#leaving here in general is the worst thing in the whole entire world but this part sucks especially

[ceilidho]

landscape with honey

summary: price/reader bear shifter fic. PART 4. (read the whole thing on ao3 here) tags: light daddy kink, breeding kink, very nsfw, she/her pronouns for reader

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He starts showing up at your house at odd hours. 

You’re fixing coffee in the morning, still fuzzy and warm from sleep, only to hear the sounds of hammering outside. Wrapping yourself in just a housecoat, you find John fixing the loose step on your stairs, barely sparing enough time to greet you before returning to the task at hand. When he finishes, he brushes off your attempts to pay him for the job, just loading his tools back in the car and driving off.

You sip your coffee and wonder. Odd.

The next day, you find him raking the leaves in your lawn. Two days later, he shows up at the grocers when you’re picking up produce, and helps you carry all your bags to the car. He also adds a peculiar amount of canned goods to your order and when you fret and try to tell him that you don’t need the pickles and sauerkraut and beans and all of that stuff, he just lays a hand flat on your head and drags it down your hair until you go quiet. 

He pays for the whole order.

You’ve never had to wonder about a man’s actions. Men are largely inscrutable to you, ever-shifting. They say one thing and mean another. They look at you like one might look at an oil painting, entitled something like Virgin Meeting Her Lover’s Eyes From The Top Of The Staircase or Landscape With Virgin. They speak to you as though an answer were entirely antithetical to their purpose in conversing with you. 

John listens to you with a focus that borders on intimidating, like he wants to hear each word enunciated exactly how you might enunciate it. It has the sharp clarity of respect, of a mutual acknowledgement of humanity. He also comes over to fix your sink without you having to ask. The world of men is still largely confusing to you. 

John grows surlier as the days grow shorter though. He doesn’t snap or snarl at you the way he does sometimes with his recruits (you rarely see him interact with them, but sometimes you’ll drop him off his lunch on the days when you’re feeling particularly generous and that’s when you’ll have the rare pleasure of hearing him shout at a trembling twenty-three year old for littering on the trail like a military captain), but it’s a near thing. 

The worst is when he catches you on a jog one morning on his drive to work. You see his truck with the faded red paint pass you by and you give a short wave that he returns. He passes you by about half a yard before coming to a full stop and reversing. You stare at him as the window rolls down, brows furrowed.

“Hi Jo—” you start.

“Get in the car,” John growls. You hear the doors unlock. 

“…My uh…my shift’s in two hours, John, I can’t just—”

“Get in the car.”

“This is my only time to exercise!”

“If I have to get out of this car and drag you inside, honey, I will. Don’t play with me. Get in.”

You get in the car. Probably wisely. Still dripping sweat and shivering from the cold—you’re not used to jogging in the winter, or at all for that matter, but it seemed like as good a time as any to start—you glance over to stare at the side of John’s face. His jaw is set, almost as if in anger. His knuckles are white over the steering wheel as he makes a U-turn and drives back into town. The cab of his truck smells like flannel pulled out from the back of a closet, almost musty, but comforting in the way that old clothes can sometimes smell. There’s a cigarette ashed out in the dish in front of the centre console. 

He takes you to the nearest bakery for coffee and a breakfast muffin and stares you down until you eat the whole thing. You feel like you have to scarf it down. Customers bustle into the bakery to order coffee to-go and fresh cookies and scones in waxy paper bags; everyone in town knows each other so you try to avoid the more curious stares when they’re turned on you.

“This is weird,” you say, staring down at the crumbs on your plate. “This is really weird.”

“This is what you get for exercising before winter,” John says, flagging down the barista for another muffin and a refill on your coffee. “Waste of calories.” The last part is said derisively, almost with a scoff. 

You frown. “Lots of people exercise. Even when it snows.”

“Winter is a time for hibernating. Not…sweat,” he says with a grimace, like the very thought is anathema to him. 

"Hibernating?" you repeat skeptically, scrunching up your nose. "I mean, I spend a lot of time indoors, but I wouldn't say I'm hibernating."

John stares at you until you look away, flushed. "Finish your breakfast."

The barista returns with another blueberry muffin and a fresh cup of coffee. At least John's the one paying. When he finally seems satisfied, he hustles you home and leaves you off at the door with a stern warning. 

“You gonna be good for me this time?” he asks, a finger curled under your chin, tilting your head up. One of his hands curls around the doorframe and your heart jumps when you hear the wood creak under his grip. This close, you can see the faintest silver streaks at his temples and the flecks of it in his beard.

“It was just a light jog,” you mumble, looking away. 

“Not a light anything,” he warns, ducking closer until you feel like shrinking back, like disappearing into your house. “Bake a cake if you have to burn off energy so bad. I’ll be over around seven, alright?” 

You mumble something, the words getting lost in themselves. It’s impossible to think with John in your space like this. It’s only when he finally pulls away and ambles back to his truck that you rock back on your heels, let go of whatever spell he had you under. 

The first week of December hits town like a truck. 

You’re trudging home alone after your shift when you make the decision to cut through the forest because you missed the last bus and you don’t want to spend an hour walking home. The first snow of the season has caught you off guard, clad in boots too autumnal and a sweater too thin for the biting cold. The flakes fall in thick chunks that stick for a brief moment before melting into the skin.

It’s not the first time you’ve travelled through the forest alone. The town is surrounded by pockets of the forest, like it can’t help enveloping whatever space is left for it. Oftentimes it’s easier just to cut through the woods rather than travel the long way around. You wouldn’t even call this the forest proper, not like the acres of trees sprouting over the mountains just off in the distance. 

A bush rustles. Your eyes flick over for a second, breath hovering in your chest before you decide that it’s just a squirrel. Nothing ever happens in a town like this. The man from the other day notwithstanding, nothing truly bad ever happens. You keep walking down the partially demarcated path, lit only by the full moon overhead. It’s so dark that the snow around you is almost blue. 

The bush rustles again. You stop this time, feet staying planted in the snow long enough for your feet to grow cold. You stare at the dark shoots covered in a layer of snow; it stripes the branches like candy from a time ago, licorice twisted with white bark, and it doesn’t move when you look at it. The bushes and trees are dense, impossible to peer through. Even walking through the forest doesn’t make you feel immersed in it. You follow a barely marked path, hard to see through the recent snowfall, and stare out into the dark woods with a kind of animal sense. Not sure whether you’re alone, whether something’s there with you, and whether it’s sensed you or if you’ve sensed it first. 

You start walking again when your feet go numb. Better to just get home.

It comes behind you again as a slightly louder rustle. It’s harder to shake off the fear this time, harder to say that it’s just the wind. The snow crunches under more than one set of feet, branches cracking under the weight of something larger than you. 

You don’t want to turn around, but the sound of something chuffing makes your stomach drop. The first thing that emerges when you turn to face it is its massive head, a white frosted muzzle, and the visible hump on its back. The wispy smoke of its breath puffs out when it breathes. Its eyes are dark, hardly reflecting any light at all. Then the rest of it emerges, the saplings bending out of its way as it clambers out of the woods and onto the path, staring you down all the while.

You’ve never seen a bear before. Not this close. Not so close that you know it’s been stalking you, know that it didn’t come upon you by accident. You’re staring down at your own body from somewhere else, fear displacing you. Rending you from your own body. There’s no way to guess its weight at a glance, but it’s easily twice the size of you, easily more than that. 

When it takes a step forward, everything goes dark. 

You wake up snuggled under the warmth of a thick blanket. Sleep is creamy thick, engulfing you on all sides, only the faintest prickle of awareness letting you know that you’re awake. 

It’s unpleasant to leave the cotton miasma of sleep, you think. Your nose scrunches up and you let out a tired huff, trying to will yourself back into it. The harder you try to force yourself back into it though, the farther away it floats.

Still it weighs you down. It takes an age to work up the energy to so much as twitch a finger. Even your eyelids insist on staying shut. Yet, the prickle of consciousness needles at you as if to say hello, wake up, you need to get up. You sigh and try to shimmy up onto your elbows.

A hand shoves you back down. The breath rushes out of you.

“Get…back down,” a rough voice grunts from over you and then the full weight of a man settles on top of you, pressing you deep into the mattress. 

Consciousness snaps back into you, elastic sharp. The weight of him pins you to the bed, makes you sink into the plushness of—and this is gradually coalescing in your mind—an unfamiliar place. All four corners of your body are trapped under him. The voice is familiar though. Ragged, brutal. A saw taken to the trunk of an old, thick tree, too many interior rings to count. You whisper John’s name and he grunts, making you flinch from how the sound reverberates through the side of your head.

Exhaustion is thick though and it leaves you heavy, even when John slowly lifts himself to his elbows from behind you. You feel him drag his body down the length of the bed, beard scratching into your skin with every petal soft kiss dropped along your spine during his descent.

“John?” you whisper, only just able to turn your head, not even able to struggle up to your elbows. “J-John?”

He doesn’t answer you. The room is near pitch black, only a window on the other end of the room with the curtain pulled back the smallest amount enough to let the moonlight in. Even the moonlight isn’t enough. You know from the shape of the window that this isn’t your house, that it must be somewhere else. You can only surmise from John’s presence that it’s his, but that thought passes over you like a rock skipping over water. 

“Wher’m’I?” you murmur, eyes fluttering shut when his lips press over the small of your back. Sensitive there. 

Rough hands with callused fingertips smooth over your ass, pressing into the flesh. His fingers pry your cheeks apart, thumbs dipping into the space between and pressing over your hole, making you burn all over. You’re too far gone to worry about any hair on your legs or anything about your body other than John’s hands undulating over your ass and thighs. You flinch violently when his teeth sink into the meat on the underside of your ass, so tender that even exhausted to the bone your body lashes out. 

Big hands pry your legs apart. You flinch at the sudden hot breath over your sex, a whine tickling your throat. His face hovers so close to your centre that the tip of his nose presses on the tender skin near your entrance. 

“Wha’ d’you…think you’re doin’...” you ask breathlessly. Your brain tries to order your leg to kick, but it stays flat and limp on the bed. 

The first touch of John’s tongue along your slit makes you melt, the flat of his tongue lapping upward and making your hips tilt up with it. It almost makes your mind go blank again, almost tips you back into the unconscious world because the synapses in your brain stop firing the second you remember that it’s John between your legs licking hungrily at your cunt. John from the grocery store, John from the ranger’s station in the mountains—the John you’ve been crushing on and coveting for months now, content to just be friends with the gruff, handsome man in the house next to yours. Now sucking one of your nether lips into his mouth and tracing his tongue up the inside, gliding it over the supple flesh.

“Yer in the den,” John mumbles into your pussy and it’s like he sears the words into your brain. “‘N I’m takin’ care of you, honey.”

“The…the den…?” It’s so hard to keep your thoughts in order. Each flick of his tongue makes you gasp, pussy growing wetter and hips grinding languidly down on his face.

He hums instead of answering. 

“Why’m’I so tired?” you slur. 

His tongue saws over your clit from behind. It tears a broken whimper from you. You feel every textured ridge, the way it flicks around in a circle and then up and down again. 

“Winter season,” John says, sucking your clit into his mouth until you whine at the top of your lungs. “Bear’s sleep in winter.”

“Tha’s silly. M’not a bear,” you moan. 

“No,” he agrees, humming into your sex. “Jus’ mated to one. Makes you sleepy too, honey.”

“Mated?” you repeat back, but it’s lost in the way you moan when he eats your pussy from the back, licking into you with renewed vigour. Hungry like a bear. Grunting like a satisfied man, slurping loud enough to make your face heat up. 

Words and old memories about bears hardly matter when the handsome man from next door spreads your legs wide, almost to the point of pain, and sinks his tongue into your hole again. You never would’ve expected John to be vocal, but he’s noisy behind you, groaning into your cunt. He keeps mumbling things under his breath that you can’t catch. 

“John—” you gasp, biting your lip when he sucks your clit into his mouth again. “John—John—”

He only has to give you a single finger to tip you over the edge, feeds it in nice and slow. Your cunt clenches down at the intrusion, teeth nearly breaking through the skin of your lip. 

When he crawls back over you, anticipation makes you shudder. You hear something faint in the background that grows steadily louder as John rests his elbows on either side of your head, until you realize that it’s your own voice murmuring, “Put it in, put it in, put it in—”

He obliges. A thick, steady plunge that hardly manages more than a handful of inches before you’re crying, and it’s too much, too much, too much. Pleasure not a limpid pool anymore but something cavernous and deep-dwelling, pulling you in or trying to make a home inside of you for it. John’s biceps tense with the strain of holding himself back. 

You balance on the knife’s edge between pleasure and pain. There’s a single thought in your head that it might burn you up from the inside; it runs a jagged hole through you. 

His nose drags through your hair. “Never expected you. Thought I’d go another season alone ‘till I started smellin’ you around town.”

You hiccup. “Y’never—never paid me any attention ‘for— before, ah—”

“‘Course I paid attention to’ya, honey,” John says into your ear, grunting when he drives deeper into your pussy, still just a languid grind of his hips, so mind-numbingly slow that your thoughts sizzle out of your head. He keeps dragging his hips back and plunging in, barely pulling away from you, all skin on slick skin. “Made a home for m’self in your house. Made sure we had ‘nough to eat for the winter.”

“The winter?”

“Won’t be goin’ anywhere for a few months.” He brushes your hair out of the way to kiss down your neck, giving in to the urge to bite just a little. His body stays pressed tight to yours, hardly an inch of space between the two of you. “Wasn’ sure at first if it’d be here or in your house so… fuck, I had to get ready. Make sure you’d be safe when it hit.”

“Don’ even…know wha’ that means,” you mumble into the mattress, then squeal and fist the fists when John shoves a hand under you to grope your chest.

“Don’t worry about it,” he shushes you. “All y’have to do now is lie there ‘n take my cock, okay, honey? Can’ya do that for me? I’ll get some food in you after we’re done, then send ya back to bed.”

Only a whine comes out when you open your mouth. John’s arm by your head forces you to breathe in the scent of him, musky and rich. You stare at the hair on his knuckles and his thick fingers gripping the sheets as well, old nicks and scars decorating his hand. You can’t stop staring at his fingers and thinking that he had one of those in you before, that he’s felt you from the inside. 

He never pulls away, never changes positions, just fucks you on your tummy in his bed. You’ve never been in John’s bedroom before, but this has to be his room—even the pillowcase smells like him, pine needles and cigar smoke. He keeps up a steady pounding into your cunt, rutting like a wild animal. Has to be close. Gets so close to you that you feel smothered, trapped in place. Like if you struggled, he wouldn’t let up. You want to test it, see if you could, but the heaviness is still in your limbs, keeping you docile. Convenient. A little convenient thing for him to use, like a doll to get himself off with.

“Never coulda imagined such a pretty girl f’r me,” John groans, getting a grip in your hair to twist your head, tugging you into a kiss. Your whole body sparks to life, so shocked that you can’t even kiss him back at first. You wait until he pulls back, staring into his half-lidded eyes through the mess of your hair all tangled up around you. “Gave up on thinkin’ there was anyone out there. Thank fuck I found you first, honey. Can start workin’ on all the good stuff now. Get you to give daddy a baby.”

“D-daddy?” you gasp back, almost scandalized. 

He pants into your shoulder, worked up now. “Yeah, honey. Don’ I take care of you? Buy y’r food, fix y’r house? Give you someplace nice ‘n warm to sleep?”

You feel soaked with sweat, twitchy, on the verge of something dangerous. Vision all fogged up, heart beating so fast that your skin buzzes. Stretched out on a fat cock and pinned in a man’s bed, nowhere to run or hide. 

“Y-yeah,” you stutter when John gets a bit rougher, his breathing getting more staggered, laboured. 

“That’s right, girl,” he grunts, “I’m y’r fuckin’ daddy then, aren’t I?”

Magma bubbles up from deep inside of you. Rockslides off in the distance beat against the ground. When you cry out, it gets lost in the rubble. 

You stumble into the living room maybe hours later after using the washroom across the hall. Maybe a day later. It’s hard to say how many times the sun has risen and fallen behind the mountains. The clock face stares back at you uncomprehendingly. 

Come drips out of you onto the floor. Thick droplets run down your inner thighs. John is still sleeping in the bed where you left him, snoring like a chainsaw. It must’ve been what woke you up. There’s no way of knowing how long it’s been since he first brought you home, since he left a mess in your pussy, which is still puffy and sore from rough use. You walk with halting little steps to try to minimize the ache. 

