#i'm just biding my time until i die in an /acceptable/ way

[humbleanger]

wishing it was all different but also not having the means or the bravery to change anything

[asirensrage]

Title: Promises Unspoken

Rating: Explicit

Fandom: Demon Slayer

Pairing: Rengoku Kyojuro x unnamed/undescribed oc

Warnings: Smut. Angst. Tenderness. Mention of torture. Hurt/Comfort. Did I mention tenderness? Unbeta'd.

Summary: She survived. That's enough. If only he would stop avoiding her.

Notes: This...this got away from me. I was originally planning just more detailed smut but they took over. There are so many parts of this that I love and I hope you do too. I'd like to apologize to anyone who reads this as a pre-canon thing because I broke my own heart when I thought about it. So, I'm sorry. On that note, enjoy! Lmk what you think!

She's fine.

She's fine. She's fine. She's fine.

The life of a demon slayer is a treacherous one with no guarantee of safety or length. Most die within years of becoming one. But this? This was different. This was not a matter of facing her death with open eyes and a vengeful heart. This had been torture. They had planned to take her apart slowly. Bit by bit. Piece by piece. Until there was nothing left and her voice was nearly destroyed by how she screamed. And she screamed.

She bides her time, breathing through the pain as they pull thin pieces of her flesh off of her. When she escapes, by the skin of her teeth, a lot of luck and the blessed light of the sun, she is barely coherent. Driven by the same thought that helped keep her sane, she stumbles as she searches her way through the dense forest they called home. She almost doesn’t make it but there were people waiting for her and she refuses to accept any other choice but her survival.

She doesn’t remember falling or someone calling her name. She doesn’t remember reaching the edge of the village or how long she’s been missing or the way someone cradles her against them as they run for help. 

Instead, she dreams. 

She dreams of the people she left behind, the ones she’s saved, of her family who wait for her in the afterlife, of her friends who expect her return…and of him. A human personification of the sun. An almost inhuman form of something right and good and just. She dreams of the days they’ve spent together, meals they’ve shared and the quiet conversations that held promise if things had ever been different. If neither of them was prepared to die at any moment. Her life was never going to end any other way. That never stopped her from wishing, from hoping.

And then she wakes up.

It takes her a moment to realize it's not a dream. That the pain she feels is real, a sharp reminder of her life and one that aches with every breath. She is safe. 

She is alive. She is alive. She is alive.

She cries in relief at the familiar pale walls, the soft sheets covering her and the scent of wisteria that drifts through the open window. She cries for the people she could not save, for the others she left behind and for the pang of gratefulness that she survived. She is supposed to give her body and her life to the corps, to the act of demon slaying and yet she has failed and she is still alive. 

Others come to see her. The staff at the Butterfly mansion, Shinobu herself, some fellow slayers she knows by name or face and even Tengen, who presents himself as the one lucky enough to save her. The only one who doesn’t come is the one she’s been desperate to see. 

“He was here,” Tengen tells her. He’s leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. The jewels that hang off of his headband sway, catch the light from the window and display its colours against the wall. It’s almost hypnotizing. A sufficient distraction for what he says next. “Stayed at your side while you slept.” 

“Then why–?”

He shrugs. “It’s not very flashy of him, but he nearly lost you. He’s dealing with that.” 

“You say that like we’re together,” she says, ignoring the way her heart clenches in her chest.

“Aren’t you?” Tengen raises his eyebrows as he looks at her. “Just because you two prefer to dance around each other doesn’t mean no one sees it.” 

“We’re not–”

“Don’t be boring,” Tengen cuts her off. “Soon as you’re healed enough, you find him. It’s that simple.” 

She doubts that but nods if only to get Tengen off of the topic. 

A month. 

A month passes with meetings with her leader, a catalogue of exercises and the hurt settling in her chest at his avoidance. She understands. What happened is a stark reminder of exactly why they’ve never said anything, why they’ve only danced around each other and never given in to the temptation of admitting they wanted more. But it still stings. 

Someone tells her that he’s there. Before she can stop herself, before she can talk herself out of it, she looks for him. It takes her a few tries before she succeeds. 

She slides the door open and pauses, breath catching in her throat when she finally sees him. He’s sitting at the edge of the bed, hands folded together, his gaze distant. It is a strange thing to see him so still. He’s been known to move even when injured, loudly thanking the people taking care of him, even as he tries to leave too soon. 

She slides the door closed behind her, moving forward and reaching out as she calls his name softly so she doesn’t startle him. It’s her that’s startled. The world twists around her until her head hits the pillow, her body lands, and she finds him poised above her. 

His gaze pins her, red and yellow scorching as his eyes meet hers. He’s looking for something as he examines her face but she doesn’t know what. All she can focus on is the fear she sees in his eyes. 

“Are you–?”

“We almost lost you,” he says softly. He’s still staring at her, mapping out every expression she makes. 

She sighs, realization setting in. “You didn’t.” 

He lowers himself, enough that his body presses against hers. She tries not to think about how good it feels to have his weight on her, how easily he fits between her legs as though he belongs there. He buries his face in her neck. 

“-as too close,” she thinks she hears him say. “I can’t–”

“I’m fine,” she says softly. She reaches up and brushes his soft blond hair back. She didn’t think she was ever going to see him again but she had hoped. She came back. “I’m okay.” She repeats it like a mantra, trying to carve it into her own mind as well as his. “I’m okay.” 

He shifts and she tries not to react to the feeling, the pressure created as he lifts himself up again, bracing an elbow on the bed next to her. His hair falls around her, framing her face and acting as a shield against the outside world so that all she can see is him. She could drown like this, in his gaze, with all the promises she sees there and the longing that he’s held back. Maybe she will. Maybe she is still in that place, with the demons feasting on her flesh and a shattered mind trying to stave off reality with this imagined potential. Of course, he would save her, even if it wasn’t real.  

“I almost lost you,” he says softly, drawing her back out of her fears and into the warmth of the truth of her position. She is alive and he is here. “I do not know what I would have…” he cuts himself off. They do not have the luxury of dreaming of a future. Not together. Not yet. 

“You didn’t,” she tells him. “I’m alive. I’m here.” 

“You are here,” he repeats. There’s a pause before he continues. “My flame.”

Her breath hitches in her throat. He’s never called her that before. They’ve always stuck to their names, a formality to remind them of their position, to keep their desires separate from the fate that could await them. It was supposed to be easier that way. “Kyo-”

He cuts her off with a kiss. 

There’s nothing soft about it. It is tinged with a desperation they both feel, years of pent-up want coming to a head. Teeth clash as their lips move against one another until they find their rhythm. His head tilts, opening his mouth just enough to tug on her lip, to silently beg her to reciprocate and allow him to taste her. How could she ever refuse? 

His body presses into hers as he lowers himself closer. She digs her fingers into his hair, trying to burn herself into his memory. If they never get a chance, if they don’t see their ending, at least they’ll have this. It’s enough. It has to be.

 He maps her mouth, tongue sliding against hers, as he reaches up to cup her jaw, calloused thumb pressing against her skin in a careful motion that contrasts the way he kisses. He touches her like she’s something delicate, something precious that he cherishes. He kisses her like he wants to devour her, to bury her into him until neither one knows where the other begins. 

They break only by the necessity to breathe. She stares up at this man, wondering how much of her he’ll claim. She’d give him everything if only to ensure this doesn’t stop. 

