#sorry i just didn’t know where to put the cut and i’m on mobile lol

[liquidstar]

hey! i’d love to learn about re:zero! well, not learn exactly but i’m thinking of maybe getting into it so i dunno, i’d love to know what sorta stuff you enjoy about it and everything 🤧 also, same anon who sent you that ask about wanting to be mutuals! so, hello!

Omg hiiii anon! It’s nice to see you again! Please feel free to send asks or even message me any time ^_^ I’m sorry I took a while to get to this but I didn’t have time to type a lot earlier and  was on mobile… but i would SO love to talk about what i like about the series (and a little bit of what i dislike, its got its fair share of understandable turnoffs but ill get to that part later- ill make a little tw list too)

But first i totally wanna share what about it i find compelling and fun as a story. I’ll put it under a cut here so I don’t clog ppl’s dashes tho hehe. I wrote... A lot actually. Like a lot a lot. Sorry .-. You can just kind of skim it if you want I don't want to make you feel like you have to read this fucking novel I wrote lol but here it is

First of all i think what made me agree to watch the series despite my preconceptions of it as a typical isekai harem was that its actually a deconstruction of that genre. “Deconstruction” often gets misused in anime circles to just mean “a genre but with a dark twist” so at first i thought it might just be a typical isekai harem but slightly edgier… but no it actually is a proper deconstruction! It takes the typical tropes of its genre and breaks them down, exposing the issues with the genre and its viewers (i.e. nerdboys wanting escapism). 

The premise on it’s own is relatively simple, it’s about a boy who gets transported to a fantasy world and discovers that he has been given a power that lets him reset time every time he dies. It gets a bit more complex from there, there’s some really cool lore that makes the world feel like it existed before subaru came to it (many isekai cant do this). And the themes of the series are actually pretty dense, which is a LOT of fun for me and the main thing i like about it tbh. So im going to talk about each one of the major themes here (and try to keep it as spoiler-free as i can!)

Escapism

One of the most important themes of the series is fantasy vs reality. Subaru, as the main character, is set up exactly like the typical nerdboy getting an isekai powerfantasy harem, and he’s genre-aware at that. When he first gets transported to another world, he instantly picks up on what's happening, and he thinks its going to go a certain way for him. 

In fact, because of the media he’s consumed in his life, he thinks he’s ENTITLED to an isekai powerfantasy and feels robbed when things end up being much more grim. For the first few arcs he can come off as annoying, he’s trying very hard to act like his idea of a “main character” and he has a tendency to reduce the people around him to tropes. He projects his will onto them, he does what he thinks a hero would do regardless of what they say. In the 3rd arc he becomes borderline unlikable (intentionally so) after a fight with emilia, and the real turning point of him as a character is whether he chooses reality or fantasy in this arc. He could go back to escaping, or he could face whats real. 

After this point in the story he begins to truly develop more as a character too, seeing the people around him as PEOPLE makes him more complete as well, and on a meta level this is also where we start to get his real backstory and characterization outside of just being the “isekai guy.” It’s like the story is telling him that he earned it, but it doesn’t feel like a sudden shift. If anything it feels like everything else about him makes MORE sense in retrospect.

But one thing that was always made clear was that subaru hated himself. A lot. He was a shut-in loser with terrible depression and anxiety, he used to get panic attacks just at the idea of going to school. He preferred to escape in his bedroom and avoid it all, and although his parents loved him very very much, deep down, he always thought they should just hate him instead. He thinks everyone should just hate him instead, which is why he tries so hard. It can be cringy to watch, but knowing where this energy of his comes from as a character makes sense…

He never really learned how to deal with people, he’s selfish and entitled to what media promised him. In this sense the story is screaming at you that NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU USE THESE POWERFANTASIES TO ESCAPE, REAL LIFE PEOPLE WILL NOT TREAT YOU THIS WAY. THEY WILL HAVE THEIR OWN LIVES AND WILLS THAT YOU CANT CONTROL AND THEY DONT OWE YOU ANYTHING JUST BECAUSE YOURE NICE TO THEM!!

This theme is even moreso evident when it comes to the woman in subaru’s life so lets talk about…

Gender 

subaru’s habit of projecting his own desires onto other people makes him place the girls around him into obsequious roles, he objectifies them, treats them like tropes in a video game. The message that the story wants to convey is fairly obvious, that you can’t treat real life women the same way you treat your fictional characters. And that they don’t owe you anything just because you’re nice to them. This is partly what emilia and subaru’s aforementioned fight was about, and it’s important that she only accepts his love after he treats her like a human being. She doesn’t want special treatment or to be placed on a pedestal. This theme kind of went over a lot of nerdboys heads because they wanted to jerk off to rem, who actually presented the “fantasy” ideal- kind of ironic…

On the flip side too, subaru tries very very hard to fit into masculine ideals of heroism (often emulating his father who was an athlete). He thinks he has to be a certain way and act a certain way. Though once he breaks out of this shell he actually ends up being more… Just himself. He’s not afraid to let emilia be the hero, he even compliments her for being “manly” (which she doesnt take as an insult and they have a cute laugh about) and in the ln takes up dressing femininely as something he was afraid to do in earnest before- previously seeing it as a joke.

Whats also notable about emilia is that shes one of the five dragon priestesses thats running as a candidate in the royal selection- that might have just been word soup, but what it basically means is that she and four other girls are running to become ruler of the country. The title that they earn is actually KING of legunica, not queen. This serves as a nice contrast to the room emilia was locked in during her childhood, the princess room.

Its a fantasy story so archetypes like kings and princesses and knights are all present but its more so about what those archetypes represent. The knights are the heroes, that masculine ideal subaru wanted to live up to. He claims to be one without earning it, which gets him beat the hell up by a real knight, julius. Whos also an interesting character in this regard, he’s the “knight of knights” and puts a lot of pressure on himself chivalrous, and subaru is incredibly jealous. Though eventually they grow closer and idk they’re kinda… hm. Anyway there’s also reinhard, another knight who is so ridiculously overpowered that its a joke. Like, one of his powers is he’s blessed to never eat anything too salty. He IS the overpowered isekai protagonist that subaru wanted to be, but unlike julius, subaru kind of admires reinhard (they got off on a better foot). But reinhard himself… the truth is hes so very isolated and trapped, he grew up with a terrible family and because of his powers the kingdom pretty much owns him, he has no freedom. This aspiration is a leesh.  

Mean while other candidates are all interesting in their own ways and also all represent some different ideologies (incase youre wondering the emilia camp is. communism.) but the ones most relevant to the gender theme is probably the crusch camp because… actually its kind of a lot, not all of it depicted well, but not necessarily horribly either. The basic idea is that crusch and ferris are two characters who “swapped” gender performances, though the series may still posit that their actual identities are still their agab this isnt exactly that simple (especially in the ln) and i personally think its a case of a cis author not really knowing how trans people work. Crusch behaves in a more masculine role until their memories are wiped and suddenly starts to behave like a “regular girl”- this is meant to be strange and upsetting because its NOT CRUSCH so i actually think thats well done enough. Ferris is… well, not a character i want to speak as an authority on, i think they could have been handled better, but it could have also been worse. I do like that in the ln they directly dispute the notion that ferris “dresses like a girl” to attract/trick men, at least. 

The series does genuinely seem to want to pick apart some gender norms though, and though i am critical of the ways it fumbles the ball i do enjoy the themes, especially as a deconstruction story. Its NOT perfect and i think one of my biggest gripes with it is that despite this “dont objectify” theme, a lot of the female characters designs are pretty sexualized! Mostly not to an absurd degree, i actually think the maid outfits are cute, but sometimes i feel like it can detract rather than add. You could make the case that its saying “even if theyre dressed like this bla bla” but i think thats a reach… at the very least though theres not that much fanservice despite the outfits, things arent usually framed weirdly just to get tits or ass in frame and all. I think the most the was was a scene in the ova where emilia and rem hug and their boobs touch

One way that the themes do come full circle though is with the emilia and subaru’s first kiss. Their first fight was about subaru denying emilia her personhood by ignoring her will in favor of his own. They have another fight that calls back to this but this is AFTER subaru has character development and one way that he proves to her that he loves her is by getting explicit consent for the kiss (verbally and physically) beforehand- it wasnt just an example of “a kiss solves all the problems” but a demonstration of how far hes come as a character, not assuming that playing out movie tropes alone will fix stuff but actually caring about what she wants.

Memories/Identity

Speaking of losing memories, that’s also a huge theme in the story. The idea is that your memories are your identity isn’t exactly unique, but what i like a lot about how the series does it is how OTHER peoples memories of you matter just as much as your own. It’s what i call “self-recognition through the other.” 

Your identity is molded through how people around you perceive you, and how you perceive those perceptions in turn. Not just about how you see yourself, but how you see other people seeing you. That’s why there are two types of amnesia in the series, one where you forget your own identity and one where people forget who you are. Those are the two things that make you… you! So when a character loses one, they lose half of themselves. When they lose both… they stop existing. They enter a comatose state and are just a “null”- something that never was and yet is right here.

The theme of subaru projecting his will onto other people has to do with this- subaru hates himself so he can only bare to recognize himself through the projection.

The show especially has a LOT of shots of characters being reflected in each other’s eyes, making it clear that whats going on here isnt just a character being seen, but also a character seeing themselves through another person.

One example, heres a scene where subaru is yelling at emilia, he screams at her and calls her useless and tells her she cant save everyone. Throughout the entire scene we dont see subaru’s face, only emilia’s reaction, and when she starts to talk she just says “why are you crying?” and the scene changes to a close up of her eye, subaru reflected in it, crying. He wasn’t really yelling at emilia, he was yelling at himself through her.

Another way memories come into play is because of subaru’s return by death power. Its an isolating power, because when he dies and resets the timeline… his friends forget about him. From subarus perspective these are people he was close with, people hes been friends with for at least a month (in total) but who have no memory of him. Its part of why he blows up at emilia, hes frustrated that his friends cant remember such important memories because to them.. THEY NEVER HAPPENED!!! These are things that only subaru will remember. In arc 2 when he grows close to rem and ram over time and they just keep forgetting about him… it hurts him a lot because his friends just suddenly stop seeing him as a friend. Its not their fault, but its not his either. And they can never fully help him through the trauma because he cant tell anyone the shit hes been through, the power wont let him.

But from THEIR perspectives… its scary. Its scary when some guy you dont know acts so familiar, acts like you OWE him something when you have no idea what hes talking about. Something you cant remember. Of course emilia is horrified when he starts lashing out, she has no idea whats going on! 

Whats interesting is that the SAME THING happens to subaru later on… through the witch of envy. She claims that she loves him, in fact thats all she says, “i love you, i love you, i love you” but subaru doesnt know her. He has no idea who she is, hes terrified of someone who loves him so much for things he doesnt remember. Yeah, doesnt feel so good huh?

7(+2) deadly sins

Each arc of the series actually focuses around subaru making a choice that’s centered around overcoming a deadly sin, and there are also several characters representing the deadly sins, including the two that pope gregory got rid of (vainglory and melancholy). There are the witches of sin, as well as the archbishops that represent those sins. What I find the most interesting is how these sins relate back to the theme of identity through the way their powers are represented as well as the ways their respective arcs are handled.

Gluttony is the most obvious, it’s framed as a sin where you “consume” another person's identity for your own sake, or take it on completely, without regard for them and how they’ll get dulled or lose their own sense of self devoid from you.

Greed is about a desire for connection, which in moderation can be a good thing, but it can also become possessive and entitled. It’s literally objectifying, treating someone else like your possession. On the flip side, placing that desire above all else can also lead to the detriment of your own well-being as well as those around you.

Lust doesn’t just refer to the sexual connotation, but about love in general. Specifically about using love as leverage to take advantage of and manipulate people, even by force, and even down to their sense of self. 

Wrath also isn’t just about anger, it’s about intense emotions in general, and what happens when you project these emotions onto other people, and how this can become a cycle of amplifying these emotional projections back and forth until the person’s identity has been consumed by them.

Sloth can be taken as being slothful in your relationships, not just romantic ones but to the people around you. Neglecting or abandoning them when things get hard, especially if they really need you. Choosing escapism over reality.

Pride seems to be about the arrogant assumption that your perspective of another person is the correct one, and treating them the way that you see fit based on that. You’re in the right, so if you decide they deserve to be punished then it must be justified.

Envy is also about the possession of others, similar to greed but with a much more targeted and controlling nature. The jealousy that comes with it is one that forces the object of desire into being isolated, lonely and unfulfilled, unable to form any true bonds with others.

Melancholy is the one we’ve seen the least of, but it seems to be about forcing your negativity onto others, hurting not just yourself but also other people through your own depression and apathy.

Vainglory is gaslighting. Despite being as mysterious as melancholy, the metaphor is obvious. It’s manipulating another person's entire perspective and reality to fit your narrative, to manipulate them into what you want them to be.

Basically because of the series's themes of identity and projection, the biggest sin you could commit towards another person or even yourself is warping that.

Suicidality

Suicidality is present throughout the entire story. Of course it is! Our escapist mean characters superpower is to fucking die! But it’s more than that… Subaru hates himself. He wants to die. He didn’t consider himself to have a life before, and now he sees himself as an even bigger loser for all the trauma hes gone through and all that hes lost. Even in reflecting on the person he was. In the 4th arc especially he makes it clear how little he values his own life, especially because of how much he cares about his friends (at this point, yes, he sees them as people and loves them more than anything). But hes so traumatized, so down on himself for all his failures, and he cant die no matter how hard he tries.

This theme isn’t limited to him, in fact the same exact thing is true of beatrice, an immortal spirit girl who was abandoned inside a library for 400 years. They actually end up having a very very sweet sibling dynamic later on, but whats more important is that theyre both hypocrites. Subaru wants to save beatrce, he doesnt want her to die. Beatrice doesnt want subaru to die and repeatedly saves him, which he screams at her for. Beatrice begs him to kill her, he wont do it. They both want to save each other from each other but dont want to be saved themselves.

Rem is also an interesting example of suicidality- shes not as outwardly suicidal as beatrice and subaru but she does have a very very very severe inferiority complex, and very intense feelings of guilt and shame for never being enough, only being a replacement for her displaced sister, the literal reincarnation of a god. Rem falls for subaru because he sees her as her own person, for the first time ever (the only other person to do that is ram, but rem feels too guilty to see it) but what makes her feelings interesting is that she sees subaru as her “reason to die”. NOT LIVE! Rem only sees herself as someone worth discarding, if she can die for subaru than she would die happy. Its her excuse. What many many many people overlook about rem is just how unhealthy her ideas about love are, shes so mischaracterized! And its sad because of how interesting and thematically important her arc is… boiled down to a love triangle! Augh!

Stars

I love star themes in stories!!! This is honestly pretty obvious given that I have my own set of star-themed ocs, but i’ll try to put them aside for rn to talk about this lol. First of all subaru loves stars a lot, its something I like about his character too- he’s not just a typical nerdboy who likes anime and games, he has other unique personal interests like mythology and astronomy! Of course he does, his name actually comes from the stars, that’s where his love of them comes from. Subaru is the japanese name for the pleiades star cluster and the individual stars of become relevant later.

Beyond subaru there are plenty of characters whose names come from the stars, though not always directly. 

For example all of the witches of sin (aside from one) are named after astroids. Echidna, Minerva, Sekhmet, Daphne, Typhon, Carmilla, Pandora, and Hector. The exception to this rule is Satella, the witch of envy, who was always an odd-one-out. Her name could mean either star or satellite (like an asteroid!). And all the sin archbishops are also named after stars, and the names of the stars actually directly correlate to what their powers are.

There are also plenty of other ways characters names often tie into stars and mythology, but not always- sometimes theyre just puns. For example, emilia comes from the latin “emilius” which means… Jealous.

Other stuff

Re:zero actually has a lot of different content, one of the coolest to me, because of how they expand on the series’ themes, are the what:if routes. I didnt talk abt them in the above bc i thought it would get too confusing, but theyre basically alternate routes for the story. What WOULD HAVE happened if subaru had made the wrong choice, if the thematic sin of the arc won. So far, and in order, there’s 

Pride:if

Wrath:if

Sloth:if 

Greed:if

Gluttony:if 

There will probably be more in the future, whats funny is that theyre written and posted on april fools day… aka subaru’s birthday!

Theres also ovas which i think are important to watch before season 2, and one that takes place mid-season-1 so my watch order rec is actually

Season 1 episodes 1-11

Memory snow ova (lighthearted and fun!)

Season 1 episodes 12+

Frozen bonds ova (emilia backstory!)

Season 2

Theres also a directors cut version of the show but its basically just two episodes stitched together w some mild animation improvements and ONE scene added at the end (Which gets repeated in season 2 anyway) so which one you watch doesnt make a difference

After that, if you want, you can pick up the light novel at arc 5. Arc 6 s the best one imo but i havent read arc 7 yet (bear that in mind for the tw list)

Anyway now that i talked about the themes, and before i get to the tws, i want to talk about

The characters!!!!

Easily one of the best parts of the series. I feel like I’ve mostly talked about subaru and emilia here but thats because if i were to get Into It with each of these characters on their own we’d be here all day (and this is already so long!) they all have a lot of personality and are genuinely very complex and interesting characters so ill just give little blurbs to explain them here

Subaru: I’ve talked enough about here. I want to say that i genuinely like him a lot as a character, after his growth and development he’s so likable and fun and you just kind of want to protect him

Emilia: A silver-haired half-elf, she’s hated for looking like the witch of envy, a figure from history so repulsive people won’t even say her name. People call her a half-devil, say that she doesn’t deserve to live, that her birth was a crime. But emilia is a kind girl, she wants to change the world so that everyone is equal and no one is treated like she is. She’s also very strong, her ice magic is incredibly powerful and so so so deadly in some really cool and creative ways.

Puck: Emilia’s spirit! He loves emilia so much that he would literally kill everyone in the world and then himself if anything happened to her. For real.

Rem: So mischaracterized by the fanbase! Poor rem! She’s both sweet and also not afraid to cut a bitch at any given point. But for the most part she also kind of hates herself, seen as the lesser of the two oni sisters, she could never live up to ram. One day though, the tables turned, and rem had to take ram’s place, though she only felt guilt and shame for it. Seeing herself as nothing but a replacement, time stopped for her the fiery night her sister’s horn was cut off.

Ram: Also often mischaracterized as being “tsundere” though thats far from the truth- She’s actually just a straight up cunt. Her main character trait is that she’s bluntly honest no matter what, so when she’s being a bitch she means it. She used to be the reincarnation of the oni god (and technically still is) but when her horn was cut off she lost the ability to control these powers. She often gets seen as being “lazy” by other characters, but the truth is that she’s in constant pain because of this. Despite that, she was a little bit happy too when she was finally released from the pressures of a god.

Beatrice: The guardian of the forbidden library, she was abandoned there a long long time ago. Now she only sits and waits for someone to find her, save her, kill her. She can come off as being bratty, but the truth is that she’s very lonely and also afraid to let people in.

Roswaal: The margrave of the estate… He’s so very fucked up in the head… There’s not too much I can say without giving away some major plotpoints but that make-up isn’t there for nothing, he really is a fucking clown.

Otto: A merchant that eventually joined the emilia camp. He spent the first decade of his life completely mute, saying that the world used to be a hellish place of harsh noise for him. Eventually this changed- when he gained his divine protection of spirit voice. Meaning he can talk to animals! And other things. After some loops he ends up becoming a very very devoted friend to subaru, someone he can always confide in.

Garfiel: Sort of a wildcard, but despite everything he actually does have a heart of gold. And everything about him actually makes more sense when you learn he’s actually fourteen. He’s can also transform into a tiger which is pretty sick. And he has mommy issues!

Frederica: Garfiel’s older sister, she works as a maid for the roswaal estate but has taken a leave. She’s very sweet and motherly, especially to garfiel and petra. And she can transform into a lion which again is pretty sick.

Petra: A child from the village who ended up joining the emilia camp as a maid-in-training. I’m not going to lie I think she’s only there so there’s a cute kid that needs protecting and so that we can be devastated when she dies in any given loop. It kind of works

(now onto non-emilia-camp-members)

Anastasia: Don’t let her cute appearance fool you, she’s a cutthroat capitalist through-and-through. A former merchant looking to become the next king of legunica. 

