#is that why they put some emphasis on him knowing himself perhaps

[ddarker-dreams]

Intimidation Ranking / Yan Sumeru Boys.

Kaveh — 2/10

Like... he's writing your names next to one another in his notebook and drawing a heart around it. Kaveh isn't inspiring much fear in the traditional sense. You find him endearing more than anything. He visibly brightens up when you're around, stares off into the horizon and sighs when you're not. His more socially unacceptable tendencies are kept under lock and key (such as his innumerable blueprints for how he'll build your house when you get married, despite how you're both only friends). His romantic rivals don't have to fear for their lives as much as they would if put up against the others on this list. That being said, he still has his methods for dealing with them. It's more psychological in nature. Once he's cemented himself as an important figure in your life, he'll 'exaggerate the truth' (he thinks the word lying has a negative connotation), about any rivals' negative traits. He does this covertly over increments of time so as not to arouse any suspicion. You couldn't possibly look at Kaveh and suspect any wrongdoing on his part.

Alhaitham — 5/10

Alhaitham is weird because he has the potential to rank high, but he'd rather not go that route if it isn't necessary. Outsourcing to criminals would require extra work. He'd prefer to stay in the realm of legality for convenience's sake, perhaps pushing gray areas, but nothing that'll require a major coverup. Just a little good old-fashioned coercion if you're being stubborn about returning his affections. He's crafty, he needn't get his hands dirty to obtain the outcome he desires. Should you be of an academic inclination, he'll utilize his influence in those spheres to impede your progress. There's no physical evidence so you have no means of retaliation. Given his dispassionate demeanor, people will have a hard time believing you should you tell them about this. Alhaitham himself will utilize a similar tactic should you ever confront him. His sound logic and steady voice make you wonder if you really are imagining everything. It's maddening.

Cyno — 7.5/10

Cyno is a force of nature. Once he's set his sights on you, that's it. While it isn't you who needs to be frightened per se, the same cannot be said for those he deems as questionable influences in your life (basically anyone who isn't him that receives your attention). He has the authority and resources to comb through their entire bloodline for any potential wrongdoings. No one's lived a perfect life, he's bound to find something, even if it just ends with them having to pay a fine. Still, in a highly competitive area like Sumeru, having anything on their record is a death sentence. Rumors start circulating that anyone who hangs out around you is subject to meticulous background checks. No one knows why, but that doesn't matter, the risk alone serves as a sufficient deterrent. If they cheated on a test when they were ten, Cyno is going to find out. The man's nothing if not determined. Cyno genuinely thinks he's doing this in your best interest — his conscience is crystal clear. This adds another layer of formidability because there will be no convincing him to stop.

Wanderer — 9/10

As Scaramouche, it would've been a 10/10, but he's had some character development. Emphasis on the word some. Nahida considers his budding attachment to you a healthy development, especially since you're the first person he's taken an active interest in without her involvement. He's keen on maintaining this innocent, well-meaning façade since he's still under surveillance for his previous crimes. This unintentionally works wonders for him. While he still has a sharp tongue, the fact he actively chooses to be in your general vicinity proves you're special to him. You think he's harmless, if not a touch blunt. He's perpetually hanging around and offering to help with whatever you're up to. You're happy, Nahida's happy, and surprisingly enough, he's happy. This cannot be said for anyone else in your friend group. He increases his unpleasantness when around them, never to an incriminating degree, but just enough to give them pause. They'd rather not deal with him and he's always around you, like a miserable little forcefield that repels any outside force. Wanderer may not be free to wreak havoc anymore, but all that means is that he has to get creative about it. Nahida's lack of omnipotence gives him enough room to slink around. Where there's a will, there's a way.

#yandere kaveh x reader #yandere alhaitham x reader #yandere cyno x reader #yandere wanderer x reader #kaveh x reader #alhaitham x reader #cyno x reader #wanderer x reader #scaramouche x reader #yandere #yandere x reader #yandere genshin impact x reader #genshin impact x reader #my stuff

[nika-vincent]

Long post warning.

I'm trying to put together some thoughts (also based on recent discussions with many great folks) about the romance path with Halsin in the form that it is presented in the game at the moment with the hope that Larian will notice our comments on this. And part 2 about Halsin's personality in the game. Please, fear not, it will be without aggression. So take some tea, my friends, and let's get started!☕

From the very beginning of EA, we had an image of Halsin that stood out not only by his appearance (it was difficult to not notice the thirsty comments of fans about this), but also by the excellent qualities of his character. He is one of those characters who sincerely wants to help us with our parasite and not try to use us in a bad way or even kill us.

He has the impression, you know, of a big adult man who at first glance looks serious and rather harsh, but when you learn more about him, you realize that this is a man with a kind heart, caring, protecting, not leaving you in trouble. He reminds me of Hagrid from the Harry Potter universe. And this image of him was so loved by many people (including me) that we wanted to see more of it when the game was released. There was no limit to my delight when, after the release of the game, we were able to ask about his hobbies. Gods, how all these cute things fit him that he loves honey and carves wood in his spare time.🥰 I want more of this!❤

We began to fantasize about what a romance with Halsin could be, and expected that these beautiful traits of his character would manifest themselves here. That he will be protective for Tav, gentle, romantic and caring. I was incredibly happy that we were finally given the opportunity to have a romance with him and the words during the PFH that Halsin and Astarion had become the most popular characters of EA gave great expectations.

Of course, after the release of the game, many things have remained behind the scenes for now, due to lack of time to implement the rest of things I believe, and I assume that there is a chance of adding this with patches. But let's move on to the things we have at the moment.

What surprised me not in a good way was that I noticed some strange emphasis on Halsin's sexuality and various jokes towards his body in the game itself. I assume that perhaps the developers wanted to make some kind of reference to the thirsty comments of fans about Halsin, which can often be seen on the Internet. But I think it would be better to leave it between fans, and not literally implement it in the game. I do not deny his sexuality myself and say that his arms are made for hugs! But there should be a limit to everything, I think. I can make an exception about the fact that we can ask about why he is so big for an elf. It looks quite harmless and even his reaction amuses.😁

The reference to 'Daddy Halsin' in his ending was great and really funny! It looks unobtrusive and does not create the feeling of awkwardness and discomfort that we got from some of his stories from the past...

The story of Halsin's sexual past and how the romance with him is presented in the game has been most criticized by players, and there are several reasons for this. We found out that he had many lovers throughout his life (So it is lovers, not special loved ones). And then we also learn that when he was a young druid, he traveled through the underdark and found himself a guest in a noble Drow house, in which the matron and the patron showed interest in him and chained him for three years in their bedchamber, where he played the role of 'guest, prisoner and consort'. Honestly, the last thing I expected was that Halsin would get such a backstory, given that we had kept in mind for so long the image of him which I described at the beginning of this article. It literally took me by surprise. And especially the fact that he talks about it so calmly and even with a note of gaiety, as if this is a common thing that could happen to anyone.

I don't understand the need to add such things to him. Perhaps the developers wanted to show in this way that a man with such an attractive appearance is obliged to have a hot sexual experience and give him an image of something like a Faerun Casanova? If so, it turned out to be quite inappropriate and even creepy, and the players perceived it more as a sexual abuse towards him than as an experience.

It can be noticed that even Halsin himself is not very enthusiastic with the fact that remarks about his physique are the first thing people talk about. Clipping from @lylakoi 's screenshot:

And all this strongly contradicts how we initially fell in love with Halsin and how we wanted to see him and his romance in the release. The romantic relationship between Tav and Halsin at the moment looks more built on physical attraction, rather than on love, care and mutual respect. Most likely, this is due to the noticeable lack of romance content at the moment and more soft things and scenes will be added to the patches that would dilute it well so that it does not catch the eye. I just wanted the romance to be less fixated on lust, and more on feelings and romantic things between Tav and Halsin.

The most terrible thing that literally brought tears to my eyes is the fact that he can talk about his feelings and love only when we ourselves can behave like an abuser with him, when we decide to break up with him and change our minds. We see how much it hurts him that we are playing with his heart. Because at the moment there are no other romantic scenes in the game in which we can discuss with him our feelings and that we love each other, as it happens with other companions.

Polyamory also does not work quite correctly in the game, because it seems that he wants Tav to be poly in the relationship, not him. It looks something like: 'You're all I want, but don't get stuck on me and find someone else' uhh, what? I only want to romance you, why should I find someone else? This dialogue is appropriate if I was already in a relationship with another companion and would like to be with Halsin too. But if I want to have a romance with him alone, then I believe that the dialogue should be different and not insist on 'sharing' if I have not a relationship with anyone.

Given the whole story that he only had lovers and sexual slavery, I assume that Halsin has never experienced true love with anyone, and only knows how to be used by everyone. If this was the original idea of the writers, which has not yet been brought to its logical end, then the role of Tav in the romance with Halsin here should be quite important in order to see the development of their relationship. The main goal in the romance should be that Tav will allow Halsin to feel what it's like to be truly important and loved. Remember when in the act 2 he was touched by the fact that Tav shared a campfire and their company with him. Screenshot by @lylakoi :

It is clearly evident that such things that someone does for him are unusual to him and touch his very heart. Most likely, he is used to giving, not receiving.

The bed scene with him is absolutely beautiful, I can even give a standing ovation.❤ I would only add after that a scene where Tav and Halsin are lying side by side, looking at the stars and having a romantic conversation. That would end the night perfectly.🙏

It is necessary to add more soft interactions for Halsin, so that there is more emphasis on the development of his personal qualities. We are well aware of his attractiveness and there is no need to emphasize this once again with strange jokes and stories with sexual abuse.

The Interaction in the camp with owlbear and Scratch will be great for him! Maybe even add some scenes with companions in act 2, where Halsin would try to calm the guys arguing with each other. That would add +1 to his personality traits. Also, more of his reactions to any events or during the dialogues with someone will not hurt.

For a romance, I would suggest definitely adding a scene with a date. Even a scene where Halsin would give an ornament for Tav that he carved out of wood. Maybe some episode in the city that would shock him (For example, he witnessed the rough treatment of animals or orphans) and make him turn into a bear from rage and we would try to calm him down by choosing the option 'reach out and stroke him' (Yes, yes, I mentally create fanfics during 3 am, don't blame me😅) Also a scene where we could hug him and confess that we love him. And now the romance no longer looks focused on lust.

The opportunity to go with Halsin in the ending also deserves to exist. Halsin mentioned that he would like to have a family, so he and Tav could perfectly help orphans together in Thaniel's world.🙏

That's all for today. My opinion about Larian has not changed for the worse, for me they are still great guys who delight me with their positive attitude to the community. Unpleasant situations can happen, it is inevitable. But there is always a chance to fix something. I really want to hope that they will cope with everything and listen to our feedbacks and everything will gradually get better with the patches.❤

Thank you for reading this review to the end.🙏❤ I also suggest joining the discussion to Larian's discord in the 'bg3-feedback' section.

#baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate #baldur's gate 3 spoilers #bg3 spoilers #bg #bg3 halsin #halsin #halsin romance #druid halsin #halsin x tav #larian studios #ps5 #pc game

[sailorblossoms]

about behavior and Baz knowing his feelings vs Simon not knowing

Another way in which these books challenge expectations is that you see a character fully aware of his feelings for someone and expect them to act a certain way (tumblr has shown me incorrect quotes and other jokes and similar formats and I just want to put emphasis on incorrect).

I think a key thing is that Baz knows how he feels about Simon but gives nothing away, while Simon doesn’t know how he feels about Baz but he gives everything away anyway. Baz has restraint. Simon has none. This connects to how Baz is someone who tells you things while Simon shows you without telling you...

Way before Baz shows up, Simon's POV clearly paints the picture of an obsession (in a "this is gay behavior" type of way). He has the type of obsession associated with romantic love – he just doesn't know it yet. Before Baz shows up, Simon is already showing (but not telling) that he's in love. When Baz shows up, he cuts through the chase and simply tells you he's in love... In terms of words and verbal communication, Baz is clear in ways Simon might not be. But in terms of behavior? It is Simon, and not Baz, who is actually more obvious about his feelings. I think this is part of why awtwb has Simon (and not Baz) looking back to highlight his behavior as an obvious indicator of his feelings for Baz, as if Baz should have known. "I'm whatever I was when I was following you everywhere," "you can't be trusted to tell when people are into you because you couldn't tell I was into you (no vibe-check)" I'm not saying Baz should have known shit, it's understandable that he didn't. But looking from the outside, it is far easier to point out Simon's gay behavior because Baz has restraint and he wants to hide himself. I mean, Simon is the one going to Baz to get his attention as soon as he shows up. Simon is the one going to every football practice to watch Baz play – nothing Baz does is as obvious as this.

As an outsider, you could mistakenly believe that perhaps Baz is just a troublemaker, that he just wants to be antagonistic, and the closest he gets to giving something away (his jealousy) that’s quickly explained away heterosexually (and even if as an outsider you don’t believe he’s interested in her, you could still think he’s trying to be antagonistic by getting under Simon’s skin). Even after kissing him Simon still doesn’t contemplate that Baz likes him (although this also packs another set of issues).

I often joke (in an "I'm saying this as a joke but I'm dead serious" type of way) that when Simon is giving you a list (which is not long, mind you) of everything Baz has done to him to "prove" he's a A Villain, it looks like "every time Baz paid special attention to me: the greatest hits." As much as Simon bitches about Baz's plotting, it seems to me that outside of those moments, Baz actually just... minded his business? That the mentioned list is as short as it is (even if it doesn't include everything) because, in general, Baz didn't have to do anything to get Simon's attention, because he didn't have to. Simon was on him practically the whole time. Something was bothering Baz whenever he acted up – if iirc he mentions liking Simon's attention whenever they fought before vs hating fighting when they are together – but in general, it seems to me that Baz didn't have to do anything for Simon's attention, because he had all the time to the point it suffocated him. Simon was taking the initiative perhaps in the same way he goes on to take when he's the one kissing Baz, asking to be boyfriends, and generally jumping him (desire)

It's also important to highlight that, contrary to what someone who is going by assumptions might think, it's not that Baz saw Simon a certain way because he knows he's in love, while sees Baz in a certain way because he's seeing him as an evil little gremlin or some shit. Simon never really sees Baz as unappealing or ugly "because he’s evil." Even when he’s brainwashing himself into roles ("Baz would be perfect if he wasn’t a vampire" – unpacking this should a different post) Simon still gives away that he’s attracted to him, that Baz being himself is enough to make him romantically desirable (because he’s in love). “He’s a creep” he thinks, while sulking because Baz doesn’t pay him attention while getting date vibes. “He always creeps me out and I totally mean it.... but I never can sleep well if he’s not in the same room as me, if I can't listen to the sound of him breathing.” I mean... c'mon. At the heigh of his brainwashed delusion (or however you want to call it) Simon already has an image of Baz as "anyone would want him," way before he goes on to say that explicitly.

Also, as much as he might fantasize, is not Baz who’s all "we should just kiss instead of fighting" because he's aware he's in love. It’s Simon. Simon is the one who’s all “We should never fight again and just roll around on the floor kissing” the second he gets even an inkling that he wants Baz. I saw a joke in that incorrect quote format that was like "Baz asks for a kiss" and "Simon says he wants him to die but we can't always get what we want" or some shit and I can't think of anything that's farther from "capturing their vibes" or whatever. When Simon is combative he couldn't be further from catching any vibe whatsoever, either from Baz or from himself, outside of the whole "hero vs nemesis" deal. Simon is the one who is all over Baz looking for a kiss with practically nothing, while Baz tries to act like Simon suddenly has brain damage because he just wants to kiss and be boyfriends. I mean, Baz's thing is that he struggles with asking for what he wants – he's too used to hiding himself (he doesn't succeed in hiding his vampirism from Simon, but he very much succeeds in hiding his romantic feelings for him – Simon kisses him because he wants to kiss him, not because he's figured out Baz wants him). Simon notes whenever they argue he just has to lean in and Baz would close his eyes, waiting to be kissed. It's been clear Baz wants it badly, but this might be the beginning of Baz starting to give away that he does: after Simon has already made it clear that he wants Baz back.

#simon snow #carry on #baz pitch #simon snow trilogy #baz grimm pitch #snowbaz #awtwb #baz x simon #i wrote this quickly so it might or might not be comprehensible

[blueraineshadows]

Yes, Professor - Part Two

Professor Sebastian Sallow x F!MC

NSFW 🌶 🔥 🔞 Part One

The burn of the whiskey felt good as it went down. Sebastian leaned back in his office chair, his gaze fixed on the ceiling, but his thoughts were elsewhere. So much for doing his marking this evening, the pile of parchments forgotten on his desk. All he could think about was that kiss down in the Ministry Restricted Section.

He had not planned for it, he had merely wanted to relive old times, and show MC something he knew she would appreciate. Her thirst for knowledge was one of the things that had drawn him to her in the first place, that and a very lovely backside.

It would seem that whenever she was close, he was unable to control himself. The desire to kiss her had been so strong, and when she had moaned into his mouth...gods. He would have happily taken her up against that bookshelf. He closed his eyes, the memory of it consuming him.

She had called him 'Sir' at his request.

The sound of it coming from her lips like that made him burn in ways he didn't know existed. It had nearly killed him to stop after that.

He would have to be extra careful around her, especially in class. Now, when she looked at him across the room, there was something darker, playful, in her gaze. And he had not missed the emphasis she now put on the word 'Sir' when she addressed him. It was a concern that the other students might notice, but he indulged a moment in the fantasy of bending her over his desk, his fingers tightening around his whiskey glass as he imagined it.

Yes, he would have to be very careful indeed. This was going to be a very long term.

....*....

She could respect Sebastian's need for professionalism, he was a Ministry professor and very good at his job, she did not want to be a reason for jeopardising that.

But, did he have to look so good doing it?

He had been utterly respectful towards her, towards all his students, including simpering Bella, who was slowly beginning to grate on MC's nerves. The urge to hit her with a quick Flipendo was very strong some days, especially when she loitered around Professor Sallow's desk at the end of the lesson.

Of course, MC would have rather liked to do something similar herself, or perhaps enjoy another secret moment somewhere dark and forbidden. Those were always rather interesting with someone like Sebastian.

Twice now, Professor Sallow had found her in the library, and they talked about the classwork and beyond, delving a little deeper into some of his theories. His mind was so vast, so knowledgeable, it was a delight to pick through his thoughts and debate them.

On the second evening, she found herself in the Restricted Section again, and this time there was no pretense about why they were in there. As soon as he locked the gate, he had pulled her into a quiet corner, his mouth finding hers in a devastating kiss.

