#Basically this is almost entirely and clearly a complete fantasy they would be completely unable to cope with in reality

[vampireradiation]

Man, I would find so much solace and comfort in the obsessive love related tags if they weren’t all just like kinda unwell teenagers roleplaying anime characters. I’m not one to shit on what mentally ill young people do to cope so whatever but like… girl you’re not a yandere it’s just your first crush please stop.

[waka-chan-out]

Hello! Congratulations ^^ could you do oikawa + prompt 12? Maybe the reader is a dumbass, hates him, or is just pretending, idk, thank you!

300 Follower Event

Oikawa Tooru

Prompt 12: “Fine! I’ll say it.”

this fic was part of my 300 follower event. check out the rest of the submissions here.

timeskip college au.

word count: 2.4k

content warning: i—this is basically enemies to lovers without all the extra steps. oikawa is a brat. i am in love with him. let’s all have a good time. otherwise, the only warnings are someone walking in and technically unprotected sex. we can ignore that for the sake of the fantasy.

thank you so much! i liked your thinking with this one. it was very fun to write.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” you asked. Oikawa frowned.

“Like what?”

“Like I have something on my face. If you have something to say, just say it.”

“I don’t!”

“Then stop staring.”

“Fine.” He looked down at his notebook. Then he huffed and laid his chin on his hand. You groaned.

“What?” you snapped.

“What do you mean?” He held up his hands defensively.

“You’re acting all pouty.”

“I am not!”

You set your jaw and glared at him. He was infuriating. He was also smart, which made it even more frustrating that you were assigned to work together — he seemed like he was good at nearly everything he tried.

He was also handsome. So handsome it made you want to slap him. No wonder his friend from home was knocking him around all the time. It was hard to stare that that pretty face for too long before you wanted to punch it.

“Now who’s staring?” he said, sly smile creeping onto his face. You rolled your eyes and turned back to your notebook, scribbling what was probably nonsense in your notes.

“It’s not so terrible for you to admit you’re attracted to me.”

You stared at him in disgust.

“What are you talking about?”

“I meant exactly what I said. You don’t need to get so defensive.”

“I’m not defensive.” You laughed incredulously, but you had to admit -- you totally sounded defensive. “You’re just wrong.”

“Ah, I see. We’re playing that game.”

You tried to return to your work, but he was staring holes into the side of your head, face tipped over into his palm, spinning a pen in his free hand. Without looking up, you pushed your notes over to him.

“So I was thinking you could present this part. Then I can talk through --”

“You’re very pretty, you know that?” he asked. You stopped talking for a moment, pointedly not looking up at him.

“I can talk through this idea and then we can take turns after that.”

He leaned in. “You’re also very stubborn. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Yes. They have. Can we work please?” You turned to glare at him but stopped midway through the motion. He was incredibly close, too close, a smug smirk plastered on his infuriatingly perfect face. You gritted your teeth.

“We can work. Do you want to work?”

Your face felt hot.

“Yes.”

He tipped back and crossed his arms.

“Okay. What am I doing again?”

“Were you not paying attention?”

“No.” His eyes fell to your lips. “I wasn’t.”

You took a shaky deep breath and turned back to your notes.

“Um. The presentation. You can . . . wait.” You paged through your notes. “I lost it. Hold on.”

“You seem flustered.”

“I’m not -- you know what?” You pushed your books away. “I give up. What is your deal today?”

He licked his lips and scanned your face, weighing his options. Then he dramatically held up his arms like he was surrendering.

“Fine, I’ll say it.” He leaned onto the table, closer to you than would have made you feel comfortable. “I find you extremely attractive.”

“Subtlety isn’t your thing, is it?”

He rubbed a hand over his face.

“Let me rephrase.” He sighed. “I like you. Very much.”

You stared at him.

“What am I supposed to do with that?”

He tipped his head to the side and grinned.

“Well, I can think of any number of things.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Yes.”

You scanned his face. He was completely serious. Even with an eyebrow arched and small smile on his face, he wasn’t joking in the least. You sighed.

“Fine.”

His eyes flew open.

“What?”

“I said fine.”

A disbelieving smile played at his lips.

“Fine, what?”

“If I do something about it --” You looked away, unable to continue while looking at that smug face. “Will you finally shut up?”

He grinned, still looking unsure.

“Are you serious?”

You smacked his arm.

“Yes, I’m serious. If you keep acting like that I’m gonna send you home.”

“I’ll be good.” He crossed his heart. “Promise.”

You stood and nudged at his chair.

“Then scooch.”

He raised his eyebrows, that cheeky smile still plastered on his face. God, you wanted to knock that right off. He pushed back from the table and you threw a leg over him so you were straddling his lap.

“My, I was hoping you’d say yes but I didn’t think you’d be this eager.”

You grabbed a fistful of his soft, impeccably styled hair and yanked it back. He let out a small yelp and stared at you in surprise.

“What did I say?”

He let out a breathy laugh.

“You told me not to act like myself.”

“I did, didn’t I? How do you think you’re acting right now?”

He grinned and bit his lip, a gesture that should have been off-putting but somehow worked perfectly on his face.

“If you want me to stop --” He strained forward against your hand in his hair, leaning very close to your face. “You’re gonna have to make me.”

“Done.”

You him closer and kissed him.

It was desperate, aggressive, laced with frustration and the slightest bit of self-satisfaction. He slipped his tongue into your mouth eagerly, smiling slightly when you returned the gesture. You could feel his confidence returning in every shift of his lips. He laid his hands high on your legs, squeezing them slightly as you pushed yourself further into his lap.

You lightly bit his lip and his fingertips dug further into your thighs.

He was greedy, seemingly entirely focused on getting closer to you, constantly closer when when he wrapped his arms around you and every inch of your upper bodies were pressed together. You expected him to be more selfish, maybe a little lazy. You thought he’d make you chase him. Instead he was entirely wrapped up in you, sighing against your mouth when your tongue slid against him just so.

You were faintly aware of pressure between your legs. He was clearly excited, impatience becoming more apparent as your hips moved against him.

He gasped into your mouth. You hadn’t expected that reaction from someone like him. It surprised you so much you had to pull back and laugh. He somehow kept a light smile on his face when as he frowned.

“What’s so funny?” he asked. You laughed and leaned against his shoulder. His brows raised and he waited for you to finish.

“I -- it’s nothing.” You covered your face with your hands. “You’re just . . .” You looked between his legs.

“You don’t have to call attention to it! You’re in my lap. What options did I have?”

“Think about your grandmother.”

His nose wrinkled.

“Absolutely not.”

“Oo! Think about Iwa-chan,” you teased. Oikawa looked off to the side like he was seriously considering what you said.

“Actually . . .”

“Oh my god. No. Stop that.”

“You’re right. You’re much prettier than that brutish Iwa-chan.” He leaned forward and kissed you gently. It didn’t last long, but when he pulled away you felt like your ears were ringing.

“Are we going to finish what we started or shall I head home?”

You glanced at the time and glared at him.

“If you tell anyone about this I’ll kill you.”

His face lit up.

“Really?”

You glared at him.

“Fine,” he said, leaning further against the back of the chair. “Do your worst.”

He inhaled a sharp breath as you gripped his hair and forced your lips together.

If your first kiss was aggressive, this one could almost be described as vicious. He yanked you against him, but not before you could start pulling at the buttons of his shirt and pushing your hips against his. He let out a small sound, so quiet it sounded like he was purposefully holding back to save his pride. You got his shirt open and took a moment to appreciate just how strong and soft he looked. Another perfection stacked on perfection. No wonder he had such a shitty personality sometimes. He had to make up for the rest of his strengths.

You ran your hands down his chest and he shivered. He shifted his lips away from yours and ran them down your jaw. He landed a few open mouth kisses on your neck as he slipped his fingers under the hem of your shirt. He only pulled his mouth off of you to tug it over your head, then immediately returned and kissed along your collarbone.

You sighed and wrapped your arms around his neck, melting into the warm press of his hands. He grabbed your hips and rocked them against him.

You both gasped, not realizing how sensitive you were to each other until you were more active about it. You prayed that you wouldn’t regret what you were about to do, but you couldn’t stop yourself.

You hopped out of Oikawa’s lap and you silently thanked the universe that you weren’t wearing real pants. Having to shimmy out of a pair of jeans just to have sex with Tooru Oikawa was something you would have never lived down.

“Really?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

“Shut up before I regret this.”

He held up his hands in surrender, smiling lightly to himself. You readjusted your clothing as he frantically undid and tugged down the front of his slacks.

You swung back onto his lap. He hissed a bit at the more direct contact and stared up at you with wide eyes. He looked almost precious like this, like a kid playing with a toy for the first time. You tried to force the image out of your head.

You brought your lips back to his, kissing him hard as you brought your hand between his legs and tugged down the waistband of his briefs. He hummed in surprise but didn’t break the kiss. He finally seemed to grasp reality when you tugged your underwear to the side, and positioned yourself over him.

“You really wanted me didn’t you? Is this all you could think about while we were—”

You slid down onto him with little resistance. His eyes shut and he choked on the rest of his words.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” you asked.

He let out a bitter laugh and tipped his head against your chest.

“Rude.”

You buried a hand in his hair, tugging slightly and reconnecting your lips as you started moving. He brought his hands to your hips to help you shifted on top of him. You were almost annoyed with how good he felt inside of you, somehow being just enough but not too much and hitting you exactly where you needed him. Your motion in his lap was more eager than you wanted to seem, but you felt like you genuinely couldn’t help it.

Oikawa pulled away from your lips and buried his face into your neck, swearing quietly. You summoned all the strength in your legs to go a little faster, allowing yourself to give in to the feeling as much as you wanted to hold back.

You held a little tighter to his hair and he began letting out nearly silent whimpers, soft and high and breathy. They were somehow both very unlike him and exactly what you would expect. He moved his hands from your hips to wrapping his arms around your waist.

He swore, voice muffled against your chest. You hummed in agreement, head tipping back as he pulled you down harder onto him.

One hand pulled away from your waist and fell between your legs.

“Can I?” he asked. You nodded without looking at him and he beamed. He slipped his hand beneath the fabric and began rubbing circles on your clit. You tipped forward and and buried your face against his hair, trying and failing to hold back a gasp. He laughed, then groaned as you pulled on his hair again.

“You like when I do that, don’t you?” you asked, smiling against his face.

“Shut up,” he huffed, moving his thumb faster against you. You moaned and tightened your arms around his neck.

“Are you close?” you asked.

“Mhmm.”

“Good.” You were breathless and riding the wire yourself, feeling like you could tip over any second.

“Fuck,” he grunted. “You’re gorgeous.”

The words sent a shock through you and you moaned against your will. You wanted to return the compliment, but you couldn’t find the words. Instead, you desperately pressed your mouth to his and sighed into his mouth.

His arm latched around your waist. It allowed your hips to shift less but made him hit you even deeper. Your breath rushed from your mouth into his and he drank it in.

Your lips hovered just above his as you swore, grip on his neck tightening so much you were sure it was almost painful as your body shook. You went over recklessly and almost embarrassingly hard, but it seemed to drive him crazy. He held you steady in his lap as he followed after you, eyes squeezing shut as harsh sounds fell from his lips.

You fell limp against each other, chests heaving in a shared rhythm. Slowly, your pants became laughs as you realized the position you were in. He joined in until you were both in a fit, voices breathless and giddy and muffled against each other’s skin.

“That was better than I thought it was gonna be,” you said. He weakly smacked your leg and squeezed you in a firm hug.

“You’re so mean.”

You ran a hand through his hair, hoping he wouldn’t see the genuine smile on your face.

You checked the time again and noticed his face had turned up

“Why do you keep checking the time?”

“Nothing. My roommate just —”

There was the sound of a lock in the door and in swung open.

“Oh my god!” You scrambled out of his lap as your roommate stepped into the entryway. “I’m so sorry.”

You tried to explain through small bursts of laughter as Oikawa rearranged his pants and gathered his things. He tucked into his shoes and approached the door.

“Tooru. It’s nice to meet you.” He grinned, looking somehow even more handsome with his ruffled hair and rumpled, unbuttoned shirt.

She stared at him like he was out of his mind. His smile didn’t falter.

“Well.” He turned to you and did a single finger gun motion. “I’ll be seeing you. You have my number.”

The door swung shut and you buried your face in your hands.

Shit.

[bangchanshehe]

The Vacation pt. 4

You always had a fantasy of hooking up with a perfect stranger while on vacation, and what better place to make that happen than Cabo San Lucas? A bachelorette party was already supposed to be wild and unforgettable, so why not take it up a notch?

Word Count: 2.5k

You and the girls sat at a booth and decided that before any of you became any more inebriated it ,would be a good time to take pictures. You all smiled, huddled in together, showing off the cow print and bedazzled interior. You all chit-chat for a while and you somehow couldn’t shake the feeling of someone staring at you. You gazed behind you to see not only Kai still staring daggers into your soul, but Sehun also staring at you blankly on the floor, while he danced with a random stranger.

You didn’t understand what he was so seemingly angry about to make him glare at you so often through the night. You shifted your gaze back to the girls and they all gave you curious looks of confusion.

“what’s gotten up his ass?” your best friend asked

You raised your eyebrows and gave her a smirk “no clue”

“do you think that he’s mad because you danced with someone else at the other club?” another one asked with a laugh.

You all took a moment to think about it and found no other reason than that for him to be angry about.

“yikes! The dude barely knows you and it’s not like you owe him anything” another one of the girls said

“I know” you said just loud enough for even you to hear over the blaring music

You looked over to the dance floor and smiled at the rest of the members of kai’s group dancing, smiling, drinking and having fun. you turned back to the girls, and none of you were really talking or drinking anymore so you gave them a confident smile and then broke the silence

“let’s go dance some more!”

The girls put their drinks down almost immediately as if they were waiting on cue and you jumped out of the booth waiting for the rest of them to join you. They climbed out and you all held hands or had an arm around your shoulders as you guided them onto the floor, off center from where all of the crazy crowds were, hoping to have a little bit more breathing room.

You closed your eyes and allowed for the song to move your body, not worrying about how you looked as you danced. You weren’t even a full song into dancing when you felt someone put their hand on your shoulder and felt their firm tall body directly behind you.

You paused and turned around to look at whoever had approached you in such a serious manner, instead of just pulling you in to dance. You froze when you realized that it was Sehun who had approached you. You gave him a curious once over, looking him up and down and then at his face that seemed so serious still.

“can I dance with you?” he asked without a single grin or twitch of his eyebrow

Maybe he just didn’t wear his heart on his sleeves and show emotion, You thought to yourself… he could be really nice guy and just doesn’t really show it. you gave him a small smile, and instead of speaking you simply nodded your head.

You were about to turn around when the song changed to a much more sensual sounding song came on. by the time that you had figured out the beat Sehun had already had his arms wrapped around your waist, and his body was pressed firmly to yours. He swayed his hips to the beat, and you moved along to the rhythm, following his lead. You watched your hips as the two of you moved together, practically merging into one human being.  And as much as you would hate to admit it since you are supposed to be more easy going and free living on this trip, you were more relaxed and appreciated Sehun for asking to dance with you before just, basically…dry humping you. It made dancing with him a lot more relaxed and fun.

You looked up and you lifted your chin up, trying to take gulps of air as you became hotter and hotter from the extra body heat that Sehun put off, and you noticed your friends smiling at you with wide Cheshire grins. Your head snapped down to them and you couldn’t help but smile back.

You were embarrassed that you were receiving so much attention. But not in a bad way. You were feeling shy that you had so many eyes on you … and maybe because a man who you thought hated the sight of you was grinding his hips into you perfectly on beat.

You were smiling from ear to ear having so much fun and you raised a hand to fan your face since you were beginning to sweat so quickly. Sehun leaned in closer to you and yelled loudly over the music

“do you need to catch your breath?” he asked

You smiled and turned your head closer to his ear so he could hear you better “I could use another drink”

You were having so much fun that you didn’t want to stop any time soon because for the first time in a long time you were actually having fun and letting go of all of your problems instead of just maintaining sobriety and taking care of everyone else.  And if you were being honest it wasn’t too often that you felt attractive anymore, so any attention that you could get you were rolling with.  But avoiding how tired and how hot you were could ruin your entire mood if not give you the worst headache.

Sehun pulled away from you and looked around the dance floor for a safe way to get out of the crowd, meanwhile the entire time his arm was still wrapped around your waist. And in the moment you couldn’t feel or hear anything but you felt the weight and heat from his arm as he held onto you.

“here” he said as he removed his hand and held it out to you “follow me” he said

You took his hand and followed closely behind him as he guided you through the crowd and to the bars. And when you finally got to the bar he quickly spoke to the bar tender and ordered your drink on your behalf. You looked up to him with wide eyes, impressed that he ordered you what you wanted to drink. Sehun noticed and cocked his head to the side.

“what?” he asked you with a strong voice that cut through the sound of the music and the busy bar.

