#um gay people & the things they say to seduce one another i guess

[unicyclehippo]

touch

‘you know i’m like this all the way down, don’t you? it isn’t - it isn’t an act, i do laugh it off sometimes dear, it can be terribly funny but. i am like this. forever. and it’s—could you—do you think you might be able to withstand that for a long time? i should like to be with you for a long time but it would depend on - on when you get exhausted, you see, because i must live with this or - ha - not live with, i suppose, but survive, contend, with this for however long i shall live but you, well.’ laudna’s twists her face into graceful acceptance. soft, understanding, hardly sad at all. it’s very easy to do, once you have the trick of it. ‘you needn’t. deal with this. the bark and the hair and the nails. the popping joints. the ichor, the aches, the smell, the stares, the rot.’ the word drops between them, gross, embarrassing, like she’d spat by accident. her teeth are hatesharp in her mouth. ‘the teeth,’ she adds.

imogen looks up from the book she studies with such careful, wonderful intent. so smart. she quirks a brow, amused. ‘i know what you are, laud. you forget we’ve been travellin’ together awhile now?’

‘no, no.’ her stomach twists, her hands twist, knot, roots. so is she, rooted in place. ‘i know, dear, i only mean to remind you—should you need a moment to yourself, or, or should something in particular sicken you—‘

‘laudna.’

she sinks low. imogen isn’t listening. of course not. she is kind. she lo-hmm. yes, well, laudna can surmise imogen likely loves her. which is, well, lovely! but they haven’t been in love for very long and laudna has never done it before, romance, love, but she knows herself. how she clings to things. she knows herself. love to her is like…tar. sticky and black, bubbling and pouring up and up around their ankles their calves their knees her beautiful knees. if imogen doesn’t know that now then gods help her, what if she drowns her—them—in it? and she would, imogen would stay with her she would be pleased by it, even, because she loves her, but there is something wrong with it. impossible to know if it has always been this or if it’s all the death and the accessories she’s obtained through it—lady d, trauma, blah blah blah—but she thinks she has a capacity for love like a pyre, grease-fire and rising choking smoke; like a hungry dog, snapbite shut around the hand outstretched. and she knows what she wants for imogen, the kind of love she deserves, and how far it is from what she has to offer.

‘what are you afraid of, honey?’

laudna nibbles at her bottom lip. she takes up the bone she has been carving and turns it between her fingers, not wanting to see the moment imogen sees her, maskless, exposed.

‘i want to hold you until we both die,’ laudna says, sad and sweet. ‘i want to lay down in a grave with you side by side and i shall never move again and every worm that comes to eat us up will be little versions of us, because they’ve fed on us, and they will be in love and they’ll feed all the farms and chickens and we’ll be a thousand souls in love. i want to open up your scars and see what is under your skin, what your magic does under there. i want,’ she says, and folds her elbows close to her rotten chest, folds herself small, words small, so not a page stirs, not another soul could be stirred by what she admits. ‘i want to taste it. i want to grow into a tree and grow around you like armour like a second skin so you are always safe and maybe grow taproots, grow into you. through you. i want you as part of me forever. i want to touch you, i want to always be touching you, i want you to never be able to move without feeling me beside you, i want you to crack me open and see how vile it is inside of me and plunge in neck deep and when you struggle to get out, i want to hold on.’ she pauses. ‘i want to dislocate my jaw.’

imogen sits very still. her eyes very dark. she lets out a slow breath, pink tongue flicking out to wet her lips. ‘what-‘ she clears her throat. ‘what does that last one have to do with me?’

‘it doesn’t really. but. i’ll always be quite horrible to be around and i want you to be with me anyway.’

#prompt fill #tagging my stories #imodna my beloveds #um gay people & the things they say to seduce one another i guess #lowkey like body horror elements I guess idk just typical laudna stuff

[okay-victoria]

Love of My Second Life: Tanya & Romance

This is both my take on why, despite seeming like the easiest and healthiest relationship to write, TanyaxVisha is up there with TanyaxMary in difficulty level for pulling off successfully, what I’ve seen go wrong in fanfic so far, and what needs to make it/any romance go right.

Where to start, where to start...um, a warning, for obvious reasons I’m going to have to talk about sex.

The Age Difference

This has the joy of being a bit creepy on both ends of the spectrum! Yay.

Visha Being Creepy

Visha is probably 5 - 6 years older than Tanya. While as more mature adults that age difference is relatively negligible, Tanya being 17/18 and Visha being in her early 20s doesn’t make it suddenly a non-issue. If you and a coworker, both in your first job out of college, went to happy hour and you met his/her significant other and they were a senior in high school, would you feel good about that?

The age-of-consent laws in bygone eras may help your case for why in-story characters give a pass to such things, but it doesn’t really help explain it to your readers. Unless I’m missing something, no one is reading this story from 1920s/30s Germany, and so it needs to have the relationship explained in a way that tries to work for modern standards. Additionally, I think people tend to mix up age-of-consent with “people found this generally appropriate”. A 19 year old dating a 59 year old violates no laws in the United States, but that doesn’t mean that most people are going to consider it a loving and healthy relationship without any proof. Even your in-story characters are probably going to have some thoughts.

The final issue, from Visha’s end of the spectrum, is that even when Tanya is aged up to 18+ and has gained some secondary sexual characteristics, she is sometimes still presented as being an “eternal loli” who can be easily be mistaken for someone around 14/15, an age at which girls normally have some secondary sex characteristics, but distinctly immature ones. I imagine this problem stems from two places:

1) Scenes when Tanya’s lolidom is brought up are not the same scenes as the romantic ones, so the problem is not as obvious to the author and

2) Author forgets that “short+small boobs+doesn’t have wrinkles yet” does not actually result in people looking like they are mid-puberty. Without being really creepy, as women age, their breast tissue drops down and to the side, waist/hip/leg ratios change, and the face loses its baby fat, among other things. Writing that references Tanya as looking like a teen comes along with the unfortunate implication that she actually looks like she is still mid-puberty, and Visha...is into that, instead of being someone who is attracted to petite POST pubescent women.

These are all extremely fixable problems. Really, all an author has to do is make Visha acknowledge that it’s weird, and probably try to talk to Tanya about her reservations before she starts trying to seduce her. It’s the handwave that is the issue. For the last/puberty problem, unless there is some reason I probably don’t want to know about that the author only wants to write the relationship if Tanya looks 14, simply describe her as a petite but adult woman, and if you need to use her looking young as a plot point, have her make an effort to adapt her adult characteristics to suit or hope that nobody looks hard enough to tell the difference.

Tanya Being Creepy

While Tanya is physically the junior member of the relationship, mentally, she is the senior, and by a lot. Tanya knows this. While I don’t necessarily think Salaryman is the Earth’s most morally-pure man, I have a high enough opinion of him to think that he was not pursuing college girls when he was like 35. Tanya should also have a moment of thought over this, or the relationship needs to wait until Visha is closer to her late 20s, when she is approaching a similar level of life maturity that Salaryman would have felt was close to his own.

Even if you think that Salaryman’s logical side would have been eroded by his “but I’m a guy, I can’t help it, college girls are hot” side [I’m side-eyeing you], I think it’s very unlikely that living as Tanya, and being on the receiving end of that kind of stuff, wouldn’t make her reconsider her stance on it, at least a little.

I know, I know, Visha’s been to war! She’s not the same as some random college girl in 2020! While this is allowable as a partial justification, because it is true, it ignores a whole lot.

