#murder might happen who knows <:D

[medusaesque]

Kim's itchy trigger finger

So, Kim reaches for his gun often. Very often. sometimes for the most ridiculous reasons- opening the bear fridge, the experiment in the church, a note from Klaasje.

This one is just from being anxious going into the communist reading group. Kim doesn't want to be the kind of cop who draws his gun constantly, who shoots instinctively, but he is, or at the very least it's very difficult for him to stop himself from becoming one.

Perhaps the most horrifying example is with The Pigs-

Even if he KNOWS the gun isn't loaded, even if he knows it's safe, the instinctual muscle twitch could have ended in an unnecessary death. Kim is very well aware of that fact, and it's horrifying to him. @shufflerock-jam has this really good post about it, where they wonder how many of Kim's kills were unnecessary. "Something about a pair of traumatized cops, one fighting against shooting himself and one fighting against shooting everyone else".

At the end of The Pigs exchange, if Harry says she tried to kill him, Kim begins to interject, but stops himself and agree this situation could've been very bad. Then Empathy chimes in- 'He's trying not to think about how bad it could have been had the gun been loaded.' Which is the heart of the issue, right? that leads us to Eyes-

This is such a fascinating background to give Kim as a character- not just losing his partner, which gives him the trauma and survivor's guilt that lead to this unhealthy relationship with his gun and frankly with death in general, but losing his Eyes, and having that not interfere with his shooting. Kim doesn't need to see well to hit, he doesn't need to think. It's all in his hands, a reflex. A reflex that nearly took an innocent life. That might have taken one before.

His awareness of looming danger, to him and to his partner, is fueling his version of Hand/Eye Coordination to have him constantly on edge, his whole body is like a loaded spring, always prepared to make sure it doesn't happen again. Then it does-

In his nightmare scenario, leaning over his partner's bleeding body, Kim only needs one word to shoot without a second's hesitation. He's never not ready to take that shot. He doesn't need his Eyes.

Harry is distraught to discover he's killed before- his body remembers it. He wants a drink to soften the feeling. Kim however is impressed with how little he's killed- especially coming from the bloody murder unit. He wants to be 'one of the good ones' (Kim's adamant belief in the possibility of a Good Cop is a whole other can of worms) the kind of cop he would think highly of. Kim is disgusted by cops who kill like it's a game. Espirit gives us a vision of a cop exactly like that, who kills so often it doesn't feel like anything anymore. In a way that is completely mechanical- no thought, no feelings, just a thing your body does. Not unlike the way Kim shoots- like a spring unloaded. Kim has 6 confirmed kills before the tribunal, double the amount Harry has. He doesn't react the same way though-

It's doesn't bother Kim that he has killed, even if he declines to elaborate on it, and he seems to frown upon (or worry about) Harry's destructive coping mechanism. If they're unable to save Ruby, he says "Control your emotions. We did our job. This won't be the worst thing that happens on this case… believe me. You can't let this break you." When you wake up after the tribunal, he doesn't dwell on the lost lives on either side. Harry's skills call him a killer, a bloodstained killer, but when he tells Kim he also killed he simply nods. He's smoking though. I'm not saying that Kim is heartless or careless, he's rattled by nearly blowing The Pigs' head off, very sorry for the lives lost during the case, and clearly hunted by death, having been surrounded by it for his entire life. But I do think death is a part of the job for him- not just possible civilian causalities, but his own potential death. He speaks plainly about how he might die in the lie of duty, and he narrowly avoided it more than once, with others dying in his place..

He walked into the line of fire with harry expecting for of them to die, and his quick fingers on the trigger made it so they lived another day. Even if more ghost joined the list that hunts him in his sleep, he is alive. He goes on. He can't afford to fix this habit, as much as he wants to.

So it's so horrible and so touching that when Dros asks "What have you done?" Kim says-

It's a tragedy, really. A wartime orphan who wanted to be a revolutionary pilot and played with Franconigerian knights, who grew up to be a cop, a job that slowly shapes his body into a killing machine. And when you ask what he does, what you both do, he says keep people alive.

[cavegirlpoems]

A story from back when I played D&D. It might have been 3.5 or pathfinder or fantasycraft or one of that ilk. Might even have been 4e. It was like a decade ago.

So. Standard D&D. A party of bold adventurers of diverse origins and skillsets gets together to explore a perilous dungeon and stop a cartoonish baddy. The usual.

I end up building a fairly typical character for me. A goblin Rogue/Assassin. A stealth/melee build designed to get the drop on an enemy, do a bunch of rapid damage, and then fuck off.

She was lawful evil, and firmly in the team-fortress-two-sniper school of "You know who has a lot of feelings? Men what bludgeon their wives to death with a golf trophy. Professionals have standards." school of being a mercenary. I think I even did an aussie accent.

Anyway her schtick was that she'd noticed 'Adventurers' got to do as much violence as they wanted without social consequences, and she loved violence! So she was gonna do a stint as an adventurer, so once she was done she could go home with a big sack of gold to spend on booze and cake and hot girls. But right now she was on the job, so she was an extremely professional team player with a strict code of conduct. Always be honest with the team, follow the plan, don't mess things up for the team, split the loot evenly. Standards.

Verna was a horrible efficient little murder gremlin who was also proudly guild-certified. * * *

Now, another PC was a chaotic neutral gnome bard who was leaning hard on the 'gnomes are amusingly racist to goblins and kobolds and think this is funny and endearing' thing. He teased Verna a bunch about being green and ugly, which she studiously ignored because - remember - she had Professional Standards.

Anyway, there was a human NPC we met that she didn't like, saying he was a bit stupid and very annoying. Our gnome bard decided it would be very funny to use one of his enchantment spells to make Verna suddenly horny for him and watch what happened.

Verna sees the gnome who keeps fucking with her walk up, wave his hands and babble some arcane nonsense, and now she has weird funny feelings she can't explain. She does some thinking and concludes that she'll pay the human for a snog later, because right now this guy's just obviously cast a spell to mess with her mind, which was Not Okay. Of course, she had Professional Standards, so...

She walks up to our gnome friend and basically informs him: "Hi! I know you just did some magical brainwashing on me, and I am not going to tolerate this! However, because we're in a team together, and I don't want this to become a problem, I am going to very generously allow you to settle the matter with me. We will have a bout of single combat to first blood, and then whoever wins I will consider the matter settled and my honour satisfied, and you won't do that again, and we won't mention it. This is a very kind offer of mine, because I have Standards; where I come from the normal response would be to say nothing and strangle you in your sleep tonight."

And our gnome, who is a spellcaster not a combatant, looks at this and decides he doesn't want to get shown up by her, and basically tells her that if she doesn't like getting messed with she can go back to the goblin village, and laughs at her.

So. Shrug. Quickdraw as a free action. I get a surprise round. You're flat footed, so it's easy to hit and I get sneak attack damage. 3/4 of his health is gone. Initiative. He says he wants to say sorry. I respond that he can say that when it gets to his initiative count, but right now it's my action and he's still flat-footed and here's my big pile of d6s for sneak attack and oh dear I think that's him on -10 hp, so he's not going to get the chance.

* * *

Anyway this kicked off a massive shitstorm ooc about how I just kicked off PvP and murdered a PC for no reason and the game fell apart because the gnome's player genuinely didn't seem to understand that 'mind control' is a hostile action. This was in the bad old days before safety tools and I was playing in a fairly neckbeardy group, so 'a man makes a woman horny against her will to humiliate her and laughs about it' was apparently not a deal-breaker while 'the woman stabs him for it' was.

I still think I wasn't the bad guy in this scenario.

There is no point to this story I just wanted to share it.

[jadeylovesmarvelxo]

Eddie gets beaten on by Jason and his crew and Reader (who has a crush on him) sees him limping to his van and she walks over to him and helps him into the van, drives him home and then does her best to patch him up and help him, maybe ending with a sweet kiss? Request by @somethingvicked

Mentions of violence, blood. Little bits of angst sprinkled with fluff and a speechless Eddie. mdni.

Eddie x fem!reader.

🖤

Not canon compliant because Jason is alive in this for story purposes, Vecna is gone for good though. Bye bye you grinchy ass looking bitch 💁‍♀️

🖤

The first hit came before Eddie could even dodge it. Jason's fist hits his face with precision, then another blow to his stomach doubles Eddie over.

"We all know you killed Chrissy and the others, you freak, I don't give a shit what the chief of police said, you did it" Jason's face is red with fury, lost in a haze of violence. One of his friends holds Eddie's arms around his back, so he can't defend himself.

Which is when Eddie has the extremely dumb idea to use his head to smash into Carver's nose. It works in the fact that it sends him stumbling back...doesn't help the pain he's already feeling though, the force of the hit sends another wave of agony through him.

Fuck, did he actually break his nose on Carver's face?

He can feel his heart pounding in his chest, he did not survive almost getting eaten alive by demobats to get killed by Jason and his friends. Jason stumbles to his feet and the grip on his shoulders tightens courtesy of David and Liam.

"Tell me what you did to her, Munson! Say it, you fucking asshole" Jason screams at him, Eddie wants to tell him everything, everything that went down during Spring Break, the Demobats, The Upside Down, Vecna. All of it.

But he can't. Nda's were signed and let's be real, Jason wouldn't believe him even if Eddie did tell the truth. He was still trying to wrap his head around it himself. "I didn't hurt her man. I didn't hurt any of them I swear it" Eddie chokes out. His ribs are aching and he's sure his bandages have come loose.

There's another thump that catches him off guard, hits the sensitive spots where the bats tore into him and he's blinking back tears of pain.

He expects another blow to knock him off his feet but when he looks up Jason's fist is cocked and he's in position to hit Eddie again but the hit doesn't come. Instead, Jason's face crumples in pain and he drops his hand, within seconds Eddie is tossed unceremoniously onto the floor and Jason and his friends are gone.

What the fuck?

He doesn't know how he does it but he manages to drag his ass up into a standing position and limps all the way to his van, tries to calm his racing heart and figures a smoke might settle his nerves.

His fingers are shaking as he tries to light up, then he almost drops it when a soft voice comes out of nowhere.

"Are you okay?"

🖤

You saw Eddie limping to his van just as you were ready to bike home. Even from where you were you could see the blood on his shirt. Jason and his friends must have caught up to him, you have no doubt about it.

Everyone knew what happened at Spring Break, at least with the murders. How Eddie was blamed then cleared, Hawkins finding the real culprit Henry Creel, a deranged serial killer.

To be honest you never believed that Eddie had anything to do with the murders in the first place, there were rumours about the state of the bodies, bones broken and twisted in ways that couldn't be natural, eyeballs sunken in and jaws broken. It was the stuff of nightmares.

Some idiots thought that Eddie was a vessel for satan and that's what Dungeons and Dragons was about, a satanic ritual. It was ridiculous. Your friend's cousin played D&D and it was just a fantasy game. Nothing satanic about it.

Without thinking you head over to Eddie. Maybe you could help? You were a whiz with first aid and he looked like he needed patched up and like he could use a friend. Quietly you approach him as he tries to light his cigarette, his hands are shaking so you reach out to steady them.

"You okay?" He peers up at you, big brown eyes wide and kinda like a deer in headlights, he really was beautiful. Normally being this close to someone you had a crush on for almost the whole school year would be mortifying but you were more worried about his injuries than your racing heart right now.

"Hi Eddie" you murmur and he's still gawking at you but accepts your help to light the cigarette, watches you curiously as he takes the first drag.

"Uh hi sweetheart" you and Eddie talked a few times, every time you did he would have a cheeky smile (all dimples) and a cute nickname for you. It did not help with your crush one bit, even though he probably called everybody some sort of nickname, it still made your heart skip a beat.

"Carver did a number on you" you wince as you take in the cuts and bruises on his arm, the blood on his face "I can drive you home, take a look at the injuries?" He nods and tosses you his keys.

You help Eddie into the van as best as you can then head inside. He gives you directions to head to his trailer and you get him there and inside with minimal fuss.

"Okay, you'll need to take your shirt off" you murmur as Eddie points you in the direction of a first aid kit. Eddie grins, "Trying to get me naked or something princess?" he teases and you do your best to hide how flustered you are.

It wasn't your fault, his eyes were so pretty and the way his voice deepened at the end of the sentence gave you butterflies. Shit. This was so not the time.

You locate the first aid kit and get out new bandages, wipes and plasters, scissors and painkillers.

When you head back into Eddie's room he's propped up on the bed. He's shirtless, tattoos on full display and from your vantage point you can see some scars where his bandages have fallen off, silvery scars that look a lot like bite marks...

Eddie looks nervous which is rare for him so you don't comment on the scars, you're curious though but don't want to push. "Do they still hurt?" you ask quietly and his smile dims just a bit.

"A little, not as bad as when it first happened though, fucking bats" he curses then his gaze widens as it meets yours. Bats?

"Bats?" you probe gently and make sure that his bandages are secure again, from the small peeks that you can see, the bite marks are healing but still red, some are healed or are silvery scars. It looks like he was mauled, the thought makes your hands shake.

He sighs, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you princess" your heart skips a beat again but you ignore that, still curious what he means.

"Yeah? Try me. Any person in this stupid town can see that it's cursed or something isn't right" Eddie bites his lips and he looks like he wants to tell you, he really does.

"I wish I could sweetheart but it's uh complicated, nda's and cover-ups and shit" Oh. Well shit. "But yeah bats, big bats, not cute ones either but ugly little shits with super sharp teeth and claws. I can let you know that much"

You're stunned but then some of the things that you've heard Dustin say to Jason and other people who don't believe that Eddie's innocent come back to you.

"He's not a murderer. He's a hero. You stupid assholes don't deserve what he did for you"

So Eddie was protecting the town? Dustin too and maybe other people were involved? You smile and begin to clean up Eddie's cuts. "Hmm, Dustin's right then" Eddie looks confused and you lean forward to clean the blood on his nose.

"Oh yeah? What did the little butthead say?" he asks with a fond expression, you giggle at his tone. Like Dustin is his little brother or something, it's sweet. It's sweet how he looks after people in Hellfire Club, and it pisses you off that people just think he's a freak and don't look past their stupid prejudices to see how good Eddie is.

"That you're a hero. I believe that Eddie Munson, then again I've always thought you were a hero" it's Eddie's turn to be speechless as he gawks at you.

"You think I'm a hero?" he looks like he can't believe that anyone would ever think that about him and it hurts your heart so much.

"Well yeah, anyone who takes lost sheep under their wing and protects them like you do? Or risks his life for a town that can't see past their own stupid prejudices to see what's really happening? Yeah, I think you're a hero Eddie" your speech is impassioned and a bit of a rant so you're breathless, eyes sparkling at the end of it.

Once again Eddie is speechless but not for the reasons you think. "You're beautiful" he murmurs awed and you're flustered once again. Damn it.

"Maybe the hero gets the girl?" he asks softly and there goes your traitor heart again. Does he mean you? Or some other girl maybe. The thought hurts your heart but you plaster a smile on your face.

"I'm not sure any girl could resist those pretty eyes Eddie" a faint blush coats his cheeks at your compliment and he fakes a swoon, smiles at you all dimples and cuteness.

"Flattery works with me princess, not only am I a hero but I also have pretty eyes" you giggle at his overdramatic gestures.

He's all patched up now so he puts his shirt back in and a funny tension hangs in the air. "So, uh would you like to hang out again? when I'm not all beat up and shit. Maybe Friday?" Oh. You beam and nod feeling shy all of a sudden.

"Like a date?" you ask hopefully and he's still blushing faintly. It's so cute and you're sure tonight you're going to be squealing over every interaction the two of you had.

"Yeah, a date princess, he moves closer and the way he's looking at you is sending your heart into overdrive. "can, can I kiss you?" He asks and you nod, wanting nothing more than to press your lips against his plush pink ones.

He strokes your cheek and then his lips meet yours, it starts off gentle and hesitant, then it deepens and you gasp pulling him closer. You both come away a little bit dazed and you giggle as he flops dramatically on the bed.

"Now that was some kiss sweetheart, he beams at the sound of your giggles, when you sober up you bite your lip and decide to tell him a secret.

"I never thought you'd notice me" you say it quietly but he still hears it and gapes like you've truly stunned him this time.

"Seeing your pretty smile dragged me out of bed most days sweetheart, even more than d&d but that's our little secret" he winks and you make a zipping motion. Before you leave Eddie pulls you into another kiss then another.

Okay, so maybe you could be a little late to return your movie at Family Video if it meant kissing Eddie some more.

🖤💌

[dee-writes-smut]

FLOWERS SERIES MAIN MASTERLIST

Eris Vanserra x Pregnant Reader

When you show up on the doorstep of The Autumn Court pregnant and in tatters, Eris can't seem to help himself and agrees to take you in. Little does he know that your unborn babe might be a little closer in relation than he would like.

Content Warnings Include: pregnancy trope, single mother, violence, abuse, fire, Beron (those who get it, get it), Tampon- sorry I mean Tamlin, death, murder.

FINISHED!

Daffodils | a, h/c (?) | Desperately in need of a new place to call home, you accidentally end up in Eris Vanserra's care. |

Forget Me Nots | a, h/c, s, f | Eris shows you his favorite place in the gardens, and in the quiet, you reflect on how you got to where you are. |

Tulips | f, h/c (slight) | Dinner with the High Lord and Lady of the Night Court was going well- if not better- than you expected… until it wasn't. |

Snapdragons | a, h/c, d, f | Eris returns from a council meeting angry and hurt. Something has to give, will it be you or your friendship? |

Dicentras | a (!!) | Lucien shows up to the Autumn Court and secrets are soon revealed. |

Lilies | a (!!!), h/c, d (?!) | Moving on from Eris is impossible, the grief you carry around is unbearable even with the help of your new (ish) friend Lucien. |

Clematises | a, d, h/c | Eris processes new revelations while in a secluded cabin, when he finally makes his choice he ends up running into his father and learning the truth about what happened after he left. |

Rhododendrons | a, f, d, h/c | Lucien has found a healer whom he knows well enough to wake in the middle of the night. After ushering you in, you start to realize with a startling clarity that your baby is in much more danger than you had originally anticipated. |

Roses | f | Eris is settling into both life as a High Lord and a new parent while also juggling the repairs needed for your relationship. Good thing he's tenacious. |

DEDICATIONS: For those loyal readers who have been with me since the start of this series.

@purple-writer8 @defnotlucienvanserra @cherry-cin @julesvanslutta @mirandasidefics @mandziaaa @lilah-asteria @littlestw01f @skylarkalchemist @babypeapoddd

LOVE THIS SERIES? Check out the spin-off COURTS SERIES with Lucien! Or you can look for more characters on my MASTERLIST <3

[persevereforahappyending]

A Legacies Secret |12|

Pairing: Tara Carpenter x Reader

Summary: You just wanted a happy life with your girlfriend but then Ghostface attacks, revealing long thought to be buried family secrets.

Warnings: Language, Crime Scene, Talks of Murder

Word Count: 2.9k+

Main Masterlist | Series Masterlist

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15

Sam sighed, running a hand through her hair as she stepped back into the hall. She understood where her sister was coming from, hell, she couldn’t even blame Tara. Sam would probably tell herself she was a danger and to stay away as well. She knew it wasn’t completely rational, but there was an officer right outside Tara��s room, another down the hall, and another in the lobby. There was no reason to think Tara would be in danger unless she was with Sam herself or with you.

Ghostface attacked Tara to draw Sam back to town and it worked. He then attacked you when he knew you’d be away from everyone else. So far, Ghostface’s plan has worked perfectly. This Ghostface knew who Sam’s father was, it took her reading her mom’s old diary to learn that and yet, this monster somehow found out. Then there was you, you were the daughter of Gale Weathers and Dewey Riley, Ghostface learned that before even you did. Ghostface somehow learned Gale had a child, and that child grew up to be you.

Sam knew every previous Ghostface was a part of the friend group, and the killings always went back to the very beginning. This all seemed like a lot for one of Tara's friends to plan though. Whoever did this would have had to do their research; they would have had to have connections. Gale did everything in secret with you, she even left you outside the hospital to remain anonymous, Sam couldn’t even begin to imagine how Ghostface learned that information, if they specifically went searching for some reason or they got lucky and dug from there.

You might not believe it, considering you were at the top of everyone’s suspect list, but you weren’t even on Sam’s list, not anymore. After watching you and Tara together she saw how much you loved her sister, you would literally die before you let anything happen to her, there was no way you’d ever hurt her. What really sold her was your reaction to hearing the truth, like she told Tara, you’d have to be one hell of an actor to sell that. You looked exactly how Sam felt all those years ago, your world shattering before your eyes.

Sam felt for you, she truly did. Learning her dad wasn’t her dad and her real dad was in fact a serial killer definitely sucked, it was something she’d be dealing with in therapy probably for the rest of her life. Despite all that though for the first half of her life she had a loving family, everything was perfect. You never had any of that though, you grew up knowing your family didn’t want you, you grew up alone. The only person you seemed to truly have in your life was Tara. Sam sighed; she asked you to stay away from Tara.

