#basically how this would go down is that I explain in more detail the problems I'm having and the things I do not know

[sansaorgana]

— STILL PURE

PAIRING — Na-Baron Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen x fem!Reader

SUMMARY — Feyd yells at his daughter for interrupting him at work. His wife confronts him about his behaviour as she tries to explain to the little Countess that her father was never taught how to express love.

REQUEST — (1)

AUTHOR’S NOTE — Feyd is already the Baron in this fic but I assumed women cannot inherit on Giedi Prime so the daughter is "only" a Countess while her younger brother is a Na-Baron. I used my headcanon that if half-Harkonnen children have hair, then they're white because they lack pigment. I also wanted her to have big black Harkonnen eyes so badly... Basically, I wanted Feyd's daughter to look like this:

WORD COUNT — 2,990

ENGLISH IS MY SECOND LANGUAGE.

STILL PURE

Baron Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen was circling around the big table in the conference room where the huge orb of Giedi Prime had been replaced with Arrakis’ one as one of his advisors was explaining the difficult situation regarding the spice production. The new wave of Fremen rebels who worshipped the long gone and deceased Muad’Dib decided to continue their idol’s legacy as they sabotaged the spice production controlled by The Harkonnen forces. The Governor of Arrakis was slowly losing control over the situation and Feyd would rather avoid going there himself. He was needed on Giedi Prime – especially now when The Emperor was on his deathbed. He had to be around in case something important would happen and everyone knew The Baron had his eyes set on the Imperial Throne. Feyd had to choose a new Governor of Arrakis or provide the current one with good advice, hoping for the Fremen problem to disappear soon. It was worrying him because it was giving him a bad reputation at the moment for having problems on Arrakis – it could make some leaders of the great houses to think he was not worthy enough to become the next Emperor.

Feyd’s hands were clasped behind his back as he circled like a shark and all his advisors looked down, taking a step back whenever he approached them. They knew his temper would only rise when he was angered whenever he would experience problems of such nature when it came to reigning over The Harkonnen properties.

“What does the Fremen leader say? Stilgar? That was his name?” Feyd barked at one of the scared advisors.

“Stilgar says he has no control over the cultists. He does not support their actions. He wants nothing but peace, my Lord,” the man bowed his head.

“How bad is it? The most important thing so far is to keep the problem on Arrakis a secret,” Feyd hummed to himself.

“Five percent of the decrease in the spice production income,” the other advisor answered. “Not bad, but can be noticeable in the amount we export.”

“We shall export some of our own private reserves to cover the loss. In the meantime, we have to deal with the cultists,” Feyd decided, already annoyed at the fact he had to sacrifice his own supplies just to cover up the careless governing of Arrakis which was not his fault. “Send more troops there, the operation should be classified confidential. Threaten Lord Volonov to take care of it. He’s got a month before I replace him with someone more capable…”

Quiet pat pat pat sound coming from the corridor was becoming louder and louder until the black doors finally opened slightly and the guard standing by them spotted a pair of two big black eyes staring up at him. 

“My Lord,” he tried to catch The Baron’s attention but Feyd had his back turned on him as he angrily explained the details of the operation to his advisors.

Little Countess Sevina Harkonnen gave the guard puppy eyes as she struggled with the heavy doors. She wanted to come inside and he didn’t know what to do. He was aware that his Lord Baron did not want to be interrupted but he didn’t want to close the door in the girl’s face either. He peeked outside but there was no servant around and The Baroness was not there either. He decided it would be better for the girl to come inside instead of letting her roam around the fortress alone.

She smiled widely at him and jumped inside the room happily as her white hair bounced. She was lucky enough to inherit most of her mother’s looks although her skin was paler, her hair lacked pigment and her pupils were nothing but two completely big black orbs – those were the eyes even her father did not have but they were a result of the pollution her mother’s body had been exposed to on Giedi Prime at the time of her pregnancy.

Not realising how tense the atmosphere in the room was, she approached her father as all the advisors and servants were making wide eyes at her. She stood behind The Baron and pulled on his shirt to make him turn around.

At first, he flinched at the odd feeling of someone pulling him. Who would dare to do that? He turned around quickly with an angry expression on his face but then he looked down and spotted his little daughter. She startled a bit at the sight of his annoyance but she kept staring at him with her big black eyes filled with love and excitement.

“What are you doing here?” Feyd barked at her.

“Can you play with me, daddy?” She pleaded with a big grin.

A few lords smirked at that and Feyd’s jaw clenched. Not only had she interrupted him but also humiliated him.

“Can’t you fucking see that I’m busy?!” He lashed out at her and she took a step back as her eyes filled with tears and betrayal. “Get out of here!” He pointed at the doors.

They opened at that very moment as the nanny entered the room and looked around, surprised at the sight of scared faces and the little Countess being in the centre of attention.

“There you are!” She opened her arms at the sight of the girl. “I’ve told you not to interrupt your father, he’s in the middle of a meeting,” she reminded nervously as the girl ran up to her and hid her face in the folds of her skirt. “Forgive me, my Lord,” the nanny bowed her head at Feyd-Rautha.

“You’re useless,” he drawled. “Get out.”

“Y-yes, my Lord,” the woman held Sevina’s hand and walked out as quickly as possible.

You left the nursery where your son na-baron had just fallen asleep. On your way back to your chambers, you passed by the doors leading to your daughter’s room and you froze at the muffled sound of sobbing. Concerned, you decided to enter without knocking.

Little Sevina was crying on her bed as the scared nanny tried to calm her down by rubbing her back and shushing her.

“What is going on?” You asked as the doors closed behind you.

“M-my Lady Baroness,” the nanny stood up and straightened herself to bow down slightly.

“What happened? Why is she crying?” You asked her in an accusing tone.

“I… I lost her out of my sight when we were playing earlier today, I’m sorry… I found the young Countess in her father’s conference room. She had interrupted The Baron during a council… I think he lashed out at her, my Lady…” the woman tried to explain nervously as her hands shook.

“You’re useless,” you sighed and she widened her eyes. “Get out, I’ll deal with that myself,” you pointed at the doors and she bowed down once again before leaving quickly.

You approached the bed and sat on the edge of it as Sevina raised her head to look at you. Your heart squeezed in your chest at the sight of her cheeks covered in tears.

“What happened, sweet darling?” You asked her gently while you caressed her back.

“Why doesn’t daddy love me?” She asked with so much pain and sincerity in her tiny, shaky voice that you nearly cried yourself.

You knew it wasn’t true. Feyd-Rautha loved his daughter. Even though he had been a bit disappointed she was not a son in the beginning – he had only said not to worry about it much; that the boy would come next. He had been treating Sevina as if she was made of glass in the first months of her life, so scared of accidentally hurting her because hurt was all he knew.

“Oh, Sevina, don’t think that…” You sighed and leaned in to kiss her forehead. “Daddy loves you so much,” you assured her but of course she wasn’t convinced. “He would kill and die for you, little girl,” you added.

“I don’t want him to kill and die for me, mummy,” Sevina sobbed as those were the concepts she was too young to grasp. “I just want daddy to play with me.”

“He doesn’t know how to play, Sevina,” you fixed her ruffled hair while trying to explain calmly. “He didn’t have a mummy or daddy when he was your age. The way I kiss you or hug you and play with you… He has never had it, darling,” you felt a few tears streaming down your cheeks. You were angry at your husband for yelling at your daughter and making her feel unloved but you were also angry at all the suffering that he had gone through in his past.

There were scars and damages that could never be undone, no matter how much you loved someone.

“And you’re big enough to know that daddy shouldn’t be interrupted when he’s working. You know that he tends to get angry more easily then,” you reminded her. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“I wanted daddy to play with me,” she snuggled closer to you and you kissed the top of her head, rubbing her tiny arms with your thumbs and cradling her softly to calm her down.

Feyd had been back in your chambers already when you entered. You froze at the sight of him, irritated. However, he seemed to act as usual.

“Five percent,” he snapped at you, although not angrily. “We will have to replace the loss with our own supply so the other lords don’t realise we are expecting problems on Arrakis. That stupid son of a bitch Volonov can’t handle a few cultists and…”

“I don’t care about any of that,” you interrupted him and turned your back on him to approach your vanity table and sit by it, pretending to be more interested in reapplying the powder.

“What?” Feyd was visibly surprised as he watched you in disbelief. You had always been a support for him, especially in difficult times. You both had been plotting on how to take over the Imperial Throne and now you weren’t interested in something as important as the problems with harvesting spice on Arrakis? It didn’t make sense to him.

You ignored him and focused on brushing your hair now, watching him from the corner of your eye in the reflection of the mirror of your vanity table. He approached you, hesitantly.

“What do you mean you’re not interested?” He tilted his head as he leaned in, trying to intimidate you but you didn’t even flinch.

“I’ve just spent an hour calming down Sevina. You yelled at her,” you eventually looked up to look deep into his eyes. He took a deep breath in, irritated.

“She should have learnt by now not to interrupt me,” Feyd straightened his back and walked away. “She’s spoiled,” he added. “Knows nothing about discipline. It’s your fault.”

“She’s a little girl,” you turned around. “You can’t expect military habits from her. She’s your daughter, Feyd.”

“She’s lucky I only yelled. If I interrupted my uncle as a child like that, I’d be punished!” He raised his voice at you, frustrated that you were defending your daughter and making a problem out of something that he considered to be normal.

You hated it when he would raise his voice at you. You stood up angrily and yelled as well.

“Oh, so you think she should be raised the same way you were?!” You asked. “Alright then! Go to her room, grab her by the neck and flog her back with a whip just because she wanted to play with her father!” You pointed at the doors furiously as your eyes were burning with wrath. “Go on! I dare you.”

But Feyd didn’t even move. His jaw was clenched as he was staring at you speechlessly.

“Go. What are you waiting for?” You kept pushing him. “Go on.”

You kept looking into his eyes with so much intensity he eventually gave up and looked down, awkwardly as the guilt started to creep in. You won.

“You rejected her. She thinks you don’t love her,” your voice calmed down but it was still vicious. “And I was assuring her that you do but it felt as if I was assuring myself, too,” you added, just to hurt him. “I can’t stand to look at you, Feyd-Rautha,” you drawled and approached the doors to leave him alone but not without striking the final blow. “I can’t believe I wanted to give you children so badly,” you turned your head to look at him as he looked up, surprised at your words, “because you don’t deserve them.”

The doors opened in front of you and you walked out to go back to your daughter.

You were sitting on the black fluffy carpet in the middle of Sevina’s room. She was on your lap, with her tiny arms around your neck, cuddling you. There were toys scattered all around the floor but she wanted to take a break for the loving cuddles. She was very unusual for a half-Harkonnen and you were very aware of the fact she was making most people around feel uncomfortable.

Not only her father but everyone in the fortress were stiff around sweet little Sevina who was so full of life and curiosity, always wanting to hug everyone – even servants and guards. Wherever she went, there was a sound of laughter and a sudden feeling of warmth. Countess Sevina Harkonnen was the very first little girl living in that fortress in a long time and she was so different from all its inhabitants. She was too young to know that she was a daughter of Baron Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen – a man feared all over the Empire. That her bloodline was cursed with death and violence. She was still pure and innocent. Perhaps she was a living proof that The Harkonnens were not born this way after all – but they were made in the endless cycle of abusive upbringing. You did not want the same fate for her. You knew she would have to get rougher with time but you hoped she would still remain gentle, too.

The doors to her room opened and you looked up. At the sight of your husband, you protectively put your arm around your little girl. You doubted that he wanted to do what you had angrily suggested before but you wanted to make sure he wouldn’t anyway. Sevina stiffened at the sight of her father and clung to you. It brought you pain to realise that at that very moment she was afraid of him.

“Sevina, we have to talk,” Feyd stood above you two as he started in a serious tone. You gave him a scolding look and your little girl hid her face in the crook of your neck, hiding. “You know perfectly well not to interrupt me while I’m working.”

Long silence occurred. You could see Feyd’s struggle as he had no idea what to do to fix this situation between him and his daughter.

“Sevina, apologise to daddy,” you looked down and she looked up with tears in her big black eyes. “You shouldn’t have interrupted him and you know that, darling,” your voice was soft and calm and she sniffed.

“I’m sorry, daddy,” Sevina turned her body around to face him but she refused to look at him.

“Now, you apologise to Sevina for being mean,” you looked up at your husband and you spotted panic in his eyes. “Now,” you insisted sternly.

“I’m sorry for being mean to you,” Feyd crouched down to be on her level. She hesitantly looked at him. “Can I get a hug, too?” He asked and his voice broke a tiny bit. 

Slitting someone’s throat open was less awkward and unusual to him than to ask for a hug. Your heart ached for him but you were an adult capable of understanding his patterns. Sevina was not. 

Her heart was big, though, and she loved her father, so she would forgive him everything. She nodded her head with a happy smile and ran into his arms to squeeze him tight. Tears pricked your eyes at the sight.

“I love you, darling,” Feyd whispered quietly with his cheek pressed to the top of her head. “I would kill for you. I would die for you,” he confessed.

“But she doesn’t want any of that,” you explained. “She just wants you to spend time with her.”

“Is that right?” He looked down at his little girl and she looked up with her puppy eyes as she nodded. Her tiny hands reached out to cup his face.

“I love you, daddy,” she assured him. “Can you play with me?”

“I don’t know how to play, I’m sorry,” he admitted with guilt in his voice.

“I will teach you,” she hugged him again.

Feyd put his arms around his little girl and pulled her closer. You crawled on the carpet to give him a hug, too. You could feel that he was slightly trembling, so you leaned in to place a kiss on his temple as your hand caressed his head soothingly.

“It’s not weak to show affection,” you reminded him in a whisper. “I’ve never loved you more than when you are like this.”

Feyd laid his eyes on you. They were filled with a mix of pain, guilt and relief. At the end of the day, the only approval he was seeking was yours. You had him wrapped around your little finger.

“So, how do you want to play?” He asked Sevina as he caressed her white hair with admiration. She clapped her hands cheerfully.

“I want to be a Princess,” her eyes sparkled. “And you’ll be my guard.”

Feyd chuckled at that, showing off his black teeth. Sevina giggled as she had never found them scary.

“Soon enough, my darling one, you’ll be a real Princess,” he assured her.

