#fic: set her free

[justaz]

semi-dark king merlin au, someone from ealdor tells king cenred about merlin and he is captured and held as a slave in essetir. since merlin despises captivity and servitude, he’d rather be dead and free than alive and in chains so he acts out and pisses people (especially the king) off so they’ll think him too much trouble and kill him. at first they stick to beatings until merlin manages to get his chains around a few necks and now has a body count so they kill him…..only he wakes back up a few hours later and king cenred is Intrigued and keeps him close. merlin keeps acting out but no matter how many times they kill him, he won’t stay dead. merlin has this moment after waking up perfectly fine after his twenty seventh death where he is hopeless and believes there to be no escape, not even thru death. a few other sorcerers in chains come and help him clean up and give him a lil peptalk, realizing him to be emrys, and then they revolt and take over the kingdom and crown merlin as king and now uther is like “wtf” bc his neighboring kingdom who was kinda sorta on his wavelength about sorcery, though uther did not approve of keeping them alive, is now a kingdom ruled by magic. he goes to war with them but with magic running free and fucking emrys on the throne, they don’t make a lot of headway. anyways merthur meet on the battlefield, enemies to lovers, you get it

[strawberryicemoon]

Does anyone else feel like the Della that was set up and the Della we actually got were two different characters.

Primarily I think Della's just dumber than we were initially lead to believe. And I think there's something in one of the first things we knew about her was that she had pretty handwriting, where I struggle to believe the Della is patient enough to have neat handwriting. The last Crash of the Sunchaser implied she designed the Spear of Selene. Scrooge said someone who "sees the angles". Like I get that don't speak ill of the dead was in play. And I also get wanting Della's legacy to not match perfectly with her true self, but some of the literally flashbacks we saw implied she was clever (she figured out Dewey was from the future, again, she was sketching the Spear). Having the characters stretch the truth is one thing, but flashbacks is another. I mean we literally saw her Scuba-Diving in a flashback, but in show she hates fish.

Not helped by the fact I assumed she named her children, and was using that as a gauge of her personality. And like. Turbo is very funny. I get why you'd make it a surprise reveal. Recontextualize her personality. But we already were introduced to her in the episode before. Also I just didn't like it tbh. (And kinda like my beef with the whole April May and June thing, I'm not a duck fan, I have no horse in this race, and things can be different, but considering to my understanding the few glimpses of previous iterations of Della, she definitely named her sons, and changing one of the few things that previously existed about the character felt weird to me, cheap even. On one hand I get wanting to show just how disconnected from her son she is and how much the incident cost her. But on the other hand it was just salt in the wound at that point, for a few jokes about the boys names… which have generally been changed to be even more embarrassing than they were previously for more jokes).

I really did like Whatever Happened to Della Duck. The only "Weird' things to me was how technically and artistically unsavvy she seemed to be, when we had scene her sketching the spear of Selene. Like that was a whole ass plot point. And also how oblivious she seemed to what was happening with the Moonlanders when she was presumably "sharp". But y'know. I can excuse one misunderstanding, and she was probably just a bit crazy from being alone on the moon for so long (and any prior mental health issues) and when she gets back other characters will probably be unnerved by her a bit because she's changed. But this was apparently normal Della (aside from not liking her reflection). If someone had spelled out in show the ways she had changed while on the moon I think it would have made all the difference. (Though Ducktales in general has an issue for completely neglecting to state important information until its necessary but long after it was relevant, so the fact no one says that doesn't mean it can't be true tbh).

I think the core of the character, and thus why she caught my attention remained. She's a traumatized woman who did something impulsive (that should have been fine), that had disproportionately huge consequences. And now has to get to know her children. She has to learn to parent on the fly. She has to establish herself as an adult when she's otherwise been stuck in place. She has to reestablish herself with her family, and a new sense of identity in a world that's changed without her.

