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fthunter · 2 years

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hiiiiii i’m mimi and it’s been a minute since i’ve rped so please be patient with me. but i am very excited to be here !! also this intro got away from me and is way too long so i apologize in advance ok.. but yes let’s plot maybe ??

( hwang hyunjin , cismale , he/him , twenty two ) $$$ — i'm pretty sure i just saw HUNTER SEO headed out of the estate . it's weird though … i didn't see them with their SKATEBOARD . i didn't know they left the house without it . i feel like i can never catch them ; they're always so busy … guess that makes sense since they're a PROFESSIONAL SKATEBOARDER . have you met them yet ? they live in MAGNOLIA LANE , so you might've missed them . i think you'd like them a lot , actually . i swear their aura is YELLOW , and that seems like your vibe . maybe you'll get lucky and run into them sometime . i can always tell when they're coming up the hill ‘cause they're constantly blasting SUGAR by BROCKHAMPTON … it's pretty much their anthem at this point , so if you hear it , you'll know they're around . y'know , the other day , i saw a tabloid with them on the front page that said " HUNTER SEO AND VANS TEAM UP TO GET KIDS NEW WHEELS DESPITE RUMOURS CIRCLING HIS RELATIONSHIP STATUS “ … do you think that's true ? guess we'll see what the neighborhood watch thinks !

BASIC INFORMATION

full name : hunter seo nickname(s) : hunt, h, seo preferred name(s) : hunter birth date : may 21st 2000 age : twenty two zodiac : gemini gender : cis male pronouns : he / him romantic orientation : biromantic sexual orientation : bisexual nationality : south korean / canadian ethnicity : asian

BACKGROUND

birth place : jeju-do , south korea hometown : vancouver , canada social class : born middle class, currently upperclass father : dae-min seo mother : soo young moon sibling(s) : older brother - leo seo pet(s) : sunni the german shepard previous relationship(s) : tba.

SKILLS & ABILITIES

physical strength : strong and athletic intelligence : hunter isn’t overly intelligent, he never did well in school and his grades were just good enough to get him to graduation. he knows a lot about sports, but that’s really it. language(s) spoken : english & korean . drive : yes ride a bicycle : yes play an instrument : very little guitar for campfire purposes

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE & CHARACTERISTICS

eye color : dark brown hair color : changes frequently depending on his mood glasses / contacts : doesn’t need them but will sometimes wear glasses without prescription for the aesthetic height : 5′11″ build : medium/strong exercise habits : literally cannot sit still, so he is incredibly active. his favourite way to workout is through physical activities like sports.

MANNERISMS

accent : hunter was raised from the time he was four in vancouver, his accent would be considered canadian but sometimes he will mispronounce things in both languages due to his korean parents having very little of the english language and always speaking korean at home and english everywhere else. quirks : drums on everything using either his fingers, pencils, cutlery or anything that can remotely resembles drum sticks, hums all the time, can’t sit still hobbies : anything active and athletic. he loves to go for bike rides with his skateboard under his arm habits : is always late, looses everything all the time nervous ticks : fidgets a lot, rambles fears : spiders, never reaching his full potential positive traits : free spirited, friendly, charming, witty negative traits : careless, flakey, can be inattentive

IMPORTANT / BACKGROUND

TW: car accident, death of a family member.

early life for hunter was pretty easy, he doesn’t remember living in south korea ( despite having visited several times since and hearing all the stories ). he was four years old when they moved, his parents taking them to start over in vancouver, canada. the family of four moved to a new country where they knew no one and had nothing. despite that, they figured it out rather quickly. his parents established themselves with a restaurant and the boys settled in school, making friends easily and helping their parents out once they were old enough.

hunter’s first love was skateboarding, it was something he did for fun with his friends after school or when his parents didn’t need him at the restaurant. he used his tips from helping his parents to buy his first board when he was eight. it was neon green and very tacky, but he loved it and took it everywhere he went.

hunter was a natural. it was talent combined with fearlessness that had the likes of tony hawk approaching him and giving him pointers. all things that helped him achieve skills and reach the professional level by the time he was thirteen. that was the same year he went to his first x-games and won gold. after that the medals and sponsorships kept rolling in.

however, he was still a teenager and attended school as regularly as he could. of course, things were a bit different -- he was a local celebrity. his popularity at school skyrocketed, which hunter took with stride. he had always been easy going. if he’d broken an arm or a leg, people lined up to help him out. if he missed school for a competition or to work in some aspect, other students had the notes he missed ready for him upon his return. but with the good always came the bad. some of his classmates grew jealous, spreading lies and rumours about boy. they couldn’t touch him, there were too many eyes on him all the time but they could verbally assault him. it never bothered the youngest seo.

all the attention, on the other hand, did influence his relationship with his brother. leo didn’t like that hunter was the golden child. that he seemingly had everything and everyone eating out of the palm of his hand. the older seo wanted nothing to do with his younger sibling. despite living in the same house, they rarely spoke. hunter couldn’t understand why his brother hated him, he didn’t know what he had done or what he could do to make things right. but he didn’t stop trying. that didn’t happen until later.

the thing was, hunter was likeable, he was an all around good guy. he cared about everyone, he was funny and charismatic, a bit of an air-head. like anyone he had his strengths and weaknesses. while he could charm a room, he was perpetually late. he had broken a few world records and achieved many firsts in the skateboarding world, but he had a hard time committing to anything and anyone. he never let anything phase him, but it also appeared like he didn’t have a care in the world.

tragedy struck one winter day when hunter was sixteen. he’d just gotten his license and a new car to go with it. he had convinced his dad to close the restaurant for thee afternoon and go for a drive with him. they’d driven out of the city, taking the winding roads of british columbia towards the mountains. hunter took a turn too quickly, slipped on a patch of black ice and they’d hit a transport tuck head on. he didn’t remember anything after that. he’d woken up in a hospital later on with everyone telling him just how lucky he was to be alive. his mother was weeping, his brother was nowhere to be seen and his father -- his father didn’t make it.

from there he began the long road to rehabilitation. hunter was put through rigorous physiotherapy and was told he’d probably never skate professionally ever again. but hunter didn’t like that answer. he refused to have this be the end of his career. he was sixteen years old, he’d just lost his father and the sport was all he knew. it was pure determination that kept him going.

the doctors quickly discovered there was nothing they could do to stop the young boy. he was going to skateboard again or die trying. he managed to do it, to heal enough to get back out there... but the moment he was at the park, board under foot but without his father ( his biggest supporter ) there to cheer him on.. he couldn’t do it. he couldn’t push himself off the edge, quite literally, and do the only thing he was good at, the only thing he knew. hunter became a shell of himself. he’d put his everything into skateboarding, then his everything into physiotherapy and then he had nothing. he didn’t know what to do with himself or who he was without the board and his father.

for two years hunter was a ghost, he’d given up on everything. including winning over his brother, who now had even more reason to hate him. hunter had to agree, he hated himself too. it wasn’t until his senior year, when he was cleaning out the spare room of the house so they could sell that he found a box containing his fathers old items from his university days. photo’s, yearbooks, diploma’s, hoodies. hunter had always known his father had spent a lot of his time volunteering, the man had spoken of it fondly, encouraging his own boys to give it a try. but. hunter had always just brushed it off, ignored it. amongst all the items was the proof, the pictures of his dad smiling brightly doing the thing he loved. hunter was inspired, in a last effort to feel close to his father once more he decided he would take up volunteering.

of course, he knew only one thing. hunter began to work with children from diverse backgrounds who held the same passion and got the same thrill he once did when it came to skateboarding. he began to work with kids like him, who could have lost it all but decided to keep going and fighting for what they want after hardships. he taught them to skateboard and to recover through the love of a sport, in doing so he found himself healing as well. he was back on his board and it was like he never stopped.

naturally, people caught wind of this -- hunter seo, the child prodigy of the sport was back. it was a lot of pressure but he took his time. one competition at a time, one win, a few losses and then on to win a gold medal at the olympic games. that was what really solidified his re-entry to the sport and had brand deals and support returning to him full force.

hunter seo was once again making a name for himself in the sport. no longer the amazing child prodigy, no longer the child of tragedy, but the top ranked male in the sport and household name ( well, if you cared about sports or were on social media that was ). part of his charm, however, is that despite everything -- he’s still the same hunter he’s always been.. just with a few more bumps and bruises.

WANTED CONNECTIONS / PLOTS

platonic ─── unlikely friends , other athletes he meets up with at competitions and events , a nice wholesome best friend & confidant , someone who will get high and talk shit with him , a party buddy , someone who is also as free spirited as hunter and they go on adventures together , neighbours , and of course any other form of friendship really

romantic ─── first kiss / first relationship / first love , a past or present unrequited crush from either side , exes on good or bad terms , friends with benefits , a one night stand

negative ─── someone who just doesn't click with him ( this is probably someone more uptight who can’t stand how hunter seems to not have a care in the world ) , friends who had a falling out , his biggest competition

#willowintro #once again i am apologizing because i rambled on about him too much #but also it's late so i'll probably plot for a bit and then interact first thing tomorrow <3

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astaroth1357 · 3 years

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Demigod MC Series: Hades

Demigod MC Series: Intro, Aphrodite, Hermes, Hades

Lucifer

Well… this is awkward…

He’s actually met Hades multiple times for business reasons (Underworld-Devildom relations are amiable if not a little odd. Hades was something of an uncle figure to Diavolo as a wee demon lad, which should speak for itself really). He’s a gloomy fellow and not much for chit-chat, but he never thought they’d end up taking one of his kids by accident…

He had to send a formal apology letter to the Lord of the Underworld immediately, but thankfully he didn’t seem very concerned for his offspring - if anything he appeared to think the Devildom would suit them nicely which was… concerning.

And he was not wrong. The darkness, demons, ghouls, and frights of the Devildom hardly seemed to faze the MC, if anything they fit right in. He’d dare say they were thriving if not for one thing…

They were So. Damn. Bleak.

Getting a smile out of this one AT ALL was rare. For once he felt the need to check up on someone constantly just to be sure they were alright... They’d keep assuring the House that they’re not actually as sad as they look but it’s hard not to assume…

He was a little mortified at first when they first met Cerberus cause… well they called him “Cerbi” and the massive demonic guard dog rolled over for them like a Golden Retriever!

Apparently he and the Cerberus that they knew are from the same litter and they must have smelt familiar... He would have probably limited their interactions just to keep his dog on his side but after seeing the MC smile for once while they played with the big oaf well…

Cerberus got a new playmate and the MC got a massive, three-headed therapy animal. Win-win. 😌

Mammon

Do ya really gotta be such a downer all the time, MC…? 😔

He thinks they’re nice, like really nice. They’re always super concerned when his brothers attack him or when he gets injured, but he’s pretty sure it’s because they’ve seen people die before so…

At first, he had no idea why he had to be saddled with this depressing wisp of mortal but over time he started to understand that they weren’t all that sad. They had… Resting Gloom Face? Is that a thing?

They also had a different way of seeing things. He could win the lottery and they’d tell him to stay inside so he wouldn’t get hit by lightning or if he pissed off the wrong people, they’d joke about him keeping his fingers and toes. Dark stuff, but not intended to be so… well morbid.

However, what he eventually found out that the REAL advantage to having a Hades kid in the Devildom was that nothing scared them. Literally nothing. Not even the ghosts - which to reiterate, are terrifying!

Cue Mammon getting dragged to horror movies nights with his brothers and pulling the MC along to be his personal security blanket. He’ll hold onto them for dear life as they just pat his head or something, watching and not even flinching at the jumpscares.

The first time the House had an unexpected power outage he clung onto the back of their shirt like a lost child while they calmly looked for the circuit-breaker...

If he could jump into their arms every time something scary happened like Scooby-Doo, he absolutely would. His brothers make fun of him, but after seeing the MC handle Cerberus like a puppy any time something frightens them they hide behind the mortal as well…

Leviathan

In some ways, he totally relates to their moodiness but come on! Who can still look so sad when watching The Magical Ruri Hanai: Demon Girl?? Ruri-chan can make anyone smile! 😠

When he first met the MC, he was a little confused about why they didn't find him intimidating at all. He even reverted to his demon form and showed his fangs but no dice! All they said was, "I've walked along the edge of Tartarus. You're gonna have to try a lot harder than that, buddy…"

That was probably his first sign that the "human" wasn't normal…

After Mammon told him who their Dad was, things made a lot more sense. A child of Hades in the Devildom? That's ironic enough to be its own anime plot!! They certainly felt like an angsty protagonist at times. 🤷‍♀️

Truth be told, they could relate to each other in a lot of ways. You wouldn't think that an offspring of the Underworld and a demonic shut-in would have much in common but the one thing they share between them is that sense of never really fitting in.

Turns out that Hades kids are black sheep, even among other demigods, and Levi? Well, he's had trouble relating to others since his angel days. He and the mortal were like off-beat kindred spirits!

Which, I mean, you wouldn't get just by looking at them together. Levi being the impassioned super-otaku rambling their ear off while his somber companion would just go along with him quietly, but hey, there's more beneath the surface. Probably.

Now if he could just get them to cosplay as the Lord of Emptiness with him… They'd be perfect! Perfect he says!!

Satan

Highly considered drugging their food with antidepressants for a while…

This was before getting to know them better, of course, but for the first couple months he honestly couldn't shake the feeling that the mortal looked miserable!

Now, he's one to particularly care for the comfort of strangers, but just looking at them like that every day would sour his own mood quite considerably. It was very irritating...

It was only on closer inspection that he realized there was something else at play, though.

The mortal was different - even for a demigod he imagined. They took to the Devildom easily and the realm almost accepted them right back!

The flora looked better in their presence, the hellish beasts that roamed the wilds would roll over for them, and they even seemed to be welcomed in by the never-ending shadows…

It was fascinating. Like the effects of the Underworld were baked into their DNA and mingled with the environment around them… Two layers of darkness coexisting within one person.

I mean, what other creature - other than Lucifer - could ride Cerberus around like a pony??

Had they not been so kind, they'd probably scare him shit-less... Their potential power was too great to ignore. But after getting used to their gloom, at least they made for pleasant company. 🤷‍♀️

Satan likes them well enough, but even still he has to wonder just what they were capable of… you know?

Asmodeus

Oh. My. WORD. What a buzzkill!!!

Really, the new mortal was no good at parties or pictures for that matter!

Not because they looked bad, or even because he couldn't get them to smile, but because GHOSTS would always photobomb any pictures they were in!! 😫

One time he got a selfie with them on the couch and a creepy ghost child could be seen hiding behind the cushions so NOPE. No more photos with the mortal around!!

Aside from that, he couldn't say the mortal was all bad or anything…They were pretty friendly, despite their general look and feel.

Though, personally, he thought they wore far too much black... Even in the Devildom, there's normally a pop of color, you know? Was that just the Hades dress code?

And you want to know the weirdest thing? Despite everything about them screaming "Doom and Gloom," they're straaaangely popular among the RAD dating scene…

Like. Not as some heartthrob, "Love'em and Leave'em"-type, but he's found that there's a LOT of his demonic classmates who think they're cute or have a crush on them in some way…

Naturally, he can see the appeal of the mysterious, moody demigod with a dark, troubled past. It's just the demigod in question is completely oblivious to it! 🤷‍♀️

He tried to give them dating tips or play matchmaker from time to time but eventually gave up when it was clear they weren't interested. Alas, students of RAD, this is one forbidden fruit that refuses to be shared…! Such a tragedy… 😔

Beelzebub

They remind him of Belphie… like. A lot.

The similarities were obvious. They had a similar feel, made similar jokes, and even the same somewhat dreary attitude about them...

If he were being honest, at the beginning there were times when he'd open up to them a lot more than he intended because he'd forget that he wasn't actually talking to Belphie…

Thankfully, he knew better than to try and treat them like his replacement or anything. They were two different people after all. But it didn't stop him from feeling extra protective around them for a while.

Besides, there was ONE thing that set them leagues apart from Belphie and that was the fact they were a shit cook. Not quite as bad as Solomon but uh… Actually no, that's a closer call than it has any right to be...

Apparently, Hades kids don't need to eat as much and when you hang out with shades and skeletons for most of your life, you don’t really worry about making food that's any better than… "Well, technically it's edible." 🤷‍♀️

Their food won't kill a person like Solomon's, but you WILL start seeing stuff you probably shouldn't. He tried their "soup" once and swore he saw the ghost of his mother… and he doesn't even have a mother!!!

He swears that if he ever sees the MC and Solomon working together in the same kitchen he's skipping town… Whatever culinary abomination the two of them could create would probably gain sentience and eat HIM instead. He's always figured he'd go out with Death by Food, but not like that!! 😫

Belphegor

Ever meet someone who’s like looking in a mirror? Yeah, he’s getting those vibes…

He never expected the "human" to be so similar to him, it was kind of uncanny.

Upon first laying eyes on each other there was a pause… then a squint… and then… a nod.

Honestly, their combined dry wit, dark humor, and pessimistic outlook played off of each other surprisingly well. Too well for him to hate, really.

Not that it mattered because they didn’t believe him for a second when he tried to trick them (they had dealt with loads of lying monsters before). He hated to admit it, but they had a good head on their shoulders and knew better than to trust a locked up demon…

And yet, they seemed to stick around with him anyway. Because of the good conversation or just empathizing with his loneliness was anyone's guess. 🤷‍♀️

Sometimes they'd come up and sit outside the door in comfortable silence… Or they'd talk about whatever:

MC: *sitting out by the attic with their back against the door* So what happens to demons when they die…?

Belphie: *laying on the floor on the other side, staring at the ceiling* Depends on the kind. If I die, I'll just reform later.

MC: Like a reincarnation?

Belphie: Eh. *shrugs* Maybe. Haven't died yet.

MC: You could die in there, you know.

Belphie: *throws a side glare* Well thanks for bringing that up…

MC: *shrugs* What? It's true. But don't worry, I won't let you. *small-ish smile*

Belphie: *stares at them wide-eyed and pink-cheeked before turning on his side quickly* Ugh… whatever…

They did their word, somehow. They eventually got the door open and let him out, but by that time the anger was gone and he was just happy to finally talk to them face-to-face...

And good thing too, because apparently it's not smart to fight a death-child in what is essentially their element - as he saw when they summoned an army of skeletons to kick Levi's ass when he cheated them in Devil Cart...

He would not have lasted in that fight... Dodged a bullet there.

#obey me #obey me shall we date #shall-we-date-obey-me #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me headcanons #obey me demigods #obey me scenarios

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ptergwen · 3 years

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hi val can you maybe write something about the reader being dared to kiss peter/tom/arvin (you choose) since her friends knew that she has a big crush on him, but once she did he seems disinterested after which makes her sad, but what she doesn't know was after she kissed him, he practically runs to his friends freaking out that the girl he's had his eyes on this whole time just kissed him??

kiss and tell

w/c: 1.8k

warnings: like one swear and awkwardness

a/n: yeeee i went with peter! this is adorable :,)

“i can’t!” you scold betty and her annoying smirk. you’re bored at lunch, so liz suggested the three of you play truth or dare. you’d made the mistake of choosing dare. in your defense, betty is the nosiest person in all of midtown, so you thought you were dodging the bullet and guarding your deep dark secrets. how could you have known she’d make you do... this?

“that’s so, like, forward. he’s gonna freak out.” you glance over at peter’s table to see what he’s up to before you possibly scar him. he’s laughing along at a heated conversation ned and mj are having. the way his face lights up, and his eyes crinkle as a smile crosses his features, it gives you butterflies throughout your whole body.

