#he just happy to see the silly vampire elf

[demiesop]

what we doing?

[sugairsstuff]

may i request general relationship headcanons for both astarion and cardan greenbriar (separate) 🥺💕 i love them both sm and it’s great to find a blog that writes for both!

it’s double trouble with this pair! i’d love to give you some fuel for your fire <3 here’s some things i think about haha, i hope you enjoy!

also i kept it sfw because i wasn’t sure!

relationship headcanons

astarion ancunín and cardan greenbriar

warnings: very brief sexual mentions

(credit to @cafekitsune for the divider)

astarion ancunín 💫

🌙you and astarion share playful banter. a lot. naturally, he’s always the winner of your little battles of wits- or so he claims- but you both leave each other laughing by the end of your back and forth teasing. it’s another way for you two to flirt with each other apart from the more traditional ways.

🌙of course, your relationship doesn’t involve sexual intimacy for however long of a time, if ever, astarion needs. but that doesn’t mean you two don’t enjoy holding each other close. after the first hug you two shared, you become able to coax him into your arms time and time again late at night when the rest of your companions are sleep (because how dare they see him get all sappy and soft, of course), engulfing your gentle lover in the warmth his body lacks. neither of you need to speak, most of the time preferring to enjoy each other’s company quietly, listening to whatever idle ambience is stirring about beyond your tent’s walls- whether that be rustling bushes in a breeze, the rushing water of river or cave, or the hoot of an owl.

🌙it’s these moments that ground you both. those quiet ones, where nothing is said but you both hear what the other is trying to anyway. astarion is both an elf and a vampire, his body doesn’t need to sleep, but he still finds his eyelids growing heavy alongside yours as you two remain tangled together, his head resting against your chest as your fingers sleepily stroke those springy cotton curls atop his head. it’s only from gale’s babbling one day that astarion learns that people feel sleepy around those they feel safe around, and that thought crosses his mind a lot whenever he gazes at you from across camp.

🌙and when he’s not thinking of these sappy, heart wrenching thoughts, he’s (im)patiently waiting for you to forget whomever you are oh so busy with and come pay attention to him- especially if it’s gale. sorry gale.

🌙his eyes are almost always searching for you, too. and yours for him, as well. whether it’s him peering up from his book just to see you stride into camp after another one of your silly little heroic side quests (or murder sprees, if you’re dark urge), or in the midst of battle ensuring you’re not caught in the cross fire- and if you are, you best bet this rogue is sweeping in to give you back up. he does remember you once told him that if he had your back, you’d have his, too. astarion learned this meant a lot more than just protecting each other from enemies as his relationship with you progressed, finding that you two could lean on each other in emotional times of back-up, too. being so vulnerable started off difficult with him, but he reminds himself that you mean safety, you mean love, and you mean happiness to him- and these reminders help him show you those pieces of him he thought cazador buried long ago.

🌙we all know astarion is not shy when it comes to his words, but once you two become something real this act of his is broken down noticeably. don’t expect him to not crack a dirty joke, though, but do notice how- since having you at his side- he has less of a tendency to flaunt himself like a preening peacock, he becomes more comfortable with casual touching and non-sexual intimacy like mentioned before, and you even are able to render him speechless time to time with your kind, honest words to him.

🌙the kisses you two share are gentle and slow. kisses on the knuckles, wrists, cheeks, and nose before either one of you reach the other’s lips. they never last long, not long enough to tempt either one of you into something more, but they’re more than enough. your little butterfly kisses seem to settle themselves in your chests and beat their wings alongside your heart- and in astarion’s case, they beat in place of his.

🌙you two become nearly inseparable. while you were close when your relationship was just a friendship, now that it has evolved into something new, rare, and hell of a lot foreign you both can’t seem to get enough of each other. more often than not, when one of you is going out for some task, the other is close behind (and only the partner with the fanged teeth is dramatically complaining about having to go). as well, you notice that astarion begins to set up his tent closer to yours as your camp begins to change locations the closer to baldur’s gate the lot of you gets.

cardan greenbriar 🐍

🪷his tail subconsciously finds any available limb of yours- preferably coiling itself around your thigh, where it’s not noticeable enough to any who spares a meaningless glance in your direction but evident enough that someone properly looking at you would surely see. he would tell you it’s simply to give a message to wandering eyes, but that would be a half truth, as the subtle touch brings the prince turned king new blossoms within him- not the ones he bleeds, but rather those of comfort.

🪷 if you are a faerie, you most likely were apart of cardan’s friend group before he became a king, and knew him since longer. lounging about with him, locke, valerian, and nicasia, the young prince was disinterested in the rest and favoured bothering you. having to be around him so often made it difficult to ignore his clear attempts in getting under your skin, and so you eventually took it upon yourself to return the ‘favours’. and as you two spent more time together- time you both claimed you despised but in actuality you both sought it constantly- your relationship slowly grew into what it is now.

🪷 cardan would not love a hero, it is too late for such a character in his life. he does not need a person to peel away the walls he built around himself which have the words ‘the cruel prince’ carved into them. he’d rather love someone who instead saw what is beyond those walls, and take it selfishly for themself alone- he’d rather not share the sweeter sides of him with anyone but you, which means those walls must stay standing. he would fall in love with you for your ability to understand him, to not expect so much from the young prince, and he would fall in love not only with your virtues (as he would not love a villain, either) but also all your flaws that make you real.

🪷 perhaps that is why, if you are a human, he confuses his curiosity with disgust for you. humans, who live so imperfectly, so little, and yet so freely- creatures who do not look back before they jump because they do not have enough time to. people who live among the Folk and yet have no care for being good enough for them. and then cardan learned that he loved every single thing that made you human, every single thing about you that set you apart from those he was surrounded with- all equally as cruel and manipulative as him. every dimple, curve, scar, and line were all like breaths of fresh air for the forgotten prince.

🪷 either way, your love for each other crept up on both of you, until you both snapped and suddenly found your bodies entangled and lips interlocked as the world around you turned to a blur.

🪷 his kisses taste like fruity wine, only encouraging the dizziness you feel once he finally lets you escape his passionate embraces. and they have never been shy, and you have never cowered from them. he pulls you closer, you push closer, he kisses you hard, and you kiss him harder. you two challenge each other, relishing in each other’s playful competitiveness and bantering over who’s the better kisser.

🪷 for every important event cardan must hold as king of elfhame, you are there at his side. although the stubborn fae probably wouldn’t admit it, he wobbles beneath the heavy weight of the crown he didn’t even want, and still needs to learn to take these responsibilities seriously. you are his anchor, his partner in crime, the only second opinion he wants to hear- and also a good option for ruling in place of him when he slacks off.

🪷 if you are human, he tells you that you have somehow defied the laws of nature and glamoured him under your spell. he’s joking as usual, but there is really no other way he can explain the dizzying, storybook love he feels for you.

🪷 he will continue to bother you, tease you, and get under your skin even deep into your relationship. you learn that it stems from a desperate need to be seen and heard. you indulge him always, but not necessarily with snarky snips back all the time. whether you fight fire with fire or douse his with your water, the interactions are never serious and usually end in the two of you entangling your limbs together and lounging on some random velvet couch in an embrace.

[chemicallywrit]

Happy Audio Drama Sunday! I was busy doing many things this week, but luckily they were the kind of things that facilitate a lot of audio drama listening. Shall we?

👹 G.O.B.L.I.N.S. is amazing. I love an office sitcom in any case, but an office sitcom with two goblins, an elf prince, and an overly enthusiastic government pencil pusher is an inspired idea. I really want this show to exist more, so if you can, consider helping them on their crowdfund!

💋 Josie’s Lonely Hearts Club this week was HILARIOUS. The presidential puns were so delightful, and I also ended the episode wanting to fight a veterinarian. Can’t wait to see where this season is going.

🌚 @hellofromthehallowoods is always so good at creating these gorgeous soft character moments, and I adore middle-aged Buck. Watching this man gracefully age into a husband and father who likes himself, who knows he is loved, is such a far cry from the poor little guy he used to be. I really don’t want him to get eaten by a vampire. Are you hearing me, Mx Wellman?

📻 Breaker Whiskey ended for now and ohhhhhhh. Oh man. I cried. The experience of listening to this story feels very early audio drama, and that’s definitely by design. Lauren Shippen let the story wander and discover itself, and we got to discover it too. Was it a flawless story? No story is, but getting to revel in the wandering just made it better. Whatever’s next for the story, I have enjoyed the ride.

🥛 The Silt Verses. That’s it. I found this episode entrancing. How’s this going to end?

🥃 Breathing Space this week was hilarious. In a rare voice acting appearance by Pacific Obadiah and some familiar voices from Melissa Lusk and Katrina Pecina as well as the ol' Breathing Space standbys, this heartfelt, witty, and above all very silly episode felt really good. I just loved it.

🐟 In Travelling Light this week, VERMI'S BACK. My favorite guy! And it seems we won't be seeing the last of this guy, either. Thank you Hero for my life. Friendship is gonna solve all the traveller's problems and I couldn't be happier.

🧟‍♀️ In Hannah News, The Dead started a new series called Turas that I really think you should check out. It’s set on a Scottish isle with Scottish Gaelic, and zombies, and sister dynamics, and it’s so good guys. Our main actors, Michelle Kelly and Bonnie Calderwood Aspinwall, are absolutely killing it, alongside an amazing cast. Please tune in, you won't regret it.

🧛🏻‍♀️ Also this week, I got the chance to hop on Re: Dracula's July Q&A for our patrons! You gotta check out our patreon, y'all, creating gothic fiction has been so much fun. We're hard at work on Carmilla while Re: Drac is having its second go-round. Join usssssss.

That's all for me this week! It's long enough as it is. See you next week!

[cat-mentality]

Silly qsmp headcannons with zero evidences in canon, let's fucking go

The Brazilian version:

Cellbit is a vampire.

How did he get turned? Who the fuck knows. No really, Cellbit himself doesn't even know he is a vampire, man just genuinely believe his past explains everything.

The cannibalism thing was just him not understanding that his body wanted blood

He managed now, by pure accident, to exchange the need for blood for coffee

Felps has accidentaly started cults that see him as a deity many times

What is he? He's Felps. No one has ever tried to dig deeper than that.

Felps doesn't need to sleep. When he does it, for pleasure, he sleeps with his eyes open.

The real reason Forever broke up with Cellbit was because the ghosts haunting their home kept knocking his plants and messing with the painting in their wall with their messages in blood

Forever is an elf and as such he has a very strong connection to nature, it has not occured to him that not everyone names and talks to plants like he does

Also flowers tend to blossom around him when he is really happy

Mike is in fact a wanted criminal in multiple countries in charges related to protests against the government (terrorism), thief was just the one thing they caught him for

Pac drinks his coffee black

Mike has some slime dna in his family but it was never fully acknowledged by anyone? It's just some random fact that it got throw around when he as a kid like "oh remember how grandpa josé used to turn into a gree goo sometimes?" so he just never brings it up in a meaningful way either

Pac is part bat and he is genuinely obsessed with eating moths, Mike build him a spawner so he could snack on them as much as he wants

He also can see in the dark without the potions and it freaks the fuck out of Mike when he wakes up in the middle of the night everything pitch black and Pac is just walking back to bed with a glass of water like normal

Pac however doesn't have the wings so no one realizes he is a hybrid until it gets brought up in conversation

The FavelaSix has been prohibited from playing Monopoly because the last time they did they ended up destroying a good chunk of the Island and Cellbit and Bagi spend three weeks not talking

They once also started an bawl because of Uno

Bagi will try to befriend every single animal she meets, she has literally an army of pets at her side

Bagi is also the only human among them and it shows as she is also the only one with the power of common sense

She has also a incredible sense of direction, girl has never gotten herself lost in her life

Forever once gave vuvuzelas to the Islanders and Cellbit cried himself to sleep

In retaliation Cellbit made sure that all food during Christmas had raisins in it

Pac obsessed for weeks on how to make brigadeiro on the Island and all the Brazilians cried when he succeded

[justporo]

A Night of Song and Laughter (Bonus chapter)

I've been thinking of writing this and now I finally did it - it was also kinda requested over on AO3. Was nice to come back to this story for a bit - writing this silly little thing just came right back to me.

In true original fashion this posted at almost 2am and not proofread so enjoy!

CHAPTER LIST

Pairing: Astarion / Fem!Tav (You) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Descriptions of violence Song: I Can't Decide - Scissor Sisters

Exactly one week later the two of you had made their way to “Maeve’s” again although Astarion had insisted he’d hated your night out at the tavern (“Although not how the night ended, my dear, that was very much to my liking.”). But you had made a promise and despite his show of indifference you were sure you’d seen his eyes sparkle a little when you had mentioned that Lira and Daegin would for sure be very displeased if only showed up for a round of drinks – or four, five, six (judging by your track record).

At the entrance you’d been greeted by Don again who had embraced you tightly – happy to see you made out in one piece from being on the run from the city guards and weren’t stuck behind bars. He had even heavily hit Astarion on the back, remembering how the rogue had elegantly taken out two of the guards at once. The vampire had simply winced and submitted to the pats even though his face conveyed he would have rather been captured by the guards that night.

Once past that first hurdle you entered the tavern which had already been busy despite the early time of the night. Remembering what had happened on the dance floor last time you had blushed a deep red and when you had thrown Astarion a glance he had grinned broadly, winked at you and then had let his hand run down softly your arm. The one you knew you would see soft glowing markings if you’d taken a look right then and there.

Making your way to the gallery the vampire’s mood had immediately soured when he had seen a familiar dwarf at the bottom of the stairs. The rogue’s nose had scrunched up and stayed like that while you approached Kirin who had jumped up and down in joy seeing you. He’d slapped both his hands on his thighs and had grinned, almost looking as if he’d been calling a dog over. But you hadn’t minded that at all.

“Well, if it ain’t me favourite lass! Com’ere ye silly elf, let me give ye a hug!”, the dwarven bouncer had screamed at you and dragged you down in a crushing hug that had almost made you drop to your knees. When the dwarf had let go his gaze had wandered to your soulmate, the dwarf’s nose scrunching in the same way Astarion’s had: “Ah yes, and me least favourite lass… Ye owe me big time, boy!“

A muscle had ticked in Astarion’s jaw. “Why would I owe something to you, dwarf?“, he had hissed at Kirin.