And looking some of the Della description from the pitch bible we got recently, and the Della described there is closer to the one I thought we were getting prior to her debut. It makes me wonder when that changed. I know early on, in the Moorshire episode, they realized they made Launchpad too dumb after they finished it. To me it feels like they did that with Della (and to a certain extent Donald as well), but then never made the realization about what they did. We already had launchpad as the stupid adult. We didn't need more. Also, to be honest, I struggle to name any strengths over other characters besides the pragmatic "better at flying than Launchpad". Now, don't get me wrong, I still like canon Della. She had a lot of great moments. But to be honest I think all of her best moments, would have also worked with the Della I thought we were getting. Her fears about losing the kids, so lying to them about participating in the fight. Her song. Her punishing Louie for being stupid. The bit where she talked about being unable to look at her reflection and breaking her glass. Teaching Dewey to fly. Realizing how much her kids looked up to her and to what extents they might be idiots to prove themselves to her. I don't want her not to be reckless, just more thoughtful. That said, the way the other characters treated her didn't really help. It felt like at least for a while she was being ignored. Like she wasn't being treated seriously, but also no one was trying to help or understand her. (Which we got Donald blasted off into space after being ecstatic to see her, made me feel like Donald might actually see her... but then 5 episodes in to S3 Donald gets a girlfriend and the twins rarely appear together).

Liking those elements of the pitch bible might be a bit of the classic "the grass is greener" nonsense. And the fact it's just a barebones description not a full fletched character, and to be fair I don't care for every detail in it. But even before the pitch bible, I was bothered by the fact Daisy, not Della was the person who understood Donald best. (My aromantic self does not appreciate the prioritzation of romantic relationships). And here in the pitch bible. It says Della knows Donald best. We didn't get a single glimpse of "was scared to be a mom", even though I'd solidly developed the head canon that the Spear of Selene ride was a form of post-partum fear even before reading this, and I understand that might have been difficult to work into the show, the lack of support for Della in general, or any hints of empathy for why she did what she did doesn't help. Even of dealing with trauma from the instance. I can't say the "stuff just happens" angle is objectively bad. But this is still a story. A narrative. Not reality. It feels cheap as a character, for her biggest mistake to basically boil down to "oops", rather than a huge character flaw. Like yes, being reckless is a flaw. But considering what the family is USUALLY doing, it… isn't? It really isn't any worse than what they family does normally so for her to be punished so harshly for it is a bit unfair.

In the finale the fact it's revealed that Bradford told Della about the spear, also feels kinda cheap to me. I think its an interesting reveal… but considering this is information one of our main protagonists knows it feels bizarre that it is a reveal to the audience. (Or that no one asked Della before). Also it feels a bit like it's trying to absolve Della of blame, but it doesn't address the core problem of (sure the show never states there's a problem but Scrooge makes reference to Della's "one last big adventure" and it's hard not to see this as an attempt to break out of some sort of mental funk. And it again, needlessly victimizes Della. She got stuck in space for 10 years, couldn't even name her own children, loses her leg, gets betrayed, loses her plane kinda-sorta, and is kind of treated like an idiot by many of the other adults around her. Because some guy was trying to mess with Scrooge. Della's moon trip sucks, I don't think they needed to make it worse by making it not even her fault.

I wish we had gotten a scene of Donald telling the boys what Della was like from his perspective. He's her twin. And I really don't want to welcome the comparisons between DT17 and GF. But the lack of any character drawing the parallels between Donald & Della and Huey, Dewey and Louie is absurd. But they don't utilize it. Like at all. No one ever looks at Donald and goes, oh. He lost his twin. That really sucks. The triplets never go. What would it be like if I lost one of you. Like twins are sometimes just siblings. They don't need to have "super special relationship", but in a show about family it's sure awkward that they don't. I am so mad that Huey, Dewey and Louie didn't get to see another side of their Uncle Donald brought out by Della. Or alternatively a Della struggling to connect with her brother. Even better both.

I know the "is the character acting ooc or do you not actually know the character" is well, a thing. I am aware that the post-partum depression, actually clever and observant Della is mostly made up by me. But I also know where in canon it came from to me. Della never acts out of character from once she's introduced. But that character is still a bit off from the character we had come to expect in the first season and a half. She's not completely divorced from what we were told about her. But still. Do I love Della, or the idea of Della. Honestly, I don't know.

This is definitely very OPINION, and not really anything objective.

[razzledazzletrassh]

no major fic updates just yet guys TAKE MY WOY OC I MADE LIKE. April of last year IM PLUGGING SOME INFO ABOUT THIS GUY IN THE TAGS.

I may also redesign her soon or something. Make her more bug-like with some stuff. I can cook guys let me cook !!!

