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heliads · 10 months

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angel boy charles leclerc with a workplace romance?? maybe r’s new on the ferrari pr team or an engineer who he keeps flirting with but she’s kinda shy so she doesn’t rly flirt back and doesn’t know why he’d want her over everyone, but then he defends her against some shitty reporters who keep making jokes abt her and she realizes oh he actually does like me and SHE asks HIM out?? obvs it’s cool if you don’t wanna write this but either way i think you’re really cool and i hope you’re day’s goin great!

'here's what i know' - charles leclerc

masterlist

It’s time for the one part of the week that Formula One teams across the grid detest most of all. No, it’s not qualifying, and not even the threat of a bad race day that can crush championship dreams for good. Today is Thursday, media day, which means that twenty drivers and many more members of staff are about to be hounded for hours until they break down and spill something they shouldn’t.

Since you’re not a driver, you had always hoped that you’d be able to get out of these sorts of things without too much difficulty. No one pays much attention to the engineers anyway– outside of Adrian Newey and the like, the guys behind the scenes tend to be ignored in favor of the ones in the cars, although you don’t know many engineers or strategists that have a problem with that.

No, the baying mass of reporters known affectionately to the paddock as Sky Sports and their affiliates are more of a difficulty than a blessing. Each and every race week, drivers and team principals alike are briefed by their PR officers on how to dodge bad questions and only stick to their strengths. For one of the first years in your career, though, you now have to deal with the same thing, and that is due to your recent promotion.

You’ve been a race engineer for a couple of years now, and you’ve loved every minute of it. Every STEM-inclined student with a hankering for racing dreams of working for Formula One, but you actually managed to turn those fantasies into a reality when you signed your first contract with the Scuderia Ferrari racing team. It wasn’t a showy job, of course, closer to tightening screws and redoing paint jobs than anything specific, but over time, you’ve managed to show your worth and quickly rise through the ranks.

As of this season, though, you’ll be out on the pitwall as Ferrari’s chief strategists instead of tucked away somewhere in the garage. It was a risky move when you decided to throw your hat into the strategy ring instead of sticking with the more technical aspects of race engineering, but you’ve had a knack for it ever since you first turned up in the paddock, and the higher-ups at Ferrari have noticed that. This promotion has been a long time coming, so they say.

Regardless, it’s still a bit stressful to be the face of Ferrari’s strategy decisions, especially given the fact that the Scuderia has struggled a bit in that department over the past few seasons. The Tifosi were definitely hesitant to show their support of the change in leadership, but after your critical advice led to some excellent showings in the first few rounds, you won them over in a landslide. No more terrible back-to-back stops, no more team orders mixups, you’ve proven your effectiveness in the strategy seat and everyone is glad to see it.

Well, almost everyone. The reporters are still as fixated as ever on getting a good story, and for some reason a couple have decided that the best headlines are centered around creating drama regarding your new job assignment. It feels like every week they’re running stories about how the Ferrari team principal wishes you weren’t there, or how Charles and Carlos are shaking their heads over each and every one of your bad calls.

This, of course, isn’t the case. Ferrari couldn’t be happier with your decisions since they’ve propelled the team up in the championship standings, and you get along quite well with the drivers. Charles especially has taken it upon himself to reassure you countless times that the rumors couldn’t be less true. Some of the reporters have a way of twisting their words from compliments into insults, but he wants to ensure that you never believe them.

Charles has been one of the greatest parts of your climb to head of strategy at Ferrari, actually. You met him when you were the lowliest of engineers, and for some reason, he’s stayed a friend of yours ever since that very first day. Truthfully, you hadn’t expected him to so much as remember your name– there are infinitely many engineers and strategists and PR workers at Ferrari, after all, and Charles is introduced to dozens of new celebrities at every race– but the very next time he saw you, he’d smiled and greeted you by name as if you were an old friend.

It had made your day. Same with the next time he’d done it. Although you may not entirely understand it, Charles Leclerc is committed to liking you, and he doesn’t seem inclined to stop any time soon. Nor are you inclined to stop him yourself– Charles is a fantastic person to be around. He’s never let his fame get to his head, and if you were to talk to him, you’d swear he was just a friend from uni or a next door neighbor or something, certainly not a world class driver. Charles doesn’t talk to you like he’s a Formula One driver and you’re a strategist. He speaks with you like he’s Charles and you’re Y/N and he couldn’t want anything more than to hear you laugh when he tells a joke.

Armed with this knowledge, you feel that you could take on any reporter, their tendency to warp simple statements into crazy arguments be damned. What’s more, you have an excellent friend in Hannah Schmitz, Principal Strategy Engineer over at Red Bull Racing. Although the two of you may technically be on rival teams, that hasn’t stopped you from becoming close friends. Hannah is one of the only people in the world capable of understanding exactly how you feel regarding work, as she’s in almost the same position as you, albeit on Red Bull instead of Ferrari. She’s older than you by a good couple of years, but that hasn’t stopped you two from quickly growing close.

For Thursday’s media frenzy, Hannah meets up with you close to the gate so you can walk in together. The Ferrari and Red Bull motorhomes are close by, and it’s nice to have a friend while you brave the storm of reporters waiting for you just inside the paddock.

The first round of them draws near. Hannah grins at your obviously forced smile. “Stay alert. They’re coming.”

“I’ll do my best,” you whisper back, and she hides a laugh.

You don’t have much time for inside jokes after that; a dozen phones and recording devices are flung in front of you, and you’re immediately greeted with several overlapping questions. You answer in quick syllables, all the while careful to keep your tone light so no one accuses you of being unnecessarily terse. You feel confident that you didn’t say anything to dull your team’s image, but you still can’t help a sigh of relief when you bid Hannah goodbye at the door of the Ferrari motorhome.

Upon entering the Ferrari center, you immediately spy Charles at one of the tables near the door. He glances up when he sees you enter, and flashes you a kind smile. “You look stressed. Don’t tell me Sky Sports has gotten to you already?”

You laugh. “They were waiting for me when I arrived. Man, I miss when they had no idea who I was.”

Charles chuckles. “I don’t. You’re more interesting to see on my screen than some of the other drivers.”

You scoff. “I don’t believe that for a second.”

Charles’ eyes widen meaningfully. “It’s true! You actually have things to say. The rest of us can only talk about how we plan on winning. Everyone says that.”

You walk over to his table, leaning your hands against the open chair. “If you paid attention during strategy meetings, you’d have something to say to them, too.”

Charles rolls his eyes, but grins sheepishly nonetheless. “How about you fill me in now, then? Come on, have a seat. I’m sure my PR officer would appreciate it if I didn’t go out there sounding like a total idiot.”

You shake your head on instinct. “You’re relaxing. I don’t want to take up your time.”

“I mean it,” Charles insists. “Sit down. I even have extra coffee.”

“That’s certainly a nice coincidence,” you say with a raised brow, but take the seat he offers you.

Charles smiles satisfiedly when you join him. “Yes,” he murmurs, “A coincidence.”

You end up passing more time than you expect at Charles’ table, just the two of you and the coffees cooling in your mugs. At first, you do talk about strategy, but over time Charles starts coaxing more details out of you, like what you’ve done since the past week and if you’ve got any plans for the upcoming weekend. He sounds genuinely interested in what you have to say, and it’s easy to forget that he isn’t just your coworker but a real, true friend.

You glance down at the table when the intensity of his earnest stare becomes a little too much for you. You know how the other strategists talk and tease you about your friendship with Charles, even if it is just that, a friendship. Yes, he may bring you coffee all the time, and eagerly stay back after strategy meetings so he can walk you out to your car, but he’s just doing that to be nice. It doesn’t mean anything. You cannot allow yourself the hope of thinking that it might mean anything.

After all, despite the denials you’ll give the other strategists and even Hannah when she has the occasion to join in the teasing, you wouldn’t mind it if Charles ever acted on his flirtations. The only problem is that you have made a career out of being realistic and reasonable, and you know that this is one perfect victory that just won’t be yours. Charles is gorgeous. He goes after gorgeous girls, stunning supermodels, and amazing actresses. You are lovely in your own right, but you aren’t the kind of person that a Formula One driver would ever date. It is important to keep your heart from being crushed, even if denying this hurts you more than Charles’ rejection ever could.

That little coffee chat ends soon enough, much like every other quick lunch and early morning talk you’ve shared with him. Charles goes off to his garage, and you head out to your office to prepare some talking points for meetings later that day. The drivers will be escorted to media day press conferences, and you probably won’t run into Charles again until later into the afternoon.

You realize about halfway through the day’s work that you haven’t gotten up once since you arrived. In need of a brain break and a chance to stretch your legs, you decide to go for a quick circuit around the paddock before coming back inside again to carry on. The sun is warm on your face when you dare to duck outside, and it feels good to walk around for a little while.

Unconsciously, your legs carry you towards the building where the press conferences are being held. Not wanting to intrude, you decide to head back towards the center of the paddock. While you’re in the middle of making this decision, though, you notice Charles emerging from the building. You switch directions to aim towards him instead; you can joke about the nightmare that is a Formula One press conference, and you know Charles will be glad to let off some steam by complaining.

As you’re walking over, you notice a few reporters coming out of the building as well and groan internally. These couple of men in particular have been nothing but thorns in your side since you accepted your promotion. When the news first broke, they wrote a couple of articles apiece about how you were going to run Ferrari into the ground. When that proved false, they switched tactics and decided to use their journalism skills to disparage you whenever they got the chance. Numerous drivers and reporters alike have called them out for targeting you, but they haven’t stopped yet, which is frustrating.

Charles notices the reporters at the same time as you, you can see his head turn as he tracks their progress. You’re close enough now that you can hear what they’re saying, but it isn’t good. They never get tired of repeating the same bullshit about how you can’t make a smart call to save your life. One of them laughs, shaking his head in disbelief. That’s what you get for putting a girl in charge.

Hot anger boils through your stomach, but you force it down. They haven’t seen you yet, and you’d like to keep it that way. Challenging them on this will only provide them with more ammunition.

Charles, however, doesn’t seem to see it that way. He stops directly in front of the two reporters, arms folded coldly across his chest. “What did you say about Y/N?”

The reporter who’d just spoken eyes him confusedly. “Nothing, man. Don’t worry about it.”

“I will if you’re insulting her,” Charles fires back. “Don’t talk about her like that. Y/N is a welcome part of Ferrari and her strategy decisions have won us races, as you well know. I don’t know what you get out of taking her down but it’s stupid of you to carry on like that.”

The reporter blanches, leaning back as if Charles has struck him. “Calm down, man. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Charles’ glare doesn’t lighten for a second. “Then stop talking badly about her. It just makes you look like an asshole who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. That’s what you are, of course, but maybe you want your reputation to be better.”

You clap a hand to your mouth to stop from letting out a surprised laugh. He’s totally caught them off guard, and it’s fantastic to see. More fantastic than that, you realize slowly, is that Charles is doing this purely to defend your honor. There are no cameras around. No one is recording him. Charles could have just ignored it, but he chose to go out of his way to defend you because that matters the most to him. Because he would never be able to live with himself if he didn’t spend his every waking hour making sure you got the respect you were owed.

Charles doesn’t have to do this, but he wants to. There is a reason for this, a reason that, at last, you know. You’ve been denying it to yourself for the longest time, but the proof of his affections is right before your eyes.

You spin away before he can notice your presence, giddy with the knowledge that, of all the people in the world, Charles Leclerc wants you. You. Y/N L/N. His chief strategist.

You nearly run into Hannah when you pass by the Red Bull motorhome. She’s just emerging, and looks at you confusedly. “Is everything alright?”

“Hannah,” you say, grasping vaguely at your friend’s arm to steady yourself. “Hannah, I’m having an epiphany.”

She eyes you dubiously. “What now? You want to change your tire strategy for Sunday?”

“No,” you say, voice weak, “I realized– I think Charles likes me, Hannah. I think he likes me a lot.”

She stares at you. “Are you just now coming to this conclusion?”

You turn to her in surprise. “You knew?”

Hannah throws her hands in the air. “Y/N, we all knew. It was extremely obvious.”

You feel heat rise to your cheeks. “Oh. I didn’t know.”

“That was also obvious,” Hannah comments. “Now, come on. You’re one of the most action-oriented people I know. What are you going to do about this?”

You turn towards the Ferrari motorhome. “I’m going to talk to him.”

“Great start,” Hannah says, clapping you on the shoulder. “Tell me how it goes. Tell me everything.”

You grin at her before you leave. “I won’t leave out a single moment.”

Charles has just made it back to the Ferrari center when you arrive. He beams up at you when you walk through the door, as if he hasn’t just heard some assholes insulting you and decided that every moment not spent defending you is a moment wasted.

“Charles,” you breathe. “Can I talk to you?”

He arches a brow, still wearing that same lopsided smile. “We’re talking now, aren’t we?”

“Yeah,” you laugh him off. “What if we talked later, too? Like, over dinner or something?”

His eyes go wide. “What? Do you– what do you mean?”

“Charles,” you repeat. He goes silent, like just the sound of his name from your lips is enough to compel him to you forever. “I’m asking you on a date. Will you say yes?”

“Yes,” he tells you. “Yes. What– I didn’t know you felt like that– do you really? This isn’t a joke, is it? We’re not going just as friends?”

“I think I should be asking you that,” you laugh. “No, Charles. I want to go on a date with you.”

“Well,” he says, smiling, “I think I can arrange that. Only if you promise there will be more than just one.”

“I promise,” you tell him.

How could you not? Charles is the one you want, the one you have been wanting since you first fell for the spark in his dark eyes and the light of his laughter. He is the one you will continue to want months and years from now, after countless dates and many gifted flowers and a lot of moments spent together, always together. It starts now.

f1 tag list: @j-brielmalfoy, @juphey

all tags list: @wordsarelife

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thesharktanksdriver · 4 days

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Dicentra D. Boa

Content warning going in: implied rape, human trafficking, slavery, implied sexual assault, implied Sa of children, and massacres. It’s not talked in length or in detail but it is alluded to due to the Boa sisters backstory and Dicentra’s conception. I wanted to be sure to give a warning just in case because of the nature of these topics. If any of these themes are triggering please skip past the section labeled “Josephine” and go to “childhood” instead

Also sorry if she’s cringe or Mary sue but she’s my little blorbo and I love her. Writing her is also my excuse to write (and rewrite) about Boa Hancock because I think she’s underrated and I think her character could’ve been handled better by oda (this is in regards to her liking Luffy which is really weird since she’s a grown adult who fell in love with a 17 year old after being victimized through a decent portion of her life by adults)

General information

Name: Dicentra D. Boa.

Following after the flower naming convention of the Amazon lily, Dicentra is the scientific name of the bleeding heart flower. Her name was chosen by Hancock since dicentra’s birth mother didn’t know what to choose

The D. Is gained to her by her birth mother Josephine D. Etheus. Though Dicentra is apart of “the will of D” she has no idea about it due to the fact Boa swore to Josephine that no traces from her would connect back to Dicentra.

Age: 13

Dicentra was born a few hours before the mass breakout of Mary geoise when Hancock was 16.

Race: half-lunarian

Dicentra’s motherJosephine was a full lunarian captured in the massacre of her people. Despite Saturns extermination efforts a few celestial dragons wanted a lunarian as apart of their collection and were able to accomplish this secretly

Being only half lunarain attributes to her white hair and darker toned skin. But along with this it also acts as a reason as to why her wings are so small and why she doesn’t have an eternal spark.

She can’t create fire because of this, but she could control already lit flames if she needed to. But she has not found this out yet

(Fun fact is that whenever in a room with some type of fire, she subconsciously pulls that flame slightly towards herself. Kinda like how sunflowers face the sun, flames direct themselves towards her)

Personality: curious, sometimes oblivious, good hearted, optimistic, overly eager and a bit chaotic

As a young sheltered girl Dicentra is naturally curious of the world and just about anything she can get her hands on. She enjoys soaking in all of the knowledge of the great world beyond the Amazon lily, whilst also secretly yearning to see it for herself.

Another side effect of her sheltered upbringing is the fact she’s very oblivious to things. Whether that be wandering into a bad situation due to curiosity of something that caught her eye or just being unaware of concepts like men not being hideous monsters that’ll kill her (Hancock taught her this lol). Despite her being oblivious to these environmental concerns she’s actually very observant of others emotions when needed.

Unlike her mother’s cold and dominating facade Dicentra is very openly warm to those around her. She often times is found conversing with others around her, joyfully asking about things and recounting new stuff she discovered.

Along with this she can be very eager about whatever catches her eye. Leading her to blindly and stubbornly pursue it even at her own detriment (much to her mother’s and Nightshade concern). This has lead to her acting without foresight and acting on the first thing that entered her mind which can have varied results…like biting someone’s hand

Interests and hobbies: journaling, exploration, drawing, dance and song

Once more due to her interest in the world beyond the Amazon lily Dicentra has taken to journaling all she’s learned. When her mother brings her gifts from far off places she enjoys documenting everything she can about it. Of all subjects she loves writing about the most she enjoys exotic Fish, birds and gemstones the most.

Due to her journaling she ends up exploring places quite a bit. From the city of her home to the jungles and mountains she’ll explore. Some of it from blind interest and from plain eager stubbornness

Something gained from her journaling is her hobby of drawing. Though years of practice she’s gotten decent at drawing, though it’s less out of passion and moreso just for proper documentation.

Her real hobbies are that of song and dance. As a princess Dicentra had taken up many hobbies but the two that stuck with her are dancing and song. She enjoys dancing since it’s an active activity and picking up new instruments to learn and play.

She’s particularly fond of the Erhu (I’m taking in some Chinese inspiration due to the Chinese influence of the Amazon lily)

Habits and quirks: Manners, stiff posture, back issues, lack of shoes, playing with her hands, love of berries/fruits and tendency to put others before her

Dicentra as princess (though that title is moreso just a title since the Amazon lily leadership is based on strength rather than bloodline) she was educated to have proper manners. While she’s a tough and tumble kind of girl she still implores these manners in most social situations until she finds something interesting and throws manners to the wind.

