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wholoveseggs · 3 months

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HIYA GORGEOUS!! I absolutely adore all that you write and here I am once again to request something (tbh I’ll always be here to request things 🤭). So I’d like to request…

y/n (aka me) is Elijah's best friend but she's never met Klaus, only heard about him. one day she surprises Eli for his birthday so she walks in the compound, not knowing that Klaus is there too. she and Elijah exchange hellos then talk for a bit and before they can leave (Elijah is subtly trying to rush her out), Klaus hears her voice and comes downstairs. I'll leave the details to you but she and Klaus instantly hit it off so much so that it makes Elijah jealous (he's always had a thing for y/n but never said anything be he's afraid of losing their friendship). again, leaving the details to you. can we make it a 2-parter? 1 is jealousy/angst w/ implied smut between y/n and Klaus & 2 is Elijah confessing to y/n his feelings which lead to their first time sex and possible future relationship.

Sorry love if this is too much, it's okay if you're not up for it though! Thanks for even indulging me! 🤍

Mine

THIS SCENE MAKES ME GO FERAL

18+ ---- {Masterlist} {Tag-List}

Part One

A drunken hookup with Klaus complicates your friendship with Elijah, leading to an awkward morning after.

♡♡ Thanks for the request sweet Aurora!! This one was a blast to write. But implied smut with Klaus??? Nahhh. No half-measures here. This is for all my Klaus girlies. You can't fix him, but you sure can fuck him. ♡♡

5k words - Warnings: smutttt {with Klaus}, rough sex, mild choking, Klaus being the drama, Elijah hiding his feelings & Rebekah judging you.

{Part Two}

You came rushing through the gates of the compound, carrying so many shopping bags that you could barely see. Your arms felt on fire, but a little strain was worth it all when you remembered who you were doing this for.

Tonight was Elijah's big birthday bash, put together by you and Rebekah, and you wanted everything to be perfect. Elijah had become one of your closest friends, and this celebration was your chance to show him how much he meant to you.

"Eli, I have so much stuff for the party. Where should I put it all?" you ask once you got far enough into the house.

Elijah emerged from the grand living room and came into the foyer to help you. He had an odd look on his face, but you couldn't really pinpoint it exactly. He took the bags from your arms and carried them himself.

"Don't look in them! I want it to be a surprise!" You said, putting your hands over his eyes and guiding him towards the table.

Elijah chuckled, "Fine, Fine. Are you sure all of this is necessary?"

"Absolutely." you said, uncovering his eyes. "You only turn 1040 once," you joked, causing the pair of you to laugh.

It was over-the-top as shit, but a girl had to take any opportunity to give a Mikaelson a birthday they would remember, and then some.

Elijah's smile faltered a bit as he looked around the courtyard nervously. "Will you be returning home to get ready for tonight?" He asked, trying not to sound hopeful.

"I'm actually getting ready here with Bekah, why? Have a hot date you are hiding from me?" You teased, unaware of the way Elijah's body stilled at your words.

"Oh no darling, no date, just a brother he wants to hide," said an accented voice from the second level balcony.

Elijah let out a rough sigh as you turned to see Klaus stepping down the stairs towards you both.

You had heard of the legendary hybrid of course, but since you met Elijah you had yet to run into him. In fact, this was the first time you had seen Klaus in person and were unaware of the true look of him. Which made you almost go weak in the knees.

He was hot, like 'fuck me right now hot' and it took everything in you not to drool. It didn't surprise you, all the other Mikaelsons were extremely attractive, so it only stood to reason their infamous hybrid brother would be also.

You could tell by the look on his face he found you just as attractive, and with a devilish smirk, he seemed to say ‘I will fuck you right now if that's what you wish’

"Hello love, it's a pleasure to finally meet you," he drawled before bringing your hand up and kissing it softly.

You wanted to hate him. Klaus had been notorious for so long for his tantrums and viciousness. But one look and just a touch from his lips and you knew you were doomed.

"T-Thanks," you said, pulling your hand back.

Klaus tucked a piece of hair behind your ear and ran a thumb across your cheek.

"Are you blushing for me? Can't say I blame you, love," he said cockily.

Elijah rolled his eyes at his younger brother's antics, but as Klaus lingered on your skin he felt a stir of possessiveness settle in his bones. He cleared his throat, shooting his brother a glare,

"I would love some help setting up the party for your brother," you asked Klaus, hoping to spend more time with him, his charm quite intriguing.

"It's alright, I can help you," Elijah insisted, not wanting Klaus to interact with you for a multitude of reasons.

"It's supposed to be a surprise for you Eli,” you pouted, which caused Elijah to soften at your cuteness.

"I've got it handled, Eli," Klaus teased, emphasizing the nickname you used for him.

Elijah looked between the two of you, clearly wanting to decline your request and keep you both apart. But alas, for some reason, he couldn't come up with a legitimate reason.

Klaus grabbed your bags and walked off, you began to follow, turning back to give Elijah a wide smile. "See you tonight, birthday boy," you exclaimed happily before hurrying off after the younger Mikaelson.

You spent all afternoon decorating with Klaus, who insisted you call him Nik. He was somewhat sweet but full of himself. Yet, you enjoyed his company, he had a good eye for décor and matched your vision effortlessly.

"Have I accomplished my mission?" he asked. He brought a champagne bottle up, pouring two glasses and giving you one.

You leaned against the pillar with him and clinked your drinks together. "I'd say so, yes. Thank you so much for helping me."

"It was no trouble at all," Klaus said, then smirked at you over his glass. "You are quite stunning, love."

You grinned at his comment, "you should see me after I get all dressed up for tonight," you flirted, even though it sounded more like a challenge to him.

Klaus downed his drink then placed it on the table. Without warning, he pinned you to the pillar and trapped you against him. "Oh I plan on doing more than looking tonight," he said as his hungry eyes traveled over your body.

"I see you two have finally met, how wonderful," Rebekah commented, disrupting the moment.

You laughed nervously, glad for the interruption, gently pushing Klaus off of you. As much as you wanted to jump Klaus then and there, something held you back. And you knew what, or rather, who was keeping you from acting on your desires...

"We were just having some champagne," you tell her, taking another drink.

"I see that, the decorations look amazing by the way," she complimented as she poured herself a glass as well. "Catering has arrived, they are setting everything up downstairs," she informed you, letting you know you should probably get ready.

"I'll go get dressed then. Thank you again, Nik." You smiled at him again, and he grinned in response.

"I think I'm owed a dance for my hard work," he told you as you walked away with Rebekah.

You looked over your shoulder at him and gave him a wink, excited for the party to begin.

Once you were upstairs and away from Klaus, Rebekah spoke quietly to you. "Be careful with him, he's not like Elijah," she warned you.

"No one is like Elijah," you chuckled a bit, ignoring the pang of sadness you felt at the realization you would probably never be with the older Mikaelson.

The two of you spent your time getting ready, sipping on champagne and discussing the numerous guests who would be arriving. You got a little too buzzed, but you were excited and also needed some courage to face an unknown quantity of vampires.

Rebekah always had impeccable taste, helping you pick out a skin tight dress that came a few inches above your knees and accentuated every curve on your body. Adding even more with the tall black heels you slipped on, showing off your legs.

"I'm afraid I might have gone too far," Rebekah chuckled as she applied your makeup, making you look smolderingly hot.

"You think?" You asked sarcastically.

"You look like vampire bait and I'm sure it's going to drive him mad," she snorted, taking another drink.

"Who?" You looked at yourself in the mirror and fixed a smudge of lipstick.

Rebekah gave you a knowing look, but stayed quiet and you just smiled back at her innocently.

When everything was ready and all the guests started arriving, you and Rebekah made a grand entrance into the main parlor. Elijah was talking with someone when his eyes caught you across the room, you wandered over to him and gave him a big hug.

"Happy birthday," you whispered in his ear, as his arms pulled you tighter to him.

"Thank you so much," he said, pulling back just enough to smile at you, his face growing even brighter when he really looked at you.

You noticed the way his eyes traced your figure, taking you all in. The way they darkened a bit with pure desire, making you instantly become hot all over. But it was probably just your imagination, brought on by all the champagne you've been drinking.

You almost made a move right then, but the person he was conversing with interrupted and you found yourself drawn away by Bekah and her friends. Leaving Elijah to watch you from afar as you conversed with them, laughing and drinking.

Hours later, you were still in the middle of the large group of people, even dancing to the music that was blaring through the place. You saw Elijah dancing with a beautiful woman and you wanted to be happy for him, but then the woman whispered in his ear and touched his chest, and your mood immediately soured.

You went to the bar to get a drink, deciding more alcohol might be what you needed to wash away all your confused feelings.

"Thirsty, love?" Asked a familiar voice in your ear as your body was pulled back to collide with a strong chest. You could smell the scent of Klaus's cologne and instantly felt turned on.

"Very," you said, downing your entire shot.

He spun you around to look into your eyes, both of his hands on your waist, drinking in your appearance.

"You didn't have to do all this for me," Klaus teased, his eyes on your chest as he licked his lips. "I'm a sure thing, darling, you know that,"

You couldn't help but laugh. He may have been a lot of things, but he was definitely entertaining. You shook your head, but smiled all the same.

"I only ever dress up for myself, Nik," you sassed back to him, looking up through your lashes.

A slow smirk came to Klaus's face as he leaned in and captured your lips in his. He hummed into the kiss and his grip tightened on you. He pulled away, your lipstick was still on his lips.

You giggled and wiped it off, as he ordered you another drink. Not that you really wanted one but damn, he was good at persuading people.

"I recall that you owe me a dance," he reminded you, taking a sip of his own beverage.

"Oh?" You said innocently, fiddling with the many necklaces he was wearing. "I don't remember agreeing to anything," you flirted.

"Well, perhaps a private dance then," he teased, giving you a mischievous smile.

"Maybe I'll surprise you later," you whispered, leaning in and sucking his bottom lip into your mouth and playfully biting it, loving the look of surprise and arousal on his face.

Then you turned and sauntered away, leaving him standing there at the bar to watch you. You were definitely going to end up in his bed tonight, but you wanted to make him squirm a little. Or rather, a lot.

You moved through the crowd to see Elijah and the woman dancing close, whispering things to each other. Well, actually, only she was talking. He seemed like he wasn't paying too much attention to the conversation she was having with him.

You gave him a wave and a smile, pointing at the woman and giving him an encouraging thumbs up. You don't know why you did it. Your chest did funny things seeing him with someone else though.

He returned your smile but didn't do much else before she spoke in his ear again and he allowed her to lead him out of the crowd.

You guessed Elijah was tired of his own party and went off to have some fun, and you were determined to have the same.

Klaus found you sitting on the couch, a cocktail and a plate of various snacks in front of you. You were thoroughly bored as you couldn't find him again.

He came from behind and crashed beside you, taking the glass out of your hand and finishing it, then set it aside.

"Hey! That was mine," you scolded playfully.

Klaus put his arm around you and kissed your neck. "How about you stop pretending you're enjoying yourself and come upstairs with me?" He suggested.

You laughed, and then he abruptly pulled you up and practically carried you through the door leading upstairs, pinning you to the wall at the top of the steps.

"Nik," you tried to say while laughing. "You can't just haul me off and have your way with me," you protested as his lips got closer to yours.

"Tell me to stop and I will," he taunted, bringing his lips to yours in a rough kiss.

You felt like you couldn't breathe, everything moving so fast. Klaus didn't even give you a chance to respond, lifting you so your legs wrapped around him.

He walked into a room and shut the door, setting you down on his desk. You realized that you were in his infamous art studio, looking around as Klaus hovered over you. You felt his lips on your neck, kissing every inch until you moaned.

Then he found the tiny zipper of your dress and slid it down, exposing your breasts. He smirked, reaching to tweak your nipple as he took you in. "Well then, love. Now I truly see why my brother has hidden you from me," he said huskily.

You giggled at his compliment but then you couldn't form words as he yanked the rest of your dress off you. You sat on the desk naked, save for your heels and nothing else.

"Dear lord, you are gorgeous," Klaus muttered, touching you everywhere.

You pulled him close by his shirt collar and locked lips. You bit his bottom lip harshly and he growled, his eyes flashing gold. The way his eyes changed on you was the hottest thing you've seen.

You pulled his shirt off him, tossing it to the floor before unbuckling his belt, wanting him as naked as you were. Once you had him bare, you raked your nails down his chest and he chuckled.

"You want to play rough, don’t you love?" He whispered as he nipped at your neck.

"Maybe," you teased, "what are you going to do about it?" You questioned, leaning back on the desk a little and spreading your legs for him, getting wet at the promise of a wild night.

Klaus's breath hitched when you touched yourself for him, his eyes completely transfixed on you. He was definitely intrigued by how confident you were.

"Well then," he growled before he roughly pinned your legs open, his hands squeezing your thighs harshly. He brought your body to the edge of the desk, kneeling in front of you as he ran a thumb over your dripping wet center.

He hummed at your scent as he pulled you forward a bit more to devour you, making you yelp in surprise, your hands tugging on his curls.

He was good, really good, and your toes curled at the pleasure you were receiving. It only got better when you saw his golden eyes as he gazed at you with a possessive glint, the vibrations from his own groans of enjoyment hitting you just right.

But before you could climax he pulled back and stood up, making you whimper and sit up on the desk, wanting him to continue.

Klaus chuckled at your impatience, pulling you into another searing kiss as you moaned. He broke it and gave you a smug smile, before wrapping his hand around your throat.

You were panting with need, your hand moving down to his cock and he hissed at your touch. He moved forward so he was resting between your thighs again as you stroked him slowly.

You both stayed this way for a moment, staring at each other. Until finally Klaus couldn't stand it any longer and roughly turned you around to face the desk. He pushed on your back until you were bent over on the wood, making you giggle with anticipation.