“Because”, Kirin had immediately growled back “I saved ye skinny arse!”

Astarion had looked ready to stick a knife in the dwarf’s throat then and you had simply dragged him on and up the stairs to meet your friends.

There you had been greeted by Lira and Daegin who’d almost immediately started screaming at you to “tell us what in the Nine Hells happened after we went home?”. Astarion and you had thrown each other a glance and had then started to tell them – of course intentionally letting out the more ‘private’ parts of the story.

When you had been telling them about how Miyena had threatened you (of course not mentioning the whole vampire and stake thing), Lira had become frighteningly silent – up until she had taken a swig of her drink and had put her mug down so hard it had cracked.

“If this bitch ever threatens you again, I will stick a goddamn knife into her heart”, Lira had silently vowed while staring off into the void. The whole table had stared at her in terror as this gentle soul had spoken probably the vilest thing she had ever uttered.

Even the vampire looked stricken – especially since she had barely even used a swear word the last time you guys had spoken. But it had been quite obvious that actually threatening your friends where she drew the definite line.

“You’ll need to get in line for that, darling”, Astarion had replied to her after some time, breaking your group out of the stupor before he had taken a sip of his wine. “I already vowed my dagger to pierce her blackened heart should she ever cross our paths again.”

“Aye, I’ll drink to that”, Daegin had mumbled to that and emptied his beer.

After that the mood had lightened considerably. You had spent the evening talking, drinking, joking. And you surely didn’t leave the tavern any earlier than the last time. Although this time there were now elven rituals, no cityguards chasing you and you did actually leave through the front door this time.

In front of the tavern the four of you exchanged hugs – or rather you and Lira forced the men into them and you parted ways, agreeing to make this a regular date. Then Astarion and you had went on your ways.

There was still time in the night so you had started wandering around the streets of the Lower City.

Although the Lower City had quite the reputation – especially at night – you felt light-hearted and -footed as you wandered down dark alleyways. Maybe the amount of alcohol you had once again consumed had something to do with it but maybe it was just the joy of a wonderful night out with your soulmate. You had your arm in the crook of his arm and kept stealing adoring glances at Astarion who had the good graces to just let you drunkenly and dreamily stare at him without commenting on it. He, however, stole glances at you too – loving and warm, with an joyful sparkle in his eyes. The vampire was just a lot more subtle about it.

Not that you’d have noticed either way once you had started telling Astarion stupid puns and broke down laughing after almost every single one. They were quite objectively terrible but your drunk brain could not imagine anything funnier. Astarion’s face had become a tortured grimace.

“What do you – “, you already started laughing. “What do you call a wizard that asks you questions?”, you asked Astarion and stared at him while you almost couldn’t contain yourself.

Astarion sighed heavily: “I don’t know, love, maybe you should ask Gale and not me.”

You snickered but kept silent. Astarion pinched his nose with his free hand and gave another sigh: “What do you call a wizard that asks questions, my drunk little jester?”

“A quizard!”, you exclaimed as soon as Astarion had finished speaking and burst out laughing.

The vampire’s mouth pressed into a thin line – he quite obviously was asking himself why he had objected himself to this hell of a relationship.

But your laughter was contagious and so was your whole being when you threw your head back, your eyes closed and hung desperately on his arm.

The vampire watched you laugh open and whole-heartedly: the way your nose crinkled with the small lines of the scar over it, the way the tattooed horns bending away from your eyelids had become such an accustomed sight for him, the little dagger earrings you always wore dangling and shaking, little freckles all over your skin like scattered stars on the night sky, your reddish hair that was swinging in a high ponytail tonight (fully and completely Astarion’s accomplishment), how your neck became red from all the laughing.

“You’re staring, Astarion, something on my face?”, you said as the rogue has lost his subtlety about his admiration for you and had started gazing at you with a growing smile.

When he heard you say that he blinked and then moved his face closer, staring at you with furrowed brows: “Yes actually, now that you’re mentioning it, my love…”

You raised your eyebrows at him.

“Yes, right there…”, Astarion whispered and moved in even closer.

You were genuinely confused.

“You have some vampire on your lips”, he continued and then closed the space between you both to kiss you sweetly.

But it was only of short duration as you had to pull back to laugh again: “And you say my puns are bad. That was terrible, darling.” And you lean in again to kiss him again.

But this time Astarion broke the kiss. His head swung around all of a sudden – the joyful mood immediately forgotten. The way he stared off into the darkness of the alley you were standing in, like a cat observing potential prey, sobered you up quicker than you would have liked.

“Stay here for a moment, my love”, Astarion whispered and untangled from you. His tone was tense, but you could almost hear his smirk in it.

Whatever he had noticed in the dark, it was about to be found out. The vampire slipped into the even deeper shadows of the alley until even you with your elven senses could neither hear or see something of him.

Your heart was racing although you rationally knew that Astarion would not have left your side if there had been any real danger.

You waited as silence drew out – the only sounds being your own beating heart, the rushing of your blood in your ears and the squeaking of some rats pattering about. Patiently you waited, staying as still as your alcohol level allowed.

Then you heard a scream and some crashing, bodies probably falling over each other and suddenly you could make out Astarion again. He was crouched down over – someone?

You carefully stepped closer as you could hear the vampire hiss to the person he had laying on the cobblestones, one knee viciously pressing in their back and with one hand holding their head by their short hair.

“Did that fucking tiefling send you?”, Astarion growled – he seemed positively livid.

Tiefling? You suddenly had the connection between the figure being pressed to the shoddy stones of the street and Astarion’s accusation: Eodin!

Your eyes widened and almost as suddenly as you felt the surprise you felt the anger – at least a fraction of what the vampire obviously felt. “What the fuck are you doing here?”, you hissed at him stepping in front of the human that had started whimpering.

“Miyena, yes! Miyena sent me, she made me do it!”, Eodin exclaimed as Astarion dragged his head up by his hair.

You crossed your arms over your chest. Your sympathy with your former friend – and yes, former lover (even though you dreaded thinking about it) – was pretty much non-existent. And if your other former friend Miyena sent him to follow you in a dark alley at night you were pretty sure you didn’t need to have some anyway.

You stared at this pathetic excuse of a human being until you noticed Astarion was looking at you – his gaze a wild mix of anger, worry and… amusement? His eyes darted down to Eodin’s head whose face was now once more pressed into the dirt then back to you again and a smirk had started playing over his lips. Astarion raised his eyebrows, with it asking your permission to go ahead. You were not exactly sure for what or what he wanted to do but you just shrugged at him softly.

That was enough for him to get going.

“Alright, you listen here you little twat”, Astarion hissed and dragged the man’s head up again. “Since you are so very obviously not the one in charge, you’re going to relay a little message for me, do you understand me?”, the vampire continued, lifting Eodin’s face to his while his knee still firmly pressed into the guy’s back. Astarion’s fangs were very obviously bared in threateningly.

Eodin winced, his eyes rolling like crazy but he said nothing.

Astarion rolled his eyes in annoyance and breathed out dramatically before he forcefully pushed down Eodin’s head on the ground; repeatedly. And in time with his words: “Do. You. Understand. Me?”

“Fuck you, vampire!”, Eodin pressed out and swung at Astarion with something silver glinting in his hand. Obviously, he had managed to free one of his arms.

But his moves were sluggish and he was up against a rogue that already had the upper hand. Astarion grabbed his hand and crushed it to the ground, sending a dagger flying.

And the scene suddenly changed again. The attempt to defy him had the vampire lose any of his playful demeanour. He pulled the human men up until he stumbled awkwardly up onto his knees and then his feet – only to be pressed against a wall. You took a step or two back in shock – your drunken state making you stagger a little.

“I was only going to play with you, but it seems you have to spoil the fun for the both of us”, Astarion hissed. He had his own dagger out now and pressed it against Eodin’s threat, already drawing some blood. His other hand was forcefully holding the man’s head against the stones. Eodin did not even muster a sound anymore but his eyes were full with shock.

“My love, why don’t you pick up that dagger over there, before some idiot runs into it”, the vampire then said to you and gave you a little wink that seemed entirely out of place for this situation. But you just shrugged and took the few steps over to where the discarded weapon lay.

You picked it up and turned around again and saw just the end of Astarion whispering something into Eodin’s ear. You could basically see the man lose several shades of colour even in the dark and his eyes widening even more. He desperately tried breaking free from the vampire’s grip.

But Astarion held him there, watched his fear grow until he finally let the man go who fell to his knees and the stumbled away faster than you had ever see him do in your thieving days.

“Not even a stake – what is this? Amateur hours? Tss”, Astarion said clucking his tongue and  turned around to you seemingly playful. But you saw the way he still clenched his fingers around his dagger and how there still was a deep wrinkle between his brows.

He slowly started to saunter towards where you stood now aimlessly with the dagger in hand.

“Maybe your former friend wanted to get rid of him more than she wanted to get rid of us”, he continued and gave a high-pitched giggle as he came closer and put his dagger away. Then he put an arm around you, when he was in front of you.

“What did you say to him?”, you asked Astarion looking up at him, still holding the godsdamned dagger.

“Oh, nothing in particular really. Just how I would splatter all his blood and organs on the floor in excruciating detail if he ever came to cross my path again, my sweet”, Astarion replied and made big red round puppy eyes at you while carefully taking the weapon out of your hands and stowing it away.

“The usual then, I see”, you simply replied. “Hmm”, the vampire replied and looked at you lovingly – as if you had not just talked about smearing your ex’s blood all over the wall.

But worry suddenly washed over the rogue’s face as your eyes glazed over: “Are you alright, my love?”

You looked from left to right, a bit irritated by the question – you had merely felt tiredness settling in your bones. “Well, I almost fell when I leaned down to pick up this dagger because I’m still awfully drunk but other than that – not a hair out of place! Just tired.”

The vampire watched you, nodding in mocking sympathy for you and your hard lot. Then he wrapped his other arm against you and pushed you against the nearest wall: “Maybe I know a cure to get you out of that, my heart.” His lips were so close to yours and your body immediately reacted to his actions by sending heatwaves through it.

You felt awfully reminded of the last time you had found yourself pressed against a wall in a dark alley by this vampire – it had been like a week.

“Oh no no no, we can’t keep doing it in the godsdamned streets like dogs, Astarion.” You tried to push him away a little. If he wanted you he could very well have you: but in the comfort of you cozy bed at home where it was warm and you could comfortably slide into dreams while being wrapped up in your lovers arms; and not here where you seemed to have a track record of getting threatened with knives.

The vampire pouted at you a little but then a mischievous twinkle entered his eyes. With quick and swift movements he had taken you and thrown you over his shoulders and had started walking.

You squeaked and shook your legs. “This is also a thing that can’t keep happening, Astarion, you bastard”, you whisper-screamed at him and drummed your fists on his back.

“I don’t care, my love. I played the hero and defended my lady from the vicious villain, now I get to have my reward”, Astarion proclaimed and patted your butt.

“Your reward will be a major beating when I get down from here”, you hissed but you knew he was only teasing you.

“Ugh, don’t tease me with a good time, my love”, Astarion quickly shot back and gave your butt a slap.

You yelped and sulked that he so easily outwitted you when it came to playful banter. You leaned your elbows on his back and put your head on your open palm as you pouted over his insolent behaviour.

Then when you were almost home, you decided to try a different approach: “Hey, want to hear another pun?” Astarion groaned.

“What do you call the woman letting herself be carried home by the vampire?”, you asked as the vampire took the few steps to the front door of your house. Then he carefully set you down on the final step.

“Borderline suicidal?”, Astarion answered cheerfully with a huge shit-eating grin and one eyebrow raised.

“How about completely and utterly in love with you”, you replied and leaned in for a long and tender kiss. Then the vampire broke away.

“That was the first good one I heard from you, darling”, he whispered to you. “Funnily enough the vampire is also completely and utterly in love with you, you silly little jester.”

-- THE END

[the-creche]

Little Star ⋆⭒˚.⋆

-Astarion x fem!tav

-shoutout to my pookie bear friend i wrote this for <3

-fluff but angsty, something short and sweet, enjoy :]

200 years of torture.

200 years of sadness, darkness, anger, meaningless sex, and hurt.

200 years of being used.

But all people when they look at him see a flirtatious, chaotic, high elf who was turned into a vampire. He knew he was more than that, he was an amazing fighter and had a beautiful mind. He wants comfort and a safety net to lean into, not into arms of people who will use him again and hurt him again.

But you?

You are different. Yes, that can be said about a lot of people. It's a big world after all, but it was true. You saw him as an actual person. Not a thief, or a quick fuck. But a real person, that has thought of loneliness and dark thoughts along with happy and cheerful ones. We all deserve people in our life that care. It may have taken him years to find you, but later is better than never.

His head in rested on your lap, looking at the lake a few feet away from you both. It's nighttime now, and the moon is out, full and bright to shine down on Astarion. Like the night sky was calling upon him, wanting their little star to join them in the sky.

Astarion sighed. He's never been this close with anyone, to let his guard down like this. But since the moment he met you, you were someone he could trust you. He snapped out of his thoughts as he heard you say,

"Something on your mind?"

He nodded and began to speak, "It's just...I know I tell you this a lot, but thank you for everything..." He started, his body curling up and tensing. Ever since the fight with Cazador he's been distant mentally. He just couldn't really accept the fact he's gone forever. Yes, he hurt him, but he was such a wicked and vile character in his life who made him into the man he is today.

He felt you pet his hair, running your fingers through his silver white, curly locks. It was comforting. He still wasn't use to your soft touches, "I told you that you don't have to thank me," you chuckled, almost seeming like it was a silly thing to say. He sat up, facing you, "No..! You just, don't understand...I know you know what happened to me, what Cazador has done...but you gave me the courage to fight back, I have to thank you... I was scared, nervous...and those thoughts came back when I saw him again," he protested, almost pouting at you. The moments he felt while killing Cazador, were so much to handle and still affected him even just thinking about it.

