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bvidzsoo · 4 months

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⟡ Husband!Jongho ⟡

∞ Author: bvidzsoo

∞ Pairing: Choi Jongho x female reader

∞ Warning: suggestive, violence, torture, death, cursing ∞ Word count: 2.5k ∞ Genre: non-idol!au, mafia!au, marriage of convenience!au, established relationship!au ∞ Rating: nc-17 ∞ Summary: Always hungry for more, in a world full of men who fought for more power, you might have just hit the jackpot by coming to an agreement and marrying the country's mafia leader's son. Soon, Jongho and you will be the one leading all.

∞ A/N: Second part of my so-called mafia drabble mini-series is up, and I quite like this one, I can't lie hihi. Despite the warnings, I haven't detailed anything too much, so it's not very graphic. Next I'll post either Seonghwa or Wooyoung, I'll see who's plot I'm feeling more. I'll point out once again that I won't be starting a taglist for this mini-series, so you'll have to lurk around ^^ Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoy, and pls let me know your thoughts about it, I love reading your feedback, always!

⟡ Listen to this before or while reading! ^^

∥ Hongjoong ∥ Seonghwa ∥ Yunho ∥ Yeosang ∥ San ∥ Mingi ∥ Wooyoung ∥ Jongho ∥

The quietness of the building would have been eerie if I didn’t know men hid around every dark corner, cameras encompassing the whole building. However, to those unknowing, it gave the false sense of aloneness. In my world, there are eyes on you always, even when you least expect it. And in a notorious mafia leader’s den, you better prepare yourself to face horror upon horror, rats upon rats. And not the animals, but mere peasants—low in the hierarchy of our world—who thought they could outsmart their leader and gain something by ratting them out to other gangs and syndicates. Except, that’s not how it works in our world, at least not in my husband and mine’s.

My heels clicked loudly against the concrete stairs as I ascended them, fur coat slipping from my shoulder as I held my little purse in one hand. It was slightly warmer up here, and more well lit compared to the downstairs. I rounded the corner and was met with two tall men, gazing straight ahead, until I stopped in front of them and caught their attention. Recognition flashed behind their eyes instantly. It wasn’t too often I stopped by the warehouse, I preferred fancy places and not beaten down lairs that had insects crawling around. Both figuratively and literally.

“Ma’am.” Both men bowed their heads in unison, eyes staying glued to the floor as I smiled, allowing my fur coat to slip down my shoulders.

“Do you mind putting this away for me?” I asked with a sweet tone, extending the expensive fur coat towards the man standing to my left.

“No, ma’am, it will be in your office this instant.” The man bowed his head again before he turned right and took off hurriedly, headed for my office. Well, it wasn’t my office per se, but my husband was sweet enough to let me have a decent sized room in this gloomy warehouse of his for when my presence was mostly needed. Like tonight.

“Is he in his office?” I asked as I looked towards the large oak doors at the end of the hallway, but the remaining security guard just shook his head.

“No, ma’am, he’s in the chamber.”

“Ah.” I chuckled, looking down towards the dark hallway on my left, suddenly registering the soft classical music that was coming from the only room down there. The chamber, or, better known, the torture room. For some reason, the men working here avoided calling it that and it had always amused me. Tough, bulky, fearless men uncomfortable to call it the torture room? It’s rather comedic, taken what their jobs in my husband’s empire require most of times from them. I offered the guard another sweet smile before throwing my purse over my shoulder, holding its paper-thin strap decorated with the finest diamonds on Earth, “I’ll be on my way, then.”

The guard bowed his head deeply and as I took off, the sound of my heels echoing around us, the soft classical music louder the further I walked down the hallway. The long sleeve of my dress did an amazing job at keeping the chill in the air away from my body, the fabric a black velvet and really warm. It was a present from my dearest husband, not even a week ago. I had gotten him a necklace filled with diamonds, and so, he felt it necessary to return the offer by buying me something pretty. He knows I have a weakness for long sleeved black velvet dresses with a deep V-cut. I chuckled as I stopped in front of the white door, the screams of whoever was behind the door not so quiet anymore. The music from up-close wasn’t loud enough to mask the pained moans anymore. I gripped the handle and pushed the door open, stepping inside.

There was a stale smell in the room and my eyebrows furrowed as I shielded my nose, the stench of blood familiar yet still disgusting. The clicking of my heels was masked by the overly loud screams of the man as I walked further inside the room, looking to my left. A man that looked slightly familiar was strapped down to a table, a drill buzzing as it rammed against his leg, no less into his bone. I shot him a pitiful look, the man begging louder and louder for it to stop as he noticed me. But in this den full of lions, I wasn’t the boss. It was my husband.

Choi Jongho.

Looking ahead, I was greeted with the familiar sight of him, relaxed into his leather armchair, swirling his bourbon around in his glass. I smiled at him sweetly as I slowly approached him, stepping on black carpet as Jongho watched me with attentive eyes, slightly darker in this lightning than they actually were. It made me grin in satisfaction when I noticed the diamond necklace around his neck, the top of his shirt undone. Well, that certainly was a delicious sight.

I came to a stop in front of the man, grin morphing into a smirk as he further parted his legs, grabbing my wrist to pull me to stand between them. Jongho took another gulp of his bourbon before placing the empty glass on the little table he had by the armchair, letting his head fall back as he looked up at me, sharp eyes trailing up from my legs to my eyes, biting his lower lip once we made eye contact.

“You look pristine for someone who’s torturing somebody.” My voice was low, perhaps sultry for such setting, but then again, I always found joy in toying with my dear husband when the situation wasn’t too fit for it.

“Hoshi just left, I wanted to be the one finishing the job.” Jongho’s usually angelic voice was now low, baritone rumbling his chest. I licked my lips, completely distracted by my husband as the screaming man’s voice became quite bearable after a while. I’ve heard people louder and more awful than him, to be fair.

“Of course,” I chuckled softly and gulped down a gasp as I was yanked down in Jongho’s lap, him sitting up properly as he circled my waist with his arm, leaning incredibly close to my face, “you love other people doing your dirty work for you, just to be the one to finish it.”

“If I have hired them, I expect them to do their part of the deal, you know.” Jongho muttered, eyes glued to my glossy lips. I had decided to try out a new lip gloss tonight, it tasted like strawberries. The man’s pained screams became rather pathetic by now as he continued wailing, the sound blending together with Jongho’s favorite musical piece. My husband has always loved a good opera.

“Care to tell me why the man looks familiar?” I threw a glance towards the tortured person on the table as I reached up, fingers tangling into Jongho’s black roots, softly pulling on them as his eyes fluttered just a little.

“He used to be my intel man,” Jongho’s voice was airy, but he gulped and his jaw clenched when my fingers pulled a little harsher at the hair on his nape, “turns out he was the rat sending information to my father.”

I scoffed, jaw clenching as I turned to look at the man laying strapped down to the table. So, he was the reason why Jongho’s, and subsequently my, affairs kept getting sabotaged, “Took you long enough to find him.”

“Don’t mock me, woman.” Jongho snapped, grabbing my jaw and turning my head back to face him, “I worked faster than your pathetic excuses of goons did, didn’t I?”

“No need to get so worked up, honey,” I chuckled, leaning so close our noses brushed together, “however, you could have been smarter about this.”

When Jongho said nothing just raised his eyebrows, his right hand slipping from my waist to my ass to squeeze, I smirked at him, leaning close to his ear, “You should have kept him alive and fed him with false intel, fucked with your father a little, you know?”

When I went to pull back, Jongho gripped my nape and held me in place, lips brushing lightly against my exposed ear as my hair was pulled back in a low bun, “I would have done that if my father already didn’t know that I had found out about this little fucker.”

I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, Jongho’s musky scent mingling with the stench of blood making my stomach tighten as I leaned back, the hand holding his nape sneaking towards his neck as I started toying with the necklace I had gifted him, “So, when are we going after you father?”

“As soon as your brother bites down on our trap.” I smirked, excited for the day to come as Jongho’s large palm squeezed my ass once, before softly making me stand up. I knew what he wanted without saying a word, and I grinned as I grabbed my forgotten purse off the floor, opening it. I made sure to bend down just the right amount in front of Jongho, my dress ridding up but not to the point of showing my ass, and I heard him suck in a harsh breath. Bingo, men are so easy. My favorite handgun glinted in the light and I blew Jongho a kiss before walking towards the screaming man, hips swaying in a way I knew would have Jongho hard in no time.

You see, our marriage wasn’t out of love, it wasn’t even close to that of a forced one. Our marriage was of convenience, both of us hungry for more and determined to do whatever we had to in order to get to the top. Jongho’s father, the most powerful mafia head in the country, and my brother, the second most affluential man of our country, were our targets. Once both were gone, Jongho and I would be ruling over everyone and everything in this damned country. And we were so close to finally getting what we wanted, five years of hard and diligent work finally getting repaid as his father was getting sloppy with his trades, and my brother arrogant to the point he was making banal mistakes even a newbie wouldn’t make. Soon, the empire would be mine—and Jongho’s. Soon, people would be bowing down at our feet, begging for their sins to be forgiven.

I stopped by the man’s side and turned the drill off, his screams ringing for a few more seconds until just his sobs were heard. His body was covered in wounds and bruises as it convulsed, he was as good as dead at this point. I sighed, feigning sadness as I stepped back, walking to the foot of the table, undoing the safety of my handgun. The man’s eyes widened when he registered my presence at his feet, but before he could make a sound, the bullet had already pierced his skull, the silencer on my handgun masking the sound and its lethalness. Claps resounded in the room, the classical music finally over, and I rolled my eyes and turned around. Jongho had an amused smile on his face as he stopped clapping, holding my purse as I slowly walked back towards him, eyes narrowing when he extended his palm, silently asking for my handgun. I reluctantly placed it in his hand and we shared a prolonged stare, our thoughts no doubt the same. If he killed me now, he’d be the next mafia head and yielder of all business. But he placed my handgun inside my purse and then gently placed that on the small table, next to his glass.

As I went to cross my arms in front of my chest and demand to know why he had flown oversees without letting me know first, I was yanked down in his lap again, this time failing to silence my gasp. I steadied myself using his firm shoulders, thighs resting on both sides of his hips, the leather soft against my naked skin. Jongho’s right hand rested on my left knee, slowly gliding up towards my thigh, his palm warm and yet rings cool against my skin. I gulped as Jongho smirked confidently, and quite smugly, leaning up to press our chests together.

“This dress drives me fucking insane,” He rasped, eyes staying glued to my exposed cleavage, “I’m glad I bought it for you.”

I chuckled, but didn’t allow myself to get sidetracked. I already knew Jongho and his tactics when he tried to avoid something, and it was always sex. Well, he wouldn’t get that until he did some explaining.

“Why did you go to Japan?” I raised an eyebrow, glaring down at him despite the way his hands were slowly creeping closer to my panties.

“Had to supervise some cargo before it got sent off.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

At his deadpan voice, I sneered and leaned in his face, glaring into his dark eyes, “Don’t fucking lie to me, Jongho. You have enough men to do that for you. If I find out you’re doing something behind my back, I will kill you.”

“Relax, love,” Jongho chuckled, hand slipping to my ass and kneading the flesh through the lacey panties I wore. I bit my lower lip, hiking myself a little higher up in his lap, “When I made my vows to you, I meant it when I said we’d stay together forever—unless you are conspiring behind my back, about to break my trust.”

“That’s not my style, and you know that.” I chuckled as Jongho’s fingers dug into the flesh of my ass, making me lick my lips just as he leaned up, closing the distance between us. It’s been a week since I last have felt his lips against mine, and I moaned against his mouth as he sucked my bottom lip between his teeth, slowly releasing it with a pop. But I didn’t allow him to pull back as I chased after his soft mouth, our lips moving messily as Jongho’s palm on my ass urged me to roll my hips against his already growing erection. I groaned into his mouth, slipping my tongue past his lips when he opened up enough, our tongues dancing together as he let me explore his hot mouth. His free hand caressed my hip before slowly trailing up my body, cupping my breast and squeezing as I moaned again, gyrating my hips in the right way, slow and teasing, knowing well that Jongho would lose his cool in the next ten seconds. And as I bit his bottom lip, sucking it between my teeth and biting hard on it, his eyes flew open and he hissed, all but almost ripping my panties apart as he yanked them down, urging me to raise slightly up as I smirked, kissing all the way from his jaw up to his ear, taking his earring between my teeth as I licked at his earlobe with my tongue.

The world wasn’t ready for our empire.

⚞ Masterlist ⚟

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@aaa-sia @gong-fourz @a-tinycarat @sooberryworld @hopefulrascalstatesmantoad

@anastasiamin860 @yunhogrippers @vcutparis @tunaasan @blvckarabixnvoid

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@vnessalau

❀ complete the forms if you're interested! ^^

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woman-of-balnain · 2 years

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maybe a smut where the reader is jealous after seeing mary and arthur hanging out, argument sex brrrrr. <<33

Masterlist | A03 Ver. | Part 2

Title: Bold as Love

A/N: Hopefully this is what you wanted anon! I'm used to writing a more soft and affectionate Arthur, but this was definitely a fun change for me. I hope it's okay... I took your request as wanting him more on the dominant side.

Also, I hope it's ok to cross-post this on A03. If not, just send me another anon ask to let me know and I'll delete it.

Warnings: Possessive Reader, Possessive Arthur, Jealous Reader, Arthur and Reader fighting for dominance, arguing, smut, unprotected sex, creampie, NOT proofread, I literally wrote it and posted it, so there might be mistakes.

Word Count: 2,781

Dividers by: cafekitsune + newlips

Your blood boiled when you saw them together. If Miss Grimshaw hadn’t let you come into the city that day, leaving your chores back at camp to get what Arthur had requested from the store, then you wouldn’t have even known. It was only by chance that you even found out, which made it so much worse.

You remembered seeing her come into camp, back when the gang was at Horseshoe Overlook and leaving that letter for Arthur. And of course, he’d gone straight to her, as if no time had passed, as if she hadn’t hurt him all those years ago, as if he wasn’t with you now.

He’d reassured you afterwards, told you what happened and more importantly what didn’t happen, but it had taken a while for him to calm you down. That was what made seeing him with Mary again, outside the Théâtre Râleur, hurt and anger you so much more.

She had her arm linked with his, pressing her body close to your man and laughing coyly at something he’d said. You had watched them coming out of the building, which told you they’d just watched a show together. Dim lighting, seated closely together for a whole show… the possibilities were endless in your mind and just made you feel worse.

Almost as though he sensed angry eyes on him, Arthur turned his head away from Mary, looking around before his gaze met with yours. A look of surprise spread over his features, but there was no guilt. You didn’t really know if that was a good thing or not.

Mary followed his gaze, wondering why his attention had strayed away from her. She looked at you with confusion, even though you’d already met when you took the letter for Arthur from her at the old camp.

“Do you two know each other?” Mary enquired.

Her voice was soft and pleasant. A stark contrast to how you saw her.

“Yeah,” was all Arthur said, eyes still not leaving you.

His blasé answer was the worst one he could have chosen in your mind. He didn’t tell her that you were together, that he was now yours. He didn’t put up any boundaries and it caused your anger to get almost to its breaking point.

“Oh,” she looked at you with faint recognition. “You’re one of those… girls…”

The way she said it made it clear how she saw you. Like some two-bit whore who she viewed with obvious disdain. There was nothing wrong with being a working girl. Abigail had been one before she fell for John. But you weren’t that to Arthur and you wanted to make it very clear to her.

“I’m his girl,” you gestured to Arthur, the venom dripping from your voice.

Mary glanced at him with uncertainty, but he just gave you a strange look, as though you were intruding on a moment you shouldn’t have been. As though your hurt and anger and jealousy were unwarranted somehow.

“I have to take Mary to the station,” he told you, voice deep and gravelly.

It was the tone he had when he was either angry or very, very turned on. You knew it was the former this time though.

“I’ll see you back at camp,” he continued, dismissing you.

You clenched your fists, fingernails digging into the skin of your palms as he began walking away, Mary’s arm still linked with his. He was acting like such a… gentleman with her. You knew a softer, more affectionate and loving side to Arthur in your private moments, but the way he was being with her seemed almost unnatural compared to his true personality.

She turned her head only once as they walked away, still eyeing you with uncertainty before saying something quietly to him. You didn’t hear what she said, but it didn’t matter. You’d seen and heard enough.

You’d kept to yourself after returning to Shady Belle. Your chores were done in record time and before Miss Grimshaw could find other tasks for you, you’d stormed off to the open area behind the house. Hiding yourself away, you sat behind one of the smaller, empty buildings and tried to sort through your feelings regarding Arthur and seeing him with Mary.

That was where he found you, late in the afternoon, when the sun had almost met the horizon.

“There you are,” he said, his tone the soft lilt you were used to in private moments like this.

“What do you want?” You fumed, unable to hide the anger still bubbling inside you.

“Darlin’, why’re you so angry?” He asked.

You looked up to glare at him before standing so he wasn’t towering over you.

“Are you serious right now, Arthur? I catch you off on a date with her and you ask me why I’m angry?”

“It wasn’t a date,” he insisted.

“Whatever,” you were seething, letting all the pent-up emotions spill forth. “I don’t care what it was. I don’t like it.”

“Mary… she was just askin’ for a favour.”

“To go to the theatre?” You asked incredulously. “I’m not an idiot, Arthur.”

“Sweetheart, it’s like you said. You’re my girl.”

The sweet endearments didn’t feel so sweet right then, so you continued taking your anger out on him.

“No, I’m not yours,” you hissed. “Not anymore. Not after that. You want her so bad? Go have her. But you and me? We’re done.”

Arthur’s gaze darkened but you ignored it, moving to brush past him and head back towards the main house. You didn’t get very far though because he grabbed your arm and held you in place.

You felt Arthur move so that he was right behind you, chest pressed against your back. His arms snaked tightly around your body, keeping you firmly in place.

“Calm down,” he said lowly in your ear.

His own voice was too composed for your liking, like he wasn’t taking you seriously.

“Just let me go,” you struggled against him.

“No,” he kept you held in his arms. “Take it back.”

That angry tone was coming back, the one that always sent shivers down your spine. You tried to resist it, but when he started pressing kisses along your neck, it became harder.

“Cut it out,” you snapped at him.

“Take it back,” he repeated, lips brushing against your skin. “Say you’re mine.”

His teeth nipped at the place where your neck and shoulder met, and you let out an involuntary moan. You could feel the curve of his lips as he smiled against your skin and when his arms loosened a little in their hold around you, it was the perfect chance to free yourself. So that’s exactly what you did.

Turning to face him, you saw him get irritated as well, annoyed that you were still so defiant. You opened your mouth to say something snarky to him, but Arthur didn’t give you a chance. He closed the distance between you, taking hold of your hair and pulling your head back a little, forcing you to look him in the eye.

You glared at him, and he challenged you right back with his own commanding and unwavering stare. When he saw that you weren’t going to give in, Arthur smashed his lips against yours in an angry and domineering kiss.

You struggled a little, still infuriated with him, but his hold on your hair and the other arm he had wrapped around your waist made it impossible to get away. His lips were bruising and dominant against your own, forcing you to submit.

Eventually, you gave up, giving in and opening your mouth a little wider, allowing his tongue to wrestle with yours. You moaned again, unable to deny how much you loved this forceful side of him.

You always got lost in the feel of his lips, the things he could do with his tongue, the firm grip of his hands, the coarse hair on his cheeks and around his lips that tickled and teased your skin… it was all familiar. It was all yours and you weren’t about to have it any other way.

You managed to pull your head back a little, his grip on your hair having loosened at your submission to his kiss. Breaking your mouth away from his, you looked into his eyes, seeing the way his pupils were dilated and his hair was wild and messy from your fingers running through it.

“You say it first,” you demanded breathlessly.

“What?” He asked, like he was in a bit of a daze.

“Say you’re mine,” you insisted, your tone a little more composed this time. “Only mine.”

“You’re beautiful when you’re jealous, darlin’,” he teased, lips curving up into a devilish grin. “All wild and ferocious.”

“Say it,” you demanded again.

His gaze softened a little, but the dark lust never left his eyes.

“I’m yours,” he promised.

It was enough for you, so you brought your lips back to his, both of your lips fighting for dominance. You gasped into his mouth when you felt him slam you against the wall of the small building you’d previously been sitting by. His hands were everywhere, possessively exploring your body.

“You’re mine too,” he murmured against your lips. “Ain’t you?”

It was spoken like a question, but you knew it wasn’t. He was telling you to admit it, but you weren’t ready to just yet, so you refused to answer, seeking his lips for another kiss instead.