First off, maturity is not a straightforward drive. All parts of you do not mentally mature at the same time. If you want to write early 20s Visha as a mature-enough partner for Tanya, a bit of time needs to be spent on what Visha loses because of it - she never has, and never will, get to be that happy-go-lucky girl. While making fun of young women for being dramatic gossips, obsessing about non-serious things, etc remains a popular sport, thinking that you are doing Visha a favor by taking that time of her life away from her says pretty terrible things about how society values women’s relationships with each other. If you don’t mean for your fanfic to accidentally imply that, it’s something that needs some love & care.

Alternatively, you could write a story in which Visha, while being a competent adult, still gets space to explore her “girly” side. If doing so, you are going to have to make a really strong case for why Tanya is willing to put up with this, as Salaryman does not come off as someone who would judge it a good use of time & effort to be constantly letting his girlfriend rattle off about things he thinks are silly and immature - there’s a lot of other fish in the sea, why not find one that is a competent adult *and* isn’t often talking about things you don’t care about.

The Canonical Setup of Visha & Tanya’s relationship

Opposite Goals

In a nutshell, Tanya is presented as a person that wants to live a safe, boring, and non-notable life, is doing her best to get there, and is constantly failing and being stressed about it because she needs to figure out a new plan. Visha is presented as someone who has major qualms about Tanya as a human being, but has a nigh-worshipful respect for her heroic officer side.

This is a massive, and I mean MASSIVE problem. You absolutely cannot ignore that what makes the characters happy is diametrically opposed to each other. Can you overcome it? Yes, by slowly developing the characters towards a compromise, but you can’t just not acknowledge it and expect me to think this relationship has any hope of leaving both partners happy. Either Tanya never escapes her never-ending stress cycle, or she does, and the entire basis of Visha’s attachment to Tanya disappears.

This can be fixed by: 1) Tanya coming to terms with a new side of herself, one that wants to be that hero. This cannot just be a one-paragraph epiphany. Tanya is shown to hate when she thinks her internal self is being changed by her new experiences and she needs a lot of work to get to a point where she is willing to acknowledge this in herself.

2) Visha has to go through a rocky part where she second-guesses herself - she thought she wanted Tanya, but turns out, Tanya isn’t the person she thought she is? How and why does she decide that she likes the person Tanya has become? This is probably the easier route, but I think runs the risk of having an author have Visha *say* Tanya does all these other good things for her, but never really show it happening.

3) The happiest medium is probably one where Visha *mostly* adapts towards Tanya, so Tanya gets to live a quiet but not too quiet life, and Visha learns to love another side. As Visha is compromising more in this sense, a healthy relationship is going to include Tanya realizing what is happening and deciding to make an effort to appeal to Visha and not just be like “Take me as I am. Or don’t.” and Visha unilaterally decides to accept that.

Why Does Tanya want to be in a relationship with Visha?

Tanya betrays no actual emotional attachment to Visha in the light novels. While you can read in rationalization to the reasons Tanya gives to her actions, she herself does not believe that it is because of an emotional connection.

Canonically, Tanya is portrayed as liking Visha because of how well Visha passes the “usefulness” test. This brings up another MASSIVE problem - does Tanya, in any way, shape, or form, actually like Visha as an individual, or just  her ability to conform to the role Tanya wants her to play?

Look, I don’t need Tanya to be in LOVE with Visha in the way we usually talk about people being in love to believe that Tanya can be in a relationship successfully. I’m fully on board with a portrayal in which Tanya can’t quite summon that level of emotion. However, she needs to like and respect Visha as an individual person, and summon a level of emotion beyond friend with benefits.

IMO, it is really hard to do that without showing Tanya and Visha disagreeing on a major piece of Tanya’s philosophy and Tanya actually listening and responding positively to it, not simply agreeing to disagree because it isn’t worth upsetting her useful sidekick, or whatever. There needs to be character development of both characters - Visha finding it in herself to be comfortable rocking the boat, and Tanya having a compelling enough reason to change something that she has clung to for two lives.

Everyone wants to be a lesbian

While I get it, the Empire is not the exact same as Germany, and yes, I know that Weimar Germany was relatively sexually progressive, it’s really not something that a well-written romance should handwave.

“Weimar Culture” in many ways developed as a result of how WW1 went for Germany. If you have a story where WW1 doesn’t go that way for Germany, gay culture is unlikely to flourish to the same degree.

All that aside, Tanya isn’t someone that is going to easily shrug her shoulders and say “you know, sometimes you need to jeopardize your career for the sake of hot sex/love”. She’s pretty clear on which she prioritizes. A lesbian relationship is not going to help her here, and she’s going to be aware of it. She needs to struggle with that choice.

Visha not struggling to accept herself as a lesbian is also somewhat of an oversight. It’s pretty unlikely that a woman born in her time period would come to terms with that easily. Visha is also never shown being attracted to other women besides Tanya, which carries a weird “I’m only a lesbian for you” vibe that is like a gross parallel of a straight guy wanting a lesbian to be so attracted to him she can’t help it, she wants the D.

And now, we enter the realm of Tanya’s relationship with her identity and sexuality.

Tanya is shown to have mental qualms both about entering a straight or lesbian relationship in her new life. The reasons behind those qualms are not explored at all in the LN, but they should be in a story in which Tanya goes into a relationship.

No matter which path puberty takes her down, there is the issue of Tanya being comfortable having sex as a woman. Even if it is with another woman, it is not going to be particular similar to the way she had sex with women as a man. That type of thing is pretty tied up with our identity. Tanya hates having her internal, I haven’t changed identity threatened, and not being able to give sexual pleasure/needing to receive it differently is the type of thing that is probably going to come along with some emotional reservations on her part.

Again, sexual identity being a part of our overall identity, while Tanya may remain attracted to women, that means her identity is now as a gay person, not a straight person. Given her biases from both growing up in Japan and the state of gay rights in her new life, it would seem atypical that she would consider this a non-issue and it wouldn’t make her question her priorities or the type of person she thought she was.

But...The Sex?

Look, I get it, sometimes you wanna see certain characters bang. We’ve all been there.

While yes, I recognize that many humans make terrible decisions solely in pursuit of sex, and so it’s perfectly realistic to have Tanya and Visha do the same and say that’s why you’re handwaving everything else, it is an extremely lazy storytelling technique, especially since neither character seems likely to go to extremes for it.

Because people focus so much on sex appeal, unfortunately, they use it as a substitute for making a good case for the relationship. Visha/Tanya is so attracted to Tanya/Visha, that now they are willing to undergo character development, because the pulsing loins urge them to. Really?

Do at least some of it first, lay the groundwork for romantic attraction before you slam them with physical attraction. While it often works the opposite direction in real life, that undercuts the romantic side in fictional story-telling.

I also think that because of the focus on their attraction to each other, what ends up missing in all TanyaxVisha fanfics I’ve seen so far is the tension. That makes it boring, I don’t care about it, and the entire reason I don’t care about it is because the choice to handwave the inconvenient facts means there is nothing in the way besides Tanya being a dumbass, which you can only do for so long without it becoming boring.

They are both attracted to each other, and admit it to themselves. Neither sees any real problem with the relationship other than not knowing if the other person likes them, but they aren’t even hung up on it and mostly work on straightforwardly winning the other person.