You thought it was cute how he barely stuck his bottom lip out. But at the same time, you could tell it was weighing heavy on his heart. Your finger push a loose piece of hair behind his hair, looking into his eyes. His eyes that held so much emotion and that have seen so much.

"Astarion, you don't have to thank me. I know, you think you have to...But my love," you smiled softly, cupping his face "You did the right thing, and I'm proud of you. You should know I'll always be proud of you,"

He nodded, looking down at his own lap, "But...I-I was so scared," he said, tears brimming his waterline, threatening to spill over.

"Remember what I said. Just because you are scared, doesn't mean you're not strong...And you are the strongest man, elf, or person I know," you gently said, taking his chin into your index fingering and thumb. You look at his tearful eyes, your free hand wiping his tears for him.

Astarion hugged you quickly and tightly. He felt like a child reaching for his mother after a bad dream. That's what this all was, a bad dream. He took deep and shaky breathes, feeling you rub his scarred back up and down. The scar that was a constant remind of what happened to him...But you made him feel a bit better about it.

He soon relaxed into your hug, soon going into your original position of his head resting in your lap. He requested you hum a tune to him as he closed his eyes. Yes, he couldn't sleep, but it felt nice to close his eyes and go into his meditative state.

If he could sleep, he would dream of a normal and better life with you.

[t4tozier]

ok this is so dumb but can u explain who jace and porter are/what The Plan is? i've been enjoying you posting about them but i can't really find much about them online and am very confused lol

YES i would be happy to. i definitely posted something like this before but i’m not gonna be able to find it. so first off. the reason that you can’t find much online is bc they are relatively minor characters until junior year, and jace especially is very minor 😭 you can look them up on the dimension 20 wiki but spoilers abound! spoilers also for this explanation LOL.

jace stardiamond is the sorcery teacher at aguefort adventuring academy from the dimension 20 series fantasy high. none of the main characters are sorcerers so we don’t see too much of him particularly before junior year (the third season).

porter cliffbreaker is the barbarian teacher—the pc gorgug thistlespring is a barbarian so we do see more of him especially in junior year because it’s the school season.

now The Plan is where the spoilers for junior year come in.

basically, The Plan is porter resurrecting and then killing a forgotten goddess of war and conquest so that he can take her place/steal her power to become a god himself. jace is basically porter’s minion/sidekick but we tend to give him a little more autonomy than he’s given in canon.

another big part of their thing is that jace has canonically been. killed and then implanted so to speak. with a shatterstar (you’ll see that term a lot) that is essentially a crystal that ties jace to the dead goddess (and porter) and makes him magically Rage. and porter can control this/him to some extent.

you’ll see a lot more meta about the tragedy of their pairing and the inevitability of jace’s ending and all of that if you go looking for it but i don’t do serious stuff here i’m all about the sillies and the horny. so bottom line is porter is a 6’6” goliath (i personally hc him taller but that’s just me) who is in a deeply loving and toxic relationship with his half elf coworker. also they fuck nasty <3

also just for some other various things:

jace has a spell that creates three clones of himself. people have been very interested in this aspect so you’ll see j2/3/4 floating around as well.

zara sool is a new character in junior year. she is a vampire warlock teacher and is i think probably exclusively seen to be interacting with porter in terms of the other faculty but we’ve adopted her bc we love her. blooddiamond is the ship name for her and jace. i think it’s just zaraporter and zarajaceporter as of rn i haven’t seen any more widely used name. she has a celestial paramour that is also her patron.

i personally recommend @jadeandquartzes and @aberfaeth’s fic don’t give it a hand, offer it a soul, and @iaus’ fic epilogue. imo those are the foundational fics of this little niche. @zukkacore is the place to go if you’re interested in the clones specifically!

hope this is a sweet lil starbreaker primer for you :))

[ell-vellan]

WIP Wednesday

My first little BG3 drabble as I get used to everyone's voice! Not sure if I'll go anywhere with this, but it's fun to play around.

Summary: Folk hero Tav (Safiel) frustrates Astarion to no end. One evening, she asks him why.

Tagging if anyone has anything to share! @thebookworm0001 @shretl (happy birthday! 🎈) @thegoblinwitchqueen I consistently forget which of my mutuals is a writer/artist so if you want to share something, please do and tag me in it so I can see/remember!

---

"Astarion, why does it bother you that I help people?"

Astarion startled out of his book. The silly little half-elf was looking over at him with those unsettling, mismatched eyes of hers. He tittered. "Oh, my dear, I'm quite certain you don't want my honest opinion."

But she was undeterred. "By all means, go ahead. I wouldn't have asked if I didn't."

Astarion sighed shortly and snapped his book shut. For all her ditzy naiveté and sickeningly sweet do-goodedness, the girl had let him tag along with her and the snooty cleric and the fearsome githyanki, increasing his odds of survival at least a tad. She'd been a useful tool so far, hadn't blinked when he fessed up to being a vampire after she'd caught him (almost) red-handed, and had even offered her neck willingly with that wide-eyed conviction of the young and foolhardy who haven't yet learned how the world works.

He studied her for a moment. She never seemed put off by his fits of temper, even when he was trying to annoy her. Either she was just that dense, or she had incredibly poor survival instincts, which seemed an unlucky trait for a druid.

If he hadn't needed a source of fresh blood and someone to watch his back out here in the sunlight, he wouldn't have thought twice about slitting her throat. Even after he quite nearly gutted her, she had acted as though he'd behaved with perfectly reasonable self-preservation, and forgiven him immediately. 

But she was going to earn herself – and worse, him – a knife in the back if she didn't learn. And quickly.

Fool child. It rubbed him the wrong way.

And yet...

"My dear, simply that there are a million reasons why we should not waste what very little tentacle-free time we may have left on the plights of strangers, and I cannot think of a single reason why we should."

"We seem fairly tentacle-free so far. And if I happen upon someone who could use my help, why wouldn't I at least try?"

He gaped at her, flabbergasted. "Why wouldn't you – perhaps it has crossed your mind that we are risking our lives for random passers-by who could not be arsed to give a single shit about us in return? Fine, fine, do a few jobs if you need coin, if you must. But for free?"

She just looked at him placidly, a little smile on her face that annoyed him. "I had a wildcat once. A kitten, really – I found him, orphaned and half dead. He bit me when I tried to heal him, and bit me every time I fed him. But I didn't mind. I knew that to him, I was very big, and he was very small and scared, and he was only doing what he felt he needed to do to survive. I chose to help him even knowing I would be bitten, and scratched, and that perhaps he would never come to see me as a friend no matter how much kindness I showed him. But I couldn't walk away from something in pain knowing I could do something to ease it."

Astarion glared at her, but she either didn't notice or didn't care. "Is there a point to this frustratingly saccharine monologue, or can I return to my book?"

"You remind me of him," she quipped, a teasing glint in her eye when he, predictably, glowered at the comparison. 

"I am the disheveled bitey kitten you scooped up and fed scraps to? My dear, your analogy has a few holes."

Safiel laughed and tossed another branch into the fire. "I know. I didn't say it was perfect, only that you reminded me of him."

"Darling, I am no one's pet."

"He was never my pet. He was a wild creature. When he was well enough, he fled back to the woods where he belonged. I never planned nor attempted to tame him."

He eyed her suspiciously. "You see, this is precisely my point. Did you never think that perhaps one day, the fully grown wildcat you so lovingly wasted your energy on would pounce out of a tree and make you its dinner?"

"Of course I considered that. But should that day come, it would only be acting according to its nature. And if I couldn't defend myself, it would be fully within its rights to eat me."

Astarion glared. "You may not mind taking foolish risks with your life. In fact, I would encourage it! If my own fate was not so terribly twisted up with yours."

Safiel shrugged. "You're free to continue on your own way whenever you like, Astarion. I don't mind that you disagree with me. And I understand your reasoning better now – thank you for answering my question. I'll do better to consider that lives other than my own are also at stake here, and take your point of view into account in the future."

Well, Astarion did not know quite what to do with that. He couldn't remember the last time someone had thanked him for his opinion, or promised to take it under advisement. Not honestly, at least. 

"I don't want to take actions that others are uncomfortable with. Everyone has their opinions on the best course of action. But we all have the same very dire problem, so I hope we can find a way to work together. And to help each other."

Gods, she was so ready to believe they could all be a happy little family. And he truly believed her to be perfectly truthful about all of this.

What fairytale grove had she come from where life was all sunshine and rainbows? 

Astarion threw up his hands, book clutched in one of them, and made a frustrated sound. "Well, yes, I would agree to that. Our odds are certainly better together. If we don't spend our remaining hours saving kittens and starving little orphans."

Safiel had the gall to laugh. She inspected a branch in her hand, stripping off the leaves idly. "A reasonable request. But let me ask you – isn't it just as likely that one day, we may come to need help, and someone else may come along to offer it without expectation of reward? That the good we do now for others may find its way back to us?"

Astarion sputtered, speechless with outrage. "No!"

Safiel grinned at him. "Then you have not spent much time around druids, I imagine."

She actually winked at him. Then stood, brushed off her knees, and sashayed away to chat with Shadowheart, still smiling. 

"Ridiculous," Astarion muttered, rolling his eyes as he opened his book again. His eyes tracked her retreating form, wondering if people this empty-headed actually survived into adulthood, or if it was some sort of long con she was playing. If the latter, he had never seen such a good actor. "Absolutely absurd. Going to get us all killed, that naive child."

But still…he snuck one last glance up at her from beneath his lashes, scowling, wondering. 

[invinciblerodent]

Hi, lowkey obsessed with your tavs (and a durge when I get to know her, I assume)

Did you create/pick them specifically with romances in mind or did it shuffle itself successfully?

Aww, thank you, that feels so nice to hear! ❤️❤️❤️

Kind of both, actually! It's kinda what I've been doing since my Dragon Age days, lol: for first runs of a certain game, I ofc just let it happen (make a vague character whose personality unfolds as the story goes, romance whoever I feel they'd fall for, reverse-engineer how that works out for them), but once I know the main story and the characters, I... generally like to pick an LI, then pick a trait or theme of their story/arc that interests me, choose an angle from which to approach that theme, and make a person whose story centers around it in a different way, but who I think would have their own arc, but would... understand, and eventually, naturally fall for the character based on things they have in common.

Like, if you'll allow me to rant a little... picking a cleric, and Arvid's whole deal and personality playing off Gale's themes of devotion and divinity so nicely was a complete accident lol. But my second run, I went into building Iona in a pretty conscious manner, after having purposefully decided that I want to do Astarion's romance, and that I wanted the character I make for him to be a highly charismatic person (who would see through him, and act primarily out of their own self-interest themselves), but also someone who would be able relate to him more and more as he reveals details of his story and past to them.

At first I just knew that she'd be an elf (because of the long lifespan, and because both of them only needing to rest 4 hours gives them lots of one-on-one time). Then I decided on a sorcerer to make her able to relate to him in their inability to deny their nature (sorcery is a living thing that yearns to be used, it's a little like vampiric hunger if you squint), decided to make her someone who was, like him, trapped/denied self-expression for a long time because of that nature (vampire spawn vs. person with inborn magic forced to hide it), and the rest (her being a compulsive liar who yearns to tell the truth, her having pretended to be someone she isn't for so long that she struggles to let the masks go, her repressing her feelings and being prone to deflecting and saying what others want to hear, all of that) sort of unfolded as I thought more about her, and the kind of story I wanted hers/theirs to be. And that's... kind of the same general process I follow with all of them.

I know it's kind of silly, and that I'm overthinking a lot of things, but I've always found character creation to be a lot of fun, and playing through a story as a little guy (gn) who has their own headful of issues to sort out like all the others has always been my absolute favorite part of playing RPGs. It's like writing the parts of stories i enjoy thinking about the most (characters and their relationships), but all the worldbuilding and plot-writing has already been done for me by someone much better at it than I am, lol.

I honestly never think that someone is reading through my mini-rants about my OCs, but I'm very, very happy that you like them!! The Durge run is going to be emotionally rough as hell!!!!

[sakamaki-richter]

🎄Mrs. Claus has appeared! 

“The hints sent me here…” Scarlett muttered to herself, ropes in hand, as some mysterious hints actually led her to believe Santa was close… close to that residence. “Hm.”

She observed from the entrance for any movement, finding nothing particularly out of place… until.

A green haired man caught het attention, on the window… dressed in red, with white fluffy details in his outfit, a little aged up…

“.....!!!!”

(Is that—!?)

There was no time to lose! Her grip on the ropes tightened, adrenaline rushing, though she still had to be stealthy...

...To Hell with that. Scarlett trespassed; from the entrance to the backyard, she went around the house until she found an open window. (Perfect.) There was one on the first floor. She tossed the ropes inside, and her hat. Then shifted into a crow and flew up to get in.

Breathing so, soooo slowly... back to her normal form, she grabbed her belongings again; hat on, ropes in hand. She seemed to have come into an art room of sorts... but there was no time to look at the surroundings, she found him...!

With Gwen’s help, no less. As expected from Santa’s Elf~!

Steps echoed closer, closer... Did she make too much noise? She needed to be faster!

And so, she walked up to the door, opening it with one fast movement, and saw...!

“AH!” She audibly gasped, “Santa!!!!”

...She didn’t remember Santa having green hair, but she was not going to judge. The grin on her face only widened.

“I found you!!!”

In no time, her hands held the ropes menacingly, while her face still showed the most innocent, happy smile after meeting someone she’s been waiting to meet for so long.

The Vampire couldn’t believe what he was doing. Someone of his stature, someone like him, dressing in clothing such as this… It was ludicrous, truly. Though thinking of an alternate option did nothing but give him a headache.

Damn that brat; he would damn them to hell if he could. The only person who could annoy him enough to get him to wear such a silly outfit. Really, Santa Claus of all people… The fabric felt odd, and uncomfortable against his skin— Synthetic fabrics like this made him itch.

Situating the hat upon his head, he took another look at himself in the mirror. He felt absolutely ridiculous. The outfit itself was a bit big on him, and it was stuffy. Unlike the warmth from his coat, this was simply uncomfortable.

