#Oh god I don't want to tag this with anything

[lxcalmenace]

Some silly scenarios with bluelock boys

Based on this headcanon post

Characters included < Isagi, Bachira, Nagi, Rin, Sae and Kaiser > X gn!reader (separate)

tw: none?

⟡Isagi Yoichi - Gets into twitter discourse.

After what felt like months, it seemed that yours and Isagi's schedules had finally aligned. You entered his apartment and made your way to the living room to greet Isagi; just then you saw him sitting on the couch, a furrowed expression crossing his face and his phone in his hand. He was aggresively typing and scrolling on his phone that he failed to notice you taking a seat next to him.

"Oh shoot I didn't see you, sorry", he mutters as he shifts, allowing you to sit comfortably.

"Are you seriously arguing on twitter?," was all you said that made Isagi look away in embarrassment. Ofcourse he didn't want to admit it straight away but he was indeed losing the said argument.

"You know you don't have to prove anything to anyone right? And who even takes twitter seriously nowadays?"

You watched as Isagi let of a small huff before turning off his phone. Without a word, he pulled you in a gentle embrace as the rest of your evening blurred out into soft giggles and tender moments.

⟡Bachira Meguru - Very willing to eat inedible things.

You have been waiting to buy those food inspired scented candles for God knows too many days now; until finally, you managed to get your hands on one of them recently. It was a pancake inspired candle. It was so realistic that you could barely tell it was fake—if it weren’t for the wick sticking out of the top, you might have thought it was an actual pancake

As you opened the box, the mouthwatering, sugary smell of pancakes hit you, spreading throughout the room. This candle was too realistic and just like that, Bachira was willing to sink his teeth into the wax block.

"If it smells so good, it has to taste good too! Let me have just a bite please [name]," he whined. Bro dropped to his knees begging and pleading in exaggerated desperation- as if he would've perished due to hunger right then and there. You couldn't help but chuckle at this sight.

"Ok fine...A little bite won't hurt, but don't come complaining to me later," you sighed as you surrendered the candle to Bachira.

Disgust. Pure disgust washed over his face after he took the bite. He looked at you with teary eyes as he desperately tried to get rid of the nasty taste of the wax; which in response, you just shrugged in a 'I told you so' manner. After helping him wash his mouth and feeding him chocolates to counter the unpleasant flavor, you both finally settled down. Bachira swore that he wouldn't eat anything weird after this incident.

He tried eating cotton the next week.

⟡Nagi Seishiro - Uses two-in-one shampoo and conditioner.

Nagi was out shopping for some groceries while you were tagging alone for some snacks. It was a sunny day, you both entered the supermarket; Nagi took the basket as you made your way inside. He thinks shopping for basic necessities is a hassle and thus the reason for you tagging along to keep him company. You were free to get anything you wanted so you looked around the store, but nothing caught your eye. So you decided to go back, you spotted your tall boyfriend and made your way towards him. He was in the hygiene isle, eyeing down some shampoo bottles.

"Do you seriously use 2-in-1 shampoo? -" you ask, raising your eyebrow. Nagi looked at you with an unbothered expression as he shrugged, "Uh, yeah. Been using that since forever"

"Why are you asking me this, something wrong with it?" the tall male added while casually putting another bottle in the cart.

"Your hair is always so silky and soft; Its hard to believe that a simple 2-in-1 could give you those results. I mean, people spend a ton of money on haircare products, to achieve what you have, you know?" you replied.

"Then, thanks to my genes, I guess," he smirked as he turned around to look at you. You couldn't help but sigh and let out a chuckle. There was absolutely no point in arguing with Nagi- He always managed to win, even when he wasn't trying. You raised your hands as if you were surrendering, and then you both made your way further into the store.

Nagi is a simple guy, and slowly over time, you are starting to find comfort in his simplicity.

⟡Rin Itoshi - Plays roblox.

"Rin, dinner's ready, come down!" You yelled from the kitchen whilst serving the food on the table. A few unresponsive minutes passed, so you decided to fetch Rin yourself; thinking he might be in the shower or taking a nap. Making your way to the shared bedroom, you knocked on the door before poking your head through.

There he was, sitting on his gaming chair, with the lights out, playing..roblox..? You observed him for a couple of minutes, his face was illuminated by the screen, ever so unfazed; Rin was too immersed playing The Mimic that he failed to notice you slowly creeping up on him. The only time Rin was caught off guard was when you tapped his shoulder to get his attention. You swore you saw Rin's face go pale for a second as his eyes widen in surprise. "You play roblox?," you asked as you raised your brows in amusement.

He took off his headset and he nodded, "Is dinner ready?"

"It is"

"Alright"

You both stared at each other.

"Can we play Dress to impress later? Rin please-"

"NO."

Few moments later, the dark haired striker was seen playing Dress to impress, all the bright colors and outfits flashed on his screen display.

"You're doing incredibly well, who would've thought you had those designer skills in you Rinnie," you teased him

"Oh shut up...I just don't like losing, ok?" he scoffed but there was a small smile creeping on his lips.

You rolled your eyes playfully, knowing very well that he only agreed to play this if only you were ready to join him in his horror games. It was a win-win situation for both of you.

⟡Sae Itoshi - Had an emo phase

Your phone was buzzing for quite some time now so you finally decided to check who was texting you at this time of the night. Sae was on his way home from practice; Deciding to stay up and wait for him to get home, you layed down on the couch while keeping a random movie playing in the background. As you opened the chat, you couldn't help but burst into laughter- There were old pictures of Sae; eyes lined with eyeliner, hair was dyed dark and swooped to a side and he was wearing dark clothes. You saved all the pictures one by one as you swiped for more, that's when you heard the door open- signaling that Sae had returned home. Quickly turning off your phone, you were trying so hard to contain your laughter, but a giggle escaped your lips.

Sae muttered a small, "What are you up to [name]?" before raising an eyebrow at you. He knew that you had something cooking up due to the way you were smiling at him.

"Sae," you purred, "if hypothetically someone were to leak your embarrassing pictures, what would you do?" you grinned.

You watched as Sae's expressions went from neutral to that of pure horror.

"[Name] don't you dare-" he warned.

"I'm not saying that I have any embarrassing pictures of you tho," you replied, "It was a hypothetical question, unless," a smirk formed on your lips as you looked at Sae. "You never know what could happen next."