MASTERLIST

#feyd rautha x reader #feyd rautha harkonnen x reader #austin butler x reader #lilysfiction

[rapunzelbro]

The amount of times I have refreshed the angel dust x reader tag----Anywayyyy, I dunno if you do hurt/comfort (if not that's okay please ignore this lol) but here is a idea for a oneshot! GN!reader x angel dust where they're in a secret relationship because he's trying to protect you at all cost from his boss (reader can know about his situation or not its up to you!) but Valentino somehow found out about it and is pissed about it. You can use creative freedom to fill in the angst parts and whatever happens next, but please make it have a happy ending ^^

Imagine being in a Secret Relationship with Angel

Omg yeah I can! I wish there were more too so haha I shall provide I suppose. This is uh. Super angst. But I promise it’ll be a happy ending lmao I promise. Thank you for requesting. Just a reminder yall my requests are still open! Just give as much details and I’ll make it happen. Anywho enjoy!

Masterlist Character Taglist

Being in a relationship with Angel Dust wasn’t often easy, Well at first that is.

When you first met Angel he always had his guard up, on some sort of drug at all times, and pushed serious conversations aside with Sexual remarks to drop the conversation entirely

So when you were able to actually break his walls months later, it was honestly a shock to you. Because damn was he stubborn. Honestly you didn’t think it would be possible

He started telling you small things about himself after the first month of letting his walls down, introducing you to Fat nuggets, and watching movies with you.

After the third month, he tells you his real name is Anthony. You said it suits him and you swear you see him blush

The fourth month is when you ask him out. He is super hesitant on accepting, but you don’t push him for an answer, he later comes in your room

“Y/N.. I.. I want to say yes, but I’m so terrified ya know? I just can’t I don’t know what would happen”

“Why would you be terrified?”

He tells you everything. Everything about the man who tears him apart, the man who hurts him on the daily.

He is trying to hard to explain how terrified he is of you getting hurt, and all you can do is gently take his hands as you look at him

“Angel, nothing will happen, no one needs to know but us. If you’re scared still, I get that, I’ve been there before. But I’m not scared of that prick, and he won’t find out okay?”

He finally makes eye contact with you and he begins to calm down, hugging you as you two just sit in silence before he quietly responds

“Then, I accept”

It’s months after that when he introduced you to his Best friend Cherri. You two are super hesitant about telling her, but you eventually decide to.

She’s super super happy for you two but don’t think she won’t get super protective

Will pull you aside at the club when Angel isn’t there

“If you hurt Angel you and I are going to have a problem okay? You break his heart I break you”

Yeah she scared the fuck out of you for that. Angel never did find out about your conversation.

It’s been almost a year of hiding your relationship when it suddenly begins to turn sour

The calls from Valentino, get more frequent, more violent on the phone.

Angel comes back to the hotel limping, bruised and bloody

You practically sprint and grab him, carrying him to his room take care of him the best you can, talk to him when he is ready, or be a shoulder to cry on.

Angel doesn’t know why Valentino is being more violent, he didn’t do anything wrong, he kept your relationship so quiet that it was basically impossible for him to know about you two

Except Valentino did find out. He heard Angel talking in his dressing room to you, he investigated throughly after Angel said I love you, to you.

Valentino got Vox to look at the cameras around Hell, he saw you two together. You don’t hold hands at all, not in public, if it wasn’t for that phone call, he wouldn’t of thought anything of it

“That little whore is going to fucking pay”

You and Angel are at Val’s bar after Angel reassured you he wouldn’t be there. You two are talking when Angel stands up to grab you more shots

That’s when Valentino appears, gun pressed up to the back of your head

“I Wouldn’t move an inch if you want to live perra tonta~”

You’re absolutely frozen as can be. You don’t move a bit as he leans closer to you

“I have all eyes on you, I know you’re with Angel Dust, you’re fucking with my property. Now here’s how things are going to go down tonight if you want your precious Angel Cakes to live. You’re going to break up with him, and stay the FUCK away from him. Do I make myself clear?”

You are silent visibly shaking as he presses the gun harder as he becomes impatient with you

“Do I make myself clear!”

He sounds absolutely pissed as you quickly nod your head frantically

“Perfect, now fucking leave”

You don’t have time to explain to Angel Dust but you leave before he makes it back with your shots, Valentino is no where to be found.

“Y/n? Where did you go” “Amore mio?”

You didn’t reply to his texts, you didn’t know what to do, you were trapping yourself in your room.

You were in a panicked state as the tears just didn’t seem to stop, nothing made sense, you two were so so careful? How did you fuck up?

Angel knocked at your door. No answer. He knocked again before he eventually used the spare key you gave him, which you forgot about

Angel instantly rushed over to you when he saw you crying, which caused you to flinch

He instantly froze in his tracks when he saw you flinch, concern building

“Y/N what happened.. why are you crying”

You are struggling through sobs as you explain what happened, Angel is so fucking pissed he can hardly contain it but has to for you, he just listens as he sits next to you

“Amore mio, i shouldn’t of I left you alone I’m so sorry. I don’t know how that asshole found out but I’m not fucking this relationship up because of him”

“But he will kill me”

“Sweetie, there’s a thing called acting you know, all we have to do is play the part, pretty easy for me, as you’ve seen.”

He takes your hands with a slight smirk

“I’m not letting him fuck this up okay? Who cares what he thinks? Val is literally blind as shit, I’m surprised he even knew it was you. Probably had to have someone point you out to him”

Yeah that made you laugh, which Angel was thankful for.

For then on, you two had your ‘breakup’. You were never seen in public together, or not without disguises. You had most dates alone at the hotel together

You weren’t letting the one good thing to happen end because of a stupid fucking moth

And he wasn’t going to either.

Angel Dust tag list: @vendetta-ari @brithedemonspawn @satansmanager @storydays @saturnhas82moons @zamadness @fizziepopangel @saitisfied @the--rebel--fae @mcueveryday @rainbowbunny15 @molarloo

#alastor hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor #hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin angel dust #hazbin hotel husk #husk hazbin hotel #hazbin charlie #hazbin hotel #hazbin art #hazbin lucifer #hazbin husk #hazbin hotel alastor #husk x angel dust #angel dust x reader #hazbin hotel lucifer x reader #hazbin spoilers #hazbin vaggie #hazbin hotel valentino x reader #hazbin hotel x you #hazbin vox #hazbin hotel lucifer #hazbin hotel vox x reader

[shuttershocky]

There's a thread on the arknights reddit asking why is Eyja so resistant to powercreep. About half the answers were because the devs virtually give no other casters the amount of res ignore she has and she was just made right from the start and casters past her are either meh or Goldenglow.

It's a fun problem to talk about and these answers are correct, but I would argue that fully understanding the issue of Eyjafjalla's effect on Arknights' design and why she's so hard to powercreep comes down to understanding the combination of four things:

Arts damage is calculated by reducing the initial damage by a percentage given by the target's RES

Arknights is a Tower Defense game

Eyjafjalla was first and with a very overloaded S2

Closely related to #3, Arknights is a live service (gacha) game

I'm not sure if I can explain this very cohesively, but I'll try. This is going to be a very long post going over all 4 points in detail, after the cut

I'll go over info you definitely already know to explain Point#1, but please be patient.

Arts damage in Arknights is calculated like how Magic Resistance works in many games—it's reduced by a percentage of the target's RES, vs Physical damage being a flat reduction by DEF or ATK - DEF. Let's explain Physical first.

The flat reduction from DEF means that while Phys damage does almost nothing if it's below an enemy's DEF, slowly slowly increasing the phys damage being outputted will get over the enemy's DEF until it starts being effective. The higher you boost the phys damage over the initial DEF, the more effective the attack becomes. 2000 DEF may be extremely tanky, but if you deal 10,000 damage per hit in one second, you're still dealing 8000 DPS. On the other hand, if you deal 1000 damage per hit 10 times in a single second, you're doing basically nothing (a minimum of 5% damage per hit) to a 2000 DEF target despite having the same DPS.

Meanwhile, Arts damage being reduced by a percentage dictated by enemy RES means that the actual damage per hit doesn't matter. If you make a 10,000 damage Arts attack hit an 80 RES target once per second, you do 2000 DPS. Do the same thing where an attack does 1000 damage Arts hits 10x in 1 second to the same 80 RES target, and you do 200 x 10 or 2000 DPS. This means Arts damage ultimately only cares about DPS, no cares about whether it gains it from boosting ATK or ASPD, it will be the same in the end.

Moving on to Point #2, other games that calculate magic resistance in this way aren't Tower Defenses, but Arknights is. Being a tower defense means that the objective in any stage is to beat all AI enemies in a stage before they finish their set path to your goal, and no matter what strategy you go with the only approach to victory involves killing all enemies in some manner. This foundation means that DPS is inherently king (as in many games, but with Tower Defense's especially), as your only form of gameplay involves destroying the AI enemies with set patterns, everything else only serves that purpose. The hypothetical ultimate Arknights unit is not the one with the best utility or versatility or strategic potential, it's the unit that can kill the most number of enemies onscreen more efficiently than everyone else. So when it comes to units that deal Arts damage, Arts units that can kill the most enemies the most efficiently are the most valuable.

In other games in completely different genres but with the same approach to magic resistance (a very big logical leap I know but hear me out I swear), DPS numbers cannot be the end all-be all. For example, Dota 2's magic resistance works the same way, and they even have heroes with similar approaches to the game, but being a human player vs human player game and actually being unable to win by killing all enemies alone creates nuance.

Lina and Skywrath for (an extremely simplified and obviously overlooking many, many more nuances) example, are both squishy magic damage nukers whose goals are to surprise one enemy and then destroy them as fast as possible with very high magic damage. However, they are usually incomparable, because they're not just fighting set AI enemies walking on pre-determined paths, but human players who will react in different ways to the smallest differences between the two characters (ex: Skywrath has no way to completely stop enemy movement so he'll have a partner nearby to watch out for, Lina has a stun so she's more likely to be alone, but there's no dodging her homing Laguna Blade like you can with Skywrath's ground-targeted Mystic Flare so kill her before she fights back). Also, you can only win in Dota by destroying the enemy's base, so a team with 100 kills can actually lose to a team with 30 kills if the team being beaten up constantly dodges fights but manages to destroy the enemy base still. The ability to kill your enemies must actually be in service of your ability to destroy buildings (which are normally magic immune), meaning a caster that can annihilate enemy players is the blink of an eye but is useless at breaking buildings or defending may become a liability if they don't help their team at pushing faster than the enemy or can't help defend their buildings. To put it short: in other games, the non-linearity of both the objectives and combat encounters means increasing raw magic DPS cannot always be a solution

So now we go into Point#3 and 4, Eyjafjalla was the first 6 star Caster, and Arknights is a live service game meaning it must change over time.

Eyjafjalla having an automatic and powerful skill with RES shred, multiple charges, and even AOE on her S2 spelt doom for the entire Caster class, even more than her infamous S3. With S2, Eyja was cheaper than Casters with AOE, dealt more DPS than them while having their AOE, didn't require any manual input from the player, and even shredded enemy RES.

Now Eyjafjalla's S3 could be competed with, as it was a long cd multitarget DPS skill. Ceobe came with her own machine gun on S2 that could scale off enemy DEF, while Carnelian came with true AOE rather than a 6 target limit (though Eyja's S3 was still better in the end lol). However, her S2 being so easy and so powerful in a tower defense where efficient and strong DPS is the most valuable trait you can possibly have means HyperGryph either have to directly powercreep it with a similar skill, or work around it, which is where Point#4 being closely related comes in.

HG's approach was trying to work around it, which is why other Casters have clearly tried to stay out of her way either via utility or new features. Goldenglow has global range, Ebenholz sacrifices DPS for instant burst (but then eventually got a DPS module anyway), Mostima has big slows, Dusk creates summons to block enemies, etc. But even with all the utility or features being put into other Casters, if Eyjafjalla kills enemies just as quickly and easily as she did at release, then there's no real reason beyond your own fun to use anyone else. Eyja's S2 is still killing everything. That means enemies also have to change.

If Eyjafjalla killing enemies so easily with either S2 or S3 is a problem, then the only solution without being able to nerf her is make enemies harder for her to kill alone. This is why Patriot Phase 1 had 90 RES, so Eyjafjalla couldn't just kill him like she did all other bosses while Amiya's S3 had True Damage. Later enemies would also try other gimmicks, like the enemies in Lonetrail starting with very high DEF and RES that would lower after multiple hits, so strong DPS casters like Eyja can't instantly kill them with S2 (although her S3 will kill them from rapidfire lol).

However, unlike someone like Exusiai who had low ATK but monstrous DPS from multihits and ASPD, simply raising the floor of enemy RES will negatively affect ALL Casters, because of point#1— Arts only cares about DPS because of how it's calculated, damage per hit doesn't really matter. While Exusiai players can still play around with her by attempting to boost her DPH above the enemy's DEF threshold (and run the math on whether they should just try to lower enemy DEF instead), Casters will react the same to boosting ASPD and ATK, while lowering enemy RES will become more and more efficient the higher enemy RES gets, and hey, guess who comes with a RES shred? Eyjafjalla's S2.

Eyjafjalla trapped Hypergryph's design team. Keep raising RES and other Casters quickly become more and more useless without RES ignore / RES shred of their own, becoming a second support class when Supporters already exist for the idea of "Casters but supports". In fact, as RES gets raised, Eyjafjalla and other casters like Ifrit become more and more valuable as DPS units (in a tower defense where DPS is king), since they can ignore / shred RES when most cannot. Keep the game playable for other Casters however, and it means Eyjafjalla will continue to reign supreme.

HG tried to do a balancing act. This is how we got enemies start to get more RES over time, which weakened Casters overall enough that HG made a module for Core Casters to ignore 10 RES (that Eyjafjalla also got LOL). This is also how we got into the current state where Eyjafjalla is still comfortably killing 90% of the game and seen as near impossible to powercreep, because if she can't then people without her (and there WILL be people without her, because it's a gacha game and she's not guaranteed) would be totally screwed. Try to directly powercreep her by making a second Eyjafjalla with bigger numbers, and not only will you be pissing off people that rolled for Eyjafjalla, but you'll be creating an even bigger problem instead of fixing the first one.

