#the widows curse is something that is. so special to me

[astrowarr]

grian's widows curse is so haunting this season. and i think the reason it feels so much more potent is the way he's been involved with his teammates' deaths, and the helplessness that plagues him as a result

in third life, last life, and double life, he was directly responsible for his allies' deaths. they died by his hand or through his own actions: scar, mumbo, jimmy, bigb, scar again. it was a very crazed version of the widows curse, reeking with desperation, but most importantly, grian had a choice. he chose to kill all of them of his own free will. in dl scar's case, he put himself in a situation that would get them killed. he was present for the deaths in these seasons in the most violent of ways: he orchestrated them.

then we jump to limited life. he lost jimmy and joel, but this time, he didn't kill them. jimmy had a freak accident and joel died in the heat of battle. he watched both of them die right in front of his eyes, but it had nothing to do with him. he was never at fault, and had no reason to feel helpless; these were just things that happen, after all. part of the game. but he still bore horrific witness.

secret life is special because grian didn't watch etho or cleo die, nor did he have any involvement in their deaths, unless you count his absence. still, the curse was fulfilled; they both died before him. because it's not even just his presence that kills everyone he loves, but his mere affiliation. and yet he can't bear to be alone.

now we get to wild life, and it's special too. it's unique in the sheer helplessness grian feels. mumbo and skizz's deaths are objectively not his fault. but he sure feels like they are, with the guilt lining the graves he dug for what remained of them. because not only do they happen right before his eyes once again, but they didn't have to happen. he was utterly powerless. they both died to the tower that he built because he couldn't just... protect them better.

he couldn't save them. there was no choice here. all he could do was watch. it was completely out of his control, and that's something that haunts grian with as much urgency as the ghosts of his friends. because who is he if he's not in control? who is he without friends?

[lomlompurim]

What if instead of waking up in the mushroom body, sqq woke up in a doll.

Something something while lbh was away in the abyss, sqq without noticing offended a misterious (demonic-succubi-esque???) cultivator with a weird thing for making dolls. She had dolls all over her secret workshop that she very kindly let him into when she heard about the famous Xiu Ya sword being in the city.

What she wanted of him? Who knows, sqq couldn't bring himself to care. She probably wanted his money or try to steal his hair, the hair of those dolls seemed very much like real hair, although he had to admit the level of details on these dolls were amazing.

(she wanted to trick him into buying one of her cursed dolls and steal his life energy little by little, but got wifebeamed by widow sqq during their conversation about how talented she was to be able to make so many dolls, and without really understanding he rejected her with little to no emotion on his face)

So she cursed him, and since sqq didn't feel anything bad at the moment he thought it just didn't work and left, not sparing the curse a single thought after their encounter.

The rest of the story goes as usual, excep that after he self detonates his soul doesn't go into the mushroom body, instead it got directly into the shape of a doll in the workshop of this woman.

His first thought is thinking someone snitched the mushroom body bc wtf wasn't he supposed to wake up under the dirt??? Why this place smells slightly familiar? Like paint and humidity and floral perfumes?? and why everything looks fucking giganourmus?!?! A teapot should NOT look that big from his position....Oh no, did the mushroom body turned out as small as a squirrel? WhAT is happening?!

And then he looks at his arms and legs, and he has joints. White paper skin with joints in his wrists, elbows, torso, waist, knees, feet. And he panics, a lot.

The woman who cursed him starts monologuing about how she trapped him now, and you are mine, I made this doll specially for you master shen, this is my revenge for your insolence to leave me yada yada- Sqq stoped listening a while ago.

Somehow he manages to escape from this woman and now he is roaming around as the size of some apples. Everything is huge. Everything is dangerous, even the grasshopers! And this body is fragile! He can't feel heat nor cold, neither hunger or other things, but he is useless with no spiritual veins inside, and if someone is not looking carefully, they might crush him. And the way back to cq is gonna be a hell of a trip! But he needs airplane to fix this. He can't stay as a doll forever! He needs a mushroom body and then fly into the sunset far from this mess! Adiós! Goodbye! So his new plan is to infiltrate into cang qiong, look for that rat and disappear. Sneaking into some disciple's pouch must be enough to break in.

Something something it only had passed a few months since lbh stole sqq's body and everything is still very fresh. CQ mountain is a hot mess. Sqh frankly needs to lay down and take a nap. Lqg keeps figthing with Lbh practially every day and coming back beaten bloody, he has his king pestering him and a lot of paperwork to do, Lbh is a pain in the ass, Yqy is really close to snap and start a war with HHP, and he knows nothing about his bro. So yeah. Such a great time to be alive.

The mushroom bodies should had been ready, right? He must be alright...Yeah. He has enough already to keep him busy. Cucumber bro is gonna come out and stumble across at any moment. No one would bat an eye if he takes a nap, right? He deserves it. He is overworked enough for another lifetime, his head hurts, his bones hurt everywhere, a short nap should be fine...

Until he feels something small tugging his robes and a cold tiny finger poking his eyelids. But he doesn't want to. He is very comfortable on the floor of his office. Whatever bird decided to pick a fight with his face can keep trying.

"AIRPLANE, WAKE UP, YOU HACK! I NEED YOU TO FIX THIS! WHY IS A WITCH WITH ANACHRONISTIC HAUNTED DOLLS IN THIS NOVEL? THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!"

That voice. That fucking annoying voice was of just one person and one person only. He opened his eyes, looking for the source of the unmistakable voice of his No1 hater, but he came across with a pretty porcelain doll. With a very ugly sneer in it's face.

"W-Wha-?...Bro-?!"

"Fucking finally! Why are you sleeping on the floor in your ofice?! I was looking around your bedroom like an idiot! Do you know how close I was to falling from your window?!"

-TBC-

[padfootagain]

Love in Verses (XXIX)

Chapter 29: ‘My lover’s words were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses on these lips’

Hi! Here is a new chapter! It’s the poetry reading!!! Also, we’re getting some special guests in this chapter!

I hope you like this chapter! Tell me what you think!

****

Pairing: Hozier x fem!reader (professor!AU)

Warnings: slow burn, angst, hurt, hurt/comfort, tooth-rotting fluff in later chapters, some scenes in later chapters will have heavy sexual themes even if it’s not explicit nsfw description, so minors here

Summary: Your life seems perfect. You're engaged, your career is thriving as you become an assistant professor at Trinity College, and this Andrew Hozier-Byrne you're sharing an office with seems to be a nice guy you hope to call a friend soon. Life seems to be smiling at you... until everything goes sour. When your fiancé breaks up with you, your perfect world shatters. And when your colleague also gets his heart broken soon after, your shared office seems to be a curse rather than a blessing. But Andrew seems determined to mend your broken hearts... Will things finally go according to plan?

Word Count: 5237

Masterlist for the series – Hozier’s masterlist – Main masterlist

Anne Hathaway

‘Item I gyve unto my wief my second best bed…’ (from Shakespeare’s will)

The bed we loved in was a spinning world of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas where he would dive for pearls. My lover’s words were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme to his, now echo, assonance; his touch a verb dancing in the centre of a noun. Some nights, I dreamed he’s written me, the bed A page beneath his writer’s hands. Romance and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste. In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on, dribbling their prose. My living laughing love- I hold him in the casket of my widow’s head as he held me upon that next best bed.

Carole Ann Duffy, The World’s Wife

It was raining in Dublin that afternoon.

Andrew was nervous, to say the least. As he hurried into the bookshop that was hosting his poetry reading, he was questioning all of his life’s choices. If he was proud of his work, if he had been on a stage before, if he was used to talking in front of crowds… he still had dreadful nerves right before any of these events.

He tried to calm down, opening the glass door of the bookshop in a hurry. He was suddenly very aware that the rain must have made his hair look like a bird’s nest, and as he bent to enter the shop, he could feel himself taking up too much space.

He put these thoughts aside, forcing himself to smile as he walked across the shop, recognising his agent instantly as she was talking with the bookshop owner.

“Andy! This is Niamh O’Brien, the owner of the bookshop,” said Caroline, as Andrew shook hands with the fifty-something woman in front of him.

“It’s very nice to meet you, thank you for organising this,” Andrew smiled, his voice sounding a little hoarse as the stress was making his throat tighten.

“Oh, it’s nothing! It’s a pleasure, indeed! Thank you for accepting to come here, I truly admire your work,” complimented O’Brien, making Andrew nod and blush.

“Thanks,” he answered automatically, pushing the compliment away instantly.

“Alright, let’s go to my office so we can run through today’s event, and then I’ll give you a little time to get ready if you need,” explained the owner of the bookshop while they walked across the shop and to a small door at the back, near the Shakespeare section. “As I was telling Caroline, we have a large room upstairs for these readings, for seminaries, lectures… all those things. The response to the advertisement was very encouraging, indeed! We’re expecting over two hundred people today.”

Andrew nervously chuckled.

“I thought this was a small event…”

“I thought it would be! Poetry readings are not always the most popular events, sadly. But we had underestimated the popularity of your work, clearly! We have about two hundred seats upstairs, and we’re expecting a full house!”

“Wow… that’s grand,” Andrew grinned, digging his hands into his pockets.

They walked inside O’Brien’s office, and discussed some details about the afternoon around a warm cup of coffee.

“We have planned some questions after the reading,” O’Brien went on, sipping on her beverage. “Anything that we should… avoid or that you are adamant to discuss?”

“Erm… like… I reckon it’s best if you decide what questions are more relevant. I’m not going to discuss anything too private, though.”

“Too private?”

“Like… my personal life is private, and I want to keep it that way.”

“Of course. I can understand that.”

“Thank you.”

“We gave Caroline a few titles that we would really like you to read, if that’s fine by you. But I’m curious to know what are the other poems you’ve decided to share today.”

“Erm… yeah, totally! Erm… I’ve noted the ones you asked for, I’ll read them obviously. Then, I’ve just picked a few that I felt fitted your selection. I’m also going to publish a few poems next month, so I thought I could read three of these.”

“Oh, that would be amazing! Maybe finish the reading with these new ones!”

“Yeah, I thought I could do that. Do you prefer to read them before hand?”

“Oh, no, no! You’re the author, you choose what you read and want to share today! On the contrary, I can’t wait to discover them when you read them aloud!”

She grinned excitedly.

“Oh, now I truly cannot wait! Right, we still have about forty-five minutes before the reading begins, I’m going to help welcome our visitors. You take some time to get ready, and ask us if you need anything, alright?”

“Totally… yeah. Thank you.”

As soon as O’Brien had left the room, Caroline heaved a sigh, relaxing in her chair while she turned to Andrew.

“You’re ready for today?”

“Of course, I am.”

“Good… are your parents coming? I mean… they always come when the readings are in Dublin, I don’t know why I’m asking,” she chuckled, and Andrew enthusiastically nodded.

“Yeah, they’ll be here! Jon is off to Cork for a project he’s working on, but both my parents are coming.”

“Anyone else you’ll know in the crowd? Alex?”

“No, Alex is busy working on a music project with his new band at the moment. I… I have another friend who’s coming, though.”

“Really? Who?”

“Erm… Her name’s Y/N. We work together, actually.”

As she studied his features, Caroline raised a teasing eyebrow, a grin slowly creeping over her lips.

“And… is this Y/N nice to look at, too?”

“Caroline!” Andrew chuckled, rubbing at his cheek. “She’s just a friend.”

“She is at the moment, perhaps… but is she meant to remain just that?”

Andrew didn’t say anything at first.

“I can’t see the future, you know? I didn’t pass the exams in divination back in College.”

“Are any of these new poems influenced by her?”

Andrew cleared his throat, reached for the thermos of tea and honey he had brought for his throat.

“I wouldn’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbled under his breath. “I should read these again, just to practice.”

“Yeah, I bet you should,” Caroline laughed, taking her phone out of her purse to check her emails.

Meanwhile, Andrew read some of his poems again, just to remind himself of the pauses, the stresses, the intentions he wanted to add when he would read them out loud. About ten minutes before the beginning of the reading session, he checked his phone. His father had sent him a couple of texts, one to notify him that they were ten minutes away from Dublin, and another later on once he and Andrew’s mother were already seated in the bookshop.

There was another text from you as well, and Andrew’s heart skipped a beat at the sight.

Waiting for the reading to begin! Just wanted to wish you good luck, although I have no doubts you’re gonna kill it!

He started typing while Caroline was checking a few last-minute details.

Hey! Thank you again for coming today, it means a lot to me. I’ll try not to make too much of a fool of myself out there.

 Your answer was almost instantaneous.

No need to thank me for that. I’m glad to be here.

You’ve got a full house btw! I was right to come here early, the room is packed. Some people are sitting on the floor, others are just standing. Apparently they’ve had to turn some people away, there was just no room left.

And I didn’t even know you wrote poetry, shame on me…

Andrew chuckled at that, not noticing that Caroline was talking to him. He was too busy answering.

Ha… thanks. Now, I’m going to die of stress before I can get up there and read.

Also, I hadn’t warned you, but all these people were hired. I’m only trying to impress you.

He realised there was a little bit of flirt in that last message, but he didn’t change it. Instead, he bit on his nail, eyes fixed on his screen while you typed a response.

Ha, that explains it then! You’re actually a rich egomaniac who is forging his success!

He chuckled.

Indeed, I am. You’ve read right through me.

Caroline frowned, but he didn’t notice either.

And I thought you were just a talented poet.

He blushed, tried to brush the compliment away.

Christ, I really am not, trust me.

“Andy!”

Andrew finally looked up, startled.

“Hmm?”

“It’s time to go, come on.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah…”

“You’ll do just fine. You always do great in these.”

Andrew nodded, typing quickly one last message before he would follow Caroline upstairs.

Time’s up. I’ll talk to you after the reading, if you want to stick around a little.

You sent him one last encouraging text that he didn’t have the time to read, but that would make him grin later that night, when he would discover it, hours later.

For now though, he was walking inside the large room, after O’Brien had quickly introduced him, and he waved shyly while the crowd clapped for him. He settled in front of the mic stand, readjusted its height to fit his tall body better.

When he looked up again, he easily spotted his parents, first row, as per usual. They grinned proudly at him, and the sight made him relax instantly. He took one more second to scan the room quickly, and it was indeed packed with people, more than he had anticipated for such an event, that was supposed to be a small gathering.

His eyes finally landed on you, fifth row, grinning at him with genuine excitement. You gave him a thumbs up, and it made him grin, almost laugh. You were wearing a green shirt that was revealing your cleavage a little more than usual, he noticed that right away. He noticed how you were smiling, how your eyes were shining, how you seemed happy to be here.

He blushed, before finally speaking.

You were beyond impressed, to be fair.