His eyes widen in disbelief, he knew that you had something against him. "Fine, I don't have the energy to do this. Tell me what do you want," he sighed, giving up. "But atleast show me these hypothetical pictures you have acquired, and where did you even get them from?"

You giggle as you showed him all of the pictures; to which he openly cringed hard. He was definitely not expecting this. It brought back so many of his memories before going to Spain. He sighed as he accepted his faith and made his way to the bedroom to freshen up. You typed a quick 'Thank you' and sent the chat.

"Rin reacted '👍' to your chat."

⟡Michael Kaiser - Sleeps in till noon

'12:27'

It was past noon. You had finished making breakfast, eating it, doing some chores around the house, watering the plants, having a small snack and watching a few episodes of your favorite show, and yet your boyfriend was still in your bed, sleeping peacefully. You would've chalked it up to him being tired, but he had gone to bed exceptionally early too. It was starting to concern you now. What if he was not feeling well? You made your way to the bedroom and entered it silently. There he was, soft breathing and sleeping peacefully. You sat down beside him and gently touched his forehead to check if he was sick. Everything was fine. You decided to run your fingers through his messy bed hair, untangling any small knots. Michael slowly started to stir and the first thing he did was kiss your hand, which made your lips morph into a small smile.

"Good morning, mein Schatz," He mumbled groggily, "What time is it?" he asked while rubbing his eyes. He let out a yawn as he sat up your bed

"Its good afternoon now, wake up Micha," you continue to run your fingers through his blonde locks as he embraced you, still feeling sleepy.

You pat his head, "C'mon have your lunch, you must be hungry."

"Are you on the menu?" he muttered against your shoulder.

". . ."

"Then no, I dont want to eat"

"Michael no-"

Not proofread so ignore any mistakes and ty for reading !!

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

In The Gloomy Depths [Chapter 1: Amethyst]

Series summary: Five years ago, jewel mining tycoon Daemon Targaryen made a promise in order to win your hand in marriage. Now he has broken it and forced you into a voyage across the Atlantic, betraying you in increasingly horrifying ways and using your son as leverage to ensure your cooperation. You have no friends and no allies, except a destitute viola player you can't seem to get away from...

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), parenthood, dolphins, death and peril, violence (including domestic violence), drinking, smoking, freezing temperatures, murder, if you don't like Titanic you won't like this fic!!! 😉

Word count: 5.2k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Tagging: @arcielee @nightvyre @camsdaae @mrs-starkgaryen @gemini-mama

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰

A note goes sharp, and you swim up through colorless currents—indistinct conversation, an iron-grey draft each time the front door opens, cigar smoke like fog over the ocean—and turn to the viola player. His eyes have caught on the place where your left hand rests on the table by a glass of pear cider, still cold from the icebox, misty with condensation. Rain pours outside. Logs fracture and hiss in the fireplace. Your gown is thick velvet, indigo like the night sky, and the ruffles of your sleeve have slipped back to reveal the evidence roped around your wrist: shadows of trapped blood, rubies that sicken and turn to sapphires and amethysts.

You hurriedly adjust your sleeve. Now the viola player’s eyes are on yours, an overcast blue and improperly direct, and something flies between you: his shock, your shame. You look away and pretend to ignore him. His horsehair bow finds its rhythm again, a tempo like a racing pulse. The quartet is playing The Wild Rover.

Daemon hasn’t noticed. He has ensnared the reporter entirely, here in O’Connell’s Bar in the heart of Galway, just across the street from Eyre Square and only a few blocks west of the Docks and the North Atlantic Ocean. The young man writes for The Irish Times and has traveled from Dublin to interview your husband, once a celebrated newcomer but soon departing and taking you with him. Five years ago a storm blew him in; now the gleam of distant treasure catches his eye and beckons him like the moon calls the tides. He has been this way all his life. You were mad to believe he’d change.

“Lord Targaryen,” the reporter says with his felt-tip pen hovering over his notebook, gazing at Daemon worshipfully, firelight dancing on both of their faces. You glance at the viola player again. He’s still watching you, and this is bad. “You’ve been described as a cowboy by numerous publications and business associates. Do you consider that a compliment?”

Daemon chuckles, smirking and imperious. He puffs on his pipe, elbows propped on the table. His eyes are a deep-set reptilian green, emeralds glinting from the mouth of a mine. Strands of dark blonde hair fall roguishly down over his forehead. “Oh, it’s a massive compliment, isn’t it? A cowboy eschews the safe and the predictable. A cowboy makes his own way in the world. My father was a duke, and now my brother is a duke, and one day my nephew will be a duke, God help us all. And so I always knew that if I wanted anything for myself, I’d have to go out and find it.”

The reporter is smiling, enraptured. He asks, already knowing the answer: “And what was it you found?”

“In the Wah Wah Mountains of Utah, we discovered red beryl.” Daemon talks with his hands, magnetic fields, incantations, spells that once worked on you. “It’s exceptionally rare and a gorgeous stone, high color saturation, not as hard as a diamond but durable enough for jewelry, essentially a blood-colored emerald. I was twenty-five years old and had just put together my first small mining expedition, and here we were sitting on the only known supply of red beryl on the planet. And it was then that I realized that there are these sorts of…natural monopolies that exist scattered across the globe, gemstones that can be found in only one location, and thus if you are the man who owns the mine…every single stone must pass through your hands before it ends up in retail establishments in London or Paris or Milan or wherever.”

“And so you took the lesson you learned from red beryl and applied it to other minerals,” the reporter says as he scribbles in his notebook.

Daemon grins, puffing on his pipe, exhaling smoke like a dragon. And how remarkable he is to have agreed to meet here in this pub like a common man, so unpretentious, so unafraid of the world’s dirt, effortless and yet untouchable, and this is why his miners love Daemon, why they will break their spines and poison their lungs for him. “We kept the Utah mine, of course, and bought up rights to thousands of acres of land surrounding it. I hired more workers. And then I investigated reports of mysterious, unnamed, brand new stones that had been stumbled upon in far-flung places, untamed by civilized men, the earth just waiting to be slit open and butchered like a fat hog. In Madagascar, we found Grandidierite, a bewitching blue-green, the Indian Ocean in miniature, crystalized form. In Tanzania, we discovered Tanzanite, halfway between an amethyst and a sapphire.”

