#that there are some points where the plot can’t stretch that far

[lovevalley45]

i see your point abt whether sara needed behrad n i do get it, i think the role sara n zari’s relationship played was probably more for zari’s benefit. sara trusting zari’s judgement in s4 was (imo) a big part of the 4b plots in that season regarding her and ava, as well as moms becoming a legend and zari’s involvement in the time bureau conspiracy. behrad most likely didn’t need the kind of emotional support sara gave zari 1.0.

to me i feel like the issue isn’t whether or not sara needed a behrad. we can assume he might have played the same role for plot reasons, but the show never really discusses the actual changes between z1.0’s run on the ship versus behrad’s run on the ship so who knows for certain

however, like u say with ‘meet the legends’, the show sets up an expectation that their relationship is similar but then never justifies that. like with nate, ray, charlie, ava, we get a good chance to see how the relationships he’s built with these characters are similar or dissimilar. because we don’t really see sara bond with any of the new legends past season four this kinda retroactively applies to behrad. which means u get a relationship that is implied to be meaningful in a way similar to z1’s but never justified

while sara may have not needed a behrad, the show doesn’t seem to care to explain why or why not

okay i kinda mentioned this in the tags of my post abt ava getting custody of the legends but. the way they handled behrad taking the place of z1 in terms of his and sara’s dynamic is still kinda maddening to me

like by the end of s4, zari and sara are very close. zari is kinda like sara’s confidante on the team; they have similar backgrounds and traumas, sara trusts zari’s judgement on things like the bureau hiding secrets and there’s kinda like a big sister little sister vibe to them i’d say

which you THINK could very easily map onto sara n behrad especially since behrad is younger n has such a strained relationship with zari 2.0 at the beginning of s5 but aside from the first episode of s5 this is never really explored?? and then u have ‘back to the finale pt. ii’ which makes a big deal about behrad being so distraught about sara being dead that he goes back to save her from being abducted that feels… unearned

the show just kinda expects u to be like “oh yeah obviously behrad cares a lot abt sara. remember z1 and sara?” but never does much with that actual connection and part of it is that ava fills in any role of right-hand man that sara has had in previous seasons by being co-captain bc romantic relationships trump platonic ones. obviously (i’m being sarcastic). but another part of it is just that they seemingly don’t care to actually have sara n behrad talk ever

[kxsagi]

Hear me out.. Kaiser x psychiatrist reader !?!;&&(:&3 not like she was his patient but like she sorta met him through Some dating app and then met up after 3 months of online dating, and the moment they had conversations and observing his reactions, she could read him as much as he could read her, and he finds out she’s a psychiatrist and he starts to try and toughen out a little more but she calls him out but they end up in a chill date and see each other to the point where they get serious 🤞

“𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬”

a/n: hey pretty, ngl you requested this 5 times (i’m assuming by accident) 😭 but it’s totally okay lol

i really love this plot because i am a neuroscience major myself hehe

(dk art credits pls forgive me)

the city lights sparkle beneath you, stretching as far as the eye can see. you can’t help but admire how quiet and peaceful it is up here. it feels like a world away from the chaos of kaiser’s usual life. but then again, he’s still kaiser, even up on this private rooftop, surrounded by an absurdly expensive spread of food, wine, and the soft glow of string lights overhead. 

kaiser sits across from you, leaning back in his chair, trying to look like he’s the one who planned this whole thing. there’s an edge to his calm, as if he’s waiting for something to go wrong. it’s cute, almost like a nervous habit he’s pretending isn’t there. but you see through it. of course, you do. you always do. 

you pick up your wine glass, swirling it slowly, watching the red liquid move. “so,” you say, breaking the comfortable silence. “this is our first in-person date, huh?” 

he shoots you a look, that signature cocky grin pulling at his lips. “i could have gotten you a better view,” he says, pretending to be nonchalant. “but i figured this would do.” 

“oh, i’m sure,” you reply with a raised eyebrow. “definitely better than the crowded restaurants or a public park. i mean, you want to avoid the paparazzi, right?” 

kaiser chuckles, but it’s the kind of laugh that barely hides his discomfort. you know he’s trying to maintain control of the situation, keeping that ever-present tough guy act. but it’s slipping. it always slips when he’s with you. 

“you’re not intimidated by me, are you?” he asks, leaning forward slightly, his eyes narrowing with that familiar challenge in them. 

you take a slow sip of your wine, deliberately keeping your gaze steady. “oh, no. i’m terrified. just like the rest of the world.” 

the way his eyebrows shoot up in surprise makes you grin. he hadn’t been expecting that. it’s a tiny victory. you’ve learned that, with him, the quickest way to get him to open up is to make him laugh, or make him feel just the tiniest bit uncomfortable. 

“you know,” he continues, putting his glass down, “i don’t really do dates like this.” 

you lean back in your chair, setting your wine glass aside. “why so?” you ask, feigning curiosity. 

he shrugs, trying to act casual. “i mean, i’m usually too busy with my career. dates like this,” he waves his hand in the air as if to gesture to the entire rooftop, “it’s not exactly my thing. but i figured… i don’t know. maybe this time’s different.” 

you let the words sink in for a moment, watching him squirm ever so slightly. “different, huh?” you tease, leaning forward. “i think i’m starting to understand. you think you have to impress me, right? show me how cool you are?” 

he coughs, looking down at his plate as if he’s suddenly lost his appetite. “what? no. of course not.” 

“uh huh,” you grin, barely holding back a laugh. “i don’t know, kaiser. it kinda sounds like you’re overcompensating.” 

he glares at you, but it’s more playful than anything else. “i’m not overcompensating,” he says with a huff. “i’m just trying to make sure you don’t regret this.” 

you pause, your gaze lingering on him. “kaiser,” you start slowly, “if i wanted to regret this, i would’ve gone on a date with someone like, i don’t know, someone else. but i’m here with you.” you give him a pointed look. “so relax. you don’t have to put on a show.” 

he lets out a long, dramatic sigh and leans back in his chair, as if the weight of the world has been lifted from his shoulders. “i knew i should’ve called someone for advice,” he mutters under his breath, but you catch it. 

“advice?” you ask, genuinely curious. “what’s that gonna help you with?” 

he shrugs. “maybe how to be more mysterious or something.” 

you laugh, unable to stop yourself. “mysterious? really? you’re already so mysterious, it’s like a puzzle that no one’s ever going to solve.” 

“oh, trust me,” he says, leaning forward with a sly grin, “you’re never going to solve it.” 

“we’ll see about that,” you tease, but then something shifts in your mind. the words come out almost without thought, something you’ve been meaning to tell him. “you know… i’m a psychiatrist.” 

kaiser’s smirk falters, his eyes narrowing slightly in curiosity. “what?” he asks, his voice a little more cautious now. “you didn’t –” 

“yeah,” you interrupt, your tone light. “i’ve been reading you since the moment we met, kaiser.” 

he blinks, then leans back in his chair, clearly processing. “wait, that’s why you’re always so… i don’t know… good at reading me?” 

you nod. “yup. you’re not as complicated as you think. i just know how to pick up on the little things. body language, tone, how you react. it’s all pretty easy to read once you know how.” 

the realization hits him, and you can see it in his eyes. the pieces click into place, and a quiet awe settles over him. “so, you’ve been… analyzing me this whole time?” he asks, the hint of a smile on his lips, but now there’s something deeper behind it. 

“not exactly,” you laugh softly. “but i do pick up on things most people don’t. it’s part of the job.” 

“that’s… honestly kind of terrifying,” he admits with a chuckle, his eyes still locked on you. “no one’s ever been able to read me like that. not even my family, coaches, or teammates.” 

you shrug, taking another sip of your wine. “well, maybe that’s because they don’t know you like i do.” 

kaiser’s gaze softens, a little unexpected vulnerability showing. “and you’re not scared of it?” 

“scared?” you repeat, a bit confused. “why would i be scared? if anything, it just means i know when you’re full of shit.” 

he laughs, a genuine, hearty laugh this time, but there’s a warmth in it that wasn’t there before. it’s like the wall he’s been building up between the two of you is finally cracking. and you realize, with a jolt, that you’ve made him genuinely interested. not just in your words, but in you. and that’s something he’s never experienced before. 

“i don’t think i’ve ever had anyone see me like this,” he says, leaning forward, his voice quieter now. “and i like it. you’re not just another person in my life, someone who’s just there because of who i am.” 

you look at him, taking in his expression. for the first time, you can tell he’s not putting on an act. “so what does that mean for us?” 

he looks you in the eye, the confidence that usually lingers in his tone softened by something real. “i think it means i’m willing to see where this goes. seriously.” 

you smile, your heart skipping a beat. “yeah?” you tease lightly. “is this the part where you finally drop the whole ‘untouchable’ thing?” 

kaiser grins, a hint of his old arrogance creeping back into his voice. “maybe. but i’ll never make it that easy for you.” 

you laugh softly, leaning back in your chair, finally feeling like you’re on the same page. and for once, you’re not sure where this is going, but you’re both invested in finding out. 

© 𝐤𝐱𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐢

[conflictofthemind]

Lucas knows about Mike and Will

First off, of course the context is needed that Lucas has known the two of them the longest out of any of the kids. He is Mike’s neighbour and joined their party even before Dustin. He also played wingman for Mike previously in S3, trying to help get Mike and Eleven back together. It’s not a stretch of the imagination that Lucas would end up in a role like that again.

So, the hospital scene at the end of Season 4.

There’s a few things within this scene that are a little suspicious, and then one big thing that basically has no explanation other than Lucas suspecting something is going on with Mike. I brightened the scene here- first let’s just acknowledge they held hands on Lucas’ back. This is the only kind of direct hand touch we get this season.

Lucas can’t see that.. but it’s on his back. Of course he would be able to feel it. It’s also another moment that separates Mike and Will as a pair, versus Eleven on her own. Here’s the full clip below. And then just LOOK at the expression Lucas gives Mike after he sees El lingering behind. Your friend just visited as soon as he possibly could to give you support. Why would you look at them like this after he hugs you? Because he knows there’s something weird going on in the relationship between Mike and El. No other explanation.

Lucas is clearly giving Mike a “what the fuck is going on” kind of expression, eye squinted, eyebrows furrowed. There’s also a blink and you’ll miss it moment where Mike’s breath catches after the contact with Will’s hand, and he makes a split second glance to look at their hands (which I captured in the first image).

Then after Lucas hugs El, he clearly parts and steps back to give room for Mike to join beside his girlfriend. But Mike crosses the room to put himself in between El and Will instead. Another thing Lucas would have found weird. Lucas isn’t dumb.

Then we have the shotlisting post from Ross’ instagram. Shot listing is where they plan out what happens within an episode and what kinds of shots they want. This image is obviously an Easter Egg for fans about who’s interacting with who in the first 2 episodes (ie Stonathan shenanigans of which we already know about). I didn’t see it at first but Lucas is clearly placed in the centre of a triangle between El, Mike, and Will. He’s the centre of the triangle.

This makes sense with what we know about S5 thus far as well. There’s a confirmed plot line that has Dustin trying to isolate himself from the rest of the group (if he hasn’t already been isolated enough from the party in recent seasons). It shows up in the shot list image too of course, with Dustin on the opposite side. For the kids, due to Max being out of commission, the only interactions we are going to get in the first two episodes before the time jump seem to be between El, Will, Mike, and Lucas. We also have confirmation from Millie that El and Lucas will be spending a lot more time together than they had in previous seasons.

Moving onto a bit of cornplating for the last points which just serve as some cherries on top of this theory - we already have imagery of Lucas acting as a bridge between Mike and Will in the party image Ross gave us. This is post time jump most likely because of the new outfits, so it’s interesting that this role could continue throughout the season.

We also have the imagery of Lucas holding a suspiciously coloured blue and yellow shield in Will’s painting of the party. A bit of a stretch, sure. But complied with everything else it is definitely interesting to consider.

Now for the character reasoning, which is always important to consider: why would Lucas end up in this position?

Lucas is going through his girlfriend being in a coma after they had a major distance in their relationship. A coma that Lucas in universe has no clue if she’ll ever wake up from, and realistically (in-universe) hopes are slim that she will recover. And if she does, she may not have all the memories of times spent together still with her. There’s probably so many regrets swirling around his mind of things he could have done or said in the time that they had together. Lucas doesn’t have this luxury - but his friends still do.

Lucas is Mike’s oldest friend outside of Will, and Will/Mike are Lucas’ first friends. They existed as a party even before Dustin.

Out of his pain of ‘losing’ Max and the wisdom he learned from it, I really do think Lucas is going to encourage Mike to seize the day and take control of his life once again. Will and Mike still have the luxury of time and still have chance. If anyone could convince Mike his feelings are reciprocal, it would also be Lucas.

Furthermore, Lucas understands that as a black man in fairly rural 80s Indiana, his relationship with Max is also one that is singled out due to prejudice against interracial couples. Interracial marriage would only have been legalized less than twenty years ago. It’s not quite the same, but again if anyone understood the position Mike would be in (other than say Robin) - it would be Lucas.

[chaeul]

Spoilers for the TBNW boxset - be warned/welcome ♥

Hooh boy, strap in guys! Watch me fall apart as I gently take apart and violently scream about the extended tbnw ep10 nc scene (be prepared for lots of parentheses because I have a lot to say and a very hard time putting my thoughts in a sensible order ✌🏼)

“Sex scenes are unnecessary and don’t add anything to the plot, they’re just porn and don’t have any artistic value”- PLEASE, have you seen the way Boss and Noeul do nc scenes??? I have been rewatching and losing my shit for hours, screaming at the partner in crime because these two make me feel so unwell.

Okay, first of all - This is everything to me.

Phu looking down as Cir tilts his head back even more (a beautiful look on Boss, if I may add). 

I mean, FUCK, the boy has had to guard himself behind an icy cold wall his whole life; can you imagine how freeing it must be to feel so safe he dares to lay himself totally bare? Letting himself be vulnerable, baring his neck and making himself small, kneeling by the feet of his savior (because let’s be real, that’s who Phu is to him), looking up at his everything with pure devotion like he’s worshipping him (because he is 😭).

It’s just a short shared gaze but it’s so meaningful *whines and grabs my emotional support patch of grass*

Listen, I love sex, I really do, and there’s no shame in it. But this is what really gives me a boner: the emotional desire, the intensity. The feelings and intentions are so important. And Boss and Noeul are absolute Kings at it (I can practically hear the partner in crime echoing “Emperors, kings, gods, legends!”)

Every time I rewatch this scene I have to pause here to catch my breath because I get so overwhelmed that my heart feels like it’s gonna leap out of my chest. I’m really giving it my best here, but I feel like no matter what I say, I can’t properly convey with words how this shared gaze makes me feel.

Phew, let’s take a lil breather together, shall we? In- - - and Out - - -

Which brings me to my next point: Moaning.

And not just Phu’s alluring siren call of a moan (we can all hear him loud and clear, thanks and blessings to Mame for finally allowing Noeul to let it all out after holding him back during lita filming), no I’m mainly talking about Cir!

Phu pulls a lot of the attention due to the volume and disinhibition in his voice but if you listen closely, Cir is right there with him with a velvety warm hum, a few groans, sometimes even just an audible breath. He’s way softer but it is audible how much he’s enjoying this; from their simultaneous penetration moans all the way to the grand finale and their shuddering breaths (okay, mostly Phu’s, thank you once again Noeul) as they ride out the high with clasped hands.

Another thing that didn’t go unnoticed was the multiple instances where Phu moans and Cir joins in, just slightly delayed. 

As if he’s groaning in reply.

As if Phu’s sighs drive him to exclaim as well, unable to stop himself.

Because hearing how good he’s making Phu feel is Cir’s ultimate pleasure (Cir’s auralism confirmed once again, if anyone’s still not convinced, heh). 

Gosh, this puppydog of a man lives and loves to serve Phu, in the streets and in the sheets!

And then there’s the hand on Phu’s neck

Yes, choking kink ✅ We all love it! (Although it looks to me like he’s merely cradling Phu's neck- but the image is beautiful, we are truly blessed.) 

Yes, Phu’s adam’s apple seems to be a very sensitive spot and Cir knows and loves it.

But what if it wasn’t (just) that? And here’s where I bring it right back to moans and by extension (some might say a long stretch) Cir’s auralism.

(Well, given that Cir currently has dick so far down his own throat that he could nuzzle Phu’s lower abs with his nose) one might argue Cir settles for Phu’s neck, his fingers not quite reaching far enough, unable to slide past Phu’s lips (the endgame once again being loud and clear moans; Phu sucking on them like a man parched is but the icing on the cake), but!-

His throat is where Phu produces those addictive moans that Cir just can’t get enough of. Maybe that’s why he constantly kisses, bites, licks, and in this case places his palm against it- so that in addition to hearing Phu’s moans he can feel them vibrating against his skin. 

Auralism plus, I think I might call it? idk

There’s so much more but my brain is mush by now so, uhm, where was I? 

Ah, yes! The beauty of Boss and Noeul’s nc scenes!

Listennnn these two are so hard working, emotionally intelligent and in sync with their characters and each other, especially in nc scenes - where are the awards for these two???

Nobody can tell me ever again that scenes like these can’t hold merit or artistic value.

Fuck that!

Yes, some works may have the audacity to call dry humping with no emotional depth a love scene. But then there’s Boss and Noeul, telling their story by acting out the most delicate details with almost atom level precision and some people call it porn (derogatory) ?🤯

Like so many things in life, sex has the potential to be beautiful and joyful and fucking hell, I see the beauty in this and I enjoy the fuck outta this. Art is supposed to make you feel things, right?

This makes me feel things! Many! (And yes, being horny is among those feelings and that is okay)

Anyway, love is beautiful and deserves to be portrayed in all its depth and variety, Happy Pride!!! 🌈

[trippinsorrows]

looking through your eyes + six

authors note: i really like how this one came out. hope you guys do too.

i use some psych terminology, so just as a lil glossary: pt=patient, dx=diagnosis, hx =history, fx=functioning status (mental stability, essentially) and hopefully everyone can understand the rest with context clues.

if any cw/tw’s are missed, please let me know, and i will add them!

cw/tw: fluff, language, medical report following suicide attempt, discussion of sexual abuse, mention of torture

song inspo: ‘looking through your eyes’ by leann rimes

masterlist

words: 10k (i don't know how to write short chapters, clearly)

The last thing Solana expected to wake up to is a handwritten note left for her in the same journal she deposited on Roman’s bed despite her better judgment. She was filled to the brim with anxiety regarding that bold decision, asking him to do something she’s certain is miles outside of his comfort zone.

She expected him to ignore her. 

What she didn’t expect was for him to reply.

Reading over his words, Solana struggles with the ease of his acquiescence. He indicated it could be short term, but she’ll take that, because it’s a hell of a lot easier for her to talk to this man if it’s through written word.

And the last part. 

There’s nothing you can’t tell me.

There’s actually a lot she can’t tell him. A lot he can never know. No one can know, but the sentiment behind it…..it has her puzzled. He has her puzzled. 

Solana grabs the journal and scans the kitchen for a pen when a thought crosses her mind. She bites down on her bottom lip, forever battling with the idea of something vs the actuality of carrying out the plan.

In a plot twist, she sides with the plan and pulls out her phone, searching for Roman’s contact.

She types, deletes, and does so again at least three times before settling on a text that really could have been conjured and sent in seconds vs the solid ten minutes she takes to issue it out.