When in doubt, blame it on The Patriarchy

As far as we know, Tanya isn’t pining for relationship, and never thinks about a romantic relationship from her old life. Combined with other things Tanya says, it is hard to imagine Salaryman ever had a “considering marriage” relationship - more like, he may have felt partnership had some desirable aspects, but probably never was able to compromise on his kind of extreme worldview enough to try to make it work with someone, just figuring he’d find “the one” one day that wasn’t going to make him compromise.

While of course, you should not need to change everything about who you are for a romantic partner to like you, saying “you should like me for me” and then putting in exactly zero effort to do things because you know they are important to your partner, even if they aren’t for you, is not one of the keys to a successful relationship.

While it is not a problem inherent to Tanya & Visha’s relationship like the above sections, it is a problem in all forms of how I’ve seen the relationship written. It fails to answer a fundamental question: WHAT CHANGED?

Why did Tanya want love/a relationship/a wife in this life, and not in her last? If she did want it in her last life, why did she successfully find love/a relationship/a wife in this life, and not in her last?

Unfortunately, skipping the answer to this question implies that nothing changed. The success is then entirely reliant and Visha, and that brings along with it a really ugly answer.

Visha’s professional I’ll-do-anything-for-you is equated to a personal I’ll-do-anything-for-you, and she very much accepts Tanya for who she is, through all the flaws that are definitely there and that presumably no woman in Salaryman’s life was willing to put up with. Tanya doesn’t have to undergo any character development to be capable of making the relationship work.

This has some really, really unfortunate undertones. It is the very reason why even legal-but-large age difference relationships often aren’t healthy, because the older partner, instead of trying to be someone capable of contributing to the life of someone their own age, decides it’s easier to find someone younger who doesn’t know better and is more willing to put up with their bullshit. That, then, turns into a creepy grooming undertone - you make the less experienced partner think this is normal.

It really isn’t normal or good that Visha should have to put up with a relationship in which she never discovers who she wants to be because she’s so caught up Tanya’s idea of how to live your life. That is borderline emotional abuse, I am sure no one intends it to be there, but without giving some serious treatment to character development, unfortunately, it is.

To me, this has some of the worst overtones of the worst types of male fantasy - My Manic Pixie Dream Girl is completely devoted to me, and instead of emotionally adding to her life and/or our relationship, she is completely fine with me substituting being a Strong Heroic Man who occasionally buys her Nice Things. She demands I change nothing of myself and completely agrees with my Logical Man worldview, no matter what she needs to change about herself to get there. She’s hot, and I get to simultaneously be a straight man and have hot lesbian sex. Even better, because she’s a “strong” woman who is capable in her own right, not only am I physically satisfied, but I get the ego boost of “earning” the submission and subordination of a woman who is better than most people, because she knows I’m better than her.

Honestly, the more I think about it, the grosser it gets, so as far as fanfic goes I just try to ignore it and understand that the authors intention wasn’t to bring along all this baggage. However, to truly write a good Tanya x Visha story that gets away from all these unfortunate implications is a big undertaking, and it’s really impossible for it to make for a compelling side-plot that doesn’t get much screentime.

I’m generally fine with handwaving issues for sideplots, but if Tanya is making decisions because of her relationship with Visha that are now affecting the main plot, it really isn’t something that *should* be handwaved.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

#OpEd

[theropoda]

3, 4, 6-8, 11, 13-17, 19-22, 26-30 uwu

WOO LAD THAT’S A LOT THANK U!!! this got long and i wrote an essay or two LOL so im putting it under a readmore!

3: Best game you’ve ever played? WEEEELLLL.......let me preface this with two things: one, i am a FAKE GAMER as in my laptop is not at all made for gaming, it’s piss poor, so a big chunk of games i’m interested in is because i watched a playthrough of them lol. i have a 3ds but only 3 games on it (animal crossing new leaf, tomodachi life, nintedogs & cats). second, i’m very bad at choosing favorites of things.....BUUUUT .....i choooooose, in no particular order, OFF, pigeonetics, elder scrolls oblivion, pathologic classic HD!! i’m more than likely forgetting a few though, so sorry about that

4: Worst game you’ve ever played? as i said above, cannot choose favorites, neither can i choose whatever the opposite of favorites is but...uhh, does lif even count as a game? like lif, the stupid little furry flash game i remember playing on some shady website. it was surprisingly very active with a BUNCH of people there but i kept dying like every 5 seconds....AWFUL

6: A game that’s changed you the most? WELL define Changed.....ummm aha first thing that comes to mind is OFF. it’s one of those things where you never knew you wanted something so fucking bad until you saw it--and it’s like that for me. i NEVER knew i loved that odd, surreal, colorful, “looks playful and simple in some parts but incredibly violent and unnerving in other parts” aesthetic til i played it. like aesthetically i love that game to BITS and something about it just stuck with me til the end of time.

later in life (meaning, past year or so) it changed me because it taught me a lesson about storytelling and creative endeavors. a very useful lesson. which is: things don’t really need to have a meaning. stories, art, music, writing, whatnot, while it CAN be deep and meaningful, while you CAN use it as a way to communicate with the world about all kinds of heartfelt things, it can also be...nothing, really.

once i, as usual, got ridiculously overwhelmingly sad about small things. specifically seeing other people around me come up with all kinds of deep and meaningful characters and stories, sometimes putting them into webcomics or writings of theirs, and they were all so well-thought out and detailed and what i envied most was people put a lot of themselves and their experiences into them, venting and coping through them, whilst also making these larger-than-life grandiose complex stories and worlds and so on and so forth.

it made me look at my own ideas and get mad/frustrated at how shallow they were. but then i remembered OFF and i felt better because Fun Fact, mortis ghost has a now-abandoned dA account and if you go through the comment section on his profile, he answers a lot of fan questions and he mentions several times that the game didn’t really have a “meaning”, it didn’t really have a “deeper story” or moral or anything, really. i’m paraphrasing this but i vividly remember him saying “i wanted to make a game, so i did”.

that made me feel a lot better because it made me realise that sometimes art--especially stories, in my case-- doesn’t NEED to be DEEP or have MEANING...sometimes it can just BE!!!! sometimes it really can just be all about AESTHETICS like who GIVES a shit if there’s a hidden meaning if you take the first letter of all of your characters’ names and put them backwards, sometimes all that matters is if they just VIBE with you y’know....

yume nikki is similar in this regard bc that game doesn’t have any story other than “collect egg” and yet it’s so impactful. that game doesn’t have a story or meaning it just IS........ :) GOD THATS SO LONG IM SORRY ABOUT THAT but yeah. funny violent ghostbusting baseball man is a game that changed me :)

7: A game you’ll never forget? OFF AGAIN LOL,,, it’s just so memorable because of how unique it is. visuals, soundtrack, story, everything is so memorable. unforgettable. oh god you can tell how much i love this damn game can’t you

8: Best soundtrack? yakuza 0, OFF, there is a picture (another game by mortis ghost, again composed by alias conrad coldwood who also composed OFF), pigeonetics (the entire soundtrack of which is here), jojo’s bizarre adventure all star battle and eyes of heaven, silent hill 2 & 3, undertale....probably forgetting more but all of these...earcandy

11: Hardest game you’ve played? i am a shitty gamer so this is Most games i’ve played lol!! but uhh..well you see. hardest game i remember playing as of recent is pathologic classic hd in which it’s...not only hard to understand what any character is saying at any given time lol but also, i don’t think it’s HARD it’s just...you need to focus. you REALLY need to fucking focus and pay attention in this game. so i wouldn’t say its HARD, but i’m only putting this here bc it’s in recent memory.

i say recent memory because the true answer is susceptible to “yeah, but now you’re older, it must not be so hard.” as in if i played it now i think i’d have a way easier time. but when i was around....10-12 years old i had several ps3 video game adaptations of animated movies and i had SUCH a fucking hard time with them. g-force, bolt and up in particular were fucking HARD. like genuinely, the hardest time i had EVER had in my live playing video games is tied to these three fucking games. g-force and bolt ESPECIALLY. one particular level in bolt took both me AND my sister around a year to fucking finish.

again, i was baby, so i bet i’d have a much easier time with them now that i’m 17. but for now, in my experience, bolt and g-force for the ps3 were harder than pathologic classic. i think icepick lodge should take a few notes for them for pathologic 2.

