#how did we all get here but also how could we be anywhere else yknow

[khihi]

no but what a guy fr. finland's sweetheart. onlyfans star (with the homies). has a long and expanding list of accomplished boyfriends. yogurt artist. bück dich (live) enjoyer. masochist. constantly serving looks. several of his friends have had the same hairstyle as him. 68 penalty minutes in 23 games. insane little man <- height of compliments and admiration

nobody's doing it like him, he's my favourite barbie of all time, i love him so much

#käärijä #ANON YOU'RE MAKING ME EMOTIONAL #he's such a peculiar interesting special lil guy how can you not want to study him under a microscope and want to see him smile all the time #how did we all get here but also how could we be anywhere else yknow #where else can you find the term yogurt artist #guy of all time #ask

[disco-cola]

i also want to say again i never questioned or criticized israel until after i went to israel four years ago. it was an educational travel trip that i won in a tombola and i went there not knowing anything about it, automatically assuming we would be staying with jewish guest families and everything would just all be about jewish life and religion there. i was looking forward to it very much. i remember getting the list which told us examples of little gifts we could get for the guest families and that food would have to be "halal" and being confused by it, like shouldnt it say kosher? i was even more confused when i found out we would be staying a week of the trip with arab guest families in a city with 99% muslim population. i just - so wrongly - assumed, like anywhere in the world, arabic people just moved to israel like they would to germany or great britain or wherever basically. especially due to israels location and the neighboring countries i didnt question that when that was the first thing that should have made me. i remember i even was disappointed that we weren't staying with jewish guest families. yknow even though my grandpa was born in 1955 and my great grandpa in the 1930s only (and me and the rest of my still alive family not knowing anything else about what the grown part of my ancestors did in the 30s and 40s) you carry an internalized feeling of guilt and regret with you as a german, you just do. and i will also totally admit to my own bias and googleing how close the gaza strip was to every single place we would go to that was on the itinerary. why? because even though i am not jewish or israeli, i was taught how "dangerous" gaza was growing up in germany through the 2000s and 2010s, remembering gruesome things i heard on the news in 2014 especially (about operation protective edge) and seeing violent footage coming out of gaza that made me fear for ww3 back then. i remember being 17 and looking up gaza on google already then and being relieved its not that close. after overhearing several dubious things during the trip through israel that made me have questions (also overhearing derogatory remarks about "arabs" that i just couldnt place, assuming theres just racist idiots anywhere in the world but not fully seeing the true extent yet) and being weirded out by the what I thought was a random „border control“ in the middle of nowhere (it was a checkpoint, I didn’t know I was driving through the occupied West Bank) but not daring to ask them while i was there - totally falling for the "any criticism or questioning of israel is antisemitic" narrative - i just saved the questions in my mind to look into when i got back home. and it was only then that i realized the zionistic values and also talking points i had somehow unknowingly internalized even though i grew up in a normal formal non-religious fully german household. through news reporting growing up before social media, and because we never talked about palestine and israel in school. i only knew the shoah was awful and something like this can never happen again, eventually picking up and going with the "jewish homeland" thing and never felt any need to ask questions like "what was here before" until i went there. after starting to learn more - and also finally understanding our what was called "israeli arab" guest families were actually palestinians and the town we were staying in used to be palestinian too, like so many other places i visited on the trip - it took me several months after the trip though still to actually talk to people about it and to start getting vocal in real life and on social media. i was afraid of the antisemitic stamp so much, but now i will never wrongly throw judaism as a religion or ethnicity into one pot with the state of israel ever again, because theres so many jewish people standing against it and i also refuse to see oppression and racism as part of jewish values. those will never bring safety to anyone.

but what "radicalized" me were not texts in books or on websites or spoken words - it was those videos from gaza and the west bank in which no one was talking because they were dead, bombed or shot, or badly injured, or crying and screaming in terror and pain (that i started seeing continuously from 2020 onwards) and i've seen so many, so so so many. enough to "radicalize" me for a 1000 lifetimes. im putting it in quotiations because i dont think its radical to stand for a free palestine. to demand safety and freedom for palestinians, because that to me would never mean to exclude the safety and freedom for jewish people. but freedom will not come through machine guns and checkpoints. you can only be free when there's no walls, neither in physical or in mental form.

#yeah sorry for that rant #free palestine

[nesisamess]

thinking about akane/sora.

sigh that whole thing along with her (their? both of their?) dynamics with utsuro, and how that kind of bleeds over into yuki.

i was gonna put some shit in the tags but my brain just kept writing so ahem here we go (sorry as always for the nonsensical rambling if you can’t tell i just use tumblr as a place to word vomit about the things that are Taking Up My Brain)

The main reason I’m not a huge fan of Sora/Yuki is because how much of it is just Sora’s programming? But at the same time that just makes everything 1000x more interesting because where does Sora begin and the programming stop, yknow? Sora is so vastly different from Akane imo that it feels weird to call Sora nothing but an imitation of Akane, but… canonically, i mean, that’s all she really is

I’m definitely a big believer in your own interpretations of media (and especially with some of Kodaka’s choices that i don’t personally agree with) and in Sora’s case I kind of don’t believe she’s just this really simple ai. I definitely think that her relationship with Akane and the melding of them is v. v. interesting and could lead to a lot of emotional development but it becomes a lot less interesting to me when it’s just like “oh yeah sora isn’t even like. anywhere close to real she can never be real whatsoever” like is the questioning of her own reality not enough? cuz her emotions feel pretty fucking real and it feels ridiculous to say otherwise

In my own fanfiction & writing for a post sdra2 what-if-sora-survives a lot of her struggle is with figuring out how much of akane is still in her. like. that’s almost a seperate person, but wait, no it’s not. i have her memories. i have her face. i stare in the mirror and she looks back and am i her? am i the one who did all those horrible things? or was it someone else? and sora’s struggle with that could be so so interesting

and how yuki/utsuro plays into it too ughhhh

did sora ever really love yuki, or was it all just the programming? and is that programming her or is it akane? and who is she, if she’s not just akane? utsuro and akane are 100% an unhealthy ass relationship and that always will kinda poison any variation of sora/akane x yuki/utsuro ships for me.

but utsuro and akane at the same time are so fucking interestinggggg in their toxic mess like she fucking worships him. he is a god to her but to him? akanes just another follower. a particularly loyal one but at the end of the day he. does. not. care. about. her. whatsoeverrrrrr!!! he doesn’t care about anything, not even himself

and i think she kinda knows that, or is aware but she doesn’t even care because to her utsuro is a god and she’s thankful he even lets her worship him. because he saved her. and how fucked up must akane’s situation must have been? i mean, i can’t imagine. and now, post sdra2, sora has all these memories. she remembers all this shit, all the reasons why she worships and loves utsuro but also. she has other stuff. she has yuki, and yoruko, and all these new memories that she had made. but, but… but she would still pick him.

and doesn’t that prove it?

that after all this time that sora didn’t even get to experience, she is the same.

the same girl that did all these horrific things in the name of worship.

is she also, then, the person she was before those memories came back? the person who flirted with yoruko and created bonds and made sarcastic comments.

is she…

is she both? neither?

well, we’ll never get an answer.

because at the end, she did what she always did.

she sacrificed herself for him.

#akane taira #yuki maeda #utsuro #inane ramblings #listen. i never claimed to be able to think coherently #reading this you would never know i’m a half-decent (imo) writer #can you tell i’m autistic yet? #also i like. am loving writing about all this in my fanfiction i’m currently writing the 2nd chapter for lol #it’s called old habits and it is also centered on syobai my fav character <3 #i have not posted the 2nd chapter yet but i am WORKING ON IT #if you’re into that kinda shit please check it out i promise i’m still making progress on it slowly but surely #i have over 6000 words written for the outline so like. i don’t plan on quitting anytime soon #oh shit it’s 3 am uhhh #it’s fine i don’t have shit to do tomorrow #or ever #perks of having no social life!!

[yuukei-yikes]

can we get uhhhhhh some hibiya thoughts

yes. yes. yes. i fucking love hibiya. he's LITERALLY A LITTLE GUY when i got into kagepro he was one of my faves actually cuz he was the closest to my age at the time. i was 13… im 22 now! lol thats not weird at all *eye twitch* sry ive been weird abt the passage of time lately. erm wait this isnt my therapy session <- doesnt go to therapy

HIBIYA. LITTLE GUY. my thoughts on him………honestly, i recently reread all the novels and god his intro chapters were HARD to read. all the creepy stuff abt hiyori yknow. i was cringing so hard. i kinda wanna ignore it bc i'd rather do that with the weird bits kagepro has to offer, but not to get rid of it completely. like id take away hibiyas whole thing abt a collection of hiyori pics but still keep the aspect of him that worships her. and how that dynamic would COMPLETELY go away post str.

post str hibiya is VERY different from how he started out. i mean. 10 year old timeloop…. he hasn't grown at all mentally like he has to process all this with his 12 year old brain, but going through all he did he just kinda looks at things rly differently now. not obsessed with hiyori, for one…. and she's also different to him. their relationship changes drastically bc now they both respect each other LOL listen i know im annoying with my codependent relationship headcanons but… eyes hibiya and hiyori

these bitches are 12. spent 10 years watching each other die over and over and literally die for each other. AND THEN THEY GET EACH OTHER BACK? ERM. yeah theyre NOT letting go of each other. its not so much codependency as much as it is awful awful awful separation anxiety. god are there any fics of hibiya and hiyori going back home and having a breakdown at having to separate and go to their own houses (bc in the city they were living together so it doesnt hit that they need to separate until they go home)???

hiyori would still be kinda bitchy and bossy but definitely not horrible to hibiya. and also her attitude hits different when she's also always holding his hand and refusing to go anywhere without him and throwing tantrums when any of the dan members even imply any activity that would require to separate them. and she wouldnt rly be embarrassed abt it i think hiyori would be super open and vocal abt HIBIYA HAS TO BE WITH ME ALL THE TIME !!!!!! and hibiya isnt even flustered hes just like *NODDING NODDING NODDING* bc he's the same with her. girl… SEPARATION ANXIETY HIBIHIYO<3 mekadan so sick in the head <3 they have 78 undiagnosed mental illnesses <3

not to make it abt my future headcanons of psych major hibiya but. new generations man. hibiya is 10000% the one in the dan going like GUYS WHAT HAPPENED TO US WAS SOOOO MESSED UP and everyone's like lol yeah !!!! and he's like DONT LOL ABOUT THIS IM FUCKING SERIOUS??? especially since he's such a fucking outsider to everything like everyone else's been experiencing all these tragedies since they were born and he just kinda. had a normal life before? and like i said NEW GENERATIONS MAN THEYRE PSYCHOANALYSING THEMSELVES AND EVERYONE AROUND THEM…. the dan is so used to this shit that they kinda lmao rock and roll thru it and hibiyas like NO. NO. NO. EVERYONE. THERAPY. NOW!!!!!! it becomes his special interest he starts getting all into psychology and when he comes back to the city for his visits suddenly he's diagnosing everyone with stuff and the dans like *shaking* MAKE THE KID SHUT UP also realises he has separation anxiety with hiyori and works on it. hiyori is surprisingly the one most terrified of letting go. and like i said…. 10 year long time loop being processed in a 12/13 year old brain.. hibiya is SUPER self aware. he makes sure of it

ok and. heh. haruka. THE WHOLE HIBIYA HIYORI AND HARUKA THING COULD BE ITS OWN POST… SO… IM LEAVING IT HERE CUZ THIS IS ALREADY SUPER LONG but im just gonna say. hibiya's IN DENIAL of konoha being gone. he keeps expecting haruka to go away. hibiya THINKS he's super mature, and he is for his age bc of all this shit and his willingness to understand his problems and everyone else's. and everyone else also think he is mature, but this is just something he can't stop being a 12 year old about. his friend is gone! WHY does it have to be gone!?!? especially in an ending where hiyori is back. if she wasnt, then he'd be more accepting of the losses bc there were 2 both konoha and hiyori and like it becomes another whole thing abt letting go and mourning but if she is back…everything is supposed to be perfect!! everyone made it back!! why couldn't konoha? why does it have to be gone? its not fair! he doesnt care this haruka was the body's true owner!! konoha was his friend! it also deserved to live as much as this haruka guy!!! why is HE more important!!!?!?!?!? and he just. he's just insanely immature abt it. and he knows he is but truth is he's just really fucking sad and regretful about konoha being gone. i could also talk about hiyori and harukas feelings abt it but heheh yeah this is super long. erm. hibiyita el chiquito <3 hibiya throwing a tantrum in front of the whole dan abt how it isnt fair and how he wishes haruka would just die. LMAO. he is 12. if anyone has fic commissions open Eye eye

also erm wholesome one before i end it. he makes little miniature dolls of the whole dan<3 he's BAD at typing on his new smartphone but since he lives away hes always texting in the gc<3 he gets super into mobile games<3 amongus fan hibiya asking all his grownup friends with jobs and no time for amongus if anyone can play with him<3 they do bc theyre busy but there will always be time to amongus with friends<3

#ask tag #headcanons #hibiya amamiya #hiyori asahina

[heliosoll]

frothing at the mouth for more atla dr content so here’s some questions😶‍🌫️ answer the ones you want!

what’s it like forgetting some of the realities you’ve been to up until a certain point?

were there any plot changes you scripted or that happened naturally?

what was the time line like? imo it’s not very clear from the show and some people say they were at the northern tribe for a month?? idk.

have you healed with your waterbending? what does it feel like?

how was fighting the fire girl trio? and anyone else like the dai li or fire nation at the northern water tribe?

what parts of the show/plot were you not a part of or aware of? idk if that made sense but yknow parts of show that we the audience are aware of but characters aren’t.

what’s the hardest element for you to fight?

how long did you stay after the show’s plot ended, if at all?

if you stayed longer, were the comics accurate and what did you do after the war ended?

whew! that was kinda a lot so thank you! id love to be 🌊🌌anon :).

Hi! (cute emojis btw)

what’s it like forgetting some of the realities you’ve been to up until a certain point?

It feels very natural! At least for me it does? But essentially, you know how you feel right now (or before you discovered shifting)? As if this was the very first reality you were born in and you had never gone anywhere else? That's literally what it feels like. Up until the point I remembered, I literally didn't know about shifting and thought that was the only reality.

were there any plot changes you scripted or that happened naturally?

Yes! I actually changed quite a few things so it's very much an "au" of the canon show here. First, all the adventures they went on in the first season before they got to the Northern Tribe ended up happening after we left! So I was from the Northern Tribe and I wanted to meet them when they got there but I also wanted to go on those adventures with them so that was a pretty big change. Then I also scripted that Sokka and Yue hadn't fallen in love because what happened to her was obviously very sad and I didn't want to see them go through that :( I also scripted that she was much more "alive" as the moon spirit and at night she could communicate with us! Me, Katara, and Yue could literally spend hours talking at night (and she really helped whenever we were traveling at night instead of during the day). If I remember correctly, I think that might be it? Any other changes would've happened naturally and be very insignificant.

what was the time line like?

I'm not sure what the timeline is in the show because I thought all three seasons happened in one year? But? Idk??? But for my DR, each "season" lasted about one year (so three years in total). That just made more sense for my brain and allowed us more time to chill :)

have you healed with your waterbending? what does it feel like?

I have! Since I was raised in the Northern Tribe, I learned healing first. Although I wasn't as good as Katara, I was able to help a little :) I mostly helped with smaller injuries and the occasional sneeze.

For me, it felt like normal waterbending? I remember Katara saying it felt "more" (like more energy, more special, that kind of thing) but I think that was because she had a special affinity for it. For me, it just felt like regular waterbending.

how was fighting the fire girl trio? and anyone else like the dai li or fire nation at the northern water tribe?

OOO it was awful fighting them! Personally, I think Ty Lee was the first for me. She's very quick on her feet and she can literally run circles around you without you even seeing her. We always had to watch her when she was there but that also meant drawing our attention away from the other two. Ugh... Azula and Mai were also obviously really bad. Azula is really precise and you have to pay attention to what she's doing. You also have to make sure what she says doesn't get to you (which gets easier once you're used to her). Mai was similar to Ty Lee in that you have to pay attention to her because if you don't she'll sneak up on you. When the three of them are together, it's fucking awful.