“You’re really pissed off, huh?” He let out a light laugh, pulling back so you couldn’t kiss him again.

You just glared at him once more, feeling like he should know the answer to that. Arthur didn’t seem to mind, his hands reaching down and taking hold of your skirt. The fabric bunched up under his hold, snaking up your legs tantalisingly until the entirety of your lower body was revealed to him.

His gaze darkened even more when he saw that you weren’t wearing anything underneath.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he said, tone more menacing than anything else. “I’ll have you admittin’ it for me soon enough.”

You looked down, seeing the way his erection was straining against his pants and you couldn’t help but to get turned on by the insinuation of his intentions. You could feel the desire spreading through your lower belly, and the way your pussy reacted, already getting wet.

Arthur took hold of one of your hands, bringing it to his clothed cock. You let your instinctual lust take over for a moment, cupping your hand around it and relishing the faint groan that escaped his lips.

If this was how he wanted to play it, you decided to comply. You were quick to get rid of his gun belt before unbuttoning his pants and pushing them down his hips. When his cock sprung free, you saw that it was already fully hard, and it just spurred you on even more.

Your hand wrapped around it, tugging up and down on the velvety skin that covered the steel hardness underneath. His lips sought yours again and he groaned deeply into your mouth as your thumb swiped over the head of his cock.

It wasn’t long before he took control again, though, because he pushed your hands away from him before using one of his to grasp your hip tightly and the other to line him up at your entrance.

Your head fell back onto the wall behind you with a moan as he moved his cock back and forth along your slit, coating it in your wetness.

“Your body can’t lie to me, darlin’,” he groaned out. “You can be angry, but you’re still mine.”

You reached down, taking control by grasping his cock and putting it right where you wanted it. You pushed your hips forward, causing him to enter you and savouring the way his eyes fluttered shut and his mouth fell slightly open at the feel of your tight walls squeezing down on him.

“Yours doesn’t lie either,” you grit out, thrusting up your hips a little.

Both his hands gripped at your waist forcefully, ensuring that he had some hold over how much you could move. Arthur lifted you until your legs wrapped around his own waist and then he began thrusting into you.

“Just… admit it,” he managed to get out, voice rough as he slammed into you.

“No.”

Yet, with each time his cock entered you, it pushed a little deeper and teased that one spot that always brought you undeniable pleasure. If you kept letting him have all of the control, it would be a losing battle for you.

You squeezed down on his cock, milking him and causing him to get lost in the feel of you again.

“Why didn’t you tell her that I’m yours if it means so much to you?”

To your ever-increasing frustration, Arthur just grinned.

“Wanted you to get jealous,” he admitted, one hand moving down to grip your thigh as he continued pounding into your tight pussy. “Because you’re so god damned gorgeous like this.”

“I’m not jealous,” you lied, wanting to goad him. “I’m done. Enjoy this, because it’s the last time.”

His fingers dug into the skin of your thigh possessively at your words and he brought his lips back to your neck, covering your body completely with his. It meant that every sensation you felt was from him. The familiar smell of Arthur wrapped around you and all you could feel was his hands, his lips, his tongue…

“You’re mine, sweetheart,” he insisted again, teeth scraping at the column of your throat. “This pussy is mine and you know it. Just admit it.”

He was clearly frustrated with you too and while it brought you satisfaction, you knew that you wouldn’t last much longer. His long, thick, perfect cock was dominating every aspect of you, eating away at your resolve.

“Apologize then,” you requested of him softly.

He pulled his head back to look at you, his pace never once faltering and the dark desire never leaving his eyes.

“’M sorry,” he admitted instantly.

You knew it was sincere, you could see it in his eyes. He may have liked frustrating you and making you jealous, but you could see in that moment that he realised the hurt you felt too.

“She… doesn’t… mean anything… to me,” he promised, getting the words out between his deep and brutal thrusts. “Not anymore. Not since you.”

“Good,” you replied heatedly, pulling his head closer. “Because you’re mine and I’m yours.”

He was obviously pleased with you finally admitting it and your lips met in another kiss, tongues moving languidly this time, as you savoured the feeling of one another. You could feel the familiar build up within you, knowing that you were close. Bucking your hips slightly, you let him know without words what you needed, and Arthur was quick to oblige.

He knew you like the back of his hand, every aspect, and every desire. So, his hand left its bruising hold on your thigh and moved upwards, caressing and teasing your skin until his fingers finally brushed against your aching clit.

You squeezed down around him again and he broke the kiss, his head falling to your shoulder. His thumb moved perfectly against your sensitive nub, rubbing in circles, and applying just the right amount of pressure.

“God…” you moaned out, now constantly milking his cock inside you as your pussy edged closer and closer to release. “Arthur…”

“That’s my girl,” he murmured against your skin, loving the way you said his name. “Let go, darlin’. I wanna feel you cum around me.”

With two more strokes of his thumb against your clit, along with a teasing nip of his teeth against your shoulder, you came undone around him. Your back arched and your body was overcome with ecstasy.

Your orgasm washed over you blissfully and the vice-like grip paired with the spasming of your pussy sent Arthur over the edge too. You felt his cum fill you up, as well as his cock throbbing deep inside you and it just made your own orgasm intensify.

His lips never seemed to leave your skin through it all, pressing countless soft and loving kisses all over your neck and then up to your jawline and finally on your cheeks. As you both came down from your highs and your frustrations with each other ebbed away, his fingertips stroked along your thighs.

“You’re… incredible…” he breathed out, nuzzling against your cheek affectionately.

You turned your head to capture his lips once more, determined to make sure he never forgot it again.

Part 2

#arthur morgan x female reader #arthur morgan x reader #arthur morgan smut #arthur morgan fanfic #arthur morgan request #rdr2 request

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suzena · 1 year

Text

Complete Dead Apple Explanation

Or: “The Ultimate Guide to Dead Apple”.

Warning: this is a long post! I’m not kidding, I worked on this for three months. There is a TL;DR at the end but it will only briefly cover the most important points.

I see posts about Dead Apple not being understood far too often and so I’m introducing: this explanation! I do want to preface this by saying that I can completely understand that this movie can be confusing. Or, as Fyodor said it:

But, as someone who has seen it many times, I’m here to shed some light on it! Hopefully after this post it’ll all make a bit more sense, and you’ll at least have different questions.

If you haven’t watched the movie yet and are wondering when to watch it, the story officially takes place between season two and three, though you’ll be able to watch season three with no issues if you haven’t watched the movie. Please do note that this post will contain light spoilers for the plot after season two, so don’t read it if you haven’t at least finished catching up to the anime.

I’ll try not to summarize the movie, but instead explain it. That means that this post does not replace the movie, but instead tries to elaborate upon it and tries to place it in the larger plot. Most of the early movie is therefore ignored, but please do not hesitate to ask if you have extra questions, comments, different interpretations or you want me to go into more detail about something. I may not know everything, but I’m always down to talk about this movie!

Alright, with all of that out of the way…

The Dragon Head Conflict

We’ll start at the beginning, which is to say, we’ll start at the prologue, which can be found as a permanent event in Mayoi (and also as a part of the Dead Apple manga). This is not technically needed to understand most of the movie, but it does give some context that will make it a little easier, since this is where it all starts.

The Dragon Head Conflict, sometimes also translated as the Ryuuzu Conflict, is (as the movie states) the largest conflict in the history of Yokohama’s underworld. It took place six years ago, and originally was about five hundred billion yen an ability user left behind after they died, which various organizations were very interested in. It lasted for a total of 88 days, and involved conflict between eight different underworld organizations, including among others the Port Mafia, Gelhart Security Service/GSS (from Fifteen) and Takasekai (also from Fifteen).

Now as you can imagine, the government isn’t super stoked that gangs are shooting each other up all night and leaving corpses everywhere, to the point where the sidewalk is torn up from the bullet holes. To try to combat this, they thought that they could best fight fire with fire, and let a strong ability user from outside Yokohama settle this conflict all at once.

This new ability user, known as the “White Qilin”, unfortunately doesn’t really care about ending the conflict and kills other strong ability users left and right just for the fun of it, contrary to what the government had hoped he would do. Whether they are uninvolved parties or Port Mafia executives, it doesn’t matter to this guy. The White Qilin also ends up taking the money the conflict was originally about, but that doesn’t stop his murder spree. In this way, the White Qilin gains control over the entire conflict pretty fast, making him the main target to eliminate in order to put a stop to the killings.

Dazai approaches this problem similarly as to how he did during the conflict of Stormbringer, with a group of ability users to overpower the lone individual, but gets his plan twisted on him and gets kidnapped instead. Naturally, he predicted this outcome, leaving a hint for Chuuya where he left a transmitter for a tracking device so that Chuuya could come rescue him.

This is then the first scene of the movie, where Dazai and Chuuya confront and defeat the White Qilin using Corruption, and the whole Dragon Head Conflict ends since the White Qilin is finally gone and all the money burned. This battle is so iconic in the underground circles that it gains them the name “Double Black”, or “Soukoku”.

A few small notes on the Dragon Head Conflict before we move on.

As can also be seen in the first scene of the movie, this is where Oda adopts all five of those kids you see during the Dark Age, which was also already stated in the Dark Age itself.

“I heard all about it, Odasaku. You’re raising five kids, huh? And not only that, they’re orphans from the Dragon’s Head Conflict.” ―Dazai, Dark Age

Also, ever wondered why the Port Mafia is the only major criminal organization in Yokohama? There actually used to be five in total but four of them completely perished during the Dragon Head Conflict. Another reason why Dazai & Chuuya ending the conflict is so impressive, since because of that the Port Mafia is the only one to even survive it at all.

Shibusawho?

As you’ve probably guessed by now, the “White Qilin”, also named “the Collector” in Dead Apple itself, are both different names for our main antagonist: Shibusawa Tatsuhiko. The government had good reason to believe Shibusawa would be able to stand against the entire Yokohama underground and come out on top: his ability.

Shibusawa’s ability, Draconia, creates a fog around him, which separates other ability users from their own ability and makes non-ability users disappear as long as the fog persists. When surrounded by this fog, ability users are confronted with this version of their ability that is split from themselves. If an ability user is to die within this fog, their ability will be added to Draconia’s collection room.

There is decent evidence that it takes a while before the fog activates, so the effect isn’t immediate. This can be seen with Chuuya, who makes very short contact with the fog before he lifts up the building that he shoves in the Dragon’s mouth, but it’s seen even more clearly with Atsushi and Kyouka at the start of the movie. They spend a small while running around Yokohama wondering why everyone is gone before they’re finally confronted with their abilities.

To some extent the separated abilities represent the inner conflict in an ability user. This can of course be clearly found in Atsushi and his shaky connection to the tiger, or in Kyouka who has Demon Snow which is the last remnant of her parents but also murdered them in front of her. But the clearest example of this in the movie is actually Kunikida, since there is a visible change between him and his ability.

The notebook of Kunikida’s ability does not read its usual “理想” (ideals), but instead now says “妥協” (compromise). For Kunikida, a person so tied to his ideals, this version of his ability is an “abomination” (his words, not mine), and thus a source of inner conflict, since it represents a side of Kunikida that he carries within him.

“A copy of himself that didn’t follow ideals but made compromises was an abomination to Kunikida.”―Dead Apple (light novel)

If ability users manage to defeat their abilities in a physical fight, and then also accept these parts of themselves for what they represent, they will regain their ability. For example, Atsushi does not immediately regain his ability after defeating the tiger because he does not completely accept that the tiger represents that he has killed a person. For Atsushi, a person who connects his entire reason of living to saving other people, this is nearly irreconcilable. The only reason he probably is able to get over it in the end is that the person he killed was actively torturing and trying to kill him, so Atsushi had to kill to survive.

Shibusawa, then, is dead. Chronologically, his murder is the earliest you see of him. Fyodor has told Shibusawa that Atsushi contains something that “guides the envy of all ability users”, so Shibusawa, who feels like he is missing something, seeks to take this by any means. This doesn’t work out too hot for him, and Atsushi kills him.

Now a fun thing happens. Since Shibusawa is the center of the fog at all times, so to speak, and he’s the keeper of the abilities that die in his fog, his ability is separated from himself and lives on, nearly indistinguishable from his original body. Only one downside to this: he completely loses his memories.

I can only assume the government steps in at this point to take this strong ability user in his vulnerable state, and then have him solve the Dragon Head Conflict not long after. He most likely also survived Chuuya’s Corruption by being an ability, and having ability crystals in his collection to fall back on and recover, as he also does in Dead Apple. However, all of that is just pure speculation.

After the Dragon Head Conflict, Shibusawa spends some years abroad, casually killing thousands of ability users for the same reason as during the Dragon Head Conflict: just playing around and trying to fill that hole of something that is missing inside of him. The Japanese government mostly does a spectacular and spectacularly unethical job of cleaning up after him, since they learned nothing from the Dragon Head Conflict and still think that they can control him to protect Japan should it ever be invaded by foreign ability users.

Eventually, when the timing is right, Shibusawa gets invited back to Japan by Dazai. At the same time he is told by Fyodor (can you see the manipulation happening on both sides?) that Dazai’s ability is the ultimate ability that will finally complete him, and so Shibusawa eagerly comes to Yokohama.

From here on out, as far as Shibusawa is concerned, it’s just a matter of covering the entire city in fog, killing Dazai and then taking his ability. Since Dazai cancels the fog itself with his ability, Shibusawa does need to kill him first, since the fog will work just fine on a corpse. Unfortunately, Shibusawa, however smart he is, is not in control of the plot in this movie. That control is left entirely to the combination of Dazai and Fyodor.

Intermezzo: Singularity Crash Course

Let’s do a lightning quick crash course on singularities before continuing, because you’re going to need that to understand what is happening in the next part. While Stormbringer was released after Dead Apple, I’m still going to be leaning heavily on and paraphrasing the information provided in that novel since it gives a really nice overview.

Abilities are bound to rules, just like everything else. No organisms other than humans, such as plants or monkeys, can possess an ability. Each human can only have a single ability, and when they die the ability disappears with them. Finally, there is a limit to the strength of any such ability.

But what if you wanted to go beyond that limit? What if you wanted to play with the natural laws of this world? What if you wanted to get really silly with it? Well, in that case, you can try your best at creating a singularity.

Singularities are defined as “the interaction of multiple abilities that develops into a higher-level phenomenon different from the original abilities”. This mostly exhibits itself in a massive release of energy, but rarely there are semi-stable versions of them. Singularities aren’t bound to conventional rules, and can be much more powerful for that exact reason.

As for creating singularities, there are two defined ways. The most reliable method is to have two contradicting abilities clash with each other. This leads to fun mental exercises, think “unstoppable force meets immovable object”, or, two ability users who can both see a few seconds into the future fighting to the death (sound familiar?). As a second method, an ability can also contradict itself, essentially causing the same result, but it’s a lot more finicky.

“Dead Apple”

The latter part of the movie revolves around exactly the creation of such a singularity, as all planned out by Fyodor, and accurately anticipated by Dazai. Let’s lay out all the layers of this.

Shibusawa is after Dazai’s ability. Meanwhile, Dazai is trying to stop the fog to save Yokohama. As for Fyodor, we’ll get to him in a second.

Dazai “teams up” with Fyodor and betrays Shibusawa to put a stop to the fog. The idea of this is that Fyodor combines two abilities from Shibusawa’s collection, which Dazai can’t do himself without canceling them: the ability to pull abilities in a surrounding area close, and the ability to merge abilities together. When these two are merged, together they create an ability that will absorb Shibusawa’s entire collection, and then Dazai only has to touch this ability to effectively get rid of Shibusawa’s power source.

There is a specific reason why it has to happen like this, and Dazai just touching Shibusawa isn’t quite enough. Let’s mentally walk through the process if Dazai were to touch Shibusawa. The fog disappears for a bit (and Shibusawa with it, most likely), but Shibusawa now knows Dazai’s intentions. Fyodor will take Shibusawa’s side and now Dazai is at a large disadvantage. Ultimately, it doesn’t even solve the problem. We know from the Dragon Head Conflict that just destroying Shibusawa’s body is most likely not enough, and he will be able to resummon the fog (and his body) with time and energy. The problem needs to be cut off at the root, the ability crystals.

Unfortunately, Fyodor didn’t really team up with Dazai, instead choosing to team up with Shibusawa in order to get rid of Dazai. This is then where Shibusawa gets to kill Dazai, and discovers that wait, Dazai’s ability may not be what he’s seeking after all. However, the abilities are already merged, and Dazai’s ability joins them. This combines “the ability to merge” with “the ability to nullify”, which don’t exactly mix well. Does Dazai’s ability become part of the other ability? Does his ability nullify the merging ability before that can happen? It’s already part of it, but at the same time the merging can never happen. It’s contradictory, and thus a singularity is born.

Fyodor, meanwhile, hasn’t quite had his fill of betrayal yet, and decides to remind Shibusawa of what he is by killing him, reminding Shibusawa of his earlier death by Atsushi’s paw. All of this, killing Dazai and using his ability to create a singularity, having that power from the singularity then go into Shibusawa to create the Dragon, all of that was part of Fyodor’s plan. Shibusawa is only able to cover an entire city with fog because of the large amount of ability crystals he has collected, and so with enough power (like from a singularity) he can cover the entire world in this fog. Up until this point, neither Fyodor nor Shibusawa have seen a single ability user survive the fog, and thus it is the perfect method for getting rid of all ability users in the world, which does seem to be Fyodor’s end goal.

However, Chuuya swoops in and defeats the Dragon. Dazai was well prepared and had the antidote to the poison he was killed with hidden in his mouth, so he is alive and well again. That means that Dazai has his ability back and it cancels out the singularity space they both are in. It doesn’t completely get rid of the Dragon however, as some energy still lingers around the tower.

Fyodor is still on the scene, and uses a part of the merging crystal that he saved which was used earlier to create the singularity to merge Shibusawa with the singularity, giving Shibusawa a very anime transformation into his final form.

At this point, as a result of Shibusawa’s transformation, the fog turns red. If this red fog then covers the entire planet as Fyodor is hoping, and you were to watch it from space, it would look just like a poisonous red apple. The name of the movie therefore refers to this plan of using Shibusawa to rid the world of ability users.

This idea of poisonous apples in this movie comes from two different sources. From Fyodor’s side, it is referring to the apple Eve ate in the Bible, the original sin. For Fyodor, there is poetic irony in this: the world will end with the same sin as it began with. The crime is the punishment. On Dazai’s side, it refers to Snow White, who bit the poison apple and died (temporarily). He already talks about this to Oda when he is sixteen, vaguely implying he knew all of this was coming as soon as he met Shibusawa during the Dragon Head Conflict. Since Fyodor was already around at that time and also had a hand in enabling Shibusawa originally, this may indeed be planned out this far in advance, but it’s always hard to tell with these guys.

Then the kids take over the fight for the rest of the movie, and Atsushi, Akutagawa and Kyouka work together to defeat Shibusawa’s final form in the form of a long, epic final fight. Shibusawa is finally defeated and it all ends happily ever after.

The End.

Byakko VS The Dragon

…Or is it? You thought we covered the entire basic layer of the movie, so we’re done now, right? Think again! This is only where things start to become really interesting. Please note that this section will take some ideas that were already pointed out by other people, and build on those.

When looking at lore relevance of characters, Atsushi may not immediately spring to mind as one of the most important ones. Sure, he’s the protagonist of the main manga, but in comparison to the mystery surrounding Dazai or Fyodor he fades a little into the background.

Even in this post, an explanation about a movie that’s basically about Atsushi, I’m able to explain the basics of the movie without mentioning him much at all. And yet, the movie’s core conflict is not between Shibusawa, Dazai and Fyodor, but between Shibusawa and Atsushi.

While there isn’t a lot of information given about Shibusawa’s and Atsushi’s connection, what we do get is very interesting. Shibusawa is consistently referred to as a Dragon during Dead Apple, and while subtitles usually translate everything as “tiger”, Atsushi’s tiger is actually referred to as “Byakko” half of the time.

Now what is the difference between any good ol’ normal tiger and the Byakko, I hear you ask. The Byakko is much more than an ordinary tiger, since it is part of the 四神 (shijin/ shishin), the Four Guardians of the Four Compass Directions, which the Dragon is also a part of. What you essentially need to know from this is that the Byakko belongs to the same group of creatures as the Dragon, and that this solidifies Shibusawa’s status as Atsushi’s foil in this movie.

It also allows us to make a direct comparison between Shibusawa and Atsushi. The thing is, I have been lying to you a little bit. So far, I’ve been calling the Dragon a singularity. The truth is, it may not be. I know, I know, if it’s not a singularity, then what was that whole Dragon thing about?

