#also obviously on the left its their real world look and on the right their dream world look just making sure on that one :p

[flowerandblood]

The Lost Haven (8/16)

[ modern mafia • Aemond x niece • female ]

[ warnings: incest obviously, smut, the angst, broad description of suicide attempt (blood), forbidden relationship, half-manipulation, imprisonment, mention of murder, kind of toxic behaviour, violence, uncomfortable conversations, bad, bad things ]

[ description: The vacation from eight years ago still haunts his memories and doesn't let him forget what happened between him and his niece, the daughter of his sister and Harwin Strong. Their paths separate and he immerses himself in his father's mafia world until the day she calls him for the first time since those events. Sexual tension, dark, dangerous, withdrawn, thirsty Aemond. ]

Author’s note: As promised, this is another, this time official modern version of The Fall from the Heavens. In this version, Daemon is not related to the family, but is simply Rhaenyra's husband and the leader of the second gang, Alys and Larys are also not related to each other, but Larys is Harwin's brother. I will partly refer to the original series, hiding some easter eggs, and some will be a completely new, fresh plot. As in every universe, only Aemond calls her Rhaenys and this is not her real name (she is unnamed character and the others also do not know that he calls her that). There will be a lot more brutality and angst in this version, so watch out. You can read this as a standalone story.

Series & Characters Moodboard Aemond & Rhaenys Moodboard

* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *

Next chapters: Masterlist

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She knew that she was paying for her naivety and stupidity, for not listening to Daemon and her premonition. She wasn't even able to fully blame her uncle for what had happened, because even though he was the one who had imprisoned her, she had thrown herself into his arms herself.

She let him thrust into her body, she let him fill herself with his warm seed, thinking that perhaps there was a way for them, no matter how twisty and difficult.

Lying in his room on his bed, pretending she didn't see his pleading, desperate looks in her direction, she had plenty of time to think about herself and her life.

She realised that everything she was doing, her naivety, her desire to help him stemmed from the belief that if it was possible to fix him, to set him on the right path, to free him from this sullen, dark fate, there was also hope for her.

The hope that one day there would come a moment in her life when she would feel peace.

Meanwhile, instead of peace, something else filled her.

Emptiness.

She felt nothing when it turned out that he had taken her phone, when he locked his room door when he left, when he spoke to her or asked her something.

She pretended that all this wasn't happening, that she was actually on the beach, gazing out at the endless sea, listening to its sound.

She couldn't bear the sight of him, the smell of him, his touch, and everything she had dreamed of and held dear became, in her eyes, foreign and hated: hearing him, she felt as if a stranger, with whom she wanted nothing to do, was speaking to her.

She did not want his explanations.

His apology.

She felt nothing, experienced nothing, needed nothing.

She didn't even feel the need to go home: even if she were free again, it wouldn't change anything.

Her uncle had broken something in her and they both knew it.

Her heart trembled in sympathy and grief only at the sight of Helaena: his sister had been patient, warm and affectionate caretaker towards her. They did not, however, usually exchange even a word.

There was no need: she knew that Helaena was a hostage and prisoner of her family as much as she was, and that there was nothing she could do to help her.

"I'm worried about Aemond." She said one time, handing her a towel in the bathroom.

She could have covered herself with a curtain in the bath, but Helaena needed to be in the room with her.

They wanted to be sure she wouldn't hurt herself.

She looked at her and put on the T-shirt she got from her that served as her pyjamas.

She didn't answer.

She didn't know what.

Helaena looked at her fingers, playing with them in a nervous gesture exactly as her brothers had done, all probably inheriting it from their mother.

"I caught him browsing your Instagram account one evening, couple of months ago. He was sitting in the living room with a drink and thought he was alone. He was about to do something with our grandfather. He didn't hear me come downstairs and freaked out. He turned off his app as soon as he saw me."

She looked at her in disbelief, feeling a squeeze in her heart, discomfort, pain and heat ripple through her body at the thought that, contrary to what she thought, he hadn't forgotten her at all.

"I tried to help him and he took advantage of me. Forgive me, but I am no longer able to sympathise with him." She whispered, picking up her things from the floor. His sister swallowed hard, looking up at her.

"Since that night. Since our father died. Since he saw you. For a moment, something changed in him. He seemed content. Calmer than usual. He told me he was thinking of going to university part-time. I didn't know you were the one helping him with that." She muttered, stepping closer to her, looking somewhere to the side, as if distracted.

"You can't save someone who doesn't want it." She said in a trembling voice, wondering what she wanted from her, how could she think that after what he had done to her she would care about his decisions and what he chose to do.

He had mocked her, objectified her, humiliated her.

He left her with nothing, stripped her of all virtues and values.

"Our grandfather knows when to act like part of the family and when to act like a ruler. He does this to each of us. He knows our weaknesses. Our unfulfilled desires, our flaws, our complexes. He knows who among us is the most miserable, the most vulnerable. The most weak." She said, avoiding eye contact with her, looking around the room, tense.

She pressed her clothes to her chest, feeling the squeeze in her throat at her words, the sympathy and pain that showed she was no different from him.

They both were weak.

They always were, even then, during that summer.

They were sad, hopeless and small children, finding each other in the end, comforting one another with their presence.

"I can't help him anymore. He's made his decision and I'm here. I don't think there's anything more we can say to each other."

That night she couldn't sleep: he hadn't been back for a long time wherever he was, and the thought that perhaps someone had shot him or taken revenge on him didn't fill her with peace.

Despite everything she felt, she didn't want him to die.

She shuddered when she heard footsteps in the corridor and then the sound of a key turning in the lock. She closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep when he came inside, closing the door behind him.

She heard him pull off his jacket and shoes, trying not to make any noise, and then he came towards her, leaning over her with a quiet sigh. She swallowed hard when he gently covered her with the duvet, when his wide, warm hand combed through her hair as if she were a small child.

She was furious with herself that she felt tears under her eyelids as soon as he pulled away and lay down on the mattress, when she heard him say hello to Vhagar, who licked his fingers.

She was furious that some part of her still craved his closeness, that his touch made her feel safe, just as it had then, that summer.

The only joy in her days filled with shame and grief was Vhagar.

Her uncle's dog was gigantic and had big brown eyes. Vhagar was as distrustful as he was and did not approach her at first, but watched her closely as she lay on the floor, and when she held out her hand to her, she sniffed the air, wanting to smell her with her large, black, wet nose.

Like him, Vhagar required patience and understanding, respecting her barriers.

Eventually, however, she allowed herself to be touched, sealing her acceptance with a long, sticky lick from which her fingers were all moist. Being with her and touching her soft, warm fur was a form of therapy for her: she couldn't find comfort in his arms even though she craved it, and she knew he was dying to touch her.

However, if she broke down and let him, she would lose the remnants of her self-respect and her own dignity.

Although she tried to reject these thoughts and feelings that filled her, what she had repressed during the day came back to her in her dream: she saw her uncle lying in a pool of blood, his face cut, his eyes gouged out in revenge for what he had done to one of the men who had not paid him on time.

The scream she let out seemed inhuman to her and she didn't even know she had really let it out. She pulled herself up on the bed, terrified by the darkness and the fact that she did not recognise the room she was in when she heard something move on the floor.

"– Rhaenys? – Rhaenys, what happened? –" She heard his voice and looked at him with big eyes, whooping with her own tears, sobbing loudly as she felt relieved despite everything he had done to her.

He was alive.

"– did you have a bad dream? –" He asked, looking at her with a sincere worry from which she felt pain in her heart, thinking in disbelief that she wanted to throw herself into his arms and cuddle up to him.

"– hey – hey, baby – it's okay –" He whispered soothingly, rising slowly, approaching her uncertainly. She lifted her shoulders up, simultaneously wanting and not wanting this.

She felt a pleasant shiver as he sat down beside her, his hand gently touching her shoulder.

She swallowed hard when he dared to put his other hand on her head and sank his face into her neck – she felt like bursting into sobs feeling his familiar scent, his familiar warmth, her body relaxing involuntarily into his embrace against her will.

"– shhh – easy – easy, little one – no one will hurt you –" He assured her, only to sink his face into the top of her head a moment later, stroking her shuddering body soothingly with his hands.

You've already done it, she thought with pain.

The person before whom she was most vulnerable, whom she allowed to touch her naked body, whom she allowed to be deep inside her, as intimate as possible.

She thought, feeling her body convulsing as she tried to calm her breathing, that she had nothing left.

"– I'm not sure I want to live anymore –" She mumbled out, surprising herself with these words that came straight from her heart.

She heard him draw in the air loudly, terrified, rocking her in his embrace as if she were a small child.

"– no – don’t say that – it won’t take long – my grandfather is in contact with your mother – they will soon come to an agreement and you will return home –" He whispered as if he thought that was what she meant.

That she just wanted to go home.

"– you broke my heart –" She said, wanting him to understand that her going back anywhere wouldn't change anything, because what he had done to her no place could fix.

She didn't really care now where she was or what was happening to her.

She felt regret towards herself that when she heard him burst out crying she involuntarily felt sympathy for him.

"– forgive me – I regret this like nothing else in my life, I swear – I will spend my life trying to make it up to you –" He muttered, his warm, full lips starting to place wet, lingering, desperate kisses on her face, wanting to somehow soften her words and what she had said, but she felt worse and worse.

"– I love you – I love you in every sense of the word –"

Lie.

"– I don't believe you –"

She heard him wail quietly, hugging her as tightly as if he wanted to break her bones, melt into one with her so she could never escape him again.

"– I understand it – and I don't dare ask for it –" He whispered with difficulty, and she clenched her eyes shut, herself feeling the hot tears one by one begin to run down her face.

They were just empty words that couldn't change anything.

"– that feeling I had inside me was the only thing that allowed me to breathe – and you took it away from me –" She whined into his neck, finally saying what she had been feeling all this time, the regret, the disappointment, the terror and the emptiness she felt deep inside her flowed out of her mouth.

She was sure he was going to start denying it, saying he would make it up to her, but instead she heard his mournful cry, his kisses on her face, neck and shoulders loud, sticky, ravenous, his breath heavy and raspy, making her feel a pleasant tickle between her thighs in spite of herself.

"– I love you – I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you so fucking much –" He mumbled out and she snuggled into him harder, wanting to hurt and comfort him at the same time, to reject and accept him deep inside her.

Some part of her wanted to believe him again.

She gasped, surprised to feel her nipples grow hard, to feel her warm cunt pulsate around nothing as his broad hand slid slowly under her t-shirt, trailing down her back while his swollen lips did not pull away from her bare skin.

"– I love you –" He assured her, the strokes of his hand, his wet, hot lips increasingly ambiguous and intimate, the tips of his fingers trailing down her spine, making a wonderful shiver run through her again and again, from which she finally moaned.

"– you hurt me –" She mumbled out regretfully through her tears, inhaling his scent, hating him for how good she felt with him, hating him for how much she wanted him, hating him for needing him so badly and him taking advantage of her.

"– no more – I swear – all I want is you –" He breathed out, pressing her tighter to him, her lips in some subconscious, involuntary reflex brushing against his neck, tasting his sweat and his perfume.

"– please – please, baby, please –" He exhaled, their fingers clenching tighter on their bodies, proving where this was going, how much they both needed comfort, reassurance, a moment of pleasure and warmth, what only they could give each other.

She shuddered and froze when she felt his hand slide down her back to her bare buttocks, digging his fingers into them, feeling the cold sweat on her neck.

She pushed him away, panting heavily, and quickly moved away, pressing her back against the cold wall. She looked at him with big eyes, feeling her whole body quiver with desire, her cunt pulsing greedily, dripping all over from her wetness.

"– no – no, no, no, you're doing this to me again –" She cried out, shaking her head, horrified at the effect he had on her, how easily he manipulated her.

She was a stupid idiot, exactly as Daemon had said.

Her uncle shook his head, moving closer to her, in some pathetic, helpless gesture grabbing her calves, kissing her knees as if he wanted to fall to her feet.

"– no, I swear – I want you so badly –"

"– your grandfather told you to do this? – to soften me up so that in case my mother didn't agree he would get shares in her companies through me? –" She asked with anger, thinking that surely that was the case, that this was just part of their plan.

She couldn't let them down, she couldn't make a fool of herself once again.

Her uncle looked at her with eyes red from tears, his face all swollen, his lips parted in a heavy, raspy breaths.

"– no – I was the one who demanded that I could be by your side – that no one but me could bother you – to make sure you were safe –" He muttered and she shook her head, thinking she couldn't believe him.

"– I want to go to sleep – I want to go to sleep –" She mumbled out, herself no longer knowing what she was feeling or thinking.

She turned her face to the wall and hugged its cold structure as if she wanted to melt into it, the space between her thighs hot and wet, throbbing from the tension that filled her entire lower abdomen.

She pursed her lips into a thin line when she felt him clamp his hand on her waist, his face pressed against her back.

"– I'm sorry – I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry – please, don't reject me – I promise I'll be good now – I'm studying, I'm going to take my exams, I'm going to go to university – please, be there for me – it doesn't matter without you – my life doesn't matter if I can't share it with you –" He whined pleadingly, falling into hysteria, bursting out in such a loud, pitiful, almost childish cry that she began to weep herself, not knowing what to do, where to go to escape the chaos of feelings and thoughts that were filling her head.

Although she wanted to, she couldn't push him away after those words and she let him fall asleep cuddled into her back.

The next day, lying down, staring at the wall, waiting for him to wake up, she looked between her and the bed and saw something shiny on the floor. She slipped her hand into the gap and when she caught it, she thought with a heavy beating heart that it was the blade to a small bookbinding knife.

She swallowed loudly as she grasped it in her fingers and slowly raised her hand, slipping it into her towel that lay on the chair just above her head.

He had told her that day that her mother would try to reach an agreement with them if she could see her.

She thought with disgust and shame that her mother and Daemon would have to sacrifice what was rightfully theirs because she had been stupid and naive, because she had disobeyed them, because she had shown thoughtlessness.

She decided that she would make it right.

That she would do something that would destroy Otto's entire plan and allow Daemon to keep what he wanted.

She thought that perhaps her step-father would understand that she had done this for him.

That this was her apology.

"I'd like to take a bath."

True to her assumption, her uncle was careful and removed the key from the bathroom lock, informing her that she had ten minutes, however, to her relief, he did not check her towel.

When he closed the door she quickly turned the water on, not wanting him to get suspicious, and slid the blade out of the cloth, turning it in her fingers.

This was her escape route.

Her final word.

She stepped into the tub, sinking into the pleasantly warm, crystal clear water and leaned her back against the backrest, breathing loudly, feeling fear, uncertainty and doubt.

She didn't want this, but there was no other choice.

Even if she went home, she would not escape the prison that was her heart.

She was unable to stop loving him.

This thought made her sink the blade into the skin of her wrist.

She hissed, feeling with tears in her eyes how unpleasant, rough and stinging this feeling was, uncomfortable, exactly as her feelings towards her uncle.

She smiled under her breath thinking that he would be the one to find her.