“nothing, I’m just surprised that you ordered exactly what I wanted to drink” you said with a small smile trying not the make the conversation awkward.

Sehun finally cracked a small smile and looked out to the crowded dance floor as if avoiding making eye contact with you.  “you’re totally unaware of how many eyes are watching you…” he said quietly to himself

You barely heard what he had said over the noise but was able to capture enough of what he had said in order to put things together. You were confused about what he had meant. eyes watching you? What? “what?” you asked wanting to get a little more clarification.

Sehun looked down at you and then at the glass that the bartender had slid towards you. He picked it up and handed it to you with one had as if he had done it thousands of times. “you’ve been drinking this all night” he finally said as if it was the simplest explanation.

“oh” you said to yourself quietly as you looked down at your glass. You took a sip and felt relieved now that you had something to cool you down. You smiled to Sehun and uttered out a small “thanks”

He nodded his head and gave you a very tight and formal smile before he turned his head and scanned the crowd. Suddenly he stopped scanning and made eye contact with someone. His face fell and he went stiff, making you aware of how on edge he was by whatever it was that he saw. You tried your best to scan the crowd to see what it was that Sehun was so concerned with, and like magic you found kai starting back at Sehun with a deadly glare in his eyes. You could tell that obviously whatever was going on between the men was obviously serious.

Just as quickly as he had froze up, Sehun looked back at you with pursed eyebrows and asked “want to go to the balcony outside? I think it’s a little quieter. Doesn’t look like there’s too many people outside right now.”

You faced him with confusion written all over your face. You didn’t know if being alone with sehun was safe… I mean the two of you didn’t really know each other and you were obviously in the middle of some awkward fight. But despite your inner thoughts telling you no you nodded your head and decided to follow him to the balcony.

As you arrived outside you noticed that the only people out here were smaller groups of people who were mostly out just to smoke a cigarette and then go back inside. But if you were being honest with yourself you were happy that there was someone out there with you at all, otherwise the quiet between the two of you would have gotten really awkward.

The two of you stood against the railing of the balcony, looking out at the night sky and people walking in the streets.  As you looked down you noticed exactly how many people were around, drinking, eating and even dancing in the street. You smiled at them as they enjoyed themselves and looked back over to sehun who was quietly staring out at the sky as if he was in a trance.

You swallowed another sip of your drink begging for it to make you brave enough to talk to him seriously…. But it wasn’t working. You didn’t know what exactly It was about him that completely unnerved you but you felt like you were being tested or watched too closely when he was around… almost as if he was scrutinizing every move you made.

“are you okay?” you asked him unsure if it was okay to ask him since he was essentially a complete stranger

Sehun looked at you with curiosity as if he was debating on whether or not he wanted to entertain your question or not. “what do you mean?” he asked with pointed eyes

You took a moment to register his body language before you decided to press anymore. He was clearly not putting his guard up to tightly , but he also was obviously pretending like he didn’t know what you were referring too.

“I mean the look that your friend gave you was pretty intense….” You said unable to make eye contact as you proceeded “so are you okay?”

Sehun finally stood up straighter and turned to face you. He smiled a sideways cocky smile and chuckled to himself “are you concerned for me?” he asked

You turned to face him after hearing the sarcasm in his voice and you quickly apologized “I’m sorry, I know that its not really any of my business, but if one of my friends was looking at me like kai was looking at you then I would have to have done something really bad.” You explained

Sehun dropped his side smile and his features became cold. “it’s nothing that won’t be forgiven after he sobers up tomorrow”

You nodded your head after hearing that things would be better even though you knew that the look was more serious than he was letting on.  “is you friend usually aggressive whenever he drinks?” you asked him after a long pause

Sehun looked at you with a cocked eyebrow and confusion in his eyes “not typically… why? Did he do something?” he asked with deep concern

“no not really….” You started and then decided to just out right ask him “I mean yes… well his entire personality flipped in an instant after someone had danced with me at the last bar and it seemed really…” you looked around for the right word

“unusuall?” sehun finished your sentence for you

You looked up to him with wide eyes glad that he understood what you were trying to get at. Sehun once more chuckled to himself and then finally turned away to face the sky once more

“he was jealous” he finally said

“Jealous?” you asked him surprised “of WHAT?”  you almost yelled “that I danced with someone in a place where people dance together and have fun?”

Sehun smiled up at the sky as you let out your thoughts. When you were finally finished he quietly chimed in “because he’s possessive, and once he has his eyes set on someone he hates seeing them being taken away or uninterested”

You gaped over at him with horrified eyes. You didn’t know whether to be offended by what sehun had told you or thank him for keeping you away from him.  You turned to look inside the club and saw your friends still having a good time dancing on the dance floor and then kai not too far off wrapped around some poor other girl. It made your blood boil thinking about how dangerous the whole situation could have turned out and how shitty of a person kai turned out to be.

“you know you should really be careful about who you talk to.” Sehun said and you turned to face him once more

“you mean people like you?” you asked him with a bitter tone

His eyebrow raised and he leaned forward a bit towards you “are you angry with me?” he asked and then scoffed “after I told you what you wanted to hear…” he leaned back up and looked a way for one second

“right.. well have a good night then” he said with no emotion before returning back inside of the club.

You stared off at nothing as he walked past your line of vision and then shut your eyes. You really needed to calm down before you went back inside and met your friends again. But damn were you mad at how shitty things turned out to be for you.

And truth be told it wasn’t really that big of a deal if it were to happen to anyone else. They would have simply moved on and found someone new to flirt with…. But you weren’t just anyone. It took a lot of nerves and guts to flirt back with kai like you did all day. And you were essentially as good as new when it came to really letting loose and getting confident in yourself.

And that’s why we don’t open up and make ourselves vulnerable you said to yourself as if it were a reminder.

You let out all of you anger in one last deep exhale and then went back inside ready to pretend like you had never met any of the men at the pool today.

[bookiemonsterph]

Serpent & Dove

Synopsis:

Bound as one, to love, honor, or burn. Book one of a stunning fantasy duology, this tale of witchcraft and forbidden love is perfect for fans of Kendare Blake and Sara Holland.

Two years ago, Louise le Blanc fled her coven and took shelter in the city of Cesarine, forsaking all magic and living off whatever she could steal. There, witches like Lou are hunted. They are feared. And they are burned.

As a huntsman of the Church, Reid Diggory has lived his life by one principle: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. But when Lou pulls a wicked stunt, the two are forced into an impossible situation—marriage.

Lou, unable to ignore her growing feelings, yet powerless to change what she is, must make a choice. And love makes fools of us all.

Set in a world of powerful women, dark magic, and off-the-charts romance, book one of this stunning fantasy duology will leave readers burning for more.

Title: Serpent & Dove Series: Serpent & Dove Author: Shelby Mahurin ISBN: 0062878034 (ISBN13: 9780062878038) Pages:  560  pages (Paperback) Published: August 4th 2020 by HarperTeen (first published September 3rd 2019) Characters: Reid Florin Diggory, Louise Margaux Larue Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult, Romance, Magic, Paranormal

I feel like I can’t even begin to describe just how pleasantly surprised I was by this novel. I am not a big fan of romance-heavy stories and one of my least favorite tropes of all time is hate-to-love relationships—so basically the two things the entire plot hinges on. Needless to say, I went into this very hesitantly. Very intrigued to learn how Lou and Reid end up in the position they do and to experience this story everyone has been raving about, but also keeping my expectations as low as I could. I did not for a second expect to come out of it knowing it will, without a doubt, be on my list of favorite books of the year. This is one of those books that I believe truly lives up to all the hype surrounding it.

Serpent & Dove is a dual perspective narrative following Lou le Blanc, a witch, and Reid Diggory, a Chasseur, or witch-hunter. Lou has escaped from her coven and has taken refuge in the city of Cesarine. She lives in hiding. giving up magic and surviving as a thief.  In Cesarine, witches are seen as a danger to all of society—they are hunted and burned, and no woman is above suspicion.

Reid is sworn to the church and charged with the hunting and capture of witches, sworn into a role that demands he will not let a single witch live. In a surprising turn of events, Lou’s and Reid’s paths cross in a way neither of them could have ever expected. A way that leads to their marriage, that forms a seemingly impossible love, and that brings Lou under the roof of the people who could be her source of protection—or her death.

The writing in this book is absolutely superb and cements Shelby Mahurin on my list of favorite authors. Her writing is gorgeous and so easy to fall into. It is incredibly clear how meticulously she formed every aspect of this novel. Both the plot and the setting are incredibly intriguing and captivating. I loved the French influences in all aspects of the story—it makes for a very vivid and enticing atmosphere and Cesarine is the perfect backdrop for everything that takes place. She also does a wonderful job with the dual perspective narrative and creates two very individual voices for our two main characters.

Even though the romance is the main focus of the story, the fantasy aspect is very strong as well and is of almost equal importance. The fantastical elements, though more of a side plot for now, don’t really take a backseat in terms of detail or how significant they are to the overall story. Mahurin crafts an interesting and intricate magic system as strongly as she crafts the romance. It’s something I’m particularly looking forward to seeing in more detail in the next book.

The only minor issue I had plot-wise was the event that sends Lou and Reid down the path toward their marriage. Though my opinion shifted by the end of the novel, as I was able to see every event throughout in a different light, the scene still felt a little bit clumsy and heavy-handed and also completely random, maybe a little too much so. It wasn’t at all what I would have expected and was a bit of a letdown for me, so I sort of wish it had been done differently. But overall, this barely affected my enjoyment of the story as a whole.

This novel holds one of the most brilliant and beautiful casts of characters I’ve ever come across. Lou is everything. She is one of my new favorite characters of all time—I fell completely and utterly in love with her right from the very start of the novel. She is so strong despite the pain she has been through and the terror and uncertainty of her life now. Lou is sassy and sarcastic and absolutely hilarious. She’s tough and guarded much of the time, but underneath, she is so intensely loving, caring, and loyal—just an absolutely beautiful person. I connected with her so easily, and it was an absolute joy reading from her perspective and following her journey.

It took me a while to warm up to Reid, but I definitely had by the end of the novel. He’s quite set in his ways and his prejudices against women, always acting in a very traditional way toward Lou. They are living in a time when women are little more than the property of their husbands and this is something that is clearly ingrained in Reid. He is protective of her and chivalrous to a fault, but it takes a while from him to sound anywhere near loving, even after it’s clear he has feelings for her. At first, I struggled a bit reading his chapters because his attitude and initial inability to be open-minded frustrated me so much. However, there is one major reason I noticed that I think prevented me from connecting with him sooner.

Yes, he is very close-minded in many of his beliefs and his actions, but I felt that there were a few times where things sort of got lost in translation in a sense. There would be scenes from his point of view where his actions and words felt a bit confusing to me and I took them as negative. But later on, something would cause me to realize what exactly he meant by what he said or did and that it wasn’t in fact negative. I don’t think I explained that particularly well, but basically, I think there were times where his point of view could have been written more clearly. In the end, though, I did end up really liking him and it does become very obvious how much he truly cares and would do anything for Lou.

I ended up absolutely adoring the relationship between Lou and Reid. It unfolds and transforms in such a natural way. As I said before, hate-to-love is one of my least favorite tropes, but it is done so well here that I didn’t really mind it. It’s still not something I enjoy reading about and that obviously does impact my rating of the novel slightly. However, few people can get me to like a novel that features this type of relationship, and Mahurin definitely nailed it. My problem with the trope tends to stem from the tension being completely nonsensical and feeling like it’s just thrown in to create drama, and you will not find that in this book.

The tensions between Lou and Reid feel so realistic and necessary—they have every reason to be wary of each other. Understandably, that they sometimes overlook what they truly know about the other as a person in favor of ideas and prejudices that were hammered into them from a young age. They are both strong characters that are unapologetically themselves and, while it causes them to butt heads at first, it turns into a mutual respect for each other and, of course, love as well. The issues that create conflict, in the beginning, are what come to be the things that pull them together rather than drive them apart. And the sum of both of them individually—the strengths and the flaws—is what brings them each to love the other wholly.

There are also some stellar side characters in this story. Coco was, by far, my favorite—she is totally someone I’d love to be friends with. The friendship between her and Lou is so lovely and I’d gladly spend hours just reading about them. They have such a fun dynamic and they always have each other’s backs no matter what. They are the definition of found family and their story warmed my heart. Ansel, a bit like Reid, took me a while to start really liking, but he turns out to be an absolutely wonderful person and a great addition to that lovable found family.

Now for one of the most surprising things I’ve probably ever said and also one of the biggest contradictions when it comes to my typical taste in stories. As I’ve already said, I’m generally not a fan of books that heavily focus on romance. However, this book was so well written that one of my absolute favorite scenes in the entire story was the scene where Lou and Reid make love for the first time, as well as the truly heartwarming lead-up to it.

I am beyond picky about how sex scenes are written in novels. So many fall into the trap of using overly descriptive and flowery prose and a lot of just plain weird words for everything. While I think that being extremely blunt and cold about it is not a good direction to go in either, the flowery descriptions and oversharing of details tend to make these scenes feel very awkward and unrealistic.

The sex scene in this book does not fall into either of these traps and I absolutely adored it. It just feels so realistic and natural, and that is exactly what I frequently find is missing from these types of scenes. Mahurin continues to write as beautifully as ever but is, I felt, fairly minimal on the exact details of the scene. And this is exactly why it works so well.

While yes, there is still detail, she relies more often on the reader’s knowledge of what takes place during a sexual encounter, which cuts out the need for the overly flowery prose and questionable word choices. In a number of places, she writes it in a “fade to black” way without actually fading to black. Mahurin has created a perfect example of how a sex scene should be written and how it should feel to the reader. The focus is on the passion and love between Lou and Reid—on not just physical feeling, but emotional and mental as well. It is so beautiful and natural and is, by far, one of the best-executed scenes I’ve ever come across.

Suffice it to say, I really enjoyed this book. It is so beautifully written and captivating—it is very easy to fall into and get lost in. Shelby Mahurin has created a magical and emotional tale, both heartbreaking and heartwarming that, at its core, brilliantly demonstrates the power of love of all kinds. The story and especially the characters will definitely stick with me for a long time. I’ve honestly been thinking about it constantly since I finished it a few months ago. And, of course, I am absolutely dying to get my hands on the next book in this series. I love how this ended and I cannot wait to be back with these characters once again and see their story continue.

[soren-bleu-kun]

BnHA Fics I’ve Read This Week 2

Here are my notable stories that I found and read this week. Some of these contain manga spoilers. 

Confined By My Own Mind (I’m Not Fine) - This is a Dadzawa fic that, despite the title saying that it must be, takes place from Aizawa’s perspective and not Midoriya’s. During this fic, the homeroom teacher of 1A realizes that something is wrong with one of his students and pulls him aside during class. 

Aches and Pains - Another Dadzawa fic, this time from Midoriya’s side of things. Unable to sleep because of the old pains in his bones caused by misusing his Quirk, Midoriya heads out of his room and runs into his teacher in the dorm kitchen. 

Disowned - This is not the most realistic Shouto Todoroki fic that I’ve ever read, but I like the idea of him losing control of his power and himself after being kicked out of the Todoroki family. I wish this fic went a little more into the “why” of things, and the aftermath, but still a good little story. 

Angel’s Egg - THIS IS NOT COMPLETED YET! Usually I don’t read, much less review, incomplete stories, but this one - only at three chapters so far - is a great story so far. Basically, what if Izuku was left on All Might’s doorstep, but instead of a baby, he’s an egg that has to be incubated? It sounds weird but it’s actually really cute - and baby Izuku has little wings. Honestly, give this a read and encourage the author, it is so good. 

Day 10 - Wait No, Aww Crap, Here We Go Again - This long titled fic is the first Kaminari Centric fic that I have read, but it will not be the last. In this story, Kaminari gets upset about something that Monoma said to him, and his friends make sure that some adults takes care of it - like they should in canon but don’t. 

Pretty - This is a fic where Monoma and Shinsou are an established couple, and Monoma goes off to visit his boyfriend in the middle of the night. No smut, I don’t review any of that. Honestly, this was cute, even if I don’t really ship it. 

Spare Scares? - This is clearly going for ShinDoriya, and they really make this a cute story, but this is more or less before any relationship that they could/will have. Basically, Shinsou only came to this UA Halloween party to find Hatsume and pick up something he needs for training, and runs into Midoriya, who is here dressed as a ghost. 

The Road That Went Forever - Would you like to utter despise Hisashi Midoriya? I know that I wasn’t planning on it when I read this fic, but that is what happened. Basically, after he finds out that Izuku is Quirkless, he starts trying to find a way to get rid of him and he does. 

A Routine Affair - This is the second Huyumi fic that I’ve ever read, and I still see it as a bit of a crack ship more than anything else, but this story is cute. Basically, Hawks brings Fuyumi coffee before work every day and it takes her a very long time to realize that he likes her. 

