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ruzz9 · 3 months ago

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The Prefects' Bathroom

NSFW +18

Severus Snape x Fem!reader

Summary: In a mischievous bid to sow chaos, Peeves disturbed the dungeons with another prank, feigning urgency to provoke Snape by claiming someone was being attacked in the Prefects’ Bathroom. His shrill laughter echoed as he watched the professor storm in, wand raised, only to find his most exceptional seventh-year student, naked amidst the foam.

A/N: I had a lot of fun including Peeves, and I couldn’t resist adding a bit of humor. The emotions are so intense that even I felt truly uneasy. Enjoy!

Warnings: Smut, Student/Professor, Nakedness, Blow Job, Eating Out, Fellatio, Cunnilingus, Mature Content, Dominance & Submission, Power Struggle.

Glossary: Iridescent – Reflecting rainbowlike colors that change with the angle of light.

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Peeves floated through the hallways with his usual mischievous expression, eyes sparkling with malice and a crooked grin of pure mischief. He had seen something interesting, something juicy: the young Slytherin prefect, in her final year, sliding gracefully into the Prefects' Bathroom.

It wasn’t the first time he had noticed the strange tension between her and the harsh Potions professor. There was something in the way their gazes crossed fleetingly, in his sharp responses, and in her daring composure.

Peeves loved chaos, and this scene cried out for his intervention.

With a shrill giggle, he fluttered through the hallways until he slipped into the dungeons, where he knew he would find the feared Severus Snape. His voice echoed against the stone walls with theatrical drama.

"Professor, professor! Something terrible is happening in the Prefects' Bath!" he wailed in false anguish. "An evil spirit is attacking a poor student! Oh, what horror! What calamity!"

Snape, who was reviewing potions with an air of tedium, lifted his gaze with a grimace of annoyance. Peeves’ mere presence was a synonym for trouble, and if the specter had decided to come to him, it had to be something serious enough to bother him.

"Explain," he growled impatiently, his voice laden with suspicion.

"Blood, screams, wails! A dreadful crime, professor! You must hurry before it's too late!"

He needed no further prompting to act. With a swift movement, he grabbed his wand and advanced with long, determined strides. His cloak billowed behind him like the smoke of a snuffed-out candle as he ascended the stairs, every fiber of his being prepared to face the worst.

The door to the bath was closed, but a simple spell was enough to fling it open.

"What the hell is—?!" he began to exclaim, but the words died in his throat. And then, time seemed to freeze.

The warm steam from the perfumed water clouded the air, enveloping the room in an ethereal veil. Amidst the iridescent foam, the young student turned her face, startled, her eyes meeting his in an instant that felt eternal.

In a single blink, he saw her skin, pale and damp, the delicacy of her figure submerged in the warm water, barely covered by the foam clinging to her skin in a fragile attempt to conceal her.

The girl's breath hitched for a moment. Her arms lifted instinctively, crossing over her chest in a gesture of modesty that only accentuated her nudity.

Snape reacted immediately, turning around with a sharp motion, his cloak extending like a shield between them. His jaw clenched, and he gripped his wand so tightly that his knuckles paled.

Behind him, Peeves burst into laughter, floating in the air with a triumphant expression.

"Oh, what a charming sight, professor! Have I ruined an intimate moment? What a pity!"

Snape felt a furious heat rising up his nape.

"Peeves!" he roared with barely contained rage. "I swear I will make you disappear from this castle if you don’t leave this instant!"

The mischievous ghost twisted with laughter before retreating. He slammed the door shut with a sharp finger snap, leaving only the echo of his mockery behind.

Snape cursed under his breath, his tone rougher than usual.

"Peeves, damn it…" he turned slightly toward the door, testing it in vain. "He’s locked us in."

His fingers tensed around his wand. With a brusque movement, he attempted an unlocking spell, but the specter had done a good job. When Peeves’ prank magic was involved, it could be a nuisance even for the most skilled wizards.

He exhaled in frustration. "Get dressed. Now," he ordered, without turning around, his voice severe.

He heard the water shift as she moved, the soft splash as she emerged from the bath, and for a second, he thought she would obey. But then, instead of the rustle of fabric being put on, he caught a different sound—the distinct trickle of water sliding over her skin, drop by drop, falling onto the marble floor.

And the footsteps.

Slow.

Deliberate.

Approaching.

Snape shut his eyes tightly. He couldn't turn around. He couldn't move. His entire body tensed at the awareness of her presence behind him, the warmth of her breath mere inches away. And moisture started to seep through the fabric of his cloak, marking the contact of her bare body.

A shiver coursed through him. Not from the cold, but from the blistering awareness of what was happening.

"What are you doing?" His voice came out rougher than he intended, betraying the tension in his throat.

She didn’t answer immediately. Her hands, damp and trembling, clung softly to his back, as if afraid he might vanish if she pressed too hard.

"I don't want to get dressed." Her whisper was barely a breath of air, yet each word pierced into his back like a curse.

Snape felt his breathing grow heavier. His jaw clenched even tighter.

"This is reckless," he muttered. "You have no idea what you're doing."

She slid her fingers down his soaked cloak, letting them rest on his sides, as if trying to feel him closer, as if waiting for something.

"Maybe I do," she murmured.

He narrowed his eyes, feeling the storm of emotions raging inside him. He should push her away. He should reprimand her. He should find a way to break Peeves’ damn spell and get out of there.

But for the first time, Snape didn’t know how to escape.

A sudden pull at his wrist caught him off guard. His wand was snatched from his hand with unexpected speed, and before he could retrieve it, a splash confirmed its fate.

He turned his face just enough to avoid looking at her directly, but his sharp gaze swept across the marble floor, struggling to contain his growing irritation.

"Do you think this is a game?" His voice was a low growl, dense with warning.

Far from intimidated, the young woman let out a barely audible laugh, a playful whisper that sent an uncomfortably pleasurable shiver down his spine.

"I don't know, Professor…" her tone was soft, almost pensive. "But if it were… I'd say I'm winning."

Snape felt a violent pulse in his temple—a mix of fury and something far worse, something that made him feel out of control. His most efficient student, the one who rarely made mistakes in his class, the one who had always maintained flawless composure… was now acting with unsettling brazenness.

"Two hundred points from Slytherin if you don't put an end to this nonsense right now."

But she didn’t stop.

She pressed closer, her warm body against the drenched fabric of his cloak. Snape remained utterly still, as if every muscle in his body had forgotten how to react.

"highly doubt you'd dare to take that many points from your own house." she whispered against his ear, sending a shiver down his neck.

Snape turned his body, still without looking directly at her, respecting her decency. He intended to respond, to push her away, to curse her if necessary, but then— her palm descended, soft yet firm, pressing against the evidence of his torment.

His body reacted before his mind could catch up, a sharp exhalation escaping his lips as he felt the pressure of her fingers against the hardness he had been trying to ignore.

His self-control was hanging by a thread.

The pressure of her hand was a silent challenge, an assertion of power he hadn't expected from her. Snape remained motionless, caught between the need to put an end to this madness and the betrayal of his own body, burning under her touch.

And then he felt her lips—barely a brush, a fleeting kiss just along the line of his jaw, so close to his ear that his breath hitched.

Her breath trembled softly against his ear before her lips trailed lower, following the curve of his jaw with calculated slowness, while her fingers explored with the same boldness.

"Tell me to stop…" she whispered, her voice laced with poisonous sweetness. "And I will."

Snape opened his eyes, his gaze fixed on the empty space before him. He could do it. He could put an end to this with a single word. And yet, silence stretched between them—taut, searing.

She smiled against his skin and descended along his neck, tasting, marking him with barely-there kisses. With deft fingers, she attempted to undo the buttons of his robe… one, two… but then she realized the daunting task before her. An endless row of stubborn buttons, each one defying her with the same impassivity their owner always did.

For a moment, she wondered whether Snape dressed like this out of sheer habit or as an elaborate defense mechanism against situations like this. How long did it take him to undress each night? Was there some secret enchantment for this?

She sighed against what felt like a punishment imposed by its wearer. Her hands abandoned the impossible mission, gripping the fabric instead.

He exhaled—a sound caught between a sigh and a warning.

He had yet to dare to look at her—not her face, not her body. His gaze remained fixed elsewhere, clinging to a last vestige of control, of respect, of sanity. Even in the midst of his confusion, of his body’s betrayal, he restrained himself under his own composure.

And that irritated her. She wanted to see him break.

With an intrepidity she would never have dared in any other context, she took his chin between her fingers, forcing him to turn his face toward her. A gesture she wouldn’t have dared in a rational state—not against a man so dominant in every fiber of his being. But in that moment, her need to fracture his control outweighed her fear.

Snape’s face burned with fury. His dark, piercing gaze locked onto her with a weight that was overwhelming. His mere presence was already imposing, but now, with anger vibrating through his expression, he seemed capable of consuming her whole.

Inside, she felt a shiver of warning. She had touched a dangerous boundary. But she did not retreat.

If she had wanted to provoke him, she was succeeding—just not in the way she had imagined.

Snape knocked her hand away with a sharp, firm motion, pushing it down forcefully, forbidding her from touching him again. His fingers closed around her wrist in a tense grip, his hand trembling just slightly—a barely perceptible gesture of something she couldn’t quite decipher. Was it fear? Nerves? She didn’t know. But if it was, he masked it instantly beneath the authority that was second nature to him.

And then, without warning, he gripped her wet hair in a demanding tug, tilting her head back, forcing her to look at him.

He did not see her body. He did not see her nakedness. Only her eyes. An abyss of warning, of danger, of absolute dominance. And when he guided her head downward with an imperious gesture, the message was clear.

She obeyed with insolent grace, never looking away, as if even in submission, she insisted on defying him. And just as her face reached the right height, the professor freed himself from the unbearable constraint of his erection. Her parted lips released a warm breath over his sensitive skin before the first contact—an ethereal touch that made him exhale unsteadily.

He closed his eyes for an instant. As if he could ignore the tremor in his own hand, still tangled in her wet hair.

She was in no hurry. She traced a slow, torturous path along his cock, exploring with the devotion of someone savoring a sin, drawing shivers with each advance, with every gentle pressure of her lips and tongue.

Snape was tense. The contact was a sweet poison. Her delicate hands framing his length, while her mouth followed its own course, outlining his shape with an almost sickly devotion.

His breathing grew heavier, uneven, and for a brief moment, his grip tightened before loosening slightly—an internal battle between rejection and surrender. She sensed the conflict in every small tremor of his muscles, in the stiffness of his body, trying to stay firm, in the deep exhale he failed to contain.

Each slow caress of her tongue against his skin was a silent declaration, a deliberate exploration. She could feel the way desire and fury intertwined within him, how his body betrayed his mind, how the respect he had fought to uphold was unraveling under the weight of raw, burning need.

When her lips fully enclosed him, Snape let out a low, strangled groan, a barely restrained curse that echoed against the marble walls.

The air grew thick. She felt the authority in the way Severus guided her movements, the firm pressure of his hand in her hair, the way he tilted her, now looking eyes with her.

A ragged sigh escaped him, his other hand sliding to her nape, his fingers hesitating for an instant before gripping her—caught between necessity and resistance.

The water that had pooled on the floor rippled softly around them, accompanying the sound of his breathing, of his barely contained murmurs.

"Merlin," he muttered through clenched teeth, his voice low, torn apart by pleasure.

She, lost in the act of pleasing him, quickened her pace slightly, drawing him further, deeper, closer to the edge of no return. Their gazes met again, searching, waiting for that final surrender.

And when she saw it, when she felt him shudder, his release spilling into her mouth, It was a sight that left her stunned. His grip held her firm, forcing her to swallow every drop of him.

His breathing was still erratic when he pulled her up, grasping her waist with a firm touch that did not ask for permission. She barely had time to catch her breath before feeling her back collide against the cold marble wall. A gasp left her lips as the contrast between her fevered skin and the icy surface.

He loomed over her, his chest brushing against hers, his warm breath ghosting over her neck. His hands, large and insistent, traced her damp body, outlining the curve of her waist, descending slowly, as if he wished to memorize her through touch alone.

"Do you think this will go unpunished?" he murmured against her ear, his voice low, charged with something dark and simmering, still marked by the pleasure that had barely begun to fade.

Her eyes met his with the insolence of someone who had already tasted victory.

"And what will you do, Professor? Punish me... or keep enjoying my rebellion?"

The question barely had time to leave her lips before he claimed them in a kiss—one that was anything but gentle It was deep, consuming, a mixture of frustration and desperate need. His fingers tangled in her wet hair, tilting her head back to devour her, to demand, each breath from her lips.

His hand descended with a clear intent, trailing down between her thighs with the same slow, torturous patience with which she had unraveled him moments before.

She arched against the wall, eyes closing, trapped between the icy marble and the fire of his touch. Her breath caught in a ragged gasp as he finally touched her with the precision of someone who knew exactly how to unmake her.

His mouth found her neck, grazing it with a teasing bite before whispering with dark satisfaction:

"Now it's my turn."

And without further warning, he brought her to submission, offering no reprieve, allowing no space for another insolent provocation.

The words were still hanging in the air when his hands closed around her thighs, parting them. There was no haste in his movements.

She gasped as his lips traveled down her neck, leaving a damp trail over her skin, still glistening with water. His teeth grazed the curve of her collarbone before moving lower, tasting her with unhurried delight.

His mouth descended with precision. His firm hands held her hips in place, steadying her as he took his time, exploring her with an exactness.

The first flick of his tongue made her shudder, her fingers gripping the marble behind her in a futile attempt to remain steady.

His rough hands pressed more insistently against her flesh, a silent command to keep still.

And then, he sank into her center with the same torturous patience with which she had undone him before. Every movement was deliberate, every touch carefully placed with purpose. His tongue traced slow, teasing circles, while one of his hands traveled up her abdomen to her chest, fingers curling in a silent, possessive demand.

She arched against him with a muffled moan, her erratic breathing mingling with the soft splashes of water against the floor. He felt the tremor in her legs, the sweetness of her surrender growing with every calculated stroke of his tongue, with every breathless sigh he drew from her lips.

"Professor—" her voice broke into a pleading gasp, but he did not yield.

He held her firmly as he increased the intensity, pushing her further, deeper, to the very edge of sanity.

And when he finally felt her break—when her body tensed under his touch and his name fell from her lips in a shuddering whisper—he lingered a moment longer, savoring her, prolonging her descent until there was nothing left of her but a trembling form in his hands.

He rose slowly, his mouth still glistening with the evidence of his recklessness. His eyes burned as they met hers, still half-lidded with pleasure, her parted lips struggling to catch her breath.

"Now we're even," he murmured, his voice rough, dangerous.

But when his fingers once again traced the sensitive skin of her thigh, when his smirk darkened into something wicked and knowing, she realized—he was far from finished with her.

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talaok · 2 years ago

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Like a Virgin

Pairing: Joel Miller x reader

summary: It's been a really long time since Joel has felt the feel of anything else besides his own fist, and once you remind him how good the real thing is... let's just say it's hard for him to live up to his full potential.

warnings: smut| unprotected p in v sex, premature ejaculation, very touch-starved Joel, and allusion to oral sex (f receiving)

a/n: I don't know what to say lmao this is a thing for me ok, don't judge (and also you can't tell me this isn't accurate, like this man hasn't gotten laid since the moon landing probably, and you expect him to last? no way babe). Also I'm sorry about the title it's funny to me lol

Now this wasn't like him.

He hadn't done this in a long time.

The last time he had sex with a woman he'd just met (or any woman to be completely honest) he was 25 years younger and the world hadn't gone to shit yet... so yeah, a long time indeed.

But you were so fucking beautiful, such a pretty face with such pretty eyes, and god but that mouth of yours-

And plus you were new to Jackson, you didn't know yet about all the scary stories folks liked to tell about him, and you were kind and funny, and... did he mention hot already?

Just one night of letting loose, that's what he'd told himself, and then he was gonna go back to his old closed-off self, but for now... for now, he was too busy throwing you on his bed to think about anything else.

You were getting rid of your clothes and he followed your lead more than willingly, almost ripping the buttons off his flannel in the rush.

He bent down to kiss your neck as his hands hurried to your tits.

God, he'd forgotten how good it felt to touch a woman.

And when you let out a little whimper, he swore he had ascended to another universe.

"Joel please"

Fuck him, but he wasn't inside of you yet, and he was already feeling far too close to coming.

Guess fucking his own fist for two decades really does something to a man.

"need something?"

He was acting wayy too smug for someone who was feeling like a virgin all over again.

"Please- I need you inside me, Joel"

fucking damnit- he shouldn't have asked that, his dick was now really suffering the consequences.

He didn't risk saying anything else as he got rid of his boxers, but of course, you just had to come out and say:

"oh wow, you're big" with the sexiest fucking voice he'd ever heard.

"want me to stop?"

For some reason, those words elicited a criminally hot smirk on your lips

"Definitely not"

You were looking at him like a starving woman and he had to look down to where he was moving his tip to your entrance to get away from you and your dangerous, dangerous gaze

He pushed into you slowly and god fucking damnit but the sounds that you made... those sweet little moans and whines you let out as your warm pussy stretched around him and hugged him better than anything he'd felt in years... he had no words for it- no coherent sounds could make it out of his mouth except for a few groans coming deep from his chest.

"Good christ"

that's the only thing he managed to murmur as he bottomed out and had to take a break to try not to bust his load right there.

"fuck you feel so good" you moaned, as your hands gripped his sheets "please move" you begged, your voice breathy and pleading, and godfuck he should have really thought about it before doing this.

"Joel please-"

"I just need a moment darlin'" he explained, closing his eyes to try and remember how he used to manage to last and coming up completely empty.