[crossedwiress]

silver lining

pairing: cake rating: mature words: 15.4k chosen tags: fashion show, model calum, photographer luke

“Hey, man. You alright?” Luke jumps at the deep voice sounding from behind him. He spins around to face it, one hand clutching his camera in case he’s about to get kicked out for being in the wrong section when he is, in fact, meant to be here, as a registered photographer. But when Luke turns around, there’s just one guy there, lounging on a small stack of boxes with one leg hitched up for him to sling an arm over, exuding calm confidence. He’s clearly a model.

read on ao3 here

[sergeantpixie]

The Fool in her Wedding Gown; and

I am teaching myself to be free, please!

I am genuinely in awe at how tonally different the two stories you picked are, Gabby!

The Fool in Her Wedding Gown:

Vibes, just vibes, nothing but vibes. This is the demonic possession story I mentioned to you! We've got demonic possession and vampire hunting and lots of moody vibes. Bella Swan is the main character very weird to write a character with the same name as me because I'm chronically addicted to ruining defining characteristics. And man, did I ruin her.

And also because I listened to this version of Where Did You Sleep Last Night/In The Pines too many times. However, the story title comes from the Crane Wives album!

It's five years post Bella and Edward's wedding, and she returns to Forks, Washington for the first time, alone. The Forks Police Department has been dealing with a string of unusual deaths - all caused by sulfur poisoning.

an excerpt:

All rational thought has abandoned her, she only knows she does not want it to happen like this; this is not how she wants to become a vampire. Bella will not be like Rosalie Hale.

I am teaching myself how to be free:

A Rory-centric fic titled after Various Storms and Saints by Florence + The Machine!

Rory’s Wild moment takes decidedly more effort. And blood and sweat and tears and really gross camp meals. And not to mention bugs, can’t forget the bugs. All Rory wants is one moment of fucking clarity, is that too much to ask? Apparently so because all she has are blisters, chapped lips, a sunburn, and a cut that she’s starting to worry is infected.

Nine years post the Revival, Rory Gilmore takes another page out of her mother's book. Clarity doesn't come quite as easily to her.

"Of course we're all worried, Rory," Paris is saying. "You showered in the boys' shower for a month when you found a spider in the girls' room at Branford! Why would you decide to go camping?" "I don't know," Rory admits. "I think I'm having some kind of personality breakdown, is that a thing?" She sniffles pathetically. "I can smell myself!" "Yeah, you're singlehandedly diminishing the skunk population of California."

ask me about my WIPs!

@randomestfandoms

[quatregats]

Honestly kind of lame of CS Forester not to go in for the weird Narnia ending. Think of how fun that could have been

[smallergalaxies]

y’all…i finally caved and made a fnaf oc animatronic (that ive been thinking about for a while) and just info dumped about her to my wife 😭

[wolflover2426]

Crack Prompt: After the defeat of Queen Banana, Marinette detransforms in a metal closet which locked her in and because it’s located in the basement of the school, no one could hear her pleas for help.

Meanwhile, Alya is waiting for Marinette and decides to pass the time by pulling out a banana from her lunch bag and placing a miniature wig with pigtails on the banana and pretended that it was Marinette. Tbh, Queen Banana was the most silliest akuma and Alya just wanted a good laugh.

Adrien rushes into class and took one look at the banana on the desk next to Alya and start panicking. He asked to Alya if that’s who he think it is.

Alya wanted to commit to the joke and said that “Yep, this is Marinette.” The class knows that Alya is just spouting nonsense but for Adrien, he took her words seriously.

The poor boy starts weeping and vows to have a chat with Ladybug because her cure didn’t heal his best friend (It could also lead to him getting bonked in the head and realizing he is in love)

Alya is too busy laughing on the ground and Nino is just confused and wondering if he just entered a soap opera.

This prompt was spawned thanks to this comic

[sexynetra]

4 for rawnsyf!