Julius: Anastasia’s knight, the knight of knights. Everything about him screams “chivalry” but in reality that’s a weaning facade. He and subaru don’t get along much at first, but eventually they end up with a really close bond. Subaru is kind of tsundere about it though lol

Crusch: The most militant of the royal selection candidates, crusch is sort of a hard-ass through and through… In fact they’re pretty much just looking to run a meritocracy, and subaru himself calls out the fact that crusch would be a good leader if not for abandoning the weak.

Ferris: Crusch’s knight, Ferris is playful and sometimes a smartass. Also granted the title of “blue” for their status as the best healer in the country.

Wilhelm: Crusch’s butler. He seems like just some old man but in reality he’s badass lol

Reinhard: The current sword saint, and wilhelm’s grandson. He’s the most OP man in existence, but he has so so many family issues, growing up with a terrible family situation and being blamed for his grandmas death. On top of that he lacks freedom and choice, being bound to being a knight for the kingdom. Making it fitting that he’s representing the candidate looking to abolish the current system, Felt.

Felt: A former thief from the slums, she was selected as a dragon priestess and chose to run in the royal selection… Because she wants to destroy the structures in place. She hates the nobility, she hates the knights, and she’s going to burn it all down. She wants anarchy and she’s got my vote.

Rom: Felt’s grandpa <3 well, adoptive, but still. Their cute little found family is actually adorable and I want them to be so happy. He’s also a giant.

Priscilla: She’s such a bitch. But like, it’s also really funny how much of a bitch she is. She was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, and her powers of luck make it so that everything always works out for her, no matter what. Basically she’s just aiming for totalitarianism, for all her whims to always be obeyed

Al: Priscilla’s knight, he’s pretty much just there to give her whatever she wants whenever she wants it. What's the most interesting about him though is that… he’s from earth. Like, our earth. Subaru isn’t the only one. In fact there are at least two historical figures that are also from earth. 

(now for antagonists)

Elsa: The first real threat subaru encounters, elsa is a vampire and assassin who’s been granted the nickname of “the bowel hunter” because of the way she… Well, she rips people’s guts out and loves to watch them die <3

Meili: Elsa’s little assistent, they actually see each other as sisters and care about each other. She’s also more than okay with a little murder despite being like 12, because that’s all she knows. And she has control over monsters which is awesome.

Petelguese: sin archbishop of the witches cult representing sloth. He’s actually out of his mind… But. There’s some legit backstory. All i will say is that his voice actor has some fucking range i swear. Also the way he’s animated is both horrifying and hilarious. Uncanny in just the right loony toons way

Satella: AKA the witch of envy, she’s sort of mysterious, sort of a contradiction.

Echidna: The witch of greed, an amazing manipulator. All she wants is to know everything, her greed is an insatiable thirst for knowledge and she has no morals. 

Minerva: The witch of wrath. What makes her angry? The injustices of a cruel world, pain and suffering, hardship and strife. She’s angry because she cares so much.

Sekhmet: The witch of sloth, she drove a giant dragon (basically deities in legunica) to the other side of the great waterfall (a barrier considered impenetrable, no one knows whats beyond it) just so she could nap.

Daphne: The witch of gluttony, she created all the monsters that inhabit the world. Why? So that no one ever has to go hungry ever again. But she thinks it’s unfair to not give the monsters a chance to eat too.

Typhon: The witch of pride, the young daughter of an executioner. Watching person after person be put to death, she childishly and cruelly began to judge people’s lives on her own. She might be a kid but she’s horrifying. 

Carmilla: The witch of lust, though not in a purely sexual sense. A vampire who was worshiped in her life- people went to war over her. She has no interest in love herself, however she does recognize how important love is and wants to help people realize it too.

Hector: The devil of melancholy, he’s a bit mysterious but the make takeaway is that he has depression.

Pandora: The witch of vanity, and THE most broken character in anything ever. Her powers are literally just speaking shit into existence. She’s like somesort of goddess, and like her namesake she’s trying to open a box right now…

Anyway. 

Trigger warnings

Re:zero is a dark show with some heavy themes, and despite being a deconstruction its also not immune to some of the grosser things abt the isekai genre. Heres my list of things to be weary of (Aside from stuff that wasnt already mentioned) so…

A not insignificant amount of gore. Its not corpse party or anything, but there are guts and eyeballs flying out, as well as plenty of examples of limbs getting cut off or in one case twisted until they break. In the light novel the descriptions of the gore are more graphic. Subaru dies in all kinds of fucked up ways.. As well as the people around him really.

Theres some pretty graphic depictions of self harm, particularly finger mutilation by one of the antagonists. Subaru also has a habit of biting his lip until it bleeds and in the ln its very heavily implied that he cuts himself. And again plenty of his deaths were suicides. 

It’s really not shown on-screen, but one of the antagonists says that when she was a child she was molested by a man while seeking shelter in a snow storm. She killed him though so theres that

Theres also a pretty gross scene (intentionally so) where echidna, a witch character, finds a young roswaal who had literally JUST THROWN UP and starts to… make out with him. Its literally so gross. On multiple levels. In-universe it was supposed to be to help heal him, but on a meta level i think it was just showing us how their dynamic was a bit... yeah. (Also if vomit in general grosses you out, subaru throws up a few times during the series… understandable. He is so so traumatized)

Speaking of roswaal, hes like, 100+ years old now, and ram is 18. and he burned down rem and rams entire village and took them in to work for him when they were kids. And ram STILL has romantic feelings for him. Girl you have stockholm syndrome!!! But at the very least roswaal doesnt reciprocate (as of rn. Hopefully never) and the other characters straight up tell her she has bad taste lol

Also just in general animals and children will die, sometimes brutally, and even though its usually reset it can still be upsetting to watch.

The series also isnt afraid to depict subaru has having Mental Issues. It can be assumed he developed PTSD from the Everything Going On. and its not afraid to show disassociation, especially in arc 6, he more or less develops DID (though a little misdescribed) but with like some fantasy aid. You could also see emilia as having repressed memories but again theres fantasy aspects to it. I dont think depicting these things is bad obviously but i know they can cause some ppl to have episodes. (I dont have DID or anything but for some reason after i read inside mari i was like completely disassociating for days it was weird). 

But what i find the most unpleasant to watch is the “loli” characters in the show. For the most part i dont find it to be that egregious, so i can handle it. but i think the worst example by far is liliana… i honestly dont know if ill be able to watch arc 5 when she’ll actually be on-screen and ill have to look at her like… eugh. Shes 22 but looks like shes 12 and shes in a relationship with a grown man who the other characters call a lolicon. Its genuinely something i hate about the series but like everything else enough that i dont look directly at it (doesnt mean im not conscious and critical though, please dont mistake that as what im saying lol)

There’s gotta be more so I’ll add on if I remember but that’s all I can think of off the top of my head.

Despite all the things that I dislike though you gotta believe me when I say there's stuff I like.. I mean that's what this entire novel was about. This wasn't a an analysis or critique of the show in ANY way, despite how much i wrote i actually feel like i'd be doing it a huge disservice in that regard. No, it's just all the stuff that I like, and on a somewhat surface level too because I didn't want to give EVERYTHING away, though I know I still said a lot!

So yeah! :thumbs_up: if you wanna check it out and the tws dont make you too uncomfortable I say go for it. I understand it's not for everyone and thats okay ^_^

[missypup]

WIP Wednesday

I’m exhausted and cranky but @thejediandthemandalorian tagged me for WIP Wednesday and I’m gonna do it, damn it. (Shhhh it’s totally not past Wednesday in my timezone. Not at all. It’s not Thursday until I go to bed!)

The scene below is from This is the Way Home, but it’s a far way off! It means very little without context lol I’ll also say now that I can’t think of who to tag because I’m very tired. It’s been a long day!

((Sorry I didn’t put a cut in, I’m on mobile rn!))

“What is this place?” Boba asked, flinching against the sudden over-bright lights that switched on at their movement. He noticed that next to him, Shoba didn’t flinch.

Not at the lights, at least. But she did still have the slightest flinch every time he spoke. She tried to hide it, but he knew. Ten years prior, he might have snapped at her for it. Would have snapped at her for it. Now, he just felt a pang of empathy each time.

“The Fighting Corps.” She let out a shaky breath, shaking her head as some emotion welled up in her voice.

Boba had no idea how she was feeling, that wasn’t his expertise. Quite frankly, if Din were here or Skywalker were in the same room as them, he still wouldn’t ask them either. It wasn’t his business. Besides, she didn’t need his sympathy.

“This is the Fighting Corps?” Boba gaped as they proceeded into the next abandoned hall. It was empty, eerie, and surprisingly sterile. “Din’s mentioned it in… passing. It sounded - eerily similar to what I watched the clones go through.”

Shoba paused, as if she had not considered that line of thinking, before she continued on into what looks like a records room. Physical records, Boba noted. “Paz brought me here once. When we first started searching for Djarin. He wasn’t entirely sure where to start looking so I asked if they’d had a home besides Nevarro. His list was… long.”

That fit what Boba knew, too. Din’s tribe had been on the move constantly, fleeing more than fighting. That happened when the constant threat of death loomed overhead. Boba’s Tusken tribe had been similar. The memory twinged something in his chest and made him nod to Shoba to continue speaking.

“But the Fighting Corps seemed a good place to start. And personally, I wanted to see it too. How foundlings were raised by the Children of the Watch. It was somehow nothing and everything I expected at once.” She stooped over a filing cabinet that looked to have been rifled with far more recently than others, looking through for a specific file. “On Mandalore, my sect respected children. We taught them to fight, yes. And defend. But we also let them be children. They were adopted and get to have families, follow the customs and traditions of age…”

Boba looked at the file she produced, his eyes focusing on Din Djarin at the top. It felt like an invasion to even glance at the file head, let alone open it.

He opened it.

“But here in the Fighting Corps - they only had each other. They weren’t raised so much as they were-“

“Trained.” Boba offered to finish.

Shoba clicked her tongue and shrugged, “Bent to break works too.”

At that, Boba flinched. He remembered words of his own father, warning him that only the weak learned to bend, while the strong were as unwavering as the beskar that protected them. He shook his head of the thought and skimmed his fingers along the page, “Din said Kryze called his sect a group of zealots. Judging from this file… She’s not far off.”

Then he turned the page and paused, finding that the handwriting and language changed. He recognized it, in some far off corner of his mind. A language his father had taught him, from his home. Concord Dawn.

“Did you read this page?” He found himself asking, wanting to know how much Shoba and Paz knew before they found them.

“No, it’s in Concordian. Paz didn’t know it either. We caught some words, but the page meant nothing to us without context.” Shoba busied herself with looking through other files idly, though nothing else was of much importance to them. “Can you read it?”

“Mm. My father was from Concord Dawn, it was his first language…” Boba clenched his jaw, scanning over the page again to make sure what he was reading was correct. “They knew Din was Force Sensitive… They, kriff, they trained him as a weapon. A damn weapon. They encouraged him to lean into it. To be rough and destroy things, people. They wanted him to…”

A thick noise started in Boba’s throat, not quite catching it before it was out. Shoba had stopped her searching and looked over at him, obviously concerned. “To what?”

“To use the Darkside.”

[darlingvita]

gentleman jack 2x05 thoughts

I will never shut up about the genius of Sally Wainwright and the way she writes so unapologetically and always with the intention of highlighting the complexity that exists inside of people. I think season 2 of Gentleman Jack is going to polarise people. We are half way through now, and it’s a much harder watch than season 1 (even though s1 certainly had its painful moments too), mostly because this season is centred around the difficulties Anne and Ann face now that they’re married, and navigating the reaction of those around them to their cohabitation. In my opinion, the homophobia (subtle and not so subtle) this season has been the most well-written, well-acted representation of what it’s like to face homophobia as a lesbian that I have ever seen on screen. There are many examples I could use, and I mentioned the homophobia in 2x02 in this post, but nothing emphasised this for me like the last scene in 2x05 when Anne and Ann find out about the homophobic marriage announcement in the newspaper. I mention that a little more here. These moments are gutting, they always hit very close to home, but they are essential in the telling of a true story about lesbians who defied their family’s and society’s expectations and lived as a married couple in the 19th century.

2x05 also tackled head-on the taboo topic of Anne Lister’s politics. I think it was the most explicit portrayal that we have seen so far of her more horrifying side. The show demonstrates Anne’s brave side, her soft side, the things we empathise with, but also the side that make us (at least, as liberal or leftist viewers) extremely uncomfortable and angry, too. It is vital to recognise that she did treat a lot of people badly, particularly Marian in this episode, and her view and treatment of the working class was inexcusable. All of this being said, it also doesn’t take away the importance of her story being told. It is just an uncomfortable truth that adds to the complexity of such a compelling story.

What will always shock me the most about the way this show is written, the way it’s airing on BBC 1 at 9pm, is not only that it is a lesbian story, but it’s a lesbian story that isn’t completely palatable. It has the same grittiness, the same nuance, as any other Sally Wainwright drama that shows both the positives and negatives that can co-exist in both relationships and us as people. In this case, it is telling the story of someone who could be incredibly revolutionary and yet reactionary at the same time. And I think season 2 is doing an absolutely incredible job at that.

[cigsandchampagne]

No one asked for it but here are my thoughts after watching Dont Worry Darling:

I really don’t like Olivia W and I hate this stunt but I’m gonna keep my feeling about that off this and try to take about it as if idk anything about Harry or the stunt.

SPOILERS AHEAD

I’m on mobile so I can’t put it under a cut sorry

So a quick recap. Alice and Jack just moved to a community called Victory. Alice I’d a housewife, Jack works everyday and a technical engineer? Alice starts having weird visions and weird shit starts happening around her. Eventually she starts questioning wtf is going on, what her husband is really doing for work, wtf is up with his boss etc. eventually she realizes her bf Jack has put her in a simulation and that in reality she was an overworked nurse (?) surgeron(?) idk and he’s kind of lame and has no job lol. He put her in a simulation and he gets to live in the real world to make money to pay for the simulation and come back to her for a few hours everyday where they get to live the perfect life. She figures everything out and tries to escape.

I guess I’ll start with things I liked?

The outfits were great. The aesthetic was pretty in general. Florence was great. Chris was great. Gemma was great (scary but great. I always see her in movies as this super Nice, innocent, sweet, etc. but seeing her be a bit more sinister was noiiice, I wish she wasn’t pushed as some random background character and I wish I got to see more of her character fleshed out a bit. She was sexy af.) Harry was good, he played his role well and although there were moments where he over acted a bit or was a bit stiff (I think the scenes where he had an American accent was stiff and I think it’s because he had to use an accent so he wasn’t as natural in those scenes), overall he was a believable Jack.

So here are a few things I had issues with.

There were so many random scenes that didn’t really get tied up. Like, what was up with the empty eggs? This was before everything, literally like 10 mins in. She hadn’t seen Margaret at this point or met Frank. It was just there and then moves back to a normal scene. What happened to the plane? Where did it come from? Was it just a virus or a glitch? Cause Margaret was holding a plane too. Is the plane something people see when they’re starting to question the simulation? They never explain. There was alot of annoying talking over each other that I understand was supposed to make it look like just regular people chattering about going on with their normal lives but I feel like there was alot of unnecessary talking that don’t really push the plot. Lot of random filler scenes for the aesthetic where something else could’ve been added to maybe flesh out other characters more. Speaking of that, Let’s talk about Gemma. I’ve only ever seen her as a “good girl” in other roles so it was really nice to see her play someone who got angry lol. But I wanted to know more about her character. Was she in In on it? Was she the mastermind the entire time? What were her motivations? Her character was interesting and I would’ve loved to have seen more. Bunny’s character was also another weird one. She eventually comes clean and tells Alice that she knows wtf is going on, that she chose this life. Does that mean she put her husband in the simulation? If she did then shouldn’t she be the one leaving everyday? If so then why was he trying to get Alice in the end and protect the secret. Does he also know and just decided that they’ll do this together? Another thing was confused about was the scene where the twist was revealed, the question are asks who their chosen partner is and whether or not they have a relationship outside of the simulation. Does it mean that all the people in there are real life partners or did some random weirdo asshole just kidnap a woman and bring them there to be their wife? Idk that one doesn’t really matter that’s just me overthinking. And back again to Frank and Shelley, are they both free to come and go to the simulation as they please? What about the kids? Are all kids fake or just Bunny’s? Is the pregnant one always pregnant? Or does she eventually have that baby? When Alice was “reset” and came back brand new, how long after that did she remember everything again? Can everyone be reset? Why didn’t they just reset Margaret? What was up with the tap dancing? Was Frank just trying to humiliate Jack? And then ending, we assume that she wakes up because of the sound of her gasping but does that mean she’s free or were there guys waiting for her wherever she was to then take her out in the real world?

Over all, I feel like this movie could’ve been very interesting if it had better writing and directing. There are so many scenes that felt unnecessary that took space for scenes that could’ve tied up some lose ends. The pacing also felt off, we never know how much time passes in between black outs, or just between scenes in general. Specially at the end after she’s been reset. I couldn’t tell if it all took place in a couple weeks or have they been there for years. I’m assuming so considering Jacks hair? If so, how did she get triggered all of a sudden to wake up? Idk I just feel like there are so many unanswered questions and holes in the story that could’ve been answered if they weren’t trying to make the movie look so pretty. At the end of it, o feel like Harry got it right. This movie feels like a movie. If you like watching movies to turn off your brain and suspend disbelief and you aren’t they type to overthink/over analyze, then this movie would be entertaining enough for you. If you’re the type who likes deeper psychological thrillers, then you might end up going “huh?” At the end of the movie.

[imagines4thepeeps]

Sneaking around (Wanda Maximoff x Barnes!reader)

For: @fanficwritersworld

Request:

Hi! Hope your are well! Could you do a Wanda x Barnes! Reader where Reader is Bucky`s daughter and he knows his daughter is gay and with Wanda but she thinks she's being discreet until Bucky juts says 'That's it! Stop flirting and just go leave the room I know u 2 together' or something like that?

A/n: I’m doing my best lol. Written on mobile.

———————————————————————

You rubbed the sleep out of your eyes ,slowly shuffling into the kitchen. You had a movie night planned so you knew you had to actually wake up.

“Good morning, detka,” your beautiful Sokovian greeted, wrapping her slightly muscular arms around you, your back against her front. She placed a kiss on your shoulder, handing you a cup of coffee. You took a light sip, humming in satisfaction. It was just the way you liked it.

“Good morning, Wan,” you sighed leaning back into her, closing your eyes. Then it hit you that you were in the kitchen, where anyone could see you. You moved away from her quickly, spilling some of the precious liquid on the linoleum.

“Calm down (y/n/n), ” she pulled your front against her, now you were face to face with the woman, ” he’s on a run.” you sighed in relief.

“This is still dangerous, ” you whispered in her ear, giving into temptation. You rested your head on her shoulder. She kissed your ear playfully, sending chills down your back.

“ I know, I know, your old fashioned dad and all that, maybe if you actually talked to hi-“ She was cut off my Friday announcing your father’s presence in the compound. You both pulled away, busying yourselves with meaningless tasks. Your dad’s heavy foot steps, distracted you from pretending to add sugar to your, already perfect, coffee.

“Hey doll, are we still on for tonight,” the man asked moving past you to grab a banana. You nodded, doing your best to hide your flushed cheeks. Wanda winked at you then answered.

“About that,” the Sokovian began inching close to you, as if she needed to be closer to you to talk to him,” I was thinking I could join you tonight, only with your permission of course.” Your body froze when Wanda’s hand snaked down to lay on your ass. He hummed, nodding his head, hopefully unable to see.

“That ok with you (y/n)?” He asked in this weird voice he had taken to using with you lately. You just knew it was because of his rising suspicions. He was expecting a confession of guilt, he would not get it. Wanda pinched your ass after a long pause as if to tell you “say something”. It only succeeded in making you jump in surprise and stammer.

“Y-yeah- that’s cool- I guess.”

“Yeah. Real smooth (y/n)” you heard suddenly through your head. Wanda.

“Yeah it’s me..... obviously and stop making that face you’re weirding him out.” You turned your head to see your warped reflection in the toaster. Even contorted, your confused face was readable. You did your best to mend it. Wanda then began to send you an onslaught of dirty thoughts, which to be honest you sent right back. In only about a minute you both were very flustered and acting incredibly strange, to any outside viewer. You dad’s staring problem didn’t help either as you cleared you throat, realizing the situation was becoming even more incriminating.