“in a good way,” liz grins her most charming grin at you. it’s not working this time. you roll your eyes up to the ceiling. “i thought you liked him,” betty huffs, gesturing over to peter and keeping her eyes on you. “all you do is talk about how he’s so cute and smart, and his lips look so soft-“ “i never said that!” you look at her with wild eyes. liz bites her lip to hold in a laugh. “the last part, i mean,” you clarify in a murmur.

liz puts a hand on you and pats your shoulder knowingly. “you’ve probably thought it, though. i’ve seen you checking them out.” there have been quite a few times your gaze has landed on peter’s lips, watching them curve while he talks to you about some new science theory he’s excited to share. you end up zoning out and pretending you retained any of what he said. betty puckers her own lips at you.

“you wanna kiss him,” she insists in a sing song voice, resting her chin on your other shoulder. “i’m doing you a favor.” “you’re really not gonna change the dare?” you sigh, your friends leaning on you in support. liz taps your cheek. “so, you don’t wanna kiss him?” “there’s no way,” betty comments from your side. “no, i...” you start, focusing in on peter again.

he meets your eyes across the cafeteria. his smile fades slightly, then a shy one is replacing it, ned dragging him into his and mj’s debate. you turn back to liz and betty.

“i do, but do you think he wants me to?” you ask them both, and they share a you have to be kidding look. “only one way to find out.” liz gives your shoulder a nudge. betty beams at you. “i triple dog dare you now, so you have to.” considering your options, you bounce your leg up and down. you’ll either get the nicest rejection ever from peter or a kiss back. you can handle this.

“ok, i’ll do it,” you decide, betty clapping her hands and squealing. liz throws an arm around your neck. “yay! i love love.” “let’s calm down,” you giggle so she doesn’t get too carried away. you and peter haven’t even established that you like each other. “i’m calm, i’m calm. do you need to borrow chapstick?” she offers, betty simultaneously pulling a tube out of her purse. “or lip gloss?”

you’re appreciating their over involvement now.

“both,” you breathe out, letting them get you ready for your big kiss.

liz and betty send you good luck wishes in a hushed tone while you make your way to peter’s table. mj went to get a snapple, and ned went with her so they could continue whatever argument they’re in. that left peter by himself. it’s almost like this is meant to happen.

“hi,” you greet peter, making him look up at you with raised eyebrows. he notices right away that your lips are shiny, more so than usual. a color that you always seem to bring to his face takes over his cheeks. “hey. you wanna sit?” he gives you a small smile. you return it. “yeah, sure. thanks.” instead of taking the bench across from him like he assumed you would, you find your place next to him.

he doesn’t mind.

“how’s your day been?” you wonder, body turned towards him while he answers. peter scrunches his nose. “kinda busy. i got so much homework in spanish tonight, and i’ve been putting off this essay about...” you do the thing you do every time he goes off on a sort of tangent, watch his lips. lucky for you, that’s the whole point today. “i don’t know. all i have so far is the intro-“

you cut peter off with a kiss. liz and betty cheer to each other the second it happens. peter doesn’t move, only freezes up as you press your glossy lips to his and grab his shoulders. it takes a few seconds for you to realize he’s not kissing back. his arms are stiff at his sides, eyes wide in shock. absolutely humiliated, you pull back, moving as far away as you can.

“fuck, i’m sorry. i should’ve asked you first,” you apologize, voice shaking. you’re already getting to your feet. peter blinks a few times, grounding himself back in the moment. “no, no. it’s okay. i-“ “that was weird, i know. you don’t have to lie or make me feel better.” he furrows his eyebrows, in a way that seems regretful even though you’re the one who messed up. “i’m trying to tell you, y/n. it’s fine. we-“

ned’s voice fills the room, making you snap your head in his direction. him and mj are coming back. you need to get out of here before you embarrass yourself even more.

“i’m gonna go. i’m sorry,” you mumble out, running back to your table, where liz and betty are instantly asking what’s wrong and if you’re alright. peter licks his lips that are now coated in your gloss and clenches his jaw. he’s pissed. not at you, at himself. it’s clear because mj brings attention to it when she sits down.

“what’s up with your face?” she narrows her eyes at him, popping the cap on her snapple. ned elbows peter in his spot next to him. you were just there less than a minute ago. “you okay, dude?” he checks. “no.” peter closes his eyes in frustration. “what’s wrong?” ned kicks mj’s foot under the table so she’ll stop making out with her drink and help him.

“i... y/n kissed me,” peter admits, sounding oddly upset about something everyone knows he’s been hoping would happen. “she what?” ned gawks. “isn’t that a good thing?” mj points out. “you love her.” “like her,” peter corrects and chews the inside of his cheek. “whatever. shouldn’t you want her to kiss you?” she takes another sip of snapple, passing this off to ned.

“yeah...” is all ned says. he awkwardly rubs peter’s back while mj tries not to snort. “that’s not the problem. i didn’t kiss her back, and she took it as me not being into it,” peter shakes his head as he recounts your weird moment. “which i was,” he tells them for the record. ned makes a funny face at him. “so why didn’t you kiss back?” “no shit she ran away,” mj mutters to him. she saw that part.

“because i wasn’t expecting it!” peter frowns at his friends’ reactions and at what he did. “you guys know how much i like y/n. i can’t believe i screwed this up so bad.” mj squints in mock confusion. “i can.” she quickly drops her sarcasm for encouragement after that. “ok, seriously. just go find her and apologize.” “maybe kiss her this time,” ned chimes in.

“if she really likes you, she’ll get it.” mj smiles genuinely, nodding back at your table. ned gives him a push forward. “you got this, dude. come tell us all about it after.” a rush of confidence enters peter from their advice. he’ll fix this. “thanks, guys. here i go.” he shoots up from the table, ned and mj getting back into their debate once he’s out of sight.

betty is hugging you way too tightly when peter gets over there. she goes on about how much peter sucks, overcompensating because she’s the reason you kissed him. you only hum in response. you don’t have the heart to tell her you blame yourself. only liz notices peter come over, so she talks on your behalf. “oh, hey,” she says drily. “hey. can i talk to y/n?” peter gets out, twiddling with his thumbs nervously.

she has to decide if she’d rather go into protective friend mode or let him. from your unenthusiastic responses to betty’s hate rant, she figures you’d like to hear him out.

“come on, betty,” liz takes her arm suddenly, betty trying to pull it back. “what? why?” “i’m gonna buy you ice cream. let’s go.” that’s her cover. peter shoots her a look that says thank you, liz pressing her lips into a line and dragging betty along. betty sees peter standing in front of your table and glares at him, liz walking faster. you don’t get the chance to ask them where they’re going because they leave so fast.

the bench dips down on one side of you, making someone’s prescense known. you’re surprised to find it’s peter. you talk first.

“if you’re gonna apologize, don’t. it was my fault-“ “you never let me finish earlier,” peter interrupts, the hint of a smile on his face. his clammy hand links with one of yours. “what were you gonna say?” you ask quietly, peter threading your fingers together. your heart is racing at the simple touch. “that i like you,” he replies at the same low volume. “and, that i wanted to try again.”

he’s sitting a lot closer to you than you realized. you welcome it, your hands in between you two on the bench. “i like you too... try what again?” you question, although you hope and pray it’s what you think. “kissing,” peter says what you were hoping and praying for. “wasn’t ready the first time.” you’re about to go into cardiac arrest as he rests his forehead on yours, curls brushing your face. a few broken up breaths escape him.

“can i?” he nearly whispers, warm hand still gripping at yours. “yeah,” you agree before your eyes flutter shut. he wastes no time, parting his lips and brushing them against yours gently, you reciprocating. he kisses as sweetly as he is, his free hand on your cheek and fingers careessing your skin. your other hand ends up on the back of his neck. you grin against him, lips detaching momentarily so you can engage him in another kiss.

peter doesn’t hesitate to kiss back this time, nose nudging yours as he moves in more. you tug on some hair at the nape of his neck and laugh into the kiss, reminding him you’re in school. he pulls back with a chuckle, but keeps his forehead on yours and your hands in each other.

“sorry. got too excited,” he laughs out, you leaning into his open palm. “i told you don’t apologize.”

liz and betty joined ned and mj at some point. the four of them are whistling at you and yelling out suggestive jokes. they’re too much. but, to be fair, you owe this all to them.

#tom holland #tom holland fluff #tom holland x reader #tom holland x y/n #tom holland x you #tom holland imagine #tom holland fic #tom holland fanfiction #peter parker #peter parker fic #peter parker fluff #peter parker x y/n #peter parker x you #peter parker x reader #peter parker imagine #peter parker fanfiction

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yutahoes · 3 years

Text

‘Mark me in your heart’

This was supposed to be my birthday special for Mark but a lot of things happened so this came out late. 😅 This is in connection to my Sakura series and requested by @cosmiclatte28

characters : babysitter! Mark Lee, Yuta, Yuta’s wife, Cherry, Jae, the girl Mark likes

word count : 2k words

genre: fluff

summary : Cherry and Jae tried to help Mark with the girl he liked.

warnings : Mark being bullied by two kids and their dad

a/n: I didn’t use Y/N here to avoid confusion and sorry for the endless conversations.

Mark tapped his foot along the concrete of the front of the Nakamoto household’s door. Maybe it will be Yuta who would open the door for him since he was the one who asked him to come. Maybe Jae since he liked visitors so much or even Cherry, when the other three are focused on what they usually do. So it was a surprise when his hyung’s wife opened the door for him, “Hi Mark,” she greeted, opening the door wide for him. “Thank you for agreeing to babysit.”

He shook his head. He had nothing to do anyway. And it’s fun spending time with the two kids. They both stopped in the living room of the house seeing the youngest in the household jumping on the couch, next to his dad. The older girl visibly sighed as Cherry can be seen on another chair, reading a book. “Mom is already angry.” She warned but Yuta kept jumping on the squeaking couch making Jae giggle.

The guest shook his head at the visible annoyance of the woman beside him. “I swear I’m taking care of three kids.” She whispered before calling Yuta’s name and giving him a glare.

“We really should have bought the trampoline,” he said, jumping on the couch then landing on the floor. “Hi, Mark. Thanks for agreeing to this.”

“No problem, hyung.” he whispered while bumping their fist together. Jae did the same, bumping fists with Mark, before returning to jumping on the couch that made Cherry roll her eyes. “I hope the check-up goes well.”

Cherry put down her book on the table. “Can’t I really not come, eomma?” She asked, pouting at her mom. “I want to see the baby.” She whispered before touching the older’s stomach bump.

The older woman shook her head, smiling at her. “We talked about this, right? We can come and see the baby later.” Cherry nodded that made her giggle then kissed the top of her head. “Don’t give Mark samchon a hard time.” Cherry nodded before kissing her on the cheek. “Jae.” The youngest boy went down the couch and kissed his mom’s cheek. “Behave yourself.”

“Can you buy me ice cream when you get back?” Jae asked that made his mom shake her head. He turned to Yuta who only nodded, making his wife hiss at him. “Also buy donuts for noona, she likes chocolates.” Yuta chuckled, nodding at him. “Mark samchon likes watermelons and buy apples for the baby, appa.”

“I swear you’re more pregnant than your mom.” Yuta joked before giving him a kiss on the top of his head. “Jae, no playing with anything flammable. And Cherry…”

“Yes dad, I know where the fire extinguisher is.”

Mark laughed. They’re a weird family. The couple bid farewell, again thanking Mark for looking after the two kids. He even heard Yuta apologizing although he doesn’t know why. Jae kept on jumping on the couch, Cherry lying on the small chair and still reading her book.

“Appa said you shouldn’t read against the light, noona.” Jae warned in between huffing breaths.

“And eomma will scold you if you keep jumping on the couch.” she claimed before flipping the page of her book, “Are you a monkey?”

Jae huffed and sat on the couch with a pout. “I swear you two are just like your parents.” The two kids made a disgusted expression, Jae explaining that they’re always hugging each other while Cherry claimed that Jae doesn’t shower so she doesn’t want to hug her brother. Mark only laugh at that.

“Samchon, don’t you have anything else to do today? It’s Saturday.” the younger boy asked and Mark shook his head, asking Jae what he wants to do while sitting next to him. “I’m a little tired. Can we just sit down?” Totally weird.

Cherry closed her book with a loud thud that made the two look at her. “Samchon, don’t you have a girlfriend?” Jae started bouncing on the couch, asking him repeatedly if he is seeing someone. Really, what’s wrong with these two? Mark shook his head. “Do you want me to introduce you to someone? My art teacher...”

“My Math teacher is pretty.” Jae stopped Cherry on her words then smiled as if proud of what he did. Mark just chuckled when the older glare at her brother. “She’s also hot.”

“Hot? Do you know what that means?”

“Pretty? Appa calls eomma that.” Mark shrugged. “Do you like someone, samchon?” A smile crept up Mark’s lips then masked it with a cough. “You do? Noona is good with love stuff. Appa comes to her for help.”

Cherry looked sideways with a smile on her lips that looks very much like her dad’s. They’re becoming too alike. "So who is this girl, samchon?" the girl asked, book forgotten on the table.

Mark sighed before leaning on the couch, the two kids on both his sides listening attentively. "She works in the coffee shop opposite the office building."

"Have you talked to her?" Jae asked.

"Did you ask for her name?" Cherry chimed in.

"I ordered coffee from her. And her name is written on the name tag." Cherry whispered that he's no fun and Jae just scoffed at him. "I just find her pretty. Like a crush."

Again, Jae laughed. "All girls are pretty. That was what appa says." Wow, Mark thought, he didn't know Yuta is that romantic. "You should talk to her. Cherry noona can help you."

He does want to strike up a conversation with her and not the usual 'I'll get a watermelon shake' or 'My name is Mark'. He wanted to know her name and what she likes for coffee. "You can help me?"

The younger girl smirked then lightly coughed. "The first step is to get her flowers." But he doesn't know what flowers she liked. And isn't it awkward? They haven't talked before and giving her flowers will be too much. "Pink roses are good, they mean admiration."

"How do you know these about the flowers?" Mark lightly glanced at Jae who just shrugged, whispering that it's a girl thing. "Pink roses. Got it."

"Then ask her out for a date." Jae claimed.

"That quickly?"

"It can be a dinner or movie," Cherry noted. "But samchon, don't ask her for coffee. She works in a café, she's probably sick of coffee." Mark nodded, that's right. Why didn't he realize that before?

So flowers then dinner or movies. "Then walk her home." Jae continued. Walk her home, got it.

"Don't kiss her yet." Wait, what? "Ask her if she wants to go for another date."

"What if she doesn't want to?"

"Then it's game over, samchon." Jae teased, tapping his shoulder.

Cherry smiled. "You'll do great, samchon. My technique is tried and tested by eomma and appa." Mark chuckled. "How are you going to introduce yourself to her?"

"I'm Mark…" he said hesitatingly, "You can mark me in your heart."

Jae giggled while Cherry just stared at him in surprise. "You do need a lot of help, samchon." The youngest exclaimed.

--------

The house is quiet, too quiet, that Yuta and his wife had to look at each other before entering the house. Did something happen? Yuta shouted for the kids and it was Jae who answered that they're upstairs. The pregnant woman sat on the couch and noticed the book Cherry was reading earlier as her husband put the snacks and fruits in the kitchen.

Footsteps can be heard followed by Jae jumping next to his mom and hugging her, whispering that he missed her. Yuta's laugh echoed through the whole room when Mark came down the stairs, his white hoodie filled with different colored stains that looks like make-up. His lips are red, eyes highlighted with thick eyeliner that he looks like a panda. There's a red circle on his cheeks and a colorful hat that is probably Jae's with a colorful scarf wrapped on his neck that is owned by Cherry.

"What did the two of you do to Mark?" the older girl asked, standing up to get some towels for the younger guy. He thanked her then wiped the color on his face, surprised that they put too much makeup on him.

Both Chery and Jae looked so guilty seated on the couch. "He's going on a date but samchon is really clueless." Cherry answered and Yuta bit his lip to prevent from laughing. Mark was surprised, he suddenly felt called out.

"He even said that she can mark him in her heart because his name is Mark." Jae chimed in.

Their mom sighed. "I know you two care about Mark samchon but isn't it better for him to be himself when he wants to date a girl?" Both Cherry and Jae nodded, apologizing for what they had done.

"And we can mark him in our hearts." Yuta teased that earned a glare from both his wife and Mark. He's really childish sometimes.

"What happened to the check-up?" Mark asked, sitting beside Jae on the couch and still wiping his face. The cap and scarf have already been removed. "Is it a boy or a girl?"

"A boy!" Jae exclaimed.

"A girl," Cherry claimed calmly. "And appa you said you're going to give us money if we guessed right."

The older girl glared at Yuta who took out his wallet and gave each kid a bill. Mark's eyes widened in surprise, "You have twins?" The pregnant girl nodded. "Congratulations noona!"

"I hope you won't get tired of babysitting." She whispered and Mark swore he saw his life flashed in his very eyes. Another boy and girl after Jae and Cherry? This will be chaotic as hell.

Jae handed him the two bills Yuta gave that startled the adults. "Samchon, you need this money to date." Cherry claimed that made the younger boy nodded.

"Thank you for saving me money to give Mark." Yuta exclaimed that made the two kids revolt.

"You pay samchon for playing with us?"

"I won't be a soccer player when I grow up, I'll be like Mark samchon instead."

Mark laughed. They're a handful but being with them is fun. Maybe he can still take care of them in the long run.

-----

Mark blew large breaths to regulate his breathing while staring at his reflection from the doors of the café. “Introduce yourself, ask her name, ask her for dinner.” he repeated to himself before blowing another heavy breath. “You can do this Mark. Cherry’s plan is foul proof.” With another heavy breath, he opened the door that created a small bell sound.

She was already smiling, welcoming her. “I’ll get an iced latte.” he started, twirling his fingers.

“Not the usual watermelon shake, Mark?” the girl asked that startled him. She knows his name? Knows what his order is? Of course, Mark. You always drink watermelon shake. He shook his head, not knowing what to say. She already knows his name, he doesn’t have to introduce himself. What now? “And thank you for the pink roses, Mark.”

Wait, what? “Pink roses?”

She gestured to the vase behind with three pink roses. “Your nephew and niece are really cute.” She smiled while writing his name on the cup. That took Mark’s attention. Nephew and niece? He looked at her in confusion and she pointed at three customers by the window of the coffee shop. Of course, it’s the three of them.

“I’m sorry. It might have confused you.” He said rubbing the back of his neck. “But I think you’re really pretty.” The girl lightly giggled. “Do you want to have dinner with me after your shift?” He lightly glanced at her nametag and mentioned her name.

“I’m here until six pm.”

“I’ll wait,” Mark claimed then handed her the payment for the coffee and his loyalty card.

“Samchon, buy me a carrot cake,” Jae shouted and Yuta hushed him up, pulling the cap down his face in an attempt to hide from Mark. He even heard Cherry whisper that the plan will get ruined because of him. Really, those three.

“They’re really cute.” The girl whispered, smiling at them.

Mark smiled. “You’re cuter.”

He rolled his eyes when Yuta faked vomit and Jae laughed. “At least it’s better than ‘mark me in your heart’,” Cherry claimed that made the two boys laugh.

The girl laughed at his defeated look. “No worries Mark, I already marked you.” She claimed before handing him the coffee and the card with the sticker.

Mark smiled. This might be the start of something new.

#mark lee #mark fluff #mark lee fluff #nct mark #mark lee scenario #nct mark fluff

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gureishi · 3 years

Note

Hello! Hope you are well! I love the new prompt list! I was hoping to ask for Zen with “You left your mark on me” thank you so much and have a good day 🤗

Thank you for this wonderful request, my dear!

Did I take this prompt too literally? Perhaps. But boy did I GRIN the whole time i was writing about it. I really hope this brings you a lil joy today~

thirteen: left your mark on me

Zen X Reader, T, words: 1928

・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・

He’s already long gone when you wake up. You have a vague, sleepy memory of him kissing you goodbye when it was still dark out—now, the sun pours through the window and your alarm jolts you violently from a dream.

