#he's literally there on the page but it's NOT HIM

[chaos-in-deepspace]

LNDS Rafayel: Questions That Keep Us Up At Night (18+)

I started writing this yesterday but then a certain SOMEONE made me brainrot over Xavier, so here we are today. My only goals today is to finish the Xavier brainrot I have and then get a request page set up. Wish me luck and enjoy the torture I put our local fish boy through. This was supposed to be another crack fic but alas here we are.

Disclaimer: This is an original fan work for “Love and Deepspace”. Do not repost on other platforms or plagiarize. All characters shown in this fic is 18+. Warnings: Suggestive Questions, Non-Human Mating Suggested, Teasing Synopsis: You just needed to know the answers to some of the questions that kept you up at night. Who knew Rafayel would be so...flustered over them. Word Count: 1,597

Blog Information | Masterlist

Rafayel

Questions That Keep Us Up At Night Reader x Rafayel

“So do Lemurians lay eggs?” It had been an innocent question, one that you asked so casually you hadn’t even bothered to look up from your phone. The room was suddenly silent, the noises of chopping from earlier had disappeared and you finally looked up from your screen to see Rafayel just staring at you from the kitchen.

His face looked complex, a mixture of amusement and horror crossing it as he processed what you had just asked him. He blinked a few times before taking in a deep breath to reorient himself. He should be used to your eccentric questions at this point, hell he often asked you some pretty weird things. He just wasn’t expecting this on a Tuesday afternoon.

Rafayel finally managed to look back at you, “Oh, I didn’t realize you were so curious about Lemurians.” He was putting on an air of indifference it would seem, “Out of all the questions though, why this one? You aren’t thinking of trying to do something to me, are you?”

“Okay well first off, always thinking about that.” You began, making Rafayel choke on air for a split second, “Second off, I’m just curious. Mammals are known for giving live birth, but most aquatic life lay eggs. So where do Lemurians fit in all this?”

“If I’m not mistaken, mammals are classified as having hair or fur on them, so by those standards, Lemurians would be considered mammals, or did you forget that with your brain in the fish bowl?” Rafayel teased, a sly smirk crossing his face.

“Okay that might be true, but the lower half where the babies would pop out of is fish based. Covered in scales. Mammals don’t have scales unless you’re referring to Pangolins.” You explained to him as simply as you could.

“A pangolin?” Rafayel asked, having no clue what those were.

“Scaly anteaters.” You explained.

Rafayel was silent for a moment, “...Did you look that up just to see if mammals could have scales to prove your theory?”

“Obviously…although now that I think about it, if the bottom half is that of a fish and the top half is a mammal, would you lay eggs, hatch them, and then produce milk to feed the baby?” You said, tapping your lower lip in question.

“I’m stopping you right there…why are you asking all these questions?” Rafayel said, trying to get back to what he was doing earlier.

“These are the questions that keep me up at night, and only you can answer them for me, Raf.” You admitted. You didn’t even want to think about the multiple times you had woken up in the dead of night and laid in bed, thinking about Lemurian eggs for literal hours. 

Rafayel smirked as he leaned over the counter, “Does this mean you’ve been having thoughts of me when you’re trying to sleep?”

“I’m not trying to incriminate myself, Raf.” You said, pointing an accusing finger at him, “I’m just saying that the question about Lemurian eggs, amongst several other things, have been on my mind.”

“Other things?” Rafayel murmured just loud enough for you to hear it. He looked at you, curiosity but also hesitance crossing his features.

“Well ya, for instance I know that some aquatic creatures have two.” You said, holding up the number two with your fingers.

Rafayel sighed, looking almost pained as he wanted to clarify what you were asking, “Two of what.” He was hoping it wasn’t what he thought it was.

“Dicks, penis, cocks, levers, fun handles, joysticks.” You said, listing off both the actual names as well as some euphemisms you knew.

Rafayel once again stopped what he was doing. You watched as he put the knife down next to him. You wanted to ask him why he was stopping since he had been so deadset that he’d prepare lunch this afternoon. You had been waiting ages for the salmon salad he was making.

“Really?” He asked, gesturing to the food in front of him, “Right in front of my salad?” 

You couldn’t help but stare directly into those beautiful eyes of his, “You didn’t answer any of the questions, Raf. What are you hiding?”

“Believe it or not, I don’t actually have to answer your questions.” He said, leaning over to where you were sitting at the bar counter.

You then decided to press your luck even more, “So if Lemurians supposedly cry pearls, is their cum like pearlescent or something else entirely?” You watched as Rafayel’s cheeks took on a rosy hue and you barked out a laugh, “Oh that reaction tells me everything! So it’s not like humans!”

Rafayel groaned, covering his face with his hands and shook his head, “Why do you want to know about Lemurian…cum…I hate that I even have to ask that.” Rafayel said as he gave you a disappointed glance.

“It’s just a question, now I have more.” You said as you stood up from your stool, “Do Lemurians ever enter heats or ruts? Would Ebb Day be considered one of those because that day you were kinda…” You thought back to Ebb Day. He had looked so damn good with his scales and the slight sheen of sweat. If only he wasn’t so damn delirious that day you might’ve made a move to pursue something more with him.

“I was kinda…?” Rafayel said before stopping himself, “Wait, hold it, bite your tongue, I don’t think I want to know what’s going through that head of yours. I think we’re done with questions for the day.”

You couldn’t help the pout that went on your face, but Rafayel was looking away from you, not daring to make eye contact right now. His cheeks and ears were flush as he picked up his knife and continued cutting up salmon..

You slowly stalked over to him until you were standing right behind Rafayel. He, of course, knew you were there as he scrapped the salmon on top of the lettuce and put the dangerous object into the sink. As soon as he was cleared of any knives that he could stab you with should he break due to your insanity, you tugged on his sleeve.

Rafayel, despite his pouting, let out a sigh. He then moved a bit away from the counter and you didn’t even realize what had happened until you found your back digging into the counter of the kitchen. Rafayel had quickly spun you around and pinned you, both arms locking you in place as he gripped onto the cool marble.

You caught the confident glint in his eyes as he pulled a full 180 from earlier. His cheeks, ears, and chest were still a bit flushed, but he seemed to be in control for the moment, “If you’re that curious, I could always give you a demonstration of Lemurian mating habits.” He finally said.

You were stunned into silence, your mouth hung open and you could feel your cheeks heating up as you looked at Rafayel. Then, after the shock wore off, your entire face lit up at the prospect.

“Wait really? Oh man, I need to grab my notebook. I have so many hypotheses on things that I can’t wait to try out!” You said, placing your hands on his chest, “When are we gonna do this? Now? Later? Now?”

It was Rafayel’s turn to be shocked at your enthusiasm. He was aiming to fluster you like you had done to him; he wasn’t expecting you to want to jump his bones right now. The only thing he could utter was “You have a journal…?”

You nod your head, your hand going over to his neck where you remembered those iridescent blue scales had been. You pressed down slightly at the area and you could feel Rafayel’s pulse jump. You licked your lips at the thought of seeing them again, as well as his tail that he swore up and down he didn’t have until one day he slipped up and admitted to it.

“Of course silly, how else am I gonna know the best ways to unravel you?” You said, your head tilting to the side as you smirked.

You watched as Rafayel managed to turn into a darker shade of red, his mouth opening and closing before his eyes narrowed, “If I had known you were like this, I would’ve been more cautious about letting you into my home.”

“Not only did you let me in, but you gave me a key so I can stop by whenever.” You teased him, “Hopefully I will catch you in a compromised setting one day.”

Rafayel groaned, his hands going to your hips, placing his head over your shoulder, “You’ll be the death of me…” He murmured out before taking a deep breath, “Were you serious though, about uh…”

“Only if your offer is on the table.” You said and Rafayel chuckled, his warm breath fanning over your neck.

“It was supposed to be a joke.” He teased, “But with how excited you got I feel it would be cruel to take the offer back now.”

“It would be so cruel.” You said, your arms going around his shoulders, “Although perhaps we should move things a bit…slower. We can discuss it over lunch?” You said and Rafayel nodded.

“That sounds good.” He said, not moving from his position as he nuzzled his face into your neck “But in a few minutes. I’m comfortable right now.”

Your hand found its way into his purple locks as you gently played with them, “Sounds good to me.”

#loveanddeepspace #love and deepspace #Rafayel Love and Deepspace #Lnds #Lnds Rafayel #lnds x reader #x reader #reader insert #rafayel x reader #l&ds #l&ds rafayel #l&ds rafayel x reader #lads x reader #lads rafayel #lads rafayel x reader

[et6rnalsun]

u know the “ranking kisses” filter chris would literally record it with you and you kiss him everytime that shows up on the screen and he will be so so happy and omg ( he so happy when it shows up the french kiss and goes straight to 1 after u kiss him )

“did you just put the hand kiss on ten?” you huffed, rolling your eyes as he clicked on the screen to see what else would come up next.

he chuckled, nodding. "your gloss is fucking sticky, baby"

in the highest ranking there was the kiss on the nose, in second place, followed by the normal kiss in third place. the idea of ​​making this filter came from him, seeing it in his tiktok for you page— calling you urgently with the addition of the fact that he missed you desperately after seeing the cute couples.

he was hoping for the french kiss, his bottom lip caught between his teeth. “c’mon, the—”

and that's what came out.

turning your face, you met his smiling expression as he was already approaching you quickly, practically begging for the kiss he awaited. so with a smirk, you satisfied him, taking his face in your hands as your lips met.

his tongue bullied its way into your mouth immediately, his hands leaving the phone to grab your hips and bring you closer in one swift motion. a small sound escaped your lips at the feeling of him being so rushed, the trend practically forgotten.

the smell of his strong, pungent perfume was mind-boggling, making your head cloudy. he frantically traced the contours of your body, which contracted in his hard grasp until he reached your hips and quickly lifted you onto him. “chris—” you murmured against his lips, trying to pull away only to be met with a moan from him as he tugged on your bottom lip.

“the fucking video” you finally pulled away from him as you giggled, taking your phone back to delete the clip that had been recorded. (only wet sounds and moans could be heard) "come on, rate this kiss" you teased.

he resumed recording, panting with his hair disheveled as he nodded. "not that bad… one."

#fra speaks 🪽 #sturniolo triplets #chris sturniolo #chris sturniolo drabble #suggestive

[nalyra-dreaming]

The writers have said that they are sticking close to the second half of the book this season, which is why I don't see the trepidation that you see in the final Loumand scene. Because if any part of Louis feels like he has to sleep with Armand to keep Claudia safe, then what is the point of the missing diary pages? What is the point of Claudia yelling at him for picking another man over her? Why does Louis look 100% turned on in the preview we got of his sex scene with Armand?

The fatal flaw of the Louis/Claudia relationship in the book is that Louis is so blinded by his love for Armand that he can't fathom that he would be a threat to Claudia. This doesn't work in the show if Louis knows from the beginning that Armand is a threat. I know Jacob said that Dreamstat is Louis' inner voice, but he also said that he's his guilty conscience. Let's face it; Dreamstat singing "Come to me you little whore" isn't Louis' subconscious telling him that Armand is evil. It's Louis' guilty conscience trying to prevent him from moving on. Louis could have fallen for literally anybody in Paris and he would still have Dreamstat insulting his love interest and telling him not to go for it.

And before you accuse me of having Loumand shipper lenses on, let me just say that the only ship I'm invested in is ArmanDaniel. I enjoy Loustat and Loumand and Armandstat, but I'm not attached to any of these romances. So this isn't bias talking

Okay. All of that plays into all of this as well, of course.

However, book canonically Armand also put spells on Louis to make him do things, literally influence his actions. Makes him turn Madeleine, for example.

It is no wonder Armand comments on Louis as he does in his own book.

"Louis, my companion, dried up of his own free will, rather like a beautiful rose skillfully dehydrated in sand so that it retains its proportions, nay, even its fragrance and even its tint. For all the blood he drank, he himself became dry, heartless, a stranger to himself and tome."

I mean... the show has been very clear wrt to the "golden cage" Louis is in. It has been said so as well by Hannah.

Of course it's a complicated beast. Of course there was attraction. I'm not denying that.

But the show has also made clear that they would go the gaslighting route since the SDCC posters. Like, they never even promoted Loumand.

Given that Jacob said it would go darker from hereon... ????

DreamStat is more than a guilty conscience though, "he" says what Louis will not say out loud. I think that will come across more directly in the upcoming episodes, since we've seen some of it in the trailers already.

And, you know, sex can be fun even if you entered a relationship under difficult circumstances.

Lust was never the problem, lol.

#Anonymous #ask nalyra #iwtv s2 #iwtv #amc iwtv #interview with the vampire #interview with the vampire s2 #amc interview with the vampire #interview with the vampire amc #iwtv amc #louis de pointe du lac #armand #loumand

[foreseersgaze]

— On this note, I love Zayne's medical talk sooo much 🥺

— Every time Zayne talks about something nerdy he read in the library, or whenever he just randomly brings up facts about the heart or heart surgery I just have the worst urge to suck him off, so here's a little drabble about doing just that.

— 18+ only! MDNI!!!

It's a lazy Sunday morning—one of those rare days where Zayne isn't working his ass off in the hospital, but of course, he chooses to spend his time reading up on one of his books specializing in knowledge of the heart while you sit next to him playing video games.

You hear a casual hmm, coming from him, and, curiously, you press the pause button on your controller and look over at him, peering over the pages of his book, wondering what he's so interested in.

Zayne flicks his gaze over to you, looking over the rims of his silver-lined glasses when you lean in so closely and he raises an eyebrow, a small smirk tugs on the corners of his lips before closing his book, which makes you huff.

"You know you can ask what I'm reading instead of putting your nose quite literally into my book, right?" He quips, and you roll your eyes at his smart remark. You roll over onto your stomach and your legs move to dangle into the air while listening to him.

"Yeah, yeah... sorry for taking interest," you mutter before looking over at the cover of his book, which looks very familiar. You squint your eyes at the cover, recognizing that he's definitely read this book before. Now it's your turn to poke fun at him. "Besides, haven't you read this book already?" You retort, a small grin forming on your lips when you see him take off his glasses with an amused sigh.

"I have, actually. I'm just refreshing my mind on a few heart cancer facts," he replies, folding his glasses and hanging them over the collar of his shirt.