She wondered if she would break his heart in this way, just as he had broken hers.

When she did the same with her other wrist she dropped the blade on the tiles and leaned her head back, lying in peaceful silence, hearing only the hum of water around her.

She closed her eyes, imagining that she was by the sea again, with him, listening as he told her about how old and valuable the coin they had found was.

Tears ran down her cheeks at the thought that in a moment she would join that boy.

The man standing outside the door had killed him long ago.

And then she fell asleep, and though she heard someone's voice, felt someone touch her, felt someone calling her name, she could not open her eyes, feeling calm and light.

Free.

She hissed, feeling an unpleasant burning sensation in her wrists and twisted on the bed, opening her eyelids with difficulty. She felt the sun shining on her face, the familiar smell of disinfectants all around her, the quiet beeping of the machines controlling her heart rate just above her head.

She looked to the side and saw the figure of Daemon sitting in a chair, looking at her exactly as he had then, when her uncle had brought her home from Heavenly Beach.

She felt her body begin to quiver in shame and fear: even though she tried, she couldn't find the words to express what she was feeling, and although she had never called him that, at that moment something snapped inside her.

"– I'm sorry – I'm sorry, Dad – I believed him – I was only supposed to bring him the books, nothing more – I was trying to fix it –" She mumbled out, bursting into sobs, struggling to catch air between the successive sentences that left her mouth.

Something in her step-father's gaze changed – he swallowed hard and twisted in his seat, clenching his hands into fists.

It seemed to her that some part of him sympathised with her.

"– I know –"

Those words, though short and dispassionate, meant more to her than he could have imagined.

Although he was furious with her, and he had every right to be, he understood why she did what she did and that she believed it would help his cause.

"– you did it for me – didn't you? –" He asked, looking at her wrists.

She nodded, trying to catch her breath, feeling that her cheeks and eyelids were all swollen with tears of sadness, grief and pain.

He lowered his gaze and sighed heavily, turning his head to the side, looking towards the window.

"– don't ever do it again – your mother almost died of despair –" He said, and she nodded again, letting his large hand close over her fingers.

"– you are a naive, stupid child – but mine – you will be under my full control from now on – you will not go anywhere without me, your mother or my bodyguards – do you understand? –" He asked and she nodded, feeling shame.

He was right.

She was a naive, stupid child who someone had to watch over to make sure she didn't mess up again.

Despite her initial horror that everyone would hate her, she was welcomed home with relief and joy: she knew that to some extent this was influenced by what she had done, but at least it made everyone understand that she regretted what had happened.

"– that son of a bitch – I swear I'll kill him with my own hands –" Jace said to her, embracing her tenderly as if she were a teddy bear.

She felt pain and discomfort at the thought that some part of her wanted to ask him not to hurt her uncle.

She wondered how much of this was due to how he was manipulating her and how much was due to how she really felt about him.

She knew that Daemon, Jace and their men had declared war on Otto: every day someone died in a shootout, and she prayed she wouldn't hear his name overhearing the conversations of her father's bodyguards.

"That boy with one eye sold Larys Strong a bullet in the head. His grandfather's partner! They say he just walked into his office and shot him. He must have pissed him off pretty good." He said, and she swallowed hard, feeling her heart stand up in her throat with terror.

She reached into the pocket of her shorts, pulling out the note he'd left her at the hospital and read its contents for the hundredth time.

I will always watch over you.

A cold shiver ran down her spine at the thought that his confession was literal.

That he had killed him for her.

Do you know who did this?

I can take care of it.

For your comfort.

Those were his words.

I can take care of it for your comfort.

She hid her face in her hands at the thought of him sinking even deeper into darkness for her, thinking that in this way he would atone for what he had done.

Daemon agreed to let her return to the University on the condition that one of his bodyguards would wait in the car the entire time she was in the building, just to make sure she didn't leave or run away.

She agreed to this out of desperation, feeling that she was descending into madness sitting at home, constantly dreaming about him.

About someone bringing them news that he was dead.

Along with the end of the semester, the entry exams for all those who wanted to get into university were also approaching.

She tried not to think about whether he was studying, whether he was going to come and try, recognising that it was just his momentary whim, an attempt to make her believe that he was capable of change.

And then she'd see his silhouette in her memory, bent over a thick tome, read through her textbooks.

She hated herself for sympathising with him.

She hated herself for wanting him to succeed.

Since then neither of them had written or spoken to each other.

Even so, the day she knew the exams were to take place had her walking around in a state of complete shock and panic all day.

"Are you alright? I'm worried about you. You look terrified." Robb said, snapping her out of her reverie.

They had been together for a few months during the past year, as they had become very close on a excavations where they had been the professor's assistants together.

His ironic sense of humour, the glint in his eye and his cheeky smile made her feel a pleasant warmth in her stomach, and when he kissed her one evening she thought there was hope for her.

That she could live a normal life.

She spent her first time with him because she trusted him and knew he was experienced. He was tender and patient with her, excited by her clearly lack of skill in this aspect, by the fact that he could lead her by the hand, show her what desire and fulfilment were.

She was grateful to him for making the loss of her virginity only a little painful for her, and beyond that she felt only pleasure.

Nevertheless, she despaired that the orgasms she experienced with him could not compare to what she felt when she herself sank her hand into her leaking womanhood, imagining that it was her uncle's fingers that was greedily invading her slit.

"– go on – after all, that's what you want – that's why you came to me, isn't it? – for your uncle to take care of you – am I wrong? –"

She had to snuggle her face into the pillow so that her siblings wouldn't hear her moan of delight and relief, while wonderful waves of warmth and pleasure shook her body, causing her to fall into a peaceful, pleasant sleep, still holding her hand between her thighs.

However, it was enough for her to wake up in the morning, and remorse, sadness and disappointment in herself made her unable to breathe or eat.

And then she saw pictures of Robb with the women he had embraced at the club, and while part of her felt pain, part of her also felt relief.

When she broke up with him, he tried to explain to her that nothing had happened, that he had forgotten himself under the influence of alcohol but that he had never, never cheated on her because he had not kissed or had sex with any of them.

She then thought sadly that she could tell him exactly the same thing, however she felt that they were both cheating on each other in some way, just not physically.

She decided that it would be better if they remained friends, and although it was hard for him to bear at first, he seemed to eventually get used to the thought.

Neither of them resented each other.

She lowered her gaze at the thought, embarrassed, not knowing what to answer him, not being able to confess the truth after all.

She was, however, tired of lying.

"My friend was supposed to take his entry exams today. But I don't know if he will. He hurt me and I'm afraid to go there." She said, looking across the corridor to the part in the building where the big auditorium was located.

"Do you want me to go with you?" He suggested, and for some unknown reason she felt grateful to him for the offer.

She nodded, and he smiled at her in a way that she remembered vividly from the moments when she thought they were happy.

When they got there, she saw that the door to the room was open, probably because of how stuffy it was in there.

"Can you see him?" Robb whispered as she leaned out, she could, however, only see the first three rows of pews and did not recognise him among any of the people.

"No. But I can't see much." She muttered.

"Well, tough. We'll wait." He sighed, leaning back against the windowsill with his arms folded.

"Is he your boyfriend?" He asked after a moment with hesitation in his voice.

"No." She mumbled, looking at her fingers in shame. Robb raised his eyebrows, stroking his chin as if something in her words comforted him.

"Oh. I see." He said, and she swallowed hard, looking away, feeling that even though she had told the truth she felt like she had lied.

The people who had finished writing the exam started to leave one by one, making her lose faith with each passing minute that he had done it at all, thinking in the back of her mind that he was sitting with his grandfather and brother right now for sure, discussing how to destroy her step-father.

He didn't have time to play University now, she thought sadly, and froze when she saw him in the doorway.

His healthy eye grew wide at the sight of her as if he had seen a ghost and he stopped in mid-motion, pale, glancing at her, then at Robb.

"Is that him?" He asked curiously, extending his hand to him. "Robb, it's a pleasure. I hope you become a student soon too."

She swallowed hard seeing that his uncle's face expressed tension and coldness, a sign that something bad was about to happen.

His gaze full of impatience fell on her again while Robb's hand continued to hang in the air, showing her that if she didn't intervene, he would speak up and she wouldn't like that.

"Thank you, Robb. Will you leave us alone?" She asked in a trembling voice, wanting him to get away from this place as quickly as possible.

Robb blinked, bewildered, looking at her then at him.

"Are you sure?"

"Didn't you hear what she said?" Her uncle snarled in his direction in a way she knew was a warning.

He knew who he was, she realised suddenly with horror.

Then, when Helaena caught him looking at her Instagram account, it wasn't the first time he'd done it.

He followed her social media.

That's why he knew where he should come even though she hadn't given him her university address.

"I'm not talking to you, mate." Said Robb in a tone that betrayed that he had lost patience and she had to stand between them to keep her uncle from pushing against him, his jaw clenched in rage.

"That's enough." She said in a shaky voice.

"Aemond is having a hard time. Forgive him. Sometimes he doesn't know how to behave. He won't hurt me. Am I wrong?" She asked softly with a note of mockery in her voice, from which he swallowed loudly and looked away, embarrassed, trying to control himself.

Robb hesitated, but nodded finally and left them alone, glancing at them intently over his shoulder.

"It was a mistake." She said, shaking her head, herself wanting to leave, recognising that she didn't know why she was doing it, why she cared.

"– no – no, wait –" He muttered, grabbing her arm, careful, however, not to cause her pain. His hand wrapped around her waist in a way from which she swallowed hard, his forehead pressed against her temple.

"– are you two together again? –" He asked in a trembling voice, and she involuntarily burst out laughing, ignoring the stares of the other students who were just passing them by.

"– do you want to tell me how you know who I'm dating and when? –" She hissed, looking at him with fury, his gaze hot and pleading, full of feelings she didn't want to see.

"– do you love him? –"

She shook her head, trying to push him away, not wanting to hear it, having no intention of explaining herself to him.

"– I hope you'll pass – let me go – let me go, I said –" She growled, trying to pull away from him, but he closed his hands on her back, hugging his nose to her cheek like a small child seeking refuge, his eyes closed as he spoke his next words.

"– I killed him for you –" He whispered.

She swallowed hard, feeling a powerful, cold shiver run down her spine, her heart starting to pound like mad in her chest making her struggle to take another breath.

He had killed for her.

He had killed a man.

God, was it possible to wash away such a sin?

To carry such a burden.

She shook her head, her brow arching in pain at the thought that she didn't want to hear it.

"– I killed him because he threatened you – because he wanted to hurt you – I want you to be safe –" He gasped tenderly, enclosing her jaw in his hands, placing again and again warm, soft kisses on her cheek as if she were something he longed to cherish, that he adored, that he loved.

A part of her wanted to ask him if he planned to kill himself too, but those cruel words didn't leave her mouth.

When he hugged her she simply closed her eyes and allowed herself to calm down in the tender embrace of his arms, feeling his soft, full lips on her cheek, neck and shoulders, his hands combing through her hair tender, close, familiar, beloved.

"– I'm not pregnant –" She whispered and felt him freeze for a moment. He swallowed hard, placing a lingering, warm kiss on her temple.

"– I know – the doctor told me – we just have to try again –" He said softly, stroking her back comfortingly as if he were a husband who had just assured his wife that they would have a child in the future.

How absurd his words were simultaneously horrified, embarrassed and endeared her.

"– do you hear yourself? – after what you did to me? – after how –" She mumbled out, bursting into sobs, clasping her hands on his back, for some reason seeking help in his embrace.

He was the only person who understood what she was going through.

"– shhh – I'm here, baby –" He hushed her, stroking her hair and her back, his face sinking into her temple, his warm breath enveloping her neck.

She shuddered when she heard her phone ring – they moved away from each other, and when she pulled it out of her backpack it turned out to be Daemon's bodyguard.

"Your class is over, where are you? Is something wrong?"

"– n-no – no, I'm on my way, I was talking to the professor – I'm sorry –" She mumbled out, scared that the man would start looking for her.

"– it's okay – I'll wait where I always do –" He said and hung up while she breathed a sigh of relief.

"– wait a few minutes before I go so they don't see you –" She said indifferently, tucking the phone into her backpack. She felt him wanting to embrace her again, but she pushed him away, shaking her head and avoided him, unable to look at his face.

We just have to try again.

She burst out crying at the thought that some sick part of her wanted this.

"– you said he's not your boyfriend –" She heard Robb's voice behind her, standing at the entrance to the courtyard, looking at her with pain and disbelief.

She swallowed hard at the thought that he was watching them from a distance.

"– I –"

"– I thought we are friends, that we are honest with each other –" He said quickly, combing his hair with his hand in a gesture of impatience, his words making a cold, unpleasant shiver of shame shudder through her body.

He had caught her in the act, and she was like a small, weeping child who was afraid of the consequences.

"– he is not my boyfriend –"

"– are you serious? – you said he hurt you, and you almost let him fuck you in the middle of the corridor – where is your self-respect? –" He hissed and after a moment fell silent, seeing the look in her eyes, the expression on her face, hearing his own words, knowing that his last sentence was a step too far.

"– I'm sorry – I'm sorry I said that – I didn't –" He muttered, running his hand over his mouth.

He wanted to touch her shoulder, but she moved away from him, shaking her head, not caring that the others were looking at them from the side.

"– is there anything else you want to say? –" She asked, having the feeling that something inside her had broken once and for all, shattered into pieces like a glass vase.

Robb opened his mouth, his cheeks turning scarlet with horror and shame.

She turned tensely, heading for the exit, out of the corner of her eye noticing her uncle's face staring back at her, pale and shocked.

He heard it.

She shook her head letting him know not to follow her and ran towards the car park, thinking about how she wanted to sink to the ground and die.

As she closed the car door behind her, whooping with tears in panic, the man leaned over to look at her face, horrified.

"Are you all right?" He muttered.

"– I didn't pass the fucking exam – can we go now? –" She said with such anger and fury that the bodyguard merely nodded and started the engine, backing the car out onto the road.

She covered her face with her hands, choking and panting, trying to calm down, thinking she deserved it.

Why had she gone there?

Why did she have to see if he had come?

What did it matter?

We just had to try again.

Jesus fucking Christ.

They were both completely mad.

Maybe they had inherited it in their genes, she thought regretfully.

It wasn't until she was home at dinner, feeling Daemon's anxious gaze on her, that she thought uneasily that she had escaped the drowning ship, but had left her uncle and ex-boyfriend far too close. She felt her knee begin to pop up in a nervous reflex under the table at the thought that he might have done something to him.

Out of revenge, out of jealousy, out of whimsy.

I killed him for you.

She thought she would write to him to make sure he was okay.

But he didn't write back.

Unable to stand it, she put a second, new card in her phone, one of the hundreds her brother kept in his drawer to avoid bugging him, and called her uncle, demanding an explanation.

"What did you do to him?" She asked horrified, walking around her room as if in a trance.

"I see you have a new phone number and I have no idea what you're asking."

"Robb, Aemond. He's not writing me back."

She heard him hum on the other end, as if he was pleased with her words and the fact that whatever he had done had forced her to contact him.