Solana: Hi. Thank you. Do you think we could text too? I know that writing is my thing, but I can text if that’s easier for you too….thanks.

Solana nearly tosses her cell phone on the large slab that is his granite kitchen island and moves around to figure out what she’s going to fix for breakfast. The perfect excuse for her to not think about the knots in her stomach at her message. It doesn’t stop the overthinking though.

What if she’s asking too much? Pushing him too far out of his comfort zone? It doesn’t take long for her to regret her decision, wishing it was still within the time limits to unsend her message.

And then her phone dings.

Solana nearly drops the egg she was about to crack over the skillet. Swallowing, she places it back in the bowel as her feet slowly carry her to the phone that has now dinged a second time. Her fingers dance against the sides of her pants, stretching and scratching the cotton. 

Lifting her phone, she unlocks her phone and heads straight to his thread.

Roman: Yes.

It’s a simple response that makes sense for him and is beneficial for Solana who sighs in relief at his agreement. She stews on how to respond, eventually settling on a simple thank you as well as answering his question. The least she can do. 

Solana: Thank you…

Solana: And I don’t work this weekend. 

Solana: Can I ask you something?

Solana again starts chewing on her bottom lip as she mentally berates herself for bombarding him with messages when he’s probably in the middle of working.

But even so, that doesn’t stop him from replying almost instantly.

Roman: You don’t have to ask if you can ask me something, Solana. Just ask. 

It’s hard not to imagine the frustration on his face at answering her question while also having to remind her of what he’s already stated at one point or another. 

Solana: Okay…

Solana: Where are we going?

She’s unsure if he will respond and has accepted that he may not, which is okay with her. He’s already being more responsive than she initially anticipated he would. And Solana is barely able to put the skillet on the fire before her phone is buzzing again.

Roman: You’ll see.

His answer makes her frown. It’s not what she wanted to hear, but it’s also not a complete disregard or verbal lashing for asking a simple question.

Solana prepares to leave it as is when Roman’s voice is in the back of her mind, nudging and reminding her of his desire for her to communicate with him more.

Nervous fingers type out an expression of said nerves.

Solana: Okay….surprises just make me nervous. 

She doesn’t have time to put her phone down when those three dots appear, indicating he’s typing.

Roman: It’s nothing bad.

Roman: I wouldn’t lie to you. 

And for some strange reason, Solana believes that. Roman doesn't seem like a man to lie in general, because he’s too blunt for that. 

Unless….

Unless it’s one of his mind games, because he is notorious for that. Still, she can’t find a reason why he would waste his time playing one of those with her. 

Solana: Okay. Sorry to text you while you’re working.

Roman: You’re apologizing again.

Roman: And I don’t care. 

Roman: I’d rather talk to you than listen to the twins bullshit.

Solana tries to not put too much into his words, into him saying that he wants to talk to her. It’s not that he directly wants to speak to her, more she’s the lesser of two evils. Nothing to get into her head about.

Solana: They’re kinda funny….🙈

Roman: You’d feel differently if you had to deal with them all the time. 

Solana: Fair.

The exchange is so in the moment, back to back, that she doesn’t put her phone down again until her last message. She then returns to preparing her breakfast. 

Solana is frying her eggs, adding in seasoning when her phone dings again. Wiping her hands on her apron, she expects a message from Bayley or even Naomi.

Especially Naomi. She needs to talk to her about what happened, apologize for putting her in what must have been an awkward situation.

It’s neither of them.

Roman: How’d you start writing?

Roman continuing or prolonging the conversation isn’t something she saw coming. But, the message is right there in white writing against that gray background.

Solana briefly debates how honest to be in her answer, deciding to step a bit out of her comfort zone in offering more than just her usual three to five word responses. 

Solana: My mom. She spoke English, but she wasn’t fluent, so she’d write letters to me in Spanish, and I’d have to respond in English so we both could learn.

Solana: My dad wouldn’t let her teach or speak it around me and Wes so that was the only way I/she could learn.

He stops replying after that, and Solana feels stupid for being so open, for not just giving him a simple answer with all of the unnecessary verbiage.

And then her phone goes off.

Roman: Not surprising. 

When he doesn’t say anything else, Solana debates on whether to end it there or follow up with another question given that he asked one first. It feels like returning the favor or reciprocating manners.

Hence, she decides on texting him again. 

Solana: What is that language you speak to the twins sometimes?

Roman: Samoan. I’m fluent. Italian and English as well. 

That’s not entirely surprising. Roman is obviously a well educated, well rounded man. 

Roman: You’re more perceptive than you let off.

Solana: Maybe. But no one ever cares what I have to say or think, so it doesn’t make sense to share it. 

He stops replying after that.

And Solana tries to not think too much about her disappointment, moving around the kitchen to finish fixing breakfast as a distraction.

A poor distraction, because not even twenty minutes later, she’s ready to check her phone again even if it hasn’t made the special sound that makes her belly flutter. However, the sound of the doorbell pulls her from that premature excitement.

Solo comes to meet her in the kitchen informing matter-of-factly, “it’s Naomi and Bayley.” 

Solana stills. That’s definitely not someone she expected to see so soon. Neither of them.

“Invite them in?” Solo’s voice tinges with borderline irritation, which she can understand.

Cheeks reddening, she apologizes. “Yes. Sorry. Of—of course.”

Solana hears Bayley before she sees her. “Damn. This is how it’s like to live as the Tribal Chief's wife? Maybe shit isn’t so bad after all.” The two walking in wearing friendly smiles brings back Solana’s grin.

“Hey there. We wanted to come check on you.” Naomi introduces, the first to ask, “is it okay if we hug you?”

Solana doesn’t hesitate as much as she would expect herself to. “Yes.” 

Naomi also doesn’t hesitate and steps forward, hugging Solana in such a sincere way she’s not sure she’s experienced in years. Since her mom. 

And Bayley does the same, maybe even a little tighter.

The three of them sit down at the kitchen island as Bayley asks in a sympathetic tone. “How you doing, lady?”

“Better.” It’s an honest answer, and Solana can’t help but think about the additive that it’s largely due to Roman. But, she keeps that part to herself. She looks at Naomi. “I’m so sorry—“

Naomi lifts a manicured finger to silence her. “Girl, you have nothing to apologize for. If anything, I’m sorry I didn’t know what was going on. You could have told me too, but I get it must have been hard for you.”

This part had Solana deeply nervous, the part where she’d have to ‘face’ Naomi after causing such a scene and getting the whole place shut down for an entire day, So, for the woman with the penchant for bold colors that look delightful against her complexion to be so understanding and empathetic, it means a lot to Solana.

It means a lot that Bayley would also even tag along when she wasn’t even part of that chaotic ordeal.

“Just know you can tell us anything. We’ve got your back,” Bayley affirms, adding with a smirk. “And clearly your big bad husband does too.”

We’ve got your back.

Solana doesn’t even know where to begin comprehending and swallowing that. 

Thankfully, she doesn’t have too long to be in her head, because Naomi starts talking again. “That was wild,” she comments with a shake of her head and then looks at Solana. “Oh shit, you probably don’t know, do you?”

Solana’s stomach does the opposite of butterflies, the uncomfortable clenching and twisting that accompanies anxiety. “Know what?”

There’s no delay with the answer.

“Theory and Waller are dead.” Solana wasn’t sure what to expect to hear Naomi say, but even if she tried to guess, that would have never been one of her options.

Confusion is painted all over her face. “Wha—what?”

Dead.

The two men who just yesterday caused her to breakdown and revert back to her teenage years where dissociation was her coping mechanism, the men who’d been sexually harassing her with zero regards for her as a human and even more, as Roman’s wife….are dead.

It feels almost impossible to be true. 

Bayley backs up Naomi’s assertion, adding, “yeah, he had their bodies, or what was left, displayed at the Warehouse this morning.”

Chills travel up her spine. “W–why?”

It’a a word aimed towards a lot of the questions Solana has unanswered. Why are they dead? Why did Roman kill or have them killed? Sure, she expected there to be some form of punishment, merely for the simple fact that messing with her was a clear sign of disrespect toward him, which the Tribal Chief would never tolerate. But, for them to be killed, in such a what sounds like a gruesome manner, and their remains to be left for all to see?

Why?

Bayley answers with a shrug of her shoulders. “To send a message.”

Solana is surprisingly fast with her follow up. “W-what message?”

Naomi is quick with the answer, but in general, she seems to be knowledgeable about a lot of things Bloodline. “You’re Bloodline now. No one messes with us. And you’re Roman’s wife? Yeah, he’s making sure everyone knows what happens if they even think about fucking with you.”

It lines up, Solana reflecting back on Roman’s departing declaration the night before.

“I told you. No one lays a hand on you. I’m gonna make sure everyone understands that shit from here on out.”

She just never expected such a….big message. 

“Honestly, they were fucking creeps anyway.” Solana cannot and does not disagree with the first part of Bayley’s statement, the second part, however, is iffy for her. “They got exactly what they deserved.”

Solana neither agrees or disagrees with that.

“I’m thinking we do your training from here for a little while,” Naomi suggests. While her initial response is to apologize for any inconvenience this may cause Naomi, Solana can’t deny the fact that just the thought of walking back in that building right now makes her physically ill. “I know Roman got a state of the art gym here and that massive backyard of yalls? This will do just fine.” 

“Oooh, I gotta see this.” Bayley then asks, “Solana, are you working today?”

“No, I called out.” Solana needs at least a day to get her mind right, hence taking today off.

Bayley then suggests, “Naomi and I were gonna go shopping. Why don’t you come with us?” 

It's an interestingly timed question given one of Solana’s text exchanges with Roman not even an hour ago included him informing her that the stack of envelopes on the kitchen island earlier were her new set of cards, all linked to his accounts. 

And he made sure to reiterate again that there is no limit. For any of them.

Bayley then decides and declares, slapping her hand on the island. “Matter of fact, we’re not asking. We’re telling you that you’re going shopping with us.” That is something Solana is familiar with, never being asked, always being told.

It’s just rare, if ever, it’s something that isn't entirely bad or terrible she’s being told she needs to do. 

“I’ve been wanting to take you shopping for forever anyway. Because as sweet and great as you are, Solana, you dress like college freshman meets Billie Eilish.” Before Solana can ask what exactly that means, Naomi explains. “So much neutral and dark colors. And everything is oversized. I can tell you’re kind of insecure about your body, but you literally have no reason to be because you have an amazing shape.”

Solana doesn’t say anything, but her hand naturally goes to one of the scars on her arm from that night. 

Naomi notices this and advises in a gentle voice, “we all have scars, Solana. Some you can see and others you don’t.” Solana has both, and it’s a miserable experience. “That doesn’t mean you have to hide them and be ashamed.” 

“Naomi is right.” Bayley agrees, and something tells Solana she’s going out shopping today whether she wants to or not. “We are going to help you learn to embrace your curves one better fashionable choice at a time.” 

________

Solana can probably count on one hand how many times she’s gone shopping in person over the past couple years. Maybe longer. She mostly sticks to online shopping when she is in need of a couple new pieces, always sizing way up so she can assure that it fits. More so drapes over her body, but that’s always been the preference.

She’s also never shopped at stores where the price for a single item can be upwards to three to four figures, which apparently isn’t the case for Bayley and Naomi.

Cause one of the first items they pick up for her is a single blouse that reads $650.00 on the price tag. Solana nearly faints when she reads that. That’s probably the entire cost of her wardrobe put together. 

She’s starting to regret telling them about Roman adding her to his accounts. Naomi especially seemed thrilled at that, and she seems to be the one piling the cart with more and more items. Bayley also offering her fair share of contributions.

All the while Solo keeps a safe but comfortable distance, wearing that infamous stoic expression, Solana can’t help but wonder how he must be feeling about this, about having to spend his time watching her while she shops. It can’t be enjoyable for him at all. She feels sort of bad. 

“Oh my god, you have to try this on.” 

Feeling bad for someone else morphs into feeling bad for herself, to a certain extent, when Solana sees the dress that Naomi is holding up for her. 

In all interactions, Solana does her best to be polite and kind, to never invite a volatile or mean response. “Ummm, I don’t—I don’t think that’ll look good on me.”

It won’t look good for a lot of reasons, the main one being it’s too small. Solana can see the thin sleeved dress is intended to be form-fitting—another major red flag—but even with that, it’s obviously a size, or eight, too small.

Naomi makes a sound. “Girl, that’s just how it looks. It molds to your shape, and with all your curves, I know it’s going to be a killer look.” She then pushes it in Solana’s direction again. “At least try it on. You never know unless you try.”

But Solana does know. She knows this dress is going to draw attention to all of her flaws. The rolls, the pudge of her belly, her big arms, and those damn scars. But, she also doesn’t want to be rude, so she agrees, disappearing in the dressing room before emerging a couple minutes later, never once checking her reflection before doing so. 

She walks to where the ladies are waiting, asking with an awkward shrug of her shoulders, “well?”

Naomi gasps. “Holy shit, that looks amazing on you, Solana!”

“Of course it does. You see that body?” Bayley joins in on gassing her up, adding, “it really does look good, Solana. We wouldn't lie to you.”

Huh. That’s the second time today Solana has been told that. 

Bayley then instructs her to look at her reflection in the full body mirror of the dressing room, a dreaded task but one she makes herself complete. 

Solana does her best to try to be as neutral and not negative towards her appearance, but it’s hard when she keeps honing in on the scars on her arms, the one on her face, not to mention her weight and how, to her, it just seems too much. 

Her father’s sharp and consistent criticism starts to return to the forefront of her mind when she notices Naomi snap a photo. Turning on her heel, she asks with a level of nervousness, “w–what are you doing?” 

“Helping you to realize how bad as hell you are.” Naomi says it so casually, so calmly, turning her phone toward Solana. “See.”

It’s a thread, a group chat, and along with the picture Naomi just snapped, there’s an accompanying text.

Naomi: Solana is being stupid and thinks she looks bad in this dress. Please prove me and Bayley’s point. 

Solana’s eyes go wide when she realizes just who is in this group text. Jimmy, Jey, and Roman. 

Her stomach is twisting all over again. “Naomi, I—I don’t think—”

Naomi’s phone chimes, and a smile grows on her face as Bayley moves closer to Solana. 

Naomi starts laughing and then smirks as she flips it so Solana and Bayley can read. “I rest my case.”

Jey: Damn, Soso 👀 Hell yeah, she look good. Goddamn! 😫

Jimmy: I GYAT to start coming over to ya’ll house more, Uce. 🍑

Bayley makes a wolf sound, playfully shoving Solana whose cheeks are reddening by the second after reading the surprising response from the twins. She definitely either expected no response or an either kind or unkind disagreement. “We told you, girl. You look amazing.” Bayley then comments, directing her statement to Naomi. “Man, you and Jimmy definitely have a strong ass relationship, cause I’d be ready to kick his ass.”

Naomi shrugs, simply responding. “We trust each other. I know it stops at just looking for him. Same for me.”

Her phone makes a sound, and she reads whatever the latest incoming messages are, instantly rolling her eyes. “Roman is such an ass sometimes.”

Solana’s ear perks up at the mention of his name as she asks, “what did he say?”

Naomi turns her phone again so Solana can read for herself, her stomach twisting with anxiety when she reads his trenchant reply.

Roman: Shut the fuck up.

Roman: Unsend this shit, Naomi. Now.

But before Solana can panic about his response, her phone dings and she pulls it out to see his name on her lockscreen. Instead of delaying the inevitable, she unlocks to read his response, anticipating the worst.

Roman: You look good.

Roman: But you always look good. 

Solana has to read his text a couple of times before it actually registers. He thinks she looks good. Roman thinks she looks good. Even more, he thinks she always looks good. Solana doesn’t know how to take that, even though there really is only one way to take such a message.

Bayley and Naomi being the bit of nosy Nancy’s that they are, sneak a peek at Solana’s phone and also read his text. Bayley is the first to speak, displaying that knowing dimpled smile. “Ha! See. The Tribal Chief himself has spoken.”

Naomi and her share a laugh as Solana finds herself also with a small smile. Roman had told her the night of WarGames that she looked beautiful, and she hadn’t really known how to take that either, chalking it up to the face full of makeup and fancy updo.

But this photo Naomi snapped and sent shows her without a lick of makeup on, hair messily pulled back and out of the way. It’s literally just her in a dress, a dress she normally would never dare to brave, but something Roman apparently thinks she looks good in.

“Does…..does he really think I’m beautiful?” It’s a question she never intended to leave the safe confines of her mind, but it’s a rebel, sneaking its way out and landing on the doorstep of the two women before her.

Bayley, as per usual, is the first to speak. “Is that a serious question? Of course he thinks you’re beautiful, because you are. You’re absolutely stunning, Solana. You have to see that.”

“Most of the men at your wedding kept commenting on how pretty you are. And your boobs, of course, because men have no couth.” Naomi rolls her eyes but continues. “And as someone who has had the displeasure of knowing Roman literally since we were in elementary school, I can tell you that you’re 1000% his type.”

Solana doesn’t believe that Naomi has reason to lie to her. Bayley either. And as Naomi has been around the family for so long, her word has to be true. But, Solana has a hard time separating the fact that Roman, who has someone as beautiful and unflawed like Samantha, in the same vein, could think someone like her is beautiful. 

Samantha is beautiful, and someone he can actually touch.

Because regardless of how he views her, it all comes down to that. Physical intimacy. One of many things that Solana can’t give him.

But Samantha can.

Samantha does.

That’s why she was in the house that day, doing what Solana should but can’t because she’s too fucked up, too damaged, too broken. 

Bayley reaches over with a comforting hand, switching to Spanish. “Whatever you’re thinking right now, don’t. You’re beautiful, Solana. That’s it. Nothing more. Nothing less. Fuck anyone who’s ever said different.”

Solana isn’t quite sure how to describe how grateful she feels in this moment, to have such support, to have people be so genuinely and sincerely supportive. She hasn’t had that in so long, she’d almost forgotten that it was possible.

Emotion thick, she responds in the same language, “thank you, Bayley.”

“Okay, now that’s just not fair. I wanna know what’s going on too.” Naomi’s protest and almost childlike pout makes Solana smile, a nice break from the heavy emotional experience going on in her head. 

“Just some girls supporting girls shit.” Bayley shrugs and claps her hands together. “Okay, now let’s see what sexy little red pieces we can find for you….”

________

Texting and writing with Roman on and off for the rest of the week was never on Solana’s agenda, but it’s exactly what’s been happening. 

And she has no idea what to make of it. 

Every time there’s a delay with his response, she assumes that’s it. That’s the end of the conversation. Only for her phone to buzz with not only a response but usually a follow up question.

It’s almost as if he wants to keep the conversation going, but that can’t be it. She can’t see why he’d want to speak with her.

Even if he literally stated that he’d prefer to talk to her than listen to his cousins bicker. Still, his entire day can’t involve their presence. There has to be some separation at one point or another. 

But even with that, he’s consistent with eventually replying, acknowledging her messages even if the responses come hours after her first one was sent. 

And for the life of her, Solana cannot find a good or logical reason as to why her stomach flutters with a modicum to medium level of excitement every time her phone dings. 

Because she thinks it’s another text from Roman.

Because she’s enjoying speaking with him. Because she seeks out opportunities even while working to check her phone and see if he’s text her. It’s not traditional communication, and she’s certain there’s no way in hell she’d be able to talk to him this freely, this comfortably if it was verbal. 

Not a chance.