Andrew’s deep, soft voice was lulling you into another world, another plane of existence, while you listened to him reading his poems. There was something unbelievably magnetic in the way he spoke, in the way he stood there, alone in a single spotlight, a hand in the pocket of his brown corduroy trousers, the other holding his book. He looked so handsome like this too, curly hair partially tied back, the rest let loose over his shoulders. His brown jacket matched the colour of his trousers, the black of his turtleneck was the same shade as his leather shoes. His glasses perched on his nose caught the light from time to time, but you were obsessed by the eyes beyond them, irises seeming brownish in this light. You noticed that he often looked at you as he spoke, or while he talked a little in between poems, explaining something about the text before he would read it, or sipping on his thermos of hot tea. You spotted the two teabag tags hanging from the grey bottle, and couldn’t refrain a fond smile at the sight. He liked his tea so strong, just like his coffee…

Behind him, across the white wall, there were pictures projected while he read, matching the poems. Sometimes short, silent films. You were particularly struck by the LGBTQ+ meaning on the black and white extract for Take Me To Church, the roughness of the themes for Cherry Wine, the dancers that moved behind Andrew’s frame for Movement. You were more impressed by his work itself though, by the beauty in the images he summoned, the sincerity he seemed to inject into each word, the gentleness he used to speak about love, the complexity of the feeling, too, and the way he talked about sex as an act of worship instead of pure lust, as a sacred act of loving. You loved every second of it.

Finally, he closed his second book, but pulled from it a few loose sheets of paper, and smiled at the crowd.

“We have only a few minutes left, and… erm… I thought I could share with you a few new poems today. They will soon be published in a poetry journal, but this sounded like the perfect occasion to finally… erm… release them into the world and… and… erm… to just, let them loose, I guess. The first one is called Why Would You Be Loved, and it is about… the despair that comes with love. With sharing something so absolute, and wondering why it should even occur to you, and why you should let yourself be engulfed in this kind of… erm… like… this kind of overwhelmingly strong feelings, that will probably hurt you an awful lot, in the end. So… yeah, I definitely thought that I needed to lift up the mood a little for this last part, and thus chose the most pessimistic poem I could find for you all. I expect a lot of smiles and giggles for this one.”

Everyone chuckled at that, and you weren’t an exception.

Although, you were most definitely not laughing when Andrew started reading. He seemed a little more nervous with this poem, you noticed how he was fidgeting with this piece of paper, how his eyes were shining a little more now, how his voice sounded deeper than before.

You listened, not realising that you were tearing up. But you were, you noticed it at last when a tear rolled all the way across your neck, tickling your skin.

His words echoed into your own pain, and you read in them his heartbreak after Samantha’s betrayal.

Why would you play it all on somethin' as hollow as trust?

What if you gave it all, to find that it wasn't enough?

Damn, you brushed your cheeks to dry them on your sleeve. This was echoing in your soul a little too much, a little too desperately…

The woman next to you was crying as well, you noticed the man before you rubbing discreetly at his eyes.

And then Andrew was quiet again. The applause was so loud, he looked up in surprise.

“Erm… thank you,” he smiled, nodding his head. “I… I have a couple more poems. This next one is called NFWMB, you’ll find out pretty quickly what that stands for. And it’s just… I had fun with the theme of the world ending, and I was reading a lot of Yeats too at the time, so there’s a bit of that in there. I just played with the… erm… like, the idea of having your partner being absolutely terrifying, and actually almost… thriving in that chaos. So, yeah…”

He cleared his throat, caught your eyes as he took a deeper breath before starting reading. And there was something different in his gaze, something so intense, it made you unable to look away. When Andrew looked down at his paper to read, his body was still slightly turned in your direction.

Your breath caught in your throat when he spelled out the title, when you realised what this was truly about…

Nothing fucks with my baby

You thought back about that afternoon with him, that conversation. That joke you made about being tougher than you looked; the way he had replied with a serious gaze, a firm tone, that you were tougher than you thought you were.

He looked up right after that verse, caught your eyes with his, and you knew then, you knew without a doubt that this was about you.

If I was born as a blackthorn tree

I'd wanna be felled by you

Held by you

Fuel the pyre of your enemies

But these words, they couldn’t be aimed at you… how could they? Was that what he thought of you? Was that… was that what he was ready to be and do for you?

You were struggling to breathe by the end of the poem.

Did that mean that he wrote about you?! That Andrew wrote love poems about you?

And not just love poems, but poems that showed you as some badass independent woman?!

Was that how he saw you? Strong like that?

“This is our last poem for today. It’s more of a tongue-in-cheek kind of poem. I played with the idea of using language to seduce someone. Especially in poetry, we use words in an aesthetic way, like… erm… like, I wanted to play with that idea of using poetry to lure someone in, in a way… like, using metaphors and beautiful turns of phrase to hide the fact that you just… want to jump their bones, basically.”

He smiled humorously, while the audience laughed and chuckled.

But then his eyes were back on you, and you noticed the way he blushed before he began reading.

He stole a few glances at you throughout the poem, and you almost liquified on your chair when he looked at you right after reading a certain verse…

Imagine being loved by me

I won't deny I've got in my mind now all the things I would do

So I'll try to talk refined for fear that you find out how I'm imaginin' you

You struggled to swallow when he kept eye contact with you while he repeated that verse, your heart pounding, head spinning a bit, and feeling your entire body react to his deep, suave voice speaking these words directly to you.

You could barely breathe by the end of it.

You didn’t pay attention while Andrew was sitting now with O’Brien, you merely clapped along, but couldn’t conjure up any logical thought.

You took a couple of deep breath, feeling your entire body on fire. And then, you were the one imagining things he could do to you as you stared at his hand while it reached the microphone O’Brien was handing him…

The questions offered an interesting insight on many of Andrew’s poems. He sounded passionate about them, about the political messages he wanted to carry, about the vision he had of love and sex and the honesty that he thought was necessary in poetry. You listened attentively, often agreeing with his views. When the interview was over, and the applause had quieted down again, O’Brien announced a short break, before Andrew would sign copies of his books. You weren’t sure if you ought to talk to him now, as people were walking out of the room, some to go home and some to wait outside to get their books signed. You had already bought both of his books, even though you had not read them, wanting to discover Andrew’s work while he would read it. So, you stood there awkwardly for a while, hesitating to walk up to Andrew even though he was now talking to a couple of people he seemed to know, or to walk out of the room.

You were about to listen to your anxious self and walk away to wait for him outside when he called for you.

He approached with a grin on his face, and you tried to ignore how everyone was staring at the two of you.

“Thank you for coming!” he grinned, and you offered him back the same happy smile.

“No need to thank me. On the contrary, thank you for inviting me! It was amazing.”

He looked nervous for a moment.

“You… you liked the poems, then?”

You chuckled.

“That… is the understatement of the century!” you joked, and Andrew seemed deeply relieved. “I loved it. You… your poems are so beautiful, and so deep and complex and insightful and just… amazing. Truly, absolutely stunning.”

He stared at you for a moment looking a little stunned by your words, blushing more and more. He nodded, burying his hands in his pockets.

“Thank you so much. I’m glad you liked my work.”

“I really loved all your poems.”

You saw him biting the inside of his cheek, and he was about to speak again when he was interrupted by the woman he had been talking to a moment before. Actually, she didn’t speak to him, but he must have felt her approaching, and he turned to her with a warm smile.

“Oh, erm… This is Y/N,” Andrew started introducing you while a man was joining them too. “We work together at Trinity, I told you about her. Erm… Y/N, this is my mom Raine, and my dad John.”

You raised a surprised eyebrow, hearing that Andrew had told his parents about you, but you quickly recovered and shook their hands, warmly greeting them.

“Of course! Andy has told us a lot about you, indeed!” Raine nodded, making Andrew blush. “We were thinking about going for a coffee while Andy is signing some autographs. Would you like to join us? We could all go for dinner after that!”

Andrew raised a surprised eyebrow, and looked at you with a careful expression, that seemed to convene the message that you shouldn’t feel pressured to accept if you didn’t feel like it. But you merely grinned, nodding enthusiastically.

“I don’t want to bother you,” you politely declined a first time, but Raine insisted, and this time you accepted, excited at the thought of talking with Andrew’s family.

“Alright,” Andrew nodded, and he seemed a little uncomfortable but happy all the same. “This shouldn’t take too long, I’ll join you all when I’m done here.”

You ended up in a coffeeshop nearby, bought some cake and a coffee with Andrew’s parents. You were a little nervous, worried that they might dislike you, although you refused to dig into the reasons that made your heart quicken with dread. Your fears were unfounded though, the conversation went smoothly, and both of his parents were kind-hearted. His father was a little quieter than Raine, but you couldn’t help but notice how much Andrew and John were alike, both physically and in their behaviour. They made you laugh while telling you some funny stories from Andrew’s childhood, and you answered their questions about your life, your career. Andrew joined you about an hour later, and he offered for all of you to come to his flat for dinner. You didn’t want to intrude, but they all insisted, and so you ended up yielding.

Andrew was nervous, although he tried very hard to hide it.

The adrenaline from the afternoon had not waned yet, he was still a little high on it. The fact that his parents were now sharing some of his childhood stories with you wasn’t helping. It felt a little surreal, to have you talking with them, joking, laughing with his parents. You seemed to easily fit in though, and Andrew couldn’t help but draw the comparison with Sam, how she never quite felt at ease with his parents, especially his father, who was a little more reserved than Raine. But now John was deep in conversation with you, telling you about the days when he was a blues musician, the drummer of a band called Free Booze, and you laughed with him at his anecdotes.

“Of course, everybody was coming in with that written on the sign by the door of whatever pub we were playing at. And once they were inside they thought ‘might as well buy a beer’, and so we were often booked around town!”

You laughed at that.

“So cunning. Great marketing skills right there,” you joked, everybody laughing at the happy memories.

“Ha, these were back in the days,” John heaved a nostalgic sigh. “Then, we had Andrew, and… I had a choice to make. Being a gigging musician wasn’t paying all the bills every months, sometimes it was working well, but other times it was inconsistent. Having a second child, I had to give up on it. Besides, I didn’t feel like travelling around the country with my two lads at home.”

“Do you ever regret quitting music?” you asked, voice gentle.

“No, not really. It was not an easy choice to make, but music demands a lot of sacrifices. And I was certainly not ready to sacrifice my family for it.”

You nodded, humming in quiet agreement.

“So, that’s where your love for music comes from then?” you turned to Andrew, and he nodded with a smile.

“Yeah… grew up being fed a lot of blues, rock, soul music… stuff like that.”

You nodded, before Raine would draw the conversation to another topic. Andrew saw you sneaking a bit of food to Elwood, and he smiled fondly at the sight, his heart growing warm at the thought that you fitted so easily into his family, into his home. His parents seemed to genuinely like you, and you seemed to like them as well. By the end of the evening, you had learned a worrying number of silly anecdotes about Andrew’s childhood, you were planning to exchange recipes with Raine, and were setting a bet on the next win for the Irish Rugby team with John. It seemed easy for you to fit into the bubble of love that surrounded Andrew. Sam had never felt like that…

His parents were staying a little longer, planning on helping Andrew clean up, but they all shushed you when you offered to help. You seemed tired, Andrew could see it, and he knew you had classes early the next day. He offered to walk you back to your car, just so that he could steal a few minutes alone with you.

“Thank you for today, Andy! It was grood craic!” you grinned up at him as you both walked across the street towards your car.

“Thank you for coming. I hope my parents weren’t too obnoxious, especially while I wasn’t around.”

“No! Not at all! Your parents are lovely.”

“Yeah… yeah, they’re very nice people.”

“And now I have so much to work with to laugh at you… mister ‘I’m a bad boy because I climbed a rotten tree thinking it was a ladder, and now I have scar on my chest and I look like I was attacked by a bear!’”

You both exploded with laughter, Andrew shaking his head.

“Christ, don’t tell that to anyone, I’m begging you…”

“Don’t worry, my lips are sealed.”

You reached your car, but lingered by the door, turning to him instead.

And God, you looked so beautiful like this, in your black jeans and green shirt… the lights of the lampposts shining in your hair. It wasn’t raining anymore, but the street was still damp, tainted with orange hues by the light.

He wanted to kiss you so badly…

“Andy… can I ask you something?”

“Hmm?” he encouraged you, tilting his head to the side a little.

“I… I assume the poems you wrote in your collections are about Sam, as you were together at the time, but… the ones you added… the new poems you read at the end of the session… were they about her as well?”

Andrew’s heart started to quicken its pace until it was pounding. He nervously rubbed his palms together.

“Hmm… no. I wrote these after she left, so… they were not about her. They… they are about another woman.”

He intensely stared at you, silently trying to convey his feelings. That the poems were about you, about his desire for you, about how strong he thought you were…

He saw that you were struggling to swallow, heard that your breath was catching in your throat. He could have sworn that you were glimpsing at his lips…

But then you shook yourself, and looked away in a hurry.

“Well, good night, Andy! I’m gonna read the rest of your poems this weekend. I’d love to talk about it with you next week, if that’s okay.”

“Yeah! That would be grand, yeah. Sure… Totally!”

You exchanged a shy smile, before you would turn to your car.

And as he watched you drive away, Andrew wondered if you had understood him. If you knew that he had written NFWMB and Talk for you. And if you had, indeed, understood him… were you running away now? Had he made you uncomfortable? Perhaps he shouldn’t have chosen these poems after all, perhaps he should have kept them a secret, or at least, hidden their true meaning, hidden that they were about you.

He walked back to his home, helped his parents wash the dishes.

“Y/N is such a lovely woman!” Raine praised while Andrew was getting busy washing the plates.

“She is,” he nodded with a soft smile.

“Very smart, and with a lovely humour too,” John approved with a nod, putting the washed glasses back into the right cupboard.

“And she is very beautiful,” Raine added. “And single.”

Andy laughed, although he was blushing.

“Mom! Stop it! How do you even know she’s single?”

“I asked her!”

“You’re incorrigible…” Andrew laughed, shaking his head.

“All I’m saying is that… she’s beautiful, around the same age as you, that she… has a strong career, a stable situation. And as your father said, she has a lovely personality, she’s smart… and you seem to have a lot in common. And she seems to be so nice, Andy. So very nice…”

“She is,” Andrew nodded quietly.

Raine looked carefully at her son for a moment, before speaking again.

“You like her, don’t you?”

Andrew said nothing, merely pressed the sponge against a plate.

“You know, we’ve never told you about it but… your father and I… we’ve never really liked Samantha very much.”

Andrew chuckled.

“I know, mom. It was pretty obvious.”

“She was… I don’t know. There was something off with her. I’ve never felt like she fitted into your world very well. Not that a couple should share everything! It’s very important that you both have hobbies of your own, some things that belong to you. But it’s something else entirely to show no interest in your partner’s life.”

“She made efforts,” Andrew answered, growing defensive out of habit more than conviction.

“She never came to your readings. She never read your poetry…”

“She doesn’t like poetry…”

“And I don’t know anything about music. I still listen to your father when he talks about it, still try to support him in the things he loves, even though I don’t understand it on the same level as he does. Just like your father supported me with my art, with me going back to university for a degree…”

Slowly, Andrew nodded.

“You’re right. She wasn’t like that with me.”

Slowly, Raine nodded.

“It’s good that you can see that now, son,” John patted Andrew’s shoulder.