"This is all rather naughty, Professor," she gasped. His mouth was hot on her neck, his fingers unfastening a few buttons to expose her collar bone, he sucked at the skin hungrily. She whimpered at the tight bite of it, and then he was pressing soft kisses over the blooming bruise he had left behind. "I thought you wanted to stick to the rules."

"Fuck the rules," he groaned. His hand cupped her breast, moulding her in his palm, his breath hot on her throat. "Do you realise how hard it is to teach with you looking at me across the room?"

"Am I too tempting for you...Sir?"

His gaze burned into hers. He pinned her more tightly against the wall, his hand rucking up the fabric of her skirt. Her legs trembled, and she couldn't break her eyes away from his intense stare. His knee pushed between her thighs and he rolled his hips, grinding against her. She could feel how much he wanted her, and her body throbbed in response.

"Touch me," she whispered.

His fingers slid lazily up her bare thigh. She whimpered. His mouth hovered over hers. "Say it," he said.

"I want you to touch me, Sir."

He closed his eyes. "MC..."

Her mind spun, breaths coming hard and fast as his hand slid higher, and then it was in her underwear, those beautiful, long fingers caressing her in ways that made her head fall back against the wall, shudders of pleasure washing over her. Her own hands were grasping at him as she became completely lost in every swirl of those fingers, and then he was sliding them deep inside her, touching her where no other had been before.

A cry left her mouth, her hips grinding against his hand. "Oh, gods, Sebastian..."

"Come for me, MC, please," he said. His words were a low murmur in her ear, she felt them through her whole body. He wasn't her professor in this moment, he was her Sebastian, and he was making her come undone with fingers and words. "Give it to me," he whispered. "I want to hear your pretty mouth moaning for me, come on baby."

His fingers moved even more quickly, driving her hard and fast until she thought she wouldn't be able to bear it a moment longer. It was overwhelming, and her fingers bit into him harshly as her breath was stolen from her lungs, her hips flexed and her back arched. A low, filthy moan came from somewhere deep in her soul as she gave him what he had asked for, what he had coaxed from her. His name spilled from her lips, a whispered promise of her devotion as she lost herself in the feel of her pleasure.

As she trembled in his arms, her face flushed and her eyes dazed, he smiled and kissed her softly. "That's my good girl," he murmured. His lips brushed against hers as he spoke. "You're so beautiful."

"I think this might be my favourite lesson of yours," she smiled.

He chuckled. "I'm glad to hear it. Although, I hate to say it, we should head back."

"One more kiss," she pleaded. He smiled and obliged her, kissing her slow and deep until she was once again starved of her breath.

....*....

At the end of one particular lesson, a rather intriguing offering on the secrets buried in Northern America, MC was packing up her things when the Professor asked to speak with her after class.

Bella's face fell into a disappointed pout. She eyed MC. "Aren't you the lucky one?"

"That remains to be seen," she said. "Maybe I am in trouble."

Bella gave her a disbelieving smirk. "Unlikely," she muttered. "See you next time."

MC gave her a curious frown as Bella left, throwing a longing look towards the front of the class. The girl was obviously smitten. Perhaps she ought to warn Sebastian, but then, that might make her look jealous.

Wasn't she? Oh, she absolutely was.

She approached his desk and he smiled up at her. "Did you enjoy today's class?" He asked.

She nodded. "Of course, Sir," she replied. "I didn't get to America in my travels, but it is definitely one on the list for next time."

"Next time?" He asked. His smile slipped a little. "Are you planning on setting off on new adventures so soon?"

"I will finish my classes, obviously, but yes. I would love to do more travelling. It is one thing to read of something in a book, but to see it with your own eyes is rather special," she said.

They exchanged a look, both of their eyes lit with a longing, but she wasn't sure if it was for the same thing. "You, erm, you wanted to speak with me, Sir?" She prompted.

"Ah, yes," he said. He fluffed his hair with one hand. "I wondered how you had got on with that book I gave you about Ancient Magic. Have you read it at all?"

"Oh, yes, it's rather interesting," she said. "The chapters arguing for the myth element were particularly entertaining. It is a shame the author is no longer in the land of the living. I would happily perform a demonstration that Ancient Magic does, in fact, exist."

They both laughed at that. "It really is a sight to behold," he said. "I am honoured to have witnessed you at work."

"We had some good times, didn't we?" She said, softly. "I know there were hard times too, but the good really stands out against them, don't you think?'

"You were one of the best parts of my time at school towards the end," he said. "I was glad that you came to us when you did."

She felt her cheeks warm. She cleared her throat. "Are you still in touch with Ominis?"

"Yes, of course," he said. "I mentioned that you were in my class and he was pleased to hear you are well." He paused, head tilted. "You are well, aren't you? Happy, I mean? If its not too bold of me to ask."

"I...well, yes, I'm alright," she said. Something in her heart twisted sharply, and she refused to call it loneliness. As she stared at him, she felt a longing so strong it almost stole her breath. She would always have the desire to kiss him, her body had proven that fact three times now, but this was different. She wanted him to hold her, to feel the solid strength of him against her, for his lips to whisper into her ear that everything would be alright, that he...oh gods...that he...loved her?

Is that what she wanted?

She swallowed hard against the thought, eyes suddenly burning with emotional tears. Her breath shook as she drew it in.

"I'm fine, of course," she said, quickly. She skipped her gaze away from that face, that wonderful face, and took a step back from the desk. "I er...I will return the book to you next class, Sir," she said. "Thank you for your time, Professor. Good day to you."

Once again she had to fight the urge to take one last lingering look at him. If she did, she feared she might not be able to leave the room.

....*....

Class was due to start in about a quarter hour and Sebastian ran his hands through his hair. Tiredness tugged at his eyes. He hadn't slept well the last few nights, his mind stuck on the way MC had looked at him when he had asked if she was happy. He half regretted the question, because the deep well of sadness and longing that opened up in her eyes had floored him.

Her hasty exit, eyes glittering with tears, had cut right through him. He had wanted to run around his desk and grab hold of her, he had wanted to hold her and tell her that everything would be alright. But, what right did he have to do such a thing? She did not belong to him, no matter how much he ached for her.

Also, the inappropriateness of it would land him in trouble, at the risk of his job if they were caught. He grit his teeth. Merlin, he hated bloody rules.

He shuffled his notes on his desk and tried to focus, he had a class to teach. A class that she would be in. MC was his biggest distraction.

The door opened and he looked up to see one of the younger students slip into the room. He almost sighed. This student, Bella, was becoming rather a pain in his side. He was never rude, but she was always there, smiling up at him. She had dared to lay her hand on his arm last time. It was this very behaviour that the rules were in place to stop. It was not appropriate.

Her smile was a pretty one, no doubt, and she gave it to him as she moved towards his desk. Her blouse was a little undone at her throat, her cheeks flushed. "Good morning, Professor Sallow," she said. "Isn't it a lovely day. I am looking forward to your class."

He gave her a tight smile and leant his elbows on his desk. She came right around the desk to stand beside him, her brow creasing. "Are you alright, Professor?"

"I'm fine, thank you," he said. "Why don't you find your seat? Class will be starting soon."

He rubbed his face with his hand. And then he felt the gentle press of her hand on his shoulder. He tensed. He felt the warmth of her breath as she spoke, her face leaning dangerously close to him. "Are you sure you're alright? You look a little pale," she said. Her voice had dropped a little lower. Fuck, was she trying to seduce him? "Is there anything I can do for you, Professor?"

His blood turned to ice. He was about to stand when the door swung open again and MC walked through the door. She paused in her step, one hand still on the door as she stared at the scene before her. Sebastian watched as a flood of colour stained her cheeks and her mouth tightened.

No, no, no! He stood, brushing Bella's hand from his shoulder. Bella turned to see MC standing there and the little bitch smirked, a smug little look that made his stomach turn over. Had she done this on purpose? Did she know?!

MC turned her face from them and made her way to a seat, not her usual one, but one near the back of the class. Other students began to arrive and Sebastian pushed a hand through his hair, his chest tight. Somehow, he had to get through the next 90 minutes without losing his gobstones.

....*....

The notes on her page were nonsense and most of the class had passed in a blur. Her eyes kept glossing over with stinging tears and she refused to meet anyone's gaze. She kept her head down and somehow got through it, the sound of the professor's voice sending conflicting shivers of pain and want over her skin.

How could she have been such a fool? All the times Bella had hung back to wait for him, the way she stared at him, her snarky comment when it had been MC asked to stay behind last time. How long had it been going on? Before he had taken her into the Restricted Section? She shivered. She would have let him take her that night, she had wanted him to.

She could not get the image out of her head, how close Bella had been to him, leaning over him like that, speaking intimately. Jealousy made her want to empty her stomach and she pressed her fist to her mouth. She had been a fool.

And to think she had imagined he could love her.

As soon as he dismissed the class, she grabbed her things and hurried for the door. She couldn't bear to look back and see Bella hanging around to wait for him. She couldn't bear the thought of accidently making eye contact with him. Holding on to her dignity as best as she could, she hurried to the nearest female bathroom, locked herself inside a stall and finally let the tears come.

....*....

MC tipped the wine bottle to refill her glass and a tiny drip plopped out. She grimaced and stared down the bottle neck. Great. That had been her last bottle. She put it down with a bang and slumped back in her chair. Well, today had not been great.

Her class work was sat on her little table, an assignment was waiting to be written, but she just couldn't face it. She wasn't even sure she wanted to return to the classes, and it hurt, not just because of him, but because she had genuinely enjoyed every moment of them.

She stared around her little rented room, a loft space in a London town house had been all she could afford, but it was a place to stay until she went off travelling again. She had few possessions, she liked to travel light, and she didn't really need much. It occurred to her that she had never really had a proper home.

Apart from Hogwarts, of course. That had felt like home. But, Sebastian had been a big part of that.

She put her head in her hands. Oh, Merlin. It hurt, and now she was beginning to understand why. Only love could hurt like this. She bloody loved that idiot. Maybe she always had. She was in love with Sebastian Sallow.

But he didn't love her.

A knock on her door made her still. She looked up towards the plain wooden door with a frown. It was late, and nobody ever knocked on her door, not really. She was a loner, through and through.

She grabbed her wand and moved towards the door, poised, alert. If someone was expecting a vulnerable woman in here then they were going to be mistaken. She may be a fool in love, but she was not afraid of a fight.

"Who is it?" She asked, coldly.

"It's me." Her eyes widened in shock at those two words and the voice that spoke them. "It's Sebastian."

How was he here? He had found her. Her heart pounded against her ribs. She stared at the door handle debating the sanity of opening the door. She should tell him to get lost. But her traitorous heart had her reaching for the handle, unlocking the door and swinging it open to reveal the man on the other side.

He met her gaze, brown eyes wary, expression soft. He looked so damned handsome in his dark overcoat, the collar turned up, his hair dishevelled and his hands in his pockets.

"I had to see you," he said.

"What do you want?" She asked. She folded her arms, wand still clenched in her fingers.

"You," he said. "I want you."

Her mouth fell open. She stared at him. "What?"

"What you saw...what you thought you saw, it was nothing. Bella has been trying her luck for weeks, and I get the feeling she was doing it on purpose because she suspects that I feel something for you, and she would be right," he said. He took a steadying breath. "I love you, MC. And I'm hoping and praying to whichever god cares to listen that you will let me come in."

MC stood there staring at him. His words going in and her wine addled brain trying to sort them into something that made sense. He loved her?!

"Please," he said. "May I come in?"

To be continued... Part Three

#hogwarts legacy fanfic #sebastian sallow #mc x sebastian sallow #sebastian sallow fanfiction #blueraineshadows #hogwarts legacy #sebastian sallow smut #professor sallow #professor Sebastian Sallow

[byronvera]

Finished Twig last night and woke up thinking about King Adam this morning. 

In the final scene with Fray and Hayle, they put a lot of emphasis on Wollstone’s advanced stitched who killed him, obviously discussing Hayle’s eventual fate. The name “Adam” is of course the name of Frankenstein’s creation, who does not kill him but certainly tried to—and perhaps, in the Twig world, succeeded. I wonder if we’re intended to understand that this King is that first stitched—he mentions his “real body” being elsewhere.

That would mean the final scene of Twig is the confrontation between two experiments who rose up and killed their creators, seizing the power that they were never going to be freely granted. But in that process, they’ve become governors of the all-consuming system that’s destroyed their world, and created hundreds if not thousands more experiments who are just like them. 

I thought it was odd in some ways to have the final scene feature a new character, albeit one we’ve frequently heard about, but if this is true we don’t need to learn about Adam—we already know him. He and Sy are exactly the same. Perhaps ultimately, this is why Simon’s argument is persuasive to him. He recognizes the person in front of him.

Maybe it’s the only happy ending these two characters could ever get. If Adam really is that first stitched, was becoming king of a despotic empire really what he wanted when he killed Wollstone? Is Lord Simon really what Sy wanted himself to become? They’ve killed the gods of their world, both metaphorical and literal, and in killing those gods have fully replaced them.

#twig #twigblr #twig spoilers #meta #sylvester lambsbridge #twig web serial

[taetaespeaches]

“I’m going to be wherever you are for Christmas.”

yoongi x reader (oc) genre: fluff; minor angst word count: 2.6K

a/n: Hi lovelies! Here’s a little something with Yoongi and Kid/reader in which Kid is procrastinating packing for their trip and Yoongi loses his patience just a little bit. It also features a snowperson and some honey boy antics. I hope you all enjoy and thanks for reading :))

Curled up in a mass of blankets in bed, your eyes lazily scanned across the text across the page of the book you had been absorbed in for the past two hours. It was the holiday season and you felt truly at peace in our cocoon, partaking in one of your favorite hobbies as the chilly evening came to a close.

Your attention briefly left the page when Yoongi entered the room, hauling a few toiletries in his arms. When he dropped them to the bed, you scanned the items. Various bottles of skincare, lotions, and hair products sat at the bottom of the duvet as Yoongi sighed, crouched down while he unzipped his luggage.

As he placed the bottles inside his bag, you tried to return to the book, nuzzling yourself further into the blankets. However, Yoongi always brought a distraction, simply in the way he shuffled around. Peering over the page, you couldn’t help but sneak a look at him as he adorably placed his hands on his hips, examining his suitcase. When he locked eyes with you, you flashed a small smile at him.

“You’re so cute,” you muttered to him. Instead of the small grin you were expecting to tug on his lips, a wrinkle of confusion appeared between his eyebrows. He didn’t look angry or even all that annoyed, however, the expression put you slightly on edge.

“Are you packed yet?” he asked. You figured he already knew the answer considering you didn’t have any of your bags out, but he was giving you the benefit of the doubt.

Lowering the book, you stared at him for a moment before answering. “Not yet, but I will.”

“We leave first thing in the morning,” he reminded you, his tone instantly rubbing you the wrong way. Perhaps it was the way he was treating you as though you needed to be told what to do. More likely, it was the fact that you knew he was right in doing so.

“I know,” you defended, with a quick nod.

Yoongi glanced around the room, agitation making itself known in the way his jaw tensed just slightly. “Ok? When are you gonna pack then?”

“Do you see that I’m reading?” You questioned him, holding the book up in emphasis. It was the first night of your holiday break, and despite your early flight in the morning, you wanted a moment to relax.

“Yeah,” he said simply, staring at you expectantly. “What I don’t see is your bag packed.”

Rolling your eyes, you let out a harsh sigh. “I said I’ll get to it,” you replied, your own annoyance present in your tone. You had a whole morning to throw your weekend’s worth of belongings-

“You won’t have time in the morning,” he pointed out, calling you on your plan before you had a chance to tell him.

Closing the book, keeping your spot with your index finger, you sat up slightly. “Yeah I will.”

He lightly scoffed, shifting on his feet as he faced you straight on. “No, because you’ll stay up reading and then you’ll wake up late and then you’ll want to shower before we leave, so you won’t have time,” he explained, the comment angering you as you scoffed right back at him.

Even if he was right, which he was, damn him, you didn’t appreciate his tone or the way it made it sound as though he was criticizing you. You were a grown woman, you knew how to pack for a trip and you had yet missed a flight due to packing too late.

“Why are you being rude?” You questioned, Yoongi’s eyes immediately widening as you pushed aside some of the blankets, sitting straight up. You were ready for a fight, and your change in stance alerted him of that.

“That’s not what I’m try-” he cut himself off with a sigh. “Look, I know you just got off work, this is the start of your break, I get it. I just don’t want either of us to be stressing about catching the flight tomor-”

“You know what, maybe I shouldn’t go,” you then blurted out, already mentally berating yourself for your dedication to your anger and your stubbornness. Unrelenting, you glared at your boyfriend as his stern expression softened into a worried and disheartened one. Fuck.

“Do you want to go?” He asked, his eyes searching your features for the truth behind your words. Yes, you thought. I really do. You wanted to beg him not to listen to the little demon that lived in the corner of your mind and enjoyed dredging up old patterns of self destruction.

Shrugging at him, your stoney demeanor cracked for just a moment as the vulnerability only Yoongi could bring out peeked through. Of course you wanted to be there. You loved Yoongi’s family, and most importantly, you loved him. Your boyfriend noticed the break in composure, the man cocking his head to softly explore your expression for the brief second it appeared. Unfortunately for the both of you, despite his gentleness, you were yet to find a grave you wouldn’t finish digging yourself before tossing yourself into it. “Do you want me there?”

“Of course I do,” he easily assured you. He brought his hand toward his neck and rubbed at the back of it, giving away his nerves and unease. “You know that.”

Ignoring his answer, you cast your eyes to the side of him, unable to look at him as you pushed your shovel into the ground once more. “Because I’m sure you can still cancel my flight,” you continued your stubborn pursuit to ruin the entire fucking holiday. Shut the fuck up, you internally screamed at yourself.

You met his gaze just in time to watch Yoongi sigh, taking his turn to break eye contact with you as he looked toward the ground at his own suitcase. “I’m not canceling anything, if you don’t want to go then cancel it yourself,” he told you, his voice monotone. “Just cancel mine too. I’m going to be wherever you are for Christmas.”

Inhaling, you shook your head at yourself. It was such a stupid fight to get into and you both knew that. Yet you were the one egging it on and keeping it going. “Yoongi, you have to visit your family.”

“Then pack your fucking bags and stop being a drama queen,” he snapped and shook his head, beyond over the fight with you. Despite the slight shock you felt in response to his words, you couldn’t blame him for saying them. “We’re going together or we’re staying together. Your choice.” Without another word, or another glance at you, he huffed and exited the room.

