumblr.com/ will accept them.

If you want Animorphs fic, http://justanotherghostwriter.tumblr.com/, http://veteranfangirl.tumblr.com/, and http://derinthemadscientist.tumblr.com/ have all been known to help.

If your life has no meaning, you want to become part of something bigger than yourself, you like hamburgers and beach volleyball, you want to give back to your community, or you think Lore David Altman has some good points: http://the-sharing.org/

Explanation as to why I don’t answer some questions below the cut.

Most of the Reasons I Choose Not to Answer Questions

Hopefully this is helpful to people who are wondering.  I try to answer most questions most of the time, even if just briefly (although, let’s be real, when have I ever been brief?) but there are some that I end up deleting.  Here’s why.

They’re anonymous questions best answered privately, not publicly. This is the #1 reason I delete asks unanswered.

If an anon asks a question that I’ve already answered elsewhere, I generally won’t bother making an entire post just to let them know.

If an anon sends a question with personal or private information, I always err on the side of not publishing it.

If the anon asks a question I genuinely don’t feel like answering (see my posts here), I don’t bother to explain why I’m not answering it.

If the anon ask contains offensive content, even content that almost certainly slipped in accidentally (yes all relationships involving involuntary controllers are sexual assault, no I’m not going to post anything that mentions those relationships), I delete it.

If an anon is unclear—because of typos, because of long-winded wording, because of two questions in one ask—I can’t ask for clarification.

They’re looking for beta readers, RP participants, forum moderators, or long-term correspondence.  I am a grad student currently teaching a class on the social psychology of media effects, studying for my university’s Ph.D qualifying exam, analyzing data from six or seven different ongoing projects, pulling together background research for my dissertation, writing a textbook chapter on violence and attitude change, and attempting to get eight hours of sleep a night on top of all that.  I spend maybe 15 minutes a day on tumblr, and about 10 of those minutes are usually spent posting the ask reply I wrote using the Google Drive app on my phone while taking the bus to school earlier that day.  I am sorry, but I do not have time to commit to anything more in this fandom than what I already do.

I don’t feel qualified to answer them.  Some people ask about the history of the publishing industry, debate the relative morality of actions taken in peace vs. war times, or request AUs in settings with which I have no experience whatsoever.  I’m very sorry, but most of those just go unanswered because I don’t want to say the wrong thing.

They argue about why the yeerks should become human after the war.  As I explain here, I don’t have any strong opinions about whether the yeerks SHOULD become human, I just don’t think it’s realistic to think the yeerks WOULD become human.  The debate was moderately interesting to me the first 15-odd times someone has brought it up, but now I’m sick to death of the whole thing (especially the people who mistake my position as saying that the yeerks becoming cetaceans is right, when I’ve only ever said the yeerks becoming cetaceans is realistic) because THERE IS NO CANON EVIDENCE ONE WAY OR ANOTHER so there’s no point in doing anything but agreeing to disagree. https://featherquillpen.tumblr.com/ and https://yeerks.tumblr.com/ both prefer to imagine a softer world then I do, so feel free to talk to them about the issue if you disagree.

They have to do with justifying the yeerks’ decision to invade other species.  K.A. Applegate does an awesome job of creating utterly terrifying villains for her series, primarily through showing that the yeerks’ atrocities against other species simply cannot be allowed to stand.  The yeerk hosts are described as “slaves” in almost every single book; Marco says “they are the most total slaves in all of human history, because not even their minds are their own” (#20).  Over 20 books later, Jake still battles hypervigilance, insomnia, nightmares, and other PTSD symptoms from briefly becoming a controller (#26).  Eva’s described as suffering severe personality damage, whereas Chapman’s depicted as having lost most motor functions—both as a result of yeerk control (#45, #2).  Aftran and Illim both consciously choose to reject the yeerks’ model of hosts-as-livestock after personally experiencing the minds of involuntary hosts, showing that alternatives are possible (#19, #29).  Ax and Aldrea mention the yeerks literally annihilating six or seven species they don’t view as “useful” (#4, #8, HBC).  All of that is canon.  Other interpolations of canon—that the yeerks effectively destroyed millennia of hork-bajir culture which will never be recovered, that the “voluntary” hosts are mostly strong-armed into joining as we see in MM4, that the hosts’ experience is the equivalent of locked-in syndrome or assault, that Eva and other hosts like her suffered sexual assault as a result of being controllers—have always struck me as relatively close interpretations of canon.  If anyone disagrees... Sorry, but I don’t give a damn.  If you want to defend slave owners because they happen to be slave owners born blind, do it elsewhere.