“Hmm…”

“We really want to see you happy, you know?” Raine added, and Andrew nodded with a tender smile. “So… Y/N… for how long have you been writing poems about her?”

Andrew laughed, clearly uncomfortable now.

“Who said I am?”

“Come on now, I’m not blind. The way you look at her…”

Andrew blushed all the way up to his ears.

“Have you asked her out yet?” John asked, but Andrew shook his head.

“We’re both getting out of difficult break-ups… I don’t think this is the right time. I don’t think I feel ready for that. I… I like her a lot. I don’t want to mess it up because I’m trying to move on too soon.”

He didn’t tell them that he was in love with you. That he had fallen in love with you a little bit more every day for months now… that he kept on falling every time he looked at you, with every conversation and every new detail he learnt about you.

No, he didn’t tell them that. Instead, he merely cleared his throat.

“Anyway… I don’t think she sees me like that at all,” he added, but both his parents exchanged a look, and then chuckled fondly at their son.

“You can be so blind sometimes, Andy…” John shook his head.

“What?”

“She likes you. A lot,” Raine stated as if it was the most obvious truth on Earth.

Andrew blinked at her, his hands still in soapy water.

Did you? Did you like him? Really?

[pedgito]

hi guys!! april was such a slow reading month for me and i'm hoping may opens up a little bit, but there's so many goodies in here! as always, please make sure you're checking tags if you choose to dive into any of these!

this key will help you figure out which fics are more your vibe, or if you’re just curious of the contents before you dive in:

smut = 🌶️, fluff = ☁️ angst = ☄️

total fics listed below: 18

✎ — 𝐉𝐎𝐄𝐋 𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐑

↝ Joel 'n a poke by @chaotic-mystery — crackfic

TLOU x SPN crossover (3x11)

↝ older, bolder by @gutsby — 🌶️

Joel can't get it up.

↝ don't make me ask again by @arcanefox207 — 🌶️

Teasing your dad’s friend has its consequences.

↝ side by side with me by @corazondebeskar-reads — ☄️

After FEDRA finally laid waste to the Fireflies and snuffed out the light, they devised a system to keep the QZs in line. 75 years later, the violence is commemorated with a special Quarter Quell edition of the Hunger Games. It gives FEDRA a chance to kill the nation's favorite victor - Ellie Williams, who they have a very good reason for wanting dead. After all, would the QZs still obey if they knew most of the kids born in the outside world were immune now? Or would one little girl tear the fabric of their control apart? To find out, she'll have to win the games again. And the odds were never in her favor.

↝ better or worse by @strang3lov3 — 🌶️

“So,” Joel says, wrapping his arm around your side and pulling you against his bare torso, “Daddy’s gonna stuff ya full and slow the bleed. That way you’re not soakin’ through the mattress all night. S’that make sense, Pumpkin?”

↝ cherry (series) by @mirrormauve — ☄️, ☁️, 🌶️

Lonely, widowed, Joel seeks company where he knows he shouldn't.

↝ born again by @kedsandtubesocks — ☄️, 🌶️

You want the handsome priest more than anything, he wants you gone…but what transpires between you & him is either a curse sent straight from hell (or a twisted blessing in disguise).

↝ fake plastic trees by @mrsmando — ☁️, ☄️

You offer comfort to Joel in his time of need.

↝ ask my nicely by @flawssy-227 — 🌶️

You're working at Tommy's Diner, and Joel is a creepy but kinda sexy line cook.

flicker by @daryltwdixon — 🌶️

Slasher, Camp, & Sensory Deprivation

✎ — 𝐉𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐑 𝐏𝐄𝐍𝐀

↝ make me sweat by @itsokbbygrlbutworsethistime — 🌶️

Javi can't sleep. You can't keep it in yours pants recently. Both of you find yourselves dripping on this sunny Sunday afternoon.

↝ plus one by @/chaotic-mystery

Your ex invites you to his wedding and you don't have anyone for a plus one, that is until Javi volunteers just to make your ex jealous.

✎ — 𝐂𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐓 (𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐊𝐘 𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐒)

↝ tell her to stay away from the light by @iamasaddie — 🌶️

1982, Clint parks at the screening of ‘Poltergeist’ in the local drive-in. Somewhere between ghosts intrusions and seances, he finds a much more appealing thing to look at in the car next to him.

✎ — 𝐄𝐃𝐃𝐈𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐍

↝  cinema by @supernovafics — ☁️, 🌶️

In which, after knowing of him for a while, you finally meet Eddie Munson at a movie premiere.

↝ you really got me now by @gracieheartspedro — 🌶️

Your best friend and roommate Eddie is pissing you off, per usual. His way of making you feel heard is not very conventional.

✎ — 𝐌𝐈𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐄𝐋 𝐑𝐎𝐁𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐓𝐂𝐇

↝ serenity by @that-sarcastic-writer — 🌶️

Robby has had a really shitty day, maybe he just needs his girlfriend to comfort him.

↝ stitched together by @hauntedhowlett-writes — 🌶️

After accidentally cutting your hand, you seek out your neighbor for help. A favor becomes a friendship and a friendship becomes something more.

✎ — 𝐅𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐊 𝐂𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐋𝐄

↝ mile marker zero by @murder-wife — ☄️

Penelope Price's car overheats on a lonely stretch of Texas highway. Thankfully there's a gas station just up ahead. The service sucks, but she just can't seem to leave.

[peachsayshi]

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄ being wrapped in your arms feels like coming home ⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

wc: 1,820

minors / ageless blogs / blank blogs - do not interact.

notes: here is a little drabble in honor of toji's birthday! this piece was originally titled as "adoration" but I changed it to this instead. I'm taking a small posting break, but I'll be back to my regular schedule within a week! I'm sorry if I haven't been responding to tags or messages, but I will do so soon <3 I hope you're all having a wonderful time and I'm sending all my well wishes out to you! xo

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ tags: widow toji; age gap (reader is 30 while toji is in his early 40s); a little angsty; toji attempting to break up with you but failing because he's oh so in love

toji overstayed his welcome which was only supposed to last the scorching heat of summer, but he found himself lingering through the quiet stillness of fall. winter came in with a brisk chill and gloomy skies, and that's when toji knew it was time for him to end things with you.

he’s lost interest far quicker in previous relationships. they served their purpose of healing over the wound in his heart, of soothing away the ache of loneliness. he oftens forgets that he was once a loyal, loving husband whenever he abandons yet another fling.

the difference, however, is he at least had the guts to verbally cut things off before.

fucking pathetic, he thinks as he scolds himself. he's been a coward, reducing his actions to disappearing before the sunlight peeks through the horizon, and avoiding any chance of waking you up. he ensures that he is never there to see the way your brows furrow with concern when your hand meets the cold pillow, because otherwise he would falter in his attempt to escape.

this has been going on for over two weeks now but last night was the first time you've actually snapped at his cold, detached behavior. he approached the argument with nonchalance to wither you down, shrugging off the gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach and then walking out halfway through the fight.

he stayed at a motel thinking that maybe you have finally taken the hint that he's done.

he arrives back to his apartment only to be met with unfamiliar silence. the entrance of his home is dark and lifeless, and it's so quiet he can even hear a pin drop. there's a tightness in his chest, followed by a wave of disappointment that runs over him like a feverish shiver.

despite his hard headed decision, he's still anticipating on hearing your lovely voice to greet him as he walks through the door.

he knows it's selfish.

toji expected many things to happen after last night's fight. he figured the reaction to him leaving you (again) would be far bigger. a screaming phone call or a string of cursing text messages to call him out on his shitty behavior.

after all he deserves it for acting like an insufferable asshole.

he tries to swallow his guilt but it remains lodged in his throat when he acknowledges that this might actually be the end. 

the expression on his features falls.

it’s better this way, he consoles, dragging his feet across the floor to approach his kitchenette. he shrugs off his beaten up, oversized coat and tosses it over one of the chairs. he opens one of the cupboards, and grabs a mug to prepare himself a cup of tea.

she’s too young to settle for a guy like me, he continues. widowed with two kids who he barely sees anymore, working paycheck to paycheck just to make ends meet…

a deadbeat.

he exhales, swirling his brew in his ceramic cup. the aroma of sweet leaves dances up the spiral of steam to kiss his nose.

she deserves more than me.

he places the kettle down but stares at the cup mindlessly, losing all train of thought as his hands grip onto the edge of the counter. 

he can acknowledge that his insecurities are clouding his judgement on something truly special, even though this was only ever meant to be purely physical.

except, the sex was growing more intimate. the experience wasn't about pleasure for him anymore. he would find himself losing all focus to the depth of your pretty eyes, stealing kiss after kiss like your mouth was the source of where all his happiness belongs.

belonged.

belonged.

it’s over now, he thinks again. it has to be.

a faint patter of footsteps distracts him, prompting him to ease his hold on the counter as the muscles on his face relax. his heart steadies itself, and he draws in a breath when he feels two arms delicately twine around his waist.

“you’re...still here...” he points out in shock. 

he feels you press your forehead into his back. “of course, where else would I be?” 

he clears his throat to release the guilt then spins on his heel to face you.

"I thought you might have taken off," he bluntly states as he rests his lower back against the counter.

his heart swells, emanates flurries of golden sparks when he meets your gorgeous irises. the will to carry on with his decision crumbles when he catches the corner of your mouth tick into a slight grin.

"I thought about it," you reply casually, loosening your grip to place your palms flat on the side of his stomach. "but the truth is I'm worried about you and I just…want to talk things out…make sure you're okay...”

“I’m the one acting like a jerk and you’re worried about me?” he blurts.

you quirk your brow at the slip of his question. “so, you know you’re acting like a jerk?”

toji’s eyes widen slightly, a hint of pink tainting his cheek. “I asked the question first.”

you purse your lips playfully, aware of the crack that's been revealed and ready to swing once again with another blow.

“it’s because you’re acting like a jerk that I’m worried about you,” you explain, “you’re not yourself when you’re unsettled about something…”

his face warms, the hue of pink deepening into a stronger blush. the familiarity of pointing out his personal traits feels all too homely. seven months shouldn’t feel like a forever but in this bubble with you time ceases to exist.

you trail the pads of your finger tips up his torso, your hands clasping around the back of his neck as you press all your soft and sweet parts right up against the frame of his body.

the brush of your lips on his scar prompts him to flutter his eyes close. he fails to stop himself from holding you then, his firm hands reaching for the outline of your waist

“so,” you murmur with a tempting kiss as you return to your question, “you know you’re acting like a jerk then?”

please don’t make me say it, he thinks, please don’t make me unravel right in front of your eyes.

he squeezes your side, whispering a defeated “listen…”

“did I do something wrong?” you question, a hint of pain laced through every vowel which only makes his heart ache further. “did something happen?”

toji shakes his head.

“it’s not you,” he grumbles. “look, you asked me a couple of weeks ago if this thing between us was serious and…it shouldn’t be.”

you narrow your gaze, tilting your head with adorable confusion that makes toji want to kiss you right there on the spot.

he can feel you pluck at the fabric of his sweater nervously, “why not?”

toji drops his head and sighs.

“c’mon, doll, let’s be real. I’ve got nothing to give you other than a good fuck in this shitty apartment. you're better off finding someone else and I don't want to waste your time”

you press your mouth into a firm line. “your behavior…” you reply, nipping your bottom lip slightly as you gather your thoughts. “are you acting like this because you…want to end things with me?”

toji has never felt smaller. you’ve reduced him into a shriveled pea rolling around his scuffed up boot. “look, it’s better this way, alright?” he admits with a raise of his head, still refusing to outwardly say what you easily deduced. “it's better to move on before things get too complicated…”

the silence hangs heavy in the air, the tension so thick toji feels like he can’t breathe properly. his heart rattles with no restraint, and he finds himself suddenly lightheaded. an apology rests on the tip of his tongue, ready to take back everything he just bombarded you with but his throat simply tightens once more when your hands cradle his strong jaw.

“I like your apartment,” you quietly speak, “your bed sheets always smell so good, and you fixed the water pressure after I complained that it sucked…”

toji blinks back his surprise.

“I also notice that you burn the candle that I got you and that you switched laundry detergents when your old one gave me that weird rash,” you giggle and toji couldn’t help but huff out an embarrassed laugh himself. “the windows let in the best kind of sunlight, and it’s always so cozy in here…”

you press your lips against his mouth to leave a chaste kiss, “as for the company…” you add on, nuzzling the tip of your nose over his, “I consider you more than just a good fuck.”

toji can physically feel himself wilting underneath the heat of your gaze. “I’m just looking out for you, doll.”

"you can look out for me by making me breakfast instead of running away from me..."

he looks serious but his eyes are sincere, holding a level of tenderness that he only reserves for you. his palm moves to seek out your lower back, a hint of pressure pulling you back into his warmth.

your lover has stayed tight lipped about his past, but over his period with you he's found himself spilling out a few secrets here and there.

"I haven't done this in a long time," he vulnerably admits.

"I know," you reassure him, "but...the real question is, do you want this?"

he parts his lips ready to seal the last nail in the coffin, ready to give you the chance to walk out of his life for good. but you're gazing up at him from underneath your eyelashes, your determined stare an opening of your own mercy. your plush, supple lips summoning his cowardice into oblivion.

"toji?"

his breath hitches, his apprehension silenced by the urgency of his desire.

you're so lovely, he thinks. you feel like home.

"I want you," he reveals, his deep voice smoky and untethered, releasing enough sentiment in those three words that he can feel you tremble in his arms. "I just don't deserve you. I don't want you getting caught up in my bullshit..."

""you're a lot sweeter than you look, you know?" you run your fingers through the streaks of his black hair, combing it back to reveal his forehead. "you deserve to be happy, toji, and...and I think I can make you happy..."

your aura beams with delight when he flashes you a wolfish grin in return. a smile you've grown to adore so deeply. his apology comes in the form of a kiss, one that's gentle and slow. a stroke of fire burns up the back of your neck, making you quiver in places when he glides his tongue across yours. you hum softly into his lips while he releases a content sigh, the barrier he's been keeping up turns to ashes beneath your feet.

[sunshine-zenith]

Okay but like. AU where Mary doesn’t actually learn Cas is an Angel until waaaaay later

Her first introduction to Cas involves Dean frantically getting her to lower her gun, Cas tearfully throwing himself at Dean like a widower reunited with their believed-dead spouse, Dean hugging Cas back just as tightly, and her giving them that Oh They Gay side eye. When Dean says Cas is an Angel, let’s be real given the context she has it probably sounds Super Married. Cas agreeing that he’s an Angel, not a hunter, could come off as “yeah I put up with so much shit for this guy,” especially when paired with his exasperated “no I don’t have a harp” — it just screams “we’ve been married so long that this isn’t even an inside joke it’s a double act and I’m a reluctant but committed participant.”