Fyodor actually specifically tells us that the Dragon isn’t a singularity, but instead it’s “the true form of the chaos born from abilities”. (Note here that the Dead Apple light novel talks about Fyodor as if he is “reciting some Oracle”. Did Fyodor get this information from someone else?) Is this related to why Fyodor wants abilities gone from this world? Is there another layer to abilities and other creatures that BSD hasn’t even touched upon (think Lovecraft)? It’s hard to say at this point. All we can say is that the Dragon gets referred to as something else, and… that the Dragon is similar to the Byakko.

The tiger ability we see that got separated from Atsushi in the movie actually doesn’t follow the rules the other abilities do. It has a clearly defined face, and the red gem is not on its forehead. The gem found on the ability tiger is also red, which is in line with the other extracted abilities we see, but what gets extracted from Atsushi by Shibusawa is this blue cube. The weirdness continues in the flashback we see of Atsushi being tortured by Shibusawa.

We see Atsushi’s ability leave him, but then in a flash of self protection instinct, he partially transforms into the tiger, claws and all, while the blue gem is outside of his body. Earlier in the movie it is shown that if an ability is extracted from an ability user, they no longer have access to the powers of that ability. Then how is Atsushi able to use his tiger abilities here?

Granted, there is a bit of conflicting information within the movie about this, since during the final fight with Shibusawa this blue cube is once again extracted from Atsushi, but now he does lose his tiger powers. Could he resummon the tiger while not in possession of the cube if the situation is dire enough? Is this just a psychological thing because Atsushi is aware of it this time? Who can say. At any rate, this blue cube is connected deeply with Atsushi, but the clues given imply that it may not be the Byakko itself.

“That’s not an ability! That is me!”―Atsushi, reaching out to the blue cube in Dead Apple

To be honest, the movie does very little in explaining anything around Atsushi, instead raising more questions than answers. For that exact reason, the rest of this section will mostly be speculation about one possible angle on Atsushi’s ability that personally makes sense to me, but of course this is only one potential theory.

I do also want to add here that Atsushi personally goes through an arc in this movie from seeing the tiger as something separate to something that is intrinsically part of him. This can also be a reason for this final exclamation of “that’s me!” when he reaches out to the blue cube, but it doesn’t explain everything, which is why we explore an alternate possibility here.

My take on it is that the Byakko and this blue gem that get extracted from Atsushi are not the same thing. With the side note here being that they are probably deeply connected, but not the same regardless.

My reasoning for this is that everything Atsushi-related you see in Dead Apple makes a little more sense when you consider the Byakko and the blue cube as two separate entities. The Byakko’s gem is red, the cube is blue. The Byakko is framed as something separate from Atsushi, while he claims the cube is not an ability but he himself. Atsushi had access to the Byakko while the blue cube was outside of him. Shibusawa even makes a point of mentioning that the orphanage director, who correctly thought Atsushi was the tiger, had the wrong idea about Atsushi’s ability. The Byakko is definitely Atsushi’s ability, but this blue cube is… something else.

And yet, the tiger is also deeply connected to whatever this blue gem is. Currently, one theory that makes sense to me is that the tiger is an ability that can be passed on, just like Demon Snow, that has the specific task of protecting the power of this blue gem. So, a two in one deal. Atsushi also gets referred to as “the one holding the Byakko ability” by Ivan, which would be in line with the Byakko being an ability that can be passed on as needed. Shibusawa makes a similar statement, calling Atsushi “the one clad in the Byakko”. Atsushi also has issues controlling his ability before joining the ADA, just like Kyouka and Tsujimura, who both also inherited their abilities. I would love to further speculate on this, but there is so little information on anything relating to this, so anything further would be completely baseless.

However, there is one more different clue given to us by the movie. Namely, what this comparison to the Dragon means for Atsushi as the one holding the Byakko.

Almost in the same breath as Shibusawa is recounting Fyodor’s words about the Dragon being the chaos of all abilities, the holder of the Byakko also gets its own description about its true form: the one opposing all abilities.

This relates to what the blue cube may really be. What Atsushi does to Shibusawa in his final moments is what I essentially believe to be this blue cube’s true power: it completely unravels an ability. The blue power eats up everything supernatural about Shibusawa until only his natural skull is left.

If you think this sounds familiar, it kind of does! I cannot ignore the similarity to Dazai here, though I do have to point out that Dazai can only cancel out an ability, and this blue cube power seems to… completely erase the ability itself, leaving no trace of it. The similarity to Dazai is further found the moment Dazai dies and his ability leaves his body. At first, his ability is white and vaguely similar to the blue cube before deciding that nope, this is just barely not it.

I have a hard time connecting this to anything larger simply because the series does not give a lot of clues on this subject. How did abilities come to be? How is the Book related to that, since it is not an ability or borne from an ability? And how does Atsushi factor into this?

Shibusawa has been led to Atsushi since he believed Atsushi would grant him something special, something he had been looking for all this time. “That which every ability user desires.”

This is actually a familiar story! This is not the first time Fyodor has led someone to Atsushi with the premise that he would be able to lead them to what they were seeking. The first two seasons of the anime follow that specific idea, of Fitzgerald wanting Atsushi so he can lead him to the Book.

The tiger as the guide to the Book is something emphasized again and again. While in English it gets translated as “guide”, the original manga panel said “道標（タイガービートル）”, or, “guidepost (pronounced: tiger beetle, in English)”. While this is partially just a funny pun, it also once again points to the tiger specifically as a guide.

It did leave me to wonder about the absence of a certain scene in the series. Fyodor has been sending other people to Atsushi for the entire length of the series, but has never interacted with Atsushi himself. For someone who claims to be looking for the Book, and knows that Atsushi is somehow the guide to the Book, isn’t that a bit weird? Is there a reason Fyodor won’t interact with Atsushi himself? Fyodor knew about Atsushi way before he joined the ADA, so it’s not like Dazai is particularly standing in the way here.

Regardless, this factor that makes Atsushi so special may very well be this blue cube. How does the power to completely undo abilities lead to the Book? Who knows. We simply do not know enough about the Book or the origin of abilities to say more about this. Maybe the true power of the blue cube is something else entirely.

What does all of this mean? Where will it all lead? Only the future (Asagiri) can tell.

The Unexplained and Weird

Welcome to the section I’d fondly refer to as “a collection of things I have no explanation for”. There is plenty of that in this movie, but I do want to touch upon them since not being explainable as of currently does not necessarily mean that they aren’t important in the future. Also, not having an explanation for these things is driving me insane and I need to share in my suffering. Let’s go! :)

Let’s get the big thing out of the way first.

Mukurotoride, my friend, my enemy. For those unaware, Mukurotoride is the name of the large black tower that Shibusawa, Dazai and Fyodor were chilling in for most of the movie. The name gets translated as “Skull Fortress”, but the kanji used gives the name more of a “Dead Man’s Castle” feeling, since it refers to a person long since dead more than a skull. My problem with this tower is as follows: it doesn’t make any sense. Whatsoever.

Why is it there? Fifteen establishes it’s there seven years before the current timeline, so a year before Shibusawa dies. I would’ve accepted it if the tower was a weird side effect of Shibusawa dying or something, but the current facts point towards this tower not having anything to do with Shibusawa at all. It’s also very decayed. How long has it been there? Who put it there? Is it relevant that it’s right next to Suribachi? Or in the Yokohama foreign settlement? (Side note: foreign settlements have not been a thing since 1899. What’s up with Yokohama having a foreign settlement?) No one seems to know anything about this tower, not even in the Japanese community. And then in-universe, everyone also seems okay with this wildly out-of-place tower that looks like it’s made out of human bones being there in the middle of the city? It’s giving me Sky Casino vibes.

Okay, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, we can talk about Fyodor’s ability.

I want to start this part by explaining my personal stance on the current Fyodor theories, since it influences how I talk about what is shown of his ability in Dead Apple. There are a bunch of theories about Fyodor having an insta-kill ability that only works on non-ability users. Personally, I don’t subscribe to this theory, and I have multiple reasons for this.

First, I don’t think we’ve ever seen Fyodor’s ability being used. At the end of Cannibalism a cop dies as soon as he touches Fyodor. In the manga abilities don’t have a special shine effect, but in the anime they do. However, in the anime there was no ability-shine here.

A stronger argument, perhaps, is that this happens right in front of Dazai, and Dazai immediately afterwards says he has no clue what Fyodor’s ability could be. He could be lying, of course, but since this is a common enemy he shares with Fitzgerald, who is the one asking him about Fyodor’s ability, I don’t see any reason for him to do so here. The whole murder reads a little bit like Fyodor just putting on a show for Dazai.

Finally, from a narrative viewpoint, killing with a touch is a little… useless? Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure it’s convenient, I guess, when you’re a terrorist who seeks to exterminate part of the global population. But there are many ways to kill a person, and Fyodor has shown time after time that he doesn’t need to rely on an ability to murder people.

The strongest argument for the insta-kill ability in my opinion is Fyodor himself saying “this is my true ability” before killing that kid who was enslaved by Ace. However, this may also be part of something else that is going on with Fyodor, in a way that is perhaps very similar to Atsushi.

Alright. Whether you agree with that or not is up to you. To get back to the movie, there are a few interesting clues provided about Fyodor’s ability.

The first is of course Fyodor’s iconic line when his ability shows up on screen: “Crime and Punishment are close friends.” Everything he says after that point is already referring to Shibusawa again, so this is the only clue he himself is willing to offer up. If we consider that the abilities that get split from their users represent inner conflict, all he is saying here is that he apparently has no inner conflict. Does he know something else about the world? Does he just know who he is? Honestly, I don’t think we’ll get anywhere talking about Fyodor’s mental state.

Then there is the “I am Crime”, spoken by Fyodor holding the skull, and “I am Punishment”, spoken by his ability holding the apple. This one is slightly more straightforward. The ability user being the crime, and the ability the punishment. I’m not 100% sure if this is actually referring to Fyodor himself, or if it’s just about Shibusawa again. The skull (Shibusawa, an ability user) being the crime, and then the apple (covering the world with fog through Shibusawa’s ability, thus punishing ability users) being the punishment makes sense when viewed like this, but it could be that Fyodor is somehow also referring to himself during these lines.

Okay, if Fyodor is apparently not willing to open up, we can gather some more info just from what we can see instead of what we’re told. Most of what this part covers is taken from these excellent posts, but I’ll summarize it here for the sake of completion. Fyodor’s ability looks different compared to most other abilities. Most of the abilities shown in the movie have a blank face without any features, and have their gem on their forehead. The exception to that first part, interestingly enough, is Elise, Mori’s ability. This is most likely because she has physical form as an ability to begin with. Which then raises the question: does Fyodor’s ability also have a physical form outside of the fog? His ability looks identical, so that would imply some sort of clone ability. Next to this, Fyodor’s epithet is “The Conjurer”, which would be in line with him being able to create another copy of himself. (Though I should add here that the Japanese seems to just refer to him as “魔神”, which can be any type of evil spirit. However, if I’m not mistaken, the “Conjurer” should be from the official translation, but let me know if I’m mistaken on that.)

Finally, there is the position of the gem on Fyodor’s ability. Nearly all other abilities have their gem on their forehead, but for some reason Fyodor’s ability has his on his hand. The only other ability that has its gem not on its forehead is… the Byakko. I don’t have an explanation for this one, but the weirdness should be pointed out, since it’s another way in which Fyodor’s ability deviates from the others.

Next to the above, there are two other weird details I want to quickly touch upon.

First, the knives in the apples in the dish in Mukuroride, as well as the apples with a knife in them in general, as they are the theme of this movie. I believe this to be of a more metaphorical touch, so we won’t read too much into it, but it does have physical consequences that tie back to the title as well.

This exact shot is used four times throughout the movie, but with a varying amount of knives stuck in the apples. It starts with one, then two, then three. The room starts with just Dazai, then Shibusawa enters, then Fyodor. With each of them showing up, another knife appears in an apple. This is then a metaphor for these three being the instigators behind the Dead Apple incident. These knives in the apples can also be seen as their calling cards, as they were left both at the bar and at the scene of the crime where that agent was killed who was supposed to meet with Kunikida and Tanizaki.

In a later scene, it cuts again to this frame, but a knife and the skull has disappeared. These both get taken by Fyodor. The knife is used eventually to kill Shibusawa, but Shibusawa also took one of these knives to kill Dazai with. Either way, these knives that have been in these apples are used to murder, once again corroborating the connection between death and apples.

And finally, the relevance of the moon.

There are a few impressive shots of the moon in Dead Apple, where the moon is shown to be enormous, to the point where even the light novel points out how extraordinarily large it is. The novel also points out that the blue cube crystal holds a similarity to the moonlight. Just symbolism to show that it’s connected to Atsushi, or something more? The other side of the page in the main series will also only be written on the night… of the next full moon.

The Point of It All

I hear a lot of “Dead Apple doesn’t matter to the plot, just watch it for the Soukoku scenes and move on”. And while I do agree that it’s not mandatory viewing to understand the storyline that corresponds with season three onwards, I do think there is more to Dead Apple than most people give it credit for.

I always like to ask myself after reading a book or watching a movie: “Okay, so what was the point of that? What was I meant to take away from this?”

For example, in essence Stormbringer is a case study on singularities. Likewise, BEAST is a study into the limits of the Book, and all other side stories similarly have a message, however big or small.

So what does Dead Apple establish? Why bother?

I hope by now you agree that Dead Apple seems to be the introduction to explaining more as to what is so special about Atsushi. This seems to go deeper into chapter 28/29 of the manga, or season 2 episode 8 of the anime, where Atsushi also has some weird things going on with the tiger. What this exactly is, or where this seems to be going is unclear for now, but the Dead Apple definitely emphasizes Atsushi’s importance as well as the concept that there can be something more than just abilities.

In-universe, there are also reasons for this conflict to happen.

Most likely both Dazai and Fyodor knew the end result long before the conflict ever started. It’s their reunion in a way, so I suppose they are both seeing how the other’s condition is at the moment. They may even have gathered some intel somehow? It’s almost like collecting metadata, they won’t have a direct conversation about important things, but they try to collect information just by seeing how the other acts, to see if the other lies within prediction.

Aside from that, on Dazai’s side, except for foiling Fyodor’s plan and keeping Yokohama safe, the Shin Soukoku dynamic also gets strengthened, something Dazai is actively working on. On Fyodor’s side, next to giving the whole “eliminating all ability users” a good honest shot, he also gets to collect a lot of intel on the opposing side. For example, Fyodor in Dead Apple gets to see Corruption up close, which may potentially be relevant.

Finally, from a storytelling perspective, it sets up a lot for the third season, especially in character interactions and relationships, e.g. Atsushi & Akutagawa, Dazai & Chuuya, Kyouka, Fukuzawa & Mori. It should be noted that some characters literally have been intentionally regressed to make the ending make more impact. Whether that was a good decision or not is not why I’m here. You should just know that it’s intentional. You could chalk it up to Atsushi losing his ability impacting him and his behavior a lot, if you wanted to justify it somehow. The Order of the Clock Tower also gets its first anime appearance, showing Agatha Christie on screen, who will most likely play a more important role later on. Likewise, Dead Apple is the introduction to Fyodor as a villain, where you get to see him for more than just a few flashes.

Trivia and Fun Details

I suppose this section is skippable. But who doesn’t love trivia? This is by no means an exhaustive list of everything included in this movie, but rather an overview of what I personally caught, understood and thought relevant to include.

The “Dragon Head” in the Dragon Head Conflict refers to a Qilin, which are said to have similar heads to dragons. Since the conflict centered around the White Qilin, this is where that name comes from.

At some point Akutagawa and Kyouka use a mafia code to refer to a passageway. The code “0505” refers back to Atsushi’s birthday.

The symbol ᛟ found on the outfits of the Mukurotoride squad refers to inheritage, since Shibusawa inherited his own ability. More information about that here.

Dazai at some point meows at Fyodor. This is a very sassy way of telling Fyodor that he will personally eradicate all of Fyodor’s rats in Yokohama, including Fyodor himself. (The light novel calls it a “tedious” meow. Lmao.)

The music from Dead Apple seems to be recycled in season three of the anime. I’m guessing to save on budget?

Atsushi’s door that he eventually opens to unlock his hidden memories has its own music motif that shows up every time he thinks about Shibusawa, the fog or his memories associated with killing him. Try to pay attention to this, it’s really cool.

The motif of the door is also a tune that sounds a lot like the track named Dead Apple, further showing Atsushi’s relevance in his movie.

The lyrics of the soundtrack tell their own story. When the Dead Apple plot first takes off and Dazai is at bar Lupin, a song called My Prince plays telling of Snow White who is sleeping and waiting for her prince. However, it seems to be a spin on the classic, where indeed Snow White chose to knowingly bite the apple knowing it was poisoned, in much the same way as Dazai knew he was going to be poisoned in Dead Apple. Le Cheval Noir tells of how bored the singer is, and how nothing is special to them anymore. This plays during the scene where Dazai talks to Shibusawa, showing Shibusawa’s apathy towards everything. Mein Prinz, the song that plays as Dazai gets backstabbed, is nearly exactly the same song as My Prince, but now more dramatic and in German. This is a clue that Dazai saw this coming from before the Dead Apple conflict even started, and it’s now up to Chuuya again to save him. Overall, Dazai is leaning into the Snow White aesthetic hard in Dead Apple.

And finally, a list of everything the light novel insists refers to the theme of poisonous red apples: the red apples with the knives in them, apple suicide, the merged abilities producing a red sphere, the singularity that results from that in all its forms and the planet covered in red fog. If it’s red and spherical, you can just assume it should represent a deathly apple.

TD;DR

Recapped extremely briefly:

The Dragon Head Conflict introduces Shibusawa as a villain who was kept by the government but went off the rails. Shibusawa’s ability is a fog that splits ability users from their abilities. If ability users die, Shibusawa obtains their ability. Shibusawa died and inherited his own ability, also causing him to lose his memory. Therefore he wants to obtain Dazai's ability in order to gain what he feels he lacks. Dazai betrays Shibusawa together with Fyodor by combining abilities. However, Shibusawa kills Dazai first, adding Dazai's ability to the merged abilities creating a singularity. Fyodor kills Shibusawa, causing him to regain his memory of being previously killed by Atsushi. A dragon is created and defeated, and Fyodor's plan is revealed to be the covering of the entire planet in Shibusawa's fog, killing all ability users. This plan is foiled, but Atsushi is shown to have potentially another power next to his ability (the tiger). This power is possibly the ability to completely unravel abilities, and may be what makes Atsushi the guide to the Book. Mukurotoride is completely left unexplained in the movie, but there are clues given about Fyodor's ability that point away from an insta-kill ability, and more towards a clone type ability.

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd dead apple #dead apple #bsd analysis #bungou stray dogs analysis #posted this also on reddit but. i forgor to post it on here. whoopsie.#glad i got this all written out though #like a weight lifted from my shoulders #this is actually longer than the reddit version so rejoice! you're getting the premium version #here's to hoping it shows up in the tags! 🙏🏻#suzenanalysis

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stardust-sunset · 2 months

Note

Fluffy holiday headcanons? Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, any holiday you’d like ❤️🎞️

Oh I got you! I’ll do as many holidays as I can think of (including birthdays-this is gonna be an uber long post but i’ll organize it by months

January

Darry’s birthday

Those two will wake Darry up by jumping on his bed because there just SO damn excited (they used to do this as kids more so than now because they realize Darry needs to sleep-

They convinced Dally and Two Bit to dig up info on Darry’s boss so they could blackmail him into giving Darry the day off with pay 💀

They purposefully turn his alarm off in the middle of the night and then he freaks out because he overslept and Pony/Soda has to calm him down by telling him what they did (he was a mix of concerned, a bit angry and lowkey impressed

They don’t let Darry do anything on his birthday like the will straight up shove him into his chair and push a newspaper at him while they do all the chores that day

They deep cleaned the house while he was sleeping (they even snuck into his room and dusted everything and polished all his trophies (They were so super careful with those)

Speaking of trophies, side headcanon that Darry pawned away his football trophies and uniform to make more money because money was uber tight around this time and Soda/Pony made Dally break in and get (steal) them back (Dally went to jail and he was very mad)

Darry bawled and didn’t even care at that point he was so grateful

Soda and Pony have to buy a cake because they almost burned the house down trying to make one (Soda got distracted and left the cake in the oven for so long it caught fire and Pony forgot about it-

They don’t let Darry leave the house tho (they also don’t tell him Soda got a speeding ticket)

They literally tried to make like a five course meal but at that point they just ended up making a bunch of random appetizers and some tacos or something-Darry didn’t care tho he was honored

Pony in the future takes up two jobs (he waits tables with Johnny and works at the library) and him and Soda save up to buy him whatever they can that they think he’d like

Its mostly a bunch of stuff from his favorite football team and they buy him new work boots

They also bought him a chinchilla once (Darry loves chinchillas tell me otherwise) and Darry was just so happy

They insist on cuddling with him that night and at that point he feels so spoiled but he can’t even say no 😭

They all end up snuggled in his bed with Darry in the middle-he’s genuinely so happy and it’s one of the only days he looks forward to

February

Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s day is not just for romance! It’s about spreading love to everyone you love including friends and family

The three Curtises definitely leave little things in each others rooms like they’ll scatter those chocolate hearts in each others rooms-Pony does it when Darry and Soda are at work, Soda does it at night when Darry and Pony are sleeping and Darry does it right before he leaves in the morning for work

They all end up buying one gift for each other-it’s never really a “big” gift but it’s something to show they love each other

Soda and Darry both get Pony books-Darry even saved up to buy Pony a little polaroid camera and Pony’s side of the room is littered with pictures of him and Johnny and him with the gang and just sunset pictures. It makes Soda and Darry so happy to see

Pony and Darry get Soda those giant chocolate things 😭 They know bro is absolutely food motivated but then he ends up eating the whole thing in one sitting and getting sick-they also get him stupid little toys they find. Soda would love those stretchy guys the dentist gives you as a kid He also likes fidgeting so they get him little fidget toys (him and Steve goof off at work with them and have gotten them confiscated 😔)They get him a lot of horse themed things too!