[solaspls]

hello---i've heard that people apparently don't think that mass effect andromeda is really not up to standard, especially comparing with dragon age inquisition. in terms of animation, especially. is that how it is as well for you?

I was halfway through typing an actual, several-page-long review of the game, before I reminded myself that you probably don’t need me to go that far, nor does anyone wish to read that! So, to answer your question specifically…

I consider myself an only moderately critical person when it comes to games. I do not expect things to be completely and utterly perfect, and I’m willing to forgive issues that others may not, if I enjoy the sum of its parts.

That being said, I have a lot of problems with Andromeda, and frankly the terrible animations are on the lower end of the spectrum. Which is not to say they aren’t bad. They are. They’re awkward, utterly distracting, and occasionally glitchy - they absolutely do not belong in a 2017 game. I would take Mass Effect 1′s stiff and occasionally goofy animation over this trainwreck any day. The frustrating part too is that the game itself actually looks fairly great at times; when you’re out exploring, you do see glimmers of how amazing it could have been, had the other necessary elements not fallen so far out of place. The Frostbite engine definitely does not disappoint in that regard.

My main gripe is with the writing and characters, which are always what preserve the greatness of BioWare games for me. Even if the rest of the game is plagued by pacing or technical issues, I can always rely upon the compelling characters and engaging story/dialogue to keep me invested. That is not the case with Andromeda, and it is unforgivable. The cast is boring and shallow; many are obvious attempted copies of past characters, and the more “original” ones have zero depth whatsoever. Never in my life have I felt so utterly uninterested with getting to know my companions, and that is an absolute travesty. On top of that, while the story itself was never expected (at least in my opinion) to be particularly groundbreaking, it’s the dialogue that hurts the most. The writing is childish and simple - gone are the witty banters, the gripping exchanges, and the powerful speeches from the previous Mass Effect games.

And it’s not the acting. I’ve heard some people knocking on the voice acting, and honestly, I disagree. The voice cast is solid and does the best with what they can work with. You can’t inject life into poor dialogue via sheer effort.

It seems like someone was trying very hard (probably too hard?) to craft the same quality dialogue that BioWare is known for, but they just fall short, again and again. Already I knew something was amiss when, towards the beginning of the game, Ryder’s father delivered, as the (admittedly good) soundtrack swelled in the background, what was obviously meant to be a rousing speech before they departed for their first (and very high-stakes) mission. It was the most uninspired and generic pep talk you could possibly imagine, and I literally stared at my screen in vapid disbelief once it concluded. That, to me, was when I really began to realize how wrong things were, and it has only gone downhill from there

Mass Effect 2 is my favorite game of all-time, and my love for it, the series, and BioWare in general is literally the only thing keeping me playing. And that is terrible, because it simply reaffirms the idea that even if they churn out a game fraught with dreadful animation mishaps, glitches, lazy writing, and some frankly astoundingly inconvenient gameplay gimmicks and menus, that they can still earn their business.

Ugh. I have a lot of feelings, if you couldn’t tell. I’m just very, very disappointed.

[ecotone99]

[RF] a letter

Hello. My name is Aaron, and I have been contemplating suicide for the past year.

Today is a Saturday evening, and I’m writing this little letter of my own story. I don’t know if it’s simply for myself, to help cope with the pain, or for whoever may find it later, somewhere on this old and dusty table. Perhaps I just have too much anger and sadness for the world. I’m hoping this little letter will validate my feelings. If not all of them, then at least some will be gone. Maybe after rereading it to myself over and over again, it will make me feel less bitter about it. I don’t really know. All I know is that it started about five years ago.