“You, okay?” Richie asked. Sam didn’t have time to stew in her guilt for long as she came back to reality, seeing Richie in front of her, watching her with concern all over his face.

Sam nodded, she looked around, the same officer was still outside Tara’s room, typing away on his phone. Judy was down the hall talking to another officer and pointing to your room. All of Tara’s friends had left though, just as she asked. Part of Sam wondered if she should do the same and just come back in the morning, so far, every time she visited Tara, she seemed to be making things worse.

“Want to go back to the motel?” Richie asked, giving her an awkward smile. “You need to rest, today was a lot,” he reached up and gave her arm a comforting rub.

Sam gave him a sad smile and nodded. “Yeah,” she whispered. Maybe she just needed a break, she just needed to go and sleep in an actual bed, her mind might be more at ease staying at the hospital, but she didn’t think she’d get much sleep in the waiting room chairs.

She followed Richie out of the hospital. “I’ll grab the car,” he whispered before running off across the parking lot.

Sam bounced up and down on her feet outside the hospital. She tried to ignore the fact that Dewey and Gale were clearly arguing a few feet away from her.

“You kept our daughter from me!” Dewey tried to shout but his voice ended up cracking. “Our daughter.”

“I know, I know,” Gale said. She reached out for Dewey, but he stepped away. Sam really was trying not to eavesdrop; she just couldn’t help it. “I’m sorry, I know that’s not enough. I don’t know what else to say.”

“There’s nothing to say!” Dewey gestured widely. “I knew your career was important to you but why didn’t you say something? Out of all the ways…” he shook his head. “Why didn’t you just leave her with me?”

Gale opened and closed her mouth a few times. “I was scared.” Dewey shook his head, clearly not wanting to hear this excuse. “We had just broken up; I was in New York.”

“But you came back to town, you left her here, you-you-,” he gripped at his hair. “We could have figured something out.”

“Let me make this right,” Gale whispered, stepping closer.

Dewey looked at Gale long and hard for a moment before slowly shaking his head. “I’m not sure you can.” With that he walked off, leaving Gale to stand there crying alone.

Sam let out a relieved breath when she saw Richie pull up. She ran to the car as quickly as she could. She had enough going on at the moment, the last thing she wanted was to get caught up in your apparent family drama. She couldn’t blame you or Dewey though, Sam couldn’t even forgive her own mother for keeping her birth father a secret, she didn’t see how you or Dewey could ever forgive Gale.

Sam rested her arm on the door and her head in her hand, she stared out the window as Richie drove them to the motel. Sam had picked out the motel, it was one of the only ones in town, and she had yet to even enter the room.

“And we’ve arrived,” Richie said, breaking Sam out of her trance.

She got out of the car and followed Richie to the door. Richie opened the door, doing a little wave with his hand as he gestured inside the room. Sam smiled at his theatrics but as soon as she got to the doorway she stopped. “What’s wrong?” Richie asked.

“You know, I think I need to clear my head,” Sam said, stepping back. “I’m going to go for a drive.”

“Want me to come?”

Sam shook her head. “I think I just need some time alone.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” Sam nodded. “I won’t be too long.” She leaned forward, giving Richie a quick kiss before plucking the keys from his hands.

“Okay,” Richie said before entering the room.

Sam got in the driver’s seat of the car. She stared at the motel building in front of her, her body was absolutely exhausted, the only thing calling her name was the crappy bed she knew was inside. Her mind was going a mile a minute though, she knew she’d never be able to rest like this, she just needed to clear her head. She started the car and slowly began to back out of the parking space and turn back onto the main road.

Sam drove around aimlessly, despite growing up in the town she didn’t have a destination in mind, she just kept turning at a stop sign. She furrowed her brow when she saw blue lights flashing up ahead. She looked around, her heart picking up slightly when she realized what street she was on exactly. She pulled over on the side of the road, away from the emergency vehicles. She rushed across the street, her eyes frantically searching for a familiar face, specifically one she was desperate to see safe and sound.

There were already several police cruisers and an ambulance at the house, officers had even already taped up the scene. It hadn’t been too long since everyone left the hospital, when Sam left Judy was still there. Whatever happened had to have just occurred, the quick response of the authorities did nothing to ease Sam’s anxieties.

Sam began to go under the police tape when an officer appeared in front of her. “Sorry ma’am, this is an active crime scene,” he said, holding up his hand.

“What happened?” Sam asked, trying to see around the officer.

Sam’s eyes landed on a yellow tarp being placed over a body on the front porch. “The sheriff.”

Sam’s eyed widened, she had just been with the sheriff, Mindy said the sequel characters, as she liked to call them, didn’t matter, there was no reason for anyone to think Judy would be attacked, besides, she was the sheriff, that wasn’t an easy person to go after.

“What about her son? Sam asked, her eyes instantly scanning for him. “Wes, please, I’m a friend.” Wes only had his mom; she couldn’t imagine him witnessing this or discovering her body.

When Sam looked up, meeting the cops' eyes for the first time, she saw it on his face, she knew what his next words would be. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. He turned to walk back across the lawn, back to the crime scene.

Sam ran a hand through her hair. She was just with Wes, he wasn’t supposed to be a target, there was no reason for him to be a target. Mindy was naïve enough to believe this Ghostface was only going after those connected to the first set of killings and Sam was stupid enough to believe it. Judy might not have liked Sam but without her around, the investigation would slow down even more, everyone would be more concerned with the sheriff's death than actually stopping Ghostface.

“I can’t believe you,” Sam heard a man say. She turned to see Gale Weathers walking across the sidewalk, speedily in her heels away from a news van. Dewey was trailing after her, clearly unhappy with whatever Gale was doing or about to do.

“This was the only way to come,” Gale snapped, spinning around to glare at Dewey.

“Oh, was our secret daughter being in danger not enough for you?” Dewey whispered harshly.

“I didn’t report at the hospital. I would never do that to her,” her voice cracked.

Dewey let out a humorless chuckle. “Gale Weathers putting someone else before her career? Guess that makes you mother of the year.” Dewey brushed past her, not waiting for her to say anything.

While Dewey began to talk to one of the officers close by, Sam watched as Gale ran her hands down her blazer, smoothing out any wrinkles. When Gale turned around Sam couldn’t even tell Dewey’s words had affected her, she kept her face completely neutral as she walked to a spot in front of the police tape. The only indication that Dewey’s words hit her was the way she gripped the microphone in her hands. When her camera man popped up, propping the camera on his shoulder as he pointed at her to begin, she fell right into reporter mode. She smiled at the camera and began to recount the recent Ghostface killings, effortlessly leading into the latest attack on Judy and Wes.

“Hey!” Sam shouted when she caught sight of a familiar officer. “Hey, what are you doing here?” She shouted again, finally getting officer Vincent to look at her.

“I heard the call about the sheriff,” he said, as if that explained everything.

“Who’s guarding my sister?”

“All hands-on deck,” he shrugged and made his way over to the sheriff's body and the other officers.

Sam let out a frustrated groan, she knew the murder of the sheriff was top priority, but she couldn’t believe that cop left his position. Deputy Vincent had orders to protect Tara, he clearly wasn’t doing that, Sam highly doubted he could bring something new to the table that the other officers couldn’t. Sam’s eyes widened when she realized the cop who had been guarding her sister’s door was now standing across the lawn, nowhere near the hospital.

Sam didn’t hesitate to take off back towards her car. “Where are you going?” Dewey shouted after her.

“My sister is in danger!” Sam shouted back; she didn’t have time to waste. She told you to stay away from Tara, she herself left the hospital, now the one person ordered to protect Tara was also gone, there was literally no one standing between Tara and Ghostface coming after her.

Sam didn’t know shit about the movies, she didn’t know how any of this was actually supposed to work. What she did know though was that whoever was doing this was trying to hurt Sam for some reason and now that her sister was defenseless the easiest way to hurt Sam would be to go after Tara again. Ghostface let Tara live the first time, that was just to draw Sam back to town though, there was no way he’d let her live the second time.

“What are you doing?” Sam asked when she saw Dewey running after her.

“Figured you could use backup,” Dewey sighed, though he didn’t seem thrilled about most likely running straight into the line of fire.

“You don’t need to stay?” Sam flicked a glance across the way where Gale stood, talking to her camera man as she gestured behind her, talking about the crime scene.

“This isn’t where I’m needed,” is all Dewey said.

Sam didn’t waste anymore time before she jumped in the car, quickly starting it, she barely checked her mirrors as she whipped back out onto the road. She ignored the way Dewey groaned, his hands flailing to grasp the handle on the door as he was flung back against the seat.

With one hand Sam whipped out her phone, quickly tapping on Richie’s contact. “Hey,” Richie greeted after a few rings.

“Get to the hospital,” Sam said quickly.

“What? Why? What’s going on?”

“I think Tara’s in danger.”

There was a long pause, Sam wondered if she somehow had lost him. “You want me to go to the hospital where a psycho killer might be?” She could hear the hesitation in his voice.

“Richie, please,” Sam begged.

“Okay, okay, I’m going.”

“We’ll meet you there.” Sam made an abrupt right turn, letting her phone fly out of her hand and into Dewey’s lap.

Dewey let out a groan and held out the phone to Sam. “Sorry,” she whispered. She quickly took the phone back, scrolling through the contacts until she found the one she wanted.

“Now, who are you calling?” Dewey asked.

“Y/N,” Sam answered instantly. Dewey furrowed his brow; he opened his mouth to say something else but before he could Sam heard the little click indicating someone had picked up. “Y/N,” she practically screamed into the phone.

“Too what do I owe the displeasure Samantha?” you asked, clearly still pissed at her.

Sam couldn’t blame you; she couldn’t even be bothered to care you called her Samantha, there were more important matters at hand. “Ghostface is going after Tara.”

“What?” You instantly got serious. “How do you know?” It sounded like you were shuffling around.

“Judy’s dead.” There was silence on the other end, Sam couldn’t even hear you moving around anymore. “Wes too.”

“Fuck,” you whispered.

“He’s going after Tara.” Sam let out a shaky breath, she knew how hypocritical she was, she told you to stay away from Tara because you were going to put her in danger and now, she was calling you, her only hope at protecting Tara. “Look I’m-”

“He’s not laying a fucking hand on her,” you cut her off. Sam couldn’t help but glance at her phone, your voice had gotten much darker, she really wouldn’t want to be Ghostface at the moment.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Whatever,” with that you hung up.

Sam blinked away a few tears, you were there, Tara would be fine. She didn’t miss the way Dewey was glancing at her. “I told her to stay away from Tara,” Sam whispered.

“And yet she was the one you called,” he said.

“I knew she’d ignore me,” Sam let out a humorless chuckle.

“She really loves her,” Dewey whispered more to himself.

Sam spared a quick glance at Dewey. He was slumped in the seat, staring out the windshield but at nothing in particular. Sam couldn’t imagine what he must be going through, his wife, ex-wife, love of his life, never told him they had a daughter together. Sam might not have known Dewey all too well, but she knew he was a good man. He and you were robbed of getting to be a family. He was robbed of getting to be a father and you were robbed of getting a loving father.

Sam nodded. “She’s very protective,” Sam said quietly. “She won’t let anyone, no matter who they are,” She smiled to herself, remembering how you got with her when it came to Tara, you didn’t care she was Tara’s older sister, your only priority was making sure Tara was okay, “hurt someone she loves.”

Sam caught the small, yet sad, smile on Dewey’s face. Sam whipped the wheel, making another sharp turn. Everything was going to be fine, you were with Tara, you would protect her, and she and Dewey were on the way, no one else was going to die today.

[pillowspace]

Fnaf au ramble yada-yada

New thought that's stuck on my mind. One of those time travel fix-it Michael AUs, except Charlie also time travelled after Pizzeria Simulator. Neither of them knows the other remembers everything, and both are too distracted trying to comprehend the sheer normalcy of their own realities to really process how different the other person's acting.

Henry's very concerned as to what's happened to his daughter, as Charlie's suddenly become much more still and quiet, lacking her typical innocent cheer. She forgets to eat or drink until Henry reminds her to, and she won't tell him why she suddenly seems so on edge all the time. She was in terrible conditions as the Marionette for years, she has no idea how she's meant to be a person again. She sits in the same room as Michael and just stares at him, and whenever she's not looking, Michael's staring at her, thinking about a strange history that no longer exists but has put a massive barrier of tension between them both.

But there's also one issue with the time travel.

Neither Charlie nor Michael can remember when any of the deaths are to happen until they're happening.

So one day, Charlie gets locked out of the pizzeria in the rain. At first she pounds on the window, but then she stops. She backs away from it. There is a powerful, suffocating dread in her chest that is so much more than just her aversion to rain, demanding her attention. Something is very, very wrong. Now becoming even more nervous, she tries to recall how she had gotten back inside the building that day.

And she realizes.

She does not have a single memory past this point.

And before a car can even turn the block, Charlie runs.

At the same time, Michael was also running. He had regained the memory of this being the day Charlie dies, and is determined to make it to her before his father can. Only to turn the corner and, sprinting as fast as he can, crash directly into Charlie who had been doing the same. Michael barely has time to regain his focus on the sidewalk before Charlie is already scrambling back up and running past him to gain more distance.

So... life successfully saved! By... herself. What changed? And why had she been running so scared if, when Michael asked, his father hadn't even seen Charlie that day...? And as time goes on for even longer, Michael slowly starts to pick up on Charlie's oddities. Out of everything, it sticks out to him that when her birthday arrives, a birthday that she had never had the chance to see before, she only makes one request:

She wants a music box.

Eventually it'll have to fall into place.

Cassidy could have also time travelled, but I'm hesitant on that because the AU might just end the second they find a fatal weapon. Then again, I could give Cassidy the added bonus of not remembering who their killer even was, so one day they just grab Evan by the shoulders like "Evan. Evan, there is an imposter among us and I have no idea who it is, I'm going to explode. Tell me if you see a murderer" and he's like "there's a WHAT?? D':"

[marvelfilth]

Off the deep end 2 (18+)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Pairing: ghostface!Sam Carpenter x f!reader

Warnings: mention of murder, smut

Summary: you don't know what to make of the fact that Ghostface saved you, but you know you'll never let her touch you again. Sam is the only one you want.

Masterlist

The silence that hangs in the room feels almost suffocating. Tara sits still, but the look on her face turns from concern to contemplation, as her eyes jump from you to the TV and then back again. Chad doesn't say anything and only moves when Tara turns to whisper in his ear.

Anika sends you a questioning look to which you easily smile. She relaxes instantly, and reaches for the remote to switch the channel.

You bite your lip, looking down at Sam's hand still circled around your wrist, her grip so tight it might cut off your circulation.

You don't say anything in fear of her exploding on you.

Ever since Tara first dragged you along to their apartment Sam's kept a close eye on you. It was disconcerting at first, when she always glared at you, nitpicking your every move and asking probing questions. You never hesitated to answer in fear of her throwing you out and never letting you anywhere near close to them again.

But then, as weeks went by, her hovering turned from suspicious to protective, almost overbearing at times. You took it in stride, welcomed it, even. You've never had anyone care about you the way she does.

"Can we finally talk about it now?" Mindy asks, warily eyeing Sam. "I know you said before that the murders have no connection to us, but now it's a little too close to home, don't you think?" She looks at you for backup.

You bite your lip. "I don't know, Mindy…"

"What about the guy that wouldn't leave you alone? Cole?" Chad butts in.

You blink, confused. "What about him?"

Tara looks at you, narrowing her eyes. "He was stabbed about a month ago."

You gulp, pushing back against the cushions. "I didn't know that."

Now that you think of it, you realize he stopped bothering you a long time ago, practically disappearing from campus.

Sam stays uncharacteristically silent, her eyes boring holes into the TV and her hand slithering lower to settle on your thigh, absentmindedly circling her thumb on your skin.

Quinn finally looks up from her phone, chewing on the stick of her lollipop. "Why are you so worked up about this? It's New York, people get stabbed every hour."

Silence falls over the room, everyone turns to look at the unbothered girl.

Anika is the first to break silence. "Quinn, use your brain."

"No, she's right." Sam speaks up for the first time. "It's a big city and we don't even know if it's Ghostface."

The older girl gets up, patting your thigh one last time and goes back to the kitchen.

You exchange worried looks with Mindy, who looks equally dumbfounded as you feel.

"What just happened?" Tara whispers, looking like her world flipped upside down.

You sink deeper into the cushions, frowning in thought.

"Can we finally get drunk now?" Quinn gets up to pour herself a shot of vodka, ruffling your hair as she passes by you. "Join me, cute girl?"

You think you hear something fall in the kitchen, but you are not too sure.

The rest of the day passes in a blur. You stick with Quinn, feeding on her laid back attitude and easy smiles, all worries thrown into the deepest part of your mind. Ethan gets embarrassingly drunk and tries to cuddle Mindy, throwing them both over the back of the couch. Chad and Tara disappeared in her room a long time ago and Sam's been brooding all night, sending you long looks over the rim of her glass and eyeing Quinn's hand on your shoulder.

You get up when the clock strikes midnight, ready to head home.

"What are you doing?" Sam asks.

You stagger. "It's late. Time to go home."

"You're staying here tonight." She says, and you don't have the time to object, before she's clapping her hands, startling everyone in the room. "Ethan." She looks at him, cocking her head towards the door. He hurriedly scurries away, blurting out goodbyes as he disappears out the door.

She turns to look at the cuddled pair. "Anika? Mindy?"

One of them grumbles, you think it's Mindy. "We'll go. Sleeping on this old thing leaves me sore for days. You'll have to go and get Chad though." She smirks, biting her lip in anticipation.

Sam just sighs and goes to Tara's room, making sure to be as loud as possible when she approaches the door.

"Looks like you'll get some after all," Quinn whispers with a suggestive smile.

You groan, hiding your face in your hands. "Yeah, I'll get my ass whopped."

"I mean, if you're into that…" she chuckles, and nudges you with her shoulder, before disappearing in her own room.

Mindy and Anika linger by the door, waiting for Chad. You bite your lip and look at the door, considering.

And then someone slaps the back of your head. "Don't even think about it," Mindy hisses, her eyes darting in the direction of Tara's room.

You roll your eyes and step away from her reach, leaning against the wall. Chad emerges a second later, looking reprimanded. Mindy snickers at the look on his face. You quickly say your goodbyes, promising to meet up tomorrow after classes. Sam drags you to her room as soon as the door closes behind them. You eye her warily and take a seat on her soft bed, waiting as she gathers herself.

You hoped she'd forget about the night before by now, but, evidently, the news and the time she spent glaring at the back of your head only egged her more.

"Sam?" You whisper, your fingers clenching around her soft blanket.

She looks at you, her eyes flash as she starts walking to you. "You'll stay here from now on. No more parties. No more walking alone at night. You won't leave this apartment without me," she bites out, taking a step closer with each word.

She's directly in front of you now and you have to strain your neck to look her in the eyes. "Sam this is rid-"

You swallow your words when her hand comes up to your neck, fiddling with the hem of your shirt, a tip of her finger dipping under the fabric to stroke your bruised skin. She leans dangerously close to your face, her breath fanning over your burning cheeks.

"You'll stay here, with me," she whispers, her lips brushing against yours. "Say it."

You lose yourself in her eyes. She's looking down at you, unblinking, her brows furrowing more and more with each passing second.

You decide not to test your luck.

"I'll stay here, with you." Your eyes fall shut.

"And?" She tucks your hair behind your ear, her fingers lingering below your jaw, cradling your face.

"I'll-" you take a deep breath, "I won't go anywhere. Not without you."

She relaxes instantly, tension seeping away from her body, and pulls away, leaving you to tremble on her bed. You open your eyes to see her rummaging through her closet, pulling out various t-shirts and looking them over before settling for an oversized dark green one.

You pull the blanket over your lap, hunching in on yourself as you try to slow your heartbeat, rubbing your chest. You sit in silence as she changes into her sleeping clothes, your eyes trained on the few pictures pinned to the wall over her dresser. There's two with her and Tara, one with Chad and Mindy, presumably at her birthday party, and one with you, sneakily taken by Anika during one of your picnics. You smile at the picture, noting the content look on Sam's face and the curl of her lips as she gazes down at you sleeping soundly on her lap.

"Here," she says, giving you only a shirt, and elaborates at your questioning look, "my pants will be too big on you."

You nod, and ask her to turn around. She does so with a shake of her head, settling on the right side of the bed while you shuffle out of your clothes, folding them neatly over the back of a chair. You freeze when you catch a glimpse of the bite marks littering your neck and shoulders in the mirror, quickly pulling her shirt over your head.

When you turn around Sam is already looking at you, her eyes sliding up and down your body, lingering on the bruise on your throat.

Your face burns and you quickly jump under the covers, facing the wall. She doesn't say anything, just reaches over you to turn off the light, her hand settling over your waist before she pulls you into her chest and nuzzles her nose on the back of your neck, wishing you a good night.

