sweet dreams
seen from Australia

seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Poland
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from Brazil

seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from China

seen from United States
seen from Philippines

seen from China

seen from United Kingdom
seen from South Korea

seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from Malaysia
sweet dreams
The interrogation scene
This scene is super interesting for a lot of reasons, but what really caught my attention here this playthrough are Victor's voice and speech patterns. Before the moment shown in the pic (right after he cut Leon's neck with the scalpel), Victor's behavior has all sorts of things going on: - he's almost playful to a degree - "What do you wanna know" when his speech isn't usually so casual, also tutting at Leon when asking him who he's there for - of course the intimidation, threatening twice to 'conduct his research' or 'begin his treatment,' but I feel like there's even some sort of dark humor to how he phrases those threats (using doctor-style threats when he is a doctor) - trying to get a rise out of Leon by physically touching him when his verbal intimidation and holding up the scalpel don't provoke a reaction But throughout all of that, he remains the soft-spoken Victor we've seen when he interacts with Grace. His voice is low, almost kind of intimate. He IS threatening, but in a manipulative, veiled, covert way. After Leon's teeth brushing comment, Victor's entire demeanor flips. He's no longer soft-spoken, almost hushed. His voice is loud, booming. To go with his snake motif, it feels like watching a snake uncoil. I feel like even his body language changes, standing up to his full height, less controlled in a way. And really, this is why this character is so fascinating to me. He doesn't have as much screentime as I wish he did, but every scene he's in feels so multidimensional.
Emily Prentiss in 6x02 ‘JJ’
i think we should all say our deepest fantasies about alex ward
[HxH] Pretty Eyes - Owl x Original Character (Chapter 1)
[Hunter x Hunter | Owl x OC | Dark Romance] Psychological | Thriller | Torture-turned-Tension | Slow Burn
⚠️ Content & Trigger Warnings
This story contains themes of psychological manipulation, captivity, interrogation, trauma responses, slow-burn tension, and dark romance. Please proceed with caution if you are sensitive to emotional coercion, threats of violence, or power imbalance dynamics.
---
Summary
Captured after the massacre of his comrades, Owl (once a proud member of the Shadow Beasts) finds himself in the hands of a woman who is not quite Troupe, not quite mafia, but undeniably dangerous. Aracnid doesn’t need brute force to break him. She’s patient. Calculating. And she wants answers for the Troupe whose partnered with her own group. But what begins as an interrogation slowly shifts into something more intricate... a web of curiosity, tension, and fascination.
And it all begins with his eyes.
---
Chapter 1: The First Thread
Darkness.
It pressed against him from all sides, thick and forever lasting, drowning out everything but the sound of his own breathing. His pulse drummed steadily in his ears-- it was slow, but not calm... Definitely not calm. The air was stagnant, carrying the faint scent of sweat, iron, and stone. A bag was over his head, rough fabric coarse against his skin, muffling even the faintest of noises beyond the suffocating stillness. His hands were bound behind him, the material tight against his wrists... but it wasn’t rope. Something smoother. Silk, maybe? Whatever it was, it wasn’t an amateur’s knot. There was no slack. No escape. He shifted slightly, testing the restraints, but the chair beneath him didn’t move. Metal. Bolted down. Whoever had done this knew what they were doing.
His mind flickered back.
It had happened in a blink... too fast, too clean. One moment, they were standing their ground, the last of the Shadow Beasts, facing the Phantom Troupe with the certainty-- he was the only one who had cautioned them. The next… nothing. A flash of silver. A spray of red. The wet, sickening sound of death as his comrades were torn apart in an instant. Dismembered. Shattered. There hadn’t even been time to fight back. And him? Caught. Wrapped in thread... literally. Bound by the strange conjured cloth of one of them. And then… a pink haired girl with braces had stepped forward, saying something about letting her people handle interrogations. That was the last clear moment. After that, it all blurred... his limbs went numb, and then the world faded out.