He could feel your expectant eyes on him so even if he sure as hell didn't feel ready, he did as you asked and started to move.

The regret reached him extraordinarily fast as he felt your walls tightening around him and as you cried out for him like an angel sent straight from heaven.

"fuck-" you moaned, looking up at him with doe eyes that made him wonder if you really just knew what you were doing, if you actually enjoyed torturing him like this

"god you're so deep"

Yeah, you definitely knew

"and so big-" you cried

He gripped your waist to try and ground himself as he thrusted into your fucking perfect cunt.

"oh my god-yes!" you moaned, your back arching from the bed as his thrust got harsher in the hopes that that would make you talk less.

"just like that Joel- oh-"

And Joel was tough in a lot of ways and he wasn't one to give up easily, but shit you were making it hard for him.

"Please don't stop- fuckfuckfuck" you begged, shutting your eyes close at the feeling.

And that was it, he couldn't do it anymore

"please stop talking" he breathed, his eyes resuming their tour of your eyes, mouth, and bouncing tits.

"why?"

"nothing it's just-"

And before he could answer you had grabbed his shoulder and forced him to bend down to meet your mouth with his.

Goddamnit.

"you just feel too good Joel"

"fuck." he groaned, not able to stop his hips from moving no matter how much he wanted to "shit"

"what is it?"

"Jesus Christ I-"

"is there something wrong?"

"n-no just- fuck I'm sorry sweetheart"

And that's all he could say as he abruptly pulled out of you, his spend covering your stomach not even a second after as he growled so loud his neighbors probably thought he was getting killed.

"shit" again, he sighed, his forehead falling to your shoulder.

"oh" you couldn't help but smile as everything came together

"I'm sorry darlin'" he breathed, leaning away and standing up as shame filled every inch of him.

"It's just- It's been a long time since I've done... this"

You sat up, your legs still dangling off the bed, as you admired his handy work on your belly.

"And you... you're just real fucking pretty" he huffed a half-laugh "I'm sorry"

You looked up at him then, meeting his mortified expression.

"No hey" you smiled, placing a hand on his torso "It's fine, I understand"

"god this is embarrassing, I feel like a sixteen-year-old all over again" he shook his head

"stop" you cooed, gently caressing his skin, as a mischievous spark lighted in your irides "It's fine, really" you promised, "and besides..." you bit your bottom lip as you slowly spread your legs "you could still make it up to me, y'know?"

He groaned again, falling to his knees between your thighs

"that I can do"

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yokumirumerafan · 3 months ago

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*Descending from the sky to the ground while spinning* HII‼️ SHRIMP HERE 🦐 , I randomly have a random request in my mind. So what's the KNY characters reaction after getting slapped by Y/N and then Y/N kisses them after that❓ KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK‼️‼️‼️‼️⭐⭐ SHRIMP OUT‼️ *Starts ascending up the sky*

📌 Post Info Characters Included: Hashira (Rengoku, Giyuu, Shinobu, Sanemi, Obanai, Tengen, Muichiro, Gyomei, Mitsuri) Main Trio + Genya (Tanjiro, Zenitsu, Inosuke, Genya) Upper Moons + Muzan (Kokushibo, Doma, Akaza, Gyutaro, Kaigaku, Hantengu & Clones) AUs Used: Canon-Compliant Short Summary: Y/N suddenly slaps the characters across the face—only to immediately follow up with a kiss! How do they react? Shock, confusion, anger, or maybe even flustered acceptance? Their reactions range from stunned silence to dramatic breakdowns!

Demon Slayer Characters React to Y/N Slapping Them… and Then Kissing Them

🔥 Hashira Reactions

Rengoku Kyojuro 🔥

“AH! A test of strength and love! I admire your passion, Y/N!”

Takes the slap like a champ, barely flinches.

Blinks in surprise when you kiss him.

Smiles brightly and laughs, thinking it’s some kind of affectionate battle ritual.

Might ask for another slap just for fun.

Tomioka Giyuu 🌊

Stares at you with his usual blank face after the slap.

Internally wondering what he did wrong.

When you kiss him, he freezes completely.

“...Why?” (Processing.exe has crashed.)

Will think about this moment for the next 10 years.

Kocho Shinobu 🦋

Immediately tilts her head, smiling.

“Oh my, Y/N, was that your way of showing love? How adorable.”

The slap didn’t even hurt; she’s more intrigued than anything.

Kisses you back teasingly.

Will absolutely use this against you forever.

Shinazugawa Sanemi 💨

“THE HELL WAS THAT FOR?!”

Immediate yelling.

Face red for two reasons: anger and embarrassment.

When you kiss him right after, he just short-circuits.

“Wha— I— Damn it… Just warn me next time, idiot.”

Iguro Obanai 🐍

Genuinely offended at first.

Stares at you, gripping Kaburamaru tightly.

But the second you kiss him, he flinches and looks away.

“What are you playing at?” (Trying to hide his blush.)

Secretly enjoyed it but will never admit it.

Uzui Tengen ✨

Throws his head back dramatically.

“How flashy of you to be so bold!”

Laughs loudly and immediately picks you up.

“Such passion! Such unpredictability! I LOVE IT!”

Kisses you back ten times over.

Tokito Muichiro ☁️

Blinks in confusion.

“Why did you hit me?”

Doesn’t really react much until you kiss him.

Then he just tilts his head. “Oh. I see. Strange.”

Forgets about it 10 minutes later but now randomly kisses you whenever.

Kanroji Mitsuri 💕

“EH?! Y/N-CHAN?!”

Hands fly to her face as she stares at you in shock.

When you kiss her, she turns into a puddle of emotions.

“Y-Y-YOU’RE SO MEAN BUT SO CUTE I CAN’T HANDLE THIS!!”

Will dramatically fall over like a lovestruck heroine.

Himejima Gyomei 🛕

Doesn't even react to the slap (man’s built like a rock).

Just gently turns his head towards you, tears forming.

“Was that… necessary?”

The kiss makes him pause, and he lets out a deep sigh.

“Ah… I see. You are a very passionate person, Y/N.” (Still crying.)

🎴 Main Trio + Genya Reactions

Tanjiro Kamado 🌊

“Y/N! Did I do something wrong? I’m sorry!”

Instantly apologizing even though he has no clue why he got slapped.

When you kiss him, his brain short-circuits.

Redder than a tomato.

“W-Was that a test? Oh! Was it a prank? No? Then—” (Overanalyzes for hours.)

Zenitsu Agatsuma ⚡

Falls to the ground dramatically.

“I THOUGHT YOU LOVED ME, Y/N-CHAN, WHY?!”

Full dramatic sobbing.

When you kiss him, he immediately revives.

“AH! SO YOU DO LOVE ME! I FORGIVE YOU!” (Clings to you like a koala.)

Inosuke Hashibira 🐗

“GAHAHA! YOU WANNA FIGHT, Y/N? LET’S GO!”

100% thinks the slap is a challenge.

But the second you kiss him, he freezes, eyes wide.

Stares at you like you just turned into a demon.

“...WHA… WHY DID YOU LICK MY FACE?!” (He thinks kisses are just weird licks.)

Genya Shinazugawa 🔥

Instantly angry. “OI, WHAT THE HELL?!”

But when you kiss him, his face burns red.

“I— TCH— DAMN IT—” (Too flustered to function.)

Genuinely doesn’t know how to react.

Sulks for an hour, but secretly loved it.

👹 Upper Moons + Muzan Reactions

Muzan Kibutsuji 🩸

Turns to you slowly with the most dangerous aura.

“Did you just… put your filthy hands on me?”

When you kiss him right after, he stops.

Processing… Processing… REBOOT FAILED.

“Hmph. Next time, try begging instead.” (Acts unaffected but is secretly weak for you.)

Kokushibo 🌙

His eyes glow ominously.

“Explain yourself.”

When you kiss him, his brows furrow, but he says nothing.

Internally: “…I will never understand humans.”

Later that night, he lowkey thinks about it and sighs.

Doma ❄️

Gasps dramatically.

“Y/N-CHAN, HOW COULD YOU~?!”

Pretends to be mortally wounded.

The kiss makes him laugh. “Ohhh, so that’s how you show love! Do it again~”

Clings to you for the rest of the day.

Akaza 👊

“HEY! WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!”

Genuinely offended.

But when you kiss him, he just stops and stares at you.

…Looks away with a soft “Tch.” (Is now embarrassed.)

“Next time, just ask for a spar instead.” (Secretly flustered.)

Gyutaro 🦠

“Oi… What’s yer problem?” (Kinda sad about it.)

When you kiss him right after, he freezes.

Completely malfunctions.

“Tch— d-don’t mess wit’ me like that…!” (His ears are red.)

Will be overthinking for the next 3 weeks.

Kaigaku ⚡

“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!”

Immediately on the defensive.

But the kiss? Yeah, now he’s malfunctioning.

Crosses his arms, looking away. “Tch. You’re lucky you’re cute.”

Hantengu Clones 😱

Hantengu: SCREAMS IN FEAR

Sekido: “I’LL KILL YOU!”

Karaku: “Hehe~ do it again~”

Urogi: “YOU’RE SO FUN!”

Aizetsu: “That was so cruel…” (Sad boi.)

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citronverveine · 11 months ago

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when you think about it, tgcf really wouldn’t have the same impact if xie lian didn’t cultivate through abstinence.

it’s funny because it’s not even relevant to the core of the plot itself; xie lian never uses his cultivation as a reason to stay away from hua cheng. he only reminds the reader of it when he drinks wine, which is pretty irrelevant anyway. but if it doesn’t impact his relationship with hua cheng then it must serve another purpose, otherwise it wouldn’t be here, because things in fiction don’t exist just for the sake of existing.

xie lian abstaining from earthly pleasures fits into the narrative of control, expectations, and divinity, the transcendance of his mortal body.

xie lian’s goal, very early on, is to become a god. and what are gods? above mortals. or that’s what everyone thinks, but not xie lian, not entirely at least. xie lian views godhood as a means to serve the people, not being above them. this is why he doesn’t think kneeling before gods is right, and why he doesn’t want his believers to kneel.

obviously, very few people agree with him and tell him how his godhood should be, even his own believers who think it’s stupid to not kneel before a god.

xie lian always saw godhood as a tool, and his body as a tool to reach godhood. xie lian is self-sacrificing in nature, and even if at first he doesn’t really know how much it takes, it reaches extremes once he is forced to self-sacrifice for a hundred people at once.

during that time, xie lian’s body and autonomy was taken from him. “this is what you want? then take it.” it makes it seem as though it was his choice. he wanted to help, so he got to help, he should be happy, right?

i often wondered why xie lian didn’t just say to hell with it and broke his cultivation through his eight hundred years of banishment. not once, as far as we know, does he willingly break it completely and irreversibly, even though he is shackled, even though he doesn’t even actively cultivate anymore.

i think it’s about control. during that time xie lian had very little control over his life.

godhood is about repressing your human traits. when he was a god, xie lian was asked not to care, not to intervene, not to help. he was asked to sit back and watch as his people suffered, as his kingdom threatened to fall. he couldn’t.

that’s why he couldn’t be a god. he realized that himself after almost releasing the resentful spirits on Yong’an. he ascended and asked to get bannished once again. all of what he did was too human, from start to finish, and he would never be fit for a god.

his cultivation was the third and last shackle, self-imposed from the start. the first shackle bound his spiritual power, the second his luck, and the third one his cultivation, asking him to repress his humanity.

this is why it’s important that xie lian makes the choice of breaking his cultivation for hua cheng. it’s an obvious choice when you understand all of this. hua cheng gave xie lian his autonomy back by letting him be himself and making his own choices, and trusting him with them. never did he doubt xie lian, never did he tell him what to do, even when he had his own opinion on the matter. hua cheng lets xie lian be. while supporting him through it all. he’s always behind him, no matter what happens, no matter whether xie lian does good or bad, he’ll always be there to catch him regardless of what he does, because he is there for who he is. he’s xie lian. he’s human. it doesn’t matter that he’s a god, a prince, a scrap collector, a curse.

and because xie lian has finally found someone who accepts him as a whole, can he finally let himself be whole and let go of the control he has on his body. he doesn’t have to hold back. he doesn’t have to try. he can indulge. he can be human. he can want. he can love. he can hurt. he can cry. he can laugh.

tl;dr: xie lian, once aware he has someone that will accept him, the whole of him, can finally let go of any artificial control on his self to fit in what the world expects of him

#tgcf #tgcf meta #tgcf thoughts #xie lian #mxtx #tgcf xie lian #mxtx tgcf #tgcf analysis #tgcf novel #tgcf spoilers #mine #wrote this so long ago it’s been sitting in the drafts

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thankskenpenders · 2 years ago

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Amy's fortune cards

The Sonic fandom has long been the kind of fandom that takes minor details very seriously, for better or worse. On the one hand, this means fans will really dig for the diamonds in the rough, latching onto fun character interactions, animations, bits of background worldbuilding, and more in pieces of Sonic media that many would write off as "the bad ones." But it also feels like every week another needlessly hostile debate over Sonic minutia erupts on Twitter, whether it's over individual lines of dialogue, fanart that makes Tails' shoes blue, or the ideal length and volume for Sonic's quills.

So it was probably inevitable that a fandom-wide debate would erupt upon seeing Amy's new gameplay style in the DLC for Sonic Frontiers, which takes the once-obscure fact that she enjoys reading tarot and shines a spotlight on it like never before.

I mean:

The thing is, while I basically always try to tune out Sonic fandom bickering... for once, I kind of sympathize with the detractors? Don't get me wrong, I like Amy's tarot stuff, and people on all sides of the discussion are being overly nasty about their opinions, as usual. (Sonic Twitter remains my personal hell.) But when I set aside the hyperbole and zoom out, I do think I understand why some fans are put off by the sudden shift in focus for the character, even if I think it's cool.

It's complicated. Let me attempt to present the cases for and against Amy's fortune cards

For years, I was always one of those fans who thought it could be fun if they played with Amy's tarot reading, or even leaned into some kind of magic with her. Part of that is my own biases showing, but there's just something that makes sense there, especially when you look at Sonic, Tails, and Amy as a trio. (I would argue that's the real "Team Sonic" these days, especially in the comics where Knuckles is more likely to be stuck on Angel Island or otherwise doing his own thing.)

You could argue that Tails is all about logic, relying on science and technology and deductive reasoning to solve problems. But Amy is all about emotion. She wears her heart on her sleeve, is extremely empathetic, and is very prone to magical thinking - both figuratively and sometimes literally. Her origin story has always been that her tarot cards told her it was her destiny to meet Sonic on Little Planet. She's claimed to be able to "sense" peoples' presences - particularly Sonic's. She's the type to believe that The Power of Love is a literal magical force. So, on some level, it makes sense to mirror Tails's science by having Sonic's other best friend believe in magic. And then Sonic is somewhere in the middle, primarily following his own gut instincts but taking advice from both of them as needed. This isn't totally accurate to how their dynamics actually function in canon stories, but I think it's a mode that could work for them.

Going off of that, it's fun to lean all the way into Amy being a magical girl, or even a witch, using her fortune telling as a foundation. Take, for example, this version of Amy from Diana Skelly's old Sonic cast redesigns from before she freelanced for Archie and IDW. This is one of MANY such redesigns for Amy.

Fast forward to the 2020s, and Amy's tarot cards are, in fact, finally getting brought up again in canon. Which is fun! I like seeing that. I like all of the individual stories involving Amy's fortune cards. This is a fun character trait for Amy, a fun nod to old lore, AND a fun storytelling device, all in one. It's really cool that the Sonic universe has its own thematically appropriate arcana, and that the cards are getting made as physical merch. And sure enough, the official card backs and borders were designed by none other than Diana Skelly, in yet another cool example of an ascendant fan leaving their mark on the series.

BUT... when you step back and look at the big picture, I get why some fans find this shift in focus jarring. At the moment, it's starting to feel like every new story about Amy involves her fortune cards to some degree.

The most recent mainline comic arc to feature Amy as the lead character, 2021's Trial by Fire arc, prominently features a sequence where she reads fortunes while camping with the girls. The Origins version of Sonic CD now bookends the game with scenes of Amy and her tarot cards. Sonic randomly mentioned it in a scene in Frontiers. And now, just this week, we got the (very cute, gorgeously illustrated) Amy's 30th Anniversary comic with a story revolving around Amy's tarot cards, followed the very next day by the Frontiers DLC in which she gets a brand new tarot-based moveset. Even her base melee attack now has her throwing tarot cards instead of swinging her hammer. Again, I like all of these individual things, but after years of it almost never coming up at all, it's VERY noticeable that Amy's tarot cards are suddenly everywhere.

To be fair, I'm looking at this from the perspective of a superfan who's actively following ALL Sonic media. Casual fans - especially kids - aren't necessarily going to be reading the comics every month, buying the thousandth rerelease of the Genesis games, or playing the ultra-hard new alternate ending DLC for a game that came out last year. Each of these stories is going to be someone's introduction to the idea that Amy can read tarot, and that's probably part of the idea behind this unified push.

But to play devil's advocate, for my fellow superfans, I understand why it feels like a very minor footnote of Amy's character is suddenly becoming the entire focus of her personality. While Amy has always been said to enjoy fortune telling, that wasn't really a character trait in and of itself, but rather an example of her being a typical girl who hopes she'll be able to find true love one day. It's less that Amy can literally predict the future and more like her using a cootie catcher or going "he loves me, he loves me not" while picking the petals off of a flower. So I get not vibing with this stuff, or feeling like it's being pushed very hard out of nowhere.