Tbh, I didn't have that much trouble fighting the Dai Li? They were mostly annoying. The attempt at the Northern Tribe was very taxing but I was mostly with Katara and everyone else at the time so it wasn't too bad for me. I helped fight Zuko and was mostly protecting Yue at the time so I wasn't out with everyone else.

what parts of the show/plot were you not a part of or aware of?

Hm... pretty much any time we got separated! Obviously, due to the memory wipe, there was a lot I wasn't aware of (like everything that was happening with enemies or just... somewhere else). In regards to just us, it was mostly when we got separated that we didn't know anything. Like when Katara went to the prison and we just didn't know what was happening to her (that was really scary!). Or when Aang went out on his own or when Katara and Zuko went on the revenge quest. Lots of stuff we didn't know!

what’s the hardest element for you to fight?

This is definitely more of a person to person thing but I hated fighting earthbenders. My personal fighting style was similar to the firebenders actually so I hated having to stop and defend with earthbenders. I often had to use water to redirect their attacks instead of just straight attacking them and it was like... ughhhh just let me hit you >:(

how long did you stay after the show’s plot ended, if at all?

I stayed for a couple of months after the show's portion ended! I didn't stay there long since I wasn't really that interested in the future political mess.

if you stayed longer, were the comics accurate and what did you do after the war ended?

I have no idea! I haven't read the comics and while I am aware of certain things that happen, I didn't stay long enough to really find out (like the whole thing that happened with Azula or Zuko and Mai breaking up again).

I was mostly just chilling after the war! We paraded around a little and went to different areas to help with post-war problems (getting people food and money, rebuilding, etc) and also just relaxed knowing that everything was okay ish again. It was nice :)

#dr storytime #letters 🎀 #🌊🌌 anon

[annieoftheshitposts]

GOD right yeah so the scrapped arg. this stuff is OLD, like, from 2018 ok. but even if it never went anywhere i did have a ton of fun coming up with the mechanics and story, and did a decent bit of groundwork for getting it set up, so this is a long post with a lot of images.

for a good long while i was kicking around the idea of a doing “double takeover” thing where, for one reason or another, annie would just be Not Around, and not the one answering questions. just suddenly switch to double shapeshifted as annie and never comment on it until someone tried to point it out. i did a handful of sketches exploring this.

the sword? you mean this sword that ive defintiely always had and didn’t just shapeshift out of my body? yeah it’s a cool sword.

i like to imagine double would just be really fucking salty about any praise annie gets too. and then the inevitable heel turn when someone Did catch on and call her out.

it never really went anywhere because frankly annie’s too powerful for most forces in the sg universe to be able to keep her restrained somewhere against her will; there was a vague idea about her somehow having gotten separated from sagan, which would not only severely nerf her power but also provide prime angst material. ultimately though it was all still just idle musings, until i started thinking about how i was gonna handle annie’s eventually being included in indivisible, and how to do asks with the characters in that game.

so first off, there was gonna be this whole Mechanic™ for how she passed between the two games; nothing super fancy, if anyone remembers star vs. the forces of evil and how the “dimensional scissors” worked there, it’s pretty much the same thing. just a little trinket she can pull out and make portals/holes between game universes.

second, only annie and sagan can use the said portals; any other characters or objects that try to go through, from either side, are met with a sort of ‘compatibility error’; just in that the programming to let them exist isn’t present in the other game, and so they can’t pass through. anything else that does try to go through just kind of gets vaporized. momentarily. it re-materializes a few seconds later, wherever it was last before trying to go through so nbd. yknow the material emancipation grids from portal? it’s like that but it just sort of rewinds stuff a few seconds instead of killing it.

i was going to have beowulf try to follow her into indivis world and then promptly get vaporized to demonstrate this, which would have been really funny. for me. not so much for annie, watching it happen.

dont worry though hes fine. again it’s only momentary, it just caught them off-guard. i could never hurt dear sweet beowulf.

so anyway we go on answering asks normally with annie going back and forth between indivis and sg for awhile; however long it takes to get comfortable with the game-hopping mechanic, and then at one point when we’re Supposed to have her travel back to sg-verse, i just pull out the pink double-annies and say Nothing. this is where the arg begins.

the first leg of this is figuring out what the hell happened to annie. someone would have to call double out for Not Being Annie and start questioning her about what happened, and at some point i’d find a way to slip in that double has been using “console commands” on the blog, which you are to also then do. i did actually make the console command page, though it’s still 100% in messy beta test phase and there’s not really anything there that finalized or presentable or functional. but it exists and you can go look at it if you want, i don’t intend on deleting it. the important thing there is the “camera focus” toggle/links; this would have been the main gimmick of the arg. the camera is, by default, set to “main”, which is this “annieoftheshitposts” blog. annie is the player character here who receives the asks, so there’s not usually any discrepancy. however, now, with her being missing,  when you toggle the camera to view the “player character”, you’re brought to a DIFFERENT blog, where the real annie is, and where you are met with a post of annie now getting the whole “being vaporized when she tries to pass between games” deal.

very rough bc i only drew it for testing/placeholder purposes but you get the idea. so anyways then you’d send annie questions on this Other blog to ask her what’s going on and get her caught up to speed what you know about double being on the main one now, etc. at some point you would be told about an Additional camera control, to let you see/go to a Third blog with venus and aeon to send THEM asks and get further information. [fun fact, if you remember my venus redesign? this is what it was for!] anyway we’d spend a good bit of time here just bouncing back and forth questioning the characters and relaying information between them to piece together what was going on.

and what’s going on is this: you know how in that one ending it’s shown that venus and aeon have a Physical Cartridge of the game skullgirls?  they noticed annie had been slipping in and out of the game/sg universe, and thought “hey, wouldn’t it be neat if we could lock her out permanently so she’s not always fucking up our endeavors?” and then they hacked/modded their game;  specifically to remove/patch annie out so that she gets the same ‘compatibility error’ thing when trying to return home and just becomes Stuck in indivis universe. yknow the whole shtick with vanellope in wreck-it ralph? pretty much that.

so then the second leg of the arg is getting her written/coded back IN to the skullgirls ‘verse. i never really figured out much about this part though. i was doing some stuff on twinery about like, passwords or something; you’d have to go on this whole goose chase to find them and then enter them on there and it’d let you access the actual stuff to do the little ‘coding’ activities or whatever. i dont know it has been like 4 years since i was actively planning all this. but anyway once all that is Done you’d go back to annie to let her know, and then she can go back home to this main blog to beat double’s ass and get things back to normal. the end!

but yeah i killed this blog to go focus on working with my own original stuff, and then indivisible itself also Fucking Died before annie ever got added, so all this is 200% never happening. but now you know.

#skullgirls #annie (skullgirls) #annie of the stars

[pennielane]

I can’t figure out which beatleblog on here has shared Little Women content before, but you’re a good contending so I am asking you. I have seen on this article (https://radicalreads.com/john-lennon-favorite-books/) that John liked Little Women. The only source I can find is like article (http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db1966.0304-beatles-john-lennon-were-more-popular-than-jesus-now-maureen-cleave.html) which coincidentally happens to be the same one as the Jesus comment. Anyway, how true do you think this is? And is it mentioned anywhere else? I just looooove Little Women and find it fascinating that he liked it (or at least had a copy of it). I was thinking just now about how Marmee was such a good mother and thinking of him reading about her...y’know. Peace and love and thanks in advance :)

BYE that whole article sent me

1. He probably did read Little Women if it was in his collection! Unless it was Cynthia who read it. But I can totally picture John reading it for some reason. Maybe because it’s sort of about a writer? Yknow? It was also just very popular back then so I could see him wanting to read it to stay “current”

2. I just need to highlight this quote from the article alxicmajfjdks: He paused over objects he still fancies…a pair of crutches, a present from George…his gorilla suit. "I thought I might need a gorilla suit," he said; he seemed sad about it. "I've only worn it twice. I thought I might pop it on in the summer and drive round in the Ferrari. We were all going to get them and drive round in them but I was the only one who did.

#anon you might be thinking of me btw! #i watched little women 2019 for the first time recently and probably reblogged something about it #anon #ask #‘HE SEEMED SAD ABOUT IT’ #i can’t get over the gorilla suit #and the crutches #i need to make this a quote post

[dykeminecraft]

Found it

so uh. Starts off. myself, a kid named derrin, and some other folks are doing Something, we're down near the docks (which doubles as a train station (this doesn't take place anywhere I've ever been)) and we're just fucking around. Derrin starts panicking about some sort of Thing and starts saying something about a "shatter" that's gonna happen, we start running, we get to where this "shatter" is going to happen just as it does.

Derrin *vanishes*, so does everyone else, I'm left (almost) alone except! There's Some Fucking Thing with me.

we decide "ehhh we're here together may as well stick together" and start meandering around.

nothing is really. Right? Buildings have gone all weird, there's corridors in the middle of the street but that's a very good thing bc there's monsters wandering around that look very suspiciously like my companion but. it's fine.

we keep wandering around until we hear Someone Else Talking, and then realize whoever this is also has a Friend ("friend") but instead of this "friend" defending them, it's threatening them into helping it capture anyone who comes by. And they've Noticed Us

so my guy fucks off somewhere, I go hide under a table, the kid (bc the human in this "weird void goop thing & human" equation is a kid) fucking. Comes over and starts pointing at me even though I had a Very Good hiding spot

anyway so the void fucker (idk if that's what they actually are but. yknow) comes over and drags me out by the arm, I'm fucking Thrashing, and it "detects" something and drops me. probably figured out that I Already had a void fucker & that threatening/killing me would have been a Bad Idea.

so now we get worldbuilding! The basics are:

-The initial zone near the Shatter (<- that's the name) is the safest place to be. Not completely safe, but safest. It's colored yellow.

-The white zone just below that (on the map. It would've been across the street) However, it's the safest to most people - most people can't get to the yellow zone. There's a barrier. We suspect the reason that my void fucker & I can get through is bc I was right up against the Shatter when it happened

-The gray zone: Second most dangerous (you really did not want to leave the white/yellow zones - there's no safety outside of them), and the largest zone on the map. From what I understand this is mostly what it looks like on the map. It's a gray zone, everything is gray and bad.

-Red zone: this is the most dangerous place and it's on the very edges of the map. I wasn't given an explanation as to what it was like, but I can guess.

My void fucker came back at some point during the explanation. Derrin's fate remains unknown, nobody here can help, so we head back to the white zone

& it's surprisingly fairly normal? If you get into a good section. I helped a lady get her dog back in her yard.

The sky was dark, like nighttime, but for the most part the lighting was like during the day

Iirc the void fucker & I were just chillin out & taking a break for a little while before we started looking for Derrin

The void fucker could carry me, but most of the time if I was moving around it was sort of...I was "wearing" it, iirc mostly as a long (we're talking up to my shoulder) glove

this is a basic idea of how the map looks, pardon the patchy marker I didn't want to use up all my ink

there were little cracks of the gray zone all across the map, & on the map they didn't look too big but they were generally around the width of a street (for example, that gray line in between the yellow & white zones was the width of The Average City Street)

i believe my main goal was to find derrin but i had a Sneaking Suspicion he was somewhere in the red zone

the main threat was just the void fuckers, but the further out you went from the shatter, the nastier they got (both in terms of personality & in terms of "How Much Can They Kill You?")

miscellaneous Things:

-I don't know why the void fucker that was with me was actually helping me out. by all accounts it should have been trying to kill me. i didn't do anything to prompt this change either, it was just like "so...hi?" & i, not yet knowing that this void fucker was supposed to kill me, responded with "hi?"

-the void fuckers i ran into did not know where derrin was. they were also very confused as to why my void fucker was not trying to kill me, so i'm suspecting Whatever caused the weird behavior was not universal. bc they were trying to kill me, too. or at the very least tried to, they generally stopped once they figured out that i Already Had One

-we had been running toward the shatter bc Derrin was trying to stop it, but he failed. I was right up there with him, so it's not the proximity that made him vanish. it was also not a new thing to me - I knew about the node that caused it, he had told me about it, it's just that neither of us were expecting it to do. That

-the lady's dog did bite me i just remembered, but nothing happened to me. 99% odds that was the void fucker's doing

-aside from the void fucker that was With Me, pretty much all of them were being "nice" (see: not trying to kill me) to me begrudgingly. some of them even said they were betting on me dying. i did not care.

#thorn post #my dreams man. #this one was better than the one where I had no choice but to let a version of the fucking. #narrator. from t-s-p (spaced like that to dodge search #uh. yknow. pick on me #in an extreme sense of the phrase #yes it was a gay dream yes i have weirdly mixed feelings about it

[zuko-always-lies]

i think they were going for iroh finally deciding to stop being subservient to the fire nation in the siege of the north, when zhao tries to, yknow, kill the moon, and then him finally deciding to actively fight against the fire nation when he broke out of prison, thinking zuko "lost his way" in book 3. then him retaking ba sing se was supposed to be his ultimate redeeming moment. however, this doesn't work well if this was what they were going for, because of course doing "one good thing" doesn't automatically redeem him, especially when he doesn't decide to do anything after the war other than profit from the people he once tried to conquer via his tea shop. it could also support him not having compassion for those he doesn't see, as i believe ultranos made a post about how his violent retaking of ba sing se could affect the people more directly and negatively than azula's coup did. thoughts?

So I don't see Iroh's actions in "The Siege of the North" being anything other than trying to stop Zhao from screwing absolutely everyone in the world over. Iroh has not decided to take a general stand against the Fire Nation there. Definitely, afterwards he goes back to hanging out and engaging in hedonism at a Fire Nation resort, and he only becomes a fugitive because of Ozai's orders. Even then, Iroh's reaction is to try to run and hide and live a life as a teashop owner rather than draw on his considerable resources to fight back. This decision to hide persists for the rest of Book 2.

When Azula begins her conquest of Ba Sing Se, Iroh seems to come to some sort of decision that he has to fight back against the Fire Nation, something he sticks to the rest of the series. Honestly, him helping Aang and Katara escape in "The Crossroads of Destiny" is his finest moment in the series.

Yet after that he regresses. He tries to point Zuko in the right direction, but implicit in what he tells Zuko is that Zuko should be the one to teach firebending to Aang and be the one to lead the Fire Nation into a new era, even though Iroh would be better suited for both these tasks. And it only gets worse from here.

You see, Iroh's big contribution toward "saving the world" is gathering the White Lotus to retake Ba Sing Se. On a surface level, that's a very reasonable objective(although the invention of airships probably greatly decreases Ba Sing Se's defensive value). But then Zuko and the Gaang show up, inform him of Ozai's plans, and beg for Iroh's help. At that point, there are several extremely critical military objectives which much be accomplished(in order of importance):

1. Stopping the Fire Nation airship fleet from killing millions of people

2. Defeating the Firelord

3. Defeating Azula and carrying out a coup in the Fire Nation.

All these objectives need to be accomplished in order to win the war. Failing to accomplish any one of them would result in pyrrhic victory at best. All of these objectives all more important than taking Ba Sing Se, and taking Ba Sing Se is pointless if you win the war through accomplishing all three. Iroh has access to five of the most powerful fighters in the world, so he has ample strength to throw behind any of these.

Yet he chooses to prioritize the conquest of Ba Sing Se beyond all reason. He lets Aang face Ozai alone, something which nearly results in Aang's death. He lets Sokka, Suki, and Toph take responsibility for stopping the airship fleet, even though only one of them is a bender, even though they could easily have failed, and Sokka and Toph nearly die as a result. Most importantly, Iroh sends Zuko and Katara into the lion's den alone, something which almost certainly would have resulted in Zuko and Katara being killed or captured by Azula, the imperial firebenders, and the Dai Li if Azula hadn't had her breakdown(and even breakdown Azula comes very close to defeating both of them). Why does Iroh act like?

Iroh: Sozin's Comet is arriving and our destinies are upon us. Aang will face the Fire Lord. (Cut to a close up of Iroh) When I was a boy, I had a vision that I would one day take Ba Sing Se. (Camera pans across the various members of the Gaang) Only now do I see that my destiny is to take it back from the Fire Nation so the Earth Kingdom can be free again.

...

Iroh: Goodbye, everyone. (Cut to a frontal shot of Iroh looking up at his nephew) Today, (he closes his eyes and lowers his head) destiny is our friend. (he opens his eyes and looks back up again) I know it.

