#and then i ignored half of it in favor of particular ~aesthetics~. thank you and i'm so sorry XD;;)

[dandelion-wings]

anyway now that I am Being Brave I can post a tiny excerpt of the current project that is consuming my brain, which is more Lisa/Jean/Kaeya omegaverse but with different alt-bio from the existing Lisa/Jean/Kaeya omegaverse:

Lisa gives him a too-thoughtful look and then says, far too reasonably for the words, "Jean could always be your partner for it." He opens his mouth to protest. Jean is her *mate*, and thus the last person Lisa should be volunteering to share another omega's bed. She swept away any dreams Kaeya might have had about Jean the moment she swept into Jean's life, and he knows that she knows that. But she's smiling at him, as pleased with her own notion as a cat with cream, and Jean is nodding. "If you would be comfortable with that, it may be the best solution." "So Lisa is going to play at Acting Acting Grand Master while you-" all the terms that come to mind feel wildly inappropriate to say in front of Jean, *about* Jean "-handle this?" "Of course not, cutie." Lisa pats his arm. "I'll be there too. As long as we're efficient about triggering Jean's rut, it shouldn't take more than a few days to get you out of heat again. Hertha can handle things for that long."

[ellewriteswrongs]

layers of love - prinxiety

1.8k words

ao3 / ko-fi / previous work

summary: self-indulgent fluffy prinxiety, very domestic, some shrek references, y'all know the drill

cw: mild swearing, slight innuendo/suggestive dialogue

“Hey, can I ask you something?” Virgil asked from where he laid against his boyfriend’s chest. Roman’s hand stilled as he played with Virgil’s hair.

“Hmm?” He hummed, continuing to rock them with one leg hanging out of their shared hammock. “‘Course you can.”

Virgil made something akin to a purr as he laid in the sun, his hoodie discarded for once.

“When you first said you loved me…was it scary?”

Roman’s brow furrowed at the question, leaning back to try and see the other man’s face.

“Scary? I…I guess I don’t know. I think, in the moment, it just felt right,” he spoke with a soft smile, pausing only to plant a kiss on the other man’s forehead. “But ever since I realized it…every time I thought about saying it, I was terrified.”

When Virgil only shifted, tightening his grip around Roman’s waist, the latter continued.

“I was so worried you’d be freaked out and think I was moving too fast and the last thing I ever wanted was to scare you off, but I…” he trailed off, letting out an amused chuckle. “I was only ever afraid of losing you. Loving you has never scared me.”

Virgil hummed, leaning up to steal a lazy kiss from the corner of Roman’s lips.

“But what about all those stupid stories you like?” He smirked, folding his arms over Roman’s chest as he rested his chin on them. “Quite a bit of pressure there, Princey.”

Roman chuckled, twirling a particular strand of hair around his finger.

“Ahh yes, those stupid fairytales that you make me read to you all the time,” he teased, earning a playful slap on his shoulder. “I’ll have you know, I have more than enough understanding of when dramatic proclamations of my undying love are unwanted.”

Virgil just exhaled a short chuckle, reaching to pull Roman’s hand out of his hair and over to hold it against his cheek, first pressing a kiss into the palm.

“Isn’t that why it’s such a big deal though?” He mused, his eyes half-focused on the beach around them. “Like, isn’t the whole point of falling in love so that something changes once you say it? And…and nothing changed when we said it.”

Roman stiffed a little bit from under him. “Did you…want something to change?”

No. No, of course he didn’t. That was the best part about it.

He told Roman as such.

“I guess I just…always thought something would change, even if we didn’t really want it to,” he explained, closing his eyes as Roman started playing with his hair again. “But I like how we are. How we’ve always been.”

“How we’ve always been? I don’t know about you, stormcloud, but I think things have definitely changed for the better.”

Virgil huffed with a small smile.

“Alright, fine,” he said, his cheeks hot. “I’m glad we changed even if it was just a little.”

Roman chuckled, his chest vibrating comfortingly against Virgil’s head.

“Yeah, I think I like you a little bit more these days, sunshine.”

Virgil scoffed, jabbing Roman’s side with his elbow.

“Thanks, babe," he spoke teasingly. “What glowing praise."

Roman only wrapped both arms around him and squeezed tight, one hand cradling the back of his head and the other holding him by the waist.

"My darling dark and stormy knight,” Roman cooed dramatically, peppering kisses all over his face until the other started laughing. "The angel from my nightmares, oh how I adore you with everything I am."

Virgil smiled, his gaze soft and fond as he looked up at the man he loved.

"Mhm, that's more like it," he smirked, stealing a kiss. "I love you, dork."

Roman bent down to lean their foreheads together.

“What's with all the introspection, my love?"

"Good word, babe."

“Shut up, I'm just worried about you," Roman grumbled, tucking Virgil's head back under his chin.

"You're worried about me? Because I’m talking about being in love with you?" Virgil asked, taking one of Roman's hands to fiddle with his fingers.

"Well, you just don't...talk about it. We both don’t,” Roman explained, his voice vibrating through his chest. "And I'm glad we are, it's just...not what we do."

Virgil smiled, sighing contentedly.

"Nothing's wrong, I promise,” he assured him. "I guess I've just been thinking a lot lately."

"Oh wow, congrats," Roman teased with sarcastic claps.

“Shut up, oh my god,” Virgil complained, not even trying to hide his laughter. "I'm trying to be serious here."

"Alright, alright, I concede," Roman smiled, holding up his hands in mock surrender.

"I just kind of realized that I've been feeling different lately,” he started, causing Roman to immediately stiffen and lean back to see Virgil's face. Virgil smirked, rolling his eyes fondly. “I just told you nothing's wrong, chill babe."

"You telling me to chill out is quite ironic, methinks," Roman teased, relaxing back into the hammock. “It's not my fault you're rubbing off on me, Frank Fear-o.”

Virgil snorted a laugh at the nickname before he continued.

"Ever since we said it, I've just felt... better," he spoke, a soft smile on his face. "I don't even know how to explain it, it's just...better. I get headaches less, when I get anxious, it turns into panic attacks like half as much."

He paused as Roman's lips met his temple.

"And I think the strangest thing is," he spoke, propping himself up on his forearm to look down at his boyfriend

below him. “When you told me you loved me, I didn't doubt it for a second."

Roman gave a short, watery chuckle; his eyes tearing up just a little.

"Even just a year ago, I wouldn't've believed anybody who said that to me but you," he paused, reaching to squish Roman's cheeks with one hand until they both laughed. "I knew you'd never lie to me, but more than anything, I felt it."

He leaned in, intending to only steal a quick kiss before it swiftly escalated.

“Who knew you were such a sap?" Roman teased, breathing heavily as they eventually broke apart.

“Says you, Romeo."

“Oh, I wear that badge with pride, darling," he beamed. "According to Thomas' Twitter, I'm his 'simp' side."

Virgil snorted, laying back down as he leaned into Roman's shoulder.

"Okay, they're definitely right about that one,” he mumbled, ruffling the other’s curly hair affectionately. “I’ve got you wrapped around my finger and you can’t even deny it.”

Roman grabbed one of said fingers and brought it to his lips, planting a dramatic, drawn-out kiss with the most exaggerated noise he could.

“But of course!” He bellowed, earning a fond eye roll from his boyfriend. “For it is my only duty to bestow upon you all of the love one can possibly muster.”

Virgil quirked an eyebrow.

“I’m pretty sure you’ve got a few other duties, babe,” he challenged with a smirk. “Like maybe the concept pitch for the next scripted video that you haven’t done, or the notes for the editors, or the fact that Thomas hasn’t even picked up his ukulele since last year, or—“

“Okay! Okay, fine, I can’t devote my whole life to smothering you forever,” he agreed exasperatedly. “But if I could, I would.”

Virgil chuckled, folding his arms over Roman’s chest and resting his chin on top.

“Hmm, yeah I think I’d hate that.”

Roman gave an almost comical pout, pulling out the puppy dog eyes.

“Nope, absolutely not, you’re not getting me with that shit,” Virgil asserted, trying to maintain a firm tone as he came dangerously close to breaking into a smile. “Smother me twenty-four seven and I’ll dump you on the spot.”

Roman pulled a disbelieving face.

“You really think I’m buying that?” He smirked. “That you’d dump me for spoiling you absolutely rotten with my sweetness.”

He knew full well what he was doing.

“I need my space, princess,” he spoke, putting on a suave tone that he knew he wasn’t pulling off by the giggles that came from his boyfriend. “I gotta’ keep up the aesthetic.”

Roman brought Virgil’s hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to his knuckles.

“Alright, alright, I respect the commitment,” he spoke, punctuated by kisses from Virgil’s hand up to his shoulder. “It’s so tragic that Mr. Misery Business would rather brood than swoon.”

“Who says I can’t have both?” He grinned. “I’m multi-faceted these days, babe. I have layers.”

Roman snorted a laugh, ducking his head right by Virgil’s ear.

“Layers,” he spoke with a heavy Scottish accent, his hands squeezing Virgil’s sides. “Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. We both have layers.”

“Oh my god,” Virgil cackled with laughter. “I hate it. I hate you, never speak to me again.”

Roman smirked, unfazed.

“But Virgil, that’s what friends do, they forgive each other.”

“One more word and you’re not getting any kisses for the rest of the week.”

“It’s already Friday.”

“Well, I don’t exactly want to punish myself in the process.”

Roman flushed a little at the rare admittance of affection.

“You think you couldn’t go a full week without any kisses?”

“I mean,” Virgil spoke, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t exactly want to find out.”

He answered with a chaste kiss to the other man’s temple. “I guess the world may never know.”

“If Logan were here right now, he’d probably try to get us to find out.”

“Well, then it’s a good thing I never listen to the ol’ poindexter anyways,” Roman grinned, quirking an eyebrow.

“Ahh, yes, my favorite thing about you,” Virgil teased with a sly smirk. “How you’d rather be eternally petty than have an ounce of rational thought in that pretty little head of yours.”

Roman gave an offended scoff.

“You know what, I’m just going to ignore everything you just said in favor of the fact that you called me pretty,” he defended with a humph.

“Oh, you like that?” Virgil continued teasing. “As if you don’t already know you're pretty.”

Roman feigned his innocence.

“I’m afraid I haven’t the slightest idea, darling. Perhaps you’ll have to enlighten me on what you find so appealing,” he drawled, his voice syrupy sweet in a way that would’ve made Virgil weak in the knees if they weren’t currently lying on top of each other. “My cute button nose? Thick, wavy locks? Maybe my taut, round buttocks?”

Virgil barked out a laugh, rolling his eyes with fond exasperation.

“Pull another Shrek quote out of that ass and I’ll see to it that you won’t be able to sit for a week—a full week.”

Roman froze, his eyes widening in surprise.

“Is…is that a threat or a promise?”

Virgil just groaned, shoving him until the hammock teetered and he panicked, clinging back onto the other man. “You’ve been spending too much time with your brother.”

“You may be right, but this is certainly more fun, I must admit,” he sighed happily.

“Just shut up and take a nap, princess.”

“As you wish, my love.”

[lov3nerdstuff]

Voluptas Noctis Aeternae {Part 3.4}

*Severus Snape x OC*

Summary: It is the year 1983 when the ordinary life of Robin Mitchell takes a drastic turn: she is accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Despite the struggles of being a muggle-born in Slytherin, she soon discovers her passion for Potions, and even manages the impossible: gaining the favor of Severus Snape. Throughout the years, Robin finds that the not quite so ordinary Potions Professor goes from being a brooding stranger to being more than she had ever deemed possible. An ally, a mentor, a friend... and eventually, the person she loves the most. Through adventure, prophecies and the little struggles of daily life in a castle full of mysteries, Robin chooses a path for herself, an unlikely friendship blossoms into something more, and two people abandoned by the world can finally find a home.

General warnings: professor x student (however no underage romance), blood, violence, trauma, neglectful families, bullying, cursing

Words: 3.6k

Read Part 1.1 here! All Parts can be found on the Masterlist!

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Hogsmeade was quite as underwhelming as Robin had anticipated, but she found that she enjoyed it nonetheless. High street was crowded with students of all ages, as well as with adults of all ages, which overall was something Robin didn't enjoy. However the shops and taverns looked rather appealing in their particular aesthetic, and she made sure to actually take the time to visit some of them the next time she came here. Today however, she was on a mission.

Finding the way Professor Snape had described was easier than expected, and Robin had to snort at the sheer understatement of him saying students rarely came this way… Everything that lay off high street was practically void of any life in general! Deserted so much that she felt comfortable immediately. No people was better than too many people.

The walk to the shop wasn't actually all that long long, but then again, it was a really small village in general, so this was not at all surprising. Soon, Robin stood in front of the black building with the gold inscription and gave it a lookover. The place seemed dubious, gloomy and just so incredibly low profile that it must undoubtedly be important. Just the place she would expect nobody but Snape to know about. Now… she only needed to gather up the courage to go in. With a deep breath, Robin built up her walls to force all anxiety and doubt out of her mind. If there had ever been a time to allow herself to be bold, it was now. Bold, and stoic, and serious… sound familiar much? Robin rolled her eyes at herself, and opened the door.

"Scurry off, kid… This isn't a place for the innocent." A scratchy male voice greeted Robin the very moment she set foot into the shop.

"If you talk to all customers like that, I'm not surprised that I'm the only one in here. And the first in just how long…? Going by the dust on the shelves and the look on your face, I'd say it's been a while." She shot right back, a perfect copy of calm indifference on her face, even though her heart beat like crazy. No place for the innocent indeed.

The man's eyebrows lifted higher than Robin thought possible, and he let out a small laugh in accordance with his astonished expression. "Fast mouth for such a little thing… Say, how old are you anyway?"

Robin completely ignored the question and simply looked at the man for a moment, making it clear that she wasn't here to chat. Then she went straight to the core of her presence. "I need a variety of ingredients for a potion and I was told I could get them here."

The man lifted an eyebrow at Robin again, but his superior smirk vanished to make room for a neutral expression. Good, maybe he would actually start taking her seriously now. "You want to talk business, alright… Who told you that you could find what you need here, with me?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes! It matters because I haven't made my mind up if I'm gonna screw you over or not, and your affiliations could play an important part in that decision."

"Who says I can be screwed over in the first place?" Honestly, Robin didn't know why she didn't just tell the man that Snape had sent her. It would likely make things way easier for her to just rely on the professor's reputation. But then again, exactly that was the issue: Robin wanted to be taken seriously for her own sake. And she would never achieve that if she placed herself in Snape's shadow now. Then she'd never be more than the little errand girl.