The reporter nods to you as he says: “I believe Lady Targaryen is wearing some this evening, is she not?”

“Indeed,” Daemon replies without much interest. You touch your fingertips to your teardrop-shaped earrings and give the reporter a polite smile. You steal a glimpse of the viola player; he isn’t staring at you anymore—a blessing, a relief—but he frowns distractedly as his bow glides over the strings. “In Australia there was black opal, and in the Dominican Republic we were the first mining operation to encounter Larimar, and then…well, then I heard of Connemara marble.”

“Native to Ireland,” the reporter says proudly. “The lone quarry that’s still producing is right here in Galway.”

“So of course that intrigued me.” Daemon taps on the tabletop with his right hand, and now he is watching you, curling lips, taunting eyes. “And when I crossed the Atlantic to acquaint myself with this quarry and inquire into purchasing it, I was intrigued by the quarry owner’s daughter as well.”

His pen scratching against parchment; black rivers of ink filling up the page. “How would you describe the courtship?”

“Brief,” Daemon says, then laughs. He points to you with his smoldering pipe. “How about you, dear? How would you describe it?”

“Flattering,” you answer honestly, and the reporter makes his notes. “Daemon already had a reputation by then. A captain of industry, a staggering success story, a man who refused to rest idly on his family’s titles, which he could have easily done.” And a man who also refused to marry, rejecting Rockefellers and Morgans and Astors, duchesses and countesses, but asked your father for your hand in marriage after only a few weeks of tours of the quarry and dinners set alight with charismatic retellings of his travels. You knew the Connemara marble was part of the allure, but you took this as a common interest rather than the only thing Daemon wanted from you. Well…one of two things.

“You’ve resided in Galway ever since,” the reporter is saying to Daemon. “Barring a few trips for business. But that is about to change.”

Daemon sucks on his pipe. “I’ve received a very generous offer from Tiffany & Co. in Manhattan. They’ve been around for almost a century, did you know they supplied the Union Army with swords and surgical tools during the Civil War? Real patriots. Not afraid to get bloody. They want to expand into the sale of colored gemstones, not just diamonds and pearls and gold, the same unimaginative pieces peddled by their competitors. And after some long and arduous negotiations, Tiffany has agreed to pay a fair price for the exclusive rights to specimens originating from my mines, and I have agreed relocate to New York City for the foreseeable future to consult with them as a gemstone expert.”

“It’s my understanding that you have family in New York too, Lord Targaryen. Perhaps a reunion is part of the appeal of a move across the pond.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t assume that,” Daemon says impishly. “I haven’t seen Alicent Hightower or her children in years and years. I wouldn’t even know them if I passed them on the street.”

“Is that right?” The reporter’s pen hovers uncertainly over his notebook; he doesn’t think this is the sort of familial disharmony that should be printed in a newspaper.

“But my wife and I will have some company for the voyage,” Daemon continues. “My niece Rhaenyra and her charming husband Laenor will be joining us on Titanic. They’ve been on holiday in the Mediterranean and have several social engagements on the East Coast before they return to summer in England with my brother.”

“Viserys Targaryen, the 9th Duke of Beaufort.”

Daemon grins, not kindly at all. “One man earns a title, eight others wear it.”

The reporter shifts awkwardly in his chair. It’s not the sort of joke he’s allowed to laugh at. Changing the topic, he looks to the string quartet, which is now playing Danny Boy. The viola player’s eyes flick to you; you drink you pear cider and pretend you are unaware. “You’ll be sorely missed in Galway. But what a proper Irish sendoff you’re receiving here at O’Connell’s tonight!”

“Yes,” Daemon muses, the bit of the pipe in his mouth. “A week from now, tugboats will be hauling us out of Cork Harbor and into the Atlantic Ocean, perhaps never to return.”

You shudder as a man enters the pub and a cold draft blows through you. You are terrified of ships, tiny metal buckets at the mercy of bottomless blue, unnatural incursions into inhuman spaces. You have sailed twice before with your parents—once to Le Havre to visit Paris and again on a cruise of the Aegean—and both times you were consumed by visions of water rising up over your feet, bodies thrashing in the waves, bones turning to silt. You don’t want to cross the Atlantic. You don’t want to leave home.

“You look a bit familiar, boy,” Daemon says, and you realize he’s talking to the viola player. You startle, then are relieved to see that your husband has only a dim curiosity in the musician. The reporter has bored him, and Daemon’s eyes are wandering. He is a man of short and restless attention. You have learned this the hard way. “Have we met before?”

The viola player—early twenties, around your age, sandy blond hair and a beard trimmed close to the skin—pauses his fiddling as his three companions carry on. His accent is English, not Irish. “Well I’ve played all over Ireland, sir. All over Europe, in fact.”

“Were you by chance at the McPherson wedding back in February?”

You don’t believe he was, you think you’d remember him; but the viola player nods eagerly. “Yes sir, that was me.”

“Ah! That was a fine night. Excellent duck. Wasn’t the duck good, dear?” But Daemon only half-listens for your response. He has turned back to the reporter and is recounting how he and his expedition hacked through the jungles of Tanzania to reach the location of suspected gemstone deposits, how they endured attacks from crocodiles and chimpanzees and burned up from fevers.

“Please excuse me for a moment,” you say as you rise from the table. The reporter scrambles to his feet to stand as decorum demands.

“Yes yes,” Daemon replies abruptly, not looking at you, then continues his stories.

You escape from the pub through the front door and stand beneath the awning just out of the rain, watching the reflections of streetlights glow in puddles like stars. Across the street in Eyre Square, a public park established in 1710, shadows of ash trees rock in the wind. With trembling fingers, you fumble a Kerry Blue and your cigarette holder out of your black handbag, then realize you don’t have a lighter. Someone else always does that part for you. You sigh and stare out into the rain, taking deep breaths of Irish night, early April, cold and wet and green, the only air you know how to take painlessly into your lungs, blood, bones, the dark damp earth that built you. You cannot imagine living amongst metal skyscrapers and rumbling automobiles instead of verdant rolling hills dotted with sheep.