I always hated my stepmother, for various reasons. While she may seem like a reasonable lady at first glance, unfortunately, it’s not true. First things first, she is religious. To be honest, this wouldn’t have been much of a problem for me, if she wasn’t head over heels crazy with it. Maybe it was just me being a teenager, but sometimes I had this feeling in the back of my head that she actually put her Christianity in front of her own family. That she put it in front of me. It hurt. Other than this, she was also just an overall awful woman who’s borderline abusive and hated literally everyone in the family. I don’t even know why dad married her. She justified her hatred that we kids thought she was the evil stepmother anyways, so she might as well be one. In fact, I did indeed feel bad for hating her at some point. I just wanted dad to be happy. I don’t feel this way anymore.

I was in my senior year in high school when this new girl was moved into our class from a completely different school for whatever reasons. I don’t even remember anymore. Of course, at first, everyone thought that she was mentally challenged because she always had this eerie vibe around her. Like a mystic aura of a witch or something. They thought so because our school provided students with disabilities much more help than any others did in the region nearby. Even I, myself, used to think this way in the beginning too. It didn’t take too much time to change my opinion though. Her name was Nicole.

The poor girl was a misfit in our class from the very beginning. Most likely because our class wasn’t really a welcoming one. But she tried. From what I remember, she was socially inept, dressed quite weirdly, and always kept to herself. Unlike other girls, she didn’t seem to follow any of the latest trends related to clothes and didn’t wear any makeup whatsoever. That probably was the reason why she didn’t have much luck among girls. Whenever she tried to reach out to someone or tried to make friends, she appeared unsettling. It didn’t look like she knew what she was doing. Something inside me just kept telling me, that I and her would get along perfectly fine. And I was right.

One day, I got myself together and came up to her after class, when everyone was already packing up to leave and referred to some funny joke she made in the Spanish class. The poor girl thought I was trying to mock her or something, and began crying and apologizing for it. Obviously I didn’t expect such an outcome and quickly explained that I actually found the joke hilarious. When she calmed down, I offered to have lunch together, to get to know each other better. Luckily, she agreed. I found out that she didn’t have any friends at all, and that she was looking to make some. I wanted to be her friend. Long story short, we quickly befriended each other.

By the end of senior year, I and Nicole were already dating. To be completely honest I did not expect such a turn of events. Nor did I expect to end up becoming friends with her in the first place. I guess I just got lucky, or like some people say ‘did the right thing, at the right place in the right time’. Either way, I was genuinely happy with her, and so was she. Eventually, we went to college in the same city, and as college moved, our relationship just kept getting stronger and stronger. Since we were in the same city, both of us saved up some money, and we bought an apartment together. It was far from fancy. Just one more or less spacious living room, that was also our bedroom and kitchen, and a tiny bathroom on the left side. I don’t think two college students could afford more. But it was our home, and we cherished it.

Gradually we began talking about our post-college plans. I was looking forward to tackling the engineering and programming sphere, while Nicole was more interested in medicine. Slowly it became apparent that as things were going, we might get married. At the time, just the thought of it warmed my heart. It felt so serene when I was imagining our future family. It was like one of those Hollywood movies, with this perfect couple, that has no problems at all, except misfortunes began flowing onto us like a damn curse.

Nicole started getting sick. It happened suddenly, and quickly. She began having frequent chest pains, and occasional instances of uncontrollable coughing. The first time it happened she just ducked down and laid onto the floor of our apartment, as she continued coughing and wheezing, struggling to breathe. I panicked and didn’t know what to do, but thankfully, it kinda went away on its own. Not for long though, as such “instances” became regular. Eventually, I grew worried about her situation, and we decided to go to the doctor. It turned out that she had lung cancer.

They took her to the hospital, where in some unfortunate twist of events we found out that she also has had a brain tumour that went unnoticed for the past years. The doctors said we were lucky to find out about the issue with her lungs quick enough, as it was in its early stage, and the chances to cure it were moderately high. On the other hand, the tumour was a completely different story. All the doctors we went to waved their hands in despair, claiming that there was nothing they could really do at this point. It was a very dangerous situation.