But in texting, she finds a level of ease that makes it significantly easier to get to know him. And maybe that’s what it is, she has some level of desire to get to know him more. If this “marriage” is to last, whatever that looks like, it feels like she needs to know more about him other than that he’s big, strong, and a killer.

Those traits more than speak for themselves, but there’s gotta be more, and there is. Like her now knowing he speaks three languages fluently and would like to pick up another someday if he ever has the time. Or that he works out at least twice every day and doesn’t feel right if he can’t get in at least one workout.

Similarly, Solana finds herself reciprocating his sharing of information, small facts that aren’t major but make a smidge of difference. Like her love of books and words. The few shows she enjoys. She especially doesn’t understand where that comes from. The sharing on her end. It’s something similar like her growing relationships with Bayley and Naomi. 

But that’s different, so so different, for a variety of reasons. One, they’re women, and while anxiety is something she struggles with in interactions with all individuals, regardless of sex, it’s much easier with them than men.

And Roman is not the average man, far from it.

He scares her.

Or does he? 

Solana has been struggling to make sense of the fear that often cripples her and the behavior he’s shown her thus far. They don’t add up. Sure, he’s expressed irritation and a level of anger towards her, but both were more than warranted. And even in those moments, there was still a level of control and composure. He didn’t scream at her. Didn’t belittle her. Didn’t hit her. 

And his words from earlier that week circle back around to the front of her mind.

Even that day at her job.

He’s made it clear now two times that he has no plans or desire to ever hit her. Initially, that didn’t mean anything to Solana, because she’s never known a man in her life to never beat on her. The second time, it made her start to wonder if he was telling the truth.

And now, in a week of genuine and okay interactions, maybe even good interactions, that wondering of the truth is gradually meshing into believing.

Especially because something tells her Roman’s not a man to lie, not unless he’s playing one of his infamous mind games. And what reason would he have to play a mind game with her of all people?

She’s nobody.

But not enough of a nobody for him to end the conversation, which she’s expected all week but yet to see happen. Even more, a part of Solana feels like he’s also wanting to keep the conversation going, matching her with the questions vs just responding and leaving it as is. 

And Solana appreciates it a lot, maybe even to the point where she’s gradually starting to appreciate him.

If she doesn’t already.

It’s why she doesn’t mind waking up earlier than she already does to fix breakfast and get ready for work to do something for him that she hopes he views as nice while he gets in his morning workout in the home gym.

Finished and almost too nervous to stay around for his response, she grabs the notebook, leaving a quick message before heading up the stairs to get in at least another hour of sleep as there’s still leftovers from yesterday’s breakfast.

Roman,

I noticed you tend to start off your breakfast with a protein shake. I saw how you make it, so I figured I’d just make it for you. Less for you to do.

Hope that was alright.

Solana

________

Roman didn’t plan to text and write Solana as often as he has. It just…..happened.

She was right in that communication does seem smoother and even easier through this channel. It’s also nice to “hear” her communicate without all that damn stuttering and stammering. Her texts and letters read so much better than actually listening to her speak aloud.

Not that her voice isn’t pleasing to some extent. It is. Soft and almost melodic, minus the fucking stutters. 

Roman is in the middle of reviewing income spreadsheets when Jimmy walks into his office and

drops a stack of paperwork on top of Roman’s desk. He then plops down in one of two chairs opposite his cousin. “Solana’s medical records.”

Roman is pleased, thankful to the Wise Man for his promptness regarding his request.

“There is something you should know though.”

Instantly, Roman is annoyed, because he recognizes that tone of Jimmy’s. The tone that lets Roman know he’s not going to like what he’s about to hear. “What?”

“Apparently, information is missing.”

“What do you mean it’s missing? Find the fucking hospital that has them. I want all of her records.” Roman’s orders were clear as day, and he fucking hates when even with comprehensible issuance, there’s still a fucking problem. 

“That’s all that’s available. Paul said the records indicate shit was deleted or something. Like cleared out of the system.” Before Roman can express his dissatisfaction and suggestions, Jimmy explains, “He said he consulted with Pearce to see if he could retrieve the files, but even he couldn’t get them. Something about systems changing over time and not being compatible. You know, all that tech shit Pearce be talking.”

Roman was right. As always. He’s annoyed.

Because he knows exactly who would have had a hand in something like this.

Xavier.

He expresses as such. “It was Xavier. Son of a bitch probably had it deleted somehow.” Roman knows Miller has hands and ties in the medical community as well as social services, though that power and leverage has definitely dwindled over the years due to Miller’s mounting financial problems. However, around the time Solana was a kid was very much the peak of Miller’s paltry empire. 

“What exactly are you looking for, man?” Jimmy asks, trying to get a read on his cousin, never an easy feat. If at all possible. “I’m not trying to be mean, but it’s obvious Solana been through some shit. You really need to know all of it?”

It’s a sound question that Roman isn’t certain he has the answer for. Knowing just what Solana has been through could be helpful in helping him understand her better, but there’s also a part of him that doesn’t know why he’s even bothering with that. Why does he even need to understand her better?

“I mean, just what happened to her mom could be the reason for a lot of her….struggles.”

“That’s part of it.” Roman’s certain of that, but he also knows there’s more. “Her father and brother were abusive.”

At that, Jimmy appears shocked. “What?” His expression quickly turns into a scowl. “That’s why you had us handle up on ole’ boy? You should have said that was why. Would have broke that bitch left hand too.”

“I’m going to kill them both before all is said and done.” And that’s a fucking promise, an oath. Their days are numbered. “But until then, I’ll keep them away from her.”

“That must piss them the fuck off.”

“Exactly.” Beyond making sure they don’t fucking touch Solana, Roman recognizes flexing his power and authority by cutting off all contact between them is something Miller and his boy must find infuriating. They’ve clearly thrived on controlling and torturing Solana, but that shit is over. 

Solana is Bloodline now.

No one fucking touches her.

“Well.” Jimmy blows out a big breath and shrugs his shoulders. “I just hope you know what you doing, Big Dog.” 

“Don’t I always.” Roman mutters, opening the manilla envelope to start going over the files. “Jimmy.”

“Yeah?”

“Have Naomi continue to do Solana’s training from the house.”

“Come on, man, my girl is already on that. She said Soso’s been getting better and better too. ” Jimmy answers, explaining, “I think she and Bey should be over there right about now anyway. Feels like they always over there these days.”

Roman wouldn’t entirely disagree. He gets regular updates from security regarding any and all happenings at his home, which includes a list of visitors, and Naomi and Bayley have been consistent on that list. 

Roman also understands now why Solana hasn’t replied to his latest text.

Not that it bothers him. A lot, at least. He has shit to do anyway. 

A couple minutes later, Jimmy leaves, and Roman is left alone to venture into the next task on his to-do list. 

As expected, Solana’s medical records consist of a lot of emergency visits for accidents. Sprains. Broken bones. Fractures. Endless bruising, hematomas even. The visits eventually die down, but Roman suspects it’s not because the abuse stopped or paused. More likely they stopped taking her and she tended to her wounds herself.

But, the largest section of her records is the most telling.

Subjective: PT is a 16 y/o mixed race female currently admitted following SI attempt. PT was reportedly found in bathroom by family maid and transported to ER by ambulance where she was formally admitted. PT does not appear fully oriented to person, place, and time. PT offered minimal responses to questions and would only speak when prompted. PT denies auditory and visual hallucinations. PT reports wanting to be with mother who is deceased. PT reports no will to live. PT indicated yes with a head nod when asked about hx of sexual trauma. PT observed to become teary eyed following this acknowledgment and would not speak on nature of trauma. PT began to cry and moved into fetal position after being asked reasons for attempt. PT was heard repeating the question, “why didn’t you let me die?” PT became unresponsive after this exchange.

Objective: PT does not appear stable enough to be released from care. Fx is severely impaired. I suspect a long history of complex trauma, confirmed sexual abuse, and suspected physical abuse. Medical records from client’s initial admission indicate “numerous” pre-existing cuts on PT’s inner forearms, indicating repeated incidents of self-harm. I deem PT to be an imminent danger to herself and suspect a release would result in another SI attempt.

Assessment: PT presents with flat affect and depressed mood. Presents with poor insight and impulse control. PT’s wrists medically wrapped. Faded scars and bruises observed on PT’s arms, legs and partially faded bruise on left eye. PT also has scars on both arms and face, reportedly from knife attack during childhood.

Plan: I strongly recommend client be transferred to an adolescent residential facility or kept inpatient at hospital where she can be monitored and placed on medication regimen as well as participate in intensive individual and group therapy to assist in mood stabilization.

If released and left untreated, it is my belief and professional opinion that PT will eventually be successful in efforts to end life. 

Diagnosis: F43.10 Posttraumatic Stress Disorder w/ Dissociation 

Roman keeps reading over this section of the file, but there’s one part that stands out the most.

PT indicated yes with a head nod when asked about hx of sexual trauma. 

That’s the part that Roman can’t seem to move past. He’s read it all. Every fucking word. And it’s all horrific. But, it’s that one sentence, that one damn sentence that confirms what he’d started to suspect, had gradually started to put the pieces together to see the much larger, darker picture.

She’d been touched. He doesn’t know to what extent, but regardless of the specific nature, at fucking sixteen years old, she’d already been violated.

A single swoop of his big arm across the desk sends all of the items once neatly situated sprawled across the cherry wood flooring. Roman stands up and slams his fist down on the table, head down as he tries to calm his suddenly shot nerves.

Livid. He’s livid.

The Bloodline is a lot of things but that has never and will be one of them. It only took one time for some fucking piece of shit to even suggest the Bloodline enter the world of Human Trafficing to increase their reach and profits even more for everyone to know that’s where the line in the sand is drawn.

Roman’s never put a fucking bullet in someone’s head so fast. 

The same urge he has currently.

An urge that’s almost instantly lessened by a small amount when his phone lights up and a name appears across his lock screen.

Solana

Eyes shutting, Roman runs his hand over his face and snatches the phone, unlocking it to view her text.

Solana: What time will you be home tonight?

Instantly, Roman feels a lessening of his anger, reading her message, almost hearing said message in her gentle voice. It’s a distraction but both a reminder of why he’s all upset. Solana’s softness doesn’t equate with the violence she’s experienced, the violation, the pain. Especially as a fucking child. Roman has never understood and has always been especially infuriated by violence against children. There’s wrong and then there’s immoral. 

That’s beyond immoral.

Roman will never deny he’s committed his fair share of sins, earning a VIP spot in hell when that time finally comes, but that is something he could and will never get behind.

Solana: Just so I know what time to have dinner ready by…..

Her follow up is typical, always explaining what she doesn’t have to. 

Roman gives her the best reply he can muster up at this moment in time.

Roman: Not sure. Don’t worry about that. Probably won’t get in until late.

And he truly doesn’t know, because going home in this state of anger won’t do her any good. He told her he’d try to be mindful of his temper around her, and this is just that. He doesn’t want to scare her. 

He needs an outlet.

But, here lies the fucking dilemma. 

Since he was a teenager, Roman’s outlet has always been sex. He’s the type to fuck away his feelings. Working out also helps, but sex always took the cake, helped out sometimes just a smidge or a shit ton more. 

And in a different kind of world, he’d do just that working out with the same woman he finds himself infatuated over. His dick stiffens in his pants thinking back on the picture Naomi sent and wisely unsent to his disrespectful ass cousins. 

But not before he could save it to his camera roll.

Roman has never and will never deny his physical attraction to Solana. She checks every box for him in that category, but she’s not an option. He can’t touch her. He can’t touch her because some fucking piece of shit did just that to her when she was essentially a child, and now she can’t stand to be touched because of it.

Roman finds himself returning to his previous level of rage. 

He needs to work this off him.

And he knows just how.

Grabbing his phone and switching from Solana’s thread to hers, he shoots out a simple text.

Roman: I’m coming over.

________

True to his word, Roman gets back late after an…..interesting visit to see Samantha. Somewhat worth it, but mostly now just another irritating thing he has to handle. Not that her being upset bothers him in the slightest.

She can fuck off and ride off into the sunset for all he cares. 

Granted, the non-asshole side of him, more a small section than a side, can understand why she was upset with him.

He just can’t find it in him to give a fuck.

What he does find, however, is something else.

Roman steps into the living room and sees none other than Solana sleeping on the sofa. Confused, he quietly moves closer in her direction and sits opposite of her on the sturdy, mahogany wood coffee table.

And he watches her, studies her sleeping expression, wondering if she had another nightmare. The possibility drags him back to his earlier disposition, the reason he didn’t allow himself to come back to the mansion at a more reasonable time.

He didn’t want to expose her to that. To that side of him.

Without much thought, he reaches for her face, fingers gently caressing the smooth skin of her cheek. She feels so soft, a stark contrast against his roughness.

In more than one area. 

He’s not sure if she felt his gesture or, like him, is just a light sleeper because her eyes slowly start fluttering open. He waits for her to become more aware and cognizant, and she does, whispering, “hey.”

He matches her low volume. “Hey.” Roman studies her, asking, “you alright?”

She nods, gradually sitting up, and he tries not to notice how instead of wearing the type of baggy shirts he’s noticed she likes to sleep in, she’s donning a thin sleeved top that accentuates her chest. “Yeah, I—” She closes her mouth, and he can tell by the way her brows furrow slightly that she’s trying to figure out how to word whatever she wants to say. “You seemed off. I just—just wanted to make sure you were okay, but I guess I fell asleep….”

It’s Roman’s turn now to not quite understand or make sense of what he’s hearing, so he asks, still in that subdued voice, “you waited up for me?”

Roman can’t recall the last time anyone cared when and even if he made it home. He doesn’t know how to feel about this. At all.

With a sheepish expression, she nods, “tried to, at least.”

“You didn’t have to do that.” And it’s the truth. He doesn’t know why she would in the first place anyway. “It was just….a long day.”

Solana nods, “I get that.” He also takes note of the fact that she’s not stammering as much, doesn’t seem as jittery as he’s used to seeing her. “I should—I guess I’ll go to bed now.”

Roman doesn’t say anything, just sits back so she can stand up without him being too in her space. He especially understands now why that’s such a big thing for her.

But, it’s when she stands that his gaze seems to travel to her inner forearms, faded scars now having an even bleaker meaning as he now has the full story.

Another sentence from her medical report whizzes back to him.

If released and left untreated, it is my belief and professional opinion that PT will eventually be successful in efforts to end life. 

He should write it. Roman knows this. Knows that she’d probably respond better and be more comfortable writing, but he also knows it makes him feel almost physically uncomfortable with having to wait to get a response.

He’s much too impatient for that shit. 

He needs to say this shit now.

“Solana.”

She’s halfway to the staircase and turns around, “yes?”

Roman’s never been one to beat around the bush, so he gets straight to the point. “You used to cut, right?”

Always perceptive, Roman sees the shock in her face at his question, the unease that brews as she nervously runs her hand along the side of her cardigan pajama pants. “I—yes, but—not since….it’s been a long time.”

He half expected to have to ask her about the last time she actually did it, though he can tell by how faded the scars are that it has been quite some time, so he believes her. Knows she’s telling the truth.

Still, he needs to make something perfectly clear.

“Any of those thoughts come back, you tell me. I don’t care if you have to paint it on the fucking wall. I want to know.” His intense expression is set right on her, needing to make sure she understands what he’s asking of her. “Understand?”

Solana looks just as confused as he feels as to why this is suddenly important to him, important that she knows she can come to him if those dark thoughts and urges occur. But still, she agrees, acknowledging in that same small voice.

“I understand….”

________

The breeder is only about a half hour out from the mansion, allowing for a drive that’s on the shorter side than what Roman was initially anticipating.

Just like he successfully anticipated Solana’s nervousness throughout that entire drive. She keeps looking out the window, most likely trying to navigate where they’re going. And if not for the unexpected but necessary business call he had to take that lasted almost the entirety of the drive, he would have tried to calm her nerves.

He’s realizing he doesn’t like seeing her so on edge.

When they arrive, Roman is the first to exit the SUV, circling around to open the door for her. She offers a nervous smile and steps out, Roman’s eyes darting to her ass, the sway of it in her yoga pants as she moves a bit away, taking in the average two story house in front of them.

She looks back at him, and he redirects his focus to her eyes, big, brown, and just as innocent as the rest of her. “Where—where are we?” 

Paul also steps out of the car, almost immediately coughing and waving at some flying insect that whizzed at him. “In the middle of nowhere.” He then sets his cautious gaze on Roman. “My Tribal Chief, I’m not sure if you’re aware, but I have terrible allergies—”

“I don’t care.” Roman cuts him off, speaking to Solana, gesturing with a nod of his head. “Come with me.”

A part of him wonders if she’ll hesitate, freeze up on him, maybe even refuse. But she instead moves closer to him, walking along his side as he leads them up the steps of the porch. He reaches for the doorbell and is almost instantaneously met with the sound of barking. Interestingly enough, one glance down at Solana and he sees a spark of excitement that chips away at her nerves. 

A couple seconds later, the door opens revealing a middle aged white woman wearing an inauthentic smile. The kind of smile someone forces for a business meeting or possible transaction.

“You must be Mr. Reigns?” She correctly guesses, eyes then landing on Solana. “And you must be the Mrs?”

Roman places his hand on the small of Solana’s back, noticing how she initially tenses but, surprisingly, relaxes just a few seconds later. “My wife, Solana.”

Solana offers a small wave and polite hello but nothing more.

“I’m Beverly.” She introduces, but Roman doesn’t care. He doesn’t need to know shit about her except whatever her price is. She steps aside, motioning for them to come in. “Please.” He allows Solana to walk in first, followed by himself. When Paul doesn’t also follow suit, Roman turns around. “Wise Man.”

Paul, complexion starting to become pinkish, politely declines. “I’ll just wait here—”

“Wise Man.”

“Coming, My Tribal Chief.”

Once all three are inside, Betty or whoever, offers something to drink which all three decline, shortly after which the woman asks, “so, are we looking for—”

“It’s for her.” Roman motions to Solana who looks at him still wholly confused as a teenage girl, who looks like the spitting image of her mother, descends down the stairs. “Whatever she wants.”

Betty’s eyes light up as she directs the teenager. “Honey, can you take her outside to see the puppies?”

“Sure.” The teen’s voice is annoyingly preppy, like nails on the chalkboard, like a fucking cheerleader or something. “Follow me.”

Solana again looks at Roman, as if for guidance, but he only nods, encouraging her to follow. She’s still reluctant—he can see as such—but ultimately follows the blonde out the backdoor. 

As soon as she’s out the door. Betty starts with the irritating sales pitch, talking to him about the history of Pomeranians, the benefits of that breed, dietary guidelines and other things he couldn’t give two shits about. It’s why he doesn’t hesitate to take the business call the minute his phone rings and instead advises Paul to listen to the woman talk. 

He moves to the front of the house, securing another layer of privacy and doesn’t even hesitate to walk right past a wheezing Paul to head out back where Solana is once the call is over.

Roman finds her outside in the spacious yet somehow closed in yard. She’s sitting in the grass, legs open as a tiny dog, a puppy, moves back and forth between sitting in Solana’s lap and running in a circle before coming right back to her. Roman realizes she’s playing with the freakishly small animal, but beyond that, she’s smiling.

And laughing.

Roman can’t recall the last time, if ever, he’s seen her do the latter of the two. Even her smile is much larger, much more genuine than he’s seen her offer in the short time he’s known her..

