#we barely to get to see him interact with non dead people

[thebottomfromhell]

reading your post about the younger demons and their father figures was so lovely and i was left wondering. Since Zohakuten has a father figure, would the other clones have one too? After all, they still look young, young adults at least. Would they have a father figure and how? Was it Zohakuten's influence or not? With their unique personalities, they would certainly have quite a variety of interactions for a parent to deal with, be the father human or demon, but mostly human. Poor reader lol

I would ask you to write for both a human and a demon parent, but if it gets too long, that's up to you. Whatever it is, I'd love to read it.

It's an interesting ask, I'll see what I can do since I really don't have the same type of appreciation to adults that I have for children. This will be trying to parent people that don't need parenting, they need a therapist in an era were therapy was a scientist fucking up your nervous system.

Male Reader over his twenties Parenting (or trying) the Hantengu Clones, AU (Canon Divergence) where Zouhakuten doesn't need the clones to fuse to be formed. Previous post.

Warnings: Mentioned cannibalism, Mentioned non-consensual bodily/mind modifications, Implied unhealthy relationships and Attacks to reader (Implied, mostly).

Human Reader:

When you decided to take Zohakuten in, you didn't expect this. For there to be other 4 young men with his very same face, each of them being a different emotion or something like that. "Oohhh, he smells tasty. Can I eat him?" The one with the wings asks in front of your face, nose inches from you as he smiles. "NO! No eating papa!" Said the boy as he grabbed the yellow eyed version by the wings and pulled him off, throwing him agains the wall without breaking it before looking at you, clearly proud of himself. "Zohakuten, not that I don't appreciate that you defend me, but you shouldn't use violence to solve problems between your loved ones." Besides, he was probably joking, right? ..... Right??

Well, the main poin is that, just like the kiddo, these 4 are in your house to hide from daylight. You soon learn to identify them, Sekido the angry/red one, Karaku the green/that only seeks pleasure one, Urogi the bird/joy clone, and Aizetsu is the sensible/blue/always sad one. And they are... a lot. Sekido is very violent, he barely shows any respect, care or affirmation, also he often lashes out, so Zohakuten and Aizetsu had to come to your rescue to not be killed several times. Karaku and Urogi steal and take everything in the house besides testing everyone's patience, causing trouble around, and the bird one almost ate you twice with, again, Zohakuten and Aizetsu to the rescue. And Aizetsu... nah, he is fine, but he could grow out some spine. Maybe you should take him to a small night trip with Zohakuten.

The thing is, without Zohakuten (and Aizetsu, but you are hesitant to add him since he came with the peoblem) you would be dead already with those demons in your house. The only thing that is stopping them from tearing it down is that they will lose their free refuge against the sunlight. "I can throw them out if you want to." Tells you the kid with those big eyes of him, only looking for approval as you reach to pet his hair softly. "No kid, they are your family, aren't they? So your brothers can stay." He looks lightly confused "Brothers? We are not brothers, we are just clones of the same demon." You laugh a bit nervious "Then technically you are brothers. Besides, Aizetsu and Sekido try to help with the chores, so it's not so bad."

He thinks about it a bit, and you leave him be. To be honest, because of how he needed to be formed before and they could only meet in Hantengu's mind he really doesn't feel that kinship towards them. But you are right, they all have the samw origin, so they are technically brothers. In the end, with your help and protecting you everytime he needs to, he starts to become closer to the other clones. It's... not so bad. Even Urogi and Karaku... they are fine.

"I have finished doing the dishes." You see his work, well done and tidy, as Aizetsu looks to the floor playing with his hands, clearly waiting for some affirmation you usually give when they behave or help around. He looked so cute you just had to pet his head "Well done, boy." Urogi saw it and started to behave too, clearly also wanting some head pats "Please, I promise I'll be good!" At times he seems more like a pet than anything else, but if it gets him out of trouble there is no harm to it. In the end, Karalu got bored of being mischievious alone and also started to bahave. "I needed to do something, don't think too much of me getting you a boar. I know you humans like to eat pork and it offered a fun time." He still blushes in the when you pat his head.

They were clearly kin in physical contact, Sekido to a less extent, but in a good humour he also accepts pats and hugs. "Very good as always, Sekido!" They all blush and, besides Urogi, evade to look at you when you show affection this way "S-Shut up. It's not a big deal." And you swear this group... really, they are difficult, even when they behave, since dor some reaaon they can't seem to grow out of certain tendencies. They will even outlive you, so there is little more that you could do than making sure they don't cause a mess.

They never see you with the same eyes that Zohakuten does, they never call you "papa" or actually treat you as if you were their parent, but they do listen to you and know you will listen to them. You don't know if it was the kid who told them, but rather sooner than later they started trusting you their burdens, looking for advice if the need it. They also help you around as much as they can.

"We are going out for the night. Get ready." You say one sunset, they usually get out at night to eat and do what their master tells them, but only for tonight, and maybe once again later, you want to have a normal family trip.

You all go outside, make a campfire (you have to teach them how) and stay the hole night up, you let them wander and rest, tell them funny stories even when your eyes become tired, teach them a camping trick or two. Aizetsu, Sekido and Zohakuten stay the whole time besides you, the kid sitting by your side and hugging you. If you came with an interesting enough story Urogi and Karaku joined in to ask questions. They are very animated.

"Y/N-san, you look a bit tired. The sun will come up in an hour. I think it's ok if we go back. Thank you for tonight." Yeah, you do feel a bit tired, and you still have work left to do. "I will carry you!" "NO WAY, YOU WILL GO FLYING WITH HIM!" "You are all annoying. Karaku, you carry him." "Huh? Why do you just shove the responsibility on me?!" They will forever tire you, but...

You will get used to it.

Demon Reader:

You know you are younger than Hantengu, and you just know you were younger than he was when he gave him blood. It's clear you were not even in your 50's when you became a demon, Hantengu must have been over his 80's. And yet, the damned clones that started to join Zohakuten after he made something for the original body to become and be trapped in the kid. (You knew he didn't like his Upper Four, but nobody expected him to behave so harshly.) "Stop eating human food, you two! I don't care if it's a game, I don't want you to go around throwing up!" Three, you correct in your mind. Aizetsu is also into it, but his innocent face made you just not include him. "Aww, don't be like that, old man. Let us have some fun!"

To your surprise, Zohakuten hits Karaku to shut him up. "Don't talk to papa like that!" You can't help but smile at the young boy. "Thanks, kiddo." You pat his head softly before turning your attention to Aizetsu, the more reliable of these three. "Where is Sekido?" He just shrugs "Urogi grabbed me before he and Karaku followed Zohakuten here. This human house is nice, since where do you use it?" You sigh as you look the place, you have been over a month in here, so you should probably leave before the week ends. "A while, so don't get used to it. While it's a secluded area, one of those damned crows might find out I killed the family that lived here sooner or later. Now thr peiority is finding-" you are interrupted by the door slamed open.

"YOU FUCKING PIECES OF SHIT! I TOLD YOU ZOHAKUTEN WAS GOING TO VISIT A FRIEND AND YOU FOLLOWED HERE! AND HOW DARE YOU ALL LEAVING ME BEHIND?!" He steps in as if it was his home as he keeps scolding everyone else. You can only sigh again, you are not even going to wonder how did they find you. (You told Hantengu where you were, that is how Zohakuten knew the area, then he should have been able to find you by the smell of human blood.) You wait for anger clone to stop berating the others as you distract Zohakuten using his tanuki to take them both out ("Kiddo, go and play with Dorobō outside before all this yelling stresses him out. Don't worry, I will go for you both once the others are finished."), he doesn't need this kind of energy.

Once Sekido finally starts panting of all the hating monologue he just did you step in. "You three don't ever do that again." Well, technically two this time, since Aizetsu didn't come here wilingly. But still. "Sekido, there is no need for you to scream your lungs out. It only affects you more than them." He looks at you as if he waa a rabid dog wanting to bite your face off, but he doesn't say anything else, just leave for a room, hopefully to calm down. "Karaku, Urogi, Ai- oh, you are already into it. Karaku, Urogi, you also clean the mess you left." Thankfully they obey, mostly because you managed Sekido for them.

"It's safe now- for Dorobō, I mean. He is already an old doggy, he is probably a bit sensitive to the yelling, just like kids." You say as you sit besides Zohakuten, you was racing his pet in climbing (obviously not using his full speed) trees, they were now taking a break, the boy petting the small animal in his arms. "I'm sorry they followed me here, I didn't want them to come. What are we doing with them?" You only smile wanting to reasure him before you look to the horizon, less than 30 minutes for the sun to come up. You can sense it. "Well, I definetely can't let you throw them out now. Besides, I'm sure they will behave is prompted to do so. C'mon, lets go inside."

You take Dorobō from his arms and jump to the floor, since you are a lot gentler that Zohakuten at landing. When you step inside the house is clean, not as tidy as before the clones arrived, but clean. Sekido is still in the room. "Are you ok?" You ask comming in after knocking 5 times without answer. He still looks like he wants to kill you, but doesn't do anything. "They shouldn't have left you behind. It's ok to be angry, but you can't explode to everyone like that. Zohakuten is a kid and needs some healthy environment and adults to take cara of him. That is why he always look for me." He looks even angrier, if that it's possible, his eyes even get wetter, so Sekido looks away in case he starta crying of frustration. You only sigh bedore going to him to pet his head, trying to smile to reasure him. "WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!" He cuts off your arm in one movement, you heal after some moments.

"Hey, it's ok. They are fine. You are fine. I'll make sure they won't do it again, but try to calm yourself." You say calmy as you close and secure the curtains and move a wardrobe to cover the window. "The sun is starting to go up. You can hide in here for as long as you need." You smile at him before closing the door as you leave.... that was tiring. And doesn't change much, since you start to be their confident from now on (of all clones you never thought Sekido would be a snitch).

You start traveling with them, they take care of their business and you just make sure to be there. Besides Zohakuten, they barely need anything else. They do all like praise and headpats, so you take advantage of that. Guess you'll have to get use to it, and it's not that bad once they get under your skin. You'll live, specially now that they even protect you from slayers. Even thought this, with your inmortality, should last forever until the end of times with you having to handle them...

You'll live.

[aficionadoenthusiast]

I absolutely hate these kinds of posts so I thought I'd do it to see first hand how many people actually like it and care about other people's opinions on their ships so...

my arbitrary ratings of non canon pjoverse relationships and why I think they would never work (or would) (scroll down for canon)

perachel: 3/10 nothing but platonic vibes, their brief stint felt more like an experiment than genuine romantic feelings or attraction; they both deserved better

percico: 1/10 a reiteration of an earlier post: their relationship would get bogged down by unshared feelings and grief, plus nico's crush was just a crush, and percy never had feelings in the first place

perlypso: 0/10 their whole interaction was percy being half dead and calypso being manipulated, not to mention she cursed him

pereyna: 2/10 any het relationship with reyna feels icky to me, she just seems so queer coded (which makes sense cause she literally joined an ace club), and percy was so focused on annabeth when they first met it just doesn't seem fair to either of them

pipercy: 4/10 this is a FRIENDSHIP I wanna see them figuring out they're bi together so much platonic potential

jercy: 7/10 honestly if I had to put these two with anyone else, I would choose this ship solely for the tension in mark of athena and that an alternate ship name is person

percypollo: 0/10 icky, pedophilic, and honestly kinda homophobic. percy would never enter a relationship with a god anyway

percy/literally any god: 0/10 see percypollo

lukercy: -1/10 imo there is no way to write this in a way that's not abusive, predatory, and just bad in general. i will not take the "enemies to lovers" storyline for this one either because there are some things that just aren't redeemable, and i consider luke's actions irredeemable. plus both their histories with annabeth make this ship very, very icky

pipabeth: 9/10 favorite non canon pairing, I can totally see a threesome with Percy, these two have such a great dynamic, only minus a point because I love percabeth too much

lukabeth: 0/10 sexist, icky, just all around a red flag

jasabeth: 2/10 nothing but platonic vibes

reynabeth: 4/10 they would be so powerful together, but feelings and emotional skills would be their undoing

jeyna: 0/10 see pereyna

leyna: 2/10 sibling vibes and see pereyna

theyna: 8/10 see reynabeth, but also I would love to see their similarities come to a head when they actually have to confront their feelings

apollo/reyna: 0/10 this is a thing?? ew???? reyna has such a huge issue with authority and the gods in general, it would never work, and see pereyna and percypollo

pipeyna: 7/10 would be good, but I need more info, though I think it would bring piper's jealousies to a nice full circle, especially if it was used in a way that helps piper figure out her sexuality

liper: 3/10 sibling vibes, I do not like

jiper: 5/10 that's right y'all, this isn't canon anymore! cute while it lasted, but they were completely made up and forced together by hera. that does not make a good, trusting relationship where one party is missing crucial details and the other remembers things that didn't happen, honestly i would have much rather they just ended it in lost hero when they realized hera was manipulating them

thaluke: 3/10 so much complicated history, I see them as ross and rachel from friends only worse

valgrace: 6/10 platonic mostly, but I can see it turning into something; I think they could definitely be good for each other; would love to see some healing centered stuff for them

valdangelo: 0/10 they barely interact, and their personalities are not the cute "opposites attract" it is straight up "we are both intensely traumatized, but in different, incredibly clashing ways"

haleo: 4/10 I can see it, but with sammy, it's just too complicated

fraleo: 5/10 I like the tension, but ultimately their personalities would clash too much

frazeleo: 10/10 this might be the only non canon ship I really wish was canon. separate, they are boring and clash with each other so much, but I think having the three of them together would provide a buffer when necessary while also keeping things fun and interesting

jasico: 3/10 very much a sibling relationship, seems to me like they were just shoved together because they were there

tratie: 10/10 floors me that they aren't canon

sally/poseidon: 2/10 sure it would work but she is an independent woman who wants less a man and more someone to love her and be there for her that isn't her son

ruegard: 8/10 would 100% ship it if i didn't love beckengard so much, plus i love the patrochilles parallels here

canon ships in order from least favorite to favorite:

zeus/hera: -10/10 sucks ass, their relationship is built on mistrust and a forced marriage, hera is quite literally shackled while zeus does whatever the hell he feels like while hera takes her anger out on anyone but him

god's/any of their affairs: 0/10 there's a reason none of them lasted

piper/shel: 4/10 another reiteration: ig it could be something, but it was literally a few paragraphs, and we know piper is experimenting with her sexuality, so it could be anything, not just a permanent romantic ship

caleo: 4/10 calypso needs some time to figure herself out and not be chained to a person or place; maybe they can try again after they both have some more life experience

frazel: 6/10 cute, but they're still pretty young, even by pjo standards, and compared to the other canon ships they're kinda dull imo, but i do love the awkwardness

beckengard: 9/10 absolutely love it, wartime romance, tension, dying for each other, trying for elysium for each other, only minus a point because one of them was a spy

sally/paul: 9/10 i love it, i'm so glad sally finally found a decent man, only minus a point because...adults

gruniper: 9/10 very cute, would be 10/10 but the start of their relationship felt kinda wonky to me like rick just wanted to pair grover with someone

solangelo: 10/10 adorable, checks all my boxes - opposites attract, healing from trauma, one extrovert one introvert, there is absolutely no downside

percabeth: 11/10 the OGs, the ship i use as a standard for all of my other ships no matter the fandom, still my absolute favorite ship, there was not a single bad track, they are so good for each other

[cupioromantic-simp]

Jon x corruption avatar

Jon clicks the button on the tape recorder and the sound resides through out the room

“Statement of”

You state your full name and occupation

“-About entity driven events during my life time”

“Recorded direct from subject by Jonathan sims…” he looks disappointed in you maby that you didn’t tell him or maybe because you are telling him

You take a deep breath and sigh

“First things first I’m sorry for not making a statement after the Jane prentis attack I was worried you’d turn on me I’m sure you’ll see why…

My first experience with a deep internal fear was when I was six me and my mother where on a vacation at a motel near our house not really a vacation per say but it had a pool and and arcade so that’s really all that mattered to me

We had go to this one specific location multiple times but this time it was different it was about twenty years before they closed it up and they whet going through repairs changing out some stuff and adding things to make it more hip for the non-locals

We- me and my mother-where in the pool.. well I was my mother never really liked getting her hair wet and I decided to just float on my back in the pool because I was a shy kid I didn’t know how to interact with people even at six and as I was floating I looked up at the ceiling and.. one of the panels where gone and you could see pipes and wires and… so so much dust I was going to call out to my mom and tell her how dangerous I found it

B-but when I opened my mouth a string of dust fell from the open panel and.. and in to my mouth

I-I can still remember it I gagged so hard I threw up in the pool it was as thick as dryer lint and I- I think I passed out because I don’t remember most of what happened there I just remember that the blankets in our room where the deducting green-brown and that I had an allergic reaction to it ether that or a rash

The next I remember is more clusters of things like wanting to vomit every time I saw bare feet on tile, or that if you pop a pimple wrong it can get in to your blood and cause sepsis, or the fact there where always fruit flies in our house because my mom didn’t have time to clean and I was so forgetful that I whole only remember to bring my mugs down because there was a thick layer of twisting curling mold of top of whatever I was drinking ten days ago

I remember learning that penicillin was just apple mold so I left a slice out for a little over a year just to see what happened

Mold happened obviously

All things rot and decompose I’ve-

I’ve come to peace with that

Sounds like a weird thing to have to come to peace with

I’ve also come to peace with the fact that everything is dirty

Nothing is clean it’s just how it is

Everything touched by human hands is dirty and humans have the need to touch everything

Whether there supposed to or not

I think that’s why it got me the thing that’s corroding the iron in my blood, flaking my skin and molding my meat

And I mean it not in the meat in my fridge though it is in the food but the meat in my body if you can call it that

I am meat and my meat is moldy and crawling with rot and decay

That’s why I didn’t quite care about the worms I think…

Or that they didn’t care about me in the way they cared about Jane

You read her statement you know

‘I am a home for that which loves me’

No it’s not like that

‘I am consumed by that which wants and crawls in the dirt and the air and the ground and the halls and the food and the water it sinks in to my skin and in to my stomach and up my throat and in to the pool and in to the filters and in to the skin of the others who return it to me because I am it’s master and it owns me and I am so full and connected and so so scared’”

You and Jon stare at each other for al least thirty seconds

“S-… um.. s-statement ends…”

He moves his hand to the tape recorder but his hand trembles before he can touch anything

You can feel that he can feel it all around the dust, dead skin, the paper mold I mean who knows where that tape recorder has bean, how long, what kind of plastic mold crawls and hides and feasts you’ve really been touching that thing Jon? Who knows what bacteria you’ve spread with that thi-

“STOP!” Jon if visibly shaking “how-..what… why did you do that?!”

“Hmm? I’m not sure, I don’t know if it was even a conches decision, is it weird being on the receiving end of an avatar spell thing? Because i know it’s weird when you do your little statement suction thing”

“I um-“

“Oh you didn’t understand how horrific things like that are, you up set your self with the thought that you’ve been doing a similar thing to people”

You move you hand wanting to comfort him some how but quickly realize that holding his hand with your corrupted fungi filled strangely soft hands it would probably send him in to another fear fuelled panic so you just move your hand back in to your lap

“I’m.. sorry Jon, I… I think I’ll be going now, for awhile, you should um clean the apartment I think… I- I’m not sure what to say… goodbye Jon”

You click off the tape recorder for him before leaving

[sp724]

((OOC pinned post time!

This blog is a roleplay blog meant to be an in-universe blog for Sidney Poindexter from Danny Phantom.

Anyone can interact or send asks, RP blog or not. In fact, asks are very much appreciated, seeing as this version of Sidney was murdered and he/his death would probably be well-known.

Supplementary material for this blog (such as the Wikipedia page Sidney mentions in the blog description, as well as some in-universe True Crime videos on Sidney) can be found here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/53753875/chapters/136071178

Mun is over 18, but muse is NOT. (Well. Mentally and physically he's not. He's been dead longer than that but... He can't mentally and physically age.)

This blog will definitely dip into some angst and darker topics at times, due to being run in-universe by a dead, bullied kid. I will try to tag things with the appropriate trigger warnings.

Bullying mentions will NOT be tagged, as the posts falling under that trigger warning include pretty much the entire blog.

More information about this blog below the cut.))

Headcanons:

Died after being shoved into his locker right before Spring Break and left there to starve.

Is a fairly famous case in the online True Crime community due to the mystery around what exactly happened, and the tragedy of him being so close to graduation.

17 years old, permanently.

Left the Ghost Zone at some point after the Christmas Truce, because he realized how many ghosts are bullies who are stronger than him, and he's afraid of a lot of them.

He hangs around the school because it's where he died and he feels an attachment to it. Danny gave him the go-ahead to go back to causing problems for bullies.

Tried to get Vlad to sue the Amity Park school district for him, but they don't have a case.

Blogs I consider to be within the same "canon" as this blog (either because I've interacted with them or because a blog I've interacted with has interacted with them):

@danny-fenton-blog (Danny)

@sam-manson-blog (Sam)

@tucker-foley (Tucker)

@mycelialmadness (Dani)

@therealvladmasters (Vlad)

@vladco-tech-official

@inevitablefuturephantom (Dan)

@paulina-sanchez (Paulina)

@/wes-weston-ghostly-blog (Wes)

@axion-labs-official

@insideaxionlabs

@the-box-ghost-blog

@technus-master-of-tech

@thefentonmeister

@jazz-fenton-blog

@ghost-zone-pd

Tags:

danny phantom rp & roleplay - on almost every post

daily stopbullying reblog - every day sidney reblogs a post linking to the website stopbullying.gov. this is the tag for those, so they can be blocked if you get annoyed by the spam.

ask - for answered asks

reblog - for non-original, not directly roleplay related posts

animal pictures - with the reblog tag, on pictures of animals

nostalgia - with the reblog tag, on things relating to the 1940s and 1950s. specifically things relating to the time period of 1944 to March 1958.

colors - with the reblog tag, on things with bright rainbow colors

funnier when dead - with the reblog tag, on things that. well. are funnier to sidney now that he's dead.

deathweek - tag for an event lasting from march 28th to april 7th.