Staring at the empty doorway, you sighed in frustration. If Yoongi didn’t have a way of defusing your anger, you would be livid at the way he knew exactly how to handle you. Leave it to Yoongi to knock some sense into by calling you a ‘drama queen’ of all things. He knew exactly when to give up, when to snap back, when to step away to avoid making things worse with you. Had he not been so fucking perfect for you you’d be stewing in anger as you cancelled your flight out of spite. Instead, you found yourself feeling ridiculous and wanting to fix things; wanting to turn back time to before you threatened to not go with him.

Tossing your book aside, you crawled out of the blankets and headed toward the closet. Staring at the top shelf for a moment, you briefly looked back to the bedroom door, wishing he’d appear there. When he didn’t you frowned at yourself and pulled your suitcase off the shelf.

You left the bedroom with a huff, items of clothing scattered across the bed. You weren’t even sure what all you should pack and it suddenly became very clear why exactly Yoongi had been on your case to get your things together. Packing in the morning would have been a disaster.

When you got to the kitchen, you expected to find him busying himself in the space or lounging across the sofa with his phone in hand. However, both rooms were empty, making you halt your steps as you stared in confusion at the vacancy. Before you had time to worry, the patio door slid open, startling you as a disheveled Yoongi stepped inside. He was carrying a bag of baby carrots, a shiver jolting through his frame as he groaned.

Yoongi’s eyes landed on you, looking you up and down and noting the way you clutched your chest. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Don’t say sorry,” you sighed. Apologizing was on you. “Why were you outside without a coat?”  

Shaking his head as if to say no reason, he made a small glance over his shoulder before his gaze slipped down to the carrots he carried. Peering past him outside the glass door, you found the little snowperson you had built a couple days prior. The temperature had warmed up slightly, melting a good portion of the snow into a pile rather than three structured spheres.

However, the melted snow had been repacked slightly with a fresh carrot nose, and even a scarf had been wrapped around it. Glancing back at the carrots, you watched as Yoongi raised his opposite hand to rub at the back of his neck.

“Did you fix melted little Suga?” You asked, a small pout on your lips as you watched your boyfriend in utter fondness.

“I told you not to name it that,” he muttered, making you hold back a grin. “I just put its eyes back on.”

“And it’s nose,” you pointed out, still fighting off your smile.

“And it’s nose.”

“And you put a scarf around its blobness,” you added, cocking your head as you stared at the man with affection.

“It’s a snowperson,” he replied quietly. You had once told Yoongi that it wasn’t fair that all people built of snow were automatically called ‘men’ and he had never used the term ‘snowman’ again. “It needs a scarf.”

Staring at your boyfriend, you felt so much affection. Only the softest of honey boys would go out and preserve the snowperson you had become stupidly attached to after having to deal with your dramatics. There you were, trying to implode your holiday plans for no good reason, and he was outside wrapping your creation in a cute little scarf. Your affection quickly turned to guilt as you frowned at Yoongi. Reaching for his hand, you swiped your thumb along the side of his. “I’m sorry.”

Apologies weren’t easy for you, but Yoongi made them so simple and straightforward. All you had to do was walk up to him and say sorry, and you both knew that. There was no keeping score with Yoongi, and no holding grudges. Yoongi stared at you for a moment before nodding at you with a softness held in his pretty eyes.

“I packed my bag,” you added, Yoongi simply nodding again.

“Do you actually want to go?” He then questioned, making you feel worse than before. You had given him this anxiety, and you didn’t even have a reason for doing it.

Placing your other hand overtop his, cradling his palm between yours, you nodded quickly. “Yes. I do, baby, I swear. I don’t know, I was just being a fucking brat for some reason.”

You watched as Yoongi looked down at his hand between yours, as though he was entranced by the warmth of your touch. When he lifted his eyes to meet yours again, a small knowing grin overtook his features. You knew what the smile meant: you’re always a brat.

Rolling your eyes, you sighed in relief. “Come here,” you tugged on his arm, pulling him closer to you. As soon as his face appeared in front of yours, you placed a hand to his cheek and pressed a kiss to the opposite side of his face. You could feel the way his smile grew in response to the affection, making you grin into the smooch against the plushness of his cheek. “Let me make you some tea.”

Guiding him into the kitchen, your heart clenched when his hand squeezed yours three times in a row in an assuring gesture. You were ok. It was still amazing to you how easy it was with Yoongi.

When you dropped his hand so you could put the tea kettle on the stove, you instantly missed his touch. And when you looked toward him, you found him pouting slightly as he stared at his empty hand. Giggling at him, his gaze lifted to meet yours just as he set the bag of baby carrots on the counter.

“Do you really want me to stop being a drama queen?” You asked him through a smirk, earning a light scoff from Yoongi.

“No,” he chuckled breathily. “I don’t want you to change anything.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Just, I can’t always be calm and cool about it,” he added, a soft smile taking over your features.

“Ok,” you whispered with a nod. “I mean, you were actually really calm and cool about it,” you pointed out, your smile widening slightly when a gummy grin spread across his face. “But, I get it. I deserve to be lectured every now and then.”

“You really do,” he teased, earning a glare from you.

“Don’t push it,” you smirked. “I really am sorry. I’m excited to visit your family. To spend the holiday with you.”

“I know, it’s ok,” he easily assured you. He knew you would internally berate yourself far more, and for far longer, than what was necessary. Yoongi wasn’t going to add fuel to your fire of regret. You appreciated that more than he would ever truly understand.

As you placed tea bags into two mugs, Yoongi leaned against the counter and crossed his arms over his ribcage. “I’m sorry too, Kid.” Snapping your head towards him, you gave him a look of confusion. “I shouldn’t have pushed so much.”

“You shouldn’t even be saying sorry,” you told him, shooting him a lighthearted glare. “Of course it’s ok.”

Chuckling lightly, he nodded in understanding. “So,” he started, making you raise your eyebrows expectantly in response. When you met his gaze, however, you found him flashing a knowing smirk. “You packed your bag, huh?” He was onto you.

A wide smile instantly spread across your mouth as you nodded in confirmation, the man instantly playfully scowling at you. “Ok fine, I started but- packing is hard,” you whined. “Like, what kind of activities do you think we’ll get up to? Do I need more jeans or more sweats?”

He smiled in amusement at you, nodding a few times to let you know he’d help you sort your things out. “Probably more sweats,” he then thought aloud. “You can build a snowperson in sweats but you don’t want to be stuck in jeans when napping on the couch with me.”

Pointing at him, you shook your head in teasing disbelief. “You’re so smart, Honey Boy.” The man teasingly gloated, shrugging cockily as he flashed a proud smirk. It was one of your favorite expressions of his. Of anyone’s.

“Speaking of snowpeople,” you started, glancing toward the patio as the kettle began squealing, steam rushing from the hole in the spout. “Little Suga loves his scarf,” you pouted playfully as you lifted the kettle off the burner, Yoongi groaning at your use of the name again.

“Ok, that’s enough,” he forced a frown, though that gummy grin was barely being concealed, making you giggle at his feigned annoyance. “I changed my mind, I’m leaving you here for Christmas.”

#yoongi fluff #yoongi angst #yoongi imagine #yoongi x reader #yoongi drabble #yoongi scenario #yoongi oneshot #bts reactions #bts fluff #bts angst #bts imagines #bts x reader #bts drabbles #bts scenarios #bts oneshot

[hesthermay]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐓 𝐅𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 (𝐏𝐓 𝟐)

PAIRING: sergeant hunter x fem!oc reader

SUMMARY: the aftermath of order 66 for the bad batch, and the reunion of a jedi and her squad.

WORD COUNT: 3.8k

WARNINGS + RATINGS: general audiences, mature themes, angst, fluff. happy ending to this chapter! female oc, use of she/her, mentions of death and order 66. series. follows the bad batch timeline.

NOTES: part tew. peep the masterlist!

STAR WARS MASTERLIST THE GREAT FIGHT MASTERLIST

Things were tense in the Marauder, the air thick and suffocating as they finally departed from Kaller. They had remained there for longer than the other clones on the planet, for they had suffered a loss of great devastation. 

Miri Rocksled had been an exception to their isolation from the rest of the GAR, she was one of them and perhaps she had been all along; thus was why approximately eighty percent of the Bad Batch was more than certain she was not guilty of the things the Jedi had been accused of. All, except their own sniper—Crosshair had never been one to express the warmest of emotions to the world around him, but he was unusually callous on the status of his former General. 

It had started with the kid, how he reacted to the orders to kill the padawan that struck something in Hunter. Orders or not, this was not something Clone Force 99 stood by; to claim they had been avid followers of the rules to begin with would be a shameful lie, but to choose such a time to start raised concerns in the man. And it was his reaction to Hunter’s reaction to realizing Miri was in danger that triggered such tension. 

“Hunter, we cannot go look for her,” Tech stated, voice stern as he spoke from the front of their ship. “Do you realize how that would look to the other troopers? To whoever gave us this order?” 

“When have we ever cared?” Hunter shot back. “You know her, there’s no way this is true.” 

From the back of the ship, like a creature lurking in the dark, Crosshair's voice filled the space. “The Jedi are traitors.” All eyes turned to him, sitting alone with his helmet still on, and he leaned in closer from his hunched position to put emphasis on the next blow. “We were given orders to execute those guilty of treason, and your Miri was no exception,” he sneered. 

An unexpected eruption came from where Wrecker stood, and everyone soon realized it was the large man launching himself at his brother.

Wrecker, with his heart on his sleeve and his fists bared, would not stand for such talk of his General. It took all three men to pull him off of Crosshair, but eventually they were able to separate the two. “Wrecker, enough!” Hunter grunted, shoving him into a seat. 

“Listen,” he panted slightly, holding his hands up to diffuse the situation. “This is getting us nowhere. Tech’s right,” he finally agreed, the prior exchange having knocked some sense into him. “It won’t be a good idea to go looking for her, we don’t wanna catch the wrong attention.  But—” he gave a pointed look at Crosshair, “we all know Miri isn’t a traitor. She’s almost loyal to a fault, something the other Jedi never seemed to stop giving her a hard time about. Whatever it is that they’re saying the Jedi are guilty of, we need some more information before we start blindly following orders. Got it?”

One by one, they all nodded their heads, Crosshairs albeit reluctant. But in his true nature, he couldn’t help but have the last laugh. Quietly, almost as if he didn’t want the others to hear, he questioned Hunter. “Besides, what would you even do if you found her body?” 

As they entered hyperspace, Hunter held himself together with the hope that she had gotten away. That her death was also falsely reported; the padawan had gotten away but nobody really needed to know that. Perhaps Miri, that clever one, was able to escape. This hope resided in them as they walked into the facility on Kamino, it was what kept their heads high and facing forward as everyone around them acted even more strange than usual. 

The sight of red and white armor once again raised alarm in Hunter. “Shock troopers?” He questioned as his head turned to watch them walk by. “What’s the Coruscant Guard doing here?” His attention was broken by the words over the intercom, the modulated voice repeatedly announcing ‘level five lockdown remains in effect. Security teams, report to the command center.’ 

He looked to Tech, and without fail he had the answers. “This isn’t a drill,” he stated, sounding surprised to hear such information. 

“Oh man,” Wrecker whined. “What did we miss now?” 

“The end of the war,” a Shock trooper answered as he walked by. 

 Hunter stepped forward, as per usual. “Say again, Trooper?”

“General Grievous was defeated on Utapau. The Separatist leadership has collapsed,” he answered. “The war is over.” A statement spoken so casually, yet possessed the weight of thousands of tons.

Behind him, Tech looked over at Wrecker. “Just like I said,” he quipped seriously.

Wrecker gasped dramatically. “It is just like you said,” he marveled, earning a side eye from his brother in response. Hunter was hardly paying any attention to this, however, as two troopers carrying a gurney walked by, a body with a sheet covering it laying motionless. Just as they passed him by, a lightsaber fell from under the sheet, and the shock trooper he was speaking with crouched down to pick it up.

When he rose to his full height, his eyes were trained on Hunter and the look he was wearing as he watched this scene unfold. He had tried to mask his emotions, but evidently he wasn’t doing that good of a job at the moment as the clone questioned him with slight hostility. “Is there a problem?” 

Though he made no effort to put some trust in his gaze, Hunter answered immediately. “No problem,” he replied, glancing over at Wrecker and then at Echo as casually as possible. “We’ll just head to our barracks then.” 

“Best hurry,” the trooper responded as he turned to walk away. “There’s a mandatory general assembly at 1500.”

And this assembly, one of the first the Batch had committed to attending, shed light to the situation while, somehow, leaving a dark shadow behind. 

“And the Jedi rebellion has been foiled. The remaining Jedi will be hunted down and defeated.” 

Chills ran down Hunters back at the words coming from the cloaked figure of what was said to be Chancellor Palpatine. Claims of an attempt on his life leaving him scarred and deformed echoed in his ears as his eyes drifted to the gallery, when the higher ups of Kamino watched from above. But what had caught his attention was a little girl, already watching him. 

She smiled when they made eye contact, but his focus shifted as Tech spoke up from behind him. “What is it?” 

When he looked back, she was gone. “Nothing.” His eyes remained there as Palpatine's voice grew louder and louder. 

“...the Republic will be reorganized into the first Galactic Empire!”

Briefly, a memory came forward of Miri meditating on the ship while they were stuck in hyperspace for who knows how long. She had been uneasy as of late, yet she tried to hide it. Meditating was something she did often, but what was peculiar to them was the scrunch of her face as she sat still as stone. They tried not to bother her when she did this, understanding it was…just something Jedi did, when she looked so distressed they felt inclined to keep watch. 

It was when she began to breathe heavily, almost gasping, that Hunter stepped forward. “General?” He questioned lowly, not trying to startle her, but she jolted at the sound of his voice anyways. “General, are you alright?” 

She had not responded, only looked at him with wide eyes as her chest rose and fell quickly. “Miri,” he tried again, formalities slipping away in his worry, “are you okay?” 

“Something is…going to happen,” she began, voice slightly frantic as she tried to gather her thoughts. “I—I don’t know what it is, or when, but it’s heavy. It’s…” She sighed, rising from her seat and running her hands through her hair. “It’s dark, and I don’t think anyone is going to see it coming, and if they do it’s just going to be too late.”

That feeling had persisted throughout the end of the war, nagging Miri any chance it got. It was ever present, when she rested, when she relaxed, when she was dispatched for missions and campaigns as well. Constant, the shadow was for Miri Rocksled, and now the curtains had been drawn and it was displayed right before their very eyes. 

Around them, troopers cheered at the revelation, unaware of the looming darkness that weighed heavy on Clone Force 99. “Still don’t think the clones are programmed?” Tech questioned, side eyeing the men around him. 

They would soon find that they were, in fact, programmed. Everything that transpired on Kamino before their forced departure was an echo of Miri’s prediction. She had been so unfortunately correct; it was heavy, it was dark, and it had been too late for anyone to stop it. The plans, orchestrated by someone they could not yet pinpoint, were already in motion, and all the Bad Batch could do was play the game as they always had; and it would seem the game had always been rigged against them. The food fight in the cafe with Omega, the live rounds during their battle simulation for Tarkin, Omega’s warning to not return, the supposed insurgent retrieval mission they were sent on. The undeniable and jarring change in Crosshair, the revelation that Omega was one of them, the weight of the fact that Miri would never leave a child in harm’s way, the devastating betrayal of one of their own. 

It had been made clear that the Empire had no room for Clone Force 99. It was time for them to leave, and Omega would be coming with them. They had a Jedi to look for. 

Many rotations had passed before the need for a pitstop was brought to their attention. Rations, medical supplies, and fuel were running low; and the severe lack of resources for a child was something Hunter had not thought of when he asked Omega to join them. 

They had learned from their visit with Cut and Suu that the Empire was spreading quickly, and travel between planets was growing much more difficult. They had to go out of their way to look for places seemingly untouched, or as much as they could be, by the heavy presence of stormtroopers. Options were running out as their journey was only just beginning, but they had no choice but to make do with the cards they had been dealt. The village they found themselves in was seemingly alright, people milling about but minding their own business; excitement was minimal and danger was mostly undetectable, a rarity these days. 

However, Hunter could feel something. A nagging feeling, that someone was out there. Watching, waiting, plotting, he did not know; but they were there. It was hard to ignore, impossible to shake off as Omega rambled about whatever had caught her interest in the market, and his eyes scanned their surroundings over and over again. He could not put his finger on it, though, for no matter how many times he looked, he came up short. He tried not to let frustration fester where caution resided. 

Until his eyes, squinted and serious as they flit over the horizon, caught a flash of a cloaked figure in his peripheral. A smaller frame shrouded by the loose fabric, identity shielded by the wide brim of their hat, he lets himself hope that it is Miri. A foolish and desperate hope, made as the figure turned away from him in the distance, disappearing in the blink of an eye.   

The hunch he had was far too big to just let this go. The feeling, still lingering on his skin as he quickened his pace to catch up with his brothers, was familiar because it was her, alive and breathing. It had to have been. 

To test this theory, he told everyone to finish gathering whatever they needed, as they were headed out, but instead of making their way towards their ship, however, he led them into the forest with arms full of supplies and faces full of confusion. Their feet carried them past the treeline and deep into the greenery, and still Hunter offered no explanation. Wrecker whined, Tech and Echo fired off logical explanation after logical explanation, and Omega was left looking around in wonder. So caught up in what was potentially ahead of them, he didn’t even notice the body tailing them from behind. In fact, it was Omega who pointed it out, feeling the eyes on her from afar. 

“It feels like we’re being watched,” she whispered, looking up at Hunter with furrowed brows. Worry was etched onto her face, but he didn’t really know how to soothe that worry at the moment. Miri was always better at this than he was. 

“That’s because we are,” he answered gruffly, as if it was no big deal. Nonchalance was something Hunter wore well, but they had so much to lose now that Omega ran with their crowd that so little care in a situation such as this was out of character for him. 

“We are?” Echo shot back through gritted teeth, alarm evident in his tone. “Hunter—”

“I think it could be Miri,” he interrupted, not looking back at Echo. The sergeant found himself almost hesitant to reveal the information he had been hoarding for the last little bit for how it would make him sound. Yes, she was special in a different way, but she was still their general and he knew her. He knew her, and what she felt like, and he was almost certain this was her. The fact that he didn’t hear a branch one snapping coming from their watcher, the fact that she remained out of their sights while keeping them in hers, the fact that nobody ever followed them with intentions of just watching; it all made too much sense to not make any at all. 

“The likelihood of that is quite low,” Tech started, holding a finger up but he never got the chance to continue for Hunter held up a closed fist, a signal for them to stop in their tracks. His eyes were trained not on ground level, but up in the trees, and he spun around as he searched for the lost Jedi. 