Due to these manners she can sometimes also have a stiff posture in mix with her back pains. Hiding her wings is a hassle for her so binding them along with keeping a certain posture as to be sure their hidden is important. When around those she trusts she lets up a bit and is more relaxed but that’s if they know of her wings. If not she keeps up the posture to be sure they won’t be found

As stated above she gets quite a lot of back pain and jolts of discomfort due to her hiding her wings. It’s an unfortunate thing she has to deal with, something all the boa sisters feels guilty about but know it’s for Dicentra’s best interest in the end.

Despite being taught manners Dicentra can’t stand wearing closed toe shoes. She doesn’t mind sandals but she loves being barefoot much to her mother’s ire. Dicentra loves the feeling of grass and sand beneath her feet.

A nervous quirk she has is that she plays with her hands quite a bit.

Also is a giant sweet tooth for things but especially loves Berries, Fruits and her favourite food of peach buns with a custard filling. It’s definitely due to the D trait.

Another tendency she has is for her to value others above herself. As princess though it’s more of a title she believes that her mom and the Amazon lily comes first. She’ll put down or put away her own feelings and ambitions if it means she can’t help others. It’s the reason as to why she stayed in the Amazon instead of exploring like she wanted, why she asks questions about the outside world and sees glimpses of it through stories and objects instead of pursing it herself.

Relationships: Hancock, Marigold, Sandersonia, Nightshade, Rayleigh and Shakuyaku, Gloriosa, Salome and Ouroboros

Hancock: Dicentra has a very strong relationship with her mom and looks up to her as her hero (for various reasons). She loves her mom deeply for both her kindness and dedication to protecting the Amazon lily. She knows deep down her mom is a lot more tender than she lets on but puts up a front to protect everyone else (and herself). Even though dicentra wishes to explore the world she follows her mom’s rules of staying in the Amazon Lily knowing there has to be some reason as to why her mom is so insistent on it. Along with this she follows her mom’s rules of hiding her back and binding her wings even if it’s uncomfortable (something Boa wishes she didn’t have to make Dicentra do but does it out of necessity). Her favourite activity with her mom is having her mom brush her hair

Marigold: Dicentra loves her aunt Marigold but is sometimes a little bit intimidated by her. Granted she knows her aunt would never do anything bad but Marigold is sometimes too stoic for Dicentra to read which makes her nervous she’s doing something wrong. Unbeknownst to her Marigold very much loves her but gets worried of messing up and internally panics because she overestimated herself. Dicentra’s favourite memory with Marigold is when she taught her how to make flower crowns

Sandersonia: Dicentra loves hanging out with her Aunt Sandersonia. Unlike with Marigold Sandersonia is more in tune with her emotions so Dicentra is able to read her better and therefore know if she’s bothering her. If Sandersonia isn’t busy with something she’ll often tag along with Dicentra’s exploring of the Amazon lily and play games together. Dicentra’s favorite thing to do with Sandersonia is petting her aunts zoan tail

Nightshade (another oc): Nightshade is Dicentra’s sworn guard and protector assigned by Hancock herself. Dicentra sees Nighshade as her closest companion and as a big sister to her. Though Nightshade sometimes gets frustrated at Dicentra throwing caution to the wind and running off she knows that Nightshade doesn’t typically get legitimately mad unless something really bad happened. Nightshade beside the Boa sisters is the only one who knows of Dicentra’s wings and origins, something the bodyguard takes in the upmost seriousness. Dicentra knows Nightshade isn’t her original name but hasn’t pushed about the subject. Her favourite thing to do with Nightshade is playing hide and seek.

Rayleigh and Shakuyaku: dicentra knows very little about these two but does hold them in high regard hearing they helped her mom and aunts. The most funny thing about this though is that she has no idea Rayleigh is a male (boa taught her men were ugly evil creatures lol) . She’s never met them but she hopes to one day do so.

Gloriosa: dicentra sometimes sneaks out to see the former empress of the Amazon despite being a “traitor” to learn more about the outside world. Though she doesn’t like how her mom and Gloriosa don’t get along well Dicentra holds respect for Gloriosa.

Salome and Ouroboros: Dicentra adores Salome and all the snakes of the Amazon. Her fight or flight instinct of bite first ask questions later was somewhat developed due to watching Salome when she was younger. Dicentra has a snake of the same species as Salome named Ouroboros, aptly named for its penchant for…eating its tail all the time. No one has any idea why boros does this but Dicentra loves her beloved snake even if all it does is act as a necklace for her half the time. Half the time people don’t notice they’re alive if not for their occasional blinking. She loves petting the scales of Salome and Ouroboros, absolutely loves the texture

(Meme break before getting to serious stuff. Nightshade is also included here)

Backstory

Prologue: Josephine

Dicentra’s birth mother Josephine was a lunarian born on the red line and raised with her people. She lived atop the red line in peace for many years, she was particularly gifted in being a graceful flyer amongst others her age but lacked control of her flames. Despite the peace at a young age she could tell something was coming somehow, she had a sixth sense for that thing (observation Haki). Eventually when her people were massacred to build Mary Geoise atop her ancestral home she was taken by a celestial dragon who wanted one of her kind as “apart of his collection” even though that wasn’t technically allowed. This all happened when she was 15.

For Years Josephine was kept in a cell, wings broken and unable to conjure flames even if she tried due to being underfed and weak. She’d spent so long being toyed with and abused with no relief but an empty cell to return to when she was finished being “useful”. Eventually though she got cellmate in the form of the young Boa sisters. For the first time in years Josephine felt something as she stared at the young girls, mirror showing her how much of a shell of her former self she was. She used to be young and free, used to be afraid and now she had felt nothing in years. And staring into the fearful tear stained eyes of these girls she swore to herself they wouldn’t end up like her. Broken and empty.

In that cell in the span of months turned to years Josephine would do her best to protect the sisters. Though she could not always protect them she was able to lessen their suffering. She cared for them, began to see them as her own just as they began to see her as a mother in this hell. Through her wings were broken she’d use them as blankets for them in the damp cold of the cell. Josephine would share the little food she had with them. She’d also tell them stories of her people who once proudly flew the skies, sang in hushed tones the songs passed on from generation to generation. Hell had at least become bareable

Eventually much to her own fear and horror Josephine became pregnant. It at some point was bound to happen but all the same it horrified her for the fact she knew her child would be killed. A bastard to celestial dragon was purged for the fact of “tainting” their holy blood, and that was just for normal cases. She was a lunarian, the people they purged and were still actively being hunting down from how that devil gloated about “owning such a rare species”. She had to hid this and hope for the best, and that’s what she did with the help of the Boa sisters.

Somehow hiding her pregnancy was a task in of itself but it had been somehow done, but with that came the actual delivery. Weak and Malnourished as she already was without proper medical care in a dark cell wasn’t a good mix. She’s left at deaths doorstep clinging barely to life after the deed was said and done. The only upside to it all was she felt that sixth sense again, things were changing and her daughters would be free. Before letting herself rest she makes the girls promise to never tell her daughter of her heritage, to protect her and love her as she loved them. Tearfully the girls agree, Hancock vowing she’d raise Dicentra as her own. With how Josephine falls asleep the girls believe her to be dead, and in a way she is…but not fully yet

The mass escape of slaves happens and her daughters flee, through this all Josephine laid on deaths door in her cell. She was ok with dying, had for so long dreamt of such a thing, but anger had let her from not dying quite yet. Half dead and powered only by the knowledge she’d die Josephine gets up. Broken wings crack and move, the pain so blinding it became numb. She had to protect her daughters, had to erase all trace of them here lest a trail is somehow left. And despite never knowing to master her flames she ignites because she herself is the kindling. The already aflame Mary geoise is lit with newer more intense fire that burned to the fire. Josephine burns with mother’s rage and a single wish. Cleanse her homeland with flame just as it was meant to be oh so long ago.

Josephine kills her tormentor and bastard of a man who’s father to her daughter, watches the flames bath him in agony as she holds his face in burning hands. Scarlet eyes glaring down at him as everything burned, her once small flickering flame behind her neck so intense and big it hurt to look at and consumed the background. Flesh melts and blood sizzles in her palms. Josephine dies kneeling on the red earth of her home, staring up to the smouldering sky with broken wings and an outstretched hand to the heavens she so loved. Her scream echoes out among flickering flames and chaos, echoes and reverberates into the sky before turning to nothingness. She burns so intensely that nothing of herself and twenty feet surrounding her body is left besides ash, soot and a trail of bloody feathers littering the ground just outside the crater as her scream of agony faded.

Chapter 1: Childhood from the eyes of a mother

Dicentra grows up on a lie just as everyone else of the Amazon lily does. From the time she could walk and speak she’s told of how her mother and aunts slayed a fierce-some gorgon that had killed her birth mother which led to her being adopted. That gorgon cursed her mom, aunts and herself with a curse bared on their backs. For her mom and her aunts it’s an odd symbol and for Dicentra it’s her wings. But all the same Dicentra knows that her mom is her hero (and though that story is a lie it’s still true she’s her hero) and the young princess stared at her mother in awe and such innocence. It’s something that eats Hancock up inside, that she’s lying to her daughter about everything. Of her wings, her lineage and birth mother and yet she made that vow and she won’t go back in it.

All this leads to though is Hancock being fiercely protective of her daughter, not just for the fact of her blood but because she wants better for Dicentra. She wants her daughter to live happy not plagued by the burden and shame that she and her sisters suffers daily. The memories, the pain, the loss of it all. She wants Dicentra to live the life Hancock wished she had, of never being ripped away from a safe and loving home to be hurt over and over again. It’s why she keeps a close eye on her, especially in the early years where everything is still fresh in her mind of the escape. Perhaps she’s a tad overbearing at times but knowing her daughter is happy and safe within the walls of her nation is all that matters. But as time progresses she does become more lenient towards letting Dicentra do things on her own with the only condition being a bodyguard accompanying her.

At 6 Dicentra has Nightshade assigned as her personal bodyguard and protector. Before then it was randomly assigned guards or Salome who took over watching over the already curious and slightly mischievous young girl. Much to Hancock’s displeasure her daughter takes to running off into the jungles of the Amazon but at the same time she can’t help but be happy her daughter takes her freedom in such strive and not forgranted. Dicentra talks of all range of things she came across once she comes home, from rocks she found to bird feathers pressed in pages. Nightshade with now wild tangled hair standing beside Dicentra posed and proper even with a few leaves and sticks lodged in once straight black hair.

By 7 Hancock decides to have Dicentra be taught proper manners and help her find some hobbies that aren’t just running off into the brush. It’s there that Dicentra finds her talent in Dance and playing instruments, she specifically likes playing the Erhu traditionally played in the Amazon lily. It’s a hobby especially Hancock enjoys because it quickly becomes a source of calm when old memories plague her mind. Perhaps a lifetime ago she would’ve picked up the instrument as well, but now she resides herself to listening to old tunes that would play before that fateful day on a ship leaving home. Whilst she listens she holds her daughter, time seems to slip away and for once all is well for those minutes playing song.

At 9 Dicentra begins to do more things around the Amazon lily. Knowing the jungles area and documenting the plants she finds ends up being useful to apothecaries and doctors on the island. Along with this she starts to also help in delivering things and having a hand in public events. It’s here that she begins to realize what being a princess means even if it’s more a title than anything. To the Amazon lily her mom is cold and respected, the citizens of the island fear and love her and Hancock knows this. They don’t see her compassion behind closed doors but Dicentra does. If her mom is the cold and cool leader that in secret cared, then Dicentra would be a sliver in that door for others to see that kindness. She tells the truth, that her mom asked her to try and find ways to help the other kuja women. As princess the women of the island love her and she notices she means something to everyone there. For the women of the island Dicentra is their kind princess in contrast to their lovely but cruel empress, to Hancock Dicentra is what little hope is left in the world.

At 10 the young princess starts asking Hancock more about the outside world and it leaves the empress silently terrified. They aren’t bad questions, moreso just innocent ones of if places she’d been to were like home. But to Hancock they signify the end. She knew from the moment her bright eyed daughter began to run before learning to walk, began looking out to the sea on the horizon and climbed to the tops of the snake statues overlooking the entire tribe she’d one day be curious enough to leave. That this island would become too small to satisfy her need to see and experience the world. A selfish part of her wished that the luxuries she spoiled her with and the nights in which she’d hug her close whilst promising she’d always be safe here would disway her, but Hancock always knew because of the spark in her eyes that she’d one day leave. It terrifies her and yet she knows one day she’ll have to because she can’t take away Dicentra’s freedom just as hers had been taken. But for now she was safe, leaving was in the future but now she was safe in her arms.

By 11 Dicentra waits by the docks as Hancock sets off to yet another warlord meeting that would go nowhere. Hancock when her daughter was younger would leave her with Sandersonia as she and Marigold would set off into the ocean. But Hancock decides that this time her daughter was old enough to last a few days on her own (despite how terror still grips her heart). Nightshade swears she’ll look after the young girl and none of the Boa’s doubt that. Not when the ex-assassin turned bodyguard has the same look Hancock does when the young girl does something as simple as gifting a flower. It’s a look of wanting to protect something so desperately because it was one of the last pieces of kindness in their world. None of the Boa sisters trust easily, especially not Hancock, and especially if it came to her daughter. But Hancock trusted Nightshade, and that was a feat in of itself. And so Hancock sets off on her ship, trusting her beloved daughter to her bodyguard and ex-empress of the Amazon. Though it’s only for a few days Dicentra helps keep things afloat alongside Gloriosa.

Chapter 2: where the story begins

By 13 Dicentra knows the Amazon lily like the back of her hand. She knows every trail, bend of the river and cove there’s to find in the lush landscape populated by snaking vines and flowers. Pollen coats the air in sweet smells as the distinct smell of rain coming sets in for the young princess and her shadow. But the Rowling black clouds did little to dismay the young girl, if anything it only made her more excited as she quickened her pace and hopped over twisting roots. Having a storm in the calm belt was a rare occurrence, the lack of wind and still waters kept for a stagnant environment but once in awhile a storm would drift from the grand line and breeze briefly through the still water and die off. It made for decent rainfall and any occasional change in weather from the hot climate was always something welcome to the young girl. Nightshade would agree in that retrospect, from the few moments she talked of times past was she talked of a place described as an eternal flowering spring, not cold but not yet summer (though apparently a northern area had snow). So Dicentra raced to the many hidden beaches and coves of the Amazon lily.

its towering cliffs her beloved home had many secret coves beside the main waterway into the heart of the city. Many laid forgotten to time, old boats used generations ago laying still in soft sand that crunched beneath her feet. Typically there was no tide at these hidden beaches and coves, just stagnant water lifting at a certain level against the sand. No white foam decorating its edges like lace if not for the storm stirring the waves. She can’t help but giggle at the sensation, even if her stockings got wet in the ordeal. A few feet away nightshade stood as the wind blew past, still and silent yet eased by now dropping of rain on warm skin.

The rain is cool and refreshing, trailing down and leaving hair damp.

But calm only lasts a moment.

Typically when a storm blew through the calm belt it was mild at worst and calm rain at its least. It was almost always that way with nothing to keep feeding its trajectory as it fizzled out and died.

But sometimes depending on how large the storm was prior it could survive long enough to be just as powerful as it was in the grand line.

One second Dicentra is standing at the waters edge basking in the cool rain, the other second she’s dragged in by once cerulean blue waves that became crashing cold darkness. The void encompasses the entirety of her as she’s choked from air and the cold grasping at her bones. Instinct sets in immediately but the shock of near icey waves and pulling current tossing her like a rag doll make it impossible to do so. Helplessly she floats in near darkness as storm clouds blocked out sun and made the waters a chilling void. The image of complete utter darkness as she reaches blindly engraved itself in her mind. Never once has she felt such a fear of the dark. When she was younger she hadn’t feared it, rather was intrigued to explore it instead. But now it grips and drags her down down, down into is abyss.

But then a hand appears from the dark, Nightshade.

Twitchy and icey fingers grasp the stronger hand that then pulls.

She lands on the old rickety boat with a thud and immediately sea water streams out in pained coughs. Wind blows wildly tussling hair as waves crash against the edges of the boat. She can barely see over wet hair clinging to her face but she feels Nightshade hold her for dear life and above the yelling waves her protector screams to hold onto her with all she can.

Dicentra does as says and feels a colossal pain hit her before a once friendly darkness consumes her vision.

Chapter 3: turning point

Waking up is typically a calming routine for Dicentra. If mom wasn’t on a warlord meeting she’d brush sit down with her and her mom would brush her hair. It was a daily tradition, on in which her mother would hum quietly and gently comb through her hair. Sometimes she’d check to see if the pink dye of her hair was loosing its pigment, if so she’d ask if she wanted to leave it natural or dye it once more. Dicentra always opted to dye it again. Crushed up flowers mixed with imported hair products then used to stain once lily White hair again. That was their tradition together alongside at night having mom look at her wings and care for them. Apologizing as she helped her wings molt or placing a soothing cream on the sore hurting appendages. So waking up one morning with sunlight streaming on her face on linen instead of the familiar feeling of silk is odd. Not bad but it doesn’t make sense for a few moments as her sleep plagued brain thought through what had happened.

She remembered a storm, darkness gripping her, coughing up slat water that burned her lungs and then clutching Nightshade for dear life.

Nightshade!

Despite her body feeling like wet bricks Dicentra finds herself dragging herself from the small bed she was laid on. Blindly she reaches out expecting to find her closest companion besides her family. Instead though she meets something else instead.