You stare bleary-eyed around the room. It feels somehow different than the previous times John’s had you over; there are more throws and blankets draped over the couch, candles scattered around the living room with a lighter on the mantle. 

There’s a fire roaring in the fireplace, blanketing the house in a layer of warmth. It makes you sluggish, stumbling forward only a handful of steps before the shaggy rug in front of the fire drags you back down to the floor. 

“What’re you doing out of bed, pretty girl?” someone rumbles from behind you. 

“Had t’pee,” you say, blinking. You try to rub the sleep out of your eyes unsuccessfully. “Why’m’I still so tired? It’s been…I slept so long…”

“C’mon, honey,” John says, coming up behind you and curling his arms around you, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head. “Told you it was gonna be a long winter. Maybe just one more and then somethin’ to eat, okay?”

It’s easy to sink to the floor, so easy. Especially with the fluffy rug under your feet. Especially with the fireplace toasting you from the outside in, the tinder crackling in the hearth. Everything in the house is dark and warm, only the fire giving you any light at all. Outside the window, the moon is still heavy in the sky. 

Something about the humidity of the den makes you suddenly so tired, boneless, pliable when he goes to move you, when John curves himself around you in the furs and reaches down to slide a hand between your thighs. 

He grunts when he finds you wet and wanting, sinking a couple fingers in and palming your clit. He doesn’t talk much still, but he says good girl when he cants your hips and slowly stretches you out on his cock. Feeds it into you achingly slow, like molasses. Like nothing’s due for another few months, so why rush it? He’ll take his time so you’re nice and happy and sweet come spring for cubs.

You’re not sure what that means. The pace is slow and deep, like before but less intentional. Like he just wants to savour the warmth of your body. 

When he finally comes deep inside you, your body goes limp, collapsing in a heap onto the rug. You expect John to pull out and turn over, maybe pull you onto his chest so you have somewhere to rest. Instead, he sighs all tired and content, and stays in you, still plugged up in your cunt, his spend only just starting to leak out into a pool beneath you. 

“Are we gonna eat?” you mumble, already half-asleep.

Somewhere behind you, he laughs; it’s soft like a snowfall in winter. “Yeah, honey. After a nap, we can eat.”

#ceil writing #cod mw2 #cod x reader #captain price #captain john price #cod price #john price #price/reader #price x reader #price x you #john price x reader

[zegrasdrysdale]

[ photograph ] j. drysdale

paring : Jamie Drysdale x fem!reader

summary : (Y/N) decides to fly out to Philly for Valentine’s Day after watching Jamie say in an interview that he’ll probably be spending the day alone

warning(s) : just some tooth rotting fluff with no angst for once, a heavy makeout

author’s note : this is just a (not so) lil fluff filled thing bc i wanted to write something for belated valentine’s day. sorry or you’re welcome (idk)

༺═──────────────═༻

“Yeah, uh, I don’t actually have any plans tomorrow,” he explains to a reporter through the screen on her phone. “Everyone I know here does have plans and everyone else I know is across the country so I’ll most likely spend the day putting together furniture in my new apartment.”

That was the moment she decided that she was getting on the first flight she possibly could to Philly so Jamie didn’t spend Valentine’s Day alone. No one should have to spend the day alone. She doesn’t have any plans and she’s off from work for about two weeks because they’re doing renovations so a little trip to Philadelphia doesn’t sound like the worst thing in the world.

Last year he spent the day with Trevor on the couch and watched movies in their shared apartment. This year, he is in Philly and Trevor actually has a girlfriend. Not very ideal for Jamie.

She isn’t Jamie’s girlfriend, but she is one of his best friends and could never let him be alone on Valentine’s Day. Especially not after hearing what his actual plans are for tomorrow. She’s going to at least help him put furniture together in his apartment.

A flight out of LAX is scheduled for 10 that night. It’s six so she has about two hours to pack for a week long trip to Philly. She even buys a ticket for Saturday’s game at MetLife since she wants to see Jamie play a game while she’s in Philly.

By eight, she’s out the door with a suitcase that’s packed full of clothes and non-liquid toiletries. The jersey Jamie sent her about a week after the trade is neatly folded with the rest of her clothes. She orders an Uber to drive her to the airport.

While in the Uber, she debates texting Jamie and telling him that she’ll be at his new apartment early tomorrow morning since she’ll be landing a little before six in the morning. It’ll probably take about 45 minutes after she lands before she’s on Jamie’s doorstep.

Maybe a surprise wouldn’t be the worst thing so she puts her phone away until she has to pull out her plane ticket.

Getting on the plane takes an hour between getting past TSA and buying snacks for the nearly five hour flight. She boards the plane twenty minutes before it takes off so she has time to get comfortable.

She’s asleep before the plane even leaves the ground.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

All the snacks she bought before the flight are going to be the snacks she eats while she’s in Philly because she slept for the entire flight. It didn’t feel like she slept for 5 hours but she did.

By six, she’s at baggage claim and grabbing her suitcase. She orders an Uber to Voorhees while she waits for her things. The car is waiting for her when she get outside.

It’s a lot colder out than she thought it was going to be. All she has on is a Ducks hoodie that Jamie gave to her the year before and a pair of leggings with Uggs on her feet. Her feet are warm. The rest of her is not. She shakes as she puts her things in the trunk of the car.

She gives the driver Jamie’s new address and she’s off to surprise her best friend.

The closer she gets to Jamie’s, the more nervous she gets. What if he found someone after moving to the Philly area? What if the whole putting furniture together comment was a lie so he didn’t announce to the entire world he was in a relationship? What if he doesn’t want her there in general?

Maybe a spontaneous trip across the country without at least letting Jamie know she was coming wasn’t the best idea she’s ever had.

A call comes through from Trevor. Confused, she answers the phone. “Good morning?”

“Are you in Philly?” he asks.

“Maybe,” she slowly replies as she watches the Philly skyline pass. “Why? It’s like three in the morning.”

“Not for you apparently,” he retorts. “I looked to see where you were because Mason said you weren’t replying to his texts so I wanted to make sure you were okay and I see that you flew across the country.”

She smiles and shakes her head. The way Trevor would find out she’s in Philly is by checking her location. He and Jamie are the only ones that have her location because she’s closest with them.

“Just wanted to surprise Jamie,” she tells Trevor. “That’s all. Tell Mason I’ll call him later because I’m about ten minutes away from Jamie’s apartment.”

“You gonna tell him you love him?” Trevor questions. She opens her mouth to object but he keeps talking. “It’s so freaking obvious so don’t even lie to me.”

A nervous laugh passes her lips. “We’ll see,” she replies. “I’ll talk to you later, Z.”

“Tell me how he’s really doing,” he tells her. “I worry about him sometimes.”

“Will do,” she says as the driver pulls up to Jamie’s place. “Talk soon.”

The line goes dead and she looks out the window at the apartment building. Jamie’s somewhere in there asleep and she’s about two minutes away from calling him to come let her into the building.

She gets her things out of the trunk and thanks the driver before he drives off to pick someone else up. She sighs and pulls up Jamie’s contact.

When she presses the ‘call’ button, it rings about four times before Jamie answers. The entire time, her hands are shaking and she isn’t sure if it’s because of the cold or if she’s nervous to see Jamie for the first time since the trade.

“It’s like four in the morning,” he croaks when he picks up. “Are you okay?”

She smiles at the sound of his morning voice. “Actually it’s almost seven in the morning and I’m currently freezing my ass off outside your apartment building so if you could come let me in, that would be great,” she says.

It sounds like Jamie falls out of bed when she says that she’s outside of the building. If he broke anything then she’s going to have to explain to Torts why Jamie will be out for six weeks.

He isn’t holding any body parts when he swings the door open and blankly stares at her from the top of the steps of the building. He blinks a few times like he’s trying to decide if he’s still dreaming or if he’s awake. She waves and a barefoot Jamie runs down the stairs to hug her.

A laugh passes her lips and she wraps her arms around his torso. “You’re actually here,” he says against her ear. “I thought you were lying to me.”

“Nope,” she replies. “I’m here. I didn’t have anything else to do so I thought I’d come surprise you. Help you put together some furniture for Valentine’s Day.”

Jamie pulls back from the hug just enough to look at her. “You saw that interview?” he asks.

With a nod and a smile, she replies, “It sounded like a very boring way to spend Valentine’s Day so I thought I’d come keep you company. Maybe watch you play at the outdoor game this weekend. I have another week off from work and spending it in the Philly area with my best friend didn’t sound like the worst idea.”

“You are actually insane for buying a plane ticket without knowing if I’d be here or not,” he tells her. “I could’ve left for Toronto before you got here since we play them tomorrow.”

“Yeah I know how your travel schedule works,” she retorts. “That’s how I knew you’d be here.”

He shakes his head and grabs her suitcase. “You have some of the best timing because I took a maintenance day today so I have a day off from practice, but I leave tomorrow morning for Toronto,” he says to her as they walk into the building together.

“Listen, I’m spending a week in the area,” she replies. “I get to watch you play at the outdoor game on Saturday when I wasn’t planning on being on the east coast at all. If you’re gone for a day or two then it’s fine.”

The smile that forms on Jamie’s face makes her heart do somersaults in her stomach.

She can tell how excited he is that she decided to visit him. She knows how much he has been missing Anaheim so she brought Anaheim to him for a week.

When Jamie opens the door to the apartment, she is very surprised by how decorated it is and how much of the stuff he had in his Anaheim apartment has made its way to this one. It still needs some work done, but that is why she’s here. She’s here to help him finish putting it all together.

“I need to build some shelves,” Jamie tells her. “And put together the guest bedroom. The frame still needs to be built for the guest bed too. This is what my plans were for the day.”

She turns her head to look at him as he closes the door behind them. “So it wasn’t come ruse so you didn’t have to admit to the world that you had a secret girlfriend?” she questions.

If she should expect Jamie to have a girl over then she might as well get the girlfriend question out of the way early on in her visit.

“Uh, no,” he replies. “No secret girlfriend. I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had any time to find a girlfriend. Yorky has tried but he’s not the best wingman.”

She can’t help but laugh. Jamie smiles and rolls her suitcase to the unfinished bedroom.

She decides to make some coffee for the two of them so they can get started on the day’s plans. They have to put together the guest room and build some shelves. It can’t be very hard to do either of those things. Right?

Wrong.

It turns out that Jamie can’t follow simple instructions to save his life. She has had to refrain from throwing whatever is in her hand at him so many times because he can’t read a piece of paper.

“Jamie, what am I supposed to do with this screw?” she asks as she holds up an extra screw. “Do I have to put it in your head so you can use your brain or something? You missing one in there? Do I need to get Trevor on the first flight out of LAX to come help you figure out how to read the instructions?”

Jamie looks up from his spot on the floor and throws the instructions at her. “Here, you try to read this and tell me if it makes any sense,” he retorts. “It’s all confusing. My parents helped me build shelves when they came to visit a few weeks ago. I didn’t have to do this. Maybe it’s just an extra.”

She grabs the pamphlet and reads the directions. The screw was supposed to be put in when putting the shelves in place. A shelf is missing a screw.

“You dumbass,” she says. “It’s not an extra screw. It was supposed to be put in on the bottom shelf to make sure it is secure and even. You now have an unsecure shelf in your guest room.”

Jamie flattens out on his back on the carpeted floor with a groan. “This is why I’m a hockey player and don’t work in home improvement,” he says as he rubs his eyes. She laughs and tries to keep her eyes on his face instead of on the sliver of skin that peeks out between what is a new Flyers t-shirt and pajama pants. “This is so dumb. I am not about to take that whole thing apart to put one screw in.”

She walks over and slaps the pamphlet on his stomach. He gasps and sits up with the paper in his hands. “Then get it together, Drysdale,” she tells him. “We have a bed frame to build.”

“Fuck the bed frame,” he sighs as she grabs the box in the corner and drags it into the center of the room. “You don’t need a bed to sleep in tonight.”

With a light laugh, she teases, “If we don’t get it set up then I’m gonna be sleeping in your bed until we get it put together.”

Jamie mutters something that sounds like “would be okay with me” but she pretends she doesn’t hear it. She can’t hear it or else she will just say “fuck it” and sleep in Jamie’s bed the entire time she’s here instead of putting the bed together.

The mattress is sitting up against the wall next to where the box with the bed frame was. He has everything he needs to put this bed together and he hasn’t done it yet. Not even over the All Star break when he had a few days off before going to Mexico with the Flyers.

Putting the bed together takes less time and a lot less arguing back and forth. Within an hour, the mattress is on top of the bed frame. Five-foot-eleven 185 pound Jamie flops on the mattress to make sure it’s secure and won’t fall apart if someone were to jump on it.

They do not need to have another shelf problem with the bed that she will most likely be sleeping on while she’s in the area. If it is like the shelf and it’s not safe to sleep on then the couch is in the living room for a reason.

The two of them stand in the doorway and look at their work when they decide the bed is secure. “We make an amazing team,” she comments. “Aside from the shelf.”

Jamie groans and walks down the hallway to his own room. “Shelves are stupid anyway,” he replies. “Who is actually going to use them in this room aside from me just putting a handful of books and pictures on them?” She laughs and goes to unpack her stuff now that it’s safe to do so without stepping on wood, metal or a screw on the floor.

The Flyers jersey that he sent her gets hung up in the closet along with her shirts, hoodies, and nicer pants. She’ll pull bras, panties, and socks out of the suitcase as needed. The beanie she brought to wear on Saturday is put on the bedside table.

Then she pulls out the gift that she brought for Jamie. It isn’t much but she’s hoping that it means as much to him as it does to her. The pictures she brought were taken at such important moments in Jamie’s career and she hopes that he doesn’t mind having a few pictures of his best friend around the apartment.

She walks down to Jamie’s bedroom and knocks gently on the door. There are footsteps behind it before the door swings open. “I, um, had these printed and framed in case I ever came to visit you,” she tells him as she holds out the three picture frames. “Thought you might need some décor.”

Jamie looks down at the pictures and shifts through them.

One of them was taken on Jamie’s Draft Day. He has on a Ducks jersey and she has on his Ducks hat. He looks so happy. He has an arm around her shoulders while he holds up six fingers and is smiling at the camera. She has a smile on his face and is looking up at him with a proud look on her face. Messy ponytail and all.

The second one was taken the day Jamie made his NHL debut and scored his first goal. It’s a selfie she took of her, Jamie, and Trevor at dinner that same night. They’re both holding their pucks because they went right from the arena to a restaurant to eat.

The third one was taken during the 2021 World Juniors tournament where Canada placed second. She’s putting the silver medal back around his neck after he had given it to her. “Silver just means you lost” is what he had said to her a moment before this was captured. She had told him that she was a winner to him and put the medal back around his neck. There is heavy eye contact between the two of them in their matching jerseys.

It was as the third picture was being taken she realized that she loved Jamie. The first two pictures, she knew she had feelings for him, but the third was when she realized that she wanted to be there for him as more than just a friend.

“I had no idea you had any of these,” he says after he’s done looking through them. Jamie looks up at her. “All at different points of my career.”

“Been with you since day one,” she replies with a smile on her face. “You didn’t think that I wouldn’t be here with you while you succeed in a whole new city, did you?”

Jamie laughs and shakes his head. “Absolutely not,” he tells her. “You always make sure you’re a presence in my life.” He pauses and looks right at her. “It’s one of the things I love most about having you in my life.”

She could almost cry when he says that.

There have been so many times over the years where she thought she was annoying or that he wanted her out of his life. She followed him to California when he started playing with the Gulls then the Ducks. He asked her to come with him, but she thought for months it was out of pity.

He has erased years of insecurity with one comment.

“Thanks for keeping me in your life,” she replies after a brief moment of silence.

“You’re like Trevor,” he teases. “You’re always around. It would be hard for me to get rid of you.”

She smiles up at him. “Except he would never fly across the country to see you,” she retorts. “Especially without at least telling you he was coming to see you.”

Jamie laughs. “No, he wouldn’t.”

They look at each other for a second before he walks past her. He has the picture frames in his hand as he walks into the living room. She follows him even though she is confused with what he’s doing.

He puts the picture of himself, Trevor, and (Y/N) on the coffee table under the lamp next to the couch. It’s the most public place in the entire place so it makes sense that that’s the picture that is put in the living room.

The picture of the two of them on Draft Day goes on a little table that leads to the hallway with both bedrooms and bathrooms. The table is under a little mirror that’s been hung up. A little less public but it also joins the other pictures that were taken that day. It looks like it belongs.

