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cheolism · 1 year

Text

mwah

✧ woozi x reader

✧ summary: three times you said "mwah" at the end of a kiss and one time jihoon said it back

✧ wc. is approx 2.9k

✧ genre: romance, fluff, mentioned friends-to-lovers

✧ notes: sex is mentioned, but not actually in the fic. soonyoung is a serial gossiper. this is just light-hearted and something i thought would be cute. reader has a milkshake, so sorry to all my fellow lactose intolerant baddies

o n e w e e k

It was the end of your first date, meaning it was the first time the two of you had hung out after confessing your feelings for one another. In reality it wasn’t much different than what the two of you had been doing before.

You came, dropped your backpack off at his bedroom door and shredded your coat. Dragged the computer chair Jihoon had purchased for you (he said he had found it on the side of the road, but he wasn’t so cold as to make his new partner sit on a chair someone had thrown out), pulled your laptop out of your backpack and got to work on your essay.

When supper time came around, he had ordered the food. You had cracked a joke about it being a first date, and so the two of you came to the agreement that it was.

You had been painfully cute all evening. Leaning against his shoulder, nudging his elbow and then flashing him a little grin when his eyes met yours. Sweetly calling out his name and then blowing a little kiss to him. Jihoon didn’t know how his heart could flutter so much, but he was sure it was some sort of medical problem.

Part of Jihoon wanted to ask you to say. Part of him wanted to grab you and wrap you in his arms, pull you into his bed and pull up the blankets and sleep. Another part of him wanted to press you against the wall and kiss you.

He acted on neither impulses.

Instead Jihoon gave you a little smile, standing and escorting you downstairs and to the front door. Seungkwan and Seungcheol stood in the living room, and they called out greetings as you passed.

“Ignore them,” Jihoon murmured, his hand going to the center of your back. He guided you to the door, nudged your shoes towards you. He thought, for a fleeting moment, about getting down on a knee and tying your shoes for you, but then he remembered his friends in the living room behind him and shoved his hands into his pockets.

“I had fun,” you said, shooting him a little grin as you tied your shoes.

He scoffed, though Jihoon couldn’t fight the tiny smile that had begun to stretch his lips. He couldn’t help it. Whenever you smiled, he wanted to smile; whenever you cried, his heart cried with you. It was horrible, and he surely had some sort of medical problem.

“I’m sure you did have fun,” he said wryly, “sitting next to me doing homework all evening.”

You giggled, standing. You hooked your hands through your backpack straps. “Well. It was doing it with you that made it fun, Jihoon.”

Seungkwan cooed in the background. Jihoon fought the urge to turn around and punch him.

You sighed, backing up and towards the door. “I gotta go. See you tomorrow?”

Jihoon followed, reaching around you for the door knob. “Yep. I’ve got to meet with Jun about lessons, and then I’ll be free.”

“Great,” you said, and Jihoon felt foolish, but he felt like you meant it. As if you actually were eager to see him tomorrow, despite having seen him today, despite seeing him currently. As if he was someone worth getting excited over.

He turned the doorknob, pushed the door open. You stepped over the threshold, still facing him. “You okay?”

You nodded, glancing away. Then your shoulders straightened, as if you were steeling yourself, and you darted forward. Your lips pressed against his cheek, as quick as a thief. “Mwah.”

Then you were peeling away and out the door, calling out to Seungkwan and Seungcheol and waving good-bye.

t w o m o n t h s

“So,” Soonyoung began, leaning against the counter and giving Jihoon a wide grin. He looked ridiculous, and Jihoon had told him as much. With his wide-brimmed hat on backwards, his bowling shoes, he looked like a clown who came straight from a NASCAR race.

“How is everything going? Your two month anniversary was yesterday, right?”

Jihoon furrowed his brow. “How do you --”

“Y/n has a little counter on their phone,” Soonyoung explained, as if that resolved any questions Jihoon had. “So? How is it? Trouble in paradise?”

Jihoon shrugged. The worker from behind the counter walked up, carrying a bottled soda for Jihoon and a strawberry shake for you. Jihoon accepted them both, ignoring how the cold of each drink bit at his hands. “We’ve been friends for years,” Jihoon said as they began their walk back to the rest of their group. “It’s not really any different.”

Soonyoung hummed, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “I mean. That’s good, I guess. But what about the parts that are different?”

Jihoon squinted, slowing his pace so he was slightly behind Soonyoung and forcing the other man to stop. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

The blonde man sighed, rolling his eyes. He retraced his steps, walking back to Jihoon’s side. Soonyoung placed both of his hands on Jihoon’s shoulders, leaning down and talking as if Jihoon were a child and not a grown-ass man capable of kicking Soonyoung’s ass. “Well. When two adults like each other romantically, sometimes that can lead to special activities in the bedroom.”

For half a second, Jihoon was confused. Special activities?

Then Soonyoung’s words were fully processed. Jihoon’s jaw dropped, and he reached out with one of his legs and kicked at Soonyoung, not willing to drop the drinks in order to fully throttle his friend.

Soonyoung just laughed, jumping out of the way. Him laughing was probably the worst of it, like waving a flag in front of a bull.

Jihoon couldn’t help the frown and pout that appeared on his face as he returned to the group. He knew Soonyoung was just teasing, but Jihoon couldn’t help but feel affronted. Like: sex wasn’t a big deal, of course it wasn’t, but it wasn’t like Jihoon was just going to turn around and broadcast your relationship for everyone to hear about.

Because everyone would hear about it. Soonyoung could keep a secret as long as he could tell one other person, and when that meant telling Jihoon or you, everything was fine. But he knew, more often than not, Soonyoung would go running to Seokmin or Jeonghan with whatever Jihoon would say, relying on the other two men to give reactions Soonyoung deemed fit to warrant him spilling.

Besides: it wasn’t anyone’s business!

You were bowling when Jihoon returned, your back towards him. He stomped to your seats, placing your shake on the table in front of the couch. Chan turned towards Jihoon, face bright and eyes crinkled, but took one look at him and turned back towards the front and away from Jihoon.

Jihoon grabbed the soda, unfastening the lid and taking a drink. He ignored how the carbon stung at his throat.

“Jihoonie!” He glanced up. You were eagerly moving towards him, a large grin on your face. That look of happiness at seeing him never seemed to fade, no matter how many days and weeks into your relationship the two of you got.

He felt himself flush red, embarrassed. You plopped down next to him, pressing your sides together and squeezing his arm. “I hope you didn’t see my gutter ball.”

“I didn’t,” he said, honest. “I’m sure it wasn’t so bad as to change my opinion on you.”

You laughed, bright and sweet. “I dunno, Jihoon. It was kinda bad.”

Then you were glancing at the table. Your eyes widened when you saw the shake, obviously delighted. “Whose shake is that?”

Jihoon hummed, raising the bottle to his lips again. “For my partner. Dunno if you’ve seen them around.”

You threw him an affronted look, but your fake ire did nothing to hide the grin that was beginning to spread across your face. “Well. I’ll just hold onto this for them, if that’s okay with you. But you have to hold onto something for my partner in exchange. All right?”

Jihoon shrugged, screwing the cap back onto the bottle. Then you were pressing closer, one hand settling on his shoulder, the other going to hold his chin and hold his face still. You pressed your lips against his cheek, lingering.

You said it softly, not loud enough for Chan, who was on the other side of you, to hear, and definitely not loud enough for anyone else in the group to hear. But Jihoon still heard it. “Mwah.”

e i g h t m o n t h s

“You sure you just can’t stay the night?”

The crackling of thunder was nearly loud enough to drown out Jihoon’s question, and the rain that pounded against the windows was an accent to illustrate his point.

The storm had been predicted to appear later in the night, closer to midnight. But then autumn winds picked up, pushing the storm to the city quicker than anticipated. So when the two of you had taken a break from playing video games (Jihoon was remarkably bad and more prone to losing than winning, but so was Chan and Soonyoung, which made playing with both boys an absolute must when playing with Jihoon), the game paused and silence reigning over Jihoon’s room, the harsh winds batting against the side of the house had been a surprise.

You had scrambled, shoving your shoes on and grabbing your backpack. You had an important seminar you had to attend early in the morning, and while you had clothes stored in Jihoon’s room, sweats and a ratty tee wouldn’t cut it.

“I can’t,” you said, lingering by the door. You were frowning, upset; not at the storm, but at the prospect of your time with Jihoon getting cut short.

Ridiculous.

You were ridiculous.

Jihoon sighed, reaching for you. You went into his arms easily, your lips finding his the most natural thing in the world. He pressed quick kisses to your mouth, hands squeezing at your upper arms.

“Take it slow going home.” Jihoon commanded. “Lights all the way on. Don’t be afraid to pull over or turn around if you can’t make it. If you need, call me and --”

“-- and you’ll send Seungcheol my way,” you finished, grinning.

Jihoon glared at you. He didn’t like this. Not for the same reasons as you -- well, not to say that he wasn’t mad at getting your time together cut short, because he was a little irritated about it. But he hated the thought of you leaving to drive through a storm, all for a seminar you work was forcing you to attend.

One day you wouldn’t have to work, Jihoon vowed, the sound of high winds thrashing tree branches and rain throwing itself against windows as his witness. He would be a high-end producer, and you wouldn’t have to work. Unless you wanted too, of course. Wouldn’t have to work, wouldn’t have to travel to attend stupid seminars, wouldn’t have to deal with annoying coworkers who most definitely shouldn’t be working.

But that day was not today.

So he pressed another kiss to your lips, murmuring quietly, “please be careful.”

You nodded, pulling away. You reached out, running your hand through his hair and looking at him. For a moment neither of you said anything, just content to take in the other.

Then you pitched forward, pressing the final kiss of the night to his lips. “Mwah.”

e l e v e n m o n t h s

You were sprawled out on Jihoon’s carpet, belly up, hands laced over your stomach. The first thing you had done after getting off of work was text him that you had, quite frankly, had enough of people talking and were about to punch the next person who so much as looked at you.

The first thing Jihoon had done when you stepped through his bedroom door was get up, cross the room, and wrap his arms around you. You had pressed your face into his neck, hands clinging to the back of his shirt.

He doesn’t know for sure how long the two of you had stood like that. But when he pulled away, he cradled your face in his hands and pressed a kiss to the space between your brows. “You still want some quiet?”

When you nodded, he pressed another kiss to your nose. He returned to his desk, slid his headphones over his ears, and went back to work.

Which led to you, on his carpet, an hour later.

“Jihoon,” you called. He paused the track he was working on and turned, pulling his headphones off. You weren’t looking at him, eyes trained on the popcorn ceiling that both of you absolutely detested.

“Yeah?”

For a moment you were quiet. You sighed, turning your head to look at him. “Sorry for being like this.”

Jihoon shook his head, as if it wasn’t a big deal. And as far as he was concerned, it wasn’t. It wasn’t a big deal. Everyone had bad days, and you were witness to all of his. And he had a lot of them. The least he could do was be there for your bad days.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Well. Wait. It does. But not like. You’re okay to have bad days and you’re okay to bring your troubles to me, but it doesn’t matter that you do that because -- well.” “Because you love me,” you cooed, a small smile finally appearing on your face.

There you are.

Jihoon couldn’t help his own little smile. “Yeah,” he said, “because I love you.”

You turned on your side, facing him fully. “You know, our one year is 29 days away.”

“It is.”

“So,” you began, chewing on your bottom lip in a rather poor attempt to hide your smile. “Any plans?”

Jihoon shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” You echoed. “That sounds awfully close to a no.”

“That’s not what I said,” he argued.

It was fruitless, however. You sat up, crossing your legs. “It’s okay to not have any plans, Jihoon. You don’t have to surprise me. I could surprise you.”

Jihoon frowned. “I told you I had it under control.” “I know! It’s just that --”

“What,” he stood from his chair, stretching. He ignored how your eyes lingered on his stomach when his shirt rode up. Jihoon had thought Mingyu was horny, but fuck, he was nothing compared to you. “Don’t think I can be romantic?”

You hesitated. “Well. You can --”

His jaw dropped, popping from his habit of clenching it. “You don’t think I can be romantic?”

“I didn’t say that!”

“You thought it!” He accused, moving towards you. You weren’t taking him seriously. You were grinning, eyes sparkling and obviously amused. Even before the two of you had begun dating he was the subject of your impish nature, and that hadn’t let up in the slightest since the two of you had begun dating.

“Okay, so maybe I thought it.” You held up your hands. “But like. Can you blame me?”

Jihoon lowered himself onto the floor, joining you. Your knees were pressing against his. You were practically glowing, so delighted at him joining you not only on the floor but in verbally sparring. “I can. I’m the most romantic person I know.”

You giggled, and Jihoon would never ever let Soonyoung know how his heart always seemed to skip a few beats at your laugh. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said.

Then Jihoon lurched forward, hands cradling your face, lips smashing against yours. Your teeth clanked against his, and you were laughing into his mouth, and he couldn’t properly kiss you because of how wide your smile was.

Your hands went to his face, framing his cheeks, and the two of you fell into a rhythm. Kissing you was as easy as walking, Jihoon found, but it never failed to make his heart stutter. Your mouths moved together, sliding comfortably and leisurely, and Jihoon thought that every single romantic novel that ever said rushed kisses of passion were the fruit of all love were wrong.

He pulled away, just enough to talk. His mouth moved against yours with every word, and he didn’t miss the way your eyes constantly fluttered. “I can be romantic.”

Then he pressed one more kiss to your lips, quick and feather-light. “Mwah.”

A moment of silence.

Then your eyes were flying open, surprise and euphoria taking over your features. Your cry of his name was loud, and his head hurt from where it smacked against the ground after you tackled him, his pride felt a little bruised at resorting to such a tactic, but the utter glee on your face was worth it.

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ouroborosorder · 3 months

Note

Do you have an instance of Arknights VFX that gets frequently praised that you as a VFX artist think is mediocre or bad?

EBENHOLZ' SKIN "EINE VARIATION" IS A CRIME AGAINST ME SPECIFICALLY.

Look. I love Ebenholz, a lot. His effects are really strong, too! Some of my personal favorites. But this skin. Jesus Christ this skin.

I have seen so many people praising this skin as having good effects or being better than his original and it genuinely makes me wonder if half of the effects are actually rendered in some sort of shrimp colors that everyone but me can see.

There is not a single part of this skin's effects that I don't hate. Not just because I find them ugly, uninteresting, and unclear, but because I think they fundamentally misunderstand who Ebenholz is.

You asked for this.

Part 1 - The Colors.

The actual art for his skin has a beautiful striking blue and light gray background, with the light pink Arts accentuating it, and then the blood red and pitch black of his outfit meant to draw the eye to the center. This works perfectly in the art, so what's wrong?

First problem. Ebenholz doesn't have the blue background in gameplay. Meaning that his effects are red (not pink, like the art, they are red) and his skin is red. So there's extreme monochrome happening, with absolutely no interesting contrast between him and his Arts. His Elite Charge is blue, at the very least, so his signature gimmick stands out uniquely, which is quite nice! That's a great decision that won't cause any problems down the line at all.

"Oh, but Keys, it's so that the red Arts stand out when he uses his S3 and summons that giant goat spirit in the background!" That's a great point, person I just made up. Please remember this excellent point for later.

Part 2 - General Effects

The effect starts with a deploy animation wherein Ebenholz is surrounded by sparkles like some sort of magical girl. The deploy effect is genuinely bad in so many ways, mostly related to timing and motion, but this rant is going to be long enough. And I'm gonna need to focus and talk about the sparkles.

The biggest thing to know about Eine Variation is this image. Get acquainted with it. If there was a recurring visual motif in Eine Variation, it is this piece from the original art.

And yeah, as an effects artist, I'd be amped to work on this. This looks fucking sick as shit. It's dynamic, it's chaotic, it's got harsh lines to contrast the flowing music staff, it's great. So let's see how this texture looks in g- okay what the fuck.

In the game, it looks nothing like the art. It's literally just the stock glimmer effect. It's not even a new texture. This thing's been in the game since release. It looks. Bad. It's way too simplistic. Because it wasn't meant to be the center of attention, it's meant to appear for an instant and then fade. Like, you know. A glimmer.

What you just saw in the screenshot above is one of Ebenholz' Mystic Caster charges. And it is easily my least favorite part of the entire skin.