Pony and Soda get Darry little football figurines and stuff-one time they actually managed to scrape together the cash to get him tickets to go see a game-they could only buy one tho but Darry had the time of his life and actually looked his age for once when he came back.

Soda makes cringy little “roses are red violets are blue i think you’re great and I love you” type poems and writes them on hearts and hides them around the house for his brothers

Pony writes both of his brothers a very personalized poem-it’s so complex and honestly Soda and Darry are both uber impressed with his writing skills

Darry leaves little doodles around the house of things he laments on them doing as kids-he sketches one picture before bed every night (not even just on Valentine’s Day but as a coping mechanism as well) and the whole month of February he straight up draws the most beautiful pictures of them hugging and them as kids-Soda and Pony keep them in a drawer. Darry found said drawer and almost cried because he didn’t think anyone saw them or kept them

Every year they do a little tribute to their parents because they loved them-they’ll put a heart shaped piece of paper on their bed and a few roses and daffodils in their bedroom

They all eat little candy hearts in Darry’s bed before falling asleep

March

St. Patrick’s Day

Okay so this is more so when they were younger because I feel like St. Patrick’s Day is more so a holiday for kids but still-

Soda makes green pancakes. He makes a bunch of green food and even dyes their milk green (he also dyes the toilet water green)

Dont let him have any food dye

I feel like the three boys used to set up Leprechaun traps a lot and Mr/Mrs Curtis would buy those little gold chocolate coins and scatter them around to make it look like a Leprechaun was actually in the house lol-they also wrote some note like “better luck next year!” In shitty green marker and Pony used to get so mad-he literally guarded the traps all night because he was determined to catch one but he fell asleep and had to be carried to bed 😭

Even when Darry grew out of believing in Leprechauns he never told Soda and Pony and always helped them make traps

I feel like the first one after their parents death was really sad so Darry just coerced Pony into making more Leprechauns traps (which he begrudgingly does because “I’m thirteen now I know it was just mom and dad” but Darry spent all night doing what his parents did just to make Pony smile. He never tells Pony (Pony probably knows it’s Darry but it still made him cry)

I feel like Soda helped out but he insisted on making it ‘more mischievous’ so he put green handprints and footprints on the ground and Darry FREAKED OUT when he saw 😭 literally took Soda outside and was like “ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS” (he didn’t care much he just didn’t want the floors and sinks to be ruined 💀)

They definitely but those little chocolate coins and just spend the whole day eating them. Soda and Darry sneak some into Pony’s lunch and Soda and Pony do the same with Darry and Pony and Darry do the same with Soda <3

I don’t have much since St. Patrick’s day isn’t very like….popular? But I feel like Soda would wear a Leprechaun hat (he pulls it off somehow. Fuck him fr)

Darry lets Soda dye the food green but half the time it just turns the food diarrhea colored because he tried to dye meat

April

Easter

similarly to St. Patrick’s Day I feel like this is also a holiday more for kids (I mean without the religious aspect of course) but the Curtis boys (Soda mainly) LOVE dyeing and decorating eggs

Pony cannot stand the smell of vinegar tho so it’s hard for him (he uses a clothespin to keep his nose shut, dumbass) but he loves doing it too

I feel like Darry would be super simplistic. He dyes his eggs one or two colors and lets it dry before doing the most articulate sharpie art on the eggs. Like it’s this mosaic type shit in Sharpie and Pony and Soda are so impressed

Soda’s are always like-every color they can be and then some because he uses colorful markers on them. If a rainbow threw up on an egg that’s what Soda’s would look like. He also loves putting googly eyes on them and he even makes little paper hats for his and uses pipe cleaners to make arms and legs 😭

Pony’s actually look so beautiful. He loves the warm colors and likes to make his look like scenery. Like he’ll dye his eggs sunset colors and then use markers to paint mountains and trees and whatever else. Darry and Pony are super artistic-Soda just likes making his look like what he enjoys and his brothers have no problem with it

They line the eggs up around the house so that it feels more holiday like

All three Curtis brothers are suckers for candy and chocolate (obviously) so they spend their grocery budget that week on chocolate bunnies and peeps (Soda is the only one who likes them but they buy them for him)

Pony and Soda have both given themselves stomachaches and Darry has to take care of them 😭

I feel like the Curtis parents used to buy like fake bunny feet prints and would put them around the house when they were kids

They definitely have Easter egg hunts. They do these with the whole gang (Dally never finds any, he just sneaks behind people and takes theirs from their baskets)

Theres never a prize or anything because Darry’s the one who hides them so he doesn’t really participate but they combine all the candy from the eggs and they just sit on the floor and devour the candy

Darry buys a ham. All three Curtises LOVE ham but they never really have enough money to buy one often so you better believe these three boys are eating the whole entire thing and not leaving leftovers

Darry makes mac and cheese too (someone said he was a mac and cheese guy. I love that) and it’s a fun night for all of them

Theyre all like way too full in the end but nobody really minds much. They enjoy nights where they can pig out a bit lol

July

July 4th

ohhhhh boy

These boys LOVE July 4th (Especially Soda)

The whole gang goes down to a lake for the day to just chill out for a bit

Darry brings hot dogs and hamburgers and the gang fucks with them so hard, they all love barbecue

They also love Sparklers (especially Pony because Ponyboy is a wee bit of a pyromaniac

Soda always gets scared by them when they light up because it takes a minute and he always throws it right over Darry’s head. He almost made him catch fire like more than once

“Sorry Dar I got scared 😨” “It’s fine” he says while patting the small fire out of his hair

Pony likes writing on trees with the burnt ends of the sparkler. He thinks it makes him tuff (loser)

I feel like they either bring down hot dogs and hamburgers or they just buy like five pounds of steak

Likley the latter because they are pure carnivores

Dally buys illegal fireworks but Darry actually does have a license so he shoots them off by the lake (they all go diving for the pieces of the fireworks after-they make it a game)

I feel like Soda would buy those obnoxious Uncle Sam hats but I’m not sure if he’d pull that one off (sorry Soda)

They spend most of the day in the lake-all three brothers love swimming. Soda loves doing those weird dolphin dives into the water but whenever he comes up from the water he’s like…glistening. Darry likes anything that can show off his strength so he loves to swim. Pony gets tired kinda easily in the water because he goes HARD in the water and then like fifteem minutes later he’s clinging to Darry’s back

Swimming definitely makes them all hungry as fuck too so they end up somehow devouring all five pounds of steak

Soda goes into the water again but ends up crawling back because he got cramps

The lake is also right by the west side so they like to just sit back with each other and watch the fireworks from the lake

They throw the scraps back on the west side tho because they hate that they just leave their litter there

One of them definitely gets bit by like a snapping turtle or something

I feel like 4th of July isn’t really a holiday to them, more so a day they can go to the lake and pig out on steaks lol

Pony’s birthday

I feel like Pony doesn’t really like his birthday because his fourteenth and fifteenth birthdays must have been super hard for him (plus it’s around the time the book events happen and it just makes him depressed)

But Darry and Soda do anything they can to make him happy-Darry skips work for the day and Soda does too

Darry lets him sleep in (usually he has Pint wake up at 8 or 9 on weekends so he’s on some sort of sleep schedule but he’ll cut him slack on his birthday)

I feel like the two of them stay up super late decorating the house for him too-they tie balloons to his seat and they have little homemade banners (they do this for all the Curtises birthdays) and Pony gets so surprised every time because he thinks he’s too old for it-

Soda even made cupcakes (i headcanon Soda as a good baker-I know in the book Pony said he liked Darry’s cakes better because Soda puts too much sugar in the icing but I feel like that’s just because Soda likes it super sweet) but he knows Pony doesn’t like it too sweet so he’s careful with how much sugar he puts in

Darry brings Pony a cupcake when he wakes up (after Soda starts calling for Darry like “can you get him a cupcake I don’t wanna get up :(“ but they both sit with him as he sleepily eats the cupcake and is like “thanks guys” while snuggling into them as a thank you 😭 they better not say anything tho because if they do he stops immediately and is like “I ain’t a baby quit babying me i’m fifteen now not four 😡😡”

They seriously just let him do what he wants all day-if he wants to read with them they do that. If he wants to show them a movie or go to the drive in, they do that (and if he wants to bring Johnny or Two Bit they pick them up if they’re up for going. If he wants to just lay down for a bit they’re snuggling him together

Darry definitely brings them all to Dairy Queen for lunch and spoils the hell out of Pony-he gets him one of those ice cream things (Blizzards? Is that what they’re called?) and makes sure he gets the biggest one there and he lets Pony get jowever much food he wants-Pony has eyes bigger than his stomach tho and ends up needing to lay down for a bit lmao

But in the end they take him to the pool at the Y to help work his appetite back because Darry always makes Pony’s favorite meal for dinner (he had a feeling Ponybwould end up feeling like shit so they take him out early in the morning so he has time to digest it all lmao) but anyway, he loves swimming SO much and gets so excited whenever they go to the pool

He likes laying on his back and just floating for a bit until he bumps into Darry who just stares down at him and laughs-Soda also pushes on his stomach/chest and shoves him under and Pony’s just like “hey 😡😡” he doesn’t actually care though he just jumps on Soda’s back and they start wrestling while Darry just watches

They’re there for basically the whole day and they’re all hungry in the end so while Pony and Soda are washing off Darry is making steaks for Pony’s birthday (Pony LOVES barbecue)

After dinner they let him open his gifts and he’s so grateful for all of them-he actually gets really nice gifts-he got a bunch of camera film for his polaroid (polaroids were invented in 1948 so i’m safe), they get him a bunch of books from his favorite authors (which Pony stays up all night reading) and they get him some art supplies because it’s a healthy way he copes with his trauma and they’re more than happy to support him!

They then go in Darry’s pickup truck and Dary lets Soda/Pong sit in the back (like in th cart the truck drags along) and he just goes for a long drive while the sun sets and Ponybid SO happy-he gets happier when Darry tells him he looks tuff with his wind blown hair too

They end the night with chocolate cake with sprinkles inside and by cuddling, Pony in the middle and Soda/Darry just holding him 💜

October

Soda’s birthday

Soda LOVES his birthday because he loves the attention 😭 He’s so happy when he realizes the day is all about him-

Pony and Darry go CRAZY decorating because Soda literally walks downstairs and acts like he’s witnessing the greatest thing ever-he looks like a kid in a candy shop and he literally puts his brothers in a BONE crushing hug and he flat out starts crying 😭😭

Steve takes Soda’s shift for him because he’s nice like that on occasion (but Soda you owe me in April when it’s my birthday 😡😡”) so Soda can just stay home all day

Darry stays home from work too and depending on what Pony is doing in school he’ll let him kiss the day if he doesn’t have tests or anything (Pony lies a lot unless it’s a class he doesn’t wanna make the test up for)

Soda is just so happy and he makes Pony cuddle him for a few extra moments and Pony doesn’t mind until he’s like “Soda I need to pee” “Just go here I don’t wanna let go :(“ “NO”

Pony goes back because Soda starts fake crying lmao

They get him out of bed and they prepare themselves to match Soda’s energy for the day because he just really loves that his birthday is in fall and he loves doing all the fall things on his birthday (apple/pumpkin picking, playing around in the leaves, that sort of thing

Soda loves apple picking evacuee he can climb up the trees and just get the apples from the top-plus they’re his favorite fruit but Darry has to keep being like “Soda save room for dinner” but Soda doesn’t care lol

He loves going on hay rides at the pumpkin patches, he doesn’t care he’s turning 17 or 18, he’ll be giggling like a kid and like “LOOK AT THE HORSES!” (the horses wee pulling the hay barrel)

They take him to the petting zoo too but it backfires when he got emotionally attached to one of the lambs :(

They let him stay however long he wants and he’s just so happy because one of the lambs curled on his lap and fell asleep and he was just like “😮🥹” like bro was so close to crying-

He got a bit distracted by the horses too and Darry bought food for him to feed them-Soda has a way with animals and probably accidentally made several kids cry because they wouldn’t leave Soda alone and kept ignoring the kids/Darry didn’t have the heart to pull him away tho

When they get home Darry makes beef stew because Soda LOVES beef stew-Soda loves hearty fall foods.

He’s learned to make two pots because Soda straight up will eat all of it and leave nothing for anyone else lol

After they eat they give Soda gifts-he insists he doesn’t want anything but he also doesn’t protest being spoiled a bit lol

They get him a bunch of things he can build-he’s super good at what he does with cars and he really loves building things and taking things apart, so they get him like…3d puzzles and figurines he can build and he absolutely loves it and is so so happy <3

They know Soda loves his snuggles so Ponyboy will lay on top of him and Darry just envelopes him in this tight bone crushing hug-many happy tears are shed

Halloween

The Curtises honestly don’t do much for Halloween (except Soda, Soda LOVES Halloween and dressing up

Him and Steve dress up to go to work-Soda usually goes fully dressed as a zombie and Steve a werewolf (he even has a mask and a tail)-Soda’s able to charm his bosses into not being mad though and they actually manage to pull it off and they have good sales because people think it’s funny

I feel like Pony and Darry aren’t as into it-Pony doesn’t go trick or treating because “it’s for kids” so he usually hangs out with Dally and Johnny for the night and dresses like Paul Newman (of course he does-he actually pulls it off tho) Johnny probably just wears all black and Dally buys a scream mask and waits in bushes for kids to come out and they just steal the kids candy after they drop it because Dally is a dick and scares them 😭

Darry hands out candy and actually kinda gets into it because he’s super good with kids-he puts on a flannel and is just like “fine I’m Paul Bunyan”-he loves handing out candy tho and he’ll be super swwwgblike “oh wow that’s a scary ghost costume, you almost scared the life outta me!” like he just plays into it and he really does enjoy

Steve, Soda and Two Bit go trick or treating and of course Soda has his natural charm and girls bring him candy at work that day lol-Darry deals with similar stuff but he roofs this super sweet old lady’s home and she’s like “oh we don’t get kids often…do you want some candy young man?” and he’s like…trying to refuse but she keeps insisting and he eventually gives in 😭

So that night Darry comes home from work with a bag of candy and the leftover candy from handing it out, Pony comes beck with candy Dally gave him after he jumped kids for it and Soda brings back the mother load of candy

The three of them just eat candy together and watch scary movies (not really scary-think like Lifetime horror movies)

Pony likes chocolates, Sosa loves sour stuff and Darey enjoys just about anything, but he’s a sucker for chocolates with stuff inside (like Reese’s cups/Milky Ways)

One of them (all three of them) end up with stomachaches but it’s all good and they have a good night

November

Thanksgiving

The whole gang LOVES Thanksgiving

They used to do things before the holiday-every day in November they have the whole gang write something they’re thankful for and they put it in a jar to read at the table

Pony makes it heartfelt like “I’m grateful for my brothers and all they do for me”-Darry is the same way but after the book he gets really specific like “I’m thankful that Ponyboy is here with me and supports me after work” “I’m thankful for Sodapop and his endless snuggles even if it seems like I don’t want it”-Soda is kinda hit or miss, sometimes he’ll put something in but sometimes it’ll be like “I’m thankful for cheese puffs” and they’re like “Soda really 😒”

Everyone thinks Darry would cook everything by himself but I think that only happens after Pony insists on making the turkey and Darry’s like “Okay but you have to gut it” and Pony’s like “fine” but he takes one look inside and throws up and Soda kept sneaking food and then got sick because he ate raw turkey

Soda got banned and Pony refused to go back in

They all make the stuffing together tho and it turns into a bit of a food fight lol-they’re all laughing and having fun

They invite the gang over and Dally gets so mad that Darry makes them do the whole “what are you thankful for” ritual and eventually just literally reaches over the table and grabs a drumstick and eats it and Darry’s so done

They have to kinda coax Johnny into eating sometimes because he doesn’t wanna be seen as greedy but a few bites later and it’s so good he can’t resist anymore and just devours half a turkey by himself

Pony stocks up on rolls and mashed potatoes-he loves turkey too but he will eat an entire pound of mashed potatoes by himself and he has

They’re all lowkey gross at the table like Dally literally just burps so fucking loud because he has to announce to everyone that he’s finished and Darry is just so done with him lmao

In the end they all just drag themselves to the couch-there’s literally no leftovers either that’s how much they eat. They’re seven teenage boys lol

Darry likes watching football but even then he’s so sluggish and full he can’t even focus on it lol

They all have a gigantic cuddle pile and they’re all whining about how full they are, it’s so sad

Johnny is not used to being full at all and he’s so embarrassed because he ate SO much and everyone is teasing him and Pony specifically because they’re so small but they packed away the most and Johnny ends up with super bad hiccups and that just leads to more teasing and he’s just like “shut up guys”

Theyre gross so they probably end up having annual burping contests. Johnny is of course undefeated and Dally storms off to god knows where after

When everyone leaves the Curtises are so full they can’t even go upstairs so they just lay on the couch and it’s so bad that it takes the next day to fully digest it all too 😭

This is probably their favorite or second favorite holiday.

December

Christmas

Their favorite holiday is Christmas honestly

They absolutely LOVE the preparation beforehand of baking Christmas cookies and putting up a little tree with decorations

They can’t really buy a tree but they have this fake tree that they have put up every year since Darry was a baby-it’s still somehow in tact

Mr. and Mrs. Curtis didn’t have a lot of money so they made a star out of cinnamon sticks that they used instead

The Curtises cherish that star and put two angels right next to it too to symbolize they haven’t forgotten their parents or their traditions

Additionally I feel like Mr. Curtis was the one who made the cookies with the boys while Mrs. Curtis would decorate

As kids they would take turns making a cookie, like Darry would help make oatmeal raisin or something, Soda would make snickerdoodles and Pony would make sugar cookies, they would just alternate like that

But now that their parent are dead they all just do it together

Soda gets banned because he keeps stealing dough (They’re all guilty of this tho, even Darry)

They all end up eating too much and Pony and Soda are SO whiny- “Darryyyyy why did you let us eat that much..?” “You’re the one who kept sneaking it!”