He smacked your ass hard, turning your giggle into a gasp as you looked back at him. He did it again and again until it was stinging. You wanted him so badly, it was unbearable.

You reached back for him and he lined up his cock to your entrance, sliding it up and down a few times until you were nearly shaking. He finally gave in and pushed into you, his hand tugging your hair until you arched into him, and he sank into the hilt.

He hissed at the sensation and you were about to tell him to move but he started fucking you without you needing to, hard and rough and perfect. He had you moaning with each thrust as you grabbed onto the desk, holding on tight as his body collided with yours, skin slapping as you got closer to climaxing.

It was hot and a little dirty, just what you had needed. Your moans only spurred him on as his hands explored your body while he took you from behind. The force of his thrusts causing items on his desk to clatter to the floor, but you both were far too gone to care.

He wrapped an arm around your waist and pulled you back into him, making you stand so his other hand could roam your front. He moved up to massage your breast while pinching and tugging on your nipple until you moaned. He was clearly determined to make you come first and was going to enjoy doing it.

"Nik!" you whined his name when he pinched you a bit too harshly. You felt his lips on your neck, his fangs grazing the skin as he left hickeys.

You tilted your head for him and he smirked, licking your pulse point and gently nibbling. His thrusting becoming erratic as his hand slipped to your clit to rub fast circles until your legs started trembling and you let out a scream as your orgasm crashed into you.

He hummed in approval and thrust into you a few more times before you felt him filling you up with his cum, and you giggled from the sensation. He released you from his grasp and you leaned back down on the desk, turning around to face him.

You both were sweaty and exhausted but extremely satisfied. He wrapped his arms around you and pulled you close, placing soft kisses all over your face as you giggled again, trying to move away from him.

He grabbed your dress and handed it to you before slipping on his pants, leaving his shirt off. He gave you a soft kiss on the lips and then turned away, starting to pick up the fallen objects from his desk and placing them in their correct places.

You watched him in a daze, your body tingling as you pulled your dress back on.

"So, love, my room is right next door, if you care to continue our celebration?" He said with a smug smirk, giving you a wink.

You giggled again and nodded, knowing it was probably the alcohol giving you your confidence, but you were going to ride the wave (and him) until the end.

Klaus woke to find you peacefully asleep in his bed. He leaned down to give you a gentle kiss on your forehead as you stirred slightly.

It was quite a night.

He took his time to admire your body and then your beautiful face. The way your eyelashes brushed your cheekbones as you slept, and your lips were parted slightly.

He got out of bed and got dressed, heading downstairs to find some blood and coffee. Elijah was in the kitchen reading his morning paper and looking every bit as dignified as always.

Klaus poured himself some coffee and started drinking it. He glanced around and saw there was no one else there but his brother, and he was smirking before he even opened his mouth.

"How was your night, Elijah?" He asked teasingly.

Elijah took his time to respond. He folded his paper up, placing it beside him as he eyed his younger brother suspiciously, he always had an innate sense to when Klaus was up to something.

"Quite fine. Why do you ask?"

Klaus's smirk grew bigger. He didn't say anything else and went about making himself something to eat. He felt Elijah's eyes boring into him the whole time, knowing that he wanted an answer but Klaus wouldn't give it to him just yet. He just loved torturing his big brother, even after a thousand years it was still highly entertaining.

"Your friend is an excellent host," Klaus started off with, his back turned as he chopped some fruit to put into a smoothie. He could almost hear the wheels turning in Elijah's mind as he tried to figure out where Klaus was going with this. "You really should have introduced me to her sooner."

Elijah sighed heavily. Klaus glanced behind him, and he had an annoyed expression on his face. He wasn't getting anything from Elijah so he turned to face him, his smirk returning.

"I showed her how much I appreciated her hard work last night. Several times actually, in my studio, a few times in my bed and then in the shower," he added as his smirk got wider and his tone became suggestive. "I dare say I've never been ridden so spectacularly before in all my years,"

Elijah abruptly stood, opening his mouth to say something, but that's when Klaus turned on the blender. Looking at Elijah apologetically and holding a finger to his ear and shrugging his shoulders.

"What's the matter brother?" he shouted over the blender. "You look a bit upset. You know it's not very healthy to bottle up all of your feelings,"

He stopped the blender and poured himself a glass, then another for Elijah as he handed it to him. Elijah just glared at him and poured the smoothie down the drain, setting the glass in the sink.

"That's rather rude, Elijah," he scolded teasingly. "I made that just for you,"

"Have you no shame, Niklaus?" He asked harshly, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Noooo, shame is for boring people," he taunted. "Why are you so upset? Aren't you happy for your friend? I can assure you that she enjoyed herself immensely,”

Elijah snapped. He couldn't take anymore. He walked over and grabbed Klaus by the shirt collar, and shoved him against the wall roughly, holding him in place.

"You know how I feel about her and yet you slept with her anyway," Elijah seethed.

Klaus raised his eyebrow. "If you want her, then you should of taken her yourself," he snapped, his eyes flashing gold in challenge. "It's your loss anyway," he added, shoving him back and adjusting his collar, then smoothing out his shirt.

Elijah was livid. He knew it was just Klaus's way of being obnoxious, but that didn't make it any easier to handle.

"I can't get the vision of her tits bouncing in my face out of my mind, Elijah," Klaus taunted him again. "Perhaps if you're lucky, you'll get to experience it for yourself," he said, brushing past his brother and walking away with a laugh.

You woke in Klaus' bed with a terrible hangover and an empty spot beside you. You sat up, your head spinning a bit as the memories of the night before came flooding back.

Oh God, you slept with Elijah's brother.

You covered your face in embarrassment. You got drunk, got laid and it was with the worst person you possibly could of picked.

Elijah was going to kill you. He's been protecting you from his brother and here you go, having sex with him in his bed. You could imagine how disappointed he was in you right now.

You quickly got dressed and made your way downstairs, needing some coffee and possibly a few pain pills to try and take the edge off your headache.

Klaus was walking away from the kitchen, a devious smirk on his face. When he saw you, his grin got even bigger, but he said nothing, just gave you a wink.

You turned red in embarrassment and dashed into the kitchen, finding Elijah sipping his morning coffee while reading his paper. He looked up when he saw you enter and then he folded the paper and placed it on the island.

"Morning," he started off in a professional tone. You hated how he sounded.

You grabbed a mug and poured the liquid into it. Elijah was silent as he waited for you to face him, and once you had taken a few sips, he was standing in front of you.

He pushed your hair off your neck and a flash of Klaus' mouth sucking and nibbling on you last night, appeared in your mind. You were definitely covered in marks and hickeys.

"I see you had fun," Elijah muttered, and you saw him look over your appearance, the slight smudged make-up, messy hair and rumpled dress from last night.

He wasn't usually one to judge someone else's life choices, but this was his brother and you. It seemed more personal.

You blushed and pushed your hair back over your shoulder, so his eyes would stop staring at your neck. You needed a cold shower or something, the entire night was still feeling extremely vivid.

"Look Elijah, I'm so sorry, he just caught me at the right moment and I got a little drunk and..." you trailed off, taking a drink of coffee to calm your nerves. You really didn't have any good excuse to give him.

"It's alright, you can be with whoever you choose," Elijah stated in a collected tone.

You frowned and saw him adjusting his cuff-links. A sure sign he was upset. He always did that when he was angry or hiding what he was truly feeling.

"It was just a one time thing," you added, but you felt like he wasn't listening to you anymore.

Elijah was acting strange. Sure he could be an enigma sometimes, but this was different. He looked determined but a little annoyed, and you weren't quite sure how to read the situation. You decided to steer the conversation away from Klaus and what had happened between you two.

"How was your night?" You finally thought to ask. "I saw you leave with a woman, you looked like you were having fun," you said it teasingly, hoping it would lighten up the mood.

But now it was his turn to blush.

"Fine, really. It was fine," he muttered, fixing the already perfect knot in his tie. Now that was definitely something. Elijah rarely ever got tongue tied. "We kissed and I walked her home," he added, his lips pressing together in a firm line.

"That's all? You didn't...well, you know?" You questioned hesitantly.

"One night stands aren't my forte," he replied, giving you a soft smile. "When I take a woman to bed, I make her mine," his words were possessive and he hadn't taken his eyes off you.

The two of you weren't the kind of friends who discussed your sex life with each other. So when he said this, your cheeks turned hot and your imagination went wild. The idea of him holding you down and having his wicked way with you was something you were definitely interested in.

You both were staring at each other, the tension growing by the second. Then you looked away, you couldn't possibly fuck another Mikaelson in the same twelve hour period. Besides, Elijah meant far more to you than Klaus ever could. Sex with him would probably lead you somewhere complicated, and you didn't want to ruin what you had right now.

The situation was way too weird.

"Do you want to hang out tomorrow?" You decided to ask, breaking the silence and steering the conversation away from sex. You just wanted to spend some time with him. "Maybe come up to my place? I don't work the next two days," you added, hopeful he would agree to spend time with you, even though he always did, but this time you felt more nervous about it.

It would help things get back to normal, as normal as they could be after what happened with Klaus.

"Sure, Klaus and Rebekah won't be home tomorrow if you would like to come over here instead?" He suggested, your eyes meeting his again.

He had such an intense way of staring into your eyes, that it almost felt like he was looking into your soul.

"Well, it's your birthday so whatever you would like to do," you stated, giving him a sweet smile.

Your phone buzzed, breaking the moment. You grabbed it from your purse and opened the new text from Klaus:

- I'm available if you ever need something to ride again.

You quickly put down your phone, forgetting you had given him your number. You decided you were going to ignore it. There was no way you were going there again.

Elijah looked curious but didn't press.

"I better go home," you said, finishing your coffee and putting it in the sink.

"See you tomorrow," he replied, stepping closer and giving you gentle kiss on the cheek.

You said bye to him and walked out of the kitchen to the courtyard where Rebekah and Klaus were arguing. They both looked over at you, their argument stopping when they noticed you.

"Hello darling," Klaus greeted, his eyes raking over you. Flashes of your evening together running through your mind, and you quickly looked away from him.

Rebekah looked between the two of you and you could see her trying to figure it out, her eyes widening as she stared at you. You quickly hurried out of the compound before either of them could say another word.

{Part Two}

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ezziefae · 4 months

Text

Thoughts on Chap. 3 of The Prisoner's Throne (SPOILERS)

hello readers, forgive me for the typos, there are so many things about this chapter that had me screaming. Enjoy my thoughts!!!

“I want—” he begins.

“No,” she tells him. “By the power of Grimsen’s bridle, get on your knees and be silent.”

Wren has to be one of the scariest characters ever written by holly black.

Her mouth curves into a smile, but it isn’t a nice one. “By Grimsen, I command you to do exactly as I say from here forward. You will stay on your knees until I say otherwise.”

Oak should have left when he had the chance.

Nahhh! I knew since TSH that we were gonna see Wren use the bridle on Oak, but now that i'm READING THIS it's still INSANE that she's willingly using it to CONTROLL him fully, it makes me think of Jude and Cardan, and how Jude kind of sorta had control of Cardan, but only by Pledge. Jude also had a power to command Cardan whatever she wished him to do, but she never ordered him to do something like THIS. Wren seems to have no mercy on Oak. She could legit make him kill or hurt anyone, she could make him jump off a bridge or say anything. Kind of also reminds me of when Locke ordered the ghost to betray Jude and the court of shadows, and how the Ghost had no control over his actions, and how in TQON he asked Jude to kill him because he'd rather die than be controlled by anyone. Wren did not come to play. This is so scary!!!

He finds her fascinating. He’s always found her fascinating, but he is not foolish enough to tell her that. Especially not in this moment, when he is afraid of her.

Oak is literally being controlled and is bridled and these are his thoughts…he's so downbad that it could actually get him killed.

“I am already bridled,” he says, feeling a little frantic. “You don’t need to lock me away. I can’t harm you unless you let me. I am entirely in your power. And when I did escape, I came directly to your side. Let me kneel at your feet in the throne room and gaze up adoringly at you.”

THE LAST LINE!! IM DYINGGG!! THIS MAN NEEDS TO STOPPPPPP, OH OAKKKKK YOURE SOOOOO DOWNN BADDDDD FOR WREN

“I have to occupy myself somehow,” he says. “When I am between moments of gazing adoringly, of course.”

I have no words…Not Oak trying to use his charm on her, like dude, i dont think thats gonna work.

The door opens, and Fernwaif comes in, a single guard behind her. Oak recognizes him as Bran, who occasionally sat at Madoc’s dinner table when Oak was a child. He looks horrified at the sight of the prince on his knees, wearing the livery of a guard beneath a stolen cloak.

I absolutely LOVE that we’re getting past memories of Oak when he was a child. It also helps the readers feel nostalgic from reading the folk of the air series. When Jude, Taryn, Vivi, Oak, Madoc, and Oriana lived in peace.I hope we get so many of these moments…even though i have to say this paragraph is a little sad, how Oak recognized the guard as one of his fathers friends..

“You don’t know me as well as you think, Greenbriar heir,” she says. “I remember your stories, like the one about how you used a glamour against your mortal sister and made her strike herself. How would you like to feel as she felt?”

NOT HER USING THIS AGAINST HIM!!! Love how that moment keeps being brought up. (And i predict that Oak will apologize to Jude about it in this book)

“I’ll slap myself silly willingly, if you like,” he offers. “No need for a command.”

OAK STOPPP IM DEAD

“What if, instead, I force you onto your hands and knees to make a bench for me to sit upon?” Wren inquires lightly, but her eyes are alight with fury and something else, something darker.

Wren.... I don't think that sounds like a punishment to him sweetie…

“Crawl to me.” Her eyes shine, fever bright.

GUYS ITS THE LINE!! THE LINEEE!! SHE SAYS THE LINEEE HOLY SHI-

Again, Oak’s body moves without his permission. He finds himself writhing across the floor, his stomach against the carpet. He flushes with shame.