“Hah… Just how long am I meant to—!!” Richter was promptly interrupted by the sound of someone bursting into his bedroom; dressed similarly, and holding ropes no less. The way she shouted at him confused him. Santa—

Oh dear. So this is what Gwen sent him the outfit for then; he’ll kill them for real this time the next time he sees them. Especially now that he’s encumbered, and thrown off balance— He couldn’t exactly defend himself properly in such an impractical outfit.

“Just who do you think you are, barging in here like this?”

[dustofthedailylife]

The spooky season is already over, but that doesn’t mean I’ll stop being spooky! 👻

Let’s talk about Halloween. Particularly, Halloween costumes. Which genshin character would wear what outfit? 🤔

Childe would definitely wear something stupid— and I’m onto half kidding. Honestly, I’d love to see him in a giant, inflatable, red among us costume, or a giant, inflatable, rideable dinosaur. He’d probably drag Zhongli out with him, too. Actually, now that I think about it, Childe wearing a wallet costume would be fitting. Zhongli doesn’t even have to dress up for it to be true!

Diluc probably wouldn’t wear anything at all. I mean, he doesn’t seem to be the type of celebrate any sort of holiday. He probably would’ve celebrated it at some time as a kid, but after his father died and the whole fiasco with Kaeya occured? Nope.

Kaeya probably would dress up, but wouldn’t go trick-or-treating. I can definitely see him at some sort of Halloween party dressed up as a vampire or incubus. If it was the latter, I would 101% grab his tail all the time just because. I mean, it’s a tail! How can you resist grabbing it? Another costume choice for him is a pirate. Isn’t it fitting?

Itto already has a Halloween costume— he’s a whole dang demon— but no, he wants more! He’ll dress up as something over-the-top and attention-grabbing, even if it’s ridiculous. It’ll probably spark some laughter amongst the children as Itto struts down the sidewalk like a professional model. 100% recommend going trick-or-treating with him.

~👻

Ooooh I love this! Hmm let's see. 🤔

For Childe I'd actually have a hard time. I wouldn't have known what he would dress as but I could see something silly/quirky for him for sure.

Diluc really wouldn't care. I agree. The only thing that would make him participate would probably be Klee. Maybe she would give him some sort of silly hat, like a wizard hat and he'd wear it to make her happy.

For Kaeya a Pirate is perfect! I could very well see a vampire as well. He'd rock that outfit.

Itto would absolutely kill Halloween! Or he'd absolutely forget about his costume because Kuki didn't remind him so he'd just go as himself but the kids love it anyway. Letting the children ride on his shoulders and hold his horns while he runs through Inazuman streets trick-or-treating with them.

For Zhongli I could imagine a dragon costume. And he wouldn't even need to "dress up" for it officially. He can change his appearance at will and he is still an illuminated beast so he could just grow back his dragon horns, maybe some scales here and there and the dragon tail. Minimum effort him but maximum gain since people would compliment him on it and how realistic his costume looks.

Ayato I could totally see as a vampire. I'm biased here though. I saw a fanart on Halloween of Vampire Ayato and goddamn *stares respectfully*

Alhaitham would similarly to Diluc probably not care at all. If he'd go it is because Kaveh forced him to go to the Halloween Party with him. Costume though? Nah.

Albedo would probably go trick-or-treating with Klee! Klee's costume would be something creative every year, a Dodoco, a princess, a Christmas elf, a pirate, you name it! Albedo would probably dress as a mad scientist. Big goggles, glowy substances (that are harmless but look cool) in test tubes around his hips on a belt. Maybe a fancy hat?

[thestorybrookeclocktower]

I’ve been abused. This is the first time I admit it to myself.

I’ve been abused several times, psychologically, mostly, but also phisically and sexually. It’s hard to admit it. It’s been harder to realize it.

I was an abused child. Before I dig into it, I’d like to point out that I’m managing to do this only thanks to She-Ra, to Catra, in particular, to Adora, and to this video: https://youtu.be/arsKPegw1Tg . So thank you, Noelle Stevenson, and thank you, whoever made that video.

I’m frightened, right now. I’m scared as fuck. I think I don’t know myself, I think I never did. But I must go on, I must find out who I really am. I owe it to myself. I’ve been hiding for too long.

I was an abused child, and I have to write it down because my mind keeps escaping that. It’s hard to stay focused, and that never happens to me, I’m a writer, when I write I’m concentrated, focused, but now... now it seems like my brain’s floating away. And I can’t let it do it.

My parents divorced when I was two or three years old, I’m not sure about it. I clearly remember the day my father went away, the door slamming, my mom crying and myself trying to reassure her, telling her I was there, she had notHing to worry about. I was always way older than my age.

After that, I guess (my memories are a bit confused in the timeline), my grandmother (so I was told) convinced my father to build a wall during the night in the middle of our house to split it in two. I remember waking up and finding this rough, grey wall. My mom lied and told me there had been a earthquake and that the wall fell down. I didn’t know how a collapsed wall would look like, and believed her. My father left us without a kitchen. As I said, I was two or three years old. Thinking about it now, it hurts me to think of how hard it must have been for my mother to face all of this. My father used to beat her, when they were together. She told me that he broke her cranium, once. I cant remember it, I don’t even know if I ever witnessed when it happened. But still.

Later, my mother fell in love with the man who became my step-father. He was our neighbor, they worked together so they already knew each other.

My father disappeared for two years. I spent one year living with my grandparents in another city, because my mother worked and wasn’t home for days, so che couldn’t leave me alone all that time. I remember missing her, and nothing more.

Then, I remember growing up with my mother’s partner trying to be a father. He couldn’t. He was mean to me. His idea of education was based on yells and threats. He continuously told me that I wasn’t his daughter, that I was nothing, that I was worth nothing.

I also remember that I wanted to be hurt. I wanted to hurt myself and, in my fantasies, when I played alone in my room or in the garden, I imagined my “enemies” kidnapping me and me sacrificing to save my friends. That thing lasted. I would always want to sacrifice to save someone I cared about, but who didn’t care about me as much as I did. I still have to understand why. I just need some time, I guess. After all, I just found out I have wounds.

We moved. My father came back, at some point. He started sending the police at our new home, accusing my mother of child abuse, I guess, and trying to claim me as if I was some kind of property. I guess I started feeling like an object when I spent my weekends and summer or winter vacations with him. He had the right to spend time with me, I didn’t have the right to choose. I don’t think he never treated me bad, he was simply unable to be a good father. He just left me with his friends’ children to play. I had fun with them, anyway. I always insisted to be the victim in our playtime, though. Something bad would always happen to my character. I often played the villain (they were happy with it, none ever wanted to be the villain but me), but my villain always had a reason, a past, a complicated story that led them to the dark side.

I guess I was never really happy. There was always this shadow, this weight on my soul. I still can’t name it. I only know it’s there, but it’s lighter today. Maybe because I see it for the first time.

When I went to middle school, I was depressed. I kept saying “we’ll die anyway, what changes if I do or I don’t do this?”. I also developed a passion for swords and daggers. I always read a lot, especially fantasy books, so I guess it was just natural that I started loving blade weapons.

I also felt guilty for continuously feeling sad. I thought I didn’t really have a reason. My family had money, I went to holiday four times per year instead than just twice, everything I asked they would just buy it to me. But my stepfather would always rub it in. He made me feel like I owed him everything I had, because he was the one who paid the bills. He is an alcoholic. He freaks out every time he gets drunk, and he starts drinking at ten a.m.. He would walk naked at home. I was way too young to see a naked man when it happened the first time. He also spied on me when I was in my room, so I was always anxious that he was watching me and could never relax.

I wasn’t good at school, I only liked mathematics but was terrible at all the rest. I just couldn’t concentrate, and now I know that I had locked myself in my fantasies, in another world, where I was strong, powerful, where I was happy. No, no, sorry. I’m lying to myself again. It didn’t go this way, actually. I locked myself in another world, it’s true, but that world was horrible. I was becoming a teenager and I started watching Buffy, so I was pretty obsessed by vampires at the time, and also I was starting to realize what sexual desire is. The thing is, in my fantasy I was powerful, yes, I was strong, but I was always defeated. I would get captured by this beautiful vampire woman who would torture me to death and then turn me into something different, with magic. I would become her sexual slave. I fell in love with her, in my mind, and I would submit to her. It’s embarrassing to admit it, yeah, it sucks, it’s rape, torture and Stockholm syndrome. But that’s the truth. As I said, I wanted to be hurt.

Also, despite this I never admitted to myself I liked girls. I didn’t even consider it as a possibility, I told myself I was in love with Angel (surprise, with the bad guy trying to redeem himself! Who would have thought that?).

At the same time, my mom got a bad self-immune disease and lost her job. Also, in the same years, one of the teacher at school started targeting me. I was shy and insecure and she would take advantage of it and humiliate me in front of everyone. She seriously damaged me, my self-confidence (as if I had any), and my stepfather made it only worse. I got bad grades from her (even when I was prepared I was so anxious that I couldn’t speak when she questioned me) and he got angry and yelled at me that I was stupid, that I was unable to do anything, that I was an imbecile and that I was worth nothing. Once he threw a school book at me and broke my lip.

My mother tried to comfort me, but I always hid what I was feeling. I was really, really depressed. So much that one day I grabbed one of my collectible daggers and aimed it at my stomach, and I pushed. I wanted to die. I wanted it to end. And I wanted a slow, painful death.

But I stopped. I didn’t even get a scratch, not because I changed my mind, not because I couldn’t find the “bravery” to kill myself, but because I didn’t want to hurt my mom. I knew she would be devastated if I died, and that is the only reason why I didn’t push harder. She still doesn’t know about all of this.

I guess I made myself a promise, that day: I’d be stronger. And it was a mistake, because I locked the doors of my heart doing so.

Years passed by. I learned Kung-Fu, I made some friends, just a few, lost others, this is not the point. They didn’t abuse me.

I started dating guys. Older boys, usually, and I convinced myself I was in love with them. One touched me without asking my permission, and I didn’t stop him. I was so stupid... gah. I wanted people to like me so much that I pretended to be like them. I told them I liked music I didn’t like, stuff like that. Silly, silly young me. I was lost and I didn’t know it.

Other years, more boys. I’m pretty, and I know it, and I used it to flirt with basically any guy I found. Shame on me, I know. I only kissed them. After all, I wasn’t even attracted by them. I liked girls, even if I didn’t want to accept it. I was already different, I didn’t want to be even more isolated.

I also spent a lot of time online chatting and gaming. I used to play to this online role play game by chat, I had found the perfect, fake, fantasy world there. My first character was an elf with positive alignment. I stopped playing her because she bored me. My second character was a sociopathic girl, a sadistic villain. I still have that character, even though I don’t play her anymore. I made her torture and try to kill innocent people several times. She was my dark side. I used her to take out my darkest instincts. I’m ashamed of who I was, now. I became a bully for a couple of years, a dangerous person, a mean person. I hate myself for that.

I was in high school and I was a little more equilibrated when this guy I knew since first grade asked me out. I knew he liked me since then, so I thought I had power on him (because that’s why I flirted with guys, I liked the power I had on them). He took me on his minicar and we found ourself in an isolated parking lot. He was never a healthy person. He was unstable since he was a kid, but he had always been kind with me. He was kind and pleasing even that night. And manipulative. And abusive. He used my ever-present sense of guilt, he told me I had to because he took me in his car and drove for me and waited all of those years, and he insisted for maybe half an hour until I gave in (I couldn’t leave the car, we were in a dangerous block and far from home). I had my first and only oral sex experience with a boy. It disgusted me so I stopped after like three seconds, but he forced me to masturbate him, he phisically did pushing my hand on his d*ck. When he came, he also said I wasn’t good at it. He then offered to give back the favour, I refused and asked him to take me home. Two day later I texted him saying it was over. God, this was hard to write. My heart is pumping in my chest. I need some water.

By the way, I was eighteen then and I still hadn’t had sex yet, and I was the only one in my class and between my friends in general. About them, I lost them all along the way. They simply let me down, not repaying everything I did or gave to them in terms of affection, or treating me like shit when I came out, or just disappearing slowly. I have trust issues for this, it’s hard for me to open up to someone now, but I’m trying.

I found this boy at a party, at that point I felt nothing, I was just curious about sex. We started dating. I didn’t like him, I approached him just because I thought his ass looked good. Yeah, how romantic of me. But, as I said, I felt nothing. I didn’t care about him. He fell in love with me, even though I told him many rimes I didn’t love him. I felt nothing for him, or with him, even in bed. Sex was a delusion to me, and I treated him like shit. But still, he would stay. Poor guy.

During those years (yes, we spent four years together somehow), I finally realized I liked girls. Fate brought me to a convention, where I met the love of my life. I ended the relationship with the boy and started my new life with her.

She changed me, a lot. I was a mess when we met. I was rough, selfish, the bad girl I always wanted to be, unable to love, to have a healthy relationship, unable to find the strenght to be vulnerable. She was patient with that broken, confused me, and I’ll never thank her enough for this. I don’t deserve her. She always supports me and shows me how much she loves me everyday. I’m so grateful for her.

I learned to be humble, I learned to be vulnerable, selfless, a decent humang being. I learned to love. I learned to protect her, not (only) myself. I dismantled almost all of my walls. I don’t know if this one I’m tearing down right now is the last one. I do hope so. I’m so tired of those cold walls. Today, I don’t want all these swords and daggers. I don’t need them anymore.

I wish I was strong as Catra and Adora, strong enough to face myself and let myself be happy. Thank you, Noelle, really. I always believed in the power of stories, but I never thought an animated show could give me so much, that I could relate so much to someone (let alone the importance of their relationship on screen for the LGBTQ+ community, it’s a true revolution). I was attracted to Catra since the beginning, I completely fell in love with her during the fifth season, and now I understand the reasons behind it. I just feel her, deeply. And I also deeply admire Adora, her pure soul, her strenght, her bright heart.

Sorry for the long post, sorry if there are any mistakes, English is not my first language. Thank you again.

[d-criss-news]

Royalties Soundtrack Listening Event | Darren Criss Chat (July 7th, 2020)

Darren Criss 18:02:04

wait ha

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Darren Criss 18:02:08

sorry yall

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Darren Criss 18:02:12

this is confusing me of course

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Darren Criss 18:02:29

this is new for me too friends

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Darren Criss 18:02:45

well i'm here but I can't hear shit so gimme a sec

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Darren Criss 18:04:00

well I'll just keep typing here guys

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Darren Criss 18:04:04

bro

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Darren Criss 18:04:07

wilma

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Darren Criss 18:04:15

i'm tryin

Darren Criss 18:04:57

21kxuv372ubcprrbpiefadt6i

What was your favorite song to write for the show?