It looks suspiciously like the "liberation" of Ba Sing Se is an ego trip primarily done to "fulfill" Iroh's "Destiny." Taking Ba Sing Se also allows Iroh and the White Lotus to ensure that King Kuai is restored to power, because I can't imagine anyone in the Earth Kingdom and Ba Sing Se actually wanting him back unless he was forcibly imposed from above.

Now, we turn to the question of damage to Ba Sing Se. This raises the question of why the White Lotus attacked Ba Sing Se during Sozin's Comet? The Fire Nation troops they are fighting are strongest then, and the uncontrolled and power-boasted firebending they wielded likely resulted in a lot of collateral damage. Well, I would say that we also get an explanation for that:

Iroh: Only once every hundred years can a firebender experience this kind of power.

So it's another part of Iroh's ego trip, allowing him to experience the exhilaration of fighting while Sozin's Comet boasts his power and allowing him to take the majority of the credit(and if you wonder why the other members of the White Lotus are OK with this, remember that three of the five known members are deeply questionable in their own ways).

Ultimately, the White Lotus's pointless "liberation" of Ba Sing Se likely resulted in widespread destruction in the city. "Dragon of the West" Iroh joked about burning Ba Sing Se to the ground; "redeemed" Iroh's ego trip to "liberate" the city during Sozin's Comet probably resulted in large portions of Ba Sing Se burning to the ground.

So, I don't think Iroh's "one good act" was actually that good an act. This was not the intention of the writers, but the way they wrote Iroh behaving contains so many disturbing implications, and this is probably true in "Sozin's Comet" more than anywhere else.

Edit: I didn’t make this clear, but I’m sure Iroh rationalized his actions as being the “right thing to do” and the “the only possible course of action.” He’s very good a rationalizing his failures and flaws.

Fun fact: Friedrich Paulus actually ended up defecting to the Allied cause after being captured at Stalingrad. In terms of German World War II generals, he seems to have his hands relatively clean and as far as I know was never accused of war crimes. Yet I don't see taking over managing a tea shop in the city he destroyed after the war.

#liberation #Iroh #anti iroh #Iroh critical #anti-iroh #Ba Sing Se

[iamanartichoke]

I wasn't sure if I was going to post this, but I may as well.

I keep starting to reply to things and then stopping bc the words just aren't there, and I suppose I figured out the core of what bothers me so much (and is making me have such a rollercoaster of a fan experience) about the show.

(cut for length)

It's not well-written. My opinion is my opinion, so I'm saying this subjectively, take it or leave it, but ... I feel that it's not well-written. The overall story is fine, and the plot is fine, but I don't know if it's because of the limited number of episodes not being enough to house the story, or because of the relative inexperience of the writer/showrunner+director, or both, or something else, but -

In an earlier reaction post to episode 4, I mentioned really wanting to sink my teeth into all of the subtext I picked up on. That was what made me initially enjoy the episode so much - there were a lot of little moments that I initially felt revealed so much about the characters and about Loki, and I wanted to analyze them. But at some point, as I gathered more information, my perspective changed and now I no longer want to analyze the subtext bc ... subtext = good. Subtext w/out payoff = not as good.

I'll go into more detail in a moment, but I think the tl;dr of it is that I feel like the narrative requires the audience to work way too hard to put together all of the moving pieces here and, like, I kinda just don't want to do that work? Not so much of it, and not in vain. A lot of the enjoyment of Loki's characterization is coming from fans who are rationalizing why he's behaving as he is, but the narrative never actually confirms those rationalizations. It's asking us to figure it out and maybe our conclusions will be correct but maybe they won't, though. At some point, subtext isn't enough without explicit follow-through.

I thought my issue was with the lack of character development - that is, not having enough narrative space to really earn the big things that are happening now, like Loki/Sylvie or Mobius turning against the TVA. And that's still true, to an extent; I still feel like the pacing is all very off and it seems like most of these things kinda came out of nowhere (but are not unbelievable - just undeveloped).

But, yknow, it is what it is, it's a limited series, and I can excuse some things. Ultimately, my issue isn't a problem with what the narrative isn't doing, it's a problem with what the narrative already failed to do and probably cannot recover from at this point.

The narrative has left out significant details that should at least help us do some of the work here. If a person turned on Loki and started episode 1 and had no background knowledge of the character besides that he tried to take over New York - how would that person interpret Loki? Would that person say, oh, well, he's been through X, Y, and Z, and plus A happened, not to mention B, C, and D, so really, it makes sense that he seems off-the-rails, or that he'd want to get ridiculously drunk at the worst time ever.

Maybe we'd like to believe they would, but how would they be getting to that conclusion? The narrative hasn't led them in that direction so, no, they would not say well we have to consider this, this, and that. It would be impossible to really understand Loki as a character from just what we've gotten in the series. The general audience would probably interpret Loki as being out of his element and so it becomes, I wonder how this character is going to get the upper hand here. And, while that's not wrong, it's just so limited.

The narrative at face value does not address Loki's identity crisis from Thor 2011. It does not address his hurt and devastation at being lied to, nor does it address how complicated his self-image is (bc it sucked to begin with and that was before he found out he was part of a race of "monsters," as he'd been taught his entire life). It does not reference Loki being so broken at the end of Thor 2011 that he deliberately let himself fall into the void of space (aka tried to kill himself). It does not reference that he was tortured by Thanos or even that he went through a seriously dark time in between Thor and Avengers, and it absolutely does not reference or address any influence or control of the mind stone.

These are all things that we, the fan audience, know because we've already invested our time into this character's story. But tons of people, the general audience, wouldn't know these things. Or if they did, bc they saw Thor and Avengers, they wouldn't be thinking about them as deeply as we would, nor contextualizing them with how Loki is behaving now, or why it would make sense that he needed to get drunk, or why it's understandable that he needs to keep going-going-going in order to not have a spare second to think or feel.

They'd probably look at Loki, again, as a character who was a villain and is now getting his comeuppance in a place where he has no power or control, and no literal powers, and even when he manages to escape and catch up to the variant, he proceeds to fuck up their plan for seemingly no real reason except that he wanted to get drunk bc he's hedonistic. Which Sylvie even berates him for! I mean. This is not exactly a complex character breakdown, nor a very flattering one, but that's what the narrative has given us.

(If the narrative has addressed Loki's mind control, his torture, his mental breakdown, his suicide attempt, and his general shitty self-esteem as a result of his upbringing, please point it out to me. If the narrative has explicitly acknowledged and referenced these things anywhere and I am missing it, please show me where. Please explain to me how the casual viewer would know any of these things that they need to know in order to actually understand what's happening in this story.)

So I mean, okay, we have a narrative that doesn't paint a full, accurate picture of Loki. Fine, sure. But because the general audience starts out on the wrong footing, they're not going to get out of the overall story what the writers probably intended them to. For example, in episode 3, a lot of us theorized that Loki had some kind of plan - that he broke the timepad on purpose, for some reason, bc otherwise it wasn't believable that he'd be such a failure. But episode 4 revealed that no, there was no bigger plan, Loki just plain old messed up. Which is fine if, again, one is only considering the surface-level portrayal here, but it's not true to Loki's actual characterization.

I mean. Loki is not perfect and Loki actually fails a lot, this is true. He fails for a lot of reasons, but incompetence has never been one of them. Usually it's that either things grew beyond his control, or there ended up being too many moving parts, or he had to change his plan at the last minute due to some roadblock or another being thrown his way, or even that he got in his own way - whatever the case may be for his plans' failures, he was always at least shown to know what he was doing.

That wasn't the case here. The "plan" to fix the Timepad failed as a direct result of Loki's actions, which were careless and made him seem incompetent, like he couldn't even handle this mission. "You had one job," etc. And there were pretty big consequences for this; they were not able to get off-world in time and would have been killed had the TVA not shown up at the last second.

And maybe none of these things matter bc the writers never intended any of this to be a reflection on Loki's character, positive or negative. The situation exists solely because the writers needed to put Loki and Sylvie together in some kind of hopeless scenario so that they could get closer, and thus the narrative could set up their romance. I get that - but, there were other ways to do it that didn't require Loki to look foolish.

Furthermore, the whole reason they needed to set up the romance is to show Loki eventually learning to love himself (like, figuratively but also literally). The audience is supposed to gather that Loki and Sylvie fell for one another, possibly due to the high emotional aspect of, yknow, being about to die (in addition to the variant-bond). The intent is clear: Loki and Sylvie almost die but get rescued at the last minute, having now created an emotional bond --> Loki and Sylvie team up and the narrative further establishes that Loki, at least, has caught feelings --> Loki might confess them but is pruned before he gets the chance --> he somehow survives, he and Sylvie are reunited and don't want to lose one another again, and the combined power of their love is enough to break the sacred timeline and spawn the multiverse, and the reason that the power of their love is so, well, powerful is because it's about self-love and self-acceptance as much as it is about having the capacity to love someone else. The end.

I get all that. The writers more or less said all that. And, I mean, it's certainly not the way I would have chosen to go about it, but it's a fair enough arc to explore. I don't really have an issue with the intent - but my question, however, is this: if the narrative has so far not addressed Loki's background issues (as outlined above), and has furthermore kinda gone out of its way to portray Loki as hedonistic and narcissistic, among other things (like kinda incompetent), and the context the audience starts with is that Loki's this villain who deserves what he gets -

- my question is 1, why should the audience care whether or not Loki gets to a point of loving and accepting himself (thus to make the theme of self-love, via the romance, hold weight) if they don't know that he hates himself to begin with and 2, why should the audience root for Loki to reach that point when so far the perception of him is that he's "kind of an asshole"? if he's a hedonistic narcissist, he probably already has a pretty inflated sense of himself, right? A misplaced inflated sense of himself, at that, because, again, the narrative has made him out to be not that capable of much of anything. (And it didn't start out that way! It seemed to start out with Loki being capable and intelligent but it's like episode 3, in trying to set up the romance, just jumbled it all up somewhere. I think this is why I'm harping on the Loki/Sylvie aspect so much - it's frustrating bc it kinda messes up the whole story and can't even accomplish what it's supposed to anyway.)

Anyway, that's beside the point. What I'm ultimately getting at is, at what point is the audience supposed to get invested in Loki's personal growth journey?

They can't, not really. Without understanding and having the context of everything Loki has been through up until now, and why he hates himself, and why it's so important that he learn to love himself, then the "payoff" becomes kinda pointless bc the significance of it is lost in translation. So suddenly we're left with this romance that comes off as either "Loki loves Sylvie bc of Reasons" (best-case scenario) or "Loki loves Sylvie bc he's vain, narcissistic, and kinda twisted" (worst-case scenario). Neither of these conclusions are what the writers intended or were going for, I'm positive, but there we are, regardless.

In order for the writers' intent in these storylines to land, they need to address the context of what makes these particular stakes high for Loki. So far, they haven't done that. They're asking the audience to pick up on all of these things, and they're showing things that subtextually make sense and are relatively in-character - but only if you realize there's subtext in the first place.

But you can't expect the audience to do all of the work for you. If you don't want the audience to think that Loki is a narcissistic asshole and instead you are trying to convey that, worst-case scenario, he thinks he's a narcissist but is an unreliable narrator, then you have to address that. If you need the audience to understand why you're going the selfcest route and why it's important to explore Loki's capacity to love himself and others, you have to address where that exploration is starting from and why it matters. Etc etc etc.

The narrative isn't doing any of that. And it isn't like it'd be that hard to do it. They don't need to reinvent the wheel here; a lot of the pieces are already there. A few lines of dialogue for context, a brief scene here or there addressing the issues, a little more care and consistency in how Loki handles things - these are all little things that could go a long fucking way in making the narrative stronger.

I'm rambling. My basic point is that my rollercoaster of emotions with this show is because

- as a part of the fan audience, not the general one, I can contextualize and analyze the subtext and come to the conclusions the show wants me to, and thus find the story and the characters more or less enjoyable,

- but I am also going to be using the subtext to come to conclusions that aren't there but probably should be (I think it would be a better story, for example, for Loki to confuse platonic love with romantic love bc it would pave the way to explore just how fucked up Loki's understanding of love - whether of other people or of himself, and the different forms it can take - actually is)

- and when they're ultimately not there, then I think, okay why am I bothering doing all this work just to ultimately feel very unfulfilled? They don't even have to write it the way I would, I'm not saying that, but they do have to do something to make the story feel rewarding.

If we don't get some confirmation of what Loki's been through, and where his headspace is, and why it matters for him to love himself, then the story remains pretty shallow and, for me, it's not fulfilling enough. It's not engaging enough. There isn't actually anything to sink my teeth into, so it becomes kind of boring. Maybe it's rewarding to other people, and that's great for them, but like - I need more than whatever this is.

So I'm just like - well, I had a lot of worries about this show, but my being bored wasn't one of them and now there's only two episodes left and am I really not going to get anything out of this, in the long run? No new canons, no new depths or layers, no new information on Loki's experiences? This is it?

I don't dislike it. I didn't start out disliking it, and I probably wont end up disliking it. I mean, there are a lot of good moments, and good things, and fan service-y things that I appreciate. As far as inspiration for fic goes, it's a goldmine, both plot-wise as well as aesthetic-wise. All of that is great. I don't dislike this show.

But I am disappointed in it, and I feel like I'll be watching the next two episodes lacking the sense of anticipation that would make it exciting. I'll still enjoy them, probably, if for nothing else just the sheer Loki content, but whatever it was I felt watching episodes 1 and 2 is gone and I'm sad about that, too. Because I really wanted to feel fulfilled by this series; I wanted it to fill up the void that Loki's death in IW created three years ago. And I just ... don't feel it. Maybe, maybe that'll change over the course of episodes 5 and 6. I don't know.

Everything that I end up enjoying long-term, I think, will come about as a result of my own interpretations and analysis and while theoretically there's nothing wrong with that, if I had known all I'd get out of this series was more headcanons or support for my current headcanons then, well - that's fine, I suppose, but I'll definitely a little bit robbed.

#loki spoilers #loki series negativity #loki tv series spoilers #loki series spoilers #long post

[beelsjuicytitties]

Hunted for Sport

Now to do a complete 180 from my Mammon fic, here is predator/prey Lucifer! this is suuuuuper self indulgent bc i was looking for stuff to read, but nothing was really scratchin the itch yknow? so i wrote this at like 5am

Warnings: NSFW, DUB-CON

Pairing: Lucifer x GN!MC

Words: 2339

Tags: Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Gender-Neutral Main Character (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Dubious Consent, Implied Consent, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Aftercare, Primal, Predator/Prey, Blood Kink, Blood Drinking, S&M, Injury, Fear Play, Anal Sex, Anal Fingering, Rimming, Biting, Kissing, Dark, Rough Sex, Not Beta Read, Sleepy Cuddles, Bubble Bath, Edgeplay, Smut, Possessive Sex

Summary: Please make sure to read the tags before reading! Hunted and fucked in the forest by Lucifer, followed by fluffy aftercare because he has class

Note: Like my last one, this is also on my ao3 which is linked in my bio!

  Fear. It was all you could feel as you ran through the forest outside the House of Lamentation. Your chest heaved and your lungs were already starting to burn. ‘How long has it been?’ You managed to think, had it been hours? Or merely minutes? The pain in your ankle pulled you from your thoughts as you crashed to the ground. You curled into yourself as coughs wracked your body, the wind having been knocked out. Your ankle throbbed and you could feel dull stinging from almost every inch of exposed skin, scratches from the foliage marring your skin. 

  That's when you heard him. His sonorous voice filled your ears as he sang, your brain too foggy to make out the words. The sound grew as his almost casual steps grew closer. ‘Gotta run, gotta escape’ You repeated the thought in your head as you struggled in the underbrush, sucking in a breath as you forced yourself to your feet. You kept moving forward, after all, what else could you do? Give in? No. No matter how nice it might seem to just give in, to surrender and finally be at rest you couldn’t keep yourself from limping on. The pain in your ankle was getting unbearable, aggravated by your desperate attempt at survival. Your vision was getting hazy, and your blood was rushing in your ears, and yet, you could still hear him sing. It was like he was all around you, his voice swirling around and pressing into you. 