SHES SO WRONG FOR THAT. SHE'S HUMILIATING HIMM! Not even Jude did these thing to Cardan *sobs*

When he reaches her, he stares upward, rage in his eyes. He’s humiliated, and she’s barely begun. She was right when she said he didn’t understand what it would feel like. He hadn’t counted on the embarrassment, the fury at himself for not being able to resist the magic. He hadn’t counted on the fear of what she would do next.

This is actually very sad. Wren is treating him somewhat in a way that she had been treated. She's hurt, and I guess it's very understandable, I just wish she didn't have to inflict that pain on Oak.

Oak cuts his gaze toward Bran, who has remained stiff and still, as though afraid to draw Wren’s attention. The prince wonders how far she would go if he were not present.

Two things!! Number one I literally FORGOT the guard was still in the room and he had to WATCH oak crawl to her. Number two, That last line…..what kind of things would she has ordered Oak to do if the guard had not been in the room……(side eye)

Wren turns to him. “Perhaps I ought to have you sent to the Great Hall tomorrow and command that you endure ten strikes of an ice whip. Most barely get through five.”

Oh my god, she really is EVIL DUDE. I've never seen this kind of evil in a holly black book. Now I'm scared.

Oak looks directly into her eyes. “Why are you keeping me at all, Wren? Am I a hostage to be ransomed? A lover to be punished? A possession to be locked away?”

“That,” she says, bitterness in her voice, “is what I am trying to figure out myself.” She turns to the guards. “Take him back to his cell.”

OH IM VERY EXCITED TO SEE WHAT SHE'S PLANNING. Remember that Jude and Cardan are on their way to save Oak, if anything I believe Wren is somehow going to use Oak against elfhame. Maybe she’ll order him to hurt jude or cardan. THIS BOOK IS GOING TO END ME AGH I NEED IT NOWWW.

“Good night, Prince of Elfhame,” Wren says as he is led from the room. He manages a single glance back. Her gaze locks with his, and he can feel the frisson of something between them. Something that might well be terrible, but that he wants more of all the same.

I'm very curious to know how Oak is going to handle this mess. Like he's absolutely F*CKED. He's so down bad for Wren that he would do anything to stay by her side and protect her, YET he also wants to protect his family members who are on their way to save him and to kill wren. He cannot save BOTHHHH, meaning he will probably have to choose sides. Holly Black why are you torturing us!!!

MARCH 5TH HURYYY UPPP!

49 more days till this book comes out. stay strong.

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greenticklerdreams · 29 days

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15 questions for 15 friends:

Hi, @lady-featherquill and @missamyrisa2! I’m honored that two such illustrious writers would think of me.

Were you named after anyone?: Nope! My mom may have gotten the name from a soap opera she was watching, though… but that might just be one of my dad’s lame jokes, lol.

When was the last time you cried?: The ending of Godzilla Minus One. I’m serious.

Do you have kids?: Nada.

What sports do you play/have you played?: I played tennis when I was in junior high and early high school! Was big into it for a while … and then we moved and my new high school didn’t have a team. Had a thriving theatre program, though! I’m ultimately very thankful for that.

Do you use sarcasm?: Me?? Psshhh. Nahhh. 😉

What is the first thing you notice about people?: Tough question. IRL… probably the way they carry themselves? The way they move through space. I also notice how they say things… phrases, reactions. Does that make sense? … Maybe this is too deep. I notice clothing style, too! Not in a critical way, just assessing. As for online, I WILL notice your texting style. Perfect grammar, all lowercase no punctuation, how often you use emojis and how. Just warning y’all.

What's your eye color?: Brown, tending more toward honey/amber than black. (My brother has super dark brown eyes like the latter and I’m only a little envious.)

Scary movies or happy endings?: Happy endings, definitely. I can’t handle scary movies at all, let alone downer endings. … I never did watch that Cyberpunk anime. I should get to that…

Any talents?: Writing. Acting. I’m a fast reader. Projecting my voice. Memorizing lines. ... a lot of these are related to acting, haha.

Where were you born?: Louisiana! And then got moved away before I was even a year old, so I don’t exactly remember it.

What are your hobbies?: Reading, writing, video games, listening to music, TTRPGs (GMing and playing). Typical nerd! I also like walks, casual hikes, and trying new coffeehouses.

Do you have any pets?: Sadly, no… I miss having dogs. And I love cats, but I’m allergic to them… it sucks.

How tall are you?: 5’7”, and a lot more confident about it than I used to be! (I know it’s kind of the stereotypical “bitter guy” height, lol. It’s fine, I probably shouldn’t go into politics anyway. 😆)

Favorite subject in school?: English, hands down.

Dream job?: I wish I knew. It would be fun to be creative for a living – a writer, or one of those streaming D&D Dungeon Masters – but it might also drain me of the creativity I need for my hobbies. I’d like to do something that actually helps people, charity work or something. I know I sound really driftless for a 30-something… I just care more about my life outside of my job, y'know? And I’d like to get out of finance one day, man.

Join in and pass it on if you can. Don't feel obligated!: 15?? That’s a lot. Hi, mutuals! If I haven’t said hi before now, I’d like to get to know you better. 😊

@ticklingmesoftly @magnificentbitchface @theepopcornwhore @something-tickly-this-way-comes @darkharp-tickling @silly-panic @thebest-medicine @applesyaboi @a-ticklish-banshee @brushtickler @datstrangetickler @ticklish-wallflower @hypersensitiv3 @yopatbo @sensitivemarie @still-not-rly-sure

#ask game #answered

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seattlesellie · 11 months

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Okay but can we talk about how badly Ellie would blush if you guys were hanging out listening to music and a really sexual song came on and you sang all the words 😭😭😭

this but like canon universe where you find an old disc and put it on to play on the tape and or nah by ty dolla sign starts playing and youre jumping like “omg i know this one!!” and ellies like okay weirdo and you’re singing along like “do you like the way i flick my tongue or nahhh” and ellies so flustered like um maybe flick your tongue against my and shes huffs like “this song is ass shut it off”

one week later you hear her humming it softly during patrol and youre fully shocked but you dont ask her anything maybe she listened to it alone in her room picturing doing exactly what those lyrics say to u idk maybe

#𓏲 ࣪₊♡𓂃 anon 🎀#I KNOW OR NAH CAME OUT AFTER THE OUTBREAK #dont come for me pls

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minzart · 4 months

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[Vignette + rambling of the design bellow]

Will: Grim has been really interested in this museum, I thought he would whine more to be honest, but I guess not, the great seven are something he really is interested in....

Grim: HENCHMEN! Come take a look!

Will: hm? What is it?

Grim: are you seeing this guy, he was the thorn witch henchman! It says here he was the only capable being of her army, and he's just a raven!

Will: hm... he found someone she was looking for 16 years, her goons didn't take in consideration that said person ages as time goes on... so he got one more braincell than normal?

Grim: exactly! I heard from Tsunotarou he was extremely loyal too! He is a great role model to you

Will: me?!

Grim: if course! You are my henchman after all! You gotta step up and learn from good examples hehehe

Will: why does this feel like you are mocking me...

Grim: aw don't worry, you are already plenty smarter than one bird brain we know of :)

Will: .... the bar is that low to ya isn't it?

---

Grim: what a weird corridor.... it isn't as fancy as the rest of the museum

Will: I think we shouldn't be here

Grim: nahhh you are just scared! We are benefactors! We gotta see all that the museum has to offer right?! Comon' it's a special year! It's 100 anniversary don't be a scared kitty

Will: says the talking cat

Grim: I AM NOT A CAT! - ohhhh who's that?

Will: the plate says "the dark mountain demon, a being once said to rule over the night and it's spirits, he slept by day and reighned caos by night"

Grim: he looks like he's the size of that mountain! Do you think I'm gonna grow that big?

Will: I hope not or else not even a truck of tuna cans will satiate your hunger

---

Will: I think we should get back Grim, it doesn't look like we should be here

Grim: yeah... the lights are really week here... FUGNYA! WHO IS THAT!

Will: that's just a... ohhh... ok yeah the red eyes are kinda creepy, but it's just a painting... a... very old painting... and unkempt too....

Grim: no wonder they don't want to put it were everyone can see, he's ugly.... and scary- NOT THAT I'M SCARED OF COURSE!

Will: "the caudron king"-Deuce's rival got it- "once a powerful magician with a caudron that could rise the dead..." I can't read the rest the plate is too damaged

Grim: powerful magician? Do you think he was that strong? He's just bones

Will: Epel said the same thing of Vil's physical power and look were that got him

Grim: hey... will... doesn't the eyes of this paint look... that... they are following us....?

Will: .... WHAT A NICE PAITING OVER THERE IN A LIGHTER CORRIDOR I THINK IT'S THE QUEEN OF HEARTS LET'S GO OVER THERE

Grim: right behind you!

----------

Wil's pose was based on this scene of the official 100 year anniversary art were the characters are in a "disney" artstyle

Grim looks like he was tossed into the air and is looking at carter's camera like the heartslabyul crew, so one of Will's hand looks like it's tosing something up and the other a peace sigh

#will yuu #twisted wonderland #twst #twst birthday #twst platinum jacket #platinum jacket

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cleostoohot · 2 years

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So as y’all know I did the 3 days or less challenge along with my ROE technique. Well the 3 days are over and here are my results <3 (I’m feeling pink today)

ᥫ᭡ | MY CRUSH TO TALK TO ME MORE (less than 24h)

Little back story: We were always partners in Spanish class because of our seating chart. He was literally the finest boy I seen in a long time whew😮‍💨. Chocolate skin, tall, he wasn’t the best in basketball but his sexc lips made up for that. We had each others number incase we wanted to exchange work but never texted on some friends shit until Friday. He randomly just hmu saying “yo” & tried to act like he didn’t know who number he was hitting but nahhh boy you know what you doing lolllll. We ended up just joking and reminiscing about school moments & I told him I’m taking culinary class again next year and he said he want me to cook for him 🌚 it never gave personal chef but I damn sure said I would lmfao

My main affirmations:

“Regardless of everything SP always finds a way to talk to me”

“Regardless of everything SP is always communicating with me”

“Regardless of everything SP loves talking to me”

ᥫ᭡ | RESEMBLING MY DESIRED FACE (more everyday)

I’m not going to say who my desired face is since I’m basically gonna end up looking like her completely (but 10x better). But since I wanted to resemble her like 50%, I had an idea of how that was going to look and I look exactly like that now. She has doe eyes and my eyes got rounder, her chin is kinda sorta boxy and mines got more squared, my lips got got bigger and wider and my nose is more pointy. I also love the way her mouth moves when she talks and my mouth has been moving the same. Plus when I talk mostly my bottom teeth would show but now you can see more of my top teeth like hers. I’ve only been around family since school been out and none of them knows who my df is (she’s only has over 100k on TikTok) so I’m guessing that’s why nobody said I look like her but my sister definitely said every morning I look different.

My main affirmations:

“Regardless of everything I be looking like DF”

“Regardless of everything me and DF look alike”

ᥫ᭡ | MY DAD GIVING ME MONEY OUT OF THE BLUE (2 days)

I’m going to visit New York and New Jersey in 2 weeks and what I look like spending my own money? My mom asked my dad to give me money for clothes, food, and just spending money but for some reason he acted like he didn’t want to. But, he ended up sending my mom 500 DOLLARS for me and said he might give me more when the trip comes closer. As you should mf. The hell.

My main affirmations:

“Regardless of everything my dad always gives me money”

“Regardless of everything I always receive money out of the blue”

ᥫ᭡ | RED VELVET CHEESECAKE (2 days)

Me and my sister was walking to Starbucks (and btw it was my first time having a drink from there! i got this drink i seen on Pinterest shit was so good i damn near chewed the cup). Anyways, otw there it was literally somebody selling cake pops. He has so many flavors but guess which one in particular he had… red motha fuckin velvet cheesecake!! My sister thought it was sus that some random man was selling cake pops so she wasn’t gonna get it at first but I KNEW it was my manifestation and that it was safe so I insisted. He actually gave us each one free (pretty privilege maybe 😗) but it was 100000/10 so we bought 4 more each lmfaooo.

funny side note: those cake pops been on my mind since i had them so i tried to make my own today and they’re not doing so good lmfao. but hopefully the last step will bring it all together idk🌚

My main affirmations:

“Regardless of everything I always get red velvet cheesecake”

“Regardless of everything I have red velvet cheesecake right now”

ᥫ᭡ | LOSING 5LBS (3 days)

There’s no story behind this one. I just lost weight lol. I mostly affirmed when I was eating. Before I was 133.?lbs and now I’m 126.2lbs. I didn’t check my weight until the 3rd day so idk which day it manifested exactly but that doesn’t matter fr.

My main affirmations:

“Regardless of everything I always lose weight”

“Regardless of everything I lost 5lbs”

“Regardless of everything food doesn’t make me gain weight”

#law of assumption #manifesation #manifesting #neville goddard #success story

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titansandothers · 2 years

Text

Kitten Kaboodle (10/?)