It’s 8 am on a Sunday—in other words, a wildly inappropriate time to be awake, in your opinion. You rub your tired eyes with one balled fist. Why on earth did you even set an alarm today?

You’re yawning and considering just curling back up under the covers when you remember: the interview! Of course.

You stumble out of bed, dragging your blanket with you, and make your way into the living room. There are several shirts draped over the back of the couch; you can picture him so easily, with his languid early-morning eyes and his hair untied, trying on each shirt in turn and peering into the mirror—anxiously twisting to see himself from every angle, agonizing over the choice.

You turn on the TV and flop onto the couch, pulling the blanket around your shoulders. You check your phone: it’s only 8:05, so they should still be doing the intro.

The TV’s already on the right channel, and you smile, certain he set it that way before leaving this morning. He doesn’t always tell you how important it is to him that you watch—“Nothing would make me happier,” he says, “but I don’t want you to feel any pressure”—but you know what it means to him. And this is a big national news program, the kind millions of people will watch. He’ll be checking his phone right now, pacing in the studio, looking for a message from you.

You swipe to your first contact and send him a text. “I’m watching, babe,” you write. “Can’t wait.”

Just as you’re weighing whether or not you have time to make some coffee before he’s on, you hear his name; as usual, and even after all this time, your stomach does a little somersault.

He strides on screen, positively resplendent in a corduroy double-breasted blazer (good choice, you think), his hair tossed over his shoulder, glistening under the studio lights. He reaches for the host’s hand and shakes it gently. He’s got it down, you think: the amiable manner, the cool handshake, the half-smile.

The host makes a joke and he laughs lightheartedly, tossing his head back in way that’s somehow as natural as it is artful. And that’s when you see it.

Your mouth falls open. You shoot up off the couch, automatically moving closer to the screen for a better look. You rub your eyes; try rubbing the spot on the TV screen, too. But it’s undeniable

There is, without a doubt, a small, circular bruise on the side of his neck—just the size and shape of your mouth.

You lift a shaking hand to your face. No way. NO WAY.

You fall back onto the couch; he’s saying something now, answering a question about his transition from stage to film, but you barely hear him. If he was anyone else, this would be meaningless—he’s an adult living with his partner, after all, and there’s nothing particularly noteworthy about a little love bite. But he’s him. And he’s on national TV.

Your phone is already buzzing. Nervously, you swipe away the new notifications and return to your thread with him.

“Zen,” you text him. And again. “Zen. Zen. Zen.”

He doesn’t answer, of course; on screen, he’s grinning, nodding as the host makes a comment about his last movie. Reluctantly, you swipe back to your notifications.

There are several text from his publicist, of course. The first one says “Are you serious?!” and the second says “How did you let this happen?” You don’t look at the third or fourth.

There are texts from his agent and her assistant, too. His agent’s text just says “Why????” and her assistant has followed up with a longer and more formally-worded message.

You groan. This is tricky territory: as his manager, it’s at least partly your responsibility to keep him from going on TV with a freaking hickey on his neck. And as his partner, it’s certainly up to you to not bite him.

You set your phone down, deciding to give everyone a few minutes to calm down before you answer. What can you even say? You honestly have no memory of leaving the bruise on his neck, but you imagine (blushing a little) that it must have happened the previous night, or you would’ve noticed sooner. If you’d just woken up when he was leaving this morning, maybe you would have seen it, would have warned him…?

Your phone is still buzzing and you glance down at it, hoping—inexplicably—that it’s him, though you can see clearly that he’s still live on air. It’s his publicist again.

“Check twitter,” she says. Oh no.

With a mixture of dread and an almost masochistic fascination, you open the twitter app. You’re already following his hashtag, of course, and—oh no—you see his name again and again on your feed.

You scan the top tweets, your heart thudding hollowly in your chest. The tone is generally amused—“Zen on tv with giant hickey lolololol”—but still, you’re horrified. He’s trending.

Begrudgingly, you start to answer the texts from his team. No, you didn’t notice it; yes, you would have told him if you had; no, you haven’t heard from him yet—he’s literally still on live TV.

You try to focus on the interview. He’s talking about his new movie now, gesturing with those long, beautiful hands. If you squint, you can’t really see the mark on his neck, and you wonder if it’s really that noticeable. Based on your twitter feed: yes.

He’s standing now, shaking the host’s hand again, and the studio audience is clapping, and oh, you’re so relieved it’s over. You twist the blanket nervously between your fingers as the screen goes to a commercial. You mute it, let your eyes drift shut. Maybe this was all a dream.

Your phone buzzing again startles you—not a dream. It’s him, calling you mere seconds after stepping off camera, and you answer right away, nervous fingers slipping over your phone screen.

“Hi, babe!” he chirps, full of energy. It’s his just-got-off-stage voice.

You hate to burst his bubble, but: “Did you, by any chance, look at your texts, hun?” you ask him.

“Nope! I wanted to call you right away! How was it? How was I?”

“Zen…” It’s not like him to be so oblivious; is it possible that, nervous as he was this morning, he really just didn’t notice? “Um, you didn’t happen to…that is, the makeup artist didn’t say anything to you, did they?”

“Makeup artist?” He hums in confusion. He’s going to make you say it.

“There’s a huge hickey on your neck and everyone is talking about it,” you blurt out in one breath. He pauses and you think he’s going to react with surprise, shock, concern.

Instead, he laughs. Laughs.

“You saw it, huh?” He’s talking quietly, probably now in the dressing room, but there’s no anxiety in his voice. He sounds almost…pleased.

“Yes, baby. Everyone saw it.”

He’s still laughing, a kind of satisfied chuckle.. “Good,” he says.

You don’t know what to do with him. You feel your phone continuing to buzz even as you’re talking to him—it’s got to be the publicist, the agent, all the assistants.

“So just so we’re clear,” you say slowly. “You knew it was there and you intentionally didn’t try to cover it.”

“Yep!” You hear people chattering behind him; you can picture him smiling to himself as he strolls through the dressing room, packed with people, colorful and chaotic. Inexplicably, in the midst of all this, he sounds so very calm.

“Babe, everyone on the internet is panicking. Your publicist is panicking. You know she wants you to be more private, wants you to stop, like…throwing my name around in interviews.”

“I never said your name,” he says proudly.

“Zen…”

“Listen,” he says, his voice taking on a more serious tone. He’s practically whispering now; you suppose he’s hidden himself away in a back corner of the dressing room to talk to you. “I know how my publicist feels, and I don’t want to upset her or anything. But I can’t stand it anymore.”

That’s a private voice, a “just us” voice—one you’re used to hearing murmured into your shoulder as he lays in bed beside you at night.

“Can’t stand what?” You don’t know why, but now you’re whispering, too.

“All this secrecy,” he says. “Babe, I want to…I want to run through the streets shouting about you. I want to tell everyone in the world how desperately I adore you.”

You can’t help it: you smile.

“You just want to break the rules,” you tease, and he laughs again, more quietly.

“No,” he says. “I just want to make sure everyone knows who I belong to.”

“Babe…” You know you should argue; you’re his manager, for god’s sake. You should scold him, apologize for leaving the mark in the first place, make him promise not to pull something like this again. But you don’t have it in you.

“I’ll take the blame,” he says. “I’ll tell my publicist and my agent and anyone else who asks that it was just a silly mistake, that I didn’t even notice it. I’ll tell them whatever I have to, and it’ll blow over. But I just…I needed to do this. Do you understand?”

And you do. How could you not?

Much as you’d like to, you can’t deny the twinge you feel in your gut when interviewers ask him about his on-screen chemistry with some glamorous co-star or other and he has to laugh and smile politely and give them a vague response; you can’t deny, either, the sinking feeling you get when you read speculations online about whether he looked at so-and-so for a moment too long in whatever behind-the-scenes footage. It makes you want to scream.

But this…

Today, a huge percentage of the country saw him live with the imprint of your teeth on his skin. And they can wonder and deliberate about who gave him that mark all they want; it doesn’t matter, because you know. You were the one who grazed his sensitive skin with your teeth, making him squirm, moaning your name.

“I do,” you tell him. “And you did look very cute.

“Just cute?” he whines.

“Beautiful, and charming, and clever, and captivating. As always.”

“If you say so.” You can hear the kind of face he’s making—soft smile, eyes sparkling. “And don’t worry about twitter or whatever, darling. What’s that saying? Any press is good press.”

He’s not wrong, you think—trending on twitter can only help him, in the long run; his publicist will come around sometime tomorrow when she sees the inevitable bump in ad revenue. It’s not like he’s caused any harm.

Suddenly, you want to see him. You want to throw yourself against his chest and feel those long fingers on the exposed skin at the back of your neck.

“When will you be home?” you ask him.

“Maybe an hour. You need something, babe?”

You clutch your phone with buzzing fingers, anticipation pooling in the pit of your stomach. “Yes,” you say. “You.”

★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★

Let me know if you’d like to be added to my taglist!

@currentlyprocrastinating @thesirenwashere @ultrasupernini @cro0kedme @otomefoxystar @dawn-skies06 @nad-zeta @hunterelys

#mystic messenger #mysticmessenger #zen #zen x reader #gureishi writes requests #quirky-and-kind

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crazycartoonnerd123 · 3 years

Text

CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TRUE COLORS AND SEASON 3 INTRO!!!

I’m really hesitant to share this. So I got super board last night, so I decided to write my first ever fanfic. I’m a little nervous to share this because I’m really insecure about my writing, especially writing works of fiction, since poetry and informational/argumentative are definitely more of my fortes. I’ve been really thinking about this idea for a while, and it probably won’t happen because it is pretty dark, but I kinda wanted to write a story about how I would expect it to play out. Since I’ve seen Marcy on the life support machine thing in the season 3 intro, I’ve been obsessed with the idea that Andrias is going to pretty much emotionally manipulate Marcy into unknowingly becoming the human host for the Master, so I wrote my story about how I thought this would play out. I’m calling this “Accepting the Darkness”. (Note: Nothing in this story is meant to be hate towards Marcy. I do not completely blame her for what she did. I just wanted to highlight the fact that she carries an extreme amount of guilt. I don’t feel like anyone to interpret it that way, but I’m just an extremely paranoid person, so I wanted to add this little disclaimer just in case it got misinterpreted.)

Accepting the Darkness

It all happened so fast. One minute Marcy was trying to send everyone back to Earth and sabotage the box so Andrias couldn’t invade, and the next minute she felt an excruciating, burning pain. Marcy had been stabbed by Andrias, someone she once believed she could trust. In these final moments, all Marcy could think to do was apologize for all the pain she thought she had caused. “I- I’m sorry for everything,” Marcy tearfully said as she fell to the floor, going into the dark void.

Andrias didn’t plan to kill Marcy. He just couldn’t let Marcy destroy the calamity box. But Andrias saw this tragedy and turned it into an opportunity. Andrias saw this as an opportunity to use Marcy as a human host for his Master. To do this, Andrias had to first revive Marcy by connecting her to the Master and putting her on life support, but only Marcy could allow herself to be the human host for the Master and accept the darkness. It would not be an easy thing for Andrias to do, but he knew that Marcy would still hold a tremendous amount of guilt and pain. He knew he would have to use this to manipulate Marcy into accepting the darkness.

Marcy’s eyes fluttered open. At first she didn’t she didn’t notice the wires that were connected to her body, or that she submerged in a strange liquid. When she did realize this, she panicked and tried to scream, only to realize that the equipment that she connected to would not allow her to scream. “ Hello Marcy,” a familiar voice said, “I’m glad you’re awake.” She realized it was King Andrias. Suddenly a wave of fear, anger, and distrust arose in Marcy. Again, she tried to let out a scream, but was still not able to scream. Suddenly, Marcy was in a complete panic.

“Don’t fret my dear. I don’t wish you any harm,” Andrias lied, “I only wish to extend an offer to you.” Marcy’s eyes widened. Should she really trust Andrias again after everything he put her through? Marcy saw that this was probably another trick, and weakly shook her head, signifying she was not interested in his offer. Marcy knew that whatever plan Andrias had would hurt her friends, and she didn’t want to cause them anymore pain when she felt like she had already caused them so much pain.

Andrias expected Marcy to say no. However, he knew how to get to Marcy. “I figured you would say that. But I just want to say something. I know you have a lot of guilt and pain right now. After all, you betrayed your best friends, uprooted them, separated them from their families, and put them in danger. And for what reason? You didn’t want to be alone. But the painful irony is that you ended up alone in the end,” Andrias said coldly.

This slapped Marcy hard in the face. How did Andrias know the tremendous amount of guilt she felt? How did he know how bad it hurt her to realize that in her efforts to try to stay by her friend’s side, she lost them instead. She felt like everything that had happened in Amphibia was her fault. This cut deeper than any knife. Marcy really did not want to hear the king’s offer, but now he had her attention. She gave him a weak nod, signifying she wanted to know more.

“Guilt and loneliness is a painful thing to deal with Marcy, but what if I told you there was a way out,” Andrias said, “You would never have to feel the pain of losing your friends. You would never have to feel like you let them down. You would never have to feel loneliness again. You just have to do two simple things; accept the darkness and allow the Master in.”

Suddenly, Marcy felt an overwhelming amount of guilt and sorrow. She could suddenly see the looks on everyone’s faces when they found out the truth. The horrified look on Anne’s face and the anger in Sasha’s eyes was just too much. She didn’t want to let the darkness take control. She tried to fight it off, but she just kept seeing Anne and Sasha’s reaction. Suddenly Andrias said, “Don’t fight it Marcy. Become one with the darkness and the Master and you will never have to feel the guilt and pain again.” Marcy kept fighting a little longer, but eventually it was too much. Her pain suddenly turned into numbness. Marcy had given in, making her the human host for the Master. Marcy accepted the darkness.

#amphibia #marcy wu #king andrias #anne boonchuy #sasha waybright #true color spoilers #amphibia spoilers

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zee-writes-and-draws · 3 years

Text

Truly Important

Summary: A look at some of the more important birthdays that Saw Paing has had, and the one he celebrated right after the tournament.

A/n: It's still July 8th, so I'm on time w/this. Nonetheless, I slept five hours so I apologize for lack of proofreading.

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The first birthday that Saw Paing truly considers important is his fifth one, the day he gets to start Lethwei training for the very first time. He comes home covered in scratches and bruises and a trickle of blood running down his forehead. His father fusses a little and his ma doesn’t let him up until she bandages every little cut and bruise but nothing can spoil his good mood as Ne Win Paing puts him in a headlock and their little sister congratulates him on the start of his training.

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Most birthdays to Saw Paing aren’t majorly important beyond the fact that even as a fighter Pa Paing did his best to see every single child on their birthday every year. But some are important because there’s new people in his life, people who aren't’ there, certain benchmarks and events that are important in and of themselves, but are easier to tie to years and dates and celebrations.

Saw Paing’s sixteenth birthday is remembered fondly only because it is one week before he meets his eternal rival for the very first time, a boy named Gaolang Wongsawat.

------

Seventeen. Nothing particularly important. Current youngest brother starts his training that year.

Eighteen. Important solely by the freedom it grants in travelling. Almost all countries recognize eighteen as an age of majority, an age where you can do a lot of things that would be illegal otherwise like go somewhere without an adult’s supervision or rent a car so you have your own transport. Going to places outside of Myanmar and Thailand is the most interesting he’s done in his entire life.

Nineteen. He finally gets a job outside the village. The weapons corporation that hired him is run by an old man and a teenage girl with a vicious streak longer than the destruction radius of the missiles she’s designed. Still, they hired him to safety test things and work to rescue people in afflicted areas, not attack them. It’s Togo Tomari’s brilliant ruthlessness that causes him to end up in the same place as Muteba for a month. Another friendship struck up with someone he’s fought against. A birthday gift of an absolutely gorgeous button-up with twelve patterns and wild color is dropped off at his door that year. Even though the gifter will likely never see it, Saw Paing wears the shirt with pride as often as he can for the next few years.

Twenty. Barely important but it was Gaolang’s eighteenth birthday that year and the time the title ‘God of War’ starts creeping into people’s thoughts about him. Saw Paing cheers his rival on whenever possible.

Twenty-one. Nothing. Little sister asks out crush, dates her for seven months and change before they have to break up because the crush’s family is moving. He and Muteba have each others numbers saved and text between missions.

Twenty-two. He and Ne Win Paing get to fight outside of legal matches for the first time. It’s exhilarating. Their father hugs them both afterwards and tells them how proud he is.

Twenty-three. The first birthday in their family celebrated after Pa Paing passes. It’s somber. Saw Paing would rather have skipped the day entirely if not for how his youngest siblings all seemed determined to follow traditions for at least the illusion of normalcy and he’s not about to ruin their coping process just because he’s sad. With Ne Win Paing travelling nearly full-time and recovering when he’s home, Saw Paing is the de facto leader of the family and he’s not going to let them down so easily.

That night there’s a card delivered to him by a hassled-looking mail carrier. It’s from Gaolang.

I heard about your father’s death, Saw Paing. My deepest condolences to both you and your family. Take care of yourself. Do what you must to feel more stable.

To anyone else the writing would be cold and impersonal. Saw Paing re-reads it over and over until a drop splashes onto it and the crinkling of paper registers and then he hurriedly folds it and drops it onto the desk in his room so it doesn’t get destroyed.

If in two weeks when they next see each other, Gaolang relents and truly fights Saw Paing for twenty minutes before declaring a defeat form boredom, neither of them acknowledge the change in routine anymore than they acknowledge that Saw Paing’s yelling is more like loud talking and that Gaolang had made an extra plate of his favorite fish seemingly just in case.

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Twenty-four. Saw Paing meets Sayaka for the very first time that year, a bright and sunshine-sweet teenager who screams out his intro and doesn’t seem to mind that he’s super-loud or that his opponent throws him into the commentators box and nearly crushes her by accident.

When he had apologized she made a joke about it. He made one back. A friendship stronger than any other he’d made was started that day. Sayaka reminds him of his little sisters, friendly and upbeat and ready to take on the world if she has to and come out with a smile, sharp wit and keen mind concealed under a bubbly layer that requires no lying to maintain.

That year his birthday includes a surprise delivery of a completely new set of cookware with a small note attached.

Happy birthday, Saw! Sorry I couldn’t make it, dad scheduled fifty matches for this week alone so I’m not even sleeping, but I hope you like it! See you in May (PS I’m secretly rooting for you!)

That night Saw Paing makes dinner for everyone with said cookware and an unflappable grin on his face.

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Twenty-five. Nothing.

Twenty-six. His little sister is now formally competing on a near-national level. His brothers, no longer so small but always little in his eyes, work hard to bring in food and water and trade with the local villages and Saw Paing never stops feeling proud of them.

Twenty-seven. More and more fights in the arena. He leaves Tomari’s contracts behind but keeps in touch with Muteba. A chance metal concert allows him to meet Yoshiko, who in turn introduces him to Sawada. Saw Paing mails him several CDs of traditional Burmese music for the other man’s birthday. Gets a collection of ballet remixes in exchange. Listens to the collection every night for weeks and weeks on end until he can whistle half the songs without thinking. Smiles at how many small reminders he has now of the people he cares about.

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Twenty-eight. The coldest and harshest one yet. Ne Win Paing is not there that year. Everyone’s energy is lower than usual. Saw Paing spends the day mostly taking care of the youngest siblings and visiting the graves of those he’s lost. He can feel the wrongness of this land on his skin, it’s Yoroizuka’s home and that’s better than the alternatives but it is not his home or their home or the home that his family deserved and had grown up in and lost because of Ne Win Paing or maybe because Saw Paing should have noticed sooner, should have caught onto the damage his brother had taken.

Sayaka leaves twenty voicemails and thirty texts, all reassurance and compassion and kindness that Saw Paing is beginning to doubt he deserves. Sawada had arranged for several boxes of their favorite sweets from all over the world to be delivered to his house. Muteba messages him a list of names and places if he needs to fight the emotions out or to talk to a professional specializing in fighters and loss of loved ones and tells him to cherish the rest of his family.