They each were really fun so that's hard to say but Hate That I Need You surprised the hell outta me

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Darren Criss 18:05:30

bettic72

darren non capisco un cazzo

anchio pero sti cazzi siamo qui

Darren Criss 18:05:49

genevievephillips

point and laugh at darren

yes let's laugh at him

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Darren Criss 18:06:18

2162bkuccm7xje6yfgmuzrnyq

You inspired me to write my own songs 🥺👉🏼👈🏼

thanks for writing the first positive thing I've seen on this. That's wonderful! I hope to hear them!

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Darren Criss 18:06:43

clo :)

i love that we are all grandparents when it comes to this

thank you for using the appropriate WE pronouns ha yeah this shit is confusing

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Darren Criss 18:08:44

zcvmtsgee5mom80oxeesa4v11

Darren how do you deal with stage fright .... i’ve been preforming in front of people for a while and i i still get scared . Does it ever go away ?

i guess it depends on how big the crowd is. everybody's different but I will say any kind of fright means you care, which is a good thing! Also the thing people forget about performing, for the most part, is you can't SEE the audience, most of the time they're in the dark. That's why performing for friends or in a small space where you can see everyone is much more nerve-racking

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Darren Criss 18:08:57

Dana

Darren can we have a royalties tour once rona is over???

wouldn't that be fun!

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Darren Criss 18:09:15

emilybutcher30

darren can you start streaming on twitch please haha i love you

ha can't compete with King Urie man

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Darren Criss 18:10:06

jake2000w

Darren, I know it’s all weird right now, but do you have any idea when we might see Nerdy Prudes Must Die?

what a good question. I have no idea but I've been wanting to see that show for almost as long as I've wanted to make Royalties. The boys have been talking about that one for a while now.

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Darren Criss 18:10:16

jesiqseigle56

Can you like respond .

like yeah

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Darren Criss 18:10:27

abbyforsmark

has Darren even said anything on this?

nope nothing

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Darren Criss 18:12:39

u6iczx4gua0att2g4kd2vdzwe

Did you write each of the songs with the performers in mind or did you cast them afterwards?

great question. Except for "Also You," which was written with Jackie Tohn for Jackie Tohn, we had no idea who would sing each song. I did the demos for almost all of them and then we had to pitch actors/artists to see if they'd be interested... which wasn't as hard (luckily) as seeing if they were AVAILABLE... which many weren't given the short time we had to make the show. Hopefully we can get some of those folks on for the next season IF THEY'LL LET US HAVE ONE!

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Darren Criss 18:13:52

delfi

darren royalties is so good i'm fucking proud of you

thanks for watching it, truly. I know the Quibi thing is strange for people so I appreciate you giving it all a chance : )

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Darren Criss 18:14:04

Caitlyn A :)

if you see this kick your shoes off

I would but no shoes

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Darren Criss 18:14:27

t59glm18dkw84n64l72jcuvpc

come to the uk challenge

god i wish.

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Darren Criss 18:15:39

damn someone said "travel to UK challenge" and I meant to respond "find a vaccine challenge"

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Darren Criss 18:17:08

i can't hear any of these songs but I"m just gonna start saying random shit about them

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Darren Criss 18:17:16

first off, i really wanted a theme song

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Darren Criss 18:17:23

that was a whole thing

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Darren Criss 18:19:18

Had to cut through a lot of red tape to make sure we had that silly song in there. We were already in the middle of post production when I finally got it approved, but it had to be under 15 seconds. I wrote 3 diff versions. So glad it ended up working. Theme songs accomplish so much in such a short period of time. Establishes tone. Gives the audience an almost Pavlovian response to the familiarity of the characters... I'm happy with it

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Darren Criss 18:20:12

also the "doo doo doo" lyrics are meant to sound like "scratch vocals" when songwriters record vocals with temporary gibberish lyrics with the intent of filling them in with real ones later

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Darren Criss 18:22:29

Just That Good was a concept that started the entire 1st season, and it was one of those instant-songs where Nick and Matt told me the title and I immediately had the hook just from those words. That only happens every once in a while and I was so happy it did for that song. The tricky part was writing the rest of it, but the back half of the song with the chorus repeating that one refrain over and over- that was the melody from the get go

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Darren Criss 18:23:08

I'll get back to Break it In, kick your shoes/let your hair, and kong later... i'll just go off on this one

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Darren Criss 18:23:48

so I wanted to nod to the grandeur of everyone's favorite vampire elf, Jared Leto

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Darren Criss 18:24:05

not HIM specifically, but 30 seconds to mars' very BIG music videos

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Darren Criss 18:24:29

i dont jared is a buncha self centered nutcases like our guys in SWITCHBACK JACKET

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Darren Criss 18:24:37

* i don't think Jared... 

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Darren Criss 18:25:38

anyway yeah "so much better..." comes from a lot of the 90s alt rock that I grew up on, and the mix of that sound with a bit of electronic production was an effort to contemportize it as much as possible

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Darren Criss 18:26:26

but the rhythm guitar, lots of power chords and high octaves were all harkening to my fave bands like Lit and Eve 6... but put through a strange bizzaro nickleback/creed performance filter

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Darren Criss 18:26:55

"make you come true" is obviously a very salacious play on words

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Darren Criss 18:28:27

so the only way to make it feel earnest is if we made the track itself sexy as possible. A lot of the songs, even without being written, leant themselves to a certain genre just by the title, and this one was kind of a no-brainer. Sexy mid tempo r&b. And I didn't even know we'd get Jordan Fisher to do it- who SMASHED the vocal.

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Darren Criss 18:29:42

lauraacampbell-12

DARREN CHORDS OR LYRICS FIRST WHEN WRITING A SONG?

it's different every time but for this show specifically it's always title/idea first, and then the song comes from there. But that's because we're writing a show, so we have the luxury of getting to write from a specific place. It's much harder to do that in your own life when you just want to pull a title/idea from your own experience of life. I commend people that do that all the time.

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Darren Criss 18:30:06

what's NUTS about prizefighter is...

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Darren Criss 18:30:24

it was originally a song called LONG RANGER that BONNIE MCKEE sang, who I wrote the song with

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Darren Criss 18:30:38

and in the video we had CHRISSY TIEGEN lipsynching

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Darren Criss 18:30:44

it was bananas

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Darren Criss 18:31:26

we ultimately couldn't use the song because of some complicated writers shit- not too dissimilar from the things we explore in our own show, which is just totally ironic.

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Darren Criss 18:32:56

we were so bummed that we couldn't use the song but I'm actually really really happy with PRIZEFIGHTER. I love the song, and I love how it turned out production wise. I love how much of a massive influence latin x rhythms have had across the entire spectrum of mainstream music, so I wanted try my own hand at nodding to it!

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Darren Criss 18:33:08

Lara :)!

Ahhhhh so was that the pilot song you were talking about last week?

that's the one

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Darren Criss 18:33:45

hbz3jctrg5rwwma640hahffvt

You have inspired me to learn piano I already know how to play teanage dream now

you can thank Bonnie Mckee aka Kimmy Kelly for writing that song!

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Darren Criss 18:34:01

ok then there's the k pop song

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Darren Criss 18:34:08

honestly i had no idea where I was gonna start on this one

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Darren Criss 18:34:22

full props to the brilliant CJ Baran who I wrote this song with

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Darren Criss 18:34:39

we were just toying around with very industrial-sounding samples

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Darren Criss 18:35:21

and I started singing Edvard Grieg's "in the hall of the mountain king"

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Darren Criss 18:35:33

and he was the guy that was like YEAH JUST PUT IT IN THERE

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Darren Criss 18:35:46

and i realized, oh yeah, that song is public domain

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Darren Criss 18:35:59

and kinda ties perfectly to the nature of Elia Peck and his songwriting... huh.

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Darren Criss 18:36:05

So we went for it from there.

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Darren Criss 18:36:17

based the lyrics off of what the Neals say in the room.

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Darren Criss 18:36:34

and then just wrote a bunch of ALMOST nonense lyrics about things that you could HATE that you NEED

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Darren Criss 18:36:40

things like available wifi...

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Darren Criss 18:37:01

artistinal mai-tais.... yeah I guess if you really really liked those you could HATE that you NEED them...

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Darren Criss 18:37:04

etc etc

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Darren Criss18:38:16

but the idea was to have Mariam Hale's character hardly do ANYTHING on the track, since she, as the audience sees, doesn't really have much to offer... so we just built it around this huge track with crazy lyrics that just tees up a tag for her to say without even having to sing: I HATE THAT I NEED YOU

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Darren Criss18:38:43

2235n5s2qk5hjsujbhk5ilpva

I have classes in 10 minutes, and I'm not leaving until you dedicate a Royalties song to me.

looks like you're gonna miss calss

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Darren Criss 18:39:09

"calss" ha. which is like "class" but like... different.

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Darren Criss 18:39:32

alrighty PERFECT SONG

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Darren Criss 18:39:38

i really love this song as well

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Darren Criss 18:40:02

the reveal of this song is that they keep talking about this "perfect song" they've written

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Darren Criss 18:40:26

in other words we're teeing up a pretty big expectation of what a perfect song could possibly sound like

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Darren Criss 18:40:36

the reveal of course is that the song itself is in fact just called "perfect song"

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Darren Criss 18:40:43

which is ABOUT a perfect song

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Darren Criss 18:41:07

and about TRYING TO WRITE a perfect song, and how that's not necessary when you have someone that IS the perfect song

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Darren Criss 18:41:20

when we wrapped our heads around that idea, I really loved it 

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Darren Criss 18:42:10

you'll notice we reference a lot of incredible songs, almost citing them as perfect songs themselves

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Darren Criss 18:42:14

ain't no mountain high enough

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Darren Criss 18:42:55

of course leonard cohen's seminal Hallelujah

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Darren Criss 18:44:05

and of course Britney's Oops I Did It Again ha ;)

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Darren Criss 18:45:00

the Oops being a layered joke of being annoyed with oneself that they AGAIN unwittingly wrote a lyric for already massive song, but in doing so citing yet ANOTHER already massive song... if that makes any sense

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Darren Criss 18:45:27

sorry for the typos yall i'm moving fast, i'd never let this shit slide if it wasn't a casual chatroom vibe

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Darren Criss 18:46:37

emzlolly1234

Did you know you wanted there to be a romantic thing between pierce and Sara?? :))))

yes that was actually our original "pilot presentation" episode. the one with the song LONE RANGER and Chrissy Tiegen. It was a longer version of what would become episode 7. We THINK it's a romantic thing but you realize that Sara is just playing Pierce to get the song she needs. That was always the premise yes.

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Darren Criss 18:46:51

luzmargotramos

if you reply with a single dot I'd probably die

then I better steer clear of any dots

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Darren Criss 18:47:04

ALSO YOU was an amazing lightning in a bottle moment

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Darren Criss 18:47:09

FULL CREDIT TO JACKIE TOHN

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Darren Criss 18:47:22

i always enjoy giving credit where credit is due

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Darren Criss 18:48:24

and I came in pretty hot for most of the songs- concepts, chords, style... but this one literally was a simple as Jackie Sitting down and just playing "It's you I love but also you and also you and also you."

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Darren Criss 18:48:37

we all just looked at each other going, welp, yup, that's it, jackie you fuckin rule

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Darren Criss 18:49:28

the song would have ended up very differently if she hadn't brought that to the table. the original episode and song was "one true loves" which isn't nearly as good of a gag/title as "also you"

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Darren Criss 18:49:50

i ended up squeezing "one true loves" into the bridge, but of course, kept ALSO YOU as the main event

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Darren Criss 18:50:02

i will say I was also trying to spoof my brother's old band, FREELANCE WHALES a little bit

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Darren Criss 18:50:26

if you guys know the song "generator first floor" where they sing ay ay ay ay ay a lot...

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Darren Criss 18:50:35

... as a lot of bands and songs had featured at the time...

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Darren Criss 18:51:00

i wanted to put them all in one joke. where a band sang not only hey hey hey but ay and EE and AYE and OH and basically all the vowels

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Darren Criss 18:51:10

which was where the joke of,

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Darren Criss 18:51:20

a, e, i, o, and also u

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Darren Criss 18:51:21

came from

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Darren Criss 18:51:32

which i'm particularly proud of

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Darren Criss 18:51:56

ok let's talk about BREAK IT IN

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Darren Criss 18:54:16

lxucxthxrxnx_

I’m a musician myself (not that great lol) what was it like coming up with the melodic side did you play any instruments for the songs?

i played instruments on all the songs except Break It In and I Hate That I Need You, since those were all electronic. That's not to say i played EVERY instrument but I definitely played AN instrument of some kind for the others.

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Darren Criss 18:55:34

as for break it in... anyway... yeah that was a blast. Nick Lang and I collaborated with my buddy Kendo who goes by the artist name KingJet.

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Darren Criss 18:56:54

Kendo has worked on a lot of legit songs in the hip hop space. For each song I wanted to make sure there was a level of authenticity to what we were doing. I didn't wanna SPOOF the songs. I wanted the songs to sound rock solid and that it would be the LYRICAL CONCEPTS that would be the source of satire. So Kendo was a great guiding light to keep the track as authentic as possible.

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Darren Criss 18:59:47

We explained to Kendo the whole joke concept of the song, which is basically just turning the idea of toxic masculinity on its head, and he was on top of it immediately- when we told him that there's this guy that's really concerned that people think he "fucks too soft" he immediately started spitting out lyrics like the hilariously defiant "I'm the KING OF THE HARD FUCK"

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Darren Criss 19:00:35

which just killed me and Nick. It was just so juvenile that it was adorable to me

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Darren Criss 19:00:57

emzlolly1234

Darren you’ve been here for an hour? That’s the length of royalties man xxx

yeah aint it great

Darren Criss 19:02:21

sophie :)

i personally think you should try your hand at writing a drill song, a british genre of rap that centres around rapping unrelated lyrics in front of chicken shops, personally think it has the right tone for the show for a season two

drill would be siq. I mean, opening the incredible pandora's box of UK based hip hop in general is its own magical wormhole of nuance and history and regional culture. it's amazing. i'd really have to do some homework if I wanted to pull that off!

