#me @ anon about their banters: this is the first of many - thank you for getting me to post this

[chuluoyi]

✎ protect

- gojo satoru x reader

the word “protect” now means so much more to him

genre: soft and playful gojo, sugary dump fluff, pregnant!reader

note: anyone craving some soft gojo? :3 based on a suggestion by an anon who needs a soft gojo a while back, thank you!

a part of gojo's love entries

general masterlist

When he was 16, Gojo Satoru thought that protecting other people was a pain, and didn't take it seriously.

Later, when he realized that even non-sorcerers deserve to live their lives in peace, he dedicated himself to becoming stronger so that he would be capable to protect them more. However, even then, he didn't perceive their worth as significant.

But when you entered the picture, that measly, glorified word suddenly became so much more.

Usually people would only care about whether he had succeeded his mission or not. His formidable reputation as the epitome of strength means no one is genuinely interested in his wellbeing—no one after Suguru, to be exact—until you did.

After a whirlwind romance of attraction and banters, Satoru reached the conclusion that he wanted you, the only person left who actually made him feel like a human, to stay happy and safe. He would do it with his own hands, even if it meant reshaping this cruel world to be kinder for you with him as your shield.

And the word “protect” gained an entirely new meaning years later, when he rested his head on your swollen belly—the place where his new cherished treasure was growing.

“When will he come out~?” he asked in a whiny tone and a blissful smile, even though he clearly knew the answer.

You shook your head with playful resignation, unable to conceal your smile. "In three weeks. Now help me get comfortable, you dork."

He helped you turn over and fetched a pillow to place under your aching spine. Then, with a mischievous grin, he lightly poked your belly with two fingers, eliciting a yelp from you.

"Don't poke me! You're poking your child!"

To that, Satoru merely threw his head back and snickered like the dumbass he was. He then tenderly rested his hand on the taut skin of your belly, gently massaging it, smiling with ardent happiness.

"Can't really believe it," he sighed, brimming with the purest sense of contentment. "A mini Gojo, huh... You're really doing a honorable work."

A child of his and yours. He had always wondered how he would be after seeing him firsthand—would he laugh just like he had been doing now, or will it be the first instance that move him to the point of shedding tears? One of the reasons he eagerly anticipated his son's birth was just to discover how he would react.

Seeing the weight of his baby growing within you, making you rounder and fuller, stirred a deep well of warm emotions in him with each passing day though.

"I am," you retorted cheekily, rolling your eyes. "In fact, you should be revering and worshipping me for carrying your spawn."

He merely hummed in a childlike manner, feeling his baby move around under his touch. You were about to roast him again with something funny when he leaned down and planted a kiss on your tummy, whispering to it.

"Please come out already~ Papa wants to meet you!"

Your heart swelled with warmth at that moment. Gojo Satoru was many things, but he wasn't typically known for his softness—he was often seen as this all-perfect being, and so witnessing him acting purely on his human emotions brought you a sense of happiness.

“Who do you think he’ll take after?” you mused.

“Hmmm. Me, obviously. He'll be hot just like me!” he quipped proudly, and you playfully smacked him on the arm.

Satoru caught your hand and kissed it tenderly amidst his grin. "But I want him to have your personality. I'd hate to see him be a show-off."

"So you do realize that you're actually a menace."

He laughed out loud, patting the generous swell of your belly again with a smug look on his face.

"I know, but I'm your menace, and that's all that matters."

And when his adorable son was born less than three weeks later and you passed out due to sheer exhaustion, Satoru vowed by everything in the heavens and the earth that he wouldn't spare anything to protect you and his child from this curse-filled world.

Epilogue - on the night of the birth -

“Satoru—” you panted, grimacing, head jerking back as your womb throbbed and pulsed in order to bring forth your child into the world. “I… feel like I’m going to faint…”

Worry etched his face as you leaned on him. “Hey, hey… Calm down sweetheart, relax and catch up on your breath, okay? Don’t worry, he’ll come out soon.”

Somehow his words rubbed you the wrong way.

“Hahh—this… is because of you! This happened because you shoved your stick into me! You horny bas—aahh!”

“Well, hey! Last I remembered, you begged me to put it into you! And I'm not—pfft—”

“Then what are you?!”

“Hmmm, nothing but a man who got you pregnant, sweetheart~”

“If I bleed out and die, it’s going to be your fault, you evil, wretched sorcerer!”

[sugrhigh]

FIRST OF MANY - ( m.s )

REQUESTED**

summary- you and matt have been dating for over a month now, and you’ve never had sex. his curiosity gets the best of him while you’re watching a romcom, and you find out he’s actually a virgin.

warnings- swearing, virgin!matt, technically unprotected sex, smut at the end (lmk if i missed shit)

virgin!matt x fem!reader

a/n: this is my first req that i’ve ever done, so THANK U TO THE ANON WHO LEFT IT i hope it lives up to your expectations ❤️ if u have ideas drop them in my inbox ! all da love

there is literally nothing matt likes more than spending the night in with his girlfriend, as corny as it might sound. it’s been well over a month of dating now, and he still can’t get enough of you.

the warmth of your body is comforting as you lay beside him on the sofa, dressed down in sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt. he has one steady arm wrapped around your shoulder so he can hold you against his chest.

he breathes you in as his fingers skim absentmindedly up and down your exposed bicep, a familiar mixture of laundry detergent and citrus shampoo.

“that feels nice.” you mumble into his shirt, eyes still glued to the tv.

you’re forcing him to watch friends with benefits, since he picked the last movie and you were in dire need of a romcom fix. it’s one of your favorites, mainly because you loved mila kunis so much in that 70s show.

it’s only been on for roughly thirty minutes, but matt’s been enjoying it way more than he expected considering this genre is not his norm. he’s even let out a couple laughs at the scripted jokes.

the main characters are in bed together again, rolling around as they banter back and forth about sleeping with each other. it sparks a fire of curiosity inside of him as he continues to stare at the screen.

“is this really what it’s like?” he asks without thinking, and he immediately regrets his words as you tilt your head to look up at him curiously.

“what, the sex? don’t act like you don’t know.” you say, playfully smacking him with the back of your hand.

matt isn't sure why he brought it up, but he figures now is as good a time as any to have this dreadful conversation.

“how could i know if i’ve never done it?”

he feels you tense up slightly under his arm, which scares him. the last thing he wants you to think is that he’s some sort of loser. he just hadn’t found anyone that he really wanted to be intimate with before he met you.

it’s not like you guys don’t fool around sometimes. he’s perfectly capable of using both his hands and his mouth; this is a fact you’ve been made well aware of.

you two just haven’t gone all the way yet, especially considering you hardly ever get real alone time together.

“you don’t have to lie about the girls you’ve been with just because we’re dating now.” you finally respond, quieter than before.

“oh my god, i’m telling the truth, so please don’t make me say it again.” he can’t look at you anymore, because he’s too embarrassed.

this makes you fully sit up in shock, no longer focused on the premise of the film. he can feel you staring at the side of his beet red face, clearly confused by this revelation.

“wait, are you seriously telling me that you’re a virgin?” you question.

matt glances back at you and crosses his arms defensively, because it suddenly feels like he’s under attack. “you’re making me seem like a freak or something.”

he watches your eyes soften as you put a tentative hand on his shoulder, trying to let him know that you weren’t making fun of him.

“shit, i’m sorry, i swear i didn’t mean it like that. it’s just…really surprising, that’s all.”

“surprising how?”

you pull your lips between your teeth, exhaling through your nose as you try and find the right words.

“well we’ve done stuff before, and you were just naturally good at it, so i assumed you’d learned from hooking up with other people. and i know girls must have liked you with a face like that.”

this boosts his ego, and he’s already in a much better mood knowing he’s at least made you feel good in the past. that doesn’t mean he’s not still terrified, but he’s a little more confident than he was before.

“nope, not really. you’re the only one i’ve ever done that kind of thing with, aside from a little making out.” matt admits with a shrug.

your lips part, and it’s making you feel all fluttery.

“wow.”

he smiles a little bit. “i don’t know what that means.”

“it doesn’t mean anything really. i’ve only had sex a few times, and it doesn’t change anything either way.” you move your hand up and down his arm a little bit.

the tv plays in the background, and your mind flits to his original question.

“are you curious? is that why you asked?” you tilt you head toward the screen, though you keep your focus on him.

his eyes go a little wide, and the feeling of your hand on his arm suddenly becomes overwhelming.

“yeah, i—uh, i guess i am.” matt stumbles over his words, and your fingers travel higher to run through his hair slowly.

“you don’t have to be nervous. you can ask me anything you want, i’m not gonna judge.” you say softly.

your fingernails raking along his scalp makes him shudder slightly, a response that you both enjoy.

“i’m…more of a hands-on learner.” he rasps.

you let your fingers travel to rest on the back of his neck, drawing him in for a soft kiss. it’s short and sweet, and his eyelids flutter a bit as you pull away.

“what do you want to do?”

he pauses for a moment before deciding to give in and say what’s on his mind. “nick and chris aren’t home. maybe we should go to my room?”

you grin, nodding your head like you’re in a trance. you’re both trying to hide your giddiness as you scramble off of the couch, carelessly tossing the blankets aside.

you can feel him staring at your ass as you lead him through the hall, and he gives it a little smack of appreciation.

“matthew sturniolo!” you laugh, turning the doorknob to his bedroom.

it greets you warmly, and you always love it because the whole place smells like him. the overhead light is off; it’s just the singular lamp casting warm rays across the mattress.

“couldn’t help it.” he says, smile prominent in his tone as he locks the door behind you.

you slow to a stop at the foot of his bed, and he stands at your side, hand intertwined in yours. it makes your heart swell as he admires you with those charming eyes.

“are you sure? we really don’t have to, there’s no rush.” you squeeze his palm reassuringly.

matt lets go just so he can hold your head, kissing you hard as an answer. you literally can’t help but beam into his lips, and you put one hand on his chest to push him against his silk sheets.

he falls onto his back, propping himself up on his elbows so he can keep looking at you. you crawl on top of him, slowly settling on his hips.

he sucks in a shaky breath as you shift against him to get comfortable. you can feel matt growing harder beneath you as you lean down to give him another swift kiss, letting his mouth melt against yours.

then you move to his earlobe, pressing your lips to the hollow part of his neck. you swipe your tongue against his skin, biting down just a bit so you can suck on the area slightly.

he groans, laying down now so he can move his hands to grip your ass, pushing you against him harder to feel a little more friction. the thin material of your sweatpants doesn’t hide a whole lot, and he’s straining against you now.

“you’re so cute, baby.” you say against his skin, and his hands go to the bottom of your shirt, pulling it up over your hips.

you lift your hands from his chest so he can fully remove it, leaving you in your stretchy black bralette.

“god, you’re unreal.” he breathes, and you guide his palms to cup each of your breasts, still rocking against him slightly as you straddle him.

you can feel him squeeze your nipples between his middle and pointer fingers, whimpering below you as he starts to get worked up. you’re growing wet by the second, the delicious feeling of his clothed dick rubbing against you sending shocks of satisfaction right to your core.

“do you wanna keep going?” you ask, just to make sure he’s still on board.

“please.” he begs.

you move his shirt up his chest, and matt sits just high enough to rip it over his head. you trace the tattoos on his arm faintly, trailing a finger down the center of his stomach till you hit the waistline of his sweats.

“you’re terrifying.” he smiles as you slip your hand under the band of his boxers, slowly scratching the area gently.

“why?” you ask.

he grabs your waist and flips you so you’re the one on your back, feet hanging over the edge of the bed as he stands.

“because everything you do is perfect.” he says, and this time he’s the one that goes to your pants, grabbing the soft material and looking at you for permission.

“that is so not true.” you grin as you lift yourself up to help him.

he strips them off your legs and tosses them away blindly, so you’re left in your matching thong. the spandex-like material hugs your sides, the last layer standing between what you both truly want.

“i mean look at you.” he sounds dumbfounded as he gazes at your body, and you feel your face flush from the attention.

“trust me, i’m the one who’s punching.” you reply as he strips down to his boxers, dick clearly pressing against the plaid cloth. you’ve seen it before, on two occasions to be exact.

both of those experiences were great, and you didn’t know that was the first time a girl had ever given him head. now you know this is the first time he’s having sex, and even though it’s not the same for you, you’re still a bit nervous.

matt’s a little above average, and the last and only person you’ve ever done it with is your ex, so it’s been a minute. even so, you’re so enthralled with your boyfriend that you can’t help but pulse in excitement.

he pushes your legs apart with his palms, and air rushes across the wet spot that’s already formed over your panties. two fingers press against the fabric covering your heat, which shocks a gasp out of you. he moves them in a little circular pattern, applying more pressure so he can really feel you.

“love your fingers,” you rock with his pace, speaking through a moan, “but i wanna make you feel good too.”

“oh, okay. so i should…” he stops his motions to go for his own underwear, finally sliding them down so his hard length springs free.

you’re already working your own bottoms down your thighs, and he finishes the job for you once his hands are free.

“do you have a condom?”

“uh, shit…” you can tell by the solemn look that crosses his face that he doesn’t, and you let out a short laugh.

“it’s okay, it’s alright, i’m on birth control. we’ll be more prepared next time.”

his eyebrows shoot up before he can help it. next time. just the confirmation that this will happen again makes him disgustingly happy.

you wiggle up on the bed a little bit, so he has enough room to hover on top of you. he leans down a few more inches to give you a kiss, and you can tell he’s unsure what to do next, so you take control.

“don’t put it inside yet, just slide it against me a few times.” you try and instruct, and he follows well, dragging the base of his shaft up and down your wet cunt.

you let out a little noise of pleasure, and he wants to save it as a sound bite in his memory.

“okay, slowly, go ahead.” you say after a few more seconds spent enjoying the feeling, and both of you make sure he’s lined up properly.

matt looks you in the eye as he pushes inside, taking his time as you adjust bit by bit. he lets out a moan when he’s fully filling you up, shocked by how fucking amazing you feel.

you know he’s stretching you out, but the small pinpricks of pain subside as you get situated.

“you can start moving now, just keep it gentle at first.” you guide him, voice all choked up.

he nods, his long hair almost tickling your forehead as he starts to pump in and out at a leisurely pace. you’re both groaning messes, and your hands go to claw at his back as he keeps pace.

“fuck, you’re doing so well matt.” you mutter against his chest, pressing open-mouth kisses to his collarbone.

he’s getting into it now, finding a good rhythm and relaxing his hips slightly so he’s not as stiff. your bodies are molded together as you move back and forth, and matt can feel you clutching against his cock with each stroke.

“m’not gonna last much longer, angel.” he confesses, clumsily stumbling over his words as he tries to calm himself down, to keep it in just a bit longer.

“that’s okay, babe. tonight is all about you.”

he’s growing sloppier, and matt leans in to kiss you passionately as he gets closer and closer. surprisingly enough, you can feel the pressure building in your own stomach, and you’re both whining into each others mouths as your tongues mesh together.

“right there baby, i’m close too.” you breathe, and you can feel his body trembling against yours, one hand slipping underneath your bra so he can run his thumb over your nipple.

matt holds it all back, drilling into you as hard as he possibly can with the energy he has left. he loves the way you’re scratching at his back, pulling him as close as possible as you both reach your peak.

“i’m—fuck, oh my god.” he tenses up, and you feel him twitch inside of you as he comes undone.

his own reaction is what sends you over the edge, and you ease into the high, letting yourself finish all over him as he slows to a stop.

“yes, matt, holy shit.” you sigh, and he pulls out carefully moments later.

matt flops down beside you, rolling to press his lips to your cheek. you turn your head slightly to look at him, capturing his mouth with yours for another real kiss.

“i think i could get used to that.” he says with a small grin as he pulls away, and your ruffle his hair lightheartedly.

“lucky for you that was just the first time of many. so how was it?” you ask him.

he’s just opening his mouth when a loud pounding erupts on the door, and you both nearly jump out of your skin at the disturbance.

“hey! open the fucking door, we brought you guys mcdonald’s!” chris screams through the barrier.

you both look at each other, still grinning, and matt can’t help but roll his eyes.

“well, being alone was nice while it lasted.”

[lilacs-stars]

shattered reflections

pairing: morgie le fay x fem!reader (requested) (note: reader is merlin's daughter) SUMMARY: you, the perfect child and student, have always been the epitome of righteousness. but what happens when you encounter a particularly annoying VK one night, when you're out doing something you're not supposed to? GENRE: pure, unbridled, heart-wrenching angst (I recommend a box of tissues), action scenes, some light humor, a bit of comfort, flirty banter CW: absent mother, neglectful father, family troubles, cursing, magical fighting, a bit of blood, threats, mentions of violence and stealing, heavy emotions WC: 15.2k (to those of you hungry for morgie fics…you have been fed) BACKGROUND: the mirror of ytirev is pronounced yih-tur-ev, the spells are all in latin (for anyone wondering)

A/N: this got a loooot longer and deeper than I thought it would...seriously how did we get here. I had fun adding some touches of light humor to offset the angst, and experimenting with different pov's was nice too. sooo go get comfy and settle down, and have fun reading this! (the ending is worth it I swear). thank you to the anon who requested this for all the details, I hope you enjoy! all feedback is highly appreciated, I'd love to know your thoughts and reactions!