You hear the pub door open, and you assume it is one of the waiters or perhaps Rush—Edward Rushton, Daemon’s valet and bodyguard, ever-watchful and unwaveringly stern—bringing you the black mink coat you left inside. But to your horror, it is the viola player, carrying his instrument by its neck. You gape at him as rain continues to fall.

“Hi,” he says.

You are clutching your handbag, a cigarette and holder still tucked between your fingers. “What are you doing?”

“I just…I was…uh…” He spots the cigarette. “Oh, do you need a lighter? I have one, hold on…” He begins rooting around in the pockets of his olive green tweed jacket.

“No, I don’t need a lighter,” you snap, glancing anxiously at the door. “I need you to go back inside.”

“Wait a minute, I wanted to—”

“Why are you speaking to me?” Your eyes are wide and petrified, your voice is a sharp whisper. No musician has ever addressed you beyond pleasantries: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, thank you ma’am, my pleasure ma’am. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Look, I came out here because…I just wanted to ask…” He struggles to find the words. His eyes fall to your left wrist, now fully obscured by the ruffles of your sleeve, then return to your face. “Are you okay?”

“What?”

“Do you…you know…do you need some kind of help or something?”

It’s improper, it’s unthinkable, it’s dangerous. “You’re deranged,” you say as you breeze past him towards the door. “You’ve clearly escaped from an asylum somewhere. I wish you all the best in your recovery.”

He does not grab you—that would be absurd—but he does get between you and the front door of the pub. “Wait, please, I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be rude or to overstep or anything, I’m trying to see if there’s anything I can do—”

“You will make it worse for me,” you hiss, and only then does the viola player go quiet and let you pass. You shove by him into O’Connell’s Bar.

Back at the table, Daemon and the reporter are engrossed in conversation. When you rejoin them, neither of the men take any notice of you beyond the reporter’s momentary rise to his feet. After a minute or two, the viola player returns to the quartet and slips seamlessly into the song they’re playing, Star of the County Down. You gaze into your pear cider, determined not to glance at him even once.