"You'd be surprised who I've already conned… Wizards far more experienced, and witches far greater than you." The man chuckled. "But I like you, kid. No funny business. What do you need?"

Tersely, Robin read the list of ingredients to him and he moved through the room behind the counter to gather up the various things in return. A minute later, he placed what she'd asked for on the counter. Almost what she'd asked for.

"This isn't Abraxan hair. But you surely knew that already, seeing as you tried selling it to me. It's probably Granian, isn't it?" Robin commented with an (admittedly feigned) unimpressed expression. "I'll grant it to you, they're very similar, but not enough to fool me. You see, while Granian is originally grey in color, it can bleach out enough to turn white naturally. That however, even in the best cases, leaves it with just a hint of an undertone of a different color. Abraxan hair on the other hand is purely white by nature, and thus void of every and any undertone. Looking at this, there's definitely more grey than white in it, wouldn't you say?"

Now the man's jaw dropped in anything BUT amusement, and he looked as incredulous as any person probably could. Surely he hadn't seen that coming… but Robin for her part merely kept looking at him in perfect neutrality. After half a minute of dead silence, he finally spoke up with the first honest expression he had worn since Robin had entered the shop. "Who the hell are you?"

"Someone you don't want to screw over no matter who I'm affiliated with. Now, would you be so kind and bring me the correct ingredients?"

"As you wish." He replied immediately, finally void of all humor and joke, and went back to the shelves to bring out what looked like the same seven ingredients already present on the counter. Those ones he merely swiped out of the way, and placed the new items down with much more care than the first time. "Is this everything you need?"

Robin let her eyes travel over the ingredients slowly, considering and foremost conscious of the fact that she was being watched. The Abraxan hair now looked like what Robin assumed it was supposed to… and that was about everything she could tell. Honestly, to her, all of the other ingredients looked exactly the same as before. She had absolutely no knowledge about any of these items, leave alone any clue to identify if they were what they were supposed to be. It had merely been her dumb luck yet again that she had recently read an article about freaking Abraxan hair and it's astonishing similarities to Granian hair, and even more dumb luck that she had been right in calling him out. Dumb luck was rarely deserved… But she would still take as much of it as she could, as it obviously had just sufficed to make this man believe that she knew more than she actually did.

With her neutral facade still running smoothly, she looked back up at him behind the counter. "Yes, this will be everything. For now."

"You're freaking me out, Miss, but I do respect your knowledge. Not many people would've known the difference between those hairs, and I least expected it from s-..." He stopped mid-sentence as he noticed Robin's glare, then a muscle in his jaw ticked and he avoided her eyes in fairly obvious discomfort. "...from someone like you. This will be sixty five galleons."

"For account of Severus Snape."

"Bloody hell…" The man groaned and hid his face in his hands. "You're with him?!"

"Do you have a problem with that?" Robin rose her eyebrows in question and stared him down again, which clearly seemed to make him even more uncomfortable. On the inside, Robin's pride did a happy dance… she really was doing Snape justice here.

"Let's say I have a lot of respect for that man… But you're no better than him, looking like you can kill with your glares…" He made a face that was almost the opposite of the mocking distaste he'd shown her when she'd entered the shop. "Just take your stuff and go, will ya?"

With a small, innocent smile Robin packed the ingredients into her backpack and then looked back at the man once more while she made for the exit. "Thank you for your assistance. Have a nice day." Without waiting for a reply, she opened the door and let herself out into the street at last.

She managed to keep her neutral facade up until she took the first turn back towards high street. Then the grin on her face widened until it was simply unstoppable, and she had to walk up and down the alley a few times to calm down her racing heart and her lasting excitement. Bloody hell, that had been both absolutely exhilarating and absolutely frightening all at once. Robin couldn't believe that she had actually managed to be intimidating all on her own, and that she'd been taken seriously because of that. No wonder Snape preferred everyone to be intimidated by him… it surely was a good way to get respect.

Finally her heartbeat slowed down, and Robin made her way back to high street with a small smile. If she wasn't mistaken, there was a candy shop here in Hogsmeade… and Snape would surely still be stuck with David until dinner. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to visit that shop before heading back to the castle… maybe it wouldn't hurt to do something normal for once.

… … …

It was late afternoon when Robin left Hogsmeade to head back to the castle, not long after her quick visit to the candy shop had come to a rather sudden end when she had felt absolutely overwhelmed by a horde of people storming the shop, which then had resulted in Robin's immediate departure. Unfortunately, this was exactly the time when most other students decided to return to the school as well, which left Robin stuck in an entire throng of people on their slow trod back to Hogwarts.

"Didn't expect to see you here, jay, out of all people…" A boy one year above Robin spoke up as he fell into line with her. She didn't know him, not really… she only knew that he was one of the Slytherins who took particular joy in bullying her for some reason. She had never cared enough to find out more about him than that though.

"But then again, David did say something like that." He mused, shrugging, then skipped a step ahead and walked backwards as he looked at Robin. "He also said something about you getting him into trouble with Professor Snape, do you happen to know anything about that?"

Robin continued to ignore him, and simply looked at a point far behind his shoulder as she walked on. This kid was friends with David? And David had spilled the tea on the events of last night? Great… that certainly didn't make it easier to ignore his mocking. Robin would just have to stay neutral and ignore this incident, same as always. But obviously the boy wouldn't have that, and neither would his friends who Robin only noticed closing in as they had formed a loose circle around her already. Oh geez, she really wasn't in the mood to deal with these idiots right now… today had already been exhausting enough as it is.

"David said you would be running some errands for Snape today… Is that what you were doing in Hogsmeade?" He frowned at Robin with a mean grin. "You're such a teacher's pet, you know that jay?"

"If that's what it takes to talk to someone other than you idiots for a while, then yes, I'm indeed a teacher's pet. Happily." She replied at last, refusing to let that be used as an insult against her. Getting along with her professors was a good thing, getting along with Snape was great, even, and nobody could convince her otherwise.

"So what is it that you did for him in town? Got him some new torture device? Or poisoned a few people?" The boy mocked, and his friends proved themselves to be loyal peasants as they laughed about his every joke. Again, Robin decided to say nothing. Even if that wouldn't stop them from being jerks, it at least wouldn't make her one of them. Insults never led anywhere other than to more insults, and Robin could very well refrain from getting involved in it. That however was until their strategy changed from insults to actions. "Why don't we take a look into that backpack of yours, huh? See what you hide in there…"

In an instant, the boys beset her and the bag was ripped from her shoulders while they held her arms at her sides with two boys each. Alright, neutrality went a long way with Robin, but this was a step too far. In a natural response of fight or flight, she chose to fight indeed and moved to free her arms, actually succeeding in that, before she lunged at the boy in front of her. Nope, she wouldn't let this vile creature touch any of her belongings.

The boy barely escaped Robin as she jumped at him, but before she could make any attempt to either go at him again or draw her wand, he dashed off together with his friends, Robin's bag still in his hands. In an instant she was after them, not even caring if she had to push people out of the way or go at a full sprint over uneven ground to catch up with them. She would get that bag back, no matter what. This was the third time today she was forcefully reminded that she was only a student, one who didn't fit into her house, one who couldn't escape the cage she had been put into, one who couldn't even prevent getting involved in the childish behavior and shenanigans of her peers. However this time, for once, she had no other choice but to get her hands dirty as well.

… … …

It was over an hour later when Robin made it back into the castle, her bag clutched tightly in her blood and mud covered hands. Hopefully nobody would see her like this. Hopefully she could sneak past everyone despite the stupid limp caused by a twisted ankle. Hopefully… this day would just be over soon. Every step felt like a knife to the core, every inch of her skin burnt like it was clawed open and dipped in salt, and every muscle felt like it was ripped apart anew with each movement. Put shortly, Robin was in quite a bit of pain, but she refused to allow herself to cry over it, to even be bothered by it at all. She wouldn't give them that last pleasure, not even in their absence. She refused to acknowledge that their sheer idiocy had resulted in her getting hurt, even if it hadn't been their intention. There was only a certain capacity for emotions Robin could endure every day, and today she had long run out.

Once she caught sight of herself in the glass of a cabinet, she still had to close her eyes for a moment to force away the anger, and the embarrassment. Honestly, she could be partaking in a contest for the best zombie costume… only that the blood and cuts covering her skin were her own, and the dark bruise forming on her cheekbone was only one of the many that remained hidden under her clothes. However she still considered herself lucky as she made her way to the dungeons, entirely unseen and soon swallowed by darkness. She had gotten her backpack back, and it was still as good as it had been this morning, with its entire contents merely a little shaken up from the run but otherwise in perfectly ordinary condition. The same thing really couldn't be said about her own self, but quite frankly Robin worried more about her possessions than about her body. Bodies healed, objects didn't. Especially not rare potions ingredients that weren't even her possession in the first place.

Robin's feet carried her to the door of the potions classroom without detours, but before she opened the door she took a moment to remind herself of what she would likely find behind this door. The reason for her catastrophical evening going down like it had in the first place, and thus the (even if indirect) reason for the agonizing pain she was in. David. Truth be told, Robin felt very tempted to burst into the room at once and torture that boy without even having to voice a single spell and before he even realized that she was there. But that revenge would be short lived, unproductive and highly inappropriate, even if probably very satisfying for a very short moment. This was the same situation she'd been confronted with in her first year with Alexander, only on a different scale… and she wouldn't make the same mistake twice. She'd try to be better this time.

After taking a deep and thereby slightly painful breath, Robin opened the door and walked into the room with as little limping as she could. Slowly and forcefully calmly she walked towards the front of the classroom where Professor Snape hadn't even bothered looking up from the book on his desk. Perhaps he was so focused on whatever he was reading that he hadn't noticed Robin's fairly silent entry… He didn't look like he was deliberately ignoring her, at least.

On her way to the front, Robin focused her entire attention on Snape, thus on her own part deliberately ignoring David and two other students who were sitting at their own desks and probably writing up some assignments. They, however, didn't ignore her.

"Bloody hell, what happened to you?!" David of course was the first to blurt out the obvious, though in a tone so entirely amused that Robin felt tempted to reconsider her decision on torturing him. "Looks like you've finally fallen out of your ivory tower, huh?"

That at last got Snape's attention, and his eyes lifted off the book in lightning speed to find David across the room, however his gaze came to a sudden halt on Robin instead. The sheer amount of barely noticeable microexpressions flashing over his face right then would have sufficed to keep Robin thinking for an hour at the least, but she wasn't granted that time before he was back to neutrality and addressing her in the gravest of tones. "What happened?"

"I would rather tell you about that without… the additional ears, sir." Robin brought out in a quiet and calm voice that however was just a bit too breathy to not give away how she truly felt. In pain, but also surprisingly numb. Looks like she really had run out of any emotional capacity for the day.

Snape's eyes moved from Robin to the clock on the wall, then to the three other students sitting in the room, and finally back to Robin. "Detention will be over when dinner starts, in approximately forty minutes. If you have no other obligations, you should wait for me in my laboratory."

The laboratory? Goodness, Robin wouldn't be able to decline that no matter how much pain she was in. "Thank you, sir, I will do just that."

"You know how to enter." He merely replied with another of those pointed looks and finally turned his eyes back down to his book.

Robin could tell that he wasn't reading though. The muscles in his jaw were clenching, even if only subtly, and he looked way too tense to be focusing on anything but the room around him. Yet, she understood that this wasn't the place for further conversation, as of her own request, and thus she made her way back to the door with quick steps that hurt more than could be healthy. Three pairs of eyes followed Robin as she grabbed the doorframe too tightly to replace a pained hiss, opened the door abruptly and almost fell into the hallway before slamming it shut again. So much for being subtle.

The walk was luckily short and dark, and Robin found that she could enter the lab with the same spell as the classrooms indeed, but this time she made the effort to lock the door behind herself with the corresponding spell for once. Only then she felt like she could finally loosen the grasp on her bag, could finally allow herself to hurt, could take a true breath at last. The small space really had a calming effect on her, even now. She didn't bother lighting up the candles before she dropped her bag in a corner and sat down on the floor with her back against the side of one of the shelves. Having the wood pressing her jumper against her sore skin wasn't the most pleasant feeling, but sitting at last was enough of a relief to still allow a deep relaxation to wash over her nonetheless. Now that the adrenaline was slowly wearing off and the necessity to protect herself was withdrawing in her head, she felt surprisingly dizzy as she stared out of the window into the last bits of dark grey sky that were slowly taken over by blackness. Before she knew it, the blackness had swallowed her as well.

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[statistical-improbabilities]

OCtober Day 6: Luxury

I’ve elected not to post days 4 and 5, on account of day 4 needing much more editing and day 5 being a little too personal to share, so here’s day 6 from the backlog - thanks again to @oc-growth-and-development!

This scene from one of my current wips is set in the kingdom of Griis-re-Soel, where the cities are built inside mountains and aesthetic is the hot commodity. Wriit is the new heir to the kingdom, after his twin sister’s mysterious murder only months before, and suffice it to say nobody is pleased about that. It’s a Griis custom to remain silent while in mourning, as a way to honor the dead, but Wriit has refused to speak for a little longer than everyone expected. Should make for a fun birthday party with the court, right?

Less than two months before, the palace had been void of its usual vibrancy, with empty halls and not a single word spoken in them. But as Wriit strode through the double doors to the amethyst ballroom on the tail of his parents, he was very nearly caught off guard by the life of luxury that had been breathed back into the court.

Sheer draperies of every color hung from the walls in sweeping loops, perfumed with blooms exported from somewhere far from the Ptaan mountains range. Glimmering jewels flashed from the ears, throats, and wrists of every noble present, and their contemptuous laughter spiraled up through the room as though everyone here was in on some grand joke. Wriit wasn’t laughing.

For the first time in his life, he celebrated his birthday alone.

Only months before, Brien had been found dead in her room, slumped over her writing desk as though she’d merely fallen asleep. The fine ink she’d been using had splattered all over her latest manuscript, and they hadn’t been able to scrub it from her fingers. They were still stained dark when they encased her body in amber and buried her. The Crowns and nearly everyone else in the palace had taken on a month of mourning silence, shedding their jewels and smooth words for plainness and quiet, but that month had come and gone and now it was as if nothing had changed. Except for Wriit.

Crown Taarh had been furious, the first time he’d asked him a question aloud and Wriit had merely looked at him, but Crown Siel had put a hand over her husband’s before his anger could take shape inside his mouth. “Give him time,” she’d said, directing a calculated, knowing smile at Wriit. “She may have been our heir, but she was his twin. And he is our new heir. Certainly, it must be… a lot to take in.”