"We only talked. His handsome face with brown eyes is unharmed." He said calmly, making her breathe a sigh of relief, still feeling the tension though.

"What were you two talking about?"

"It was our men's business."

"AEMOND."

"That I won't let anyone treat you like that. He doesn't know shit and meddles in matters that aren't his." He said coldly. "I gave him a warning."

For a moment there was a tension-filled silence between them, from which her heart pounded like mad.

She thought it was all some kind of pure madness, that it wasn't really happening.

"– did you threaten him? –"

She heard his loud sigh on the other side and a bark.

Vhagar.

"– I told him to treat you with respect and not to talk to other people about us if he didn't want unpleasantness – no violence, pure persuasion –"

"– manipulation – as in my case –"

"– that is not true –" He protested angrily.

"– LIAR –" She hissed and hung up, throwing her phone on the bed in a gesture full of rage.

She fell back on the bedding, sighing loudly and groaned when she saw that her display had lit up and he had sent her a new message.

She unlocked her phone reluctantly, thinking she had angered him with her words, but saw with surprise that he had sent her a picture of Vhagar.

She felt regret and a sting in her heart at the thought that involuntarily it made her smile.

What he was doing to her was so wrong, so very wrong.

So why did she feel warmth in her heart?

After a while, her phone vibrated again.

She didn't know why she laughed warmly only to burst out crying again a moment later, not understanding why he was the only one who could make her smile, the only one who could make her feel that wonderful warmth in her lower abdomen, the only one who could calm her down.

Why he was the only one she loved.

[snake-and-mouse]

Look. Mxtx does wonders with identity bullshit, all the disguises and aliases and shapeshifting and possessing and reincarnating etc etc

We got the obvious in tgcf with Everyone Knowing Everyone and yet it does no good because everyone is also allergic to using their real name or face or admitting they know someone, coupled with Xie Lian being the one person who cluelessly strolls up to people like hi hello who are you? (Someone you've known for centuries you bimbo) or just outright talking about someone with zero realisation they are in the room rn pls for the love of god shut up!!!

And then svsss is less actual identity shit and more just straight up not recognising reality, because Shen Qingqiu thinks he is in his old familiar beloved PIDW, right? He doesn't realise this isn't his old friend he knows like the back of his hand (that the characters are now people he can't so effortlessly read). This is a Stranger, and as he tries to passively observe the long-memorised chain of events, it keeps dancing left when he thinks its supposed to go right, feints when he was sure it would jab. The story slowly turns into someone he doesn't recognise (why does he feel like he doesn't recognise his little lamb anymore??) because his utter inability for much of the series to see how his actions can alter the world he is in.

But all that being said.

Award for Most Bullshit obviously goes to mdzs.

Wei Wuxian- Hey random kid I just met (THAT'S YOUR KID DUDE)! You're just lovely, whoever raised you (YOUR HUSBAND IDIOT) did a wonderful job :D

Also Wei Wuxian- Hey random kid I just met #2 (your nephew)! You suck, your mom (YOUR VERY DEAD YOUR FAULT DEAD SISTER) phoned in teaching you manners. Seriously who tf raised you? (YOUR BROTHER RAISED HIM. AFTER YOU GOT HIS PARENTS KILLED. AND THEN DIED. MORON.)

[incorrectly-quoting-mxtx]

So I have theory about Luo Binghe’s fake jade pendant.

(Major spoilers if you haven’t finished the book btw)

I was just reading a fic and author pointed out something about Luo Binghe’s pendant and how it’s a metaphor for Shen Yuan.

Looking back at the book, there are a lot of parallels between Shen Yuan and the necklace.

The pendant is a counterfeit jade carving of the god Guanyin.

Shen Yuan is a counterfeit of Shen Qingqiu, a powerful Peak Lord who dresses in jade colored robes.

Guanyin is noted to be associated with compassion, and Shen Yuan changes the entire fate of the world of Proud Immortal Demon Way by being compassionate.

Luo Bingmei ends his story with his one fake jade pendant while the extras specifically note that Luo Bingge has several real jade necklaces in his possession. Those necklaces are even called out to be fine grade and best money can buy.

Obviously the real jades are a metaphor for Bingge’s harem of peerlessly beautiful women while the fake jade, which has infinitely more value to him, represents Shen Yuan, aka Luo Bingmei’s one and only true love.

However I think there’s more to it than that.

If you track the pendant throughout the book, you’ll notice that Luo Binghe is only ever in possession of the pendant when Shen Yuan isn’t there. In fact, he actually loses the pendant shortly after Shen Yuan transmigrates into Shen Qingqiu. For the rest of the book, the pendant is in Shen Yuan’s possession, only returning to Luo Binghe at the climax.

But here’s the thing that’s strange about that scene: for whatever reason the System could not load the pendant when SQQ tried to summon it. At no other point in the book has the System have a problem loading things in.

So why is it when it does load in, it’s right as Shen Yuan dies for the third time?

My theory is that Shen Yuan is the pendant itself.

Now obviously Shen Yuan comes back and Binghe still has the pendant, but in the last couple scenes of the book, Shen Yuan is always right by Luo Binghe’s side.

Now I know that Shen Yuan was an actual person before dying and becoming Shen Qingqiu, so therefore he isn’t the necklace given human form. So how can Shen Yuan and the pendant be one and the same?

Well let’s go back to the aforementioned climax scene where the System cannot physically summon the pendant until Shen Yuan dies.

Seeing as how the System is essentially an AI and/or a computer program, this kind of issue reminds me of how a computer cannot open a file if another of the exact same file is already running.

I think, that when inserting Shen Yuan into PIDW, the System needed a way to tie his soul into its program and Shen Yuan’s fate to the protagonist. The System needed a physical entity to tie him down so it linked his code/soul to the fake jade pendant. That’s why Luo Binghe loses the pendant so soon after Shen Yuan transmigrates and why the System couldn’t load it in until Shen Yuan’s soul left his body because they’re part of the same file.

This is also evidenced by how when Shen Yuan dies the second time, out of all of his items, only the Jade pendant is kept in his inventory when he wakes up in the Sun and Dew Mushroom body.

Not to mention that Shen Yuan and the pendant have the same effect on Luo Binghe! The pendant has the ability to essientially shock Luo Binghe out of a qi deviation, but is only a one time use. But during Luo Binghe’s first qi deviation, Shen Yuan is able to do the exact same thing but doing so kills him. The pendant reduces Luo Binghe’s anger, and Shen Yuan is the only person in the world Luo Binghe will ever be soft and submittable to.

Tl’dr; The System tied Shen Yuan’s soul to the fake Guanyin pendant.

[cmncisspnandmore]

One Night Stand: part 4

Pairings: Simon 'Ghost' Riley X Pregnant!Reader

Warnings: None? slight angst? Maybe if you squint

Summary: Simon is away on a mission, but things are speeding up back at home.

A/N:....... Hi, sorry. I'm back, i'm sos sorry for the long break between parts. I'm also sorry this is a short part, i started writing it before i went on a break, and i finished it today and its kinda a flop. But i promise to do better on the next part. asdfghjkl, please stick with me, I promise i'll do better.

Word Count: 2.909

New to the series? Catch up here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

It had been almost a week since you heard from Simon. He has sent you a brief text the morning he left. It was vague, didn't give you any details about where he was going, or how long he would be gone. He had promised to contact you as soon as he could. You find yourself staring down at your phone, hoping that maybe if you stared at it long enough he would text you. But it never came. 

Your knee shakes as you sit in the doctor’s office, the nurses coming out periodically to get someone from the waiting room. Your appointment was in 5 minutes, but you had been sitting there for the last 20 minutes. Nervous was an understatement, if you could describe how you felt out loud people would think you were insane. You felt like your lungs were vibrating in your chest, every organ moving at the fast pace of your heartbeat. 

The nurse calls out your name as you stand on shaky legs. The world is out of focus as you walk towards her. She smiles, and leads you back to her ultrasound room, her voice muffled  by the pounding in your ears. A hand touches your shoulder and it takes you a moment to realize that she was talking to you. 

“This is your first?” She asks, sitting in the chair next to the bed, pulling her stool up to the computer. 

“Oh.. yeah..” You lay back on the bed, and look over at her. She was wearing a pair of cartoon character scrubs. Her hair pulled up into a french twist, as she typed on the keyboard. 

“Okay, well lay back, and roll down the top of your jeans, and pull up your shirt as we’ll see if we can get a good look at that baby of yours. Do we need to wait for dad?” She asks, as you lay back against the paper. It crinkles as you roll down the tops of your jeans, your body shifting as you adjust. 

“Oh, no… he’s away,” heat rushes to your cheeks, red hot embarrassment coursing through your veins. 

“Oh no problem lovely, we’ll make sure to get extra pictures and you can even record the heartbeat for him. How does that sound?” She asks as she picks up the wand and rolls closer to you.

“That would be lovely,” 

“This will be a little cold,” she says as she squirts some of the ultrasound gel onto your stomach. The contact makes goosebumps break out along your skin, you watch the screen across from the bed. The grainy black and white picture moving around as she adjusts the wand. After a few moments a small white, baby-like blob takes over the screen.

“There they are! Look at them,” she smiles as she spends time taking measurements, and telling you what you were seeing on the screen. She takes some pictures while shes doing it, before she smiles at you. 

“Okay, ready to record the heartbeat?” she asks, and presses a few keys on the keyboard. 

You take your phone out and record the screen, the baby’s heart fluttering on the screen. After a moment the sound of fast paced wooshing fills the room, your eyes  fill with tears. It was real, you knew about the baby obviously, but hearing the heartbeat made it real. There was a tiny person growing inside you. A part of you and Simon. You stop the recording as you wipe your eyes with one hand. The Ultrasound tech smiles and hands you a tissue, before she hands you another. “Here Love,” she smiles, “wipe that off and then I’ll be right back with your pictures to take home.” 

You wipe the gel off your stomach, swinging your legs over the side as you wait. You open up the text thread between you and Simon. Your fingers tap the screen as you forward him the recording of the heartbeat.

Y/n: I know you couldn’t be here because of work, but I heard the heartbeat today. It was beautiful, they’re developing right on track. *heartbeat*

The nurse comes in and hands you two long strips of ultrasound pictures, you smile down at them. In one picture the baby’s hand is up in the air and it looks as if they’re waving. She added a little caption that says “hi Daddy!” On it and you can’t help the pang of guilt that settles in your gut.

This was Simon’s first child too. He should be able to experience everything with you. But you knew he couldn’t just abandon his post. He was needed, that much was clear, you couldn't ask him to give it up. You wouldn’t. 

As you walk out of the doctors office towards the bus station, you can’t stop looking down at the roll of pictures in your hands. As the bus pulls up to the sidewalk you climb on and take an empty seat. You study the white baby-like outline as the bus pulls away from the curb, you wonder who they would look like. 

Would they have Simon's light blonde hair?

Maybe his dark brown eyes?

Or would they look like you?

Maybe they would be a perfect blend of you both, with your eyes and Simon’s nose. Whoever they looked like, they would be loved. Your heart swells as you look down at the pictures, your fingered tracing outlines. They were only the size of a lemon, which was crazy to you. 13 weeks ago they didn't even exist, they were nothing. Just two cells that had yet to meet, and now they were the size of a lemon. They could move around although you couldn’t feel it yet, some babies even suck their thumb. 

Your thoughts drift back to Simon… Did he know that the baby was the size of a lemon? That it could now suck its thumb and move around?

Sighing you pull out your phone and text the video of the baby's heartbeat to him, along with a picture of the sonograms. You watch as the blue text bubble sends and the word delivered appears under it. You stare at the screen, wishing that it would change to read, but it doesn’t. Your eyes burn from not blinking, as the bus pulls up to the stop by your neighborhood. You quickly tuck your phone away and step off. The brakes of the bus squeal as it pulls away, leaving you standing on the side of the road alone. 

The walk back to your apartment isn’t long, it only takes 5 minutes at most. But today it felt like the longest walk of your life. You couldn't shake the feeling that pooled in your stomach when the tech looked at you, the pity in her eyes when she found out Simon wasn't there. It had done nothing but remind you that you would probably be doing most of this alone. That there was a chance Simon would miss the birth of his child due to having to be on a mission. 

You haven't given it too much thought, because that seemed so far away from the present. But in reality you were already in your second trimester, and time was going to go by a lot faster than you thought it would. Your relationship with Simon was still in its infancy, you barely knew anything about one another. Sure there was the undeniable attraction between you two, the magnetic pull that caused this whole situation in the first place. 

You climb the 3 flights of stairs to your apartment, your boots thudding on each step. The neighbors below you argue loudly, the crash of things being thrown jars you from your thoughts. You really hated them sometimes. It was like their entire relationship revolved around making each other mad. If they werent fighting they were stoned out of their minds, their eyes glazed over from drugs as they leant against the hoof of their beat up car. They had neer done anything to you personally but you had heard them fighting with some of the other residents. Mostly your direct neighbor to your left. She was a small old lady who would get fed up with them fighting and would call the cops on them regularly. 

As you unlock the door to your apartment, the door to the left opens. The old woman steps out of her apartment with a scowl on her face as she looks at you. You pause, and clear your throat. “Can i help you Mrs. Hines?” You ask, stuffing the sonogram into your pocket.

“Those blasted drug addicts, at it again i tell ya! Throwing things, arguing all hours of the day. Outta teach them a lesson,” she mumbles as he heads towards the stairs. Her cane tapped on the floor as she headed down to the floor below. You wait until her white hair is out of sight on the staircase before you push open your apartment door. The apartment is exactly how you left it, your eyes flickering to the couch. Air rushes past your lips as you find it empty, your laptop sitting in the middle just as you left it. 

You settle into your apartment, and hang the sonogram pictures on the fridge, a small smile on your lips. Settling back onto the couch you pick up your laptop and continue where you left off this morning with your article, the words flowing easily. Hours pass as you near the end of the article, your phone pinging on the couch next to you startles you. For a moment a flash of fear races through your body. Like a bucket of cold water was dumped on you, your heart hammers loudly in your chest. With shaking hands you reach over and grab it, tapping the screen with your thumb. 

The small picture of an adorable ghost next to the name eases your anxiety that settled in your chest. You can't help the small smile that spreads over your lips as you read the messages from Simon. 

Simon: Wow, I wasn't expecting them to look like an actual baby just yet. That's kind of insane. 

You: I know.. Did you get a chance to listen to the heartbeat?

Simon: Yeah… Don't tell anyone but I may have teared up… 

You: Your secret is safe with me. 

There's no reply after that, which is expected. Honestly you were even surprised to have heard from him at all. He was out there doing god knows what, god knows where. Given that he had a few moments to reply to your text must mean that he wasn't fighting for his life at that very moment. 

That thought gave you some comfort… Well kind of. Lately not a lot of things could make you feel at ease anymore. You never truly felt relaxed, not even after moving a few hundred miles away from your hometown. You still felt like you were waiting for the other shoe to drop. For it to be your turn to meet the same fate as your family. But it hasn't come yet, and that alone was enough to make every noise, every bump in the night send prickles of fear skittering across your body. Like thousands of ants running wild along the smooth plains, making you shift uncomfortably. 