×××

"So… you and Sam?" Tara asks two weeks later, walking by your side in the cafeteria, fidgeting with a bottle of water.

You sigh at Tara's not so subtle prying. "It's just Sam being Sam."

When you woke up that morning, nestled in the crook of Sam's neck while she gently nudged you awake, you could've sworn you were in heaven.

But as it turned out, when she said she wouldn't let you leave anywhere without her, she meant just that. You don't think there was a moment you've spent without her by your side, she is always lingering somewhere around you even if it was just the two of you in the room, and whenever you're in a crowded area she never lets you out of sight, making sure to have at least one point of contact between you two.

And then there's her touches. It's almost like she needs her hand around you to properly function. It doesn't matter who's around, she'll pull you against her without a care, holding you possessively when a stranger stares at you for too long, or going as far as to leave soft pecks down your neck when she helps you reach for something on the top shelf.

It's been bearable before, when you could find reprieve in your apartment after a day spent in Sam's presence, but now she's around you 24/7 and you're not sure you'll be able to endure this sweet torture much longer.

The fact that she shuts you down every time you try to talk about it doesn't help either.

Tara stops and pulls you to the side, pinning you down with an unimpressed look.

"She doesn't spend that much time hovering over me and I'm her sister. And besides, I've seen the way you look at each other. Kinda makes me want to throw up," she says, rolling her eyes.

You take a moment to respond, carefully choosing your words.

"Well… Get a bucket, I guess," you smirk at her offended look, shielding your head when she throws her water bottle square in your face. "Ow! Bitch. I was joking."

"Jokes are meant to be funny," she grumbles, pulling you to the farthest table.

Anika and Ethan are already there, engaged in a heated discussion about the newest installment of his favorite game, the curly boy getting so passionate he accidentally sends his coke flying over your shirt just as you approach them.

"What is it with me getting targeted all day today?" You groan, prying the wet shirt away from your body, and grimace at the stickiness on your stomach and between your fingers.

Tara snorts, sending Ethan a look of approval. "Good job, new guy."

Ethan, for his part, looks like he's ready to die from embarrassment. His chair squeaks against the floor as he stands up, grabbing some wet wipes from his backpack, and starts hurriedly wiping at your shirt. "I'm so sorry! I don't know how that happened…"

You awkwardly inch away. "It's okay," you mumble, taking his wipes and trying to clean the shirt yourself.

It's not okay. You feel gross and the smell is already starting to make you feel nauseous, so you double your efforts, sitting down with a huff.

"Here, take this," Ethan mumbles, taking off his hoodie, "it's a bit big, but it's better than nothing, right?"

You chew on your bottom lip, considering your options.

Sticky shirt or Ethan's hoodie.

You decide on the lesser evil.

He hands it to you with a small smile, and apologizes again, muttering something about clumsiness and genes.

Anika grabs it from him before you could reach out, and stands up. "I'll help you clean up, come on."

You follow her down the hall to a secluded restroom. She checks the stalls before locking the door behind you and tugs you to a sink. You put away your bag and start tugging at the hem of your shirt, trying to keep it away from your hair. You feel another pair of hands help you when you almost get stuck. Breathing out in relief when you're finally free from the confines of your coke scented shirt, you turn to look at Anika.

"Thanks," you smile at her and reach for the paper towels.

You quietly work on wiping away the stickiness, wetting the towels in the sink and rubbing your stomach clean, shifting uncomfortably under Anika's scrutinizing gaze.

You throw your ruined shirt in the garbage bin in the corner, reaching for Ethan's sweatshirt when you come back to stand in front of the mirrors.

"Are you really not worried?" Anika whispers, fixing your hair when you pull the garment over your head. You can't help but notice the scent of Ethan's cologne, it prickles your nose, and you keep in a grimace, already too used to the smell of Sam's detergent surrounding you at all times.

"About what?" You ask absentmindedly, picking up your beg.

She crosses her arms in front of her chest. "The killings."

Your heart skips a beat at the quiet question. You look up to meet her worried eyes, her bottom lip caught between her teeth as she fiddles with a loose thread of her blouse. You can't help but pull her into a hug.

"Nothing will happen to any of us, I'm sure," you say with as much conviction you can muster.

In reality, you've spent the last few weeks in a constant state of uncertainty, looking over your shoulder at every corner and holding onto Sam whenever someone suspicious approaches you. You haven't told anyone about what happened that night, and you don't think you ever will. You can't even begin to imagine what they'd think of you if they ever found out. You're sure you'd lose your friends. You're sure you'd lose Sam.

So you stayed quiet, only allowing yourself to look back on the memory when you were alone, locked in the bathroom. Constant reminders about previous victims from Mindy made you realize that the woman behind the mask saved you and your friends more times than you can count. That night she saved you.

You don't know what to make of it, other than you'll never allow it to happen again.

Sam is the only one you want.

Anika grips your shoulders, nodding. "You're right. I don't know why I'm freaked out. It's just… it's never been like that before, you know..?" She trails off and you nod.

You do know. New York is not the safest place in the world, but it was never that dangerous before a certain group of people moved to the city. You know it's not a coincidence, no matter how much you wish to be proven wrong. You've been keeping up an unbothered facade, borrowing some of Tara's nonchalant attitude, but in the darkest corner of your mind you know that everyone around you is doing the same thing. Pretending.

Expect, maybe, Sam.

She's solid and self assured, her words never waver the way Tara's sometimes do, she never jumps at loud noises like Mindy does, and she never spends a moment too long staring into the dark corners of the street like Chad does. It gives you strength.

"Everything will be fine." You pull away to look her in the eye. "And if anything happens we stick together, okay?" You take her hand in yours and interlock your pinkies in a silent promise.

×××

"Is that… Ethan's hoodie?" Chad asks, squinting at you from the couch.

You sigh and trudge to Sam's room, leaving Tara and Anika to explain the situation for you. The day dragged on for way too long leaving you positively exhausted, you can't be bothered to retell the highlight of Tara's day to her not-boyfriend. Ethan's great and all, but his choice of cologne could've been much better, the smell so strong it gave you a headache.

"What the fuck are you wearing?"

You jump up at the confused voice, your hand flying up to rest on your chest, right over your hammering heart.

"Jesus, Sam. I thought you were still at work," you mumble, avoiding her eyes.

You continue your way to the closet, tensing when the bed squeaks as she gets up, and then you feel her tug at the hem of the hoodie, turning you around.

"It's not yours. And it's not mine either." She's starting intently, her eyes darken. "You definitely didn't put this on in the morning. Where were you?"

Your lips purse at the scowl that took place on her face, her eyebrows furrowed and her head tilted to the side. You hate the way it makes you even more attracted to her.

"I don't have to explain myself to you," you say.

For a second she looks like she wants to argue. Her jaw clenches, but she takes a step back.

"No, you don't." She says it like she regrets the fact.

Sometimes you feel like she can't control herself at times, letting her darker side take hold, acting like she owns you, and she tries very hard to make up for it in the moments of clarity, paying extra attention to your expressions, making sure you are comfortable with her constant hovering.

In truth, all you really want is for her to actually make you hers.

You sigh, reaching into the closet for a change of clothing. "It's Ethan's." You decide to explain. You don't see the way her fists clench. "He spilled his coke all over my shirt, so we had to improvise."

The answer seems to settle her. She sits on the bed, leaning back on her hands, watching you rummage through your clothes.

"It doesn't suit you," she mutters at last.

You chuckle and stop yourself from reaching for your shirt and take Sam's one instead. She doesn't comment on the choice, but her smile tells you everything you need to know.

"Come here," she says, patting her thighs.

You stop in your tracks, your mouth falling open at the sight of her waiting for you on the bed. "I really need to shower, Sam."

"Please."

You hesitate only for a second before sitting down sideways over her lap, your arms circling her shoulders, her hands settle on your hips, toying with the hem of the shirt.

You want to burrow into her and never let go.

"Can I take it off?" she asks, her eyes flickering down to your lips.

The question makes your breath hitch. You'll never get used to the way she makes you feel. You hide your face in the crook of her neck, breathing in her perfume, your fingers threading through her soft hair.

Her fingers sneak past the fabric, resting on the soft skin of your lower back. "Please," she whispers against your temple. "Let me take it off." She presses a gentle kiss to your hairline.

Your body goes limp in her hold and you nod, untangling yourself from her.

She exhales through her mouth and swiftly pulls it off, leaving you in your bra, and carelessly throws it to the floor. She takes you in, her hands hovering over your sides.

You don't think you're able to endure her tiptoeing around you any longer, so you take them and lead them to your breasts. She cups you eagerly, squeezing you over the lace of your bra.

You barely manage to keep in a moan when her finger brushes against your nipple. She inhales sharply, and places her thumbs over your hardened buds, swiping. Your thighs squeeze involuntarily, and you adjust on her lap, desperate to find relief.

"Sam," you whimper.

One of her hands reaches up to wrap around your neck, the feeling so familiar it makes you freeze. Your eyes fall shut when she squeezes your neck, her breath falling hot against your ear as she whispers, "Look at me."

Suddenly, the weight of her hand feels suffocating. Suddenly, you're no longer in her room, but on the floor of your living room, pinned down by a stranger.

Your eyes blink open just in time to see Sam tilt her head, the glint in her eyes almost predatory.

You shake your head and jump away from her touch. She tries to stop you, but you're already in the bathroom, closing the door in her face. You fall to the floor right then, your knees hitting the hard tiles. The door rattles once, then twice. You can't move, shaking on the cold floor, rubbing your chest to calm your rapid heart.

It all felt too familiar. The feeling of strong muscle under your thighs, nimble fingers teasing your heated skin, her hand on your throat, squeezing.

Her fucking voice, asking you to open your eyes and look.

Could it be..?

Your vision blurs.

"Open the door, Y/n." Sam's voice is awfully quiet and unsure, like she's afraid of what she's about to face.

"Was it you?" You ask, afraid to hear the answer, your voice so quiet you're not even sure she heard you.

"Just open the door, please," she begs. You can hear the strain in her voice.

You shake your head again.

You don't know what to think. Maybe it's some fucked up coping mechanism your brain came up with to make it easier for you to accept the fact that you willingly let a murderer fuck you.

For a fleeting moment you think that if she was the one wearing the mask that night you'd be okay with it. You'd welcome it.

You take a deep breath and get up to open the door, hesitating only for a second before turning the knob.

Sam stays on the other side, watching as tears trail down your face. The shakiness of your hands when you wipe them away wakes her up from her stupor, and she throws herself at you, holding you tight.

"I'm sorry," you whisper, "I don't know what's gotten into me."

She inhales sharply, tightening her grip on you. "It's okay. You're okay."

She holds you like you might break or run away, clinging to you desperately. You stay like this for a long time, basking in her warmth. Eventually, she takes a step back and opens the faucet, letting the tub fill with the hot water, before she takes off her clothes, throwing them in a pile on the floor. You watch her undress, falling back and gripping the sink behind you when she's left in her underwear, leaving her defined muscles on full display. You audibly gulp at the sight, your thighs clenching, reminded of wetness pooled between your legs. Next thing you know, she's unbuttoning your jeans, tugging them down after your nod of consent.

You let her take off your underwear, watching her take labored breaths, her chest heaving. There's no color in her eyes, only black of her pupils. She wastes no time in throwing away her underwear, and stepping in the tub, pulling you along.

You sit between her legs, your back pressed against her chest as she litters the back of your neck with kisses, her hands gliding up and down your sides, not daring to dip lower. Your head falls on her shoulder and she finally places a kiss on the corner of your mouth, eliciting a quiet whimper from you.

She reaches to the side, and lathers her hand, pushing you away to grant more space. She gently rubs your skin, washing away the exhaustion of the day, her hands slide up and down your back, then to your stomach, before they finally find home over your breasts.

"Feels good?" She breathes against your ear, and bites down gently. You moan audibly, your nails digging into the skin of her thighs.

You fall back against her when she tugs your nipple, making your hips jerk. She places a kiss under your ear and continues her ministrations on the rest of your body, leaving one area unattended.

You catch her hand when she tries to settle it on the rim of the tub, leading it to the dip between your thighs, where you desperately need her. Her other hand grips your hip hard enough to leave a bruise.

You settle your fingers over hers and lead her down. She cups you gently, spreading your lips before teasing your entrance, her thumb ghosting over your clit. You tug her head down, whining into her mouth. She crashes into your lips, not wasting any time to dart her tongue inside.

She circles your slit with two of her fingers, but before she can dip inside, the door shakes with forceful knocks.

"Sam, you need to get out here right now! There was another attack." Mindy's voice rings on the other side of the door. "It's Ghostface, they found the mask."

[thewertsearch]

@manorinthewoods asked: Vriska and Eridan have now killed one person each. Tavros and Feferi's respective moons have been destroyed; as such, they cannot be revived via dream selves or the moon-crypt slabs. What do you think will happen now? ~LOSS (18/5/24) @manorinthewoods asked: Welcome to Murderstuck, aka Homestuck's version of Canaan House. Who do you think's going to survive this? ~LOSS (22/5/24) Anonymous asked: tavros and feferi are D----EAD! do you think they'll stay dead? you've already stated your opinion that there are death flags like crazy all over vriska, so do you think anyone else will die? if so, who? Anonymous asked: Now that the bodies have started to hit the floor, what's your prediction for who's gonna survive to meet the humans?

I'm actually doing to do something a little different this time, and analyze the situation primarily from an author's perspective, rather than an in-universe one. I had a lot of fun doing that with yesterday's Kanaya post, so I want to try it again.

Let's enumerate the remaining trolls, in ascending order of how likely I think they are to kick the bucket (😳) during Murderstuck.

There's no chance whatsoever that Sollux will die. His Doom prophecy is fulfilled, and if he were to die a third time, it would break his long-established duality theme. Plus, he'd have predicted it, and would have been complaining about it since Hivebent. He's fine.

Death flag score: 0/10.

We just got Aradia back. She's not even involved in Murderstuck, seemingly travelling to the Furthest Ring after being resurrected, so none of the murderers can touch her anyway.

Aradia is a powerful time manipulator who can freeze even the most dangerous enemies. It would take a lot more than Eridan and Gamzee to defeat someone who can stalemate Perfect Jack, and I predict that she'll survive the rest of the Act with ease.

Plus, killing her again so soon would feel really cheap. Been there, done that.

Death flag score = 0.5/10

Karkat and Terezi are too important to die.

This doesn't always guarantee a character's survival - A Song of Ice and Fire comes to mind - but ASOIAF kind of proves my point, doesn't it? Martin can throw all the Red Weddings he likes at us, but everyone still kind of knows that the really important characters aren't going to die until their arcs are complete. If A Dream of Spring ever actually comes out, Daenerys will still be around, and you can take that to the bank.

So no, I don't think Karkat and Terezi will be going anywhere. Now that Kanaya appears to be dead, they're undeniably the most important trolls remaining, alongside Vriska. And we'll get to Vriska.

Death flag score: 1/10.

I know it's weird to predict that an already deceased character won't die, but I wrote an entire post last night about why I believe this to be the case.

tl;dr: it doesn't make narrative sense for Kanaya to stay dead.

Death flag score: 2/10.

Now, we're onto the characters who I think might actually die.

Gamzee's still alive at the end of the countdown, so he'll at least survive the next couple of hours.

Certainly, his position seems rather precarious. His stated intent to wipe out the entire Veil will make him a lot of enemies very quickly - and based on the image above, he clearly gets into some sort of trouble. That scratch almost looks like it could be the work of Jack's sword.

However, I have a hard time believing the Most Important Character In Homestuck is going to die less than halfway through Homestuck. He's been saying all sorts of cryptic nonsense lately, and he strikes me as someone whose role in the story will expand even more than it already has. Gamzee is the one character on this list we know will stay relevant for the entire comic.

I don't think he's going to achieve his murder mission, of course. I think he'll probably be 'defeated' somehow, and expelled from the Veil by the surviving trolls, only to pop up again sometime later. There's still a chance that he'll be killed - but if he is, I'm 100% sure that he'll return in some form. Gamzeesprite would be even worse than Calsprite, in my opinion.

Death flag score: 3/10.

Yes, I still believe Vriska will die - but I don't know if she'll die in Murderstuck.

Scratch positioned her as someone who will perpetuate a monumental, large-scale mistake, and I don't think there's anything she could do on the Veil that fits the bill.

However, Vriska is more imaginative than I am. She could easily pull a trick out from up her sleeve that I didn't see coming - some terrible, horrible idea that earns all of Scratch's foreshadowing in one fell swoop. Vriska is known for her Incidents, and you never know when the next one is on the horizon.

Death flag score: 4/10.

There's not a lot tying Equius and Nepeta to the Veil, is there?

They don't have strong relationships any of the remaining trolls, and even among the B-team, they've barely had any prominence since we've left Alternia. Killing one or both of them would up the stakes of Murderstuck without introducing the narrative issues that, say, a dead Karkat would cause.

Plus, if one of them dies, then the other would immediately gain an incredibly strong motivation, and become a more prominent character overnight. I already like Nepeta - but a heartbroken, vengeful Nepeta hunting Eridan down across time and space? That's a fucking arc.

They could also both die, and return to the story from another direction. It hasn't escaped my notice that almost all the 'important' trolls are Prospit Dreamers, and the two Furthest Ring explorers are Derse girls. I've been wondering for a while now if the solution to the Veil's bloated cast is to split the trolls back into the Red and Blue Teams, with the Red Team joining the kids outside the session, and the Blue Team joining Aradia in the Ring for some secondary mission. I guess that implies Tavros will be resurrected, but there do seem to be hints that that might happen.

I don't want either of these two to die, but... well, killing them would raise a lot of interesting possibilities.

Death flag score (both of them together): 6/10

Death flag score (one of them) : 7.5/10.

Eridan is screwed.

Neither the story nor the trolls can allow him to ally with Jack and lead him to the Veil, and they'll do anything they can to stop him. I don't think anyone's inclined to show him mercy, either - Kanaya and Feferi were very popular.

I don't really see any way out for him. He has no allies, he can't Hopesplode everyone at once, and he's never shown himself to be particularly resourceful. I think if there's one troll practically guaranteed to be Murderstucked, it's him.

Death flag score: 9/10.

[accirax]

Danganronpa: Despair Time Chapter 2 Episode 14 Dissection

I can't think of how to introduce this dissection other than just saying "god damn??". This chapter-- especially its second part-- has been a wild ride, and one that it appears we're nearing the end of. However, we still have one important question left to answer, which I'm sure I'll talk about here. So, let's chat.

SPOILERS for Danganronpa: Despair Time Chapter 2 Episode 14.

Also, I will be discussing Ace and Eden as equally likely blackened candidates in this post. If it will upset you to hear about the prospects of either or both of them being the killer, you might want to sit this one out.

Given what happens later in the episode, it's very interesting that the episode began with (more or less) Ace "admitting" that he has no idea how the murder mechanism worked. A truthful method of disqualification, or a masterful play by Ace to ask Teruko to ask him about the murder method only to pretend that he has no idea what it was? Time will have to tell on that one, because I honestly have no leads.

Similarly, is this Eden being genuinely shaken up and not remembering what transpired in the Gym, or trying to play the helpless innocent card to get out of having to help Teruko explain the murder method that she stole? Spoilers for my thoughts later in this dissection, I guess: they're so evenly matched that it's crazy.

I've always thought that Hu is the prettiest DRDT character, and this episode did nothing but prove me right. Hot damn, ma'am.

The insistence that this questioning is "traumatizing [Nico]" makes me think that Hu could be projecting her own experiences on to them. Perhaps she was once an innocent in a situation for which she kept taking the blame? That would be interesting as another connection between Hu and Nico, of both of them having taken the blame for someone else's follies.

This was a hilarious comeback; never change, Ace. Or, maybe you do need to change slightly, to become a less cowardly and impulsive person. Or maybe I should at least be rooting for you to have the chance to change in the sense that you live long enough to have that work out for you.

Yet another instance of J being the one to say that murder is bad. I wonder if this has to do with her character/backstory in some particular way (although given what we know about her past I have no idea what that would be), or if DRDTdev just needed a judgmental and confrontational person who would snap back at anyone to take over these kinds of lines.

(That's not me dunking on J's character btw she's valid for this)

This was a really clever way for Charles to phrase this to make Hu listen and settle down. I appreciate the out-of-the-box yet logical thinking. (Also I missed hearing Charles' voice :,D)

Woah, I was not expecting to get a Closing Argument comic for the Gym murder, but I am obviously delighted that we have one! Also, OH MY GOD, THE CEILING GRATE. How did none of us even think to consider that as part of the murder mechanism?

However, there are still some aspects of the state of the Gym that haven't yet been accounted for with this version of the murder timeline. I don't really think it's anything that would stop Nico from being Ace's would-be killer at this point, but I'll list them out here in case they are or in case they turn out to be relevant to Arei's murder. I'll also be trying to debunk them, though.

Moved Benches: Some of the benches near the pullup bar were knocked over. These probably fell either in some sort of struggle while knocking out Ace, or when Ace's body fell from the fan.