Jamie glances at her and walks back into his bedroom. She follows right behind him and stands in the doorway of his room. Her eyes are on the picture of the two of them at the 2021 World Juniors as it’s placed on Jamie’s bedside table.

“This one means the most to me so it deserves a little more privacy than the others,” Jamie tells her without a look in her direction. “You were there for me and picked me up when I was down. I didn’t want anyone else there but you. You were the one that convinced me silver was okay. The team worked hard to get to that moment. The medal was very well deserved because we did everything we could to make it to that game. I did everything I could to get the team to that game. We just came up a little bit short.”

She pouts and walks further into the room. He finally looks over at her. “I didn’t know you felt that way,” she softly says to him. “I didn’t know that I was the person that convinced you it was okay to wear silver around your neck.”

“I needed silver because my gold medal was you,” Jamie shakily admits. His voice is soft. “You’re my gold medal.”

His words have her speechless. Her jaw drops in surprise. She has no idea why he’s saying this to her now.

He reaches out to her and brushes a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She takes a step forward and feels her heart race in her chest as she looks up at him. Her body shakes as she realizes that their relationship is changing.

A line that she never expected to cross is about to be crossed. She can see it in Jamie’s eyes as they examine her face, landing on her lips.

“Can I kiss you?”

She nods because she doesn’t trust herself to speak. She is afraid that she’s going to admit how long she’s been in love with him if she says a single words.

So she nods, and Jamie leans down to capture her lips in a soft, hesitant kiss. He’s testing the waters to see if she’ll push him away.

She’ll never push him away.

Not when she finally has him like this. Not when she finally knows what it feels like to kiss Jamie Drysdale.

When she feels him begin to pull away, she wraps her arms around his neck and leans more into him to deepen the kiss instead of Jamie breaking it. Her fingers find a home in his hair.

She is scared he will regret it if the kiss breaks, and she doesn’t want that. She doesn’t want to see that look. It might break her if he looks at her like that if the kiss breaks.

Jamie cups her cheek and brushes his thumbs over her cheekbone. She melts against him with a sigh.

“(Y/N),” he mumbles after a second. “I need to breathe.”

That’s when she lets him pull away. The sight of his red, swollen lips and unruly hair is almost too much for her. There’s a hint of a smile on his face and something overcomes her.

“I love you,” she tells him. “I’ve loved you since that was taken.” She points in the direction of the picture on his bedside table. “It’s always been you, Jamie. That’s why I flew across the country on Valentine’s Day. I wanted to be with you today because I miss you and I love you.”

Jamie smiles and brushes his thumb over her own lips that are as red and swollen as his are. “I love you too,” he says. “I think I’ve been in love with you since I saw you at my first NHL game in my jersey. I’m very happy you came to the east coast to watch me play in the Stadium Series game this weekend. I was going to probably fly you out anyway.”

She laughs and shakes her head before burying her face in his chest. They’ve been in love with each other for years and are only now saying something about it after Jamie was traded to Philly and she’s stuck in Anaheim for right now.

“Only took me bringing you pictures to finally kiss me,” she teases.

He rolls his eyes. “Shut up and come here.”

Their lips meet in a heated kiss. Everything they’ve been feeling is coming out in the kiss. Jamie tugs her until she is sitting on his lap while he’s sitting on the mattress. She drapes her arms over his shoulders.

It’s that moment when she realizes they put together a whole bed for no reason because there is now no way she is getting in that bed now.

She pushes him down until Jamie is lying flat on his back and their chests are flush against each other. Her hair creates a curtain around their faces despite his fingers curling in her locks.

“Wait, hold on,” Jamie says. She pulls back from the kiss. “Have something to ask you before we get distracted.”

“Hm?”

“Will you come to family skate on Friday before the game at MetLife?” he asks. “As my girlfriend?”

The biggest smile forms on her lips. “You’re going to have to give me skating lessons because despite watching you play hockey for years, I have no idea how to skate,” she tells him.

“I will give you skating lessons,” Jamie laughs. “You’ll come though?”

She nods and kisses him. “I’ll come.”

✧･��: *✧･ﾟ:*

yourusername

liked by jamie.drysdale, philadelphiaflyers, and 193,872 others

yourusername life recently w my 🤍

view all 15,982 comments

fan1 JAMIE HAS A GIRLFRIEND ????

masonmctavish23 ig i forgive you for not answering my texts last week

yourusername we can hang out when i get back into cali on wednesday

masonmctavish23 good. i’m mad that jamie stole you from us

fan2 oh my god. this is so cute

fan3 you were at metlife ??? i think i walked past you at one point

yourusername i had on the drysdale jersey

trevorzegras oh this is all i’m gonna hear about when she gets back

leocarlssoon it’s about time. i was praying this would happen bc the way jamie talked about you was insane

jamie.drysdale let me live !!

philadelphiaflyers Thanks for coming out

jamie.drysdale skating w my girlfriend for the first time was the best feeling 🩵

yourusername being your girlfriend is the best feeling

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#hockey imagines #hockey imagine #hockey fanfiction #hockey fic #hockey oneshot #hockey fluff #nhl imagines #nhl imagine #nhl fanfiction #nhl fic #nhl oneshot #nhl fluff #jamie drysdale #jamie drysdale fic #jamie drysdale x reader #jamie drysdale fluff #valentines day #valentines day fic

[thankskenpenders]

Sonic Prime: "Season 2"

Eight more episodes of Sonic Prime are out! They're labeled as "season 2" despite just being the next eight episodes of the first (and presumably only) season, allowing Netflix to market it as multiple seasons without having to give the cast and crew raises. They love doing that shit to their original cartoons. Ugh.

Anyway! Last time, I gave the show some leeway because it was still finding its legs. This time, though? We're now two thirds of the way through the series, and sadly, I think it's time to accept the truth:

While there are parts I like, a lot of this show... kinda sucks?

This multiverse sucks and Rouge was robbed

Previously, I noted the pattern of each universe spotlighting a different friend of Sonic's (Tails in New Yolk City, Amy in the jungle world, Knuckles in the pirate world) and predicted that, hopefully, Rouge would get her time to shine next. And with 16 episodes left, surely there's time to explore new worlds that are more interesting than the jungle and pirate worlds. Those were just the warm up act. Right?

...Right?

Nope! That's it! There are no more worlds.

This multiverse show where anything is possible really is just about another Eggman-controlled dystopia world, a jungle world, and a pirate world. That's all they came up with! Just those three, and two dead worlds that don't really count - one a featureless wasteland, the other a ghostly echo of the original Green Hill dubbed "Ghost Hill." (Sonic's friends appear here as holograms stuck repeating a single line each. It gets old immediately.)

The jungle and pirate worlds and their inhabitants being so overwhelmingly generic becomes unforgivable the moment you realize this is all we're gonna get. It just leaves me wishing they'd thrown this whole concept out and finally made a normal Sonic cartoon with no twist in its premise. A few of the new takes here are good, particularly Nine as a darker riff on Tails, but so many of them don't feel anything like the fun characters they're supposed to be. They're stock cartoon characters wearing the Sonic casts' skins.

I'll admit my bias is showing, but god, Rouge is REALLY done dirty by this setup. The normal Rouge we see in the first episode is so fun for how briefly she appears, but then in all the other worlds she's reduced to a generic action girl with zero personality. What's her purpose, exactly, when every AU version of Amy is ALSO a straightforward action girl? It drives me absolutely insane that they gave us a PIRATE ROUGE and she doesn't care about treasure. They do nothing with this! How!!!!!!!! She's just never gonna get her turn. It's so obvious that Rouge is only in this show so that they can have another girl, but you could swap her out with another character like Blaze and it'd make no difference.

Speaking of the pirates, though...

The way things play out in the pirate world is so stupid

Previously, with the Paradox Prism shard within reach, Captain Dread Knux was regressing into his old obsessive personality. I'm fine with this. Sonic and Dread both want the shard, they're gonna fight over it. Obvious stuff. But the actual impact it has on the story is maybe the stupidest bit of writing in this entire show so far.

Basically, while fighting a couple of the Eggmen and their robots at sea, Sonic has to briefly run over to the enemy ship to fight them and grab the Paradox Prism shard while Dread and his crew remain back on their ship. Dread goes "Oh my god, look! Sonic's abandoning us! Traitor!" While Sonic is... like 200 feet away. Still in clear view. Fighting the guys who are trying to kill them. Retrieving Dread's beloved treasure for him.

And yet, Dread's crew buys this! And when Sonic runs right back over with the shard in hand, they're all like "HOW DARE YOU BETRAY US" and turn on him.

It's just. What?!

This isn't a huge part of the "season," but I highlight it as maybe the worst moment of the show's character writing. I'm reminded of Thorn Rose's backstory from last time, where she was depicted as suddenly snapping one day when she saw her friends pick one too many berries in the jungle. Sometimes a character just needs to pivot for the story to work, and they aren't really interested in getting there smoothly.

The Chaos Council fucking sucks

I tried so hard to like these guys, but they drag the show down so much.

The choice to have a team of five different Eggmen really just means that Eggman has been split into five one-note characters. Four of them revolve entirely around the most trite, predictable, boomer-ass jokes based on their ages. The teenage one is whiny and just wants to play video games. The young adult one is a vegan hipster who does yoga. The old one is cranky about all the whippersnappers and has a bad back. The baby is a baby. These are jokes that would've been tired if this show aired 20 years ago.

The odd man out is Mister Doctor Eggman, the middle-aged one with a toupee who's the stand-in for regular Eggman. But even he kinda sucks. The other four all being one-note joke characters means that he has to be the straight man of the group, so he's just very dry and serious and plot-focused without any of Eggman's fun eccentricities. He's neither particularly funny nor particularly sinister, which is just about the worst place for an Eggman to be.

He doesn't even have any incompetent robot lackeys to bounce off of, because the unfunny alternate age Eggmen fill the quota for bumbling secondary villains. But also, like... Orbot and Cubot are in this show! They were in the first episode! Where are they? God, I never thought I'd miss them so much...

But, okay. It's not ALL bad.

The highlights

There's a recurring theme here, which is that the best episodes are the ones where Sonic is pitted against a foe who can match his speed and they just let the animation carry it.

The first of the new episodes is mostly about Sonic fighting Shadow, and BOY is their fight fun to watch. Said fight happens because Shadow blames Sonic for shattering the universe and doesn't trust him to fix things. Shadow wants to restore their world, but he refuses to see the various AU counterparts as the same people Sonic once knew, and he doesn't really care what happens to them. Ultimately, though, he begrudgingly accepts that Sonic really is the only one who can hop between dimensions for Plot Reasons, and therefore lets him go try to do things the nice way. He sadly spends most of his time waiting around in the void between worlds, but in the last episode of the batch he and Sonic get to team up against the Chaos Council's forces and it's very cool.

As far as recent interpretations of Shadow go, this is a good one. He's a great foil for Sonic, which just makes me wish he could travel with Sonic to the different worlds. He's cynical and overly pragmatic in his approach, but his points aren't entirely wrong. His anger feels justified. They even let him have some snark! And Ian Hanlin is really great in the role - definitely a contender for Shadow's best voice ever. He just sounds so natural.

The other speedster Sonic fights is Chaos Sonic, the Chaos Council's take on Metal.

He can talk! Deven is basically doing a Jaleel impersonation for him? People are very mixed on this.

The idea behind Chaos Sonic is to turn Sonic's obnoxious smack talk and zingers back around on him, and I don't hate this idea, even if a lot of fans find him annoying compared to Metal Sonic. (Some comparisons have been made to Archie's Shard, but I assume this is a coincidence.) Like the rest of the script, his dialogue certainly isn't anything to write home about, but the fights he gets into with Sonic and co. are so damn fun and dynamic that I have to like him. I also like how expressive his eyes are on his dome screen face, and the animators have a ton of fun with the fact that his torso and head can rotate 360 degrees.

Unfortunately, he's destroyed at the end of his debut episode. I'm praying he gets rebuilt, because this show desperately needs better villains than the Chaos Council.

Again, the animation in Prime is maybe the best animation in any official Sonic media, period. I just wished I liked the characters and worlds enough to be invested in more of the fights. It's hard to care about the dozenth group battle against the generic Eggforcer bots and the baby in his Fisher-Price mech.

The note we end on

After fighting a giant glowing replica of the normal Eggman for... some reason? Episode 16 ends with Sonic and Nine getting into an argument over what to do with the Paradox Prism shards. Sonic wants to restore his original world, but Nine still wants to create a new, better world out of the one that's just an empty wasteland, believing he doesn't belong anywhere else. Nine angrily runs off with the shards, and Sonic is distraught as he realizes that Shadow was seemingly right about how he shouldn't trust Nine.

I kind of like this conflict, mostly because Nine is the standout character of this show. But my main problem is that we don't know what will happen when everything is fixed.

The logical assumption is that the alternate worlds will just... stop existing, right? That must be the idea if Sonic and Nine are treating restoring the original world and creating a new one in the Shatterverse as mutually exclusive options, right? If the Shatterverse disappears, will Nine and the rest all stop existing, too? The show seems unwilling to discuss this possibility, so I'm left not really knowing what the stakes are in this conflict. Nine becomes a whole lot more sympathetic and Sonic becomes a whole lot more monstrous if restoring the world will erase most of this show's cast from existence, but the thought that this could even happen doesn't seem to have crossed Sonic's mind. Sonic seems to want to take his AU friends back to the regular Green Hill - he at least wants to introduce Nine to his normal friends - but like... he can't really do that, can he? They're not gonna have four Tailses running around.

I don't really know what direction this is all headed in. I guess we just have to keep watching, even if I'm past the point of accepting that this show is mostly very mid.

It's just frustrating that everyone else working on this show is clearly giving it their all while the writers at Man of Action phone it in for so much of its runtime. The scripts drag this show down so, so hard. There are moments and episodes I like, but you have to slog through so much mediocrity to get there.

#tkp post #other media

[crookedkryptonitebeliever]

Best and Worst of Both Worlds (part 33)

Tw: mentions of rape and molestation, Evangeline's insanity

Part 34

You sighed. Looking up at the white ceiling as the smell of antiseptic stings your nose.

Your landlord came by earlier to hand you your phone charger as per Yves's request. He avoided your eyes as he asked about your general wellbeing. Perhaps he felt guilty for letting one of his tenants go through such brutality. Or maybe Yves tore him another one for failing to protect you. Quite frankly, you do not know, neither do you care.

You gave him polite but short answers. You don't feel like talking to anyone now, not even Yves. It feels like the whole world is judging you and criticizing what you could have done.

He was nice, he even charged your phone for you. It's not like you could do it yourself, hooked on all kinds of antibiotic drips and wires. Not to mention, your leg cast.

You were wondering about Evangeline's hygiene, how did you get this infected from a couple of bites and scratches? Well. Whatever it was, you're glad shes just not here.

You did blame yourself for confronting her. Because if she didn't know that there was an issue between you and her, she wouldn't have paid you a visit.

But it was hard to say what her reaction would have been when Mr. Jones confronted her about the molestation in his car.

It felt like a courtroom with no jury in your head. You have a part of yourself prosecuting your being, while the other defending it. It's noisy and exhausting. You had no idea how to quieten it down.

You turned your head to the sound of your phone.

You reached towards it and checked what has set off the notification alerts. The cable is still attached to its charging port.

You received a voicemail from a number you didn't recognize.

"Sweetheart. It's me, Montgomery. I-I'm so sorry you had to go through that. I.." You heard him choke back tears. "That was fucking disgusting of her. It was so much worse than I first thought- I'm so fucking sorry I couldn't be there to protect ya', I shouldn't have trusted- I-I-"

You were confused at the sudden breakdown. He wasn't that distressed the last time you saw him, why is he crying as if he went through it instead?

You listen to him sob in anguish.

"...I couldn't get a hold of ya' through my old number. I had to get another one. Please call me back as soon as ya' can."

The message abruptly ended there.

You blocked this number too.

Frowning, did Yves tell him your business? That seems unlikely of him, you refused to believe that he would do such a thing. Then, who else did he...

The group chat with your housemates is blowing up.

Oh. The news got ahold of your story. Well that makes sense.

Even though you weren't identified, it was clear the news segment was about your horrific assault.

Some of your housemates were complaining that Yves told them not to speak with the media. And thankfully, they didn't.

There was very limited information given to the public as it seems like Yves is trying to control what others can know. The majority of the details were given by Evangeline herself. To your relief, she was held without bail.