They actually end up pretty good in the end and give them out to the gang

Darry’s an oatmeal raisin kind of guy-Soda likes snickerdoodles, Pony likes sugar cookies, Johnny likes chocolate chip, Dally likes those cookies with jelly in the middle, Teo Bit is the kind of menace to love those frosted ones and Steve likes those half chocolate half vanilla ones with the hershey kiss in the middle so they make a lot of those and the whole gang is there on Christmas day just eating the cookies and watching shitty movies 💜

Christmas Eve the Curtises don’t really like meeting up with the gang because they feel it’s a day for them and them alone-it’s the only day Darry actually makes them go to church and Soda HATES it-he just cannot sit still that long, and he gets bored during prayer sermons-Darry actually enjoys going but he usually doesn’t like-seek out going and Pony finds it serene and it gives him closure honestly

They also do that thing where they open one gift the night before-I feel like the year their parents died and money was super tight it ended up being like the Gift of the Magi-they all bought each other something but Darry sold his football uniform to get Soda and Pony something, Pony sold an exclusive book collection his parents bought him and Soda sold the horse saddle he used to ride Mickey Mouse-Darry bought Pony a little bookshelf, Soda bought Pony some pretty fancy figurines of the book characters, Darry bought Soda a mantle to put the saddle on and Pony bought him a horse statue to build and put the saddle on, Pony bought Darry some cleats and Soda bought him a helmet embroidered with his father’s words to him and all three of them sold their most valuable things to buy those for each other and they just cry for a bit

On a lighter note they all but each other joke gifts-at Pony’s school they have a sale where they just sell old junk nobody wants and Pony gathers the most random shit. Darry has a tiki statue in his room and Soda got a lamp with a mysterious brown stain on it (based off actual events)

They have turkey and ham because the gang comes over on Christmas and all of them are actually like-very food invested lmao

athey all cuddle by the fireplace and pass around secret santa gifts (they do Secret Santa Im calling it)

New Year’s Eve

They have their own little traditions! Darry makes appetizers (like jalapeño poppers and nachos) and they make 24, every hour they eat one together as a way to count down

I feel like they don’t do much during the day besides just go about their normal activities. Darry and Soda both get off early (Pong brings them bits of appetizers each hour to keep the tradition going because they did this with the Curtis parents and little bro hates change-

Darry and Soda get off at like…2 or 3 and that’s when things get fun

Theybhave game nights! Game nights usually don’t end well and this is no exception-

Teh first game they try to play is monopoly but Soda gets impulsive and that makes it easy to swindle him out of stuff so he’s the first one to go bankrupt and lose-it’s Pony and Darry that butt heads lmao

Darry is really good at swindling Ponyboy out of money and whatnot and Pony gets SO pissed- “Darry I want a refund 😡” like I know someone (Pony) walks away crying-

Pony has learned Darry’s tactics over the year and is VERY good at lying so he manages to swindle Darry this time and Darry is actually proud until he realizes he lost and then he flips the board lmao

They have other games they love to play too-they play cards as well but Soda is banned from playing War because he always peeks at his cards

Theh stop playing games after a while to watch the ball drop

They do a little reflection thing yearly-like “my name is ____ I’m ____ years old, I’m in the _____ grade, my favorite color is ____ my favorite food is _____ my favorite toy/game is _____ my favorite color is _____”-Mrs. Curtis made them do this but they agreed to keep the tradition going evacsue they thought it was cool to look back at their younger selves and see how they’ve changed

They read out past ones to each other and they get to the ones like “My favorite memory is _____, the funniest thing that’s happened this year was _____, I love _____ about my brothers” and the three of them are HOWLING because reading back on them they just love remembering and such-it’s bittersweet.

New Year’s eve is the one night Soda can stay up later than like-9:30 (Bro has a bed time-it’s not Darry that gave it to him, Soda just appointed himself a bed time and if he isn’t in bed by then he becomes a bitch) but New Years Eve is the one time a year he’s okay with staying up

Darry lets Pony and Soda have a champagne glass too and they all hug when the ball drops and then they just pas sour on the couch lol

Hope these are good!! I did a lot-

#the outsiders #ponyboy curtis #sodapop curtis #darry curtis #darrel curtis #johnny cade #dally winston #dallas winston #two bit mathews #steve randle #the outsiders headcanons

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thefandomenchantress · 20 days

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A Very Long Morgie Analysis

Warning: As the title says, this is a very, very long post. You should fear that keep reading button. /j

So I watched Descendants 4 with pretty low expectations a week or so ago, since I heard a lot of people criticizing the film. I’d watched the first three Descendants and thought they were a very fun kind of over the top, and figured that this one would be similarly kinda cheesy but hopefully in a charming way.

The first time I watched the film, I liked it. While I thought the beginning of the movie’s plot dragged slightly only for a far too hasty conclusion, I figured that with a supposed part 2 coming, things could possibly wrap up nicely in the future. That was my mindset throughout almost the entire film…Until suddenly Morgie got a scene.

This is a post mainly for people who’ve seen the film, but just in case I’ll explain the scene. Morgie, son of Morgana, is assigned as look-out during the villain heist. He then makes an amusing comment about what the signal should be if he sees Merlin, and no one answers him. We leave his character for a bit before coming back when Merlin returns to his office, about to catch the villains. Morgie does his signal as planned, and when Merlin looks at him, he hides behind a branch as though that’s going to do literally anything to hide him.

By the end of his little dose of screen time, I was quite amused and wondered how I hadn’t really noticed him earlier in the film, since his character archetype seemed right up my alley. After a day or two, my curiosity peaked and I decided to watch the movie again, but this time pay lots of attention to him whenever he was in a scene. I both wanted to appreciate his character more as well as reevaluate the movie after my first viewing, wanting to decide if it really was ‘bad’ like people said it was (spoiler alert: I had fun watching it the second time as well, while it is flawed it’s a fun movie and I like it and I will die on this hill—).

On my second watch, I realized that Morgie is surprisingly pretty well-characterized for a character that doesn’t have too many speaking lines. And I really wanted to hyper-analyze his character and all that, so now I’m making a very long post about it. I really just need to ramble for a bit because for some reason I have become deeply fixated on this character and NEED to blurt out all my thoughts.

So without further ado, how about we watch this movie for a third time and point out every single little thing about Morgie and appreciate it? Let's go!

(There's also my theory about how the new and old timelines work below all the movie analysis, in case anyone just wants to see that).

YAY HE SAID HIS FIRST LINE WOOOO!!! After a whole 48 minutes, the best character has finally entered the movie /j.

Now on to actual thoughts and stuff. Morgie's first ever words in this film are, "Son of morgana", which, from an out-of-universe perspective, can be easily explained by the movie needing us to know who he is, since he's one of the two completely unheard-of characters in the villain gang.

But Uliana, notably, only has her relation to Ursula mentioned after her verse. So the "son of morgana" line didn't have to be the first thing to ever be said by him, but it is.

That could just be because it flows best from a music standpoint, but in-universe, I think it could possibly represent how Morgie got into the villain gang in the first place.

You see, while I was trying to dig up all the Morgie information available before I made this post, I found these blurbs:

(From an official Descendents book, 98% sure it's called "Descendants: The World Of Auradon: Royals And Villains").

Notably, Morgie's entry says he isn't the most well-liked in the group. But in that case...How is he still in the group??? The villain gang don't exactly seem like the types to keep someone around just to be nice. So here's what I think the reason is.

Uliana wants to be the most feared person at the school. She wants to surpass even her sister when it comes to being mean and scary. And that means that her gang has to be mean and scary. And when she hears that the literal son of Morgana--Morgana, in this universe, seems to be a very powerful sorceress who almost took over the world--is attending her school, she knows that having him on her side will definitely give her more of a powerful, evil image. Afterall, if the son of one of the most powerful villains was willing to follow her, people would think that she must be very mean and scary.

Of course, she needs people to know that Morgie is the son of Morgana, so I wouldn't be surprised if she asked him to mention it the first chance he got, and he listened to her.

This was all a very long way of saying that Morgie says this line first possibly because Uliana told him to, since having evil, scary people on her side makes her look better. And it's also interesting that the first words he ever speaks are about his relation to someone else, not his own character, unlike all the others in his group.

But we're not done with this shot yet! I also want to add that the Son of Morgana's name is Morgie, which means that Morgana has joined the long, long line of Descendents villains who basically just name their children after themselves, (probably because they view them as a sort of mini-me). I wouldn't be surprised if his name was actually Morgan, though, and Morgie's just a nickname.

Also, something I noticed is that, if you look at the book-pictures above again, Morgie's paragraph is in past tense, while Morgana's is in present tense. Morgie's being in the past tense makes sense, since we know that in the future, the villain gang in Rise of Red no longer exists, all of them being their own solo acts. But Morgana's paragraph being in present tense means that she is still alive, powerful, and presumably still wants to take over the world. So I guess that means she's technically a candidate for antagonist in the next movie. But I'll get back to speculation about that sort of thing later.

Now we can finally talk about the next moment, haha.

(Morgie is the one singing the line here)

The first time I watched this I didn't catch that he called Uliana hot but--Yeah, he did. Which means that he either thinks she's so hot he must declare it to random strangers, or Uliana specifically asked him to say that she's hot. Either way it's kind of hilarious.

I am genuinely unsure as to whether they are trying to get us to ship Morgie and Uliana because:

-On one hand, we've got Morgie not being well-liked, and him "desperately wanting Uliana to like and respect him". Which seems to imply that, at least to some extent, she does not like or respect him, or at least not as much as Morgie wants her to.

-But on the other hand, we've got Morgie calling her hot, staring at her longingly, and Uliana calling him 'honey' later in the movie. Disney what do you want from us--

Personally, after reading that Morgana is cruel person who doesn't care about innocent people and who's first priority is world domination, I guessed that Morgie probably didn't have the most loving upbringing. It could've possibly been something like Red's, where his mother could be 'kind', but only if he did what she said and helped her take over the world and all that. In this scenario, Morgie tries his best to follow her lead, but most of the time still doesn't do well enough to satisfy her and fails to get much validation or love from her. When he goes off to school, he tries to get validation and love and respect and all that from Uliana instead.

But that interpretation sort of implies he sees her as a stand-in mother figure, which makes me think that no, them being a couple doesn't feel quite right.

But it's not like that interpretation is canon or anything, it's just something I came up with. So it can't prove that he has no romantic interest in Uliana and that's why he's so desperate to please her. But I did want to share my thoughts on that matter, so here you go. :)

Aside from Morgie getting hit by Uliana's tentacle and falling over being really funny, there is something else interesting that this moment made me notice.

I read somewhere that a character being lower in frame than another, or lower from a high angle in general, can symbolize them being less powerful. And I noticed that there are a few scenes where Morgie does crouch or appear at a lower angle than the other villain gang members, which reinforces the idea that he isn't the most powerful/well-liked member and is at the bottom of the totem pole in the group.

I don't know if I'm reading into that too much, and I don't know a lot about film-making techniques so maybe that's not completely accurate, but I thought that was interesting.

There's nothing too important about this one, I just think that all the villains frowning or glaring while Morgie goes :D is really funny. He looks so head-empty in this moment.

Morgie uses 80's slang confirmed!!

Also, Uliana lets Morgie call her Uli. Considering the fact that Uliana says her full name (Uliana) is what will strike fear into people's hearts, her letting Morgie use a semi-cute nickname is fun. It proves they're at least a little close, since she didn't sock him in the face for calling her that, especially in public. She cares a lot about her image, so her not minding definitely seems to imply she cares for him at least a little bit.

I don't have much to say about this one, I just think it's amusing.

Though the fact that so much of Morgie's dialogue can go unheard/unnoticed without captions on or on a first viewing is interesting. I couldn't actually hear the 'wicked' line, I'm just trusting the captions. And both this line and the last he says while not on-screen, which seems to put the other's reactions in more of a spotlight than what he's saying.

I suppose this is part of the reason I found Morgie harder to notice and keep track of when I wasn't putting my undivided attention on him. Throughout a good chunk of the movie, he's treated as nothing more than Uliana's lackey. Him not having too much to do besides follow her is true to his character, though. His entire role is all based around doing anything to gain her affection. He cares about her more than anything, and sometimes that leads to him not being a character of his own. Which is pretty cool, if done purposefully.

Hm, I've noticed that Morgie's main ship in this fandom seems to be Hook and him, and is this one moment the reason for that? I've heard people say they have chemistry on-screen, but after watching the movie a few times, they only have a few close moments from what I can see. This and introducing Uliana are probably where their friendship is most prominent. Hook and Morgie definitely seem the most dedicated to Uliana, so they are similar in that regard. And the ship is cool, don't get me wrong. I suppose I just wonder if there's some sort of logic behind it, or if it was more of a "ah yes two conventionally attractive men it's shipping time" situation, haha.

This is an interesting frame, because Uliana is suffering as she's turned into a...uh...flamingo-squid-human hybrid? And you'd think that Morgie, since he cares so much about her, would be the most distressed. Instead, in this moment he seems to be smiling (not sure if you can tell as much in this screenshot, though). This could mean a few things:

As stated in the Descendents book, Morgie is rather dense and still hasn't realized that Uliana isn't fooling around anymore and is in genuine distress.

He is happy Uliana is in distress because that means he gets to help her, and she will feel grateful for that and like him more in result.

As shown later in the movie, he likes animals enough to even learn how to mimic the sounds they make, so he's just happy that two of his favorite things are being combined, haha.

Some sort of theory about him secretly not being super loyal to her, though there's not much of a case you could make for that other than this moment in particular, as far as I'm aware.

I'm not sure which one I believe, though I think I'm probably leaning towards the first one, even though possibility 2 would be quite interesting. After all, he looks very visibly worried when she falls into the fountain later, so him just not realizing at first probably lines up the most.

Not too much to say about these two moments, besides the fact that they once again showcase how desperate Morgie is to please Uliana. First by him being the first person to try to help her (but he fails and falls over, which he seems to do a lot). And second by him being the first to sprint out of the courtyard after her. Though it seems Hook caught up and got him to stay with the others to cut off Bridget and Ella at the other side, since we don't see him running behind Uliana anymore in the next shot, and then we see him standing beside Hades after we move to the fountain scene, implying he went the way Hades did instead.

(Side note, I think that Morgie's the one who shouts 'Uli!' but the captions just say student so maybe not, I can't tell).

Okay, so, the captions claim that Hook says this line, but not only can we see that Hook has his mouth shut as he pushes branches out of the way, not speaking, the voice also sounds way more like Morgie to me. Originally, I was going to use the nickname Uli as evidence that it was Morgie, but then I remembered Hook also calls her Uli earlier in the movie. So I guess I can't prove anything, but I'm 99% sure this was a mistake on the caption-er people's part.

To get on with the actual scene, Morgie compliments Uliana in an attempt to comfort and please her, though it doesn't seem to work like he'd hoped it would. Other than the last scene of the movie, this is probably the only scene that remotely shows that maybe she doesn't like him as much as some of the others, like the book claims. But more on that later.

I had a hard time getting a good frame of it, but I wanted to point out that Morgie kinda froggy-hops on the first two stones in this scene, before jumping across them normally. Whether he stopped because he realized the others weren't doing it or because he simply remembered that he is Not A Frog, I found it to be a fun detail and wanted to point it out.

Pfft, he's so eager to participate, his worryingly excited vocal delivery never gets old to me here. You could also argue that this is another lower-in-the-frame moment, since he sort of crouches and then rises up here.

It's noteworthy that Morgie is the only one of Uliana's gang to not come up with his own idea for a way to get revenge on Bridget. Which at first glance seems like a strange choice, since all the members getting individual lines is a chance to characterize each one a little bit more. And that's especially valuable with a character like Morgie, since most kids probably don't know a lot about Arthurian legend and therefore Morgana. And Morgie's not even actually her, he's her son. Meaning in his limited screentime, they really need to put the effort in to make his general personality clear.

But the fact that Morgie just copies someone else's answer does characterize him. Like I said earlier, at least to me, Morgie seems a lot more eager to participate in the conversation than to come up with ways to punish Bridget for what she totally definitely did. In fact, he begins to climb on top of the rock-thingy to jump off it and excitedly repeat Hades' idea before Hades even has a chance to finish his thought (he's still on "we could"), meaning Morgie was probably going to excitedly parrot whatever Hades said no matter what it was (or maybe that just happened because the actor didn't have enough time to climb up, jump, and say the line if he waited until Hades finished speaking but shhhhhh).

This would imply that Morgie doesn't really care as much about evilly getting revenge and whatnot as much as he cares about getting to be included in the conversation and following what the others are doing. This may be getting into more headcanon-y territory, but Morgie seems to crave the love and companionship of his friends, and I think this scene sort of demonstrates his want to do what they deem as good and acceptable and what will make them happy rather than come up with anything on his own.

I suppose that's one thing that makes his character morally grey to some extent. Sure, he doesn't seem to take as much direct joy/satisfaction in torturing Bridget, but he still cares far more about his friends' approval than her well-being. As long as his friends are happy and want to keep him around, Bridget and anyone else's happiness doesn't matter.

I have no idea why they put in a random shot of Morgie jumping in the middle of the song, but it's really amusing to me so I'm happy they did. I just needed to mention this really quick, I find the hard cut to Morgie dramatically jumping off something way too humorous not to.

Off-topic, but since it's sort of implied Morgie likes animals at the end of the movie, I like to think he feeds this guy sometimes, and when asked why he'll say sadly, "No one comes here besides us anymore, so he hasn't been able to eat any innocent people in a long time :(" like it's this terrible, tragic backstory. Idk I just think it'd be funny. Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Ah yes, the scene I keep mentioning. The one that made me go, "woah, he's funny and has a discernable personality :0". The one where he asks what the signal should be and all that.

This scene finally shows us what the Descendents book from earlier kept claiming, that he wasn't the most well-liked among their evil clique. When Morgie talks, Uliana rolls her eyes in exasperation and walks off, not answering his questions. And the others follow suit, ignoring him.

For most of the film, Morgie seems to be on even ground with the other members, and at first, I thought maybe that wasn't on purpose and they just wanted to shove this in at the end, like how most of the ending was rushed. But now I'm thinking that maybe the reason Morgie isn't as well-liked is being shown throughout the scene, revealing why it's only more obvious now.

You see, Morgie's easily excitable personality fits in when Uliana and the gang are all just messing around, like how they were laughing and making jokes at someone else's expense earlier in the movie. Morgie just has to cackle evilly behind Uliana and be supportive. But when they try to do more 'serious' evil things, like this heist, his attitude doesn't translate quite as well.

Uliana wants to be taken seriously as the threat, and I assume the other villain gang members do as well. They want to be evil and scary and tough and all that. But Morgie doesn't really have a more serious, threatening mode. Well, he does, like when he's trying to be threatening during his introduction. But when there's no bystanders to impress, only his friends, the real Morgie isn't the serious type. He's still energetic and excitable, even in situations such as these. And the others find this a bit grating, since they want to be real villains. They don't want all of this to be childish or a game, they want to be taken seriously as villains. They want to be real villains. And Morgie's demeanor isn't as cut out for that sort of environment. Or at least his natural demeanor isn't, and he has trouble reading when they want him to be more serious.

Side-note: I swear I love every line this character delivers, something about the way he talks makes my ears happy. So I just wanted to point that out really quick.

"Ah yes, this extremely small branch will guarantee that no one will see me! >:D" I find this very funny. I want to say this isn't very smart of him, but I mean it works and Merlin doesn't see him so you can't argue with results--

Anyways, Morgie impersonates a few animals and hides behind a small tree branch. I thought about screenshotting all the animal noises but they're pretty straight-forward and for this you just need to acknowledge that they happened, so I didn't.

Morgie is the son of Morgana, and presumably has the capacity to be an extremely powerful magic-user like her. Which means there are a lot of cool magic things he could be doing. So I think the fact that we are directly shown that shape-shifting and mimicry are the skills he focuses his energy on the most, is important. Well, I suppose it's possible he isn't using magic to mimic the animals, but I've always assumed he is. And even if he isn't, the fact that even in scenes where he's completely alone he's still mimicking something else is rather telling.

...

...Oh, wow, we finished analyzing the actual movie! Yay! Time for one last thing, then!

Apparently, there was a deleted after-credits scene where Morgie finds the sorcerer's book. Unfortunately, I couldn't locate the original post, which supposedly came from Morgie's actor. It's not that I doubt it's real, I don't know how someone could fake this photo, but I would've liked to see it and know what he said about it.

(Warning, a lot of this gets even less objective than it already was, and most of it is just me theorizing with varying degrees of evidence to back my statements).

So what implications does this photo have? Well, it confirms my suspicions that Morgie being forced to stay behind wasn't for nothing and was setting up something else. I heard there was a lot of cut content in Rise of Red, and the fact they thought the 'Morgie barks like a dog scene' was important enough to keep over other things seemed telling.

If there was a scene dedicated to him finding the book, then him finding it must somehow be important. But in that case, I'm guessing we'd have to assume that Morgie can open the book. After all, if he can't open it, what's the point of him finding it? And it sort of ruins the original timeline, too.

If Morgie can't open the book, then that means all of the villain gang couldn't open it. And in that case, how would they prank Bridgette in the original timeline? They couldn't, because none of them would be able to read the recipe and give the cupcake to Bridgette.

However, if Morgie can open the book, then things make more sense. I wasn't sure if I was going to share my whole theory here, but so far I haven't seen anyone have the exact same idea as me (though I haven't read every Morgie post out there, so it's possible), so why not share it?