Ebenholz (Original Flavor)'s Mystic Caster charges has one of my favorite visual touches in the entire game. Ebenholz fights using artifacts from the Witch King whose power he inherits - a wand and a set of five Originium dice. So he wields the wand, and has die rotate around him as he fights. In-game, they represent this by his charges being the dice, rotating around his hand. This is, as we say in the vfx industry, fucking badass. So naturally they removed the dice entirely in Eine Variation.

Fuck.

Fine, alright. Maybe it's him... moving further from the Witch King's influence, then? We'll go with that hey stop looking at his S3 what are you doing don't get ahead of me.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "hey, Keys, this is unfair. You're asking us to judge an animated effect based on a static picture of it." Well, my dear reader, I have bad news. You just saw the entire charge's visual. The whole thing.

They are a glimmer of light that does not pulse or twinkle. They just. Sit there. Floating. Again, it's just so simplistic, it's not even interesting to talk about.

The only good thing I can say about it is that it's way easier to tell how many charges he has since they're bigger, more spread out, and not moving. Also the Elite charge is WAY more distinct, since it's bright blue now to contrast with the red normal charges. Which is nice! A good decision! It would sure be a shame if it bit them in the ass later!

Part 3 - Attack and Skill 1

Did you think I was kidding when I said that the sparkles are the sole visual motif in this skin?

I hate these attack trails. Not only are they too simplistic, they're just too cute. I joked about magical girls before, but dear god, this just doesn't fucking look right. This skin is literally described as him being apathetic and miserable as a noble, so why are the effects so... Colorful and cute? Ebenholz isn't a cutesy goofy music-themed magical girl, Ebenholz is a sad gay goth kid who would create a fake My Immortal confession for attention.

I also hate the musical notes. I know I complained about the glimmers being too one-note (pardon the pun), but they just don't interact with the rest of the effect at all. There's nothing else musical about what is happening here. They feel added to remind you that he is casting music.

God I fucking hate the sparkles so goddamned much. I also find it really funny that one single musical note bursts forth with each hit. These shapes are just... So boring, so simple. But put a pin in that for a later.

His S1 uptime comes with an awful aura. he glows red. There is only red and white. this is all there is. This is all there will ever be. That's all I've got about S1.

Part 3 - Skill 2

Oh jesus go back to the red and white

First off, I find these goat so fucking ugly. The synths are a truly terrible choice, because synths and digital music don't come up in any capacity throughout the rest of the effects. So. Great work. This doesn't make sense.

Anyway I hate the color here. The original has a great two-tone black smoke with bright blue glowing eyes, contrasting with Eben's orange Arts. In the skin they slapped an awful blue glow haze over them. This makes them just completely draw visual attention, while they don't match up with Ebenholz' aesthetic at all. if you could see the black, there would be a clear visual link between them, but... Nope. It's ONLY blue, motherfuckers.

Also, they passively emit triangles, which is the only time in this entire effect that the Arts = Geometric Triangles visual idea appears in the entire skin based around an arts caster. Yay for recurring game-wide motifs!

Shockingly, I hate the explosion. It's passable, it's fine. But the timing is absolutely awful. The original's feels like an explosion that is pulling the target in, but the skin's feels like an explosion followed by absorption. It makes it feel less like an explosion and more like a contrivance. Also, it spawns only like, four notes total, which is just so low. Please have more notes, you even have the musical staff, you're so close to having this look like musical arts. I also hate the random swirl of red. The goat didn't have any red in it. Why does this have red. Monochrome would have actually worked better, this is just a summon.

Part 4 - Sound of Silence

Eine Variation S3 features Ebenholz getting hoverhanded by a goat.

I wish I had any other way to put it. But he gets hoverhanded by a goat for the entire uptime of this attack.

What even is this thing? Obviously, it's the goat behind him in his splash art, but what is it? Is it the Witch King? That would make sense, but why is the Witch King's avatar blue? The Witch King has literally never been blue, he's always been associated as being red. Unless this isn't The Witch King, in which case, what the fuck is it then?

I hate this effect more than anything else in this game. The ghost looks absolutely awful. it is very blatantly just the art from the actual skin, slapped behind him with no regard for aesthetic consistancy. Or even regard for if the image is readable at the distance Arknights is played at. The goatghost.jpg is not animated at all, but the hands move up and down, which weirdly only further reveals how static the ghost is. Also the hands aren't animated outside of going up and down which is just so uncanny and uncomfortable. It just reveals how desperately they needed to have some animation to make it not look like absolute hot garbage, and they still failed.

After an entire skin of absurdly simplistic geometric shapes and basic ass textures, suddenly they think they can pull off some shit that looks like a granblue render. This doesn't even look in-line with the rest of the skin's effects, let alone with the chibi artstyle.

Now. Why I truly, truly hate this attack.

When you activate S3, all of Ebenholz' Charges become Elite charges. Meaning they all become blue.

The charges all finally become blue.

In the only part of the skin where you have a blue background.

I just. I can't figure out how you'd fuck this up this bad. If the Elite Charges were red, it would look like the fucking skin art, with the red notes on the pink staff. They'd stand out, or at least look fucking decent. How many charges does Ebenholz have? Oh I don't know THEY'RE FUCKING BLUE ON BLUE.

WHY. WHY ANY OF THIS. WHY ALL OF THIS. I'M IN HELL. THIS WAS MADE TO TORMENT ME PERSONALLY RIGHT

anyway I will give credit where credit is due. I actually quite like the trail when he casts his stocks in S3.

The slight orange two-tone and complicated trails add a lot of nuance and depth to the effect, and the glimmer is toned down to the point where I can see the diamond shape hidden underneath. There is one singular silver lining to this cloud. It could use more musical touches and less fucking sparkles but at this point I need to compliment something.

Finale - Why Do I Give A Shit

Eine Variation launched as part of the Bloodline of Combat skins that came out with Lone Trail. It released alongside Specter the Unchained's Born as One; my personal favorite skin in the entire game. It is a skin that perfectly conveys Laruntina's love of natural beauty and Specter's love of poetry and recitation, bringing them together into poems reflected in a starry lake. The effects are serene and dreamlike, peaceful yet chaotic. It conveys who they are going into the future, who they are together.

Born as One is Bloodline of Combat at its best. Bloodline of Combat is at its best when it tells you something about who this character is at this part of their life. How they change, how they grow, how they look at the world in this point of their life. This is the story that good effects can tell.

So I ask you: What story does Eine Variation's effects tell?

If this an Ebenholz who is growing further from the Witch King's legacy into his own man, then why does the avatar of the Witch King appear behind him? Why does the flavor text describe this as clothing worn by every Graf Urtica? Why does it not lean further into the synth aesthetic to separate himself from the classical music of Leithanien?

If this is an Ebenholz who is currently stuck within the confines of nobility, why is he not wielding the dice associated with his title as Graf Urbica? Why do his fucking goats have synths instead of traditional instruments? Why is the Witch King the wrong color?

And most importantly to all of this: Why are all the shapes so simple?

Yes, Arknights' Arts are geometric. They're usually represented by simple triangles. This is true. But think about who Ebenholz is.

Ebenholz is not a simple and elegant person. Ebenholz is a man who nails complicated, difficult, strange flute solos, but who fails to do simple rhythms and scales. He excels at the complex, the elaborate, and the detailed, and fails at the simplistic. This is always how Ebenholz has been.

So a skin full of simple shapes, easy language, and flat colors... Isn't how he'd fight. It's not who he is. It's not how he'd act. It doesn't just feel wrong, it feels like it's not made for him.

I don't just hate this skin because I think its effects are bad. I mean, I do, and they definitely are.

I hate this skin because it just... Fundamentally does not understand who Ebenholz is. And it definitely does not understand why he is so special.

#(feel free to skip to the ending if you don't want to read an unhinged amount of text about something I hate)#arknights #arknights vfx breakdown #emphasis on breakdown

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adelheidvonschicksal · 1 year

Text

Pairing: Shouto x F!Reader

CW: brief sexual mention, brief misogyny mention (not from Shouto)

Summary: Shouto’s love language is gift giving, and he doesn’t care who complains.

Notes: Partially inspired by some blurbos I've seen floating around.

Shouto follows closely behind you as you browse the jewelry store. You’re heavy with excitement, a smile plastered on your face as you finally point to one of the many rings protected in the glass display.

“Shouto, come look.”

Tilting his head over your shoulder, he sees now what caught your attention. It’s a beautiful ring with a generous sized diamond and side stones plastered in the center of a rose gold band with thin shimmery lines around the length. He can agree that it would look nice on you.

“Is that the one you want?”

You nod fervently and beckon the sales associate over to discuss the price, and he immediately notices your face fall as soon as the number comes to light.

“Oh…that’s kind of high,” you state softly, looking to Shouto for support and approval. Shouto already knows what’s on your mind. That this is too much for a single purchase, that if the price tag ever got out about this there’d probably be some backlash towards you.

However, Shouto doesn’t really care about that even if he knows you do. This purchase is important, once in a lifetime, and if that ring makes you happy then there’s no concern about the price. After all, this is your wedding ring even if not everyone would agree with your union.

Shouto must be crazy to marry you, they’d say. His girlfriend is a golddigger, they’d say. Clout chaser, they’d say. And those are the tame things. Ironically, Todoroki was always afraid he’d hear those words from his own family before anyone else but social media and the strangers on it are another beast.

Women from a meager background like yours can only scavenge their way into high society. They ride there on the coattails of powerful men, buying an express ticket for as long as the beauty of youth will take them until time creeps in like it always does. Then, they’ll disembark, taking half with them.

You’re no exception to that scrutiny. You don’t work; no hair out of place; not one broken manicured nail. It must be an easy life for a woman dating one of Japan’s top heroes.

To Shouto, there isn’t much wrong with that.

Shouto isn’t good with sweet words. The phrases “I love you” and “You’re important to me” comes easily enough, whispered late in the dark of night and early in the fast minutes of morning. However, poetry of his love for you does not come as easy. His head knows how much he cares for you, but his mouth fails to put it together in a beautiful way; and if he couldn’t give the person who has always taken care of him since high school the flowery language of a poet then he certainly could buy flowery perfumes instead. He could buy make-up. He could buy clothes and jewelry and candies.

You deserve nice things like that, the same way you give him nice things with the comfort of your understanding words, the tender grasp of your hand when it grabs him after a nightmare from childhood, and the passionate grind of your body in the quiet of your shared home.

His mother never got the luxury of a powerful marriage like that. You deserve to be taken care of the way she wasn’t, the way he wants you to be.

Some may call it spoiling or simping as Camie explains it.

But why shouldn’t he spoil you , he wonders.

He has the money to spend, very little he needs or wants for himself, and you’re everything, so why not choose to spend it on you? Why shouldn’t he want you to be content, well cared for, a princess, his princess?

Shouto will throw check after check onto the fires of devotion if that’s what it takes; they’ll talk, of course, but that’s okay.

They simply don’t see it: how excited you get when he comes home after a mission, how you nearly jump into his arms and fuss over the smallest scratch, how you burned your hand trying to cook zaru soba for the first time, how much you layer him in kisses until the trail of your lips become beacons of heat for his quirk to flare under.

When that happens, the name of the expensive brand of lipstick you wear is absent in his heat-dazed mind; your eyes sparkle when they capture his, forever watching as you move your body against his, shining more than the many jewels that constantly adorn your body; your skin like velvet, legs smooth around his waist – the pack of lotion you wore on that day set for delivery subscription immediately after.

You smell subtly, almost unnoticeably sweet, a bit like apples with a hint of something he can’t place but it always has him dying to stand close to you, and those pretty French-tipped nails of yours feel the best when massaging the back of his head when he comes home and finds himself wanting to rest against the cushion of your thighs.

If taking care of that cute exterior he loves, the one you maintain because you like looking nice for him, and keeping you adorned in pretty and pink clothes costs money, well, he doesn’t think there’s a price he minds paying so long as it’s within his means.

There are plenty of words people can call him for doing so much for you, for wanting and allowing you to live an overly comfortable life; many of those words he still doesn’t really understand even after Camie’s explanations, but that’s okay, too, because making you happy isn’t a one-sided endeavor.

Seeing you safe and happy, watching the cute little dance you do whenever you eat good food, and the joy in your eyes whenever you get to go on vacation - alone with him - all makes him happy in return.

So, Shouto will buy the ring. The price tag is irrelevant and so are the comments that’ll come. Those men, the ones online and the ones whose heads turn and whose mouths whisper from behind when he says “we’ll take it,” are simply jealous they can’t afford to take care of you the way he can, the way you deserve.

And the adorable, quiet cheer you make as you wrap your arms around his neck is more than enough repayment.

#todoroki x reader #todoroki shouto x reader #bnha x reader #mha x reader #todoroki fluff #shouto x reader

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starry-pierrot · 10 months

Text

Picking Habits (Y/N+Wally. Platonic/Roommates)

Wally talks to you about a concerning habit.

Gender Neutral Reader

Tw: Blood. Self Harm. Skin picking.

Authors note: Please know this is based off a lot of my own experience with this, I have yet to be diagnosed with anything and I do not attempt to name what it could be in fic. But I promise this is more fluffy/wholesome with minor mention of blood and more so describing the act then actually describing anything beyond blood.

Please comment and share if you like it!

The television let out a blood curdling shriek from its speakers making you just jump slightly at the sound, why do they always have to be so loud in horror movies? Or maybe you just had the volume up too high? Reaching over to the small coffee table you pick up the remote and turn it down. It’s a bit harder to hear the voices but you weren’t really paying attention anyway.

It has been raining all day making the world feel gloomy and moody, making you feel like laying down in your living room to watch whatever you could find. That being an old fifties horror movie you don’t remember the name of but it had some mutated fly in it that was a cult classic.

With the calm ambience of the rain outside you couldn’t help but sink further into the cushions being as comfortable as can be…until a different sort of itch began to take over. This itch often came when you allowed your mind to wonder too much, something you’ve been trying to keep a lid on with not much success.

Your hand lifted and soon your nails were picking at your skin that was littered with scars from previous acts of scratching. Any bumps or scabs you would pick, not minding if you bled from it or if it even hurt a little.

Soon the TV became muffled background noise as the world around you began to blur, your fingers digging at whatever little bump or scab they could find as your mind began to go numb to the world around you.

“You shouldn’t do that, Neighbor.”

Ah. Little Wally Darling.

His monotone voice snapped you out of your trance as your blood covered fingernails stopped mid scratch, glancing over at the three foot tall puppet standing just beside the couch.

“That can’t be good for your skin.” He supplied as he looked from your arm to you. “It looks like that would hurt. Does it hurt?” He asked.

Your brain took a moment to catch up to what he said before you sighed, “Sorry, Wally. I didn’t mean too…and no not really.” Moving to sit up, giving the puppet a spot on the couch as you adjusted.

“It’s okay. But maybe I should get the first aid kit?” He offered up as the helpful little guy he was, that lazy smile not at all betraying his need to be a friend.

Nodding, "Okay. Thanks, Wally.” You smiled down at the puppet as he stretched his smile just a bit wider before heading off to the bathroom, the sound of the stool being moved made you chuckle under your breath.

Wally Darling. You don’t know how you ended up with him but it was purely by luck, you work at a rather crappy job that didn't offer much money so you would often go to garage and estate sales. Well this one guy in town had died recently and he was some sort of big vintage collector online, you swear you’ve never seen so many other nerds in one spot beyond an anime convention.

The whole house was packed as you had made your way around and eventually you made your way into the attic. And in the center of it was this little bright yellow and blue puppet. He was in great condition despite his supposed age.

The puppet was small and in good condition, you had no idea what show he had been from but for some reason you couldn’t put him down. Unfortunately the rest of the house didn’t have any other puppets like him and after picking up a few tapes you headed home with the little guy.

If anything he was cute to look at and maybe you could do something artsy with him.

You had that puppet for a good two weeks before you woke up to sounds coming from your art room and walked in on Wally Darling himself covered in paint looking like the kid with his hand in the cookie jar.

Suffice to say your screaming scared the poor guy.