Gaolang visits that evening, sleeplessness evident in his posture and eyebags. It’s rarer and rarer for the two of them to see each other now, between the jobs they both hold and duties they’re bound to. Saw Paing’s first priority will always be his family, just as at the end of the day the Thai God of War is not that but the bodyguard of Prince Rama of Thailand. And yet here they are, sitting next to a firepit just outside a house that was not truly meant for Saw Paing’s family, in a country outside of Gaolang’s own.

“Are you alright?” Gaolang asks him. Saw Paing looks up.

I’ll be fine, he wants to say, thinks instead because even things like talking feel like too much right now. He settles for a nod instead, one that feels too slow and tired to really be him but has to be because who else could he be? Gaolang does not look reassured by this. He sits down next to Saw Paing and talks. That quiet voice, normally at least partially twinged with annoyance and exhaustion, now flows with an undertone of gentle energy. It’s not the fire that Saw Paing usually feels running through his veins. Nor is it Ne Win Paing’s quick fury or Pa Paing’s ruthless confidence.

No, it’s the other kind of energy, the kind that Gaolang always emits though it’s hidden under the day-to-day life’s mundaneness. Gaolang tell him about fights, about what guarding Prince Rama has been like for him, some recipe his parents love and he despises because of how annoyingly spicy it is and how Saw Paing would probably like it. And then he talks about staring into a fire.

“Look,” Gaolang motions at it. “It moves so incredibly, alive and unalive at once.” Saw Paing looks into the fire, watches the moving flames flicker and dance in and out of existence. Next to him, Gaolang smiles.

“It reminds me of you sometimes. The difference is fire burns out. I truly hope you never do.” They sit next to each other, watching for a while until something in Saw Paing’s chest undoes itself, letting some feeling back in. Gaolang notices.

“Tell me about Ne Win Paing,” he asks, shoulder brushing against Saw Paing’s own, warmer than the air around by just enough to be noticeable without feeling too off-balance. And so he does, spilling out every little detail he can remember about his brother and all of the memories that were crafted for as long as he can remember. The sky is light when he finishes, still tired but somehow lighter. That something that had unwound a bit earlier is almost completely gone. He’s still saddened by the loss of one of the greatest people in his life, but things look a little better.

Gaolang leaves then, apologetic but unable to stay. Saw Paing nods at him again to say it’s alright and it must come across sufficiently this time, because Gaolang’s smiling softly as he walks to his car and drives back to his too-loud and too-busy life for such a quiet man and yet a life that couldn’t be anyone else’s.

Saw Paing’s younger siblings are slowly waking up, coming out to check up on him and start their day. He hugs them, feeling his spirit coming back to something normal.

------

Twenty-nine. Still a tad colder than before but mostly better.

Thirty. A year with little occurring beyond the increasing amount of kengan matches and the frequency that he gets to see old friends like Sayaka. The tournament that happens later in the year is undoubtedly something unforgettable that he;ll treasure for the rest of his life. So many new friends made, so many bonds forged and strengthened. He makes it a point to keep correspondence with all of them, even the more quiet ones like Karo and Rei. They clearly need the company if they're quite that quiet.

Thirty-one. He wakes up expecting another birthday that’s rather insignificant. His sisters and brothers in college call and Skype and do whatever else they need to say hello first thing in the morning, yelling through the screen loud enough that he can her the dorm’s complaints through the call. The siblings still at home whether from sentimentality or youth wake him minutes before that by running into his room and wishing a happy birthday to him at the top of their lungs. He’s so proud of their lung training being quite so successful.

He checks his phone after all of the younger siblings hang up out of habit. There’s another twelve messages from various members of the assassin clans he’s befriended, a missed call from Cosmo, a notification about a post from Adam, and an alert of the local post office telling him about several packages that are addressed to him.

On the journey to the post office and back he gets six more calls. As he’s balancing reading a short ‘happy birthday!’ texted to him from Cosmo and a rambly congratulation courtesy of Okubo that is interrupted by an incoming call from either Hanafusa or Yoshizawa, a wonderfully familiar voice calls out.

“Saw! Over here!” Sayaka stands by the edge of the road, looking as red carpet-ready as always, except for the small trolley of boxes and bags she’s keeping from rolling away.

“HEY SAYAKAAAA!!!!!” He yells to her as he runs over. She’s hugging him so there’s no reason not to complete their usual greeting by picking her up and spinning in several circles.

“Happy birthday, Saw!” She laughs as he puts her down. “Sorry I didn’t warn you, but there was a lot of last minute stuff and everyone wanted to send something to you and it was ‘one more thing’ this and ‘oh wait here!’ that, and it’s so great to see you again! Here!” the packages he was holding until two seconds ago are now in Sayaka’s hands, traded for a fancy-looking photo album.

“It’s for you. I wish I could stay, but Retsudo’s been flipping out for six hours and he threatened to send a SAR squad again, but I promise i’ll call this evening, kay? See ya soon, Saw Paing!” She runs to the familiar figures of Takyama and Misasa, waving the whole time they drive away until she’s out of his line of sight. Only tnen does Saw Paing turn his attention to the trolley and the photo album.

Getting everything home requires ignoring messages and calls so his plan to find out what these things are that everyone was so determined to send to him has to wait another hour or so but then he finally has the time to check everything out.

There’s two gorgeous shirts that fit perfectly, bright greens and yellows combining with the soft fabric and reminding him of his old shirt but nicer. This, he knows without even needing to check the card, is a gift that only someone like Muteba would have gotten him. A thick book of various recipes from several different regions in Japan, along with an impressively full binder of leaflet instructions for dishes made in the mountains is sent courtesy of Sekibayashi and Haruo.

A sharp-looking knife that seems to be more familiar with intestines sliding across its blade than vegetables is gifted by the Kures he’d met after Hayami’s rebellion, right next to several ‘free assassination’ coupons Reichii and Fusui must have snuck in as a half-joke and and half-true gift.

Most of the things are actually quite small, just fragile and packaged with an insane amount of cushioning, he realizes. It’s nothing particularly fancy, but they’re all things that will remind him of the senders, be it the scalpel that Hanafusa mailed him with instructions on how to DIY surgery or the old shogi set Kaneda gifts along with a book on most famous shogi strategies played throughout history.

Saw Paing moves everything to where it should be once everything but the photo album has been looked through. The cookbooks go to a specific shelf in the kitchen that no one else can reach. The weapons are hidden in a small box under his bed to avoid any incidents. Muteba’s shirts go onto hangers, Sawada’s fancy candies are set on a plate for eating while looking at this final gift, and then the album is opened.

The first photo makes him smile, a perfect snapshot from one of his earliest fights in the Kengan matches, capturing the moment they had both gone from enemies to friends mid-blow. A date, presumably of when the photo was taken, is written on the border in Sayaka’s neat writing. The second one is of Ne Win Paing from seven years ago. This time, the date is in heavier, blockier writing, not unlike Hollis’s. Saw Paing flips through the album a little more, taking it in. there’s plenty of photos of his various friends, fellow fighters, and even some family from the tournament and before it, but there’s also old photos of his brother and father, and even one of his mother back when she had fought in occasional matches, along with candids of some of the more stoic people. They must have been collected over several months, and not just by Sayaka.

Saw Paing already knows what will happen this evening. Gaolang will come over with some kind of small yet so deeply personal way of also saying happy birthday. Sayaka will call again, most likely throwing a small party in the Katahara house and inviting everyone she can. Rei might stop by and even if he doesn’t, he’ll Skype before the sun sets because he’s a punctual person by both nature and training.

But that’s still hours away, and in the meantime, Saw Paing decides to keep looking at the beautiful snapshots of the past, enjoying the present to it’s fullest.

------

END.

#happy birthday to my all-time fave #saw paing yoroizuka #sayaka katahara #gaolang wongsawat #ne win paing #pa paing #kenganverse #kengan ashura #kengan #fic #fanfic #my writing #I wrote this in one sitting please if you like it leave a comment or rb or somehting

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atsunflower · 3 years

Text

And the snakes started to sing — Intro

Rated: SFW

Author note: I decided on posting the intros for all the fics before updating them. Please, give this one the same amount of love you give to the other stories from this au *cough* Hospital for souls *cough*. Daisho is my babie and I love him very much.

Warnings: cursing, name-calling, implied cheating, mentions of alcohol and me being mean to Mika.

I — Intro

Previous || Next

When he decided to marry her, it felt right.

Back at that time, it felt like he had made a big score that would lead him into a successful path.

She had stunning looks and that fire in her eyes. A combo that would put any man into his knees in adoration.

At that moment, she seemed nothing but a strong-minded girl, with a sassy demeanor and a seducing aura. The sweet smiles and soft voice were a bonus.

Plus the fact Mother Nature gifted her with those ginger locks and the skin of alabaster, being enamored by her looks couldn't be helped either.

He was sure she was a goddess among the Earth and he, himself, was more than willing to let her rule his life.

And man, was he wrong.

Mika was a bitch — the worst one, it is.

He can't exactly pinpoint the moment things went wrong, but he knew it wasn't much long after their wedding.

She turned out to be demanding.

A vixen who couldn't let him be, always rubbing shit on his face and remarking how much of a failure he was.

Oh, she was a cheater too.

And this is why Daisho Suguru, the oh-so-feared oyabun of Nohebi, was wasting his night away on a lowlife bar located in the outskirts of Tokyo.

Because if he ran into her right now, he would end her right on the spot, using only his bare hands, almost breaking the promise he made to himself of never laying a hand on a woman with hurting purposes.

As much as she deserved it.

"Uhm... sir?" A soft voice snapped him out of his reverie. Lifting his gaze, his eyes bore into gentle ones "I'm sorry for disturbing you, but we're closing for the night." The woman said to him.

"Oh, right. Gimme the bill, please" She looked worriedly at him.

"Sir, you only drank water the whole night. Water is on the house." She stated the obvious, wiping the counter. The name tag on her chest glinted under the dim light; he paid no mind to it, returning to look past the woman's face.

"Oh, right" he was astonished. He was supposed to be sad and drinking his heart out. Maybe, in bloodlust for revenge.

Is this how emptiness feels? He wondered.

"Then, can I have a swill of whiskey before I go?" He asked, an uncertain tone lacing his voice; the woman smiled warmly at him, grabbing a glass.

"Of course. We have scotch, tennessee and a bottle of Yamazaki to offer. Which one do you prefer?"

"Yamazaki. Neat, please" He asked, analyzing her features.

She was pretty. Her body held a delicate constitution he never saw before. Doe eyes with long lashes that resembled doll ones.

Pretty, he realised, but not quite my type.

"Here ya go, sir." His concentration was broken by the screech the glass made on the wooden surface after the woman slid it to him.

Chugging down its content, throat burning in the process, he then banged the glass onto the counter when finished.

The bargirl let out a little squeal at the sound.

"I apologize" he whispered, hands running through his verdant hair while he looked around the place.

The bar wasn't even that bad per se, but it wasn't like the fancy pubs he is used to frequent either. Tough it wasn't what tickled him off.

The woman before him didn't fit in the place.

It wasn't his problem. But it bugged him to see a pretty thing like her in a place like this.

He observed as she organized some stuff in the cabinets. He didn't miss the glances she threw at him over her shoulders, eyes almost rushing him out.

Daisho sighed.

"I'll take my leave. How much do I owe you?" The man asked, already reaching for his wallet.

"Nothing really." The words came out in relief. He frowned, feeling pathetic.

"Look, I'm not a charity case." The bitter taste in his mouth felt too much. He didn't come in searches of pity from the worker of a rundown bar.

For goddam's sake, Daisho could buy and burn down the whole city.

The man didn't want her sympathy.

"Oh, I didn't mean to offend you, sir." She squealed, moving her hands frantically "You just look like you could use something warm right now." And after years of being stabbed on the back, he saw sincerity in the color of her eyes; no second intentions behind those irises.

He thanked the girl, finally taking his leave.

Getting out of the place and ignoring the dull burning in his throat, Daisho couldn't understand the feeling inside of his chest — but he knew it wasn't a bad sensation.

Warm indeed, the male thought, starring at the dark sky of Tokyo.

❥ throne taglist: @neonghxst @keekee-732 @chiibichann @imomomi @captain-shittykawa @idiot-juice-enthusiast @tomo-uwu @onigiriimiya @keuromi @trash4sportsanime @fortheloveofiwaizumi @yikerb @akaaaashit @lilacshouko @sehunosh @bap-kingdom @sakusakymi @namyari @voids-universe @kylalily @apollochjld @osamusamusamu @bbyspiiice @itadaklmasu @nevercaughtsimping @alicemitch09 @stairscortana @bokutoichigo @butwordsarethekey @caxsthetic @kyomihann @mega-bastard @imkumichan @isentsworld @melonluv @maramalademadara @yamagucji @sanso @aprettyfruit

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#daisho suguru x reader #daisho x reader #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu x reader #daishou suguru x reader

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dirtyoatmeall · 3 years

Text

Dig (Tsukishima x Reader)

A/N: I will def be writing more for these, as an archaeology major, I hold paleontology major tsukki in a special place in my heart. Also everything about the dig I describe is most likely incorrect lmao.

Pairing: Paleontology major! Tsukki x Archaeology major! Reader (she/they pronouns used)

Word count: 1.6k

Warnings: None :)

You met Tsukishima Kei the first day of your first year of college. It was your intro Anthropology course, and you had bumped into him on accident entering the auditorium. You had kept your head down, mumbling an apology before hurriedly finding a seat in the middle of the room. He sat a few seats over in the same row and you tried your best not to glance at him, he was obviously attractive, but all it took was a raised eyebrow when he caught you staring for you to look away blushing, pretending to look through your bag for something. You busied yourself with numbering the pages in your notebook until the professor started class.

It was a relatively small class, so the professor had everyone stand up and introduce themselves with their pronouns, major/minor, and one thing they want to accomplish. When it was your turn you tried your best not to sound confident as you spoke, though it didn’t last long, as the professor immediately asked you to repeat yourself louder. You were bright red by the time you finished introducing yourself. “H-hi, my name is (Y/N), I’m double majoring in bio-archaeology and Classics, my pronouns are she/they and I want to find Alexander the Great.” The professor nodded and the next person stood up to introduce themselves as you sat down, fiddling with your pen.

Tsukishima didn’t really think much of you until he watched you do the icebreaker for class. He thought it was an ambitious goal, and respectable dual majors. Though the thing that really drew his attention to you was the face you made when the person next to you introduced themselves as an archaeology major and that they wanted to find a complete T-Rex skeleton. Your face had twisted rather cutely into a grimace at your classmates words, turning to your notebook and scribbling in the corners. After the professor kindly explained the differences between archaeology and paleontology, it was his turn. He stood up, introduced himself “Tsukishima, he/him pronouns, paleozoology major, museum studies minor. And I’d like to find a job right out of school.” He sat down as the professor nodded and made a joke about finding a job. Soon enough the entire class had introduced themselves and the professor started going over the syllabus.

The first time Tsukishima saw you outside of class it was a Friday night. 3 a.m. to be exact. Thankfully your university had a 24hr library, and most of the students took advantage of it, though it was usually dead at this time of night, or morning. He spied you almost right away, nestled in a corner with multiple stacks of books and cans of energy drinks. You were nodding your head along to a dong and when he walked past he could very clearly hear ABBA blasting in your headphones. He smirked to himself and sat down a table down from you, getting ready to study for the upcoming test on Wednesday. He would get up periodically to get a book or a snack from the vending machine near the door. He noticed that every time he got up, your eyes would flicker to him, and you would pause your work, messing with your phone until he sat down again. He would return the favor, watching your things while you were gone.

About an hour into his study session he looked up to your spot when he heard you groan quietly. You aggressively paused your music and cutely pouted down at your notebook. You skimmed a few pages in the book next to you, comparing it to your notebook and whatever was on the screen of your laptop before rolling your eyes and softly face planting onto the book in front of you. Your eyes briefly fluttered to where he was, and you smiled slightly when the two of you made eye contact. He pretended to get back to the book he was supposed to be reading, but he watched you sigh as your eyes flickered from your notebook to him before you quietly got up and shuffled towards his table. He fully looked at you when you slid into the seat across from him, and he raised an eyebrow when you smiled awkwardly.

“Uh, Hi. I’m (Y/N), we have anth 250 together right?” You asked even though you very well knew he was in that class, but you still waited for confirmation before you continued. “That’s what I thought. Could you maybe help me with this? I’m having a hard time grasping it.” He glanced at what you were pointing at and nodded, he had also had some trouble with it, and had just recently figured it out. He explained it to you, smiling when he saw your eyebrows raise as you let out a soft ’ooohhh’ once you had grasped it. You had moved to get up when he cleared his throat, “Uh, you can sit here if you want, that way if you have any other questions you don’t have to come all the way over here.” Tsukishima didn’t look at you when he said it, but saw you smile and nod out of the corner of his eye. You brought your stuff over to his table and the two of you studied together for a few more hours, occasionally talking about class that led into talking about random things the two of you both liked.

At 5:30 you sighed, closing your laptop and putting away your things. “I should probably head back to my dorm, I have been here for about 12 hours” You chuckled and Tsukishima nodded and began to pack up as well. “I’ll walk you to your dorm.” You paused, looking at him puzzled. “Oh you don’t have to do that, I live all the way in East Village.” He simply waved your concern away “Me too, I have a class at 10 anyway, I should probably stop for the night. You snorted and waited for the blonde to be done before the two of you headed to your dorm building.

The two of you continued to talk about random things on the way back, from music tastes to favorite myths to what tree you would be. You both paused to watch the sunrise at the hill next to your dorm building, watching the colors slowly melt together as the stars disappeared from view. You turned to smile at Tsukishima to find he was already looking at you, an uncharacteristic soft look on his face. You flushed slightly and the two of you continued to your dorm building. You saluted to him before getting off the elevator onto your floor. You glanced at your phone as you got ready for bed, glad you didn’t have any classes until noon.

From that day on you and Tsukishima sat together during your anthropology class and studied together every Friday. You partnered together for the few projects assigned and even hung out outside of class, growing closer as the semester flew by. You were planning on meeting him for lunch after you finished finals, which you just did. You sent him a text and headed to the café the two of you frequent. You ordered a drink and sat at the corner table, scrolling through your phone until Tsukishima arrived. The two of you discussed your finals, and the classes you were taking next semester (you had 2 of them together thankfully) before Tsukishima sighed. “Do you want to get dinner on Saturday?” You smiled nodding, “Yeah! Are there some last minute things you want to go over for a final?” He rolled his eyes and looked at you flatly, which was a normal look for the blonde. “No, like a date.” You stopped, mid-drink as you absorbed his words. When you did you flushed and swallowed, looking away shyly. “Yeah, I’d really like that.” Tsukishima smiled and nodded.

10 years later~

You sighed, wiping your forehead as you straightened up, moving to your phone to change the music blaring from the speakers. It was hot, the hat doing nothing to shield you from the sun as you crouched down again, picking up your trowel. You were about to continue your section of the dig when you heard a noise of surprise from the next section over. “(Y/N)! I think I found something, it looks like bone!”

Your eyes grew wide and you jumped out of the pit into the one a few feet away, joining the college student in looking at what they found. They brushed some more dirt away, revealing a large bone, too large to be human. You groaned, climbing out to grab your phone, disconnecting it from the speaker and dialing a number before stepping away, pout on your face. The college student looked at the other dig lead, confused on why you seemed upset. The dig lead chuckled, waving away their concern. “Don’t worry, you didn’t do anything wrong. (Y/N) just has to call in a paleontologist, and the one on this dig just happens to be an ass.” The college student nodded and climbed out of the pit, not wanting to disturb anything.