So to tie it all together

Point # 1 means that Arts damage is a lot less nuanced than Physical damage, leading to raw DPS by any means coming out on top

Point # 2 means that if the only way to win is to destroy all enemies, then the ability to destroy enemies with damage faster and more effectively will always be the strongest solution

Point # 3 means that since Eyja was first and also very overloaded with features, everyone else was created with the knowledge of that they'll be competing against her, meaning you either had to directly powercreep her, or stay out of her way. HG chose the latter

Point # 4 means that while Arknights tried to address her, by either making tankier enemies or by event game mechanics, they were trapped by their own design. Because of Points #1, #2, nullifying Eyjafjalla too much would be screwing over everyone else because of the end result of Point #3, which is everyone tried to stay out of her lane when it came to DPSing. Not everyone can have Eyjafjalla because it's a gacha game and who you get is all RNG, and while you want new units to be attractive to make money, directly powercreeping old characters screws over your own players and makes them angry, while powercreeping Eyjafjalla directly will not even fix the problems created by points #1 and 2, it just makes an even more problematic, second Eyjafjalla.

Thanks for reading this far! If anything wasn't clear just ask and I'll try to explain it again

#Arknights

[cyberfreaky]

CELLOPHANE ⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚ PART III

༘⋆ PAIRING — olo’eyktan!jake x fem!reader

༘⋆ SUMMARY — in which your taboo infatuation with your olo’eyktan begins to cause problems.

༘⋆ WARNINGS — age gap (32 & 22), mentions of daddy issues, power imbalance, no comfort angst, infidelity, mild violence, alcohol usage, arguing, eventual smut.

༘⋆ NOTES — i’m sorry this took so long my writers blocks has been so bad. pls forgive me love u. swoaseyn = kava bowl. i couldn’t find what they use for alcohol on pandora, so i jus implemented something from my own culture lmao i was shocked to find out there was a word in na’vi for kava bowl so i jus ran w/ it 😭 it’s basically like a drug made from the roots or stump of a kava shrub. & typically prepared in like a rlly gross drink. for me, it sorta gives the same effect as being drunk so ?? reader is a crying drunken mess in this xx s/o to the girlies who breakdown whenever they drink !!!

MASTERLIST + CELLOPHANE MASTERLIST

previous — next

you’d been mulling over that brief interaction with jake, already missing the gentleness of his hand on your cheek. ‘sweet’. he thought you were sweet. it was more than just being seen as ‘nice’ or ‘friendly’ — he meant more to his words. that simple word played on replay inside your mind throughout the entire day.

it influenced your entire attitude. your whole look on things between yourself and jake. it seemed like you didn’t have to try that hard to find ways to impress him - maybe he was already smitten. that little possibility was just enough to encourage your decisions for the celebration, including the attire you chose to wear.

“you’re looking hot.” ky’ana commented as she sauntered into your hut, her inquisitive eyes glancing up and down your body with a sly grin.

“or should i say ‘sweet’? would that be a better description?”

you rolled your eyes at ky'ana's mockery, smiling a little to yourself as you reminisced about what’d happened in the morning. “very funny.” you say sarcastically.

ky’ana had watched the entire ordeal unfold in front of her as she collected the fruits. the way jake caressed your cheek, sucking off the juice of the berry residue from his thumb. she knew all too well what his intentions were, which explained why she’d stepped away to continue with her tasks. if anyone had seen the way jake had grown to act around you - it was ky’ana. jake wasn’t as subtle as he believed he was.

you were finishing up the final details of your attire. your top was beaded, reflecting beautifully with amethyst and magenta tones. the thin top cascaded over your chest, barely covering the peaks of your breasts. your tewng was dangerously short, almost leaving nothing to the imagination with how slender the veil was. it was an annual celebration for the clan - you weren't the only person who'd be dressed in such a manner. but that didn't stop you from making subtle adjustments to show yourself off just a little more.

you'd woven flower petals into your dark braids, the pop of colour amidst your hair made you resemble royalty in a way. you definitely had dressed yourself up to impress, it was clear as day.

“getting all pretty for a certain someone?” ky’ana teased, standing behind you as she gave your ass a playful slap. she’d been relentless with her taunts ever since this morning, and truthfully - you didn’t mind it. you relished in the memory of it, and you wanted to be reminded of it constantly. to relive that memory until the end of time.

“maybe.” you glance over at your best friend, nibbling on your bottom lip to suppress your smile.

ky’ana could only laugh in response, linking her slender arm with yours as she lead you towards the camp grounds. “let’s go have some fun.”

the festival was in full effect. the clan celebrated loudly. a plentiful amount of music, cheer and dancing surrounded you and ky’ana as you both walked into the village. you were transfixed from the beauty of your people, how the liveliness of the illuminating forest and beaconing moonlight shone upon them. it was certainly a sight to see. after the gruelling months that your people had experienced during their ambushes - seeing them in a state of pure merriment and euphoria warmed your heart.

your hopeful eyes drifted across the lively festival, desperate to spot out jake amongst the crowd. the boisterous sounds of the festival had turned into white noise, your gaze immediately falling on him from across the blazing bonfire. sparks of excitement jolted through your body as your tail began to swish behind you, flicking up in the air as if you’d been given a treat.

jake was far too busy with his family to even recognise you. him and neytiri were holding little tuk on their shoulders together, providing their youngest daughter with the perfect view of the clan’s celebration. a sudden wave of jealousy washed over you like a tidal wave - it came crashing down hard as you watched just how joyful they were. you began to feel ridiculous for how ecstatic you’d been to see jake, for him to see you in such a tantalising outfit. maybe you’d done it again - mistaking his kindness for something more.

ky’ana took notice of your reaction, her gaze following yours and screwing up her face up at the scene. she nudged your side, giving you a weary smile as she tried to distract you from your dismay.

“c’mon, let’s get something to eat.” ky’ana insisted, giving you no choice but to go with her as she dragged you along.

you reluctantly looked away from jake in the distance, your lips forming a slight pout while you followed besides ky’ana. your disappointment would have been unjustified in everyone’s eyes except your best friend’s - she was truly the only person who could understand.

the both of you reached the supper area, an abundance of food displayed across the carved table. you picked up a piece of roasted teylu, sheepishly biting into the grub with a small frown. you couldn’t stop yourself from turning back around and glancing over at jake once again - stupidly punishing yourself by watching him. he was so happy. why would you try and ruin that? jake’s entire world was his family, his mate. you had no right to feel so envious about it.

“hey.” ky’ana says to you, tilting her head to side as she gauged your solemn expression. her delicate fingers graced your cheek, turning your head and forcing you to look into her narrowed eyes. “do not get hung up on that. we are having fun tonight, alright?”

“i feel stupid.” you mumble quietly, glancing down at the attire you’d carefully curated just for jake’s attention. you just wanted the ground to swallow you whole.

ky’ana shook her head, stepping away for a brief moment before returning with a small, wooden bowl. she brought it up to her lips, taking a long sip of the murky liquid. her body jerked in reaction, her pupils dilating slightly just from the taste alone. “this will help.” she handed you the bowl with a mischievous smile. “drink up. all of it.”

you reluctantly raise the bowl to your mouth, your nose scrunching up as you inhaled the alcoholic scent. ky’ana only pestered you to drink it as she noticed your hesitation. you gave her an uneasy glance before sighing defeatedly, taking a long, deep breath in. with one swift motion, you downed the remaining of the drink.

you shriek in disgust, immediately gagging at the foul taste. it was too late to spit it out, you’d already swallowed the entirety of the bowl. you jumped up and down in your spot, fighting off the urge to dry heave across the village grounds. “that was disgusting! what was that?”

ky’ana cackled loudly at your reaction, taking the bowl from your hands with an amused grin. “don’t worry about what it is. the taste will be worth it…twenty minutes from now.”

“that wasn’t…no.” your eyes widen at the realisation of what ky’ana had made you drink. you look at the object in her hands, realising it wasn’t an average bowl. she was holding a kava bowl - a swoaseyn. “ky’ana! oh, eywa. i’m going to die tonight. i’m going to fucking die.”

you begin to freak out as you anxiously look around the village, feeling as though the camp was spinning around you. the paranoia was affecting your ability to focus, rather than the drink itself. you’d never experienced consuming kava, and you wouldn’t have expected that tonight would be the time. realistically, it hadn’t even entered your system yet. the fear of being in some drug-induced panic was causing this sudden outburst.

“it’ll be fine, trust me.” ky’ana placed two hands on your shoulders, levelling her calm eyes with your teary ones. she assuringly squeezed you, giving you a feeble shake to persuade you to relax. “i will be with you all night. i won’t leave your side at all, don’t worry. this is going to be an incredible night.”

you were panting relentlessly, nodding your head almost manically at this point. it took you a few moments of deep breaths and internal affirmations to eventually calm your nerves. “o-okay…i trust you.”

“good.” ky’ana smiled, taking your hand in hers and gently urging you towards the festival. “let’s dance.”

the two of you rushed over to the crowd, joining in the dances amongst the clan. you were stiff and awkward, which was to be expected on you after your little freak out. you watched intently as your people swayed expertly, moving in perfect motion with one another as the loud music boomed inside your ears. their slender bodies were pressed against each other’s, every movement and direction moved exactly in tandem with the banging drums.

the dances were much more provocative than you’d expected, unlike the typical festival traditions that had been more modest in movement. flickers of orange, blue and purple painted the faces of the crowd. the foreign scent of sweat and arousal shot through your senses, making your muscles tense slightly. it was like everyone was moving in slow motion, brushing against yours and ky’ana’s bodies as they dripped with sensuality. you began to grow mildly excited as you watched with hazed eyes, trying to mimic the dancing on your own. though failing, as per usual.

ky’ana encouraged you to follow her lead, standing in front of you with a wide smile. she held your soft hips, directing you to gently move yourself from side to side. the dance seemed difficult at first, as if you were a child taking their first steps. you held onto her shoulders for balance, trying to instruct yourself to follow the rhythm of the lively sounds that blasted tumultuously.

“just relax.” ky’ana soothes your nervousness, feeling how tense you were through the very tips of her fingers.

“shut up, i’m trying.” you argue with a frown, simply earning an inaudible chuckle from her.

with enough practice and instruction from ky’ana, you eventually found your rhythm. your hips swayed heavenly in motion with the music, perfectly matching the movement’s of the clan. this was a miraculous moment for you - considering you usually danced as if you had two, left feet. you laughed wildly as your frail arms reached into the air, allowing the effects of the steamy dancing and bitter kava to envelope your body entirely.

ky’ana was right. this did help you forget a little. enough to distract you from the fact that jake’s gaze would soon fall upon you from across the crowd.

jake and neytiri were situated upon a perched, timber structure that resembled a stage, sat upon two makeshift thrones. this provided them with the perfect view of the exuberant celebration. they watched as their children ran unruly amongst the village grounds, enjoying the festivities with the other kids in the clan. it was truly a beautiful sight to see, the both of them grinning widely with intertwined hands.

“beautiful, hm?” neytiri says to jake while she looks upon the clan, smiling contently to herself as she soaks in the atmosphere.

jake nodded in agreement, giving neytiri’s hand a little squeeze. “one for the books, that’s for sure.” he chuckled with a dopey smile.

despite being mated with jake for as long as they had - neytiri still found his phrases quite confusing. across the years, she’d grown to find them more endearing than anything. even though she had no clue what jake was talking about half the time - she’d simply brush it off as sky people nonsense.

“yes. one for the books.” neytiri repeated jake’s words, laughing softly alongside him as their gazes drifted back over to the festival.

jake’s eyes darted across the crowd, his interest peaking as he watched how the clan danced with one another. it was certainly tantalising, almost lewd. he found his head slowly bopping on beat with the music, tapping his foot gently against the wood as he smiled flippantly to himself. these celebrations were always a joy to spectate, considering he wasn’t the greatest dancer. jake had tried many times to try and teach himself how to move like the na’vi, but to no avail. though, he didn’t mind - it was more fun to observe.

as jake quietly basked in the bustle of the festival, it didn’t take too long before you quickly snatched his attention. his mouth fell agape at the sight of you.

it was like a spotlight had shone upon you as his stare fixated completely on your movements. you were almost mesmerising in a way, each gyrate and gentle sway of your lustrous hips entranced jake. he could only see you. the detail you’d put into your outfit was noticed immediately by jake - and he could see it despite being so distanced from you. the pretty flowers in your hair, that little tewng - every. single. detail.

you were so carefree and beautiful, moving in such a way it could hypnotise a man. you’d never been so vivacious, and it didn’t seem like you even knew how truly alluring you were. how could you be so unknowingly bewitching?

no. i shouldn’t be looking.

a surge of guilt spread throughout jake as he found himself practically drooling. he shouldn’t be looking at you in such a way - he was mated. and happily so. it only made matters worse that he was holding his wife’s hand, all while his predatory stare was glued to someone else. and not just any woman. it was you.

“that girl is nothing but trouble.” neytiri suddenly comments, snapping jake out of his trance. he blinked profusely, shifting a little in his seat as his eyes darted over to his mate. he feared that he’d been caught staring at you - and the nerves bubbled inside him rapidly.

“what? what girl?”

neytiri gestured towards ky’ana, shaking her head at the girl in the crowd. “she is always causing problems.”

jake almost let out a sigh of relief once he realised neytiri wasn’t talking about you. while he questioned his mate’s judgement of ky’ana, he was just happy she hadn’t taken notice of his burning stare. “n-nah, she’s a good kid. little rough around the edges, is all.”

“she is a bad influence, look at what she has done to her friend.” neytiri scoffs at you in the crowd, almost taking pity on you - believing you were somehow a victim of ky’ana’s behaviour. “ma’jake, ky’ana gave her kava. i witnessed it with my own eyes.”

“what’s so bad about that? they’re just havin’ some fun. it’s a celebration, ain’t it?” jake tried to reason with neytiri, chortling lightly in hopes of lightening her mood. he was struck with confusion at her sudden disdain towards ky’ana, considering she’d never spoken about it with him.

“you know how her friend is. she is reserved, and quiet. and now she is dancing like some sort of sex symbol.”

jake feigned curiosity, using neytiri’s response as an excuse to look at you once again. she wasn’t wrong, you were dancing a little more amorously than the clan was at this point. it seemed that the kava had given you some sort of surge of confidence, and now you were in a state of pure ecstasy. in fact, your movements were so slow and sensual - it was clear you were no longer in a stable state of mind.

“yeah, i guess.” jake coughed awkwardly, tearing his eyes away from your body to look back at neytiri. “c’mon, don’t get so strung up on it. it’s harmless fun, nothin’ more to it.”