From what you understood, she wasted her one call in jail to speak with news outlets. She didn't call her father, her mother or a lawyer. Evangeline admitted that she raped you in such a brutal matter, not leaving a single detail unsaid.

The article anonymized all the names she dropped, but you can guess she mentioned Montgomery and Yves at some point.

It was sickening, Evangeline told them that she's masturbating in jail to the thought of you. When asked what was her reasoning behind her atrocious acts, she replied that you were her greatest reward in life. She 'deserved' you for being your 'savior'. It was unclear what she meant.

They asked if she had any remorse for what she did. Evangeline went ahead and told them her only goal is to get out of prison just to fuck you day and night. You consumed her entire thought and you have to pay for it.

Evangeline claimed that she 'loves' you. You just didn't know what was good for you and it is her mission to fix that. She also hated you for throwing her away just like everyone else. Then again, she loved how you felt against her, so you were 'forgiven'.

You didn't get it. What was wrong with her? She seems so normal and fine, yet she's still trying to induce nightmares in you even when she's held in a cell.

You read on and saw that her parents refused to comment. However, it's mentioned that Evangeline was suspected to be too mentally unsound to stand trial. They have yet to evaluate her psychology, but judging on her unhinged reaction after all this, you think she is very likely to plead insanity and be sent to a mental facility instead of prison.

The University retracted her scholarship and expelled her. She must have thought that there was nothing left to lose, that is why she went all out in the impromptu interview.

You shuddered and stopped reading, not being able to stomach the mention of Evangeline anymore.

You wiped away tears from the hilt of your palm. Suddenly yearning for some company.

What a coincidence, Yves called you. Immediately, you picked it up.

"(name)..." His voice was soft and sympathetic.

You cried. You let everything out to Yves. It was hard to form a sentence, but you tried. It came out as incoherent garbles as you choked on your own tears. Nothing you said made sense to you, it did to Yves.

He listened. Letting his own droplets roll down his cheeks too. Yves knew there isn't anything he could say now to make you feel better. You heard it all before. The apologies, the assurances, the hatred towards your perpetrator... it became meaningless to you.

It's time for you to speak instead.

He knows you just wanted someone to be there for you.

And he will stay on the line as long as you need.

Yves's tears splashed onto his papers, creating ugly stains and smudging his blue ink around. Rendering some words as unreadable.

#yandere #yandere x reader #yandere oc #yandere male #yandere concept #oc yves #tw yandere #yandere x you #yandere oc x reader #male yandere oc x reader #oc montgomery #oc evangeline #tw rape mention #tw molestation

[skyberia]

[Knocking on ur door] hi I’m interested in nephos. What’s this abt a death curse?

[SLAMS THE DOOR OPEN] hiii omg [GRABS YOU BY THE COLLARS] GET IN HERE RIGHT NOW

so, for starters, their general Tragic Backstory goes something like:

néphos was born cursed, or was cursed really shortly after birth.

their parents abandoned them basically immediately after they were born, presumably because they didn't want to deal with a Literal Cursed Child (or maybe because they had something to do with it…?)

by the time he was found by another person, he was nearly completely overtaken by this curse, his body almost entirely covered in these dark marks shaped like tendrils.

luckily the person who found him was a good samaritan-- a kind old halfling cleric who took them in and decided to try her best to help them, whatever the cost.

she couldn't find a way to dispel the curse through the usual means. hard to when you don't even know what the hell you're dealing with, she's never seen anything like this before

it's obvious that she's running out of time though, and that if something wasn't done soon they'd die. so she did the only thing she could think to do, which was buy them time.

ultimately she managed to take the curse and "isolate" it to his left eye, rendering it blind and darkened, but effectively slowing down its progress and making it so he could at least have a proper chance at living!

however doing this took a Lot out of her, basically seeping her of nearly all of her energy and magic and rendering her really weak and sickly as a result.

she managed to care for and raise them for a few years, but when they were a child still she became too ill to continue doing so and had to be taken for basically permanent care at a local house of healing, leaving them to fend for themselves in the streets.

thankfully what she did was pretty effective, making it so the worst they had to deal with (curse wise. they still had a pretty rough time in other aspects) for the first like two decades of their life was weird looks and a lack of depth perception.

but then one day he looks in the mirror and finds dark marks coming out of their left eye, reminding them that all that was done was just a measure to Slow Down the progress of the curse, and that he's still bound to succumb to it someday soon...

he tries to look for cures, goes to every curse specialist he can find, then to whatever expert cleric or wizard that's around, and none of them can even tell him what the curse even is. nobody's ever seen anything like it, and so obviously nobody has any fucking clue how to get rid of it!

so eventually they just give up. accept the fact that their lifespan is going to be significantly shorter than most other elves, that they're going to suffer a horrible and unknown fate at some point, and decide to just make the most out of whatever time they do have left

and that's it :) that's their whole deal. he then spends the rest of his days in baldur's gate fucking around and narrowly escaping finding out, placing bets on what'll get to him first the authorities or the curse, Except that's not what happens at all and instead they get abducted by mind flayers and get a tadpole inserted in their brain, and when they next manage a glimpse in the mirror Oh! Lol! the curse's suddenly spreading a lot faster than before huh! but they can't spend too long worrying about that because they suddenly have a bunch of new friends with a lot of problems and issues that are more pressing than his own and on top of that the world's falling apart and they're the only ones who can save it and Oh, uh, he just nearly died in combat and somehow that made the marks from the curse worse, and it's kind of starting to react weirdly with his lightning magic? and-- hey, you know now that you mention it, his whole life he just went along with this story his mother figure told him about his origins but the more he thinks about it the more holes he finds in it and it starts making less and less sense, and ha ha haa haaaaaaaa

(insert the whole companion questline i made up for them here. in order to not keep both of us here all day and also immediately contradict all the information i just gave you and overcomplicate everything, the really short version is: the woman he thought saved his life lied. Among other things)

anyway. Some other general things about them:

their full name is néphos huan

they're 54 years old

they don't know this but they're like elf mixed-race. their father was a sun elf, and their mother was a drow. he gets the red eyes (...eye...) and grey hair (and the penchant for ruthlessness, probably) from his mom.

their "job" pre-events essentially consisted of them seeking out people with issues and offering to help sort them out, for a price. Usually a quite high one.

he has a sort of reputation around baldur's gate as someone who can "solve any problem with a snap of their fingers!" because of this, which kind of makes him sound like a djinni. he is not. it just turns out that a lot of problems can be solved by frying whoever's causing them with a concentrated lightning storm lol

they're really reckless. i cannot understate this. At every turn they will see something that has a high chance of killing them (but that has some potential reward) and they will run straight at it. This was already a problem before but the tadpole makes it SO much worse

he's a real "what's in it for me?"/"where's my reward?" type bitch. refuses to do anything without knowledge that there will be some type of compensation for him at the end. This is a fine attitude to have and definitely doesn't have consequences that carry over to his personal relationships making them more difficult than they should otherwise be

i could go on for ages longer abt their general dynamics with the other characters and also their fake companion quest and so on but i will . leave it here for now. Thank you for asking. i love you

#ocs #néphos #doodles #please feel free to ask more. if you want to. if you're interested #(<- spent a not unsubstantial amount of time making this shit up) (<- would love to talk about it)

[finalmoment]

the reason vash fails constantly isn't because he isn't Making A Choice and Taking A Clear Stand, it's because he's one person trying to do the work of several social security nets for an Entire Fucking Planet. there's no system, on Gunsmoke, for people to help each other out. if they do it's often half-assed — think about Jeneora Rock being given clearly filthy water at the beginning. survival brings out the best in people but it also brings out the worst, clearly, and on Gunsmoke the worst prevails. people turn on each other, steal and kill and use because they need to survive and there isn't enough of anything to go around.

and then there's vash, trying to be like Love And Peace :) and obviously it's not Going To Work even without the threat of genocide looming over their heads because vash is one (1) vigilante do-gooder who believes in helping people out in a world where no one else believes in that. like literally zero people other than him believe this is a viable way of doing things. but vash truly insists on thinking that all people deserve better, and that they can make a kinder and safer world without leaving anyone behind, and he's willing to die on that hill if he has to. but here's the thing, right, borderline unkillable or not vash can't do this alone. he can't be everywhere all the time while running from knives. his limitations and the scale of his ideal force him into corners where all his options are bad, and everyone is against him while he's trying to help them, and none of them are helping each other.

and yes, in large part that's a resource issue — nobody has the time or energy or strength to care about anything but their little patch of dirt and themselves. but it's also not the ideal that's bad, it's the fact that it's one person trying to help everyone, save everyone, care about everything that other people refuse to care about, and of course he fails in a huge way a whole bunch of times. it's unavoidable. he can't win. when the world is in constant crisis you can only keep slapping bandaids over cannon holes. you've got no time for more.

but he could do more, if people joined him. if people could bring themselves to believe in even a little of the ideal he's living. ideally, you know, it would be knives — they'd do this together, so that knives could ensure the plants aren't being mistreated and vash could ensure that no one was being left behind. knives could do it; he's a generative plant.

but the thing about Luida finding a way to grow actual plants again shows us that humans could also do it for themselves. they could do it for each other even when vash isn't there. they could create a world that doesn't need saving, where vash can finally, actually rest.

#trigun stampede #vash #notes

[tvintedspvrkmoved]

hahahah i'm losing my mind ??????

so two very cool things are true right now which are :

- in twelve days my best girl will have existed in some form for an entire year - i'm about to be able to say there are officially HUNDREDS of you here ???? like as in the plural form ??????

neither of these things make any sense to me , but since both are true i figured it would be a good time to do what i guess is a little follow forever type thing. SO. here are some of the people who have helped emma grow and develop and also helped me grow and develop as a person and as a writer 🤍

-------------------------- ★ ---------------------------

@dalphahale : honestly a day one bc i didn't really do very much with emma until around march i think and that's around when we started writing if i'm not mistaken ?? one of the best / most show accurate dereks i've ever come across and one of the best people too !!!! you're an incredible writer and honestly a saint in human form for putting up with me ooc lmao it's an honor to bless your dms every day with the most random and chaotic messages and thoughts and only be a LITTLE bit judged for it 😂 derek and emma are one of the most adorable ships i've ever seen and derek and allison are iconic as well i just think you're the bee's knees okay you're stuck with some form of my chaos indefinitely i fear 🤷‍♀️

@stanfordprepped : jared. JARED. another og and one of my best friends in the rpc. samemma is so unbelievably iconic and i'm so amazed and proud of everything that's come from them and from us writing together and from you in general i'm SO excited about charlotte's development and about samlena and about just all of our dynamics ahhhhh you are so unbelievably strong and talented and you deserve every good thing in the entire world bc the love and respect that you hold for others even on your worst days is so admirable i can't even fathom it sometimes.

@multi-royalty : MADDIE MY BELOVED i ????? owe so much of everything i've accomplished this year to you 😭🙏 you not only pulled me back when i was debating whether or not to even continue writing , but helped to develop some of my most cherished muses and threads and plots and headcanons. you're the sweetest little bean in the entire world and i can't even begin to thank you for everything you've done for and with me and the light that you bring to this community even when you can't see it 🤍

@guiltye : bitch i'll yell FOREVER at and about you are you kidding ????? your writing gives me literal chills and the plots that we have are some of the deepest most complex and incredible dynamics i've ever been a part of. you've been through so much this year and kicked ass until you got to the other side and still managed to help ME through so much too and i'm sure so many others and i just adore you okay i live for all lilly content but especially your ooc posts bc i just think your brain is so neat and i love getting to glimpse into it sometimes you're just incredible 🥹🤍 ps thank u for letting me yell about noah kahan without abandon and getting in ur feelings about him with me lol

@boundforhale // @stilesstylelinski : obviously i had to put y'all together you can't split up the gremlins okay. i love you both so much and i actually can't even begin to describe how much you guys have helped me this year both to be a better writer and to get through so many rough patches irl. i'm still not entirely convinced that australia is real but if it DOES exist i will not rest until i can fly there and we can all meet at a central location and proceed to just implode the whole universe with the sheer chaos and buffoonery. y'all are actually family at this point i don't know what i would do without you fr

@carp3diems : LISTEN HERE BITCH bff bestie angel i love you to pieces and if you ever leave me again i'll riot !!!! you're genuinely one of the coolest people i've ever met and i love all of our dynamics so damn much but what we've created with colbemma is just so insane and incredible and i know i just screamed about this in the dms but i genuinely cannot believe they started out hating each other lmao they're truly iconic and i can't wait to see how they continue to grow and thrive and also how YOU continue to grow and thrive

@redhoodiskra : A. you are an actual ray of sunshine and so incredibly talented and WAY TOO HARD ON YOURSELF and completely amazing and fantastic and i just love you a lot !!!! stiles and emma and the little family they've created make my heart so happy and so do all of our other dynamics !!!! we haven't written much on @westwingsolo yet and we absolutely should change that bc i'm in awe of you and your writing and the creativity you bring to your muses they're both so special and you can 100% see the love you've put into both.

i wish i could write everyone a little message but here are some more lovelies that you should absolutely go follow !!!! a lot of them have other pages with more incredible muses as well 🤍

@fuckmeupindie , @hellgiven , @gunchamber , @ofcrxwns , @escapedfromthevoiid , @ruinedmyself , @goldenboybarracuda , @delicatestm , @sarcasticsnackpack , @fidelissimi , @ofblackskies , @ratkiing , @snnydcys , @flamefallen , @impurc , @clockturned , @r4chelamber , @unbearablyindifferent , @mystictragedies , @conradfish3r , @jimh9334 , @jchnwinchester , @qapsiel , @thornstocutyouwith , @unitcd , @surgcns , @localsalt , @mecwmellc

#[ 𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐞 . // 𝘰𝘰𝘤 ] #{ if ur not on here and we've written or interacted ooc or on the dash more than a few times im APOLOGIZING PROFUSELY } #{ i love every interaction i just have a little peanut brain and the memory of a goldfish }

[otakween]

Digimon World 3 - Final Thoughts

I've beaten the third Digimon World woohoo!! It was a brisk 40 hours, the perfect JRPG length. Overall, it was way better than Digimon World 2, but maybe not better than 1?? I dunno. It was definitely more enjoyable than 1 gameplay-wise, but if I look at it big picture it was way more generic and less memorable. Defeating the first Digimon World felt like more of a triumph and beating 3 felt kinda hollow (because it was easy and anticlimactic).

Despite any gripes I have, I could see myself replaying this. I'm especially interested in a potential revisit (like 10 years from now lol) because I found out that the PAL version of the game (Digimon World 2003) is the true, complete version of the game. Whoops...

So uh...Lord Megadeath and Snatchmon huh...great naming sense guys, good job.

Confession: I straight-up ignored all of the side quests in this game. Skipped all of the card battles, never got the fishing pole, etc. In the end, I don't really regret it because those card battles were kind of pointless anyway.

Confession part 2: I WAS planning on getting back to the side quests in the post-game until I realized that there is no post-game in this game. This is one of those games where you beat the final boss and they kick you back to the start screen with no opportunity to save. I hate it when games do that TT__TT now there's now proof that I beat it!

That ending was kinda lame. I liked the final battle with all of the epic FMVs, but the epilogue with the kids was literally so boring. They did not make me care about any of these characters in the slightest.

Speaking of FMVs, this game had so many!! The FMVs combined with the awesome pixel art definitely made this game great. It was a little lame how half of the world was just the same environments but palette swapped, but eh...whatever. There was enough variation to keep me excited.

Travel in this game was BULLSHIT. I said in one of my previous posts "fast travel will probably come soon!" NOPE, never came. The worst was when you beat a boss and then they made you back track throughout the whole dungeon for no reason. Thank God I played this on an emulator because an unexpected death would have set me back AGES. Very often it would take me an hour in REAL TIME to get to the next place I needed to be. Entire game sessions were just me walking across the map. If it wasn't for this mechanic, the game would have been like 10 hours long lol. Definitely artificial padding.

I noticed a couple of digimon here and there that I had never seen before. I think this game had a great variety in its wild encounters, although it was kind of weird to battle so many ultimates and whoop their butts so easily.

Speaking of easy...I think this game was maybe too easy or at least too exploitable. Health items were dirt cheap so it was super simple to stock up on 99 of each at all times, the counter crest allowed me to deal massive damage beyond my digimon's levels. The final boss fight with Galacticmon was just a game of letting my digimon attack until they died, resurrecting them with a healing item, and repeating that cycle until the battle was finished. The resurrection item brings back all digimon in your party with their full health which is pretty OP. By the 2nd half of the game this strategy became unbeatable and battles became kind of stale.