What I don't agree with are comparisons like "it's like if they made Knuckles' moveset revolve around him liking grapes." Like, I get it. Ian Flynn loves shoehorning in his little winking references for us nerds, and mentions of Amy's tarot cards were previously on the same level as other random bullet points from old Japanese manuals. But a multifaceted hobby like fortune telling that opens up so many narrative and aesthetic possibilities is obviously very different from having a favorite food. It's ALWAYS been a part of her story, not just a random fact, and there's no reason why the fortune telling can't be elevated to something more.

And, hell, even if it wasn't an established character trait, there's nothing inherently wrong with injecting new ideas into a character. One of the best Amy stories in recent years, the Free Comic Book Day special "Amy's New Hobby" written by Gale Galligan, came up with the idea that Amy's secretly been drawing little comics about her and her friends. Is this based on Lore? No. But it's cute, and helps tell the story of a younger Amy who's still coming out of her shell as both a hero and a friend.

Certain fans are also looking at Amy's Frontiers moveset and using it as evidence that once again the Vile American Contributors like Ian are CORRUPTING Sonic Team's perfect vision of Sonic with their misinterpretations. And like. Come on. Ian does not control the gameplay. He's a freelance writer. The tarot stuff is clearly something that Sonic Team likes if they made it the basis of Amy's new moveset - and, you know, if they keep approving comics and animations about Amy's fortune telling. None of this gets made without their blessing, and lord knows how much they can micromanage shit and shoot down ideas over the most minor of details.

Like, yeah, Amy's fortune telling was probably conceived less as a sign that she Knows Magic and more as a pretty mundane hobby for a lovesick young Japanese girl to have. But you're gonna sit there and tell me that using Amy's tarot cards for more than that could only be the result of a cultural misunderstanding? That nobody in Japan uses tarot card theming and aesthetics (or the general idea of magical cards) for the cool factor? Stardust Crusaders? Persona? The Astrologian class in FFXIV? Cardcaptor Sakura?? Hello??? Do you think Capcom put Gambit in Marvel vs. Capcom ironically because they thought using magic to throw cards at people was stupid? There's tons of precedent for this! It's nothing like Knuckles throwing grapes at people, be for real.

Giving Amy a very magical girl-esque moveset also just makes a lot of sense. For decades her hammer attacks have literally made sparkly heart shapes appear around her. Leaning into both that and her tarot cards in her new moveset makes a lot of sense to me.

But, admittedly... I do think it's very odd that her hammer is treated as a secondary element here, rather than having her primarily use her hammer and adding the cards for extra flair. If hitting the attack button made her swing her hammer instead of throwing cards, I'm not sure we'd even be having this discussion right now.

But the tarot-cycle and Amy riding her hammer like a witch's broom are fucking SICK and I will not concede on this point

The thing is, this whole fortune card discourse is but a small piece of a bigger problem. Amy's been a character who needed some work for ages, but there's basically nothing you can do with her without pissing SOMEONE off.

Years of stories where Amy's crush was her primary motivator and Sonic went "Ew, cooties!" have lead many casual fans to believe that being Sonic's obsessive fangirl is Amy's entire personality. At best people might call her Sonic's Minnie Mouse. This isn't just a matter of Amy having haters within the fandom - venture outside of that bubble and you'll realize that this is how MOST video game playing people seem to see her to this day. I don't feel like this is a fair assessment of the character, but this idea didn't come from nowhere. No matter how much good deeply entrenched Sonic fans may see in their old dynamic where Amy perpetually chases Sonic, this is a very real problem that Sonic Team has to contend with for their leading girl. Of course all those games where the way-past-cool protagonist thought Amy was annoyingly clingy and tried to get away from her made people think less of her.

If new stories were to go back to emphasizing Amy's crush on Sonic a little more, they'd probably be taken as confirmation that Amy's just the girl with a crush on Sonic and that this is her entire personality. Conversely, when the crush is played down, you piss off the hardcore SonAmy fans who don't seem to understand that they're Charlie Brown and Sega is Lucy holding the football. You can't win.

And so here we are. In the absence of what was once her defining trait, now reduced to an occasional blush or wink in Sonic's direction, new stories are trying to mine Amy's past for additional material to work with. Having been a thing fans wanted to see for years, right now we're getting a lot of tarot, but we're also getting reminders of her compassionate nature and her desire to go out of her way to help the little guy. This is an ongoing process. I continue to hope that her bubbly, exuberant demeanor can shine more in future stories. Now, I also hope that the tarot stuff gets balanced out a little better with other traits of hers. But I don't want it to go away. I think it's fun.

This course correcting is far from exclusive to Amy. Knuckles is getting stories that remind us that he's a competent fighter, an experienced treasure hunter, and even a self-taught archaeologist after years of him being perceived as either the dumb one or just the guy who stands in front of the Master Emerald all day. And Tails has been getting some stories reminding folks that he's a capable hero in his own right and not just Sonic's timid kid sidekick.

But no supporting character will ever compete with the sheer number of new ideas Sega has tried with Sonic himself. Like Amy, his Frontiers moveset has also given him half a dozen new superpowers that he never had before, from the Cyloop to air-slicing projectile attacks to his own take on Shadow Clone Jutsu and beyond. He's also been a hoverboarder, a swordsman, a time traveler, an Olympic athlete, a racecar driver, cursed with a Flame of Judgment, imbued with alien power, a fucking Werehog with stretchy powers, and on and on and on.

If Sonic can do all that, Amy can try out using a tarot-cycle.

Anyway TL;DR the REAL problem with Amy's current characterization... is where the FUCK is Amy's bestie, Honey the Cat???????

#tkp post

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cellarspider · 3 months ago

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Star Wars: The Old Republic and the virtues of hiding under a rock

After all the fun I had writing a deep dive on the delightfully unhinged decision-making process that gave everyone in the Sith Empire equal opportunity to shoot lightning out of their fingertips, I decided hey, why not do another post on Sith-side stuff? Why not focus on another aspect of how The Old Republic's backstory set up for the players to run around being special little guys?

Welcome to the Chiss Ascendancy, which really would rather not be here, thank you.

Spoilers for the Imperial Agent plotline, Act 2 of the Bounty Hunter plotline, Act 1 and 3 of the Jedi Knight plotline, and for the expansions up through the Traitor Among The Chiss flashpoint storyline, set just after the Knights of the Eternal Throne expansion. Also, spoilers for a 30 year old novel series, and bits of current canon. Assume all links to Wookieepedia may include unmarked spoilers for anything and everything under the sun.

Also, many, many side rambles in the picture descriptions. As soon as I realized they were a place I could hide secret bits of brain fluff, I could not be contained.

So, for a little out-of-setting backstory first: The Ascendancy is in SWTOR for one reason. If you're a Star Wars fan, you probably know his name by now. You might even be able to pronounce all of it: Grand Admiral Thrawn, known to his own people as Mitth'raw'nuruodo.

Thrawn was a breakout character from the early Star Wars tie-in Heir to the Empire trilogy by Timothy Zahn, which you can see reflected in the increasing amount of cover space he takes up on each re-release. Zahn may not have totally intended for Thrawn to be the character everybody latched onto so hard—I mean, it was originally the Heir to the Empire trilogy, but it's officially the Thrawn Trilogy now. Which makes it confusing, because Zahn has since written two other trilogies that actually star Thrawn as a main character rather than having him as the main antagonist.

Credit really has to go to Zahn for his work on those books, because despite his occasional insistence to the contrary, they revitalized Star Wars as a fandom. It had been seven years since Return of the Jedi came out, and there'd been nothing since then. George Lucas had been pretty burnt out after RoTJ, and the idea of a multimedia franchise wasn't all that common at the time. There'd been Marvel-produced comics, the West End Games RPG sourcebooks, a few tie-in novels, and a boatload of action figures, but all of those save for the West End Games books were produced to market the movies themselves, or directly profit off of their recent release.

All of these were of variable quality and "Star Wars-y" feel. The Marvel comics brought us such incredible things as a carnivorous green rabbit fighting alongside the main cast, and a couple wild comics by Alan Moore where Leia gets her heart turned to diamond by omnipotent Force spirits. The Splinter of the Mind's Eye novel was written while A New Hope was still in production before George Lucas had decided Luke and Leia were siblings, and you can really tell. Zahn, however, helped by the the West End Games books as a worldbuilding reference, did some stellar work integrating his writing into the Star Wars setting, while simultaneously shaping what fans would think of as a good Star Wars outing for years to come. Hell, some of his inventions made their way back into the movies: the name Coruscant is his. But Thrawn is what most people think of as his big contribution.

And it's for good reason! Thrawn is a memorable antagonist. He's smarter than the imperial officers depicted in the movies. He's able to outmaneuver the heroes on multiple occasions. He's got a unique gimmick that dovetails with the Imperial mindset—while the rest of the Empire utterly disdains foreign cultures, Thrawn takes an Orientalist interest in others' art, using it to build theories of a person or culture's psychology to use against them in war. In fact, as we will see repeated in SWTOR, his original role and his people are often used to represent a less obnoxious, more outwardly reasonable sort of imperial behavior.

He's also a cool-looking blue-skinned, red-eyed alien, later revealed to be from a culture of subterranean xenophobes with complex noble house dramas, among whom he's considered to be an outlier. Through all of this, he overshadowed other characters who may have been intended as the center of attention.

What's really funny is that the very next year, D&D would get Drizzt Do'Urden, a character who unexpectedly overshadowed the others in his series who'd been the intended center of attention, who was a cool-looking gray-skinned, red-eyed drow, from a culture of subterranean xenophobes with complex noble house dramas, among whom he's considered an outlier.

I don't know what precisely was in the zeitgeist in the early 90s, but apparently it was just a time for cool guys who grew up in caves.

It's probably similar fandom tendencies that have made both the Chiss and Drow big players in people's imaginations. Anecdotally, I'm one of those fans. You grow up liking elves, but you also became kind of a goth about it, maybe had a bit of an edgelord phase. You wanted cool elves. Possibly cool elves in space.

Apparently there was a critical mass of folks at Bioware who also were on board with cool elves in space, so they made their way into SWTOR, originally only playable for a couple of Sith-aligned classes. If you were to summarize their narrative role in a single sentence: they collectively act much as Thrawn did, providing a calmer, more collected, largely amoral presence that's peripheral to the overall setting narrative, but provides more substance to the villains.

If one were to take it less seriously, the Chiss end up as the serious side of an evil comedy duo. They are the deadpan comedic foil to the lightning-shooting madmen and their minions, the most obnoxiously british military to ever sail the stars.

So, let's dig into the Chiss a little. You kind of have to, given the "underground city" thing. Details around Chiss history and even biology have not remained fixed as canon has undergone its various convolutions, but it's generally theorized that they were the result of a genetically isolated human colony established on Csilla many thousands of years ago, which has since evolved into a near-human species, often with higher physical fitness than human average, but lower chance of spawning somebody with a Force-y destiny for whatever reason. When hyperspace travel became common, their region of space was discovered to be nigh-impenetrable due to a high concentration of wandering gravitational anomalies, which could turn your ship into an interesting collection of relativistic scrap metal.

This means that the "Unknown Regions" in the galactic west remained largely unexplored by the Galactic Republic, and local powers had to develop their own means of navigating the region. This suited the Chiss just fine, because they really, really don't like hanging out with other people.

The Chiss Ascendancy is a major power in the Unknown Regions, and it's highly isolationist, xenophobic, and authoritarian. A Secret Police force helps maintain internal adherence to the Chiss power structure. The average Chiss citizen in the Star Wars setting will never meet a non-Chiss in their entire life. That is, unless, they're stationed in the Chiss Expansionary Defense Force.

That's a hell of a name right there.

The CEDF takes an imperial pattern of national defense and turns it into doctrine: they never attack first. But if someone pokes the Ascendancy, the Defense Fleet will respond, and they'll make sure the poker can never poke again. But the Expansionary Fleet will scout out areas on their frontier, so, y'know, good luck to anybody who happens to be living there.

Within the Ascendancy, a rotating cast of Ruling Families run the government, noble houses that generally specialize in specific industries, space sectors, or resources. Most of the best positions go to those born into one of these houses, but a common Chiss can theoretically become a "merit adoptive", basically a probationary house member that can eventually become "trial-born" into the house proper, possibly achieving a status of "ranking distant". That is, unless you're found to be Force-sensitive, which during the SWTOR time period would either get you exiled, or you'd spend your life on Force-suppressing drugs.

This culture is, it should be noted again, not presented as nice or right by Timothy Zahn or SWTOR, though getting into the heads of Chiss characters can make it seem very sympathetic from their perspective.

Especially when SWTOR's backstory rolls around, and the Ascendancy had the misfortune of being "discovered" by the Sith Empire.

This led to a rather surprising pivot in Ascendancy policy: upon getting a whiff of what the Sith were about, their response was "Fantastic! Let's be friends," and swiftly negotiated a treaty to become a vassal state to the Empire, in exchange for the Empire leaving them the fuck alone.

Zahn's novels in the current Star Wars canon allude to this as a time that the movie-era Chiss are not exactly fans of, but it has an undeniable logic. The Sith are, frankly, out of their collective minds. They're also really focused on beating the snot out of the Jedi and the Republic, and they'll roll over anyone who gets in their way. Or might seem to be in their way. Or might, given the right paranoid squinting, one day maybe get in their way.

And given the Chiss and Sith tendencies toward similar, albeit factually incompatible politics around somebody being the most special thing in the universe, the two factions had enough in common to make the deal work. At least, up until the inevitable day when the Sith would presumably try and take a swat at the Chiss. This was a delaying tactic to defend the Ascendancy against an invasion from "Lesser Space", nothing more.

One might ask, if they're worried about the Sith, why not ally with the Republic? Well, there's two issues. One, the Republic doesn't have a damn clue where the Chiss are, and the Chiss want to keep it that way. The Empire has some clue where the Chiss are. That's more clues than the Chiss want anyone but themselves to have, really.

And furthermore, the Republic isn't really a better option from the Chiss perspective. It's an alien government, largely run by more of those weird Humans that are all over the Empire as well. Its history shows periods of aggressive colonization and expansion, and, the Sith would be very quick to tell anybody, the Republic sometimes decides to just completely obliterate their foes. Do the Chiss also do that? Yes, but they're Chiss, dammit, they're allowed.

So really, the ideal outcome for the Chiss would be that the Empire and the Republic beat each other senseless, with the Empire eventually imploding and the Republic never finding out where the Ascendancy is at all.

As Star Wars will eventually bear out, that's what happened. The Sith Empire falls apart at some point past SWTOR's time period. And in fact, the Republic would eventually go on to implode twice before anyone in the wider galaxy remembered that Chiss existed, when that funny little guy named Thrawn showed up. So, the Chiss might be the only ones who technically achieved their goals with this whole fiasco. How did they pull that off? And how funny is it to watch someone turn imperial chauvinism on the Sith Empire? The answers are: improbably, and extremely.

Throughout the initial war between the Empire and the Republic, the Chiss served as an unseen aid to the Sith. They provided resources and covert services, but they were utterly unknown to the Republic. They were also making moves unbeknownst to the Empire—if they were going to be breaking their usual isolationism, well, why not take up some territory that nobody else wanted while nobody else was looking? And even when they did let the Empire know they were on a planet, they didn't actually tell them where, or how many. Because really, the Empire wasn't too jazzed about somewhere like Hoth. But the Chiss? With a frozen homeworld, their cities dug deep into the glaciers and bedrock? Perfect! Just like home, but with more wampas. They built a sizeable forward base there, and kept that to themselves for decades.

In fact, if confronted about the existence of the base by an Imperial agent, the man in charge of the base will respond "Our presence here is legal, based on all existing treaties. The fact that you never noticed us is immaterial."

Lol. lmao, even.

By the time we get to Hoth in SWTOR, that base is still secret, but there's a sizeable CEDF detachment that are embedded with the Imperial forces on Hoth. And it's a decent little slice of folks, at least within the EDF. You get a whole range of people, from utter jerks like Warden Khel who tries to detain precious Jawa angel Blizz, to well-liked and respected commanders like Captains Yunaali and Yudrass, the later of whom has to patiently deal with the dumbest white man in existence.

Yudrass is also interesting for a further reason: his voice actor Tony Armatrading was from a British Afro-Caribbean background, and his accent comes through in his performance. In the context where the Empire is firmly Evil Space Wizard Britain, the accents of the Chiss stand out. They're a much more heterogenous mix. Yudrass speaks fluent Basic, but some of the others don't. One speaks Huttese, because he was originally assigned to the Outer Rim and hasn't had the chance to pick up a further language since then. A few speak limited Basic, best illustrated by the guy who gives a delightfully unenthusiastic response to finding out a non-Chiss player character has survived an attack by Imperial traitors: "You're still alive. Huh."

Hoth is also a fantastic place for turning around the chauvinism back on the Imperials, if you're playing as a Chiss. You can summarily ignore human officers in favor of engaging with their Chiss subordinates. You can work to have Yudrass promoted, both because of his competence and because you transparently don't like the other guy's face. You can privilege information gathered by the CEDF, because obviously they don't deal in bad intel. If you're playing an Imperial Agent, you can end up siding with the Chiss so comprehensively that you become a merit-adoptive of a Ruling Family. You can even reveal that you were never earnestly working for the Empire at all.

On the other side of the war, It's unclear when the Republic learns about the Chiss. Probably at some point during the quagmire over Hoth, but they're never thought of as a major player. Nobody in the Republic off Hoth really mentions them. They're treated with extreme suspicion, with a couple lines that are pretty eyebrow-raising. A Chiss defector dies while trying to trade information for asylum, and a Republic major responds to the news with "It's just as well. I'm not sure the men really wanted a Chiss hanging around here." Yikes, my dude.