Float - Now this is an interesting one. Basically, Midoriya is trying to unlock Float, which is Nana Shimura’s power. It turns out the only way that he can do that is to let go of the things he’s been feeling that are weighing him down and talk about them. This is very much a “fuck Bakugou” fic, which is my favorite. I love that Midoriya finally gets to feel and talk about all of the things that were done to him in this one. 

Savior - Basically, what if everyone told Bakugou to stop being an asshole to Midoriya on the first day of school instead of condoning his behavior? 

Uraraka’s Guide to Crushes - This is a TsuChako fic, which I think is a cute ship but don’t read about often. In this one, Uraraka is so sure that this will be a quick crush and then it’ll be over. The thing is, it doesn’t go away, which means she might actually have to confront her emotions... terrifying. 

The Sparkling Hero : Aoyama Yuuga - I have never seen a fic entirely dedicated to Aoyama, which made this an interesting read. Though not canon to the few things we do know about his background, it is still an interesting take on one of UA’s most sparkling future heroes. 

The Second Prince - This is a “what is AFO were Midoriya’s dad” fics, in a royal fantasy AU. Although some of the characters are OOC, this is a look at what Midoriya’s life would be like if he lived in a little castle where he can’t get hurt and still tried to help people anyways. I was surprised by how much I liked this fic. 

First Try (Not the Last) - In this fic, Midoriya has a Quirk, something that he only discovers when he tries to launch himself off of a building like Bakugou told him to. This is the first fic in the series, and I haven’t read it all the way through yet. Pretty good though. 

Like Light Through a Window - In this Aizawa and Hagakure Centric fic, the teacher finds the young hero in training after she’s been almost crushed under a building. He’s able to see her face for the first time, but only because it’s covered in blood. 

The Deaf Hero: Deku -  Basically, what if everything were the same but Midoriya was losing his hearing during it? Forty chapters, worth the read. 

I See You - In another fic where Midoriya is missing one of his senses, this blind successor of All Might wants to be able to see his mentor. The only embarrassing part is asking him if he wouldn’t mind Midoriya touching all over his face. 

Remember From Here on In - This is a fic where the author comes up with the six Quirks that Midoriya is going to get because of OFA. Although not canon, it was very good and fun. 

Remembrance - Throughout the course of these three chapters, Midoriya gets blasted back through time and lands in a world pre-All Might. Or at least, not the All Might that he knows, since he’s still at UA. 

Shout & Mute - In this EraserMic fic, the two of them are stuck in each other’s bodies throughout the course of the fic because of a villain. While staying at Hizashi’s apartment in his body, Shouta realizes just how much he loves him and knows that he’s going to end up confessing even if the feelings aren’t reciprocated. 

How Not to Enjoy the Weather, an Article by Kaminari Denki - The story toys around with the idea of this electric boy getting overpowered during thunder storms and him isolating himself so that he doesn’t end up hurting anyone that he cares about. 

A Deadman’s Gun - Throughout ten chapters, we get to see what would happen if Midoriya never got a Quirk and instead fell in league with Stain. 

See No Evil, Hear No Evil - A Bakugou and Kaminari friendship fic. Turns out that on the day that Kaminari forgot his contacts that he hasn’t told anyone about, and Bakugou forgot his hearing aids that he needs because of his Quirk. They decide to depend on each other throughout the day. 

Pictures, Posters, and Tender Beauty - During this fic, we get to see exactly what Midoriya thinks about his mentors weakened state. Dad Might fluff ahead. 

Electric Connection - This is a story where Kaminari can’t sleep - thanks ADHD - and so the entire BakuSquad comes into help. Shinsou is his boyfriend in this one, but it isn’t the focal point of the story. 

Caught Up - This is a Shinsou Centric fic where he fights through all of the not-quite-comments about his Quirk, and is thankful for having Aizawa in his corner. The last scene is Shinsou and Aizawa working together with the capture weapon. 

How To Ask Out a Guy in 2000 Words or Less - This is a ShinDoriya fic, and it features exactly what you think it does based off of the title. A very cute little story. 

Ghost - This is a story that actually features Shinsou and Shigaraki, the two of them having met at a toy store when Shinsou was just a little kid. Honestly, I wish there were multiple chapters of this because the idea is really interesting. 

Eyes On Me - Throughout three chapters, we see how Aizawa deals with his own panic attacks and the reasons why he feels the need to help his students through theirs. 

For Blood and Wine are Red (and Blood and Wine Were on His Hands) - Despite having a very long and Oscar Wilde inspired name, this is a short one-shot about Vigilante!Midoriya breaking into Aizawa’s apartment, looking for a first aid kit. 

Schrödinger’s Cat - This is a an extremely beautiful and painful story where Midoriya is found, months after going missing with a new powerful Quirk, white hair, and no memory of how he got there. This story was translated by the author from it’s native German, where is got less than five hundred hits. I think that everyone should read this fic and give the author a lot of love. 

Around and Around We Go - One of those “Five Things + One” things, this time with EraserMight and hair ties. A very cute story. I don’t get the chance to read a lot of EraserMight but I’m glad that I took the time to read this one. 

Playlists - Useless lesbians Momo and Jirou pine over each other and don’t realize that their love is requited until Jirou makes her crush known via a playlist. 

Nothing Cuts Like a Mother - In this Inko Midoriya Centric fic, we have the mother going to UA to tell Aizawa about the troubles that he has, with his Quirk. She also tells him about the bullying that Izuku Midoriya went through, and tells his teacher that these mistakes cannot be repeated. 

Team Player - This is a fic about Dabi not wanting to be redeemed from his sins. That was for Touya, an old him. He isn’t that guy anymore. 

Helping Hands - Primarily from the perspective of Kirishima, this is a fic that deals with an AU where Midoriya never got into the Hero Course, and is instead a Gen Ed course student at UA. Cue Bakugou attacking him on the second day, telling him that he doesn’t even belong at the same school as someone like himself - and then see all of Class 1A get angry for Midoriya because “Dude did you just fucking attack a dude because he’s Quirkless?” 

It’s Hurt Denki Hours - Now, I don’t really like the way that this one ends, but in this story the BakuSquad is convinced that Kaminari is the traitor and refuses to talk to him. This really hurts Kami, because he was actually really, really worried about his friends and this hurts him deeply. There is also a bit of a misunderstanding about how Shinsou’s Quirk works, but I will overlook it for the angst. 

Optimistic Friendship Association - This fic features Midoriya accidentally texting Shinsou instead of Yagi, asking how to get OFA to stop breaking his bones. When he’s asked what that is, he panics and says it’s a school group. Now he just has to find a way to explain why a group around optimism is breaking bones... 

Lichtenberg Figures - Another Kaminari Centric fic. In this one, Kaminari accidentally hurts a civilian after panicking during a villain attack. Not wanting to hurt anyone else, he starts refusing to use his Quirk, which does nothing but hurt him in the end. 

Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n Roll - This is a fic that has nothing to do with intercourse, drugs, or music. No, this is an ADHD Kaminari fic, where his RSD makes him not want to fill out a test that he doesn’t remember any of the answers to and he draws all over it. As someone with ADHD, this hit close to home but was really good. 

Kiss Away All These Thrills - A short ShinKami fic about the two of them playing the Pocky Game. Spoilers: it ends with a kiss and a confession. 

[impalementation]

conversations with dead people is such a great episode. i used to think it was overrated, but i rewatched it recently and it really isn’t. it takes its core idea of “aloneness” and then nuances it with the experiences of the different characters. leaving you with this rich, complicated sense of how people end up isolated from each other in different ways.

*

1. in buffy’s case, her aloneness is a matter of disconnection. as she discusses with holden, she is isolated by a calling that (a) means she has more power than her friends, which puts her in the position of leading, protecting and sometimes even punishing them, and (b) means she experiences things that no one else in her life can relate to. moreover, the pain and disappointment she’s experienced at the hands of other people has made her hesitant to reach out and connect. 

the episode literalizes the way being a slayer isolates her in some pretty clever ways. she’s out in a graveyard alone solely because she’s there to slay. and she loses track of her phone because she’s fighting. then the fact that she can barely remember holden is a reminder of the way that slaying has been keeping her apart from people for years. holden: “clearly, you were in your own little world in high school.” then, even after she and holden do build something of a connection (buffy: “you’re not a stranger”), she still ends up having to kill him. and is left with possibility that spike is now someone she’ll have to kill too. in other words, slaying puts her in the position of having to literally destroy her personal connections.

the buffy scenes capture the way it can be hard to tell whether your aloneness is because of who you are, or because of what your circumstances are, or something else entirely. the way it can be hard to tell how much of some situation is your “fault”. does buffy need to get better at “reaching out” or is she doomed no matter what simply because she’s the slayer? or is it neither? or is it both? it’s a relatable kind of confusion whether or not one is isolated by a circumstance as extraordinary as buffy’s.

2. in dawn’s case, aloneness is actually something sort of exciting. in seasons 5 and 6, dawn regularly played the role of the damsel. she was someone buffy had to care for and protect, and this meant that she was almost never left by herself. so the fact that dawn is at home alone is a sign that she’s grown up.

i see dawn’s scenes as being about her ambivalence regarding this increasing adulthood. she begins the episode reveling in her aloneness, in a charming but nonetheless juvenile way. but slowly her aloneness becomes more sinister. she is haunted (literally) by her mother’s presence, much as anyone is haunted (figuratively) by the way they were raised. she has to work by herself to figure out what’s happening, and thinks she is even in the position of needing to help or protect her mother in some way. in other words, dawn is forced to confront the idea that “being alone” in an adult sense actually means “having sole responsibility for something” and “going without parental guidance” and things like that. which is actually quite scary. 

the twist of the dawn bits is that although over the course of the episode, dawn learns that she can handle things by herself, the first was also attempting to manipulate her to take that too far. just as dawn discovers she can be independent in a positive sense, the first attempts to convince her that she must be independent, in a negative sense, because her sister will not be looking out for her. the sequence does a great job of capturing the difference between the healthy kinds of aloneness that come with growing up (which can be both fun and scary), and the more insidious idea that self-reliance requires isolation.

3. the willow scenes are tricky. one the one hand, willow’s aloneness is a matter of concrete loss. she is romantically alone because tara is dead, not because she has difficulty “connecting”.

but that loss is wrapped up a bigger problem, which is that willow has often had trouble understanding her value to people. she’s always acted vaguely (or not-so-vaguely) surprised that people want her in their lives. it’s a trait that goes back as early as welcome to the hellmouth, when she was surprised that buffy would befriend her, and continues as late as this season, when she’s surprised that kennedy pursues her. to deal with this insecurity, she tries to be useful, to make her value concrete. in season 6, she regularly frames her abuses of magic as being about helping people or fixing something, and she is adrift after giving it up. in two to go, she despairs that the only thing she was “ever good for” was tara’s love, and is only brought back from the brink in grave by xander reminding her that he loves her for herself. in other words, much of willow’s season 6 destructiveness sprang from her belief that she had nothing to offer the world and the world had nothing to offer her, because her only connection that wasn’t oriented around her usefulness or skill…was tara. it made sense to me that despite the fact that buffy and willow love each other, buffy was completely unable to talk willow down during the dark willow arc, because so much of buffy and willow’s relationship has to do with willow helping her with slaying.

so the first’s manipulation of willow is two-fold. firstly, it reminds her of what she’s lost. it tempts her with the connection that made her feel that she truly mattered. it tempts her with the thing that was once more important to her than the entire world (perhaps even more important to her than tara herself, given that willow once freely violated tara in order to preserve the feeling of being loved). it then attacks willow’s sense of usefulness by emphasizing that she’s a killer, and telling her that she’ll hurt people. basically, it tries to replicate her season 6 mindset by making her think that she has no way to be worthwhile or not-alone except through her relationship with tara. it tries to make her see having love, having friends, and having power as fundamentally irreconcilable things.

in other words, willow’s scenes are about the way that one can isolate oneself by (a) hiding within the feeling of being loved, (b) yearning for things that no longer exist, and (c) thinking of oneself as fundamentally unloveable or relationships as a matter of “worth”.

4. in andrew’s case, the tragedy is that he wants the love and respect of someone who doesn’t really exist more than the life of someone who does. he feels left alone by warren’s death (andrew: “you keep leaving me. i hate it when you leave me.”), but ends up actually alone. in jonathan’s case, the tragedy is that he is alone, but doesn’t know it. jonathan thinks that he and andrew are friends, and that they’re seeking atonement and belonging (jonathan: “do you think they’ll really let us join their gang?”). but in reality, andrew’s secret agenda is keeping them isolated from each other, and from the connections that atonement might bring them. the first-as-warren is the most obvious “dead person” that someone in the jonathan/andrew scenes is having a conversation with, but by the end of the episode we realize that in some sense jonathan was too. to andrew, he may have been dead long before the episode even began.

the trio has always existed to play with ideas of fantasy and delusion, and that continues in these scenes. andrew is deluded about warren’s motivations and reinforces jonathan’s fantasy about joining buffy’s gang, etc. they speak constantly in their usual exaggerated language about redemption, and being “outlaws with hearts of gold” and what have you. the difference between jonathan and andrew is that jonathan actually wants to escape the cycle. there’s a sad push-and-pull between fantasy and reality in the final conversation between the two of them. jonathan is truly sincere in his desire to connect with the people that ca. earshot, he once felt so apart from. he wants to know their reality, whether or not they ever wanted to know his. but andrew dismisses this as deluded and naive. the sad part is that for once, the fantastical nature of jonathan’s optimism throughout the episode was actually maybe a good thing. but andrew was so tempted by his own fantasy, an even more ephemeral connection, that he could not, or could not let himself, recognize this.

so both andrew and jonathan are alone either because they’re willfully not living in reality, or because they’re not simply not aware of what the reality of a situation is in the first place.

*

there’s a lot more you could analyze about all of these scenes, but i’ll leave it at that. i’ve come to think of conversations with dead people as something like the dead things or once more with feeling of season 7. in that it’s one of the few episodes of a season with big ambitions but confused execution, that actually addresses all of the season’s themes with the complexity and skill they deserved. 

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: The Wicked Witch of the West

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

In cinema, there are few villains who can ever boast to be even a fraction as influential as the Wicked Witch of the West. Everything about her – her skin color, her cackle, her voice, her large nose, her outfit, her personality, and her infamous weakness – have all become so ingrained in popular culture due to the enduring legacy of The Wizard of Oz that much of those traits are just now accepted as general “evil witch” traits in films and cartoons.

And all this coming from a character who was in but a single chapter in the first Oz book. Just what is it about this evil hag that makes her stand out to the point that she has been referenced and reimagined more times than you can shake a broomstick at?

Actor: Margaret Hamilton is the woman responsible for the nightmares suffered by millions of children in the many decades since this film came out. She is, in a word, perfect. Her evil cackle, her mannerisms, her voice, she does nothing but command the screen with her presence, and then you have to give props to the fact that Hamilton suffered through some serious hazards while filming, such as being unable to eat due to her copper makeup as well as at one point being burned severely during her pyrotechnic exit from Munchkinland. What a trooper she was for sticking through and seeing the film to the end despite all this; the world is so much more interesting for her sticking around, that’s for sure.

Motivation/Goals: The Wicked Witch is immensely simple in terms of motivation and goal: she wants the slippers Dorothy stole off of the corpse of the Witch’s flattened sister, the Wicked Witch of the East. To this end, she basically goes out of her way to hinder Dorothy’s journey to the Emerald City, though she is very ineffective in this despite her clear talent in magic. I think keeping her goal rather simple was a good thing, and even if they don’t really explain what she’d do with the ruby slippers if she ever got her hands on them, considering how she acts it would almost certainly not be pleasant for the residents of Oz.

Personality: The Wicked Witch’s personality is easily her biggest selling point. She’s just a mean, bitter hag, but in a fun way. She’s just so unbelievably cruel and petty but the fact that she feels the need to joke around a bit and cackle at just about everything she does makes her an absolute blast to watch. I guess the dark side really is more fun.

Final Fate: The Witch’s demise is arguably one of the most famous aspects of her, infamously so, even. The Witch is killed when Dorothy douses her in a bucket of water, which frankly comes out of nowhere and does nothing but raise questions, with the most important one being: Why does she allow what is effectively liquid insta-death to be kept in open containers lying around her castle? Like I get it needs to be cleaned and all but this just seems like an absurdly lethal workplace hazard. And does this mean the Witch herself never bathes? How does she clean herself? Obviously those last couple at least are more joking ones that are funny to think about and not serious ones because, come on, it’s a silly fantasy film, who besides Neil DeGrasse Tyson feels the need to apply real world logic and sense to everything except as fun exercises in thought?

Her melting away, her death cries, and just the sheer out-of-nowhere nature of the weakness has been parodied so many times across pop culture that these days water being a weakness for witches is pretty common, though it’s not considered the definitive weakness in the vein of sunlight for vampires is due to Count Orlock. I think part of it might be because how just completely out of nowhere this comes, to the point where the Witch dying is a total accident; she gets splashed when Dorothy is putting out a flame on Scarecrow’s arm. That’s right, the villain’s death is a complete and total accident, to the point where Dorothy apologizes for killing her afterwards. There’s something so absolutely delightfully hokey about this that, while it is certainly a bit anticlimactic, it is definitely charming and hard to hate. What a world! What a world!