Unbeknownst to him, his brothers share skeptical glances. They did not like it, but they had stepped closer to accepting that Miri Rocksled may never show her face again for one reason or another than Hunter had. His desperation, while understood, was painfully obvious. 

But, always one to prove someone wrong, the missing woman made her presence known from a thick branch above them. Hunter had ventured too close for her liking, it would seem, and she stepped into view with her saber drawn and pointed at him. Perched there perfectly, draped in the same neutral colored poncho he had seen back in the village, Miri Rocksled was alive. 

The orange blade hummed lowly as the glow illuminated the expression she wore. Brows furrowed and eyes wide in a horror Hunter didn’t recognize from under the brim of her hat, her knuckles gripped the weapon so tightly the skin had gone ghostly white. Once again, the brothers exchanged glances, this time one of shock. Wrecker’s gasp cut through the ambient noise of nature. And Hunter, who could only stare up at her in awe, could not think of what to do or say. Instead, his limbs remained frozen as his eyes took her in for what she was, his greatest love. 

He had missed her so terribly, more than he thought a close was capable of, and yet he had carried through every rotation she was missing. The weight of it was suffocating, and just seeing her lifted it from his tired body tenfold; he was light with his eyes on her once again, for she was the answer to every problem he could ever have. 

“Miri…” The words left him of their own accord, coming out as a breathy whisper pointed towards the heavens. 

His voice, the sound of it in her ears, made her face screw up even tighter, eyes drawn to slits and lip quivering ever so slightly. “Stay back,” she demanded lowly through gritted teeth as tears brimmed her eyes. They stung, and she blinked rapidly to keep her sights clear on them. She tried to keep the fear at bay, tried her damndest, but to finally be face to face with her clones after Order 66 had dread settling itself in the pit of her stomach. Against her order, Wrecker took a few steps forward, eyes wide as he looked up at her. “I said stay back!” She shouted, voice harsh as it echoed throughout the forest. “I don’t want to hurt you guys; please, please, don’t make me,” she begged, words shaky as emotion threatened to take over.

Hunter repeated her name, snapping out of his daze at the genuine fear that they would try to kill her. Fear, it was not something he was used to seeing on her, and he didn’t like it one bit. His hands went up in a show of peace, demeanor that of a man approaching a cornered animal. “It’s okay. The chips didn’t work in us, we didn’t follow the order,” he explained, desperation hiding behind his words. When she remained still he gave her the smallest of shrugs and the smallest of smirks. “Defective, remember?” 

Tech took that as his signal to step forward, for he knew that Miri needed all the details then and there in order to clear the air. “What he means by that is the inhibitor chips the Kaminoans implanted in all clones did not show signs of controlling us. We have since discovered that is how Order 66 was administered, and that is why we did not participate in it; well, all except one,” he rambled, eyes never leaving the General in a show of true honesty, though Tech was never one to lie. “That is why Crosshair is missing, he…he now works for the Empire.” 

“Crosshair…” she whispered, voice low and hesitant. “It worked on him? He—” she looked away, sadness taking over for but a moment. “He would have tried to kill me?” 

“Yes,” Tech affirmed. “He believed that the Jedi were guilty of the accused treason, because that is what we were told by the Emperor himself.”

Oddly enough, Miri appreciated the bluntness of Tech’s delivery in that moment. One would feel the need to soften the blows, but they had since been dealt. Dealt the moment she had to fight for her life on Kaller against her own allies turned enemies. The facts of the matter almost helped ease the sting of betrayal she had harbored since, knowing that it had not been personal. They could not help but turn their weapons on their generals and commanders, and Crosshair could not help the change in his ideology. 

With this information, she had deduced that the Bad Batch were not a threat to her any longer. They did not display the behaviors other clones did in the presence of a Jedi, and that was the largest indicator that what Tech had said was indeed true. But it was also the look on Hunter’s face that swayed her heart when she tried to keep it stoney. 

A man in love, a man lost in his love, looked up at her as if she was the angel he had been hoping for. The grief of her presumed death, and the denial of acceptance, had worn him down along with everything else, and she could see how he had been changed. He would not harm her, could not harm her; that much she believed. 

There was one question to be asked, however. “What happened to the padawan on Kaller?” 

When Hunter stepped forward to answer, her weapon moved to point at him once again. It startled him, pausing in his tracks as he held his hands up once again. “I let him get away,” he answered, the words spilling out of him. “Lied to Crosshair about it, lied to the Empire about it.”  

She eyed them all one by one, gaze lingering on the little girl tucked away in the back with Echo by her side, before she retracted the blade of her saber, orange light disappearing into the intricate hilt. Her arm fell to her side, but her feet were still planted firmly on the branch. Miri had been in survival mode for so many rotations that she was finding it difficult to let it slip away, even if slightly. Her heart beat rapidly and almost painfully in her chest as she took a deep breath in an effort to steele the resolve to relax. 

With that, she clipped her weapon to her waistband and effortlessly leapt to the ground below. Her feet hardly thudded as her boots made contact with the dirt floor, and she looked to Hunter. She felt herself being pulled to him by something greater than the both of them, and she couldn’t even try to fight it. He watched her as if watching a ghost glide toward him, helmet at his feet as he had dropped it upon seeing her once again, and his hands had begun reaching out for her without even knowing. She almost tripped over the piece of armor as he yanked her into him when she was within reach.  

He held her close, arms wrapped tightly around her as if she would disappear again if he let go, and he breathed. He breathed clearly for the first time in what felt like centuries, lungs able to expand to their full ability instead of being constricted by constant worry. He breathed her in, the scent of her still lingering after all this time of chaos and turmoil. She was her, alive and persisting, and he felt as if he could weep as her body weight felt so solid in his hold. 

“I knew you were still out there,” he whispered into her hair, voice cracking. 

“You found me,” she whispered back, throat tightening as she fought off the same feelings. Hunter, her Hunter, had found his way back to her. She had been so worried that what they had was forever lost, that what she had with them all had been forever tainted, and to let go of that felt incredible. 

He shook his head the best he could while having her so close. “No, you found me, Miri,” he insisted, not caring about anything else besides this moment. “You found me.”

all works on this blog belong to www.hesthermay.tumblr.com: do not copy, repost on to other sites, or claim my work as your own.

#this series may be self indulgent bc i am EATING it up #damn this bitch spittin! #it’s me! #the witch: writes #—signed; hunter #the great fight #the bad batch #the bad batch fic #the bad batch series #tbb #tbb x reader #tbb x you #tbb fic #hunter tbb x reader #tbb hunter x reader #tbb hunter x you #sergeant hunter x you #sergeant hunter x reader #tcw #the clone wars #star wars #star wats fic #sw fic #the bad batch oc #hunter x f!oc #star wars oc

[wrencatte]

mini-fic 5!! (ish) Post-Survivor. Rambler Crew + Mantis Crew + Cal's ponchos. Omniscient POV. 1k words Reminder! I post these on my Ao3 as well (a day or so later), including an alt version of mini fic 3 that's Ao3 exclusive!

“That is not a good look.”

Cal frowns and looks down at his new poncho, stretching it out from the bottom to put it on full display. “What’s wrong with it?”

“It clashes with your hair,” Merrin says.

“Everything clashes with my hair.

“Well, that is worse.”

“It smells,” Greez complains. “Where did you find that thing, the garbage?!”

Cal grins. “Actually – .”

“Please no.”

“I found it in an oggdo abode.”

“And you put it on?” Greez demands in horror, his voice higher and squeakier than Cal’s ever heard it get before.

Cal stares at him for a long, long moment before he lets out a sharp giggle, and then that giggle turns into a full-on cackle. He falls against the bar top for support. The present cantina patrons watch in amusement and fondness as their resident Jedi turns red faced at the force of his laughter. They don’t get to hear him laugh very often, and the smell of his ‘new’ poncho is nearly worth it.

Greez isn’t done: “Why the hell is there even an oggdo on this planet? I thought we left that sithspawn on Bogano!”

“Maybe it followed you just as the boglings did,” Merrin suggests, patting Cal on the back as he wheezes. “Perhaps you missed it on the ship, it seems quite miss-able.” That, for some reason, just makes Cal start back up again, covering his face as his ears turn bright red. It’s a borderline hysterical laugh, but everyone very carefully avoids making note of that.

Greez points at her. “You, be quiet. And you.” He marches up to Cal and starts tugging on his ‘new’ poncho, but all he succeeds in is yanking the Jedi around while he smacks at the latero’s hands. “Take it off! I can’t have you stinkin’ up my saloon!”

“Hey! Hey! C’mon, it’s not that bad!”

“No, it is.”

“It really is, Cal.”

“Sorry, Red, but that thing smells worse than nekko crap.”

Cal turns to his gathered friends with betrayed tooka eyes. It really only works on Zygg, who immediately looks away, hiding her face with a hand so she’s not swayed by them. Mosey covers her nose for emphasis even though she’s smelled way worse on her own adventuring. She’s even said so and Cal swears a bilemaw smells worse than the oggdo did. Cal covers his heart in mock betrayal before all the pointed looks and disgusted expressions makes him reluctantly give in and pull off the pink poncho. He drops it into Greez’s waiting hands. He knows when he’s been outnumbered despite what some people would think.

“Good,” Greez says, holding it as far away from himself as possible. Which isn’t very far, but Cal counts that as pay back for making him take it off in the first place. “I’ll just…run this a couple hundred times in the washer and give it back – .”

“Tomorrow?” Cal asks hopefully where he’s started to rummage around in the bag he’s been carrying around lately. Says it’s a better place to put all the seed pods and priorite he’s been finding around Koboh. Merrin joked once that it was the perfect size to fit a fully grown bogling and he really just wanted to show it the scenery. Cal hadn’t denied it.

“Never?” Merrin suggests then laughs airily as she dodges one of the aforementioned seed pods Cal throws at her good-naturedly. BD-1 beeps his protest at the seed pod being treated like that, earning an apology from a suitably chastised Cal. “I am just saying, you’ve outgrown the ponchos, Cal. This style you’ve cultivated over the years is much better.”

“But they’re comfortable,” Cal complains, still rummaging.

…The bag isn’t that deep.

Mosey eyes him suspiciously even as she says, “I’ve got a couple’a ponchos you can have, Red. They were my pa’s, but I doubt he’d mind if you took ‘em off my hands. They’re good for the mountain trails since it gets cold up there. And they’ve been stored up all nice and clean.”

Cal flashes her a smile. “Thanks, Mosey, but no thanks. I’m all stocked up.” Everyone watches in horror as he pulls out another poncho. It’s not nearly as garish as the pink one, but it’s still ratty and smelly and Cal pulls it over his head with a bright, beaming grin. “See? Problem solved.”

“Problem not solved!” Greez shrieks, flinging the pink one away. “You brat! Are you kidding me right now?!”

“I have four more!” Cal declares proudly.

“No,” Merrin whispers, aghast.

Cal nods, his smile getting smug now. “Yes. A crate of them just sitting there. It looked like someone tried to set up camp and the oggdo took offense to it. You can take one, but you can’t take them all!”

“Merrin,” Greez says, voice low and serious. Cal looks at him, eyebrow raised in a challenge. The latero puts one set of hands on his hips and points at Cal. “Get him.”

Green magick flares but Cal is already running out the main door, cackling loudly as Merrin gives chase. The rest of them are left behind to stare at Cal’s bag still sitting on the ground.

“Do you really think he has four more?” Moran asks, clutching his drink to his chest. He’s looking a little pale.

“We could throw out the whole thing?” Ashe suggests. “He can collect more seeds later.”

“Doma would kill us for the priorite.”

“Kark, she would.”

Before any of them can make another suggestion, a little body dashes through, scoops the bag up to her chest and pauses, giving them all a good moment to really take in the sight of Kata looking at them all wide-eyed and innocent… wearing a smaller and cleaner poncho in her favorite shade of purple. BD jumps onto her back with a happy beep, and she grins brightly at them before she then – runs away, giggling.

Greez blinks once, twice, and then swears loudly.

“I knew it! I knew they were working together! Those, those brats!”

#cal kestis #greez dritus #nightsister merrin #jedi survivor #sw jfo #sw jfo fic #my writing

[rriavian]

Do you think Morpheus knows deep inside that Corinthian is his mirror? The reflection of his own darkness and desire?

Jessamy my beloved! I love getting asks from you! They are always the most interesting questions to really make me think about how to put my thoughts into words! <3 Sorry it took so long to answer this one (think I broke my record for time taken to answer an ask eek)!

I had this typed out nearly ready to post but got very distracted by Corintheus week! Can't believe it's February already, I hope you’re having a good New Year so far 😊

Does Morpheus know that the Corinthian is his mirror?

I think that Dream does, and that in some ways he holds himself responsible for the difficulty of it, because I think we can all agree that it’s a lot for any singular creation of his to embody. On the flipside of this you could argue that Fiddler’s Green is supposed to be a reflection of the light—the ‘heart’ of the Dreaming, a representation of pure life giving creation—with Gault as the fluid, transformative, link between all three of the major arcana. I think I’ve talked briefly about this before but it’s relevant again for this question.

Her place as a link between the two extremes, and her transformative powers, makes sense for why Gault would want to become a dream (and perhaps another reason why Dream agreed in the end) but it also suggests how complicated the facets of Dream’s identity are.

(I could probably make an entire separate post on this but! Moving on!)

All three major arcana reject him just as the rest of his creations do, are the last to return to the Dreaming and none of them do it by choice. Even Fiddler’s Green needs to first be tracked down. The Corinthian is found at the convention where Dream takes responsibility for making him the way he is, designating his rebellion as his own failure. The Corinthian was his masterpiece but I think Dream might now consider that as designing too ambitious a spec, the coding perfect but corrupted in the end. I think that assessment could be why he highlights the Corinthian’s purpose as being a dark mirror for humanity instead of one for himself, despite how closely those two things seem to be bound.

Not necessarily changing his mind, just changing the emphasis.

But, as I said, I also think Dream made the Corinthian for it. To be able to take it. Or at least hoped that he would—another reason why he might have said that he’d had so much hope for him, why Dream was so disappointed—not constructed to be given a burden, not supposed to be that at all. In many ways I think that’s why he’s a major arcana. But the Corinthian also has his own unique darkness, perhaps finding its origins in his creators but without its place in Dream’s larger puzzle it expresses differently, the exploration of what happens to a counterpoint to a dream that isn’t held internally.

The Corinthian is far more selfish with his darkness, lives out all that desire and need the way Dream can’t (and won’t), can embody it wholeheartedly because he’s not supposed to be balanced in the same way.

Yet in doing so he offers balance; can offer that to Dream, the same way he allows darker human impulses a chance to take center stage.

An outlet for it all.

All of Dream’s creations in some way seem to be that, a combination of the restriction of a role and the individuality of personality, might have a set purpose but have choices in how they carry out what they are. The same as Dream really. They are concepts personified, ideas and emotions that might originate in another, whether it be humanity or their creator, but they’ve been given their own voice.

It's no one way dictation…a dialogue with humanity because their function is to speak back.

So yes, I think that Dream knows that the Corinthian is his dark mirror far better than the Corinthian himself does. I think he knows how important he is in a way the Corinthian doesn’t see (the way the rest of his creations sometimes can’t see about themselves either).

I think the existence of a dark mirror (and other such representations) are a way in which Dream keeps emotionally healthy, just as they are a way for humans to keep emotionally healthy, and you could even argue that it’s how his creations keep themselves healthy too. Change and growth are certainly positive aspects of life, but like anything that’s not necessarily universal, because so is embracing what you are. Who you are. Without referencing my own neurodivergence too much, I think we can all understand circumstances where forcing oneself to change is far from a good and healthy thing.

Acceptance of the parts of oneself that we struggle with/have a tricky relationship with is a big part of what dreams and nightmares help humans to do.

It’s a big part of what a nightmare does.

Ok, this is getting long, so I’m going to make one final point. So I think that Dream could have spent centuries living vicariously through the Corinthian’s nightmarish nature and then finding that crucial mechanism corrupted, poisoned, when the Corinthian suddenly started killing dreamers in the Waking World. I don’t think that’s one of Dream’s desires at all, secret or otherwise, and I think it repulsed him to the point of potentially threatening to destabilise the rest of the system.

Perhaps Dream found his own darkness felt tainted by a reflection that (however intentional the rejection was) no longer wanted to mirror him.

In killing dreamer's the Corinthian was showing how he no longer wanted to mirror humanity (wanted to take from them instead, thought that a better match for what he was made for) and in doing so denied not only Dream, but his own identity too in no longer wanting to be what he was. For someone like Dream I think killing the dreamer’s would have been deeply offensive, an incredibly personal insult, a perversion of his function and an attack on what agency he has to fulfill it.

Whatever disgruntlement Dream may have with his role, he was then faced with the result of how instead of having a healthy outlet, those feelings could have been twisted/warped within the Corinthian's own unique mix of individuality and function. Perhaps in many ways it felt like being forced to kill his dreamers with his own hands.

And I think that was why when Dream found him in Berlin he was so quick to decide to unmake the Corinthian on the spot.

#thank you so much for the ask! #as always I took a while #but I will always always answer every ask #Jessamy my love <3 #the sandman #dream of the endless #corintheus #sandman tv meta #kinda #rria tries to write meta #show based as I'm more familiar with it

[curekibouka-writing]

7-28 voice acting analysis (and some rough translation, and a little bit of 7-29)

**SPOILERS FOR BOOK 7** 

I don’t have enough strength to link a video I just want to scream about Silver crying because I can’t go to sleep without doing it. You guys can listen to it yourself and suffer like I did, and remember to turn on auto for best effect 😇

I’ll start from here when Silver says of course Malleus would be in pain sending Lilia off because he’s spent so much time with Lilia, something his measly 17 years can’t compare to. 

How he put the stress on “measly” (or “only”)? That word? The word that started the whole crying scene because he’s been holding this in trying to convince himself he has no right to lose his composure when Malleus didn’t? 😇

I really like when Malleus asks if Silver is crying he has his usual detached tone but also a caring tone of speaking to a child. I love this he cares about Silver 😭

So after this line Silver says “I am sorry for showing you this unseemly behaviour” and you can hear how his voice cuts off every now and then when he’s trying to finish his sentence. This happens when you’re trying to hold in your cries which makes your breathing somewhat irregular and that’s why he’s cutting off his sentences, he’s trying to not cry. 

Malleus: It’s not unseemly, children are supposed to cry. 

Silver: I am already 17! Next year I will be an adult. 