Boundaries:

Pretty much anyone can interact, this includes personal accounts and RP blogs from different fandoms. I encourage people to interact with Sidney, in fact.

Asks that treat Sidney as fictional will not be answered, however. Please pretend Sidney is a real person in your ask.

Other:

The typing style I use for him is supposed to look like the way my grandma types. "Old person who barely knows computers/phones" vibe.

[markantonys]

the gathering storm chapter 29-38

rand: starts reciting The List me: lowers audiobook volume

“the list always began with moiraine. that name hurt the most of all, for he could have saved her. he should have. he hated himself for allowing her to sacrifice herself for him.” yes, rand, she died because you were too much of a wuss about killing women to kill lanfear. and now you are enforcing your killing women wussiness by dwelling on moiraine and the list. do you not see the problem here.

rand mentions twice in this chapter that he intends the sun throne for elayne! neither in a way that indicates that she’s his girlfriend or even that he cares about her at all on a personal level, though, of course, but i am starving for crumbs over here.

lews therin adds min’s name to the list. min has been fridged for rand’s manpain and she isn’t even dead! an incredible feat.

“even if semirhage had been behind the action, rand was the one who had been too weak to send min away and protect her.” YEAH NO SHIT “he [still] hadn’t sent her away.” oh MY god. “min might die here, but if he sent her away, she would be in just as much danger. his enemies likely suspected that he loved her.” yeah because you’ve been keeping her around plastered to your side 24/7 and making exceptions to your Push Away To Protect rule just for her!! i’m going to scream! (clarifying once again that i don’t actually agree with rand that he needs to send all his loved ones away to protect him, it just frustrates me that he makes nonsense exceptions for min, constantly whines about those exceptions, and then continues to make them. especially considering that min is by far the most vulnerable of all his loved ones since she can’t channel, has no means of protection against channeling (like mat’s medallion), and also has barely any non-channeling-related combat skills.)

“it came to him that domani people were far less striking when gathered together like this. a flower in a field of weeds was always a sight, but if you passed cultivated flower beds every day, none of them drew your notice.” domani PEOPLE, rand? not just domani women? [files away in my Bi Rand evidence folder, whose other contents include every interaction rand has ever had with mat and with male forsaken] elayne having a bi panic over all the hot topless sea folk vs. rand surrounded by hot domanis and deciding there’s too much prettiness to even notice it anymore: fight

“people did not respond to anger. they did not respond to demands. silence and questions, these were far more effective. indeed, merise - a fully trained aes sedai - wilted before that stare.” “‘what you did, it was a foolish move,’ merise continued. ‘you should-’ ‘do you think me a fool, then?’ rand asked softly. respond to demands with silence, respond to challenges with questions.” this is very sexy of rand

“‘enough.’ he did not yell the word. he spoke firmly, but quietly. he made her feel the full force of his displeasure, his gaze seizing her own.” 😳🥵 can’t believe rand’s been on a baby boy → daddy arc this whole time

rand is carrying the saidin access key to keep saidin and the true power fighting each other so he won’t succumb to the temptation of either. “like two people, both yelling for his attention, they drowned one another out. for the moment.” we also learn later in the chapter that the reason the bore was made was because people wanted to drill into the dark one’s prison for a new power source, but that source turned out to be the dark one himself. a nice and long overdue history reveal! no offense to moiraine and lan but i’d much rather have had a prequel novel about lews therin and the forsaken. we only get their stories in tantalizing little tidbits! i would love it if the show did more with AOL cold opens/flashbacks than the books have done thus far.

RAND THINKS ABOUT AVIENDHA INDIVIDUALLY FOR 2 WHOLE PARAGRAPHS IN A ROMANTIC WAY!!!!! 📣📣📣

“it would be easier to tame the wind itself than to get [aiel] to behave like wetlanders. that made him think of aviendha.” ROMANCE!! “where had she gone, so suddenly? he could feel her through the bond, but it was faint - she was very far away. to the east. what business was there for her in the waste?” come on rand are you so uninvested in your girlfriend’s career that it doesn’t even occur to you maybe she had to go to rhuidean to become a full wise one? you know that’s a thing!

“he had hoped that he would be able to spend some time with her, but she’d pointedly avoided him.” you and me both my dude! but, interesting how you never once thought about her while she was actually around, yet now that she’s gone are claiming that you wanted to spend time with her. swear to god the narrative just Did Not Know how to handle the prospect of rand having romantic thoughts about 2 present girlfriends at the same time. only now that avi is gone is he allowed to think about her and acknowledge that he loves her.

“well, perhaps it was min’s presence that kept her away.” lmao even rand knows that min hates sharing and is A Problem for avi. “perhaps he would be able to keep himself from hurting her before death came. better that aviendha fled. his enemies didn’t know of her yet.” see, the problem with the Min Double Standard is that now it comes off as rand actually loving avi MORE than he loves min, since he’s glad his enemies don’t know of her but has been flaunting min in their faces this whole time. which is an impression i’m certainly not mad about 😌 (also, lanfear absolutely did know about avi, and rand knows that and just a few pages before this wondered whether lanfear could be alive again since ishamael is.)

“dobraine has never given us reason to doubt him. he even gathered support for elayne to take the sun throne!” rand: i trust this guy because he supports my wife. king shit and malewife behavior! also, i noticed him and lews therin thinking in first person plural quite a bit this chapter, which is an interesting development.

“four broad windows behind him - each large enough to walk through - ushered overcast sunlight into the room, and it fell on his back as he sat in the chair and leaned forward, one arm resting across his knees.” Rand Sexily Sprawling In Chairs AND Rand Being Sexily Silhouetted By Conveniently Placed Sunlight at the same time? oh i am being spoiled!

“he already had more problems with women than he knew how to handle.” why did establishing mutual love and commitment and warder bonding with all 3 of his girlfriends not change any aspect of rand’s love life in the slightest. he’s acting like he’s still in the “3 confusing women messing with my head” stage rather than the “3 committed girlfriends whom i know love me” stage. oh right, it’s because Men And Women Can Never Understand Each Other No Matter How Close They Are, how could i have forgotten.

rand continues to be very sexy in this scene 🥵 i hope for the return of Baby Boy Rand someday but by god am i going to enjoy Daddy Rand while it lasts. sentences i never would have expected to type back in eotw jfkjgh

i was today years old when i realized how apt it is for the slutty forsaken (graendal. not that they aren’t all sluts.) to make her base in the slutty country (arad doman)

“gawyn remembered very little of his father - the man had never been much of a father, to him at least” [slaps roof of the trakand siblings] these bad boys can fit so many daddy issues inside them. turns out one of gawyn’s few memories of taringail is overhearing him give galad sexist advice (never trust pretty women or aes sedai, and light help you if you have to face someone who’s both) so that’s fun.

“a few months later, galad would rescue gawyn from drowning in that very pond.” my boys!! we better get Baby Trakands cold opens in the show!

describing how lelaine is pretty in a dangerous way: “she wasn’t pretty like egwene, who made you want to spend time with her.” not gawyn out here with one of the sweetest descriptions of a love interest anyone in the whole series has ever given 🥺 i am still thinking about when egwene saw in his dreams that he sees her as more beautiful and himself as less handsome than they are in reality (in egwene’s opinion). maybe that moment was the origin of my first sparks of Loving Gawyn, now that i’m thinking about it, because we hadn’t seen much of him til then and i remember that that moment Got Me Good.

gawyn’s already figured out he can play lelaine and romanda off each other. smart lad! and he is just SO done with aes sedai, he and mat and rand really could have been buddies in different circumstances. on the other hand, gawyn hating brother-in-law #1 and being hated by brother-in-law #2 as a result is hilarious because family dinners would just be like

“his connection to elayne was the only thing he had with which to bargain, and he had to ration his usefulness to stretch it long. it irked him. elayne wasn’t a bargaining chip, she was his sister! but it was all he had.” baby booooy

more seeds in this chapter of gawyn being all mat-style “egwene’s in over her head and needs me to rescue her” and potentially setting up for him to pull a rescue mission that will be unwelcome to egwene, BUT he’s also noticing the respect the other sisters have for her and is realizing that she’s competent and not a pawn, so that’s good.

“but why did she refuse to allow a rescue? traveling had been rediscovered [so a rescue attempt would be easy]” “he needed to talk to her. then he could judge if her unwillingness to escape came from a fear of putting others in danger, or if it was something else.” over the course of his past 2 chapters, gawyn has advocated for 1) characters all being in the same location, 2) characters actually taking advantage of Traveling, and 3) characters communicating with each other. relatable king!

“gawyn didn’t have a mind for the game of stones lately...the truth was, he’d never been very good at the game in the first place” NOT ME PUTTING THIS EXACT THING IN A FIC MONTHS AGO do i know my boy or do i know my boy!

“he would give no loyalty to the white tower, but neither would he offer it to these rebels.” gawyn has progressed from “can’t decide which side to choose” to “i will simply not choose a side” bless his indecisive ass

“egwene and elayne held his heart and his honor.” ❤️❤️ what’s not to love about gawyn? his entire personality is being indecisive, loving egwene and elayne, and being overly obsessed with rand, which is also MY entire personality.

“rand al’thor. gawyn didn’t believe bryne’s defense of the man. oh, he believed that bryne meant what he said - but he was mistaken. it could happen to the best of people, taken in by the charisma of a creature like al’thor.” okay gawyn. let me get this (not) straight. you’re completely obsessed with rand and also see him as some sort of evil seductive siren with sexy charisma and persuasive powers? is there........is there something you want to share with the class? every time gawyn angsts about Needing To Choose A Side i yearn to make his arc a bisexuality metaphor, don’t tempt me any further sanderson!

but rand IS the sexiest and most fuckable person on the continent, so we can’t blame gawyn for having a confusing lil crush-slash-onesided-homoerotic-rivalry when the entire population of randland does too

gawyn also adds that rand “had fooled elayne herself” come on my man you know your sister better than that! i am DYYYYYYYING for my trakand family reunion! if i could pick only 2 of them to reunite, it would be gawyn and elayne. i need to see them discuss rand!!! and gawyn find out that elayne’s having rand’s babies jkdjfgjh oh my god

“that skill of yours with the sword is no small gift. where do you use it?” kid with veins popping out of his forehead meme and it’s me trying so hard not to turn this into a sex metaphor as part of gawyn’s Choosing A Side bisexuality metaphor

“‘i know you were never as single-minded as your brother. i suppose i should have seen this in you.’” “‘did you question, once?’ gawyn asked.” “‘then what’s the answer? where do you put your trust? whom do i serve?’ ‘i don’t know.’ ‘then why ask in the first place?’ ‘i don’t know the answer because there isn’t one. at least, each person’s answer is their own.’” “gawyn felt as if he didn’t know what the different sides were. let alone which one to pick for himself.” I AM FROTHING AT THE MOUTH!!! that’s it, i’m reading this arc through The Bi Metaphor Lens from now on and you will all have to suffer through it! now, do i ACTUALLY read gawyn as bi? not really (tho his lil rand obsession sure is some kind of something). but the metaphor!!!!

between Bi Gawyn and Daddy Rand i feel like this recap has been even more unhinged than usual so far. sorry about that. no i’m not. i’m just going back to my roots, my early series liveblogging was SO unhinged.

“‘we must have peace with the seanchan,’ [rand] said. ‘differences notwithstanding.’ ‘differences?’ flinn asked. ‘i don’t rightly think i’d call that a difference, my lord. they want to enslave every one of us, maybe execute us. they think it’s a favor to do either!’” FUCKING THANK YOU FLINN finally somebody acknowledges this! where was this energy in mat’s COT-KOD plotline?

rand asks after lan and nynaeve says “his actions are none of your concern” once again proving the Rand Is Paranoid But Only Because Everyone Keeps Things From Him theme lmao but rand has figured out he’s gone to malkier and says so, and nynaeve does reveal some further info.

“he deserves what he will get, for riding without the rest of us” “his death could serve me well indeed” RAND! show your father some respect!

“a very quiet place, deep inside of him, was struck with worry over his friend. he had to ignore that worry, silence it. but that voice whispered to him. he named you friend. do not abandon him.” 😭😭

“the colors swirled before his eyes, revealing an image of perrin standing by a tent with galad. why was perrin with galad of all people? and when had elayne’s half-brother joined the whitecloaks? the colors changed to mat, riding through the streets of a familiar city. caemlyn? thom was there, with him.” WHAT WHAT WHAT you can’t just drop “perrin is hanging out with galad” and “mat has reached caemlyn (and elayne)” on me out of the blue like this and then not let me see their plotlines!!! first time in my life i have ever been eager to return to perrin’s pov jkfjg also does rand just not remember that galad is also his own half-brother? that connection was truly so wasted, i hope the show actually does something with it.

“rand frowned to himself. he could feel a pull from perrin and mat, both distant. it was their ta’veren natures, trying to draw them together. they both needed to be with him for the last battle.” AND YET (according to what i’ve seen said) THE 3 BOYS ARE NEVER IN A SCENE ALL TOGETHER AGAIN FOR THE REST OF THE SERIES i’m so upset!!!! the entire series was building to the 3 of them needing to be together at the last battle so why the fuck doesn’t it happen???

“[lan] is your friend, rand. light! and what of perrin and mat? do you know where they are? what has happened to them?” “they live.” “how do you know?” “i simply do. and they had better remain alive. i’ll have need of them both before this is over.” “rand! they’re your friends!” “they’re threads in the pattern, nynaeve. i barely know them anymore, and i suspect they would say the same thing of me.” “don’t you care about them?” “care? what i care about is the last battle. what i care about is making peace with the light-cursed seanchan so that i can stop bothering with their squabbles and get to the real battle. beside those cares, a pair of boys from my little village are meaningless.” 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 THIS HURT MY FEELINGS SO BAD

and then rand blows up at nynaeve to the point of instinctively grabbing the access key, and nynaeve gets scared 😭😭😭

it makes me so upset that the majority of rand’s emotional arc/connections is anchored solely in min these days, when his relationships with the other ef4 matter so much more to me and make me feel so much more! because those were the core relationships we were introduced to at the beginning of the series, so by all narrative rules they should have continued to remain core throughout! ESPECIALLY rand and mat - rand spent the majority of book 1 alone with mat, his main motivation in book 2 was to get the dagger to save mat, and he continued to be anchored to mat and have a number of deeply emotional moments with him in books 4-5 (most notably rhuidean + rand using balefire for the first time to save mat’s life + mat’s (and avi’s) death at rahvin’s hands pushing rand over the edge and prompting him to use balefire again + the fact that rand’s Using of mat in tfoh (tricking him into revealing his battle memories) was his first real breaking point and the first thing that pushed him into deciding that he had to become hard and freeze out tears). by all narrative rules mat should have remained one of rand’s most significant relationship anchors throughout the series! and i’m not even speaking only from a cauthor shipping lens there! it’s just straight up narrative rules!

“he only had to keep things balanced a short time longer. then it could end. and he found that he was beginning to look forward to that end as much as lews therin did.” 😭😭😭

amazing how much more invested i am in a rand chapter when min is not present or dwelled on in a significant way at any point during it lmao

“[rand] wore a dark red robe with black dragons embroidered up the arms...though his hair was tousled from sleep, his eyes were alert. he strode into the sitting room, ever the king - even now, long after midnight and just awakened, he walked as if he were absolutely certain of himself.” 🥵🥵 god i cannot WAIT to see all rand’s slutty richboy outfits onscreen

in this chapter, min arrives with rand, has no dialogue at all, and then falls asleep for the rest of the scene. that’s it. why does she exist. she’s literally just an accessory for rand the same as his swords and fancy bathrobes. but min is at her best when she’s spending a scene unconscious and allowing me to forget she’s there, so i’m fine with this.

“stop. do you believe that i can kill you? do you believe that if i simply said the word, your heart would stop beating? i am the dragon reborn. do you believe that i can take your life, or your soul itself, if i so much as will it to happen?” this again! rand is about to make me act up for real!

“rand lowered himself to one knee, cradling the youth’s chin in his hand, staring into his eyes.” god i wish that were me

rand refers to tam by his first name in conversation with nynaeve which feels very strange, i feel like before he always referred to him aloud as “my father”

“many times before, nynaeve had seen affection in [rand’s] eyes when he regarded [min], but this time they were blank.” nice, we love to see that jfkgjh

in all seriousness, this whole convo between rand and nynaeve about the mountain that’s too tall to climb and survive the trip back down is wonderful!!! some of my favorite snippets:

“i continue to wonder why you all assume that i am too dense to see what you find so obvious. yes, nynaeve. yes, this hardness will destroy me. i know.”

“‘but that’s just a story,’ nynaeve said. ‘a legend.’ ‘that’s what i am,’ rand said. ‘a story. a legend. to be told to children years from now, spoken of in whispers.’”

“you all claim that i have grown too hard, that i will inevitably shatter and break if i continue on. but you assume that there needs to be something left of me to continue on. that i need to climb back down the mountain once i’ve reached the top. that’s the key, nynaeve. i see it now. i will not live through this, and so i don’t need to worry about what might happen to me after the last battle. i don’t need to hold back, don’t need to salvage anything of this beaten up soul of mine.”

“i can’t indulge myself. i’ll climb this bloody mountain and face the sun. you all will deal with what comes next. that is how it must be.”

boy, it sure would be a great time for someone to tell rand that he is expecting two babies! that sure would give him a much-needed reason to want to live past the last battle! it sure would be nice! genuinely, this HAS to be the sole reason avi and elayne aren’t allowed to spend any time with him whatsoever in this portion of the series, because the very first second they heard him saying things like this they’d be like “but our babies are on the way and they deserve to know their dad!” and that would be a game-changer for rand (or at least for show!rand who never wanted anything more than to be a stay-at-home dad, book!rand i’m not as certain about).

“the difference between you and cadsuane is that you actually care about me. she only cares about my place in her plans. she wants me to be part of the last battle. you want me to live.” EXACTLY!!! maybe it will become clear eventually, but as of now i just do not understand why cadsuane needed to exist at all in this story, she’s accomplished nothing. “for that, you have my thanks. dream on my behalf, nynaeve. dream for things i no longer can.” 😭😭

happy to say that this mat chapter did, for the most part, spark an enormous amount of joy! perhaps the most joy i’ve gotten from a mat chapter since he saved elayne from the gholam in acos!

first, we learn that mat has not actually reached caemlyn yet, so now i’m thinking that, since you guys have said that TGS focuses on rand and egwene and TOM on mat and perrin, those two books happen roughly concurrently and thus rand’s current plotline is a bit ahead of mat’s - rand is seeing mat in caemlyn, but in mat’s own plotline he’s still en route. so i’m guessing we’ll see how perrin and galad first cross paths later this book or next book!

MAT’S ELABORATE COVER STORIES FOR THE BAND i honestly think this might have been the hardest i’ve laughed while reading WOT hjdkfg usually when i say something made me laugh, i mean that it gave me an internal chuckle, but this time i actually was laughing out loud! for quite some time!

“you’re a new apprentice. thom knows you don’t have any talent, but he took pity on you because your great-aunt - with whom you’ve lived since your parents died in a tragic oxen stampede - took sick of the clover pox and went crazy. she started feeding you table scraps and treated you like the family hound, marks, who’d run away when you were just seven.” “you secretly harbor a love of painting, and you wish you could escape this life of death you’ve committed yourself to. you came through trusair on your way south, rather than taking a more direct route, because you love the mountains. you’re hoping to hear word of your younger brother, whom you haven’t seen in years, and who disappeared on a hunting trip in southern andor.” me crafting in-depth backstories for my sims and then never actually doing any gameplay with them.

this is Exactly the sort of tomfoolery, shenanigans, and hijinks i’ve been missing from mat’s pov in the second half of the series! anybody who says this part was stupid or a waste of time or making mat dumb for comic relief hates fun. maybe it’s not exaaactly something i could picture rj’s mat doing, but it’s hilarious so i don’t care. and plus, the explanation he gives - he’s so tired of being caught by danger unawares that he’s decided to painstakingly plan out every last detail of this scheme - makes sense and justifies it to me.

mat first mentions a twinkle in talmanes’s eyes, then, upon realizing talmanes is making fun of him, thinks “burn that twinkle” and by the light for half a second i really thought the audiobook was about to say “burn that twink”

“he did catch a glimpse of talmanes rolling his eyes. burn the man! there was good drama in those pages!” JDKFJG i think that after the last battle elayne should become mat’s sugar mama and patron of the arts (which is the same thing) and sponsor him to write plays.

“burn it, mat. you’re married now, he told himself. aludra was pretty, though.” i’ve said it before, but mat is absolutely going to cheat on tuon post-canon and they are absolutely going to have their messy divorce/civil war. this man NEEDS an open relationship! and rand’s polycule is right there ready to welcome him!

mat thinks about how he doesn’t know what to call egeanin (who was forcibly renamed leilwin by tuon) because he thinks it’s “foolish to go about changing your name just because someone said you had to” but he doesn’t blame her for “not wanting to rile tuon. she was a bloody stubborn one, tuon was.” because obviously tuon’s renaming of egeanin was just her being stubborn and egeanin not wanting to annoy her, rather than an issue of deeply ingrained brainwashing, hierarchies, and slave culture. sigh.

mat thinks it’s weird that egeanin continues to call herself leilwin even now that tuon is gone, and despite being so close to acknowledging that Something Is Fucked Up With Seanchan Culture And With Tuon Specifically, he concludes, “women! they made no sense, and seanchan women least of all.” sigh. but this was just about my only Sigh portion this chapter i think!

okay, we learn that mat is definitely still planning to produce the dragons for rand’s use! so mat is still planning to go to rand after all! i am content.

“mention of rand brought the colors swirling into mat’s vision, and he suppressed a sigh as he shook them away.” a sigh of longing, perhaps???

“maybe rand could manage costs like these, but mat certainly couldn’t. why, he’d have to dice with the queen of andor herself to find this kind of coin!” i see zero problems here, mat. elayne would LOVE to dice with you! and she and rand would LOVE to take you on as their sugar baby and spoil you with all the money to produce mass weapons you could ever wish for!

