#just. Kind of ridiculous. But in the other extreme the idea of a vampire being in a normal

[dankovskaya]

This new sourcebook is kind of crazy given how much this topic has been de-emphasized in previous lore shit? Like when I was first getting into vtm I remember it felt like basically everywhere you look you're getting reminded that the vast majority of vampires, even with relatively high humanity, are just so fundamentally Un-Human that genuinely falling in love with someone (or even just wanting to fuck), whether a human or another vampire, was so unlikely as to be essentially irrelevant as a concept unless its some kind of deliberate psychological manipulation thing or a mealtime strategy. And ppl on the subreddits were also particularly hard asses about that kind of arbitrary restriction in my experience.

And of course people have always still done it anyway because it is a staple of storytelling Lol but releasing a WHOLE SOURCEBOOK on the topic of incorporating vampire romance into your chronicle is crazy. Like even though v5 is very clearly about broadening the appeal and accessibility of vtm I would not have expected this much focus on it when it was previously antithetical to vampirism. Lmfao

[deadmomjokes]

Betwixt Christmas gift cash and Steam Family Sharing workaround shenanigans, the husband and I have finally started Baldur's Gate 3.

Went in basically blind except for knowing the names of the companions and the fact that Astarion is a vampire (couldn't miss that cultural osmosis).

We also came in on two different meta-levels as players.

He is very familiar with D&D, D&D-based games, computer games in general, and these sorts of games specifically. He's also that kind of person that plays things on Extreme Difficulty Mode for fun. He quits when something isn't challenging enough. His idea of relaxing, rewarding gameplay is ultra-hard-mode Elden Ring and Dark Souls.

I, on the other hand, am bad at games. Full stop. I have lost Wii Mario Kart to a 6 year old, repeatedly. I get hopelessly lost even when there's detailed maps, trackers, compasses, and flagged waypoints. I also panic in combat situations and have no strategic ability aside from "stand there, hit it, and hope it doesn't move." I'm more of a low-stakes visual novel sort of gamer. Stardew Valley is as intense as I get.

He is playing a Seldarine Drow warlock in a pact with an archfey. She's a noble with a ridiculously high Charisma score, a perfectly balanced spell loadout, and an even more balanced overall stat build. She's DPS without being totally squishy and helpless, and has advantage to almost everything. She also has an impeccable fashion sense and always looks put together, even when on death's door to a brain worm. Or, to put it in a way my husband would loathe, she got that drip.

I am playing a ginger himbo of a high elf fighter with -1 to Charisma and a -1000 to common sense. He's an impulsive maniac with, somehow, a +3 to intimidation despite being a truly gentle soul that believes every sob story he comes across. He's a sweaty, dusty, grubby little feral child (outlander background) with the world's messiest ponytail and greasepaint-turned-eyeliner that a 90s ex emo kid would be proud of. And that's him trying to look presentable. Despite having an impressive dexterity score, my natural disadvantage to dexterity (and Wisdom and Intelligence) as the player makes it so that this man bumbles his way into everything and only gets out by making horrifying threats he has absolutely no intention of following up on, or by being forced to stand his ground and take it on the jaw.

So this was going to be An Experience no matter what. And boy, it sure has been.

Thus far, we have:

Accidentally pacifism'd our way into every Goblin/Absolute aligned settlement we've encountered on the pure luck of husband's choice to play a Drow because he thought it would add an interesting dynamic. That interesting dynamic, he thought, would be difficulty. He thought being a Drow would make it harder because of the general hatred toward them. He's technically good-aligned, but, y'know, planet-of-hats racism means he was expecting it to work against him, which he likes because he likes when things are hard. Only now it's basically a free pass into all the areas we'd normally have to fight or sneak into. Great for our shared pacifist tendencies, but LOL

Lost a full hour of progress because my computer screen is tiny and bad at graphics and I hadn't learned all the controls yet, so while trying to investigate a hole in the floor of an abandoned church I tripped in face-first and got us into an unescapable, imminent-TPK situation, whereupon the game immediately autosaved for the first time since waking up on the beach. We have since learned to spam the quicksave button liberally.

Accepted a ton of mutually exclusive quests, half of which we have no intention of doing, just to try and get out of situations without combat, so now the mini map now looks like a cubist rendition of a simple sun drawing and I'm SO worried it's going to come crashing down and get us shanked in our sleep.

MET BEST BOY DOGGO I WILL DIE FOR SCRATCH 😭

Discovered husband's character is, build wise, a carbon-copy of Wyll. This was 100% unintentional and he's BIG mad about it LOL RIP

Impulsively pushed a button in a crypt without saving and woke up a bunch of skellies we weren't prepared for, but were somehow also saved by that same impulsivity because I had previously run around the entire area and looted every single skeleton no matter how useless it was to my character, so they all woke up without their weapons so HAH take that I TOLD YOU being a klepto would pay off

Immediately after this fortuitous stroke of fate, having learned exactly nothing, my impulsive maniac opened the shiny sarcophagus before consulting anyone or healing. Luckily it wasn't cursed or trapped or full of enemies (it was Withers, and I'm love), but I'm now not allowed to open or interact with anything bigger than a crate without announcing it first so husband has the chance to go NO WAIT LET ME SAVE FIRST

Sneaked into a secret underground passage, whereupon my husband sent his invisible'd familiar around to carefully scout the area, discovering the button that would turn off the overpowered guardian statue. My character then readied a crossbow shot to hit said button, but in trying to move out of the way of the other party members, stepped right into the statue's attack circle. I panicked, tried to move, but couldn't figure out how to unselect the attack I could no longer use, and tried to fix it by pausing. But all of that just resulted in me standing there, doing nothing, until I finally dropped dead. Luckily I passed my saving throws, and more luckily still, my husband managed to stop laughing long enough to eldritch blast the statue to pieces and come get me.

So anyway, we're having the best time. I know we're late to the party, but it really is so good. I may have even teared up a little during the dream sequence with the psychedelic neon light guardian warriors. This is going to consume my brain for the next few months, and I'm happy to have paid for the privilege. 10/10, absolutely deserves that GOTY and the $60 price tag both.

No spoilers please, we're only level 3 and just encountering the Goblin Camp. (We've met everyone but Karlach, I believe.) But rest assured, as we learn and discover more I will come yelling and seeking those who will screech with me. Probably mostly about my new sons that I've acquired, namely the lying purple sadsack trash wizard with some horrifying kind of chronic illness and/or addiction, and the prettiest most specialist murder machine who definitely won't admit it but is definitely gonna need a hug when I finish breaking down those obviously performative emotional walls.

Also, Lae'zel scares me. Please stop yelling at me, you cranky fish woman, I'm trying my best here 😭

[prodigal-explorer]

Do you want to trade vampire aus? Bc me and my friends vampire au has janus and virgil and roman (and remus)

We actually have like 4 bc im obsessed with vampires but like The Main One lol

omg absolutely!!! i would love to!!

here is my vampire au:

Roman is a young teen who is infatuated with everything mythical and magical. He knows everything there is to know about magic, it's an extreme special interest of his. And he has a large forest outside his house that he regularly explores, hoping that he will find a mythical being one day.

And one day, he does.

Janus is a young vampire, the vampiric equivalent of a teenager. And when he and Roman run into each other, Roman treats Janus with kindness and curiosity, which is not what Janus expects. His older brother, Virgil, has always told him that humans are dangerous and back-stabbing. But Janus is a lonely boy, being raised only by Virgil, who is battling an extreme addiction to human blood and working hard to raise Janus and provide for him without coming near humans and risking killing them.

Janus and Roman become fast friends, especially when Roman discovers that Janus is a vampire, and is extremely happy to have finally met a mythical creature. Janus doesn't really feel any extreme craving for Roman's blood because he has never tasted human blood before, so he has no idea what he is missing out on.

Meanwhile, at Roman's house, there is father, Patton, and his older brother Logan is sort of like a ward of the family. Logan is not Roman's biological sibling, nor Patton's biological son. Logan sort of acts as a built-in babysitter for Roman, especially because Patton has gone mad. When Roman was very young, his twin brother, Remus, died in the big forest, and ever since that horrible day, Patton has lost it, insisting that a rabid vampire killed his little boy, and that he vows to find the vampire that did it and kill him, so that he can keep his surviving son, Roman, safe from harm. Every day, he searches in the big forest for the vampire, but as a result, he neglects Roman and Logan, leaving them to their own devices for very long stretches.

Logan thinks this is ridiculous. After all, vampires don't exist! He, and every other human in their lives, believes that Remus fell out of a tree, and that was how he died. But Patton knows the truth.

Eventually, Janus introduces Roman to Virgil, and Roman introduces Janus and Virgil to Logan. It goes about how you would expect: Virgil and Logan both think that the other is strange and shouldn't be trusted, but Roman and Janus work hard to bring the four together, and it eventually works out when Virgil and Logan realize that they have the same goal: to protect their little brothers from harm.

But what happens when Virgil decides to fully trust these humans as well as Janus, and tell them something that he never dared to tell anyone? That the day he realized he needed to stop pursuing human blood was the same day ten years ago, where he found a tiny little boy in the woods and sucked him dry, killing him. And that the little boy looked identical to Roman.

And yeah! That's my AU!! I really really like it, and it gets even angstier when you consider the possibility of Patton discovering Janus and Virgil and figuring out what they are, or Logan realizing that Virgil was indirectly the reason why the family fell apart.

It's just cool. Yeah! I would love to hear about your AU!!

[prouvaireafterdark]

claudia is also writing her pov in her diary in the moment. it hasn’t been 100 years, it’s been a couple hours. her memories won’t have deteriorated that much. maybe she read malice into lestat’s actions that wasn’t really there - maybe he was genuinely trying to teach her a lesson but she saw it as sadism - but suggesting he didn’t force her to watch charlie burn at all is kind of ridiculous.

lmao where did I say he didn't force her to watch Charlie burn? I'm not saying she made the entire thing up, I'm just saying that in her heightened emotional state it is possible that she read a level of sadism and cruelty into Lestat's actions that he himself (from his perspective, which is naturally going to be different from Claudia's) might not have intended.

or, on the other hand, since we don't actually get Lestat's POV of this scene, you could just as easily say he was that cruel and sadistic because in IWTV Lestat has a habit of being cruel to people who remind him of himself (Louis says his male victims are usually young men on the very cusp of achieving their potential, just like he was when his life was taken from him and he was turned into a vampire. like, a psychologist would have a field day with this man), and since Claudia is so like him and made a mistake similar to what he had done with Nicki, maybe by punishing her for her naivety, he's in a way punishing himself.

so the question then becomes: is Lestat a sadistic douchebag who delighted in forcing his daughter to face the consequences of her actions or is he a well-meaning father whose attempts at teaching her a difficult but important lesson came off as needlessly callous to the people around him? i don't have the answer, but i suspect it probably lies somewhere in the middle.

we could also talk about intent vs. impact re: this whole mess, but i'm tired and tbh I don't really care to. my actual point is just that this is a show about memory and the ways a story and the portrayals of the people within that story shift depending on who's telling it. when a significant part of the series is predicated on the idea that memories can be and often are unreliable, I don't think we're meant to just take everything at face value--we're meant to interrogate what we see, and what we don't see.

can that be taken to an extreme? sure. but there's nothing wrong with wondering if each character is giving us the whole story as we might expect it from a traditionally shot show where the camera just follows people around and what you see is exactly what happens with no room for debate or discussion.

[missmonsters2]

First of Van I want to start of by saying that I am an avid and regular reader when it comes to your brilliantly amazing writing. I’ve loved every single pieces of your work to death, there is nothing like coming home after a stressful day and reading BTL, even though I myself am a Tatyana lover. I always tend to fall for the character with a tragic past, I was a book nerd when I was young and let’s just say that when I read many series it always pained me to see my favorite character die. In tayna’s case it has to be done…all I ask is it’s done amazingly…which it will be because it’s you writing it Van. The reason why I’m writing this ridiculously long thought is because I am writing a story myself. My story deals very much with the Salem Witch Trials and different Era’s in history. In fact if I hadn’t stumbled upon BTL months ago I wouldn’t have come up with my idea. So thank you Van for inspiring me. I’ve been having trouble writing the magic part of it. I don’t want to lay it on to thick that it’s the stereotypical she has magic powers we read about in almost every book now. The way you write the vampires and Wanda and Tatyana’s powers is pretty much the vibe I’m going for. From a writer to a writer what helps you write those type of sections? You see my main character has powers much like Wanda’s (hers are genetic and come from an ancestor from Salem) but I’m not sure how I would write her using them for the first time. You see she doesn’t know she has them, but I’ve already written certain parts where she “thinks” she’s seen her eyes turn crimson or her hands begin to feel like pins and needles as her powers are present but not activated. My character is very steady and cool headed, I imagine her freaking out a bit when she realizes she has these “gifts”. Is there any tips you could lend a fellow writer when it comes to writing magical witch bloodlines?? I would really really appreciate it Van.

ohmygosh! Thank you so much for the kind words and support. I'm so flattered that I could inspire you to write a story <3 Tragic characters also have me in a chokehold so I get the attraction. I will do my best to do right by Tatyana and the ending I have in mind I think will suit her :)

Writing advice under the cut !

If I'm completely honest, I sometimes feel cringe about my world building LOL I can't take too much credit because for Wanda for the most part, I am following MCU/Comic lore.

I think you need to decide what type of witch your MC is.

For example: Wanda's powers are very closely tied to her emotions. MCU really shows it physically very...wispy and lots of tendrils. Wanda doesn't operate by spells or runes because she doesn't need to. I think the knowledge of it enhances her magic but it's not really necessary. It's very chaotic. MCU talks about how Wanda is the scarlet witch due to conditions being met like being exposed to a powerful source (mind stone) and extreme trauma.

Tatyana, on the other hand, has to run by spells and runes. A very classic telling of a witch. She's very logical in terms of using her magic. She breaks down the formulas of spell, rune by rune, using them to try to create new spells. I would classify that Tatyana's magic is sharper, tangier, precise in everything. She comes from a line of powerful witches. My lore would be the being in a coven can enhance your powers with shared knowledge and magic.

Deciding what kind of witch your MC is, it can really change how this magic manifests. Does extreme trauma bring out their true power or do they stumble upon understand how to use spells and runes. Is there a certain kind of magic that only they can use because of which bloodline they come from. Things like that are good to consider.

I think I would need a little more clarification on exactly what kind of tips you're looking for regarding writing magical witches with a bloodline. I'm not too sure if you're looking for advice on how it would manifest, what it could look like when something triggers hints of magic, or if you're looking for something for world-building around bloodlines.

I hope this helps though! Of course, feel free to send additional messages :)

[ichayalovesyou]

El Hotel De Los Secretos Ep. 11 Reaction

Well, Julio is unsurprisingly getting his ass beat for having no chill when confronting Genaro about his dealings with Cristina. Oooh shit they beat him unconscious, good thing Dagoberto and Atala were already there.

The journey of finding Serapio Ayala even more endearing continues. Dagoberto woke Julio’s ass up with cold water and Ayala’s like “what the hell man you could’ve been way nicer about that!” I really do like him fr fr.

Ok Ayala is starting to have more and more grandpa energy by being surprisingly kind and patient w/ Julio. He DID notice Julio’s got a little crescent moon tattoo on his bicep that gave him pause!! I wonder what the significance of that is! (Other than being excellent fuel for my Vampire/Werewolf fanfic idea).

OK, Benjamin (the head butler) having a son he wishes he could visit much more often absolutely tracks with how fondly he treats Andrés. Of course Teresa is rude about it 🙄. Mercedes continuing to be ridiculously awesome and endearing and leaving Felipe in the dust like “bitch I’m a military brat you think I don’t know how to ride a horse?! Watch me!” I love her!!

GOD you know what I do actually feel bad for Alfredo, he’s not totally innocent but it’s not like he intentionally knocked Sofía down the stairs. His biggest crime so far has been ignorance. All he wants to do is well by his wife and future child, the remorse is very real. But Sofía is fully under her mother’s thumb and almost just as scared of Alfredo’s mother as she is of her own.

Noooo 😭 not Isabel and Andrés frantically asking each other “where’s Julio?” at the same time goddddd. They’re seriously so alike, pobrecito Andrés is like “he didn’t come back last night 🥺” I’m normal I am NORMAL I promise I’m normal!

It’s so weird when you can’t stand a character but love to see how she’ll be awful next and not even like a fun villain way but in a “oh god what is she up to NOW?” way. Literally all Ángela did was ask Natalia if Belén had dated anyone else and Belén is all “I’m feeling SO bullied rn” and tries to sick Teresa on her??? Like, girl, really?! Teresa only wants your baby, she doesn’t care about your ass!

Matilde is here! She really went “surprise bitch, let’s go to the pool Isabel bby! 😎” meanwhile Jacinto out here swallowing his tongue because he ain’t got the guts to tell Isabel what Diego has ordered him to do.