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Darren Criss 19:02:49

cd2gu4ceqx4am9otf9hzwzivs

he’s talking again guys be worried he might write another essay

ok sorry i'll stop

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Darren Criss 19:02:51

:)

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Darren Criss 19:03:03

cd2gu4ceqx4am9otf9hzwzivs

he’s talking again guys be worried he might write another essay

kidding!

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Darren Criss 19:03:39

fsheldens

when darren actually cares about us 🥺

awww i always do! I just wasn't built for internet stuff.

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Darren Criss 19:04:20

alpermehdi

speaking of nick how was it to work with nick??

the best. Nick is one of the best things that has ever happened to me.

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Darren Criss 19:04:51

chloe :)!

what would be ur karaoke song choice from the show?

mighty as kong

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Darren Criss 19:07:32

isa.kowo

How much music theory goes into your songwriting? And did you learn all of it from playing the violin? In what way does it go into your songs?

all GREAT questions. I mean, music theory isn't something you CONSCIOUSLY employ when writing something, it's just that it really helps to know the rules or music when shaping it and trying to maximize its production. And as a matter of fact, yeah, I DID learn most of it playing violin. But when I was playing violin I was ingesting music from the perspective of a student ingesting information, not as a proactive creator putting anything of my own out into the world.

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Darren Criss 19:08:07

Honestly I really didn't start UNDERSTANDING music theory until I started writing music for other people, and noticing certain things and chords and shapes had names and that they could be manipulated to accomplish certain things

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Darren Criss 19:08:35

so most of my academic musical knowledge came in my 20s when I tried to start doing it professionally

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Darren Criss 19:08:52

Nick

first instrument you ever learnt?

violin

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Darren Criss 19:09:07

andyruiz080

I'm castin' my love net wide And fillin' every hole in my schedule

ha love that line

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Darren Criss 19:09:29

missweggy

Darren are you a big queen fan ( the band lol ) 😂

is the pope catholic

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Darren Criss 19:12:00

ChloeOmelia

Now its available, would you change anything?

jesus so much. but such is the nature of creating stuff. there's a great Hayao Miyazaki quote about always having to make new stuff to escape the woe of all the mistakes you made in your last thing... I mean, that's a bit extreme, I feel like we did the best we could given the circumstance but I totally get where Miyazaki is coming from. And in many ways that's everything we do in life. Do your best, know what you coulda done better and carry on

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Darren Criss 19:12:36

dj._.quackers

who or what was your biggest inspiration growing up

the beatles. the uk. the 60s.

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Darren Criss 19:13:02

Astriddd

Your first original song was "Not Alone". I'm right?

no it was actually a song i wrote in the third grade when I got a guitar for Christmas called "Save The Whales"

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Darren Criss 19:14:29

hiiqsbo9358wvfkcjcsgsu4lb

Darren I need an answer it’s been annoying me for days. So was everyone fucking everyone in Pierces old band or was she just fucking everyone seperately??

ha that's a really great question. I figured she was just fucking everyone individually, which is why the band was so contentious but then again I'd rather let your imagination run wild...

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Darren Criss 19:15:29

jphxxk5wjnaqnhuv806wmohdt

Darren, I love your taste in music. You should share your personal playlists ... bc everybody needs to know phantom planet 😉

if i actually shared my tastes in music, or actually shared the amount of stuff in my brain at the rate that I want to share, I would never work on or create anything because i would constantly be on the internet and you'd all be over me if you weren't already

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Darren Criss 19:16:01

But yes, thank you for saying that, I love me my phantom planet oh so very much :)

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Darren Criss 19:16:18

juli.nuttini

could you please answer me I don't speak English and I'm putting ALL my effort into asking you questions I'm going to cry

wow your english is actually pretty great

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Darren Criss 19:17:08

I'd like to write a song with Howard Ashman

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Darren Criss 19:17:23

dancebaby218

Was kick your shoes off inspired by your Hedwig shoes?

nah cuz that shit was actually comfy

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Darren Criss 19:17:55

12169199549

i skipped my clarinet class because of you for the third time :) what can i say to my teacher?

that Darren says you should have gone to clarinet class!!!

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Darren Criss 19:18:34

qalektvmexab6gfwibfihwu6b

Could you please answer me. We’ve supported you for years from the uk and we’re staying up for this but it’s totally worth it because you’re amazing!! Molly x

I wish so bad I could go to the UK!

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Darren Criss 19:20:01

FUCK someone asked about Sam Farrar and I wanted to answer it but it disappeared... Sam is a homie. one of my very first songwriting sessions was with him and a very famous member of the pop universe... who if I get a season two, I'm putting in the show.

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Darren Criss 19:22:00

9nc1yow3iwnp9p3fs4gcvdnsf

what other instruments would you like to learn in the future?

i just need to spend time trying to get better at the ones I've plateaued with. I feel like I got as good as I'd ever get on the guitar when i was like 19. So I've been trying to get better during the Quarantine. Picked up my violin and dusted off that Vivaldi, started doing drum rudiments on my drum pad, and started learning new licks and scales for guitar. Stuff I never got round to doing.

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Darren Criss 19:22:27

harefraz

mr. criss sir, what is your top quarantine activity?

playing music

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Darren Criss 19:23:26

actually lies. top quarantine activity is learning Japanese. 30 minutes a day. And it's been several months. Almost got Hiragana down, still got a few characters I'm questionable with but with any luck I'll start up on Katakana in the next few weeks.

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Darren Criss 19:23:40

224abi6avvottcsacto7vx46a

What about working with Mark hamill ? Insane right

you said it

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Darren Criss 19:23:54

t7sxis7855cd329gaa6iyty8v

Any updates on American Buffalo? 🥺👉🏼👈🏼

it's opening next year!

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Darren Criss 19:24:09

for the record this is really fun I'm enjoying this guys

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Darren Criss 19:26:26

Rachael

How different is it doing a show like Royalties where you're heavily involved in the creative process compared to other projects you've done in the past?

i'd say night and day but that's an understatement. When I did Glee all I had to do was act in scenes, record songs, and go to dance rehearsal. With Royalties, it's that AND casting, doing pre production, post production, notes, meetings, notes, writing and producing songs, location scouting, blah blah blah lots of the stuff that you don't have to worry about if you're not a creator. But make no mistake I absolutely love it.

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Darren Criss 19:27:41

Aisha

learn spanish

I'll get there. I already speak a bit of Italian so I wanted the challenge of learning something that didn't use a writing system I already understood.

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Darren Criss 19:28:23

rosieellenxx_

I take Music Technology as a subject at school and we have to make a whole song with the sole sample of glass breaking...

sounds fun. loads of things you can do with that.

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Darren Criss 19:28:48

21ynx6niidf2amx5nzilihsga

What are your goals for once quarantine is lifted?

hopefully to feel like I used this very strange time well.

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Darren Criss 19:29:14

Ok I should probabl get outta here right?

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Darren Criss 19:29:41

I've talked a lot about mighty as kong in other places

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Darren Criss 19:30:00

so I'll just leave you with a story about "Let Your Hair Down"

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Darren Criss 19:30:14

which was the very FIRST song we wrote for the show

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Darren Criss 19:30:37

I had a meeting with an artist at a dive bar in the middle of the afternoon

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Darren Criss 19:31:10

let's just say I showed up to that very first writer's session very late

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Darren Criss 19:31:17

and sober ENOUGH

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Darren Criss 19:31:41

wktusw4mcjn910r3eq91zg4k5

darren did you watch hamilton??????

duh last night. so fun.

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Darren Criss 19:32:17

anyway I was so relieved that we left with that song at the end of the day. The intent was always to write two songs with the exact same concepts just with different titles

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Darren Criss 19:32:50

the chords are the same, just slightly different voicings played on slightly different instruments

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Darren Criss 19:33:29

and the idea was that whichever song was funnier, or at least whichever song would be more fun to see in a music video... would be the one that Pierce & Sara write

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Darren Criss 19:34:08

"Kick Your Shoes Off" ended up feeling more like a full music video than "Let Your Hair Down" but I LOVE that first song, and hopefully people get to hear the whole thing on Spotify since you don't get to hear the whole song in the episode

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Darren Criss 19:34:51

with lines I love like "see my cheekbones, show off my clavicle, I bet you've never seen a ponytail to magical..."

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Darren Criss 19:35:39

emilybutcher30

i love that u spelled it sara not sarah

thank you. if you don't already know it, check out Ben Folds' "Zak and Sara"

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Darren Criss 19:36:01

OK i gotta get going

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Darren Criss 19:36:12

but thanks to everyone from all over the world for joining

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Darren Criss 19:36:17

i see you and i say hi to you!

—

Darren Criss 19:36:23

happy birthday to all the bday kids!

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Darren Criss 19:36:33

thank you for spending a little bit of your bday with me

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Darren Criss 19:36:39

thanks for checking out Royalties

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Darren Criss 19:36:46

hope you enjoy the music

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Darren Criss 19:36:53

and hope there gets to be a season 2!!!

—

Darren Criss 19:37:08

xo to all of you. stay safe, stay inspired. - Darren

[timeforelfnonsense]

Lost and Found

Astarion x Dafni 

Rating: T

Hurt/Comfort

TW for depression mention 

Ao3

I’ve been working on this bad boy for a month and it’s done at last!

 An important note: There is some reference to the Lolth Sworn drow in this and I feel the need to clear the air and state that I have some issues with the way WotC characterizes the drow as inherently evil. My house rules are that none of the races are inherently evil because the broad strokes in the source material as problematic af. So while the followers of Lolth might be evil I want to make it clear that doesn't equal all drow are bad. Dafni holds all varieties of elves in tender regard. As an eladrin of the fey wilds and a follower of Corellon she understands that fluid and changing nature of all living things. Life is messy and people do not fit into boxes, very few folks are all bad or all god. Not every elf worships the Seldarine and that’s ok. A fundamental part of Corellon is freedom and choice therefore it would be foolish to insist her path is the only right one. Her issue is with Lolth not the drow as a whole.

The Underdark was a horrid and forsaken place. A shudder ran down Dafni’s spine as she rubbed away the gooseflesh cropping up across her arms. Lolth’s influence hung heavy in the stale air. She would have to step lightly. A cleric of Corellon would be a great prize to the followers of the Spider Queen. She missed the warm sun on her face, the feeling of grass beneath her bare feet. She could feel herself wilting under the oppressive darkness that surrounded them.

Anxiety was a strange and forging feeling. The majority of her 160 years had been spent embodying the playful delight of spring. Perhaps it was on account of her relative youth. Or, maybe it was the influence of Corellon Larethian, whose wild and wonderful influence she had felt all her life. He had looked out for her. Cared for her as a father would his child. Truly, Corellon felt as much a parent to her as her mother, Thesmia did. A meek half-smile tugged at the corner of her lips. He had given her a reason to leave home when the wanderlust became far too much for her to contain. If she was to flourish as both an elf and a divine servant, Dafni would need to truly know herself beyond being Thesmia’s shadow. Absentmindedly her fingers reached for the familiar crescent moon that hung from her neck.

Her feet skidded to a halt, her trembling hand pulled away empty. Her blood turned to ice. An agonizing dagger of guilt pierced her heart and she felt as though the ground beneath her would open up and swallow her whole. Part of her wished that it would. She had carried the holy symbol since she was a young girl. Though she knew in her soul it had been her’s even before that. It had served as her connection not just to her god, but her heritage and primal spirit- The very essence of her being. 

“I lost it.” Her voice was less than a whisper, stunned and distant. Tears began to well up in her eyes. The world around her was growing colder by the second. “My amulet is gone.” Her breath began to come out in heaves and she began to sob in earnest. “It- It must have gotten lost when the minotaur tossed me!” 

 Her sharp cry stopped her traveling companions in their tracks. Each of their faces dressed in varying degrees of confusion and concern. Gale began to speak but his words were drowned out but the low ringing in her ears. A dizzy, sickening feeling bloomed in her gut and the edges of her vision began to blur as the darkness she had so feared gripped her soul.

They had doubled back to the old Selûnite fort. The others were still there setting up a temporary camp. Shadowheart hadn’t been able to find anything physically wrong with her aside from the normal bumps and scrapes that were to be expected on an active adventurer. 

Astarion felt truly helpless for the first time since he’d escaped Cazador’s clutches. It had been an hour and Dafni had yet to wake. He clasped her hand in his. A soft blue had slowly been spreading over her sage-green skin, creeping its way from the tips of her fingers to the crown of her head. Her locks were shifting at the root from rosy pink to a frosty teal. The flowers that wove through her loose ponytail had all weathered into dust. 

He squeezed her hand, “Come on Daffodil…”

Gale had been fairly positive that this was, to some extent normal for the eladrin of the Feywilds. Something about a book he’d read by some notable wizard? Truth be told Astarion hadn’t been paying much attention. He was too busy staring down Lae’zel, who’s paranoia filled gaze had been locked on Dafni’s sleeping form from the moment they’d returned. 

He should have been annoyed at her. The loss of some silly costume jewelry had caused her to swoon like a high born lady. He knew she was made of stronger stuff than that. Her little spell had put them all behind and left them without a healer the whole trek back to the fort. Yet, try as he might Astarion couldn’t seem to conjure up the ire he held for those too weak to survive hardship on their own.

 He groaned, letting his head hit the wall behind him with a soft thunk. There it was again- That damn sentimentality! By the Hells, he was a vampire, not a nursemaid! What had gotten into him? 

“You should rest.” Wyll placed a hand on his shoulder, “I’ll keep an eye on her for a bit.” 

His eyes went narrow, a low growl rumbling in his chest. The idea of leaving her while she was vulnerable made his blood boil. 

I’ll watch your back and you watch mine…

Her promise echoed through his thoughts. Dafni had held her end of the bargain with unwavering resolve. If he left now it would feel too much like betraying the one person he’d allowed even a fragment of trust in the past two centuries.