What if the thing that changes the timeline isn't that the villains were able to get the book without getting caught by Merlin, it's that the villain gang knew Morgie could open the book?

Let me explain.

Let's start with the fact that I don't think we often acknowledge, at least in my experience, how random of a choice putting Morgie in this movie was. They could've chosen any classic Disney villain to be in this movie, yet they chose Morgana. A character who has never even shown up in any Disney project, besides a live-action film and Sofia the First. They could've chosen to round out the pirate trio from the second movie and added in Gaston, or chosen one of the core four's parents from the first movie, or picked literally any famous character from any Disney movie ever. And yet, they decided to go with not just Morgana, but the son of Morgana.

And personally, I think that if Morgie really was just a throwaway character, they probably wouldn't have gone through the effort of making a whole new character instead of just choosing an already established one, like with Hook, Maleficent, and Hades. There has to be a reason they did this, right? Anything Morgie did in this movie could've been accomplished by anyone, since his only large contribution to the plot was being a look-out and failing.

And there are two things I realized. One, that being the child of a villain basically gives you automatic redemption arc privileges in this franchise. The core four, the pirate trio, and Red in this movie are all proven to be good deep down in the end, and we're supposed to see them as heroes. And for some reason, they decided their new character couldn't just be Morgana, it had to be the son of Morgana.

My guess is that they want to be able to push the "Oh their parents taught them that being evil is right but deep down they're a good person" angle they did in all the other movies with the Descendents. Especially since it would parallel Red, who's basically the main character of these movies, even if Chloe is at a close second.

The second thing I noticed is that even if you read just the first paragraph of Morgana Le Fay's Wikipedia page, it says that a significant aspect of her character is her unpredictability when it comes to being good or evil. She has the potential for both, and since they seem to have decided to just make Morgana evil in this universe, I'm guessing that trait is being handed down to Morgie.

They needed a morally ambiguous villain who could open the book in order for the timeline to work properly, and choosing a villain we know is 'evil' thanks to their movie, wouldn't allow that. So obscure villain's son it is.

Alright, so if we assume my logic makes sense and isn't just incoherent rambling, Morgie can open the book. How does this tie into the way Chloe and red changed the timeline? Here's what I've come up with:

In the new timeline, Red and Chloe steal the book for the villains and the villains take it, opening it in front of them just to brag and getting frozen. Red and Chloe take the book and, assuming that Uliana and her friends can't go to the dance, leave the book behind off-screen. In the deleted scene I think they left it...Is that their room? I genuinely can't tell, but Morgie finds it. Possibly via following them after seeing them leave the building, since we know that the trip from Red's room to Merlin's office is in direct eyeline of the tree.

But even though Morgie found the book, the prank isn't enacted in this timeline. If Morgie can open the book, why is that? After all, he could just do the prank for Uliana, right? Well, here's what i think happened:

Uliana and the gang don't know that the book is enchanted so that non-good people are unable to open it. That's why they try to open it without a second thought. Which means there are two possibilities going forward:

Morgie did indeed follow Red and Chloe back to their room so he could get the book back for Uliana, and overheard their conversation about how the book proves Red is a good person and won't turn out like her Mom, etcetera. When he finds it, he's aware of what could happen when he opens it, unlike his friends.

Morgie doesn't know about the enchantment on the book when he finds it, because he didn't follow them or couldn't hear them through the door or something else.

Both options, for my theory, garner the same outcome, it's just that things take slightly longer to happen.

If we go with the second option, Morgie is unaware that opening the book with no side effects means anything and after he opens it, he decides to show Uliana and the others the book whenever Merlin gets the spell off of them and all that. But when they do meet up, Morgie asks how they got caught before he shows them anything. And Uliana's answer would be something along the lines of, "That stupid book was enchanted and froze us in place! Only some goody-two-shoes could open it without that happening" (she would know because she heard Chloe's explanation of the spell when her and Red were talking). And Morgie takes a moment to process that...Uh oh, wait, that didn't happen to him. Why didn't that happen to him? Cue Morgie having an identity crisis as he realizes that the book doesn't seem to think he's a bad person, even though that's what he's supposed to be. He's the son of Morgana. He's part of a group that knows their actions are bad and they don't care. His entire motivations are around getting his mother, Uliana, and whoever else to give him validation for being good at being a villain.

But according to this book, he's not one.

Morgie tries to play it off and decides not to show them the book. Uliana and the gang are all about being evil, and they are all he has. What if this was the last straw and they kicked him out of the group because they think he's not evil enough? He'd have no one left.

He's decided that he can't tell them about the book, but what if they figure out that he has it? As long as he has the book, it's a liability. So, he does the only thing he can think of.

Burn it to a crisp.

And with the book destroyed, the prank can't happen. The recipe that can turn Bridget into a monster is no more.

If we went back to those first two options and say Morgie knew about the spell when he opened the book, then everything is the same except the book gets destroyed sooner, the night Morgie's friends are still frozen and won't be able to catch him actively sabotaging their revenge plans.

So that's the new red-and-Chloe timeline. What about the old timeline? Well, in that timeline, let's say Uliana doesn't feel the need to show off and open the book in front of Red and Chloe, so they escape Merlin's office unharmed. That means they get to meet up with Morgie, and whenever they open it, they're around to see that oh, Morgie isn't frozen, that's weird.

And they can't know for sure why, since they don't know what the enchantment is or what its qualifications are, but they do know that Morgie can read the recipe and do the revenge plan, so Morgie is able to read the instructions and they're able to prank Bridgette.

And ta-da! That's how the timeline got changed! At least in my mind, there are probably tons of other possibilities, but this is the one that made the most sense in my head.

And with that, the post is finally finished! I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts or ideas on this! Despite this being an analysis, a lot of it is dictated, at least slightly, by my own opinions. Morgie is the centerpiece of the timeline changes for a reason, haha. With such a large fanbase compared to some other pieces of media I like, I'd love to hear what the masses have come up with and like or disagree about in this post.

Thank you so much for reading if you've made it this far! I can only imagine that if you have read all this, you're some sort of Descendents or Morgie super-fan, and for that you have my respect.

#hopefully 'wicked' actually originated from the 80's or i've made a fool of myself #bonus headcanon: since morgie seems to have snake theming i like to imagine he has snake-like traits #he WILL go lie on that rock in the sun for hours at a time and you can't stop him #descendants #descendents 4 #rise of red #morgie le fay #descendants morgie #descendants rise of red #descendants the rise of red #descendants theory

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mistypsych · 1 year

Text

ANATOMY OF A CRIMINAL - CHAPTER 6

/ yoongi / suga / agust d

summary: as a doctor you never expected to be dragged into “the criminal life”, nothing and no one seems to be true anymore, your whole world turns upside down after you save him.

pairings: yoongi mob boss x f.reader x non idol bts members.

warnings: smut, guns, knives, stabbings, blood, gore, murders, drugs, criminals, gang life, medical emergency, illness, abuse, swearing, angst, dubcon, gang violence, corruption, manipulation, lies, cheating - 18+ minors dni.

Note: Hi! This is an attempt of writing a fanfic long after not writing anything at all. Please also keep in mind English is no longer my first language and it might be a bit rusty and odd at times but I try my best. Comments and thoughts are well appreciated. Don’t hesitate to ask questions, state your thoughts for me to post up and have me add you to the tag list!

He slightly tightened his hand around your neck earning a louder gasp this time. You swallowed nervously. It was like he could easily snap your neck if he wanted to, so why were your feeling the desire burn in you more with each second? Agust-D was a dangerous man, a man you should not be involved with in any way. As much as you did not feel intimidated by his pawns like Teahyung, he himself was another story. He scared you in many ways but also intrigued you and excited you, what made a very dangerous mix of emotions. One bound to finally explode.

Hearing you desperately take in air to your lungs, he smirked. He felt the slight tremble of your body. He was aware of the fear that was tangling up with the lust within you. He knew in one way you wanted to run but in another he was keeping you on your tiptoes. So he pulled on your neck, bringing you closer to him, your eyes shutting tighter. His breath danced over your chin. “I’ll ask you again… are you sure you’re finished?”

Your muscles shook from all the anticipation. You knew the plan for fucking around with someone like Tae was already stupid but this? This felt like a suicide mission. Like a moth throwing itself into a beautiful flame. But why couldn’t you stop? Why couldn’t you run away? While you were trying to cling to whatever that was left from your rational mind, an image of your fiancé messing around with some girl swung into your brain. You wanted it to go away. To push away the vision of someone you loved so dearly fucking some other woman, pleasing her, making her beg for more. The thought of what he was doing made something break inside of you.

You finally opened your eyes and looked into the black ones in front of you. “I asked you something?” he slowly articulated, again tightening his grip to the point it was starting to get uncomfortable. “No… I’m not sure…” you almost panted out. His hand moved from your neck to grab your face in a strong squeeze, what made a stunned whimper fall out of you as he brought you millimeters from his lips. You felt his fingers dig into the flesh of your cheeks, sure that it would leave a red mark.

“That’s what I thought…” he bellowed crashing his lips over yours. His kiss was aggressive but also strangely full of passion, as if he was needing this as much as you were. You dug your hands into his hair, pulling at the wavy strands, angling his head to drop back. He groaned and let out a slightly amused chuckle while grabbing your ass with both hands, pushing you more into him. “Fucking needy as I thought… don’t worry…” he said while staring into your eyes as you pulled at his hair. The way he accepted the roughness, made you burn even more.

Letting one hand slip from your ass, he snaked it up to the nape of your neck, forcing you to crash over him. As much as he enjoyed your roughness he was not about to let you take full control. No, you needed a little bit of freedom but also to be tamed, brought to the challenge but then taken over. He overpowered you easily. His lips now sucking on your collarbone, his tongue trailing up your neck.

You squeezed your fingers tighter into his soft hair. A suppressed moan quietly trying to escape. Sitting himself higher up he nibbled your earlobe while whispering “Come on… let me hear those noises… let me know how I am making you feel… how much you fucking want this…” you didn’t want to let go completely. You were still trying to find something within you to escape. You knew getting entangled with him was dangerous. That he was a man that made you curious, that was opinionated, that he had to be smart and that surely he would be able to keep your interest. Those facts made you slightly panic. What were you doing? He was a criminal.

“Agust… I ca…” he bit your flesh and muttered “Yoongi… for you it is Yoongi…” he kept on attacking your sensitive neck with licks and bites. You could feel your mind get completely clouded and then you felt him move under your core, you felt how hard he was and how dam ready you were. With a slow motion of his hips he made you toss your head back, a moan rolling off your tongue “Oh fuck Yoongi…” you spat out. At this point you knew you were a goner.

Your sultry voice made him grab at your waist and lift you both up from the couch.

Your legs automatically wrapped around him. Once he carried you into the bedroom, you pushed the already unbuttoned shirt off his shoulders. He smirked at you and tossed your top over your head and into the corner of the room. Then he dropped onto his knees and pulled you by you belt closer to him.

He kissed your stomach mercilessly and then trailed his tongue over the brim of your jeans. Your body shivered from his touch. You looked at him. His wavy hair was messy, his eyes shining from all the lust. Fuck he looked like a sin, a sin you were ready to dive in fully. He pulled your trousers down, leaving you only in your lingerie. Lucky for you, you chose to wear your best laced pair. He licked his lips while getting up and unbuttoning his black jeans, letting them fall to the ground.

You could see threw his boxers that you also had an effect on him. Walking up to you like you were his prey he had you back up and trip over down to the bed. He climbed on top and towered over you. You snaked your legs around his waist pulling him closer to your core. He rubbed against it causing you to arch your back and whimper. “Look at you… already a sweet mess…” he said slowly in a deep voice.

Leaning over he once again attacked your lips with his. Your tongues trying to fight over for dominance, causing them to end up in a hot and sensual dance. His fingers slipped into your underwear and he slid them over your folds earning a loud moan from you and a push of your hips. He bit his lip while smoothing his fingers over your wet entrance again, making you push towards him even more.

“Fuck…” he panted and with one strong movement he tossed you on your belly. Slowly he slipped down your panties and massaged your cheeks with his long digits. Leaning over to your ear he whispered “such a fucking sweet ass…” and then he bit down on your shoulder, having you yelp both from the slight pain and pleasure. As you were trying to gather yourself a bit he grabbed your waist and pulled your ass up towards him. Having you now on your fours.

He teased your entrance with his fingers and then you felt him line up his member. He slid in excruciatingly slow. Holding you firmly, making sure you would stand no chance to push onto him. He was toying with you and driving you crazy. Once he was fully in, you felt yourself clench over his big cock. “Mmm yea… good girl…” he slowly whispered, still not making any movement, and then he started to slam into you in the perfect rhythm.

The sudden wave of pleasure rendered you speechless for a while. You fell forward to your face, leaving your bottom up. Your mind was twisting and flying threw clouds. Were you really doing this? Were you actually in bed with a mafia boss? How did you let this happen. All those questions quickly disappeared once he grabbed your face with one hand, sticking in his index finger to your mouth and pulling on your lips to the side. This forced you back up on all fours and had you bend your head back. Tears forming in your eyes from the mixture of pleasure, pain, ecstasy and fear.

He kept his tempo, quiet, low moans stared to come out of him. You moved you face to the side to catch a glimpse of him. His back was straight, his shoulders tight as his hands were grabbing at your mouth and waist. His long waves were messily sticking to his face, that was now beaded with sweat. His eyes hooded and his tongue slightly sticking out as he was biting down on his bottom lip, a slight satisfactory smirk showing as well. He looked so damn hot. His toned body was perfect while his muscles were all tense and moving under his fair skin. Fuck even the scars made him look somehow better.

Sweat was rolling down him in all the perfect places. No wonder you gave in. Looking at him now, you started to feel less guilty about your weak will. His eyes finally met yours and his lips twisted to the side into a devilish grin. He slid out his finger from your mouth just to grab a fistful of your hair, pulling you up so your back was now leaning on his chest. The new angle causing you to whimper and throw you head back on his shoulder, giving him a perfect spot to grab your neck.

Once he slightly tightened his grip, you gasped and moaned. You were completely losing it. “Fuck Yoongi…” you slurred making him bite down on you shoulder and whisper into your ear “Mmm? Yoongi what hm?” and then he moved his hips even more aggressively, earning a cry from you and having you utter out “You fuck me so damn good!”.

A low laugh escaped him as he kept pushing in and out of you, causing the knot in your belly to get even tighter. The edge was coming closer and you were about to jump over it. Once he grabbed your breast with his other hand, you leaned even more into him, moving your hips faster to meat his. He continued to kiss and lick the crook of your neck. His breath was getting louder and more erratic. Finally you heard deep and low moans escape his perfect lips and that was enough to make you come undone.

Your body convulsed helplessly as you rode out your high, the raven haired man following right after you as you both crashed on the bed breathless. Gasping for air you slightly rolled on your side. You saw him laying on his stomach with a content and wide smile. His muscles moving as he took air in his lungs. Black curls sticking to his handsome face. He looked so good all messy like that. There was something relaxing about his demeanor at that moment. Something almost innocent. Something that really did not stick to the fact he was the head of a gang.

You smiled gently, feeling your eyelids get heavy. You were about to say something when suddenly you felt tiredness take over you. Slightly murmuring you tried to snap out of it but the events of this evening took a toll over you, whipping you out completely.

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

After some time you opened your eyes. Your vision slowly adjusting to the darkness, only a dim light from the streets falling in threw the window. It took you a second to figure out you were not in your apartment. Realization of last nights actions hit you like a brick to the face. So it was not a weird dream? It really happened. Gently you turned your face. There he was, laying behind you. His body facing your way, hand stretched to your waist. He looked incredibly peaceful.

You sighed quietly and rubbed your face. What the hell were you thinking? Or more like why the fuck were you not thinking? Slightly shaking your head you decided not to be too hard on yourself. You had a moment of weakness, you were in a bad spot. You gave in. Who wouldn’t? Agust-D sure knew how to make an impression and you just found out your fiancé was cheating.

Slowly you wiggled yourself from under his hand, causing him to scrunch his nose slightly. As you were about to escape from bed, he grabbed your waist with a grunt. Looking at him you saw he was still asleep. Sighing you once again attempted to get out of bed, this time pushing a pillow in your place.

As you got up, your eyes immediately tried to locate your scattered clothes. Making sure to not be too loud, you got dressed. Your thoughts were all over the place. You really messed up. Sleeping with a mafia boss was not something you ever saw yourself doing. The fact that you were able to do something like this under an impulse started to frighten you. It was almost as if you didn’t recognize yourself.

Making your way to the hallway you took out your phone, you should order a ride home. You got yourself outside quietly. Deciding to at least cover some way on foot, you were about to phone for a pick up but a car drove behind you slowly. You felt panic hit you. Running didn’t make sense, so you decided to pretend you had no idea you were being followed. Putting your phone to your ear, you pretended to be on a phone-call.

It seemed to work as the car passed by you, but to your surprise it suddenly halted. You froze in your tracks gripping your cell and getting ready to run for your life if necessary. The doors from the drivers seat swung open and a familiar silhouette appeared. It was Jimin, what the fuck was he up to? Was he going to grab you and drop you back to Yoongis place?

Seeing your worry he said “Calm down… get in… we need to talk…” looking around as if he was worried he would get targeted. Get in? He had to be kidding you. As you were about to tell him to fuck off, he looked at you seriously “Y/N trust me I am not here to hurt you… you will want to see this, besides these streets are not as safe as they may seem, so please don’t make this difficult…”

You rolled your eyes slightly. This was all not going as you planned. But something in you pushed on getting in that car, so you did. When you closed the doors Jimin looked at you calmly and started the engine “Open that cache… there is something you need to see…”

You looked at him very suspiciously. What the hell was all this about? As you opened the small doors, a leather cover appeared. It looked as one of those things you would put on your passport. Deciding there had to be something to it, you opened it. In front of your eyes you saw a badge for a KCIA agent. Jimin’s photo and credentials plastered on it. You started blinking, making sure you are actually seeing what you’re seeing.

Then the mans melodic voice snapped you out of it “As I said… we need to talk….”.

tags: @wobblewobble822 @nansasa @nochook @kootieful @kooslilhoe @yoongisducky @xjiminsthighsx @danielle143 @llallaaa @idkjustlovingbts @darcyw16 @missusally-blog @honsoolgloss @nochuel @kaitieskidmore1 @starrlo0ver @geek-lara-nerd @jwnghyuns @xyahrinx @acquiescence804

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randomsebs · 18 days

Note

It’s so frustrating to see him drinking more and looking increasingly depressed. I just hope he’s okay. This whole PR game seems to be taking a toll on him, and it’s like no one is really looking out for his well-being. //

I agreed with you up until this point (respectfully 🩷). I actually don’t think he’s drinking more. What I do think is that he’s under a LOT of stress and looks like he hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in a hot minute. I actually think that seeing what a drunk she is has put him off to alcohol.

That being said, I do agree with you when you say that no one seems to move looking out for his well-being. Especially not her. If you REALLY love someone, you don’t let them survive on pb&j sandwiches and no sleep. You just don’t. I understand being an actor is demanding and long hours are unavoidable. But there were healthier ways for that man to gain weight that didn’t involve him eating like that. And if she were REALLY his partner and he was REALLY more than a meal ticket to her, she would’ve made sure that his health wasn’t jeopardized. Because that’s what you do when you love someone. You look out for them. Period. She hasn’t looked out for him, ever. Ffs, she helped his psychotic fans doxx him. She’s nothing but a clout chasing egomaniac.

Thank you for this!

The alcohol thing is mainly just a rumor I’ve heard, not 100% but during after parties I KNOW she gets drunk (seen by photos, it’s just the way she looks that proves she’s tipsy/wasted). I don’t want that to rub off on him in the near future since he did call his Marvel fans a trip/“crazy”, which is all her doing. She’s morphing his fans into some sort of a crazy lunatic gang, I’ve never seen anything like it!! (I’ll post a photo of what someone said in this reply) it’s truly disgusting, disturbing, and creepy. If his exes did any of these things she’s done, it would’ve been an immediate cancel. My ultimate theory of why they just ADORE her is:

1. They’re uneducated and refuse to look into any form of information/proof of her being a bad person (in anyway/shape/or form)

2. They’re bots. Some of the comments under her account seems very fake!! If you look into their profiles most of the time… they don’t post anything and their comments sound very unreal?

3. They’re hired. I seen some fan pages of his go ALL out on supporting her!! Take it for example: Soorwellystan/Wintersbucky. They act like the same person, edit the same, talk the same, what not. Plus they adore Annabelle, they’ll ignore all the exposure of her wrong doings, comment on every post, upload when she gets a new gig, etc. Even Soorwellystan uploaded on her story one time: “Stop making up rumors, stop hating. I’m not hired for their PR relationship. It’s not PR, he’s just in a relationship. I don’t get why you guys even care, you don’t even know him.” What a good “fan” she is to be switching fandoms back-and-forth (then again that’s his whole fandom now).