Daemon is saying as the reporter jots franticly: “I am reminded of something I read once in a French fashion critic’s guide from the 1870s. In the gloomy depths of the mineral world, stars are concealed that rival in their beauty those of the firmament. The fresh splendors of dawn, the sun’s incandescent rays, the magnificent sunsets, the brilliant colors of the rainbow, all are found enclosed in a morsel of pure carbon or in the center of a stone. Not everyone can see the potential, not everyone has the skill or the willpower to move the earth and free the treasures trapped beneath. But I found stars no one else knew existed. And my work isn’t finished yet.”

~~~~~~~~~~

At home in Lough Cutra Castle, your family’s estate since 1817, your parents are asleep and Fern is waiting up for you and Daemon, yawning into the back of her hand to try to hide it. She is your maid but she was hired by Daemon, and she scurries around the property like a mouse, eternally picking up toys and articles of clothing and papers that have slid off of tables, head bowed, footsteps so light you often don’t realize she’s walked into a room until she’s spoken.

“Care for some tea, my lady?” Fern asks as she takes your mink coat. Daemon goes directly to his study; you watch him leave with some feeling you couldn’t name, loss, relief, loneliness, resignation.

“No, thank you, Fern. I’m exhausted. Is Draco upstairs?”

“He is,” she says, but with hesitation, as if she is sending you into the lion’s den. You know what that means. You climb the staircase and find him in his bedroom sound asleep, four years old, surrounded by an army of teddy bears. Bears are his favorite animal; he likes the way they roar and brandish their teeth. He is named after the crest of Daemon’s family; Draco is the Latin word for dragon. His hair is white-blonde, a Targaryen trait. As they age it fades to an ordinary sand-like color, and by the time they are middle-aged—Daemon is forty, nearly two decades older than you are—their hair is a blonde so dark it’s almost brunette.

You stand in the doorway watching Draco for a long time. When you think of him, this is the image that comes to mind: your son across a room, or a lawn, or a garden, and you lurking on the periphery, longing to be a part of his existence, feeling so palpably unneeded. Already, he is becoming a stranger. He thinks it’s funny when Daemon insults people and breaks things. He stomps his little feet when he doesn’t get his way and rips flowers from the garden, tosses rocks through the windows of the greenhouse, hurls sticks at hissing geese.

“He’s asleep,” Dagmar says as if she’s scolding you. You whirl to see her behind you in the hall, glowering with those icy Nordic eyes, her hair grey and twisted into a tight bun, her face angular and cold-blooded. Legend has it that Saint Patrick expelled all the snakes from Ireland; you think he must have missed one.

“Yes, I can see that.”

“You’ll wake him.”

“I certainly won’t.”

“A boy that age needs his rest.” And this is how Dagmar has been since Draco was born: You can’t hold a baby like that, you can’t feed a baby like that, you can’t play with a baby like that, never showing you how to do things but only alienating you further and further until you looped around on some hopelessly remote orbit like Neptune circles the sun.

“Yes. Like I said, I won’t disturb him.”

But she does not leave; she only scowls at you with her bony arms crossed over her chest. She is ancient; she was Viserys and Daemon’s governess when they were boys, and your husband wrote to her immediately after Draco was born. She idolizes Daemon. The three of them are a family unto themselves, sardonic and spiteful and fiercely loyal, an oath you can’t figure out how to break. She wins this battle, as she’s won them all. It is not a war but an insurgency, a perpetual struggle for independence, sabotages and hunger strikes that amount to nothing. You retreat from Draco’s doorway and go to find Daemon in his study, bent low over his desk and sketching designs for jewelry men will buy for their wives, sisters, mothers, daughters, mistresses.

He glances over at you impatiently. “What is it?”

“You promised I’d never have to leave Ireland.”

Daemon shrugs, smiling wryly. “And yet…”

“Draco and I could stay here,” you say, as if this has not already occurred to him.

“And people would say my house is not in order. How am I to command the respect of American businessmen when my own wife does not obey me?”

You are desperate. “Half the year,” you plead. “I’ll spend winters in Manhattan and summers here.”

“Absolutely not.”

“What if I won’t go?”

“I don’t see how you’d accomplish that,” Daemon says, as if he’s already bored of this conversation. “You could throw yourself over the ship’s railing and into the Atlantic Ocean, I suppose. But that’s the only way you’re not ending up in New York.”

“You don’t even really want me there,” you reply, your voice quivering. “You don’t care where I am or what I do. Lots of men live separately from their wives, you can as well.” And even now—horribly, humiliatingly—you want him to contradict you, to swear that he does care, that he wants you, that he loves you in the sick brutal way he knows how.

Daemon picks up the dagger he keeps on his desk and uses it as a letter opener to unseal a piece of correspondence from one of his many mines, left in the care of managers just as your father’s Connemara marble quarry soon will be. The hilt is made of gold and has seven small gemstones imbedded in it, one on top of the other: amethyst, tiger’s eye, black opal, emerald, ruby, bloodstone, sapphire. “You know,” Daemon says offhandedly as he skims the letter. “Draco is getting old enough for boarding school.”

“What?” You are shellshocked; it takes a moment for you to sputter a reply. “He’s…he’s four, Daemon. He can’t read more than a handful of words. He just learned how to write his own name.”

“I was only five when my father sent me away.”

“And you turned out to be so normal.”

“No,” Daemon says, a blade-sharp warning, his eyes burning into yours, ruthless green fire. He aims the point of his dagger at you. “I turned out to be extraordinary.”

Draco. Draco sent away. If I lose him now, I’ll lose him forever. He’ll never know me. He’ll never love me. “Please let me have a few more years with him.”

“Sure. In New York.”

“I’ll go,” you surrender. “Fine, fine, I understand. I’ll go. No more complaints.”

“Good.” He sets down his dagger and the letter and resumes his sketching. You’ve been dismissed, but you can’t look away from him: cunning hands that won’t touch you, blood that runs hot enough to scald.

What is this feeling, this hunger, this hatred, all gnarled up together, dark earth glimmering with flecks of jewel-tone light, constellations of subterranean stars? He has hurt you, but he has given you pleasure too, this man who is so impossible to know, to predict, the only man who has ever been inside you. It’s not that you want him, not exactly; you want what he can give you, and the cold truth is that if it’s not him it’s not anyone, never again for as long as he lives. You’ve never craved another body, another soul. If you ever took a lover, you believe Daemon would kill you.

He grins, mocking and cruel. And you are transported back to your wedding night, still euphoric and flushed and panting on the bed as Daemon sighed and got up to go to the washroom, the satisfaction and the shame, the inescapable sense that you have disappointed him. “Did you only come here to be vexing and disobedient, or did you have something else in mind?”

“No,” you say softly, turning away, leaving him with his drawings of rocks stolen from distant corners of the world.

At breakfast the next morning—Fern cracking Draco’s soft-boiled egg and feeding him careful spoonfuls, Dagmar reading aloud to him from The Three Billy Goats Gruff, giving him smiles radiant with warmth you’ve never received from her—you sip tea and spread butter over your soda bread, gazing listlessly at the mist that hangs cool and heavy beyond the windows. Daemon is at the quarry already. You are suddenly acutely aware of the absence of music.

“Hey, lassie?” your father says as your mother tries to coax him into eating his full Irish breakfast: fried eggs, bacon, beans, mushrooms, tomatoes, white pudding.

You look to him, clearing the fog from your skull. “Yes, Daddy.”

“I saw the luggage. Where are you going?”

You keep telling him, but he doesn’t remember; he was becoming forgetful five years ago but now he can’t work at all, can barely even carry conversations. You had a brother who died in infancy and a sister who was taken at eight years old by convulsions. You are the only child left, and there are no other evident heirs to the quarry. This must have been something that occurred to Daemon when he met you, seventeen and overwhelmed by the black magic of him. He had seemed like the right choice: dashing, capable, from an illustrious family, a man who could take charge of the quarry as your father’s health continued to fail.

“Daddy, I told you. We’re going to Manhattan.”

He is stunned, grief-stricken. “What? That far?”

“Yes, on Titanic. It’s the largest ship ever built.”

“Who the hell cares about the ship?” your father says. “When will you be back?”

Never. You and your mother exchange a heartsick glance. She tries to be strong for him; she tries not to show you that her world is ending as you and Draco are taken across the ocean like gemstones mined and smuggled away for cutting. “Soon, Daddy,” you lie. He won’t remember anyway. “We’ll be back really soon.”

And then again ten minutes later, and then again after a half hour, and then again at lunchtime:

Where are you going?

When will you be back?

~~~~~~~~~~

Titanic is not a ship but a wonder of the world, unbreakable like the pyramids, towering like the Colossus of Rhodes, beckoning seafaring travelers like the Lighthouse of Alexandria. It is too large to dock in Cork Harbor, and so two tenders—named, quite appropriately, Ireland and America—are used to shuttle the passengers to the anchored goliath waiting to carry you across the ocean. Aboard, a five-piece string ensemble greets the first-class passengers with The Sunny South, and beaming stewards distribute flutes of champagne, liquid gold freckled with bubbles of trapped air. The men are chucking and shaking Captain Smith’s hand and the women are sighing with soft, feminine awe at the soaring funnels and the sprawling Promenade Deck, steel overlaid with yellow pine and teak, and you stare vacuously back at the shadow of the shore, speaking to no one, noticed by no one, alone in a wonderstruck crowd on a cloud-covered, warm afternoon, April 11th, 1912.

Rush is giving bellboys instructions for the luggage to be taken to your rooms. Daemon disappears with Rhaenyra to inspect the accommodations, their steps swift and careless, laughing like children, Rhaenyra’s blonde hair—yellow jasper, yellow jade—streaming out behind her, her gown a shallow-water bluish-green like the Grandidierite Daemon found in Madagascar. Fern skitters after them to unpack the bags when they arrive in the staterooms and offer to make tea. Laenor, wearing a deep and dignified shade of blue, immediately makes the acquaintance of several Parisian passengers and sets about to stroll the deck with them, smoking their pipes and remarking on the ingenuity of the ship’s design, planning to enjoy the Turkish Baths together this evening. Draco is getting tired and ill-tempered; Dagmar merrily whisks him off to see the Grand Staircase and distract him until the rooms are ready.