“That one.” The woman, Bonnie, who came outside at one point with Paul, moves toward Roman. “She wants that one.”

Bonnie steps forward and frowns, slapping on that disingenuous smile he’s learned how to read all too well with years of experience working with people. “Oh no, that one’s not supposed to be out there. My daughter must have forgotten to pull her.”

Roman really does try sometimes with people, but they always end up fucking annoying him one way or another. “She wants that one.”

The woman stutters. “I–I’m sorry, but that dog is already under contract.”

Rolling his eyes, he asks, surprisingly calmly, not wanting to necessarily cause a scene in front of Solana. “How much?”

“Pardon?”

Roman does his best to hide his irritation at having to repeat himself. “How much?”

Betty releases a nervous smile, crossing her arms across her badly built body. “I—I can’t sell you a dog that’s already under contract, sir.”

Politics. It’s all politics. Roman knew the second Betty’s smile grew as her eyes landed on his Hublot watch that she saw this as a great, unexpected windfall. And she’s not entirely wrong. “Everyone has a fucking price, lady. Name yours.”

She stutters again. “Sir, I—I appreciate the interest, but that dog comes from a champion bloodline. The buyers intend to show her, so they’re paying a pretty penny.” She throws out casually, as if he can’t tell what she’s trying to do, the deal she’s trying to see if she can score. “They’re paying $10,000—”

There it is. The sin of greed that gets us all at one point or another. 

Without second thought or guess, Roman states, “I’ll give you $20,000.”

As expected, her eyes nearly bulge out of her head, the expression highlighting excessive crows feet no doubt caused by unnecessary time spent under this scorching sun. “$20,000?” He doesn’t even have to counter again. “Well, I suppose I could offer them another puppy—”

“Good.” Roman knew right away “negotiating” with this woman wouldn’t take much. She’s in it for a clean, high profit, which is fair considering one could say that for all business owners. But, if all else failed, he had…..other strategies. But those are much messier, and he’d rather just throw a stack of cash her way so they could be on their merry fucking way. “Wise Man.”

Paul steps forward, pudgy cheeks reddened and eyes watering. “Yes, my Tribal Chief?”

“Pay the woman.”

Paul swallows. “But, my—”

“Wise Man.”

Paul’s cheeks redden as he nods and motions to the house. Roman doesn’t need to say anything else. “I will handle the sale. Shall we?”

As Roman allows his counsel to handle the closing of the deal, he walks over to Solana who looks over at him with that same smile. He crouches down near her, observing, “she seems to like you.” And it’s the truth, seeing how the other puppies are content with playing with each other, this one is sticking with Solana.

She looks at Roman, petting the top of its head carefully, looking back down with that happy smile.“Thank you for taking me—”

“She’s yours.” 

Her head snaps in his direction, right as the dog climbs into her lap. “W–what?” Solana blinks, face painted in plausible confusion. “M–mine?”

Roman chuckles. “It’s certainly not for me.”

“Really?” Roman watches the hairy ass creature stand on its legs, as if demanding her attention. Attention whore ass.

“Yes, if you want her—”

“Yes,” she answers almost immediately, suddenly. And true to her nature, she’s already backtracking. “I mean—“

“You want her, so she’s yours,” he reiterates his previous statement, but there’s a tone of finality that lets Solana know he’s not open to a discussion or debate.

It’s a sure thing. 

“She’d be your dog. Not mine.” He clarifies. Solana can tell it’s also his way of telling her he’s not doing shit to help her take care of this dog, which is more than fair since Solana would bet he had no plans to purchase a dog anytime soon.

So why is he? 

She just has to ask again. “You don’t—-you really don’t care?”

It feels unreal. Too much like not an option. Not a reality. Why would he allow her a pet? Buy her a pet? 

He eyes the animal that’s seemingly already taken so well to Solana. “She’s so damn small I’ll probably forget she’s there half the time.”

There’s that laugh again, and Roman finds himself with a small smile of his own, not as big, nor as genuine, but a smile nonetheless. But just as quick as it’s there, it’s gone. Clearing his throat, he asks, “what are you gonna name her?”

Solana looks down at the puppy in her lap, nestled so comfortably against her stomach, eyes fluttering close like she’s about to fall asleep. With a soft smile and gentle caress of her coat, she answers. “Dulce.”

Roman’s thick brows arch together as he asks, “is that Spanish?”

She nods, glancing over at him just long enough to answer. “It means sweet.”

He makes a sound. That lines up. For both of them. 

The dog's eyes then land on him with as much disinterest he feels about it, quickly focusing back on Solana. “I suppose we’ll have to get supplies and shit for her.”

Roman doesn’t consider himself having a childhood, so he refers to what most call just that as his ‘formative year.’ And during those formative years, he never had a pet, so this is new to him as well, outside of just the common sense parts of owning a dog.

She’s petting the sleeping puppy “Aren’t you busy today?” 

Yes. Always. Roman’s to-do list is on subscribe and save, constantly delivering him new shit when he’s still working on the old shit. It’s just a part of the job though.

“No,” he answers. “It can wait.”

________

A couple of stops at different stores to pick up all of the shit Solana needs for Dulce along with getting the first vet appointment scheduled for the puppy takes just under three hours, which still grants Roman plenty of time to head into the office. Not until, though, he makes sure Solana is good to go, good with being left alone with the dog.

He meant it when he said it was her dog and he wouldn’t be helping out and shit, but given it’s the first day, he can see how there could be some nerves there.

But, there’s not. She’s good to go, hence his okayness with leaving for a little while to get some work done.

She doesn’t text him as much during the day, a noticeable thing that he understands is because she’s spending time with the dog. 

But, he does come home for lunch to get in a workout where he finds an entry in the notebook.

Roman,

Thank you so much. 

I promise I’ll take care of her and keep her out of your way. Paul’s too. I’ll keep her in the room with me when he’s over.

I always wanted a dog, but my dad hates them, and even if he didn’t, I was always too scared Wes would do something to it or worse….just to hurt me. He hates me, if you didn’t notice….

Solana

Roman doesn’t take much, if any time, to reply. He’d prefer to talk to her in person, but Bayley and Naomi are over, the three women in the backyard playing with the dog. So, he allows her that time, settling for a written response. 

Solana,

You’re welcome. 

Don’t worry about Paul. He won’t fucking die from allergies, and if he does, oh well.

I noticed. It’s why I’ll never leave you alone with him or your shitty father. Ever.

Why does he hate you?

Roman

Solana is partially upset when she realizes she missed Roman coming home for a workout, not that she wanted to bother him, just maybe….see him. Maybe even talk to him. Possibly tell him thank you again in person vs writing it in the notebook, but after Naomi and Bayley are gone and she’s fed Dulce her dinner, Solana sees Roman replied, leaving the notebook on her bed this time.

Most likely for privacy.

The first part of his note makes her laugh, even if she doesn’t enjoy Paul clearly suffering from his allergies. The second part, however, Solana struggles with.

She doesn’t know how honest to be with Roman, doesn’t know where she should draw that line in the sand. However, it’s not missed upon her that everything she’s shared with him, he’s been surprisingly okay with. Never having such a major reaction that it made her second guess her sharing.

And the man just bought her a fucking dog, something she’s always wanted. For no apparent reason.

Maybe….maybe she can be a bit more honest, a bit more forthcoming, even if it is a somber truth.

Roman,

I don’t want to inconvenience Paul. That’s not fair to him….

Wes blames me for our mother’s murder, says it was my fault.

And he’s not wrong.

She is dead because of me.

Solana

The minute Solana brings the notebook to Roman’s room, she regrets it. She regrets opening up, regrets being so vulnerable with him. Just because he answers her questions and bought her a puppy doesn’t mean he gives two shits about her trauma.

She’s so tempted to sneak into his room and take the journal back. It keeps her up, makes her toss and turn as Dulce sleeps peacefully in her pink dog bed beside Solana’s. 

But, it’s when Solana wakes up at 4am and notices the notebook on her nightstand, her anxiety reaches another level. Instead of avoiding it until morning, she sits up and snatches it, flipping to the page they’re on.

And her stomach achieves a new level of butterflies when she reads his response. 

Solana,

It’s not your fault.

Also, you were wrong.

I care what you have to say and think.

Roman

[iridescentmirrorsgenshin]

Kaveh is like this close to committing a sin with Mehrak, like he's playing a really dangerous game. It's just a matter of time Mehrak gets even more sentient when it's already this far. I know Kaveh keeps it in check, but man... I hope they'll talk about this one day. Either that or Kaveh will always brush it off, as if he didn't get some ancient core to build it??? Also, I always love your thoughts, thanks for loving these two so much!

hiya! thank you for your ask! i'm so glad you enjoy my posts :") <3 Mehrak’s existence is so ??? funny to me. we have tighnari’s story quest detailing the akademiya’s ban on research into mechanical lifeforms, directly alongside kaveh building his own mechanical lifeform and parading it around, sending it on solo coffee retrieving missions whilst everyone in sumeru looks on smiling <3

Mehrak’s legality hasn’t been mentioned at all in-game as of now, and as it’s been used consistently, both in kaveh’s hangout, a parade of providence, and now nahida’s birthday event, with not one mention of legality or potential trespasses, makes it seem that that’s how things will stay - especially since Cyno has met/is aware of mehrak’s existence during the battle scene during a parade of providence (then again, cyno did meet the wanderer during this event, and yet in nahida’s birthday event it seems he’s only HEARD of the wanderer through sethos??) but even then, since Cyno trusts Tighnari with karkata’s continued existence, it’s likely not a stretch to say that to Cyno, Kaveh can be trusted with Mehrak’s existence (it’s all very iffy)

Mehrak’s existence, overall, has had little focus other than its usage in battle, its official introduction in a parade of providence, where kaveh stipulates it has low intelligence, and was built to assist him, as well as being incapable of talking back and giving him ‘attitude’ (implicitly comparing mehrak to alhaitham), and in kaveh’s hangout when he works on designing a building. It’s only in recent events, such as cyno’s second story quest, and now in nahida’s birthday event, that mehrak has gotten more mentions, and now a spotlight, which is all in relation to coffee, tying back to alhaitham and kaveh’s improved relationship (the coffee analysis will be in the updated essay finally!!). as of right now, overall, mehrak doesn’t appear to be a major focus

It might be strange for the game to mention now that mehrak has been an illegal creation all this time, unless it’s a significant plot point that has to be resolved, but if mehrak is further explored, like in the temple of silence for example (hoyoverse I am once again asking), then perhaps this collective ignoring of a crime occurring will be explained away, if mentioned at all? It’s interesting that tighnari says it might be possible that this ban is reversed in the future, but as for whether that will actually happen, and the implications of this, aren’t clear

Mehrak’s accepted existence in general poses so many questions. I’m interested in the specifics of the ban, like does it depend on the autonomy of the machine in question? Abattouy aimed to make Karkata essentially human, capable of individual thought, processing, emotion, and conversation, which definitively broaches on the intersection of mechanical and biological life which caused the Akademiya to ban this type of research in the first place. So if a machine is able to act on its own, irrespective of human interference, then this is what the akademiya would want to prevent

In mehrak’s case, it’s unclear as to what its limits are, but from what has been shown so far, it seems that mehrak can only act on kaveh’s commands and when held in battle – it’s uncertain rn whether mehrak can act independently of this, but as kaveh invented it to only assist in certain matters, it’s doubtful. But then again, we don’t have a great scope of whether it can experience emotions, as it has shown signs of being distressed in a parade of providence when kaveh states that it can’t talk back, and when being scolded by kaveh in nahida’s birthday event

if mehrak has limited intelligence, it's interesting to compare mehrak with karkata. abattouy was attempting to make karkata understand human language, and be able to respond in order to have conversation, which was proved impossible, whereas although mehrak only speaks in beeps, kaveh is shown to have a thorough understanding of what it’s saying? Mehrak can be programmed to recognise people’s voices, but seemingly also language, as mehrak can obey spoken command, which is what abattouy tried to accomplish but was unable to with modern technology.

Mehrak, on the other hand, understands kaveh’s basic requests – which is made even funnier in kaveh’s old sketchbook, where he says that more than anything he really wants mehrak to understand what he’s saying. he got his wish but at what cost???

Mehrak being made from ancient technology, belonging to that of king deshret’s civilisation, offers many interesting paths that could be explored in future events, as besides the primal constructs roaming around, the puzzles in the desert, and now the temple of silence, no technology really exists from that time. Someone commented that mehrak’s presence in nahida’s birthday event, in conjunction with the event being based around ancient technology with the wedjat eye, could be highlighting mehrak’s irregularity in modern day sumeru – potentially foreshadowing for a future event that could further expand upon mehrak? If this is the case, I am all for it, there are so many questions concerning kaveh’s little light <3

[melodygatesauthor]

Goodnight, Princess

Yandere Dad's Best Friend - Santiago Garcia X f!Reader

Not Beta Read - For @romana-after-dark's Dead Dove December event!

PLEASE READ TAGS/DISCLAIMERS/WARNINGS BEFORE READING THIS FIC. THERE ARE DARK THEMES!

Summary

Your dad's best friend accidentally discovers that you're a sex worker. He tries to let it go, but it eats away at him until things go way too far.

This fic was written in first person from Santiago's perspective. I know that's not normally something I do, but if you give it a chance I think you'll like it hehe <3

Tags/Warnings

NSFW, non-con, dubious consent, rape, sex, unprotected sex, praise kink, masturbation, obsessive behavior, possessiveness, porn with some plot, smut, creampie, breeding kink if you squint, non-consensual somnophilia, intoxication, implied murder, dad's best friend, age gap, voyeurism, hidden cameras. DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT (that means that what you see in the tags WILL be in the fic, don't act surprised when you get exactly what you were warned about.)

Word Count: 5.7k

I should’ve put a stop to it the second I realized it was you on the other side of that wall.

Don’t ask me how I knew. A good guess? A hunch? Maybe I’d known you so long that I could tell, based on some deep ingrained instinct, exactly what your lips would feel like wrapped around my cock. You sucked on it like you knew what you were doing, like it wasn’t a challenge for you to take something so big in that pretty little mouth.

I recognized the sound of your moans almost right away. The hum of your voice when you started sucking my dick was the same sound you made at dinner the other night when you popped a spoonful of mashed potatoes in your mouth. Does your dad know you’re doing this? Do you care? Do you ever worry about what he might say if he finds out?

Don’t worry princess, I'll keep your secret. 

Our secret.

I bet you never thought I would find out about your slutty little side job. To be entirely honest, I didn’t think I’d find you working at a place like this. If you know me at all, and I know for a fact that you do, then you’d know I’m a lonely man. Years of serving in the military and the endless night terrors have made it difficult to find any sort of real relationship, so I’ve given up. That doesn’t mean I don’t still have needs, sweetheart.

Everybody jerks off, and I’m no exception. I don’t even know how many nights I’ve been in my room, cock in hand while I watch some crappy porno to get myself off. Every once in a while though, I like to treat myself to a little something more. Most people treat themselves to some kind of dessert, or a nice bottle of wine, but I like to treat myself to a night at Club BJ where all the dirty men go to get their rocks off.

I never thought I’d find you there.

Not a chance in hell did I think for even a second that you would be sucking random cocks on the other side of a gloryhole to earn a few extra bucks. You’re so good at it though, princess. How did you learn to swirl your tongue like that? Hm? Was it all the boys at college who taught you how to do that? Did they tell you what a pretty little girl you are while your lips were stretched around them?

They better have. They better have said thank you when they finished all over that beautiful face too.

I couldn’t speak to you. I couldn’t let you know it was me on the other side of that wall, so I hope the $200 tip I left you gets the point across. 

When I got home tonight, you were running through my mind like a fucking hamster on a wheel. I’m not sure what to do now, but I can’t shake how bad I want to go back to the club for another round. I’d pay thousands, probably even tens of thousands, just to have more…

But I can’t do that. Not to you, and not to your dad.

That was the first and only time I’m going to know what it’s like to feel you sucking my cock.

—

There’s no possible way for you to know what you do to me, well, for you to know that it was me on the other side of the hole that you were making feel so fucking good. I’m coming back again, despite promising I wouldn’t. I’ve been trying so hard to let it go, but I fucking can’t. You’re like a goddamn siren luring me back to that shithole, and I can’t resist your call.

I’ll be back on Friday, because that’s the night they set the girls up with their asses sticking out through the wall. I would assume the club has you bent over some kind of table on the other side of that wall? I’m not sure, but Friday can’t come soon enough. I feel like I need you.

Maybe if you hadn’t looked at me the way you did when I saw you today at your dad’s for dinner. Were you looking at me like that on purpose, sweetheart? I mean, you must be…right? Or have I completely lost my shit?

I probably lost my shit, let’s be honest.

I’ve known your dad since high school. I even helped him beat up a guy that was hitting on your mom back when she and your dad had just started dating. I’m really not a bad guy, and I’ve never looked at you like this. I mean it. But how can I look at you any differently now? How can I look at you any differently after what you did to me? What you did for me.

“Santi, can you pass the butter?” You asked, looking at me, probably no different than usual but I couldn’t think of anything other than those pouty lips wrapped around my dick again.

Did you notice the way my hand shook when I handed you the butter dish? Maybe not, but they were trembling and to be honest it was fucking annoying. I’m a man in his late thirties and I can’t get a grip on the feelings I’m developing for my best friend's goddamn kid. It’s wrong, disgusting, hell I’d kill someone if you were my kid.

But you’re not, and I can’t fucking help it, even though I tried.

Maybe someday, if you ever find out about any of this, I’ll tell you about how much I hated myself (hell, I still hate myself sometimes), when I came home with that post nut clarity. That might’ve been the best blowjob of my life, but I stood in front of my mirror for a good ten minutes trying to tell myself that I’d never go back to that hellhole, Club BJs. I meant it with all my heart when I said it over and over like a mantra.

Now I’m stuck though. I’m stuck thinking about you bent over with a wall separating the top half of your body from the bottom with countless men fucking you until you’re so full of cum you looked like a damn overstuffed pastry. You deserve to feel good. You deserve to have at least one of those men be someone that cares about you.

I guess I’ll have to be the one to do it. I guess this is how I’ll justify doing something I know I shouldn’t.

I’ll see you on Friday, princess.

—

It makes me feel a little bit better to know that every man in there is at least checked for STDs before he gets to fuck you. Surely you wouldn’t have signed up to work at a place like this if they weren’t. You’re smart, you’ve always been so smart. It’s one of the things I admire most about you.

Still not clever enough to know that I was one of those men who stood behind you that night. In fact, I was your last customer of the night. Your pussy was so puffy and swollen, those guys really stretched you out and fucked you good didn’t they? Don’t worry, princess, I took good care of you and gave your little hole a break. I won’t lie, it took everything in me not to use you the way they did, but I’ll do that another time.

Tonight I was on my knees for you, grabbing onto both of your asscheeks and spreading you out so I could clean up the mess those filthy men made of my little princess. You sounded so surprised, I heard you gasp, when I started eating you out. Did you like that? It sounded like you did. I could feel your thighs shaking and at some point you even started rocking back and forth like you wanted more.

Maybe you wanted me to fuck you. Were you hoping that the mystery man on the other side of the wall would clean you up and then fuck his own cum into you too? Or maybe you were happy to have the break. Either way, I licked your swollen clit until I could hear your pretty moans on the other side and feel your cunt throbbing against my tongue. Your slick tastes so good sweetheart, can’t believe you made something so delicious all by yourself.