“but that was rand’s problem.” mat says fuck it, rand will have to be elayne’s sugar baby instead. “burn him, he’d better appreciate what mat was going through for him.” mat is hoping for a kiss on the lips from rand when they finally reunite (and he will get one).

mat and aludra’s brief flirtation/romance is actually acknowledged! “their eyes met for a moment, and mat realized he’d probably been too curt with her. maybe he was uncomfortable around her. a little. they’d been getting close before tuon. and was that pain, hidden in aludra’s eyes?” wait that’s so sad 😭 aludra deserves better. and mat deserves better.

“he took a deep breath. ‘look, i know that...well, it’s odd how tuon-’ she waved a hand, cutting him off. ‘it is nothing. i have my dragons. you have brought me the chance to create them. other matters are no longer of concern. i wish you happiness.’” 😭

“he felt a strange tugging, as if someone had hooked a fisherman’s line about his insides and was softly - but insistently - pulling on it. rand, is that you, burn you?” oh my god. in a series full of homoerotic ta’veren pull descriptions, this one just might take the cake!

“it was hard not to offend a seanchan. them and the bloody aiel. strange how opposite they could be in many ways, yet the same in so many others.” i’ve thought this too when we’ve seen references to the seanchan’s concept of shame (sei’something i think), an interesting thought i’d love the books to poke at more!

VERIN HAS ARRIVED!! she was straight up putting up “have you seen this man” posters of mat jkfjgjdfg i love her. that’s one way to reel in your local ta’veren.

“‘what do you want?’ he asked. ‘frankly,’ she replied, sighing slightly, ‘what i want, matrim cauthon, is to be cut free from your ta’veren web! do you know how long you’ve forced me to wait in these mountains?’” verin i love you. can’t wait to someday find out what the hell her endgame is and what she’s been up to and trying to accomplish this whole time.

rand arrives at falme and instantly thinks about mat twice (“memories of a time when mat had constantly ribbed him for wearing fine coats, despite the fact that rand tried to avoid them” “fain had led him to falme, bearing the horn of valere and the ruby dagger to which mat had been bound”)

“at falme, the shepherd boy had burned, his ashes scattered and blown away by those ocean winds. from those ashes, the dragon reborn had risen.” 😭😭

“min hadn’t come with him this day.” sentences that make you fistpump. “just a few weeks before, he wouldn’t have been able to keep her from accompanying him, no matter what. now she remained behind without a single protest.” don’t tell me min has actually finally learned her lesson about hindering rand in dangerous situations???

“rand reached down, touching the sword he wore at his waist. it was the curved one, with the scabbard of black, painted with the twisting dragon, red and gold. for more reasons than one, it made him think of the last time he had been in falme. ‘i killed a man with a sword for the first time in this city,’ rand said softly.” THIS MYSTERIOUS NEW SWORD BETTER BE TAM’S SWORD FIXED UP I SWEAR!!!

rand is having more issues than ever with losing himself amid lews therin, and now nynaeve asks if he’s okay and he says “we are fine” continuing the trend of more frequent use of first person plural. iiiiiinteresting.

(now in tuon pov) “his clothing was otherwise unadorned. as if he saw no need to distract from his face with finery.” rand is hot shit and he knows it

tuon wonders if the rumors that he grew up as a farmboy were just planted to make him seem like a man of the people, because he has such strong Noble Bearing. i love that she doesn’t even know the dragon reborn is her husband’s childhood friend. mat is good at keeping secrets and holding back info about rand from untrustworthy people, unlike many other characters!

“[marath’damane] were unnatural. dangerous. tuon could no more grow comfortable around an unleashed damane than she could tolerate having a grassfang twisted around her ankle, its tongue tickling her skin.” YOU ARE MARATH’DAMANE!!! WHAT A NARRATIVE WASTE!!!

we learn that the seanchan call men who can channel “tsorov’ande doon,” Black-Souled Tempests, which is maybe the sexiest title/group name i’ve ever heard in my life (other than prince of ravens which deserves to go along with a better spouse for mat)

“his words sounded a great deal like a demand. tuon had shown him great respect by placing him at her level, but one did not give orders to the imperial family.” “‘we expected to find a united kingdom, ready to praise us and lend us armies for the last battle. instead, we found a fractured land that had forgotten its oaths and prepared for nothing...it does not bring us pleasure to kill you, no more than it brings a parent joy to discipline a child who has gone astray.’” the seanchan make me so mad i can’t

“‘no,’ al’thor said, interrupting tuon. ‘but surely you can see that one ruler, with-’ ‘no,’ he said, softly, yet more firmly. more dangerous. ‘i will not see another person chained by your foul leashes.’ ‘foul? they are the only way to deal with those who can channel!’ ‘we have survived without them for centuries.’ ‘and you have-’ ‘this is not a point i will concede,’ al’thor said.” 👏👏👏👏👏 SEXY!!!! maybe rand’s seanchan alliance can have some rights, unlike perrin’s where he cheerfully sold off hundreds of shaido channelers into slavery.

tuon decides she needs to throw him off and says “‘perhaps [we could talk about] something we have in common.’ ‘i doubt there is much in that area that is relevant.’ ‘oh? and what of matrim cauthon?’ yes, that shocked him. the dragon reborn blinked, mouth opening slightly.” why does this give off vibes of “woman about to confront her husband’s lover with the fact that she knows about their affair” jdkjfgh

rand, upon hearing that mat kidnapped tuon: “well. i trust that mat had his reasons. he always does. and they seem so logical to him at the time.” trusting and exasperatedly fond boyfriend!

tuon thinks that the prospect of teaching mat to live properly according to seanchan high blood ways “seemed a shame to her - for reasons she could not explain to herself.” is this a sign that she likes him as he is? could there be hope that tuon has actually developed 1% as a character? very interesting.

NYNAEVE DEFENDING MAT 😭😭😭😭😭 AND RAND TOO!!! i simply HAVE to quote the conversation in full because it gave me so many emotions!

tuon: what type of man is he, this matrim cauthon? i must admit, i found him to be something of an indolent scoundrel, too quick to find excuses to avoid oaths he’d taken. nynaeve: don’t speak of him that way! rand: nynaeve... nynaeve: don’t hush me, rand al’thor. he’s your friend too. matrim cauthon is one of the finest men you will ever know, your highness, and i won’t listen to ill speech of him. what’s right is right. rand: nynaeve is right. he is a good man. mat may seem a little rough at times, but he is as solid a friend as one could hope for. though he does grumble about what his conscience makes him do. nynaeve: he saved my life. rescued me at great cost and personal danger when no other thought to come for me. yes, he drinks and gambles far too much. but don’t speak of him as if you know him, because you don’t. his heart is golden, under it all. if you’ve hurt him... tuon: hurt him? he kidnapped me! rand: if he did so, then there was cause.

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

i need to go lie down for an hour! this was so much!!!!! they love him so much!!!! nynaeve loves her kids whom nobody but her is allowed to criticize!!! also, get out of here with your fandom “mat is a bad friend to rand” narrative, even rand himself AT HIS WORST AND MOST SELF-ISOLATED AND UNTRUSTING says that mat is as solid a friend as one could hope for!!!

rand: mat’s just a thread in the pattern, i barely know him anymore, he’s not important rand when someone insults mat: mat is the best man i’ve ever known actually

oh my god cinematic parallels to show!rand “if i wanted a man i could do better” but then going “mat is the best man i’ve ever known actually” when egwene insults him in 1x07

crying at rand not once but TWICE going “well if - IF - it’s true that mat kidnapped you, then i know he was justified” we are 12 books into the series and rand is STILL taking a hard “mat has done nothing wrong ever in his life i know this and i love him” stance!!! my heart is very full right now!!! this and mat’s frequent thoughts about rand last chapter have been an absolute cauthor FEAST compared to past books lmao

but a second later rand says “mat doesn’t matter” and gets them back on topic, so he loses a small Good Boyfriend point for that, but he DOES have important shit to do so i won’t hold it against him.

“he leaned forward, trapping tuon’s eyes with his own. who could look away from those intense gray eyes, like steel? ...‘all that matters is need. and i need you.’ he leaned forward further, looming. his form didn’t change, but he suddenly seemed a hundred feet tall. he spoke in that same calm, piercing voice, but there was a threat to it now. an edge. ‘you must call off your attacks,’ he said, nearly a whisper. ‘you must sign a treaty with me. these are not requests. they are my will.’” 😳😳😳😳😳🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵

gawyn is onto something, rand’s superpower literally IS just being so sexy and commanding that nobody can think of denying his will. once again i say, ta’veren aren’t real you all just want to fuck rand.

“tuon found herself longing, suddenly, to obey him. to please him.” first of all, mood, most relatable tuon has ever been, second of all, not even tuon is immune to Daddy Rand jdkfjg although in a minute she actually does manage to tell him no and send him away with no alliance.

we’ve now heard several times from several different characters about a VISIBLE darkness emanating from rand, which is super interesting!!! a consequence of using the true power maybe?

and tuon is now Officially the empress (she’d previously held off on declaring herself bc she had to meet TDR as an equal and the empress can’t meet anyone as an equal), and she’s planning to attack the white tower as a strike against rand. uh oh!!!!

another delightful mat chapter! while his first chapter this book was veeeery rough, i’ve actually really enjoyed the other ones! the zombie town did feel like a filler episode, but a fun one rather than an “oh my god we’re wasting so much time getting sidetracked” one. i was right to hope that separating him from tuon would improve him 200% lmao

verin says that mat pulled her to him, mat tries to protest that he’s “barely anything” ta’veren-wise compared to rand, and verin replies “you can’t hide your light in his shadow” romance! poetry! i love that line.

“‘it couldn’t have been rand’s fault, since i’d been able to leave that one easily.’ ‘rand?’ mat asked, dismissing yet another flash of colors. ‘you were with him?’ verin nodded. ‘how...did he seem?’ mat said. ‘is he...you know...’ ‘mad?’ verin asked. mat nodded. ‘i’m afraid so,’ verin said, lips downturning slightly. ‘i think he’s still in control of himself, however.’ ‘bloody one power,’ mat said.” as SOON as he learns verin has seen rand recently, mat wants to know not what rand is up to, but how he’s doing 😭😭😭 he’s so worried about him!!! and is upset with the one power for allegedly driving rand mad!!

“many would like to blame his temperament on saidin, but to do that is to ignore the incredible stresses that we’ve settled on that poor boy’s shoulders.” VERIN BEING THE SMARTEST MOST OBSERVANT MOST EMPATHETIC CHARACTER IN THE SERIES!!! HAS ANYONE ELSE ACKNOWLEDGED THIS UNTIL NOW??? wheel of time: 14 books. wheel of time if verin and lini were rand’s advisors and therapists: 1 book.

mat accepts that rand cleansed saidin without any hesitation or skepticism! “i guess i just think i should feel different, or something. the whole world up and changed on us, didn’t it?” i swear mat is like the only character to treat the cleansing like the huge deal it is! everyone else either didn’t believe it or was kinda like “oh whatever,” even rand and nynaeve.

“you didn’t ask where i got this [incredibly accurate drawing of mat].” “you’re aes sedai. i figured you...you know, saidared it.” JKDFJGKJHKJDF another instance of “maybe dumber than something rj’s mat woul’ve said/done but it’s funny so i don’t care”

obsessed with verin and mat’s dynamic. i would read an entire series of them being travel buddies. especially delightful bc it’s one of the few Mat vs. Aes Sedai scenes that actually feels like Mat vs. Aes Sedai rather than Man vs. Woman.

verin says she will take mat and the band to caemlyn tonight if mat will accept a mysterious sealed paper, not open it for ten days, and then follow its instructions. she is SO unnecessarily shady and extra, i love her. mat doesn’t want to promise to do something without knowing what it will be, so they compromise to mat won’t have to follow the paper’s instructions as long as he remains in caemlyn 30 days so verin can find him again and relieve him of the letter (since she might not need him to go through with its contents). i can’t wait to find out what’s in the letter!!

“was elayne in caemlyn? he’d worried about her, since her escape from ebou dar.” 😭😭😭😭❤️❤️❤️❤️ MATLAYNE RIGHTS!!!! and he was just thinking that 50 days (verin’s initial price) was a long time to wait, but it wouldn’t be so bad to do it in caemlyn vs. on the road. which i’m interpreting as he wouldn’t mind sitting around for 50 days if he could spend them with elayne 😌

“if she was there, he might at least be able to get production started quickly on aludra’s dragons.” mat is thinking elayne would help in terms of cost, but we know that she’s something of an inventor and a military strategist herself, so oh boy what if i get to FINALLY see mat and elayne geeking out about inventions together the way i’ve always dreamed!!!

“thirty days, but at the end of them, i can go.” “or you can open the letter after ten days and do what it says. one of the two, matrim. i have your word?” “you do. but i’m not going to open the bloody letter.” i’m foreseeing an it’s always sunny in philadelphia episode title card: Mat Opens The Bloody Letter

mat sees that verin is carrying around a whole stack of sealed letters just like his jkdjfg what the FUCK is her game!! she’s just making up a bunch of fake letters to ensnare ta’veren with! i love her so much.

“the death of tuon” actually refers to tuon the daughter of the nine moons “dying” and being reborn as fortuona the empress. see, this COULD have been the moment where we think zuko has changed for the better but then he goes back to the fire nation palace to embrace his prince life and we think all is lost, but tuon has not changed one iota since we first met her so no emotional effect is accomplished by this rebirth whatsoever.

i had to read an entire min pov chapter and i’m being SO brave about it

lmao in all seriousness it wasn’t bad because min has so little personality and narrative relevance that she fades into the background of her own narration. in reality this chapter was Entirely about rand.

min says that she’s been dedicating more time to her studies “partly because she didn’t know what else to do” LMAO even she admits that she’s narratively useless!

“she liked to think that she was capable of taking care of herself. and she’d begun to think of herself as a last defense for rand. min had discovered just how useful she was as a ‘line of defense.’ she’d been about as useful as a child! in fact, she’d been a hindrance, a tool for semirhage to use against him. she’d been indignant when rand had suggested sending her away, giving him a tongue-lashing for even suggesting it. send her away! to keep her safe? that was foolishness! she could take care of herself. so she had thought. now she saw that he’d been right.” oh my god min showing self-awareness? in MY wheel of time? it’s more likely than you think! wow! she actually gets +1 point from me for this. since she started racking up negative points in tfoh, her positive points have been this, telling rand that elayne and avi love him too when she could have kept him to herself, ditto for making him talk to them in caemlyn in WH........uhhh yeah i’m drawing a blank on anything else.

min’s solution is to study and try to stay out of rand’s way. you know, if you’re so worried about hindering him and being a tool people could use against him, you could ask him to make you a gateway to caemlyn to hang out with elayne. Just A Thought. this is now the other side of rand’s constant “i’m too weak to send min away” whining: both parties acknowledge that staying together and flaunting their relationship is a problem that endagers the other person and they love to angst about it, but neither actually makes any effort at doing anything to resolve that problem.

“he looked at her differently now. when those eyes of his studied her, did they see only a liability?” that’s what MY eyes see! min, if you’re so worried about this why don’t you just talk to him. everybody says that min is so good at being rand’s emotional support but they never actually TALK about ANYTHING that’s bothering either of them. the ONE time they’ve done that in a truly meaningful way in the past 6 books is when they talked about rand’s ishamael nightmare and plans to break the seals earlier in this book.

we learn a little more about rand’s mysterious new sword: it was found “beneath the submerged statue” (maybe that was mentioned when we first saw the sword, i already forget) and feels “so old” and is power-forged and doesn’t have a heron mark. COULD it be tam’s heron-marked sword re-power-forged into a different-looking sword? or could it be callandor revamped maybe?

“min didn’t care what fashion dictated, [ramshalan the domani lord] looked ridiculous. like a disheveled peacock.” min you have NO ground to stand on when it comes to ridiculous fashion that makes people look like peacocks.

rand’s so annoyed when min and nynaeve both don’t understand his ancient history reference. mat would’ve gotten it! reason #438475 why mat should replace min.

sulin’s here??? what the fuck??? i thought she was with perrin??? did someone in perrin’s party send her to rand through a gateway and i wasn’t paying attention and missed it, or is this a Sanderson Inconsistency? well, i’m glad sulin’s with rand and wish she had been all along, so i’m not complaining.

“nynaeve wouldn’t get anything useful out of rand, not when he was in this kind of mood. they would just have to see what he revealed.” once again min getting failing marks in Actually Making An Effort To Communicate With Her Partner, No Matter What Sort Of Mood He’s In. “rand turned, looking at nynaeve. standing on the other side of him, min couldn’t see what was in his face, but she could see nynaeve grow pale. it was her own fault. couldn’t she sense how on edge rand was?” so min’s approach is to pipe down and/or tell rand only what he wants to hear when he’s being difficult, rather than to challenge or push back against him? that explains so much.

“cadsuane held me in a box, min. though cadsuane’s box had walls that were invisible, it was as binding as any that ever held me. her tongue was far more painful a rod than any that was taken to my skin. i see that now.” he’s RIGHT tho! this whole chapter is one long “narrative trying to make me feel that rand is Going Too Far but actually he’s right.”

such as rand balefiring the whole fortress out of existence to kill graendal, because he knows she’s far cleverer than he and he’d have no hope of besting her if they were to come face to face. yes, balefire is bad, and yes, lots of innocent people were killed, but honestly what else was he supposed to do? this WAS the most surefire and efficient way to kill her. and as nynaeve says, all the people in that fortress are so heavily under compulsion that a regular attack on the fortress would’ve resulted in them all dying anyway in their fanatic attempts to protect graendal (or maybe they would’ve been so warped by compulsion that even if graendal died and the compulsion lifted they’d be beyond saving, like the boy in the other chapter). now i’m thinking of the Central Series Theme of i medici my beloved, “sometimes you have to do bad in order to do good.”

i will say that, while in-universe this was the most surefire and efficient way, narratively speaking it is disappointing we don’t see an actual rand vs. graendal faceoff! but then, a number of other forsaken (asmodean) have also met anticlimactic ends (asmodean). unless it will turn out that graendal did escape the balefire after all? hmmmmmm

and this is rand’s biggest use of balefire yet, so there will no doubt be some real bad consequences on reality/the pattern from him burning so much of it out of existence. in that sense i will acknowledge he went too far. but also he’s right that balefire is the only way to kill forsaken permanently since the dark one can just reverse normal death.

“min felt at her neck, where the bruises of rand’s hand on her neck hadn’t yet faded.” literally why the fuck didn’t you ask for healing though. this is going to be my Extremely Minor Point That I Get Irrationally Annoyed About (same with elayne being sad that her bathwater had gone cold in a previous book when she could’ve just channeled to heat it up jfkgj THESE are the only kinds of lore inconsistencies/powers not being made use of i care about)

“how do you fight someone smarter than yourself? the answer is simple. you make her think that you are sitting down across the table from her, ready to play her game. then you punch her in the face as hard as you can.” why is this so funny jdkjfg i’m just picturing rand sitting down to play chess with a girl and just fucking DECKING her

“you have served me well, ramshalan. i will forgive you for boasting to lords vivian and callswell that you could manipulate me however you wished.” “my lord! i had too much wine that night, and-” “hush. as i said, you have served me well this day. i will not execute you. you will find a village two days’ walk to the south.” 🥵 oh to be told “hush” by Daddy Rand

“i did them a favor.” “a favor? rand, you used balefire! they were burned out of existence!” “as i said. a favor. sometimes i wish the same blessing for myself.” i’m so sorry rand but sometimes your emo lines are just so insanely emo that i start laughing instead of being sad. sorry.

“‘i wish moiraine were here,’ nynaeve muttered softly, then froze, as if surprised to have heard herself say that.” AWWWWW big “i need a real adult” energy lmao

“‘handle’ rand? that was another problem. nynaeve and cadsuane were both so concerned with handling that they failed to see that it might be best to help him instead.” as if min is not CONSTANTLY “handling” rand rather than helping him (see: her whole attitude during the far madding trip when she was burning his mail because she didn’t trust him not to do something stupid when he read it, tattling on his secret plans to cadsuane because she didn’t trust him to know what he was doing and be able to take care of himself, threatening to beat him AND to stab him when he wouldn’t listen to her)

and exhibit a, she’s like “aaaaahh i’m so worried about rand someone needs to make sure he’s doing okay” and then just fuckin spends the whole night tattling on him to cadsuane instead of, i don’t know, going to find rand and make sure he’s doing okay! like yeah rand IS too far gone at this point for attempts at comfort to be effective, but still. she could at least TRY. she’s always THINKING about how worried she is about rand but never actually DOING anything about it. just now, for example, she’s all worried in her narration about the effect that this balefire war crime had on rand’s soul, but while rand is there min does not say a SINGLE WORD to him about it, she just stands there silently angsting while NYNAEVE is doing all the work of trying to make rand see that what he did was wrong and that he’s going down a dark path.

“whatever the plan, someone would need to watch out for rand. his deed this day would be destroying him inside, no matter what he proclaimed. there were plenty of others worrying about what he would do at the last battle. it was her job to get him to that last battle alive and sane, with his soul in one piece.” terrible for two reasons, 1) literally explicitly confirming that min’s sole narrative function is to be rand’s emotional support animal, and 2) it’s another example of the narrative TELLING me over and over again that min is such great emotional support to rand but never actually SHOWING me. and the majority of the fandom also believes that she’s the only one who was able to anchor him and save him from himself etc. but it’s just because the books are constantly telling us she’s doing it but not backing it up with actual actions on her part! she always worries about rand but doesn’t actually talk to him about it! she thinks about how she needs to be there for him but when she’s actually in his presence she either stays silent and lets him do whatever without providing any commentary or advice or she bullies and browbeats and Handles him just the same way she here criticizes nynaeve and cadsuane for doing!

update for something i just thought of: wouldn’t this be just the perfect time for min to wish that elayne and avi were here? if my partner had two other partners and was having an extremely bad time of it mental health-wise, i would Absolutely be wishing for their other two partners to be there with me to help me support them! but of course, since min hates sharing and considers herself rand’s Real partner and the others his sidepieces, this never occurs to her.

cadsuane says nynaeve needs to find perrin!!! maybe we will get a reunion!!!!! oh i’m so excited!!

the prospect of nynaeve-perrin and mat-elayne reunions are on the horizon, and overall this section gave me such wonderful cauthor and matlayne crumbs that i’m going to focus on those so i can go out of this recap on a high note 😌

[orangepanic]

That same anon who will definitely watch the show this holiday season:

Director's Commentary on that dead guy fic?