“i suppose.” neytiri mutters, leaning back into her seat as her fierce glare remains on ky’ana. though, it soon turns to an exasperated expression. “now look.”

jake gave neytiri an odd glance, looking back over at the crowd once again. his gaze instinctively falls on you as per usual, his eyes widening at the sight. in just a matter of moments, you’d managed to go from a lively, dancing joy to an emotional wreck in ky’ana’s arms. were you seriously this much of a lightweight? he felt bad for chuckling a little, but it wasn’t with malicious intent. he simply hadn’t expected you to react this way to kava, it was supposed to relax you. it appeared that you were the exception to the rule.

neytiri nudged jake’s arm, motioning for him to do something to help. “go and check on her.”

“huh? oh, uh. yeah, sure.” jake quickly rose from his seat, trying to suppress the excitement that was building within him.

“shh, it’s alright.” ky’ana tried to console you, rubbing your back gently as you began to suddenly cry in her arms. truthfully, this was bound to happen. she knew you better than anyone else - and this was your first time experiencing a kava high. being the sensitive person you were, ky’ana expected this reaction, and she was fully prepared for what was to happen.

“i ju..just want someone to love me.” you sobbed onto ky’ana’s shoulder, dampening her warm skin with your tears. your speech was slurred and languid, leaving your mouth through drawn out cries. “i want j..jake, i can’t live w-without him.”

ky’ana lead you away from the crowd, keeping you firmly embraced you in a comforting hug. she couldn’t have anyone hearing what you were saying, knowing that you basically zero filter at this point. she didn’t want to risk you slipping up about your interest in jake. “c’mon, you’re being silly now. he’s just a guy, you’ll survive without him.” she laughed playfully at your dramatics.

you continued to cry drunkenly in ky’ana’s arms, your words coming out as nothing but incoherent gibberish. “ky’ana, you don’t get it. jake’s my. my love life. he is the love life..love my life. i want him s..so bad.”

your best friend could only chuckle in response, cooing quietly in your ear as she continued to console you. “i know, i know. he’s the love of your life, i get it.” she giggled into your ear, her soft hands running up and down your spine.

you’d lasted exactly an hour and a half before this breakdown came around. for you, that was rather impressive. for ky’ana, it was nice to see you let loose; even if it were for only a short amount of time. you were always so hung up on jake, jake, jake. and while she supported you no matter what - she knew that this little situation you had with him was doing you no good. at least not lately. you were so boy-crazy over jake that you’d started to lose your own identity in the midst of it.

“hey, there’s plenty of guys in the clan who’d kill to be with you.” ky’ana says with a smile, hoping her words would assure you just a little.

though, this had the opposite effect on you, and your sobs just worsened. “i don’t want anyone else! i-i want jake, h..he’s my, he’s the one i want.”

ky'ana simply allowed you to vent all your sadness to her, keeping you close to her as she rocked your body back and forth. you were so grateful for your best friend, she truly loved you. she had so much patience to deal with you and your annoying crush - but she wouldn't have it any other way.

after minutes of sulking, you felt ky'ana begin to tense up, her arms growing stiff around you as she suddenly stopped laughing. you were too busy babbling about jake to even question her reaction, and your confusion only heightened as she instructed you to be quiet. in your dazed state, you lifted your face from her shoulder and furrowed your eyes at her. you couldn't even muster up a proper response, opting to just whine stupidly as you tried to pry away from her.

"i’m being serious, shut up. jake’s coming." she warned in a hushed whisper, keeping her grip firmly around your shoulders.

all you heard was ‘jake’, and you instantly felt your heart flutter. you swivelled around while ky’ana kept you locked in her embrace, a lazy smile curling on your lips as tears continued to fall down your face. this was the first time jake had approached you during the festival, and in your mind - all you could think was he’d finally see your pretty outfit.

jake strode over to you and ky’ana with concerned visage, being careful with his choice of words in fear of making the situation worse. he wore bashful smile as he tried to gauge your reaction to his presence, but it was quite challenging considering you were smiling at him while bawling your eyes out.

“everything alright?” jake asks cautiously, more so speaking to ky’ana than you.

she nodded assuringly, trying to sway jake’s concerns in hopes of him leaving them alone. in your inebriated state, she couldn’t risk the possibility of you drunkenly admitting your feelings for him. “yeah, we’re good, sir. she, uh..she’s just tired.”

her lie was so bad, it almost made jake cackle in response. “tired, huh?” he’d croon with a lighthearted chortle, eyeing down your stumbling frame in ky’ana’s grasp. “y’know, i wasn’t born yesterday.”

“it’s, uh..”

ky’ana was cut off by your muddled words. “hiii.” you waved at jake, giggling deliriously as you stared at him with hazed, admiring eyes.

“hey, hon.” jake returned the gesture, giving you a small wave. his smile grew wider, almost smitten by how cheery your voice was. “you feelin’ alright?”

“m’feeling great, jake.” you held two thumbs up, still in a fit of drunken giggles. “i am just..just fantastic.”

a sense of warmth rose in jake as you answered his question, seeing you in such an inebriated state wasn’t a sight he thought he’d witness tonight. jake found it equal parts amusing and gushing, he’d be more than willing to listen to your drunken rambling all night long. was this thought innocent in nature? jake had no idea anymore. he couldn’t brush off the way he’d been watching you. but he kept that curiosity hidden deeply inside his mind - wrapped up in pure denial.

your back was pressing hard against ky’ana chest, making it blatantly obvious you were struggling to keep balanced. your friend was putting in her best efforts to support you, though her weaker arms were struggling to clutch your weight. ky’ana was trying to shield her discomfort with a forced smile, taking her leg and hooking it around your knee, hoping to straighten it. but each attempt was met with buckled knees, and your body slumping heavier in her hold.

jake was observing the entire ordeal, feeling awfully sympathetic towards ky’ana as she kept trying to help you. she clearly cared about you, and she’d spent the night thus far comforting you. jake wished neytiri could see her in this light.

“i could help ‘ya take her home.” jake suggests to ky’ana, his benevolent yet pitied gaze hinting he could tell how hard she was fighting to hold you upwards.

ky’ana was swift to protest against jake’s help, her demeanour shifting to a sudden apprehension. “i’m good, sir. i’ll get her back just fine.”

but after you stumbled once again and nearly caused ky’ana to topple over, it was clear jake wasn’t taking no for an answer. he stepped forward and swiftly scooped you up bridal style, your body going limp in his arms immediately. if you were sober, your mind would be going absolutely haywire. being cradled in jake’s brawny arms, flushed face pressed against the soft of his chest was all you wanted.

you wouldn’t even remember it the next day, and you were too intoxicated to appreciate it in the moment.

“i’ve got’cha, sweetheart. how’s about we get ‘ya home for some rest, hm?” jake cooed to you, pushing those tingling feelings blooming in his tummy. he tried to subside it with that typical, friendliness he usually possessed.

“mhm.” you nodded languidly.

ky’ana nervously stared at you in jake’s embrace, her insides churning at the thought of you stupidly saying something you shouldn’t. and at the rate you were going, that potential of her fear becoming a reality was a reality was much more than likely.

— TAGLIST (let me know if you want to be added!)

@wh0rezs @neteyamsb1tch @touchedflowers @sadredflower0000 @andraga12 @pureforestspirits @cillicnn @iameatingmyhair @555linaa @strawberry-vamp0 @bellstwd @taleiak @bunniparadise @the-mourning-moon @slutforjake @pxndorasdream @ilovebluedilfs @normsdaughter-alt @deepdarktower @mooniet @jakexneytiri @rengokusmyboy @manumanulau @pandora-vibes @stargirlrchive

#jake sully #jake sully smut #jake sully x reader #jake sully x reader smut #jake sully x you #jake sully x you smut #jake sully angst #jake sully fanfiction #jake sully fanfic #jake sully headcanon #jake sully headcanons #dilf jake sully #avatar #avatar 2009 #atwow #avatar twow #avatar the way of water #avatar jake sully #avatar smut #avatar x reader #avatar x reader smut #avatar angst #cellophane series <3 #avatar x you

[cheeseceli]

Even after all

pairing: Beomgyu × gn!Reader

genre: fluff

warnings: none? lemme know if there's something I missed

A/n: nah this one's my masterpiece fr

"Y/n," you heard Beomgyu's voice through your sleep. Although it was soft, it was enough to make you open your eyes "wake up."

And so you did.

You saw your boyfriend's face before anything else. He was sitting on the bed side and he was very, very awake, unlike you. It seemed like he ignored the fact that it was nearly 2am and he performed the whole day, instead deciding to stay awake and active.

"Gyu? What happened?"

"Marry me."

You sat up as well. Your voice was hoarse and your vision was a bit blurred, but you heard him well. But that was reality. Maybe you were sleepy still. For what you know that could be a wild dream. So you replied with the only reasonable answer you could've thought of:

"What?"

"Marry me" he repeated himself louder this time, thinking that the only problem was that you couldn't quite hear him. Up on seeing your still confused face, he explained into more details. "I don't have a ring. I don't have a speech and I don't have our families approval. I wasn't planning on doing this. I thought about marriage quite a few times but I never actually planned anything. That is, until now."

"Did you plan this?"

He giggled, noticing how absurd the occasion was. But then he looked at you and you saw he had no intentions of backing down, his determination growing by the second.

"Waking up and asking for your hand before you could even process anything? No, I... I didn't plan this. But you woke up at 3 am yesterday because of your job and still waited for me to come home at midnight. You ask to watch all my performances even though they are basically all the same thing. You take care of me even when we're a sea apart. You always give me so much support and always help me improve. You said yes to dating an idol and haven't complained not even once, even when you had so many reasons to. For God's sake, you said yes to dating me" he said while laughing, with love shining through his eyes "and even though I can be a real pain in the ass sometimes, you never left my side. Y/n, I've never felt so loved before. And I would be and idiot if I didn't try to flourish it. So, marry me?"

He was holding your hand like it meant the most precious thing in the world for him, and it actually did. Not even once he stopped looking at you with so much love and determination. The more you looked at him the more you were speechless. You couldn't find the right words to explain your feelings even if you knew all the languages in the world, or if you had a million years to try, so you did all you could think of:

With open arms, you threw yourself over him making him lose his balance and making you both fall on the bed. Still, you didn't loosen your grip, hugging him tighter than you ever did. You were so close that you could feel his heart beat. Strong and peaceful at the same time. All yours.

"Should I take this as a yes?"

You nodded your head, unable of giving him a proper answer as the feelings were all over the place and the tears flooded down.

"Are you crying?"

"You just proposed to me, of course I'm crying."

He laughed again, taking your face into his hands. He was smiling. You swear you've never seen such a big and genuine smile plastering his lips before. "And you said yes. I can't believe you said yes."

"I love you."

"I love you too. Oh, how I love you. Let's sleep now, hm? I've already stolen too many precious hours of your sleep."

"I don't know if I'll be able to sleep anyways. You better not regret this once we wake up."

Beomgyu adjusted his position while not letting go of you. He hugged you tight and kissed your forehead. You couldn't see him, but you could imagine his satisfied smile when he said:

"I wouldn't regret this in a lifetime."

dividers by @cafekitsune

feedback and reblogs are always appreciated!

#hehehhehe #celi drabbles #txt soft hours #txt scenarios #txt x reader #txt fluff #txt #tomorrow x together soft hours #tomorrow x together fluff #tomorrow x together scenarios #tomorrow x together x reader #tomorrow x together #beomgyu scenario #beomgyu fluff #beomgyu x reader #choi beomgyu #beomgyu

[howabhwmwn]

Since this scene won't leave me alone I've decided to make it everybody else's problem too.

Let's look at cinematography!

All these extreme close-ups clearly showing how focused Howard is on his task, showing it's important to him. Look at how many seconds they actually use just to show Howard making Cheryl a Latte. Compare that to the way he makes his tea later on, while talking to Cheryl, no focus on him, or the tea or anything. Because that's not important. Giving Cheryl something nice that he spend time on is, though.

Enter Cheryl. Look at how they move into an extreme wide shot almost immediately (there is one medium shot to establish where Howard is, but that's for orientation for the viewer). Suddenly, the scene feels a lot less personal - it's cold. (the music cuts here too, leaving us in complete uncomfortable silence)

I'm completely insane about the literal wall between Howard and Cheryl.

Then, Cheryl walks around Howard to the far end of the table, putting as much space between them as possible. Quite the good way of showing how removed they are from each other, but watch this:

While talking, they are still in Medium Wide Shots, not on the screen together. Look at how far away they are from the camera, and on different sides of it. This makes the distance between them seem even more huge. I can't explain how much I'm obsessed with these two shots. They're so far removed from the other, they really put care into this scene, in how much space between Howard and Cheryl is.

Howard then walks over to Cheryl (or rather the camera), and places the Latte on the table, but he still stays on his side of the camera. Look at how it's a Detail Shot, a close-up now! Which makes us recall the care he put into it, the effort, the focus. The warm beautiful scene with the nice music.

In the next shot you can also see how far he is still away from Cheryl. He didn't even place the cup in front of her:

Even when it goes back to Cheryl's side of the camera, we only see Howard in her shot for a very short time. He places down the Latte, and immediately gets out of her shot, almost like he can't be close to her. Because he can't, physically, emotionally, their relationship isn't like this anymore.

She waits until he is at his place of the side of the camera before she moves, not mentioning the cup, or the art on it (except a short 'thanks') which Howard obviously made to get some kind of reaction. A conversation starter, a smile, anything. Look at his face when she just abandons it. Sure, physically, she's closer to him now, but at this moment, he is the cup of Latte that she just abandoned, because he put so much focus in it. It's a sign of his care for her.

He makes tea for himself here, and it's completely different from how he made her Latte. I'm losing my mind with how he makes it so carelessly while the Latte he put so much care in gets abandoned this carelessly.

Cheryl does not have time for a Latte. Howard probably thought making it would keep her with him a bit longer, and they could talk a bit. Maybe get a nice morning conversation that resembles at least a tiny bit the talks they had when their relationship wasn't this faded. But his hope gets destroyed, just as the art on the Latte gets destroyed.

She brings the cup back to where it belongs to, near Howard, basically returning this chance to talk, his care and focus, back to him, because she doesn't want it. And then she flees his side again, just as he put the distance between them earlier. Never staying too close to each other.