Your eyebrows raise at this; your interest is immediately piqued. You look up at him with wide eyes and you rest your chin on the palms of your hands while dangling your feet into the air, already wanting to listen intently.

"Oh? Do share them with me, Dr. Zayne." You smirk, and you can feel a rush of warmth going to the apples of your cheeks when Zayne begins to talk about a few facts that he knows that might interest you.

"Well, did you know that heart cancer is extremely rare? In fact, it's so rare that we at the Asko Hospital see a case of heart cancer once per year..."

You continue to listen to Zayne talk, watching his every move. His eyes avoid yours, just staring at the TV, looking at the paused video game screen while he talks, and every now and then, his gaze will shift back to yours to see if you're still listening to him, which, of course you are. You can't help but not listen, always finding his vast knowledge of the heart extremely sexy.

While he talks, one of your hands mindlessly begins to wander up and down his thigh, just keeping your eyes on him. He feels this, so his gaze turns to yours and he raises an eyebrow, figuring you're up to something, but he's not sure what. He pauses.

"...What do you think you're doing?" He asks, his eyes narrowing on your hand before his green eyes flick over to your eyes, trying to read your mind. He has a good guess on what you're trying to do, but, he's not quite sure since you're clearly still showing interest in his heart knowledge.

You can't help but giggle in reply. "Nothing. Just keep talking."

Zayne hesitates for a moment, but he goes on anyway. "...Right. So, anyway, still, other cancers can spread to your heart, but..." He resumes talking, and your gaze is still focused on his lips, listening eagerly to every single word he says while your hand slowly slides up his thigh, and starts palming at the growing erection in his pajama bottoms, which quickly makes him stop talking as he lets out a groan and heavy breath.

"W-What... what are you..." He groans again, and he looks down at your hand as you palm him through his clothes. He wants to capture your wrist and turn the tide on you, but as waves of pleasure fill him, he realizes why exactly you're doing this.

"Keep talking, Zayne," you say, looking up at him with those sweet, pretty eyes of yours, blinking innocently as if your hand is still underneath your chin and not palming his hard dick through his pajamas.

He huffs, his nose turning a slight pink and a slight grin appears on his face.

"Really? You want me to keep talking?" Amusement is thick in his voice when he notices his realization is correct. "It seems you truly are interested in what I have to say," he says lowly, as he brings a hand down to cup your face gently, a calloused thumb swipes over your bottom lip which makes you immediately heat up.

You nod slowly, and, moving away from his hand, you climb over to lay between Zayne's legs and gently pull on the drawstrings of his pajama bottoms so you can pull them down. You grin when you see the hard imprint of his dick in his underwear—knowing your touches worked while he was talking—so you gently pull his underwear down too and let out an amused hum when he's fully erect in front of you, long and thick, with veins at the base of his dick that make your mouth water.

"Yes, yes, now keep talking," you urge while taking him in your hand, wanting him to keep talking not only because you genuinely find it so interesting, but also because for some reason, it makes you so fucking horny to hear him talk about this.

Zayne huffs at this, wanting to engage in having sex with you and be present in this, but, since you keep insisting, he gives in since you clearly love it so much.

"Fine..." He sighs, continuing from earlier. "...Other cancers can... fuck." His breath escapes lowly from his throat when you suddenly surprise him by gently sucking on his tip, just hardly suckling on it while your tongue flicks on it gently.

You look up at him while sucking on it, keeping those wide eyes of interest on him, making him realize that he needs to continue to keep your mouth on him.

"O-Other cancers can metastasize, or spread, to your heart, but cancer doesn't usually form within the heart itself..." He gets more breathy as you suck harder with every word, and a deft hand goes to grip your hair, wanting to guide you down his cock, but he lets you suck him off how you want, keeping his hand still and firm in your hair. "...A-And treatments like chemotherapy that look for... ah, damn." He grunts when he feels you suddenly suck harder on his tip.

He takes in a sharp inhale, hating how good you are with your mouth, because he's feeling close already. He swallows thickly, continuing.

"...For malignancies that can damage the heart's tissue..." He groans, and his long fingers grip your hair even tighter which makes you hum against his tip, focusing more on the underside of that sensitive spot, making him grunt. "...You know, if you keep this up, you're going to make me cum," he says almost bluntly before groaning again when you hallow your cheeks around him.

"Damn... I... and, heart cancer results from the tumor angiosarcoma..." He continues to get more breathy and he grunts, gripping your hair tightly when you finally move that tongue of yours on his sensitive tip, making him throb and quickly release ropes of his hot, white cum into your mouth. He takes deep breaths when he finishes, his head falling back against the headboard of the bed, and you pull away, grinning once you swallow all of his cum.

He's silent for a bit, trying to catch his breath before he looks over at you with a grin.

"Did you know studies also show that men who have sex twice a week or more are less likely to develop heart disease?"

#my fics. #posts. #lads. #lads #love and deepspace zayne #lnds #love and deep space zayne #zayne x reader #zayne x reader smut #zayne smut #zayne fanfiction #zayne li fanfiction #zayne li smut #love and deepspace smut #lads smut #zayne love and deepspace smut

[anna-proxx]

♡ dating arthur morgan headcanons ♡ (x female reader)

a/n: currently thinking about this game 24/7, so i wanted to share what i think arthur would be like as a romantic partner :)

✽ if you sleep longer, he'd not only let you sleep and be careful not to wake you up, but also hush anyone who makes noise around you

✽ he kisses your forehead a lot

✽ and loves when you kiss him on the cheek

✽ when drunk, he’d get flustered around you and flirt with you (and only you) and get excited and giddy when you tell him that you're in fact already dating

✽ he's also still loyal af even when he's drunk

✽ but sometimes drunk arthur includes him snuggling up to you while you two are alone and crying out his pent up emotions while you hold him

✽ he limits physical affection around others, but once you two are alone, he turns into a big cuddly teddy bear

✽ after any argument he always makes sure to resolve it before you two go to sleep (he just treasures you too much to let you go to sleep hurt or mad at each other)

✽ if something came up and he couldn’t talk to you, he couldn’t fall asleep and would overthink that night

✽ sometimes you catch him singing to himself and he gets all embarrassed and flustered when he notices you

✽ he secretly loves any cute nicknames you'd call him but would never admit it

✽ (if you menstruate) he’d be cutely clueless about periods and menstrual cycles but would ask you curious questions and wouldn't shy away from talking about it or getting you supplies you need

✽ he would also get you chocolate (or any other treat you like) and put it beside your bed before you wake up when you're on your period because he knows you get grumpy

✽ speaking of hormonal fluctuations and mood swings, he’d be so supportive and patient with you

✽ you two would stay up late together while the rest of the gang sleeps and chat about silly things or gossip while snacking on stuff

✽ "And so I said- want some chocolate?" "Shoar."

✽ he insists you deserve better but also tries to be better for you

✽ he writes every detail about you in his journal, all the time

✽ you're mentioned on like every second page

✽ he also notes down all things you like for later use.

✽ and he draws you in all different situations

✽ sometimes he leaves one of the drawings of you beside your bed as a gift because he knows you love them

✽ family is everything to him, so he’d be ready to die for you, because you are his family

✽ he makes and brings you coffee as soon as you wake up, whether you're in your camp or in a temporary one in the wilderness

✽ when you're sick, he literally doesn't leave your side or is very reluctant to when he has to (and other gang members tease him for it)

✽ he would peel oranges for you (literally and figuratively)

✽ he would unintentionally do or say things that turn you on and be clueless about it

✽ but once he realizes or you tell him, he starts doing them more

✽ this man would love to make you blush

✽ he'd also praise you a lot

✽ "that's my girl" "good girl"

✽ he'd tease you about drooling or mumbling from your sleep, but grin anytime you do so, because he finds it adorable

✽ he never judges you for what you cry for, even if it's a silly reason

✽ "Yer cryin' cuz you saw a baby squirrel?" "Y-yeah..." "C'mere."

✽ he’s just such a good boyfriend and even better husband and father <3

#rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #arthur morgan #arthur morgan headcanons #rdr2 headcanons #arthur morgan x female reader #arthur morgan x you

[0blobthefish0]

BBF

bucky barnes masterlist | main masterlist

Bucky Barnes x Female Reader 2,394 words

a/n - thanks for the request anon!! hope you like it <3

God.

You couldn’t stand him.

You silently glared at the all too familiar figure from above the pages of your book as you laid on your stomach on the sofa. With a roll of your eyes you turned the sound up to your music and continued on with your reading. You could feel the sun, amplified by the large window behind you, beaming onto your exposed skin and filling you up with a summer comfort.

Not even a minute later, you felt your headphones being pulled sharply off from over your ears and looked up to see the blue-eyed brunette staring down at you with that infuriatingly condescending smile on his perfectly pink lips. You could feel your blood begin to boil before remembering the promise to yourself; you were all on holiday and you wanted to at least enjoy it, so the least the two of you could be was passive to each other.

“Mornin’, Princess,” Bucky greeted with a shine in his eyes - he’s known you’ve hated that nickname ever since he first said it.

“Afternoon, James,” you replied, returning the favour, before snatching back your headphones from his hand. 

Your brother came up from behind and slapped Bucky on the back before wrapping an arm around his neck.

“You coming?” Your brother questioned and you noticed that the two were in their swim shorts. “We’re going to the cliff,” he grinned and you couldn’t help the smile growing on your face. You had all been eyeing it as soon as your dad had pulled into the driveway, perfect diving conditions; deep water surrounded the pillar of rock, multiple platforms at varying heights and easy to climb. There weren’t many other people around, but you have seen people jumping off of the rock, no one, not that you had seen, had jumped from the top yet.

“Fine,” you mumbled, getting up from your spot on the sofa and throwing your book onto the coffee table just to your side, “but you’re waiting for me, I am not walking by myself.” You instructed with a pointed look before walking off to your room to get changed. 

A few minutes later, you came out in your swimsuit, a hat on your head and sunglasses resting on your nose with a bottle of sunscreen in your hand. You could see Bucky in the corner of your eye, however, your brother was nowhere to be seen.

“Hey, where’s-” you started, but your eyes suddenly widened when you saw your book in Bucky’s hand. You quickly moved over to him and ripped the book away from his prying eyes, “Did Winnie never tell you not to take stuff that isn’t yours?” You huffed out, but he only smirked at you with a knowing look. Great. He was going to be insufferable. 

“That the kind of stuff you like?” He teased as he took in your appearance, embarrassment etched across your face.

“Shut up!”

You moved to the other side of the sofa to hide your book under a pillow, before turning back to him.

“Where is he?” You questioned.

“I thought you told me to shut up,” he snarked and it made you want to wrap your hands around his stupid neck. You let out a deep breath and began to turn on your heel. “He went out to get some stuff ‘cause you took so long.”

“I was literally only like ten minutes.”

“More like thirty.”

“Fifteen.” 

The two of you eyed each other, daring the other to start again.

“Whatever,” Bucky finally grumbled and got up from his seat. You heard his phone vibrate and stared at him as he checked it. “He’s on the beach, let’s go.”

The two of you trudged towards the beach in silence. Bucky a few paces ahead of you due to his ridiculously long legs.

“Can you slow down?” You asked as you jogged to close the gap between you. Wordlessly, Bucky matched your pace and you continued on in silence. You could feel the heat of the sun that was absorbed into the dark tarmac and the light breeze was welcomed as it gently grazed over your skin. Soon enough your shoes began to sink into soft sand and your brother waved with his whole arm in the distance at seeing your silhouettes.

The wind was much stronger as waves lapped up your ankles and you found yourself glad that your hair was out of your face.

“I brought sunscreen,” you announced and stepped back to face the two boys, grains of sand sticking to the wet skin.

“Already did it,” your brother quickly replied and ran into the water because you both knew that he was lying. You eyed Bucky as he made a start to follow your brother.

“Fine then, can’t blame me if you get skin cancer,” you called out and Bucky turned to you.

“Only if you get my back,” he shouted over with a shrug of his shoulders.

You rolled your eyes, “Come here then,” and he jogged over to you. You held the bottle over his hand and squeezed a dollop onto his palm before squeezing some onto your own and then threw the bottle into the sand. You rubbed your hands together before placing them on the hot skin of Bucky’s back and rubbing in the sunscreen as he worked on his arms. You did your best to ignore the way he felt under your hands and Bucky did his best to ignore the feeling of your hands on his skin.

You waited patiently, watching your brother scope out the rock, as Bucky finished getting rid of any white residue from his legs. “Wanna race?” He questioned tilting his head back to look up at you and a grin made its way onto your lips.

“On three?” Bucky jumped up and dusted the sand from his shorts.

“Always,” he replied with a cocky smirk as he moved into position and you did the same.

“Three!” You shouted and bolted into the ocean. You could hear Bucky behind you, but his words were inaudible - just a mess of sounds - before you dived into the cold, salty water. Your heart was pounding in your chest and you began to move upward to see where you were. Just as your head broke above the waves you felt a hand clamp down on your ankle and pull you sharply down back into the water. Bucky used the action as added speed and easily cut through the waves toward the finish line. 

You gasped for air once you made it back out of the water and began to tread the water as you breathed in as much oxygen as you could. You watched as Bucky climbed up onto the rocks. Cheater. You let out an annoyed huff before leisurely swimming the rest of the way.

Finally, you pushed yourself up onto the ledge and climbed up to stand next to your brother, ignoring Bucky’s outstretched hand.

You peered over the edge on partially shaky legs. The fourth platform was much higher than you had thought. Bucky and your brother had already jumped and had made their way back up. Your brother had let out a loud laugh when he had seen you still standing there.

“Scared, Princess?” Bucky pouted and walked up to you. “You can do it,” he whispered and a hand made its way to press lightly against the back of your shoulder. You felt the pressure of his hand change ever so slightly and your eyes widened. 

But you had realised too late.

With a hard shove, Bucky pushed you cleanly off of the cliff. Not even a scream passed your lips as you scrabbled, trying to grab onto the air, and you hit the water with a large splash. The ocean flooded every sense and you continued to fall through the water before finally pushing yourself upwards.

The boys leaned over the edge as they waited for you to resurface.

You exploded from the water angrily and shouted up at the boys. Your skin stinging at the harsh impact.

“FUCK YOU, JAMES!” You screamed with your whole lungs and flipped them off before disappearing back under the waves and towards the beach. They only laughed at your reaction and high-fived before moving up to the next platform. It was exactly what Bucky had expected from you.