A piercing clatter sounds from somewhere behind you. You whip around, eyes locking with snake-like slits glowing in the dark.

Shit, you think. 

They finally discovered my secret.

“…can anyone explain to me the properties of goblin mucus?” the teacher of your Magical Artifacts and Antiquities class asks.

A hand shoots up, causing a smile to spread on her face as she calls on the student—only to be met with the reply, “Miss, it says in our textbook that there’s a highly powerful and dangerous artifact stored here, in Merlin Academy. What’s that all about?”

The teacher’s smile falters for a brief second, but she answers the question regardless. “Yes, every class today has asked me about that. It seems like it’s only the dangerous objects that attract students’ attention. Class, turn to page two hundred seventy-five, where there is a more detailed explanation.”

Everyone flips through the pages of their books, more eager to learn than they’ve been for the entire lesson. Your teacher waits a moment before continuing.

“As it says in your textbooks, the Mirror of Ytirev is indeed kept in this school, although it is locked away in a very safe and secure place. For everyone’s safety, and the Mirror’s security. Now, can anyone tell me how it was created?”

You raise your hand swiftly, already knowing the answer from having read this chapter before it was even covered in class, along with the next three chapters. “After the creator of the Evil Queen’s magic mirror originally made it, he accidentally dropped it on the floor, causing it to shatter. He reconstructed the mirror using the larger shards, which became the famed mirror that eventually ended up in the hands of the Evil Queen. But there were still many miniscule fragments left from the first mirror, so he melted them again and made a smaller, weaker version of the Evil Queen's mirror. The small mirror is known today as the Mirror of Ytirev.” 

Your teacher beams again at your perfect recitation. “That is precisely correct, Y/N. Although I don’t expect anything less from the headmaster’s daughter, of course.

“This mirror has the ability to show its user exactly one truth, an answer to any question. But since its original form was shattered, its magic is no longer stable. That’s why it is covered in this chapter,” she continues to the class. “As you can see in the image in your textbook, it is a portable artifact, putting it in Category D, Type Three.”

You look down at your textbook, studying the picture of the mirror, despite having looked at it before. It depicts a vintage handheld mirror, encased in a detailed and ornate silver frame that surrounds the glass itself. The intricate carvings of the metal create symmetrical twin arches at the top of the mirror, ending in fancy loops. In these arches two bright red gemstones are set, their edges cleanly cut and shining brilliantly. The glass of the mirror looks almost cracked, although you know it isn't really.

Just as the thought passes through your mind, someone calls out, “Why is the mirror cracked? I thought the creator fixed it.”

The answer pops up in your brain before the teacher even opens her mouth, but you still patiently listen to her as she explains to the rest of the class. “It’s not really cracked, it just appears that way to anyone who looks at it. The only time someone can see the mirror’s smooth surface is if they’re staring directly in the eyes of their own reflection. When someone does this, it is rumored they will see the truest form of themselves, the truth they desire the most.”

Someone else raises their hand, and the teacher calls on them this time. “So,” they ask, “you can get the answer to anything from that? Like how to become rich or live forever?”

The teacher masks what you can tell is a rather displeased look with yet another—fake—smile. She turns to face the entire class, a telltale sign that the student said something wrong. “Now, as we all know, there’s always a price to magic. When it comes to this mirror, due to its unstable powers, there are many prices.”

She continues her lecture, one that provides you with absolutely no new information, but being the ever-diligent student you are, you continue to listen intently. “If you look at the next page, it explains that anyone who wishes to use the Mirror must first present an offering that is very dear to them. If the Mirror accepts the offering, it allows the person to ask their question.” “And if it doesn’t?” your classmate asked.

“Does anyone know the answer to that?” The teacher looks around the class, before her eyes land on you. “Y/N?”

You brighten up at being called on, before rattling off the information as if it was common knowledge. “If the Mirror doesn’t accept the offering, or if it becomes displeased for any other reason, it will drag the person’s soul not to enlightenment, but to eternal torment. They will end up losing their mind and going crazy, with any form of intelligent life getting absorbed by the Mirror.”

“Correct again,” your teacher praises, and you beam. “And if that's not enough to ward any of you off, keep in mind that everyone who has ever used the Mirror has gone completely mad. No one has ever obtained the answer they sought; instead, they were all lost to its evil spirit. And let me assure you, many people throughout history have attempted to use the Mirror, only to fail. Therefore, it was voted as too dangerous for any beneficial uses by the Department of Magical Security. That is why it is contained here, under the watchful eye of our very own Headmaster Merlin.” 

At the mention of your father, everyone turns to stare at you, as if you’re somehow the reason the Mirror is locked up. Despite the stifling moment of silence, you shrug off the unwanted attention. After all, you’re used to this. Used to the looks that other kids give you when you receive special attention from teachers for being the smartest one, for always raising your hand, for answering questions perfectly, for acing every test and having every homework assignment completed—yet refusing to share your answers (“But if I tell you the answers, how will you ever learn?”). 

Used to the whispers that follow you everywhere you go, rumors of your family life; how your mother must have left because of your father’s bad habits, or neglect, or because she was having an affair with another man. Constant reminders of the past.

Used to how everyone walks on eggshells around you, how they all put you on a ledge far away from them. How people’s conversations quiet as you pass by, afraid you’ll go and report them to your father at the slightest whiff of mischief. How they always eye you when they pass notes in class or plan a prank—as if you weren't already aware of what they were doing—sometimes even begging you not to tell on them.

Used to how teachers and adults in your life expect the absolute best of you. Even when there’s no more left of yourself to give. 

How they expect you to be the absolute best, a paragon of righteousness. You always have to determine the right decision, make the right call, be the epitome of morality and virtue. This is your burden to bear, all by yourself; instead of worries over bad grades or boys, you suffer under the crushing weight of the expectations of everyone around you. The expectations of society.

Briiiiiiingg! The sound of the bell marking the end of class snaps you out of your musings. “Um, Miss?” you ask, raising your voice to be heard over the sounds of everyone packing their bags.

“You didn’t tell us what our homework assignment is for tonight.”

“Oh, that’s right! Thank you for reminding me, Y/N,” the teacher exclaims amidst a chorus of groans, along with a few colorful words directed your way. “Everyone, please finish up chapter three and be prepared to turn in your report on seventh century runes by the start of tomorrow’s class.”

After all, you’re used to how right they are about you.

…Or so they think.

“Oh good, Y/N! I was looking for you all over, you know,” a panting, all-too familiar voice calls out from behind you. You freeze in your tracks, grimacing. After a deep breath, you paint a smile on your face, before turning around.

A tall man, although much shorter due to his slouched posture, hurries towards you animatedly. His short, dark brown hair is matted against the top of his head, and a thick, bushy beard trails down from his chin, rounding above his mouth in a matching mustache. He dons a pair of thin spectacles that hang low on his large nose, dressed in a dark blue robe with faint golden embroidery and a waistcoat to match. A little brown stick juts out from a hidden pocket inside his robe, an object you can only assume to be his wand—which you are quite shocked he hadn’t lost today yet.

“Dad!” you say as enthusiastically as you can muster, but if anyone had been looking closely, they would have seen the way you ever so slightly cringe as he stumbles towards you. You silently thank the heavens that this man doesn’t pay much attention to anything. Not even to his own family.

Merlin clambers towards you, gripping one of your shoulders once you’re within arm’s length. He pants, leaning his weight on you as he catches his breath.

“Dad, what is it?” you ask him, trying your best not to fall over from supporting him.

“I-I…k-keys,” he wheezes.

“You lost your keys?” This certainly isn't the first time he’s come to you with this problem, and you definitely won't bet it'll be his last.

He nods, clutching his chest as his breathing finally evens out. “Phew,” he says, letting go of your shoulder. “My spare keys to my office…I can’t seem to find where I’ve put them.”

“You mean that big ring that has a copy of about every single key needed to unlock absolutely anything in this school?” you ask, incredulous at the way he nods feverishly. Honestly, how he doesn’t see the issue with what you just plainly pointed out is beyond you.

“Nope, haven’t seen them,” you reply. “Have you checked under the counter? Inside your desk drawers? In the little pockets sewn in the other pockets in all of your robes? On top of a clothing rack? Under the vase of orchids? In the fish bowl? In the left sock from your pair that has those reindeers on them?”

He nods at each one, sometimes hesitating as if recalling something deep in his memory , but then continuing to fervently nod nonetheless. You sigh again. “Well, I don’t know then. I suppose you’ve found someplace new to hide them this time.”

“Hmm…” he mutters, scratching his beard.

“Well, Dad, I don’t know if you heard, but I, uh, I made top student of my year last quarter. For the fifth consecutive time,” you mention, trying to ease into the conversation, albeit very tentatively and with great unease. Most people’s parents would applaud them and give them a prize for merely getting an A. Yours, on the other hand, barely remembers which grade you’re in.

Your father snaps his head up, staring at you with an eccentric haze in his eyes. You feel a small glimmer of hope; maybe he’s going to give you a pat on the back this time, or perhaps offer to take you out for a celebratory dinner. You wait for his response, completely still as if frozen in time, anticipation buzzing throughout every nerve.

“Wait…I believe I put it in the mouth of that owl statue…” He freezes erratically, brow furrowed in deep concentration, before releasing the tension in his body and going back to slumping. “No, I think I already checked there.”

You take a nice, long, deep breath, using up every last ounce of your carefully practiced self-control, which you had perfected through years of deploying in stifling social situations that made you want to crawl out of your own skin, to remain calm in this moment. “Well, I hope you find it.” Giving him one last attempt at even a semblance of a smile, you sharply turn back around on your heel, continuing down the hall to your first class of the day.

Watching the early morning rays of sunshine through the tall windows of the corridor, you think back to the discussion you had yesterday in your Artifacts class. You had answered every question correctly, every fact written in ink not only committed to memory but etched into the very foundation of your brain. 

You wonder if he knows of all the hard work you put into school. All the grueling hours you spend studying, all the sleepless nights you spend fighting against your body’s very nature to stay awake and keep your eyes open just enough to read the page. Heck, you wonder if he even remembers that your birthday is coming up next month—or that you gave him your wish list ages ago to ensure that he gets at least one present you asked for, unlike other years.

No, of course he doesn’t remember, you remind yourself. He doesn’t care about me. He never did.

Just like he didn’t care about Mom when she disappeared.

“Ugh, my nail chipped again. I should find the girl who did these and squeeze her to death.”

A tentacle floating in midair tightens and coils around nothingness, miming the strangulation of an innocent soul with a disturbing nonchalance. A girl with dark skin and long locks in colors such as blue, teal, and yellow, done up in a small bunch on top of her head, checks the painted nails on her left hand with a scowl on her face. 

“Come on, Uli, you’re getting your nails done like, every week,” the god of the Underworld replies, indifference practically seeping through his spiked leather jacket as he chews gum and gives the sea witch a look. “At least find yourself someone better.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Uliana snaps, dropping her hand exasperatedly as she huffs.

A sorceress with purple eyeshadow and two sleek, black horns protruding from the sides of her head rolls her eyes as she complains, “This is so boring.” 

“Well, what do you suggest we do then, love?” a crisply accented voice asks, sounding from a boy with neatly parted brown hair and a golden hook that ends in a sharp, gleaming point.

“Did you hear that there’s a, like, super dangerous magical object being kept here?” Maleficent asks, somehow keeping her voice incredibly monotonous and deathly uninterested, even as her words themselves convey enthusiasm. 

“Yeah, apparently it can tell anyone anything they want to know,” Hades replies. “I don’t know why they’re keeping it here, though.”

Uliana turns back to the group, a malicious glint in her eye. Even before she opens her mouth, the boy with powers rather similar to those of a snake can already guess what she’s going to say.

“How about we go steal it?” she asks, a wicked grin already twisting onto her features.

“You do realize that everyone who’s ever used it has gone mad, right?” Hook asks, raising his eyebrows incredulously as he gives Uliana a look of disbelief.

“We won’t use it ourselves, idiot,” she snaps. “But it’ll be fun to steal it and cause a panic. Right, Morgie?”

Morgie swallows, looking up at Uliana with wide eyes. “Of course! C’mon, you guys. Think of the mischief we can cause with it! We can make people think some kids used it and went crazy”—he leans in, excitement growing as he speaks, making wide gestures with his hands—“and everyone would be so scared! They’d probably cancel school, too!”

Uliana grins diabolically again. “Morgie, honey,” she starts, slipping one of her tentacles under his chin, lifting his face up towards her. “How about you do this one?”

“I-I, uh…” he stammers, uncertainty laced in his voice. He definitely wasn't expecting this turn of events.

“Come on, please,” Uliana pouts. “Do it for me? After all, you’re only stealing a little mirror. How hard can that be?”

Morgie glances up at her again, before tugging uncomfortably on the black scarf wrapped around his neck. “But…it’s super dangerous…”

“Don’t you want to be evil? Don't you want to wreak havoc and cause pain?” Uliana taunts. “Or, are you”—she lets out a faux gasp—“afraid?”

“N-no, not at all!" Morgie exclaims, trying to sound more courageous than he feels. “I’ll do it!”

“Perfect,” the sea witch coos, removing her tentacle arm. “You’ll do it tonight.” She turns back to the group, adding, “I hear that old troll keeps the most dangerous and evil artifacts locked up in a room off the east wing, on the third level.”

Morgie gulps, already trying to wrap his head around the fact that he’d be doing the heist tonight. Hook, jumping off a ledge, asks, “You mean the one guarded by different spells and magical alarms?”

Uliana grins wickedly. “Nothing a little bit of Kraken Powder can’t fix.” She holds up a small vial hanging from a string around her neck like a necklace. It's common knowledge how incredibly rare Kraken Powder is, which makes sense, given how potent its anti-magic properties are.

Everyone catches on to what Uliana's implying, causing the group to all laugh together at their evil plan. Morgie tries his best to join along, but he can’t quite seem to get rid of the uneasy knot already forming in the pit of his stomach.

“You remember the plan?”

Uliana’s slippery tentacles glisten under the moonlight, flailing around behind her in midair. Morgie nods, attempting to still his quivering hands before Uliana notices them. He tries, with a miserable sense of impending doom, to swallow the lump in his throat, but to no avail.

“Here, I stole these from Merlin’s office,” Uliana explains as one of her tentacles drops a large ring filled with probably around two dozen keys, each in various shapes and colors, straight into Morgie's open palm. “One of these has to fit the door. You didn’t forget what you need to do, right?”

Morgie clears his throat, choking out a meager, “Yep.” He pockets the keys, seriously hoping they don’t clink together and make too much noise while he moves. As Uliana already repeated a hundred times, “It’s crucial you don’t get caught.”

Morgie reaches up to touch the vial hanging from his neck yet again, making sure it’s still there—after all, better safe than sorry. Once more, he glances at the large grandfather clock in the common area where he and Uliana lurk in the shadows, waiting. Finally, its bells chime midnight, and Uliana turns back to him as the ringing reverberates around them.

“Go, hurry!” the sea witch urges, pushing him toward the door with a tentacle. 

Morgie nods, hurriedly rushing to the exit. The first part of the plan—a plan he so diligently committed to memory—is for him to sneak out while the bells are still ringing, to mask the sound of the door opening and closing. Thankfully, he makes it out by the tenth chime, carefully closing the door to make sure the latch doesn’t sound by the eleventh.

Okay, I’m really doing this, Morgie thinks as he stares into the deserted corridor. He tiptoes around silently, but still as quickly as possible. Time is, obviously, of utmost importance in missions like this.

At last, he reaches his destination. The unassuming—and misleadingly so—wooden door looms over him, ominous through the lens of his knowledge of what lies beyond it. 

An amateur villain would simply pick the lock and open the door, but Morgie is too experienced in such endeavors to make a rookie mistake like that (Uliana told him what to do, step-by-step).

He hovers his hand above the lock, taking a steadying breath as he summons the powers that reside within him. His pupils shrink into the tiniest slivers of blackness as a dark, magical smoke emits from his palm. He makes a faint hissing noise, reciting an old incantation in a tongue far different from what normal humans use, and the lock softly clicks as the door creaks open. Practically inviting him inside.

Morgie pushes it open the rest of the way, making sure to shut it behind him so as to not raise the suspicion of any night guards roaming the halls.

He turns back around, now faced with a dark, menacing hallway. Walking slowly down it, he looks around with a chilling captivation. Old suits of armor leer down at him, rustic and each coated with a thick layer of dust. Large spiderwebs cover every visible nook and cranny, which makes Morgie exceedingly grateful that the actual spiders aren't in his line of sight.

At the end of the corridor stands yet another large door, matching the first. This one, according to Uliana, has even more security than the other. Time to use my secret weapon, Morgie thinks, reaching to pull the vial of Kraken Powder out from under his shirt. He opens the cap and sprinkles a little of the finely grained dust into his palm, then blows it over the lock of the door.