Also seriously, I know she was literally just resurrected by god’s sister, but “he’s an Angel —wings, harp, you know” sounds like spousely teasing, not a proper or coherent introduction to an entire species that until that moment you didn’t know where actually real or something you could tangibly interact with

When Sam and Dean are missing and Cas attempts to locate them and takes up hunting, Mary would chalk up his lack of success to the fact that he’s not a hunter — he’s a hunter’s husband. Mary herself has personal experience with this exact thing, given that John wasn’t raised a hunter either. As such, she’s either a little softer on her assumed son-in-law, or she projects hard onto him

Cas preferring to fight with a magic blade and not firearms? Not wise in their life, but again, he’s not actually a hunter. She tentatively brings up her concerns with Dean and he says he’s working on getting Cas to use a gun, but Cas is a stubborn asshole (he says with fondness), plus he’s damn good with that blade, so he’s fine in the meantime. She raises her eyebrow but leaves it for the time being

That time Cas kills Death for her and her sons? That’s just devoted husband/in-law behavior, especially given how emotional he gets after — look closely, Cas absolutely had very human tears in his eyes as he monologues about how important and special they are to him

That time Cas almost dies horribly and is saved by a demon? Everyone just doesn’t say “it’s specifically because he’s an Angel” here, at least not when she’s in ear shot, and if Crowley still calls him “choir boy” and such, well he’s a sarcastic demon, why should she worry about his weird quips, there are more important things to deal with. For all she knows, this is just a horrible curse that any of them could’ve gotten if they were stabbed with that blade

One time she tentatively asks Sam about Cas and Dean, specifically asking how long they’ve been together. Sam just laughs in Long Suffering Little Brother

Otherwise, Mary doesn’t really ask, not really wanting to push and frankly not doing so great with the whole My Babies Are Now Older Than Me And Everyone Else I Know Is Dead thing. If Cas is weird about technology or uses strange syntax or usually lets Dean finish his meals for him, she has very little to compare it to and very little brain space to spend on it anyway. She’s still processing that her son is old enough to be married in the first place, who cares if the guy he’s grossly in love with is a little strange. He seems nice enough, and she’s content leave it at that

As a result of her keeping her distance, with a pinch of contrived convenience here, she just straight up misses all the times Cas uses his Grace or references heaven or anything like that

Yes she still knows about the whole Lucifer-Kelly-Nephilim thing, but she could just mentally categorize Lucifer with Powerful Demon — given that she was killed by a powerful demon, she doesn’t really need a theology lesson to know that Satan having a baby is probably bad. Yes she still works with the MOL, but they’ve got her on such an information diet that no one pulls her aside to say “btw you know that non-human celestial being that hangs around with your barbarian sons is a non-human celestial being, right?”

She’s a hunter from a long line of hunters, and even if she makes questionable choices she’s smart and experienced. She just has a massive blind spot where Cas is because she assumes that he’s just her sweet if strange son-in-law that her son is obviously and painfully in love with, and nobody corrects her because they assume she already knows

She finds out by complete accident in the most mundane way possible — Cas lifting the Impala so Dean can do mechanic stuff underneath it, Cas using his Grace to heal someone’s papercut, Cas accidentally cutting himself with a kitchen knife and not reaching to the injury which disappears in 2.8 seconds anyway

She shoots him on the spot. He’s fine, of course, but everyone else collectively loses their shit

At no point is it actually clarified that Dean and Cas aren’t actually together. Instead Mary walks away mildly embarrassed that she had no idea her son-in-law wasn’t human

[branwinged]

no i agree incest would warp someone's psyche but the way i've seen it disscused, as the targaryens being incapable of regular family relationships and being normal about their family members is not true and as you pointed out we also see incest among the other westerosi houses. it's another things that gets treats as unique to the targaryens when the only difference is how (some) forms of incest are sanctioned/allowed. incestues abuse and inappropriate relationships exist among other houses, you don't need to look any furher than jaime and cersei.

cw: csa mention

yes, i'm familiar with that line of analysis. the general argument is that they're born into a family that practices institutionalised incest, which means they're raised to view siblings as potential sexual partners, something that complicates the possibility of having 'normal' familial relationships—which is correct, but i also agree that you can't make sweeping claims about the psychology of every single targaryen using this reasoning. and people identify this as a problem unique to the targaryens because they're not considering what enables and motivates their incest practices, there's some gesturing at it as a cyclical issue but ultimately they're also being framed as sexual deviants, individually pathologised - which is not all that different from attributing child sexual abuse to the spectre of the pedophile, as a rare perversion and not something that is enabled by the way children are rendered structurally (legally, economically) disempowered. and the reason people construct a unique pathology for the targaryens is because they don't view them as actors within westeros's feudal patriarchy just like every other great house, they view them as valyrians. which is why their motivations for everything they do in the books have to be sourced back to the freehold. and i won't deny that there's a special narrative thread of family magic and curse running through their line (my brothers dreamed of dragons too, and their dreams killed them, every one.), you are being invited to look at them through that lens, that there's a specific burden and tragedy but also awe and glory in being a targaryen. they've socially constructed a divine self-mythology because they're kings and your kings are also your gods, but it's a politically convenient lie they consciously tell their subjects (there are very few targaryens who actually, wholeheartedly believe in the superiority of their own valyrian race), because ultimately they're just as human as any of them and just as subject to and motivated by social forces.

so why is the incest happening, because marriage is a way of forging political alliances and in turn accumulating military power during both times of peace and war. military power for targaryens means dragons, you don't give the lannisters a dragon (it goes deeper than that, dragons are their symbols of legitimacy and authority you simply cannot give another house a dragon, it undermines their entire image as sovereigns), so you keep your dragonrider daughters within the family structure—just as daughters from other great houses are commodities on the marriage market, exchanged for political power and the propagation of bloodlines. materially there is no difference between the two situations (there's a good point re avenues of escape from abuse just not being there in incestuous targaryen marriages, but i've covered it here and concluded that it's also not really available for exogamous marriages), because this is how westeros's feudal patriarchy works. marriages between very young girls and much older men are normalised, we see it happen multiple times in the main series but there's this line in mystery knight which has stuck with me, because it was a detail casually dropped with no objections attached by dunk, the second closest thing to a true knight in the books: "The girl was fifteen and freshly flowered, her lord husband fifty and freshly widowed."

in westeros everyone is match made from birth, if not immediately from birth then well before the age of majority (catelyn was betrothed to brandon at twelve), being uniquely horrified by the targaryens also matchmaking their kids at a young age does not make sense to me. "they are raised into" yes well eleven year old sansa was also raised into internalising this: "I love him, Father, I truly truly do, I love him as much as Queen Naerys loved Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, as much as Jonquil loved Ser Florian. I want to be his queen and have his babies." and i brought up the greyjoy brothers because that's a clear case of non targaryen incestuous abuse made possible because of the way power flows from the patriarch, to whom the younger sons defer to, are sworn to obey—the same power hierarchy that enables aerion's sexual abuse of egg. the forces at play here are the same, yet people will seek to identify the latter as the consequence of the targaryens' uniquely fucked up child rearing practices and psychology.

all marriages in westeros are founded on those principles, because the family structure hinges on gender ideology and the patriarchal ownership of women and children. the targaryens are doing what everyone else is also doing, doesn't mean it's not bad, doesn't make it excusable, but it's important to recognise the way it's culturally encouraged across all of westeros. and since this begun as a discussion of the hotd ask, i'll also add that incest is a narrative tool and can obviously be used beyond imparting moral lessons about Incest Bad, asoiaf is clearly interested in incest as a mode of patriarchal domination (among other things, see jaimecersei), but hotd is exploring both the intergenerational trauma caused by it and daemon and rhaenyra's marriage resembling a relationship wherein they both find mutual gender affirmation through one another (what is said about the trans reading). again, people will be really resistant to the latter reading, but it's undeniably there. and the discomfort with it will not make it go away!

[galaxymagitech]

For the writer ask game - 1 & 23!

I am so sorry for taking...*checks the date in horror*...over two weeks to respond. Thank you so much for your ask!!!

Writer Ask Game

1. Tell us about your current project(s)--what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

My longest-running project is Through the Twisted Mirror, which is a dark universe/evil Bruce AU. I haven't updated it in about 6 months, because in a couple chapters a character is supposed to get tortured and I can't for the life of me figure out how I want to write it. It's a thing that happens in the story and is narratively important, and I am comfortable with writing torture scenes and have done so a couple times before, but I don't really want to write it out in detail. And I'm worried that it will make the story darker than people signed up for originally. But it also feels bizarre to skip it when it happens. I just don't know. And that's stalled me for a while.

I've also diverged pretty far from my original plans so I'm not entirely sure how to pull everything together in the end and have a final confrontation that isn't a total beatdown.

I'm currently also working on another multi-chapter fic, once you cross the line (will you be satisfied?), which is a Stephanie Brown-centric TimSteph Mob AU. I'm going slow but steady with the chapters--currently 4/8 are posted and 6/8 are drafted. And again, my problem is that I haven't decided how graphically to write torture. This fic has given me a chance to go outside my comfort zone and try writing something new, which I appreciate. Like, I am not a TimSteph shipper, I wrote them because it's narratively convenient for the fic. But trying to make their romance feel authentic has been a great experience.

And stuck in my drafts...Better Than Batman, which is a very philosophical Jason Todd fic where he and the rest of the Batfamily discuss their views on killing. It's about a third to halfway written. And honestly I forgot about it until answering this question.

Jason Todd Week is...not even started. I haven't even started planning for it. I'm probably going to wing it. And I need to start working on Duke Thomas Week, but that's just nebulous ideas right now.

23. What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest?

In the DC fandom? Probably Through the Twisted Mirror, but that's not exactly in my head anymore. The longest inside the DC fandom that hasn't been published or written would probably be "Tim doesn't go to boarding school and ends up documenting Gotham's mysteries and fixing its curse through the power of statistics and chemistry."

Outside the DC fandom, I had an idea about versions of Mabel and Dipper Pines from throughout Gravity Falls' fandom AUs (specifically, Reverse Falls, Monster Falls, Relativity Falls, and the main universe), working together to save Gravity Falls from the multiverse collapsing. Eventually, they create this "universal" Gravity Falls that's a whole world of its own with all the AUs combined. I wrote the epilogue, but never the fic, because I realized that it's really freaking hard to write a story where 16 different characters have the same four names.

I've also had this idea for a while of an MCU AU where superheroes are mostly fake: "The Avengers, as the world knows them, are a lie. Iron Man is a cover, Captain America is history students’ version of fanfiction, Hawkeye is a society of archers messing around, Thor is a prank, Hulk is special effects, and Black Widow is the CIA agent running the show. But when teenage Peter Parker decides that he’s going to become a superhero, the Avengers are at a loss—how can they convince him to back down without revealing that superheroes don’t exist?" I might write it someday, if I ever return to the MCU fandom. Who knows.

[stxrrynxghts]

When Dawn Arrives

TW: Violence, mentions of s*x, blood, cursing.

I'm going to die.

Well, yes, I've known that since the past five hours. Or was it seven? I've been dying a slow death since the moment I entered this damned formation.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Dying was NOT on my plans, dammit. Wasn't I supposed to live a long life? Go on a trip to somewhere other than Kampilya? Wasn't I...supposed to be happy?

I want to find the person who said that death is peaceful. This is the most excruciating thing I've ever experienced. And my head fucking hurts so much. That cursed cousin of mine, whatever his name is, did smash my head with his mace, eh?

Yeah, I'm dying. I can feel the blood come out of my body. I didn't even know I had this much blood in my body, honestly. Breathing hurts. It hurts a lot.

I think I want to cry. But the thing is, no matter how much I cry, no one will come to save me. They didn't come. I felt they would, why didn't they? No one came behind me once I had entered this formation...why?

Oh God. I don't want to die. I don't. Why can't someone, I don't know, Father, or Uncle come to save me? Everything is black...

I'll live for a few moments, I think. Just a few. Then I'll be a goner. The Late Prince Abhimanyu, hah.

I'm sorry. I'm leaving so many people behind. What will Mother say? What will Father say? And who will drag Shrutakarma to socialize now?

Not me, that's sure.

I'm sorry, Uttaraa, I couldn't be a good husband to you.

You know, the first time I met you, I didn't like you? Yes, you were pretty, you have always been and will always be, but you acted like such a brat, you know?

You threw a tantrum when you felt that Father wasn't paying attention to you and your friends, because I had arrived. I hated that. I felt possessive, because I was the son, while you all were just...students. What could be so special about you?

I was wrong.

There are so many special things about you. Yes, you burst into tears at random things, you share things you aren't supposed to, you are too dense-

But you are mine.

You are beautiful, the most beautiful person in the world. In my entire world.

Many people have cared for me, but the way you fuss over every small scratch I get has touched me the most.

Your happy smiles and giggles, the soft noises of wonder you made every time something caught your eye...

The way you held my hand, with that shy smile on your face...

All of it made me fall for you, you know? It took me time to realize, but I did, eventually. And then I felt sad, because there was no way someone like you, with so much kindness, love and innocence could love someone like me.

Brash, impulsive, and wild.

But you did. You loved me with all your heart. And I feel as if I couldn't love you as much as you deserved. I couldn't soothe your pain when your brothers died, could I? No matter what I did, you kept on crying...

Perhaps I am selfish, because I can't wish someone better for you. That would kill me, you know? Everytime we went stargazing, or shopping in the market streets, or in the gardens, or on the beach...every moment is special for me, and will always be.

You made my short life brim with joy, but perhaps I've filled yours with heartache.

If you weren't my wife, your brothers wouldn't have died. If you weren't my wife, you wouldn't be widowed so soon. If you weren't my wife, you wouldn't have to raise a child on your own.

You are like my sun, Tara. The sun who I revolve around, the sun who made me shine.

But I don't regret it. How do I? How do I regret every moment we spent together, how do I regret all the times you embraced me, peppering my face with your soft lips?

Perhaps I have not cherished you enough. I should have done more, I should have made the one year we had to be more worth remembering...

But I know you. I know you cherish me as much as I cherish you, that you enjoyed every moment with me.

I loved spending time with you, you know? I'd try to come out of training early, just to sit and eat with you, listening to your chatters about some random thing, to run my fingers through your open hair, to touch and kiss every single part of you that I could.

I wish I could make love to you one last time, hold you in my arms one last time, tease you one last time, kiss you one last time, tell you how much I loved you. Just one last time.

I don't remember the last time I did that.

This war took much more from us than I thought it would.

But you've made me happy, you know? You've made me happy, and feel loved and cherished and important, and, and-

I wish I could hold our baby, you know? Feel it move, feel it kick, teach it how to talk, play with it...

But I love it, you know? I love it very much, and I hope it knows that in the future. I always wanted to be there for my children, Uttaraa, unlike how my father couldn't be there for me, unfortunately.

But my baby won't have a father's return to look forward to, right? No wait for thirteen years. Nothing.

You'll take care of my parents, won't you? You'll take care of our baby, won't you? I know you will.

My sweet, loving, innocent Uttaraa...

You were my sun, moon and stars, my entire universe...

I wanted our little constellation, you know? Our children, our babies. Fuck, I don't even know how my child will look like, oh God-

You are my greatest joy, Uttaraa, and my biggest regret.