It was dark now, and Bucky rested idly on the sofa - scrolling through his phone - when you walked in. He hadn’t seen you since you had swam away. It was clear that you had been in the pool. You smelt of chlorine. You paid him no attention as you walked into the bathroom and turned to the side to look in the mirror. Hiz gaze almost instantly finds the discoloured skin on the side of your hip and guilt fills his stomach; you must have hit the water pretty hard for it to already have yellowed around the edges of your dark bruise.

You didn’t speak to Bucky for the rest of the holiday.

Little did you know that you wouldn’t see Bucky again until a decade later.

Now you’re staring dumbfounded.

The last thing that you could have imagined when your brother had asked you to meet at the café for your annual catch up was for him to bring a friend.

“Y/n, you remember Bucky, right?” A somehow taller, thirteen-year older, much burlier Bucky smiles down at you. His hair is grown out and you can see small specks of grey buried in the scruff of his beard even though - you quickly did the maths - he was only thirty, maybe thirty-one. He looked mature, nothing like the young man you had last seen, he looked good.

“Ye-yeah,” you pulled your bag over your shoulder before shaking his hand, “of course I do.”

The three of you sat at your usual table and your brother soon left to order, leaving the two of you alone. You smiled shyly at him as you picked at your fingers.

“How have you been, Princess?” He asked and, when you looked at him with a wide smile on your face at the familiar nickname, he had that old, boyish smirk on his face.

You shook your head lightly before replying, “Yeah, I’ve been good, got my degree, got my heart broken, y’know all that normal stuff,” you trailed off. “What’ve you been up to, James?”

James. Bucky’s heart squeezed; he hadn’t been called that in years. He kind of missed it. He kind of missed you.

“I dropped out of college after the first semester,” he confessed and your eyebrows raised in surprise - he had gotten into his dream university, studying his dream course, “joined the army, made some good friends, got a cat, y’know,” he shrugged, “the normal stuff.” 

“Wow,” was all you could say before your brother returned. And you spent the remainder of the time listening to them talk, sipping on your drink, letting time fly.

Bucky moved to pull up the sleeve of his left arm before quickly pushing the fabric down.

But you had seen what your brother hadn’t.

His steel-blue eyes caught onto yours and you pulled your gaze away.

Was that metal?

Your next meeting with Bucky Barnes would come much sooner than the last.

You were having a small house party, courtesy of your brother. Your guests were mostly drunk and the card games were in full swing when you heard a knock at the door. Were you expecting anyone else?

Cautiously, you put one heel in front of the other as you wobbled your way to the door - Natasha closely behind you.

“Bucky,” you gasped out when your eyes landed on the tall brunette, beside him an unfamiliar, equally as tall, blonde stood with a polite, awkward smile on his face. You could feel Natasha jabbing her fingers into your side at the scene in front of you.

“Dibs on the blonde one,” Natasha whispered, though not so quietly. Your cheeks burned with embarrassment as you watched Bucky’s poor friend’s face grow red.

“This is Steve,” He introduced and Natasha smiled at him, pupils blown. 

“Are you staying for the party, Steve?” Natasha questioned, her voice like dark honey as his name rolled off her tongue.

“Uhh, yeah.” Poor Steve, he looked like a deer in headlights.

“Great, you can come sit next to me,” the red-head smirked and moved from behind you to hold onto Steve’s arm. The blonde sent a quick look back to Bucky, who only nodded his head and pushed him forward, as Natasha pulled him into the room.

“Ahah, sorry about that, she’s uh- she’s.. Natasha,” you chuckled awkwardly and stood to the side to let him in.

“It’s no problem, God knows he needs it,” he laughed as you shut the door. “I brought you wine,” he announced and held the bottle up.

“Oh wow, you didn’t need to do that, thank you, it’s lovely,” you smiled as he handed it to you. “You can, uh, sit down, you remember Banner and Wanda?”

---

You let out an exhausted sigh as you sat down on the roof, looking out into the city, a half-empty glass of wine by your side as the cool, night air breezed over your face. Silently, Bucky stepped through the open window and took a seat by your side. You turned to him with a tired smile on your face and offered him some wine. He shook his head and offered you a cigarette. You shook your head.

“Do you smoke?” You asked as you eyed the way he flicked the lid open and closed.

“Used to,” he answered.

“Why do you keep them on you?” You questioned, genuinely intrigued.

“I don’t know,” he began slowly, “comfort? I like the way the box feels.” You hummed in response, satisfied.

A comfortable silence blanketed over the two of you and Bucky watched as you enjoyed the cool air.

“What’s your cat’s name?”

“Alpine.”

“Do you have pictures?” 

Wordlessly, Bucky pulled out his phone and passed it to you. You smiled at the white ball of fuzz.

“She’s adorable, I’d love to meet her.”

Bucky searched your eyes, “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

And there, on that roof, as you looked at each other, a young love that hadn’t yet budded began to grow again.

#female reader #x reader #reader #reader insert #blob's fics #marvel cinematic universe #marvel #james bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader

[itsnothingofinterest]

So if it isn’t clear, I’m not a fan of chapter 423 and how it ended this final fight with AFO or Deku's supposed save of Tomura. I know I haven't talked that much about it but it's true.

And being the arrogant little internet-er that I am, I thought I might go over how I think this fight should’ve gone down. A little self-indulgent thing about how I would've done it, to make myself feel better, which you guys can read too if for some reason you want to. Granted, the objectively correct way to end this arc would’ve of course been to not do the fight or bring back AFO, end it at 418 as I described before; but this outline is for if one were to really insist on a final battle with a returned AFO.

Starting disclaimer; length: as mentioned in the above linked post, this is going to be quite longer than what we saw in canon. Some may say this is unfair to claim Hori should have done when he’s so clearly burnt out, but that’s just what the fight needs to be properly epic or properly conclude it’s dangling plot threads. Again, this is why ending it at 418 was the correct move. If we really are including this extra climax though, then it needs enough pages for it; which is why we’re going further than the entire manga might, up to chapter 430 plus an epilogue. (Wanted that to be including Epilogue but one chapter outline went long so I split it in two. Just the way things go.)

Pre-423 changes:

Surprisingly little. A part of me wants to change the ‘it was AFO all along’ reveal to be less dog-doodoo but I can’t imagine how. The reveal is bad; ruining many of MHA’s themes, several of its characters, and helping cement Deku as an All Might clone by ending his arc as a hero who beats the big bad AFO…but it’s also necessary for the extra climax to happen. AFO’s ability to take over Tomura is almost literally directly proportional to how bad the reveal is, so we’re kind of stuck with it.

However I would like to change Deku’s dialogue with Aizawa in 240 to not mention his plans of killing Tomura along with AFO up to now. His character just becomes unsalvageablely unlikable with the reveal that he was just looking for a way to murder the crying child in a way he found most tasteful this whole time. So we’re cutting that and Deku’s still aiming for the save like a good hero should. Just have him go into more detail on what happened in Tomura's mind; it'll be useful for Kurogiri to overhear for later.

Besides that, the early chapters of the final AFO fight were mostly fixable with later additions or otherwise inoffensive, so we’re moving on to:

423: On the Offensive

Once again, we start with Deku just landing a huge hit on AFO. Immediate change; the fight is not over with this: AFO manifests a huge mouth with sharp teeth on his chest right where Deku hit to chomp down and pin him before charging up an energy explosion point blank that’ll rip his arm off at minimum.

Deku escapes using a St. Louise Smash to scrape off the bottom row of teeth, letting his arm out and chasing that energy attack to mostly just propel him back into the ground.

Some hero comments how it’s like they’re back to square one while another denies that and points out AFO’s two new major injuries. Shoto takes the opportunity to try going for a major attack too; but AFO, furious that the heroes think he’s on the back foot, uses a quirk to launch the remaining sharp teeth at Shoto as missiles. Endeavor then swoops in and takes the hit for Shoto, surprising him with the sacrifice play but demoralizing the other heroes for their No. 1 to take a hit like that.

Now needing to get back on the offensive, AFO pulls out the giant double rivot mouth move to try and chomp down on Deku while he’s reeling; but they get intercepted by Mt. Lady and Ryukyu. At this time, Aizawa notices Kurogiri has disappeared from beside him.

As Deku is helped up by Aoyama, we see Kurogiri reappear on a bit of elevated dirt behind them; and stepping out to comment on how much he’s missed is a dishevelled looking Spinner.

424: The League of Villains

We instead start with a flashback to Touya, Fuyumi, and Rei being taken away from the battle by those stretcher robots. While they’re a distance away from others, sparks appear from the droids carrying Touya as they halt in place; causing Fuyumi to panic and ask her and her mom’s droids to also stop so she can see what happened. As Rei and Fuyumi struggle to sit up, they see that Toga has thrown knives into both of Touya’s robots and is now cutting him out.

As Fuyumi panics and tells her to get away, a warp gate opens and lets out Spinner, who tells Dabi to get up because the inevitable has happened and AFO has started fighting Tomura; Kurogiri filled him in on the whole thing. Dabi responds, revealing he’s still awake, and attempts to get up with Toga’s help.

Fuyumi begins really panicking, telling them not to take her brother when he’s so injured and she just got him back. But Dabi responds, in an apologetic tone as one could expect of Dabi, that he’s got something important to do.

Rei finally takes the chance to pipe up, asking if these are the friends Touya’s been staying with. Touya introduces Spinner, Toga, and Kurogiri, and says that they are; and then introduces his mom and sister to the League.

Back at Mt. Fuji, Spinne, Toga, and Dabi arrive out of Kurogiri and take in the situation. Kurogiri, now awake for real but with some Shirakumo in his tone, comments that it seems AFO is back in control of Tomura, but that like he saw last time, AFO’s control is probably still precarious. They just need to wake up Tomura again before they think of a more permanent solution.

Aoyama panics seeing the League here, but Deku interrupts asking if they’re here to fight AFO and save Tomura. Toga answers by saying he can just sit back and watch them do his job before telling Kurogiri that he’ll need to play defence; neither the heroes or AFO have noticed them in the crowd yet, but they will not appreciate them being here once they do. As he does, she and Spinner start yelling at Tomura; asking why he left them behind to wallow in his self-pity while they’re still waiting on him to destroy this unfair world? Where’s their horizon?

(maybe call back to this^ somehow?)

This grabs the heroes attention, some wondering if they need to fight them too. But then Dabi joins in, saying that Shigaraki was the one person to truly surpass All Might in power, so to see him a pawn of AM’s favourite punching bag is just sad; what’s with this embarrassing state, leader? Reminded at this sight of his own words to All Might in Kamino, Endeavor tells the other heroes to let the villains speak, while thinking to himself that he can finally see what relationship Tomura has with these villains like his son, and that he's glad he learned this about Touya.

AFO gets annoyed at the League’s insults and moves to attack, but finds his body shaking. In the back of his mind, Tomura stops screaming and appears behind AFO from the shadows, responding to the League’s call.

425: Secret Boss Battle

A fight begins at the centre of the mind between Tomura and AFO, the arena resembling the destroyed cityscape from when he first got the AFO quirk, but shrouded in darkness. Unable to really use their quirks in this space, they basically both resort to hand-to-hand combat and psychically throwing debris at eachother.

As they fight, AFO asks how Shigaraki awakened; his will should have been crushed with his identity as Tenko Shimura torn to shreds. Tomura affirms that he finds no will in the friends or dreams of Tenko Shimura, AFO has managed to treed on those things thoroughly; so instead he'll hold onto what is his own as Shigaraki Tomura. AFO balks at that; he moulded that identity even more thoroughly, implanted every idea in his head and guided his every decision; but Tomura reminds him that's not true, he left Tomura in the care of others many times. We then get both a flashback to Kurogiri comforting Tomura when AFO first died fightign AM, and a montage of flashback panels to his time with the League. Tomura exclaims that this is more than enough will to take on a shitty secret boss like AFO.

At this point, Shinomori appears and punches AFO hard in the face. He is proceeded shortly after by Ragdoll & various other costumed folk who follow up Shinomori with their own attacks. AFO asks if Tomura has caused a quirk rebellion like what happened to the 'other him' and Tomura answers: yes & no. The quirks are active in fighting, but they're not so much rebelling as just helping him subdue a rogue quirk, like what happened against Star & Stripe (he made sure to ask them though; need to know your party for the raid boss after all, and he'd been meaning to take stoke anyway). Or did AFO forget the dynamic of person & quirk between them?

AFO responds by growing into a giant, elongated monster to fight back; furious that these pawns, husks, and nobodies think they have any right not only attacking the demon lord, but looking down on him. AFO knocks a dozen hero & villain vestiges back, but Tomura throws a whole mental building at him for his trouble. AFO emerges out the top trying to attack him, but gets intercepted by the vestiges of Kudo and Bruce; both of them look shattered and like they're missing half their pieces, but the rest are keeping shape to punch AFO as much as they can.

AFO's fury briefly flares seeing them, but he quickly realizes what their being here means, as he hated them too much to ever take their pathetic quirks. Tomura confirms by saying AFO has his own secret boss, pointing out a small light in the distance like a star that AFO immediately identifies as the last spark of Yoichi.

426: Two Fronts

The inner fight continues: AFO begins racing past everyone to try and claim that distant light, but this just allows vestiges both stolen and OFA to slam him into huge debris as he tries. AFO grows even larger to Machia-level size and swats them away, landing a good hit on Tomura, Kudo, & Bruce as he tells them to stop infringing on his story. Just he he goes for another blow though, he takes a hit from seemingly nothing.

Cut back to outside and it's clear that he just got hit by Momo & Denki's canon, now with Jirou helping too. Dazed and in disbelief, AFO is then also hit by Kamui Woods throwing many huge boulders at him. Rikido and Kirishima go for a big attack too, but AFO knocks them away as he regains himself.

Realizing that he's on a war of two fronts and losing, he implants himself with those large roots he seems to have, embedding them in the earth and spreading them out to disrupt and separate the heroes. He then uses more quirks to form a large shell around himself, and uses a more defensive All-Factor Release to launch a myriad of attacks from the shell's surface. Deku goes in to attack AFO from an opening on the shell, but he launches more attacks out of it at Deku & the League. With the roots and shell protecting AFO from most of the heroes, he left an opening on purpose so he can see the League and focus on destroying them, which will then let him subdue Tomura. Deku realizes this plan too, and changes course to deflect the attacks on the League.