Still, with their presence revealed, the Chiss seem to have slowly started taking more active roles liaising with the Imperial military, working in Imperial space, or even joining Imperial organizations. This begins as projects by the Ruling Families and other prominent Houses, but individual Chiss also started taking swings at making it in Lesser Space. Some of them may have been average Chiss trying to get ahead outside of the traditional Ascendancy power structure, and some of them might never have fit in well back home in the first place.

This is, for the record, why Chiss are a playable option for the Bounty Hunter class. It's not often remarked on though, and Bounty Hunters don't get much Chiss-specific dialog options.

And it's not like bounty hunters or Chiss are exactly welcomed in Imperial space, though. After all, the Empire has their blood purity laws and all that, if you're a non-human or non-Pureblood, you're constantly subjected to microaggressions and, frankly, macroaggressions. Possibly even megaaggressions. They'd never let Chiss near positions of power, or access to their secrets.

People who've played already know where this is going. And any curious souls who read my last post may recall a really odd evil space wizard gimp who decided he did not give one single fuck about those blood purity laws.

Darth Jadus, blessed maniac that he is, opened Imperial Intelligence to alien recruitment with all the political grace he was known for, which was none, with a side order of self-aware cultic rambling: Everyone should have equal opportunity to access the misery that is the Empire, because the Dark Side likes it when you do that.

And in so doing, he created a very interesting proposition for motivated Chiss willing to take the risk, and an even more interesting proposition for the Ascendancy's Secret Police: they could now embed sleeper agents within an enemy security force by submitting job applications.

And this is why new players can chose to be Chiss when they play as Imperial Agents. You get a lot of Chiss-specific dialog as an Agent. The game supports player choices to explicitly say you reject the Ascendancy, or that you're secretly working for it. Or, hell, you could play a Chiss who says they're in it for themselves, and then secretly confides later that they're actually an Ascendancy spy!

I am so, so tempted to describe the Agent plot in its absolutely bonkers entirety, but let's stick to the Ascendancy view… for now, at any rate. I probably have another of these essays in me somewhere.

So! Sleeper agents. If the Empire won't ever fuck off by itself, then the Ascendancy wanted to make sure that they had options to give it a push. That would allow them to go back to their usual isolationism, if they still wanted it—You hear at least one Aristocra intimate that the Ascendancy might go all British Empire on the rest of the galaxy, if they see the opportunity. Some Chiss now rather like the idea of being the tiny little backwater kingdom that suddenly owns literally everything, as great powers around it weaken.

Complicating their ambitions, things did not turn out that way. Well, not the way they expected. The Ascendancy was out there playing spy chess, while the Emperor was gearing up to eat the entire chess tournament.

Honestly, there was no way the Ascendancy could've predicted the crazy shit that was going to go down in the Empire. Like, really, nobody saw that coming, not even in the Empire. Except for Darth Jadus, if you're weird enough to let him take a swing at running the entire government. Hell, if you're an Ascendancy sleeper agent, maybe he's precisely the sort of destabilizing force you want in the Empire.

So, when it turns out you accidentally allied yourself with an eldritch monster that wants to Pac-Man all life in the galaxy, what do you do? Well, fortunately for the Ascendancy, the Jedi took care of that one for them! Unfortunately, the Jedi didn't count on the MMO having expansions. Turns out, the Emperor was not entirely dead, just a little dead. And also he had a spare Empire hiding elsewhere, just in case the first one didn't work out.

No, I'm not joking, this really happened.

Meet the Eternal Empire, the Sith Emperor's side project where he put all its points toward a cultural victory and military automation, so when he lost control of that empire as well, his usurper was able to just kind of fling remote-controlled fleets at the rest of the galaxy.

With the Republic and Empire all war'd out, they were pretty emphatically steamrolled by the Eternal Fleet. And because the Emperor had known where the Ascendancy was, they were also in the line of fire.

And so the Ascendancy said "Wow! We hate it! Kindly take some planets and fuck off."

And it worked! They had to pay some exorbitant taxes to the Eternal Empire, but not as crippling as what the other powers suffered—because invading them hadn't been as expensive and they made early moves to placate this new empire and its alien human madness, they mostly flew under the radar, and weren't targeted for reprisals.

After that, there was a whole song-and-dance that included a suspiciously protagonist-shaped person uniting the rest of the galaxy against the Eternal Empire, overthrowing two or three usurpers who'd taken over (depending on whether you count the evil mastermind droid who was just kind of there to vibe), and killing the Emperor again for almost the last time, the galaxy could finally stop with that whole nonsense and come to a realization: Everyone was flat broke.

The concessions to the Eternal Empire had crippled the major powers. The Republic was reeling once again, and the Empire had lost most of its leadership and was currently in a very funny series of events that canonically end up with an 87 year old who loves shenanigans assuming the title of Emperor. the Hutt Cartel was probably still having its own problems because it was only a few years since their Supreme Mogul decided to become a raid boss and got killed, then the next one was a violent Hutt supremacist who threw a tantrum that ultimately dropped his own palace on him, and we have no clear successor after that.

The Ascendancy responded to Imperial inquiries with something along the lines of "Oh, yeah, sorry, we'd really like to help, but the Eternal Empire, wow! They really did a number on us. We can't spare any resources right now. We totally would if we could, though."

Literally no one believes them, but because no Imperial ships have ever landed on Csilla, nobody could call them on their bullshit.

And that's about where things stand! There was a kerfuffle where one of the Ruling Families put their drama on display to foreigners, which was a big faux pas. The result is a brief series of missions that actually take place on an Ascendancy world.

But otherwise, the Chiss have maintained their isolationism up to the present day of SWTOR's story. Are they right to do so? I mean, the game remains pretty consistent with the rest of Legends on the Ascendancy: they're a bunch of very pretty jerks who only look better in comparison to their competition, who are grand champions of jerkassitude, and because we're not in a position to see the Ascendancy inflict itself on other people. If they were a major power on the level of the Sith Empire, we'd probably see a lot more of their ugly side.

And what about playing the part of being one of these people? It's not good, certainly. Turnabout may feel like fair play, but it's not great at actually improving the situation overall.

…But it can be fun to indulge in a bit, in the fantasy of an MMO. Especially when the Empire is just so, so dunkable. It's like a less dangerous version of when the English cricket team of 1932-1933 decided it was entirely sporting to give Australians skull fractures, right up until the West Indies cricket team said "Now hear us out—what if we attacked you with the ball as well?"

And beyond that, this is the game where you can get the chance to shoot lightning at people while your eight foot tall cannibal thrall-maybe-turned-husband approves on the sidelines. If anything, the Ascendancy might suffer from being less goofy than that. But taken in full context of the MMO, they're often standing in as the reserved or reluctant bunch who got collectively dragged into this whole mess and are just trying to ride out the chaos with all clothes, dignity, and eyebrows intact. When subjected to the galaxy's shenanigans, the Ascendancy would rather take the advice of the skeleton meme:

And that can be deeply funny to play around with.

#swtor #swtor meta #star wars: the old republic #chiss #chiss ascendancy #I have had Blue by Eiffel 65 stuck in my head for most of the time I've been writing this #Finished this one hour before a two week marathon of Suff To Do so it might be a while before I do another one #But who knows!

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blackbleedingrose · 1 year ago

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Long Lost Morningstar - Part Two

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel

Pairing(s): Charlie x reader (platonic), Vaggie x reader (platonic), Charlie x Vaggie

Genre: Fluff

Warning(s): minor cursing.

Notes: This is the second installment of LLM. This one will be going more in depth in (Y/N)'s life in Heaven and her relationship with Michael and Charlie. I will also be working on another Hazbin mini series (the one I mentioned in my last post) so part three will take a little longer - so, please, bare with me.

Words: 2215

"This is one of the reasons why I wanted to meet you in the first place. . . My full name is (Y/N) Demiurgos. Daughter of Archangel Michael Demiurgos".

(Y/N) Demiugros have lived in Heaven her entire life among the archangels, seraphims, and winners (human souls who ascended into Heaven after they died).

She, herself, was a seraphim - one with very large and beautiful wings; six in total.

Her father, Michael, was one of Heaven's archangel's and one of the Seven Virtues. He was the one who had created her from stardust.

At least, those were the stories she's been told her whole life.

Though, it was strange. . .

Her father had crafted her in his likeness and yet the two couldn't be more different.

Not to say Michael was a complete stiff or was lacking any sense of humor - in fact, all of the archangels had their own strange quirks. (Y/N) loved being around them and often shared their humor.

The problem here was. . . her curiosity.

She was a naturally curious being and would often dream of things most of Heaven would frown upon - like six-winged ducks.

As a child her curiosity would sometimes get the better of her and she would try to venture beyond the archangel's castle (where she lived with Michael and the other archangels).

Of course, Michael was always there to stop her from wandering too far.

It became evident that (Y/N)'s curiosity and wonderous spirit would only get worse if he didn't stop it right there and then.

He didn't want her to end up like her real parents.

What (Y/N) didn't know was that almost everything she has ever known was a complete lie.

Or that Michael was not her real father/parent.

That title rightfully belonged to Lucifer and Lilith Morningstar.

But, of course, no one who knew ever planned on telling her; so, instead they twisted the truth.

Michael told her all about what Lucifer and Lilith had done and how the two brought evil into humanity. An act that got them a one-way dropped elevator ride straight to Hell.

Obviously leaving out the part where Lucifer and Lilith were her real parents, and instead told her they were her estranged uncle and aunt.

He had hoped telling her this would stifle her growing curiosity and wandering enough to keep her out of trouble and from ending up exactly where his twin brother and his lover had all those years ago.

It also helped that ever since Lucifer and Lilith's trial, Heaven has been cracking down on teaching their residents obedience and the consequences of straying too far.

And for a long time it worked.

(Y/N) was one of Heaven's top students and a role model seraphim to all angels alike.

On the outside she was grace, obedience, and perfection personified - just as she was taught and just as Heaven wanted.

But on the inside, she was still that curious and wonderous spirit who would secretly write her dreams in a private journal she had to hide away in a pocket dimension with her magic.

(Y/N) yearned to venture outside of Heaven and explore all the different realms to see what they had to offer. Like the ones she's read from the books in Heaven's restricted section that she may or may not break into in the dead of night (she's a sneaky little sneaker :P).

Tales of archons, unique planets, and realms with distorted human desires would fill her head - her heart yearning to one day travel to those places herself.

But for now, her life was in Heaven as a role model seraphim whose curiosity and wandering was kept in check.

. . . Until she caught wind of the Princess of Hell's meeting by her fellow seraphim, Emily, during their weekly hangout.

(Y/N) was aware Lucifer and Lilith had a child born in Hell, but she never expected her demon cousin would ever be granted permission to enter Heaven.

She couldn't help but wonder what her cousin wanted with Heaven.

Whatever it was, it was big enough to warrant a whole trial with the Head Seraphim, Sera.

Oh, no - there goes her curiosity.

(Y/N) knew her father would frown upon her interacting with the daughter of the ones who damned humanity. . . but she couldn't help it! She really wanted to meet her cousin and see what she was like.

Maybe people in Hell weren't as bad as Heaven made them out to be.

Luckily for her, Emily was quite the chatterbox and told her all about how she and Sera were going to give a tour to the Princess of Hell and her partner, the hotel they were staying at, and the exact room number.

Before she went on her way, (Y/N) managed to get one of her doting simps friends to cover for her and her duties to avoid raising suspicion.

When Emily and Sera had finished talking to Heaven's demon guests and brought them to their hotel room, (Y/N) was hidden away in the hallway waiting until they left.

As soon as she was sure Sera and Emily were gone, (Y/N) quickly rushed to the door.

She silently psyched herself up before knocking.

Charlie and Vaggie, who were skeptical to hear a knock so fast, hesitantly opened the door.

"Uh. . . Hello?".

When Charlie opened the door she definitely wasn't expecting to see a very tall angel with long blonde hair, purple eyes, red cheek circle's, and a big smile on her pale face standing outside. For a moment Charlie could have sworn she was almost looking at her mother.

"Hello! You must be Charlie and Vaggie! Emily's told me all about you - well, the only things that she knew before meeting you. Haven't had the chance to ask her about you after meeting you, but since I'm here now I might as well as you yourselves!".

(Y/N) snapped out of her trailing thoughts and rambling, "Oh, shit! My bad! I got a little carried away and forgot to introduce myself. Sorry. My name is (Y/N). I'm a seraphim. It's so nice to finally meet you!"

Charlie and Vaggie had to recover from the whiplash of the seraphim's personality and onslaught of words. Not wanting to offend her and mess up her chance before the trial, Charlie invited (Y/N) inside. (Y/N) eagerly accepted and walked into the room admiring it - she's never been in a hotel before.

"So. . . why are you here?" Vaggie asked rather rudely suspicious of why a random seraphim would go out of their way to talk to people from Hell. "Vaggie!" Charlie whisper-yelled afraid she offended a potential high authority in Heaven.

"Oh, well, I was hoping to get a chance to meet you both. When Emily told me about how the Princess of Hell wanted a meeting in Heaven about her hotel to redeem sinners, I'll admit my curiosity was peaked and I knew I had to see who you were in person".

Charlie gasped, her eyes shining, "Does this mean you think it's possible to rehabilitate demons?!". Vaggie glared at the angelic being, "Why would a seraphim care to meet people like us?".

(Y/N) gave the two a gentle smile, "Well, I tend to be a naturally curious individual - which I'm sure you can imagine isn't something Heaven is too fond of. As for redeeming sinners - I'm not sure. Personally, I would love to see souls in Hell given the chance to be redeemed and enter Heaven. Especially the ones who truly do not deserve eternal damnation. Which is why I'm excited to see how your trial ends. Hopefully you have evidence to prove your hotel works. I mean, if the Princess of Hell is willing to vouch and put in the effort on giving sinners a better chance at an afterlife in paradise, then maybe not all demons are bad after all".

Charlie and Vaggie were awestruck. Sure, Emily was really nice but (Y/N) was the first angel to actually be willing to give them a chance. Charlie had tears in her eyes, "D-Do you really believe that?". (Y/N) smiled and laid her hand on Charlie's, "I do".

Charlie and Vaggie smiled at the seraphim. It was nice to see that there was one angel here in Heaven who wasn't going to shut them down right away - someone who genuinely supported their cause.

The three chatted some more - mainly Charlie and (Y/N) with Vaggie chiming in from time to time. Now that the three got more comfortable with each other, the conversation was going a lot smoother. Despite just meeting one another, Charlie and (Y/N) felt like they've known each other for years.

"So, what do you do here in Heaven?" Charlie asked (Y/N). "Oh! Well, I sometimes help the archangels with their duties, but I mainly work in court trials", (Y/N) answered. Charlie's eyes lit up, "Court trials?".

(Y/N) immediately caught on. She shook her head, "Oh, no. Not in the actual trials; that's for the higher seraphims. In this case, Sera and Emily. I'm just a stenographer and record keeper. I help keep and maintain the court records and sometimes record the trials in person".

Vaggie raised a brow, "A seraphim as a stenographer?". (Y/N) nodded, "It's actually a very important job. . . but, I won't lie and say it was my first choice for a job. It was my father's idea. His way of keeping me busy, entertained, and out of trouble".

Charlie blinked, "Oh! Who's your father?". (Y/N) bit her lip nervous, "This is one of the reasons why I wanted to meet you in the first place. . . My full name is (Y/N) Demiurgos. Daughter of Archangel Michael Demiurgos". Charlie and Vaggie's jaws dropped.

"Archangel Michael?! A-As in my dad's twin brother?!".

(Y/N) nodded fiddling nervously with her hands. Charlie did a double take, "Woah, woah! Wait! Then doesn't that make us-" "Cousins," (Y/N) confirmed. Charlie gasped placing her hands on her cheeks, "OMG! That's amazing!". (Y/N) smiled in relief, "Yeah. I guess it is".

"Who's your mom?" Charlie asked eagerly. "Oh, I don't have one," (Y/N) said rather casually. This made Charlie and Vaggie feel a bit bad, "Oh".

(Y/N) waved her hands, "Oh, it's not like that! I've never had one! You see most angels are typically created here in Heaven using stardust, which is how my father created me. He used his likeness and the female reference of Lilith - your mother. And thus, I was born".

"Oooh - that makes so much sense! Now, I understand why you look so familiar!" Charlie smiled at her newly found relative. She couldn't believe she had a cousin in Heaven. One so kind and beautiful.

(Y/N) was relieved at how fast Charlie accepted her. She was worried she might not be too fond of having an angelic relative.

Vaggie was a bit nervous to discover that (Y/N) was the daughter of a higher ranking angel, but it quickly went away when she saw how happy her and Charlie were talking to each other.

She's only known (Y/N) for a short while, but she truly believed the seraphim had no ill intentions towards them and genuinely wanted to get to know them.

In fact, (Y/N)'s personality reminded her a little of Charlie.

(Y/N) admired her cousin for her big heart and the confidence she had in her own dreams. She was ashamed to admit she was a little envious.

How she wished she could act on her dreams like her little cousin; but, Heaven would never allow it. Her father always had to remind her not to stray too far, or she might end up just like her uncle and aunt. . . Fallen.

This was why she had to always keep up appearances when she was in public. No one other than those closest to her knew of the dorky, cheerful, and quirky side of her personality. To everyone else she was poised, graceful, and elegant.

When Charlie had asked her about her dreams (Y/N) told her seraphims weren't allowed to dream, or at least have dreams that would go against Heaven's rules.

Despite trying to hide how much that bothered her, Charlie and Vaggie noticed the small shift in her behavior. They felt bad for her wishing Heaven could be more open minded.