“Hey dad?” You asked. Wanda lightly slipping out of your mind, you loudly exhaled at the feeling. Which you tried, and failed, to cover up with a yawn,” would you mind picking up some snacks for tonight, it’s been a while since we stocked up.”

You put on your best smile, you could hear Wanda stifle a laugh behind you. You pinched your arm as you fought the laughter that was threatening to rip out of you. In Wanda’s defense the excuse for getting him out was pretty bad. Considering all the shopping was done yesterday and if it wasn’t snacks were a call away.

“Yeah no problem, stay out of trouble when I’m gone ok?” The metal-armed man obliged. “Oh and by the way.” You turned your head from gazing longly in Wanda’s eyes. “You can stop flirting and just leave the room, you are not very good at hiding it.” You face flushed red, embarrassment cascaded through you. Wanda sent calming waves through you, slipping her hand into yours squeezing it for reassurance. Bucky continued,” I know you’re probably scared, don’t be, I love you, and I would be a hypocrite to be mad at something as silly as being gay. I mean considering all the stuff me and Steve did...” he trailed off, as if caught in a memory.

Your eyes widened in shock,” I’m sorry you and Steve did what now?”

[saturnpanther]

Oops sorry I wrote a whole mini fic about yuppies

I’m on mobile and this is long, I’ll fix it when I get to my computer sorry y’all lol (Update I finally got a new laptop yay)

If Craig’s being honest; Stan looks like shit.

He’s slurring his words, stumbling over himself, and it’s clear that the last of his drink was spilled on his button down. The cigarette dangling between his lips should have been ashed about 5 minutes ago, Craig thinks as he takes it out of Stan’s mouth, and crushes it beneath his heel.

It would be kind of funny, charming even if this wasn’t such a regular occurrence. Now Craig is resigned to pity disguised as sympathy.

The day to day the at the firm is fast paced and intense, constant cold calling, kissing ass to clients, kissing ass to an undeserving CEO, and the expectation that everyone stays longer than their coworker. Thank god for the money.

In fact he’s willing to be that’s the only reason Stan is still there. He’s not cut out for the cut throat lifestyle of the trading floor. Stan would be better somewhere where he doesn’t have to pretend like he doesn’t have morals.

For gods sake, Craig was in bed when he got the call from the pay phone outside the bar. It’s embarrassing enough to be begged for a ride from your friend with benefits, and even more so that they have your number memorized.

So here he is, at midnight in the parking lot of the shittiest dive bar in town, supporting Stan’s weight as the well-built male leans into him.

“I can’t believe you came, seriously it means soooo much to me” Stan slurs

“Please be quiet, you’re going to throw up” Craig responds, voice weary.

“No you don’t understand…thank YOU” Stan says again for emphasis, grabbing Craig’s shirt and looking into his eyes.

“Let’s just focus on getting you home”

“I want to come home with YOU!” Stan is trying his best to be flirty now, but the alcohol has rendered his attempts useless.

Craigs first thought is to say “absolutely not”, but on the other hand; he doesn’t know if Stan can even make it into bed, let alone make it into work tomorrow without assistance.

“Yeah, that’s fine. But don’t try anything, i’m just being nice tonight.”

“You’re always nice…so nice” Stan says, nuzzling into the crook of Craig’s shoulder.

Craig finally gets gets Stan into the passenger seat of his BMW; abandoning Stans similar model at the bar to be picked up tomorrow.

Stans previously spirited demeanor is gone now as he sits in silence, head in his hands trying not to throw up on the leather seats. They drive in silence until they reach Craig’s apartment building.

Carefully helping him up the stairs, Craig checks his watch, 12:45. No hope for a productive day at work tomorrow without a pick me up. He’s got his demons on a tighter leash than Stan, but if Stan continues to call him shitfaced on work nights, then his little white powdered vice is going to become a much bigger problem.

He’s got Stan in bed now; after much effort. Craig helps him out of his button down and slacks, more clinical than anything else at this point.

Stan bites his lip and looks up at Craig,

“Oh you want me naked? Why didn’t you just say so” he beacons, pulling at Craigs arm.

“Stan just shut up and go to sleep, you have a meeting with Cartman tomorrow at 9:15

“Cartman can go fuck himself” Stan says, rolling onto his stomach and burying his face in the pillow.

“First solid point you’ve made tonight” Craig mutters. He’s exhausted and the sleep deprivation is hitting him hard.

He strips down to his boxers and crawls into bed. Stan reeks of bourbon, and his body heat next to Craig is almost stifling. His muscular arm is draped across Craig’s waist as they let sleep take over. Craig’s got it bad for Stan, he can put aside the minor discomforts.

“Goodnight Craig” Stan mumbles, almost inaudible.

“Goodnight Stan” Craig’s voice is flat. He hates this, but hates even more that he will always come to Stan’s aid when he needs it.

Craig falls asleep to the sound of Stan’s breathing as he stares up at the ceiling. It’s beginning to be a work hinderance now, whatever they have, but Craig isn’t interested in stopping it anytime soon. If he’s wanted, he’ll be there.

[thefactsofthematter]

tell us about how spot and race’s lives turn out from ur recent fic! (also love ur writing keep up the good work!)

i’m glad u asked dear anon! (and tysm!!)

so i didn’t include any of this in the actual fic bc i wanted readers to draw their own conclusions about what happened, but here’s how i see things going down! it’s a little long since it’s pretty much an entire epilogue spanning their whole lives, so buckle in lol

(i really did try to put this under the cut but tumblr mobile isn’t cooperating and i don’t feel like turning my computer on rn. sorry folks.)

- race’s mental health is pretty rocky for a while immediately after the story ends— he gets a lot of people checking up on him, thinking breaking up with spot was one of his impulsive, manic decisions, and the fact that so many people are questioning his mental state sends him spiralling a little. the stress gets his symptoms to worsen (mania, more persistent and disturbing hallucinations/delusions), especially bad now that he lives alone, and he ends up checking himself into a psych ward after a few months of secretly struggling and pretending to be okay.

- this gets spot to worry immensely when he finds out: they’ve got enough mutual friends that they’re still in the same circles, and now that the initial hurt of the breakup is waning, he’s got a renewed but purely friendly love for race. he doesn’t quite feel ready to see him in person, but he sends flowers to the hospital with a very sweet note, to let race know he’s thinking about him <3

- in the longer term, race gets more stable, finishes his phd, and works his way back up to being more independent, but realizes that he doesn’t trust himself to live alone— he lives with crutchie for a while, and then meets albert through some mutual friends in his early 30s, and they start dating! they live their double-income-no-kids-not-married fantasy for a good while; neither of them are necessarily rich, but they’re stable enough to be able to travel lots and see the world. they’re not quite madly in love, but they make each other pretty happy, and they only separate (after almost a decade together) when albert gets a job offer somewhere across the world— race doesn’t want to move, but al wants to take the job, so they have a very amicable split with an agreement that race will come visit someday.

- in the meantime, spot never does land another long term relationship, but he adopts as a single parent, just like medda adopted him and jack. he raises three kids in a hipster little suburb just outside the city and does his very best— just like race had predicted, he’s an amazing dad. he doesn’t really worry about romance, perfectly content with his little family. he and race keep in touch— the common link usually being jack, as spot’s brother and race’s best friend, who invites them to all his family functions and whatnot. even while race is dating albert, spot isn’t particularly jealous, since he now sees race’s point about their very different ideas for the future much clearer. he’s happy where he’s at, and he’s glad race is happy doing his own thing. they still make very good friends, at the end of the day.

- BUT!!! it’s only when one of spot’s kids starts really struggling with mental health that sprace start growing a little closer— his sixteen year-old daughter is diagnosed with bipolar disorder, so spot’s immediate reaction is to call race up for some insight. race ends up being a really great mentor for her, sharing his coping strategies and giving her someone to relate to, so by consequence, he spends a lot more time with the conlons. spot’s kids are older now, his youngest just starting high school, so he’s finally able to step out of spending every waking minute focusing on being a dad— he’s got a little more time for his own adult relationships.

- cue a couple years of sprace very slowly falling back in love with each other but being too nervous to say it… until spot’s youngest finally asks “so is he, like, our stepdad now? he’s here every other day, and you look at him like you’ve got a crush.” this is enough of a kick in the ass to get him to actually talk to race, who confesses that if spot will have him, he’d really like to get back together. they do, and it’s finally right. they’re well into their forties, but race is at a point where settling into spot’s chiller life feels good, and spot is ready to start stepping back out of his comfort zone now that his kids are pretty much independent, so they can finally balance each other out the way they used to.

- they get married eventually!!! spot couldn’t bear to part with the ring from the first time around, so he re-proposes once they’ve been back together for a while (“my old-ass knees don’t appreciate me getting down like this, so you better say yes this time”) and they have a sweet little backyard wedding, mostly organized by spot’s kids. they’re in their fifties by then, but they’re even more in love than they were in college <333

[dreamrecorder]

Until then, we will find each other again. <||>

fluff & angst drabble, reincarnation au, modern au

| Xiao x Reader | Diluc x Reader |

Note: I'm sorry that I can't put the cut thingy bcos im writing in mobile. Once I get ahold of my laptop I'll put the cut thingy. Happy reading^^ i swear these were supposed to be short but welp

Xiao

Notes: Immortal companion* - Just think of someone immortal from the game. This is also a different take from Venti's and Zhongli's because I honestly think Xiao is so done with immortality and its consequences.

Suicide implicitly mentioned.**

Xiao is mourning for the passing of his immortal companion*, making him the last immortal to walk the world. Now, it is he, who last remains from a time of gods and monsters. Each passing of a mutual, he witnessed. They deemed it was their time to move on, for humanity has succeeded to bring fate into their own two hands. The world no longer needed them.

Xiao has already suffered loss way before the Archon War. Yet, he never expressed the emotion of grief for he needed to be strong lest the world will eat him alive. However, this passing made his heart of glass, chip a little, then shattering the whole thing altogether. Or perhaps, it was already chipped away and too fragile because of the losses that has culminated in his immortal life.

Now, he lays on the roof of a building of what used to be Wangshu Inn. He was trying hard not to break down again. By doing so, he merely cursed fate over and over again. Yet, to no avail, the man exploded in tears once more, too tired from all the pain and loss suffered from millenias.

Then... there's you. You who uttered the words, "Until then, we will find each other again."

With all sincerity he can muster, he wanted to believe those words. He wanted to believe in you. That's why he stayed. Yet... the pain he feels heavily overweighs his faith in you.

**

He just wants to... end it all.

"I just want to disappear..."

**

No one heard him utter those words, only the wind. And the wind- just as once the Anemo Archon had said, carries the words one thinks no one can hear.

It came like a whisper, yet loud and clear. Then all of a sudden, the memories of your previous life flashed before your eyes. You dropped the book you were holding and held your temples at the incoming migraine.

"Are you alright?" You friends asked in worry, looking for any visible signs of pain aside from your clenched eyes and your frowning expression.

You could only groan as a reply and your friends waited for you to take your time to recollect yourself.

Who... Whose voice? You knew this voice... But who?

You finally removed your hands and opened your eyes.

"I- I have to go... Go without me." Was all you said before leaving your friends in the dust who looked at your way with confusion.

Who? Many questions riddled your mind. And with all these unanswered, worry and anxiety grew in your heart. Tears began to swell in your eyes, worsening your headache.

This is not about you! You have to look for... something! Someone! Just-

"Dear gods, please please don't you dare fucking take him..."

You sprinted around the area, following and listening to that now faint whisper under the night. The whispers only became clearer and louder when you approached a building which used to be an inn.

The moment you stepped foot within the building, the lone whisper became mixed with more words which did not lift your heart.

Fuck.

With pure adrenaline, you opted to use the stairs instead of the damn elevator. You have finally reached the door leading to the rooftop, and at that point, the whispers became screams. However, when your hand grasped the handle, the voice in the wind stopped. You opened the door at full to be met by the back of the man who stands at the railing.

Xiao...?

Xiao..

Xiao.

"Xiao!"

At the call of his name by a familiar voice, his head whipped to its direction. But he shall not be fooled.

"You... you're not real."

The words along with lifeless eyes stabbed you.

"It's me, Xiao! Y/n! Don't do this! I'm sorry I took so long! But I'm here now! Just as I had promised!"

Your heart was beating against your ribcage. You had to prove you were real. But how?

"You're just an illusion made by my heart."

"Xiao, please! Fuck I'm really sorry! But please you don't have to do this... I... I remember everything, Xiao... All those times we battled in the war. Those times we shared almond tofu. The times we smiled, cried, laughed, and fought...

I remember everything..."

For each word you uttered, you grew confident in your memories. For each word, you took a step closer. For each word, you saw life coming back to the man you love.

"So please... Come back..."

At the final word, you released all your sincerity, genuity, and adoration for him. And finally, your hands took purchase in his (while trying so hard not to shed any tear for his sake).

"It's me."

...

"Y/n...?"

You beamed at him and finally, Xiao's eyes were now shining in clarity, and of course, life and love.

Diluc has been reincarnated many times, yet still has not found you. Through his reincarnated forms, he alternated between travelling and staying in Mondstadt. The former done in order to find you. The latter done in the chance you would find him there.

Diluc

For the first time in his many lifetimes, his current form surprised him. When he reached 'sixteen', his memories resurfaced and the realization sank in. His appearance ended just as how he looked in his first ever lifetime. The only difference was the length of his hair. He even ended up being reincarnated in the Ragnvindr Family along with inheriting the winery business.

To put it bluntly, walking within the old yet maintained Ragnvindr Mansion was a memory lane. However, the moment of reminiscence only gave him a heavy heart, for within these halls used to be filled with your laughter.

In this very same spot where he currently stands, is where you uttered your last words.

"Until then, we will find each other again."

Walking aimlessly around the mansion, he thinks about those long, long years without you. Must be fate so cruel? Making him search far and wide, when in the end fate does not want you to return to him? The man clenched his fists, and in anger, punched the nearby wall.

He expected a bursting kind of pain to come, yet what came was a dull throb on his knuckles. Yet this is not only what he had not expected. He did not expect for the wall to respond with a resounding hollowness.

A hidden corridor? Room? When had the family installed this?

Curiosity held him and began kicking the hollow wall without hesitation. What secrets does it hide from all these years, he shall know. Once the wall opened up for him to fit, he entered with a lit phone in hand at extreme brightness.

Again, what he saw, he had not expected. What he saw both filled and emptied his heart simultaneously. What he saw was a painting of you and him, together in a moment of shared happiness.

"Dilu-" His mother called which snapped out of his trance. His head snapped at her direction and saw her eyes fill with solemness.

"I didn't mean to-"

His mother hushed him with a gentle smile and entered the room to stand alongside him.

"You know," his mother began, "I always believed in the fantasy that had been once in our world. Lord Barbatos, the other Archons, the Twins that saved our world, Visions, and... reincarnation. I always believed in them.

The moment I saw your features when you were born, I knew you were the reincarnation of the Uncrowned King of Mondstadt... So I named you after him because I knew your memories would resurface someday. I knew the day would come when my son will no longer be my son. Because when that day comes, all I would see in your eyes is a long unspoken wisdom and pain that will replace your innocence free from battles and war."

Diluc was surprised, yet kept his emotions to himself. He understood what his mother was pointing at. "Is... Is this why this picture is hidden?"

His mother nodded solemnly. "Perhaps, I was afraid and scared about when the day I spoke of will take place. That's why I ordered this painting be hidden. I knew this painting of you and Lady Y/n will unlock your memories sooner, but I didn't want that."

For once in his lifetimes, his heart softened with love. The kind of love that assures you that someone cares for you. Never in his reincarnated lifetimes, had he experienced this feeling. All those years, he was just... lost in the feelings and thoughts of not being with you.

The man stepped towards his mother with hesitation to which he instantly erased. He hugged his mother with a soft spoken voice saying these words.

"I will always be your son and you will always be my mother. That will never change. I may be 'older' than you, but please do remember that I would not have grown to who am I today without your guidance. For that, I deeply thank you for taking care of me...

I love you, Mom."

With his words, his mother burst into light tears accompanied by a smile. "Don't make me cry, I'm going to wrinkle." Diluc laughed at the comment. After a loving moment, the two separated yet his mother still held onto his arms.

"You've grown so much... I guess little birds do leave the nest someday."

"It wouldn't be possible without you."

His mother looked at him with a proud gaze, "Go. Find her. If memory serves right, I might have seen someone like her dwell everyday in the local library."

The man released his breath he never knew he was holding. Diluc hugged his mom again with a peck on her cheek. He then let go and began to exit the room with haste.

"Once I come home, I will tell you everything. Venti, Morax, the Twin Travelers, the Archons, and Visions. I will tell you everything."

With a rush, Diluc was now out of sight. Yet, the Madam Ragnvindr was not saddened. Her heart swelled for her son whose eyes are finally, once more lit with happiness. However, who's Venti?

A/n: welp truth be told diluc's story took an unexpected turn lol. It's either I'm going to leave this like that or continue it. Take your pick by commenting because I'm actually fine with either options haha happy reading <3

[bluebuckstallion]

the sun will rise again - mlp fic

part two this is part one! part two and so on will be updated/reblogged when they are out! contents: aj and big mac are like. 13 and 15. big mac realizes she is a trans woman, and is guided by applejack, but there is much more to it than just that lol. its also a little hard for her. sappy, feel-good, tough internal conflict but overall happy fic. paragraph one is previewed here, the rest is below the cut! (note: i am aware my blog makes posts a little hard to read bc of a glitch, i am trying to fix it at the moment, i apologize D: i rec reading it on tumblr mobile or highlighting the words as you read, im sorry!)