More roots emerge, but other members of the class catch on; Shoto freezing some while Shoji grabs others, allowing the League to keep yelling for Tomura to fight. At this time, with assistance from Sero, Iida, Mineta, & Mina; Ruyukyu and Mt. Lady lady finally rip out those mouth stalks, leaving two great black indents in the shell. Enraged, AFO causes the shell to grow large with great teeth around it's opening and enlarge in size greatly, now resembling the imagery of ultimate evil from All Might's old description of AFO as it launches more attacks at Deku and the League.

Deku tells the League to keep it up while he protects them, and we see side-by-side panels of both him and Tomura, bolstered by the League's words calling for his help, continuing their respective assaults on AFO.

427: Trust and Worth

We briefly see the other heroes attempts to get through the now-giant shell in between AFO's still-ongoing onslaught of attacks; Nejire and Amajiki's best attacks doing nothing, and Momo's laser barely putting in a scratch. Mirio says he got in, but his punches still can't phase the guy inside. Weird thing is, he didn't even notice a hero got in; so focused on Deku & the League. The attacks from the shell's surface seem completely random and haphazard too; he's ignoring them. Shoto points out that he basically can thanks to his defences, so does this mean they have to wait for someone who can do something? But Mirio rephrases it to that they need to wait for when they can do something.

Cut back to Deku and he's in a similar mental state. He's almost literally running on OFA's fumes and he's stuck on the defence protecting the League because he can't get into the shell through all the attacks, especially now that it's grown much larger and AFO is hiding deeper inside. It's anxiety inducing, he knows Bakugou would hate it. A part of him wants to try and think of a way to blast past the attacks, but he's not sure he could beat AFO in one hit so it might be too risky (if not for him, then for those behind him). Better to do some entrusting himself and leave this to Tomura until he leaves an opening or needs one himself, which Deku will know because he can see the fight in his mind through their connection.

But back at the mental battle; Shigaraki's confidence only enrages AFO, who grabs him in his giant hand and start squeezing. He taunts Tomura, asks if he really thinks someone who AFO built from the ground up can deny him? 'No, his pathetic friends will have their cries left unanswered forevermore, as punishment for entrusting their hopes to a pawn.'

Just then, another new player swoops in, busting right through the palm of AFO's hand to pull Tomura out. It's Hana Shimura! Who promptly tells AFO to shut up about her brother. The rest of the Shimuras also appear, with Kotaro denying the scope AFO's influence, apologizing to Tenko, and saying his abusive behaviour was his fault alone. Tomura pauses at seeing them, and says while he's in no mood to forgive his father, he promises to get them all out alive so he can grovel for forgiveness properly later.

Nana also appears and asks how the Shimuras are here, which Nao answers saying AFO pilfered their quirks from their remains after their tragedy. Nana is horrified, but AFO can only say that he's beginning to regret letting his whims draw him to any worthless trash he found along his path. Shigaraki remarks back that he's finding plenty of worth in this so called 'trash'.

428: A New Strategy

As more vestiges go back on the offensive; the Shimura family take a moment for strategy, wondering how they can beat this giant monster. Nana wonders why AFO can even grow like this, but Tomura figures he must've done it by letting long-suppressed emotions run wild. He's fraying himself for a chance to reach Yoichi, but stronger emotions like from Tomura or his sister can tear right through him. It also means if they beat him, he'll either be gone for good, or unveil his own core like what happened with Tenko. Concluding this is enough strategy, Tomura leaps into the fray and deals a massive wound to AFO.

AFO is beginning to realize his situation in this two-front battle is not improving, but being so close to Yoichi, he reconsiders his priorities and his strategy to shut up the League. Luckily the reappearance of Nana reminds him of just the way to do it. Outside, Deku, Aoyama, and a few other students continue to protect the League as they call for Tomura and mock AFO, when something changes. The onslaught of random attacks stops, and instead the shell begins to glow, and then a massive force begins emanating from the shell causing gale force winds to blast everyone away. AFO has combined the energy explosion he used to kill Nana with Air Cannon & Shokewave and is using them continuously to create these winds. Using his explosion quirk like this might burn up all his stamina, maybe even kill him and Tomura, but he decides it's worth it to see Yoichi.

The winds drown out the League, internally causing Shigaraki to think they might've just died, which in turn lets AFO pin him under his hand and start crushing him once more.

Deku, being blasted into a wall of dirt, realizes they can't keep up a passive strategy anymore, these winds will tear & burn everyone up. This is when a Warp Gate opens in front of his face, blocking the winds and letting him talk though it with the League, who are protected by a much larger Warp Gate. Spinner says they need a new strategy, but Deku gets distracted observing how Kurogiri's Warp Gates seem to be very effective against these winds by just warping the wind somewhere else. Before Dabi can properly express annoyance, Deku says he's got a plan; but he'll need the League's full cooperation, so are the willing to work with him? Dabi & Toga look to Spinner, who tells Deku...fat chance. He wants their help, he's the one who has to work with them. Deku agrees, so Spinner welcomes him to the League of Villains and asks for his plan.

429: All For One; One For All; All Or Nothing; One Last Smash

Deku and the League begin their operation. Kurogiri opens various Warp Gates around the area that a) give heroes places to take cover from the gusts of wind, and b) let him create his own jets of wind. He points all of them at Deku's back, launching the boy at the shell's opening. The force of each jet matches the force of AFO's wind, meaning multiple will overcome it. Granted, applying that much force to someone from both ends this way would crush most people, but Deku's got a body that can withstand OFA so this is nothing.

As he's launched at the opening, AFO notices his approach and creates giant sharp teeth to impale him; but Deku, being carried by the wind, is free to use another St. Louise Smash to destroy them and make his way in. AFO then tries a variety of other attacks inside the chamber of the shell, but a Warp Gate opens and a blast of ice freezes all of them, and we see Dabi commenting how there's nothing like a life or death situation to see how strong you really are (his mom's quirk packs quite the punch).

AFO then closes the shell to stop the League's interference, air jets or otherwise, and prepares another All-Factor laser pointed right at Deku. But just then, we see Shoto outside preparing a ramp, which Bakugou takes off from (that's right we see their team-up this time), using explosions to overpower the wind, break through the shell where team Momo scratched it, and blast away the charged up laser before it could fire. Now with line of sight inside back, another Gate opens with one of Toga's syringes shot through. Deku grabs it's cord, and uses it to launch himself back at AFO, finally landing the hit to knock off his gag.

Back inside the mental battlefield; AFO is so close to Yoichi and is dragging himself through the vestiges' attacks. Deku suddenly arrives across their mental link, and slams into the giant AFO. Truly desperate, AFO seems to almost puke up something from the hit that gets launched at Yoichi; it's trashbag baby AFO! Who's suddenly feeling a lot more honest, yelling for Yoichi about how much he needs him, how he only cares about him, just let him see his brother's face one last time.

Shigaraki hears this and realizes what kind of person his sensei was all along, and decides what to do with a pity-ing look on his face and a nod from his parents. AFO's path is interrupted one last time by Tenko Shimura, who grabs him in a hug and tells him he understands his pain, but it's over, he needs to let go of this. The star-like light he'd been chasing turns into Yoichi's face, causing AFO to being to cry and relax into the hug, and the two boys fade into another tiny light that rests in Tomura's hand as he shows Deku & the vestiges. It's over.

430: What Makes Heroes and Villains

Deku asks what what Tomura will do with that last shred of AFO, and Tomura says he doesn't know. Part of him still wants to crush it, both out of anger & just to be safe, but that seems distasteful after what just happened. Just then, one vestige steps forth and asks for it, who Tomura identifies as Spearlike Bones; the Shigaraki twins' mother. She doesn't introduce herself as such, but says she knew AFO before he went evil, so give it to her and she'll keep it safe and out of trouble this time. Both Deku and Tomura agree, and then sit down to talk.

The scene shifts to a beach at night, they're alone, and they shift to their four and five-year-old selves. Tenko and Izuku talk for a bit like that, about...a lot of stuff. Mostly about heroes, about Dekuku, and what Tenko thinks of Deku. If Tenko feels saved (a bit yeah, but also a bit not), how Deku's a good hero, how he's a mediocre hero. How Tenko thinks all heroes suck and are failures, especially All Might, which riles 4-year old Izuku up good...but also how, as the first hero that Tenko doesn't think is a failure who sucks, Deku is the greatest hero ever.

Izuku asks what Tenko will do now, and he says he'll do what he said before; be a hero for the villains, as only a villain can. That said, Tomura doesn't really want to fight Deku anymore if he can avoid it; so he's prepared a peace offering, and a message. The peace offering appear to Izuku as a meteor shower in the night sky, accompanied with a shot outside the mental world to show Shigaraki standing over an unconscious Deku with Tomura's hand pressed agianst him. The message gets blacked out a la Dabi. Izuku, suddenly a teenager is shocked and turns to ask what he means, but finds instead Shinomori asking what what means? Deku has been given the quirks from OFA back, although they are all in pieces aside from Danger Sense, hence them appearing to him as a meteor shower.

We cut to various scenes with villains; Skeptic in a police carrier, Spinner's advisors and a couple other rioters being held in custody, Compress in prison, Redestro in another prison, and even Gigantomachia, once more being tied down even as he holds his hand to the wound AFO gave him. They all see above them a tiny blotch of blackness like Kurogiri's mist.

Back at Mt. Fuji, Tomura finally emerges from the shell of ultimate evil carrying Deku. Lemillion is first on the scene and tells Tomura to hand him over; and is quite shocked when Tomura does just that without issue. Says the two of them made friends and sorted it out in there so don't worry. Toga also tells Mirio to relay a message to Deku that she'll be keeping an eye on both him and Uraraka from here, so keep up their progress together. Other heroes arrive and surround them slowly, not sure what move to make. Iida is the one who finally tells them to come quietly and let this end.

Tomura agrees to let this all end, and Spinner & Toga both ask what they're doing now? Going out in a peaceful way, or a villainous way? Tomura says both; that they'll be performing what may be their final act of villainy, before asking if Kurogiri has a big enough place picked out. Kurogiri confirms he does, and opens a Warp Gate for the League.

At this time, those other villains we saw earlier start getting Gloop Warped away from custody. As the League step through Kurogiri, a number of heroes suddenly move to stop them. Deku barely regains a bit of consciousness and tells them not to attack, causing a few of his classmates to pause. No one is fast enough to stop the League anyway, and Kurogiri disappears behind them. The League are gone.

The chapter ends with police, prison managers, and heroes all reporting in. Besides Dr. Garaki and Overhaul who got left behind, every villain bigger than a small time crook they had in any form of custody throughout the entire country has disappeared.

431: Class 1A Rising

The obligatory Epilogue chapter. As I expect canon, this would probably be extra long and cover a lot of different plot threads. It'll also be very different based on how Hori wants to take things; but I'll go the simple route.

First things first is catching up with all the hero kids in the hospital. Friendship moments, decompression, comments on character arcs, that sort of stuff. We also learn Tomura's final message to Deku, which he relays to everyone else, student and pro: The heroes have attacked the League three times now. If they attack a fourth time, the villains will return to destroy Japan. But if they don't, the villains will never return.

We then get narration of the immediate aftermath of this announcement; heroes throughout the country search high and low for any signs of Shigaraki & the disappeared villains for months. In a similar case to when they hunted for Stain, this results in heroes finding a lot of injustices they'd normally overlook to catch bigger villains; lost children, domestic abuse, prejudice, that sort of thing. Still, for those entire months, no villains more dangerous than some corner store robbers are found.

Speaking of the heroes, an emergency ranking is conducted; naming Kamui Woods as the new number one, with the rest of the Lurkers as No. 2 & 3. The previous top 3 have all retied (maybe Endeavor dies from that tooth attack he took for Shoto, idk.) Additionally, Mirio, Nejire, & Tamaki have taken the no. 8, 9, and 10 slots, and vow to catch up and rise even higher. Still, there's not a lot of interest by anyone involved; seems everyone has their eyes on the next generation.

There's a few more scenes of loose ends getting tied up like Overhaul waking up Pops or Gentle & Nagant getting status as heroes before we finally return to UA The kids' 2nd year finally begins for real. it's jarring to be sure, but time must go on and so too must education. Besides, a lot of them have started thinking after that war that they need to consider what kinds of heroes they want to be. Deku's falling behind with his shattered OFA not yet showing signs of healing, if that's even possible, but he's confident he'll catch up once again. Perhaps this is where we'd see out final moments with the core cast, checking in with everyone here as they all get ready for their next lesson/mission as heroes. If Hori wanted a more overtly 'to be continued' ending (though I imagine he would not), perhaps we might see where the villains ended up in some sense, building up a future conflict. Or perhaps we might skip forward years into the future, see the kid as pros and end on that kind of uncompromising 'Happily ever after'. Depends on how much open-endedness is preferred.

Either way, there's my conclusion. I won't say it's perfect or anything; I'll even admit I may have gotten the League more involved than would ever be realistic (or maybe it's more like I may not have involved the Deku's class enough). But I like to think I got some cool plot beats in, some cool reveals, I'm more proud of the call back to All Might's ultimate evil imagery than it may deserve; but most importantly, the villains end this war alive and saved. Tomura got to be the hero for villains; and I'd say Deku, between getting his save off and not being the focal point of the win, came out looking a lot less like an All Might clone or the next pillar, and just looking a lot like a better hero than in canon in general. That's what I feel anyway.

Regardless, writing this whole 'what-if' out did in fact make me feel better about 423. So my self-indulgent ramblings were worth that much at least.