“I feared I would never get the chance to gaze at you again, to hear your laugh ringing across the courtyard.” He pauses for a moment, eyes tracing the curves of her face, her lips. “I feared I would never have this chance.” 

She laughs, breathless and unsure of what to say in return. “We weren’t supposed to..”

“I will not have any more regrets,” he tells her, sounding like the Hashira he is except for the way she can feel him trembling against her. “Not with you.” 

She leans up, clasps her hand at the back of his neck and drags him down to meet her lips. He dives into her with a familiar eagerness. His lips are rough against hers, but it fades to the back of her mind as she feels consumed by the taste of him. 

She’s not sure who moves first. Buttons scatter against the mats as the standard medical wear is torn open. He pulls back, staring at her in awe and the adoration she sees in his eyes is not one she expects. She is covered in scars, some deeper than others, indentations made in her skin from the demons who held her. Kyojuro traces the largest one that spans her side across her hip. His fingers spark heat that flares in her belly and under her skin. 

“Kyojuro–” he covers her mouth with one of his hands, leaving her staring at him in surprise. 

“I will not hear it, my heart,” he tells her, as though he knows what she will say. “Your beauty is not marred by this.” His eyes meet hers. “It is a testament to your strength, your conviction to survive. I will hear nothing else.” 

“I had to survive,” she breathes. If she hadn’t already been completely in love with him before, she was now. “I had to return to you.”

His gaze darkens. “Yes. I pray you always do.” He sheds the top of his uniform, throwing it to the floor haphazardly in contradiction to his haori already folded on the lone chair. She drinks in the sight of him eagerly. She has seen his chest bare before, knows each story behind each scar, and yet she silently prays he allows her to learn to navigate the path between each one. She touches him, feeling the muscles contract under her touch. “Will you tell me if you desire to stop?” he asks and she can hear the hesitation in his voice. For as confident as he is, this is breaching an unspoken promise between them. 

“Of course,” she says. “But I don’t want you to stop.” 

So he doesn’t. 

She learns what it means to touch his body, to feel him react against her with every movement. She kisses marks into his neck, licking at the salt of his sweat as he murmurs promises that she pretends not to hear. Her nails leave marks into his skin, threatening to create new scars that will permanently leave the memory of her with him. 

Kyojuro attempts to memorize every dip and curve of her body with his hands and mouth. He groans against her skin the first time he takes one of her nipples in his mouth, teeth tracing it gently before he soothes it with his tongue. He begs her to let him hear her, etching himself underneath her skin with every touch. He wants and wants and wants and she gives it freely. 

He holds her in place, fingers digging into the tissue of her thighs. She thinks that he is going to leave marks but none of it matters at the first touch of his mouth against her. His movements are slow, a tenuous exploration of unfamiliar territory, but Kyojuro is acutely aware of every reaction she gives. He learns and she is thrown into a precipice that she knows might ruin her. There is no coming back from this and with every lick, every movement of his tongue and fingers between her legs, she will gladly never return. She burns with his touch and will willingly succumb. 

“Are you alright?” he asks, wiping at his mouth as he returns to his position over her. She has stars in her eyes when she pulls him in to kiss her. He would kiss her forever if he could, she knows. So would she. 

“Let me,” she says, trying to urge him into another position. One where he is not alone in control of their movements. One where she can touch him just as easily. 

He shakes his head. “I want to see you,” he tells her. “Please. Let me see you.” There’s a desperate need in his eyes, one that tells her that he is still trying to hold back the reminder that she was nearly lost. 

“Okay,” she says shakily. She swallows tightly, wondering if they’ll be able to go back to how things were after this. If they even wanted to. “Okay.” 

It’s easy to angle him into her, to wrap her leg around him in a way that begs him closer. It aches at first, this welcome intrusion. She breathes through the pain, trying to relax into it and finds herself watching the finely attuned control on his face. His eyes are closed tightly, a hand on her hip as he presses himself closer. He moves achingly slow, considerate even in this, until he is finally completely engulfed. 

She is full and surrounded and has never felt safer than at this moment. With how he looks at her, how his hand strokes her leg softly, telling her he’ll wait, that if she wants to stop he will. If she could drown in this moment, she would. She would gladly throw herself in the ocean of his desire, but Kyojuro has never been a body of water. He is a fire, a sun that threatens to scorch anything left in his orbit too long, and she will gladly burn. 

She eases his concern with her own promises, with her begging him to move, to ease the tension that she feels building with every movement he makes. 

“You are perfect,” he murmurs against her lips as he kisses her again. “My heart. My flame.” 

“Kyo,” she breathes. “It’s you.” She smiles, lost in his promises and praise. “Only you. Always you.”

“You came back to me,” he tells her. He reaches up, testing their patience as he strokes her cheek. “Always come back.” 

“You have to too.” 

He promises. It’s a fools promise, one that they both know they will likely break, but it doesn’t matter. Not now. This moment is carved into time between them. Their oaths, their positions, the rest of the world does not matter in this moment. Just them. Only them. 

Kyojuro moves. 

They stumble through until they find a rhythm that leaves her breathless and begging. She clings to his shoulders, his neck, any place she can reach as he leads her to the edge with every thrust. He kisses her hard, swallowing her cries as he shifts her legs higher, adjusting the angle of his movement. She breaks around him and Kyojuro stares at her, enraptured by the sight of it. He buries his face into her neck, moving faster as she is kept on the brink of her release until finally, finally, he spills inside of her. 

He doesn’t stir at first, allowing her to collect her thoughts at what they’ve done and come down from the high she’s been thrown into. He pulls back, just enough to meet her eyes again. They search hers, looking for something she cannot give a voice to. He sees enough though because he kisses her again, slower this time, making her feel as though they have all the time in the world, as if there is not an end date to their lives waiting for them in the distance. 

When he breaks the kiss, he rests his forehead against hers and closes his eyes. “I cannot bear that fear again, nor can I regret this,” he says. “Do not ask it of me.” 

“Kyojuro,” she says his name softly, drawing his attention back to her. “I…I don’t regret this. Even if we cannot–” she cuts herself off. “I don’t regret this.”

“When we retire,” he says. “When Muzan is defeated, will you allow me to court you? To spend my eternity by your side?” 

Her heart stutters in her chest. This is another promise, but no longer one lost in the heat of their attempts to assure each other that they are safe. This is one that cannot be ignored. 

“I would like nothing else.”

He grins at her, as bright and blinding as the sun, before he kisses her again. He finally pulls away, leaving her empty and cold. “Remain here. I will check if the baths are empty and return for you….with something more to wear.” A blush stains his cheeks as he looks around, realizing the state of their clothing. “Wait for me.” 