13: A game you were the most excited for when it wasn’t released yet? STREETS OF KAMUROCHO...i spent the entire day of its release anticipating its launch lol

14: A game you think would be cool if it had voice acting? hmm..most games i like and know about do have voice acting so i dunno....i guess it would’ve been kind of cool if morrowind had like, full proper voice acting. but i can understand why it only voice acted things like greetings and battle insults because GOD that game is SO...complicated...and as a result, the conversations are so lengthy and text-full. playing morrowind is really like a goddamn book! if it was voice acted i’m sure all that information would have to be shortened bc i know no one is going to fucking voice act two whole paragraphs

15: Which two games do you think would make an awesome crossover? pigeonetics and yakuza in which instead of being about the criminal underworld it’s about shady and unethical pigeon clubs, breeding, racing, etc etc...a lot of illegal shit does happen in the world of pigeons especially when it comes to racing; prized racers have been kidnapped and held for ransom before. and then there’s Avian Cucking: The Sport, where people breed the sexiest pigeons (horseman thief pouters), release them outside to seduce other people’s sexy pigeons, and bring them back and keep ‘em, drama ensues. will kiryu ever escape his past as a professional pigeon-napper, and find solace in his new life as a pigeon hobbyist? find out now by playing YACOOZA......

JOKES ASIDES i don’t know i really don’t....umm, pigeonetics and animal crossing somehow?? :O... like, instead of managing your own town it’s managing your own loft!...orrrr, the jojo games (all star battle & eyes of heaven) with yakuza, because i think they’re somewhat similar because they’re both haha Wacky Silly AND serious over the top fighty-fighting.....or maybe a crossover with OFF and discover my body, which, despite being an incredibly short and obscure indie game i still love to bits for what it’s worth. WAIT ANIMAL CROSSING AND MINECRAFT THAT WOULD FUCK SO HARD OH MY GOD

16: Character you’ve hated most? From what game? i can’t think of any character i like, HATE...with a burning passion.. there are a few i dislike or have a complicated relationship with though.. i’m not interested in the series anymore but ouma from drv3...i’ll admit that he is a bit fun sometimes, especially in the very early beginning he’s a likeable brat but as the game progresses he becomes more irritating than anything and i have an issue with him in regards to writing, despite the fact that i have never been awake in any english class ever lol. it’s too long to put in this already long post but i’ll keep it at that. if you like him, well, good for you for finding joy in something i couldn’t! but he just doesn’t do it for me.

AH I JUST REMEMBERED....MINE......FROM YAKUZA 3....maybe i’d change my mind if i watched a playthrough of y3 again, because i think you always absorb something better on your second watch (tho i honestly Dont have the energy to do that all over again, the yakuza games are too fucking long), but i really hate his writing. spoilers for y3 but, i think mine’s writing, alongside other things in the game, were super messy...and a big part of why i hate him is that not only is he one of those “could’ve had great potential but fell flat” sorta guys but also his love for daigo is seen as some fans as good gay rep and i?????/.............um....WELL let’s just say that, i think people nowadays will see any gay character ever in any circumstance and say it’s good gay rep just based off the fact that A Gay Character exists....he was Not, good gay rep imo....he was not, let alone, Good. .........

17: What game do you never tell people you play? can’t think of any games i wouldn’t tell people i play.. idk exactly what this question’s asking. does it mean what game you don’t tell ppl you play bc you’re embarrassed about it...? i’m not very embarrassed by any of them. the only thing that comes close, i guess, is uhh lioden and wolvden. i’ve only interacted with those communities a LITTLE TINY WEE BIT, yet of what i’ve seen it’s a goddamn dumpster fire and i’d never want to be associated with them lol

19: Which game do you think deserves a revival? i’m well aware it’ll never happen and that it’s more a wet dream than anything but...PT/silent hills..... on a more realistic/”could happen” note, PIGEONETICS!!!! SERIOUSLY, it’s an amazing game about amazing animals and it teaches genetics in a very simplified and efficient way!! genetics is SO hard for me to understand, i fucking hated studying it but this game really helped me understand how it works AND its super engaging and interesting!! HOWEVER, of all the pigeon genes we know of, only a handful were seen in pigeonetics and i’d LOVE a sequel that employs new game mechanics AND new genes!! i wanna learn about bronze and stencil genes! i wanna learn about phenotypes like grizzled and pied!!! genes like sooty and dirty!!! @ UNIVERSITY OF UTAH GENETICS DEPARTMENT PLEASE IM BEGIGNG YOU

20: What was the first video game you ever played? earliest memories of Gaming involves me at my aunt’s house playing two games: super mario brothers and some kind of trapeze game. i don’t remember anything else though

21: How old were you when you first played a video game? i can’t remember but i must’ve been REAL tiny.... 6-9 years, maybe??

22: If you could immerse yourself in any game for one day, which game would it be? What would you do? immerse myself meaning go into their world...? huh....on one hand i’d like to go in the world of yakuza 0 to play in the arcades and do whore related activities but i’d also love to go into the world of animal crossing (and i’m pretty sure i’d be some sort of generic dromaeosaurid in that game!!) and shop, chat with villagers, do chores for them, go fishing, bug hunting, eat delicious fucking food like the apples mangos peaches cherries etc etc.....OH AND FOSSIL HUNTING THAT’S THE BEST PART!! though it would definetly be a little weird, to be a little dinosaur and finding a fossil of a...little dinosaur....i guess the non-sentient species went extinct and the dinosaur i am is some kind of, descendant of a sapient non-avian dinosaur that survived the k-pg extinction event...oh but who cares all i want is a cool little ambulocetus fossil or something. and some cherry pie :)

26: Handheld or console? my old ps3 just went kaput one day years ago so i haven’t used it in years so i can’t compare well... but i’d say handheld, because it lets me like DO stuff more...would love to get a console one day, a ps4 maybe but i’m kinda worried it’ll make me stay in one room all day wasting away my time when there’s other stuff i can do, y’know? but something handheld like my 3ds, on the other hand...i can do stuff with it. i can take it to my room and play it between breaks i take as i clean the room and fold my clothes, i can watch something on the tv and play the game during ad breaks, i can take it outside too if it has charge to last me a while! so....handheld i guess

27: Has there ever been a moment that has made you cry? yakuza 0 and undertale in particular have ALMOST made me fucking bawl with many of its moments....yakuza 0 especially, after that Fucking Ending i had trouble sleeping because oh my fucking god. video game people SAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

28: Which character’s clothes do you wish you owned the most?