The apartment complex was surprisingly quiet for 8pm, normally around this time most of the residents were arguing. Mainly the couple from downstairs, but you haven't heard anything in a little while. You furrow your brows as you look out the window. Their car wasn't there, maybe they had gone out?. The parking lot was mainly empty save for a few cars that you were sure didn't run anymore. TUrning in your seat you glance down at your phone, the screen still dark. 

Exhaustion pulled at you, over the last few weeks you had been having a hard time sleeping.The constant fighting from the people below you coupled with the raging hormones made sleep hard to come by. This past week is especially hard now that the small voice in the back of your head reminding you that Simon wasn't here. He wasn't just a phone call away right now. For all you know he could be on the other side of the world, and there was no established time he would be back. He very well could be gone for months. 

Taking a deep breath you grab your phone and climb into your bed, pulling the blankets up over your head as you try to block out the small pang in your chest. The small part of you that missed Simon's presence. When he was around it was like someone had closed the doors to the roaring fears inside your head. They were still there, but they were muffled and you could be easily distracted from them. Allowing your body to relax for once, after being wound tight for months. 

A blush creeps up your cheeks as you remember how blissfully blank Simon was able to make your mind that night. The night that led to the unplanned but not unwelcome baby that was currently growing in your uterus. Your eyes grow heavy as your mind drifts back to that night. You missed how his hands felt, skating across your skin. The warmth of his lips on yours, the way his heart pounded in his chest under your hands. 