It’s been two months since then and you’ve gotten used to the puppet being around and...alive. You had tried asking how he even was alive but the most he would say were vague answers and that you shouldn’t pry too hard or you wouldn’t like the answers. Creepy but he’s been a good roommate and hasn’t tried any weird stuff yet beyond his fascination with apples. So for now you don’t care to pry into how he came alive.

Probably by some blood ritual or something. God you hoped he wasn’t made with people. Or animals.

The little quiet pitter patter of feet altered you to your little darling's arrival as he rounded the corner of the couch with the much too big for him first aid kit, struggling to place it on the couch. He just about had it over when he suddenly tipped too far back and fell with the medkit right on top of him!

"O-oh. Oh dear."

You couldn't help the laugh that snorted out of you as you tried not to laugh too much, but the vision of the puppet just stuck underneath the large med kit was too funny!

Luckily after a moment Wally seemed to find it just as funny, "Ha. Ha. Ha." He didn't move as he laughed seemingly fine with just letting the box squish whatever stuffing inside he had. But soon you slipped off the couch and hoisted the box up onto it as you looked down at Wally.

"Help me up, Neighbor?" He asked, still with that cat like smile on his face.

"Like I would leave you on the floor." Another snort as you picked the little puppet up from under his arms and gently placed him on the couch, even fixing his hair just a little so he was back to his old self.

“Thank you, Neighbor.” You began to rummage through the kit and find what you needed to clean up your arm, Wally watching all the while. At first his staring had been creepy but you had gotten used to the feeling of being watched, it’s not like he was doing it to be creepy. He was just like that.

A little hiss as you used the alcohol swab to clean off the blood, “Why do you do that, Neighbor?” Wally asked curiously. “The scratching.” He clarified.

You were quiet for a moment thinking it over.

This habit had started years ago when you just turned eighteen and starting out in your first job, the job had been brutal to say the least. Who just expects a new adult to understand everything without supervision with only three days worth of maybe two hour a day long training in some back room on a program? And to not even offer any shadowing?

The only people willing to help were the other employees all the while you stood there thankful for at least some help while crying like a child.

Anxiety hasn’t been a stranger to you since High School but after you got into the ‘real’ world it got much worse.

Eventually you developed this little habit of picking at your skin when things were at their worst in your family home. You weren’t proud of it but for some reason when you felt your nails against your skin you couldn’t quite stop yourself, as if you weren’t really in control or even doing it yourself.

At least it only went surface deep but it did leave its fair share of scars that usually were covered with some arm warmers, which you've forgotten to wear today.

“Well….it was a way to deal with stress. Probably doesn’t make much sense but it helped me ignore some things for a while.” Pulling out the bandaids you picked the colorful ones and began to stick them on, “Eventually it just turned into a bad habit ... .I really should see a therapist about it but without insurance I can’t afford it.” So you try to do what you can. Like wearing those arm warmers.

Surprisingly Wally pulled them out from behind his back holding them out to you, “I’m sorry, Neighbor. I hope you stop soon.”

“Yeah me too little buddy.” A smile on your lips as you took the arm warmers and quickly slipped them on making sure they didn’t pull off the bandages. “Maybe with you around I can at least stop more than I’ve been able to. You’re being pretttyyy helpful.”

Wally couldn’t help stretching his smile at that as his eyes widened, “I’m helpful?” he asked pointing to himself.

“You are.” Your own smile is still on your face.

“I’m helpful!” He said with a monotone cheer, seemingly much happier than he was a moment ago, a small laugh from you filling the space before it went quiet.

Another scream from the TV had the puppet looking over, “What are you watching, Neighbor?”

You gave it a thought before reaching over for the TV remote and switching it to a much more family friendly channel, “Nothing I was paying attention to, Wally.”

#welcome home #self instert #reader #self harm #blood #skin picking #wally darling #welcome home fanfic #x reader

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clericofshadows · 5 months

Text

outside looking in

Description: Ashley finally has a chance to talk to and meet Zaeed in person onboard the Normandy and wants to get the know the man that has stolen both Regis's and Kaidan's hearts.

Pairing: Regis Shepard/Zaeed Massani/Kaidan Alenko

Notes: Part of my overall Regis Shepard series. Wren is my Shadow Broker, an N7 Fury and my replacement for Liara.

It was nice being back on the Normandy, even if she’d changed a lot since her first iteration. Larger, brighter, and filled with crew new and old. A similar hum throughout the ship.

But it was different all the same. The first few hours on the ship, Ashley nearly barged straight into Wren’s quarters despite knowing in the back of her mind that those weren’t Regis’s anymore, now housed at the top part of the ship, accessible via a specific keycode. Or a brave trek through the engineering tubes and vents throughout the ship.

The moment she came onboard, he handed her the credentials with a wink before heading off to the center of the CIC, already barking orders and preparing the ship for the initial checks to leave the Citadel.

Without Kaidan. A fucking terrible business. She had no idea how Regis was handling it, dodging her attempts to ask him about it by talking about Kaidan's condition. Wren was quiet about the mission when she asked, which was never a good sign.

She took an interest in the mech, which didn't surprise her. Probably why she was so tight lipped about it. Regis likely didn't want that thing working ever again.

There was also Zaeed, also joining her on the Normandy, hand in hand with Regis before he slipped down to Engineering… How was he taking this as well? She didn’t know him well, only talking to him a few times over vid calls during the two years before Regis was brought back. And then there was little time at all to get to know each other during the prep work after Regis brought the SR-2 back to the Alliance, right after he and Kaidan destroyed the Alpha Relay.

Wren was absolutely terrifying for what she was able to leverage to get them off scott free and twist it up into a Cerberus venture, a plan nearly foiled by Regis and Kaidan until it was too late. Only a small group knew what Kaidan chose to do in Regis's place, what Hackett had originally ordered for them to do.

Ashley remembered Hannah Shepard warning her in a meeting with her not long before she decided to take up the N trials.

“There will be a time that you will face something like Torfan. I hope it’s something far better than what my son had to face.”

She considered hers Asteroid X-57. Those burnt bodies still haunt her some nights, but she wasn’t about to let Bahak get away. Millions of lives were at stake.

Still, it was hard getting used to some of its changes. EDI was… friendly, but a bit disconcerting at first, ready to answer any question Ashley had, which she was grateful for. Regis sang her praises, but she had partially chalked that up to his cybernetics and VI background.

A small thought popped in her head wondering if Cerberus used EDI because of that. She’d have to ask him about it later.

It was good having Chakwas on board as well, and Adams was another happy sight. She missed seeing Tali right there next to him, challenging him with questions and her own tweaks.

Hopefully she’s doing okay out there. Messages have been spotty, but she’s with her people right now.

Good to see Joker as well. She got a little closer to him after Alchera, after all the shit that had happened, but lost touch after she started N trials. She often wondered if she could've stopped him from joining Cerberus.

Doubtful. He’s a stubborn bastard and even if he and Regis pretend to hate each other's guts, it must’ve been nice to have a few familiar faces. She later got the impression Regis hated that they joined Cerberus, but was secretly a little relieved to not be out in the black on his own.

She still had yet to really get to know Vega and Cortez, as well as Regis’s new specialist all up in his business at the CIC. She’s sure he loves that, but he doesn’t need to focus on every damn little thing. Especially not now when everyone wants to hear from the great Commander Shepard.

It’s also nice having some of his family on board. Adrian seems to have already gotten on well with Cortez and Joker, being a pilot himself, and Regis seems a lot lighter knowing his uncles are by his side. Vikram has made themself at home in the medbay, which surprised her when she realized they weren’t staying behind with Kaidan despite their knowledge on implants and biotics.

Concern for what they clearly consider a son likely outweighed that. She hoped it wouldn’t backfire on Kaidan, but surely they’re keeping an eye on that situation as well.

At least Regis is now not the only Spectre on board.

She found herself back in front of the elevator and decided to check on Zaeed. Introduce herself a little less formally and maybe get to know the man that helped Kaidan heal, and later kept a close eye on Regis when he was in the belly of the beast.

They never mentioned him much at all on the SR-1. One time she caught them on a call with him, but it seemed friendly. Not romantic. Something that never crossed her mind beyond an interesting friendship, it seemed. When she asked about it Regis only smiled and called him an “old friend” which was accurate, she supposed.

And Kaidan told her a few months after Alchera there wasn’t anything between the three of them after they met in Omega, only during–really, you and Regis took a shore leave on Omega?--but that they all wanted it. Too damn late to do anything about it.

Regis seemed to melt in his presence. Maybe he treated him like a lifeline, scared for Kaidan and holding onto his other love. He looked at Zaeed like he hung the damn moon, the same way he looked at Kaidan once they were open about their relationship.

She was happy for them. An odd couple, truly, two alliance soldiers–two human goddamn Spectres–and a merc damn near twice their age. Not that she judged them for that. She could see why they were interested in him purely from an aesthetic perspective. Zaeed wasn’t really her type, but those arms and tattoos? Damn.

Hell, every time she talked to Kaidan in those two years, he always brightened when talking about Zaeed. Happy that he at least had someone that really knew Regis.

There aren't a lot of those out there.

A part of her still can’t believe Kaidan was the one that goaded Regis into doing that authorization, but those two have always surprised her. Teaching her to not judge a book by their damn covers, that’s for sure.

So she’s trying to do the same for Zaeed. She wants to be friendly with him–friends even. And she hoped he was open to that.

She entered in Deck 4 as her destination and waited for the short trip down. As the doors opened, she saw Regis walking down the hallway away from Zaeed's corner of the ship. He waved at her, and she noticed he was wearing his Alliance officer uniform, a clean blue leather jacket with grey detailing.

It looked a little broad in the shoulders… must be Kaidan’s, then.

“What are you doing down here?” He asked, stuffing his gloved hands in the pockets of his jacket.

“I can't explore the ship?” She teased.

He smiled, shaking his head. “No, that's my job.”

“I wanted to talk to Zaeed for a bit,” she said. Especially before they get to Menae. She was sure Zaeed would be on that ground team but had no idea who else Regis would bring down with him. “Haven't got to really know the man that stole both of your hearts. Think he'll be okay with that?”

A light blush dusted his cheeks, making the red lines of his cybernetics appear to glow even brighter. “We've talked about you a lot to him, so I can't imagine why he wouldn't. He's working on his Widow stuff now. He's got some good tools,” he said with a knowing look. “Bring by something you want to tune up and he might let you use his kit.”

“Well, I do have to work on my Piranha. It's not as efficient,” she said. “I'll grab it from the armory.”

“And I'll let him know you're dropping by, just in case. He won't bite,” he said, and she shook her head at him.

“Maybe not me,” she said, testing the waters, seeing if Regis was fine with her teasing him about Zaeed. By the way Regis blushed and nearly hid a shy smile, he seemed perfectly fine with it.

If you would've told her when she started on the Normandy that Regis Shepard would blush at any suggestive comment about his relationship, she would’ve thought you were crazy.

It’s cute. One minute he’s threatening whoever is in his way and the next he’s all starry-eyed with his boyfriend.

He cleared his throat. “I won't disagree with that. Go get your shotgun and I'll send him a message. Unfortunately I can't spend all my time hanging out with my boyfriend.”

“I know, right? It's terrible. Let me know if you ever need to take a load off. You made me the temp XO for a reason.” She keyed in Deck 5 to get to where she stored her weapons.

“Don't worry, I will. When Kaidan gets back on board… I'll have two damn XOs. What are they going to do? Tell me no?” He stepped in the elevator with her and queued up Deck 2. “Meet me for dinner in my cabin after the mission? Good time to catch up.”

“I won't be intruding?”

“Hell no. I guarantee you and Zaeed will be fast friends and that's kind of a terrifying thought. I need my best squad to like each other, you know?” He laughed as the doors opened. “Why so worried?” He kept the doors open with a hand over the sensor.

“He's so important to you. The both of you. I guess I want to make a good impression.”

He snorted, and she tried to not show surprise at that. “I appreciate it, but trust me. I think you'll get along just fine. Like I said, we've told stories about you. He's a story kind of guy. If he tells you an old tale of his, you've made it on his good side.”

“Thanks, Regis.” She smiled at him and shut the elevator doors with a wave of his omnitool.

She nodded at Cortez who was currently working on the shuttle and noticed Vega doing pullups in his little corner of the ship. Adrian was rummaging through his locker, grinning at her as she made her way over to hers a few doors down.

“What're you up to?” He asked, reaching for an Acolyte. She didn't stick him for an asari weapon kind of guy, but then again, he was with a matriarch.

“Grabbing my Piranha and seeing if I can get to use Zaeed's tools,” she said, grabbing it from the rack.

“Oh! Good choice. He's got all the good shit. Maybe some illegal shit too, but that's when you know it's good,” he replied with a grin. “What's wrong with it?”

“I modded it to use the older heat sinks? You know, the better ones,” she said, watching as he nodded along. “But the heat dissipation is complete shit all of a sudden and I can't seem to figure out why.”

“Zaeed loves working on older stuff. Might have a solution for you,” he replied. “And maybe you can size him up too, seeing if he's worthy of your boys.” He winked.

Regis warned her that he was pretty good at reading people.

“They aren't my boys,” she said with a startled laugh. “I think they can take care of themselves.”

“That they can,” he said, but a pained look crossed his face for a moment, likely thinking about Kaidan. Shit. “I never would've guessed the kid would've gone for two men, but he seems to be at peace with himself. Of course, I saw that with Kaidan too, but despite everything, I can tell he's very happy with what they have.”

“I've seen it too,” she said. “Acting like newlyweds on the SR-1, those matching scarves and shit.”

A smile graced his face, but it almost seemed melancholic. “It has always made me happy to see them taking up my brother's tradition.”

It was Regis's father who started that? She never knew. Thought it was Regis's way of showing off their relationship.

“Regis has found every way he can to connect himself to Atlas,” Adrian continued. “I think he would've loved Zaeed.” He cleared his throat. “At any rate, is this the first time you've met? I figured Kaidan would've introduced y'all at some point.”

She wanted to tell him that Kaidan wasn't the only one he continued it with, as her own scarf was sitting with her some of her gear but the moment had passed.

She'll make a point to ensure he sees it on her gear the next time she needs to suit up.

“It's the first time I've been able to talk with him alone,” she offered.

“I get it. You'll be fine. Be yourself.”

She laughed and grabbed her own personal repair kit before heading back over to the elevator. It took no time at all to be back in front of Starboard Cargo. A quick glimpse at her omnitool only showed a thumbs up from Regis, so that had to be good news.

Ashley made a move to knock on the door, but instead the door opened automatically. Zaeed waved her in and she stepped inside. It was already well lived in with various trophies and knickknacks strewn about along with stacks of extra cargo that had nowhere else to go. A long table lined the wall covered in parts and a top of the line printer. An old and battered M-8 Avenger was pushed to the side, along with a deconstructed Widow.

“Regis told me you had a stubborn gun,” he started, brushing off his grease-stained shirt that did nothing to hide his large arms. Damn. “Tell me about it.”

She put her kit down and extended the gun. “I mod my own stuff, especially this Piranha, and it was working fine, but suddenly my old-style heat sink has shit dissipation. I've tried fixing it myself but it looks to be a proprietary part that I can't find anywhere.”

“Mind if I?” He motioned to the gun. She let him take it. “Spectre channels useless too?”

“Alliance made. I asked around. These days it's too much of a pain in the ass to get,” she shrugged. “Maybe if I had the problem a month ago.”

He scanned it with his omnitool. “Think I found your fucking culprit, but you probably already knew that.”

“The replacement switch?” She said, and he nodded. “Yeah, thought so. I jury rigged it together ages ago because why bother making replacement parts when instead you can make it obsolete?”

He grinned. “You get it. Can't believe Regis fucking embraced the change. Thought he would've bitched about it the whole time.”

“He didn't?”

“No. Somehow, I almost think he liked it better.”

“I'm going to give him such a hard time about it.”

“We'll gang up on him. He won't be able to get a goddamn word in.”

Honestly, she doesn't even know why she was worried at this point.

He continued, “Believe it or not, I think I have the ‘prints to this part around here. If not, Wren might.”

Shit, she didn't even think of asking Wren!

“By your expression I'm guessing you forgot about our lovely little trump card?” He said, his mismatched eyes damn near sparkling with amusement.

“Oh fuck off,” she laughed, sitting down on one of the crates. “I'm still not used to having the entire galaxy at my fingertips!”