29:  Which is more important, gameplay or story? HMMM....well, if i were to play a game with a shitty story but really good and fun gameplay i’d probably continue playing it for the gameplay. but if i played a game with shitty gameplay but an interesting story, there is a chance i’d play it more for the sake of the story but also i might just quite and see the rest of the story on youtube or something. i’m more likely to go through a boring story for fun gameplay than go through boring gameplay for an interesting story, so i guess gameplay is more important to me....that is, WHEN i actually own and play a game as opposed to when i just watch someone play a game because i don’t own the game but wanna know abt the story lol

30: A game that hasn’t been localized in your country that you think should be localized? i have no idea how video game localization really works....but i assume localizing a game in india would mean something like, removing content according to cultural norm and also somehow translating it into the 22 official languages..? or just two or three language if it’s tied to a particular state, which seems way more doable. i honestly have no idea? i’ve never interacted w the indian gaming community that much to be honest, all i know of it is of the video games i’ve seen sold in some game stores and a few whispers about like solid snake or whoever from my school’s cafeteria....the most popular games here, to my knowledge, are those very streamable games like fortnite and PUBG and your call of duties and whatnot. those generic shooters. and even then, that honestly isn’t the “indian” gaming community bc this country is so FUCKHUGE, it’s just tamil nadu. one state.

soooo, according to what little i know of gaming interests in where i live, i don’t think any of the games i like should be localized here bc i don’t really think there’s an audience for it as far as i can tell :( maybe animal crossing? it’s a fun little games for all ages and i think it has a chance of becoming popular here, so maybe that is worth a shot! but i can’t think of any other game that i like that really has an audience here (other than Me lol)

#asks #stommevrouw #THANK U EVIE THIS WAS SO FUNNNNNNN #WOOF haha this made me tired #im probably hitting the bed now! thank u!!

[amixiifish]

Flirting

1. “Hey there, pretty boy,” she says, sliding up to him.

“Uh, thanks? Hi to you too?” Zuko responds uncertainty. Sokka makes an uncomfortable noise in his throat.

“So once you’re done hanging out with your friend,” the girl says, gesturing to Sokka, “wanna come hang out with me?”

Sokka growls but doesn’t say anything. Zuko nods, confused.

“Sure? What’s your name?” He asks as the beta says, “wanna meet at my place?”

“For what?” Zuko asks. Sokka chokes on his laugh- Zuko wasn’t that dense, was he?

The woman blinks.

“Um, are you serious right now?” she asks.

“Yeah. I’m not sure what’s happening?” Zuko trails off, looking at Sokka for help.

Sokka pulls Zuko into a possessive kiss, startling the omega.

The woman looks shocked. Then smirks. “I’m ok with a threesome. Especially with an alpha that nice.”

“I’m not,” Sokka deadpans.

“What was that about?” Zuko asks Sokka.

Sokka sighs. “Nothing, darling. Just pay attention to people like that and call me or Jet when that happens, ok.”

Zuko blinks. “It’s gonna happen again?”

“With you looking so fucking good, most likely,” Sokka purrs, grabbing Zuko’s and pulling him flush against him.

“But what does that have to do with-” Zuko says, soon cut off by a kiss. He melts into it.

2. Jet and Zuko were in line at the grocery store. They put their groceries on the conveyor belt and Zuko sees a man helping them. He isn’t wearing one of the workers' uniforms, so Zuko asks him what he’s doing.

“Well, such a beautiful omega shouldn’t have to do work by himself,” the man says, smirking slightly.

“I’m not doing it by myself? My boyfriend is here with me?” Zuko says. Jet smiles.

“Pah! Him? You could do so much better than that beta. Why don’t you come with me back to my place after we’re done here, and I can show you some… high quality.” Jet bristles, and is about to exclaim, but Zuko gives him a look.

“I’m good thanks. My alpha is waiting at home and I’d rather not keep him waiting. Bye.” Zuko says, voice absolute ice.

The alpha scoffs. “Whatever.”

Jet remains calm all the way home, but snaps the second they step into their house.

He slams Zuko into the wall, hands in a bruising grip on his ribs. Zuko lets put a strangled plea of “Jet” as Jet bites hard on Zuko’s mating bite.

“Fucking idiot doesn’t realize that alphas aren’t the only dominant ones.” Jet snarled into Zuko’s neck.

Zuko calms him down by releasing a calming scent to soothe the beta.

“Better?” he asks, after the curl up on the couch, Jet’s head on his lap.

“Hmm.” Jet hums, liking how warm the omega felt under him.

3. The next time it happened was at a party- but to be fair, everyone was already hammered. Zuko was only tipsy, and he watched as his boyfriends danced drunkenly. A petite girl comes up to him and wraps her arms around his torso.

“Um,” he says, trying to pry her arms off of him, “would you mind getting off of me?”

“Oh, but you’re such a pretty little omega!” she coos at him. She releases strong pheromones of lust and affection. Sokka angrily stalks over.

“He’s my omega,” he growls at her. She doesn’t take the hint, merely holding him tighter. Another girl sways over to them, though not as drunk as the first one.

“Amelia, come on! Are you cheating on me?” She asks the first alpha girl. She snaps out of her drunken trance and looks at the beta.

“Lilyyyyy!!!!!” She lets go of Zuko straight away and practically jumps into the arms of the other girl. Sokka hugs Zuko and he hugs back, slightly confused.

“I love you,” Sokka says, nuzzling at his mark on Zuko’s neck. Despite the alcohol in his breath, Zuko smiles back at him.

“Love you too.”

4. Zuko’s back is shoved against a wall, and the alpha leers at him.

“Please, don’t hurt me,” he whimpers to the man towering above him.

“Hurt you?” He smirks, “I’m not going to hurt you. Just show you what it’s like to have a good time.”

Zuko glances around for help, and starts to cry out when he sees a familiar flash of jet-black hair. The whole thing plays out in slow motion for him- Jet sends a flying punch at the man while Zuko knees him in the balls. The alpha reaches down to cover his nether regions and Jet roundhouse kicks him in the face. He soon grabs Zuko’s hands and then both of them are running. Zuko makes the mistake of turning back- the huge man is running close behind them.

Zuko faces him fully (running backwards) and throws him two double fingers. Jet laughs beside him, and they outrun him. Panting, they stop outside their apartment complex.

“Damn. That was crazy,” Zuko says, grabbing Jet’s water bottle. He takes a swig then passes it back to his boyfriend.

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Jet says after drinking. “I left you for literally ten seconds and you’re being seduced by an alpha. God, Zuko,” he says, shaking his head.

“What am I going to do with you?”

“Kiss me, perhaps?” Zuko responds, smirking slightly. Jet leans in.

5. “Hey there, pretty boy,” a beta boy says to him. Zuko moves away.

He slides closer to Zuko. “C’mon, don’t play hard to get. Not like anyone else is gonna give you a second look with that scar.”

Zuko blanches. Before he can say anything, Sokka and Jet walk behind him.

Sokka pulls Zuko against his chest and Jet presses a kiss to his mating mark on Zuko’s shoulder.

“Oh but they did. That’s because they didn’t want to end up with shit like you. Fuck off.” Sokka snarled.

“Take it easy man. It’s no big deal.” The beta huffs but walks away nonetheless.

“What a dick,” Jet mutters.

“I’m pretty sure he was trying to put it in me, too,” Zuko agreed.

That pulls a startled laugh from Sokka and a look of amusement from Jet.

“Nice to see your humor back in action,” Sokka teased.