“Okay,” she nods and watches as he dresses just enough so that he is not indecent before he leaves. He wants to marry her, to spend their lives side by side until the years crumble them apart. It would be nice, she thinks, dragging the sheet around her as she waits, to be his wife. If only they live that long. She prays they do. 

taglist: @raith-way @arrthurpendragon @zeleniafic @veetlegeuse @chickensarentcheap @nejires-hado @residentdormouse @endless-oc-creations  @stanshollaand @wordspin-shares @chrissymunson

[inessencedevided]

The Untamed, episode 46 - watching notes

Full disclosure: I'm not in a particularly good mood today. Have you seen that "no productivity. Only guild." Meme flying around? That's me today :|

Hopefully this will distract me (though distraction was the problem in the first place 🙈)

I apologise for any typos you'll finde in this post 😅

To recap, the last thing I learned was that apparently, Jiggy married his own sister because Jin Guangshan was a scumbag who raped more women than he could possibly remember

I was told by several people that this episode is their favourite. No pressures or anything :D

The way someone is dragging up Jiggy's secrets has a lot of poetic justice to it. Everyone is outraged and gossiping. Consensus is reached quickly. Kinda makes me feel that that someone (who probably also wrote the letter to jgy) knows exactly how to use the sect world's worst qualities as a weapon

Yao what's-his-name, resident gossip queen, at it again

Don't look at me my memory is as bad as wwx when it comes to names :D

I was about to write who is Lianfang Zum again and then I remembered that it's jiggy's honorary title. See what I mean? ^^

What does it say about me that my heart makes a leap when I simply see wwx leaning close to lwj to whisper to him? 😅 I'll probably die reading the novel, that's what that says

Oh so it was the maid who sent the letter

Come on Wei Wuxian! That was cruel

Yeah Yao what's-his-name, why would you need to know the identity of who ever is behind this? It's not like you've ever been deceived before!

What's... with that bracelet?

I love it how everyone looks positively startled when Lan Wangji says something unprompted :D

Wait ... Zwei Jun is in his hands? Shit, i don't remeber what happened there. Where did Xichen go again? 😬

I'm so confused right now 🙈 I can't watch and read the subtitles and type

Okay, watched the whole conversation again, now I'm following

I reiterate my earlier statement that whoever is pulling the strings here knows exactly what strings to pull to get the clans to act

Great, another mob 🙄

Loooool

NOW you want his help? 😂

Sure, as soon as he can serve YOU with his "evil tricks", that's okay!

You can see how much wwx changed because he does not hold their hypocrisy to their faces. He mostly seemed tired of it

And Jiang Cheng just realised that wwx might indeed not be responsible for Jiang Yanli's death, didn't he? He's almost stunned 🥺

Or is BEAUTIFUL to see Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji move in such unity! 😭

Oh ... those are the graves of his foster parents, right? :(

And Yanli ... oh God I forgot about Yanli 🥺

I'm crying again. Nothing on this show will ever hit as hard to me as the Yunmeng siblings' fate

I couldn't help myself, I legitimately just stroked my laptop screen where Yanli's plate was 🥺

So many conflicting emotions

Thanks to a friendly anon, I know that these three bows together are marriage thing! 😭😭😭

So yeah, they're married now. I dont make the rules :')

Somehow, this feels like them asking wwx's foster family's blessing

And now I'm imagining Shijie smiling back at them gently and I'm crying 🥺

And by God, I love lwj's gentle teasing :')

This whole scene, he's so soft! 😭

And it think that Wei Wuxian probably thought that he'd never get to step into Lotus Pier again. But here, he can finally say his goodbyes to his Shijie properly. He can heal! 🖤

And again, I cannot stress enough how wonderful that is! And how rare and precious in a show like this. So often character's get put through unimaginable trauma, but they either brush it off no problem or the show/movie ends immediately after the main action and you are left to imagine the number it did on the character's psyche. There are so rarely fantasy shows that really dive into the emotional fallout the plot has on their characters and then give them time to heal. Thus show does both and I'm so goddamn overjoyed my it!

Come to think of it, it reminds me of a very good hurt/comfort fic 🤷‍♀️

Jiang Cheng pleae, fir once, try not to be angry immediately when you're hurting :(

He still takes special offence that lwj is there. Makes me wonder if he still feels like wwx chooses lwj over the Jiang sect and is still hurt by it 😔 (note that at the same time, he reminds wwx that he's very much not a member of the Jiang clan anymore. God, the man has not worked through his own feelings ...)

For once, as much as I love it when lwj defends wwx (especially when it's not against any physical harm, but because he doesn't want wwx to be hurt emotionally) I think him interfering with this particular conflict does not help

Okay sorry, but no! lotus pier was not destroyed because wwx saved lwj in that cave. That was just an excuse for the Wen sect. They would have come eventually anyway

Ohhh

So there's my answer

He's still hurt because he feels wwx chooses anyone else over his family, which is to say him

And he probably can't understand because their positions are so different. The (future) sect leader and the son of a (dead) servant and a rogue cultivator who never felt quite like he belonged 😔

It's so goddamn tragic how much between these two was destroyed simply because they have such a different status in society and could never quite understand each other's perspective

And again, wwx just takes it 💔

Until, that is, lwj's honour gets besmirched

Don't fight in front of Shijie 🥺

Jiang Cheng's every action screams that he still loves his brother and that amidst all that pain for his lost family, is also deep betrayal and grieve for the brother he thought he could always count on 🥺💔

Can we appreciate for a second how much this shot tells us? From Jiang Cheng's angry desperation, to Wei Wuxian's quite acceptance of his rage (which must be so confusing to Jiang Cheng and probably hurt him even more. Because fighting is always how these two resolved their issues!) to Lan Wangji who is in full on protective mode (which I find more than heartwarming,but still think probably isn't helpful rn)

He ... what?

I still don't quite understand when exactly wwx's lack of golden core shows. Why does he have a nosebleed here?

What?

Oh!

Wen Ning 😱

I get what he wants to do!

Have we ever seen him this calm and determined before?

Abd they understand 😱😱😱

The look on all of their faces! Shiiiiit

I'm crying again

Oh wangii is crying 🥺

Wen Quing 💔💔💔 I'm crying even harder just looking at her. I've MISSED her 🥺

Lan Zhan your FACE!! 😭

The way he's looking at wwx in his arms, as if he's seeing him fir the first time

And by god, I can only imagine what he must be thinking

He must be reevaluation every single interaction they had since wwx started down the path of demonic cultivation 😭

I'm a bit in awe of Wen Ning here and how much he must have been holding in. That's the steadiest and most confident he's ever been

Oh Jiang cheng 💔

That looks like a man whose entire world has just been shaken to its core

And Lan Wangji is crying so much 🥺

God I hope he doesn't blame himself even more 🥺

Aaaaaaahhhh, so that is why he wouldn't just carry the sword for appearance sake and why he just had a nosebleed!

Jiang Cheng probably needs about a month to process all that :/

And therapy ...

Aaaaaaahhhh! The boat scene! I've seen gifs! 😍😍😍

A penny for Lan Wangji's thoughts ...

Oh I'm so so so so glad that Wen Ning gets to say thank you to the man who raised his ... cousin (?) :')

Oh god we get to see!!!!

Oh little a Yuan 😭😭😭😭😭😭

I wonder now, did Lan Qiren know who the child was that his nephew suddenly brought back to cloud recess?

I'm glad that we all learned from this that keeping secrets from the people we love, especially secrets that concern them personally, will eventually come back to bide us in the ass. Than you for delivering that important lesson, wen Ning!

Which reminds me that I hope they eventually tell wwx that they know 😬

I swear to god, one of these days I will melt from the gentleness in lan Wangji's gaze :')

Shit. He had to be awake? 😳

You can pinpoint the moment Lan Wangji's heart breaks for all the suffering wwx endured and how close he came to loosing him even then 🥺

Waking like that in you lovers arms in the middle of a lotus pond - that's the dream *sighs* (minus the passing out bit)

It's weirdly cute that wwx thinks that it's Jiang Cheng's insults that have lwj so upset 😅

Oh GOOOOD ...