That had been two months ago. Now the palace seemed fully ready to begin celebrating again, to celebrate an occasion that should have been shared. When Wriit entered the ballroom behind the Crowns, everyone present fell nearly as silent as him at the sight of him standing there alone where his sister should have stood beside him, dressed in simple black rather than the colors and bright gemstones he’d favored before Brien’s death. Wriit lifted his chin and gazed straight ahead, boring a hole into the back of his father’s head until his mother directed the musicians to play again, and then the three of them took their place on the three thrones at one end of the room.

Three, not four. Wriit’s throne was the missing one—he now took Brien’s place as favored heir. This did not slip his mind as he sat, though he did not dare appear hesitant about it.

“Sit up straight,” Siel hissed, though her face didn’t change from its pleasant expression. “You are still a Crown Jewel. Act like it.” Wriit glanced sideways at her, sinking even lower in his seat for just a moment before straightening up. A small and petty revenge was all he could manage right then, but it did the trick. His mother closed her eyes briefly, then turned away to speak with Taarh.

 It wasn’t long before his parents directed him out to converse with the crowd, though if they’d gotten a glimpse of the look in his eyes, they might have thought twice about it. Wriit drifted from group to group, each clearing a space for him in their little circles, but for all purposes besides formalities he was ignored. He never said a word, never contributed to any conversation but to listen, and the next time someone turned to him, he was often halfway across the room. Feeling less than productive, he returned to his throne before long.

The look the Crowns gave him when he did was less than pleased. Taarh repeatedly glanced between the dancers at the center of the room and his son, clearly intending for Wriit to pursue a partner or several while the music played, but Wriit very pointedly looked in the opposite direction. If he’d been wearing his usual array of gemstones, he might have fussed with them; because he wasn’t, he loosened a thread from the cuff of his sleeve and tugged lightly on that. A servant discreetly came up behind the throne and snipped the loose thread from his sleeve with scissors, and Wriit sighed and slumped back in his seat. He didn’t look at either Crown, altogether content to ignore the obligations of a Crown Jewel on his twentieth birthday.

After about an hour of cycles like this, of pointless conversations in which Wriit did not participate and efforts to ignore the party as a whole, Crown Siel stood, calling the room to silence again. Wriit noted bitterly that only when everyone else was silent did his own silence blend in. It was a mere three months after his sister’s death, though, so it wasn’t entirely amiss.

Siel spoke grandly as she always did, somehow balancing the tact of Brien’s absence with a call for celebration, and after about two words, Wriit tuned her out. He knew what she was saying; he’d already been forced to pay attention during the rehearsal. A Crown Jewel’s twentieth birthday was also the beginning of the Gliare ceremony, where the Crowns’ heir would court one suitor for every month of the year, and propose marriage to their choice of the twelve when the year was through. None of these suitors had been chosen for Wriit; these men and women had all been selected in hopes of marrying his sister. For convenience’s sake, the Crowns had elected not to postpone the ceremony for the sake of tradition. What luck, they said, that Wriit and Brien felt similar attractions. A blessing from Rhii, god of passion, they said. Wriit would have said that it was anything but a blessing, but he could not speak against it. Not when it was already decided.

His father prodded his elbow, hanging over the armrest of his throne, and motioned for Wriit to stand. He hadn’t been listening, and getting to his feet would have looked hasty were it not for the impression of dissociative grief that he still exuded. The first suitor stepped forward and bowed. A man taller than Wriit, but with little muscle and three freckles near the corner of his left eye. His deep red clothing was expertly tailored, billowing around his lean frame and matching perfectly the three garnets embedded into his forehead, signifying his alignment to Liis, goddess of wrath. The men of House Trua had aligned with wrath for the last three generations.

Wriit let out a pained breath, but gave a short bow in response, then descended to take his hand and begin an obligatory dance. The man was a decent dancer, and even if he stumbled, his sense of rhythm led him to pick up the steps where he left off. The rest of the court began to dance around them, and the suitor spoke.

“I am deeply sorry, Your Highness, that you must endure this alone. If I may overstep, it appears as though we both agree that it would have been better had your sister been in your place today.”

You may not, thought Wriit, but he said nothing, choosing instead to focus on the steps of their dance. Unfortunately, this particular suitor was a talkative one.

“I must admit, I am curious. Your sister was so often in the public eye, we do not know much about you.”

A flick of the wrist, three delicate steps to the right.

“And I am exceptionally curious about why you remain silent when the traditional month of mourning has lifted.”

A half-turn pivot to the left, and a return to the first position. Wriit gritted his teeth, but did not speak.

“Even the Crowns have returned to opulence. It’s been three months. Surely, you mustn’t love your—”

Breathing perhaps a bit more harshly than he had before, Wriit caught the suitor’s wrist in his hand, and held it in place. They stood frozen until the music came to an end, at which point Wriit threw his hand down and turned on his heel to stalk out. The suitor cried after him to wait with a meaningless apology, but Wriit did not look back.

The hallways darkened as soon as he exited the luxury of the amethyst ballroom. Only silence crept out from behind the door as the court realized that the heir to the throne had walked out on them. He could hear a servant rushing after him, no doubt to bring him back to his sister’s throne where his father would berate him and his mother would smile that knowing smile of hers. Wriit slipped into a side passage and before the servant could find him, he vanished into the bowels of the palace.

[done-mer-moved]

i Also don't know ur OCs but: 1, 4, 5, 8, 15, 22, 23, 24, 25, 33, 42, 50, 54, 56, 61, 73, and 78 please? -drunkmiraak

[[LKdghlkj sorry this took so long!! I got super sick so it sat half-done in my drafts for 84 years. @drunkmiraak]]

Oh boy oh boy oh boy!

So, while I’ve got half a billion OCs by technicality, my main idiot is Azaryne Redoran who takes the role of the Vestige in the ESO story I write with @sinnaroll by the name of Soulbound. (Ima also just casually pass on these questions for her to answer in reply for D'tannen, who is the other main character in this thingy so you can get to know him too!)

Thank you so much for asking!! Here we gooooo~!

1. What is/are your OC’s nickname(s) and how did it come about?

Az’s main nickname is the self-explanatory name shortening from “Azaryne” to “Az”. But D'tannen has kinda stuck on jabbing him with “pretty boy” to the point where it’s basically a nickname lol 

Also, in-game plot reasons dictate that the Five Companions also know him by “Vestige”, much to his dismay. It’s what the Scrolls named him by, so the Prophet tends to slip and refer to him that way, and the others kinda do too by proxy for a while. However, after Az makes it clear that he’s really uncomfortable with it, Lyris and Sai specifically make a point not to call him that.

4. What is a noticeable physical attribute of your OC?

So I memed twice earlier before I got to these questions lasdgkh gomen, but my goofier answers are Dorito Shape and Resting Trouble Face

But more seriously, one of his major notable physical features is that he’s pretty much covered in tattoos from his neck down past his waist and starting down his legs. They’re being redesigned from scratch right now because I can’t ever allow myself to have characters that can be adequately represented in game i guess lmfao but here’s the in-game tattoos with some photo-editing for an earlier visual draft on where they might cut off—

It’s a total personal headcanon but I decided that since the in-game body marking style was pretty clearly influenced by Maori-style kiriituhi, that Az’s tattoos are also highly significant in a similar way. Each piece symbolizes or connects to either his ancestry, or his own life and skills and milestones. His designs weren’t finished, but have the indication of where they were meant to continue as he hit new points in his life. Unfortunately, since his life was cut so short, that’s as far as they ever get.

On a lighter note, he also has pretty big ears?? Lmao

5. What does your OC normally wear? What would your OC wear on a special night?

He likes clothes that are comfortable but flattering. He knows what his assets are and enjoys looking well-dressed – a bit of a remnant from his previous life as a noble. 

He tends to favor sleeveless tops and cool-colored fabrics with neutral accents. He particularly likes blues of all shades, and some purples. He’ll also occasionally wear red. On his travels he wears leather armor that fits within these features, and notably has a Khajiiti-style jack because he liked the aesthetic of it when he saw the style in a tailor’s display. 

When he’s dressing up, he’ll wear more flowing robe-like attire. He had more reason to do so while he was alive, and at the time it was usually specifically Dunmeri cultural clothing. Over the course of Soulbound, he only dresses up the once so far for a date with Sinna. That takes place in Orsinium, so it’s Orcish formal wear. 

Even if the situation’s not a fancy one, though, he’ll usually still wear kohl eyeshadow, which D’tannen gives him shit for, of course lol.

8. How does your OC talk/what does your OC’s voice sound like?

Az’s voice is light, crisp, warm and friendly. It’s between tenor and baritone in range, and the expected Dunmeri accent. He’s well spoken, and you can tell he’s well educated, but his phrasing isn’t snobbish or condescending, and there’s a firm sort of sincerity to his speech, even when he’s being playful.

15. What was your OC’s childhood like?

Az’s childhood was a little complicated in that it came with a great deal of privilege, but also a great deal of expectation. He was noble-born— the eldest son of House Redoran’s Archmaster— so before he was even old enough to have an awareness of the world, his parents had already decided many things about his future. 

In spite of both this and the constant pressure of the Redoran philosophy that “a light, careless life is not worth living”, Az had an untamable spirit that continuously tried his parents’ patience. As a child, his impulsivity, tendency to bend the rules, and headstrong defiance on points he fundamentally disagreed with led to frequent discipline, and a particularly strained relationship with his father.

Over time, he begrudgingly learned to play by the rules, but would still disappear from time to time for brief moments of freedom. 

He had two younger siblings— Eralane and Meril, and they had very close and loving relationships with each other. Az always did his bes to see right by them, so they felt safe in knowing that he would always have their backs. They didn’t ever keep much from him, as a result, and Meril specifically often looked up to him as a role model.

By the time he was fourteen, he’d been arranged into a political betrothal to solidify clan relations within the House, and it was decided that the two would be married in 16 years when they were both fully grown adults. Neither he nor his intended fiancée were really comfortable with this, but even as young as they were, they knew it was a sticky situation far bigger than just the two of them. So, they quickly established that, future aside, they didn’t feel entitled to each other’s feelings. They would both rather have a straightforward, honest friendship than try to force things between them. 

Because of this, there was no tension when other chemistries developed in later years. Instead, they continued to ignore their inevitable marriage, and turned their performative date nights into formally-dressed vent and gossip sessions. Using the expectations put upon them to their advantage as they got older, they also happily became each other’s alibi when either of them needed time away with other people.

22. Who is/are your OC’s closest friend(s)?

Since arriving back on Tamriel, he’s been shuffling company a lot on his journeys. He’s also pretty introverted, despite being fairly socially adept. He doesn’t have any real connections from his previous life anymore, but has met many people and made casual friends and positive acquaintances with a solid chunk of new ones.

In terms of more serious friendships, D’tannen is honestly the closest, which is kind of incredible honestly laksdhg. But, they travel with each other day in and day out, so there’s a tight bond there that’s developing fast.

He’s also particularly attached to Irvane, who was his first friend since coming back to Nirn.

23. Who are the people your OC surrounds him/herself with?

Along the same lines as I just said above, he’s never in one place for very long right now, so he is constantly around new people. His kind heart and need for hands-on activity means he tends to gravitate toward people he can help in some way or another. His empathy and sense of honor do most of the weeding. He’d rather be around someone who has shown good intentions, even if they are rough around the edges, than someone who rests on the laurels of past deeds and judges others against themselves.

24. Who are the people your OC dislikes/hates?

It’s pretty damn hard to make this list, at least if you have any sort of good bone in your body. He’s really very empathetic and patient, and will forgive so quickly once he feels amends have been made that it’s honestly gotten him into trouble.

But, even with that said, he’s got some strong resentments for some strong reasons… Notably: Mannimarco and his Worm Cult, ol’ Molag Bal himself, and pretty much anyone who allies with them… Malacus is another name that quickly finds its way on the list under “kill unflinchingly” as he becomes closer with D’tannen.  

25. If your OC has a soulmate, who is it?

oh my god im so sorry this joke is just right here its too easy to grab i can’t help myself – 

Doesn’t a soulmate require… a soul…? 

33. What subjects interested your OC?

He’s always done whittling as a hobby, so he’s currently kinda advancing on that in woodcarving. Since he was also trained in maintaining and repairing his own weapons and armor in life, that’s carried over into an interest in actually crafting weapons on his own. He does wind up making his own bow way later on, and even spends a bit of time with the Morkul Orcs in the Orsinium arc learning to do some metalwork.

42. What makes your OC happy?

He’s very attached to his dog Blackjack, and the mutt can always seem to pick him up when he’s otherwise faltering. He loves whittling and tends to carve little objects to occupy his mind. Complicatedly, D’tannen makes him happy as well, lol. 

He also tends to have moments where he finds happiness in specific things, but the emotion related feels strange or misplaced. When this happens, it’s usually because whatever he’s experiencing— a particular sight or smell or flavor— is something that ties directly to a positive memory he’s lost from his life before. A sort of unwitting-nostalgia that’s hard to pinpoint or replicate.

As a general rule, he’s pretty easily contented. He lives very much in the moment, which combined with his adaptability and natural optimism, means that he’s usually able to find some small spark of cheer for himself anywhere he goes. He’s always wanted the freedom of life as an adventurer, so if circumstances were different, this would honestly be an ideal life for him. However, it’s pretty dampened by the stress of current events, along with the nagging restless and hollow feeling of having lost his soul.

50. What secrets does your OC have?

This is a bit of a tricky one. He’s not a super open person, but he also doesn’t like to lie to cover things up. However, there are many things about his life at present that he finds he has to dance around giving knowledge of. In some ways, the very nature of his current existence is something he keeps tucked away. It’s not very easy to explain to anyone, so he’s grateful that for the majority of the people he interacts with, direct questions never really come up.

In the second act of Soulbound, however, after he becomes very close with Sinna, Sinna asks him directly for his story. He dodges it for quite some time before finally giving him the details, but he’s kind of nervous at that point to state it. He doesn’t know how Sinna might react. But, he lays it out on the table anyway: He’s not truly alive. He’s what remained of himself after he was sacrificed by cultists to Molag Bal. His soul was stolen, and he has only vague pieces of memories from when he lived. And now, he’s been prophesied to assist in stopping a daedric invasion. 

Sinna’s response was heartfelt. But, nobody could blame him for the fact that all he could manage for a brief moment after listening was “Wild….”

54. Does your OC think with his/her head or heart?

Heart… His upbringing tried its best to instill an ability to detach for the sake of duty, but honestly, he’s never been able to. Even when he knows there’s no way he can avoid a difficult situation, and is able to approach it tactically, emotion will be gnawing at him all the while, and he’ll be completely staunch on the things he believes the most if those interfere with the “logical” course of action.