4. Favorite line of dialogue

There’s so many that I love honestly (and also it’s hard to remember all of them 😅) but this one always jumps to mind for me 🥰 — from chapter 5!

~~~

“Who said I don’t like you?” she asked immediately, stepping closer without really meaning to. Anetra’s breath hitched ever so slightly but otherwise she didn’t react at all.

“Well… you, for starters. A lot of times, in fact. To a lot of people. Including me.”

[baynton]

idk how to make this into a fic but it's the best exchange i've ever written (it's patcap i wrote this for patcap)

[victory-cookies]

I’m being so normal (<- is not being normal)

[streakyglasses]

the ash of the home that you started the fire in

Chris turns 34 in December. The same age her mother was when she died in May, 21 years before.

Read on ao3 or ffn

Platonic Stris, H/C, case fic, mentions of alcoholism

[aparticularbandit]

given the length of these dr1 end rewrite fic chapters, this one is maybe halfway done, too.

which feels about right. this scene is about wrapping up, and then when it's done, there should be one with. the people hiro would get while he's panicking.

and then that should be the end of this set of chapters i think.

[slitheringghost]

Slytherin Locket Cave: The Life And Death Of Merope Gaunt

I wanted to explore one of the most interesting details of Voldemort’s characterization: the extensive protections around the Slytherin locket horcrux, which exist as a step-by-step re-enactment of Merope's suffering - referencing his mother's actual death, but perhaps more prominently, her state of drowning in despair in the Gaunt home due to her family.

The Locket's Significance

Tom Riddle initially hears of it from his uncle:

“Ar, he left her, and serve her right, marrying filth!” said Morfin, spitting on the floor again. “Robbed us, mind, before she ran off! Where’s the locket, eh, where’s Slytherin’s locket?” Voldemort did not answer. Morfin was working himself into a rage again; he brandished his knife and shouted, “Dishonored us, she did, that little slut! And who’re you, coming here and asking questions about all that? It’s over, innit.... It’s over....” He looked away, staggering slightly, and Voldemort moved forward.

Making his uncle look at him to Legilimize him, Tom views the Bob Ogden memory - and later wipes his uncle memories till that point. (I assume LV got all the same Merope details and memories that Dumbledore shows Harry in HBP, and likely even more.)

We first see Slytherin's locket when Marvolo strangles Merope with the chain to show it to Bob Ogden and claim they're Slytherin's descendants, and presumably Merope wore it for most of her life in the Gaunt shack. Merope runs off with Tom Sr. wearing it and per Burke it's the last possession she had days before her death:

“It was brought in by a young witch just before Christmas, oh, many years ago now. She said she needed the gold badly, well, that much was obvious. Covered in rags and pretty far along... Going to have a baby, see. She said the locket had been Slytherin’s. [...] She didn’t seem to have any idea how much it was worth. Happy to get ten Galleons for it.“

And Voldemort's enraged when Hepzibah Smith claims Merope stole it and was simply too dense to know its worth (which Merope clearly did, could hardly miss it with Marvolo's behavior):

“I had to pay an arm and a leg for it, but I couldn’t let it pass, not a real treasure like that, had to have it for my collection. Burke bought it, apparently, from a ragged-looking woman who seemed to have stolen it, but had no idea of its true value —” There was no mistaking it this time: Voldemort’s eyes flashed scarlet at the words, and Harry saw his knuckles whiten on the locket’s chain. “— I daresay Burke paid her a pittance but there you are.... Pretty, isn’t it? And again, all kinds of powers attributed to it, though I just keep it nice and safe....” She reached out to take the locket back. For a moment, Harry thought Voldemort was not going to let go of it, but then it had slid through his fingers and was back in its red velvet cushion. “So there you are, Tom, dear, and I hope you enjoyed that!” She looked him full in the face and for the first time, Harry saw her foolish smile falter. “Are you all right, dear?” “Oh yes,” said Voldemort quietly. "Yes, I’m very well....” “I thought — but a trick of the light, I suppose —” said Hepzibah, looking unnerved, and Harry guessed that she too had seen the momentary red gleam in Voldemort’s eyes.

The red flash in his eyes staying long enough for Hepzibah to notice.

2. Location

It's the sole horcrux in a location related to his childhood in the orphanage, and the cliffside location evokes Azkaban's (the fortress on a tiny island middle of the North Sea) - a seaside cave you have to swim to reach, described as "a bleak, harsh view, the sea and the rock unrelieved by any tree or sweep of grass or sand".