Sooooo 😤 Teresa is making Belén Ángela’s new assistant in order to keep her from going after her and DAMN that “we punish others for the mistakes we can’t forgive ourselves for.” Line is so RAW. Teresa is such an intriguing character, she’s awful but she acts unusually human around Ángela, it’s fascinating. And as much as Ángela is on the money about Belén being Extremely Awful, Teresa is also RIGHT, ugggggh 😍

Aw! Hell yeah, Jacinto sticking his neck out and going to search for Julio personally since Isabel and Matilde can’t take the car. Guess it’s time for poor Isabel to get dragged into Sofia and Alfredo’s marital disputes, maybe she can talk a little sense (maybe even strength) into Sofia… or not 😬 but you know what? Isabel is being a good sister anyway even tho she’s really worried about Julio. Matilde is like “girl you are out here giving too much of yourself.” I KNEW I was gonna frickin like her!!

Ah I see, it’s time to replace Dr. Santamaría since Teresa kicked him out for trying to be honest. Oh of COURSE promoting Belén gets her a raise, honestly that’s probably what Señorita García was looking for in the first place when she went to Teresa, she’s a sly vixen for sure. Ooh! Nice fake out but I still don’t think Teresa knows Diego is Belén’s baby daddy but knowing her she’ll probably find out soon 👀

OHHHH okay! The little moon tat is an anti-Profieran thing ok ok ok ok. Ayala is letting Julio off with a warning but THIS type of thing must’ve been what the actors/show runners were talking about when they said o e of the unique changes they made from the original Spanish Gran Hotel was adapting the story to Mexico’s history at that time. Oh my goddd the little historian in my brain is eating this shit up!! I have so much to look up later!

Matilde smacking Isabel upside the head with logic like “lemme get this straight, you’re engaged to that asshole Montejo, so how are you gonna juggle that and going back to school AND this lil’ crush you got” MAN Isabel NEEDED somebody who isn’t out to get something from her who’s like, on her level! This is gonna be such a good character dynamic I was getting sooo bored of the only other decent person she got to banter with being Julio. And like, Andrés a little but Andrés has all that internalized classism shit going on and won’t speak with her like she’s his equal (at least not yet).

?!?!?? Ok ok ok SOMEBODY just paid the telegram guy for information (reporting Teresa and Diego’s appearance in town and the telegrams they sent) we don’t get to see their face or hear their voice and Pascual is dead OMFG what if it’s CRISTINA?!?!???!

Okayyyy, new character just got introduced that makes my blood run cold about things that I know happen later. We’ve got our new doctor and I’m making some new, disquieting connections in my head. Never trust anyone directly on Teresa’s payroll, not ever 🤐 Dr. Lazaro has quite an iconic voice tho, I feel like I’ve heard him somewhere else. Okay so Doc Lazaro recognizes Diego’s last name and Diego’s hackles went up. So many shady motherfuckers up in here! 👀

Okay so we’re getting some implications that Jacinto miiiiiiiiiiiight be Violeta’s baby daddy?? I don’t think so though considering he didn’t behave as though he recogiese her in the market a few episodes ago. Regardless, his weird possessiveness of her when he doesn’t know her is starting to verge from tragic to creepy and I hope some stuff happens to make it Not That. Julio has returned to do thing the more reasonable way. Genaro’s information on his sister… for more fighting *SIGH*

And according to Genaro, Cristina stole raw materials from the hotel to sell to him and that she did indeed get fired for stealing but even if that is true I have the sneaking suspicion that isn’t the whole story or Genaro has good reason to fuck with him.

Oh WOW we are already implying Matilde has a thing for old men I had HEARD she and Serapio are a thing but that side comment about Doc Lazaro being handsome is amazing foreshadowing if true.

Isabel is so relieved Julio is back and Andrés is doing the whole “I’m gonna be mad about something else but really I’m angry with you for scaring me” thing. Aaaand yet again we have resident porcupine Julio taking out his fear for his sister onto Isabel, the only totally innocent Alarcón in this entire god dang family because, and I can’t emphasize this enough, he’s an idiot (affectionate and derogatory).

[threeopennames]

16072022: T18

Chapter 18: Rhymes with Hunt

Plot: Badpires! Isabella is so special that the evil vampires that show up immediately want to eat her, even though it’s stupid to do that for a lot of reasons. The drama here seems to be focused around how the Cullens don’t want to kill the badpires, which again is very weird. Like, if they don’t go eat Isabella, then they’ll go eat someone else instead, which is seen as an acceptable alternative. Is that not, uh, just as bad? 

Isabella: Her big moment in this chapter is to suggest she fake going to Phoenix so they can hide her, then to insult Emmett when he agrees it’s a good idea. I think the plan is ridiculously complicated, and it’s bizarre that these centuries old vampires are apparently so dull witted they can’t come up with anything better than a 17 year old can, but whatever, whatever, fine, fine, you can have it. Isabella is just so smart that her plan to fake going to Phoenix as a front to really go to Phoenix so they can kill the vampire there instead of in town is a good idea because it just is. 

EDWATCH: I figure I’ll put it here since he’s the one who does all the planning, but SO MUCH of this chapter is logistics. Like it kills the momentum of ‘oh no Isabella is being hunted by badpires’ when we suddenly get into these little details like whose vehicle is big enough to hold everyone and how much time they’ll spend packing and other inane things that aren’t interesting or relevant at all. He’s also the only one to disagree with Isabella but it’s because he cares SO MUCH about her safety and not because she’s wrong, which seems like a strange way to dress him down. He’s willing to sell out his family to keep her safe and I...guess that’s romantic? Like he doesn’t even consider other plans and is really, really eager to just force the Cullens to move again to keep Isabella safe rather than to leave her alone for even a short period of time. I suppose I can understand it if you find that type of thing attractive, like ‘oh he’s so dreamy he’s willing to throw away his entire world for me’, but I would find that to be a pretty big red flag because it means he’s not acting rationally. Like if someone told me they burned their house down for me, my first response wouldn’t be ‘oh that’s so sweet’. But fine! Fine! Take it, take your obsessive vampire boyfriend and his bad choices. If that’s what you like then here you go. 

BADWATCH: To my enormous surprise, the bad girl vampire character has red hair. Bravo for finally having some, let’s call it, diversity in the cast of bad people. One of them even has ‘olive’ skin color, and I’m not even going to comment on that because when you’ve already established the paragon of virtue as being ‘extremely white’, there’s really nowhere you can go from there that won’t look kind of awkward. It’s strange that these new vampires are familiar with vampire baseball. Like, they literally only found the Cullens because they heard the noises and ‘wanted to play’. That’s weirdly wholesome and probably tremendously inconsistent with what was already established but let’s just like, not think about it since there’s already so much else going on. There’s an establishment of what I guess is like, vampire social protocol? There’s a mention of ‘hunting range’ and ‘territories’ and it’s all vaguely interesting and I wanted to hear more about it, but since we spent almost an entire paragraph on something that wasn’t Isabella, the author got antsy and forced her to become the most important thing in the story again so we never learn more about it. What a bummer. 

This in and of itself could have been forgiven if there was like, some more lore revealed or something when Isabella being human was revealed. Like they could have said her father was in the police and helped them stay concealed or something, I don’t know. It doesn’t seem crazy that vampires would be willing to trust some humans with their secret in exchange for some kind of service. That’s like a staple in vampire stories, isn’t it? Whatever, I’m writing fanfiction now. 

One of the badpires is a ‘tracker’, which means apparently all that other protocol goes out the window and he’s just going to kill Isabella now because that’s just what ‘trackers’ do. This seems like a weird bomb to drop, that there are vampires that just lock onto single human targets and stop at nothing to kill them, and it makes the Cullens look REALLY irresponsible given they have a mind reader and a future telling psychic on their team. Nobody even seems to ask Alice ‘hey this is really spooky, why didn’t you see any of this happening and what should we do’ given that everything that transpired was directly because she suggested they play baseball. Is she IN ON THE WHOLE THING? Probably not, it’ll be some excuse like the future is hazy or whatever. Still, poor showing all around from everyone involved in this chapter. But at least things are happening now! 

[saintodo]

(^≗ω≗^) anon here awawawawwa i missed you too persie uni is absolute shit and i hate it but like chile whatever also this is--holy shit, very very long so im sorry in advance LOL

okokokok so--- Imagine being vampire gojo's crush bestfriend accidentally turned bloodbank after you find out he's a vampire bc he forgot to feed one day. Imagine being the only person gojo goes to about anything on anything, it doesnt matter whether it'd be for smthng mundane like the dishes or the extreme like murder your his to go person on anything and everything, and you the same. Imagine being brought to those fancy vampire galas, and have men and women alike leer at you bc your the only human there and your blood smells so good, but none of them can ever go near, bc the vampire that owns you is the heir to one of the biggest families, and even then neither of those big shots can go near you or touch a strand of your hair bc the minute they do their immediately pinned to the wall and gojo a millimeter close to just obliterating the guy, but lucky for them your quite the pacifist and manage to soothe your vampire all the while mouthing for them to gtfo, and then being pinned to the wall and have your own skin branded with sharp vampiric bites and love bites over and over again--to drive them away he says but you arent so sure when he looks at you w dilatated pupils and a glint that could only scream minemineminemine--you're mine.

Imagine being the only person he drinks from, his teeth sinking in your skin, branding you as his and you are in your head and in his heart but neither of you know that yet. Imagine being domestic with him bc he insisted on moving in w you bc its more productive and safer this way, and be too scared to ask him what are we really? bc you have blurred the lines of bloodbank-vampire and bestfriends too much that you have no idea what you two are anymore, what you are to him but not what he is to you because you know you love him and perhaps thats why you're so so scared-- but never saying anything because its not like it mattered right? right?

and then imagine one day things change. imagine gojo ignoring you for other women and even no longer needing blood from you bc he has blood donations sent to him whenever he has to feed.

imagine being quiet at first. because you dont want to make a fuss and it wasnt like he was yours anyway so it doesnt matter--it doesnt bother you really.

imagine snapping one day when the woman he' seeing tells you--mocks you, ridicules you and belittles you for being human, for being just a bloodbank, and that her beloved toru no longer needed you, and that you'd better off dead. imagine one day as he's leaving in that scrumptious suit for another women that isnt you--that bitch who laughed at you and who he doesnt even like because you know what his face looks like in genuine happiness a face he has shown only to you and reserved only for you and you making up your mind to put a stop to this sham he's creating for himself for the sake of other people who dont even matter, because its for the greater good he tells you and you wonder when he has believed in bullshit like that?

imagine you pinning him with a glare that could have killed him if he was human maybe against the door just as he is about to leave, and even though he could just easily push you off he doesnt bc he loves you and would rather die than hurt you and you know you know because you feel the same and want him to stop thinking that maybe your better off without him because that kind of thought is bullshit really--and then you kiss him like a mad woman in the face of insanity. its messy, its dirty, its its, its--all you've ever wanted really. imagine rutting your hips against one another fully clothed desperately chasing your highs and then cumming just a few minutes later bc good god are you bothe desperate for each other, the two of you breathing heavily and minds swimming, but oh no--oh nononono you arent done yet--not after the bullshit he's put you through. imagine you forcibly tilting his head by tugging his hair harshly a strained moan leaving his lips as you sink your teeth in his sensitive skin an action that repeats for almost an enternity before finally finally you pull away satisfied, and about to leave him there--because he was going to leave first after all right? when he grabs you sobbing, cock straining in his slacks as he sobs and sobs please and i need you and im so so sorry i love you to which you break at and kiss him tenderly for praising him good boy before helping him up and into his room where you ravage him until he can't walk properly anymore

thots: vamp!gojo

♡ note: ‘m sorry uni is shit nonnie :(( i hope u get a break soon so u can relax!!! also i added a readmore so this wouldn’t clog the dash or anything. g*d u got me so good RIGHT IN THE FIRST SENTENCE!! i love the idea of vamp gojo x human/bloodbag reader 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 the thot of it scrambles my brain. 

♡ pairing: sub vampire gojo satoru x dom human reader

♡ word count: 1.3k (WHAT THE FUCK?)

♡ warnings (for text below): gn reader, dom reader, vampire gojo, sub gojo, blood, blood drinking, marking, hair pulling, crying, not proofread

gojo brings you to the fancy shmancy vampire galas because they’re boring as fuck (and you make them way more bearable n entertaining) and he wants to show you off. he knows that your blood smells so good, and tastes even better. he prides himself on the fact that he’s the only one who will ever know how good you taste, how intoxicating your blood is. the minute anyone makes you feel uncomfy or looks at you the wrong way gojo is so close to losing his shit. but he reins his frustrations in- thanks to your help- and chooses to release his emotions through another way.

he pulls you away from the hustle of gala to drink from you in a secluded hallway n marks up the entirety of your neck. he tells you it’s to act as deterrence but it’s hard to believe that’s the full truth when he appears so self-satisfied when looking at his handiwork.

yes yes yes. i love the idea of you being the only person he drinks from. he wholly trusts you, and vice versa. he 100% makes up an excuse for you guys to move in together. it’s safer this way n i can protect you 🥺🥺 he says. he’s not exactly lying: he does want to keep an eye on you for his own peace of mind, but he also just wants to be around you. i also know he’s a little shit who will refer to you as his lil bloodbag.

the change…..that’s SO gojo. he’s the opposite of stupid, he’s well-aware of your feelings for him, but when he finally comes to terms with his feelings for you???? he shuts down n starts acting like a fucking dummy.

you still share a home together, but he’s around lot less. gojo goes out with random women more often and the number of times he feeds from you rapidly dwindles until you cannot even recall when the last time he drank from you was.

you’re hurt but you keep your mouth shut. after all, you and gojo aren’t dating, so you have no right to be jealous or act so possessively over him.

you reach your wit’s end when his latest companion- a beautiful vampire who you only know is a member of one of the oldest’s clans because gojo made sure to talk about it- decides to open her mouth. the vitriol she spits is fucking annoying, but what really gets your blood boiling is how she speaks about gojo like he’s hers. she makes sure to emphasize “her toru” this and “her toru” that as if she really knows anything about gojo.

because you know damn well she knows nothing about him. from their interactions you’ve witnessed, you can tell that the way gojo acts around her is all fucking fake. it’s a perfect little facade that he puts on for nearly everyone, everyone except you because you can see through all that bullshit after knowing him for so long.

so when gojo comes home after his latest outing with that fucking insufferable woman, you corner him. with more strength than he know you possessed, you pin gojo against the wall as soon as he crosses the threshold of your home. you level a glare at him that would kill him if he were human. gojo could escape, but he might hurt you by doing so, and gojo would rather die than bring you any harm.

all the anger and hurt you’ve been feeling over the past few weeks comes bubbling to the top, and the words just start escaping your mouth. you ramble and ramble about everything from how you’ve been feeling to all that shit that woman spewed at you, and gojo’s face just falls. he knew he was treating you like shit, but he didn’t know just how badly he hurt you. (he definitely didn’t know that you were getting harassed by his latest companion. he makes a mental note to cut off all ties with her and somehow get her back for it.)

gojo cuts you off and just blurts out that he wanted to keep you safe. he trips over his words- which is something you don’t see too often- in his explanation that he didn’t want you to get hurt or threatened any more because of your association with him and that you would be safe from any harm if he left you alone. it’s basically the closest thing you’ll get to a love confession from gojo.

your head is spinning with all this information, and the sudden confession, but the one thought that rings that loudest is what a fucking idiot. you tell him so before you crash your lips against his. he goes rigid for a moment before loosening up again and reciprocating. between each messy kiss, you mutter how he’s so fucking dumb and how he’s the biggest dick you know and how you love him, you love him, you love him.

it’s not what you envisioned your first kiss to be with gojo. you thought it would be something sweet, maybe a little romantic, but it’s nothing of the sort. it’s messy and desperate as you try to convey your every feeling for one another through your actions. hands are roaming everywhere, exploring areas you’ve never touched before but always dreamed about. you’re both quick to cum the first time around- the friction feels just too good. you stand there, chest to chest in the hallway of your home, mind hazy from your orgasm and clouded with the knowledge that your feelings are reciprocated.

and you’re reminded that your feelings were returned the entire time but gojo decided to be a dumbass and push you away instead of talking to you like an adult. not only did he push you away, but he decided to entertain other women, including that fucking bitch of a vampire.

the fog clouding your head lifts, and your energy is rejuvenated. gojo is still in a slight daze when you tangle your fingers into his hair. an abrupt, slightly pained moan leaves his lips when you harshly tug on the snow-white strands, forcing him to bare his neck for you. a pleasured cry escapes him when you sink your teeth into his neck, at the same exact spot he normally feeds from you. you bite so hard that his pretty pale skin breaks. the distinct metallic taste lies heavy in your mouth when you lap up the drops of blood dripping from gojo’s neck with your tongue. a stream of whimpers fill the air as you mark gojo up the same way he used to mark you up. when you pull away to look at your handiwork, you’re satisfied. hickies litter gojo’s pretty skin, and you know that they will be there for awhile even with his advanced healing.

you make a move to pull away because you’re still feeling a little petty. it’s only fair to leave him like this when he made you unnecessarily suffer for so long, you think. you blink when gojo loops a hand around your wrist and draws you close once more. he’s nearly on the verge of sobbing- pathetic apologies spilling from his lips as he attempts to convey how sorry he is. his cock, pitifully straining in his slacks, rubs up against your thigh.

you’re much too soft, you think as you roll your eyes before gently wiping away the tears that have fallen down his cheeks. you kiss him tenderly, and this is more like what you envisioned your first kiss to be like. it’s sweet and passionate with both of you pouring all of your emotions into it. when you separate, you peck gojo on the lips once more. you coo that you love him too, you love him so much, and that he is such a good boy, your good boy.

this time, you are the one to loop a hand around his wrist, guiding him in the direction of his bedroom to continue what you two have started.