SO many random battles, like an obnoxious amount. I would leave one random battle, take a single step and another one would be triggered. I listened to a lot of podcasts slogging through this.

One of the weakest parts of this game was the plot/writing, but that was also weak in Digimon World 1 & 2. At least the translation seemed pretty decent this time around. I guess the "stuck in the game world" cliche was kinda fun.

The other thing I ignored in this game was the bonus digimon you can pickup along the way. I did end up getting two of them, but I never used them. They start at level 1 and ain't nobody got time to level up digimon from level 1 halfway through the game. Also, I wasn't super interested in using Guilmon when my Renamon already had MegaloGrowmon in their digivolve roster. I kind of wish this game allowed you to catch the wild digimon because you could create some really crazy parties.

My "main digimon" that I ended up using the most was Kotemon in their Kyukimon form. This was unfortunate because I think Kyukimon is butt ugly, but oh well lol.

The blasted mechanic in battles was really great and I hope they bring it back in future games! It allows you a second chance when you're in a pinch and just feels epic. I rarely used the digivolve option in battles, so it was nice getting a "free" digivolve every now and then.

I could go on and on about this game apparently, but I'm gonna wrap it up here. I have many many more games to get through before I start the next season of the anime. Onwards!

I give Digimon World 3 a solid 6.5 out of 10

#digimon world 3 #video games #digimon #digimon world #PSX #epsxe

[yamameta-inc]

villain au in a nutshell

not a roleswap, gintoki is just a villain. however, this naturally becomes takasugi's most distressing problem and he reigns in his manic death spiral because he has to deal with something more pressing

after escaping from prison, instead of wandering to kabukicho gintoki instead somehow ends up meeting utsuro, derailing Everything for Everyone

gintoki obviously does not take it well. feeling responsible for failing to kill shouyou properly, he vows to fulfill his promise and end utsuro

gintoki pursues utsuro obsessively and ends up drinking his blood in order to be able to carry out his promise. because if he dies he can't fulfill it, and it's the only way for him to not die

utsuro lets him because he thinks it's funny. and because he wins by proving a point that the blood represents

gintoki becomes a... naraku freeloader. he's not really part of them but he lives with them. on the death ship. he tries to kill utsuro often, but eventually his focus shifts on more big picture stuff since he's realized he can't win just by trying to hit him a bunch

his personality also rapidly deteriorates as he goes through the worst negative spiral the universe has ever seen, turning him into Literally The Worst Person Ever, because he's not only unhinged, manic, cruel, obsessive, and violent, but also obnoxious and annoying (especially to oboro)

for 10 years the only friend in his life is sakamoto, who through a series of contrivances meets him in a jail on some random planet in the early days and notices that something is seriously wrong with gintoki. sakamoto eventually makes an extremely suspect deal with the naraku to sell them supplies in order to be allowed onto their ship to visit gintoki

gintoki is even more intensely and desperately in love with sakamoto for obvious reasons but this causes him to be Literally Insane about him. as time goes on, he starts pushing sakamoto away more and more violently, and they meet more and more infrequently until gintoki manages to cut off contact entirely (by fucking off. sakamoto is very determined)

the hole gintoki leaves in the narrative is filled by a combination of kagura, zura, and other cast members, as the whole cast has to work together to replace gintoki. kagura gets to play the shounen hero role she's made for and zura gets to do more things in general. it's clumsy and imperfect, and many things change, but it's not the end of the world. takasugi helps....... a little

ex: kamui ends up killing housen, and yoshiwara falls under his protection afterwards, but he has no real interest in it so it's basically free

benizakura three-way dramatic reunion except now gintoki also gets to pose dramatically and smirk under the moonlight as a villain for his first real entrance

"if you ever change i'll have to cut you down" awkward moment

gintoki is running an amplified version of canon takasugi's self-destructive behaviour, hurting everyone around him in order to hurt himself--but because he doesn't allow himself to die, and has the capacity to bleed endlessly without dying, there is quite literally no limit to how much he's willing to hurt his friends

utsuro, again, thinks this is funny

oboro is watching his junior disciple walk in his footsteps and then overtake him. in the worst possible way. nothing could sway him from his path in canon when gintoki was an indefatigable hero, but he cracks here he has to watch shouyou's legacy be corrupted right before his eyes (utsuro thinks he's Winning pretty hard)

takasugi and zura can't afford to divorce

after 10 years of living in his proximity gintoki, unfortunately, loves his evil dad. however he isn't aware of this. also he hates him. he wants to kill him so bad but when he fails and utsuro is disappointed in him that's Very Scary

takasugi and zura trying to reconcile with gintoki 45687459684950640 dead 2345956445097849584590 injured

[reggiespoon]

Been pondering recently how to square the supposed personality of Robespierre with the fact of his personal influence. I'm aware Thermidorians have muddied the water here but consider:

Appearance: ordinary. He was physically unimpressive. Leaving aside the vexed issue of pieds-du-roi, he was either of average height or a bit (but not significantly) smaller than average. He was slim, pale, and fair, with light brown hair and green eyes. He wouldn't stand out in any crowd of northern Europeans, then or now.

Oratorical skills: lacking. He wasn't a great speaker, like Danton or Mirabeau. He had a quiet voice which he struggled to project in large spaces, and it was allegedly strongly accented in some way that marked him out as Not Parisian. I wrote a whole other post about Robespierre's accent and I stand by my personal headcanon of Scousepierre because it's hilarious, but regardless, this wasn't a beautiful or powerful or otherwise compelling voice.

Writing: mediocre. This seems unfair, but whilst he has very eloquent passages in his speeches, even McPhee allows that Robespierre often committed the twin autisms of rambling and repeating himself (same, bb ❤️). He wasn't generally witty, pithy, or to-the-point.

Political stance: consistent but not extreme. Clearly something that exasperated his allies and delighted his enemies, for whilst he was a tireless advocate for The People, he refused to cater to either conservative or radical arguments about what The People wanted/deserved. He wasn't a hawk or a demagogue. Thus Thermidorians arguing that he was Too Far Left and Too Far Right simultaneously as justification for murdering him. We don't know which direction he's taking this country, but it's definitely the direction you (dear People) don't like, trust us.

So how did this ordinary-looking, unimpressive-sounding, rather boring man inspire such radical devotion across the entire nation, in large cities and tiny villages, north to south and east to west, when he himself never travelled outside the well-worn route between Paris and Arras, never married, didn't really socialise, and should by all rights have been an anonymous cog in the Revolutionary wheel, unknown in life and forgotten in death?

It can't be simply his honesty and integrity, because frankly if honesty and integrity inspired radical devotion in politics, we'd live in a very different world.

How did someone so fundamentally unassuming come to embody the Revolution for so many? And why did they feel so passionately about someone whom even sympathetic(ish) historians describe as having basically zero charisma?

I think the zero charisma thing is - must be - a legacy of Thermidor.

Nobody loved Robespierre anyway because he was a monster, but even before his monstrosity, he was dull. A boring monster! The worst kind! We have saved you from his tyranny.

I think he actually must have been one of those rare people who have real charisma - in the sense of something divinely-conferred; a quality mysterious and indefinable, divorced from mere personal charm. Nothing we know about the man suggests someone who could attract a large following, and yet his personal influence was disproportionately powerful. Robespierre should, according to all descriptions, have been a non-entity, a footnote in the biographies of others. Instead, he's one of the giants of history.

#anyway what do you think #maximilien robespierre

[moorishflower]

hi!! im absolutely astounded at the amount of depth and heart thats in all your fics, and im also very floored at the amount at which you write—im at a cross between admiration and maybe jealously lol!! I wanted to ask, are there any fic of yours (sandman or not) that you think are underrated/deserves more attention?? super excited for everything you ever write!!

asdfg anon thank you <3 So I have a Problem where I have a lot of anxiety about what I create, and when that's writing, if I am not writing The Next Great Novel, then I need to sate the brain demons SOMEHOW, and writing a LOT is the easiest way to do that. I want very badly to please people, and fortunately it's not a hardship for me to write the amount that i do, though I AM trying to consciously like. Take breaks if I need? Take a night off? Keep it healthy looool. But that I'm able to write things that people are consistently finding value and meaning in is a continuous and beautiful marvel to me so thank you, thank you very much!!!

So I read your second part of the ask wrong at first and had gathered uh several fics which I think are underrated that are NOT mine

One Half of a Whole by @violetequus8 - Absolutely REMARKABLE post-apocalyptic literature. Equus captures an entire world and history in 4000 words. There are sentences in this fic that rewrote my brain chemistry.

The entire like this slumber that creeps to me series by @tobrokenstone - THIS. This is survival the way I fucking LOVE IT. Bleak, stark, hard decisions, lasting consequences, surprisingly tender cannibalism (this last may be...specific to me and a few select others lol)

Once again repping the point-set-triangulation series by therm0dynamics, which is singlehandedly the series that got me into Hob/The Corinthian (it's about MIRRORS it's about PARALLELS)

And at this point I realized that you'd asked about which of MY fics I think are underrated, and I was just so caught up in the thought of repping my friends that I lived in a world where I did not write for a moment loool

Salt and Rye is the result of a prompt on tumblr. I wanted to try and capture that feeling of recreating a parent or grandparent's recipe and failing, because it's SUCH a disheartening moment, but I wanted to make it lighter, because Hob has someone there to share the comedy of it with him.

Here there be dragons is my latest fic in the Siren AU and I do think that people who aren't into scifi in general will be more likely to give it a pass, but I'm very proud of it, and very proud of the emotions it evoked in ME, and I promise it's not hard scifi like The Martian or even really pervasive scifi like Star Trek! I just tried to think realistically about what our planet would look like and feel like in 1500 years, and how we might need to leave it. Also, Dream's still a carnivorous octopus man.

an act of faith is the vampire fever dream that struck me at like 3pm on a Saturday and I blacked out for like two hours and this was what I'd written during that time. I enjoy writing obscene levels of devotion and you can't really get much more obscene than "willing to tempt death year after year even though no one's asked you to in order to prove to YOURSELF that your lover loves you"

Honestly I don't think many of my fics are underrated! They're all written at different points in my development and my understanding of myself as a writer, and they range pretty widely in terms of theme and genre sometimes, so some, statistically, are going to be kind of niche! And that's okay! I guess the only thing I'd say is that even if you think something isn't your jam, unless the tags are specifically triggering you give it a try! The worst thing that'll happen is you get a paragraph in and then back out again. An extremely smart person (it was @xx-vergil-xx <3) recently said something along the lines that part of healthy interacting with art is also knowing when to put it down, but it's also important to give different things a chance so that you learn more about yourself and your preferences. I myself am trying to expose myself to and write more angst? Because it makes me deeply uncomfortable to do so! But that's a valuable feeling to know and recognize! Idk i just think we all get different stuff out of writing and it's just nice that I've been able to provide something to so many people <3

#ask response

[lily-radiance]

Even Flowers Can Bloom In The Winter- Bleach- Aizen, Byakuya, Grimmjow, and Ulquiorra x AFAB reader Teaser

Because the whole entire fanfiction is way too long I'm posting this teaser to get a general idea of the success of the entire document.

----------------------------------------------------

Life in the soul society has always been both the best and worst thing that ever happened to you. Along the way you had known so many faces, so many comrades who had either fallen in battle, stopped caring about their duties, and of course those who had changed sides. You had always stood for the main ideals of the Soul Society to protect the world of the living from harm's way.

There was always a routine way of being a Soul Reaper, especially when you were the second lieutenant of squad six captain, Byakuya Kuchiki. He was arguably one of the toughest captains to put up with, but his lessons were valuable nonetheless, and you'd do anything to reach your potential. Of course your captain had the most specific training regimen, made you wake up early, ordered that if you were delivering paperwork of any kind it needed to go directly to the specified captain. If he found out you had cut corners, even by a little bit, the training would only grow harder.

Yet you would later discover that this rigid schedule would come to benefit you as time flew by instantaneously. No longer would you be just another student, just another average Soul Reaper! No, that was not in the stars for you, but maybe you would come to wish it was. Maybe ordinary life would be easier to handle.

"Look Yumichika, all I'm saying is you need to stand up to that bastard and reclaim your glory!", a rather tipsy Rangiku instructed the exhausted young man.

This was usual for the misfits, just like any other night with the clowns full of drama and energy. You leaned on the entryway of Rangiku's room, trying to connect the dots from afar without being dragged in. However a loose floorboard had other plans for you as your footing was not secure, causing you to trip and collapse near the two individuals.

"It's a surprise to see you here, (Y/N), I thought you didn't get involved in our personal affairs…", the flamboyant man chiding you for your abrupt appearance.

Of course he was kidding with you as this type of meeting was a regular occurrence in your select group of friends, and that always included you.

"I never said that, and you guys didn't leave room for me to join the conversation exactly. By the way, who's ass is on the line?"

Rangiku helped you get in a sitting position, still holding in a few chuckles from seeing your entrance. You really shouldn't have jumped down that rabbit hole, but at the time it seemed insignificant.

"Well Yumi here is complaining about Ikkaku, who said something about his appearance, and it didn't go well. Honestly I think he looks fine, but he won't take my opinion on the matter," she whispered to you, trying to hide the fact she just blabbed right in front of Yumichika.

"Hey don't tell her that! I thought you agreed to keep it secret! How will the other officials see me!? If Ikkaku, that bald idiot thinks I look bad!?"

A silence followed the outrageous comment, caused by the need to figure out if he was really serious. He always had these worries, even though you were pretty sure he was the epitome of gorgeous, besides his attitude levels.

It was just the thing you needed after a day's work, hearing your friend hold the silliest of insecurities, all while you and Rangiku clutched your abdomens, laughing hysterically. As much as Yumichika wanted to stay bitter, he found himself laughing right alongside you two.

"Okay, now that that topic is out of the way, and since we're talking appearances, let's list the most intriguing Soul Reapers! I'll go first, by saying that I'm plenty interested in that Izuru. Sure he could have more of a personality, but it isn't like we're going out or anything!", Rangiku continued on with the shenanigans.

You shared a look with the swordsman next to you, both of you holding a look of confusion and concern for her spontaneous interruption.

"Ugh there's so many boring guys here! And all the hot ones are our superiors anyways," he stated, clearly wanting to change the subject.

Yet his desire to end the conversation was shut down by another question from Rangiku.

"Uh yeah, have you seen them? I'm not saying we date them or anything, but at least give me some details! (Y/N), you're Captain Kuchiki's third seat! Isn't there anything interesting in squad six? Maybe Renji?"

You pushed her shoulder, flushed from the cheeks down to your neck at the assumption. Sure you may have had a small inkling of adoration for him, but only because he was one of the Captains of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads! And Renji was too infatuated with Rukia for your heart to develop an attachment.

"Grow up, Rangiku! Renji is not my type, plus he's had a crush on Rukia for years! Not to mention he's my superior as well!"

A devilish smile appeared on her features, resembling that of excess delight.

"But you didn't say anything about Captain Kuchiki! He's been single for a lifetime, plus you see him everyday, so you must at least have some sort of affliction connected!"

You wanted to tell yourself the liquor had gone to her head, which was probably true, but it wouldn't change anything because her mind was set on making you confess.

"There you go again, making assumptions about our lives! Y'know Rangiku you claim to like Izuru, but you've totally got the hots for Captain Hitsugaya! Especially at the training ground yesterday, you were so into him!", You countered in defense, wanting to protect your own personal information.

"Please you were the one who was on top of him!"

"Because he's helping me with my zanpakuto! Do you know how hard ice is to work with!? It takes so much spirit energy, and Toshiro has the most control with the element!"

The childish argument was just the entertainment Yumichika needed to get back on his feet, although he wasn't going to join the conversation without stirring the pot more.

"You both have it bad for a bunch of guys! Rangiku, you like Toshiro, and Izuru, and don't forget that episode with Shuhei! 

( Y/N) you are totally crushing on Captain Kuchiki, I mean I get it, he's pretty, but he's still an ass! And don't forget about the other one, Captain Aizen, right?"

Your pulse skipped a beat at that notion, unaware that Yumichika of all people had picked up on that small detail.

"Oh my goodness, (Y/N), you have it worse than I do! Two captains? Both of their squad barracks next to each other?"

That's when you remembered that mistake, how you had left a set of documents in your private quarters that the serious captain needed to be signed as soon as possible by the latter. You had placed them on your desk so you wouldn't lose them but your usual detour to the Squad Ten Barracks had ruined this plan.