  “Y/n.” Directly behind you. You whip yourself around and hiss, not a good idea as your ankle screams. “Look at you,” Lucifer regarded you, “how pitiful.” Tears were streaming down your face as you backed away slightly. Lucifer matched your movements, keeping the short distance between the two of you the same. You were hyperventilating, your heart was racing, your eyes flicked about quickly, looking for a weakness, a chance to escape, anything. Alas, no such opportunity provided itself, as he quickly closed the gap and grabbed your chin with a gloved hand, forcing you to look directly into his eyes. Hunger, amusement, and arousal swirled in his crimson eyes as he gave you a much too gentle smile. Lucifer leaned forward, his lips brushing against your ear. “You’re not even worth my effort.” His voice was essentially a growl, low and sharp sounding in your ear. “Why don’t you keep running?”

  Before you even had the chance to register his words, you were on the forest floor once again. Lucifer had pushed you there. You stared up at him for what felt like forever, he was standing over you, his hands casually resting in his front pockets. “What are you waiting for? Run.” You snapped back to reality. He was letting you go? That didn’t seem right, but you weren't about to wait around and question it. You once again clambered to your feet and took flight, ducking under branches and barreling through bushes. He had started singing again. How far could you go? How much farther would you need to go? Your mind raced as you free your shirt that had caught on a branch. It didn’t matter, you would keep going, you would make it. ‘Dear god let me make it.’ But no god could hear you. 

  You realized this as you ran headfirst into Lucifer, he wrapped an arm tightly around your waist and clasped a hand around one of your wrists. He was in his demon form at this point, sharp horns protruding from his hair, soft wings fluttering against his back. His grip was tight, like he was trying to squeeze the life from you just like this. “Tsk tsk little lamb, running right into the waiting arms of the one chasing you? I had expected better.” You struggled weakly, your body beginning to give up. Every muscle in your body was weary, unable to do anything against the demon that hadn’t even broken a sweat. He buried his face in your neck with a deep laugh. “You know you can’t go on, don’t you lamb?” He took a deep breath in, filling his lungs with your scent. “Just give into me.” His breath was somehow cold against your flushed skin, and your knees gave in, causing you to slump in his grip. Another laugh rumbled his chest, this time much more wicked. “Wonderful.”

  You suddenly felt a sharp pain in your neck, your tired brain taking a few moments to realize Lucifer had bitten into you. A choked whimper escaped your lips. Blood trickled down from where his mouth still sat, the metallic taste filling his mouth, causing him to let out a moan. It was a shallow bite, not something you could bleed out from. He greedily lapped and sucked at your neck as the bleeding began to slow. His hand released your wrist, opting to instead explore your thigh, hips, and ass. He squeezed hard on your ass, earning another whimper from you. He swiftly turned you around and pushed you to the ground, your knees, chest, and face all making contact with the hard ground. Lucifer pressed himself against you, grinding slightly against you as he growled in your ear, “You. Are. Mine.” His words filled your mind, repeating over and over.”

  You felt his weight pull off of you, before he ripped what was left of your top off, leaving you cold and shivering. Lucifer pulled his gloves off, and threw them to the side. He raked his claws down your back, small crimson beads forming along the bright burning scratched he left behind. His hands reached the waistband of your bottoms, and he swiftly rid you of them along with your underwear. He let out a deep growl as he kneaded your ass, staring hungrily down at your fully exposed body. Suddenly, you could feel his mouth on your ass, his tongue skillfully swirling and prodding the tight hole. He tongued your ass with vigor, claws digging into your ass cheeks as his grip tightened. Small moans began to fall from your mouth, just loud enough that he could hear them. He pulled back much to your.. Disappointment? Surely, you couldn’t be disappointed that he had stopped rimming you.

  You heard the pop of a lid, followed by a cold, wet finger rubbing against your ass. Had he brought lube? Huh. Lucifer began to press his finger into you, easily slipping the whole finger in. He wiggled the finger inside you for a moment, before he began to push a second finger into you. This finger was met with slight resistance, taking a tiny bit longer to fit inside you. Once both fingers were full inside, he began to scissor them, opening and stretching you out. He pushed them in and out as well, curling his fingers as he went. Your legs were shaking, and your sex was dripping from the stimulation. He hummed as he added a third finger, really making sure to prepare you for what was next. 

  Just as you felt you could take no more, Lucifer pulled his fingers from you. You whined and your ass was gaping slightly from the loss of his fingers. “Oh?” his voice was filled with amusement. “Could it be that you’re wanting this?” He chuckled, which was shortly followed by the sound of a zipper. His thick cock rubbed between your ass cheeks, he drizzled more lube across the top of his cock as the bottom got coated by what was already on your ass. “I can’t wait any longer.” You felt the head of his cock press against your ass, and quickly pop in, eliciting a moan from you, and a deep groan from him. He pressed deeper, stretching and filling you more than you could’ve imagined. 

  As he bottomed out, he placed a hand against your back, and his other hand on your hip. “F-fuck,” he swore as he pulled back slowly, before quickly snapping his hips foreward. He began to set a pace, not very fast, but his thrusts were rough, pushing you forward each time. His claws dug into your skin as he quickened, letting his moans and groans fall freely. His hand shifted from your hip to your sex, long fingers moving defltly and driving you insane. You were close and he could tell. “Are you going to cum?” he panted out. “What a filthy slut, going to cum out here in the woods.” His fingers and thrusts pushed you over the edge, and you let out a strangled moan that was on the verge of sounding like a scream. As your orgasm wracked your body, causing you to shake all over, you tightened on Lucifer's cock, basically sucking him in. 

  Lucifer did not let up, his fingers continued working your sex, his thrusts remained as quick and rough as they had been. The sensation was overwhelming, your vision was spotty and it was all you could do to manage to breath. He followed close behind you, groaning as he released his cum deep into your ass. His thrusts continued though, slightly more erratic, but not slowing down. “You really think im -mng- finished with you?” He leaned over your back and kissed at your neck. “As if.” He pulled out of you momentarily, and flipped you onto your back. He swiftly reinserted himself and leaned over you. He rested on his forearms, framing your head as he caught your mouth in his. He thrust slowly now, grinding himself into you as he messily kissed you. You weakly wrapped your arms around his neck, and kissed back. “Mmhh, what a sweet little lamb you are,” he purred between kisses.

  He kept going like this, slowly fucking you, almost passionately. Alternating between kissing your mouth, cheeks, neck, ears, anywhere he could reach. It was almost as if you were making love in his bed at home, the way he treated you now. You could feel yourself grow closer to orgasm again, and you clamped down on his cock. He smiled against your skin upon feeling this. “Close again, little lamb?” his voice was still rough in your ears, but there was a small hint of sweetness to it. “I’m close too.” You tangled a hand into his hair at those words, running your nails against his scalp and tugging gently. He shifted his weight to support himself with one arm, and slid a hand between the two of you to rub against your sex once more.

  His thrusts quicked slightly as his orgasm built, and he gently moaned your name in your ear. “I want you to cum with me lamb, fuck I’m so close.” You weakly moaned his name in response, your voice thick in your throat. He suddenly thrust hard into you, and filled you once more with his cum. The warm feeling combined with his fingers pushed you over for the second time, you continually moaned out his name as you rode out your orgasm. Your breaths began to slow as he brought his hand up to your mouth. You opened your mouth and cleaned yourself from his hand. He caressed your cheek with his now cleaned hand. “Such a good lamb for me.”

  He pulled himself from you, zipping his softening cock back into his pants. He helped you sit up and kissed you sweetly, before wrapping you up in his coat and picking you up. “Let’s get you home, hm?” He whispered as you settled into his arms, head resting on his chest. You nodded and closed your eyes as the two of you walked in a warm silence to the House of Lamentation. Before you knew it, you had reached his room. He gently set you on his bed. “I’ll run a bath.” He pressed a kiss to your forehead, before retreating to his private bathroom. You sighed happily, cuddling into his coat and breathing in his scent. It wasn’t long before sweet floral scents began wafting from the bathroom. Lucifer emerged from the bathroom with a first aid kit. “Time to clean up lamb.” You begrudgingly shed his coat, moving as he instructed to give him better access to the various scrapes, cuts, and bite marks. He whispered praise as he cleaned you up with an antiseptic, peppering in plenty of ‘I love you’s.

  He gets to your ankle and you winced. You really managed to do a number on that one. He had used a small amount of magic on the larger of the cuts, but he used more on your ankle. The swelling immediately reduced, and the pain lessened and dulled. “Thank you love,” you managed to croak, your voice not quite ready to be used much. He kissed your nose. 

  “Of course, now, I think the bath is ready.” With that, he picked you up once more, carrying you into the bathroom and helping you into the warm bubble bath he had prepared. He quickly shed his own clothes, and slipped in the tub behind you, wrapping his arms around you. You lean back into him, resting your head against his shoulder. The two of you stay like this, holding each other as he hummed gently. As you felt the water start to cool, you took turns washing the other, gently cleaning off your skin, and massaging your hair. Once you were both clean, Lucifer helped you out of the tub, wrapping a fluffy towel around your shoulders. He drained the tub as you worked on toweling off, he followed suit once he was finished with the tub.

  Now dry, Lucifer returned to tending to your wounds. Applying ointments and bandages, then gently wrapping your ankle. He let out a yawn, and laughed lightly at himself. “Time for bed it seems.” You nodded, giving a yawn yourself. You shimmy under the covers, Lucifer laid himself next to you and wrapped his arms around you. “Good night lamb, sweet dreams.” He kissed you once more, before you both drifted off to sleep.

#obey me #shall we date obey me #lucifer #obey me lucifer #luci #lucifer x mc #lucifer x reader #smut #obey me smut #obey me fanfic #obey me one shot #fluff #angst #dubcon #blood #aftercare #predator prey #adrians writing

[crowtrinkets]

Like a Sailor’s

Turns out when Asra was rehabilitating his apprentice, he may or may not have neglected to teach them a few words. Gender Neutral Apprentice

ALT TITLE: You kiss your mother with that mouth? I don't remember my mom?

Lots of swearing lol, short fic cause I thought the prompt was funny.

Word Count: 1,623

---

The first time I heard the word it was met with a gasp from a mother who whisked her child away from the market. A man was yelling about the price of rice and when he uttered the word it seemed to come as a shock. I couldn't speak at the time so I could never ask Asra what it meant at the time. The man's outburst didn't seem to phase Asra as he continued to peruse the pendulum stand without disturbance. I decided to leave it be at the time.

The next time I was at the docks and a sailor was laughing with his friends, I couldn’t very well have gone up and asked the stranger since it seemed everyone knew what it meant. But I still wanted to know. But again I let my question fall to the back of my mind.

As my life went on I continued to hear the word over and over, still never with an explanation, and with a multitude of contexts. Which further confused me about its meaning.

One day Asra and I had Julian and Muriel over for some tea and it quickly turned into a game of cards. Julian is exceptionally bad at cards, his poker face is terrible. Asra always cheats but Muriel and I know him well enough to call him out when we discover it. At one point Julian uttered it. The Word. The word that has plagued my thoughts with its potential meaning, I decided I was in comfortable enough company and I took the plunge with my question.

“What does that mean?” I turn towards Julian. My question seems to be shocking because Julian gazes at me in astonishment, and Asra looks embarrassed. Even Muriel looks shocked.

“Asra! This is a question for you,” Julian looks uncomfortable trying to shift my genuine question to Asra as he takes another sip of his tea.

“I uh… well I guess I never did teach you everything,” he laughs nervously. Muriel lets out a chuckle. “But maybe it’s best if we talked about this later”

“Asra please!” I reach across the table a grip his hands. “Just tell me” I can see a flush form on Asra’s face. Julian looks to Muriel as they both chuckle, Julian more than Muriel.

“Asra, what does fuck mean?” I plead. Julian starts howling with laughter, nearly spilling his drink. Muriel lets out a snort. This is the most emotion I’ve seen him express ever. I can’t help feeling embarrassed that I'm the only one who doesn’t know. Asra lets out a sigh.

“Well uh, remember when I had to explain some swear words to you? It's like that but it’s a little harsher than other words,”

“Well, what does it mean,”

“Depends on the context my friend,” Julian waggles his eyebrows at me. Asra elbows him in the ribs earning a wince from the redhead.

“Well um, how do I explain it? You use it in multiple ways,”

“Such as?”

“Well, you can use it as an insult?”

“Like ass?” I know that one.

“Y-yes” Asra clears his throat and looks down into his teacup. Julian continues to chuckle as Asra and I go back and forth.

“Oh, you could use it for more than just an insult,” Julian leans in eyes shifting between Asra and me.

“Ilya!” Asra says through his teeth.

“Asra, you have to tell them,” Muriel chimes in.

“Well you can use it as an exclamation,” Asra seems more and more uncomfortable by the second but I can't understand why.

“Like Julian did just now? Cause he got a bad card?”

“Uh yea like that, but I would avoid using it,” Asra reaches for his tea and takes a sip. “You know what we need more tea I'm gonna go make some,” Asra gets up and heads in the completely opposite direction of where the tea is stashed. My gaze shifts to Julian.

“Julian, please tell me what it means,” another snort escapes Muriel and Julian flushes.

“Oh uhh well it can also be used to describe um… activities…” He avoids my eyes as he speaks. suddenly flustered under the pressure of my apparently loaded question. 

“Activities?”

"Er yes… you know activities?" Julian gestures like he's trying to get me to finish the sentence.

"I'm not following,"

"You said you heard the word before?" Muriel cuts in.

"Yes, I've heard it used a lot by the docks, and sometimes Julian says it but I never knew what it meant,"

"Well then just use it in that context," Muriel shrugs and then gets up to go wherever Asra is hiding. Feeling defeated I decide that these three won't answer my question.

"Fine, I'll ask someone else, someone who I know will answer my question,"

"And who might that be?" Julian questions, leaning back in his chair.

"Portia," in an instant I whip around and head downstairs towards the door of my shop. I hear a distinctive "NO" from Julian as I run. I slam the door behind me and head for the palace.

--

I wave hello to the guards as I walk over the bridge into the palace. Portia said she was unable to come over today because she's working. I'm sure me asking a little question couldn't hurt. I poke my head into the kitchen but I don't spot Portia anywhere. I check the ballroom, the library, the verandas, the drawing room. Just about everywhere. I'm starting to loose hope of my search until I quite literally run into a pile of boxes.

"Woah there!" the person carrying to boxes stumbles backwards but then steadies themselves.

"Portia? Is that you behind those boxes?" a tuft of red hair just barely pokes on the side of the boxes. Yup that's definitely Portia.

"Oh hi MC! Yea Milady wanted these boxes moved, and I was the only one available,"

"Would you like some help?"

"Oh thanks but I've gottem! You can help me by opening that door though!" She points her foot at a door a few feet away, to which I walk over and open. Portia places the boxes into the small closet and then dusts off her hands.

"So, not that I don't want you here, but why are you here? I thought everyone was at your shop?" Portia's smile is warm and inviting, but I still shift my weight out of embarrassment. 

"They are, but I wanted to ask you a question," Portia gives me an encouraging nod. I wring my hands together and finally speak.

"What does fuck mean?" Portia's smile falls and her eyes go wide. She then bursts out laughing. Not the reaction I expected but better than avoidance. She stops laughing when she notices my lack of laughter.

"Oh! Oh you're serious!" I give her a nod. "Well uh... You can use it a lot of ways,"

"Like as an insult?"

"Yea exactly, but also you can use it to describe an action,"

"What kind of action,"

"Oh, hrm well you can use it like "let's get fucked up" like when you get drunk with friends," I nod quickly, noting the phrase into my memory. 

"What else?"

"Oh uh... well um... when two people love each other very much-"

"Pasha!" a voice cuts in. We turn to see Julian, Asra, and Muriel turning the corner towards us.

”Why did your run off like that?” Asra asks me.

“No one was answering my questions!” I shift my glare between the three standing in front of me. They all cringe with embarrassment.

"Oh my, I was not expecting guests today," Nadia makes her way around the corner and stops when she sees all five of us.

"Oh milady! I wasn't expecting them either I apologize," Portia chimes in.

"No need for apologies Portia, my friends are always welcome, but what are you all doing here?" 

"Well you see-"

"We were just-" Asra and Julian speak at the same time. Muriel lets out a huff and approaches Nadia. He signals for her to lean in and whispers something in her ear. Her eyebrows shoot up in surprise and her gaze shifts to me.