[sugar-petals]

can you give us more thoughts about domestic yoongles? the taemin's one (wich I love) just made me miss the cat boy so much ;o;

i have a phd in househusband yoongi so let me fire out some ideas for ya.

myg at home headcanon

🐱 word count. 1.9k | fluff, slice of life, slight nsfw mentions, x reader, bullet points

The doorbell sound is a recording of Yoongi imitating a doorbell. He’s such a meme. Ceci n'est pas une pipe.

Seemingly, he teaches himself a new recipe every week. To perfection. Yoongi is very particular about sticking to the recipe and wielding his kitchen tools in the right way. He collects knives, olive oil, and still hates cutting onions.

He separates sleep time, work time, and couple time as the holy trinity. For each, he switches his mood.

Blushes easily no matter for how long you’ve been together.

Establishes his own radio show where he DJs at one point.

Yoongi keeps an extreme track on the garbage schedule. He knows exactly what is due when. Separating the trash is a must. That includes sorting out fake friends trying to get between your relationship. Your social circle as a couple is extremely deliberate.

Yoongi deems himself a terrible host for guests. Unless Hoseok is there to drag him out, it's true he rather stays in the kitchen or at the barbecue preparing the menu courses rather than making small talk. He leaves the hospitality bits to you, however you want to go about it.

What he lacks in conversing with guests, he makes up in bed, God is absolutely fair.

He sings and hums pretty often and has his own vernacular of extraterrestrial uwu noises. It's an alphabet that you have to yet decipher but it's incredibly cute.

Self-made paintings everywhere around his house. 

Yoongi hasn't gone clubbing since grammar school. The most he does is going to a restaurant at lunch with very close friends. And always in a work context. His private life is so secluded from everything else and paparazzi just don't spot him anywhere, Dispatch thinks he must live abroad.

Very well, he does consider his big ole house a separate country. It's a living organism with a studio, gym, trophy room, small-size basketball court, and vastly equipped kitchen. A home theater as well, he likes American movies (like Inception) and Korean action genres, and you can stream whatever you fancy in there whenever you like. 

Yes, he has underwear with cute little bears on.

There's even a little pond in the backyard. Yoongi, Pisces he is, likes fishes after all. Sometimes he sits at the edge of the 'Little Ole Min Lake (LOML)' and stares into the water for literal hours with his chin parked on his palm.

His fridge is so high-tech and futuristic, even Yoongi is rendered clueless by its AI sometimes. The washing machine, too.

Yoongi watches RuPaul’s drag race. What did you expect? He finds it so humorous.

Owns lord knows how many comic collections.

Favorite holiday destination: New York.

Christmas is basically 50% you unveiling new music equipment to him in the garage and Yoongi almost fainting at the sexiness of it. The other 50% is spent holding hands and orgasm after orgasm until the new year since you loose track of time.

Goes on long rants why he’d marry you again every weekend.

Making you presents is his specialty. Always accompanied with a hand-written note. He writes a lot of things by hand for you in general. Texting, basically never. Always on paper.

No sex without a blanket and socks on. Yoongi gets cold very very easily and just doesn’t like showing skin. You buy him a heated blanket for his birthday, he even uses it in his studio chair.

Chronically addicted to making out.

Matching black outfits and glasses.

Laughs at even your worst jokes or phrases you didn’t expect you even uttered.

Yoongi owns the phoniest, most secretive-looking black car ever and nobody knows about it. Even he forgets he owns it, in fact he genuinely acts like it just doesn’t exist. Hilarious. And that guy has a level 1 Korean driver's license. Which allows him to drive trailers and busses and fucking trucks, and construction machines, let that sink in.

It's really a genius curse. Yoongi being put to the test will always deliver but he won't choose to execute his full skillset if he doesn't have to. Well, pragmatic. He's not as phony as he thinks he is, which is even more hilarious.

He uses that behemoth of a car so scarcely because he'd rather have things delivered to his doorstep and he's stingy with gas. Also, he doesn't like traffic and driving because of the traumatic shoulder accident and his tendency to space out. Translation: You drive that thing... that monster... it really is an impressive, fast, and scary machine. 

If someone devious ever even remotely manages to invade his privacy and get past the doubly-installed security system, he has enough money to deal with it no matter what.

If it concerns your privacy, he's a red belt. And owns Jin's number if a taekwondo master is required. Jimin's if it needs someone with kendo skills.

If Yoongi needs someone to go on a complete rampage, Jungkook lives just down the block. He can sprint to Yoongi's bunker I mean mansion within 45 seconds. 30 if it's very urgent. 20 if the reward is an instant ramen splurge with Yoongi's black card.

He has a sexy, glamorous sword collection hanging on the living room wall anyways, so. Who the hell is dumb enough to mess with him and his expensive lawyer in the first place.

But just in case, who knows... Yoongi settles matters shruggingly, anonymously, and with cash and he's too exhausted for violence, but don't underestimate his deter-min-ation and network for emergencies. Also, he is Agust D after all.

He will bonk a naughty burglar or kidnapper across the head with a wooden cooking spoon or take him down by throwing a basketball if the situation requires it. Damn, his reflexes are so fast, a feral cat in motion. So, lean back and sip on your drink of choice. Things are cared for.

If Yoongi is the one being kidnapped or a highly skilled stalker invades the property at night when he's fast asleep (nothing can wake this man during certain hours, strong REM right here): Don't forget that honeyboy is a Dodgers fan. There are signed baseball bats everywhere in this damn house.

In that sense, your parents visiting you here for the first time thought you were an undercover thug couple. Not to worry mom and dad, you both just like sports very much okay.

Yoongi walks around in all black clothes and the rooms are all seemingly dark. Even if you live together, you don't know his skin care routine. It's clear to you he's some sort of vampire.

Since Yoongi always forgets to remove his makeup, you made it a habit to wipe it down when he's about to pass out. He won't lie, he enjoys that kind of affection.

Holly is your resident child. You're essentially a family.

He insists to tackle this by himself, Yoongi sees his therapist monthly. Not shifting responsibility is something he's stubborn about and he pours his emotions into writing. You will do conversation about deeper stuff, but he says it's mostly up to him and his own mind. He dislikes burdening you or opening up too much and it's something to respect rather than force him about. If he wants to share a thought, he will. It doesn’t mean he can’t trust you or sucks at communicating (we know that he’s direct). Yoongi simply can’t put that much pain in such few words nor should you alleviate it for him.

Calls from the manager faze Yoongi as much as Jimin is bothered by gravity. If he’s busy kissing your body slow mo, who the hell dares to disturb his worship. 

This man had so many let-downs and interpersonal catastrophes in his life, he's super discerning with people. Because he rolls that way, during their first meeting Yoongi uses his psychology certificate on your friends. You see him squint at them, he listens very closely. After they pass the vibe check aka meow radar, he befriends them, too.

Yoongi doodles Grammy trophies everywhere to manifest them.

Yoongi shaves his legs.

All the sex toys he’s ever bought are black. Gotta vibe in style.

He spends ridiculous amounts of time in the studio but he's yours for the remainder of the night, breakfast, and he makes a lavish lunch and dinner.

Um, consider his head parked between your legs. The Hongkong line was not a joke.

Doesn’t mind you squishing his cheeks whenever and for how long you like. 

Every other weekend he gets flowers, vouchers, and gifts — not because of fans, they don’t know where his house is, but because he donates so much.

Namjoon often drops by and cleanses the area with his crystals.

Yoongi is a photography major so you can ask him to take professional, ceiling-high black and white shots of you.

Feeding each other food lovingly. Man, this guy got lips.

He set up a library just for you, in the exact historical aesthetic you like the most. Send him the link to any book you want, it's basically in the online shopping cart already. As I said, he wants to make you presents like every week.

Sometimes he sits on the other end studying English videos and vocab while you read. And yes, he's already 95% fluent but pretends being merely intermediate. He knows technical terms even native speakers have never heard of.

He collects pajamas and earrings.

Swears on the phone.

Namjoon being the horniest member is a cover-up story. Yoongi masturbates almost unreasonable amounts of times, by himself and in your arms when going to bed. Not gonna lie, it’s a sight to see his hands at work. He’s almost equally obsessed with fingering you once you ask him.

Yoongi was the one asking you to move in and almost had a nervous meltdown before meeting up with you to tell you just that. 

He’s the little spoon and of course a sleeping burrito to hold tight.

Finds you equally attractive in any state or styling. Yoongi practices what he preaches, he always reacts the same and says the same. 

Jams out to outrageous beats Namjoon sends him by dancing in the studio. You walk in on him every time. Was embarrassed at first, now you dance along.

Has bought you a life-sized Yoongi pillow and customized you a giant Shooky to hug when he’s not at home over night.

Owned a wine cellar until he quit drinking. Turned it into a piano room instead.

Only you know Yoongi has a serpent and dagger tattoo.

Scrubs the bathroom religiously.

The house smells like restaurant food and his extravagant perfumes half of the time.

Sometimes he has to remind himself he’s married to you and not his coffee machine. He shall be forgiven. You can’t complain that he doesn’t love you enough, nor is he ever not adorable when drinking his latte.

Never wears short sleeves. It can be scorching and he’ll wear a jacket. 

Tell him and the cap stays on during sex.

He grows his hair out and puts it in a low bun. The bangs remain.

Yoongi has installed the most fire-proof building in the entire city it seems. That he wanted to be a firefighter when he was young definitely shows. Figures the house has to be protected from heat: His blasting studio music and Yoongi himself are just way too sizzling.

Still melts into a puddle when you kiss his nose.

Couple sunrise watching. 

© submissive-bangtan 2017-2021. all rights reserved. do not repost or translate. all depictions fictional.

[aro-is-gay-af]

The Midnight of Despair | Volturi Kings x fem!reader | Part 2

Part 1 | Part 3

I advise you to read it first, as this post is the continuation. 

Yeah, there will be Part 3 for sure. As usual, sorry for gramatical confusion and/or any mistakes.

Love you all, thank you for 100 (!) notes under Part 1. 

Warnings: Rape, Depression, PTSD, Swear words, Forced Pregnancy

Word count: 6768

Summary: [Y/N] and Bella are childhood friends. They were always there for each other. [Y/N] had tough times and struggles with everyday life. Bella faces depression after Edward had left her. [Y/N] tries to get her going and alive. One day [Y/N] is raped and gets pregnant with the rapist. Not long after that it turns out that Edward got himself into the mess with Volturi. [Y/N], even traumatized and in pieces, will not let Bella go without her supervision to Italy. What is going to happen when [Y/N] will stay at Volterra? Is she really predestined to be Kings’ mate? Is she going to have her baby or abort the pregnancy? Will the trauma go away or is she going to struggle for a long time?

ENJOY!

You tried not to break your eye contact with Aro, as it made you unusually calm and on place. As soon as you walked through the door to the throne room you felt almost like at home. You knew it would take some time to get used to the new place, especially a place like this, though, you didn't find it repulsive or frightening.  

You sat down in the chair that Aro had pulled out for you. It was a little gesture but it made you a little less weirded out. Now, that you were alone with three kings, you were not as relaxed as you might have thought you’ll be, for your legs were trembling with exertion.

It wasn’t a surprise, though. You’ve barely eaten, been up on your feet since you got off the plane and through all day long, you were strongly convinced it was your last day on Earth. On top of this, you’ve just allowed Aro to touch your hand and then kiss it. You were certain that if it was for any other person, you wouldn’t be so willing to do so.

Aro took a seat opposite to you, whereas Marcus and Caius sat, probably, on their usual seats, not that far from you both. You were tired, but confident that some things needed to be established as soon as possible. You understood this perfectly. Also, even though Alice told you about basic things, you still were oblivious to most information.

“You have impressed me with your declaration” it was Caius who started the conversation. You looked directly at him.

“I’m not stupid, nor suicidal” you said, trying to remain as calm as possible. “At least, not anymore” you admitted, your upset tone impossible to miss. Caius tilted his head, eyeing you carefully.

“While on the plane, Alice told me briefly about basics,” you said. Seeing their stares, you rolled your eyes. “Yes, she also explained to me the laws. I knew this trip would’ve only two possible endings for me.”

Aro had known about this prior, but Marcus and Caius looked taken aback, to say at least.

“You knew you’d probably die and still came here?” it was Marcus who asked. It was a weird experience, even if you’d known him only for a few moments, to see such an authentic interest in his behaviour.

You nodded and smiled.

“Sure I did. Bella’s stupid ass didn’t give me another choice” you chuckled. Caius smiled again with that creepy smile, which he also had on his face while in the throne room.

“Stop that, brother” Aro scolded him lightly. “We don’t want to frighten [Y/N].”

Caius only rolled his eyes.

“You are familiar with the fact that I am as old as you, brother?” he asked Aro mockingly, sprawling comfortably in his chair. “There’s no need to scold me like I’m a child.”

Aro frowned.

“Yes, brother, I am certainly familiar with this. But nonetheless, you should be more gentle when it comes to [Y/N].”

Even though you’d been tired, somehow kings’ presence had risen your spirits. Also, it was quite funny to see them mock themselves like this.

“Can I say something?” you asked, visibly amused by their behaviour. You've relaxed a little and only then you felt how tired you really were.

“Of course, cara” said Marcus, who didn’t exactly talk much until now. All of them were looking at you, curious about what you wanted to say.

You smiled shyly, not being accustomed to receive so much attention at once.

“I don’t know if it’s normal but I’m not exactly…afraid of you? I guess I’m mostly curious. I wasn’t… concerned while we were heading here. Like, at all” you admitted, trying your best to find words, which would suit your emotions.

Three of them were listening very carefully, even Aro, who had already known your thoughts.

“Alice wasn’t trying to scare me, but I felt that she was extremely cautious when it came to your coven. Bella also was exaggerating with drama and I…” you immediately felt sick and couldn’t end the sentence. You were happy to maybe die? You were happy to have something to think about, other than rape? To think about something different than this unwanted child?  

It was as they felt the change in your mood. You saw Aro wanted to touch you but restrained himself from doing so. Marcus’s expression was calm but you actually thought, he was being beyond emotional about this. And Caius…he looked genuinely concerned.

You smiled sadly, as none of them said anything.

“I’m not exactly aware of how this mating bond thing works, but that’s probably the reason” you said quietly, with insecurity so overwhelming that you couldn’t look at the kings anymore.  Instead, you embraced your knees with yours arms and glanced at your feet resting on the edge of your chair.

You tried hard not to cry. You weren’t weak, you weren’t unstable. You were harmed in the most brutal way and you knew, it would take you a while to get out of this state of mind. Nevertheless, you didn’t want them to consider you weak or unworthy of their attention. Right now, they were the only ones you had in this world.

Your throat tightened and your lips trembled from the sob you denied yourself to make. One of them handed you a handkerchief, while making an effort not to touch you. You glanced up, as it turned out, at Marcus, who was holding the handkerchief in front of you.

“It is perfectly alright to cry, cara. You have no idea how many times I wished to shed at least one tear” he said, while you were wiping away yours. You believed him, of course. When you were in the throne room, at first Marcus looked completely lifeless and depressed. It changed after he spotted you, but you knew his behaviour didn’t come out of nowhere.

You’ve managed to calm yourself a little bit. After you regained your composure, Aro smiled gently at you, making you give him your full attention.

“My dear, we would be delighted to explain to you everything, but I can clearly see that you are extremely tired. So much has happened today, and the best way we can handle this, is when you are well rested. May I suggest coming back to the topic without any more delay, when you’ve had enough sleep?”

You smiled because of his intricate wording.

“Sure. Although, there’s no need for you to talk to me this way” you said amused, while also trying not to sound rude. The way Aro expressed his thoughts was extremely distinguished and you understood that this was part of his personality that he had acquired over three millennia.

Caius smiled to himself hearing your remark and Marcus didn't hide his amusement either. Even Aro seemed mildly entertained.

“Forgive me, cara mia” he said apologetically, mischievous tone of his voice never escaping your attention. “I am quite old by now” his remark made Caius laugh loudly. You laughed too.

“I don’t think your age matters in this case” you said, your spirits raised just a little bit.

 ***

 After your brief conversation, it was Marcus who showed you to your room. Well, it wasn’t exactly a room, as you had all suite to yourself. As soon as you saw it, you decided that it was really too much, that a bed would suffice, but fell silent after Marcus explained, why you needed to be isolated from others.