Best Scene: It’s really hard to narrow it down, but two really stand out: the scene where she takes flight from her castle to harass the Emerald City is pretty cool, and the effect still looks pretty decent even today, and the scene where she taunts Dorothy through the crytal ball after showing her Aunty Em, and then proceeds to laugh at Dorothy’s misery. Those scenes show her at her coolest and pettiest, which absolutely sum her up in a big way.

Best Quote: It can only be one line, the line that launched  million imitators and named an entire trope: “I'll get you, my pretty — and your little dog too!"

Final Thoughts & Score: The Wicked Witch of the West is nothing short of an icon. She’s everything an evil witch needs to be: she’s hammy, she cackles a lot, she has an awesome evil lair, she flies a broomstick, she’s ridiculously petty, she is dangerous, threatening, and terrifying, and she is an absolute blast to watch. Throw in the fact that she has an entire army of winged monkeys at her beck and call, and what’s not to love?

I think the best aspect of her is how she contrasts to the rest of the world of Oz. Here we have this beautiful, colorful fantasy world that is “over the rainbow” as it were, and then here comes this black-clad witch figure who is as dark and dismal as anything in the real world Dorothy was living in. Her minions, her fortress, her attire – it all stands into stark contrast to the bright cheeriness of everything else. Even the grumpy trees are at least still a bit colorful and charming in their own way, but the Witch is just so dark and sinister. There’s a good reason why she’s frequently cited as one of the most terrifying antagonists in cinematic history – when juxtaposed to the sort of world she inhabits, she really does stand out as notably monstrous.

Just about every aspect of her has been aped in pop culture for decades. The shrill voice, the appearance, the green coloration… there are a lot of pop culture witches that should be paying royalties to the original Wicked Witch. Of course, let’s not pretend that the Wicked Witch totally invented everything wholesale. She is clearly drawing inspiration from folkloric ideas of witches, though obviously magnified through the fantasy lens of Oz (pretty sure folklore says nothing about witches being green), so at least in some respects she’s a bit less of a game changer than, say, Orlock or Darth Vader, who basically created an entire piece of lore or character archetype, respectively.

But the last thing I want to do is undersell the Wicked Witch, because she is still an easy 11/10. I mean, she’s managed to inspire an entire musical, she’s become the villains in numerous reinterpretations of the story despite playing only a minor role in the original book, and she was handled extremely poorly in that movie with James Franco. She’s most definitely left her mark on popular culture, and it’s entirely for the better (Mila Kunis notwithstanding). From her simple goal to her entire personality, everything about her is just completely and utterly enjoyable. She may not have reinvented the wheel in terms of characters… but damn if she didn’t perfect the wheel that was there.

[starting-today-you-are-a-writer]

WICKED SAINTS

1.5 stars out of 5 stars

 Summary: Kalyazin and Tranavia have been at war for untold decades, owning to a religious/magical feud where one side claims the other heretics and the other side invaded them for…power? A young woman, Nadya, blessed with powers by the gods flees when her monastery is destroyed by the warrior prince of a nation she is at war with. Running, she bumps into a mysterious blood mage, Malachiasz, and together the two of them plot to end the war between their countries.

 Overall:

 When I first opened the book, it seemed promising. Different viewpoints, an interesting magic system, the main character fleeing everything she had ever known to begin an adventure in the wider world.

 Except the book promised a fearsome cleric, an in depth look at monsters and a prince. And it only delivered on one of those things. Perhaps I was expecting the monsters or villains to be in the vain of Vicious (by VE Schwab) or even ala Forest of a Thousand Lanterns (by Juile C Dao) where characters with understandable motivations but dark ambitions and flaws ultimately struggle with their monstrosity and lose.

 Alas, this book did not even deal with any struggling of monstrosity, or even deal with the concept of monsters outside of “looks like a literal monster” and “betrays people.” But didn’t even examine whether or not “looking like a monster” was necessary or sufficient to be one.

 Not to mention, the cleric wasn’t fearsome, her actions felt contrived and very few characters in the entire novel actually had any clear motivations. The book felt very much like things happened because they were supposed to, instead of because that’s what the characters wanted or would have done. Not to mention the main romance was nonsensical. Sure, there’s enemies-to-lovers. This was not it. It was more like enemy lovers, except not one reason was ever give as to why this guy was appealing, and nothing about him was ever shown, only sometimes told, if that. Nadya felt drawn to her love interest Malachaisz, but not for any reason. Overall the book started strong but fell flat, and felt contrived and unable to hold my suspension of disbelief for even minor events.

Dislikes

Nadya and the Love Interest (Malachiasz)

I could write an essay on the problems here but the basic problem is that Nadya has no motivations, reasoning or rationalization for anything let alone for her attraction to her love interest Malachaisz. She meets him, decides she wants to kill him for being an evil blood mage, but then decides she doesn’t. She had already killed several Tranavian soldiers by this point, many weren’t evil blood mages and none of which brutally betrays her.

 Does she perhaps look at Malachiasz like many a lovelorn hero and think “what measure is a man or a demon? Can I really strike down someone who has not wronged me? Can I lift my blade and execute someone who may be innocent? And how to I think of innocence? He has fled from Tranavia, from a life of evil, is that enough? Is it enough to forsake his country for its evils if he does not embrace the gods? Would he change if only he knew the gods? Do Tranavians even have the chance to know them? With mercy could he change?” Nope! Not only are none of these things thought of, now only are no rationalizations provided for her feelings, but she does not even consider any of those points when she thinks of him or evil. She doesn’t consider his past and how he might have been tortured or not like the ability to use his powers. She doesn’t consider that all heretics are not evil. She doesn’t consider that people can be redeemed. No. Not once does she spend even one second trying to figure out a reason why she doesn’t want to kill him even though she has killed before. She ignores all those things, insists that he is evil and a blood mage and …. doesn’t want to kill him. For some reason.

 Does she even think “wow, with his pretty eyes, and his kindness towards me and his banging body, maybe, I mean, the monastery was very chaste but….”  Does she think this and let her romantic heart speak for her? No. And she doesn’t think this because 1) nothing in his description seems attractive or like she is supposed to find it attractive 2) he is not kind to her. He is not nice to her. He is just mean to her (thought not cruel) 3) the times that seem like they might have sexual tension are always tied up inextricably in violence. But there is no OTHER aspect to him that might seem attractive to her EXCEPT the threat of violence. What I mean by this is she occasionally reflects that he looks sad, or is sad, but there’s no real textual evidence. In the same what that just saying a character is sad when they are laughing, and running about, glib, and seem happy, does not make them sad. So all other aspects of his character ring false EXCEPT that he is violent or has the potential to be. So her only reason to be attracted to him is…that he is violent? Gross.

 Now, likely he was supposed to have other, likeable qualities. But he does not. This is a problem with the characters themselves. Their character traits are often told instead of shown. His actions are almost always glib and argumentative and he really doesn’t take any other actions that that. He does not even rescue a lost dog from the rain as a token gesture of god will. And Nadya despite claiming that he might be lost, does really extrapolate or explain or provide any evidence or think about that. For instance, she could try to Sherlock Holmes his situation and realize he must be sad. But she does not do this. She seems to regurgitate these things like she has another magical power of empathy and can actually read people’s emotions in their heart instead of on sad expressions or through actions, but she does not ever give evidence for her thoughts, opinions or rationalizations for anything.

 In short, their relationship reads like the worst kind of Insta Lova/compulsory heteronormativity, even thought I know this was not the intention of the author. However, Nadya seemed to fall for him just because he is THERE and every time she says anything about him, it seems completely unbelievable, because there’s no textual evidence for it, and ever time she says that she likes him or doesn’t want to kill him it’s just WHHHHHHHHHHHY? Is it “Half of her wanted to kill him, but he was still a person… [insert moral quandary here]” NOPE, we don’t get that. It’s just “half of her wanted to kill him, but half of her didn’t. What were they having for dinner again?” but WHY didn’t she want to kill him? Personal goals and motivations are not things that you withhold form the reader to be clever, they are basic components of characterization.

 This lack of interior reasoning goes beyond just her relationship to this character. Even her plans and actions seem to change without reason. She had a plan. She meets Malachiasz and immediately agrees with his plan to kill the king of her rival country. But why? Does she think it will work? Does she spend one second considering the merit of the plan? Does she try to think of another plan? Does she ask him to elaborate on this? NO. She does whatever Malachiasz says. She sacrifices principles of herself, she does X and Y and Z and there never really feels like a reason for 90% of it. She’s surprised when she gets betrayed, but since she had not reason to trust anyone (she did not posit a reason in her internal monologue for trusting them, let alone have this be supported by the actual actions the characters take!), it falls flat. Her reactions and failure fall flat, because it’s never clear why she has to be doing what she’s doing, what’s at stake if she’s not doing that, why she couldn’t do something better, or why she thinks it’ll work.

 It really was a slog to get through her sections sometimes because there very few scenes where I cared about the stakes because the series of events themselves felt arbitrary.

 Minor Characters and Otherness

The minor characters and plain, forgettable, have no real character or personality traits and clearly serve as props to make whatever point, or facilitate whatever outcome, is supposed to happen at any scene. This becomes very transparent. The characters from the desert country Akola are constantly referred to as Akolans instead of their names even when their race has no point in the scene, and they only exist to like the main Love Interest Malachaisz, but no reason is give as to why they like him, what they want, or their goals or agency. So not only are they flat props to make the Love Interest related and sympathetic, they are also heavily Othered. Not to mention another minor character, Ana, is presented as a Strawman who’s only purpose is to dislike the Love Interest for No Reason so that he seems more relatable and agreeable in comparison. Again, do these characters have motivations? Thoughts? Goals? Personality? No.

 Worldbuilding

In the beginning I felt the world building was fairly good. Each country has distinct language and naming conventions. The differences between the countries respective magic systems seemed intriguing. But as the story went on, not much is learned about Kalyazin other than what was learned in the first few chapters, and only a scattered detail or two is learned about Tranavia. What do they eat in Tranavain? How do they dress? Fine silk? Heavy furs with flower patterns? What are their values outside of blood magic?

The author continuous repeats that Kalyazin is based on fantasy Russia and Tranavia on fantasy Poland but in the novel there feels like no real effort to elaborate and expects the reader to fill in world building with real world Russian or Polish culture. Perhaps that wasn’t her intention, but it comes across that way when no real details about the culture are give outside the very one note religious differences.

 Religion

Speaking of the religious differences, this was something else I thought was interesting at first but quickly disappointed me. The religion conflicts starts off with Kalyazins claiming that magic should come from the gods and that using blood to fuel magic (like the Tranavians do) is heresy and terrible. However, the main character Nadya, never explores this beyond using it as a talking point. Why would it be considered terrible? Because accessing magic is holy and to do so without it being holy is bad? There is something said about how Tranavia is also bad for rejecting the gods, but what really bothered me was that the main character never really thinks deeply about these things. She never examines what she thinks is bad, or what her thoughts are on the war and the gods. She only repeats what she had been told and makes it clear she is doing so, providing no real analysis on her own. For all that she is claimed to be empathetic she does not actually empathize and consider the other position.

 It’s fine for characters not to know something, but if you’re a cleric, you would think you’d spend some time contemplating the morality of what you are doing. Moreover, as the novel progresses Nadya comes into more and more contact with blood magic, but her analysis of the situation never changes, she never stops to think “is it possible for someone to use blood magic if they aren’t evil?” or “is it truly doing evil if you aren’t aware that it’s evil?” Instead, it seems her views seem to shift but there’s no corresponding rationalization or thought as to why. Rather than Character Development it feels more like her Character just slips into something else. This is a recurrent problem with Nadya, but it was something that bothered me on a larger scale. Lip service is paid to characters having different viewpoints on this issue but nothing is ever developed from it.

 Notes on Confusion

A lot of people had complained (I think) that they found the ending confusing, to which the author said that something things were supposed to be confusing. In general I agree that books don’t have to answer every question raised. The magic system didn’t have to be completely explained.

 However the end was confusing in that the prose was literally unclear. The blocking and actions taken by the characters were unclear. It wasn’t “Wait! But I never learned why this happened! How does the magic work! Why would he betray them!” unclear. It was “Wait, is he still in the scene? When it says he “flies up” is he leaving this location or hanging around near the ceiling? What does this sentence mean?” confusing. It was difficult to follow the sequence of events without multiple rereading of lines, and even then it was unclear as to why the characters were taking certain actions. Not in a “why does the character not betray X” sort of way but more in the “wait, what is he trying to do? Is he trying to kill X? What does he think killing X will accomplish? Why did he even come back here? Does this benefit him? What does he think will happen?” the problem is that, when you don’t understand the characters goals/thoughts, it’s hard to know if they are succeeding or failing at them, so the conflict wanes immediately.

 Likes

Serefin

Unlike possibly every other character, Serefin had clear motivations, goals, and things at stake. His life was at stake if he didn’t figure out what going on. His goal was to figure out what his father was doing, and to thwart it and live. Boom. A dynamic character. Throw in interpersonal conflict with him being traumatized from a war but now being forced to act in court and you have someone who actually has stakes in most scenes he’s in, who’s actions are logically derived from what he wants, and who makes progress towards his goal. A good character, a likeable character. One who can be funny, but with flaws.

 Magic System

The idea of two different magic system did seem interesting to me. I’ve always liked the idea that there were different ways to use magic and of course there was room to have rife interplay of how magic actually worked, how people accessed it, what that meant, etc etc

[ancientbooshartifacts]