And she only gets over 10k+ likes on a post when it has any way to include Seb in it, like those Italy pictures she uploaded, Cannes, on her stories (related to Seb).

And what she is doing isn’t right. I have NO idea on why they support this problematic woman, who is literally tearing him up into shreds. There’s loads of proof they could look into all over the media , yet they decline. So I will be uploading this stuff for it to be proven!

I do like to upload this type of stuff because it truly helps people understand (if they’re willing to hear evidence/listed facts). So thank you for sharing!! You made very good points that I HOPE people will understand, if they don’t, they’re a lost cause.

And the photo of her crazy fan:

#sebastian stan #marvel #bucky barnes #annabelle wallis #peaky blinders #problematic people #pr relationships #toxic person #toxic relationship #actually narcissistic #narcissistic personality disorder #narcissism #spread awareness #spread love #viralpost #viral #tumblr fyp #fyp #information

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sophie-hatter-jenkins · 10 months

Text

Hoody

Written for @hinnymicrofic December 2023 - Prompt 27

So - this got quite a lot smuttier than I expected! It isn't the first smut I've written but the first that I have posted here, and warnings do apply.

It is definitely NSFW, there is some fairly graphic sex and a bit of bad language. When it goes in AO3, It’ll be at least M rated. Consider yourself warned!

It also isn’t terribly Micro - though this seems to be a theme with my microfics!

Harry sits in the field hospital tent, stripped to the waist. The adrenaline is starting to wear off, and he’s suddenly tired to his bones.

The mediwitch attending to him pokes and prods him with her wand. There’s a nasty slash, right through his robes and down his bicep. It’s deep. Diffindo, he thinks. It takes the witch a while to repair the muscle and close it up. Then there are a few more cuts and grazes, across his knuckles, along his cheekbone. When she’s done with all that, she checks the bruising that wraps around on his abdomen. It stretches over his stomach and obliques on his left hand side, and it’s already darkening rapidly. That one, he’s sure, was Bombarda. He winces as she palpates the soft, tender tissue.

“No internal damage,” she tells him, eventually. “Not much I can do for it I’m afraid.”

She hands him some pain potion, then confirms there’s no broken bones either, so that’s something. Merlin, he hates Skelegro.

“Am I good to go?” he asks. She nods. He puts the shredded, bloodied remains of his shirt and robes back on, thanks his ministering angel, and leaves the tent.

Three weeks, it’s taken. Three weeks to track, infiltrate and dismantle the potions gang. Three weeks of surveillance, disillusionment charms and setting up dummy buys. Three weeks since he’s been home. He misses Ginny and the boys - so much. But it won’t be long now. All he can think about is getting home, getting back to them.

But he isn’t quite done yet, because Robards is lurking outside the tent. Harry isn’t surprised. It’s standard operating procedure - do the debrief ASAP, while everything’s still fresh. He can’t even be pissed off about it, since he’s the one that wrote the standard operating procedures in the first place. At least there’s a mug of coffee for this bit. It’s shit coffee, but it’s hot, and it’s better than nothing.

He walks Robards through the whole thing. They’d got the bastards in the end, but not without one hell of a fight. Intel on the layout of the lab and warehouse facility hadn’t been totally accurate (bloody Dawlish. Harry would be having words), hence the fighting. And the field hospital.

When he’s finished, Robards gives him an appraising look. “Have you given any more thought to what we discussed last month?”

Harry shrugs. He’s been putting off thinking about this, using the excuse of needing to focus on the case. But that isn’t going to wash any more. “When do you need an answer?”

“I can give you to the end of the week. Then I’ll need to offer it to someone else.”

“Noted.” Harry presses his lips together, feeling conflicted. He hopes Ginny will understand why.

They sip their coffee in silence for a moment, then Harry asks Robards whether he has any spare forms for the custody paperwork. Robards takes pity on him. “Ah, get home to your wee lassie. I’ll sort it out for you.”

It’s almost eleven o’clock when he gets home, crunching up the path to the cottage from the apparition point in the dark. Lights on, though - Ginny’s still awake. Warmth spreads through his chest at the thought of seeing her.

He pushes open the door. She’s curled up on the sofa, wearing his old Gryffindor hoody, though it’s miles too big for her. Her legs are bare, hair pulled up into a messy knot on top of her head. She’s conjured a ball of soft yellow light to read by, and it’s hovering just over her shoulder, warming her skin and highlighting the freckles that dust her cheeks. He doesn’t think she’s ever looked better.

As soon as she sees him, she bolts off the sofa and hurls herself at him. “You’re back! Thank Merlin.”

“Yeah.” He breathes in the scent of her, warm and comforting and so familiar. Feels himself relax, letting go of tension he didn’t realise he was carrying. “I missed you. So much.”

She hugs him tighter, and he winces a bit. She feels it, and lets go, looks at him a bit more closely and clocks the blood on his cheek, the damage to his robe. “Oh fuck, Harry! Are you hurt?”

He shrugs. “A bit. But you should see the other guy.” It’s a shit joke, but she laughs anyway. “Seriously, I’m fine. Nothing major,” he reassures her. Not this time, anyway, he adds silently, pretty sure she’s thinking the same.

“Hungry?” she asks. “I could make some toast or something?”

He shakes his head. “I just need a shower. And some sleep.”

She nods, takes his hand and leads him up the stairs. Hands him a towel. He pokes his head into the nursery while she turns the water on for him, watches two little chests slowly rise and fall. It makes his own chest hurt a little. But in a good way.

He takes his time in the shower, scrubbing away dried blood, wondering how much of it is his. He thinks she might join him, but she doesn’t. Instead, she uses the loo and brushes her teeth. When he heads back to their bedroom, hair damp, towel wrapped around his waist, he finds her sitting on the mattress at the foot of the bed, facing the door. Her eyes land on the bruising on his side.

“That looks nasty.”

“Just superficial.”

She’s still wearing his hoody. He wonders what she’s wearing underneath it.

“Well now, Potter. Why don’t you come here and find out?” she suggests, which is when he realises he wondered out loud.

The answer, he soon discovers, as he tugs it up over her head, is a pair of knickers, pink striped cotton, and nothing else. She’s been sleeping like this, she explains. She feels closer to him that way.

“But I’d have made more effort if I knew you were coming home,” she laughs. Just at that moment though, he’s struggling to think of anything sexier, as he takes her hands and pulls her up to meet him craving the contact of her skin against his.

He drops kisses along her collarbone and runs his hands greedily down her back, until his fingertips meet the hem of her knickers, slips them down over her hips, revelling in the way his hands fit so perfectly over the curve of her bum. She sighs with relief, then nudges his chin aside, reaching up to find his lips with hers. Her mouth is soft and open and tastes of mint toothpaste, her tongue dancing against his, their kiss deep and insistent.

Her hands skate down his chest, and his skin feels so much more alive for her touch. She presses herself firmly against him, fingers dropping lower to tug away his towel, and god he’s missed her, missed this, so so much. He’s hard as hell, and she rocks up against him, making him twitch and gasp at the pressure.

He pushes her backwards until her calves make contact with the bed. She falls, sprawling across the blankets, giving him a filthy, lazy smile, eyes dark, daring him to join her. And well, he never could resist a challenge, could he?

He kneels over her, kissing his way up her thighs, feeling her shiver below him. Thinks about taking her over the edge with his mouth, but tonight, he wants to watch her, properly, and lets his fingers settle between her legs. This, he knows how to do, with a practised and familiar ease, and she’s so very ready for him. She breathes in sharply, burying her face into his shoulder as his fingers dance over just the right spot, side to side, with a steady pressure and rhythm. She pushes her head back, eyes closed tight, squirming against him, but he takes his time, bringing her closer and closer. Then he twists his hand so that his thumb is circling her, slipping two fingers inside, finding her slick and hot, and suddenly she’s there, throat and chest flushed red. She bites down a groan in the back of her throat to stop herself crying out, the way she always does since they had the kids, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever get over the fascination of watching her come apart like this.

“Please,” she whispers, and he can’t deny either of them any longer. He shifts his weight so that he’s above her and a moment later, sinks deeply into her, feeling her still pulsing all around him. She clings to him as he rocks back and forth inside her, muttering her name over and over into her ear, losing himself in the feel of her until he’s tumbling, uncontrolled into blissful oblivion. Suddenly, he feels the weight of three long weeks apart lifting. Now he feels whole again. Now he’s home.

Afterwards, they lie quietly together. He should be sleepy, but he isn’t. She’s nestled in against his shoulder, his arm curled around behind her, idly stroking the curve of her breast. They chat for a while about her work - the matches she’s covered, the frustrating office politics, an opinion piece on the new management at Puddlemere that he managed to read while he was on stakeout. She tells him that a glossy magazine wants to commission her for a series on the future of European Quidditch, and he tells her (again) how bloody proud he is of her.

“I wanted to tell you straight away.” She looks at him with a small, sad smile. “I hate it when you’re away.”

“Yeah.” He pauses, takes a deep breath. “What if I wasn’t?”

“Wasn’t what?” she asks, her fingers intertwined with his, playing absentmindedly with his wedding ring.

“Away. Again. In the future I mean.”

She rolls away and props herself up on one elbow so she can look at him. She’s frowning - not in anger, just confusion. “What does that mean?”

He takes a moment, because he knows once the words are out, he can’t take them back. It stops being his problem, and starts being theirs, and he still struggles with what feels like burdening her - anyone, really - with his shit. He looks up at the ceiling.

“Robards offered me a job. A new one. A promotion, actually.”

“Okay. What sort of job?”

And so he tells her - how he’s been badgering Robards for months about hiring more people. Came up with a plan for how to do it and everything. How Robards took it to Kingsley, and Kingsley took it to the Wizengamot. “It’s massive, Gin. Too many people to just train on the job like before. There’s going to be this whole new training academy. And… and Robards needs someone to run it.”

“And that would be you?”

“If I say yes.”

She’s quiet for a moment. “Do you want to do it?”

“I… I don’t know.” He searches again for the right words. “I love what I do right now. I love making a difference. Sometimes I think I’d miss it too much - being out there, catching the bad guys. It’s all I’ve ever done.”

“And the other times?”

He doesn’t reply straight away. Thinks about the slash to his arm, the bruising on his torso, Diffindo and Bombarda and shield charms a split second too late. Thinks about the two small boys asleep down the hall, about Ginny, warm and yielding, lying next to him. “I wonder why the fuck I haven’t bitten Robards’s hand off for it yet.”

He feels her laughter on his shoulder, just a puff of air. “I get it,” she tells him.

And then he realises - actually, she really does. He turns to look at her properly. “You miss playing?”

“Every day,” she nods. “But what I don’t miss is the residential training camps, the overseas exhibition match tours, every bit of my body aching, the constant bludger injuries. I certainly wouldn’t swap being here for the boys to go back to it. And also - I love writing as well. If I had to give it up now, I’d miss that too.” She reaches over and runs her hand down his jaw, fingers in his beard. “Different doesn’t have to mean worse, you know.”

And she’s right, isn’t she? Of course she is. She asks him to tell her more about it, so he does - his plans for recruitment, what the trainees should study, his ideas on how to mix practical and theoretical training.

She laughs at him. “Okay, Hermione, time to lay off the polyjuice.” He pretends to pout, but actually, it’s a fair cop. “You actually sound excited about it, you know,” she observes.

“I… I kinda think I am.”

She smiles encouragingly. “Harry, I’m not going to tell you what to do. We’re a team, and I’ll support you whatever you decide. For what it’s worth though - you’re a great teacher. The new recruits would be lucky to have you. And you being here, every night, with me and the boys, all of us together? Isn’t that what we always wanted?”

He’s quiet again. Then he grins at her. “You wouldn’t mind having me around a bit more?”

She laughs at the absurdity of the question. “I’d love it! Of course I would! We all would.”

“Okay then,” he tells her. “I’ll tell Robards tomorrow.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He laughs, a soft breathy sort of laugh. Draws her back into his arms, knowing it’s all going to be okay. That with them, it always is.

#hinny microfic #hinny #harry x ginny #harry potter #ginny weasley #fanfic

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stonedragonisnthere · 3 months

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HHN icon headcanons!!!

(Part 1)

Blue - Unserious hc

Red - Serious hc

(These are not related to shipping or ships but are rather personality/lore traits I’m assigning each character. These hcs also do not mind canon much. )

~~🤡🎁~~

• believe it or not, Jack is one of the best people to go to for dating advice! He knows how to control a massive crime gang and how to get and keep bitches!

• Jack is polysexual + Panromantic

• Jack and Eddie are mixed (American + Singaporean). Their parents weren’t married when Eddie and Jack were born and their father left their mother

• Jack sort of picked up certain eating habits from Dr.Oddfellow, however he does have some knowledge on cooking basic meals, think of those four ingredient “lazy mom” recipes you’d see on TikTok from time to time.

• Jack does care about his brother, he doesn’t bring it up much but has offered help to Eddie in the past

• Jack has ADHD but has found ways to help him focus on certain things

• Jack has been seen without his clown makeup by the icons so rarely that when he did, the icons tried to kill him because they thought he was a victim Adaru put in the lantern.

• Jack and Chance are both insane clown posse enjoyers

• Jack is more than willing to shoot Chance and anyone else he likes out of a canon (it’s his way of affection/very lh)

~~✂️🎩~~

•Albert Caine had brown hair when he was younger

• Albert’s way larger underneath his professional wear. After a day at work it’s a relief taking off his corset and relaxing for the night.

•Albert’s wife who he had Cindy with passed away after she was born. He chose not to date after and focused on his morgue and raising his daughter.

•He is one of the more polite icons, he is willing to talk in interrogations or explain what the icons are to people (Mostly his murder victims before their death)

• Albert secretly enjoys the carebears, his favorite care bear is Take Care Bear.

• Jack and Albert are fishing buddies

~~🎥🕷️~~

• Paulo is surprisingly durable for being only a guy, he’s survived everything from snake bites to full on getting blown up. However he does have stitches through out his whole body.

• He is very much a film snob, Definitely a gatekeeper on how much of a horror fan someone is but doesn’t move the goal point much, he’ll respect you if you say certain movies are good

• Paulo has OCD, and even through his trashy workspace, he has all of his filming equipment in specific areas made for each tool and accessory he uses and does get angry at the other icons whenever someone places something of his in the wrong place

• Billy Skorrski was one of his 6 to 7 fake IDs he has used while in Singapore

• The most Paulo is able to cook is some cup noodles and a monster energy as a drink. Whenever anybody does cook for him he wolfs his plate down then goes back to whatever he’s working on for that day.

• Paulo believes himself to be an “Alpha male” and Jack dogs on him for his beliefs

•He also gets into fights with people on subreddits

~~📖🔪~~

• Elsa is the walking Swiss Army knife of the group. She always seems to have some tool or weapon useful to the situation happening to the icons.

• Some of her favorite books are Grim’s fairytales and murder mysteries, Elsa does like when the murderer gets away in them though :)

• Her and Julian hang out from time to time. (Elsa likes the old timey movies the palace theatre plays and Julian sometimes sits down with Elsa for some tea and to listen to music)

• Elsa is a lesbian but has no interest for anyone in the lantern.

• She is willing to read tamer books depending on who’s asking (She reads to Cindy sometimes when she needs to go to bed)

• Elsa despises Dr.Oddfellow just as much as Jack does. She has her own beef with Fellow that I’ll get into in another post

• Elsa would make a booktok person bite the curb

• Nobody knows what she does with her victims tongues

#halloween horror nights #paulo ravinski #jack the clown #the director #albert caine #jack schmidt #the caretaker #the storyteller #hhn #hhn icons

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gx-gameon · 4 months

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Gotta ask how's Seto's relationship with the rest of Yugi's friends in this au? How'd the gang take the news that Seto and Yugi were dating? What about when they got engaged and married on the same day?

Okay so we are actually going to see a lot of this in the story itself.

So right now I’m editing all the rough drafts I posted here. I think I have three more to do and then it’s brand new content.

I think I’ll have somewhere between 2 to 3 more chapters from there. I have them all scripted out I just need to actually write them.

That will finish the first arc of this au. Jaden getting adopted and the afterlife adventure.

It will also be the end of the first book.

I think from there we will go into the second arc which will focus on two things. 1) Jaden and Atem adjusting to life 2) Yugi and Seto

The story will set up Gx season one. I think it will take place over Jaden’s first year or two in the family and then we will time skip to Gx.

I might do some one-shots with young Jaden and the DM crew in the time skip eventually (like Seto and Yugi’s proposal/wedding. But that could also be the last chapter so arc 2 I’m still scripting the second arc.

So we are going to have a whole little adventure dedicated to the two of them.

But it boils down to Seto realizing he has feelings for Yugi starts trying to so affection, as only Seto Kaiba can.

Jaden and Yugi are getting harassed by paparazzi? Now they had a security team following them ‘from a distance’

Things like that.

Problem: Yugi thinks this is Seto sending people to follow them to get him or Atem to duel.

He goes over to Seto to be like. ‘Hey we’re friends now. If you want something from me, like a duel, just ask me. Don’t send a goon squad to follow me. It’s freaking Jaden out.’

Seto hears two separate statements. ‘If you want me ask.’ And ‘security is scaring Jaden’ he will take care of that later.

He takes care of number 1 first and asks Yugi out. Yugi’s brain kinda breaks. Looking back he can see how everything Kaiba has been doing can be seen as either sweet or flirty in the most Seto Kaiba way ever. Because of this, and the fact that he’s not used to people actually flirting with him, made him totally miss the fact that he was being flirted with? Courted?

(All the people who flirt with him at tournaments actually want Atem or so he thinks. It’s hard sharing a body with someone for years because people outside their group don’t know. Yugi just naturally assumes that anyone that flirts with him really wants Atem, because Atem’s confident and wonderful. Yugi still has only kid insecurities.)

Seto also has no idea how to human when it comes to things like dating. He was raised to conquer businesses. He’s pretty sure your not suppose force people to date you (Mokuba said no) and your not suppose to pay them. So he has to get Yugi’s attention some other way. Mokuba is the point of reference and reason. “Do something nice for him. Talk to him. Show him you care.”

But he’s Seto, rich boy, Kaiba and he’s pursuing Yugi, if I’m near anything expensive I’ll have anxiety about breaking it, Muto. Yugi, for better and worse, isn’t interested in his wealth.

What is Yugi interested in?? Games and his friends.

He already hired Yugi and Atem to Kaiba Corp.

this is before he started pursuing Yugi. It was because he over heard them taking finances once. Its was going to be hard having Yugi, Atem, Solomon, and Jaden in one house.

He can’t just give them money, Yugi and Atem would refuse. He thinks Solomon might burn it to prove a point.

Yugi is going to college, Atem though is new to the world and still figuring out his place. Seto offered him a job at play testing games. Atem will probably beat all of them, but it will help show the flaws in the program, were things are to easy or to hard, and no one knows how to think outside the box quite like Yugi and Atem.

Atem is skeptical at first, thinking the job is just dueling Seto all day long. Which fun but no. But after hearing the actual job and pay. He takes it. (He talks with Yugi before doing so and they agree)

Later at the end of Yugi’s semester they have a final project to create a game. Their freshman so it’s not suppose to be that impressive. Yugi knocks it out of the park. Like a few tweaks and it’s ready to be sold.

He starts getting offers from other businesses. Pegasus, Zigfried, and others to higher him.

Seto isn’t losing his rival to another company. (And ya maybe the crush played a role but you can’t say Yugi didn’t earn his spot) so he highest Yugi as a game designer.

This makes there failed flirting worse and better. Because some co-workers think Seto only higher Yugi because he likes him. This gets swiftly shut down because of Yugi’s skill at his job, but there are still whispers of favoritism. They are also the most entertaining water cooler gossip of all time. Especially once they start dating. They go through all the proper channels to make dating an employee as ethically sound as possible. (They’re 19 and have known each other forever, it’s not surprising to outsiders. But Seto is still a CEO and held to certain standards when starting a relationship.) but all the other workers get a free show of watching their boss trying to flirt with his boyfriend.

It back to topic. They already have jobs so he can’t offer them that and they won’t take money without reason.

Yugi is interested in games and friends. So Seto will play games and ‘help’ his friends.