At first glance, it appears the powder didn’t work, as nothing seem to change. But anyone with an affinity for magical energy can feel the spells placed on the lock of the door melt away without a trace. After the door is unarmed, Morgie fishes in his pocket for the keys. They clang horribly as he pulls them out, echoing up into the tall ceiling of the hallway. He freezes, listening intently for footsteps somewhere outside. When he hears none, Morgie begins the task of figuring out which key fits the lock.

He goes through nearly half the ring (Seriously, who keeps all their keys in one place?) before finding the one that fits perfectly. Twisting it with a swift movement, the door unlocks, and he creeps inside. 

To his immense shock, there isn't a room behind the door filled with evil objects or piled with gold coins. Instead, there’s a…

…library?

Morgie walks inside, utterly confused. Had Uliana gotten the location wrong? No, there's no way. The doors were too guarded for a normal library.

He continues down one of the aisles, wondering why he's never seen this place before. It is extremely large, with arched ceilings meters and meters above his head. Tall bookshelves tower over him, so tall that he can barely see the highest shelves.

Lined against the walls and placed on the shelves are also glass jars and containers filled with seemingly normal items: a seashell necklace, a deck of playing cards, a cane with the head of a snake. But there's something sinister about them; some strange aura that hovers above each object. In fact, it fills the entire expanse of the library. 

Morgie stops by one of the shelves, reading the titles. He brushes his fingers along one of the spines—and that’s when he feels it. An ominous energy rushes through his fingertips, electrifying his every nerve at it travels through him, causing him to realize that this is no normal book. It’s a book of dark magic.

He spins around in a circle, eyeing the entirety of the library. Now that he thinks about it, the whole place has the heavy atmosphere of dark magic. And that’s when it hits him: this is no normal library, and neither are the books. This is the room of forbidden artifacts. It just so happens that most of those artifacts are books, probably containing content deemed too dangerous for normal people to learn.

Morgie briefly considers taking a few of the books off the shelves and perusing through them, or maybe even slipping a couple in his jacket and taking them back with him. After all, all these forbidden books must have countless evil spells and potions. If he and the rest of his group got their hands on these…

However, after a moment of serious consideration, he decides the better of it. He's here for another purpose, and Uliana would be outraged if he only came back with a few meager books, no matter the contents.

Continuing through the labyrinth of shelves, Morgie looks around meticulously, trying to figure out a rhyme or reason to the order of things. No student has ever been in here, and he doubts many of the teachers have, either. Therefore, there were no references or guides to help him and his friends figure out where in the room the Mirror is located. Plus, he doesn’t think any of them had expected the place to be so colossal—he surely hadn't.

After a few minutes of stumbling around in the near darkness, he finally comes across a ladder leaning against one of the shelves. It’s so tall he can’t see the top of it, but deciding it’s his best chance at finding his bearings, Morgie begins the long climb up.

He isn’t really afraid of heights. Not in the way that some people refuse to go on anything more than a few feet off the ground. But he honestly doesn’t see how anyone couldn’t feel at least a little queasy at the high altitude. I must be a dozen meters off the ground, Morgie realizes as he glances down. I wonder what would happen if I fell—

He cuts the thought off before he can imagine the gruesome details. Instead, he looks back up and around the library. From all the way up here, he can see the top of the shelves, and he really was right: this place was designed to be a maze.

On the far side of the area, his eyes spot lots of glass cases reflecting the soft moonlight and flames of enchanted candles. That must be where most of the objects are kept. Chances are, the Mirror’s there too.

He mentally charts out a course through the labyrinth, trying to remember the directions for more than two seconds. Right, left, left again, forward, right, right again, left, forward—or wait, was it right? After a few minutes, he climbs back down the ladder, praying to the demons of the Underworld that he remembers the path correctly and doesn’t get lost.

Morgie makes his way through the maze, growing more and more fascinated by the creepy and wonderful objects around him. He can’t stop thinking about how nice—and useful—it would be to pocket some of them, or maybe come back here and spend more time studying them. Every time he passes by something that intrigues him, his mind immediately wonders if it would fit inside his clothes.

Despite this, he resists the urge to steal things, as he can’t have anything weighing him down in case there are more challenges or enchantments he has to disarm before getting the Mirror. But perhaps on the way back…

His train of thought drifts away as he finally reaches a large area that is surrounded by glass cases, on tables and lining the shelves set into the walls. He never imagined there would be so many forbidden artifacts in total, much less in one place, although maybe that's because he's never really paid attention in class.

From the top of a shelf a few meters away, something catches his eye. A mysterious, eerie white fog pours from one of the highest shelves, dissipating as it cascades down the front of the bookcase. He remembers hearing something about mist related to the Mirror, and deciding it’s worth a shot, he moves closer to check it out.

And that’s when he sees it.

A dark flurry of movement from another one of the top shelves catches his attention. Morgie snaps his head up, brows furrowing as he squints, eyes trailing the structures above him. But he can’t quite make out anything, at least not in the faint light, so he hesitantly shrugs it off and continues towards the mysterious fog—albeit not being able to shake off the strange feeling he has that makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

He takes a few more steps, and just as he's nearly convinced himself he’s only being paranoid, it happens again. Now that he’s closer, he can see there’s another tall ladder reaching up to around where the movement is happening, close to the Mirror. This time, his eyes register the shape. 

A dark, human figure moves up the ladder, blending in and out of the shadows. 

Morgie’s eyes grow wide, pupils shrinking back into snake-like slits as a reptilian hiss escapes his mouth. There shouldn't be anyone else here.

The figure freezes in place before turning around to face him, hanging halfway up the ladder. Although Morgie can’t see their face, concealed by a thick black hood, he can tell they saw him. 

He stretches out his arms, summoning black magic that swirls around his hands and up to his elbows again. After but a second of him and the hooded figure staring at each other—which somehow felt like an hour—Morgie throws his arm forward, aimed for the figure.

A ball of twisting dark energy shoots from his hand and towards the hooded face. The figure ducks down, dodging the attack. Undeterred, Morgie hurls more swirls of dark magic. The figure dodges the first few of them, but they must have realized that merely ducking down won't be enough to win this fight, because they summon a shield of buzzing yellow electricity to block the next few attacks.

Morgie quickly becomes aware that he isn’t winning the fight like this; he needs a new strategy. And that’s when he spots it.

He puts his hands close together in front of his chest, gathering a potent sphere of black magic between his palms. The figure stands there, motionless, still hanging onto the ladder.

If you can’t knock them down, pull the carpet out from under their feet.

He thrusts both of his hands forward, sending the ball of magic not at the figure, but at the base of the ladder instead. By the time they realize what he's doing, it’s too late.

Morgie’s magic collides with the bottom rungs, exploding the material and sending wooden splinters flying everywhere. He watches as the figure falls, swiftly summoning a flash of lightning below them as they plummet, easing the crash as they hit the ground. 

The aftermath of the explosion has Morgie ducking down and covering his face with his arm, barely being able to make out what happened to the hooded person. As the dust finally settles, Morgie spots the figure get up, gripping their head as if in pain. They stumble a little, then bush off their black robe as they check for other injuries.

As if abruptly remembering why they had fallen, they spin around to face Morgie. He stares, wide-eyed in pure disbelief, as the figure comes face-to-face with him. Even though they don’t seem to be too hurt, and definitely still alive, the force of the impact caused their hood to be knocked off their head.

Morgie’s mouth drops open as he registers the figure’s face.

There, in front of him, in the forbidden archive harboring some of the world's most dangerously powerful magical objects during the dead of night, stands the headmaster’s daughter.

Your grimace grows as you lock eyes with a boy with light brown hair, hazel eyes shrunk into slits resembling a snake’s, causing your head to throb even worse.

You watch as the realization dawns upon the boy’s face, cursing the skies for this little issue that you now have to deal with.

He knows your secret.

“Y-you, you, you’re the headmaster’s daughter,” he sputters out, disbelief still painted on his face, as clear as day. Seriously, if he keeps his jaw open like that, it’ll fall off.

“Yeah, no shit,” you spit back, not paying much attention to his stunned little face. Your mind is overwhelmed with a swirling whirlwind of thoughts and ideas on how to get rid of this new liability, each plan vying for your attention, each one crueler than the last.

After all, now that he knows who you really are, how you're not a rule-abiding goody-goody, there’s no point in keeping up your sweet, innocent facade. You finally let your mask slip off, the mask that you wear constantly in the presence of others. The mask that you only relieve yourself of when you’re all alone, with no one to see your callous, vindictive, cynical side. Your true side.

Ever since that day, at least. The day that forever changed your life.

“What are you doing here?” the boy stammers, as if it isn't already dreadfully obvious.

“The same thing you’re doing here.” “How do you know what I’m doing here?”

You sigh, rubbing your temples. Honestly, this kid could not be more of a dunderhead. “Look, I don’t have time for this. Either get out of my way, or I’ll make you get out of my way.”

At your threat, the boy, whose name you happen to remember from a class you took with him last year, changes his stance. Morgie widens his legs, arms fanned out besides him whilst summoning dark energy that clings to his skin, alive and breathing, yet submissive to its master’s will.

“Aren’t you like, a goody-goody?” he asks, face still scrunched in confusion. “I’ve heard teachers go on and on about how good your grades are, how polite you are, how you’re the perfect student.”

You roll your eyes, annoyed at his relentless questions. It 's already bad enough that he knows this much. You don't need him finding out more.

“Well, looks can be deceiving,” you respond as vaguely as possible, hoping that it’ll shut him up. Instead, he cocks his head to the side, shooting back, “I don’t really think so.”

You try your best to not encourage him and his irritating questions, but you can’t help but begrudgingly ask, “How so?”

Morgie looks at you for a beat with an intent gaze, before replying, “I always thought you were too pretty for a hero.”

Uh, excuse me, what? you think. Now it’s your turn to be shocked. “You don’t find me scary?” You had always assumed that people would be terrified if they saw your real, unfiltered side.

“No, not really. I mean, I’m evil too. If anything, I find you even hotter now that I know you’re not a goody-goody.”

Blinking hard, your eyebrows shoot into the air. There is no way he just said that. Your mind is uncontrollably reeling at his words, but only for a brief moment. Before you can read too deeply into it, your attention is quickly snapped back to the black magic still swirling around him, growing by the second. Ah, a ploy to distract me. Maybe he is more clever than he lets on.

“Listen, Morgie,” you snarl threateningly. “That mirror is mine.”

“Wait, you’re here for the Mirror too?” he asks, with far too light a tone for a situation such as this.

“Th-that was obvious the whole time!” you exclaim, unbelievably irritated. “What did you think I was here for?” “I dunno, a book or something.” He shrugs casually, before narrowing his eyes. “Wait, what do you want the Mirror for?”

“That’s none of your business,” you snap back, fingers thrumming with the rush of energy as you summon your own magic. Letting your curiosity get the better of you yet again, you add, “Why do you want it?”

“I’m a villain. I steal things for fun,” he replies, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “What does a goody-two-shoes hero want to do with a forbidden artifact?”

Barely listening to his words, you study him carefully, needing to know the extent of his powers if you’re going to win the inevitable fight that you can sense coming. You see how his ever-growing dark magic stalls temporarily as he talks, probably from getting distracted while speaking. That’s it. Deciding to buy yourself some time, you use this little weakness to your advantage.

“I want the Mirror because I want to use it.” Even though you’re planning on entertaining his pointless questions, you definitely aren’t going to give him information for free.

“Use it? To get an answer?” His magic hesitates again.

“No, to look at myself.” You see the way his eyebrows furrow in confusion, and you’re pretty sure you’re about to implode. “Of course to get an answer, you dumbass! Unlike you, I don’t go risking my life ‘for fun.’”

“What are you even going to use as an offering? You have to give it something, you know.”

You sigh, reaching underneath your shirt to pull out a small silver locket, its chain blackened from the trials of time. Dangling it from your fingers, you show it to Morgie.

“A locket?” he asks incredulously. “The offering's supposed to be something really special or precious.”

“It is really precious,” you hiss, tucking it back into your shirt. “It’s the most precious thing I own. If anything’s going to make the Mirror work, it’s this.”

“Well, you’re not going to get the Mirror anyways. It’s mine.” He widens his stance again, his magic continuing to grow around him. No, I need a little more time, you think, masking your growing panic with an insouciant eye roll.

“Why?” you question. “You’re not even going to use it.”

“I still need it.” “But why?”

“I won’t tell you if you won’t tell me!” he exclaims. Despite his little outburst, you can tell there’s something he’s hiding. After all, you are a master of concealing the truth yourself. “Plus, you know that everyone who's ever used the mirror has gone crazy, right? You’re literally sentencing yourself to a life of madness.” You give him an unamused look. “I’m the top of our year. Obviously I know everything there is to know about the Mirror of Ytirev.”

He gazes at you in a way you can’t decipher, but it’s softer, more sympathetic than his former glare. You notice that his snake eyes have disappeared as well, despite the magical energy still surrounding him. “Then why are you still doing this, despite the risks?”

You falter, for just a second, letting a sliver of emotion slip through. But as quickly as it happened, you patch it back up, returning to your cold, glowering face. “It’s a price I’m willing to pay.” You expect him to drop it after that, but he continues to press you. “You’re prepared to give up your morals? Your status as a hero? You’re willing to lose all your integrity for one answer?”

God, he talks too much. With a sniff, you throw your hands out in front of you, releasing a bright flash of crackling electricity that had been building up as you cry out, “I don’t care how evil I have to become, I will find the truth, one way or another!”

The lightning shoots forward without warning, hot as an inferno, piercing straight through his chest and flinging him backwards into a shelf like a ragdoll. He falls down to his knees, and for a split second, you wonder if he’s going to get up again. Clutching his chest, he wheezes yet still manages to stand up, summoning wispy black tendrils that shoot at you like arrows.

You tuck and roll, dodging them, whilst building up more crackling lightning between your fingers. The last tendril hits far too close to you for comfort, burning a hole in your robe. That would have been my flesh, had it hit me, you realize in sudden horror.

Seeing as how your opponent is summoning even more dark magic to hit you with, now engulfing his entire body, you break into a sprint. Black spears collide with the shelves behind you one after another, barely missing you, as you run past glass cases, each containing a different artifact that glistens in the silver moonlight. Something across the arena seizes your attention, and a plan begins to piece itself together in your head. You continue your dash towards the shelves behind Morgie. Once you reach a section with books instead of random magical objects, you slow your pace. Amidst Morgie's unrelenting attacks, you create a golden shield of electricity that sparks and crackles, almost alive, and which reaches as tall as you. You jog past the shelves, head craned as you scan the book titles as quickly as possible.

Morgie persists in launching balls of dark magic directly at you, smashing into your shield. Your panic rises as cracks begin to form, at first only small fissures, but growing larger and larger with each sphere that pummels your way.

You run parallel to the shelf, which boxes in the rest of the area in a rectangular shape, eyes frantically darting over words with barely enough time for your brain to comprehend them.

Glancing up as a whorl of blackness blasts the books resting directly in front of you, you duck down, yet continue to run. That’s when you see a thick tome, larger than the others and bearing a dark red cover, jutting out from a shelf a few meters in front of you. With your magical shield barely staying intact, you lunge towards it, snatching the book as you fall towards the ground and somersault behind a desk-sized wooden stand to hide. On top of it stands a glass display case, with faint candlelight illuminating the rustic, yet enchanted, metal shield contained inside it.

You crouch down, flipping through the pages of the book desperately, trying to find the incantation you know has to be in there. One time, on one of your random visits to the library—the normal one, not this hell of the most cursed items in the land—you had picked up a text that talked about the history of spellcasting. Detailed inside was a description of one of the first books of curses ever written, which had been banned from production shortly after its release due to the nature of its contents. There had been a small sketch next to the explanation, which just so happens to match the tome now weighing in your hands.

Morgie’s blasts of magic don’t stop, pounding the wooden stand and the glass case alike. You think he yells something, but you can’t tell; you’re too focused on squinting at the fine print on the page, eyes wildly scanning the names of the spells. The desk quakes with every attack, causing your hands to tremble as you rifle through the pages hastily, pointer finger trailing down the lists of incantations. 

Finally, your eyes lock onto the one you want. “Obiectum impedit semitam,” you recite, gaze darting between the page and the glass case above you. It quivers vigorously, yet remains unscathed due to its magic-bulletproof nature.

“Evanescet a lumine irae meae!” As soon as the last syllable leaves your tongue, the glass case dissipates into thin air. Your hand darts up, clutching the shield and shoving it in front of you. Just in time, as the wooden stand protecting you explodes from the force of Morgie’s dark magic, blasting into a shower of mere splinters that rain down around you. The shockwave causes you to recoil, even as the shield absorbs the brunt of the impact.

Quickly regaining your bearings, you crouch even lower behind the metal. Thumbing through the book pages briskly, your eyes skim the ink, trying to find the first spell that can help you now. 