“You’re not going to fuck me?” You asked me. I could almost hear the desperation in your voice, like you were begging me to come back and take you.

“No.” I said firmly, faking a deeper voice than my own.

Next time I will though, don’t worry sweetheart, I’ll fuck you so good you won’t want anyone else.

—

The same night I ate you out I rushed home to jerk off. It sounds crude to say, but fuck I couldn’t help it. The taste of your pussy was still on my lips. I could still smell you soaked into the stubble on my chin and upper lip. I’m making a mental note to snag a pair of your panties when I come over for the barbecue at your dad’s tomorrow night. Maybe that will help get me through this mess I’m in. Maybe it will help me stop this shit.

I know I can’t keep doing this, but the feeling I get when I’m scrolling through your instagram photos from last summer in your bikini with my cock squeezed in my hand is incredible. I’m looking at those perfect tits hidden beneath such a thin layer of fabric, and your pretty rear is barely covered at all.

When I came it’s like I was possessed, blowing up a picture of your face just so I could imagine myself coating it in all of me. I don’t even really want to talk about how hard it was to clean that mess off my phone.

I feel like I’m losing myself in the depraved thoughts and fantasies I’m having of you. I woke up with soaked sheets and I thought I fucking pissed myself, but I didn’t, it was…something else. I’d dreamt of you. I can’t remember exactly what was happening in that dream, but it must’ve been good, and I’m annoyed that I still can’t remember what it was about.

—

A small part of me, the part of me that still had some morals left, was hoping you’d be working your day job. (honestly I can’t even remember what your day job is, aren’t you a housekeeper? Or a waitress or something?) At least if you were working I wouldn’t have to see you. I wouldn’t have to think about you more than I already was. Not to mention, I wouldn’t have had to sit there and watch you laugh with your ‘friend’ that you’d invited over.

You told your dad when you introduced him, “we’re just friends dad.”

You said it with such an attitude that both your dad and I knew better. You might’ve thought you were just friends, but that guy wanted more, and I knew you were going to give it to him. I could tell by the way you looked at him when you thought no one was paying attention.

I bet you didn’t think I’d hear you both making out in your room that night, but your moans call me now like a moth to a flame. The other barbecue guests had gone home, and your dad was drunk and passed out in his recliner, and I heard you faintly over the hum of the crappy reality show on tv. I didn’t pause the show, I didn’t want to wake up your dad, so I went upstairs silently, masked by the sound on the tv.

Initially, I wanted to walk in there and rip this kid off of you, giving him a few vicious but empty threats before sending him on his way with his tail between his legs. Your voice stopped me in my tracks though.

“Shh, I don’t want my dad to hear us,” you whispered, followed by a sweet giggle.

He won’t, princess. I thought, as though it were me you were talking to and not this loser.

You’d left your bedroom door open, per your dad’s request, such a good little girl. Despite being a grown woman, you still did what your daddy told you, and that’s the only reason I was able to hide in the bathroom and hear you get fucked while I jerked off and imagined I was with you instead of…whatever the fuck his name is.

“Oh god!” You whined, making my body shudder.

That guy doesn’t talk much, and that made it all the easier for me to imagine myself in his place.

When you said, “mm, harder, please…”

I was right there to say, “anything you want, sweetheart.”

I tried to move my hand in time with the light thump of your bed against the wall. It helped. What didn’t help was the fact that I could tell how little you were enjoying yourself. You were making the same sounds you made when you were ass out at the gloryhole. I knew I could do better, I knew I could make your body shake with pleasure like when I was kneeling down behind you with my tongue working overtime on your sensitive clit.

You were pretty good at faking it though, good enough that I was a leaking mess, precum dripping all down my shaft while I worked myself behind the wall your bedroom shared with the bathroom. I really wanted to go in there, tell that guy to get lost and give you the night of your life, but I didn’t. Instead I stood there, spilling a few globs of cum into some toilet paper and calling it good enough.

I was quick to head back downstairs before you even knew I was up there in the first place. That guy had the audacity to say goodnight to me in the kitchen on his way out the door. I let that go pretty quickly because then it was just you and me alone in the kitchen while your dad slept soundly in the living room.

You have no idea how badly I wanted to ask you for the pleasure of taking care of you, of making sure that you got off too, but I bit my tongue. Instead we made small talk about how your college was going and you asked me about Benny, Frankie and Will. 

For a moment I had forgotten about all the things that transpired between us, or that I’d done while thinking about you, and you were just my best friend’s kid again. We were just two people who had known each other for a long time, catching up and making small talk. Then you had to bend over in your shorts, and my cock ignored its usual refractory period to spring alive and nag for attention again.

“You okay, Santi?” You’d asked so innocently, as if I didn’t know what that mouth was capable of, or what that body could take.

“I’m fine, sweetheart.”

I’m not fucking fine, but that doesn’t matter.

—

You slept like a rock that night, not even stirring in the slightest when I grabbed your panties out of your hamper by the closet. They didn’t look particularly fancy, so I assume you won’t miss them, will you? Doesn’t matter anyway, you’d never expect that I’m the one who took them.

I can’t even begin to tell you how disgusting I felt when I got home the next morning and I had placed your panties on my bed in front of me like a prize I’d won. I think I stared at them for at least a full ten minutes before I picked them up again and put them in my nightstand. I’ve never been a “panty sniffer” and I tried to convince myself that just knowing I had them in my possession was enough.

Have you ever read The Tell-Tale Heart? I remember when I was in high school I had to, and it stuck with me for some reason. Your underwear in my nightstand reminded me of that story in some ways. It’s like all I could hear were your moans in my ears and no matter where I went in the house the temptation to smell the remnants of your cunt on that fabric was following me.

So finally, here I am, two weeks after you first sucked my cock, and I can shamefully admit that I did it. I smelled them, and sweetheart, you smell so much better without all that cum inside of you. Of course the panties can’t compare to the real thing, which I don’t know if I’ll ever smell without six loads of spend inside, but god I hope I get the privilege one day.

Or maybe I hope I don’t.

I’m still so torn between the fact that you’re my best friend’s kid, and the way I want to bury my dick so far in that pretty little cunt that you’re seeing stars.

—

I was first in line tonight. It’s Friday night so your ass was out again and untouched this time. You weren’t wet yet which excited me for some reason. It meant I got to have the honors of making you nice and slick.

My hand looks so big against your ass, princess. I wish I could show you. That was me who rubbed your clit, making you shake and whine for more on the other side of the wall. I’m the one who slipped my thick middle finger in that greedy little hole, and then my index finger, and then the ring finger.

I’m guessing you liked it based on how slippery you got, and how much you moaned on the other side. Do you know how dedicated your customers are? One of them got pissed at me for taking too long with you. I can’t say I blame them, your pussy is perfect sweetheart.

God the feeling of sliding my dick between those pretty pussy lips is like nothing I’ve ever felt. As I bottomed out, I felt your walls were squeezing around me like you wanted me deeper, so of course I pushed in more, all the way until I couldn’t go further. You gasped like you hadn’t felt a hundred dicks inside you before mine. 

I slid back again and slammed into you. I heard you begging me to keeping going, and saying, “fuck you’re good, holy shit!”

It was so hard not to say all the filthy things I wanted to when I fucked you, princess. I wanted to tell you how good you looked like that, pussy lips split around my cock like it wanted to swallow me whole. I wanted to ask you if you would like me to stick my thumb in your ass but decided to just try it anyway and see how you reacted.

You liked it.

At least it seemed like you did, your cunt clamped down around my dick like a damn vice grip the moment my thumb popped through your tight little hole. Did you like having something in your ass sweetheart? It’s shocking how tight you are, given how often I know you’re getting fucked. Some of the guys coming in behind me were big, some even bigger than me, but you don’t like them as much as you do when I fuck you, right? Of course not, because you don’t sound like that when you’re with them.

I caught a small glimpse of your eye through the hole. There was a small gap between the wall and your hips and you were looking at the same time I was. Did you see me? Did you have time to realize who I was? Did you come right then and there because you liked the idea of your dad’s best friend fucking you until you were too spent for anyone else?

Your orgasm forced me to come at the same time you did. I can’t even begin to tell you what it felt like to spill my load inside of you like I’d wanted to for so long. I remember so clearly being pushed up against your ass, pulling my thumb out of your hole so I could squeeze your hips and pull you over my dick further. It’s like I was willing every ounce of it to fill you up so full that no one else could. It’s like I was trying to make sure that when you look in the mirror a few months from now, you’ll remember the feeling of the man who fucked a baby into you.

I’m not an idiot. Well, I am, but I know that you’re on birth control. I know that no matter how many times I fuck you, the chances of you actually getting pregant are slim, not that I’d want to get you pregnant anyway. That would be too much, and I don’t want to go too far.

I’m not going to go too far.

—

I went to your house today.

I already had an excuse planned if I somehow got caught while you and your dad were out. If you or your father saw me, I’d say I came back for my hat. It’s not a total lie, I did leave my hat behind, but neither of you needed to know it was on purpose.

Do you realize how much dust has collected on the little stuffed bear you have on the shelf facing directly across from your bed, sweetheart? I doubt it, but it does make for the perfect place to put the small camera I bought.

I feel so fucking gross I can hardly stand to look at myself. But I can’t stand not to watch you touch yourself either. The glory hole is great, but I want to see that pretty face when you’re coming so hard you can’t breathe right, and I can’t do that when I’m on the other side of a fucking wall can I?

Seeing you later that night while I was at my own house, fist closed around my cock and watching you play with yourself is worth all the self loathing in the world. I had the camera feed pulled up on my laptop, and I could see you walking over to your dresser. God, what an array of toys you have. Do you have all those toys because you like them? Or is it because you haven’t found someone who knows their way around your body yet?

If it’s the latter, I promise you won’t need those things once I’m done with you.

Fuck, princess. The one you picked out is so damn big. I’ve seen you fit some pretty big cocks in that little hole, but I was shocked to see you squeezing lube around the head of that thing and gliding it over your pussy lips. You took a deep breath. Does it hurt to take such a fat silicone dick like that? 

Fuck, I’m glad I put the camera where I did. Who had you so wet like that? Hm? Were you thinking about anyone in particular? Can you even get that entire dildo in there? I hated to admit how much I liked watching you struggle. My cock leaked so fucking much I thought I was going to come too fast, but I kept it together.

You finally pushed it in, and I’m so damn proud of you princess. You had a really hard time going all the way though, didn’t you? That tight little pussy of yours was stretched to its limit and you were only halfway in there. Why do you even have a dildo that size if you can’t get it all the way in your cunt? Are you trying to stretch yourself out for someone? You don’t have to stretch yourself for me, I’d be happy to take care of that for you myself.

I watched you push it in even more, I was so focused on the furrow of your turned up brow and the way you bit your lip while I stared. We both exhaled the moment you managed to fit the entire thing in. Your eyes rolled back like it was the best thing you’d ever felt. You really do enjoy being stuffed full, don’t you, sweetheart?

You started fucking yourself with it, the sounds of your wet cunt hit my ears like the sweetest music I’d ever heard. I stroked myself in time with your movements, my eyes focused right on your face, and my cock throbbed every time you moaned. Wasn’t your dad home tonight? Shouldn’t you be a bit quieter when you’re doing stuff like that? Maybe you just don’t care if he hears you.

You started fucking yourself faster so of course I was jerking myself harder, trying to keep up with you without losing it too quickly. It didn’t take long for you to come though. Did you like the feeling of that toy that much? You gushed around it, you choked back some moans but several other soft whimpers escaped, filling your room and hitting my ears through the camera feed. I came too, coating my knuckles and my stomach with so much cum I didn’t know I was even capable of producing that much.

Why’d you have to ruin it? Huh?

It was such a good fucking orgasm for both of us, and then I heard you say a name. It wasn’t my name though, was it, princess? I don’t know why that bothers me so fucking much. Maybe it’s because in some twisted way I’ve managed to convince myself that you were putting on that private show just for me. So if you did do it for me, then I don’t want to hear you saying some other guy’s name while you’re fucking your self like that sweetheart. 

I just don’t.

—

I lost it today.

I really fucking lost it today, princess.

I found that guy. You know the one who fucked you the other night while I jerked off in the bathroom? That ‘friend’ of yours? The one whose name you called out instead of mine?

I found him.

I…

—

Did you miss me, sweetheart? I’m sorry, but I had to leave for a while, at least until things quieted down, and until you weren’t sad anymore. I know I should feel bad, but I don’t. I would probably do it again a thousand times if I had to.

You seemed fine during dinner at your dad’s tonight. I don’t really think you were that upset over the guy anyway, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to hear his name come out of that pretty mouth again. Ever.

After too much wine during (and after) dinner, I carried you upstairs. You never could handle your liquor. Remember when you were only eighteen and I would let you sneak a few shots under your old man’s nose when he wasn’t looking? Your dad was sleeping when I put you down gently in your bed. Your skin is so fucking soft it killed me to step away from you.

Your eyes opened for a moment meeting with mine. I felt my gut stir at the sight of you biting your lip. Why were you doing that to me? Didn’t you know how that would affect me? I couldn’t resist the way you looked at me that night. No one would’ve been able to. It’s not fair for you to put me in that position and expect that I’m just going to walk away. When I think back to it, this was all your fault, princess.

“Santi,” you said sweetly.

I almost climbed on top of you right then when you grabbed my shirt and pulled me closer. I almost grabbed your throat and fucked you through your shorts, but I held back.

“What, princess?” I asked you, putting a caring hand on your shoulder, trying to fight back my more primal urges screaming in my head.

You shivered, “I-mm-need something towearto mm-bed,” you slurred out.

I could see the curve of your hip disappear into your too-short shorts. I really don’t want you going out in public wearing things like that. I gave you my shirt to keep you warm. I hope it’s comfortable, sweetheart, I can’t let you go cold, can I? When I leaned down to put it over your head, I felt such a fucking ache in my chest when your face appeared again through the hole. Such a pretty babygirl.

“Thank you,” you smiled contentedly and snuggled into your pillows.

I gulped, “princess,” I whispered, slowly creeping my fingers toward the hem of your shorts where they rested on your waist.

“Hm?” You hummed, but you weren’t really awake anymore, from what I could tell.

When I touched your soft, exposed hip you didn’t stir at all, and when I slipped my fingers underneath your panties, then your shorts, you didn’t make a sound. When I pushed both down to your ankles and dropped them on the floor, you didn’t open your eyes. You didn’t have any fucking clue what I was going to do to you, did you?

Did you feel my fingers when I slipped them between your thighs and felt your little wet cunt? I bet you did, even if you didn’t realize you were feeling it. I thought I would wake you up for sure when I pushed you onto your back and climbed over you. And when that didn’t wake you up, I thought, without a doubt, that when I pulled my cock out and touched it against your slick pussy lips your eyes would shoot open and you’d catch me in the act.

You didn’t though, you stayed deep in your drunken sleep, and I could get away with doing anything I wanted to you.

I’m still wondering what I would’ve done if you’d caught me. What would I say? How would I justify this feeling I craved that only you could satisfy? Would I even need to say anything? Surely you would recognize the feeling of the cock that made you come so good in that glory hole. Surely you’d be desperate for me to keep going.

Being able to look at your face, even if you were asleep, while I slid my dick into your wet heat made my brain stop fucking working. I couldn’t even think. It was like my body just took over, hips rocking into you over and over without a care in the world for how loud the bed was creaking.

You still didn’t feel anything when I dipped down and kissed you, my hips still thrusting slowly against you. This isn’t a Disney movie, and I’m no prince charming, but you’re still my little princess, aren’t you? You’re like my personal sleeping beauty, except my soft kisses didn’t wake you from your drunken slumber.

Thank god.

I kissed all the way down your jawbone until I got to your neck. You’re so soft, and you smell so nice. I kinda wish you’d been awake so I could’ve heard you whimper and whine in my ear. I want to hear you tell me how good it feels to have my cock slamming into your pussy, sweetheart. I want to feel your lips on my neck, my chest, all over my body.

“You take me so well, princess.” I whispered in your ear, hoping that somewhere deep in your dreams you’d hear my words and know I was inside you. “You feel so good, I can’t stop. Never felt anything-so-fucking-g-good-I-f-fuck…”

I came so much that when I pulled back my cum poured out of you as if my cock was a dam holding back a river. I still wonder if I should’ve cleaned you up, but I didn’t. Maybe you’d remember that I was the one who brought you upstairs and you’d put the pieces together.

I can imagine it now, you waking up in the morning with a dried up substance between your thighs. You might not know what it is right away, but I’m sure when you go to the bathroom and notice the hickeys peppered all over your neck, you’ll know that something must’ve happened to you the night before.

I’m not sure what to do now.

I need to have you for myself, that much is clear. The thought of someone else touching you ever again is killing me, so I have to take you. I’ll take you away from all this shit, and I’ll take good care of you. You won’t have to work at that nasty place anymore, I’ll be sure of that. And please don’t worry, princess. When your dad is looking for you, and he needs a friend to help him through the tough times, and the times he’s missing you, I’ll be that friend. He will only be sad for a little while. 

If things go wrong, and someone finds this…well I guess it’s a journal isn’t it? I won’t be able to deny the things I’ve done. I should burn it, but I can’t bring myself to do that. When I read it back, it’s almost like I can relive our time together. Someday I might show you this so you can understand why I did what I had to do, why I have to keep you.

Until then, I hope you sleep well tonight, your final night in your childhood home. I hope you enjoy your last breakfast with your loving dad, and that the two of you don’t argue before he leaves for work. Make sure you give him a kiss on the cheek and tell him you love him, because I’ll be over before he gets home from work.

Goodnight, princess.

Back to Main Masterlist

Back to Triple Frontier Masterlist

[cyanferret21]

Hey guys, do you remember this London scene from Sonic 3?

Okay, so I’m rewatching the movie once again, and something clicked for me this time.

I alway associate this moment with one reaction channel that was reacting to the trailer for the movie. While watching it the guys pointed out that the position of everyone in the shot looks odd. Like if somebody is missing there! Trailers likes to omit some moments and details that are only gonna be present in the release version. They hid Shadow’s super form in the trailer, for example, while still showing the scene itself. So, the missing character is not that big of a stretch in this situation.

As we all now know, there were actually no character there. Later when they were reacting to the movie itself they even noted that “wow, guess there were no hidden character in that odd spot after all, huh”. And they left it on that.

But now I’m watching the movie again, remembering that reaction, and still thinking: why is that odd blank spot there?

And I think I have an explanation!

It’s a cool visual representation! You see, by this point, we have a few conflicts on our hands. On one side, the main plot of the movie - with Sonic and his team versus Robotniks. But we also have the conflict of found family vs blood family - Agent Stone vs Gerald Robotnik. Both of whom dragging the blanket of Ivo’s attention on themselves.

We already saw the scene where Ivo and Gerald spend their “quality time” together in VR. And we saw how hurt it made Stone. Although, he can’t be mad at Eggman about wanting to spend time with his previously presumed dead grandpa-

-but he’s not obligated to be happy about being ignored either. Stone is not used to being forced to share Ivo’s attention with anyone else, and it shows.

And so now we come back to scene I started this whole discussion from. And what we see?

A literal GAP between Agent Stone and the rest of Robotniks!

Yeah, I did on purpose called all the three of them Robotniks. Despite everything, Shadow was like a brother to Maria. We see from the flashbacks that in the past Gerald too cared for the alien as for his own kid. “They’re trying to take Shadow away from us, Maria!” HE CARED! So Shadow I can count as technical Robotnik, alongside Maria Robotnik, Gerald Robotnik and Ivo Robotnik.