Meandering, rudderless, you walk to the deck railing and look down into the water as the ship weighs anchor, unmooring itself from Ireland, stealing you away forever. Trying to distract yourself from weeping—tears burn in your eyes like a stoked furnace—you pretend to adjust your earrings. You wear amethysts to match your gown, dark mauve, a color not long ago only owned by royalty. One of the musicians has appeared to soothe your maladies, desperate terror and melancholy he perhaps mistakes for seasickness. But no, it’s not one of the men from the ensemble that welcomed you aboard; he is not wearing a pristine black suit but a pale green tweed waistcoat and unceremonious plaid trousers. He isn’t a crewmember of Titanic at all. He’s the viola player from Galway.

You jolt away from him, spinning around to ensure no one from Daemon’s party has reappeared to witness this. Then you whisper furiously: “What are you doing here?!”

The viola player stops fiddling and holds his instrument by its neck. His answer is amiable and innocent. “Playing viola.”

“No, why are you on this ship?!”

He shrugs, smiling, his hair blowing in the wind as the tugboats pull Titanic out to sea. “Heard it was the biggest one ever built, unsinkable, extravagant beyond compare. Seemed like something I’d like to experience given the opportunity.”

“You followed me,” you say flatly.

He winks, resting an elbow on the railing. His teeth are small and white; there are lines from the sun around his eyes.

“You overheard our arrangements at O’Connell’s Bar and bought a ticket for yourself? Crossed Ireland, travelled south to Cork, all to stalk me like some lunatic? A nautical Jack the Ripper?”

“Well…I wouldn’t say I bought a ticket.” He is playful, teasing you. “I found one.”

“How did you manage to by pure happenstance find a ticket for Titanic’s maiden voyage?”

“I ran into an aspiring passenger at a pub in Cork,” the viola player explains. “A very nice man, his name was Fergal. Unfortunately for poor Fergal, when the time came to board the tenders, he was…indisposed, and I found myself in possession of his third-class ticket. A strange coincidence!”

“Indisposed?” you say, squinting suspiciously.

“Perhaps he had a few too many pints in celebration and passed out somewhere. Perhaps he got lost on his way to the harbor. Or perhaps he was locked in the pub’s storage room and therefore unable to make it to the tenders in time to sail blissfully away on his trans-Atlantic journey. Who could say for sure?”

“So you stole a ticket.”

“I think that’s a cynical way to put it.”

You are incredulous. “How would you put it?”

“Fortune brought me a ticket. The stars aligned, the saints were looking out for me.”

“If you hold a third-class ticket, you are on the wrong deck of the ship.”

“Shh!” He holds a finger to his lips. “No one knows that, I just wander around playing songs for the rich people and they assume I’m supposed to be here.”

“You have to stay away from me,” you plead, staring out over the ocean. “Daemon can’t see us talking, he can’t know you followed me from Galway, he can’t find out that you saw…” The bruise, the evidence, the betrayal of you not keeping his secrets.

“Relax, I’m not here for you,” the viola player says, and of course he is lying. “I have family in New York City. I left home and haven’t been back in years, and I think now’s a good time for a visit.”

You roll your eyes. “Yeah. Okay.”

He grins, slow and mischievous, and you are alarmed to realize some part of you wants to smile too. “You know what?”

“What,” you offer resentfully.

“I think you want me to be here for you.”

You turn away from the railing to make your escape. “I want you to leave me alone.”

“I’ll think about it,” the viola player quips. And when you glance back at him from the end of the Promenade Deck, ocean wind tearing your hair out of its pins and salt stinging on your skin, he’s still watching you.

[desultory-novice]

I almost forgot that I too had AU'd Magolor.

Mechalor is a clockwork Magolor who wished on a Galactica Nova and it went horribly wrong. He has flashlight eyes and loves to shock unsuspecting people by telling them the story of how he died in TMI levels of detail! (He's...he’s a bad Magolor...)

[crimeronan]

i've seen a couple people in the notes of this very good post about fictional polyamory by @thebibliosphere say things along the lines of "oh, i've been doing it wrong :(" or "how do i know if i did this right??" or "i should probably give up and start over, i wrote this badly :(" and. no!!!!

(i AM seeing far MORE people say "oh, this clarified and helped me so much, i think i know how to fix issues i've been having with my own story" which. YES!!!!)

listen. if you're a monogamous person who's writing a polyamorous relationship, and you've been focusing mainly on The Triad and All Three Together All The Time as the endgame, that's literally fine. that's a perfectly acceptable and strong starting point for your plotting, imo. you do not need to give up on a story that you've started like this.

but the things discussed in the post Can and Should improve your execution!

you can keep the same plot beats and overall relationship arc 100%. polyamorous relationships are infinite in their formations, every one is unique. "basically a monogamous romance but with three people" Does exist, as a relationship type. you're not hashtag Misrepresenting (TM) poly people with it

BUT i do think it will help to read up on some poly people talking about how their relationships Differ from monogamous ones.

so i have outlined some basic important concepts about polyamory.

MORE IMPORTANTLY though, i've broken down some questions that you can answer throughout the writing process to strengthen your individual dyad relationships, your individual characterization, & your characters' individual feelings/experiences. this is a writing resource have fun

future kitkat butting in to say i spent over two hours writing this and it definitely needs a readmore. it is also NOT comprehensive. but everything should be pretty simple to follow! feel free to reblog if you find it helpful yourself or just want to reward me for how gotdan long this took KSLDKFJKDL.

i've grabbed quick links for a couple of the important concepts, some have SEO pitches in them but the info largely seems to be good. (if i missed anything Egregiously Gross on these sites i should be able to update the links with better ones later, since they're under the readmore.)

sidenote: this is NOT meant to be overwhelming, despite the length. if you can't read all of this, that's Okay. you do not need to give up on your writing.

here we go:

compersion!

compersion is a BIG thing in a lot of polyamorous relationships. it's joy derived from seeing two (or more) of your partners happy together, or joy derived from seeing your partner happy with someone else.

compersion is really important as a concept because it highlights that every individual relationship within a polycule is different -- and that that's a GOOD thing. it's sort of the inverse of jealousy.

by the "inverse of jealousy," i mean that instead of feeling left out and upset and possessive, you feel happy/joyous/content.

i can use personal experience as an example: it's a Relief for me when my partners receive joy/support/sex/romance/etc that i can't (or prefer not to) give them. and i love seeing my partners make each other laugh and be silly together.

it's 100% okay for a poly triad not to be together 100% of the time, it doesn't mean that the third member is being left out or not treated equally when two people do things alone together.