She declines his suggestion to go to the fundraiser together. He turns away, gets farther away from her. Even while they are back in one shot together, they're so far away. So much distance. Then, close-up on Howard's sad sad face. :( It's over. But then he realizes he can keep the conversation going: Jimmy. He needs to tell her about Jimmy!

And while he reveals this thing about his life, something real, something personal, finally there is a close-up of them both. This is normal for the viewer. This is how dialogues are usually shot. Can it be that Cheryl cares? Finally, they will have a real conversation. Maybe she will even show that she cares about Howard, is scared for him, will ask him if he is okay?!

No. She dismisses it. Removes the tiny bit of her that was in his side of the camera and leaves him alone in his shot.

She goes, and we get an almost identical shot to the first one. A wall between them. Nothing changed.

Howard gets left behind in this extreme wide shot. Alone. A tiny blue dot in a huge crème coloured house where he has no place anymore.

#better call saul #howard hamlin #cheryl hamlin #bcs #The latte #the wall #the DISTANCE #you guys dont understand what im going through everytime i think about this scene

[chiliger]

As far as shower ideas go, I was not expecting to come up with an AU where Anakin Skywalker adopts a tubie after the Battle of Kamino because the Kaminoans were going to decommission the kid for losing a limb in the chaos of all the fighting.

Of course it wasn’t planned for, it’s just one of those things that happen too quickly too fast and while normally Anakin would be outraged at the practice of decommissioning (because that was supposed to have been banned), he uses his smarts by talking to Kix first.

“Can you fake a death report?”

“….. Depends…. Sir.”

“Okay cool, I’ll take that as a yes. I need you to mark this tubie as KIA.”

“E-Excuse me?! General, I can’t just—“

“Kix, I know, I know. But I overheard the longnecks talking about this little guy, and they want to decommission him.”

“You had me at longnecks.”

With a flick of a stylus, Kix marks the tubie off the records, thus allowing Anakin to just take the baby and sneak him off Kamino. Echo and Fives help with “requisitioning” some of the clothing and supplies needed ‘cause that stuff got damaged during the battle who’s gonna notice a few extra missing.

Rex, upon seeing a sleeping tubie strapped to his general’s chest, gets an instant migraine and comms Cody, who then decides that’s none of his problem but then sends Rex “How to Care for Younglings” guides because they’re going to need all the help they can get.

Obi-Wan, after the initial shock, is not surprised but he’s definitely not happy about it because now that baby is not just Anakin’s responsibility, it’s now his too, because apparently Anakin decided to introduce him as “Uncle” Obi-Wan. (They’re gonna have a great time explaining this to the Council.) Ashoka is on the side grinning wildly because new baby nephew? brother? She is all for the ensuing chaos.

The tubie, who gets named Widget, pretty much immediately becomes an honorary member of Torrent Company. They make a rotation chart on who gets to hold him while the General is busy (which in all honesty Anakin probably keeps Widget on him like they’re glued so Torrent takes what they can get).

When they return to Coruscant, Anakin takes Widget to Padmé the first chance he gets. He has some explaining to do but this is honestly one of the least hair-brained things he’s done in a while (coughcough). Padmé and Widget become smitten with each other anyway.

I’m just basically imagining Anakin carrying this cute big-eyed baby with him everywhere and just radiating happy young parent energy. He can’t take Widget all the time on the venator, but boy does he go the extra mile to sneak him onboard just to have extra quality time (with help from Ashoka of course ‘cause she’s determined to be the cool aunt). And it’s just, Widget is his son, and Anakin is his dad. Even though Widget has to be left at the Temple creche (I bet that arrangement was a doozy) every time while the 501st are on campaign, Anakin calls any chance he gets to check up on him.

This is definitely a fix-it AU, by the way. Even though there are still attachment issues involved, Widget changes the course of Anakin’s fate for the better.

.

.

Somehow I always write more than I mean to, and there’s still so many things and details I didn’t write down but I think I wrote out the gist of it. Anyway, Anakin with baby.

#chili rambles #the clone wars #anakin skywalker #clone oc #chili writes

[infamous-if]

Sorry, this one's a bit of a criticism, I think it's weird that punky, aggressive Seven chose to be in (what I chose to be) a folk band at the start, like I get that we're besties but this is very much not her aesthetic or performance style

Picking to be a folk band actually makes a lot of things a little weird through the game, like why is G, famous rockstar, invested in a band that's so wildly out of her genre? Why do we have a song with a sixty second drum solo? Why are we playing electric instruments?

Basically I think there are too many genre options at the start and they don't really make sense with how the rest of the game is written assuming you're a rock band of some stripe. Like, a hip-hop group, an EDM group or a synthpop group probably wouldn't have a guitarist or a live drummer at all.

I really enjoy the meat of the game and all the relationships and drama, but the like, knowledge in the back of my head that I picked to be a folk band makes a bunch of later context come off pretty strange and I think that streamlining the genre choices down to genres that would have electric guitarists, live drummers and drum solos would be a fix for this.

I mean, I get it! And I thought of that too while writing the initial demo, but honestly, it's just one of those things meant to be customization purposes and to add to the details of story. It's what people want out of their play through. I could've easily made MC's band a regular rock/punk band and called it a day, and I know other band IFs did that for the logical part of it, but I don't want to. I like seeing the different combinations and what people create. It's more for people to add in what they want and to imagine their story as is. Does it make sense? Not always, but it can easily be explained as a fusion or any other explanation people want to use.

I think the problem when you advertise a story as slice of life in general is that people expect 1000% realism in a way they don't with any other genre, but I don't really want to be limited to that. I mean, in reality, there are many things that would be different if I was going for complete realism, but I'm not. This is very much a dramatization haha

It's not much of a big deal, in the context of the actual story, and also, it would be pointless for me to really hone in on streamlining the genres because you can type in your genre anyway? I think if it does bother you, I would recommend doing a type in or just going the traditional rock/electric route. Or just type in the genre you think best reflects the story, that's why it's there!

Plus, I do like having a diverse selection of genres just to show that theres more genres out there than just rock when it comes to bands and band stories. It also helps build the MCs background in the eyes of readers (their choice). I know a few readers who have typed in their own genres and write lyrics in their native language, which I think is really cool.

I'm limited to how much I write and can code. Realistically, I could've added variables and changed the instruments/positions of the band members to correspond with the genre...and I'm almost unhinged enough to consider it...but nah lmao not now, at least.

Sorry that it ruined the experience a bit! But I'm likely not going to change that ^^

#inbox #gameplay

[rafa-jaja]

Asking for your help...(pt3)

Bruce Wayne x Gn reader

Chaos, everywhere, Talia was destroying the city completely, she had an army of assassins controlled by Prismon, a villain with telepathic powers.

But how could this happen? wasn't the Justice League supposed to avoid this kind of problems? where are the superheroes who swore to protect the world?

All those questions are easily answered, they were the focus of Talia's plan, she kept them captive in their own minds. This allowed her to easily attack the citizens and plant chaos in the world.

And where were you in all this? In the league's operations headquarters, not the wachtower, because that's where Talia and Prismon were. You were in a smaller, more rudimentary one, but that was better than nothing.

You were making a plan, but you knew the odds were not in your favor. But even knowing the consequences, your plan was to infiltrate the watchtower and free the supers.

- Okay, with all that in place I just have to-

- Did you think I'd forget about you? How bad do you think I am?

That voice...how could it have found you, you had barrier protection against mind tracking.

- I'm surprised you didn't realize that your friends have very weak minds.

Talia came out of the shadows, just looking at her made you remember everything she put you through, it was like a recreation of your nightmares.

- What do you want? I'm of no use to you, you already have an ally who controls minds.

- I felt that my collection was not complete without you, besides, I would like to relive the old times.

You knew that fighting her wouldn't do any good, she had a mental block that didn't allow you to enter it, and your current physical state is deplorable.

- Ok, take me with you, I'm not going to fight you.

- What a disappointment, I thought you wanted to take revenge on me?

You didn't answer, yes you wanted revenge, but she was giving you a free pass to the wachtower and you could come up with a plan on the way. Right?

Nothing, you had no plan, all the scenarios would end with you in the mental prison or dead, the worst thing is that they were about to arrive.

- You Know, you surprised me when you gave yourself up so easily.

- Well...I had no choice

- You've changed a lot since the last time I saw you. You're basically adrift, you have no one.

You would deny it, but inside you knew it was true, somehow you agreed with her.

When you arrived you were taken to the main hall with your friends, it hurt you to see their faces, you knew they were there, but nothing assured you that they were well.

- Now that you are here, it is time to lock yourself in that little mind of yours.

Without any warning Prismo appeared behind you and caught you, everything was dark, but... you weren't afraid, it was just being closer to your thoughts.

Suddenly a mowing light consumed you, and then a sound, well more like a voice...

- Hey, wake up, you know it's not good to fall asleep when you're a guest.

That voice seemed very familiar, you opened your eyes to try to identify the person who was talking to you, but you only saw a room with armchairs and a lit fireplace.

- BOOO!!!!

- FUCK...damn it John Constantin, do you want to scare me to death?

- Oh, you should have seen your face, it was worth it.

- what the fuck are you doing here? I thought you got caught with the others.

- you really thought i'd fall for that? I thought you knew me better than that.

- Okay, you're not caught, so where the fuck are you?

- Well... let's just say I'm in hell.

- ...What?

- You know, dont meke me explain it to you, you konw what i do.

- OK, i understend that...but you haven't thought about, I don't know, HELPING? The world is going to shit and you're in hell!

- Hey, if I wasn't here the situation would be different.

- What?

- No time for details, let's just say that Talia made a deal with a powerful demon and I'm down here holding him. But I didn't come to you to tell you this, you have to free yourself and help your friends.

- But how? I never had to get out of my own mind. I don't know what to-

- I don't have much time left, just find the way out, save the others and defeat Talia.

And without being able to say anything else Constantin disappeared, you had no choice but to investigate the place where you were.

You didn't know how much time had passed, but you felt like you were going around in circles, until you saw a light at the end of the corridor.

When you got to the place the light disappeared, leaving a door that did not look like the others in the place, without thinking twice you opened the door and entered it.

You saw a kind of fair? you didn't know where you were, but something seemed very familiar to you.

- I didn't know you liked fairs.

You quickly turned around, only to run into Bruce Wayne.

- And what are you doing here?

- I'm accompanying Dick, he's on the roller coaster now.

Oh no, you knew what this was, it's the memory of the time you and Bruce had a date by accident. Why this memory? It was the one you had been trying to forget the most.

You had no other choice, you will have to relive the memory as it happened, otherwise your mind will completely split and you won't be able to get out.

- It's good that you two are giving each other a break, you needed it.

- Yeah...sometimes I forget what it was like to be a kid.

- I understand, but you're doing great.

- Doing what?

- Raising Dick, he and you have things in common even though you're very different.

The three of you spent the whole afternoon together, sharing and enjoying watching Dick enjoy everything. But an uncomfortable feeling came over you, you hadn't shared with Bruce for a long time, you didn't remember how well you had lived together in the past. But this was a memory, you knew that in the present this would never happen.

- What are you worried about?

- Eh...it's nothing, don't worry.

- It's not true, you're thinking too much.

- It's just...I'm worried about the future.

- That's normal, we all worry about what might happen in the future, but the key is to take a deep breath and silence those thoughts.

I was right, you are overthinking the situation between you and Bruce too much.

- What a beautiful view," you said watching the sunset.

- Yes...very beautiful," said Bruce with his eyes on you.

Bruce put his hand on your chin and made you look into his eyes, those deep eyes that could make anyone's eyes glaze over. Little by little they got closer until they kissed, a tender kiss full of love. You felt how time slowed down, a stream of emotions ran through your body.

- That was... incredible.

-Yes.

- Hey, stop kissing or I'm going to pump," said Dick, grimacing dramatically.

Everything went on as normal, at the end of the fair Bruce offered to take you home. When you arrived at the door of your apartment, but before entering you stopped.

- Bye Bruce, see you soon

- I hope so, I can't wait.

With that said you went inside and a Reaper Glow consumed you once again. You woke up on the main hall floor, looked around and saw that all the supers were still there.

You knew what to do, without the guards noticing, you occupied your mental control and woke up each one of your friends, giving instructions to each one of them on what to do.

You had already woken up most of them, only Bruce was missing, when you entered his mind you noticed that you were in Gotham, but you didn't see Bruce anywhere.

You searched everywhere, there was no trace of him. About to have a crisis you saw a newspaper gliding towards you, you picked it up and saw what it said, "Death in the Wayne family...it's been two days since this tragedy happened and-" That's it! the cemetery, how could you not have thought of it before.

As you arrived you saw Bruce, sitting next to his parents' graves.

- Bruce, we have to go, Talia and...

- No.

- What? What do you mean, no?

- I don't want to leave. I don't want to go back to the real world.

- Bruce, this is not the time to do this, we need you.

- I don't want to," he said through tears, "I don't want to feel like this again.

- Like what? Like the richest man in the world? or like Batman?

- You don't understand, I thought you knew me well enough to see the real me.

- I thought I knew you, until you abandoned me years ago!

They both fell silent, neither of them could argue any longer.

- You know...I feel like a complete idiot, I've let down a lot of people I love and I don't have the courage to make amends.

- I don't know where you're going with this?

- I just...I want to make things right with you, I have never stopped loving you.

- Yeah sure, and the kid with Talia doesn't mean anything.

- Let's leave Damian out of this.

- So that means you do have feelings for her.

- SHE DORGED ME! fuck...when I woke up the next morning I felt so repulsive, I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror...but I didn't want to tell you because I knew it would hurt you. And when she left Damian in my care I didn't know what to do, and you didn't give me the time to explain...the last I heard from you after you left was that Talia had kidnapped you, she threatened to kill you if I tried anything. When she freed you I wanted to come and get you, but I thought Talia would keep her word.

- Bruce...I had no idea, but why did you risk asking for my help if you knew what Talia was capable of?

- We really needed your help...but it was also an excuse to see you again.

The two hugged each other tightly, neither wanting to let the other go. They needed it after everything they had to go through.

- Well, it's time to go back to the real world.

- But what about us?

- Maybe we could give ourselves a second chance.

In short, after releasing Bruce from prison, the league united to defeat Talia, which they did, and arrested all of her henchmen. Peace had returned to the world, thanks to the power of the Superheroes.