I wish I hadn't ruined your memories of our sweet times with my death. I wish I was stronger for you, for my parents, for our baby...

I'm a damn fool, that's what I am. Not learning how to get out of this cursed formation, what the fuck was I thinking?!

Take care of yourselves, love, please. I know you will be sad, I know it will hurt, but...but don't hurt yourself, please...I want you to be happy.

I want you to live my share of life as well.

Fuck, fuck, I'm dying, aren't I? I'm-

When dawn arrives, you'll go to walk on the beach with me again, won't you? With sand beneath our toes, holding each other's hands, sea water splashing at our feet...won't you?

When dawn arrives...

I'll see you again.

[honeytrap26]

Only Love Can Hurt Like This

Suguru Geto x Reader (Part 2)

summary: A story about your blooming love and friendship with Suguru Geto. cw: mentions death, blood, gore, betrayal, angst, sad, sprinkles of love and fluff. Tragic love story. aunote: Here is part two of this series. Enjoy and happy reading! 🐼🖤 Total wc:6k+/Part 1/ Part 3/ Part 4

wc: 1k+

Set the mood: The Rose- Angel, Kina Grannis- Can't Help Falling In Love

March 7,2004 -Do you trust me?

Suguru asks you, he’s holding your hand. You're both standing at the top of a skyscraper, the wind blows and dances with your hair. His eyes soften upon hearing your answer. 

You jump off the building together, the adrenaline rushes through your body, you look into his beautiful hazel eyes, they light up just like yours, so full of life and love. Your hands are still interlocked tightly, his rainbow dragon flies underneath your bodies and sweeps you up, flying off into the sunset.

It’s been about a month or so since you woke up. The boy you heard talking was Suguru Geto, he saved you after you activated your cursed technique while on the verge of dying. The street was covered in webs. The casualty was a total of five non-sorcerers, three were bystanders and one special grade curse. 

Suguru found a beautiful woman standing in the middle of it all, her skin was pale, her hair was long, it draped down her back and dragged on the ground, it was white as snow. When she turned to look at Suguru, she had the mark of a black widow in the middle of her forehead, her eyes were pure white.She wore a long black robe with the color of blood red details that hung daintily on her full figure, it exposed her large bosom.

His jaw was clenched knowing he couldn’t defeat a special grade curse, if that’s even what you would call this thing. He was going to summon a cursed spirit but he stopped when he saw the shikigami get in a defensive position, her body hovering over something, upon closer look he saw your body covered in webs. You were carefully wrapped and laying in a bed of webs.

He was the one that carried you back to Jujutsu High, the one that stayed by your side, when you awoke he nursed you back to health, taught you everything about cursed spirits and sorcerers. He was the one that gave you hope, he was the one that made you want to live and love. 

So when he took your hand and asked if you trusted him all you could say was,

-Yes.

August 8,2004 -Welcome back.

Suguru says every night as he waits for you and your partner by the corner next to the gate. Suguru see’s you both walk past the gate, the cool august breeze hits your body. Your partner unbuttons his jacket and throws it over your shoulder. He pats your head and wipes the dirt away from your face. 

Suguru stands there waiting patiently for you both. There’s a sting in his heart but he shrugs it off. All he wanted to see was that smile on your face and if it meant that someone else would make you happy then he would settle for that.

Tonight was no different, he waits for you and your partner. Except this time he has a sweater, just in case. A smile appears on his face when he sees you walking towards him, his smile shifts into a frown when he sees you drop to your knees, your uniform covered in blood, your body is shaking.

Suguru rushes over to your side. He drapes his sweater over your body. His hand brushes your disheveled hair from your face, your eyes are dull and lifeless, bags under your eyes, your lips are quivering, your looking down at your hands that are covered in blood.

“I-I c-couldn’t…. save.. h-him…” your voice breaks, you cover your face with your hands.

Suguru pulls you into a hug, your sobbing into his shoulder, he can feel his shirt becoming damp from your tears.

“I-I couldn’t save him Sugu.” you wail,

A painful sting jabs at his heart seeing the condition you're in, hearing you fall apart and cry for your partner. His blood runs cold when he sees a few of the managers carrying a black body bag inside of the school behind you.That was when he decided that he didn’t want to lose you, the day he realized he needed to be stronger. He pulls you tighter into a hug.

“I don’t want to lose you, I don't want to say goodbye.”

Since that day he hopes and prays to any god that you were safe and that you’d come back,

-Home.

  February 3,2005 -What was your wish?

You ask, after he blows out the candles to his birthday cake. He looks at you and smiles to himself with a smug smile on his face.

“Not telling you” he chuckles.

“ Oh come on, I want to know.” you set his cake down and slice a piece giving it to him.

“ Can’t it won’t come true if I do.” he takes a bite out of his slice.

“I never took you as someone who cared for that kinda stuff.” you shrug and take a bite.

You look up at the night sky, the stars shine so brightly away from all of the lights from the city. The gentle breeze kisses your skin, you close your eyes and lean on Sugurus shoulder. He looks down at your soft features, he pulls out a small box but quickly shoves it back in his pocket when he hears his best friend kick the door open.

“Happy birthday Suguru!” Gojo yells, walking towards the both of you with sparklers.

“Happy birthday.” Shoko and the boys follow in after him, they wave at you.

“You guys made it!” you jump up and hug all of them.

“I take it you didn’t tell her?” Gojo asks Geto, seeing him fiddle with the velvet box.

“ No, I couldn't do it.” his eyes averted to you, your beautiful smile was finally back after such a  long time, you were waving a sparkler around with Shoko. Haibara was taking pictures.

“I can’t take her happiness away from her. Not again.” he opens the box looking down at the promise ring. 

“But don’t you love her? My six eyes tell me so.” Gojo says with a grin on his face. before he walks away.

“Sugu! Look, it's the comet shower. It’s starting” you run over and grab his arm jumping up and down excitedly.

The meteors shine brightly illuminating the sky as they travel from one side of the world to the other.

“It’s so beautiful.” you say looking at the comet shower raining down from the sky. Satoru’s question rings in his mind, has he fallen in love with you?

“It is.”he says, his hazel eyes soften staring at you.

Was it when you first woke up and said his name? 

How about the time that you made him stay up with you until three in the morning binge watching a romance drama,  your eyes were all puffed up the next day. 

He chuckles to himself. 

Maybe he fell in love when he would come back late from a mission and see you sound asleep in his room, your head laying against his desk.

Or the way you eventually moved from sleeping in his chair to sleeping in his bed, cuddled up to his favorite sweater.

Perhaps it was when he almost lost you, when your partner came home in a body bag and he bathed you for weeks. He would hold you tight in his arms and comfort you when you woke up crying from your dreams. 

No, you were merely filling the void that your partner left in your chest…

Suguru sighs,

Did you have feelings for him too?

It was nights like these that you would spend together alone watching the sunrise, sunset, and sitting under the night sky.

The way your hand always brushed against his. Or how he would notice your lingering stare at his lips.

The way you fell asleep so easily when you're around him. It was as if you let your guard down around him completely.

Yes, maybe you did love him and he was in love with you but he didn’t want to get too close and lose another friend. 

No you were more than a friend, you were a lover, his lover. You were the one he loved and if you should ever separate he hoped that fate would bring you back together one last time before either of you died. 

Suguru and you meet eyes, both of your gazes softening. He places a hand on your cheek and says your name,

“I have something to tell you, I…I love you.” was all he could say. Of course he could go on and on about everything he loved about you and recount how many times you made his heart flutters. 

“I love you too Suguru.” you say back with a big smile on your face.

He smiles widely and pulls you into a hug, spinning the both of you around, your giggling his ear, it was music to his ears.

“You asked me what I wished for, I wished,”

-To be with you.

December 24, 2005 -Take my hand.

Suguru kisses the promise ring on your finger then he pulls you into his arms. The lights are dimmed down, a small Christmas tree in the corner of your room. You both are gently swaying to the music.

Take my whole life too. he sings, he twirls you around, his hand on the small of your back, supporting you.

For I can’t help falling in love with you he whispers, leaning down to kiss you.

You lay your head on his chest, you can feel the rumble of his voice as he continues to sing the song.

-For I can't help falling in love with you.

[adventure-showdown]

What has been nominated so far

Note, just because something has been nominated, and so is listed here, does not mean it will be included, I will include the absolute most I can but if I can't find it on TARDIS wiki its not getting in because i can't verify its a piece of who media

Also note, there might be some mistakes on here, I'm copying the nominations across directly, there might be some stories that are listed twice without me realising, because of alternate titles, or I just didn't spot it, or stuff that was spelt wrong when it was nominated, feel free to tell me

I've done my best to spot when nominations of a series were intended to enter the individual parts rather than the series as a unit, if I've got this wrong let me know and I will fix it. (if a story is on one line its currently being considered as a unit)

Final note, a couple of things got nominated under multiple mediums, usually full length TV story and minisode, so if you can't find your nomination, maybe check one of the other mediums

You can make further nominations here, there are basically no limits so long as its set in the Whoniverse (or its about Doctor Who, eg An Adventure in Space and Time or The 5 (ish) Doctors Reboot)

the list is under the cut (I will endeavour to keep it up to date)

Audio

Main Range

The Marian Conspiracy

The Apocalyse Element

The Shadow of the Scourge

The Holy Terror

Storm Warning

Minuet in Hell

Loups-Garoux

The Chimes of Midnight

Seasons of Fear

The Time of the Daleks

Jubilee

Neverland

Spare Parts

Creatures of Beauty

Doctor Who and the Pirates

Omega

Master (Main Range 49)

Zagreus

Scherzo

The Natural History of Fear

Arrangements for War

The Harvest

Faith Stealer

Caerdroia

Terror Firma

Singularity

Other Lives

The Kingmaker

The Girl Who Never Was

The Condemned

The Doomwood Curse

The Magic Mousetrap

The Company of Friends: Benny's Story

The Company of Friends: Fitz's Stroy

The Company of Friends: Izzy's Story

The Company of Friends: Mary's Story

A Death in the Family

Robophobia

The Silver Turk

1963: The Assassination Games

The Widow's Assassin

Dalek Soul

The Grey Man of the Mountain

The Eighth Doctor Adventures

The Blood of the Daleks

Horror of Glam Rock

Immortal Beloved

Phobos

No More Lies

Human Resources

To the Death

Doom Coalition

The Eleven

The Red Lady

The Galileo Trap

The Gift

The Sonomancer

Absent Friends

The Eighth Piece

The Doomsday Chronometer

The Crucible of Souls

Ship in a Bottle

Songs of Love

The Side of the Angels

Stop the Clock

Ravenous

Escape from Kaldor

Better Watch Out/Fairytale in Salzburg

Companion Piece

Day of the Master

Stranded

Stranded as a Whole (I think, I couldn't find a story called Stranded)

UNIT Dating

What Lies Inside

Paradox of the Daleks

Connections

Here Lies Drax

The Love Vampires

Albie's Angels

Special Releases

Living Legend

Out of Time

Out of Time (individual story)

Wink

The Companion Chronicles

Solitaire

Peri and the Piscon Paradox

The Cold Equations

The Last Post

The Scorchies

The Tenth Doctor Adventures

Death and the Queen

The Sword of the Chevalier

No Place

The Creeping Death

The Tenth Doctor and River Song

Expiry Dating

Ghosts

Once and Future

The Martian Invasion of Planetoid 50

The Diary of River Song

The Bekdel Test

The Lost Stories

The Queen of Time

Paradise 5

The Elite

Short Trips

I am the Master

Forever Fallen

A Full Life

Bernice Summerfield

Oh No It Isn't

The Faction Paradox Protocols

The Eleven Day Empire/The Shadow Play

Torchwood

The Last Beacon

Serenity

Rhys and Ianto's Excellent Barbecue

Gallifrey

Square One

First Days of Phaidon

Gallifrey IV

Warfare

Unity

Missy

A Spoonful of Mayhem

The Lumiat

Too Many Masters

The Paternoster Gang: Heritage

The Cars That Ate London!

A Photograph to Remember

Destiny of the Doctor

Smoke and Mirrors

Novel Adaptations

Nightshade

Fifth Doctor Box Set

Psychodrome

Iterations of I

Psychodrome

Iterations of I

Counter-Measures

The Fifth Citadel

The Forgotten Village

Peshka

The Concrete Cage

The New Counter Measures

Troubled Waters

The Hollow King

The Eighth of March

Inside Every Warrior

Comics

TV Comic

Time in Reverse

Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor

Space in Dimension Relative and Time

Doctor Who: The Thirteenth Doctor

Old Friends

Doctor Who Magazine

The Star Beast

Voyager

The World Shapers

Ground Zero

The Flood

The Fallen

The Land of Happy Endings

Direct to Home Media Films

PROBE

PROBE: The Zero Imperative

PROBE: The Devil of Winterborne

PROBE: Unnatural Selection

PROBE: Ghosts of Winterborne

PROBE: When to Die

The Stranger

The Stranger: Summoned by Shadows

The Stranger: More than a Messiah

The Stranger: In Memory Alone

The Stranger: The Terror Game

The Stranger: Breach of the Peace

The Stranger: Eye of the Beholder

Other

Downtime

Shada (1992) - version with linking narration

Sil and the Devil Seeds of Arodor

Wartime

K9 (spinoff series)

Regeneration/Liberation/The Korven

The Bounty Hunter

Sirens of Ceres

Fear Itself

The Fall of the House of Gryffen

Jays of Orthrus

Dream-Eaters

Curse of Anubis

Oroborus

Alien Avatar

Aeolian

The Last Oak Tree

Black Hunger

The Cambridge Spy

Lost Library of Ukko

Mutant Copper

The Custodians

Taphony and the Time Loop

Robot Gladiators

Mind Snap/Angel of the North/The Last Precinct/Hounds of the Korven/The Eclipse of the Korven

Minisodes

A Fix with Sontarans

Born Again

Clara and the TARDIS

Dimensions in Time

Emperor of the Daleks (More than 30 Years in the TARDIS)

famine appeal 1986

Merry Christmas Doctor Who

P.S.