I can't

The moment Yanli's themes started to play and she appeared I started to bawl 😭😭😭

And he's sharing the lotus pods with them ... oh please, lwj, please understand what he's saying. That's his pove language! His sister's food was how he received love and right now he passes it on to you! Please, please understand it! 🥺

Oh lwj, don't 🙈

Awwwwww ....

He's breaking the rules for you!!! Just to make you smile!!! 😭😭

And holy shit look at their expressions 😭

By now you should know that he's willing to break the rules for you :')

And poor third wheel Wen Ning 😂

Now there are glittering butterflies???

Do they have some kind of romantic aesthetic bingo going on in this episode???

Oh okay, messenger butterflies

Please appreciate wwx almost climbing into lan Wangji's lab in excitement :D

Thay scene transition was pretty af!

Hey! Why do they bully wen Ning? 😤

*shakes wwx by the shoulders* DO YOU GET THAT HE LOVES YOU NOW???

Huh, this episode was a roller coaster. you guys did NOT exaggerate! I loved it to pieces. I'm floored once more by all the actor's performances. Wen Ning revealed a lot about his character, Jiang Cheng broke my heart, Lan Wangji made it melt and Shijie is still able to make me bawl in an instant. But ... I'm not left with a bitter feeling. Sure, jiang Cheng and wei Wuxian havebt reconciled, but the truth is the first step to even have that possibility. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are both healing and whatever happens in the last 4 (4!!!😭) episodes, I'm not dreading it that much right now. I feel like we're climbing upwards :)

@sweetlittlevampire @fandom-glazed @elenirlachlagos @allhailthedramallama @luckymoony @kyrrahbird @i-love-him-on-purpose thank you guys for staying with me for this crazy ride 💙🖤💙

Also one last thing: please don't tell me what happens differently in the novel in any given scene. I am still reading it (about half way through rn) and I'd like to still be surprised by stuff like first kisses and love confessions 💙🖤

I should have put something like this at the end before, but I always forgot. That's on me 😅 so don't feel bad, if you've shared something before :)

[thimbleswrites]

with the lights out, it’s less dangerous | the last time

Pairing: Frankie Dalton x Original Female Character

Genre: Angst / Drama

Word count: 4k

Warnings: love/hate relationship, implied smut, suicidal thoughts

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3884773/chapters/8685547

Author’s note: I wrote this a long time ago but I’m posting all my fics on my writing blog. I explain more about the Blood Donors concept in the a/n on A03 if anyone’s interested, click the link above.

Summary:

Anita, a human that Edward has been harboring in his house for years, struggles with the isolation of living as a fugitive in a world full of vampires. With the threat of being reduced to nothing but a Blood Donor looming just outside the walls of Edward's house, she must decide whether it is time to end it all or find a way to deal with the desolation.

But is the dangerous game she finds herself playing with Frankie Dalton, Edward's human-hunting brother, the best solution to her loneliness?

Set pre-Daybreakers.

Next: honesty hour

"Goddamn it, Frankie, I have until sundown to get some sleep before a shit load of work tomorrow – I'm not having this conversation again; it's done!"

A beat of silence follows the words as the dismissal rings heavy in the air and a resounding snarl tears through the tension. Anita grimaces at the sound of footsteps up the stairs and tries to press herself back against the hinged door, into nonexistence – a thin hand clawing at the threshold as she waits with bated breath.

No matter how many arguments she heedfully witnesses, how many times Edward tells her that she is safe after Frankie blows in and out of their lives over and over again, how many times she manages to make it just one more day without being caught and forced as a Blood Donor: the dread that makes her stomach clench in an almost paralyzing sort of fear is a constant reminder that she is never safe.

The comfort of safety is not a luxury she can afford – not anymore.

The years spent hiding with a decreasing amount of fellow human who had refused vampirism had not been wasted with pointless dreams of a secure future. Those days were harsh, dirty, and cruel – but in each other there was at least a small repose of normalcy. Humans living (well surviving, because what they had been doing was not actually living) with other humans.

A human living with one (sometimes two, she remembers with a tingle up her spine) vampires, though.

She wants to laugh at the thought of such an illusion as safety for someone in her position, but seeing as it's the one thing standing between her and becoming a daily juice box, she refrains. That is if she could remember how to laugh; the muscles surrounding her mouth are usually only ever exercised into a frown and she imagines that the act of straining them upwards might be foreign and difficult.

Her attempt at becoming a chameleon is at once deemed futile under the fierce gaze of Frankie Dalton as he passes in the hall. He's only just gotten back from his most recent tour of duty and as per usual he is staying at Edward's during his break, unable to afford an apartment he would scarcely ever use.

The first few days of his return are always the worst; Edward almost never remembers the day of Frankie's arrival and the latter's mood turns sour the moment he comes home to see his welcome party consists of one: a somewhat interested (and punctual; she doesn't have much to look forward to these days and even his return on the calendar is something) Anita holding a propped open book in one hand and the world's tiniest banner reading Welcome home, asshole! in her other as she lounges comfortably on a sofa in the office room, ready to leap to her crawl space at a moment's notice.

Just as she thinks that maybe, just maybe this time he will continue to his seldom-occupied bedroom and ignore her, he stops walking and looks her down as if she is a lower species; a turkey attending the Thanksgiving dinner. There is distaste clear in his eyes, rage too, and something even darker that she recognizes somewhere in the back of her mind but does not want to dwell upon.

Anita glowers bitterly up at him, willing him to feel her disgust at him, too, for him to know that this isn't exactly the ideal living situation for her either. A small part of her feels ashamed for those sort of thoughts – the last thing she wants Edward to think she is is ungrateful. She owes him her life, however useless it may be now.

Once, a couple years back, when on a supply raid with her group she had been wounded by a lone poor, starving vampire who had found them and attacked. Her party had left her there, assuming her to be dead, so it was not abandonment – not really, she would have done the same.

Self-hatred burns her insides with the knowledge that this new world – one with the rule of vampires and the hunt of humans like livestock – has charred her soul black to the core, a sense of meaningless survival (what is the point to her life?) taking control on instinct so that she has to fight every day to remember what humanity truly means.

But with an abundance of luck and patience on Edward's part, he had found her bleeding out (thankfully not infected; she'd rather die) and managed to get them both back to his place to nurse her back to health. Her constant attempts at his life or escaping had slowed things down considerably, but she eventually healed and came to the hard realization that her pack was gone. She knew by then they would be cities away and that she was alone. It was with little hesitance that Anita had accepted Edward's offer of shelter and food. Protection, too, but that was taken lightly.

She's never been one to depend on others; she likes to pull her own weight, and her current title of hidden house guest makes her restless. When she had first began living with Edward, she had offered him her blood – not straight from her veins, obviously, but with the proper equipment she would have given him enough, regularly but not nearly as much as she'd have to if she became a Blood Donor, to cushion the blow of his blood-bill. But he had refused; said he didn't drink human, and it would have been a lie to say she was too disappointed. The same offer was never given to Frankie – probably because she knows now, and knew then, that he would not have refused.

"Well, if it isn't the root of the problem." Frankie grinds out, his jaw clenched as he takes a step towards her. "Tell me – do you think Ed sees your face on the humans at his company or just dollar signs?"

She blinks indifferently, keeping her silence. They've danced to this song before, and honestly, she's grown too phlegmatic to be baited so easily.