“What humor?” Zuko deadpans.

Jet laughs and they enjoy the rest of their evening.

+1 “Well… I guess you have to kiss me, right?” Mai says uncomfortably as they look up to see the mistletoe hanging over their heads.

“I won’t if you don’t want to,” Zuko says sincerely. The two of them had dated when they were in their straight phase, and they had split on relatively good terms.

She glances away. “But what if I want to?” She asks him shyly. Zuko flushes, embarrassed. He looks to the other side, where Katara and Aang were sitting. Help me, he mouths to them, but they snicker at him and turn away.

“Well, uh, we could, I guess,” he says awkwardly. He glances at Toph and Haru, who also laugh slightly behind their cups of eggnog. She leans in, and he backs away.

“Sorry! I just realized that I’m gay as fuck, sorry!” He says sprinting away to Jet, who was closest to him.

Toph was wheezing and to everyone’s surprise, Mai was smirking.

“Aw, man! Zuko, couldn’t you have waited for two days to come out? Now I owe Mai 20 bucks.” Ty Lee whined.

Zuko’s jaw dropped.

Mai just faux sighed and said with mock disappointment dripping from each word. “How sad. I was totally looking forward to that kiss.”

“I thought we were friends,” Zuko pouted, and Jet hugs him from behind as comfort.

“We are. You were going to make me lose 20 dollars and that simply wasn’t acceptable,” Mai said, flipping her hair to walk over to Ty Lee and Teo who were drinking punch near the speakers.

“The nerve!” Zuko sputtered.

“Oh, she cares about your love life. What a bitch,” Toph drawled.

“What love life?” Katara said. Haru snickered and Aang muffled his laugh in his cup.

“Nice one, Sweetness. Gonna have to keep that one in mind.” Toph said.

Sokka laughed on the couch. He pulls Zuko by the wrist next to him.

They keep talking until everyone trickles out slowly.

Mai stays for a minute.

“If you hurt him, I know how to kill someone 37 different ways with just a bobby pin. And I can load a sniper rifle in less than 3 seconds, don’t test me,” Mai said to Sokka and Jet who had both turned pale.

“Hurt who?” Zuko asked.

“Fucking idiot, I can’t even-” Mai muttered her whole way out.

“Well, I should leave too. It’s getting late and-” Zuko starts but is pulled down by Jet on the couch when he stands to leave.

“Stay,” he insists.

“Why?” Zuko asks.

Sokka smiles.

“This is why.”

Before Zuko can process what’s happening, Sokka pulls him down into a kiss.

That was, by far, Zuko's favorite Christmas.

#atla #omegaverse #jetokko #fluff #modern au

[mysticgalaxychaos]

"In depth" analysis (commentary) on Mcs vs Yaha dialogue (part 3, finale)

It's finally over! You can now resume scrolling on your dashboard in peace!

*Bonus. Another weird quote by our friend when the Mc dies in battle. Don't fully understand it, but kinda relieved his "beauty" is his sin... Thinking about again though, he does call his ability to feel sexual pleasure his "luster" so we don't know what "beauty" could be a eufemism for...

Can we all take a moment to appreciate how FRIGGIN GORGEOUS Yaha looks here???????? Like I know he's dying, and bleeding, but he just looks so cute! Actually Yaha always looks cute but this one looks extra nice

This is actually a very sad moment. Poor guy's dying and here we see what Yaha thinks of himself. He recognises he has changed and that he was "damaged". I guess loosing his ability to feel **SeXuAl** **PlEaSuRe** was really dertrimental to his personality. I mean that kinda thing really changes someone, you know!

What can I say... They tried, they really did. They tried to make this sad with him calling himself broken and everything. And it would have all been fine and honestly, pretty sad if it wasn't about LOSING YOUR ABILITY TO FEEL SEXUAL PLEASURE!!!!! That was your "luster"????? Like... What?? Is there something I'm missing??

To be real, we have lots of evidence and we do hear later on from Urick that Yaha was changed a lot by this pact deal. I can't imagine exactly why and the context isn't super helpful, but the best explanation I could come up with was that his ability to seduce anyone he wanted coupled with his inability to feel pleasure when actually engaging with said people might have made him desperate or left him feeling deprived. It's kinda contradictory. You are given the ability to do something you (presumably) really enjoy, with whoever you want without any limitations but you are never allowed to enjoy it again. I guess that's what made him so weird about everything

This line legit upsets me, not only because of how bad I feel for Yaha, but mostly because of Urick's reaction. You'll see it right bellow so all I'm gonna say regarding Urick is that it's usually the person who lives who says "I'll never forget you"...

Can we all just admire the amount of love and dedication Yaha has to and for Urick? If you really think about it, he's had a crush on him since they were young, he held onto that for so long, he got rejected, he sacrificed a part of himself (yeah, I've been making fun of that, but truth is that it was), he suffered because of it, he changed, according to his own words he "was damaged" by this, he has seemingly received nothing from Urick apart from semi harsh kinda aggressive comments and even after all of this, all he has to say was that he's happy he can see him again. He just holds nothing against him... Now I'm not saying he's been the best person to Urick (after all there has to be a reason he's so cold towards him), but even in his last moments he still expresses his love... Of course you could argue that this isn't realistic and that it is probably very unhealthy and obsessive, but I really do find this very heartwarming

*Rip cute baby elf*:'(

This scene and Urick's reaction reminded me a lot of Rei during Yuda's death in Hokuto no Ken. I found it so funny how Yuda was there dying, confessing his love, pouring out all of his feelings and Rei just stood there kinda... Not reacting at all. The difference being, In Hokuto no Ken, Yuda had pretty much ruined Rei's life and even then, Rei seemed pretty upset by his death when he actually died. Here we have two people who were friends from childhood, who for some reason (probably less serious than murdering your parents and kidnapping your sister) fell apart. And after the heartfelt things Yaha said, THIS is what Urick has to say!!!

"Well, I know you devoted your life to me and have been in love with me since forever and I also know you sacrificed a part of yourself to be with me, but... Ugh... You shouldn't have made that pact deal, huge turn off"

What the hell, Urick???!! As much as I like you, this is an awful way to respond to your friend's death! He didn't even touch him or hug him or something! Come on! The guy's dead! You can at least show him some love now! This is such a cold response and it's even worse since it's coming from Urick who's normally so friendly... It does makes things supper complicated too. So far we've had a pretty consistent narrative of what transpired (or might have) between Yaha and Urick and here come these final scenes to just completely contradict everything! But we get the one piece of info; the fact that it was the pact deal that ruined the relationship.

1000000 iq

NOWE!!!! HAVEN'T YOU BEEN PAYING ATTENTION TO ANYTHING YAHA WAS SAYING???

That's were we get direct confirmation that Yaha changed, probably after the pact deal. Also we learn it was that change the ruined the relationship. But here's the weird thing, people change, what could have possibly happened that was so different to drive Urick so cold?

WHAT??? WHAT? WHAT? WAT??? WHAT??