Raven took in every little word the changeling said. While she usually only vaguely paid attention, focus split between him and a book, she knew this was important. If the little kitten didn’t get proper care, it could die. In the grand scheme of things it really was just a kitten, which were rather prone to passing without a mother. It happened all the time. But this was Beast Boy’s kitten… temporarily. He would be devastated if anything happened to the little creature. And if she was the one responsible? She wasn’t sure if he would ever forgive her. She dragged herself out of bed when the alarm went off and did just as she was taught. It was so strange for the magus to think about. Here she was, holding a delicate creature and carefully feeding it from a bottle. She had healed animals, yes, but only with magic. Now she was keeping an animal alive just like any ordinary human would. The little kitten wiggled its ears as it suckled down the formula. It was kind of cute, but she would never admit that. She’d sooner assure the changeling that chicks dig the pointy ears. Kitten fed, she went about relieving it. A smidge awkward, but it was an animal and didn’t particularly care about human modesty or warm paper towels touching certain places. Mess cleaned, Raven returned to bed, secretly pleased with her work and promptly fell back asleep. It seemed to be a light sleep, however, as she woke to the sound of her door opening. It must be time for another feeding, Raven thought to herself, opting to keep her eyes closed and not engage. Just let him do what he needs to do. “Hey, little kitty,” Beast Boy whispered as he knelt next to the box. He had been talking to the kitten every time while she slept without waking her up? “Looks like Raven’s been taking good care of you.” He went about tending to the kitten, talking extra quietly all the while. “You be extra sweet to her, okay? She’s not used to this, you know, even if she’s learning fast. I guess I should have expected that. She is the smart one between us. Heh. She might learn more than me about this… Gotta be honest though, little kitty. I kinda like being smarter than her at something for once. I’m always the dumb one. Now I’m the one who knows what he’s doing.” He’s got that right, Raven thought to herself. Beast Boy knew exactly what he was doing and he should take pride in that. He wasn’t really dumb. They just teased him sometimes. Just some light ribbing, right? “But that’s okay. She deserves to be smart. And happy. I hope she’s happier than she looks sometimes. Heh. I’m glad she’s my friend. I love her lots. Just like the other Titans. Just don’t tell ‘em I said that,” he chuckled as the kitten finished its bottle. “Nahhh. You won’t tell ‘em.” Raven could feel her face heating up as she shuffled a bit ‘in her sleep,’ pulling the blanket over her head to hide the deep scarlet her face had become. The changeling’s ear twitched at the slight sound, turning to check that he hadn’t woken Raven up. She still seemed to be asleep. “Okay, we gotta be quiet now. Shhh,” was the last thing he said before he finished up and left her room.

#taoKittenKaboodle #optao #taostory #taochapter #Raven #Beast Boy

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ghosts-of-love · 1 year

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Okay firstly, it's important you know I am imagining myself barrelling down your door with a whiteboard and projector with a powerpoint i made like it was an assignment due last minute BUT (can you tell i have ADHD ? nahhh surely not)

I am back again with A Grave Mistake because I was like "haha horror inspired song is actually these two idiots" and then realized..."ohmygod it's Cap in TQATD" so here is that analysis :)

Till death do us part came far too soon Buildings burn and people die All of the time

Cap when Heather finally passes away and he's left 'alone' in that big empty house. I mean he has the ghosts ofc but it's not the same as someone who's able to go out into the world and also be up to date with real life shit ya know. usually the first line is reserved for wedding vows but like...they were good friend and he must've been fucking devastated

These vengeful thoughts trapped underneath Rage, scorn, misery Payback for what you took from me Hope, love, sanity

God that fucking chapter where we find out how Cap was turned. That is exactly this verse. I mean...he's isolated to Button House because he can't go out during the day and all other vampiric shit. Traumatized and shit thinking about how he should've died. And the man that he found in his office who did die.

You can't save yourself or save your soul When you meet the man who's life you stole

This I think also links to Cap's turning. But it could also be Cap's guilt when he saves Pat. He knows what it's like to lose all the things you used to be able to do and then he did exactly that to the man he fell in love with even though it saved his life. Even tho they're both...dead.

I heard that you reap what you sew So here's to believing in ghosts

Chucking this in here simply because of the ghosts and...BBC Ghosts.

There are more lyrics but these are the ones I could actually link things to. Genuinely when I first thought PatCap and this song it was just the first line i sent you regarding Humph's POV. And then i listened some more and was like "...wait hold on...I'm having ThoughtsTM" and yeah it really does fit TQATD Cap. And also glad to have found a song for that fic cuz all my other song analyses have been Adored or LtF. Such an angsty song. ANYWAYS, love your writing it's beautiful and you do a good job at making me go insane over fictional dead people 1244554/10 keep it up o7

hahaha whenever i get asks from you from now on i'll imagine you barrelling down my door haha 😅

'Till death do us part came far too soon Buildings burn and people die All of the time' -> in addition to what you said, the ghosts are also constant reminders to Cap that people die all the time but he and them are stuck in their specific limbos forever. it also makes me sad because heather left for about 20 years before she actually died and got married so those vows in the first line are,, ouchie. we're meant to be gay and lesbian bffs what do you mean you left me all alone and got a wife??

'You can't save yourself or save your soul When you meet the man who's life you stole' -> YES you're literally so right. obvs it's not included in Pat's chapter where he carks it because he's not aware but obviously his turning involved a lot of fraught and frantic energy with the ghosts trying to convince Cap to save him, with their reasoning being that it would be Slightly better for Pat to come back as a vampire, especially compared to being a ghost or fully dead.

'No forgiveness, just farewell' -> this will become relevant in a later chapter 👀not in a big way but yeah it stuck out to me when i was looking at the lyrics.

thank you for this!! love reading your thoughts so much!! <3 <3 you're the best my child <3 <3

#ask #le-scenariste #bbc ghosts #fic #tqatd

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vrishchikawrites · 2 years

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So, I just got into this fandom by watching CQL and I'm a bit confused regarding this one teensy bit: Is Wen Qing actually a romantic interest for WWX? I'm kinda ???? about this bc twt is convinced she and WWX apparently were meant to be and could have worked out if they married in SSC but like....we all can acknowledge that he has feelings for LWJ right? Sure, they're simmering and not exactly obvious to WWX but it's there? (1/2)

(2/2) Also, this whole Chengxian thing? I'm beyond confused about how there's even a tad bit of romantic inclination as literally their needs and wants don't align. I hope I don't sound like an asshole bc people can ship whatever they want and you have to adjust characters to fit your plotline in fics. But it feels like a lot of fics and people dismiss or acknowledge Wangxian but still proceed to say NAHHH not happening. It feels like a major distortion and LOL i feel so complicated about this

Well, CQL was supposed to pair WWX and WQ together but when MDZS fans heard about it, they protested loudly enough to change those plans. So if there's a hint of WQ/WWX in CQL, it is because of that. But even if they added that element, it would be difficult to overshadow the chemistry XZ and WYB managed to shove into the script.

As for chengxian... personal opinion but JC's actor was too cringe for me so I just skipped his scenes. If there was any chemistry between the two, I didn't see it.

People like different ship dynamics, I guess. Some people just aren't drawn to Wangxian and that's not inherently a bad thing. It's just that these stans tend to not tag their things and sometimes come to inboxes of Wangxian fans to justify their ship, which honestly has no basis in canon sooo....

Wangxian in the only ship in canon. There isn't even a hint of another ship for either of them. Even when WWX flirts with others, he doesn't come across as nearly as invested or interested as he is in LWJ. LWJ doesn't show any interest in anyone, at all.

Honestly, I'd say just disregard CQL-based takes.

#reader asks #re: fandom #re: cql

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gilly-bj · 3 years

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1: This is not a “why Levi will end up with Mikasa”, at all. I’m not trying to boost our confidence in RM because I don’t want us to get hurt again, okay? Fine. Always remember that those 10 pages might be even worse than 139 but we will never stop shipping RM . Always remember the 138 beautiful chapters and ignore the shitty one.

2: looong post.

3: Constructive hmhmh no criticism to Erem*ka. Now let’s start.

No one ever asked me why I think Levi is the right man for Mikasa (and viceversa); when I interact with non rivamikas, they are too busy hating on me and my ship to show a bit of respect and interest towards my opinions and thoughts. I wrote this post because I think that this question needs to be answered, especially after 139. These are six reasons why I think that Levi deserves to be Mikasa’s man.

(I’m doing Levi version first because Mikasa is the one who’s in a toxic “relationship” with a possessive “man”)

i) He helped her with her development.

Since Season 1, Levi has always helped Mikasa to grow as a person. In fact, Levi was the first one who made her realize that her actions have consequences that sometimes are not very pleasant. She understood that, even if Eren is in danger, the other people around her exist and they might get hurt because of her reckless behaviors. Talking about Eren, only with Levi, Mikasa stopped being Eren’s obsessive mother and became an independent woman, which is exactly the opposite of what she’s now with her “love” Eren. I think that Levi will help Mikasa to move on from Eren once he will return to Paradise, and I also think that she will find someone to love. I remember Armin’s words in 139:

The fact that three years have passed and Mikasa is still single makes me realize that probably this “someone” is a man from her group of friends. They left her alone for three years (clap clap 👏 good job, you too Levi 😒), and she hasn’t fallen in love during those years, so maybe once they will return to Paradise she will meet again this “someone” and they will finally fall in love. Now, we have three candidates for this role:

Jean

Levi

Connie yes im serious

I know that Jean had a crush on Mikasa but, I think that he doesn’t love her anymore. To me, Jean realized that his feelings were not returned so He decided to give up on her, if he had feelings for her, he would have followed her to Paradise, don’t you think? And I think that Jean deserves more; I believe that you shouldn’t wait your crush for years, if you both fall in love then fine but if one of the two as a crush on the other for more than 5 years but the other doesn’t return his/her feelings then the other should say bye 👋🏻

Then we have Levi, and Connie yes I’m serious. I have already said why I think that Levi will help Mika to move on so I repeat myself. And I ship Conkasa 🙃🙂 nahhh im joking but they are cute.

ii) He respects her.

It was confirmed various times trough the story that Levi respects Mikasa, and viceversa. Respect is one of the “rudiments” of a relationship. Yesterday, I was reading this article online about why respect is important in a relationship, and the first point got me in a particular way:

“1. Respect sees through the good and learns to accept the bad. When you are in love with someone, all you see are their best qualities, both inside and out. At the same time, you set aside their flaws and weaknesses, to tolerate these as much as you can. Respect doesn’t work that way.

When you have respect for the person you chose to be in a relationship with, you come to accept the person’s beauty and flaws, the bitter and sweet, and good and the bad. And from the acceptance, you both learn to adjust to each other’s systems and come up with a compromise that you can live with. Toppled with love, respect serves as the fuel to keep any relationship moving”

The last part reminds me of Rivamika; Levi and Mikasa both know that the other has his own beauty and flaws, and they accept each other that way. They don’t set those flaws aside to tolerate each other more, they just accept them and they love each other the way they are. With Eren instead, Mikasa has always set aside his flaws because she didn’t want to see them and she always misinterpreted his actions. I want to see an independent woman and not a girl who doesn’t want to accept that her crush is not perfect. Mikasa has to understand that it’s okay if she says “fuck you” for once. Wake up girl.

iii) He cares for her.

Levi has always cared for Mikasa since Season 1, even if I think that in the beginning, he cared for her just as a simple soldier since they didn’t know each other that much. After their first meeting, things changed on Levi’s side and on Mikasa’s as well; she learned to respect him, and Levi started to understand that gloomy brat, to the point that she became special to him; indeed, the way Levi treats Mikasa is very different from the way he treats everyone else, even the other women (Petra, Hisu, Hanji, Sasha) Please my Mika wake up. It’s sad that many think it’s just simple affection because “oh they are cousins he loves her just like a sister bla bla bla”. Sorry to tell you but I don’t have that much tension with my brother 😏😏 and some blind people still say that he hates when he:

Broke his ankle to save her

Always reminds her to calm down and to not be reckless because she can hurt the others but also herself

Always looks at her from afar to check if she’s okay

Literally cried when she was having one of her headaches (138)

Blind people 😏

iiii) He understands her.

Levi understands Mikasa’s feelings; they are very similar, and Mikasa found herself in situations Levi had already lived, from loosing her friends and family to the awakening of their power. And that’s also why Levi plays a big part in her development; remember in Season 1 when Annie kidnapped Eren and Mikasa lost her mind? Okay so when Levi saw her like that, he reminded of his younger self’s reaction to Isabel and Farlan’s death, and that’s why he acted in a soft way towards her; he already knew that in that situation, she wouldn’t have even looked at him if he didn’t act in a soft way. He knew she was lost so he took control of the situation.

Screenshot from: chapter 30.

iiiii) He’s a real man.

In my personal vocabulary, 139 Eren doesn’t fit the definition of man. Someone that treats a woman like that doesn’t deserve to be called “man” (same with women obviously). To me, a man is someone that’s able to respect his lover, that doesn’t treat her like an object and that thinks about her happiness first (that’s literally what love means lmao) (and more). Saying “I want her to be happy” is not enough when he wrapped the scarf around her again, knowing that she was suffering and she was not able to set herself free. If Eren really loved her, he wouldn’t wrapped the scarf around her again. Levi instead fits my definition of “man”, I’d say perfectly. He has always respected her, and he wants the best for Mikasa. He showed to love her, at least platonically, numerous times, he showed care about her physical and mental well-being. I think that Levi could make Mikasa feel loved, what her “lover” Eren has never done since he always treated her badly. Mikasa doesn’t know much about relationships, and Levi too, but with Levi she would understand what a real relationship looks like. And personally, I don’t want Mikasa to end up with someone like 139 Eren.

iiiiii) He his her ideal type and they share the same life goals.

Two months ago, I wrote this post named “How much are Mikasa and Levi compatible?”. There I listed all the reasons why I believe that Levi and Mikasa are each other’s ideal type. I’m not going to repeat myself, so if you want to read it, click here. Anyway, they share the same life goals, that are: a peaceful life in the middle of nature and a family since they both have a soft spot on children.

What do you think? Do you have other reasons why you think that Levi is perfect for Mikasa? I hope you liked this post and feel free to share your opinions!

#gilly bj #rivamika #levimka #levi x mikasa

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miyaniacs · 3 years

Text

PROLOGUE

NAVIGATION

summary: Reader: female; 20 years old ; Apparently you know something… but what this something is you still got to find out.

But curses, good and bad sorcerer now want to get you into their hands.