“It’s so fucking wild, isn't it? Alliance having their own little shadow organization ran by their best and brightest Ns. Regis is one clever motherfucker for putting Wren in that place.”

“It wasn't like you had many choices, right?”

Regis was mostly tightlipped about what ultimately dealt with the former Shadow Broker. She knows it's all because of the bad feelings around T’Soni and her meddling in his affairs, to put it lightly.

She would pay many credits to give T’Soni a piece of her mind. Sure, it may have benefited the galaxy, and it was nice to see Kaidan truly happy again and to have her best friend back, but the utter entitlement to deal with someone's corpse like that?

She's still surprised Regis let her go.

“No,” he snorted. “The asari who violated his corpse, a drell and former broker agent in poor condition, myself, Regis, and Wren. I thought she was going to blast him across the room with that biotic field of hers when he ordered her to deal with the network.”

“She's definitely embraced it. Dare I say even likes it.”

“That we can agree on,” he said, starting to dismantle her gun. “Never used one of these. Helluva gun though.”

“Has a lot of kick and bite. I love it.”

He keyed in something on the printer display. “Lucky for us, I do have the older specs. Won't even be a hassle to improve on your mod. Good job, by the way. Almost perfect. Going to use your scan to improve the tolerance.”

She smiled under the praise. “Williams’ take care of their shit.”

“And so do Massani's,” he echoed with a knowing look. “Something tells me you weren't just here for a tune up.”

“Wanted to really get to know the guy that has stolen my best friends’ hearts,” she said, freely admitting her real motives. “I have to say, I was a little curious.”

“Vid calls ain't enough,” he said with a nod. “Been curious about you as well. Never heard Regis sing the praises of a soldier under his command this much until he met you.”

“I've heard that a lot,” she admitted. “Surprised the hell out of me when he said he was nominating me for the N program. Managed to get it though just before Alchera…” she trailed off. “Saw me for me and not my family name.”

“Not sure I follow,” he said, setting down his tools.

Ah, right. So used to working with fellow Alliance she forgot Zaeed wasn't it. But Kaidan did mention to her once that he was a former Alliance, but wasn't in it long. Not enough to care about its history.

“My grandfather was the first human who surrendered to aliens,” she said. “Shanxi.”

“Saved a bunch of lives and all you get is shit,” Zaeed said. “Fucking typical Alliance. Only caring about optics and nothing else.”

She blinked at his response. Huh. “It followed my dad, and then me. And then Regis came along and leveraged his notoriety to help me out.”

“And now you're a goddamn Spectre and an N7. Hope your family is proud.” He crossed his arms. “Are they alright?” His voice was laced with concern, his face softening.

“They're trying to get to the Citadel. I have four sisters,” she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I've leveraged what resources I can, and I've asked Wren to help out if she can, but it's a struggle.”

“You're a colony kid, right?” He asked.

Ashley nodded. “Yeah, why?”

“Might have some contacts of my own I can leverage. Know a bunch of people out in the black. Let me know,” he returned back to working on her gun, starting to scan her modded part, as if he didn't just offer something that could let a load off her shoulders.

“Thanks. I may have to take you up on that.”

“Give me the details and I'll see what I can do.” He rubbed the Suns tattoo on his neck. “Use something good out of the shit I used to do.”

One of the things Kaidan made clear about Zaeed to her after their first call. It wasn't something that escaped her notice, and she wasn't going to judge, but she did wonder about it.

“He's former Blue Suns. But he's long been out of that life.” “Was I that obvious?” “My parents were a bit worse. But Vik and Adrian made their thoughts clear to them, we may have had a little bit of a love declaration, and the next morning my dad and Zaeed were grilling up some stuff for breakfast.” “How domestic.” “He's… been everything I've needed right now.”

“It seems like damn near everyone on this ship has something they can leverage for the war,” she laughed, hoping to lighten the mood. “I’ll get you the information after the mission. Regis invited me up for dinner, we can talk about it more then.”

He seemed to loosen up, releasing some of the tension in the air. She wondered how many had judged him for his past, and hoped that none of the crew on this ship did. “Regis has gathered himself an odd bunch. But I'll correct some history you may know.”

Ashley raised an eyebrow.

“I wasn't just a ‘Suns. I founded them,” he admitted. “And this–” he rubbed the deep scar on his face. “Was how I left.”

She thought Batarians founded the Suns… Now that's a story she admittedly wanted to hear. She let out a whistle. “And the other guy?”

“Stayed in the fucking Suns until he became dead by mine and Regis's hand. Hunted the bastard down with Wren’s help. Got away from me once, and we ensured he would never get a goddamn chance in hell again,” he said with a nod. There was something else in his tone she couldn't place. Bitterness maybe, as if the revenge wasn't so sweet.

“Good to hear,” she said. The printer chimed, and the part was sitting in the glass enclosure, gleaming in the low light of the room. “Does that mean it's ready?”

He examined it with a close eye. “Sure is.” In no time at all, he swapped out the part and reassembled her gun. He motioned over to a cabinet beside her. “Got some old test cartridges in there. Toss one to me, and I can simulate the dissipation. Won't be the same as a live test, but good enough for now. Doubt we have time to assemble the shooting range down in cargo.”

“Probably not,” she replied, doing as he asked. She found a box labeled with TEST in large block letters scratched on with a marker and grabbed a heat sink. It felt heavier than a normal one. She tossed it to him, and he caught it with a grin.

Once he slotted it inside, he pulled up a larger display and motioned for her to come closer.

It took a moment for him to get it seated and calibrated, but soon enough, the screen filled with diagnostic logs and a live look at the expected capacity. “Aim at that dart board over there and fire a few shots for me.”

She grabbed her gun and felt the weight of it in her hands before aiming and firing many shots in succession. Nothing came out, but the gun acted like it did, having to adjust for the recoil before firing her next shot. He laughed, seeing her initial surprise.

Ashley couldn't help but roll her eyes at him before hitting the cooldown point. Turning to the display, her eyes were on the status, and the heat appeared to dissipate much faster, watching the outputs and feeling the heat on the gun.

She ran through the test a few more times, noticing a good improvement, even better than her original mod, close to how the gun behaved before the big transfer over to the new system.

“Damn, she kicks and spits like she's fresh off the market,” Ashley said, ejecting the test sink and carefully setting it on the workbench. “Thank you. I owe you.”

“Nah, you gave me enough pleasure working on this thing. Might need to try and get one for myself. I'm more of a Raider guy myself.”

Batarian made. Semi-automatic. Not bad.

“And like Regis, you're a Black Widow guy,” she said, nodding at the disassembled gun, collapsing the gun and putting it back down for now.

“Not just any Widow. His old one,” Zaeed said, grabbing the scope off the table.

Ashley recognized the scratched, knife-engraved skull that used to belong to his old squad with the Batarian name for Torfan underneath it. But there was something new, a set of numbers she didn't recognize.

“Lucky bastard was having the gun serviced on Arcturus and was using a newer one before Alchera,” Zaeed said, rubbing his fingers over the engravings. “Those are the galactic coordinates to that fucking wasteland. Since he used this gun to remember Torfan, then I sure as hell was going to remember his grave.”

“I wondered where it ended up,” she said quietly. “Shit, does he know you–”

Kaidan could snipe, but it wasn't his thing, leaving that to Regis and Ashley. She expected the gun to end up with Kaidan or Regis’s mother, but now that she knows about Zaeed, it's obvious why it went to him in the end.

Zaeed shook his head. “If he does, he never said it to me. Probably should've told him, but he had enough reminders of what happened to him on that fucking ship. Didn't need something else from me.”

Something else. “I wish I could've been there for him, but honestly? I could have never worked for Cerberus in any capacity.”

“Good. Regis would've hated it if you did. Hated enough that he had some of his former crew join him. More fights to be had than just ours out there. We were lucky enough as it were.”

Regis lost three people on his squad; she knew that much. From the impression she got from him, it wasn't anyone particularly important to him. Numbers that knew the score and the risks of the mission. A geth, a krogan, and a turian that just so happened to be the one he passed up on their hunt for Saren.

Ashley didn't think those deaths dwelled on him much at all. They weren't mentioned much in his messages and reports either compared to some other members of the crew.

“I'm glad he had you,” she said, holding out a hand. He shook it with a small smile.

“Me too,” he admitted.

“Attention all crew. We are nearing Menae as I speak. Massani, Williams, Shepard, you are on my ground crew for this mission. Suit up and get ready to debrief with me in the conference room ASAP. EDI will give the rest of the crew your others on an as needed basis. Shepard out.” Regis's voice filled the air as quickly as it left, short and succinct as always.

“Guess I'll need to test this out later,” Ashley said, grabbing her unused kit and gun. Zaeed started to get up from his table, shaking his head at his Widow and grabbing a Valiant from his locker.

“Any particular kind of kit you're bringing?” He asked before she left.

“My Valiant, an Executioner, a Valkyrie, and an Eagle,” she replied. “Wearing the same gear Regis does, scarf and all. I’ll bring a few programs to the table thanks to him and Kaidan. Hybrid infiltrator approach, if you know the Alliance standard loadouts.”

“We’ll complement each other well,” he nodded. “All with the benefit that we already know how crazy Regis can be with his damn biotics.”

“Right? A damn shame Kaidan isn't here. God, those two and their biotics… they are one person.”

“That they are. Blew me away when I met them.” A smile tugged at his lips. “Get out of here before Regis starts bitching at us for being late. Good meeting you for real this time. I look forward to dinner.”

“So do I.” She smiled. “You aren't spared from his wrath?”

“Hell no. But don't worry, I can always make the bastard pay later,” he winked.

Ugh. And she thought Kaidan was bad.

“Did not need to know that!”

“Too late. You're friends with me now. Get used to it.”

At that, she walked out of the door with a wave that turned into a middle finger. His laugh echoed through the ship until the door closed back.

That went well.

She looked forward to fighting with him on the battlefield. She still wants the full story out of both Regis and Kaidan, but she could see why they were drawn to him.

At any rate, Regis is happy to have him on board, and really, that's all that matters these days.

When she stopped in front of her cabin to get changed into her undersuit, her omnitool pinged with a message.

ZM: Think Adrian will like the scarves?

An image was attached, showing a picture of a red, blue, and black striped scarf. Clearly, red for Regis, blue for Kaidan, and she imagined they had yellow on theirs to represent him.

AW: I think he will. Didn't know they were a tradition started by his brother. ZM: Regis has found every goddamn way he can to connect to his dad. AW: That he has… I'm glad he got his ring back. Any plans for that? ZM: It wasn't easy, but he got it back in the end. We all have plans, I'm sure.

Really… She's going to find a way to get involved with all of them.

AW: Keep me informed, I'd love to help. ZM: I will, if only because I know you want to be all of our ‘inside persons.’ AW: Guilty as charged!

She closed the chain for now, shaking her head as she started to prep her undersuit. This fucking war wasn't going to be easy, and she feared and prayed for this crew.

Yet, she felt comfort in knowing that she could trust damn near everyone on this ship or come to it eventually.

Yeah, things were going to be okay, despite everything.

#mass effect #ashley williams #male shepard #zaeed massani #cleric's writing #regis shepard #i love writing ashley she's so fun to get in her head #masshenko #otp: two spectres and a merc

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lifeonmvrs · 11 months

Text

SPIDER-SONA TIME!!

[Image Description: two digital drawings of void-crawler (my spider-sona). the character is drawn five different times throughout the whole canvas. on the top left corner, void-crawler is unmasked, smiling and doing a peace sign. there are two white text boxes representing void’s internal thoughts that read “gotta love hammerspace. how else would my hair fit otherwise?*”. underneath there’s a turquoise text box that reads “*editor’s note: it would not.” in the middle left side of the canvas, void-crawler is shown with a surprised expression and the spidey sense lines. there’s a white bubble text that reads “omg i have squiggly lines!!”. near that drawing, there’s a smaller one with a chibi head of void doing a salute with a turquoise bubble text with a white center reading “of course, officer!”. an arrow points to text saying “talking with hero voice (a.k.a. deeper)”. on the bottom left corner, there’s an unfinished but colored drawing of void-crawler drinking a milkshake with half their mask off and with little hearts on the side. there’s an arrow pointing at the drawing accompanied by text that reads “pretend this is okay [heart emoticon] and finished…” on the right side of the canvas, there’s a full-body drawing of void-crawler. void has a hand near the face in a thinking manner and the other near the hip. to the right, there’s a written text that says “void-crawler!” in all caps. the background is a yellow note-taking paper texture. the second image shows the front and back design with some mannequin models as template. background is white. /end ID]

more info below:

alright guys, let’s do this one last time. my name is mars walker. i was bitten by a radioactive spider. and for the last 2 years, i’ve been the one and only void-crawler. i’m pretty sure y’all know the rest. i saved a bunch of people. got spider-man to be my mentor. did a couple of team-ups with him and deadpool. i saved the city but i… couldn’t save peter. i stopped fighting for a while. changed my suit and hero name. and now i’m back, stronger than ever, wahoo! because no matter how hard life gets, i always find a way to come back and save the city. cuz who else will if not me?

amazing intro proving i’m a hero… check!

whole backstory explained… on hold

hi! finally posted this, i made it like a week ago. anyway, i think i would have some extra powers, as a treat.

first of all, enhanced spidey sense. i don’t only perceive near danger but FUTURE danger as well. basically i get visions, premonitions, prophecies, whatever you wanna call them. they are always about danger and there IS a way to change them. i dont know how that would work with time and space continuum and all those complicated things, but who wants logic, boring!! (i’ll solve the plot hole soon, dw 😭🛐) (if any of y’all have any idea how to solve it, pls tell me)

i would be able to break the 4th wall cuz i constantly do irl anyway,, sometimes life follows a specific storytelling pattern and has very notorious plot armor and that makes me think “huh… weird”

i would also have sensitive senses, and that includes night vision! (i already have sensitive hearing irl and it’s a nightmare! good luck void-crawler). i could also “change” my appearance? i would not physically change it, but i would release some kind of chemicals or stuff that would make people see other thing. this is inspired by the ant mimicry spiders do. spiders DO change physically, but i think mine would be just psychologically. idk, i thought that would be cool :P

the design of my spidey suit is inspired by, spidey of course, but also by deadpool’s suit. cuz i’m obsessed with both of them atm, so had to add that to my story 👍 AND IT WILL MAKE SENSE STORY WISE MUAHAHAHA! cant wait to tell y’all the backstory.

yk that thing miles and gwen do when talking to their dad while in the spidey suit (deeper voice)? well i would do that all the time i’m talking with people that are not aware void-crawler is mars walker. and my bubble text would show that by being mostly turquoise with a bit of white in the center :3

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compacflt · 1 year

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Do you have any nonfiction that you would recommend if someone was interested in the US Navy/military?

im probably not the right person to ask this bc most of my military knowledge hyperfixation is centered on the ARMY in the American Revolutionary War & World War II. It’s only pretty recently that i got into modern warfare as a topic, so let me just give some indiscriminate recs

Can’t go wrong with David McCullough‘s 1776, which is a great overview of the first year of the revolutionary war + the extremely fraught politics of trying to start a new nation’s military—really illustrates where a bunch of lingering schools of thought in our military originated from.

Another David McCullough shout-out: his The Wright Brothers is an excellent book about the origins of flight, AND it was the book right next to the picture of Ice and Maverick shaking hands on Ice’s bookshelf in TGM. So we know ice has read that one. I think you can’t go wrong at all with any David McCullough. I own like 5-6 of his books and he hasn’t missed once. (His best is John Adams but that’s not mil related)

Ron chernows biography of Washington goes into his military background (7 years' war) a whole bunch, and kind of elucidates how truly fortunate we were to have our nation’s first leader be a military man who really kinda didn’t want to be there. Some really good takes on leadership. Just beware that chernow does have a reputation in the history community for just makin shit up sometimes. If it sounds too cute/quaint to be true, it really might be.

u may be tempted: DO NOT read Brian kilmeade's Thomas Jefferson & the Tripoli Pirates, one of the few navy NF books I've read. I read it b4 I even knew who kilmeade was--didn't matter. it fucking sucks. he uses like 7 sources in the whole book.

Stephen E. Ambrose's Citizen Soldiers is a great WWII NF book about that generation of infantrymen.