-

Big Mac shuffled his hooves awkwardly. Racing thoughts fought furiously, cluttering his hurting head, and he put a weary hoof against his temple in an attempt to clear the fog. No avail. It was as strong as ever, the rushing current of rip tide sweeping him in the more he struggled. He insisted he'd never felt this way before, trying violently to shake away the thought, it made him shudder. But deep down somewhere he knew, he couldn't hide this strong feeling he'd become so familiar with. It felt like home, but he was trapped inside with the windows boarded and the floorboards were so old they were making him fall through with every step, and there were thick dusty cobwebs everywhere he tried to rest his burdened hooves. He couldn't leave. Outside of his overflowing head, there was a faint knocking at his door, though he had tuned it out completely. His thoughts whirled, and everything was making *so* much noise, the ceiling fan, the electricity in the walls, the birds outside, even the trees being rustled by the evening wind. Everything was so loud, and so muffled and far away, so close and inside his ears, they twitched eagerly trying to bat the harsh noise away, all collected into one horrid ear-piercing amalgamation of staticy sound. His fur was disturbed by his blankets, and his teeth felt uncomfortable as they grit desperately in an attempt to relax, his eyes were dry despite how much and how hard he was blinking, it felt like even the smallest thing would throw him overboard in this thundering storm of unsettlement. -

The knocking got louder. "Big Mac!" The sound was lost in the chaos of it all, but it prevailed. "Big Mac!" There it was again. It didn't quite reach him yet, though. But my, was it there. Incessant. Pounding. Oh, the headache of it all. Just adding to the pile. It hesitated. "Big Mac." The gentle coo reached him, piercing through the overwhelmingly loud silence in the air, he felt this odd choking sensation in his throat when he registered the voice, so familiar and so loving. But would it continue to be after this? The thought scared him. Fear struck his spine in striking bolts, waves of dread sulked, creeping in and making their nest in his aching body. He was so tired of coming back to this again and again, but it plagued his mind like a cold. He realized his internal monologue had been ongoing - even though it hadn't really spoke - but alas he had been lost in his own downward spiral of paranoia again, and had forgotten to respond. "Yu- uh- eeyup?" he stuttered out like he was drowning, he felt and sounded like a silly foal learning to walk for the first time again. He pushed his hoof lightly against his throat, shocked at his own lack of voice. Usually he was calm and confident, knowing what he wanted to say, despite how little it ever was. However he feared this would give way to his sister finding out, that she would know something was awry with him. "Can I, uh, come in?" the voice questioned. He nodded, then processed he had forgotten to use his words, and managed a sheepish "Yup." "Uh, okay." She responded equally as softly, her voice leaving a tinge of confusion to be interpreted. Applejack trotted in, her hooves making the wood beneath her creak as the old house settled. She nudged the door shut behind her nonchalantly with her back hoof, not taking her gaze off of what was ahead of her. She made a gesture towards Big Mac's bed and tilted her head, knowing he was a horse of few words, moreso when he got this way. And goodness, how he could manage to get into his own head. Applejack understood the feeling, more than he was letting on. Applejack got up and sat down awkwardly, glancing at her hooves as they, too, dragged over one another slowly, she never did like eye contact. Big Mac was more fidgety - he was straight-up restless, as he clapped his hooves together ceaselessly, clicking them atop one another with a hard "Clink." The silence was substantial, but it wasn't like it bothered them, usually. It drove Big Mac up the wall, he was sweating buckets thinking about what Applejack could possibly say. *Did she find out? Does she know? Does she hate me? She hates you. She knows and she hates you. She'll never forgive you. She'll never see you the same-* his thoughts were cut off abruptly. "So, big brother," she chuckled stiffly, "what's on your mind?" Blunt and to the point. She looked upward briefly, catching a glimpse of his face, caught in an uncomfortable twist as his mouth hung downward and his eyes sunk, staring blankly ahead. Neither of them looked at the other, but this again, was not unusual. When she said 'brother,' the word stung like a mosquito bite. It was barely there, but just enough to irritate him. And it grew bigger the more he picked away at it and gave it the time of day. Maybe if he just ignored it it'd heal itself, he thought. Her words in general hung high above his head, and he had forgotten to respond with the way he was over-analyzing it a million different ways inside. What was on his mind, besides this scary, burning question gnawing him alive? He gave a lackluster response to divert any inkling of anxiety, "Oh, nothing," and with that he kicked his back hooves loosely up, and they swung back down heavily in the empty air. What else could he say? The silence sat for a couple of seconds. Too long for Applejack's liking, she was growing a bit impatient with his lack of answers. She looked up and moved her head upward in tune with her eyes, rolling her head from one shoulder to the other as her lips pouted and she let out a quick exhale. She looked down at her teetering hooves again. "Nothing..." she repeated, tapping her hooves together about three times, give or take, she wasn't paying attention. "Oookay.." she said in a quiet tone, and the cadence in her voice had shifted after this minute or two of waiting. She scratched the back of her ear. "Well, if you won't tell me, I'll figure it out myself." She looked up and beamed what was supposed to be a reassuring smile, which came out rather awkward. It fell just as awkwardly. She wasn't the best at conveying emotion, but neither was Big Mac. They had that in common. "Ok, I'll spit it out, rapid-fire," she said funnily, holding her hooves up and moving one in front of the other and back again in tune with the quirky enunciation of the last word. If nothing else, she was making an attempt to lift his low spirit. She inhaled, "Is it about me? About Ma or Pa? *Granny?* Baby Bloom?" and with that she exhaled overexaggeratedly. It took a second, but the half-smile she had faded from her face as he stood there saying nothing, simply folding one hoof over his other arm, rubbing it rigidly and looking away, and what she hoped was not true, had hit her. It was about himself. "Oh.. brother," she whispered to him, "You can tell me anything," she reached her hoof up toward him, pulling it back when it was halfway there as she winced at his lack of response, not even a lean-in to her gesture, but she continued anyway. She gingerly put her hoof on his shoulder. Becoming more confident with her comforting, she rubbed his back gently. "So it's about you?" He took a second, and nodded somberly. "Hey, that's alright. Tell me what's on your mind for real now, when you're ready. If, you're ready." AJ's voice, he found, was quite calming. Big Mac shot a glance at her timidly, then down at her hooves, and back up at her, but he couldn't look too long in order to stop the waterworks from coming. He gulped dryly and looked at the wall, and after the ceiling. He watched the fan dodder decrepitly, but so sure of itself, it's purpose, rotating on it's axis, again, and again, and again. He wished he could be so sure of himself, he wasn't sure if he ever could be, though. And here, he found himself envying the rotating of a ceiling fan. What an interesting moment, he thought sarcastically to himself. Was this really where he was at? He zoned out briefly, watching the blades go in circles, and then snapped himself back to reality with a hard blink, a downward motion of his head, and a squeezing of his hooves. "I..." he started softly and then trailed off. He sighed in dejection. "I- Well, I am me. But... I'm not. I look in the mirror, and it's not me looking back. I know that sounds... stupid, but it's not me. It's not like it isn't who I am, it's just not me. And I, don't know why. I mean I think I do, but I don't - sometimes-" He took a second to collect himself and inhaled, exhaling sharply after, he put his hoof firmly against his chest, as if almost trying to coax the words out. "I'm me, but I'm not. I'm not who I'm meant to be, I, I was born wrong. My body is wrong," he shook his head, like trying to shake the bad thoughts away. "It's not mine. I was born with something wrong about me, outside, inside I'm me, but outside I'm not. But - I'm not bad or anything, it's just that there was something different. And, you know that funny feeling of those butterflies in your tummy when someone you like says your name? I'll get that, but I won't recognize my name as mine, but I do get that feeling when...ponies accidentally call me what they call fillies, even though they don't mean to and fix 'emselves right after, and they act like it's so wrong, but I still get that funny feeling of, goodness. It catches me off guard in the best way... my heart skips a beat. And I know I'm s'posed to like girls, but there was something wrong about me lovin' 'em... it feels like. I feel real guilty-like when I start getting all lovey about one. It feels like I'm not allowed, like there's somethin'.."  he teared up, "different. About me." He emphasized the last word quite significantly. He began to finish, not wordvomitting as much as he was before, instead saying it slowly, as if he was really trying hard to get his thoughts out. "I- I think, I think if I were born in the right body I'd be happier, but I don't want to change me, I just...want to change how people *see me."* Applejack raised her eyebrows and looked down, pushing her hooves together. She couldn't move, and she didn't. Big Mac's welling up had turned to a tear, gently rolling down his cheek. He held his breath, eyes darting back and forth from his sister's gaze - or lack thereof. Applejack held her breath as well. "Big mac, well - gosh." she let out staggeredly, anxiously chuckling, raising her hoof to her chest as she exhaled bluntly. Big Mac felt it coming, Roaring and Crashing. The water was surrounding him still, no matter how subtle it was before, it had been growing this whole time. Internal dread multiplying like a bilious bacteria, out to get him and cover him in it's killing spores. It must've been at least neck-high now. AJ chuckled, "Big Mac, I love you no matter what. You're my family." She looked him in the eyes, "It's gonna be ok." And there was the straw that broke the camel's back. It came through gently, like a soft breeze through his hair in summer, but it broke him so, so ruthlessly. He bit at his bottom lip and released, his mouth turning to a shaky U-shaped frown, and he bawled. Oh, how he bawled. He lunged for his sister's arms, which quickly opened for him to land in. Applejack huffed as the wind left her with his impact, but she regained control of herself and softly smiled, tenderly hugging him back. His head rested on hers, as hers on his. "It's alright big guy," she laughed. "In fact, I think I know exactly what's up." She pushed him off cautiously, and held her hoof against his shoulder. His tears subsided slightly, he wiped them with a trembling hoof. "Have you ever thought that maybe you feel like you're in the wrong body, because you're really a mare? I know nobody sees you that way right now, but I could start if that's who you really are." Big mac's pupils constricted, and he felt a leap in his chest. A mare? He tried so hard to push it out, but he couldn't. A mare. A mare! He let out a small smile, "A mare..." he then promptly shook his head. "But, I can't be. I wish it was that easy, that I could just be a mare, oh I wish so bad AJ," he put his hooves together and shook them, like he was pleading. He pushed her hoof off of him, sighing and speaking again, his voice cracking from the tears and raw emotion, "But I never could. I couldn't. I wish I could, but I'm not allowed to." he sighed defeatedly. Applejack chuckled, "Says who? All it takes is you saying you can. And I'll be honest, I feel like a lot of people don't give it much thought whether they want to be a mare or not - they just are." It all clicked. They, just are. He processed it for a second, and thought, and the thoughts slipped into words, "I'm a mare," he whispered. He smiled, the most genuine smile he'd ever shown. "I'm, a mare." He laughed, looking at Applejack. "A mare! I'm a mare!" His smile faded slightly, "But Applejack, am I still allowed to like other fillies? I figure now I'll have to like colts, that's what I've heard at least, and I really don't want to-" despite his concerns, he still looked quite euphoric. Applejack laughed again, "No, Big Mac, you can still like mares. It doesn't work that way I'm pretty sure." She rubbed the back of her head, "If it's any help, you can do whatever you want... What feels right." She closed her mouth and grinned, waving her hoof in the air dismissively of any negativity, her eyes in the other direction. Stopping, she looked at the ground and fiddled her hooves, "I, I actually know a lot about how you're feeling," she spoke nervously, cautiously, dancing around her words like she had something she didn't want to admit to herself as well. "I, know how you feel - about liking mares and, and the wrong body an' stuff. Feeling like your body isn't yours, it doesn't belong to you and never will, unless you make a big change, or somethin'. I get it. I feel wrong when people say I'm a girl, but I don't reckon I'd feel right with them callin' me a boy or something either - I don't think I really feel like either." She paused, cutting herself off, "I don't expect that to make sense to you, I know it's kind of weird and all." Big Mac thought for a bit, and then nodded, "No, I get it. I mean - I don't, but, I know you're you, no matter what, and I don't care who you are, you're still my sibling." Big Mac smiled nervously, trying to make sure he was doing the right thing. "And you're my sister, Big Mac," Applejack smiled back at him. "Now, how do you feel about me calling you by girl terms? Like, sayin' she, and stuff..." she struggled to think of an example. "Oh! Like, if I meet someone, I'll tell 'em "Oh Big Mac? She's my big sister!" Applejack let out a wide twinkling grin, feeling confident and proud with supporting her sister's feelings. "I, I like that." Big Mac said shyly, and she did. "Wait, how do I do the same for you?" she questioned. Applejack stalled, she really didn't think she'd get this far. "I think... I really like being called he, and brother and such. Although to be honest I'm not your sister and I'm not really your brother, and I still like other fillies - but I'm not one of them, or not in the same way, and - I don't know, it's a little confusing. I think the only way that I'm a filly is in the sense that I'm a mare who likes other mares. I don't really know what any of this is called," he voiced embarrassedly. "I wish I did." Big Mac smirked, "It's okay you don't, I don't know either. And we can learn together, little brother." She fluffed Applejack's hair playfully and her smirk became a toothy smile. Applejack laughed and joined her smiling. "Thanks," he said, quite gratefully. "To be honest, I've known this for a really long time, I just didn't know how to say it," he looked out the window longingly, "I wish I knew how to tell Ma and Pa, or Granny," he laughed a little, "and I don't even know how to tell a baby," he uttered, trying to lighten the mood a little after bringing it back down. Big mac grinned, "Why don't we go out to the orchard, little brother?"

[prettywordsyouleft]

The Cowboy - Part 9

Summary: Leaving the city for a rural area called Blayne seemed simple enough. Your task was to convince the people to agree with selling their land for a resort redevelopment. But once there, you soon realise that your city ways are entirely different to theirs. Winning their trust was going to take some effort, and when you start to fall for a local cowboy, you wonder if you really needed Blayne more than the city life after all.

Pairing: Jung Jaehyun x female reader

Genre: cowboy au / drama / romance / if you squint there’s some enemies to lovers up in here.

Warnings: Jung Jaehyun is a cowboy, need I say more? (a bit of angst and drama, and it sometimes might feel like you’re reading a Nicolas Sparks book, so I’m told lol)

Word count: 2332

This series will be updated every Thursday and Friday.

Preview | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

“Just one more,” you murmured, pressing your lips into Jaehyun’s before he could object.

He didn’t hesitate to kiss you back, chuckling softly when he separated. “You’ll have me late if you keep this up.”

“It’s not even light out yet,” you complained groggily, your hands blindly searching for a place to anchor onto.

“That’s the point. I need to get home, so I’m back in time to start the day when dawn arrives,” he reminded, reaching for those travelling hands and taking hold of them.

Your eyes had since adjusted to the dim lighting in the bedroom, and you noticed the embers from last night hadn’t yet been put out within Jaehyun’s gaze. You stoked the fire a little more, shifting your leg to nudge his.

Jaehyun groaned. “You’re tempting fate, Y/N.”

“I’m attempting something,” you mentioned demurely and shook your hands that Jaehyun still held.

“Not even my Mum has made me turn up on that yard late, I’ll have you know. I can’t be having you ruin my good reputation.”

You pouted, but nodded the further your slumber rolled away and your mind became alert. Unhooking your leg from his, you sighed. “Your career is important. Go be the best cowboy you can be.”

“You’re so cute, you know that?” he breathed, grinning from your supportive statement.

“I aim to be everything you need,” you announced and Jaehyun, who had pulled himself to the side of the bed and reached for his jeans, halted his movement, glancing over his shoulder in thought at you. You reached for your hair, assuming he was taking in your abominable morning state. “What? Do I look ugly?”

“No. You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever laid my eyes upon.”

“You better go before my heart starts ruling over this head of mine and I take back about being supportive of your needs and aim to satisfy mine,” you confessed, and Jaehyun shook his head, discarding his attempt to leave and kicked his pants off.

Crawling back to you, he gathered you up in his arms, a giggle leaving you when his hands brushed along your sensitive sides. Once fully captured within his arms, he kissed you passionately.

“Even if I’m late, you’re well worth putting in the extra effort this morning with.”

After Jaehyun had gone, with a final kiss exchanged at your front door and a warning about not answering the door looking like that to anyone but him, you headed back to your bed, nestling in under the warm covers in just one of Jaehyun’s t-shirts.

You were extremely happy right now.

And had been for the past month too. Everything was working well. You woke up most mornings feeling warm and appreciated, kissing Jaehyun off to work before eventually getting up and starting your own. You so far had acquired two signatures of landowners in Blayne over your proposal for redevelopment and was certain you’d have three more by mid next week.

You had chosen to go this path first before confronting Mr Jung with your proposition. Word travelled all too easily in these parts for you to rely on what was spoken was kept confidential. Part of you hoped for this to happen. If you got enough people talking about the redevelopment positively, you believed that would shape the head of the town’s opinion too.

It was a gamble, though, and the longer you spent racking up other names and parts of the land as opposed to the one Pierce instructed you to get meant you would be running out of time to convince Jaehyun’s father if he initially rejected your proposal.

You had confidence in your decision.

And that confidence clearly shone in other ways now too. “You know, I haven’t seen you this dressed down since you came to Blayne, Y/N.”

Glancing up at May as you stopped in for lunch with Reg, one of the landowners you were meeting with, you laughed lightly. “I’ll take it as a compliment.”

“You finally look like one of us, is what she means,” Dorothy, from the table over, chimed and you grinned at her.

“Do I? I wonder how I managed that, being a city-slicker and all.”

“I don’t think it’s about how, but rather whom,” May concluded, and you bit your bottom lip, trying not to smile with the image of Jaehyun surfacing in your mind.

“We had it pegged that it’d be Avery,” Reg chortled, and you spluttered on the water you had taken in, looking up and apologising profusely. The older man held out his hand to May. “Well, it’s not him. Pay up.”

“Not my boy? Surely it’s him that has you enjoying Blayne. Out of us all, he’s the most understanding to newcomers.”

“Are you making bets on my relationship status?” you asked, and the patrons of the diner all chuckled in one way or another. “Well, I’m sorry May, but I’m not dating Avery.”

“You didn’t deny dating someone else,” Josie, the only waitress, piped up and there was immediate silence as everyone stared at you.

“I’m dating Blayne,” you answered cheekily, and they all groaned with protest. “What? Call me a sucker for what I’m trying to do out here, but this place has changed me.”

You left out the part about a certain cowboy that had as well.

Word travelled too fast around this place.

“Avery is disappointed, you know,” Jaehyun mentioned when he stepped through the front door of your home later that evening. You glanced up at his arrival, dropping your laptop onto the couch and moved into Jaehyun’s waiting embrace.

After kissing Jaehyun in greeting, you smirked. “Word sure doesn’t struggle to get around here yet mobile data does.”

“You completely ruled my cousin off your it-list. The elders are scrambling about trying to figure who’s left to catch your fancy.”

“Have they suggested you at all?”

Jaehyun grinned and shook his head. “Not Jung’s boy.”

“Because you’re so exclusive.”

“I’m destined to marry a Blayne Belle, apparently.”

“So you’re either going to wait another six years until Melody is legal or pick up Josie? I mean, she looks great for forty.”

“Don’t!” Jaehyun exclaimed, encircling your waist with his palms. They felt hot against your barely covered skin. “Where are your clothes by the way?”

“I’m used to the summer weather being removed by air conditioning in my apartment,” you admitted, gesturing to your singlet and shorts with a sly smile. “And this is more than what I had on when you last saw me.”

“Wicked woman,” he stated and went over to a panel on the wall.

You followed Jaehyun and pointed at it. “I tried to turn it on, but it’s ancient and doesn’t have any instructions.”

“You’d be lost without your damn instructions, wouldn’t you?” he teased, and you rolled your eyes, peering around him to inspect his efforts.

“Do you know where the toolbox is in the truck?” he soon asked, and you nodded. “Can you get it for me?”

“Why, are you going to be Mr Handyman instead of Mr Cowboy to me now? Perhaps Avery might be a better option after all.”

“Har-har. If you want to learn how hellish this summer is going to get in the countryside when the heatwave hits next week then-”

“Toolbox. Onto it!” you cried, dashing outside into the humid evening and over to Jaehyun’s truck. After spotting it nestled just behind the passenger seat, you went to reach for it but stopped, your eyes travelling to the papers sitting on the chair you had just leaned over.

Picking them up, you read the contents and returned inside with the toolbox in a daze. “Thanks, Miss City. I’ll have you feeling cool in no time.”

“Were you going to tell me about the rodeo tour?” you queried in a small voice a moment later, and Jaehyun stopped looking through the box for what he needed and up at you.

He shot you one of his lopsided smiles, though his eyes were hesitant. “You’re concerned already? The rodeo season is basically over for this year, don’t worry.”

“I know. This is for next season, but the qualifiers are tomorrow.”

“I was planning on telling you tonight.” Standing back up and wiping his hands on his jeans, Jaehyun gauged your expression. “You know I do them from time to time. Old Joey from the county over popped by and offered me a horse to ride. It’s a real nice horse, gave him a test-”

“What about Blaze? What will he think?” you cut in and Jaehyun frowned. “He’s your riding horse.”

“He’s a work horse. And horses don’t really get offended if you ride another. You’re being weird about this.”

“I’m just confused. This morning I woke up thinking this weekend we’ll be going to the farmer’s market and maybe ride over to the lake and take a swim or something. Now I’m going to be on the sidelines of some rodeo? What do they call them? Rodeo Bunnies? Don’t expect me to become one.”

Jaehyun laughed heartily, scooping you up into his arms in a warm embrace. “You’re coming?”

“Of course. I have to.”

“Why?”

“Why are you asking why? I’m supportive of your endeavours,” you answered, puzzled by the smile spreading Jaehyun’s lips out further. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like a girlfriend would support me?”

“Girlfriend?” you echoed and let out an awkward laugh.

“Is it more for you now, Miss City? A whole month of you and me having this secret rendezvous and you might be feeling something deeper than my skin for me, huh?”

“Do-don’t you have to fix the air-con? It’s hot in here.”

“Stifling.”

“And if you’re going to some rodeo thing, don’t we need to sleep early or something?”

“Are you flustered, Y/N? You’re awfully good at not answering my question.”

“What question was that now?” you diverted, slipping out from under his strong arms and over to the toolbox. “Which one do you need?”

“All of you. That’s all I need,” Jaehyun confirmed, coming back to your side, kissing the top of your head before taking the tool you held in your left hand and got to work.

You arrived on the Jung’s property around six the following morning, travelling in your car separately. Whilst June was aware of your ruse, and no doubt Avery had strong suspicions, Jaehyun had asked to keep your relationship on the low for now. At first, you had agreed. You had a job to complete and complicating that with personal affections could ruin your credibility.

Still, it was hard to keep your hands off of Jaehyun when he came out from his room above the stables. “Wow, you know I’ve been calling you a cowboy from day one because of the hat and boots but I didn’t realise just how much this shirt was missing from the picture until now.”

Jaehyun glanced at his rodeo shirt, tassels and all, before shooting you an embarrassed smile. “Get a real good look at it today, Miss City. I don’t dress up like this often.”

“Another reason why he’s single, I’m sure,” his father gruffly mentioned, patting his son on the shoulder. You realised the older man was proud for some reason. All this time, you assumed he only cared for Jaehyun by the level of work he did around the farm.