(Y/N) quickly waved it off claiming she was okay and that she was used it. She understood her father just wanted to keep her safe and out of trouble.

Soon it was time for (Y/N) to go to avoid making her father suspicious of her whereabouts.

Before she left she and Charlie shared a tight loving hug. (Y/N) wished her good luck in her trial and that she would be rooting for her.

Hearing her cousin support her dream and wish her luck made Charlie feel a lot better about the trial.

Being around (Y/N) made her feel comfortable and safe. She felt familiar, which now makes sense seeing as the two were family.

Her dad couldn't be here, so it felt good knowing there was someone in her family here in Heaven who believed in her.

With those thoughts in mind, she was ready for the trial and positive she would change Heaven's mind and prove the hotel's credibility.

. . . Too bad things sometimes don't go as we hoped.

Taglist:

@soobryu @kyo-kyo1 @miyako-night20 @charliecharlie65 @unknow-sama @myluckymoon @lbcreations-blog @moonchaos18

#hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin x reader #hazbin hotel #hazbin charlie #hazbin lucifer #hazbin vaggie #hazbin hotel charlie #hazbin hotel vaggie #hazbin hotel lucifer #hazbin lilith #hazbin hotel lilith #hazbin hotel reader insert #charlie x vaggie

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lime-bloods · 4 months ago

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in Problem Sleuth, the rule is that for a demon to escape a black hole, an angel has to fall back in - or vice versa. I made this allusion back when Vriska was still stuck in the Plot Point, but I recognised then that this seemed like an unlikely direction for Beyond Canon to go in, and the events of 8r8k largely reinforce this feeling; the animation is about convergence, rather than divergence. (perhaps Vriska's angel- and devil-selves have merged into a demigoddess, instead?) but there are still a few crumbs I feel are worth taking note of. firstly, that 8r8k seems to be at least playing with the iconography of angels radiating from a black hole:

secondly; I now think the Plot Point storyline actually sets (Vriska) up as a symbolic angel? the segment opens with this kind of offbeat callback to Jaspers' tomb...

...which employs a trifecta of symbols that malo already figured out years ago - cats are angels are babies. but page 666 plays in this space in its own unique ways, too, frequently reiterating that the sprites and other hell-ghosts are eternal children. within the example set by Davepetasprite, the sense is that Vriska's eternal child-self must also be her angel-self.

(I also can't shake the feeling that the allusion to Jaspers' tomb - especially keeping in mind that it's Roxy herself who engineered one-half of the Plot Point* - is supposed to put us in the frame of mind of burying a child: that (Vriska) has to be buried for Vriska to ascend, in the same way I previously suggested an eight ball would have to be "sunk" to end the session? but it could be that I have things the complete wrong way around, and that the point is to exhume the child, as Rose does - if what follows is the "8r8k", then an eight ball is being set free rather than sunk? after all, Vriska's transformation also comes with being liberated from parenthesis!)

far more than vague symbols, though, there's one thing that page 666 directly calls attention to but which doesn't yet seem to have been paid off: the two-Nepeta problem.

right before Vriska comes face to face with herself, she calls attention to the fact that there are two Nepetas, and as a result one of them is whooshed away back to irrelevance. so what was that all about? if this hanging thread suggests the hatching of the meteor isn't necessarily the end of the Plot Point story thread, does it suggest, as I speculated previously, that the ascension of one Vriska means the descent of another? and so long as I am speculating: how sure can we be that a Twin Peaks scenario hasn't happened, and that the Vriska who 'ascended' is the one we think it was? Hell Tier Vriska's costume prominently evokes (Vriska)'s red belt and tall boots; is that because Vriska has come to accept (Vriska)'s existence, or because the new Vriska is Vriska? or maybe the distinction just isn't important anymore, like the 8r8k seems to be trying to tell us.

*if we can still think of Meenah as Roxy's doppelganger, it's hard for all of this not to be coloured by the fact that (Vriska) is Meenah's own 'little girl', too, even if it is in a slightly different way to the way that Jaspers is Roxy's 'little girl'... (though malo once argued that these things are more connected than they are distinct.) considering the consistent emphasis on (Vriska)'s youth and the vivid canny with which page 666 addressed Vriska's relationship to Doc Scratch, it would be an odd choice at this point to not ever address the situation with Meenah, especially now that the latter has risen to such a prominent role in the cast. the way Vriska subtly slips into the role of her own abuser over the last four years in the Plot Point only places emphasis on the lingering unease behind the whole thing. setting (Vriska) free for a bit could be one way to do that, though a merged Vriska could just as easily have the same confrontation.

#beyond canon #upd8 #vriska #theory #surely other tags. idk though. i'll think about it

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kagamisatelier · 5 months ago

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❤️ Drew Mita from MiSide for this year's first illustration, lol. I watched the full gameplay recently (I'm broke as hell ok) and LOVED the storyline and the visuals!!! Also, I got a new tablet recently, one with an actual stylus, so I figured it'd be perfect to test out my device by drawing her.

Y'all I swear I literally felt like Sonic while drawing. Could feel myself ascending to another level 💀 My productivity and pace increased a TON, like, I rendered the hair AND clothes in one day. EXCUSE ME, I'VE NEVER BEEN THAT FAST BEFORE??? Bye bye, my tiny ass phone! I won't miss the days where I got neck and wrist pain from drawing with my finger on a 6 inch screen all day.

#anime #art #anime art #digital artist #digital art #illustration #illustrator #fanart #fan art #drawing #painting #miside #mita #digital illustration #digital drawing #miside fanart #design

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scrivenger-grimgar · 2 months ago

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I came to you for calamity xie lian and i am EATING with your white gold gathers au.

Tell me more please 🥺

thank you?!? okay so food time!

quan yizhen and his followers are stupidly good at stumbling across magic items, to the point where its actually become a part of his mythos!!

additionaly quan yizhen: 1 is autistic (so is xl, trust), and 2 has extreme trust issues due to boththe 'tidm and his background, the brocade immortal incident took his neutral trust in Heaven and sunk it down to hell.

so he doesn't trust heaven with ANY of the magic items he is offered or that he finds, to the point where he actually just seals them into a cave labeled DO NOT TOUCH.

xie lian LOVES cursed objects and weird magic. when he finds this cave, his natural instinct is "oh i simply must possess this!" and so he takes it.

and when quan yizhen comes back snd finds his curse cave empty, he naturally tracks the qi trail back to white gold's gilded forest, and then immediately fights xie lian for the stuff.

quan yizhen loses, but he does manage to stab xie lian's leg; xie lian had so much fun so he's like "why'd you attack me!? :D"

quan yizhen tells him, assuming the ghost is going to kill him, that he can't just let those artifacts be floating around, they could hurt someone or cause problems!! and xie lian looks at him and says "im doing the same thing!"

so xie lian takes this feral god around his laur and shows him all his stuff and explains how uts guarded and tracked, and that he's got a whole catalogue detailing each item and how its cursed and what the curse does, and quan yizhen only follows at first bc obvs white gold is going to kill him, but then they get to the part thats mostly bespelled weapons and qyz completely forgets about that part.

they spend three days yelling excitedly back and forth about different weapons and fighting styles from certain kingdoms and empires and different centuries and why one part of a style continued while another was discarded-

until ling wen contacts him asking where tf he went bc hes been gone for two weeks, please come back.

anyway, xie lian gives him an open invitation to return whenever and quan yizhen and xie lian becomes friends after a few years. qyz goes to xie lian with any cursed objects that he comes across and they'll have a short (4 day long) sparring session, and xie lian teaches him about obscure magics while qyz updates him on whatever heaven is up to and where not to go when it comes to curse collecting.

now quan yizhen has a natural talent for identiying people*, regardless of what skin they're wearing, but will only reffer to them with the name they used at introduction. so when xie lian ascends for the third time, quan yizhen already knows thats his friend, the calamity white gold gathers. but xie lian told him to call him by name. so even when he's wearing his human disguise, qyz knows that thats xie lian.

this is very confusing to everyone, actually, bc why tf does general qi ying know the disgraced plague god of xianle? neither of them will explain even if directly asked.

jun wu isnt aware of this freindship either, bc xie lian doesnt bring it up, ling wen doesnt think its important, and quan yizhen just doesnt show up to court; its not worth the rffort to send two other martial gods to drag him in when he wont listen and will activrly talk over someone else, even jun wu himself.

*this talent for identifying people also works on both shi qingxuan and ming yi. quan yizhen is known for calling many, many, junior officials and low-middle class deities "ming yi". he was already known for being weird at this point so no one thought anything of it. this also means that were he to see bwx qyz would adress him as jw. this is bc he has a weird form of qi synesthesia that lets him identify individual people, but becomes overwhelming in a crowd. This is partially why he finds xie lian's domain so relaxing; other than the curses its just one signature, everywhere.

this entire relationship is s parralel to yin yu and hua cheng bc i find it really cute!

anyway quan yizhen's vacation home in the gilded forest is his actual house, his palace in heaven is basically just an empty shell. he has a small shrine for yin yu, and even prays to him.

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crowsofdarkness · 5 months ago

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Vaz Prizrak: Chapter Two

-gif not mine. credit to owner-

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Female Agent! Reader.

Content Warnings: language, 18 + implied smut, angst, fluff, violence, mentions of losing a pregnancy, thoughts of taking one's life, an attempt to take one's life. I will give another warning when that chapter is posted.

Summary: Bucky and Reader have been in their own solace while in Wakanda for years. They were finally happy to create the life they wanted and deserved. That was until a new foe came along to dust it all away.

Authors Note: This takes place during Infinity War and Endgame! If you haven't yet, please read Soldat and Dorogaya beforehand.

Tags: @globetrotter28 @sakuracyberhex @chinggay85-blog @bookofriverr @misatxox @that-blonde-girl @cats-chaotic-mind @wintrsoldrluvr @sebastians-love @pumpkin-babydoll @ordelixx @starfly-nicole @j23r23 @baw1066 @capswife

Soldat Masterlist | Dorogaya Masterlist | Vaz Prizrak Masterlist

The town square of Wakanda was busy with bodies getting ready for the soon arrival and as Bucky and I stood hand in hand, I could help the way my heart jumped with nerves. I was nervous for the fight and nervous to see Steve again after so long.

My hair blew with the wind as the jet made its final descent, coming to a halt in front of us. As the ramp opened, I saw my old friends ascend down. They couldn’t see us and I took it as an opportunity to sneak away from them and Bucky, the nerves becoming too much to handle. Bucky was talking with Steve so he hadn’t noticed me walk away.

Everything was happening too fast and I didn’t have the chance to stop to think about what the outcome would be.

Maybe Bucky and I could leave, let them fight this on their own. We could go back to our normal lives, something that we both deserved. This wasn’t our fight, we didn’t have to risk our lives for this.

However, I knew that when it was our fight years ago, all of these people were there to help us, no questions asked.

“Where’s Y/N?” A voice asked.

“She was right here,” Bucky said.

Coming into view, I smiled over towards my friends while giving Sam and Nat a long overdue hug. I nodded towards Wanda who was walking inside with a hurt Vision.

“How’re you doing?” Nat asked.

I nodded. “Not bad, for the end of the world.”

“What’s up Marshmallow?”

Laughing at the nickname coming from Sam, I lightly punched him in the shoulder. “You had to come along?”

“Someone has to watch his back,” Sam mentioned towards Steve.

He was already watching me with intent eyes as I walked over to him, closing the distance between us.

“I see you took my advice,” I pointed towards the beard and long hair.

Steve shrugged while wrapping his arms around me in a longing hug. I had missed the way that they felt, protecting me from anything bad.

“How are you, really?” Steve questioned, lifting my chin to look into my eyes.

“We’re fine, Steve,” I spoke quietly. “Bucky is good. He’s his old self.”

Steve nodded before looking between Bucky and I. “Mind if I steal her for a bit? Catch her up to speed?”

Bucky hesitated, only I saw it, before nodding. “Sure.”

I closed the large distance between us with a loving kiss. “Don’t worry.”

With his new fingers on my lower back, he pressed his lips against mine once again, this time longer and deeper.

“I love you,” he muttered against them.

“I love you too.”

“You look like hell,” I noticed Sam as we all stood in the middle of Shuri’s lab.

A very familiar place to me.

“Well the motels weren’t exactly five stars,” Sam admitted with a small laugh.

I then nodded towards Bruce and Nat, who themselves were having a private conversation.

“Talk about awkwardness, huh?”

Sam laughed again. “You have no idea.”

“Y/N.”

Excusing myself from Sam, I walked over towards Steve, who was standing in front of a large window, looking down towards the fields of Wakanda.

“Does everything make sense?” He asked.

“Yeah, as crazy as it sounds.” I said

“And you’re ready for it?” He asked again, motioning towards my hands. “Bucky mentioned that you haven’t used it for awhile.”

I grasped my hands together with a sigh. “I wanted something normal for us. To be honest, I don’t even know if it still works. I haven’t found a reason to get mad lately.”

“With what’s coming, I think it would be best to get mad,” Steve suggested.

Silence fell between us and I was going to walk away from him but his hand in mind stopped me.

“Can you promise me something?”

I nodded.

“Promise that no matter what comes, that you take care of yourself first. Don’t worry about Buck or I. I can’t deal if something would happen to you,” Steve admitted while gently cupping my cheek.

Licking my dry lips at the warmth of his glove, I nodded again.

“Only if you do something for me,” I spoke.

“Anything,” he breathed.

“If something does happen to me, make sure he moves on. I don’t want him to dwell on it. He deserves to be happy,” I said with a shaky breath.

Steve hesitated for a moment before nodding, letting out a large breath.

“But it’s not going to come to that, right?”

Tearing myself away from Steve’s sad gaze, I looked towards Natasha and nodded.

“Can she do it?” I asked, changing the subject and walking away from Steve.

The questionable outcome weighed heavy on my mind but there was always one thing that was clear. If something were to happen to me, whatever it was, I needed to make sure that Bucky moved on. He couldn’t dwell on me or what happened. It was true what I told Steve; Bucky deserved to be happy, even if I had passed.

Suddenly, a loud bang sounded from above us, shaking the castle. I looked around everyone in the room before my eyes landed finally on Steve, a knowing look on his face.

“They’re here,” I said.

“Get this man a shield!” T’challa pointed towards Steve before shouting more directions to others.

“Bucky,” I muttered while leaving the room and sprinting outside the castle.

Bucky and Sam were standing in the middle of the town center, staring up towards the sky.

Gunshots rain down on us but thankfully they couldn’t break the barrier that was protecting us.

“God, I love this place,” Bucky admitted.

“You guys alright?” I questioned while standing in between them.

Sam nodded. “How’re they doing up there?”

“It’s going to take awhile for Shuri to recreate a stone,” I admitted.

We watched in slight horror when ships came from the sky, landing right outside the protective dome.

“Cap, we’ve got a situation out here.” I said into my com.

The grass flattened beneath my boots as we stood on the open field, preparing ourselves for the fight.

“Doll?”

I looked over to Bucky. “Hm?”

Without saying a word, handed me one of his guns, silently knowing that I wasn’t quite ready to use my powers.

“Be careful,” he said.

“You too,” I spoke while lacing our fingers together.

My attention was averted from Bucky as I shook my fingers, trying to bring the spark to life, but groaned in defeat.

I never would have thought that when I decided to not use them any more that it would backfire. Now would be the perfect time to be able to use them.

“Did they surrender?” I asked Steve as he returned to his spot next to me.

T’challa, Nat, and him walked down to the edge of the barrier, trying to talk to the alien species.

“Not exactly,” he sighed.

Suddenly, thousands of aliens came from the ships, running towards the barrier that was protecting us, killing themselves in the process.

“They’re killing themselves,” I muttered.

The few that made it through, alive, charged towards us and without a second thought, all of us raised our weapons to prepare for war.

Bucky and I shot bullets towards the aliens that made it close to us. I knew, deep down, that no matter how many bullets we had or knives I used, it wouldn’t be enough.

“You know, Y/N, now would be a perfect time to toast these fuckers,” Sam’s voice came through the com in my ear.

“You don’t think I’ve tried!” I yelled. “It’s not working!”

A simple snap of the fingers and nothing.

“What’s stopping them from trying to enter behind us?” I asked Steve, when I noticed the aliens running around the barrier.

“We need to open the barrier,” T’challa stated.

Looking between Steve and Bucky, two men who I would protect with my heart and knowing they would do the same for me.

“We’re with each other till the end, right?” I asked them both.

“Always,” Steve spoke.

“Forever, doll.” Bucky gave a quick kiss to the side of my head.

With a loud war cry, our army charged forward as T’challa gave the order to open the barrier. Thousands of aliens sprinting towards us.

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #sebastian stan #bucky barnes and reader #the winter soldier #marvel #the winter soldier x reader #the winter soldier smut #bucky barnes x agent!reader #james barnes smut #james barnes imagine #james bucky barnes #james barnes #james buchanan barnes #soldat bucky barnes #vaz prizrak bucky barnes

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consistencynevermether · 2 years ago

Text

Ice cold: Astarion x reader

content: ascended Astarion x gn tav, angst, tav is goin through it in this one yall, i give karlach a more hopeful ending in the background bc i just want her to be happy, karlach and tav besties agenda, sfw, cannon typical violence

summary: after breaking it off with ascended Astarion, you meet again at a winter ball

word count: 6k (apparently i cant shut up about this man)

a/n: man i gotta write more happy Astarion content fr i keep putting this man in situations.