"Probably not the money." He adds, his voice hard. "He pities you humans too much for his own good. And you in particular, doesn't he?" He chuckles darkly and points at her with his index finger. "No, you're his favorite little stray kitten – here to stay."

At his sneering words she looks back at the small opening across the small office that leads to the crawl space she spends her time in when the sun falls and darkness resumes – a pathetic excuse for living quarters but she is none the wiser, having been in worse conditions while on the streets. At least she has the sleeping bag to herself now.

She is allowed out during the day or when Edward is home and does not have company, but rarely downstairs and always, always she must be quiet (so quiet it is like she is not even there) in case the neighbors can hear. He cooks her food mostly (something she wishes she could do for herself; Edward is an appallingly bad chef) and she is permitted to have a shower every few days even though she has to use his toiletries. She does not mind much, though – things like that have not been a problem for her in a good long while.

It is not that Edward wants to keep her on a short leash so much as he is very meticulous in ensuring that she remains hidden, for his sake and hers. Every single thing is planned and routine; if he is to buy too much extra food or household necessities or if his guest notice that he seems to be housing three occupants, it might raise unwanted suspicion that would be better to avoid entirely. Paranoid, maybe, but it works. And although she will never dare to complain, living in such circumstances is taking the wear and tear out of her.

While food comes easier now than what she has been used to (having been malnourished since she was barely a teen) she is still unhealthy; her skin too pale from the lack of sunlight and the natural growth of her body stinted by the crawl space, making her appear pinched, and so much smaller than she should, too emaciated and frail to the point where she wants to avoid mirrors at all cost on some days. The perpetual dark rims under her grey eyes from many sleepless nights give her the appearance of a ghost, and her hair is almost always in a wild tangle of mousy blonde strands, but sometimes on her more vain days, she manages to run her fingers through it enough to tame the mess. Throughout every thing that has been lost to the war of vampires against humans, vanity seems to trail behind her in a race to catch up; not quite there but never too far behind either.

She looks hollow, dead in the eyes, and it's only fitting, really – she feels the same way.

Anita wishes that she could take pride in her quiet strength – she yearns to think of herself as one of the heroines from the books she reads to assuage her boredom (Edward has books everywhere, scattered in piles in all the nooks and crannies of the house and then some), biding her time before she can join the Revolution with her fellow humans, but honestly, the fear and cowardice that is still present, hidden beneath the bitter sorrow and ferocious contempt, only makes her feel weak. Weak from the tears that wet her pillow at night when she is by herself in the crawl space, holding her arms around her middle as if it will help the sickness, left with nothing but thoughts of death and blood and the unfairness of life.

She misses her family more than she ever thought she would, and it's unbearable because it leaves a gaping, festering hole in her chest that makes her want to lie still until she just stops breathing. At those times, more than usual, it stumps her how anybody could want to live forever. It's a consuming, mindless sort of grief that leaves her breathless and exhausted, hating herself for dwelling on the past when her current standing in the food chain demands all the focus she has.

Anita hates weakness.

And Frankie makes her feel weak.

Especially when he is this close to her, his head tilted down so he can meet her wide eyes, and his body so near her that she can feel the coolness of him. She hates the terror it instills in her at the thought that he can infect her with a smile on his face and her flesh in his teeth if he so desires. And he does desire it – he's told her so, after the two brother's verbal throw down matches over Edward's aiding and abetting a human criminal in his own house, a house that Frankie inhabits ("By knowing and not saying anything it makes me an accomplice, Ed!"). Edward thinks his threats of turning them in are empty ("He won't say anything . . . he owes me." Ed told her once when she had voiced her concerns) and he hasn't yet, however, Anita wouldn't put it past him. She can't turn a corner in a house that Frankie's in without having a threat to turn her thrown in her face.

Even more than that, though, she absolutely despises the other feelings he sparks in her too. The ones that make her flush with heat in her veins and an ache between her thighs from the longing to be close to someone again. Anita despises him for being a selfish monster and she despises him even more when he's not. She despises the salacious want he infixes in her when he glances up with sharp, trained eyes from whatever he is doing to watch her walk back to the office after a shower when she is in only a towel. But more than anything, anything else she despises herself for having allowed him to toy with those feelings periodically over the last four months.

As Frankie stares at her, something akin to understanding glints in his eyes and he takes a quick step in her direction, making her fall back two. After a moment she has enough sense to worry he might have recognized the look in her eyes as more than offense at his words. There is a familiar sort of triumph in his voice as he sneers, "Something bothering you, pet?"

The sound of the taunting sobriquet he had long ago christened her coming from his lips is far too palatable for her to handle so she imagines what the screams of the humans he has hunted and forced into the Blood Revenue Agents hands would sound like instead, so loud and terrible that it can banish those bad, bad feelings that surround her off to another place where things that are wrong go to.

For the moment, it works.

"Yes – you are standing too close," Anita finally murmurs, and something frightening in her roars at the covetous flash in his eyes as they narrow at her, but she silences it by biting her tongue, unable to resist the opportunity to wipe the smirk off of his face. "And I can still smell the blood of my people marring your precious honor, sir."

The corners of his mouth twist down at her mockery and he raises his chin, trying to intimidate her with his authority, but the vampire soldier card no longer makes her shrink in fear as it once did. She has had quite a bit of time in the weeks of Frankie's absence to prepare herself for his overwhelming presence that has always had a different effect on her than Edward's. She will no longer permit herself to be a distraction for him to amuse himself with whenever he likes purely because he can. She is more than his filthy little secret, and certainly better than him.

Her lips thin and she brings herself to full height, which is only a wee few inches shorter than him, but still her neck cranes up slightly to meet his gaze. She has pushed off from the door and he moves backwards to avoid physical contact. The fact that he is the one who falls back weighs heavy on him and his frown deepens in anger.

His relentless harassment over the years has been all too entertaining for him because of the easy prey she has always presented him with. His ability to read her like an open book is almost congenital – Frankie knows Anita to her very core; her thoughts, her fears, her dreams, he knows exactly what to do to provoke her. He can send her into a furious rage with a few casual words or tear her apart by a single deliberate look. But now the game has changed. She has surprised him with this sign of defiance; this charge of offensive play, and he does not know how to react to it.

A small thrill shoots through her from his falter, and the courage it gives her comes out in the smooth words she spits into his face, "Something bothering you, Frankie?"

She can almost taste victory in her mouth when his ochroid eyes flash and he quickly leans into her, a smirk curling onto his face, making her stumble back away from him and warily glance at the protruding fangs that press into his pale lower lip. He smiles widely to show her his teeth more clearly; a wolf's grin, and watches her clenched jaw tremble beneath the unspoken threat, eyes dancing and alight with the prospect of a challenge.

"Careful now, pet, wouldn't want to cross lines you can't come back from, would you?" He cautions.

The air feels weighted with the tension, as if electricity is crackling against her skin, sending sparks through her nervous system but she holds her ground and straightens. The warning is obvious in his voice; he wants her to know that he is in control. She hates that.

He is so close she can feel his breath fanning her face, and although it makes hers come in faster than she would care to admit, Anita resists the urge to swivel her head to the side. "Fuck your lines."

The curse word feels strange on her tongue, although she is pleasantly surprised at the evenness of her tone, and she enjoys his confounded look at her having taken a page from his book – he frequently uses the crude terms, and at least one adolescent innocent tendency has always made her wince when he casually refers to them – but it had sounded sharp and primitive and she is impressed by herself. She instantly realizes that she likes how fierce it makes her feel.