He exclaimed that line “I am already 17” because it’s important later keep it in mind. 

Silver: Perhaps I still seem like a child to you and father…

Silver: 17 years ago… father found me deep in a forest in Briar Valley when I was still a baby.

You might be able to hear Silver’s pitch drop all of a sudden when saying “17 years ago”. This is because our voices tend to be higher when we cry, so he’s trying to be calmer when he’s explaining things, that’s why the voice actor drops the pitch. 

Silver: Father is a fae, and I’m a human. We are not related by blood, and he had no obligations to raise me. … we had none of that. 

I just love love love how his voice begins to calm down in this line but it still trembles when he says the word “fae”. The identity that his father is a fae matters so much to him because he feel undeserving of the 17 years Lilia gave to raise him to become an adult. And he sounds so sure when he said “we had none of that”, he made it so clear that Lilia had no obligation to raise him.  

Silver: And yet, he raised me as if I was his own child. 

So, when we cry, we tend to get breathy with our voices. And yes, Silver had been breathy in the beginning of the sentence. But then? It’s very clear that he steadied his voice and shouted the words “as if I was his own child” with the strength from his stomach. He returns to breathy the next sentence. 

Silver: He fed me every day, trained me, and when I was sick in bed, he stayed by my side for the whole night. 

THIS! MUST LISTEN TO THIS SENTENCE! I don’t think I need to explain, you can hear how his voice softens to the last part when he said “stayed by my side for the whole night”. He is recalling his good memories of it and his gratitude from it. You can almost picture how happy he was when he was sick in bed and found Lilia by his side waiting for him back when he was a child just through this line. His mouth shape is slightly smiling even though his voice is trembling. (also yes I think this line references back to his first birthday vignette, the one about the incident when he found out his ears and Lilia’s ears are different) 

Silver: Fae and humans are different in fragility and in the speed they grow… We are different in every way.

Silver: There aren’t many who knows how to raise a human child in Briar Valley. And on top of that, father raised me alone. 

Silver: Without anyone to rely on, he fumbled to raise a human baby, and I can only imagine how difficult it must have been… 

I don’t know how to describe this tone when he said “father raised me alone (emphasis on “alone”)”. He softened his voice and it sounds like both respect and sympathy mixed together? Like he admires that Lilia managed to raise him alone but also feel sorry because child-raising isn’t supposed to be a one-man job.

Silver had to breathe in before he said “I can only imagine how difficult…” T^T

Silver: It’s not enough to just thank him. I intended to spend my entire life repaying this debt…!

He put the stress on “intended to” because the next part reveals it doesn’t go as he intended, and it’s the part where his voice really starts cracking.

Silver: And yet… I haven’t… been able to give anything back to him at all!

😭 😭 😭 😭 😭  What can I say? His voice just completely cracks starting from “I haven’t” with the emphasis put on “I” because he’s blaming himself. He’s dissatisfied with himself that he hadn’t been able to do anything for Lilia. 

Silver: He is trying to meet his end, alone, in some far-off country. 

I don’t want to break off this line from the previous because the transition is important. The last line he was blaming himself with his voice coming off harsh and cracking, but when it transitions to this line it slowly boils down to a soft, sad, lonely tone? And this tone starts from the word “alone”, there’s a lot of sadness on the word “alone”. He also stuttered a little bit before saying the word “end” as if it’s hard to say… because it really is hard to say. 

Silver: I… Even if one day father could no longer use magic, and when his body wither away…

Silver: Even if one day he forgets everything, I thought I could always be there to support him…!

Excuse me this line had made me cry as many times as I’ve heard it. At first he went back to his shouting tone, with a lot of determination, and yet it immediately cracks, because it’s so hard for him to speak of the truth that Lilia is losing magic and ageing. And he emphasised the “even if” in the second line a lot. 

Malleus: … Lilia has a good son. 

Silver: I am not a good son at all. I cannot fulfil the one wish my father has.

Silver: I wanted to send him off with a smile just like he wished and yet…

Silver: I… I… 

Aaah I just don’t know what to say? His voice crack so much when he said “just like he wished”. Because he thought this was such a simple thing to ask of him and yet he fails to do? 

And yes the chapter ends with him weeping and my heart shattering. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Next is 7-27

Malleus: You say you are someone not related by blood, and some Lilia had no obligations to raise…

Malleus: But I am quite sure Lilia sees it the same way. 

Silver: … eh?

Malleus: The lifespan of humans, compared to long-living faes like us, is unbelievably fleeting and short.

Malleus: To have a human like you waste your time on he who is withering away. He perhaps thought that you have no obligation to do so either.  

Silver: Father… why…? 

Malleus: ……

Malleus: Grandmother always told me,

Malleus: the reason our bloodline, whose ancestors were dragons, are bestowed with especially strong power even among dark faes.

Malleus: She said it is so that we can make sure the smiles of the subjects of Briar Valley will never be clouded. 

Malleus: And yet I cannot erase one sorrow for you and your father. 

Malleus: Even if I have power… I am powerless. 

It’s interesting to me that Malleus has his detached tone of voice throughout this whole part, that one as if he’s deep in sad thoughts? I’m not sure how to interpret it, but I want to believe that he is both thinking about how to comfort Silver while also affected by Silver’s emotional outburst that Lilia is really really going to leave?? 

I also really appreciate Silver’s voice acting two lines later so feel free to listen. The crying scene has ended but his voice actor carries on the crying act because a normal human voice does not recover from crying that quickly cuz my voice sounded like that when I ramble to a friend about all this hkjsdhkjhskjhs. 

Also everything hurts more when we remember that Malleus said Silver is a child who is good at feeling for others. And now Silver stands here crying because he hasn’t repaid lilia mmmmm yes feed me that angst

#twst spoilers #twisted wonderland #Lilia Vanrouge #malleus draconia #silver #twst silver #twst analysis #twst chapter 7 #diasomnia #twst angst #twst translation

[ddarker-dreams]

He Who Hides Behind a Mask.

Scaramouche x F!Reader.

Warnings: Scaramouche is a mess, Reader is honestly a mess too, implied not SFW.  Word count: 6k. 

Note: originally, this story was going to be lot darker (haha), but after the 3.1 cutscene... i decided mr. mouche can have a break just this once. as a treat. please handle him with care. he really needs all of it he can get. anyway here’s my love letter to my fav genshin character. 

i.

You are, without a doubt, the worst human in the world.

If Scaramouche was labeled an eccentric by his peers throughout the centuries, he wonders what that would make you. Whatever conventions you abide by are a complete mystery to him. Perhaps you damaged your head at some point in your life and are now living with the consequences. Or, your head has made it out mostly unscathed, and you really are just this foolish for no good reason. That miserable doctor might say there’s an explanation behind every phenomenon, but the charlatan surely would change his tune if he met you.  

What else could possibly explain why you have the audacity to waltz into his office, entirely unannounced, scuttling about like you owned the place?

… And if that isn’t worse enough, why does he let you?

“I brought some reports from Yaroslav and Stepan,” you slap said reports on his desk, then stretch your arms over your head. Scaramouche purses his lips as he contemplates how wide open you’ve left yourself to attack. He considers chastising you but decides against it this time, feeling otherwise preoccupied with your words. He’ll save that lecture for another day. Lord knows he has plenty building up already.

“Did they offer any explanation as to why they sent you in their stead?” Scaramouche scoffs, straightening the papers out and giving them a once over. If memory serves, this time-sensitive information was supposed to be here hours ago. He would’ve hunted the two aforementioned slackers down himself had he not been so inundated with other matters. Really, he shouldn’t be dilly-dallying with you at all, he should just wave you off so he can focus again.

Emphasis on the word should. He knows he most definitely won’t. Not when he had to bite his lower lip to stop a smile from spreading upon you barging in.

You unclasp your standard-issued Fatui mask from your face and toss it aside. “Well, if you want my opinion—”

“I can’t say I ever do, really.”

“—Okay, I’ll be ignoring that comment. Anyway, back to my opinion. I believe they find your lordship unpleasant. Horrifying. The worst company anyone could ask for. Had it not been for the fact they were wearing gloves, those papers would’ve been soaked from how much they were sweating.”

Gross mental image aside, he laser focuses on the insults you so freely flung in his direction. “If my company is ‘the worst anyone could ask for’, why is it you seek me out like a pest so often?”

You help yourself to the chair in front of his desk. Scaramouche had never seen anyone aside from you use it, since the few trembling Fatui agents that managed to survive their encounters here never risked staying long enough to test the furniture. It might as well belong to you at this point. As does the windowsill you somehow manage to balance yourself on when the sun is beaming in, the couch, his bed in the attached room…

“What kind of pest are we talking about here? Bugs or rodents?”

He rolls his eyes. You’re so purposefully obtuse that it’s a wonder your back isn’t bent a hundred degrees. “A mutation between them that maximizes both of their worst qualities.”

“One, that’s too cool to be an insult,” you put a gloved finger up, “And two, I’m convinced that if I didn’t keep you company, you’d go crazy from loneliness and zap everyone to death. I consider this a community service.”

Oddly enough, you might be spot on. What was that phrase again? A broken clock is right twice a day? He mentally rephrases it so that the ‘twice’ becomes ‘once’. He can’t be giving you more credit than is absolutely necessary. While he doesn’t have definitive proof you’re a telepath, it’s too much of a risk to presume otherwise. Your ability to read him is just… uncanny. He has his suspicions.

“You’ve been slacking in your supposed community service then, seeing as you’ve been gone the past week.”

Oh no, that came out way more bitter than he intended. And oh no, now you’re smiling, not the kind he’d begrudgingly call cute should his enemies ever waterboard the information out of him, either. This variation is the worst. Malignance hidden behind a veil of purity. The stuff of nightmares. It’s the ohh-you’re-so-taken-with-me-aren’t-you smile that puts his reputation of being cool and composed on the line. He can’t have that, not with you. It does away with the telepath theory that he desperately clings to.

If you’re somehow not a mind reader, then the only other explanation is that he’s made himself vulnerable enough for you to understand him. He doesn't like the thought of that. Not at all. The possibility pricks at him like a thousand needles, jamming in from all directions. Sharp and digging so deep past the surface, that removing them would cause him to bleed out.

With far more confidence in your gait than he would’ve preferred, you stride over, slinging an arm around his shoulder. The touch fills him with warmth, and still, he shivers.

“Did you miss me?”

There it is — a final blow worthy of taking him out. He wouldn’t succumb to flesh wounds, time’s passage, or elemental attacks that could level nations. It was only the sweet words that left your lips that held the high honor of potentially doing him in. Scaramouche is left stupefied. He doesn’t think about the two bumbling idiots that used you to avoid his wrath, the workload piling up as each second passes, or how grating his fellow Harbingers are.

Absolutely nothing else in this existence registers aside from you.

How close you are, how right it feels when your bodies connect, the scent of pine trees and brown sugar that make up the shampoo he knows you favor. The very shampoo he uses in your absence to try and placate himself until you return.

Emotions brew within him like the tempest above Seirai Island in his homeland. He hides it by biting down on his bottom lip, somehow managing to keep the cracks of his porcelain façade from spreading further. Once the damage is done, he hasn’t the slightest clue on how to go about fixing it. All he knows is that you are the one inflicting the damage. Far more than you could ever know. Far more than any veneer could ever polish.

With a strained tone, he manages to free the words that were lodged in his throat.

“You’re so full of yourself. Of course I didn’t.”

ii.

Scaramouche never thought he’d be able to desire a human body as much as he does yours.

It wasn’t until he made your acquaintance that he could understand how scholars went mad in pursuit of knowledge they’d never obtain. They knew it was a fruitless endeavor too, as did he, and still, what other choice did they have but to continue their studies at the expense of themselves? He was a creation — you were created. A line separates you both that he would always pass if it meant he could get the slightest taste. The blame all lies with you. Had you not tempted him, he’s certain he would’ve had the wherewithal to resist.

Or maybe that was just another pretty lie he wove, for he’s more comfortable claiming you’ve trapped him when he’s every bit the willing prisoner.

He once found the human body to be a miracle, something to envy in his earlier days. An unobtainable treasure for a tossed aside husk like himself.

He’s since rectified that naive line of thinking. What was so good about blood that couldn’t clot itself fast enough to heal mortal wounds in an instant? Skin that inevitably withers and sags from brittle bones? A heart that could kill its host should it beat too slow or too fast? The design was subpar. His being triumphed over it in every conceivable category. In the same way a swan would never pause to consider the appearance of a worm in light of its own beauty, Scaramouche thought he lacked the capacity to admire anyone other than himself. He figured that if he’d gone five centuries without finding anyone worthwhile, such a mythological figure must never exist. His modus operandi remained firm. Distrust miserable humanity, mock the foolish gods who are far less omnipotent than they’d like to admit.

Then you stumbled into the picture. No grace, no poise, only offering whatever it is you offer that he apparently just can’t get enough of. Addiction would be putting it lightly.

He runs his fingers over the hand-shaped bruises forming on your hips, then the blotches he greedily left behind on your neck. He considers the faded bites he had left around your collarbone upon receiving news you were to be away for a week on a job. He shifts himself, allowing the light from the full moon to illuminate where you returned the favor in kind, only to find the skin had healed completely. He frowns and tugs at his yukata to hide the perfection.

Indeed, you were subpar in comparison to his own divine design, but he couldn’t help but take a liking toward what your body was capable of. Far from revulsion yet not quite envy. This new emotion that bloomed in his chest went unidentified on purpose, for he never wished to give it a name.

Your body told stories, whereas his scrubbed the words clean from the pages, lest anyone ever read them.

A soft exhale from your sleeping figure draws his attention. You help yourself to snuggling deeper into his pillows, a content little smile on your lips that were raw from his various ministrations. He fights back a laugh at the state of your hair, sticking in enough directions to rival a compass. Absent-mindedly, he smooths out what he can. He’s probably not in a much better state himself. You were such a hair grabber. Perhaps all his spoiling made you impatient.

After running out of good excuses to stare at and touch you, he lays back down. His bed is far more inviting now that you’re back in it. Even if you have an unseemly habit of hogging the blankets.

“I did miss you… a bit.”

He whispers it as if it were a confession he’d clung to his entire life, only letting go moments before eternal slumber so that he may know peace. Scaramouche isn’t sure why he’s so adamant about denying you the truth. Is it pride? The thrill of being chased and sought after? Or, more realistically, and far uglier, could it be cowardice? He thought he had removed the filth that is emotion from his being. He declared it to be so, reveled in it, found solace that stretched centuries because of it.

You’ve reawoken that which lays dormant within him. If there’s anything the discarded puppet understands, it’s the danger that comes from rousing things from their sleep.

Much to his alarm, you stir, and he freezes like a thief caught in the diabolical act. You mutter some words that he can’t quite make out. Then, seemingly content with your change in position, you’re out like a light once more. His tense shoulders relax and he almost sighs from relief. He decides it’s too early to entirely let his guard down, not until he can confirm you aren’t faking slumber for some insidious machinations. He wouldn’t put it past you.

“You irritate me,” he murmurs, using the same volume that he did before.

Nothing.

“Your plant died because I forgot to water it like you asked me to.”

Still nothing.

“... Personality aside, you have some attractive qualities.”

Nada.

Huh. So he was being paranoid for nothing. He huffs in frustration, whether it can be attributed mostly to you or himself, he cannot say for certain. What he does know is that the sun will be rising in a few short hours and he hasn’t gotten a wink of sleep. The fault lies with you, he decides. If you weren’t so pleasant to look at, he’d have been well on his way to dozing off. Every anomaly in his life can be traced back to you like an elaborate tapestry. He’s thought about ripping it off from the hinges, igniting each thread until it frays, warming himself with the fire that he’d start and maintain.

While it might be difficult at first, in the long run, it should make everything easier. Get his focus back onto his lifelong grudges and goals.

But when he feels how your palm locks perfectly into place against his, he decides the warmth he gets from you as you are now is superior. Even if it means that he might possibly be the one to go down in flames instead.

iii.

“Hey, [First].”

“Hm?”

“If I said that I hated you, would you believe me?”

You take a pause from sipping on the tea he prepared. Your fingers trace the outer ring of the yunomi, eyeing the steam rising from the murky green liquid inside. Unfortunately for Scaramouche, you’d witnessed him preparing matcha tea in the classic Inazuman style, and often bugged him to make you some. He always complained about how high maintenance you were yet never refused the request. The one time you pointed this out, he hastily made the excuse that you talk less and are generally more bearable when your mouth is preoccupied. This earned him a wink that set his face ablaze.

“I think it’d depend on your reason for hating me,” you decide.

He raises an eyebrow at this. “Do I have to have a reason?”

“Well, yeah. Otherwise, you’re not putting your heart into it. It’s too tepid. Go big or go home, as they say.”

Who exactly says that…?

“And what if I don’t have a heart?” Scaramouche proposes. You’re giving him a weird look. He knows he’s being overly cryptic and searching for answers you could never give, but he can’t stop himself. There’s a certain satisfaction to be found in getting all passionate over a perceived wrong. Searching for offenses hidden beneath the reeds that simply aren’t there, yet settling on labeling the rough shape of it just that. He likes it when others make mistakes in his presence. When he has an excuse to belittle and berate them.

What that says about himself, he could care less. Very few have the power and or courage to call him out on it.

He’s scrutinizing your every movement. From the fluttering of your eyelashes against your cheeks to how you readjust your posture, searching and searching for the perfect opening for him to lunge at. He needs it from you, he realizes, in the same way lost humans in the desert need water.

Scaramouche starts drumming his fingers on the ground. Why are you taking so long to respond? Normally, you would’ve rattled off on some nonsensical tangent by now that he’d claim to only be half paying attention to when he actually soaked up every word. Could it be that you sense the underlying severity that he tried so hard to mask? Or is his telepath theory gaining newfound credence again?

He has to sever this connection with you. If he doesn’t, every time he tries to pull away, he’ll snap right back in your direction.

“The way I see it,” you start, five words that make him internally cringe yet lean in nonetheless, “Your heart is a work-in-progress. An ongoing project.”

“What?” He deadpans. Whatever he was expecting, it certainly wasn’t this.

“Hold on, I’m not finished yet. You can’t judge me until I’m done.”

He has reason to disagree but keeps that sentiment to himself.

You set the near-empty yunomi onto the ground and look him straight in the eye. “A heart is what guides you. It takes you in all sorts of directions, good and bad. You’ll think to yourself, ‘why did I do something so stupid, when I knew it was stupid’, and well, that’s because of your heart. So as far as I see it, anyone capable of messing up has a heart.”