56. What are some of your OC’s strengths?

He’s honestly got a wide range of skills in a lot of ways. He’s a highly skilled archer, and has a very well-rounded set of combat and survival skills that have been hardwired into him since a very young age. He’s also got a great sense of aesthetics, which he likes to express in woodworking and whittling when he can. He’s intelligent, but a lot of his skill specifically in emotional/social intelligence comes from his powerful empathy, and how dramatic swings of circumstances in his life have given him many perspectives to draw from, even subconsciously through the massive amnesia he struggles with. He’s incredibly adaptable. He’s intensely loyal, courageous, and firmly optimistic even through the worst circumstances. He’s got an incredibly strong character to him, and it tends to be both charming and inspiring, even when he doesn’t recognize that he’s producing these effects himself.

61. What is the general impression your OC gives other people?

Honest. Empathetic and selfless. Good-natured, down to earth, and a bit wild-spirited. Patient, incredibly forgiving. Helpful. Playfully charming. A protector. A defender of good.

73. What is your OC’s favorite form of entertainment?

He likes art, stories, nature, animals, and adventure. Crafting from time to time as well.

78. What is your OC’s favorite time of day?

Late morning. The point in the day when you’re up and awake and setting off. The whole day lies in wait before you, and you’re ready to meet it

[bellatrixobsessed1]

Marigold Fever

Bam! Hanahaki Azula! For those of you who don’t know what Hanahaki is, it’s a fictional disease where a person coughs up flowers until their unrequited love is requited. 

Petals flowed from her lips, vivid red like blood or the silk of her robes and sometimes with touches of marigold. It is almost beautiful in a haunting and dismal sort of way. Maybe if it were happening to someone else it would be morbidly aesthetic. Azula finds herself choking again, the petals it isn’t painful--more or less it is uncomfortable. At times it tastes strangely pleasant, but mostly it leaves an odd earthy taste in her mouth. She plucks the petals from her mouth and sets them aflame.

At least she has one advantage, she can get rid of the evidence of her otherworldly affliction. She can keep her problems to herself. Still she is frustrated with her predicament. Other than the steady stream of petals she can hide her feelings so well.

She thinks that it must be some sort of vengeance from the spirit world. Some twisted punishment for being so secretive and guarding. But is it really anyone’s business who she loves.

Is it even his business?

He has the Kyoshi girl anyhow. Some confession, sappy or not, would only be a bother to the man.

Azula is frustrated with herself and embarrassed all over again to know that it is Sokka in particular, of all people, that she has fallen for. The man is barely a man, more so some blundering hog-monkey than anything else. Yet her heart has taken a shine to the oaf.

She wanders down the hall for supper, hoping that the dining room will be empty this time. The thought of breaking into a coughing fit of flora is heavily unappealing. It isn’t empty when she arrives. But she has put off eating for too long, there is a dull ache in her belly and she can’t go another day without eating anything at all. Trying to make herself as inconspicuous as she can, Azula finds her seat. But she is noticed immediately, it isn’t a surprise being as her presence has become such a rarity these days.

She ignores the stares and tries to finish her meal quickly. But not at a pace her father would scold her for should he have been there. She listened to them chatter amid themselves. TyLee prattles on and on about how good being a Kyoshi warrior is doing her and Mai isn’t even pretending to be interested. Aang on the other hand is fully invested in the tale. Katara and Zuko speak of politics with an occasional jesting remark from Toph. She hears Suki speaking and actively tries to block out the sound of Sokka’s reply.

But it meets her ears anyhow and triggers a bought of coughs. At first they are flora free, they are still enough to earn her all eyes.

“Are you alright, Azula?” Zuko asks.

Azula nods but the fit doesn’t pass. She can feel them now, forming in her throat. She had already been covering her mouth, now she has it covered with both hands. The first few petals seep into her fingers. She moves one hand and snatches a napkin, holding it to her mouth as the fit grows more forceful. Involuntary tears spring to her eyes, it is hard to breathe. She doesn’t know how much more the napkin can hide so she dismisses herself without a word, hoping that they will attribute her departure to a more standard illness.

She can hear them talking as she departs; hushed voices asking Zuko if her illness is serious.

.oOo.

It had been a mistake to try to join them all for dinner and she doesn’t risk another trip to the dining hall for a while. Mostly she eats late at night or early in the morning when there are few souls up and about, much less Sokka.

But she is growing lonely. She likes to think that, prior to contracting hanahaki, she had been doing a good job of being a more approachable person. She doesn’t understand why she is being punished now. Doesn’t understand why the universe is making it hard for her to rebuild stable relationships.

Whatever the reason, she finally caves to her craving for social interaction. She makes her way towards the chattering voices in hopes of the best. Mai, Zuko, and TyLee are the only ones present and it is a relief to Azula. Maybe without Sokka around, she can get through a conversation.

She seats herself without a greeting. They don’t notice her at first.

“Oh! Azula! When did you get here?” TyLee asks with a smile as cheerful as Azula remembers.

“Just a few minutes ago.” She answers, she finds that her voice is hoarser than she recalls. Has it really been that long since she has spoken to someone?

“You don’t sound too good.” Mai comments casually.

“Yes.” Azula agrees. “I haven’t been feeling well lately.”

“Do you need to see the physician?” Zuko offers.

Azula shakes her head. “I’ll manage.” She doesn’t know how but she will. She watches TyLee pluck a flower from the grass and cringes.

TyLee holds it out to her. “Here, it smells nice.”

Reflexively, Azula crinkles her nose. “Eh...no thanks, TyLee.” Quickly she adds, “I’m not much of a flower person.” She wishes that were the truth. Almost as feverishly as she wishes that her heart would have tied itself to TyLee instead. It would have been much easier, somehow less awkward. She feels bad for thinking of TyLee as a means to cure a disease, even if it had only been a passing thought.

“Alright, I’ll just give it to Mai.”

“Flowers are gross.” Mai grumbles. It takes all of Azula’s willpower to not mutter something akin to, ‘you’re telling me.’

“Zuko?” TyLee offers. He rolls his eyes and tucks the flower behind his ear.

“Well, how do I look?” He asks.

“You look exactly like how you run our country.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Azula shrugs, “delicate and fragile.”

“It’s nice to see you again, Azula.”

She gives a smug smile. “Yes, I know. Who else will remind you that you’re a wimp?”

“Toph, occasionally.” Zuko notes.

“I’ll have to thank her for filling in for me.” She says it with a jesting smirk but a sorrow tickles her belly. She wishes that she can talk like this regularly. Hell, she wishes that she can stick around for the rest of this conversation. But her throat is beginning to prickle and she knows that she is overdue for a burst of petals. She looks at her palms and coughs once. She supposes that she should announce her departure before she can’t. She coughs again. “I am going to get myself a glass of water.”

“Sounds like you need it.” Mai agrees.

With a parting and agreeing nod, Azula stands. She is angry all over again that she has to cut the conversation short. It was going so well...she sighs. Only when she makes it to the quiet solitude of her room does she let herself succumb to the coughing. It is worse this time and her sides and throat ache from the ferocity of the fit. Her floor is a mess of wet petals.

She thinks that she can see speckles of blood.

She doesn’t know if it is from her throat being so raw or from the flowers themselves; perhaps the roses have grown thorns.

Azula curls herself on the ground, shaking at the thought.

She doesn’t want to know what is going on inside her throat.

Can she die from this?

She supposes that if love could kill anyone, it would take her out first.

.oOo.

She has only emerged from her room twice after that within a two week span, she resorts to using the bathroom that is conjoined with her room and having her meals delivered. She only speaks when someone knocks at her door and she is quick to push them out.

Azula doesn’t think that she is being unpleasant but has a feeling, all the same, that people are viewing her as cold and standoffish. They are beginning to visit her less. She chews the inside of her cheek. She doesn’t want to lose the delicate friendships she has formed and reformed.

She slips from her room once more. She can already feel the petals tingling in the back of her throat, threatening to spill themselves out at any moment.

When she emerges into the dining room, she finds it empty. The entry and living rooms are empty as well. So she checks the garden, only finding two people. “Where is everyone?”

“Aang wanted to take Zuko to some shop he discovered.” TyLee says. “I’ve already been there so I stayed behind.”

Azula’s stomach lurches as she addresses Sokka, “and you?”

“That shop is for kids.” Sokka replies. “I am a man.”

Azula gives a sarcastic sniff. “You think that you’re a man.” She is doing herself no favors in pushing the man away. His affection is rather critical to her health.

“What brings you out of your room?” Sokka asks.

With every word, the petals and vines in her throat seem to shift. “I needed some fresh air and conversation.”

“I thought that you didn’t like people.”

“She likes people!” TyLee declares.

“In moderation.” Azula half-lies.

“So, what, after ten minutes of talking you retreat to your room for a week to recover?”

Azula blinks at the sheer audacity of the man. All the same, she has to admire his bold brazenness. “I might need more than that to recuperate from you.”

Sokka laughs. “Glad I can drive you that crazy!” He slings his arm over her shoulder and around her neck. It is more than enough, she doubles over almost immediately. She barely hears TyLee shout her name.

This round of coughs is much more violent. She can hardly breath and she thinks that she may choke. So she really can die from love. What a truly wild notion. Her body seems to fold in on itself on its own accord. Petals are weeping from her mouth and she can’t even hope to conceal them. The sheer amount is overbearing.

The grass beneath her is a mess of rose and marigold by the time her fit passes. She is breathless, her eyes watery. She feels so weak and drained, she doesn’t even try to pick herself up. She doesn’t know who is rubbing her back. She thinks that it is TyLee. TyLee has rubbed her back like that before. She finds herself being lifted up. Sokka nuzzles her into his arms. He pets her hair. She appreciates the thought but, Agni is she scared, he is going to trigger another round.

TyLee observes the scatter of petals. The same petals Sokka is quizzically staring at. Azula swallows.

“What the hell was that?” Sokka finally asks.

“Oh, Azula.” TyLee clasps her hands together a look of sympathy splaying itself on her face. And then she gives a soft chuckle. “You would get yourself a case of hanasaki.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Azula mutters, her voice twice as raspy.

“You’re always bottling things up.” She gives Azula an affectionate boop that the princess makes a point of ignoring. “This is why you can’t do that.”

“What’s a hanahaki?” Sokka asks.

“Uncultured peasant.” Azula folds her arms and fixes him with a half-pout. Not that she isn’t thankful for his cluelessness. She can’t imagine that it will uphold with TyLee around.

“It’s romantic, Sokka!” TyLee gushes. At this, Azula scoffs. “But it’s also really tragic. If a person falls in love--and it has to be real, true love!--and it isn’t required then they start coughing up flower petals. The disease can only be cured by the person returning their affections.”

Azula feels her cheeks flaring.

“That’s adorable, Azula.”

Azula’s face grows reader and her frown deepens. “It won’t be so adorable when I toss you into the turtleduck pond.” Perhaps she can make herself hate him. But she doesn’t, she can’t.

Somehow is infuriating teasing is also endearing. “Why can’t I just cough up fire or something befitting of me.”

“That’s not how hanahaki works!” TyLee exclaims. “It wouldn’t be romantic.”

“I hate romance.” Azula mutters.

“Apparently, that’s not true.” Sokka remarks.

“I can be in love, but I don’t have to like it.” She says more to herself than anyone.

“So who is it?” Sokka asks.

The question takes her by surprise. “That’s none of your business.”  

“Is it mine?” TyLee asks hopefully.

“No!” Azula snaps reflexively. “Maybe. But only if you can keep your mouth shut about it.”

This gives Sokka a devilish idea. “I won’t tell the rest of the gang if you tell me who is responsible for your hanasaki.”

“Hanahaki.” Azula corrects. “If I tell you, will you kick his ass for me?”

Sokka thinks for a moment before agreeing. It is another nice sentiment, but she keeps her lips sealed. He has put her in an uncomfortable position. Either he is going to find out about her girlish crush or everyone else will find out that she has one. She doesn’t know which evil is worse.  

She wonders if setting him on fire would end her affliction or end her life. She folds her arms over her chest and holds her silence. Her eyes fall upon the heap of petals, they flutter about between grass blades. “Fine. Tell them, they’re probably going to find out sooner or later.”

She must have sounded pretty dismal because his voice loses all jest, “I’m won’t tell them.” He pauses. “But I think that you should tell...whoever it is. That,” he motions to the indent that her body left in the grass, “looked kind of painful.”

“It is…” She trails off.

“I’m sure whoever it is will return your feelings.” He pauses for a moment and his own cheeks seem to grow redder, he goes through with what he wants to say regardless. “You’re really pretty and one of the smartest people I know.” And then the jesting is back, “you’re kind of a major jerkbender, which I think is a family trait, probably. But I’m sure that person would like you anyways.”

“I doubt it.” Azula mutters.

“Why?” TyLee asks.

“They’re taken.”

“Oh.” She replies glumly.

“But if they weren’t would you tell them?” Sokka asks.

“I think...maybe.” Azula replies. She supposes that she would rather be direct. She has a momentum going and for a moment she thinks about telling him anyhow. But before he can he picks a flower petal off of the ground and tucks it into her hair. “Ew, Sokka, that was in my mouth.”

“Yeah, I’m the one who should be saying ew. It’s your slobber not mine.”

She truly doesn’t understand her own thinking, she should be completely off put by his foolish remarks, and yet she isn’t. She finds his humor rather comforting, even if it is on the childish side. Still, she doesn’t let on, “do you want to end up in the turtleduck pond?”

Sokka laughs.

“You two are adorable.” TyLee smiles.

He laughs louder. “Yeah, maybe now that Suki left me we can start our epic romance!” He jabs Azula in the ribcage. “What do you think about that, Azula?”

She fights to keep the heat out of her cheeks. “It sounds awful.”

[houseki-no-suffering]

Words: 3053 Genre: humor, college AU, nerds being nerds and idiots being idiots  Characters: Cinnabar, Phosphophyllite Summary: AND THEY WERE ROOMMATES!

A/N: i’m super sorry this is so late. I had everything ready to post this on time but life got in the way and then nano did too. But here it is, at last! Cinnaphos comedy! Also, of course this is not betaed, who do you take me for

Among all the things they had expected from college, their new roommate barking orders and insults at them wasn’t one of them. Usually, people gave Phos a chance before they started insulting them. Even Cairngorm had conceded them a couple of hours of trial.