Nightshade was a lithe person. beautifully strong despite her lack of visible muscles. She used to ask her shadow of a bodyguard how she was able to be so strong without being as muscular as aunty Marigold. The quiet woman would simply hum, saying something about she isn’t strong but has good instincts and reflexes. Point being in all of this the arm she grabbed wasn’t that of Nightshade, it was muscular

“Oh yoi? You’re awake finally.” The voice is weirdly deep and as her eyes adjust Dicentra is faced with someone crouching down to her level. Blue eyes stare at her from behind glasses….this was a weird looking woman.

This is where things would come into motion

I’ll leave it at this for now. But rest assured she has more story

#one piece #one piece boa hancock #boa hancock #oc #Dicentra D Boa #one piece marigold #one piece Sandersonia #boa sandersonia #boa marigold #platonic

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omegastation · 1 month

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Once saw someone describe ME as copaganda and honestly... I feel like that's a 100% accurate statement. It honestly dampens my enjoyment of the saga. Genie is out of the bottle, as they say.

Open contempt for civilian agencies, check. Repeated instances where they present fascism as a Good Thing Actually, check. Cops and military almost unilaterally depicted as correct and just, check. Ones like Harkun are treated as merely bad apples and hand-waved away whereas any and all politicians are treated as incompetent at best or outright corrupt/malevolent at worst. Not to mention the whole thing with Khalisah al-Jilani.

Idk. It all just feels so dim-witted and mean-spirited.

There are a lot of good things that make me love it with all my heart, and things that are not so good. I try to do my best to acknowledge the bad stuff and remain critical. So yeah, I do agree that some elements of the trilogy should be analyzed closely because it's kinda fucked-up.

Genie is out of the bottle, I find that the expression explains a lot. Because Mass Effect is a product of its time and place, and /insert the speech from LOTR/ the world has changed. I don't mean to say that it was never this bad, because I think it was, but we now are getting images, videos and live updates all the time showing us exactly how bad it is. We see so much suffering and injustice. And it's us "outside". Some are inside, and they're the ones showing us how bad it is. So... It's harder to see specific themes, stories and characters that are unchallenged. It's harder to see injustice being portrayed, even if the content doesn't always condone it.

I also think we are more critical in general. We are, unfortunately, used to specific issues so it's easier to recognize when they appear in fiction. I can really see that in the way people talk about specific characters. People idolize less, and I honestly think that's an improvement, because idolatry, at least how I see it, is not about seeing characters or stories as they are, but putting them on a pedestal. Characters are complex and flawed, and that's what makes them interesting. Real growth happens when characters change and adapt and rethink their position. Sometimes it means they have to look inside themselves and see the ugliness, and that means we get to see the ugly too. Not only that, but we can also contemplate what is ugly inside us, and see what we can do to change and grow. But not so long ago, before my hiatus, it was really hard to step away from "this character is a god" or "this character is flawless and if you don't see it you're not a fan" and "no no i can't see this issue at all, doesn't exist, lalalala" talk. Now it's harder for people not to see the issue. But the issue was always there.

You talked about Khalisah. I saw a meme on FB recently that says that if we can't hit someone like Khalisah in the new Mass Effect, we shouldn't bother playing it, which to me is 1. disturbing, 2. missing the fact that wars need journalists and reporters, even someone like Khalisah who is not always playing fair. I don't understand the option to hit her. I've ranted about it enough here. If you don't hit her, you get to encourage her and reassure her. It's obvious she's falling apart and she needs to be reassured. One of my favorite quotes in the game is what Shepard tells her: "Keep asking the hard questions." That's what is needed in a time of war. And sure, this one beautiful interaction and line won't take away the fact that some choices can feel mean-spirited but to me, it means it's not black & white. I see the ugliness, I do, but I also see the beauty.

IDK where I'm going with this. I guess that Mass Effect was never flawless and unproblematic, and in a way, I think it's a good thing that issues are seen and we can have a critical look at the worst parts of the trilogy.

But what is very specific to you, anon, is what you can tolerate, appreciate or enjoy. Some parts of the trilogy make me sad and or angry but it doesn't stop me from really enjoying the whole. If you find that you don't get to enjoy it anymore, because too many elements make it difficult to appreciate and it's now a real dislike, don't forget that you can step away. I'm not telling you that you have to do it. You can do what you want, but don't forget that you don't have to force yourself to love something. It's okay to move away from things because you now find them disappointing.

#mass effect critical #critical posts #tw critical

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sometipsygnostalgic · 5 months

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Likable vs Complex vs "Good"

EDIT: Couple people came up to me thinking of alternatives for category 3 "Good" and my favourite is Kimberly's suggestion of "effective". I think "effective" is great because it means well utilized. It's pretty much exactly what I was going for when writing the descriptions in this post.

I feel that when it comes to describing characters, there are strong differences between a

Likable character - Someone you enjoy watching, like to have on screen, might want to share a drink with. Most protagonists. Usually a blorbo with a mass fandom who says they were done wrong if theyre a side character.

Complex character - how many layers does this one have? how much do you have to talk about them to explain them? Do you see people defending them with massive text posts? Do you follow this blog? You have experience with complex characters.

"Good" character - I don't mean a good person. That is more of a "likable" characteristic. I mean, does this character serve a solid role in the story? Do they have a job, and do they perform it well? This can include minor characters you don't care for, and it can actually exclude complex characters if their motivations don't seem to make sense or have relevance to the story.

I think a "good" character can be further broken down into subcategories but it's impossible to define whether a character is good by a basic description for all series. It requires comprehension of the source material and what it's trying to do.

Allow me to illustrate this with some examples.

I was considering what show to use for this. Let's go with She-Ra for now because it's my current thing and I don't want to be roasting SU or Owl House, and I think Adventure Time is a bad fit due to how episodic it is. I'd have to categorise by season for each example. Let me know if you want me to talk about any specific characters.

Sea Hawk

Likable: Yes Complex: No Good: No

Sea Hawk is a side character in She-Ra who gets kinda sidelined. He hasn't got much to do with anything but he makes me smile when he shows up. I don't think Sea Hawk has a purpose other than to make chaotic background noise. I think that's fine? But he's not a good character and the show would lose almost nothing if he was gone.

Edit: I feel kinda bad for implying sea hawk is not a good character so remember that I mean he isn't used effectively, he doesn't have much involvement and presence. I think a key example is his absence from season 5 entirely when he could have been used more effectively and wasn't.

Light Hope

Likable: Not really Complex: Not really Good: YES

Light Hope is Adora's mentor as She-Ra who is actually manipulating her. Light Hope has a tragic story that adds to her complexity but she's deeply overshadowed by other characters in the story.

What makes her a good character is how strongly Light Hope ties to the themes of the story. Her reveal as being "actually evil" could have been shallow and bad in a different series (anyone else playing Halo recently?) but Light Hope having her agency stolen from her, just like Adora, makes it liberating and heartbreaking when she is destroyed alongside the Sword of Protection.

Light Hope represents the oppressive regime of the First Ones and the ways they would control Etheria, while being a victim herself. She heavily parallels Adora. She does not require being complex or likable to have an important impact on the story.

Micah

Likable: Yes Complex: Yes proportional to screentime Good: Not consistently

I really like Micah. He's one of my favourite side characters. So why can I not call him a good character?

It's because he only serves to drive the actions of others, and when he is onscreen as an actual character, the show doesn't know what to do with him.

Micah was "dead" for most of the show and his life and death drove the decisions of plenty of others. He learnt from Shadow Weaver and was an important part of her corruption arc, being better at magic than her but scared away by the dark magic, which ended up attacking her. His disappearance is why Angella and Glimmer's relationship is so strained, why Glimmer is so determined to prove herself, and when he was in the Portal World, both characters had to give up the "wrong future" with him to restore the world.

Micah has a character with way more depth than you'd expect from a dead dad. He has a funny likable personality and is a highly skilled mage with a variety of relationships, who has survived on an island for god knows how long.

However, this kind of speaks to him being the protagonist of his own story, and She-ra is so chock full of characters aiming to a specific goal. Micah actually being alive has very little to do with the story of season 5. He isn't part of the space mission. He has an episode with Frosta, another character who has little to do with anything, and then he gets chipped for the rest of the show.

The reason Micah ended up this way is because he's a complex character in a story that has no room to do anything with him. He's not the only victim of season 5's crunch time, far from it, but he never got any screentime or "arc" and his actions don't tie in to the show very much.

Glimmer

Likable: No Complex: Yes Good: Yes

Edit: I'm guessing this one was what got me flack? But Glimmer is easily in my top 3 favourite characters and imo she is the character i by far most greatly resemble. I used her here because I think she's a much more interesting example of a disliked yet very well written character than Catra for this post. But it's evident, if you look at the fandom behaviour, casual viewers don't like her much. People either love her for her everything or kind of hate her, and she's treated badly in a lot of fanfic. The reasons for this exist in the show's writing and framing and how people interpret her. She's far from the first blorbo of mine to exist in these conditions, i mean just look at PB from AT who is a thousand times more hated but also the best character.

So Glimmer's likability yoyos significantly across the series, she's far from the most offensive abrasive friend character, but she's one of the least likable characters in She-Ra. This is down to the show not having any particularly unlikable characters apart from Shadow Weaver, if I'm honest, and Glimmer's constant rubbing against other far more liked characters such as Adora, Bow, Catra, so on.

Glimmer is annoying as a bare minimum and nasty as shit at other times, going through challenges that turn her against her friends and make her seek power and lash out against others.

However, these are flaws the show is hyper aware of and has baked into her story. They are all part of what makes her Glimmer, they are all what makes her so memorable and interesting.

It is the push and pull of Glimmer's courage, her desire to be there for her friends, with her insecurities about being weak, her failure to protect her mother, that mean... When Glimmer is handed the powers of the moonstone and offered tutoring in magic, you're giving a powerless beaten down puppy a MACHINE GUN. Of course she's going to use that power ineffectively.

Complexity doesn't always make a good character. If you look at Steven Universe or even Adventure Time, you have a lot of complex characters in that series who fail to serve any strong role, or who zigzag in so many directions taht you can no longer make sense of their motivations.

However, Glimmer's motivations are not only internally consistent across the entire series, the show gives her a complete character arc where she goes from a powerless brat, to a responsible commander, to a brokenhearted powerhouse, to someone who understands where she fucked up and is trying very very hard to lead her friends into a hopeful future using the very same character traits that led her to go astray - Her love, courage, and rage.

There are a couple of weaknesses for Glimmer. I would say mainly that the show goes too far to make her snap at Adora in season 4. I don't think she needed to go that far, and it would've been fine if they dealt with it properly in season 5, but Adora and Glimmer's relationship is completely brushed over in season 5. Adora and Glimmer aren't the only victims of this - there is Micah, and season 5 is the difference between Scorpia being a good character vs an "ok" character - but it is a very very good story, and it's hard to say how it could've improved these characters with the timeframe that it had.

Entrapta

Likable: Yes Complex: No Good: Yes

What makes Entrapta different from Micah and Glimmer and Sea Hawk is that she's a very basic, likable character, but she has a severe impact on every single season on the show. Entrapta is second to Catra, in my opinion, in terms of making a "good" character in She-ra, but she doesn't require any of Catra or Glimmer's complexity to get there.

Entrapta's character does not change much, but she does have challenges, which tie strongly to the base themes of She-ra - understanding, acceptance and love. Entrapta is thrown around the plot like a pinball but her movements are being noticed by all the other characters. When she joins the Horde, it changes both the Horde and the Rebellion. She puts Hordak on his path to independence. She's a big reason Catra descended into desperation, going through a repeat of the cycle of abuse. She's also why Adora and Glimmer went into hardcore martyrdom, though that has less to do with Entrapta herself and more to do with how her "death" triggered their prior conditioning. She did the runestone experiment, and created the portal. And when Entrapta is removed from the equation, it is a major catalyst for other characters to step into the hole she left behind.

But while these feats are impressive, they don't say much about Entrapta herself. What makes her a good character and not just a plot device?

Well, Entrapta has an internal logic and a strong sense of personality that is present throughout the show. While other mad scientists might act randomly and not have much character going on, Entrapta has an entire arc that has less to do with science and is instead focused on her goal of connection. She has a deep love for science but also for friendship and she wants to connect those things together, she wants to express love through her science and be liked for who she is.

That's what makes her compelling and likable. It's not that deep but it ties in to everything she does. It's what connects her to the other characters.

That's why Entrapta can seamlessly work with the good guys, and the bad guys, and be ideologically opposed to the true big bad of the series just as the rest of the characters are, without having to change much as a person or to be that complex. The show moves her around where she is most effective at serving its story themes as her current self, and she never has a period of inactivity in the story even when absent. And she never has to do anything that contradicts her previous actions.

I have strong opinions on other series. I'm thinking a lot about SU, because it's full of complex characters who get discarded, but also I'm thinking about Princess Bubblegum. I think I'd rate Princess Bubblegum differently for every season of Adventure Time.

#she ra #spop #glimmer #entrapta

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dreams-of-an-escapist · 4 months

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My current dive into the Mass Effect fandom actually almost maybe 7 years later than the last one was??? Crazy!

But I have to say - I'm not pleased at all how omegaverce tendencies bled into the Shakarian and other turian pairings/headcanons.

I don't like how people started to HC turians way more animalistic over the years. It just feel wrong. They weren't showed like that in canon. And it feels particularly wrong considering there was "aliens are like talking animals" racist view pointed out in canon in fact.

+ Turians are avian/reptilian so I can see where "mating for life" headcanons come from because some birds do that. ( even if I myself find the concept somewhat depressing).

Buuuuut knots????? They aren't canine for fuck's sake, they are not even mammals. Yes they are compared to cats often because they kinda look cat-like but cats don't do knotting. Marks go in the same category too - coming from omegaverce.

I don't like omegaverce as a concept in general even if I read it sometimes. So I'm displeased about omegaverce slipping itself almost everywhere in fandoms.

But it kinda feel especially wrong about attributing such qualities to turians and therefore making them more "beastly". Makes me really uncomfortable and leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

#mass effect #mass effect thoughts #fandom thoughts #turians #not trying to start a discourse just wanted to put my thoughts in the words because this upsets me #probably an unpopular opinion #Shakarian #i guess #because I encountered this mostly with it and other turian pairings

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sirowsky-stories · 8 months

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The Old Prince

Part 10

Author's Note: I had hoped to post this on Friday, but a pesky work-weekend got in the way. Also, this was one of those chapters that never wanted to end! Which is why it's easily the biggest one yet.

Description: Your confrontation with Simon reveals some very big obstacles. (Sorry, it's a bit short, I don't wanna spoil anything.)

Rating: Mature 18+ONLY Warnings: Monster Oberyn Martell x Female Reader, AU fic, obviously Halloween themed, reader cusses. Smut. And a kinda weird situation occurring in relation to the smut. Word Count: 9862 Author's Masterlist

He reacts to the name as if he too remembers it, and somewhere deep within him, a rumbling which could rival even the toughest thunder starts to build. It’s so immense that the very air vibrates with it, and when he opens his jaws to release it, you can hardly believe what you’re seeing when actual lightning accompanies the flame of magmatic intensity, destroying trees and unnatural creatures alike everywhere it goes.

Then, just as your hope rekindles with the apparent shift of odds into your favor, the dying flames reveal that the spirits have finally arrived. But the reason for their tardiness becomes painfully obvious when you realize they’ve all been corrupted. No longer the lightly glowing figures of mystical energies, they now appear to be solid, straining under their own weight, looking as though something’s tried to rip them apart, leaving strangely thick black smoke pluming out of their open wounds.

Positioning themselves in a circle around the two of you, their new master commands them to destroy, and as if they’ve become puppets on strings, they obey without hesitation. The polar bear, Ursa, is supposed to be able to freeze things at will, but her powers have also been mutated, so when she tries to create frozen spikes, like spears out of the ground, what happens instead is that she cleaves the ground, creating massive crevasses from which more roots and evil beings spring.

Lupus normally channels the power of the earth to make things grow, and she still does, except there’s only darkness to feed. Only the destructive and malicious beings brought to life by the Darkling are aided by her efforts, doubling in size in mere seconds. Meanwhile, Caelum is generating multiple twisters where she would ordinarily only manage to spark sudden microbursts for a few minutes at a time. The butterfly is somehow creating toxic spores where she would usually just be able to pollinate anything that grows.

How Octopus is managing on land you have no idea, but she’s covering everything she touches with some kind of corrosive grey slime, which is especially bad considering the area she can affect with her size and the reach of her tentacles. The bat’s normal power is giving sight to those who wander in the dark, but she’s now creating clouds made of soot, removing all visibility wherever she flies. Although she’s struggling so badly against the forces of gravity, usually not able to affect her much at all, that she’s barely able to get off the ground.

Scarabaeus is supposed to be able to move through any solid structures, but her corrupted form is instead incapable of remaining solid at all, changing from liquid to gaseous form at random, which also has the very disturbing effect of leaving anything she passes through, completely disemboweled. As for the deer, Cervus, who’s original power is the absorption of both energy and matter, she seems to be in a state of continuous implosion, like a star perpetually about to collapse, sucking everything into its core to be crushed.

In your human form, you’ve never met the spirit of summer before, although you do know her from your other life. She’s easily the largest of the land-living spirits, rivalling Oberyn’s green dragon, although her current mass is much more concentrated than his was. Also, she wouldn’t normally have much mass at all. But tonight, her might has been transformed from a benign gigantic horse, capable of bringing warmth even to the coldest of places, into a burning demon, seemingly made of oil.

They attack without any coordination, or pre-determined plan of any kind, it seems, coming at Tyrannus from all angles at once. His size puts them at a disadvantage since only the flying ones can reach further up his body than his legs, but they’re unfortunately also highly tolerant to his flame, even with the lightning. His scales are thick, though, shielding him from their mutated powers, leaving him mostly concerned with keeping you out of their reach.

You know that even Lux has never witnessed all the spirits succumb to the dark one’s power before, because it’s never been allowed to get this far. But Simon’s clever deceit must’ve blinded them until it was already too late. Which begs the question: Why are you not turning dark as well? If the Darkling can have such a crippling effect on all the others, how is it you’re not feeling so much as a tingle in your fingertips?