"Ooh, such language, Nita. Wouldn't expect it from you." He grins at her, his tongue grazing briefly over one fang, so quickly that she barely notices it with a sweeping sensation sent straight to her toes, and continues, "And while I appreciate that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, maybe you should mind your manners for now. After all, pets who misbehave must be . . . castigated."

Her knees quake, nearly giving out at his tone: almost a teasing threat, and that realization makes her stomach flutter in equal parts fright and excitement. She inhales deeply, pulling down the frayed sleeves of her sweater past her fingers.

Frankie's smile fades as his mouth contorts into a thoughtful expression and his eyes size her up. The hairs on the back of her neck stand up, but she is not sure if it is because of the dread in her stomach or the heat that flames in her cheeks and along her ears when he steps forward with his arms extended out on either side of her head, efficiently trapping her between the door and his body. He pushes a strand of hair from her darting eyes with a gentle motion; a mocked sign of affection, and lets the tip of his finger rest on her temple.

He is pushing her, stretching their interaction like a rubber band, testing to see how far he can go before she breaks. He doesn't have to push far this time – a simple movement; he bites gently and deliberately into his lower lip and his eyes drop to her mouth – and then she is shoving his arms away scathingly, hitting him with her fist as she turns to her crawl space.

Frankie catches her readily around her waist and flings her back against a wall, grabbing her wrists in his hands when she tries to struggle and pinning them above her head. His face is close enough to hers that she can clearly see the smile lines in his right cheek when the corner of his lip quirks up in that crooked grin that makes her loathe these moments with him as much as she secretly looks forward to them, although, she will never admit the hold he has on her; a strong fist around her rotting heart, forcing it to pulsate when the beats begin to degenerate.

Sometimes she wishes he would just let her die.

He thrusts a knee between her legs, pressing his body onto hers, and she can't breathe – she can't even muster the energy to ignore the way her body responds to the familiar feeling of him against her; the way her hips cant upwards into him, all but unwillingly.

And sometimes she wants nothing more than this.

"Fuck you." Anita seethes, because he looks so smug, like such a smug bastard that her blood practically boils and she feels alive.

"Hm, fuck me?" Frankie muses. "You're being rather straightforward today."

"Well, you know what they say." She returns with a sharp grin on her face that she saves just for him. "Bold is beautif – oh!"

He had ducked down into her neck, his mouth opened wide, and for only a moment she considers that he is finally making good on his threat to tear into her jugular vein, but it's not his teeth. It's his tongue, and she thinks that might be worse. He's kissing the base of her throat, ravaging the skin there (because Anita will shit a brick if she ever sees Frankie being tentative in his actions), and it almost hurts; she knows there will be a bruise there in a few hours.

There always is.

"Wait." She protests wearily, her heart beating a tattoo of his name onto her rib cage. "You said it was the last time. We agreed – we agreed the last time was it."

"I changed my mind." He says easily, his mouth trailing up to her jaw. "God, you're so fucking warm."

And the low, guttural sound of his voice makes her knees actually give out this time. He only tightens his fingers around her wrists, though, and his thigh between her legs keeps her upright, but oh – his thigh between her legs. She trembles.

Her eyes fall closed with a pleased, drawn out sigh and he lets out a breathy laugh.

"You want this just as much as I do, don't you, pet?" He taunts, scraping his fangs lightly over her skin.

Anita growls but before she can retort he presses his lips to hers and kisses her in a way that only he's ever done; hard, deep, angry. He releases her right hand and she presses her palm to the nape of his neck, holding him in place as she responds to his jabbing remark by nipping at his bottom lip. She makes a noise at the back of her throat when his tongue invades her mouth.

He's cold – all vampires are. But Anita doesn't see it like they do in the old YA novels about the then-mythical vampire, it is not just some side effect of being a dashing creature of the night like the young heroines think it is; it's one of the things she hates the most when she's with Frankie like this, because it reminds her that he is dead. He has no pulse, no heartbeat. Frankie is cold like a corpse, a walking disease.

This thought gives her resolve a burst of renewed strength and she tugs her other hand free from his grasp, holding tightly to his shirt as she pants, "We can't keep doing this." But even as the words leave her, she allows her hand to drift down towards his stomach, feeling the taut muscles of his abdomen beneath her exploring fingers.

Jesus, help me, Anita thinks desperately, he's my Kryptonite.

He's undeterred – his mouth hovering over hers, golden eyes watching her intently as his hands go to her hips and he hooks his thumbs into the waistband of her pants. "Why not?" He asks, softly, the words drifting over her lips.

She pauses, distracted by the way his fingers stroke circles onto her skin.

He smiles at her hesitancy, touching his lips lightly to hers.

The tenderness throws her into momentary surprise, but he suddenly grips the back of her thighs and lifts her up, propping her against the wall as her legs lock instinctively around his waist, and there's nothing tender about what's digging into the inside of her thigh. She gasps when his hands slide up her sweater, one at the small of her back and the other on her breast.

She kisses him fervidly, nearly slicing open her tongue on his fang, and cradles his jaw in her hands – he grins into her mouth, apparently satisfied by her response, and her body screams this is the last time, just once more.

"I'm not into necrophilia – you son of a bitch," Anita murmurs, short of breath, but even she hears the fond way the words are spoken.

"Shut up," Frankie groans as his mouth goes to her collarbone, his hand tugging one of her legs higher over his hip while his groin steadily rocks into the apex of her thighs as if to prove his next words, "D'you think I want to want this? I've taken playing with my food to an all new level."

And she doesn't even try to stop the morbid laugh that leaves her as he carries her to his bedroom.

It's the last time, after all.

-

[margridarnauds]

001 olympe/solene please!!! (also i know i haven't answered in 8 years but please bear with me, i haven't forgotten i'm just very late)

Thank you! (Also it’s fine; I was just a little worried I’d finally scared you away!) The following thoughts might be slightly rambling, given my family’s doing our daily rewatch of Toho!1789 and Maniaque just came on, thus short circuiting my brain. 

when I started shipping it if I did: I seem to recall a conversation between you and @couldntgiveafox some ages ago where you were discussing alternative 1789s, and I believe I stumbled across it in my fall to 1789 Hell. I don’t think I really started actively SHIPPING it until I was writing Pour la Peine and the (still a WIP) Modern AU where they go to Disneyworld, since it showed off more how they would WORK as a couple. (Yes, really. In my defense, there’s something about Solène and Olympe working together to get Artois stranded on “It’s a Small World” that warms the cockles of my shipping heart.)

my thoughts: I think they have a lot of potential as a ship; I would REALLY love to have seen more of them in canon because I think that they’d have had a lot more potential than our canon ship. (Not that that’s SAYING much, but…) The two of them have two very different ways of dealing with things that really make them complement each other well. Like, Solène has a much more direct way of doing things; she probably had to shut down most of Ronan’s fights with the other kids in their village when they were younger, whereas Olympe…can handle herself, obviously, but she tends to prefer sidestepping it if she can and tends to prefer using the gun only as an absolute last resort. And Solène and Olympe both…fill in the gaps, with each other? Like, Olympe’s a woman who everyone sees as this simple little governess who can be walked over but has a spine of steel beneath those stays, whereas Solène is a woman who presents herself as being basically untouchable and unbreakable, but she has a lot of vulnerability beneath the surface. 