"Oh my," she says bringing a hand to her chest in shock, composed, but she still seems surprised. Muriel nods in response as he rights himself. "Well I feel I can resolve this situation," Nadia gestures for me to approach her and she leans to whisper in my ear. What she tells me answers the question I've been asking all day. I flush a little in embarrassment but I guess it makes sense.

"That was it!?" my eyes snap to Asra and Julian who are trying to look around innocently.

"My these er, moldings on the ceilings are quite nice, can't say I noticed them before," Julian tries to change the subject.

"Asra, c'mon it wasn't that serious," I say, folding my arms.

"Ah, yea I guess so, sorry for driving you to find other sources,"

"It's ok, sorry for running off," Asra and I exchange warm smiles. Nadia clears her throat.

"Well since were all here why don't we all relax on the veranda?"

"Yknow, all this running around has probably made us all quite thirsty," Julian's signature smug smile plasters itself on his face.

"Well I suppose some indulgence couldn't hurt," Nadia smiles back.

"I'll grab some bottles!" Portia says.

"I'll go with you," Muriel mumbles. The two of them walk off towards the kitchen. Nadia puts her hand on my shoulder.

"You will be joining us yes?" I give her a nod. I look Asra straight in the eyes and try to laugh as I watch the blood drain from his face with what I say next.

"Let's get fucked up,"

#the arcana #the arcana game #the arcana asra #the arcana julian #the arcana muriel #the arcana portia #the arcana nadia #the arcana fic #asra alnazar #portia devorak #julian devorak #nadia satrinava #muriel of the kokhuri #crow writes

[glacecakes]

Wild Hunt

Eugene isn't exactly well liked by his men, but when they want to induct him into their ranks, he's not going to complain! All he has to do is hunt down a beast that they prepared for this event specifically-

It's Varian. Eugene is accidentally hunting down Varian. Now the two have to survive the night together, while one of them is injured, against a squadron of Corona's best men.

Uh oh.

IM BACK! Kinda. Finals are due Tuesday and I wrote this instead of doing them but WHATEVER WHO CARES

This was mostly written on the Varian Hivemind server, with some lovely inputs from the folks on there, and I edited it and finished it before throwing it up here. So uh. Yea. Team Awesome my beloved

Life and Times and VVO will also be updated soon!!! I hope to have at least one if not both chapters done by the end of the month 

ANYWAY HERES 8K OF TEAM AWESOME ANGST

Being Captain of the Guards sure had its perks.

For one, he got to attend meetings with Rapunzel, finally. You'd think being the princess's future husband (probably) and Prince of the Dark Kingdom got him some recognition, but noblemen are jerks and elitists, so what can you do. Granted, the meetings were boring as all hell, but still, it felt like he was actually being respected and taken seriously. Something Rapunzel had been pushing for since the start. Personally, he wasn't all that sure he deserved it, but if she was happy, so was he.

Another was that the guards no longer gave him shit. That's not to say they did before... well, they did. Stan and Pete didn't, but every other guard called him Flynn Rider at least once or twice before begrudgingly accepting him as their teacher and now commander. He no longer had to worry about someone breathing down his back, waiting for him to slip up or commit a crime, eager to throw him back in prison.

Speaking of which...

He turned the corner to see a few guards, couldn't remember their names off the top of his head, forming a small circle around a corner. Their predatory grins barred down on whatever their target was, whichever poor soul had angered them. One of them had his hands on someone much shorter, so short he couldn't make them out beyond the red coats and gleaming gold... which could only mean it was one person.

"Don't get comfy, brat," the one hissed, pushing Varian up against the wall with an audible crack as a skull hit stone, no doubt hoisted up by a shirt collar. "One of these days the princess is gonna get sick of you, and when she does, we'll toss you back into your old cell... and we'll restart our favorite game. Ain't that a swell idea?" Varian hissed, a soft thunk of his boots scrambling for purchase against the wall.

"Hey!" Eugene snapped, having heard more than enough. "Put him down now ." His words were like fire, causing the other two to jump back and reveal the battered and bruised alchemist. His lip was split, a large scuff of dirt on his white shirt.

One of the guards snapped his head around, whacking the leader's shoulder to get his attention. The guard frowned. "Oh yea? Or what?"

Before his new position, he would've leapt into the fray, hackles raised, punching the lights out of these jerks, but now, he had a much better stance. "Or you're fired." He crossed his arms, the perfect picture of a guy in charge who knew how to keep his men in line.

Someone who was clearly not him.

The guard hummed. "You don't have the nerve." To emphasize his point, he shook Varian a little harder, the kid's toes barely scraping the floor and his hands gripping the soldier's wrists. Leather gloves creaked with how tight the pressure was.

But Eugene's glare didn't waver, hand itching for the sword at his hip, his anger radiating in waves. It was enough to get the other two to back off.

"Cmon, Aaron," one whispered. "It's not worth it."

"Yeah, it's not." Eugene agreed. "Put him down now, and I'll lighten your sentence to a week in the stables instead of a month."

Aaron's face turned sheet white, then bright red. With a huff, he dropped Varian to the ground, readjusting his gloves while Varian cried out on the floor.

"You got lucky this time, brat," he hissed.

Oh, he knew that type of speech. The Baron used it all the time. Anyone who got told that never lasted to the next month. "And all other times," he said. "Because if I see you go anywhere near him I'm taking you to the princess."

Aaron rolled his eyes, clearly uncaring, and stormed off with a huff, his buddies trailing after. No doubt they didn't like a criminal ordering them around. Or, ex-criminal. He'd have to keep an eye on them.

A sniffle broke Eugene's musings, the fog of satisfaction and annoyance quickly replaced by concern for his younger friend. Varian sat up, wincing as he did so. He rubbed his neck, feeling for any injuries and finding none except for his ruined collar. "Aw man," he mumbled.

Dad had fixed his collar for him that day, a proud smile on his face. "You need to look sharp for your first day on the job," he'd said, ruffling Varian's hair. They'd grown so much closer in the past few months, the man always seeing his son off. Today was the first day back after his kidnapping, after all; he'd spent a month recovering from a broken rib.

"It's not my first day, I've been working there for weeks," Varian had grumbled, but let him do it with a cheeky grin.

"First day of the week," Quirin rectified, placing a kiss to his baby's forehead.

A forehead now covered in dust and a bruise.

"Hey kid," Eugene offered a hand that Varian gladly took, stumbling a little as he was helped upright. "You ok? Nothing knocked outta place?"

"Just my pride," Varian joked, smile quickly fading. "I'm ok though, really. I'm used to it." He shrugged, hugging himself for comfort. Maybe he could pretend dad was here, hugging him... he always had the best hugs. Even when Varian was little, before they drifted apart. Back when he was just the weird magic kid. Back when his biggest worries were some older kids picking on him... Dad would always scoop him up into a big hug with flowery words and a book of Flynn Rider.

A warm hand wrapped around him, pulling him into a red chest. Eugene took his other hand to ruffle Varian's hair, earning a squawk of complaint.

"Just because you're used to it doesn't mean it's ok, you know that, right?" Silence followed. Gosh, this kid... say what you want about being an orphan, at least everyone around you was on the same boat. No place for bullies, nothing to bully about, when everyone was doing just as badly. "If they ever give you more trouble, you come to me, yeah?"

"Huh?" Confused blue eyes met warm brown.

Eugene smirked. "You say the words and I boot them out of the castle, goggles. Team Awesome looks out for each other."

"Oh," Varian mumbled, dazed. He'd never had a protector, never had anyone looking out for him. Cold sneers and flowery words, manipulation and secrets and ulterior motives, sure. His chest fluttered, a laugh escaping.

But then... the anxiety returned full force, maybe even stronger.

If those guys got fired because of him, good god, he could only imagine the fallout. Well, that's not true. He absolutely could. One time in prison a guard got fired for beating a cellmate within an inch of his life, and though the guy lived, the second he was out of prison he got jumped, or so the story goes. In all honesty it was probably an embellished truth, stretched out to frighten prisoners into silence, but god damn if it didn't work. No one ever complained about their beatings. A peep was all that was needed to spend a night in the infirmary for even worse injuries.

"No, no, it's fine," Varian flicked his wrist. The dial on his hand spun with each flick, the ticking grating. "Besides, we have work to do!"

"Oh, yea!" Eugene gasped. Right! The whole reason he came out to this part of the castle was to look for Varian specifically, after all.

"So, right, maintenance stuff." Varian waved his hand, motioning for Eugene to follow. "Here's what I had in mind..."

-

It was a week later, late at night, when Aaron approached him. The moon lay low in the sky, just bright enough to allow for vision without torchlight, but not bright enough that anything beyond shapes were clear. True to his word, the guard had been stationed on stable duty for the past several days, coming back to the barracks covered in dirt and angry every time.

So maybe Eugene had whispered to Max about him. Big deal.

Anyway, the captain was knee-deep in paperwork when Aaron knocked on his office door. "Sir," he said. "Finished up for the day, and I wanted to talk to you."

"Oh?" Eugene put his quill down hesitantly. Aaron was his first big show of power, the first punishment he'd dished. Everything else had been a variation of "keep doing what you're doing" as he settled into his new role. Who knew being in a position of power was so stressful?

(Everyone. Literally everyone.)

"I wanted to apologize for testing you, sir." The man shifted, eyes never meeting. His face was unreadable. "I wasn't sure you were going to be as..... sharp, as our previous captain. And I'm sorry for that."

"....Ok," Eugene said. "Thanks? I think?"

"So, I uh... wanted to do something for you." The man continues. "Me and a few others. It's sorta a ritual for guards. We didn’t do it before cuz of, yknow, Cassandra and stuff. And you're one of us now, so...?" He raised an eyebrow, a quiet invitation.

Oh boy.

Knowing these guys, it was probably something really stupid. Most of the guards were pretty nice, maybe a bit airheaded, but a lot of meatheads mostly. Big fans of machismo and showing their strength, boosting their ego, stuff like that. It's why none of them were fans of being run by a criminal. And no doubt Eugene would have to clean up their mess anyway, so he sighed deeply and rose from his seat. "Alright, what did you do now?"

Aaron placed a hand to his chest. "Why, sir, we did this out of the goodness of our heart! We're just welcoming you to the team!" He laughed a bit at that last part. He pointed out the door, leading his superior down the suspiciously empty barracks, and out into the courtyard.

About a dozen or so guards were outside, waiting. One of them was holding a horse's reins, and a crossbow.

"He's in!" Aaron called, and the guards all broke into cheers and raucous laughter.

"Yea, nice to see you guys too, uh. What am I... in?" Eugene asked, shifting awkwardly.

Aaron's smile widened. "It's just a fun little game, sir."

"The game is simple, really," Aaron slung an arm around Eugene's shoulder, pulling him close, not unlike how Lance does. But unlike his larger friend, this man is wiry, more of a weaselly kind of build, with stick thin arms that hide his muscle. "See, when someone new joins the guard, we test their skill by having them hunt down a beast in the nearby forest. Once they catch it, we all celebrate together! And welcome him into the ranks!" The guards all cheered, no doubt thrilled at the prospect.

"....right...." Eugene smiled uncomfortably, cheeks pulling and stretching, a puppet controlling the strings attached to his face. His stomach swirled, bouncing all over as he was passed around.

"But see, you're not just any guard, you're the Captain," Aaron's smile took an equally unpleasant demeanour. "So we figured we'd give you some extra... challenge." Outside of their little circle, no sounds could be heard. Not a peep from a cricket, or a cry from a bird, just dead silence in the surrounding glen. Just the crackle of torches, and the rustling of men.

"The beast for this occasion is small, smart, and fast. The goal is to catch it before it reaches the wall at Old Corona. All you gotta do is," he makes a noise with his mouth to emulate the crossbow. "Hit the target, and the rest of us will finish the job."

"Finish?" Eugene echoed.

The guards around him smiled with all of their teeth. "Well yea, we're not just gonna waste a perfectly good beast, are we?"

Eugene narrowed his eyes. If Rapunzel heard about this, no doubt she'd flip. "How will I know what I'm looking for? And why should I even approve of this?"

"Relax, sir," Aaron shook him, patting his chest with a heavy fist. "We're not just killing an innocent creature. It's always something that's been marked for slaughter, or is causing problems. And trust me," his voice deepened. "You'll know."

No horse was as good as Max, but that was probably for the best, what with his gut screaming about how this all felt so goddamn sketchy. "This isn't some trap where it turns out I'm the one being hunted, right? Cuz I don't want to shoot any of you with this," he joked, brandishing the crossbow.

"No, sir, not at all! In fact we'll be supporting you! No one makes the first shot until you do." He promised, patting the horse's flank. "Rest assured, no tricks here. Just a beast already marked for capture. Or recapture, in this case. We picked this one special for you."

"That sounds like it's supposed to be flattering but it really isn't."

Aaron shrugged. "Not my problem. Good luck!" With a smack to the horse, she cried out, spurring Eugene forward.

They rode through the Capital, out into Corona proper, lush with trees. At this time of night, no one would be about, not even thieves, laden in their straw beds and cots. The only things out right now are animals, or a beast, in this case. How is he supposed to know what he's looking for? What, is it going to be some giant thing with red eyes? No, Aaron said it was small, how the hell is he going to...

Then he hears it.

It's faint, almost like a windchime, but sure enough, the clanking of chains, and a small whimper. Somewhere through the trees there's a rustling, something moving. He can't make it out, the guards didn't give him a torch, but a blob of something rushes forward, the only thing he can make out the distinctive shine of metal, a chain reflecting in the moonlight.

Ah.

Eugene smirked, the rush of adrenaline from a chase beginning to pump through his veins. It'd been a while since an adventure without any stakes, without any daring challenges or risking death. The last time must've been... gosh, probably the Herz de Sonne misadventure? And even then he and Lance had just goofed off for the majority of it. Maybe the Spire? That one was much riskier but he and Rapunzel had been so outrageously drunk during that whole endeavor that it felt more like a fun jaunt.

He shook himself out of his reverie. Focus, Eugene! Fun or no, you're proving yourself to the guards! Show them that you're a worthy Captain beyond just barking orders and supporting the princess!

He spurred the horse forward, hooves thundering against the undergrowth and disturbing the leaves below. The beast let out a shriek, shrill and shaking, rushing forward. It weaved between trees, trying to throw Eugene off. Man, Aaron wasn't kidding about how fast it was. Even on horseback he couldn't keep up very well. The chains wrapped around the beast's legs screamed in complaint, clanking and clattering with each huff of its breath.

Eugene lowered the crossbow, sticking his tongue out. Steady... steady.... he fired.

The bolt whizzed through the air, lodging into a tree just a few feet away from its target. The beast flinched but didn't slow, scampering through the undergrowth, leaping over a fallen tree towards the river.

"Hyah!" He yelled, leading his horse over the log and splashing down into frigid waters. Water rushed past his horse's hooves, dulling the sound of chains, and when he looked around, the beast was gone.

Drat.

Eugene grumbled, reloading the crossbow before urging his horse onward. If this beast got away he'd never hear the end of it! They'd be all "Yes sir, Captain! We'll catch that criminal! As soon as you catch that beast!" And then they'd laugh and he'd moan and he'd have to go catch the criminal himself which is honestly not too far off from how it is already-

Anyway.

It took a few minutes to find it again, the beast trying to muffle it's movements by shuffling, but the metal song was too alluring to ignore. There was no time to waste. With the horse at a fast trot, quieter and steadier, he fired the bolt, this time getting much closer, barely whizzing past the silhouette and lodging into a tree trunk with a chunk of hair.

The creature cried out again, beginning to run and renew this dance of cat and mouse, but Eugene wouldn't have it. Dexterous fingers clasped a new bolt and quickly reloaded, giving barely a few seconds for the creature to try and run before firing again.

He didn't miss.

It was almost silent, the bolt's descent. Its tip gleamed in the moonlight alongside the chains keeping his prey in place, the one thing that slowed it and gave Eugene the upper hand. Whatever this beast was was quick, too quick, and if he lost it again, no doubt he'd never find it again. So when he aimed, he aimed down, and sure enough, the bolt embedded itself into the beast's calf, sending into stumbling.