Thankfully it wasn’t too long before another car pulled in. You immediately walked over, hands on your hips as you talked to the person getting out. The rest of the crew could see them smirk and flick your forehead, before leaning down to kiss you. The college student made a noise of surprise as the two of you walked over, bumping shoulders and you discussed details of the dig. “Wait, I thought you said she didn’t like them.” The dig lead just shook his head, “I said he was an ass, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t like him, in fact, they’re married.”

#My writing #tsukishima kei #haikyuu tsukishima #tsukishima kei x reader #tsukishima x reader #tsukishima kei x you #tsukishima imagine #haikyuu!!#haikyu #haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu x you #haikyuu x y/n

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uwuwriting · 4 years

Text

The writings on his skin Shinsou Soulmate au

Soulmate au with communication via writing on their skin.

Oh god this is bad, I’m not happy with it at all. My original draft got deleted and I had to rewrite this at 2 am and I’m dead. I didn’t proof read it because I swear I’m gonna pass out so I’m so terribly sorry for butchering this. I love Hitoshi to the moon and back I hope he has the most wonderful birthday I LOVE HIM. Hope this doesn’t suck that much. Love ya. 💖💖💖💖💖

Rules

warnings: mentions of bullying, some angst, fluff

When Hitoshi was young he used to believe in soulmates. He couldn’t wait to meet the person that would fit him like a puzzle piece. In the early age of five, Shinsou Hitoshi was filled with positivity and hope. Hope that in the future he would get to enjoy all the things he liked with someone special.

He was so excited for the first day of school. some of the kids from his neighborhood would be in his class; they didn’t like him they were really afraid of his quirk and would make fun of him all the time, but he didn’t care. He would make new friends and just ignore them. Stepping into the classroom he was met with about 18 new faces. 18 possible friends. A smile spread across his face as he made eye contact with one of the kids. The boy was playing with some LEGOs as Hitoshi made his way to him.

“Hi I’m Shin-”

“AHH IT’S THE MONSTER!!!” the boy cried out as he stumbled backwards putting a respectful distance between them. The whole class turned to look at them and one by one all the kids slowly took a step back. They were all afraid of him. They all wanted nothing to do with him. They-they.

“He’s a villain!!!”

“Someone call All Might!!!!”

More children joined the mocking and the cries for help. A group of boys, two of which he knew, walked up to him growls leaving their mouths as -even though Hitoshi was a tall child- they towered over him. Pushing him to the ground, one of them snatched his backpack emptying the contents on him before throwing it at a corner of the room.

“Villains are not allowed here! Jihiko-sensei will kick you out, villain!” Right on cue, Jihiko-sensei stepped into the room, her eyes landing immediately at his wide eyed face and trembling form.

“Boys that’s rude!” grabbing his backpack she started putting back his scattered supplies.“Apologise to Shinsou right now!”

Reluctantly the four boys bowed their heads, mumbling an apology before rising their noses up in the air and walking away, leaving a terrified Hitoshi on the floor.

During the first day of school he knew that he wouldn’t be getting new friends and with that his doubts of even having a soulmate bloomed to life.

Middle school was not as bad as elementary. He had gotten used to the teasing and the name calling. He couldn’t say that it didn’t bother him; it really did but he had learned not to show it. Even now, years after that fateful first day in kindergarten, he had no friends. All of them pushed him away, some more politely than others, leaving the word ‘villain’ lumming over their heads as they turned him down. He was fine though. No soulmate mark had appeared but at this point he couldn’t really be disappointed. After all, someone like him -a monster, a villain- didn’t deserve to have a soulmate.

It was a normal day in his boring middle school. So boring that Hitoshi had turned to doodling on his arm. It was not a habit, he hadn’t done it before since he saw the doodles as tattoos and he didn’t want to give others more reasons to call him evil. Plus he liked his arms clean. But he was bored and it was hot and he wasn’t functioning correctly. At some point during his history class, he fell asleep. He woke up to a light tickling sensation running up his arm and a dim shine appeared on a spot near his wrist.

‘You can’t draw….’

He blinked once, twice expecting the words to disappear but they didn’t. They didn’t fade, they were real. Bold black letters stared back at him as he marveled at the sight. He … he had a soulmate and he could actually speak to them. Snapping out of his trance he scrambled for a pen and thought of a response. He didn’t wanna seem desperate. Deciding on sarcasm he wrote beside their own message.

‘Well excuse me Picasso’

He waited for a response for what felt like centuries. This was amazing, incredible, astonishing all of those long pretty words writers use to describe their female characters in poems. Would they want to meet him? Did they live nearby? Were they the same age? So many questions swirled inside his head he almost missed the mandala pattern that appeared on his wrist. The design became more vibrant and visible as the minutes ticked by. It was beautiful.

‘What’s your favorite color?’

‘Purple….why?’

‘Be patient sweet soulmate of mine, you’ll see.’

His heart skipped a beat. Oh lord he hadn’t even met them yet and he was already getting butterflies in his stomach. Slowly purple highlights started to appear on his skin, matching the black outlines perfectly. They truly were a Picasso.

‘There now you have true art on your hand.’

‘Confident are we?’

‘Only when it comes to inter-soulmate communications.’

He liked them. He knew that from the first moment. A smile took its place on his face as he saw new letters forming on his skin, warmth blooming in his chest as he stared at their conversation. Soulmate...maybe he wasn’t so lonely after all.

UA High. This is it. He was finally here. A place where heroes were made. It’s his time to show all those pesky brats that called him a villain that he could be a hero. A fine one at that. Getting placed in the general department was a disappointment and kind of a let down. He thought he did well on the exam. Apparently, having a grape quirk was more hero material than his brainwash. He wasn’t fazed though and neither was his soulmate. They hadn’t stopped speaking since their first conversation back in middle school. His day would start with a small, sloppy good morning scribbled on his wrist. They were there for him whenever he needed someone to rant to and he was always their shoulder to cry on. Well inky shoulder? They had agreed to keep their identities a secret along with their gender leaving everything to the hands of fate.

‘She shall bring us together, babe.’ They always called him that, not that he minded.

‘Well she should hurry up kitten.’ And he in return he given them that pet name. They never complained. He hadn’t mentioned which school he applied to, only that he would be becoming a hero. So when they mentioned something about a Bakugou Katsuki he was intrigued.

‘Yeah he is in my class. Super annoying 0/10 would not recommend.’

They went to the same school. What a coincidence. Maybe fate did work fast. Choosing his next words wisely he replied.

‘So you are in class 1-A huh? Funny.’

‘How do you know that?????’

‘I’m in the general department that’s why.’

There was no response for some time. He knew Aizawa was a harsh teacher when it came to discipline, he gets a taste of his discipline every afternoon at six, so he didn’t write anything else. Later that day, during his training, the familiar tingle distracted him. Glancing down on his arm, he totally missed Aizawa’s capture tool coming straight for his leg. Before he knew it, he was swiped off his feet and started hanging upside down from a branch of a nearby tree.

“You are distracted Shinsou!” Aizawa sighed below him. Hitoshi read the message quickly before turning his attention back to his teacher.

“I’m sorry Aizawa-sensei.”

“Yeah yeah just don’t be like that during your training with my class. You remember that it starts tomorrow right?” Aizawa said as he got him down, letting him fall with a loud thud.

“Yes sensei I know.”

“Great, now go get some rest I don’t want you passing out the moment you step in the forest.”

Shinsou had never gathered his things quicker. Draping his jacket over his shoulders he sprinted to his dorm, an idea forming in his mind. He didn’t know if you wanted to meet him yet but he sure as hell wanted to see you. Grabbing a pen from his desk he scribbled under your previous message.

‘Can you draw one of your mandalas on my wrist?’

Y/N was late. Like super late. She had missed her first alarm and had only gotten up because of the pounding at her door. She had stayed up the previous night drawing something for her soulmate. She kept messing up and redoing her work one too many times. Reaching her classroom she slid the door open and tiptoed to her seat seeing as Aizawa-sensei hadn’t gotten out of his sleeping back yet. Sitting down she let out a sigh of relief as her friend leaned over to her.

“Late night with your soulmate???” She sang teasingly which only made Y/N roll her eyes.

“Shut up Sky!” Soon they were instructed to put on their hero costumes and meet their homeroom teacher at the edge of the mini forest right in the outskirts of the school grounds.

Skipping out of the girls locker room she looked down at her wrist where the mandala from last night looked back at her. She ran her fingers over the lines wishing she could see the design on the recipients skin.

“Come on man! We’re gonna miss the intro move your ass!” Sky grabbed her arm and yanked her forward, ruining her moment of longing as they made their way to the forest.

Aizawa-sensei was accompanied by another person. A boy almost at his height with vibrant purple hair and the most tired eyes Y/N had ever seen. He was staring at the class giving small nods when someone asked him something.

“This is Shinsou Hitoshi. Most of you will know him from the sports festival, he fought the problem child.” Midoriya hid his face in his palms at the name. “He will be joining the hero course come next year so have fun training with him.”

Shinsou raised his hand to scratch his neck, a nervous habit Y/N concluded, when she saw the intertwining lines on his wrist. The purple stood out. It was more vibrant on her design, slightly losing it’s shine on his pale skin possibly because he received it. Was that? Was he?

“Who wants to pair up with him?” at that her arm shot up instantly, without even thinking. Aizawa motioned for the rest of the students to find their partner as she made her way to him. He was taller up close, her head barely reaching his chin. Extending her drawn on hand she greeted him.

“Y/N L/N, nice to finally meet you Shinsou.”

Bonus:

The house was quiet. Oddly quiet. Hitoshi let his bag drop next to the coat hanger as he took off his shoes. The TV could be heard playing from the living room but no voices accompanied it. Where was she? Making his way to the kitchen he found a bowl full with steaming soup that looked like it had just been made. He left it on the table, his first priority being to find the girl he was looking for. Slowly walking up the stair he heard a humming coming from the room down the hall.

Once at the top he made his way to the pastel violet door, grasping the knob and pushing it open. He was met with the back of his soulmate, humming the soft tune he had heard earlier as she rocked steadily back and forth. The mess of purple hair on her shoulder raised its head revealing those stunning e/c eyes he adored so much.

“Daddy…” the little girl in Y/N’s arms let out a low sleepy mumble. Turning around she saw her husband standing in the doorway of the nursery, a smile adorning his face as he looked at Kei. Kei, at the sight of her father, started doing grabbing motions trying to leave her mother’s embrace. Hitoshi let out a low chuckle as he took the two year old in his arms, letting her wrap her chubby arms around his neck and nuzzle into his neck.

“Happy birthday Toshi.”

Shinsou Hitoshi could have never imagined he would be here today, holding his daughter as his soulmate stared back at him. He was happy, beyond happy actually. Words could not express. Extending an arm out to her, she took it tucking herself under his chin as one of her hands came to rest on the back of her baby. Kissing both of his girls, he squeezed them closer to him.

“Thank you kitten. For everything.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TAG TEAM AY:

@iwaqchan @the-arcana-fan-fic @angelwritings @axerrri @reinyrei

#shinsou x reader #shinsou x y/n #shinsou x you #my hero academia shinsou #shinsou fluff #shinsou soulmate #happy birthday shinsou #bnha #bnha x reader #bnha x you

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Divide”

Hello, everyone, and welcome back! It feels good to be doing some normal RWBY-ing in this strange world of ours. First, some supplementary materials.

Number One: In response to any (valid) questions along the lines of, “Hey Clyde, it’s now been a full year since Volume 7 was airing and you still haven’t answered my ask about it. Or the ones about Volume 6… what’s up with that?” I’ve created what I hope is an informative video detailing the problem:

vimeo

(I assure you, the Earth, Wind & Fire was a happy accident during the screen recording.)

Needless to say, there’s a lot and I’ve known for some time now that I will LITERALLY never get through all my asks. Which doesn’t mean I don’t want you to send future thoughts in! Just know that as we head into Volume 8 territory I’ll most likely prioritize those, as well as any Volume 7 asks that aren’t woefully out of date. But I do want everyone to know that I read all the asks I receive, appreciate them immensely, and think too much about hypothetical answers, even if I don’t have time to actually write them out 💜

Number Two: There’s a bingo board this year!

Jury’s out on whether I’ll remember to update it, but at the very least this serves as a decent glimpse into my — and others’ — expectations going into this volume.

Number Three: I’ve collected a list of things I’ve heard about Volume 8 from what seem to be reputable sources. I did this because RT is developing a tendency to talk up certain points and then fail to deliver, either because something was taken out of a volume/moved to another, or because RT apparently has radically different ideas about what including something means. So this might be handy to keep on file and ask ourselves two months from now, “Did RT actually deliver on what they promised?”

Emphasis on Ruby’s leadership and how Summer’s death has impacted her

Insight into Ren and Nora’s flaws

May Merigold will supposedly have a larger part

More information about The Long Memory (Ozpin’s cane)

Theme of the volume is that you can respect someone but that doesn’t necessarily mean you agree with them

Very short timeline (supposedly just two days)

Yang in particular is very suspicious and distrustful

I was also going to include a list of all the threads that need to be continued/wrapped up, but honestly that would have taken too large a chunk off my life. Let’s just throw out the highlights:

Are we really going to have Qrow gunning for Ironwood?

Clover is dead regardless. Press ‘F’ to pay respects

Oscar bb you got shot please acknowledge this

Ozpin bb you got done dirty please acknowledge this

Penny is a Maiden now. I feel like the fandom has been sleeping on this (myself included)

Queer baiting, queer baiting… you’re on thin ice at this point, RWBY. Just skate on over to the queer snack bar before you fall straight into the lake.

Ren spill your deep dark secret already and it had better be something more than just ‘Oh no Nora might someday die :( ’

Salem is here so how the actual fuck is the cast surviving this?

Will Ironwood likewise survive his descent into antagonism? Yes or please yes no?

I think that’s all the biggies. I strive to keep lists like this in mind while analyzing, but honestly RWBY has a hundred moving parts that are abandoned or changed or simply retconned at the drop of a hat. So an attempt will be made.

Number Four (last one I promise!): Normal disclaimers and reminders for Recaps apply:

Please don’t fill up the already full inbox with flames. It’s still 2020. No one has time for that nonsense.

There will absolutely be typos and wonky parts because I try to get these out the same day an episode premieres. I have now been working on this for ten hours, nearly straight, and have no more energy for edits. Apologies in advance and RIP to my Saturdays.

I reserve the right to use stupid GIFs and memes at my discretion.

I strive to keep my focus on recapping/analyzing but salt tends to worm its way in… If you’re a die-hard RWBY fan with little patience for criticism, let alone (at times) snarky criticism, please proceed with caution.

No wait I lied, this is the last thing:

Okay, got that out of my system LET’S DO THIS!

We start not with the episode itself but rather Rooster Teeth’s (RT’s) strange non-promotion of it. If you follow my blog you may have caught the post where I pointed out that there was nothing on RT’s website to suggest that one of their most popular shows—if not the most popular show—was premiering today. Nothing on the main page. Nothing on the RWBY page either, not unless you count the Volume 8 poster background (easily mistaken for the Volume 7 poster) and the trailer buried all the way down past Episodes, past Merch, in the Bonus Features section along with videos like Live From Remnant and the volume intros. RT… the promotion of your feature show is not a bonus. This should be front and center! Honest to god, five minutes before the episode dropped I was checking the website for a Volume 8 section, a countdown, anything that would tell me the episode was imminent without relying on fans on tumblr to keep me in the loop. We got nada, zilch. I’m not sure whether that speaks more to RT’s iffy management of the series or simply the website’s horrible design—RIP losing RWBY on Youtube—but I was surprised when I saw the episode a few minutes after 11:00am. At that point I honestly expected to hear about a dely.

So that’s the mood I entered the premiere in, but truly? We start off strong. Things take a pretty severe nosedive later on, we’ll get to that, but I was impressed with our beginning and that probably has a lot to do with the fact that we start with our villains.

We open on a Cinderella character, Cinder, and thus I’m immediately pleased that we’re getting something about her backstory after all this time. Seven years! She appeared in episode one, folks! To say we’re overdue is an understatement. There isn’t a whole lot to go on, just a younger Cinder sadly scrubbing the floor, poised under a spotlight. What we learn, or potentially learn, is based far more in cultural knowledge than this scene. We know Cinderella’s story, which includes the abusive family, the longing for more, the eventual escape, and thus we’re able to read all of that in this image, despite the image itself not telling us any of this overtly. That means we could be wrong in our interpretation, but if we’re not it’s an easy shorthand in an already packed story.

What I’m really impressed with is the sound bridge between the scrubbing and her nails on the back of Neo’s chair. Fantastic way to confirm that this is Cinder as well as showcasing just how far she’s come. The sound of her labor has been replaced with the sound of her power and given that Cinder’s power is stolen, tied to a grimm arm, the property of a genocidal maniac… that’s messed up. It’s a Cinderella story gone wrong.

So yeah, Cinder tells Neo to head straight into the creepy, grimm infested blood cloud to see Salem and Neo is like, ‘Uh… no thank you?’ lol.

RT does a good job this episode with her expressions, ensuring we know exactly what she’s thinking despite an unwillingness/inability to speak.

Poor Neo might be in too deep, but I quite like the overall atmosphere of this opening. Say what we will about Salem’s awful characterization, at least she has style. This woman knows how to make an entrance and, piggybacking off of the Apathy, RT knows how to infuse horror elements into their fantasy. The red and purple coloring of the clouds, spiked whale teeth peeking through, bright orange in the background looking like explosions… that’s all 👌 Including the intro card.

The only thing I want to gripe about is this:

I’m sorry, why does the whale grimm have landing pads? Or something like it?? The whale otherwise works because it’s poised between the natural and the fantasy synthetic. It looks like a real grimm whale on the outside, but is sporting a throne room, a control panel, and other unnatural elements on the inside. It’s a visual indicator of Salem’s ability to control and change grimm. Now though, the additions are wrong, infringing on the line between organic and tech, the line between what helps the grimm individually (giving monkeys wings) and what just helps Salem. Every other aspect of the whale straddles that line wonderfully, adding to the creep factor, like a grimm version of the Uncanny Valley: it’s not quite a whale anymore… but landing pads? That looks ridiculous. Why does Salem even have that? How many ships are her people feasibly using? Why are there five?

Take it away, please.

Cinder waltzes in like this is a normal home visit, but Neo has an appropriate ‘What the actual fuck?’ face going on.

They approach Salem on her throne where Cinder immediately kneels, greeting her with, “My queen.” I mentioned during my trailer breakdown that I think Cinder is lying her ass off here, and I still think that based on a line we’ll get in a minute, but now at least we have a sense of how she can pull this off. A woman who started out as a (presumed) servant is going to know how to mimic subservience, even if her heart isn’t in it. Salem is very good at playing the girl who will still kneel and scrub the floor for you. She will scrub the floor, she’ll do everything you want, she’ll just be plotting her own rise to power while she does it.

There’s quite a bit of interesting cinematography in this episode, not all of it good, and I think one of the mistakes is here when we get a closeup on Salem’s mouth as she greets Cinder. A closeup like that should be reserved for more significant dialogue—“Rosebud”—and yet we get this shot again when Cinder tells Emerald to be quiet. It’s awkward and coupled with the numerous eye closeups we got in the trailer, I think RT is playing a little fast and loose with the camera. Each shot should add something to the scene, not distract from it. If you don’t have a reason for including a technique like that then leave it be.

Back to the actual dialogue though. We knew that Salem knew Cinder was alive and now it seems that she just expected her to come back? I’m slightly lost. It feels like we’re missing something here. Cinder goes off to secure the lamp, fails, nearly dies, wanders on her own for months, and then randomly shows back up on Salem’s whale doorstep, yet Salem isn’t angry at all? Did she have faith that Cinder would return when she has something to offer? Did she just not care about Cinder, considering her return an unnecessary but otherwise welcome surprise? That would make the least sense given that she holds the key to accessing Beacon’s relic… but that circles right back around to why Salem is seemingly indifferent to Cinder’s comings and goings. Surely she can’t actually believe that Cinder is loyal?