“Inimicus meus, caveto tibi,” you mutter the incantation rapidly, trying your best not to stumble over the archaic words—who knows what sort of havoc that would make. “Transi me et in carcere gelido capieris.”

You peek your head over the shield as you say the last line, locking in on your target. He stands there, panting, worn from his latest, potent attack. Morgie barely has enough time to widen his eyes as the final word escapes your mouth, instantly creating ice stalagmites that burst forth from the ground, crisscrossing as they trap him in a prison of ice. They tower high all around while entrapping him in a circle, frost coating their sleek outsides, which narrow into dangerously sharp tips.

The air turns frigid, and you can see flurries of movement as Morgie thrashes within his glacial cell. Already, he’s trying to break out. Through the cracks between the icicles, you can see a swirling vortex of black magic fighting the freezingly cold charm. Even though it is a strong spell, you know it won’t last for long. Especially not with the dark energy that is slowly, yet surely, thawing out the ice.

Springing up again, you bolt to the shelves on the other side, jumping over small puddles forming on the floor. The book is still open in your hands as you wildly tear through one page after another, the minuscule words shaking and blurring together as you run. Honestly, what kind of asshole decides to print in such a tiny font? you internally rage. Flipping through the large sheets of paper filled with small text reminds you of reading a dictionary. In a way, the spellbook is a dictionary of sorts, with the way every curse is listed alphabetically, in a neat and orderly manner—much unlike your current frenzied state, with how your heart pounds against your chest as if trying to break free, and the adrenaline coursing through your veins cuts off any semblance of a coherent thought forming in your brain.

Twisting sharply to your right, you dart towards the shelf that the Mirror stands on. You stare up at it as you continue to run, eyes practically sending a silent plea while it sits on its throne undisturbed, watching the scenes before it unfold as if viewing a play from the highest seat in the opera house; somehow mildly amused, yet still condescendingly blasé at the same time.

Flipping to the L section of the spellbook, you scan the page for a spell that can help you reach it at last. Finally finish the last stretch of your journey. 

The icicle prison behind you makes a dreadfully loud crack. Your heart only races even faster with a jolt, your breathing coming out only in sharp, erratic gulps that make you feel light-headed, as if you’re not getting enough oxygen no matter how much you gasp for air. 

As you scan the page, this time with a renewed fervor that has your eyes darting across the words, too panicked to even finish a sentence before leaping to the next, you make a very interesting revelation indeed. For whatever reason, the genius who wrote this book decided not to add levitation to the list of spells, but instead included lignum pullelare, which roughly translates to “sprouting a tree”.

Another thunderous boom sounds again from the constantly fracturing icicles, a violent reminder of the ticking clock. You decide that this spell, no matter how absurd, is the best shot you have. Inhaling another sharp breath that burns your lungs, you cry, “Surge, virens gigas, de terra immunda,” your eyes glued to the page. “Ascendunt ad lunam et super caelos!”

A branch smashes into your chest, knocking the wind out of you—you really need to get used to how quickly these spells take effect—lifting you up as a colossal tree ascends from the ground, growing much more rapidly than even a beanstalk, much less a normal tree. The metal shield slips out of your grasp from the impact, your fingers desperately flailing in its direction futile as it falls and hits the floor with a dull thud.  

Your get snapped back to the present from the momentary distraction as your body starts slipping off the branch, with how it's quickly growing into a thick, strong limb with no end in sight. You slide off the ever-stretching wood, scratches cutting into your arms as you frantically try to wrap them around the branch, until only your hands are still hanging on. Using the book, which remains gripped firmly in one hand, you fling it open and cling to each cover. The book's pages spread wide around the wood as you hold on for dear life.

You continue shooting upwards along with the tree, the bookcase racing past you, when a realization hits you like a strike of lightning. This tree won’t stop growing anytime soon, and when it does, you’ll be too high up—if you're still alive, that is.

Glancing above you, you spot the Mirror and the shelf it sits on getting closer, and getting closer fast. Making up your mind, or rather, making a brash decision fueled by your skyrocketing panic, you wait until the shelf you need to reach comes into view. Then, you jump off. 

Flinging yourself towards the bookcase, you manage to latch on to a shelf, fingers wrapping around the ledge while your feet find purchase on another ridge a few feet below. The book remains clutched in one hand, your iron grip refusing to let it go. Realizing you can't do anything while holding it, you risk letting go with one hand. Gripping onto the shelf with your other hand, you tuck the book under your chin, angling your head down as you struggle to hold it between your neck and body. 

You peer up at your grasp on the shelf, the unforgiving ridges digging into your skin, carving painful lines into your fingers. Your feet barely remain balanced, the ledge not jutting out as far as you’d like it to. Turning your heels in to stay on the little shelf space there is in front of the books, you wince as the ridges between your arms and legs bite into your body. The sweat coating your palms causes your grip to start slipping off, your eyes wide in sheer terror as you let go for a brief second, thrusting your hands further back and hooking onto the edge again.

Glimpsing back down, you see the Mirror resting in its glass cage a few shelves below you, the strange white mist slithering underneath the glass and pouring out over the bookcase like a waterfall. With your chin still uncomfortably positioned as to not lose the book, you release on hand and leg from the shelf, leaving you hanging in between life and death itself.

You move your free hand down one ledge below, then the corresponding foot, haltingly scaling your way down the bookcase. Each time precariously letting go of your grip or footing to blindly feel below yourself for another ledge to stay on. After a few iterations, your feet finally stand on the same shelf as the Mirror, right next to the glass case.

Another piercing boom echoes behind you, making you squeeze your eyes shut as you flinch against the bookcase, quivering breaths sending your heartbeat shooting through the roof. Your eyes dart down to the book you squeeze with your neck, then to where your hands are barely clinging on to the shelf. There’s no chance of using the book to make the glass disappear again. Cursing yourself for not memorizing the incantation earlier, your mind swarms with thoughts, each one so loud they drown out each other.

An idea forms in your head—or rather, slams itself into the sides of your brain like a wave crashing in a bottle while it screams for attention—as you warily lift one foot on top of the heel of the other shoe, maneuvering it off your foot.

Now with only a sock left, you press your toes against the glass container. Inhaling a sharp breath, causing your lungs to ache as they scream for more, you muster enough energy to summon a bolt of lightning, focusing all your attention on passing electrical current through your body and to your foot.

The hotness of the electricity heats up the glass, melting it until there’s a decent-sized hole the size of your foot there. Shuffling to the side and raising your shoeless foot to the ledge above, you draw back your other leg and smash it into the glass, causing the compromised structure to shatter everywhere.

Climbing down the bookcase farther, you come face-to-face with the Mirror of Yteriv at last. It looks exactly like it was depicted in that textbook, sporting an elegant silver frame and seemingly shattered surface, with the two rubies staring at you like glowing eyes. 

A loud explosion rings behind you, resounding throughout the entire library. You snatch the Mirror with one hand, turning your head to the side as far as you can without letting the book slip, just in time to see Morgie demolish the ice prison as he breaks free.

It's clear that since now he's no longer bound by frozen spikes of ice, you’re his next target. Taking in an abrupt gasp of air—the only preparation you have—you let go of the shelf.

You plummet towards the ground for only a second before creating small thunderbolts beneath each of your feet, suspending you in midair. Already, you can see Morgie charging up another attack, aiming it straight at you. Book in one hand, Mirror in the other, you take off into a run through the air. Small platforms of electricity form beneath your feet with every step, dissipating again as soon as your foot lifts.

Balls of dark magic hurl towards you, and you already know you have no chance of winning this fight—not like this. But you don’t need to win. Glancing down at the Mirror clutched in your palm as you jump off a thunderbolt, right as it gets blasted by a black orb, you realize that you’ve already completed your mission. Now, all that’s left is to get out of here.

Your mind scrambles for a way out that doesn’t involve getting blasted into smithereens, eyes still fixed on the Mirror as you continue to dash around in midair. Watching the wispy tendrils of white smoke pour out of the artifact, a previous memory from something you read in a book hits you like a flash.

As the Mirror of Ytirev connects to its wielder’s soul, so do its properties, the book had said. The mist emitted by the Mirror fluctuates with the wielder’s emotions; the more powerfully one feels their emotions, negative ones in particular, the more smoke it produces.

A room filled with smoke? You can’t think of a more perfect cover to help you escape.

Grip tightening even further around the Mirror as you leap to another lightning platform, dodging a new attack, you rack your brain for every negative emotion you have—which turns out to be a lot. The adrenaline pumping through your veins as your life flashes before your very eyes from every near-death experience. The way your heart shatters a little more every time your father overlooks your accomplishments, not paying any mind to how hard you strive to please him. Just to get a single smile, a pat on the back, a meager look of pride in your direction. One simple “That’s my daughter!” sent your way.

The anger deep inside you starts to bubble, pure rage sizzling and growing hotter every second you spend lost in your emotions. A fury that is always there, making every breath a little shorter, every happy moment a little duller. A dormant feeling that is usually left undisturbed, except for when it's triggered. Then it becomes a fire that burns hotter than any flame in the depths of hell.

The emotions and thoughts and memories that you keep suppressed in a corner of your heart all coming flooding out, like a dam finally bursting free. How could everyone strand you like that? Leave you all alone to suffer through your grief, while always expecting you to be kind and cheerful. They know what happened, and they have to know how badly it hurts. Yet not a single one cares. Not your dad, not your teachers, not your friends. No one in the entire world ever so much as offered a shoulder for you to cry on or gave you a comforting smile. Not one “I’m here for you” or “It’s all right, take your time.” No, all they did was raise their expectations, setting the bar so high until you’re barely clinging to it, trying to pull yourself up despite your weary arms. Lifting it to such heights that losing your grip and falling would mean certain death.

You think of the snarling, twisted animal that resides deep inside you, embedded into your very being, clawing at the aching hole in your heart left by the absence of your mother. Finally letting it break free after being caged for so long, you feel, oh-so agonizingly, how it scratches its way up your throat and escapes you in a wretched sob.

Why did she leave me? How could she leave me? I’m her daughter, for fuck’s sake. Who can abandon their child like that? Does she not care about me? 

Did she ever even love me?

Painful thoughts consume your head as a few stray tears run down your cheek. You grit your teeth, sucking in shaky gasps of breaths. Smothered by your anguish, submerged in emotion.

Yet, despite all this, it works. Remembering the entire point of your self-inflicted despair, your head snaps down to the Mirror. Although your legs burn and throb from all the incessant running, you can’t stop. At least not yet.

Thick fog exudes from the Mirror, rapidly engulfing the whole of the arena. Within a few moments, everything is covered in the dense whiteness, so heavy you can barely see your hand, even if you hold it directly in front of your face.

Morgie disappears in the fog as well, to the point where you can no longer see nor hear him. Assuming that he’s no longer a threat for now—if you can’t see him, he can’t see you, and if he can’t see you, he can’t attack you—you summon a staircase of thunderbolts and walk down it until you safely step onto solid ground.

Your legs practically give way at the first touch of hard floor, the urge to collapse and lie on the ground excruciatingly strong. Mustering up the last of your strength and willpower, you force your feet to step one after another, desperately trying to distract yourself from the fire burning in your muscles at even the strain of supporting your own weight. 

Almost done. Almost.

Practically rendered blind by the all-encompassing mist, you keep one hand outstretched, making sure you won’t collide with anything—especially Morgie. Pocketing the Mirror, you continue through the fog. You had made sure to note your direction in relation to the exit before everything became completely invisible as to help you easily find your way out without getting lost. But after a few minutes in the overwhelming whiteness, you start to doubt yourself. 

What’s even worse is that there’s no sign of Morgie. You’re not foolish enough to expect him to pop up right in front of you, but you don’t hear him making any sounds either. No footsteps, no breathing, nothing. Your strides are far more muffled as you take your other shoe off too, annoyed at the limping effect the difference in heights causes. But nothing from him.

Your mind starts wandering to what happened to him, refusing to admit that the smallest part of you feels the tiniest bit concerned. Does he need help? Is he still alive? Your intentions were to steal the Mirror and disarm him, not kill him. You’re not evil enough for that.

Not yet, anyway.

After stumbling through the murky fog for a bit longer, you start to notice that now, you can see your hand extended in front of you. The fog is thinning, you think, which means I must be nearing the edge of this area and heading towards the bookcases.

A little bit further, and the fog disperses to all but a thin mist. The bookshelves in front of you come into view, the rows and rows of them finally visible as they expand into the distance. Follow those, and you’ll find the door you came in through. 

So, so close…

You take a few more steps, the heavy spellbook still in hand as you reach into your pocket with an unusual, yet profound, sense of paranoia, ensuring the Mirror is still there. Out of nowhere, you feel a strange sort of chill cover your feet. You chalk it up to your lack of shoes, but, not being able to resist the urge, you glance down.

That’s when you see strange feathery tendrils of black smoke on the floor, in stark contrast to the thin mist that hangs in the air. They slither and wrap around your feet as they move, condensing together in front of you and rising up a meter off the ground in the shape of a hissing black cobra.

The cobra flares out its hood whilst flicking its tongue at you, swaying side to side as it stretches to its full height. You stumble backwards, hesitating for only a second too long before it dawns on you where the snake came from.

Behind you, a brooding voice sounds. “Going somewhere?” Morgie asks.

You spin around sharply, dismay and a special breed of horror painted on your face as you turn to face him. “I don’t care what you do, the Mirror is mine,” you growl, shooting him a lethal glare that truly could kill.

“I don’t think so.” He gathers more black magic around his palm, creating an orb that whirls around like a dark, spherical tornado. You both stare into each other’s eyes for a moment, a fracture in time, trying to decide your next move—when he suddenly throws his hand forward.

You flinch away, yanking the book in front of your face as a shield. After a second, when you don’t feel anything, you open your eyes, turning back in his direction in confusion.

And that’s when you see that you weren't the target of his attack.

The book in front of you was.

The dark magic gnaws at it from the back cover, where it hit on impact, eating away at the pages. “No!” you scream, desperately flipping through the paper as the magic destroys it. Your own magic may be quite strong, but since you're barely allowed to practice it, it’s nowhere near the son of Morgana’s abilities or prowess. This book was your only chance at defeating him.

Frantically rifling through the pages, a look of pure horror on your face, you try to scan the spells for something to save you. Teleportation is soon gone, as well as fireball. As soon as you catch a glimpse of a spell name that could be helpful, the incantation is instantly obliterated.

Panic building faster than even the speed of the dark magic, you flip to the front of the book, trying to find a spell at the beginning of the alphabet so you have enough time to actually read the incantation.

But apple is of no use, and neither is bridge. Morgie stands there, gaze transfixed on your struggling form, wickedly smiling with an amused raise of his eyebrows. Guess he really is a villain after all.

The black energy eroding the book spreads across both covers, demolishing the tome as you hold it in your feverishly trembling hands. Your eyes race across the letters, desperate to find one that could even have a chance at saving you.

Dragon, no.

Claws, not that.

Chasm, not that either.

None of these will help me! your internal voice screeches, the book dissipating as you hold it. Then, your eyes snag along a word.

Chains. The perfect spell. 

“Ut qui inritat, catenas sentiat iras,” you wildly spit out, heart racing, tongue unable to move fast enough. Your eyes dart frenziedly ahead of your mouth, running on sheer panic as you try to memorize the words in case the book does disappear. “Pati in compedibus, ut solvas pretium peccatorum tuorum,” you continue to cry out.

As the last fibers of the pages evaporate in black fumes, you thrust a hand in Morgie’s direction, yelling the last few words. “Eris enim sine fuga ligatus!”

Nothing.

Then, boom.

The residual magic from the demolished book, no longer contained in a physical form, explodes, the force sending you flying backwards. You soar for a couple feet before colliding with a shelf behind you, your head slamming against a sharp edge.

You crumple to the floor, body bruised, beaten, and bloody. The world spins, your head throbs, and you feel so generally shitty that you want to crawl out of your body and leave this physical hindrance behind.

Your head feels too heavy to lift up, and so it falls forward, swaying back and forth. A warm sensation on the back of your skull draws your senses back to the present, and you lift one weary hand to the spot. Bringing it back down in front of your face, you see a whole lot of red smothered on it, just as more trickles down onto the base of your head and neck.

Groaning, you lift your face to scan your surroundings as the dust settles yet again. The fog is now almost completely gone, allowing you to see rather clearly. Sight still blurry, you barely make out the figure a few meters in front of you as heavy chains whip up from the floor, wrapping around his arms.

More spring up around his legs, dragging him down and causing his knees to buckle. He fights against the metal, but they only tighten as even more encircle his torso, tethering him to the ground. He leans forwards, now kneeling before you, arms spread out and chained to the floor on either side.

In front of him, halfway between you two, lies the Mirror of Yteriv, face-up on the floor.

Scrambling to get up, you slowly manage to stand, leaning your weight on the bookcase behind you. The ground sways underneath your feet, but you don’t collapse. One shaky step after another, you make your way over to the mirror.

You practically crumple to the floor as you lean down to snatch it up, the sounds of chains rattling against each other echoing through your head as their prisoner resists his bonds.