Ending up in the hands of the good ones, y/n finally meets her old best friend again - Yuji. Now Yuji and his friends make it their mission to keep you save in this whole new world. Days turn into weeks and you become closer and closer to your ‚bodyguards‘

Warnings: blood & not proof read bc I’m lazy

A/N: feedback & reblogs are welcome, especially since this is a new fic / story form I’m trying to do ^^ I hope you’ll like my lil attempt to give you all a jjk otome ‘game’ haha tell me if any of you wanna be tagged ^^

Cold air blows into your face as you exit the library. Looking up at the stars, you sigh. You‘ve lost track in time studying for your finals. It’s your third semester now and depending on how you’ll succeed in your finals, you either get a step closer to getting your dream job or all the semesters were for nothing.

Yuji always joked about you wanting to get rich, to help him succeed going on a date with one of his famous crushes… well with a certain one.

“Yuji - how would you be able to suddenly appear right in front of Jennifer Lawrence and save her from a monster - IF you don’t have the money to appear in whatever country she’s in?”

“And you’d give me the money??”

“That’s what your sugar mommy is for right?”

“In no where - NEVER - you’ll pass as a sugar mommy!”

“Lemme get that cash and the clothes and you’ll see.”

So here you are, trying your best to get an A in your business class to be able to turn the 2 weeks internship at Zenin Enterprise into a one year one and hopefully a job after graduating.

‘I’ll show you Yuji- you’ll get a check in your mail someone …’ you think.

Even though you haven’t seen him that much after the incident in your high school, you still texted every day and somehow managed to see each other about three times a year. At first you were pissed, because he didn’t tell you what he was up to and why he changed schools - but you leaned to accept it, he was still your best friend and nothing would change that.

Walking over the campus you make your way towards the train station smiling when you see Yujis name pop up on your screen.

“Hey hey Yuu~” you smile as you pick up the phone.

“Y/n! Where are you right now?” He asks, panic lacing in his voice.

“Just got out of the library, why what’s up?” You ask, your bows furrow a bit.

“Get back inside. Now. Immediately.!” He scream shouts.

“Yuji why- my last train arrives in a few minutes.” You whine, but stopped walking.

“Trust me Y/n. Please.” He begs, “I’ll be there in a few minutes!”

“Okay okay- is it because of the thing you can’t tell me about?” You turn around and start jogging back towards the library.

“Yes.” he says.

“Okay I trust you, I’ll be in the library in ab- AHHHHHHHHH”

“Y/N - Y/N TALK TO ME - Y/N!!!”

“THERE IS SOMETHING COMING CLOSER - YUJI WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE A MONSTER”

“NO NO NOOO RUN - RUN NOW!”

And you start running, this thing comes closer and closer, you can hear it’s steps getting faster and faster.

Your legs move faster than you thought they could, mentally your thankful for forcing yourself to go to the gym regularly.

Yet the thing gets closer.

You can now hear it’s breath, feel it in your neck.

All the small hairs on your skin turn up and tears stream down your face.

“Y/NNN!!!” You head Yujis voice coming closer from the distance.

“YUJI I AM HERE - HELP ME!!” You cry out.

Suddenly something slimy wraps around your ankle and you fall flat in the ground.

Screaming out in pain, you feel yourself getting dragged over the hard ground, some sharp claws digging into the flesh of your leg. Feeling the blood run down your leg, you try to grab anything and everything your hands can reach to stop the monster to … to eat you?

Your finger tips get bloody while you try to desperately hold onto the asphalt, just to feel your body getting dragged further away from panicked voice of your best friend.

Then - you stopped moving.

The force that dragged you away stopped. Turning around you see the lifeless arm of that thing hanging on your lap, but the rest of it is still moving, with one arm missing.

A blond haired man stands in front of you, some sort of short sword in one hand. He glanced over his shoulder, “Why are you still here? Run!” He says in a way too calm voice.

Trying your best, you try to get up, flinching as you now feel all the wounds on your body.

Your left leg, with the arm still hanging on it, collapses again and again whenever you try to put some pressure on it.

Something soft nudged your leg and pushes onto the arm. Looking down you see… a dog? Or a wolf? You’re not quite sure but whatever it is- it helps you getting that thing off.

“This takes way too long.” You hear someone saying and in a matter of seconds your thrown over the shoulder from some guy, you think you’ve seen someone during your FaceTime chats with Yuji.

“Care to help us?” He says to a white haired man with a blindfold on.

“Mhhh… no. I think you students should be able to finish this thing alone.” He smiles brightly, yet the man carrying you clearly seems annoyed. “But you can leave her with me, I’ll take care of her ~”

A silent scream escapes your lips, as the men sets you down, rather … rough, causing you to put pressure on your injured leg.

“Megumi! Haven’t I taught you how to treat a women!” The white haired male sighs and puts a hand on his forehead, shaking his head dramatically.

“This isn’t some sort of joke.” The blond one, that practically saved you from the monster, walks over to you.

“Well… the curse is tho - we thought they’d send something strong to get her, judging by who badly everyone seems to get her - but no. They sent this joke.” He gestures towards the monster, which is now surrounded by three younger looking men.

The one that carried you, another white haired one, with the neck of this jacked turned upwards and … Yuji!

Your eyes lit up the second you recognize your best friend.

He meets your eyes and a small smile appearance on his face, no wait… his mouth shouldn’t be there … why is it on his cheek?

You blink a few times, but his mouth now seems to be as normal as it can be.

The blood loos probably got to your head.

Right blood!

Looking down you see the blood still running down your leg. Reaching down, you touch the wound, regretting it the second you did so.

“Hey, wait, I get some first aid bandages out of the car.” The blond one says in a calming voice, gently grabbing your hand and guiding it away from your wound.

“Sooo you’re the girl Yuji always talks about?” the white haired men asks and tilts his head to the right, the index finger of his left hand tapping against his chin.

“Uhm.. I guess? He’s my best friend…so..” you mumble. How is he having such a normal conversation with you, when Yuji and the others are fighting this thing just a few meters away?!

“Huh… haven’t thought he’d be able to have such pretty friends.” The male mumbles.

“Excuse me?!” Your head snaps towards him and you glare at his covered eyes. “SHOULDNT YOU BE HELPING THEM?!” You gesture over to the three.

“Nahhh - they can handle it - but they are taking way too long - I was really lacking on training them.” He sighs and shakes his head.

You watch as the white haired man standing next to Yuji opens his zipper and says something- suddenly the monster collapses.

“About time.” The calming voice of the blond haired man echos through the now quiet campus.

“Here sit down.” He points to a bank and helps you sit down.

Carefully he cuts off the ripped leg of your jeans and gently places a tissue on your leg, trying to clean it up.

“Okay, I’m sorry if this hurts now, but I got to make sure that it won’t get infected.” He says and puts something to sanitize your wounds on the tissue.

“Y/N!!!!” Yuji screams and runs over to you.

“Yuj- AHHHHH” You head looks over to the blond male.

“Sorry.” He mumbles.

“Y/n. I’m so sorry I’m so so sorry!!” Yuji sits down next to you and takes one of your hands on his.

“It’s not your fault.” You smile gently at him, trying to ignore the pain.

“How did you know that I was in danger?” You ask and look around.

“We heard from many sources that basically everyone was looking for a girl named ‘Y/n.’ - Yuji quickly figured out that it was you they were looking for. “ the blond says and wraps a bandage around your leg.

“Now we want to know why.” The white man says and towers over you.

“How should I know. I don’t even know what this thing was- neither do I know what you are??” You start rambling. The shock finally leaves your body and the realization hits you. “WHAT WAS THIS MONSTER ?!” You screech.

“Hey, it was not as gorgeous as I am, but we’re not monsters.” A deep voice comes from Yuji. Confused you look towards him.

“Shut up!” Yuji says and slaps a hand over his cheek. But then a mouth appears on the back of his hand.

“WHAT THE FUCK!” You scream and jump up, almost kicking the blond male who was still holding your leg.

“I CAN EXPLAIN!!” Yuji panics, “SUKUNA SHUT UP AND LEAVE US ALONE.”

“IS THIS WHY YOU COULDN’T TELL ME WHATS UP WITH YOU?!”

“Yes …” he looks down, “It was all… well … difficult to explain to you so I just chose not to.” He looks up at you with his puppy eyes and you sigh. He knows exactly what he’s doing.

“I hate you.” You sit down again and lean against his shoulder. Putting an arm around you he leans his head on yours.

“I know … I know.”

“Okay cool- but again. What do they want from you?” The black haired guy says and his piercing green eyes seem to try to read your mind.

“I - I don’t know. I haven’t known about all of this until now.”

“Tuna, rice.” The white hair male, who now has the zipper up again, says.

“Agreed … she at least was able to see the curse.” The other white haired male says.

Your face should clearly show the confusion, but it seems as if everyone just ignores it.

“Did anything happened the past weeks? … anything strange?” The blond one asks and stands up, adjusting his glasses.

“No… not really… my boss acted strange yesterday - well he always does - when he gave me some packet to personally give to someone.”

“What packet? How big was it?” The black haired asks.

“Uhhh I thought there was some expensive watch in." You look around confused. Everyone looks over to Yuji.

“Why? What’s wrong?” You look around.

“Who did you give the packet to?” Yuji asks.

“No one actually… The male wasn’t there, so I took it with me - I planned on giving it back to him tomorrow.” You stutter.

“Who’s your boss?” The white haired one asks.

“Naoya Zenin - I got an internship being his secretary.”

Everyone stares at you now.

“You’re coming with us.” The white haired one grabs your hand.

“Nanami - you and Yuji go to her home! Find that packet - if it’s still there.” He looks over to the blond male, before addressing you again. “Anything else you heard or saw before he gave you this packet?”

“Uhm… I overheard him talking to a man… “ you stutter and he grabs your hand, dragging you with him.

“With who? What did they say?”

“I - I don’t know…” you whisper.

“Then REMEMBER!” He says in a harsh tone.

“I DONT KNOW - HE LOOKED STRANGE …” you scream, annoyed the way he dragged you with him.

“Well until you know, you be staying with us.”

TAGLIST (open): @laceymorganwrites

#jjk x reader #jjk headcanons #jjk hcs #jjk oneshots #gojo x reader #toji x reader #jjk smau #jjk imagines #sukuna x reader #megumi x reader

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destinyc1020 · 3 years

Note

These guys wouldn't even touch each other in public and you think Tom would say he loves her out of the blue in front of dozens of people With cameras 🤣 Nahhh I'm with you, I think he was just saying "I love it" speaking about doing the stunt with the pole, and she said "I know you do 😊" (which is still kinda cute tbh)

But I love how happy they both looked doing those scenes in NY, literally goofing around and acting like kids haha. Their energies just match all the damn time, and that's why unlike some locals, I wasn't even phased by the car pics where they're making goofy faces looking at each other because that's just how they normally act 😂 That's when you realize that those ppl who said that them making faces = pranking the paps don't know them AT ALL

Hahahahahaha.... EXACTLY!!!! 😂 I agree with you. Goofy is just how Tomdaya IS with each other! They are not just romantic partners, they are deeply GOOD FRIENDS. That's the difference. Those pics in the car weren't surprising to me at all lol, because we all know how they were with each other even during a breakup during the FFH press tour! 😂 I can always tell when I know of couples who were friends first, and those who were just dating because they had an attraction. Even when it comes to married couples. I can always tell the ones who were close friends first prior to dating. They have a totally different vibe w/each other. It's like an easy-going, deep friendship, I can be 100% honest with you, type of vibe. Whereas some others, you can tell that they weren't really friends prior to dating/marriage, but they have become friends over the years. Idk it's hard to explain, but I can usually spot out the ones who were friends first. They're so easy-going w/each other. They have inside jokes... They know each other VERY well. They are more loose w/each other lol. I can't explain it.

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royivia · 3 years

Text

The Neighborhood

Sibyl Campbell wasn’t even mad when she woke up on a hot ass May morning in her room, drenched in sweat. Instead, she bypassed anger and went straight to resignation because the HVAC system in the Robert Moses Houses was broken — again — and she didn’t have the time or the energy to bitch about it. In fact, the heating and cooling stayed shutting off across Groundview Gardens. It had become a predictable kind of disappointment in the neighborhood, more so than flooding during superstorms or the fact that no matter which part of the neighborhood you were in, you could feel the rumbling of the shuttle every seven minutes.

Sibyl had spent all night coughing and turning in her bed from the claustrophobic heat that agitated her asthma. Her mother had already gone to work, otherwise, she would have heard Mildred Campbell yelling in indignant patwa over the phone at an Arcadian Realty & Management representative “to fix the damn AC” before she threatened to call 311 on their ass, and report them to the city. Both Mildred and the AR&M rep knew it was an empty threat, but to shut her up, they’d call someone who’d tinker with the system and the air would come back on for a couple of days or so, before it chipped out. And then, the routine would start again.

Sibyl checked the weather. It was already ninety-five degrees. She took a puff from her inhaler and scrolled through her timeline. The same picture of a little girl with a big bright smile captioned with different variations of “RIP Destiny’’ and prayers for her family flooded her feed. Sibyl forced herself out of bed. The sweat on her body made her feel uncomfortable. She hauled a clunky, old portable air conditioner out from her closet and plugged it into the wall. Management would fine them for the spike in their energy use, but she didn’t care. She pushed the power button on, and waited for the box to cough out some hot air before it eventually cooled the room down from a humid haze to a lackluster lukewarm.