Problem. All these people are used to Seto only doing ‘nice’ thinks when he wants something (which he wants something but he’s genuinely not trying to trick them, he for once is trying to be nice) and they are not having it (Seto’s over here like I get it but let me grow as a person)

He’s trying to flirt with Yugi. A part of liking Yugi is being around his friends (preferably getting a long with them) everyone thinks Seto is finally joining the friend group but they are wary (some more than others, Joey and Tristian)

He’s someone who only knows how to show he cares through taking care of someone (you have a problem he removes it) (his love language is acts of service you can’t convince me otherwise wise)

unfortunately he’s not the best at telling people what he’s doing or asking them how they want help. He will learn but it’s ruff in the beginning.

Leading us back to. ‘Hey your goons are scaring my kid. Can you maybe call them off? If you want to duel just ask.’

‘Will you go out with me?’

They talk it out. Seto revealing all the nice things he’s done.

‘So is this why you hired me?’ ‘No I hired you because you’re competent. But I do like you because you’re competent.’

‘The goon squad?’ ‘Reporters weren’t leaving you and Jaden alone so I made them leave you alone.’

‘Joey’s sponsorship?’ ‘I wouldn’t have offered if he was going to embarrass me. He’s not on our level but he is, (big sigh) a good duelist. You value your friends so I value your friends. He earned his spot in the pro leagues. Money should be the thing that stops him from entering.’

This is also the time that Seto reveals he’s started planning duel academy because he wants Jadne to be able to have a ‘normal’ high school experience. Plus it’s a solid business move and the more he looked into it the better it was. He’s actually making 5 schools all around the world. It started out of love for Jaden but will now help so many kids.

And look Yugi always had a crush on Seto. But they have both grown and changed as people. To see Seto now verse the Seto he knew at the start of season 1. He’s grown a lot.

They talk out a lot of things. Mainly Seto’s instinctual need to fix his loved ones problems vs actually talking to them about what they want/what he’s doing.

The do end up on that date though.

Now everyone else’s reactions….. that’s a story for another time.

#dad yugi #jaden yuki #judai yuki #yugioh gx #yugi moto #yugi mutou #seto kaiba #rivalshipping

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adarkrainbow · 1 month

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Neverafter notes (1)

I am re-doing my Dimension 20: Neverafter notes. However I will go in a slightly different direction – since not many people are interested in these posts, and I do them mostly for me anyway, I’ll go with a… drier listing style I guess? Here my notes covering the three first episodes – aka the first arc of the season – aka the entirety of what we have with the first version of the Neverafter multiverse. Episode 1, The Time of Shadows. Episode 2, Mirror, Mirror. Episode 3, No Place for a Prince or Princess.

THE CHILDREN OF DESTINY:

Rosamund du Prix is Sleeping Beauty. More precisely she is a take on Disney’s Aurora – between her backstory involving three good fairies and a wicked one (the good fairies being recognizable by their colors, the third being dressed in blue) and the character herself being played like your “typical Disney princess cliché” (and twisted around – the whole thing of animal handling and survival in the wood being a D&D Ranger, or how her gifts of beauty and grace are about maintaining good-looks despite living in the wild and having agility bonus). There’s however some brothers Grimm points thrown into it all – such as the focus on “briars” and how the thorns killed all the princes that tried to reach

Gerard of Greenleigh is The Frog Prince (aka the popular culture take on the brothers Grimm fairytale “The Frog King”). Frog humanoid= D&D Hobgoblin.

Pib is Puss in Boots. From the French fairytale of Charles Perrault. Talking cat scoundrel = D&D’s Tabaxi Rogue. By episode 3, Alphonse (the mule from the original fairytale) turns out to be an actual talking animal too and to still be around the Neverafter.

Pinocchio is… well Pinocchio. Talking puppet = D&D’s Warforged. Is a Warlock, with his broken nose as his wizard’s staff and the Stepmother as his patron.

Timothy “Mother” Goose. Mother Goose. Famous figure-of-speech/title expression thanks to Perrault, but only became its own character in England, where she became the British “mascot” for nursery rhymes and fairy tales. Even got a nursery rhyme of her own, “Old Mother Goose and her son Jack”, of which Timothy as a character derives from. The Jack from this nursery rhyme is also the Jack of the game which is ALSO the “Jack be nimble” rhyme. Timothy’s husband, Henry Hubbard, is also from the nursery rhyme world – “Old Mother Hubbard”. Storyteller witch and caretaker = D&D’s Bard.

Ylfa Snorgelsson. Is Little Red Riding Hood: the Perrault version (since there was no Huntsman or Woodsman to save her, and she was “eaten” in the end – more here bitten and turned into a werewolf), but with touches and dashes of the Grimm version (the axe evoking the Woodsman, the whole thing about “not straying from the path”). Turning Little Red Riding Hood into a werewolf story has been made very popular thanks to the first influential work of fiction who did it: Angela Carter’s Gothic collection “The Bloody Chamber” which contains three short stories interweaving werewolves and Little Red Riding Hood (The Werewolf, The Company of Wolves, Wolf-Alice). These three tales were mixed in the cult classic movie “The Company of Wolves”, which added to Carter’s plotlines an exploration of the symbolic puberty of a young girl – something that is also explored in how Ylfa’s lycantrophy is treated. Werewolf Little Red still a popular take (the 2011 movie).

SOURCES OF INFLUENCE FOR THIS SEASON:

Into the Woods. Definitively. They make it very obvious. The giants being one of the main threats crushing everything ; the way the briars talked to Rosamund about keeping her safe (the Witch’s “Stay with me”), how Brennan and the gang repeat “Into the woods” in episode 2.

The Book of Lost Things – very possible. The Time of Shadows works so much like how there’s this cyclical corruption of the fairytale world in this novel. And both are about a magical quest to restore the land centered around a magical book supposedly containing all of the answers…

Fables. Maybe? I have never seen anywhere else the idea of “The de-transformed prince slowly turns back to his cursed form as the love of the princess wanes” (Gerard and Elodie, Beast and Beauty). Also the use of “living archetypes” within a collective fairytale world – something that Fables also became very famous for. Plus the Snow Queen being shown as an antagonist and an invading force.

Guillermo del Toro’s Pan Labyrinth. Maybe? The moment of “let’s all touch the book” in episode 2, especially when some drawings started appearing out of blood, reminded me of the magic book of this movie. Plus, it is a classic of “dark fairytale” movies, or “fairytale horror” if you prefer.

Terry Pratchett’s Witches Abroad. Almost certain, if not definitively. The entire sequence of Rosamund meeting the traumatized mice and talking to them reuses almost word for word the ideas that Pratchett brought in his novel about animals in fairytales being driven mad at being forced at acting humans. The entire thing of the Fairy Godmother and her transformed minions seems pulled out straight of the “fairytale horror” of this novel and of Genua’s fairy godmother tyrannical rule.

Shrek. Probably? After all it is the most famous piece of American media to deal with fairytales outside of the Disney movies… At least it is frequently referenced by the players.

FAIRYTALE CLICHES PLAYED AROUND WITH:

# “Happily ever after”. What happens once the fairytale ending is reach. The case of Elodie and Gerard is an especially fascinating case of exploring the metaphysical and human consequences of this idea. Elodie can’t stand the feeling that her life is supposed to end after her marriage, Gerard’s belief in happily ever after makes him passive and delusional, and the logical consequences of such a strange case of “meet-and-match” lead to the lovers with incompatible desires and personalities to fall apart. Logical consequences also evoked with Stephan, Pib’s owner, an illiterate miller son will have a hard time passing off as royal nobility.

# Magical things happening to royals naturally.

# “Do not stray from the path”. Pretty much unique to Ylfa’s fairytale, but still heavily discussed and played around (The important thing is that we stray together ; is it still straying from the path if a magical one opened in the woods).

# Bandlebridge is tricked by the old rule of “You must grant every demand of the magical being to get your reward”.

# Not a fairytale trope, but I love how the idea of “fireside stories” is reinvented with this magical silvery log that wards off the camp from “goblins and boggarts” as long as someone tells a story as it burns. Is it a real D&D item?

# The “dark forest” motif. Of course there is the “Black Wood” of Grimmweir… Though it is said to be but one of the several “primeval forests” filled with dangers on this continent. Averted with Rosamund’s ranger talents which turn a deadly travel into a pleasant stroll by episode 2.

# Some characters not having names in fairytales (The Stepmother lost her name, nobody can remember it).

# Emily asking to specify if it is “mother blood, stepmother blood, godmother blood, grandmother blood” is a good joke on how fairytale trolls and giants can somehow smell very specific types of blood “Smells like Christian blood”, “Smells like an Englishman’s blood”.

"Once upon a time". The answer to the total party kill that Ylfa gets from the Big Bad Wolf - "the end of the story" embodied revealing to her the "wicked beings" are all motivated by preventing the "turning of the pages" - and thus that the book isn't here to "restore" the world by returning into the past. It isn't about clinging to what once was, it is about moving forward and telling new tales - not returning to the happy ending as the Fairies obsess over but rather move forard to a new "Once upon a time..."

KINGDOMS AND HOW THEY FELL

# Rêverie. Sleeping Beauty’s kingdom (fitting name). Fell due to the Sleeping Beauty curse, as the briars overtook everything – because a thorny wilderness.

# Greenleigh. The Frog Prince’s kingdom. Fell due to a war as the Snow Queen’s armies invaded.

# Snowhold. The Snow Queen’s kingdom. Invaded Greenleigh for unknown reasons.

# Marienne. Puss in Boots’ kingdom. Fell to giants that crushed everything. It is unclear why, but given later episodes evoke the Ogre of Carabas as the giants’ little brother, it might be revenge. Also contains Amanti, Pinocchio and Gepetto’s village – so Marienne seems also to be the main country of Pinocchio’s adventures.

# The Lullaby Lands. As the name indicates, the place of all nursery rhymes. Not a kingdom as it has no central government and is more of a collection of autonomous communities – which already is a sign that it does not “fit” into the “Grimmweir” continent and was added to this fairytale world where everything is a kingdom. Pottingham is the village of Mother Goose and Ylfa – making it also the village of “Little Red Riding Hood”. Hasn’t much fell, but has known all sorts of horrifying manifestations (the Gander, the Wolf) ending in death (turned to skeleton, house and family blown away) plus recurring bad weather and persistent rain causing flooding.

# Jubilee = realm of Old King Cole. Fell to a war, though the details are unspecified. Given Jubilee was right next to Greenleigh it might have been the same war launched by the Snow Queen.

# Shoeberg = the Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe. A “festering boil” and one of the last thriving places in the Neverafter.

# Tapestry. Snow-White’s kingdom. Fell for unknown reason. See the Magic Mirror entry.

# Elegy. Cinderella’s realm. Also fell for unknown reasons – though we do know Cinderella’s hometown and the area around it “fell” due to the insanity and the spells of the undead Fairy Godmother. One of the symptoms of this kingdom falling is that the “courts of the sun and the moon” seem in disarray or conflict, leading to a very bizarre sky which is not in day nor night, and where the sun shines in a purple starry twilight (might be an Alice Through the Looking Glass reference – The Walrus and the Carpenter). Had a “burgeoning” middle-class of merchants, traders, artisans and craftsmen to which Cinderella’s father belonged, and the hunt of the prince with the shoe became the hot-gossip of neighboring royals (such as Gerard).

FAIRIES TALK

# So we have five confirmed fairies in this version of the Neverafter, plus a possible sixth one, and an ambiguous seventh. Rosamund had three good fairy godmothers – given the third one has a blue dress, and she asks about the undead fairy’s dress-color to identify her, we can assume going by the Disney code these fairies were the Red Fairy, Green Fairy and Blue Fairy. Plus the Wicked Fairy, dressed in black – who also was the Wicked Fairy involved in Pinocchio’s return-to-being-a-puppet as she came to just… kill all the fathers of Amanti I guess? She is clearly meant to be the archetypal “wicked fairy” (plus Disney’s Maleficent).

# The Fairy Godmother of Cinderella is stated to not be the same as the fairies of Rosamund’s story. Purple gown. Driven mad as Cinderella’s shard caused her to be stuck in a state “neither alive nor dead”, constantly bleeding out both blood and magic. Started turning every item she could meet into half-servants (and even before she was said to have gone on a spree of forcing people to fall in love and having animals turned into humans). Kept repeating Cinderella’s storyline to various degrees (help them win the “Mayfair queen”). The same way Rosamund’s fairies are a take on Disney’s fairies in “Sleeping Beauty”, this fairy is very clearly Disney’s Cinderella godmother (she even says her magical line) ; interestingly her having a crown on the head seems to be a nod to the enchantress/fairy of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, especially since the description of her minions (such as a bouncing armoire) are very clearly reminiscent of the sentient furniture in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. Episode 3 confirms that she was the fairy who turned Gerard into a frog when he was a little boy to make him “learn manners” as she thought he was “rude” – again reinforces my theory that she has “Disney’s enchantress from Beauty and the Beast” vibes.

# The Sugarplum Fairy was possibly the sixth fairy of this world. When Herr Drosselmeyer turned into text, there were references to “sugarplums” and “a fairy”. If he had stayed longer perhaps we would have met her.

# The ambiguous seventh is the Fairy with Turquoise Hair. She is present and involved in Pinocchio’s backstory, as I write this I can’t recall if she is meant to be the same as the “Blue Fairy”. If not this makes her the sixth or seventh fairy of this world.

# Fairy blood smells like cinnamon, spice, sparks and ambers.

# The Fairy Godmother’s comment that “Magic was never yours, it is ours”: fairy monopole on magic?

MORE CULTURAL REFERENCES

# The Gander is the inversion of the traditional Mother Goose imagery + a twisted take on the “Goose Laying Golden Eggs” motif + a reinvention of the trope of the genie granting you three wishes, but in a horrifying and/or deadly way. Literal embodiment of the Time of Shadows as we will later learn, and not just one spirit among it (as such parallels The Crooked Man from The Book of Lost Things – also an evil wish-granter). Tumblr user lostsometime evoked how the Gander using the verb “wander” while taunting Timothy might be a reference to “Goosey Goosey Gander”.

# It will later be confirmed but we know here (especially from how Ylfa gains the power to blow away with her breath people and houses) that the Wolf is both the one from Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs (British fairytale, Joseph Jacobs).

# The town of Shoeberg and the family who runs it, led by a 107 matriarch, is from the nursery rhyme “There was an old woman who lived in a shoe”.

# What was the Chandling Caravan/Company named after? The Rub-a-Dub-Dub/Three Men in a Tub nursery rhyme, because “chandler” is candle-making… Or maybe the old British children song “Tommy kept a chandler’s shop”? Or maybe none of this and I’m reading too much. The leader of the Caravan is of course from “The Little Red Hen” story (American “fable”, from Mary Mapes Dodge).

# Old King Cole = the nursery rhyme of the same name.

# Herr Drosselmeyer (“magician, clockmaker and godfather”) and the characters surrounding him are, of course, from “The Nutcracker” ballet. The Nutcracker himself is evoked in various ways as someone Drosselmeyer pursues: at first he is presented as a “clockwork man” and one of the magical creations of Drosselmeyer that got away and run off on its own ; later he is revealed to be Drosselmeyer’s godson: “driven to rash behavior by grief” he is now working on a revenge that worries Drosselmeyer. As he dissolves into text, there are mentions of the Sugarplum Fairy and the Mice King, “or King of Rats with seven heads”. Is the alternation “Mice King/King of Rats” important? If this season is indeed inspired by Pratchett’s fairytale twists, then it might have leaned into something akin to “The Amazing Maurice”, where the myth of the “rat-king” was mixed with the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Maybe the same here? Herr Drosselmeyer also seems to have been more than just a Nutcracker character… Everybody pointed out that him driving around in a teapot pulled by a giant rabbit, and having a magic mirror in his collection, gave off strong Alice vibes (plus there is a clock with a cat symbol on it that stops time… Cheshire Cat and Mad Hatter?). I also thought about how it was insisted that he turned into an owl upon touching the book, and his comment that he was not a “kind man” before – given he seems to come from a world of fairytale ballet (and has strong link to birds, he captures the ostrich) maybe Von Rothbart from The Swan Lake? The character of Drosselmeyer and the Swan Lake plot had already been mixed in another fairytale-deconstruction work: the Princess Tutu anime. Also there is an insistence upon “winter time” in his “dissolving text”: maybe Snow Queen ties?

# The Magic Mirror was first suspected to be the one used by the Snow Queen – due to the low temperature around it, Zach even asked if it was snowing near the mirror. However it is revealed to be the mirror of the evil queen from Snow-White, answering questions if asked the rhyme (“Mirror, mirror, leaning against a wall”). Very likely created by the dwarves of the kingdom, since Tapestry is known outside of its fine crafting to be a place of magical items created through “spell-craft” and “enchantments” by dwarves. Also interestingly, the Mirror seems to encourage people to ambition (“do you want to be the wisest, richest, fairest in the land?”) and wants to be returned to “her”. Given it asked Pinocchio, it seems the Mirror wants to return to the “evil queen” (absorbed/covered by the Stepmother).

# Cinderella. Her story went wrong when she returned to investigate what her Stepmother did to her step-sisters and what happened to her. Fairy Godmother tried to force her to return to the castle and her prince and ignore all that. She stabbed her with a broken heel of her glass slipper, turned glass spear ; now is a warrior dressed in a “crystalline glass armor” and part of the “Sisters”. Her backstory is basically Disney’s plotline (the Fairy Godmother even uses the Disney Godmother magical line) but with elements of the Grimm version added (the sisters cutting off toe and heel).

# The Stepmother started out as Cinderella’s stepmother before… becoming all wrong. As we will learn later she became the “Stepmother” archetype, but so far all we know is that she used to be Cinderella’s human stepmother, did some foul magic by devouring her daughters (ogress motif), and then became this otherworldly spirit serving as Pinocchio’s stepmother. Plus, has ties (yet unknown) to Snow-White’s witch-queen of a stepmom. (silhouette in the door to check), and of course when Pinocchio uses her magic she manifests as a puppet-master using him as a puppet to enact her revenge against Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother (episode 3).

OTHER NOTES

# The list of threats for the Time of Shadows is given as “giants, witches, wizards, and creatures of the sea”. We meet all of them except for the wizards. Maybe it was something up Herr Drosselmeyer’s plotline?

# Time of Shadows is a cosmic/metaphorical storm AND a literal set of storms that cause bad weather everything (the pouring rains causing flooding in Pottingham is described by episode 1). Got huge King Lear vibes from this – especially since King Lear is THE fairytale-play of Shakespeare.

# The book is clearly about restoring the Neverafter into its peaceful, happy, “regular” state from before the Time of Shadows, however it is shown to work differently for the different types of stories it is confronted with. The book “activates” itself by nursery rhyme-characters (creates sounds as Old King Cole speaks, makes Timothy tingle upon hearing about the Old Woman who lived in a shoe) and ultimately absorbs them ; with fairy tales-characters it seems to mostly show them *where* their story got broken (Rosamund sees her flickering prince, as her prince did not come ; Pinocchio sees the island of toys which is a big part of the adventure ; Ylfa sees the wolf in the wood which is also the point of her story switching). With nursery rhyme characters it just restores them back to their original state and sends them back to a nursery rhyme world (makes sense as we learn later how the nursery rhyme universe was forced into the Neverafter) ; but it needs in the fairytale side of things an “early part of the world that was broken off” in the shape of specific items that it “hungers” for. All items reflecting famous stories, and tied to the Princesses, but warped in the Time of Shadows. Two are confirmed: Cinderella’s glass slipper, turned into a broken shard of glass then glass spear ; and Elodie’s golden ball, turned into golden mace in the times of war.

# Greenleigh has “wise women” in charge of medicine, tonic and other products of the sort. Grimm fairytale nod.

# Here “Carabas” was the title of the ogre-lord before Pib can in and made Stephan a Marquis.

# Gerard and Rosamund’s families are closely related: just a joke, but they are still cousins “three different times”.

# Trollsons are a thing in this world, a name for descendants of trolls (pun on “son”, as the Nordic suffix).

# Lord Bandlebridge’s comment, while a classist statement, confirms that witches, fairies and ogres have an habit of disguising themselves as beggars.

# We never get to know who the “young teenage girl” of the caravans was.

# We’ll see if the whole witch system in the Neverafter is clarified. Because we have your usual, random, human witch living in their tiny corner of the world and performing humble magic (Timothy Goose), and we know that later there are big, evil, powerful witches of multiversal scope. So… I’ll keep this for later episodes.

# Has Drosselmeyer’s giant rabbit’s name any signification? Eidelgrin? Probably not…

#dimension 20 #neverafter #dimension 20 neverafter #neverafter notes

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