How many years had it been since you’d seen Astarion? 3? 5? Maybe more? You try to remember what your last moments with him were like before you decided to break things off. It was definitely after he ascended, but was it before you had gotten rid of the tadpole, or after? Honestly, after a while things had started to blur together really. After so many years, only the painful parts remained clear in your memory. How you, with tears in your eyes, had told him you couldn’t do this anymore. And the look of condescending and uncaring as he stared back. It had shattered you into a million pieces to end things with Astarion, but it would have hurt even more if you had stayed. Whoever he had become after he ascended, it wasn’t your astarion, not really.

Why were you reminiscing about your lost love? Well because after all these years apart, he was now standing about 5 feet away from you. Gods above how did you get yourself in this situation?

Let’s start a few years back after Astarion had left to be the new lord of Baldur’s Gate and you had stayed, shattered. Having to pick up the broken pieces of what you once were, having to figure out who you would be without him. You probably should have taken some time alone, now that you think about it. Processed your emotions, talked to a professional, properly mourned what you had lost before continuing on.

Of course, you had done the opposite and instead had decided to travel with Karlach and Wyll to Avernus. Going to hell is probably not the best way to cope with a breakup, but that was the only option anyone could think of to try and save Karlach from the fate of the engine in her chest. And after what had happened to Astarion you just-

You just couldn’t

You couldn’t lose someone else, if you did, you felt like you would have been shattered past the point of repair. You couldn’t take losing one of your only friends right after losing your love. So you gathered up the broken pieces of yourself and headed straight into the hells.

You were down there for a few years probably.

Maybe?

Honestly, you didn’t remember. Time became sluggish and foggy after Astarion had left because it kept marching forward, away from your time together with him.

Yet in the end, Karlach had gotten her engine fixed and all 3 of you had climbed out of hell. A few more burn marks and scars, but nothing more than that had changed. Physically at least.

You had somehow managed to put your broken pieces back together, but you weren’t the same as before. You didn’t feel complete, more like a jumble of razor-sharp shards being forcefully welded together trying to imitate what you once were. But now you were jagged, and cracked, and tired

Gods, you were tired. The dark circles under your eyes never left, no matter how much you slept. Or tried to sleep that is.

Sometimes in the dead of night, you would replay Astarion's ascendance in your mind over and over again, wondering what you could have done differently then. Or even before. Where had you gone wrong? Was there another outcome that you failed to make happen? Was there another reality where the two of you were happy together? Gods how that thought hurt.

Sometimes, you thought about the what-ifs. You imagined what would have happened if he hadn’t chosen to ascend. What both of you could have been. What you so desperately wanted but could never reach. Eventually, you stopped that line of thought at night. It was too crushing to imagine how things could have been different. What you could have done differently.

After emerging from hell, you had on and off traveled with some of your previous party.

You and Wyll had headed to Waterdeep once to help Gale with a sea monster problem

In an amusing team-up, you had helped Halsin and Lazel find an enchanted bracelet they were both searching for, though they both argued on how to act upon most things during that entire adventure, so you had felt almost like it was a babysitting gig the entire trip.

There was also that time you helped Minsc dispose of some bandits robbing people near Baldur's gate, but you had dealt with that sorry lot fairly quickly and got far away from Baldur's Gate even quicker. You didn’t want to accidentally run into a certain lord.

And now you had an entirely new quest, in the bitter cold land of Sossal. A few weeks ago, you met back up with Karlach who apparently had been looking for you.

It’s not that you disliked seeing Karlach at all, in fact, you were both very close, which was part of the problem really. Part of why it stung a little to see her.

She saw you. She saw how much you hurt even after all this time. Your other friends seemed to have assumed that you had gotten better. That over time you had healed and it had gotten easier for you to come to terms with leaving Astarion. But Karlach knew the truth, She saw right through you, and it was mortifying. That every day the hole inside your heart had just got wider. She feared it would swallow you up one day, and you didn’t blame her. It didn’t help that being around her just made you feel so

Pathetic.

She had been to literal Hell and back and could still smile and laugh, while you had only lost one person and had cracked and splintered like glass. It hurt to see the light that shined off her while you could only fall deeper into darkness.

Of course, you knew none of that was her fault, you only had yourself to blame for who you were, so when she came asking for help, you didn’t hesitate to say yes.

She was having engine troubles again. It wasn’t as bad as before, thank the gods, but it did have a tendency to overheat ever so slightly whenever she felt a strong emotion, and if you didn’t do something one wrong spook could set her ablaze. Luckily she had gone to Gale first and discovered a gem Called the frostbite tear. He could attune the gem to Karlach and make it so that every time her engine began to overheat, the jewel would immediately cool it down, negating the problem before it became a real issue like when you had first met her. Last anyone had heard of the gem it was with some noble in Sossal.

So here you were. You, Karlach, Shadowheart, and Gale all together at the midwinters ball held here in the capital. Gale had procured the invites for you all, and every noble in Sossal, plus some from other territories, would be here for this celebration. Gale had even been nice enough to give you a beautiful outfit for the ball, made of silvery-white sparking silk. It reminded you of fresh snowfall on a winter's night. Admittedly it wasn’t very practical, and Gale did make you shower before putting it on. (Rude. You didn’t think you smelled t h a t bad.)

You were so focused on helping find this noble (and robbing him of the frostbite tear) that you hadn’t even considered Astarion might be here.

Not up until the moment that his vibrant red eyes locked onto yours across the room.

You couldn’t move. Everything was moving too fast and also in slow motion. Your legs felt like lead and your mouth was bone dry. The numbness that had settled in your chest for years now cracked open with new pain, and you weren’t sure which of the sensations you hated more.

All all this panic and emotions, and yet in your mind all you could think of was how he looked just the same as the day you left. He hadn’t changed. And that made it all the harder. Because now it was easier to forget all the years between you two. He still looked the same as what you saw when you closed your eyes each night. It was Astarion. But on closer examination, not your Astarion.

There was a coldness to him now. A certain reservation in his smile that made you feel like you would be a mere annoyance to him if you dared to approach. He seemed sharper somehow as well, like a finely honed blade. And his attire was extravagantly beautiful, the white fur-lined cloak he was wearing was probably more expensive than anything you had ever owned, including your current attire.

You were so busy taking this all in mentally that when you went to glance at him again he was gone. For a split second, you genuinely wondered if you had finally snapped and just hallucinated all of that when an all too familiar hand took yours.

You hadn't looked away for more than a second and astarion was right there in front of you, kissing your knuckles. The brush of his lips on your skin was nearly enough to bring you to your knees. All these years, and he still had so much power over you with one little motion.

To any outsider, this looked like quite the cute interaction really. The handsome new lord of Baldur's gate spots an incomparable beauty from across the room and is instantly smitten, so he effortlessly woes them the second he steps into the ballroom. But life is no romantic play.

“Hello darling, it certainly has been a while. We simply must catch up”

Before you could even attempt to respond, his hands were around your waist, guiding you to the dancefloor as the orchestra began to play, and other couples began to join the dancefloor as well.

You’d hoped maybe the dance would save you from the conversation, but it seemed the opposite was what occurred, as Astarion leaned closer to your ear to whisper, “So, 7 years without a trace, and suddenly you show up looking positively exquisite. Do tell me what you’ve been up to.”

Your mouth opens to respond, but you realize you have no idea what to say. What could you possibly say to him, and why would you even say it?

Luckily you were spared any more torture when you noticed Astarion staring intently at your neck. The sight reminded you of that night you found out he was a vampire spawn, and you had let him drink from you for the first time. But instead of hunger Astarions brown was furrowed with another emotion. Annoyance? Concern? Worry? You couldn’t tell anymore. It had been years since you could tell what Astarion was thinking

His voice broke the silence once again.

“Is this new?” His long pale fingers brushed across the burn scar near your collarbone.

Ah. So that’s what he was staring at.

“Well it’s been there a few years, so I wouldn’t really consider it new but-“ you shrug at the end of your sentence, and you both know what you meant. It was only new to him. He may have stayed unchanged all these years, but you certainly hadn’t. And it seemed Astarion was beginning to notice.

His eyes raked over you, taking in the changes. You were a bit more muscular now, all that constant fighting no doubt. Your new(er) scars were more visible in this outfit, which admittedly was a little revealing and definitely not meant to withstand the harsh outside winter. And the years now showed in the tired look in your eyes. You imagine that your eyes aged you quite a bit honestly, maybe you should be shocked he even recognized you now.

“So”, he started, decidedly keeping his hand firmly around your waist so you couldn’t run from the conversation, “when you made my undead heart beat again only to toss it on the ground at my feet again like it was nothing all those years ago, I always imagined how nice it would feel to see you struggle while I thrived as lord of Baldur's Gate.”

Wow. Impressively bad flirting. Had he gotten worse at this over the years? Or maybe he just detested you so much he didn’t even think there was a point in even pretending to like you anymore.

“But now that I’m actually here and you look-“

He gestured at you vaguely

“Well a bit like you’d been the one who got dumped, it doesn’t feel very satisfying.”

“Mhm,” you responded, in a stroke of pure poetry.

“Darling, you have to give me more than that. The silent treatment after all this time is just petty, even for me.”

He had a point. And part of you did want to know-

“How have you been, Astarion?”

His steps faltered a little when you said his name, but he quickly recovered, smoothly continuing the dance

He smirked, his fangs visible on one side “Well certainly better than you if I had to wager, the stuff under my eyes is eyeliner, not sleep deprivation side effects.”

You close the distance between you two involuntarily to get a closer look at his face. He was wearing some sort of golden liquid as eyeliner on his bottom lids. It was subtle but beautiful, and it shined when the light hit his face just right. On instinct, you began to reach towards his face, but you quickly stopped yourself. You needed to stay focused, damnit. You were here to help Karlach.

Astarion's smooth voice cut in once again. “Still making me do all the talking? Honestly, I don’t ever remember you being this quiet before.”

You startled and realized you had been staring at his face for a while, and then trying to snap yourself out of it, all while not making a sound

Gods you don’t remember it being this hard to talk to him. But then again, you found it harder to talk to anyone these days. you just-

You just didn’t expect that to also apply to Astarion. Further proof that despite him looking the same, there was distance now. A silent gaping chasm that you had no way to cross. But that is what you wanted, wasn't it? To get away from this Astarion. The one who considered you a pet, or an object to be displayed. Treasured, and loved, but never his equal. Never fully having free will, everything you would have done would have had to be something he approved of.

You loved him, more than anything. You still did. Deep down you knew you would die for this twisted version of your love, and if he asked you to rip out your own heart and serve it to him, you would. But you couldn’t be with him. Everything else you would do for him, but that was where you drew the line. It hurt too much, to be reminded every day of what you had lost. Of what you have failed to protect. That sweet high elf with a silver tongue and a heart of gold he let so few see. The one who wished for freedom more than anything, but still stuck by your side. Because at some point, he wanted to be free with you. And that was not this Astarion.

Despite all that, just for this moment, you wanted to forget it all. To be held in his arms once again. Maybe, if the gods blessed you, see a real smile of his. You just wanted this one moment. Then your greedy heart would be satisfied. You could burn this image of the two of you dancing forever in your mind and have it sustain you. You’d gladly take another trip to the hells if it meant just a moment where you could pretend you were with your astarion. The one that lived on in your memories. Though you didn’t dare hope that he was still in there somewhere, you don’t think your heart could take it.

You inhale deeply and begin to talk. You tell him about the quests you’ve been on, the adventures you’ve had, what you’ve been up to these past years. Including why you were here, and your quest to help Karlach and find the frostbite tear.

Eventually, you get to the point where you tell him why you're here, and what you're looking for. But as you do you see a scowl twist on his face.

“Astarion?” You question, “What’s bothering you?”

He huffs in reply, and you can’t help but smirk.

“I’m sorry but I do remember someone just talking about how petty the silent treatment is.” You prod, and lock eyes, a sign for him to tell you what’s on his mind

He rolls his eyes at your persistence, but nonetheless, he begins to speak.

“Hm. Just seems like you and Karlach are so very happy together. A bit of a downgrade if you ask me, but that’s certainly no fault of hers. I mean, once you’ve had me, all you can do is go down from there.”

“Karlach and I aren’t dating.” You deadpan.

She was more like a sister to you than anything, and besides you’re pretty sure she already has eyes for someone.

“Oh?” Astarions eyebrow raises. “So who have you been shagging all these years then? Wyll? Shadowheart? Surely not Gale. Oh please tell me it’s not Gale, I think that might actually hurt my feelings a little if we both shared being to your tastes.”

“Be nice. Gales is a good friend. FRIEND. They all are. And to answer your prying question, I’m not with anyone. Not since you.”

It was true. You hadn’t loved anyone since astarion. It just didn’t feel right. Even the idea of a casual fling didn’t feel at all satisfying. And there was no way you would actually consider dating someone again. Not when Astarion still held your heart.

You could see a few emotions go across Astarion’s face, but you couldn’t recognize them. You remember when you used to be able to know what he was thinking, when he was lying or not. But not anymore. Maybe it was because he was always putting on some act now.

As you stared, his hand wrapped around your waist and for a breathless moment, he effortlessly lifted you up into the air, gently twirling you around him. then he put you down and smoothly continued the dance as if that was always part of the steps.

Your face flushed at the amount of contact, and the smirk once again graced Astarion’s lips.

“So, nobody since me? Seems like someone’s not quite over the Lord of Baldur’s Gate.” He singsonged, taking great pleasure in how momentarily flustered you were. “It's ok if you're not over me darling, I can’t blame you.”

Clearly, he meant this as a joke, one you were supposed to roll your eyes at and ignore. But there was no point in lying, so you just nodded and continued the steps of the dance.

Astarion stopped dead in his tracks.

“I-

Wait what? You're still-

Ah-

You're not over me?”

“Astarion, the song isn’t over.” You tried to nudge him back into the dance, but his feet were planted firmly, and he wasn’t going to budge.

“Answer me.”

You sigh. He wasn’t going to move. So now you were just standing here. In the middle of a ballroom. With everyone else dancing around you. Great. This was super inconspicuous and undercover.

“I will only continue to talk if you move your damn feet Astarion. Hells I’m supposed to be blending in not standing out.” You hiss and kick at the side of his shoes to indicate for him to get moving.

He recognizes the determination in your eyes and you can see him deciding mentally that he’ll probably get his answer sooner if he does as you ask, so he picks up the dance once again. His grip on your waist is now like iron though, not painful in any way, but there’s absolutely no way you could get out of his grasp now. Not even if you put all your efforts into trying.

His eyes never left yours, his intense stare practically commanding you to talk.

Which you did say you would do.

“I still love you.” You shrug. “Never stopped loving you.”

“Then why did you leave?” The hurt in his voice is evident, and you immediately feel like someone hurled a spear of ice directly into your chest.

You can barely raise your voice above a whisper without it cracking. “You know why. I already told you when I left.”

“Bullshit. Because you loved the person that I was? He was pathetic. Only a fool would want the lesser version.” His voice was like ice, you could feel the hatred he held for himself.

And you instantly felt your anger flare up at his words.

“Don’t you ever talk about-

About him like that”

It felt weird referring to past Astarion as someone else. But it was true. They were two completely different people now. And honestly, you didn’t care about the semantics, your blood was practically boiling.

“He was the love of my life. He was everything to me. So don’t you dare insult him.” You spat, practically seeing red

Astarion's face twisted in rage.

“Maybe you liked me pathetic, hm? Maybe the only way you could possibly love me was if I was beneath you. A precious pet spawn, entirely dependent on you, living in your shadow to protect me from the sun that I now bask in.” He sneered, meeting your rage with his own.

And just like that, you had shattered all over again.

It was your turn to stop dancing now, unmoving in the sea of swaying nobles.

Astarion's rage seemed to have flickered out seeing the look on your face.

What did your face look like? Were you shocked? Were you crying? Somewhere in the back of your mind, you could register the feeling of hot tears down your cheeks, but you paid it no heed.

Instead, you wrapped your arms around Astarion, putting your face in the crook of his neck.

Astarion completely froze at the sudden contact, not even taking a breath. Although he probably didn’t need to actually breathe anyways so maybe that was normal.

“I’m sorry. If-

-If you truly believe that I ever thought that way about you, then I messed up beyond repair. I'm so sorry.”

You tried to continue, to apologize for all the times you had failed him. For making him feel like that. But you realized you couldn’t speak. Your body was silently heaving with sobs, tears flowing down your face and ruining Astarion's nice clothing.

Great. You couldn’t even cry without screwing him over. And this was definitely not inconspicuous.

You lifted your head, making a move to step away, but as you did you saw a blue glint on one of the lapels of some well-dressed lord.

Holy shit.

The frostbite tear. You had found it. And all it took was sobbing on your ex to spot the damn thing. That didn’t make you feel pathetic at all. Though admittedly this was the perfect distraction from this soul-crushing conversation. Maybe with any luck you wouldn’t even have to address that embarrassing display that no doubt disgusted astarion, he was probably hoping you’d get the hell off him already.

So you did just that, jerking back from the hug and keeping your eyes glued on the gem.

“Astarion look. It’s the frostbite tear. On that lord.”

But you could tell Astarion’s eyes were firmly glued to your face.

You tried to slip away, to follow the frostbite tears owner and relieve him from its ownership, whether that be by swiping it, lying, or just straight up threatening the guy. But Astarion held you firmly in place.

“What are you doing?” You whispered, to not startle your target. “He’s right there. Let go.”

“You can’t just drop that on me and leave” he whisper-yelled back

“I’m not leaving, I’m just grabbing something real quick. Now let go, it’ll take 5 minutes tops.”

“What if you decide you don’t wanna talk again and run off?” He countered

“Then you can corner me because you're the vampire ascendant.”

“What if he catches you and you get arrested?”

“Then you can visit me in jail because you're the vampire ascendant.”

“What if-“

Oh for fucks sake.