This line just shatters my kyoka suigetsu! I just don't know what to say! If we take this as true, the game has just retconed everything it's told us! Either that, or Urick has just NO IDEA what was going on all these years AND payed 0 attention to what Yaha told him during the fight! Or, Urick is lying because his ex, Yaha borderline exposed their relationship and he is just so much in denial about his sexuality that he doesn't want anyone to even think he could be gay

But srsly WHAT THE HELL??? Urick! Yaha didn't want to "make a name for himself in the knights"!!! He wanted YOU! How do you not know this! This just changes so many things! Their relationship goes from "ex friends with something extra happening in between that was maybe not entirely liked by both" to "man completely oblivious to best friend's feelings even after he literally confesses them". Now this is possible, since Yaha did ask Urick if he knew about his feelings for him. It is also possible that this entire time we had (which we did) Yaha's version of events with Urick not knowing any of this, but this begs the question, if Urick didn't knew up until now, why isn't he reacting differently to Yaha's death. If I had just learned my former best friend was in love with me, I wouldn't be sitting there looking at him die. Also if that was the case, what was it that drove them apart if not Yaha's attempt to get with Urick? Could it be that he was just too preoccupied with sex from that point on? But then why is Urick so mean and cold? This doesn't seem like it was just them drifting apart, something big happened to get Urick to this point.

More than anything, this line doesn't match up with any previous information we know...

"Um... Yeah Nowe, Yaha just... Wanted to be popular within the nights! All of that stuff you heard... That was nothing! Nothing at all! He's just... Well... What? Why I hate him? I hate him because... Uh... He's just... Too... Well that's not important, but it DEFINITELY isn't because he started fucking everybody! DEFINITELY NOT!"

Bonus: this is the single BEST piece of trivia I have ever seen about a character, EVER!

So this thing is over! Are you supper happy about it? I bet you are! Anyway now I'm just gonna go ahead and link the videos I used for these screenshots and... Idk bye!

#drakengard 2 #drakengard #yaha #urick

[embracetheapocalypsewithme]

Embracing the Apocalypse, Part 23: That the Hill You Wanna Die On?

Oh hell, guys...this was a really hard chapter to write. But it had to be done. Please stay with me here because this story is not over yet!

Summary: Things do not go as planned during Julie and Ted’s interrogation when the identity of Rebecca’s other attacker is revealed.

Word Count: 2,452

Content Warnings (or selling points?): Smut, Negan, Negan being Negan, language, violence, and blood.

Part 1: The Tale of Thelma Facefuck

Part 2: What’s Up, Doc?

Part 3: A Successful Job Interview Begins with a Firm Handshake and Ends with a Salty Surprise

Part 4: A Crack in Everything

Part 5: Sorting Duty Sucks

Part 6: A Faint Whiff of Bullshit in the Air

Part 7: Turn and Face the Strange

Part 8: Poor Life Choices

Part 9: In Which Negan is a Total Jerk

Part 10: No Plan

Part 11: Negan Settles Rebecca’s Hash

Part 12: I know Where That Hand Has Been, Negan

Part 13: Gimme Danger

Part 14: The Loneliest Hours of the Morning

Part 15: Well, Fuck You Too, Kitty!

Part 16: That Escalated Quickly

Part 17: Well Fuck Me Gently with a Chainsaw

Part 18: Shards of Glass

Part 19: Donkey Heaven

Part 20: Morphine Dream

Part 21: Promises to Keep

Part 22: Are You a Killer?

Part 23: That the Hill You Wanna Die On?

Part 24: Keeping Up Appearances

Read on AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/8807527/chapters/22959522

Part 23:  That the Hill You Wanna Die On?

The air of the Sanctuary’s basement was thick with moisture that clung to the skin and sank into one’s bones, while the smell of mold permeated the lungs. Chris led Negan through a labyrinth of dim hallways to the furthest corner of this area, where most of the building’s occupants did not dare to venture. Although it had been long since cleared of the dead, walking through the disused space made them feel on edge and in mortal danger somehow. It was here that Chris had taken Ted and Julie for their interrogation.

“Well, fuck, Christopher! That didn’t take you very long, did it?” inquired Negan, with an amused smirk.

It had only been two hours since he and Chris had last spoken when the stone-faced man knocked at his door for the second time that day. Negan has been vague with Rebecca about his reasons for leaving abruptly, not wanting to lie to her outright, but wanting to protect her from the knowledge of the task he was about to undertake for her. In the end, he had simply told her that he had “urgent leadership bullshit” to attend to. Technically, this was the truth.

“Nope,” Chris answered simply, “They weren’t exactly hiding.”

“Where’d you pick them up?”

“Ted was in the sorting room, trying to do some overtime for extra points. Julie was in her dorm room taking a nap.”

Negan snorted at this, “Fucking figures. Girl loves her beauty sleep.”

“Not that she needs it…”

“Christopher! Do I detect a little crush? Who knew you had fucking emotions under that hard veneer?”

“Uh…Not exactly,” Chris replied with an uncharacteristic tone of embarrassment.

“Oh come on! You can fucking tell me! We’re just a couple of guys hanging out. Talking about guy stuff,” he leaned in a bit closer as they continued to walk and strung an arm around Chris’ shoulders, “Want me to describe her tits to you? I’ll do it! She’s got these cute, little-“

“Negan, I’m gay,” Chris said dispassionately, cutting off the man’s lewd description.

“What? Seriously?” he asked, genuinely surprised.

“Yeah. Um…yep. Pretty gay.”

“Well, fuck! I had no idea,” he paused for a moment, “Are all of Rebecca’s friends gay? That girl’s like a magnet for you guys.”

Chris raised an eyebrow, “There are other gay people here?”

“Awe, shit man. You didn’t know?”

“Not at all. I tend not to be really forthcoming with that information. There’s not exactly anti-hate crime legislation in the post-apocalypse and you never know who might want to beat you up for being yourself,” he replied thoughtfully before adding, “Not to make light of getting beaten up. That wasn’t a jab about Rebecca.”

“I know you’re not that much of an asshole! But that’s totally fair. Maybe Rebecca can set you up on a date or something,” he said slyly, jabbing his elbow into Chris’ ribs a little bit too hard and causing the man to wince in pain, “Oh fuck! Sorry…I got carried away.”

“It’s ok. Here we are,” Chris lowered his voice as they neared windowless, industrial door that was flanked on both sides by armed men, “Julie’s in there. Ted is in another room just down the hall.”

“Shall we?” asked Negan

Chris extended one hand hand to grasp the door’s lever while he retrieved the key from his pocket with the other, “We shall.”

As the door creaked open, Negan’s eyes fell upon Julie, who was looking as beautiful as ever sitting on a chair behind a small white table, her eyes shooting burning daggers at both him and Chris.

“Julie. So good to see you again. How the fuck are ya?” he asked in a mocking tone as he and Chris took a seat in two chairs that had been placed on the other side of the table across from Julie.

“What the fuck do you think, Negan? Let me the fuck out of here! I haven’t done anything-“

“Jules, shut the fuck up,” his voice became a hard, blunt object, silencing her tirade, “And don’t fucking lie to me. We already know you got some guys to do your dirty work for you and beat the fuck out of Rebecca. So, let’s just cut to the chase: Who were the men that did it?”

“And why the fuck do you think you ‘know’ that I had anything to do with that dumb bitch getting beaten?”

Without saying anything, Negan stood and pushed his upper body forward while bringing both hands down onto the table’s top with a loud boom, before calmly and clearly articulating his next words while staring the redhead directly in the eyes, “Because the last thing that ‘dumb bitch’, as you call her, heard before she lost consciousness was that ‘Julie sends her regards’. I can’t think of too many other Julies here that would mean her harm, can you?...And while we’re talking about your stupid mistakes, maybe the next time you give a couple of drunks hand jobs so you can ask them to beat someone up so badly that they nearly fucking die, you’ll choose guys who aren’t fucking idiots that tell the victim THE FUCKING NAME OF THE PERSON WHO ASKED THEM TO DO IT AS THEY’RE BEATING HER INTO THE GROUND!”