I love that you call it that. It's now officially "that dead guy fic", which is of course not to be confused with my other dead guy fic or that one about all the zombies. And thanks so much for the ask.

"Light in the Darkness" was, first and foremost, a gift fic. I wrote it for someone who's main blorbo is Commander Bumi, and who mostly ships Bumi with Firelord Izumi. In the show, as you'll soon see, these characters don't even meet. There's no established canon relationship between them of any kind beyond the fact that their parents knew each other as children. Izumi herself is barely a character at all. This gave me a lot of white space to work in, which is usually my favorite kind of character and relationship to write. The complicating factor, however, is I personally don't really ship these characters, mostly due to the fact that my own dear blorbo, General Iroh, in canon Izumi's child, does not seem to be Commander Bumi's son. Some people think he is. I'm not one of them. They never interact. So, for me, that rules out Bumi/Izumi relationships that include Bumi as Iroh's father. Happily for me (and this fic), second chances is one of my very favorite tropes. So I fairly early on settled on this being Bumi and Izumi getting together later in life.

This fic was also written for an event week run by the same person the gift was for. One of my suggested prompts, "Firelord Bumi", made it into the final selection, so I wanted to use it. I'd meant the prompt from a traditional shipping standpoint of "oh, what if Bumi is married to Izumi and then becomes Firelord?" In canon a rather goofy character, I thought it could lead to some shenanigans. But because I'm me when it came time to write I decided to instead do the most deranged interpretation of the prompt I could come up with. It's not uncommon.

But Bumi couldn't impersonate a recently deceased Firelord Zuko all on his own. Enter an excuse to add in my own favorite wildly non-canon pairing as co-conspirators and catalysts. Because why not? This story was clearly going off the rails anyway. I leveraged Zuko's somewhat background as a theater nerd as justification for his grandson's knowledge of costumes and Bumi's larger than life fearlessness to put together a plan so outrageously stupid it just might work. In the show, Iroh follows orders and directions right up until the moment he really totally 100% doesn't, and I love this so much about him. When he gets emotional or desperate all bets are off unless a superior is standing over his shoulder yelling "NO!" And for the little we see of Izumi she seems to take her role and her country very seriously, which made a great counter point to them. Izumi was going to tough it out. Asami Sato, tough as nails and twice as smart (and my match for Iroh) made for a logical choice to see through all the B.S. and give Bumi and Izumi the nudge they need to finally act on their feelings. Having four chapters, one from everyone's perspective, made sense to me in terms of having a viewpoint into all of the moving pieces.

I'm super curious to hear what you make of all this after you actually watch the show.

[ffwriteradvisor]

Just remembered I went on a small research trip on the subject of Tenshi no Fuu (if you were in the One Piece fandom around 2010-2014, you had a pretty good idea of who that was) last year but jesus, the real story is a mess.

Because like, if you go looking for posts about Fuu, you get people talking about how it's good that 'she' disappeared. About how annoying her Sue of a character was. All that good shit /s.

I remembered those bits, though I didn't interact with the original story at the time. By the time I decided I wanted to see what the fuss was about (rather than rely on the second hand opinions of others), the original fics were deleted and the ffnet page was long dead, with only a mention of a hiatus and real life getting in the way of the team (yep, 11-13 people were working on this fic at one point, including Real!Fuu, though her... position on the team is... something else) working together to really show.

But that's what the WayBackMachine is for. And let me say, that it revealed a lot. [caps + transcripts + a Whole Lot More under the cut]

(cap of the ffnet page circa Jan 30, 2012)

[Transcript: certain excerpts bolded for emphasis, typos left as is]

[Transcript starts]

[Okay, well... yeah, it can be a bit confusing to know who is 'hiding' behind the pseudo TenshiNoFuu, so let's try and explain it a bit...

We're a group of people (guys, by the way... and already in our twenties in case you would wonder...) who kind of 'kidnapped' one of our friends - Real!Fuu - to send her without her consent in One Piece (because it just more fun without it).

She loves Shoujo mangas, dislike fights and have no sense of humor (literally...) but she's still an amazing girl who knows about a lot of things and is always ready to help people, without falling in the disgusting overly-sweet type of people... Smart but dense, charming but unpretending, gifted yet unsecure... Just the type of people whose feelings are showing on her face and whose expressions remind you of a manga character while she doesn't even realize it... The type of person who never let anyone indifferent (either in the bad or the good sense) and who just makes you marvel that a real human can be sincerely like that. She's just that type of person, kind of... But the most amazing part about her is that she's making very realistic dreams and remember them perfectly when waking up, and the funny bit was that she's been dreaming about One Piece a couple of times, even though she disliked it at first...

Her first dream happened long before we got interested in the story, during summer holidays when she was travelling back home to meet up with her family. Her brother is a damned good fan-fiction author passionate about One Piece (if you can read French, do check him out, he supports LuNa, is a hard-core protector of canon story-line and makes well-rounded stories http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1552380/Clowsama ) and she's been proofreading his stories for years, even though she knew nothing of One Piece back then (and was quite determined about not reading it...). Anyway, she dreamt that her brother was sending her into One Piece to punish her for making fun of it (we definitely support the idea, heehee...) and her brother found this story so funny he decided to publish it.

When she talked about it to us, we thought it was a shame she still didn't like One Piece even though she could dream of it, remember it and almost live it alive even though we're a lot of fans dying to see One Piece even when going to bed. So we kind of made a One Piece cram school for her, telling her everything about OP and hoping to show her how awesome it is. But as a result, she just ended up making another dream about it and that the very same morning (early night for us, something like 4 o'clock a.m) a very special chapter was released in Japan (with the time difference).

Can you seriously imagine a non One Piece fan who barely learnt about Marine Ford Arc making a foretelling dream the 10th of February 2010...? A nightmare where she ended up on a scaffold, meeting up with a character the only thing she knew about him was that he was Luffy's brother (even though we had told her who was his real father), causing a huge mess on the battlefield and finally waking up in tears after having left the dream seeing Ace going to fight against Akainu... Waking up in tears... Even checking up the raw chapter on the web (she can read Japanese, that helps... or rather at that time, she cursed it...)... She forecasted this huge bomb Eiichiro Oda dropped on Chapter 474!

So we decided!

Just no way we're going to let someone as interesting as that miss how wonderful One Piece world is, heehee... So we took charge of making her fall in love with this wonderful universe created by Eiichiro Oda, and little by little, guided by the stories of the dreams she had had of One Piece in the past, we came to think she would make a great OC. We grouped her little dreams into Story I. and developped her nightmare into Story II. It was supposed to be no more than two stories, but upon seeing her face when she was telling us about what had happened at Marine Ford, it makes us wonder... If it was to happen to someone important to you, until which point would you go to protect your friend (or here your sister) from despair? How much of this world or of another one would you be ready to change?

So well, regardless of what Fuu thought at the time, we decided it could be only logical for this Story to continue, and we decided to 'use' her to definitely change an aspect of the original scenario which made us sulk at that time: the outcome of Marine Ford War... (sure, now that we reflect on it, it was canon and needed, but you can't help but cringe at it at first...) And now, after multiples debates, ideas and battles, we're here on FFN publishing the story and managing this fanfiction account while she gradually accepted her fate and is helping us out with illustrations on DA...

So in the end, you can call us TenshiNoFuu too or KageNoFuu since we're not planning on leaving our comfortable spot in the shadows (just too bothersome at first, and after a while, considering there're a bunch of despicable people out there, it's more efficient for assassination missions to stay hidden... because for the ones it can interest, we're not a tenth as nice as Fuu...)]

[Transcript ends]

That's right. This group of 'friends' decided to throw so much of a thing that this girl wasn't interested in at her that she had literal nightmares. Because she had a dream they thought was funny. And then they decided to write 'romantic' fic about it. Yeah.

And then there's the updated profile from 2013

[Transcript starts:]

[!!! TEAM WORK = TenshiNoFuu is a team of several people !!!

Little change in admin team so some clean-up is done:

Author Team = 3 people (but 2 of them busy with real life) 1 new main author (just arrived, warning, not nice at all) 5-7 freelance readers/advisers 1 proof-reader/victim-model 1 guest-star

Readers Stats = more than 165.000 visits since the first release 315 favourites (that says it all for anyone a little fact oriented and not rumour oriented)

Haters Stats = a handful who didn't find anything better to do these past 4 years than stalk/bash/heavily promote this fic a bunch of mindless followers who repeat the same arguments without even double-checking if some of them are true or not... (share a prayer for them, they're beyond salvation at that point)

Background Story = Real!Fuu REALLY has a famous LuNa fanfic-author for a brother; she was REALLY not fan of OP; she REALLY dreamt about falling into OP (story I); she then met the 3 original authors who tried to convert her and provoked the other dream about Marine Ford that REALLY happened the night of release of Ch.474 (story II); she is REALLY NOT the author and didn't even like this fic at the beginning (and seeing the magnet for galactic haters it is, no wonder she didn't like it afterwards); but she REALLY is stubborn and will put others before herself so this little group continued to publish despote the haters because they had fun writing the story and there's no way sensible people will back-up on what they like just because of some childish/rantish/jealous/bitchy/egocentric people who believe the entire internet/world should revolve around things they approve of (raise your hand if you already faced a 7-year-old brat telling you he/she hates carrots thus carrots should be erradicated from the world, same concept).

Self-Parody = Clow and the original authors actually disliked OCs (most common use of OC in fanfics) and like to put some parody/paradoxical cliches in the fic through Fuu's attributes or point of view. Cookies for the readers who actually saw it in the undertone; Hugs for the readers who actually like it as much as us!

Reviews & PMs = PMS welcome, anonymous reviews will just be blocked/deleted if you don't have the guts to come and talk to our face (and having decent argumentation to support your claims)

Sue-Witch-Hunting = Like to read this story, tell us; Would like some improvement/details/explanation, message us; Find the story is not interesting, drop reading it; Come and tell us, why not but no care; Come and ask us to write for your OC, sorry no won't do; Come and start a debate about Sue, just go back to square one to buy yourself a basic kit about fiction-writing and decent-critique and we'll talk later.

Hiatus = new main author is there and will resume new chapter after common planning of future Arcs with rest of the team. Expect more chapters from now on!

SORRY FOR THE 1 YEAR HIATUS. SOME IN THE AUTHOR TEAM BECAME DADDY AND THAT'S THE BEST EXCUSE EVER TO GET BACK TO REAL LIFE! THANKS TO ALL OUR NORMAL READERS WHO DIDN'T FORGET US! HOPE YOU'LL ENJOY FOLLOWING THIS ADVENTURE AS MUCH AS WE ENJOY WRITING IT!!!]

[Transcript end.]

According to this, about the only thing that looked like it was under Fuu's control was the DeviantArt account which, while the documented drama there (concerning art trades, as far as I can find) isn't great either (and there's no clue as to who headed up the youtube channel - yes, there's a youtube channel), it really pales in comparison to what this 'team' of friends decided to do for fun... which I think is fairly well summarized by this review from Psychic Monkey Mafia (also circa 2012)

[Transcript starts:]

[So a friend of mine told me to check out this fanfiction, they happen to be a fan of it and said that I should check it out as a fan of One Piece. I also heard a lot of good things about this fic, so I really tried to approach this in a positive light. Look, I am sorry, but this is honestly one of the creepiest fics that I've ever seen. For the life of me I cannot tell what the hell is going on. The canon characters are really out of character, they are practically helpless half of the time, and what they are doing makes little sense. Could you actually explain what's going on? Having creative liberty over characterizations normally is okay, but I can barely recognize any of these people. It's like watching a week marathon of the 4Kids dub versions of them. Also Ace in this story is an absolute creepy ass scumbag that deserves to be shot, hung, and stabbed for good measure. I'm sorry, but the way he's written, he is a real pig, along with most of the men in this fic. I really don't see how the hell this is supposed to be romantic, it's really sexist to both genders and it is really sad. Also if this really was written by a group of 'friends' of the real Fuu, I seriously think you need to consider getting some new friends, because the way they wrote you is awful and damn near spiteful. I'd like to think that you as a person deserve better much than that. I really hope that one day you would consider rewriting this, because despite its faults, there does seem to be potential for an interesting story.]

[Transcript ends]

It's a pretty polite review for how awful a picture it paints. The problem with Tenshi No Fuu, it seems, is less of the concept and more in the people who wrote it, and that group doesn't seem to actually include the girl who gets all the blame from people.

[romance-of-three-memes]

DW Blast had some good stories and interactions between old and new characters. A shame not all of them were translated. Zhurong and Meng Huo's for example love their daughter Huaman a lot, Zhurong calling her "my sweet baby girl" how cute is that lol. Wu Guotai also had an interesting personality, being very kind and caring to the men of Wu but being a lionness to anyone threatening Sun Jian or her children

Aw. I would love for them to bring Huaman onboard but for that they'd hopefully age her up at least a bit since she's a little girl in Blast. I've heard Certain Types of Fans say that if they did add her they should make her Guan Suo's wife like in a lot of his folklore along with Bao Sanniang because 'it would show that he's a lady's man and make him more likable'.

I imagine (or *desperately hope* at least) that they don't know about Huaman in Blast and the fact that's she's like 8 years old, or if they do they mean for her to be aged up, but even then, that really does say so, so much about why a lot of people don't like Guan Suo and how they see female characters as props for their (always male, of course) love interests.

Sooo yeah no, let her be on her own in that regard. Plus we need more non-Han characters in general, and they could stand to do more with the Nanman.

Lady Wu I think has a lot of potential to break away from the curse that most of the married female characters suffer, that being how they barely get to exist outside of their husbands and once they're dead, their wives tend to unceremoniously vanish. Sun Jian dies so early on, and historically she did advise her sons on a lot of things that were considered to be firmly in the realm of manhood like strategy.

It'd be neat to see her leading Wu, and not as a regent. It would also be neat if she didn't look like a carbon copy of her daughter and looked about Sun Jian's age, but I guess I should count my blessings since she at least clearly looks like an adult *cough* I'm sorry Xiahouji I'm so sorry they did you so dirty I-

Anyway, another thing I'd like to see is her being a bit more like Sun Quan in terms of personality, because to me he has always felt like he came out of nowhere in the Sun family. Kind of like a cat in a family of dogs? And his severe case of middle child syndrome doesn't help. So yeah Lady Wu being more mellow (we're firmly in Dynasty Warriors territory here, because he was Absolutely Not Mellow a lot of the time historically) so he doesn't feel like such an odd duck would be interesting.

[nkogneatho]

► 𝗕𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘄𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘀, 𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹, 𝗺𝘆 𝗴𝘂𝗶𝗹𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝘆 𝗽𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲.

🎟 𝗗𝗜𝗟𝗙𝗧𝗢𝗕𝗘𝗥 𝗗𝗔𝗬 5 𝗦𝗛𝗢𝗪.

Duration: 1.7k Genre: Smut, Angst R‐rated

𝗗𝗶𝗹𝗳𝘁𝗼𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝗺.𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗺.𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 𝗧𝗮𝗴𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁

Content warnings: Gn!reader. Not suitable for minors, consensual and protected sex, major character death, blood, use of weapons, Naoya as a typical asshole, emotional, a lot of degradation, mentions of infertility.

Reblogs and interactions are appreciated.

Tokyo had been plaguing with cynicism lately. With the new modern life, people still curse each other whenever anything discomforting occurs. And in this jujutsu world, negativity attracts curses. The whole city was a mess, but non shaman people could barely notice. The worst thing that could happen at that time was you being assigned to the worst job possible.

You hated jujutsu sorcerers. Even if you were one of them, you hated being it. Not that it was too much work, but there always came a point where you had to shut your emotions and think practically, which you hated. You despised seeing people lose control over themselves, their skin bulging and something worse transforming it until they end up being a curse, a monster. Hard to take pill? You had to kill them because there was no saving them. The pain they go through, you felt it when you first started going on missions. The higher ups scolded you for being so weak, so pathetic. But as time went on, you started losing your emotions. Not abandoning them, but perhaps hiding it behind that stoic face, enough for anyone to believe that you've overcome your fears. But have you?

It still made you puke your hands, your weapons had to carve and slice through the skin of a creature that was once a human just like you. How can it be so easy? You didn't have a goal in mind. Not really, until you met him.

Zenin Toji, the well-known assassin and the best Yakuza leader among every gang in Japan. Your first encounter was not really what one would call a good one. He had a gun on your head, and you had a jujutsu slicer on this throat. One little push and he would be dead. Toji is someone who's born without any jujutsu powers. Although, that doesn't mean he can't be the king. Toji was more like a puppeteer. His strength and his weapons were enough for people to follow him like a swarm of bees. Everyone had it against the Zenin clan, considering how cruel and corrupted they were. You did too. Your sister was sent to be wedded with their leader to be Zenin Naoya. Only, he kicked her out when he found out about her infertility. She had nowhere to go. She could've come running to you, only if they didn't order to send her away to avoid discourse. When you asked? They simply shut you off with an answer that you know wasn't true. Your sister would never run away without telling you.

“You're lying,” you confronted the big man in front of you.

“Only if you hadn't done the same before we fixed the marriage,” Naoya stared down at your figure.

“I haven't lied about anything. It's not fair of you to leave her just because she can't give you an heir. She is still your wife—”

“Was. And, it's totally fair of me to cut down on things I don't need.”

Your aggression wanted to spat on his face, but your pain was much more than the anger. The pain of letting your sister fall for this piece of shit that she ended up losing herself.

You continued to work as a jujutsu sorcerer even though you hated it. But he came to your rescue. Rescue from this immeasurable hurt

“So, you got it?” His hands were putting away the smoked cigarette, pressing the blazed end on the glassed coaster.

“Yes. What do we do now?” You handed him the records of the location of the major shaman's residence.

“Now, we wait.”

“What?” Your hands instinctively slammed on the wooden table. “What do you mean wait? No, Toji. Enough. I've been a spy for you for over a year. You can't make me wait forever.”

“Shut up, already. You want to go kill them all now? Go. I ain't stopping ya. Just remember that it's you who's gonna get killed,” he wasn't lying. A hundred strong sorcerers vs. you. It's easy to guess who'd win. “We gotta attack when they are at their lowest. And now is not the time, yet.”

“Enough with this bullshit. How long do you want me to wait, huh? I have been risking my life to get you the info, and all you do is stall the execution,” you stood up and yelled in frustration.

“Haha. You're doing this for your sister. Not for me,” he approached closer to you.

“You're so selfish, Zenin Toji— Nngh!”

“Don't you dare call me by that name. Understood, bitch?” Toji yanked your head back by your hair, the pressure stinging your eyes that he forced to look at his.

“What if I still do? You look good when I piss you off,” you were not the one to be feared by him.

“You still can if you want me to rip your insides.”

“Zenin Toji— Fuck!” His palm gripped your neck with enough pressure to make you stop.

“Fuck you,” he spat.

“Fuck me yourself.” The frustration, the anger, the hate just added on to the heat. Deep stare at each other's lips, it got so uncontrollable at a point that you had to grab each other with it. Silent moans, heavy breaths, the kiss was full of it. His tongue tasted like exactly how his personality is, cold steel knife with blood on it. You caught your breath when he broke the kiss.

"God. You piss me off,” he whispered in your ears before turning you around and bending you on the table.

“I piss you off, and yet, you can't keep your hands off me?” The kind of man he is, he didn't wait for you to remove your pants, he tore them off, with his bare hands.

“Shut the fuck up,” a spank landed on your bare ass.

“You know your son's hotter,” you knew how to fuel this up.

“Let's see if you can say the same after I fucking ruin you.” Toji spread your ass and shoved his thick fingers in your hole, earning a squeal from you. You didn't want to, but you meant to. They felt so good.

After stretching you enough for his length to slide in, he wore a condom and slipped his tip in your hole.

“Fuck! Oh fuck,” you cried. He was so big and thick. “Why the fuck are you so big?” Your hands clenched on the table.

Toji leaned closer, and his cock dug deeper. “Because I am Fushiguro Fucking Toji. You get that, you slut?”

He wasn't fast at the start. He started with more of a slow but intense pace. Slow enough for you to whine as his dick slid deeper and deeper, and intense enough to make you scream the right name.

“Aww. What happened? Cat got your tongue? Where's that bratty mouth now, huh, bitch?” You're supposed to hate it when someone calls you names, but it was different with him. It only turned you on more. It did the same to him, considering how you didn't hesitate at his words.

“Ah. Such a pathetic slut. Getting bent and fucked over my table. I have always despised you sorcerers. But now–” he bit your shoulder blade, “–now I am a little satisfied that I at least get to fuck one.”

“Fuck. Yes. Oh my god! Your cock is so big. Fuck me.” Did you want to scream like a pathetic slut? No. Did you want to beg him for more? Hell yeah.

“Hm,” he chuckled. “Have you stooped so low that now you're practically begging me? Don't worry, though. Whores like you get what they want when they beg.”

The words were sending vibrations to your core, and you ended up cumming. Your juices trailed down your thighs, your legs felt jelly. Toji fucked you senseless until he came. Hips stuttered to stay inside you as his seed emptied itself in the condom but around the warmth of your insides.

Toji rolled his head back to calm down and gather himself back. The room went silent until there was a squelching noise of something. Toji's vision blurred and his body started feeling its own weight. He looked down to see your curse laced knife almost entered his chest.

“Huh?”

“You let your guard down Toji,” you spoke up. “I will always be the puppet of this system. But without you as a puppeteer.

“B-but your siste—”

“I know. I changed my mind. Killing everyone who has a special strength isn't the right choice for me anymore. It's making sure that no one else suffers like my sister. And to achieve that, I had to do this,” you preferred not to feel anything. It's the same as slicing deformed humans, right? Only this time, it was actually a human. You snapped yourself back before you could fall into the spiral of unwanted emotions and twisted the knife. Blood trailed down his chest. It was only seconds before he died. Yet, his face showed no signs of anger or frustrations. They were filled with guilt. Only if he had been a better husband, a better father, maybe the end would have been different.