Pond Life

Rain Gods

Space/Time

Tardisodes

The Battle of Demons Run: Two Days Later

The Bells of Saint John: A Prequel

The Doctor's Meditation

The Great Detective

The Last Day

The Naked Truth

The Shrink

Time Crash

Wall's Sky Ray lollies advertisment

Seret Message from the Time Lords (Weetabix advert)

Novels & Short Stories

Short Stories and Short Story Collections

12 Doctors, 12 Stories

Grey Matter

Lepidoptery for Beginners

Something Borrowed

Nothing at the End of the Lane

The Room With All the Doors

Standalone

Harvest of Time

Scratchman

The Stranger

Engines of War

The Eighth Doctor Adventures

Vampire Science

Alien Bodies

Seeing I

The Scarlet Empress

Unnatural History

Interference

The Blue Angel

The Burning

The Turing Test

The Year of Intelligent Tigers

The City of the Dead

The Adventuress of Henrietta Street

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Anachrophobia

The Book of the Still

The Crooked World

Camera Obscura

The Gallifrey Chronicles

The Past Doctor Adventures

Divided Loyalties

Fear of the Dark

Fear Itself

Novelisations

Doctor Who and Shada (fan novelisation)

Virgin New Adventures

The Left-Handed Hummingbird

Human Nature

Lungbarrow

Faction Paradox

The Book of War

This Town Will Never Let Us Go

Of the City of the Saved

The New Series Adventures

The Blood Cell

Other

Step Into the 80s!/On Through the 80's! (adverts)

Ronald Rat continuity announcement

Zygon: When Being you Just isn't Enough (Porno)

The Man From MI5

The Infinite Quest

Dooms Day hour 1

Songs

Doctor in Distress

Doctorin' the TARDIS by the Timelords

I'm gonna Spend my Christmas with a Dalek

TV (this category is less about if it was televised and more about the length to distinguish it from minisodes)

Dreamland

Search Out Space

Webcasts

Real Time

Shada (2 nominations)

[chloelefay]

I really wonder if there isn't someone out there who's noticed and named the phenomenon I've dubbed lolipunk before me

I'll write an essay on it one day but if you're wondering what I mean, look at elfen lied and sucker punch, and then look at our writing, and see if you can identify the common elements.

like, it's a thing. there's a shared vibe there. I can't be the first person to have noticed.

black widow (2021) is another one. alita battle angel somewhat, hassai's art has huge lolipunk vibes, madomagi, also fate/kaleid liner and sora no otoshimono at least to some extent.

oh and utena. there's definitely a lot of overlap between magical girls and lolipunk.

black widow I think is really an important one to consider I think. it shares the least superficial elements with the other things on the list but it is EXTREMELY lolipunk.

obviously, lolipunk is essentially loli and essentially punk. what does this mean? loli means the stories are about abused girls, the abuse is not necessarily sexual but normally deeply violating in some way.

punk means - well, punk, with everything that entails, but specifically in this context it usually means the abuse is resisted. usually violently. most of these girls are living weapons with immense destructive potential, which is usually directly connected to their abuse. in some way or another, they've drawn power from their suffering, even if that power is ultimately still not strong enough to escape it, or as much a curse as it is a blessing. many times these characters lose something of their humanity, insofar as they even had it to begin with, but always ultimately they become something that seems not quite human. (Natasha and Babydoll are textually just normal humans but they still each have a quality to them that makes them special.)

Jinx in Arcane and several characters in Evangelion are lolipunk characters in non-lolipunk works, their individual stories have a lot of the qualities of lolipunk but the greater story they're placed in isn't about them and so as a whole has a very different vibe.

[saraloveliness-blog]

About Deuteronomy 16:18-21

Deuteronomy 16:18-21

The first compound word or words joined with a maqqep that I would like to look at is משפ- צדק.

I am too incompetent to insert the actual punctuation mark on Google docs.  Mea culpa.

I looked up mishpat in Gesenius.  Mishpat has a wide semantic range.  It can mean anything from giving somebody the death penalty for a capital offense, to correctly measuring something on a scale, to manners and customs.  The basic meaning is judgment.  It can mean a body of laws, a sentence laid down in a court, the edict of a king, or the divine justice of God Himself.  Judges in the ancient near east did not only listen to evidence and sentence the defendant.  They investigated the crimes, acted as lawyers and argued the cases, and then at the end, either issued a verdict or passed the case up the food chain because it was too important for them.  The king himself judged very important cases.  It is a very common word and is frequently paired with tzedek to which we now turn.

I like what Hans Urs von Balthasar has to say about this word.  It can be the rightness woven into the fabric of reality.  It would be impossible to judge something as right or wrong if ethics were not a fundamental part of how life on earth works.  It is intimately tied in the Old Testament to God and the justice of His covenant and legal system, which are very tied to the loyalty and love He feels for His people.  Von Balthasar associates this word with stability and with finding a purpose in life or a reason to exist.

The word means both the righteous deeds people do and the rewards and blessings that are inherent in them.  According to von Balthasar, virtue was viewed as its own reward, and unrighteous deeds carried the punishment or the curse within themselves.  Intimately tied to this is God rescuing people from punishment and from the negative consequences of their actions in His mercy. 

I do not know how widely accepted the view of justice and righteousness I just attempted to paraphrase is.  However, what follows is something absolutely everyone agrees on: Righteousness or justice is inherently protective of the poor, widows, aliens, and orphans against exploitation from the wealthy and powerful.  This passage is strongly against bribing a judge for obvious reasons.

Godvoice pointed out that just as the Israelites did not bifurcate love and like but rather had ahab to cover both, righteous and just were the same word, tzedek.  They were not two separate concepts.  They were the same thing.  I had a long conversation with Godvoice about this concept that began with a blaspheme.  I shall try to capture it below.

Godvoice: What do you think of my justice?

Amelia: Well, it’s nonexistent.  Sorry, that was blasphemous.

Godvoice: Yeah, it was, but why do you think that?

Amelia:  Well, abortion.  People are killing their babies right and left and almost never have a good reason.  I don’t want to be a mother.  It’s the wrong time.  The people I go to church with might laugh at and criticize me.  I don’t want to be the mother to somebody with a disability.  I don’t like the baby daddy.  My baby’s biracial.  My best friend gets an SSI check that the government takes a lot out of each month, she already had a kid who was a major handful who she was raising on her own, her old baby daddy didn’t marry her, her husband was locked up, and her babies were special needs, and so was she, but she did the right thing, carried her babies to term, and gave me my godchildren.  Other women kill their kids all the time for no good reason.  So that’s one thing.  Another thing is I don’t follow the Ten Commandments at all and haven’t since I was a child.  I had golden shower with Chris who lied and told me he was divorced and not married.  How many Christians ask to see the proof, ask to see the divorce papers?  And even if they did, Jesus said that it is tantamount to adultery if you divorce someone for any reason other than adultery and that it is also tantamount to adultery if you marry a divorcee.  I’m not gonna lie, if an honest, humble, decent man, who had a job and paid his bills every month, who was divorced, proposed to me, I would marry him in a heartbeat.  Christians divorce and remarry all the time.  Nobody obeys that commandment.  Then I’ve never killed anyone, but I’ve felt a lot of anger and hatred in my heart as have other Christians. That violates the law against murder.  Then I have never observed the Sabbath.  Neither do other Christians.  They go to church, then they go out to eat, and a bunch of underpaid cooks and waitresses are serving them, and they don’t leave a decent tip.  A bunch of people work overtime, work weekends, never get a day off, because they get paid pennies and don’t make a decent wage.  A lot of Christians “play for both teams.”  This violates the laws against having other gods, idolatry, and adultery.  Nobody obeys your laws.  I never have.  Neither do other people.

Godvoice:  My justice is not found in my people’s obedience.  My people have always been disobedient.  Have you read the Bible?  The Israelites were disobedient, and so was the Church.  My justice is a fundamental personality trait, characteristic, and character trait; it is a fundamental part of Who I Am.  Everything I do is fair.

Amelia: Well, here’s the thing.  I don’t know that Jesus dying for our sins was fair.  We sinned.  He never did anything wrong.  Was it fair for Him to be punished for our sin?

Godvoice: My Son made a choice.  It was not unfair.  It was not “divine child abuse.”  He “laid down His life voluntarily” and He “took it back up again.”  Nobody took it from Him.  He made a conscious choice.  He made a sacrifice.  He could have stayed away from Jerusalem and kissed up to the Pharisees instead of standing up against Him.  It wasn’t what I wanted Him to do.  He could have.  He will judge everybody at the end of time, and “every knee will bow, and every tongue confess” that He “is Lord.”  It wasn’t unfair.  Do you think the laws in the Old Testament were fair?

Amelia: Honestly, no.  I thought they were severely bizarre and kind of interesting.  I thought that they showed Your quirks and holiness and that You were a really particular, strange, quirky God.  I didn’t have a problem with You telling the Jews what kind of fabric to wear and what animals to eat and how not to do their hair, but I didn’t think it was because You were fair.  I thought You were interesting and quirky.

Godvoice: You were wrong.  Every single one of my laws was very, very fair.  You will spend your life learning how fair My laws were.  A lot of the work has been done for you.  I had good reasons for every single one of My laws.

There were a number of prohibitions in this passage which were constructed with a לא and then a maqqep and a verb.  I am not gonna lie.  I was too retarded and inept to look up the words in these prohibitions in my lexicons.  I tried for a good half hour or so.  I looked through two lexicons and in an old grammar.  I could not find them at all.  I could not even puzzle out the lexical form.  I shall try to reproduce them here so that if anyone who reads Hebrew reads this they can look them up themselves.  Here goes.  לא-תטה לא-תכיר לא-תקח

In the English in my interlinear, the prohibitions were YOU SHALL NOT PERVERT judgment  YOU SHALL NOT RESPECT persons, and YOU SHALL NOT PLANT an Asherah.  I did not thank God for being too stupid to look up verbs in the dictionary.  I complained.  I was pretty peeved about it.  I said that I loved dictionaries and that if this continued for the rest of my life, I would consider it a tragedy.  Sarah Young says to thank God for your problems.  She said to bring that problem to God, which I did.  You would think that if my Godvoice were real, He would help me with Hebrew; it’s His language.  Sarah Young said that sometimes He helps tackle our problems, which He did not do.  Other times He defers our problems and puts them on hold to tackle in the future.  He replaces current problems with peace.  Now, in the past when I hated Hebrew, I cleaned my apartment, because cleaning was so wonderful because it was not Hebrew.  This time I tried, was unsuccessful, and did more Hebrew.  Here’s the thing.  I used to hate cleaning.  I don’t do it as often as I should, but ever since taking that Hebrew class, cleaning has been very peaceful and pleasant to me.  We put His language on hold.  He gave me peace.  This time was different.  He gave me great lexicons, a great grammar, and a great interlinear, and I still couldn’t do it.  However, instead of turning from Hebrew to housework, I turned from Hebrew bible to Hebrew bible, and finally to Sarah Young and the ESV.  He helped me and gave me peace.   It was delayed, and He did it in a different way.

I did some research into the goddess Asherah, and she was interesting.  She was called “Mother of the gods” and different versions of her were worshiped in several countries. I can understand why God was so strongly opposed to her being worshiped.  She was highly offensive.

Doug Jinks and Hope were talking about how in a sequel to Freakonomics there was a lengthy discussion about consorts or high end prostitutes.  It was much more lucrative and also much more difficult to pretend to be a socialite with a plausible story about how she and the rich man met and to blend in with ultra rich polite society.  The Israelites who worshiped the goddess Asherah, along with the Canaanites, believed her to be God’s consort.  With their heathen blasphemy, they accused the God of the universe of divine prostitution.  If that were not bad enough, one of her names is kodesh, or holiness.  Now I associate moral perfection with holiness.  I associate divine power that kills weak and sinful people with holiness.  When the Israelites planted Asherah poles, they not only accused God of having a consort; they also insulted what is arguably His main attribute, His holiness.

There are some themes woven through these two strands, both the pro-justice, anti-bribery strand and the anti-Asherah strand.  I’ll get to those.  But before I do, I want to say, I kind of get it.  I read a biography of Asherah on the internet, and she seemed like a cool person.  Trees are incredibly peaceful and beautiful, and before I knew better, I actually worshiped them as a child.  Everybody loves sex. Nobody wants to be infertile and completely unable to have a child if they should want one.  Trees, fertility, motherhood, sex, and the sea, which are all associated with this goddess, are all very appealing.  It is still evil.  It is still disgusting.  It is still wrong.

Here’s a problem.  She offered counterfeit peace.  Everyone wants the peace of a grove of trees.  I loved the grove at Ole Miss.  It gives deep peace.  Everyone wants the peace of being able to conceive a child instead of trying for years and being unable to.  However, true peace is found in the presence of God. Sarah Young advises us to hide in the secret of God’s presence, saying that He is both with us and opens up ways for us.  The Israelites saw this in very literal and physical ways.  He traveled with them as a cloud showing them where to go.  He split the Red Sea letting through as well as the Jordan River.  The Israelites had God traveling with them opening up the way before Him all the time.  Nobody who experiences the privilege of God being with them and helping them all the time should try to get peace from an unauthorized or unhealthy source.  The ones I typically go to are laziness and comfort food.

One of the main themes woven into this passage is that God hates the fake and the counterfeit.  If a judge takes bribes under the table while pretending to execute משפ- צדק, that is counterfeit justice.  A goddess pretending to be the consort of the Most High is fake femininity, fake feminism, and her being called Kodesh is counterfeit holiness.

Any holiness I have is counterfeit.  If genuinely righteous acts are used menstrual garments or filthy rags to God, counterfeit holiness has to be genuinely disgusting to Him.  God does not just hate genuine sin, sin that the sinner flaunts ostentatiously for dramatic effect.  He also hates fake goodness that does the same thing.  Worshiping a consort in a grove of trees and calling her Holiness is pretty revolting.  I have not shared all the terrible things there are to share.  She was appalling.  Read the wikipedia article.

The other theme woven through these two strands is that God does not like people getting things that are not their due, that are not deserved.  One of the definitions of mishpat is giving people what is due them.  If a judge gives a guilty person freedom or an innocent person a fine or a punishment because he received a bribe, then the judge is not giving people their due; he is not giving them what they deserve.  Likewise, if people give this person, who at best is fictional and who at worst is a demon, their love, adoration, and worship, they are giving somebody something that is definitely not their due.

Finally, scholars think that she was possibly associated with “day.”  That’s right, associated with that increment of time.  “This is the day that the Lord has made.  I will rejoice and be glad in it.”  “His mercies are new every morning.”  “Don’t worry about tomorrow.  Each day has enough troubles of its own.”  The Bible is clear.  God is over time.  He is over the present.  “My every day is written in your book,” or something like that.  God wants us to live one day at a time loving Him.  We should make plans tentatively, knowing that He might change our to-do list as the day goes on guiding us throughout our day, according to Sarah Young.  “Remembrance of Me is a daily discipline,” as the authoress says.  Counterfeit holiness was possibly trying to steal that from Him as well.

The most important word that appeared thrice according to my count was אלה׳ך.  This is the word for God, with a pronominal suffix, which I think is second person singular or your.  The last passage I did this with had a pronominal suffix for the second person singular or as Mississippians say it, “y’all’s.”  God is both your God if you are a Jew or Jewess, and also Y’all’s God if you are Israel or the Church.  I am probably reading the pronominal suffixes incorrectly.  If I am reading too much into it, sorry.  What is interesting about the contrast is that He is addressed as y’all’s God when they are talking about loving Him with all your heart and all your body and soul.  However, He is your God singular when it comes to matters of injustice and idolatry.  The decision to bribe a judge or plant an Asherah is a very individual decision that the individual is culpable for.  Loving God is something that we do as a group.