(i have individual dates with my partners all the time! PLUS larger 3-and-4-person date nights.)

if the third member DOES feel jealous or left out, then the polycule can have a conversation to figure out what needs/wants aren't being met, and solve that. this happens semi-regularly in my polycule, as it will happen in any relationship (including monogamous ones)! it's just part of being an adult, sometimes you have to talk about feelings.

metamours!

a metamour is someone who is dating your partner, but ISN'T dating you. this may not be relevant for people writing closed three-person romantic sexual triads, but it's a super helpful term to know.

the linked article also lists different types of metamour relationships with some fun phrasing i hadn't heard before. the tl;dr is: sometimes you'll be domestic cohabitation friends, sometimes you'll be buddies with your own friendship, sometimes you might not interact much outside of parties, every relationship is different.

there's no one-size-fits-all requirement for metamour relationships. sometimes polyamorous people will end up dating their metamour after a while (has happened to me), sometimes polyamorous people will break up with one partner for normal life reasons, but remain friendly metamours.

the goal of polyamory is NOT for EVERYONE to fall in love. it is 100% okay if this happens in your story, it happens in real life too! but it is also 100% okay for characters to be metamours without ever becoming "more than friends."

(sidenote: try to kill any internalized "more than" that you have when it comes to friendship. friends are just as important and special and vital as partners.)

of course there are a million ways for messiness to occur with metamours within a complex polycule, exactly like with close-knit platonic friend groups. however this post is not about that! there's enough "here's how polyamory can go wrong" stuff out there already, so i'm focusing on the positives here :)

open versus closed polyamorous relationships!

i'm struggling to find an online article that reflects my experience without directly contradicting at least SOME stuff. so i'll give a quick rundown

google has a bunch of conflicting definitions of open relationships and whether open relationships are different from polyamory. the general consensus seems to be that an open relationship prioritizes one partnership (often a marriage), but that each partner can have extraneous flings or long-term commitments (most often sexual in nature).

this is not typically how i use the term wrt polyamory. the poly concept is pretty simple. a closed polyamorous relationship is one with boundaries like a monogamous one. there are multiple partners in the polycule, but they are not interested in having anybody new join said polycule.

an open polyamorous relationship tends to be more flexible -- it just means that IF someone in the polycule develops mutual feelings for a new person, it's fine for them to become part of said polycule if they want to! the relationship/person is open to newcomers.

some groups will need to negotiate this all together, others will just go "haha, you kids have fun." just depends on the individuals!

with open AND closed polyamorous relationships, the most important thing is making sure that there's respectful communication and that everyone is on the same page. but there's no one-size-fits-all way to do that.

i wish i could give you guys a prescriptive "You Must Do It This Way" guide, but that's.... basically the opposite of what polyamory is about, HAHA.

feelings for multiple people!

i was gonna tack this on to the previous section but decided it warranted its own lil bit.

a defining feature (....i'm told?) of monogamous relationships is that a monogamous person only has feelings for One individual at a time. they only want a relationship with one individual at a time. or, if they DO have feelings for multiple people simultaneously, they're still only comfortable dating one person at a time & being exclusive with that one person.

this is perfectly fine!

the poly experience is generally different from this. but once again..... polyamorous people all have different individual perspectives on this.

for me, i have never been able to draw hard boxes around romantic vs sexual vs platonic relationships, & i love many people at once. my personal polycule lacks many strict definitions beyond "these are my chosen people, i want to forge a life with them indefinitely, whatever shape that life takes"

some poly people feel explicit romantic or sexual attraction to multiple people at once, some poly people feel almost no romantic or sexual attraction at all. i'd say that MOST poly people feel different things for different partners, which is not a bad thing!

some poly people are even monogamous-leaning -- they have just chosen one romantic partner who is themselves part of a larger polycule. (so this monogamous-leaning person has at least one metamour!)

or alternatively, they might have one romantic partner AND a qpr, or other ways of defining relationships. (this is a factor in my own polycule!)

i made this its own point because if you're writing a straightforward triad, this is unlikely to come up in the story itself -- but it's worth thinking about how your characters develop/handle feelings outside of their partnerships.

like, is this sort of a soulmateship, 'these are the only ones for me' type deal? in which they won't fall in love with anyone else, and can be fairly certain of that?

that's pretty close to typical monogamous standards but you Can make it work. just be thoughtful with it

alternatively, can you see any of these characters falling in love Again after the happily-ever-after? and how would the triad approach it, if so? what would they all need to talk about beforehand, and what feelings would everybody have about the situation?

it's worth considering these questions even if the hypothetical will never feature in your actual canon, because knowing the answers to these questions will help you understand all of the individuals & their relationship(s) MUCH better.

i've been typing this for nearly two hours and there's a lot more i COULD say because... there's just a lot to say. i'll close out with some quick questions that you can ask yourself when developing the dyad dynamics within your triad

first, take a page and create a separate section for each individual dyad. then answer these questions for every pair:

how does each pair act when alone?

how do they act differently alone compared to when they're with their third partner?

are there any elements of this dyad (romantic, sexual, financial, domestic, etc) that these two people DON'T have with the third partner?

if so, what are they?

are there any boundaries or hard limits within this dyad that aren't shared with the third partner?

if so, what are they?

partner 3 goes out of town alone for a few weeks. what are the remaining two doing in their absence?

(doesn't have to be anything special, it's just to get a sense of how the two interact on a day-by-day basis without the third there)

what is something that each partner in the dyad admires about the other -- that they DON'T necessarily see in the third partner?

what problem do These Two Specifically need to solve in the story before their relationship will work?

how is that problem DIFFERENT from the problems being solved within the other two dyads?

doing this for ALL THREE dyads is VITAL imo. that way, you develop complex and nuanced and different relationships that all have unique dynamics.

those questions should be enough to get you started, i hope

then After you've charted the differences in relationships, you can start to jot down similarities in the overarching triad. what does one person admire in Both of their partners? what are activities that all three like to do together? what are boundaries or discussions that all three share?

but the main goal is to figure out how to Differentiate each relationship!

a polycule is only as strong as the individual relationships within it. if two people are struggling with their own relationship, adding a third person won't fix that.