“So I trust you wouldn’t return to me empty handed,” she says. Yeah, trust means nothing in this show, Salem, didn’t you watch Volumes 6 and 7? Again, I simply don’t know. I suppose I’ll just chalk it up to confidence, that if Cinder did bail Salem knew she could track her down again. Deciphering her motivations and beliefs is a lost cause when the show continually gives us so little.

The important thing now is that Cinder does indeed have an offering and you can see that Salem is somewhat surprised at being handed the relic.

Cinder, of course, takes credit for the victory and we’re given another wonderful shot of Neo. ‘YOU took it?’

Oh, Neo. Best get out while you still can.

Tyrian appears having obviously made his way to Salem’s ship sometime between her arrival and now. The exchange is pretty standard for this group. He insults Cinder for failing and needing this victory to make amends, talks about how any win against Ironwood says more about his lack of intelligence than her skill, and Cinder… doesn’t have a whole lot of comebacks, actually. I’d say Tyrian won that verbal spar, enhanced by a better use of the camera when we get his tail looming menacingly towards Cinder and Neo.

He goes on to say that Watts was a “necessary sacrifice” so, uh… I’m just going to toss out the ask I answered yesterday. Based on our intro I’d say Watts is still significant to the volume—hacking Penny is my guess—but by the end? He could be in trouble.

(As a side note: I plan to analyze the intro next week. It’s just easier when it comes first.)

Tyrian also calls Neo “little one” which I just found absolutely hilarious. In an on brand creepy manner, that is. Not that Neo couldn’t kick his ass, but there’s something wonderfully chilling about having the serial killer use an endearment towards a potential victim, one that comments on her size while he’s looming.

In contrast, Cinder refers to Neo as a “valuable asset” and we get our third mood of the episode.

Who’s going to start a Neo reaction image collection?

It’s true enough on the surface—who wouldn’t want an ally who can turn into anyone else?—but we’re still bumping up against question of why Salem needs this. She’s immortal! She has an endless army! Magic! This scene works well with a villain who needs a skillset like Neo’s to succeed, but Salem doesn’t. RT is doing a great job writing a story thus far, just not the story we’ve previously been given. This isn’t the story they set up.

This will come back up when we reach the RWBYJNOR group. Just wait.

Before that though, the gang’s all here as Emerald, Mercury, and Hazel show up, all in new outfits.

I think I like everything except for the weird Xs on Emerald’s jacket—it’s way too distracting and frankly makes an otherwise good look ugly—and the fact that she’s showing her midriff in Atlas. Hazel doesn’t have any sleeves! Oh my god, why doesn’t anyone dress for the weather in this show?

Frankly, I found their reunion to be kind of lackluster. I mean, there was nothing wrong with it. Emerald does sound briefly excited, she does run, and it’s in character for Cinder to cut her off… it just didn’t resonate with me emotionally. I thought after two volumes of thinking she’s dead, then working through the knowledge that she’s alive, that I would feel Emerald’s shock and relief more, but I didn’t. And I’m not entirely sure why. I don’t want to level any accusations at the voice acting because frankly I know next to nothing about that skill (and from what I’ve seen it’s usually praised in the fandom), but I will say that throughout the premiere I was noticing it more than I ever have before. The lack of emotion here and some awkward deliveries later, like when Yang goes, “Ruby, there is no way Ironwood will cooperate with us” and I immediately thought, “Wow, that came out stilted.” These observations stick with me because, as said, voice acting usually isn’t on my radar. It’s not something I’ve studied or had practice analyzing. If you’d never told me that Ren or Qrow’s VA changed then after a year hiatus I literally wouldn’t notice… but there’s something about this episode that didn’t sit right. Anyone else get that sense, or was it just me?

Regardless, the arrival of our other three villains really doesn’t amount to much, though I’m happy for all the Emerald and Mercury fans who get to see them in new outfits. The focus is still on Cinder as she delivers a line indicative of her true motivations: “That power will be mine.” Yeah, she’s not loyal to Salem, she’s just power hungry. Of course, Salem immediately takes note of this and raises her hand, in another nice use of the foreground, reminding her that she hasn’t given that order.

Cinder is shocked, angry even, but quickly covers it up with her “Without you I am nothing” line. If I caught it right I think she also calls Salem “Ma’am”? Hilarious. Again, skilled at playing the servant.

Also, before I forget, it’s worth noting that almost everything from our trailer appeared in this episode. Yeah, there are a few details like Nora attacking some tech and the group on their bikes, but on the whole we’ve already seen the majority of our promo material and will likely get most of the rest next week. It makes me both interested and nervous for what another twelve episodes are going to hold.

Salem opens her whale, or opens a portal type view in it, something that gives us a long-distance look at Atlas. I don’t know what exactly is going on here, but it’s pretty so I’ll take it.

She also delivers the frankly badass line, “Just because you’re more valuable to me than a pawn does not make you a player.”

She waves them all away with perfect ‘You mean nothing to me’ attitude and we sadly leave our villains.

Sad not because I don’t love my farm boy, but because things are about to get a whole lot messier.

Oscar has made his way to a camp of civilian survivors… all of whom are just hanging out in the supposedly deadly cold. Yeah, there’s a single fire, but at least four of them aren’t anywhere near it. Three of them also aren’t wearing gloves. What was that survival rate again?

A nice if gruff dude gives Oscar soup—water?—while showing off his… badger claws? I don’t know what kind of faunus he’s supposed to be, but he feels like the sort of two second, minor character who could easily become a meme lol.

Oscar thanks him (my polite son!) and hands the bowl back after a single sip. Which is impressive because I would have assumed the guy was giving me the whole bowl and just taken it. Hell, I’ve done that even when I didn’t assume it’s all for me. A Starbucks barista once approached me with a tray and a plate of samples, I knew I was supposed to take just one, yet for some reason my hand went to take the whole goddamn plate. He had to tell me off, then I was trying to explain that I didn’t actually want or think I should have eight shots of cappuccino all to myself, I don’t even like coffee, he clearly didn’t believe me… it was awkward. So good job, Oscar. You’re less awkward than me (though that’s not saying much).

Now a question, Oscar. Darling. Brilliant boy who has been through too much: why the fuck aren’t you talking to Ozpin? This will be A Thing later when he presents a lack of time to talk as justification for keeping more secrets (we’ll get to that too…) yet here is time! You’re just sitting there for who knows how long, with plenty of privacy to hide a supposedly one-sided conversation so the Mantle citizens don’t get weirded out or suspicious. Talk to Ozpin. Our headmaster gets two lines in this episode, utterly inconsequential lines like his airship scene, lines that feel like they exist to say, “See? He’s still included in the story!” even though he absolutely is not. Two volumes of mostly silence, a perfect setup to start the reconciliation process, but we’re going to put it off again?

Instead Ruby randomly and conveniently appears. I want to know how she found him. Oscar isn’t wearing a tracker. He clearly didn’t call them because he’s surprised when Ruby shows up. He fell alllllllll the way back down to Mantle and then wandered to a random part of the slums. You’re telling me they flew over the entire city—after beginning this search thinking he was in Atlas—and somehow managed to spot him from up in the air? C’mon. I would have rather had a beginning where Oscar makes his way back to the group himself, giving him and Ozpin time to hash things out.

“Need a lift?” Ruby says, eliminating that potential. Sigh.

Oscar immediately starts beating himself up when he gets onboard, saying that he “was stupid to think the General would listen.” Nah, you were stupid to buy into Ruby’s nonsensical confidence and for telling Ironwood he’s as bad as Salem. Sorry, Oscar, but everyone is written badly these days. I will, however, say that I am THRILLED at the group’s reaction to his return. Ruby says that she’s “just glad you’re alright.” Nora has a wonderfully tender moment where she hugs him gently rather than her usual glomp.

That? That added a year to my life. Everyone else seems relieved that he’s okay too, so kudos there. After four years of Oscar being an outsider in the group, this is one of the few moments that feel like he’s 100% accepted. Really glad to see it.

Now let’s see if it sticks after they learn Ozpin is back...

They fly to the Happy Huntresses’ base and I again feel like I’ve missed something crucial. When did they team up? I mean, RWBYJNOR was working directly under Ironwood up until the last hour and Robyn ran off to fight Tyrian/Clover in the last couple episodes. When did she have time to explain her (briefly) changed allegiance and why would the Happy Huntresses trust the group without that? Did Robyn share that Blake and Yang went behind Ironwood’s back for her? Do the Huntresses instinctively trust them because they’re now wanted by the military? How did they even run into each other?

Again, I think we would have been better served to have an episode before all this. Let Oscar make his way back and let the group struggle with the magnitude of their situation on the airship, before they find new allies. Transferring directly to, “They have help and a secret base and a plan in the works!” makes me feel like I missed the real premiere last week. You know, the one where Salem unexpectedly arrived and we left the group like this.

This is where we’ve ended up though. The group is cozy in this hideout, getting info from Joanna, and my only other thought is, “Why is she giving all this exposition?”

Shouldn’t it be May? I mean, we were told that she was going to play more of a role this volume, a promise that’s pretty important imo given her status as a (so far off screen) trans character, so why not put her in the role of mediator between the Happy Huntresses and RWBYJNR? Giving her that setup as a leader among her people as well as lots of lines would be meaningful. A trans character just existing and being a part of this fight! May could obviously still fill that role—I’m well aware that we’re only one episode in—but it just seems like a missed opportunity to me. Out of all the undeveloped Happy Huntresses, our premiere focuses on the one who has the least importance to the fandom.

As said, Joanna talks a fair bit but what it basically boils down to is trying to get everyone to the crater below Atlas. It’s apparently not safe, but it’s warm, which is what matters right now.

So… let me get this straight. You want to gather everyone into a not safe crater, by leading them through an army of grimm, so that they can wait there in case someone moves the Staff, thus dropping an entire city on top of their heads? That’s the plan? Which admittedly isn’t Joanna’s fault. This is another instance of RWBYJNOR having information that a leader does not and they should really consider speaking up about it. But of course they don’t.

Also, how long does everyone have in regards to the cold? Shouldn’t there be dead civilians by now? The time it would take to find the Happy Huntresses, team up with them, get settled in the base, and find Oscar says that things should be pretty grim right now (pardon the pun), yet every non-aura user in this city seems content to just hang out in the snow. Either the cold is deadly enough to justify moving everyone to the crater, or it’s mild enough to let everyone survive this long, not both.

After hugs are given everyone obviously wants to know what happened to Oscar. His response?

“It’s a… long story. I get the feeling there’s been a few of those tonight.”

That’s a check for the bingo card! We’re halfway through the first episode and we’ve already got another secret. Yes, this is a secret. Oscar actively chooses not to tell anyone that Ozpin is back—something Ozpin himself comments on—and then skillfully draws attention away from himself with “I get the feeling there’s been a few of those tonight.” Indeed, all eyes go to Penny. Oscar’s plight is forgotten, which is what he wanted. His justification?

Ozpin: “You’re not going to tell them?”

Oscar: “You and I aren’t done talking yet.”

Along with this look.

Oscar no. There’s so much wrong with this I don’t even know where to begin. Let’s create a list.

As said, you had plenty of time to talk to Ozpin and chose not to. Miss me with this excuse.

You are now doing to your friends exactly what you and your friends did to Ironwood, which in turn is what Ozpin did to you! I can’t believe we’ve got Oscar critically side-eyeing him when they are still—still—repeating the behavior they drove Ozpin away for.

What is there to even talk about now? Oscar didn’t punch himself/Ozpin (lol) but he did steal Jinn’s name from Ozpin in the first place. You got what you wanted, drove him away, and have been lying and keeping secrets ever since. The only thing they should be talking about involves apologizing. Any further criticism—which is what Oscar’s expression and curt reply suggests—is beyond hypocritical.

Seriously, what needs to be discussed? There’s no reason not to tell the group unless Oscar wants to talk about whether they should tell them. There’s no good ending here...

Don’t you think it would be nice to know that Ozpin is back and you’ve got super magic powers while making plans to save the entire world?

This is all especially stupid given Oscar’s “Salem wants to divide us” reminder to Ruby in a moment. Oscar, you are doing the most to divide the group right now. By not forgiving Ozpin. By refusing to work with him. By keeping him secret from everyone else.

This is bad, friends, I worry for what the rest of the volume will bring…

The story is done with Ozpin for now so I guess I will be too. The group continues filling Oscar in and we get some shots of the base, including a rather prominent poster of what I assume are two Happy Huntresses. Did they die in battle perhaps?

It’s a little strange.

Oscar: “Where’s Qrow?”

Me: “Likely still making bad decisions.”

No one knows so they just drop it. Which I kind of get, only so much you can do to find him if he’s not out on the streets like Oscar, but it still reads as kind of iffy that two nieces look down at the ground for a hot second and then move on with their plans, content to leave Qrow to whatever fate befell him. In a minute we’ll see Yang firmly take Ren’s side regarding helping the people they can in Mantle, which frankly comes out of nowhere for her. I think an easy motivation would have been Qrow. Ruby wants to save the world, Yang wants to find and save their uncle, and that just happens to align with Ren’s desire to save the civilians who need immediate grimm and cold help. Don’t get me wrong, I like that there’s finally some division between the sisters, I just wish it hadn’t come about so abruptly. Ren had setup for standing up to Ruby. Yang did not.

But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Joanna lists the grimm horde and no heat as the major threats to everyone. The group agrees.

Me: What about Salem?

Joanna says that this is all doubly dangerous because there’s “no more military protection.”

Me: Oh, so now you want the military?

This is all so disjointed. Even more-so when Joanna mentions that Ironwood has stopped all evacuations to Atlas, likely due to the “hard light shields” that are the only thing standing between Salem and the city. Thing is, the show never makes this connection, I just did it myself based on this scene and the one that comes later. The show presents Joanna’s line as a pure condemnation. Ironwood won’t let more evacuees in because… he’s just evil, I guess. Yet there is a justification here, namely that continuing the evacuations even while he’s stuck without Penny leaves him wide open to a Salem attack, the death of everyone currently safe, but that argument is never presented to the viewer. I don’t need people to agree with Ironwood’s perspective, I just wish that perspective was offered as an option. The show is very good about acting like RWBYJNOR’s opinion is the only justified opinion, or simply the only opinion at all.

After everything is laid out Weiss goes, “We’re never going to sleep again, I just know it.”

I could make a crack about the lack of continuity and how the group should be collapsing right now… but that was a funny line. It can stay.

What is far more of a problem is the fact that no one is talking about Salem. Okay, that’s a lie. They do talk about her, but in a roundabout way like her presence isn’t impacting every decision they make. That’s the real issue. They’re acting as if Salem isn’t here right now, like she’s off far away, maybe approaching slowly, and they’re arguing over how best to prep the world for her eventual attack. There’s no emotion here—let alone action—to reflect that the series’ Big Bad has arrived and is poised to murder them all. Literally what is this? Ruby is yelling about warning the world and, ignoring the continued question of why that’s a good thing when the world can do nothing to stop Salem and knowledge of her continually drives people to horrible acts, she has yet to acknowledge that… she’s the world? Ruby is the world in this conflict. She, Mantle, and Atlas. Salem is here for you all. Right now. You are, this instant, in the situation you want to warn others about, so why don’t you try to do something about it? Or at least acknowledge it. Ruby wants to warn the neighborhood about a potential fire while her house is actively ablaze, and the fire could have totally killed her by now but decided not to for… reasons.

“Ruby’s right,” Nora says. They have to tell the world so “they can prepare.” How? How are they supposed to prepare for this? The story cannot continue ignoring Salem’s immortality.

“Ruby’s right,” is all Blake says and I’m starting to thinks that’s why her character exists now, to agree with Ruby. It’s great that she’s getting a little distance from Yang, but man.

As Ruby asks whether Pietro can get Amity up and running despite it not being finished (called it) we start an incredibly odd sequence of flashforwards to their individual missions. I’ve seen a lot of praise for this already and though I agree that, in theory, it’s a good way to save time, I found the actual execution to be jarring. Upon thinking back through our timeline, it became clear they were flashforwards, but while watching I thought they might be flashbacks (especially since that’s more common).

Some of the shots, like Nora’s, just look awkward when you’ve got the exact expression and pose transplanted from one scene to another, like she’s a cardboard cutout behind a green screen. To say nothing of how the flashforwards ruin any suspense (I use that word loosely) in the conversation itself. If the question is, “Will they decide to go to the military compound?” then that question is answered when we see Ruby scoping out the compound, not when the group actually decides on the course of action.

It just made an already muddled scene worse for me, so I hope this trend doesn’t continue.

And of course, Amity can be used despite all the info last volume claiming that it wasn’t finished. Pietro suddenly acts like it is finished and the only thing standing in their way is Ironwood providing access. If that were the case, he would have used Amity weeks or days ago like he wanted to! When was it finished? Not after Watts commented on how incomplete it was. When did they get back the resources they needed from Robyn? It’s as ridiculous and retcon-y as I thought it would be.

Yang points out that Ironwood will never listen to them and Ruby counters that “he doesn’t have to.” They’ll just take the access from him. Because why wouldn’t they in a series where they’ve already stolen two airships? Stealing from the super evil military that Joanna wishes were helping them right now is just the group’s go-to plan nowadays.

Pietro isn’t sold on this plan though. He lists at least three obstacles they’d need to get through “and then… oh boy, I might need to think about this some more.” “And just to clarify,” Oscar says, “This is the easy option?” Um...no it’s not? We also know there’s an access point in Ironwood’s office so… why not go there instead? They really think the Academy is less guarded than the military base? There’s a potential justification here along the lines of, “After Neo and Cinder broke into his office Ironwood will have the place on high alert,” but unless I missed it the group doesn’t assume anything like that. They just listen to Pietro point out all the ways they can’t get into the military base and jump straight to that being the best option. It feels like a transparent way to create conflict for the group. We’ll just have them taking the most dangerous route despite an easy route being offered alongside it. Why bother mentioning his office at all? Just have the access in the military base. Boom, done.

It’s that conflict and the fact that Ruby tends to hear “You can’t” and digs in her heels. You can’t go to Atlas. I’ll just steal a ship then. You can’t defeat Salem. Watch me. You can’t break into this base. Guess what I’m doing! She’s dangerous in her fairy tale, meta-driven insistence that everything will turn out her way because she wants it to.

Speaking of, we finally—FINALLY—get someone challenging Ruby. Sort of. Not actually but it’s the closest we’ve ever gotten:

Yang: “Ruby, when we came here we said we’d follow your lead… but things haven’t exactly worked out.”

Now, there are two things to take away from this moment. The first is how utterly shocked Ruby and the others are. I mean, take a look at these expressions.

Ruby straight up can’t believe what she’s hearing. Weiss put her hand to her mouth like this is the most dramatic thing to ever happen to her. Oscar looks down in a ‘Yeah, I agree but please don’t look at me and make me admit that’ way. And Nora looks indifferent in the screenshot but animated she goes sort of stern, likely pissed that Yang would dare say that given her own agreement with Ruby. This not only reiterates that Yang’s challenge came out of nowhere—seriously, how did we move from following Ruby no matter what to this? Last volume she asked a single question along the lines of, ‘You sure?’ and when Ruby said ‘Yes’ Yang was entirely on board—but also demonstrates that no one has EVER said no to her before. Ruby is amazed that someone would challenge her. The act of challenging Ruby is, in and of itself, shocking. This group has gotten so used to following Ruby blindly that the teensiest little pushback is greeted with this.