And they all stand on the left side of the shot, leaving Stone standing alone far to the right corner. The closest standing to Stone is Ivo, and even he is “one human-sized gap” away from him. (The gap that Gerald can and want to fill in to achieve his goal)

It might also be that Stone himself has chosen to separate himself from the group here, feeeling as if he’s not part of it. Not part of Ivo’s family! And isn’t it sad!?

The scene hurts even more when you remember that at the start of the movie, in the first scene where Eggman shows up, he calls Stone “the only person in the world I could trust”

Stone: Doctor, you have visitors.

Eggman: Oh, really? I thought I was having an anthropomorphic nightmare, where the only person I could trust in the world shows up with all my worst enemies…

[fagboyfriend]

i rlly like ur composition, i wanna know about your process :D

thank uuu !! yeah so like. composing a scene for me generally begins with a vague idea that i want to get down as quickly as possible- and for me that usually starts with finding a setting. I knew that i wanted to draw a) a group of roomates gossiping in a crowded kitchen and i wanted there to be b) one figure in the extreme foreground and c) lots of plants. i do use some tools to figure out perspective, mainly the csp perspective ruler. Usually i start by finding a picture i like similar to the vibe im going for- but instead of referencing anything else- im purely interested in perspective. sorry to anyone who is shocked i dont generate all of my perspective purely by myself- i can draw in perspective fairly well but i struggle to make straight lines and this is easier to make grids with than the line tool lol ^_^ i try to use it kinda more like spellcheck on typos than like something to fully rely on. this is the video i learned this trick from:

i saw the left photo and realllly loved how the cabinets alligned with the wall- so i used my ruler tool to draw out my inital plotted points from the image- basically the linear movements i was most interested in and then i turned off the image layer and worked with those lines and the ruler tool to move on. eventually i had this:

which was enough for me to put my characters in for the inital round. if you notice- i made a looot of further adjustments as i go on. this sketch is not a final layout, its so my characters have somewhere to be! i cannot draw someone standing on a floor if theres no floor, nor leaning on a table that doesnt exist. i can’t draw my characters without a background, but i also cant finish my background without accounting for how my characters can comfortably exist in it!!

this was the like.. very basic start. i knew the positions of two characters- but i needed to change a lot not only to fit them better but to allow for the other two figures i had planned.

okay.. a little better. i widened the kitchen, closed the fridge door.. added a chair and fit in all the figures.. but this is waaay too dramatic. only two figures are actually interacting- and they are at wildly different energy levels!

this is where things started to make a little more sense characterwiss, so i was ready to refine backgrounds and figures and unite the two.

inital base sketch. much better layout.

okay- this is where im getting my footing but things seem.. really really off. You can see me working on my framing here- theres some good linear movement from left to right here- but not vertically. It’s hard to notice the figure in the far back, so i need to redirect the viewers eye to move upwards as well!

this is where i decided to zoom out, add an interesting vertical element to the left of the image and make it clearer whats happening in the foreground. i had to account for some stuff by adjusting the cropping, but i paid attention to that as well.

annnd- thats what a clean sketch looks for me! i have all the elements of my scene accounted for, and things are clean enough to read.

the next step for me would be transfer! essentially- I print the image of my sketch out, resizing and taping pages together so my sketch matches the size of the paper i want to paint on, and then i use a lightboard to transfer my sketch with pencil onto my paper. Then i refine the sketch a few times on paper before stretching my watercolor paper (essentially just prepping for painting) and inking with a brush and colored ink before going in with watercolor, gouache and ink, then usually finishing with marker, colored pencil, pastel and ink. it’s a lengthy process but a lot of fun lol. but sketches for me can be like.. 15 layers of different roughs until im happy with just the sketch. there were more images but im on mobile and theres a 10 image limit 😭😭 im a bit masochistic but i believe that if i dont have a good sketch i dont have a good painting!!

[brucebocchi]

Ranking every new anime I watched in 2023, Pt. 2: #20-11

hey, i just started a ko-fi for my writing and possible other creative outlets. this post will also be available there, so please check it out and consider tipping/donating as i'm currently between jobs. the tumblr version of part 1 can be found here.

Let's get right into it.

20. Helck

I watched Helck’s first season for its entire half-year run, and I'm honestly still not sure how I feel about it. I’d heard amazing things from people who’d read the manga, and it had a hot start, but the pacing slowed to such a crawl after a while that it kind of felt like they stretched out the story just so they could make another season.

Helck, an enormous and impossibly jolly human warrior, enters a tournament to decide the successor to the throne of the recently-slain Demon King. Demons and humans had been at war for some time, so Vermilio, an adorably fiery elite lord of the castle, is naturally wary of him. Helck is naturally powerful, talented, and affable, so he easily breezes his way through the tournament in hilarious fashion, despite Vermilio’s best efforts at sabotage. Before the finals can take place, though, an immortal army sent by the human forces arrive to attack the demon realm, and Helck and Vermilio are teleported to the far edge of the realm.

The season largely covers Helck and Vermilio’s trek back to the demon kingdom, as well as the demons’ struggles against the mysterious warriors as they attempt to figure out just what the hell the humans are plotting.  Vermilio remains leery of Helck, regardless of all he’s done for her, but it becomes further evident that Helck is harboring a very dark past, and eventually we get a lengthy arc where he sits down and explains it to Vermilio in flashback. There is, as you’d expect, plenty of tragedy there, and you’d like to see it resolved, but things just seem to keep getting worse.

There are powerful messages in there about toxic positivity and fighting the urge to shoulder one’s burdens alone, but they don’t become fully apparent until late in the season. Everything until then, at least after the teleportation, is… fine. I had higher hopes for this one, but it just feels like it’s missing something, and I can’t put my finger on what. It looks fine, the voice acting is good (the GOAT Katsuyuki Konishi is typically very good as Helck), the action is decent, it’s all… fine. The pacing just feels glacial at times, to the point where if I hadn’t been watching it weekly I might have bounced off of it.

Of course, the season ended with what appears to be the endgame on the horizon, so for all I know there’s still a lot more to come, but the story beats feel so familiar that I get the feeling it could be resolved with, like, a movie. I hope I’m wrong, because there are clearly some major emotional payoffs yet to come, and I’m still curious to see how it gets there. I may have to pick up the manga to find out if it’ll be worth any more of my time.

19. Urusei Yatsura (2022), second cour

Fresh off of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure’s possible series finale, David Production’s modern take on Rumiko Takahashi’s legendary comedy manga hummed along nicely into 2023. The cast continues to expand as the new version introduces characters like Ten, Ryunosuke, and Tobimaro to further raise the level of shenanigans inherent to Urusei Yatsura.

Lum Invader has been a sex symbol for pretty much as long as anime has had sex symbols, but the reboot’s second cour focuses a bit more on the side of her personality that makes her so iconic, and which I consider essential to several of my favorite female anime characters: Lum’s kind of a psychotic asshole. Her schemes to wring more attention and affection out of Ataru border on sociopathic at times, and she’s honestly so real for that. Her mortal frenemy, Ran, was introduced close to the end of the first cour, and there is still no shortage of sabotage attempts in the second, but we quickly come to learn that Ran’s undying vendetta is mostly because Lum has been a selfish, lying piece of shit since they were kids. God bless her.

Ataru continues to not be much better, serial philanderer that he is, as he continues to be surrounded by other hot crazy ladies who aren’t his not-fiancee. Mendo’s younger sister, Ryoko, is a real highlight in the 2023 run as a result of her escalating penchant for Looney Tunes-esque slapstick violence. The settings of Ataru’s and Lum’s respective worlds take more focus as well, between Ataru’s high school hijinks and Ten’s galactic mail-order mishaps, and the two often collide in hilarious fashion.

I still adore the look of this one. Character models have been cleaned up and simplified to a sort of retro-modern look while still being instantly recognizable to anyone already familiar with them. Everything is awash in an eye-popping Day-Glo color palette. Backgrounds and pop-in gags are often adorned with Ben Day dots to maintain the retro comic look. This doesn’t quite look like the manga, nor does it resemble the original 80s anime, but this is unmistakably a Rumiko Takahashi product. It almost looks like it could have come out at any point in time.

I’m only holding this back in the rankings because it’s the weaker half of a season that straddled the end of 2022 and the start of 2023, but the season as a whole is excellent. It is an essential watch for fans of comedy anime, especially considering so many tried-and-true anime gags effectively originated with Urusei Yatsura (it’s worth mentioning that Lum is largely considered the first-ever tsundere in anime and manga). Season 2 is imminent and I cannot fucking wait. Maybe I’ll even read the manga.

18. Tomo-chan is a Girl!

This is basically Monthly Girls’ No-jock-i-kun. Very simple premise: Tomboyish high schooler gets the hots for her childhood friend who is dense as fuck and forgets most of the time that she’s even a girl. Hilarity ensues and romance progresses glacially.

The voice performances are what really carry this one. Rie Takahashi is golden as the titular Tomo Aizawa, and this was the first entry in an MVP-caliber resume for her in 2023 that was so stacked that I still haven’t gotten to her best role yet. Rina Hidaka nails the conniving, misanthropic nature of Misuzu Gundo in a far cry from her turn as Emul the bunny in Shangri-La Frontier later in the year. The American-born idol Sally Amaki is a revelation as the airheaded gaijin Carol Olston, whom she also voices in the English dub. Even Carol’s mom speaks broken Japanese with a noticeable American accent, which is one of my favorite gags in the whole show.

Outside of the voice acting, nothing is particularly special about this show. Which is fine! There's nothing wrong with a solid 7/10 romcom; junk food is still food. It’s cute, it’s funny, it hits all the right beats, but nothing particularly stands out. Misuzu and eventually Carol give Tomo advice to try to woo her bestie Jun, while Misuzu is usually also playing Jun against that same advice so that it usually works and backfires at the same time. It’s all a game, and she plays both sides so she can always come out on top.

If I have a complaint about this show, it’s that it just… ends. I went back and read the manga, and unfortunately that issue is not the anime’s fault. If anything, it did a phenomenal job of fitting eight volumes of a 4-koma into a single season, and that’s always how it was supposed to go. I watched and read a ton of slice-of-life romance anime and manga this year, as it turns out, and the ones that really hit for me are usually the ones that take their time with the central relationship once it actually starts, rather than treat that big event as the climax, or worse, the finale of the story. Stuff like Kaguya-sama, Horimiya, Sweat and Soap, and even Wotakoi (though I have my own problems with that one) treat their central relationships as a step, not the goal.  At the same time, for plenty of others, the fun is in the chase, and they just run out of time, and Tomo-chan is the latter. We got what we wanted, and we had fun getting there. Sometimes that’s all you need.

Also good god, Tomo’s mom. The second those genes kicked in for Tomo, Jun was doomed.

17. The Eminence in Shadow, second cour and season 2

The Eminence in Shadow is the smartest piece of stupid media I've seen in a minute. It so perfectly skewers dime-a-dozen chuunibyo isekai trash while still cannonballing into a McDuckian swimming pool of the stuff. It nearly overwhelms you with lore; the series abounds with rich backstories, centuries-old power struggles, palace intrigue, shadowy conspiracies, the artificially accelerated march of progress, long-simmering revenge plots, looming economic catastrophe, and love dodecahedrons. And the most compelling thing about all of it is that none of it fucking matters.

Cid Kagenou spent his teenage years in modern Japan trying to become the coolest badass dark antihero who ever lived, but he quickly reaches his limits in our boring normal world so he rides the isekai truck into a world with actual, like, magic and shit. He spends his new childhood leveling up and rescuing elf girls, all the while regaling them with his “wisdom” in the form of a bunch of horseshit he made up based on all the light novels he used to read. Turns out that he’s entirely too genre savvy; this new world is apparently so contrived that every single thing he told them ended up entirely true.

So now Cid’s a teenager by day and shadowy vigilante by night (under the apt moniker “Shadow”), with an underground legion of hot deadly babes at his disinterested beck and call. All he genuinely cares about is looking and acting like the coolest motherfucker a socially inept 12 year old boy can think of, and in his downtime actively trying to be a forgettable mob character. And I do mean that that is all he cares about; when I say none of the wheels within wheels happening in the background actually matter, I mean that Cid is completely and totally unaware of any of it. 

Anything he does or says to drive the plot is either incidental or accidental. He spouts off some nonsense he heard in a video game once, and his cadre of elf baddies and beastgirls takes it as gospel en route to exposing a millennium-old conspiracy. He parrots a really cool line he heard ten minutes ago and a beautiful woman he just saved takes it as inspiration to turn her life around. It’s kind of like in Mashle, funnily enough; where Mash will go “I don’t know what’s going on, but you were being mean to my friend so I’m gonna beat the shit out of you,” Cid is more like “No clue what this is about, but that’s a really badass looking villain, so I’m gonna say some epic shit and do a big explosion.” And then he fucks off to go eat a burger or something, not knowing or caring that he just unraveled a prophesied master plot to destroy the global power balance.

The episodes that aired in 2023 largely revolve around the lovely Princess Rose, smitten with both Cid and Shadow (not knowing they’re the same guy), pledging fealty to Shadow Garden after failing to foil a coup d’etat. At the same time as her training, Cid is busy with a vampire something-or-other and then tries to make some coin for himself by teaming up with an assassin hellbent on revenge to create a credit crisis. The conspiracy later drags Rose back into the palace, where Cid sees a new opportunity. Every single one of these things has very specific reasons for happening, and everyone involved has a rich backstory and clear motivations to carry out their parts of the ever-evolving plots.

But that’s not why you’re here. You’re here to watch a bunch of hot ladies and a guy in a black cloak with one glowing red eye do some sick action stunts to bad guys with silly names, and this show delivers that in spades. This feels like a throwback in the best and worst ways. The Eminence in Shadow is stupid, and it is brilliant.

16. Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation, season 2

Mushoku Tensei is a tough anime to talk about. On one hand, it is one of the most gorgeous anime series ever put on television: Almost consistently movie-quality sakuga, lush background art, and a breathtaking score come together to form an immersive world unlike many I’ve seen in any medium. On the other, it forces some very unpleasant conversations about reincarnation in anime, particularly ones like this where a grown man is reincarnated as a child while retaining his mental age and is surrounded by potential love interests closer in age to his new body. What doesn’t help is that in his previous life in our world, the man who would reincarnate as Rudeus Greyrat was a socially isolated hentai addict, and much of his journey centers around him unlearning those proclivities in unfortunate and often damaging ways. If you can handle that, Mushoku Tensei is a rewarding watch, but if that’s beyond the pale to you, I don't blame you in the slightest.

However, even if you’ve been able to stomach all of the questionable shit in the first season, I'm sorry to say that the second season’s first cour doesn’t do much for the “bro I promise he gets better bro” crowd. The first cour covers the Quagmire and Academy arcs, which follow Rudeus’ struggle with being effectively abandoned by the only person to show him any physical affection in either life. The knock-on effect sees him retreating into an antisocial shell and developing, and I am deadly serious here, a seemingly incurable case of erectile dysfunction.

The first few episodes surround Rudeus growing into a young man, making a name for himself as a wandering adventurer in hopes that talk of his name will spread to his missing family and friends. At the urging of the god with a direct line to him (still unexplained), he enrolls in a magic university to investigate the calamity that flung his loved ones to the corners of the realm. There he finds an old friend in the figure-obsessed young prince who saved his life in the previous season, a girl from his previous world who seems to have also been transported to this one, and most crucially, his old childhood friend Sylphiette, hiding in plain sight with new hair and a sick pair of shades as a retainer to a scheming princess enrolled in the school.

Mushoku Tensei's initial season was at its best in its quieter moments, and those abound in season 2’s first cour. It's really lovely seeing him connect once again with Sylphie purely for who she is, even though for all Rudy knows he’s talking to a twinky dude named Fitz who makes him feel weird things. We get our amazing action animation early on, and things settle down quite a bit from there as Rudeus navigates all of these interpersonal relationships, old and (seemingly) new.

And while, yes, this version of Rudeus is a far cry from the drooling, grinning pervert he was in his first ten years of reincarnation, his improvement as a human being is not a straight line. He unfortunately takes more steps backwards than forward. The things he says in a drunken rage about his party member Sara (who inadvertently revealed his ED) are awful and undeserved, he literally ties up and gropes a pair of beast girls from his class (he has apparent reasons for both of those things, but come on), and he “frees” a young dwarven slave to take on as an apprentice. That last one seems admirable on its face, but uh. He went with the flow in a god damned slave market and still paid a slaver.  

I'm not excusing those things, nor absolving Rudeus as a character; I'm simply saying they happen this season. Mushoku Tensei, for better or for worse, depicts gnarly subject matter as it is while neither glorifying it nor moralizing about it. It trusts you to make your own judgments, and if your verdict is “I can’t watch this show,” that is perfectly valid. If you can stomach watching through its worst moments and compartmentalize the uncomfortable aspects of it, Mushoku Tensei remains one of the best-looking and -sounding pieces of animation out there, and the part of its second season that aired in 2023 has an exceptional emotional payoff. Otherwise, I'll be talking about Frieren much later.

15. Spy x Family, season 2

The most succinct praise I can give season 2 is also the most backhanded: Well, it’s more Spy x Family.

I want to be clear that there is no shade inherent to that comment; the first season of Spy x Family was excellent! It was a stylish, beautifully animated, appropriately hilarious adaptation of a fantastic manga that did it justice in almost every regard; the second season didn’t need to move heaven and earth to try to one-up it. It wasn’t broken, so Wit and CloverWorks didn’t fix it. It’s still the blend of domestic slice-of-life hijinks, tense cold-war intrigue, and heart-pounding action it’s always been. Even the production music is largely the same, and that’s not a complaint, because SxF’s production music fuckin' slaps.

A lot of anime-onlys rightfully complained that Yor’s plot relevance seemed to fall off a cliff in the back half of season 1, so they have been eating GOOD this time out, as season 2’s (ostensible) first cour puts her directly in the spotlight. The Yor Cour, if you will. The season opened on a hilariously spot-on adaptation of my favorite Yor-centric chapter of the manga (the “bullet in the ass” one) and quickly moved on to a nearly perfect interpretation of the cruise arc that sees her protecting a government asset from a legion of assassins. 

If you wanted to see more of Yor in her second life as the contract killer, Thorn Princess, this season was a meal and a half for you. Having her beset on all sides by an eccentric rogues’ gallery, with Anya fully aware and trying her damnedest to keep Loid from finding out what’s actually going on, is Spy x Family at its best. The tension constantly ramps up as the ship approaches its target, and Anya’s attempts at distracting Loid usually go sideways because, well, she’s Anya. Blood splatters, laughs are had, and Loid continues to struggle with both fatherhood and acting like his growing affection for his ragtag “fake” family is just “for the mission.” 

Outside of the cruise, season 2 maintains the series’ usual episodic pace, which can be a little jarring before and after the cruise arc, but that’s SxF for you. Shit can pop off at unexpected moments, and having read ahead in the manga, I’m excited to see the next time that happens. For now, though, things can feel kinda static from time to time, but the Forger family and the extended cast are always pleasant to just hang out with for a while.

And now to wait for the movie to come out in the west.

14. Undead Unluck

Up until this past Winter season, I primed myself on a lot of the more-hyped anime by reading the manga ahead of time. I knew that Undead Unluck is one of the bigger Shonen Jump manga out there, but this debut kind of crept up on me. I went in blind, got drawn in by the premise, and then got quickly overwhelmed with a wild amount of lore.