#bnha #shigaraki tomura #shimura tenko #spinner #dabi #toga himiko #kurogiri #paranormal liberation front #PLF #midoriya izuku #shoto todoroki #aoyama yuuga #momo yaoyaruzo #class 1a #all for one #rei todoroki #hikage shinomori #yoichi shigaraki #nana shimura #one for all

[eddiediazismyhusband]

lmao buck didnt ditch tommy last episode, he just made a pit stop before going to spend the night with tommy, like do you think he spent the whole night there? and yeah, this episode, if he does leave tommy to go help eddie, that's what friends do ?? like what do you expect him to do, just ignore his friends life completely falling apart? buck is an adult relationship and adults respect the fact that they arent always going to be no 1 first priority ALL of the time. tommy respects that, especially because eddie is actively in a spiral, and honestly it's really refreshing to see such a healthy depiction of the balance between romantic/platonic relationships. i mean how many times have other couples been interrupted by similar emergencies, this is literally the emergency show like. yeah obviously when there is an emergency, the characters are going to drop everything and go to it. I swear you people have never had adult relationships, romantic or platonic, because you see a normal healthy relationship and are incapable of enjoying it. "not anti bi buck, just anti tommy kinard" not anti bi buck, just anti any relationship buck has with a man that isn't eddie

wow what did i say?? that was quick!

if you think buck left eddie’s house after hearing eddie say the words “yeah me too” in reference to being worried about him, then you do not know buck at all.

also when have we seen tommy respecting anything with buck? you all live in these made up scenarios that lou blabs on cameo when in reality all we have seen is tommy constantly be dismissive towards buck unless buck is actively paying sole attention to him. that is not a perfect and healthy relationship.

tommy is constantly speaking down to buck, calling him “kid” and refusing to call buck by the name he chose for himself. that is not the sign of someone who cares about buck to me.

as for being against any relationship buck is in with s man…. give me a man who actually shows that he gives a flying fuck about buck. give me a man who isn’t constantly being condescending and rude. give me a man who’s whole backstory wasn’t as a tool to put hen and chimney through hell at the 118. if buck was dating literally any other guy i wouldn’t be anywhere near as fed up with this plotline; but the fact of the matter is we have BARELY seen anything between them that isn’t tommy being a dick to buck unless buck is kissing him. that doesn’t read as a positive and healthy relationship to me. you all claim to care about buck so much, but then actively defend everything tommy does that is rude and condescending to buck as if buck somehow deserves it.

i am capable of enjoying normal healthy adult relationships because i have watched this show for seven years. i have seen these characters drop things for emergencies. i have picked up on the patterns they have laid down in previous storylines. i have experience working in filmmaking and know how to read into things.

normally i look at these asks and laugh because i don’t like to give a platform to people like you who hide begind anon to try and make buddie shippers out to be monsters but the fact that that post hasn’t even been up for ten minutes and you already felt the need to type a whole anon ask about how wrong i am when none of what you’ve pointed out has any canonical evidence of living in the truth? i have to laugh.

the block button is free. filtering out the anti tags is free. if you’re one of my followers…. when have i ever posted anything that would make you think i was pro tommy in any way that got you to follow me in the first place?

since you sent the ask on anon and i have no way of doing it myself, i invite you to go to my page and press the block button… the anti tags exist for a reason and if you don’t wanna see anti tommy content, either filter out the tags or block my blog. simple as that.

#911 abc #911 #911 spoilers #911 on abc #911 season 7 #eddie diaz #evan buckley #buck and eddie #buddie #buddie 911 #anti tommy kinard #anti bucktommy #not anti bi buck anti tommy kinard

[sincerelyourswhistledown]

Scrolling through the colin/penelope ao3 page rn and it's crazy how little we have of dark and unhinge Colin doing everything in his power to get Penelope to marry him. LIKE THE MATERIAL IS LITERALLY RIGHT THERE. S3 is proof enough of how far he's willing to break society's rules to interact with Penelope. Breaking the law wouldn't be too much of a stretch for our little gremlins. And fine okay I get that Polin is fluff and angst BUT WE CAN SPICE IT UP A LITTLE.

DEAR LORD I'M HAVING THOUGHTS.

#polin

[810nd1]

Are BTS members aware of the readings people do on them?

And do they know about the existence of my page? 🙈

It just bothers me, okay? People have been doing readings on them since 2017. Ain’t no way they haven’t heard of anything within those 7 years. I have to check if they know in real life that people do readings on them. And if they have found my blog 😬😬

Take it lightly!!!! Like a joke!!!! I’m not that delusional to think they know about my mere existence, my Gemini mercury brain just has to ask this!!!

I’m gonna get some hate for this one 😭😭

Jin

Are you aware about the readings?

the moon rev, 6 of pentacles

Literally the card that speaks about uncovering the truth. With the 6 of pentacles. He knows but he might not be into that. He lets us do our thing. He thinks we’re just having fun and it’s harmless. Kinda like „let the kids have their fun”

Has he found my page?

the moon

Nope, he hasn’t.

Suga

Are you aware of the readings?

the moon, the empress, 7 of pentacles

He kinda knows but it’s like someone told him about it. He is more aware of the readings in the 5D but in the 3D like I said, someone might have pointed it out to him. That there are people doing tarot readings on him but he hasn’t seen them with his own eyes. He doesn’t care, he’s too focused on himself and just like Jin thinks it’s funny and allows people to have some fun.

Has he found my page?

8 of swords, 7 of pentacles

A no and a yes? I think he is aware that I’m here as a group of tarot readers that do readings on celebrities. And I am a part of that group. He has no time to actually check it and read any of these posts about him. I’m having a heart attack if one of those answers will be a yes, I will jump off of a bridge 😭😭

J Hope

Are you aware of the readings?

seven of wands, eight of wands, two of cups

Again I think he most likely hasn’t seen them but somebody told him about it. And he finds it kinda creepy when people do tarot on him but he can’t do much about it.

Has he found my page?

3 of cups, ace of cups, the high priestess rev

Maybe he saw my page somewhere or someone told him about me. Anyway he just ignored it. I hope that’s not true and he has never found me or heard of me 🤡🤡

RM

Are you aware of the readings?

ace of wands, the chariot, the sun

Yes, and probably has seen some of them. There’s a possibility he was interested in how that works that we can predict future and did some digging about that topic of cartomancy

Has he found my page?

king of swords rev, the empress rev

That’s a huge no (what a relief)

Jimin

Are you aware of the readings?

3 of swords, 4 of pentacles

Yes and he hates it. Especially the ones that invade his privacy a bit too much. He feels the need to protect himself from that but he’s angry and also kinda hopeless. He can’t really do anything about it. I don’t think he even believes that tarot is accurate. He thinks it’s just people’s fantasy of him.

Has he found my page?

7 of cups, the hierophant rev, king of cups rev

Just like Suga he might have heard about people that do tarot that’s how he knows I exist. As someone that does tarot on celebrities as a group of people, not my page alone. Besides he ignores all of us, he’s just aware that we exist.

V

Are you aware of the readings?

4 of wands, 3 of swords, the hermit

He is. V knows what we’re doing here. He might have seen some of them and liked it. The cute ones. However unfortunately he also saw the dark side of the kpop tarot tag and it hurt him. I mean he saw the readings that invade his privacy too much, like the nsfw readings or all the questions that are out of line. He isn’t angry like Jimin, he is hurt and sad that his fans do that to him. Since the day he found out what is going on he left and never came back. He has more important things to do. He pretends we don’t exist. Yeah, some of you traumatized him.

Has he found my page?

ace of cups rev, 7 of cups rev, king of cups rev

No, he hasn’t. He doesn’t let himself to see any of those readings because like I said somebody traumatized him in the past. He thinks it’s best to stay away from all of us because people just take way too much from him. He doesn’t give himself the opportunity to check any of the new readings cause it will upset him.

Jungkook

Are you aware of the readings?

6 of swords rev, queen of cups, ace of wands

Hear me out, He knows. Some of these readings annoy him greatly and those are the readings he avoids. Or more like he is trying to avoid them, he sees them and then he gets pissed. He knows some of the readings are fake but he has some trusted tarot readers whose work he enjoys to read. He just knows who does those readings with good intentions vs who has some different, not so pure intentions towards him (people that lie in readings about him or use him for money)

Has he found my page?

knight of wands rev, knight of cups rev, ace of cups rev

That’s also a strong no. Guess I won’t be taking a trip to a nearby bridge today

Bonus

Will any of the BTS members find my page? Ever?

knight of swords, the emperor, knight or wands

And that’s a yes. One of them might stumble across one of my readings. Hopefully they will like it and won’t find it creepy.

And at the bottom of the deck there’s the 8 of wands 😬😬

*opens google search*: bridges near me

#kpop tarot #bts tarot

[https-milo]

I JUST SEEN THE IZUKU INSTAGRAM POST. I need a Kirishima one pleaaaaassee!❤️❤️❤️(I ALSO LOVE YOUR PAGE!!)

AHHHH OMG TYSM!! one dating kirishima insta page coming right up!

DATING EIJIRO KIRISHIMA INSTAGRAM!

details!

instagram posts w/ comments about dating Eijiro Kirishima!

a/n OBVIOUSLY these are just pictures off of interest, reader can be however you imagine !

whos.y/n · 13w

723 likes

liked by: DYNAMIGHT, alienqueen, chargebolt.dk

whos.y/n he said we had twins, i was so confused then he pulled out these :( proud mother of two now!

tagged: redr1ot

redr1ot HEHE! im a proud father of two as well!

whos.y/n redr1ot yuh yeah! little jasper and juniper are the best ever

DYNAMIGHT his dumbass was so nervous.

redr1ot DYNAMIGHT :(

redr1ot · 13w

432 likes

liked by: DYNAMIGHT, alienqueen, cellophane

redr1ot back from the gym with my favorite person! :D

tagged: whos.y/n

whos.y/n GUYS DO NOT SPOT FOR EIJI. I LITERALLY ALMOST DIED.

redr1ot whos.y/n NO I ALMOST DIED.

whos.y/n redr1ot MAYBE YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE PUT SO MUCH WEIGHT, ALMOST DROP IT, AND HAVE ME AS YOUR SPOT???

alienqueen trip to the gym almost ended in a trip to the hospital

whos.y/n · 6w

834 likes

liked by: alienqueen, uravity_, earphonejack

whos.y/n netflix and chill but the monsters inc. slipper stay ON.

tagged: redr1ot

redr1ot MR AIZAWA IS GONNA SEE THIS. CHANGE THE CAPTION HELP

whos.y/n redr1ot i have him blocked specifically for this reason

alienqueen oh okay...

redr1ot · 4w

621 likes

liked by: alienqueen, cellophane, DYNAMIGHT

redr1ot kaminari called me "down bad" for taking this, but how can I not be when she looks like this???

tagged: whos.y/n

whos.y/n eiji :'( (i look so bad in that, i love you sm but why would you post this??)

redr1ot whos.y/n noooo you look so pretty baby!!

alienqueen y/n stronger than me, if my man posted this I'd be on the local news

whos.y/n alienqueen if it was literally anyone else I would be too. he's the exception 🙄

whos.y/n · 1w

884 likes

liked by: alienqueen, uravity_, DYNAMIGHT

whos.y/n i accidently got lipstick on him and he said "nono keep going!" so uh yeah guys, planning our wedding rn actually!

tagged: redr1ot

redr1ot its like a badge of honor! now everyone knows I have the best girlfriend ever!

whos.y/n redr1ot hey siri, can you get married at 15 in japan. answer quick

cellophane these two actually make me pysically sick...

whos.y/n cellophane hey oliva rodrigo made a song about you!

cellophane whos.y/n i am not jealous 🖕🖕

© https-milo. please do not repost, steal, copy, or modify my works!

Thank you so much for reading <3

#mha #my hero academia #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha x reader #mha x reader #my hero academia x reader #xreader #anime #anime x reader #mha smau #eijiro kirishima #kirishima x reader #eijiro kirishima x reader #kirishima #mha kirishima #kirishima smau #eijiro x reader #mha eijiro

[odoraful]

sneak peek at my next love & deepspace fic 😳 it's an au where zayne and fem!reader grow up together based on a request ! it's definitely getting up there in terms of word count, but here's a snippet from a moment in highschool:

Zayne never wished to draw attention to himself, but it seemed to follow him regardless. He preferred to keep his head in a book (study book, sketchbook or otherwise), and he sometimes wished his fellow peers would do the same. Instead, he was the choice of conversation among the cohorts for being an enigma. Teenagers were not the most subtle people, and whispers would follow everywhere he walked. He made mental notes of what was being said. After all, those who were quiet were often the most observant.  

“He’s the one who skipped a year right?” No, that isn’t true. 

“One year? I thought it was two!” That would be more accurate. 

“The serious guy with glasses?” At least they know what I look like.

“I heard that he thinks he’s better than everyone.” Now that really isn’t true. 

“No way… is that why he’s a loner?” A loner…?

“Doesn’t he always hang out with that one girl though?”

He stopped spinning his pen around his fingers. Study period was usually the time where people would get updated on the latest news. His focus pulled away from his notes to the conversation happening behind his seat. The irony of the situation was not lost on Zayne, people were quite literally talking about him behind his back. Careful to not signal that he was eavesdropping, Zayne began to write on his page, summarising information from the textbook. Unfortunately, the pair had become more hushed, and he could barely make out what was being said. One word did slip from the conversation, however. Said in a surprised, high-pitched tone: your name. 

“Shh! Not so loud!” One of them scolded. 

Zayne quietly sighed, the breath slipping out between his lips. He got up, making little effort to subdue the sound of the chair’s legs scraping against the floorboards. After packing things away in his bag, he strode past the table behind him, the people seated there already peeking at him leaving. He levelled a look at them as he walked, adjusting his glasses. The students turned further inwards, completely blocking any prying eyes and ears. He casted the interaction aside. It was almost the end of school day anyway, which meant he could finally meet with you. 

#odorawrites #i have not forgotten about writing for love and deepspace you'd have to pry these blorbos from my cold dead hands #this fic is getting longer than i originally thought but i'm enjoying the process! #thinking of writing a quick drabble soon about painting each other's nails with all the LIs just to take a step back from this :) #zayne x reader #zayne love and deepspace

[marshslovedone]

can i request a nsfw christophe hc?? love all your stuff! was just peeping around your page and noticed your requests were on! have a good day 🖤🖤

yess tysm babes, I hope u have a good day as well 💘

Christophe general NSFW headcanons

CW: F!reader, smoking, anal sex, cuffs, boobs mentioned, threesome mentions, hair pulling, dacryphilia, ruined makeup, cow girl position, public sex, vanilla sex mentioned, doggy style mentioned aftercare!!

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

christophe smokes while you have sex im sorry,, don’t worry he won’t get ashes on your :3

while you two have anal sex, christophe has one hand on your waist and the other cigarette in hand,,

When he’s done with the cigarette he soon pulls your hair to make you look at him,, he gets off of ur teary face.