Mistletoe Threeway

Author: Easilyled & Accio_arse

Year: 2008

Rating: NC-17

Pairing: Howard/Dennis

“Why are you looking at me that way, Howard?” Vince was stood behind the counter of the Nabootique, leaning on it nonchalantly and picking at the voluminous sleeve of his diaphanous, vaguely ethnic smock, as if there weren’t a ball of mistletoe floating in the air above his head. “I’m not looking at you, am I?” Howard snapped mildly. “I’m looking at the thing above your head. What’s that about?” “It’s genius, isn’t it?” Vince enthused. “Basically, it’s mistletoe specially treated with anti-hairspray. The chemicals in the treated mistletoe simultaneously attract and repel the chemicals in the hairspray – sold separately – and create a sort of powerful festive force field. They’re like two magnets, yeah? Or like the moon held in the earth’s gravitational embrace.” Vince embraced the air to demonstrate, his eyes closed and his pursed-lipped face a mask of serene bliss. Howard tried to keep his own face blank, but couldn’t quite suppress a tic of a twitch affecting the entire right side of his face. He automatically swatted at it, like a fly, making Vince assume an expression of horror, which Howard feigned not to see. “And the point of that is?” he asked. Vince took his cue from Howard and ignored his friend’s symptoms of imminent mental breakdown. “What do you mean, what’s the point? It’s to fit in as much kissing during Chrimbo as possible!” “It’s called a hat and wire.” “Where’s your Vision, Howard?” “Occupied with more important things.” “Oh yeah, like what?” “Like creating an utopic society based on the model of Stationery Village. Lester Corncrake has already agreed to join.” “Lester Corncrake is a Disembodied Head.” “And so will we all be in Stationery Republic, Vince. It’s about getting past the body. Just… moving past it. Like an undertaker in the night.” “Okay, that went in so many creepy directions, I don’t even know where to begin. Anyway, the Airborne Mistletoe is part of my line.” “Your ‘line’? You have a ‘line’ now?” “’Course I do. The Vince Noir Futuristic Traditions Line.” Howard quirked an eyebrow. “That’s pretty good, actually,” he half-muttered into his mustache. “Thought so.” “It’ll never sell though,” Howard pronounced, poking the floating mistletoe experimentally with a pencil, wearing a little tight smile of triumph that was somewhat unpleasant to see. “Easy, you off-sale Scroogist. Why not? Who doesn’t like kissing?” “That much kissing? With randoms off the street? Street-randoms? The thing’s a death-magnet.” He gave it another, more aggressive poke before Vince could duck away. “Especially at this time of year. Imagine the germs!” “You imagine the germs! And touch my line again –” “Touch your what now?” “- an’ I’ll obliviate you.” “Oh yeah? That sounds serious, sir.” “Maybe it is. So you’d better just… watch yourself. In case.” Howard shook his head, arms akimbo, eyes lit up strangely as he continued to stare at Vince’s tiny holidaytastic satellite. “It’s nothing but an invitation to pneumonia.” “Well it’s definitely not an invitation to you.” “Are you sure?” “Yeah. And your poking.” “Just don’t come crying to me, squealing like a hungry piglet – “Ooooooh, where’s Mama Sow’s sweet gushing nipple –” Vince gagged audibly, which Howard ignored. “– when your wanton, derelict kissing –” “Derelict kissing!?” “- when it lands you in the hospital, with a machine, a thing of metal and… dials, doing your breathing for you.” “Slow down there, Mama Sow! Don’t start composing me eulogy yet. This is not for me, is it? I’m just using it to demonstrate.” “To demonstrate what?” “The – product!” Secretly gleeful that Vince had meandered into his trap, Howard made a sweeping gesture with his arm indicating Vince’s form, which was clearly visible (almost audible, Howard thought) in the inadequate covering of a loose smock, as flimsy as a sigh, over his clinging silver jumpsuit. “And what exactly is the product?” The door opened then with a tingle of shop-bells, heralding the arrival of a pretty young woman with a brunette fringe, in a sunshine-yellow pea coat that made Vince forget Howard’s insinuation and brighten like a child handed a toy. “Alright?” he greeted her. Howard felt a sharp twinge of anxiety in his stomach as she instantly returned Vince’s grin. But then her smile faltered. “What’s – that over your head?” Howard grinned maniacally, waiting. But Vince didn’t miss a beat – he only smiled wider. “It’s Airborne Mistletoe. Follows you wherever you go. So you don’t have to take your chances, hoping to catch your Special Someone at the right moment.” Howard’s face fell faster than a shy soufflé as he saw that the girl was charmed. “That’s so romantic!” she cried. “Romantic!” Howard thundered before he could stop himself. “Romantic is… setting a trap! Following your beloved around! Don’t worry – I mean secretly! Learning their habits, like a predator in the wild. Deciding where to plant the mistletoe. Then waiting, lurking in the shadows, for them to walk by the spot – so you can pretend it’s a coincidence. If necessary, setting up a hammock, in case you have to wait in the spot a few days, and making a small or smallish fire, to cook your omelets. THAT, you know-nothing Camden mannequins, is ROMANTIC.” Howard paused for breath, while the girl looked at him as if deciding whether to scream. Vince watched her with concern. “Don’t mind him, yeah?” he said hurriedly, coming around the counter and taking her elbow gently. “He’s – practicing a part for a play. He’s playing a rapist stalker mentalist.” He shot Howard a look that was half-exasperated, half-pleading. “Tone down the mental, would you, Hamlet? You’re scaring the customers.” “You’re in a play?” The girl looked at Howard with new interest, and palpable relief. “You’re very good!” Howard simply snarled at her, making her jump and cling to Vince, who rolled his eyes and patted her back comfortingly. “Anyway. What do you think of my invention? It’s part of my new line – Futuristic Traditions.” Lost in the warm bubbly bath of Vince’s attention, the girl had forgotten Howard and his psychotic ranting already. She giggled and replied, “Well – I’d like to try it out first, before I commit myself.” “Huh? Oh, yeah! Sure.” Vince leaned in obligingly for the kiss. Howard watched, torn between disbelief and rage, as Vince launched himself at the girl’s face, nibbling expertly at her lips. And felt himself die slightly inside as he thought he caught Vince momentarily suck on her tongue – before the little tart slid it deep in Vince’s mouth. For months now, ever since his *coughcough* 32nd *cough* birthday, Howard had secretly been telling himself that even though the rest had been a lie, a desperate manoeuvre to keep the Head Shaman from ceremoniously decapitating him – that Vince couldn’t have sucked on his tongue that way without feeling some kind of attraction – of deep, powerful, molten attraction – for Howard. But of course – that was only the naïve impression of a virgin, wasn’t it? It was just a technique – like everything Vince did. Unique and flawless and designed to maximally please. And completely impersonal. Howard often wondered if Vince got any personal pleasure out of anything he did, or if his only pleasure consisted of pleasing others. Right now, however, he was causing Howard excruciating pain as he and the girl continued to snog endlessly, relentlessly, panting and slurping away, making Howard’s skin crawl even as his stomach contracted into a ball of angry jealousy as dense as a collapsed star. He might have lost his kissing virginity that night on the roof, but he was losing his illusions only now – those precious illusions he’d always been so afraid would go swirling down the putrid urinal of experience when the rest of it went. And then, as he continued to watch avidly as if their faces were the urinal and he was trying to catch in them the last traces of his illusions as they swirled down the dirty drain (or some such confused metaphor, Howard wasn’t thinking particularly clearly) Vince snuck a glance at him out of the corner of his eye. A glance that a neutral observer might have described as “opaque,” or perhaps, at a stretch, as seductive in its heavy-lidded haziness, but that Howard, who was far from neutral, instantly read as mischievous and mocking. And reacted, with the same instantaneousity, by charging at Vince and grabbing him by the smock, but unable to gain a purchase on that wisp of smoke, took him by the throat instead, and not only broke off the endless kiss, but shook the mistletoe creation out of its hold. It dropped to the floor with a decidedly unfestive thud, inert, and Howard shook Vince like a rag-doll while the girl shrieked, and Howard laughed, awfully. And Vince choked and stared at Howard with glassy disbelieving goggle-eyes, a squeak attempting to emerge from his throat and turn into a plea, but it was too late. “It’s too late!” Howard shouted, shattering his fantasy – and also the kiss taking place in front of him. “I’ll take it,” the girl told Vince when she’d caught her breath. “50 euros,” Vince replied, looking with concern at the stockroom, where Howard had disappeared, slamming the door behind him. He was inside giving himself discreet Chinese burns. * Howard wouldn’t come out no matter how often Vince knocked on the door during the day. Vince was left to handle the pre-Christmas rush by himself. He told Vince that he was reorganizing the stockroom to make its arrangement more logical – which was actually true, and very soothing. Vince’s sales figures were so good that Naboo let him off early. They closed up the shop and had champagne, then set off for a night on the town. Vince didn’t try to get Howard to come out again – he was angry at him by now. He didn’t know what had set Howard off that way, or what right Howard had to be upset. He’s the one who’d rejected Vince’s unspoken offer to go for the Mistletoe Threeway. Just because Howard was so fastidious was no reason to hurt his friend’s feelings that way. Everything had been crap between them, anyway, ever since The Roof. Everything they usually did suddenly turned Weird. The midnight crimping grew awkward – Howard had even suggested that they each get their own bedrooms (or more precisely, that Vince move into the cupboard). He pretended it was because Vince woke him up by always coming in late, but why weren’t the snail-shell earplugs Vince had made for him (at the cost of two snails’ homes) good enough for that anymore? And when Vince tried to bring things back to normal by suggesting a bout of satsuma-throwing in their vests and pants, Howard made excuses, saying that he needed to go round to Lester Corncrake’s and feed him. Like he was a chia pet. He’d rather spend time with a blind head than with Vince these days. “He’s right,” Vince said, biting his lip. “It’s too late.” “It only two a.m.!” Bollo replied, grooving on the dancefloor, where Vince had suddenly stopped moving. “Get with it, Vince.” And began to sing, “’But if my Daddy say I fine – No, no, no!’” He grabbed Vince by his delicate wrist and pulled him in close, grinding his generous ape-hips against Vince’s slender lady-man ones. “Show-off,” Vince thought. Back at the shop, Howard had finally gained the courage to emerge from the stockroom, and had managed to exhaust himself with obsessive-compulsive rearranging to the point where he thought he might be able to sleep. As he was stumbling his way to the stairwell, a towering figure stepped out of the shadows. Howard balked, catching the menacing glint of a sword, and the duller one of a bald head, in the softly glowing fairylights. “Howard Moon,” boomed Dennis, the Head Shaman. “Where’s your little boyfriend?” “Probably at the disco, pulling,” Howard grumbled. He was in no mood to pretend to be a gayist, or even coherent. And remembering Lester Corncrake’s fate made him burn with indignation at this disgusting bully’s presence in his shop. “What do you want, sir?” To Howard’s surprise, Dennis lowered his eyes as if confused. Was that a rosy blush creeping into his cheeks, mingling with the blue and green of the fairylights? “Is the blind mental around? I feel slightly sheepish for what I did to him.” “Lester Corncrake’s Head is at home, sir, sleeping. As you should be.” Was the bloody-minded Shaman Warrior fidgeting? “Wife threw me out,” he muttered at last. “Really?” Howard replied with heavy sarcasm. “You seemed so happy together. Is your plan to crash at Naboo’s, then? He’s out with Vince – but I suppose you can get into his flat using your magic, or sword, or however you got in here.” “They left the door unlocked.” “Oh. Fair enough.” Howard made a move towards the beaded curtain that separated the shop from the corridor, but Dennis grabbed his arm. “Wait!” Howard stiffened, and closed his eyes, waiting for the blade to fall. But Dennis released him. “I’m lonely. I need someone to talk to.” “Don’t you have any friends? Never mind,” Howard answered himself. He sighed, then fetched stools for both of them. “Got anything to drink?” Dennis asked eagerly, settling himself onto a stool. Howard knew now that he wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight. * Vince tried to be quiet as he entered his and Howard’s dark bedroom. The sky was lightening outside, but the blush of the sunrise hadn’t yet reached the tops of the surrounding buildings. He stripped off his jumpsuit, sweaty from the night of dancing, and tossed it on the floor with the others, then prepared to crawl into bed carefully. Howard didn’t like being touched – except sometimes, at night, he was up for a cuddle, after a long emotional bout of crimping. But lately Vince had thought it better not to risk it. Vince shrieked as his limbs unexpectedly encountered a meaty form on his side of the bed. He disentangled himself as quickly as he could, falling onto the floor. “Vince?” On the other side of the bed – Howard’s side – someone had sat up. Vince recognized Howard’s outline. “Howard! There’s someone sleeping in our bed!” “Yeah, I know that, Baby Bear.” Suddenly it dawned on Vince what was happening. He felt a perfect fool. “Howard! Did you -?” “What?” Howard shimmied to the end of the bed and climbed off. He came towards Vince. “Keep it down,” he told him. “It’s the Head Shaman.” “Howard!” Vince shrieked. Howard reflexively grabbed the back of Vince’s head and clamped a hand over his mouth. He was crouched in front of Vince – still in his clothes, which he’d worn to bed, while Vince was sprawled on the floor, legs out in front of him, propped up by his hands, naked. They always went to bed naked, but Howard hadn’t felt that was appropriate, or in fact safe, when the drunken Head Shaman had asked if he could sleep in Howard’s bed – especially after his comments about Howard’s pumpkin ass and questions about his waxing habits. Behind Howard’s hand, muffled laughter began to emerge from Vince. Howard looked severely into his friend’s bulbous eyes, which glistened with excited mischief in the dark room. “Will you be quiet now?” Howard asked, and removed his hand, rubbing it against his trousers to take the tickle away. He didn’t really want to hear anything Vince would say, but felt that staying that way looking at each other any longer involved an obscure danger. “Howard!” Vince whispered, still giggling under his breath. “You had it off with the Head Shaman?” “No!” Howard shouted. Dennis stirred on the bed and muttered in his sleep. “Methuselah – no! Not the squash racket!” “No,” Howard repeated, hissing it quietly and angrily this time. “He had an argument with his wife and came here. He got wasted and passed out.” “You mean – you’ve still not had it off then?” Vince asked, his face serious now. “Why would I let you know if I did?” Howard asked, aware that he sounded slightly sulky. “So you can put it on MySpace?” “I’d never do that, Howard.” Vince smiled at him, stroking his arm soothingly. Howard let him – it was the first time in months Howard had let him. “Really?” “Of course not. I’m on Facebook now. MySpace is for pensioners and Lily Allen fans.” But Howard could tell he was teasing, and couldn’t help smiling a little. And he didn’t push him away when Vince grasped his upper arms and pulled Howard towards him – and then they were kissing again, and Howard couldn’t believe it could be as good the second time as the first. Their mouths parted against each other, and Vince ran his tongue along the side of Howard���s – and suddenly the intrusive image of a bright yellow pea coat burst into Howard’s mind, like a blossoming migraine, and he pulled away. Vince opened his eyes, startled, and looked at Howard in bewilderment. There was light in the room now, and the pain in Howard’s eyes was so laceratingly clear Vince felt like he’d been slapped. “Go on. Why did you stop?” Vince and Howard started, and Howard turned his head. Dennis was sitting upright on the bed, facing them, arms folded, his sword resting across his lap. “Go on, I said. I want to see more of this. So you’re a virgin, are you, Moon? How… piquant. But it can’t be very easy on your boyfriend.” “He’s not my boyfriend!” Howard nearly screamed in frustration. Dennis’s silver alien eyes narrowed and flitted from Howard to Vince. “So – you’re not in love?” “I am,” Vince said quickly. “I am, but he’s not.” “How can you say that?” Howard demanded. “I’m not the one who goes around kissing everyone I meet – and in exactly the same way!” “What are you talking about, you strap-on sushi kit?” “About the fact that there’s no passion – no soul – behind anything you do, Vince!” “I try to make people happy! I try to make you happy! And the thanks I get is you accusing me of having no soul?” “I want you to try to make me happier than you make other people – happy!” “If you could tell me what to do to not make you always angry that would be a start!” “I just did tell you!” “What? I’m lost.” “Enough arguing!” Dennis stood, gripping his sword. “I liked the kissing better. Do the kissing again.” “Are you some kind of pervert?” Vince asked him. “Yes,” Dennis replied. “A pervert with a very big sword.” “Point.” Vince cast his eyes downward, distressed. There was no escape. * “I’m sure this isn’t what you wanted your first time to be,” Vince apologized to Howard, who was now naked as well, lying on the bed, on his back, with his knees bent, with Vince lying on top of him. Vince stared at the wall over Howard’s head, Howard at Vince’s small white shoulder. “Actually, I just wanted it to be a time,” Howard replied. Their eyes met briefly, and Howard attempted a reassuring smile. Instinctively, he planted an affectionate kiss on Vince’s shoulder, then lay his head back on the pillow. Vince bit his lip and his face dipped shyly, but he kept his eyes on Howard’s. “I’ll try to make it good.” “Don’t try!” Howard replied, with an edge of yearning in his voice that made Vince shiver with alertness. “That’s what I’m saying! You don’t always have to be the best and brightest with the biggest bounciest hair! Just – do what you feel, yeah?” “Start fucking!” Dennis barked. “Mate – why don’t you make yourself useful!” Vince snapped. Dennis took a step towards the bed. “Not like that! We could use a little something to – ease the process. Make a soft landing. Yeah?” “I’m not following you.” “Don’t play dumb, magic-boy. All extreme sports calendar models do anal. Everyone knows that.” “Oh! You want cooking oil!” “Exactly. Run to the kitchen, would you, love?” Dennis left the room reluctantly, watching them over his shoulder as he went. “Don’t do anything until I get back!” As soon as he was gone, Vince leapt out of the bed and locked the door, then leaned against it. Howard sat up and watched as Vince slid down the door, collapsing in front of it. When he was sat on the floor he pulled his skinny legs up to his chest and put his arms around them, his head back against the door, apparently scrutinizing the ceiling. Feeling more than a little self-conscious, Howard nevertheless got out of bed and went to him. He knelt beside Vince and waited, but when Vince made no move to acknowledge him, Howard made the first move. “Alright, little man?” he asked tentatively, daring only to brush Vince’s hair off his shoulder. “I can’t do it, Howard!” Vince groaned, shaking his head in a pique, which made the hair immediately fall back in place. Automatically, Howard brushed it away again, slightly hypnotized, this time letting his fingers drag against the smooth, soft surface of the curve of Vince’s neck. “I don’t mind, honestly. It’s probably time to get it over with, isn’t it?” “I mean I can’t perform under this pressure!” He looked at Howard wildly. “You know about me and pressure! I expect perfection of myself, and what happens? I fold like a pup tent in a strong breeze! So to speak.” He cast his eyes down between his legs ashamedly. Howard smiled dreamily, now playing with Vince’s ear, his finger tracing its whorls. “You mean like that time at school when you were cast in the play?” “I was just playing a tree! All I had to do was stand there and hold me leaves up!” “Instead you panicked because you didn’t feel like you were doing enough, and started body-popping.” “For twenty minutes! I couldn’t figure out how to get off!” “The audience loved it, though. They cheered you on. I was playing the lead, but they all forgot about me. I had to abandon the speech I’d written especially for my character at a crucial moment in his trajectory.” “You mean when he loses his hat?” “The director always undersold the psychological ramifications of that incident.” “Yeah. I never apologized for that, did I, Howard?” “No. But it doesn’t matter. I’m a shit writer.” “Howard.” Vince turned to look at Howard, and took Howard’s face in his hand. Vince’s hand was surprisingly warm. Howard smiled at him, and reached over and took up his other hand. He brought it to his mouth and bit Vince’s knuckles lightly, still smiling, and then held it under his chin. “Why so serious? It’s not like you’re killing someone. And it’s not for real, is it? It’s just some pervert’s fantasy.” “I want it to be for real,” Vince said, holding Howard’s eyes. They both wanted to look away, and neither did. The moment was held too long – and then longer. And then it started to feel not strange, but right, and Howard’s face moved closer to Vince’s, and Vince’s hand snaked around from Howard’s face through his hair to the back of his neck, which was burningly hot. The door vibrated with Dennis’s pounding. “Did I miss anything? I made popcorn!” Vince stamped his foot on the floor. “This is never going to happen!” “Don’t make me teleport in there!” Dennis warned from the other side of the door. Howard stood, sighing, wincing as his joints creaked, and returned to the bed. He resumed the devirginization position and waited. “Vince?” Several minutes had passed, and Howard was starting to wonder what was going on, as well as getting cold. “I’m right here.” Vince appeared at the side of the bed so suddenly that Howard felt unnerved instead of relieved. Before he could process that feeling, however, Vince had climbed on top of him, in a strangely business-like manner. He examined Howard’s face closely and speculatively, as