Fuuko, a young woman seemingly afflicted with a curse, is saddled with a brash, enormous man who cannot die after he foils her suicide attempt and is then himself grievously injured. Don’t worry, he got better. It turns out that he’s roughly 200 years old and has a completely cracked healing factor, while she brings terrible misfortune to anyone who touches her skin. They are both Negators, people with the ability to reverse or ignore the laws of nature: Fuuko’s ability is Unluck, causing tragedy for those close to her, while the man is Undead, exactly what it says on the tin. The man, who cannot remember his own name, believes their meeting to be kismet: If she can bring death to her loved ones, he vows to woo her so she can deliver the death he’s sought for so long. I promise this is a comedy.

Fuuko and Andy (whom she named as shorthand for the Japanese pronunciation of “undead”) foil a series of assassination attempts by other Negators, and take their spots as part of the Union eliminating threats to the universe. They team with an eclectic group, whom we’re still getting to know as of the end of the first cour, as they trot the globe to complete quests given to them by a mysterious (and seemingly nefarious) talking book lest the universe incur penalties for their failure.

The power system among Negators is one of the most inventive I've seen, with each one able to cancel out a specific element of the natural order of the world, and it’s a blast learning how each new one works. Andy in particular is wild; because he can regenerate himself so quickly, his weapon of specialty is his own body, never hesitating to use his own fingertips as bullets and his own gushing blood as a propulsion mechanism. He also has no compunction towards taking on the worst of Fuuko’s Unluck ability, often sacrificing himself to get hit by lightning or falling debris to deal damage to an enemy. Every new Negator power introduced adds a new wrinkle to the way this world works and the different shapes its action can take. Others can freeze matter into suspended animation, force people to act opposite their own intentions, or even subvert someone’s entire belief system. I cannot wait to see what else is in store.

The first cour’s pacing is a little off, and Andy's behavior towards Fuuko in the first couple episodes is nothing short of gross (I promise that eases up), but you can see the show finding its footing as it goes on. Shonen Jump series don’t last for nearly 200 chapters and counting by accident, and I'm excited to see where this goes.

13. NieR: Automata Ver. 1.1a

Those of us who played Yoko Taro’s 2017 masterpiece approached the announcement of an anime adaptation with some trepidation: So much of what made Nier Automata so outstanding and so beloved is that much of the delivery of its narrative is inherent to the fact that it’s a video game. How can a video game known for pushing against the fourth wall of the unique elements of its very medium be faithfully adapted as an anime?

The choice of studio was also concerning: Though A-1 has produced a ridiculous number of excellent series (and some aggressively mid ones that were nonetheless very successful), its track record with video game adaptations has been far less than stellar. The latter three films in the Persona 3 adaptations were solid if uneven, and the Valkyria Chronicles anime seems to have been well-received, but the same can’t be said of A-1’s takes on Ace Attorney, Persona 4 Golden, or Persona 5. Regardless, Yoko himself was heavily involved in the anime’s production, so if they could keep on budget and schedule, Nier Automata would have a fighting chance.

And while there indeed ended up being massive and likely unpredictable production delays, I'd say they’ve done almost as good of a job as they could have so far. While the first cour mainly covers Automata’s A and B routes, it does much more than just play that part of the story straight; it also takes the time to incorporate other elements of the Nier canon. A surprising amount of time is dedicated to the canon introduced in the YoRHa stage play (and by extension the Pearl Harbor Descent Record manga); Lily and the android resistance are woven directly into the narrative far beyond the vague overtures the game makes in their direction. Ver 1.1a also ties the history of the original Nier into the story at unexpected and intriguing (and in my case, tear inducing) moments. 

Unfortunately, it’s still too soon to assess this series in its entirety. While too many people who played Nier Automata stopped after route A or B, there is still much more of this story to come. There was some very sloppy CGI integration in the first episode when it aired, but far from enough to put me off the series. For now, it’s a treat for Nier fans, but I’m not sure whether I can recommend it yet to people who are unfamiliar with the source material.

Until the anime is completed, go play Nier Automata. It’s one of my favorite games of all time.

12. Kaguya-sama: Love is War -The First Kiss That Never Ends-

This was a late 2022 theatrical release, but it didn’t see western release until this year and was split into a four-episode mini-season for streaming, so I'm counting it for this year. You can deal with it.

I got completely obsessed with Kaguya-sama early this year, and in record time. I binged the anime and the manga in the span of a couple weeks and irreversibly fell in love. I say with no reservation that it is the best romantic comedy, in any medium, of the 21st century. It nails both the romance and the comedy in equal measure; the characters are perfectly realized right down to the supporting cast, the dynamics between them are carefully considered and consistent with their personalities regardless of circumstance, and every emotional and comedic beat hits exactly as it’s meant to. There is a constant momentum moving the greater plot along, even in the smaller moments, and seismic shifts take over before you’ve even noticed they’re happening.

It’s rare for romcom manga adaptations to stay on the air long enough to actually reach the romantic payoff, and Kaguya-sama fucking nailed it in season 3. Well, we’re pretty sure it did; the central conceit of the psycho-romantic warfare between Kaguya Shinomiya and Miyuki Shirogane is that they’re both chronic overthinkers and won’t accept any romantic undertones or overtures in any form but an explicit confession. So while the finish to season 3 is everything we wanted as an audience, these two dorks still sense a margin for error. Regardless, that would have been a perfectly acceptable place to end the anime.

HOWEVER, the Ice Queen Kaguya arc that follows in the manga is iconic, and A-1 was absolutely right to adapt it. Although Shirogane is ready to move forward with the relationship that (he’s pretty sure) they’ve both wanted for a long time, Kaguya has a crisis of personality and inadvertently reverts to the dead-eyed, emotionally walled-off version of herself he’d initially met, well before either of them had realized they’d fallen in love with one another. The interstitial omake preceding this arc in the manga has Aka Akasaka warning the reader that in order to counteract the massive emotional payoff that just happened, the ensuing chapters would get very, very silly.

And of course, hijinks do indeed ensue; this is Kaguya-sama, after all. But before you realize it, the story is neck deep in Jungian psychology as self-doubt begins to plague Kaguya and Miyuki and they struggle with the faces they think they need to put on for the other and whether their “real” selves even deserve to be loved by the person they idolize. It gets heavy! I cried every time I watched it! And that first time was in a damn movie theater!

I’m much more comfortable appraising First Kiss as a mini-season than as a movie, because frankly, it doesn’t work as a movie. The animation, while maintaining the series’ standard of excellence, isn’t a single degree better than what aired on television, which can be disappointing upon a visit to the theater. The pacing is also off for a feature film; the common knock upon theatrical release was that it felt like four episodes stitched together (it even has the omake-style interludes between scenes, like the show). The arc also focuses very heavily on Kaguya and Miyuki specifically, so the ensemble cast I mentioned earlier does have to take a backseat. Splitting this up for streaming and televised release was the right move here.

Season 3 would have been a very good ending for this series if it never got picked up for the movie. If it doesn’t get picked up for a proper fourth season, this is the perfect place for it to end. The manga has now been adapted up to just past the halfway point, and the next best stopping point would have to wait until a possible, like, fifth season. And that arc in question, while it does have some iconic moments, is very uneven. If this is all we’re getting, we’ve gotten plenty already, and I am satisfied.

If you've watched the first three seasons of Kaguya-sama, you owe it to yourself to watch The First Kiss That Never Ends. It is nearly everything you could ask for. Also, read the manga if you haven’t already. It’s genuinely one of my favorite things I've ever read.

11. The Apothecary Diaries

This one is basically House M.D. set in the Ming Dynasty, and it fucks.

Maomao, an apothecary raised in a pleasure district near the palace of a fictional East Asian empire, is shanghaied (pun intended) into menial work in said palace. She hears tell of a supposed curse plaguing the emperor’s newborn children and the concubines that birthed them, quickly deduces that it may be poisoning, and discreetly leaves a message for the ailing new mothers. She’s found out by an impossibly beautiful young administrator named Jinshi, who quickly deduces that she’s one of the few literate peons in the rear palace, and he puts her to work in the pavilion of the concubine that heeded her advice.

With her knowledge of, resistance to, and slightly masochistic infatuation with various poisons, Maomao slots right in as an attendant and poison tester to one of the emperor’s embattled concubines. Often at Jinshi’s urging (even though she immediately gets the ick at his habitual flirting), Maomao finds herself investigating deaths, mysterious ailments, and strange behaviors, on top of the foreign world of palace politics. Though she’s a deeply jaded person who only seems to care for her special interests, Maomao is incredibly perceptive and often able to suss out the finer details others miss.

Surprisingly, this one is a really breezy watch, and much funnier than you might expect. For all its lush environs, slowly-mounting intrigue, and often stunning cinematography, The Apothecary Diaries isn’t afraid to get a little silly with it. The dialogue is snappy, quick gags abound in a familiar single-panel chibi style you wouldn’t expect in a setting like this, and Komi-esque cat ears spontaneously pop up from Maomao's head whenever her interest is piqued. Interactions between Maomao and Jinshi are always a hoot, and you can pretty quickly figure out where it’s going, although Maomao can’t because she’s still pretty sure Jinshi is a eunuch.

As she does in virtually every role in her dozen-plus years as a seiyuu, Aoi Yuuki crushes it in the starring role. She really nails the disaffected cynicism that animates most of Maomao’s internal monologue and sarcastic dialogue, as well as her hair-trigger glee when presented with her personal interests in food and drink, medicinal herbs, and of course, poison. Yuuki is an indispensable element in ensemble casts like One Punch Man, Persona 5, Nier Automata, Wotakoi, and the aforementioned KamiKatsu (as well as others I don’t plan on watching like My Hero Academia, Rent-a-Girlfriend, and The Seven Deadly Sins), so it’s especially nice to hear her in a spotlight role outside of the odd Madoka Magica, spider isekai, or Cyberpunk Edgerunners.

There are a handful of anime on this list that will be continuing or returning in January, and second only to my #1 anime this year, this is the one I’m most excited to see more of. At time of writing, the show appears to be shifting in a new direction, and I’m hoping to see it take less of an episodic pace.

Part 3 is on the way! I'm going to split my top ten into two more posts, because I ended up writing... a lot more than I'd expected.

[pedrocomicreviews]

Fantastic Four #32

“It’s not your fault, Franklin– you truly deserved better, and I’m sorry you never got it. You were just a kid. You still are.”

Let’s talk about Franklin and Valeria Richards.

It’s always a mistake to have children in eternal comic books. Not to have them as characters, but as babies born in the narrative– time, by necessity, cannot move forward. If a baby is introduced in a comic book 10 years ago, you can’t just have them be ten years older most of the time. If you do that, everyone else also has to be older, and at some point, you have a Batman who’s pushing 90 hanging out with his fourth Robin.

Marvel eventually realized this problem, but a little late. Franklin Richards was created when the concept of a sliding timescale didn’t make sense– it was the late 60s and it didn’t make sense to believe this would ever be an issue. But then in the 90s, they introduced another Fantastic child– Valeria Richards, and Franklin was… still a kid.

He wasn’t a baby, but he was clearly not thirty years old. Other characters in Marvel have gone through similar problems. The Power Pack, for instance, were introduced as children so young as to stretch the believability that they should really be involved in stuff like the Mutant Massacre– and today, some of them are in college, and are clearly adults. Franklin, though? He’s still a tween. So is Valeria, which is very funny to think about when you consider how far apart these characters were born, and how long they’ve been in publication at the same time.

All of this to say, Marvel has a problem with Franklin and Valeria. You can’t age them up without aging up, I don’t know, Miles Morales alongside them, and that won’t do– he’s always in high school, and always has been in high school. You can’t have them drop in and out of Limbo and pop out fully formed as an adult, because their brand is that they’re young. There have been adults versions of them, yes, famously in Days of Future Past. But those are always alternates. They’re from futures we’ll never see again, or versions that are just visiting.

Franklin and Valeria Richards are defined by being precocious, and that doesn’t translate well to being adults. So, Fantastic Four #32 being about Franklin being a literal eternal baby who never grows up is a relatively clever literalization of the nearly 60-year old problem with the character.

The story itself is good, it’s fine– we are nearing the end of this volume and a relaunch is on the way, so we’re not doing anything particularly important right now. Valeria brainstorms her way through a problem and it’s a bit bittersweet and a bit tragic, but ultimately she does the right thing. But the metanarrative of these two characters being wholly unable to grow old, and being stuck as these eternally young versions of them is pretty interesting.

After all, Valeria only exists because Franklin willed it so. She was snapped out of a timeline where she was born, as opposed to the one where everyone else lives, where Sue had a miscarriage. Fantastic Four relies on Franklin, sometimes a literal infant, to handwave away plots and stories plenty of times. While problems with the X-Office and otherwise stories about how Franklin can’t just will away every villain have meant his powers are as inconsistent as Black Panther sales, he’s de facto more important to the future of the Marvel universe than his entire family is. He has been attached to the universe’s beginning, middle and end several times, in many roles. Sometimes he’s god, other times he’s the devil– other times, like this one, he’s just straight up Galactus. Either the current or the next one.

So you have to wonder how it’s gonna be when someone finally puts their foot down and says Franklin should be going to college, yeah? Not as an intellect thing, but as a visual way to show he can’t just be a kid anymore. The sliding timescale has been challenged more and more lately; Kamala Khan is almost out of high school after eleven years! A bunch of heroes have kids and are married now! Reed Richards has a beard! 

Because essentially what’s going to happen after this story is, the version of Franklin that is an immature baby playing God will be deleted (which he is at the end of the book) and replaced with our normal Franklin, who is… an immature tween who sometimes plays God, but is a little more responsible because his family loves him. He won’t be able to have stories that aren’t about the fact that he’s not an adult, and shouldn’t be thought of as one. He won’t advance more in the next ten years than he has in the last 50. Because that’s not the kind of story he’s in.

I just think about Franklin and Valeria sometimes, is all. They’re not bad characters, it’s just… you really should never have babies in a comic book. You end up with situations like this. Characters who can’t ever leave their developmental phase because otherwise Spider-Man’s hair needs to go white, or something.

[trixie-troubleby]

Are you still taking prompts? If so, consider: Sportacus needs to get up to his ship, but for plot reasons, the ladder isn't available/working. The solution? Clearly, Robbie must fire him out of a cannon.

Hi yes sorry, yeah! I’m always taking fic requests. This was pretty fun!!! Thanks for sending the request in, I hope you like it!

It had been Trixie’s idea. And well, it wasn’t a great idea per se but the kids all agreed it was and Sportacus had figured out that if they put their minds to some it was easier not to disagree.

Which meant oddly enough, Robbie was the voice of reason.

“You want what?” Robbie demanded through the speakers by his door.

“Please Robbie! Sportacus can’t get back home.” Ziggy whined.

“We just need to borrow your cannon for like twenty minutes!” Pixel added.

“And we’ll take real good care of it!” Stephanie said brightly.

“I– oh my god.” Robbie groaned. “I’ll be right up.”

“With the cannon?” Stingy asked.

“No, not with the–“ Robbie exclaimed. “You f–“

“Language, please.” Sportacus sighed, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Language, please.” Robbie mocked. Moments later he appeared from the pipe down to his lair. “I’m not letting you shoot Sportaloon out of a cannon.” He said as soon as his feet touched the ground. The kids booed him.

“You try to shoot him out of a cannon all the time!” Trixie complained.

“Yeah and it’s not like it’ll hurt Sportacus! He’s a super hero!” Ziggy insisted.

Sportacus cringed slightly. “Slightly above average–“ He murmured under his breath. Robbie caught his eye. The villain looked somewhat smug.

“You just don’t wanna help!” Stephanie huffed.

Robbie examined his nails. “Listen kid, if he can’t get into his ship then that means we’re stuck with him and that’s the last thing I want. But I’m not gonna let a buncha eight year olds loose on the town with a cannon.”

“We’re not all eight!” Stephanie glared at him.

Robbie pinched the bridge of his nose, exasperated. “I’m done arguing with children.” He looked up to Sportacus. “You.” He pointed. “Do you really want me to shoot you from a cannon?”

Sportacus hesitated, feeling the eyes of the kids on him. “Do you have any other ideas?” He finally asked. The kids all booed.

“C’mon, I’ve got an industrial grade platform lift.” Robbie nodded. The kids furrowed their brows as they tried to figure out what that was. Sportacus knew what it was but couldn’t think of how to describe it.

Robbie sighed. “It’s a machine that stretches up while holding a platform.” Robbie responded. “C’mon.”

They got the platform out of Robbie’s shed, driving it through the town until finally the got to the place where Sportacus called his airship to. With the airship’s platform lowered as far as it could go, Sportacus stepped onto Robbie’s machine. He looked hesitantly at the controls, then looked down at Robbie pleadingly.

Robbie groaned. He climbed onto the platform and pulled the lever that it made it start rising. It was slow going. Robbie didn’t look at him.

“Thank you for helping me today.” Sportacus smiled slightly.

Robbie shrugged. “Whatever.” He examined his nails closely. “I had the feeling they wouldn’t leave me alone until I did.”

Sportacus snorted. “You know they like you, Robbie. They look up to you in certain ways.”

“They… look up to me?” Robbie blinked at the hero.

“Your… ingenuity, creativity, things like that.” Sportacus nodded.

“Huh.” Robbie hummed.

They approached the airship without another word passed between them. As the platform lift reached its max height, Sportacus leapt onto the railing and jumped up to his ship. He waved to Robbie and the kids as he disappeared into the ship.

Robbie stared at the ship for a moment too long after Sportacus was gone. “Thanks.” He mumbled at the ship before he finally started the descent back down.

[snowbellewells]

MY CSSNS23 MC: "Carolina Moon" {prologue}

**Thank you SO MUCH to my event artist @eastwesthomeisbest for the absolutely amazing cover art she created (in much less time than I should have afforded her). I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it, and am thrilled to be able to put it with each update of my story. Also, I'm so grateful to have @xarandomdreamx as my beta for this fic as well, though I did not give her this prologue, so any mistakes here are absolutely and unfortunately mine! And thank you too to the @cssns as a whole for once again providing such a great event of which to be a part!!***

Here is my second submission to the @cssns23 event!! This one is a modern au of the Nora Roberts novel and subsequent tv movie Carolina Moon. The main female character in the movie is psychic/clairvoyant (I’ll admit, I’m not too sure about the distinction between the two) and I thought her visions and what she goes through in connection to them made a nice real-world parallel to Emma’s magic. (There’s also a scene in here where the male lead says something that I could so perfectly see Killian saying to Emma… I just cannot wait to get to that point!)

Anyway, I hope you will enjoy this romantic thriller with some murder mystery elements.  There are some instances of abuse and violence in here though - which I feel like I should mention, since that’s a little darker than my typical style. Most of them are in flashbacks of Emma’s past, or in visions she has of victims, more than in the actual present day plot; still I wanted to make people aware before we got too far.

Please enjoy! (I’d love to hear what you think.)