(When Sirius writes via tropical birds post-Azkaban escape, Harry thinks he's somewhere with sunlight and “palm trees and white sand” where he can't imagine dementors surviving for long).

My theory's that while Tom may've been covering up a violent fight, what ruined Amy and Dennis's minds so they were "never right afterwards" was a too powerful memory wipe - like Crouch Sr.'s on Bertha Jorkins - so they can recall they went into a cave with Tom but nothing more; that could also be a relevant association, as Tom used Legilimency to erase his uncle's memories and send him to Azkaban.

It starts with a concealed entrance and a "blood ward", something normally outside/protecting a magical home (interestingly HBP begins with Dumbledore having entered the Gaunt shack threshold and cursed fatally by the ring horcrux, entering the blood wards of the Dursleys' house, and ends in him dying after the Cave-as-Gaunt-house-simulation), with "denser than normal” darkness inside.

A concealed chained "ghostly green" little boat glides over a "great black lake" to the center island - matching descriptions of the boatride across the Hogwarts lake to the castle for first-years, and a reference to the fact that Nerope never got to attend school.

The Emerald potion, which Harry first thinks is a lamp, emits a green glow through the cavern, similar to Slytherin common room descriptions (“underground room with rough stone walls and ceiling from which round, greenish lamps were hanging on chains” / "it’s under the lake, so the light’s all green.”)

3. Drink of Despair

The potion is, of course, a liquefied dementor, which is linked to Merope in several ways.

The echoes of Lily's murder Harry hears near the dementors and his rage at Sirius betraying her parallels the memory of Merope being killed by her family and Tom’s rage at seeing it in his uncle’s memories - Morfin betraying her secret to their father and sending Marvolo after her, Merope's wordless pleading with her brother and father, Morfin’s cackle of laughter, and Merope screaming as she’s about to be killed by Marvolo.

“D’you know what I see and hear every time a dementor gets too near me?” Ron and Hermione shook their heads, looking apprehensive. “I can hear my mum screaming and pleading with Voldemort. And if you’d heard your mum screaming like that, just about to be killed, you wouldn’t forget it in a hurry. And if you found out someone who was supposed to be a friend of hers betrayed her and sent Voldemort after her —” (POA)

“She likes looking at that Muggle,” said Morfin, a vicious expression on his face as he stared at his sister, who now looked terrified. “Always in the garden when he passes, peering through the hedge at him, isn’t she? And last night —” Merope shook her head jerkily, imploringly, but Morfin went on ruthlessly, “Hanging out of the window waiting for him to ride home, wasn’t she?” “Hanging out of the window to look at a Muggle?” said Gaunt quietly. [...] “Is it true?” said Gaunt in a deadly voice, advancing a step or two toward the terrified girl. “My daughter — pure-blooded descendant of Salazar Slytherin — hankering after a filthy, dirt-veined Muggle?” Merope shook her head frantically, pressing herself into the wall, apparently unable to speak. “But I got him, Father!” cackled Morfin. “I got him as he went by and he didn’t look so pretty with hives all over him, did he, Merope?” “You disgusting little Squib, you filthy little blood traitor!” roared Gaunt, losing control, and his hands closed around his daughter’s throat. Both Harry and Ogden yelled “No!” at the same time; Ogden raised his wand and cried, “Relashio!” Gaunt was thrown backward, away from his daughter [...] Ogden ran for his life. Dumbledore indicated that they ought to follow and Harry obeyed, Merope’s screams echoing in his ears. (HBP)

(HBP's also the book Harry gives a step by step graphic description of Lily's murder to Slughorn; while Voldemort re-enacts Merope's through the cave protections)

Dumbledore says Morfin gave a "full and boastful confession" - which Tom Jr. Legilimized Morfin to give, explicitly referencing the last time his uncle attacked Tom Sr. in retaliation for Merope’s attraction to him and gloated to Marvolo about it - "He was proud, he said, to have killed the Muggles, had been awaiting his chance all these years."

While Harry only wants revenge for his parents with no thought for himself vs. LV framing his uncle for his pureblood family blasting him off their family tree, LV certainly has additional rage for his mother, and also doesn't forget his mother's screaming/general despair in a hurry, creating the locket cave decades after viewing the memories.

The dementors' varying effect and imagery is linked with - despair and hopelessness, losing the will to survive, not eating, victims huddling and hiding their faces and pleading, weakness and fainting, etc. Sirius says Crouch Jr. in Azkaban was "screaming for his mother by nightfall. He went quiet after a few days, though... they all went quiet in the end... except when they shrieked in their sleep.”