if it were a foreign object whose meaning he was trying to determine. “Vince?!” Howard asked again. “Right here! You’re a remarkably handsome man, you know.” “I am!? Oh. Yeah. ‘Course I am. You don’t need to tell Howard Moon that…. I was voted Total Hottie of 2007 by the Librarians Who Like Jazz Association. What happened to the Head Shaman?” “He probably got a call on his mobile from his wife.” “Oh… that makes sense.” “Now, Howard. I should fairly inform you that I’ve never done this before.” “You haven’t?” “I never even considered it before that night on the roof. But I’ve done a lot of deflowering of virgins in my time.” “You have!?” “This ought to be doubly pleasurable, seeing as how it’ll also be a defloration of myself.” “It will!?” “My manginity. Right. Let’s do this thing.” Vince’s lips against Howard’s were brutal, pressing down, smothering him. His tongue forced its way into Howard’s mouth, apparently searching out his tonsils. Howard wanted to protest, to push him away, overwhelmed, but his cock sprang up rebelliously, hardening against Vince’s. At last Vince pulled back. He licked his lips thoughtfully. “Mmmmmm… good. You like it?” He grabbed Howard’s cock and pumped it in his hand, roughly. “Vince,” Howard panted, “I don’t mean to criticize, but… where’s the romance?” “I’ll send you flowers after, baby. If you suck my cock like a good little woman.” “NO!” Howard grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him away, onto the bed. He scrambled on top of Vince and held him down easily with his greater weight and strength, but their erections remained squished together in a hot damp mass, throbbing, as Howard tried to regain hold of his senses. Vince was laughing, his sweaty fringe in his eyes, his eyes glittering beneath, black locks splayed against the pillow. “What are you doing?” Howard demanded, trying to make it all make sense. “I don’t even know you!” Something in Howard’s tone brought Vince to calm, but a malevolent smirk soon crept onto his face, and his clearly-formed words cut deep into Howard. “But I know you. Cut the bullshit. You don’t want gentleness or tenderness. You want to be taken like a bitch. Now lie down like a good boy and let Daddy tie you up and take care of you.” Howard stared at him another moment in disbelief. Then a little whimper escaped his throat involuntarily, and slowly he nodded. “Yes, sir, Daddy, sir.” Howard lay on his back and raised his arms for Vince’s ministrations. He closed his eyes and sighed as he heard bedsheets being torn. Then felt the material, cool and strangely scratchy, against his wrists. “Tighter,” he instructed, frowning. “No more talking, dickhead,” Vince told him, and shoved a thumb up Howard’s arse, without preparation. After a moment, Howard pushed against it. It felt ridiculously painful, like someone had stuck a small fire up his bum. Wincing, he whispered, “Vince… is this it? Are we having sex?” Vince laughed back, harshly. Howard looked confused. “I just thought - since you’re inside me, and…” “Fool! Aren’t you ever going to shut up?” Using the flat of his hand, Vince slapped Howard hard across the face. At the same time, he used his thumb inside to punctuate every word with a violent motion up. At every dry stab, Howard shuddered. Vince changed tactics. With Howard’s tightness, the thumb had hardly broken through the first clench of muscles, even after several shoves. So Vince began a series of vicious twists, each time swivelling the thumb little further. It was soon wedged in far past the knuckle. Howard yelled in panic at the intrusion. His muscles went into spasm inside at the pain. He strained the bonds around his wrists – but the knots were firmly tight. His ankles were fixed down, too, bound to the bedposts – and he couldn’t even remember Vince doing that. “You virgins,” Vince snorted. “Always screaming and saying no! As if that doesn’t just heat my blood. Make me want to despoil you all the more.” Howard yelped. Every time he tried to struggle away, the thumb was just twisting and rubbing the more painfully. It was agony. Vince’s gaze flicked up and down Howard’s body, coming to rest Howard’s cock, still treacherously half-hard on his belly. Vince sneered in amusement. “Ha! You don’t fool me! I know what you really want. A man with a sword larger than a toddler’s leg. And who’s not afraid to use it.” Howard forced himself to calm. The pain wasn’t so bad if he stopped moving. He took in a shaky breath. “That’s better. Now you’ve got the right idea. Going to lie there and let Daddy get on with business?” “Vince…?” asked Howard, weakly. He searched for a grin, a cheeky look from his friend - anything to confirm this was still a game. Vince loomed silently over Howard. Behind the shadow of his fringe his eyes were dark and unknowable. Then very deliberately, Vince stuck out his tongue. In one swift motion he’d licked Howard’s face, up from the jawline across Howard’s cheek and across the red mark where Howard had been slapped. But he didn’t stop there. He continued up to Howard’s left eye socket. There he jammed in the tip of his tongue and swished it wetly around. Howard’s breath hitched. He’d shut both eyes before the tongue descended, but the exploration of his eyeball was still pretty unnerving. “Tasty,” said Vince. The tip of his tongue was just poking out as he licked it against his lips. “Very, very tasty. Virgin tears.” Howard blinked. His left eyelashes were weighed down with Vince’s spit. Vince’s face was still startlingly close. “So, you going to be a good boy for Daddy? Hmmm? Are you?” He leaned further in and whispered into Howard’s ear. His voice was strangely deep and resonant. “Because believe me, I’m not finished yet.” Howard’s eyes widened. That voice… fear chilled his skin. But this was Vince, wasn’t it? He could trust Vince. “I didn’t hear a yes,” warned Vince. He pushed his slim-hipped body onto Howard’s. Their hot cocks touched. Howard let out a moan. Before he could think, he was rocking his hips up, mashing their cocks together and working himself back to full hardness. “Y…yes… Yes sir. Please sir.” “Right decision, meathead.” Howard moaned once more – this time in pain. Vince had yanked his thumb straight out of Howard’s arse. It was even more intense than when Vince had forced the thumb in, like Howard’s innards were being dragged out backwards. “Now, first things first,“ announced Vince, sitting up straight, and starting to climb off Howard. As the emptiness in his arse throbbed to a memory, Vince’s warm body was leaving him too. Howard shivered with the loss of them both. But within seconds, something else was being shoved towards Howard, right in his face – the waving end of Vince’s cock. “Go on - suck me off, bitch.” Howard strained at his bonds, uselessly. “Vince – you know I… I’ve… never before…” “Yes, yes!” Vince replied, impatiently. “I know! Less talking, more sucking!” Vince’s cock shoved harder. It smeared moisture across Howard’s lips. “Come on! Open up!” barked Vince. Until recently, Howard had never even imagined this – sucking another man’s cock, or how it would taste and feel inside his mouth. But suddenly, it didn’t seem so wrong. Perhaps because the cock in question belonged to Vince. Ever since their kiss on the rooftop, he’d been looking at Vince in a brand new way. Stealing shameful glances at him - at the bulge Vince swung around, so obvious in those tight shiny jumpsuits. Lying in bed at night, wishing more than anything that Vince would come over and slip in for a cuddle. Vince had never needed an invite before – all it took was a couple of crimps, and he’d strip off and jump right in. Why had Vince stopped? So when Howard opened up his mouth, he didn’t question it as the erect cock slipped in quite naturally. And when he licked cautiously at the silken head and it gave a distinct leap in response, it almost felt like coming home. In fact, pride was filling his chest. Yes - he, Howard TJ Moon, had made Vince’s cock twitch with sheer sexual pleasure. Of course it had! For years he’d wasted his mighty sexual powers, his god-given magnetism. He’d frittered it away on self-abuse like throwing tadpoles in the wind. No longer would that happen – no, sir. Because now he had Vince. Howard opened wider, about to take Vince further in, right to the root. “Call that a blow job?” Vince grabbed a handful of Howard’s hair, forcing his head sharply up. Then Vince plunged aggressively, deeper into Howard’s throat. “I said suck! Not slobber like a toddler puffing into a balloon! Again!” Howard choked, gasping for air. “No! No! Not like that, either!” Howard gave a half-strangled slurp, his chest rising and falling, helpless as Vince thrust in and out. “Arrgh!” shouted Vince. “Mind the teeth!” Howard twisted away, trying desperately to escape. But Vince was holding his head in an iron grip. Eventually, after Howard had been spluttering and hacking over his cock for about a minute, Vince withdrew. He shoved Howard’s head away in disgust. “Useless! And your mouth showed such promise!” Howard flopped sideways to the pillow and exploded into a coughing fit. Saliva and a string of something stickier dribbled out the corner of his mouth, forming a wet, warm puddle underneath. Vince stood wide-legged by the bed, surveying Howard with his hands on his hips. His drool-smeared erection stuck out like a flagstaff. “Well,” he sneered, showing his teeth in a surprisingly wolfish leer. “It matters not.” He took up the Head Shaman’s sword and raised it above his head. An unearthly light glinted from its blade. The sword came down with a swish and snick. Pain shot through Howard’s legs. His tight ankle bonds had been hacked free by the sword’s blow. Howard brought his knees up and down again, stretching his legs out and revelling in the freedom. Pins and needles prickled inside his thighs. “Resume position!” barked Vince, flinging away the sword. It fell with a harsh clang against the wall. And jumping on top of Howard, Vince pinned him to the bed. As his aching limbs were forced double again, Howard felt that reality had melted and flown away. He’d always imagined sex would be a more purely physical affair – in-out-in-out, dirty fumbles and fluid spurting. Not like this. Like when Vince had been choking him with his cock. Howard had hated it, he’d been crying stupid, acrid tears of self-pity, and yet –oh God, he wanted it. It was foul, yet he knew he deserved every inch, and more. It was all too much. Howard pulled at the bindings on his wrists, wishing he could caress the forceful little body on top as it tried to stab him with his cock. Wth another pang of self-disgust, Howard realised that not being able to touch Vince was only making him all the more aroused. “Yes! Daddy’s on target!” shouted Vince, triumphantly. Howard lifted his hips and closed his eyes, trying to welcome the battering at his already-abused entrance. But the blunt head of Vince’s cock wouldn’t go in, no matter how many times Vince pushed and roared in frustration. Vince shoved a few more times, angrily. It achieved nothing except white-lipped whimpers from the tied-up man below. Throwing his head back, Vince laughed theatrically. “Aha! I knew it! Such a tight little virgin after all!” He looked around. “I believe something will be required… no, not the popcorn… perhaps for later on.” He leaned over and started rummaging on the floor by the bed. Howard looked down and was surprised to see a box of golden popcorn sitting on the ground. Next to that was a bottle of cooking oil, the very same brand that Bollo used to fry his eggs and bacon in - oh right, thought Howard. It must be the bottle from the kitchen. How had it got there? Perhaps the Head Shaman had magicked it or something before he’d gone off to answer his phone call. Vince straightened up. He unscrewed the bottle and tossed the top over his shoulder. It fell without sound into the darkness. Then stretching out his arm, Vince tipped the bottle up and poured the whole lot out in one go. It gave a noisy gurgle. Howard jumped. A stream of cold oil had hit him right on the cock and balls. The oil gushed further down and Howard arched his back. He parted his thighs wide as the coolness slid into his crack, trickling down and easing the itchy burning inside. He sighed in relief. The mattress below began to spawn two oily buttock-dimple lakes of overflow. Vince re-positioned himself. He grabbed Howard’s thighs hard. Angry marks sprung up beneath his fingers, flaring across Howard’s flesh. With the goal finally oiled and ready for piercing, Vince grit his teeth and tensed his buttocks. The head of Vince’s cock inched forward in a series of shoves. When it finally forced through the tight ring of muscles at Howard’s entrance, Vince let out a sharp breath of satisfaction. But then his cock stopped short, wedged fast. Vince gave a few short, frustrated bounces, all to no avail. “Blast to Hades’ codpiece! Out of oil!” Vince pulled out with a short, nasal grunt, took his cock in his hand, and rubbed it across Howard’s dangling balls, up and down like a chef rolling a shushi roll. Soon it was glistening with the oil trapped in Howard’s scrotal hairs. “Aha!” Vince preened. He cupped his length in his hands like a prize marrow oiled for ‘Best Novelty Vegetable’ at the local fair. He readied himself for re-entry. Howard felt the prodding at his entrance. He steeled himself again. This was it, he was going to get to have sex, to do it at least once before he died. And Vince was going to be his very first, perhaps his only... Howard thrust his hips up, trying to help the penetration. Or perhaps they’d already had sex. After all, Vince’s cock had had been inside him, if only for a second. At the thought of Vince’s cock inside him again, Howard wriggled his hips even more. His fingers strained, as if trying to touch something invisible and pull it closer. “Anything,” he panted. “Anything you want. Make me do things. Anything. I’ll do it.” Howard flushed. A memory flashed before him – of how disgusted Vince had been the first time he’d caught Howard in the cupboard, self-inducing his Chinese burns. And now this. How would he ever face Vince again? Howard turned his face to the side, and so he didn’t see the blow about to fall. Vince hit Howard’s face in exactly the same place he had the last time. The skin on Howard’s right cheekbone flared white, immediately flushing to an angry purple. “Of course you want me to use you!” shouted Vince. “I’m the best! Now keep still and let Daddy do his business!” Howard gasped – but not at the blow. The shock of the afterheat on his battered skin – it was arousing him even more. What sort of person got off on this? No wonder no one had ever wanted to have sex with him before. But Vince was already sinking his cock into Howard, deeply, and right up to the hilt. Howard had no time to do anything now but break into a slick, all-over-body sweat and scream. And with a deep, un-Vince-like roar, the man on top drew back and started to pound into Howard. Within seconds, Howard was being rammed up backwards against the wall. The crown of his head jammered each time Vince slammed in. Helplessly, Howard tried to push back against it with his tied hands. But it was useless. All he could do was try to ride it out, his arse afire with bizarre intensity. Then Vince grabbed Howard’s buttocks, lifting him higher. As the angle changed, colours pinged and exploded before Howard’s eyes. Heat prickled down the inside of his thighs. His toes curled. Howard threw his head back and stretched his mouth open wide. A thought wisped through his melting brain - this must be what pleasure feels like. Vince thrust in once more, slick and easy with oil. He hit the same spot all over again. Howard arched up, the colours behind his eyelids even brighter. He grabbed the bindings to his wrists and pulled them as if grabbing onto life. But Vince was speedily approaching his peak. He let out a growl, and began to come. * Howard could hardly believe it. Vince was really coming inside him. But there was no mistaking it – Howard’s insides were so abused by now that he felt every spasm, spurt and jolt from Vince with a dozen times sensitivity. Eventually, the last tremors from Vince’s cock pumped away to a gentle tremble. Howard wanted to hold Vince, to kiss him, to stroke him and thank him for being his first time - but Vince was sprawled on top of him, far out of reach of Howard’s bound arms. Anyway, at least one thing was for sure, thought Howard. His virginity was long gone. When another man shot his happy juice up your arse, then goodbye maidenhood. Eventually Vince’s cock started to retreat, slipping out in a mess of sperm and oil. Panting, Vince pulled himself to his knees. Howard chafed at his tightly-pulled wrists. As Vince had lifted up, his body had stroked across Howard’s still-hard cock. Howard was still so painfully hard. He was so close to coming himself. “Please, Vince,” he breathed. “Please… touch me.” But Vince was too busy examining his own genitals. There were shiny red streaks along Vince’s cock, showing neon bright in the dimness of the bedroom. With an inquiring noise, Vince reached forward and stretched Howard’s cheeks apart. He made an inspection of Howard’s anus. Howard leant into Vince’s slightest touch. “Yes,” Howard begged, waggling his erection, hoping that Vince would get the general idea. “Hmm. Less blood than for your average devirginization,“ stated Vince. “Probably not the fabled arse-hymen. Pity.” And, inspection over, Vince bunched up a corner of sheet from the end of the bed and coolly began to wipe the stains from his penis. Howard couldn’t care less what rubbish Vince gibbered. He only wanted those hands around his cock, pumping it up and down. “Vince! Stop messing about! You’re not going to leave me like this?” Vince had retrieved the box of popcorn and was sitting strangely straight-backed on the end of the bed, picking out the largest kernels in a pompous, overly fussy way. It reminded Howard of something or someone he couldn’t quite remember. But Howard had other, more urgent things on his mind. “Vince?” cried Howard, in frustration. He thrashed about, desperate to find anything to rub himself against to relieve the pressure. “Oh God, please!” “Ahhh...” Vince munched on the popcorn with obvious pleasure. “This has really been a most enjoyable encounter.” He looked over at Howard. His eyes suddenly narrowed. “You are a quite remarkably attractive man.” “Then why won’t you touch me, Vince?” howled Howard. Vince tilted his head as he considered this. He set down his popcorn. “Well - I usually have a rule about virgins - but I think I’ll make an exception for you.” Vince moved towards the bed. Howard’s hopes rose. “So you enjoyed performing as my cock-sucking little bitch?” “Just pull me off, Vince!” shouted Howard, losing all dignity. “You worked me up so that I’m close to bursting! I can’t bear it!” Vince laughed. “So eager for more! Well,” he stepped up close. Howard could feel his breath. “Stay that way. And we’ll see.” And Vince placed one last lick onto Howard’s face, pressing down hard across the colouring bruise. Then he smiled - the same eerie smile as before, which narrowed his eyes and ended in a hint of snarl. “What? We’ll see? Fuck that!” wailed Howard, pulling at his bonds. “What about now, you bastard! At least untie me so I can wank myself off!” Howard widened his eyes. “No Vince, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it – don’t go!” But Vince had hefted up the Head Shaman’s sword under one arm and, sticking the box of popcorn under his other, was making his way out the door, still totally naked. Howard was left alone in the darkness of the night, with only a hard on for company, and thinking – so that was sex. Wondering if the aching in his frustrated balls could possibly get any worse. Yes. Probably it would. The night was young. * The ache when he woke up, some time in the afternoon, was terrible – in his arms, which were still tied to the bedposts, and in his arse. His cock, however, was bobbing cheerfully at his stomach. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Vince moving around, doing something with his clothes. Probably deciding what to wear, from the rate he was throwing them around. “Good morning?” he called shyly. Vince stopped moving. He came to the bed and stood over Howard. He met Howard’s eager expression with a look of haughty contempt, complete with flared nostrils, that Howard only knew him to wear when he was both furious and hurt. It had happened then, just as Howard had feared. He’d always known that if he ever had sex with anyone, they’d hate him for it afterwards. “Oh. You’re awake, are you, Casanova?” Vince sneered. “Vince, I’m sorry. Can we just forget it ever happened?” “Do you even know what happened?” “What do you mean?” Now that he was beginning to wake up more fully, he was becoming irritated with Vince as well. What right did he have to act this way? Hadn’t he been the one who wanted it to happen? “It wasn’t ME, you berk!” Vince cried, his voice cracking. “Now wait a minute. We were both involved. Everything was consensual. You may regret it now, but don’t pretend that you weren’t even here….” “Want to know where I was? Up there!” Vince pointed at the ceiling over the bed. “Out of me body. Just a floating consciousness. I couldn’t even get off. Just watch you and him go at it!” “Him? Who?” Fully awake now, Howard was starting to wonder if Vince had simply gone mad. “The Head Shaman, you twit! He occupied my body to get off with you! You lost your cherry to a murdering madman! And you couldn’t even tell the difference between us.” “This… is a dream. There’s something wrong here….” “Wrong!?” Vince’s voice sounded strangled. “I’ll show you wrong!” He snatched something glittery off the floor and held it up for Howard to see. “Vince!” Howard’s voice was hushed, scared. “Who did that to the mirror-ball suit?” “Your little matey, Dennis! He tore it up to tie you up! It’s in pieces now!” Vince was nearly in tears. “You can wear it that way and say it’s your new look,” Howard pointed out consolingly. “Not a bad idea actually,” Vince admitted reluctantly. “But that’s not the point, Howard!” he cried. “Look, Vince, would you just untie me, so we can talk!” “No way! You can stay that way, you dirty manwhore. I’m leaving. I’m getting me own room, elsewheres.” Vince hefted a giant trunk – Howard realized now that he’d been packing – towards the door, but soon gave up. “Oi! I’ll send for my stuff later.” “Vince… where are you going?” Howard pleaded. “Away from you!” After Vince had left, Howard waited, the blazing ache in his back and arms and shoulders and arse almost overpowering any ability to feel the loss of Vince – of their friendship or any hope of a relationship. He hoped it would also overpower his humiliation at being discovered by Naboo and Bollo when he called for their help. Which he would have to do soon, because he wouldn’t be able to take it much longer. And then, after they’d laughed at him (he figured for about an hour, depending on how much weed they’d had), he’d be fired. Out on the streets, days before Christmas. A street-random. It wasn’t nearly as bad he’d thought losing his virginity would be.