Moved Weight Rack: The weight rack was moved closer to the bench press and flipped on its back. I guess this really was also knocked over in the same fashion, no matter how unrealistically difficult it should have been to move due to its weight? Or it really was "workout preferences"???

Nico's Missing Cowl: When Teruko and Eden found Nico at the scene of the crime, they weren't wearing their typical dark cape thing. I have no clue why. You could say that Nico was trying to look less instantly recognizable, but it's not as if anyone (other than maybe Teruko) who saw a dark-haired 5'5" individual in a blue shirt instead of a gray cowl would think it was anyone other than Nico. There's also ye olde theory that they might have used it to soak up blood somewhere, but 1) Ace seems to have lost less blood than it may have seemed, and 2) the cowl was still not seen anywhere in the crime scene. I think I remember speculating that after Nico hypothetically used it to soak up blood (or, on second thought, maybe used it to gag Ace with the turpentine), they then stuck it in the fridge to hide it for the time being, at which point MonoTV discarded it and Nico got a new cape from their room. Maybe if it was used to apply the turpentine, Nico also could've put it away to prevent themselves from being affected by the fumes? I guess that's what I'm going with.

Lack of Tape on Pullup Bar: So, this one is obviously relevant to the murder already because Rose not being able to do a pullup is part of what tips off Teruko to the fact that something is off with the tape. However, I have no idea why the tape actually got removed from the bar. I still maintain that I don't think anyone could have stolen the tape off of that bar and repurposed it elsewhere-- most online sources seem to agree that kinesiology tape isn't reusable, and the fact that it was already wrapped around the bar in such a tight spiral would make it difficult to conform to any new specific shapes. My best guess is that Nico might have tried to use the bar instead of the light grate at first, determined that the tape was preventing the wire from sliding properly, and then removed the tape before determining the bar still didn't work. Or, Nico could have tried using the bar before settling on the broom, and thinking that it wouldn't work with tape on it... for some reason? Kinda scratching my head here.

I wonder how long ago it was. It's been four days since the Chapter 2 motive was revealed, although Ace was attacked only two days after the motive. Furthermore, Ace had started bullying Nico to some level already by the end of Chapter 1. I'm sure that Nico must have known what their secret was and probably didn't want it to be shared. My guess would be that they probably started cooking on murder pretty shortly after the new motive was released. That would also work with Charles-via-Whit letting everyone know what the custom weapons were in the first Class Trial.

This was the perfect response for Nico's character. They don't understand why an untruthful "sorry" would actually serve as a courtesy for most people, so they try to say what they feel and get ostracized for it.

Gotta say though, Ace, that was a pretty aggressive reaction from someone who said he "didn't need other people to tell him lies just to keep him happy" ;) (/j)

Damn, way to throw Levi under the bus. I can see why, for someone like Nico, they would want to assert themselves as not the most abnormal person here, though. I just want them to be neurodivergent buddies :(

If that's the case, then I'd have to imagine that we won't be seeing Nico as a killer again down the line. However, they could also just mean "getting caught"/"going in without a solid gameplan," so it's still possible we will. There's also the possibility of them doing something more like a sacrifice kill, although it would take a lot of character work to make something like that feel within Nico's nature.

Sorry to keep screenshotting every little thing Nico says but they keep saying really interesting things. The fact that Nico specifically mentions their father as opposed to "parents" or "family" makes me think that we'll hear more about their father specifically sometime in the future. Or, who knows, maybe their other parent left or died.

Nico: I don't expect you to forgive me. Very few people ever do. So I don't see the point in acting sorry.

This was very interesting as an addendum to the above screenshot. What exactly did Nico "ask for" forgiveness for in the past? Was it just more social blunders, as they described in ch2-e2, or did they get into more trouble closer to this level than we realized? It could also be an indication that Nico has spent time with people who believe that being nonbinary is a crime that Nico needs to feel sorry for. Fascinating stuff, indeed.

Points for Ace being the killer. We know that he went into this trial looking to suspect Nico ("[...] I'm pretty sure I know who the murderer is. It's not David, it's Nico"), so if Ace is the killer, it would make sense if he'd want to make the crime scene resemble Nico's to make his bait more credible.

Hey, it's the aforementioned T A P E T I M E, motherfuckers :D (still /j) Personally, it's quite gratifying to hear that it wasn't just a visual malfunction or a minor detail blown way out of proportion.

You're, uh... getting to this point much faster than I expected, queen. I don't think she's now going to go down the exact same distrustful rabbit hole that she was in before, but there's definitely still potential for her hopes to be crushed by the end of this chapter. Or, maybe she will accept some people as genuine friends, and instead in the future have to confront how she feels when she loses a genuine friend, or not blaming herself for the effects of her luck, or something along those lines. I like that Teruko isn't a static edgy protagonist, though. Like, don't get me wrong, I've always known and appreciated that she has depth, but it's refreshing that she isn't someone who's so stubborn about her own way of thinking that she refuses to admit when she's in the wrong. Teruko really wants friends, guys.

TERUROSE REAL??????

(Also Rose's speech was excellent as well I just didn't have anything in particular to say about it other than "wow" at the moment)

Yahoo, lockdown logic strikes again! Also, a quick

Is Teruko Correct In This Assumption?

Personally, I fully think yes, only Ace or Eden could be the culprit at this point. MonoTV confirmed that it tried to restore the Gym to the best of its ability but couldn't return the tape, which means both that there was no tape in the Gym to be taken and that there was never any spare tape in the Storage Room that MonoTV could have used to replace the roll. I guess you could say that there was an extra roll of tape in the Storage Room that someone else took before the murder took place, but that level of coincidence seems implausible at this point in the Trial.

No, for anyone other than Eden or Ace to have acquired the tape, they must have either stolen it from one of those two or asked for it from one of those two. Asking them seems very unlikely-- for starters, if it was Ace who took the tape, I don't think he'd be giving free hand-outs to anyone. And, if Eden isn't the killer herself, that means all of her fright regarding stumbling upon Ace's body was genuine. I don't think she's naive enough to then hand over what was used in Ace's murder to anyone asking... or at least not without bringing it up now. Beyond that, anyone who would ask either of them for the tape would have to know that the tape was used in the murder attempt, knowledge of which was very limited. This episode went to lengths to establish that Nico was the sole culprit behind the attack on Ace, and while it's still possible it could all be an elaborate lie, the explanation Nico gave felt very in character and important for their characterization moving forwards. So, while Nico would obviously know it was used, if Nico asked either of them for the tape, surely neither Eden nor Ace would trust them. Otherwise, I think Rose is the only one who could have found out it was gone, but even so, given that neither Eden nor Ace have tried to argue that Rose asked them for the tape, I don't think that happened.

You could also say the same of neither Eden nor Ace claiming to have had the tape stolen from them-- but I could see either of them feeling like claiming to have taken the tape at all right now would be a death sentence, so I understand why they wouldn't say it. Still, I don't know if the narrative is there to support the tape having been stolen from them. On the day after the Gym murder (Day 7), Eden isn't seen in the daily life at all. If someone stole the tape from Eden on that day, I would think that DRDTdev would at least want to show us who Eden was spending time with on that day (given that he put in the effort to make the tape sprite disappear from the Gym at the time it did), so that we would have any idea who might have done so. Ace is seen once in the Day 7 daily life, arguing with Hu, Nico, Levi, Veronika, and Arei. However, having just been attacked, I imagine he'd be hyper-aware of anyone getting close to him, and therefore would be more likely to notice if someone was rifling around in his pockets (if he has pockets?).

Really, I think the only possible candidates for who could have stolen tape from Ace or Eden would be Levi (mostly just for Ace) and Arei (from either of them). Levi might have had an opportunity to take the tape from Ace on the night he was attacked, the night of Day 6. Eden said last episode that Levi "kept trying to help him" after Ace was attacked, which could imply that Levi was the one to put bandages around Ace's neck. Furthermore, he does have a criminal past, which could make him better at stealing. Similarly, Arei is confirmed to be a good pickpocket, stealing Min's pen without Min noticing at all. I think she's the only one with the proper buildup to have taken the tape from Ace at that breakfast, and would be the most likely to have spent time with Eden when Eden was off-screen. (Although, it would have to have been before lunch, because Eden says the last time she saw Arei was at lunch.)

However, I don't think many people think that Levi is the killer anymore, and if Arei stole the tape from Eden or Ace only for the killer to then steal the tape from Arei, I would start to wonder why DRDTdev even made the tape such a scarce resource in the first place. Remember that, if the killer was purposefully trying to recreate Nico's idea, they likely knew in advance that they would need the tape to pull off their plan. It was used in enough places that seizing the opportunity to take it off of Arei seems unlikely, as it was too fundamental to the plan's inception. Besides, for the killer to replicate Nico's plan in the first place, the killer likely needs to be Nico, Eden, Ace, or Teruko, who are the ones who could have most easily taken the tape on their own.

I've already seen people accuse this Trial of being bloated, and while I strongly disagree (I only think cases are bloated when they're stalling for time and have nothing of interest to discuss, and we've still had PLENTY of interesting stuff to discuss), if we spent a whole 'nother who-knows-how-many episodes reversing all of the progress we just made to say that either Nico wasn't actually the one to kill Ace or that someone who didn't see the crime scene killed Arei, that bloating problem would only seem worse to those people.

I understand if you don't want to believe that Eden or Ace has to be the culprit for whatever reasons-- whether that be that they're your favorites and you don't want them to die or you really like your theory and don't want it to be false-- but I really think that this episode cemented that either Ace or Eden will be voted for as the blackened for all of the reasons above. Therefore, I shall be proceeding accordingly.

She was WILD for this. Hilarious line of reasoning.

What's Up With the Body Discovery Announcement?

The "reveal" of this line of logic was no surprise to me. As someone who's believed that Eden is the culprit for quite a long time, we've had to figure out ways to get around this thing before, and besides perhaps "not witnessing the murder," someone else seeing the body before the BDA rang is the most obvious way to cheese it.

However, in order for this to be a thing, we have to ask ourselves-- who would have actually seen the body first?

David claims to, but he has an alibi starting at 7:30 AM with Veronika and J. Both because Arei theoretically wasn't dead before then and because we've been operating off of the assumption that a meal takes about 30 minutes to eat, I don't think any of the three of them could have stumbled across Arei in the morning. Nico and Hu both have an alibi, which I'm going to consider solid enough to remove them from possibility-- one of them spotting the body would be helpful to make Eden the killer, and I think the only people who believe that Hu and Nico are lying only believe so under the condition that one of them is the killer. Whit is out, because him seeing the body beforehand doesn't actually accomplish anything, and so is Charles, because we can assume that, if he saw the body, he would be out of commission. I'm also going to strike Rose from seeing the body before breakfast, both because she's very likely to have been asleep and because if she had already seen Arei's body in the Playground, she probably wouldn't have refused to draw a diagram. That would leave only Ace, Levi, and Arturo as non-blackeneds who could have helped facilitate culprit!Eden from not being caught by the BDA.

However, we also have to consider that "before 8 AM" isn't the only time someone could have stumbled across Arei's body. They also could have seen it before Teruko, Eden, and Whit did while everyone was looking for Arei. So, what do we know about what happened during the search for Arei? Not much. Hu says that they should split up, while J says she's going to check Arei's room. Teruko says that most people are probably searching the first floor, an assumption that's supported by Teruko, Eden, and Whit not seeing anyone else while they check the second floor. You might think that would eliminate the possibility of anyone else seeing Arei's body during the search, but Teruko did say most people, not all. There's also what MonoTV said when Teruko and Veronika were investigating the Gym.

MonoTV: It's too high! If you stood in the movie screening room on floor one and started punching through the walls, you'd fall into the playground.

This not-yet-addressed piece of evidence got me thinking about the possibility of someone seeing Arei's body from above, standing in the Motive Screening Room. It still probably couldn't be Teruko, Whit, Charles, Rose, or J, but anyone else would theoretically be back on the table if that were the case. That being said, I can't find any visual differences in how the Motive Screening Room looks between the beginning of Chapter 2, when the search for Arei begins, and when Teruko goes to check the motive secrets (other than a curtain being added over the screen in the third case). So, unless there was already a heretofore unmentioned hole to peek through in the room, I wouldn't count on that being the case. The connection between the Motive Screening Room and the Playground will probably just be relevant to a different chapter.

Therefore, that leaves us once again with Ace, Levi, and Arturo. The main problem with believing that any of them could have seen the body beforehand is why they wouldn't have brought that up at this point in the Trial. Here are my best guesses as to why:

Ace: I have genuinely no clue why Ace wouldn't have brought up that he saw the body in the morning (assuming that he actually did) to defend himself at this point. It's not like it would make anyone more suspicious of you.

Levi: Levi does seem to be a bit dense regarding what is and isn't helpful behavior in a Trial, so the most likely possibility to me is that he just didn't realize that confirming he saw her was helpful. Like, "oh, I didn't realize that me confirming that I saw Arei would help us pin down Eden as the killer. I was just trying to figure out how David and I both saw Arei's body this morning and I didn't see him." "Wh-- David was obviously lying!" "He was?" "I already told you he was lying before..." "Levi... we talked about this..." Bonus points for it not being out of character for Levi to be unfazed by seeing a body, though.

Arturo: In Arturo's case, I think it would have to be that he'd still be worried about people seeing him as suspicious for saying he found Arei's body in the case of accusing Eden specifically. They already have a past history of conflict, and I could see someone brashly accusing Arturo of throwing Eden under the bus just to get revenge on her for the secret thing (even if I don't think he would actually do that). He also made an enemy out of Arei, so I don't think he would be particularly fazed by seeing her corpse either-- similarities to Felicity's cause of death notwithstanding. However, I also find it likely that he trailed after J in going to check Arei's room.

So, what's our conclusion here? Does this mean that Eden is basically fully cleared by triggering the BDA? I wouldn't count her out just yet, but the evidence isn't looking great for her. It's quite possible David only brought up this argument to A) hold out suspension of disbelief that it's not just Ace for a little while longer, B) drop this logic as foreshadowing for a future killer's plan, C) characterize the kind of logic he uses in a Class Trial, or D) bring up this argument in canon so that the people who theorized that the BDA might not clear Eden or Whit wouldn't be like, "wait, but what about...?" However, it's also possible that one of the possibilities I listed above, something I might have missed, or the "see no evil" idea (as FF put it) could keep Eden in contention. That dynamism is part of what makes Ace and Eden feel so evenly matched.

See, this is what I assumed David was getting at after Nico reminded me of his early-morning alibi. But then he just kept talking...

I'm not going to delve into what David was thinking here too much, because I already have an anonymous ask about what I think David's rationale was that this will almost certainly come up in. However, as a short version, I imagine that David is trying to get everyone angry at each other in the hopes that it'll incite another murder that he can get the class to fail? Or to cause enough discord in the group that they just fail this one. That would be why he also rags on Rose for not remembering the tape, and insults Arturo's sister-- he wants no one to trust anyone so that the murder-solving process will be as un-streamlined as possible.

The fact that he targets Teruko so specifically is probably because he (accurately) assesses her as the only real threat there. Charles and Rose can help, sure, but their mental struggles make them easy enough to eliminate if you play your cards right. Teruko's main flaw is her lack of trust, so if David wants to weaken her, it makes sense to go right for that jugular. Furthermore, by stating his plans so plainly and publicly, it might incite other people to fight back against him and say that Teruko should trust them. However, that kind of olive branch might make Teruko even less inclined to get close to them, if what Teruko said to Eden at the end of ch2-e03 can tell us anything. Didn't stop Eden from trying at the end of this last episode, though!

After taking some more time to think about what David was up to this chapter, I might change my mind on those being his goals. But, this post does serve as my initial thoughts of sorts, and that's what I initially think about this scene.

I wholeheartedly agree.

Does Ace Have Nothing To Do With Arei?

What Ace has to say is more or less true-- barring the breakfast in which Arei didn't talk at all (AKA, no conversation), Ace has literally never been in a small group event with Arei. However, although they didn't talk to each other, Ace did overhear the conversation between David and Arei, which does give him a connection to Arei. Quite relevantly, Arei did say this to David during their conversation:

Arei: You said that sharing our secrets would help fight against the motive. But when I think about it, not a single good thing has come out of that. Eden was stupidly naive, as usual, and tried to talk to Arturo, so now I have to protect her.

From this, Ace could probably surmise that Eden had Arturo's secret, she talked to him about it, and that Arei stepped in to save her from Arturo. He was one of the few people who could have known that Eden and Arei grew closer before the murder occurred: another connection Ace had to information about Arei.

However, before you use that evidence to call Ace the killer, let me remind you that he still doesn't have enough information to write the note from just eavesdropping on this conversation alone. As I outlined in this theory (same as the one I just linked above), whoever wrote the note had to specifically know that Arturo's secret was about his sister, which Arei doesn't divulge (quite possibly because she didn't even know) to David. Therefore, although Arei mentioning Arturo and Eden in this conversation is interesting, it doesn't actually make Ace any more likely to be the killer, because he still would have needed to find some way to spy on Eden's secret and/or Arturo and Eden's conversation to write that note. (Unless mentioning the sister specifically was an oversight plot hole, but I never want to use that as my reasoning.)

So, do I get what Arturo is getting at? Yeah, Ace and Arei were never particularly involved, and Eden clearly has a greater connection to the victim. However, there is more to the Ace/Arei bond than it might first appear, and it's possible that could come up in the Trial moving forward.

This distinction-- between "Arei was my friend" and "Arei could have been my friend"-- could be very telling down the line. Eden pauses mid-tear-filled rant to distinguish that Arei is not her friend, not because she's dead, but because they hadn't reached that point yet. Arei is not Eden's friend in death. What can that possibly mean other than that Eden killed Arei?

... BUT THEN HOW THE FUCK CAN EDEN GO AND SAY ALL OF THIS, BE THE KILLER, AND THEREFORE PROVE DAVID RIGHT???

AND THE "BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT FRIENDS DO" REFERENCE??? AT THIS HOUR????? I DON'T EVEN KNOW IF THAT MAKES HER SEEM MORE OR LESS SUSPICIOUS!!!!

OUGH AND THE MIN PARALLELS TOOOOOOO

MIN WAS TERUKO'S FRIEND BUT ALSO A KILLER. DOES THAT MEAN EDEN IS GOING TO BREAK THE CYCLE OR DOES IT MEAN THAT WE'RE STUCK IN A DOOMED STORY IN WHICH TERUKO IS THE PROTAGONIST? IT COULD GO EITHER WAY!!!

Jumping back in time for just a moment...

A Piece of Evidence That Lines Up to Them Only

I thought about making this its own separate post, but decided not to. If you guys want me to make this part it's own separate post so it's easier to find/comment on directly, let me know, and I'll set that up.

But before you can make your decision, I suppose I have to explain what I aim to do here. Basically, Teruko has told us that she's still torn between Eden and Ace (mood), and that, while she'll start off attacking Ace, she's looking for any pieces of evidence that could prove that only one of them could have committed the crime. Problem is, we have no indication of what that specific piece of evidence could be, and, trust me, it could be a lot of them. Thus, what I'm going to do in this "mini" theory is list out every piece of evidence that I can think of, and say whether it points to Eden being the culprit, Ace being the culprit, or it can't point to either of them. Perhaps once we're done, you'll see why I'm so conflicted on which of them it would be.

I'm going to tier these pieces of evidence in terms of least likely to be the missing piece to most likely to be the missing piece, starting with all of the aforementioned unexplained gym evidence. The knocked over benches and weight rack were not part of the replicated crime scene, and I have no idea how Ace or Eden would have wound up with any version of Nico's cowl. The missing tape on the pull-up bar has the greatest likelihood to be relevant, but as we're already suspecting both of them for having the tape, I don't think it'd be a decision maker. Any of those pieces of evidence would be likely to come up in proving that Nico wasn't the one behind Ace's murder, but this theory is operating under the assumption that Nico is the one who tried to kill Ace, and either Ace or Eden killed Arei. If you want the answers for your own theory, do your own homework. (/lh)

Ace or Eden will get a point for any evidence that I think would better be used to accuse them as being the culprit. Therefore, winning points is actually a bad thing if you want to be innocent. For convenience of "scoring," Eden will be purple because of her shirt and Ace will be pink because of his "maroon" hair... and because I needed red and orange for the likelihood ranking.

UNLIKELY FINAL PIECES OF EVIDENCE

Arei's Body Swinging: This evidence has already been used to establish that Arei was killed in the morning, not at night. Either Ace or Eden could have killed Arei at 7:30 AM, so point to neither of them.

Ace Trying to Assign Himself to Guard Duty: This one is obviously a point for Ace if it were the final piece, but it's such a minor happenstance that I doubt Teruko would think to bring it up as the main thing against him. Like, she could bring it up in general, but I don't think it'd be her crowning jewel. Still, it's a piece of evidence we haven't discussed yet, so credit where credit is due.