"I have to go get some paperwork for Captain Aizen now! Sorry, see you guys tomorrow! Don't be dumb without me!", You announced just before rushing out of the small building, hoping that you could be quick without your own superior noticing your error in judgement.

You wouldn't normally use the Flash-Step technique unless it was an emergency, and in this case it was. You had been rigorously practicing the movement, but it still felt odd, becoming nothing more than a blur as passerbys wondered where you were headed at this time of night. You saw some familiar faces as you sped by, some giving you curious glances as you weaved through the bodies.

You had been promoted to the lieutenant of the sixth squad roughly a year prior, being commended for your abilities, but you were still placed in the third seat for an unknown reason. You never asked your captain, instead putting it up to random regulations that because you were so quick to raise your rank, they had to make sure you were ready for the position. 

Renji had even told you he was surprised you were placed below him in ranking, but he told you not to worry about it since you had similar duties and tasks to fulfill.

Aizen's Signature 

Before you knew it you had arrived at your own quarters, glancing around the halls for any signs of life besides the chatter of conversations inside shared rooms. Captains had the largest rooms, equipped with a number of different decorations and furnishings. Next were the lieutenant quarters, fit with a room big enough for an average bed, desk, couch and one bookshelf against a wall for any other special items that you may want to place in the empty space.

At last you found the pile of documents right where you left them, untouched and intact. Your eyes began to scan the letter, recognizing your own Captain's near perfect handwriting, but even in writing his tone remained the same, clear, concise, and strict just like his voice.

As you kept reading you began to feel like you were being lectured by the paper itself, the terminology was reminding you about the academy, and the stern teachers who despised the very idea of creativity. Mostly the letter was just to set up training schedules between the different squads, and listing the most impressive officers who deserved a recommendation, but alas, your name was not in Byakuya's mind, and therefore not written in ink on the page.

A slight spark of frustration crackled in the back of your skull, making you question your actual ranking among the various squads. Captain Hitsugaya had applauded your quick adaptability to learning the various techniques of your sword, and Captain Kuchiki had been taken aback by your kido use! Was it a once in a lifetime moment? Or had you simply imagined something that wasn't there in the first place? Whatever the cause, you still needed to take a jog to the Squad 5 barracks and offices, hoping that the much calmer Captain was still awake and responsive. You would have given the paperwork to Momo, but she seemed to be unavailable for the whole day, only talking to you in passing.

By the time you had left your comfortable hideout from the rest of the public, most of them were turning in for the night, and others were sneaking out to catch a break from the stressful Shinigami lifestyle. Unfortunately you could not do either after arriving at the neighboring squad quarters. After taking a breath to calm your nerves you knocked the back of your hand to the entryway frame, hoping that you could go back to your own matters without being afraid for your life.

You knocked a second time, this one a bit firmer so the sound could be heard from the other side. Your hand almost came back for one more attempt but the sliding door opened a hair before you made contact with the wall.

You'd been in multiple meetings with Sosuke Aizen since you became a lieutenant, and oftentimes those meetings brought quick conversation, of course before Head Captain Yamamoto listed his concerns and several strategies for the Soul Society to follow.

You found it convenient and a good idea to get to know your other superior, unsure of his overall personality, and abilities. The small talk was initially to make the early mornings more bearable, but you had come to understand, or rather believe, he wasn't as intense as the other Squad Captains.

You had always seen him, glanced his way, even bumped into him by accident when walking(apologizing profusely), but you'd never been so close to him in that instance. For the first time you had seen a completely different man, unable to form a cohesive sentence as your vision lingered on the pushed back hairstyle and lack of glasses. You found yourself trying to gather an explanation for your sudden appearance, and realizing you should probably arrive earlier to meetings.

"Lieutenant (L/N)? What are you doing awake at this time?" His eyes remained transfixed on your own frame, ghosting over your features in an attempt to wake up his mind.

You handed him the sheets of paper, shuddering as your hand lightly traced his own when pulling away.

"Captain Kuchiki wanted me to deliver these to you this morning but I completely forgot. I know it's late but he said it was important and needed input. You technically don't have to do this right now, it's rather dark out, so-"

But your thought was left behind as he opened the door wider, and stepped inside to grab a brush. He looked back at you, a quirk in his eyebrow forming into a questioning expression.

"It's alright, I was awake anyways." He eased your mind of the subject, then motioned for you to come inside.

"This won't take long, lieutenant, but you're free to make yourself comfortable in the meantime. Your captain sure likes his elaborate messages…"

You're sure you weren't supposed to hear that last part, wondering if all of Byakuya's letters were cryptic or logical. And if they were, how many had he sent lately?

"Hmm? That's interesting," you heard him mutter as you turned back towards the desk.

"What is it, sir? Is something the matter?"

He glanced back over his shoulder, a roll of his eyes accompanying it. He moved to the side, allowing you room near the desk.

"This is a set of documents for each of the Squad Captains to fill out, a list of recommendations for accomplished Soul Reapers and I don't see your name on Captain Kuchiki's list…."

You were stumped as he outright stated the lack of favor that the stoic man held for you. You were expecting him to hand it back to you, sure he had listed the most qualified candidates, but he began to finish up, a creased brow still in action as he leaned down to meet the desk's shorter height.

The document was placed back into your hand gently as his task was done. You would have asked who he wrote down had he not spoken aloud.

"Now not only did Captain Hitsugaya recommend you, but several others including myself did too, that way you'll be sure to get a spot in the top rankings. Plus the lieutenants also have to rank and recommend their peers as well, so I'm sure you'll be fine."

Wait? Did he not only disagree with Byakuya's opinion, but he put your name on the list! Has the world caved in and lost all sense of reason? Whatever the case, your heart was beating at a speeding rate.

"Thank you, Captain Aizen- but you didn't need to -"

He gave you a knowing glance, that same look of curiosity, of analysis, the same eyes that could make you stop dead in your tracks.

"I was going to recommend you anyway, so it wasn't out of the way. And you can drop the formalities, (L/N), it's not necessary and I don't want to get used to knowing you as just another lieutenant."

He had followed you out the door, saying his piece to let you know he wasn't going to scold you for casual conversation.

"Then, thank you Aizen, for the recommendation. I'll be sure to drop it off as soon as I reach the office."

Even just saying his last name made you feel a sense of guilt after hearing so many lessons about respecting superior officers.

He smiled at the moment, noting your expression in his mind, the look of uncertainty dwindling across your eyes as the greeting left you.

"I'm glad to hear that, but hurry back, it's getting late, and there's lots of work to be done tomorrow. Goodnight (L/N)."

And with that message the door slid shut once again, prompting you to make a quick retreat to the barracks, hoping to inform both Rangiku and Yumichika of the day's events.

—--------------

Byakuya Kuchiki's eyes crinkled as he finally began reading over other officer recommendations, unsure as to why the fifth division captain would put you in. Hitsugaya he could understand, Ukitake was friendly to everyone, Kyoraku actually wanted you on his squad, Unohana had instantly taken a liking to you, but Aizen was a mystery.

It wasn't that it bothered him necessarily, but the plain fact that he was purposefully trying to get your abilities higher before moving you upwards. It wasn't that you weren't strong enough, in fact you could beat Renji if you really set your mind to it, but you weren't going to use a battle against your friend for leverage.

Your skills were fragile at this point, they could be exceptionally strong if you were in control, but the slightest wrong move could severely hurt your body, and those around you.

He didn't want to doubt you, didn't want to seem like the unjust captain he had been painted to be. Yet he needed to keep it evident that the art of the zanpakuto took centuries to master, it was not so simple as knowing how to wield a sword.

Even though Toshiro was actively teaching you how to manage the ice, it was nothing like Hyorynmaru, and wasn't as strong either. While Toshiro's blade was physically stronger, you could create multiple ice copies at once, easily creating decoys for battle. Not only that but you could use the element to your advantage, switching between copies at the last moment if your life was threatened. Of course you could use the ice in easier ways such as slipping or freezing an opponent but that was predictable..

Even with the several advantages, your body was not indestructible, and the ice was certainly not your friend either. If you went too long it could land either a cold or an actual blanket of frost on certain aspects of your body. Still this only made you want to work harder, chasing that dream of strength and virtue.

Was he wrong for not pushing your limits? Or was he wrong for underestimating you as a soul reaper? Was he actually upset about your skills being recommended by several captains? Or was he worried you could not handle the responsibility?

Whatever the case, his mind was not at ease, it was relentless and setting his mood even lower than usual. He never understood the typical types of people, instead too focused on his own being to adapt and be open.

Even with his statuesque facade, it did make him happy that you said good morning, that you wished him well when you went off on missions, that you would ask if he had taken a break when he's sitting at his desk in absolute exhaustion.

"Captain Kuchiki? Are you alright,sir?`` Renji spoke up as he passed by.

Byakuya hadn't even noticed the time passing as he stared into the nothingness of the paper. Unable to look away from where your name was written on several lines, each detailing notes and critiques.

"Yes, I'm looking through the recommendations from the other captains, and seeing their reports."

His curt tone was made all the more snappy when he finished the sentence and finally put the papers down.

"Is something the matter with the reports? Did a captain not sign?`` Renji glanced over at the desk. While he was typically out training at this time of day, instead he had come by and was delivering documents just like you were the other night.

Byakuya only let out a huff, seeing yet another captain had written down your name. Wait? Another? Hitsugaya. Kyoraku. Ukitake. Unohana. Aizen. Ichimaru. Soi Fon. Zaraki.

Eight out of thirteen squad captains had recommended you be put more towards the front lines than stay in your current position. 

Some captains even wanted to test your strength (Kenpachi). Others simply wanted to see your Kido(Unohana and Ukitake). 

Some had already considered you tough after the first few weeks of joining ( Soi Fon). 

The rest wanted to see just what your zanpakuto was capable of (Aizen, Ichimaru, Kyoraku).

Not to mention that later in time the lieutenants and lower would recommend their peers, making it an even bigger challenge to keep you out of the front lines. 

With this much commotion and praise, why wouldn't you be moved to the second seat? Because that decision was still his and he intended to do his job despite the bias forming.

"Many of the other captains want to temporarily recruit (L/N) to see her skills in various levels. My only concern is that she's not fully grasping her zanpakuto techniques as I had hoped."

Renji was surprised that his own captain had not thought you were worthy of higher level training. He'd even stated that you were doing incredibly well when you first joined the soul society a year ago…

"Well then I think it's a good opportunity for her to branch out with other Captains and get to know the different squads. She's been training with both you and Toshiro ever since she joined."

While he wanted to disagree with his subordinate, Lieutenant Abarai was probably right, and it wouldn't make sense to disagree with the other captains as well. 

"Then who should I appoint her to? It isn't as clear as choosing between two captains when eight have shown an interest. Kenpachi is a definite no, Ukitake can't strain himself too much, Kyoraku is rather lazy when it comes to training. So who else would be a good match?"Byakuya looked up at Renji, hoping he could make a decent decision.

"Well that leaves Hitsugaya, Unohana, Soi Fon, Ichimaru and Aizen, right? Personally, knowing her and her combat abilities, I think she should train with either Aizen or Soi Fon, since the others still don't have the training type she would need to be successful."

Once again Sosuke Aizen was connected to you for an unknown reason. Why in the world would he be interested in your capabilities? Soi Fon he could deduce, she was the stealth squad captain and could significantly help you with battle tactics.

Of all the decisions he would make as a captain, this felt far too stressful. Personally he didn't think this new idea of passing around Lieutenants was a great plan. Shouldn't you stick with one mentor? Especially if that mentor is your captain? He's supposed to be teaching you these survival skills, not some other Captain he knows next to nothing about.

"I'll split the mentor training between the two of them then, Soi Fon one week, Aizen the next, and it will alternate until it is decided that the mentorship should end and her final abilities will be criticized by those who trained her, myself, and Head Captain Yamamoto."

For once Renji was glad he wasn't a favorite amongst the other Squad Captains, not expecting the training to have such an impact on your reputation as a soldier.

At that instance he realized something that was different about your positions. Even though Renji was the second seat underneath Captain Kuchiki, he never went through the rigorous training like you had. In fact, the very thought of his Captain sending you to deliver paperwork was unusual.

 "What if her training results don't meet the expectations? She's still an incredibly strong figure in the Court Guard Squads."

Byakuya merely glanced back towards the papers in hand, preparing to show them to the Head Captain and announce his decision to the others he would like you to train under. 

He looked towards his second seat once more before leaving his office, gray eyes cold and detached.

"That result could have multiple outcomes, but the two most likely of those are that she stays in her current position, or is dropped to fourth seat. The unlikely third choice is that she keeps training and eventually meets the expectations, staying at her level as lieutenant. And the final option, she is dropped from my squad and moved."

With that negative comment, he was gone, wanting nothing more than to get this meeting over with. It wasn't just the concept of the meeting that bothered him, but his inner soul was unsure if he had made the right decision. What if his decision would ultimately drop you farther in ranking? What if you did exceptionally well and were moved to a different squad entirely? Would you still be a lieutenant, but under a different superior? 

—-----------------------------------------

Idiotic Trio 

Meanwhile, you were currently being forced to answer ridiculous questions by Rangiku and Yumichika, once again.

"HE PUT YOUR NAME ON THE LIST!? (Y/N), YOU ARE SO LUCKY!! HOW DID IT HAPPEN EXACTLY!?"

It didn't matter who was asking the questions at this point, as both peers were head over heels for your news report.

"Uh yeah it wasn't all that exciting, but when I went to drop off the paperwork, he invited me into his quarters, and put my name down? It really wasn't a big deal, the only thing that really confused me was his change of appearance. He had completely changed his hairstyle and he wasn't wearing those glasses. I mean I understand, you have routines for sleep I guess…"

You realized you had made a terrible mistake when you started the explanation with your superior inviting you into his room.

"You totally slept with him, didn't you? It's such an easy decision, the guy looks like a god, and your name is on the list so that's a plus….", Rangiku began, completely missing the point of how many rules that every scenario would be suggesting as broken.

*No, that's not what happened at all! It was just really cold outside and he was being polite, unlike some people who think I would just sleep with a superior!"

They both sighed in defeat, secretly hoping you had gotten lucky, while also hoping you hadn't.

"Okay, so you didn't sleep with the guy, but he totally did ya' a favor? Seems mighty suspicious! And what do you mean he changed his appearance before bed? Was he even hotter?"Yumichika interrupted.

Once more you could feel heat rising to your cheeks, mind reflecting back to the close proximity of you and him.

"(Y/N), you can create ice clones right? Just show us what you saw!"Rangiku suggested.

As much as you wanted to shy away from this discussion, all hope had been lost when you arrived in the first place.

"I've been practicing making clones of myself, but I could try it out on someone else. But don't get your hopes up when it turns into a puddle of water."

You reached for the zanpakuto on your hip, slightly unsheathing the blade from the scabbard, and tried to imagine the scenes from the night before. What exactly did he look like? How tall was he again? Did his eyes always have the ability to stop you in your tracks? 

Soon enough the frost from your blade had formed into an exact replica of the man in your mind. The whole point of your clones was to make them seem living, as though they weren't made of the frozen material. But as you stared at the figure from your position on the floor your heart was striking against your chest with vicious beats.

"Holy shit, that's what he looked like!?You should have slept with him! I don't think I can handle it if you destroy it!", Rangiku exclaimed.

Those eyes never left you, following you as you stood up and walked around to examine the copy. Every detail was there, the way his hair was pushed away from his eyes, strands falling loosely down his forehead. Or how his uniform was the very same as the real deal that every Captain wore. Even as you knew it was just a carved piece of ice, it felt as though the real Sosuke Aizen was looking through you, trying to gain information from your stance, your expression, your proximity, your emotional range, and waiting for further instruction.

"What do you need, Lieutenant?"

Even his voice made you struggle to think clearly, matching the polite tone and warmth of the real Sosuke Aizen. Had your zanpakuto known what you were thinking? What you were imagining? What both Rangiku and Yumichika had suggested? Or had your soul been a catalyst to make the ice figures hand land on your jaw, cold enough to make you visibly shiver and almost recoil.

These clones were meant for battle, made to pick up on social cues and clear instruction from their summoner. But because of your lack of orders, this clone had gone off the assumption of your mind's memory, and your slight infatuation with the generous Captain of Squad Five.

"(Zanpakuto name) clone dismissed,"you instructed as the illusion crumbled and blew away, leaving nothing more than traces of frost where it previously stood.