You tap your head with your knuckles and he’s semi-amazed it’s not a hollow sound that comes forth. “See, if we only used this and abided purely by logic, we’d all be super boring and perfect. That’s where our heart comes in. It sends us spiraling all over the place and makes things interesting.”

“So you’re saying because I’m stupid and have the capacity to ‘mess up’, I have a heart?”

“Well, I would’ve gone for an artsier flare in trying to sum up what I said, but I guess that’s the gist of it.”

“I’ll be generous and overlook the incredibly foolish nature of your words that defy all sensibility—”

“Wow, thanks.”

“—And entertain your assertion with one final question before I drop the subject. You still haven’t elaborated on the work-in-progress part. Explain.”

“Oh, this one’s simple,” you nod with confidence that makes zero sense to him. “It’s only a work-in-progress because you haven’t realized you already have a heart. Once you figure that part out, you’ll be all set.”

You have the audacity to conclude this world-shattering statement with a thumbs up. Scaramouche gawks at you, vacillating between incredulity and sheer awe over your apparent nerves of steel. Grown men cower in his presence. Villages and settlements are razed on his command. He could very well ascend to godhood one day so that he might tear the false stars from the sky. And here you sit, speaking candidly with him, as if it was the most normal thing.

You interrupt his thoughts by holding the empty yunomi in his direction. “Would it be okay if I had some more of this stuff? It’s delicious.”

He yanks the yunomi with far more force than necessary, turns his back to you, and starts assembling the necessary tools while muttering obscenities under his breath. The matcha powder is all but flung into the bowl. Stupid woman with a stupid pretty face making him do stupid things—

Scaramouche freezes.

You make him do stupid things?

Oh no, this is really, really bad. Wait. There’s still hope. A light at the end of the tunnel that he must run towards. If he doesn’t believe your mad ravings, because that’s definitely what they were, no doubt about it, then he’s safe. In the clear. All good. Above reproach. The implications that would arise otherwise are too damning, possibly enough to rewrite his entire existence—

You wrap your arms around him from behind and rest your head atop his. “Are you okay, Scara? I’ve seen statues move more than you have in the past few minutes.”

He swallows thickly.

“... Kunikuzushi.”

“Huh?”

“My name isn’t Scaramouche, you dullard,” he can barely ladle the hot liquid into the bowl from how much he shakes. “It’s Kunikuzushi. Remember that.”

He feels you hum, the sound low and remarkably pleasant. “Ku-ni-ku-zu-shi. Kunikuzushi. Okay, got it. What a relief. That’s way better than what I thought your actual name was.”

“What did you think my name was?” He questions, momentarily forgetting that giving into his curiosity around you often spelled trouble for him.

“Balladeer,” is your instantaneous response.

He lets out a sound he didn’t think he was capable of making anymore. You must believe this as well, for you release your hold on him, swiveling around in front with wide eyes. Scaramouche covers his traitorous face to the best of his abilities, but it’s too late. You caught a glimpse and now he will have to live with the consequences. He swats you away as you try to pry the hand covering his smile.

“Oh wow, I made you laugh!”

“You did no such thing.”

“It wasn’t a derisive laugh or anything either! I thought you could only do evil little chuckles. This is a discovery worth celebrating.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“Look who’s talking.”

For once, he doesn’t have a good response ready to fire back.

iv.

Fate is an unfunny joke, as far as Scaramouche is concerned.

He was destined for more than the hand he was dealt. A creation torn away from the higher purpose it was handmade for. Godhood, divinity, a seat amidst seven holy thrones. Fate had spat in his face and turned its back on him. Some — a certain pink-haired kitsune comes to mind — might label his various schemes a tantrum. That could be exactly what he was doing. What the fruits of hundreds of years' worth of labor ultimately amounts to. He doesn’t care if that’s the case. People could look down on petty revenge all they want, but at the end of the day, what matters is that it feels good. Vindicating, exhilarating. There is unrefined beauty in disaster when he is the orchestrator of it.

Yet for some reason or another, he doesn’t want disaster to rip its claws into you.

Your touch is different tonight and so is his. There’s a raw urgency behind it that he doesn’t care to conceal, whereas yours is sluggish, almost apathetic. It’s the antithesis of everything you are and he can’t help but find his mood soured because of it.

Scaramouche is doing everything he knows you like. Touching you in the places that normally produce such lovely noises, devouring you with his lips and body. He’s giving you everything — more than that, even — while you give him nothing. You don’t goad him on or push him away. This impossible to decipher situation has his head reeling. He wants you, he needs to have you, but not like this. Not when you aren’t yourself. For that is what he desires the most.

When he pulls back from his heated kiss, saliva connects your lips in a thin line. He grimaces at your blank expression. Why isn’t this working? In the past, when words failed him, he compensated with his actions. He’d encourage you to sing, make you throw your head back and abandon all sense of propriety, freely handing the worthless notion over to him without a second thought. You never refused to give when he went to take. So this drastic change is both abnormal and unwelcome.

“... What?” He demands, breathless. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Why does it bother him so much?

Scaramouche knows he could get up and leave. Perhaps that’s what he should do, and what he would’ve done years ago, but he’s paralyzed. You’ve injected your venom so deep inside him and he didn’t realize until it was too late. Death’s tolls are ringing in his ear to come claim him, with you standing as his executioner.  

“You’re going to Inazuma,” the words come out slowly and in a tone that hardly fits you.

“Yeah? And?”

“You’re going to Inazuma without me.”

“I’m failing to see the issue here,” he grits his teeth. “Spit it out already. You’re testing my patience.”

You both glare at each other in silence for some time. A little voice in his head that he repeatedly tries to silence tells him he already knows where you’re going with this; you’re trying to give him the dignity of fessing up before he’s pressed further. You were an unrivaled master when it came to navigating the complex maze that is his existence. In any other instance, he might cave and give in. He can’t with this, it’s too imperative, the driving force that’s erred him on for countless years.

Scaramouche scoffs and moves himself off of you, settling on hanging his legs from the side of his bed. You don’t try to stop him or chase after him. You just lay there, your eyes burning on his back, ensuring that the atmosphere remains thick.

He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. There has got to be nothing worse than when one realizes they’re in the wrong. He can count the times he’s felt this way on a single hand, most of the experiences connecting back to you in some way. Conviction eludes him otherwise. He could shock sobbing and pleading individuals to ashes without batting an eyelash, but no, the moment you’re upset, it’s all too much and he can’t handle the pressure.

Fine. You want him to come out and say it? He’ll do just that.

“I’m going to leave and betray the Fatui,” he says as if he’s discussing the weather. “I want that deplorable Electro Archon’s gnosis. I’ve waited centuries for an opportunity like this to present itself. So, if you have half a working brain, you can see why I don’t plan on having you tag along. You’ll likely be labeled a traitor too for fraternizing with me.”

He’s grateful you can’t see his face, for he doesn’t have his hat to conceal it.

If he has little reason to stick around, you have infinitely less after a cold confession like that. He’s admitted to endangering you despite knowing his plan to one day betray the organization you both are members of. He selfishly embedded himself in you regardless, soaking up your warmth and everything good you had to offer. A parasite, he thinks. That’s what I am. A parasite that grew addicted to you and took more than it could ever hope to give back. He’s discarding you in the same way his mother did to him, once his existence was deemed unfit for its desired purpose. If he considered humans untrustworthy, what does that make him?

“... Is that all you want, Kunikuzushi?”

He’s never heard your voice so soft and delicate. What a shame that out of all the times he’s felt he deserved it, it had to come now, when he knows he doesn’t.

“It is,” comes his curt response. “You’re a fool if you think otherwise.”

He has no better defense other than to say you knowingly got entangled with a Harbinger. You could argue the point, call him on his bluff, hurl every insult under the sun at him. He’d let you too — it might as well be your right. You do no such thing. You don’t even storm out of the room in a huff. Instead, you pull the sheets up to cover your bare chest, fluff out your favorite pillows, and smooth out the wrinkled blankets. Scaramouche has to glance over his shoulders to confirm what it is you’re actually doing. Sure enough, you’ve closed your eyes, and are well on your way to falling asleep.

He shakes his head in complete and utter disbelief.

It would seem that he could never understand you, not even in your last night shared together.

v.

You don’t come to see him off on his voyage.

His ego might be larger than any numerical measurement could hope to quantify, but not even that could make him believe you’d have any kind words left for him. That was the point of him pushing you away, wasn’t it? To enjoy you up until the very last second then make a clean break? Still, he can’t help but feel troubled by the dejection looming over him like storm clouds in your absence. What a pain. It appears you’re destined to annoy him no matter the circumstances.

Standing atop the upper deck, he overlooks the desolate landscape of Schenzaya that seemingly stretches on forever. Muted grays and blues blend together in a dreary canvas befitting of his current mood. Fatui soldiers rush around from all directions, though they do their best to avoid the space Scaramouche occupies, leaving him to brood in silence. The dark aura emanating off of him does well to warn others off.

Scaramouche doesn’t understand why this debacle is troubling him so when he knew it was coming. His ultimate goal has always been obtaining a gnosis or any other path to divinity, that didn’t change when you came stumbling along. He needs to get over this inconvenience promptly. For him to fulfill his lifelong dream, he must ensure his chest is a blank slate. He even abandoned his childlike longing for a heart upon recognizing this. Everything must be stripped clean for what is to come next. This mire plaguing him is no different — he’ll wash and drown it out.

Suddenly unable to stomach the view any longer, he pivots and makes for his private cabin. The mere thought that you’re somewhere out there, far beyond his grasp, where others take kindly to you… he could almost get sick. If you were likable enough for him to ease up in your presence, who else would succumb to your charms? He balls his hands into fists by his side. You could do so well for yourself and he loathes the thought. There’d be some admittedly petty satisfaction if he was confident you’d be alone forever after him, but it just isn’t realistic. Irksome woman. Damn you for being enjoyable company and easy on the eyes. Damn you for making him care in the slightest.

Those he strides past either scramble to occupy themselves with busy work or fixate on the floor. He pays them no mind, viewing them as insignificant as the chipped wooden planks beneath his feet. By the time he gets to his cabin’s doors, fatigue falls upon him, though his long journey is just beginning. He shoves the doors open with enough force that the hinges shriek in protest. His kasa is pushed slightly askew from the doors slamming shut, yet he cannot think to fix it or anything else. Not when he sees what awaits him inside.

Not when he sees you. Lounging on his bed as if it’s the most regular thing ever, a framed picture of yourself in your hands that he brought along against his better judgment.

“I’ve got to say, this shot looks pretty good,” you hum. “Although I have no memory of it being taken, so that’s creepy. Do I even want to know how you got this?”

… You probably don’t, but that’s beside the point.

Scaramouche all but stomps over to where you sit. He is a bundle of unsteady energy that is ready to explode at the slightest trigger. You smile at him as he leers down at you, his eyes twitching from how nonchalant you are about this intrusion. Yes, that’s exactly what this is, an intrusion, you’re entangling yourself into something beyond your scope. Beyond your comprehension.

“How,” He narrows his eyes, jamming an accusatory finger in your direction, “The hell did you get in here?”

His personal security might completely pale in comparison to him, but they should be competent enough to keep the likes of you at bay.

“The same way you did, I imagine. The door.”

Scaramouche growls and you put your hands up in defense. “Okay, bad timing, sorry. I told the guards that if they didn’t let me in, I’d tell you about the time they came back from town drunk and tried flirting with me.”

The lightbulb overhead flickers from the electricity Scaramouche exudes.

“They what?”

“Ah, sorry Grigoriy and Igor…”

He shakes his head, deciding to return to that egregious revelation later.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t throw you overboard.”

You part your lips and then close them, eyebrows furrowing together. Whatever it is you’re mulling over, he doesn’t know why he gives you the time, or why he waits with bated breath. He longs to chalk it up to you being dense. How much simpler that would be, if he could insult your intelligence and call it a day. Deep down, he knows the truth is far more complex than that. You have your reasons for doing what you do. There’s intentionality interwoven into your being, no matter how casual you act. It’s what lures him in and keeps him trapped.

He never knows what you’ll do or say next — and he always wants to stick around just a while longer to see.

“Last night, you told me you only wanted the gnosis,” you set the frame down and fold your hands onto your lap. “I thought about that for a while. Not because it surprised me, but because you chose to stop at that. I couldn’t understand why. I know you’re greedy. I know you want more… you want me.”

You tilt your head, your eyes crinkling and full of mirth. It’s enchanting. “So be greedy. Want me as much as I want you. If your kindness is pushing me away, then I don’t care for it, because I’m greedy too. I only want kindness from you if we can both enjoy it. Talking for hours about the silliest things… arguing about topics neither of us really care about… you making me matcha tea in the middle of the night ‘because I whisk it like I’m trying to break your bowl’. That’s the weird, twisted kindness that I’ll accept.”

Scaramouche has never felt so light and heavy at the same time.

“You’re serious about this?”

“One hundred and ten percent.”

“I’m worse than you think I am.”

“That isn’t too surprising.”

“Way worse,” he’s breathless, his face is on fire, and he wants to kiss you senseless until you are too. “If you think I was greedy before, you haven’t seen anything yet. You can’t promise yourself to me without knowing that. I won’t stop at anything to keep you all to myself. If you betray me like my m…”

His voice threatens to crack, but he manages to smooth it over, “If you betray me, I might just destroy this world and everyone in it.”

Including himself.

Your hands are cradling his face. He sees his reflection in your eyes and it's a vulnerable sight that hasn’t stared back at him for centuries. It disgusts him, taunts him, and unearths memories that he thought he buried six feet under. He’s at his ugliest and you look at him as if he were beautiful. Despite himself, he leans into your touch. You were a priceless find. Some treasures were meant to be displayed for the entire world to envy; he decides that method isn’t for him. Your logic-defying ways were to be reserved for his viewing and no one else's.

“And if I never betray you?” You inquire, the pad of your thumb rubbing circles into his cheek. “What then, Kuni?”

His eyes are lidded when he responds. “I don’t know.”

He doesn’t understand trust or the concept of depending on another. In his earliest days, when these imperative truths were beginning to take root, the world burned it to the ground. He always thought the soil was poisoned beyond repair and left it at that. For if tried only to fail again, he’s certain he’d doomed himself to a cycle of disappointment in others.

“Well, I guess that means we’ll have to find out, won’t we?”

You make it sound so easy.

“... Fine. Suit yourself,” Scaramouche fights back a smile at the way you cheer in victory. “Something tells me if I threw you overboard, you’d just cling to the boat, anyway.”

You shoot him a wink. “I’ve been told I’m relentless at getting what I want.”

The imbeciles you surround yourself with might have a point.

Scaramouche knows the words were spoken in jest, yet he fixates on them. You want him. You want him. You want him. For better or for worse (he’s leaning toward worse), you’re still willing to put up with his endless list of negative qualities. He can’t remember the last time anyone offered him that, probably because no one ever has.

You start to move away and he holds you in place, stealing the kiss that’s been on his mind since you had the audacity to show up uninvited. His mouth slants against yours, his appetite voracious and demanding everything you could possibly offer. You reciprocate in kind, your lips curving upward, and your hands guiding his to settle on your hips.

You are the worst human, he thinks, pushing you back onto the bed and eliciting a gasp from you in response.

So it’s his job to see that you’re dealt with accordingly.

By him and him alone.

#scaramouche x reader #kunikuzushi x reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact #reader insert #genshn impact reader insert #fatui x reader #harbinger x reader #not sfw #my stuff

[thepetesimp]

i spotted some talk of ace vegas 👀 please continue if you want.

there's a lot of demi pete acknowledgement, but i can totally get why vegas would be a service top as an ace person

Hey there, anon! Thank you so much for sending me this! I'd love to expand on my thoughts actually, since I'm pretty sure I haven't stumbled across any posts that delve into this headcanon about Vegas. However, before saying more, I'd like to give 2 important disclaimers: 1. I'm not ace, or at least I don't think I am (sexuality has been a fraught topic to me for the past couple of years, I try not to think about it), so everything I'm about to say should be taken with a grain of salt - as well as be corrected if I say sth stupid or inaccurate, 2. The "ace Vegas" headcanon isn't an original thought of mine. A former fandom friend had mentioned it once in a server I used to be a part of, and it intrigued me. Now, on to the topic at hand. Apologies in advance, because this ended up being super long: Vegas' sexuality and how he expresses it has been a very interesting topic to me due to how much emphasis is put on it throughout the show. From the way he flirts with Porsche (horribly) to the way his room is decorated or the way he dresses and acts, the man oozes sexual appeal, so much so that he rivals Kinn, aka the horniest man on planet Earth. But the more we get exposed to it, the more it makes me wonder: is Vegas really a "sex freak" or is he using it as a weapon to win against Kinn? Because if Vegas copies other things Kinn does in order to win against him - the suits, the boyfriends, the mafia tactics - why wouldn't he copy his (presumed) sex life? Why wouldn't he try spicing up his image as this scary sadist with the cuffs and the whips and the XL vegan condoms, in order to rival his cousin? Adding the ace aspect here, it could also be a way for him to cope with the fact that he hasn't experienced sexual attraction towards anyone in comparison to Kinn (because it is of vital importance to me that everything Vegas thinks about himself is because of Kinn). He can see how Kinn stares at the men he fucks, he can see the hunger; it's sth he lacks. He feels inferior to Kinn due to this, he feels like a freak - as he told Pete, I'll expand upon that line later - so, he overcompensates for it.... ...which brings me to the mirror scene. Yes, that mirror scene. I'd say it's one of two scenes that could discourage someone from having the "ace Vegas" headcanon, due to how Vegas is alone and fantasizes about Porsche while (I assume) touching himself, BUT I have two counter-arguments to that: 1. Vegas is so deep into this facade he's put on that he's trying to persuade himself to feel powerful for managing to incapacitate Porsche, even though he eventually failed to do what he had wanted to, 2. Vegas isn't fantasizing about Porsche himself, but rather the thing he did to him, the act. He managed for a little while to have the upper hand on him, and that power makes him feel good (aka horny). Is it a stretch? Maybe. Since a lot of fans love Vegas being a hardcore sadist who practices BDSM (something I'm in the minority of), perhaps ace Vegas doesn't sound believable - even though a LOT of ace people practice BDSM, as is known. Now, let's examine VegasPete in this context:

Vegas hadn't shown any interest to Pete pre-spying shenanigans, and even then, he mostly taunts the poor man. Condoms and ass grabs and merits, that's the most he does to Pete up until ep10, when he has him tied up in his basement and tortures him. I do love how most of the torturing he does to Pete is sexual or has sexual implications (RIP Pete's balls). It emphasizes how Vegas uses sex as a weapon to achieve his goals, whatever those may be - which, in Pete's case, are just him trying to redirect his intense anger from his failure onto someone else. Vegas knows how powerful sex is - it's why he used it to drive Pete's attention away from his issues after they buried the hedgehog and Pete told him he shouldn't hit himself. And being ace, he's more detached to it (by not being attracted to the person he's using his tactics against), so he's better at it. He excels at it, it gives him a perverted sense of self-confidence. Now, their NC scene is one of my favorites exactly because of what anon mentioned: Vegas reads so much as a service top in it. He is 100% focused on Pete and how good he's making him feel. His own orgasm can very well be considered an afterthought and it's perfect. With all of this, I can't help but see the possibility of him being ace. The last 2 things I want to mention are from the next scene, because they're also arguments that could be used against this headcanon: 1) "Do you know how sexy you are?" and 2) "I thought I was a freak, until now" Ok, so, a question: if we take into consideration the idea of Vegas being ace - a Vegas who compares himself to Kinn, a Vegas who uses sex as a tool, a Vegas who thinks of himself as an unlovable monster, a Vegas who hates himself to the point of being suicidal - then what's the most probable outcome of him having the first actual good sexual experience in his life? Answer: he'll get hella confused lol What I mean by this, is that Vegas didn't suddenly become allosexual from this experience with Pete. Vegas simply... fell in love. (or, more accurately, the feeling that had been building up inside him since the pill kiss cemented itself in his heart after they had sex) And what do some people do when they have a similar experience? They confuse romantic love with sexual attraction, thinking they experienced one thing when they did the other. That's what I believe happened with Vegas. He thought he's not a freak because he figured he's sexually attracted to Pete, when in reality the poor fucker loves Pete romantically. If we can accept the fact that Vegas knows shit all about proper BDSM practices (Pete isn't even looking that up lmao), then he sure af doesn't know about the differences between sexual and romantic attraction. Hence, what he told Pete. I think that's all I wanted to say, which is a lot already haha, but in order to properly expand upon this issue, I needed to write an essay of a post. I'm sorry if it was tiring and thank you again anon for your ask ❤️❤️

#idk if I covered everything I wanted to #but my main goal here is throwing all these thoughts out there and hoping people might be interested in checking them out #and also starting a conversation about this too because it's *so* interesting to me #I know most of the fandom doesn't have this image of Vegas in mind #but still #it's fun to think about #I really hope I didn't say anything inaccurate about asexuality though #if so pls let me know #now if I wanted to really spice things up I'd argue Pete is aromant-*[gunshots]* #kinnporche the series #vegas theerapanyakul #vegaspete #asks

[mediocre-daydreams]

you do james' makeup

(1.4k) one suggestive comment

**note: not every skin tone and type chooses to/frequently use certain products (ex. blush on dark skin, eyeshadow on monolids), so for the sake of the inclusivity, i’m having reader buy products specifically for james and his facial features

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

“and what’s this?” james wonders, holding up a circular container with a rosy product within. “ah, i know! it’s blush, isn’t it?”

“it is!” your heart seemed to melt and drip like warm candle wax as you watched james dig through a little bag of makeup with genuine curiosity. you loved that about james: he was never one to dim his self expression. you’d think that james potter, hogwarts heartthrob, quidditch captain, and trust fund baby would be a bit conceited, perhaps overly concerned with appearances, but that wasn’t james at all. he had no desire to flaunt his masculinity nor did he shy away from things traditionally considered feminine; he liked to say that nothing has a gender! was diggory seriously trying to say my patterned socks were effeminate? he wishes he could pull off heart-patterned socks like me.

“how come even beauty products are beautiful?” james mumbled to himself as he sorted through different eyeshadows you’d picked out together at hogsmeade. the store had a limited edition quidditch line and james bought nearly every single item, promising to use them. (the both of you knew you’d end up sharing them with the girls for parties or spontaneous makeovers.)

“how come people who buy beauty products are already beautiful?” you smiled, pressing a doting kiss to james’ cheek. he blushed. “hey, you’re blushing! you don’t even need any makeup for that.”

james slapped his hands over his cheeks in embarrassment. “i’m not blushing!” he shook his head. “i dunno what you’re on about. maybe all the product fumes are making you hallucinate.”

you snorted. “we haven’t even opened anything.”

james shook his head in sarcastic agreement. “alright, smartmouth. show me where to start.”

you peeled open a bottle of sunscreen-primer. squeezing some onto your fingertips, you began to rub it into his skin with gentle circles. james closed his eyes, relishing the feeling of your caressing touch.

“james. jamie. the love of my life. i cannot believe you’ve gone your entire life without sunscreen!” you shuddered. “i hate to think of you on the quidditch pitch, sunscreenless.”

james’ eyebrows furrowed, but he didn’t open his eyes. “hey, i wear sunscreen during games!”

“you’re supposed to wear it every day! on your face, at the very least.”

he opened one eye cautiously. “i’ll wear it only if you’re the one putting it on me,” he raised his eyebrows suggestively. “think about it! we could start the day off… you and me… you’re putting white stuff on my face just like-”

“merlin, that’s the third innuendo you’ve made today! it’s literally one in the afternoon!”

“hey, that’s pretty tame for me,” james huffed.

you finished rubbing in the sunscreen, tracing his cheeks with your thumbs lovingly before reaching for the makeup bag. “what next?”

james hummed, digging through the products. “can you make me all chiseled, like sirius?” he grinned crookedly, pushing his chin up and looking thoughtfully to the side. “make me look like a greek god.”

you laughed, smacking his bicep. “you’re plenty pretty, james. please don’t become sirius. it’d be so weird kissing you then.”

“i heard that!” sirius groaned from the other side of the room, where he was napping under a mound of blankets.

“go back to sleep, padfoot! nobody likes you!” james shouted.

“you already have such lovely bone structure, james. i dunno what to do.” you waved a brush around for emphasis. “what if we just do blush instead?”

james smiled. his eyes crinkled in the corners, making you smile back at him with the dopiest, most adoring look you could muster. james poked you in the cheek. “why are y’lookin’ at me like that?” he teased.

“like what?” you retorted. “i think you’re hallucinating from all the- the sunscreen fumes.”

he chuckled, resting four large, calloused fingers beneath your chin. he leaned in until his nose was just inches from yours. “i think you’re lying. i think you love me,” he smirked, his voice low and gravelly.

you tried to keep a straight face. (key word: tried.) “i do, james. i really, really do.”

“good!” he chirped, pulling away from you immediately. your mouth dropped in frustration. “now make me all pink!”

you sighed. what a tease, he was. you opened up the blush and swirled the soft brush around the compact powder and then painted it across james’ cheeks and the tip of his nose. james sneezed.

“am i allergic?” he gulped, feeling his face for any abnormal reaction.

“no, james!” you laughed. “just excess powder, s’all.”

james looked down bashfully. “you’re too smart for me.”

you took james’ hands in your own. “oh please, you’re much too pretty for me. or for anyone, in that matter.”

james tutted disapprovingly as you reached for some mascara and an eyelash curler. “don’t say that about my baby!” he exclaimed. “no, you’re not allowed to say that!”

he looked truly panicked as you turned around, grabbing your forearms with conviction. “you don’t actually think that, do you?”

“no, james!” you simpered. “don’t be silly. i know my worth, and i know yours too.”

from his corner, sirius stuck his arm in the air. “stop being gushy and cute,” he whined. “it’s giving me a headache.”

“muffliato,” you muttered under your breath. “now we’re all good.”

james quirked your nose affecctionately. “like i said, clever girl.”

you rolled your eyes, secretly basking in his praise. “can i do your eyelashes next?”

james nodded eagerly. his excitement quickly faded when you held up the curler.

“bloody hell, what is that? have i done something wrong? why do you wield a weapon, my fair maiden?” he cried theatrically, pulling himself away from you.

“it makes your eyelashes curly!” you made a swooshing motion with the hand that still held the curler. “so they stand up taller and they’re more prominent.”

“it looks like my quidditch mouthguard plus a pair of scissors,” he whispered, terrified. “it’s not going to hurt, is it?”

“no, jamie.” you brushed your knee against his reassuringly. “just close your eyes and i’ll do it for you. it won’t take more than a couple seconds.”

james winced, but sighed in defeat. “fine. but only because i trust you with my life. but if you rip out my eyelashes, i’ll throw you off the astronomy tower.”

james’ eyelids fluttered shut and you leaned in to begin curling. you saw him shiver as your breath danced over his skin. “that’s an empty threat. you’d catch me; you need me to sneak in snacks at your quidditch matches.”

you patted the side of james’ face to let him know you were done. james looked in the mirror and furrowed his eyebrows. “it barely did anything!” he lamented.

“let me do the mascara next! then you’ll see the difference,” you promised. “close your eyes again, please?”

james pouted childlishly but closed his eyes for you again. carefully, you began applying coats of the new mascara you’d purchased. it was brown—almost red—which he claimed was necessary to show his gryffindor pride. you thought it matched his skin tone perfectly.

“all done!” you declared, twisting the tube shut and handing james the mirror. james inspected himself and beamed, looking from his reflection to you to his reflection to you again.

“i love it!” he remarked, turning his face in his mirror to fully appreciate your artistry. “you can see my freckles too! that’s so cute,” he gushed.

you let out an exasperated cry, burying your face in your hands. “damn it james, you’re too wonderful! i hate you so much. i can’t be around you; you make me crazy,” you sobbed, curling into yourself.

james’ innocent glee quickly morphed into an expression of smug mischeviousness. “you don’t hate me.” he wrapped his arms around your curled-up frame, squishing you further down with the weight of his torso. he smattered kisses wherever he could reach. “you don’t hate me, you love me. you looooove me. love love love love loooove.”

no matter how long you’d been together and how often you reminded each other of your love, james always managed to make your heart skip with every cocky smirk or soft whisper or casual compliment, and you hated how much he could see through you.

“i love you,” you conceded, voice muffled from beneath james’ body. “there, happy?”

“very.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

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#james potter fluff #james potter x reader #james potter hc #james potter x y/n #james potter x you #james potter x reader fuff #james potter blurb #james potter fic #james potter x you fluff #james potter drabble #james potter imagine #the marauders imagine #marauders fluff #marauders drabble

[none-shall-caricature-me]

I've noticed that, probably due to a desire to alleviate the grim nature of the original, many xuexiao fanfic writers opt to focus on (twisted or fluffy) romantic feelings of the characters. The emphasis ends up being on their romantic / platonic / sexual attraction rather than their incredibly juicy ideological contest and the antagonistic tension mixed with intrigue that Xue Yang shows towards Xiao Xingchen. Basically, there is too much 'lovers / froends' and not enough 'enemies' in their enemies - to - lovers / friends story. (I'm not criticising that. I'm a sucker for their mushier side too. But I'm equally a sucker for a good brutal battle of creeds.)

So let me fill this gap by describing how DELICIOUS the exploration of the 'you're my enemy and u SUCK and your worldview is RIDICULOUS but I LOVE rotating you in the microwave testing the limits of your resolve' aspect is or can be. I'll use some moments from the show / novel that I find striking in this regard.

XXC is very kind but lacks the worldly experience to be spot - on empathetic (as others have pointed out). He's also rigid to a fault. This is a VERY unpopular interpretation of mine but I believe he can be selfish / negligent in his goodness - he sheds caution about possible repercussions on his near ones in his mission to fight evil. He was smart enough to figure out the Chang massacre and trace it to XY. He knows XY is incredibly vengeful and creative in his vengeance. He's had experience with powerful people who will obstruct justice. Yet he goes ahead with prosecuting XY even when Jin Guangshan acts shady and uncooperative. Didn't he consider that this might put a target on his well - known partner Song Lan ?

Welp, then the Baixue bloodbath happens and XXC very understandably blames himself. I know we like to say it wasn't his fault, and of course it technically wasn't, but he did commit a grave error in not thinking through the consequences. It could be a miscalculation, negligence or even cavalier tunnel - vision, depending on your opinion. But anyway, XXC's morale is shattered and as others (like ameliarating) have said, he determined to never end up harming others in his quest for righteousness again.

XY wiped out Baixue for revenge, but also to kill XXC's hopes and vision, again also mentioned by others. May be a stretch, but it could be XY's way of saying 'hah, you don't care to understand why the world is as awful as it is, and then blame ME for doing shitty things to live it up in a shitty world. So let me show you how things actually work, and why my existence and lifestyle are valid.' It's like a really fucked up method of self - affirmation for XY. (Just in case - I am neutral on XY's actions. The novel doesn't give us much insight into his thoughts, so I'll withhold judgement on the nature vs. nurture debate about XY. But he's definitely an interesting character).

Then XY starts infiltrating XXC's life in Yi City. Why does he stick around after healing ? I like to think it's initially because he's a) taking advantage of XXC's generous freebies cuz why not and b) wants to torment him, yes, but he's also very very curious about XXC. Maybe it's because XXC's still out here trying to do good when many people would've either quit and hardened their hearts, or been broken irreparably. So XY think's he'll get both schadenfreude and try to find out why this dumbass saved a highly suspicious dying man and continued on his goody goody quest instead of learning his lesson. The lesson XY tried to teach him. Maybe XXC's whole deal makes XY wonder how his life would be if he'd acted nicer and more socially acceptable. Would it have saved him any pain ? Would he have had true allies then ? Did he choose a life of callous crime because he is weak - willed and 'inferior' unlike the seemingly unbreakable superiority of XXC ?

So he makes XXC kill on 'night - hunts'. Perhaps to prove that XXC got manipulated into doing harm cuz he's dumb or full of hubris and refuses to wisen up, refuses to become more cynical and wary of people. This ties back into Baixue too. Also I think the book mentions the victims are residents who mocked / cheated XXC ? If that's true, it's like XY is 'introducing' XXC to taking bloody revenge just like XY did on the Chang clan and others who crossed him / his pals. Like he's enacting teaching XXC 'look, if you keep up the good deeds, eventually you'll meet someone who ruins you so you destroy that hope for humanity and become just like me. Your way will always end in disaster, and therefore I'm justified in living like I do.'

Of course, in the end XY realises that XXC's drive to better society was his way of coping with the harsh reality of humans, especially after being ousted from BSSR's mountain. XXC didn't want to live in a sordid world. Meanwhile XY's coping mechanism was to extort the sordid world for all he wanted.

There's a tiny moment in CQL where, after the fake night hunt slaughter, XXC walks past a smirking XY and his arm brushes XY's sleeve, whose grin grows larger. It's like XY's relishing in XXC so casually touching and hanging about him totally unawares. Also he's horny for XXC's combat skills.

So yeah. Antagonist obsessed with corrupting his enemy, wrapping him around his finger, but not willing to let go. He ended up being totally down to bask in XXC's obstinate kindness despite that being the very thing he wanted to disprove and destroy.

XXC hesitates to kill XY after the reveal. What does he get from XY? Maybe it was reassuring that someone as hard - hearted and self - centred as his friend was willing to stick around in no man's land with him. It's soothing because it makes it seem like the world isn't that cruel, that perhaps the potential for good exists in people, hence helping XXC cope with his existential anxiety. He has to hold on to that hope even as his friend's identity is revealed, else there's nothing left for him since he can't bear to live in a world of evil and exploitation.

Why didn't XY move on after XXC's suicide ? If all he wanted was acceptance and shelter, he could've found so many other options. No, he was obsessed with XXC cuz he thought that if someone perfectly willing to kill him in the past over morals hesitated to kill him in the end, it must be an actual stable love. Where else, he thinks, would be find someone who loved him enough to not kill him despite them being such hostile opposites by character and circumstance ? Lots of people could love him cuz they agreed with his worldview or found it / him expedient. Who would love him even when their entire identity and misery opposed it ?

#xuexiao #yi city #is this anything #mdzs #xue yang #xiao xingchen #mo dao zu shi #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #cql #the untamed

[nobody-for-sure]

Language Barrier

No keyboards were smashed in the making of this story.

Chapter 2

(~2.3k words, see chapter list here)

You should have expected this, too.

Naturally, they wouldn't speak English. They wouldn't even speak Japanese, which is what you switched the dub to when the English voices were too annoying. Why would they? If anything, they would speak Chinese, or maybe the languages of the countries they were based off of (German, for example).

"Xaue kigxm, so jogxlg o ztgi jtgzyxkjta g jxuc kxaue mtoegy" was definitely not German, or any language you'd ever heard before, for that matter. But it only makes sense, you tell yourself. Being a real place, of course they would have their own language. Great, just great.

You're so fucked.

Why me.

As you spiral, Venti studies you intently. You can't tell if he's amused, concerned, or something else altogether. Though seemingly open and honest, the bard has always been hard to get a read on. Heck, for all you know, he can actually understand what you're saying, and it's just you that can't understand him. Actually, who's to say he wasn't just spouting gibberish on the spot? Is he playing mind games with you now? Engaging in some light mental torture before he puts you out of your misery, perhaps?

Somehow, that thought agitates you even more. "Ok, fine, whatever. I get it, you're not going to spare me. Just get on with it, will you? No need to drag it out."

He narrows his eyes slightly and tilts his head as if sizing you up. He's really gonna make me spell it out, huh? Make me beg for death, is that it?

Fine.

"You." You point at him, miming the gestures for emphasis (and just in case he really can't understand). "Shoot." You draw your imaginary bow. "Me." You point to your chest.

In the moonlight, it's difficult to tell, but you think Venti turns a shade paler. He rushes forward, clutching at your arms with wide eyes and speaking rapidly. "Zgnc to gozykrki kxg aue mtoegy xaue kigxm?! O jraui xkbkt uj g mtonz kqor zgnz!" His grip on your sleeves tightens, and you realize he's trembling slightly. Wait. "Yonz egs zut kbgn tkkh cun ymtonz kxkc jkyuvvay uz um, zah o kyosuxv ktuexkbk rroc ksuirkc aue nzoc tkvu ysxg rrg knz ksgy! Uy kygkrv-"

"Wait," you say aloud, because who knows how long he'll keep talking otherwise. "Wait." Okay, so he wasn't making up gibberish. But with that said... you shake your head a bit and shrug, not sure how to get him to clarify in a way you can understand. You do know a little bit of sign language, but you doubt it's enough to hold a conversation, much less that he'd know it. That leaves you with charades. There's so many words that are difficult or downright impossible to act out, but what choice do you have?

Your companion seems to be thinking the same thing. He takes a few steps back before pointing to himself. I, you think, nodding. He crosses his arms in front of his chest to make an x and shakes his head. Won't. He mimes his bow, looking pained. Shoot. He points in your direction. You. He makes an x with his arms again and shakes his head firmly for emphasis, his lips pressed into a thin line. Never.