Arei's Bound Wrists: Bound by the grippy tape that either of them could have stolen. Point to no one.

Broken Playground Lights: The lights in the Playground are broken, likely from the mechanism being hung up through the ceiling rafters. You could argue that this is a point for Ace's strength, but I don't think throwing a ball that high requires so much strength that Eden couldn't do it, especially if you might be able to use the see-saw to launch it somehow. Point to no one.

Dried Up Puddles: This has nothing to do with either of them. Point to no one.

Carousel Wrapped in Tape: Again, either could have had the tape, so point to no one.

Two Pieces of Rope: Either of them could have taken the rope from Storage and cut it; point to no one.

Food/Utensils/Napkins in Trash: Probably David's dinner. Possibly evidence of Eden and Arei having breakfast together, but that's a stretch. Point to no one.

Cups/Tissues/Palette in Trash: Rose says these were hers. Point to no one.

Incense in Trash: I know thebadjoe had (has?) theories about this being used to conceal the scent of Arei's body being hidden in the Relaxation Room a day earlier than anyone thought, but I find that to be too much of a stretch to accost Eden for it here. I think it's just filler. Point to no one.

Grippy Tape in Trash: I should just stop writing out tape evidence. Point to no one.

Broken Jugs: The killer used jugs of water to make Arei heavier, which broke when she fell. They probably had the fish water in them, but we're not talking about the fish themselves at the moment. I'll say point for Ace because the jugs are probably from the Gym, and we've seen Ace in the Gym far more times than we've seen Eden.

Needle and Black Thread: This evidence... might have to do with the ball of clothes, which we'll get to later. However, if this is relevant to the murder, it's probably from the Dress-Up Room, in which we've seen Eden but never Ace. Point to Eden.

Construction of the Note: After a bit of internal debate, I'm going to call this a point for no one. Why? Well, it's because Eden would have reason to help construct the note whether she was the killer or not. If she is the killer, she might have wanted to guide the discussion that followed its reconstruction, to urge to Rose and Whit that she's innocent and that someone must have framed her. It would also give her reason to come into the Trial already having a handwriting sample on her. However, if Eden is innocent, she also easily could have just wanted to help out. Most importantly, Eden already brought up the note being constructed in her initial defense, so I doubt Teruko would reuse it as the nail in someone's coffin.

Splashing Arei With Water: Either of them could have thought of this and accomplished this. Point to no one.

SOMEWHAT LIKELY FINAL PIECES OF EVIDENCE

Body Discovery Announcement: While this may very well play an important part in solving the case, I don't think it'll be the final smash, so to speak. That's mostly because we already talked about it a lot in determining whether Eden could have done it. In the end, I think we'll either have to come up with a way to justify Eden having cheated the BDA-- by Levi or Arturo having seen it or via see no evil-- or we'll accuse Ace without the BDA being a problem. I guess I have to call this a point for Eden because if the BDA were to be the damning evidence, I think it'd have to be for her. However, in my heart, this is totally evidence supporting Ace being the killer.

Arei's Broken Neck: I'm using this as a stand-in for the strength of the killer, in the sense of lifting Arei up and being able to stop the carousel. This is a point for Ace, because he's a professional athlete and Eden is generally the weakest person in the cast.

Scratches on the Ground: This evidence certainly seems to indicate that there was a struggle at the Playground, but is there anything more to it than that? I'm more willing to believe that Ace could have beaten Arei in a fight, but does that point to Eden because there would've been more of a struggle, or Ace because Eden wouldn't have wanted to fight Arei at all? Ace also normally wears heels (while Eden and Arei don't), which is what Hu cites will naturally scratch up the floor. This evidence is vague enough that I don't think it'll be used to point to either of them, but if it did, I think it's more likely to be Ace.

Ball of Starched Clothes: For starters, I'll share (I think it's) thebadjoe's theory that the ball was adhered together using starch from the Relaxation Room that's sprayed on the plants at night, because I saw some people questioning how the clothes could have been stuck together. Anyways, the ball of clothes itself is definitely a point for Eden, because we saw her in the Dress-Up Room specifically looking for Teruko's clothes. Although, Ace certainly saw Teruko and Hu's new fits, so he could have figured it out for himself.

Actual Acquisition of the Tape: I don't think this will be used as the final piece just because I feel like the narrative is pointing towards the damning evidence relating to Arei's actual murder as opposed to Nico's. However, it's relevant to discuss, so I'll list it here. Although Teruko says that Ace and Eden had equal odds at the tape, on the surface, it really makes much more sense if Eden was the one to take it. Star explained it well here, but I'll add my own recap: in the moments when the tape must have been taken, in between when Nico leaves and when MonoTV kicks everyone out, Ace is recovering from unconsciousness, covered in blood, full of rage, and has all eyes on him. Meanwhile, Eden is scared, sure, but she had a clear moment to actually examine the scene of the crime and is also knocked to the ground-- potentially right next to the tape-- with all her wits about her. While it's not impossible to believe that Ace sleight-of-handed the tape, Eden had a much clearer path to taking it. Point to Eden.

MOST LIKELY FINAL PIECES OF EVIDENCE

Arei's Missing Glove: To my memory, Arei's glove hasn't been brought up in the Trial at all, which is definitely strange, because it must be missing for a reason. If DRDTdev is crafting so much detail into the BDA that the swinging of the body is plot-relevant, there's no way he would have just missed giving Arei her glove. The question is, what was this used for? Those who are familiar with my theories should know that I've never been a fan of dress-up theories, so I'm going to discount that possibility. The thing I thought was the most likely was that the killer donned the glove so that their hands wouldn't get super scratched up from grabbing the grippy tape-d carousel bars, before gleamingtempest reminded everyone that both Eden and Ace already wear gloves. Still, looking at them, Eden's gloves are probably made of something more like cotton while Ace's gloves likely have some sort of tougher grip on the inside. So, Eden would probably be more likely to need something else to protect her hands. Also, given that both of Arei's wrists have marks on them, the glove was likely taken off before her wrists were tied. I can't figure out why Ace would have taken off Arei's glove before restraining her or how he would have gotten Arei to take it off otherwise, while for Eden, at least, I can imagine her asking Arei to take off her glove. Therefore, I'm going to call this one a point for Eden, while also throwing out that it might just be missing if Arei didn't bother putting on her glove for the early morning meetup.

Fish on the Playground: You've heard it from me before, Eden has an alibi through the entire time the fish could have been taken. With seemingly no accomplices (other than possibly Arei) in sight, I don't know how Eden would have gotten her hands on those fish. Meanwhile, Ace had a great opportunity. Point for Ace.

Pieced-Together Note: This evidence is very confusing, because I don't see how/why either of them would have implemented it. For Ace, I wrote that entire theory (I'm not going to link it a third time) about how, based on the information in the note and the layout of the first floor, it really seemed like eavesdropping was impossible, and the person who wrote the note had to be Arturo or Eden. Then there's what thefandomenchantress pointed out about Ace's pedantry making it seem like he wouldn't misspell "responsible" in the note, and that he just doesn't give me the vibes of someone who writes in cursive. By all accounts, it really seems like Ace can't have written that note. But then again, why would Eden have written that note? Okay, bad phrasing; she wrote it to get Arei to come to the Playground. But still, why would she sign it? Or if she were to sign it, to make sure that Arei knew it was her, why include so much detail about what Arturo's secret was? More importantly, why wouldn't Eden have just stuffed the ripped up note into her belt, or her pockets, or her room if it would serve to incriminate her? Put it wherever she put that glove! Hell, why not eat the note, if it's a life or death situation? There's the "reverse psychology" argument, but similar to what Teruko said this episode, it would have been much simpler for Eden to have pretended that Arei came to the Playground for some other reason without the killer planting some sort of note meant to frame her. And it's not like I think Eden is really the type to misspell "responsible" either. So, I'm kind of at a loss. It's such a major piece of evidence that I feel it has to come into play again somehow, but I'm not sure how. I think I'm going to call this one a point for Ace because at the very least I understand why he would want to leave this evidence here, even if I don't know how he created it. For Eden, I don't get why she'd leave it lying around, even if in pieces. You can call it revenge for Eden getting the point on the BDA, if you wish.

So, what are the results? If you add up all the points together, you wind up with 6 points for Ace and 6 points for Eden. Funny. If you tier the points, however, with 1 point for unlikely pieces, 2 points for somewhat likely pieces, and 3 points for the most likely pieces, you get 12 points for Ace and 10 points for Eden. Of course, that's using my tierlist of which pieces of evidence are most likely and on top of that, assigning the BDA and the Note the way that they are (if you flip them it's 11-11), but still. If you're invested in my findings, these are the results.

Needless to say, I hope you can understand why I'm having such a hard time determining which one of them will turn out to be the killer. Although, I must add...

If we're suspecting Ace first before we've done our Debate Scrum, that's not a good look for Eden never being suspected again in this Trial.

Concluding Thoughts

What? A conclusion? I've never done one of these on a dissection before?!!

Yeah, well, this time, I have stuff to say that I couldn't really correlate to one image in particular! And also I ran out of images, so this is what you get!!!

I spent that whole "A Piece of Evidence" section talking about the physical evidence that could support Ace or Eden being Arei's killer, but in it, I really didn't get to talk about the narrative implications of either of them being the killer at all. I know that Narrative Defenses are typically Venus' thing, but I have my thoughts on this, too. Namely, that both of them are riddled with narrative problems for being the killer at this point.

(Note: I don't mean "problems" in the sense that DRDTdev has written anything poorly. What I mean is, my own perception of how the characters are conveyed has me currently raising red flags about how either of their stories will pan out as a killer or how the rest of the story will pan out without them. At the time the answer comes, I have full faith that I'll be satisfied with the results.)

Let's start by looking at Eden, the spotlight character of the end of this episode. After that whole heartfelt speech with the CGs and the tears and the brilliant voice acting and the everything, how could Eden possibly be the killer?! I'm the one who was trying to defend the possibility of her still being the culprit after her little rant last week, and while I could probably do that again with this speech, it just felt so... I dunno, sincere. You can really feel Teruko's reluctance to put her faith in Eden, but her choice to do it anyways. Teruko already showed signs of growth this episode by admitting that she can't always solve mysteries by herself, so could that be a sign that she might come around on the group faster than we initially anticipated? If Eden was the killer, it would crush Teruko so hard. Is there any recovering from that? Can we really prove David right?

On the other hand, Ace is, quite possibly, one of the most intertwined members of the cast. He's probably Levi and Nico's #1 correspondent, and he's up there for Hu as well-- assuming they both survive the chapter, I'm sure their animosity towards each other will only grow in Chapter 3. With Ace just having given up on Levi, having just been the target of Nico's battery and Hu's verbal lashes, can the story really work without him in it at this point? Eden hardly has connections with anyone other than Teruko-- Hu's probably next, but Eden probably ranks, like, fourth on her list after Nico, Ace, and David-- which should make her more expendable. Is it really Ace's time already?

However, despite my complaints, I also think that both of them could be really good options as the killer here-- the two options I prefer over anybody else.

Eden is the character who's most connected with Arei. She plays into the chapter themes of being a good person beautifully. She's a good person, a tragic figure, that killed not because she wanted anybody dead, but presumably because she had something back at home that she had to get back to at all costs. Killing her off would break Teruko-- would break everyone. With the reveal of everyone's secrets, next chapter is going to be a living hell, so why not make that hell worse by removing the biggest conflict de-escalator here? It would force other people to step up to bat. It would give everyone a chance to change, what Eden wanted for Arei most of all. Eden's development isn't an arc, per say, but a fall-- a reminder that even the "most good" people can do the unspeakable.

Meanwhile, Ace has perhaps the most obvious reason to kill someone: he literally almost fucking died himself. Ace's execution would be a reminder of the physical reality of the killing game. That actions have consequences. Even if the guy who started all those fights is dead and gone, you can still feel his presence lingering in the arguments between the others. The guy you underestimated most of all-- not for being kind, but for being dumb-- can send you into a multi-hour spiral in which you accuse even the sweetest of participants. Ace's development isn't an arc, per say, but a fall-- a reminder that reveling in your own distrust and anger might lead you to do the unspeakable.

For someone who's spent so long believing that Eden is the culprit of the chapter, it's really amazing how down-to-the-wire DRDTdev has made the end of the case, where either option feels so believable that it's like you can picture the rope in their hands. Whether my theories, old or new, were right or wrong, I am highly looking forward to watching next week's episode and discussing it with you all. See you on Friday-- just try not to freak out too much before then, alright? (/aff)

[theresattrpgforthat]

TTRPGs for people with dyscalculia?

THEME : Dyscalculia Friendly.

Hello friend, I’m going to first point you to the Math-Lite Chaotic Murder Hobos recommendation post I wrote up a year or two ago.

What I understand about dyscalculia is that in can affect the ability to do mental math, but I'm not sure how much it affects number recognition. I have a few games here that ask you to read the faces on a die, but I don't think any of them expect you to do any addition. I hope you find something fun on this list!

Cats of Catthulu, by Joel Sparks.

CATS OF CATTHULHU is the beloved rules-light roleplaying game in which the players take the part of ordinary cats, secretly defending human civilization from the Chaos Cults of the other animals. All the players have to do is act like cats, while the Cat Herder arranges exciting challenges for them—anything from snacky time to daringly interrupting dire rituals.

In Cats of Catthulhu, the way the story will go is always a mystery. You and your friends play to find out what happens. One person, the Cat Herder, arranges the secrets and situations, and sets the scene, but even they don’t know where the night will end. The players take the role of individual, ordinary cats. All you really need to do is act like a cat.

It might be a bit difficult to get your hands on them, but the original dice for Cats of Catthulhu don’t have any numbers on them; instead, they have sad cats and happy cats. Whenever a cat does something, they roll 2 of these dice. Rolling a Happy Cat is a success; rolling a Sad Cat is a failure. The reasoning behind these dice is: cats can’t do math!

If you can’t get your hands on cat dice, you can use any old d6, and regard 1-2 as Sad Cats and 3-6 as Happy Cats. You’ll also want to get some kind of physical token to use as Treats, which are player currency used to allow free re-rolls. Cats of Catthulhu is great for groups who are mostly getting together to just have a fun time, ready to act silly and get into all kinds of shenanigans.

DUSK, by Gila RPGs.

Equipped with the latest suntech, you are tasked with venturing out into the Dusk, and helping bring a new dawn to humanity. The Dusk does not want you there. 

Good luck.

In DUSK, you play as Shards, survivors on the planet Obron after the devastating nova-event that saw your world destroyed. Now you wield powerful technology fueled by pieces of your dead sun, in hopes of surviving another day. DUSK uses the LUMEN 2.0 system, and is a diceless RPG focused on resource management rather than luck or chance. 

As a diceless game, DUSK feels a lot different from a number of other diceless games, and I think that’s because of the style of game it’s working off of. LUMEN games are more about strategy than they are about narrative, and in DUSK that’s carried forward in the form of Suntech, items that require energy to power and provide specific advantages.

DUSK is still a relatively new game, but the designer is prolific in the amount of quality work he’s released in the past - and so when he says that there’s more to come, you best believe there’s more to come. If you’d still like to roll dice but you like the idea of the setting in this game, you might want to check out NOVA, which also uses the LUMEN system but gives you dice to roll or LUNA, a game about cultists trying to destroy the moon. Both of these games use pools of d6’s and ask you to look for the highest number, so I don’t think there’s that much math involved.

CASE & SOUL, by Briar Sovereign.

CASE&SOUL is a lightweight tabletop game for telling action-packed stories in the mecha genre. CASE&SOUL is designed for one-shots and short to mid length campaigns. Speed through a lightweight downtime; hire freelancers to pad out your Crew’s skills on missions. Customize your playbooks with SOUL moves, and enjoy a cut-down FITD gameplay with just the essentials for fast and flexible sessions.

Forged in the Dark games use a dice pool, rather than abilities with modifiers. You add dice from various places on your worksheet, and try to roll at least one 4 or higher. Rolling a 4 or 5 is usually a mixed success, and rolling a 6 is a complete success. Personally, I’m a big fan of games that use dice pools, as I’m also not a fan of trying to add up all of those numbers, and having to just look for the single highest dice helps speed up action resolution.

At the same time, Forged in the Dark games can have a lot of moving pieces at once, especially if the GM wants to track a large number of factions, or players want to plan multiple-stage missions. CASE & SOUL advertises itself as a slimmed-down version of these kinds of games, but I can’t tell whether or not that is the case when I look at the character sheets. What intrigues me is the CASE and SOUL tracks; I think your CASE is your Mech, and it receives Harm differently than your SOUL, which is an interesting way to measure how much your mech is (or is not) part of you.

Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible, by Edge Studio.

In the center of the universe hangs the Crucible, a gigantic artificial world created by the enigmatic Architects and home to countless beings and cultures. Here, impossibly advanced technologies mix with arcane powers to make for a setting unlike any other! Uncovering the secrets of this mysterious world will take all your skills—but the potential rewards are boundless…

Explore this world of boundless opportunity in Secrets of the Crucible, a new sourcebook for the Genesys Roleplaying System set in the KeyForge universe!

You’ll need the Genesys Rulebook for this one, because the main reason I’m recommending Secrets of the Crucible is because of the dice system. Genesys dice don’t use numbers; they use symbols that represent success and failure - and they also have symbols that deepen the nuance of each roll. You can roll advantages or disadvantages that calibrate exactly how much you succeed, as well as triumphs or despairs that give you the same kind of highs and lows as a Nat 20 or a Nat 1 in D&D. This means that each roll tells you so much more about what’s going on around you than just whether you open a door or sweet-talk a guard.

As for the setting, Keyforge is originally a card game published by Fantasy Flight games, about a world called the Crucible, full of secrets that various factions are competing to unlock. It reminds me of the worlds of Magic: the Gathering or League of Legends, with various settings that look very distinct from each-other, and represent different styles of play.

SHIVER, by Parable Games.

WHAT IS SHIVER?

SHIVER is a tabletop roleplaying game that lets players bring their favourite scary movies, spooky tv shows, and horror stories to life. Ever wanted to play through the plot of your favourite film on the tabletop? Or wanted to make sequels, prequels and original stories in the worlds of pop culture you love? SHIVER lets you play that!

SHIVER is setting neutral allowing you to play any story, anytime, and as anyone. Want to play a game of teens in survival mode against a zombie horde? Kids on Bikes who dread exploring a haunted house on Halloween night? Or perhaps a medieval monster hunter looking for a werewolf, vampire or mage? SHIVER can deliver stories and characters for anything from cult pulp classic to Cthulhu fuelled eldritch mystery.

The designer of SHIVER set out with the goal of making games easier for his friends, who had similar struggles with games that had too much math involved. Players roll six-sided and eight-sided dice with various symbols on them, looking for the symbol that represents their character's strengths. The more difficult the task is, the more of the required symbol you need. The game itself is recognized as a class-act horror game, good for everything from pulp-action to gothic fiction to slasher horror. If you don't have the special dice, you can substitute with d6's & d8's, or you can use the free Dice Roller designed for this game.

Tournament Arc, by Biscuit Fund Games.

Are you looking to experience the triumphs and defeats of Space Hyper-Basketball? Need to feel the epic highs and dizzying lows of card games in the post-apocalypse? Want to face the trials and tribulations of the cheese-rolling World Circuit?

Tournament Arc is your very own collaborative sports anime experience, made in the diceless Belonging Outside Belonging engine popularized by games like Dream Askew and Wanderhome. In every thrilling episode, you’ll play the part of the Team as they negotiate the complexities of their daily lives, explore a collaboratively created world, and, most importantly, play the Game.

Tournament Arc is both diceless and GM-less, and is designed to tell stories about teambuilding and competitive sports, although the setting appears to be pretty flexible. The Belonging Outside Belonging game system provides each character type with prompts, and sorts those prompts into different categories. Usually there will be some things you can always do that generate tokens as well as narrative obstacles, and then other things that you can only do when you spend tokens - and as a result, also help characters confront those narrative obstacles. If you have players that like having something tactile to keep in their hands as they play, you might like Tournament Arc.

Warehouse Bitches, by Darling Demon Games.

The Time Worm arrived as it was prophesied just as the crown fell upon his head, and all potentials collapsed into a single haunted citadel, which you call Hex City. You are transgender punks and goths from earth, and in this place your powerful hearts make you witches, daemons, beast-people and arcane architects. We bide our time, smoking and drinking, playing video games and eyeing the crumbling walls of our enemy, The Lord of Olympus.

In Warehouse Bitches, you play as one of the titular warehouse-dwelling trans folk in the hellish Hex City. In this GMless Belonging Outside Belonging game with a unique coin-flip mechanic, you'll wield magic, build allies across the city and fight back against the bastards in subtle ways.

I’ve already explained a bit about how Belonging Outside Belonging works, but Warehouse Bitches adds another layer by using coins as tokens. Using coins, your options are different depending on whether or not the coin is on Heads or Tails. The moves on your character sheet are not just differentiated between Strong and Vulnerable, they’re also differentiated between Heads or Tails, and you must have matching sides of the coins showing in order to be able to use those moves. Characters also have Magic moves, which require the player to flip every coin they currently hold, and reassign those coins based on whatever side they land on.