Phos would mumble an apology if they weren’t utterly speechless. And terrified. And they would at least try to look apologetic, even if they had no idea what about, but their face was frozen in a petrified frown. The rest of their body was struggling not to let go of the unruly pile of belongings that they had been hoping to drop on the floor of their new room.

“No snoring, no talking in your sleep, don’t overstep here, this part of the room is mine, if I catch you with so much of a hair near my stuff you’re dead. Don’t touch my things: never touch my things.”

Their tried to nod while what they had hoped would be their new friend went on some more house rules. What was the name again? Shi-Ci-Cinnabar? Gosh, Phos would never call them by name until they weren’t certain. Also, they were not quite sure that all of their stuff would fit into the corner that Cinnabar designated as their own side of the room, but there was no way they could just mention it without risking their own head be bitten off.

So they tried to start small. By some miracle, they wiggled one of their hands free, unquestionable proof that they had been a juggler in a past life, and offered it to their roommate.

“So, uhm, my name is-“

“Oh yes, one last thing,” Cinnabar said, sparing half, or better, a quarter of disgusted glance toward Phos’s hand, “Don’t. Talk. To. Me.”

--

When Phos found enough courage in them to ask around about Cinnabar, they had been expecting tales of roommates being murdered under the pale moonlight, not what looked like the description of a very, very selective cat.

A “cutie,” Padparadscha’s words. A cutie that had helped them with calculus, apparently. Which implied a lot of interesting and contradictory inferences. Like the fact that Papda had spent a considerable amount of hours in the company of Cinnabar, that Cinnabar had softened their bark enough to explain things to them, that those things were math, and that Cinnabar had been patient and good enough a teacher to succeed where even Rutile had failed. All without killing Padparadscha or even injuring them a little.

But Padparadscha didn’t count, Phos thought: everybody liked Padparadscha, it didn’t mean anything. So Phos went looking for their horror stories elsewhere.

Now Cinnabar went from “cutie” to “friend,” which sounded even stranger because it implied an even longer period of interaction and shared space. They were quite sure that Diamond even added the words “for years” next to “friend.”

Of course, Dia had a nice word for everyone, but by the time Bort seconded their opinion, adding tales about the one time they baked German sweets for Christmas rather than how they helped Cinnabar hide a body, Phos was very confused.

Cinnabar was a selective hatred-inflicting mystery, and Phos loved a good puzzle. As long as it didn’t mean ending up six feet under, but judging from their roommate’s meager if anything body-count, it was a risk they could dare take.

Like most things in Phosphophyllite’s life, they didn’t plan it. They waited for the universe to align in a position favorable for minding someone else’s business. And the universe delivered on a sunny October afternoon, in the form of a Cinnabar leaving their laptop open and unguarded on their bed when they went to the toilet.

As it was due, Phosphophyllite thanked the universe, tasting the sweet, forbidden flavor of danger in their mouth as adrenaline started rushing through their body. They were alone, and they would be alone for a few seconds at least, so they steadied their heart and did the unthinkable.

They stepped into Cinnabar’s side of the room.

They world went still. Phos imitated it standing immobile as if the walls around them could crumble at any moment. As if Cinnabar had only pretended to leave their laptop unguarded, like they would ever make such a mistake. They were testing Phos. Their sadistic, evil kitten personality was testing Phos’ loyalty to the fear they had worked so hard to elicit in them that first day. And all the days after that.

But like most times in Phosphophyllite life, Phos ignored their common sense, opting instead for the decision that would elicit the least foreseeable outcome. Which happened to also be the stupidest.

They made another step.

Was it their imagination or the air in the room was getting colder? Shinsha’s side was definitely inhabited by the ghosts of their former roommates.

The forbidden object was now so close that Phos could venture out to touch it. Would that leave any fingerprint on the black, shiny, vampiric surface though? Would those fingerprints be easily attributable to Phosphophyllite? That was the whole point of fingerprints, if Phos was not mistaken.

So they made another step, their legs now dangerously close to the bed, to the point that they could feel the soft consistency of cotton sheets against their shin. They had never felt closer to death before and thus had never felt so alive. And so determined to stay alive.

That’s when they decided that they must have a death wish. They moved their head forward, casting their eyes impossibly close to enemy territory, and stole a glance at Cinnabar’s laptop, enough to capture the image they had set as wallpaper.

And Phos brought both of their hands to their mouth and suffocated a loud, elongated scream.

Cinnabar.

Cinnabar “if you talk to me you’re dead.”

Cinnabar “I’ll stop wearing black when they make a darker color.”

Cinnabar “I have never tasted the sweet flavor of happiness.”

That Cinnabar had a picture of kittens as desktop wallpaper.

Little, cute, fluffy fur balls with a big sign with words of encouragement written on it.

And Phos wasn’t screaming, or trying to prevent themselves from doing so, because of the kittens. Because everybody had a right to live their emo life in any way they so preferred. Even if 2008 had come and gone ten years ago. Even if it meant walking around with eyes so empty they could suck you in like a singularity point while still using a freaking picture of kittens as desktop wallpaper.

No, Phos would never judge someone else’s aesthetic, however contradictory. It would have meant judging their own first of all, and they enjoyed feeling the power surge of entropy as they went about their day in mismatched colors and sandaled socks.

No. Phos was screaming, or trying to prevent themselves from doing so, because of the sign. A huge, fully saturated red monstrosity that hurt their aspiring graphic designer’s eyes, but still not quite as much as the font.

There it stood, on Cinnabar’s pitch-black laptop, surrounded by the naïve cuteness of kittens. There it stood, the forsaken font, in all its cursed glory. Desecrating, insulting, violating, blaspheming the blissful and yet beautiful contradiction of emo kittens.

If they didn’t hear Cinnabar’s footsteps approaching from the corridor, Phos would have suffered from a Comic Sans-induced heart attack right on the spot. In Cinnabar’s side of the room.

They had just enough time to contemplate if that was Cinnabar’s preferred method of killing unsolicited roommates before they plunged into their own bed with a leap worthy of an Olympic qualification, like their life depended on it. Because, quite frankly, it did.

With their heart beating fast both from the near-death experience and the horror provoked by their discovery, they grabbed a book, the first book they could find, and shoved it in their own face the moment they landed on the mattress, exactly 0.2 seconds before Cinnabar’s figure stepped through the doorframe.

They had a large, steaming cup of coffee in their hand and a murderous stare in those bottomless, blood-red pits that people around campus insisted on calling eyes.

All the cuteness and tenderness they could have felt after discovering about the kittens disappeared as Phos tried to decipher if that glance was directed at the world or at them in particular.

Their heart was marathoning a full 50km at the speed of a sprinter. And it was being loud about it. So loud. Phos knew that Cinnabar could hear it.

As if in response, Cinnabar’s head shifted imperceptibly toward Phos’ side of the room. Not enough to make out their eyes from beneath Cinnabar’s red, tangled mess of a mane, but definitely enough to have Phos question all of their life choices so far.

--

The scene kept replaying every day before Phosphophyllite’s eyes.

Their forbidden gesture, the way they had bolted to the bed, the way they had grabbed a book and pretended to be reading, the way Cinnabar had come back to their room and had looked at them, the way they had sat down on their bed without saying a word.

The way they had started using their computer as if nothing had happened, the way Phos had cast a panicked glance in their direction and the way they had discovered, upon closer inspection, that they had been holding the book upside down.

Cinnabar didn’t mention any of these things. Not that day, nor the day after that. It was like they hadn’t noticed anything amiss in Phos’ behavior. And that was what made Phos so suspicious.

Phosphophyllite knew about their own chaotic attitude towards life. They knew they would never commit the perfect crime, because they could easily find a needle in a haystack but would totally miss a sperm whale in a coffee cup. Phosphophyllite knew. Everyone knew. Cinnabar knew.

And Cinnabar was waiting for them to break down.

It was already happening. Guilt and anxiety and horror mixing up in an uncontainable cocktail in Phos’s stomach, dangerously close to overflowing.

Could Cinnabar hear the pounding sound of Phos’ heart every time they were alone in a room with them? Had Cinnabar noticed that something was wrong with their laptop where Phos’ eyes had dared taint it with their glance? Did Phos leave any traces of their irresponsible trespassing?

The silence kept stretching on between the two of them, heavier and more loaded with murderous repercussions than usual. And with it, the growing repulsion of that one, cursed sign, disfiguring the amenity of emo kittens. It must have been ironic, Phos thought, it must have been. Or it could have been another test for Phos. If so, how should they respond to it?

They realized that they were staring at Cinnabar again, ready to anticipate possible attacks.

Cinnabar was sitting on their bed, black clothed legs hugging their black laptop while long, black sleeves clad their arms and hands, fingers intently typing some mysterious something. It was probably a list of the reasons why Phos had failed the test and how Cinnabar could get rid of them and make the world a better place.

Cinnabar pressed enter one last time, a single, swift movement of the finger.

It was all Phos needed.

They knew. Cinnabar knew. It was in the satisfaction with whom they had pressed enter and made their list of ‘1001 ways to kill Phosphophyllite’ a reality.

And the emotional brew that had been fermenting inside Phos’ stomach broke free.

“I’m so sorry please don’t kill me!”

If Phos thought that Cinnabar had been considering them up to this point, they were definitely unprepared to bear the weight of their undivided attention. Because, yes, Cinnabar’s stare was now definitely murderous, and yes, all of that murderous intent was directed at Phos exclusively. Success.

They arched one single eyebrow in Phos’ general direction.

Phos felt their heart sink. Catching what could very well be their last breath, they realized they should fight for their life. Because Cinnabar spat the next word as if it was disgusting for the sole reason that it was directed at Phos.

“What,” they said.

Phosphophyllite could see their chances of survival physically dimming before their eyes.

“Y-your laptop, I’m sorry, I swear I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, it happened, I looked at it!”

“You what?”

“I was just curious,” they blurted out, a curious mix of shame, relief and desperation lining their voice, “you never talk to me and you look super scary, but everyone else said you’re actually pretty nice and I didn’t know, I didn’t know what to do, I don’t know what kind of person you are so I thought I’d look just for a tiny second, please, please, please forgive me.”

Curiously enough, Cinnabar didn’t look murderous anymore. They looked perplexed.

They arched another eyebrow and that was when the magic happened because, rather than making them even scarier, that one gesture changed the expression on their face completely. They lost intimidation points, the second eyebrow easing some of the dangerousness from their face and replacing it with a new emotion that wasn’t gloom or anger or angst, or any of the emotions that Cinnabar had displayed in Phos’ presence.

Cinnabar looked surprised.

And it looked cute on them.

And did Phos just think ‘cute’ and ‘Cinnabar’ in the same phrase? They were definitely going to die today.

“You looked at my computer?”

“I did.”

And here was when the magic kept on happening. Because Cinnabar kept looking surprised. And, as such, kept looking less dangerous than they were cute.

“You- but why-“ even more: Cinnabar looked almost calm now, as if their disbelief had been enough to kick out anger and murder from their head, because there wasn’t enough room for all three of them. For a brief second, the thought that maybe, just maybe, they would live to see another day crossed Phos’ mind.

And then the thought crossed their mind again for a longer second, because Cinnabar’s face was an adorable frown of perplexity while they tried to make sense of their first experience of Phos’ incongruous lifestyle. If Cairngorm were here, they could help them through the process. It was less traumatic when there were two people instead of one to acknowledge the hopelessness of Phos’ case.

“Why?” Cinnabar managed to ask in a tiny, childish voice that Phos would never have believed could belong to them. And they destroyed it with chaotic pragmatism.

“I don’t know! I was just curios!”

Cinnabar’s eyes were back on them, their gaze significantly less cute now and Phos contemplated the option of pleading for their life once again, but they were on a rampage and couldn’t stop the words that come out of their mouth. So they uttered them at the speed of light to make up for it.

“Also please tell me it’s ironic!”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“The font!” what else? Was this another test? “The cursed one! The pic was super cute but you can’t ruin it like that! It hurts the kittens!”

“What the actual fuck. What’s your problem?”

“Gosh, I can’t believe this!” and wielding as a weapon that specific brand of courage that comes from an equal mixture of foolhardiness and spite, Phos did the unthinkable again.

They stood up and walked two oblivious steps into Cinnabar’s territory. And a third one toward Cinnabar’s bed. They bent down over their computer, dangerously close to Cinnabar’s face and blissfully unaware of the defensive way in which they were drawing back.

“That thing!” they said once again, pointing a finger at Cinnabar’s desktop, “gosh, I can’t even say its name, you used comic sans. Like, you used comic sans!”

“Stop staring at my computer, you creep,” Cinnabar protested, and shut the machine as a sign of defiance.

“How can you call me a creep? Look what you did to your kittens!”

“What the hell, go away, go back to your side of the room.”

“They don’t deserve this, and that red too, they don’t deserve this pain.”

Phos was so absorbed in their graphics-induced indignation that they almost missed the fierce, deep red that was dying Cinnabar’s cheeks. And they almost missed the way Cinnabar was no longer barking threats but tilting their head to the side and looking at them with a mixture of confusion and apprehension. Because Phos was ranting about designer’s stuff to a math grad. A math grad who knew about technology only the bare necessaire to write a couple of papers in which the quantity of numbers beat words 5 to 1, and who liked it that way. So Phos missed the exact moment in which Cinnabar’s irritation for their outrageous breach of privacy and personal space muted into defensiveness.

“’twas a gift. From my Sensei.”

“Uh?”

“The thing, I didn’t make it, it was a gift. It was nice of him. He said it was t-to bring me good luck.”

And suddenly the weight of all the things they had missed while they were ranting about gestalt and the faults of sans serifs hit Phos in the head with the violence of a very, very hard frying pan. And then they felt like shit.

“Oh. Oh! Shit, I mean, gosh, and how- how old is your Sensei?”

“I don’t know.”

“Like, more than sixty?”

“Yeah, definitely.”

“Alright, alright, gosh,” Phos ran a hand through their hair, they gazed at Cinnabar from beneath the teal and found them staring back at them, anticipation and worry on their face.

They were several years older than Phos, and several shades more bitter. And yet, they looked so tiny. A fragile, red-headed thing with adorable little freckles and what looked like a half-pout. In that exact moment, Phos understood how Padparadscha could call them a “cutie.” Padpa was never wrong about people, after all.

“Okay, listen. He was nice, but you both need to be enlightened about stuff,” so they put their hands on their hips in the cheap imitation of a power pose and donned their most charming smile.

“Therefore, I, Phosphophyllite, will help you out. I’m going to make you the best kitten wallpaper. The one that only you can use.”

And then proceeded to be smacked in the face by a skillfully thrown cushion.