SOIL had been trying to meet with AR&M, the neighborhood’s collective management company, about the HVAC problem with little to no success for close to three years. They had circulated petitions. Tried shaming them in the local news. They even considered organizing a rent strike, which would have done nothing because everybody who lived in Groundview Gardens received subsidies from the city that made rent practically free. And as much as people were pissed about freezing their asses off in the winter or not being able to breathe during the summer, nobody was tryna fight free rent. So, SOIL decided to annoy the shit out of their landlords instead. On their way into their coolly ventilated corporate office buildings, occupying their lobbies, picketing in front of their luxury condos, and most effectively, managing to damage one, or two, of their solar-powered generators in the hottest month New York City had ever seen. A few arrests and some pissed off rich people later, management finally agreed to hold a town hall to hear from their tenants, which meant SOIL’s next plan of action was to convince as many people as possible to show up. Nefi Ramos saw it as a challenge that they could surely accomplish. Her neighbors were like camels to water in a desert. They were thirsty, and had learned to go without for as long as they needed to, but lead them to a watering hole, and they would drink.

“It’s too fucking hot,” she shouted into her megaphone. She was standing in front of one of the many large screens around Groundview that cycled between ads for things they couldn’t afford and AR&M’s infamous “neighborhoods of tomorrow” promotional video. Most people just used the screens to check train arrival times and the air quality. The next shuttle was two minutes away, and the air was currently “unsafe for vulnerable groups.”

“Are we just supposed to take this shit?” Nefi asked. “We don’t deserve to live like this.”

Around her, the rest of SOIL handed out cold bottles of water, popsicles, and fruit cups from coolers filled with melting ice, along with flyers to people walking towards the train platform. They walked past the demonstration uninterestedly, only stopping long enough to take a bottle of water. Everyone had gotten used to Nefi shouting at them to care about things beyond their control, and learned to tune her and the rest of her angry SOILders out, taking their flyers every now and then only to chuck them into the nearest trash can. This morning, a few people did stop to listen for a second or two, the heat getting the better of them, before they saw the time flicker on the screen behind her, and realized that they’d be late for work.

Sibyl, her camera always strapped to her body, snapped a few shots of her neighbor. Nefi was like a loud older cousin who wasn’t afraid of a little trouble, or frankly anything. She both awed and terrified Sibyl.

“It’s time for these slumlords to sweat,” Nefi went on. “We need to organize. Our voices are stronger together — ”

“What makes you think anyone gives a shit about what happens to us down here?”

Mr. Solomon had been on his way to the bodega to buy his morning loosie, but stopped to sit in his walker, taking a moment to catch his breath.

“That’s exactly what they want us to think, vecino.” Nefi softened her voice in that way she did when she was trying not to shout. “The more we believe that we can’t make them pay attention to us, the longer they get away with treating us like shit.”

“I remember when they first moved people into Groundview.” In the midst of reminiscing, Mr. Solomon started coughing aggressively, prompting someone to hand him a bottle of water which he drank quickly before continuing. “We were protesting and shouting in the streets, but they didn’t care then. They’re not gonna care now.” The history lesson quickly turned into yet another heated debate about neighborhood politics between him and some of the other SOILders trying to convince him to take one of their flyers. Sibyl used the opportunity to catch Nefi’s attention, who waved her over enthusiastically.

“Yo, did you hear?” Nefi handed her a fruit cup. “We finally got a meeting with the overlords! Are you gonna come?”

“Nahhh, Nefi. You know that’s not really my thing…I’m not an activist.” Nefi was always trying to recruit her for some radical ass shit that just never seemed worth the trouble of explaining to Sibyl’s very Jamaican mother.

“Nobody said you had to be. You live in this neighborhood, and have just as much say about what happens in it as the suits who own it.” Nefi sensed Sibyl’s hesitation. “Please Sib! Come so we have more people in the room. You don’t have to say anything. We just want those dicks to see that we have power. People power!”

Nefi was very proud of the fact that she had an uncle, or it might have been a second cousin, who had been a member of the Young Lords and, drawing on their legacy of fighting for the liberation of Puerto Ricans, was always going on about the oppressive nature of renting, and self-determination for poor people, and community empowerment, and, and…

“Aight — I’ll go,” Sibyl assured her, trying to cut her sermon short. Nefi hugged her and thanked her a million times before shoving a stack of flyers into her arms to pass out and post up around the neighborhood.

The singular garden in Groundview Gardens was usually ten degrees cooler than anywhere else in the neighborhood. It was created — not by the architects who had designed New York City’s newest development, but instead — by the community out of desperation as an escape from their cramped apartments. During the days, the older folks used it to grow their herbs, medicines, and flowers for their healing practices. The local farmers grew produce that fed the community. After school and on the weekends, all the kids hung out at the community center at the heart of the garden where they learned to dance, make art, and play music.

By the time Sybil got there later that night, Groundview’s collective of artists had already transformed the greenspace into their Saturday night hangout. One of the DJs was spinning records. People were dancing, drinking, smoking, having a good time. Dante, Sage, and Felix had bottles in their hands when Sibyl joined them at their usual spot. Their clothes were covered in colorful patches of spray paint.

“Did you finish it? When do I get to see it?,” she asked them excitedly. She hadn’t seen her friends in about a week, which meant they were either done with their latest mural or were taking a break before they disappeared for another few days. “Soon.” Dante looked tired, but excitement danced in his eyes. “Shoot anything good lately?” He leaned in reaching for her camera, but she quickly pulled back from him.

He laughed at her and took a sip of beer. Dante was her oldest friend out of the trio. There was a quiet protectiveness between the two of them Sibyl hoped they could always maintain.

“It’s been a minute since I last checked.”

“How come?” Dante asked.

Sibyl usually couldn’t wait to hold herself up in the darkroom at the community center to develop her film, but she had been putting off her latest batch. She’d fallen in love with photography while taking classes at the center as a kid. So much so that one day, her mother came home with an old film camera and Sibyl never put it down. That first summer, she ran around the neighborhood asking to take people’s photos. It felt so natural to her, though it had taken a while to gain people’s trust. Take their pictures for what? What was she going to do with them? Skeptics, but curious, they eventually agreed. They’d uncomfortably pose or force a smile, and then immediately ask her to see it because if they didn’t look good, she’d have to delete it. Then she’d explain how film photography worked, and they’d cuss her out for wasting their time.

Weeks later, she’d find them again — at the corner store, or at the People’s Garden, and give them the glossy prints she’d developed. Through her lens she could see they were secretly afraid she’d see the things they’d all spent so much time and concern trying to hide. But those things would all melt away when they’d see themselves — some for the first time — with the same worth and value she saw in them. After that Sibyl didn’t have to ask. They booked her for quinces and graduation parties and engagement photos. People would stop her when they saw her around. “So you not gonna take my picture? Girl, you know I look good today. Quit playing and snap something quick,” and they’d pose with more pride than before, as if to officially celebrate the triumph of living, something they didn’t know they had accomplished until they saw proof.

After seeing so many of her neighbors’ pictures, some of which she took, circulate in online memorials, something lodged itself in the pit of Sibyl’s gut. She couldn’t fully identify what it was, but it left her with little energy to feel or do anything else outside of going to school and work. But she didn’t know how to explain that to her friends without being weird or bringing down the mood, so she just said, “Been busy with school.” She quickly changed the subject before anyone tried to press her on it.

“Are ya gonna go to the town hall?”

“What town hall?” Sage asked.

“The one with management. About the HVACs.” Sibyl handed them flyers from her bag. “I promised Nefi I’d go, but I don’t want to go by myself. Someone come with me?”

“Pass,” Felix snorted.

“I’ll go. Should be fun,” Sage said with a smirk on their face. “I wanna hear what those assholes say their excuse is for not fixing shit.”

“I’ll save ya the trip. Sorry, you’re too poor for us to care,” Felix mocked. “It’s not like they’re all of a sudden gonna have a conscience ya know.”

“You mad negative bro,” Dante said.

“What?” Felix asked animatedly. “You really trying to spend the rest of your life down here? We all need to focus on getting the fuck up outta here instead of asking them to fix some janky ass vents.”

It’s not like anybody was trying to spend any part of their lives in Groundview, but lately it seemed like the rest of their lives wouldn’t take so long. The sound of the shuttle, more muffled than anywhere else, reverberated throughout the garden.

“I’m out the first chance I get,” Dante admitted. His answer wasn’t surprising to any of them, but this was the first time Sibyl heard him say it out loud. Dante was one of the more talented and disciplined artists in the collective. It would only be a matter of time before he blew up and left.

“What happens when ya leave though?” Sage was upset. “You get out, but what about the rest of us? Not everybody can up and leave right? Shouldn’t we try and make shit better for everyone.”

“That’s a trap, Sage. Shit’s not gonna get better,” Felix said harshly. “Does it ever hit ya, like really hit ya that there’s no future for us here? Everybody’s so busy working to get by, we don’t even have time to realize how fucked up everything is.”

“I’m not saying it’s perfect.” Sage shot back. “I just don’t think we have to turn our back on our community. That’s fucked up.”

“Don’t take it so personally, Sage,” Dante cut in. “Nobody’s turning their backs on anyone.”

“Besides, no offense to Nefi n ‘em,” Felix said, “but everybody’s wasting their time if they think those suits are gonna fix anything.”

Sibyl listened quietly. Groundview was all they ever knew. She had never considered leaving it, and yet she also was afraid to admit that she thought Felix might be right.

The middle school auditorium only had like fifteen people — half were members of SOIL — in there that Tuesday night, which was more than Nefi had expected. The handful of people who told her they wanted to go to the town hall, but couldn’t, were either working, or would get home too late from work and would have to cook dinner or iron school uniforms for the next day. Everyone else couldn’t be bothered; like Felix, they thought it was a waste of time. That nothing would come from it. Sibyl didn’t show. No one who attended the town hall actually thought anything would come from it either. If AR&M had wanted to do something, they would have done it a long ass time ago. The people who did show up were mostly Nefi’s elderly neighbors who were always ready to spit their anger into a mic because if they weren’t going to get a solution, they would at least get to cuss someone out, and have an audience to witness it.

Nefi worked her way around the room to thank people for coming. These things always felt like family reunions to her. Old friends hugging and catching up because they hadn’t seen each other in a minute, with work and family and life moving everybody in this or that direction, even though they all still lived in the same neighborhood. She finished up her greetings and joined the rest of SOIL, huddled at the front of the room. They went over the order of speakers, before Benjy, the group’s designated peacemaker for the evening, asked everyone to quiet down and get seated so they could start. He reminded everyone to keep it civil. Then one by one, people got up to the mic to direct their anger at the empty faces in tailored suits, sitting at the table in front of them, who could all care less about the people shouting at them. There was a lot of finger snapping, and “that’s right” and “tell-em’s” from the crowd throughout.

Finally about half an hour in, a young woman, with a little girl clutching on to the left side of her body, got up to the mic.

“My name is Mercy Brooks, and this is my daughter Angelique.” Her voice was shaking, in that soft, angry, pissed off kinda way that warranted attention. Nefi hushed the crowd down so that she could speak her peace without interruption. “My daughter’s asthma acts up almost every day. She can’t breathe. Ya should be fucking ashamed of yaselves. Our babies are dying down here. Is that what we deserve because we can’t do better? We just supposed to take that shit. You ever thought about what it’s like to live down here, huh? I’m sure ya don’t cause if you did, you wouldn’t think it was right to keep people living like this. Or do ya not care cause it’s not your kids?”

There was silence from the table, which was worse than feigning any sympathy or remorse. It set the room off into chants, which meant it was over from there. AR&M security shut that shit down quick right on cue, and if you weren’t arrested that night, you were brusquely escorted out. Management promised to set up some vague kind of task force with representatives from the neighborhood, but it led to nothing. A fucking disappointment, that’s what that shit was. And it wasn’t a surprise to Nefi or anyone else, but it hurt all the same. A few weeks later, that same woman who got up and spoke, her daughter Angelique died because they couldn’t get her to the hospital in time after she had an asthma attack. AR&M still hadn’t fixed the vents in their housing complex. And they still didn’t change the filters or fix the ducts in the other housing complexes so that it wouldn’t happen again after that. SOIL kept trying to drum up some kind of anger. Anything to get people to feel something. To do something.

Murals of Destiny, Angelique, and every other person who had died that year quietly popped up around the neighborhood. Vigils and altars with flowers and prayer candles accompanied them. But as much as people were upset or sad, no one knew what else to do except mourn and move on because it was clear to everyone that no one gave a damn about them. And so, what was the point?

They called it the Subterranean Housing and Inner-City Tunnels project, or S.H.I.T. for short. A plan to provide affordable housing for everyone who had experienced the worst housing crisis New York City had ever seen. People were evicted left and right. Families were priced out of their homes and neighborhoods. The shelter system, swelled beyond its limits for decades, finally collapsed. The streets and subway were overrun with people in sleeping bags and blankets. So nothing new, but it finally annoyed enough people to warrant action.

Naturally, the city contracted its most blood thirsty developers, AR&M, to help solve the problem, which was kinda like asking an arsonist to put out a fire they had proudly started. To no one’s surprise, they didn’t want to forfeit any of their luxury condos that sat empty while people slept on the streets. Instead, they struck a deal to create the largest scale of public housing of its kind, in exchange for absolute, unregulated freedom. The only problem was there was literally no land left for them to develop because they had already bought it all. And then one day, the chief architect of S.H.I.T. had an epiphany when he felt the uptown 6 train rumbling beneath his feet. There was an entire part of the city he had yet to consider. Where a majority of the people who needed housing were already living. Sprawling housing complexes with multi-unit apartments appeared overnight 150 feet underground, with the pilot site in the South Bronx. A new subway station and miles and miles of foot tunnels connected New York’s newest neighborhood to the world above it.

There were protests, anger, outrage! That the country’s most progressive city could so blatantly, and quickly!, shove all of its poor people out of sight only seemed to bother the poor people because everyone else praised S.H.I.T. as the most innovative solution of the 21st century. New York City had done the impossible, and housed every single person. That was grounds for celebration and federal funding. Plans were quickly announced to roll S.H.I.T. out across every major city in the country. To ease people’s concerns, the mayor at the time, eyeing a presidential run, promised that his own city’s underground neighborhood would just be temporary — transitional housing at best. Transitional to what, no one could answer. Temporary until when? Until they could think of something else. One year became five, became ten, etc., etc.