Which is exactly Merope's state in the Gaunt house with her father and brother:

Harry realized that there was somebody else in the room, a girl whose ragged gray dress was the exact color of the dirty stone wall behind her. She was standing beside a steaming pot on a grimy black stove, and was fiddling around with the shelf of squalid-looking pots and pans above it. [...] She looked a little cleaner than the two men, but Harry thought he had never seen a more defeated-looking person.

“Good morning,” said Ogden. She did not answer, but with a frightened glance at her father turned her back on the room [...]

And [Marvolo] spat on the floor at Ogden’s feet. Morfin cackled again. Merope, huddled beside the window, her head bowed and her face hidden by her lank hair, said nothing.

“‘Darling,’” whispered Morfin in Parseltongue, looking at his sister. “‘Darling,’ he called her. So he wouldn’t have you anyway.” Merope was so white Harry felt sure she was going to faint.

and:

Instead, [Marvolo] jeered at his daughter, “Lucky the nice man from the Ministry’s here, isn’t it? Perhaps he’ll take you off my hands, perhaps he doesn’t mind dirty Squibs....” Without looking at anybody or thanking Ogden, Merope picked up the pot and returned it, hands trembling, to its shelf. She then stood quite still, her back against the wall between the filthy window and the stove, as though she wished for nothing more than to sink into the stone and vanish.

Harry was on his feet once more, refilling the goblet as Dumbledore began to scream in more anguish than ever, “I want to die! I want to die! Make it stop, make it stop, I want to die!” “Drink this, Professor. Drink this....” Dumbledore drank, and no sooner had he finished than he yelled, “KILL ME!”

Merope's completely nonverbal throughout the scene, other than her screams. The Gaunts homeschooled, so she didn't even get to attend Hogwarts as an escape, as Tom, Harry, and others did and barely got an education (referenced by the boat ride resembling the first years’ boatride to Hogwarts). And she would've been forced to marry her brother and have his children.

(Morfin's association near the dementors is also his father - "'He’ll kill me for losing his ring,’ he told his captors over and over again [...] And that, apparently, was all he ever said again.")

What we hear of Merope as she's pregnant is the complete opposite of the dementors.

Merope wanted to live desperately enough that she sold a family heirloom for basically nothing a week before her death - so she was certainly trying to get food. (Comparatively, Harry in HBP due to grief for Sirius was "lying on his bed, refusing meals, and staring at the misted window, full of the chill emptiness that he had come to associate with dementors" until Dumbledore's letter came.)

Both times, Merope is facing death - with the Gaunts, she's too hopeless to speak even while pleading as she’s about to be killed; while pregnant with Tom (the only time we do hear Merope speak, secondhand), despite having wandered destitute for months and despite freezing and starving in midwinter and in the painful process of dying in childbirth, she has the will to speak until her dying breath - expressing hope for her son's future ("I hope he looks like his papa"), to give her son a name, Mrs. Cole saying it seemed "so important to the poor girl" to name him.

It’s reminiscent of how staying in Grimmauld Place is far worse for Sirius than living in a cave and eating rats on the run is, and where looking out for Harry also keeps Sirius going and gives him a purpose. 12GP is likewise linked with Azkaban/dementors/death (elaborated on here).

Voldemort's awareness of all this is probably the best indication, among others, that he doesn't share Dumbledore's viewpoint that Merope chose to die; and his response to that would likely be very like Harry's about Sirius - that she didn't want to go at all.

“I don’t care. You can have it, I don’t really want it.” Harry never wanted to set foot in number twelve, Grimmauld Place again if he could help it. He thought he would be haunted forever by the memory of Sirius prowling its dark musty rooms alone, imprisoned within the place he had wanted so desperately to leave.

Voldemort is similarly haunted by the memory of Merope - but unlike Harry he craves the aspects of his family and pureblood society that killed his mother even as he resents it; wants the house, the heirlooms, to remake himself into the Heir of Slytherin, grasping at power but also any and all connection he has to family.

4. Death and Burial

The last part is the drinker collapsing in weakness after finishing the potion, the desperate thirst, and when they crawl to drink from the lake, the Inferi army of the dead dragging them to death by drowning in icy water.

Referencing the months Merope wandered London destitute, her death in childbirth, and burial in a pauper's grave.