Your hand drifts down to your lower stomach, your fingers brushing the now taught skin. A small smile on your lips as you drift off to sleep with images of Simon's dark brown eyes and blonde hair dance in your mind. 

~~~~

Smoke.

The first thing to cross your mind when you stir from your sleep is smoke. 

The smell was suffocating as you sit up, and blink rapidly into the darkened room. Thick grey clouds billow under the door of your apartment. The loud creaking of the building settling startling you fully awake. Outside you can hear commotion in the parking lot. Quickly throwing the blankets to the side you pad over to the window. People from the lower floors of your building are filing out, waving their hands in front of their faces as they attempt to run from the building. Thick clouds of smoke follow them, as yellow and orange light flickers across their faces. 

You drop to your knees as your throat starts to burn, the air in the room becoming harder and harder to breathe in. Your knees scrape along the uneven floor boards, scratching the soft skin. Pulling your shirt up over your mouth and nose you attempt to take slow even breaths, as the smoke rises to the top of the room. As you reach the door you lift your hand and place the back of it against the door. Its warm but not hot. Taking one last deep breath you reach up hand grasping the warm door knob as you turn it.

Smoke rushes into the room, stinging your eyes as you crawl forward. The hallways is hazy but you can see the stairs at the end of the hall. They look clear of any fire, and you start to crawl there. As you reach the top of the stairs a sound behind you causes you to stop. The floor by your door creaks and groans before it splinters and falls through. Flames lick up through the hole, heat dancing across your skin. It was hot. So incredibly hot. Your eyes water, as you struggle to pull air into your lungs. 

Your throat burns as tears slide down your cheeks, your lungs ache as you start coughing. Your mind becomes fuzzy from lack of oxygen, as you grasp the railing of the stairs you start to feel your way down them quickly. Your feet blindly hitting steps, a few times you almost slip on the stairs. As you get down to the second floor the smoke is thicker. You can't see your own hand in front of your face. The staircase to the first floor is engulfed in flames, they lick up the stairs as they threaten to singe your clothes. 

The window in the stairwell before it shatters above you front he heat, tiny shards of glass rain down on you where you crouch on the staircase. Your body is sluggish from the carbon monoxide. This was it… 

The way out was blocked and you didn't have the energy to climb back up the stairs to try the back staircase. It had only been a few minutes since you left the apartment, but it felt like a lifetime. Your body ached, your skin hurt from the heat, like the worst sunburn you’ve ever gotten. Your lungs screamed like you were being held under water, each cough that forced its way from your throat felt like razor blades.

Tears streamed down your cheeks, leaving trails through the soot and ash that covered your face. The world is slightly muffled as you put your head on the warm concrete of the stairs. The last of your energy fading as sirens scream in the distance. At least they would find your body, maybe there would be enough to identify, so someone would be able to get back to Simon about what happened. 

Simon.

Your heart aches in your chest.

What if no one ever told him what happened?

Your mind starts to go fuzzy and your eyes slide closed, sweet oblivion pulling you under.

As the world fades out you feel someone's arms wrap around you, lifting you from the stairs, their deep voice vibrating in their chest. “Bloody hell, Love. Trouble just knows how to find you, yeah?”

Next Part: Part 5

[mxtantrights]

Bounded by shadow and blood (6)

Azriel x magic!fem!reader grab your popcorn, we're meeting some new faces! I promise I'm not making the inner court into villains, it's just the way I see them and how they fit into the plot. things will change!!

It’s been about a week since you caught Lars. Azriel left the next morning. He hadn’t even said goodbye. Which you thought was rude seeing as you were the reason the mission went so well but you didn’t take it personally. 

You wanted him gone anyways. He was asking too many questions about you.

And now that he was gone you could finally think. Think about all the stress that waits for you. Your brother gone, the throne empty and the council wishing for you to take the seat. You have about ten weeks left until you would have to go home. If you didn’t find your way there, they would find their way here and take you back.

Thesan knows everything now. You figured you couldn’t keep him in the dark about this. Especially if you were going to ask him for resources to help you look for your brother. According to Cyril he was headed for the night court. A pit grew in your chest at that information. 

What business did your brother have there? And why hasn’t he returned? 

If you wanted to avoid sitting on the throne you’d have to play nice with the night court. Even though two of its members seem to want to know more about you.

This was the type of spy work you loathed. You liked the violence of it, the attacking and planning. But you didn’t like the political aspects to it. The lie and alliances and backstabbing. You had enough of that when you grew up in Sangri. 

Right now all you wanted to do was find your brother but you would have to wait. Thesan was helping you figure out a way into the night court without having to tell them your real business being there. He had said that would be half the battle.

Apparently the high lord could enter peoples minds. Which meant even thinking about your plan could put you in danger. 

Today was the test run. Thesan invited the high lord and some members of his inner circle to a casual meeting. He’s going to spring the idea of you visiting their court. 

-

You could hear the talking and commotion from the tea room. You brushed down the frills of the dress you were wearing. Thesan told you very last minute that your guests tend to dress formal for almost everything. 

Right now the deep red dress was the only thing you had. Or, it was the only thing you felt comfortable in because everything else was for infiltration missions and you can’t be seen wearing them to this meeting. Also they were too dressy for you.

You take a deep breath and walk down the hall. The tea room doors were open. Great. You keep walking until you enter the room. All the talking stops. 

It’s a full house you realize. Thesan guessed that only four or five of them would show up but all eight of them are here. He had ran down the names for you this morning.

You obviously knew Nesta, who was sitting next to Cassian. They sit facing towards you at the table. And you knew Azriel. He was sitting next to a blonde, Morrigan. And Rhysand was sitting next to his high lady Feyre at one end of the table. Your eyes don’t quite catch who the eighth person is, their back to you. Thesan is at the other end of the table. An empty chair beside him and next to the unknown person.

“I was thinking you weren’t going to show.” Thesan joked.

You rolled your eyes playfully, “how could I miss tiny sandwich time.” 

You walk over to your seat, pulling the chair out. The person you are going to sit next to you becoming familiar all at once.

It had been a long time since you had seen her. Amren. Or at least that is the name she took after being in this world for so long. She looked almost the same as the last time you saw her, which had been some centuries ago. Right before you had come to live in the dawn court permanently you had traveled around. You ran into her once, in the middle of one of her bloodbaths. You had helped her secure the blood more easily.

“Amren?” You ask.

She smiles and launches out of her seat. She wraps her arms around you almost lifting you off the ground. You wrap your arms around her too. 

She pulls away from you first.

“How are you here right now?” She asks.

“I’m Thesan’s emissary.” You answer.

She makes a face, but she seems to pick up on the tone of your answer. You do not want to talk about it in the open.

“How do you two know each other?” 

You turn the voice that asked the question. Nesta. You should have known. 

“That’s private.” You answer.

“Rhysand could just read your mind.” Nesta argues.

“I can’t.” The high lord says.

You look over at him, “You can’t or you won’t.”

He places his elbows on the table and peers closer at you.

“I didn’t misspeak.” 

Huh. That was interesting. 

“Well, I guess tea time will finally be interesting this time Thesan.” You joke.

Thesan, who was sipping on water, almost chocked and spilt it all out. But he regained his composure and diplomacy. You take a seat next to Amren.

-

The meeting was winding down. Thesan had talked you up a bunch to the high lord. And he of course insisted that even you could visit the night court and still return to the dawn court.

Rhysand had said that the sights would surprise you but you remained confident it wouldn’t. You two had a bit of a push and pull throughout the whole meeting that seemed to intrigue everyone.

While the rest of the inner circle lingered in the tea room and you Amren stepped out to talk in private. You brought her to one of the sitting rooms and closed the door. 

“Okay, explain yourself right now.” She speaks.

“It’s a very long story, but I need you to do your best to keep my powers a secret.” You say.

Amren makes a face at that, crosses her arms across her chest too. She wasn’t going to like doing it, but for the time being your abilities are on a need to know basis. The rest of the inner circle doesn’t need to know.

“Azriel told all of us how you took him down. It won’t be hard for them to go digging around with what they know.” She replies.

You nod your head at her words. She is right. It was stupid pulling a movie like that over Azriel. If he didn’t figure it out on his own surely having the help of the rest of the inner circle would help. You just wanted to wipe the smugness that he exuded. 

“My brother has gone missing.” You admit.

Amren uncrosses her arms.

“For how long?” She asks.

You shrug your shoulders, “I mean the council says he was away on a month long trip, but now I’m thinking it was a month long head start.”

“You think he ran?” She asks again.

“I don’t know, no one will tell me anything besides the fact that I am next in line.” You explain.

“What?!” She shouts.

You try to quiet her and grab her hands in yours, “My sentiments exactly. He spawned no children and we have no uncles or aunts. I’m the only one.” 

“So you’re to be queen?” Amren says, shocked.

“I am not to be queen, Amren. I am to find my brother and tie him to the throne if I have to. And I wouldn’t even be queen if I took the throne, I’d be empress.” You clarify.

She lets out a laugh, “And you don’t want that?” 

“Amren the last thing I want to do is rule over people. I just want to do what I want.”

She grips your hands tighter, “And if your brother…”

You know what she means when she lets the words trail off. What if your brother is dead. You can't imagine it, you can't think it. You can't.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. That is why I’m going to visit your court soon.” you say.

“To look for him?” 

You nod, “Apparently he was headed there.”

She gives you a look. As if to ask you if you really believe that he would tell the people he was running from his next location. You sigh. It was the only piece of information you had on the matter. That and the fact that he wasn’t home.

“I’ll put in a word about wanting you to visit to Rhys.” She says.

At that you wrap your arms around her in a hug. She hugs you back.

“Thank you Amren. You don’t know how much this means to me.” You smile.

“If it comes down to them or you, I pick you every time.” She admits.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s3 episode 15 thoughts

i’m comfy. i’m cozy. i’m sat. i had a nice relaxing day. i am prepped for this.

(author's note: juni was, in fact, NOT prepared for this episode)

so, reading the episode description here: ANOTHER sunken ww2 craft??? they deal with these A LOT. they need to get an archaeologist on the phone, because they seem to just attract these sorts of things. and you don’t really find them everyday. unless you’re special.

(actually, it turned out to be the same one as before- or at least related to the first one. but my point stands. they are dealing with more war wreckage than you would expect)

we see a boat. they’re speaking french!! why did they call it “deux zéro point huit” instead of “vingt”? okay guess i don’t know a lot of stuff… but i like that a lot better than how the french usually use numbers, because then you could say 1998 a LOT easier… une neuf neuf huit… how easy these things COULD be… alas!

they’re diving!!!! this fellow- gauthier- has a very funny looking scuba suit. it’s bright yellow and very stiff. mobility is probably not ideal. oh, it’s getting darker and darker as he goes deeeep into the water. 

they’re detecting radiation from where he's going in? seems worrisome. but it’s the pacific ocean, so who knows what is in there? plenty of nuclear waste, i'm sure.

everyone is very excited to hear that gauthier thinks he found “one from the squadron”. what this squadron is, we do not know. but then they hear a thumping noise and lose contact with the diver. 

someone is inside the ship??? someone with very black inky eyes?? damn... mermaids are real?? AND scary?

the diver gauthier comes back up to the surface and says he became disoriented. hmm. that gaze is suspicious… and HIS eyes go inky black too!!

what did y’all do to my boy gauthier...

(cheering loudly as gillian anderson’s name is on the screen during the intro)

fbi time. scully reading a case and walking. she is a pro at reading and not walking into things. a skill that comes with great practice.

skinner opens the door and asks to see her!!! he asks his secretary to leave. oooo, whatever he has to say, it's going to be juicy. 

he says a memo came across his desk last night. and it concerns her. AND HER SISTER!!! 5 months in and there have been no leads in her murder investigation. they want to make it inactive and she has a LOT to say with just her face and the words “i see”. she looks both furious and hurt.

but he’s going to appeal it!!! awww nice skinner. and go over the evidence again himself, just in case someone missed something.

NOOOO, i yell out in sadness, as scully stops herself before leaving, visibly upset. she goes on a monologue about how the fbi can seemingly solve any crime but not this one, and there are tears in her eyes and there are tears in MY eyes. but for some reason they can’t figure out this one, even though it took place in a well-lit building and the murderer left the weapon at the crime scene!!! skinner tries to say it’s not about interest, but she says it is, just not hers or his. NOOOO STOP... MY POOR GIRL.

(tbh i’m glad they are addressing melissa's death again, because they haven’t really talked about it since. and i know with the monster of the week episodes you don’t get a ton of time to process these things, but it was HER SISTER. there is no way she could just jump right back into work without some severe emotional trauma. i think in some ways the episode format can do that disservice to their characters, introduce a Very Important Plot Point and then not talk about it again for the in-world equivalent of 5 months during which they act as if everything is fine)

skinner looks really sad too :( noooo, skinner

she goes to mulder’s office and denies that anything is wrong (he can obviously tell that things are wrong) also he’s wearing a different color suit today which is interesting. 

today's mystery: he says a ship from france came into port in san diego yesterday, and he tracked its course. it was at the same place they had earlier found the thing she thinks is a russian sub, and he thinks a ufo!!

she looks really upset to hear this :( i think she just doesn’t wanna deal with ufo drama when her sister’s murder is unsolved. and can you blame her?

but anyway, the whole crew from that french expedition is being treated for radiation burns, so he can’t just ask them what is down there

she laughs and says that she is amazed by him (!!!) working down in the basement. she says they’re afraid of his relentlessness. he seems offended that she says they could drop him in the desert and he’d ask for a shovel if the truth was out there, but then he smiles and says that he wants her to come along on to san diego. and he looks like this :D and gives her a plane ticket.

it was very cute. if only they could harness his boundless energy into looking at melissa's case...

scully my darling, look at me. tell him that you are feeling sad because your sister’s murder is being ignored. use your words. LOOK AT ME. tell him how you feel. it’s a long flight. you have time. thank you. 

at san diego, the men from the ship are very much burned up. they can’t figure out how to treat them because the french government is hiding everything.

she goes into doctor mode. the doctor at the hospital seems shocked to hear that she is a doctor, but... get used to it? anyway, their symptoms are nearly as bad as the hiroshima victims.

and one man had no symptoms, but he discharged himself this morning. it was gauthier! the man in the yellow scuba suit with the inky eyes!

damn, his house is nice. if it’s his house. seems to be, since he’s on the picture on the wall. but he walks past the ringing phone like he has never seen a ringing phone before. 

the agents are rolling up to the ship, where a bunch of people are in hazmat suits, investigating, guarded by soldiers. spooky...

so the guy who is leading this investigation says they found absolutely nothing, and they can go on board. which i would be suspicious of. but mulder lacks self-preservation instincts which has been established and he will go into the boat of evil. 

investigating a boat! with a big flashlight! i still don’t like boats. too cramped. way too cramped. mulder finds the big yellow scuba suit. and some sort of inky substance on the helmet… while scary music plays. 

scully is looking at a map that says “zeus faber” and i have some ideas on what that means but they could be way off... like deus pater? the vedic god? same roots at zeus?

(insert shane and ryans's "i've connected the two dots" "you didn't connect shit" here because really i was onto nothing)

mulder is searching for the VCR to watch the dive video. oooo he finds it!

and scully takes one look at the mysterious object and announces that it is “a north american p-51 mustang” and i feel my heart skip a few beats. 

WELL SO DID MULDER’S??? because he announces to the class that he just got very turned on. BAD! BAD! SPRAYING YOU WITH WATER like a NAUGHTY CAT!! not in front of this random guy!! we say such things in PRIVATE and not to the besties!

(actually i'm so lying because that does sound like something i would say to a bestie... but NOT in front of some random guy. i have couth. i only flirt with the girls when no one else is around. and i was sensing no irony from him, which is slipped into my flirting with friends. we differ, mulder and i)

um. brushing past that.

she used to watch her dad and brothers build model ww2 planes as a kid :,) and that’s why she can recite these facts. it’s just a fighter, wouldn’t have been carrying anything interesting. cool fact time with scully is my favorite time of day!

back to our french king gauthier. he’s searching for something. a woman hugs him and he doesn’t say a word. just looks at her all weird. she’s scared and runs away. but he GRABS her and his eyes go black!!! then she steps out and HER eyes go black!!!! what is going on? and is this thing spreading and also why. 

scully goes to see a friend of her father’s, named johansen. there are kids in the road. children, please do not play in front of cars, it’s dangerous. scully does not need a vehicular manslaughter charge at the moment due to your prancing about.

scully’s looking at the kids and remembering her sister and tearing up which is very sad but. she drives on.

mulder at gauthier’s house. no one is answering. careful; you know he will just walk into your house. and he does! he finds the scattered papers allllll over. pretty music is playing. he finds a letter talking about salvage and pockets it. then hears a noise??

and finds an inky gauthier on the ground. who says he doesn’t know what happened. he's freaked out because he doesn’t remember anything beyond the boat, and also his wife is gone. and he won’t answer any questions about the letter from the “salvage broker” (idk what that means but it sounds sus as hell)

OH! scully is at the house of her dad’s friend johansen, and she tells him how she used to live there!!! he doesn’t remember her, but also he is very old so this is understandable. he doesn’t seem to recall anything from her list of clues, but he says that the number on the plane isn’t from a p-51. so what’s the truth.

she goes to leave, and he says to say hi to her father, but she has to tell him he passed away NOOOOOO :(((( but before she leaves she talks about the games she used to play out in the lawn. and asks him to say hi to his son for her. will there be a childhood friendship reunion...?

gauthier’s wife is looking for stuff. in the office of the salvage broker! so she must work with her husband on her shady business deals... she hides things before mulder comes in. 