In time, AR&M and the city eventually added a couple schools, a hospital, a library, and a sad excuse for a park that residents eventually turned into the People’s Garden. Folks opened up bodegas, 99 cent and liquor stores, and made themselves at home. It didn’t take long to accept living where they did as another fact of life because they had no other choice. Over time, the plan to move everyone back aboveground disappeared from the city’s housing briefings. Then, the briefings disappeared altogether. The high rates of asthma and chronic bronchitis that seemed to come from living in Groundview occasionally made the nightly news, but not enough to cause major concern or stop neighborhoods like Groundview from popping up across the country.

There were still those who remembered life before Groundview, and vowed to move out of the neighborhood as soon as the opportunity arrived. They kept the dream close to their hearts. And if it didn’t happen during their lifetimes, they’d make sure it would happen during their children’s. More realized it was a fool’s dream and moved on. Eventually though, everyone adapted to the vibrations of the shuttle inside their kitchens. The white, fluorescent lighting that lit every corner of their world like a harsh, artificial sun. The damp, muggy air that arrested their chests if they tried to breathe too freely. And the humming of the massive ventilation systems that heated and cooled their cramped, windowless apartments — when they decided to work.

An Artist’s Treatise on Survival

I don’t know how we do it sometimes. That is, put up with all the shit that life throws at us. Work jobs that exhaust us with little in return. Take care of our families with little to no support. Do so much with so little. And still be able to smile or laugh in the midst of it all. Then, I remember: it’s because we have to. No one else is gonna pay our bills if we don’t. No one else is gonna put food on our tables for us. No one’s gonna bail us out. Naturally, you learn to hustle. To channel your frustrations into working around the way things are because trying to fix things that were built broken takes time you don’t have when you’re just trying to get by.

What gets me even more is how we’ve perfected survival itself as an artform, and created whole new types of living from abject desperation. We wasn’t supposed to, much less find reasons to enjoy life, but we did anyway. Some even take on the added challenge of trying to make life more bearable, more enjoyable, for the rest of us. For example, sometimes when it felt like there wasn’t much to appreciate. That you were resigned to the fate of being alive and not living and didn’t deserve any better. You’d see a mural. On the way to the laundromat. Or the corner store. While you were running errands. Or walking home, bone tired, from the train after another long, shitty day at work. And like all good, beautiful things, it reminded you to breathe. You didn’t always know who created it. Or couldn’t remember if it was there the day before even though you’ve walked that way millions of times. You just knew that it was, in its own way, encouraging you to make it to tomorrow. Bright bursts of color and story interrupting the mundane, tiresome every day you’d come to accept with no protest. After a while, it becomes easier to accept a simple truth about living. That we can still manage to find a reason to laugh, to enjoy life, despite it all, and that we can be the source of our own power. It’s kind of audacious of us to still try and find joy even if it means creating it for ourselves. Maybe that’s why we do it.

At first, it started off as harmless tagging, and they kept it up chasing the thrill of not getting caught. Then they tried to outdo each other. It became a sport: who could paint the better mural. Get the most buzz around the neighborhood before they got painted over. But the better they got, and the more the murals looked legit, the longer they stayed up. Until they stopped painting over them altogether because people loved them so much. They didn’t belong to the creators anymore. They belonged to the neighborhood. And before they knew it, they’d created something much bigger than any of them could have imagined.

The tunnels just seemed like the next natural step for the graffiti artists in Groundview. Miles and miles of blank walls? Dante, especially, saw something to keep him busy after his brother died. Besides, painting murals felt like the only thing he could do. He’d stopped going to school. He’d just paint. When he ran out of ideas to paint, he asked Sibyl to see her portraits, and he started replicating them across the neighborhood. He was relentless — portrait after portrait. Sage and Felix started helping him out because they worried he would lose it, spending all that time in the tunnels by himself. He was grasping for something, but he didn’t know what it was. Until he saw it, lying on the ground near a garbage can.

The Groundview Residents’ List of Demands

The People of Groundview Gardens demand financial and social restitution for all residents, especially those who developed chronic health issues from living underground and/or have lost loved ones because of it.

The People demand New York City move all Groundview residents back above ground into rent subsidized apartments.

The People demand New York City disband all underground housing policies so that no one else has to live in Groundview Gardens or any other housing project like it.

Until the first three demands are met, The People demand Arcadian Realty & Management fix the HVAC systems in every single housing complex it owns and regularly maintain them.

Once Groundview Gardens is fully evacuated, The People demand New York City turn the entire neighborhood into a public memorial to commemorate the loss of life, preserving the art and The People’s Garden.

After the town hall, and the supposed task force, proved to be a bust, SOIL had created the demands to deliver to the city. They circulated leaflets with the five bullet points, but no one would take them seriously. Dante himself, admittedly, had checked out, and had ignored SOIL’s literature, up until that point. The demands appeared overnight on the walls of the tunnels in bold white paint for everyone to see. They were the last thing everyone saw coming into Groundview and the first thing they saw from the shuttle on their commutes leaving the neighborhood.

Nefi kept waiting for the moment when her neighbors would suddenly realize that they were angry — very angry. They’d decide they were fed up once and for all and refuse to settle for less anymore. They’d riot in the streets. They’d protest in front of AR&M’s offices. They’d refuse to go into work until something changed. Their anger would get everyone’s attention. Her own rage had burned intensely inside her for as long as she knew herself. She learned to channel it through SOIL trying to make Groundview a better place, even though everyone told her it wasn’t worth it; it wasn’t possible; it was a waste of time. But it was either that or literally set some shit on fire. But, it didn’t matter how many rallies, tenant meetings, town halls, or demonstrations SOIL organized. Nefi learned that she couldn’t have a revolution without people. And the people? They were tired and overworked. They didn’t have time to overthrow anything. And, even though no one would admit it, they were also afraid — afraid of change, of what they could lose, of realizing that something greater than what they had come to know was possible. So to save themselves, and Nefi, further disappointment, they rebuffed her again, and again: Nefi you need to chill. Girl you’re doing too much. Don’t waste your time. Nothing’s gonna change. After the town hall, and years and years of holding hope, the fire inside Nefi dulled until she couldn’t recognize herself anymore. She conceded her rage for high-functioning hopelessness. She withdrew from her friends, from her neighbors, from SOIL, only tapping into enough energy to wake up, go to work, and make her way back home. The days bled into each other, so much so that when the night Nefi had been waiting for eventually came later that August, it caught her completely off guard. It caught everyone off guard because it wasn’t the HVACs or the deaths of toddlers, or even the wrath towards AR&M that finally set people off. But it shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone who’s lived in New York City long enough because it was the one thing that could incite the level of large-scale anarchic rage Nefi had been holding out for — and that was the MTA.

The night in question, the air was hot, muggy, and heavy with potential. Like any other evening, people were heading home from work, the collective exhaustion weighing down on their bodies, stamped into their faces. They waited together, huddled in a sweaty mass on the sweltering Third Ave-138th St. platform for a train that felt like it would never come. When an empty shuttle finally did arrive in the station, the doors opened to the grating sound of a man’s voice coming through the train’s speaker system:

“Attention passengers. This is your conductor speaking. Due to unplanned construction up ahead, we are disbanding all trains to Groundview Gardens at this time. I repeat, we are disbanding all trains to Groundview. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

This shit had happened plenty of times before. A disruption of service that made it difficult to get home. Everybody was so used to it and had even come to expect it. The inconvenience of being poor and powerless consistently working against them. It too had become a predictable kind of disappointment. Even the audible, collective disapproval was muted and slightly rehearsed, nothing more than a reflex. They would have to find their way home, some two-odd miles on foot, through the tunnels. But that night, Ms. Claudette, who had been on her feet all day at work taking care of her elderly patient and still had to go home and iron her scrubs for the next day, was fucking tired. She had paid her fare. And, she had paid her taxes. She had also paid her dues in this country — twenty-seven years worth of struggle and debasement — for what? This could not be it. Life could not just be disappointment. The least she expected was that the train would get her home like it was supposed to. She decided that she was going to let the conductor have a piece of her mind.

“This is nonsense. Tell me, just tell me, how am I supposed to get home?” Her boisterous St. Lucian accent traveled well beyond her.

Folks who heard her echoed in agreement, hyping her up. “They have the nerve to raise prices for this shitty ass service,” someone said loudly. They all collectively decided to board the empty train. The construction workers in their hard hats and massive boots, the women with their large tote bags and their tiredness neatly folded away into themselves. They were all going to sit on the train, until it started up again. It was going to take them home.

The conductor was tired too. Nothing as deep-seated as his passengers, but something not too far removed. He had no skin in this game though, and his job didn’t pay him enough to care. He was annoyed; they were keeping him from clocking out. And so, after listening to a bunch of people passionately curse him out, he told them to, and I quote:

“Write a letter.”

It happened so fast. I mean, when I say shit popped off before anyone could swallow their spit. Someone knocked over the trash cans on the platform. Someone else, set them on fire, with what to this day no one really knows, but their latent anger seemed to have ignited what they didn’t know was inside them.

The riots lasted for weeks. People boycotted the MTA and didn’t go to work.

The restaurants aboveground shuttered because they were understaffed. Construction on all the new developments stopped because the workers, a lot of whom lived in Groundview, refused to show up. People aboveground had to stay home because their nannies and house cleaners weren’t able to come and relieve them like they had come to rely on. Groundview had forced the city to come to a complete stop. The mayor held a press conference saying she didn’t condone the behavior of the vandals at the train station. SOIL led protests and demonstrations in front of city hall until she had to hold a second press conference to apologize for her statements at the first press conference. She promised she was going to make sure that it would never happen again — not just the riots, but the unnecessary deaths in Groundview, the resentment the residents felt towards the city. They were going to fix the HVACs, and the MTA! They were going to heal the great divide the city had long thrived on once and for all, if, and only if, the workers called off the strike and went back to work. It sounded so sincere, everyone wanted to believe it. Tired of holding all the power, they asked SOIL to represent them at the bargaining table. Deals were made. Hands were shaken. And things went back to a semblance of normal with a few slight adjustments.

Sibyl was heading out of her apartment when she saw a piece of yellow paper on her front door.

60 DAYS NOTICE TO INCREASE RENT

Mildred Campbell 207 167th St. (GG), Unit 10E

Beginning September 1, 2041, the monthly rent will go up an additional 5% for all units located in the Robert Moses Houses. Please make the appropriate adjustments within the AR&M digital payment system.

We appreciate your continued tenancy.

Sincerely, Arcadian Realty & Management

Pieces of yellow paper were taped to every single door she passed on her way to the train. It had been a year since the last time the heating or cooling had stopped working. Everyone held their breath celebrating, just in case that was when the heat would shut off or the air would decide to stop working again, but it never did. The number of deaths and hospitalizations went down, and everyone seemed content enough after the strikes and boycott ended, to go back to work. The trains even went back to running as efficiently as possible for the MTA, always teetering on the edge of collapse, but never actually approaching it for fear of recreating another opportunity for mass rebellion.

On her way to the shuttle, Sibyl saw a group of people congregating near one of the murals. She clutched her camera in her hand, ready to raise it to her face, when she heard a voice she didn’t recognize shouting through a megaphone. It belonged to a man she had never seen around the neighborhood before, and he was walking backwards while talking to a group of people Sibyl also didn’t recognize.

“Groundview is the latest up and coming neighborhood in the city,” his voice echoed. “Some of the most promising young artists have gotten their start in this urban — ”

She didn’t stick around to hear more.

After the riots, small groups of tourists descended regularly on Groundview like vultures to see the murals they had seen in viral photographs. They’d rudely block the paths from the train platform, or take up way too much space on the footpaths of the tunnels posing in front of the murals for pictures. Not long after that came the opportunistic hacks who had never stepped foot in Groundview before, running “culture tours’’ around the neighborhood. The residents felt like they were stuck in some sick and twisted museum. Out of annoyance, they banned the tours and non-residents from the People’s Garden, preserving their one last sanctuary in the community.

Sibyl had been in the middle of it all the first night of the riots. She was on the subway platform on her way home from classes and started snapping pictures once she realized what was going on, catching the fervent energy better than anyone could describe to everyone else who wasn’t there. She had no idea her photos would end up everywhere. But they did, and they not only helped draw attention to the plight of her neighborhood. They also drew attention to the wealth of talent germinating underneath the city. Her photos of her friends, their murals, and the other members of her neighborhood, had also attracted a lot of attention that felt good to the young artists who all of a sudden saw opportunities previously unavailable to them right at their doorsteps.

The shuttle arrived on the platform before her. Sibyl boarded the cool air-conditioned cart; the beads of sweat on her skin quickly evaporated. Nefi had warned them to be careful early on. “These things always end up having you exploit your own people for a cheap come up, and it’s never worth it.” Everyone thought she was trippin’. There Nefi was again just looking for another cause to fight now that her crusade against A&RM had seemed to come to an end. Even Sibyl thought she was overreacting at first. People were finally paying attention to Groundview. If she and the rest of the artists could help show the world how important the lives of the people who lived there were, maybe things could change for the better.