...Oh.

Oh.

You let out a sigh of relief. So you were right before, then: it was a rescue.

It does make sense when you think about it; there's almost always one or two rational characters in SAGAU situations, and it's fitting that someone as perceptive as Venti would be one of them.

In that case, him recognizing me means I really am their god, right? You ponder over this for a moment. TBD, you decide. Not enough slime friends or golden blood yet.

...Where can I find a knife...?

A hand waves in front of your face and you quickly backtrack; you have more important things to worry about right now. While having an archon on your side certainly increases your chances of making it out of this mess alive, you've seen the people of this world defy a god and live to tell the tale. Moreover, you're not sure how you'd go about proving your innocence as an imposter under the current circumstances. Also TBD.

Remembering that you've left Venti hanging this whole time, you give him a quick but firm nod in acknowledgement of his 'words'. His shoulders relax and he exhales slowly. Cautiously, he approaches you again. You eye him curiously, but don't move away. In response, a small smile lights up his face and he takes a seat on the ground beside you, patting the grass eagerly. You lower yourself next to him.

You keep your eyes on him for several moments, waiting to see if he has something else to say, but he seems just as lost in thought as you were. Idly, he plucks a cecilia from the ground next to him, twirling it between his fingertips before releasing it into the breeze. The two of you watch as it dances away, finally disappearing in the direction of the city.

Ah, the city, you think fondly. With the people that want to kill me. And the most vision wielders of the nations introduced in the game so far. Lovely.

You sigh. No, but seriously, what am I gonna do?

You have so many questions. How did you get here, and why? Will you ever return to your world, or are you stuck here forever? Normally the thought would be more appealing, but under the circumstances, well... it spoke for itself.

The statue you saw in the city is a definitive indication of the presence of a Divine Creator (or whatever they want to call it) in this universe, so you're confident in your assessment that this is a SAGAU. (Or... just SAG.) Is that really me? Venti seems to think so. And more importantly, is there already someone posing as me, who will order their loyal acolytes to hunt me down to the ends of Teyvat, yada yada? Or are they doing that on their own, since someone as plain and boring as me couldn't possibly be their god?

So many questions, and no way to find out the answers to any of them. Even supposing you enlist Venti's help, charades will only get you so far, and there's no guarantee some of the answers you're seeking even exist in the first place. How long can I survive like this?

The sound of a plucked string resounds, distracting you from your inner turmoil. You look over to see a knowing expression on the bard's face, one that dissolves into an airy chuckle when you furrow your brows. Composing himself, he plucks the same string again, before moving his fingers gracefully across the strings of his lyre to a melody you've heard a thousand times, one you'd recognize anywhere.

For a moment, you're surprised. But the music is familiar and soothing, and you can't help but start to relax hearing it. It can't hurt, right? If the fics have taught you anything, it's that a good night's sleep is hard to come by, so you might as well rest while you can. What's the worst that could happen?

...said every protagonist ever, shortly before getting their ass kicked. Does reverse psychology work on fate? Boy, I sure hope the answer to all my problems doesn't fall from the sky tomorrow morning.

Sadly, the solution to all your problems does not fall from the sky. A handful of apples, though, do. Venti beams at you encouragingly as you pick the closest one up, eye it, and take a hesitant bite.

It's... delicious, actually. Perfectly crisp and slightly cool, you daresay it might be the best you've ever had.

If only you weren't having it before the sun's even up.

Stupid immortals and their warped sense of time, you think as you chew. Did he even sleep? You consider asking, but don't find the question worth the gestures.

The two of you eat in silence. Luckily, the sun peeking over the edge of the cliff helps fill the space between you. You're by no means an early riser, so the pale rosy glow of dawn is fairly foreign to you. It's quite the sight, though. The game's graphics truly can't do it justice, and despite your initial annoyance at being woken up so early, you have to admit it's beautiful.

This is what you always imagined yourself doing if you ever got isekai'd into Genshin: spending time with the characters you know and love, trying the mouth-watering food, taking in the scenery. Not running for your life from people who want to kill for no reason. But that's the luck that lost every single 50/50 for you.

While you're ruminating over this, your companion stretches theatrically before bouncing to his feet (aided by gust of wind). He wipes his palms on his shorts and waves at you to join him. You scramble to your feet. What's happening? Where are we going? He giggles at the expression on your face before holding out his hands, palms up. When you tilt your head, he points up, before reaching toward you and taking one of your hands in each of his. "Ralkxgi," he says in a warning tone, and you brace yourself uncertainly.

The wind starts to pick up. It's a concentrated force; unlike normal winds that whip about wildly, you can feel this one weaving around your legs in an effort to make you weightless. Unlike yesterday's, which scooped you up haphazardly in an effort to save your dumb ass from imminent death, this one is gentle but firm. Still, nothing prepares you for the moment your feet lift off the ground. "!" You make a noise of surprise as the two of you rise into the air, one foot... two feet... threefourthat's a lot of feet- you're not exactly scared of heights, but not having anything underneath you is still nerve-wracking.

Venti squeezes your hands. "Knz yjtoc lu zgbekz rroc xkbkt zkr aue rrgl," he assures softly. And it helps. It really does. You're starting to discover that you prefer hearing him speak, even if you can't understand a word that comes out of his mouth. The tone of his voice tells you everything you need to know. "You can trust me," it says.

And you do.

Your breath hitches as the wind carries you straight over the edge of the cliff, and while technically your altitude hasn't changed, suddenly you seem just that much higher up. Subconciously, you tighten your grip, but not purely out of fear. Something tugs at you: exhilaration.

"Currg ks uz cuny aue knz ezagkh lu xaue ksun kitu kxus," a voice says, seemingly one with the sound of the wind whipping through your hair. And then you're off.

The tension eases from your body as you soar above Mondstadt, taking in the scenery. It's so much bigger than you expected, so full of life and color, and you can't help but feel at home, like this world really was built for you. The touch of the wind against your cheek is like a lover's caress, gentle and welcoming and safe, and even if it's selfish (or just flat-out delusional), you can't help but want to believe that's the case. Whether I end up being the Divine Creator or not, you think, I belong here.

Your apparent tour of the nation of wind and freedom comes to close as you coast over one final ridge to see Windrise come into view. Just like last night, the current carrying you starts to ebb and slow as you descend. Hard to believe I was here only yesterday.

When you land behind the huge tree, however... you're the only one that does. The windborne bard stays exactly as his moniker implies, and when you turn to him in confusion, he gives you a playful wink. "Rro kh qigh tuuy."

"I don't know what that means," you deadpan (pointlessly). In response, he points to the tree. You turn your head, see nothing out of the ordinary, and look back to see he's vanished from sight. "Hey, what the fuck-" You hear shuffling from the other side of the tree, and you scramble over the giant roots, trying to catch him. Placing one hand on the trunk, you confidently round the corner to see...

...not Venti.

You stiffen.

Very much not Venti.

Oh shit, oh fuck, where'd he go, wehavetogetoutofhere-

In front of the tree, three equally surprised faces stare back at you: an outrider, a librarian, and the Acting Grand Master herself.

Of the four of you, Amber recovers first. "Xaue kigxm!" she exclaims with, with, is that... relief? Her eyes light up as she rushes over to you, and you're in too much shock to move as she tentatively grasps your arms and gives you an obvious once-over. Behind her, you can see Lisa gently rest a hand on Jean's shoulder, which seems to snap the knight out of her daze. She moves to approach you as well, but stops a few feet away. She clears her throat softly but pointedly, and Amber shoots you a hasty smile before backing away.

Grey-blue eyes meet yours, and their owner plants her sword into the ground reverently as she sinks easily to one knee. "Zo yo es kxaygkrv jtg es ezaj uz ksuirkc xaue krhgxutun kigxm uz zjgzyjtus." With a bright smile, Amber follows suit, while Lisa places a hand over her chest and offers you something similar to a curtsy.

It occurs to you then that maybe...

...maybe I should stop reading so many fanfics.

#genshin impact #genshin x reader #sagau #self aware genshin #genshin sagau #genshin venti #genshin amber #genshin jean #genshin lisa #lbbynfs

[rallamajoop]

Hi! I was reading up your meta and I saw you mention you'll talk about "did Dracula feed on Jonathan?" but I can't find it! Has it been posted? Thank you!

Ah, yeah ‒ I did promise that back in my How Gay was Bram Stoker? post, but you can file that one under the general category of "stuff I totally meant to write, but then never got around to." But what the hell: let's do this!

Ahem.

Did Dracula ever feed on Jonathan?

The short answer, based on what Jonathan overhears Dracula saying to his wives in a short passage everyone following Dracula Daily would have read on June 29, is: yes, and perhaps even, well, obviously?

"Back, back, to your own place! Your time is not yet come. Wait! Have patience! To-night is mine. To-morrow night is yours!" There was a low, sweet ripple of laughter, and in a rage I threw open the door, and saw without the three terrible women licking their lips. As I appeared they all joined in a horrible laugh, and ran away. [emphasis mine]

In other words: the brides get to feed on Jonathan tomorrow. It’s Dracula’s turn tonight. If the dialogue doesn’t make this clear enough, the ‘three terrible women licking their lips’ is pretty unambiguous. And we know Dracula did feed that night, because the morning after, Jonathan finds him asleep in his coffin, looking suddenly much younger, with blood dripping from the corners of his mouth. Jonathan never puts together that it was himself Dracula fed on (or at least never mentions it in his diary) – but then, Lucy and Mina never had any idea they’d been fed on either. So the implications remain technically subtext, but there for anyone paying attention.

Except there’s another version of that paragraph quoted above. The Dracula Daily text is evidently drawing from the American version of Dracula, published in 1899 (and pictured above). The original UK publication came out two years previously, and there, Dracula’s speech is oh-so-significantly different.  

"Back, back, to your own place! Your time is not yet come. Wait! Have patience! To-morrow night, to-morrow night is yours!" [emphasis again mine]

‘To-night is mine!’ never appeared in Dracula’s original publication, and any subtext that Dracula may have fed on Jonathan is that much subtler without it. Stranger still, this seems to be the only notable difference between the two versions of Dracula: Stoker certainly hasn’t made significant rewrites, nor is there any other evidence some US editor had it sloppily transcribed. So was this change Stoker’s? Was it a deliberate change at all, or just an accident of editing?

Now, I want ‘To-night is mine!’ to be the definitive version – not just because I’m always here for slashy vampire shenanigans, but because it makes so much more sense. Why force the brides to wait for tomorrow, if not so Dracula could have first dibs? For which matter, why keep Jonathan alive and (physically) unharmed in the castle for so long at all, if not as Dracula’s convenient, pre-journey snack? It even ties right back to Jonathan’s first encounter with the brides, and Dracula’s iconic line, This man belongs to me!

It’s admittedly a little questionable that Jonathan himself never acknowledges such definitive evidence Dracula has fed on him (in either version) – but then, panic and denial can do a number on the faculties of a man far faster on the uptake than our dear Jonathan. ‘Tonight is mine, tomorrow is yours!’ doesn’t just read better, it all adds up.

Before I get too bogged down in conspiracy-theories though, I’d like to share one suspiciously similar bit of trivia from the first (authorised) Dracula film adaptation, the Universal picture from 1932. Here, it’s nominally Renfield rather than Jonathan who goes to the castle, and the ‘brides’ have only two scenes and no dialogue, but the climax of the castle section still plays some familiar notes. Drugged at dinner, our Jonathan/Renfield amalgam collapses, and we watch the brides advance on him with clear intent – only for Dracula to sweep in, turn them aside, and lean down over our hapless hero himself.

But this wasn’t supposed to be the version that made it to screen. Supposedly, studio execs had insisted that it would be the women who fall upon their victim, not Dracula himself – and that’s what was in the shooting script. In fact, you can see this version shot as intended in the Spanish-language version of the film (shot at night with a whole second cast and crew, using the same sets and script). But the director for the English-version, Tod Browning, had the sense to ignore the official mandate and let the film's titular villain be the one to bite Renfield. He’s the real threat – he’s the one who Renfield will spend the rest of the film obsessed with. Why undercut that in your very first act?

The answer, of course, is the dreaded h-word: homoeroticism. A vampire bite is far too sexy to be allowed to happen between two men. The boundaries on that one fascinate me a little: neither the novel nor any film adaptation has ever balked at vampire!Lucy preying on children or the brides eating a literal baby because they’re seeing paedophilic overtones all of a sudden. These are horrifying acts, certainly, but here we take them at face value.

By and large though, Dracula is not the text you want to come at with the ‘rational’ notion that there’s nothing inherently sexy about a vampire bite: this is a book where even mundane, life-preserving blood-transfusions have become a very significant metaphor by the time of Lucy’s death. And who goes to a Dracula movie wanting to see Dracula biting men? (Yes, yes, I know. Please form an orderly queue to the left.)

My point in all this is that it’s not like we don’t know that nervous producers are perfectly willing to cut some corners off the integrity of their own product for fear of getting The Gay in their good, wholesome, gothic vampire film. And if producers from the 1930’s could do it… why not publishers from the 1890’s?

This is why it’s so hard not to find layers of meaning in that critical little addition of To-night is mine! Was there some earlier draft of Stoker’s manuscript (much like whichever theoretical earlier draft of the screenplay those execs had objected to) which contained that line? Was it Stoker himself who got nervous, and cut it from the British manuscript before publication? Keep in mind, this was only a couple of years after the Oscar Wilde trial, an incident which brought homosexuality under more scrutiny than it had suffered in an age. Stoker was already a known Wilde-associate, who’d take chances in that environment?

Or was it his publishers who made the change? Anything's possible. Either way, how the ‘original’ version found its way back into the US version is still in question: maybe Stoker found his nerve again, or maybe he just accidentally included a page from the wrong draft ‒ but it's easy to miss these things when the result is an ocean away. Don’t tell me it doesn't sound plausible!

Alas, I am guilty of building this one up mostly just to knock it down again: what little real evidence we have all points the other way. When Stoker re-edited a (slightly) abridged version of Dracula in 1901 (two years after the American one), the original ‘Tomorrow, tomorrow!’ line is dutifully reproduced. When he threw together a stage version (very rough, and which would be “performed” exactly once for copyright reasons alone), there was no ‘To-night is mine!’ in that one either. And the single, surviving full-but-unfinished draft of Dracula that anyone has ever found contained the 'To-morrow' version too. There are some fascinating differences between that one draft and either published version and I could talk about it all day – but if Very Rough Draft Outlines of Dracula is to be believed, then ‘Tomorrow, tomorrow’ was part of the novel long before it reached publication. There’s nothing about this scene in any of Stoker’s earlier very-rough-draft-outlines for Dracula either.

All that said, I still want ‘To-night is mine!’ to have been Stoker’s original plan for that scene. It just works so much better on so many levels!

It also adds rather fascinating little wrinkle to another favourite Dracula-debate topic of mine: does anyone bitten by a vampire become one, or do you have to drink that vampire’s blood in turn?

In these modern, rational times (filled with tales of complex, even sympathetic vampires), we’re much more comfortable with the vampire's-blood version. It just doesn’t track that everyone bitten by a vampire becomes one ‒ not without one vampire turning into a major zombie outbreak within a matter of weeks. And it's so widespread now that few realise the idea didn’t even exist before Dracula. Traditional vampire folklore has a thousand variations and as many different ways someone can join the undead (including being bitten by one), but drinking vampire blood is one I have never found a remotely credible source for. If anything, drinking a vampire’s blood often works to protect you from that vampire (smearing it on your body or eating some of the grave soil may also do the trick).

And even in Dracula, debate remains as to why Dracula forces Mina to drink his blood. Many assert that the true point is to create the psychic connection he uses to spy on her friends later (and his own dialogue in that scene could certainly be taken that way). Meanwhile, Van Helsing does say that anyone bitten can become a vampire. He doesn’t seem at all concerned this will happen to the children Lucy has fed on, but then, destroying the parent vampire before the potential vampires have turned is exactly how Mina is saved too. Whether or not you buy it, it still holds together.

The one-bite version is an interpretation you can still see in lots of post-Dracula media too. Hammer’s Dracula films of the 50s-70s, for example, certainly seem to think that being bitten is plenty (how long the transformation takes post-bite is… less consistent). Not until after Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire comes out in the 1970’s does the idea that you need to drink the vampire’s blood in turn really seem to start taking hold.

But it’s not as though no-one reading Stoker’s novel ever came away with the idea that he'd added a new element to the process of becoming a vampire. Universal’s 1931 film doesn’t even show the iconic blood-drinking scene, leaving Mina simply to recount those events in dialogue after the fact – but Dracula spells out his own purpose to Van Helsing very clearly: "You are too late. My blood now flows through her veins. She will live through the centuries to come...as I have lived."

In fact, there’s an even earlier script from 1927, from a failed attempt to create a new stage version commissioned by Stoker’s own widow, that takes the same angle: “Come, drink of my blood, that you may become even as I.” (Thank you to Skal's Hollywood Gothic for that interesting tidbit!) It’s unlikely that honouring her late-husband’s artistic intent was foremost in Widow Florence's concerns (far more about securing a higher cut of the profits than she was getting from the existing stage versions), but the fact Mrs. Stoker herself was down with that interpretation isn’t nothing.

Looping all the way back to the original point, though, if Jonathan really was supposed to have been bitten by Dracula way back in the early chapters of the novel, then we can pretty much throw the one-bite theory out the window. It doesn’t neaten everything up: we’ve still got the weird implication that Lucy could have been saved by enough blood-transfusions, whereas Mina slowly deteriorates over the journey back to the castle and only Dracula’s death will save her, and so on – because as much as I love this novel, Stoker’s vampire mythology is an inconsistent mess with more holes in it than a parade of slowly-turning vampire victims (and it really is such a tribute to the overall atmosphere that it still draws you in, and can even keep you from noticing the inconsistencies). But damn, could one little bite-mark on Jonathan’s neck recontextualise so much of the rest of the story.

Tl;dr: I will never know for sure whether Stoker’s original plans for Dracula involved Jonathan being bitten by the titular vampire himself, or how that one line came to differ between the UK and US publications. But I really want the US version to be the ‘true’ one. And maybe now you do too.

(Photos of Dracula & Jonathan come from Michael Pink's ballet adaptation of Dracula ‒ the slashiest ballet version I've seen and my second-favourite overall, because I am entirely the kind of Dracula-nerd with a second-favourite ballet version, what can I tell you.)

#Dracula #Dracula Daily #Jonathan Harker #The Homoeroticism of Dracula #Dracula meta #Hammer Dracula #Universal Dracula