(UNLESS the third person is the catalyst for those two to, like, Actually Communicate And Work Their Shit Out. i just mean that the old adage of "maybe if we just add a third-" works about as well to fix a miserable non-communicative marriage as, uh, "maybe if we have a baby-")

AND FINALLY.

if you're not sure whether your poly romance reads organically to poly people, you can hire a sensitivity reader with poly experience. if you can't afford that, you can read up on polyamorous resources like a glossary of terms & articles actually written by poly people. (and stories written by poly people!)

you can also just.... ask poly people questions, if they're open to it. i like talking about polyamory and my own relationships so you're welcome to send asks if u want, i just can't guarantee i'll answer bc my energy levels fluctuate a lot and i don't always have time.

polyamorous people are in an uphill battle for positive representation right now & so the LAST thing i want to see is authors giving up on their stories bc they're worried about getting things Wrong. well-meaning and positive stories that treat this kind of love as normal, healthy, & aspirational are So So So Needed. even if you guys end up with some funky-feeling details.

seriously, if you're monogamous then you probably don't have a full idea of Just How Nasty a lot of people can get about polyamory. i wish it DIDN'T mean so much for you guys to want to write nice stories about us, but it does mean a lot. and it means a lot that you want to do it WELL.

in conclusion. this is not a prescriptive guide, it's just a way to raise questions. and also, you all are doing FINE.

[francy-sketches]

Hiiiii guess who finished her pmv. finally. um enjoy :3

[kalashtars]

oh god they made chaos in hades ii so fucking hot oh my god oh my g

[teddybeartoji]

o wait before i start posting any pics.. i was thinking that maybe.. you guys could help me liquify this gender some more by switching up what you call me.... DON'T GET ME WRONG I LOVE . LOVE LOVE LOVE WHEN YOU USE HE/HIM AND JUST OVERALL LIKE MORE MASC STUFF THAT'S SOOO MMMMMMMMMSO FUCKING GOOD like i don't get to feel that irl at all so it really does make me so happy but i've just been thinking abt TRYING to switch it up more yk? does this even make sense...... . hhhh anyway i might won't even like it and i'll want to just go back to hehim but i wanna try... JUST TO SWITCH IT UP.

[mwagneto]

why is everyone suddenly jackdoctor posting. like i'm not complaining i've just been indescribably sick over that entire storyline for years so it's funny to see it picking up steam again

[dootznbootz]

I think some folks MAY have gotten the wrong idea about how I feel about Circe with some of my posts. So, to clear the air...

Homies, I love that fucked up sorceress.

I love how we're never given a reason why she turns people into animals. That's so funny and so awful. And another potion-making magic gal?!?! I love that she's just basically vibing on an island doing whatever she wants. I even love the fact that she scares Odysseus shitless! She's morally gray and that's why she's FUN.

I just sincerely hate when people try to girlboss her or have her be a victim of SA when she never was Looking at you, Miller. Especially when she was actually the one who coerced Odysseus in exchange for his men being transformed back into humans. And even then, while he was clearly afraid of her, (it's in the language of the Odyssey) she likely meant him no harm after a certain point. He just didn't know that.

Why does she need a reason to do awful things? Why can't she just be a goddess who does whatever she wants? That's the reason why I love her!!! She's fucked up!!! :D

I hate what the Telegony did to her as well! >:( You're telling me, this sorceress goddess, who makes potions (!!!) wouldn't have magic contraceptives??? Would WANT CHILDREN?!?! WITH THE PATHETIC WIFEMAN?! No. Fuck no. Eugammon of Cyrene, I have beef with you 🤬

Anyways!!! Understand all the "#anti circe" I have is simply Anti "Girlboss Circe" or the book. I genuinely think she's neat af as her morally gray, fucked up sorceress self and just get frustrated with...everything :'D

[best-enemies]

I've reached season 5 on my CSI rewatch and I'm a few episodes past "Swap Meet", where a woman is murdered after attending a swing party with other couples from the neighbourhood. Near the end of the episode there's a moment that made me jump from my seat:

(Grissom walks up to Sara and takes the seat next to her. He's holding two cups. He hands her a cup of tea.)

[INT. POLICE DEPARTMENT - BRASS' OFFICE]

Erin Brady: Everybody fantasizes about other people. (She glances at Grissom.)

Even you, Mr. Grissom. A neighbor, a friend ... girl at the office.

[INT. POLICE DEPARTMENT - HALLWAY]

(The door opens. Paul Brady walks out of the hallway. Erin Brady walks out into the hallway. Sara is sitting in the hallway chair watching them. She watches as they meet and kiss.)

(Grissom walks up to Sara and takes the seat next to her. He's holding two culps. He hands her a cup of tea.)

LIKE!!!!!!!

Right after Erin ends her sentence with 'girl at the office', the first time Sara and Grissom meet again, he brings her tea. This might be an innocent interaction but to me it seemed like a nod to this relationship they have where both are into each other, know about the other's feelings, but can't/won't do anything about it (although Sara has kind of given Grissom an ultimatum). I don't know if it was intentional - I'm guessing it is, because I picked it up immediately. I might or might not have squealed in delight.

[can-of-slorgs]

Local owlbear, what she gonna explodee✨

[californiaquail]

was hanging out with someone today and she was talking about how she would shoot the hawks and eagles if they went after her indoor/outdoor cat and i had to struggle to keep a straight face. there is an EASY fucking solution to this problem that doesn't involve killing federally protected wildlife OR your poor damn cat. who got in a fight last night and left fur all over the place.

[phoenix-flamed]

Me, fondly remembering my playthroughs of FFVII, VIII, IX, X, X-2, and XII: I don't need more blogs I don't need more blogs I don't need more blogs I do --

Though if I did RP as anyone, it'd hands-down be Beatrix from IX.

[horsemage]

I think we should bring back basic etiquette lessons such as shutting the fuck up when you’re watching a movie in a group that is not exclusively your friend group 🙂

[indi-glo-archive]

ELLE HAS BOX BRAIDS!!!!

[dykethevvitch]

just finished book of bill and i wanna smash in the head of billford shippers a little bit. i think if you unironically ship billford you have to give every gf fan who's survived abused $100 and an essay on how bill is a textbook abuser