You almost forgot they were vampires and you could die if you walked into the wrong one. You shared your concerns with Marcus, who was extremely amused to hear about them. Only the most trusted members of the guard knew of the whereabouts of your chamber. The lower ranks didn't even know that you were staying in the castle for an extended period of time.

Marcus assured that overnight the kings would consider, who would be the most qualified to become your personal guardian. You were a bit embarrassed, as you seemed to be creating quite a problem with your presence in the castle. Nonetheless, you thanked Marcus, making sure beforehand that you would definitely see the three of them, as soon as you got some sleep.

Your chamber was huge. You could’ve sworn it was twice the size of the house you owned in Forks. You had your own bathroom, walk-in-closet and even a small kitchenette with a fridge. The star of the room was the massive bed with a mattress so soft, you felt like you were lying on a cloud. Before you went to bed, you decided to have a bath, because it would be silly to sleep in such a bed while being dirty.

While searching for pyjamas, you realised there were not many clothes in the wardrobe. Could this have been a guest room? You concluded that it was very likely. Anyway, you had nothing against guest rooms which looked like this. You found a thin-strapped, ankle-length nightdress, in a fabric so pleasant that it was impossible to resist wearing it.

The bathroom was ridiculously large, with two sinks to the left of the entrance, a huge bathtub in the middle and a shower that was built into, what you assumed, was a marble wall. On the opposite side of the entrance there was a vanity, with all kinds of beauty products and perfumes. You also didn't expect the bathroom to be in bright colours, and yet, the walls and floor were white marble, whereas all other elements were golden. You didn't even want to think about the fact that indeed, you had real gold faucets to your exclusive use.

You continued to think about the fact that it seemed too much. The lavishness overwhelmed you and, at the same time, distracted you from unpleasant thoughts. The washing up part, as always, was difficult for you. You tried not to look in the mirror at all. Eventually, you decided you didn't have the energy to try a bath, so you went for a quick shower.

It wasn't until you were in the shower, before you truly felt tired. You doubted it was an evening, but you felt like you'd just done a double shift at the hospital. It felt wonderful to have your hair washed, only to cuddle up later in an incredibly soft towel.

While changing into your nightgown, you didn't even glance in the mirror. You were unable to look at your naked body in the reflection. You were afraid, even though the bruises and wounds had long been healed.

Climbing onto the bed, you tried not to think too much. You didn't want to think about what you were going to do with the baby. You didn't want to think about the fact that you would probably have to explain to Caius and Marcus, why you were pregnant in the first place. You also didn't want to think about Aro seeing those memories. You were glad that you could fall asleep and, at least for a little while, be relieved of the burden of reality.

***

 “Alright. What is there that we need to discuss?” you asked, trying to focus. You were back in the study with the round table, except that there were many more papers and books on it than the day before.

It was the strangest morning of your life. According to what Aro told you, you slept for about fifteen hours. He was by your side when you woke up, but not in such manner as to startle you in any way. He came to ask how you were feeling and what you felt like eating for breakfast. You thought that with a kitchenette in your room you would be preparing your own meals. You were very much mistaken. When you said that you would like to eat scrambled eggs, Aro only smiled and told you to get dressed.

You didn't have time to ask what you were supposed to wear since the walk-in-closet was almost empty, but he had already disappeared. It turned out that you were wrong again. In those fifteen hours, someone had managed to restock your wardrobe at least halfway. You were too surprised to look at everything, but you had never seen such expensive and well-tailored clothes. You picked out the first pieces you were sure, you would feel comfortable in.

After a quick shower, you dressed up and when you came out of bathroom, Aro was already waiting for you. He brought you your meal and while you were eating, he would talk to you about things that were of minor importance. It was hard not to notice that he was in a great mood and you had to admit that you were sharing his optimism. He waited patiently for you to end your meal so that both of you could join Marcus and Caius in the study. If your human memory didn't fail you, a great number of issues had to be discussed.

You smiled, seeing so many papers and books on the wooden table. Caius and Marcus were sitting in the exact same places as yesterday.

“You should’ve wake me sooner, you know. I never sleep this much” you said, also sitting in the same place you were assigned the evening before. Aro sat in the chair on your right.

“You should sleep as long as you feel like it, dolcezza,” said Caius, focusing all his attention on you. You blushed a little. You weren’t used to being in the centre of attention. It didn't make you uncomfortable before, but after what happened... It was going to take some time before you could fully recover.  

“Caius is right. You should get plenty of sleep, my dear. If there’s no need to wake you up, we simply will not do it,” said Aro, whose smile has not left his face even for a moment.

When Marcus had finished whatever he was doing, you could finally move on to the conversation between the four of you. You thought that Aro will lead the conversation but, apparently, you were really going to discuss this together.

“I gathered you were a nurse before. You also worked with Carlisle,” started Aro, getting straight to the point. You nodded your head in agreement.

“Yes. I worked on Paediatric Intensive Care Unit but hospital in Forks is so small that I usually ended up also helping Carlisle with many things” you admitted, trying to divide your attention between three of them. If you were to stay a human for a little while, you needed to work on that. It was rather problematic to look at them all at once.

“We became friends when Bella started seeing Edward, but then the whole moving out thing came up and right now, I don't really know if I know Carlisle as well as I thought I did,” you said, without a trace of regret in your voice. Aro knew very well that you had a grudge against the doctor. Sure, Edward had left Bella, but you were sure Carlisle would have at least told you about the promotion. Now you knew it wasn't about that at all, and yet the grudge continued.

Aro smiled lightly, but you saw a glint of sadness in his eye.

“After you transformation I will be pleased to invite here my old friend Carlisle along with his family. I hope everything will work out fine between the two of you” he said with hope in his voice. You had no idea that Carlisle new Aro to the extent that he called him an old friend. You promised yourself to talk about this with Aro while in private.

“I’m…a bit concerned about this, actually” you said anxiously. “I know I need to become a vampire one day, but…” You never ended the sentence. Were you afraid of pain? No, certainly not. However, you wanted to begin with knowing your mates just a little bit more. You wanted to know more about this world you were supposed to spend eternity in.

“It’s perfectly alright to be afraid, [Y/N]” said Marcus, leaning closer to you. You felt stupid and young.

“I don’t think I’m afraid. I’m only…uncertain, because I know close to nothing about your lifestyle and I’m not sure I’m quite ready to experience it,” you tried to explain, as best as you could. Aro was a little bit ahead of Caius and Marcus, as he saw at least parts of such thoughts in your mind. Caius was the one to answer you.

“It understandable, [Y/N]. While you’ll be spending time with us, we’re going to explain everything to you. One step at a time, as my dear brother said earlier. And tell me, how do you like your chambers?” he asked, clearly curious about your opinion. You smiled, but it was a shy one.

“I love it, really, but, as I asked Aro earlier, isn’t it too much?” you suggested, trying not to offend him. Aro and Marcus smiled softly, Caius snorted.

“Nonsense, cara. With us, you'll have the very best of all worlds” he assured you.

“In that case, thank you, all of it is truly wonderful, although I feel a little awkward.”

Again, all three just laughed, but it wasn’t impolite in one bit. Aro put a strand of your hair behind your ear.

“My dear, no need for you to fret about such things as money. The most important person to us is you and we will give you whatever you need” he assured you, still with that magnificent smile. You nodded shyly, not being able to say anything. You had only been with them in a room for a short while and you felt like you were drunk. The aura they exuded was irresistible. Simultaneously you wanted to be with each of them separately and with all of them altogether. It was not an affection, not yet, but this strange attraction did not allow itself to be forgotten easily. You yearned to be in the same room with them, just to be able to talk to them and look at each other constantly.

“I have… I have a house in Forks” you said, after a few minutes of silence.

“Would you like to sell your property?” asked Caius, raising an eyebrow. Aro was also intrigued. Marcus just continued to look at you, almost as he studied your face.

“I guess. I don't think I want to go back there again” you said quietly, recalling how many bad things happened there. You were no longer at ease, not even to mention amused. The kings, just as it happened the day before, felt the shift in your behaviour. “Ever” you emphasised, but it was only a whisper.  

Bad memories deluged your thoughts. Your mother's illness and death. Your father's accident, then his death. Also, the most recent events. You swallowed hard, trying not to cry.

“I don’t want this house. I don’t want to come back to this godforsaken place ever again,” you said, wiping away a single tear with your fingers. You were ashamed, but you could not hold back the tears that followed. You did not deserve to go through all of this.

It was Marcus who spoke first.

“Cara, Aro told us nothing about your past, but I can assure you no one is going to hurt you here. You can be certain about this” he said gently, handing you a handkerchief. You accepted it gratefully, then began to quickly wipe away your tears.

“Marcus is absolutely right, [Y/N]. There is nothing in this world that we cannot protect you from. We will always be by your side. You won’t be in danger ever again” Caius assured you, while you were still trying to get these tears under control.

Aro seemed as if he wanted to lock you in an embrace and never let you go again, but he restrained himself. You knew it was because of your memories, because he saw what happened to you, and because he literally lived through it with you. You thought that probably the latter pushed you towards this decision. Who could know better what you’ve been through, than a person who knew about all things that happened during your life? You wanted a hug, desperately, and you already knew, you could trust Aro on this one.

Once he saw the permission in your eyes, you immediately found yourself in his arms. As usual, he was immensely gentle and affectionate, stroking your hair while not touching your skin, so as not to accidentally read your thoughts. You cuddled into him trustingly, not caring that he was cold. You had known him one day and he had managed to evoke more trust within you, than friends that you had known for years.

When the crying eased and you calmed down slightly, you rested your head on his shoulder. Again, just like yesterday in the throne room, you felt as if you had been home for a long time. They were your home, not some pile of stones and a roof.

“I’m sorry” you whispered, trying not to be ashamed. Aro stroked your hair again.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about, cara mia,” he assured you, with a gentle tone of his voice. You glanced at Marcus and Caius, but they only seemed at ease, as you finally were calm and not crying. Not a hint of jealousy. You didn't want Aro to let you out of his embrace and apparently he wasn't going to do anything of the sort either. You felt safe within his arms.

“Can you take care of ‘selling the house’ thing?” you asked, trying to remember what were you talking about before your emotional breakdown.

“Of course, [Y/N]. You could call Isabella later, to gather things you want to have here with you,” said Caius, exceptionally calm. Maybe his behaviour in the throne room was only an act? Or maybe he was being this way only because you were a mess and he didn’t want to upset you more than you already were.

“Yes, I’d like that, please” you said politely, wiping away the last of your tears with the handkerchief you got from Marcus.

“Are you ready to talk about the child, cara, or do you want to postpone it until some other time?” Aro asked you, trying to be as gentle with the word choice as possible. You hid your face in his jet black hair. It smelled of something you couldn't quite define, but it had a calming effect on you. You heaved a number of deep breaths. He gently caressed your shoulder.

“If you feel like sharing this, cara mia, please do. If you are unable to, do not force yourself” he advised, with so much sensitivity in his tone, that you wouldn’t expect from a man, yet alone from a vampire. It seemed that nor Caius, neither Marcus wanted to push you only to get this information.

You didn’t want to ponder about it for too long. It would definitely come to an end with you simply telling nothing at all. While you were not ready at all to talk about it, you needed to explain this somehow. You weren’t ready for any unexpected touch. You were adamant that current thing with Aro was caused by situation and your emotions. While the thought of Caius or Marcus touching you wasn’t downright awful, the idea of unexpected, unwelcomed touch made you twitch uncontrollably.

“As Aro was kind enough to mention…” started Marcus, probably to assure you no words were truly needed. You might, as well, have said it already. You didn't want anyone to accidentally touch you. You wanted to welcome the touch of your mates, just as you did with Aro a few minutes before. Being touched when you didn’t want would be catastrophic, not only for your mental health, but also for the stirring relationship with kings. It would have been worse than talking about rape itself out loud.

“I was raped a few weeks ago” you choked out, trying to make your voice sound as toneless and apathetic as possible. “I haven’t decided what to do with the… with it. Yet” you added, feeling stupid and extremely anxious. You wanted to get it over with, and at the same time you knew, it would have to be talked about at some point.

Nobody said anything. They probably waited for more words, maybe more emotions. You weren’t tense or embarrassed in front of them. Although, the uncertainty, of what were their thoughts on the topic, was a little bit intimidating. As minutes passed and you were saying nothing, Caius spoke up.

“Do you want us to kill him?” he asked, sweeping you off your feet with the question. You stared at him with amazement, completely forgetting about Aro embracing you. Your gaze didn’t discourage Caius a one bit. “Maybe some tortures first? What do you say, brothers?” he asked Aro and Marcus, his eyes remaining on you.

“Could you really do that?” you asked, before Aro or Marcus could answer. Caius started laughing out loud. There was something terrifying and, yet, incomprehensibly appealing about it. He leaned towards you.

“We would burn the whole world for you,” he whispered perilously. “If you want him to suffer, to be terrified, just as you were, say the word” he clarified, with a nasty smirk on his face. “We’ll make his last hours on Earth a living hell.”

Caius had something dangerous within himself. Something primal. He wasn’t so self-composed as Aro and as insular as Marcus. He was violent, fierce, vicious. It should scare you away from him. Only it didn’t. You believed every word he said and wanted it done. Why this little man should live his life peacefully, when you were traumatised and pregnant with a child you didn’t want in a first place?

“Revenge isn’t going to make you feel better” Aro whispered warningly into your ear, but still with calm and gentle voice.

“Yeah, I know that” you said to Aro, while still staring into Caius’s eyes. His also were crimson, but with lighter shade than Aro’s. You weren’t anxious anymore, nor were you in emotional breakdown. “But women he wants to rape will feel better if he doesn’t” you said, smiling almost as darkly as Caius. You got the feeling that you two were going to get along pretty well. Caius leaned back into his chair.

“Fantastic. We’ll talk about it more in following weeks, dear” he said, obviously pleased with the outcome of the conversation.

“Regardless if you keep the child, you’re going to be one of us” reminded Aro, to change the subject. When he mentioned transformation, you were far more conscious than few moments before. You tried not to be pessimistic about the change. You knew questions needed to be asked, but you had plenty of time to ask about anything you wanted and exactly three most experienced vampires in the world to answer them.

“We established it before, Aro” said Marcus for the first time in a while. You gathered that he wasn’t the talkative one here. You disentangled yourself from Aro's embrace and returned to your chair. Enough touching for today. However, you were sure that the sense of safety and comfort that he provided you with, would remain with you for a long time.

“I’m not able to tell you now if I want to keep the child” you said with confidence. “Anyway, I need to know what will happen, whether I decide to terminate the pregnancy or not.”

You were looking directly at Aro. You knew he had the final word here. You had a feeling how it’ll end, but you wanted to hear it anyway and have it straightforward. Aro sighed softly and smiled warmly after.

“If you’d like to keep the child, you’re going to give birth to it and when it’ll be grown up enough, it’ll become one of us” he said, his gaze extremely soft.

“Okay” you agreed. “And what if I’m not going to keep the child?” you asked, because it was the more probable occurrence. Aro saw it within your thoughts and you weren’t going to act like it wasn’t the choice you were closer to opt for. His smile remained gentle and warm, his eyes calm and soft on yours.

“The things that need to be done, are going to be done” he said, and you were extremely grateful that he didn’t use the ‘abortion’ word. You were too emotionally unstable to talk about it so straightforward. “We are going to know each other a little bit more. You’ll also meet our most trustful guards to feel safe. When you’ll be ready, one of us will change you” he explained, as simple as he could. You smiled at him a little sadly.

“Alright. Do I have any time limitations?” you asked curiously, throwing a quick glance at Caius and Marcus.

“No, dolcezza. You can take as much time as you want. You’re finally with us. That’s what truly matters to us” he reassured you. He was neither angry nor upset with the thought of you postponing transformation till the child is being born.

“One step at a time” he said cheerfully and smiled. You also smiled. It was almost impossible not to. “Cara mia, you’re so pretty when you smile. I hope you’ll be able to do that more and more here” this sentence made you blush. All three of them laughed, which made you blush even more.

“Thank you” you whispered, but it was a little unsure and hesitant. You saw concern on their faces.

“May I ask you one more question?” this time it was Marcus who asked.

“Yeah, go ahead.”

“Have you checked how far along are you? You’ve told us that maybe you’ll want to terminate the pregnancy, but my concern is about your health and how your body is going to catch up with the decision of yours, regardless what it’ll be” he said, very politely, trying not to offend you. You appreciated that dearly.

Marcus did ask very good question, though. You had no idea how far along you were. It was at least three months since it happened, so your first trimester should be over very soon.

“I don’t know. I haven’t checked. I couldn’t find the courage to do so. The only thing the doctor did, was to confirm the pregnancy” you answered, trying hard to remember if something else was being said.

“We should probably call the doctor, then” said Marcus, concern noticeable in his voice. Aro and Caius agreed with him, so did you.  

“So, do I have my own cook at my disposal?” you asked to change the subject and relieve tension a bit. Enough of difficult subjects for today.