He fucks your harder and faster if it was even possible :3

there are nights where you sneak out to Christophe’s truck and drive out of South Park to the city and just drive around the city but soon stop at a secluded place and get in the trunk of the truck and then fuck each other

You two do all different positions, vanilla, doggy style, and Christophe’s most favorited, cow girl

Christophe LOVES seeing our boobs bounce as he bounces in you!!

He loves seeing you bounce on his big dick. The way your mascara runs down your face face

Plus the way you moan and grip his shoulders or your hands on his chest he ADORES it

He loves slapping your ass while in cowgirl position or doggy style.

Even though you two are in a secluded area, Christophe likes when you moan your heart out and make people look in the secluded area with confusion

Besides all that aftercare with him is AMAZING

He’s better at it than what you think??

He will literally have a wet towel to clean you and a bottle of water along with food to give to you

He makes sure you’re all warm before climbing in the sheets to cuddle you.

He loves to hold you by your waist as he smokes a cigarette, he makes sure you’re on top of him with a blanket as he blows the smoke away from you and kisses u on the head <3

#south park #south park fanfiction #south park x reader #south park x y/n #south park x reader smut #south park smut #Smut #christophe’s smoke break #christophe the mole smut #christophe x you #christophe the mole x reader #christophe x reader #christophe the mole #christophe

[fanaticsnail]

Hi, Anon who begged to keep yamato here!! I'd say Izou and Cavendish would be the most appropriate. (Your question didn't come across as offensive at all to me, so no worries! It's better that you asked than just assuming.)

Prior discussion here.

I wholeheartedly agree with you here. He absolutely belongs in the with these other gorgeous gentleman if I do include him in the Dreaming of You fics. I would never want to misgender him, nor offend the local trans community here. My aim for my page is welcoming to however you personally identify. We all are here because we love reading fics for One Piece, and nobody should be made to feel unwelcome.

I've been doing serious deep dives and research into the One Piece fandom, and while I would love to write this style of fic for him - it's been a serious point of contention and outright aggression within the fandom. It's, quite literally, a bloodbath out there. This addition alone on the One Piece Wiki is insane, and that's just one of the sources I've been looking at.

I feel like I would be more comfortable writing a sfw solo fic for him to start with. Shower him with a mad flurry of peppered kisses, spar with him, crawl into his lap, dote on him like the handsome man he is than dive straight into the realms of smut. He deserves so much more than a simple dream, and I'm sorry if that disappoints you. I adore Yamato so much, I want to do right by him.

Thank you to @discordantwritings, @remisloves, @writingcrustacean & you, Anon, for your support and guidance with this. I really appreciate your kindness and your wonderful informative words about this sensitive topic. Love you guys, you're amazing.

#ask snail #snail answers #yamato #one piece

[dreamingofmarauders]

For My Eyes Only

Sirius Black x Fem!Reader

Summary: In which you have a secret a certain Marauder wants to know, or more specifically, Sirius wants to get his hands on that diary you're always writing in.

Warnings: Parents divorcing, sad feelings but should be mainly fluff (also sort of, invasion of privacy? You'll see what I mean)

Word Count: 2.4k

A/N: I literally just finished this but I really loved this idea, although I started this oneshot months back but I never got back to it, due to which I forgot what the original plot was but I wrote this and I love it! I hope you like it too! Enjoy! <33

.·:*¨¨* ≈☆≈ *¨¨*:·.

“Why does L/n always have that book with her?” Sirius questioned one late autumn evening, as he sat with the boys who were all in sixth year now.

“Who?” Peter questioned clueless.

“L/n.” Sirius said, pointing across the room at you. You were too lost writing into your diary that you didn’t realize the four biggest mischievous boys at Hogwarts were talking about none other than you. Sirius had noticed that since the beginning of the school year, you always wrote in your journal in the evenings.

“Leave Y/n be, Padfoot.” Remus commented, “Let Y/n be at peace.”

“Hey, I was just curious, that’s all!” Sirius exclaimed, appalled.

Remus rolled his eyes, “And we all know how that goes.” This earned a deep chuckle from James, making Sirius glare at him.

“Shut up.”

Sirius returned his gaze to you, watching you scribble into your diary with a fond smile. He knew you through Lily Evans and you two were sort of friends, but as he gazed at you writing away in that y/f/c journal, he knew that he wouldn’t rest until he got his hands on it. After all, once Sirius Black was intrigued, he was unstoppable.

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

You were writing away in your diary, pouring out all your heart. The happy things, the sad things, the in between things. That is until you felt a shadow loom over you, and you hastily snapped your diary shut and turned around. Sirius groaned, his shoulders slumping in defeat, as he was not able to get a glance of the page, before he masked that behind his confidence.

"Hey there, L/n. What are you writing in that little thing?"

You felt your cheeks heat up before you cleared your throat, standing up with an air of determination.

"That Sirius is for my eyes only, and not your business." You gave him a sweet smile and walked away, leaving Sirius gazing after your retreating figure.

"Run all you want Y/n but you can't escape me."

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

“Hey, pretty girl.”

You flinched at the new voice, cheeks warming as the words registered in your head. You turned to find Sirius sitting beside you, his hand cradling his chin as he winked at you.

“You wouldn’t mind having me as your Potions partner, would you, darling?”

You blinked owlishly, your heart fluttering at the name. “Why me, Sirius?”

Sirius let out a loud and dramatic sigh, “Well you see dearest Y/n, Remus is mad at me for eating his chocolate.” Your gaze flickered to the desk behind you, the said boy clenching his jaw as he glared at Sirius. “And James has already partnered with Peter, on purpose too, I really hate him sometimes.” He muttered the last part as you turned to look at the back of the class, where James and Peter were seated together, James sticking his tongue out at his best mate to which Sirius flipped him off.

“So that leaves me to sit with you. Plus you’re a intelligent and pretty girl.” Sirius finished, watching as you blushed.

“Oh- Oh, I see.” You answered, eyes flying to the chalkboard as Slughorn began to speak, for which you were thankful for as anymore of Sirius’ teasing and your soul would leave your body.

Once the Potions Master had explained the lesson for the day, the class got to their feet as they were to prepare a potion.

“I’ll got get the ingredients while you set up the cauldron.” You instructed, giving Sirius a gentle smile before walking away.

Sirius, with a sly grin playing on his lips, swiftly set up the cauldron, before slipping his hand into your bag. Once he found what he was looking for, he glanced your way and when he was sure you were still busy, Sirius cast alohomora on the lock and flipped open the journal to a random page.

Dear Diary,

I feel so hollow and empty. My parents are divorcing and worst of all, I have to live with my mother. She did love me once but ever since we all found out I was a witch, she’s changed. My father's love never wavered and I really want to live with him but on his own, he can barely keep himself up financially, and I can’t burden him with myself. Even though I recently got a job, it won’t be much help.

I return to school soon so with that I can at least breathe a sigh of relief, but I can’t burden Lily and the girls with my problems either but at least I’ll be happy for the time being.

Until next time.

Love,

Y/n

Sirius felt his heart twist. You seemed to be such a great person and yet you were hiding so much behind that warm smile of yours. Sirius quickly locked the diary and closed your bag, straightening just in time for you to return to him.

“Here we are.” You stated, setting the supplies down on the table in front of the pair of you. “Shall we start?” You gently asked, although cocking your head slightly to the side when Sirius didn’t respond but was merely staring at you.

“Sirius?”

He shook his head slowly. “Hm, yeah, let’s start.”

Throughout the rest of the lesson, Sirius would gaze at you in thought from time to time, and his stomach twisted with small guilt for having read through your diary when it truly was private. But that incident merely intrigued the boy more about you.

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

Sirius found himself thinking more about you over the next while, and knowing what you were going through, he began to spend more time with you. After all, he understood what it was like to not receive love from your own, and to be treated differently for not being like everyone else.

At first you had found it suspicious, just like you had in potions the other day, after all you had caught Sirius trying to read your personal diary before then. However you later on realized that Sirius was just trying to spend time with you, even if you were a bit baffled to as to why, because while the two of you were sort of friends, the pair of you had never spent much time together, so this was very new. But you went along with it, finding the time with Sirius enjoyable.

Sirius tried his best to make you laugh, relishing in the feeling when he heard your beautiful laughter, or smirking at you whenever he managed to make you blush with one of his pet names. However, it was that beautiful and captivating smile of yours that made him feel that his heart had stopped beating.

Merlin, what had started out as an attempt to read your diary after his curiosity had been piqued, led to Sirius being absolutely smitten with the beauty called Y/n L/n.

One late evening, after running away from Filch and having evaded detention, Sirius entered the common room only to find you fast asleep on the couch. His lips turned upwards at the sight and he walked over to your sleeping form, bending down in front of the couch as he admired you.

Realizing you had fallen asleep while attempting to complete a school assignment, Sirius very gently shook you by the shoulder, wanting you to sleep well in your bed rather than the couch whilst surrounded by your school textbooks and parchments and quills.

Your eyelids fluttered open at last, y/e/c coloured eyes flitting about as you blinked a few times, before your gaze landed on Sirius and it softened.

“Sirius?”

“It’s me, love.” He answered, stroking your hair, “I hate waking you up but I’d rather you go sleep in your bed, darling.” He told you, a very warm expression sitting upon his face.

You softly smiled, nodding as you lightly squeezed his hand in gratitude before standing up and trying to gather your things as quick as possible. Once done, you turned to Sirius and shot him your warm smile once again.

“Goodnight, Sirius.”

He returned the gesture.

“Goodnight, Y/n.”

You turned on your heels and began your ascension up the stairs leading to your dormitory. Sirius watched you go before he made a move to leave. However, something caught his attention from the corner of his eye and he halted.

There, lying tucked into one corner, was your diary.

Sirius glanced back at the stairs of the girls dormitory, before his grey eyes flickered back to the journal.

He knew he shouldn’t but now he wanted to make sure if you were doing better.

So, letting his curiosity win over his guilt, Sirius once again, broke through your lock and flipped open onto your last diary entry. Nothing could have prepared the young Black for what he was about to read.

Dear Diary,

Things have been better but also sort of… weird? The good news is that perhaps I can move in with my father for when I return home for the summer.

Then there’s also Sirius.

He’s so sweet and kind, and although the flirting is constant, he makes me smile and I feel so happy around him.

At that, Sirius smiled to himself, glad he could brighten your days.

But, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I think I’m going mad. Sirius Black may as well be the death of me. He makes me feel things I shouldn’t. He smiles at me, my stomach erupts with butterflies. He laughs, my heart flutters. He gives me a cheeky wink, I go weak in the knees. He licks his lips and I can’t help but imagine how they would taste.

Oh Merlin, help me, I feel something that’s more than friends for Sirius and it’s driving me insane. I can’t afford to ruin everything with my feelings, I don’t want to lose our friendship but my heart is making everything so much more hard.

Oh Godric, help me.

I’ll write again if Sirius’ charm doesn’t claim my life before that.

Love,

Y/n

Sirius stared at the page in utter disbelief. He couldn’t believe what he had just read. These were words written by you about how you felt regarding him. Sirius could not understand how such an amazing girl like yourself could feel about him like this.

Footsteps began to echo around the common room and in a panic, Sirius snapped shut the diary, head turning in time to find you walking back down the stairs.

When you had gone up to your dormitory, after rummaging through your bag, you came to the realization that you had left your diary back in the common room. What you had not expected was to find Sirius in the common room with your diary in his hand.

“Sirius?”

“Y/n.” He said, standing up. He watched you walk over to him, a nervousness setting onto your face.

“I left something here so-“

You cut off as Sirius wordlessly lifted his hand, holding your diary out which you gently took from him.

“Thank you.”

You made a move to leave but Sirius caught your wrist, freezing you on the spot.

“Tell me it’s not true.” He said, making you turn around with slightly rounded eyes.

“What?”

“Tell me that what you wrote in your diary isn’t true. Tell me you don’t feel more for me than just friends.”

Your breath hitched in your throat.

“Sirius, I…” You sighed, “I can’t.” You uttered out, watching Sirius’ eyes widen. “I can’t lie to you. You make me feel so special and-“

You cut off as Sirius placed his lips on yours, pulling you close to himself by your waist. Your grip on your diary slackened and it fell to the floor with a thud, as your arms went to wrap themselves around his neck.

It was just as you had imagined but even better and it was just you and him, and it was just perfect.

You both finally pulled apart after minutes, panting as you pressed your foreheads together.

“Go out with me?” Sirius asked, icy grey eyes gazing lovingly into yours. Sirius melted upon seeing the biggest smile grace your lips at that question.

“Of course.” You replied before Sirius pulled you in for another kiss.

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

Dear Diary,

It's crazy really that a few years have passed since I graduated out of Hogwarts with my best friends, we all have our own jobs and lives now, but what's even crazier is that I'm finally married!

Never would I have thought that one day I would be in love and happily married to Sirius Black. If someone had told my younger self that, I would have laughed at them.

The ceremony was today, a perfect day too with the sun shining down, a slight breeze, the bird chirping as Sirius and I exchanged our vows in the presence of our friends and family. I couldn't be happier.

You felt an arm wrap around your waist as someone placed their chin on your shoulder.

"What's my darling wife doing?"

You smiled at that.

Wife.

You were officially Sirius' wife.

The thought made you giddy.

"Ah." Sirius clicked his tongue, "You're writing in your diary."

You didn't reply but instead resumed scribbling on the page.

I'd love to write more but I'm afraid my very annoying husband is disrupting-

"Hey!" Sirius exclaimed in mock offence, "Since when did I become annoying?" He paused, a sly grin sliding onto his lips, "You don't complain when I'm giving you a kiss or more." He said, earning an eye roll from you but even Sirius could feel that you were merely hiding a smile.

I'd love to write more but I'm afraid my very annoying charming husband is disrupting, I believe he wants to go to bed, it's been a long day after all, but a day I would love to relive everyday if I could.

Love,

Y/n Black

"I still can't believe you took my last name."

You closed your diary, putting it away before turning around in Sirius' arms, your arms going to lock behind his neck.

"Of course I would." You lovingly answered, gazing at him with adoration, "It's a part of your identity and I would love nothing more than to be called Mrs. Black." You told him, placing a kiss on his cheek before looking back into his eyes.