[sportsrumorsblog]

Wow Classic Beginner Guide

No doubt, just on the off chance that Blizzard experiencing the agonies of re-delivering old programming on present day workers to satisfy fan clamor that is arrived at breaking point has missed you, 

World of Warcraft Classic is a particularly old-school insight. A lot of that has to do with the low-res illustrations and splotchy surfaces, however Classic likewise reviews a time when World of Warcraft put the 'RPG' in MMORPG. In layman's terms: to a lesser extent a versatile game, more a get-ganked multiple times before the-Blackrock-Depths gateway experience.

So on the off chance that you began playing after Cataclysm and showing up at vanilla Warcraft unexpectedly, don't stress, I have your back. I began playing in 2005, and have stayed aware of each development since, giving me a smart thought of a portion of the things more youthful explorers ought to be careful about when they sign into Azeroth and find their Dungeon Finder missing. Here are eight things you have to know for World of Warcraft Classic.

Your class adaptability is extremely restricted

At the point when I previously got my duplicate of World of Warcraft I rolled a Dwarf Paladin. The fantasy was to turn into a heavenly juggernaut, cutting down armies of undead debris with divine reprisal. Paladins can wear plate covering, for the wellbeing of god. Just a single different class can wear that. I was stirred.

Quick forward a couple of seasons later. I'm at long last at level 60, in my first assaulting society, prepared to get middle age on the murderous savages in Zul'Gurub. One moment, says the senior Paladin who's encouraged me. I'm advised to respec Holy. You know, the mending tree. Not just that, the Paladin advised me to trade out my entire being gear for Intellect and Spirit-polishing stuff. I was unable to locate a decent mending breastplate along these lines, rather, I was advised to trade what I had with calfskin protection.

Note:Also read here more about wow classic.

Calfskin reinforcement.

This was the appalling truth for Paladins in vanilla. The class was just suitable in PvE as a healbot. That is fine, I really figured out how to adore playing support, yet my unique desires were crushed. Today, classes in World of Warcraft are multifaceted; Druids can tank, recuperate, and bargain gigantic spell harm in equivalent measure. In any case, in 2005, in the event that you were a Druid in an attacking organization, you weren't doing considerably more than spamming Innervate and Restoration. Fighters were basically solely failing. Mages were speccing Frost. Trackers regularly wouldn't gather their pets. You get the thought.

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What I'm stating is, do your exploration. The class you pick will be much more prohibitive than what you experience on live workers today.

Today, you can kill essentially everything in World of Warcraft without so much as a second thought. Be that as it may, vanilla had this odd framework where on the off chance that you executed restricting group NPCs set apart as "regular folks"— think merchants, landlords, and so on.— it would consider a shameful slaughter. Despicable executes were truly merciless. They'd quickly tank your complete honor, which means you'd no longer approach the upper levels of the PvP sellers' lootbox.

Simply be cautious when you're raging The Crossroads, alright?

Emergency treatment is basic

The First Aid calling was taken out from World of Warcraft in Battle for Azeroth. It appeared well and good: it was essentially futile in a period where players' wellbeing recovers in nanoseconds. Yet, in vanilla, First Aid was one of the most significant resources in anybody's armory. Your characters were feeble. Like, truly powerless. What's more, wellbeing pools set aside a long effort to top off. In this way, by effectively step up your wrapping capacity, you had the option to hold yourself over substantially more productively subsequent to having a frightful disagreement with a Defias crook in Westfall.

It wasn't even select for DPS classes either. Druids, Paladins, Priests, and Shamans additionally kept their First Aid ability solid, notwithstanding the way that they could close up wounds with mana. Truth be told, I particularly recall a few very good quality societies straight up requiring individuals in their overlap to have a covered First Aid ability.

So don't auction that Linen Cloth! It's more significant than you can envision.

Stock up on food and water

Given how gradually your assets renewed in vanilla, any fruitful player tries to stop by their food and drink merchant to keep their wellbeing and mana pools solid. You know the natural product merchant that strolls around Ironforge? The one that appears to be totally self-assertive? Trust us, they had a truly significant reason quite a long time ago.

Leveling is the game

These days, when a World of Warcraft extension comes out, Blizzard is putting forth a valiant effort to usher you towards the level cap as fast and as effectively as could reasonably be expected. Indeed they make some lovely zones, yes they recount a pleasant story, yet the game aspect of this game occurs after your last ding. That wasn't the situation in 2004. Snowstorm had 60 levels to play with, and they guaranteed the cycle was agonizingly slow. It took me almost a year to hit my initial 60. (I was likewise a pre-teenager and didn't have the foggiest idea what I was doing, yet whatever.)

So don't stress over the cap. Try not to stress over hurrying through the experience. Try not to carry 2019 rationale to a 2004 item. That is not the sort of interactivity vanilla Warcraft needed to empower.

Set aside your cash: mounts are costly

They part with mounts like candy in World of Warcraft nowadays. You can essentially play a round of Hearthstone and have a pristine flying mount added to your Battle.net account. Be that as it may, in vanilla, making it to level 40 with enough gold in your bank to cull a starter mount off the parcel was a troublesome undertaking. In all out they cost 100 gold, which could almost burn up all available resources back then, well before the economy was expanded past the stratosphere. No one needs to be the level 45 person without a mount. Be prudent with your wallet.

Keys open entryways

In the Dungeon Finder time you line for an example and are transported straightforwardly to a prison's entryways. At that point you mass-AOE each experience without saying a word to the individuals in your arbitrarily various gathering. This wasn't the situation in old-school World of Warcraft for an assortment of reasons, yet above all, newcomers to Classic need to acclimate themselves with the idea of attunement.

A huge amount of the very good quality substance in World of Warcraft regularly required at any rate one part in the gathering to finish a journey chain giving them the way to enter the prison itself. In Molten Core, for example, each major part in the 40-man assault would need to finish a brisk mission bind that permitted them to penetrate the internal sanctum of Ragnaros' den. Wanna do Upper Blackrock Spire? Amazing! However long you know somebody who completed a tangled multi-part visit that included psyche controlling a monster in Dustwallow Marsh.

This is one of the extras from World of Warcraft's more customary, tabletop RPG roots. Like, clearly the miscreants have the entryways bolted, y'know? Be that as it may, in case you're simply showing up now, it may take some becoming acclimated to. It additionally fills in as a wonderful chance: you'll make yourself way more significant to a gathering or a society in the event that you have the Blackrock Depths key.

Your notoriety goes before you

Today, you can move away without addressing a solitary soul in World of Warcraft. The game has been explicitly advanced to be a performance experience. At the point when you have to bunch up, Blizzard will cheerfully reach across domain lines to discover accomplices. That wasn't the situation in vanilla. Not exclusively did questing content on the world guide frequently require a gathering, however on the off chance that you were going into a prison, you expected to define an arrangement from the current spirits on your worker. That implies on the off chance that you acquire a notoriety for being languid, insatiable, or uncouth, you won't get welcomed back.

Promotion

Old hands completely recall what it resembled when some dolt ninja-plundered Onyxia and had his name posted on the domain gatherings with a distinct notice. Who knows whether the equivalent profoundly isolated network feeling will persist into Classic. Fail on the mindful side, and stay out of trouble clean.

[infobeanie]

CROW CILLERS RECAP: ELAINE

This month’s review is going to be a recap instead of a review, because so much is going on at this point that it’s important to establish what we know has happened before we can try to figure out what is happening. The focus of the recap here is the ostensible focus of the most recent episode: the character of Elaine, who might secretly be the main character of Crow Cillers. More than any other character, it is Elaine’s actions and decisions that have shaped the course of the show, mostly in ways she is completely unconscious of. Let us try and trace the evolution of the girl who’s changed her hairstyle so many times she doesn’t know what she looks like.

We don’t know much about Elaine’s pre-Marcus past. Everything is presented through a haze of memory and Ynce-Iche distortion. Chronologically, the first concrete scene we have with her, I believe, is her first encounter with Marcus, shortly before the events of season 1. It’s as if his analytical mind snapped her into reality. What we see, even at this initial stage, is a woman who has had enough of the Crow, of people like Marcus, of the useless trappings of life. Having remained aloof from these trappings, her life before this point is known only through half-acknowledged objects: a chocolate bar, a department store, a swimming pool. They exist as alien artifacts now, unable to be sorted properly into a coherent reality. As far as Marcus is concerned, she has no one but him at this point.

Wait, I’m wrong. The first scenes we see of her are with Jill.

Elaine’s obsession with Jill makes her unique among the heroes of the show, none of whom have so intensely latched onto any objective or object, especially one who is also a subject. (It does not make her unique among the villains of the show.) We’re never given much insight into the nature of her obsession, what initially attracted her to Jill and what caused it to take root so deeply, but it’s implied that this compulsive drive is somehow linked to her connection with Ynce Iche, and that it’s partially responsible for her throwing herself at Marcus’s project with a self-destructive intensity.

Season 1 Elaine is not a pretty sight. She is stretched thin, driven to desperation by some deep, implacable inner dissatisfaction with the world. The people around her are as alien & impenetrable to her as the landscapes she inhabits, the objects that have denied her pleasure: Jill, always standoffish and withholding, never the her that Elaine liked; Marcus, cold and clinical, hiding his perverted male gaze behind an unshakeable mask of composure. The slide kids of life keep passing through just to cause her pain, and they pass by entirely unaffected by anything she does. But Elaine does manage to affect Marcus, at her own expense, by giving him a glimpse of her own annihilation. Rejecting the boundaries of the real world, she destroys her discrete self, and plummets headfirst into the psychic echo chamber of Ynce Iche.

A mirror becomes a razor when it’s broken. The first shard to emerge from Elaine’s ego-schism is Elaine Jr., a defense mechanism come to life, designed to protect Elaine from the outer world whether she wants it or not. She manifests Elaine’s villainous side - the Jill-obsessed, misanthropic people-eater - in a form both more fully-developed and more fantastical than Elaine was able to achieve in the real world. She makes little distinction between what she’s already eaten and what is fresh food, between half-digested memories and still-living bodies. It is not so much that she is always hungry so much that she only consumes. 

Separated from her eating apparatus, it is Elaine Sr. who is always hungry. The new world around her leaves her empty, because it’s made up of her insides. Passive and pacified, she begins to see more clearly the cruel streak in Elaine Jr. as it operates independently of her, and begins to resist the imperatives Elaine Jr. sets to keep reality from filtering in.

Meanwhile, the unseen forces of attraction that drove Elaine into Ynce Iche are still at work, as the Crow Cillers find themselves pulled into the dream-world, and Marcus continues his attempts to gain entry. The same forces work on Elaine in the opposite direction: unable to attain complete inertia, she develops an increasingly defined sense of dissatisfaction with this new world. With Elaine Jr. off doing her own thing, the dissatisfaction is differently flavored from that of season 1 - instead of cutting like a razor-blade, it expands like water to fit the confines of whatever is containing Elaine now. Defanged, she yearns once more to penetrate reality. 

But something is missing - even here, in this land contoured to her consciousness, she’s unable to manifest her desires into something concrete, to make sense of the motions she’s going through. As Partydog predicted in the crossover episode, the script calls for real blood, and there is no real blood left in Elaine, it seems. But she has the knife - that’s real enough. And when she has finally had enough of Ynce Iche, she does the unthinkable, and does something. It’s hard to judge the ethics of Elaine killing Dustin; it’s a necessary sacrifice, the initial act of agency that frees Elaine from her purgatory of potentialities, of options but no drive.

In Season 3, Elaine seems to have reached an equilibrium ideal to her character. Her crueler nature is ensconced in its imaginary kingdom, now feeding off of the energy of That Kid and indulging in vindictive fantasies towards Jill, while her more peaceful self finds a more peaceful home with the Crow Cillers Cociety. Yet this place of recovery only fills her with new self-doubt. She can’t feel at ease with these people, living as she is under a false appearance, a false name. The CCC lead lives of double identities, pretending to be Crows in their work hours; with her unmasked face a mask of its own, she’s left with little assurance as to who she actually is, or what side she’s on. 

But she’s not ready to move off on her own again, for obvious reasons. As the courtroom drama involving Jill suggests, Elaine Jr. has always been the advisor, a voice in the ear of the queen, making no decisions but seemingly influencing everything with her madness. Elaine was the former queen, and while she’s ditched out on that particular voice, how can she trust the voices in her own head now? She needs the support group of the CCC to guide her somewhere better.