It shrieked, screamed and sobbed in agony, noises bordering on almost human-like as it thrashed on the floor. The arrow stuck straight up, bright color on the end almost a beacon for the beast's location. Poor thing. He really should've just aimed for the head and put it out of its mercy, but this was the only way to ensure a clean shot.

Eugene slid off his horse, crouching low to the ground as he readied the final blow. But as he got nearer, as the moon hung lower in the sky, providing light through the filtering trees. He hesitated.

The beast was crawling, still trying to run, front legs pawing at the forest floor and clenching the leaves beneath with hands.

Hands...?

Eugene's stomach sank, lower and lower with each passing step, heart climbing higher and higher in his throat, the closer he got, the more ill he felt.

He saw the chains first. No, not chains like that on a cattle’s neck. Prison shackles, the kind wrapped around a prisoner's legs. And they were wrapped around legs, keeping strides from being too large.

And their torso.... clothed torso..... The beast heaved, each breath causing it to rise and fall with rapid panic.

The Captain's hands brushed against the tree with his other bolt embedded in it, eyes trailing onto it, and he froze.

Blue hair, stabbed by the bolt.

"No," he breathed. "No no no no no..." His boots picked up the pace, speed walking over to his catch, to his victim. Please, for the love of god, let him be wrong. Let this be a cruel prank, just a bear or deer dressed up to fool him... don't let it be...!

The creature heard him approach and sobbed, flipping itself over on shaking hands to get a better look at its assailant.

There, lightened by the moonlight, chest heaving, tears streaming down his face and blood oozing from his leg, was Varian.

"Varian....?" Eugene whispered, tears of his own budding when his friend whimpered, scooting back and away. With each step forward Varian scrambled back until his back hit a tree, at which point he curled into a ball. Like a frightened animal. Like a cornered beast.

Oh god... this whole time, he thought it was just one of the farm animals marked for slaughter, or a meddlesome woodland critter... he thought it was an animal destined for someone's table, so why not the guards'? Why on Earth did he agree to this? Was he so desperate for approval from his peers that he would simply shrug off the ringing alarm bells, put aside his gut instinct, and dive in blindly?

Yes, his mind whispered. You would, and you did.

"Hey, buddy," He leaned down, inching closer. "Varian, goggles, it's me. It's Team Awesome." His hand shook as he reached forward, but Varian flinched violently, causing his leg to spasm. The boy hiccuped, a hand clamping over his mouth to stifle his sobs. A small mercy came from the shadows of the night, with it too dark for details, Varian wouldn't see the blood rapidly soaking his pants.

The crossbow glinted, a sharp refraction bouncing off frightened blue eyes and causing him to wince. Eugene tossed the weapon away like it burned him.

"It's me, it's Eugene," he reassured, scooting closer bit by bit. "I'm here to help. I'm not gonna hurt you."

"You did," Varian gasped, whole form shaking. "You did."

And that really was the crux of it, wasn't it? At the center of Eugene's self loathing was the spiral of guilt that you shot him, you shot the kid. He trusted you, and you shot him.

"I know," he rasped, trying to keep his voice level. "I did. I'm so sorry. Fuck, I'm so sorry." Varian sobbed, unfurling slightly if only to reach out for comfort. Even if this was the man who hurt him, who hunted him on horse and acted as the boogeyman straight out of nightmares, he was also Eugene, his friend, the one who stood up for him against Cass and Aaron, held his hand and promised he'd be there if Varian ever needed it. And god did he need him now.

Shaking, gloved hands connected in the middle, Eugene's grip gentle but grounding, a careful smile on his face. "That's it, bud. You're safe."

“Aw, ain’t that cute?”

Faster than a bullet, the smaller hand retracted, Varian’s eyes wide and horror-struck. In his attempt to comfort the boy, Eugene had let his guard down. He’d forgotten the final rule of the game.

No one moves until you make the first shot.

They were surrounded.

Aaron swaggered up to the duo with a grin, torch in hand. It flickered and sputtered, illuminating his blinding white grin amidst the darkness. The other guards formed a circle around them. Every other man carried a torch, while the rest had a weapon or tool or rope.

“The Captain has captured the beast! And in remarkable time, too.” Aaron simpered, waltzing up and gripping Varian’s cheeks in his hand. The boy snarled, teeth grit as he stared up at his bully.

From behind them came Aaron’s two buddies, the guards from before, each one wrapping an arm around Eugene’s shoulder, hauling him up and away.

For a moment, Eugene's insides were pure ice, frozen in time, unable to react despite the screaming in his mind as the puzzle pieces failed to connect. They jumbled and sloshed in his mind, the picture only half complete and the rest of the pieces strewn atop, obscuring the image from his view.

"Eugene...?" Varian whispered, thawing him.

"What have you done!?" He bellowed, anger hardening his voice. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?" He strained against the guards.

"Just as we told you, sir!" Aaron mocked, forcing Varian to meet the Captain's gaze. "We captured a beast for you to hunt down! And now that you have," The grin was razor sharp, shark's fangs practically drenched in blood. "We'll dispose of it properly."

A guard from the circle threw a rope, the ends tied into a loop. Like a ring toss, the aim was true, ensnaring Varian's wrist and tightening when he pulled. Another guard followed suit, yanking the boy back and forth till his arms were spread eagle and unable to move.

Varian turned a stark white, paler than the moon that neared the horizon. He cried out, straining to try and escape, but another spasm from his leg paralyzed him. “N-no, please not again…!” He sobbed. “Let me go-!”

"Again!? Varian, what do you mean? VARIAN!" Eugene yelled. "VARIAN!"

The boy screwed his eyes shut, praying for the nightmare to end.

"LET HIM GO!" Eugene strained against the guards, lamenting once again, his own stupidity. He should've brought Max, or an actual weapon, like his sword, or something! He'd gone in totally blind, expecting that the guards were decent people and that this wouldn't be anything out of the ordinary. Honestly, he should've known better! After everything he's seen and done, never leave the house without a concealed weapon! You were almost executed by half these assholes!

When he gets back, he's firing everyone except Stan and Pete.

A third rope flashed through the air, this time with a loop larger than the others. It latched itself onto Varian's neck, wrapping tight and close. His eyes snapped open in pure terror, mouth opening in shock. But before the boy could protest or scream, the rope was pulled taut, and his face turned an awful shade of purple. He coughed, thrashing in place with tears of fear and hypoxia trailing his cheeks.

"Aw, the beast is scared! Doesn't he know how all animals are slaughtered?" Aaron cooed, faux sympathy marring his features. "You know, don't you? You were raised on a farm, after all." His question went unanswered, Varian too busy rasping for breath to respond.

The man with the rope pulled harder, forcing Varian's face down into the dirt where his muffled cries barely caused the leaves beneath to move. A steel boot stomped onto his head, and the cries went still.

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM!?" Eugene bellowed, the protective instincts in his mind going haywire, overheating and exploding with pure rage and an intense need to save him, free him. He let this happen, if he had been smarter, stronger, if he hadn't shot him, hadn't let his guard down, hadn't shrugged and taken the guards' words at face value… “Oh relax, it'll be painless!” Aaron hummed, producing a knife from his belt. “The beast didn’t answer the question, but, I’m sure you can figure out how animals are killed after falling unconscious.” He jokingly slashed the dagger in the air above his throat, and Eugene saw red.

"YOU ARE SO FIRED!" He screeched at Aaron. "WHEN RAPUNZEL FINDS OUT-"

"Oh?" Aaron mocked, turning around and placing a hand to his chest daintily. "When the princess finds out? You're making her do all the heavy lifting?" He sauntered up to Eugene, hips swaying with each step till they were nose to nose. "This is your job, sir. You are in charge of keeping us in line, keeping the prisoners in their place."

"Varian is NOT a prisoner," Eugene hissed, meeting his gaze with pure fury. "He is a friend, my friend, my brother."

"Perhaps to Eugene Fitzherbert, but not a Captain of the Guard." Aaron shrugged.

Eugene lowered his head. For a brief moment, Aaron grinned victoriously. Now he's getting it.

"Too bad for you, I'm both."

Aaron's face fell, the cheerful facade falling into a brutal glower. "What does that mea-"

He was cut off when Eugene slammed his face into Aaron's, hitting the bastard's nose with a CRUNCH. He staggered back, and his buddies loosened their grip on Eugene to see if he's ok. It's all the advantage Eugene needed, quickly pushing them both off him and charging Aaron. His shoulder bowled into Aaron, sending him sprawling, and Eugene only stopped to grab the dagger he dropped before sprinting for Varian's crumpled form.

"Oh sun, please be ok, come on kid," Eugene chanted, slashing the rope around his neck. It leaves a brutal ring of red around his neck, as do the ones around his wrist when they're dispatched. There was no time to remove the chains, what with the remaining guards quickly regaining their senses and gearing up for a fight.

He lifted Varian up into his arms as if he were made of glass. Dark black hair lolled against the Captain's chest as he stood to his full height, glaring down at his employees, the hazers, the conspirators.

There was no hope of taking them all on, that much was clear. Charging into battle with hands full and armed only with a knife was stupid. He'd have to outrun them, play the game, and make it to Old Corona where Quirin could protect his son and he could get actual backup from loyal men.

Perhaps this was the true game, the true test of his worthiness.

Aaron snarled, staggering up while clutching his nose. "GET HIM!"

Eugene crouched, letting the first guard try and charge him before jumping out of the way at the last second. This he was used to, dodging men who wanted nothing more than to hurt and destroy what he held dear, making a run for it to the relative safety of the familiar. He fell into the old routine without too much difficulty, leaping over heads and ducking under blows. It helped that Varian barely weighed more than a few grapes, still a stick from his year in prison. He and the others had been hard at work trying to help him gain at the very least some muscle, though Varian was a big fan of skipping meals for science.

According to Quirin he's had that habit for a while, and right now it was a minor blessing.

Huh, he thought to himself as he dodged a crossbow bolt, taking off into the trees. Captain of the Guard isn't all that off from my usual life, just with some added benefits. Another arrow nearly took off his ear. Yea, same old stuff.

His feet pounded against the forest floor, dredging up leaves and dirt alike as he ran. There was no time to cover his tracks or be discreet, there was a whole battalion after him, so it wouldn't do much good anyway. But as his steps quickened, as Varian bounced up and down in his arms, the chains still rattling, the boy stirred, groaning in pain with each motion.

"Gene...?" He mumbled, muffled through the man’s coat.

"Hey kid," Eugene grinned down, not slowing for a second. "Glad to see you're ok. How's your throat?"

"On fire..." a weak hand pawed at his throat, rubbing the soreness away.

"Sorry about that, you're gonna be just fine, ok? It's all gonna be ok."

Varian hummed, eyes glossy and not fully there. His head fell back onto Eugene's chest, a soft smile full of love that he didn't deserve. "K. I trust you."

Varian fell back into an uneasy sleep after that, his breaths wheezing against Eugene, lips stained blue and face clammy. Anytime exhaustion tried to creep into his bones, tried to sneak into his soul and drain him to surrender, he looked down at Varian and his spirit would renew.

At some point, they were hiding behind a tree, keeping to the intense darkness. A few guards could be heard not too far off, their annoyed mutterings like an alarm bell, a siren's song of false security. Just as they passed, Varian coughed, clutching at the fabric for comfort. It was an ugly sound, weak and ragged, as if there was something coming up.

When he looked down, those blue lips were now stained red.

He picked up the pace after that.

But even he couldn't run forever, no matter how light Varian was or how determined he was. Inevitably he had to stop for water, hiding Varian behind a fallen tree and drinking from a stream whose sounds hid them from view.

He just finished his own drink when Varian stirred, and the Captain was quick to help Varian get some water of his own.

They sat by the stream for a bit, catching their breaths, Eugene from exertion, and Varian from strangulation.

It was here that Varian recounted his side of the story, tears dripping and mixing with the stream below him. "I was so scared..." he whispered, voice hoarse.

"I bet," Eugene soothed, running a thumb over Varian's palm. "What happened?"

"....I got jumped," his eyes turned downcast, shame coloring his features. "T-they grabbed me when I was gonna head home. Said that they wanted to make it up to me, to... to give me "a job befitting my talents"...." He sighed. "You can probably guess what that was, huh."

Eugene's ears burned. A flame simmered in his gut, nausea falling away as his free hand clenched at the leaves below him. "Yea. I can." He bit out.

For a moment, neither spoke, unsure of what to say. What could they say? The situation was insane, it was cruel, it was... it was…

Varian hacked, more blood than before coming up and splattering on the shackles that remained.

"Oh, let me get those," Eugene hissed. "I'm sorry, shit," He fumbled for his pockets, procuring a lock pick and making quick work of the shackles. "We gotta move. We can't let them find us." His hands hovered over the bolt, unsure. "Can I... I mean, you can't run with..."

Varian turned a shade of green, barely visible. “It’s stopping the blood from coming out.”

"Yea, good point, sorry." He coughed awkwardly, the stream bubbling and gurgling a simple melody.

"Why do... why do you keep apologizing?" Varian asked, not meeting Eugene's eye for a second.

"Wh- seriously?" He let out a bark of laughter, fading when Varian's face didn't change. "Kid, it's my fault you're in this mess! Sun above, I shot you. I said I'd keep you safe and I shot you." Anger swelled in his words, but Varian didn't flinch. He knew it wasn't directed at him. "Some Captain I am, I'm being chased by my own guys."

Varian bit his lip. "Did..." he hesitated to ask. If the answer wasn't what he was hoping for, he'd never recover. "Did you know it was me?"

"No!" Eugene's eyes widened. "No, I never would've agreed if I knew it was a person, let alone you!" He ran a hand through frazzled hair.

"So..." Varian hummed. "You shot me on accident, and then saved me. Again. Even when your men tried to convince you otherwise." Each sentence was slow, filled with Varian needed to take in a breath, but he met his friend's eyes this time. "I think that's a pretty good Captain."

Eugene blinked, then smiled. "Thanks, kid."

Dark voices shouted across the clearing, words incomprehensible. Varian jolted, hands flying up before doubling over hacking. Each cough shook his body so hard you’d think the boy was trembling with fright.

“Woah, easy,” Eugene’s hand rubbed over his back. “Deep breaths. Come on goggles. You got this.”

“You would think,” Varian rasped. “But I do not.”

Finally, with one final hack, his coughs ceased. Each gulp of air felt like heaven, or at least it did for the first few seconds. Then it was replaced by a searing hell, leaving him scrambling again.

God, what is the culprit?

As his breathing quieted, as the burn turned to a small simmer, Varian’s eyes trailed to the forest floor beneath him.

Stained with blood.

Varian’s eyes widened, his pupils shrunk to pinpricks as his entire world focused in on the blood. The dark blues of night left it hard to see, more a black shine than the vicious red, but there was no denying what it was.

“What-oooh,” Eugene hissed, grabbing Varian’s shoulders for support. Shit, this was bad. He made a mental list of symptoms for the inevitable doctor visit: raspy voice, struggling to breathe, coughing up blood... all signs pointed to the noose as the culprit. Whichever guard had tried to strangle Varian was getting fired and arrested.

No, screw it, all of them were.

“Focus on me, hair stripe,” he warned, shaking his brother slightly. “Are you ok to move?” All he got was a weedy moan.  “I’m taking that as a maybe.” With no preamble, he scooped his arms under Varian’s knees and back, pulling him into his arms as he stood in one fluid motion. “I’m gonna try and make a run for it, ok? We’re almost to your dad. I just need you to stay with me.”

Silence, and then a faint nod moving against his coat.

Each step sent vibrations up Eugene’s spine, tingling and thrumming in his veins and pounding in time with his heart. The sun would be rising soon, it had to be, with the dew that is forming at his feet.

At some point Varian readjusted, shifting so that he could see over their shoulders. He couldn’t run, couldn’t fight, but at least he could keep an eye out.

And it’s a good thing he did, when he beats wildly at Eugene’s chest in a signal. The captain was about to duck behind a bush, but the forest’s edge is within sight! Maybe if they made a break for it...?

An arrow grazed his side.

The pain looped through his system, joining the adrenaline for a joyride through his mind and it sent him sprawling. Varian rolled out of his arms, collapsing at the forest’s edge.

Eugene groaned, raising his face with the sun to see Aaron’s smug grin glowing in the upcoming dawn.