“Ah, yes, my dear, of course!” said Aro with extreme enthusiasm. “I hope you enjoyed your breakfast today. If something isn’t the way you want it, tell any of us right away.”

“Oh, yes, I did! Hey, and I told you that already!” you said, quite amused. “Am I not supposed to be the one, who forgets?” you asked, laughing.

Caius laughed most loudly, clearly amused by what you’ve just said. Aro smiled, watching you being in better mood, than before. Marcus was just Marcus, but he also smiled.

You spent the rest of the day with the kings, talking about many important and less important things. Mostly, you talked about the matter of selling your house, the things you will want to have with you in the castle, the fact that you should give up your job and your personal guard. The latter has been the cause of endless discussion. Later that evening, Aro decided that Renata, his personal guard, would be temporarily assigned to you.

You wanted to argue but there was literally no point in it. You knew that for the time you were still human, you had to have some sort of guard, because you couldn't even handle half a vampire on your own. You weren't tired at all, so after eating dinner you spent time with Caius and Marcus, trying to figure out what you could do together to get to know each other better. Unfortunately, Aro was obliged to attend to some important business, but in this case, you had already established some kind of a bond with him.

Caius and Marcus deeply respected your wish not to touch you in any way. You visited the library and were sure you had simply fallen in love. Sadly, most of the books were written in languages the existence of which you were previously unaware. Marcus was more than happy to offer you to study with him. To begin with, learning Italian. You had not yet discovered what Caius liked to do, but you were sure you would soon find out.

When they too had to attend to important matters, they escorted you to your room, and you decided it would be a good idea to call Bella. Not just about the house, but generally to let her know you were alive. When you’ve finally reached her, you both couldn’t shut up.

“Hi, sister!” you squeaked, overly excited. You heard her laugh.

“Hi! Are you fine, [Y/N]? I was starting to worry, the only thing that kept me from calling you was Alice,” she said and you laughed.

“Hi [Y/N]!” you heard Alice in the background. You threw yourself on the bed, so that you could lie on your stomach. You hugged your pillow and made yourself comfortable.

“Hi Alice!” you greeted her, smiling to yourself like a mad person, who you probably were, given the circumstances. “I’m happy to hear you, Bella, seriously. Are you at Cullen’s place?” you asked curious, as where Alice came from.

“Yeah, exactly. We were all worried here, you know” she admitted, you heard how anxious she was. You couldn’t help it but laughed.

“Well, how could you leave me in the lion's den like that” you joked and heard someone’s laugh.

“She’s fun. I need to meet her” you heard again and also laughed.

“This will probably happen sooner rather than later,” you answer to this mystery someone with confidence. Bella’s side fell silent. “But, you know, I guess I’m okay. I had fifteen hours of sleep today and the best scrambled eggs in my entire life” you admitted cheerfully, thinking about you waking up and eating your breakfast in Aro’s presence. You smiled widely. You heard someone talking in the background, but you had no idea what was this all about.

“That’s good because I was worried sick when we got out of that room” Bella admitted, trying to sound not too worried, though.

“It’s better than fine, you know. And how are you? You seriously were as white as a sheet while in throne room” you said and this was your turn to be worried about Bella again. “Hey, and I hope this asshole isn’t going to leave you again. My threat is in force,” you said in a threatening tone, knowing that Edward could definitely hear it. You heard the same laugh as before plus Bella’s laugh.

“I’m sure he’ll not be doing it again. Carlisle has already scolded him decently.”

Your heart ached a little after hearing Carlisle’s name. You thought he was your friend, or maybe it was beginning of friendship, and now you had no idea what to think about it at all.

“Good. How are you, Bells?” you asked again, hugging your pillow tightly.

“I’m okay, really, [Y/N]. No need to worry about me.”

Of course you were going to worry about her. She was just like a little sister to you. No way you’d stop worrying. Suddenly, you remembered what happened in the throne room and became seriously concerned.

“Have you set a date?” you asked, and again, the other side fell silent. This time completely. You sighed heavily. “I’m not a spy, you know, but I’m worried about you. We will need to talk about all of this. I get why didn’t you tell me, but, seriously Bella, your self-preservation instinct does not exist,” you scolded her, just a little. You had a feeling that she gave no fucks, no matter what anyone could say about this situation.

“Says the “I’m staying here, Bella” person” she gritted out with sarcasm. You rolled your eyes.

“One, they wouldn’t let me leave. Two, you were in danger and I was alright with sacrificing myself to save you. Three…” this time you fell silent, realising something important. “…I wouldn’t go. I’m not able to. This bond, whatever it is, it’s strong shit. You probably now it, as you have this with Edward. I have got it triple.”

After really long moment of complete silence, Bella spoke up.

“Why would you sacrifice yourself for me?” she asked, her question as heavy as storm clouds. You sighed.

“Because I’ve got nothing to live for, ya know? I was prepared that I wouldn’t get out alive,” you admitted with sad voice, but it was downright true.

“You’re pregnant, [Y/N]” she said, like it was something, which could immediately improve your well-being and quality of life. You felt like throwing up.

“Yeah. I’m pregnant with the child I don’t want, with a man I’ve never met, who forced himself on me and made my life more miserable than it already was. I should probably send him a card or something because, guess what, I’ve never considered that my life is going to be more crappy than it already was after my parents’ death.”

When you ended the sentence and no one said anything, you just sighed heavily.

“You’ve got the date set?” you asked again, merely curious about this and to change the topic.

“Not yet” she said, her voice sad and full of emotions.

���Then do it. They’re patient, to some extent, but don't tempt fate. I don’t want to attend yet another funeral,” you said bitterly, trying not to think at all.

“How can you be so calm about all of this?” Bella snapped suddenly, making you shift uncomfortably on bed.

“And how you can be so calm? How was this your fucking plan from the very beginning? Once again, I try to understand you, while not understanding you at all” you snapped too, tired of any games. Before she could answer, you continued:

“I’m not coming back. I wanted to ask you if you could go to my house and get some things, I can make you a list if it’s going to be easier.”

You thought telling her this right away would be better than if she wasn’t aware for weeks or months.

“What?! Why aren’t you coming back?” she asked with raised voice. You wanted to shout and scream but you didn’t. It was too much for one day.

“Because I’ve got nothing to come back to. You’re going to be a vampire anyway, so I’ll see you in some time. I’m selling the house and I want to leave the past exactly where it belongs” you explained, trying not to yell. The hormone fluctuations didn't make it easy for you at all.

Another silence. You were tired of all of this.

“Can you do this for me, Bella? Because if you can’t, I’m sure…”

She didn’t let you finish.

“Of course I’ll do it for you. Can we talk tomorrow about the details?” she asked, her voice calmed a bit.

“Yeah, sure. It’s well after midnight here anyway, so I should probably go to sleep. I’ve got doctor’s appointment tomorrow in the afternoon” you said, trying to sound casually. Last thing you needed now was to argue about anything with Bella.

“Okay, so, call me tomorrow?” she asked. “And be safe.”

“You too, Bells. Take care. I love you, sis” you said, trying to stop the forthcoming tears.

“I love you too, [Y/N].”

Long after this phone call, you couldn’t get yourself to sleep. You tried bath this time, but it was mostly useless. At least, you were clean. First time after the rape, you decided to touch your belly on purpose. It began to curve gently, and, apart from that, you still felt pain and pressure in your breasts. You put on a nightdress and went to bed, this time actually trying to get some sleep. You also tried not to think too much about what the future would bring.

[therealvinelle]

What if Bella got possessed by a demon in Twilight? Like pretty standard, The Exorcist type of stuff.

A lot of you anons should just head on to Ao3 instead of my inbox because whereever you went with this fic idea, I’m sure it’d be delightful. Lulzy, but an absolute delight.

Since you say Twilight, I’ll just set the timeline to the beginning of the series, when Bella has just arrived in Forks. She got possessed just before leaving, as Renée wanted to try an ouija board.

So, for the purposes of this ask, demons are real within the Twilight universe. They have to be very few and far in between, though, since humans don’t know about them and they presumably don’t care about following the Volturi law.

Bella is Reagan and the demon Pazuzu has taken up residence within her.

As happened in The Exorcist, this isn’t very noticeable at first. Bella starts saying some messed up things, yes, enough so that the other kids at school avoid her and the teachers give Charlie a call, but she’s not running down the stairs like a spider. Charlie is worried about her behavior and calls Renée about this, but he’s not dialing up any priests just yet.

Well, Bella gets worse.

Edward, for the record, was interested in this delicious smelling girl with the mystery box brain up until she started spouting profanities in the hallways at other students. Not being able to read her mind, he assumes Bella Swan is just like that. There’s no challenge, no reward, nothing to keeping her alive, his only real reason for not eating her at this point is Carlisle. Though his sheer distaste at that vulgar human who dares to tempt him so makes him resistent to drinking her blood, just out of spite. She’s not his perfect damsel with the delicious blood, and that ruins a lot of the appeal. Not all, mind, because that blood is still delicious.

Though it does help when she’s pulled out of school. Edward can pretend vulgar hamburger doesn’t exist, even as he ruffles through her wardrobe for sweaters to huff.

Back to Charlie, whose daughter is now running down the stairs like the spider.

He sends her to every shrink he can afford, has all the doctors in Forks look at her, and none of them give him an answer he can believe. He’s at his wit’s end.

And this affliction, whatever it is, that’s affecting Bella, it doesn’t seem natural, not human. She speaks in tongues, sexually assaults herself (yes, this happens in the movie), growls and hisses like an animal, in every way acts like- well, whatever it is, Charlie’s ability to deny that this his daughter’s affliction is supernatural in origin is growing thin.

But none of the shrinks can help him with that, and Charlie is a “lapsed Lutheran”, so I doubt priests is something he’ll consider all that seriously. He needs occult help, yes, but from someone who will actually help Bella.

His mind turns towards Carlisle Cullen and his children, and how Billy reacted when they moved into town.

Charlie laughed off his friends’ fears then, thought it was ridiculous to believe the Cullens could ever be anything but human. He dismissed their unusual looks as just that, unusual looks, their too-good-to-be-true cover story as them being that wonderful, and was quite happy about it.

That was then, now his daughter is fast becoming proof that the occult is indeed real.

And Dr. Cullen is so very kind, excellent in his work as a doctor and above all knowledgeable.

Say that Billy was right, that these guys aren’t as human as they appear. Well, that makes them the only people in the world, in Charlie’s world anyhow, who might be able to help.

Which is how Carlisle has the town chief walk into his office, tell him his daughter is possessed by a demon, and that Carlisle has to come over and have a look at her.

Now, as I think demons would be extremely rare, we’ll allow that Carlisle with all likelihood hasn’t seen any of these before. Quite the contrary, he was once a man who persecuted women suspected of witchcraft. He understands Charlie a little too well, but is also not touching this exorcism quest with a ten-foot pole.

Except, the chief seems convinced that Carlisle himself isn’t entirely human.

What would a human doctor do?

Carlisle really has no choice here but to come with Charlie. Besides, no matter how one looks at it what Charlie said about Bella is highly disturbing, the girl obviously needs medical attention.

So Carlisle has a look at Bella, and his “ahahaha we’re all human in here” smile quickly stiffens as he finds that whatever’s going on with Bella, it is indeed not human. She’s spitting green goo, talking Latin backwards, inhumanly strong, impersonating Carlisle’s father, and depending on how closely we follow Pazuzu’s actions in The Exorcist she may have killed a man. There’s scars on her body spelling out pleas for help.

It becomes clear to Carlisle that this girl really does need an exorcism. Or something, anyway, this is terrifying new territory for him.

But he has neither any clue nor the authority to perform an exorcism, and he lacks the network to get his hands on a human priest who’ll do this. More, even if humans could help (and considering how misinformed they are about vampires, the odds of that are extremely slim), involving more humans than have already been pulled into this would not make the Volturi happy.

There’s really only one place to go where someone will have the resources to help this suffering human, and that’s Volterra.

There’s a risk that demons are like immortal children and Aro will kill her on the spot, but Carlisle, still spooked from father Cullen’s voice coming out of this 17-year-old girl in the 21st century, has no other recourse.

So he tells Charlie he’s taking Bella somewhere Charlie can’t follow, and it’s likely they’ll never see each other again, even if Bella is saved. Charlie is devastated, but the promise that his daughter could get better means he can’t refuse. Just the fact that Carlisle isn’t entirely human yet benign makes him the best help Charlie is able to get her.

Carlisle takes Bella to Volterra, where Aro puts on his best Max von Sydow impression and says “Ah, demons... I’ve seen this once before, in the memories of a merchant from Ur...”

Knowing Aro while not knowing the lore of The Exorcist well enough to know what to do about a demon possession if you don’t have a Catholic priest on hand, I imagine Aro dresses up in whatever it is that Sumerian priests wore thousands of years ago (he always told Caius those bedazzled costumes would come in handy someday, and look who was right! VINDICATION) and tricks Pazuzu into possessing one of the humans Heidi brought in instead. This human is promptly killed. Ta-da, Aro smiles to Carlisle, he solved the problem!

Bella wakes up surrounded by insanely beautiful people in an underground palace in Italy and remembers nothing. Carlisle gets the honor of explaining to this human girl that she was possessed by a demon, Charlie asked Carlisle to fix it, and now the nice man who makes jingling noises whenever he moves because he’s dressed head to toe in gold wants her to be a different kind of demon because he can’t read her mind.

Bella caught maybe half of that.

Carlisle refuses to elaborate on the “possessed by a demon” part. No, Bella, you did nothing embarrassing, no one thought you were weird. We hardly noticed you were possessed at all!

But he was serious about that last part, Aro noticed she has a special ability so he’d like for her to become a vampire.

Bella, still, overwhelmed, makes a phone call to Charlie explaining nothing at all but assuring him that the demon is gone. She is then made a vampire.

Edward arrives too late to the party, so late that the party is in fact over, as he didn’t believe Carlisle when he said hamburger was possessed by a demon. Now it turns out that the disgusting, vulgar girl was in fact a delicate flower and a damsel in distress this whole time. Except, now she’s a vampire. Woe! Theirs is a love that never bloomed.

Bella has no idea who this guy is, and asks Renata to make him go away.

[multiplefandomsblog]

Celeste x reader x Kirigiri SFW & NSFW head-canons

request; celeste x reader x kirigiri? :o

warnings; fluff, i really don’t think there’s any explicit warnings in the sfw part, nsfw section: handcuffs, edging, i didn’t put any explicit descriptions of sex nor scenarios, degrading names, gn!reader, vanilla, mention of vampire roleplay, biting, unedited.

note; sorry i took so long!! I had to study their wiki pages and shit to remember their characters, its been some time since I’ve played THH. anyway, thank you for requesting. also sorry if this was a bit lazy, i feel like i didn’t do this one as well as the others, i’m really sorry.

≈SFW≈

◊ Okay, I feel like Celestia would be the one to spoil the both of you rotten. She’s always buying all three of you matching clothes so you could go out together looking ✨fly✨

◊ If you or Kyoko ever tried denying her outfits, she’d be a bit flustered and upset though she wouldn’t show it. Buuut eventually, you both cave in because you can notice the difference in her attitude, however slight it may be.

◊ “S/o, Kyoko, my darlings. I may have gotten carried away, but I think you both would look wondrous in these- Oh. You don’t… want them? I see. *sad face* Alright then, I guess I’ll just… I..” Yuuuup, you broke her. Congratulations, you jerk. 

◊ Whatever gender you may be, it doesn’t matter, she will buy you a huge fluffy dress (But if you’re not comfortable with it, she’d totally be willing to get you something else).

◊ Celestia calls you both her darlings. She’s always saying hers, or mine in front of your names and/or pet names.

◊ Kyoko isn’t big on pet names, whether she’s on the receiving end or serving; though she doesn’t mind it when either of you calls her one. Just nothing too ridiculous, she’ll flush an adorable shade of red but scold you for it later. She prefers just calling you both by name.

◊ The caring one of the relationship would either have to be you or Celestia. Kyoko doesn’t take care of herself too well, as she’s very passionate about her job; so passionate to the point where she forgets that she’s human and that her very human body needs food and sleep.

◊ Celestia takes care of herself extremely well, I imagine she has a very strict skin routine and diet. But since she’s also passionate about her job, I imagine there would be times where a round of gambling goes extremely long or tie, but she’d be very adamant on winning so she’d go a little over the top and stay there for days, weeks if she had to. 

◊ That being said, they are both very passionate about their jobs so I feel that they are unfortunately prone to neglecting you at times. But don’t worry! They always make it up to you 10x more, and it’s always worth it.

◊ Kyoko would probably make it up to you both by trying to be a bit more affectionate with you. She is well aware that she isn’t always affectionate, so she thinks if she gives you guys a bit more affection, you’ll forgive her? ...Please?

◊ Bbgirl is trying-

◊ Most likely though, she’d talk to you first. A formal apology and everything, if you’re lucky, she’ll buy you a stuffed animal or flowers as she apologizes. 

◊ Since Celestia is just, a very fancy and aesthetic person, I feel like all dates with her would reflect that same fancy aesthetic. She goes out of her way to set up a fancy table at a reserved place where none of you can be disturbed. Expensive teas, china, scones, sweets, those little stands with the layers of pastries; she has it all ready for you two. 