Perhaps that was because Jaehyun was adamant that was all he cared about. However, as you watched the interaction fondly, you realised the man had a lot of love for his son. Jaehyun mentioned he had been on the sure-fire track to going pro as a teen on the rodeo circuit last night. You wondered if Mr Jung wanted that for him and felt guilty for needing him to help on the farm.

Either way, it warmed your heart to see a nervous Jaehyun, and his father equally acting out of character for once.

“Don’t you go worrying about marriage for our son today,” June fussed, straightening out Jaehyun’s collar as you had been itching to do. She smiled up at him. “Come home in one piece.”

“Of course, he will. We can’t be having Y/N’s first rodeo dashed with any hospital visits,” Avery commented, arriving at your side and slinging an arm over your shoulder. “You and I need to do some talking about the earful I got from my mother last night.”

You giggled awkwardly. “I’m sorry about that.”

“You’ll be sorry when they start trying to hook you up with all the eligible men in Blayne. Dorothy is convinced you’d suit her boy, Jacob.”

Jaehyun snorted. “Y/N’s a little too high maintenance for Jacob.”

“Am I now?” you retorted, waving off Jaehyun’s parents who were staying behind to look after the farm. Hopping into the cab of Jaehyun’s truck and looking at Avery who got in after you, you scoffed loudly. “If I was too much high maintenance, I’d recommend we take my vehicle over this one. At least, I’d be convinced we’d get there on time, for one.”

Jaehyun glared at Avery’s somewhat stifled snort before patting the steering wheel of the truck. “Don’t you worry. This old beauty of mine will get us there with ease. It’s you we have to concern ourselves over.”

“Me?” you wondered, and Avery nodded. “Why me?”

“Rodeos are a whole other world, Y/N. I bet you won’t be ready for what’s about to happen.”

“It’s people riding horses and taking on cows or something with ropes. I’ve seen it on TV,” you assured the cousins, who looked at one another with loose grins forming.

“She’s not ready for this.”

“Nope. Not a chance.”

“Would you two just shut up, and Jaehyun, start driving. Watch me prove how-”

“Adaptable you are,” both boys chimed, and you rolled your eyes, trying not to smile as Jaehyun finally threw the truck into reverse and headed down the driveway towards your first rodeo.

_________________

Part 10

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[venteamocha]

Thanks so much for the IF recs! I'd absolutely take a second post of recommendations for Twine games too if you're willing to share! <3

Of course!!

I... actually like twine games better than cog based ones, in some ways, just because they tend to be fancier and prettier, and I am secretly a ferret in the body of a human and I love shinies. ADHD, baby!

I only actually know of like 12 twine games, so if there are any that anyone who sees this knows of that I didn’t list, feel free to let me know about them! There’s a chance I do know about them and just didn’t put them here, but I would rather hear one I already know of on the off chance that I’ll get a new one dropped in.

That said! Another list of games I really like that is again in no particular order!

They’re all on itch.io by the way! They tend to work better if you download them but most can be run in your browser and most are also mobile friendly so you can play them on your phone! I’ll note which ones are.

Scout: An Apocalypse Story: I love dystopia stories, I dearly wish we had more IF based in this kind of setting. Set in a wasteland that is trying to pull itself together with people trying to find out if other settlements are out there while also trying to, well, stay alive. I gotta say, I played only E’s route for a long, long time, but once I tried the other ones I haven’t really gone back. I still love E, you can pry the childhood friend trope out of my cold dead hands, but wow. Oliver. Wow. That dude has serious UST. And Sabine!! I’ve been forced out of my little “play it the same way every time” rut and I’m not sorry. I very much like that you can choose the intimacy level, as someone who’s ace. Sometimes I like reading the smut, sometimes I don’t. Options! (mobile friendly!)

Bad Ritual: I got it baaaaaaaaaad~ I do though, I love Siruud. I have terrible, terrible taste in men. I mentioned Dracula in the other list, and here there’s an actual demon. This is a game with *sass* and I always love a chance to be sassy. I think part of the reason I resonate so much with this one is because of how jaded retail has made me tbh but that’s another story.  Honestly, if you like dark settings, I recommend you play this one first of all my recommendations. It’s just such a good game and there are so many choices and even the pronoun choices are pretty varied.  It’s just good! (mobile friendly!)

Wayfarer: Another for the fantasy list! I love the worldbuilding in this one, and the character creator is just amazing. There are maps, there’s a codex, seriously if you love reading lore, this is definitely a game for you. This is like if Tolkien made an IF. It’s amazing. I’ve said that a few times but it’s true. In all honesty it might count as one that’s not so romance focused, since it does focus more on plot. If I could just sit down and make an IF, I’d want it to be like this tbh. With a beautiful framework, a well organized space of information for the players to just look at and see stuff about the world, a way to develop and build their own character in a clear cut way, and the game immediately tells you what stats are effected by what choices. I really enjoy it when games try to work in character creation in creative ways, but sometimes I just want to sit down and go, “Okay, my character has red hair, blue eyes, is short, and has a crippling phobia of lizards” and this game lets me do that. Well, except for the lizard part. (Not as mobile friendly as the others but I make it work!)

Love and Friendship: It’s a regency game and I love Pride and Prejudice. What can I say? Something about the massive amount of rules of society just gets me. Propriety! This is a game that has a set gender protagonist, female, and it actually is a bit different from the norm in that it has two female love interests and one male, when most of the time it’s the other way around. So that’s something. You can even have a platonic route with a fourth love interest, who is also male. There really aren’t enough platonic routes, but I understand why that is, since a lot of IF players are looking for romance. (mobile friendly!)

Exiled From Court: Also a bit of the same vibe simply because of how constrained everyone is by rules. Nobility, after all. There are a lot of love interests, and one is the MC’s sister’s husband, which is definitely gonna be scandalous. Will I do it? Will I? Eventually. I do like how you can act like an absolute hellion, well, as far as that goes considering. You can try to be a better person but that’s less fun, lol. (mobile friendly!)

A Tale of Crowns: This is literally one of the very first twine games I ever played. Really! It’s got a lot of wonderful intrigue and the setting is very fun. There aren’t a ton of fantasy middle eastern games, and this game is definitely one reason why we should have more. There’s a great deal of customization, and the love interests’ gender will changed based on your MC’s gender and sexuality combination. I like R & D best, and no that’s not a pun. I think. (mobile friendly!)

For the Crown: This is a different game, I swear, they just both happen to have crown in the title, lol. You get to play as an assassin, which is a great deal of fun. The lore in the game is very nice too. I tend to play with they/them pronouns though, and there were a few pronoun hiccups in the game. Seems to be an issue across all of the games made by this author, but I know how much of a pain variables can be so hopefully those will get squashed soon. There’s an explicit content choice in this one as well, and if you turn it on there is an “equipment” choice, so this is definitely gonna be spicy later on! (mobile friendly, but after each chapter the browser shifts as it auto saves. you just have to tap restore game to keep playing.)

-These games aren’t exactly twine games, but I’m putting them here because they’re visual novels that fit the IF format for the most part and are also on itch.io and I love them and for this post at least I will bend my own rules! They all have gender choice MCs and are nonbinary friendly.-

Perfumare: This game is actually being made into an IF, with the visual novel as a sort of preview of what we’re gonna get there. I literally cannot wait for that to happen, this game is so good as it is, and from what we’ve been told it’s only gonna get better. This game has an excellent world, the characters are all messy in the best ways, and ugh it has hurt me quite a bit, again in the best way.  It’s another one on the dark side of things. The powers in this game are just so fun, I dearly want a game set in this world where we can choose what powers we have! Maybe that will be in the IF, but I have a feeling the answer is no. We’ve been teased that there will be a second game with a different MC who will get to romance the characters we can’t in this one, and that alone is enough to get me to jump as soon as it drops. The love interests aren’t gender variable but there are two male ones and one female. I, a known mess, recommend Laurent for lots of repression and pain. (not mobile friendly, you gotta play on desktop/laptop)

Andromeda Six: I’ve recommended this one to pretty much everyone I know, it is such an excellent game. The cast is a mashup of misfits and makes me miss my Mass Effect crews. I specifically set my pronouns to she/her just so they’d all call me Princess. What can I say, I like it. There’s lots of pain, lots of drama, lots of world building, lots of interesting lore, and there is much breaking of cuties. Much. Can’t wait till we get to the next planet. The author has gone out of their way to say that each love interest is gonna get their own arc and will definitely get their own share of attention, so no matter who you pick you’ll have plenty of time to be with them and watch them shine. (not mobile friendly, gotta play on desktop/laptop)

When the Night Comes: Not only do you get to play a badass hunter but it has multiple poly routes! Multiple! It’s rare when you get one poly in a game, this one has three! You can also choose to romance any of them individually if you so choose. It’s dark fantasy gothic, and I really really like that. (not mobile friendly, gotta play on desktop/laptop)

Errant Kingdom: Made from the same dev as WTNC, this one is set in a more fantasy middle eastern setting. Very pretty, lots of intrigue. You can choose between three set protagonists, who can have three different storylines depending on your choices, which is very nice for replayability. It’s got two poly routes this time, and it works the same as their other game in that you can romance them individually if you’d rather be monogamous. (not mobile friendly, gotta play on desktop/laptop)

[gallickingun]

May I request a Praise kink! Dom! Mirio x Reader drabble that doesn't use Sunshine as a nickname? (My mom's name is Sunshine and I feel icky about being called it){I'm sorry if this breaks a rule in your ask system but I can't access them from mobile}

a/n: of course! i didn’t do as much size kink with this one and focused more on the praise. i hope you like it! 💕 also when did i become a mirio blog like damn this is so long lol 

tw: praise kink; soft dom!mirio; daddy kink (i’m sO SORRY I CAN’T HELP IT); sub!reader; fingering; oral; kinda a crybaby reader? idk if that’s a tw now, but i did want to just put it here!

ps, reminder that ~drabble requests~ are open! currently accepting for bnha, haikyuu, jujutsu kaisen, a:tla, & dragon ball!

“That’s it,” Mirio’s voice is like honey in your ears, dripping down your spine to pool in your stomach, settling hot and heavy against your insides. He kisses your cheek and leans back on his thighs to watch where his fingers have speared your cunt wide open, “That’s my girl, look at how pretty you are all laid out for me.”

He pauses, and then tilts his head, blue eyes swirling with something akin to frantic worry, “It is just for me, i’nnit baby?”

“Y-Yeah, yeah!” You squeeze your eyes shut so hard it pushes your tears from your ducts, and a moan is ripped from your lungs as his second knuckles push deeper into your swollen lips. When you get your bearings straight, and are able to look him in the eye again, your lower lip is wobbling but you manage to push more words out despite yourself, “J-Just for you, T-Toga-”

Mirio cuts your stuttering sentence short with a warm, firm kiss to your lips. His mouth is searing hot, and your noses bump when he presses too eagerly into you. Your jaw falls slack as his digits piston forward, thick and slick, and nearly rip another orgasm from your belly while his mouth is preoccupied with your bared neck.

You know that there will be dozens of marks littered across your body in the morning, but you don’t have the wherewithal to tell him to quit. Your skin is simmering with a wanton heat, insatiable in your need to have him closer, closer, closer. It’s concerning how no matter how many times he helps you fall apart, you’re still yearning for more. 

He huffs out a breath, releasing the cleft of skin he had captured between his teeth so he can look down at you - breathless and beautiful and begging, still - and that beautiful grin overtakes his features, stretching pink lips to bare beautiful pearlescent teeth. You reach a palm up out of instinct alone, a wobbly elbow barely able to hold you anything close to steady, “I-I love you, Togata, I l-love, I love you.”

Mirio tils his head so he can kiss you on the wrist. Your pulse point stutters underneath his mouth and he revels in the knowledge that only he has the capability to wear you down in such a way that has you pleading for another piece of his soul, as if yours might not be whole without him there to fill the gaps. He sighs, warm breath spilling down the length of your forearm and driving a shiver up your spine.

“I love you, too, sweetheart,” his voice is gravelly, like it hurts to push out the words, but he repeats them regardless, this time looking into your glassy eyes so you know he’s telling you the truth. He smiles again, turning so his cheek is pressed fully into your palm, “You’re doing so good, such a good girl. You think you’re ready for me, now?”

The nodding of your head is a mix of frantic and eager, your pupils blown wide as your mouth parts out of lascivious desire alone. His expression softens at your fervor, dimples fading as he shifts his hips so he’s positioned between your knees. Mirio’s knuckles slowly drag out of you, scissored slightly so your precious walls will not be fooled into thinking the onslaught is over. No, it has only just begun; Mirio does nothing in small measures, including the heft that is sported between his hips.

Your little hand reaches forward out of pure need and you can barely wrap your digits around him fully, but that does not stop you from trying. He hums out a laugh that sounds curiously like fondness, and then kisses your knee, pushing it further away so your cunt is butterflied open, lips slightly parted so he can see the depths of your body for himself. You grunt, bent forward at an odd angle so you can watch the sanguine cockhead bulge under your ministrations. Mirio’s chest shakes with a moan, eyelids threatening to slip closed when he feels your soft palm envelope his shaft.

“P-Princess,” he rests his forehead against your knee, hiding his sapphire irises from your gaze. You love the way the nickname tumbles from his lips, so you push the pillow under your shoulder blades to aid in your actions of leaning forward so you can wrap both hands around his dick, thumbing at the veins and the darkened shaft, watching closely as the pre drools from his tip. You lick your lips and Mirio watches your pinkened tongue part your teeth to expose itself and your intentions.

“Please?” you beg, eyes wide and fingers needy. You tongue the air in front of you, the tip of your muscle pointed with the way you flex it, “W-Wanna be good for you, make you feel good!”

His canine tooth catches the corner of his mouth, a flash of pain shown in his bright eyes, but it subsides when he sees how badly you want to prove to him that you could devour him whole if only he’d give you the chance.

“You’re being so good,” he murmurs, dipping his head down to kiss you on the mouth, thumb finding your clit as he sandwiches his thick forearm between your torsos. You mewl, kicking your feet at the newfound jolts of pleasure making their way up your body with each circling of the pad of his finger against that sweet, soft bundle of nerves you keep hidden from everyone but him. Mirio volleys teeth and tongue and lips back and forth with you while you both focus on one another’s sensitive spots, your hands flicking upward against the head of his dick before slowly shifting back down, squeezing him at different points to elicit those salacious moans from the depths of his chest. And his fingerprints drag along the soft folds that are tucked between your hips, never pushing too deep, but reminding you that he’s near and ready whenever you ask to bring forth yet another crashing wave of pleasure if only you just ask him to. 

He nips your lower lip and then kisses the corner of your mouth, blinking slowly so he can look you in the eyes, “Such a perfect little one for me, yeah? You’re so pretty and sweet and soft, fuck you’re soft. These cute lips and that adorable cunt. You’re so wet for me, sweetheart.”

All you can do is nod, words negligible at this point. You know he doesn’t need your assurances anyway. You tilt your chin so you can reach his mouth again, whining against his lips as your wrist angles to drag over the thick head of his cock one last time before you part.

“I want to taste you, Daddy,” your voice is small, mouth pulled into a pout that he pulls back to examine while he stills his fingers against your labia, slick and dripping onto the sheets beneath him. Mirio sighs, his cock twitching at the thought of your delicate mouth wrapped around whatever bit of him you’re able to swallow.

“C’mere,” he turns his body so he’s laid back on the mattress, arm tucked behind his head as he guides you with his free hand against the back of your neck. He thumbs at the skin there, rough fingers nothing but gentle while he handles you. You note each scar on his body as you trail your fingers over his skin, waiting as he settles into the plush down of the mattress. Your head finds his hip, one leg slung over his calf so your cunt is bared to his knee, if you wish to grind down on it. The heel of your hand rests on his thigh, near his balls, and your fingertips ache to reach between the thickest parts of him to touch what is usually hidden to the world, but always bared to you.

“Be careful, baby,” Mirio’s voice is a warning, “don’t hurt yourself.”

Oh, that sounds like a challenge if there ever were one. 

You part your lips and lick at the tip of his cock, drooling with a pearlescent bead of pre, saltine and delectable. Your eyelids shutter closed simultaneously with the moan that shakes Mirio’s entire body. His hand digs deeper into your neck on either side, fingers buzzing with the need to push your precious mouth down until your face is buried into the vee of his hips and your mouth is drooling around his cock. He withholds himself, though, knowing that you need to prove to yourself what you can do with whatever parts of your body you wish to use.

One hand stays wrapped around the base of him, your eyes near crossing as you watch the blushing tip of his cock tremble under your gaze. You look up for his permission, hazy eyes somehow finding him, and you wait for him to nod before you begin to suckle on the head of his dick. The corded muscles of his thighs are shuddering with each bob of your head, his abdomen muscles flexing as he restrains himself from pushing you too far.

“That’s’a good girl,” he grits his teeth with each syllable, tilting his jaw so he can watch your eyes water with how you try to take too much to start. You choke and gag when you attempt to put your nose to his blonde curls, the tip of him brushing your uvula and dragging out your gag reflex. Tears soak your cheeks and drool dribbles down either corner of your mouth, and Mirio has to guide your face away from his cock before you try to go again in spite of your reaction.

After a few more attempts to draw your mouth down to the base of his cock unsuccessfully, Mirio lets out a patronizing chuckle, dragging you by the neck so you won’t continue your assault and make yourself sick. Your thighs latch around his leg, cunt dripping on his knee, begging like a child for him to let you go so you can prove something to him.

“Stop it.”

You blink once, looking him in the eyes, “B-But-”

“What did I say?”

A fresh set of tears stain your cheeks and the sheets, and Mirio gathers you up in his arms and sits forward so you’re tucked against his lap, “Feel that?” He’s talking about the way his cock bobs against your belly, bubbling with arousal and begging to be sheathed inside of you. He noses your cheek, “You did that. All you, baby. With that pretty mouth and those sweet hands. You did such a good job. Such a good girl for me, yeah?” 

You whine, dropping your head to his shoulder but keeping your head lilted so you can look down at his dick, watching as it twitches with every move that you make. You want to reach your hands down to take him between your fingers, to push him over the edge as he’s already done for you three times tonight. You want to give him everything he’s gifted you and so much more.

“I know what you want, honey,” he’s quiet but in the emptiness of your room it feels so loud. Each word sends a shockwave to your core and you shiver at the sound, “W-Want you, Daddy. Just want you.”

“I know, baby,” and this time it is almost sad the way he says it. He takes a deep breath and tilts your head with his thumb beneath your chin, “Let me take care of you, okay? You took such good care of me, now it’s your turn.”

He wordlessly hauls you up by the waist with minimal effort, and looks you in the eyes, “I want you to guide me, okay? I want you to show me where you want me.”

You nod and reach down so your hands are wrapped around the very end of his cock, bobbing your fingers up and down just to milk what’s left of the sweet spurt of pre so his tip is drooling, and then you position his dick so it will split your cunt in two. Slowly, Mirio drops you down, watching your hands fall away so he can get an eyeful of his cock as it spreads your lips and disappears, inch by inch into your sweet, slippery pussy. 

“That’s my girl,” he grunts, allowing you to fall forward so your hands are on his chest, bracing you before you take his entire length up into your stomach. Tears surface on your lids and he’s quick to kiss the corners of your eyes until they’re gone, “Sweet girl, don’t cry. You’re doing so good for me. I can’t wait to fuck this perfect cunt, can’t wait to give you all I’ve got.”

“Want it, Daddy, want it! I-I can take it! P-Promise-” You sob as you try to roll your hips, but his palms are steady against your body, which only makes you more frustrated that he won’t let you show him that you can be a good girl, that you can take his cock and do it well. 

Mirio is a sunbeam incarnate, all light and shine, warmth and something husky that reminds you of a sunny afternoon. So when he speaks, you listen, and you take each of his words and run them through your gummy mind until you’re sure you’ve heard him right.

“I know you can, baby girl,” he rotates your hips with the heels of his palms and you gasp as he spears you wide open, “You can do anything you set your mind to. But let go, and let Daddy take care of you this time, okay?”

Your whimpering is cut short when you feel the head of his cock brush your cervix and whatever comes next you can hardly remember except the sound of his name on your lips and the way he burns you alive only to soothe the ache when it’s all over hours later into the night.

[yelena-bellova]

Don’t Be Afraid: Poe Dameron x Solo!Reader - Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Four: Rebellions Are Built On Hope

Series Masterlist

Plot: With First Order troops ambushing the party, Y/n, Finn and Poe must find a way out, but not without getting the list.