Unfortunately, she’s forced to abandon them at a key moment, when she again commits the one act that seems to come naturally to her, this time in defense of Mary. While killing to protect others instead of oneself might reflect significant character development, all Elaine registers in the moment is the shame and terror of being exposed, of having her true face reflected in the knife. 

The escape that follows is thorough; we don’t see Elaine again for almost 10 episodes. Meanwhile, Elaine Jr. finds a blood sacrifice of her own, and enters the real world for the first time as Elaine Jr. X. EJX, intriguingly, behaves in much the same way Dustelaine did in the prior season: reserved, guarded, restricting their bloodthirsty tendencies to the Ynce forest. But she’s still out of control, especially when it comes to Jill, and a confrontation seems unavoidable.

Finally, 4 episodes into season 4, we catch our first glimpse of Elaine (just “Elaine” now), trying to make peace with the funhouse mirror version of her body that she ended up in. Season 4, coincidentally, also looks like a funhouse mirror version of season 1. We have the group of misfit kids forming a friend-and-otherworldly-activities group called, through no agency of their own, the “Crow Killers”. We have Jill back at home with the Ru’crew. We have the Special Musical Act whose relation to the main plot is currently unclear. And at the center of it all we have Elaine, working a shitty job which sometimes involves murder. After all this time, it’s back to the Order, except no one is wearing a mask this time. This is perhaps the key difference - the strict symbolic language that governed and restricted the show in its early episodes, the literal order of the Crow, has finally broken down, and everything is up for grabs. A new symbolic language has to be formed from the images that were always there; the difficulty lies in translating it.

This shift exposes the sea change the series has undergone, which seems obvious when we walk through it like this. One of the basic goals of Crow Cillers has always been to penetrate the impermeable barrier of objects, to show the true context of an empty room. Now the lifeless objects that were given character space in the opening credits of season 1 really have come to life, and that’s its own kind of horror. The rooms of season 4 have broken through the false layer of objectivity and become one with the ideas they contain. This abundance of life is wonderful and threatening. It must be contained, countered, without being destroyed; it must be conveyed properly. It is no wonder that Beloved’s most evil trait thus far is not her schemes or her motives, which are still completely opaque, but her bad writing. (And appropriate she should find a foil in Emma, whose creative drive is at an ebb this season.)

I’ve gotten off-topic, and the topic is Elaine. Fresh Fries, the first magical manifestation Elaine has encountered that exists outside of her own fractured identity, serves as the latest catalyst to action for our girl. Perhaps unsurprisingly, her first non-murderous altruistic act is not only glossed over by omission, but murky in intent. Why did she take the horse home? To rescue it, or to own it? She’s terrified when she discovers its sentience; would she have saved it if she had known it was a subject and not an object? It’s easy to forget she’s wearing the body of the last guy who walked into her home uninvited. Like so much with Elaine, elision colors her actions with ambiguity. After three and a half seasons, do we know who she is?

No, we don’t, and that might be her saving grace. If she can keep something as good as a friendship with Brecken a secret, then it stands to reason that what continues to lurk unseen inside her might be more benevolent than anyone had suspected, least of all herself. Her reaching out to him at the end of the episode suggests that it’s this uncharted territory within herself she’s starting to explore now: the land of human connections, of shared meals, of recontextualizing those dreamscapes of capitalist debris into something slightly less intimidating. The blade she’s been holding onto since season 2, perhaps longer, has been sheathed. You can go anywhere from true neutral.

[iridescentfandoms]

Make Believe/It’s Hyper Real (Prologue)

Author’s Notes Part 1: HELLA SPOILERS OMG. If you haven’t beaten/gotten very far in the game, then don’t look here! More author’s notes and the actual Prologue under the read more! :)

Author’s Notes Part 2: Some lines from the game itself are placed into the first chapter so that I can use them for my own purposes. Also, Bahamut is difficult af to characterize omg. Also basically, throughout the game you have many opportunities for a Game Over, screen, right? Well, what if the Six knew that if left on his own Noctis WOULD end up dying before fulfilling his destiny? So they decided to send someone in to prevent that from happening. And that’s where the Heart of the Crystal pops in! :D

If they get to muck up their Latin, then so do I! And maybe mix it with French, oops!

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

The TV shows always got this part wrong. The machines didn’t constantly beep, in fact they were generally quieter than the breeze outside. They only started beeping when she fell into a deep sleep and her heart rate dropped too low. By this point, the nurses had stopped rushing in the moment it went off- the noise the machine would make would rouse her and trigger her heart rate to rise again and so the monitor would go quiet once more, allowing her to slip back into an admittedly lighter sleep. The only times her pulse didn’t get quickly sorted was during the episodes. At those times when her heart would pause for agonizingly long seconds then multiple nurses would rush in, dragging the crash cart behind them just in case this time was the time.

She had a surgery scheduled for the following evening. The surgery itself didn’t worry her- she was well aware of the risks and chances it created- but she wasn’t looking forward to going without food for the day leading up to it nor the loosening of her tongue the anesthesia and pain medicine would cause. She didn’t necessarily have anything to keep hidden, but she hated the idea of not being in control of the words that left her lips. She wondered how hard she’d need to concentrate to keep herself quiet.

It was very clear that she wouldn’t be getting much sleep tonight, so rather than staying bored and lost in her thoughts, she reached for the game controller, powering up the console and then turning on the television. She’d been incredibly thankful that the hospital had allowed her to bring her games into the room- though it might have been their way of keeping her in her room and in bed, she still technically qualified as a fall risk. The newest Final Fantasy game hadn’t been out for long, but she’d already beaten it and was currently trying to 100% it.

An hour or so passed like this, a small smile on chapped lips as she focused on completing hunts and sidequests. However, she felt it starting. It was always such a slow-fast-slithering occurrence. The slight dizziness- did I turn my head too fast? That turned into- I’m going to fall. She set the controller down and shoved the bedside table away from her as the nausea rose and rolled and twisted within her. She leaned back against the bed, struggling to smooth her breathing even as each gasp was too-little-not-enough. Shaking hands reached for a vomit bag, releasing the contents of her stomach. The black started immediately after, though, and as she lost consciousness, the bag dropped.

There was that ringing silence for a long time. She was in that void. Not quite awake but somewhat aware of her body. Her chest hurt- a lot, actually. It felt like her ribs were broken and as she considered that, she felt a sudden, sharp burning that spread from her chest through the rest of of her torso and arms. She wince- or would have, if she’d been capable of moving. The pain continued, but she faded once more.

Then there was a new void. It was blue- no, it was a multitude of colors, almost like a galaxy. So she was probably dead. In all her years of experiencing these episodes, she’d never once hallucinated being in a galaxy, even considering how much she loved the night sky. She blinked, looking around, but she’d barely moved her head when a loud voice reverberated all around her. “The fate of this world falls to the King of Kings. His Providence consecrated in the divine Light of the Crystal. So it is ordained- the revelation of Bahamut.” As the voice spoke, she found herself mouthing the words along with it.

Those words, and that voice were all too familiar. She looked up, and there in the flesh- or metal- was the Astral himself. She found herself at a lack of words. What was there to say? What kind of weird coma-dream or afterlife was this? People didn’t get sent into the worlds of video games. It just didn’t happen. ‘Where am I?’

Bahamut didn’t seem to care about her confusion, though, and continued on. “The Heart of the Crystal, wherein lies the soul of the star.” She shook her head, this was not possible. She was just a sick girl, she was not the one who should be getting this speech. A video game character should be the one hearing the Astral talk. “Your Earthborn body is dying. In moments, the time of death will be declared.” Well, yes, she’d guessed that. “You may live again as the Heart of the Crystal, guiding the True King to his destiny.”

“I don’t… what are you talking about?”

“If you leave this place and return to your Earthborn self, you will still die. There is nothing left for you in that place. If you make a pact, you will be given an Eosborn self, and will have the entirety of the life to live.”

“What pact?”

“Become the Heart of the Crystal. You will live again, but you must guide the True King to his destiny. Show him the steps he needs to take to bring Light back into Eos.” Despite Bahamut’s refusal to state his intentions clearly, she could infer that he intended to send her to be something of an advisor for Noctis. He also wasn’t wrong- she’d been well aware of her own mortality for her entire life and though she’d accepted it long ago she was still saddened that there had been many things that she had been unable to experience- too ill to exert herself.

“You’re still sending him off to die? You want me to help raise him up like a cow to lead to slaughter?”

“Many sacrificed all for the King, so the King must-”

“Sacrifice himself for all, yes, I’ve heard this.” She couldn’t explain her sudden frustration, “He’s just a boy, Chosen King or not- why would you do this to him? This was never his mess to clean up.” She sensed the Astral’s anger that she’d question him so insolently, but truthfully, she had nothing to lose. She was already dead, after all.

“You have the opportunity to save a world. Earth is finished with you. Eos needs you.”

She sighed. This entire situation was ridiculous. There was a part of her that was certain that this was all just a coma dream, or some messed up variation of ‘seeing your life flash before your eyes.’

Bahamut apparently decided on a different approach. “The darkness has defeated you this time. You now have the chance to stop it from defeating Eos.” For some reason, those words struck a chord in her, and she gazed thoughtfully up at the Astral.

“Alright,” she stated, “I will make the Pact.”

She spent some time in that void- the Crystal, she corrected herself, as Bahamut explained what it was she needed to do and the new abilities she would gain. Truthfully, the abilities were little more than ‘you’ve already played the game so you know what’s going to happen’ with the added bonus of ‘also, should Noctis or his father pass it over, you could use their magic.’ Even as she and Bahamut built up their plan, she secretly intended to do everything in her power to keep Noctis alive. It just wasn’t fair, that he’d have to die so young after such a difficult life. Eventually, she knew exactly what it was she needed to do and exactly what steps to take.

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

Just four months after the birth of His Royal Highness Prince Noctis, the Crystal pulsed before King Regis’ eyes. A stream of Light split off from it, shooting directly into a hospital. The King himself visited the hospital, determined to discover what exactly the Light had been only to find that it lead to a newborn.

And so it was that Lady Felicitas of House Beaulieu was born.

Author’s Notes Part 3: So it’s been literal years since I’ve written a fan fiction so please be understanding if it’s not that great :O I wrote all this except the first paragraph and a half in one day. 

[devilsknotrp]

Congratulations, Maria! You have been accepted for the role of Stan Meyers (FC: Michiel Huisman). Stan is such a wonderfully twisted and complex character and you did him such justice with this application! He has touches of darkness but the soul of a (rather inept) poet and you captured him beautifully. His desire to be someone, to showcase his talent is so woefully interpreted, we just can’t wait to see him on the dash! Please have a look at this page prior to sending in your account.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Name: Maria Age: 23 Pronouns: She/her Timezone: GMT Activity estimation: Every other day Triggers: REDACTED

IN CHARACTER

Full name: Stan Meyers Age: 14/11/1960 (36) Gender: Male Pronouns: He/Him Sexuality: Straight Occupation: English Literature Teacher Connection to Victim: Teaches both David Goode and Beth Goode, but beyond that has little real connection to them. Alibi: According to staff electronic key records and the activity on the computer in Stan’s classroom, as well as his own testimony, he spent the night on Devil Knot High-school grounds. His own explanation was late night working, attempting to get resources and marking done. Faceclaim: Michiel Huisman

WRITING SAMPLE

Stan had never been popular, nor had he much of a home life. In fact, his life was so ordinary, that it had pained him in its tedium. Perhaps that’s why he loved books so much as a young boy. The pages of fantasy could transport him into a world far more exciting than his own, the salacious drama of contemporary fiction would drive his heart wild in a way the reality didn’t. In the hidden words and gruesome imaginary of crime novels, Stan could let his mind ponder and take the role of a silent detective, living in the heat of the moment, pulse on fire with the idea of a criminal close.

In his grasp, he held a novel. Well, it was rather charitable to call it that. It was more a basically stapled flimsy booklet that looked more akin to a brochure you might find in church. Its brightly decorated cover depicted a stock image of rolling hills from some far-off land, whose horizon was lined by a misty but beautiful lake that was clearly not photographed in the united states. Beneath the rather peaceful landscape sat the title and author.

“Upon the hilltops

By Stan R. Meyers”

It was one thing to tumble into the universes unknown and drop yourself into a story so completely that the outside fades away. It was quite another to become a master of one, to be the sculptor, the creator, to not only be drawn but draw others. The ultimate mark of relevancy. The one way to live on this earth and pass beyond it and yet still be remembered.

Stan could feel his jaw tighten as his fingers clutched the booklet tightly, the cheap paper warping under his grip. Nothing was worse than knowing quite how much you were failing to achieve that relevancy. To realise that you were as ordinary and simple as the place, family and history you were born to.

The publishers had sent mealy-mouthed apologies, or in the case of the most arrogant, one-line rejections. One even had the gall to advise him to take writing classes. Him! He had read more than any two-bit author who ran those courses had in their life. Yet they were still better than him, at least they had their name to a real cover, not the half-bit cheap imitation he held in his hand.

He hadn’t even known why he bothered, money was low and he had no chance of actually making a success of self-publishing. The teacher threw the bundle into his wastebasket, kicking it under his desk and out of view. What did you even do when faced with your own failure so clearly? Society says, work hard at something, put in those required hours and you will become a master. He’d been writing since he had been able to hold a pen properly, and nothing. As with so much, the lies told by our parents, teachers and political leaders were just that, vacuous promises that are intended to gloss over a brutal, unforgiving world.

Stan took a shaky, hard breath, adjusting his knitted vest, as he got up and checked his hair in the classroom window. His dark eyes stared right back at him; the swirling brown lit by a hidden flame of rage that he kept under wraps in day to day life.

Before his spiralling thoughts could go any further, the bell rang and his reflection morphed into a different person entirely. Gaunt cheeks and heavy-set brows suddenly lightened, a broad smile splitting across his face as he turned to his door positively beaming. The students came in quite quickly, his class was well-received for the most part, and he rarely had tardiness apart from the usual suspects.

Every student greeted him, his grin almost infectious and often returned back as he glided easily to his spot behind his desk, clasping his hands together in manufactured glee as the last pupil took their seat. “Ah, if it’s not my favourite class of literary explorers.”

“Right class, today our topic is simple…” Like he had many times before, Stan grabbed his trusty piece of white chalk and in elegant, spindly writing that one may have expected back in the 18th Century wrote out the topic of today.

“How to trick your audience…”

His smile softened, but there was still a sense of cheek to the glimmer in his eyes as he stepped around to the front of the class, hands spread out like a roman general embracing his subjects. “Who’s ready to write some lies?”

ANYTHING ELSE?

> Stan comes from a very ordinary family in which he was the only child. His parents were suitable middle class, both working office jobs with an equally pointless set of responsibilities for mildly reputable firms. Just like Stan himself, they were in many ways entirely average in their talents, but unlike their son, seemed to pay it no mind. They were happy to earn money and just enjoy their simple life. Perhaps this tedium is why Stan became so infatuated with books, but either way, he finds himself rather embarrassed by his parents and beside the dutiful phone call every now and then, does not do much to connect to them.

> Despite having little talent in actual writing, Stan is, in fact, a rather expert dissector of books. He often has a strong grasp of the subtleties in language and prose, and while being brilliant at mimicking these intricacies, he is completely unable to produce his own. Like much of his life, he is a master of pretend and pretence, but when it comes to actually being original, he has a lack of imagination that was rather compelling in its strangeness. Either way, his critical eye makes him a great speaker at the local book club.

> Surprisingly, considering his desire to be noticed, Stan hasn’t ever really tried to properly pursue a proper relationship. Physical wants aside, he finds serious long-term attachment difficult, on account of hating himself quite enough already, but also due to his fellow adults tending to eschew themselves to a sensibleness that Stan abhors. He wants to dream, to be something other than what he is, and thinking about saving, taxes and getting married feels like a drawback into the mundane. Maybe that’s why he likes them younger…

> Stan isn’t religious in the slightest, but he finds the idea of church fascinating. It’s likely just the history of it, the pomp and pageantry that goes with bible prose and ceremony, ignites some of that passion and wonder in him. So, he attends rather diligently, hoping both for a spark of muse and to put on a good face with his new neighbour. Jeff Abbott, in particular, draws his attention and he feels almost like he could listen to the pastor for the rest of his life.

> The current story regarding Brian Goode’s disappearance as well as the sordid history of Devil’s Knot is prime writing material. While Stan didn’t move for this purpose and rather decided to pick a secluded town to avoid rumours regarding his previous employment, he is certainly trying his best to make use of the happenstance and use it as fuel for a new book. There’s no sign that using reality as a springboard will improve his lack of talent, however.

> Who says poverty doesn’t have some upsides? Despite being rather empty-pocketed on a near constant basis, Stan is just about good looking enough to play a reversal role from the traditional man. Through the gift of gab, he’s well known to manage to get other people to cover his bills, tabs and drinks, as well as being the owner of perhaps the biggest collection of coupons in the whole of Devil’s Knot.