You and Bruce eventually got back to what you were before and were happy forever.

Fin...

#dc x reader #dc x male reader #bruce wayne x male reader #bruce wayne x reader #bruce wayne #dcu

[mydarllinglover]

Stars Collided || Seven

Previous

"You would think she was being sentenced to death." Ahsoka sighed.

"Privileged people have a weird way with coping." Anakin shrugged, as they watched Lovisa pour another glass of  wine.

"I can hear you." She sniffled, as she sipped the red drink.

"Why did we need to be here for this?" Ahsoka asked her, directly.

"Because I don't like to be alone, and you're hired to do what I say."

The two shared another look.

"Not because we're great company?" Anakin asked.

"I asked the two of you here, and no one else, didn't I?" She glared at him, as she grabbed two more glasses, filling them.

"Basically, what she is trying to say, is that she loves us, and we're her best friends." Ahsoka smirked.

"You may go now." Lovisa switched her glare to the girl.

"Always in such denial." Anakin grinned widely, as he moved around the counter to stand near her.

"I must love terrible company." She rolled her eyes, sipping her drink, and stepping away from him.

"So, you do love us." Ahsoka cheered.

"Bye." Lovisa walked out from the room, where they stored their wine.

"Where are you going?" The two pains in Lovisa's asses, followed her.

"To drown myself." She answered, walking down the hall, and towards an exit of the large castle.

"But then Anakin's gonna get in trouble for letting you die, and I'll be out of a job." Ahsoka told her.

"That doesn't really seem like my problem." She shrugged. "I won't care, if I'm dead."

"That's what you really want?" Anakin asked.

"No." She groaned. "But it doesn't matter what I want."

"What is that?" He pushed. "What do you want?"

She continued to march through the grass, no destination in mind.

"Everything that I can't have." She refused to give details. "I don't want to be tied to a stupid throne." She tore her tiara off her head, throwing it away from her, but Anakin moved to swipe it up, as he and Ahsoka both followed.

"It won't be terrible, Lovey." Her friend told her.

"Like you could even begin to understand." She snapped.

"Then explain it to us." Anakin urged.

"My life has just been poured down the drain." She was frustrated, and angry. "I have spent my whole life, knowing that I was the spare, whatever I decided to do with my life, never really mattered, as long as it didn't affect the Kingdom or my family, in a bad way, and I would be able to do whatever they needed of me, but now?" She laughed harshly. "Now, my father is going to force me to find a suitable husband, to share the throne with, and it won't be mine, it will be his, and I will have to bare his children, so that he has an heir, they won't be mine, but his, I don't even want children! I won't ever be able to get away, my duties will be doubled, I will never get a say, for my own country, but everyone will be looking at me, when something goes wrong. I wanted to travel, to see great, amazing sights, from all over, and be able to paint, and be happy, and to live, but that's gone, it's all gone! And she got to make that decision, because she gets to be happy, with the one she wants, because she's older, and she gets to step away, because she had a back up, and I don't, so I'm stuck here, and its not fair, it's not fair!" She fell to the ground, to her knees, as she breathed heavy, the weight lifting from her chest, as she continued to stare down, at the skirt of her dress. "I've never been allowed to make a decision in my life, I hate it, I hate them, I hate my title, I hate it all! And I'm going to be miserable and alone, for the rest of my pathetic existence, I hate being alone, my biggest fear is coming true, and no one even cares to ask about what I think, how I feel. They didn’t even bother to tell me, they all knew and kept it from me" She dropped her face into her hands. "Everyone just thinks of me as this wild and selfish, spoiled brat, that always wants her own way, but nothing ever goes my way."

Anakin and Ahsoka looked at each other, they both felt guilty, they felt terrible for teasing and tormenting her, for not bothering to truly see things from her side, yes, she was living lavishly, and was better off than them, she never truly knew what it was like to come from nothing, but unlike her, they had made choices to be where they are now.

"You won't be alone, Lovey." Ahsoka told her, gently, "You will always have me, and I won't let that happen."

Lovisa looked up, her waterline was brimming with tears, "Do you swear?" Her voice cracked, as she asked.

"On my own life." Ahsoka held a hand to her heart, as she also sunk to the ground. "And that does not need to happen, you can rule, make this what you want it to be, you don't need anybody else, and your parents aren't going anywhere, you still have so much time, to do all the things you want to do. You can travel, and fall in love-"

"I can't." She interrupted.

"Yes, you can" Ahsoka smiled encouragingly.

"No, Ahsoka, I can't fall in love." She looked past her friend, at the boy stood behind her, who was already looking at the princess, and he didn't care to look away.

His own chest was beginning to feel heavy, the idea of her moving on, getting married, and starting a family, with anyone but him, it drove him crazy, and since their first kiss, it had been keeping him up, at night, thinking about it, but he could not help himself, the jealousy was too consuming.

But she was a princess, and he was a Jedi.

"Oh..." Ahsoka whispered.

"I wish to go to bed." Lovisa sighed, getting up from the ground, shaking the grass out of her dress.

"I shall accompany you, princess" Anakin told her, nodding to Ahsoka that it was okay for her to go to her own space.

"No need, Jedi." She continued to walk back to the castle.

"Of course there is, I have to make sure that you get to your quarters, safely. That is my job, after all." He replied, walking beside her.

"Very well, then." She wiped her tears, as she kept her focus on where she was going. Her palms were facing down, as she tried to walk properly, like she was taught, and yes, she was made to walk with books on her head, as a child.

But then she was swooped up, in someones arms, Anakin's arms.

She let out a squeal of surprise, as she hooked her arms around his neck, scared that he might drop her, but he carried her through the castle, as though she weighed nothing, even with her poofy skirt, he didn't even seem to care.

"What are you doing, Ani?" She asked him.

"Carrying you to your room, Princess, you seemed to have been struggling." He told her, not bothering to look down at her face, so she was looking up at his. "And I just wanted an excuse to be close to you." He also admitted.

Her cheeks turned rosy, but she didn't say anything else.

When they had reached her bedroom, He only set her down, once he had reached her bed, so he could sit her down on her mattress.

"Do you need anything, before I go?" He asked.

She hesitated, before thinking.

"Yes, I do, actually." She told him.

"And what is that?" He rose a brow in curiosity.

"Well, normally Ahsoka helps me undress, and I can't do it myself." She looked down, bashfully, what if he said no? Then she'd be stuck sleeping in an uncomfortable corset all night.

"O- Of course, M'lady." She didn't miss how he looked taken aback at her request, she had found that it didn't take much to fluster the skilled Jedi.

"Thank you, Skywalker." She called him by his last name, she thought that it would make things less awkward, sound more professional.

She turned around, so that her back was facing him, and she waited for only a few moments, before she could feel his presence behind her, it sent goosebumps all along her skin, and he hadn't even touched her.

Anakin untied the knot at the bottom of her dress, before unravelling the ribbon, finally letting her body relax from the tight prison.

His finger tips danced around her back, she could feel his breath on her ear, and she fought the reaction to shiver.

His hands moved towards her shoulders, then he was gently pulling down the small sleeves.

"Thank you." Lovisa gasped, sharply, breaking herself out of the spell, as she took a step forward, creating distance from him, then she moved towards her divider, so that she could change, picking an blue nightgown, with a matching sheer blue robe, with the fluffy cuffs and hem.

"Would you like me to leave now, princess?" Anakin asked her.

"No, you haven't checked whether my room is secure." She made up an excuse, just to keep him a little longer.

"Of course." He nodded, before walking towards her bathroom, to check it, and then it was her balcony, he even bothered to check under her bed, as she watched. "Well, it looks safe and sound." He told her, as she sat on her bed, he was only a few feet away from her. "I shall leave you to rest."

He only walked a few steps, towards the door, before she stopped him.

"Ani, can you-.... would you wait with me?" She asked. "I don't want to be alone, and I want you- your company, I would like your company." She reiterated.

He was by her side in milliseconds.

"Yes." He said. "I can wait with you."

"Thank you." She said in a hushed breath.

She then got off from the end of the bed, so that she could get underneath the duvet, and lay at her pillows. "Will you lay with me?"

"If that is what you desire." He answered, copying her movements, as he got into the bed, on the other side.

“Are you comfortable like that?” She looked at his clothes.

“I suppose so.” He shrugged. “It’s not what I typically wear to bed, but that’s okay.”

“Well, how do you usually sleep?” She asked him.

“Not a lot.” He bit down a smirk, as he avoided her eyes.

“Oh.” She hated that her cheeks turned red, she focused on her duvet, to avoid the mental images in her head.

The two layed on their side, looking at one another, not sure what to say or do.

Then she took his hand in hers, rubbing her thumb across his knuckles, feeling the scarred tissue, and the roughness, a show of hard work.

"I can't believe I'm laying in bed, with the future queen of Naboo." Anakin joked, breaking the silence, and causing a chuckle from her.

"Shut up." She rolled her eyes, with a small smile.

"You will make an amazing queen." He told her, with seriousness, now. "You don't have to make it the way things are now, you could make a difference, make things the way you want them to be, and fix Naboo, change all the bad that there is, here, there's so much you could do, and I know that it's you, who could and will do it, help the people, be the queen that this country needs."

"I don't think I would be very good." She shook her head. “The kingdom loves my mother and father, I would never reach their expectations.”

Anakin scooted closer towards her in the bed, he used his other hand to lift her chin, so that she would look at him, then moved to hold her cheek, swiping his thumb at the soft skin.

"Yes you will, Vis, you're the best option this place needs, I know you will do great, you're amazing, and I believe in you. You're a good person."

Her eyes softened, as she looked at him.

"But, I don't want to give you up, Ani, I don't think anyone could ever make me feel the way you do, I won't settle down with anyone." She shook her head in protest.

He kissed her, cutting off her next sentence before she could say it.

"Then don't." He said. "Don't end this, with me. We can be together, okay, no one has to find out, you don't need to marry, you don't need to marry anyone else, your sisters getting married, she'll most likely start a family with the senator, so the throne can just go back to them, after your reign, it'll be perfect."

Lovisa had no faith in his plan, she knew that was not realistic, and her father would never have that, it just wasn't the way things were, but to let herself be happy for just one more night, to enjoy his company, she nodded and smiled.

"Okay." She said, causing his own smile to grow wider, and he kissed her, again, with so much passion, that it broke her heart, just a little, she then pulled away. "Stay with me, for the night, please?"

"Of course, M'lady." He kissed her forehead, his hand in her hair.

She looked at his eyes, as they sparkled, as if he held the stars in them.

“You can undress, if you wish to, I promise I won’t look.”

“I don’t mind if you do.” He winked at her, playfully, as he did what she said, sitting up to pull his shirt over his head, tossing it onto the floor by her bed.

“C’mere.” He laid back down, opening his arms for her.

Lovisa scooted even closer to him, wanting to be wrapped up in his warmth, Anakin hugged her tightly, his face buried in her hair, as they eventually fell asleep.

Next

#anakin imagine #anakin skywalker x reader smut #anakin skywalker x reader #anakin x reader #anakin smut #sw anakin #anakin fanfiction #obi wan and anakin #star wars anakin #anakin and padme #anakin skywalker #anakin x you #ahsoka tano

[keirou-kun]

Rereading Nightwing: Year One and there's a section right at the front that's eating at me. Dick tells Bruce that he was late [to help with Clayface] due to Titans business, and that they'd just shut Brother Blood down for good [unfortunately the church is still there, but that's a problem for a later issue and they're not aware of that yet.]

Now, if you actually go back and read the New Teen Titans run from the 80s, you'll know exactly which plot this is; it's issues 40-41 [circa 1984; technically pre-Crisis but also the plotline immediately before The Judas Contract which was and from what I can tell remains Nightwing's 'official' public debut] and it basically involves the Titans trying to take down the Church of Blood again. Dick tries to go in undercover in the Church's homeland of Zandia and gets caught and brainwashed, and Blood tries to use him to kill the other Titans. It doesn't work, and Dick actually gets shot with some kind of energy-beam towards the end. So he's been out of the country, brainwashed, injured, comes home, sees the alert from Bruce, and immediately suits back up to get his ass to Gotham and help out.

Now, Bruce does not know any of the above happened; he just knows Dick didn't answer the beacon as fast as he maybe should have. There's already been friction between Dick and Bruce for a while now by this point; Dick's tired of being treated like a child, has been [rather successfully!] leading a team on his own for a good couple years at this point - a team which has literally saved the damn world by themselves, and knows better than to try for pity points with Bruce. So all he does is try to explain the basics of the Titans' latest mission, and Bruce shuts him down and snaps that Dick should have been at his side from the beginning. This, naturally, sparks another fight, which naturally does not end well, and the upshot of it all is that Bruce fires Dick and tells him to leave the Robin costume behind.

But I can't stop thinking about what Dick has just been through with his team. Wally has just retired for a bit, the whole Brother Blood mission that just went down and its brainwashing and Dick being already injured, and then Bruce giving him shit for not being dedicated enough to the cause and then firing him and forbidding him to be Robin…we don't actually get to see much of that argument, but Dick has never been the sort to throw his own troubles in someone else's face, so I can't imagine he'd bring up the injury/brainwashing. It's likely the argument focused more on his not wanting to be treated like a child, the fact that he has a team now Bruce and he's a leader and he can't be every-fucking-where at once and how dare you say he's not dedicated when this is literally his entire life and excuse him for looking out beyond Gotham City limits because there's a whole fucking world out there and honestly when these two get their blood up it just never ends well.

I don't really know where I'm going with this, it's just one more case of 'would things have been different, if Bruce had known the details?' Probably not, but you never know.

#Musings #dick grayson #dc comics #nightwing #i just have thoughts okay >>;;

[barid-bel-medar]

I’ve been squeezing up brains to find Bakugou actual plot relevance… there’s so little that he may perfectly be absent. At least in the early stages. In the late late stages there’s some but for then the divergence may have fixed up.

Anyway, i kind of found a couple and here are as aks:

Will Kamimari and Mina be affected in their academic progress by Bakugou not being there tutoring them?

Aizawa showed a huge bias towards Bakugou since the beginning. Is there any other student occupying that spot? Is he still salty about the top scorer being rejected for the new rule? Given Izuku early progress in handling OFA, is he less biased against him?

Thank you for giving me brainrot with your story. I kind of started a pilot fic with this trope thanks yo you!