“Why?” He groaned.

“Because I'm a bitch. Just like you said earlier.”

“Th—thank you,” he whispered his last breath away. Your hands shivered and retracted while you stood there alone in the room, with a corpse lying. Tears stung your eyes, and you couldn't dare to suppress them anymore. Your heart cried that day. No matter how many times you turn your emotions off, they will still come rushing back down in guilt, frustration, regret and overwhelm you. That either causes a person to break and live in the same cycle, or to rise back again and end it for good. Which side did you choose, y/n?

Taglist: @chiizfuyu @ob-levi-on @bbytamaki @ushijimasprincess @bratty-bug @gojoussunglasses @kyoutxni @wiafi @sleepy3 @satorusbaby @fsrintaro @ebiharachan @acidfrauds @hyenalite @vixan-ix @katsukichu @smoothy-ve @lillina @sebbyzoldyck @cursedmoonchild @jjstsksen @tetsunormous @dukina @yelzoldyck @koifish69 @deartoru @theaesthete @psycho-nightrose @kyanyakya @httptamaki @certified-dilfhunter @remington-cloves @kuroo-tetsunii @hanmasin @ingchiii @haengbokpixie @nanaminswaifu @aasouthteranoswife @sunascumdoll @xxrwzy @xo-lynx @ctrlove-com @mutsu422 @valhallawhispers @hiqhkey @half-baked-biscuit

[wish-i-wasnt-a-coward]

Family Cuddle Pile

a/n: I actually wrote this a while ago but it was perfect for the request. Theirs like, no content for this ship an I love it so much! Thank you for reading :) @arodynamic-enby

Pairings: romantic Anxceitmus and kid!Patton also super background Logince

Warnings: tattoos, less than ideal parent mentions, food mention, and light cursing

Word count: 1,844 

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

Remus flopped out of bed, throwing his body carelessly across the room. He hastily threw on his clothes. Short shorts, ripped fishnets, a vest that was more patches than original material, really big clunky shoes, and a ripped up band-t. He also hooked his favorite bone earrings in his tattered earlobes. 

He stomped into his apartment’s kitchen. He grabbed a stale piece of bread he soaked it in coffee. Yawned and grabbed his bag, racing out the door. 

His brother was waiting for him at the tattoo shop, sketching a new idea. Unlike him, Roman only had a few tattoos, including not one, not two, not three… but three Disney quotes, a frog on a mushroom, a rose on his arm, and a constellation. Most of his tattoos were covered by tasteful burgundy overalls and a white button-down shirt.

Remus’ tattoos were also mostly covered by his clothes. But he had a tattoo sleeve depicting the garden of Eden, a matching frog on a mushroom, a quote from one of Roman’s books, medically accurate bone structures on his hand, a realistic spider on his neck, and a snake wrapping around his non-sleeved arm. And those were just the visible ones. 

Suffice to say, the twins were very different. 

Remus threw his bag onto the floor in the backroom, “Ro, when’s the first appointment!!” he yelled. “Your’s? At 11. FYI, Jan n’ Pat are coming over at 12, for motivation” Remus smiled, fuckin’ superb. 

He busied himself in collecting the ink and preparing the tattoo gun. The client wanted a fucking orange on their wrist, it should only take an hour or two but Remus was not excited to do a frickin’ orange circle. 

The prissy orange bitch came in and Remus got to work. They didn’t move much and only cried a little bit when the needle started jabbing at their skin. Remus liked this part of the process, stabbing people consensually was his favorite thing ever… also the art part but stabbing people!

Almost exactly an hour later the door jingled open. “Dada!!” a tiny voice called back into the store. “I’ll be there in a minute patty-cake” Remus called from his spot hunched over the client's arm.

He added the final touches to the fruit and helped the orange bitch off the chair. Roman swept the client away, Remus practically ran to greet his partner and son.

Janus wore a leather corset over a black collared shirt and baggy pants, their long platinum hair framed their face under their signature hat. They were holding hands with a toddler wearing mostly pink and blue, his blond hair (that matched Janus’) was a mop of curls barely held together by a few butterfly clips. 

“Dada, Dada!!! I got you a flower” the little boy cried, letting go of Janus’ hand and stumbling towards the tall man who scooped him up. Patton giggled and held out a sweaty flower clenched in his chubby fist. 

Remus accepted the flower with a gasp, ”this is really for me?” he said joyfully. Adjusting the small boy in his arms Remus turned towards Janus who was looking at the pair with a disgustingly sappy expression. 

“What are you lookin’ at hot stuff?” Remus teased. “Shut it you,” Janus said, pressing a kiss to Remus’ check. Patton made a noise, “icky” he said pushing Janus away. They laughed, “yes darling, we’re very icky”. 

“When’s verge-“

“he’ll be home at 4” 

“Dope”

“Stop by the Sleepy Café before you bring Pat to the apartment?”

“Can do scootal-lo!” 

Remus turned back to the little boy in his arms, “looks like you're stuck with me squirt”. Patton beamed and snuggled into Remus’ chest. Janus smiled again, “I’ll see you, boys, at dinner,” they said, ruffling Pat's hair and peaking Remus on the lips quickly so as to not upset the toddler. “Bye-bye Janny!!” Patton called after Janus as they left for work. 

“Righty-o,” Remus said, carrying Patton into the back room. “I know Ro’s got a couple coloring books, wanna do those for a bit?” Patton nodded and reached towards the ground to be put down. Remus plopped Patton on the couch and pulled out the book and pens as well as a sketchbook off his own. They sat together coloring and drawing until Roman came back to hug Patton. 

“Ah, my favorite nephew!” Roman said, scooping up the little boy. Patton laughed and pulled Roman’s hair. “Roro, can I color your arm pictures??” he asked, pointing to Roman’s rose tattoo. Roman plopped the toddler back down on the couch and handed him a pen. 

Patton went to work on the rose, scribbling reds and pinks and greens across his arm. Roman gave him complements each time Patton paused, and each time Patton shushed him and went back to work. Remus finished up his sketch, adding it to the pile of tattoo ideas they were eventually going to put up-front, and sat next to the toddler. 

“That’s really good pat-” 

“Shhhhhhhh”

Remus nodded and mimed zipping his lips. He liked spending time with the kid. They weren’t biologically related but who gives a fuck about blood, unless it’s outside of your body, then it’s fun. 

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

“I don’ wanna” Patton wined his dad sighed “I know bubbles but we gotta go home to Papa and Janny, isn’t that fun” Patton considered this, “but Roro’s pretty arm picture” he argued. Remus scratched the back of his neck, “Pffffff- Ummm, how about this, we go home now and I’ll take you back to the shop tomorrow after pre-school” 

Patton brightened considerably, “ok” he chirped. “up please” the toddler’s chubby hands reached towards Remus who obediently scooped him up with a coo. After all who was he to say no to uppy hands. 

“See ya tomorrow, have fun on your date with the nerd” Remus sang as he snatched his bag juggling the still fussy Patton in his other arm. “Fu- Frick off Re. Say hi to your partners for me,” Romans said affectionately and waved as his twin left the building. 

Remus happily trotted out into the road. The tattoo shop was located on a quaint little street in the more commercial segment of their town only a short walk from Janus’ job. 

A light drizzle floated around them and the air was warm and comforting. Patton squealed as a large drop of water hit him in the head, prompting a laugh from Remus.

A jingle sounded through the peaceful cafe, the brown room was illuminated by those cool old fashion lights and a lovely array of pastries made the air smell of chocolate and blueberry scones. But the scones, as delicious as they were, weren’t the snack Remus was here for

“Hey babe- Remus why are you soaking wet”

“Puddle” Patton screeched. 

“Kid’s right, Puddle.”

Janus pinched their eyebrows, “ya know what, I’m not even surprised anymore. Just make sure Patton doesn’t catch a cold” they scolded. 

Remus nodded and saluted in mock seriousness, “yes captain” he said and pressed a kiss to Janus’ face over the cash register, “I’ll see ya in a bit” Remus grinned and led Patton back out of the cafe. 

Janus sighed lovingly as they watched their boyfriend and son turn to cross the street, Patton’s hand clasped around Remus’ happily. “Stop looking so happy, you're scaring the customers” Remy teased from across the counter. “Ha, Ha,” Janus glared and went back to work” 

Janus’ apartment was a cute two-bedroom space on the fourth floor of the building. The furniture was an interesting combo of vintage and things from the side of the road. The vintage parts came from their parent’s house, their father had died two years after Janus’ had run away and hadn’t thought to write them out of the will. 

The three of them had made a date out of customizing the few pieces that Janus wanted to keep. The customization mainly included darkening everything and adding more gothic touches. Virgil had done the fabrics, Remus the painting, and Janus moral support/ director. 

The three partners had also painted the kitchen/dining room/living room black with one yellow wall. Janus and Virgil’s room was dark purple instead of black with highlights in the same yellow. Patton’s room was the only one that didn’t  look marginally like a cave. 

The walls were a cream-yellow that lit up in the morning sunlight. After Janus announced that they were going to have a baby Remus had spent three hours painting the grey ceiling with white fluffy clouds. It was one of his favorite projects. 

Patton of course had no regard for the work put into the entirety of his home and was the usual menace of a toddler. And today a toddler with cheerios, truly a sight even god would tremble before. 

Remus plopped down next to Patton who was pushing cheerios around his highchair tray with an intense focus. He smiled at the little boy and flicked on the tv, “got any requests pip-squeak?” Remus asked. Patton looked thoughtful, “dead lady!!” he cried excitedly hitting the tray with his fists, cheerios flew everywhere. Remus nodded, understanding, “Corpse bride coming up!” he picked a few cheerios from the couch “you really are Verge’s kid” 

When Janus got home Patton was curled up on Remus’s chest. Both slept soundly despite the dead folk on the screen in front of them singing about the wedding. 

Janus smiled, their family was fucking adorable. They slipped off their shoes and snuggled up into Remus who hummed happily and pulled Janus into the hug still asleep. 

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

Three hours later Virgil trudged up the four flights of stairs huffing indignantly with each step. Of course, he could take the elevator… but it might break down and he would be stuck for hours. Or someone could get into the elevator with him and he would have to interact with a stranger. So stairs it was. 

He rummaged around his baggy hoodie, running his fingers through his dark purple hair in annoyance when he couldn’t find the key. Once he found it Virgil carefully (as he did everything) opened the apartment door. His combat books clunked satisfyingly against the hardwood floors as he entered his house. Virgil felt the tension leave his muscles, he was home. He glanced across the room, looking for his family. 

Virgil’s face lit up like a god damned Christmas tree. 

Across the room, both his partners and his son were curled up sleeping happily. Drool covered Remus’ face and Janus was snoring, they were the most precious thing Virgil had seen all freakin day. 

The three of them woke as Virgil wrapped his arms around them, Patton squealed in excitement. “Hello, darling” Janus mumbled sleepily into Virgil’s arm. Remus just groaned and nestled into the hug. The toddler wriggled between his dads squealing profusely. “Shhh, s’ sleepy time” Remus mumbled, rolling deeper into the cuddle pile and shutting Patton up. 

Virgil smiled and pressed a kiss to his partner’s cheek. “Mmm, love you” they purred. “Love you too Jan,” Virgil said, nestling his face in their neck. Virgil knew he would have to start dinner soon but that could wait, for now, cuddles.

[writingpracticetime]

Interactions with other villains

From the notes of Mitchell Newman:

Let me set the scene.

First, the Discreet Entrepreneur’s Network, or the DEN as it is appropriately titled, is a loosely organized guild of sorts for villains to meet and exchange illegal goods and services. It’s members are vicious, super-powered criminals of all stripes--master thieves, serial killers, unethical scientists, the whole spectrum. They’re dangerous, violent, and not at all kind to non-members, or even new members.

Second, we have Constructor. A famous hero and  goody two shoes who only ended up in prison for protesting a mass eviction. More to the point, an (admittedly, not self described) pacifist who at the time was famously bad at combat.

The DEN should have torn Constructor to pieces, and this whole problem should have ended there. Instead our goody two shoes swipes dozens of members and eventually breaks the whole network into pieces.

How?

---

You have always been bad at public speaking.

You don’t stammer.  But seeing lots of eyes on you makes you freeze and all of the words you planned slip away. It doesn’t help that at least half of the people in this room are murderers, but they would have the same effect if they were third graders.

You wish Sandy was here again. She was always good at coaching you through these things. The only reason you ever made it through interviews or press talks was because of her prep work.

"The pipeline," you try again.

The Organizer quirks an eyebrow at you. For a second he looks to his assistant, a pale woman whose eyes are fixed on, and then he motions at you. "Go on."

"the pipeline they're building," you try again. "Its damaging to the environment. The people don’t want it there. And it’s. Illegal."

The crowd actually bursts into laughter.  You’re too used to talking to politicians.

---

Afterwards, Bonfire nods sympathetically at your grimace on your way out.

“There’s a reason I’m not a member,” she tells you.

“Did you hear? Did I…?”

Did I do good? It’s the sort of approval you used to seek from Sandy. You stop yourself, because you already know the answer regardless. Not a single person in that room approached you to join your next operation.

“There’s still the two of us,” Bonfire shrugs. “Best not to work with too many, anyway. That’s how snitches worm their way in.”

“Yes but…”

“Wait!”

A reedy voice calls after you. You don’t recognize the stick figure man who darts after you, eyes darting.

“Wait, okay okay okay okay,” he says, quickly. “Constructor. I’m--Cyberscout. I, your pitch, I mean--”

You wait. You hear a flare of irritation at your shoulder.

“Okay, your pitch sucked,” Cyberscout says. “Didn’t you used to go on TV? Man. N-not to down you or anything, what I mean to say is, just… I can help you with that. Not with your speaking skills, but getting the word out other ways, and doing some information gathering for you. So I’ll sign on. Pay back the favor.”

“Favor?”

“Yeah, uh. You jailbroke me,” he says. “I don’t work for nothing, normally I’d ask for a favor or cash but… since you already did me a solid… just this once.”

You hold out your hand, and like that you make your second ally.

---

Your second venture into the DEN goes better. You practice with Bonfire and Cyber ahead of time, so your voice is stronger. When you enter the latest venue, you nod at the Organizer and the silent pale woman next to him, taking a deep breath and refusing to feel intimidated.

Again, you  describe what you’re opposing as wrong. Again, you talk about the people’s wishes. Again, you call it illegal, and again there is snickering, but instead of falling silent your voice booms.

“Are you going to pretend you all don’t care?” you ask, and you hear yourself echo from the back of the hall. “How many of you have been thrown into solitary Akonite cells for store robbery, for having? How many of you got beaten by guards? Now CEOs are lining their pockets with medications they got from experimenting on prisoners just like you have been, and they go completely free. This is illegal, against the public good, all of the things they say about your own actions--and yet the men doing this go free.”

Dead silence.

“If the hypocrisy doesn’t make you furious,” you say. “That’s because you have no fight left in you.”

---

When you leave the conference, you know Bonfire heard because she’s smirking.

“Better?”

“Better,” she agrees. “Still no takers?”

“They’re probably worried about losing face,” Cyberscout says. “I mean, I was. But after a talk like that, just wait. They’ll trickle in.”

And they do. Days after, a greying old woman approaches you. She seems hesitant to meet your eyes or speak at first but when she does his tone is cold, brusque, and to the point.

“You may have heard of me, you may not have,” she says. “But to the point, I know a few things about unethical experiments, how they are run...and how to help the subj--victims. If you are willing to look past my past indiscretions, I can be an asset.”

“I care more about what you’re willing to do now than anything you’ve done in the past,” you tell her.

She holds out her hand stiffly.

“Call me Asag,” she says. “Dr. Asag.”

---

At your third DEN meeting, the Organizer’s lips thin as he sees you. He once again exchanges whispers with his assistant before glowering at you. You brush him off, and stand to explain your next venture.

“One more thing,” you say. “Before anyone here thinks of joining, this is going to be a no-kill operation.”

“What?” booms a hulking figure in the back. “Are you fucking serious?”

“No interrupting,” the Organizer drones, but you speak up.

“Wait,” you say. “Let him talk.”

The man steps forward, and you have an instant flash of recognition. It would be impossible not to recognize him, actually. You don’t think you've met anyone else that big.

“You don’t know shit about what it’s really like out there!” the giant says. “You really expect anyone to go out and not defend themselves?”

“I didn’t say you can’t defend yourselves,” you explain. “I said you can’t kill anyone.”

“You can’t get shit done if you’re not willing to kill,” the man says, darkly.

“Really. And how has that worked for you? Wait--” you make a show of trying to remember him. “Oh wait, I know. It got you in prison. Where I broke you out, without killing anyone.”

There is actually some laughter. In your favor this time. It makes you grin.

“Hobbes, right?” you ask. “It’s possible to fight and neutralize someone without killing them, and it’s usually better that way because then the feds can’t justify using as much force against you.”

“Then I’d like to see you try to neutralize a real super,” Hobbes spits.

“Alright,” you say. “Come at me then, and I’ll show you.”

“Absolutely not!” the Organizer shouts. “There will be no fights during conventions!”’

You don’t even spare him a glance. “Outside, then”

The Organizer hisses at the entire crowd follows you both, eager to see blood. “This isn’t--the rules--”

After a fight that admittedly takes a lot more out of you than your previous efforts neutralizing low ranking heroes, Hobbes grumpily becomes your next ally.

---

More and more come to you. Some asking for monetary compensation, some asking for prison breaks in the future, and some who seem to be as drawn to your ideals as you are, deep down.

With each venture, the Organizer seems less and less happy to have you appear, until one day when you are about to come to another gathering you find yourself barred.

“You’ve broken enough rules,” the Organizer says, darkly. “You aren’t welcome in the DEN anymore.”

“What rules?” you ask.

There are a few, of course. Some minor things here and there, but nothing that got anyone else banned. He tells you, and you are about to object but someone else cuts in first.

“You’ve been cutting into his profits.”

It’s the pale assistant. Her voice is weak and thready, like she can barely speak up.

“What are you talking about?” the Organizer sneers. “I never--”

“He’s been working with some of those corporations you’ve been undercutting with your, um, stuff,” she says, her voice getting higher. “B-both sides. Always got to work both sides, he thinks. Get some villains to help, sell out the others.”

Other people inside are listening, murmuring. The gathering of villains are getting agitated--clearly, this is news to all of them, as well.

“Please,” the assistant says. “I have proof. I’m a--I read minds. I can tell you everything, just get me away safely and I’ll--”

He turns on her and attacks, hands around her throat. You don’t even have to think about it. You slam concrete into the Organizer’s face, and all hell breaks loose. Someone grapples you--and then Hobbes wrings them off you. Bonfire, always drifting at the edge of the event, darts in and jerks the coughing assistant out of the fray. And with that, your last venture at the DEN becomes an all out brawl.

You decide it’s still better than public speaking.

---

---

MN: So, real talk for a moment. How did you do it? Money? Threats? Brainwashing? I know there were a few mind control types in your group.

#4598: Hm?

MN: How does a hero go to a bunch of violent crooks and end up leading them?

#4598: The only way you can. With their consent.

[asweetprologue]

Nili’s Benchmark Geraskier Fic Rec List

hey yall! I officially hit 750 followers (a few days ago, I blew past the benchmark without even realizing!), which is... insane. I truly can’t believe that so many people over the last year have enjoyed my presence in this fandom enough to continue to follow my work. you guys are so great and I love you all so much, so I decided to put together a gift for you!

this is a list of my favorite geraskier fics from the fandom, which I have been putting together over the last year or so. a few of these are big in the fandom, but a lot of them are smaller pieces that I feel deserve more attention! I have provided ao3 and tumblr links where I could find them, as well as ratings and summaries. Most of these are canon!verse because I’m not personally a big fan of modern au’s, but there will be a few of those scattered throughout as well. I’ve divided the fics into two sections: oneshots and multichapter. See the list below the cut!

Being in this fandom truly has gotten me through the pandemic in a big way and I have made so many good friends while here. thank you all for validating my weird obsession with these characters and enabling me in these trying times <3

Oneshots

all that was good, all that was fair (all that was me is gone) | M | 7517 | WARNING: Graphic Depictions Of Violence | @xdandelionxbloomx

Somewhere, deep in a forest, a man drags himself from his grave by sheer power of will. He lies gasping on the forest floor and does not know who or what he is. The world is wide and wonderful, though, and there is so much to see.

Or, Jaskier is so stubborn that he literally comes back from the dead.

Another fascinating addition to the mythology of the Witcher. Jaskier’s slow rediscovery of himself is so well done here. One I’ve come back to again and again. 

As Fast As Love Can Go | T | 9628 | @bygodstillam

There are Faeries in the Wood.

That's what everyone said, at least, not that there was any solid proof. Jaskier had tried, more than once, to find some. Just a hint somewhere, of a real story, of real magic. But all anyone seemed to have was stories.

Jaskier was determined to find proof. He wasn't expecting to find a witcher in the process.

Fascinating fic with some really interesting worldbuilding, and a fresh new take on True Love’s Kiss. Also with some great art by @hehearse!

beautiful, he stirs up still things | T | 2575 | @alittlebitmaybe

“You’re not asking me to dance,” says Geralt.

Jaskier turns his palm up on his knee, offering it. “I think you’ll find I am.”

Just them dancing. This is a lovely sort of pre-relationship dynamic. So soft.

Dialogue Prompt | NR | 2932 | @reinvent-and-believe

Dialogue Prompt 48: “You make me want things I can’t have.” Wordless I-love-you 50: buying them a special treat when you go out shopping

Geralt gets Jaskier a gift, which prompts some confessions.

Even a small love | E | 22,272 | WARNING: Rape/Non-Con 

“Well,” Jaskier replies distractedly. “Lots of things want to strangle you.”

“You don’t.”

It isn’t a particularly troublesome accusation, or even necessarily an accusation at all.

This is one I read early on in the fandom, and it really stuck with me. The dynamic between Jaskier and Geralt is perfect, and the misunderstandings between them feel so realistic. The non-con is not extreme, but do mind the warnings. 

For the Space of a Heartbeat | T | 2021 | @drowningbydegrees

As it turns out, falling into bed with your very best friend who you are privately very much in love with isn't nearly so nerve wracking as waking up with them the morning after.