BUT NO!!! she has a gun under her desk, and it’s aimed at him!! nothing happens though, she just takes his business card. and we learn her name is geraldine.

mulder is sitting outside the salvage broker’s office. lurking about. and all of a sudden a bunch of cars come rolling up!! talking loudly in french and running in!! he watches. geraldine leaves in a hurry, and he goes to tail her. 

WHAT IS SHE HIDING!

scully’s trying to leave, but the soldiers that guard the entrance tell her she is being detained!!! huh? on what charges?

her dad’s friend johansen gets in the car. he says that his son was killed in the gulf war. and that “we bury our dead alive... they talk to us, they haunt us, they beg us for meaning. conscience, it’s just the voices of the dead, trying to save us from our own damnation" <- woah, banger line, unexpectedly profound from this old man. but, noooo sad man who has endured so much loss... :( banger line but at what cost?

he knows something about that plane that sunk. because he was sent to find it! in a sub called the zeus faber!

geraldine is in the airport. where is she going. hong kong?

anyway, scully calls mulder and shares her findings: she says that plane they're on a quest to find had been carrying an atomic bomb, but it never reached its target. and it doesn’t make sense fully to him or her really- like, why would the guy who was closest to the bomb be the only one who doesn't have radiation burns? but mulder has to go to hong kong sooooo. um. okay. 

back in D.C., skinner is waiting at a restaurant whilst some angry looking men approach him. they’re asking about people “obeying his orders”

OH! they’re threatening him to make scully’s sister’s case inactive. because those above him have worked hard to reach that decision. covering up for the antics of cig man and the worsties, i see... nasty nasty nasty!

so scully’s talking to johansen again, who is saying that his squadron back in the day also had burns, and almost everyone had died except for him. they found the sunken squadron and then the burns started. but despite most people in the sub being in the process of dying, the captain wouldn’t leave the area to surface and get help!

the men started fighting, realizing they were going to die, and a gunshot made the japanese aware of their presence. so johansen went against the captain’s orders and took them to the surface. he locked the burned men in with the captain, knowing their fate.

but the captain had the inky eyes!!!! so i guess that is why he didn't want to surface...?

only 7 on that boat of 144 lived, and johansen struggles with the guilt from that. and no one ever explained what actually happened. damn, that's a heavy burden to bear.

hong kong time. eating some tasty looking food. geraldine is here. mulder sits next to her and point blank accuses her of selling government secrets. he's always been a bit bold.

he says he’s gonna arrest her, and she says um you can’t have guns here. so he handcuffs her TO HIMSELF. WILD MOVE! and leads them to an office in the back. for their salvage broker dealership!!!

KRYCEK IS HERE???? MY BELOATHED…

mulder tells him to shoot himself in the head like he shot his father. DAMN! please do not pull any punches with this freak

someone shoots geraldine, who gets shoved behind a door still handcuffed to mulder, and then krycek leaves out a window.

(i think i’ve been spelling his name wrong in the past but hear me out: he’s lucky i call him anything beyond “the rat bastard”)

mulder is still handcuffed to the now shot woman while a hit squad approaches. but he is simply too fast for these fools!!! he freed himself and jumped out the window. 

okay... what. i looked down to type that, and geraldine somehow came back. unharmed. flashed a bright white light. and left all of the evil frenchmen who were chasing mulder with burns. huh.

that escalated.

back to skinner. who wants his coffee. and a blue plate. which refers to a special, and not an actual color of plate. the more you know! the waitress takes his order.

but someone is harassing her about the payphone not working! he gets up to intervene. a gentleman.

AND THIS DUDE SHOOTS HIM???

HELLO????? RIGHT IN THE GUT????

scully back at her place. as soon as she walks in the phone rings. NO!! she learns skinner was shot and she’s on her way to the hospital.

back to hong kong. krycek is trying to get out through the airport. but mulder catches him at a payphone and starts beating the hell out of him. MULDER TAKES A GUN OUT and is about TO SHOOT HIM IN THE STOMACH and he says “this is for my father” but then krycek is like “i didn’t do it” bitch boy i SAW you there. in his shower. 

he claims that if mulder lets him go, he’ll give him a tape with government secrets that he had been selling. mulder says absolutely not, go get yourself cleaned up and bring me there youself, you have three minutes or i’ll come in and kill you. WHEW! he is not messing around. he has been sentenced to the bathroom to wipe his own blood off of his face.

but who rolls up…. but geraldine!!!! who walks into the men’s room. and chokes him. AND KRYCEK'S EYES GO ALL INKY!!!

TO BE CONTINUED??? WHAT!!!!

why does this keep happening!!! the cliffhangers of it all!!!

okay, i’m not REALLY complaining, because the multipart episodes are usually the best ones, and they address the overall plot. but you THINK you’re going in for a nice relaxing evening and bam, krycek comes back, and now he’s got an alien infection. and maybe he too can glow and leave people with burns, and is being led right back to the place where our beloved agents call home. the power of a nuke, stored in one evil rat guy! what could go wrong???!?!?!? /s

and skinner was shot in the stomach! by a guy that seems to have no connection to all of this. but i doubt it.

(screams for about 45 seconds straight)

okay. SO. we got a lot here. we got french people, possession, angry mulder, dead fathers, nuclear aliens, krycek back, geraldine the undying, the sale of government secrets, hong kong, and scully angst. 

now, i am naturally drawn to the scully angst. to the memories of her childhood, to her grappling with the loss of her sister, how something is holding them up from the investigation, and whatever it is that wants to keep her from knowing the truth is willing to kill skinner about it. and somehow krycek is connected, because we SAW him do the killing, but we never learned WHY he did that whole betrayal thing beyond it just seems like something he does.

and krycek. i guess i figured he would come back at some point, but man, i feel even more revulsion at his current state now that he has ditched his pretty boy aesthetic for something that is more akin to a guy who started smoking cigarettes and listening to vinyls to make women think he's suffering deeply in an artistic fashion, but really he's just shallow, has no thoughts of his own, and is speedrunning cancer.

what the hell was he doing in hong kong? how is he getting access to these government secrets if he went AWOL?

ugh. i hate him. love to see an angry mulder, though.

skinner... in the past, we have had our disagreements. and though i have called you a bitch before, you have proved yourself, and your care for the agents. this is NOT what i wanted to see happen to you, and i am worried for your future, and the effects another loss will have on scully. so please consider recovering quickly for the sake of everyone else. the FBI will fall to the ranks of such freaks as cig man and his greasy pet rat-snake hybrid krycek if you don't stand guard.

man. i have a lot of thoughts. unfortunately though, i just went back and checked all my notes for typos that i'm sure i failed to catch entirely, and now i'm stuck on mulder's announcement that he was turned on again. we really do have to ask ourselves: why is he that way? i shudder at the thought. spraying him with more water.

would you say that to your male colleagues, mulder? please let me know. because i actually kind of think you would. which doesn't really make you understand the whole concept of gender-based workplace harassment that thought exercise usually provokes.

there is a TIME and a PLACE for hitting on the homies. do that shit off the clock. freak!!!

anyway. let scully have peace. let her not worry about more early deaths related to conspiracies. let her do more dog bathing and ice cream eating and internet research on various animal species. and let her tell us about planes <3 i hope everything gets solved and everyone is happy and mulder and scully and skinner eat ice cream sundaes together in the next episode <3

[carterstarlight25]

Hi everyone! So I been thinking hard on a rather unique 3way crossover that I been considering about writing. Please feel free to give me your input.

The 3 way crossover consist of DC x DP x Halo Infinite. With the ships being Jason and Danny (Obviously). Master Chief and Bruce as the second ship to be included. And Tim Simping for Katrina. (Cortana 2.0 from Infinite)

I see these possible dynamics being cute as Chief will learn how to be human, and how to love. Him and Team Phantom Finding Family. Also I don't mean the bull Chief pulled in the god awful Halo TV Show!

Bruce will learn that killing isn't an act of God. It isn't you kill once, and become a mindless murderer. That there is a difference, between a Soldier doing his duty to protect humanity and his loved ones. And a mindless killer, enjoying the horror of its victims as the bleed out with please for mercy. Effectively stealing their innocent lives... Oh also learn to not be as emotionally constipated after Katrina effectively out smarts him into a therapy session with Jazz Nightingale. (Last name changed after she saved Danny from the their parents lab…)

Danny will learn what it means to be apart of a family. And how screwed the GIW are.~

Jason, finds out he’s ghost pregnant and a heavy underdeveloped Halfa. All while the Pit becomes a full ghost that he ends up birthing. Which is gonna be a Dinosaur that will be Jason’s “Nightmare.” To his Fright Knight. (I am really wanting to go for Altispinax, or Spinax Vivosaur from Fossil Fighters series. But idk, might just use the Giga from Jurassic World Dominion. Just to change it up from what I seen people have the Pits become.

How Chief comes into the story however, would be introduced via Clockwork leaving a very obviously placed Halo Infinite Xbox Game case with a unmarked disc inside it. In an Alley Danny was taking refuge in. With a sticky note of course. And a few chapters in, when he was alone in Wayne Manor decided to play the game. And by Play. I mean go ghost and jump into the game. But of course. With his Fabulous Phantom Luck (trademark pending.) A new power began to make itself known as the code latched on him on his way out. Bringing Master Chief and Katrina to life in the real world, with all his memories and Katrina with the entire UNSC Database.)

While that’s how I plan to bring in Chief and Co. the main gist of this will be an all out battle, to destroy the GIW. Outlaws, Sirens, Chief and the entire Batfam Team up.

Despite the JL repealing the Anti Ecto Acts. A few Private donors continue to find them to get their hands on Ectoplasm. The League of Assassin’s, Lex Luthor. And of Course Vlad Masters will be the main villains connected to the GIW.

I can see Jason and Chief getting along like wildfire. And when Bruce finds out Jason is one leading the squad his kids, trying to get them to go on a date with Master Chief. It leads to some funny moments I would think. And of course can’t forget Chief reluctantly surprise appearance in Civies at one of Bruce’s Gala’s. (I kinda wanna make him wear Olive Green suit and dress pants. Black Bow Tie with a white under suit. Black belt. And an Olive Green Military Cap to hide his Neural Implant. Maybe having all his Medals from the service pinned to his chest. At least the ones that match ones in this universe. So not all of them obviously.

And Jason would absolutely catch his father freeze up when he sees the handsome Spartan.

For looks regarding Chief’s face since we don’t know what he looks like. I was thinking Caucasian Male, short brown hair that could be the right height to spike it up at least. Not a complete buzz cut. Rather bright blue eyes. That do not glow like Danny’s. But at least around that color. Of course he will have some scars on his left Temple, his lip and across his right eye. Freckles too. His muscle mass would of course be a bit more built then Jason. Which says something. But, you know. Super Soldier and all. (Update: I did in-fact Draw it ^^. If you want to see. Let me know if you wanna see Master Chief in a suit at the Gala ^^)

The Ages I was gonna go for was as follows.

Alfred: Immortal (Thanks Clockwork!)

John (Master Chief): 46yrs (I know it’s not his cannon Age. But it’s what I want for the story.)

Bruce: 45yrs

Barbara: 29yrs

Dick: 26yrs

Jazz: 21yrs

Jason: 21yrs

Cass: 20yrs

Sam: 20yrs

Danny: 19yrs

Duke: 19yrs

Steph: 19yrs

Tucker: 19yrs

Val: 19yrs

Tim: 18yrs

Ellie: 14yrs

Damien: 12yrs

Katrina: 6 months old

And that’s the little Fanfic I been thinking about. Of course it’s just an idea. but I think it would be fun to write.

[inktrailing]

C3E100 SPOILERS

A planetar with a lot of angry things to say / Twitch 03:02:10

this is a long one but I wanted to do this part okay ... also I have an empty brain right now and transcribing is mindless work for me but I think I'm done now

The Raven Queen: "Who sent you?"

Garathran: "I come under my own power. Those that command me tossed aside their scepter of command, tossed aside their very ideals, values, that which they had sworn to do. I followed my commander here."

Corellon, the Arch Heart: "And who is your commander?"

Garathran: "My commander... is the solar Acastriel. I am Garathran. I am a planetar sworn to the service of the Celestial Heights."

Corellon, the Arch Heart: "So, why are you here?"

Garathran: (to Corellon) "Mortal form, I suppose generous in the body of a construct." (to the Raven Queen) "And I suppose that is not your first time wearing mortal form. After all, these rules and edicts are not for you, are they? And never were. What binds you that so binds us? What binds you?"

Corellon, the Arch Heart: "Oh dear. You're getting angry now."

Garathran: "I have been angry. One by one, quiet, the Calamity fading, this great destruction, Domunas gone. Marquet burned, Exandrians dead, us marching to war over and over and over again for those that cannot die and seem unwilling to kill each other."

Corellon, the Arch Heart: "Hmmm."

Garathran: "Cries of misery and destruction were not enough to stay your hands! What stayed the hands of the gods? What called truce between you and the--" (sputters)

And here, before he can even say 'Betrayers', you watch a Celestial, crafted to defeat the forces of evil, made be your hands to fight in holy war, who has been left for years without your guidance or instruction in a truce you called.

Garathran: "What did you think? What did you think would happen when word spread throughout the Celestial ranks? That we would wait for slaughter to commence again after the threat to you, and you alone, had been destroyed? I find you sickening."

And you see here that a little bit of fire moves around the edge of the planetar's eyes.

The Raven Queen: "You speak of things you don't understand, child."

Garathran: (scoffs) "I'm not a child. I'm a construct, only a real one."

Corellon, the Arch Heart: (laughs) "Come. Let me embrace you." The skin begins to almost thread its way towards his fingers as he begins pulling the fire and trying to almost take the anger out of the situation.

You reach out in an attempt to alleviate this. You see that Garathran steps back and says -

Garathran: "Don't take it!! It's mine! Please don't take it. You made us to be good. You made us to fight. It was supposed to be right. Sealing the Betrayers, putting them in the shadows again. I have slain devils for a century thinking it was right and then one day I'm told to sheath my sword.

"And Acastriel comes to us who wonder why and says, 'Do you know what they are doing? Do you know what they're doing? It's a war to us. To them, it is a squabble.' Why did you make us? Why did you make all of this? When you knew that you were hurting this world, why didn't you just leave?"

Corellon, the Arch Heart: "Look. I must say that you are caught in something that obviously is difficult. It's completely incomprehensible to you. I see your pain. I feel it. And you know, sometimes I even ask myself: why are we doing this? This fighting, constant bickering, it's endless. But sometimes, there's a beauty in not understanding. You just play by the rules, as one of my favorites would say. Ignorance can be bliss.

"Now hear me, and hear me very, very carefully. This threat, this thing that threatens us will soon threaten you, and there is no end. At least with us, there is some form of control. It's just the way things are. So please, humor us. What do you know of your time being here, of this thing that threatens the very existence of us?

"And I promise you, we will give you purpose back, for you are our children after all."

Garathran: "With deference to the hands that move creation, if you wanted to make us to serve the gods, you should not have made us good."

(Garathran reaches up and slits his own throat.) And the planetar falls to the ground, dead.

[loveborn]

oblivious (rollo flamme x reader)

“They did it again!” You whisper-shout at Rollo, smiling widely while waving an envelope in front of his face. He’s hunched over his schoolwork, books laid open before him and pen in hand. There’s nothing unexpected about your arrival. He was anticipating it to the point of being unable to focus. Rollo pretends to still be absorbed in his studies however, if only to hide the colour spreading on his cheeks. 

“And did you forget this is a silent study area, again?” He mutters in response. It’s then that he lifts his face for the first time, glancing at the others busy at work in the library. 

“Oh, come on. I know you wanna see it too. Don’t you?” you say, then sigh. “You know what to do. I’ll be waiting.” Without another word, you walk off, the slightest bounce in your step. Your excitement is reason enough to push him into action, though he’ll know that’s not the only reason. He gathers up his belongings and, on his way to another part of the library, he picks up the usual reference book on flower language. 

You’re seated near one of the windows, simply staring at the blue wax seal. Its imprint is one they sell all around the City of Flowers, a charming little design based on the Bell of Salvation. As soon as he’s seated, you’re reaching for the book in his hands. 

“You haven’t opened it yet?” He says, before handing it over. You’re staring intently at the flowers partly pressed underneath the wax. They’re white, small, and delicate. You treat them carefully, almost tenderly, as you try to get a closer look, lifting one of the heads with the tip of your finger. Rollo feels his heart swell. You’re so absorbed in flipping through the pages and comparing, that you don’t seem to notice his staring at all. 

“No. I thought I’d save it for until you were here. Also… I don’t know. I get a bit nervous.” You let out a little ‘oh’ of excitement, before pushing the book over to him. “You think this is it?” 

Rollo pretends to carefully compare the drawing to the real thing, though he already knows your hunch is correct. “...I believe you’re right. They would be fitting for a love letter as well.” Your face brightens up further and you lean over to get a closer look at the pages. As you do so, your forehead nearly bumps against his, but you don’t seem to notice or care. All at once, the space around him feels suffocating. 

“Can you translate? I, uh… Most of this is still a bit too difficult for me.” You laugh sheepishly. That was the exact reason you had asked for his assistance in the first place. Obviously, you were not native to the Pyroxene, you’re not from this world to begin with, and so the local language is something you’re catching up with. You cannot be expected to be able to decipher an academic textbook. 

“One moment…” Rollo lets his finger glide across the lines, silently mouthing the words to himself, gathering his composure for the words he’s about to speak. “Yes. Here. It would mean something along the lines of purity, romance, or…” 

You’re fiddling with the wax seal, sliding a thin knife underneath and slowly moving it back and forth. “Or what?”

Rollo swallows. “E-everlasting or eternal love, even.” He will admit that meaning is rather heavy. The loveliness of the flowers made him go through with it, though. 

You let out a short laugh. “Everlasting? I don’t even know who they are. But… Well, they sure are a romantic, aren’t they?” There’s no malice in your tone.

“I’d say so. You’re lucky.” 

“No, no, no. You don’t get to say that. Half of the school is your admirer, Rollo. Not nearly so ‘secret’ about it as mine, either.” You groan in frustration as a piece of the wax breaks apart, but keep going. 

“You exaggerate.” Rollo knows some fellow students have found him attractive. There’s been letters left behind in the Student Council office, and even nervous words spoken right to his face. But to him, it was never of much importance, and not something he would try to notice and keep in mind. Before you, he never really minded if others found him attractive or not. “...There may be some.” He ends up admitting. 