As days went on, every single one of them felt so important. Together like this, we learned a lot of things. One of them was how to not take our health, and life in general for granted, as in mere seconds, all of it could crush down into small pieces. Together we felt so strong. We felt like we could overcome any obstacle that life threw at us. We truly were inseparable. Eventually, I decided to call my dad to tell him about what’s happening. Unlike my mother, he was very supportive of me. He was a nice person in general, and I always appreciated his advice, but even with his warm support, I was still devastated. At times it felt like a nightmare, that lasted forever, and I couldn’t wake up from it. The situation kept getting worse as thoughts of suicide began to cross Nicole’s mind. It hurt her to look in the mirror. She kept losing hair and weight. Although, to anyone else she might have looked like an ugly, bald walking skeleton, to me it was still the old beautiful Nicole. I even managed to get another job so I could afford her medication. It was expensive, but the hope of a happy ending never left me.

This was where I began realising that I was running out of time to ask her to marry me. Because I was so busy with work to afford the bills, I was hurting my own relationship with her. I knew that I didn’t have much time on my hands and that I needed to act fast. In the end, I decided to ask her, so we could still marry one another like a normal couple, despite her situation getting worse and worse. I guess I tried to ignore the inevitable. Only now I am starting to realise that I wasn’t working for her. I was working for me, burying myself in work so I could distract my pathetic excuse of a human from my problems. So I could cope with everything.

I called my dad to let him know about my intentions. His tone seemed genuinely excited. I guess any parent would get happy and giddy about their child finally making a family. I let him know that he’s welcome to come if he wants, but my stepmother is not. He claimed he understood and hung up. The old man didn’t seem particularly happy about it, but I didn’t think much of it. I had a lot more important things to take care of.

The next day, I and Nicole were coming home from the hospital. As we were walking closer to the building, I noticed a figure drawing nearby the front door. Tapping its foot, obviously pissed, and looking around, waiting for someone. I didn’t realise it was none other than my stepmother until I approached her. She said that we needed to talk about what I told my father the other day. I responded briefly that we don’t and tried to walk away from her. As I was stepping forward she shouted in my back that I cannot marry Nicole. For one thing that she’s going to die, and for the second – she’s choosing medicine over prayer, which is against our family’s religion.

My body went cold with rage. My vision blurred. I had not proposed Nicole yet, but I was going to. I wanted to surprise her with it. Instead, she found out from my shouting stepmother. Nicole heard it. She heard that I was forbidden to marry her and that she is going to die. I don’t know what came over me. I still regret my reaction to this day. I can’t really blame anyone but myself for it. I suppose I was too mad to judge the situation. Without thinking much, I punched that woman in the face. She fell to the ground. I didn’t even check if she was alright. I took Nicole and walked into the building without looking back.

After I made sure they didn’t follow us back inside, I realized the whole marriage thing was out in the open. Nicole and I discussed it, and she said she really wants to get married before she dies. The three words in her response. ‘before she dies’. They hurt to listen to.

Several days passed. I kept helping out Nicole with what I could and almost forgot about what happened a couple of days prior. I suppose my parents didn’t feel the same way about it. I’m told that they’re having trouble with my card in the hospital. Insufficient funds, they said. I knew that it was impossible since there were literally thousands of dollars on it the other day. That evening I went home and checked my laptop, where I found out that the money has been withdrawn, and my bank account was almost completely empty. There was no one else who could have done it, but my dad. He helped me set up the account when I was going to college. I realize he was the only one who had the authority to do this. In a fit of rage, I decided to give him a call. I let him know that I am coming to their house for the money and that I’m going to contact the authorities if he doesn’t return it. He claimed they had the rights to report my assault on my stepmother. I froze. Sweating cold, I told him that I am coming over either way, and we can discuss this matter in person. There were no real discussions, though. I yelled at them for about four hours, and he gave me my money back.