Warnings: blood, injuries, talk of death

Word Count: 7.7k

A/N: SO this is two days overdue. While I’ve liked keeping a schedule for posting chapters, it’s just not working for me any longer. Life has gotten a bit busier and to be honest, I write much better when I’m not on a deadline. The last thing I want is for this series to suffer because I feel that I don’t have enough time to make it the best it can be. I’ll try to update every week but if it takes longer because I feel it needs more work, then it needs more work. Anyway, this one is long and I’m posting from my mobile so I can’t add a ‘keep reading’ so many apologies to the scrollers lol. I hope you enjoy it!!

————

Blaster smoke and the scent of saltwater filled the air. Furniture was overturned to create barriers for guests who had also snuck in weapons. Shattered glass littered the floor. You’d never have guessed that minutes prior the room had been the pinnacle of elegance.

Poe grabbed my hand while Finn shielded me protectively as we crouched and moved through the room. It took work to avoid being caught in the crossfire that showed no signs of ceasing, even with losses on both sides. With each death, including Hasadar Shu’s, I had to fight the now familiar overwhelming sensation in my body.

“We need to find Sura and Charth,” I gritted out as I focused on taking deep breaths.

“We need to find a couple of blasters.” Finn remarked.

“Both,” Poe replied, “Both would be good.”

With every step we took, I felt the lightsaber make contact with my other leg. Even Poe and Finn didn’t have weaponry, we were still protected.

“Look!” Finn exclaimed and took the lead. We followed him and I spotted Sura, ducked behind a waterfall with a blaster in hand. We cautiously made our way to her as we dodged startled guests and blaster fire.

“Where’s Charth?” Poe panted after we’d safely made it to her.

As she inhaled to answer, a shot was fired just above her heads. We ducked just as the rocks it hit crumbled around us.

“He went for the ship,” Sura answered, “What happened?”

“They must have found out about the auction,” Poe nodded towards Sura’s stolen Stromtrooper blaster, “Don’t suppose you have another one of those?”

“Go get your own. I did.” Sura grinned.

“Hold on,” I put a hand to Poe’s chest to stop him, “I’ve got my lightsaber, I can protect us.”

“Too risky,” Poe shook his head, “They’ll recognize you immediately and then we’re in real trouble.”

He was right. The story of my stand on Crait was galaxy wide now and I had no doubt that Ren had the entire First Order searching for me. I was as good as dead if I brought my saber out now.

“Cover him,” I begrudgingly told Sura who proceeded to step out from behind our shelter. She fired at the trooper closest to us and once he was down, Finn jumped out and grabbed the weapon. He ran and hid behind a column a few feet away, going us an affirmative nod. 

“We can’t leave yet,” Poe stated, “We’ve got to get the list.”

“The list is lost,” Sura replied quickly, “We’ve got to get out of here alive.”

“Negative,” I countered, “There’s got to-“


Before I could finish, the lights cut out and we were cast into total darkness. I felt Poe shift me so I was pressed firmly against the rock of the waterfall with him acting as a human shield.

“Okay, what now?” I asked, watching small lights on the floor turn on. They weren’t enough to see any attackers so they were essentially useless.

“At least that damn ocean holo is off,” Sura remarked, which while true was of very little comfort.

As I was trying to make out any shapes out in the dark that I could, I caught a white light on the move near us. I caught the sight of Nifera Shu bolting up the staircase, her shell dress and the glowing of the eel around her neck lit her path.

“Sura, grab Finn and Charth and go find the ship,” I instructed, “Poe, you’re with me.”

“What? Where are you two going?” she asked.

“To get the list.”

I took Poe’s hand and carefully maneuvered us through the dark, doing my best to avoid bumping into anyone. Once I’d pulled us to the staircase, the floor lights came in handy as we were able to climb the steps fast. Once we got to the second story, there truly was zero light. Since no troopers had made it up yet, I unholstered my saber and ignited it so we could see ahead. There was a faint voice coming from nearby, we followed it to find Nifera on one of the balconies.

“Nifera!” Poe shouted, I deactivated my saber and clipped it back onto my thigh holster.

The frightened woman spun around and faced us, comlink in hand. “They killed my husband,” she breathed, barely audible, “They murdered Hasadar in front of me. In front of everyone.”

“I know,” I said sympathetically, as Poe and I raised our arms to show we meant no harm, “Because of the list.”

“Because of the Collective,” Poe stated. I came to the same conclusion only seconds after he had. The eel that rested on Nifera’s neck looked eerily similar to the snake we’d seen on the holo.

“Because of me,” she whined, her voice breaking with emotion.

“And I’m sorry, Nifera, but if I had to take a guess, they’re coming for you next.” I presumed just before something on the ground floor collapsed. Whatever had fallen was strong enough to shake the second story. Nifera clutched onto the railing while Poe and I hit each wall shoulder-first. I would have been fine had it not been my injured shoulder. I cried out upon impact and Poe rushed to my side, not that he could help the deep ache or the possibility that I’d popped a stitch.

“I’ve got to get out of here,” Nifera panicked, she tried to use her comlink again.

“They’ve blocked your signal,” Poe guessed as we watched her failed attempt at trying to escape.

“No,” she said anxiously, “I dropped it when they shot. I-I think it’s broken.”

“What about the list?” I asked with almost as much anxiety in my voice as in hers.

“Here,” she answered as she patted her eel’s head. She pressed its jaw open and I spotted a datachip sitting on its tongue.

“We can get you out of here,” Poe said as he took a cautious step towards her, “We’ve got a ship.”

“The Resistance?” she asked, her eyes flicking between the two of us, That is you you’re with, Lorell? Sola?”

We nodded in response.

“And what will it cost me?”

Poe jutted his chin out toward the eel, she caught our drift immediately. She didn’t look thrilled at the prospect, but at the sound of footsteps behind us, the mood shifted to urgent. Nifera’s eyes widened as she saw something over our shoulders, they were coming for her and by association, they were coming for us too.

“You’re running out of time,” I urged, “Trust me when I say coming with us is a more attractive choice than how the First Order will treat you. Do we have a deal?”

“Deal,” she nodded.

“Great,” Poe replied as the two of us moved to the edge of the balcony. We looked over the railing and saw there was a large pool, seeing that we were tailed by the First Order we didn’t have any other option for escape. 


“How deep is that water?” Poe inquired.

“I-I have no idea.” Nifera answered shakily.

Poe climbed over the railing and helped us both over, “Let’s find out.” I gripped his hand tightly and spared him a wary look, he didn’t look any more confidant than I felt.

There was no time to think, we jumped.

In seconds, we were engulfed in the freezing cold water but I lost my grip on Poe. The first thing I did was look for him and Nifera, I couldn’t spot them because of how dark it was. I felt around the general area but couldn’t feel either of them. How far could they possibly sunk when we were right next to each other? Panic grew in my body as I waved my arms wildly around me, unsuccessful in finding them. I blindly swam towards the top, if I was going to have to search for them I’d need more oxygen to do so. When I hit the surface, I drew a deep breath and frantically looked around for Poe. Not half a second later, he emerged with a loud gasp and Nifera next to him.

From behind me, a pair of hands pulled me out of the pool and onto the grass. I looked up to see Sura shaking her head at me. “You’re insane,” she chuckled, “And that’s me saying that.”

“I jumped into a pool, you jumped into a gladiatorial ring,” I panted as she pulled me to my feet. I reached through the slit of my dress and felt relieved as I felt my lightsaber still secured.

Finn pulled Poe out while Sura and I helped Nifera, it took two people thanks to the heavy shell dress. It was a wonder she hadn’t been dragged under. 

“Your necklace!” Poe cried, looking at Nifera’s bare neck. She dipped her arm into the pool and the eel slithered its way up her arm and rested again on her neck. The datachip was safe.

“Cute trick,” Sura commented.

“A better trick would be to tell me we have a way out of here,” Poe said, still trying to catch his breath. Finn and I helped him onto his feet, “Where’s Charth?”

“Headed back to us, no luck on the ship,” Sura reported, “It’s locked down tight, the whole landing dock surrounded by stormtroopers.”

“Sola,” Nifera said, grabbing my wrist, “I thought you and your husband were going to get me out of here.”

“We are,” I affirmed, taking hold of her arm “We’re just going to have to get creative with how.”

“Well, I suggest we do it quick,” Sura said firmly, “I figure we only have a few minutes before we’ve got our own contingent of troopers to deal with.”

That was true, the First Order would have noticed by now that Nifera was nowhere to be found. They would begin searching the grounds of the house soon.

“What about Wedge?” Finn suggested.

“Go on,” Poe said with a nod of his head.

“He’s here, right?” Finn continued, “And he’s got a ship. We get to him, we got a ship, too.”

“Brilliant,” Poe said with a smile, “Now all we need to know is where he is.”

“I’ll hail Connix back on Ryloth,” Suralinda said, pulling her comlink out of her dress pocket, “Maybe she can pinpoint Wedge’s position.”

“What’s going on?” Nifera asked, distrust spreading across her face, “Who is Wedge? And who are you...really?”

Finn stepped forward and placed a hand on her arm, “We’re with the Resistance, ma’am. And we’re here to help.”

“Lorell and Sola said as much on the balcony, and you with your starbird pin.” Nifera recalled, stroking her eel, “But if you think I’m one of you, you’re mistaken. The Collective doesn’t support any government.”

“We’re a far cry from a government,” I said, “We’re more like…”

Where I couldn’t find the correct words to describe us, Poe could. “A rag-tag group of heroes.”


“Heroes?” Nifera echoed with a raised eyebrow, “I suppose that remains to be seen.”

Sura turned back to us, “Okay, I’ve got coordinates on Wedge’s team, but we need to hurry. They’re on the move.”

“What about Charth?” I asked.

“He’ll meet us on the way.”

Nifera’s eyes bounced between me and Poe, the two people she felt comfortable talking to in the group. “Where are we heading?”

“Corellian Engineering Corporation.” Poe answered, “Do you know the direction?”

“I do.” Nifera nodded.

“Lead the way,” I said, she guided our group away from her home. Poe, Sura and I brought up the rear of the group, Sura placed a hand on each of our arms and slowed our pace. 


“Something wrong?” Poe asked.

“I didn’t want to say more in front of Nifera, but there’s trouble on Ryloth,” Sura said quietly.

Fear struck through me like lightning, every worst case scenario to the situation filling my mind. “What’s wrong? Is everyone okay? Leia?”

“Connix didn’t go into detail, but she said they are evacuating.” Sura explained, “I’m sorry I don’t have more information.”

I tried to steel my nerves, there was no time to delve too deep into my worry. Even so, I couldn’t stop the thoughts of my mother or Rey being struck down from seeping into my mind.

“We’ve got to get back,” Poe said, his voice was hardened to hide his own anxiety.

“And we will,“ Sura said confidently, “We’re trying. We need a ship for that. So we stick to the plan, get off this planet, and go rescue our people.”

I shook my head and kept my gaze locked ahead, “It’s never that easy. Not for us at least.”

————

We hurried through the darkened Coronet City, taking back roads and sneaking between buildings while praying we didn’t run into any First Order officers. Poe and I in our shared knowledge of what was transpiring on Ryloth had unknowingly quickened our pace and ended up at the front of our group with Nifera. I was ready to curse whoever had designed the high heels I was wearing but then again, I don’t think they had been designed for running. 

“That’s it up ahead,” Nifera said, pointing to a series of buildings and a very large hanger.

I gripped Poe’s hand tighter as we approached, “I don’t see our friends.”

“Wait,” Poe squinted and leaned forward, “I see ‘em. Up ahead to the right.”

I looked to where he was pointing, spotting the figure in the distance waving wildly at us. I couldn’t tell who it was but it was highly doubtful the First Order would be so enthusiastic about our arrival. We picked up the pace until we could clearly make out that it was our team. Wedge came forward and hugged Poe tightly.

“We sure are glad to see you,” Poe said over Wedge’s shoulder, “Thought we’d lost our ride for a while there.”

"What happened?” Wedge asked as he released Poe to embrace me.

“First Order ambushed the party,” I said, holding onto my family friend, “The port was shut down so we lost Charth’s ship.”

“It’s a small thing,” the Twi’lek reassured from behind us, “We got what we came for.”

“This list?” Norra Wexley asked from beside her husband.

Poe motioned for Nifera to come forward, “This is Nifera Shu. She has the list. We get her off the planet, she gives us the list.”

“Do you know there’s a water serpent on your neck?” Teza Nasz asked, gesturing to the eel.

“Yes,” Nifera confirmed with a polite smile.

“Okay,” Nasz replied, lifting her hands, “Just checking.”

“Everyone accounted for,” Norra spoke up, “Time to get the hell off this planet.”

I nodded in agreement, “How are we doing that?”

“Stormtroopers ahead,” Snap reported.

“How many?” Poe asked.

“Sixty,” Snap answered, “Maybe more. They’re guarding the entrance to the shipyard.”

“As if we were expected?” Poe guessed.

“Our luck was bound to run out,” Wedge said unhappily. “Yama,” he nodded for a young girl who came to stand next to Teza Nasz, “Is there another way around?”


The apparent First Order officer turned ally thought for a second before pointing back to a sky tower, “We can go through the building. But the halls are narrow and there’s a lift and a checkpoint.”

“So our best bet is entering here,” Wedge said as he turned to Poe and I, “Only we need a way to get past the troopers?”

“Create a distraction,” Norra suggested, “Wedge and I can lead them off while the rest of you get through.”

“No guarantee they follow you,” Snap objected, the worry was plain as day on his face. He didn’t want to subject his mother and Wedge to that potential fate.

“We’ll make it worth their while,” Norra stated confidently, “We’ll go in the way Yama said. We’ll make a lot of noise, make them think we’re bringing in the prisoners that way.”

“Mom…” Snap protested.

“We only need to split them. If we can get even half of them to follow us-”

“That’s still two against thirty.”

“Snap,” Poe broke the argument between mother and son, “It’s not a bad idea.”

“Then I’ll go,” Snap suggested in desperation, though he seemed to already know it was a lost cause to fight.

I sunk my teeth into my bottom lip and prepared myself for Poe’s immediate objection, but even that couldn’t stop me. “No, I’ll stay with them.”

Poe’s head whipped around to me, “What? No, Y/n-“

“You just said it’s a good idea,” I spoke over him, “And I’m not leaving them to fend for themselves. You guys have more than enough reinforcements to get the ships, I’m of more use here. Better three against sixty than two. There’s no argument to be made here, Dameron.”

Poe sighed as I threw his words back at him. He rubbed his hands over his face in frustration and moaned in frustration into them. He knew I was right just as Snap knew Norra had been. I wasn’t about to let two older pilots fight alone while we went with an oversupply of people to gather ships. As Snap was finally giving into Wedge and Norra’s decision to stay and sharing an emotional moment with the two, Poe silently nodded his head in agreement toward me. I tenderly placed a hand on his arm, he in turn pulled me roughly into his body with an arm around my back and crashed my lips to his. I grasped onto his still soaking wet tuxedo jacket to steady myself. It wasn’t a goodbye kiss, but it was one that had it been our last time together, it would have been appropriate. But I had too much faith in us to believe that a few Stormtroopers was what was going to separate us.

As we reluctantly broke apart, Poe kept his lips hovering over mine. “Stay alive, Solo.” he whispered huskily.

I took a shaky breath, it had been one hell of a kiss. “You too, flyboy.”

“Go,” Poe let go of me and looked to Wedge, “We’ll make our move when we see the troopers split. See you on the other side.”

————

It hadn’t been difficult to get the troopers to start shooting at us. The entire battalion was laying down fire and as much as I didn’t want to admit it, things were going to become dire within a few minutes. Wedge only had one back up blaster, Norra had none and all I had was my lightsaber. Once they were out, I was our sole defender.

“How long do you think we can hold?” Wedge asked after narrowly dodged a shot.

“Long as we need to,” Norra responded as she leaned out from behind our makeshift shelter to fire a few shots.

“What happens after that? I can’t promise I can take out all of them by myself.” I asked, the two legendary pilots shared a knowing look that I was not a part of.

“Guess this is what I get for wanting to be a hero,” Wedge laughed.

“Since when have you wanted to be a hero?” Nora chuckled.

I peeked out from our structure to deflect a few hits, a couple bounced off my saber and back at the troopers. “You’ve always been a hero in my book, Wedge.”

He smiled down at me when the two of us ducked again, “You’re more of a hero than I’ll ever be, Solo. Han and Luke would be proud of you.”

Would they? Would my father be proud of me for being caught in a fight with sixty stormtroopers on the home planet he’d hated? I highly doubted it but I took Wedge’s compliment regardless.

“There!” Norra said from her position, Wedge and I peered over the barricade to see the rest of our team. They had collected the prisoners and were running them through the hanger. It looked like they were splitting up, I could see Karé, Teza Nasz and Charth taking those who were injured and extremely weak to an Imperial shuttle while Finn, Nifera and Snap led the rest of the group headed for a large blockade runner. However, we were visibly missing two people.

“Where’s Poe?” Wedge asked, voicing my thoughts before I could, “And Suralinda?”

“I don’t see them,” my voice wavered with concern.

“They can take care of themselves,” Nora assured us, “Keep shooting. We’re almost out but we’re not there yet.”

If there was one thing I could admire about Snap’s mother, she didn’t give up. She was one of those women who you could tell would fight until she physically couldn’t and even then, she’d find a way to keep going. She reminded me so much of Mom.

“Solo,” Norra said as she spared a quick glance at me, “Why are you bleeding?”

“What?” I asked confusedly before realization hit and I looked down to my shoulder. My deep crimson blood had mixed with the water still on my body, probably making the wound look worse than it was. I quickly pulled aside the material of my dress to see that I had indeed popped a stitch. Between hitting the wall back at the Shu’s and the action of using my saber had done it. I was in no danger of major blood loss, even if I had been it wouldn’t matter. My sole focus was on the fight at hand. “It’s fine, keep going.”

Wedge came out from behind the shelter to fire only for his blaster to fail. As he was reaching for his backup, a shot came from a trooper that hit him. He yelled out in pain and clutched his arm as he fell to the ground.

“Wedge!” Norra cried, crawling over to where her husband lay. In true badass fashion, she aimed and took out the trooper who had laid Wedge out before coming to his side.

I’d be damned if I was going to let Wedge’s injury go unpunished. I could see out of the corner of my eye that Norra was handing Wedge his backup blaster. After being assured that he was okay for now, she rejoined me while keeping one eye on her husband. We’d taken down fifteen troopers at best, if we were going to make it out alive, something spectacular needed to happen soon. I peeked over to the hanger to see that our group was nowhere to be found and a few troopers were breaking off to investigate. They’d never make it in time to stop them nor have enough firepower to ground the ships.

“Antilles,” I commanded as I could see his shots slowing down, “Don’t you dare fall asleep on us.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he replied before turning to his wife, “But Norra, if I can’t stay on my feet, I want you to…I want you to-”


“Don’t even say it,” Norra gritted out, “We’re in this together. You stay, I stay. We make a run for it together or we don’t go at all.”

“But-“

“Done talking.”

“I love you,” Wedge smiled.

“Good,” Norra said firmly, “Now stay alive.”

The whole exchange sounded very familiar. It reminded me of a conversation Poe and I would have. Somehow that lit another fire under me to protect Wedge and Norra and make sure they came out of this together.

“Keep going,” I ordered as I carefully poked the top of my head over the edge of the barricade. The troopers were separated into four groups standing a few feet away from each other. I crouched behind our shelter again and deactivated my lightsaber, setting it next to Wedge and paying close attention to the shots fly over my head. There was a timing to them, one shot roughly every three seconds. If I timed it just right, I might be able to knock out at least one group of troopers. It was risky but the entire night had been a series of risks, what was one more?

I counted one, two, three seconds before springing to my full height and stretching my hands out toward our attackers. I used the force to send half the troopers flying back to hit a nearby building. I quickly dropped back behind the hideout just as a blast flew past my head, I felt like all the energy had just been drained from my body. In all the times I’d used that move, I’d never used it on that many people at once. I’d need to wait a minute before trying it again.

Suddenly, the wall of the hanger to our left exploded and sent a thick cloud of grey dust into the air.