You finally look at him again, smiling ever-so-slightly. Your gaze instead moves to the table, eyes sliding half-shut.

“You’re really oblivious, aren’t you?” 

You say, while holding the culmination of all of his treasured feelings, his heart, in your hand. Each letter carefully calligraphed, each word meticulously chosen, each attempt to convey the depths of his feelings failing to hold water. He’s not sure he wants you to know, and yet… There is nothing he wants more. A whirlwind of nerves and excitement and days of anticipation, wondering and waiting whether you will know.

In response to your words, he can only think: If he’s the oblivious one, then what are you?

[sunwarmed-ash]

Ah Fuck it, Friday

Alright I made the executive decision that Love bites, but so do I will be getting the Sinful Sunday slot this week! BUT I've also been working on alot of older wips this week. Like Silence isn't golden for example!

Here's a little sneak preview of the next chapter! It's not enough for me to make it a standalone chapter yet but I know this one has a few very dedicated and sweet fans 💚 this is for yall!!! thanks for sticking with it!

TW's: kidnapping/torture mention

Fanom: Harry Potter- Post HBP, Drarry, first person POV, heavy angst fic

Finally, FINALLY we have a lead.  Ron, Hermione, Dobby, and I burst through the doors of the Edinburgh flat without feeling the wrath of any of the spells that hurt Dobby.  “That cannot be a good sign,” I sigh irritability as the four of us split off in the small flat for any clues we can find.  There isn't much, this place has been scrubbed clean, metaphorically and literally with magic. And that’s more suspicious than if they had just left it.  There has to be something else here. Something to help us.  “This is the room I found him in,” Dobby says, pointing to a room I hadn’t initially seen. Once inside, I realize its barely a few cubic meters bigger than the bedroom I grew up in. The only difference is this one has a bathroom.  It's also the only thing in the house that still has remnants of any proof of life.  When they fled, Snape scrubbed any proof of himself from the premises. The same extension did not apply to Draco. All of his things were still here. Clothes, books, empty potion bottles, small trinkets stashed behind the bed for safe keeping. Things Draco treasured enough to keep around and Snape made sure they leave behind.   My hatred for Snape grew stronger the longer I looked over the room. It didn't take a master aurour to piece together some of the atrocities that went on in this room based solely on the state of things. If I wasn’t so desperate to preserve the scene in efforts to find Draco faster, I would have blown the room apart.  

Azkaban

Snape slinks through the prison easily and without attracting any attention. It’s a true testament to how snake-like the slytherin truly is. Moving silently and efficiency through the shadows had started as a defence against school bullies but now serves him in the real world, hiding from forces much, much stronger.  “Lucius?” The hollowed out shell of a man blinks up from his cell, his pale, empty eyes growing wide when he sees the other man’s face.  “Severus!” “Silence!” Snape bites, because his invisibility only extends so far. If Lucius screams his attendance it doesn't matter how fast he moved past the guards.  “Yes, sorry, sorry my friend, it's just- so good to see you! You don’t know what it's like here.” “I've been working on your case,” Snape maneuvers past pleasantries onto the task at hand. “Crafting alibis. It hasn't been easy.” “And my son, how, how is he?” Lucius asks, face obviously fighting to will down tears that wish to spill.  Severus doesn't blink when he lies.   “He’s dead.” “W-What?” “Slain, by Harry Potter. I tried to keep Draco hidden. But you know him, his disobedience has never been able to be reigned. He snuck out, and was executed.” “Draco- Draco is-”  Snape grabs Lucius’ hand through the bars.  “Yes, but you are not, Lucius. We don’t have time to grieve, every minute we wait, is another day closer to your execution.” “You're right, you're right,” Lucius sniffles, squeezing Snape’s hand before breaking away to wipe away his tears. “Thank you my friend, I don't know where I’d be without you.”

Edinburgh flat

I'm still not sure what pulls me in the direction of this evidence, whether it's my intuition or something magical but im both infinitely grateful and horrified to have followed this instinct to fruition.  The notebook I found was buried under a magical spell ive never seen before. Thankfully, brilliant Hermione has, and after a moment, the chest is unlocking, revealing a single book. Theres no outside descriptors, and the magic glamour on it is making it look older than it is. Another disguise to shroud its contents.  The bad feeling grows stronger as I leaf through the parchment pages.  - I’m barely through week two of Draco’s retellings of his torturous days in Snape’s care before my guts are spilling all over the floor of the flat.  “Oy! Gross Harry!” Ron scolds, which is fair, I nearly hit him with it.  “Are you alright?” Hermione asks, rushing to my side.  I drop the book and shake my head. I can't look at it any more. I know I need to. To help find Draco. But I can’t right now.  “What is that?” Ron asks and I can't make my mouth move.  He moves to pick up the book and I snap. “DON’T FUCKING TOUCH THAT!” Ron’s hands go up in reflexive surrender, “Whoa! Hell Harry! Okay!” “Harry,” Hermione asks again, her own fear and concern growing stronger, “what is it?” I close my eyes and exhale.  “It's so much worse than we thought…”

See you sunday! 😘

[vixendoesstuff]

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

ARIGHT, SO-

Continuing on where I left of, the gang sets of on their sentient hot air balloon to the outside world, to meet the other Troll tribes and, in Poppy's words, to "unite them in Barb's grand World Tour plan to make one big party again". And also to possibly find Cooper and Branch's respective tribes.

Generally speaking, the plot of this part of the saga doesn't change much beyond character interaction and mini events diverging from canon. Branch being a Techno Troll doesn't change a whole lot in the grand scheme of things, so this is what you get.

Anyway, onto the story!

The gang (Poppy, Branch and Cooper) decided that their first destination is Symphonyville, in Classical Troll territory. They decided on that since its the closest place to Pop territory relatively speaking and that, after some begging from Poppy and Cooper's part, Branch relented and told them of his hypothesis of his possible tribe relation to one of the 6 tribes mentioned in the scrapbook; that being the Techno Trolls, to the far east of Classical Troll territory.

Obviously Poppy is ecstatic of this news and can't wait for Branch to meet his possible tribe members. Then she asked Cooper if he knows what his possible Troll kin looked like, since by now it's up in the air that Cooper is not a Pop Troll and is in fact one of the 6 Troll tribes mentioned there. Cooper told them of his own hypothesis after admitting he snooped around to the scrapbook when no one as looking, to Branch's chagrin. But he is somewhat happy nonetheless, since the two are sort of on the same boat, with the whole "apparently we're not the only ones that look the way we are", sort of thing.

All the happy chatter is cut short when they arrive at Symphonyville to fine the place ransacked to the ground up, scorched mountains and ruined buildings as far as the eyes can see. After hearing the explanation of what happened from a little whistle critter (I'm assuming Pennywhistle's a critter) the trio were devastated and shocked. Barb doesn't wanna unite them; she wants to destroy them.

The three of them are undoubtedly disturbed and horrified by the news. Poppy and Cooper was under the impression that Barb just wanted all the tribes to unite so they could have one big party again, just like they used to do before their separation. But to see the destruction caused by Queen Barb, who had declared her World Tour not out of good intent but for evil; it scared them, to say the least.

Branch was silently panicking. The information that he's not the only one out there was shocking at first, and then terrifying. But later on it turned into intrigue. He was always curious what was out there beyond the borders of the village. He never dared go out there because of his paranoia of the Bergens at the time. But now he really has no real reason to keep staying inside the village borders and explore what the world has to offer. Try as he might, he was excited to meet his own kind out there.

But now with Queen Barb's world domination plan by destroying and stealing everyone's music made him think that he shouldn't have come on this mission at all.

He dismissed his plans on meeting his kin; the safety of the people he had come to love and cherish, the people that he had grown up with for all his life, no matter the relation, comes first before his potential kind, as cruel as it sounds.

He said so to the others, saying that Barb's plan will endanger everyone in the village, and their string in turn. Only for Poppy to reveal that she has the string on her, to Branch's disbelief. After some arguing they decided to warn the other tribes of this news, to avoid any further confrontation from the Rock Queen and possibly find a way to stop her.

Lonesome Flats of the Country Troll's territory is their next stop, since it's right beside Symphonyville. Right away Branch is uncomfortable in this place, the heat not doing his skin any good. Good thing Cooper offered his cloak, or else Branch might've melted under the sun lol.

They soon encountered the Country Troll's home, where they witness the way these Trolls sing and dance. Poppy and, to an extent Cooper, found their way of doing things kinda depressing, Branch says that it fits them and he likes it. Poppy then decided to sing them a medley to teach them that music is supposed to make them feel happy and dresses them up in that extravagant pop outfits they wore in the movie (I might draw them in the future, who knows).

Before they (ie Poppy and Cooper, Branch decided not to participate due to obvious reasons) could go halfway through the song, Branch stops them after seeing how disturbed and annoyed the Trolls here are. He then reprimanded them, saying that maybe they don't want a song medley from a genre they're unfamiliar with forced down their throats; maybe they like their sad and depressing songs.

Delta Dawn soon cuts in their convo and agrees with Branch's statements, before demanding why three weird looking Trolls are in her town snooping around and singing cheerful songs (that makes her want to puke lol). They quickly explain Barb's World Tour and her plans to steal all the strings so that only Rock would survive. Obviously this unnerves Delta and the rest of the Country Trolls, so the trio and them gathered around to discuss possible plans to stop them.

Poppy, Cooper and Branch don't stay long 'cause they still need to warn the other remaining tribe of this news, and Branch is suffering under the heat. Delta thanks them for their forewarning and sent them off with some extra supplies for them to reach the Funk Trolls on the west side (which excites Cooper since he's about to meet his own tribe for the first time). Before they got far, a Country Troll catches up to them, claiming that he's their delegate to get to the Funk Trolls safely, introducing himself as Hickory.

Since they don't get chased out of town like in the movie, the journey to Vibe City here is relatively peaceful. Poppy and Cooper gleefully initiates conversation with Hickory, with Branch sitting by the sidelines listening in. Branch is not as suspicious to Hickory as he is in the movie, as he has no real reason to be suspicious about since they parted with the Country Trolls on good terms. But he does sort of have a feeling that Hickory is not really telling the truth, because he doubts Delta Dawn would want one of her citizens to go out of her sight with the news of Barb's invasion coming along. So while he's civil with him, Branch keeps his distance.

Same thing happened in the movie with little conflict between the group, Chaz hypnotizing the crewmates except for Hickory (which kinda rings alarm bells in Branch's mind since during his interaction with the Country Trolls, they have little knowledge on the outside world, like the Pop Trolls do). He secretly shares his observation to Poppy, who reprimaded him for not trusting their friend. He rebutes back by saying that it's not that he doesn't trust him, but the possibility of him hiding something from them bases on the clues given is too much to ignore, which again, Poppy admonish.

Before they could go any further, suddenly a giant UFO was seen on the horizon coming their way, and before they know it, they all got bubble'd. Once they got inside the ship, they were amazed by the sights of futuristic looking equipments, dazzling lights, and most importantly, the Trolls. Cooper was over the moon when he realized where he is, as is Poppy and Branch to a lesser degree. They soon landed on a platform, where they're greeted by the person who beamed them up to Vibe City.

Prince Darnell, twin brother of lost "prince" Cooper.

Haha, cliffhanger! Suffer before my hands! But seriously, I just needed an excuse to split this into three parts, and this one's already long enough.

A lot of changes in this one. First, they don't get chased off of Lonesome Flats by Delta Dawn unlike in the movie. It's mostly 'cause of Branch and Cooper coming along, honestly. Branch, while being from another tribe but grown up with the Pop Trolls, can sorta understand the hesitance and wariness the Country Trolls have with Pop music. Imagined your hobby is cooking and suddenly this person comes up and forces you to do soccer 'cause they think it'll be "fun" for you more than cooking. It's kinda like that, and Branch can sorta see that point of view, even though he doesn't know any other music than Pop at this point.

Cooper will probably realize his mistake as soon as Branch told him as such (Poppy took a little longer to understand).

And since they parted ways with the Country Trolls on more or less good terms, Branch really has no concrete reason to fully distrust Hickory coming along. He finds it strange that he's coming along at all, as he thinks Delta Dawn as a person to want to keep all of her people under her watch during an invasion, no matter the reason. Taking that into account, Branch still won't give his full trust to Hickory, due to the reasoning above and that he's a wary person by nature. Who knows, maybe his suspicions of Hickory hiding something is right? (Oh, you're in for a surprise, Branch lol).

But anyway, sorry once again for the word vomit, I just like to ramble. Until next time!

[air-rising]

Ellie Carpenter calls out online abuse but shrugs off her own

“The bigger you get, the more criticism you get.”

Ellie Carpenter is authorised to speak on this subject. Mainly because her football career has got real big, real quick – she is 23, has been playing for global powerhouse Lyon for three years, and been the Matildas’ undisputed starting right-back for even longer.

But also because the peak of that career – playing in a World Cup semi-final in her home country – brought with it criticism which would more accurately be described as abhorrent social media trolling.

It happened in August, when Carpenter failed to clear a long ball that resulted in England’s second goal of the Lionesses’ 3-1 win. It was a mistake that left her visibly “heartbroken” after the match, but it did not warrant what former Socceroos captain Craig Foster described at the time as “vile, misogynistic garbage”.

The abuse forced her to limit replies on social media, which were also flooded with supportive messages from fans, friends and teammates, including captain Sam Kerr, who told media she was “mentally one of the toughest kids I’ve ever met in my life”.

Sometimes it is hard for an outsider to know how much this “outside noise” – as many sports people, including Carpenter, call it – affects the individual at its centre. For some, it can devastate mental health and on-field performance. If that is the case with Carpenter, you wouldn’t know it.

Two months after the World Cup, she has been back in the thick of it with Lyon, who are once more top of France’s Division 1 Feminine table, and is now back in Australia answering questions about online abuse she would probably rather not be answering.

“To be honest, I don’t really read or look into that,” she says in Perth, where the Matildas are preparing to play three Olympic qualifiers.

“It doesn’t really affect me at all, because I do a job for my team and myself. I don’t really listen to outside noise. I had a great support system around me during that time, and just during the whole World Cup really.

“It [online abuse] is everywhere these days, and that just shows that the bigger you are, or the bigger you get, the more criticism you get. That comes with being a professional athlete as well.

“You see it everywhere in different leagues, different sport codes. So obviously it’s a problem, and I know a lot of people are trying to make apps and platforms to try and stop abuse and things like that, so that’s good that people are aware of it and are trying to change it.”

Carpenter is an old, independent soul for her 23 years. When she contested the World Cup, she did so after recovering from an ACL rupture, in another country, and opting for little personal support except from her partner and teammate, Dutch international Daniëlle van de Donk.

“You have to grow up very quickly,” she says. “I moved out of home when I was 15 and was living by myself, so you grow up automatically.

“I didn’t really get much downtime [after the World Cup]. You just kind of go straight into a new season, so you don’t really have time to reflect or stop for a second.

“But it’s been incredible to see the aftermath of the World Cup and what we’ve done in football and Australia, and for women as well. I can definitely be proud of that.”

Carpenter is allowing herself to enjoy her time in Perth. She was released early by her club and arrived over the weekend, so enjoyed a couple of extra days to recover from jet lag.

[windvexer]

"And it's not like the spell is locked behind a glass wall in some faraway astral space (or at least, it shouldn't be... it can be. This is too much for one post, let's stay on topic)" oh please, please elaborate! 🙏

its all well and good for me to use a metaphor that magic is ever-present and really close at hand, nigh tangible, even,

but there's obviously more than that to successful manifestation.

like it's an actual large deal in practical sorcery of how the hell you get the spell to do something, or much more relevantly do what you want it to do.

so a while ago I used to talk on manifestation using a metaphor that there is a conceptual sphere of glass that separates physical reality from magical reality.

as the metaphor (analogy?) would have it, you can set intent and focus willpower and manipulate astral energies all you want, but those things are stuck in magical reality, blocked from manifesting in the physical world by the glass.

so the spell, obviously it's a good boy and it wants to be helpful, it's going around and around the glass looking for a crack or a foothold to find its way into physical reality.

but this spell is made out of a finite blob of energy. sooner or later, the battery is going to run dry. and all that time it's spending trying to get into our world is burning energy.

by the time it gets here, it could have burned a lot of energy and it doesn't have a lot left to produce strong results. or maybe it doesn't find its way at all.

if this is all true, then the solution is to make cracks in the glass yourself.

overall it's a pretty rough analogy and I'm not even terribly sure if I'd consider it to be more than a parable at this point.

to mash this idea together with the underwater shark thing, the concept would sort of be like...

okay, so let's say metaphorically half of a person is above water and the rest is underwater.

and we're where there are sharks, which means the WHOLE OCEAN is under there.

maybe the ocean is an elegant metaphor for the supreme depths of magical reality. certain layers of magical reality are very close to the surface and truly are interacting with the floating humans, right?

but we can go deeper, and deeper, and deeper.

it wouldn't be true to say that a fish from a mile down is touching the floating humans. it's actually really far away and has a long way to travel before it could touch them at all.

so hypothetically, while all humans are (hypothetically) always partially within magical reality, that doesn't mean that everything within magical reality is close to them or can easily access them.

and this would also be true of spells, when the sorcerer has inadequately developed the spell too far down (or too far up), or failed to properly draw the spell to the surface.

of course, all of these ideas assume it's true that when spells are created they exist somewhere far away, or in any location at all.

just to clarify I think all of these ideas are most useful when treated as thought exercises and not in any sense literal. I think its perhaps true of witchcraft, or at least the kinds of witchcraft I'm familiar with, that one of the witch's primary sorcerous (and mystical) jobs is to "bridge the gap" and learn how to bring things back and forth between our world and the spirit world.