What makes me happy about them: Solène has this blunt, rough edge that really works well against almost everyone, but the second that Olympe enters the room? She melts. Even if she’s terrified of what exactly that means and trusting someone again. She’s basically the embodiment of “I’ve only had Olympe for a day and a half, but if anything happened to her, I’d kill everyone in this room and then myself.” And Peyrol. Even if he’s not in the room and had nothing to do with it, she’d still kill Peyrol for good measure. And for Olympe, she has someone who’s genuinely in love with HER and would be willing to bend over backwards for her. (It’s not that I dislike Antoinette or that I’m even particularly criticizing her, but I do think that she can be insensitive when it comes to Olympe’s crush right until the very end when she lets her go and that sometimes, she takes advantage of Olympe’s feelings without realizing it, causing Olympe to get into trouble. See: Je Suis un Dieu.) Like, Lazare and Solène would never ADMIT it, because fundamentally they have way too much between them, but they have more in common there than they’d ever admit. 

Finally: BLESS the Toho for giving me, like, five seconds of interaction between them. It might not have been much, but THEY TOUCHED HANDS. While watching Solène’s brother being brutally shot by his boyfriend, but hey, it’s not the WORST first date idea. And Solène’s CLINGING onto this girl she’s just met in that scene, after rushing herself in front of Peyrol’s line of fire to do it. 

What makes me sad about them: Obviously, the lack of interaction between them, even though, on the positive side, it means the show can’t ruin it for me. Solène is hard as a character to write, because all three Solènes are written so very differently from one another that it’s hard to get a grip on her, especially since it’s obvious that the French really didn’t…CARE about her, as a character, and that also means that trying to get their dynamic can be hard. Like, I still feel after all this time that I don’t have them down as well as I have L/R, which is something that I’m always trying to rectify. 

Also, from an in-universe perspective: I think…Solène is very like her brother, in the sense that she doesn’t see HERSELF as inherently inferior or incapable of love (the one thing no one has EVER accused the Mazurier Siblings of is a lack of confidence), but that so much has happened to her that she kind of takes it for granted that this isn’t going to end well. Our girl’s canonically lost her brother and father, she’s PROBABLY lost her mother (I mean, unless she’s just…living as a hermit somewhere since Ronan and Soléne ran away or left Papa Mazurier to become a famous adventuress, I think it’s a safe assumption), and it’s safe to assume she’s lost at least 2-3 siblings, if not more, and…as much as I’m against the idea of the Tragic Sex Worker, she’s also probably seen Things in her time on the streets. If nothing else, then sex work was very much a transitory job for many women, who would take it up in off seasons in-between other jobs (or marriage, for some women), so there are probably plenty of women who she knew and tried to get attached to who just…moved on. 

And I think that Marie Antoinette’s ghost is always kind of going to be there, in the background, even as Olympe moves on from the full force of her old feelings. And Olympe has her own issues when it comes to loss, not just with Ronan (who was a friend if nothing else) and her mother (if we’re going with the musical-canon where Charlotte du Puget’s been dead for awhile), but also with probably seeing Louis-Joseph die in front of her. 

things done in fanfic that annoys me: WHAT FANFIC? There’s so little of it available that it’s kind of impossible for me to find ANYTHING to really annoy me. The thing that annoys me when I’M writing them is that there’s this…odd tendency, with femslash, for things to be sanitized and clean and saccharine, as opposed to M/M and F/M ships. And, on one hand, I DESPISE that mentality, but on the other hand, I find that I’ve internalized some of that, even though realistically S/O have…so much that they could bicker over. If they wanted to. So I try to keep at least a realistic level of conflict in their relationship, without reaching R/O or even R/L levels. 

things I look for in fanfic: Existing is always a lovely thing. 

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: Olympe/MA is always going to be a tragic crush for me; I’m not sure if it’d have worked in the long run as an actual RELATIONSHIP, but I’d be perfectly comfortable with Olympe being happy. Or accepting Artois’ offer, biding her time in London while slowly poisoning him so that she can retire in an obscene amount of wealth when the new king of France “tragically” dies only a few months into his new reign. 

Even though I’m pretty attached to Olympe being a lesbian and Lazare being gay and/or ace, I’m also not OPPOSED to them marrying each other as a matter of convenience post-canon, though…obviously. After the Takarazuka and Toho productions, there are going to be…issues with that one. (Lazare is incapable of being with someone when he hasn’t at least tried to kill their father.) Matthieu Carnot and Camille Lou in the original cast had HELLA chemistry with one another, and I’m not entirely willing to toss it all away.     

And for Solène…I’m not sure I’d go with ANYONE in the main cast. My main headcanon re: Solène and sexuality is that she’s bi, but the whole “Betrayal by her idiot of a brother” thing has really put her off the idea of being romantically involved with dudes for an extended period of time. Sexually? Sure, for the money involved. It’s her JOB, but she’s not going to go for anything that requires trust. Lucile is the obvious alternative, but I’m not sure how Lucile’s upper middle class upbringing would work with Solène and her profession, and the entire business with the engagement +…Lucile’s ultimate fate would work. (Also Lucile’s part in The Scene in the Toho version…it hasn’t put me off her as a CHARACTER, I still love her very much, but…it’s made me…less keen on her with Solène.) I also crackship her with Marie Antoinette. Marie Antoinette gets all the ladies in the main cast. 

My happily ever after for them: In the canon verse? They leave Paris, either getting out of the country or quietly running into the country, where they can live in peace without the Reign of Terror getting them. They establish a domestic life together, where both of them learn to trust again, even as Solène keeps her own funds Just in Case, because some things are a little harder to move past than others. Lt. du Puget knows, but he’s been too traumatized by his own experiences with the Bastille, as well as too grateful to the Mazuriers for all they’ve done to raise a fuss, and he becomes like a second father to Solène, with Françoise being a sister and partner in crime to her. Solène doesn’t lose track of her friends in Paris and visits them from time to time, even as she gets used to middle class life, and she never entirely loses her fire. They both die of old age, many, many years after the Revolution (because, as we all know, Olympe does not die at the end, and there has never been a time where she died at the end; it is her destiny to outlive the rest of the cast with her girlfriend.) And then, in the afterlife, Solène gets at least one slap in on her brother before they’re one big, happy family again. Because he does deserve it, tbh. 