Sirius looked at you with such love and tenderness that you melted.

"I love you so much, Mrs. Black."

Your lips turned up into a graceful yet enchanting smile.

"I love you too, Mr. Black."

•❅───✧❅✦❅✧───❅•

#harry potter #marauders #wizarding world #marauders era #sirius black #fanfiction #dreamingofmarauders #james potter #remus lupin #sirius black fluff #sirius black fanfiction #sirius black x fem!reader #sirius black x y/n #sirius orion black #sirius x reader #sirius black x reader #sirius x you #the marauders #secret diary #Sirius orion black x reader #its me serina #hogwarts #hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry #gryffindor #i really like this one #hope you are doing well #enjoy <3

[butterflydm]

wot reread: crossroads of twilight (prologue - chap 9)

spoilers through... mostly crossroads of twilight (I have to admit that my brain is not certain where CoT ends and KoD begins; they kinda blur together).

wish me luck.

1. The opening quotation literally sounds like Jordan is saying to us all: Slog Time is in full swing! “The right hand falters and the left hand strays”. No, this is the tenth book in the series why are you doing this to me. That being said... I guess I will say that Perrin is the hand that falters and Mat is the hand that strays, even though it should be the other way around because Mat was absolutely Rand’s right-hand man.

2. So, imo, one of the main issues that happened during the Slog was that Jordan started these new subplots back in LoC/ACoS and then... lost sight of what the narrative PURPOSE of the subplots were supposed to be and started just writing them for their own sake, as if they were the main plots. Perrin’s ‘kidnapped wife’ subplot straight-up shouldn’t have happened at all but, if it did, it should have been wrapped up in a single book. What his actual plot should have been about was the tension of killing or not killing Masema, which is a question that actually goes to the heart of Perrin’s characterization and his place as one of Rand’s childhood friends!

Is it okay to kill a dangerous man who isn’t a threat to you personally but has caused enormous destruction in his wake? Very relevant question, because lots of people want to kill or control RAND because he’s a dangerous man who brings destruction in his wake. The only Perrin pages that I will consider relevant are the ones dealing with this issue, thanks! Everything else can (and should, in the TV series) be tossed away.

3. Mat’s subplot losing its way is actually worse, because Winter’s Heart gave us some strong narrative promises about him and left him off on a relatively exciting note... and then we immediately slow everything down in this book when his plot would have been much better served by a quick pace, focusing on the elements that Winter’s Heart told us would matter: Seanchan characters questioning their empire, the issue of the sul’dam, and the future slaver empress being a woman who is capable of channeling but being destined to marry a man who (last book) despises slavery and is wary of women who can channel, literally her two main things. In Mat’s storyline, I’m also going to be keeping an eye on characterization reversals from previous books.

4. We basically skipped Egwene last book, so this should now be the book where she does the siege of Tar Valon; this is also the book where Elayne is going to defend Caemlyn against a mysterious army. Those are the two things that the narrative told us last book would happen. I feel like Elayne probably holds up her end of the narrative deal; she usually does. But we’ll see! CoT & KoD really merge together in my brain and I’m not certain what happens in which of the books. But both Elayne and Egwene have kept their eyes on the prize so far -- Elayne on securing rulership of Andor and Egwene on securing rulership of the Aes Sedai, both tasks that need to be accomplished for the Last Battle, so honestly they both get gold stars simply because they haven’t gotten distracted away from the main plot of this story: defeating the Dark One at the Last Battle.

5. We don’t know what Rand and Nynaeve’s plans are for after the cleansing, only that they were both really tired and Cadsuane was being creepy and possessive of Rand at the end of Winter’s Heart. Their storyline moved ahead of everyone else’s at the end of the last book, so we will also see everyone else catch up to them in this book, probably.

6. And now we dive into the prologue. This is the other place where the Slog comes into play: too many random PoVs. Some of these are worthwhile and some of them just felt kinda pointless. Though, ironically, all of them are probably better (and much more succinct) than Mat and Perrin’s plotlines in this book, lol, which I’m basically tossing in the bin.

7. Rodel Ituralde has received his letter from his King via “Lady Tuva” which is actually from Graendal. What happens: he’s waiting. We do learn some info about how he is trying to hold Arad Doman together by the skin of his teeth. It’s been “less than a month” since the weather changed. We learn that he’s been getting odd orders from the King (who is in hiding) for months. How many of those orders were actually from Graendal, I wonder. Yeah, it sounds like pretty much all the orders were from Graendal, as Ituralde thinks with despair, “the orders the King sent could not have been better written to achieve chaos”. This is the fruits of Graendal’s labor during the LoC-WH era.

8. Ituralde has taken the letter as an opportunity to meet under a flag of peace (the “White Ribbon”) with Lord Shimron, who used to be one of the King’s advisors but turned Dragonsworn and sits high among the Dragonsworn in Arad Doman (and the Dragonsworn rule by council, which is interesting). He wants to set against his differences with the Dragonsworn to unite against the Seanchan invaders. Oh goodness, yes. I absolutely approve. Please unite against the Seanchan. Would love for Arad Doman to be a bulwark against them going any further to the north, just as Rand is holding Illian to stop them going any further east. Ah, the exact words of the letter are to ‘gather as many men as he can and strike against the Seanchan’. I am assuming Graendal did NOT think he would consider offering truce to the Dragonsworn and was just hoping to feed the Arad Domani army into a meatgrinder. The Dragonsworn here are both Arad Domani and Taraboner and the ones from Tarabon are VERY unhappy about the puppet King and Panarch that the Seanchan have placed on the throne in their home country. This is a good section. Worth all 15 pages. I also really appreciated us getting a chance to see Dragonsworn (who aren’t under Rand’s direct control) who also aren’t cultists like Masema’s people or using it as an excuse to be bandits. Lord Shimron and the people with him are shown to be very principled; they’ve just decided that following the Dragon is a higher calling than following their King.

9. Valda PoV and catching up with the Whitecloaks. This is literally just reminding us of things we already know about Valda and the Whitecloaks. Unnecessary. 5 pages we didn’t need. He’s bitter about the Seanchan taking the Fortress of Light - yeah, duh, of course he is. I just kinda assumed that.

10. And we’re with Gabrelle and the Black Tower now. We don’t learn anything particularly new. Taim and Logain are still at opposite sides of the Black Tower conflict. Only two weeks have passed in this storyline since we last checked in with Toveine. We could have covered this in maybe 3 pages, for the new info about Logain going recruiting.

11. Yukiri in the White Tower. The rumors are all worrying Yukiri, one of the Sisters in the White Tower, especially the ones about Rand vanishing (she wonders if Elaida’s proclamation is to blame). Anyway, Yukiri is one of the Sitters who was drawn into the Black Ajah Hunters plotline, so I’m inclined to like her part. She’s working now with one of the Gray sisters who was sent back to the Tower to spread the rumors about the Reds having raising up Logain as a False Dragon. Things have gotten even worse in the Tower, with sisters not leaving their Ajah quarters alone and always wearing their shawls. They have three names of other Black Ajah sisters from Talene: Atuan (Yellow Ajah), Galina (Red Ajah; in charge of Rand’s kidnapping and now a slave to the Shaido), and Temaile (Gray; left the Tower with Liandrin’s bunch,  currently in Caemlyn). Of them, only Atuan is in the Tower still. In order to figure out why everything Elaida knows is also known by the Black Ajah, Yukiri asks the sister to renew her old (30 years ago) friendship with Elaida. We also learn that Alviarin abruptly left the Tower yesterday. Most of this section is good and useful; I would take out the scene about the “weird Sitters” mystery.

12. Gawyn with the Sisters in the village outside Tar Valon. Gawyn is aware that standing aside the way he did and letting Rand be hurt is something that Egwene would need to ‘forgive’. Gawyn thinks about how he should have gone home (to Caemlyn) once he returned to Tar Valon and found all his Younglings expelled from the city proper. Yes, that would have been a good idea. Your loyalty is supposed to be to Caemlyn and your sister, and you know that wherever Elayne is and whatever she’s doing, she is NOT in the Tower and neither is Egwene. In fact, your most recent news for BOTH of them is that they’re loyal to Rand (since Gawyn doesn’t about Amyrlin Egwene yet). Yet he tells himself that MAYBE Elayne IS in the White Tower and arrived while he was gone, despite there being absolutely no reason for him to think that. Ah, the rebel army has arrived at the threshold of Tar Valon, we learn. And Gawyn straight-up learns from one of the newly arrived Tower Red sisters that Elayne is on the same side as the rebels and yet... stays to hear Elaida’s orders for him instead . I need @markantonys here to explain to me what goes on inside this man’s head. Because he believes that he must be loyal to the White Tower for Elayne and Egwene’s sake even though he now knows Elayne is ‘with the rebels’ and was last aware that Egwene was with Rand (or I think she left him a letter, so he probably knows she had a ~mysterious task~ but she was definitely on Rand’s side so)... I just don’t understand how this leads to “obey Elaida’s orders”? Is it decision paralysis? He can’t make a choice so he just defaults to the thing that’s in front of his face?

13. Bashere outside Caemlyn with the Legion of the Dragon. He’s studying the newly-erected camps of that army that Elayne was warned about last book -- he can spot soldiers who belong to both of the two main rival claimants to the throne of Andor, Neaen and Elenia but, more intriguingly, the banner being flown near the banner of Andor is one for a lady named Arymilla, who wasn’t considered a serious claimant. Oh! The spy-glass that he’s using was a gift from Rand. That’s sweet. I actually do think Bashere makes for a good general for Rand, but he was also good as a co-general with Mat, from what we saw of the Sammael plan, so I do really mourn that he basically ended up being Mat’s replacement*. But as an individual character and for what he brings to the story, I appreciate him a lot. But, anyway, Caemlyn has been surrounded by this army, with all the main roads out of the city covered. It’s actually an interesting narrative reversal of what we should find in Egwene’s story, once we get there! Elayne is being besieged and Egwene is besieging.

* technically, Mat is replaced by the combination of Bashere + Min, I would say. Bashere for the general expertise and being a “man Rand would trust with his life” and Min for being the person who is there for Rand emotionally (and to carry a lot of knives on their person). Though as my reread has shown to me, Min is TERRIBLE at this job, with all her secrets from Rand and spilling Rand’s secrets to other people and her ominous visions of the future. Hilariously, Mat - who has an undeserved (at this point in the story) fandom reputation for having ‘abandoned’ Rand - was much better at being a friend, a confidant, and a comfort to him than Min has been shown to be. Maybe because he wasn’t just pretending to be Rand’s friend in order to try to angle his way into Rand’s bed. Maybe because Rand understood Mat well enough from their years of friendship that he rarely took Mat’s outer shell as seriously as most of the other characters do. Probably some of both. But Mat actually kept Rand’s secrets for him, provided comfort in the way that Rand told us he preferred at the time (sit quietly next to him as he processes and let him work through it), and, though he grumbled and complained, he always did his best to be there when the chips were down.

14. Bael is annoyed that the Legion of the Dragon and the Aiel forces are just being straight-up ignored by this army, and Bashere reminds him that Elayne doesn’t want them to interfere, which means Rand doesn’t want them to interfere. Which means that the heads of Rand’s armies here both know that he has feelings for Elayne. I kinda assume they must also know that he’s sleeping with Min but they don’t reference her at all, so I wonder if Min being openly Rand’s mistress is just straight-up a Cairhien-only affair and none of his people in Caemlyn know about it. And the Wise Ones, of course, know about Aviendha/Rand/Elayne due to the first-sister ceremony, given that Aviendha and Elayne openly talked about their feelings for Rand in the ceremony. Again, Min is left out of the matter here so... hmm. Let me double-check something in Winter’s Heart. Yeah, they don’t mention Min in their first-sister ceremony when talking about Rand. It really does feel like there are two entirely separate sets of relationships here: Rand/Elayne/Aviendha and Rand/Min.

15. Bashere thinks about how this sort of civil war, even a bloodless version, wouldn’t be possible in Saldaea, due to the Blight always being over their shoulder. Better a tyrant than civil war, is the way that thinking runs in Saldaea, because the country has to stay united in order to fend off Shadowspawn and the Blight to their north. We have seen inklings of this kind of thought appearing earlier in this prologue, with Ituralde reaching out to the Dragonsworn because the danger of the Seanchan is so great. Better unite with Dragonsworn, even if that costs his king his crown, than allow their country to be taken by the Seanchan.

16. Bashere comes back to his tent to learn that his wife, Deira, has just survived an attack. He notes that they’re considered odd among Saldaeans because they rarely shout at each other. Then why does Faile... moving on. Anyway, they tease each other a lot, mostly, and talk lightly of serious matters. But, yes, an assassination attempt on Bashere’s wife. Then he, mysteriously, tells Tumad to go to the “man who came to me yesterday” and tell him that Bashere agrees to whatever it was that he’d asked. Clearly something related to why someone tried to kill Deira. This is also a good section of the prologue.

17. Before I even read this next section, I am going to say that 30 pages given to one of Cadsuane’s companions is just TOO MANY. This is too many pages of a side character’s PoV! Anyway, Cadsuane “left a week ago” so Rand is currently still in Far Madding during this section of the prologue. Samitsu’s purpose in Cairhien is to keep an eye on the politics. Nothing in this is relevant at all until Loial and Karldin show up: we know that Dobraine is keeping an eye on Cairhien for Rand. I don’t care what Cadsuane’s flunky thinks about the situation. Dobraine is literally doing exactly the job that Rand set for him -- running the city and making sure that there’s enough support for Elayne that her claim should settle into place easily once she makes it. I approve of Rand choosing Stewards for the cities under his rule but this one should have been Berelain. She was doing a GOOD JOB and she got kicked out because Rand started to feel too much lust for her now that he had an on-site girlfriend, so he demoted and dismissed a good proxy ruler for being too pretty and replaced her with a man. I will never not be mad about this plot/character development. #BerelainDeservedBetter

18. Okay, Loial comes back into the story, along with Karldin. They went off to let the steddings know that the Dragon Reborn wanted all the Waygates possible to be sealed, because the Shadow is using them to move troops. The PoV character is still Samitsu, but one of Rand’s oathsworn Aes Sedai is also here to talk to them, Sashalle, who is Red Ajah and was one of the three sisters stilled by Rand at Dumai’s Wells and then healed by Damar Flinn. Sashalle sounds like a true believer in Rand now (potentially helped along by Verin’s Compulsion).