The three of us coughed violently, I struggled to see through the dust and find what had caused the explosion. Heavy fire came from where the blast had occurred and it became apparent that it was coming from a starfighter rather than a regular blaster. I had an educated guess as to who was behind the controls…

“Poe better cut it out or he’s going to bring this building down on us, too,” Norra observed as she came to Wedge’s side once more. He was laughing from the shock we’d been given. The stormtrooper’s shots had ceased as Poe took each one of them down. “Do you think you can walk?”

Wedge nodded, still chuckling as the two of us helped him to his feet, “I did not see that coming.”

“Most people don’t see Poe Dameron coming,” I remarked as I grabbed my lightsaber and we hurried across to the hanger. My boyfriend hovered around to give us cover, I spotted Snap at the ramp of the blockade runner motioning for us to hurry.

“You guys go,” I yelled over the engine of Poe’s starfighter, “I’m going to help out on the shuttle.”

Snap gave a nod and helped Wedge and Norra onto the ship. I sprinted across the hanger to the shuttle that was just getting ready to take off, Teza Nasz was helping the last prisoner on. We filed in and I shut the door behind us, I holstered my lightsaber back under my dress and attempted to catch my breath.

“Jedi?” Nasz jutted her chin to my concealed weapon.

“Not quite yet,” I breathed with a small smile.

She simply hummed in reply and led us into the main part of the shuttle. Judging by the crowd it looked like we’d gotten quite a few, if not all of the prisoners. If we made it out of the hanger, we could call the mission a success.

I began getting everyone comfortable, the group we had must have been tortured and starved. There were cuts and bruises littered all over their skin, some of them were practically skeletons.

“Excuse me,” a voice croaked from behind me, it was the man Teza Nasz had helped on as I’d boarded. He had cuts littering his arms, blood dried underneath his nose and was dangerously thin. I made my way over to him and crouched down so he wouldn’t have to strain his voice, “Where are we going, miss?”

He was so frail, I couldn’t imagine what the First Order had done to him. All because he’d dared to stand for what was right. It made my blood boil. I carefully took his hand, his trembling fingers wrapped around mine, and I looked into his eyes. “Somewhere safe.”

————

Once we’d made it off of the planet and after I’d gotten the survivors situated as best I could, I came to sit beside Nifera. She seemed steady in spite of her world having been turned upside down. Staying collected in the face of adversity was an admirable quality, one of the many skills I lacked.

“I’ve never associated with the Resistance until tonight,” she said, her eyes never leaving a small window, “But what you did tonight was…admirable. Even if you won the prize of the evening in a most unsavory fashion.”

“Well, we’ll actually do some good with that list. I doubt any of your other guests would treat these people with the kindness they deserve.” I commented as I pressed a gauze pad to my wound to stop the bleeding, “But thank you. I’m sorry about Hasadar, truly…I hope you can find peace somehow.”

She ducked her head, raising a hand to stroke her sleeping eel. “Tell me, Sola, or whatever your name really is…Have you ever lost someone? Not a soldier or pilot whose name you barely knew, someone close to your heart.”

I squeezed my hands together in my lap, “I lost my father one week ago, three days later I lost my uncle. And my br-“ I caught myself and bit down harshly on my tongue to stop the words from escaping my lips, “Yes, I have.”

"Then you must know,” Nifera turned to me, a tear staining her heavily powdered cheek, “There is no true peace after losing someone you love. You can try to move on, you can sink into a deep denial, but there will always be a hole in your life that only they can fill.”

“I suppose you’re right,” I conceded, there was definite truth to what she said. I’d never recover fully from my father’s death and while I knew my uncle was at peace, I was still devastated by his loss. “But then I’ve never had much peace to begin with so I don’t think it matters if I go through the rest of my life without it.”

“Based on tonight? No, I very much doubt that you live a serene life.” Nifera’s expression radiated a judgmental type of disapproval. I had to remind myself that while polite, she was in no way an ally.

”I never have and I doubt that will change anytime soon,” I stated unflinchingly, “But if I can help people, then the chaos I create is worth something.”

Karé emerged from the cockpit and interrupted our conversation, “Nifera, Poe wants to speak to you.” She handed her comlink to Nifera and gave us privacy to take the call. I however had no intention of leaving.

“Hello, Lorell,” she replied, smirking at me as she used his alias name.

“It’s Poe. Poe Dameron.”

“I know,” she smiled.

“We need somewhere safe to set down for a while. Not long. Just a meeting point to regroup, disseminate the list. A day at most.”

I watched the cogs turn in Nifera’s head as we awaited her answer, “And you think I can help you?”

“I think the Collective can help us.”

“And why would we do that?”

“Because we just helped their benefactor escape certain death.”

I nodded along with Poe’s answer, Nifera eyed me as she thought over her answer.

“Very well, Poe Dameron,” she laughed, “I’ll help you. After you make a generous donation to our cause.”

I rolled my eyes, the Collective had already taken half of our money during the auction. If we gave more, our funds would be almost non-existent. This solidified my earlier conclusion that Nifera was not our ally, if anything she was a business woman.

“Yeah, about that...didn’t you already take half our credits?”

“And now I aim to take the other half,” Nifera answered plainly.

There was a long pause over the comm, Poe was thinking it over. Finally, his tense reply came, “Take the money, lady.”

Nifera rose from her seat and I followed her, she headed into cockpit where Karé was piloting once again. She relayed a set of coordinates to her and Karé punched them into the ship, our course was set.

“I’ve given your pilot coordinates to a safe house. She will transmit them to yourself and your other friends. I will let them know to expect us.”

“Thank you.”

“A pleasure doing business,” she said before handing the comm back to Karé. I stayed in the cockpit with my friend as she continued speaking to Poe. I no longer had any interest in interacting with Nifera.

“Did she give you the coordinates?”

“Yeah,” she responded as she hit a few buttons, “Sending out to Resistance channels now.”

“Copy. Is Y/n with you?”

Without taking her eyes off of the stars ahead, Karé stretched her arm out to me and I took the comm from her.

“She’s here,” I answered, “Unharmed and still very wet.”

“There’s worse things to be. Karé said she got a transmission from the Falcon, First Order found them and they had to evacuate Ryloth. Leia’s okay though.”


I sighed, the weight of fearing the worst for my mother dropped immediately, “Any casualties?”

“A couple, one of the Phantom Squad pilots and Charth’s sister.”

“He’ll be devastated,” I mumbled, “It’s going to sound insensitive but I’m so glad that Mom’s okay.”

“I know. Me too. We’re about to make the jump, I’ll see you wherever we’re landing.”

“See you there. And hey,” I paused, smiling softly at the comm as if it was Poe in the flesh, “We did it.”

“Yeah, we did.” 

I handed the comm back to Karé and settled into the seat behind her. While Nifera wasn’t my favorite person in the galaxy, I trusted that she was leading us somewhere safe.

“Ready?” Karé asked.

I nodded, “Punch it.”

————

Poe and I corralled the last group of prisoners to the doorway of The Collective’s hideout. The door was marked with a picture of the same type of eel that had rested on Nifera’s neck. Finn stood watch from an alleyway nearby, I shot him a nod and he did the same. We were clear to enter, no one had followed us. I was surprised we hadn’t been picked out by now, mysterious hooded figures typically stood out in a crowd.

I opened the door and we ushered each person in, after everyone was accounted for, Finn joined us and the three of us entered.

The first part of the building was an abandoned storage room, where the Collective stood atop various boxes keeping watch over everyone who entered. We went through the room to a small door to the side where Zay stood, bringing the prisoners into our final destination.

“Is that everyone?” Zay asked.

“Should be,” Poe answered as we entered the next room. As Zay had shut the door, I caught Collective members sliding crates in front of it to conceal the entryway. We were safe.

Inside the large room, there were tables with food and drinks laid out on them, many of the starved prisoners sat and ate quickly. There was also a staircase that led down to the main room where many reunions and conversations were taking place.

Mom came up the stairs to approach the last prisoner we’d led in, it was her old friend, Ransolm Casterfo. She gently embraced him, the man was trembling as she did.

“I thought you were dead,” she whispered.

“But you came for me anyway, my friend.” 

“I hoped,” she replied, “Come meet everyone.”

Rose led him down the stairs and began to introduce him to people as Mom turned to Poe and I.

“General,” we both acknowledged with a nod of our heads.

“Commanders,” she replied with a twinkle in her eye, “Well done.”

Mom and General Rieekan had turned the room into a makeshift command center. There was equipment set up and a large holomap of the galaxy against one wall. Nobody seemed to be skipping a beat, they were working just as hard as they had when we’d had a full setup on D’Qar.

“Did Nifera give you the list?” I asked.

“Already disseminated,” Mom reported, “Yendor and Orrimaarko are making assignments now. We’ll find them all. Warn those who are in the First Order’s sights, rescue those in danger, and recruit who we can.”


“Good,” I said, my mind was already trying to figure out what we’d do tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that. And-

“One step at a time,” Mom broke my thoughts with a hand to my arm, “We’re not taking on the entire First Order tomorrow. We can’t. But we can take one step, and that earns us another day to take another step.”

“We can’t do it alone,” Poe stated, he was in a similar state of mind as I was.

“And we won’t. We’ll find people, we’ll inspire them. Show them they aren’t alone, show them what’s worth fighting for. And we’ll prepare and rebuild. This,” Mom spread a hand and gestured to the room, “is a beginning.”

I nodded with a hint of a smile, looking around at our group. We’d doubled in size today and Mom was right, this was a start. All around us were old friends and new allies, working together and actively doing exactly what Poe’s speech in the Ryloth hanger had inspired them to do…Be better.

I broke away from them to climb the staircase and land on the top step. I wasn’t used to commanding attention, but I felt the unusual desire to do so.

“We can’t stay here,” I said, my voice carrying over both rooms. They fell silent in seconds and everyone had turned to face me. ”As much of a frightening thought as it is, there’s nowhere in the galaxy where the Resistance is safe from the First Order.”

Breathe, I told myself, you can do this. The worried expressions that rested on everyone’s faces stirred up my anxiety.

“But right now, we’re going to revel in this win. After our losses, we still rose from the ashes and lived to fight another day. And look around,” I gestured around me, “This is what we accomplished in a day that the First Order never intended for us to see. So celebrate, we deserve it.”


Applause broke out across the room, I let it ring for a few seconds before holding up my hands to call for silence.

“But this isn’t the end of the fight,” I said, “This is just the beginning.”

“What do we do next? Where do we go?”

I turned to see the voice belonged to Pacer Agyo, the headstrong pilot who’d challenged Teza Nasz.

“We go where there’s injustice, we go where the oppressed are being beaten down. We go where we are desperately needed, where hope is needed. You want to know what we do next? We do what we do best…We resist.” my voice rose with the passion I was pouring into my words, “We fight. And when the time’s right, we’ll make the First Order pay for each and every one of their sins. There’s a future ahead of us where the First Order is extinct and we’ll be the ones to have ended them.”

Cheers erupted across both of the rooms and I allowed myself a moment to savor the moment. The mistake I’d made aboard the Raddus was permanent, but it seemed forgiveness could be too. I’d accomplished what I’d set out to do; make amends. As I descended the staircase, people surrounded me and gave me nods of approval, hugs and pats on my back.

Mom was beaming from where she stood, watching me take charge of the room. Poe came forward to press a kiss to my cheek, I wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him to my side. Professionalism didn’t matter right now, there were hugs and kisses being freely given between everyone. It was another day that we’d survived and that was something I’d celebrate freely.

I could see Wedge, whose arm was in a sling, and Norra making their way across the room with their eyes locked on Poe. “I’ll find you in a few minutes,” I said quietly before breaking off on my own. I had people to speak to as well.

I spotted Rey in a corner, kneeled down and in conversation with Bee. When she saw me approaching, she rose and turned her attention to me. Bee excused himself and left the two of us alone.

“I like the outfit,” she quipped, her eyes scanning up and down my barely dry dress.

“I like yours better,” I said, tugging on the sleeve of her dark Jedi robes, or at least what was starting to look like a set. “Much more suited for battle than a ballgown.”

Rey laughed and wrapped her arms around me, there was so much relief in our being reunited. I didn’t like being separated from her, there was something about having her at my side that calmed me. It was the same feeling I got when Poe and Finn were with me.

“Okay,” I said, pulling away from her, “I can’t be expected to wait any longer. I need to know what my uncle said about me.”

Rey’s face changed from joyful to serious instantaneously, “Yes, you do. I doubt there’s a place we could go to discuss it privately so here will have to do.”

I didn’t particularly care if the room was just us or a hundred more people. My uncle had something to tell me and I was desperate to know what it was.

“When I was with Luke, he talked about you quite a lot. How when he met you as a child, he’d had a vision about your future.”

“Yeah, my mother told me. I don’t know the details of it, just that he had one.”

“Well,” she went on, “He said he knew you wanted answers. About the Force and about your parents. And he said that when you’re ready, those answers lay on Ahch-To.”

My body stiffened and my ears quit registering the noise around me. The prospect of having the questions I’d asked my entire life answered was almost too much to process. I’d accepted the fact that I’d never know about my birth parents long ago. Now I was being told that information about them existed somehow and was mine for the taking.

“I-I can’t…I mean…how?” I sputtered, trying to wrap my head around the idea.

“Don’t ask me,” Rey shook her head, “I asked and he wouldn’t tell me. He just said to come to the island when you’re ready and all will be revealed.”

I raked a hand through my messy head of hair, a grin spreading across my face at my uncle’s cryptic invitation. Was it possible? If he said so, it had to be. I could finally know the truth about myself and my family. It was the greatest gift I’d ever been given.

“Are you alright?” Rey asked worriedly.

I let out a gleeful laugh and threw my arms around her neck, “I’m fantastic.”

Rey hugged me back and we stood there for a moment, two souls who were struggling to understand themselves celebrating that one of us was getting answers. It was a bond we shared that no one else could come close to understanding.

As much as I wanted to stay there reveling in the news, I also wanted to find Poe and Finn. “C’mon,” I said as I grabbed Rey’s hand, “We’ve got a lot to celebrate.”

The two of us maneuvered through the room to find Finn and Poe standing on the stairs talking. “I don’t think you can stop me,” Finn replied to whatever my boyfriend had asked before we’d arrived.

“Where are we going?” Rey asked, they turned to face us.

“I didn’t want to ask,” Finn said with a large grin.

“You didn’t have to,” Rey smiled as they bumped shoulders.

Poe and I shared an intimate look conveying many emotions at once. Relief that we had succeeded in our mission, hope for the Resistance’s future, and unfailing love for each other. I climbed the steps to meet him and walked into the arm waiting to wrap around my waist.


“So if our clothes were lost on Charth’s ship,” he pointed his finger to the bodice of my dress, “Does that mean you’re gonna be wearing this from now on?”

“Depends,” I said, playing with one of the flaps of his tuxedo jacket, “Are you going to keep wearing this getup?”

Poe tapped a finger to his lips before slyly looking to me, “I think that can be arranged.”

A fake gagging sound came from Finn as he stuck his finger in his mouth, eliciting a hearty laugh from Rey. Poe rolled his eyes and kissed my forehead, not caring one bit if anyone had a problem with it.

“You don’t mind?” Rey asked, her eyes drifting to Poe, “Me coming wherever you guys are going?”

“I would be,” Poe bowed slightly to my friend, “Honored.”

Rey smiled, visibly excited to be included in our group. Finally I had three of the people that meant the most to me together.

“Wherever we go,” I grabbed Rey’s hand and squeezed, “You come too.”

When I’d met her, she was living in an AT-AT alone. No family, no friends, not even a droid for company. I never wanted her to feel like that again, she was a permanent part of the Resistance family now.

I caught my mother’s gaze as she watched us laughing and conversing. She looked pleased with what she saw, but also like she was having a nostalgic flashback.

“She knows,” Rey commented, catching the same look I had.


“Know’s what?” Finn asked as he took another sip of his drink.

“That the Resistance is in good hands,” Poe answered contently, “That we won’t fail her.”

“Because of the Force?” Finn asked.

“No,” I replied as Mom shot me a wink before moving away, “I don’t think Leia needs the Force to tell her that.”

“Ah! Right!” Finn said happily, “She knows because she’s got us.”

I took a look at our group, admiring the fact that in the week that we’d all known each other how close we’d gotten. Four people who under any other circumstances should have never found each other. There was no other explanation for how we’d ended up with one another other than the Force.

Poe wrapped his free arm around Finn’s shoulder while Rey embraced me from my side. “That’s right,” he said, laying a gentle kiss to my cheek, “She’s got us.”

For the first time in a long time, everything felt alright. Tomorrow would bring a host of new problems to face but suddenly, rebuilding the Resistance didn’t seem so impossible. Not when I was surrounded by the people I loved most in the galaxy. I had my boyfriend next to me, my friends on each side of me, my mother at ease for once, and long awaited answers waiting for me whenever I wanted to come get them. Everything was coming together even in what seemed like the darkest of times. There was hope.

“Yeah,” I smiled as I looked between my friends and Poe, “We’re going to be fine. Now let’s go save the galaxy.”

————

A/N: We’re taking a trip to Ahch-To next chapter 😏 I’M SO EXCITED YOU HAVE NO IDEA. As always, thank you so much for reading and all the kind messages/comments that you guys have dropped. It really makes me happy to know that this series I started out of boredom in quarantine is being enjoyed 💕 Until next time!!

Taglist: @m1rkw00dpr1ncess @springfox04 @constantdisgrace @holybatflapexpert @seninjakitey @tammythompson-singslikea-muppet @leilei-draws @eternal-fandoms @dream-alittlebiggerdarling @imaginecrushes @eternallyvenus @thescarletknight2014 @simplybarnes @captain-america5 @breyasficletblog @caseymcflurry @stumbleonmywords @april-14-blog @i-ievu @ultrunning @desperatelytryingtosavemyself @caswinchester2000 @meraki-loki @lovinnholland @wishing4wishes @fruitloopzzz @bbuckysbeardd @justanotherblonde23 @ace-fiction @abysshaven @thisshitfucks @astudyoftimeywimeystuff @itsfangirlmendes

Star Wars Permanent Taglist: @paintballkid711 @katrynec @caswinchester2000 @theliterarymess @softly-sad

[99adelheid99]

cool so since I’m procrastinating anyways on my school work im just going to write a character study on beast! dazai

because I re read it and im sad and asagiri just loves to make everyone suffer

so spoilers for the beast au

((BTW IM SO SORRY TUMBLR MOBILE ISN’T LETTING ME CUT THE POST TO A READ MORE SO IM GOING TO TRY TO DO IT ON MY PC AND HOPE IT WORKS IF IT DOESNT IM SO SORRY;;;; ))

asagiri has already decided to make dazai a tragic character and break our hearts once, but he decided to also rip them out and spit on it.

in the canon world, we see dazai struggle through depression. ever since he was young he found there was no value in living as he says to mori in the fifteen arc. he tries throughout his life desperately to understand just why humans strive to live, why they fight so hard for their lives and work hard to live life to the fullest.

it’s no different in the many other worlds The Book had created, and that lonely hole in his chest is probably much bigger.

as explained by dazai in the light novel, the power of The Book does not effect him because of his ability, since The Book itself is an ability, dazai naturally cancels it out. because of this, dazai can practically “read his own memories” from the canon world. so he knows everything that happens in the original universe, that goes for every single dazai in every single au. every single one.

this in itself is probably one of the saddest things. if people not understanding dazai didn’t hurt enough in the canon world, imagine how horrible it is that the beast! dazai had suffer with this knowledge alone, because as mentioned, it’s not wise for a lot of people to know about The Book since the world they reside in will become unstable, and have a chance of disappearing.

at the end of the light novel we also learn of dazai’s plan. why he captured gin, and why he wanted to bring akutagawa and atsushi together.

it was for odasaku.

because dazai has the memories from his “original” self, he remember odasaku. he remembers how he died, he remembers that they were best friends, he remembers how odasaku was the only person who understood dazai to his core, he remember how much odasaku means to him.

but odasaku of this world doesn’t remember it at all. because to him it never happened. there is only the beast world and the beast world alone.

this is where the angst hits (harder lol)

dazai figures out (at some time idk when) that this is the only universe that odasaku survives (im not sure how exactly, im assuming he can read the memories of the other dazais? Idk)

he remembers odasakus passionate of becoming a writer, he remembers odasakus determination not to kill just so he could write his own novel.

and because I really do believe dazai has a heart shrouded in all that darkness, dazai wants the best for odasaku, dazai wants to make it so odasaku can continue to survive and write his novel.

so dazai being dazai makes this extremely elaborate extra ass plan to make sure it happens.

dazai knows that this world has a chance of disappearing since every time something is written down in The Book in any other au (I think? I believe it can be any one of them not just the canon one) The Book doesn’t create it out of nothing exactly, but borrows from other worlds to create what is written in the book to reality.

dazai’s afraid that this world might cease to exist, and if it does odasaku won’t get to write his novel in this only universe he survives in, odasaku won’t he happy and dazai doesnt want that.

now extra ass osamu here uses a lot of cruel tactics to get to his end goal, and it isn’t right at all, but I still have to sympathize because its just so painful lmao

during akutagawa and atsushi’s final battle, dazai goes to the lupin bar where he meets odasaku for the first time in this world. I feel like dazai fought with himself a lot not to visit odasaku during this time, probably wanting to do nothing else but to run to his old friend that he missed so damn much. and I think he couldnt resist in the end, I think he desperately wanted to see him one last time because from the very beginning he knew his own fate.

one of the many (lol) things that hurts me during this meeting is how dazai immediately jumps happily into conversation with odasaku when he sees him, how he invites him quickly to sit down with him (in which odasaku does but doesn’t sit right next to him, which seemingly hurts dazai, ouch my heart) and how he picks up conversation that dazai would normally have with odasaku in the real world, asking him if anything interesting happened to him that day or telling him about new suicide methods he tried, which leaves odasaku heavily confused as he kind of awkwardly replies to each question.

now because the pov during this scene is in oda’s, we don’t get know exactly what dazai is thinking, but oda describes his posture and reactions well for us to take a guess of how hard it is for dazai to not have probably the most important person in his life not know or care about him.

dazai tightening his grip around his glass, or dazai looking like a happy child in one second to trying to compose his emotion with a small smile in the next, these reactions happen when odasaku keeps bringing up how he doesn’t know dazai and how confused he is. and dazai trying to hold onto something, someone, who made him so happy. trying to ignore the pain he feels and grasp on to the good memories he has but odasaku doesn’t.

and then there’s the part in the bar that asagiri decided to write because he’s a writer and like all authors, lowkey likes to see his audience suffer.

when dazai calls oda by his nickname odasaku once again trying to get him to understand him, the man replies:

“Don’t call me Odasaku. There is no reason of an enemy to call me that.”

yeah I cried

I cried a lot

dazai’s reaction didn’t help either.