“Well, look what I caught! A daddy beast and a baby beast!” He said.

Eugene gaped. “Could you be any creepier? Really, gotta go for the weirdest shit to say, don’t you?”

“Eh,” Aaron shrugged, crossbow in hand. He stepped past his boss (Er, ex boss), boots crunching on leaves and leaving nothing but dust in their wake. “I’m a weird guy, I guess.”

“Yea, a real weirdo. Kidnaps a teenager and has the captain hunt him for sport. A nice quirk, ain’t it!” Each word is angrier than before until he is spitting acid.

Aaron doesn’t even argue; he’s too caught up in his victory. Varian shook as he struggled to sit up, arms quivering with effort. Just as he raised his head his eyes met the gleaming tip of an arrow, aimed right between the eyes. “Say goodnight, kid. Don’t worry. I’ll make a fine trophy out of you. Hang your goggles over my mantle.”

“Would you knock it the fuck off!?” Eugene wheezed, scrambling up. His feet gave out near instantly, but he leapt forward, colliding with the guard and driving his aim up. The arrow whizzed overhead, harmlessly lodging into a tree.

“Varian, run!” Eugene yelled, still on top of the other.

“I CAN’T! What part of arrow in my leg don’t you get!?” Varian yelled, immediately followed by coughing.

Eugene went to answer, only for the butt of the crossbow to whack him in the face.

Aaron laughed, loud and manic, the sound like nails on a chalkboard. It was quickly stopped by a punch to his stomach from the furious man above him. If the others found them, it’d be game over. Literally.

Whether or not Eugene would be killed was unclear. While he didn’t always need Rapunzel to save him, her good graces granted him immunity from most local threats. But they’d definitely kill Varian, and that was the bigger concern to him.

Unfazed, Aaron slammed his skull into Eugene’s, sending him tearing back. The guard quickly flipped them, crossbow still in between.

“Face it,” Aaron snarled. “You’ll never be a true captain. You can’t control your men, can’t protect a kid, can’t even protect yourself. You just got the job because you saved the lost princess.”

“In my defense,” Eugene wheezed. “Your previous guard couldn’t do that either.” That only angered him more, digging the crossbow into Eugene’s Adam’s apple.

The two men wrestled briefly, Eugene finally getting a good grip on the crossbow, and kicking Aaron off of him. He scrambled to Varian, fully prepared to scoop him up and begin the dance again, just for a little longer, but Aaron just yelled out in anger, drawing a sword from his belt. As strong as Eugene was, he couldn’t outrun him with Varian in his arms. He would know, he trained his men to match him in speed and strength.

Varian moaned in pain. He had to do something, he couldn’t just sit here! Eugene had spent the whole night running around, working his ass off to keep him safe after the initial mistake, he couldn’t let him down...

But the arrow scraped against his bone, pain sending stars across his vision any time he stood…

The captain’s hands clenched down on wood, eyes calculating. He looked into Varian’s eyes, then down at his leg. Then up again. And down again. He hissed between teeth, kneeled down, and clenched his fist around the arrow. It sent a pulse of pain through Varian’s leg, the boy wincing, but understanding.

“Do it,” he hissed.

And yanked.

The pain was so sharp, so intense, that for a moment Varian was certain he was dead. There was no way anyone could survive with this much pain, he must surely be dead or dying. White hot agony stabbed into his leg, and he bit so hard on his lip he broke skin. It took everything in him not to scream.

Aaron laughed again, shadow blanketing them. Eugene turned to see him looming over them, sword above his head. “Say goodnight, Sir!” he shrieked.

Fwip!

Thunk!

The man’s grin vanished in an instant, replaced by sheer shock at the arrow sticking straight into his throat. Blood trickled down the wound, looking more like an impulse tracheotomy. Suddenly, he pitched forward, face hitting the forest floor with a sickening shick as the arrow went the rest of the way through his throat. There wasn’t even a struggle, no death rattles or cry of pain, just the sounds of a morning dove in the coming dawn.

Eugene’s shoulders slumped, and Varian leaned back into the cool grass.

“You doing alright there, Goggles?” Eugene called.

“My lungs are on fire, I can’t feel my legs and I’m sweating in places I didn’t even know I could sweat. I’d say I’m in the mood to die, but I literally just spent the whole night trying to prevent that.”

“...fair enough.”

-

The weeks that followed were, for lack of a better term, a total fucking nightmare.

After pulling themselves together, the brothers managed to hobble to Varian’s house in Old Corona, just in time to greet Quirin at the door. Imagine the poor man’s shock when he was headed out to work only to be greeted by his son’s blood and the captain’s exhaustion. Suffice to say, they got a proper tongue lashing the whole cart ride to Corona proper, the father fussing over them both while he rushed them to the infirmary. And then they had to get chewed out by Rapunzel, and Lance, and pretty much everyone else, despite their repeated insistence that it wasn’t their fault this time.

“What did you expect us to do? We were being hunted!” Eugene whined at Rapunzel while a nurse cleaned up a cut.

“Uh, I was being hunted. You were hunting me .” Varian hoarsely piped up from his own bed, leg propped up in a cast. He paused at the frantic stop motion Eugene was making, and the paling faces of his father and princess. “Oh. Was I. Not supposed to say that.”

“You’re not supposed to be talking,” Rapunzel chided lightly, though that was clearly not the problem. The doctor had been pretty quick to explain Varian’s breathing issues were just from the throat trauma, and would heal with time and supervision.

“I didn’t know! In my defense,” Eugene held up his hands as if to shield from Quirin’s murderous face, but if looks could kill he’d be a pile of bones. “I didn’t know.”

“How do you…” Quirin pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m going to remind myself that you saved my son’s life and ignore the part where you endangered it in the first place.”

“Yes, please do,” He said, shifting under the glare.

And then came the paperwork.

Trying to figure out who among the guards was part of the hunt was hard enough, seeing as outside of Aaron and his cronies, no one was going to say a word. All they had to go off of were the men who saw Eugene off, and the ones who initially captured Varian. And since they hadn’t run into anyone else directly, no one could be properly accused and charged. But Eugene wasn’t going to take any chances, and therefore anyone who he saw at least once was fired, and if they wanted to dispute it they could come to him and explain why they were willing to throw his little brother to the wolves.

Suffice to say, no one did. Which left Eugene with only two thirds his original squadron. He spent a good while of his recovery vetting new recruits and creating incentives for others to try out, and while he was able to replenish his ranks, they weren’t nearly the same elite task force they’d started with. And considering the threats they faced on the regular, that was a serious problem.

It was after a long day of training and interviews that Eugene finally stumbled into the castle library, ready to destress with a nice long binge read of Flynn Rider. He grabbed a few books off the shelves as he walked, headed for his favorite couch and the cozy fireplace at its side, only to stop dead in his tracks.

Varian lay spread across the couch, foot propped up on the armrest as he glossed over some scientific text that Eugene had no hope of understanding. His eyes flitted up and down the page, clearly not actually reading and more just staring at the words.

“Hey,” Eugene called, and Varian barely reacted. “Oi, kid, that’s my spot. Scooch it.” “I got here first,” Varian said, not looking up for a second.

“Older brother gets first dibs.”

“Little brother gets his way.”

Oh he was gonna play it like that was he? Eugene smirked, plopping his books down at the floor before collapsing directly on top of Varian, making care to not crush the injured leg. Varian squawked in protest, limbs flailing.

“Get off! You’re heavy!” he yelled, trying to push him off. When that failed, he resorted to whacking at him.

“Never!” Eugene laughed. “Your little punches feel like flowers!”

“I have an iron deficiency!” Varian responded, cheeks red but smiling slightly. The captain finally stopped suffocating him, but didn’t get off, instead wiggling in close so they could share. “Mean,” Varian whined, a pout on his lips, but didn’t complain.

“Oh hush,” Eugene chided, grabbing a book from the floor. “You know you love me.”

Varian simply hummed, buck teeth peeking through a tiny grin. “So, what did you grab for today?”

“Ah, glad you asked!” Eugene held up the cover, which Varian oohed in appreciation. “One of the older ones, came out when I was your age.” He wrapped an arm around Varian, pulling his brother close, the warmth of his side and the fire combining to create a heavenly cocoon. “You want to read, or should I?”

“Your turn,” Varian responded, stifling a yawn.

The book creaked in protest, Eugene gazing down at his little brother with a smile. He leaned his cheek on the boy’s hair, deep voice dripping with fondness as he started to read.

Being Captain was fun, but being a brother was even better.

#tangled the series #varian #tts #tangled #team awesome #tts eugene #eugene fitzherbert #tts varian #rta #rapunzel's tangled adventure

[memryse]

hello tumblr i present my canon-compliant "DSMP But... Everybody Discovered Large-Scale Organised Religion" mianite au which took a few hours to write up oops. basically here is a list of which god everybody would follow and why, based on canon events (i have therefore left out a couple of the members who don't really do lore or be on the server much because i definitely don't know about them enough to be accurate!)

dream: mianite. obsessed with control, you get it. went too far though and developed his own obsession with controlling the server so he is now godless and in jail

tommy: dianite. tommy is a favourite of dianite's - he's idealistic with a penchant for chaos, and like i said in my other post dianite probably sees himself in tommy a little. they're both misunderstood as Bad People

tubbo: ianite -> dianite, he converts post-doomsday. grew up as a follower of ianite and trying to follow her path put added pressure on him during his presidency. embraces being a dianitee with the start of the nuke program, but he keeps all his ianitee family heirlooms. ianite still holds a soft spot for him because of his family and occasionally gives him minor blessings. that being said she's of course a little disappointed he chose to change gods, but respects his decision

ranboo: no god, but enderwalk ranboo is an acolyte of ianite; awakeboo eventually converts to ianite when he reads awakeboo's note and decides to become more active in conflict resolution. he realises ianite actually aligns with his newfound ideals, and is of course more in touch with his ender side. however prior to this he wasn't really very keen on worshipping any gods, seeing as all he saw from them was wars waged in their names.

wilbur: also an atheist. probably prayed to dianite during pogtopia ("dream, i want to be your vassal" type beat) but other than that he's the type to criticise organised religion and be an independent leader, no need for gods. wilbur and ranboo narrative foils my beloveds!!!

techno: ianite. the thing about c!techno is he has one goal and he will stick to that no matter what - it's not total order, but it's not chaos either because there is motivation and reasoning behind it. also, a core tenet of ianitee ideology is not involving yourself in conflict until somebody personally wrongs you. much like butcher army era techno where he retreats to a peaceful (more godly, in this case) life until he's hunted down, at which point he Fucks Shit Up. in general techno holds grudges and takes even slight betrayals very seriously.

phil: ianite. i can see antarctic duo as former warriors of ianite! idk i don't have much to say phil is just.. a chill old warrior. probably jaded and tired of fighting wars for his goddess, but he still prays to her. specifically he prayed every night that wilbur could finally find balance in the afterlife. :)

niki: also ianite. definitely. niki values her own beliefs and morals, she's her own independent self. maybe she was a mianitee pre-nov 16th, but not since then. this makes the syndicate pretty much just a secret squad of ianitees (+ ranboo who everyone kind of just assumes is an ianitee given that, yknow, enderman). this is extra fun with the syndicate table being an end portal

sam: mianite 10000000%. he puts his commitment to duty above all else. not really much more to say he is just fully committed to keeping the server safe by carrying out mianite's will and imprisoning dream.

foolish: he's a god himself, so he doesn't follow any of the main three. however in the past he did work with mianite, enforcing his control over the land. from what we know about his totem of death period it wasn't like.. wanton destruction, it was him seeking control through violence, so i'm not inclined to say he worked with dianite back then.

george: man just wants to sleep and farm wheat, he's mianite. ez.

sapnap: also mianite. dream team as mianite's strongest and most revered knights!!!!!!

puffy: she's a pirate lady i don't know what to tell you other than she was part of capsize's crew. ianitee pirate ladies i care you. plus i feel like puffy centres mostly on people and not allying herself with specific nations or causes, she believes in balance above all.

eret: i view the greater dsmp as a mianitee nation, so as king of it they obviously have to follow mianite. eret has always strove to be a good king and help their nation prosper. plus, who knows what went on in the past with foolish. former mianite warriors eternal duo? i think so! (i think it would be cool if a literal reincarnation of herobrine was a mianitee purely because it fucks with everybody's expectations)

quackity: dianite. not just because he's chaos incarnate at times but like his entire current arc is so reminiscent of the fact that s2 dianite was literally a businessman. rip ghost dianite you would've loved c!quackity

fundy: oh boy here's a complex one. fundy switches gods frequently - look how much he craves acceptance from authority figures, from a substitute parental figure. i think right now his prophetic dreams could be interpreted as him being chosen by a certain god who sees potential in him, but i can't say who bc we don't really know too much about them or even why he's suddenly having them. that being said his chaotic scamming foxboy side definitely embodies dianite and he should have stuck with dianite the entire time but nah he needs Validation

jack manifold: follows dianite, but dianite isn't really pleased with him trying to kill tommy so often (seeing as he likes tommy). this is why he has such comically bad luck. his god is continually fucking with him.

karl: ianite, specifically chosen by her to become the historian of the server. the purple theme.. the duty to write down history as it truly happened (as opposed to censoring history like a certain mianite did). the existence of both the in between and the other side. karl Is balance. thank you. (also this makes karlnapity's marriage one mianitee, one ianitee and one dianitee. diversity win!)

schlatt: mianite (derogatory)

the eggpire is pretty much just the darkness isn't it. mianite was the blueprint actually.

bbh: dianite at first, judging by the badlands' ideology. corrupted by the darkness though.

antfrost: also dianite, but probably really lowkey about it and only ever prayed when the badlands needed his blessings. again, corrupted now

hannah: mianite - her connection to nature is by extension also a connection to mianite, the god of the overworld. plus she cared about maintaining harmony on the server and went to lengths to ensure it like the whole "killing her own dogs to protect them" thing. currently on her corrupted girlboss arc though

punz: dianite, he likes money and killing people idk what more you expect from me. even after joining the eggpire this has not changed at all. he'll work for other gods' followers for the right price but he's not changing his core beliefs

ponk: i don't know very much about him i'm ngl, especially not pre-eggpire. prior to his corruption though i do kinda like the idea of a mianitee doctor doing fucked up little experiments idk he just has mianitee vibes to me in the same way tucker was a mianitee.

skeppy: he and bbh are obviously both dianite together prior to the egg. it simply would not be right of me to put him anywhere else.

purpled: ianite. the colour purple... the tendency to stay so far out of conflict that he doesn't even log onto the server... mans was born to be an ianitee actually

#dsmp #mianite #tommyinnit #ranboo #tubbo #wilbur soot #philza #technoblade #dreamwastaken #quackity #georgenotfound #sapnap #nihachu #captain puffy #hannahxxrose #badboyhalo #awesamdude #antfrost #eret #fundy #foolish gamers #jack manifold #karl jacobs #jschlatt #punz #ponk #purpled #ianite #dianite #dsmp mianite au

[seijorhi]

asks :))

what i have learned today is that y’all wanna get fucked by some monsters...

What does nostos mean? What language is it in? 🤔 also I of course loved it, mind blown as usual queen

it’s ancient greek! it means homecoming, the idea of a triumphant return home for the hero after a long journey. i found it through looking at the root of nostalgia. in this fic of course it’s kind of a grim tongue in cheek play on it. the reader’s coming back to the mountains, but she’s running away after a bad breakup, and the welcome she gets is... shall we say less than ideal haha

Just read nostos-

First of all as a person who reads monster shit- hell ya. Mhm. That’s some good shit right there. That was DELICIOUS horror. It actually had me a bit nervous and afraid to read what was gonna happen next 😳

Secondly- omg I wanna know what happened next (at the end) 👀 know what I mean??? 😼

ANYWAY AS ALWAYS you never disappoint and your writing is fantastic (if/when you write horror yandere stuff again I’ll be there- frothing at the mouth. A+++++ work ILY💖)

you want me to write the monster porn, just say it bby ghfjdkshgfjkd but ty

Omfg that fic was so good!