◊ You’d all be sitting on cute chairs sipping tea in cute cups, butlers at your every need, it’s a really cute almost dream-like date. Kyoko would talk about her cases(leaving out things that are confidential of course,) you’d talk about everything and anything, and Celestia would just quietly listen to you both talk, a small smile adorning her face. She loves taking care of the both of you, the reason why she has dates like these are for, 

She wants to spend time with her darlings because she misses them.

She wants you both to relax and destress, she hates the idea of either of you overworking or forgetting to take care of yourself.

◊ Though if you’re not into that, the closest thing that isn’t fancy or organized(though it would take some time for her to practice not being organized) would be a picnic date. With a very very wide blanket. That’s thick. And lots of bug spray. 

◊ Dates with Kyoko would probably be short coffee breaks, she doesn’t have a lot of time sadly, so halfway through the date, she finishes her coffee and leaves early, leaving you and Celestia to spend the rest of the time together.

◊ Dates with her would mostly just be when all three of you go to bed, talking about each other’s days or just talking about stuff that has zero meaning as you all fall asleep.

◊ It kind of makes her a bit upset when you and Celestia have an inside joke or seem a bit closer; as much as she loves seeing you both happy with each other, she can’t help but want to be in on it too. She feels a bit guilty for being so busy with her job.

◊ So when she does feel a bit left out, I think a way to make her feel more included would be small little ‘I love you’ texts while she’s working or even better, surprising her by picking her up on her lunch date to get a quick lunch. 

◊ I think something domestic Kyoko enjoys a lot, is when either of you cooks a bento for her. You can really cook something terrible for her, or even ugly, she doesn’t care; she loves it so much. It’s the thought that you would cook for her that gets her. When she comes back home, the first thing she will do is thank you and hug you real tight. It’s one of the more rare moments where she actually displays feelings of love and gratitude.

◊ Despite getting judgemental looks from Byakuya and aw’s from Hina, in the end, Kyoko doesn’t care one bit. She will eat and enjoy the food in its entirety, she doesn’t care if it affects her reputation as a cold person, she just wants to eat the food.

◊ Though she is unfazed by practically everything, she gets a bit taken aback that you cooked food for her, the shock is evident on her face when you hand it to her before she goes, or drop it off at lunch hour. I don’t think she ever had anyone cook meals for her, or at least, doesn’t remember it; so she’s always pretty shocked when you do. She feels her heart palpitate a little louder and maybe smiles a little smile when you’re not looking. She appreciates it a lot.

◊ Though Celestia doesn’t cook, I think you’d have to be the one to cook for Kirigiri. Celestia enjoys gyoza a whole lot, so if you were ever to cook gyoza for her… well, she’d probably be brutally honest about what she thinks about it. Though she’d give you constructive criticism, and eventually you’d get it right through trial and error and Celestia’s taste buds.

◊ Celestia isn’t big on public areas for dates, like movie theatres, for example. If you ever wanted to watch a movie, she’d probably rent an entire movie theatre for just you three to chill in. As you can see, she’s not too big on being with large groups of people, or just anywhere that isn’t exactly ‘clean’. 

◊ I don’t think either of them would be one for PDA either. Other than mild flirting from Celestia, you all don’t do PDA at all. But there’s this intimate vibe that you all seem to share that has people assume you’re all on a date together. It’s like this bubble, it’s quite peculiar. 

◊ Celestia would never lose her cool because of you both, only for you both. But even so, she avoids losing it in front of your eyes. If she ever had to fight someone for you or intimidate them, she would probably ask you to go occupy yourselves with something else so she could go off without hesitating.

◊ Though if she was ever about to lose it and either of you notices it, a simple hold of her hand calms her down immediately. Her rage wordlessly disappears. She’ll even give you guys a small little forehead kiss in thanks.

◊ Kyoko’s an ‘it’s the thought that counts’ kind of person. So whenever you or Celestia spoil her with expensive gifts, she’ll enjoy it but she’s a bit concerned about how you’re spending so much money on her. She honestly prefers handmade gifts; whether they’re crafty or a bit imperfect, she cherishes them more than you know. 

≈NSFW≈

◊ Oh boy. *cracks knuckles* here we go.

◊ Kyoko hides her moans and expressions, she was raised not to show any unsightly emotions and so, that(sadly) comes into play in bed.

◊ Oh but Celestia teases her until she does, to get that satisfying plead out of Kyoko Kirigiri of all people, it drives her near mad in love. 

◊ Kyoko is definitely vanilla, and would probably want to stay vanilla. There aren’t many things she’s into, as a result of not knowing any kinks. I don’t think she’d be too willing to try any kinks either. Unless you explain it to her, then maybe. Just maybe. 

◊ Kyoko is a soft dom- HAH just kidding! The moment you admit just a little bit of top energy on her, she submits easily. Not in the typical way you’d think, but she’d let you do all the work, you’d have to guide her. I don’t think she has any sexual experience, so she’d have sex relying on you both(for once). 

◊ That’s where Celestia comes into play. I don’t know if this is canon or you know, but I head-canon that she has a surprising amount of sexual knowledge and kinks. 

◊ Kyoko isn’t the biggest fan of you and Celestia having intercourse without her, as I mentioned earlier, she does get a little left out, so knowing that you left her out of something as intimate as sex gets her mad for a couple of days. Even holds a small grudge. 

◊ But it wouldn’t last long, you both would eventually make it up to her since she doesn’t exactly enjoy discussing her feelings, you would have to be the one to speak up first. 

◊ Celeste would definitely ask you both if you were ever interested in trying out role-play with her, specifically; vampire role-play.

◊ Speaking of vampires, she really enjoys it when you lightly bite her. Not enough to leave a mark, if you leave marks on her she’ll get mad. Though she enjoys leaving marks on you both, she enjoys those short moments where someone stares at you guys’ hickeys and she just,, gives them a knowing, intense glare.

◊ Celestia isn’t big on degrading you both unless it’s something like, “My good little mutt.” Degrading names, sure. But not full-on degrading. She lies all the time but lying about this doesn’t sit right with her, she doesn’t want to hurt you both in any way. 

◊ Celestia enjoys being praised, it definitely gets her to spare you an orgasm if she’s edging you. You really have to praise her about everything about her for her to actually let you get off; although Kyoko is known to be silent, Celestia somehow gets her to plead for her. As a result of teasing lies like, “If you don’t obey, you won’t get to get off darling.”

◊ Celestia dominates both of you, simultaneously. Kyoko doesn’t have enough confidence in her ability to please you both to top, and unless you are somehow able to overpower her, she’s always going to be the one who orders you to do things. 

◊ I can totally imagine Kyoko littering millions of butterfly kisses on both your bodies, but they’re so soft and cute you both start to giggle a bit. “Why are you laughing? Is it bad?” She looks genuinely confused and a little sad- and then that both shocks you into showering her with reassurances, any leftover lick of laughter completely vanished.

◊ Celestia is a huge tease- like, just, the biggest tease. She’ll hover her lips over yours, blow at where you need it most, foreplay lasts longer than you would want it to, but in all honesty, it definitely makes the first stroke of pleasure well worth it. All that anticipation, build-up, is all worth it as she finally gives you what you want.

◊ Kyoko is more intimate, every moment with her is just, so full of love it gives you whiplash from Celestia’s little fun. She always has a hand on your back. It’s such a soft and fleeting touch, you both sometimes wonder if it’s even there.

◊ Something I could imagine happening is Celestia just- pulling out soft hand-cuffs from nowhere as a surprise for the two of you, asking you to tie her up. Seeing as how Kyoko is usually around handcuffs often from her detective work, she’s a little confused as to why people would get turned on from that or even introduce that to the bedroom. It’s the last thing she’d expect. She’s a bit nervous to use them(receiving and serving), and doesn’t see the purpose, but when she caves in and says yes anyway, she finds she actually likes them? 

◊ She wouldn’t admit it though. And it definitely ruins her image of handcuffs; any time she sees a perp in handcuffs, she can just see the pleased looks on your and Celestia’s faces.

◊ Celestia would look down at you with this red gaze that leaves the two of you utterly speechless and aroused, even as she’s bottoming, her piercing gaze reminds you who’s in charge.

[thechangeling]

She burns like rum on a fire

Why did I do this to myself ughhhhh?

So @adoravel-fenomeno and I were talking about Kit potentially getting into an abusive relationship given that he's statistically likely too given his roots. So now I give you this fic! Sorry. Kit is using he/him in this fic because he hasn't really gone on his gender quest yet.

The title is from Cherry Wine by Hozier. I reccomend you listen to Cherry Wine and Trauma by NF while reading this.

Cw: Mentions of physical and verbal abuse, abusive, controlling behavior, negative self talk and extreme denial. Also brief mention of blood.

2013

Don't cry.

Don't cry Kit told himself over and over inside his head as he tried to get a hold of his breathing. As he lay on his bed at 2 in the morning, desperately refreshing his conversation with Autumn.

Autumn or as his best friend Janessa liked to call her "the virus" was Kit's girlfriend. His very first. A mundane with the sight. They had been dating for a few months now. When they had first gotten together everything was amazing, it so it seemed.

They had some much in common and they had fun together. Autumn was hot, funny and charasmatic. She had this way of making him feel like the only person in the room. She showered him with gifts and complements that made Kit finally feel worthy for the first time in his life.

But as time went on things shifted. Autumn insisted on spending almost ever waking second with him. Kit didn't mind at first, he loved hanging out with her. But he missed his parents and his sister, and he knew they missed him too. Whenever they had family movie night, or they wanted Kit to watch Mina, Autumn threw a fit. She insisted that he was ignoring her.

She didn't want him seeing Janessa either, or Nessie as Kit called her for short. Autumn always insisted that she was plotting to steal Kit away from her, which was ridiculous but nothing could change Autumn's mind when she was in a mood. So Kit had found himself blowing Nessie off to hang out with Autumn and making excuses for it.

Kit always felt super guilty for making Autumn so upset. He tried to get out of his agreements if it to stop her from crying but sometimes Tessa and Jem wouldn't let him. It was frustrating when they didn't understand. She would rage for awhile, calling Kit stupid and worthless. Sometimes she would make comments about him being adopted, telling him that Tessa and Jem didn't really love him and they only saw him as a free babysitter for their real child.

She would make jokes about all kinds of things. How Kit wasn't a real shadowhunter, his weight, his past, his bisexuality, his ADHD. Kit knew that Autimn didn't really mean anything by it. It was nothing personal and she didn't really mean it. She loved him. And he loved her.

Tonight had been different though. His grades had taken a turn for the worst because he had been blowing of the tutoring sessions the school had payed for as a part of his accommodations. Because he had been spending that time with Autumn. Kit knew it was a bad idea to miss those, but his girlfriend needed him. She didn't have anybody else. She couldn't count on her parents like he could, and she didn't really have any friends.

But Kit was in big trouble. Tessa and Jem were mad. The school was mad. People were saying that Kit was ungrateful.

Ah yes because every disabled person should just bend down and kiss the feet of every person that deigns to give them what they're legally entitled to.

But Kit knew that he had really screwed up this time. He tried to explain to Autumn that he couldn't see her as often as he used to anymore because he needed to fix his grades. And she absolutely lost it. Which he had been expecting.

However what Kit hadn't been expecting this time was for her to hit him.

And she hit him hard. Punched him straight in the nose. And sure it wasn't that big of a deal. Kit was a shadowhunter and he was pretty much used to being hit. But he hadn't been expecting it.

And there was just so much blood.

Autumn of course instantly apologized profusely. She kissed him over and over and told him that she loved him and she didn't mean to. And Kit knew she was telling the truth but-

But he still felt a sinking feeling in his chest that he couldn't explain.

But Kit had applied an iratze, wiped off the blood, and now everything was as good as new. When he had arrived back home, his parents had noticed anything or asked him any questions.

Now he was lying awake at 2 in the morning, filled with guilt and worry as he waited for Autumn to text him back. He gnawed on his bottom lip anxiously as he tried not to over think things.

Maybe she was still mad at him? Was there something else Kit was supposed to say or do? Or maybe he should just leave her alone for awhile?

It was maddening.

Kit turned off his phone and threw it down in frustration, pulling his giant red and black flannel over his shoulders and curling in on himself. He felt strangely exhausted, but unable to sleep. His nose and left eye socket still throbbed a little despite the fact that they should be healed.

Kit thought about using another iratze but his steele was across the room and he couldn't bring himself to stand up to go get it.

God he really was pathetic. Maybe he deserved this. Tears welled up in Kit's eyes.

Don't cry. Don't cry.

This time Kit couldn't hold it back. So he let himself cry. Tears came streaming down his cheeks as he tried to muffle his sobs with his hand. Deep down he knew it was his fault. It was always his fault.

But with Autumn he had really tried. Sure he wasn't perfect but Kit really cared about her. And it wasn't good enough. He wasn't good enough.

Kit couldn't help but think of the last time he felt like this. The last time he was rejected. He had been careful about trying to keep all thoughts of Ty Blackthorn out of his head for awhile. Autumn was a good distraction, even when she was screaming obscenities at him. It was still a distraction.

Kit closed his eyes and conjured the memory of holding Ty up on the roof. If he squeezed his eyes tightly enough, Kit could still feel the softness of his hoodie and the slight tickle of Ty's dark hair against his skin. He could conjure the smell of Ty's skin and the way he had trembled slightly against Kit's body.

I should have kissed him. Kit mused, hugging himself tightly. Just once. Even if Ty had pushed him away in disgust, it would have been worth it. Just to know what it felt like.

Suddenly from the bottom of the bed, Kit's phone lit up with a call. He scrambled to grab it, thinking it was Autumn, but it was actually Janessa. Kit cleared his throat, trying to make his voice sound normal as he answered the phone.

"Why are you calling me at 2 am Nessie?"

"The better question is why are you still awake at 2 am," she pointed out, sounding smug. "I'm a vampire. Creature of the night remember? It's kinda prime time for me Kit Kat."

Kit smiled as he felt the previous angst wash away. "Yeah fair enough. But still, why are you calling me?"

Kit heard her sigh into the phone. "Well honestly because this is probably the only time you're free now a days," she said spitefully. "You know thanks to she-who-must-not-be-named." Kit rolled his eyes.

"That's my girlfriend you're talking about, Janessa!" He snapped.

"Well your girlfriend's a total bitch!"

Normally Kit would argue with her and tell her that she was way off base. That Autumn wasn't so bad and that she was trying. That she loved him. But today he just couldn't.

He sighed, running his fingers through his hair. "We got into another fight tonight," he admitted. "Just a few hours ago actually."

"I'm sorry love," Janessa murmed. Nessie wasn't British. She was actually Canadian. But she had moved around the world with her previous band before settling in Devon and leaving them to go solo. She had picked up on some British expressions though.

"I wish you weren't going through this. But Kit, you gotta break up with her! She's bad news!"

Kit rested his face against the palm of his left hand. "I can't," he groaned.

Janessa let out a frustrated yell on the other end of the phone. "What the hell are you planning on doing Kit!? I mean are you just gonna wait into she hits you or what?" She spat.

"She already did," Kit responded instantly without missing a beat.

He gasped and slapped a hand to cover his mouth. Kit had no idea why he actually told her. Impulsivity maybe? Or maybe he just needed to get it out. But he instantly regretted it.

There was a long uncomfortable silence on the other end of the phone. Kit was just about to ask Janessa where she went when suddenly she spoke.

"I'm coming over."

Kit tried to protest but she hung up on him.

Before he had time to panic or scream or throw something, there was an aggressive tapping on his window. Of course. Janessa had vampire speed. He looked up to see Nessie perched on his windowsill looking solem.

Her long black curly hair was pulled into a high ponytail and she wore what by her standards was probably a casual outfit. A black long sleeved low cut crop top and white ripped skinny jeans tucked into thigh high heeled leather boots. And of course, she wore a full face of makeup. Even after the facial feminization surgery she was still a little insecure about going out without makeup on.

Nessie banged on his window again, more impatiently and Kit jumped up to let her in. She landed on his bedroom floor with the grace of a cat, making no sound. She stared at him silently with an expression that Kit found hard to decipher.

"Show me where," she whispered in that deep raspy voice of hers. She reached for his face and Kit let Janessa cradle his face with her hands and tried not to wince as her cold skin came into contact with his.

He shook his head. "No you won't see it, I put an iratze on it already. It's done." Janessa scoffed and stepped back.

"You know the damage isn't just skin deep Kit," she said pointedly. "No matter how much you want to pretend it is."

He glared at her. "Wow that's so insightful Nessie!," he said sarcastically. "What else you got?"

"Oh come on Kit you know I'm right," She hissed. "You have to end it!"

Kit shook his head. Why does she keep saying that?

"No. Why should I?" Kit retorted. "She loves me." He tried to sound as confident as he could, but truthfully he wasn't so sure anymore.