Warehouse Bitches has only 4 playbooks as it stands now, so a group of 4 players is probably the largest group that can play the book as it stands now. The game is GM-less, but looking at the rules, I think it would be possible to have someone pick up the GM role in order to introduce complications and narrate the actions of various other factions in town. Similar to other BoB games, there are zones that have various elements and details that need to be decided as you play, which will also help provide events and interesting features that keep the game fresh and exciting.

[melbatron5000]

Murder Board 2.0

Updated 9/18/24

Since I've figure a few things out, I need to re-do my Murder Board. New answers, new questions.

What I think I know:

Hints given out by NG are suspect at best. (I cannot blame him or anyone else on the cast or crew -- they spent A LOT of time and energy building this very meticulous puzzle game for us -- why would ANY of them give ANY of it away? That would ruin all the fun!)

Lots of the discontinuity of Season 2 can be explained by POV switches between characters. See here and here for more. I think the title/location cards are also probably POV Clues, that needs a closer look.

Crowley gave something to Aziraphale in his mouth when they kissed. It's the fly. Now, what else was in the fly besides Gabriel's memory? RECORDS. Incriminating records that are why the Metatron let Beelzebub and Gabriel go, but nailed Aziraphale. The Metatron knows Gabriel has those records, he doesn't know they got passed to Aziraphale.

Saraqael and Crowley and by proxy, Aziraphale are all working together. See here and here for more. That explains A. the tiny miracle blowing up into a 25 Lazarii miracle. It didn't. They had to cover for something else that did. B. Saraqael showing the archangels the book shop in 2019 in the spy hole. C. Crowley's spy turtle neck and where he went during Aziraphale's Job flashback. D. Why Saraqael helps him see the trial in Heaven. (Oh! Muriel's now in on it, too!)

Crowley's memory is fine, it's a red herring. It might mean something else, though. I think he is dissing Furfur, he is denying knowing Saraqael even after she gives him a reason to recognize her to hide that they are working together. He tells Jim he doesn't remember why they invented gravity, but that whole scene is from Aziraphale's perspective, so the conversation likely didn't actually go just like that.

Shax is on a mission besides Gabriel -- she's looking for whatever Aziraphale and Crowley are hiding. Gabriel is a side-mission.

The hand-washing comment from Crowley in the Resurrectionists minisode -- he tells DaVinci about helicopters in Good Omens the novel. It's just a thing he can do.

What is up with Maggie? Maggie's freaking Jesus 2.0. She's what Shax is looking for, and who Crowley, Aziraphale, and Saraqael are hiding. Also, where is God? God is busy being Maggie, that's where. That's why Crowley says "Oh God" before his speech in the final fifteen. He's bringing up what they're hiding, reminding Aziraphale that someone has to stay and keep an eye on Maggie. That's why he can't go. Now, how the FUCK did Jesus 2.0 wind up owning a record store she inherited from her family NEXT TO AN ANGEL?? (Ah, shit, now I'm doubting this one. Now I suspect it's Nina, and Maggie is Mary MAGdeline. Same questions still apply.)

SECRET SONGS??? Why are the songs secret?? I'm losing my mind, what is happening?? I think this is a message that A. Aziraphale and Crowley are okay, and B. We will absolutely be getting part 3 of 1941.

I still think the scenes might be out of order. Is it as simple as watching them in chronological order? Could be.

The Metatron is a naked man. i.e. he was originally HUMAN.

Aziraphale and Crowley are talking in subtext A LOT. Aziraphale's tells are easier to spot than Crowley's. He raises his eyebrows and does vocal bunny rabbit ears, says "um," and "ah." "Our Gabriel miracle," "The establishment in question," "Certainly on to something," "Haven't yet cracked the case." Crowley's tell seems to be being effusive. "Frozen peas," "You wouldn't be interested in love?" "Well, today is your lucky day!" "How do you know I didn't do it?"

We are missing the scenes that should mirror the Resurrectionists minisode. What we do have instead of mirrors to that are Crowley telling the demons they are out of order. He can tell time has been messed with.

There are two Crowleys. I think the head in the book shop is his way of keeping in touch while his twin is off doing things, and the red eyes are him, too. Now, why?? What do they need 2 Crowleys for?

What still needs answering:

The clocks jumping time. And why are the extras moving in double-time when we first arrive to Whickber street?

The weird hand in the 1941 photo.

Aziraphale's chair position being moved still doesn't make sense. Unless Crowley was talking to himself??

The extras behaving strangely.

Crowley's car being in the wrong spot on the road after Shax threatens him.

Weird sounds -- Aziraphale turns to look at a crashing sound when he returns from Edinburgh, to look at a car horn, the very loud clock in the final fifteen BUT ALSO when Jim says he will go out to the demons, nightingale singing when Crowley leaves in the FF.

I'm not sure that POV switches explain Crowley's sunglasses going from silver to black.

I don't know why Aziraphale went to Edinburgh, or why he stopped at the graveyard where Gabriel's statue is, or why he looked like he realized something important while he was there.

Why does Michael do the "nothing's in the box" thing with the matchbox? It's a petty specific action. Someone pointed out that Michael's nails look chewed and terrible, are we meant to stare at the matchbox while something else goes unnoticed? Well, duh. But what?

We most certainly did not get the whole scene where the Metatron is talking to Aziraphale. What else was said?

What did Crowley do during his ALL-NIGHT JAUNT in Heaven? Did he sneak around and steal something? Did he uncover something? Did they hurt him? I think he stole something.

What did Aziraphale do with his briefcase that he took to Edinburgh? We see it in the book shop from his POV, and Edinburgh is seen from Crowley's POV, so they both know it exists. And then it's gone.

Why does Gabriel prophecy with God's voice? IS it God's voice? It's a woman, is it Frances McDormand? It's hard to hear. When he remembers the beginning, I think it's God's voice. When he prophecies, it may be someone else. Frances McDormand has no credit in that episode.

Why the heck did Maggie and Nina go talk to Crowley while the Metatron was talking to Aziraphale? What they had to say wasn't important enough to leave Nina's shop during a rush, and I definitely don't think they derailed Crowley from what he needed to say to Aziraphale, though it might look at first as if they did. So what was that about? Were they trying to speak in husband-code to warn him about the Metatron?

When Shax stops Aziraphale for a ride, he says, "Oh, I really need to get to --" and then is cut off. He really needs to get to where? It's an easy assumption to think he means the book shop, or London. But is that all he means? Or was he on his way somewhere else? And if it was just the book shop, what does he mean he's late? Late for what?

When Crowley leaves Heaven, he tells Saraqael and Muriel to come, too. But in the elevator, Michael and Uriel are there! When the fuck did they show up??

Why does Beelzebub tell Shax to attack the bookstore? Aren't they worried about Gabriel being harmed? And they know Hell is understaffed. Maybe that's why they command it? Because they know Shax won't be able to get many demons?

What about the Masons? It's such a specific thing for the pub owner to bring up, what is the meaning of it? And Maggie has a Mason symbol on her necklace. Did the Masons carve the statue of Gabriel? When did they see him?

The only narration we hear in the entire season is Aziraphale in the Resurrectionist flashback. I believe this is to throw us off the POV character switches all season. But still, why do we only hear him narrate 1 flashback? I think he's reading the diary to himself in the present day. That would explain the end, "And that was the last I was to see of Crowley for some time." He JUST heard the story of the jukebox from Maggie. And Gabriel appearing at the pub -- same city that statue is in. Of course he thought of something important from that diary entry! Now, what did he notice?

Is the Book of Life a real threat? We hear two stories about it, that it's real and that its ability to erase beings was something to scare the cherubs with, this is inconclusive. Crowley gets nervous after Beelzebub talks to him, but I think he's pissed that Heaven and Hell have taken an interest in them again, especially since they're trying to hide Nina!Jesus.

So many promo posters show Aziraphale, Crowley, and Jimbriel together, or symbols of them. Three feathers: two white, one black. Tea cup, cocoa mug, wine glass. The three of them. Not with Beelzebub, not with Muriel, the three of them. And all three of them have been Jesus-coded in some small way. No one else. Those three. What. Why. Are they the sacrifice required to bring about the new world? Why not Beez, then?

The whole collection of Maggie's album's from the Amazon X-ray are great, big CLUES.

A post that I didn't reblog pointed out that the record Aziraphale is listening to when Garbriel shows up is neither Shostakovich nor 21 minutes long. That seems important, but I'm not sure how. (The record is opposite when Crowley gives Aziraphale the fly containing records -- the actual symphony is, according to the original blog, one written by a rebel in contempt of his government. Do the records have to do with the rebellion and fall?)

What the heck does Furfur mean by "little monkey in the waistcoat?" How does that sound like Crowley?

Why does Furfur change the subject when Aziraphale asks where Gabriel and Beelzebub would like to go?

Why does Mrs. H say "for God's sake" two times in a row? No one says that on this show without a meaning.

Shax notices Crowley going to Heaven and makes an epiphany face.

Why is the end credit music for the ball French cafe music? French must be important. And the end credit music for The Hitchhiker is old timey and scratchy, then skips and becomes the same song in a newer, clearer style. Because they repeat the bullet catch trick in the modern day, perhaps?

I thought I heard that Crowley and Aziraphale are in the fly in the opening sequence, but nope. So why are they in a cave?

Why are there multiple elevators and multiple mountains in the opening sequence??? What the hell does that mean?? And multiple Edens?? All right, what's up??

I count at least two times Aziraphale glances right at the camera, probably more. Who is he looking at? Us? Is he looking at Crowley?Why??

When Aziraphale arrives back from Edinburgh, he asks how "everything is with -- mm." Crowley says "he was sleeping, I heard him singing." I don't think they mean Gabriel. At the cafe, Crowley says when Gabriel smites you, you've been smitten. Aziraphale says he isn't "you know who any longer." Again, I don't think he means Gabriel. Who are they hiding?

Repeating themes: (I am just realizing that these aren't just themes, they are all Clues!)

Beverages of all kinds -- tea for Aziraphale, wine or whiskey for Crowley, cocoa for Jim. Oh, and LAUDANUM. And coffee!

Time -- lots of clocks/mentions of time. Everyone notices the ticking clock during the Final Fifteen, but it's ticking loud when the demons attack the ball, too. Also, why is the first scene of Whickber street shown at high-speed? Is time sped up? Or something else?

Love/partnership/togetherness being stronger than separateness

Memories/forgetting/remembering

Payment -- money comes up in both the Resurrectionists minisode and the Flesh Eating Nazi Zombies minisode, but no one pays for anything in present. There is bartering, but no money. Both times money is brought up, it's Crowley using Aziraphale's money, and both times, it's to buy a life. It's funny, but I feel like there's a point to it.

Rising from the dead -- Job's kids (even though they weren't actually dead), bodies used for science, Nazi zombies, the Second Coming. I think this is all just hinting around Jesus -- sure, hinting around Jesus, who we were expecting to show up in Season 3, but she's already here. The hints indicate that she is already on Earth, not going to show up next season.

Unreliable narrators. Because we are seeing the whole show from various characters' points of view. Because of that, we can only see what they know, expect, believe, or understand, but also what they want us to see. We need to take the whole second season with a grain of salt.

Death in general -- but 8a., I'm a dirty pagan, why didn't I make this connection sooner, death always leads to REBIRTH, change, something totally new and 8b. there are tarot cards in the magic shop, and even if you're not a dirty pagan, the Death tarot card means transition, something must die before a new thing can be born. Hmm.

Morality and what is "good" and what is right

Recognition and identity and hiding one's identity. Ah! Probably at least partly because Maggie someone? is Jesus. How would you recognize them? (I think it's Nina now.)

Licenses, permits, permissions, rules, proof, evidence, what's allowed. All of the minisodes mention this, and it all gets mentioned again over and over. Because Heaven and Hell do have rules they have to follow. Which drives home my theory that Gabriel stole some very incriminating records from Heaven when he left, Crowley got hold of them and gave them to Aziraphale during the kiss, and now Aziraphale is going to nail them.

Colors. Lots of colors!! Job's kids are dressed in the colors of Nina, Maggie, and Aziraphale's shops. Jesus on the Resurrectionist Pub sign is in blue and red, blue and red crop up a lot in extra's clothing, as do yellow and red, Crowley colors. The Ladies of Camelot are in red and blue. Aziraphale says Earth will be a blue-green planet, Nina's shop is blue-green.

Horses. Horse statue, horse wine label, people saying "dark horse." The four horsemen again? I feel like they already had their ride, so what the hell? I think it's because season 2 is an echo of season 1, I THINK -- I have to check -- that horses appear or get mentioned when the horsemen have corresponding scenes in season 1.

Numbers. A lot of numbers get said. Does it matter, or am I overthinking?

Repeating words and phrases:

Technically

Properly

Isn't it just?

Too late

Funny old world

Not as such

Made for each other

EVERYWHERE

Obviously

Two shakes of a lamb's tail

Dark horse

What are you/am I? As opposed to WHO. Aziraphale asks in the Land of Uz, and Crowley asks Gabriel.

Are you sure? Quite sure.

The Marvelous Mr. Fell is described as marvelous in his mysterosity, Shax says the demons have dangerosity.

Mrs. H in 1941 says "for God's sake" twice in quick succession.

Schtum

Every day

Hints:

Powell and Pressburg films

The Crow Road

Catch 22

The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, Terry Pratchett in general

Jane Austin

Book Good Omens

Season 1 Good Omens

The titles of episodes, minisodes, places, etc. 7a. The Arrival: a book and a movie, though the book seems far more relevant. And lovely. The Clue: a movie. Companion to Owls: a line from a Bible story. I Know Where I'm Going: a movie. The Resurrectionists: two novels, each called The Resurrectionist, singular. Both look unhinged. The Hitchhiker: a Twilight Zone episode. Nazi Zombie Flesheaters: Literally no other reference. ?? Nazi Zombies do appear in a LOT of movies, comics, and video games, usually as a dark joke. The Ball: a video game. Irrelevant? It's a puzzle-based game, so maybe not. Every Day: a song AND a movie. Some themes repeat here: Puzzle games, being re-directed from one's path to find true love, death and being brought back to life in a gruesome and unpleasant way.

Objects that get a close-up/centering:

Starmaker's nebula book -- Nebula 231,080

Shax's compact mirror

Maggie's note

Shostakovich record

Tomatoes

The box

The Bentley

Eccles cakes

The bell

Head statue

The book Jim drops

Jukebox

Gabgriel's statue

Laudanum bottle

Phones in Edinburgh episode

"Very closed" sign

Broken whiskey bottles in 1941

Hourglass in Hell

Furfur's camera

Bullet catch in the magic shop

Instruction booklet for bullet catch gets 3 close ups -- because the bullet catch trick is that important, or because it happens 3 times? Both, I think.

Puppets

Dancers' silhouettes

Mr. Fell sign

The actual bullet

Angelic beings book

Photo evidence

Shax's shoes

"Surrender the angle" brick

[utilitycaster]

You've mentioned a few times about Matt making this the Moon Plot Campaign and the cast not realizing it was the Moon Plot Campaign and how the characters aren't necessarily the best for a Moon Plot Campaign and I'm just curious: if you could pick what type of character build the cast played to best fit a Moon Plot how might that look?

Oh man I think I've answered this before but I will always answer it again because my answer is evolving.

The first two things are just general advice:

In retrospect I think Matt should have treated this campaign as sort of a semi-module format. If you will be playing a module (eg: Curse of Strahd, Call of the Netherdeep, etc), your DM should tell you this and essentially say "you can have your own character struggles - in fact you should - but they should be largely internal/things that can be addressed without you going on an extended quest." For example, you can (and should) play a character in Curse of Strahd who is struggling with self-esteem, or religious faith, or cowardice; but you can't have a character who, to address these things, must confront their father, because they're going to be in Barovia and he's not going to be there. I recommend checking out the rivals in Call of the Netherdeep, because their throughlines are great examples - they' develop and engage with the story, but it's very much driven by the plot of the story and not a delving into their backstory. So essentially, have simpler backstories or backstories that inherently tie into the quest, and let the players come up with that by giving them the most spoiler free outline. I think Matt tried to do all that tying up himself, and at times it made things a little too pat; or those characters who had elements that couldn't be woven in as gracefully (Chetney and the Gorgynei; Laudna with Delilah; some of Ashton's stuff) got very brief arcs so we could get back to the main moon plot.

Do not dump intelligence. DO NOT DUMP INTELLIGENCE. Have at least one PC in your party who is not just intelligent but like, educated. Percy, Beau, and Caleb all fit this. Chetney's pretty smart but not terribly educated so he's great at investigation but he's not going to do very well on religion checks. This party should have had a fucking wizard or artificer or cobalt soul monk or knowledge cleric, but also every party should unless you're going full murder hobo. I think it's valid to be into actual play (or d&d itself) for the character moments and the romance but you know what makes that possible? FIGURING OUT WHAT'S FUCKING HAPPENING INSTEAD OF DICKING AROUND CLUELESSLY. My one true house rule for myself as a DM is that one person in the party has to have high intelligence (or like, be a bard or rogue with decent intelligence but expertise/jack of all trades in everything). Play a high int character for the sake of your DM, PLEASE.

On a more specific note:

would have been good to have more Marquesian characters, but also someone from the Empire would have added a significant dimension. I do love Chetney, and I think Travis is the player who pivoted fastest to fit better within this campaign and has a good understanding of what it could have been with a bit more commitment, but yeah I think if Matt had told them a bit more of what was going on he'd have made like, a more serious werewolf member of the Gorgynei who had noticed lycanthropes becoming susceptible to Ruidus and decided to investigate, for example.

I think having more divinely aligned characters would have just made for much more fun interactions. The issue with the god debates wasn't that they were having them, for all I think that anyone who wants to kill the gods is a fucking idiot. It was that none of them knew jack shit about what they were talking about so it turned into an unending Emperor's Nose discussion. Having either someone who was actually trained (a la Braius, who is a welcome addition for this reason, among others) or again just. a person with religion proficiency and a decent INT score would have made it an actual compelling argument of different perspectives, and not a bunch of idiots yelling out nonsense.

It honestly wouldn't have looked much different. In fact, I think you could have kept the bottom table mostly as is with just tiny alterations, and done the following:

Make Chetney a Marquesian member of the Gorgynei with a mission tied to investigating what's going on with Ruidus. He could still be a weird woodworker.

Entirely rework Laudna's premise. You could have kept her creepy and undead, even, but get rid of Delilah and make her a wizard instead. Make her tied to the Grim Verity or an archaeologist who got kicked off the Tishtan site. You could even keep her aligned with Imogen although I'd have made it a more recent meet up of her being on the run and having gone through Gelvaan in trying to avoid the Grey Assassins

I like what happened with FCG ultimately but I think a different subclass would have still helped; make them a knowledge cleric and more intelligent.

Make Imogen and Ashton much more aware of the Apex War and Otohan's history from the get go. Also give Laura a heads up that her character's going to be super central and she will be in the hot seat for much of the campaign.

[borahaerhy]

Regime - one || myg

Summary: Everything is dull. Your job, your hobbies, your downtime: everything is just dull. That is, until your workplace is raided by the anti-capitalist organization run by the notorious Agust D.

Pairing: Ringleader!Yoongi x NewRecruit!Fem!Reader

Genre: Anti-Capitalist Gang au, Found Family, Smut, Angst

Series Warnings: anti-capitalism! mental illness, some gang violence, unaliving, smut, hella angst, drug/alcohol usage, very fowl language

Warnings: y/n uses all the self-defense, quite literally bites a chunk out of someone's hand, everyone has a gun, there are a few hostages, Yoongi kicks someone in the face, y/n very casually holds a gun to someone's head, references to y/n's childhood being... interesting (relatives' drug usage briefly mentioned), Yoongi's tries to manipulate y/n for like 2 seconds, y/n definitely has depression, someone gets murdered, Yoongi almost exclusively goes by Agust, References to Nick being hella shitty, what the fuck is going on with Kevin?

Wordcount: 3.2k

Previous | Next

It was odd. 

The parking lot of your job being completely empty had only happened on one other occasion that you could recall; that was because it was Easter, and everyone had gone home early. 

But today was different. It wasn’t a holiday, and there should have been plenty of work to get done; yet there was no one. Not a single car in the parking lot. As you drove past, you turned your attention to the side of the building, where security parked. You pulled into the space beside the empty car of one of your coworkers, Nick. 

But it’s ten minutes until shift change; first shift should still be here. Did Nick let them leave early for some reason? Aside from yours and Nick's, there was only one other car in the entire lot. A black SUV parked haphazardly beside Nick's car; and it was still running.

While all of this might scream “danger” to others that would have seen it, to you, while it was weird, that's all it was: weird. It’s a relatively small company; one where there were so few employees that they were all friends. Everyone knew everyone and they often all liked to fuck with one another, maybe this was just some kind of prank. 