19. Loial and Karldin are looking for Rand, of course, and worrying over the tales about what happened to the Sun Palace. They’re able to get some reassurance from Samitsu and Sashalle on that regard -- Rand has left but he is not the one who destroyed the palace. We then find out from the servants that Lord Dobraine was murdered. The group of four investigates. He’s almost dead but there is a faint flicker of life, Normal Aes Sedai healing would kill him from the shock of it. She is able to heal him enough to close the worst of the wounds without the shock of healling killing him, but he will need to heal the rest of it the normal way. It looks like the people who tried to kill Dobraine were planning to steal something that he was keeping (probably for Rand?) and might have successfully stolen it, as Loial and Karldin wonder if there were more than two attackers (there are two bodies). We end on the news that a group of Sisters and Asha’man have entered the city, led by Logain.

It does sound like every single PoV in the prologue has been pre-cleansing. Honestly, most of these PoVs were pretty useful, though a couple seemed pointless and several could have been shorter. Maybe the prologues in The Slog got a bad rap and it’s really all Mat and Perrin dragging everything down.

20. Now we enter the book proper and we are in Mat’s PoV. As a reminder, these characters were established as strongly ANTI-SLAVERY/Anti-Seanchan in Winter’s Heart:

Mat (one of his main pieces of characterization in WH)

Setalle Anan (one of her only pieces of characterization in WH)

Juilin (mostly for the sake of his ladylove)

Noal (believes slavery is worse than death)

Teslyn, Joline & Edesina (for obvious reasons)

Thom (helps Beslan plot rebellion against the Seanchan)

Beslan (despises the Seanchan for invading his city). he’s not present but he’s also not dead, so I’m including him

These characters are strongly Oh Shit, Gotta Save My Own Skin/It’s All About Me:

Renna, Seta, & Bethamin (slaves if the Truth Were Known)

Egeanin (same but for her actions and not inherently who she is)

Domon (wants to be free to marry Egeanin)

These characters are strongly pro-slavery:

Tuon (dormant marath’damane)

And we have Selucia, who is a slave. Because Tuon was allowed to bring her slave along with her, which was our first hint on-page that the narrative planned to pull its punches with Tuon, back in WH. Why would you bring her slave along with her? Literally only to coddle her. Why are we coddling the slaver? The narrative doesn’t get into it enough in Winter’s Heart for it to stand out what a bizarre choice it is for Mat to give Tuon the indulgence of bringing along her slave during her kidnapping when he’s actively helping freed slaves escape at that very moment, but it really stands out once we get into Crossroads of Twilight.

Characters who didn’t express strong feelings about slavery in WH:

Olver (only cared about boobs the entire book; did not appear to have noticed that Ebou Dar was ever invaded at all)

Mat’s remaining Band members (mostly just yes-men at this point, sadly)

21. I am not going to go over the majority of Mat’s chapters, since this is a pointless side-quest, but I am keeping tracking of certain items -- every time Tuon refuses to use Mat’s name, every time she acts like a spoiled brat, every time she reminds us that she’s a slaver, and every time one of the actual good things from Winter’s Heart (or previous books) is undermined or reversed. Apart from that, things of note in the first four chapters:

It’s been six days since the night of the escape.

Mat has been thinking a lot about just taking a horse and riding away from the circus as quickly as he can manage it.

He’s depressed about how many Atha’an Miere were killed or recaptured by the Seanchan.

“Oh no one has cut off slaves’ feet for hundreds of years... well, not many people currently cut off their slaves’ feet and we frown at them for doing it. We don’t punish them but we kinda frown.” (paraphrased)

No alarm was raised for Tuon’s disappearance.

Mat still doesn’t want to be married.

Why didn’t Mat and ALUDRA pretend to be lovers instead of Mat and Egeanin? I guess Aludra was already with the circus but still. Didn’t... didn’t the circus see him coming to visit her before? Hadn’t he ALREADY made an arrangement with Luca?

Olver shows a single vague hint of concern that the Seanchan might catch them, so he is aware that they are not on the same side as the Seanchan, at least.

Utterly UTTERLY bizarre that Mat thinks of Selucia as a ‘lady’s maid’ when he knows damn well that she’s a slave. I guess we’re supposed to assume that he’s in denial that his future wife is a slave-owner who actively has a slave with her right now? But if that’s the case, then the narrative needs to have him confront that denial at some point.

Tylin is dead! 💖 It was a horrible and painful death! 💖💖 Best thing that’s happened in this book so far. I’m glad she was an exception to Jordan’s Can’t Kill A Woman thing.

Why does the book act like Joline hasn’t had a collar on her? She had to be collared in order to escape the city; this fact was repeated earlier in Mat’s recap. Sure, it wasn’t the same, since she knew (well, ‘knew’) that she would be let out again, but she HAS been collared and linked to a sul’dam. iirc, I remember that Nynaeve wanted to sick up the second she put on the bracelet on and wouldn’t let Elayne wear the collar even as part of a plan, even as a fake, back in TGH.

...does Mat not know about the sul’dam secret? It kinda seems like he doesn’t. Rand didn’t seem to know it back in TPoD either. The Wondergirls have known since book TWO, this should be common knowledge among all their allies! Lack of communication kills! I love the Wondergirls but they really only are good at communicating with each other and don’t tell anyone else shit.

Ah, we get fixed in time again: Joline wanted to talk to him because they can feel immense amounts of the Power at work and they’re certain it’s the Forsaken: the cleansing is happening. Mat isn’t worried though because after she mentions it, he gets a vision of Rand (and Nynaeve, but Mat only picks up on the fact that it’s Rand and the other person is just the figure of a woman) and he wonders if maybe it was RAND who made the dice stop this time, not Tuon. He doesn’t say anything to them about it being Rand tho.

I don’t care about Tuon’s sob story. We heard her backstory in Winter’s Heart and that was fine, but now I only care about the person she currently is, not the child that she was once upon a time. Every one of the damane was also just a little girl, once upon a time, but none of them get a chapter expounding on their backstories and trying to get us to see them as ~innocent little girls~. I think Alivia got, like, two sentences.

22. And we’re back with Perrin’s subplot that shouldn’t exist because the Shaido should not still be a problem. Five chapters. Things of note:

We start with Perrin dreaming of being a wolf. I do like when we get wolf-related things. Sadly, the wolves are of no use to Perrin when he’s awake. why is perrin trapped in a subplot where his wolf-friends are useless? (why is mat stuck in a subplot where he has the shittiest luck in the world?)

Perrin thinks about how he is absolutely willing to abandon Rand and the Last Battle if it comes now, because he has a greater duty. Oh, I guess he IS the left hand who strays after all, making Mat the right hand who falters. That kinda makes sense, since Mat has just been chilling in the circus next to the city and not ACTUALLY escaping despite that being his entire goal last book.

Faile has been gone for 22 days.

Perrin has finally figured out that Masema is trying to avoid returning to Rand for as long as possible.

Perrin finds the tracks of a pack of Darkhounds and follows it until he detemines that it went off hunting in another direction.

Berelain discreetly gives Perrin proof that Masema is dealing directly with the Seanchan -- High Lady Suroth (Darkfriend).

Why doesn’t Perrin immediately take this to Rand, showing him that there’s no point in trying to take in Masema under his wing? He doesn’t even have to break off his search, just let one of the Asha’man go. But that would require thinking about something other than Faile, so it’s out, of course.

The Shaido have taken an entire TOWN. Ridiculous. They shouldn’t even still be around. Ten thousand Shaido? Ridiculous.

Berelain mentioned that Neald or Grady could fetch more jewels from Mayene for them to sell to potentially buy back their people from the Shaido. Or. Here’s a thought. Have them try to find out where Rand is? Like, they wouldn’t actually be able to find him right now given where we are in the story but they should at least TRY. And if they tried and failed, at least that would be an excuse for this plotline to continue.

We find out that Darkhounds can eat wolves’ souls. That’s creepy. I’d like more wolf-lore and less... any of the rest of this.

Elyas was there during the Blood Snow, apparently. I assume as a Warder?

While Perrin is studying the town where Faile is being held captive, he has a whirlwind of colors in his head and he doesn’t just see Rand but also Nynaeve. It’s not about Faile so he forces himself not to think about it. He does let the people with him know that the big surge of saidin & saidar was Rand.

note: I think both Mat and Perrin made the right call here when it comes to whether or not they talk about this being Rand’s work -- Mat is among near-strangers; he shouldn’t tell them that Rand is doing something important; Perrin is among Rand’s allies; reassuring them is a good thing. But Mat also knows how to keep his mouth shut, so there’s that, too.

New things I’m keeping track of for this book! Now, Tuon is only in Chapter 3 of Mat’s section here, a total of 14 pages.

Tuon refuses to use Mat’s name, calling him ‘Toy’ instead:

Chapter 3: 13 times

Tuon acts like a spoiled brat:

she refuses to use Mat’s name

throws pottery at Mat because she’s annoyed at him

she’s jealous of another woman wanting to have a conversation with Mat

Tuon reminds us she’s a slaver:

she refuses to use Mat’s name

talks about turning Mat into one of her slaves (da’covale), possibly a cupbearer

she gives Mat a “hard rap” on the head to chastise him over being “superstitious”. I guess we can also add her to the list of women who are violent to their ‘romantic’ partners. Not a surprise from her, of course. We know that she’s ordered her slaves beaten before.

Something from Winter’s Heart (or previous) is undermined (I’m kinda using this section to rant about the things that are pissing me off; so skip if it doesn’t appeal):

last book, Noal was very anti-slavery and said it was a fate worse than death. This book, he tells Egeanin that he’s sure her slave misses her too (and Mat thinks he sounds sincere), and that he’s seen worse in his life than damane and da’covale.

most of the Windfinders that Mat helped free were killed or recaptured

previously anti-slavery & anti-Seanchan Setalle Anan is buddying up with a slaver and helping her throw pottery at Mat and being AMUSED at Mat getting a temper tantrum thrown at him by a slaver who has invaded her home and whose forces she is currently attempting to escape. She’s acting like she needs to protect Tuon from Mat, because she apparently has forgotten everything that happened LAST WEEK. Why is Anan coddling Tuon like she’s another one of Tuon’s slaves?

instead of having sympathy for the Aes Sedai, like he did last book (which was a week ago!), Mat is now forcing them to share a wagon with the sul’dam to “keep them out of his hair”. He is forcing women who were SLAVES to share a wagon with former SLAVE KEEPERS.  Teslyn is being forced to share a wagon with the woman who ordered her punishments & trainings redoubled in an attempt to crush her spirit! WTF! (That’s Bethamin btw)

The vast majority of the progress that Egeanin had made seems to have vanished, unfortunately. Tuon’s very existence made her remember that she’s Seanchan to the bones, I suppose. Shame. Does she find her backbone again later on? I hope so. She was already kinda on thin ice for me in Winter’s Heart, tbh, finding out that she gave up something dangerous to Rand to the Seanchan (and someone that the readers know is a Darkfriend) in order to save her own skin. Egeanin may vaguely believe the damane are people now but the only person she really cares about at this point is Egeanin, it feels like.

The Mat-Tylin ‘romance’ gets buffed up in retrospect after we find out that she’s dead. It’s honestly (and unfortunately) easy to see why someone reading Mat’s storyline with a casual eye (especially a privileged man who isn’t as aware of how rape trauma can present) would come out of CoT thinking “oh yeah, Mat genuinely liked Tylin and clearly everything in ACoS & WH was just a sexy game” because that is how the narrative is currently treating that storyline. There’s a single line that alludes to the true horror that we saw in their relationship (Mat thinking about how he’d wanted to get away from her) but the rest is forcing us to watch Mat mourn her and feel guilty about ‘getting’ her killed and Tuon praising Mat for his loyalty to his rapist (while also trying to encourage him to move on and transfer his loyalty to her).

Mat briefly considers allowing the sul’dam to abuse the Aes Sedai because he’s finding them annoying right now.

The three sul’dam themselves also seem profoundly worse as characters this book than in Winter’s Heart -- very certain of their superiority to the Aes Sedai who are marath’damane and not a hint of the concern and worry and doubt that we saw last book about the fact that they are all capable of being held by the a’dam themselves. Maybe that’s because this is all from Mat’s PoV but, again, that’s on Jordan for deciding to craft his narrative in a way that prioritizes the slavers over everyone else. Last book, whenever we went into the Seanchan PoV, it highlighted the dysfunction in the empire, but this book... we get a whole fawning chapter about how Tuon's horrible personality and pro-slavery attitude is forgivable because she was a tragic little girl once upon a time. Again, I ask, what on earth happened to Jordan in between writing Winter’s Heart and Crossroads of Twilight that made him abandon was seemed a very clear and obvious plot-thread set-up about questioning the empire and instead meander onto... this mess of a plotline?

Mat also seems less insightful in this book so far? In Winter’s Heart, he figured out on his own that the Return was a settler invasion that would be much more difficult to dislodge than a normal invasion, but here he has to have Egeanin explain it to him all over again like he’s a child. Why not just have Mat think about it in his internal narration? Honestly, I kinda feel like most of the things people hate about Sanderson’s Mat are already beginning to be on display with Jordan’s CoT Mat. Qualities it feels like Mat somehow lost between WH & CoT: insightfulness, empathy, independence. And he’s also definitely continuing to get more sexist as well. It’s been a week.

People that Mat thinks about:

Rand x3

Perrin x1

Unnecessary scenes:

young Sitters ‘mystery’: 1 (5 pages)

too many random PoVs: 1 (5 pages), 1 (6 pages), 1 (13 pages)

Mat’s side quest (tuon): 4 (91 pages)

Perrin’s side quest (shaido): 5 (123 pages)

#wot #wheel of time #wot reread #crossroads of twilight #wot book spoilers #wot spoilers #slaver empress tuon #mat cauthon #seanchan culture warning #i hate them so much #i hate that this is the direction jordan took mat's plotline #i hate everything about this place #some of the prologue can stay but i hope the rest of this goes into the trash for the tv show #i miss mat so much #he's literally there on the page but it's NOT HIM #i hate this storyline #i literally refuse to believe that mat forced former slaves and former slavekeepers to share a wagon #i Do Not believe it #the wheel of time