Autumn had gone above and beyond to make Kit feel loved and appreciated yo the point where she was almost obsessive. But she could also be cruel and spiteful. Kit had convinced himself that he should be happy with what he had because it was as good as he was gonna get.

And the sad part was that was still true.

"No she doesn't," Janessa breathed desperately. To Kit's horror, it looked like she was about to cry. Kit couldn't remember if he had ever seen her cry. Not once.

"Somebody who really loved you could never hurt you like that!" She protested shakily, her voice warbled as tears spilled down her face.

Kit could feel his tears returning at the sight of Nessie crying. He rushed towards her and pulled her into his arms, burying his face in her neck. In the comfort of his best friend's embeace he allowed himself to finally sob. He cried for that broken niave part of himself that kept getting hurt.

She rested her chin on the top of his head, (she was taller then him,) and held him close. "Please promise me you will break up with her," Janessa begged.

"I just don't get it," Kit whispered against her skin. "I did everything right. I did everything I could." He blinked back tears. "Why doesn't she love me Nessie?"

He felt her shake against him. "I don't know Kit," she sobbed. "But I love you ok? I love you and your parents love you, and Mina loves you so much!"

Kit sighed, pulling back to wipe his tears. "I know, but what if I, you know-. What if I never find someone? Like romantically?"

Janessa studied him, raising her eyebrow. "Well do you need to find someone? Who is this arbitrary someone who can give you something a friendship can't?"

That's actually a good point.

"I mean," Nessie continued, crossing her arms and shifting her weight. "If you do end up in a relationship then cool, it's whatever. But the way I see it is you shouldn't focus all of your energy on looking because you're gonna end up missing out on some pretty cool stuff in the mean time." She smiled.

Kit thought about it. He knew logically Janessa had a point. But he just couldn't feel it. He was too depressed and defeated. And as ashamed as it made him, Kit still missed Autumn. He tried to smile along with Nessie but it must have looked weak because she looked concerned.

"Hey," she cooed, reaching for him.

"Can you sing to me Nessie?" He asked. Kit  felt a little pathetic but hopefully she wouldn't judge him.

She smiled lovingly at him. "Sure." Janessa took his hand and led him to his bed.

"Any requests?" She asked as she pulled off her boots and lay down on Kit's bed. He followed her, snuggling up against Nessie with his back to her.

"No not really," he murmered, closing his eyes. Kit was finally starting to feel how exhausted he really was.

Janessa wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close, resting her head slightly against his shoulder. "Ok," she whispered very softly.

Kit heard her clear her throat softly before the sound of her breathy angelic alto filled his ears.

"I'm turning out the lights, to remember how to see. Till the renaissance takes place, Until a renaissance takes place, and resuscitates the color of paint and divinity."

Kit smiled sleepily at the sound of his enneagram song, something Janessa had introduced him to.

He yawned and let the sound of Nessie's voice lull him to sleep, putting all thoughts of Autumn behind him.

In my head Kit is like 5'4 and Janessa is 5'9. Originally I had her at 5'11 but I wanted her to be closer in height to Kit. Also did I name Kit's abusive girlfriend Autumn after my toxic controlling ex best friend? You bet I did!

Tag list: (you know the deal) @playwithravenclaw @lavender-scented-rat @jazzkaurtheglorious @waterlillies   @nott-the-best @stxr-thxif @magnus-the-fabulous-entp-bane @foxglove-airmid @littlx-songbxrd @clarys-heosphoros @queenlilith43 @arangiajoan @hardlymatters @the-wckd-powers @thomas-gaypanic-lightwood @adoravel-fenomeno

[impalementation]

spike, angel, buffy & romanticism: part 2

part 1: “When you kiss me I want to die”: Angel and the high school seasons

* 

“Love isn’t brains, children”: Enter Spike as the id

For all that I’ve just discussed all of the ways that the first three seasons subvert the romance of Angel, it’s also true that the writing still fundamentally takes him—and Buffy’s relationship with him—seriously. To some degree it has to. Because Buffy is the show’s emotional anchor, if the writing didn’t take her emotions seriously, the audience wouldn’t either. It needs to be sympathetic to her (regardless of whether it endorses her, per se), or else it would run the risk of losing all pathos. Making fun of Buffy and Angel makes for a great gag in “The Zeppo”, and fits with the general way that season three undermines the romanticism of them, but if that was the show’s attitude the whole way through, it would come off as simply meanspirited. It would seem like it was making fun of Buffy for being a stupid teenage girl in love, instead of sympathetically depicting the human experience of being caught up in big, tempestuous emotions.

But at the same time, if the writing were to only take romance seriously, that wouldn’t feel very true either. Or fit with the general Buffy ethos, which loves to flip between serious and silly moods in order to capture all sides of whatever it’s exploring. And therein is the magic of Spike’s addition to the chemistry of the show. Practically from his introduction, Spike parallels Buffy’s romantic storylines, except unlike Buffy, Spike is allowed to do the comic or morally incorrect thing. His status as a soulless vampire means that the show is free to use him to point out both the sillier and darker sides of romance, without tainting Buffy’s heroism or the seriousness of her emotions.

In “Becoming, Part 2” for example, Spike is free to explicitly say that he’s saving the world because he wants Dru back, and leaves Buffy to die once he’s gotten her. Whereas Buffy, despite also wanting the person she loves back, ultimately chooses to save the world rather than keep him. Spike allows the episode to show what Buffy’s, or anyone’s, romantic id might want, without Buffy herself going through with it. He also allows the episode to show the ridiculousness of the romantic id, by giving him comic moments like “Didn’t say I wouldn’t”, or “God, he’s going to kill her”, or beating Angel with a tire iron, or any of the times that Buffy makes fun of him (“The whole earth may be sucked into hell and you want my help ‘cause your girlfriend’s a big ho?”). All of which is in contrast to the tragic seriousness of Buffy’s heartbreak. Spike in season two is not a character without pathos; in fact, he has quite a lot of pathos that parallels Buffy’s--think of the tortured close-up on his face as Angel and Drusilla taunt him in “I Only Have Eyes For You.” But neither is he limited or defined by that pathos.

He plays a similar role in both “Lovers Walk” and “The Harsh Light of Day”. In “Lovers Walk” he’s devastated by the loss of Drusilla, as Buffy was devastated over Angel in “Anne”, yet the way they get out of their respective depressions is very different. Tonally, “Anne” plays Buffy’s misery extremely straight, and when Buffy decides to stop moping and become an agent in her own life again, her version of “agency” means getting in touch with her leadership and heroism. Whereas for Spike, agency means a love spell, or torturing Drusilla into liking him again. The romantic id tries to re-possess the object of its desire, whereas the ego or superego is able to set that desire aside, whether or not it wants to. More obviously, Spike in “Lovers Walk” parallels all of the other characters and their romantic situations. All of them are behaving somewhat selfishly or self-destructively in their love lives (Xander and Willow cheating, Buffy and Angel torturing themselves with friendship) but are in denial about the fact that they’re doing so. And then Spike blazes in with his version of love that is selfish, scary, grandiose, charming, pathetic, genuine, and absurd by turns—and suddenly, everyone’s romantic weaknesses are out in the open. It makes perfect sense that Spike finishes the episode gleeful and optimistic, because “Lovers Walk” as a whole represents a triumph of the romantic id over the romantic ego, if only temporarily. And it’s all handled with a brilliantly whiplash-y mix of comedy and tragedy because at the end of the day, the power of the romantic id really is ridiculous. The way that Spike turns on a dime between being scary and pathetic parallels the way it’s at once absurd, and kind of frightening, that your id would make you, say: cheat on your wonderful high school boyfriend, just to have a chance with your childhood crush.

Because Spike is often treated as the show’s romantic id, the writing’s relationship to his romanticism gets complicated. Like Angel, there is something romantic in his aesthetic and behavior, even if he doesn’t look like Angel’s conventional Byronic hero. He wears a long, dramatic coat, poses rebelliously with his cigarettes, and dotes on his paramour with the elaborate attentiveness of Gomez Addams. But unlike Angel, he is not just a romantic symbol or object, he is also a romantic subject. That is to say, Spike’s romantic storylines tend to emphasize his romantic desires, and use those desires as motivation. By contrast, Angel’s storylines don’t really have much to do with whether he’s “gotten” Buffy or not—instead they have to do with whether Buffy has gotten him. The fact that Buffy and Spike are both treated as romantic agents in this way is a key indication that the two characters are meant to parallel each other. Angel’s side of the Buffy/Angel romantic storyline has to do with whether he can control himself around Buffy, whereas Buffy’s has to do with whether he likes her or wants to be with her. Similarly, Spike’s romantic storylines hinge on the status of whether Drusilla or Buffy want him. 

Not only is Spike a subject when it comes to romantic relationships, he’s also a subject when it comes to Romantic thinking. He is a character practically defined by his romanticism. He aspires to romantic things, and therefore can be used to poke at romantic outlooks. Despite his grand love for Drusilla for instance, she still cheats on him, and he still has to knock her out, do a love spell, or torture her to get her back. Or he’ll make grand pronouncements that are immediately followed by things like getting tasered by the Initiative or falling into an open grave. Because of this, Spike is able to parallel Buffy’s Romantic thinking as well, not just her romantic desires. Notice how in “The Freshman”, when Buffy is feeling out of touch with her Romantic Slayer self, that she has a scene where she’s treated like Spike--she delivers a dramatic threat and then falls through a ceiling. Or in “Some Assembly Required” when she obeys her id and hotly demands that Angel listen to her, she falls into an open grave. This kind of comedy has a lot in common with the deadpan Angel humor discussed in the last section, but notice that the target of that humor is Angel’s romantic objecthood rather than an outlook Angel has. Angel’s role, when it comes to romanticism, has to do with how Buffy and the audience sees him, whereas Spike’s role (at least in the early seasons) has to do with how Spike sees, period.

The show doesn’t just poke at Spike’s outlook though, it also uses him to poke at other people’s romanticism. In season two, for example, Spike is the one who gets impatient with Angel’s grandstanding, sarcastically explaining that “we do still kill people, you know” and “it’s a big rock.” In “Lovers Walk” he’s the one who cuts through Buffy and Angel’s drama, reducing it to “googly eyes” with a dismissive handwave (while also building it up in his projection-y “you’ll never be friends” speech). In “Something Blue” he points out that Willow is barely holding it together. In “Pangs” he’s the one who brings the debate over the Chumash nihilistically back down to earth, and in “The Yoko Factor” he schools Adam on Yoko not really splitting the Beatles apart. In other words, Spike attempts to see both the romance and the reality of things. He is the avatar of both, which I would argue makes complete sense, because in many ways romance and reality are really two sides of the same coin. Poetry and stories are fake and bigger than life, but you use them to tell truths. But being the id, his point of view can be hypocritical and biased as much as insightful, just like anyone’s gut reactions and poetic notions can be. After all, you can use poetry to tell lies, too. 

Lastly, on a meta level, there is a tackiness to Spike that undermines his romantic qualities better than making him dangerous ever could. Spike likes Passions and Dawson’s Creek (in contrast to Angel reading La Nausée by firelight). He lives in a crypt, but the vibe is more “homeless” than “Dracula” (in contrast to Angel’s tastefully decorated apartment). Spike may act like a romantic, but what does it say about how romantic romanticism really is, that the romantic things he likes can be so unrefined? And with the chip, he’s rendered impotent and pathetic. To me, there’s no more perfect image of how the writing uses Spike than the image of him in his black coat, red shirt, and big, leather boots, blasted under the fluorescent light of his Initiative cell. Light that makes his aesthetic seem suddenly fake and silly and surreal. For all that the writing subverts Angel, he is still the kind of character who gets to disappear mysteriously into the shadows, because he is the romance that Buffy has been forced to abandon. Whereas Spike is left with no place to hide. 

If Angel represented the idea of binaries, then Spike represents the lack of them. There is a reason that Spike invites so many queer readings. He is a vampire, but he loves. He is an object, but he’s a subject. He tells the truth, but he lies. He is a villain, but he is a hero. He is masculine, but he is feminine. He is insightful, but he’s a fool. He is pathetic, but he is sympathetic. He is on the outside of the Scoobies, but he is on the inside. These aspects of him are not split between different personas, but exist within him simultaneously. It is telling that the show introduces human, mythos-bending vampires like Spike and Dru in a season about disillusionment, and it is telling that Spike’s role in the show becomes ascendant in the seasons after Buffy leaves Angel and his split personality behind. As Buffy begins to reckon more deeply with her id, and her dualities, she will begin to reckon with Spike.

part 3: “Something effulgent”: Season five and the construction of Spike the romantic

[incorrect-ikevamp-quotes]

What’s your opinion for Leo’s reaction to finding out the mc was immortal as well- not necessarily a vampire, maybe they’re some other type of supernatural. I’m really curious because Leo seems like he’s mainly in love with the mc bec they are human.

Hi lovely!!! Always wonderful to see you, hope you’re well! 💛💛💛💛💛

Tbh I think my opinion remains the same about something like this? I'm going to link to an ask I wrote up a while ago, only because it's v pertinent to the subject matter and good background for what I’m going to expand on here.

That being said, I'm happy to kind of tl;dr/expand on what I talked about there. Basically I had the feeling that Leonardo choosing MC as a lover was more circumstantial--regarding the state of his life in the moment, regarding his general feelings about vampires and vampire society, and regarding his unresolved trauma as a young kid.

I guess my answer to that question--and forgive me if it seems like a cop out--is that it really depends, I feel? I think his attraction has a lot more to do with the kind of person somebody is, their sensibility, more than it has to do with mortal vs immortal. If it was an immortal MC that showed ridiculous fortitude and self-control, measured patience and maturity, I really don’t see him not noticing that? I think he would be wary at first (assuming it’s all a front) but with time would likely feel a great deal of love if they were interested in a life together. If they were able to see and understand what he needs and answered those needs, I guess I just really doubt his ability to say no. It’s all he’s really looking for, and the fact that he hasn’t found it after so long really speaks to his frightened evasiveness and the rare nature of that kind of unshakeable strength.

I also think a lot of his hinging away from purebloods (true immortals, in other words) is that he 100% does not want his familia having any involvement in his meaningful relationships. Which might be why he shows more acceptance towards turned vampires, or potentially different supernatural beings.

But I also don’t like giving a vague answer without some kind of explanation as to how I got, to that conclusion, so a boatload of analysis follows below the content warning.

Spoilers for Leonardo’s route and a few mentions of JPN ver content:

I think he has less of an obsession with the idea of mortality, and more like a constant association of goodness and freedom and maturity with humanity. And while it's understandable, there are signs that--when he has the proper time and space to heal--his views seem to soften from those extremes. I mean his decision to live with Comte is pretty much his first step in that direction; it was him acknowledging for the first time that vampires aren't inherently loathsome or incapable of normal living. (On a revealing note, I think it says a lot that he agrees with MC that she is living in a “wolves’ den” but also feels the need to clarify the men are basically the domesticated equivalent. They don’t pose the same threat other vampires typically do to humans because of their lifestyle and sire.) Additionally, his tsun-like behavior towards Comte also seems to solidify this concept for me: Leonardo’s trying to come to terms with something he's sworn to reject since he was young, but also can't entirely deny that Comte is as chill and mature as purebloods come lmao

[There was also an event in the JPN ver–which seems to be approaching the ENG version rapidly, though only the first part is here right now–in which Leonardo fully offers to turn her. MC is essentially on her death bed, and Leonardo doesn’t want to lose her after so little time together; it’s MC that rejects the future as a vampire out of sheer principle. Even more noteworthy is that, when a reincarnation of MC is reunited with Leonardo in modern times, he is revealed to be exceptionally shaken by that loss. There are suggestions he can’t take losing her again, which could mean succumbing to the desire to bite her.]

Two things I feel are necessary to hit home:

The first being that, at least within the storyline so far, the most mature and human-like vampires we’ve seen are Leonardo and Comte. They seek to emulate the maturity they see reflected in the human beings they’ve known all their lives. Given how vampire society and their hierarchies work, I get the feeling humans are nothing more than amusing tools to them--a way to survive and creatures to exercise control over. There’s an objectification and delusion that comes with what I’ve seen, and I think it’s important in this discussion? If the vast majority of vampires behave this way (because I’m ngl, Leonardo and Comte don’t seem very keen on remaining in touch with other vampires all that much) then it only makes sense they prefer the company of humans who can at least share this sensibility of “been there, done that--stop hurting people bc you’re bored/repressed, grow up.”