You straighten again, running your fingers over every millimeter of the Mirror’s surface to ensure that the cracks reflected on it are only part of its usual appearance and not actual damage caused during the explosion. Once you're sure of its safety, you look down at the figure shackled in front of you.

Morgie looks up at you, hair disheveled and face bruised, a few drops of blood spattered on his cheek. His eyes are a storm of anguish and a wounded kind of sorrow, his jaw clenched tight. You’d like to think that he isn’t peering up at you, body tied and bound, with resentment etched into his features, but you know you’d be lying to yourself.

He gives another violent tug against the chains, but to no avail. Neither of you speak a word, remaining in complete silence, yet somehow saying a thousand things through your eyes. You stare down at him, at the way he can barely lift his head due to his restraints, the agony swirling in his eyes tugging at your heartstrings in ways that make you ache through your core. 

But you’ve already come this far. You can’t turn back now.

The deafening silence remains as you raise the Mirror up in front of yourself, the white mist wrapping around you as if beckoning you closer. The red eyes glow even brighter, their judgment intensifying as your reflection begins to appear in the glass. The cracks on the surface slowly fade away as you come into view, until finally revealing a completely smooth and unmarred image as you gaze into your own eyes.

Except they aren’t yours.

Your reflection in the mirror is not of yourself, but of a younger version of you. She smiles effulgently, a pure, innocent sparkle of wonder in her eyes. A look of untainted bliss painted on her face as she beams. 

A look you haven’t seen in your own reflection for a long time.

“Mommy?” her young, high-pitched voice calls out. “Mommy? Moooommy? Where are you?”

A sob gets caught in your throat as you gasp, tears framing your vision. As if the memory finally gets uncovered in your mind, after being hidden away all these years from your brain deeming it too painful, you realize when this is—or rather, what this is.

“Mommy?” she calls again, her smile faltering as her little brow furrows in confusion, her face scrunching ever so slightly. “Mommy?” She turns her head to the side, looking at something out of view before asking, “Daddy, where’s Mommy?”

Your chest heaves as a sharp cry escapes you, the pain taking a physical form in the tears streaking your cheeks, your face contorting as you weep. In the background, a man’s faint, shaky sobs sound.

The mirror slips from your fingers, landing on the ground with an echoing thud. You whimper, uncontrollably trembling breaths causing your chest to jolt back and forth. You don’t move, can’t move, empty hand still suspended in midair.

You feel numb, yet like you're experiencing every emotion all at once. Your brain can’t wrap around this, around any of this, can’t comprehend your own thoughts. Can’t process what you feel. You’ve shoved your emotion down for so long, that now that they’re no longer bottled up, you don’t know how to deal with them.

“I’m sorry.” The voice cuts through the thick silence, snapping you out of the raging war inside your head.

You glance over at Morgie, still wrapped in chains. His eyes no longer hold the same animosity and misery, but instead a soft sort of sympathy, an underlying look of understanding as he peers up at you, head slightly raised.

“I don’t want your pity,” you sniff indignantly.

“I’m not pitying you.”

You look down at him, your chest heaving, eyes bloodshot. Taking shaky gasps of breath through your mouth, your body quivers as you wait for him to continue.

“I didn’t know about your mom, and you’re totally justified for wanting to know what happened to her,” Morgie continues. “You can take that Mirror and walk out of here if you want.” You keep on staring at him, not saying anything, frozen with anticipation as he carries on. “But are you really going to risk your future for knowledge of the past?”

You gulp before responding, voice hoarse and eyes half-lidded, voice cold and numb. “Would you still hesitate to take that risk, even when it means it could make your future finally be one worth living?”

“Your future is already one worth living,” Morgie replies. “You may not see it, but you’re talented, and smart, and pretty, and you’re a good person. You have a bright future ahead of you.” He shakes his head, eyes still boring into you. “Don’t ruin it like this. Blinded by your pain.”

Sniffling, you inhale a shuddering breath. “And how do you know my pain is blinding me, and not making me see clearer? Clearer than I have in my entire life. Clearer than she did.” You jut your chin towards the mirror lying on the floor.

“I don’t. But what I do know, from seeing my own mother, is that pain like this gets you nowhere. Letting the people who were supposed to love you instead turn you bitter and cynical never fixes things. You may think that becoming evil is the solution, but it’s not. It’s not worth it. You’re not worth it.”

You stare at him intensely, a raw kind of pain displayed on your face, one that no one has ever seen before. A thousand emotions flicker through your eyes, your lips twisting into a whimpering attempt at a smile as you cry again, the sob wracking through your body. “You really think so?”

“I know so.”

Hope flashes in your eyes, reflected in his. Your gaze softens, looking at him as if he’s the beacon of light at the end of the tunnel. A small grin breaks his steady demeanor, looking at you with optimism shining through the glimmer in his eyes.

You reach down, picking up the Mirror again. You stare at it, although not directly at your reflection this time. He peers up at you, still shackled to the floor, eyes wide with anticipation.

You slip the Mirror into the pocket of your cloak once again before turning around, your back to him. Twisting your head to the side so he hears you, you say, “The chains will disappear in an hour.”

Turning your head back, you walk away and leave him behind, black cape flickering in the dark night.

Unclasping the back, you slip off the locket, placing it in front of you. The rusty metal is reflected in the mirror in front of it, along with the tears that splatter on its surface.

It had belonged to your mother, the only thing you had left of her. She had given it to you when you were a little kid, not too long before she left. It was old and weathered, the silver having tarnished over time. Still, you religiously wore it every single day, never taking it off as if it's a part of your body. And sometimes, if you stare at it hard enough, you can almost trick yourself into believing she's still there.

Safely back in your dorm, all alone, you had set the Mirror down, flipping to the notebook page where you had transcribed the incantations for the ritual, without a second thought.

Now, sitting on the ground, the Mirror leaning against a leg of your desk with your locket as an offering in front of it, you start to hesitate. Your face twists in pure agony, features scrunched up, lips quivering uncontrollably as a waterfall of tears splatter onto your hands and lap.

It’s too late to turn back now.

Taking another shaky breath, you extend your hands forward to the Mirror, placing one thumb on each red gemstone embedded in the intricate silver design. The jewels watch you, scorning your every action. Just like everyone else.

Your eyes flutter closed, letting out the steadiest exhale you’ve had all night. “Speculum, speculum, in conspectu oculorum meorum,” you whisper, feeling the way the rubies press into the flesh of your thumbs. Already, the Mirror starts discharging more fog, enveloping you as it grows denser with each syllable. “Accipe donum meum et veritas libera me.”

You open your eyes as the last words leave your tongue, staring straight into the eyes of your own reflection.

The red gems glow radiantly, emitting a bright light that nearly blinds you. You squint, yet still unrelentingly stare into your eyes—or rather, your younger self's eyes. The fog swirls around you, swallowing you whole. You can’t see anything anymore, can’t even tell where you are. You feel as though your soul, your life’s very essence, gets sucked out of your body and into the Mirror.

You have the sensation of being shoved forward, but you don’t fall. In fact, you don't have a body anymore, no physical vessel to hold you. You try to look down, but you're greeted by the absence of your legs, sheer nothingness filling the space beneath you. You can’t really move around either, not in the way you’re used to. All you can do is simply float, your existence diminished to an untethered life force, with some semblance of what you once were.

Looking around, everything around you is white like before, but not in the suffocating way the fog was. Instead, you stand in a wide expanse of whiteness, a vast field of empty space. It stretches on forever, with no end in sight. It’s as if you’re stuck in a blank canvas, waiting for a painter to bring you to life.

The sound of wind whistles all around you, but not so much as a breeze actually comes. In fact, everything is completely unmoving. Despite the stifling stillness, you remain listening to the sound of the wind. If you strain hard enough, you can hear something almost like faint whispers filling your senses.

You look around again, ignoring the eerie voices. According to all the texts you read, after the Mirror accepts the wielder’s offering, they can ask for their answer. You’re not quite sure if this field of emptiness means your offering’s been accepted, but seeing as how you don’t feel insane yet, you think it’s safe to presume so. Still, your brain can’t help but point out that crazy people probably don’t feel like they’re crazy either.

Shaking off your doubts, you decide to continue with the process. After all, it is the only shot you have. You had memorized all the incantations for this particular spell earlier, repeating them over and over again until every word was engraved into your mind.

“Scire volo verum,” you recite. “I wish to know a truth.” Nothing happens.

You take a deep breath. “I wish to know why my mom left.”

The wind around you grows louder, howling even in the still air. The whispers increase in volume, once seemingly non-threatening and benign, now forming a cacophony of overlapping, chaotic voices. They grow distorted and grating, pushing in from every side, wrapping around you and slithering into your brain. You can’t block them out, no matter how hard you try; can’t swat them away, can’t make them leave, leaving you trying to tear them out of your head, despite not having hands anymore.

Suddenly, the white vastness turns a dark gray, and you start getting pulled downward towards something, like moving towards the center of a black hole. The whispers grow claws and fangs, clawing and scratching at your chest as they drag you down, making it hard for you to breathe. 

You try to fight back, but the voices now in your head keep pulling you down. They’ve taken over you, consuming you whole, and it’s impossible not to succumb to their will.

As they continue to drag you down into the abyss, you turn around—or rather, focus on the other side of your vague form of spiritual energy—and notice a tiny black dot very far down, but steadily growing bigger as you move towards it.

The whispers are screaming now, cries of agony of those who came before you, encompassing you whole and forcing you to the depths of this dark chasm.

And that’s when it hits you.

The others who used the Mirror did all end up getting the truths they sought.

And the truth was what drove them to madness.

You panic, trying to shake off the invisible hands of the whisperers, but they only tighten their hold around you. No matter how hard you fight them, they don’t relent in their endeavor of pulling you towards damnation.

“Are you really going to risk your future for knowledge of the past?” Morgie’s words echo in your head out of nowhere, haunting you with regret. You absolutely despise admitting it, but fuck, he was right.

Your last conversation with him replays in your mind, reminding you of your foolishness and idiocy. You had been so focused on getting what you wanted that you were indeed blinded to the truth that had been right in front of you this whole time.

“Your future is one worth living.”

His voice swirls around in your brain, drawing your attention away a little from the screaming voices in your head.

“You’re talented, and smart, and pretty, and you’re a good person.”

You realize these are probably the last words you’ll ever hear.

“You have a bright future ahead of you.”

You feel like crying again, the despair that’s taken root in you fighting to escape. Still, you don’t have an actual body in this dreamscape, so crying is impossible.

“It’s not worth it. You’re not worth it.”

You look back up the other direction and away from the black dot, resigned to your fate as you get dragged down into the chasm, deeper, deeper, deeper. At first, you think you’re imagining it; a mirage created by your mind to distract you from your pain. But as the descent continues, you begin to realize that it may not be an illusion after all.

In front of you, from the direction you came, a faint golden thread, seemingly made of pure light, stretches from your form of consciousness and ascends, up, up, up, all the way to the never-ending sky. With each of Morgie’s words you repeat in your head, the string of light grows stronger, brighter.

“You’re talented.”

The thread becomes thicker and more luminous, and you begin to realize that your descent has slowed down as well.

“And smart.”

The thread grows again, and you slow down a little more.

“And pretty.”

Your eyes follow the string upwards, and now, you see there’s a faint patch of white amidst the murky gray surrounding you.

“You’re a good person.”

The thread, still shooting out straight from your form, gleams with a shimmering golden light now. You notice that you’re no longer getting dragged downwards, but instead up, towards the whiteness. The screaming voices aren’t as insufferably loud anymore, either.

“You have a bright future ahead of you.”

You keep ascending, getting drawn faster and faster up. Morgie’s words serve as your lifeline, saving you from insanity.

“You’re not worth it.”

Now, you see that the white patch is actually an opening, an escape from this hell. The thread leads to it, its blinding brightness concealing whatever lies beyond.

“I know so.”

The last of his words give you the final push you need, sending you straight into the white light.

Your head snaps up with a sharp, terrified exhale. You look down, taking a moment to register that you’re back in your room. The locket dangles from one of your hands, the Mirror clutched in the other.

Fresh tears replacing the dried ones on your cheeks as you let out a sob of excruciating heartache, a sound of pure agony. The kind that no one should have to go through.

You look down at the cracked surface of the Mirror—a feeling of raw, unbridled anger set in the way you clench your jaw, and the way your face contorts with your cries—staring straight at the evil red eyes still gleaming at you.

With a swift motion, you lift your hand above your head, still grasping tight. Mustering together all your might, you hurl the Mirror towards the ground, watching as it shatters into a sea of glittering pieces.

“You’re late.”

You lean against the rough brick wall of an empty corridor, arms crossed, your figure partially obscured in shadows.

“And I’m surprised you’re still here,” Morgie quips, walking towards you. “Why’d you even want to talk with me? Especially through leaving that threatening note next to my nightstand for me to find when I woke up.”

He stops in front of you, leaving you to glower at him. Suddenly, with no warning, you lunge towards him, seizing the collar of his shirt and pushing him against the wall, your other hand summoning a rod of crackling lightning. 

His eyes widen with a startled gaze, but he doesn’t look quite as fearful as you want him to be. “Now, listen here.” You press the tip of the lightning bolt against his neck. “If you say a word of what happened last night to anyone—especially my father—I will kill you.”

Although you try to sound as menacing as possible, Morgie is unfazed. An amused smirk spreads across his face as he replies, “Alright, relax. I wasn’t planning on telling anyone anyways.”

His eyes trail down from your gaze to the locket dangling from your neck. He reaches out a hand, brushing his thumb along the tarnished metal as he softly says, “You didn’t go through with it, huh?”

You pull away, frustrated at his compassionate tone. “No. I decided…it was too risky. After all, what’s the point of figuring out the past if I can’t ever use that information, right?” A small smile spreads across Morgie’s face, that sympathetic, delicate look in his eyes again. Your irritation rising at this, you add, with a growl, “Although I will find a way to get my answer. I don’t care how bad I have to become, if you, or my father, or anyone stands in my way, you’ll truly see how evil I can be!”

Morgie keeps his unfettered appearance up. God, he’s so annoying! you mentally scream in frustration.

“Why are you so fixed on this?” he asks, tilting his head sideways and furrowing his brow as if trying to look past your cold, vengeful, rancorous mask and figure out the scarred little girl buried underneath.

You roll your eyes instead of answering. Never one to express emotions, the thought of opening up now about your years of pain feels terrifyingly vulnerable. It’s so much easier to just build walls around your heart and shut everyone out.

“Tell me this, and I promise I won’t tell a word of what happened last night to anyone,” Morgie bargains.

You narrow your eyes. “You already said you wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“Well, now I’m having second thoughts.”

You raise your arm again to summon another bolt of electricity, and Morgie lifts his hands, palms facing forward, in a gesture of surrender. “Relax, I won’t say anything, fine. But I just want you to talk to me. Bottling up your emotions like this isn’t healthy. Last night should be a good example of that.”

You shoot another glare at him, but can’t deny the fact that he’s right. Still, you hate the idea of how exposed and weak you'd be if you actually told someone how you feel.

“I’m not going to leave you, you know.”

You peer up at him, eyes wide in shock, as he continues. “I’ll stay by your side. You don’t have to worry about me abandoning you.”

Gulping, you nod, averting his gaze. Instead, you choose to look down at your shoes, studying the laces as you speak. “I…when my mom left, it was so sudden. No goodbyes, nothing. It was like one day, she just vanished.”

Your voice cracks, and Morgie places a reassuring hand on your shoulder, unknowingly pulling you closer to him. You swallow, hesitating for a moment before continuing. “My dad didn’t even care. It was as if she never existed. And everyone else…they all knew what happened. But they paid no attention whatsoever. They expected me to act normal, be all nice and sweet as if nothing changed. It made me hate them, hate all of them.”

“Do you hate me?”  

Morgie’s voice rings in the empty corridor, quiet yet speaking louder than a thousand shouts. You look up at him again, his image slightly blurred by the tears welling at the bottom of your eyes. You look up and you see the boy that stood by your side at your worst, who didn’t get scared or run away when you showed him your true colors.

The boy who said things no one’s ever said to you, whose words saved you from destroying yourself.

The boy who stands here, a concerned crinkle on his forehead as he awaits your answer. He doesn’t have to be here, listening to your problems. He doesn’t have to care.

But he does.

“No,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper. “No, I don’t hate you.”

In the suffocating sea of fake smiles and stifling pressures, Morgie is like a breath of fresh air. The first gulp of oxygen that you take as your head breaks free from the water.

“That’s a relief,” he responds, a trace of a smirk ghosting his features.

You give a small, bittersweet laugh. “Ever since my mom left and my dad stopped caring about me, I’ve never had anyone to talk to. No one seems to care about my emotions, or ask me how I’m doing. It’s as if I’m not a real person who has actual feelings.”

You’re on the verge of tears again, and Morgie must realize this, because he tries to lighten the mood by attempting—and failing—to inconspicuously wrap an arm around your shoulder as he says, “So, what I’m hearing from all this, is that you need a strong, reliable figure in your life to lean on, right? Like…a boyfriend or something?”