The train disappeared into the tunnel towards the 138th St. station. A lot of things had quietly changed over the last year and a half. Many of the families who had lost loved ones, including Dante’s, received settlements from the city and moved out of the neighborhood, leaving a sizable number of the apartments empty. Leading to perhaps the most visible addition to the neighborhood. AR&M had a couple of the younger artists looking for their own big break paint over SOIL’s list of demands and replaced it with a more “aesthetically inviting” message for the new visitors to the neighborhood: Welcome to the Mural District. Sibyl had only heard the tour guides call it that, in an unveiled attempt to rebrand Groundview. It didn’t take too long to find out where they got it from. The name and the welcome sign led to intense debates between the artists in the collective, including her friends, about people selling out and what they owed to each other as artists and their neighbors, which led to a few people splitting off and doing their own thing. The mural made Sibyl sick to her stomach, and she tried her best to avoid seeing it on her commutes. Then one day, someone started covering it up with black graffiti making the message unreadable.

No one knew who it was because they never got caught, but it didn’t matter to AR&M. Like clockwork the next morning, they had cleaners paint a fresh welcome message over it in time for the daily tours at noon. When the welcome message started appearing on the AR&M screens, the screens started getting covered in graffiti too. After a few months, Sibyl expected the guerilla painters to give up and move on, but they didn’t. Fresh graffiti kept appearing over the mural and on the screens, prompting AR&M to deploy their clean up crews, and then the routine would start again. Sibyl looked out the window in anticipation. “OURS.” The word, written over and over again across the mural, quickly came into view and then vanished out of sight.

#short story #original fiction #creative writing #writers of tumblr #fiction

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dolls-self-ships · 3 years

Text

One Thing You Can Taste

synopsis: Hades and Kassandra go on their first official date, but Hades is acting a bit different than usual. Almost like he’s.. *gasp* nervous. You heard it here folks, the big bad god of the underworld is nervous for a date.

ship: pomegranate seeds 🥀 (hades/kasssandra)

(fluff, flirting, a kiss happens, yea)

It wasn’t the ritziest place in Athens, but it was quite a nice restaurant. Kassandra had insisted that Hades didn’t blow too much on what was essentially their first official date. Sure they knew each other and had… something going on, but this was their first actual outing together. And so far, Kassandra had been doing most of the actual, well, dating.

“And then I said-“ Kassandra said through laughter, stopping when she noticed Hades still sitting rather stiffly, which was wildly out of character for his usual relaxed and flow-y self. She looked him up and down with concern. “-hey, you’re usually talking my ear off, I’ve been doing all the work since we got here. Where’s the sarcasm, the witty jokes you always have, what’s up?”

Hades blinked. “Me? Oh uh.. nothin’ nothin’ just.. uh..”

“Is something wrong?”

“Wrong? With me? Pfttt nooo ‘course not! I.. I..” Hades waved a hand, attempting to mask his embarrassment.

Kassandra raised a brow, clearly not buying his facade no matter how much he tried to brush it off. Hades saw this and sighed, his shoulders slopping in defeat.

“Okay.. uh.. l-look-“ he rested his elbows on the table, making a gesture with his hands. “-Iiii haven’t been on a real date.. in.. a while. Y’know I got the Underworld to run and I got all these plans for Olympus and well you get the jist” he fastly explained, trying to mask his nerves with a cool smile. “I’m uh.. heh, I’m a busy guy you know?”

The princess cheekily smiled, feeling like for once she had the upper hand. “So.. you’re nervous?”

A moment of anxiety struck him, with it clearly showing on his face until the god (what he thought was smoothly) attempted to recover but putting on a faux grin. Hades felt he couldn’t admit such a thing, he was a god, gods don’t get nervous. “Nervous? Aheh- well- ah-I-I don’t know about nervous maybe.. maybe outta practice sure but..”Hades trailed off, knowing his desperate clambering to keep his cool was not holding up, the princess saw right through him.

“Alright” he sighed out “you got me red-handed- or y’know I guess blue-handed”

Kassandra giggled, making Hades’s dead heart resurrect itself. “It’s okay.. I’m nervous too.. how would you rate yours? Like.. on a scale of one to ten?”

“Huh?”

“Just answer”

“Okay um… 7….” Hades looked between Kassandra and the floor “and a half”

Kassandra stifled a chuckle, tossing her hair back and leaning forward closer to Hades, looking up at him through her lashes (and simultaneously inciting a tingling feeling throughout the god’s chest and stomach). She really had no idea, because he’d never let her see it, but the princess had the Lord of the Dead himself wrapped around her little mortal finger.

“Alright, we’re gonna do this together. I want you to look around the room and just.. name 5 things you can see.”

Hades was about to ask why, but then realized this was his chance to swoop in and return to being his suave and savvy self. Pretending to look frazzled by glancing around and tapping his chin, he rambled on “oh uh.. gee I don’t know babe, that might be hard since the only thing I’m seeing in this joint right now is you aheh~” he slyly returned his glance to her, with one elbow on the table and the other resting on his hip, complete with his usual cheesy grin.

Kassandra tried to hold back the flustered and giddy feeling he gave her, but her reddened cheeks gave her away. “Hades, I’m serious.” She smirked.

Hades chuckled, putting his hands up in defence. “Alright alright alright” he mumbled “let’s see.. huh..” he glanced up, spotting a somewhat humorous sight from over Kassandras shoulder.

“That waiter guy’s got a paper straw stuck in his back collar” He pointed over to the scrawny young guy waiting tables, prompting Kassandra to glance over her shoulder and look. A snort escaped her throat.

“Should we tell him?”

Hades shrugged. “Nahhh he’ll figure it out. Or hey be stuck with it the rest of the night, who knows”

Kassandra put a hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter. “Okay, 4 more things, and they don’t.. have to be interesting by the way.”

Hades dipped his head in acknowledgment, scanning the room and pointing at really the first of anything he saw. “Hmmm alright, empty table, chairs… uh… artwork with a very suspicious stain on it, aandddd…” he drummed on the table, turning his head to the table. “Ah, menu. Boom, done, easy.”

Kassandra nodded. “Alright, good. Now list 4 things you can touch.”

Hades leaned back, still confused as to what exactly they were doing. “What is this what are we doing here, is this some sort of game orrr”

She shook her head. “Nope, not a game, just… something I do when I’m feeling a little on edge. Come on, let’s finish this. 4 more senses to go.”

Deciding to go with the flow on this one, even though he really didn’t see or understand how listing things that exist would help, he trusted Kass with this sort of thing.. you know.. feelings. They weren’t his bag but hers? She had the whole suitcase.

“Okayyy uhh.. 4 things I can…?”

“Touch.”

“Touch? Oh, well…” Hades’s expression quickly went from cutely confused to suitably sleazy as he slipped his hand underneath Kassandras’s, taking it while refusing to break eye contact with her. “there’s your… smooth skin” he drawled, using one finger to draw little patterns on her wrist and lower arm while gazing at the princess through hooded eyes. Hades then kissed the back of her hand for 3 looooong seconds before pulling back to see the princess’s pale skin glowing more and more red, which he thought was adorable. Hades casually leaned his arm on the table, taking a lock of Kassandras chestnut hair with his free hand, twirling one of the wispy strands around his finger. “your… soft hair hehehe”

Kassandra felt her breathing become short and her heart rate slowly start to pick up. She wasn’t necessarily uncomfortable, but she was a little embarrassed as they were kind of out in the open for anyone to see. And if her mother taught her anything, it was that getting all nice and cozy with someone in public was very unladylike.

“Hades, we’re in public.” She whispered, trying to sound stern but it just came out more coquettish than anything.

Hades’s hands retreated, next time, he hold himself as he tried to play it off smoothly. “Alright alright, um..” he let his hands rest on the table and started to feel around, gliding his palms over the smooth surface. “Oh this is some nice wood really smooth what is this mahogany? nice huh?”

Kassandra lifted her hand to feel the smooth surface, finding herself amused by how dramatically he was trying to hype up a table. But that’s just how he was, always trying to ‘sell’ something. “Mhm” she softly agreed. “Okay, one more thing.”

Hades sighed, leaning back trying to think of something. That’s when it hit him. “The chair.”

Kassandra smiled. “Perfect! Alright, what are 3 things you can… hear?”

Hades hummed, looking at the ceiling. “Well… there’s that loud fan that’s been kinda buzzing in my ear this whole time.” He and Kassandra let out a breathy chuckle after he said that.

“And all the people talking in this place is hard to miss dont cha think?”

The woman nodded, briefly glancing at said people before turning back to him. “Aaaanything else?? Just one more thing.”

“Hm.. well, just a second ago my ears were graced with the sound of your sweet sweet voice~”

Kassandra caved, letting out a girlish giggle as her head dipped. She was unable to contain the amount of butterflies he invoked in her. “Okay Romeo, who gave you professional smooth-talker lessons?”

Hades clicked his fingers, shooting her finger guns. “Years of practice, doll face.”

“mhmhm~ what are 2 things you can smell?”

Hades sat up straight, dramatically taking a deep inhale of the air around them. “Oh, mm, that’s a lot of ambrosia someone ordered. Might have to go over there, hah.” he sounded enticed, briefly thinking about how it would taste, which would be delicious as per usual.

Kassandra giggled, gods he was too much. She loved it.

Hades’s yellow-ish eyes trailed back to her, a softer grin curling on his face. “And your perfume.. mmm what is that that is just.. intoxicating~” he made a wafting motion with his hand, as if impersonating a wine taster.

Kassandra laughed, which for Hades, meant mission accomplished. He could listen to that laugh all day, all eternity even. It was like a warm symphony of sirens that rang in his ears.

“Okay.. last one.” She leaned forward, as if getting him ready for the news of his life.

“Hit me babe~”

“Mhm~ this ones tricky, but, what’s one thing you can taste?”

Taste. That one was tricky, they haven’t even gotten their food yet. However…. Hades got an idea.

“Taste huh?”

Kassandra nodded. A small gasp escaped her throat once she felt Hades’s hand slip up to cradle one side of her face. Her eyes darted back and forth between his hand and him.

“I could eh.. think of something..” Hades mumbled with a grin that was half dazed and half flirtatious. His words slipped away from him, too fixated on the princess’s full and.. smooth lips to concentrate on anything quick or witty to say like he usual did.

Kassandra was too breathless for words herself, she could feel her chest tighten as she glanced up and down Hades’s face, gods, he was handsome. Her eyes fluttered as they both leaned in slowly, and for a moment, the room felt quiet. Like they were the only two people there. And once their lips touched, oh, it was like fireworks had went off inside of both of them. Hades was sure he had melted the chair and some parts of the table at least a little by now. The kiss lasted for about 5 seconds before they both pulled away, a small squish noise emitting from both their lips as they separated. Hades missed the sweet taste of her lips already, and he couldn’t wait till later tonight when he could (hopefully) get another.

“Mm..” Hades moaned as if he had just a gourmet meal. “cherry, nnnnice~”

Kassandra, still a little flustered and dazed from the kiss, tilted her head. “Hm?”

“Your lipgloss”

Kassandra’s eyes widened as a wave of embarrassment washed over her. “Oh! Ha! Right. Um… of course…” she breathlessly chuckled as she adjusted herself in her seat, trying to sit up right once again.

Just in time for her, but less ideal for Hades, a posh sounding voice interrupted them.

“So sorry but, has this table been helped yet?”

Quickly, the princess began stammering, haphazardly looking between her date and the waiter that definitely just saw them almost make out in the middle of the restaurant.

And what would you know, it was the waiter with the paper straw in his collar.

“Ah,, y-yes, We’-we’re just waiting.” Kassandra declared politely, trying to mask her slight disappointment that their moment was now kind of ruined as she cleared her throat and looked at her lap, then back up at Hades.

The waiter smiled, “ah, very good.” And nodded before taking off.

Hades, despite his current gripes with that boy in particular for interrupting their little moment, stopped him in his tracks.

“Uh, hey! Kid, you uh.. got somethin stuck in your collar there.” Hades gestured with his fingers to his back, hoping that would get the message across.

The waiter hummed and reached behind him, pulling out the straw that had been stuck there. “Oh, uh, thank you, sir! That’s.. ha- embarrassing.” The now blushing waiter stammered, attempting to exit cooly with the straw still in his hand.

Hades chuckled. “You think he woulda felt that huh?”

Kassandra turned back to him, shrugging. “Yeah… I guess he was just too busy to notice.”

Hades nodded, turning his head and mumbling “not too busy to interrupt us though that’s for sure”

Kassandra gave him a look, to which Hades grinned with faux innocence, acting as if he had done nothing wrong. “Whaaat?”

“Hades, be nice.” She half-jokingly scolded him, if he was gonna be around her he’d have to get used to the whole ‘being kind to people’ thing. Again, no bag, her suitcase.

“Heyyyy I’m a saint! a cherub even” he innocently batted his eyes with a grin in likeness, hoping that’d get him to cute his way out of her disappointment.

And oh, it did, works like a charm every time. A melodic giggle escaped Kassandras throat.

A second of silence passed. “So… Wh-what was the point of that whole… senses thing we just did?” Hades asked with boyish curiosity.

Kassandra perked up, quite happy he actually seemed interested to know. “Oh, uh, it’s just an anxiety thing. I learnt about it in my years working with a doctor and phycologist, Hypocrities, he was hired by my mother for the kingdom at the time… do you know him?”

Hades’s eyebrows knitted together, remembering the time that doctor started curing actual dead people in his domain. DEAD PEOPLE. Ohh he knew him alright. “Yeah, yeah I’ve heard of the guy.”

Kassandra nodded. “It’s supposed to just.. remind yourself that you’re here, like, grounding.”

“Huh”

“So how do you feel now?”

Hades blinked, looking into the earnest eyes of the princess. He felt himself melting inside, his lips slipped into a rare, genuine smile. “Good, I.. I feel good.”

Kassandra beamed, happy to see he was feeling better now. “Great! I’m glad” her tone was so sweet it was like she actually spoke with little hearts at the end of her sentence.

Hades could tell this was gonna be a good first date.

#this was all I did today please be nice #bees self ships #hades #self shipping #self ship #self ship community #self ships #self insert #self ship fan fiction #idk I just thought this would be cute like a scene in an 80’s rom com or something idk 😩

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