Because it is teensy. This is the second takeaway: Yang barely challenges her and that challenge leads nowhere. She doesn’t accuse Ruby of anything, she doesn’t question her continued authority, she just broadly implies that things could be better. We followed you, now things are bad, take from that what you will. It’s incredibly mild as far as criticism goes, making the shock all the more, well, shocking, but it also amounts to—wait for it—nothing! Because Yang didn’t truly challenge Ruby’s leadership. She’s still in charge, she’s still calling the shots, and they’re still listening to her. We might have gotten some change if this division had been allowed to play out, but instead Jaune comes in with a, “Let’s go for both!” solution. It let’s both groups get what they want which, in turn, releases them from the need to grapple with whether they’ll listen to Ruby when she’s advocating for something they don’t agree with. We have now lost the chance to see whether, when push comes to shove, Ren and Yang will cave to Ruby’s will or stick by their own beliefs.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s more conflict than we’ve gotten in years, but that doesn’t mean it’s particularly compelling conflict. It’s good by RWBY’s standards, which doesn’t necessarily make it good. The actual issues at hand—Ruby’s dangerous arrogance, the group’s loyalty, her choices up until now—are just swept under the rug. For all the visuals we get insisting that there’s this great divide in the group… there’s really not. Not in any way that matters.

Also, Ruby is an idiot. Okay, that was mean, but she really is in this scene. She’s actually not an idiot overall because she was written as wonderfully intelligent in the early volumes, but now? Lately? She makes me want to bang my head against a wall.

“But that’s how Salem got this far,” she cries. “By dividing us!”

Ruby… oh my god, Ruby. No one should have to explain to you that dividing people means turning them against each other, not literally dividing your team to complete separate tasks. This girl honestly thought that because there was this teensy disagreement and that half the team would complete Plan A while she and the other half completed Plan B, both of which notably work towards the goal of, “Protect people from Salem,” that this was somehow what Salem wanted. That is was dangerous. Honestly, it’s a scary look at her view of leadership too: If everyone doesn’t 100% agree with me and do what I say, that’s an objectively bad thing that the grimm queen wants, right? Does Ruby think that unification means following a single person (her) without question or variation? That would explain a lot...

The fact that Oscar needs to explain the difference to her is not good. It really doesn’t say great things about this version of Ruby. Though he was comparing Ironwood to Salem last volume, so really they should all be wearing dunce hats.

Penny offers to take the relic directly to Salem in exchange for her leaving the kingdom alone. I honestly didn’t expect that. If anyone took that risk I would have put my money on Ozpin (but of course, during all this talk of the women he knows best, he’s kept quiet). Oscar is again the voice of wisdom, pointing out that they have no reassurance that Salem will keep her word. At least Penny is thinking about Salem as a threat though, so kudos for that. When this plan is shot down she volunteers to get Ruby past the military security instead and, uh, she’s a little intense about it.

I’m not entirely sure what is going on with Penny. She disagreed with Winter but then seemed to come around to her point of view, enough to help anyway. They had another (stupid) disagreement about the value of individual lives, so that helps to explain why she’s teaming up with RWBYJNOR (if you ignore that Ironwood is also trying to save individual lives...). Did watching Fria die shake her up? Is it being the Winter Maiden that’s not sitting right? Does Penny have lingering feelings about the framing that haven’t shown up until now? Her status as a ‘real girl’? We’ve got a lot of reasons that could definitely explain this sudden need to fight, but we’re not told which—if any of these—is the driving force.

We’re then given a lot of little details. Someone points out that if Salem gets the staff and “create[s] anything else” then Atlas will fall (so yeah, let’s move the people underneath it). We still don’t know what exactly the Staff does because “creation” is kind of broad and “powering a city to float” doesn’t seem to sit within that category at all. Pietro gives Yang the keys to his lab so they can get the bikes. We see the group dividing in the flashforwards, something I do like, especially since the show has gone out of its way to break up most of the usual duos. Nora in particular is pissed at Ren for his choice.

“Oh, I’m saving Mantle because I actually believe we can do this.”

#yikes. Well, I did say I wanted a conflict other than ‘Oh no, one of us might die’ and it looks like I got it. But Nora, the only reason you can do this is because the plot is in your corner: none of you are collapsing from two major fights, you didn’t lose your aura so the cold isn’t a danger, the military is barely a threat all of a sudden, Salem is helpfully hanging out in her whale instead of killing you, and the story decided that Amity can function so long as you all are the ones who get to use it. That’s why you can do this. Ren, who follows in-world logic and doesn’t want to risk a whole kingdom’s worth of lives on a pipe dream, thinks differently, oddly enough.

As they leave though Penny gets a call from Ironwood. I know precisely what the fandom is going to say here: “This evil man is just trying to use Penny to open the vault!” Of course he is. He needs it open to save everyone he can, Penny included. Plus the concept of “using” her is a double-edged sword. What do we think the group is doing right now? Using her to get past the security. Penny’s power is a tool any way you slice it. Granted, Penny volunteers to help the group, but notably here Ruby speaks for her. Penny seems torn and Ruby takes the scroll away with, “She’s not going anywhere until you change your mind about Mantle.”

Sorry, Ruby, but coming from you that sounds less like a reassurance for Penny and more like just an order for Ironwood. Remember Harriet? We’ll stop attacking you provided you do what we want. Ruby has yet to learn about compromises, let alone acknowledge that she might be wrong. How about you let Penny decide where she goes, especially since by all logic she should have a lot of loyalty to Ironwood. She knew him before she ever met you. She’s worked with him since she was rebuild post-Volume 3. Despite what Penny has said, if the story would just let her think about his actions for a hot second—making her the protector of Mantle, sticking up for her after the framing, sending her to the party, teaming her up with Ruby, etc.—she might realize that the ‘He doesn’t want me to have friends’ and ‘He just treats me like a tool’ assumptions are just that, unfounded assumptions. But no, Ruby speaks for them both because Ironwood is evil now.

“If she makes it through our defenses,” Ironwood says, “everything that follows will be on your hands.”

That’s true! Kind of like how it’s own Qrow’s hands that Clover died. When you insist on making a bad situation worse you hold responsibility when the shit hits the fan. You know though that Salem won’t get through their defenses now, somehow, so that there’s no chance RWBYJNOR will be blamed for it. Or, by that point Ironwood will be so crazed that anything coming out of his mouth is dismissed, no matter how accurate it might be.

We then transfer to the Ace Ops who are, despite what the fandom theorized for many months, clearly upset about Clover. Also pissed. Which they have every right to be. Their friend and leader was killed. Imagine for a moment that Ruby had been murdered by Tyrian with an allies’ help. Exactly what do you think the group would do? Swallow it quietly and get over it? Ha.

I’ve already seen some speculation that Clover survived due to details like showing us the bandage and his room being listed as for a “Patient,” but he looks pretty dead to me.

He got gutted through the chest and left out in the snow for who knows how long. We saw him slip away. Qrow screamed over his dead body. He’s not breathing now. If RWBY suddenly claims he survived this, I’m calling BS.

Most of the other visuals we get here were already dropped in the trailer. Winter is pretty injured from her encounter with Cinder, likely permanently based on her new outfit. Ironwood had to replace his arm—and I am calling BS on that “Losing his arm is reflective of him losing his humanity” commentary from RT. Please go read up on a couple decades worth of ableism in media and then get back to me.

We get Ironwood’s line about the light shields and, notably, a whole lot of empathy. Regardless of what he might want Penny for, he still called her with compassion. He’s watching the Ace Ops mourn their friend. He’s talking about protecting his kingdom. The first thing he says to Winter is, “Thank you, Winter. I don’t know what I would do without you.” Ironwood has a heart! It’s always on display, which makes this scene utterly ridiculous.

I literally don’t know how to respond to this. The gunshot made me jump, both because it’s a gunshot and because, again, what the fuck? I know I said that next volume RT might just have Ironwood descend into full villainy, shooting whoever he pleases now that he’s shot Oscar, but I didn’t actually expect them to do it. Because he never should have shot Oscar in the first place! I wanted the story to let Oscar grapple with it a bit and then quietly backtrack, acknowledging it as the mistake it was. The concept that Ironwood, empathetic Ironwood, rational Ironwood, always thinks before he acts Ironwood, let’s kids yell at him Ironwood, tried to team up with Robyn Ironwood, did everything Ruby wanted Ironwood, won’t kill Watts after he destroyed his arm Ironwood would shoot this guy just to shut him up is absurd. It was absurd then, it’s absurd now.

That being said, there’s a possibility he didn’t actually shoot the council member, but rather just (“just”) gave a warning shot down the hallway. I say this because the reactions to this are pretty tame. Everyone looks startled, yeah, but after the initial shot there’s nothing that I would expect if there was now a guy bleeding out on the floor. The council woman doesn’t scream. Winter doesn’t seem overly shocked. No one is running to try and help him. Basically, if Ironwood had just killed a political figure in front of six witnesses, entirely unprovoked, I would expect a bit more of a reaction than this. This feels far more like a, “Damn he’s not joking around, letting off warning shots to get people to leave him alone” not “WOW, our general just killed someone in cold blood!”

What I really hate though—beyond just assassinating his character—is how many fans think my friends and I are delusional for calling it character assassination at all. I hopped onto the RWBY tag for five minutes this morning and was bombarded with posts about how Ironwood needs to be murdered horrifically, anyone who likes him is sick, the Ironwood stans are as bad as Adam stans, you’re an idiot if you want him redeemed… because apparently the concept of a story writing a character badly doesn’t compute. I’m not here to argue that Ironwood didn’t do these awful things (regardless of whether he actually killed the guy or not). I’m not here to argue that they’re not awful. I’m just here to say that we never should have gotten these scenes in the first place, or if we were going to get them, we deserved an actual descent into murder at the drop of a hat territory. I’ve already explained extensively on this blog how early Ironwood was not accurate foreshadowing for this, and Volume 7 certainly wasn’t setup, but it looks like the majority of fans aren’t interested in examining whether any of this adds up. Which makes my job, as someone trying to examine this series somewhat objectively—in as much as that’s possible for any single viewer—as well as simply enjoy it as a show, really hard. It’s bad enough when a story keeps taking the characters you love and villainizing them, and doing that badly, but then when you turn to the community and see them rallying around the idea that you’re awful for being dissatisfied—you’re the bootlicker, you’re the blind stan, you can’t see what’s ‘really’ going on here… that sucks. For those of you happy and satisfied with Ironwood’s arc, that’s great! I’ve also seen a lot of posts hyping up the complexity of his character now. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying what we’ve been given and I’d never want to imply that just because it’s not what I wanted it’s somehow wrong. I’m honestly thrilled that after a year of worry so many people have adored our premiere, including this scene. I just wish that I could say RWBY had given me something I didn’t want in a persuasive manner and that the fandom as a whole was a bit more welcoming of differing criticisms.

Not that I didn’t already know the RWBY fandom had its flaws, but still lol.

That’s basically it for our premiere. Nice note to end on, huh? Our final scene is of Salem using the lamp to set her bloodhound grimm on the city. Why doesn’t she just go herself? What was she planning to do here in Atlas in the first place, considering that getting the relic was a surprise? Who knows. Little about this holds together. But we do end with another awesome shot, so small favors.

It’s always strange concluding a recap, but even more-so when it’s a premiere, during a historical moment in the U.S., amidst all the nonsense that is 2020. So for now I’ll just conclude with three quick things:

The updated bingo board will be listed at the end of each recap, provided I don’t forget about it lol. Today I’m checking off tone (not nearly enough freaking out about Salem), the team keeping secrets (Oscar), and major plot point dropped (Amity is suddenly finished). I could also probably check off the cold not killing civilians and getting Amity up and running, but we’ll see if any changes with those.

I’m including my Ko-Fi link at the end of recaps now. Not with any expectations. Not with anything resembling pressure. I thought long and hard over whether to include it at all—let alone mention it here—because I love doing these and never want anyone to feel like it comes with strings attached. But life is a little harder and weirder than it was last year, so I figure it can’t hurt. Feel free to pass on by and I won’t be bringing it up past this note.

Far more importantly: thank you for reading! :D

(Bonus 4. Editing this was an absolute nightmare — damn you, tumblr! — so I apologize if anything is super wonky when I finally post.)

See you next week! 💜

[Ko-Fi]

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #mymetas #rwby recaps

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frostsinth · 4 years

Text

A Line in the Sand - Pt. 2

Intro - Part 1| - MasterList

Another part of this lovely Lizardman for @ivymemnoch‘s commissioned Monster Match. It’s fun to have all these lovely little misunderstandings between them. In this section, Devaraj’s reveals a bit more about his profitable work, and Sera thinks about taking off.

Want your own Monster Match? DM me for prices! Check out my MasterList above for a smattering of other stories and ramblings, and please feel free to BuyMeACoffee while you are there.

Always looking for ART-spiration, so feel free to drop me an ask or comment with some of your thoughts!

In the end, I’m not sure what woke me. Was it the soft thrum of insects, waking with the first rays of dawn? Or perhaps it was the soft twitter of birds, that grew from a petering distant echo to a soothing trill around me. I remember hearing the soft snorting huff of Nur, sensing the big draft had wandered close to my sleeping spot. Feeling his heavy steps shake the ground slightly before he drifted off again. Whatever the cause, my eyes slowly opened, and a yawn stretched my mouth.

It took me a few belated moments to reconcile my current place with my memories of the previous evening. I blinked groggily a few times, rolling and looking about. As my brain woke more, I considered the soft tented cloth over my head, and the warm bedroll around me. The scent of sand came to my mind, but not to my nose, and I realized I was alone in the makeshift shelter once more.

I rolled again, shifting and shaking the last of the sleep from my eyes. Managing to pull myself up and look around the small clearing. But the reptilian man was nowhere to be seen. Nur stood by the side of the small nest we had made, snuffing and huffing at some dried branches. The saddle and bags were still where I had left them the night before. So wherever he had gone… It couldn’t have been far…

“...Shri?” I called hesitantly, rubbing at my arms as I emerged from the soft warmth of the blankets. There was no answer, and straining my ears, no sound of movement.

Slowly, I crawled out from beneath the tent, peering between the bows and trunks of the trees around us. I could just make out the road in the distance, and sighed as the soft crackle of leaves crunched under my boots. For a moment, I thought this might be a blessing… and opportunity to escape. Certainly he was out of sight and earshot, and he had opportunely left all of his supplies behind. I wandered over to the bags, glancing at Nur almost guiltily as if the horse might betray my malicious thoughts. I shifted from foot to foot, glancing about. But I was confident the strange man was nowhere near.

I kneeled beside the bags, and started to reach out to one. Then I hesitated. A flash of intense yellow eyes, the glint of teeth. Not frightening, but instead… friendly. Welcoming. Kind. I sighed again, shaking my head at the nerve of my conscience and dropping my hand. I also couldn’t quite shake the reminder of his words when I had asked him if he was worried I might steal from him; “You could certainly try. It would be amusing.” … I wondered if perhaps there was a magical charm on the items, or if there was some sort of anti-thief trap… Well, I would just wait, I determined. Until we reached the next town. That way, I wouldn’t have to risk anything nor take his supplies, and could simply slip away into the shadows. Honestly, it was probably for the best I left. I doubted he knew exactly what kind of trouble he had gotten himself into when he had signed me on.

Shaking myself again, I stood and slowly pivoted on one foot. Looking around the small clearing again. Wondering where exactly my new ‘employer’ had gone. I walked over to Nur, who lifted his behemoth head as I approached and wuffed softly, his huge flanks fluttering with the deep breath. He nudged me with his big nose, his nostrils flaring, and being that his head was almost the size of my entire torso, even that gentle touch had me staggering a step to maintain my balance. He snorted again, taking a step towards me and flattening his forelock against my chest. I scratched behind his speckled grey ears absent-mindedly, still looking about.

“Do you know where he went?” I asked the gelding, then had to jerk back to avoid being tossed aside as he lifted his head and shook it with another loud snort. I smiled, wondering if that was a real answer, and patted his velvety nose. “Well, I suppose I should go look for him then?”

Nur looked at me with his big, dark eyes, and no answer seemed forthcoming. I ran my hand up and down his nose, then turned and considered my options. The way back towards the road seemed mostly clear; unless he had gone there and travelled up or down its length a ways, I should be able to see him from where we were camped. So that left the notion that he had headed deeper into the woods. I gave Nur a final pat, then began to pick my way through the woods beyond.

“Shri?” I called softly, the unfamiliar word still heavy on my tongue.

I was careful to keep a scan of the surroundings as I moved, not wanting to accidentally miss him during my search. I doubted that would be very likely; even with the vegetation, the man was far too large and broad to simply hide in plain sight. Though his mottled green scales might blend rather well with the shifting foliage. The chill night before reminded me that fall would be upon us sooner rather than later, though the air was very mild now. I wondered briefly how the cold-blooded lizard man would fare in the snows, and had an amusing image of him hibernating in a log cabin with a roaring fire and a bloated belly. A few yards in, I heard the sound of running water; perhaps a small stream nearby. I decided that it might have also drawn his attention, and turned to make my way towards it.

I caught sight of his shoulders between the trunks of the trees, and almost sighed with relief. I didn’t notice until I had broken through the treeline that it was not the beaten grey of his cloak that caught the fresh morning sunlight, but the green of his bare scales. A delayed heartbeat later, I realized he was completely without clothes again. I nearly fell over as I staggered to a halt, frozen in place by the full sight of him, unobscured by steam or darkness.

The crisp golden rays splashed down his broad shoulders, pricking his mottled green into a smoky emerald color. The scales looked smooth, and rippled as he drew in long, deep breaths. His broad shoulders were squared, and I was again stunned by their width, at least double my own. From this angle I could clearly see the base of his four dark grey horns protruding from his skull before curling forward, and the delicate fan of the leathery skin on the top of his head between the spikes. I followed the curve of his spine down his muscular back, each muscle more pronounced and defined by the shape of his large scales. Tracing down to the point of his spine, just about his bottom, where his tail protruded. It was long and thick, perhaps thicker than my thigh, with a flat top studded with the soft flat spikes on either ridge. I hadn’t gotten nearly so good a look at it before... I wondered how much he could move it. He had it half curled around, forming a semi-circle around his large, muscular legs which were neatly folded in a criss-cross pattern beneath him. I could see his huge arms were relaxed, palms resting open on his knees and the soft yellow/cream color of the scales there bathing in the light.

“Good morning, Sera.” He called lightly without looking over his shoulder. His thick voice had me jumping in surprise. I saw his head tilt, saw the flash of his yellow eye as he considered me out of its corner. “I trust you slept well.”

If he was upset I had been spying on him, he didn’t show it. Nor did he seem particularly concerned that he was completely without clothes; I noticed them folded neatly into a pile beside him. I swallowed hard, trying to ignore the pulsing of my blood beneath my cheeks.

“Ah… Apologies, shri… I did not mean-”

He made a noise deep in his chest, shaking his great horned head. “I am merely greeting the sun, Sera. There is no need for your words.” The tip of his tail twitched. “Come, join me.”

“Greeting the sun?” I echoed, venturing closer tentatively.

He nodded looking up at me. Even sitting, his head was nearly to my shoulders. “Yes. I believe it is similar to how you humans… what is the term, break fast?”

I started to answer, then suddenly gave a soft ‘eep!’ instead as his hand wrapped around my wrist and yanked, firmly but gently. I tumbled onto his lap, and he wrapped his huge arms around me. I was so startled, my mouth dropped open, and I froze. A deep rumble formed in his chest, vibrating against my cheek, and his thick flat tail came around and dropped heavily across my lap. Further entombing me in his embrace.

“W-what are you doing?” I stammered, so surprised I forgot to try to wriggle free.

His scaled brows were arched slightly when I finally managed to pull my head far enough back to look up at him. I stiffened as I felt the tip of his tail flick where it had fallen on the inside of my thigh. A fresh wave of heat washed through me, and not all of it went to my face. Pressed against him, I was once again surrounded by the scent of sand. His scales were smooth and silky over his firm muscles, and I was given the distinct expression of touching a rock that had been warmed by the sun. Part of me wanted to run my hands over those scales. To feel the grooves and see if they lifted and overlapped or met carefully at the edges.