It could be your connection to Oberyn, since love is still more powerful than anything, but the more you think about it, the more it seems like it’s your human form which shields you from his influence. Strangely, it makes a lot of sense. Because ordinary humans can’t see or be directly harmed by spirits, so logically, your alter ego should be impervious to his manipulation.

However, your body might not be safe from his powers or the spirits’ ability to cause you serious physical harm. You have demonstrated that you’re capable of incredible healing, but you don’t know how far that reaches. Even Oberyn isn’t completely immortal, so it stands to reason you might have a few limitations as well.

He moves incredibly fast despite his size, having lost none of his usual agility since his body is still the same snakelike shape. So, even though his enemies are repeatedly attacking him from all sides, he manages to evade them while striking both punches and flames at them, slowing them down if not seriously damaging them. Until Caelum manages to slip past his limbs and teeth, using one of her twisters as camouflage.

Staying in your blind spot, she sinks her claws into your back before you’ve had a chance to notice her, and aside from the fact that having your skin ripped open is always terribly painful, it seems that the black oily stuff which covers them all is also either poisonous or acidic when it enters your blood. Because holy fuck, does it sting. You’re already laying down as flat over the base of the dragon’s neck as you can manage, but the sharp, lasting pain makes you lose your grip just as Oberyn turns sharply to the left.

“Kaivalya!” you hear a thunderous roar exclaim while you’re falling through the air, which confuses you.

He can’t speak. Not as himself or as Tyrannus, his mouth and throat are incapable of forming words, so how did that just happen?

It doesn’t matter much anymore when you realize you’re falling much further than what should be ground level, which must mean you’re careering into one of the many crevasses Ursa’s made in her attempts to unbalance the dragon. Your front is facing up, so you can see the darkened sky as you continue to fall, until you drop far enough that the edges of the abyss come into view, crawling with roots and other malicious things, feeding off the conflict and the violence above.

Then suddenly, a bright white tail is breaking through the increasing darkness around you. It effortlessly breaks through the meager defenses put up by the wormlike appendages of this evil Earth, reaching you with such speed and forcefulness that it sends you hurtling upwards instead, as though you were a tennis ball and his tail the racket. And once you’re back above ground, easily reaching a thousand feet height at the crescent before you begin to fall back down, all three of the flying spirits are converging on you.

A twister forms right beside you, sucking you in and then spitting you out even higher up, before Vespertilio sends a cloud of absolute darkness around you. You know you’re far enough up that Oberyn has to fly to reach you, and if he was, his wings would create a thunderous sound as they beat against the air and the atmosphere, and you can’t hear anything like that. But you can hear the rapid, strained flaps of the bat’s wings as it struggles to get to you.

The darkness is so thick you can’t see your hands in front of your face, but you can feel that you’re once again falling and without seeing, you have no way of knowing how long it’ll take before you hit the ground. Can you survive a broken neck? You don’t know. Just like you don’t know what happens if you get torn to pieces by the spirits. You might simply revert to your spirit form, but then that would likely make you corruptible again. And maybe that’s exactly what Simon is after. Maybe all this is just about darkening you, because if he can do that, then there won’t be any more hope for the world.

A sound reaches you from somewhere below, and then a strong huff of warm air disperses the cloud underneath you, letting you see that you’re still hundreds of feet from the ground. But you also see a pair of bright blue eyes, which then quickly disappear from your view when the largest jaws ever to exist on this planet are opened wide, right beneath you.

“Trust me,” the same rumbling voice as before sounds, even though his mouth hasn’t moved.

But it’s him. Either inside your head or somehow speaking to you through the ether, but you know without a doubt it’s your Oberyn. And you do trust him. Which is why you let yourself fall forwards, straightening your arms out in front of you, turning your body into a spear so you’ll fall quicker. It’s not without fear you pass his rows of giant teeth, falling paralleled to his tongue and heading right for his throat, held perfectly straight to facilitate your journey into his stomach, but he must have a plan.

He closes his jaws in the same moment you reach the bottom of his mouth, and everything becomes pitch black. You can feel your body continue to fall, even as the walls of his throat begin to close around you, slowing your descent surprisingly gently. And before you know it, you’re at the bottom. Although, it’s not how you might’ve imagined a dragon’s stomach might look, if you’d ever had the crazy idea to imagine being swallowed by one.

There’s no fluid in there at all, to help break down your components and extract the nutrients from your body. And it’s anything but dark. Just like with humans, his stomach sits adjacent to his lungs, so when the fire is sparked, his entire torso is lit up internally. You can only see the shine, nothing of what else is actually inside of him, but it’s kinda beautiful.

There’s an intricate and very symmetrical network of veins within the lining of the stomach, and when the fire illuminates them, the heat within his blood makes them glow. And yet, the temperature inside remains unchanged. Probably around forty degrees Celsius, feverishly warm for a human, which is how Oberyn has always seemed to you. However, the sounds he makes are even louder in here, so when he suddenly roars, you’re instantly on your knees and doing your best to cover your ears, hoping your eardrums haven’t already burst.

“Stop!” you try to yell when it never seems to end, but you can’t even hear yourself over the deafening vibrations.

Apparently though, he can, because he immediately goes quiet, and then that deep voice finds you again.

“Are you alright, my lady?”

You must be hearing him inside your mind somehow, because even if you haven’t already gone deaf, your ears can’t possibly have recovered enough for you to hear normally yet.

“No!” you half-shriek, confirming at least partial damage to your auditory system because you can hardly hear your own voice. “Keep it down, you just blew my ears out!”

“Oh… My apologies. In my defense, I have never done this before.”

“No shit…”

-=<>=-=<>=-=<>=-

He knows you will be safe within him as this much older dragon ate only stone and magma to support his being when there was no other life on this world yet. It has no means of digesting human tissues and bones, nor the need for it. From the beginning of this battle, the spirits have aimed almost exclusively at you, leading him to the conclusion that Simon has no interest in him, merely in acquiring the last free spirit and completing the Darkling curse.

If this happens, the entire planet will become as the North American continent in a matter of minutes. All of it consumed by death, darkness and despair, with no hope or end in sight. And without Lux to bring back the sun, it will likely remain so for thousands of years. Tyrannus is too powerful even for all of them combined to vanquish, but Oberyn is equally unable to annihilate Simon while the spirits fight for him, so until the two of you can discover how to liberate The Decem from the dark one’s sickening grasp, the best he can do is keep you safe.

Gambling on the notion that these debased beings all seem unwilling to stray too far away from the group, he remains airborne after swallowing you, intent on leaving the scene as quickly as he can. Of course, Caelum, Vespertilio and Papilio do not approve of this plan, and follow as he departs due east, back towards the coast.

Their perverted powers are thrown recklessly in his path, the desperation to not disappoint their master now the single goal of their altered reality. But their quarry is not only much larger than before. He is also armored with scales so thick not even the pressure and heat of the planet’s core could undo him, leaving their mediocre displays of strength little more than an irritation to his ascent.

His theory about their tendency to remain with the group prove accurate when the three flying spirits veer off and return to the blackened landscape before he’s even left the American continent. This thought, however, offers him no peace. For they are stronger as a group, and the longer they remain so, they will fuel and feed the growing energies of hate and depravity until it eventually transforms them completely.

They are still only darkened versions of their original selves, but if Simon has his claws embedded within them for long enough, he will turn their hearts to stone, and then they shall truly become the monstrosities of men’s most feared nightmares. If this comes to pass, they will never again be returned to their former glory, no matter how much light you might shine upon them. And without them, the world will never truly recover.

He heads northeast across the Atlantic, flying fast and very high now that you are travelling safely hidden from the extreme temperatures and lack of oxygen. The sky is remarkably clear once he leaves the ashes and unnatural darkness of America behind, and he wishes that you could see the beauty of the world from the thermosphere, nine kilometers above the surface. As Lux, you probably have, but as a human, you never could.

And there is something truly beautiful within such fragility.

It doesn’t take long once he returns to the more familiar troposphere, before he is joined by yet more man-made flying machines, although this time, they wisely keep their distance and merely follow his journey, rather than attempt another confrontation. Oberyn is glad for this, because aside from the fact that he does not wish to harm them, they may also become most important to the survival of the world, as even their relatively small firepower could prove crucial within the larger picture of this war.

So, he makes no attempt to frighten them, flying calmly even as they dare a closer look. Despite their oxygen masks, he can see their eyes quite clearly, and when one of the pilots pulls up alongside him, he can see how she tries to measure him from nose-tip to tail-end, raising her eyebrows in disbelief at whatever number she settles on. He estimates roughly five hundred yards himself.

These are British RAF fighters, which must mean that word of his existence has spread since his latest encounter with such crafts. Although, they all probably think there are two dragons at this point, as there is little resemblance between Tyrannus and his comparably puny longtime green alter ego.

Whatever they believe is irrelevant. So long as he must not fight both humans and dark souls the world’s armies may create their own explanations for his presence. He requires only that they act to protect their lands, as even a small grenade lobbed at the spreading weeds of death will slow their advancement somewhat. For now, the darkness is contained on the North American continent, unable to spread further until the air and the oceans have also been sufficiently infected. But it is only a matter of time.

As he crosses over the British Isles, a warm updraft fills his wings, allowing him to soar effortlessly. Which is good since just one flap of his enormous wings will displace enough air to potentially create massive wind-shifts on the ground below. The warm air sits lower in the atmosphere, however, leaving him quite visible to anyone who happens to look high enough, and given the sudden changes in the sounds he can hear from down there, at least some people do spot him.

To that end, the fighter planes are no help, as their noisy engines easily draw people’s eyes upwards, but again, this is largely irrelevant. Unless the two of you can discover how to defeat Simon, these people will know of worse things than dragons soon enough. Dodging numerous commercial jets at various altitudes as he crosses directly above Manchester, Oberyn then leaves Great Britain behind, heading for the quieter skies of the Nordic countries.

The RAF apparently are not cleared to continue following him into Norwegian airspace, veering off well before he crosses over land again. For a moment, he amuses himself by imagining the communication between these pilots and Norwegian air traffic control, because he could picture how it must have sounded if they requested permission to continue following a dragon into Norway’s domain.

Once certain he is alone, he finds a nice large mountaintop with a solid flat surface and sets down as gently as he can to avoid kicking off a rockslide. You have been quiet since he accidentally broke your eardrums, and he hopes you will have healed already, but he worries that the injury might have nothing to do with your lack of interaction.

“Valya?” he prods, keeping his volume low, and he can feel how you begin to move inside of him.

“Yeah?” you reply, and you sound mostly tired.

“We are safe for now. Would you like to come out?”

“That depends… Would I be going back up, or continuing further down?”

“Up, of course, my dear.”

“Okay, just tell me what to do,” you sigh, but it is clear from your tone that you were only asking about the direction as a way of relieving tension.

“I would prefer not to regurgitate you, but if I lay my head down and keep my body standing, you should be able to crawl out on your own.”

“Alright, give it a try.”

He does as he has suggested, and then experience the peculiar sensation of what a human might compare to an ant trying to crawl out of their throat. It tickles, but not enough to cause him discomfort, and before long he can feel your footsteps pattering over his tongue and then climbing past the row of teeth on his lower jaw, before a muted thud lets him know you have hit the ground. Closing his mouth and raising his head enough that he can see the ground directly before him, he finds you brushing snow off your pants, and you appear unharmed.

“How are your ears?” he asks, and you stop moving to meet his eyes.

“Better. But how am I hearing you? Is this some kind of telepathy?”

“No, not quite. As I understand it, this is only possible between the two of us, and only because of the unique bond we now share.”

“Right. Which bond, though? I can think of at least two.”

“Love and Tyrannus?” he guesses, to which you nod, so he elaborates. “All these years, you’ve carried the white dragon within you, unknowingly becoming one with it, so familiar with its energy that you didn’t even realize it when you began to feed it to me. Because to your heart, there is no distinction. We are the beings you love, and we love you equally.”

“Do you feel different? I mean, like there’s two of you in there?”

“Tyrannus has not been alive for eons. He is only energy now. But I do feel some things so deeply engraved into his soul they cannot be erased. His anger… and his hope. Mere echoes now, and yet, so undeniably clear. He was truly mighty.”

“So are you, Oberyn,” you say softly, smiling slightly as you admire his new form, before you seem to will yourself to return to darker matters. “Unfortunately, we have less pleasant things to talk about, starting with where we are.”

“I believe it’s called the Scandes. The mountain range between Norway and Sweden.”

“Okay. And why are we here?”

“Because we need to think, and this place is quiet. This far north there’s hardly any air traffic and aside from the occasional hiker, not a lot of people. This time of year, it is a bit cold, but nothing I cannot shield you from. I have wandered these hills and mountains many times in my life, and they have always helped to soothe my worries.”

“I believe you. I feel calmer already. And it does seem prudent to steer clear of the States until we at least have a plan.”

You cross your arms over your waist but then remember that you are still wearing the same torn clothes as before, and this seems to deflate your energy somehow.

“So, can you still change back, or will all that,” you gesture to his general enormity, “not fit within the human form anymore?”

“It will. Although I am hesitant to leave us so vulnerable. My human form is still the weakest part of me.”

“And who’s gonna come after us here?”

“It is the threats one doesn’t see coming that are the most dangerous. But I see your point.”

Strangely, it feels exactly the same to return to this shape despite the extreme change he has undergone. The dragon folds away as fluently and easily as it always has. But it does throw him for a moment, to suddenly lose the higher perspective, and he hadn’t considered just how much better Tyrannus’ senses are. He feels almost blind at first, even though his own senses are still far superior to ordinary humans.

“Are you alright?” you ask, noticing his disorientation.

“Yes. Just slightly jarred. The difference in size is a bit befuddling at first.”

“I’m sure it is, but at least I can hug you now,” you say while closing the distance between you and wrapping your arms around him in a firm embrace.

“Oh, I have missed this,” he admits while he mirrors you, breathing in your scent once more and relishing in the feeling of your body pressed against his.

In that regard, there is no comparison. Nothing ever feels as good as your skin against his own, no matter how incredible the dragon’s senses are.

“It’s hard to believe it was still just this morning that we woke up together in your bed. I mean, we’ve been jumping between time zones, so the actual hours might be more, but it’s still the same date.”

“Indeed. How strange that everything seemed so simple then,” he observes, recalling the hours he spent watching you sleep, thinking of nothing but you and how you make him feel.

His entire world had fit into that bed in those precious, serene hours.

“Fucking Simon…” you growl after a minute, pulling away from him as your stress once again increases. “I can’t believe he manipulated all the spirits. I mean, I know they’re emotionally driven, but aren’t they supposed to have better instincts than to be fooled by a Darkling?”

“Well, no, actually,” he replies simply, to which you seem quite perplexed, so he continues. “The only way for any spirit to discern the presence of a Darkling is by the effect it has on the world. To find the being itself, only its capacity to see and interact with them is what provides them a definitive answer. They can immediately sense if darkness is tainting the world, and where, but they rely on evil to reveal itself, as it always does.”

“Wait… that would mean Simon must’ve understood more about them from the start than any other dark one before him, to let him use their blind spots against them like that. But I don’t get it. He said he’d been practicing, using his powers, honing them for a long time. How could he do that without them reacting to it, at some point?”

“How he knew about his powers I cannot fathom. No Darkling is born with this understanding. However, if he discovered a way to use them without allowing them to infect anything, then it is possible The Decem were unable to detect it.”

“Not even Caelum? She can’t just sense darkness in the air somehow?” you wonder, getting frustrated enough to start pacing around him, but remaining close since his warmth is all that shields you from the Nordic winter chill.

“No. Only if that power manages to dilute the air, as it now has over the American continent,” he answers, and you throw your arms out to the sides in a gesture which he interprets to be burgeoning anger at Simon’s apparent advantages.

He understands your feelings, especially since you cannot recall any of the details surrounding the spirits and their capabilities, but unfortunately, your foe is the very worst this world has to offer. As much as he wishes to shield you, he must also make sure you realize exactly what it is you are up against.

“I don’t know if you noticed, but the clouds there are no longer clouds, just dead spores and ashes, remnants of nature now reduced to particles of death. And once he gathers enough of them, he can send those clouds across the seas to infect other parts of the world. In time, his evil will turn all oceans into vast fields of mud and oil, impossible to travel over or through, filled with the same mutated monstrosities we saw over there. And eventually, the air will be so thick with these ashes that no sunlight will reach us anymore, at which point… salvation will no longer be possible.”

You stop pacing then, once more wrapping your arms around yourself as if the winds have sent a chill through you, despite the heat he radiates towards you. There is fear in your eyes as you are probably imagining the world his words are painting for you, but you bite it back, determined to find a solution.

“So, what can we do? How do we stop him? Because I doubt we can save the spirits without first freeing them from his darkness.”

“You are correct. Only the destruction of the Darkling will end his reign. Unfortunately, aside from the spirits, I know of nothing which can kill him,” he admits, but you are undeterred by this.

“You were there when they killed the last one, right?” you recall, to which he merely nods since he can guess where you are going with this. “So, how did they do it?”

Oberyn has avoided visiting the details of this memory for a very long time, but you are right to ask this question, as even though the spirits are not going to be able to help you this time, their methods might reveal some useful information.

“It happened nearly four millennia ago. He was a simple farmer, a good man by all accounts. Until a conflict in their settlement broke out and his wife and two children became the victims of circumstance.”

“The Darkling had a family?” you skeptically question.

“Unlike Simon, they are usually unaware of the evil within until something happens to them which is so painful that their souls are torn apart. This unleashes the darkness and forever destroys the person they once were. This man went from a loving husband and father to a vicious beast, holding nothing back and sparing no one from his rage. He turned the lands upon which he had lived from a jungle teeming with life, into a pit of death into which countless thousands of people and animals were pulled and tortured to death. He had no wish to corrupt them or turn them into evil beings, he merely wished for all things to die as painfully as anything can. Today, the place is known as the Lonar crater of southern India, but it was neither made by a meteor strike, nor as long ago as science estimates.”