[bastionkeeper]

hi there! i’m not really a writer, and i’ve never tried writing about this subject before, but the idea that taako shows his love through food is too cute to resist!! i hope that you like this!

—————-

    Coming home to a sense of warmth was something that Kravitz was never going to take for granted. It was such a new experience for him. He figured he must’ve found it normal once upon a time, when he was alive, but centuries entombed in the frigid stasis of Death had numbed him to most sensations. He had only been rediscovering them in these past few years. 

    His life now was comprised of all sorts of soothing and novel experiences, all things he’d never noticed the absence of until they became present in his everyday life: the deep shiver in his newly materialized muscles as he phased into his and his husband’s oven-warmed house; the surprising limberness in his joints as they slowly thawed; the feeling of comfort and safety that was inextricably wound with knowing Taako was by his side. 

    To his merit, Taako had mostly broke the instinct to squawk and fly half way across the room in fright whenever a rift was opened into their home. Now he merely grinned, stretching out across the couch where he had been perched reading a novel, and rumbled, “Hey handsome, I was hopin’ you’d be back soon. Dinner’s almost ready.” 

    “You’re an angel," Kravitz said as he stood before Taako, balancing a knee against the couch and peppering his love’s face with welcoming kisses. Even when Taako’s nose crinkled from the action, the snorty huff of laughter that escaped him betrayed how pleased he was by the attention. 

    Taako ran a hand down the plane of Kravitz’s chest, over the soft curve of his belly, resting finally at his hip. Kravitz only had a moment to notice that his hand laid more naturally against his hipbone now that it was less angular, before Taako pat him twice in dismissal. 

    "Love the tailored look, m'dude, but go get yourself into somethin’ comfy. There’s a strict no formalwear rule in my kitchen,” his husband drawled. Then in one fluid motion, he pressed a fleeting kiss to Kravitz’s stomach, swung his legs to the floor, and used the momentum to stand up and twirl his way to the kitchen. 

    Kravitz couldn’t deny himself a lingering moment to stare at his silly husband with a grin too sappy for even his own standards. 

    Fuck, did he ever love him. 

    Tearing his eyes away from the domestic sight, Kravitz meandered his way upstairs to their bedroom to get changed. Physical clothing wasn’t something he technically needed, but they had a weight and texture to them that he couldn’t easily replicate with his conjurations. Besides, the act itself of getting dressed– loosening buttons and zippers, peeling off layer by layer– had a sort of self-indulgent feeling to it, a ritual he performed purely for himself. 

     Something else he couldn’t create without real clothing was the delightful feeling of decompression as he unbuttoned his trousers. This particular pair he was wearing were a bit snug in the midsection and thighs, but Kravitz had decided to ignore it. They were part of a dashing red and black ensemble that Taako had gotten him a few months prior. It might not be as sharp of a fit as it once was, but Kravitz believed it still gave him an imposing silhouette. 

    The chilly night called for his warmer sleepware: a matching plaid shirt and top, both lined with soft fleece; a jacket that had been, and would continue to be, circulated between the entire IPRE crew; slipper socks; and one of the many fluffy robes he snatched from Taako’s side of the closet.  

    Kravitz wouldn’t fool himself into thinking he could pull off the clashing-pattern aesthetic like Taako effortlessly could, but he didn’t mind. He may look goofy as all hell, but Taako had admitted to him that he found Kravitz sexiest when he was soft and comfortable. Not that he was going for a sexy look, but it was pleasing to know he was desirable to his husband nonetheless. 

    After taking his thick, coiled hair out of the neat bun he wore to work and gently fluffing it out with his fingers, Kravitz made his way back downstairs. As soon as he hit the threshold of the living room, he was enveloped in the hearty smell of slow-cooked beef, cut with the sharp notes of fresh herbs. His eyes fluttered shut in delight as he basked in the aroma that reminded him so much of being home. 

    “Wot the fuuuuuuuck," Kravitz groaned happily in his terrible accent, approaching just in time to see Taako remove a loaf of French bread from the oven to go with the rich stew. The moment his hands weren’t occupied, Kravitz wound his arms around his husband’s waist and pressed his forehead to the crook of his shoulder. 

    "That’s how we do," Taako replied in his own poorly-executed accent. He craned his head to press a tender kiss to Kravitz’s temple, pausing to nuzzle his nose against his warming face and enjoy the simple gift of a quiet moment with his partner. 

    After what could’ve been seconds or hours, Taako gently jossled him, patting the arms hugging his waist for added emphasis. In a voice entirely too loud for the prior soft situation, he said, "C'mon, can’t fall asleep yet, babe. Gotta fill you up first.” 

    With a tiny noise of protest, Kravitz gave him one last squeeze before relinquishing his hold. He straightened up and bounced on the balls of his feet to get his sluggish blood flowing, while Taako filled their bowls with the stew. Kravitz grabbed silverware and the bread, and together they moved everything to the coffee table in the living room. 

    On nights when they weren’t hosting their enormous family, the two of them liked to keep things casual and eat at the couch. It made for easier conversation, and was the perfect way to wind down after a stressful day. 

    Also, it was funny as fuck. There was something inherently hilarious about eating the five star meals Taako would dish out at their dumpy, overstuffed couch. 

    “So gimme all the goss," Taako prompted. They sat side by side on the edge of their seats, hunkered up close to the table, which they dragged closer for convenience. He tore back the foil covering the bread as he spoke and handed Kravitz three large, buttered slices, before taking both of the end pieces for himself. 

    "Eh, it was pretty dead today," Kravitz said, then paused to chortle at his unintentional joke. Taako leveled him an unimpressed look. Kravitz diverted his attention haughtily to get a spoonful of the soup, scooping up the broth and a generous amount of the perfectly cooked vegetables. With great anticipation, he lifted the spoon to his mouth to take a bite. 

    "What the fuck,” he said from behind his hand, mouth still partially filled, manners be damned. He swallowed the rest before continuing, “This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted. Thank you, love.” 

    Taako batted at Kravitz’s arm and rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t hide the pleased glow coloring his face, or the erratic twitch of his left ear that always sprung up when he was embarrassed. Kravitz knew what he really meant when he scoffed, “You say that every time, homie.” 

    The rest of their chatter died down in favor of enjoying the food, with the occassional comment interspersed between bites. A particularly long stretch of silence had Kravitz tearing into his bread, soaking up broth with the small pieces. He was so entranced by the repetitive motions that he didn’t notice Taako had been placing more bread into his empty hand until most of the liquid was gone from his bowl. 

    The realization of how much he ate drew his attention to the satisfied feeling in his belly. Kravitz knew himself well enough to realize he was at the optimal level of fullness, but he wasn’t near his limit. With no hesitation, he dug into the remaining vegetables and meat in his bowl. 

    “You gave me like, two-thirds of that bread. I’m stuffed. The rest has to be yours," Kravitz insisted, brandishing his spoon authoritatively towards Taako. It probably wasn’t a convincing threat. Not with Kravitz wandering to the kitchen to refill his bowl. 

    "Hey, I’m still on summer break, this has been a lazy day for Taako,” he teased as Kravitz returned to his seat. The grin spread across his face softened into something more genuine, more vulnerable, as he added, “My man was out there all day doing field work. Y'can’t blame a guy for wanting to give him a nice meal after all that.” 

    A swell of affection bloomed in Kravitz’s chest, swirls of warmth radiating all the way to his fingertips. Setting aside his own bowl, he wrapped his arms around his husband, snuggling a kiss onto the top of his head. 

    “I couldn’t blame you for anything,” he said reverently. “You take such good care of me.” 

    He felt Taako’s chest expand with a sudden breath as a small shiver ran through him. He returned the hug, squeezing Kravitz lightly around his middle. His arms sunk into the plush cusion of fat that padded the hard lines of his figure. For a wonderful moment, they melted against each other, together.  

    Then, to diffuse the seriousness of the moment, Taako lifted his chin to blow a raspberry against his stubbly cheek. 

    “Finish up that food. I’m ready for a cuddle,” he announced, sliding away from the affection and nestling himself into the corner of the couch, limbs loosely sprawling everywhere. Kravitz contemplated laying back onto the legs propped behind him, but he resisted. The temptation of a good hug was too much to resist.  

    As he went back to eating, Kravitz relished in the mounting pressure stretching out his belly. The heat and weight settled over him comfortably, like the thick down comforters they pulled out to use in the winter. He straddled the edge between being stuffed and being sick as he took the last bite, but it soon enough settled into the pleasurable zone. 

    The dishes could wait until morning, he decided. He pushed the table out further before finally turning towards his husband. Taako greeted him with outstretched arms and impatient grabby hands. Kravitz was more than happy to oblige, sidling up to his partner and adjusting himself until he could rest his head on Taako’s shoulder, and his taut stomach pressed gently against his side.  

    One of Taako’s hands came up and wriggled its way under the layers of Kravitz’s clothes, resting on the expanse of chub that filled out his side. His thumb smoothed over the divot under his ribcage, alternating between firm kneading and soft caresses. The sensation made Kravitz’s toes curl in delight. 

    “How ya feelin’, big guy?" Taako spoke into the crown of his head, where he was placing a series of short kisses. 

    Kravitz took a moment to consider, to really let the appreciation absorb into him, circulating through his body as sure as a heartbeat. 

    If one had asked him before what human aspect he missed the least as a dead man, he would’ve said he hated eating. It always felt like a chore to his sickly mortal body. In his later years, every swallow was a struggle. Kravitz gladly abandoned the habit the moment he could.  

    His dislike of food was a topic he was dreading breaching when he first learned that Taako was a chef. But like everything else about him, Taako made experiencing food feel right. He drew Kravitz into his passion, and nothing in the world would make him want to pull out. The intense efficiency with which he worked, the excitement of sharing knowledge, the thrill of trying something new– Taako was most beautiful in the kitchen, where he came alive, so assured in himself and the feelings he could only convey to others through his craft. 

    Kravitz knew his answer. He lifted his head to press a chaste, lingering kiss to the smile tugging at the corners of his husband’s mouth. 

    Then he replied, with absolute certainty: 

    "I feel loved.” 

p> Holy shit this is legit probably the best thing I've ever read the descriptions were so vivid and beautiful and the characterization was on point and god I felt like I was getting a warm cuddle just from reading it please come off anon so I can rant to you more about how good this is I love it I think I'm gonna start a tag for story submissions cause I wanna come back and read this again and again

[fictionfromgames]

2019 (Buffy/Angel Eden studios)

Lawrence Myers (January)

"I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

The cameras never stopped, but years at the firm led to an impeccable public persona. It was a large part of how a two term representative got picked out as VP, but then again, a little help from the Senior Partners goes a long way. He gave a picture perfect smile to the judge, bigger than the tight control he normally displayed, but still just as false.

It would be a while before he got to a place of privacy, something that made him begin to clench his jaw after a while. The American people were desperately pathetic, constantly delaying anything worthwhile, and he needed to get out.

Lawrence smoothed his salt and pepper hair, the only gesture he allowed himself, and largely as a joke for the press. His assistant was hovering in the periphery, and there was nothing he’d rather be doing than delegating long-awaited tasks.

He gestured to Mallory; an hour in and it was far past time to get the hell out of there. No more shmoozing, no more firing up the very amenable base. It was time.

“Sir, we’ve got a meet-and-greet in Virginia next--” Mallory began.

“Stop and listen,” President Myers said, his genial mask slipping into the authoritative annoyance he’d honed so well, “Call my guys at Homeland Security and ICE. I want all funding to IDRS halted and deferred to them.”

“Of course,” his assistant knew better than to respond with hesitation or confusion, “We’ll work up a press release too.”

“America solves its own problems, we don’t need INTERPOL junior here doing whatever the fuck they want,” he declared, “I don’t care who it needs to go through, we’ll start with an executive order if I have to.” “Absolutely,” Mallory complied, writing everything down, “And about the rally--”

“Fucking rallies,” his brow creased, conjuring up the lines in his brow that should have been deeper at 50, “That horseshit needs to be cut in half if we’re gonna get anything done this year.”

“Of course.”

A New, Confused Hope (March)

The tones of the aggravating electric chime rang again. Probably some lookie-loo or new witch seeking locally grown sage. Luckily, it does well enough in pots, so Logan always had a supply for the newly witchy.

He sniffed. Among the incenses and minty goodness of the growing sage, he caught a distinct eau de troll, and... “Hey, Aszea, try not to get vamp dust everywhere,” he called out without looking to the front of the shop.

“Logan, is Janis in? We have a kind of a situation,” the giant woman responded.

The way Aszea said situation made his ears perk, and probably would have without extra sensitive hearing. He placed his book down and made his way to the front, and was a little surprised that there were two people, and that the young woman with the troll was actually the one who smelled of dead vampires.

“Wwwwwwwhat?” Logan looked confused.

“So this is Emily.” Aszea put a hand softly on the girl’s shoulders, “She’s a sophomore at the catholic school, and she just killed like, three vampires.”

“Wait, really?” Logan moved around the counter, “That sounds like Slayer stuff, but--” “Right, she had a little assistance,” Aszea looked indignant, “But I told her about the Augury, and that we may be able to help her learn about what’s going on, and that, while it’s weird to have adult friends...”

“Having adult employers would be a good cover for a new Potential,” Logan knew immediately. He realized he’d carried a crystal ball out from stock, and set it down on an empty stand. “Twenty hours a week of magical supervision, little to no suspicion.”

“Twenty paid hours,” Aszea pointed out.

“Can you help me?” the girl’s eyes finally flickered up from her thousand yard stare. She was still in shock over what had happened, and Logan felt all the deeply bittersweet memories of watching someone learn some truth about the world lean a little more bitter when they locked eyes.

“Of course,” he said as softly as he could, “Just let me text the boss lady.”

Bad Actors (September)

“Well, shit!” Janis cursed, double-checking her phone.

“More amateur mages mucking up the mojo?” Logan asked, leaning over the counter.

“No, this was a test,” Janis held a finger in the air, “Someone is doing this on purpose, poisoning the well, and Iiiiiiiiii...”

Her face fell as she knew she’d have to admit something.

“Don’t know what to do about it?” Logan cut into her thought break.

“Yes, thanks, I was going to say that,” Janis twisted her mouth up, “Did you find the sleep daught?”

“Yeah, but I gotta skip it, Asz said there’s an inordinate amount of undead lately so I’ll be off the leash,” he said without looking at her.

“Any better at it? Can’t have you biting our only Slayer ally,” Janis crossed her arms, partly to glower and mostly to stop staring into her phone.

“I’ll tell you when you figure out what’s going on with the Tumblr coven.”