Yeah it was the realization I had a number of months back that you can pull Bakugou out of basically all the early plotlines and it doesn't really effect things (hence FtE's entire existence). Even in context of the training camp attack they could have just as easily made a different student a target, like Izuku or Shouto. In contrast if Izuku isn't there, things change dramatically (which yes obviously he's the protagonist so that should be the case), including for Bakugou's own character evolution. If he succeeds when Izuku does not, his worst traits would have definitely gotten amplified and problems would have spiraled.

Like if Izuku wasn't at UA I think it's perfectly reasonable to write it that Bakugou wouldn't make it to graduation. He'd either get himself killed or expelled.

But to answer your other questions!

No, because I feel they would have found other students to help tutor them even if he wasn't there. It's just in-series it's a good means of explaining him succeeding in making friends/a social group that isn't followers ala Aldera.

There's presently not entirely a student holding that role though I would describe Aizawa as being grudgingly fond of Izuku and Neito despite himself. He actually wasn't really too salty over Bakugou's failure because he did get the point the Commission was making and it wasn't that unreasonable. His salt more related to him feeling Izuku got too many rescue points than anything else. I will say that in context of that, Izuku *wasn't* entirely wrong to suspect there was some fuckery going on with his practical score because Nedzu did want to make sure he got in and his rescuing of Uraraka made for the opening he needed. To some extent though it is also a different form of red flag the rescue points only since it does raise questions of potential martyrdom issues/lack of care of Izuku's own life versus the person he's trying to save.

Yeah Izuku's sense of heroism is utterly disconnected from Bakugou when it comes down to it. Even in the case of Bakugou his own desire to be a hero is disconnected from Izuku's existence, there's other issues specifically there (like the seriously concerning detail of how many of Endeavor's more toxic trait he happens to have when he's a kid; at least with Endeavor it's pretty clear those issues were more ones that started when he was older)

#failure to explode

[thatgirl4815]

BostonNick vs. RaySand

I noticed it in the first episode, but it's become even more apparent in Ep2 that BostonNick and RaySand are both similar and different in a handful of ways. We see both couples (if they can be called that at this point) discussing their relationship statuses in this episode, and it clues us in to some interesting bits.

The reason I compare BostonNick and RaySand is because their relationships follow a similar track, but with differences that could mark the conflicts coming for both relationships. The interesting bit is that the characters themselves and their personal conflicts are what make these relationships feel so different from each other; from an outside perspective, the dynamics between both appear quite similar, but we know as viewers that Boston is motivated by something much different than Ray. It'll be interesting to see how these motives shape the issues both couples face in upcoming eps.

"What are we?"

Both RS and BN have this discussion at some point in the episode, and the way they handle it (and who initiates it) says a lot about the foundations of both relationships. I’d argue that characterization is a key factor in setting these boundaries.

For BostonNick, Nick has fallen into the trap Mew explained in the first episode: he slept with Boston, and now he's grown attached. Nick wants Boston to see him as more than a bedwarmer or a mere distraction when the latter’s pursuits with Top come up dry, but Boston has no interest in settling (he very clearly states that the doesn't like drama...which....ironic).

BostonNick have this discussion after they've slept together multiple times; this is the crucial point. Nick has already developed an attachment that Boston is, perhaps unknowingly, egging on with his flirtatiousness. Boston defines the relationship as FWB right then, but the damage has already been done because these parameters were not set prior. (Even if they had been, I suspect Nick's emotions would still spin out of control, as RaySand seem to be demonstrating well at the end of this episode. Intimacy really is like playing with fire.)

The other crucial point is that Nick and Boston don't know each other beyond their names--at least when they first hook up. They still know relatively little of each other, and I suspect that is because Boston is purposely closing himself off, providing only brief conversational details about his life and interests. He doesn't want to deepen the relationship. At the start, Nick probably saw his relationship with Boston as a mere hookup too...but when Boston kept coming back for more, he was left reasonably confused about the status of their relationship. When relationship boundaries are set is what's important.

On the opposite side of things, RaySand spend basically the entire episode having subtle (and not-so-subtle) conversations about what their relationship is.

So, what do they know of each other at this point? Ray knows Sand is a singer at a bar, he's poor and always looking for jobs to earn money; he's confident, helpful, and forgiving. Sand knows Ray is rich, he likes to get drunk, he's got emotional baggage from his mother's death; he's lonely, flirtatious, and desperate. (Just a side note, but Ray has unwittingly revealed more about himself than Sand has about himself, and I think that says a lot about how broken down he is.)

Ultimately, Sand not only understands the emotional ties they could form by sleeping together, but he makes the effort to push against them (to spare himself of future heartbreak). Meanwhile, Boston and Nick both go in guns blazing without this foresight. Nick’s naïveté is part of the problem, and it’s part of what separates him from Sand. (Personally, I can’t see any situation where Sand’s character would get romantically involved with Boston because he seems to understand that he’s bad news…Ray is like the Boston lite version. Easier to manage, but still dangerous. And much, much sadder.)

#only friends #only friends the series #ofts #only friends meta #firstkhaotung #firstkhao #neomark #sandray #raysand #ray x sand #sand x ray #raysan #sanray #bostonnick #nickboston #Boston x nick #nick x boston #only friends episode 2 #only friends ep2

[quitealotofsodapop]

Hmm...if Mac absorbs the egg - does that mean he would have a rock in his gut? How would that even work? Would the egg be draining Mac's magic as a form of sustenance to replace the umbilical cord? Imagine the panic those monkeys would have - "Didn't your rock blow up when you were born?!" "Calm down, I doubt it's gonna go all chestburster on you! I hope." "Chest-what?!" "Oh, right, you haven't seen the movies..." "WUKONG!" - or does the *baby* go to Mac and leaves an empty rock for SWK to use?

OK Im calling a Long Post warning; cus its a long answer, and gives a pretty good idea Why the plot happens.

Basically the stone "Egg" MK comes from was a comet containing Something. The Jade Emperor and a bunch of other Celestials noticed it coming right for earth and started panicing. To anyone not in the know, it just looked like an unseasonable meteor shower over Megapolis.

SWK is summoned cus the Jade Emperor had Visions of what was in the "Egg"; an infant Stone Monkey that could transform into an Eldritch Abomination. Jade Emperor gives the order of scrambled stone egg.

SWK and a bunch of other characters are Not Down For It; so they teleport to SWK's Shame Temple (seen in "Imposssible Delivery") to hopefully catch the Egg before it lands.

Coincidentally; The Shame Temple happens to be where Macaque was put to rest hundreds of years ago, and he's just Woken Up (more details on Why later) to his ex-best-friend/possible soulmate standing there.

Moskha and Nezha have to keep the monkeys apart long enough to form a plan.

The comet that contains the Egg finally crashes down, and begins leaking a horrific chaotic energy thats ripping apart the reality around it. It takes the power of SWK, Nezha, Mohska, and Guanyin herself to perform a ritual to contain the energy within a confined space.

Problem was that when The Egg hit the earth, it had cracked open. But unlike SWK and Mac, it had not developed a body for its soul to survive in just yet.

Wukong has a rare lightbulb moment.

Wukong: "Hey, if *our* eggs held us - then could we use our old shells to patch it up and let it finish cooking?"

Macaque: "Thats the stupidiest idea you've ever had. Lets do it."

Guanyin gives the thumbs up, and Macaque takes SWK's place in the ritual, summoning all his shadow powers to keep the Soul within the temple. SWK causes some chaos zipping around to Flower Fruit Mountain and the Moon for the remains of his and Mac's stone eggs.

SWK patches the broken Cosmic Egg with the remaining shells, successfully trapping the energy.

Then Macaque's control on the shadows faulter, causing the Cosmic Egg to zoom towards him (Samadhi Fire flashbacks anyone?) and hit just before Wukong can jump in for a save; the Soul contained within the Egg absorbing into Macaque's body and leaving behind a seemingly normal egg-shaped rock in Wukong's hands.

Everyone starts panicking.

Guanyin explains: since the Soul existed outside of the natural order, it couldnt just simply jump into the nearest body like a reincarnation. It needed similarly un-natural progenitors.

In essense; the undercooked MK soul was like: "Where am I?! What am I!? Why am i so cold!? Where's my parents!?" *sees SWK and Macaque fixing his egg* "Oh, there they are, my bad."

Which means that Shadowpeach just metaphorically and *literally* concieved a future mystic Monkey.

Macaque is NOT HAPPY and immediately jumps to beat the crap out of SWK.

Moksha has to stop herself from laughing cus; "Bro you just magically knocked up your ex.", while Nezha looks horrified cus he thinks he just saw what Stone Monkey baby-making looks like.

Guanyin advises the two monkeys that if they keep things civil, the Soul will likely incarnate into a physical body and get born as an infant Monkey demon do. But there's a catch:

On a gross physical scale; its not an issue. Mystic Monkeys exist outside the natural category of creatures, and are shapeshifters to boot, meaning that Macaque already had built-in "equipment" to carry a kid. Its just him and SWK never "tried" making more of themselves - a war and a bad break-up put a damper on any family planning they had.

On a magical + spirtual scale though? : Its Dangerous.

The mystical pregnancy takes so much energy from Macaque that he needs to in-turn "steal" energy from other life sources in order to keep both of them healthy/alive. SWK thankfully cannot die and can replenish his energy on his own via food and rest, but the HP donation in turn drains his powers.

Basically by deciding to spare the Egg, Sun Wukong and Macaque have become functionally Mortal until MK is able to provide for himself.

As for the leftover shell; SWK presents it to the Jade Emperor as evidence that he "scrambled" whatever was inside. The celestials present can tell that whatever was in there, isnt anymore, so they accept that SWK did as he was told.

Except for Erlang Shen who's like; "SWK would never do what he's told! This is sus. Imma keep my eye on you if anything new enters the celestial realm."

SWK: "Fine by me, imma go back to being retired and having my main antagonists sealed away."

Once its confirmed that the Celestial Realm considers the Egg destroyed; SWK and Macaque agree to hide in plain sight among the mortal world for the time being. There's a *few* hiccups along the way ofc, but by the time MK is born, they're settled into the apartment above Pigsy's, and faking being a "Completely Normal (Demon) Couple With Baby", and are getting forcibly adopted by the reincarnations of the old JTTW gang.

Cue the rest of the story, and Shadowpeach forgetting where the Fake Relationship ends and where the "Whoops, you're still my soulmate!" begins.

And the three Realms collectively crapping themselves when MK picks up the staff.

And yes; Wukong would worry about the possibly of MK being born chestburter-style. Macaque would then yell at him and banish him to his cloud for the night.

I'm close to finishing the first chapter, so please continue sending asks for more details you'd like to know, and I'll answer without giving away too many spoilers.

Tldr: No rock in Macaque's gut, just baby. Leftover cosmic eggshell used to juke the god. MK is the result of a Covalent Bond. Guanyin is an amazing Fairy Godmother

#the monkey king and the infant au #the monkey king and the infant #lmk shadowpeach #lmk shadowpeach au #lmk tmkati au story events #Sun Wukong and Macaque are MK's parents #sun wukong #six eared macaque #liu er mihou #qi xiaotian #lmk guanyin #lmk nezha #lmk moksha #lmk jade emperor #lmk s4 spoilers #monkey mk #long post #pregnancy tw #shipping

[andsomemaniacgotridofthewheel]

Oh oh oh oh oh oh something just hit me like a ton of bricks so that I just sat straight up in bed. (I'm not usually up at the time I started writing this.) Bear with me please:

Ed's & Stede's relationship in episodes 2x06 and 2x07 is now at THE SAME kind of crossroads that Ed's & Izzy's relationship was in 1x03 and 1x04.

Let me explain.

Last year I read a wonderful tumblr post that detailed how Ed & Izzy's relationship in the first two episodes we see them in is like that of an old married couple. In the sense that they suffer a break down in communication, that is apparently typical for people who have known each other very well for a very long time. The gist of it was that they basically think they know what the other person is going on about, don't really listen, and thus always talk at cross-purposes.

Now let's have a look at where they were in episodes 1x02 and 1x03: we know that they have pirated together for more than 20 years. We don't know how much of that time was as Captain and First Mate, but even before that they must have lived on the same small ship and worked together. They really do know each other well, and most likely intimately (again, sailing ships are not that big, chances are that Izzy had a front row seat to Ed's "sexual dalliances" with Calico Jack or any other, and vice versa, not to mention any other stuff that might have been going on in their lives.) But some time ago, we don't know how long - could be a couple of months, could be a few years - Ed started to get bored and frustrated, while Izzy stayed content. And here is where the communication started to deteriorate. Because Izzy doesn't get Ed anymore, for him it looks as if he has become erratic and unpredictable, which in turn frustrates him. And while Ed tries to convey to Izzy what he feels, we know from 1x03 that he does not do that in the clearest of terms. Probably because he had to figure it out for himself first, it's not that easy identifying vague feelings of discontent in yourself and locating their source, especially 150 years before psychology was even invented.

Now the two most important conversations between Ed and Izzy, that basically spell out for us, the audience, what is going on between them, are the one about the clouds (to which we only get the cypher key toward the end of the episode) and the one where Ed finds Stede's model ship of the Revenge.

Izzy: "Now we really should discuss a plan of action--" (to avoid being captured by the Spanish.)

Ed: "Izzy Izzy Izzy come look. Those clouds. Do they look like Frankfurters to you?" (I don't think you have to worry, a fog seems to be coming on.)

Izzy: "They look like clouds, boss. Can we just focus on--" (What the fuck are you on about? I'm trying to talk to you about the impeding doom of the ship! This is important and you are going on about one of your weird fancies!)

Ed: "Yes, they look like clouds, because they are indeed clouds. But if you just put some fucking imagination into it, man!" (For fucks sake Izzy, I'm trying to get you to think! The solution for our problem is right there!)

Izzy: "I suppose they look like sausages." (Fine, I'll play along. Maybe then we can finally talk about the important stuff?)

Ed: "Frankfurters. Yes, exactly. It's like pulling teeth with you sometimes, man." (ARE YOU GETTING IT NOW, MAN?!? I am already working on the solution to your problem, and if you just fucking listen to me and think about what I am telling you, you would see it, too! Why do you always have to make it so difficult?)