One event story where this was exceedingly evident was actually Leonardo’s proposal story. If y’all remember, an old pal/acquaintance of Leonardo’s finds out he’s gunning for a human woman and basically goes “lmao not on my watch.” His name was Adam iirc, and he felt he had every liberty to try and pressure Leonardo into turning MC. Failing that, he insisted they should break up and not be together anymore. Now, on the one hand, it’s fair to say that he was looking out for Leonardo in a way–he didn’t want him to end up miserable and alone when she was gone. But at the same time I feel that Adam’s behavior is deeply revealing of vampire society as well lmao. He doesn’t really try to understand the situation, just immediately assumes it’s the only appropriate outcome. It does insinuate a lowkey cultural disdain for humanity: they are imperfect, they do not last or cannot have real value without preservation. If Adam was really Leonardo’s friend, wouldn’t he realize that Leonardo considers vampirism nothing more than a burden that he would wish on no one, much less his future wife? Additionally, wouldn’t he also keep in mind that Leonardo considers human beings beautiful just as they are? Since he fails these basic requirements to understand Leonardo, my impression is that he is influenced by the larger vampire culture to some extent. Furthermore, it underscores just how thoroughly Leonardo has been trained to keep his cards close to his chest for fear of ridicule/violent reprisal: no vampires know his true feelings on the matter because he would be vehemently rejected outright.

[One can also offer that maybe Adam wasn’t being malicious, maybe vampires find human women they fall in love with all the time and turn them (or any other permutation of companionship that occurs), so he doesn’t understand why Leonardo wouldn’t. But even then, to try to force them to break up if she doesn’t turn? A bit overkill imo but also revealing--Leonardo’s will is being ignored for the sake of upholding a kind of ill-founded superiority complex lmao]

While Leonardo does have a somewhat overbearing need to control the pacing of his relationship and who sacrifices what, I don’t think it’s wrong to be cautious--to want to think things through. I think it’s fair to be afraid that the person you’re with can’t handle what you’ve seen/known. But that also leads me to a core issue I have with MC: she doesn’t inspire much confidence that she can handle the life he’s lived, and that’s a problem of both incapacity and incompatibility. I have to wonder how he reacts when he’s with somebody at the same maturity level, or at the very least somebody with whom he can see her strength with time. When MC’s life was dying out he was desperate enough to accept biting her because he didn’t want to lose her–human or not. It’s MC that rejects this solution, which leads me to further believe that he just doesn’t care about the divide when it comes down to it; it has more to do with his difficulty with being vulnerable and fully trusting someone to care about him. (Assuming they also have the fortitude to stay hopeful and relatively strong over the course of a very long life.)

In line with that, the second thing I think it’s important to acknowledge is how deeply hurt Leonardo is as a result of his family treating him like a fool/black sheep. He outright says and heavily insinuates that his family would write her off as worthless, that they’d never accept her--that's his first thought:

Leonardo: “My familia would call you frail. I think you’re strong and beautiful. You do more with your time than we try to do with ours.”

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MC: “And those letters were from your familia?”

Leonardo: “Yeah. I don’t talk to them or see them anymore. We don’t agree...on a lot of things.”

[Brief intermission here. But lmao. Who does that sound like? If any of you guessed Isaac, that’s exactly what I’m alluding to. Isaac says in his own route smth along the lines of “Why bother trying to get through to people when no amount of talking does any good or gets you any closer to being understood?” Which also explains the way they get along to uncanny degrees: they find comfort in making things/researching because it means being able to avoid the distress that comes with being blatantly misunderstood by others. Their pain simply comes in different dimensions; for Leo it’s about loss and hiding who he is out of fear of rejection, for Isaac it’s about betrayal and people turning on him--ultimately abandonment for both. But I digress, back to the main argument.]

Leonardo: “Once they discovered my location, they began hounding me with letters again. They don’t want me to be with just anyone...They want more purebloods. I’m no more than one half of an equation for them.”

There is a clear implication that his desire to choose somebody that truly makes him happy means jack shit to them. They keep talking over him and trying to wear him down to force him into what they want. It’s no wonder--imo--that he has such a hard time just saying what he wants in his life, to feel like he has the freedom to wish and pursue anything freely. It’s no wonder he just expects MC to spit on everything that’s important to him. It appears as though only other human beings in general and Comte have ever come close to understanding him.

At some point MC realizes that his insistence on being compagni provvisori was originally just another act of sacrifice, and that he was fine with giving up his time and a little privacy if it meant she would be safe. The thing she doesn’t seem to realize in the course of this--and he struggles to say it until later on--is that it stopped being blind generosity. He really did start to fall in love with her, and that’s the whole reason things became even more messy; because he didn’t anticipate not being able to let go on top of the vulnerability. And it’s a big part of why he’s hesitating to speak. He feels he has no right to those feelings, and that he’s imposing on her--not that he’ll be welcome.

And when she did finally admit those feelings were welcome, it was compounded by the parroted views of his family and larger vampire society as a whole. Saying that she herself wasn’t enough, that she had to become a vampire to make him happy. Imo that sounds very potentially retraumatizing given his experiences (people trying to force him into marriages with other vampires who didn’t remotely understand or care about him because it was “the right way of things”). It’s no wonder he freaks out and does something incredibly stupid and insensitive–which is pretty insanely ooc for him.

Leonardo: “...It shocked them. Quieted them down a bit. Hard to get peace when your familia is immortal. Grazie, cara mia.”

Leonardo: “You’re strong, and you’re kind. So probably you won’t cry while I’m here to see it. But when I���m not looking, you’ll cry. If I had done that to you (bitten her, in other words), you’d still be crying when I wasn’t watching... Maybe it’s selfish of me, after what I did, but I just wanted to make you happy. You always look pretty, cara mia, but your smile takes my breath away...It’s not your destiny to love someone who will only make you cry.”

This man literally cannot handle anyone deeply sad or in despair. He’s always going to try to cheer people up and care about them, but general tragedy/emotional discord affects him very powerfully--and it’s likely a reflection of what I’ve mentioned before. He can’t bear to see people feeling helpless or miserable because he’s just been there too many times to be able to cope. He wants to help and heal (even if he’s suffering from prolonged compassion fatigue), but he knows that his powers are limited--even if he is a pureblood.

And the thing is? While it’s misguided to believe she would cry alone when it comes to the context of healthy romantic love (bc the idea would be that you lean on each other when something upsetting happens) he has zero reference point. He was not born as a result of authentic love (his parents never married, he was the result of a procreative arrangement), his family talks over every wish and belief he has and they still claim it’s done out of love/honest concern for him. One can only imagine the serpentine and obnoxious lengths to which his family has deceived or tried to force him into reconnecting with them. Every person that ever did know him/care about him in a real way is gone. Love, for him, has only been a series of losses that left his heart hollowed out; I don’t really blame him for expecting further disappointment and isolation and exhaustion. 

He’s also not wrong in the sense that he partially saw MC do what he outlined, and it’s a big part about what he loves about her. When she was feeling alone and lost–powerless–all she did was shrug and move forward. That doesn’t make it hurt any less, but focusing on what you can do instead of what you can’t do is healthier. And they both have the tendency to hide when they’re in pain or feeling lost, all because they don’t want to trouble anyone. Remember that when he says this, it’s a reflection of himself too: because even if he was heartbroken beyond measure, all he would do is hide it every second; he would never expect anyone to see right through him or care.

I mean I tend think of that one post I saw that talked about how people often see themselves as a social burden when most of their life has just been a series of neglect and loss. They don’t really have a concept of “you’re not heavy because I want to stay with you. It’s my choice to care about you.” How do you feel worthwhile an existence when four hundred years later your family still won’t treat you with basic dignity. The men in the mansion also all look to him for guidance and soothing because of the kind of person he is–he’s either silent in the periphery or helping. He never betrays so much as an inkling of insecurity or distress. 

I mean the whole reason Leonardo comes to the mansion is because he has absolutely no issue helping Comte in a pivotal time of need without seeking much of anything in return. Remember that Comte explains how Leonardo came to the mansion in response to Comte’s distress about the future. This makes sense considering Comte was rapidly trying to stop Vlad by beating him to the punch, and had only enough time to plan the basics. He had no certainty things would work out, much less that his boys would thrive. But Comte, unlike the boys, has become acutely aware of how much Leonardo is hiding his fatigue and despair in the course of being helped. As such, he wants to return the favor--and tries to be a good friend to him as much as he can (handles his insane familia, keeps things light and silly time between them, takes him seriously as a person, doesn’t pry beyond what’s fair.)

[I also think of that psychology concept of “the good enough mother.” It’s not always about being perfect every second of your life. It’s about paying attention and acting where it really counts. I feel like people who grow up under an enormous burden of neglect or parental/mentor abuse have a hard time coming to terms with the idea. This notion that just trying is enough for a lot of people, that showing them they’re not alone is enough to make  difficult memories bearable. Because it’s the oppressive silence and apathy that tends to kills people, imo--not people who mean well. But Leonardo doesn’t really understand any kind of reciprocal or non-self-emptying model because the concept is beyond him. He has no experience with it beyond Comte and a select few humans he’s befriended.]

Let’s continue on this point of MC crying where he can’t see her, shall we? The reason this scares him so much is not because he doesn’t care, or doesn’t want to make the effort. It’s precisely that he cares to the point of madness. It’s that he is legitimately convinced nothing he has to say, nothing that he can do, no part of him is enough to ease what she will have to trade away to stay with him. The core issue is not one of disregard or objectification, I find it to be more about his belief that he just isn’t enough. He doesn’t trust that anyone can love him to the point where just the sight of him or time with him can heal. And while there is a foolishness to this belief, it’s understandable when you consider where he’s coming from. You can call it selfishness, but it just feels involuntary--he has a lot of fear when it comes to love.

I mean Comte even says it himself? His words here always strike me: “I want you to understand, it’s because he cherishes you just as you are--more than he cares about his future or his well-being.”

Comte is openly identifying the way that Leonardo has a tendency to give more than is healthy. That Leonardo isn’t hesitating because his feelings are lacking, he’s doing it because he knows it’s going to hurt like a bitch trying to love her and never ask beyond what feels reasonable. (Spoilers: no request is reasonable. That’s the problem here. He’s convinced he deserves nothing.) Therefore turning her into a vampire to stay with him is--consequently, to Leonardo--out of the question. This is the literal hingepoint at which Comte and Leonardo divide; Comte simply tells MC he’ll take full responsibility for asking so much of her. He intends to make her happy with every single resource and skill he has at his disposal. Even if he doubts his ability or fears losing her to vampire rhetoric madness, he’d rather try than live with the regret and immediate loss. Leonardo is more resistant because of his dour outlook, that her fear of immortality is never going to be something that either of them can overcome. And/or he’s likely afraid she’s only going to regret being together after so long, and might succumb to the ridiculous sort of power/greed complexes vampires seem so attracted to by nature.

I think Leonardo is still coming to terms with the idea that he isn't alone in the world in a lot of ways, and I think he's also coming to terms with the idea that immortality does not equate to evil. Sure, human beings on average are probably more open to flexible modes of thinking and living compared to vampires--their maturity is in some ways guaranteed due to the instances they're forced to adapt to survive. However, just one look at the ruling class and oligarchies of all kinds (even just stubborn human beings) reveals how they are not immune to the same sort of megalomania, arrogance, and thoughtless violence purebloods/vampires are capable of.

So I guess I hesitate when it comes to the thought that he only loves her because she's human. If anything, I think he loves her for the fact that she's very rooted in reality--not quite so bound by the extremes that trouble him. It's one of the many reasons I believe Leonardo needs a lot of maturity and patience; the ability to differentiate between his panicked/overwhelmed/hurt reactions versus his calm is a skill in and of itself considering his capacity for concealment. To say nothing of getting him to slow down when this happens, too.

I suppose I think about it in a way that’s similar to how Napoleon’s main story narrative is framed. While Leonardo’s route doesn’t focus on the grandeur of being a former emperor, there is a clear insinuation here that he also craves normalcy? Just a little life, with a person he loves dearly, where he can rest and be himself for once. I think because he gives off such an appearance of steadiness, people fail to see that he is barely holding on--not to mention the kind of experiences he’s been deprived of (the exact security and understanding he so expertly emulates).

Closer to your question, it’s worth mentioning that Leonardo’s life goal for a while was the creation of an immortal human being--in that he fully recognized human beings could not offer what he needed as they were.

He loves humans because of their adaptability, their frequent desire to keep seeking out hope and making the best of the broken pieces they have. But then again, it has more to do with the nature of how frequently that sensibility occurs in humans vs vampires (and immortality in general): mortality does demand some level of necessity to change and grow. Which is one of the largest trauma points for him; the vampires around him just refused to grow up, always demanding at him like children and obsessed with their power complexes.

Thing is I also don't know enough about vampire society to know how correct this perceived ratio is. However, given Comte's similar avoidance of other vampires and general inability to live with them (he and Vlad were literal childhood best friends and Comte can't stand him anymore lmao) I think Leonardo may have more validity here than people give him credit for. Which begs the question--why did he quit trying to make a human immortal? What was it that stopped him? Was it the horror of what needed to be done to achieve it? Or would a potential companion start to fall more in love with the idea of immortality than they do with life itself/him? I think it’s a worthwhile question to ask, given the disdain he seems to aim at Shakespeare in particular--once human, but now emulates all of the violence and insatiability marked by vampirism.

This is where the transition from human to vampire/immortal contains another hingepoint: is Leonardo so incapable of finding a middle ground because he feels like any choice he makes will be a wrong one? Marry a human, deprive them of a normal love where they can grow old together. Marry a human and turn them, what if they are reborn with immortal wounds/psychological harm? What if time proves they get bored of him or hateful, what if they begin to act like the predatory purebloods he hates so much? Marry a pureblood/immortal, and be hounded by his family for heirs--risk being with somebody who will never love him or their children, and only inspire more misery in the world.

Does it make sense how this can really start to become an anxious downspiral for someone like him? How the personal insecurity and life history comes together to just compound stress endlessly?

That's the thing that's important here, I think. Leonardo just needs somebody who is open-minded, firm, and not easily deceived. If one takes a look at Leonardo's main story route, the whole reason everything goes to shit so disastrously is because MC stops listening at a critical point. Granted Leonardo could have been more forthcoming for sure, but when she started assuming Shakespeare was right instead of seeing how Leonardo was feeling/reacting, she responded in ways Leonardo wasn't prepared for. He never wanted to shake her faith or insinuate whatever she is is not good enough for him, and tbh I think Leonardo downspiraled because it was just the same thing all over again. What he is--a vampire and immortal--keeps ruining everything he wants with his life. 

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Do you think that throwing a Twilight vampire into an active volcano or into a pool of molten metal (like in Terminator 2) would be enough to kill it? 🤔

Interesting question anon, and now I just picture The Terminator, but instead of Arnold we have Edward.

So, first off, an obvious but still very true confession: I have no idea. The best I can do here is apply what logic I have, slap it on the source material, and away we go.

But that's what we're here for.

So, with that, a few thoughts.

One, I believe it is venom that's flammable, not vampire skin.

We know Carlisle attempted to kill himself in a myriad of desperate and likely increasingly ridiculous ways. Given that he had become a demon, lighting himself on fire would be one of the first things he would attempt. Obviously, that didn't work out for him, ergo, lighting Carlisle on fire was not good enough.

At least, not that fire.

So, assuming that (while magic appears to exist in the Twilight universe) the laws of physics in the Twilight universe more or less mirror are own, then everything has a melting point. Every solid, has some point, where you get those electrons excited enough and they start moving all over the place.

For certain elements this is so high we rarely, if ever, see it melt in any natural scenario. For other elements, this temperature is relatively low. I suspect vampire skin has a very high temperature required to melt/become a gas.

Far higher than can be accomplished with an ordinary fire like Carlisle would have used in 1640. Had Carlisle had access to a modern chem lab, well, he may have possibly had a little more success.

However, being in England, Carlisle did not have access to an active volcano. By the time he would have tried to find one, after having swam to France, he'd already discovered his deer diet and was happily not suicidal.

So he didn't get to live and tell us the tale about the one time he threw himself in an active volcano.

Which brings me to my second thought, we don't know what kind of pressure vampires can handle. As you get closer to the center of the Earth, i.e. an active volcano, the pressure rapidly increases. For ordinary humans, and most creatures that live at sea-level and above, funny things happen to you when you go too deep. Your squishy organs, including your lungs, collapse.

Vampires probably handle pressure much better than humans: they don't need lungs and seem to have a rapid rate of recovery from injuries.

They go deep into the ocean, their lungs probably squish, but by the time they resurface give it a half hour and they can breathe again.

Which means I think, as far as pressure goes, your vampire's going to be okay.

But let's get back to that melting point of vampire skin: what's really going to turn your vampire terminator into terminator soup.

A brief google survey tells me that the temperature inside an active volcano can reach from 1300 to 2700 F (700 to 1500 C). That's pretty damn hot.

Let's say that a vampire's skin is some variant of carbon (diamond being formed of carbon). Per google, carbon (in the diamond structure) has a melting point of 3550 F, a thousand degrees higher than the high estimate for our volcano.

Which makes sense in a way as precious jewels are often formed in volcanos and do not melt into goo.

So, we might have an unhappy vampire, they might not fare well or have an enjoyable experience, but their skin at least survives and given the lack of need to breathe, the ability to withstand pressure... I think your volcano's not going to cut it.

That said, everything has its physical limits. A vampire would not survive being launched into the sun, would probably not survive exposure to deep space/extremely cold temperatures, and would not survive a black hole.

It's just that a volcano, at least per this logic, doesn't seem to be in the limit. It'll just get you a very angry vampire.