In Greek myth, Charon ferries deceased souls in his boat across the rivers of the underworld (often the Acheron, the river of misery, in some sources a lake), and those without proper burials are left behind to haunt the world as ghosts.

Proper burials or lack thereof a recurring canon motif, Voldemort himself telling the forces against him in DH to "Dispose of your dead with dignity" and Azkaban has a mass graveyard of prisoners, buried by dementors instead of their family.

5. Kreacher

I assume this is the significance of Voldemort asking for a house-elf and his horrific torture of Kreacher, since LV has also considered humans disposable for decades and killed many for this task already (the Inferi).

Merope was the servant of the household, and there's the general implication of lifetime service/"slavery" to her family.

“But the villagers’ shock was nothing to Marvolo’s. He returned from Azkaban, expecting to find his daughter dutifully awaiting his return with a hot meal ready on his table. Instead, he found a clear inch of dust and her note of farewell, explaining what she had done [...] The shock of her desertion may have contributed to his early death — or perhaps he had simply never learned to feed himself."

LV also recreates this family dynamic into the Death Eaters - which he calls his “true family” and who are his slaves and call him Master.

"as [Kreacher] drank, he saw terrible things... Kreacher’s insides burned... Kreacher cried for Master Regulus to save him, he cried for his Mistress Black, but the Dark Lord only laughed" (DH)

LV potentially thinks of a house-elf as a being who "deserves it" "instead" (and is part of the establishment/property he thinks are his birthright. And it's telling of house-elves enslavement and isolation that the only people Kreacher can ask for to save him in the midst of it are his owners.)

The details are a bit unclear, but LV likely already tested the potion/other defenses before turning the locket into a horcrux; he used Kreacher to empty the basin of potion to place the finalized locket, as there's no backdoors to drinking it.

So LV leaves right after the locket is placed, not bothering to wait until Kreacher's dead and underestimates his ability to Apparate out - and considered him so insignificant that he didn’t remember who Kreacher is in OOTP despite using him for a very important plot to lure Harry, directly contributing to his downfall.

And, ironically, Regulus via Kreacher plays the role of "dutiful daughter/servant running off with the locket and leaving a farewell note explaining what he's done".

[washedoutwings]

yeah so uhhhh we’re always permanently low on motivation so umm yeah sorry but we are doing one of those note things

20 notes: we will try to take our meds more consistently

50 notes: draw at least something once a week

70 notes: eat something for breakfast every day (at least an apple or protein drink)

100 notes: start keeping better track of our delusions/hallucinations

150 notes: tell our therapist about 2 of our headmates

200 notes: start a system journal

300 notes: tell our therapist about 5 of our headmates

500 notes: tell our therapist about all of our headmates

700 notes: tell our doctor about about our chronic pain

1000 notes: eat something medium for breakfast at least three days a week (like a bowl of cereal)

1500 notes: ask our closer friends to use she/her less (they know that we’re trans)

from here on it’s more about just good habits that we don’t have much motivation for instead of self care type stuff, so less important

2000: draw every day (when possible)

2500: finish writing one of our wip stories/fics

3500: start working on an art commissions portfolio

4500: start working on a writing commissions portfolio

6000: set up art commissions

8000: set up writing commissions

sorry, we feel really guilty about this but we really need some motivation for this stuff. honestly we don’t expect this to even get to 20, but that’s fine! no deadline, ummm if you really want to spam idc, feel free to tag people. i’m not gonna tag anyone, i don’t want anyone to feel pressured

edit: WHAT THE FUCK where did yall come from???????

edit 2: damn i was offline for like 2 days and it was barely at 300 and we log back on to 500+ uhhhh thanks ig lol

edit 3: well we’re almost at 700 so..i guess i’m gonna add a couple more?

edit 4: the gimmicks got to us…also added some more

[vivwritesfics]

The Sex Playlist

How the fuck does Super Max find it's way into a sex playlist? And why the fuck did they have to find out during sex?

Warnings: smut, p in v, dominant reader, crack fic, h*lmut m*arko mentioned

The sex playlist. It was a carefully curated list of songs that they played to cover up the sounds of sex in a hotel room on a race weekend. The songs had been picked, tried and tested in the safety of their Monaco apartment.

No song in that playlist had been put in there by just one of them. It was a discussion they had, the both of them sat there, listening while they decided.