Once this whole fiasco was over I went to the bank and set up a new account that had nothing to do with him. I understood that I shouldn’t expect support from them anymore, or trust them at all, so I figured I’d cut all ties with them. It was for the better.

It was becoming more and more probable that she won’t make it much longer. I thought I shouldn’t waste any time and got an engagement ring. It wasn’t the fanciest, but I thought it was beautiful. I took her out to this old field we used to hang out in high school. We had all sorts of memories there. It was a big forest under the stars, off the main road. Whenever I was thinking of a safe place, this field was the first thing to come to mind. I proposed to her. She said yes. Holding her after that was the most beautiful moment of my life.

Everything appeared to sort itself out. Somewhat. Nicole seemed much happier, but I knew she was terrified on the inside. We both avoided talking about her illness. Ignorance is bliss. She told me how important it was to her that now if she was going to die, she’d be dying happy, with me. It hurts thinking about this, knowing how she bravely accepted her inevitable fate. Those times were the happiest I have ever seen her. Easily the best days of my life. I had no idea that the worst had yet to come

About two weeks into our marriage Nicole’s health took a turn for the worst. We started going to the hospital regularly again. I was starting to understand, that the end was near. The doctors estimated she had about a month left at best. It was the most terrifying moment of my entire life. Up until this point, there was no set-in-stone outcome. There was always an admittedly distant hope that things would turn out to be okay. All my hopes were crushed in an instant.

I dropped my courses for the semester and set it up so that I would finish it during the fall of next year. I spent every single day with Nicole. I felt so in love with her at that point, that it mentally and physically hurt to think about her death, let alone experience it. She was still holding up fine, I think, but eventually, the fear was taking over. She was beginning to get scared too. She told me she needed me to be with her when she dies. She didn’t want to be alone when it happens. She kept making me promise it over and over again. It felt soul-crushing.

Three weeks pass after the warning of the doctors. We were doing nothing special on that day. Holding each other and listening to music while watching a movie. Her health couldn’t afford more than this, but at least I knew I was there for her. I was there with her. Suddenly there’s a knock on the door. When I went to answer, it turned out to be the police. Before I can say or do anything, I already find myself arrested for assaulting my stepmother. As I get taken away, I could hear Nicole faintly shout in the distance with the most desperate tone possible. She didn’t want me to leave her. If only it was my choice.

I’m put in jail overnight, and the next day I’m let out because the charges were dropped. My dad picks me up to explain that it was some sort of an attempt to teach me a lesson. As if I cared. I told him I really needed to go home. He decides to drive me to his and my stepmother’s house instead so I can apologize in front of her. Personally. I ended up being kept there for two more hours because none of them believed my apologies were genuine enough. They tell me it isn’t over, and finally, take me back home.

I walk to the door and knock. No response. Knocked a second time, and rung the bell. No response yet again. I start getting worried and search my pockets for my spare key. It was quite ironic, in fact how I ended up with my spare key in my pockets, but no phone. I open the door with shaky hands once I find it. It felt so heavy. As soon as I step in, an awful smell hits my nose. I slowly approach the room where I and Nicole were in. The music was still playing. An eerie vibe looming over the apartment. When I enter the bedroom, I find her. Nicole was curled up, laying on the floor. Her face was caked in tears. I was still hoping she was fine. I tried tapping her back, hoping she just fell asleep and would wake up and greet me with a hug, or at least turn around, to let me know she’s still fine. No signs of life. Once I grab my phone from the other room to call an ambulance, I find that she had texted me to come home for over thirty times. When the medics arrive I’m told she is dead. Nicole was no longer with us.

All of this happened last year. I’ve been contemplating suicide ever since. I’ve been trying to avoid my family again after these events, but recently I got a call from my father, telling me he got diagnosed with prostate cancer and that he only had two more months to live. He said he wanted to patch things up before it’s too late. Currently, I’m having a lot of trouble figuring out whether or not I should do it. They never accepted any guilt. I think I’ll simply let him die knowing I want nothing to do with him. Plus, I have other important business to attend to.

Nicole must have missed me…

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