“I’m sorry. That wasn’t an appropriate reaction.” He muttered while he whisked away an icy tear from her cheek. “I’m just a bit... Out of sorts.” 

Wyll nodded, taking a seat on the dusty floor beside him, “Hey, she’s tough. She’ll pull through, whatever this is.” The warlock gave him an almost smug look, “You really care for her don’t you?” 

“I hardly see how that’s any of your concern.” He sneered with a wave of his hand, “Besides, my concern is simply a matter of pragmatism. Our little band of misfits can’t afford to lose our best healer-” Astarion hesitated for a moment before adding, “Don’t tell Shadowheart I said that. We need not add my body to the pile- Should things go poorly.” 

“If I promise not to sell you out will you take a break?” 

For the first time since she had fainted, he noticed the scratchy dryness in his throat. Astarion scowled, there was little in the way of appetizing food that he had seen but he would just have to make due. He was loathed to leave her side but Wyll was a good man, a better one than him in truth. He would keep her safe. 

“What’s this? The legendary Blade of the Frontiers, stooping to common blackmail.” He tried to keep his tone flat but he couldn’t help the smile that formed on his lips, “Fine, I’ll take a break. I’m a bit parched anyway. I suppose I’ll try to track something palatable down here. Unless…”

 He arched an eyebrow towards Wyll who moved away with an overstated scoot. 

“Not a chance, now go!” 

Cold. 

A crushing, all-consuming chill wrapped its arms around her spirit. Spring had left her. Now she stood alone in the isolating melancholy of winter. She reached out for the familiar warmth of The Protector but here- In this cursed place his influence felt far and foreign. If only she had her holy amulet. It could have served as a compass leading her back to Corellon’s embrace. She would simply have to press on. She had put them behind already and there was no time for sentiment. She wouldn’t be able to cast spells until she found a replacement and the chances of a spare symbol of her god in the Underdark were laughable. Dafni tried to sniff back the tears pricking at the edges of her eyes but it was no use. They rolled down her baby blue cheeks freezing before they could fall to the ground. She glanced up at Astarion, who walked a few paces ahead. While Gale and Wyll had spent the better part of a day coddling her, he had remained distant. 

Maybe he didn’t want her like this? Her sadness threatened to consume anyone near her and he had enough grief of his own. He had admitted once that he enjoyed having her near. Whispered in her ear that she was sunlight and happiness made flesh as he took her in a flower patch of her own creation. 

The feeling of a gentle hand pulled her from her thoughts. Gale offered her a small smile before speaking, “Are you all right?” 

“Oh-” She sniffed, whipping away another frozen tear, “I’ll be alright. I just don’t feel much like myself right now.” 

Gale nodded in response, “Yes, I can see that. Perhaps we shouldn’t have brought you here. The Underdark does seem quite at conflict with the very core of your being.”

A mournful laugh escaped her aching chest, “I don’t think we’d have had any better luck with that shadow curse above ground. No, my sorrow isn’t a good enough reason to risk the rest of the group’s safety.” She brought an icy hand to Gale's cheek, causing him to shiver, “I appreciate your concern but really I’ll be alright. We eladrin are ruled by our emotions, a shift of season was inevitable at some point or another. It’s unfortunate for the rest of you it had to be winter. Things are dire enough without my sorrowful presence bringing you all down with me. Perhaps it would be best for all of you to keep your distance.”

 She sighed, her eyes falling on Astarion, who lingered just on the edge of the bitter cold her sadness created. While it pained her to say it, she knew he was right to keep away. The others should do the same if they were wise. Gale gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. 

“He’s a funny one, Astarion.” Gale mused, “Wyll told me he had to resort to extortion to pry him from your side while you were out. Yet, today he acts as if you have the plague.”

A small snort of laughter broke past her tears, “Extortion?” 

“I believe comments were made comparing Shadowheart’s healing abilities to your own. Wyll offended his silence in exchange for Astarion taking a break.”

“That’s not fair to her.” Dafni sniffed, “She’s not a life cleric, she does her best.” 

“You have a good heart, Dafni.” Gale said giving her arm a squeeze, “My point is I think he cares about you, in his own odd way. At the very least he’s far more pleasant when you are around”

“You really think so?” 

“I do,” Gale assured, “he’d have to be the biggest fool in Faerûn not to see how wonderful you are.” 

Dafni felt a bit of warmth return to her heart. Not enough to thaw her sorrows but it was a start. Gale’s words helped her sort through the chaos of her mind as they had so many times before. He was a loyal and kind friend, as was Wyll. Shadowheart too despite her evasive and secretive nature. Even Lae’zel had warmed to her as best she was able despite their differences. There was a solace to be found in the support of her peers. She wasn’t so alone after all.

The sound of her laugh hit Astartion like a battering ram. She seemed to be in slightly better spirits since arriving in the Myconid Circle. She floated about the fungus folk with an easy familiarity. It seemed being among the vibrant plants and creatures of grotto had offered her some sense of normalcy. He looked over his shoulder to see what had coaxed a giggle from her (no matter how pitiful and melancholy it sounded). A sharp twinge of jealousy ran down his spine as he watched Dafni stroke Gale’s cheek with a somber smile. 

He bit the feeling back. It was better for them both if he kept his distance. Gentle kindness was hardly his strong suit. Gods, he was a disaster. How many times had she offered him comfort even when he spurned her? She had given so freely to him, her kindness, the warmth of her bed, the very blood in her veins. And there he was relying on someone else to comfort his lover.   

 Dafni was a resilient little thing. So optimistic and sweet it made his teeth hurt. It was disorienting to see her so morose. He had learned the boundaries of her emotional aura rather quickly. He had noticed an unfamiliar warm feeling that first night at camp. He found himself lingering near her as often as he could after that. Savoring the tender happiness that radiated from off of her. She had told him it was simply part of her nature. A charming quirk he’d grown to enjoy a great deal. But now he could feel her heavy sorrow as if it were his own and he longed to make her hurt go away.  

Damn sentimentality.

He had his own worries. He didn’t need to take on hers as well. She didn’t need him to coddle her. And more importantly, he most certainly was not beholden to her contentment for his own survival despite his halfwit heart’s insistence to the contrary. She was making him soft. It was ridiculous! He was far too old to be fretting over her like a lovelorn sprat. 

It must be the tadpole. Her compassion must have wormed its way into his brain somehow. That was the only logical explanation.

He needed to clear his head and get some distance between them so he could feel more himself. He wandered aimlessly about the grotto as he attempted to show away any feelings of softhearted sympathy but it was no use. He rubbed his temples and let out a frustrated huff. He should never have taken that first taste of her. She’d become an irresistible craving from that moment on. It wasn’t just her blood, but every aspect of her that called to him. Inviting him to take refuge in her affections. He could feel himself lowering his guard a little bit more each day despite his efforts to keep her at arm's length. She’d flash him that beguiling little grin, her topaz eyes brimming over with admiration and he would find himself tempted to let her just another inch closer. He’d known she was dangerous from the moment he clapped eyes on her in the wreckage of the crash. He’d prepared himself for a stake to the heart but the infatuation she had inspired in him was infinitely more frightening and possible just as deadly.

He made his way to the alcove where the Society of Brilliance had set up shop. The strange hobgoblin had mentioned something to the party about being a collector of magical items and oddities. Walking had failed to rid him of his frustrations perhaps shopping would. 

A glimmer caught his eye as he approached the cluttered stall. There, on the table was a familiar silver amulet. He was going to get it back for her and pray the gesture was enough to curb his need to see her happy. He could swipe it easily enough but he didn’t want to draw trouble to Dafni if she was spotted wearing it. No, charm and a dash of intimidation would be his best shot.

“Excuse me,” He smiled wide allowing for a slight flash of his fangs, “I was hoping you would be willing to part with that necklace.”

“A vampire interested in the acquisition of a holy symbol?” 

“Yes, it’s very ironic.” Astarion rolled his eyes. “Now, how much do you want for the damn thing?”

“Well, first time for everything.” the hobgoblin shrugged, “You have a good eye, this is very unique. It’s forged from mithral and inlaId with sylvan moonstones. The holy symbol of Corellon is more commonly depicted as an eight-pointed star these days rather than the crescent moon. Meaning this item is very old indeed! It was brought in just yesterday. I would be hesitant to sell it but my research does require more funding. How does 900 gold sound?”

“I hate to be the one to tell you but ‘very old’ is a relative term when it comes to items of elvish origin.” He kept his tone flat and unimpressed, “Long-lived people do tend to hold onto things.” 

“Ah, but you’ll find this is more than your average antique! Judging by the craftsmanship I would say it dates back to the time of the primal elves.”

Shit. 

Of course, her necklace had much more than sentimental value. He had hoped for a quick haggle but it seemed he was going to have to work for it. He really didn’t have that much coin on him, nor was he inclined to spend it on something that was not rightfully the hobgoblin’s to sell. He raffled through his mind searching for a thinly veiled threat or convincing argument to lower the price until the perfect mixture of the two dawned on him.

Astarion let out a droll hum as he checked his nails with casual disinterest. He spoke in a low, blasé voice, “You said before you weren’t much for combat? Don’t you think it’s risky, carrying around a holy item of Corellon in the den of the Spider Queen? It would be such a shame if something were to happen to you at the hands of a zealot. Really I’m doing you a favor by purchasing it. I’ve crossed swords with the Lolth sworn before they are merciless and skilled fighters almost as dangerous and bloodthirsty as vampires.”

He let a wicked bark of laughter. A bemused expression flickering across his face. He could smell the fear stirring in the timid merchant. It would seem he hadn’t lost his edge after all.  

Blurg swallowed hard before mustering a response, “ Ah- I hadn’t thought about that...”

Dafni sat cross-legged on the ramparts of the fort fletching a new batch of arrows. She’d need more to compensate for her lack of magic for the time being. She’d spent the whole trek back to their camp scanning the ground for her necklace but it had all been for not. She’d just have to accept the fact it was gone no matter how much it broke her heart. 

“There you are, darling. I’ve been looking all over for you.”

 The sound of Astarion’s voice caused her to jump, tossing her arrow down with a start. Dafni clutched her chest shooting him a sharp look. He only laughed, his infuriating gorgeous face fixed in a grin that reminded her of a satyr who stumbled upon a river of bathing nymphs. He dipped to his knees placing a hungry kiss on her scowling lips. He couldn’t be serious. All-day she had been desperate for his attention and he was completely uninterested but now that he had an itch to scratch he was searching up and down for her. Unbelievable! She shouldn't have been surprised. It wasn’t as if he’d ever promised her his undying love and devotion. Still, she had thought him tactful enough not to proposition her after the hell she’d been through that day. 

“I’m not really in the mood right now.” She scolded, “You’ll just have to entertain yourself tonight, you egotistical lecher!”

“That- Isn’t why I sought you out. But, if you truly don’t want my company I’ll leave you be.” He shrugged his tone flippant despite the flash of vulnerability in his ruby eyes.

“I- I’m sorry that was really mean and uncalled for. Please stay.”

Stupid impulsive girl.

She slumped forwards, hiding her face in her knees. She could feel the icy tears threatening to spill over for the hundredth time that day. He’d come to check on her and she’d cut him down because of her own insecurity. The bitterness had gotten the better of her and she had unwittingly discouraged his attempt at compassion. 

“If you think the accusation of being a rake is the most heinous insult that’s been hurled at me I’m afraid you’ve missed the mark by quite a lot.” 

He sat down beside her, placing a hesitant hand on her back. She could sense his uncertainty. He was nervous and clearly out of his depth but he was trying. His cautious fingertips moved slowly across the expanse of her back, tracing nebulas shapes and patterns as she drew short, shallow breaths. She couldn’t bear to look at him. She just knew he was staring at her with the same wide, gentle eyes he had when she’d offered her neck to him that night in the woods. If she saw him like that the dam would break and she’d be an utter mess. 

“I still shouldn’t have said it.” Her voice came out shaky and quiet as she peeked over the top of her knees at him. 

“I think I’ll find it in my heart to forgive you.” He leaned in close, whispering in her ear. “I have something for you. Now, stand up and close your eyes.”

She arched a questioning brow but compiled, hopping to her feet. He pushed her ponytail to one side. His touch lingered on her jumping pulse causing a shiver to run down her spine. A warm chuckle falling from his lips in response. The cool feeling of metal draped across her throat, an otherworldly comfort hummed all around her as the delicate weight of a pendant fell against her chest. 

“Where did you find it!!” Dafni gasped, “I thought I had lost it forever! You can’t fathom how much this means to me.”

“It’s a gift, to repay you for all the ones you’ve given me.”  

It probably seemed a small thing to him but he’d returned a missing piece of herself. Words felt woefully inadequate to express her gratitude. She threw her arms around his neck, sending him staggering back a bit. She hardly noticed. She stood on her tiptoes placing gentle kisses all over him. First over the bridge of his nose and then his cheeks and down his neck. Her fingers laced through his soft curls tugging him close, her lips brushed against his. Astarion’s hands fell to her soft waist, his mouth ever so slightly parting for hers. Dafni sighed, running her tongue along the warm seam of his lip earning her a satisfied purr. His hand ventured to the small of her back gently coaxing her closer. She took in a deep breath, the dizzying blend of leather and patchouli making her weak at the knee. She could have stayed like that forever, pressed safe and content against his solid chest. The feeling was big and terrifying but magical and perfect all at once. 

Drat...

She was falling in love with him.

[gameofdrarry]

Drarropoly 2020 Slytherin Submissions

Drarropoly ’20: Founders Edition ran from November 22 2020 until January 22 2021 with a total 51 players, and 117 submissions. list of prompts players were given, as well as the drabbles players submitted to fill each of the prompts, sorted by level. Just as in Monopoly one can use their money to upgrade their spaces and buy houses or hotels, players in Drarropoly were able to write more with more restrictions and higher word counts at the O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. levels to earn more points.

Malfoy Manor

Harry and Draco are in a secret relationship.