But you know what Spotify is like. It's so damn easy to unintentionally place a song in a playlist it wasn't meant to be in. It had happened before, in the safety of their Monaco apartment. In that instance, Max had pulled out, gotten up, and skipped the song. They later removed it from the playlist.

As far as either of them were aware, neither had added a song to the sex playlist since the last race weekend. As far as either of them were aware, every song had been tried and tested. They didn't need to go through it before the Zandvoort weekend.

The Zandvoort weekend. Max had gotten plenty of streaming done over the break, and Helmut had made it clear that he wasn't to stream over this race weekend. He was itching to do something as he laid in his hotel room, staring at the ceiling.

He needed some form of stimuli.

Sitting up, he grabbed a hole of his phone. His girl was at the tiny little desk in the hotel room, tapping away at her laptop. Normally that's where Max would have been set up to stream. But she was working on her thesis, something Max respected greatly.

But he wanted attention.

Placing his phone on the bedside table, he pressed Play on their shared playlist. The music started, and she visibly stiffened.

"Max," she said slowly, turning in her chair. "What're you doing?"

He stalked towards her, a predator with it's prey in it's sights. His hands touched her shoulders, moving in slow, circular motions. She couldn't deny that it felt good as she threw her head back to look at him.

As soon as she did that, his lips were on hers. "I'm bored," he mumbled against her lips, his hands slipping over her shoulder to settle over her chest. Not touching her anywhere inappropriate, yet.

"What do you want me to do about it?" But she was smirking as she said it. Her hand came up, grabbed a hold of his arm. Her finger tapped his arm to the beat of the song. He'd railed her to that beat before.

Standing up, she pushed him back towards the bed. Max went with it, grinning as his body bounced. He propped himself up on his elbows and watched as she stripped herself down to her underway.

Her hips swayed as she walked towards him. He made grabby hands at her, hands which she pushed away as she sat in his lap. She held his hands above his head. It would have been so easily to break out of her hold, but Max didn't want to.

"Hi, baby," she whispered, gently touching his face. "Are you gonna be good for me?"

Desperately, he nodded. If that was what she wanted, he was going to be so good.

But she suddenly gripped his cheeks, forcing him into a pout. "Words, Max," she said, fingers on the button of his jeans. Ready to pop it and free his dick.

He didn't mean to buck his hips up as he said, "yes. Yes, I'll be good for you."

That was all she needed to hear. She freed his dick and held it gently in her hands. But then she was moving above him, the silk of her underwear like heaven against the skin of his dick. "Fuck," he groaned and threw his head back.

He didn't mean to free himself from her hold. The minute his hands moved, an involuntary reaction to the pleasure he was receiving, she stopped. She looked at him, gaze piecing. A whimper left his lips and he quickly put his hands back above his head.

As soon as he had, a satisfied smile covered her face. She released her hold on him and stood up, but Max knew better than to move.

Pulling off her underwear, she climbed back on top of him. His hips moved involuntarily when she sat on him, when he felt just how wet she was against his dick. "Please," he whimpered.

She sank down onto him. When Max was on top, it was normal for them to sit there for a moment enjoy the feeling. But not this time. She immediately moved her hips to the rhythm of the song, hips rolling down onto him.

The song was barely audible over Max's moans and whines. Her grip on his wrists changed, instead holding his hands, fingers laced between his own. It was loving, a stark contrast to the way she was bouncing on his cock.

But then the song ended. She didn't change her rhythm, kept it up until the next song came up. Her rhythm would change then, change to match the next song.

The familiar sounds of F1 cars filled the room. The two of them looked at each other, brows furrowing as the singing filled the room. Sitting on top of him, she looked at the phone as it played Super Max of all songs.

Beneath her, Max was laughing. His laugh had her bouncing slightly, hands coming to settle on her hips now that the spell was broken. "How the fuck did this get in here?" He asked as his thumbs moved over her hips.

Her cheeks were hot as she looked down at Max. God, he looked so pretty beneath her, grinning as he waited for her reaction.

Her reaction was simple. She rolled her hips against him, and the grin was wiped from Max's face. "Fuck," he groaned, watching her. "Wait, we're not fucking to this," he said, lip pulled between his teeth to stop moans from spilling out.

Her hands rested on his chest. "Yeah, Super Max, we are."

His hands dropped her hips, giving up his control.