While the company was small, it was also one that had no problem fucking over its employees when it comes to their paychecks; even whenever the company execs wanted to come in and check the place out, they certainly never would’ve listened to any complaints about pay. 

You cautiously walked up to the door and punched in the pin before you opened the door and stepped in. As you closed the door behind you, you realized that you walked into something you definitely wished you hadn’t. 

Tied up in the middle of the floor was the owner of the building, and the one who ran this branch of the company, Kevin, along with the guy supposed to work your shift with you, Nick. They were completely surrounded by men in black, all of them with guns pointed at the two men's heads. Kevin looked like he just got into a fight and lost; blood covering him, his nose crooked while Nick had a swollen lip. In front of them, there was just one man, but as soon as your eyes had adjusted to the dark building, all of them were looking at you. 

Seconds after you walked in, your arms were pinned behind your back and a hand covered your mouth. “Just make sure she doesn’t go anywhere for a second, I have to deal with this asshole before I talk to her,” 

While as a security officer, you hadn’t been formally trained in any kind of combat, you did grow up with uncles. A lot of them, and they would all get varying levels of high and various substances and decide that you needed to know how to defend yourself. 

So while the man that spoke, the one standing in front of Nick and Kevin kicks Nick in the chin - no doubt knocking out a few of his teeth - you stamped down on the foot of the man behind you and bit a chunk of flesh from his hand clean off. He screamed, letting go of you so you could turn around and knee him in the groin as one of your hands took the gun out of his side holster and held it to his head. 

You stood beside him, facing the group of people with one hand holding the gun to his head while the other was up, level with your head to show you weren't armed more than what they could see. You spit out the chunk of flesh that you still had in your mouth, mostly for dramatic effect, and slowly moved your free hand down to wipe the blood from your lips. 

Everyone was staring at you, even the boss was staring at you with a kind of intensity that would’ve been hard for anyone to withstand. “You can finish whatever you were doing, I’m not going anywhere, I just don’t really like people touching me,” Your hand was back up next to your head, but no one moved. All the men just looked back and forth between their boss and you, and Kevin and Nick both looked like they’d just been saved. 

The one that just kicked your coworker, the one you presumed to be the boss, started walking toward you. He moved slowly and carefully as he pulled each of the weapons he had on him, showed them to you carefully, before he threw them down on the ground. He pulled one last weapon from the inside of his boot, a small pocket knife, and threw it to the ground, too, as he stopped a few feet in front of you. 

“I’m unarmed, and so is he. I would appreciate it if you put the gun down,” He spoke calmly, eyebrows raised and hands up. While it was hard to think of where he’d be hiding a seventeenth weapon, you also wouldn’t put it past the man that just pulled sixteen weapons off his person to have a secret compartment in the bottom of his shoe. 

Your eyes narrowed as you looked at him, his face covered with a ski-mask like the rest of them, only his eyes visible to you; dark brown pools of honey that bore into you, but they weren’t as harsh or intimidating as you would’ve thought someone like him to be. They were soft, almost gentle as they moved back and forth between yours.

“You might not be, but they are,” You looked over at the men that surrounded your coworker and boss, his gaze following yours. 

“They’re not going to do anything, you’re not the target here; they are. Just put the gun down and we can talk,” You looked carefully at him, then at the people behind him, before you slowly raised the hand with a gun in it, before crouching down slightly and slid it across the ground, making sure it was well out of reach of anyone before you stood again. 

“Kay, come get Mars and clean him up for me, everyone else, don’t let them move a muscle,” He was facing his men as he spoke, but turned back to you once he’d finished. “You probably know this place better than I do, so I’ll let you lead the way,” You looked over to the door to one of the conference rooms briefly, before you looked back over to him, Kay already collection Mars from off the ground beside you. 

“That room there would work fine, I’ll meet you in there but I need to get my water out of my bag,” He looked you up and down skeptically, about to say something before you cut him off again. “It’s just to rinse your friends hand out of my mouth, I’ll leave the bottle out here,” He paused slightly, then nodded once, stepping toward the door you’d just referenced to. You moved slowly as you got your water from your bag, rinsing out your mouth thoroughly before you took one last gulp and swallowed it. You put the bottle back down and headed into the room. 

“You can have the chair, I’ll stand,” He gestured to the only chair in the room as he leaned against the table across from you. You crossed your arms and leaned against the door. 

“I’m good with standing,” He nodded briefly before he took his mask off, revealing his admittedly handsome face to you. 

“My name is Agust, I’m the leader of the group of people out there with your coworkers. We’re here because Kevin, the owner of this branch has been stealing from his employees to pad his own pockets-”

“And why’s Nick out there?” You asked, trying not to let your anger show too much, but your not sure how successful you were judging by the look on his face. 

“Nick’s here because when he pulled in, I had my guy out in the parking lot run his tags and we found him to be… a really shitty person, to put it mildly,” You swallowed thickly, feeling almost a sense of relief that your suspicions were right, and you weren’t just overthinking about him.  

“Yeah, that checks out,” You nodded, looking down at your feet as you let your arms fall, sliding them into your pockets. “So why are you here? Kevin likes to fuck over his employee’s, sure, that’s shitty, but what’s in it for you?” He looked you up and down again, as if trying to gauge whether or not you were worthy of knowing this information or not. 

“I’ll tell you, eventually, but I have a few questions of my own first,” He crossed his arms as he stood straighter. 

“Like?” 

“Your name, for starters,” You laughed slightly, extra air flying out of your nostrils as you smirked lightly and cocked your head to the side. 

“Ah, so I’m supposed to believe that you had someone run Nick’s plates but not mine?” It was his turn to smirk, his head falling slightly as he nodded. 

“Alright, Y/n. Let’s get really into it, then,” His demeanor changed, the once kind eyes now seemed to drop their facade, his face bore a cocky smirk and his overall presence was that of a leader. Someone calm and collected, even when his initial plan was swept off it’s feet; he still knew exactly what his next step would be. “Why are you pretending you don’t care about Kevin fucking over his employees?” 

Your own attitude changes slightly as he forces you out of your facade the same way you did his. Your shoulders dropped slightly as you felt all the color drain from your face. You cleared your throat a stood up a little straighter, trying to mimic his own attitude. “Because I’d like to know a little more about you and your organization; I already knew Kevin was a piece of shit, I don’t need you, or anyone else to tell me that,” 

His eyes narrowed slightly as he looked you up and down again. There was something about the way he was looking at you, as if he was trying to see into your mind, see what you were thinking. “Why would it matter who I am if I want to bring someone like him to justice?” You sighed as you changed your stance slightly as you tried to think of a way to explain. 

“It matters because all you’d have to do to get me on your side is tell me what Kevin’s done, how long he’s been doing it, and what you plan to do about it; and I’d probably agree with you based purely off my emotions rather than if I actually agree with you or not. But if I know who you are, what you and your group are capable of, and what you plan on doing in the future, I can judge you based on logic; wether you’re inherently shitty or not.” A knowling smile seeps across his features, an almost proud look as he listened to you speak. 

“And why would I want you to agree with me, princess?” You scoffed, although you were far from offended; knowing the game he was playing. 

“I’ve seen your face and I know that you’re the leader;  not to mention the chunk of DNA that belongs to your friend still wedged between my teeth, and how it got there. Either you have to find a way to get rid of me, or recruit me,” He looks impressed as he steps down from the table and takes a small step toward you. 

“Let me re-introduce myself. My name is Yoongi, and I’m the leader of an anticapitalist organization. We steal from the rich, especially the ones that make a game out of fucking their employees out of the money they worked hard for. I don’t want to get rid of you, as you put it, because that’d be a waste; but I don’t want to recruit you just because you took a chunk out of one of my best man’s hands - or because you took his gun from him like it was nothing, or because I know you have plenty reason to want to fuck over the same people that have fucked you and your family,” He paused, taking another small step toward you, now standing less than a foot away from you.

“I want to recruit you because you’re scared shitless right now,” His voice was much lower, a serious tone filling the space between you as the smirk was gone from his face. “You still don’t know if I have a weapon on me, or if I’m going to let you out of here alive, or if we’ve hurt any of your friends or coworkers. But here you stand, speaking to me as confidently as someone that knows they’re more powerful than me,” His eyes bore into yours as if he could see your entire life laid out on a platter with just one glance.

“So, Y/n,” He took a step back, arms crossed over his chest confidently as he looked at you almost sweetly. “You’re not who we were after, and I don’t find you to be a threat to us. So, you’re free to go, if you want. You don’t have to worry about us following you or keeping tabs on you; you can just go home, go on with your life and forget this ever happened.” He paused, looking you up and down. "Or,” He leaned back against the table, one leg crossed over the other. 

“You can come with us,” You stood silently for a moment, eyes only leaving Yoongi when he finished speaking. You pushed yourself from the door and took a few steps over to the window and looked out of it, taking in the world as you had been seeing it for the past several months, before you closed your eyes, drinking in the inky black that the cover that your eyelids provide. 

You’d noticed that everything looks different throughout different phases of my life; as if there are filters over your eyes that change the colors and shadows in accordance to how you’re feeling. Some memories are all cool-toned, some warm. Some memories look yellowed, like they’d been tea-stained while others seemed more vibrant and vivid than anything else you’d ever seen. 

For the past couple of months, everything’s been dull. The world’s almost been in grey-scale as you try to find a purpose; try to find something to do with yourself. Nothing looks or feels like it used to; but for the first time in months, you are scared. You’re terrified. You smile as you relish in the feeling, the first true, raw emotion you’d felt in months.  

When you open your eyes, there’s color in the world again. The trees dance in the wind with various shades of red and orange and brown; the sky beyond them littered with soft purple hues as the sun was already beginning to set into the autumn sky.

“What happens if I decide to go with you?” You turn to look at him as you finish speaking, a light smirk on his lips before he turns to face you. 

“You come back to our base with us, we show you around, show you the ropes, and figure out how you’d best assist us. Then, if you decide you want to leave, you can. If you still want to have your job here and go back to your home and just help us out on the weekends, you can. You can also live with us and work with us full-time; but no matter what, I’d be sending you home tonight. This is something you need to think over.” You nodded again, still trying to take everything in.

“And as far as Kevin goes, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know,” You shook your head and raised your hands, stopping him from saying anything further. 

“I don’t want to know anything about what he did,” Yoongi nodded as he looked at you almost empathetically. “But, I’ll uhm, I’ll go with you,” His facial expression softened lightly as he smiled at you. 

Your relief very quickly changed when he reached behind his back and pulled out yet another gun and out the barrel right next to your head and pulled the trigger, shooting through the wall behind you. The sound was deafening but you didn’t flinch, your eyes never leaving his as his smirk grew wider yet. 

“Wait here, Princess. I’ll come back to get you in a few minutes,” He pulled the mask back down over his face before he opened the door and stepped out, all eyes suddenly on him. “She had a real fucking mouth on her, didn’t she?” Yoongi sauntered back over to where his captives were tied up, gun casually swinging in his grasp as he walks. 

“Kept talking about her mom; something about her still being alive if only she’d gotten her benefits like she was supposed to,” He kneeled down in front of Kevin, using the barrel of the gun to point at him. “That sound familiar to you, Kev?” Kevin was shaking, eyes wide as they bounced back and forth between the gun and Agust, who was only smirking at the terrified face of his captive. 

“Cat got your tongue? Nick?” At his lack of response, Agust moved the gun from Kevin to Nick, the barrel now only inches from his head. “Do you know anything about that?” Nick shook his head wildly, eyes clenched shut as tears spilled out of them. 

It pissed him off how scared they acted. He had a gun to their heads and they just bawled like babies; as if they hadn’t done the same thing time and time again to others. Kevin took money away from people that needed it. Money that he definitely didn’t need; and in doing so, he took away not only financial stability, but the lives of the people that depended on that money.

And while Nick didn’t steal from the poor like Kevin did, that didn’t make him any less of a piece of shit. He’d been accused of many crimes in his life; including attempted manslaughter, statutory rape, and several different domestic violence charges, but he’d never been convicted of any of them. There was never even a trial, just complaints dropped the day after they were filed, along with several very large transactions coming out of his obscenely rich father’s bank account. 

So watching them sit here and sob when their lives were threatened, knowing fully that they’ve put others in this very situation with their greed and ignorance enraged him. August pressed the gun to Nick’s temple and pulled the trigger, blood spraying all over Kevin's face in the process. 

Kevin screamed, loud sobs filling the warehouse that only pissed him off more. “Shut up, would you?” The gun was back under Kevin’s chin, his sobs silencing almost instantly as the gun forced him to look up. “I’m not going to kill you,” He took his time pulling the gun away from Kevin, eventually putting it into the waistband of his jeans before he carefully stood, his gaze already on the door you were behind as his men pulled Kevin up and dragged him out to their car. “Not yet, anyway.” 

Taglist: @scuzmunkie @bangtan4everr @angrydonutzonkpickle @secfir @useryoonmin @idkjustlovingbts

[exhaslo]

Corruption Ch11

(Villain!Miguel x F!Hero!Reader)

Ch1, Ch2, Ch3, Ch4, Ch5, Ch6, Ch7, Ch8, Ch9, Ch10

Warning: Minors DNI, mentions of sex, violence, blood, murder, twisted thoughts, experimentation, language, wannabe fluff, established friendship/relationship? SMUT, Fingering, oral (male receiving)

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

Two Months, Ten Days until D-Day

There were a select few of people in all of Alchemax that were exempt from receiving the Rapture. Those people were the IT department. Those in the IT department had a different reason to stay working for the company.

Fear.

They learned things that they shouldn't know. They were the ones who had to fix all those horrible machines and computers that helped kill and torture people. Whenever something happened, those in the IT department were always the sacrificial lambs.

If they pissed off the wrong person.

Aaron was one of those people. He knew that Miguel was not fond of him. Some of his coworkers were already distancing themselves from him in fear of them catching Miguel's wrath. Miguel was the son of the CEO of Alchemax. You piss him off, you're dead.

Sitting on his computer, Aaron cursed lowly. It wasn't his fault that Miguel had it out for him. All he wanted was to ask you out. Aaron wanted to free you from Miguel's slimy grasp.

"He needs to pay, but how?"

"Looks like (Y/N) is requesting help again. Her heater died again. What's with her?" One of the IT workers whispered.

Aaron glanced at his screen, seeing your notification popped up. Miguel will defiantly be there if he replied, but this was the only chance for him to see you.

"She's just as bad as Miguel! Helping him all the time! How many coworkers have we lost to Rapture?"

Rapture? Aaron chuckled lowly as he accepted your request. Now that was an idea.

---------

"Miguel, you're going to be late if you stay like this." You sighed softly as he rested his head against your lap.

"I still have time. Let me think."

You pouted slightly, hiding your blush from Miguel. You were sitting on his desk like a trophy, but his head was buried against your lap. It felt so nice, having him give you this affection. You gasped quietly as Miguel's hands gripped your thighs.

"Miguel!" You huffed.

A shiver ran down your spine as you felt his hands stroke your thighs. His hands felt so warm. Trembling as Miguel groped your legs once more, you tried not to think about him pinning you down on his desk. Miguel was always handsy, but he hadn't fucked you yet.

Oh, how your wet dreams got more vivid with each passing day. Miguel's hands always roaming your body as if he was checking you, turned you on so much. You wanted to ask Miguel why he hadn't made a move yet. Why he was waiting so long?

"Alright, it's time for my meeting with my father and the shareholders. I trust that you'll be a good girl and stay here to sort my schedule, hm?"

"Yes, sir," You whispered as Miguel kissed you. Miguel just smirked,

"Hm, I might have to punish you later for calling me 'sir' again." His smile turned wicked, "Don't complain, understood?"

"Yes, Miguel." You replied, feeling trapped in a daze.

As Miguel left, you shivered in delight. Miguel was so cruel to you, but you loved it. You knew that Miguel was twisting your common sense and reason, but you couldn't stop him. Part of you wanted Miguel to taint you.

"I need to work on Miguel's schedule." You hummed.

---------

Miguel was quiet as he approached the elevator. Lately his father had been dragging him to more of these ridiculous meetings. Miguel had better things to be working on. More important things to be working on.

With a heavy roll of his eyes, Miguel scoffed as he arrived on the final floor. These meetings were just preparing him to take over Alchemax. It wasn't like Miguel didn't want to take control, it just wasn't in his interest right now.

"Ah, Miguel. Good of you to arrive on time." Tyler Stone spoke, Miguel's father.

"With how often you have me join, I have unfortunaly gotten into the habit." Miguel spat.

"This is for the best." Tyler hummed, leading Miguel into the board room, "Before the others arrive, I wanted to ask you about your assistant."

"(Y/N)?" Miguel's lazy gaze turned into a glare, "What about her?"

"Couldn't help but notice you spending more time with her. Now, I won't interfere with your love life, son, but her? You and I both know there are better."

"Ha, small thinking for now." Miguel snickered, "Give it time. You'll come around."

Everyone will come around once Miguel becomes an advance human like you.

"I've also noticed your new status in the city. I'm quite impressed with the connections you've made, son. I actually called this meeting for you to announce your new status."

"So they can seal their fate to us? Haha, as if my title is needed for such a simple task."

Of course not. Miguel was only destroying villains for you. He wanted to show his dominance, but it ended up turning into more. Miguel underestimated these villains. They kept coming back. If they weren't killed, they would not stop.

Either way, Miguel was enjoying the fight. He knew this wasn't why you became a hero, but this was a damn good feeling. Miguel enjoyed destroying the lives of others and tormenting other villains. They were nothing compared to him.

Nothing compared to you.

Miguel was enjoying the life of a villain.

"We also need to do something about that Spider-Woman. She's been seen around Alchemax and our warehouses." Tyler spoke.

Miguel resisted a chuckle. How cute of you. Trying to 'save' Miguel and stop the oh so evil Alchemax. This just meant that Miguel had to corrupt you more. He had to teach you a better lesson. Something that would really make you break.

"Ah,"

Something that will ease the both of you.

---------

Miguel had been in the meeting for a good while. You were still waiting in Miguel's office since yours was still cold. Twirling around in Miguel's chair, you started to think about your plan again. You were officially starting to bring down Alchemax.

It was a long and hard process, but you had found some good help. You were getting good information to take down Alchemax, now it was just a matter of concrete evidence. That was going to be hard because if you hacked into the system...well...

"Argh, this is annoying." You huffed.

You needed to get information without being spotted. Perhaps you could get someone in IT to cover your tracks. Remembering Aaron, you smiled at the thought. He might be able to help you hide from Alchemax's tight cyber security!

"At least one of us is still entertained." Miguel huffed as he entered his office. You gasped and hurried to him,

"Welcome back! How was your meeting?" You asked. Miguel raised a brow as he stroked your head,

"I need to destress."

"Ah, I'll give you a massage!" You chirped. Miguel just gave smirked,

"I was thinking of more than a simple massage."

Ohhhhh, you felt your panties get damp. Miguel grabbed your hand, leading you to his desk. You could feel your heart nearly leap out of your chest. Was this really happening? No, maybe Miguel just means something else.

"Come here," Miguel chuckled, patting his thigh.

Without hesitation, you sat on Miguel's lap. His hands roaming your body once more as he kissed you. As you made out with Miguel, you could faintly see smoke in the city. Why did there have to be trouble now?

"Will you do me this favor?" Miguel whispered in your ear, his hands reaching his crotch.

"M-Miguel," You gasped.

You were folding hard. Ignoring the city, you unzipped Miguel's pants and let him push your head down. There you were, kneeling before Miguel with his dick hard in front of you. This was something you've only dreamed of.

"S-Sorry in advance if...I'm not good," You apologized.

--------

How cute. You looked so shy and innocent as you kneeled before Miguel. His hand rested against your head, motioning you back towards his dick. You had a job to do and another one to ignore. Miguel smirked since you had made your decision.

Gritting his teeth, Miguel resisted a groan as your tongue licked and swirled around his cock. You were so inexperienced, so innocent, so pure...all because you were waiting for him.

Your hands were holding onto Miguel's thighs as you finally took his dick in your mouth. Ah, how good it felt to have you submit to him. Obeying his every whim and need.

"What a good girl, (Y/N), sloppy, but good." Miguel chuckled lowly.

You whined with his dick in your mouth, sending a vibration up Miguel's spine. How fucking tempting you were. You hummed and started to suck on his dick, giving Miguel pleasure. The warmth of your mouth, sending Miguel into a small frenzy.

This was something that Miguel never cared for. Something that was just in the way of his work. If only he knew how good this would feel having you suck him off. Miguel was going to have to get you on your knees more often.

"Mhm!"

"Keep sucking, you're doing so good." Miguel groaned as he pushed your head more.

Miguel tried his best to control himself, but he couldn't help it. His hands moved on their own as he moved your head. You were moaning and whining as you sucked against his dick, rubbing your legs in the process.

--------

Tears formed in the corner of your eyes as you felt Miguel's dick hit the back of your throat. Your panties were soaked and you were desperate for some relief of your own.