Now, all that remained was the ghost of that panic, echoing in his chest.
A soft sound snapped him back-- a step on stone. Not heavy. Just one person. The faint rustle of fabric, the shift of air. He kept still, straining to listen. Whoever it was wasn’t rushing. They weren’t afraid. They already had what they wanted.
The bag was yanked off.
Dim candlelight flooded his vision, making him blink hard. His sunglasses (miraculously) were still in place, hanging onto the bridge of his nose. As his sight adjusted, he took in his surroundings. Stone walls. No windows. Cold air that didn’t shift with breeze. This wasn’t a dungeon.. it was a tomb. Silent. Isolated.
And then… she appeared.
Black. That was his first impression. She was cloaked in it: lace, leather, silk.. woven together in sharp lines and intricate curves. A hood framed her face, casting shadows over skin that looked pale and smooth, but beneath the veil, her lips were dark and curved ever so faintly at the edges. Her eyes glowed gold, faintly, like molten metal, pinning him with a gaze that didn’t flinch or wander.
She was taller than most women he’d met. Poised. Confident in the way predators were-- never needing to show teeth to prove they could kill.
She was beautiful, in the way something out of reach always was. Untouchable. Other worldly. But there was something else… something inhumanly patient about the way she stood there, simply looking at him. Not rushed, not careless. Like she had all the time in the world to dissect him piece by piece.
Owl swallowed. Not the Troupe. Not a Mafia boss either.
So who the hell was she?
Her eyes traced over him, missing nothing. His posture, the tension in his shoulders, the twitch in his fingers, the way his chest barely moved with each breath. She took it all in, studying him like an object under glass, a puzzle with too few pieces. Her gaze flickered to his sunglasses, and he stiffened instinctively before he could stop himself. That was a mistake. She noticed. And worse… she looked amused by it.
Then, she spoke.
“I expected more.”
Her voice slid through the air, smooth yet unimpressed. A fact she had already decided before he even spoke. It sent something cold down his spine. Owl didn’t react… not outwardly anyway, at least he tried not to. He kept his fingers still, his mouth pressed into a firm line, his breathing steady. But she had already seen that first moment, the instinctive shift in his body language. His cover was already slipping, and he hated that she noticed.
"You’re going to tell me everything I want to know," she said, taking a step closer. The fabric of her cloak whispered against the stone floor, the flickering light catching against the lace detailing along her gloves. Her movements were smooth… not slow, but controlled, her presence filling the space without effort-- she was a woman in total control of herself. There was no force in the way she spoke, no anger, no cruelty… but there didn’t need to be. There was an inevitability to her tone, like a spider watching a fly that had already tangled itself too deep.
Owl exhaled through his nose, his fingers twitching once against the chair’s arms before going still again. He had to stay quiet. Had to think. He knew his own limits-- he knew how long he could hold out. But the moment he answered her, he was already losing. She took another step, close enough now that the glow of the candlelight caught against the sharp cut of her cheekbones, the faint shimmer of her lower lip. Close, but not touching. Not yet.
She tilted her head slightly, her voice dipping to something lower, something that barely disturbed the air between them.
“Tell me,” she murmured.
Owl stared at her.
His fingers curled tightly into his palms.
And the web began to tighten.
Ok I need help. I’m reading iron flame (still) and Dain just said about xaden,
“Garrick and I heard the end of what he said in the interrogation chamber, and trust me, I might be in love with him after that declaration, but are you?” (Pg 475)
And I cannot for the life of me figure out what’s he talking about and I went back to re read the interrogations scene.
My current DnD 5e group is encouraging each other to write session recaps in the form of journal entries for oneself. Obviously I can't comply normally - because of course - and I recap my Prologue Session/Session 0 as an interrogation scene happening afterwards.
(Dusty and his partner Thorne got imprisoned at the end, because the campaign itself starts off with the entire party in prison)
Here's my session recap after the cut <3