The one big Navy NF book I've read recently is (not to brag but my personally signed copy of) Craig symonds' new biography of admiral Chester Nimitz, who was COMPACFLT during WWII's war in the pacific. I got a SHIT ton of professional characterization for Ice from Nimitz' life and this book--Nimitz also worked 18 hour days, was also separated from the love of his life for long periods of time in Hawaii, was also probably acutely depressed, etc.

okay: THOMAS E. RICKS. The Generals is SUCH a good book. Army leadership from WWII up through Iraq and Afghanistan. Focusing on how the Army used to relieve (fire) commissioned officers who couldn't hack it, and that's a huge part of why we won WWII, but somewhere between WWII and Korea, being fired started being super shameful (macarthur's fault if I'm reading it correctly) so mediocre officers didn't get fired and that's why the army has suffered shit leadership in every war since WWII. It's a HUGE thesis that he backs up so well. Would so recommend. I'm also currently reading his FIASCO about the fuck-up of Iraq. Also incredible so far.

Michael O'Hanlon's Military History for the Modern Strategist-- a post Civil War survey of military strategy on the campaign/operational level. Might be a good introduction to US military history, just giving a pretty broad overview of post-CW warfare, so that way you don't pick up a random book about the Korean War and go "wait what was the Chosin campaign again?" Interestingly written and I got to meet him and he wrote "wishing you the best" in my book after I told him I wanted to steal his job at Brookings someday, so admittedly I'm biased.

Lawrence Wright's The Terror Years: From Al-Qaeda to the Islamic State is not strictly military related, but it is one of the best-written and most illuminating nonfiction books I've ever read and I cannot recommend it enough.

For war fiction, my taste is v mainstream: Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy, Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato (imo better than the things they carried), Ahmed Saadawi's Frankenstein in Baghdad, Kevin Powers' The Yellow Birds, Cannot Miss Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front if you haven't read it, Hassan Blasim's The Corpse Exhibition: And Other Stories of Iraq... For specifically Naval lit: Run Silent, Run Deep is a pretty good classic, and this summer I read the 600-page behemoth The Caine Mutiny, which is about specifically WWII-era naval law... it's a brick. But it won a pulitzer and it's...passable. Kind of interesting at least.

#really can't recommend Lawrence wright Thomas ricks or David McCullough enough. just really well written stuff #otherwise I just read mil/defense news and google everything I don't know #pat barker >>>> regeneration isn't like... gay... but it is definitely gay. I think 2/3 books of the trilogy start out with soldiers fuckin #not top gun #military history #general aviation #book rec #i have no real life marketable skills but i do read a lot 👍

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calcifersfireplaceonao3 · 2 years

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Can you do a prompt for domestic cleon fluff, bonus points if they have children

Well, you said kids and uhhh, how about three of them?

Media: Resident Evil

Ship: Claire/Leon

Rating: General; Tags: Children, domestic fluff, background platonic or romantic Valenfield

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

“Mom? Why does auntie Jill have a dog we can’t play with?” Claire looks down at her son’s serious face, a scrunched little V in between his faint red-brown eyebrows.

“Well,” she says, leaning back on the counter and wiping her hands on a dishtowel, “she’s a service dog. She’s working right now.”

“Her dog has a job?” The V gets deeper and Claire has to smile at his incredulous tone. Ruffling his hair she laughs, Leon, across from her leaning on the stove chuckles.

“Yeah. She’s got a job. She makes sure Jill feels okay, watches out for her.”

“So not like Grover.” he says slowly, “All Grover does is sleep. And poop.”

“Yup. Just like your sister.” Leon says, dodging the towel Claire snaps his way with a smile before scooping up Scott and laughing with him.

Scott’s childish voice rings through the hallway as Leon carries him away before Claire can hear him shouting in the backyard. Their oldest, Shirley yells back, sounding like she’s starting up a game of tag. Claire smiles to herself, reaching up to put the last of the morning dishes away.

“I don’t know why you’re doing that.” Leon says behind her fondly, resting his hands on her hips and pulling her back into him. “We’re just going to have to pull them all out again once your brother stops hogging the grill.”

“Like I’m letting any of my flatware out on that concrete, besides, you let him take over.” Leon kisses along her neck and Claire tilts her head to the side with a quiet sigh. Who’d’ve thought, all those years ago, that they'd end up here? Three kids, a big yard, too idyllic to be real but it is. Chris’ deep laugh sounds from outside and Claire can only guess that it’s from some quiet joke Jill told him, or maybe the kids being goofy.

“Eugh. ‘Let’ is a strong word, he would have been annoying till I let him, it was strategic.”

“Ah.” Claire turns in his arms and smiles into the kiss he gives her. “Strategic. Sure, sure. Totally believe that, and not that maybe you didn’t want to be in charge of food? Huh? Mr. I Burn Most Things Kenedy?”

“Hm. I’ll let that one slide.” On the counter the baby monitor squawks to life, “Sorry, gotta go, my baby’s calling.”

“I always knew I was the side piece!” Claire calls and Leon claps his hand to his heart as if shot and stumbles dramatically out the doorway.

Once outside the afternoon passes in a haze of dreamy happiness. Leon brings the baby downstairs and shoots Claire a faux-annoyed look when immediately Chris scoops up his newest niece. Claire pokes him in the side once and laughs as he jumps, watching with an unconscious smile as Chris sits carefully next to Jill and the two of them make the baby laugh with funny faces.

“Cece, right?” Jill asks.

“Yeah, well, Celia, but we call her Cece.”

“She’s beautiful.”

Just as Cece is finally asleep after her last bottle, from down the hall comes a loud wail. In her crib, the sound makes Cece start and her cries join in with an ear piercing harmony.

“I’ve got him, you good here?” Leon nods, already focused on soothing the startled infant, pulling her into his arms.

Claire cracks the door to her son’s bedroom open wider, adding illumination to the shark night-light and glow in the dark stars scattered across the ceiling, “Hey baby, what’s happening?”

Behind her she can hear a door open quietly and she turns, nodding to Shirley, “He’s okay, I’ve got him, thanks Love.” Shirley sleepily nods and closes her door again.

Scott is sitting up in his bed, no longer sobbing but hiccuping with tears stains running tracks down his cheeks. When Claire lays down beside him he snuggles into her arms immediately, leaving a snotty-wet smear stain right in the center of her shirt, but she can’t say she minds. “Want to tell me about it?”

“It was-” He hiccups again and she rubs his back soothingly, “Scary, big dogs- and I couldn’t find you!”

“I’m right here, I’ll always be here.”

His hands are fisted into her shirt, “But what if I can’t find you?”

“You know how it goes, just like in the grocery store. I’ll find you, no matter what. No matter what.”

He still looks troubled but lets himself be soothed, the exhaustion of the day settling in again.

“You can sleep with us tonight if you want.”

“Shirley says five is too old to sleep in your bed.”

“Well. I’ll tell you a secret,” Scott leans in with his big serious eyes, dying to know, “Shirley would still get nightmares when she was seven.”

Scott giggles with her, “Okay.”

“Okay.” Claire nods, picking him up despite how heavy he’s getting. By the time she’s changed into her pajamas he’s already asleep right in the middle of their bed. Claire scoots him over enough to give herself room and he’s dead to the world, sleeping soundly while she reads and waits for Leon. When Leon finally enters she holds a finger up to her mouth, pointing at their son. Leon only lifts his eyebrows, moving one of Scott’s arms off his pillow as he slides in.

“What are you smiling about?” He asks quietly.

“Just thinking. We’ve been through quite a bit to get here. Reminding myself to be grateful, I guess.” She whispers to him over Scott’s head.

“We’re pretty lucky, for sure.” He reaches for her cheek and she turns her head to kiss his palm. “Really lucky.”

-----

Uh, yeah. Hi. Had no idea how to start with this prompt but ended up having a lot of fun with it? Hope this was something close!

Shirley: 8

Scott: 5

Celia: 5 months

#prompts #my writing #Cleon with kids #cleon #resident evil #claire redfield #leon s kennedy #Chris and Jill are here too #three kids and a dog how much more domestic can we get in here #it's very late and I'm tired I hope there aren't any big typos

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dandelion-wings · 1 year

Text

I have been waiting for a while to have the free time to write up Kaeya's Vision story in the Adventurer Kaeya AU, and also saving it as a treat. Which I am cashing in today! :> Some of the background in here may already be jossed by the 3.5 updates, I have seen some very confusing slivers of spoilers, but I do not care. It's going to be at least a month before I can play through that stuff to take it into account, I wanted to write this today, and any edits that will be required by new lore can be a problem for Future Me if I ever clean any of this up for AO3 (which, if it happens, will not be for A While).

Thanks as always to @theabysscomeshome both for originating this whole AU in the first place, and brainstorming through the details with me. <3

---

ETA: Now available on AO3.

---

The commission is going well, by Bennett's standards. It had been a little risky for them to venture into the freezing environs of Dragonspine, he knows that, even if they were only briefly on the lower slopes. Katheryne had been uncertain about giving him the commission, and Kaeya had been uncertain about taking it, enough so to suggest a handful of others. But there's been plenty of torches along the way, and only two of them had given him any trouble lighting them up.

Now that they've finally located the tunnel entrance they need, which he has to admit *did* take a while, they've descended far enough beneath the snowline underground that they don't even need torches anymore. Which is good, because there aren't any. The ruins buried here really are ancient, and Bennett isn't sure anyone's actually been here since they were buried. Though someone must have been, for the scholar who placed the commission to have known what she was looking for.

"Okay, the commission says that the reliefs we're supposed to take rubbings of are in the fourth chamber, and we're in the third," Bennett says, double-checking his notes. "I don't see a door... but check out this wall! I bet it's hidden in this one."

He bounds up to the wall to the left, where a series of circles are inset, each with a different pattern of indented dots. They're arranged in a square, with one at the center that depresses when he pushes on it, though that gets him nothing but an empty click as it resets. The other four don't depress, but when he puts his fingers in the dots, he finds that they rotate instead.

"I imagine we have to line them up with this," Kaeya says, brushing his fingers over the other dots indented on the wall itself. "Though we'll need to work out what shape they're supposed to make."

"Or we can just try them in different positions until we find one that works! We could use Dad's rule of elimination."

"That's going to take quite a while, if you plan to test them all."

Bennett glances over his shoulder. Kaeya is hunched in on himself a little, arms crossed. Maybe it's colder in here than Bennett had realized, with his Vision keeping his warm. Kaeya doesn't have anything but the fur-lined jacket one of their dads had given him for his last birthday, and while Bennett knows it's warm--Kaeya has dropped it over his shoulders often enough when his own jacket has gotten scorched or torn--it's not quite up to Dragonspine's weather. Kaeya has always hated being cold.

At the same time, when he glances around, he doesn't see anything on the walls or ceiling or floor that would work as a guide. "Why don't I start testing them while you look around for clues?" he suggests. "You're better at finding those anyway, and if there aren't any, that way I've already started trying the combinations."

"Whatever you say, Team Leader Bennett." Kaeya sounds less teasing than he usually does when he calls Bennett that, which probably means he really is cold, but he takes a few steps back, examining the larger pattern on the wall.

Bennett turns back and starts to turn the circles, depressing the central circle after each one. They keep resetting with a series of clicks, right back to their starting points. He's so focused on keeping a mental track of which combinations he's eliminated that he doesn't realize there's an *extra* click from behind him until Kaeya yelps. Bennett spins about just in time to see Kaeya teetering on the edge of a hole that had suddenly appeared in the floor, then topple in.

"Kaeya!" Bennett kneels at the edge of the pit. It's not too deep, thankfully, only about ten feet down, and Kaeya is at the bottom looking more annoyed than stunned. "Are you okay?"

"I will be once you get me out of here."

"I've got you!" Bennett pulls a coil of rope out of his pack and glances around. There's no really good spots to secure it, but there's a broken pillar not far away that will kind of do. He lashes it there, doubtfully eyes the crumbling stone, and then goes back to the edge and ties the rope around his waist, too, before lying down and starting to lower the end to Kaeya. That way there's two anchors.

The rope pulls uncomfortably tight around his waist as Kaeya swarms up it, and then Kaeya has to climb directly over him, but he's very careful not to step on Bennett as he comes. Bennett springs up and starts to unlash the rope while Kaeya brushes himself clean of dirt and straightens his jacket. There's a big gross splotch on the back that he's not going to like when he takes it off.

"I'm sorry," Bennett tells him, looking guiltily at the splotch. "I guess I got unlucky again, finding that combination before the right one...."

"How about you just refrain from touching anything else, hmm?" Despite the lilting tone, there's a frosty edge to Kaeya's voice that makes Bennett shrink back, his guilt redoubled. Kaeya spares him barely a glance before he goes back to examining the wall.

It probably *was* Bennett's bad luck, is the thing. They'd been doing so well that it had to come along sooner or later to mess things up. That's always how it goes. Bennett's used to that, and he's used to people being annoyed about it, but Kaeya usually takes it much more in stride. Is he still unhappy that Bennett picked this commission, instead of one of the easier ones? Or is he just getting tired of tagging along with Bennett's bad luck in general?

That's always been a fear at the back of Bennett's mind, ever since he joined the Guild himself and started up his team. Every other member he manages to recruit quits because of it sooner or later, even if Katheryne's nice enough to tell him that they've put themselves on leave. Kaeya has stuck it out for two years now without any complaints--but he is Bennett's brother, so he probably feels like he has to. He's really good, Bennett knows that; if it wasn't for him, Bennett would have failed a lot more commissions. Any other team would be glad to have him.

"Here," Kaeya says after a minute, and spins the corner circles before reaching out to depress the center one. Instead of the usual clicks, the stone grates as lines appear in the wall, and a triangular door slides open.

"That was awesome!" Bennett darts forward, only for Kaeya to catch him with a hand on his shoulder and push him back. It's more than fair, after the last mishap, but Bennett's stomach still squirms as he falls in behind Kaeya and lets his big brother take the first steps inside. The worst part is that he can't blame Kaeya for not wanting him to mess anything else up.

***

The way Bennett shrinks under Kaeya's cautioning hand sends a pang of guilt through him. He shouldn't have made the comment he did, not if he couldn't pull off the tone. Maybe not even then. It's not Bennett's fault that the mechanism had done exactly what it had supposed to do. Frankly, Kaeya is surprised that it hadn't happened sooner. Any wrong combination was probably supposed to do exactly that, and the floor was just so old and jammed up by dirt and mud from the ruins' collapse that only a few of the floor tiles still worked as intended.

He's just on edge, and has been since Bennett jumped at this commission. It should be a stroke of *good* luck, for him. His handler has long since given him standing orders to take any commissions available that involve Dragonspine, and report back with any information he gathers about the ruins there. Kaeya's sure that, whoever they are, they'll be pleased that one has finally come his way.

But he doesn't know why they're so interested, or what, exactly, he's meant to bring back. And, more to the point, he isn't sure how they'll feel about involving Bennett. Kaeya had tried to sell him on any of several monster-clearing missions, where the worst harm that his bad luck could cause would be injuries during the fight--injuries that would give him a good reason to leave Bennett home to recuperate while he doubled back to take this one on his own. But Bennett had been insistent, and so now Kaeya has to worry about what dark secrets might be lurking down here that might endanger Bennett to be privy to.

There's *something*, though. He can be sure of that, because on the wall in front of them, right across the chamber, is an ancient and familiar seal.

"That must be what we're supposed to take rubbings of!" Bennett says, some of his exuberance rebounding as he spots the reliefs in his Vision's glow. "Let's just light this torch- do you think it's a trap, too?"

His hesitation makes guilt twinge through Kaeya again. Bennett's a good kid, and he'll apologize to anyone caught up in his bad luck, but he's too irrepressible to be kept down by their anger for long. When it's one of their dads or Kaeya, though, he takes it a whole lot harder.

Glancing over, Kaeya confirms in an instant that there's no triggers lurking around the torch. "I'm sure it's not," he tells Bennett, turning further to give him a smile, but Bennett is looking deliberately away from him as he walks up, rather than bounds up, to light it. Kaeya makes an effort to keep the smile as he turns back to the relief, so Bennett doesn't mistake his expression.