Feeling Miguel's dick twitch in your mouth, you knew he was close. You stroked faster and sucked harder, wanting to touch yourself. You couldn't breathe. You couldn't think. Miguel gripped your hair and grunted as he pushed you down, causing you to wince and nearly gag.

"Swallow." He demanded.

You shivered at his tone and flinched as you felt him cum in your mouth. Coughing as Miguel removed his dick, you swallowed hard and started to pant. You felt dazed. Air was finally entering your brain as you stared up at Miguel with lust.

"Good girl, now I believe you deserve an award." Miguel chuckled darkly.

Gasping as Miguel placed you on his desk, you whimpered as he took off your panties.

"Someone's been really patient."

"Mhm, I-I have," You whimpered, your cunt clenching to air.

"But, you'll have to be a little more patient. Just until...I know you deserve the ultimate reward."

You let out a small whine, but gasped as you felt Miguel's fingers against your clit. He spread your legs and watched as you twitched and moaned against his touch. Your body felt like it was on fire, but you wanted more.

Moving your hips, you tried to match Miguel's pace, but he held you down. His fingers moving faster against your clit, causing that burning knot to tighten in your gut. You arched your back, feeling your brain fog up again as you cried his name.

"M-Miggy!" You moaned, cumming hard. Miguel chuckled lowly,

"What did I say about that nickname?" He asked.

"S-Sorry-Ah~" You flung your head back as Miguel inserted two fingers inside you, pumping them deeply, "Ah~ M-Miguel~"

"Now you'll have to wait longer,"

Your vision blurred as you focused on his fingers curling and thrusting inside you. They were so big, much better than your toys. If only Miguel would bully you with his dick instead. You would have to behave more in order to get that reward.

"I-I'll behave, Miguel! Ah~ mhm,~ I promise~!"

-------

Music to his ears. You were breaking so easily for him. Miguel, himself, was tempted to fuck you, but he couldn't. Not yet. He couldn't risk you getting pregnant yet without his own genes enhanced.

"Miguel~" You cried, your body arching once more.

"How sensitive." Miguel whispered as you orgasmed, "That will be enough for today. I do expect more of these...personal destress sessions in the future."

"Mhm....Y-Yes, Miguel," You panted, taking a moment to catch your breathe.

Miguel just chuckled in response as he wiped his hand with a napkin. All he could think about was your so called, 'stamina'. How easy were you to cum and fold from his touch. You were so cute twitching from his fingers alone.

Glancing down at your damp panties that laid on the floor, Miguel just hummed as he picked up them and put them in his lab coat pocket. They were going to be used for his tests later.

"Allow me to take you home. It's been quite a day,"

---------

You hummed to Miguel, finally composing yourself. Your head was still dizzy and your gaze blurred. Your body was still aching and desperate for more, but you had to behave. Behave for Miguel so he could reward you later.

Your gaze shifted from the smoke in the city, back to Miguel. You wanted to please him. To do as he said.

"Thank you,"

Oh, how your super hero days were numbered.

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

Next Chapter

(Still on small hiatus, Final Fantasy is AMAZING!!!!)

@tojishugetiddies @miguelsfavwife @foulsharkheart @club-danger-zone @ivkygirly @jollystrawberrycycle @amber-content @weirdothatwritess @smartyren @mangoslushcrush @nyxzoldyck6 @migueloharastruelove @chaoticlovingdreamer @sukioyakio @killjoy-nightshadow @heyohalie @the-pan-liquid @bokutosprettylittlebimbo @kpopscoups17130000 @pochapo @killerwendigo @barbiecrocs @miss-galaxy-turtle @oscarissac2099 @lazy-idate @lauraolar14 @safixiovi

[xoxochb]

Leo x fem!reader first kiss

⋆·˚ ༘ * when you know, you know

warnings: this might be rushed?

pairing: leo valdez x fem! reader

leo had been away for weeks. a stupid quest he accepted, and now you worry. the question was scheduled to be only a week, but it’s been almost a month at this point and you were worried something bad happened to him

you stayed up many nights worrying about the boy. where had he gone, what had happened, was he dead? you pushed the last thought away as much as possible, however recently many people had started a rumor that he was dead and it got harder to keep the thought from entering your mind

by the fourth week it had been sixteen days without sleep, eyes wide, mind racing. some nights you wrote down your thoughts, sometimes you cried, some nights you even did as much as waited by the border for his arrival, which was tonight’s rotation. you check the time on your watch which displays 5:47

campers would be waking soon and your presence at the camp entrance would have been concerning to other people. you make your way back to your cabin, you wouldn’t be eating breakfast anyways, the nausea from the thought of leo being dead was enough to prevent you from eating as long as you hadn’t been sleeping

the day went on like normal, you lay in bed, you get bored, you take a walk, you bother mr. d (he wouldn’t admit to anyone that he had enjoyed your visits), you stop by the infirmary, then you head back to bed. today your walk was interrupted by will solace running at you

“will?”

he stops in front of you out of breath, he holds a finger up to indicate he needs a moment and you wait until he’s ready

“come with me” is all he says, he grabs your hand and pulls you with him

“where are we going?” you ask breathlessly

why is he always running?!

he stops at the closed doors of the infirmary “okay before we go in here I want to tell you, one: not to freak, two: he is in perfectly good health, and three: please don’t do a whole ‘oh I missed you so much let’s kiss’ all that stuff, you know? It’s an infirmary, not cabin ten”

“just let me in, idiot!”

he mutters a few curses before opening the door. you take a step in and you’re immediately met with your beloved leo valdez. you waste no time in pulling him in for a bone-crushing hug

a part of your heart was healed in that moment. tears flow from your eyes, but you quickly stop yourself and pull away, an angry look on your face. leo would have said it was hot but a) you weren’t dating, it wouldn’t be appropriate and b) he was unsure if you wanted to rip him to shreds or not

“where were you? you had me scared to death! I had my doubts about you even coming back. If you ever do that again I swear to every god I know I will murder you in your sleep”

he nods “noted”

“I’m serious, leo, I was worried about you” you put your hands on his shoulders

“glad to know I have someone that cares about me as much as you do”

your eyes meet his cordiform ones and for a moment you thought about risking your friendship, luckily you were beat to the task:

“are we about to kiss right now?”

“you cannot be serious”

“I never joke”

you think: is this really the boy you’re in love with? but you know the answer. It’s the same boy who always worries about you, the one that’s always making trinkets for you, the one with the biggest heart you know. yes, this is the boy you’re in love with

“I guess we are” you slide your hands around his neck and pull him in for a long-awaited kiss

who cares what will says at this point? you were kissing the boy you loved and nothing has ever felt better than this

[rallamajoop]

On Mia Winters, misogyny, and abuse

As should be pretty obvious by now, I love Mia Winters. I honestly think she’s one of the most compelling characters in this whole damn franchise.

But let me make clear: you don’t have to love her. Mia’s canonically done a lot of shady shit in her time, and her relationship with Ethan has real problems. There are perfectly viable interpretations where the only thing really holding it together is his own denial. Only I never seem to get to read any of those takes, because the most common characterisations Mia gets in fic are an irredeemable monster, or a cardboard cutout who exists only to be written out as quickly as possible. And to write Mia out to that degree doesn’t just do her character a disservice, it does Ethan a disservice, and a big one.

The amount of Mia-bashing I see out there in this fandom turns my stomach. It’s not just the slash fans who’d rather ship Ethan with another dude. I have seen Mia loudly bashed in tags on het or gen fic in which she does not even appear. I have seen male fans reviewing these games on youtube who treat her the exact same way. But it’s never more frustrating than when that hate comes from the same fans who’ll turn around and talk about characters like Chris or even Lady Dimitrescu (she who canonically abuses her and murders her servants, and, y’know, eats people without a shred of remorse) like they’re perfectly forgivable and have done no real wrong. And don’t get me wrong: I love Lady D, but I love her because she’s magnificently evil. Mia? Mia’s a whole lot more complicated.

But to really explain why this hate makes me so uncomfortable, I’m going to have to start with the start of Resident Evil 7, and Mia’s very first scenes in this whole franchise.

Let me quickly summarise the opening of that game. A man whose wife disappeared without explanation suddenly gets a message about her whereabouts. He travels to an isolated location, breaks in, and finds her. She denies ever sending him that message, and seems incredibly distressed that he’s there at all. They fight. It ends with him sinking an axe into her neck and shooting her several times with a handgun. But see, he didn’t do anything wrong! It was all self-defence! She started it! She was acting crazy!

If you didn’t spot it, the whole opening of RE7 reads uncomfortably like a story about a woman escaping an abusive relationship, then being tracked down and murdered by her ex.

Obviously, I am not here to tell you Ethan’s abusive. He’s not, we’ve got no reason to imagine he is. He was legitimately acting in self-defence.

But the fact the first thing Ethan has to do in this game is find the balls to kill his own wife ‒ that a whole new era of Resi games has opened with a sequence so easily read as a sympathetic justification for how a man might perfectly innocently track down his missing spouse and "have" to kill her – that made those opening minutes into by far the most uncomfortable part of this whole franchise for me. Shit like this really happens. I mean it, I will track down the fucking statistics on women who are murdered after trying to leave an abusive partner if I have to.

What happens to ‘Mia’ in the opening to RE8 isn’t much better: it's as textbook a fridging as any I’ve ever seen. Yes, it’s a fridging that gets retconned away later when she turns up alive, but the fact that’s even possible speaks to just how awful and confusing her death is. The game opens with Mia’s violent murder at the hands of this series’ longest running ‘hero’, and the event is framed entirely in terms of how awful it is for her husband. That's as frigid as a fridging gets.

The eventual reveal that the real Mia was just trapped alone in a cell being experimented on by a madwoman for god knows how long doesn’t actually make it better. The horror Mia goes through in both these games is a footnote, barely explored.

I bring these events up not to condemn the RE franchise, not to say that including these sequences was unconscionable, or that violence against women can never be shown in a horror title. A quick glance at my tumblr should demonstrate how much I adore these games. Tropes like fridging become problems only because they’re so ubiquitous they can come to define almost the only roles women get to play, not because any individual example is necessarily grounds for outrage. If anything, there’s just as much to analyse in all the hate thrown at characters like Ethan Winters (or his predecessor, Jonathan Harker) as a archtypical examples of sexism against men – backlash against the very idea of a male character in the disempowered role of horror victim, usually reserved for women.

But with this context in mind, my god is it uncomfortable to see people talk about Mia as irredeemable monster who deserves to suffer more. People who will valorise the likes of Chris Redfield, who didn’t even bother to stop to tell Ethan that’s not Mia, yet talk about Mia like being shot to death in her own living room was only what she deserved. That is just a whole load of yikes.

And given that both games open with Mia being violently killed by a male protagonist (twice in RE7, with the player in control), it sure is convenient how so many people have managed to ‘find’ the evidence that proves she’s the real villain. You don’t have to think too hard about Chris Redfield as a violent maniac or Ethan Winters being forced to kill his own wife if it’s okay to inflict violence on this woman. “Yes, but she shouldn’t have done [X]…” or even “But what if she’s the real abuser” is a narrative that gets thrown at real women in abusive relationships all the time – especially when the man is a friend of whoever’s casting judgement, or even a celebrity. Real world examples of this shit in the wild run the gamut from wild fan-takes on The Shining ‘proving’ that actually the abused wife was the ‘real’ abuser all along, right up to the ongoing hate campaign against Amber Heard. People don’t want to have to think badly of someone they admire, and will take any excuse to shift the blame. The stakes are infinitely lower when we’re talking about fictional characters, but the same pattern plays out.

And look, I do get it. It’s easy to go into these games and come out with a negative opinion of Mia. She’s the one who lures you into danger in RE7, acts all innocent, and then comes at Ethan with a chainsaw – and when you finally find out her big secret at the end, it turns out she was working for the people who created Eveline from the start! You’re really not given a lot of reasons to invest in Ethan and Mia’s relationship before she’s suddenly coming at him with a knife, and the fact she never does get to come clean to him in canon leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

It’s really easy to go into RE8, note all the glaring signs that Ethan’s relationship with Mia isn’t healthy, and draw your own conclusions about a woman we don’t hardly even see again for most of the runtime of the game. Half this goddamn fandom still seems to think Heisenberg is actually a lycan, ffs – most of what people think they know about Mia is more meme than fact, and the rest is pretty surface level. Basic media literacy is not exactly high out there in the tumblrweeds (let alone the rest of the internet).

But as for the idea that Mia’s responsible for all the horrors Ethan went through, people seem to forget that Mia herself went through so much worse. Ethan spent a day in the Bakers’ property, and a day in the village. Mia spent years trapped in the Bakers’ property, and days at least imprisoned in Miranda’s lab, knowing exactly how much danger her family were in, helpless to save them. She’s no innocent herself, but ye gods has she already suffered for her crimes.

So with all that out of the way, well, what’s the actual ‘evidence’ that Mia herself was abusive? No-one's coming into this one without some bias, but let’s at least give it a fair shake.

Right upfront, I want to recognise that in both fiction and reality, women can be abusers, and men can be victims. Abuse in heterosexual relationships is far more likely to occur with the man as the abuser, but the reverse does happen, and the fact culture at large can be so eager to cast the woman as the villain doesn’t make it any easier for the real male victims of abuse to get recognition and help. Society as a whole is still just really shitty about enabling or excusing real abuse.

But the idea that Mia was abusive has very little to back it up. Whatever you make of “her” interactions with Ethan at the start of the game, the fact remains: that’s not Mia, and the fact she’s acting so strangely is meant to be our clue that something much bigger than a little marital strife is going on here. Knowing all this doesn’t really make the scene where she’s violently executed less disturbing, but you can’t miss the hints we don’t yet know the full story.

So the question becomes, is there any evidence that the real Mia was abusive? I’ve dug into this one a bit before in my post about trying to figure out the timeline of exactly when Mia was replaced, but there are no definitive answers as to how long Miranda's been living in their house. To summarise a long post (and a surprisingly lively timeline of events from the days before the game begins): the most likely intent seems to be that Miranda’s been posing as Mia for less than a week, though a lot of the vibes of the scene give me the impression it’s been several weeks at least. Ultimately, that’s going to come down to your own interpretation.

The Mia mentioned in Ethan’s diary who blew up at him at the hospital could be the real Mia, but more likely isn’t: you can’t really use her to argue anything definitive, one way or another. The Mia from the flashback where Ethan gets the call from Rose’s doctor is the real Mia, but if you think getting upset when your husband brushes off your obvious distress over your daughter’s health makes you abusive, then nothing I say here is going to convince you otherwise.

The only ‘real’ evidence that Mia might be a problem is one line you might hear from Ethan while taking Rose to bed, and it is admittedly a red flag: your mother’s scary when she’s angry.

And to anyone whose whole hatred of Mia has been built backwards from this one line – especially anyone who’s grown up in a dysfunctional household themselves – hell, I get it. It is one really yikes thing for Ethan to say about his wife.

But in Mia’s defence, I can only point out that, well, yes, canonically, she is scary when she’s angry.

Oh, did I say angry? I meant fucking possessed.

And if Ethan’s bringing up the spectre of that time, even subconsciously, maybe that should be an even bigger clue that the Mia in this house right now isn’t Mia.

But what really shows this line for what it is is that we’ve seen the real Mia angry. We’ve seen her cold fury at Eveline, daring to go right back to asking ‘can we be a family now?’ within hours forcing Mia to assault her own husband with a chainsaw. We’ve seen her frustration at Ethan’s own denial, and we’ve seen her stalk out of the room when he blows off an important conversation for a call from work. We’ve seen her advance on Chris after he shut her down, demanding, Where is my husband? Where is my daughter?!

We have never seen her angry without real justification. Her anger is neither violent nor disproportionate. It’s consistently purposeful, focused, and contained. There is nothing scary about the real Mia’s anger, unless you’re threatened by the very idea she might have something valid to be angry about.

There is evidence of tension in the Winters’ marriage from before Miranda’s arrival, but it takes a very different form – most evident in the flashback scene where Ethan receives the call from Rose’s doctor. Far from Miranda’s brusque, dismissive copy of her, the real Mia is anxious and depressed, scared of what Rose’s results might reveal. Here, Ethan’s the one brushing her concerns aside (“We talked about this […] Rose is fine!”) He recognises there seems to be something Mia’s not telling him, says they should talk about it, but then immediately brushes the conversation off when he gets a call from work, while Mia storms out of the room.

You can certainly read Mia as a hypocrite here, getting angry at Ethan for not knowing things she’s deliberately kept from him. But it’s Ethan who decides a call from work is more important than a conversation with his wife – someone who is obviously distressed, canonically still on a regime of drugs after the traumatic events of RE7, very likely suffering PTSD along with Ethan, and maybe even some form of postpartum depression. We don’t know anything about Ethan’s work, so there’s no point in speculating about how much he ‘needs’ to take that call. Mia’s no clear villain here – quite the opposite.

Personally, I tend towards taking this scene as evidence that Mia has tried to talk to Ethan about what really happened to him, but hasn’t managed to get him to face the truth. For all that Ethan supposedly wants to talk about the past, it’s a defining plot point that he’s badly in denial himself.

Or they could both be at some fault here: Ethan unwilling to face the truth, while Mia is reluctant to force him to face something she knows will hurt him and bring him distress. Even when Mia says outright that she ‘tried to keep this a secret, but…’ to Chris at the end of the game, the implication is as much that she’s tried to keep it a secret from people like Chris, who might decide Ethan is dangerous. She’s lied to protect him before, and if she’s still lying to him about her past with the Connections, then the fact that knowing the truth will hurt Ethan is obviously among her reasons. Protecting Ethan has always been among Mia’s top priorities ‒ even at her own expense.

The only other real hints we get about Mia’s inner life come from the glimpses of her we get in Donna’s domain. But I’m hesitant to read too much into these, given how unclear it is how much is just a manifestation of Ethan’s own anxieties. If anything, the ‘Mia’ in these scenes almost seems to have some far worse secret than simply having not told Ethan something he really ought to have put together on his own, and I’d kind of love to see that explored too – at least as long as that goes somewhere more interesting than round umpteen of ‘and that’s why Mia sucks’.

But my point here isn’t that you have to read any of these scenes the same way I do. I do think it’s important to recognise that nothing written for a game like RE is truly character-driven; scenes exist to serve the plot far more than to reflect consistent character motivations or hold up to fridge logic (which, let’s face it, is the real reason for most of Chris’ horrific behaviour in this game, let alone anyone else’s). The result is rarely super consistent, and leaves ample space for multiple interpretations of anyone’s motivations. Regardless, the idea there’s any hard evidence that Ethan and Mia’s relationship is dysfunctional, or that whatever’s wrong is Mia’s fault alone, is going to be incredibly hard to justify.

Any assertion that Ethan and Mia are somehow on the verge of divorce also needs to be weighed against the masses of evidence of how much they love each other – the number of times Mia has said she loves Ethan, up to and including (yes, I’m bringing this up again) how ready she is to die for him in RE7. Her speech to Chris at the end of RE8 states explicitly that being together with Ethan and Rose is the only thing that matters to her. “Mia, I’m sorry, I love you,” are some of the last words Ethan ever speaks – and I can’t help but read into how the moment he finally pushes Rose into Chris’ arms so they can get away with him weighing them down is right after he learns that Mia is alive, and thus implicitly that Rose won’t be alone if Ethan doesn’t make it. And good god does that scene break my heart every time.

It’s worth recognising that the fact Ethan and Mia love each other doesn’t inherently mean their relationship is healthy, or that you have to love them together as much as I do. Like I said up top, you don’t have to like Mia, and you don’t have to justify not liking her if you don’t. I would genuinely like to see fics where Mia and Ethan’s supposedly-necessary break up feels in character. Where Ethan loves her but just can’t deal with the resentment and the fallout over all the lies she told him, where he's been clinging to his 'happy ending' with Mia after surviving the Bakers so hard he can't face the fact things just aren't working, or where he’s having to face that their relationship only ever really worked because she was away so much. It will break my heart, but fiction is allowed to do that.

But god, it would be nice if people could just take the bashing below an eleven around this place. The number of times I’ve had to sigh and back-button out of reading something, because yet another author has decided to project their own hatred for Mia onto the husband who’s still reeling from watching her being violently murdered in front of him… it gets fucking old, y’know?

I would really like to think that in the year of our lord 2024, fandom would be a bit past this thing where they bash the canonical female love interest in the name of shipping the hero with another dude. People will bend over backwards to try and cast Heisenberg and Chris as guys who really care about consent and worry about Ethan getting hurt, because heaven forbid anyone be caught shipping something slightly problematic. And yet misogyny still somehow gets a pass.

You do not have to love Mia. You don’t even have to like her. But ye gods, the hate she gets is baseless and absurd.

Hasn't this poor woman suffered enough?

(And on that note, I promise I am finally done soapboxing in defence of Mia Winters, thank you for bearing with me for this long.)