You duck under his arm, moving a good few feet away from him while fixing him with another glare. “Yeah no, I’m good.”

“Come on, that was smooth! You’ve got to admit it,” he whines, drawing out a small giggle from you. 

It’s been a long time since you’ve laughed like this: a true, heartfelt laugh, not the fake one that you do to appease other people under the pressure of society's expectations. It feels nice, like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders. 

All because of him.

“I don’t know, maybe I'll consider it with some time, if you treat me well,” you joke as you turn your head away with faux indifference. 

“Hey, a slim chance is better than no chance at all, right?” Morgie moves closer to you again, as if he can’t stand having so much space between the two of you. “I can see I’ve made some progress since last night, when you tried to kill me.”

“I wasn’t trying to kill you,” you shoot back, rolling your eyes at him.

“Oh yeah? Tell that to the bruises on my body.”

“It’s not my fault you’re so weak and sensitive,” you retort with a grin.

He nudges you playfully and you laugh again, shaking your head with an amused look. “Hey, I was wondering,” he asks, locking eyes with you, “what did you end up doing with the Mirror?”

You give a knowing grin, masking the undercurrent of what’s left unsaid. You vaguely respond, “It’s in a better place now.”

“If you say so,” Morgie replies, his smile returning to his face and lighting up his features once again. He continues to tease you, and you oblige him, keeping up the friendly banter as he walks you to class.

The Enchanted Lake glistens, reflecting the sun’s gentle rays with a bright shimmer. Deep down, under feet of clear blue water and various forms of aquatic life, in a far corner of the lake, lies a bag of glass shards. Next to it floats an ornate metal carving with a hollow center, reminiscent of something once set there. And at the top, two glowing red gemstones briefly flicker and die out, like watchful eyes finally closing.

end x

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a/n: how did this get so long...if you're still here, and if you actually read that entire thing, thank you so so soo much! I'm sending you a virtual cookie and a hug (if you're comfortable with it ofc) because you're absolutely awesome! <3 hope you enjoyed reading!

do not plagiarize, translate, remake, or copy my works, including my writing and images, in any way.

[002yb]

Dick who keeps a picture of Robin Jason in his wallet, the corners weathered with age, his face smudged like a thumb has gently stroked over it over many years.

Over the years the coffee shop owner of his morning route has watched him pull out his wallet and stare at the plastic window for several seconds, a sad forlorn look on his face before taking out his change to give over.

Then one day he turns up with someone else by his side, rosy cheeked and a smile on his face. When he opens the wallet there’s a new picture, this one bearing a striking resemblance to the man next to him. With the wallet open the stranger sees what is inside and immediately his face blooms red, stutters falling out his mouth.

Dick laughs, a huge booming laugh and he looks the happiest he has ever been. The photo smiles back at him.

Everyone always goes on about Bruce keeping pictures of all his kids in his wallet, but fffffffffff Dick doing the same. ;/////; And it's something his siblings tease him about relentlessly because it's actually just one picture and that one photo happens to be Jason, hahaha. Just Jason assuming he's Dick's least favorite in the family while everyone else knows Jason is Dick's favorite.

Which is a headcanon neither here nor there because anoooooon!! This is such a gift, thank you! You write beautifully. (♡ˊ͈ ꒳ ˋ͈) Dick's melancholy is so heartrending but touching and ahhhhhhh. This is just really sweet and made me smile. I love smitten/lovelorn!Dick!! Especially when the hurt ends with comfort and he's so brilliant and happy with Jason and ♡♡♡♡♡ !! Thank you for sharing this, anon~ //3///

Silly thoughts inspired by anon's post below the cut:

Where the day of the reveal (per above (˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶)), Dick and Jason are waiting in line at that coffee shop. And it's casual; lighthearted and comfortable as they banter and bump shoulders.

And Dick is fighting back amusement because Jason is adamant about treating him. Only the card he proudly pulls out is pretentiously black and has Timothy Drake embossed across it.

Despite Dick halfheartedly telling Jason 'no', Jason pleads his case. It's the perfect crime! The banks won't suspect it because the purchase will be small and ordinary. If the account isn't flagged, just imagine what else they could get up to. A paid honeymoon vacation, maybe. (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

Just Jason having zero faith in Tim checking his bank statements.

And Dick teasing Jason about how Tim at least has a bank account and a credit score to speak of.

Which Jason shoves Dick out of line for because wow, big bird. Jason has lines of credit everywhere. First and foremost: Tim.

'Not me?'

'It's based on net worth.' Jason would quip, which would earn him a shove this time and he'd cackle all the while.

Then Dick would get a call. From Tim. And it'd make them both snicker because the timing is perfect.

Dick taking the call outside, but not before handing off his wallet and telling Jason not to use Tim's card

Jason scoffs over it, but does as he's told (because he'll run this scam with Damian instead).

And it's as he's paying that he opens Dick's wallet and sees that photo. The old one which will be replaced with an updated one later. It's of them. Him.

It's from a lifetime ago. Worn and frayed at the edges in a way that tells of how often and carefully it's been handled. Jason swiping his thumb over it, mirroring all the times Dick would do the same. Jason would be able to tell. And his heart would ache and his breath would catch and--

When he looks out the window, wide eyed and with a pink stain warming his cheeks, Dick would already be looking at him. Just as wide eyed because he realizes he unintentionally exposed himself. It's a vulnerability that passes as quickly as it comes though because it's Jason.

Flustered as he is, Jason smiles. Sharp and brilliant. And he'd hold Dick's wallet up to flash the photo while pointing at it. Playing the menace although his cheeks are bright and flushed.

Even though Dick is on the other side of the window, Jason would still call, 'How embarrassing!’

And Dick can read lips. He laughs, incredulous as he shakes his head and calls back, 'We're dating!'

Jason loves to hear it.

But yeah, Jason cackling as he finishes up their order. Standing off to the side as they wait for their drinks and smiling the most biting of grins as he teases Dick for being a sap. Playing keep-away with his wallet.

Something something these two being in their own world. Crowded close as they flirt. Jason slipping Dick's wallet back into his pocket and being the most giddy/smiley boy because he's a romantic and Dick unwittingly romanced the fuck out of him.

Dick caressing his thumb over Jason's cheek and smiling this devastating grin because he doesn't need a photo anymore.

(இ﹏இ`｡)

And then their moment is interrupted by the barista calling out, 'Loverboy!' because that's the name Jason told them to put down.

Dick laughs that big laugh. Loud and beautiful and contagious. The sort of laugh that makes even strangers smile and that makes Jason's heart sing. ;//////;

Dick taking Jason's hand as they go up to get their order. Bringing Jason's hand to his lips to brush a kiss over Jason's knuckles. And Jason is so soft about it because he can feel Dick's smile through it; his breath as he fails to bite back his laughter.

Just Dick feeling like the luckiest man in the world and it showing.

Jason being overwhelmed by that because he's not sure anyone has ever felt grateful for him. He gets it though -- to feel so lucky.

[mack-devereaux]

Hiii i wanna ask if ya can write something with Vince? Maybe him getting into a fight (so hot i love it) and hin hurting his wrist are something? And reader taking care of him afterwards. Plleeaassee

Vince Dunn

Omg this is my first request!! I’m so sorry it took so long! Also check out my other fic about Vince. I think they have a similar vibe. But This has no relation to that one. I had so much fun writing this. Just a reminder this is a work of fiction and my imagination, this is not based on true events. Thank you to the anon who requested!

Picture is from Pinterest, no triggers except for cursing and mentions of blood. I think that’s it! Enjoy!

When Vince first moved to Seattle he was excited. This was a brand new team and he had more opportunities to make a name for himself as one of the more aggressive defensemen in the NHL. He had always had a temper on the ice, even in his early days in high school and in the OHL, and he was good at running his mouth. He was always respectful to the medical training staff and the coaching staff, he never took his anger or frustration out on the people who helped him get back on the ice.

Did he cause the fights on purpose? Maybe.

Was he mad about being hauled into the cute medical trainers office to get patched up? Absolutely not. He enjoyed talking with y/n and getting to know her a bit better.

Did he cause fights just to see her? No, he truly has a passion for the sport, he just sometimes got a little too involved with the banter sometimes. However a perk to all this was those few minutes alone with y/n. Although she never really spoke to him much outside of work and was always very quiet he knew how passionate she was about her job. No matter what she was always so attentive to the injury and informative about what she was doing to help said injured player.

Y/n loved the energy of the home games, she typically didn’t get to travel very much with the team, only to close games, but something about the atmosphere of home games had her just buzzing with energy. Most of the time she got to watch the game from the tunnels, it was the perfect spot to see most of the game and it was easy to drag injured players back to the locker room to tend to the injuries. Tonight’s game was a home game against the Colorado Avalanche again, a team known to get the Kraken a little riled up. Just the week prior Vince had gotten himself into quite the scrum and ended up with a cut on his nose while playing against the Avalanche.

*flashback to a week prior*

Y/n was sitting in the medical room at Ball Arena, going through the medical kits organizing some of the supplies. She had heard the roar of the crowd and immediately knew there was a fight that happened. Shortly after that, the third period had ended. Hearing the players stomping down the tunnel shouting and cheering she already knew who was headed her direction.

“Vince..” y/n sighed pulling all her medical supplies back out.

“Don’t act like you aren’t happy to see me” Vince chirped at the girl.

“You’re gonna have some serious damage to your nose if you don’t stop” y/n said as she was washing her hands and throwing her gloves on “I’m surprised you don’t have a permanent scar from how many times I’ve seen it busted”.

“That just means you are doing a great job babe. I’ve got you to thank for keeping me looking good” Vince smiles.

Y/n rolled her eyes and turned around trying to hide her blush. Knowing this was the exact reason as to why she fell for him. He was just so charming. He knew exactly what to say and that’s why she could never date him. That and the fact that she technically worked for the same organization as him. Were they coworkers? No, but surely it was still frowned upon. At least that’s what she told herself anyway. As she was cleaning off the blood from his nose she caught herself admiring him. He truly was one of the most beautiful people she’s ever laid eyes on. Once the bleeding stopped she checked for other injuries, and sent him to be with the rest of the team.

“Promise me you’ll keep out of trouble for at least the next week” she called to him as he walked away.

“For you? Never.” He added with a wink.

*present*

Five minutes left in the third period and y/n had gotten to watch maybe 10 minutes total of the game. Partially because she didn’t like seeing Vince fight much, and because the players definitely kept her busy. This was probably the most bloody noses and knuckles she had tended to in her entire career. Normally the crowd goes crazy and encourages fights, and she definitely enjoyed that. But for some reason she couldn’t stomach seeing Vince getting hurt. I guess she had Cupids arrow to thank for that. After a few more minutes gloves went flying, curse words were being yelled and the crowd went wild. Reluctantly she looked over in front of the players bench and Vince had thrown a Colorado player on his back.

“Oh for fucks sake Vince” she muttered under her breath.

“You got him or do you want me to take care of him this time” the head medical trainer asked y/n chuckling and shaking his head.

Y/n looked across the ice as Vince and the Avalanche player got tossed in their respective sin bins, she sees that Vince has his helmet off and is holding his wrist.

“I think he hurt his wrist, do you see him messing with it?” y/n points to Vince.

“I’ll take a look when we get back there but I’m sure he’s fine. I think you can handle it after that” the trainer says as they walk back to the locker room.

After the game y/n was in her office waiting for Vince, it had been nearly 40 minutes since the game ended. What was taking him so long? She knew Coach had told him to stop by after their after game meetings and interviews. While she was waiting she decided to tidy up and clean a bit. As she was cleaning her desk she found the puck that Vince had signed and gave to her earlier that year.

*flashback to late last season*

Y/n was standing behind the players bench. It was the last home game for the season, then they were headed into playoffs. Looking onto the ice she watched the players warm up and interact with fans. Vince was watching y/n as he was skating in circles, getting a boost of confidence he picked up a puck and signed it with a note. Smirking he passed by and shouted “hey y/n! Catch!”

Panicking y/n shot both of her hands in front of her face as the head medical trainer caught the puck before it smacked her in the face.

“Really Dunn?!” Y/n shouted.

Vince grinned and skated off, shaking her head she looked at the puck she noticed it said “hey pretty girl” with his signature. Blushing she shoved it in her pocket before she could get scolded.

“Oh he’s so got it bad for you” the trainer said.

“Leave the chirping to the players would you” y/n muttered “besides it’s not like I can date him anyway.”

“Technically…”

“Don’t tempt me” y/n sighed “my heart can’t handle the heartbreak that comes with that one.” She continued to watch him skate around and talk to his teammates with a huge smile on his face.

*back to present*

Y/n smiled at the memory. Not knowing she wasn’t alone, because of course Vince would walk in at that very moment. Leaning up against the doorframe Vince coughed snapping her back to reality.

“My God Vince, now you choose to be quiet? You scared me” y/n shoved the puck back into the drawer.

“I’ll make sure to knock next time” he softly smiled. He totally saw that she still had the puck and it definitely boosted his ego.

“Let me see your wrist” y/n said.

“It’s fine” he muttered.

“If it’s fine let me double check then” y/n challenged.

Vince walked over and sat down on the bench in her office, while reluctantly holding his wrist out. He watched her face as she examined his wrist.

“I think if we wrap it for tonight and tomorrow you should be fine, but the swelling needs to go down significantly before you play again. I’ll clear you for practice but you have to be easy on your arm for the next few days” y/n said as she was grabbing the necessary supplies.

“Thank you for taking care of me y/n, I’m sorry for fighting” Vince whispered.

She smiled at him as she sat down and started wrapping his wrist. Knowing full well that he was watching her face closely the entire time.

“I’ll walk you to your car” Vince said.

“I’d appreciate that, thank you” y/n said as she turned back to him after putting the supplies away. With yet another boost of confidence Vince grabbed her by the waist and pulled her face to his and kissed her, she immediately kissed him back. The kiss was short and sweet. Electricity shot through her body and she felt as if she was on fire. After pulling away y/n whispered “we should go.” Neither of them saying anything as they left the arena. Vince was feeling defeated for the first time in a long time, why hadn’t she said anything? Did he over step? Did he make her uncomfortable? A million more discouraging thoughts ran through his head. Him not knowing she was in shock and on cloud nine all at once. Y/n unlocked her car and opened the door. Before she got in she turned to Vince and pulled his face to hers and slammed her lips onto his. Vince cockily smiled into he kiss and pulled her into him as he slipped his tongue into her mouth. After a few minutes they both pulled away, breathing heavy and trying to get as close as possible to each other.

“Thank you for walking me to my car Vince.”

“Let me know when you get home so I know you’re safe.”

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[blingblong55]

Strengths- COD men (just a few)

GRIM X COD men ^

Based on a request:

Hey! I was wondering if you could write about the cod boys with a short reader (around 5 ft/153cm) that is strong. Like they get annoyed or something because the boys are teasing them because of their height, and the reader suddenly just lifts them, or something completely, surprising them. I love your writings. It's one of my favorites on here &lt;3

A/N: I just want to say, thank you! means a lot that people do like what I write<3, all my love to you anon

(doing my favourite cod men...4 but it's some at least)

GN!Reader, platonic!relationship

You are known as the smallest in your team, always getting teased for how tall you are. You, of course, have gotten so used to this kind of banter between the team and you, it was hard at the start not to shut them up, but it became bearable. One time, as usual, they kept their little jokes running, that day was just an exhausting day for you. So, of course, they struck a nerve easily. 

Soap: 

"Mate, yer so tiny it's adorable" he laughs. And that's his first mistake, the word adorable had been said before, but seriously, out of all days today he had to call you that? "Tiny like a bunny, ye a're." Now he was just fucking with you. So many times you told him to never call you bunny and there he was, with that stupid nickname. Your dad had called you that when he belittled you, so not that fucking annoying nickname had a shit meaning to it. 

You and he were in the common room, watching so shit show on the small screen. "Shut up, Johnny." you warned. "and what will ya' do, bunny?" a smug smirk on him that would soon be wiped off. You stand up and lift him, carrying him out of the common room. His first reaction was: eyes widened, definitely looked around to see if anyone can see what the hell the small little soldier is doing. "Put me down, Grim." his voice now stern. "Yeah, no..." You carried him out until he was let down right outside the door. "Come back when you are fuckin' done dissing my height." He sits there, confused and lost, how can such a little thing carry and man his weight? That would for sure be brought up during the next meeting.

Ghost:

He isn't one for jokes, always so quiet and collected with you. No reason behind it, but that is how it was. "hey kiddo, I need you to help me with something." He never calls anyone kiddo, just you, and last week you found out it was because of your height. So, now that you are all moody and exhausted, this nickname got to you. You sat there, pretending you hadn't heard him at all. "Kid?... Grim, c'mon I need your help." He may be your lieutenant but today you won't listen, not until he finds a better nickname. 