Rangiku and Yumichika were too stunned to form a polite response, instead gasping as you returned to your position on the floor.

"Why did you destroy him!? I didn't get the chance to commit him to memory!" Yumichika whined.

That was part of the reason you destroyed the clone, an air of uncomfortability shadowing the room.

"Because I'm not leaving an exact replica of our superior walking around the barracks! Plus I can't keep it up for too long, you guys know that. Captain Kuchiki would be furious if he found out I was using my zanpakuto for something like this!"

Captain Hitsugaya appeared in the doorway, a frustrated expression on his face.

"What exactly would Captain Kuchiki be furious about, Lieutenant (L/N)? Are you slacking off again? You know I nominated you for a reason…"

All three of you idiots shut up on the spot, hoping he had not seen the replica or heard your previous conversation.

"Captain Hitsugaya, I was just practicing on my kido techniques, and Rangiku was helping me, but I need to take a break. I just don't want to overwork myself, especially before training begins next week. Also, aren't you supposed to be in that meeting with Head Captain Yamamoto?"

His eyes widened as he once again realized the joke was on him for trusting Kyoraku. That guy had told him the wrong time on purpose! At that realization he Flash-Stepped to the meeting, hoping he wouldn't be too late.

Even with the lighthearted air, your mind wandered back to moments ago. What did you want that clone to do besides show Rangiku and Yumichika? Would you have moved closer? And what about the real Captain Aizen? If he had done the same would you-

"Earth to (Y/N)? Hey are you alright?" The busty woman interjected.

"Yeah I'm just thinking about something I have to do, for the office. I think there was something about training inexperienced cadets, and I was thinking of signing up…"

The two energetic soul reapers glanced at each other before looking back at you with a blank stare.

"Signing up? Hey, wait isn't that taught by-"

"Captain Ukitake obviously! You guys need to get your minds out of the gutter! I would obviously be helping Ukitake because he's a really good mentor."

"He doesn't make you do any work! It's like you're signing up for nothing!"

"Maybe I would like to do nothing! Why can't I take a job that is easy? You guys act like I'm not allowed to take it easy," you sighed.

Without warning Rangiku put her hand against your forehead, feeling for any drastic changes in temperature.

"How often have you been using your zanpakuto?"

You wanted to say "not a lot" but that would be a lie, and lying to Rangiku was one of the most difficult tasks, especially when she knows the truth beforehand.

"A normal amount of time, why do you ask?"

"Because you're getting cold, like really really cold. And you didn't summon that clone for a super long time, so there's no reason you should be like this unless you overdid it again."

You glanced to the side, hoping your evasive maneuver would work against the redhead, but of course it did not.

"You did, didn't you!? (Y/N), you have to be careful about this stuff! What if you get sick and miss the training? Or you get sick during? Or you do super well but wear yourself out?"

You knew they were just worried about you, but it didn't dismantle the urge to defend yourself.

"I'll just take a hot shower when I get back to the barracks and I'll sleep it off. You guys don't need to act like I'm dying or anything."

Yet as you were about to stand, both of them grabbed an arm and pulled you back down, determined to make sure you were truly okay.

"But we're trying to be here for you and it's concerning when your ice acts up. Something else has to be going on?"Rangiku explained.

"Okay I admit I'm not one hundred percent amazing, but it's really stupid. Captain Kuchiki handed me some paperwork I needed to get signed by Captain Aizen, and it happened to be the recommendation forms. But under Captain Kuchiki's list of experienced soldiers, I wasn't on the list, and I didn't check any other lists. Why would my own captain not put me there? He's been complimenting my techniques in training…and Aizen signed my name."

Rangiku and Yumichika both put an instinctive hand on your shoulders, trying to support you as best as possible. For the rest of the day, all they did was look out for you, even asking if they needed to speak to Captain Kuchiki for you.

—------------------------------------

Sosuke always hated these meetings, dreading the idea of sitting amongst a group of people he really didn't care about. But if his plan in the Soul Society was to work, he needed to play the part, and that included attending the Captain only meetings.

"I've gathered you all here today to discuss the Lieutenants that have stood out most amongst our different squads, whether they be new or old, does not matter. Today we will only be basing this off Captain recommendations, and will have a meeting following the Lieutenant recommendations. Now I do not mean personal recommendations based on just feeling, but their skill as a Soul Reaper, as a protector of our realm and The World Of The Living. I will read off the names of those who have been prominently chosen, who they were chosen by, and ask why."

Okay maybe he had to admit that this meeting was a little interesting, seeing how the superior shinigami considered their subordinates.

"The first name I'll read is Lieutenant Renji Abarai with three recommendations from Captain Kuchiki, Ukitake, and Unohana. Why did each of you suggest this Lieutenant?"

Byakuya began, standing at the table and facing the Head Captain, keeping his voice even.

"Lieutenant Abarai is a strong soul reaper, who I feel would benefit my squad the most with his range and dedication."

Next was Captain Ukitake, who if he was being honest didn't think too much about this decision, opting to put down one of the first lieutenants he trusted. Unohana then addressed how Renji needed to work on his Kido, and she could teach him certain techniques to maintain his health on the field.

There were so many names that he found his eyes wandering around the room, regretting his choice to wear glasses he didn't need within the Soul Society, later gaining a slight headache when they were finally off. 

"One of the most heavily selected Lieutenants was officer (Y/N) (L/N) with several recommendations from Captain Hitsugaya, Ukitake, Kyoraku, Unohana, Zaraki, Ichimaru, Aizen and Soi Fon."

His interest was piqued once again, but he was annoyed at the fact Gin had purposefully picked your name as well. Whether they were comrades in a secret alliance or not, did not change the frustration building within his eyes.

Captain Hitsugaya's Recommendation

"Lieutenant (L/N) was my first choice because of her use of another ice zanpakuto. Her abilities are strong but she does not have the full capabilities yet to reach her potential. I would like to help her master these abilities before she slips up."

Captain Zaraki's Recommendation 

"The kid has incredible strength with just a Shikai, and I want to see just how tough she can get!"

Captain Ukitake's Recommendation 

"I can help her work on preserving strength when fighting with a health disadvantage."

Captain Kyoraku's Recommendation

"The girl has a spirit we haven't seen in a long time, and that alone proves her prowess as a member of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads."

Captain Unohana's Recommendation

"Like Captain Ukitake I want to help her understand her boundaries but not be completely limited by them. I want to teach her healing techniques if she is unable to manually patch wounds or side effects in battle."

Captain Ichimaru's Recommendation 

"Her reaction timing is rather fast, and I want to try my own tactics to see how she does."

Captain Soi Fon's Recommendation

"While she has a fast reaction time and speed, she can forget that stealth is important in battle. If she can master stealth, she won't need to worry about close combat as much."

He breathed out a sigh, waiting for the Head Captain to call his name, watching in silence as the others gave their opinions without fail. Their reasons were similar, all having high expectations and wanting to see you through. Some even wanted you to switch squads entirely.

"Lieutenant (L/N) can use her zanpakuto to make realistic ice clones, send long distance attacks, or freeze someone up close. I want to use Kyoka Suigetsu's power and teach her other ways to control the water around her if need be. Not only is her blade incredibly strong but her dedication exceeds any other lieutenant, including my own."

His eyes locked on Byakuya Kuchiki, well aware of the last statement undermining his supposed views of Renji.

"Does anyone else have something to say about the lieutenant in question? Or more plans to be decided?" Yamamoto asked, his eyes searching the room.

Byakuya stood back up, glancing at the brunette, before speaking once more.

"Head Captain, lieutenant (L/N) may be dedicated and her potential strong, but she is not ready to move up in rank despite the training we have yet to put in motion. She is at risk of her own zanpakuto and should not be rushed further into her duties until it is under control. We can not make blind assumptions based on strength and dedication alone."

Sosuke stood up next, along with Hitsugaya, both preparing to counter against the sixth division captain.

"We're not making assumptions, Captain Kuchiki, we are taking a calculated path to better suit her needs and improve her abilities, just as you should be. She only trains with you and Captain Hitsugaya, but she needs to be well rounded in everything to meet the goal. If you don't change anything, she won't get better," He challenged his colleague, trying his best to stay calm while getting his point across.

Toshiro nodded in agreement, as everyone stared in preparation for Byakuya's response.

"Then we'll see how the training goes, but don't be too surprised if it doesn't fix the issues at hand, Captain Aizen. Captain Hitsugaya."

With that note the Lieutenants were sorted by their respective Captains, and just like he said he would, Byakuya listed you under Aizen and Soi Fon, hoping that this escapade would be worth it. He actually did like the captain of the stealth squad, her being the apprentice of Yoruichi made her one of the best mentor options.

You were still at Rangiku’s, lounging around and trying to destress, no longer worrying about the past couple days. This brought back memories of when you first joined the Soul Society, how warmly she welcomed you, despite Toshiro reminding her of curfew and manners. Despite her captain’s indifferent demeanor, he was always kind to you and tried his best to keep you on the right track.

“What if I don’t do well? If Captain Kuchiki no longer sees me as his third seat? Would someone replace me or would there no longer be a second lieutenant?” 

You asked as she began to put some dishes away.

“That won’t happen, you’re too much of a badass! And if for some reason that does happen, eight other captains were floored by your skills!”

That response made you pause, not realizing that she had that information.

“You knew the whole time!? And which captains? Do you know what they said? Was it all good-”

“Yes, several captains, including myself, were quite impressed with your capabilities. But of course you know it falls on Captain Kuchiki to have the final declaration.” Toshiro entered the room, exhausted from the laborious meeting.

“The captains who put a good word in were myself, Captain Ukitake, Kyoraku, Unohana, Soi Fon, Zaraki,  Ichimaru and Aizen. We all agreed you were among the top protectors of the Soul Society. I don’t know which of us will be selected, I left afterwards, but I’m sure you shall know soon enough.”

You were still in disbelief, shocked that your superiors had even registered your  presence, let alone been impressed.

“Was there anything of note? Anything specific that is important?” 

Toshiro thought about your question and felt a thread of concern for how you would take this information. He didn’t know whether to tell you what Byakuya had said or leave it alone.

“I don’t have as many details as I would like to give you, but just know you’re in a good place with practically all of the squads, and certain captains are going to be persistent to have you switch divisions. If you want to know more you should go see your captain and ask for the rest. And please don’t tell him you know who recommended you, we’re not exactly close.”

You stood up from the dining table, wishing both Rangiku and Toshiro farewell, reminding yourself you needed to fill in Yumichika when he wasn’t working.

Byakuya's Reason 

The walk back to your division felt less intense that night, papers and signatures no longer confining you to work. Instead, you needed to focus on getting out of this slump, whether or not it would be easy. 

After all, if this is what it meant to be a Soul Reaper, then there was nothing more to do but train and learn. Although you wished it would involve more knowledge than training, you'd rather not be near Captain Kurotsuchi and his experiments.

No, the knowledge you craved was to understand why hollows existed, why they killed so mercilessly, and how to protect the World Of The Living for good. Was there a possibility to undo the replication and rise of the hollow population? Were there techniques that could truly hurt a hollow? Could a hollow be turned back into a previous form?

If you were demoted, was it possible to rise back in ranking? To be as acknowledged as you wished? For your job as a Soul Reaper to stretch beyond mundane tasks?

 You hoped you would never have to answer those questions, heart sinking at the thought of losing the dream keeping you afloat. Without your thoughts pulling you down further, you stepped into the Sixth division office, looking for Byakuya.

“So that’s it? You’ve decided not to keep her under your wing for the next few weeks? She will be your lieutenant in name only, don't you understand, Captain Kuchiki?” A muffled voice spoke as you neared the cracked, office door.

“If my training has not been sufficient, and other Captains are interested in her supposed prowess, what more can I do, Lieutenant Abarai?”

You peeked through the door, eyes straining to see the superior and subordinate engaged in a heated conversation. Renji seemed to be more vengeful,while Byakuya was trying to keep his tone in check.

“You can do so much more, you can train her more, or even try and talk to Yamamoto! You can’t just stop trying when your subordinate isn’t grasping the techniques! If you tried harder-”

“I am trying to do what is best for her and the Thirteen Court Guard Squads! I cannot go against eight captains, or Yamamoto! My techniques are not suited for training Lieutenant (L/N) the art of the zanpakuto, and neither are yours. She has extreme skill with Kido and managing her speed but there is more she needs to progress in. Captain Soi Fon will teach her stealth, while Captain Aizen teaches her sword techniques and healing Kido. That is the end of this discussion, Lieutenant Abarai, now please excuse me.”

Aizen's Reasoning 

You would have moved, but you had become distracted with the conversation and staying quiet. While you could not move from the hallway, you acted as though you were on your way out, standing near your own office door. His eyes briefly glanced your way before he continued to the exit, unable to say even the smallest greeting.

“(Y/N), I tried but he made up his mind as soon as the meeting ended,  he had already handed the documents to the old man. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more to help you, even if it’s just training assignments, I know this meant a lot to you.” Renji placed a hand on your shoulder, hoping his apology came across as genuine.

You pushed his arm away, that sinking feeling returning to your chest as everything clicked into place.

“Don’t apologize for something like this,it wasn’t your fault. At least eight captains thought I was worthwhile, yeah?” 

Renji hummed, slightly jealous of your bigger recommendation list, although he knew you weren’t happy.

“Yeah, we’ll see how that goes when your dumbass lands in trouble, especially with Captain Soi Fon. She’s pretty tough, even for you.”

You lightly smacked his arm at the nickname, remembering to steal his hair ties when the opportunity presented itself.

“Don’t forget who has a huge crush on his captain’s younger sister, that’s pretty stupid, even for you Renji.”

“What!? I do not! Rukia and I are just friends, same as always! You’re hanging out with Rangiku too much, your brain is dissolving into nothing but mush.”

At that comment you rolled your eyes, expecting nothing more than a jab at your friend group from Renji. 

“At least I have a brain, unlike you! Seriously, that Kido spell was not meant to blow up in your face! Didn’t you hear the instructions, Stupid strawberry?”

You attempted to block his hand that was aiming to flick your forehead, although it didn’t last long as you gripped his wrist and pushed.

“Do you two pick fights often? Or is it just when you’re in the office?”

You both froze at the joking tone, turning to see Aizen standing a few feet from your squabble, smiling as you stepped back from Renji.

“Oh, so sorry Captain, I was just talking to (Y/N) about training and got carried away.” Renji put distance between you and him, sheepish after being caught annoying you.

You sent a glare towards Renji, well aware that he was the one at fault here.

“Don’t worry, I’m not scolding anyone, but I was looking for your captain, and I needed to talk with him about the meeting from today. I assume he’s not here, given your antics, so I’ll be on my way.”

He turned around, heading for the stairway, when you began to follow. You turned to Renji who motioned for you to go ahead without him, and waved.

“Captain Aizen, wait! I need to ask you something!”

He could hear the patter of your footsteps close behind, pausing his strides and waiting for your question. 

“I know you put me in for the recommended lieutenants, and I don’t understand out of everyone, your reasoning for choosing me. I do appreciate your assistance in the matter, but you did not have to go to such lengths for a mere gesture.”

He laughed a bit at that sentiment, finding it amusing how confused this seemed to make you. 

“(Y/N), it wasn’t just a gesture, and what I said at that meeting was the truth, that I do respect you and your strength, going even farther than just a colleague. Captain Kuchiki did not think you were ready to move upwards in combat, he claimed you would be unable to stand the pressures, but I believe you easily could, with training. So rest assured, I have no intentions to force you to join my squad, or decrease your ranking in any way.”

He was about to continue walking, but decided to add more information.

“It’s your decision how you choose to use this training, not mine, or Captain Kuchiki’s. So don’t feel like you have to do anything at all, and that includes formalities like I said before.”

You hadn’t realized that he addressed you by your first name until mentioning a lack of formalities, but by that point he had started descending the stairs.

“You’re still my superior, and it isn’t a feeling, I know I need this training, whether or not you think I do, Captain Aizen. I know my abilities can grow, so if you’re worried about pushing my limits, then don’t be, I’m stronger than you might think.”

Your words, like everything else you said or did, had a certain edge to them, invoking curiosity where it lay buried in his soul.

"Then I guess I'll have to see you in action, (Y/N). Surprise me."

Those were his last words as he walked off, smiling at the pure confidence you displayed. If only you knew his intentions, maybe you would have stood a chance.

"You are hanging out with Rangiku too much! I swear you two both try to get in trouble!" Renji spoke from the second level of the office, chin in hand as he watched the encounter.