“I am returning your warmth, Sera. As you so kindly shared yours with me last night.” His words brought me to the present and I jumped a little. He titled his head curiously to the side. “Though you seem quite warm already. Have you been sunbathing as well?”

“N-no,” I finally remembered how to move, and started to wriggle, trying to right myself and scramble out of his arms, “I just woke up and found you gone so-”

“Ah, I forget that humans do not sunbathe. Save for pleasure.”

I found the way his tongue rolled over the word ‘pleasure’ was far too much for me. He unwrapped his arms but otherwise did not try to help or hinder my fight to regain my feet. I clumsily rolled from his lap onto the soft grass in front of him first onto my bottom then settling on my knees, glancing up at him through my lashes. His long scaled lips curled back again, revealing those sharp teeth in what I assumed was a smile. His tongue slipped out, and I swallowed hard again as a tingling rush went through my body. I cleared my throat, and rubbed at the back of my neck.

“How long have you been out here?” I asked, trying to change the subject and looking for something else to stare at besides his broad chest.

He gave a soft hmm, eyelids drooping in a pleased manner. “As soon as the air began to warm this morning. But now that you are up, we can be on our way.”

I fell back on my hands as he stood, his big body moving with a languid grace that I found surprising for his size. I craned my head back to look up at him, and couldn’t help my jaw dropping open a bit. By the Gods he was big… and there was far too much of him to see without his clothes. I couldn’t help skimming my eyes over a particularly private point between his hips (if only ever so briefly on the way up to his face) and was slightly surprised to see… nothing. The same smooth scales of his stomach as far as my quick glance had perceived. I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or disappointed. My mind wandered dangerously and I felt my cheeks flushing darker. He offered me that toothy, lipless grin again and his large clawed hand. I wondered if he knew what I was thinking, and my guilt had me hot at the collar as I sheepishly put my hand in his.

“Why not head back,” He told me as he gently pulled me to my feet, “Start packing camp while I get dressed. We should be able to reach the next town in an hour or two, and can have our meal at their tavern. Yes?”

I nodded, my tongue still too large for my mouth and my head still buzzing with thoughts that really should never be brought to light. I didn’t wait for further instruction, heading back between the boughs. Within a few minutes, I broke through the trees to find Nur nosing the tent canvass curiously. He raised his big head when I approached, and gave a huff that sounded oddly disinterested for a horse. I patted his velvety nose briefly, then went about rolling back up the tent and bedroll and tying it tight. Trying hard to dislodge the image of sun warmed scales from my mind. I was just hoisting up the saddle with both hands when Devaraj returned, his scarf hanging loose about his shoulders but otherwise fully dressed again. I couldn’t help the wandering eye that drifted down the edge of his low collar as he strode over.

“Excellent, thank you, Sera.” He praised me, taking the saddle from me and easily slinging it over Nur’s back. The draft bobbed his head almost eagerly.

I was glad he had returned when he did; I wasn’t sure I would easily be able to reach the big horse’s back. As he secured the straps, I gathered up the bags and bedroll over my shoulders and carried them over.

“Do you have… business in the next town?” I asked, curious despite myself. I realized suddenly that my opportunity to part ways with the reptilian man would be coming sooner than expected... It left me with a strange tingling regret in my chest.

“Not in the town, as such, but in their crypt.” He told me, taking the bundles and slinging them behind the saddle. I moved around to the other side to secure them there.

“Their crypt?” I echoed, surprised.

“Yes, crypt is where-”

“I know what a crypt is,” I interrupted, and slipped under Nur’s neck to come around to the same side as him again, “But what business do you have at a crypt??”

His toothy grin returned. “Ah, I am what my people call a prizrasha. A… charmer, I suppose would be the best translation. Of spirits.”

“...Excuse me?”

“Yes? Do you need to pass?” He looked at me, his fierce eyes curious. “Why do you say ‘excuse me’? Do you need some time to yourself?”

“No.. I mean... “ I shook my head, blinking stupidly a few times trying to sort myself out. “I-I said it like… excuse me, as in I’m not sure… I’m not sure I heard you correctly.”

“Ah! Excellent, I did not know this.” He started to turn back to finishing securing the saddle and removing Nur’s hobble. “I said I was a prizrasha, as my people call us. And we are spirit charmers.”

“Y-yes, I heard the words,” I stammered, stepping out of the way as he moved to secure the reins and flip them over the gelding’s head, “I’m just not certain I understand what you mean by… “spirit charmers”.”

“Hmm.” He patted Nur’s flank, turning to look at me. “I suppose it is a rather inadequate description.” He stood by his mount’s head, taking up the reins and jerking his chin towards the road as he began to lead him out. “What is it that your people call ‘spirits’?”

“A ghost.” I replied, following him hesitantly. “A phantom. The… spirit of someone who has died that lingers on this plane.” I tried to keep the shiver from my voice.

He nodded along as I spoke. “I believe I see. This is a part of it, I am sure. However, I suppose the translation is poor… Nessiim have a stronger word for it. The dushrasha. It is the spirit of those who have passed, yes, but it is also in those still living.” He paused, seeming to struggle for words. “It is… hard to explain in this tongue.”

“So… What is it that you do with the… dushrasha?” I asked timidly, trying to keep the fear out of my voice. If I had thought him strange before, I certainly found my previous thoughts on him downright dull compared to them now.

“I charm them.” He replied, his voice light with the teasing tone returned to it. “A prizrasha speaks to the spirit and can cure what ails it. It is a form of healing that is not limited to the living.”

We had reached the road now, and Devaraj pivoted Nur to face the right direction before turning to me. I took a step back warily, then stopped myself. I placed a steadying hand on the draft’s flank, turning over his words in my head.

“... I-I’m still not sure I understand what it is you do-”

“It is rather simple, I suppose,” He placed his hands on his hips, looking down at me with his head tilted to the side, “A prizrasha is uniquely skilled at dealing with all manner of things. Sometimes, I am called to deal with a so-called malevolent spirit, other times to heal someone deeply scarred beyond the reach of local healers. Yet other times, to deal with untamable beasts.”

I opened my mouth to say more, but was silenced by the gasp that escaped instead as he hoisted me up, his big hands scooping around my waist, and sat me at the horn of the saddle. I quickly adjusted, swinging one leg over so I could properly sit rather than riding side-saddle again. A breath later the leather squeaked as he bounded up into place behind me. I tried not to stiffen as I felt the rough material of his tunic brush my back. Nur was already moving before he had fully settled, eager to be off.

“And for this particular… job?” I managed, my voice whisper soft.

“A dushrasha has been harassing the town, or so I am told.” He explained. “I will be seeing what ails it, and hopefully helping it leave this plane to its final resting place.”

A shiver went down my spine, and I jumped a little as his big arm came around my hips. Perhaps it was meant as a reassuring gesture, but instead it had me swallowing the lump that formed in my throat at his words. It’s fine, I told myself, you’ll be leaving soon. It doesn’t matter what he does.

“Have I upset you?” He asked as he used his big thighs to steer Nur around a deep rut in the road. I was surprised that his voice sounded… concerned.

“Ah.. n-no shri.” I assured him, and hoped again that part of his strangeness did not extend to being able to detect a lie. “I am just… surprised…”

“Dushrasha are not evil, Sera, even those without a body left on the mortal plane.” He told me as we rode along. “Most are pained, or tied by some grief or unfinished business. In both the living and the dead.” I felt his chin come to rest on the top of my head. “Think of me as a Healer, though perhaps at times this word is also a stretch.”

I nodded, falling silent. Trying to reconcile with the writing snake that was my stomach turning knots in my gut. We rode quietly for a time, and I tried not to pay too much attention to the soft sensation of his chest rising and falling against my back. I jumped again as his arm coiled about my middle suddenly flexed.

“If you are afraid, Sera… Please do not be.” He told me, his muzzle now beside my ear. My eyes flicked to the corners, as if they would be able to see him from there without moving my head. His long tongue flicked out, nearly grazing my cheek as it did. “I will keep you safe. No harm shall come to you, I promise.”

I felt my blush returning, and dipped my chin down. A thousand different possible responses came to my lips, but I could abide by none of them passing beyond. So I remained silent, giving only another curt nod in response.

It mattered not, within another hour we were at our destination. A small hamlet with a dozen buildings or so clustered around a main field. There were other houses in the distance, likely farmers and hunters. I doubted there were many people here who did not live off the land. We rode over a crest in the hill, then down the long muddy road. Heads raised as we passed, and whispers were quickly exchanged. I saw more than a few shoulders tense and hands go for the nearest item passable for a weapon. I shifted in the saddle, but a glance over my shoulder did not reveal how Devaraj felt about his welcome.

We rode unmolested into the center of town, stopping beside the tavern (as indicated by an old swinging sign in the shape of a foaming mug over its door). Nur tossed his head and snorted in irritation, obviously displeased with the likelihood of being stalled again. He scooped one meaty hoof into the soft ground, tossing clumps behind him as Devaraj slid from the saddle behind me.

“Go and procure us some food, yes?” He told me as he helped me down from the saddle. “I will secure Nur and bring in our bags. Then we shall notify the town leaders that we have arrived.”

I glanced over his shoulder at the numerous eyes lingering on us as he dug through the purse at his hip and pressed a few coins into my hands. Based upon what I saw, I doubted very much we would need to announce our arrival.

But I did as I was told and turned to duck into the tavern. Ignoring the eyes following me and the whispers brushing just beneath the scope of my hearing. I wondered briefly how good Devaraj’s hearing was.

The tavern was dim, dusty, and in disrepair. There were a few patchy holes in the rafters that allowed thin beams of broken sunlight to filter past the old wooden frame and hit the dirt ground below, and were the main source of late as the windows were far too grimy to provide much. A spattering of tables, mostly empty save for a few seedy sorts nursing chipped mugs, and a greasy bar at the far wall that looked as though it had seen better days. A few heads raised as the door thunked closed behind me, but interest was quickly lost in favor of whatever content they sipped from their cups. I made my way over to the bar, where a large bellied man sat rubbing at a mug with a dirty cloth.

“Ay, miss, what’ll ye need?” He asked as I approached, his voice gruff but polite.

I nodded to him in greeting. “Two breakfast plates. Sausage, egg, biscuits. The whole works if you have it.”

He returned my nod, placing the cup on the counter and slinging the cloth over his shoulder. “No’ a problem, miss. That’ll be three piece, yeah?” When I dropped the coin in his extended meaty hand, he gave me a cheery, broken toothed grin. “Ye’ll be wanting something to wet yer palate too?”

“Ale would be fine.” I replied, leaning against the bar for a moment and glancing around. The man disappeared into the back room, and I heard pots clanging and the creak of a stove cover opening.

I lingered for a minute on my meal request. Wondering if it would be sufficient. After all, I had forgotten to ask what Nessiim ate. I chewed over this for another moment, before a sudden wave of realization washed over me like a bucket of cold water splashed at my back. This was my opportunity. Devaraj would be otherwise occupied, and I could easily make myself scarce even in a town as small as this. Maybe even catch a ride with a traveling merchant or farmer to the next town. Certainly I didn’t want to have anything to do with his… work. A shiver worked its way down my spine at the thought of our earlier conversation. But it was quickly replaced by the skipping beat of my heart in my breast at the memory of his muzzle next to my ear… I will keep you safe. No harm shall come to you, I promise... I rubbed my fingers against the worn wood of the bar, trying and failing to assess why I suddenly felt so reluctant to leave. I had always been on my own, for as long as I could remember. What could possibly make me want to change that now? I glanced about again as my anxiousness rose, and my palms itched to relieve the room of their valuables, sparse as the pickings would be. Something to take my mind off… I shook my head and sighed. Resisting the urge.

The door thunked open again and I peeked over my shoulder to watch the reptilian man duck his huge horned head to fit beneath its frame. His entrance had the current patrons reacting much differently than my own; I saw them stiffen, uncurling from over their drinks and wary scowls quickly forming on their lips. If he noticed, Devaraj made no indication. His sharp yellow eyes settled on me and he gave a gentle nod before making his way over to an empty corner table. The closest adjacent table’s occupants quickly took their leave, gathering their things and scuttling to another table. I frowned, surprised by the abject fear I felt wafting off the patrons. Sure, he was an unusual specimen. But he was hardly aggressive looking... Or was I simply biased now?

I pivoted to attend to the barkeep, who’s return had returned preceded by the creaking of hinges from the kitchen door. He had two iron plates piled high with greasy looking food, and he plopped them down in front of me.

“Lemme get yer ale, Miss.” He told me. I returned a polite smile.

“Hey! Scaly!” Came a loud voice from behind me, and I stiffened slightly. “What the hell is wrong with you? You some sort of… devil spawn?”

I turned in time to see one of the burlier men approaching the corner table boldly. His shirt was stained and filled with holes, and he had a large crooked nose he looked down to glare at Devaraj. He had nothing on my companion’s muscle, but was certainly tall and heavy set enough to cause trouble.

“Indeed not, sir.” Came the thick reply, and I noticed the reptilian man’s usually airy tone had been replaced by a twitchingly harsh edge.

“Don’t ‘sir’ me, scales. I’m not your sir.” Growled the man. “We don’t let devils around here.”

Devaraj blinked slowly at the man, and I noticed his long tongue dart out briefly. The man stiffened at the sight, his eyes widening by a hair. But then he gritted his teeth, and I noticed his fists ball. I quickly gathered the plates in hand and bustled over to the table.

“Apologies for the delay,” I told Devaraj quickly, laying a plate in front of him and deftly putting my body between him and the irritated patron, “I hope this will be to your satisfaction.”

“Oi!” Came the expected grunt from behind me. I turned, pretending to just have noticed the man. He looked me up and down, scowling. But I saw a seed of doubt forming in his eyes. “.. You know this beast?”

“Beast?” I scoffed, hand to my chest, “By all that is holy, you must be joking. You mean you don’t recognize him?? You are the true beast if you would think him as much!”

The man blinked stupidly, my insult flying over his head. “...Eh?”

I placed my hands on my hips. “Well, I do apologize, I had believed you to be a traveled and educated man who would know a Spirit Charmer when he saw one!” My dry tone was lost on him, and I sighed deeply. “And here we are, summoned by your own leaders and treated to such disrespect!”

I noticed the rest of the room suddenly rapt with full attention. I squared my shoulders and craned my neck up to look at the man before me. I saw him glance around to his companions, becoming more uncertain by the minute. He reached up and rubbed at the back of his neck.

“... Spirit Charmer, you say?”

“Yes! One of the best, for which I am certain you are all proud that your leaders were able to procure one of such notoriety!” I cocked my head to the side at him. “Unless we were mistakenly misinformed to your… troubles.”

I saw more than a few more spines stiffen, and the barkeep came slowly over with the two mugs of ale. I saw him eye Devaraj warily, then turned his attention back to me.

“Yer here about the spirit at the craig crypts?” He asked tentatively, placing the mugs on the table.

“The very ones.” I bluffed, hoping that was indeed what we were here for. “Have you been plagued long?”

The barkeep and his patron exchanged a look, and the crooked nosed man nodded slowly. “Ay, miss, we have. There’s a terrible keening most nights, and the things’ been killing sheep now… We’re worried it might be takin’ the children next.”

“Has anyone passed lately?” Devaraj asked, speaking up for the first time. “Or has the crypt been disturbed?”

“...There’s an old legend of a man who lived out by the craigs...” The barkeep answered hesitantly, glancing at the scaled man over my shoulder. “Folks’ be suspectin’ its his angry spirit hanging about.”

“Well then, it seems like my employer and I arrived just in time.” I exclaimed, hoping no one saw the nervous shiver down my spine at the mention of the spirit. “... Unless of course you’ve found an alternative method to deal with your spirit? We have many demands for his skills and would be happy to be on our way-”

“N-no ma’am… ah, miss…” The barkeep held up his hands, and even the crooked nosed patron shook his head sheepishly. “We be right glad yer… ‘employer’ is here.”

I cocked my head to the side again. “Are you now? Pardon, I was a bit confused by our welcome.”

When I looked pointedly at the other man, his face ruddied and he rubbed at the back of his neck. “Beggin’ your pardon, Miss… Sir,” He looked over my shoulder at Devaraj, bowing his head humbly, “I didn’t know… I won’t bother you further…” He bowed his head and quickly scuttled out the door.

“I am right sorry fer Kam, there,” the barkeep continued as the other patrons made a point to go back to whatever had been occupying them before, “None of us ‘ave been gettin’ a good sleep, right? An’ we havena seen a… a Spirit Charmer before…”

I stepped to the side, moving to take the bench across from Devaraj. “Certainly understandable, such a profession is rare in these parts, I am told, which is why it was wise of your leaders to send for one.” I looked him over, staying on my feet a moment longer. “My employer and I have travelled a long way to be here, I hope it is alright that we take a meal before speaking with them?”

“N-not at all!” He exclaimed, bobbing his fat chin nervously. I saw his eyes flicker back over to Devaraj, but quickly dropped his gaze. “We’re on edge, sir, I hope ye understand. Wut with all the… activity in the area.”

Devaraj nodded his long chin, but otherwise said nothing. The barkeep stuttered out a final apology as well as a farewell, then moved back to his place at the bar. Leaving us alone to our meal. I picked up the biscuit, which was still warm from the oven, and broke it in half between my hands. An uneasy murmur had settled through the tavern, but other than a curious eye here and there, we were left to ourselves.

“That was expertly handled, Sera,” Mused my companion quietly, picking up his mug and giving it a curious sniff, “I do not believe I have ever had such an easy introduction.”

I scoffed softly, staring down at my food and chewing slowly. “That was easy?”

“By comparison, yes.” I peeked up at him through my lashes to see his elongated mouth stretching into a closed mouth smile. “I am pleased you decided to take my employment offer.”

I nodded lightly, hiding a blush and the stab of guilt that came from the thought of what might have happened had I decided to abandon him just a short while earlier… I took a quiet sip of my ale, then gestured to his plate after I replaced my cup on the table.

“I-I wasn’t sure if you would mind a traditional breakfast… Do you have a food preference?”

He chuckled lightly, and I watched as he took a bite of the sausage. “I do not. I am content with whatever meal I can procure. Though I must say,” He managed to smack his scaly lips, “This is better than I have yet had in your lands. It smells quite good.”

Another stab of guilt, wondering exactly had he been eating before that this greasy slop seemed so decadent to him. I swallowed my mouthful and took up another. As I took another swig of my ale, I used the opportunity to glance about again discretely. But it seemed we would not be bothered again, though I was certain our appearance would still be on the villagers’ lips for many days to come.

“You are good at this, Sera,” He intoned, and I turned my attention back to him, “One day in and you have already proved your worth tenfold.” He tilted his big horned head to the side and snaked his long tongue out at me. “Perhaps you deserve a raise.”

I choked on a quiet laugh, shaking my head. “You haven’t paid me yet… Besides, I’d settle for my own bedroll…” A blush rose to my cheeks. “And a horse… if possible.”

“Hmmm.” Came his response, and his thin nostrils flared slightly. “I will miss your warmth when we ride, but understand it might not be most ideal for you.” A finalizing nod. “We shall procure you a mount before we depart then.”

“H-how long will that be?” I asked curiously.

“Depends on the situation with this spirit. But I suspect it shan’t be more than a day or two at most to soothe its ails and bring some peace back to this town.” He took a large mouthful, scarfing it back with a pleased rumble in his deep chest. I watched his throat ripple as he swallowed. “There will be a contract ready by the time we finish, I am certain.”

That gave me a start. “... We?”

His toothy grin returned. “But of course! I shall be most grateful for your assistance, Sera!”

I pushed my plate away, unfinished. Suddenly having lost my appetite.

....

UPDATE: Part Three HERE

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