It was often tempting to throw annoying hexes at Logan, but ever since Myers ascended to the presidency, everything had been looking worse for the magical community, and she couldn’t afford to piss off any allies, even her werewolf store clerk.

“Who’d have thought I’d be curious as to where Phil went since January, huh?” she brushed a lock of hair out of her face, a small act of control in her increasingly chaotic life.

All Saints’ Order (November)

Brian raised his hands in victory. The molotov had crashed through the heathen storefront, and a small fire began taking hold inside. The Augury would be cleansed from his city.

Around him, his brothers cheered, hoisting their various weapons into the air, yells of “Hail Myers!” amongst the more enthusiastic wordlessness. They’d save their country, he knew, they’d start the next crusade, they’d burn--

Janis ended the spell.

“What’s happening?” Emily spoke up.

“We’re minus one shop and plus one openly fascistic anti-magic movement,” Janis responded flatly.

“Fuck,” was Aszea’s whole contribution the conversation.

*****************

So the last post was a couple years ago, and I’ve been watching a lot of Buffy, so here’s some setting update.

Lawrence Myers, 46th president of the United States, was a lawyer at a little firm known as Wolfram & Hart, and spent two terms as a representative for the state of Nevada before being courted, seemingly at random, as VP. When a very unexpected death opened up a vacancy in the White House, his administration fed on the zeitgeist of right wing American concerns and interests: a desire for law and order, fed by a covert program that produced chaos in the form of systematically sired mobs of vampires; fear and revulsion at the statistics of religion, that “witch” was now outpacing the growth of more “traditional” religious tendencies (see: christian denominations); and retaliation, essentially encouraged by the White House with its failure to criticize vigilante actions against apparently “satanic” sorts, such as middle class store owners or their working class superpowered/strange employees. Meanwhile, already prestigious or successful warlocks and demonic allies remained untouched by the ignorant sycophants.

Janis Morad, witch, demonologist, former entrepreneur. “Technopagan” is a term of the past, largely discarded in favor just plain ole witch, and Janis made her first sales online when Certain Social Websites started making witchcraft aesthetic. Using mundane practitioners to fund her own actual magickal ventures, she was largely able to fly under the radar until the All Saints’ executive order, which was supposed to fund governmental policing of Weird Stuff, but also just kind of invigorated an irate and clueless portion of the populace.

Logan Benson, werewolf. He was bit shortly before going to work with Janis, and has been pacified in his wolf phases by Janis’ alchemical experimentations. He’s been more and more eager to help out Aszea on nights as she seems immune to lycanthropy and is both tough and regenerative enough to survive the more mundane mauling that happened when he and the troll first met.

Emily Szymanski, Slayer. She’s mostly around because I had an idea that I liked-- that the Slayer Potential awakening spell was for extant Slayer Potentials when it was cast, not every one of them since. That being the case (how generous of me to myself), beginning in 2018 or later is the perfect time-- as Potentials come into age fifteen years later, we could be seeing one brand new Slayer for every one that has died since s7 of Buffy. This opens things up to a classic high school Slayer experience that we’re familiar with, while also still seeing a few “grizzled” vets in their mid to late twenties. I tend to assume “The life of a Slayer is brutally short,” but you don’t have to.

Generally speaking, she’s timid, I envisioned her as a nerdy Slayer, which will be fleshed out and statted when I get to it.

Aszea, troll. She was transformed from her assigned gender at birth through a wish-- one that she did not word carefully enough despite assuming she’d been quite particular. She wished to be a woman, but not specifically a human woman, and whoops. Now she mostly patrols and is the big muscle of the group.

Beyond this post, it’ll be set concurrent to whenever I’m writing, which is why I wanted to jump past all the time I didn’t include since the first two posts. Characters will have character sheets whenever they get their own story.

[headless-heart]

Goretober Day 2: On Pins and Needles 

Maybe consider not messing with the weird kid at school 

Warnings/Tags: mentioned past self harm/past suicide attempt, monsters, magic, torture, needles, revenge, original characters, original story

The school’s hallways are lined with alcoves, which was probably designed to improve the school’s Aesthetic™ or something but mostly lends itself to places for students to stash chewed up gum and various trash from the cafeteria. Rumors also went around that the older kids skipped class to hook up there, but all the cameras made that pretty unlikely. There’s one toward the end of the hallway, out of the way of the hustle and bustle of the classrooms, and Krexx claimed that one freshman year. Most of the other students leave him to it, which is ideal for everyone involved.

He’s sitting with knees drawn up to his chest, staring intently at a poorly sewn plushie that looks like a strange hybrid of a dragon and an english bulldog. He has it held tightly in his hands, head tilted slightly to the side as he meets its gaze. Eventually he huffs out a long sigh and rests his head against a knee. “I don’t know buddy. I don’t think that’ll work.” There’s a pause as he seems to contemplate the toy. “I mean maybe…”

“Hey freak!” There’s laughter as Krexx slowly turns his head to look at the bodies blocking his light.

“Can I help you?” he asks softly.

“Help me what? Learn to be a freak like you?” No one said high school bullies are an intelligent breed, and this particular specimen is of the insecure meathead variety. Krexx normally wouldn’t waste his time, but being trapped in an alcove limits one’s options a bit. Teachers can’t be bothered to intervene of course, they’re too busy teaching the masses or whatever nonsense they sell to the school board.

Krexx draws his plush toward his chest, sitting with legs crossed and looking calmly up at his schoolmate. “I would like it if you would leave,” he states plainly.

There’s a scowl on the boy’s face. His arms are crossed and he’s glaring down at Krexx like he’s nothing more than dirt under his heel. “And I’d like it if you did us all a favor and actually fucking offed yourself this time.”

He sighs, leaning back harder against the wall and gazing up through his bangs. “See the thing is,” he pauses to fiddle with the plushie’s undersized wings. “I don’t… particularly care what you think.”

Turns out meathead jocks move pretty fast once you piss them off. Up close he spells like steroid injections and man pain. There’s a sadistic grin on his face though, and that’s a bit concerning. “I should rip your fucking stitches open you gothic piece of shit.”

Expressionless, Krexx reaches one hand down and pulls up a long, tattered sleeve to reveal angry raised scars starting at his wrist and extending beyond what the fabric reveals. “Afraid you’re too late for that,” he quips, trying to keep the amusement out of his voice. It’s a little easier to fight the oncoming smile when he’s slammed into the wall and the air knocks out of his lungs.

The other boy is practically spitting his words. “Do you fucking know who you’re messing with?”

He does. Not that he wants to obviously, but it’s a little hard not to know when half the school, including teachers, is constantly fawning over the guy. Nicholas Vanderbilt-Owens, Gallery High’s star football player and a town favorite. Apparently he comes from one of those “big deal” sort of families. Whatever. It’s not that impressive when you consider the fact the kid’s so insecure he has to push others around just to feel manly enough to maintain his rank in the high school pecking order. Krexx shrugs, receiving another hit against the wall for his efforts. “Are you done?”

There’s a pregnant pause before Owens relents, dropping Krexx back down on the floor. Krexx rubs at the spot his head collided with the wall and watches silently as the other boy starts to pace back and forth like an angry animal. Finally Owens stops, makes a grab for the plush toy, and Krexx wraps both hands around one of the boy’s wrists, trying in vain to keep him from snatching the toy. There’s a grin splitting the bully’s face now that Krexx’s calm demeanor has finally started to crack. “What’s wrong, can’t give up your faggy little toy?” A single yank and Krexx is gazing up in horror as his beloved companion is hoisted far out of his reach.

“Give. Him. Back!” the words are dripping with venom, but the bully seems unphased. He’s able to hold the full force of the smaller boy’s body back with one hand, much to Krexx’s dismay. He watches powerless as Owens lifts the toy up, rips the seams apart, and throws the pieces down by Krexx’s boots.

Everything looks a little hazy as Krexx reaches out and touches the fabric with shaking fingers. Owens is laughing, throws a middle finger over his shoulder and stalks over to torture the next kid he deems somehow lesser than himself. Krexx glares after him, feeling his heartbeat strangling his lungs. Everything feels dark and heavy, and he’s not sure if he’s more pissed off at Owens for being a piece of shit or himself for being a mouthy fuck.

By the time the bell rings he’s propped up on the handicap toilet, tongue stuck out in concentration as he works diligently to close the seams that oaf so carelessly destroyed. “It’s okay Glow,” he mutters absent-mindedly. “I’ll get you all fixed up.”

“Don’t know why you bother with that,” a deep voice grumbles, reverberating off the walls of the stall.

Krexx smiles softly down at the monster curled up at his feet, tail softly tapping against the floor. “Have to have somewhere for you to hang out when I’m at school, right?”

The snort is accompanied by a thin trail of smoke. “They can’t see me.”

A shrug as he continues his work. “I know buddy, but I don’t want them to think I’m crazy talking to myself either, you know?” He ignores the unspoken judgement from his companion that follows that statement.

Some time later Glausach lets out a low grown. “Shouldn’t let them treat you like that.”

Krexx turns slowly, a wide grin splitting his lips. “Oh I won’t,” he responds cheerily. There’s a crudely constructed poppet in one hand a needle in the other. The monster’s laughter sounds like the creaking of floorboards and Krexx can’t help but grin wider. It’s been a long time since either of them had the chance to play.

- - - 

“The fuck are you doing here?” What a rude greeting, especially after all the trouble they’d gone through to track him down. Owens is spread out on a worn down couch, eyes bloodshot from the joint he’d been smoking before their arrival.

Krexx strides purposefully into the room, plopping down on a rickety rocking chair and propping his feet up on the table. “Just came to see what you’re up to,” he says with a smile, head tilted slightly to stare down at Owens. The plushie is propped under his arm, warm and comfortable in his grasp. “Killing more brain cells I see.”

“Weed don’t kill your brain cells,” Owens scoffs, leaning back in his chair. It’s late and he’s high, probably think he’s dreaming. It’s funny how people tend to justify the abnormalities in their lives. Krexx watches him struggle to relight the joint for a moment before snatching the lighter from his hand and holding the flame steady. Owens nods at him in thanks and takes a long drag before holding the joint out to Krexx. Grin widening, Krexx slides a hand over Owens’, slowly reaching for the drug before he stops just short, flicking his wrist and laughing outright when Owens jumps back in shock. “The fuck you just do?”

The poppet is back in his hand, finger running over the rough surface of it a few times before he thrusts the bloody pin into the thing’s heart. Owens is still staring at him in slack-jawed confusion, which honestly makes Krexx wonder if this is going to be any fun or if the idiot is too stupid to comprehend what’s happening to him. Krexx drops a handful of multi-colored pins onto the end-table beside him, shifting into a more comfortable position. Glausach’s vessel is nestled in his lap, the monster’s purring offering a pleasing background to the otherwise annoying silence.

“What’s th- AGH! What the fuck?” Owens’ fingers come away from his cheek bloody. He glances quickly down at them and back up to Krexx who is shrugging innocently, another pin in one hand and the poppet in another.

“You know~” Krexx coos, holding the pin so it’s hovering just over the poppet’s surface. “It’s a bit, hm… What’s the word? Rude, I suppose, to ruin other people’s things.”

“You- FUCK!” He’s clutching at his leg, breath coming quicker as the panic starts to set in.

A soft chuckle floats out of Krexx’s throat as he strokes a finger lovingly down the poppet’s leg. There’s a needle sticking partially in it, which is probably causing Owens a decent bit of pain. Still, it’s not quite the level of torment the bully had put others through, was it? “How much,” Krexx begins, looking up to meet Owens’ gaze. “Do you like playing football exactly?”

“I-I… What?” Owens is still pawing at his own leg, trying to figure out what’s causing the sharp pain in the center of his calf.

“Probably quite a bit considering it’s all you’re good at,” Krexx muses, head tilting from one side to another. “It’d be a shame if you lost out on this season, wouldn’t it?”

He twists the poppet’s leg and flinches back when Owens starts screaming bloody murder. He’s so loud he could wake the dead, and no one wants that. Krexx shares a look with Glausach, whose aura extends and reaches around the trio, effectively encasing them in a pearlescent barrier.

There are tears rushing down Owens cheeks and he’s staring at Krexx in horror. “What the fuck did you do to my leg you freaky fuck?”

Krexx waves his hand dismissively. “You’ll be fine, you big baby. You’ll probably only lose a season or two. Then again,” he pauses, a finger tapping at his chin. “I’m not a doctor, so maybe I’m wrong.”

“Y-you’re not g-guh! Gonna fucking,” Owens grits out through his teeth. “Gonna fucking get away with this you s-sick fuck!”

One, two slow blinks of his eyes. “Do… What?” he asks in mock confusion. He gives it a beat to sink in before he grins and dangles the poppet in front of Owens’ face. The jock tries to reach for it, but Krexx snatches it back before he has the chance. “Ah-ah!” he chides. “Wouldn’t want to do any unplanned damage now would we?”

Owens is breathing slowly in through his nose, out through his mouth. He’s blinking back the tears and seems to be gathering his strength to attempt to… Well something, anyway, and that won’t do. Krexx picks up another pin, running it lightly along the surface of the doll and watching thin pink lines appear on Owens’ skin. Owens flinches, but otherwise doesn’t react. Cute. He seems to think without a reaction, Krexx won’t continue. Amazing how the bullies will turn that rhetoric on its head.

“What do you say we get matching scars?” Krexx asks excitedly. “Since you were so concerned with mine and all.”

“Don’t you fuckin-”

“SHUT UP!” Krexx bellows, eyes glowing softly in the darkness of the basement. “You don’t have the power here. I do.”

Glow’s tail taps against the back of Krexx��s hand and the boy shakes his head once, twice, eyes returning to normal and refocusing on the task ahead. He wanted to do this right after-all, and rushing through would be no good. He plants the poppet firmly on the table and smirks slightly at the horror in Owens’ eyes once he realizes he suddenly couldn’t move.

“N-no. No. No, please!” Begging? Really? After everything he’d put the school “losers” though he has the audacity to beg? Pathetic.

The needle drags slowly over the poppets face, a wide gash splitting open on Owens’ face with the movement. He’s screaming and thrashing, and trying all the things his pea-sized brain can think of to get away. To no avail, of course. No, they’re just getting started. Krexx picks up a few pins from the table and plants them in the puppets tiny arm, dragging them up, up, up until there’s blood splattering the floor and he’s laughing over the screams.

[fandomsandfeminism]

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a weird and wonderful story, full of odd surreal encounters and wacky nonsense. Despite it's strangeness though, I promise that drugs were not involved in it's production.