He is a stubborn man, so he sits on the sofa in the common room and knows you hate the smell of cigarettes so he smokes one in front of you. You sit there, staring at him while he smokes. "Not moving until you come with me." You roll your eyes and stand up, right when he is about to think he won that little tantrum, you lift him, "Better hold on or I will drop you." He stays still, afraid someone your height and weight will give up on you. His cheeks were a little red, not expecting this at all and to be honest he is very embarrassed at this moment. 

Krueger:

He loves to annoy you, always has and always will. It's in him to bother you about your height and you bother him by calling him German and playing the German national anthem. But right now, when all you want to do is lay in your bed alone and cuddle your pillow, he is sitting on the edge of the bed. Trying to get a rise out of you. "Grim, Grim, Grim...Griiimmmm" You try your best to be the adult in this situation but fucks sakes are this man so annoying at times. You look up at the ceiling, trying to cancel his voice out. "Seb, fucking leave"

"not a chance little thing.." Stupid Austrians, you think. You get up from your bed and push him off. Whenever he and you sparred you could never push him away from you, he is a strong man after all. He laughed so hard and was also a bit scared, such weak little thing you were and you pushed a man his weight and size of your bed with no effort. "Mein Gott, r/n," he said in between laughs. This man will never take anything seriously, that is now clear.

Keegan:

He always was around you, only to annoy you that is. He and you had grown close after the last mission and the fact you are so young and small makes him an overprotective big brother to you. You were in the gym, trying to burn out all the energy you had left. He was there, watching you punch the punching bag, laughing a little. He walks to you, always finding something to annoy you about. "do you need me to lower the bag for you?" a smug smile on him. You look at him, "Shut the fuck up." "or what, you'll punch me with your tiny hands?" he chuckles.

You pick him up, throw him over your shoulders and to the mats you head. "Hey, put me down" you don't respond at all. His face flushed, he desperately tried to think of any technique to get off your shoulder. Others looked, but if one dared to laugh, he'd make them run for the hills. He didn't want to hurt you so he would just give you light pats on the back, "Pleaseeeeee, r/n, put me down!" You looked at logan, who finally had an opportunity to slap his bum. You motion for him to do it, "Hey, watch the hands r/n!"

A/N: my brain is barely alive atm so please spare me if this is shit

[lichenes]

Can you do a platonic Cat King x reader, part of the Dead Boy Detectives. They have no desire/ attraction to the Cat King or anyone. They seek him out to ask him about Monty and the Witch along with what his name is. They even bring a mini portable cooler with smoked salmon and other food to hang out. “I’ve never really desired anyone, but I can tell from all the tv shows I watch that many people would think you’re attractive.” “We ate food together and now we know eachothers names so of course we are friends!” Or “You seem lonely, you definitely need friends!……oh! Idea! When are you free to hang out?”Cat King: 😶

Thank you for the ask anon, hope it lives up to your expectations lovely :] Send me asksssss pls i need prompt for dbda especialy for CK over here!!

CW: nothing :D

wc: 452

•───────•°•❀•°•───────••────────•°•❀•°•────────•

You joined the Dead Boy Detectives shortly after your death. The unfortunate incident which brought upon your untimely demise was something you preferred not to talk about and both Edwin and Charles respected that. You were the youngest ghost but as passionate and eager as one could be given your predicament. 

Your whole life you were quite friendly to all the creatures of the world. Cats were certainly your favourite though, so when you died, one thing you were ecstatic about was the new gained ability or rather, the cats’ willingness to speak to you. You decided to get to know some of them, at first a bit put off by their abrasiveness but after a while, content with the constant banter. 

World must’ve gotten around because more and more cats were eager to talk to you and receive the many treats you carried around in your pockets. World got around as far as to the Cat King as you’ve come to know him. Your motives when you met him for the first time, or rather when he called you to him through one of his many cats, were pure. To make a good first impression you brought a portable cooler with many snacks you thought the King would like, expecting him to be a cat. 

To your surprise when you approached the fluffy, gorgeous looking cat and in a puff of smoke, he turned into a human. “Helloooo!” He said, amusement evident in his voice. He revelled in how surprised you looked. You were in so much shock you could only wave. After you’ve shaken off the shock you said “Wasn’t sure what your highness wanted so I brought options!!” He looked a little taken aback but accepted the gift as… a peace offering.

“You know,” he said “I was gonna make the cats maul you but you seem okay, actually.” Your eyes widened. “Well uh… I’m glad I escaped certain death then…” 

Your relationship with Cat King was nothing short of thrilling. You went to visit him with all your problems, entrusting him with some of your secrets. After he opened up, he confided in you about his love for Edwin which you took well, cheering him on a little. “So… you’re not upset that I don’t want you?” You looked at him funny.

“How do you mean?” You cocked your head to the side. “You know, the talking, the presents… the… secrets.” You burst out laughing realising how it all must’ve looked like. “It wasn’t to court you! I was just making a friend!” He smirked at you and then fully laughed. “And that you did…”

“You seemed lonely and you were due some new friends!” 

“...that… I was…”

•───────•°•❀•°•───────••────────•°•❀•°•────────•

masterlist

[thebomb-thebird-andtheburntbitch]

anon asked:

Hi! It says on your description thing that your requests are open? ( I’m sorry for this if they’re closed :’) )

I read your request rules and it said you take poly kiribaku and I was wondering if you could write a scenario of kiribaku with a fashion designer reader? reader makes them suits and an outfit for themselves from scratch for an event? Just kinda funny fluffy stuff with reader slowly getting more annoyed at them not cooperating ( mainly Bakugou cause he’s Bakugou lol ) but still managing to finish and make them cool suits and an outfit for themselves too :)

I’ve had this lil idea in my head for months now and I love your writing, so if you think you could do something with this I’d be very happy :)) ( sorry for the long request, if you don’t want to write this I wouldn’t mind, also sorry again if your requests are closed :’) )

thank you! :))

a/n: so sorry its a bit short anon, but i did what i could!

w.count: 1.1k

your office was currently a mess. an organized mess but a mess nonetheless and katsuki made sure you knew that by his sneering. it wasn't unusual for either of your boyfriends' to stop by your workplace for various reasons. forgot your lunch, bringing you papers you needed, maybe repairs to their hero suits since your stitching 'holds up better than others'. still, this time you were the one to strong-arm them into both coming by. or rather, strong-arm katsuki, since eijirou had no issues in popping by when you called.

your work office was filled with used and unused mannequins, your main desk, a separate desk littered with fabric scraps, your sewing machines, and straight pens left, right, and center. there was also a quiant little loveseat with two comfortable cushions you have for visiting clients.

that very loveseat is where both your boyfriends' currently parked their asses. you standing in front of them with your hands on your hips and a tape measure gripped in your palm.

"i dont see why we need all new shit," katsuki groans, his arms on the back of the loveseat, looking away from your unimpressed scowl. eijiou curls his lips in to try- and fail- to conceal the amused look on his face.

you had called them both here because of the next hero gala. the dates were finally sent out to those permitted to attend, and both of their names were on the roster. of course, they would be going- mostly because katsuki's pr team begged him to- and since they got to bring plus ones along, you would also be with them.

the two of them have always been wearing store bought formal wear or renting suits, but this was literally your area of expertise! you would get measurements from the two of them if it was the last thing youd do before making them outfits they can freely keep for such occasions.

eijirou had no qualms about the whole process. in fact, his measurements went smoothly aside from him flexing his arms when you were trying to get their circumference.

"yes, you're very muscular babe, now relax your arm or so help me," was what he got in return to his playful tomfoolery. checking off his waist and hips was also filled with banter since at least three times he had hugged you and kept joking about how he wasn't just going to not when you were right in front of him. that would be far too many wasted opportunities.

katsuki had been scrolling on his phone the whole time eijirou was prolonging his process by playing harmless pranks and showering you in goofy affection as he does. you almost wished you had measured him last to get the stubborn fool that is katsuki over with first though.

now, here you stand, impatiently waiting for him to get his ass up and get started.

"katsuki," you warn, his head tipping back in a groan. "i've got all day," you tell him as if you weren't bothered in the slightest. you were though, and annoyed to boot. while you did in fact have time, that doesn't mean you want it to be wasted in a battle of wits.

"what's the damn point of taking measurements? we've got plenty of shit at home to wear."

"no, you don't. I do, but you guys have nothing properly formal enough for a gala, and im sick of renting suits when i can just make something and save some money in the process. do you know how expensive it is to rent a suit? no, because you're loaded, so up."

"i did enough of this kinda shit growin' up, i aint dealing with it when im not even livin' with my folks anymore."

you roll your tongue across your teeth, squeezing the space between your eyes with your fingers and holding yourself back.

"come on, kats, don't be such a fun sponge," eijirou tries to help. knocking him lightly in the side with his elbow, katsuki just huffs and looks at the nearest clock as if gauging when your workday was supposed to end and how long he can keep this up.

"fine," you heave, tossing your measuring tape at his chest before it flops onto his legs. "have it your way."

"that's what I tho-"

"I'll just call mitsuki and she can give me your measurements." there was a slight pause after your claim settles into the air you three occupy.

"what?" he almost sounded like he didn't believe you. but oh how serious you are.

"go on, shoo." you walk back towards your main desk with your computer and grab your purse where you start digging around for your phone. "i have a phone call to make, so go somewhere else if you're not going to be useful. oh, eijirou you can stay though if you want."

"hey!" katsuki, pulling his arms off the back of the couch, both offended that he was being kicked out while his boyfriend got to stay and miffed because- were seriously going to call his mom? over his measurements? god, who knows what else could come out of that hag's mouth if you call her asking for that. the last thing he needed was you and his mother commenting on how small his waist was or worse.

you plant yourself in your desk chair and pull over a notepad and pen to write down the oncoming numbers you would be getting one way or the other. katsuki springs from the loveseat when he sees the phone line start dialing from across the room against your cheek.

the phone rings twice and you're ready to apologize for calling in the middle of the work day when she picks up, but before you could your phone was ripped from your hand and away from your cheek.

"wha- katsuki!" you utter in disbelief.

"ignore this," he huffs before hanging up the call and tossing your tape measure into your face.

"take your stupid ass measurements, but you don't get this back for a while." the blond tosses your phone over to kirishima who had been gleefully watching the free entertainment. the red head catches it easily and safely tucks it into his pocket.

"traitor," you send his way across the room and he just shrugs.

"sorry, boyfriend's orders."

"that's right," katsuki backs him up with his arms crossed and you return the sentiment by jabbing him in the side with the back of your pen. "now hurry up, this offer expires soon."

"i hate you," you groan as you get up and untangle your measuring tape to start the process of finally getting what you needed.

"no you don't."

"i wish i did."

"liar."

"shut up, im concentrating."

he hates to admit it, but the group of coordinating matching outfits you three all wear to the gala weeks later was totally worth pushing your buttons for. plus, it was cute to rile you up sometimes.

(mitsuki did call his cell later that day to explain why it's incredibly rude to hang up on his mother. he hung up on her again.)

[butterfly-lies-chase-them-away]

What do you think would happen if one of y/n’s friends/classmate spots her and Jonathan Crane together in public? How would the couple react? P.S Office bells are few fanfics that are helping survive college 😚

Office Hours/Bells Imagine/Headcanon

Pairing: Jonathan Crane x Reader

Word Count: 2182

Warnings: Obsessive behaviour, Professor x Student, subtle manipulation

Summary: !!Request!! What happens when Y/n's friend catches Jonathan and Y/n on campus?

A/N: Hahaha, Thank you for the request Anon. My fic is helping you survive college?! I am absolutely honoured 🫶💚 It has been a lONG time since I've made ANY update (last update back in Feb, holy shit) for Office Hours/Bells but finally!!! we are here :) I've just had so many requests for other fics and all that I had to get through and a lot of Uni shit to do as well, my poor babe been sidelined :( But this was one of the requests to I thought it would be perfect to update this fic with this and then a full chapter next :) (might take a while, a lot of uni shit sTILL, but that will be the next thing I update (probably)) I have a LOT planned for this fic so stay tuned~ 💚

-

Jonathan and Y/n had made a deliberate effort to keep their relationship under wraps, avoiding public outings and opting for date nights at home instead. They preferred the seclusion of their own company, away from prying eyes and potential trouble. Yet, despite their careful planning, even the most vigilant can slip up.

As the night cast long shadows across the deserted campus, Jonathan and Y/n walked side by side, their laughter echoing through the empty halls. Their banter was lighthearted, a welcome reprieve from the academic rigor of the day.

"It shouldn’t be that hard to pick what you want for dinner," Jonathan teased, his lips curved into a playful smirk.

Y/n scoffed, feigning offense. "If it’s so easy, you wouldn’t be asking me in the first place!" she retorted, nudging him with her elbow.

Jonathan chuckled, his eyes sparkling with amusement. "Perhaps I’m trying o be a gentleman," he mused, his tone dripping with mock seriousness.

Y/n rolled her eyes playfully. "You’re such a dick," she teased, a mischievous glint in her eye.

Their easygoing exchange was interrupted when Y/n suddenly halted in her tracks, a realization dawning on her. "Oh, shit! I completely forgot about my tutorial in ten minutes," she exclaimed, a hint of panic in her voice.

Jonathan checked his watch, furrowing his brows in concern. "This late?" he questioned.

Y/n nodded, her lips forming a small frown. "Yeah, my tutor had to reschedule for this week," she explained, her mind already racing with thoughts of rushing to her session.

"I can head back to my office and wait for you, if you'd like," he suggested, his gaze soft as he looked at her.

Y/n's heart swelled at his considerate gesture. "Would you really wait an hour for me?" she asked, a hint of disbelief in her voice.

"For you, I'd wait forever," Jonathan replied, his smile playful but his words sincere.

Y/n couldn't help but smile at his words, feeling a warmth spread through her chest. She enveloped him in a grateful embrace. "Thank you," she murmured, before rushing off to her tutorial.

“Y/n!” a voiced called from behind her, but it wasn’t Jonathan.

As Y/n turned around, she spotted Ebony, one of her tutorial mates, hurrying to catch up with her. A wave of dreed washed over her as she wondered if Ebony had witnessed the interaction between her and Jonathan.

Ebony's arrival prompted Jonathan to turn and continue his path back to his office, leaving Y/n to face her friend alone.

"Y/n, wait up!" Ebony called out.

Y/n forced a smile, trying to maintain her composure despite the sudden surge of nerves. "Forgot about the tutorial too?" Ebony asked, falling into step beside her.

"Yeah, I did," Y/n replied, her tone casual as she attempted to play off the encounter with Jonathan.

Ebony's next question was inevitable, yet still caught Y/n off guard, causing her heart to race even faster. "What was that with Professor Crane just before?" Ebony asked, her curiosity evident in her tone.

Y/n's mind raced as she scrambled to come up with a plausible explanation. "U-uh, what do you mean?" she stammered, buying herself some time.

"I saw you two talking, and you hugged him. I didn't think that man was capable of hugs," Ebony remarked with a chuckle, oblivious to Y/n's inner turmoil.

Relief flooded through Y/n as she realized Ebony hadn't seemed to suspect anything unusual. However, she knew she couldn't let her guard down just yet.

"Oh, that," Y/n began, her mind racing to concoct a convincing story. "Well, he's been a huge help for me during office hours and stuff, and considering he's a psychologist, I thought I could confide in him about some personal things. He was really supportive and understanding, so I just... hugged him," she explained, her words tumbling out in a jumble.

Y/n cringed inwardly at her own explanation adn the fact that she rambled, realizing how flimsy it sounded. She hoped Ebony would buy it, but a nagging feeling of unease lingered in the back of her mind.

“Aww, well I’m glad he helped you, that’s cool,” Ebony said. “I would be so scared to talk to him, he’s just so intimidating in lectures and things, you know?” she said.

Y/n breathed an audible sigh of relief, grateful that Ebony didn't seem to suspect anything out of the ordinary. However, she knew she couldn't afford to let her guard down. She made a mental note to be more cautious in the future.

As they continued walking together, Y/n and Ebony made their way to their tutorial, their conversation shifting to lighter topics. Despite the weight lifted off her shoulders, Y/n couldn't shake the feeling of unease entirely. 

-

The tutorial came to an end, and as Y/n prepared to leave, she quickly texted Jonathan, arranging to meet him down the road in his car. She couldn't risk being seen with him by anyone else. With a casual wave to people she sat with, she made her way out, only to be interrupted by Ebony.

"Ugh, this assignment is going to be the death of me," Ebony huffed as she fell into step beside Y/n.

Y/n internally cursed. "Tell me about it," she replied with a forced laugh, trying to act nonchalant.

As they exited the building together, Y/n felt a growing sense of unease. Ebony was still walking by her side, and Y/n knew she needed to steer the conversation away from any potential topics related to Jonathan.

"Are you heading to the dorms?" Ebony inquired.

Y/n quickly fabricated a response. "Actually, I'm meeting up with someone downtown," she lied smoothly.

Ebony's smile widened. "Oh, how are you getting there?"

Y/n hesitated for a moment before replying, "Um... by bus."