“His evil created a crater?”

“When living things rooted to the ground are tainted with darkness, they spread it through the bedrock in search of other things to infect, which can lead to the collapse of entire mountains, given enough time.”

“How much time?” you ask, and he can see in your eyes that you are worried about how long it might take before Simon’s evil will create eternal scars upon the Earth.

“This Darkling reigned for three centuries before The Decem was able to stop him. And at that point, the entire European, Asian and African continents were covered in darkness.”

He gives you a minute with that, because it seems to affect you most severely, but the story is not yet over.

“I had no intention of joining the fight, as I could simply fly away from it, not wanting to realize that as it continued to spread, there would eventually be nowhere left to go. But in the end, it was not the understanding that the world was ending which convinced me to go back, but simply the thought that I would not be the worst monster among such things. That in their midst, I might actually appear… beautiful.”

You step closer to him then, unfolding your arms to place a gentle hand over his cheek. A silent reminder of how you see him, regardless of his form, and he takes a moment to lean into your touch.

“I was late to the party, however,” he continues then. “For a mere fortnight I battled the darkened vegetation at the heart of its outbreak, trying to carve a path to the man responsible, unaware that I was closely monitored by the spirits. At this point, only four of them had avoided getting caught by the darkness. Ursa, Papilio, Cervus and Equus.”

“The elements,” you observe. “Are they somehow stronger than the others?”

“Not stronger, but perhaps more resilient against corruption. Although, I don’t know why. In any case, my efforts eventually led them to the Darkling, and once they had access to him, he never stood a chance. He couldn’t see them coming, so when they all charged him together, he was immediately overpowered. Ursa impaled him with her icicles, and then each of them took one limb and one direction, pulling him apart, not at the joints, but at the weakened area at the center of his chest where the spears of ice had already broken his spine and sternum.”

“And that was it?”

“No, he was still alive afterwards, bleeding black goop into the soil which seemed to superpower the mutated vegetation. Roots the size of redwoods erupted from the ground, all aiming for the spirits, because so long as he was still alive, the Darkling could reassemble himself. But the elementals knew better. They had already abandoned the severed pieces, locating his heart instead. Not a lump of red flesh, but rather a small grey stone covered in coiled up vines.”

“So, his heart has to be destroyed before he’ll ever really be dead? How predictable.”

“Indeed. Had Scarabaeus been able to, she would’ve been the one to do it by simply passing through the stone, turning solid in the middle of it. But as she was already dead, Equus was the one who delivered the final blow,” Oberyn finishes, recalling the quaking bedrock in the aftermath of the horse’s powerful stomp.

He closes his eyes for a few seconds then, hoping you have not detected the sorrow which plagues him at the memory, for he knows not how to explain it. As much as he wishes to ensure you will be well informed of all aspects of your foe, he is leaving out one detail of this gruesome story. Which is that the man, the grieving human, had reemerged once his body had been broken and the darkness within him begun to pour out. In those final moments before his life had truly been ended, he was just a devastated father, as tortured and tormented as those whom he had killed.

Simon might be different, but he was not born with malicious intent. At some point, something must have happened to him to make him aware of his own darkness, and rather than fear it, he chose to embrace it. But before this, he was likely a normal human boy, with normal human feelings. Which means if you succeed in stopping him, he might revert to that being in the moments before his end, and if this should happen, you will be forced to watch that boy die in agony.

“Okay, dumb question maybe, but it still needs to be asked,” you sigh, while attempting to massage your own neck. “Can’t we just drop a small mountain on top of him, then? I mean, if all we need to do is crack his dead heart to pieces.”

“Unfortunately, that won’t work, because even if his body is damaged, he can heal it so long as his heart is intact.”

“And, let me guess: because it’s made of stone, the vines around it are enough to make it nearly indestructible from the outside?”

You read the answer in his eyes without him even changing his expression, and you let your head hang low for a minute while you try to think.

“You said that the other Darkling couldn’t detect the spirits. Is the same true for Simon?”

“Yes. But since you’re human, he will be able to detect you.”

“God damned it. Can’t we just catch one fucking break!” you end on a scream, turned away from him, sending your voice out over the mountain range where it echoes around for much longer than your ears can hear.

He steps closer and wraps his arms around your waist from behind, feeling you relax into his chest almost as if unaware of it yourself.

“How do we stand a chance without the spirits?” you ask, and in your voice, he can hear such pain.

Not for fear that you will suffer, if he knows you as well as he believes to, but for fear of how much the world will suffer in each moment you stand idle, unable to act because of the staggering lack of options.

“As Oberyn, I was able to carve a path for them through the death-lands. As Tyrannus, I am certain I can do the same for you, however powerful our foe might be. The question we face is not how to reach him, but how to get close enough to rip his heart out when he is protected by the mighty nine.”

For a long while, you stand silent within his embrace, although he feels certain he might be able to hear how hard you are thinking if he should focus well enough. Then, something moves through you. He can feel it, not because you actually move, but through a sudden and very distinct shift in your energy. No longer somber and despondent, you whirl around and take his hands, abruptly confident, as you appear to have uncovered something workable.

“I might be human, but I’m also light itself. And if there’s any reason I can think of to keep me separate from the other spirits, it must be because I’m their protector. My place in all this isn’t to fight the Darkling, it’s just to save them. That’s my purpose,” you animatedly explain, your eyes alight with understanding, while he remains uncertain.

“But… how can you? They are no longer spirits at all; their very essences have been destroyed.”

“No, I don’t believe that. Because if it was true, their mystical powers would’ve disappeared completely, but they haven’t, they’re just corrupted. I can bring them back, Oberyn. Don’t you see? My light heals me because that’s what it was always meant to do: heal spirits.”

Suddenly your confidence becomes infectious, as he realizes how much this all sounds true and right. There must be a reason for your detachment to the others, a reason behind the fact that not even the protectors of this world can recognize you, and this might well be it. But his hope is still stunted by one stubbornly persistent problem.

“Alright. Then I suppose all you need to do is figure out how to use it,” he says, and sees the optimism disappear from your frame as if an arctic wind has swept by and stolen it.

He takes a deep breath to re-center himself, reaching the conclusion that none of this is going to be solved right here and now. The world suffers while solutions evade you, but there is nothing to be done about that. If you rush in without a plan, one that actually has a fighting chance, you may well doom the earth to eternal darkness.

“Come, my love. You need new clothes, food and a night’s rest. There’s a village close by; we will go there to recover for now.”

You are not happy with this suggestion. He can see protests wanting to escape your mouth in the way you repeatedly search for the right words to voice your complaints. But in the end, you find none, allowing his reasoning to stand unchallenged. Backing away, he brings forth the ancient beast, once again slightly offset by the extreme shifts in perspectives and sensory input. You look so small as he offers you his front paw and then lifts you up to his shoulder.

Not wanting to scare people with a dramatic entrance, he decides to walk down the mountain, surprisingly well camouflaged against the snow and protruding rocks in the dark. But this does not prevent him from being spotted by a couple apparently living on the damned mountainside, where no one should have been able to build anything. Slightly shocked to suddenly hear voices beneath him, he stops, finding their house perched on an outcrop, seemingly without any road or lift leading up to it. How do they even get to the village for supplies?

They are understandably equally shocked to see him, merely standing paralyzed as he observes them for a few moments.

“Norwegians are unusual people,” he says to you in his mind, to which you chuckle.

“The Vikings wouldn’t have been nearly as successful in their conquests if they’d allowed terrain to stand in their way.”

He does not argue this point, as he has seen Vikings for himself and knows firsthand just how hardy and resilient they were. You are still several miles from the village at this point, so the couple will likely not cause any widespread panic. He leaves their home untouched, walking carefully past it so as not to trigger any avalanches, and when he reaches the little town down by the fjord, it looks perfectly calm and still.

Creeping as close as he dares, he doesn’t change back until he is just a few hundred yards from the closest houses, to keep the distance you will have to walk as short as possible since it takes so much more time. But no one seems to notice. It’s late, but the tourist center should still be open, and they often have emergency supplies for unfortunate travelers, such as clothes, in the event someone’s luggage is lost, and stores are closed. It is easy to find, sporting large flags on top of the single-story building, and it is still open.

“Hei, vhordan kan jeg hjelpe deg?” a tall blonde woman behind the reception greets when you approach her desk.

“Hi, we’re American,” you start, and the woman immediately repeats her greeting in English, which you politely thank her for before continuing. “As you can see, I’m in dire need of some new clothes. You wouldn’t happen to have some sweaters and jackets for sale, would you?”

“Certainly, follow me and I’ll show you where,” the receptionist smiles while getting up to assist you. “May I ask what happened?”

“Oh, that’s a long story and I’m very tired. Do you know if any hotel in town might have a room available?”

“There’s only one hotel here, but last I heard they weren’t fully booked for this week. It’s easy to find, just head down to the water and follow the road, you’ll see the signs.”

“Thank you,” you reply as you arrive in the gift shop area of the center, where there is an entire section devoted to equipping both humans and common pets to survive arctic weather.

You know your size and pick a thinner sweater along with a thicker jacket, to give you more options based on where in the world you and Oberyn might end up next. But as you are beginning to move back towards the receptionist’s desk, where the items must be paid, you lean closer to him and whisper.

“Uh, I’m assuming you have some way of paying for this, because I don’t.”

“Not to worry, darling. I never go anywhere without this,” he says, while pulling out a blank card from a concealed pocket in the side of his coat.

It connects to a bank account in the name of one Christopher Wilkins, who does not exist except on paper, but has a few million dollars all the same. Oberyn has twenty of these identities, all of which have similar accounts at dozens of different banks around the world, which all together adds up to over one billion dollars. He offers the card for payment and the purchase goes through without difficulty. You get changed in the bathroom before you leave the tourist center, walking towards the hotel hand in hand, when northern lights suddenly appear above you.

“Are you doing this, Valya?” he asks with a smile, knowing he is probably wrong but wanting to believe it could be true.

“If I am, it’s not by choice,” you sigh, looking up at the dancing green spectacle with awe. “I wish it were, though.”

The hotel is as easy to locate as the receptionist suggested, and you arrive to find the doors open despite the clock on the wall next to it reading nearly 11 pm. Only half of the thirty rooms are occupied, so he pays for a night in a larger suite even though the two of you do not require so much space. He just wants you to be comfortable, and the suite has a bathtub, which he feels might be needed to get you to relax.

The hotel uses old-fashioned keys for the rooms, so once inside, he drops them into a plastic bowl on a sideboard in the hall, and then immediately begins to work on the buttons of his coat. You hang up your new jacket, kick off your snowy wet boots, and head straight for the double bed to lay down.

“I feel like I could sleep for a week. But you’re probably not even tired.”

“Not like you, but I could do with a few hours. Adjusting to Tyrannus has taken a bit more effort than my usual transformation. Plus, we don’t know when we might get the chance to rest again.”

Shrugging off the coat, he hangs it up in the hallway closet and sits down on a stool helpfully placed beside the closet, to unlace his shoes.

“And what about food?” you inquire, turning your head towards him as you have undoubtedly not forgotten the green dragon’s appetite and likely draw the conclusion that the much larger white one must require much more.

“Strange though it may seem, aside from a rather unusual craving for pistachios, both my alter ego and I are perfectly fine,” he explains, momentarily wondering if the hotel restaurant might be open, and if he should go in search of some nuts.

However, once the moment passes, he feels only confused by his own hankering.

“But you haven’t eaten anything all day, and you’ve been fighting a lot.”

“Actually, I did eat some unfortunate bystanders in Detroit,” he recalls, which prompts you to sit up on the edge of the bed.

“Detroit was horrible. In every way. All those emergency responders… they died horrifically, and I just stood there,” you remember, and tears form in your eyes at the images which must be burning the insides of them. “I couldn’t do anything.”

“No, you could not have helped them. Those creatures may have been alone, untethered to the greater darkness, but that is also what made them so erratic and unpredictable, though still just as deadly.”

“Yeah…” you agree, turning your gaze down to your own hands, but then something seems to occur to you, as a crease bothers your brows. “But I made one of them stop.”

This surprises Oberyn, who is just about to stand having finished with his shoes, and instead remain still as he waits for you to elaborate.

“I yelled at it to stop, and it did. Just for a moment, and right before you came barreling onto the same street, but it stopped. And it looked angry about it.”

“As if it had been halted against its will?”

“That’s what it felt like, but I can’t be sure. Do you think I could’ve managed to command it somehow? Is that something Lux could do?”

“Possibly. The true power of Day is her ability to spread hope. If you were desperate enough, it is conceivable that you could have forced this creature to stop by using the sunlight as a physical barrier.”

“I can do that?”

“I should think so. You created an entire human being with it, I’d say you could definitely stop one little monster if you set your mind to it,” he winks at you, before getting up and moving towards the bathroom.

“If only I knew how the hell I do these things,” you say as he disappears into the tiled space and turns on the tap for the tub.

“You’ll figure it out, I have no doubts about that,” he replies while checking the temperature of the water, returning to the bedroom before he continues. “On a more positive note, the innocents I killed in Detroit will be the last innocents ever to fall victim to my beast. Nothing like that will ever happen again, because this dragon doesn’t need food of any kind.”

You have your head resting in your hands when he emerges from the bathroom, but you straighten out as you hear his words, and quietly trace his path over to the bed where he takes a seat beside you.

“Really? How can you be certain? You’ve only had it in you for a few hours.”

“Did you not notice the complete lack of stomach acid in there.”

“I did, but I figured maybe you had another stomach somewhere and I just wasn’t far enough through the system to be at any risk of digestion.”

“No there’s only one stomach, but this dragon stopped eating long before Lux changed him. And even when he did eat, it was at a time before organic life had evolved into actual creatures, so he fed only on magma and rocks. It’s what made him grow to such a size and develop those incredibly thick scales.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet. Who needs protein when you’ve got minerals.”

He smiles at you then, even though you are not trying to be amusing, delivering the phrase with sarcasm rather than joviality. You are too tired to enjoy yourself now, so instead of contesting your mildly snarky attitude, he sweeps you off the bed and into his arms in a swift and soft movement, returning to the bathroom where he puts you down in front of the just filled up tub.

“Are you trying to tell me I’m dirty without using any words?” you ask, still presenting the same general irritation, which is why he merely continues to smile warmly while he undresses you.

It takes only minutes for the hot water to begin relaxing you, while Oberyn gently helps you wash your back and shoulders, then your feet, before leaving you to just soak and warm your battered muscles while he steps over to the shower and rinses himself off. He is surprised to find that he has neglected to notice you leaving the tub, when your hands are suddenly returning the favor, rubbing liquid soap into his back. But he loves the feeling, having never experienced such care from a partner before, and remains still to let you work.

Before long, you are both clean from head to toe, which is when the caring touches change character, becoming craving instead. He brings you back to the bed without bothering to grab a towel on the way, abruptly needing you so badly he cannot wait long enough even for you to squeeze the bulk of the water from your hair.

Last night had been soft and tender, but when he enters you tonight, it is with fervency, perhaps even a streak of frenzy, giving you hardly any time to adjust before he is already working up a strong rhythm with firm snaps of his hips, making you jolt with each one. He feels strangely uncontrolled. Fully aware that such treatment could hurt you, but utterly unable to stop himself. Something drives his body which is not so simple a thing as lust. There is a deeper purpose at work, one he cannot discern, but remains a slave to for now.

You seem only pleased with him, though, showing no indication of distress or discomfort, meeting his forceful movements with an equally firm resistance, as if under the same spell he is. The need drives him so relentlessly that he reaches his peak in mere minutes, coming hard within the depths of your being, where he is so warmly received. But you do not follow.

As he stills above you, your body remains unsatisfied, which gives him a sickly feeling to his stomach, because however much he seeks his own pleasure, yours is the real price. But this entire copulation has felt off, which intensifies his disappointment with himself, so when he pulls back, seeking your eyes so that he might beg your forgiveness, he is more than ashamed of himself. He feels rotten.

The feeling leaps away, however, when shock takes its place as he sees your face. Your eyes are frozen, staring at nothing, and the tension in your body has given way to complete relaxation. Too complete.

“Valya?” he whispers, unable to bring any strength to his voice because what he sees within your eyes now is not life.

“Lux?” he tries, even weaker now, hoping merely your human form is lost to him, while the spirit remains.

Your own alter ego taking over, much as the dragon has done to him in the past. But there is no response from you. No breath. No pulse.

-=<>=-=<>=-=<>=-

You feel wonderful. Even when he pounds into you, all you experience is pleasure, wanting more no matter how good he makes you feel. The pressure builds and shifts, flowing through you at different intensities depending on your breaths, which muscles are tense and which nerves are most directly affected. It feels like flying through clouds of pure pleasure, devoid of thoughts or intentions.

And then it just… stops. You feel how he comes, and you’re just one moment away from following up with the best orgasm of your life when everything suddenly goes quiet and still. Not just around you, but in you. No more pleasure, no more heat or sweat or even the cold sensation of the sticky fabric underneath your head, drenched by the water from your hair.

Opening your eyes, you find yourself elsewhere. There’s no Oberyn, no bed, no hotel room. You’re not even sure there’s an Earth. But there is a presence. Nothing around you is identifiable, the best you can come up with is that it looks like something Jackson Pollock might’ve painted if someone had asked him what life on a gas-giant might look like. And yet, something here is familiar.

It’s neither light nor dark, and at the same time it’s both, but it’s almost like your eyes and brain aren’t designed to interpret what they’re seeing, so all you get is a colorful mess with the appearance of a flashlight slowly spinning around in the middle of it. Then you seem to blink, and suddenly you’re staring at yourself, as if there was a mirror in front of you. Only your reflection doesn’t move with you.