but even that being said, I think there's an element of mysticism in sorcerous witchcraft. I think maybe the best way to talk about it is in stories, or extended spatial analogies, because that's just about the truest way some of it can ever be written down.

sometimes I feel like if anyone can really write it down, like step-for-step for real, then it's got to be one tiny part of it. because it's a big machine out there, you know. it's so decadently complex that it might be more alive than we are.

so it's good to know how one or two cells work, step-for-step. but in the bigger picture, maybe the best way to impart knowledge is in stories and poetry.

and with some step-for-step details of the biology of a few kinds of cells, and with some nice poetry, maybe a person can crest a cliff and see something that will put its own stories inside of their mind forever.

which is to say that I don't know how magic works but i've seen some nice landscapes out there ✌

[maniculum]

Bestiaryposting Results: Zomargon

Another fairly obvious one -- perhaps made more so by the fact that I left a couple identifying terms in. Usually I try and sift those out: e.g., for the deer I replaced "doe" with "female [X]" and for the wild ass I replaced "bray" with "call". This time Past Me apparently didn't think to replace "trumpet" or "trunk". Whoops.

General note, please forgive if this seems disorganized or rushed; I'm a bit feverish I think.

Anyway, here's the entry:

If anyone was confused by all that, please see https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting. Art below in rough chronological order.

@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) took this in a truly delightful direction. The animal itself is very good, and I think the little sketches really enhance it, but the in-depth explanation of their design decisions in the linked post is what really makes it. Genuinely very charming animal in that context; I like it a lot.

@sweetlyfez (link to post here) gives us a beast complete with a warrior-tower-arrangement on its back. Genuinely a pretty good fit for the entry all around, and of course the real gem is the hairdo. Hey, the entry says it has hair, it's up to the artist to decide how to style it.

@moonygryffin (link to post here) has drawn "Mammoth Cube", which until just this moment I has no idea was a thing. Have to give it to them, though, that animal clearly has no knees and would be really easy to put a tower on top of. Good work, cube.

... dating myself a bit there... wait, that strip is still going? Huh. Anyway.

@pomrania (link to post here) has created another Strange Mammal. There's something about the stylized profile views they draw sometimes that really appeal to me. Also, the Zomargon is of course an ace icon -- it's right there in the first sentence of the entry -- so instead of carrying people into battle, it's carrying them in a pride parade. Good for them.

@coolest-capybara (link to post here) has laid out this illustration in a very appealing way, I think. I'm not a real art critic, so I can't say why, but I just like it. I also like the general design here -- both that they're giant boars with skinny stilt legs, and that the domestic and wild versions differ in the same way as domestic and wild pigs. Additionally, I'm glad someone decided to illustrate the mandrake-courtship thing, because I thought that was an interesting concept.

@cheapsweets (link to post here) gives us this nicely sepia-inked illustration. I like the little sketches; for these entries with lots of details, I think it's nice to toss some extra stuff in the margins. Also the design of the snout and tusks is just really good, in my opinion. As usual, for interesting details and design choices, please check out the linked post.

Aberdeen Bestiary time!

... well, okay, not actually. A good chunk of the entry is left, but the page with the illustration on it is missing, so we're going to the Ashmole Bestiary again.

All right, so this is obviously the elephant, but I don't like any of this.

Maybe the proportions are just off, or maybe the illustrator didn't really believe how big elephants were, but that elephant is not big enough to be carrying that tower thing and four knights. The tower is nearly as big as the elephant is!

And that guy in front doing the steering -- you can't use reins? You have to use a chain that's attached to its trunk like the world's most inconvenient nose piercing? And what is that stick for, exactly? Unacceptable.

Maybe this is my modern bias, but I really feel this could have been a very cool illustration if they weren't being gratuitously cruel to the elephant. They even gave it a distressed-looking face! Why, good sir?

[ma-lark-ey]

Lark Liveblogs Literature: THE SUNSHINE COURT BABYYYYY LETS GO JEAN

to begin: THE COVER???

The fucking NARCISSUS/DAFFODIL. Stop stop stop. Nora stop. She said it wouldn’t be a sun but I WASNT READY.

RESILIENCE. FIRST BLOOM AT THE END OF WINTER. NEW BEGINNINGS AND REBIRTH.

warning in advance for how many reaction images will be in this post. Miss Nora Sakavic has a way of making me unable to verbalise how devistated I am so I turn to goofy photos.

Also, just so we’re all on the same page:

it’s 1:20 AM. My roommate IS asleep. I am fighting the demons (downloading this book) but i am winning (it is queued on my kindle)

ITS DOWNLOADED LETS GO

Okay so context is that my Kindle is at 10%

I tried to go to bed and read this in the morning but I am

SO NOW I HAVE FRANTICALLY FOUGHT A WAR (figured out how to get this book) AND I AM READY FOR BATTLE (to cry over Jean)

ONE, TWO, THREE, LETS GO BITCH!!

Also my kindle cord is too small for me to properly lay in bed so im literally about to lay on my stomach kicking my feet like a middle schooler WISH. ME. LUCK.

CHAPTER ONE:

oh we’re jumping right in okay. god. hi baby :((

OH. I am just adding onto my #1 Riko hater agenda right now.

“The golden rule— not where the public can see” DIE. LITERALLY DIE TETSUJI

“The lack of broken fingers this time” THIS TIME??? JEAN. JEAN.

im so.

RENEE!!!

“and he had wasted them texting Renee a heads-up.” Nora please we’re only four pages in bro

Renee i love you im marrying you please give me a kiss. Mwah Mwah Mwah. She said “Bitch. Lay back down.”

currently also reading a batshit raven!neil fic and just. on the ground. about all of this.

stop the way I literally went “who the fuck is Nathaniel” Im too transgender for this.

Me, seeing the Abby content we need in this world:

Jean dont call that hellscape home bbg

Renee beating self worth into this man. ily

“Jean couldnt remember the last time he was allowed to wear color” LITERALLY KILL ME

Nora I need you to be less good at describing pain please and thanks

NOT THE BITING

DADMACK DADMACK DADMACK DADMACK!!

he fr be moving this man like a doll. love you wymack

tied him up with racquet laces I. h. lays on floor softly crying.

NOT THE DADDY ISSUES

Jean fr out here plotting 50 ways to kill his brother. he fr though Neil was the problem. no girl Neil just has no tact and autism rizz. Kevins the fucking snitch

no one:

Jean @ the Moriyamas;

“that man is years overdue for a head-on high-speed collision” YOU TELL EM DADMACK

CHAPTER TWO:

Jean please just sleep like a normal human man. God.

Even Jean be out here like “Kevins a little Chihuahua ass drama queen. Bitchboy. Wet cat man.”

Kevin: look, bro, if the 5’3 twink with enough daddy issues to make riko blush and chugs ‘fuck around and find out’ juice for breakfast can escape the moriyamas and not die, so can you.

Testuji. Testuji when I catch you. Tetsuji

Jean what the fuck makes you think anyone but Andrew Minyard will ever tell Neil what to do. Girl.

“If I am not a Raven, who am I?” A MOTHERCUCKING TROJAN BABYYYY

“I have to go to my next class.” I forgot they were in college deadass. Neil is straight up my age im gonna throw up.

Okay. It is. *checks time* 3 AM. I cannot keep my eyes open, which means i must put Jean away for sleep.

ITS IS NOON THE FOLLOWING DAY. I HAVE SLEPT. I HAVE TAKEN MY MEDICATIONS. TIME TO HYPERFOCUS BABY.

KINDLE SAYS WE HAVE 8 hrs 27 mins LEFT IN THIS BOOK. IM SAYING GOODBYE TO MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY. I’LL SEE Y’ALL AT DINNEE TIME. ITS JEAN TIME.

Hiiiiiii Thea….

“Good morning, Paris.” Now, the average man will see this as a reference to his frenchness. but real ones know Paris is prince of Troy, the man who married Helen of Troy & started the Trojan war.

do y’all think Jean has a french accent wait wait wait. obviously itd be very slight at this point but is it there. necessary question.

Assessing Thea like a fucking state exam right now. Neil could not have cared less about your ass I am gaining so much information

Hate of my life Riko moriyama.

CHAPTER THREE:

JEREMY FUCKING KNOW HI BAYYYBY

the way I literally got up and had to pace and stim for a moment even though I fully expected this. autism. my roommate is concerned. not really. she’s used to this she watched me read TKM and dramatically reenact the Ichirou Car Talk.

wow??? AFTG team actually seems happy and well-adjusted and friendly with each other??

Random Note: I’m currently watching Blue Exorcist & one of the main characters is a girl name Moriyama and I’m literally just sitting here like “This girl is way to nice and innocent to have that name.” Because she literally is the nicest girl to ever exist. Why is she cursed with the same name as my mortal enemy (Testuji)

“Tonight’s experiment was the icing on the cake, an invaluable experience no matter how it ended.” Jeremy, my love.

He has empathy… Never before seen footage. Y’all get the cameras!!

He’s so shaken about Jean,,, holding you so gently Jeremy. Here as a guy who knows nothing at all about Jeremy since I’m. so new here. but god.

Jeremy: are you sure a Raven can abide by Troja—

Kevin: Bro Jean is so pathetic he’s a bottom fr. He never disobeys an order

Jeremy: I. Okay you didnt have to say it like that, bro.

I will literally never stop respecting the Trojans strat in the final they really said. “If these fucks can win the championships with nine players, surely we can.” and then willingly got their asses handed to them.

“Xavier stumbled when he got the next serve off, and the Fox guarding him gamely hauled him back upright before running for the ball. It was a simple gesture, but it endeared Jeremy to them” I dont remember if this bit was described in tkm so i’m going to guess that’s Nicky or Matt. Aaron would fucking never.

Nah because like. Yes this proved to the Trojans how resilient the Foxes were, but it was also a message to the audience, yk? Like we know the Foxes were getting shit for their quick rise to the top after they pulled their shit together, but I personally think that the Trojans did this both for their improvement & for Foxes’ publicity. This game proved to the public at large how devastatingly *good* the Foxes were, because of their small size. The second best team in the league crumbled playing the same conditions the Foxes did *every game* and got to championships with. They proved that Foxes were, in fact, a D1 team who earned their keep.

oh hes got daddy’s money. Well. not. officially. yo what I mean.

“it was always best to have a paper trail” Neil Josten would have an anuerysm hearing those words.

Bye Jeremy I’m. Love you so much. Why do you feel like a sixty year old man in your early twenties.

“between seven and twelve students.” yikes.

“unfamiliar and accented voice.” I WAS RIGHT I FUCKING CALLED IY HES GOT AN ACCENT BABY FUCK YEAH

“you ever feel like— like you’re making a choice you cant come back from? But even knowing everything could go completely sideways, you’d make that choice every time?” okay so coming out allegories i could make aside, Jeremy is so… where to start with him. He reminds me of Percy Jackson. Endlessly loyal and selfless to the point its a bit stupid but endearingly stupid.

CHAPTER FOUR:

Okay so we’re alresdy hateflirting. noted.

Its also extremely sunny today in Podunk Hicksville where I live so it feels very On Brand.

“Jean had seen that smile in a half-dozen broadcast… He could picture it too easily, and he dug his fingernails into his own face in vicious warning.” Awww you think you can best the gay worms in your brain. goodluck with that Johnny.

“isn’t that reason enough to keep living? To rediscover simple delight one moment at a time,” keeping this quote for eternity

“enough sunlight to chase away Evermore’s shadows. They are willing to take a chance on you. Aren’t you?”

Kevin Day autistic king. taking this hesdcannon to my grave .

“the conspiracy theorists were working overtime” no girl they just aint stupid.

THEY DESTROYED HIS POSTCARDS…

CHAPTER FIVE:

I want to start keeping record of all the times Jean is like “[name] wasn’t decent enough to [thing]” because its SO funny. We LOVE a petty king.

also keeping track of all the insults he throws at Neil.

Neil likes to think he’s SUUUUCH a loner boy no friends angsty “dont speak to me” resting bitch face ass motherfucker. In reality he is a jack russell terrier — ceritifed jack russell owner who’s dog thinks hes soooo big and bad but said dog literally cries when you dont let him in the bed or say hi to people on the street

Jean is SOOOOOO dramatic 😭😭

Jean: Why would you let Kevin do this.

Neil: let him?? He did that on his own.

Jean: you’re proud of him for being a problem, arent you?

Neil: oh you fucking know I am, bitchass

“but other than his outstanding murder charge there was nothing interesting about that Fox.” i’d consider that very interesting information, Jean. Youre just deranged

“with milk, juice, and vodka dominating one shelf” that’s Aaron, Nicky, Andrew/Kevin in order. Im correct.

“There was an entire drawer dedicated to cheese.” Yeah that sounds like Nicky.

“Half the drawer was full of mini candy bars. Jean threw them all into the trash” bro Andrew is going to kill you in cold blood and not even Neil can save you.

Jean is SO dramatic. Give him Kevin’s crown.

Jean @ Neil during the final: ARE YOU WITHOUT INTELLIGENCE????? ARE YOU STUPID??? DO YOU WANT TO DIE??

Seeing the media coverage of the championship is the food I needed thank you Nora for this. I am eating it up. om nom nom

The sportscasters referring to athletes with their first name is batshit. What. why. huh. Absolutely not.

CHAPTER SIX:

Renee protecting Jean from discovering Riko’s death through media & not through them…

Everytime boys start fistfighting in this series I hear Roxanne from Megamind. “Ladies, ladies, you’re BOTH pretty.”

a) Jeans reaction to finding out was exaclty what I expected

b) I’m FASCINATED to know who called campus security. Jeremy?? Renee?? Someone in Fox tower???

Neil was gentle with someone other than Andrew? I didnt know he knew how to do that…

NEIL. NEIL JOSTEN. YEAH BABY

HES ROOMING WITH CAT AND LAILA??? YES YEA YES YESY

the Jean-Renee dynamic is so fucking important to me. MLM/WLW solidarity. theyre besties.

THEYRE SO IMPORTANT TO ME BRO.

Literally snuggling Jeremy

Oh he’s got Fox potential. Hiiii Jeremy. Give me the traumadump bbg

THEY/THEM??? DO MY EYES DECEIVE ME OR IS THIS AN HONEST TO GOD THEY/THEM PLAYER OH ILL CRY. ILL CRU RIGHT NOW

CHAPTER SEVEN:

Oh Jean. you’re about to have such a gay awakening babe i can feel it in my bones.

A FUCKING YOYO??? I LOVE HIM

“A mite bit hecked up” PLEEEASE JUST SAY FUCK /ref

OH HE WAS IN LOVE WITH KEVIN. INTERESTING INTERESTING INTERESTING.

autism coded lookingg motherfucker (stares at Jean.)

The chaos of Cat and Laila’s house is so fucking cute. Its about to be two lesbians and their distrustful pitbull rescue in this bitch and im ready for it.

CHAPTER EIGHT:

watching normal people discover the cult that is Evermore. Finally someone having a normal response to that madness. What the FUCK.

wait theres actually a cardboard dog i thought it was fanon joke.

oh my god there is actually a fucking cardboard dog. i.

jeans brain just got actually shattered by this living room. he cannot comprehend this.

Cat & Jeremy, realizing the cult rumors are real: I THOUGHT YOU WERE KIDDING! I thought it was joke! I even wrote it down in my diary! “Kevin made a very funny joke today!” I laughed at it later that night!

Okay, last night; I went to bed at 2:30 AM 45% through (college my beloathed). we’re back in business.

Jeremy is so disturbed all of the time. goofy ass.

“Loving something is not enough,”

“When was the last time you enjoyed playing?”

“ Irrelevant.”

Whats his shirt look like Jeremy. Jeremy whats the shirt look like. Jeremy. Whats the shirt look like.

Okay so I’ve reached my image limit for this post and I dont have fun reaction images on my laptop. so now I will post this & reblog with the rest of this book.

[idiopathicsmile]

10 comebacks to a woman who once told my best friend, then a chicagoan (like i was), "i love coming to chicago because in new york i'm an 8 but in chicago i'm a 10"

"exactly, that's something i love about living here, you know? it's not as surface-oriented and shallow as some other cities. like, the culture's just a little deeper and a little smarter than in places where everyone's only concentrating on looking their best at all times, you know?"

"oh wow, you really said that with your out-loud voice, huh?"

(LAUGHTER) "yeah, you're a ten here. sure you are." (LAUGHTER)

"just wondering: in the moments before that comment left your mouth, did you take a second to imagine how we, a bunch of people who very obviously live in chicago, would react? if no, why not? if yes, what on earth did you see? please write in complete sentences in the booklet provided. you will have thirty minutes."

"my god, do you assign yourself a number comparing your appearance to the appearances of the people around you everywhere you go? you know we have a limited amount of time on this earth, right? you know that after that, we die and death is forever, right?"

"hurrah, i've done it! i've finally met the one human on the planet who is capable of objectively, correctly assessing the relative attractiveness of everyone everywhere on earth. please, oh please pray tell: what number am i? what number is he? what number is she? numbers all around, please!"

"what an exhausting way to live. what a tiring way of interacting with other people. what a dispiriting way to view the world around you, a world teeming with life and strangeness and possibility. serious question: are you alright?"

"i was going to make a crack about new yorkers being looks-obsessed, but in retrospect i have no idea why. i'm sorry. i genuinely have nothing against nyc, a location i have visited only a handful of times, including one trip to see the very person to whom you made your ill-advised remark, lo these years ago, and we had what i would call a magical time. i don't actually understand pitting one city against another. i don't understand the mentality that there must always be a ranking, must always be a competition, must always, always be a winner and a loser. also if you're a ten, everyone else here is a twelve, baby."

"on some level, i do understand that eventually this ceases to be a piece about the irritating thing a friend's work colleague once said, and instead becomes a chronicle of my own deranged inability to let a grudge go—even a petty grudge, even a second-hand grudge, even a grudge which i am again compelled to inform you saw its spark of creation multiple years and several moves ago. (neither the friend nor i live in chicago anymore.) on some level, i understand that this turning point, the moment where any sensible reader went "yikes, jess really hasn't let this go, huh?" might have happened in the very title of this post. i have never met you, woman who maybe five years ago told some chicagoans you worked with that you're an 8 in new york and a 10 in chicago. you could have changed since then. you could have grown and deepened and evolved your thinking. i do believe people are capable of learning. maybe you even remember saying it, and regret it now. maybe not. but to be honest, worse things have been said—to me, to my best friend, to everyone who has been on this planet longer than a few years. life is exhausting and scary and wonderful and we are all going to die some day. you are an adult and that means you have had hard days, hard weeks, hard years even. you have been heartbroken, and sick with worry, and you have known terror, real terror, that animal fear that crawls up the spine and screams in the brain, and yet you found it in yourself to get in a airplane and fly halfway across a large country to be here, for the sake of a job you might not even like. we are all doing the best we can. i have to believe we are all doing the best we can. i could have written this post about anything. there were near-infinite possibilities and i chose this, a mean little caricature, and in trying to paint you, only managed a quick and unflattering sketch of me, a person obsessed with being right and being clever, but who frequently is neither. again, i have never met you, and if i do meet you i will never know it, and i have spent more brain space imagining a tiny, bitter vengeance against this single-sentence quote, relayed to me at a remove, than i have spent trying to learn calculus or teaching myself to garden or volunteering at a soup kitchen. if there ever was a winner or a loser in this bizarre equation it is fully possible that i have lost, simply by trying so hard to win."

"...ok."