Kaeya's memories of his childhood slip further and further away every year, but some of them remain too well-engraved to ever forget. The seal of the kings of Khaenri'ah is one of them. No wonder his handler had wanted him to take any chance he could get to poke around on Dragonspine. There's going to be another door hidden in that wall, behind the seal, and beyond it will be ancient secrets, or treasures, or even weapons preserved against the Cataclysm.

"I'll get the rubbings," Bennett says, scrambling to dig the paper and charcoal out of his pack.

"Whoa," Kaeya says, starting forward before Bennett can do more than pull them out. "Why don't I do that?"

The trigger for the door will be somewhere in the seal, and while it should take careful precision to activate it, Kaeya can envision all too well how Bennett's luck would strike to set it off accidentally. If it's just treasure or books back there, that might not be too much of a disaster, but if it's weapons.... For that matter, even secrets and treasure could be a problem if Bennett sees too much, or Kaeya has to convince him to leave perfectly good treasure alone. He hates squelching Bennett again, but he can't risk any of it.

As he'd feared, Bennett's shoulders slump, and he scowls down at the floor as he hands the paper and charcoal over. "I guess we'd fail the commission if I chipped it, right?"

"And here I figured it was my turn to do something useful, since you did all the hard work getting us here," Kaeya offers, but Bennett still refuses to meet his eyes. Doing his best to shrug that off, Kaeya steps forward and sets the paper against the seal.

Getting the rubbing shouldn't be a problem, as long as he doesn't set the triggers in it off. He's pretty sure he remembers what order they go in, and he knows they start on the left, so he starts the rubbing on the right and works his way gradually across. It won't do any harm to get this--a researcher from Sumeru might know what it is, but she won't have any time to act on it so long as Kaeya doubles back tonight. He'll open the door, he'll grab whatever's behind it, and then he can stash it in a dead-drop for his handler and there won't be anything left for the scholar to find later. Neither she nor Bennett ever have to know.

He's most of the way through, still taking it carefully to avoid setting any security measures off, when he hears Bennett yelp. Spinning around, Kaeya sees Bennett taking several steps back from some metal plates in the floor that seem to be rising out of it, a glow manifesting at their core-

"Look out!" Kaeya drops the paper and flings himself forward, going for his sword, as the Ruin Scout's tentacles whip free of the floor and it tilts sideways to lunge at Bennett in a headbutt.

"Wah!" Bennett has his sword out, too, and he swings wildly at the Ruin Scout in a burst of flame. "What's that?!"

It's a good question. Kaeya has never seen Ruin Sentinels in Mondstadt before. There's *definitely* something important behind that seal. He falls in beside Bennett, moving in unconscious synchronicity to circle around the Ruin Scout and pin it between the two of them. It rotates, trying to chose an opponent, and Kaeya slashes at it from one side while Bennett does the same from the other, making the tentacles flap.

There's something charging between them, though, and Kaeya knows it's going to hit back in a second. He and Bennett could handle it, he's fairly sure, though there's some ominous buzzing and clicking from beyond various cracks and holes in the stone walls that suggest there's going to be more upon them shortly if they stay. It could get rough in a few moments.

But he has a bigger problem. If there's something valuable enough around here to leave Ruin Sentinels to guard it, he can't bring back that seal. There's way too much chance that whatever's behind it is going to be too big or complicated to easily move, and the scholar will no doubt make the same realization about its value as soon as she gets Bennett's report. He can't take that risk.

"Stay on it!" he calls to Bennett, slashing in again as the glow between the Ruin Scout's tentacles intensify. Two strikes, another blaze of flame from Bennett, and then the power discharges, knocking them both back. Kaeya deliberately loosens his grip on his sword as he stumbles, and lets it fly from his hand and go skittering away.

"Kaeya!" Bennett yelps, and comes rushing around the Ruin Scout in worry.

As if on cue, a Ruin Cruiser comes through one of the holes in the wall, and a Ruin Defender bursts up through the cracking floor. Kaeya steps sideways, kicks his sword further out of reach, and grabs Bennett's arm. "We're going to have to give up on this one."

"No way! We can take them!" Bennett protests, trying to pull away and go for Kaeya's sword. "They have to have weak spots, we just have to find them! I can keep us going-"

"Long enough to outlast however many come through the wall?" Kaeya drags Bennett between the Scout and the encroaching Cruiser towards the door.

"But-"

"I'm not hanging around to fight a bunch of mystery monsters because you tripped over the wrong spot on the floor," Kaeya snaps, regretting the venom he has to put into his tone.

Bennett makes a muffled, miserable sound and stops pulling back as Kaeya yanks him through the last hidden door, spinning about and slamming the central circle. The door slams closed, muffling the whine of the Cruiser's laser as it fires at the spot where they just stood.

He doesn't fight all the way up the tunnel, which Kaeya takes faster than necessary--the Ruin Sentinels shouldn't chase them much past the room they're guarding. If he keeps Bennett rushed off his feet, though, he doesn't have time to push back or ask questions. They burst out into the freezing air of Dragonspine and Kaeya gasps at the sudden assault on his lungs, cold air prickling through them. He's suddenly, intensely aware that the whole lower back of his jacket is damp.

"Awww, man," Bennett mumbles, staring dispiritedly back down the tunnel. "Your sword...."

"I can afford a new sword," Kaeya says, and grasps for something to say that will balance out the hasty words below. "I can't afford a new brother, now can I?"

Bennett's shoulders only hunch further. "I bet you could if you wanted," he says, and he sounds on the verge of tears--but there's an unexpected edge of anger beneath them. "*Anyone* would want to team up with you."

Kaeya has no idea what to make of that. He puts a hand on Bennett's shoulder, feels it stiffen, and lifts it away. "Well, too bad for them. I'm on your team already."

"Yeah, until I make it too much work for you!" Bennett's head come up, and there *are* tears in his eyes, glinting and damp even as he glares. "We could've beaten them and still gotten the commission done. I *know* you could've gotten your sword back, and *you* know I could've kept us on our feet. Instead you just gave up!"

Acid roils in Kaeya's stomach, but he makes himself meet Bennett's eyes. "I might have panicked a little," he lies. "It's a little unnerving, dealing with all the strange things on Dragonspine."

"Yeah," Bennett mumbles, looking away again, the burst of anger fading. Kaeya has the itchy, uncomfortable feeling that he's seen through the lie. "I know. You didn't want to come up here in the first place. I'm the one who made you, so.... Let's just go home."

"That sounds good," Kaeya agrees, struggling to keep the light, lying lilt to his voice. "Why don't get Dad to make his famous hot chocolate. We'll both feel better for something warm and sweet."

***

It feels like Bennett is seeing all his worst fears come true right in front of him, and it's only worse that Kaeya is trying to be nice about it. Which of course he is; Kaeya always tries not to let it show when he's mad. Usually he does a better job of it, though, so Bennett knows this commission really must have been a tipping point.

This one wasn't even that bad, compared to how his luck usually goes. Not until the very end, with the weird mechanical monsters. Maybe it hadn't just been the bad luck that upset Kaeya. He'd looked at them like he recognized them for a moment, calculating the same way he does when they run into hilichurls or slimes, something they've both fought hundreds of times.

But then he'd had some kind of thought that made him miss a beat and get caught by the thing's discharge--is it a bad memory, maybe? He never talks much about his old dad or his life before the Guild, but Bennett knows he has nightmares. It could have been some kind of flashback that he didn't want to admit to, and that's why he'd given up on the fight.

Whatever it was, though, Bennett's achingly afraid that it might have been the last straw. If Bennett's bad luck has progressed to making nightmares from Kaeya's childhood appear in Mondstadt, he can't even blame Kaeya for deciding that's just too much.

He sits and drinks hot chocolate and watches Kaeya twitch nervously across the kitchen table, refusing to meet Bennett's eyes. At last Kaeya declares that he's going to go see about a new sword before the shop closes and goes bolting out, leaving his cup behind him. One of their dads glances in as he picks it up and raises an eyebrow.

"Kaeya never leaves food behind. It went that badly?"

"My bad luck struck again," Bennett says, and tries to force a chuckle. It doesn't really come out right. "I don't really want to talk about it."

"Then you don't have to," his dad says, ruffling his hair.

He takes Bennett's cup, too, and goes to wash up. Bennett knows better than to offer to help. A few of his dads have taken to carving him wooden mugs and dishware, which at least don't leave sharp shards when he cracks them, but if there's a way to ruin them while cleaning, he'll find it. Especially on a day like today.

They'd gotten so close, too. Kaeya had almost finished the rubbing. Even if they'd had to run, if they could've just grabbed that and taken it back, at least they'd have finished the commission....

"I'm gonna go on a walk," he tells his dad, pushing his chair back and standing up. "Don't wait up, okay? I'm- I'm probably going to go visit Razor."

"Take care," his dad says, glancing over his shoulder to give Bennett a sympathetic smile.

Bennett only feels a little bad for lying. Maybe on the way back he *can* swing by Wolvendom and visit Razor, so that won't even be a lie. But he has to get back to Dragonspine first. The monsters have probably gone back in their holes by now, so he'll have enough time to get the last couple inches of the rubbing, right? If he has to run away after, it's not like it'll be the first time. He just can't give up on the commission when they were so close to finishing it.

Maybe if he does finish it, Kaeya will be impressed enough not to quit the team after all. He knows that isn't likely, but it's a nice thought. An adventurer has to keep his hopes up.

***

Kaeya isn't lying when he leaves, not exactly. He does stop by Wagner's to buy another sword. And then he straps it on and heads back out the city gates with a casual wave to the guards, like he always gives, so they won't think anything of it. If he moves fast enough, maybe he can get in and out of that ruin before the torches Bennett lit burn out.

He's tempted to just send a note to his handler about the location of the stash and let them take it from there. But he doesn't know what resources his handler has in Mondstadt--doesn't know who they are, or who else might work for them, or what magic they may have available. For all he knows, he'll just get a note back telling him to retrieve it. He's been sent to grab other things for his masters before. He might as well cut out the middleman and at least find out what's there before he sends his report.

Besides, this way, if Bennett wants to go back and try again, Kaeya won't have to try and talk him out of it. His gut still clenches at the memory of what he'd said to justify leaving. What hurts more, though, was how quickly Bennett's anger had burned itself out and turned into misery instead. He hates when other people leave Bennett that discouraged. It burns to know that he'd done the exact same thing.

One way or another, he'll make it up to Bennett. He just has to get this out of the way first.

The Ruin Sentinels have gone quiet again by the time he reaches the third chamber, which is a relief. Kaeya hadn't looked forward to having to fight his way through them alone. But he had suspected the door sealing might shut them down, and when it opens up again, they're quiescent; now that he knows where they'd come from, he can see the places where various cubes fit into holes in the floor and walls. He steps very carefully so as not to trigger any of them as he heads back to the seal.

Kaeya still keeps his fingers crossed and one eye on the cubes as he presses the trigger-points spiraling around the seal, one by one, waiting for each to click into place and stay down before he moves on to the next. If he messes this up, there's a good chance that will also wake the Ruin Sentinels again. When he reaches the last one, at the very center of the seal, he holds his breath while he pushes it down. A triangular chunk of the wall slides open.

Beyond it is a treasure trove.

Not the kind of treasure that most people would recognize as such. But Kaeya can see the writing engraved on the stone slates scattered all about the tiny room, an alphabet that he remembers well from his childhood, though he doesn't immediately recognize the words. He steps inside carefully, quietly, glancing back one more time at the dormant cubes in the walls outside, and then turns to deciphering the Khaenri'ahan script.

Once he starts to make out a language he once knew by heart, his breath catches. He won't be able to carry all of this out on his own, not in one trip. But he has to drop a note for his handler as soon as possible, because he *knows* they'll want this. There's slate after slate, each describing other locations, listing where they lie and what they contain, a list of precious artifacts and ancient weapons and scientific research that anyone loyal to the cause would be desperate to get their hands on.

That researcher would be too, if she saw this. Kaeya is going to have to talk Bennett out of coming back here after all.

As he turns back to the doorway, he can hear the sounds of the Ruin Sentinels starting to power up.

For a moment, Kaeya assumes they're reacting to him--that he'd brushed something when he'd crouched to read a slate on the floor, or stepped on a hidden trigger while approaching another. Then he hears a familiar, startled yelp, and his heart seizes in his chest. *Bennett.*

Drawing his sword, Kaeya rushes out of the room. The Ruin Scout of earlier has been joined by two more, and that's two Ruin Defenders bursting up alongside them. He flings himself at them from behind, striking their exposed backsides while Bennett hacks furiously and uselessly at their shields. He drives his blade through one's core, and it shudders and falls apart in a shower of parts.

"Kaeya!" Bennett cries. "What are you doing here? Is that another door?"

Kaeya grits his teeth against a word his dads would be horrified to hear him using and flourishes his blade as the other Defender rotates to present its shield to him. "Is now really the time to worry about that?"

"I've got you!" Bennett hits the Defender from behind with a blazing strike, and it, too, falls to the floor.

That does nothing about the Scouts, or the Destroyers bursting one by one from the floor, or the Cruisers flinging themselves from the walls. There's far more than there had been before. The rest must have activated in waves, in response to the initial activation, maybe powered up by the elemental energy that brief fight had put into the air. Kaeya jumps over the ruin of the Defender to stand by Bennett's side.

"There sure are a lot of them! But I bet we can take them this time," Bennett says, and Kaeya can hear the quiver of nervousness under the bravado. "Benny's Adventure Team can handle anything, right?"

"You've got that right," Kaeya says, adding in some false bravado of his own. He's pretty sure he's selling it better than Bennett is.

"Teamwork is dreamwork!"

Ruin Sentinels swirl around them, and Kaeya and Bennett turn to meet them, back-to-back. If there'd just been a few, this wouldn't be so difficult. But they keep coming; every time they knock one down, another is there to fill in the gap. Bennett's Inspiration Field helps, but it's keeping them on their feet, nothing more. Kaeya isn't sure if they can finish all the Sentinels before they hit a point where Bennett can't keep it up any longer.

"They're coming through the walls," Bennett calls over his shoulder over the sound of a Ruin Cruiser, aflame, shuddering apart. "Are there holes like these in that room there? If we can get in there, they can only come at us from one direction!"

He's right. Despite himself, Kaeya is proud of Bennett's strategic thinking. And there *aren't* holes in those walls; the builders of that cache wouldn't have wanted to risk it being damaged in a fight. Which is exactly why Kaeya should keep Bennett, and the battle, out here.

But from the strain in his voice, Bennett is flagging. Kaeya knows that he is, too. He's not helping Khaenri'ah if he gets killed by a bunch of Ruin Sentinels, right? Grabbing Bennett's arm, he throws himself sideways through a gap between Ruin Defenders, and they both tumble into the small, slope-roofed space of the room.

"What are all these?" Bennett looks around in wonder at the slates. "That scholar's going to be stoked! Maybe we'll get a bonus."

"Let's worry about that once the fight is done," Kaeya says, ruthlessly shoving his own panic at that statement to the back of his mind, and turns towards the door.

A few Defenders fling themselves forward, crab-leaping at them, but Kaeya takes advantage of the momentary vulnerability to stab upward and get one in the core. The other lands and throws up its shield before Bennett can do the same. It can't get at them without dropping the shield, though, so Kaeya turns his attention to a Destroyer trying to burrow up through the floor and lets Bennett catch it at the moment it does bring its shield up to make a strike. A few Cruisers dive for the upper part of the door, hit the edges, and make themselves easy prey for a stab and a flaming strike respectively.

They keep throwing themselves at the door for a few hectic seconds, meeting Kaeya and Bennett's paired blades. Only the Destroyers, with their burrowing ability, have any chance of catching them unawares, and Kaeya is able to turn enough to dispatch the handful that make the attempt. Then the Ruin Sentinels pull back, hesitating a moment in eerie unison as their cores blink in some kind of pattern.

"Uh-oh," Bennett says, echoing Kaeya's wariness. "Do you think they're communicating somehow?"

"Something like that."

The blinking turns to a familiar glow as the Cruisers and Defenders spread themselves wide, their cores charging. Kaeya wishes, briefly and passionately, for a bow. But to rush them while their cores are exposed would just bring him back into the disadvantageous field of the wider room, and the remaining Scouts hover with their heads lowered, clearly waiting for such a move. He glances around the room, looking for some kind of door control, anything at all on this side-

"We've got to dodge forward," Bennett says, elbowing Kaeya in the side. "As soon as they fire!"