Did the readers mom know about monster kuroo?? Or was she just worried because of the previous murder? And did Kuroo somehow manipulate reader into coming back to the forest or was it just a big coincidence? (👁👄👁 there's no such thing as a coincidence)

Looking forward to your future work <3

ty nonnie!! i didn’t have the right space for it, but after kohsuke was ripped apart and eaten kuroo stayed by the reader’s side until late in the night, only disappearing when he heard the reader’s parents/search party approaching. they found her lying in pools of blood (and scattered half eaten body parts), shaking and unresponsive – they knew no animal could’ve done something like that. so they knew something lurked in those woods, but considering the reader had repressed the memories, her mom couldn’t just come out and say it <33

You are an AMAZING horror writer!!!

The uneasiness I got from the conversations with the mom is just *chefs kiss*

A+++++

ahh thank you!! horror is such a hard genre to write because i’m never sure if the suspense and everything’s gonna hit right haha

I read Nostos before going to sleep last night and at the time I was like “sure hope this doesn’t give me nightmares” and thankfully it didn’t lol. But I think I’m willing to take that chance again because it’s so GOOD and I think I’m just going to have to relive it – @ohno-otome

fhdjgbfhjkdfn i’m glad it didn’t give you nightmares bby!! but i also appreciate that haha, i’m an absolute wimp with scary movies and stuff but i just can’t stop watching them haha

I just wanna say that I was listening to "You're a psychotic villain playlist" on youtube while reading Kuroo's oneshot and I can't explain the emotions I felt, but I'd let Kuroo do things to me asdfghjkl – @itishebihime-samaforyou

ooh nice! sometimes the right playlist makes things doubly as fun haha

OH MY GOD!?!?! Nostos was soooo GOOD?!?!? Like it was so creepy (but in a good way), and scary and suspenseful!! And the ending!?!? Omggg honestly one my fav fics from you!! You did my mans Kuroo justice 🥺💖💕

TYYYYYYY i was genuinely concerned i was gonna scare everybody off haha

Ah! The new fic! Chiefs kiss! Magnificent! Bravo!🧚‍♀️✨🧞‍♀️🦖🦭🌹💫

tysm nonnie!!! <33

i’m pretty sure i’m in the same/similar timezone as you? and i do be staying up late to be one of the first to read your fics (i usually stay up late anyways). so imagine my surprise when i see you post in the afternoon. in conclusion, whether you post to align with your european and american readers’ timezone, my gmt+10 arse will still be one of the first to read your fics. also nostos sjdufigyyjf i have to admit, i recently just found out about monster fucking and nostos scratched the itch😫 i feel bad for kohsuke though

bby i always post at like 2-4 in the morning please get some sleep!! the fics will be there in the morning lmao. i kinda low key forget about my aussie/gmt+10 followers because i think there’s like... 3 of you haha

Honestly if i could give u a dollar everytime i got off to your fics, you'd probably be rich by now

lmao the idea that people find my fics hot enough to get off to still blows my mind lol

your newest kuroo fic was so SO good!! its totally okay if you dont want to answer this so you can keep things ambiguous but is monster kuroo planning on killing the reader after he's...done with them

thank you, bby!! but no, monster kuroo isn’t gonna eat her – he’s had plenty of chances to do that if that’s what he wanted, but he has other plans for the poor reader

RHI, I WANT TO STATE FOR THE RECORD THAT I AM OKAY WITH MORE MONSTER FUCKING IN THE FUTURE. i also want to say im not a monster fucker, but that just feels like a lie at this point. okay, now that that's off my chest, i love it. the mystery, the connections of kuroo to a cat. kuroo's probably gonna go and batter around his prey once they're under his grip like my cat does. hopefully the reader will come out somewhat unscathed, if they are ever allowed to leave 😌 love this, love how different it is, the way kuroo just tries to weasel in. very monster and yandere vibes, very you. have i said i love this yet?? id willingly let him get me drunk on his cock, maybe never leave the peace of the mountains again

‘i want to say that i’m not a monster fucker’ bby the denial will get you nowhere haha. just lean in and embrace it hgfjkdlkfgjnkdl ahh but thank you this is such a sweet ask ILY!!!

Omg omg the monster thing kuroo was in ur latest fic is so familiar to me abdhdmfnjfjf. I remember being told abt a monster with VERY SIMILAR characteristics to it (aka the not being able to go inside a house unless invited and using fire to lure ppl out) AND JFC IT TERRIFIED ME. Esp how when i told ppl around me and they didnt recognize what it was, but it was somehow known to the kid that told me abt it.

(Some ppl thought it was familiar but still didnt know what it was)

Do u know what im talking abt? Hopefully u do

-🥚

GHFJDK so the monster in this is kind of based off the nekomata spirit in japanese folklore - they can appear like people, torment victims by reanimating the corpses of their loved ones, they’ve been blamed for forest fires, so it was just fun to use that as a basis and then go buck wild haha. anyway thanks for the ask bby!

Rest In Peace Kohsuke, you would’ve loved Haikyuu season 5😔✊– @joyvstheworld

poor kohsuke deserved better, i’m just mean to the oc’s i throw into fics haha

Monsterfucking ❤❤❤❤❤❤ a little annoyed you're making me simp for yan Kuroo though (a vibe tho tbh). You're so extremely talented!!!! &

This is probably a stupid question, but how did Kageyama react when he couldn't find y/n? How is life with yan Suga? I imagine probably awful BUT yknow maybe the stockholm syndrome set in fast lmao. Sorry, I'm going on a binge reading your stuff. - @oracleofdin

i will not apologise for making you simp for kuroo he deserves it the man’s a snacc. and as far as your second question, suga’s a very caring, very smothering kinda yandere, so i guess in some ways it’s better than what the reader had with kageyama but... pick your poison haha

That was so good. I’m so shook rn I can’t comprehend anything but how good that was and how good a writer you are

TYSM NONNIE!!! <33

Ok, so, I just read Final Girl and the lil' ticket addition to it and just---

Well, ok I've been playing Dead by Daylight a lot lately? And I'm just picturing Tetsu as the newest killer "The Trickster" and I'm positively RANDY.

Your writing is ALREADY thirst inducing and just as satisfying, but this has SENT ME- If you're not familiar, please...

https://youtu.be/iowkiPobYYQ

Understand my thirst. (I'd also like to clarify, I use a different skin for him that gives him black hair and he looks like Kuroo with an undercut.)

~ @the-casual-hedonist 🌸

i love how feral y’all got for final girl kuroo. like bo and akaashi had his fans, but i put a spiked bat in kuroo’s hands and y’all lost your goddamn minds and i love to see it. fghdjkvhfjdkls thanks for the ask bby

idk why but I love preggo reader as long as I don't pretend it's me 😢✋ I hate babies n pregnancy anywhere else other than horny haikyuu fics

i think that’s a valid thing for a lot of fans. the idea of breeding is sexy, the actual getting pregnant and having a kid thing... not so much. but especially with non-con scenario’s, it’s more about the aspect on control than the actual desire to have kids. but yeah, i feel you

Sorry to bother but uh was just wondering in fracture did Osamu kill his wife or was it actually an “unfortunate event” ? Love your work btw!!

he most certainly did :))

LMFAO RHI i totally get not liking cheating/infidelity fics (towards reader) bc IT HIRTS ME SO BAD I CANNOT HANDLE THOSE.

id be reading fics those fics like: tf you mean my yandere aimt gonna baby me and only want me??🤨🤨🤨⁉️‼️

EXACTLY! listen i get that it’s a fucked up fantasy, but in my fucked up fantasy you damn well better have the decency to be loyal smh

Finders keepers is the most beautiful thing I've read by you: I read it twice like I normally do and here's what I figured out the second time (that's when I analyze it and find the little tidbits of things that are much darker than they appear (: )

To start I LOVE THE DETAILS OF THEM NEVER TEACHING READER ANYTHING- at first I assumed "oh they might see her as a little sister or child or something" but realized thAT WAS THE ISSUE!! they infantilize her and isolate her from everyone but her group. the small details like that are what make the story amazing 😎💅

ahh thank you so much, nonnie!! pls this is making me soft 🥺

I just wanted to stop by and say that I love your writing and I hope you're doing well!!! Drink plenty of water and keep up the amazing work :) but seriously you're one of the best fanfic writers I've seen on tumblr! I read your "Imitation" piece about kuroo and i keep coming back to it, it's so good! I did want to ask if you think it'd be possible for the reader to ever escape with the baby (or at least attempt to). Or if Kenma would "help" at all just to put an end to kuroo's antics lmao

kenma would in no way help the reader, and tbh by that point if kuroo did get her pregnant, she’d be far too emotionally dependant on him to actually even want to leave, but thanks for the ask!

You know who I think would be a perfect Yandere in the JJK world? Choso.

🚨Spoilers Ahead🚨

After being locked in a glass jar for however long he was, and all that happened with his brothers, I feel like he would absolutely never let his darling out of his sight. He would be possessive. Obsessive. And Oh So delusional. Sure he’d be your anything - he truly is a softy - but to what end?🤤

choso would make an excellent yandere, ngl 😌

what au/troupe of your fav character(s) that you have written do you like the most?

(rlly hope this makes sense🙏)

i am always a slut for soulmate au’s :))

#ask #anon #rhi answers #ohh so many asks #i love you guys <33 #fic q's

[itstittycitybaby]

 A/N: thank you @darlingimmafangirl for this request! I really enjoyed writing it :)) also reader is semi pro equalist. not really but she can understand amon’s pov even though he took it to the extreme of things. curious about yall’s stance on amon’s whole revolution thing. feel free to flood my inbox about it ;))

You could hear the whispers and feel the stares. You weren’t ignorant; being the girlfriend of the beloved chief in Republic City caught a lot of attention. Lin Beifong wasn’t one to make friendships, let alone have a girlfriend. From bystanders eyes she was cold but determined. It was the age gap they whispered about.

Normally, the two of you would eat in after work. Lin was exahausted from the long days of her job. Something about more reports to file and sign (that’s what you got from her grumbling anyway). It had been another boring day at the studio and you wanted to go out. Your art was coming along great, but you were tired of being cooped up all day. Now, however, you regretted it.

 Lin was older;her hair had grayed and the crows feet around her eyes told a story. However, she was still gorgeous with her green eyes as they glittered underneath the light of the booth the two of you sat at. She was incredibly strong both physically and mentally. Lin was in her early fifties, while you were in your mid twenties. 

Your relationship was difficult to even start. Lin already had trouble with relationships as a whole, but to be with someone more than a decade younger than her? That was another problem in itself. 

“You’re doing it again,” Lin murmured as she took a sip from her drink. “Hm?” “Thinking. Getting lost in your thoughts.” “Oh,” you replied softly, trying to forget about the waiter’s surprised expression after you squeezed Lin’s hand over the table. “Just...a bit nervous is all.” She shot a brow in response. “Everyone’s staring,” you mumbled, folding your hands into your lap. Lin hummed, “I suppose we make an odd couple.” “Doesn’t matter,” you said, shaking it off. “I’d rather be here with you.” She smiled softly, yet you could tell her gaze wavered. “You shouldn’t care so much about what everyone thinks,” she murmured, cutting her fork into her food. “I know,” you replied, “I just need to be here in the present.” “Atta girl.”

There was a ceremony for the avatar after Amon’s defeat. Your joints and limbs ached from protecting the people from the equalists. Even the fire in your blood weakened but Katara assured you you’d be back in no time. All the fighting and all the emotional drainage took a toll on you. Though, you couldn’t say much. At least you were fortunate enough to protect your bending. You sat at the bar of the ballroom, swinging your legs as you waited for Lin to join you. She had to stay with councilman Tenzin and Korra while the reporters flocked around them. The red dress clung to your figure tightly and stopped mid thigh. You swirled a wine glass absentmindedly, mulling over the past couple of months you had been through. The disappearance of Amon took a huge burden off of Korra and Lin, but you still couldn’t help but feel unhappy. Amon wanted everyone to be equal, and yes he took it to the extreme of things, but he strived for balance. He was right about the haughtiness in benders and how they carried themselves. Even you had trouble with the ego of bending. Even though Amon had escaped, your bones felt heavy. Something told you that he was dead. It didn’t matter anymore did it? “Mind if I buy you a drink?” Glancing over, a man around your age slid in the stool next to you. You raised a brow taking a sip before replying. “I’m fine thank you.” 

“C’mon don’t be so uptight sweetheart.” You shot him a glare, your jaw clenched together. “I said. I’m fine.” The man snorted. His brown eyes glanced to your ears and his glance became curious. The gold earrings you wore twinkled in the light. They were an anniversary gift Lin had given you for occasions such as these. Two precious rubies dripped from each earring along with the necklace you wore.

“There you are.” The anger in your veins dissipated from the voice you’ve been waiting to hear all night. You smiled, turning to Lin. Sliding out of the barstool you sighed,“Finally, I’ve been waiting for a while now.” Lin hummed, “I was kept up by the reporters.” You giggled at the annoyance in her tone. She wanted to go home and rest while everyone else danced the night away. You couldn’t really blame her. 

Glancing back, you noticed the man’s eyes bulging out of his head. He looked like a toad as he stared at that two of you. Lin’s eyes narrowed, holding his stare. “Is there a problem,” she snapped, crossing her arms. The man shook his head quickly, “N-no.” “Carry on then.” He turned quickly and you giggled as he stared down into his drink.

He muttered the words “gold digger” as the two of you left the bar.

“You’re dating?” Lin could feel the headache already starting to form. For god’s sake the two of you just got here. “Yes, we’re dating,” Lin confirmed, albeit a bit harshly. Tenzin’s brows raised in surprise while his kids squawked around him. Lin’s distaste for children didn’t lessen slightly. You stood next to her fumbling over your words and twiddling with your fingers. Your cheeks were pink in contrast to Lin’s tugging frown. ‘So much for secrecy,’ you thought. Tenzin gaped like a fish and closed his mouth. This proceeded to continue for several seconds until eventually he kept it shut. “Out with it,” Lin huffed. Her posture was rigid and she seethed with anger. It was supposed to be a nice picnic with just the two of you. Tenzin and his family seemed to have other plans, however. “I-I’m not trying to be rude,” he sputtered. “But Lin you’re definitely much older.” These types of conversations were nothing new. However, Lin seemed to be very upset. “Councilman Tenzin,” you murmured sharply, “With all do respect, it is none of your business.” He deflated at your response. You were known for keeping your cool, going against the stigma of firebenders. “Now if you’ll excuse me, my girlfriend and I will be going home. Have a lovely day.” Grabbing the supplies you and Lin trekked back home.

Lin groaned as she flopped on the couch. The picnic’s failure soured her mood. “It seems like we can’t go anywhere these days,” she grumbled. “I take one day off from work.” You sighed as you finished putting away the uneaten packed food. “I know dear, I know.”

Lin huffed in reply. “Getting called a gold digger, or being told “I could take care of you soooo much better” gets really tiring after awhile,” you said through gritted teeth. Lin’s eyes softened. Slowly she made her way into the kitchen where you unpacked the basket. “I didn’t know you were being called that.” You sighed, “It’s fine really, I shouldn’t let it get to me.” Her hand gently grasped your arm. “It’s not fine, you should have told me.” “I know,” you muttered, turning to face her, “but every time I commented about it, it seemed to make you feel bad.”

Lin’s hands grasped your cheeks softly. She gently kissed your lips. “They’ll get used to it,” you said once you both pulled away. “I’m sorry if I made you upset.” Her brows furrowed. “What?” “Yknow, how I handled Tenzin. I didn’t mean to blow up like that. But I guess that’s what’s expected, being a firebender and all. You chuckled humorlessly. Lin laughed, “You handled it perfectly. It was rude to comment on it.” “Besides,” Lin continued, “You’re the calmest firebender I’ve met. Better than that Mako guy.” You giggled as you wrapped your arms around her neck.

“He can be a pain,” you agreed. Lin’s arms wrapped around your lower back.  “It’s hard with the stigma firebenders have. They think we’re all hot headed and destructive. “Nonsense my dear,” Lin replied, leaning down to kiss your head. “You’re the best damn one out there.” You grinned at her response. “And you’re the most hot headed earth bender Republic City’s ever seen.” Lin snorted, “Alright moments over.” You laughed, squeezing her tightly. “Ohhh come on Lin, you know it’s true.” She rolled her eyes and scoffed but you could see the smile on her lips.

#legend of korra #legend of korra x reader #legend of korra fanfic #lin beifong x reader #lin beifong