To read all of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass as a PDF: http://www.gasl.org/refbib/Carroll__Alice_1st.pdf

Full text version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/11/11-h/11-h.htm

Full text version of Through the Looking Glass: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12/12-h/12-h.htm

Closed Captioning coming soon

Transcript below

Alice in Wonderland isn’t about drugs.

Now, I know that may come as a surprise to some people. It’s pretty standard internet fair to point at Alice, with all the trippy visuals and the mushrooms and the Hookah caterpillar, and declare that it was REALLY all about drugs this whole time, oh ho ho, and Disney made a movie about it!

But it’s not. It’s not about drugs.

I want to talk about Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass a little bit today, what they are really about, where this idea of them being about drugs came from, and why I find it to kind of be bullshit.

So, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 novel written by English novelist Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carrol. The sequel, Through the Looking Glass, was published in 1871. I’m going to focus mainly on these two original books, and  not the dozens and dozens and dozens of adaptations and remakes that exist. For the record, both books are in the public domain, so it's very easy to find pdf copies of them on the internet.

Almost every movie version of Alice, including the Disney one, splices together elements and plot points from both of the books, rather than simply adapting one story or the other. It’s not particularly important to know which characters and events happen in each, since they are very often published as a pair anyway. But we’re going to have a quick overview.

-

In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice is a young girl who is in the garden of her home playing with her cat Dinah when she sees a white  rabbit in a waistcoat run past, apparently late to an appointment. She follows the rabbit down the rabbit hole and thus into wonderland. What follows is a quintessential example of literary nonsense, filled with word play,  puns, and absurdity as Alice works her way through Wonderland.

She eats an odd bite of cake and drinks a potion which change her size. She cries so hard she creates a sea. She recites some poetry she had to memorize for school buts gets it all wrong. She meets a mouse that won’t answer her call in English, so she tries talking to it in French. She wonders if this assumed French mouse came over with William the Conqueror, because Alice doesn’t know much about when things in history happened. They reach the shore where other animals are. The mouse then gives a lecture on william the conqueror and the animals agree to a Caucus race to dry off  (Because Alice doesn’t know what a caucus actually is.)

Alice meets the Caterpillar, who seems to speak in riddles, correcting her grammar and not making sense. She meets the Duchess, who yells a lot and seems to ignore her baby. She meets the Cheshire Cat, who again, doesn’t make a lot of sense, and then the Mad Hatter and March Hare. More and more riddles. She plays a VERY silly game of croquet with the Queen of Hearts where the rules don’t make sense and the Queen cheats a lot. She meets a Mock Turtle (a pun on Mock Turtle soup, apparently Alice thought Mock Turtles were an animal). Then the world’s silliest court scene, where everything is unfair and doesn’t make sense, and then Alice goes back home, waking up as if from a dream.

Set presumably about half a year later, in Through the Looking Glass, Alice is playing inside the house with two cats, Dinah’s kittens, when she contemplates the mirror in the room. She finds that she is able to walk through the mirror and back into Wonderland.  She discovers a mostly nonsense poem, Jabberwocky, which can only be read if you hold it up to a mirror. She also finds that the chess pieces in the room have come to life. What follows is another adventure in mostly absurdity, though if you know how, you can actually use Looking Glass as a step by step guide for a real chess game. Alice plays the part of one of the white pawns.

She wanders through the garden of living flowers, meets Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, talks to Humpty Dumpty, and eventually makes all the way across the “board” and becomes a queen herself. The Red and White queens throw her a party,  and then confuse her with riddles and wordplay. This actually results in Alice physically confronting the Red Queen and “Capturing her”, putting the Red King into “Checkmate” unintentionally, and thus, she wakes up in her arm chair back home having won the game.

Quick recommendation, if you want to get all of the little wordplay and puns and references in Alice and Looking Glass, I recommend the Annotated Alice by Martin Gardner. It’s awesome.

- These books are pretty strange. So, if not a psychedelic reflection about a weird acid trip, or whatever, what’s up with these books? Why are they so weird?

Well, Carrol said he wrote the book after he and a friend spent a day on a river trip with the 3 young daughters of Henry Liddell in 1862. During their journey, Carrol entertained the girls with a made up nonsense story about a girl named Alice. Alice Liddell was so entranced that she told Carrol he should publish it. And so he did. He spent a few years refining the story before it was finally published, and the real Alice got her copy.

So on the surface, it’s just that- a silly story meant to amuse children, a celebration of imagination and childhood silliness.

But there are some underlying themes in these books. The encounters Alice has have a sort of pattern to them- Adults in the books, whether they are the Queen of Hearts or the White Queen, the Duchess or the Hatter, often speak in riddles. They make up rules that don’t make sense and refuse to explain them. The white rabbit is obsessed with never being late, and much of the word play or silliness comes from Alice not understanding adult or unfamiliar concepts (like the Mock Turtle or a Caucus race.)

And so the books become a very silly exploration of how a child, viewing the adult world, might feel confused and lost. Wonderland is Adulthood cloaked in familiar childhood clothes. Nursery Rhymes and game board pieces doing a fumbling pantomime of adulthood, discussing mathematical concepts and latin grammar, through the eyes of a child who doesn’t understand it.

There are many things that can be pulled from Alice- ideas of innocence, of escapism, of identity and sense of self,  of intentionally bucking order in favor of disorder. But none of those things are drugs.

(Sidenote: There is a whole other issue about Carrol’s….relationship with the Liddell daughters, and his...fondness for young girls in general. This is a whole separate debate, and it  gets kinda messy with contemporary views of childhood and adulthood and whether there was anything...untoward about his fondness for them. But that’s really not what we’re talking about today. )

- So, why do people think this is a story about drugs? Carrol wasn’t known for opium use, or even heavy drinking. He had no exposure to psychedelics (magic mushrooms wouldn't be discovered by Europeans until 1955) So why?

I think the easiest answer is that people want stories to make sense. I want stories to make sense. I spent a lot of money going to college to get a degree in “Making stories make sense.” We want there to be a reason that things happen in stories, and so when a story feels as random and silly and surreal as Alice, we want to figure out what it’s REALLY about.

This is kind of the underlying idea behind surrealism in general- creating art and meaning out of the absurd and random images of dreams and unreality. [Side note, there is an edition of Alice with illustrations by Salvador Dali, which is...amazing.]

And thanks to the culture of the 1960s and 1970s, there is a heavy association between reality-bending images and drug use, especially hallucinogens. And depending on which adaptation you are looking at, some movies really play up this trippy psychedelic aesthetic for Alice.

But I think there’s another level to this one, and one that I find much more grating. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a story for children, especially for girls. And there is a certain segment of the population, especially among young adults on the internet, who really seem to enjoy taking things aimed at children and declaring NO, this thing isn’t for kids, it’s actually FOR ME, and slapping an edgy dark interpretation on top of it, however sloppily.

Fan theories like...Ash is in a coma all along, or all the Rugrats are dead and Angelica is just imagining them, and...yeah, a huge slice of the Brony fandom declaring that adult men are the real audience, they aim at appropriating and co-opting child media for adult consumption

And there’s something about that which leaves a sour taste in my mouth over all. - I don’t think there’s anything inherently bad about reimagining child stories in more adult ways. But I do think it somewhat misses the point when people begin to insist that these mature reimaginings are the CORRECT or more valid interpretation, especially if they lead to the exclusion of children from that media space.

With Alice in particular, I think the story gives adult readers a chance to empathize with children, not as dolls or objects of cuteness, but as people interacting with a confusing and strange world as they grow up. It is an opportunity to revisit childhood, with all it’s familiar characters and uncertainty and wonder, and rather than corrupt that story, I think it should be embraced.

I’m going to leave you with the end of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alice’s adult sister, having heard her story, lays back, and herself begins to dream, of Wonderland and of her sister Alice. And This is what it says, “Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.”

And that is what Wonderland is about.

Thanks for watching this video! I’ll see yall down in the comments, so if you have any questions, feedback, or suggestions, head on over. If you enjoyed listening to this queer millennial feminist with a BA in English ramble on for a while, feel free to subscribe.

[fireandgloryrpg]

Congratulations ASH and welcome! We’re so happy to accept your application to play ELLIOT KWANJI JEON with the faceclaim of BYUN BAEKHYUN in Fire & Glory RPG! We can’t wait to begin roleplaying with you so please remember to look over our checklist!

Out of Character Information:

Name: Ash

Pronouns: Her/she

Age: 21, 04/17/97

Timezone: GMT +8 until Sept, GMT -4 starting Sept

Original Character Application:

Name: Elliot Kwanji Jeon

Age and Birthday: 21, 10/17/96

Faceclaim: First choice: Byun Baekhyun, Second choice: Yook Sungjae (Please note that though both my choices are singers/dancers, they also act. If you guys still have a problem with this, I don’t mind changing my FC choices.)

Heritage:  Elliot’s mother is Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty.

ABILITIES: Though Elliot doesn’t have charmspeak, they’re still quite charming without it. They have magical control over clothes, makeup and jewelry, amokinesis, the ability to speak fluent French, high social abilities and awareness, and the ability to use Permanent Makeup on others.

AFFILIATION: Second Cohort

Headcanons:

Though Elliot has control over makeup in a magical sense, they still love to apply makeup manually. It’s a skill they learned and mastered in their early teenage years, and they find it therapeutic, especially after their father’s death.

To say that people were surprised when Elliot made it into the second cohort would have been an understatement. They were known by the Greeks for being extra, and spending way too much time shopping online for clothes and makeup, but something that only some know is that Elliot loves to fight. Their favored weapons are the spear and dual daggers, and when they’re not online shopping or giving advice to their younger siblings, they’re out trying to find a worthy opponent who can measure up against their years of experience and bottomless well of bloodlust. Elliot also loves to use people’s conceptions of them against them, often playing dumb and mild just to bite back with razor sharp fangs.

Biography:

!! mention of homophobia tw !!

Growing up, there were too many things different about Elliot, so it seemed. They grew up understanding French even though all they spoke at home with their father was English and Korean, they were much prettier than other children their age, and they never liked being called a boy. Because of these reasons, they were bullied often in their school in Korea, where kids were ruthless and the parents even more so. Realizing that Korea was not the right place to raise such a unique child, Elliot’s father moved them to New York when Elliot was 7, and enrolled Elliot into a private school, hoping that there would be more tolerance for his child there.

He was right. Elliot was immediately cooed over by the teachers and other parents for being “sensitive” and pretty. Very few people made homophobic remarks toward Elliot, and these people were largely ignored or rebuked by Elliot’s and Elliot’s father’s growing circle of friends. However, after an encounter with a harpy when they were nine, Elliot was escorted by a satyr to Camp Half-Blood and has been attending every summer since.

The moment Elliot saw an older camper fight expertly with a spear, they wanted to do all they could to become proficient with the weapon. So, when other kids were doing electives like arts and crafts, Greek mythology crash courses, and rock-climbing, Elliot, through some blackmail they will heavily deny, finessed hours each week outside of regular training time to practice with older campers.

After years of repression, Elliot finally came out to their friends and father as transgender. At that point, they had already experimented a lot with makeup, and developed a liking for pleated skirts (oddly specific, but they swear it’s for the aesthetic). The discomfort that had grown since childhood of being labeled a male disappeared as their friends and family slowly acclimated to the information.

Now, Elliot is a licensed and popular makeup artist, giving them connections to the regular world that makes them well-known with anyone interested in the fashion world. No one really accuses them of just using magic anymore, especially after a particular instance where Elliot borrowed a magic-canceling artefact from the Athena kids one day and did an open show of them just applying makeup on people. They moved to New Rome to offer moral support and maybe cut a bitch or two, figuring that it was the least they could do for their fellow Greeks.

Para Sample:

It was the dead of night when Elliot arrived at Camp Jupiter for the first time.

For once, they weren’t wearing makeup. In fact, nothing about their appearance was polished in any way. Their hoodie and jeans had new holes that weren’t there when they had started their journey from Los Angeles, and they knew for sure that their sneakers were pretty much gone too. All they had that was still in relatively good condition was the spear strapped to their back and daggers sheathed in their belt, but even they were dirtied, having been covered in monster blood.

Still, a spear and two daggers would do perfectly well against whatever lay on or beyond the bridge ahead. Elliot scanned the bridge, trying to see if there were sentries or if there were some kind of monsters lurking in the shadows. When they saw neither, they crossed and made their way southeast, as Grover had told them to when he resigned himself to Elliot’s ill-advised trek.

Suddenly, Elliot felt a slight pressure on the nape of their neck.

Fuck.

“State your name and purpose,” a cold voice said.

“Elliot Jeon, child of Aphrodite from Camp Half-Blood, here to… ah… provide moral support,” Elliot said. They considered shrugging, but eventually decided against it, as they didn’t want their head to suddenly end up on the ground. Instead, they slowly raised their arms, trying to seem harmless.

A pause. “Did you come alone?"

"Yeah.”

“The woods are heavily infested with monsters, and you came alone and didn’t die?” The person asked incredulously.

“Yeah. Are you going to take me to Camp Jupiter now?” Elliot was getting impatient; it had been a long journey, and the initial adrenaline and recklessness that had taken ahold of them was starting to wear off.

Another pause. “I suppose,” the voice mumbled. “Just don’t try anything funny."

"Thank you."

The pressure disappeared from their neck. Deeming it safe to move freely, Elliot turned to face their ambusher, who cast them one sharp look before starting in a light jog towards what Elliot assumed to be Camp Jupiter.

The dude wasn’t much of a talker, Elliot learned as they tried to engage him in conversation. They did manage to extract information on how the camp worked from him though, so by the time a praetor– Reyna, Elliot recognized– woke up and greeted them, Elliot already got the general gist. Satisfied and unwilling to stay awake any longer than necessary, Reyna grilled Elliot a little more to ascertain their identify ("You can’t be too careful these days,” she said with a grimace), then sent Elliot to the fifth cohort barracks until they could be otherwise placed.

When Elliot finally flopped onto bed, they were freshly showered and dressed in a pair of borrowed sweatpants. There were various cuts and bruises on their skin, but considering how calm and numb they felt now, it was well worth it.

Their dad’s death hit them harder than they thought. Even makeup, fashion and clubbing didn’t help them cope at all, so Elliot turned to the one other thing they knew would work: killing things. Now that they were back among people and would be looking to establish connections and find old friends, however, they knew they would have to start putting on their mask of makeup and fashionable outfits again.

No one would have to know why and how they got here, Elliot decided. People were used to their spontaneity; they would accept that Elliot suddenly showed up, no questions asked.

Yes, that would be best, Elliot thought again as they drifted off to sleep, saddened yet comforted by the walls that built themselves, brick by brick, around them. That would be best…