Prologue

July 1993

The water at their hideaway always feels so good. She could sink into it until her head slips below the surface and never, ever want to come up for air. It’s cooler, more luxurious than even the rich, satiny sheets on the trundle bed those rare nights when she gets to sleep over at Rose’s. Emma Swan’s gangly, 13-year-old limbs slice through the murky water as if the constant humidity and sultry air of Storybrooke, South Carolina can’t penetrate here in their little forest haven. She knows, of course, logically, that the real world isn’t all that far away. The shaded pond she and Rose discovered two summers ago is just a short trek into the woods at the furthest edge of Rose’s family’s boundless acreage. Still, it feels removed enough to bring Emma a sense of peace and contentment she gains nowhere else.

Looking over her shoulder to the large, smooth boulder jutting out of the pond at the bank where they left their flip flops and cutoff denim shorts, she can see her best friend stretched out with her new book where they had spread their towels on the rock’s surface, just in the wash of warming sunlight that streams through the tree branches overhead. Rose’s flawlessly creamy pale skin is prone to burning, but at the moment her friend seems willing to take the risk for the benefit of lazing cozily to read as she dries in the sun after taking a quick dip. Shaking her head, Emma plunges back under, happy to stay in the chilly water a bit longer herself. She knew as soon as they’d met outside Rose’s house that afternoon, and she had seen that Rose held a new Boxcar Children book in her hand, that her friend would not be able to resist burrowing into those pages for long.

It’s funny, Emma supposes, but that’s exactly what bonded she and Rose Jones in the first place. They might seem different on the surface, but in the end, neither of them quite fit with everyone else, and so they gravitate to each other, and have ever since Emma first arrived in Storybrooke as an eight-year-old orphan. They are each willing to give the other at least one person who takes them as they are and with whom they won’t have to pretend. Emma doesn’t care if Rose wants to read quietly and tell her about the stories she’s already finished instead of picking out dresses for the next cotillion class or preening in front of the mirror, practicing batting her eyelashes to charm boys or bragging to Emma about which ones she intends to kiss. Her sister Ruby, who shares the same thickly shining, burnished mahogany hair and pretty pink lips but little of her fraternal twin’s calming, gentle personality, does enough of that for the both of them. Their mother, a former debutante and southern belle, delights in the one daughter’s traditional coquettishness, and despairs of the other’s shyness. Cora Jones is a true throwback to another time who wants nothing more than to see both her daughters marry well and retain their places atop the social ladder. Emma could not care any less about such details; she is already clinging to the very bottom rung of such a social structure - if she and the so-called guardians with whom she lives are on the ladder at all. In turn, Rose doesn’t mock Emma for her thick, dark-framed glasses or secondhand clothes, nor does she cringe away from the “fits” that sometimes take hold of her friend, making strange, disturbing scenes Emma can’t understand flash across her mind with such intensity they sometimes knock her off her feet. Emma knows Rose’s mother and sister find her an unsuitable and embarrassing companion for Rose, but she is eternally grateful her friend seems able to see the best in anyone - even a lost girl nobody else wants - and so blithely acts as though she has no idea about the rest of her family’s opinions.

Cringing even while still submerged in the pond’s depths and practically invisible, Emma tries not to think of her unwanted visions. Her strict, hypocritical, and more than a bit deranged, foster father claims she’s possessed - and more than once has taken her episodes out of her hide. The man swears he’s beating the devil out of her and putting the fear of God in Satan’s place when he takes the thick leather strap to her shoulders, back and legs until she bleeds, but Emma has already lived long enough in a cruel and unfair world to know that his violence and “discipline” have less to do with parenting and concern for her soul, and more to show for his own twisted mind and overindulgence in the bottle. She wants to hide her spells from him, but when they come on her so abruptly and with such power, they are impossible to miss. She can’t fathom how a person like him was deemed fit to take in and care for a child, but mistreatment and injustice seem to be her lot in life thus far, and so she simply grits her teeth and survives.

It’s different though when the spells happen around Rose; the slight brunette merely rests a cool, steadying hand on Emma’s forehead or her arm until they pass, then she helps Emma stand until she feels in control again, listens as she attempts to make sense of whatever she’s seen, and most importantly… believes her. If only she could stay in the huge house Rose’s family calls home. She’d cook, clean, do chores, even stay in the servant’s quarters; Emma isn’t picky. It would still be a far sight safer than the situation she has in the rundown shack with the monster who’d been deemed her caretaker. Barring that, she would honestly rather live wild in these woods and survive off the land. She knew which plants and berries were safe to eat; Graham, her first friend, once a fellow orphan now happily adopted, had shown her ages ago, as well as taught her how to fish. It wouldn’t be easy, but she’d get by, and at least no one would lay a hand on her again.

This afternoon, those eerie images she sometimes has seem far away as she splashes up out of the water, trying to arc playfully like a mermaid as she breaks the surface. Drawing in a big gulp of air after staying underwater so long, Emma startles at the sound of teasing laughter, and whirls to see three figures on the bank where she and Rose left their shoes and shorts. 

“Well, look here,” calls out a taunting voice that never fails to set Emma’s nerves on edge. “It’s the baby beached librarian and her drowned rat friend!” None other than Emma’s nemesis, Killian Jones, crows from his vantage point on dry land.

Rose sits up ramrod straight, book still in hand and annoyed scowl on her face at Killian and his friends’ interruption to the quiet peace of their sanctuary. She isn’t genuinely angry, though; for all that she and her sister share little in common, she and her two-years-older brother are affectionately close. “Shut up, Killy!” she shoots back, throwing in the childhood nickname they all know he hates. “Who asked you to come looking anyway?”

The boy standing next to Killian speaks up next, making Emma scowl just as playfully as Rose had moments before. Graham Hunter might as well be her big brother; he’s the closest thing she’s had to family since her parents were lost in a car crash and she was thrown into the foster care system. Be that as it may, he and Killian Jones are thick as thieves, and he’ll give her a hard time for all he’s worth while in the presence of his buddy. “We just wanted to swim,” he calls across the water to the two girls, smirking at Emma, who now stands in the water with one hip jutting out and hands planted on her waist. “How were we supposed to know you two were infesting it?”

“Ha!” Emma jeers back, the affront plain in her voice; despite the fact that the entire routine is like a practiced girls-versus-boys exchange they’ve all engaged in countless times. There isn’t much else to do for entertainment in their sleepy little one-horse town. “You idiots know this is Rose’s and my hideaway, fair and square!”

“Well, Rose’s anyway,” a third voice cuts in snidely.

The cruel jab reminds Emma once more that to most folks she is just a charity case, quite possibly only included in anything at all because of her friend’s kind heart, and at the intentional slight, cuts her gaze to the third member of the boys’ little crew, skulking a step back in the shadows behind where Killian and Graham stand, as he always does. Her green eyes narrow to slits in genuine dislike and suspicion. Where before her animosity was largely for show, when they land on Walsh Ozman, it is all too real.

She has never understood why the other two boys - jokers and annoyances though they may be, but good guys when it comes right down to it - hang out with Walsh at all.  Where Graham and Killian are much more cut from the same cloth - athletic, outgoing, well-liked and pleasant - Walsh is a splindy, sniveling character, complaining and whining whatever their little trio gets up to. He lives not far from Emma’s foster father’s cabin with his single mother - a bushy-haired redhead who seems strangely overprotective and attached to her only child. Most people give the property a wide berth, except when high schoolers teepee it the whole month of October, and the general town consensus is that Zelena Ozman might be a witch and to steer clear. Still, beyond all of that, Emma might have been able to look past the boy’s circumstances and see him for himself - she of all people knew the gift it was not to be judged by where a person came from - if Walsh hadn’t simply given her “the willies”. Even standing too close to him made the fine hairs at the nape of her neck stand on end - and not in the way that nearness to Killian sometimes did; an altogether much more pleasant tingle, even if she was just as unable to explain one as the other.

“We could take their things,” Walsh suggests, holding up the threadbare, faded jeans Emma had left on the bank. “Make them walk back in their skivvies.” The wicked smile on his face makes Emma’s stomach turn over sickly.

Something sharp flashes in Jones’ eyes, his nostrils flaring slightly and his head giving a subtle shake of dissent that Emma can see even at the distance she stands away from him. Protectiveness, chivalry, or maybe the honor of a southern gentleman passed down to him through generations of his impressive family line; whatever it is, it sparks to life in his eyes at that moment as he quashes Walsh’s mean-spirited suggestion in no uncertain terms. “That’s my little sister you’re talking about Oz,” he growls, smacking the worn material from the smaller’s boy’s hands, even if the article of clothing isn’t Rose’s at all.

Emma feels her breath rush back into her lungs, though she continues to watch the guys warily for whatever they might do or say next. Before long, they grow bored of standing around and move on, hollering out age old taunts of “Bye, losers” and “Hey, smell ya later” to Emma’s derisive snort and Rose completely ignoring them to flip open her book again.

However, even with the intruders gone, it seems as if the perfect comfort of their retreat has been shattered by the unsettling interruption.  Soon, Emma wades to the shore and Rose clambers down from her perch, to dress once more and return to the world outside. For a moment, as she refastens her jeans around her skinny waist, Emma feels a strange prickling along the fine hairs on her arms… like they’re being watched. She jerks around, searching the surrounding trees and brush, but can’t see or hear a thing.

Rose’s small hand takes hers, snapping Emma out of the moment. “What is it?” she whispers, only true caring in her voice. “Did you sense something?”

Emma nods, but can’t give her suspicions voice. Usually her visions are clearer than that - this had just been heavy breathing and like looking at herself and Rose through another person’s eyes, outside her own body.

Rose stooped to grab the little canvas bag she’d bought along with water bottles, towels, and a second book in it. “Hey, don’t worry, okay?” she offers, hopeful and kind as always. “You’ll figure it out. Wanna meet back out here tonight? Secret Sister bonfire?” she winks mischeivously. “I have to get to dinner now. You know how Mama hates it if I’m not washed up and properly attired for the evening meal - or a second late. But we can talk some more then, maybe you’ll remember more and it will be clearer.”

Emma nods gamely. “The stars’ll be beautiful by midnight,” she suggests. “And we’ll definitely have the place all to ourselves.”

“Since we were so rudely interrupted,” Rose chimes in with a giggle and roll of her eyes.

“Shake on it, pinkie swear,” they say together in practiced unison, executing a complex handshake that ends with their pinkies hooked together and wide, matching grins on both their faces.

“Thanks Rose,” Emma whispers sincerely, trying to speak around the lump in her throat as if it’s no big deal. “I’ll be out here as soon as I can sneak away.”

Rose, for her part, wraps her taller, golden-haired friend into a tight, momentary hug. “Hey, we’re Secret Sisters! You can count on me.  I’ll see you then!”

They part ways at the edge of the forest; Emma heading to the rundown cabin that serves as her nightmarish version of a home, and Rose to the pristine Jones family mansion standing tall over all the surrounding land. Rose looks back over her shoulder with a smile and wave that bolsters Emma, and the memory fades back into the haze of the past…

Eighteen years later….

September 2011

The blaring of the horn as a sports car whizzed by, barely missing the nose of Emma’s beat-up yellow VW where it had begun to edge out into the country intersection, jarred her back to the present with a gasp and painful jolt to her chest. Panting for a moment as she gripped the steering wheel, Emma tried to clear her head and calm the pounding of her heart at the near-miss.

‘Get it together,’ she berated herself. It might have seemed like only yesterday as she remembered that sunny afternoon at the swimming hole, but that day had been nearly two decades ago. She was a grown woman, had made a way for herself, fighting tooth and nail for every step forward, and she answered to no one. She had learned to stand up for her rights and her needs, to control her visions and use them for good, and had even served a special consultant for the Boston PD. But, more than all of that, she had come back to this place to find peace, to lay to rest the ghosts that had followed her everywhere else she’d gone in the years between, once and for all. If she expected others to leave the past in the past, she would first have to manage to do the same.

She’d had no way to know as she and Rose parted that afternoon with promises and plans for later that it would be the last time she would ever see her friend. Emma had harbored the pain and the guilt and the unanswered questions ever since. Finally, it was time to meet the gazes of all of those who had stared at her in suspicion before she’d been packed up and moved away once more, and it was time she found answers. She wasn’t the scared, whipped, mistreated adolescent she had been at 13. What she had lived through then was not her fault, nor was what had happened to Rose that muggy July midnight. 

And if she had to return to Storybrooke, South Carolina to lay that burden down… well, it was long past time she did.

Tagging a few who might enjoy: @cssns @searchingwardrobes @jennjenn615 @kmomof4 @laschatzi @whimsicallyenchantedrose @teamhook @revanmeetra87 @stahlop @jrob64 @apiratewhopines @wefoundloveunderthelight @eastwesthomeisbest @xarandomdreamx @sotangledupinit @justanother-unluckysoul @booksteaandtoomuchtv @kazoosandfannypacks @anmylica @motherkatereloyshipper @jonesfandomfanatic @elizabeethan @the-darkdragonfly @donteattheappleshook @xsajx @lfh1226-linda @winterbaby89 @hollyethecurious @darkcolinodonorgasm @resident-of-storybrooke @drowned-dreamer @optomisticgirl @tiganasummertree @spartanguard @therooksshiningknight @gingerchangeling @gingerpolyglot @blackwidownat2814 @blowmiakisscolin @let-it-raines

[shadowqueenjude]

Ok more thoughts on The Wicked King.

Amazing book, so much intrigue, so much fucking panic as I was hit with plot twist after plot twist, 10/10 no notes there.

Now let me talk about Jurdan.

This is probably an unpopular opinion, and maybe it’s because I have super high romantic expectations or whatever, but let me talk:

I know romance isn’t the central plot, and I know that this is supposed to be enemies-to-lovers, but do you ever get to a point where it feels like there’s…too much push and pull? Like the enemies to lovers thing is too back and forth and it’s extended over such a long period and you can’t even get behind the romance anymore?

I don’t know, it felt rather sudden that Jude fucked Cardan and all of a sudden she doesn’t hate him but rather likes him more than most people (I mean come on, NO ONE’S dick is that good), and Cardan somehow trusts her more than anyone even though she can lie and tricked him into a bargain, but he also fucking hates her but also somehow loves her? And then that’s all torn apart by the end of the second book.

It’s like The Selection to me, I love the books although some of the premise is terrible (like the whole China-Russia thing but that’s a whole other post) because the romance is good, but also the romance got stretched out for far too loooooong. Too much push and pull, not enough loyalty. I don’t know; I don’t need the LI to be a nice dude, but I need them to be good to their girl. I mean, Jude and Cardan are married now ffs.

It feels like Jurdan’s conflict is being stretched out too long, mostly by Cardan being the asshole, and I’m having difficulty getting behind the romance. Now this might just be me not liking the true enemies-to-lovers trope, I don’t know. But at this point I don’t very much like Cardan.

[semper-legens]

137. The Gladiators from Capua, by Caroline Lawrence

Owned: Yes Page count: 202 My summary: Rome burned. Jonathan is missing, presumed dead. But when rumours of the curly-haired boy who set the fire reach his friends, they are determined to find the truth. Their search takes them to the arena in Rome, where the gladiatorial games have begun. But the arena will hold many surprises, for all of the detectives… My rating: 4/5

More Roman Mysteries now, and it’s time for Nubia to take the spotlight once more. This is a weird book. I get it, when you’re writing about Ancient Rome in an edutainment book for kids, sooner or later you’re going to want to bring in the gladiators. Frankly, Lawrence has been very restrained thus far in the FA by that it took this long to get to the gladiator fights. And this is a good place to put it - these games really happened, as Titus attempted to pull his terrible reign out of the gutter and appease the masses. I don’t think these four kids were there in real history, though…

Like I said, this is primarily a Nubia book, but she’s less prominent than the other kids have been in the books they lead on. Nubia’s big conflict is that she receives a lottery ball allowing her to get a gladiator - she gets to choose between Jonathan, who survived the fire and pledged himself to become a gladiator as he now has a death wish, and her brother Taharqo, who was sold as a gladiator to a school in Capua. Neither wants to be freed, however - Jonathan because he believes his mother is dead, Taharqo because he’s having too much fun as a gladiator. Nubia misses her family a lot in this one, and it’s here that we see some of the lingering traumas of being enslaved; all but one of her family are dead, and she will never regain the life she once had. Poor kid.

I do, however, need to criticise the improbability of it all. Yeah, yeah, this is a book for children, so of course the kids are going to be unrealistically involved in everything, that’s part and parcel of the genre. But Flavia being the sole survivor of the massacre in the arena, Jonathan being both a gladiator and a convicted criminal because of the whole ‘burning down Rome’ thing from the last book, and Lupus turning into an informer and foiling a plot against Titus…it all turns a little soap opera. I don’t necessarily think it’s bad (this is still a book for children) but as an adult reader it begins to stretch credulity just a tad.

That said, it never stops being interesting, and I do gotta hand it to Lawrence for keeping those stakes high. Though the book does perpetuate some pop-culture history (I’m not sure the thumbs up/thumbs down thing is commonly accepted history these days) I can’t fault it for showing the gory reality of what a gladiator fight (and similar executions in the arena) might have entailed. And I like that Lawrence seems to prioritise showing the kids’ reactions to what’s going on based on their characters rather than trying to make any particular point. Of course Nubia wouldn’t like the arena - of course Flavia would be a bit squeamish but also a bit blasé about it, of course Flavian’s aunt would be a little too into it. It’s a small touch, but a nice one.

Next, mining and crafting.

[palfriendpatine66]

For the ask game, 14. where do you get your inspiration? and 20. do you ever worry about public reaction to what you're writing? If so, how do you get past that?

Thanks for the ask! These both really got me going, it got a little long winded here.

14. where do you get your inspiration?

A lot of times from other media - and not as direct as the fact that I have a habit of making aus directly based off of other movies. Seeing elements of the characters in other stories, maybe facing situations they wouldn’t have encountered in their own, makes me think about them in a new way. What would it take for the character to get to that point in their own canon? What would happen if they were thrust into this different circumstance? How much of their story can change and have them still be them? I get really excited thinking about those kinds of questions.

20. Do you ever worry about public reaction to what you're writing? If so, how do you get past that?

Can I ramble? I’m going to ramble.

I started out with a family/kid fic and I felt like a lot of my readers were expecting that vibe from me. My next story was filled with pining and longing and didn’t seem like too much of a stretch. But I was worried when I first wrote my vampire fic, and then again when I first started considering my murder husbands story.

I worried that it was too far a leap from my other writing, both that it would make people ask like “what the hell happened to pal” or might turn people off from some of my other writing.I considered doing a different ao3 account for darker things but ultimately decided against it.

There are still sometimes I think maybe that would have been a good move, but I can’t say I’ve ever had anyone express anything negative to me about it. I’m very okay with the fact that not all stories are for all readers and don’t expect anyone to ever follow me anywhere they don’t want to go. I try to be clear in my descriptions and tags so that people know what they are getting into and can make informed decisions whether a story is right for them or not. It seems like it’s worked.

Recently - and I think this is a very big part of my big writer's block that has kept me from being able to work on/update my active wips - I got very in my head about…the quality of my work (or lack thereof, as it were). Not even just the literary quality, the strength/lack of plot etc. but I got worried about…how I was representing bigger issues and themes (?) I guess. I started asking myself; what message am I giving readers about women by writing the roles this way? Men? Am I accurately representing lgbt issues, or am I speaking out of turn? What stereotypes am I reinforcing? Etc etc etc.

I can’t say I’ve gotten past this yet, and I think it’s the real reason I haven’t updated those works. I haven’t been able to get back to a place where I just see where the story leads, for fun. I think I’m getting closer, I’ve been rereading and enjoying what I have so far, but am still really struggling to string together any words for what comes next