"Y'know maybe I'm hanging out with you too much, ever think of that, Lieutenant Abarai?"

Your mocking never ceased to amaze him, always making him question how you two formed such a strong friendship. Even if he did want to fault Rangiku, which he almost always did, you were your own person in that conversation. 

In fact it seemed as though he saw a spark light in your eyes the moment Byakuya left and Aizen arrived.

#reader insert #x reader #anime #female reader #ulquiorra bleach #bleach #fanfiction #sosuke aizen #byakuya kuchiki #grimmjow jaegerjaquez #ulquiorra cifer #part #mdni #suggestive #smut

[will-byers-needs-a-hug]

I just remembered the van scene and just Will in general

LOOK AT HIM HE LOOKS SO SAD-

AND THE FUCKING LOVE CONFESSION DURING MIKES MONOLOGUE

Daily I'm not okay as a Will Byer's kinnie-

I'M GONNA SCREAM SOMEONE GIVE HIM A HUG GOD DAMN IT

HE LITERALLY I'M GONNA SHAKE SOMEONE AGGRESSIVELY LIKE LOOK AT HIM HOW CAN HE WAS LITERALLY SHAKING

I'm gonna punch a wall fr

Johnathan I appreciate you for this like GHASFKLSDF;SJDAFSDJKL;FDS

I swear to god yes this post is chaos BUT LIKE I SWEAR TO GOD WILL BYERS NEEDS A HUG LIKE YES I DID IN FACT CHANGE MY USER CAUSE I SWEAR TO GOD-

LIKE FIRST HE GETS KIDNAPPED BY THE FUCKING DEMOGORGON

LOOK AT HIM HE'S SO SMALL YOU COULD PUNT HIM ACROSS A LAWN

HE SURVIVES THERE FOR LIKE A FULL WEEK

ONLY TO GET POSSED AND SPIT UP A DEMODOG

WATCH THE PERSON HE WAS IN LOVE WITH FALL FOR SOMEONE ELSE (he thinks he's not a trustable narrator we all know this)

Regretting the fact that I had to look up Mileven to find that gif-

BUT I'M JUST RANTING SO ITS WORTH IT THANK GOD TUMBLR AIN'T LIKE TWITTER-

ANYWAYS

ALL THAT ONLY FOR HIM TO CONTINUIOUSLY GET BRUSHED OFF BY HIS FRIENDS FOR WANTING TO PLAY DND, WHEN HIS ENTIRE CHILDHOOD BASICALLY GOT SNATCHED OUT FROM BENEATH HIM-

THEM CONTINIOUSLY SAYING NO

ONLY TO JOIN A DND CLUB AS SOON AS HE LEAVES LIKE PLEASE?? (I love the entire series don't get me wrong but like jesus- don't really have a point to this rant but like yes)

THIS SCENE WE ALL KNOW IT

Mike Wheeler I'm going to shake you aggressively-

BUT LIKE AFTER THIS FIGHT WHAT DOES HE DO-

DESTROYS HIS SAFE PLACE, LIKE FULL ON DESTROYS IT AND I SWEAR TO ACTUAL GOD-

Mike Wheeler I just wanna talk-

That's all just talk

Worst part is after that he doesn't ask to play again and just pain all I know is pain.

ARARARARA AND AFTER THAT HE MOVES

AND WHAT DOES MICHEAL WHEELER DO HE IGNORES HIM AND ONLY FUCKING TALKS TO EL- GIVES HIM THIS AWKWARD ASS PAT AT THE AIRPORT

LIKE HE WAS FULL ON SHAKING HE WAS SO EXCITED TO SEE HIM I'M GONNA

BLAMES HIM FOR THE DAY GOING BADLY

ALL THAT HIM CONTINIOUSLY PINING PUTTING HIS LITERAL HEART AND SOUL INTO THAT PAINTING LIKE LOOK HOW SOFT HE LOOKS HERE

HE PUT HIS WHOLE HEART AND SOUL INTO THAT ONLY TO USE IT TO BUILD UP MILVEN TO MAKE MIKE AND EL BOTH HAPPY

Anyone who says this boy is selfish is wrong literally so wrong he has never done a bad thing in his life and I will die on this hill-

Yes he's still in love with Mike even though yk his sister and whatnot but like the heart wants what it wants he can't exactly just cut those feelings off man </3

Stg Will Byer's deserves the world and I will die on this hill, thank you for coming to my ted talk.

#will byers #mike wheeler #byler #byler is endgame #will byers deserves better #will byers you will always be famous #platonic mileven #ignore how chaotic this is #will byers deserves happiness #will byers needs a hug #this is a whole ass essay I'm so sorry- #ignore my temporary insanity #stranger things

[anthurak]

So here’s something I’ve been thinking about for Volume 9 for a while now, but has really felt more prominent ever since the trailer:

What if the Ever After at first seems like some idyllic paradise for Team RWBY... and then it turns out that it pretty much IS exactly that. Sure, they may be a few dangers and some areas best avoided if possible, but on the whole the Ever After actually is very peaceful, idyllic, even fun, and safe. Especially compared to Remnant. Overall, far from the worst place to live...

Imagine that once Team RWBY has reunited, gotten their barrings and started getting a real sense of this place, they all start thinking ‘Is this really such a bad place to be stuck in?’

The thing is, Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang have some unique qualities as protagonists which make a potential ‘Leave Your Quest Test’ a VERY interesting plot point. When you think about it, Team RWBY isn’t exactly vital to the main plot as protagonists generally are. None of them are ‘The Chosen One’ or possess some super unique trait which is the one thing that can stop the Big Bad or hold some vital macguffin or are simply ‘The Best(tm)’ fighter(s) among the heroes by this huge margin. They’re important to be sure, but not quite in some easily apparent ‘the other good guys literally cannot win without them’ important, to either themselves or the audience.

And when we combine that with just how much unmitigated SHIT that Team RWBY has been through the past several volumes, I think the prospect of the girls deciding to just stop and settle down in this new world starts feeling particularly plausible.

Think about how Ruby in particular has begun feeling more and more responsible for pretty much the fate of the whole world and is clearly buckling under the obligations she’s put on herself. When we get to the point where Ruby finally admits just how exhausted and overwhelmed she is by this responsibility, I’d say its an all-too logical next step for her to simply let that go.

Imagine Team RWBY has gotten back together, got caught up on what they know, had all the emotional breakdowns that have come with it (mainly from Ruby), have started exploring the Ever After and getting settled into this new environment. And they start thinking ‘Maybe this place isn’t so bad...’

Sure, they try to figure out a way back home at first, but quickly find there is no apparent way back to Remnant. And after sitting with this for a bit, they begin to accept it.

Their friends and family can continue the fight against Salem. And besides, they tried to fight Salem, and they FAILED. So what more can they really do? Weiss might even be able to provide the others with a small bit of solace that almost everyone from Mantle and Atlas made it through the portal to Vacuo, so they know they did get achieve one victory in the end.

And this new place they’re stuck in isn’t so bad. It’s mostly peaceful, beautiful, even kinda fun, and it’s safe. Safe from the Grimm, safe from Salem. Team RWBY could just stay here and not have to fight anymore. Maybe it’s okay if they just... stop.

And there isn’t any malicious mind-altering effects from the Ever After forcing the girls to think this way either. Because there doesn’t NEED to be. The Ever After doesn’t need to be secretly nefarious. All it needs to be is just ‘better than Remnant’ for our heroines to start seriously considering just staying there.

It all makes the whole “Leave Your Quest” Test hit all the harder. It makes Team RWBY actually settling down and leaving their quest feel like entirely plausible.

(and as a side note; I imagine the girls haven’t found Jaune at this point. Remember that none of them, even Weiss, has anyway of knowing that he fell too. Team RWBY being lost but still together makes the possibility of just staying feel more plausible)

Heck, going back to the theories about the girls spending months or even years beyond the void while only weeks, days or even just hours pass on Remnant, imagine that we see Team RWBY actually settle down and just live peacefully for a while (months or perhaps even a few years) in the Ever After before something spurs them into action. Maybe finding Jaune who’s barely experienced any passing time at all, or stumble on something that might actually get them back to Remnant. Which of course brings up the question: Do they even WANT to go back...?

Now of course, I’m not positing that our heroines will ultimately flat out abandon their quest. Team RWBY ultimately will decide to return to Remnant and continue the fight. But all this makes the conflict and the decision to return, the decision to reject paradise and a peaceful life in favor of returning to help others hit all the harder.

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 9 #rwby theory #Team RWBY #Ruby Rose #Weiss Schnee #Blake Belladonna #Yang Xiao Long

[cream-and-tea]

happy sts! what would happen if your main characters swapped roles?

@rydykg

oohhhhh this is a really interesting one i’m actually gonna have to think about it for a bit. ty for the ask!!! apologies in advance for how long this will probably get!!!!!

hmm okay okay okay. i’d imagine an agnes who was put in pallases place would like. extremely worn down and probably a lot more jaded. i don’t think she really has the propensity towards lashing out and biting sharpness that pallas does and it’s a LOT harder for her to feign indifference, but she definitely wouldn’t be soft in any way either. her position as The Library’s top student and being used to do everything the director doesn’t want to dirty her hands with would leave her just. incredibly depressed and lethargic. and don’t get me wrong pallas is experiencing depths of self hatred uncategorizable by man, but i feel like roleswap!agnes would lack a lot of the persona they try to put on to cover it. she wouldn’t put time into the I Feel Like I’m The Worst So I Act Like I’m The Best act or effort into trying to seem cruel and controlled, mostly being very straightforward and grim in the work she does. agnes is absolutely desperate to be Seen and Loved and if anything, considering how her relationship with pallas plays out in canon, she’d be even more codependently attached to the director than they are and place her in much more of a surrogate parent role, probably bothering her a lot and wanting to spend time with her even when it’s not mission or training related. in general a roleswap!agnes would be much more likely to try and seek out connection and relationships instead of self-sabotaging every single social interaction the way pallas does. pallas tries to see everything as impersonal where agnes sees EVERYTHING as personal and that wouldn’t really change. i can definitely see her sadly spying on the regular students and classes and leaning on fiver for company in a way pallas would never do. she’d be much quieter, much more withdrawn and just incredibly weary with the world and her place in it. she’s even more aware than pallas that something is Fundamentally Wrong here, but is just so exhausted that she can’t bring herself to try and fix it. also for some reason the idea of her doing so much violent murder is funny to me like. the gawky teenage girl with the biggest, wettest, saddest brown eyes you have ever seen walks up to you and then bam. 50000000 ghosts ripping u apart limb from limb.

as for PALLAS i feel like so many of their already-existing neuroses would become greatly exasperated if they switched places with agnes and as a result somehow managed to have even LESS regular human contact than they already did before. especially in terms of their social ineptitude like. if you thought they were garbage at interacting with people before then prepare to be horrified and amazed at how roleswap!pallas, who has only interacted with two Actual Living People in their entire life, can run any and all conversations into the ground without even trying! there’s. uh. also the fact that agnes was raised Very Very fantasy-apocalypse-flavoured-catholic and i can see that kinda filling the place of The Library Cause that pallas clings to in canon. it would also make the gender thing a whole new flavour of Fucked Up And Incredibly Complicated that would play a pretty massive role in their arc that it doesn’t really in lmd proper. i do think that the whole not-having-committed-actual-murder thing would go a long way towards pallas not being as guarded, so they’d probably be a lot more unabashedly annoying and awkward and not so absolutely beaten down, but their relationship to their powers would almost be completely flipped on it’s head. they’d still be basing their entire identity and self worth off of them don’t get me wrong, expect instead of their magic being something they strive to perfect and control and being seen as prodigy roleswap!pallas would like. pull their powers out with their bare hands if they could. there’s no way with the general Atmosphere of agness upbringing combined with pallas paranoia would result in anything less then a violent repulsion towards any and all magic. and this would lead to a really interesting change of in events at the beginning of the story. because listen. agnes is a good kid but she’s also hardwired for Survival At All costs, which is what enabled her to join The Library and also do so (kinda sorta not really) of her own volition. in contrast pallas will pick a hill and die on it no matter how much it’ll damage them in the long term, so in a roleswap they’d probably have to be very literally dragged there kicking and screaming and resisting basically every step of the way, trying to deny that they see agnes as a person, much less that they’re starting to grow close to her and care about her wellbeing. which like. i didn’t think i could make that relationship any more fucked up then it already is but here we are ig.

#the dynamic i’m picturing for this swap is pallas being full panic mode thinking like. ‘she’s plotting to kill me. this is the face of a #murderous witch. she’s tried to work her evil magic on me well it woNT WORK! I WILL RESIST! #I WILL NEVER TAKE PART IN YOUR EVIL PLAN YOU VILLIA-‘ #and it cuts to agnes staring blankfaced out of the window suffering from the horrors rotating #mama by mcr in her head on a 24hr loop #also wow that’s WAY longer than i thought i am so sorry #these two just already have so much going on lol it’s hard to be concise #like the parallels are already off the fucking charts #creme gets an ask #wip: ghost story #pallas and agnes

[dukeofriven]

SNW's unwillingness to free itself from canon is best illustrated in this image: it is presented as triumphant, Uhura clearly deciding that her place in in Starfleet, that her place is here on the bridge of the Enterprise. But we the audience know that, practicably speaking, her only place ends-up here. Outside of that one quasi-canonical TAS episode where she gets to command the Enterprise, by the TOS era Uhura will—functionally speaking—almost never leave this chair. In episode after episode her only job will be to say 'hailing frequencies open, captain' and nothing else. MLK famously had to beg Nichelle Nichols to stay in the role because he thought it so important for racist 1960s white America to see a professional black woman so prominently on television. His logic makes sense, but from 2023, examining TOS from the perspective of character in a world with better racial casting (in Star Trek, I mean: whatever NuTrek's flaws, its commitment to racial diversity has been really good), TOS' Uhura is barely more than a prop. No wonder Nichols wanted to quit: she's ill-used in almost every TOS episode and absolutely in every film. Frankly it feels like the 'glorious future' SNW is pushing Uhura towards is one informed by an understanding of the character as she exists in the broader realm of fandom, not the crummy reality of the text. This is why I find SNW's approach to canon so frustrating: it wants to break free and do its own thing, to tell fresh stories and have exciting new takes on familiar characters who never got the chance to really shine—but it keeps reflexively shoving TOS-is-our-canonical-future in our face: remember the Gorn? Remember Talos IV? Remember what will happen in The Menagerie? Remember how Spock and Chapel will be kind of romantic in one episode once in the first season and then it'll largely be forgotten about? Remember? REMEMBER? For all the legacy characters other than Spock, the 'future' of Strange New Worlds is death. Literal, in some cases—we know Sam Kirk's going to wind-up a blink-and-you'll-miss it corpse in Operation -- Annihilate!., and crispy Pike's fate is framed entirely as essentially death (abelist issues there for sure). The death is figurative in others: Uhura and Chapel will lurk in the background saying 'comms open' and 'yes, doctor.' M'Benga will get demoted to McCoy's deputy, show up in two episodes, and then never be mentioned again. That's not a future worth arriving at. Not for these more dynamic and interesting versions of these characters. So why do it? Why make these characters people who will end up as nothing? No matter how satisfying SNW's Uhura's story is, why do you want to link her to a future so narratively sterile for her? Does she not deserve better? I like TOS. I love TOS. It's often thoughtful and meaningful television, full of issues, plagued by actor egos, Roddenberry's sclerotic management, and all sorts of production problems—but at its best, when everything aligned, it is some of the most important television of its era. It has endured for generations for a reason. But that doesn't mean every element is good: the bridge crew outside of the triumvirate get more to do than the poor bridge crew of Discovery, but not by much. SNW keeps trying to chart a middle path between two better options, ending-up with a deeply unsatisfying worst of both worlds: not canon enough to satisfy the not insignificant portion of the fanbase for whom that's a serious concern (and for whom that's the entire fun of a prequel: spending more time in an era they know and love), but too canon-reliant to be unburdened by it. 'Here's our version of Uhura, but don't worry everyone, she might seem different but we promise that one day she'll be the woman who does nothing for a whole season other than sit in a chair with a dookickey in her ear and answer her boss' space phonecalls." Uhura looks at that console as her future, but all I want to do is scream "RUN! RUN FAR, FAR AWAY AND NEVER RETURN!"

#uhura #nyota uhura #strange new worlds #snw #tos #star trek #trek #nurse chapel #m'benga #TAS