“Whatever happens, I assure you, you will be able to say whatever you want to me after because you are the vampire ascendant. You made that fact very clear to me when we were together. Now let go.” You cut him off, and then try once again to move towards the target. But his grip remained firm

You look up at him, now filled with annoyance and desperation. The noble could escape if you didn’t do something now, and yet Astarion seemed insistent on trapping you.

“Just one more dance, alright?” He bargained.

Unbelievable. That was his priority? You knew it had been a while but you never expected him to disregard a former ally so blatantly. Karlach needed this.

But upon closer inspection, he almost looked… a little guilty? Worried maybe? That didn’t seem right. What on earth?

Just then, Astarion pushed your face into his chest, wrapping his arms around you, almost protective. Protective but restrictive. You couldn’t move away no matter how much you pushed on his chest or tried to slip out of his hold.

“Astarion. Let. Go.” You hissed.

But your attempts at breaking free immediately stopped when you heard an ear-piercing screech and the sound of heavy footsteps.

On instinct, you reached for where your weapon would normally be, but you had nothing on you. Shadowheart had a few small weapons concealed on her in case things got messy, considering her attire was a bit more conservative than yours, but she wasn’t anywhere near you now.

Damnit. On instinct, you tried to twist around in Astarion's grasp to a more protective stance. Of course, you knew he didn’t need your protection at all, it was just a base instinct kicking in. Unfortunately, he didn’t allow you to move out of his grasp, so all you could do was squirm.

“What is wrong with you??” You practically shouted. If there was danger, then just standing here like this would leave you both wide open. Had he lost all common sense?

Unless-

At that exact point, a guard of the lord of Sossal burst through the doors, covered in blood.

“Vampire spawn are attacking the gates!” She exclaimed, cradling her arm, which was profusely bleeding.

“I didn’t know you would be here.” He murmurs, almost as if he’s telling this to himself more than you.

He wasn’t trying to keep you here, you realize. He was protecting you. None of the spawn would dare come near you if they saw Astarion holding you like this.

But at this moment you didn’t care. For years you had mourned over the loss of your Astarion. You had tried so hard, attempting to separate him from this ascended Astarion. But you had never been truly able to get over him, to accept he was gone. Because deep, deep down, no matter what you told yourself, you still believed he was in there somewhere. Behind all the silks and sharp gazes.

And you felt that hope die as you heard the hissing of the dozens of spawn outside, mingled with the screams and cries of the guards. He was gone. And your heart was shattered all over again.

But it was different this time. Before, you had pulled yourself together again, deformed and jagged, but still together. You couldn’t do that this time. There was no coming back from this. You could feel it. This pain wouldn’t fade. But there was something else there that wasn’t there before. Anger.

Astarion was protecting you, yes, but Gale, Shadowheart, and Karlach were here too. If the spawn got into the ballroom, they would be in danger. Not to mention this made procuring the frostbite tear infinitely more difficult.

Rage burned in your eyes, and for the first time, you saw the great vampire ascendant stumble over his words a little, as he tried to explain something about how the lord of Sossal had insulted him, but you weren’t listening.

While Astarion was struggling to explain himself, you realized he wasn’t paying as much attention to you. Good.

In one swift movement, you slipped out of his grasp and frantically looked around, searching for your friends. It was nearly impossible to hear anything over the screaming and panic of the nobles. It also wasn’t helping that Astarion was probably going to be right on your heels the second he recovered. Or maybe he’d just leave you to be eaten by his spawn. You didn’t really care.

After continuing to weave your way past frantic nobles and shouting their names, you were able to see a red hand waving you down from the far left balcony. It was Karlach, and she was with Gale and Shadowheart. Good. With all 3 of them together any spawn that came after them would be screwed. But you still had a mission to complete.

You looked up at Shadowheart and held your hand out for a weapon. You were going to track down that damn gem if it killed you. That noble was about to have a very bad day. Well. A worse day.

You were focusing all your hurt onto this, all your rage. But you needed to. You needed it because you had no idea what else you could do now. You needed something to focus on. Something to distract you from your shattered heart.

Shadowheart saw your determination and tossed a short sword down to you. Not your preferred weapon of choice, but it would do.

You whipped around, hand around the short sword at the ready, but also because it felt grounding, to be fighting once again. Now it was time to hunt down your prey.

You quickly ran in the direction you’d last seen, glancing over every lapel for that glowing blue light. It was hard, many of the nobles were dressed in a winter theme, so shades of white, silver, and blue were all too common in the sea of panic.

You continued to push past nobles, searching for that faint blue glow. You refused to let this go, you would not let Karlach down. You fought for too many years in hell getting the engine in her repaired to go all the way back to square one again.

You feel yourself tunnel vision on finding a blue light, your head whipping back and forth on the hunt, it felt good to let everything else fade away into numbness as your only thought is tracking down this gem.

A glimmer out of the corner of your eye. A flash of blue. The shine of fine silk. There he was. In a crowd of panicked nobles trying to run into other parts of the castle and hide from Astarion's horde gathering outside. Honestly, it was a pretty understandable reaction, you didn't blame him for running at all, but you needed that gem. You hope he survived honestly.

Survived.

Because Astarion planned to turn this place into a bloodbath. Your Astarion. The one who you had sat under the stars with, and he would teach you all the constellations whose names you didn't know, his silky voice lulling you to sleep when insomnia or worry had hit you.

You'd rather still be in the hells honestly.

You took a deep breath, centering yourself back to the present. Get the gem.

You dashed after the noble, drawing your shortsword and charging at the man. If possible, you'd do this quickly.

Ducking under the other guests, you grab this unfortunate noble by the collar, the moment you do he screeches, clearly fearing the worst. Luckily for him, you were only after his gem, not his blood. With one slice you cut the gem off the cloak, shredding the beautiful white fabric.

Not even bothering to explain yourself to him, you pocket your prize and turn on your heel, heading back in your friend's direction, when all of a sudden you hear the noble you had just stolen from scream again. But this time it was followed by the screams of a few others

You look back and that’s when you see her. A vampire spawn. Clearly on her way to the ballroom, but judging by her smile, it was clear she had just found some horderves.

You could have run. You were the only person with a weapon and the farthest away from her. She definitely wouldn’t pick you as her first target, she’d go for one of the defenseless nobles right next to her. You should have met up with the others and gotten the hells out of this place.

But the noble whose lapel you had just torn apart was so young. They were people. Scared people who got unlucky and were about to die because someone had offended the great vampire ascendant. Maybe you wanted to save them. But more likely, you just wanted something to take your anger out on. Or maybe you were just dumb as a rock.

But regardless you turned around and began to sprint towards the spawn instead of away, angling your weapon so that you would have the perfect angle to go for her collarbone.

Yet as soon as you locked her on as a target, her eyes went wide with..fear? She was a vampire spawn, surely she’d had a few of her victims fight back yes? Was this her first hunt?

Soon you realized that wasn’t the case at all as you felt a chill run down your spine. Even now with all his power, it wasn’t hard for you to identify the presence now standing menacingly right behind you. The familiar smell of bergamot filled your senses with the closeness. You could feel his chest pressed against your back. You didn’t know what kind of face Astarion was making right now, but whatever it was, it terrified the vampire spawn, her form now shaking and cowering before her master.

Funny. Even now after everything, you couldn’t find astarion scary. You probably should, considering how he just appeared behind you. But after everything you still couldn’t.

There was no point in delaying this any further. You turn around, and as you do his eyes immediately move from the spawn back to you. And his gaze softened. Before this whole ordeal that single action probably would have caused you to melt. But now it was different. You had already resigned yourself to being without him. You couldn’t turn back time. You couldn’t save him. All you could do now was try and find a way forward. And you certainly wouldn’t find that staring into his crimson eyes.

This felt awful. You felt awful. Walking away from him now didn’t feel like closure, it felt like someone had just stopped writing on the page mid-sentence. But you had to stop. Just stop. You couldn’t spend the rest of your life like this, mourning what you lost. Astarion would have an eternity to forget about you, but you only had this one life. And for the first time in a long time, you finally felt like you wanted to move forward with your life. To start living again. You were still mad. And upset. And it still hurt. But you wanted to get better.

So you turned around, not looking at Astarion, and left. Walked right past him without saying a word. You didn’t know what he would do. Let you leave and forget you ever existed? Grab your arm and try to talk again? Decide he had had enough and just drain you dry? You honestly had no idea anymore. But you knew one thing.

You wouldn’t be the one to look back.

436 notes · View notes

itsmewillful · 1 year ago

Text

I will Always Find You

Main Masterlist

Character Masterlist:

(Vox x fem!reader)

Word Count: 5782 (i got too carried away)

Outline: You, the wife of the infamous media overlord Vox, falls from Heaven and you find yourself in a chaotic new world. You meet the Hazbin Hotel crew, but most of all, you met him. Your long lost love.

Warning(s): Canon typical violence, language, etcetera.

A/N: Heyy guys, I totally was not gone for an entire year. . .but, I'm done with High School now so I will probably start posting a little bit more often. . .*no promises though. my memory is absolute garbage*

Also, why am I obsessed with a TV?

Story below the cut:

Heaven.

The place all virtuous and 'perfect' people ascend to after living the life every good person is meant.

You don't even know how you got here. You always thought that you would go to Hell. (Not to put it lightly) Perhaps it was because you were widowed at a rather young age. Perhaps it was because you were murdered by your late husband's arch rival. Or maybe, it was a bit of all.

Your life on earth wasn't bad per se. In fact, you had a very happy life. You got married at the fruitful age of 20, to your best friend, and lived in a very comfortable home. Your husband, Vincent Holland, was a big-time news reporter in your hometown.

But, why was it in Heaven that almost all your memories regarding Vincent were blurry? As if someone with significant power was preventing you from reminiscing on your past life?

You could barely remember his face; his award winning smile. His sapphire blue eyes, and his dark hair.

You hated this.

You couldn't even remember how long ago you died.

Hell, you couldn't even remember how you died. Just that you were murdered one day and your body was left to rot in a random alley.

A hand waving in front of your face interrupted your sad train of thoughts, and your attention immediately shifted back to your friend. Or acquaintance, you weren't exactly sure where your friendship status lay.

"You alright there, partner?"

You sighed slowly and nodded your head in affirmation. You weren't sure if you were doing it to convince them that you were okay, or yourself.

"I'm alright, Kai, just a bit tired ," you mumbled pathetically. Kai was a very beautiful shark-like angel. You met them some time ago and instantly clicked with one another. But, Kai was one of those people that had a tendency of gossiping with their girlfriend Molly. And you were never comfortable sharing anything beyond your life in Heaven.

Which was a pity because you were sure if you shared it, you wouldn't feel so fucking stressed out.

The shark angel let out a small laugh and gently patted your head.

"Sure, sure. Whatever you say m'lady. You know if there's anything bothering you, you could always talk to me or Molly, right?"

You again nodded your head, even though you probably would never take up the offer.

"Hey you guys! How are you both doing?"

Speak of the devil and he shalt appear.

"Hey Molly! I see you're finally off of work?"

"Yup! And I brought a treat for you both!" Molly said in a sing-song tone of voice. Kai smiled with a nearly evil-like grin and made grabby hands at their girlfriend.

"Gimme, I can smell the baked goods!"

You chuckled at Kai's antics and stood up from the chair you were sitting in. Kai raised a brow at you and you motioned with your hand that you were going to get another drink. You picked up your now empty whisky bottle and began to head over to the bar where you and Kai find yourselves frequently whenever you both have had a long day at work.

The bartender, Mr Smiles (as Molly so lovingly named him) greeted you with a very drunken smirk when you arrived at your favourite destination.

"Hello there, Mrs. Holland. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

You rolled your eyes and sat down on one of the barstools, placing your cup down and sliding it over to the bartender.

"Another, please." you said simply. Mr. Smiles blinked at you before grabbing your cup and pouring more of the golden liquid into it.

"The 'Another' for the lady." he said cheekily, to which you giggled. You snatched the cup up from the table and practically downed the strong liquid and forced back a gag when it burned your throat. The bartender chuckled at your silliness and leaned over the bar so you could hear each other better over the loud chatter of the Cloud Nine bar. (You and Kai always found the name of the bar to be hilarious)

"So, you never drink this much unless you have something to spill. Need to talk about something sweetheart?" he asked with a patient tone of voice.

You sighed dramatically and leaned back against your chair, deep in thought.

"I just. . ." you trailed off in thought before sighing again in annoyance at your capability of explaining your biggest problem.

"You just?" he tried to urge you to continue, but was rudely interrupted when a flock of angels came bursting into the room.

"His Holiness, Archangel Michael needs to discuss important matters in Town Square. Everyone present is required to make an audience immediately."

Murmurs began to fill the room in confusion of the sudden announcement. You raised your brow at the bartender, quietly asking him if he knew what all the commotion was about. He shrugged before continuing on with putting the remaining glasses away.

"Hey, partner, we need to head out to Town Square." Kai said, putting a webbed hand onto your shoulder. You nodded and stood up, following close behind your two buddies. Molly, like always, had a small hop to her step as if she was always happy and excited about things. Her partner smiled at her giddiness and soon began to also skip along with her.

Oh, how much you missed being able to have someone to be close with. And once again, your thoughts began to turn back to your late husband, Vincent.

You missed him so much.

And you were fully aware that your beloved Vincent was in Hell. The place you were also sure to go to when you kicked the bucket. But alas, here you are, in the city of silver and gold.

You stopped abruptly when you reached Town Square and noticed how big of a crowd was already there. Thousands of angels and souls alike, all stood cramped up around a huge balcony that belonged to Archangel Palace.

The chatter began to quiet down when the all-loved Archangel Michael stepped up to the balcony and waved to the crowd to silence their speech.

Kai bent over to you and whispered about how interesting things were going to get. You didn't respond, but instead gasped when a photo got projected onto the side of one of the Palace's huge spires. It was a really bloody scene: demonic-like creatures were sprawled all over the ground, torn to shreds from what you could tell. What made you feel faint, however, was the carcuses of angels. What the fuck were angels doing in Hell?

It seemed that a lot of other people were questioning the same exact thing, and Michael, once again announced order from the crowd and the only sound remaining were the hushed whispers.

"It has come to my knowledge that a secret organisation has been founded without my permission. Adam, the first man, and Sera, have been discovered sending down angels every year to kill them." He stopped mid explanation and waved his hand over to an angel that stood close to him. A scroll was placed into Michael's hands, and he unscrolled it and began to read whatever was written onto it.

"According to the words of Sera: Hell has become too overpopulated, and a risk of war could arise. Exterminations have been a necessity, and is, therefore required to keep balance between Good, and Evil." Michael immediately crumpled up the scroll, and threw it back at the poor angel that was beside him to catch.

"This is all tyranny, of course. Me and the Council did not agree to such lunacy, which is why, we are going to have a public vote as to whether or not Sera should be ex-communicated from Heaven."

A loud gasp came from the crowd.

Especially from Molly, who also seemed to begin to tear up.

"That means she'll be thrown to Hell!" she choked back a sob in surprise. Kai patted their girlfriends back to try and sooth her large and soft heart.

You, however, were enraged from the idea of angels going down and killing people. Your beloved Vincent was down there. What if he was killed?!

And like always, your spiral of thoughts was interrupted when Michael began to speak again.

"Just to be absolutely clear, this is never to be discussed with anyone ever again. After the vote is casted, anyone caught discussing this topic will immediately be casted from Paradise, and into the pits of Hell for treachery. I cannot be clear enough."

Murmurs filled the Square as everyone agreed to Michael's proposal.

"Great! Well, everyone better head off to vote now! Have a great day everyone." And like that, he vanished in a cloud of golden smoke.

You didn't realise your jaw was hanging open until Kai mentioned that you looked like a venus-fly trap waiting for a bug to land in your mouth. You clamped it shut instantly and glared at them.

"Chill! It was just supposed to be a joke!" They huffed in faux offence. Molly giggled at her partner's antics, and gently rubbed her fingers in between Kai's fins that decorated their body.

"Calm down, love. We need to head to a voting booth so we can cast votes. I know what I'm voting for."

"Yeah, I can't believe such a thing was happening behind our backs! Who knows how long it has been going on?"

Molly sighed and rubbed her fuzzy face for comfort.

"I don't know, but I hope it wasn't for too long. I believe some of my family is down there."

"Yikes, that's tough. I'm sorry for that." Kai said with sympathy laced in their voice.

You blinked back tears that were forming in your eyes. You would not cry over the possibility that your Vincent was double-dead.

You were strong.

+++

You sighed heavily when you arrived at your small apartment later that evening.

"What a rotten day," you mumbled to yourself. As if on command, your pet land-shark Vark came running into the foyer. You smiled instantly and picked up the little creature and began to pet him between his eyes.

You and Vincent loved sharks. It was a shared passion you both had that made you best friends instantly. When you first got married, you both always joked of getting a shark and naming it Vark.

Well, you had the shark, just not Vincent.

You were thinking about him again, and it was making you feel bad once more.

Why couldn't you remember some things? Who or what was making you forget?

You placed Vark back onto the ground, who of course, whined with the lack of affection from your part. You stepped over the land-shark and headed over to your balcony, that had a perfect view of the Embassy of Heaven. The place you go to whenever you have questions regarding the after-life and anything else.

Maybe there you would find answers.

With a new destination in mind, you grabbed Vark's leash and hooked him up to it. Vark began to wag his tail (well, his fin) in excitement about where you would be taking him. You smiled again at your pet's adorable-ness and began to head back outside once more.

The streets of Heaven were very peaceful. Just about no soul was out and about. It made sense since it was rather late. Around eleven o'clock actually.