Julie’s face had gone a bright, angry red and her lips were set in a straight line. She remained silent, still cutting into the men with her stare.

“You’re still not going to fucking talk are you?” Negan said with a twinge of regret in his voice.

“Fuck you, you fucking bastard! I didn’t do anything wrong! You were the one who fucking humiliated me. You were the one who used me to try to feel better about yourself. So fuck you. We’re done here,” she spat before crossing her arms across her chest and settling back into the seat.

“Well. I guess that answers that,” Negan sighed, running a hand through his hair, “But, even though you’re right about me being a bastard, you are wrong about one thing. This is far, far from over.”

With that, he turned to Chris and motioned for the other man to follow him into the hallway. They exited the room together, locking the door behind them before moving a few feet away and out of earshot.

“So, what do you think?” Chris asked.

Negan shook his head sadly, “I was afraid of this. Not only is she not admitting to planning the attack, but she’s not remorseful at all. Fucking psychotic bitch…”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know for sure…but I think we might have to kill her. And I really did not want to fucking do that shit anymore,” he moaned.

Chris nodded solemnly, “Do you think it’s worth it to talk to Ted before we make a final decision here?”

“Yeah, why the fuck not?” he mumbled and turned toward the second door that Chris had pointed out earlier. The two men strode silently toward the dull-grey metal currently hiding their second prisoner from sight, stopping for a brief moment as Chris found the corresponding key in his pocket. Once the lock had been clicked open, he pushed the door and gestured for Negan to enter first.

The room was every bit as musty and desolate as the rest of basement. Ted sat in the same position as Julie, only he had his head down on the table like a school-aged child during a detention. As they crossed the threshold, his head lifted slowly from its position and his desperate, half-crazed eyes bore into them.

“You’re here to kill me, aren’t you?” he said, not even blinking as they drew near to sit in the chairs across the table as they had with Julie.

“Well, Teddy, that all depends on how you answer a few questions for us,” Negan said flatly, “First of all-“

“Julie asked me to do it,” Ted said with a hysterical twinge to his voice, cutting off Negan’s leading question, “She cornered me in the cafeteria after she overheard me talking shit about that fucking girl. She knew that I hated you both for demoting me to a sorter.”

“Uh huh. And it sounds like she really had to twist your arm to get you to nearly kill ‘that fucking girl’ for her,” Negan’s face twisted into an expression of thinly veiled rage.

“I’m not making excuses. I know what I did was my own choice, and I don’t regret it,” Ted replied.

“You’re fucking sitting here, looking me straight in the eyes, and telling me that you don’t fucking regret nearly murdering a nice, young lady with her whole life ahead of her who never didn’t anything to you? That the hill you wanna die on, Teddy?” although his eyes still held fire and venom in their depths, Negan’s voice was eerily calm.

“Fuck you! She’s nothing but another one of your fucking whores. She fucking seduced you, let you fuck her, and used you to get back at me for disrespecting her.”

“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong, my friend. You couldn’t be more fucking wrong. All Rebecca did mention what a fucking shitty job you were doing in matching workers to tasks, and the rather un-fucking-enlightened attitude you have toward young women. But she didn’t have to seduce me. We weren’t even fucking by that point. Though, truth be told, I kinda wanted to right from day one…” he shook his head, “Why the fuck am I telling you that though. Like you give a fuck.”

“Who was with you?” Chris’ voice startled both men and they jerked their heads toward its sound, “When you beat Rebecca? Who helped you?”

“How the fuck do you know there were two people there?” asked Ted, an anxious expression clouding his face.

“Because Rebecca told us that one of you assholes held her while the other one beat her,” Negan chimed in, “Not a very fair fucking fight, if you ask me.”

Ted sighed, “Ok. I’ll tell you who was with me. But you’re not going to like it.”

“Oh goody! Fucking intrigue. How nice. Go on, Teddy,” Negan said mockingly.

“It was one of your men. One of your Saviors. I think he said his name was Stephen or something like that. I don’t fucking remember. Seems to me that he was still pretty fucking pissed off at you for something you did back in the day with his wife or something. You fucked her or killed her…or both…something like that. Anyway, he didn’t care about Rebecca at all. It was you he wanted to get to. She was just a stepping stone,” Ted’s face cracked with a hard smile and his eyes were glassy.

“Oh fucking fuck!” Negan pushed himself out of his seat abruptly, knocking over his chair, and made his way toward the door.

“What’s wrong?” asked Chris, following him into the hallway and locking the door behind him.

Negan broke into a run as he headed back toward his room, and Chris ran to catch up with him, “One of the men guarding my room this morning. I can’t be sure, but I think he said that his name was Stephen,” he huffed, “I hope I’m wrong, but if I’m not, Rebecca could be in some real fucking shit right now!”

As he and Chris raced through the hallways and stairwells of the Sanctuary that led to Rebecca, Negan noted the people they passed who turned to stare slack-jawed at them, never offering any kind of assistance to what was clearly some kind of emergency. On a normal day, this would have pissed him off, but he was far too panicked to do more than observe his surroundings as he made his way to what he was certain would be a blood bath.

As they mounted the final flight of stairs, the hallway outside of his bedroom coming into view with each step, the first thing Negan noticed was all of the blood. The second thing he noticed was the man lying dead on the floor. His throat had been slit, and it must have happened recently because he had not had the chance to reanimate yet.

“Oh fuck! Fuck!” he yelled, never breaking his stride as he skirted around the growing pool of blood and charging for his room, “Chris, knife him in the head before he comes back!”

Maybe he wasn’t too late. Maybe he could save her.

He arrived at the door, immediately grabbing for the handle and throwing his weight into it, only to be met with resistance. It was locked. As he fumbled in his pants pocket for the key, he listened for sounds of a struggle inside, and was met with nothing but ominous silence.

Once the door was unlocked, he threw it open and allowed his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the room. There was blood everywhere, the scent of copper hitting him like a slap in the face. All was still inside the room, and two bodies, each soaked in blood, were in the middle of the floor, just beyond the foot of the bed.

The man’s body lay face up, eyes staring in horror at the ceiling. Blood still bubbled from a large bite wound in his throat, just over the jugular. Negan recognized him immediately as Stephen, the man who he had sent on a quest to retrieve Chris earlier that morning, and who had allegedly helped Ted to attack Rebecca just a few days prior.

Negan’s heart leapt into his throat, he took a step toward the second body. This one was smaller, feminine, and was sitting cross-legged; the upper body slumped slightly over the legs with its arms resting against its thighs. Although the face was obscured by a curtain of dark hair that faded out to the copper of an autumn sunset at the tips, he knew that it was Rebecca.

“Negan, I’m so sorry,” Chris said softly from behind him, he knelt over Stephen’s body and pushed a knife into the center of the forehead, ensuring that it wouldn’t revive.

A cry caught in Negan’s throat and his eyes burned with tears as he crossed the room to kneel next to her. At least she had gone down fighting and had taken the son of a bitch out with her last ounce of strength. He would take what comfort he could in that fact.

She didn’t live as a victim, and she hadn’t died as one either. He extended a hand and gently pulled one side of the hair away from her face to take a look at the damage that had been inflicted on her during the attack.

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