Just sweet, morning after discussions. I love to see them talking for once.

Greensleeves | T | 10,414 | @rebrandedbard

When Geralt crosses paths with Jaskier in the spring, the world is dressed in green. Quite literally. Everyone everywhere is wearing green, and it all comes down to a song Jaskier has written that, to his mortification, has become popular throughout the Continent. It's torment, being forced to preform the song over and over again and have his heart broken anew. But who is this Lady Greensleeves the people say Jaskier is so maddeningly, heartbrokenly in love with? At the baron's wedding party, Geralt is determined to find out.

This is one of my personal faves - there’s just something about Jaskier’s feelings being put on blast while Geralt remains totally oblivious that I think is so very them. And the resolution at the end is delightful.

I Don’t Wanna Fall (If It’s Not In Love) | E | 13,902 | @writinglizards

The first time it's out of desperation. Things get rapidly out of hand from there.

OR the building of a relationship through mutual wank sessions.

I love everything Ashley writes, but this one was the first fic I read by her and it still has a warm place in my heart. I also highly recommend It’s Been A While (makes me cry every time) and Tell Me Honestly

Like a Storm, Like a Flood | T | 1065 | @valdomarx

Jaskier is leaving for the winter, and Geralt can't bear the thought of not seeing him for months.

It was soooo hard to pick only one fic by George, but this one is so soft and sweet and yearning I just had to go with it. This is really just about Geralt finally hitting a breaking point and saying enough is enough.

one flesh | E | 10,763 | WARNING: MCD 

“Well, then. I’m a ghost.” Jaskier spread his arms grandly. Geralt held his gaze for a moment, then dropped his head and laughed. Jaskier put his hands on his hips. “Do fill me in on what’s so funny.” It wasn’t funny. It was just so - ridiculous, the things Geralt’s fucked up brain would invent. This had to be the last nail in the sanity coffin, it just had to be.

Or: Jaskier is a ghost, and Geralt is a mess.

Jaskier dies and comes back as a ghost to haunt Geralt into taking care of himself. Geralt does not handle this gracefully. This fic is so sad and heartbreaking, but the ending is so sweet.

to render it transparent | E | 23,901

Geralt wakes up warm, peaceful, and utterly content, which is how he knows that something is severely wrong.

Sigh. This fic. This is a time travel fic - Geralt ends up in the future living with Jaskier on the coast, just after the mountain. It’s slow and beautiful and extremely bittersweet, all about how we choose to love people despite how much it can hurt us.

With All the Continent A Stage | M | 4745 | @greyduckgreygoose

Later, Geralt learned that the play was four hours long. Four hours long. It didn’t feel like it. Most of it passed by in a fever dream of ominous music, dance-fighting and dryads in gossamer leaves, swinging from hoops attached to the ceiling. Yennefer made an appearance, played by Priscilla in a glittering negligee. She sang a song to Geralt about putting him “Under Her Spell”, and they had a sensual dance number which was made a little strange by a sickened Jaskier (played by Jaskier) coughing loudly in the background.

(Jaskier invites Geralt to a musical production inspired by his own life.)

Jaskier basically writes Geralt a love letter in the form of a four hour long play. Geralt is an idiot about it.

Multi-Chapter Fics

A Lover’s Lament | M | 25,364 | @somedrunkpirate

So,” Jaskier begins, as casually as he can, “you are telling me, that in theory, if I were to be in love with someone — anyone — that person could well be in terrible danger?”

Of all terrible and ridiculous things that have threatened Geralt’s safety, Jaskier’d never thought that loving him might be what will get him killed.

I honestly can’t count the number of times I’ve read this fic. The monster is so interesting, and the mythos of it fits seamlessly into the world of the Witcher in my mind. Jaskier being so afraid that his feelings are going to put Geralt at risk, clearly unable to see that Geralt is going through the exact same thing. I think about the scene with them looking at each other almost daily. 

A Pair of Gloves, the Scent of Roses | M | 24,134 | WARNING: Graphic Depictions of Violence

In the bustling days before the Midsummer festival, Geralt is sent into the countryside to deal with a monster - with Jaskier once again by his side. But the bard has not forgiven him, and while he's not hiding his contempt for the Witcher, he is recalcitrant about revealing his true motives for joining him. As the hunt turns into a desperate mission to save an innocent man and the monster is not what is seems to be, Geralt learns a few new things about his old friend and decides to finally attempt to mend the rift between them...

This is one of my favorite’s in the fandom - it feels so believable, the world is so rich and the oc’s are convincing and charming. Geralt and Jaskier feel so honest here, stumbling around each other but still drawn together. Beautiful beautiful beautiful

Bearing the will of the flower | NR | 11,449 

The way Jaskier sees it, his hobby of following a witcher around was always pretty likely to get him killed.

The fact that it's happening now because the witcher in question doesn't love him, he thinks as he coughs up crumpled flowers, hardly makes a difference.

My favorite hanahaki fic in the fandom. I’m such a sucker for these, and these two idiots being so incapable of talking about their feelings really makes them prime candidates. 

Food of Love | T | 22,488 | @wallatile-qvibbler

I brought a dead princess back to life through the power of song is the kind of thing that would have got an eyebrow raise even from the stone-faced Geralt of Rivia, so it's a good thing he and Geralt will probably never see each other again.

(or: the one where Jaskier channels magic through his songs, and it almost never goes as expected.)

This is a Jaskier and Renfri centric fic, which wasn’t something I knew I wanted until I read this. Jaskier is a bard which in this AU comes with magical powers, but it feels so well integrated into the universe that I wish it was just... how the Witcher is. Renfri is so good here, and even though Jaskier and Geralt barely even interact you can feel the tension and love between them. Cannot recommend highly enough.

friends and allies of the witcher | T | 10,312 | @theamazingbard

Yennefer crawls over to her newest cellmate. They’re curled up on their side. Breathing, but only just. She’s not sure what she’s hoping for when she turns them over. Still isn’t when she sees that it is indeed Jaskier.

“Shit."

Yennefer and Jaskier each suffer in more ways than one at the hands of Nilfgaard.

Yennefer and Jaskier get capture by Nilfgaard and tossed into a cell together. Exactly what I want out of season 2 honestly. Their interactions are gold.

I’d Be the Choiceless Hope | E | 45,188 | WARNING: Rape/Non-Con | @lesdemonium

As a baby, Jaskier was visited by a fae, who gifted Jaskier's mother with Jaskier's obedience. As Jaskier grew older, the "gift" became more of a curse.

You know I’m not gonna make a rec list without listing Zoe’s Ella Enchanted au. Need I say more?

Silver and Copper | M | 56,139 | WARNING: Graphic Depictions of Violence | @kaer-cuan

Geralt is just supposed to pass through the quiet Lettenhove area. He's not anticipating being begged by its people to help save their viscount from a curse that keeps him from daylight. Lord Jaskier, they call him, and he's likely dying.

As Geralt struggles to untangle the ugly web of history that has lead to the increasingly complicated curse, he finds himself spending more and more time with the strange young viscount and wondering just what he might have been before the curse, and who he might be after. But things are not always as they seem, and as the curse tightens its grip on Jaskier, Geralt is forced to face the fear of failing yet another person whose choices were stolen from them.

Or-

Jaskier is kept from becoming a bard. Geralt finds him anyway.

This is a fic that haunts me. It’s very scary in parts, and mind the tags - there are some very heavy themes here. But it’s beautiful and touching, and Jaskier feels very true to himself even though his origin is so different.

we could be married (and then we'd be happy) | E | 50,222 | @a-kind-of-merry-war

Jaskier reached into his pocket, fingers grasping around the little box. He pulled it out with what he hoped was a romantic flourish, flipping it open to reveal the simple gold band inside. “Geralt,” he said, confidently, cooly, like this wasn’t terrifying, “Will you marry me?”

Geralt and Jaskier fake marriage proposals to get free deserts and shit but it goes tits up when Vesemir catches them in the act. Not knowing how to fess up, they go along with it for a while, which is hell because they’re both pining like mad. As I said, I don’t love modern au’s, but it’s merry so of course this one had to end up on my list.

~

And that’s it! 20 fics for you, and hopefully you can all find one or two you haven’t read before. There are a lot of people and fics that I didn’t include in this list only because I was trying to not put a million down (which I could). I highly recommend anything by @wherethewordsare, @julek, @contemplativepancakes, @witcher-and-his-bard, and @inber, as well as those linked to fics above, and I’m sure there are others I forgot to mention. Yall have truly made being in this fandom worthwhile <3

[nebulablakemurphy]

The Red Room

Summary: Meeting Yelena in the red room is the best and worse thing that’s ever happened to you. Warning: romantic Yelena x Fem!reader pairing and depictions of violence.

Those first weeks in the red room pass in a blur. You have one room. Just you. Meals are delivered like clockwork; no one speaks to you. Your only company being the television set that plays the same clips; morning, noon and night.

Until one day the lights flip on brightly above you and a woman enters. You squint up at her, “hello?”

“Hello.” She replies, “are you ready to get out of here?”

“Where will I go?” You wonder.

“Wherever I tell you.”

That is your first encounter with Madame B. When you were younger you thought her something of a savior. You know better now. Still when she calls for you, there’s no choice but to go.

You make your way down the long hall, florescent lights humming above you. Finally reaching the room you’ve been assigned; you grasp the door knob. Feeling the weight of the cool metal against your palm, with a steadying breath you turn it.

Inside is only Madame B and a girl. One you’ve only seen in passing, one of Dreykov’s favorites.

“Y/N, meet Yelena. She will be your partner from now on.” Madame B leads the introduction.

“Did something happened to Oksana?” Your brows pull together, voice small. Afraid to cross an unspoken boundary. She’s always been your partner.

“Oksana is no longer your concern.” The woman bites out. “Shake hands and prepare for your lesson.”

You nod, biting your tongue.

Lesson…

Sparring.

Dancing.

Captive simulations.

What will it be this time?

“Oksana is ok.” Yelena tells you, once the trainer is out of earshot.

“Good,” you whisper, holding your hand out to shake without another word.

“Is that why they kept you locked up so long? You don’t play well with others?” The blonde takes your hand, eyes narrowed into slits.

“I don’t play at all.” You inform her. Pleasing these people is your ticket out of here, and you will get out.

“Everybody plays, whether you want to or not.” Yelena tells you, letting your fingers slip from hers. “Just don’t get in my way.”

——————————————————————-

You don’t get in each other’s way. Somehow having Yelena as a combat partner is a lot less annoying than you anticipated.

Oksana is a better friend, but you aren’t here to make friends. You’re here to kill. Topple regimes from the inside out, Yelena helps you do that.

Your training with Yelena is different. Chipping away parts of you until you fit together seamlessly. From trust falls to synchronized attack plans, you name it you do it. Sometimes until you bleed.

One of your trainers, Ivan, has taken a liking to blind folded direction. Outside of captive simulations it is your least favorite team building activity.

You remind yourself to focus and breathe. In some ways guiding is worse than being guided. “Veer slightly to your right.”

Yelena lifts one bare foot, holding it airborne, allowing you to assess the placement of her next step. “Here?”

“Yeah,” you sigh, as she clears the bit of shattered glass. “That’s perfect.”

———————————————————————

Your first real assignment comes on Monday, June second.

“Come in, Miss American Pie. I have eyes on the target.” Yelena informs you through the ear piece.

“That’s still not my name, over. Stay high, I’m going down.” You reply, deploying your rope and riding it to the ground.

“Five ticks northwest and the package is yours.”

“Copy.” You follow her instruction, ducking away as a bullet shatters the window beside you. “Easy.” You chastise, in a hushed whisper.

“Sorry,” she apologizes half heartedly. The kill was necessary and she had a clean shot.

You spot your target, ready to turn onto the main street from the alleyway. You wrestle him to the ground, he puts up a good fight. Not good enough.

You wipe the blood from your hands before removing the usb drive from his breast coat pocket. “Just admit it,” you taunt, turning to the building Yelena is scoping from, “you’re proud of me.”

“Y/N!” Her tone is not playful at all.

What’s wrong? Before you get a chance to ask the man you’d assumed dead has his knife buried in your thigh.

You crumple to the ground as he prepares to strike again. In the time it takes to unholster your weapon a silent bullet reaches his temple from the sky.

You squint up at Yelena, watching her ride her teether down to the ground beside you. “Thanks.” You pant, inspecting the damage.

“That was sloppy,” she frowns, searching her pack for the midkit, then tearing open a package of gauze. “You always check the body, confirm the kill.”

“I know, I was stupid.” You gasp, feeling Yelena apply an obscene amount of pressure to your wound.

“We need to move to the extraction point, they can deal with you in medical.” Yelena rises, tossing your arm over her shoulder for support.

“It won’t happen again.” You promise, leaning heavily against her side.

“You’re right, it won’t. I have no idea what happens to me if you die.” She grumbles, somewhat bitterly.

———————————————————————

Interactions with Yelena are sparse after that. She doesn’t trust you. Only showing up for your lessons and leaving the moment they’re finished. You understand why she’s angry, you would be too.

According to your weekly rotation, today should be live target practice, however you are directed to a different room.

Once inside your eyes find the chair. You hate that chair. You hate this room. Nothing good ever happens here.

Slowly you move toward Yelena at the far wall.

“A little birdie told me that you’ve been holding back in combat lessons.” Ivan says, tapping a finger to his chin. “Why is that?”

You bite anxiously at the inside of your cheek.

“I said why is that?!”

You notice Yelena flinch from the corner of your eye. “It’s my fault,” you hold up a hand. “I took a hit on our last mission and my partner was being mindful of my injuries.”

“Oh I see.” He smirks, condescendingly. “You don’t want to hurt each other.”

“It would be counter productive to harm my partner.” Yelena points out. The red room drilled that into you.

“That is true.” His eyes dart between you. “But we can’t have you afraid of sparring together. Now can we?”

Your jaw ticks, awaiting the consequence.

“When’s the last time you girls ran a captive simulation?”

“Two weeks ago.” Yelena presents her left index finger to him for inspection. The nail just beginning to grow back.

Ivan hums, “When’s the last time you ran a captive simulation on each other?”

Your heart drops, all the blood running out of your face. Not for months.

“Hmm,” he wets his lips. “Who gets to play the captor first?”

Neither one of you volunteer.

“Belova,” he purrs. “Come choose your tools while Y/L/N straps herself into the chair.”

You don’t hesitate, it’ll be worse if you do. Tuning out his incessant chatter you find your seat. The metal chair sends a chill up your spine. Bending at the waist, you strap each ankle into a leather restraint, then your non dominant hand. Free hand waiting, curled around the arm rest.

Yelena kneels before you, her selections resting at your feet as she closes the final strap around your wrist. Your breath quickens.

“Fifteen minutes on the clock then you’ll switch.” Your spectator announces. “Make them count or we’ll start over.”

On autopilot Yelena reaches for the scalpel.

You don’t mean to scream…but eventually you do. You always do.

———————————————————————

Yelena knows your weaknesses and regularly exploits them to leave you face up on the floor during hand to hand combat sessions.

You used to resent her for it, but it made you strong. Stronger than you’ve ever been or hoped to be. The day you finally best her the room is filled with hushed whispers. Now you are ready.

You learn to move in harmony. The trainers ease up a bit and the other girls line up to watch you like an exhibit. You are two halves of a more perfect whole.

“Madame B, can I ask you something?” You say, fiddling with the hem of your shirt.

“Of course.” The older woman replies. “What is it?”

“Why was my training so different with Oksana?”

She leans in. “You were not brought here to be a partner to Oksana. She was standing in until we could be sure you were ready for a partner. Nothing more.”

“Was I brought here to be Yelena’s partner?” The question burns at the back of your throat.

“I understand the desire to seek meaning in these things. You hope to find your place in the world.”

You nod.

“But you have no place in the world,” the words cut like a knife. “What you do have is an opportunity to prove that you are not a waste of space, time, or resources. Come, let’s sit for debriefing.”

You wait in silence for Yelena to arrive, finally she does. Taking the seat beside you in the meeting room.

“In two days you will undergo the graduation ceremony, after which you are granted up to three days recovery time before you will be deployed to Moscow.” Madame B reviews the information, handing you each a folder of details.

“Enclosed you will find your identification cards and aliases. I suggest you take this time to familiarize yourselves. Tomorrow we will begin shooting photographs for the past two years of your lives. Report with several changes of clothing. Congratulations on this assignmet. It is a great honor.” Madame B dismisses you.

You open the file. ‘Katherine and Irena Reiner.’

“We’re sisters?” Yelena guesses.

Worse. “We’re married.”

“Even better.” She says under her breath, rising from the chair.

———————————————————————

Life in Moscow is different. Good. The neighbors are easy enough to convince. You play your parts to perfection.

The company you work for being the main focus. They have access to some sort of programming that Dreykov is desperate to get his hands on. You know better than to ask why.

Most mornings you get ready together, discussing the events of the previous day to prepare for the next.

“How come you only speak English?” Yelena wonders, turning off the steady spray of water from her shower and reaching out to grab a towel.

“I have a theory,” you reply, spitting excess toothpaste into the sink. “I think keeping me dependent on translation had more pros than cons.”

“They taught me.” She says, stepping onto the bath mat. “But I guess that’s different.”

You were brought in much older a majority of the other girls.

Your eyes meet in the mirror, seeing each other as if for the first time.

“I could teach you.” She offers, breaking the connection as she turns away.

“Yeah?” You pass the brush through your hair.

Yelena shrugs, “I have nothing better to do.”

“Just don’t teach me the wrong words to make me look stupid.” You arch a brow.

“It would be counter productive to harm my partner.”

Hours turn into days. Days into weeks and suddenly you stand on a blurred line. How much is she pretending? How much are you?

The two of you rest on opposite ends of the couch. Enjoying another round of prime time television.

“Yesterday I was talking to that girl in accounting.” Yelena pulls your attention from the picture.

“The blonde one?” You ask, tossing a piece of popcorn at her.

She attempts to catch it in her mouth. Having had more than a few drinks her coordination is lacking.

You smirk, when it falls into her lap.

“No Maggie.” She corrects you, finding the wayward piece and biting into it.

“Mmm.” You hum.

“Mmm? What do you mean, ‘mmm?’” Yelena’s brows pull together.

“Nothing,” you insist. “I was just acknowledging what you said.”

“You didn’t sound very happy about it. Did she do something to you?” Yelena demands, straightening her posture.

“No, she didn’t do anything. Anyway tell me what happened.”

“She’s worked there for a long time. I think she knows more than she says she does.”

“So are you gonna talk to her again? See if she’ll open up?” Yelena has that effect on people.

“I am married.” She rolls her eyes, flipping her left ring finger in place of the middle.

“Shut up.” You chuckle.

“I’m crazy about you, know you. Ever since we met in high school. You didn’t like me at first but you came around.” Yelena elaborates.

“I don’t remember seeing all that in our cover story.” You cock your head to the side.

“That was a shit story, I’m rewriting it.” She waves a hand.

“Tell me more.” Tell me everything.

———————————————————————

“Did you get milk?” You shout, peeking into the nearest paper bag.

“Was it on the list?” Yelena hollers back, from the front door, kicking it shut. Her arms full of groceries.

“I don’t remember,” you say, unpacking the head of lettuce and eggs.

“You made the list.” She scoffs, setting the rest of the haul on the floor.

A knock pulls your attention away from the food.

“Who is it?” You wonder.

“It’s me, George. From next door.” Your neighbor answers.

Yelena rolls her eyes, waving you out of the kitchen. It’s your turn to make small talk.

You step carefully around the produce to the main entrance. “Hey George.” You smile, swinging open the door, “what’s up?”

“Katherine!” He greets you. “Could I borrow Irena for a minute?”

“Is that lawnmower giving you trouble again?” You guess, leaning against the door frame.

“It’s running great actually. There’s something else I’m curious about though.”

“I can send her over after dinner.” You attempt to dismiss him.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” George moves his foot to prevent the door from closing, producing a pistol from his waistband.

“George!” Yelena waves, clearly oblivious.

“Irena,” he looks down at the gun, pointed at your chest, “we have much to discuss.”

“Clearly.” Yelena agrees, coming to join you on the threshold. “Are you going to tell me why you have my wife at gunpoint?”

“We should take this inside.”

“I’m good here.”

He presses the barrel against your skin through the fabric of your shirt. “You sure about that?”

“On second thought, I could go for a drink. Do you like scotch?” Yelena takes a step back, leaving room for him to enter the house.

“Who sent you?” George demands, guiding you into the kitchen.

“We also have brandy.” She says, expression unreadable.

“Who are you working for?” He asks a second time, adjusting his grip on the gun. “First one goes in her leg.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Yelena drawls. “But I’m going to warn you, if you hurt her, you die.”

“You have three seconds to give me a better answer,” the nuzzle of the gun sits flush against you upper thigh. “One, two-“

Yelena lunges, the gun firing into the floor when he’s knocked off balance.

George tosses her off as if she weighs nothing. You rush him, knocking the fire arm to the other side of the room. Your arms locked around his neck, flush to his back. He rams you back first into the china cabinet.

You fall away with a grunt.

“Now,” the man rights himself. Wiping away the blood from his split bottom lip with the back of his hand. “We’re going to have fun.”

Taking a fist full of your hair he begins pulling you toward the center of the room. You grab for a large shard of glass, slicing it over the back of this knee. He releases you, doubling over.

“I warned you.” Yelena snarls, stabbing her knife into his belly, making a straight line up to his sternum. “You thought you could use her to break me? They used to make me torture her! They used to make me-“ she breaks off, withdrawing her knife. Only to ram it in again and again.

George, if that was his real name, is long dead. A crimson puddle blooming on the floor. It doesn’t stop Yelena, hot, angry tears rolling past her cheeks.

“Yelena.” You say softly.

“They used to make me do it.” She repeats, the weight of the words crushing down on her.

Your arms envelope her from behind.

“No.” She sobs when she feels you there, holding exactly where it hurts.

“It’s ok.” You whisper against her ear.

The blood stained blade clatters to the ground. Her breathing ragged as both her hands find yours, squeezing tightly. Don’t let go.

“It’s ok.”