The Scale

First Years Level: Minimum: 260 words Maximum: 797 words

📜 Their Little Secret by Gnarf Rated:  General Words:  303 Tags: Secret Relationship, eighth year, post war Summary:  Rebuilding Hogwarts had changed many things. But keeping some of those changes a secret wasn't as hard as Harry had expected. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 On Worthiness by graymatters Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  785 Tags: Fluff, Professor Harry Potter, Professor Draco Malfoy, Hogwarts, Secret Relationship Summary:  Professors Malfoy and Potter seek a moment of privacy in the Hogwart's greenhouses. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 A Back Alley Kind of Thing by Cami_soul Rated:  Explicit Words:  739 Tags: Smutty, Bottom Harry Potter, Gryffindors and Slytherins are friends, short and smutty, Dirty Talk, Secret Relationship Summary:  Harry and Draco are in a secret relationship. ❤️ Read on AO3

O.W.L.s Level: + Either a Malfoy parent or a Weasley parent is aware of the secret. Minimum: 1308 words Maximum: 2357 words

In Secret by rei382 Rated:  General Words:  2119 Tags: secret relationship, christmas Summary:  Harry and Draco are secretly dating. At least, they think it's secretly. Read on AO3

📜 Early Morning Promise by Samunderthelights Rated:  General Words:  1592 Tags: Secret Relationship, Malfoy Manor, Supportive Narcissa Black Malfoy, Short & Sweet, Non-Magical Summary:  "So far, Harry and Draco have done well to keep their relationship hidden. But after falling asleep together, they are about to be found out. Because surely there is no way that Harry can sneak out without the Malfoys finding out. Unless they have a little bit of help, of course." ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Those in the Know by Sumthin Clever Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  2285 Tags: Secret Relationship. But only kind of. Summary:  Draco and Harry begin a friendship that soon morphs into something more, but they're not ready to tell anyone else yet. The surprise is on them when they come to learn they've been less than discreet. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 A Forever Kind of Love  by Curlyy_hair_dont_care Rated:  General Words:  1511 Tags: Secret Relationship, Fluff,Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Romance, Draco likes Muggle things,The Burrow (Harry Potter) Summary:  The one where Harry and Draco are in a secret relationship. And Arthur Weasley is more observant than everyone else. ❤️ Read on AO3

N.E.W.T.s Level: + Add an epilogue to your story. Minimum: 3329 words Maximum: 4233 words

📜 A Mothers Intuition by Orpheous87 Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  3557 Tags: secret relationship, mentioned Narcissa Black, Fluff, Angst, Developing friendships, romantic friendship, Post-Battle of Hogwarts Summary:  Harry and Draco strike up an unlikely friendship before they return to Hogwarts to complete their seventh year where it turns into something more. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 For Services Rendered by dracogotgame Rated:  Mature Words:  4200 Tags: Mythical Beings & Creatures, Supernatural Elements, Vampires, vampire!Harry, Angst with a Happy Ending, Oneshot, Smut, Minor Violence, Morally Ambiguous Character, Semi Healthy Relationships, Lucius Malfoy's A+ Parenting, Alternate Universe - Vampire Summary:  Draco has always given Father's 'business associates' a wide berth. But his fascination with the vampire may lead him down a dark and twisted path. ❤️ Read on AO3

  12 Grimmauld Place

"What the Hell is this?" While unpacking for their first time moving in together, one of them finds an item while unpacking the other's belongings that is either embarrassing or upsetting.

The Scale

First Years Level: Minimum: 324 words Maximum: 721 words

📜 Pillowtalk by rei382 Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  718 Tags: Post-Hogwarts, Established Relationship, Humor Summary:  This was the first time Harry moved in with... anyone, to be honest. There are some things you discover about your partner only when you unpack their boxes at your new joined home. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Draco's Life in a Box by Orpheous87 Rated:  General Words:  689 Tags: established relationship, moving in together, fluff, humour Summary:  Draco is moving in with Harry and together they unpack his belongings, leading to some odd discoveries. ❤️ Read on AO3

O.W.L.s Level: + Utilise either the Angst trope or the Crack trope. Minimum: 1200 words Maximum: 2312 words

N.E.W.T.s Level: + Utilise the Unreliable Narrator trope. This is usually done from first person POV, but can be written in whatever POV you like. Minimum: 3450 words Maximum: 4678 words

📜 It Wasn't About the Figurines by fwooshy Rated:  Mature Words:  4591 Tags: Humor, Case Fic, Serial Killers, Unreliable Narrator, Established Relationship, harry is sus, but Draco and Hermione are on it Summary:  Draco knew that moving in with Harry was going to be trouble. But even he didn't expect that finding Harry's stash of copulating house-elf figurines would frame Harry as a serial killer. Could Draco's idiot boyfriend really be a serial killer? Draco teams up with Hermione to find out. ❤️ Read on AO3

  Chamber of Secrets

Harry and Draco are working together. To complete their task, Harry must speak in Parseltongue.

Choose either the Auror Partners trope or the Hogwarts Eighth Year trope.

The Scale

First Years Level: Minimum: 114 words Maximum: 411 words

📜 The Snakes Will Get You by Samunderthelights Rated:  General Words:  411 Tags: Hogwarts Eighth Year, Parselmouth Harry Potter, Fluff, Drabble Summary:  “You’re not going to want to hear it…,” Harry says, a worried look on his face as he looks over his shoulder. “It’s about the Chamber of Secrets.” ❤️ Read on AO3

O.W.L.s Level: + Include conversations/dialogue between Harry and the snake(s). Minimum: 1144 words Maximum: 2414 words

📜 When Greeneyes Met Sharptail by Ladderofyears Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  2414 Tags: Parselmouth Harry Potter, chatty snake, falling in love, herbology, magic, happy ending, sweet and fluffy Summary:  Harry meets a friendly adder and finds out some exciting news. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 seeing snakes by saltwatergarden Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  2417 Tags: Auror Partners, Auror Harry Potter, Auror Draco Malfoy, Snakes, Parseltongue Summary:  “We can’t Stun it,” he continued. “Spells don’t seem to work on it, it’s like they’ve imbued them with some sort of Shield Charm. Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures has been trying to get a hold of one to properly study it, but they’re hard to catch. Can’t use magic, and they’re quick, easily startled, and venomous. It’s been hard enough trying to keep them away from the Muggles, and not an entirely successful venture at that.” “Right,” Potter said, scratching at the back of his neck. “And you want me to…talk…to this understudied, unpredictable, easily startled, venomous snake?” “Yes,” confirmed Robards. “Do I have a choice?” “No.” ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Main Witnesss by Andithiel Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  1760 Tags: Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Auror Partners, Pre-Slash, Parseltongue, Parselmouth Harry Potter, Snakes Summary:  Nüwa the snake has already given her testimony for auror Potter, but it seems he wants to keep talking to her. This annoys Nüwa, until she discovers something interesting about Potter’s auror partner. Which is why she decides to do a little investigation of her own. ❤️ Read on AO3

N.E.W.T.s Level: + Write part of the story from the POV of a snake. Minimum: 3011 words Maximum: 4401 words

📜 Salazar by Kasena Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  3818 Tags: Basilisks, Parselmouth Harry Potter, Parseltongue Kink, Curse Breaking, Hogwarts Chamber of Secrets, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE Summary:  Harry and Draco are assigned to detention together during their eighth year. One of their tasks is to confirm the state of the Chamber of Secrets, and whether or not anything non-lethal could be done with it. What they find within is much more interesting. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Unearthed  by chxrlieweaslxy Rated:  Mature Words:  4047 Tags: Auror Partners, Pining, Pre-Relationship, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Drarropoly: A Drarry Game/Fest Summary:  Harry and Draco are assigned a case that seems way below their paygrade that turns out to be more of a hassle than either of them expected. ❤️ Read on AO3

  Borgin & Burkes

Harry or Draco goes to investigate an item, a Pureblood artefact of unknown origin, only to be cursed.

Choose one of the following outcomes:

Malicious/Harmful

Sex Pollen

Accidentally Bonded

The Scale

First Years Level: Minimum: 260 words Maximum: 799 words

📜 Bound to happen by Gnarf Rated:  Mature Words:  395 Tags: Accidental Bonding, Confessions, Harry Potter is So Done, Auror Harry Potter, Curse Breaker Draco Malfoy, Co-workers, Missions Gone Wrong Summary:  Harry Potter can't keep his hands to himself. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 So Bloody Incompetent by Samunderthelights Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  496 Tags: Drabble, Borgin & Burkes, Silly, Auror Partners Summary:  "You’re so bloody incompetent, it’s not even funny.” ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 He Knows Better by Orpheous87 Rated:  General Words:  957 Tags: established relationship, auror Harry Potter, ministry of magic employee Draco Malfoy, ministry of magic employee Hermione Granger, cursed object, dark magic Summary:  Sent to investigate an artefact of unknown origin, Draco gets more than he bargained for. ❤️ Read on AO3

  The Quidditch Pitch

It's after the match.

Choose either the Hogwarts Eighth Year trope or the Professional Quidditch Player trope.

The Scale

First Years Level: Minimum: 340 words Maximum: 670 words

📜 Celebrate The Win by Samunderthelights Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  584 Tags: Hogwarts Eighth Year, Kissing, Short & Sweet Summary:  Harry and Draco meet up on the Quidditch Pitch to celebrate the win. ❤️ Read on AO3

O.W.L.s Level: + Include Lee Jordan in your fic. Minimum: 1442 words Maximum: 2379 words

N.E.W.T.s Level: + Include Harry and Draco playing for the same team. Minimum: 3333 words Maximum: 4789 words

📜 Do I Make You Cringe? by graymatters Rated:  Mature Words:  4710 Tags: Quidditch, Professional Quidditch, Angst, Angry Harry, Seeker Draco Malfoy, Beater Harry Potter, Pining, Mild Sexual Content, Adult Language, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Alcohol, Falmouth Falcons Summary:  Harry and Draco play for the Falmouth Falcons, a professional quidditch team known for its questionable sportsmanship. While they've been sleeping together casually for months, Draco wonders if Harry's means of coping with his past might prevent them from having more. ❤️ Read on AO3

  Ollivander’s

They say the wand chooses the wizard, but it's not just wands...

Write a story involving the concept of choice. Choose one of the following:

A magical item chooses Harry or Draco for unknown reasons and it impacts their lives in an unexpected way.

Harry or Draco makes an unexpected choice.

The Scale

First Years Level: Minimum: 457 words Maximum: 754 words

📜 Two Rings, One Debt by Gnarf Rated:  General Words:  629 Tags: Magical Artifacts, Accidental Marriage, Wedding Rings, Life Debt, Confused Harry, Draco Malfoy is So Done Summary:  Harry didn't know how it had happened, but he somehow suddenly found himself in the possession of a ring. And it wasn't any ring. It was a shiny gold ring that looked suspiciously like a wedding ring. And to make matters worse it carried the Malfoy Insignia. ❤️ Read on AO3

[onewfantaesy]

Little Vampire AU

Just imagine Kibum genuinely treating Taemin like his son. He’d always wanted kids, had always wanted to be a father, but then he became a vampire and he just never thought he’d have the chance. He didn’t want to force this kind of life onto a child anyway, and no one could give him a straight answer as to whether or not it was hereditary.

Then he finds Taemin, and he’s just drawn to the boy. He has to protect Taemin. He has to take him under his wing and keep him safe.

And finally, after so many decades, Kibum has a son. And he just wants to share so much with him, teach him, show him things that all kids should learn from their fathers. It’s the little things Kibum loves the most, really.

Like when Taemin comes into Kibum’s bedroom and they sit on the floor, Kibum’s turntable playing his favorite records from when he was younger (the records he’s kept for so long now he can’t remember when he first bought them. Had he been human? He’s not sure anymore). And Taemin loves it, loves listening to the same records as Kibum and dancing around the room and laughing together. Taemin learns all the words to all the songs on all the records. Kibum can’t help but laugh when they’re both sitting on the fluffy rug decorating his bedroom floor, Taemin on his lap and with Kibum’s arms wrapped around him, and Taemin is humming along to whatever song is playing while he rifles through all of the other albums to find what to play next.

Kibum loves the way Taemin holds his hand everywhere they go, his little fingers grasping at Kibum’s and playing with whatever rings he’s wearing that day. And Kibum always squeezes Taemin’s hand, teasing him, playing with him. Taemin will just swing their arms together, and he’ll smile at Kibum and scrunch his nose up in the way Kibum has learnt means he thinks he’s being mischevious. Kibum always just makes the same face back, and they end up pulling faces at each other and giggling all the way to school or the grocery store. It’s sweet. It makes Kibum’s chest feel like his heart is really still beating; like he’s really still alive.

It’s the way Taemin comes to Kibum when he’s scared; when he has a bad dream or a bad day at school or hears a scary noise outside his window. Kibum is his safe space, his go-to comfort person, his designated protector. It’s the way that, sometimes, Kibum can tell Taemin is only pretending he had a scary dream because he just wants to sleep in Kibum’s bed. Kibum never denies him, never turns him away, never walks him across the hall and back into his own bed. If Taemin wants to sleep in his bed, wants to curl under his blankets, wants Kibum to hold him and play with his hair - well, Kibum isn’t going to deny him. How could he?

And even if Jinki teaches him more about vampire history and culture, he still wants to hear it from Kibum as well. Wants Kibum to teach him everything he knows. Wants to know all the little tricks and secrets Kibum has, wants to learn it all, wants Kibum to teach him.

When Taemin gets upset because all his friends are growing up and aging and he feels like he’s being stuck behind, it’s Kibum who cheers him up most, who makes him laugh loudest, who ends up holding Taemin’s hands and twirling him around to their favorite music and dancing in the silliest of ways just to see him smile. It’s Kibum who assures him it’s okay to be sad about those things, it’s okay to feel different, it’s okay that he wishes he would grow up the same way. But Kibum also assures him that even if he’s not growing the same as his werewolf or elf friends, that he still will grow up. That it’s okay to be sad, but he can’t be sad all the time. That’s there’s always something to be happy about, even if it’s just something silly. Like dancing around in his bedroom, or getting a new comic book, or that he’s finally able to eat cookies again without it making him feel sick (because it took Taemin many years to be able to stomach sweets again, and it was a relief when he could finally eat something simple like a cookie and not feel like he was going to hurl).

Kibum just loves being a dad, even if the way it happened was a bit unconventional.