This is not a conversation about their own relationship and general situation in life, but it demonstrates clearly what goes wrong in their communication. Izzy thinks Ed is just being weird again and doesn't care about what Izzy thinks is a big problem for all of them. Ed is perfectly aware of the problem, but tries to get Izzy to see the solution he is working on for himself, rather than telling him outright, and is frustrated when Izzy makes no effort to do so. And it is implied that for a while now, all of their conversations are going down that way. They don't understand each other (anymore).

The next one really goes down to the bones of the problem, though.

Ed is excited by the display cabinet he finds and tries to show Izzy. Izzy is still frustrated because Ed doesn't seem to care that they've got a problem. So Izzy keeps talking at him about a plan while Ed already has one in the works and would rather focus on this fascinating new kind of pirate they have discovered; finally, something that isn't boring! And then Ed actually becomes pretty clear for once: "We always need a fucking plan, alright! And then what, then we fucking execute the plan, and then we get another plan, then what do we do? We execute that, and so on, and so on, and so on, and again, and again, and again, IT'S ALL SO FUCKING BORING! I'm bored out of my skull man, is this all there is? I shouldn't be bored, I'm fucking Blackbeard!" Now Ed could hardly have been more honest about his feelings, but Izzy is still stuck in their rut, Ed is being weird again, so yeah, great, he's bored, but why does that mean all the work has come down to him? He only thinks about their current situation, he believes Ed's feelings are temporary, he doesn't realise Ed is talking about their whole lives. That he has been feeling this way for a long time, that that is what makes him "weird" or "erratic". Because Izzy doesn't feel that way. Izzy is fine with their way of life. And he can't imagine why Ed would feel any different. But they still have this problem that Ed is refusing to discuss with him. And then Ed starts talking about dying to end the boredom, and that is when Izzy gets completely lost. ("Yeah, cause that makes sense"). Again, he is frustrated, because he doesn't understand what is going on with Ed. He didn't used to be like that™.

Now it is unclear if Ed at this point has just started formulating the next plan in his head, the one where he fakes his death to escape the boring life of invincible Blackbeard, or if his affinity for suicidal ideation that we see in season 2 is already at play here, too. Maybe a mix of both. But either way, Izzy doesn't get it (yet), and he doesn't understand why Ed doesn't seem to get him, as well. Izzy wasn't the one who changed!

We, the audience, later receive a lot more information by way of Ed's first conversation with Stede, where Ed expresses himself clearer and freer than he ever could with Izzy. He's bored, because nothing is a challenge anymore; he's frustrated, because he's stuck in this line of work that bores him; and on top of that he finds the whole cult around the persona of Blackbeard rather ridiculous. ("Nine guns???")

In a later episode, when Izzy is so frustrated with Ed's "erratic" behavior that he wants to leave, we experience a moment of how clear communication could look between them. Ed finally tells Izzy about his plan to fake his death, kill Stede and take his identity. But he only does that because he wants to appease Izzy and stop him from leaving, and the fact that he already has genuine feelings of affection for Stede is not mentioned. (Maybe because Ed himself isn't even sure about it yet?) And Izzy is too blinded by the opportunity of becoming Captain himself to think more deeply about Ed's wish to retire. He most likely thinks Ed does this because he was presented with the unlikely opportunity to bow out of the job on a high without having to die or being hunted for the rest of his life, so why wouldn't he take it? He doesn't connect it with Ed's boredom, still doesn't realise that Ed's decision also comes from a longing that he has already harbored for a long time.

Which is why, when Ed realises his feelings for Stede and starts looking for other ways to change his life, Izzy is again at a loss and just defaults to the easiest explanation: he blames Stede. Stede must have changed Ed, Stede must be responsible that Ed suddenly doesn't want to continue their old, familiar life as The Dread Pyrate Blackbeard and his first mate, or at least change it to the retired pirate Blackbeard and his successor, Captain Hands. And then he makes his first really big mistake: he forces Ed to choose, thinking their shared history together makes him safe.

This is how their story escalates, and we all know where they ended up. Betrayals, threats, mutilation, shooting at each other. The fact they are able to stay on the same ship together is a minor miracle. They have history, they have love, but they are done with each other.*

Now, Ed & Stede.

When Stede and Ed meet, Stede dreams of being a successful and famous pirate, but isn't really good at becoming one, to put it mildly. Ed, at the same time, is a very successful and famous pirate, but doesn't want to do that anymore. That's them at the very beginning of their relationship, so anyone who didn't see the current blow-up between them coming, hadn't been paying attention.

Now at first that doesn't really matter. Ed teaches Stede about pirating, Stede teaches Ed about life as an aristocrat, where he can have beautiful things and enjoy life without having to rob and kill. Their differences at that stage actually give the other the very thing they so desperately need. And they start to change, but at first that change just moves them even closer together - Stede becomes a better pirate without having to give up his fancies and the luxuries on his ship, and Ed gets to enjoy said luxuries and the rather peaceful and comfortable life Stede and his crew live on the revenge, while still being basically the great pirate Blackbeard.

But the first time this causes friction in their relationship is also in season 1. After Izzy's betrayal and the Act of Grace, we see Ed contentedly giving in to their new situation, shaving off the beard that was quite literally his trademark, folding stuff; and, after Stede reciprocated his love, looking forward to run away with him to lead a peaceful, private life in China. But Stede is disturbed by all these changes, because Ed is giving up what he himself so desperately wants. Just like Izzy, Stede doesn't really understand it. Why would Ed do that? Just for him? He might have understood that Blackbeard was bored and frustrated before, with the monotony his life had become, but they'd changed that, right? They were pirates together, that's not boring or frustrating, right?

Which is why it is so easy for Chauncey - about who, we have to assume, Stede still hasn't told Ed - to use it to feed Stede's own insecurities - Stede will never be a great pirate, and now he has even ruined someone who was a great pirate.

Again, we all know where that ended - Stede going back to his family out of a feeling of guilt, and Ed going back to pirating - how could he run off to China without Stede now - because that is the only option he has. And boy, does he turn it up to 11. Talk about putting your feelings into your work.

But then they reunite, they talk, they come back together and even finally spend what I think we all imagine as a very emotional, romantic night together, albeit with some other messy stuff in the mix.

Only the elephant in the room is still there.

And in 2x06 it starts to get interesting, because Ed tries to tell Stede.

Telling the kids that they are not pirates but own an inn together, that is Ed trying to let Stede know that that is what he wants. I want to own an inn with you, lead a peaceful life, not being pirates anymore. But Stede doesn't pick up on that. He just assumes Ed came up with that on the spot to be a better example for the kids, no more, and he "plays along".

Then Ed tries again at the beginning of 2x07.

Ed: "How about we just avoid all near death situations?" ("I don't want us to be pirates who are in danger all the time!")

Stede: "Nice idea. Not bloody likely in our line of work." ("Aw, it would be a great world if you could be a pirate and not be in danger all the time. But we both know that's not the case, we both know we are pirates, and pirates are in danger. So alas, we are going to be in danger all the time.")

Stede is happy. He is finally where he wanted to be. He's become a great pirate (or is at least well on his way), and he is with his love. And in his bliss he doesn't really listen to Ed when he tries to let him know that he wants something different. Why would anyone want to change something that is so perfect?

Just like Izzy, back then.

So, as I said, the blow-up had been coming a long time; and it actually went tamer than I feared. Ed not feeling understood (because he isn't) and running off to become a fisherman, Stede probably feeling like he had a bucket of ice water dumped over his head, unable to assemble the puzzle pieces of what he had missed due to pure shock, and both being upset and angry with each other. Ed's "why don't we stop now, before we say anything we can't take back" is surprisingly healthy, while Stede having to shout "you're a coward" after him anyway makes me want to shake him like a rattle. But we know where Ed is, he hasn't dropped off the face of the earth, they can come back together and continue their conversation after some thought and introspection, having realised that there was something they should have talked about a lot sooner and maybe trying to see where the other man is coming from.

I think part of the solution will arise from what happens in the last minutes of 2x07, when Stede's pirate fantasy starts crashing down around him - similar to how Ed's fantasy of aristocratic society in 1x05 first gave him a high and then crashed as well. Stede needs to get it out of his system, but ultimately, being a pirate is not who he is. He was able to grow and change, to become a better pirate, a better Captain, but he has to realise that he doesn't have to become more manly, less sensitive, or give up the beautiful things he loves, and that Ed loves him exactly as he is. That piracy is a fantasy, one that Ed lived and knows the worst parts of its reality, that he doesn't want anymore and that Stede wouldn't want either, once he fully experienced it. And he needs to understand what Olu told him in 1x01 - that piracy is something different when you never had another choice. Because Ed never had another choice. But Stede could give him one. After all, they have always been happiest together when they met in the middle, and they can have that - away from Stede's aristocratic life, away from Ed's piracy.

At least, that's what I am hoping for them (and, well, I trust David Jenkins, so yeah**).

So Ed's & Izzy's long term relationship broke apart because Ed wanted to retire and Izzy, who couldn't imagine being anything other than a pirate, didn't understand or support him.

And Ed's & Stede's new love is in danger because Ed still wants to retire, and Stede, who loves being a pirate and can't imagine why anyone wouldn't, didn't understand him... But maybe he will?

"He is a complicated man."

Yes. And hopefully one of you succeeds in figuring him out and give him what he needs, where the other one failed.

*= oddly enough, the violent destruction of Izzy's mental image of "Blackbeard", that we witnessed partly during the first 3 episodes of season 2, could be the very thing he needed to finally see the person "his" Blackbeard turned into while he wasn't looking. He might finally come to be able to understand Ed.

**= honestly? I think that is what Izzy's journey about learning to care for the crew and being accepted by them is all about. And he is not only training Stede to be a Captain, he is also learning from him. How to be more sensitive, more supportive, Stede's "people-positive management style". Because once Ed & Stede fake their deaths and retire to the countryside to open an inn, Izzy will have another go at being a Captain - this time one that his crew will not be trying to throw overboard after what accumulated to basically 5 minutes of his reign.

#our flag means death #ofmd #gentlebeard #blackhands #ed teach #eward teach #stede bonnet #izzy hands #ofmd blackbeard #ofmd izzy hands #stede x ed #ed x stede #ed x izzy #blackbeard #nikku.txt #eward teach x stede bonnet #stede bonnet x edward teach #izzy x ed #edward blackbeard teach #ofmd 2 #ofmd 2x06 #our flag means death season 2 #ofmd 2x07 #ofmd s2 ep6 #ofmd s2 ep7 #blackbonnet

[digenerate-trash]

Evil mode; Yan Avery has a mole in the orphanage who they pay just for info about PC. Avery discovers PC is paying for Robin’s debts as well as their own which explains PC’s less defiant nature during dates as of late. Avery at first is furious you let anyone be between you two (Reminiscing on the time when you refused to ride with Avery to school in Robin’s presence ((the fuckn glare Avery gave Robin!!))) but then realizes they can use it to blackmail you into further compliance, eventually getting you to refuse any affection from Robin even at school for fear of Avery’s spies reporting it and Avery thus refusing to pay enough on your dates that would normally suffice the two of you, no matter how compliant you are. Basically Avery leveraging Robin to control you completely

AMAB Avery | GN PC 

Sitting across from Avery at the restaurant had gotten visibly tense. Even the waiter could tell that neither of you was having a good time. So they opted instead to give you space while Avery enjoyed his meal. 

A lot had changed since Avery had started spying on you. You had even tried to shake down some of the usual suspects but Whitney was far too proud and he didn't seem to have any more cash than usual. Kylar was a dead end. He's stalking you but he wouldn't be in it for the cash. Sydney seemed like a good lead at first but he was oblivious to the point of being a non suspect. 

But you knew. You knew Avery had someone on you at all times. Avery had pulled details of your life out of nowhere. Making it obvious that he knew everything about you. Including that you were using his money to help cover your friend's debt. 

Avery smiled across the table from you. The little gears in your head turning. He found it amusing. 

"You're not being very good company," Avery says as he taps the edge of his plate. 

You just scowl a bit at him but he dismisses it with a smile. 

"You know. These dates aren't cheap. The least you could do is be nice to me." 

You huff a bit. He's bringing up money again. You know that's one of his tells... he's getting annoyed with you. And an annoyed Avery doesn't pay as well. 

"Just thinking-" 

"You're not here to think." Avery cuts you off. It's harsher than usual. It makes you grip your fork a bit. You could stab him. You could. He's weak. He probably won't fight back.

Avery calms down again before taking a sip of wine. "Maybe we should get a hotel room-" Avery muses. You know what that means and your knuckles turn white as you grip the fork.

"You wouldn't have a problem with that would you?" Avery asks but his tone is mocking. But you're done with this game. 

"What do you want Avery? What's the point? I have no time to play these stupid games with you anymore!" You shout. And the restaurant quiets a bit. 

Avery looks a little shocked at you. But once he recovers he waves the waiter over to pay for his meal. He looks pissed now. 

In a matter of minutes, you're pulled from the restaurant and shoved into the back of his car. He even pulls the seat belt over you treating you like a child. 

This is a tantrum. Avery is upset and he's just going to throw you out at home shove a hundred dollars into your hands and leave you there. Feeling used. It's happened before.

"You know these dates are a courtesy. I do them so you don't feel like a whore." Avery says as he pulls out of the lot and begins to drive.

"Too late for that." You mumble curling up in your seat. You can see his hand twitch.

"I gave you money for yourself. And felt betrayed when you turned around and spent it on someone else. You should know this isn't just a job- I expect you to be committed" 

Now this is new... committed isn't really what you expected to hear from Avery. You didn't think he was that kind of person...

"I worry about you..." Avery says his tone considerably softer. "And I'm not just some monster you swindle money out of every week. I want you to know that. You're not just a pretty thing to bring to parties. You're mine" 

You're starting to get that unsettling feeling in your stomach again but Avery stops the car in front of the orphanage. He gets out of the car and opens the door for you and when you step out he hands you the exact amount for your rent. But not enough for Robin...

"If you want more you're going to have to show me you're more committed," Avery says leaning against the car a bit. He crosses his arms looking down at you. "And remember. I'm always watching" 

You swallow hard at that clutching the envelope to your chest. You head to Robin's room to get just a bit of comfort. You need it after tonight. But when you open the door to his room and lay your eyes on his sleeping form you see an envelope on his desk. It matches yours...

#robin the orphan #avery the businessperson #yandere #yan dol #tw yandere #tw stalking