"But the slates-" Kaeya bites off the protest, as if he can keep Bennett from realizing that they're important if he just doesn't mention them.

"I'd rather lose out on the commission than lose my brother," Bennett says stoutly, and starts to twitch forward.

Too early. The hum of the Ruin Sentinels has reached a fever pitch, but Kaeya has been timing their bolts and lasers. They won't fire for another second yet, and they'll have time to readjust as Bennett moves. For a single, calculating moment, Kaeya considers letting him do it. He'd draw the fire, the slates would be safe, Kaeya could get past the Sentinels while they were recharging, and-

"Wait!" Kaeya grabs Bennett's arm, holding him back the extra second, and then flings them both forwards, crashing together onto the ground. He hears the shattering of stone behind them and doesn't look back. Instead he grabs Bennett and rolls them both over, sideways, as the Ruin Scouts rush towards where they'd landed and slam into each other and the floor, then hauls Bennett up onto his feet with him and starts for the far door. There's something terrible and cold in his stomach, spreading through his chest, at the thought that he might for even a moment have contemplated anything else.

Just as he reaches the threshold, three more Ruin Destroyers come slamming up through the floor, scattering chips of rock in a spray as they rise up to block their path. One of them slams its head down and sweeps it about. Kaeya jumps back just in time, but Bennett, a bit slower, gets caught by the heavy metal head and yowls in pain as he's slammed into the wall beside the door. He slides down the wall to the floor and doesn't bounce back up again.

Kaeya hisses the word he'd bitten back earlier and slashes out at the writhing trunk of the Destroyer as it comes back upright. One of the others is throwing down a glittering energy field, and he hurls himself right through that, ignoring the pain of the pure energy crawling over his skin and swiping out sideways to lash through its core as he dives for his brother.

Hauling Bennett, limp and pale, up in his free arm, Kaeya turns about to see the third Destroyers head spasm open to fire a small energy orb. He turns himself sideways to put his body between it and Bennett, raising his blade like it's going to help. He sways on his feet as he moves, the room spinning. The cold spreading through him grows stronger. He and Bennett are both about to die down here.

Then the cold flares, the very air around him growing intensely, bitterly chill, and a hard-edged, geometric dome appears just beyond his upraised blade. The Destroyer's energy bolts splash uselessly against it. Kaeya gapes in astonishment, then catches himself when he sees a Cruiser rising up behind the Destroyer. There's no time to worry about what the hell happened. They have to *go*.

Scrambling back over the threshold, Kaeya reaches up and slams the hilt of his sword into the central circle that makes the door slam shut. He can hear energy blasts and lasers striking against the stone on the far side, and once again, this time with real fear pounding through him, and races up the tunnel towards the surface. The sounds of the riled Ruin Sentinels fall into silence behind him as he takes the twists and turns.

When he reaches the exit and stumbles out into Dragonspine's air, beneath the stars shining overhead, somehow his first breath gasping doesn't feel like a blow. The chill of fear is still permeating all through him. Kaeya shivers reflexively, but it's because he feels like he should, not because he's actually that cold. He looks down as Bennett stirs in his arms and sees something glowing, pale and faintly blue-toned, hooked on the left lapel of his winter jacket.

"K'ya?" Bennett mumbles, blinking sleepily. He squints, frowns, and then grabs at Kaeya's shoulder to steady himself as he reaches up with the other hand to touch the gleaming, ice-cold gem. "Oh, *wow*."

"Yeah," Kaeya says, feeling numb. "Wow."

"That's so cool!" Bennett is still pale and obviously shaky, but he wriggles free of Kaeya's grip to lean in and peer at the Vision. "You got that saving me, didn't you? The gods must've been really impressed by whatever you did."

"I'm sure they were." Kaeya still feels cold all through, the chill of the Vision seeping straight down to his bones. "It doesn't make me any more immune to Dragonspine, though, unfortunately. We should get ourselves out of the snow."

"Oh, yeah, we probably should," Bennett says, chuckling ruefully and rubbing at the back of his head. He takes a few steps forward and wobbles on his feet.

Kaeya reaches out and puts his arm around Bennett's shoulders again, offering him some support. Bennett pulls a sheepish face, but loops his arm around Kaeya's neck. He's always been warm, had even before he got his Vision and more so afterwards, but now he feels downright hot. Kaeya resists the urge to flinch from that heat and tugs him closer. As they make their way down the mountain, holding each other up, he feels Bennett's warmth seep into him, driving back the numb chill of his own silent horror.

***

Bennett's legs give out shortly after they reach the foot of the mountain. It's embarrassing to have Kaeya pause and haul him up onto his back, but it's kind of nice, too. Bennett clings close to him, feeling a faint chill rising from him even through his warm jacket, and tries to pour as much heat out of his Vision and through his arms as he can to warm him up. It's probably just his Vision, but Kaeya *has* always hated being cold.

They're halfway down the road to Mondstadt when Bennett dares ask, "What was that room you found?"

He may not know, but Kaeya must. When Bennett had walked into the fourth chamber, before he'd tripped over one of the monsters and woken them all up, he'd seen Kaeya crouched down inside the little room, intensely studying one of the stone tablets in there. He'd been paying it so much attention that he hadn't even noticed Bennett.

"It just opened up behind the seal," Kaeya says, his shoulders going tense under Bennett's hands and his grip tightening on Bennett's thighs. "I thought I'd try to finish the rubbing, and I must have hit some kind of mechanism."

Kaeya is a good liar, but he always tenses up when he does it, just a little. That wasn't what he'd been there for. Had it been the tablets? The markings on them had meant nothing to Bennett, in the brief glance he'd gotten while scrambling into the room, but Kaeya isn't from Mondstadt. He'd barely been able to read Mond when he first arrived. Maybe the tablets were in a language he'd recognized.

"You could read those tablets, couldn't you?" Bennett remembers how Kaeya been scrabbling at the walls while the monsters charged their shots, as if trying to close the doors. He hadn't wanted those tablets damaged. "Were they important?"

"Not as important as you." Kaeya can't turn his head all the way to look at Bennett like this, but he glances back as well as he can, so Bennett can see half of his smile. He *means* this smile. It's too small and soft and fond to be otherwise.

"You're going to stay on my adventuring team, right?"

"Of course I am." Kaeya sounds surprised. "Why wouldn't I? You're my *brother*."

"But my bad luck-"

"Isn't your fault," Kaeya says firmly, almost vehement. "What I said earlier... was cruel, and I didn't truly mean it. I had other concerns on my mind, and I shouldn't have taken them out on you."

The tight, clenched fear in Bennett's chest eases at last. It doesn't matter what Kaeya was doing, or what secret he's trying to keep. All that matters is that he still cares about Bennett.

"It's fine," he tells Kaeya. "Everyone loses their temper now and then! Our dads say so, right? As long as you're staying on my team, I don't mind."

He can feel Kaeya's shoulders relaxing again. Kaeya shifts his grip to tug Bennett in more snugly against his back. "You don't need to worry. I'm not going anywhere, I promise."

Reassured, Bennett leans forward to rest his chin on Kaeya's shoulder. Mondstadt is rising up in front of them, windmills turning slowly in the evening breeze, the starlight glittering off the lake. Maybe it's not where Kaeya came from, but it's his home now. His Vision proves it. Proves he's Bennett's brother, too, and cares about him just as much as Bennett cares for him. As long as that's true, Bennett isn't going to worry about anything else. Kaeya can keep all the secrets he wants. Bennett trusts his big brother.

#benny kaeya and the seven dads #kaeya is a bundle of knives behind a smile #you're lucky to me bennett #ascended fic

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pinefem · 2 years

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Can we just like, talk about the bad/non-existent representation we have for female characters? I grew up with it. I lived with it. It's a big reason why I began to identify as trans and distance myself from other women. The influences are still with me.

I woke up this morning and remembered when I was younger and my favourite character was Spock and my favourite thing was werewolves, and I wished I could have a female character like Spock, or a female werewolf that was actually well written, and I could never find it. Obsession after obsession with male characters, and I eventually lost any interest I had in female characters, because simply put, most are boring. Most are given no personality beyond loving men and makeup. Most women in shows are plot devices to advance the stories of the male protagonists, often to uncomfortable degrees, though no one realizes it. It's not overt, not something that's shouted from rooftops. It's just a pattern. Women just fade into the background, to serve as nothing but supports, and it's normal to us. Fictional women are written like that, and young, aspiring writers learn to write their women like that too. It's a cycle which goes on and on and on.

Now for some examples... The show I am currently watching is the Flash. Spoilers ahead! So. Does it have some strong, interesting female characters? Yeah! Caitlyn Snow, Lisa Snart, and yeah, Iris. Those characters had so much potential, but instead all the standouts are men. Harrison Wells got to be the sinister, merciless villain, then the dickish genius, and the goofy phony. Snart gets to be a villain who has a heart of gold, and a soft spot for his sister. Eddie gets to be the clearheaded one who's dragged into it against his will but sacrifices himself anyway. Cisco is adorable. He's funny, charming, and he cares for others. Generally a great, funny guy. On the other hand, Caitlyn is a bit guarded, sure, but her main personality trait is missing her fiance. Lisa Snart acts dumb and sexy to get what she wants. Iris' main purpose is being Barry's best friend. Yes, plenty of women have and care for boyfriends and it's not wrong to write a story about a woman pining for a man, but most women have personality traits beyond that. I also think that it's just cheap. Men aren't written to only care about their partners. Actually, a lot of the men in the Flash don't have partners. Even if they do, they are their own people away from them. They always have something else going on. So... Yeah the women aren't written well, but that's something you only notice if you're looking. This is something which is not limited to the Flash. It is a very very common pattern, which can be found in most TV shows made for older audiences. Comtrary to popular belief, it is not normal or okay.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have Arcane. This is the one show I've watched in which female characters take the forefront. In fact, I think Arcane opened my eyes to a lot of the male centrism in TV shows that I'd previously missed. I didn't know what I was missing until I saw Arcane, but it feels right. There are female-only fight scenes which are straight up messy brawls. The story doesn't center men at all and it is amazing. I didn't even really know how good female characters could be until I watched Arcane, but it's one of a kind. Most women are not written like that, and going back to other shows, you see it.

These influences are all so subtle, but if you see bad female characters over and over again, you never learn to write them in any other way, unfortunately. That is still with me. I'm still working to write female characters which don't fall into the familiar grooves of sexism in the media. I'm still working to find the same passion for female characters that I have for male characters. It's hard, but possible. I encourage other women to keep an eye out for it. Stop telling yourself that female characters are just less interesting. Stop ignoring it when women serve as nothing but support systems for men. Stop thinking it's unrealistic for women to be written like male characters. Stop letting it just be okay, and get mad about it. Get upset. Break the cycle. People will tell you it's okay, but it's not. Women deserve representation. You can think that.

#female representation #terf safe #writing #radical feminist #terfs welcome #radfem #radical feminists do interact #terfs do interact #tv shows #female characters

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thegunlady · 1 year

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Movies I watched in 2022

I kept track of this last year and it was fun, so I'm doing it again! I realize literally no one asked, but here is an extremely long and pointless rundown of every movie I watched this year. Complete with commentary and IMDB links. For posterity or whatever.

As before, I counted movies I'd already seen, but I didn't double up on movies I watched more than once in 2022 - which happened a fair amount as I am a serial re-watcher and comfort-movie-haver. I also didn't include a handful of movies that I put on as background noise while doing other things and didn't truly Watch.

January:

1. Zombieland (2009) - Okay the CGI is pretty freaking bad. But it's still a funny and cleverly-executed take on a zombie movie that holds up pretty well 13 years later.

2. Zombieland: Double Tap (2019) - This is pretty much exactly what you want from a sequel - more of the same with the whole main cast returning, but taken a little bit further with lots of callbacks. It was perfectly fun, but just a little too silly for me I think.

3. Brazen (2022) - Imagine my surprise when I played some new Netflix crime thriller on a whim only to discover that it's based on a romance novel from the '80s that I've actually read! I didn't even make the connection until the opening credits, despite the title and the trailer. Anyway, this movie was...almost good? Like the pieces were there, but it came off pretty much daytime soap.

4. Collide (2016) - This is another case of a movie thinking it was gonna be much cooler than it was—as evidenced by the all-star cast despite some pretty shaky writing—but tbh it was still pretty cool? I love a car movie, and I love a heist movie, and I love an action adventure that centers on a love story (although I dock points for fridging).

5. Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) - Guess who just saw this for the first time? It was me! But clearly this movie is charming at any age. It's the very definition of sweet and lovely, and the animation style is so beautiful (of course). Also Jiji is everything!!!

6. Mission: Impossible (1996) - I LOVE these movies. I'd forgotten that the first movie is really more of a classic cold war spy thriller, with a lot of intrigue and heisting and not so much action. Which I think is so smart and so much more compelling. I had a blast.

7. Mission: Impossible II (2000) - I know this movie has always been lauded as the terrible, outlier Mission Impossible movie that no one likes—and I agree that it's a hard deviation from the rest in terms of style and it IS objectively the worst of the bunch—but I really enjoyed it. More than I remembered. It has some glaring issues, but sometimes you just want to watch Tom Cruise driving a motorcycle through fire in slow motion from 3 camera angles, or doing the same backflip kick move 7 times, also in slow motion, and that's VALID.

8. Mission: Impossible III (2006) - Are you sensing a theme here? I think this might be my favorite M:I movie. It's really stylish and slick without being too over the top, and I LOVE a macguffin as the story engine of an adventure film! It keeps things simple and leaves room for more character stuff—which this movie does a pretty decent job of. Also talk about your great villains.

February:

9. Nightmare Alley (1947) - Spooky and atmospheric and compelling and fun! What is it about vintage carnivals? It's just THE vibe. Curious to see how the new adaptation holds up.

10. Nightmare Alley (2021) - Naturally, GDT's version of this movie is a spectacular visual treat, and leans in to the Fucked Up Magical Realism of it all in a way that really works for the story. But this version is WAY too long and monologue-y, with more added detail than truly necessary. It also leapfrogs over the 'fun and games' bit of screenwriting structure that really made the first movie sing, imho. It's a cool film, but I enjoyed watching the original a lot more.

11. Book of Love (2022) - This shit was so cute! Also, in a scathing indictment of modern cinema, I was shocked to discover that this isn't even an adaptation of anything! It was a clever and lovely and original romance that gets bonus points for being fairly bilingual - not entirely, but they actually do a good job of having characters who are native Spanish speakers actually speak Spanish with subtitles when talking to each other. I wish it had a little more of an epilogue though. Which I could say about so many stories, but especially romcoms. I'm going to become a youtuber JUST so I can make a video essay about the importance of showing the status quo change at the end of a story!!!

12. The Hating Game (2021) - I realize I'm completely biased by my preexisting affinity for the novel, but this movie is so much fun!! And, as I've said before, a really faithful adaptation! It's extremely silly and has a few writing issues, especially in the second half, but I don't care I love it.

13. Plus One (2019) - I LOVED this movie when it came out but I only saw it the once so I was curious to see if I'd still love it a whole pandemic later—and I do! It's fun and banter-y and, imho, a good example of a comedy that is about people who are actually funny, like, as part of their personality. Rather than essentially blank people who "funny" things happen to, like so many romcoms.

14. A Long Way Down (2014) - Aww, this movie was lovely! It's not a super original concept but a good one, and executed well. A stellar cast and just a great...well, not quite found family story, but it has similar beats and I like that it's about something slightly more than that. Also Aaron Paul and Imogen Poots should play love interests in all the movies. This is the second one I've seen and they're so cute.

15. Austenland (2013) - The perfect, confectionary Valentine's Day treat! Not that there's ever a bad time to watch this absolute GEM. It's bonkers and adorable and so much fun.

16. I Want You Back (2022) - Nothing earth-shattering but I think the characterization of the two mains was actually kind of poignant and nuanced. Also Jenny Slate is hilarious always. Why am I watching so many romantic comedies? Is it because it's Valentine's month and that's where my brain and also the Algorithm™ are pointing? Super probably. Anyway.