Another word that appeared thrice was לך.  I think this can be translated to you or for yourself.  The lamed, I think is a preposition.  The last letter and the vowel point are a pronominal suffix.  The first time this appears in the passage you give or make or appoint judges and officials for yourselves.  The second time it goes with the gates or the towns that God gives to His people.  The last time it means to plant an Asherah yourselves.  It’s a versatile word.  I am not reading it right.  I don’t get it.  What I am going to read into it is this: You can appoint judges; you can accept land; you can plant a goddess.  We have a lot of choices.  We do not have a shortage of options.  We have very good, righteous options and very evil ones.  What we do to or for ourselves is largely up to us.  It is imperative that we do the right things to and for ourselves and our society.

“You shall” and “you shall not” are the most common phrases in this passage in the ESV.  Shall appears eight times.  The other most common words are LORD, God, and justice.  This makes it pretty clear.  This is a pretty bossy passage.  God is the LORD; He is sovereign; His Name is so holy that we say LORD or haShem, or Adonai, and we do not know how to pronounce His Name.  He tells us what to do.  He is a God of justice.  Don’t take bribes.  Asherah is not a god of justice.  He hates the goddess.  She is not His consort.

Sources

Joseph Magil, The Englishman's Hebrew and English Old Testament Genesis - 2 Samuel (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1974), 470. This is an amazing interlinear given to me by Carol Love. I would not understand hardly anything in this Hebrew passage at all if it were not for this book. If you encounter anything by this translator, buy it.

Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament translated by Samuel Prideaux Treggelles, LL.D (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1979), 519-520.

I copied and pasted the ESV from Biblegateway into the text analyzer at lexicool.com both of which are great resources.

The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament pointed me in good directions.

The wikipedia article about Asherah had good information.

Sarah Young, Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2004), January 3, May 16, June 10.

[princesa-querida]

BIGGEST CONGRATULATIONS STEPH!! it's been such an honor to get to know you and I'm so happy for your 100 followers!! You deserve every bit of the support and love for your work! This is such a brilliant and sweet idea. 🥹💕 Thank you for your time!!

I'd like to request something for my self ship with Shiu Kong from JJK please. 💕Our ship name is Shiuelly 🖤 (Shiu+Jelly)

God, I have so much to say about Shiu. He's the Gomez Addams to my Morticia Addams. 🖤 We're extremely passionate, playful, and obsessed with one another. 💕 Because of his eyes, I always call him my starless night, forever seeking out the cosmos in mine. 🖤

In the AU in which we met, I was a widow. He worked as a mediator with his illicit deals and work, and formerly he was a detective in Korea, whose character slowly eroded after time after years of witnessing corruption and he eventually fled to Japan.

I was in a prison of my own mind, mourning my first husband, Nanami Kento, whom I lost to a curse in Shibuya in 2018. I was in a dark place. I didn't think that a love as special as the one I had with Kento would ever find me again until one fateful Wednesday afternoon at the aquarium, coming up in the 5 year anniversary of Kento's passing.

Shiu was there on his break, and I wandered into the exhibit where he was smoking when I slipped and fell and sprained my ankle after I didn't see a wet floor sign. He tells me that he locked eyes with me in that moment, and he just knew there was something about me that he didn't ever want to let slip away. 🖤

He took me to the hospital and we chatted for a bit and I left him my number on an aquarium ticket before I had to leave to get some X-rays.

He managed to track me down at the coffee shop where I worked as a barista and we went out to dinner at a delicious Italian restaurant.

He tells me he had pretty much already fallen for me by this point. Our dinner together solidified everything. When I told him about my past and being a widow, it didn't even phase him one bit. He felt closer than ever to me when he realized I lost my first husband to a curse just like he lost his first love.

We left the restaurant and drove around the city some more. When I fell asleep in his car, he got a call from Toji that he needed help collecting money from one of their debtors. Shiu was absolutely pissed because the last thing he ever wanted was to put me in danger. 🖤

Shiu knows that he's a deeply flawed man, but for the first time, the closest he's ever felt to salvation was when I entered into his life.🖤 That's why he loves to call me his angel. (Only after the nickname dollface)

So, the situation was pretty dire, Shiu was running out of time, I lived clear on the other side of the city, and he didn't have a choice but to go help Toji.

He looked over at me asleep in his passenger seat and right then Shiu made a promise to me that he would never let any harm come to me as long as he lives. 💕

The collection didn't go well and he and Toji ended up killing the guy when they found out he was an abuser and wouldn't stop mouthing off to them.

Shiu drove with the body in the trunk and me asleep in his passenger seat until we reached the coast. I heard him mumbling to himself in my sleep, and by the time we reached the beach, I woke up, much to his alarm and horror.

I calmed him down and told him that if I had a problem with his real profession that I would have left a long time ago and I have nothing else to lose because I had already lost everything in my life already, including Kento.

With that, I helped him dump the body in the sea.

And after all was said and done, we just looked at each other in the empty graveyard.

He said "I'm not a good man, dollface" and I told him I would be the judge of that. He said I have so much baggage, and I told him, "I do too. You're not getting rid of me, Shiu."

He told me if I took one step closer then that'll be the last one before he never lets me go.

Then:

"I kissed him with everything I had in that foggy graveyard. Blood on each other's hands as the world disappeared and passion took over as the pinnacle of the harbored tenderness for one another was set free at last.

The moon bore witness that the darkness would inevitably remember from that night, onward.

From now, until tomorrow, until the unknown precipice of eternity."

He told me me loved me as he dropped me off and I said it back. Then, we moved in together the next day. 💕

We got together in October, engaged in December, and married by February. 💕

We have a basset hound named Stella we adopted together and he has an aquarium of fish in his study. She loves to lay on her belly right in front of the fish and Shiu spoils her rotten.

We got married on 2/13 with an elegant reception and ceremony at the Italian restaurant where we had our first date. Our house is Victorian style: white with black shutters, surrounded by cherry blossom trees. He actually took me there on our honeymoon and surprised me by letting me know it's where we'd start our life together the day after on Valentine's Day. 🥹

We're so handsy with each other. We have such an insatiable pull to one another and always burn so hot for each other. 💕 We're ride or dies and so consumed with one another, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Our arguments are short lived because I can't stand to be on his bad side, and him as well. 💕

He's obsessed with my thighs, hips, and ass and always has his hands on me. 😭💕 He never wipes off my lip gloss or lipstick when it gets on his face.

When it comes to music, Shiu loves to dedicate cheesy romantic songs to me, that usually double as baby making tunes. 🤭🥰💕 But it just works so well for us and our dynamic.

So a lot of them tend to be 90s R&B which he enjoys listening to, or that kind of vibe. (i.e. Ginuwine, Isley Brothers, Marvin Gaye, Daniel Cesar to give you an idea).

But, also the ultimate song that describes our relationship is Nothing's Gonna Hurt You Baby by Cigarettes After Sex, and our first dance song at our wedding was Your Song by Elton John. 🖤

Ty so much again, ILY STEPH, AND THAT MAN😭🥹💕

THIS ASK JUST APPEARED WHAT.

[theladyregret]

Drow Name Tables

Something I did as a special favor to @kimmurielsscryingmirror (@eldritchmist ) who showed interest. Because it’s...pretty big I decided to make it into it’s own post.

These are a few Drow naming tables that were originally found in an issue of Dragon Magazine. It’s two d100 tables of prefixes and suffixes commonly used in first names. The second couple of tables is a list of common house name prefixes and suffixes.

EDIT: Just a little something for those who care which I didn’t add before because it took me so long to finish the transcription I just wanted to post it lol. The gender difference is noted in the related Dragon Magazine article as being significant. Non Drow may not notice but a Drow will notice the difference. Female names sometimes borrow parts that are normally only considered male and this is considered fine...but a male with a name that borrows a typically only female part would be seen as extremely taboo.