Out of canon, I would honestly love to see a world where Solène/Olympe and Lazare/Ronan could have co-existed with each other as a family, albeit an insanely unorthodox one. I could see Olympe and Lazare having a marriage of convenience, with both of them having their own sections of the house that are just theirs, and with sex not even being a consideration. (Solène takes it more as a matter of course and the best possible option, even if she doesn’t LIKE Lazare; Ronan runs off and spends, like, a week crying somewhere before they can get him calmed down enough to explain.) Like, their wedding night is spent playing cards in bed until they can sneak out to their separate rooms, and at some point Ronan’s in-between them, drooling on Lazare’s shoulder while Solène glares daggers because if he hurts her girlfriend or her brother, she will not HESITATE to destroy him. Everyone knows that they’re gay AF and that a former under-governess to the royal family is sleeping with a former sex worker, mainly because Artois never shuts up about it (because if he can’t have Lazare under his thumb and he can’t murder the hypotenuse, he’s at least going to do his best to make his life miserable), but, does it matter? No. What are they going to do, not invite Lazare or Olympe to one of their salons? The horror, the horror. One year, for her New Year’s present, Ronan gives Solène a pair of earplugs so she doesn’t have to hear some of the ungodly sounds that come from his and Lazare’s side of the house. Everyone’s happy. 

who is the big spoon/little spoon: See, my GUT instinct is Solène for big spoon, since it gives her a place of security without her feeling pinned in, but also I love the thought of Olympe sometimes taking over, nuzzling into Solène’s neck and having Solène wake up and being like “Holy shit, this is real” even years later. 

what is their favorite non-sexual activity: Taking walks together, reading. I like to think that Olympe helps Solène learn how to read (which is one of the areas where I feel like they differ from R/L. Even though I think Lazare would read out loud to Ronan, I’m not sure he’d go through the trouble of TEACHING him, especially since that’s…giving Ronan some serious power as far as being able to page through any of Lazare’s papers.) Sometimes, Solène just prefers to hear Olympe read out loud, with her absently putting her hand on Olympe’s arm as time goes on and she relaxes, since Olympe has a very bright, expressive voice that suited her well when she was an undergoverness, and even if she doesn’t mean to, she finds herself taking on different voices for different characters, which makes for an entertaining reading experience,. The two of them also help each other with their daily toilette, getting each other’s hair and clothes prepared. 

This? Is an Olympe innovation. 

And this? Is a Solène. She Tries. And Olympe loves her for it. 

[misty-reeyus]

(Different anon from earlier judy anon) I'm currently trying to write a fanfic fabric for vesperia and I honestly do have a bit of trouble with Judy's personality. How would you describe it? Thank you! ^^

honestly i have WAY TOO MUCH to say about judy and her character i love her so goddamn much but let’s start with a few basic things you really need to know to understand her:

those “hermes blastia” that judy’s been going around destroying this whole time because they’re killing the world? hermes, the guy who created them, was her father. and by the time he realized just what it was he had invented, it was too late for him to fix it—the entelexeia attacked, and he, along with everyone else from judy’s hometown of temza, were destroyed in the great war when judy was nine. judy herself is only alive because ba’ul saved her life and took her to myorzo, where she lived until presumably her mid-teenage years.

judy admits in one of her sidequest paths that she wasn’t really destroying the hermes blastia to save the world, her motives were much more selfish than that. in truth, she simply felt responsible for her father’s invention, and she was really doing all this because she just wanted to clean up after his mistake when he failed to do so in time.

this last one is probably just obvious to anybody’s who’s played the game at all, but ba’ul is judith’s absolute number one best friend who she would do anything for. they have been telepathically connected to each other for the entire decade after the great war and judy clearly has not had any other real friends since (unless you count phaeroh and the other entelexeia as “friends”, which personally i would not). he is not only her savior, he is the only person who’s been there for her for a long, long time, and she would die for him at the very least.

so try and consider the game through this lens:

little nine year old girl sees entire town and everyone she knew wiped out before her eyes. she is understandably traumatized and spends the next 5-7 years living in myorzo but detached from her surroundings, extremely reliant upon the entelexeia who saved her as her sole pillar of emotional support (she definitely didn’t treat myorzo as a homecoming, now did she?).

her ability to express her emotions also mellows out, because when the only person you ever really talk to can understand you perfectly through your shared mental connection, body language ends up falling flat and into disuse (which i believe likely helped result in the very calm exterior that judy presents most of the time ingame, despite how on the inside she can actually be extremely emotional. but thats admittedly ymmv).

a few years before the game, so presumably when she’s around 14-16 or so, she leaves myorzo and discovers through the other entelexeia just what it was that caused that war in the first place, that it was all the fault of her own father. so she decides to save the world, for the sake of her father. she takes to the spear and she sets out on a mission with her best friend to start destroying all the hermes blastia. she’s doing just fine with this mission until the day she runs into an aer disturbance and this time it’s not a blastia, it’s a person.

destruction is one thing. murder is something else entirely.

so she hesitates even though she knows she has a mission to complete, and phaeroh chides her for it but she can’t let herself be okay with killing an innocent girl so she bides her time, she watches, she waits, she hopes it won’t have to come to killing even as she tries not to get attached in the case it absolutely does have to come to killing.

but she gets attached. and she cares about this innocent sweet kindhearted princess. she cares about all these people now and it makes her take a step back, makes her truly think about what her mission has been this whole time. her feelings are still rarely shown and she still does verbal gymnastics in order to tell them as little as possible of the actual truth of what’s going on because of her own emotional conflict, but she can’t deny that she genuinely cares about these people now.

and then belius dies because of estelle. and then it turns out the blastia on the ship is a hermes blastia, which judith proceeds to destroy because that’s her duty. that’s the path she has chosen. that’s her mission and she almost let herself forget it but there’s no turning back, there never was.

she has betrayed them all for the sake of her mission, so she runs. she runs back to the remains of temza where she once had a home and she and ba’ul buy time to gather themselves together. ba’ul tries to evolve, to become stronger, for her sake, for the sake of the mission they’ve promised to see through together.

(btw another sidequest path shows that judy once made an oath on her original spear, in which she and ba’ul promised each other that no matter what, they would see this mission through together. the spear was lost at ghasfarost and the rest of the sidequest is centered around judy’s attempts to get it back because it meant a lot to her, upon which after actually getting it back near endgame, her sentiment is, “thanks to you all, i’ve learned you can have a bond with someone without any physical objects to back it up”. awww.)

and when the hunting blades come, judith does all she can to protect him. she doesn’t sleep, she doesn’t think of herself for even a moment. she would die for him, at the very least. (also note that when the party fights tison and nan, the people who are trying to kill ba’ul, the game actually FORCES YOU to put judith in your party for that particular fight. just, yanno, saying.)

she doesn’t expect the people she betrayed to come running after her, but they do. and so she finds herself having to face what she’s done, having to tell them the truth that she’d never allowed anyone else to know. she owes them that much and after they hear it

they take her back.

because she is one of their own, and she swears they have to be fools to trust her again, but they do. they’re giving her another chance and now that they know everything, now that they have the knowledge she withheld, she can work with them truly and entirely.

she takes estelle to phaeroh. she decides that estelle is her friend and she will do everything in her power to find a way that they won’t have to kill her, mission and phaeroh’s lectures be damned. phaeroh tells her that “you’ve changed” and she responds “have i? that is nice to hear.”

judith becomes more than her mission. her life becomes more than simply chasing after the ghost of her father, trying to fix his mistake. she has found people who she cares about and who actually accept her for who she is even after she betrayed them, who she can actually work with to find another solution because there has to be a better solution.

she trusts these people. she loves these people.

she trusts them and loves them enough that after so long of the game just spent dancing around the subject, rarely ever showing her emotions, in the third act, she actually lets herself break down in front of them. when the entelexeia die, she mourns openly, she lets them see her at her most vulnerable yet. she learns to express herself a little more, learns to share her thoughts and feelings and even her secrets. she finally finds people besides ba’ul who understand her. who accept her. who have seen her for who she is and despite everything, have come to love her for it.

this is the judith i know and who i fell in love with in the game. this is the judith that i write fics about, and honestly, i’ve written quite a few fics about her (your mileage may vary on how much you agree with my interpretations, tho).

anyway yeah that’s my basic overview of judy’s character. idk if that really helped but i wish you well in your fic endeavors.