Soon, the golden pillars of the Embassy came into view, and you let out a sigh when you realised it was still open. You approached the heavy double doors and swallowed back a scream when they opened up automatically. Vark found it hilarious however, when you just about died a second time from a mini heart attack.

You huffed at your shark and headed inside the golden-themed building and found that it was practically empty. I mean-duh it was empty, it was basically in the middle of the night.

A Cherub, from the looks of it, approached you and gave you a rather judgmental look over.

"Honey, I'm sorry to say this but no pets are allowed." the Cherub said with an irritating tone of voice.

You stared at the flying goat-creature and rolled your eyes.

"Vark, is a service pet. I am afraid you can't throw him out." you lied with a fake smile. One thing that Vincent taught you to do well, was fake things. You were especially good at putting on a fake show. One of the things that, once again, surprised you that Heaven looked over.

Wasn't lying a big sin?

The Cherub interrupted your thoughts when she cleared her throat rather obnoxiously.

"Alright honey. Whatever you say. To what do I owe the pleasure of assisting you with this evening?"

"Oh, well. . .I am not so sure how to explain it." you answered truthfully; slightly cringing at your lack of effort of just telling her.

The Cherub pulled out a clipboard from thin air you assumed (since she most certainly wasn't holding one earlier) and began to scribble something onto it.

"Well, Mr. Heart will be able to assist you with whatever, 'complicated' issue you have got going on." She handed you a piece of paper that had practically illegible handwriting on it, and pointed to a corridor that led to a couple of office rooms.

"Hope you find what you need, honey. Good night." and like that, she sauntered off to what you assumed to be her office. What a weird person, you thought with a click of your tongue.

You began your tread to Mr. Heart's office, and stopped when you reached the door. You lifted your hand to knock but stopped when the door was flung open and a rather energetic angel stepped out of the room.

"Hey there! You must be one of the 'poor souls' Chili sent to me! Come on in!" he moved aside and held a hand out for you to shake, to which he practically tore off yours when he shook it rather rigorously.

"The name is Heart! What's yours m'lady?"

You mumbled your name back and he let out a very loud laugh.

"Why, Mrs. Holland! Quite the pleasure to be meeting you!"

You nodded your head and held back a gasp when he pulled you by the hand into the office.

"So, tell me what has troubled you enough to venture here so late in the night?"

You opened your mouth to begin speaking, but clamped it down when you couldn't find the right words to say. Damn it, you were nervous. You couldn't, however, pinpoint if it was from the very very close proximity of the Angel, or the lack of knowledge of how to explain your memories being jumbled up.

You could begin by telling the angel to take a few hundred steps back.

"Sorry, but um, could you step back a bit?" You asked with a shaky breath. The Angel smiled with pearly white teeth, but didn't seem to move an inch.

"I can't hear you clearly if I am too far back. It is best if I stay here." He said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. (or Heaven)

You nodded, even though you doubt that was the truth. You mentally noted to never come back here again once you're down getting some answers.

"So, I have a question." You began.

"Everyone that comes here has questions. But I can't exactly be sure that your question is legal to answer or not."

Your eyes widened in curiosity. Some questions could be illegal to ask? Flashbacks from today's event clouded your thoughts, but you immediately shook them away. A traitor is how you would be viewed if you discussed with anyone about today. And you would be quite foolish to bring it up with an official member of the Council.

"So, you were saying, Mrs. Holland?"

"Why am I not able to remember some things about my life on Earth?" You may as well pull off the bandage and stop dancing around the bush in fear of being judged. Your worries worsened when the Angel's eyes seemed to darken a little.

"Whatever do you mean, darling? What memories?"

"That is the whole point! I know that I can't remember some things! I just don't know what." frustration was very clear in your voice at this point.

Mr. Heart laughed wholeheartedly as if your 'situation' was the funniest thing anyone has ever told him.

"Well my dear, no need to get all fierce with me! I only want to assist you. And it seems that you are treading on very dangerous waters. I would watch out if I were you."

You swear your eyes became fire. How dare he act as if your troubles were something scandalous! Vark began to lick your leg as an attempt to calm you down, which worked for a moment until the 'ever lovable' Mr. Heart reached a hand out and began to rub your shoulders as if he had any right to touch you.

Vark, being the wonderful pet he is, noticed this and bit his leg. The angel howled in pain and kicked your beloved baby and he began to wail in pain. At this point, all you saw was red as you lunged onto the man and began to beat him up with what some people would call a 'mother's fiery.'

Some raised voices from outside of the office eventually joined the chaos of the room, and you were dragged off the very-much battered up Mr. Heart. Well, Mr. Heartless to you.

"Mrs. Holland! How dare you strike a Seraphim! That is considered treachery to the Hierarchy of the Council!" the same Cherub from earlier screeched at you in a high-pitched tone.

"Well I'll be damned! He touched me without consent and kicked my pet! I was defending myself-"

"You lie! One sin after another! How could you!?" you felt yourself being picked up from two service angels, and being dragged to another room, your shark following you right behind.

"Where are you taking me?" You shouted, attempting to pull off the two angels that were holding you roughly.

"We're not taking you anywhere. You are going to be sent somewhere." the Cherub said with a malicious tone of voice. You bit back a sob when the words processed in your head.

They were going to send you to Hell

You eventually approached a door that read 'Employees Only' and met a room that had an arch that took up the entire floor.

The portal to Hell. The place they were going to toss you into for something utterly stupid. How hypocritical of them. Heaven, the place of love and peace? My ass!

The Cherub flew over to a panel on the side of the wall, and loud sirens were heard throughout the room. Hell, you bet the entire 'cloud kingdom' could hear the loud blaring the room was making.

A red coloured portal began to appear on the ground within the structure of the arch. You gulped and felt tears begin to dwell in your eyes.

This was it.

Good-bye Heaven. Good-bye Kai and Molly.

You could hear Vark wailing from the loud noises and you attempted at twisting around to look at him. Your last attempt at begging for your shark's mercy was cut off when you were tossed into the portal.

You fell for a moment.

Then everything went dark.

+++

What awoke you from your 'dreamless sleep' was the feeling of something wet being dragged across your face. You moaned in pain when everything came crashing down on you. Literally.

Your back hurts, your head hurts, hell, even your face hurts.

You opened your eyes and noticed your beloved land-shark was on top of you, licking your face. You didn't feel anything but pure joy at that moment when you realised your shark wasn't going to be left all alone up in Heaven.

"My baby! I thought I wouldn't see you again!" you cried aloud and clutched the shark tightly against your chest. Vark seemed to love the attention and began to get all giddy from your loving embrace.

You pulled away from him after a few minutes, and began to observe the scenery around you. You appeared to be in some sort of alleyway, noting that there was garbage and other things that you didn't care to find out what it was exactly. You stood up slowly, and nearly fell back to the ground when you felt your knees shake.

Damn, you fell hard.

(Not as hard as you fell for Vincent though)

Vark noticed that you were in pain, and began to lick you again as a way of comforting you. You smiled softly and patted his smooth head in reassurance that you would be alright. Vark got the memo, and jumped from your arms. You attempted to stand again, and lent against the wall for support.

"Vark, I need you to do me a small favour." You said with a small voice. Vark wagged his fin and his tongue poked out of his mouth in anticipation for what your next words would be.

"Can you go up ahead and see if there is anyone that can help me? I don't think I'm going to be able to get around."

Vark tilted his head to the side in slight confusion to your words, to which you sighed heavily.

"I'm hurt Vark. I need help." You said a bit more simply. Vark recognised the phrase from when you trained him years ago, and immediately ran around the corner of the alleyway in search of some suitable help.

Who are you kidding? This is Hell. Why would anyone want to help? You sighed and placed your fingers on the bridge of your nose to attempt to relieve some stress that was building up.

What a rotten day.

+++

Minutes turned into hours, and you began to grow weary that something had happened to Vark. That is until you heard the familiar pat pat of Vark's fins.

You looked up from the corner you were hiding in, and noticed a very tall demoness was approaching you with Vark and-was that Molly?

"Oh my gosh! Are you alright?!" The demoness exclaimed with pure worry in her tone. You smiled weakly and shook your head.

"No, I-I'm sorry if I'm a bit of an inconvenience. You see, I was kinda kicked out of Heaven? And I'm injured from falling. . ." You babbled on. Maybe you hit your head harder than you thought.

The demoness held a sympathetic gaze in her eyes, and she looked over to her companion who was observing you as if you were an anomaly.

"Wait, you're from Heaven?"

You nodded your head, and the fellow seemed to get all smiley. Why? Who knows.

"That's crazy toots! Ya know, my sister is up there, I wonder if you eveh got to meet 'er."

You shrugged nonchalantly.

"I didn't meet much folk up there. I'm not much for socialising."

The spider-like dude nodded his head in understanding.

"'Tis fine, we are all different. Anyway, the name is Angel Dust, and this is her majesty Charlie." He pointed to himself then waved one of his other arms to the blonde demoness, who you now know as Charlie.

She was beaming with complete and utter joy. Why do they both smile so much when they are in the fiery pits of inferno?

"You need to come back with us and tell us EVERYTHING! You could be so helpful for my hotel!" Charlie began, but then immediately stopped once she noticed you were very much lost.

"I'm so sorry for being so direct with you! I'm Charlie, as Angel said. I should've asked if you wanted our help first. I mean, of course you want my help! I mean, do you?" She awkwardly trailed off when she noticed that you were staring at her as if she had grown another head.

Hotel? What does she mean by that?

"What she is trying to ask is if you needed a place to stay?" Angel asked, brushing his hands through his hair (was it hair?) and smoothing it over. His hair (it was definitely not hair but you didn't know what else to call it.) reminded you of Molly, and your heart ached at the thought of Kai and Molly going to your apartment and not finding you there.

You felt tears welled up in your eyes, but you tried hard to not look like you were about to burst into a puddle of sadness and utter hopelessness.

Charlie noticed this, however, and she crouched down to your height and engulfed you with the warmest hug you've ever received in a long time. You felt the dam break, and immediately you began to sob. At this point, you don't even know what you are crying over.

Maybe it's for everything that has happened over the past-decade?

Decades?

You were not entirely sure at this point honestly.

You both eventually entangled each other from the hug, and she offered you a hand to help you up. You took it gratefully, and stood up slowly to prevent yourself from falling back over. Charlie smiled at you softly, to which you grinned back.

"Alright now, are we headin’' back to the Hotel?" Angel asked with a hint of impatience in his voice. Charlie nodded her head, but looked back at you to make sure that is what you wanted. You properly smiled that time, and they both took the answer as 'yes'.

+++

The hotel was nothing like how you imagined. You learned on the trip there that the hotel was a place where sinners dwelled to try and redeem themselves to earn salvation.

That was the most wholesome thing you thought you would ever hear in Hell. There's hope for you yet.

You were currently in the lounge of the hotel, where a lot of 'group activities' took place on a daily basis. You and Vark were on top of a very comfortable couch that was tucked away in a corner. You were honestly so comfy, that you felt yourself dozing off. Until you heard a voice that made you want to rip your ears off.

"Why, hello! I didn't know our beloved Charlie had once again found another unfortunate soul to try out her silly project!"

The man's voice sounded muffled, almost as if he was speaking through some sort of antique microphone from ages ago. You made eye-contact with the looming figure, and noticed he reassembled a deer in a strange and unique way.

Who the Hell was this man? And why is he so-red?

As if he could read your mind, he shoved his hand in your face to shake and practically announced to the hotel who he was.

"The name is Alastor! Welcome to the Hazbin Hotel!" You smile you returned was weak but you still shook his hand, and sighed when you realised he wasn't about to break your hand like the other guy. Mr. Heart or whatever his name was.

That stupid prick. You were mad at him again.

"No need to frown, dear! Smile some more! You're never fully dressed without one!"

This Alastor was starting to get on your nerves. And he seemed to be a staff member of the place, which only meant you would be seeing him a lot. That is if you stayed. Also, his own smile was slightly unnerving. . .not to mention kind of creepy.

"Alastor! Leave the poor girl alone." you heard Charlie call from another part of the lounge. Alastor rolled his eyes before he turned hot on his heels to argue back that he was simply 'introducing' himself.

Whatever, you didn't really care.

You stood up from the couch, Vark following closely, and began to sneak away from the chaos of the Hotel. You eventually found yourself on the sidewalks of the busy street of some part of town.

One thing you noted was how many bright neon lights decorated the sides of buildings and billboards. Vark seemed to be lost in the flashing colours and noises of the advertisements playing on TV's.

There were so many TV's. Which triggered a long lost memory that you never remembered from your time in Heaven.

It was a year or so after you and Vincent got married. He had just landed a job as a news reporter for a small company that was local to your hometown. You were aware that he loved all the new technology that was being released too quickly to follow up on. But you never expected him to one day bring back an extremely expensive TV for your living room.

"Vincent! What on Earth did you get this time?"

He rolled his eyes and rolled a portable box TV into the kitchen for you to examine.

"I got us a TV. It's especially for you so you can watch me when I'm on the afternoon news." He said with a cheeky smile. You chuckled at his antics and headed over to him to give him a hug.

"You're such an attention seeker, and you're also adorable."

He only laughed at that, and hugged you back just as tightly as you.

"Only for you doll, only for you."

The memory faded, and it left you standing idiotically in the middle of the sidewalk. That was new, and not to mention, so heartwarming.

You missed Vincent. A lot. And you were aware you kept thinking about him. Must be because your memories are no longer blocked.

Vark began to bark at an advertisement when you noticed a man with a TV for a head appeared on one of the TV's close to you. He was talking about some sort of security system, but you didn't care. What you did care about was how familiar his grin was to you.

That wasn't a coincidence, was it?

Vark distracted you from your thoughts when he began to run away when the scent of seafood wafted through the air. You out called after him and began to spring after the shark.

How does an animal run so fast with fins?

You once again got lost in your thoughts and didn't notice that you and your runaway shark were headed towards a huge crowd that was forming in front of a building nearby. Vark, being so small, ran in between the demons of all sizes and continued on his way. You were about to do the same until you ran into someone and knocked yourself and the stranger down.

"Woah! Careful where you're running off to!"

"I am so sorry!" You squealed when you realised that you had unintentionally caused a scene. You had landed completely on top of a random person; in front of a huge crowd; and it was the same man with the TV head.

Ah, what luck you had. Your thoughts were cut off when the TV headed man began to look you up and down, which made you very...uncomfortable? But his gaze felt familiar, as if instinct was telling you you knew this strange man.

"I feel like I've seen you before, do I know you?" He began, but you cut him off when you scrambled to your feet when you noticed Vark returned to you with some fish in his mouth. Or what you assumed was fish.

"Vark! You are in so much trouble!" You announced, bending over to pick up the mischievous land-shark that has caused oh-so-many problems with you today.

You heard people around you murmur, to which you raised your brow to, but decided to ignore. You turned back around to again apologise to the man you so rudely knocked over, but found him staring at you as if you had hung the stars in the sky.

What was his deal?

You heard him mumble your name, which definitely made you jump a bit.

"What was that?"

He rushed over to you instantly and immediately grabbed your arm and pulled you into the building the crowd was forming around, completely ignoring all the commotion that began to arise outside.

You both eventually reached a secluded corridor, and you found yourself standing in close proximity with the man.

Who even is he? And what the fuck gave him the right to drag you around like a doll?

He called your name again, and you felt his hands gently cup your cheeks. You met his artificial gaze, and you all but gasped when it all finally clicked.

Vincent Holland. Your long lost and beloved husband.

"V-Vincent?" You stammered, completely bewildered that you had somehow found him in a city with millions of people. Maybe luck was truly on your side finally.

"H-how?" You started, but got cut off when a pair of digital lips met yours in a sweet kiss. Your eyes widened in shock: you were kissing a TV. But this was also your husband. (Who had a screen for a head somehow…)

You closed your eyes and wrapped your arms around his neck and deepened the kiss, humming softly when he began to bite and suck at your lips. You pulled away, however, when Vark began to cry from the lack of your attention.

"Vark! Stop it!" you scolded him. Vincent chuckled at the interaction to which you raised a brow.

"What's so funny?"

"Oh nothing. I also have a land-shark named Vark." he stated as if it were the most obvious thing. Your eyes widened in disbelief.

"Are you being serious?"

"Yes, doll. I got him as soon as I found out you could have one. And I named him Vark because, well, we always joked about it."

You smiled so sweetly at this. You and Vincent coincidently having a pet shark and naming them the same was just too heartwarming to you. You pulled him back into another kiss, to which Vincent welcomed whole-heartedly.

You pulled away after a minute when your lungs burned for air, and noticed Vincent was staring at you adoringly.

"What is it?" You asked.

"I thought I would never see you again. You don't know how much I've missed you. I looked for you everywhere as soon as I was able to to it safely. Even though it didn't happen as fast as I wanted, I knew I would always find you." he whispered. He kissed your head gently, which you leaned into slightly.

You felt your heart ache a little, when you realised that he probably didn't get to live in an oblivious bliss to your absence. A perk of living in Heaven, you supposed, was the lack of memory of anything that could make you wish the fiery pits of Inferno.

"Me too Vincent, me too. I'm so glad that I found you again." you placed your forehead against his (screen), and shared a loving embrace.

You and your beloved Vincent, was once again, united.

i finally looked over it, and part one of the prologue is up. if there is any mistakes i didnt catch, feel free to let me know!

also, i love vark. he carries this story ngl.

But I still will because this story felt very. . .rushed. even though it's so DAMN LONG HOLY SHIT.

-will

#x reader #x y/n #vox hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel x yn #hazbin hotel vox #hazbin hotel #hazbin vox x reader #vox x reader #vox hazbin hotel x reader #IWAFY AU #IWAFY

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