The young man suddenly seemed to have trouble breathing…He fought against something invisible.

in this world, dazai probably mastered concealing his emotions (he does in like every world, but he’s much more grim in this one so) he put up this wall and put on a mask for everyone but odasaku, he let his wall down and odasaku didn’t acknowledge it, didn’t bring him some sort of comfort like he did in the canon universe. not intentionally of course, not because odasaku was cruel, but odasaku didn’t know dazai as anything else but his enemy. for all he knows, dazai could be trying to manipulate him.

theyre enemies. they could never be friends in this world. but dazai seems to still try, even a little.

in the end, they part ways. dazai putting on that mask once again, and acting like this whole meeting didn’t just destroy him. because it would be worth it in the end, odasaku would live, be happy, write his novel.

dazai would suffer, but that’s okay. odasaku hates dazai, but that’s okay.

because odasaku is alive. odasaku is happy. and to dazai that’s enough.

we get to the ending that no one wants to read because we’re already in pain and we know asagiri is waiting there with a shotgun to deliver the final blow.

dazai arrives after akutagawa and atsushi’s fight to reveal his reasoning behind his plan. how atsushi and aku have to work together protect The Book to make sure this world doesn’t disappear just for oda, and he mentions how no more then two people can know about the existence of The Book also for the protection and stability of their world.

atsushi decides to so some quick maths then, and realizes in horror that dazai has slowly made his way to the edge of the building.

he pleads with dazai to not do it, but theres obviously no stopping him.

and in that moment I believe for the first time in a long time dazai is truly content.

the hatred towards him is heavy, but it doesn’t matter to dazai because odasaku is safe. he completed his mission.

dazai planned all of this from the very beginning up to his death. now, arguably, despite dazai’s heartwarming end goal he was still an awful person. he was abusive and manipulate. he hurt and killed others to get what he wanted. he was not a good person

but he suffered so much for the sake of one person, he knew his ending wasn’t going to happy, but the end goal was enough. the end goal made it worth it.

osamu could never tell anyone about his pain, not even his best friend. he had to instead put on the mask of the cruel boss of the port mafia. people either had to hate him or fear him. no one could ever love him, no one could ever care for him. and osamu knew that. from the very beginning. asagiri truly wrote a tragic but beautiful character.

now if you’ll excuse me im going to go cry :)))

[theonetheycallhannah]

The Treatment of Capt. Syverson-Chapter One: Evaluation

Pairing: Captain “Sy” Syverson x OFC (Shane Benton)

Shane Benton gets a new patient, veteran “Sy” Syverson. He’s one of the most complex cases she’s had, in more ways than one. She thinks he’s already starting to like her and what’s worse...she feels the same.

Word Count: 2.3k

Warnings: None, really, mentions of war and trauma and some hate on the Chicago Cubs, but like…it’s not MEAN! (I’m a Missouri girl, and for the purposes of this fic, Sy is a Missouri boy, and we will bleed for our sports teams. Lol!)

A/N: Inspired by this post right here, and hopefully turning into some splendid fluffy and smutty stuff for my lovely Cavillry babes all around including the two that essentially forced me into this. Lol! (I’m thinking I’ll have at least three or four more chapters.

Disclaimer: Unfortunately for me, Henry is not mine, le sigh, and all mention of him, his characters, or his precious doggy, Kal, are strictly for transformative and recreational use. I neither ask for, nor accept payment for the work I post on Tumblr or AO3.

Tags: @onlyhenrys @cavillryarchive

Let me know if you wish to be added to the list! I’m happy to do it! 

Shane was working on her morning's notes as she scarfed down her lunch. So many hand's-on patients made for a busy so called "lunch hour." Time which their boss was always reminded them was only half for their personal use, and could be taken away if census demanded. She was pretty sure it wasn't legal to make such threats, but thankfully, the secretaries usually had the therapists backs.

As she typed, she got a notification in her messenger app.

Just a head's up, your 1:30 is such a major babe I could barely look at him while I checked him in, so good luck with that.

Heather, one of her best friends in the office, had warned her, as she always did when there was a potential problem with a patient.

Oh, and his KOOS score is 27.5! Yikes! Shit, she'd seen arthritic grandparents with better scores on that test, which essentially rated your ability with the affected knee. Ideal was 100. She pulled up his chart review to see what she was getting herself into with this guy.

Tricare insurance, so, a vet. And only a year older than she was, so, recent discharge, or even active duty. She pulled up his order…shit. Traumatic tear of the anterior cruciate ligament. With damage to the medial collateral ligament as well. And a patellar dislocation. Repairs had been done, but this guy was in bad shape. He was going to be coming a while.

She replied to Heather.

Damn, that's bad. I'm looking at his order, and I'm already thinking I'm gonna want to try to keep him on my schedule if we can. And three times a week. If not with me, Jordan, if he's got openings. Can you start working on that when you have time?

Sure thing…I think you'll be glad you kept him on your caseload once you get a look at his face…and like all of him. Even on crutches, he's tall as shit!

Heather, come on. I'm a professional. I have a doctorate ffs. Lol

You also have a uterus, to the best of my knowledge, and it's about to explode. Promise.

Haha, okay. I'll be out for Prince Charming in about ten. Lemme pop a breath mint and run a brush through my hair.

Good call.

Shane did just that, but still pulled her dark hair back into her customary functional high ponytail, made sure there was no stray food on her shirt, and headed out of her treatment room for her patient.

As she walked down the hall to the waiting area to get him, she noticed a slumped and bearded figure leaning forward on a set of crutches, a KC Chiefs baseball cap slipping up off of his forehead revealing short cropped dark hair. She smiled at his repping one of her home teams, and stepped up to him, greeting him warmly, but formally.

"Mr. Syverson?"

"Ma'am." he said, as he adjusted his cap and stood immediately at attention, still relying on the crutches, but making himself as tall as possible. He really was a soldier. Despite her proximity to Fort Leonard Wood here in St. Robert, Missouri, she didn't see many military men.

"Hi, My name is Shane. I'm a physical therapist. I'm going to be working with you today."

"Oh, okay. They told me my therapists name was Shane, I figured…"

"Yeah, I get that a lot. Don't worry, I act like one of the guys. You'll hardly notice."

"I doubt that." he muttered, but she ignored it. She didn't know which would be worse. Him being a macho chauvinist who couldn't deal with a female therapist, or having a crush on her and making things weird. She'd had both. And it never ended well for her.

"Well, let's go have a chat in the treatment room."

They walked toward the room she'd just left, and when they arrived, she asked him to set on her plinth mat.

"Could you please verify your date of birth for me? Gotta make sure I got the right patient in here."

"May the 5th, 1983."

"Thanks, and the last four of your social?"

He told her, quietly, and against her will, a shiver ran up her spine at the softness the bear of a man exhibited in his voice when trying to maintain privacy. But she kept her composure.

"Excellent." she began typing her eval note, and asking him questions. He began telling the harrowing story of the mission, the mission that effectively ended his career in the military as he knew it. At lest, what he could tell her. Obviously some of it was classified, but certain details she would need to know in order to know how he it and how to treat him. She could tell he was trying to hold it together. Reliving the trauma was probably triggering to an extent. Her heart went out for the broad-chested, blue-eyed man.

"God, that's incredible. The fact that you're alive is amazing, Mr. Syverson."

"I go by Sy, ma'am. And as aware as I am of that, it's tough to feel good about it when some friends in my squad weren't so lucky." he examined the pattern on the tile floor as he rubbed the heel of his hand against the wide thigh of his injured leg. A nervous habit, she presumed. She had similar quirks.

"That must be difficult for you." she knew she was getting off-track from what she needed for her SOAP note, but after all, he was going to be on her caseload exclusively for the foreseeable future. She'd have time to flesh out the goals and basically finish the eval next visit.

"Yeah, but I know there's a lotta guys' got it worse'n me, ma'am."  

"We think that should make it better, but it never does. And if I'm calling you 'Sy,' you have to cut the ma'am business. It's Shane, even to my patients." she smiled.

"Sorry, m--sorry. Habits die hard."

"Just like John McClean." she chuckled, not expecting him to get her ridiculous movie humor. But he laughed.

"Did you just make a Die Hard reference?" he smiled, and the sunshine of it paired with the stunning blue of his eyes nearly sent her flying into the wall. Thankfully, she had something to occupy her gaze in the form of her laptop, where she tried to document on him.

"Did you just get one of my movie references? Because nobody around here appreciates that I'm a total movie nerd. I'm wasted on these people."

"Ya know, maybe you're right about feeling like I'm getting PT from a guy." he chuckled.

"I told ya!" she laughed, but tried not to let her heart sink too far.

The evaluation continued with her doing strength and range of motion measurements on his knee. "Okay, push against my hand…now resist when I push…now bring your foot back against my hand…and resist when I pull." she did this with both sides to compare relative strength. "Great job. Okay, I'm going to see how much range you have in your knee. Lay back on the table for me, please." she thought she saw a flirty glint in his eye, but again, she ignored it. She had a job to do. And it was to hold this goniometer up to his knee and see how many degrees of flexion and extension this man had in the joint while trying not to think any salacious thoughts about the thigh connected to it.

"Okay, now, listen, Sy, I know it goes against your instinct, but I'm looking for pain-free range of motion, here, so don't be a hero. Don't move it farther than you can without hurting it. And let me know if it starts to hurt when I move it."

"Yes, ma'am." he winked.

"I'll let that one slide, I guess." she giggled. She concentrated on the numbers she was getting from the big protractor, and typing them into her eval, and not the man lying before her.

"Okay, I'm gonna get the other knee now to compare for goals."

He nodded.

"Were you pretty active before this happened?" she was more or less making small talk, as she could tell by the condition of the rest of his body that he was incredibly fit.

"Yes, m--yes, I was. We had a gym on base, nothin' like what y'all have here, just some machines and a few free weights."

"No bikes or treadmills or anything?" She herself liked the elliptical, but knew it was a considered more of a girl's machine in the gym world.

"Nah, with electric being spotty where we were stationed, we sorta had to…get creative, I guess you could say, for cardio." she let it slide, apparently there was an inside joke to which she wasn't privy.

"Right, understandable. Well, here, we don't have to get that creative. I'm gonna put you on some equipment gradually, and just warm up the knee, then get to work on joint mobilization and myofascial release. But at this point in Dr. Potter's protocol, he only wants gentle stretching and weight bearing as tolerated. We can start a bit of strengthening after next week."

"So, you think I'll be back to running anytime soon?"

"We can make that a goal, Sy, because I can absolutely get you there. But you're going to have to take it slow. You've got not one, but three major injuries we have to contend with, and there is major trauma in there. But it will heal. With time and effort. And like I said, don't be a hero. The number one rule of therapy is 'if it hurts, don't do it.'"

"I'll hold you to that, m--Shane."

"You're a quick study, Sy. I think you'll be alright. Looks like Heather's put some appointments in for you already. If any of them don't work, call us, and we'll try to get them swapped. I'd like to keep you on my schedule as much as possible, but if there's a conflict in your schedule, any of our therapists will be terrific. And I'll make sure they're looking at your chart and protocol thoroughly before seeing you."

"Sounds like a plan to me."

"Okay, I'm gonna print out your schedule for you, and a few exercise handouts I'd like you to work on, especially on days you don't come here. And I'll know if you don't do them, because you won't have improved…so, you better do them."

"Yes, ma'am." she half expected a salute. She rolled her eyes.

"Okay, maybe I'll give you three strikes on the ma'am thing."

"Baseball fan, too?"

"Not that three strikes is so obscure that I'd have to be to know it, but, yes! Major St. Louis Cardinals fan."

"I knew I was gonna like you from the start. Although, being brought up 'round Kansas City m'self, I'm more of a Royals fan."

"Hey, only time I don't root for KC is when they're playing my Redbirds. And even if my team loses to them, it hurts less than if they lose to, say…the Cubs." they shared a scowl of disdain for the Chicago team. "Although, I was happy for them and their fans when they won the series back in 16."

"Yeah, I guess we could afford to let them win one in a hundred years…I'm hoping their next one comes long after I'm in the ground." he chuckled.

"Can't have them getting a big head, can we?"

"Nope! Sure can't!" they both laughed at their mutual interest in dissing rival sports teams.

"Okay, I'll be right back with those handouts." she ran to the office all in one machine to grab the papers she'd printed for him, making sure they were all his and not another patient's. She put them in one of their folders and headed back to her room where he sat on the mat, waiting for her with a smile under his rather impressive beard.

"Before I let you out of here, what questions can I answer for you about what we did today?"

"Oh, uh, nothing comes to mind. You explained everything really well. Did you look at my schedule? Am I with you all the time?"

"Hmm, let's see here, looks like the next two, yes, but I'm off next week, so Heather put you with Jordan, which is what I asked her to do. You two will work great together and he's got a great instinct for injuries like this. And I'll talk to him before I leave. He's one of the best PTAs I've ever worked with, I promise."

"I guess, if you have to take a vacation. I'll see you next time though."

"I'm looking forward to it. That's when the real work will begin, Sy. And our number is on in this paperwork if you have questions, and I've put my card in here, too." they shook hands, and he grabbed the folder from her.

She saw him out of the room and into the lobby. She'd finished with him a bit early, but her next one was already waiting. She needed a break. To collect herself. To breathe.

"Jason! Hey! Go on and get on the recumbent bike, level two. Ride until I get there. We'll get a lot done today if you're already warmed up. I've got a note to finish. And then I'll be in. I should be 15 or less."

While the 19 year old with a torn meniscus hopped to her instructions, she went back to her computer to attempt to finish Sy's eval and pretend that she didn't already have a serious and intense crush on him. This was going to be a long twelve weeks…at least.

Up Next: Chapter Two-Therapeutic Procedure

[tyk-tyk-tyk]

(its iwontknock, i wish tumblr would let us send asks from second blogs) on my post you said your first d&d character was the lodger and i am SO curious about that!! can i ask more about that, like what his class was? id love to hear about your portrayal!

Well, I hope my fellow players don’t pay attention to this blog lol. If you are GO AWAY YOU NERDS Tw for child death and unethical experimentation juuuust in case, I know Knock-Knock has a lot of that regardless but if D&D folks see this too I want there to be a heads up

Looong post under the cut, adding tags in a sec

I’m actually kinda thrilled that you asked, we haven’t started the reboot yet, but hopefully we will soon! When I first started playing him, I was hella inexperienced and a little shy, so I didn’t quite get to fully do what I wanted with him & had a HORRIBLE backstory, but I’ll give a few details anyways. Then I’ll explain what I’m gonna do with his reboot haha

To also save some confusion, I named The Lodger “Bormot” as that’s what some of his voice files are called, it’s just a Russian name that means “Mumble” :)

I made him a half elf druid! It was a lot to tackle at first, but I really felt like it fit his character. Whereas druids are usually blessed by the Earth and such yadda yadda, I made it so that the Earth borderline cursed him by being in the wrong spot at the wrong time. He comes from this long line of elf intellectuals, and still does his worldology stuff out in the middle of nowhere. After he gets cursed though, his home starts dying and he pulls a “Well, this isn’t good!” and runs away and ends up meeting the party. Did I mention that he’s a half elf that doesn’t believe in magic bc of his sheltered life? More on that later. Some fun stuff that ended up happening is he literally met half plant people (my DM had no idea LOL) and Bormot proceeded to have a panic attack and casted Call Lightning by accident. We were like level 15 btw I came in LATE He also managed to talk down a dragon despite his low charisma score (I think I actually rolled well and my DM took pity on me, a new player)

The ‘rebooted’ version of him is still largely the same, a half elf druid, just with more of a fleshed out story. His Grandfather is kind of this disgraced elf who hates magic since he thinks his peers rely on it too much, they don’t use their braiiiiins. So he then raises Bormot’s (half elf) dad to reject magic, and continue their worldology science that’s Definitely A Real Science I Swear. Bormot’s dad gets married ofc and decides to live in the middle of nowhere where he can conduct his science in peace with his family. The wife gives birth to a beautiful baby girl shortly after! While on a hunting trip, Bormot’s dad shoots at something he thinks is a deer, but ends up being an old & weak God. Oops. So he does what any responsible scientist does and vivisects the thing before it dies, taking lots of samples of its blood. This kinda makes him lose his mind as now there’s real, physical evidence in front of him that higher powers and magic might be a pretty valid thing. So of course he does what any highly responsible father does and puts some zesty ichor (God Blood) into his child just to see what happens! She dies, unfortunately, as the powers that be of a god isn’t something a really tiny elf girl’s body can handle. The mother enters grief and becomes more overprotective. having no idea that her husband accidentally killed their child. She gives birth to Bormot a long while later. Daddy-o doesn’t want the wife to know about his experimentation since she’ll whine about MoRaLs and refuse to let him inject more blood into their son, so he keeps it a secret for as long as he can. When Bormot is older, he tries again, and it works! ... Sort of. Now the poor kid is having constant nightmares and hallucinations, and is having trouble both sleeping and meditating. He’s freaked out about the potential magic that he has, since his dad said that magic isn’t real, and his dad is definitely always right and doesn’t lie! He grows up like this his whole life. Bormot’s mom does actually end up finding out about it and gets into an argument with the dad, so the dad does what any responsible husband would do and kills her after it escalates. At least he feels guilty for this one. Her body is buried next to the sister’s near some pine trees so the roots will hopefully grow over them and conceal the bodies more. Bormot has no idea he even had a sister, and his dad lies and says that his mom left. When Bormot’s old enough to live on his own, his dad peaces out to conduct more research and tries to prolong his own death, even if he has a lot of years left. Bormot starts the game around when he leaves his house, wondering where his dad ran off to & wants to learn what the hell is up with his hallucinations and Not Real Magic.

I left out details since this was already getting so LONG, sorry mobile users Anyway the TLDR is Bormot’s dad makes a lot of bad decisions that leads to Bormot being a druid hermit that doesn’t believe in magic, and his journey with his friends is all about realizing that he’s more than his worldology ‘legacy’ and that magic is indeed real and it isn’t bad to embrace it. But we’ll see if he makes it to the end or dies to a goblin or something

Thanks for reading my self indulgent D&D rambles, I can give updates if anyone is ever curious about it later