“No it’s not.” She cries, frantically shaking her head.

“I did it too.” As if she needs reminding. “They made me do it too.”

She allows you to stay curled around her, desperately trying to absorb some of that pain.

———————————————————————

Yelena’s drug of choice is alcohol, the spirits burn their way into her blood stream. Erasing all that she’s done.

“You want a glass?” She offers, setting the bottle of clear liquor down on the coffee table.

“No thanks.” You shake your head, hair still damp from the shower.

“Don’t be a hero,” she rolls her eyes as she takes a seat. The water had washed away any trace of George.

“Fine,” you take a long swig from the bottle in question.

“You’ll thank me later.” She tosses back a shot, sliding the strap of your pajama top down to assess the damage to your left shoulder. “It’s deep, going to need stitches. This is why we don’t go through china cabinets.” Yelena chastises, moving for the first aid kit.

“Yeah, not my finest moment.” You peek at her. “But it worked.”

“Mmm,” she hums, returning to her spot. Flipping open the white box and removing what she needs to stitch you up.

First she hits you with the antiseptic “сука!” Bitch.

“See,” you can hear the smile in her voice, “you are learning.”

You let out a pained laugh, “I guess I am. We need to call someone to clean this up.”

“Here,” she hands you her phone, blowing gently over you wound. “You take care of that, I take care of you.”

Your heart clenches at her words. But Yelena is your partner. That is all.

“Belova, do you have a status update?” A familiar voice answers after the first ring.

“Yeah, we need a cleanup.” You say matter of factly.

“Agent Y/L/N.” He greets you. “How many?”

“One.”

“For now,” The man remarks.

“You didn’t tell us we weren’t alone in this pursuit.” You purse your lips.

“There’s a reason we sent the best. I’ll put in for a clean up crew in the morning.”

“Let them know the body is in the bathtub.”

The goes dead.

The conversation distracts you well enough from the dull ache of the needle poking and pulling at your shoulder.

Carefully Yelena bandages the abused skin. Her finger tips running along the back of your arm.

“Thank you.” You whisper, relaxing into her touch.

Her lips ghost over your skin. “You’re welcome.”

Oh.

Slowly you turn, as if not to startle her. Yelena’s eyes find yours.

You move closer, tracing the line of her jaw. “Thank you,” you repeat.

She nods, still unsure.

“Of all the people I could’ve been stuck here with…I’m glad it was you.”

“You don’t have to say that.” She pulls your hand away gently.

“You’re right. I don’t have to say anything.“ You murmur, “But I want to… and it would be counter productive to harm my partner.”

“We can’t.” She knows it. You know it. “It will get in the way. They’ll kill us.”

“No.” You chuckle bitterly. “They’ll make us kill each other.”

“I wouldn’t do it,” Yelena insists.

“You won’t have a choice.” You point out. “Didn’t you hear about that stuff they started pumping into people?”

“Mind control.” Yelena replies in Russian.

“It’s only a matter of time.”

“Maybe we get out.”

“Maybe,” you smile sadly, “maybe we find each other.” In another life.

———————————————————————

Three days later Yelena comes home late. During your day off you were tasked with the more mundane tasks of running a household, but you suppose there are worse things. She finds you in the laundry room, drink already in hand. Her mouth set in a frown.

“What’s wrong?” You drop the piece of clothing back into the basket.

“I have it.” Yelena confesses.

You press your lips together, you knew this was coming. That information is the only reason you are here. “Did you contact them?”

“Not yet.”

“Are you going to?”

“You say that like I have a choice.” She stares down at her drink.

“I just meant-“

“I know what you meant.” Yelena knows you, better than anyone. The red room saw to that. “Do you want to stay one more night?”

“Do you?” You wonder.

“When I was a little girl…I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye.”

“In the morning,” you offer. Any longer and the risk will be too great. “We’ll go in the morning.”

She nods, taking in the room around her. “I wanted it to be real.”

“It was.” You choke down the lump in your throat.

———————————————————————

Your return to the red room is swift. No pat on the back or celebration to be had. Just two pawns, returning to their places on the board.

You’re separated from Yelena. Because your loyalties are to each other and that poses a threat. But what did they expect? They made you this way.

You are alone. Perhaps the most alone you’ve ever been. Or maybe you’d just forgotten that you could feel things. You remember now and wish you didn’t.

Like it or not she changed you. Knowing her had changed you, for better or for worse. After Yelena you were never the same.

Word of Oksana’s escape only fuels the need to chemically alter the minds of all agents. Beginning in order of importance.

Finding Yelena seated on the bench outside the physician’s office steals the breath from your lungs. To see her now is blatantly cruel and calculated.

Still you sit in the empty space beside her.

“Do you know where your orders are?” She asks.

“Yeah,” you nod, “Budapest. You?”

“Back to Moscow.” Yelena informs you.

You swallow hard, your pinkies skating past each other.

“Agent Y/L/N,” the doctor opens his door. You watch as another widow exits, she doesn’t look any different. Maybe the mind control drugs aren’t affective.

You steal one last glance at Yelena. Her eyes are desperate, ‘don’t go.’ Both of you knowing you can’t stay.

“Enjoy Moscow.” You whisper, moving reluctantly to your feet.

She tears her gaze away, unable to watch you leave. “I hear Budapest is beautiful.”

You hope so.

Wanna know what happens next? Check out chapter one of Miss American Pie! 💜

Yelena Belova Taglist: @captainwonderwidow

[thefanficmonster]

What's It To You?

Corpse Husband x Reader (Female)

Warnings: Swearing

Genre: Angst, Fluff

Summary: To some people, relationship labels aren’t important. To some they aren’t important only in theory. Well, Y/N finds out she falls in the later category, leading to a falling out with her boyfriend Corpse.

Requested by Anon. You’ll know who you are when you read the fic 😉 Thank you for the ‘angsty argument’ request. I hope I captured what you had in mind and I hope you enjoy the read. Love, Vy 🥰

The time is nearing 7PM and Corpse has barely eaten anything. I always keep track of his meals and time spent in front of a computer screen, making sure he doesn’t spend too much time exhausting his eyes or starving himself. He never notices he’s hungry until he takes a bite of something and his appetite grows in  matter of seconds. The real battle is to get him to take that first bite.

I get up from the couch, walking into the kitchen. I open the fridge, scanning its contents for any ideas that might pop into my head for dinner. When nothing comes to mind, I resort to my last option - asking him. There’s only a slight chance he’ll be of any help. He’ll most likely say he’s not hungry or that he’ll make himself something late. He never does. I’ve gotten used to him being a man-child when it comes to eating. In the eleven months that we’ve been dating, I’ve force fed him more times than he has eaten on his own terms.

I go upstairs, stopping outside the door to his recording room to see if he’s talking to someone so I don’t walk in and interrupt. When no noises come from the inside I knock. 

“Come in.“ 

Upon opening the door, I’m met with Corpse nonchalantly sitting in his desk chair, leaning as back as he can without tipping over. Arms folded behind his head, legs stretched out in front of him. The whole nine yards, suggesting that he not streaming.

“Hey.“ He greets me as he turns his chair a bit in an attempt to face me

“Hey, what’d you like for dinner?“ He opens his mouth to reply the millisecond after I have spoken my question. I already know what that reply will be so I hurry to prevent it, “And no, ‘later’ and ‘I’m not hungry’ aren’t on the menu.“

He sighs, shaking his head as though he’s disappointed that I caught onto his game. The smile that slowly makes its way to his lips, however, suggests that he appreciates my concern. “Grilled cheese sandwiches? I mean, if you feel like it.”

I smile, relieved that the usual convincing portion of our interaction on this specific matter has been avoided. “Ok. Be down in fifteen then.” I give him a nod before heading back out into the hallway.

Before I am able to close the door, I hear someone else’s voice come from behind me. “Hey Corpse, was that on your end?”

Oh shit, he wasn’t muted

“Yeah man, sorry. Accidentally unmuted myself.“ Corpse sounds unbothered by this, but I am a little uneasy now.

Corpse and I have agreed to keep our relationship by a ‘won’t ask, won’t tell’ rule - if someone asks him if he’s in a relationship, he won’t lie and say no, but we haven’t gone public nor do we plan on doing so without someone asking us about it head-on. Well, not us. Him. His friends don’t know me and neither do his fans. I’m not in the same industry. I don’t stream nor film YouTube videos. The most I do for that platform is help Corpse with some editing when he needs to have a rest. So, if anyone were to reveal our relationship, it’d be him.

“Oooh, who was that?“ A girl’s voice asks teasingly. “Corpse, what are you not telling us?“

By this point, I’m out in the hall but I left my ears in the room. I know I’m not in the right here - eavesdropping is most definitely not nice, but I can’t help myself.

I hear him chuckle, “Nah, it’s just my friend Y/N.”

My heart drops so suddenly for a reason beyond my understanding. I feel like a kid feels when it’s told Santa isn’t real - I can’t believe what I heard. 

I hurry to get back downstairs as soon as possible and also as quietly as I can. It’s tough, running with a pit in your stomach and a knot of I’m pretty sure is tears in your throat. When I’m finally in the kitchen, the aforementioned tears are blurring my vision. I try to blink them away but accidentally send one of them trickling down my cheek.

I’m aware this might be an overreaction and if I stopped to think I could probably find ways to justify what Corpse said. But I’m genuinely hurt, and I hate that I am.

I’ve never cared about what others know about me or think of me. Same goes for my relationships. I don’t put labels on things nor on my connection to people. I am surprised and disturbed by how much the label ‘friends’ bothers me. We’ve been dating for almost a year now, you’d think calling me his girlfriend would be second nature. Guess not.

I swallow the hurt and surprise, deciding to keep myself busy with the preparations for the dinner I was planning to make. However, keeping my hands full and giving my eyes a place to look doesn’t stop my thoughts from eating away at me. 

                                                             * * *

Twenty minutes later the sound of a door opening echoes from upstairs, followed by the sound of footsteps going through the hallway and then down the stairs. 

“It smells so good in here.“ He comments, his eyebrows raising when he takes in the freshly made sandwiches on the kitchen island. “You’re the best, Y/N.“

“Hmm, aren’t you lucky you have a friend who knows their way around the kitchen, huh?“ I reply sharply, not even sparing him a glance.

In the twenty minutes I was left alone with my wilding thoughts I declared that I wouldn’t beat around bush when he comes downstairs. That I would address the issue and tell him exactly how I feel about it. What I didn’t plan was being so harsh. I actually barely contain a wince when I realize how sharp of an edge my words had.

I feel ten times more guilty when I see the regret that flashes on his face, “You heard that.” He grips the edges of the table, leaning down and letting out a sigh, “I’m sorry, I panicked.”

The anger in me evaporates, leaving room for the hurt to keep spreading and take over me. I was never really angry with him, I’m just upset by the fact that his immediate reaction wasn’t to refer to me as his girlfriend. 

“Why would you panic? What’s it to you if they know?“ My voice is barely above a whisper now, the tears I’m fighting back are clogging my throat, not allowing me to sound as clearly as I’d like.

“What’s it to you? I thought you didn’t care.“ He argues back, his gaze travelling from the tabletop to my eyes. I see the guilt in all his features and his body language.

“I thought so too.“ I shake my head, “But hearing you call me a ‘friend’...’just a friend’ stings. I don’t even know why, but it does. It feels almost like you are embarrassed of me. If that’s the case you can just tell me, you know?“

In a blink of an eye he’s crouched down in front of me, one hand holding both of mine while the other cups my cheek. “It’s not. It has never been and it will never be the case. You are one amazing person, Y/N. You deserve the world, not to be stuck with me. I’m just...” He trails off, his eyes not able to focus on mine any longer, “I’m scared of how people knowing about us will affect our relationship.”

My blood starts boiling again. I know I need to get away from him before I reach the point of saying something that’ll hurt him, so I untangle my hands from his grasp, pulling away from him. “Weak excuse, Corpse. You know it will change nothing except make me feel more included in your life. I will no longer feel like I’m a house rat no one knows about.” I stand up, unable to look at him, and start heading for the staircase. 

“Y/N, please! ”I stop dead in my tracks when he calls out my name, his footsteps following behind me. “Don’t be...-”

I turn around, cutting him off in the process, “I need to be alone right now.” I tilt my head in the direction of the dining table, “Sit down and eat dinner. We’ll talk...later.”

                                                             * * *

Now that it’s been almost twelve hours with no contact between us I realize that my reaction was justified only to a certain extent. I understand his concerns and I could’ve expressed mine a little more calmly and in a lot less accusatory manner. But what happened happened and all I can do now is go over to him and apologize, establish a proper communication to resolve the issue that I so stupidly blew out of proportion.

My phone died sometime during the night and has been sitting on the charger but still turned off for a while. I go over to it and press-hold the start button. While it’s powering up I start changing my from my pajamas into my regular clothes, noticing a small stain on my shirt in the process. As I’m examining the stain, my phone starts going crazy with notifications, causing me to jump and drop my shirt.

“Fucking hell.” I mumble, disconnecting my phone from the charger and looking at the huge list of notifications on my lock screen. They are all alerts of new followers, likes and tags, non from people I know. Non except one.

@ corpse_husband tagged you in a post 

Wait what?

I tap the notification which leads me to a picture Corpse posted two hours ago. It’s a picture of me taken in the living room without my knowledge. I’m an oversized sweater and yoga pants, my hair in a messy braid and my attention caught by the book in my hands. My glasses have slipped a bit down my nose, suggesting that I’m too concentrated on the contents of the pages in front of me that I haven’t noticed.

We started off as friends but it didn’t take long for her to become my best friend. And then she stole my heart. I know you’ll read this eventually, Y/N. So...hi. Love you. 

PS - the sandwiches were bomb 🖤

I’m more than caught off guard. Like a surprise hug from behind, warmth spreading all throughout my body. 

Without a second of hesitation I put my phone down and run to the bedroom door. However, I don’t make it very far considering I nearly run straight into Corpse’s chest as I exit the room. He catches me before I knock him straight to the ground, thankfully.

“Aren’t you a rocket this morning. Where are you headed?“ He chuckles, holding onto my upper arms.

One look at his smile, a single word out of his mouth and I’m melting. I walk straight into him, wrapping my arms around his torso, hiding my face in his chest. He comfortably rests his chin on the top of my head, not asking any further questions until I finally answer.

“Right here. I was heading for you.“ I whisper before I pull away enough to be able to look him in the eyes. “I wanted to tell you how sorry I am. I was being childish and overdramatic and I’m sorry about all I said. I was really upset.“

“It’s ok, baby. I’m sorry for making you upset in the first place. I understand now how much it means to you.“ He caresses my cheekbone with the back of his hand. “I...um...tried to make things right by...“

I push up on my toes, pressing my lips against his, putting an end to his timid stuttering. “I saw it.” I mumble in the kiss.

“Did you like it?“ 

“I loved it.“

“Did you read the comments?“

My heart skips a beat when I hear that dreaded term. Just the thought of reading through the comments terrifies me. I tell myself that some strangers’ words aren’t gonna have an impact on me, but I know they will. Especially since these ‘strangers’ mean so much to Corpse.

I shake my head. He pulls away, taking my hand and leading me towards the living room. “You have to. You’re gonna love them.”

I reluctantly follow him, plopping down on the couch next to him as he pulls out his phone and scrolls through the comment section of the picture he posted. He was right. All these people have said such things about me and about our relationship. Some verified names are also there, sharing their support much like the fans. 

“See, this is why I was nervous. I’ll have to do duels for your attention now.“ He glances at me, leaning in and kissing my temple as he sometimes does so impulsively.

“You don’t do duels when you are already sitting at the throne. Right next to me.“ I once again capture his lips with mine, tempted to never pull away, but also tempted to keep reading the comments.

Damn, he might be right about the duels.

He takes his phone from me setting it aside as he slowly lifts me and settles me in his lap, never letting our lips detach.

Nevermind. Fuck the duels

@susceptible-but-siriusexual  @simonsbluee  @save-the-sky  @hacker-ghost  @itsminniekat  @bi-andready-tocry  @imtiredaffff  @jazzkaurtheglorious  @hereforbeebo  @fandomgirl17  @chrysanthykios  @maehemscorpyus  @loraleiix  @letsloveimagines  @annshit  @i-cant-choose-a-username-help  @enigmaticmaze

[markantonys]

lord of chaos chapters 7-23

“you [elayne] have a lion’s courage and maybe a fisherbird’s sense” that’s my girl!!!!

elayne and nynaeve always wishing they were as brave as the other is so wholesome

thom and juilin are not around because they went on a trip to amadicia. after being overworked dads to elayne and nynaeve for 2 books they decided to get married and are now enjoying a nice honeymoon conducting espionage together, good for them!

“the dragon reborn had no interest in the flyspeck village where rand al’thor had grown up; he was far beyond that” and then a few pages later when he sees the two rivers girls “[wondering why verin and alanna were poking around] was hardly most important anyway. these girls were from home.” 😭😭😭

if i were to record all the rand moments that hurt my heart in these chapters then i would just be copying out his entire pov sections into this post, so i will attempt to limit myself

i hate how desperate the two rivers folk are to make perrin their lord. wasn’t their whole culture about wanting to rule themselves and not having any respect for nobility? smh

alanna non-consensually bonded rand as her warder!!! holy shit!!!!!! given that i’ve been spoiled on so much, i think this might be the biggest shock i’ve had so far. i knew alanna was somehow sus bc people kept saying “i can’t believe the show made me like alanna” lmao but i was NOT expecting this!!!! how on earth is this plotline gonna play out???

poor poor rand. his freakout is so understandable and justified, but it hurts to see him losing it at the two rivers girls and scaring them. i doubt this would happen in the show since show!bode is too young to be brought to the tower for training, but imagine show!mat’s reaction to hearing that rand channeled on his sister and scared her so much she cried 🗡️💔 rand would be a dead man walking

“best that [the girls] wanted to stay clear of him. best for them. he just wished he could have talked a little while longer about home. a little while longer with them seeing only rand al’thor.” 😭😭😭😭

“it would be so wonderful to channel whenever she wanted. she never even noticed the tears that began leaking down her cheeks.” 😭😭😭 i wonder if nynaeve will ever get unblocked, surely she must for her own character development if nothing else, but on the other hand her block is a good way of making sure she isn’t too OP since she’s one of the most powerful channelers in the book (aside from rand, who has the taint on saidin keeping HIM from being too OP)

gawyn in his dreams seeing himself as less handsome than egwene thinks he is and her as more beautiful 🥺 fuck me that’s cute ok?

nevertheless egwene’s sudden internal declaration of love for gawyn is insane. last i heard she was conflicted between him and galad, and even then only very far in the back of her mind. she’s barely ever thought about him!

skipping a few chapters ahead but it’s relevant here: we learn that galad is rand’s half-brother (which i’d already been spoiled on), however, i’ve heard that the two of them never meet again for the rest of the series. so WHAT is the fucking POINT??? this is the problem with having so many characters and plotlines spread so far across the world. all the relationships become missed opportunities or dropped threads, or incredibly rushed to force a bond between characters who interacted twice 3 books ago. i would kill to have fewer plotlines in exchange for more characters being in a single plotline together more often. argh!!!!

**vague spoilers in this bullet point for information in future books that i’m not supposed to know about yet but do** “[in egwene’s dream] two ravens alighted on [mat’s] shoulders, claws sinking through his coat into the flesh beneath. he seemed no more aware of them than perrin had been of the hawk and falcon, yet defiance passed across his face, and then grim acceptance.” 😔😔 baby boy you deserve better (from the vague spoilers i’ve heard about your fate anyway). it is interesting that ravens are a seanchan thing as well as a dark one thing, if i didn’t know otherwise from spoilers i’d probably think that all these ravens in mat’s future meant he would become evil and join the dark one

“that awful amnesty of [rand’s] had been announced in cairhien, but surely no man would choose to channel.” do you think they can help it any more than you can, egwene? do you think it’s any less a part of them than it is a part of you? another entry in the male-channeling-as-metaphor-for-queerness list

the wise ones saying egwene has become like a daughter of their tents 🥺🥺 i will be very sad when she has to leave them and return to the aes sedai

“[gareth] might be cold toward [elayne] now, but once he had had a warm smile for a child and a pocket that always held hard candies.” poor elayne wants a dad so bad!! i hope she gets to meet tam al’thor someday. she probably won’t but she deserves to.

“[nynaeve] shoved her chin up in a ridiculous fashion so she had to look down her nose to see elayne” jsdkfjg ELAYNE i love you and your lack of self-awareness

“with the dragon scepter across his knees, rand lounged on the dragon throne” the Rand Bisexual Sitting counter has ticked up by 1

“my lord dragon, lord of the morning, prince of the dawn, true defender of the light, before whom the world kneels in awe” what a sexy list of titles

rand constantly thinking of moiraine’s advice 🥺

“even mat had the sense to stay away from a woman if he thought he would harm her” i feel like this is the nicest thing anyone’s ever had to say about mat’s approach to romance lmao poor mat

i am so conflicted about berelain. it’s hard to look past her predatory behavior towards rand and perrin back in tsr, and yet other women are so awful and slut-shamey to her that it makes me want to stan her out of spite. “[the wise ones] treated her as a woman of sense and respect, which made no sense at all to egwene...the mayener flaunted herself in scandalous clothes and flirted outrageously” maybe the wise ones aren’t so petty and shallow that they focus on the way berelain dresses over her intelligence and leadership skills, egwene.

i think i would like to see berelain get a real love interest who actually loves her heart and mind and not just her appearance. that would be very nice for her.