“Hello?” you try to say, but no sound comes out, leaving you wondering if you even have a mouth here.

That’s when you realize you aren’t breathing either, so wherever you are, this is a place outside of normal space. You wonder if it could be some form of heaven, although you don’t believe in that, but it also doesn’t seem like it would be. No, in your heart you know this is something else. Important to you, specifically.

Your reflection doesn’t move, but you feel certain it holds answers for you, so you try walking towards it. Your legs don’t seem to move at all, but you still glide closer to the other you, so perhaps all you need to do is think of the movement. When you get closer, her chest starts to glow, as if there’s a shining gem halfway between her throat and her breasts. Then she raises her hands to show you how they’ve started shining as well, right in the centers of the palms, getting brighter with each passing moment.

Eventually, the light becomes so bright you can’t see anything anymore, but your eyes remain open, unbothered by the complete whiteness. And that’s when you suddenly understand what this is. Why it happened in the middle of a moment of passion, you have no fucking clue, but given how important it is, you don’t linger on the inexplicable, taking the win instead.

Because you’ve finally found Lux. Somewhere within yourself, she connects you to this other place. Her world. Outside all other aspects of reality, by the looks of it, but clearly also able to interact with everything, everywhere. She made you, but at the same time, she is you, and here in her world, you’re able to see things the way she does. You understand the power of light and the ways in which you can bend it to your will, as if you’d done nothing else your whole life.

And once everything is clear to you, once you’ve unlocked all this knowledge she put in you from the start, the whiteness turns to dark, gravity returns, your lungs expand on reflex as oxygen once again exists, and you open your eyes to find that the darkness was just the insides of your own eyelids.

Surprisingly, though, it isn’t Oberyn’s face you look up at, but rather two very shocked paramedics, who despite their training, freeze when you come to. Apparently, you’ve been “dead” for a while.

“Oh… Well, this is awkward,” you say to try and relieve the tension, and then there’s a loud racket before Oberyn appears beside you, having risen so quickly his chair fell over.

He doesn’t speak, but his eyes scream of the pain he’s suffered in however long a time you’ve been unresponsive, so to ease his worries, you ignore the urgings of the medical staff for you to remain still, and sit up to hug him. He trembles like a leaf in your arms, holding you very tightly, before he reaches down behind you to pull the covers up over your bare shoulders. You hadn’t even reflected on the fact that you’re naked.

“What happened?” he finally asks, his voice sore with how hard he must’ve cried.

But you smile in return, so filled with hope now that not even his sorrow can dampen your spirits.

“You brought me to the light, honey,” you tell him, and his sadness gives way to confusion.

There’s no quick or easy way to explain what you’ve just experienced, so you settle for the most important part, which can’t be seen, only felt. You reach out and place one hand on the shoulder of the paramedic closest to you, locating the darkness in her heart without effort.

“Don’t worry about your father, Nora. He’s not going to hurt himself, he just needs you to stop and listen to his pain,” you say, feeling her father’s agony through the bond of love between them. “You always want to fix everything that hurts, but sometimes pain has a purpose. Let him tell you about it, and I promise you, he will be alright.”

The middle-aged woman looks at you as if you’ve just reached into her heart and given it a good twist, which in truth, you sort of have.

“H-… How do you kn-…?” she tries, but then sorrow rocks through her, stealing her voice.

To answer her, you let the hand at her shoulder channel the light from your own heart, and it glows for just a second as you pour hope into her being. Her sorrow immediately lessens, brightening her eyes and smoothing the tense lines around her mouth. You smile softly at her, and she nods in gratitude, even though she doesn’t understand what’s just happened, before starting to pack up their gear. Her colleague looks like one giant question mark, but apparently decides not to argue.

They leave a minute later, and Oberyn places a hand at your jaw, drawing your gaze back to him.

“I do not pretend to understand anything of what has just transpired here, but… you are ready now. Aren’t you? To fight.”

“I am,” you confirm. “I know what we need to do.”

“Does that mean we’re going back to America?”

“No,” you firmly state, finally without a shred of doubt within you. “It means we’re going everywhere else.”

Part 11

The Ten Spirits of the World Air - Forest - Water - Stone - Night - Autumn - Winter - Spring - Summer.

Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed it! If you wish to be notified when this story is updated, follow @sirowsky-stories and turn on notifications, or just ask nicely, and I'll tag you.

@harriedandharassed @kittenlittle24 @joelswritingmistress @pedrostories

#oberyn martell fanfiction #oberyn martell x female reader #oberyn x reader #prince oberyn #au fic #game of thrones fanfiction #game of thrones au #modern au #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal character fanfiction #halloween writing #halloween fic #spooky season fic #sirowsky stories

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sol-consort · 30 days

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Not to be graphic but do you think Krogan penis' look like those dragon dildos? Like, is Wrex just packing monstrously? Thoughts?

Please be as graphic as your heart desires. In fact, let's theorise with the whole class on which bad dragon dildos fit the biology of the Mass Effect alien species the closest!

Smut below - linked pictures

Korgans

They are 100% packing monsters down there. Have you seen the size of korgans? I mean, they have heat cycles. There is a possibility they actually knot and have to wait a while, in order for their cock to go soft before pulling out.

Candidate one

A thick head that pops into place, an even thicker shaft that quickly narrows down at the end to make you "swallow" the thing whole in a semi-locking mechanism. It's harder for it to slip out that way, like a plug...a very long and big one.

I like the detail of the blunt spikes on the pubic area. They might feel good to grind against. The subtle ridges at the underside, those must feel amazing sliding against your walls, the bumps increasing and becoming more prominent the deeper it goes.

Humans definitely feel tighter to them. It's borderline painful for krogans. Luckily, the pain and pleasure wires in their brains are usually crossed. There's a noticeable raise below your stomach, where their cock is bulging out. literally making a space for itself amidst your organs and forcing your body to adjust to it. Korgans do get a slight ego boost from it, the humans are so easy to fill out and are as tight as a fist.

Turians

Candidate one

While the size is more comfortable and similar to humans, albet slightly bigger and more curved, the shape and function differ a lot.

The upper half is smooth with a very saturated neon-like colour, slightly florescent in the dark—cum too—rather than there being a defined "head" with a urethral orifice, the whole upper half is responsible for semen distribution. Basically, the whole upper half gets wet with pre-cum the more turned on they get, leaking everywhere. Purposely evolved to become self-lubricant and as smooth as possible to slide in seamlessly with no preparation required. It's also the most sensitive part. They can practically feel it kiss the entrance to your womb/rectum with each thrust.

The lower half is made out of many curves wrapping in around themselves. You feel every vein and large bump the more it slides inside. It's a completely different experience than taking the upper half, which should've prepared you for this by now. It clogs your entrance fully, preventing any cum from flowing out.

That's because...well, they cum in noticeably much larger quantities, made to overflow your insides. That's why burying their cock down to the hilt is so important no matter how intimidating it might seem to take in, their instincts won't let them finish unless they're fully inside you, it's etched into their biology.

Sleeping with humans to them is... hmmm.

In the nicest way possible, if turians had our equivalent of "high-end expensive sex dolls," it would be human shaped. Extremely fetishized, kinda? We are soft, very soft in their opinion. It's not just our lack of metallic plates, but the fact that our bodies are filled out in all the right areas. The way they can see our hips curve upwards into our waist, how they can grab a fistful of a human's ass and just squeeze, the plump thighs, the tender soft chest and completely bare and uncovered stomach.

Even a human's cock looks "pretty" in their opinion. Carefully with their claws with it, preferring to wrap their long together around it and squeeze.

We look like we were made to be fucked, as if our whole evaluationary purpose was to be bred.

The final nail in the coffin was them finding out that human insides are somehow ten times as soft as their outside. Turians can fit their entire tongue in there—the taste is strangely sweet to them despite being deathly allergic to literally every other thing in humans. It's like finding a flower with the most poisonous petals yet containing the sweetest necter in its centre.

The more a turian sleeps with a human, the higher the risk of them getting addicted to human sex. You're pliable and pliant. You don't fight back when they pin you. Turian sex is usually more rough. There is a whole lot great deal of teeth, claws, and other stuff involved. Blood is not out of the question sometimes. A battle for dominance.

But humans just...surrender immediately. At least they interpret our enthusiasm in bed as that. The eagerness to obey, the desperation to be fucked, begging for the turian cum and grinding back against them, meeting them halfway through every thrust. It's their wildest dreams come true, what's a wet dream to most turians is a reality with every human.

Drell

So, a fun fact about their skin! It's covered in millions and millions of tiny scales, giving it the illusion of seeming smooth. It probably feels more on the rougher side.

Which is why I think this is fitting

Candidate one

It's firm to the touch rather than fleshy. You can feel each one of the hundred tiny bumps lining its underside. The head is round and thick, a little tricky to get inside. But once it's in, everything else slides in smoothly, perfectly slotting into place.

It makes your insides adjust to its shape, not the other way around. It almost feels like a fully solid object. The scales gliding against your walls, scrubbing them in the best way possible. No amount of wetness will make its shape any less prominent, practically moulding your insides to memorise every curve and bump.

The scales grow towards the base, resulting in them flourishing out whenever the cock is sliding out, making it easier to thrust in than thrust out, the round head staying inside at all times.

The human body barely recognises the drell cock as a reproductive organ. Your brain's natural reaction is to attempt and push it out, even if you try and suppress it.

Resulting in a semi-spasming motion, the constant involuntary contrast and release of your wall muscles against the drell cock is absolutely driving them crazy, they have to fight an early orgasm each time. You try to explain that you can't control it.

While an oral ingestion of any drell fluids may cause hallucinations, that process becomes much faster with their cock inside you, analy or else, humans are slowly lulled into a state of intoxication which may manifest in euphoria, arousal and haziness.

I'd like to think that their cum is an aphrodisiac to humans, each time they finish inside you, the urge to get fucked again becomes stronger and stronger. harmless human/drell sex can easily spiral into the dangerous territory, hours melting into one another, your body overstimulating their cock constantly, while you're pumped full of aphrodisiacs.

While the rough feeling of their cock is amazing at the moment—partly thanks to your brain swimming in happy chemicals—it will leave you sore for days afterwards. The inside of your thighs are reddish and agitated from being brushed back and forth against the drell scales for so many hours, your insides feel like they're on fire, you can barely sit down without wincing.

There are two ways to remedy this:

A week full of rest, medical ointments, oils and painkillers

Let them fuck you & cum inside you again

Because sleeping with them again will completely wash away all feelings of discomfort as the cycle is reset. If you want a middle ground, a kiss or two, maybe even eating you out will be more than enough to get rid of the symptoms without digging yourself into a deeper hole.

To drell, sleeping with humans is extremely pleasant. Much like the turians' experience, everything in that section also applies to them. Drell bodies are made to account for all of these things in their drell partners... but humans are literally defenceless. Your body has no option but to take it. Not only that, but it's confused to what the thing pushing into them is that it's alien in every sense of the world.

Watching you try your hardest to take their cock inside and resist the intoxication each time, nursing a hangover and a sore body the next week. It fills them with immense guilt, which manifests into actual physical pain for them because that's how their emotions work. It's unbearable. That's why most drell avoid penetration when sleeping with humans, despite how being inside you is the closest to heaven they've ever felt.

#☆drell #☆turians #☆korgans #☆smut #☆human kink #☆galactic species

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felassan · 6 months

Text

I was sent a link to an 'interview with Mark Darrah about BioWare' video that I hadn't seen before. it's called "Mark Darrah on BioWare, Dragon Age 4, & EA's Impact" and [here is the source] link. the interview took place in 2022, so bear that in mind when watching, but it still has interesting insights and things in there. Mark had been invited on to chat after his BioWare Magic video. the video description reads as follows:

“Mark Darrah spent over 20 years with BioWare and has overseen its many incredible RPGs such as Baldur's Gate, Knights Of The Old Republic, Jade Empire, Mass Effect, and most notably on his portfolio, Dragon Age. He was also present during the pre-EA era and experienced much of the changes within the company after BioWare had been purchased by them in 2007. Today, he joins the show for a sobering conversation on the status of this once beloved gaming titan after speaking out in a recent YouTube video of his on "BioWare Magic" in which he holds the developer accountable for their bad processes. The conversation goes into deep waters no other outlet has reached yet, so we do hope you enjoy our biggest interview yet.” [source]

the rest of this post is under a cut due to length.

this post is just some notes and transcribed quotes of interest from the video, in case that's of any use to anyone, for example for accessibility.

Dragon Age: Dreadwolf / 'current or recent general BioWare'

Mark explained the ‘hockey stick’ analogy about game development that he has previously outlined in a video on his own channel. There is a tendency in game development, that is not unique to BioWare, to focus on “microscopic efficiency”, especially so in studios that have gotten bigger and bigger. This ends up building a backlog of content and things being built in isolation from each other, and devs working in isolation from one another. But at some point, a game has to come together for different reasons, like an upcoming demo is approaching or money is running out etc, and when that happens, this completion tends to build upon itself and it ends up happening rapidly. At BioWare, historically the idea of ‘don’t worry, it’ll all come together really fast at the end and it will be great [like magic]’ [I am paraphrasing there] was called “BioWare Magic”. This term is from the late 90s but it still has bubbled around within the studio in more recent times. Mark said, “I think it’s partially because of the way that the leadership works on projects at BioWare. There’s a leapfrogging that happens. So the team that led KOTOR ended up being the team that led ME1-3 and Anthem, but meanwhile, between those games, other games are being done with different leadership teams. So culture can have this weird sort’ve almost, like it takes two steps forwards and then one step back as a new leadership team kinda gets into the driver’s seat. Because basically, what ends up happening is that the team that is closest to ship, at least for the big games, tends to drive the studio to a large degree.” There are other leadership teams in the background at those times, but from a culture perspective they are largely in the background.

Sonic Chronicles had a team of just over 20 devs and Mark led this. The smaller team size meant they had more agility and more ability to control and understand what was going on in a way that doesn’t really exist on larger teams. “Something that BioWare has been struggling with is, BioWare has had big teams all along. In the Baldur’s Gate [era], it was teams of 100+ people at a time, at a time [in the industry generally] when teams elsewhere in the industry were tiny. So BioWare has processes that have been around for a long time that are actually pretty good at dealing with team sizes between, say, 100 and 200 people, but what’s been happening for a while is that those teams have started to get beyond 200.” “What has happened at a lot of other studios, they have processes that work at 60 but don’t work at 150. They’ve had to develop new processes to work at larger sizes. BioWare kind’ve got to skip that step, they didn’t do that, but now they’re having to do that, because now we’re beyond what their processes can handle.”

On what prompted Mark to make his ‘BioWare Magic’ video: “I don’t know, it was just kind’ve, it’d been chewing away at me and I know that James Stephanie Sterling, it’s one of their go-to things, when they’re talking about process, is to go ‘BioWare Maaagic’, when talking about BioWare specifically or just game development in general, because someone did say that, on Anthem, I don’t know who but I do have my suspicions. So I think maybe it was just eating at me for a while. I don’t think anything in particular triggered it.” “BioWare Magic kind’ve became a term that I recognized as something that was being used to kind of paper over things that weren’t great, processes that were problematic, on DAII. Part of the reason it was gnawing at me was I kind’ve felt like this was a term that we had left in the past. We talked this way in the early days of Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights and DA:O, but that we had learned our lessons – I think most people had, but I think there remained enough people in senior enough positions that hadn’t had the experience of shipping as many games, or had been in places where they hadn’t shipped for a long time, or had just kept this romantic view of ‘just keep going, just keep driving, it will all come together in the end.’”

“As to why the revamps of Anthem and stuff [got cancelled], I don’t know. EA has launched things that have fallen on their face, Battlefield 4, Battlefront 2, that then they’ve spent the time to fix, but in the case of BioWare, that hasn’t been the case. That’s not what happened with Mass Effect: Andromeda. Maybe it’s partially because BioWare is doing multiple things at once. If you’re at Dice, and you want Battlefield 4, and it’s a problem, it’s like, well, ‘you better fix it because you got nothing else to do’. Whereas with BioWare, it’s like, ‘well, you could fix it, but don’t you want those resources on Dragon Age or Anthem or whatever’s coming next?’ So maybe it’s that. I don’t know, I’ve thought about this and I can’t.. It could also just be ‘too big to fail’. Battlefield was too big to fail. Anthem wasn’t. It disappointed but it wasn’t a franchise that needed to continue.” “[looter shooters] It’s a tough genre, there weren’t a lot of people who understood it from a dev perspective.”

On the EA “scapegoat” / blaming EA: “I think there is some truth [in it], I do think it’s an easy scapegoat and I think it’s very easy to say, ‘oh, Big Evil Corporation’, but you have to remember that, honestly, I mean BioWare would have probably shut down in 2007 or 2008 if we hadn’t been acquired by EA. The coffers were pretty empty before it got acquired by BG Holdings or Elevation Partners, the company that sold BioWare to EA. There was no money left. So they kept the company going, it’s hard to be too mad at them. I think that EA doesn’t understand what BioWare is. I think EA ultimately understands sports games, and shooters because you can kinda treat them a lot like a sports game and you get away with it, they’re quite competitive. But if you look at the franchises within EA that are not like sports games, The Sims, BioWare [franchises], they’ve struggled with that, they don’t understand and they’ve had a lot of trouble, and so when they look at BioWare, what they see, RPGs are expensive. So what they see is, thee are expensive, they don’t sell as well as Battlefield, what’s up with that? Has EA had negative effects on BioWare? Absolutely, but I don’t think necessarily in the way that people think. So, like, some of the stuff you’ve heard about Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, it’s like, ‘it’s gonna be a live service extravaganza’, ‘it’s gonna be singleplayer’, like that bouncing back and forth, that’s mostly coming from EA, that’s the kind of stuff that you’re getting from EA. But in terms of second-to-second pressure around what the futures of the individual games are, it happens, but that’s usually just rogue executive, not actually EA saying ‘we need this to be more BIG HEAD TURTLE RACING’, that’s not really happening. Or if it’s happening, a decent Executive Producer can judo it out of existence. So I do think, yeah, I mean, was there pressure on DA:I and ME:A to be on Frostbite? Absolutely, like that was politically basically effectively mandated, so there’s been impacts, and honestly I think maybe, since I did the BioWare Magic video, I’ve been thinking about this. One thing that happened before EA was that BioWare games slipped more, like wayyy more, which was probably why the company was almost out of money. So games have slipped since EA, but other than SW:TOR, games have not slipped years, except because of massive externalities. So Dreadwolf has moved, but because of it basically being restarted, but other than those externalities, things haven’t really moved as much. And I think maybe the reason why BioWare Magic maybe worked in the past was because you pivoted eventually and then you just kept going until it was great. If your date can’t move as much, you’ve pivoted and then you run into the date [and crash], and you’re just, that’s what it is, and you’re done.”