March:

17. West Side Story (2021) - I'm honestly not sure we really needed another adaptation of this. And this one was extremely long. But I always love a musical, it has to be said, and this one was no exception. I really love the look of it - how they made it look like kind of a cross between an actual stage play, and those detailed, built facades that were movie sets back when the original movie came out. I also love how they lit and composed every scene between Tony and Maria to make it look dreamy and incredible and highlight how they were in their own little world, and then dropped the dreamy lighting and framing as soon as their moment was over.

18. Star Trek (2009) - I just listened to the episode of Beyond the Screenplay about this movie and I was intrigued by so much of their conversation on how it ties into and diverts from the original series. It was fun to watch this movie through that lens. Also just so many charming performances.

19. Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) - I mean I watched one, so it only made sense to watch the next. It was almost equally fun! Although I was not inspired to watch the third movie, so.

20. Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) - Geez Louise this movie hit me unexpectedly. I was anticipating multiverse spider-man(s) hi-jinx which I DID get and it was SO GOOD, but there was less than I'd hoped, and this movie is ultimately pretty fucking bleak. It's clearly designed to set up Multiverse of Madness so I guess they can undo or redo anything they want, but oof. I am straight-up Bummed Out™.

April:

21. All The Old Knives (2022) - This movie did it perfectly fine, but I'm not the biggest fan of stories that keep flashing between the past and present. It's impressive writing and it definitely can be really cool to use it for a reveal that totally changes the meaning of something you've already seen, but, imho, when you use it as the whole story engine it A. kills the forward momentum of the action and B. robs the emotional significance out from under everything because you're just constantly seeing heavy subtext you couldn't possibly parse, and then seeing even more before the first pays off. I find it a little frustrating and boring (see: Arrow). But this movie was still cool.

22. The Batman (2022) - Okay this movie is almost 3 full hours and it took me 2 tries and then 4 sittings to watch it which I'm sure was not the intended or preferred moviegoing experience™ but I simply could not get through it any other way, my friends. Also this movie was so (literally) dark I have no idea what was going on in half the scenes. And a lot of the dialogue was just SO on the nose I mean it was fine but can we have just a little bit more subtext people, please. HOWEVER it was still pretty dope. I like that it wasn't bonkers action-y and was a little more noir/hard-boiled detective vibes. And I love this new turn of weird, soggy sewer rat Batman.

May:

23. Firestarter (2022) - This was my first theater movie since 2019! There were only 2 other people in the theater, because it turns out this movie has 12% on Rotten Tomatoes, which I did not realize when I purchased my ticket. Having seen it, this does not surprise me. It's pretty bad. BUT I like Zac Efron, I like an angry young girl with powers, and I'm glad for a return to weird little 90-minute movies.

24. 2:22 (2017) - Big fan of the cerebral romantic drama with a sci-fi twist! I think the premise is amazing and the performances are good and I loved it's whole style and vibe, but I'm not sure all the mechanics fit together as well as they maybe could have. I still really liked it though.

25. Contact (1997) - The peak of alien sci-fi cinema in my book. This movie rules so hard. I love the '90s character archetype of brazen adventure-science woman. (See also: Helen Hunt in Twister, and Laura Dern in Jurassic Park). And I love a flat change arc with huge themes.

June:

26. Jonathan (2018) - This movie has a legitimately fun premise and the first half was cool but the second half just kinda fizzled and rolled to a vague stop without doing anything to tie up the themes or pay off the details that it set up. Pass.

27. Need for Speed (2014) - I love this movie so much. I've literally seen it 20 times. I just like a car movie! I don't give a shit about cars IRL but car/racing movies just have a distinctive style and set of tropes associated with them that is so fun to me. And this one in particular has a great premise and cool locations a fantastic cast that was clearly having an amazing time and I love it so much. Also my power is out so I don't have internet and this is the only thing I had downloaded.

July:

27. The Princess (2022) - Okay, so I love the concept of a reverse rescue-the-princess story where instead of a prince fighting his way up the tower to get to the princess, the princess wakes up locked in the tower and must fight her way down. I just wish this movie did a little more with it? Like they sorta tried to break the movie into 'levels' of the tower, but if they leaned into that way more it would have been awesome. The action stuff was kinda cool and I actually like that they were a little silly and anachronistic with it, but it just didn't hang together for me. The tone was inconsistent, the pacing was weird, and the movie did basically zero character work. And I'm bummed out because I feel like there could be a version of this movie that's SO fun and memorable—a la A Knight's Tale or something— but this isn't it.

28. Last Night in SoHo (2021) - Yoooo I loved this movie. I mean I am firmly an Edgar Wright fan, so I guess I'm biased, but it was so cool. We love a neon-soaked movie. We love '60s music. We love time travel—or something like it. All vibes. I didn't really love how the third act wrapped up - it sorta took a hard turn - and also we really should have seen Sam Clafin's character at least one more time than we did for everything to work. But I forgive it.

29. A Nice Girl Like You (2020) - For me personally, this was a movie with a premise/tone that I didn't find particularly fun or interesting but was saved by really solid performances and pretty flawless screenwriting structure. It was a little dated, raunchy, and cringy for my own tastes, but it hit every beat right on the head with a cast that seemed to have chemistry and have fun and I respect that. Also not for nothing but I think I might have a full-on crush on Lucy Hale.

30. Monsters (2010) - I was in college when this movie came out and I remember my roommate at the time being obsessed with it and making me watch it, but I haven't seen or thought about it again until it popped up on HBO Max today. It's a 90-minute indie monster movie that's high-tension but low-action, open-ended, and really only about two people, which is exactly the kind of story stuff I'm all about. Great work everyone.

31. Kimi (2022) - Ohh another unique, 90-minute, blessedly simple, and character-driven thriller! Let's keep it up, team. I really enjoyed this one—and oof the stuff the heroine is going through at the start of the movie is Big Relatable in this COVID world of ours.

32. The Map of Tiny Perfect Things (2021) - Bro, I'm on a roll with my last few movies. This one was extremely delightful! Y'all know how much I love a time travel/time loop movie and this one was so sweet. Also the dude in this movie (*checks notes* Kyle Allen) is going be a star he's so good.

33. Above the Shadows (2019) - This is one of those slightly frustrating movies that - imho - has a great premise and great cast and could have been AMAZING, but had a couple writing issues that made it just okay. But I still enjoyed it!

34. Jurassic Park (1993) - I mean, a legendary, ultimate classic. What more is there to say? We need more 'monster' movies that are simple and cool with a degree of whimsy and awe. The '90s were great at this, let's bring it back! Also I'm about to rewatch all the JP movies in preparation for Dominion so buckle up.

35. The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) - This one is markedly less whimsical than the first, with much more violence and much more annoying villains. But the cute chemistry and easy affection between Jeff Goldblum and his daughter and Julianne Moore is delightful. Also I do appreciate the turn of the dinosaurs being completely innocent and the greedy humans being even more cartoonishly evil.

36. Jurassic Park III (2001) - This movie is actually great?? I love that it's a bit more of a return to form, with Alan and Ellie of course, but also just with general fun. The horror-esque reveal of the pterodactyl and the ringing phone signaling the proximity of the t-rex are both EXCELLENT.

37. Purple Hearts (2022) - I took a break from the dinos to watch a ridiculously sappy and overwrought romance because I can't resist them. HOWEVER. This one was fucking awful. (And I am not that picky re: this genre.) The pacing and tone was all over the place, the writing was sloppy, and also it's some major military propaganda and the characters go through basically no change!!! Oof. OOF!!!

38. Jurassic World (2015) - Okay we're back and oh my god I forgot that this movie kinda fucking slaps?? It's honestly the perfect way to continue a franchise, and I love the shift of the original film being about the hubris of how, in this dawning technological age, we're doing every awesome science thing we can think of because we can, and who cares about the consequences. To this one being about KNOWING what a terrible idea it is but doing it anyway and doing it MORE because of corporate greed (although the parallels there to rebooting a cash cow film series are not lost on me). But even so, this movie is bright and fun and cool and the story is blessedly simple and I really love it.

39. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) - I like this movie a lot, but it occurs to me that the two JP movies that actually take place in a working park are by far the most fun. The visual trappings of a theme park and something so happy turning so awful is really compelling. And so are the built-in boundaries of being confined inside the park over the course of one day. Really only the original film and the first Jurassic World have that. For the rest, the world is already in chaos and there are essentially no boundaries or much ticking clock at all - which is fine, but there's just something less urgent and Too Big about it for me, personally.

40. Jurassic World Dominion (2022) - Weirdly, this movie might have a few TOO many dinosaurs? I feel like the past movies revealed dinosaurs at key moments but in this one I'm pretty sure there's literally never someone not getting attacked by a dinosaur (or a giant bug 😟!!!) But also I loved it! I loved getting the whole gang(s) back together, and the updated feathered dinos! And the baby dinos!

41. The Gray Man (2022) - I wanted this movie to be better? It was cool overall, and there was some stuff I really liked, but it was SUPER long and big stretches were kinda boring and I personally felt like it spent too much time on all the wrong character dynamics. Poor Ana de Armas got basically zero motivation or plot work at all. We learn nothing about her and you could almost literally just edit her out of this movie and absolutely nothing changes. A bummer.

August:

42. Encanto (2021) - Guess who cried twice during this movie? It was me. I'm so glad I finally watched this it was so beautiful in every way. My heart is full. Also shoutout to the CinemaWins video about this movie for making me pause that video and watch it immediately.

43. The Time Traveler's Wife (2009) - Oh look it's me, crying at the second movie in one night (I've been kinda going through it the past few weeks I think I was subconsciously seeking catharsis via tearjerkers). Anyway, time travel and epic romance are my two most favorite things in fiction so it's no wonder to anyone that I adore this movie.

44. Uncharted (2022) - Listen I'm just generally down for a bog-standard swashbuckling, map-poring, treasure-seeking adventure movie. This one isn't really anything special but I was passably charmed and if they make more, I'll watch 'em.

45. Persuasion (1995) - I've actually never read Persuasion nor experienced any adaptation of it until now. I loved it! And, to my own surprise since I often rant about these things, I love that this movie doesn't really spend time explaining Anne and Wentworth's specific history. I don't know if/how much the novel does either, but it's kind of remarkable how much it doesn't really matter. I also love that it appears to be shot entirely on location with barely any lighting setups, color grading, or even much time spent on hair and makeup.

46. The Lost City (2022) - Hee! As a great lover of both romance novels and cheesy adventure movies, this combination of the two was - maybe a TOUCH slapstickier than I would have liked - but overall EXTREMELY delightful. More weird and silly hijinx movies!!! please!!

47. Inside the Mind of a Cat (2022) - I guess this is more of an hour-long Netflix special than a real movie and it also seems like a good dose of pseudoscience to me, but I literally don't care! It was 60 minutes of cute kitties!

September:

48. Love in the Villa (2022) - This is an objectively bad movie held together entirely by Kat Graham and Tom Hopper being great scene partners and excellent comedic actors. I can't quite say I hated it, but it's also. Not good. At all.

October:

49. Black Widow (2021) - Finally got around to watching this! Tbh this movie was like a decade overdue and not really worth the wait to me, personally, but it was still fun! I love weird family hi-jinx!

50. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) - Once again, I'm kinda burned out on Marvel movies and also this was a late-night watch after a long day of hiking, drinking, and general carousing during a family vacation, thus I was nodding off for some of it. But I liked it! It was more unique than most Marvel movies of recent memory.

51. Fifty Shades of Grey (2015) - Not to bring this up AGAIN, but I am a longtime lover of ridiculous romance novels. As such, I am used to their General Nonsense and legitimately enjoy this movie (and the other two) for exactly what they are. Which is ridiculous. I make no excuses for the weird and the problematic, I just think wildly over-the-top romance is the best. Also, this first movie really did try to do something interesting with the story before the franchise was throttled by EL James. (I highly recommend Dan Olsen's video essay about this).

52. Fifty Shades Darker (2017) - Like I said, I just kinda like these movies. I'm not proud of it. And even though the first is by far the best objectively, I think this one is my favorite? Just for silly aesthetic and trope-y reasons.

53. The Choice (2016) - I loved this movie!!! I'm a sucker for all the Nicholas Sparks movies I have to admit (you're shocked), but this one might be my favorite yet?? Excellent use of my favorite tropes re: silly and banter-y couples, and agonizing romantic beats.

54. The Host (2013) - I feel like this movie was generally panned as more YA nonsense given its source material, and then instantly forgotten about, but I actually love it! I think it's really beautiful aesthetically and the score is amazing and william hurt is weirdly SO good in his role and it's romantic and dramatic and I've seen it a bunch of times.

55. Free Guy (2021) - This movie is so silly, but it's also reasonably heartfelt and creative and I just think it's fun.

56. Avatar (2009) - The movie, the myth, the legend. With the sequel allegedly coming out, I was curious to revisit the original. The actual storyline is whatever (slash slightly problematic) but the premise is really cool and the effects are amazing.

57. The Age of Adaline (2015) - Me? Watching sweeping romantic dramas and things related to time travel? Groundbreaking. But anyway I enjoyed this movie. I kinda wanted them to do a little more with the concept, but overall it was lovely. Also whoever that guy is who played young Harrison Ford deserved to be in more than 2 scenes he fucking crushed it.

58-61. The Hunger Games Series (2012-2015) - I LOVED these books and I remember being a little disappointed by the movies at the time, but having just watched them all again y'know what? They're pretty good. And they hold up.

62. Happy Death Day (2017) - This was my Halloween movie choice! Again! I truly never get sick of it. It's more funny and clever than actually scary, but still leans on some spookiness and it's a delight. Carter and Tree are so cute which really sells the whole thing. Also you guys know how much I love a time loop. This move is kind of the gen Z answer to Scream and they nailed it.

November:

63. Dracula Untold (2014) - Okay honestly I just threw this on at random for something to watch while I organized my books into my new IKEA media stand, expecting it to be one of those nigh-unwatchable (to me) desaturated cyan fantasy/monster movies with endless meaningless exposition and monologues interrupted by boring and also endless sword fights...and it kinda was, except much better than most! I felt like it was a fun take on an overdone story and surprisingly character-driven. I won't say it's a great movie, but I didn't mind it.

December:

64. Rosaline (2022) - I loved it! I personally am a huge fan of the period-piece-but-not-really trend that's popular right now, where something takes place in the past and uses it as set dressing, but uses modern language and pop songs, etc. This movie was also even funnier than I expected—although I can't quite account for why some characters are American and some are British? Even from the same family? Did they just cast whoever and not care? Because that's actually great.

65. The Broken Hearts Gallery (2020) - I adore this movie. It's such a sweet concept, and the dialogue and chemistry between all the mains is so hilarious. Specifically the dynamic between the love interests, which I find incredibly endearing.

66. Penelope (2006) - One of my all-time favorites!!! I can't even count how many times I've seen this movie it makes me so happy. The choice to make it essentially a real-world story (minus the magic curse) but with a production design that is ever-so-slightly fantasy is so much fun. Also, I don't know if Peter Dinklage has any particular pride in or fondness for this role, but I hope he does because it's fucking note-perfect. His every expression and line delivery is hysterical.

67. Lady Chatterley's Lover (2022) - Eh. It was okay. I feel like this movie thought it was much sexier and more dramatic than it was. It also set up some wider stuff about the world of the movie that it never really followed up on. What happened to the miners and the town? With Bertha? Did anyone actually get divorced? Connie and Oliver had a whole Thing with realizing how much their dynamic would change if they were a regular/real couple outside of the lives they currently knew, but did they do anything to resolve it? We just don't know.

68. Mr. Right (2015) - This is one of my most-watched movies of all time it is goofy hi-jinx and endearing romance incarnate! Featuring two of my all-time favorite movie leads!

69. Ever After (1998) - 💜😍💚😍💚 a forever fave always. (also can you tell I'm getting bored of trying to track and review every single movie? Not sure I'm going to do this list again next year).

70. Knives Out (2019) - Never gets old! I rewatched in preparation for watching the new movie and I’m curious to see how they compare bc I love this one.

71. Glass Onion (2022) - I loved it! And Janelle Monae is a dang revelation in this movie. However (spoilers) I think whodunits are more fun when there’s a clear Murder to Solve- like in the first one. This one had maybe a few too many mysteries happening at once and starting late into the movie. I still loved it though.

#movies by year

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