Prefix (Female/Male) - Meaning

Akor/Alak                 beloved, best, first

Alaun/Alton             lightning, powerful

Aly/Kel                     legendary, singing, song

Ang/Adin                  beast, monstrous, savage

Ardul/Amal               blessed, divine, godly

Aun/Ant                   crypt, dead, deadly, death

Bae/Bar                      fate, fated, luck, lucky

Bal/Bel                       burned, burning, fire, flame

Belar/Bruh                 arrow, lance, piercing

Briz/Berg                    graceful, fluid, like water

Bur/Bhin                     craft, crafty, sly

Chal/Chasz                earth, stable

Char/Kron                  sick, venom, venomed

Chess/Cal                  noble, lady/lord

Dhaun                          infested, plague

Dil/Dur                         cold, ice, still

Dirz/Div                       dream, dreaming, fantasy

Dris/Riz                        ash, dawn, east, eastern

Eclav/Elk                      chaos, mad, madness

Elvan/Kalan                 elf, elven, far, lost

Elv/Elaug                     drow, mage, power

Erel/Rhyl                      eye, moon, spy

Ethe/Erth                    mithril, resolute

Faer/Selds                   oath, sworn, vow

Felyn/Fil                       pale, thin, weak, white

Filf/Phar                     dwarf, dwarven, treacherous

Gauss/Orgoll              dread, fear, feared, vile

G'eld                              friend, spider  

Ghuan                           accursed, curse, unlucky

Gin/Din                         berserk, berserker, orc, wild

Grey/Gul                       ghost, pale, unliving

Hael/Hatch                   marked, trail, way

Hal/Sol                           deft, nimble, spider-like  

Houn/Rik                       magic, ring, staff

Iiv/Dip                             liege, war, warrior

Iim                                   life, living, spirit, soul

Illiam/Im                         devoted, heart, love

In/Sorn                           enchanted, spell

Ilph                                  emerald, green, lush, tree

Irae/Ilzt                           arcane, mystic, wizard

Irr/Izz                               hidden, mask, masked

Iym/Ist                            endless, immortal  

Jan/Duag                       shield, warded

Jhael/Gel                       ambitious, clan, kin, family

Jhul/Jar                         charmed, rune, symbol

Jys/Driz                         hard, steel, unyielding

Lael/Llt                           iron, west, western

Lar/Les                          binding, bound, law, lawful

LiNeer/Mourn            legend, legendary, mythical  

Lird/Ryld                   brand, branded, owned, slave

Lua/Lyme                       bright, crystal, light

Mal/Malag                     mystery, secret

May/Mas                         beautiful, beauty, silver

Micar                                lost, poison, widow

Min/Ran                     ��     lesser, minor, second

Mol/Go                            blue, storm, thunder, wind

Myr/Nym                       lost, skeleton, skull

Nath/Mer                        doom, doomed, fate

Ned/Nad               cunning, genius, mind, thought

Nhil/Nal                 fear, gorrible, horror, outraged

Neer                                  core, root, strong

Null/Nil                             sad, tear, weeping

Olor/Omar                       skin, tattoo, tattooed

Pellan/Relon                    north, platiunum, wind

Phaer/Vorn                      honor, honored

Phyr/Phyx                        bless, blessed, blessing

Qualn/Quil                        mighty, ocean, sea

Quar                                   aged, eternal, time

Quav/Quev                        charmed, docile, friend

Qil/Quil                               foe, goblin, slave

Rauv/Welv                         cave, rock, stone

Ril/Ryl                                 foretold, omen

Sbat/Szor                           amber, yellow

Sab/Tsab                            abyss, empty, void  

Shi'n/Kren                          fool, foolish, young

Shri/Ssz                             silk, silent  

Shur/Shar                          dagger, edge, stiletto

Shynt                                 invisible, skilled, unseen

Sin/Szin                              festival, joy, pleasure

Ssap/Tath                          blue, midnight, night

Susp/Spir                           learned, skilled, wise

Talab/Tluth                        burn, burning, fire

Tal/Tar                         love, pain, wound, wounded

Triel/Taz                           bat, winged

T'riss/Teb                           blade, sharp, sword  

Ulvir/Uhls                           gold, golden, treasure

Umrae/Hurz                       faith, faithful, true

Vas/Vesz                            blood, bloody, flesh

Vic                                       abyss, deep, profound

Vier/Val                               black, dark, darkness

Vlon/Wod                           bold, hero, heroic

Waer/Wehl             deep, hidden, south, southern  

Wuyon/Wruz                      humble, third, trivial

Xull/Url                                 blooded, crimson, ruby

Xun                                       demon, fiend, fiendish

Yas/Yaz                       riddle, spinning, thread, web

Zar/Zakn                             dusk, haunted, shadow

Zebey/Zek                        dragon, lithe, rage, wyrm

Zes/Zsz                              ancient, elder, respected

Zilv/Vuz                             forgotten, old, unknown

Suffixes (Female/Male) - Meaning

a/agh                  breaker, destruction, end, omega

ace/as                                savant, scholar, wizard

ae/aun                             dance, dancer, life, player

aer/d                                    blood, blood of, heir

afae/afein                         bane, executioner, slayer

afay/aufein                        eyes, eyes of, seer

ala/launim                          healer, cleric

anna/erin                            advisor, counselor to

arra/atar                             queen/prince

aste                                      bearer, keeper, slaver

avin/aonar                           guardian, guard, shield

ayne/al                       lunatic, maniac, manic, rage

baste/gloth                         path, walker

breena/antar                   matriach/patriarch, ruler

bryn/lyn                               agent, assassin, killer

cice/roos                             born of, child, young  

cyrl/axle                               ally, companion, friend

da/daer                                illusionist, trickster

dia/drin                                rogue, stealer

diira/diirn                             initiate, sister/brother

dra/zar                                  lover, match, mate  

driira/driirn                         mother/father, teacher  

dril/dorl                                 knight, sword, warrior

e                                           servant, slave, vessel

eari/erd                                 giver, god, patron

eyl                                       archer, arrow, flight, flyer

ffyn/fein                               minstrel, singer, song

fryn              champion, victor, weapon, weapon of

iara/ica                                 baron, duke, lady/lord  

ice/eth                                 obsession, taker, taken  

idil/imar           alpha, beginning, creator of, maker

iira/inid                                 harbinger, herald

inidia                                     secret, wall, warder

inil/in                                     lady/lord, rider, steed

intra                               envoy, messenger, prophet

isstra/atlab               acolyte, apprentice, student

ithra/irahc                         dragon, serpent, wyrm

jra/gos                                 beast, biter, stinger

jss                                          scout, stalker

kacha/kah                            beauty, hair, style

kiira/raen                              apostle, disciple

lay/dyn                               flight, flyer, wing, wings

lara/aghar                         cynic, death, end, victim

lin                                         arm, armor, commander

lochar                                   messenger, spider

mice/myr           bone, bones, necromancer, witch  

mur'ss                                   shadow, spy, witness

na/nar                                 adept, ghost, spirit

nilee/olil                             corpse, disease, ravager

niss/nozz                           chance, gambler, game

nitra/net                              kicker, returned, risen

nolu                                 art, artist, expert, treasure

olin                                   ascension, love, lover, lust

onia/onim                           rod, staff, token, wand

oyss/omph                       binder, judge, law, prison

qualyn                                 ally, caller, kin

quarra/net                           horde, host, legion

quiri/oj                                  aura, cloak, hide, skin

ra/or                                     fool, game, prey, quarry

rae/rar                                   secret, seeker, quest

raema/orvir                         crafter, fist, hand

raena/olvir                            center, haven, home

riia/rak                       enchanter, mage, spellcaster

ril                                 bandit, enemy, raider, outlaw

riina/ree                     enchanter, mage, spellcaster

ryna/oyn                         follower, hired, mercenary

ryne/ryn                      blooded, elder, experienced

shalee/ral                 abjurer, gaze, watch, watcher

ssysn/rysn          artifact, dweomer, sorcerer, spell

stin/trin         clan, house, merchant, of the house

stra/tran                             spider, spinner, weaver

tana/ton                           darkness, lurker, prowler

thara/tar                             glyph, marker, rune

thrae/olg                          charmer, leader, seducer

tree/tel                         exile, loner, outcast, pariah

tyrr                    dagger, poison, poisoner, scorpion

ual/dan                                speed, strider

ue/dor                                  arm, artisan, fingers

uit/dar                                  breath, voice, word

une/diin                         diviner, fate, future, oracle

uque                              cavern, digger, mole, tunnel  

urra/dax                       nomad, renegade, wanderer

va/ven                             comrade, honor, honored

vayas                         forge, forger, hammer, smith

vyll punishment, scourge, whip, zealot  

vyrae/vyr                     mistress/master, overseer

wae/hrae                           heir, inheritor, princess

wiira/hriir                           seneschal of, steward

wyss/hrys                          best, creator, starter

xae/zaer                             orb, rank, ruler, sceptor

xena/zen                         cutter, gem, jewel, jeweler

xyra/zyr                             sage, teller

yl                                          drow, woman/man

ylene/yln         handmaiden/squire, maiden/youth

ymma/inyon                      drider, feet, foot, runner

ynda/yrd        captain, custodian, marshal, ranger  

ynrae/yraen                       heretic, rebel, riot, void

vrae                                   architect, founder, mason  

yrr                                         protector, rival, wielder

zyne/zt                                finder, hunter

House Name Prefixes - Meaning

Alean                        the noble line of

Ale                             traders in

Arab                          daughters of

Arken                        mages of

Auvry                        blood of the  

Baen                          blessed by

Barri                           spawn of

Cladd                         warriors from

Desp                          victors of

De                               champions of

Do'                              walkers in

Eils                              lands of

Everh                         the caverns of

Fre                              friends of

Gode                          clan of  

Helvi                          those above

Hla                              seers of

Hun'                           the sisterhood of

Ken                            sworn to

Kil                               people of

Mae                           raiders from  

Mel                            mothers of

My                              honored of

Noqu                         sacred to

Orly                            guild of

Ouss                           heirs to

Rilyn                           house of  

Teken'                        delvers in  

Tor                               mistresses of

Zau                              children of

House Name Suffixes - Meaning

afin                              the web

ana                               the night

ani                                the widow

ar                                   poison

arn                                fire

ate                                the way

ath                                the dragons

duis                              the whip

ervs                              the depths

ep                                  the underdark

ett                                 magic

ghym                            the forgotten ways

iryn                               history

lyl                                  the blade

mtor                             the abyss

ndar                              black hearts

neld                              the arcane

rae                                 fell powers

rahel                             the gods

rret                                the void

sek                                 adamantite

th                                    challenges

tlar                                 mysteries

t'tar                                victory

tyl                                   the pits

und                                 the spider's kiss

urden                             the darkness

val                                   silken weaver

viir                                  dominance

zynge                             the ruins

[noirrose21-blog]

“Elvira” sequel to “Like It’s My Last Night”

Riven x Reader & Andreas of Eraklyon x Reader (cuz there ain’t enough or ANY!

Plot = Elvira’s grown and her Magic’s become unstable thanks to bullying. You enrol her in Alfea after a visit from Farah, your old friend, and after a few weeks, you’re forced to face your past and your daughter’s future.

WARNING = bullying, smut, violence, rough sex

NOTE = I STILL have no idea if Andreas is King of Eraklyon or something like that, so for this fic series, he’s King, and reader is a female in this series.

requested by @marinac15

Check out part one here! ⤵️

https://noirrose21-blog.tumblr.com/post/645135048012644352/like-its-my-last-night

———————————————————————

You remember Elvira’s birth. It was the 21st of December 2004, and when you went into labour, you saw as the snow outside violently flew around, making it impossible for First Worlders, or humans, to venture out in the London streets.

You were living with your roommate, a London resident named Liana, who helped deliver Elvira. It was because of Elvira’s birth, your roommate decided to become a nurse.

As Elvira grew, you noticed familiar moods. Of course she’d inherit her father’s moody temperament. You remembered one day when Elvira was 7, you were called to her school to pick her up because she had gotten into an altercation with some other kids.

“Sweetie? Can you tell me about what happened at school?” You asked softly at your little seven year old daughter.

Elvira pouted “No, mama.”

You sighed. As you and her walked around the park, you both sat at a bench and watched some ducks swimming by a pond “Elvira, what did we say about telling lies?”

“Lies are bad” Elvira mumbled sadly. You heard her and you wondered why your baby sounded so sad. “Mummy, what’s a bastard?”

You blinked your eyes. Where the hell did she hear that word?! “Where did you hear that?”

“Some of the kids called me that. They said because Daddy isn’t here with us means I’m a bastard.” Elvira frowned, tears bubbling in her eyes, you could already see a tear falling down her eyes.

Your heart broke. Andreas just had to go fight bloody Burned Ones, he just had to leave you a widow and forced to raise your daughter on Earth while Sky… oh poor Sky. You cursed yourself everyday for being too cowardly to take your son with you, but Sky had enough painful changes. Eraklyon and Silva were familiar to him, why take them away too?

“You are not a bastard, Elvira. Your father wanted you. He’s just in a special place. A place where he will watch you and love you and be there for you, even if you can’t see him, and I don’t want you to ever use that word again. I’m going to have a word with those vicious people at your school.” You promised

Elvira nodded “Can we have ice cream now?”

You giggled “Yes sweetie, what flavour would you like?”

“Mint!” Your little blonde girl exclaimed happily.

You watched as your now 16 year old Elvira slept on the lounge, clutching a Harry Potter book in her arms. When Elvira turned 8, you gave her the Harry Potter books and secretly explained to her how you and her were both ice fairies and you had to keep your gift a secret or the humans would become frightened. You explained how you were the Princess of Arctica, the Ice Kingdom, and you were married to a warrior who died before Elvira was born, hence why you had to abandon your life back in the Otherworld.

As you washed the dishes and Elvira soundly slept, you heard a knock on your door of your London townhouse, which you were able to afford after spending your years working as a children’s psychologist, something you achieved while your roommate, Liana, learned to care for a young child. Liana’s grandmother had died and left her over 2 million pounds, which Liana gave you half to provide for yourself and Elvira, including buying the townhouse you were currently living in.

You turned on the dishwasher, and quietly walked towards the door, and swiftly opened it to see a face you didn’t think you’d see again.

“Hello, Y/N.”

You were frozen with shock “F-Farah? What are you doing here?”

Farah walked inside “I know about your daughter. Saul told me.”

You scoffed “Oh sure, come in.”

Farah walked into the living room to see the news playing on the flat screen television and Elvira sleeping on the lounge.

“She looks like you.” Farah smiles

You nodded “I know. But she got her temper from Andreas. She’s a bloody dragon when she’s mad.”

“She froze her entire school.” Farah nodded “I know.”

Of course Farah Dowling would know. How long before Rosamund found out?

“Elvira needs to learn to control her magic. She needs to attend Alfea.” Farah began.

You nodded “No! Elvira has been through enough for her life. She was called a bastard at 7, she witnessed horrors on television, she froze her freaking school because of a few fucking assholes! I don’t think a school where she’d be bullied would be healthy for her. I need to protect my baby.”

“She’s bullied here because she has magic. She won’t be bullied in a place where everyone has magic.” Farah argued

“She’d be bullied for being on Earth for her entire life! She’d be bullied for being different! Farah, you know what teenagers are like. We were teenagers! Surely you remember the bullies in Alfea?”

Farah remembered. She remembered you were bullied, and Andreas had come in and saved you from a bully. It was how you fell in love with the handsome Prince of Eraklyon at the time. He had introduced you to his group. “I remember, but you would be there, preventing more of that abuse. We do need a psychologist for the students.”

“Is he attending?” you asked

Farah nodded. “This year will be his second year there. It won’t be just your daughter I’ve found on Earth. There’s a fire fairy in Gardenia.”

——————————

Elvira looked around the tall castle like building, she noticed a blonde guy walking up to her

“You lost too?” He asked. You knew who he was. Farah had shown you a recent photo of him.

Sky.

Your son.

“Yeah. Where would I find the Fairy Hall? My mum and I are new-ish. I’m a student, mum’s the new psychologist. Elvira Y/L/N.” Elvira extended her hand to shake Sky’s, who smiled and shook it.

“Another first year?! Man, you are balls deep!” A crude voice called out and approached Sky. The voice belonged to a brunette boy who looked like every stereotypical teenage boy turning into a young man. You watched as the brunette’s eyes loomed over Elvira.

“So, you a fairy or a specialist?” The brunette asked

Elvira responded “I’m a fairy, and my mum over there is the psychologist. I also have no romantic interest in blondie here, he looks more like my brother! No offence.”

Sky chuckled. “Not offended. My sort of ex-girlfriend wouldn’t like girls around me anyway.”

“Who’s your sort of ex girlfriend?” Elvira asked

The brunette snorted “The Princess of Solaria. Stella aka Psycho Night Lights. Name’s Riven, hot stuff.”

Elvira dropped her right hand to the direction of Riven’s feet and smiled “Well, my name is Elvira, not hot stuff, and I am not hot. I’m cold.”

Riven looked down to see his feet encased in ice, making Sky laugh as Elvira smiled wickedly and took her luggage away, with you following in tow, and smiling at your two children already becoming friendly.

——— A Few Months Later ———

You had gotten to know your son thanks to stories told by Silva, Farah and Ben, and also learnt from him by his ex, Princess Stella of Solaria, and his best friend, Riven.

He had been the perfect specialist, and the good son you always wanted him to be. A kind and honourable gentleman who thought of others and would do anything for their wellbeing.

You even saw him defend his own sister. Your Elvira, and resisted the urge to hug your two blonde babies and express your pride in Sky for being such a good young man.

It was after the defeat of the Burned Ones, that you were clutching to your daughter as her friends, Bloom Stella, Aisha, Terra and Musa surrounded her, with their unique outfits and wings. Sky and Riven, your son and his best friend, were in their specialist attire and Riven kneeling close to Elvira’s face.

Elvira placed a hand over Riven’s cheek and smiled at him. You recognised that look they were giving each other.

The ice fairy and the specialist… once again.

You also noticed Sky was looking at Bloom with concern and care.

“There’s something I need to come clean about.” You said

The teenagers looked at you “I’m also the Princess of Arctica, and your mother, Sky. Elvira is your sister.”

Sky looked in disbelief. His best friend was in love with his secret sister and his mother was at the school.

“I always wished you would come back.” Sky smiled as he hugged you and Elvira

“Just when I think I have a shot, you add more challenges. Now I gotta get my own friend’s approval to date you!” Riven joked

Elvira looked up at him “You want to be with me?”

Riven nodded. You were touched. You had observed as Riven and Elvira’s bully named Beatrix had gotten awfully close, but you were happy to see that Riven had become disenchanted by Beatrix and found better company in Sky and Elvira.

As the teenagers were now packing for their trips back home for the break, Elvira was joining her friends to Gardenia where Bloom would tell her parents about her magic, you were fixing up your office when Riven and Sky came in.

“Ms Y/L/N! Can I please date your daughter?”

You looked at Sky, who was mouthing no while Riven looked at you like a little child on Christmas. Just like Elvira had during her childhood.

“If you ever hurt my baby, not only will she and I freeze you, but Sky will use his weapons too.” You warned.

“Elvira’s too perfect to be hurt. I’d die if she got hurt!” Riven exclaimed. Sky’s eyes widened at the declaration. You remembered when Andreas made a similar declaration about you.

As Sky walked with Silva, and you were talking with Riven about what your daughter liked as to help Riven’s chances, you saw Solarian vehicles approaching and Queen Luna and guards surround Silva

“Attempted?” You heard Sky ask.

Another car door opened and you saw the ghost of your past. Or you thought was a ghost.

“Dad?” Sky asked

“Andreas?!” You exclaimed in surprise

“Hello Sky.” The King of Eraklyon breathed as he faced his son.

He had grown a beard which matched his brown hair, and his eyes… they were oceans you’d drown in. That voice didn’t age a bit, but instead made you weak in the knees after sixteen years.

“I missed you, Y/N.” He smiled as he wrapped his arms around your body. You could feel his… ‘sword’ grow stiff against your thighs as his chest was pressed against your breasts, and his nose pressed against your hair to smell your scent.

“Why don’t we go and make that daughter, hm?” Andreas huskily whispered in your ear.

Andreas pulled you inside the school and into an empty classroom, where he locked the door and passionately kissed you, his erection becoming harder… if that was possible.

“We already have a daughter, Andreas. You got me pregnant before you… left.” You confessed in between kisses.

Andreas wore a shit eating grin, as he unbuttoned your pants and sank to his knees, admiring your wet core, licking his lips as he attended to you down there.

You moaned in enjoyment as you felt his tongue explore your core, you felt release was quickly approaching you as your eyes shut as you rode your release.

Andreas rose from your core, licking his lips and a hungry look of lust still on his face, as his huge calloused hands tore off his pants and his ‘sword’ pressed into your core, you moaned. That was a sound Andreas longed to hear again. Not in dreams and fantasies he had about you during the sixteen years apart.

“Did you fuck anyone else?” He growled as he stretched you out.

You had. Only two men since you left for Earth. The first was while you were pregnant with Elvira and very needy in THAT way, and when Liana had arranged a date with a handsome doctor she had met and recommended for you.

“Yes.”

He removed his long ‘sword’ and turned you over, your arse was exposed as he spanked it, making you yelp in surprise

“You are my wife. Mine. My woman. My children’s mother. My whore.” He growled as he suddenly turned you on your back, shoved his cock inside you and started roughly thrusting in you.

He missed this. You missed this. You missed him in you. Filling you. He missed filling you and you clutching him around your tight walls. He missed the way your breasts jiggled while he pounded you. He missed seeing you when you were pregnant with Sky. You missed seeing him shirtless and sweet and loving. You were addicted to each other and god did you need your fix.

“A-a-Andrea-assssssss!” You moaned as Andreas felt his seed slide into your womb, he still felt his semen shoot inside your walls as he brushed your face with his hand

“I missed you so much, baby.” He muttered as you both fell asleep in each other’s arms.

By the time school came back, Elvira walked with her friends to Alfea to see Rosamund and Andreas standing in place of Farah and Silva.

“Who the hell is he?” Elvira asked

“He’s our dad, Elvira! He isn’t dead!” Sky exclaimed happily.

What. The. Hell?!