On Frostbite and whether the ‘omg Frostbite Bad’ stuff from players is overblown: “Every time you change engines, there’s a consequence to that. I do think there’s a fetishization of engine use by fans, but also honestly by devs. I think there’s a ‘grass is always greener’ [thing going on/mentality]. My feeling is, the best engine to use is almost always the engine you just used. So if you just shipped a game on Frostbite, probably you should use Frostbite for the next one, because you’ve built things to ship that game, so you can build on top of it. There are extreme circumstances where that’s not going to go, Eclipse was long in the tooth and it didn’t look very good, and so it’s hard to imagine that you could continue going down that road and continue using Eclipse indefinitely. Bethesda has essentially done that with their engine and it shows, but it’s left them being incredibly successful. Honestly, the mistake that I think that was made at BioWare regarding Frostbite, it’s again this sort’ve, independence of leadership. DA:I was made using Frostbite and we went in learning the lessons that Mass Effect had learned on ME1 from Unreal, like respect what the engine is, build on top of what’s there, don’t try to force it to be something else. And a lot of stuff was built and then ME:A started in the middle of DA:I’s development and basically started over again from blank DA:I. And then that’s going on, and then Anthem starts, again before DA:I has shipped, and starts effectively AGAIN from a blank sheet. So for me, for BioWare the problem wasn’t Frostbite, the problem was never Frostbite, the problem was we went through the pain of adopting an engine three times when we should’ve done it once.” “I’m sure there was somebody there that wanted DA:I to be on Unreal, but I didn’t feel that from the team as a whole. What I would’ve wanted to see, in a world where resources were unbounded, would’ve been a fast follow of DA:I, something that came out in 18-24 months, built not just on Frostbite, but on the DA:I tech base. I think there was an opportunity there. You know, we’ve pitched all kinds of stuff inside of Frostbite for, in early Joplin, like making the tools available to the public, like modding and what happened with DA:O and NWN, where the tools were available for building modules and things like that. There was no appetite for that within EA at the time. Interestingly enough, right before I left [his EP job], there seemed like there was growing appetite, but now with the latest news on Battlefield, I’m actually wondering if they won’t ceremoniously take Frostbite out behind the shed and shoot it in the head. They’re definitely laying blame on Frostbite for, in the case of Battlefield, which I mean, of all the franchises where I feel that’s undeserved, that would be Battlefield.”

On leaving BioWare at that time a few years ago: “Casey and I did not coordinate our departures. Certainly I didn’t coordinate with Casey. Casey resigned a day after I did. It is possible that I triggered him to resign. I don’t believe that’s what happened. There was timing for other financial things that sort’ve lined up for both me and him that I suspect was probably the trigger for both of us, but we were not coordinated in this. It was frustrating, and was it getting more frustrating? I don’t know that it was, but for me at least, because we were getting to the period where Dragon Age was going to be in the primary driving position for BioWare - I don’t think that anything corporate changed in November, early December of 2020 that triggered me [to leave]. Casey would’ve been in conversations that I wasn’t in, so it’s possible that there was a trigger for him that I’m not aware of.”

Is the idea of ‘omggg classic BioWare’, the spirit of that era, overblown? “I don’t think so. I think that actually, the thing that makes a BioWare game special, for me at least, is the characters, the followers specifically. Obviously when you look at Anthem through that lens, you can kinda see a glaring problem. You have characters, but they’re not followers, not as present as they are in other games. But the funny thing is, we never said that out loud until, pretty much 2019, in the post-Anthem world, was when I think people started to really say out loud like, ‘you know, it’s about the characters, stupid!’ I think we’ve had conversations in the past where it’s like ‘BioWare tells its stories through characters’. There’s been the knowledge, but I don’t think that there’s been the acknowledgement of, say the thing that’s most important out loud and make sure that you’re respecting that. There was almost like, we were too confident in it and we’re like ‘we don’t need this because we can set it aside, we can have characters that are just in your base, we don’t need followers’. It took us saying it out loud to really acknowledge that. I think that that is still true, and I think there is still a pedigree at BioWare that can execute on excellent characters. The reality is, if you look at the story of, frankly, any BioWare game, they’re not amazing, what makes it amazing is you’re experiencing it through other characters, that elevates the story overall. Of course, that’s how it always has been and how it should be.”

On Dragon Age: Dreadwolf and the then-recent reports on its rumored release time [remember this video is from 2022]: “I don’t know where the ‘it’s got 18 months left to go’ measurement is coming from, but timeline, that makes perfect sense to me. They would’ve needed to adapt, and even like when I was still there, we were probably headed towards, yeah, probably towards 2023 even then. So I think that it’s very plausible to me, and I think that if they’ve been able to increase their completion urgency and bring things to further phases earlier, they could be in really good shape. There was stuff getting there when I was still there a year ago, and if they were able to be stable enough to keep that stuff, then they probably have a really good foundation to build upon. And I would think that they probably were able to keep the things that were nearing completion when I left, so, I mean, they probably have, for 18 months out they probably have - so I’m trying to say this correctly. Not that they have more things that another BioWare game would’ve had 18 months out, because that’s actually the problem, tons of things. [but] they have more done 18 months out than any other BioWare title probably has ever had. So a tighter core, maybe not as much stuff yet, but a tighter core, but that will let them go faster when they’re going. Essentially, if they’ve taken the hockey stick, and they’ve pulled this part up, and I think they have, then I think it should put them in significantly better shape going forward.”

One of the podcast/media folks shared the following comment: “What I personally have been told, I never call it a report or a scoop or anything like that because it’s just a sentiment, but the sentiment that had been shared with me [about DA:D] is sort’ve like, ‘we need to nail this’, not like a desperation like ‘we’re done if we don’t’, but like, we want this high score, we want to remind people why they love BioWare games.” They then asked Mark about whether he views DA:D as a “do or die moment” and about what the vibe inside BioWare was around this. Mark: “Not in the early days [of DA:D’s development], as that’s pre-ME:A and pre-Anthem. But I think, in a post-Anthem world, I think ME:A was, could weather that, but ME:A and Anthem together, yeah, I think there is some truth to that. Now would EA shut down BioWare? I don’t know, as you say they’ve done it before [to other studios], also studios become effectively in-source houses for other studios. There are fates that are almost as bad as being shuttered. So is it actually do or die? Honestly, I think the reputation matters more, because if people give up on BioWare externally, why would EA keep them around? If everyone just decides that BioWare is a bunch of hacks doing garbage then why would EA bother? One of the things that has kept EA kind of interested in BioWare is, BioWare is kind of like the sub-arm of a movie studio that makes the Oscar Bait. So maybe that excuses it for some people, it’s like, well yeah, your games cost more and they sell less than the Battlefields, but Battlefield was never gonna win Game of the Year, even if they made a perfect Battlefield, it’s probably never going to win GOTY, it’s the nature of the disrespect certain genres get. Like how you can make a perfect Marvel movie but it’s never winning Best Picture. So I do think that if BioWare is making quality that is respected and making people excited, that gives it leeway within EA that another studio that’s making things that may sell better may not get. So I do think that this needs to be a good game, and I actually think EA knows that too, and I think EA recognizes that, you know, they deserve some of the blame for Anthem and some for ME:A, less, but some. So I think that when they look at that, when they look at Jedi Fallen Order, a game that honestly doesn’t make a lot of sense within EA, it exists in part because it kind of brought in a studio that made it. Like it’s not the kind of game that EA would typically greenlight. But when they see it and that it did well, they’re not stupid.”

How much corporate-speak is there in a ‘I’m leaving the studio’ announcement letter like Mark’s when he left his EP role at BioWare? “So most public things, if it’s on the website, it’s gone through somebody, like there’s legal, it’s gone through somebody to approve a message. One of my frustrations in EA is just how, I mean, I was effectively like second Community Manager for Anthem because they weren’t willing to tell me ‘no’, and so I was able to basically put out messages that wouldn’t have survived the process. But I mean, they didn’t pay me anything to say nice things, I didn’t get paid anything on my way out to be nice, so I do actually believe that the core of Dragon Age remains strong, that there are definitely people there that know how to make a great game, and there are people there that know what the IP is, and I think that they are well-positioned to do that.”

“In terms of what, like, something that made me say ‘no, that’s enough, it’s over’ [re: his time at BioWare], there’s good days and bad days. I don’t know that there was any particular project that made me say no, enough, I’m done. Anthem isn’t the high point of my career both as a leader and also in terms of the product that came out the other side, but I don’t feel like there was a moment of ‘no, we’re done.’”

Other BioWare things

To a degree, BioWare have been a victim of their past success and were just leaning on that, or the thought from upper management was doing so. “I think that’s also partially weirdly caused by the leadership teams being somewhat isolated. I was responsible for shipping DA2. That was a big wakeup call for me and leaders on that project. But other people didn’t experience that, they were on Mass Effect at the time and then they shipped ME3 and had a different blowback for different reasons, but not for the same kind of development reasons, so they learned different lessons than I learned. They learned a lesson about the endings, but not necessarily about the way games come together.”

On Anthem’s failure and the cancelled attempt overhaul Anthem Next: “I think there’s tons of blame to go around for Anthem, certainly part of it should fall on me. For a lot of Anthem’s development, the team, this was before I was on the project, the team was not really recognizing that it was a looter-shooter. So you have to remember that this was a game that started development before Destiny even came out. No one knew what Destiny was except that they were making it clear it wasn’t an MMO. I feel that one of the early mistakes that was made was that when Destiny came out, when Borderlands was out there, there was a reluctance to draw that connection and say ‘this is BioWare’s Destiny or BioWare’s Borderlands’, that gives that clarity and draws that connection. A lot of it just came together really late. The leadership team had lost its ability to make decisions, or had that ability taken away potentially, so there was just a lot of churning happening, and decisions being made and unmade, or being left unmade for a long period of time. But what that means is, when I came in, I’m great at making decisions, and in a vacuum, decisions got made, but what that effectively resulted in is I just took the stick and pushed it down. I’m used to working with a leadership team that pushes back and I think what happened is this leadership team was so desperate, so hungry for decisions to be made, that rather than pushing back on the stick that I’m pushing towards the ground, they’re actually pulling it towards the ground like ‘Yes, finally!!’ And instead of me aiming like this [motioning with his hands like a plane’s downward flight] and the resistance happening like this, I think what happened is this actually caused us to go way too fast [and crash land]. It’s hard for me to see a path where things are actually way better, because we knew a lot of things, we went into the Christmas break before it shipped having not done a complete balance pass through the loot structure, and we did it in this awful hotseat way with QA playing the game 24 hours a day over that break. So we knew that things were shakey, but the team was tired, and you know, EA wanted it in the fiscal year, and the problem is.. so I do see a path [in an alternate universe] where you get a better Anthem, but that path requires the game to basically enter Beta around the time when it launched, and then sit in Beta for six months, say, and then launch in August or whenever that would have been, but EA wasn’t that company then. I don’t know if it’s that company now [video is from 2022], but it certainly wasn’t that company then. It wasn’t prepared to put a game out into Beta for that long and spend the time. I think if we had just spent six more months on it without having gone into Beta, it would have been better, but it wouldn’t have been what it needed to be. It needed to get out into the world and get the pushback.”

“There was a lot of politics in Frostbite [as an engine choice]. It was Patrick Söderlund’s engine when he ran DICE, he was in a very senior position, he could push for it. I think EA still remembers forcing render-ware down everyones’ throat and that blowing up in their face. So I think they’re reluctant to mandate it simply to save a few bucks. At the time, when DA:I, I can’t remember if it was me or Aaryn Flynn, at the time I would’ve described, Unreal was like a NASCAR car. A good fast car, you can go in a race. At the time I would’ve described Frostbite as a Formula One car. Way faster but way harder to drive, and if you don’t know what you’re doing, in a NASCAR you can probably not kill yourself. In an F1 car, I think you’re gonna plough that thing into a brick wall in 3 seconds and you’ll die. And that’s what you’ve seen happen with Frostbite in that sort’ve time period, back in the 2012 - 2015 time frame. Teams that approached the engine with respect did well, teams that didn’t ploughed their car into a brick wall. But I don’t know that that analogy still holds, I don’t think Frostbite is still the graphically-superior engine to Unreal anymore. Back then it made sense to use Frostbite, we could get a better-looking game using Frostbite than using Unreal. I question if that is still the case.”

“In its very core EA is a publicly-traded company. I haven’t worked in a senior level at other publicly-traded companies, but it is very visible. It is difficult to move a game between fiscal quarters. It’s virtually impossible to move a game between fiscal years, because of just like, that is the way the company, I’m not gonna say it’s run by its CFO, but sometimes it feels like it’s run by its CFO.”

DA:I was a victim of the moment in time it was made in, when open-world games were like taking over the universe. “It’s bigger than it needs to be by somewhere between 20-50%.

The team made DA2 in very difficult circumstances and were very aligned the whole way through.

The perception of a game in its first week after launch can make or break a game forever. This put a cloud over DA2. “Though it’s become the BioWare game that’s most fashionable to love, second after ME:A. DA2 was flawed because of the pace at which it was made. ME:A was flawed because things like bugs and things that should’ve been caught escaped. ME:A is a better game now than it was at launch [patches].” “DA2 has sort’ve recovered from the initial kneejerk reaction it received. ME:A has actually repaired itself into a better game.”

“I don’t think there was a reason that ME:A was excluded from the remaster [MELE]. I mean, the easy answer would be, it’s on Frostbite, the others are on Unreal, so to include it means just from a logistics perspective, it’s just a lot of extra work. I mean honestly, it still looks fine, so it’s not in as desperate of a need of a remaster either, it’s not on last generation.”

On the difference in design philosophy between DA:O and DA2 and why it happened: “It’s mostly marketability. The marketing for DA2 was supposed to be ‘tree houses and frat houses’. It was like, we’re gonna make sure that the game is appealing to the people that love DA:O as the tree house, but we’re also gonna make this thing that’s AWESOME and EXPLODING. The problem is, what happened in practice is that the marketing kinda forgot the tree house completely and didn’t market to them at all, and leapt into the frat house marketing and only made this sorta thing of ‘bruuuh! Bro! You can totally bro, bro!’ It’s essentially a victim of confirmation bias. The marketing said, this isn’t DA:O, this is a heavy metal guitar riff of a game, and then when you played it and it’s more action-y, you just went yep, it’s exactly what I was worried it was going to be, and you basically discounted it. There’s a love-hate relationship with even the term ‘RPG’. I think we’ve grown past this as an industry but also BioWare has as well. I think, ‘RPG’ is seen as inaccessible, that only a very small amount of people are willing to play, so there’s been an attempt to say like, you know, this is the kind of game that anyone could enjoy, to try to reach a branch out to other people. Accessibility does matter because RPGs are expensive, so you want to make something that can appeal to as broad of a group as possible, or alternatively, you need to decide that you’re making a game for a smaller group of people and scope and budget accordingly. The other universe path for DA:O would’ve been to stay in the vein of, effectively, turn-based or pause-n-play, tactical RPGs, and accept that the game sells 4 - 7million copies, 7 on the very upper end, and budget accordingly. So that’s where EA has an influence. If there are two options, EA are definitely gonna say you wanna go for 10 million. And honestly, one of the things that I think that has hurt Dragon Age has been, it’s never been allowed to just be what it is, it’s always been, much more than Mass Effect, it’s been subject to, ‘but could you be more, could be more accessible, could you be bigger?’ Even though DA:I is the best-selling BioWare game of all time, and before that I’m pretty sure it was DA:O. I think because Mass Effect has a cultural impact because of N7 that Dragon Age simply doesn’t have. ME has genius branding.”

[source and full watch link]

#dragon age: dreadwolf #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #video games #anthem #mass effect: andromeda #next mass effect #jade empire #long post #longpost #(ty for sending me this link!)