“he pulled one of the gilded chairs around to face her and sprawled in it, booted feet stretched out in front of him” Rand Bisexual Sitting counter up 1 more

“he looked so tired. and hard, hard enough to make the smile appear odd. he seemed harder every time she saw him.” “she had changed so much from the girl he grew up with...he had to think of her as aes sedai. it was saddening.” 🗡️💔 i didn’t care all that much about rand and egwene’s relationship in the show and i cared about it far less in the books, but man it hurts to watch it deteriorate

“whatever the car’a’carn wanted, nothing must happen to the only son of  a maiden ever to come back to them.” AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

“rand thought that he would sleep well that night” LMAO famous last words

“[bael] had two [wives], which mat always said was either a dream or a nightmare and he could not decide which” rand really wants us to know what mat’s thoughts on polyamory are

we finally meet the famous elder haman! and loial’s mom! now i see where loial gets his hastiness from. speaking of loial, i miss him so much!!!

sad state of things indeed that going back to shadar logoth makes me nostalgic for the good old days. i want my ef5 back together goddammit!!!! i feel like my liveblogs for the whole second half of the series are just going to be me complaining about how split up everyone is

“rand stared north and west, not toward emond’s field, but toward the farm where he had grown up. when he turned away and opened a gateway to caemlyn, it was like tearing his own arm off” 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 out of all the rand moments that have hurt me, this one is towards the top. my whole chest is aching!! physically!!

mat’s thoughts about how hard it is to keep elayne and nynaeve out of trouble being interrupted by someone asking if he’s ever wondered what it would be like to be a warder SHOULD be foreshadowing and i am so MAD that it isn’t. i see your mat being rand’s warder AUs and i raise you mat being elayne’s warder AU! gimme!!

“if any two women needed looking out for less, mat did not know them” mat drank his respecting women juice “but no two were more likely to get a man killed because they would not listen to reason” mat spat out his respecting women juice

he’s so cute tho he’s like “i hope they’re okay. but also i hope they’re in trouble and wishing i was there to help them. not TOO much trouble though, i don’t want them to get hurt or anything! i just want them to miss me that’s all” when will these 3 admit they’re besties

every time mat’s habit of collecting cool rocks and feathers and shit is mentioned i receive +1000 emotional damage. and despite how accustomed he’s gotten to wealth, it’s still cool rocks and feathers and shit that he likes to collect instead of expensive items. he is my baby boy.

and olver collects things like that TOO AAAHHHHHH STOP!! MY HEART

“now he had saddled himself with a boy” accidental baby acquisition realness! mat, hugging olver tight and actively seeking out adoption papers: i can’t believe i’ve been saddled with this boy

[punemy-spotted]

Of Blackbirds and Barons: Chapter 1

Chapter 1: You Make The Rain Fall Harder

Relationships: Mob!Helmut Zemo x Reader; CEO!Billy Russo x Reader; Mob!Helmut Zemo x Reader x CEO!Billy Russo

Warnings: Non-con/Dub-con; Dark!Fic; Mob and Mafia Elements; Character Death (Minor and Major); Threesome; Possessive/Obsessive Characters; Blackmail/Coercion; Kidnapping; Mentions of War; Human Rights Violations; Contract Killing; Mafia AU; Possible Dead Dove: Would Not Eat; Complete Disregard for Actual Rules of Journalism and Style Guides; Other Chapter-Specific Warnings May Apply

Chapter Specific Warnings: Non-con; Drugging/Date-Rape; Fingering (F-Receiving); Vaginal Sex; Unprotected Sex; Possible Breeding Kink; Kidnapping; Obsessive/Possessive Zemo; Dark!Zemo; Human Rights Violations; Discussion of Destruction of Novi Grad and Sokovia; Dead Dove: Do Not Eat

Chapter Summary: The problem with having sympathy for the Devil is that he will drag you down to Hell regardless.

Author’s Notes: Another series! Because I can’t get enough of Mob!AUs! Zemo makes his dark entrance. And this IS dark, so read at your own discretion. As always, all of my work is 18+ ONLY, MINORS DO NOT INTERACT.

Masterlist

The long tradition of the Duchy of Sokovia, that which once stood the test of time against the Tsars of Russia, began to crumble long before its borders did, its sweeping architecture and decadent mystery giving way to the sharp lines of Brutalism and the characteristic industrialism of the Eastern Bloc. Still, the Sokovian people managed to maintain their identity in the face of a new kind of empire, bringing greenery and art to a brisk, concrete world.

There is no Sokovia now, not the way one would think, but there are still Sokovians scattered around the world, clinging to the traditions of their once-home and searching for a banner to be united under.

A banner carried by a man like Helmut Zemo.

The caret blinks back at you with a mocking sort of finality, a metronome counting down the seconds to your ultimate frustration. Once. Twice. Thrice — you lose count, staring at the screen until your vision crosses and the words blur together, until only his name remains.

Zemo.

Baron Helmut Zemo.

Your notes are expansive, excessive, papers strewn about you and you look at each scribbled anecdote, each carefully dictated word, each photograph you have annotated until it is more red marker than actual picture and you are… frustrated.

Where do you put all that passion? He asked you over champagne and charcuterie.

You know this man.

You know this man like you know your own soul. You know this man who has bared his soul to you in turn and how are you supposed to impress upon the world that he has shown you the broken heart beating slow and painful in his chest in just a thousand words?

There is nothing. Nothing you can do, nothing you can saywhich could even begin to encompass the horrors which he has experienced and now as you painstakingly tap out word after word describing the grand beauty of his apartment, you wonder if this really was what your life was meant to be.

These are… fluff.

This is a man who has managed to unite an entire fractured country under his royal banner and yet the project wants to know about the indoor garden of his apartment, wants to photograph him in fine suits and know his haircare routine and this can’t be it. This can’t be the face of the man you see everywhere now, moreso since you picked up the assignment, purple-masked and surrounded by brass wings, over the homes of Sokovians all over New York.

And not just there.

I am a man, he told you with his hand on your thigh, But I can become an idea. And an idea is immortal.

You let your eyes skim over the photographs you took, a collection of banners and graffiti and billboards all proclaiming the need for the Sokovian people to come together and heal. To show that their small country — broken and divided in the wake of an attack by a rich megalomaniac’s private military — could not be taken down simply because its borders had been erased and its capitol turned to rubble.

We live in an age of information, and through information we are boundless.

It should terrify you.

It does terrify you.

But inside of that terror is a sick fascination with the man, isn’t there? That’s the trouble with you investigative types — peel back the layers enough and you find yourself capable of feeling sympathy for anyone.

He flaunts his power, and yet it’s innocent. Is it so wrong, then, to want to bring my country back to its glory?

No, you remember answering shakily, but not as well as you remember the pinpricks of heat his fingers left on your skin when that gloved hand brushed over you arm.

Breathe deep, hover fingers over your keyboard and try not to feel like you owe him the weight of the world. He approved of this, even suggested a word count and a topic of conversation — any chance to put his name out into the consciousness of the public, it seemed, to raise interest for the gallery by raising interest for the cause. Make it indulgent. My people, they enjoy art. They enjoy knowing that their leaders have preserved the past for them.

So do it.

… Baron Zemo’s New York penthouse is its own garden amongst a sea of steel and stone, a veritable museum of priceless artworks rescued from what remained of Sokovian museums and ministry buildings. It is, in its own way, an ode to the spirit of Sokovia, which lives on in the hearts and minds of its people around the world. He displays artworks of the many displaced Sokovians, gesturing broadly to a 3D model of an art gallery he intends to have built near the memorial at Novi Grad — with the consent of the Slovakian government — and speaking fondly of his intention to showcase the lost art of Sokovia as a reminder that loss of land cannot be the loss of an identity…

The artworks, they will be painful at first. But the gallery will showcase more and more, and eventually we will have hope.

He waves a gloved hand over the pieces he has preserved. Sokovian history. Scenic expanses, fields and flowers, a city skyline dotted with domed cathedrals. Each painting marred some way too, you can see when you look close. Patched canvas, the dusting of ash and rubble in the corner of an ornate frame, a trick of the light revealing repainting to cover up damage.

A stone hoof sits on a bookshelf, The attached horse and rider blown to rubble in the attack. I’m told it was of Emperor Ferdinand, but my archivists have not been able to confirm, he tells you as he stands behind you, his hand resting soft on the small of your back.

Come. There is more to be seen.

More to be experienced.

His living room is a garden.

It smells like fresh jasmine the moment you walk in, ivy climbing the walls and you swear you can hear birdsong from more than the pigeons cooing outside. Flower arrangement is an often looked down upon art, but the gardens in Sokovia were impeccable. My father won several awards for his pieces before his…

He trails off and you watch him, seeing the pain paint his face as openly as if he meant for you to watch the facade crack and then back to that placid, pleasant calm, a serpentine smile on his face as he extends to you a hand and guides you to the open air of his balcony and bids you Sitbids you Enjoy bids you I have looked forward to his meeting.

It is a pleasure to meet you, Baron Zemo, you begin politely, tucking a lock of hair behind your ear and trying to avoid the way his eyes follow your fingers, feeling seen, We’re grateful for the honor of your patronage for this piece, we know you could have —

Nonsense, he cuts you off with a wave of his hand, gesturing to his butler and then leaning back comfortably in his seat as champagne and various cheeses are brought forth, You are my guest, and I am grateful you agreed to come meet me here, to assist with my… project. Now. Please, enjoy, I do not want to treat this as strictly business.

Is that why he had you come alone?

Don’t.

Don’t dwell on it.

It happens all the time, right? It has to.

A somewhat reclusive man, not keen to be in the limelight, in need of public attention to achieve his goals — you are a means to an end and he is your means to an end, surely you can understand.

Is that why he wipes the honey from your lips and kisses it off his fingers?

This is going to be a difficult conversation and you know it. You can only gush over houseplants and rose décor for so long before it becomes… trite, before you’re a part of the problem, painting a shining veneer over a half-decade old injustice

But he is warm, warm and friendly and you cannot help but laugh to his response when you draw attention to the architecture to draw attention from your blush — Very modern, yes. We are in New York, after all, and the old ways are fine for country houses but not so fine, for sunny penthouse apartments —not noticing the way he looks like he’s just smelled blood at the sound of it, the narrowing of his eyes and the hiding of his inscrutable expression behind a sip of champagne.

Well then. Shall we get started?

Of course.

Why don’t we start with your plans for opening night?Your notepad is out, the recorder sitting in front of you to pick up the sound of your voice and his, ready to commit everything to memory.

Of course. We cannot deny the… elephant in the room, I think you Americans call it. There are many who took pictures of the aftermath of the attack, and not enough who have seen it immortalized…

… The tragedy of Novi Grad and the consequential absorption of Sokovia into its surrounding countries weighs heavy in the Baron’s living room, draped in ivy and jasmine and hanging vines but also in photographs of what was left after a private military corporation chose to turn human lives into a war game.

No one knows who Ultron is, only that he is dangerous, that his technology rivals that of the SHIELD Syndicate’s Tony Stark, that he is willing to ally himself to the highest bidder, and that he is fully capable of unleashing endless destruction upon the world…

You will never forget the photographs he shows you, all that death and destruction in the golden light of his balcony, all that warmth and all you can see is cold bodies bathed in concrete dust.

They call to you, when you close your eyes — answer for our crimes — and you remember the way his voice changes too, so soft and solemn, the brush of fingers against yours when you touch the bombed out shell of a country mansion My home, in Sokovia, to the gray-and-blood horror which forms the centerpiece of his display, and you remember your research too, that the Baron is a widow, that his title is inherited from the most tragic of circumstances, that his son was an innocent lost in the attack and you are furious too, at the senselessness of it all.

It is a tragedy yet unanswered for, more than half a decade since the dust settled.

That quote sits front and center on your mock-up, wondering if you could make whatever editor who would inevitably rip this piece to shreds — just before publishing its corpse alongside some glamour picture of the Baron his coat — finally see the error of ignoring the tragedy. You won’t, but it’s worth a shot, as you lean back in your chair and stare at the screen again.

Sometimes you think about it.

Watching Novi Grad happen from the comfort and safety of your living room, wrapped in blankets as open war broke out in the capital city of what had once been a crown jewel in an ancient dynasty. A playground, a show of force.

Sometimes you hear the screams.

The blinking carat waits for you to add more to this story, to decide where you want to go.

… The Baron plays a game with his interview, insists on knowing his guests just as we insist on getting to know the enigmatic leader who has risen up a beacon for the displaced people of his homeland. We will not be recreating our answers in this article, as they were of course of a personal nature, but we do thank the Baron for taking the time to get to know us just as he bared his soul, his sorrows, and his hopes to a gaggle of strangers seeking to make him known to the world…

Tell me of you, sweetling.

Me? This interview is about you.

And so I must tell all my secrets for free? No, I insist. A secret for a secret.

He watches you with a hunger, coal-black eyes an invitation. Slide your gaze away or fall and who knows what depths he will drag you into and what you will find there?

No.

Don’t look, don’t look as you sip the tea Oeznik brought when you politely declined the champagne — Another time, probably — and let it brace you with its bitterness, let it clear your head.

Breathe.

You’re in too deep now, trapped in this cave of wonders… and wouldn’t it be worth it? Know him as he knows you, follow the trajectory of the smiling man before you.

What would you like to know?

Tell me how you taste his eyes whisper.

Tell me what it would take says the curve of his fingers over your hand.

Let me put you on display hums the razor-blade of his smile.

Tell me what drives a woman to take on such a … dangerous line of work, is the final inquiry, innocent and curious and gentle and you sip your tea and smile.

Is it dangerous?

You must know how many secrets you uncover — and the lengths the keepers will go to in order to hide them.

If people get hurt, shouldn’t I bring that to light?

How noble of you, he tells you with another hum, with his fingers squeezing yours, with his eyes fixed on the gaze you refuse to send his way, It must be quite thrilling.

Let me thrill you too, sweetling.

Pull away.

Do it.

Pull your hand away, make an act of it, pick up a candied strawberry and press it past your lips, let the sweetness soak your tongue and wash away the bitter thoughts, let yourself be bright and chipper and pretend you are not afraid.

Because you’re not.

Of course you’re not.

You are in control here, you must be in control here.

This is nothing. This is a casual interview with a handsome man in his handsome penthouse, an interview about architecture and art galleries and you were a correspondent once and you are meant to be friendly here, not afraid, so what are you afraid of?

What is it about his coal-dark eyes and too-sharp smile that turns your blood, that sends you back into your hutch, little rabbit, what is it about the way he prowls at the corner of your thoughts that makes you shudder so?

What are you running from?

Who are you running from?

Your turn, sweetling.

Mmh?

Our deal, or have you forgotten already?

Yes. You have.

It’s his eyes, you keep insisting to yourself. They drag you in, so dark it feels like you’re drowning in the void of them, searching for the light at the end of the tunnel.

It’s a chase.

It’s what you’re good at.

Right — I’m sorry, I’m…

You blink.

Once.

Twice.

Thrice.

The fog in your thoughts doesn’t fade, confusion crossing over your features and ill delight crossing over his. All you had was tea, tea and some of the candied fruit his butler brought for your enjoyment, how can you feel so…

Hazy?

So…

Upturned?

Something clatters behind you and you realize it’s the chair you were sitting on as you stand, unsteady and abrupt, lost in the moors of your own frantic thoughts and there is his hand on your elbow, so careful and soft and there are his lips before yours, so…

Tempting.

Somewhere, a woman croons to you of falling rain and rushing blood and the room does spin round as you stand still in the open air of a desire that is yours and not your own all at once. Shhh, shhh, let me help you whispered in your ear, a hand to your cheek and you…

You blink.

Reality flows into view like a sudden bath of ice water. Jerk away from his iron grip, raise your hands and try to resist, shake your head and N-no, I think. I think I need to go, I’ll just call a cab —

I cannot let you do that, sweetling. Not when you are finally within my reach.

His hold is steady. Unbreakable, even, as he pulls you close and you might even be dancing with the way his arm wraps around your waist the moment you fall into his chest, Don’t look so afraid, sweetling. No one will hurt you, here.

I will protect you like a jewel.

Your mind is still yours — the dose was just enough — but your limbs? Your limbs are tied to his strings, lost as he guides you right back inside, lost as he gestures for Oeznik to close off the balcony.

Your place is somewhere else now.

You belong underneath me.

He guides you inside, jasmine intoxicating your senses and wisps of smoke seeming to float past your eyes. Reality blends into the fantasy, the Baron and his prize, the gentle touch against your soft cheek, the cradling against his form and he is…

Determined.

A door opens. A portal into another kind of decadence, with soft sheets and softer touches, the sliding of a mouth over yours as your escape clicks shut behind you and you are pressed between wall and man and you are consumed.

Curl your fingers into the lapel of his coat, lose yourself to the pressure of his lips, the sharp nip of teeth against soft flesh. He tastes of champagne and honeycomb and you are saccharine on the tongue, a mess of sighs and admonitions left unsaid.

My precious thing, whispered into your unfocused sighs, I will take such fine care of you.

And you want to protest, want to insist you are free you are uninterested you do not want this man and his hands under the cotton of your blouse but the words tangle on your tongue and instead all you can do is whimper.

Whimper, and hear him chuckle against your skin, a line of kisses drawn from your parted lips along your jaw until he’s found the thrum of your pulsebeat to draw a gasp the moment his teeth scrape against the delicate skin. He must mark you his, after all, and this he will gladly renew, over and over.

Over and over as he draws you to bed, lays you amongst soft cushions and softer sheets, indulges in the soft curves of you in the golden glow of the room. Your clothes — so conservative, so professional, so unnecessary — he makes short work of even with what mild resistance you manage, Shh, shh, do not fight me.

The heat is yours and not yours all at once, warming your skin and leaving you flushed, leaving a trail of burning want along your skin where his fingers trace over you and centering in your core You need this, sweetling, look at you…

Do you?

Is it you who needs this or he, he who has begun to kiss along your skin, he who presses himself between your legs so impatiently? The accusation lives in your thoughts and passes past your lips as a strangled Nnh-no, ignored without ceremony or appeal.

Protests are useless when your tongue can form no words and your limbs can do nothing but writhe, seeking structure in the grip of his sheets as he unravels you with a press of his lips to that soft center of yours, slick with a need you cannot own and yet all yours.

He maps you with a hungry gaze, fingers already tracing the plushness of your folds, gathering slick like he might have been collecting nectar and you watch him pull back, watch him bring his hand to his mouth, watch him wrap lips around his fingertip and drag the taste of you onto his tongue, One day I shall make you taste how sweet you are…

One day, after he has savored you so deeply.

You are so full of words they burst out of you on a normal day and yet nothing you say comes to light, just the bare whimpers and anxious mewls of your needy self as he returns to inspecting, to enjoying, to savoring the reactiveness of your body.

He touches. He touches as if he has owned your body a thousand times, he touches as if you are delicate, as if you are breakable, as if his fingers might lead you to shattering around him here and now and you…

Are so close, already.

So close, trying to find the strength in your muscles to pull away, to speak something beyond desperation with every curl of fingers against your cunt, with every pleased hum he utters in response to the flex of your sex. Shh… no more fighting, sweetling, I know you can be good.

He knows you can be good, he says, with all the innocence of a man trying to convince his cat to stop clawing the couch, not a man presently holding your legs open with one hand at your thigh and the other curling against your walls while you arch your back. It builds, the pressure, it builds and builds and builds and — Let go, sweetling. Let me see your ecstasy.

Is that what this is?

You keen. You keen softly, desperately, brokenly, as skilled fingers find the spot which makes you, which leaves you breathless and flushed and sobbing, a trickle of tears making their path down your cheeks as you bite your own lip to muffle the sounds you did not know you could make. Wordless and pleading and he notices with a cold smile the way you seem to succumb, hips no longer desperate to escape the curling, stretching assault of two — no, three — fingers preparing you for him.

Hips pressing back towards him now, a betrayal of your conscious-yet-barely-focused mind, that lustful sweetness in you taking over and he can only watch in awe. Awe not at your surrender but at your perfection, muttering in a language you do not understand and yet you understand perfectly what he means — he will have you, all of you.

Ah, I shall so enjoy playing with you more, sweetling.

But not now.

Now his impatience outpaces your need and both outpace his cruelty, his desire to see you beg and so instead he pulls back his hand — and hears the desperate N-no, please don’t — to bring a cruel gleam to his dark eyes and even barely conscious as you are you know he is beautiful.

Beautiful and cruel, as he frees himself and curls fingers around his cock, rubs your own slick onto that soft skin, hisses at the very feel of you like it must be a preview to how you will make him throb, and presses himself over you. Presses himself over you, absorbs the cry of pain or anguish or relief which pours from your plush lips with the punishment of a kiss just as he sinks, hips pressing against yours, stretching you with his full length and Now we are one, my sweet.

Now we are one.

He will take fine care of you but you, you take finer care of him, so plush and tight around his senses, so desperate as you cling, so lost and wanton and he kisses away the tears which continue to sting your cheeks and hisses half-sensible promises into your ear — You will always be mine — as he ruts his hips and practically shoves you forward with every thrust, dragging you back with a snarl and the pressure builds.

Builds and you moan, builds and you sob into his hungry mouth, builds and you hold to him as if he were the last thing which made sensein the world builds and you are consumed and he is consuming, and the release is both of yours, spilling deep inside of you and that too is the final shackle upon your soul.

You sit. In the darkness of your office and you remember, worrying the cuticle of your thumb and staring at the words you have typed while your memory drifts back to that hazy reminder.

… A discussion with the Baron about Sokovia reveals a country rich with history. Once a Duchy of the Hapsburgs during the era of the Holy Roman Empire, the deeply Catholic country clings to the Austrian and Italian tradition of ceremony and indulgence. Baron Zemo plays an example of the hymns sung in the many cathedrals which once filled the country, a mixture of Sokovian and Latin to raise the soul to divine heights.

The Baron speaks of the country’s culture with a warm fondness, of how even during Soviet occupation, the people managed to enjoy games like ice hockey, and football (the European, variant, the Baron would like to emphasize), and even spent time indulging in horse racing. Surrounded by Slovakia and the Czech Republic, it keeps a similar tradition, with a twist…

No, that cannot encompass all that you discussed, and yet that is what the recording shows, words traded back and forth which you do not remember, a conversation of laughter and warmth and none of it slots into what your mind tells you occurred.

You erase. You rewrite. It is the same passage, over and over, fingers acting unbidden of your frantic will and eventually you give in, demand to be done with these words and this screen, eventually you desire peace.

… Baron Helmut Zemo is many things. A historian, an ambassador, a politician, an activist. He is a widower, a man trapped in the past, a man with lofty dreams for the future. He wears his sorrow as well as he wears his happiness, and for those who still call themselves Sokovian, he is their shepherd into a new age.

And as the door to your office opens, your keeper.