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all-things-ghostly · 8 months

Text

The Beast of the Blood Moon

Werebat! Alistair Crump x GN Reader

Warning! This fic probably isn’t going to be for everyone! Aside from the end, it’s a little dark - CW for somewhat graphic transformation (starts with the first ~~~ below the cut and ends at the second), Alistair having a bad time, animal death and consumption, blood, small reader injury.

~~~

Okay I was originally not gonna post this and just keep it to myself because I thought it was too niche but then I remembered what kinda people Alistair fans are and went through with it anyway LMAO

I apologize if it drags on or feels like a mouthful. I had used this as an opportunity to practice description-heavy fics instead of relying on dialogue so I don’t have as much experience with this. Please be nice to me lmao I’ve been kinda beating myself up during the writing process-

With Alistair’s death came an array of changes. In many ways, he hardly resembled the person he was when he was alive. His form had gone from decently built to thin and skeletal, grey skin pulled tightly over it without much muscle mass left. It was difficult for him to move how he used to, especially without the support of his cane, which is why he was almost always floating and rarely walking. The structure of his face was completely different - everything was all sunken, uncanny, and corpse-like. There was so much he could point out that he didn’t like about his new body, but we’d be here for too long.

Needless to say, he looked like a monster. He felt like a monster.

And after a while, he actually started to become one.

Alistair thought that death would be the end of it all, but he couldn’t be further from the truth. Throughout his first few years of ghosthood, Alistair only continued changing. The first thing he noticed was his teeth - they had initially begun to straighten themselves out a bit, which made Alistair happy, but that was only so that they could get bigger. Much bigger. And sharper. This had especially impacted his canines, which had grown long and pointed, so much that they barely even fit in his mouth anymore.

Then came the rapid claw growth. Whenever Alistair cut his nails, he would wake up the next morning to find them the exact same length they were before. He couldn’t do anything to stop it. Eventually, he just gave up and let them do their own thing, at which point they stopped growing at a certain length and instead became reinforced into strong, durable, sharp claws. To be honest, Alistair quite liked them. It was one of the few new changes he actually didn’t mind that much.

The worst thing, however, were the blood moons.

Full moons nourished Alistair. They gave him strength and power beyond imagination. Lunar eclipses, on the other hand, slowly became his downfall. The first one he experienced after his death made him feel nauseous with a slight toothache, and that was about the worst of it. But with each consecutive blood moon, the symptoms got worse. He got brain fog. White fur started growing on his chest and limbs. His cloak would painfully fuse to his back. Luckily it all went away in the morning, but the experiences left Alistair dreading the next blood moon.

The 13th eclipse was the peak of it all.

That was the night the spirit truly lost himself. The night he transformed into something far more horrific than he could have ever imagined. It absolutely terrified Alistair to have no control over his body like that.

Every time he transformed into that… thing, Alistair only started hating himself more. For years and years he tried to deal with it, but nothing could ever tame the beast within him.

Then, a century later… a new mortal moved in.

~~~ You glance outside the window and check on the position of the moon. It’s almost midnight, when the effect will fully set in. Behind you Alistair clutches his heart and leans against the wall. He looks to be in pain.

Alistair has never told you exactly what happens to him on lunar eclipses. He’s mentioned it to you before, especially in recent times as the eclipse drew closer, but he would always hide the exact details. It’s something he’s always been self conscious about and refuses to elaborate on. All you know is that whatever happens to the ghost is supposedly very dangerous, for you and for others.

You’re lost in quiet contemplation as you stare out the window, feeling sorrow for poor Alistair, when suddenly a loud crash and thud behind you tears you away from your thoughts. Turning around frightfully, you notice that Alistair has collapsed and is leaning propped up against the wall. His hat is crooked and he’s panting heavily like he’s in severe distress. You rush away from the window, getting down on the floor so you can be eye level to him.

“What’s going on? Are you alright?” You ask, putting a hand on his shoulder. The texture of his cloak beneath your hand catches your attention. Looking at it, you notice that it’s begun to change shape and feels more… organic than usual.

“Y/n, please, I told you that you need to leave,” Alistair pleads with you between grunts of pain. “I won’t be myself. I won’t remember who you are. There’s no way for me to guarantee that you will be safe, that I won’t hurt you. You cannot stay here, please.”

In a sudden and startling turn of events, Alistair cries out, gripping his head with his claws. Something is happening to him that makes you immediately pull your hand away from his shoulder and scurry back…

His cloak…

It’s starting to move on its own.

The way it moves reminds you of something from a horror movie, like bones snapping into impossible, grotesque positions. Accompanying the rigid movements of the cape is a sickening cracking noise that makes your stomach turn. Throughout it all, Alistair starts to scream, as the fabric is quite literally welding itself into his body and becoming a part of him.

“I said leave, Y/n!” He shouts once more, falling onto his hands and knees. Alistair’s form trembles violently, and with yet another cry, what was once his cape fully transforms into a massive set of bat wings with an impressive wingspan. The wings spread out wide in an intimidating spectacle while Alistair continues to struggle.

Hurried footsteps pound down the eastern hallway, and in comes one of the mansion’s ghostly servants, attracted by the noise. She takes a second to assess the situation and notices Alistair convulsing on the floor. Her face falls. Then she notices you.

“Oh! Er— come here, dear,” she urges, nervously scurrying over to you and gently grabbing your wrist. Her eyes are filled with deep fear and concern. “Let’s go. I know a safe place you can hide for the night.”

She tries guiding you away, but you resist. All you care about right now is Alistair. The poor man appears to be suffering immensely at the hands of his transformation. Right now, he’s currently attempting to push himself up off the ground, but he’s too weak and just falls over again with a little whine.

“Alistair…” you mumble.

Sensing your sympathy, the servant’s eyes soften into a gentle expression. “I know you’re worried about him, but he will be alright in the morning. Now come on, right this way, right this way…”

She starts to softly pull on your arm, leaving you no choice but to follow her and leave Alistair behind. The last thing you see is him keeling over before you get dragged out of the room and brought into one of the guest rooms down the hall.

Now, Alistair is left all alone in the foyer of the mansion. Aside from his wails, the house is completely silent, since all of the other inhabitants have hidden away for the night. There was no one to help him as he went through the next stage of the awful transformation. Unfortunately for him, the wings were only the beginning. He barely even got a minute of relief before he felt that dreadfully familiar burning sensation deep inside of his body.

Snap.

Bones began to break and expand at unnatural rates in order for his form to change. His spine grew longer and more jagged, making his frame tall and imposing. The bones in his legs snapped and reformed to become digitigrade like that of a wild beast. Additionally, Alistair’s arms and bony hands became larger in order to support a nasty set of vicious claws that could effortlessly tear into prey. Even his very skull began to warp and change into something more animalistic. It was awful. Alistair’s throat was starting to hurt from all the yelling and after a while the only sounds he could make were strained, guttural cries.

Not to mention the way his flesh had to grow to match his new skeletal structure. Though he maintained his lean shape, his arms and legs became more muscular, as well as his back muscles that helped propel those massive wings of his. Alistair could hardly describe what it felt like, but the way that his cells had to rapidly mutate beyond human capability was insufferable. Mostly, it felt like a hellish burning. But there was also a strange, stinging-aching feeling associated with his insides stretching out and body changing shape. For the last step in the body mutation, a pair of large bat ears sprouted from his head, and he gained the last few kinds of animalistic features he needed: paw pads on the bottoms of his feet, a proper bat muzzle, and even larger fangs, to name a few.

Finally, it was over. The hard part, anyway. His fur still needed to grow in but that was painless.

Alistair, completely exhausted, laid curled up on his side, trembling and whimpering pitifully. He struggled to catch his breath after everything that just happened and panted like a wounded animal. Scattered all around him were the remnants of his clothes that had burst at the seams during his transformation. Suddenly he was glad everybody left the room, otherwise they’d have… quite the view.

While he rested, his beautiful fur coat started to grow out, starting at his limbs and torso and continuing to spread from there. The fur was longest on his chest and crotch area (which worked in his favor, considering he had no clothes on that would otherwise cover things up) and it was surprisingly soft. It was almost funny how soft he was considering how the rest of him just seemed so monstrous.

For the first couple of minutes, Alistair did nothing but lay still and breathe. He was still very spent and needed a minute to adjust to his new form as a werebat. But it wouldn’t last for long. Because he knew that very shortly, the hunger would set in. Hunger so insatiable that he would do anything to feel warm blood and flesh beneath his fangs.

Just at that moment, his bat nose twitched when he caught the scent of something far in the distance. He sniffed the air a few times to get a better feel for it… some sort of large prey in the woods behind the mansion. His maw started foaming immediately, he just couldn’t help it… whatever was out there should surely be enough to sustain him for the night.

Alistair, with newfound vigor, starts to push himself up off the ground. At first, he feels very unsteady since he’s not adjusted to his body yet, but animal instinct quickly takes over and he rises to his feet. Standing at just over 7 feet tall, Alistair’s werebat form is an absolute menace. His animalistic mind has now been completely consumed by bloodthirstiness and the idea of his next meal. Assuming an aggressive position, Alistair puffs his chest out, spreads his wings, and flares his claws, just before releasing a screeching cry so shrill that it echoes throughout every hall of the mansion, shaking the very foundation it rests upon.

Immediately after he calls out, Alistair rears his head and charges at the mansion’s front door. It shatters effortlessly against his mighty form, and with that the giant bat escapes the mansion unharmed, flying into the night in search of his prey.

~~~

“Come on, come on…”

The beam of light coming from your flashlight sputters and flickers from what you assume is low battery, or perhaps old age. You give it a good few hard smacks. Now is hardly the time for it to malfunction.

The spirits of the mansion had kept you sequestered away in one of the guest rooms for about an hour, trying to defend you from Alistair. And, while you appreciated their concern, you were worried about him. From the room you were in you could hear his pained, miserable screams.

Which meant that you also heard the sound of him destroying the front door and fleeing.

Since all of the other spirits were hiding away in their own separate places, it was rather easy for you to sneak out unnoticed. All you took with you was a flashlight and a small dagger, just in case. Not that you could ever use it on Alistair. It just made you feel a little safer wandering into a dark, wooded area knowing that you had a weapon with you.

The flashlight beam finally stabled itself out after the last hit. You point it out into the tangled woods behind the mansion and try to find any evidence of Alistair. Considering he flew, it’s not like you could go off of animal tracks or anything, so it was proving to be a little difficult. But you were determined to find him.

Finally, you start to take some hesitant steps into the forest. The trees had grown long and twisted, some of them even being over a century old, which blocked out the moonlight and made it even more difficult to see. All you really had going for you lighting-wise was some crappy flashlight that was likely crusted over with battery acid. The forest also had that typical Louisiana humidity to it, even at night. You had to shoo off more mosquitos than you would have liked.

You walk for quite a bit of time, shining your flashlight over the ground and trees, before you find anything. The first sign you noticed were deer tracks on the dark soil. Not necessary anything related to bats, but you instinctively feel like you should follow them anyways. They seem to go on for a far, far distance, all in one direction, as if the creature was running from something…

Suddenly, you start to feel a bit paranoid.

You even began having second thoughts about turning back. Still, though, all you could think about was Alistair. He was somewhere all alone out here, stuck in a monstrous body he couldn’t control. Something could happen to him; what if he got shot?

You have to pull through, for him. So against everything telling you not to, you keep trekking through the woods.

At one point in the trail, there was a moment where the tracks suddenly stopped. Instead, there was a spot where dirt, leaves, and soil seemed to be scattered and kicked around, forming a large messy crater in the ground. Usually, you would’ve thought nothing of it, but for some reason it felt deeply off-putting.

After staring at it for a moment, you hesitantly decide to keep walking forwards. But it doesn’t get any better. Now, there is a large, long streak in the ground, as if something had been dragged through the dirt. You shine your flashlight over it, and notice something even worse splattered through the foliage…

Blood.

The sound of shifting leaves in front of you makes you jump out of your skin. You don’t dare look up.

The beam of your flashlight starts to waver from the way your hands begin to shake. More odd noises come from just a few yards away… snarfing, growling, noisy chewing. You already know what it is but you don’t want to look, you don’t want to look, you can’t look at it don’t look at it don’t look it at it—

Your flashlight sputters. Then flickers.

Then dies.

Oh, of course.

The flashing light seems to attract the attention of the beast in front of you. Without your only light source, it’s so dark that you can barely make out the silhouettes… and a pair of glowing yellow eyes bearing right into you.

Very, very slowly, you try to step away. The creature continues to stare unblinkingly at you as you move, keeping a large, clawed paw on the half-eaten deer carcass in front of it. Even as it lowers its head back down to take another huge bite, its eyes never leave you. You don’t know what to do. You can’t move.

You stand there very still for the next good few minutes. In that time the beast has managed to reduce the cervidae to nothing but a pile of bones. When it finishes eating and licks its maw, you hope that it will lose interest in you and walk away. But of course not. Instead, it stands up to its full height and starts creeping right over to you, the slits of its pupils so slim that you can hardly even see them.

For a moment, it steps into the moonlight, allowing you to see it clearly.

It’s Alistair, alright.

Looks like you found him after all.

Even as a werebat, something about its appearance makes you immediately recognize it to be him. Perhaps it’s the somewhat messy white fur that covers his body, fading into a grey color in a gradient manner towards his forearms and shins. Or it could be those giant dark grey wings that remind you so much of his cloak. His face, ears, hands and feet were a slightly lighter shade of grey than the wings, reminding you of his usual sickly skin tone… but most importantly, it might be those eyes of his. Those soul-piercing yellow eyes that could make the blood of even the bravest being run cold. You would recognize them anywhere.

You do your best to stay still as he approaches you. It might sound stupid, but you feel like running would only trigger him more. Alistair comes up to you, his massive figure towering over your shaking body, and you feel like this could be the end.

He leans down and gets so close to you that you can see the individual blood stains on his fur. But surprisingly, he doesn’t attack right away. Instead, his snout buries into your hair, and then your neck, sniffing around… he seems curious about you. Eventually he pulls back and grabs your wrist.

“Um, okay,” you stammer, scared absolutely shitless but following him as he drags you off to a small cave just nearby. It looks to almost be like… his den? The inside is decorated with various bones and skulls, as well as beautiful vines along the walls and some baskets full of fruit or other little snacks. Alistair pulls you over to a large pile of animal pelts towards the back of the cave and sets you down gently. Perhaps it’s his nest?

You’re feeling very confused. Especially when he plops down next to you and starts sniffing at your neck again and clothes again. Alistair’s face scrunches in confusion, as if he’s trying to place something, when suddenly he pauses and looks right into your eyes, his slit pupils dilating into a more gentle expression of recognition.

He remembers you.

It’s like a switch is flipped. Alistair’s large, strong arms pick you up and place you right into his lap, where he continues to examine you. Even if his brain is too fogged over to remember what you look like, he seems to recognize you by your scent alone. Which is honestly just really adorable.

He then carefully lifts you up so that you’re eye level and starts to rub his soft head along your face and neck. It reminds you of a cat rubbing itself along your legs to mark its scent on you, which is essentially the same thing he’s doing. It’s fascinating to see how differently he shows his affection in a more animalistic form - he may have a more feral, primitive mind now, but he still has his ways of showing that he loves you. After he deems you sufficiently marked, Alistair buries his soft little muzzle into the crook of your neck again…

…and then bites.

No, not like a cute little nibble or anything. He sinks his fangs right in and breaks the skin, just at the spot between your neck and shoulder. Considering how he showed no signs of hostility beforehand, you’re completely taken by surprise. In fact, you don’t even register the pain at first because you’re so shocked.

He holds his fangs there for about 10 seconds and then slowly lets go. Left just next to your shoulder is a massive, bleeding bite from his fangs. Your eyes are still widened in complete shock, but Alistair seems unphased. He was just acting on natural instinct.

See, the bite wasn’t meant to hurt you. He had actually carefully adjusted the force of it to where it would break the skin and engrave deeply but not cause any permanent damage to the nerves or flesh. Instead, he made it just deep enough to create a permanent scar on a visible area of your body. He was giving you a mating bite - a mark on you that would show everyone, both human and beast, that you were his.

Alistair’s long tongue gently laps at the wound to clean it. His saliva seems to be numbing it for you, lessening some of the stinging pain left behind (and, as a bonus, he gets a little snack out of the blood). The werebat seems to know that his fangs hurt and is now acting very tenderly towards you to make up for it. His tongue works diligently until the bite mark naturally clots and is ready to be properly treated later.

Once he’s finished, Alistair makes a low growling noise and leans back onto his nest with you on top of him. His large arms wrap tightly around your body and hold you so close that your face gets smothered in his long chest fur. Breathing him in, you notice that he has somewhat of a woodsy musk smell to him. It’s honestly quite pleasant. He starts to purr, a deep, rumbling purr that you can feel the vibrations of as you rest on top of his fluffy underbelly.

“Oh, well… I guess you’re actually a little bit cute,” you mumble at him, freeing an arm so you can scratch him underneath his ear. Alistair’s purring gets louder, and his eyes start to close in pure contentment. It’s… really, really adorable. Normally, Alistair would get pissed off if you tried babying him like this. But right now? Just like any other creature, he could never deny some good scritches.

The cute little (or rather, not so little) monster nudges up against you like he wants more. Who are you to deny him? You take both hands and start rubbing his soft face, even giving him a little kiss on the nose, which makes his big bat ears twitch. Now, under your touch, he’s no more intimidating than a lap dog.

Alistair especially loves it when you start to pet and scratch his fluffy belly. His purrs become so loud and deep that it reminds you of a dinosaur. His large bat body stretches out to expose himself as best as he can to you for more rubs, his leg kicking joyously when he receives them. He just feels so… relaxed.

He wasn’t used to that. Feeling relaxed. Not only in werebat form, but as regular old Alistair Crump, too. Normally he was much too shut in and reserved to let someone get close to him, nevertheless touch him. And as a werebat, Alistair was constantly under the stress of trying to control his violence and rampages. He has never once been able to just settle down and let someone pet him like this.

Perhaps that just means that you’re someone he feels safe around.

After a while, you notice him starting to yawn. The large bat looks very sleepy, having been relaxed by your gentle, comforting touch. Alistair makes another little purring sound and pulls you close once more. His warm tongue starts to sweetly lick at your lips, almost like he’s giving you his own little version of kisses to thank you for all of the affection you gave him.

Finally, he settles down and wraps his arms and wings against you, cuddling you as if you were his own little stuffed animal. You notice that as he drifts off to sleep, his eyes are gentle and dilated. It’s a sign of how calm he is. The calmest and tamest the beast has ever been.

Maybe, all this time, he only needed a gentle and understanding mate.

And who better to fit the part than you?

#alistair crump #hatbox ghost #haunted mansion #haunted mansion 2023 #my writing #alistair crump x reader #werebat #monster x human #monster x reader #the haunted mansion #hatbox ghost x reader

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