"Great, I can walk you to the bus stop!" Ebony offered eagerly.

Y/n appreciated Ebony's kindness, but she knew she couldn't risk it. "Are you sure? I don't want to inconvenience you," she protested.

"Nonsense, I live in the halls near the main bus terminal anyway," Ebony reassured her with a smile.

"Cool," Y/n replied awkwardly as they began to walk down the street.

As they strolled along, Y/n immediately spotted Jonathan's car, with him leaning casually against it. She was just about to discreetly message Jonathan to leave when Ebony spoke up.

"Is that Professor Crane?" Ebony asked, squinting as she tried to get a better look at the figure by the car.

"Yeah, looks like it," Y/n confirmed, trying to keep her tone casual.

"Haha, you should ask him for a ride," Ebony suggested with a playful grin.

Y/n forced a laugh, but her heart sank. "Oh, yeah, aye," she replied, her mind racing with how to handle the situation.

Meanwhile, Jonathan glanced up from his car when he heard the laughter, his expression confused as he spotted Y/n walking with someone else. Y/n shot Jonathan a glance and subtly nodded her head to the side, signaling for him to leave. Catching Y/n's signal, he quickly got back into his car and drove off. Fortunately, Ebony seemed oblivious to the exchange, only noticing Jonathan's car pulling away.

"Aww, you missed out on your ride," Ebony teased, unaware of the truth behind the situation.

-

 Y/n turned to Ebony with a grateful smile, the streetlights casting a soft glow on their faces. "Thanks for walking with me, Ebony. You really didn't have to."

Ebony grinned, her expression illuminated by the ambient light. "Are you kidding me, girl?! Letting you walk alone in Gotham at this hour? It would have been a crime to leave you alone."

Y/n chuckled, appreciating her friend's concern, even though it was all based on a fabricated story. After the ordeal with Jonathan, many of her friends distanced themselves from her, leaving her feeling isolated at university. With only Jonathan by her side, the loneliness weighed heavily on her when she wasn’t at home with him. That's why Ebony's genuine concern and companionship felt like a breath of fresh air amidst the suffocating atmosphere of abandonment. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, the cool night breeze gently rustling her hair.

"Will you be okay walking back to your halls?" Y/n asked, genuinely concerned.

"Don't worry about me, I'm just around the corner," Ebony reassured her with a warm smile, her eyes reflecting the kindness that radiated from her.

"I'll see you later then," Y/n waved as Ebony turned to head back to her halls. Y/n watched her friend's retreating figure until she disappeared around the corner.

Pulling out her phone, Y/n dialed Jonathan's number, the soft glow of the screen illuminating her face in the darkness. He picked up immediately, his voice a comforting presence in the quiet night.

"Where are you?" Jonathan's voice came through the line, filled with concern.

"Down at the bus terminals," Y/n replied, her breath forming wisps in the chilly air.

"I'll come to get you," Jonathan said without hesitation, his tone reassuring and protective.

"Okay," Y/n said. With a final glance at the deserted street, she ended the call and waited for Jonathan to arrive, the anticipation tingling in her veins.

It didn’t take long for Jonathan's car pulled up outside the bus terminal. Y/n spotted his vehicle across the street and hurried over, slipping into the passenger seat. With a swift maneuver, Jonathan merged into traffic, swiftly navigating the bustling streets of Gotham.

"So..." Jonathan began.

"You don't have to worry about her, Ebony's a good girl. She probably didn't even think twice about it," Y/n reassured him.

"But how do I know that..." Jonathan's voice trailed off, his gaze fixed on the road ahead.

Y/n shot him a determined look. "You know because I said so. Leave her alone, she's fine," she insisted, sensing Jonathan's inclination towards paranoia.

Jonathan stole a glance at Y/n, his expression unreadable. "You seem quite protective of her," he remarked.

Y/n rolled her eyes. "Of course I am, she's my friend."

Jonathan's expression darkened as he kept his gaze fixed on the road ahead. "Ah, so you won't be needing me for much longer," he muttered, his tone tinged with bitterness.

Y/n's heart sank at his words, a wave of panic coursing through her veins. Her hands grew clammy, trembling with uncertainty. "You know I need you," she whispered, her voice barely audible above the hum of the car engine.

Jonathan's expression softened as he glanced briefly at Y/n, his grip on the steering wheel relaxing. "I'm sorry, that came out wrong," he said, his voice tinged with regret.

Y/n felt a surge of relief wash over her as Jonathan reached out and took her trembling hand in his own. The warmth of his touch grounded her, easing the tension that had gripped her chest. "I know you didn't mean it like that," she replied, her voice steadier now.

They fell into a comfortable silence once more, the only sound in the car the soft hum of the engine as they continued their journey together.

-

So that was the little imagine part to this, but I also wanted to add a headcanon part to this~

So, as you've already seen, these two are the bOMB of keeping things under wraps. They don’t go out on dates or anything and generally avoid being out in public together.

Natrually, they get caught at uni

Y/n would be on the verge of a meltdown, convinced that this one slip-up would be it for her. She'd imagine having to disappear completely, going into hiding just to protect what little anonymity she has left.

Jonathan's first instinct would be to eliminate the witness, erasing any potential threat to their secrecy. However, Y/n surprises him by objecting, refusing to entertain the idea of harm coming to someone simply for stumbling upon their secret.

This triggers intense jealousy in Jonathan. He resents the idea of Y/n's concern for someone else's well-being, particularly when it’s her friend. He feels threatened by the possibility of anyone else having a significant place in Y/n's life, as he wants to be the sole focus of her attention and affection.

This prompts Jonathan to resort to subtle manipulation tactics. Recognizing Y/n's vulnerability around abandonment issues, he strategically suggests that she may not need him after all. His intention is to plant seeds of doubt in her mind about the importance of her friendship compared to the risk of losing him.

Other than that, Y/n may try to reassure Jonathan that everything is fine, while Jonathan might become more guarded and cautious in public settings from then on.

After the encounter, they would likely have a conversation about the incident, discussing the potential risks and how they can better avoid such situations in the future.

-

A/N: Just a short imagine, I have plans for the fic that wouldn't work if they got caught caught, so I just kept it nice and pretty general while still working into the fic. I can't wait to write the next part :) I hope you enjoyed this imagine/headcanon for Office Hours/Bells and look forward to what I have to post next :P 💚

[featherstreams]

Twice the Tricks, T-Poses, and Tickles

Notes: Thank you so much to the anon who requested this and for the kind words!! This sounds adorable, and I'm so glad you liked my first one! I hope you like it!💚 Todoroki is a sweetheart and deserves to smile more. (Also, sorry for the long build-up to the tickling part and the lame ending) (Second Note from rewrite: I rewrote half this fic from memory before the lovely anon who requested this reached out to me with the fic saved! I decided to leave in a lot of the changes to hopefully improve my writing a bit! Thank you so much to that anon and I hope you all enjoy!)

Lee: Todoroki

Ler(s): Kirishima, Kaminari, and Midoriya

Word Count: 1,534

Warnings: None!

Summary: After a successful prank on Bakugou using the T-pose trick they found online, Kirishima and Kaminari decide to move on to another victim during a boring lull during class. Chaos commences.

~ Part One ~

________________________________________________________

“Ughh, I’m so boredddd…”

"Shut up, Dunce face." Bakugou snapped from his place at his desk where he was fiddling with his pen.

“But Kachaan~!”

“Call me that again and die.”

Kirishima chuckled from is own place at his desk. Bakugou had been giving both he and Kaminari the cold shoulder ever since their prank a few days ago, aside from little quips and banter like this. He was surprised their explosive classmate hadn't enacted his revenge on them yet, but he wasn't complaining. Being on the receiving end of Bakugou's revenge, especially when it came to tickling, was... He shuddered at the thought.

Redirecting himself back to the present, Kirishima stood from his seat and walked over to Kaminari's desk, clapping his friend on the shoulder. "Why don't you play a game on your phone or something?" He suggested.

“Aizawa-sensei took my phone away,” Kaminari whined, dropping his head on his desk dramatically. “I won’t get it back until the end of the day.”

“You can use mine if you want,” he offered, rummaging through his back pocket.

“No, you don’t have the games I like. And I won’t have any of my saved progress, anyways,” Came the muffled reply from the blond, who didn’t bother to lift his head from his desk.

“Stop complaining so much if you’re just going to turn down everything you’re given to help.” Jirou called from where she was sitting on Mina’s desk her phone in her hand as she softly played some sort of tune for the alien girl.

“Speaking of sensei,” Midoriya piped up from his own seat, interrupting Kaminari’s defensive response, “I wonder what’s holding him up.”

It was Tuesday, and the entire class was in their usual classroom for the day. They were supposed to be working on some sort of training assignment, but indeed, their sensei, Mr. Aizawa, had been called away around ten minutes prior by another teacher for help with… well, none of them were quite sure what. He’d told them to sit tight and not cause trouble before leaving to deal with whatever the situation was. It hadn’t taken long for the majority the class to melt away from their assigned seats and group up in their usual cliches. The responsible ones of the class- the usual suspects, Iida, Momo, Bakugou- had taken this free time of sorts to work on their homework, but many of the others- Like Kaminari- were growing bored and restless.

"Oh, oh! I know!!" Kaminari exclaimed suddenly, lifting his head from his desk to grin at Kirishima in excitement. He lowered his voice then, glancing around as he spoke. "The prank! We should do the prank!"

Kirishima grinned, crossing his arms. "Hell yeah, man. I'm sure that'll be great entertainment. But who should we do it to?" He asked, now joining the blond in scanning their classmates for possible victims. "Sero and Mina likely know about the video already... Actually, I think we should avoid the girls in general. That wouldn't be manly to trick them into being helpless without their permission."

Kaminari rolled his eyes. "Always the gentleman."

"Midoriya would figure it out too fast.” Kirishima continued, ignoring the quip. “Iida would never let us..."

"Todoroki!" Kaminari exclaimed, already standing up. It was the perfect choice, after all; what did the half and half hero know about social media? Nothing, as far as they knew. Content with their decision, the two boys approached their target, who had been engaged into small conversation with Midoriya while Kirishima and Kaminari had been talking.

"Hey, Todoroki! Wanna try out this test we heard about?" Kirishima asked with a smile as they stopped before the pair. Todoroki, who’d been mid conversation, stopped and turned to look at them, curious.

"Test?" He echoed, tilting his head.

"It's a strength test!" Kaminari said cheerfully. "Bakugou even tried it the other day!"

A glance at the hero in question showed that the blond was now looking at them, stunned and furious. Don't rat us out, please... But Bakugou only let out an indignant sniff and said nothing, returning to his classwork.

"Oh... Sure. Okay." Todoroki said evenly, standing up from his seat on Midoriya’s desktop. "How do I take this test?"

"Oh! Let's see..." Kirishima searched for something they could use, scanning the room. Nothing, nothing… Shoot, maybe they’d been to hasty with this. But then Bakugou suddenly caught his attention when he moved, pointing to an area in the far corner of the room. Following his finger lead him to a bō sitting out beside the supply closet. Of course! From their karate-type lesson with Mr. Aizawa last week. That would be perfect!

Kirishima rushed over and picked it up, flashing a shark-toothed smile at Bakugou for the help- receiving only another indignant huff of dismissal- before returning to his friend and their new victim. Kaminari was in the midst of explaining what Todoroki was going to be doing as Kirishima stopped in front of them, staff held securely in both hands.

"Got a staff!" Kirishima said with a grin. "Go ahead and lift your arms up to the side- Yes, just like that!"

Todoroki did as instructed, standing like a statue with both arms perpendicular to his body while he watched Kirishima thread the bō, or staff, through the sleeves of his uniform jacket until it could be seen peeking out the other side.

"There! How does it feel?" Kaminari asked with a smirk. Todoroki calmly tested the staff, lightly pulling on his arms, which barely bugged.

"Secure," He replied after a moment. Half the class was watching now, curious and interested. Was Mina recording on her phone? Oh, she definitely knew what was going on.

"Great! Now, try to get it out! You can't use your quirk," Kirishima added when flames licked at Todoroki's left fingers. The peppermint boy obeyed, fire extinguishing as quickly as it’d appeared, tugging on his arms and shifting his feet. His brows knit together as he focused on the task, but remained unsuccessful aside from getting his elbows in a few inches.

"I can't get out," he said finally, blinking at the now-smirking two boys that had put him here. "Does that mean I failed?"

"Not exactly," Kaminari said, cracking his fingers. "You see, the strength test wasn't about your arms, exactly. It was about how long you can last."

"How long I can last? Last wha-AHAT! H-Hehey!" Todoroki's question was cut short when Kirishima jumped forward and squeezed his sides. The half and half hero pinched his lips together, jerking a few steps backwards only to run into Midoriya and his desk.

"Clever, you two," Midoriya commented, giggling as he looked up at his tense friend.

"Thank you!" The boys chorused together, both poking their way around Todoroki's sides and tummy.

"Come on, Todobro~! Tickle tickle tickle!!" Kirishima cooed. Giggles spilled through Todoroki's pinched lips, his cheeks pinkening from the teasing. "Awww, listen to those giggles! Who knew stoic Todoroki had it in him?"

"How adorable," Kaminari agreed with a smile, pinching his way up Todoroki's right ribs, earning a soft squeak. He had no hope of containing his reactions when caught so by surprise on top of having two ticklers. He was squirming now, trying to twist side to side as his arms remain stubbornly up and useless due to the staff in his sleeves.

He was squirming enough that it was growing exceedingly difficult for both Kaminari and Kirishima to tickle him, struggling to stay out of each other's way while also maintaining contact with Todoroki's wiggling torso. This became tricky enough that the redhead finally paused, pursing his lips thoughtfully as he evaluated the situation.

Then there were arms snaking around Todoroki's hips from behind, causing a surprised sound to erupt from the peppermint hero. They belonged to Midoriya, who pulled Todoroki towards him, keeping him secured against the desk and himself so he couldn't struggle away anymore. His own thumbs could be seen gently digging into the divotes of Todoroki's hips, and a snort erupted from the boy as he doubled over.

"Have at him, guys. His armpits are the worst for his upperbody," Midoriya supplied helpfully, a smile evident in his voice as he held Todoroki in place for the other two boys to play with to their hearts’ content..

"Mihidoriyahaha!!" Todoroki protested through his hysterical giggling.

"Todoroki-kun!" Midoriya echoed back teasingly.

Kirishima, not wanting to overwhelm the stoic half and half hero with six tickly hands, decided to stand back and watch this time, as most of the rest of the class was doing by this point. Most of the girls could be heard cooing, with Mina recording the entire thing on her phone, and even Bakugou was watching, smirking at Todoroki’s situation in a way that only someone who’d been in that position could.

Kaminari drilled back in on Todoroki's ribs, needing no other encouragement to continue. The victim let out a shout of laughter before delving into hysterics at the combo tickling he was being subjected to.

"Guhahahaha-guys! HAHAHhahahaa Ohohokay! Hahahahaha! Plehehease!! K-Kaminari, Midorihihi- Aaahahaha!! NONONO!" The uncharacteristic squeal shot from Todoroki's mouth when Kaminari scribbled his devious fingers under Todoroki's arms. The struggling attempts to get away doubled as Todoroki's adorable shrieking laughter filled the classroom. It was so... High pitched, and adorable, and just so genuine from such a soft spoken, neutral guy. Kirishima nearly awwed. He was not alone, though others seemed to have failed in holding the sound in.

The poor peppermint boy's legs were trembling, and it didn't take long before they gave out on him, and his weight was fully leaning into Midoriya.

"P-PLEHEHEHEASE!! NOHOHOHAHAHA NO PLEASE NOHOHOT THERE!! I- EEK- I CAHAHANT!!" Todoroki cried out between his sweet laughter. This carried on for another unspecified amount of minutes, Todoroki’s desperation being dutifully ignored in favor of listening to his adorable laughter, before a voice cut through the noise, causing everyone to freeze.

"I leave to deal with a quirk emergency for fifteen minutes, and I come back to this?" Aizawa drawled from where he was standing, arms crossed, in the front of the room, eyes trained on the frozen scene. "I could hear you from three classrooms away."

Todoroki, who sat blushing and panting in what was practically Midoriya's lap by this point, turned red enough that his scar nearly disappeared. "S-Sorry, sensei." He mumbled as an almost equally embarrassed Midoriya quickly lifted his hands from Todoroki’s body in surrender, unable to stand due to being pinned down by the victim of their antics,

"Kaminari, Midoriya, detention." Mr. Aizawa merely said. The loud protests of "What?!" and "It was Kirishima's idea!" ("Hey bro, not cool!") that followed from the electric blond went ignored as Kirishima helped Midoriya remove the staff from poor Todoroki's sleeves.

As the three boys fussed over a tickled-out Todoroki, in which Iida and Uraraka joined in, no one noticed the smile or the chuckle that rasped out of Aizawa as the man closed the classroom door and set up to continue their lesson for the day.

[bookwormangie]

Lily is absolutely flirting in Snape’s Worst Memory - but I think this is one scene that has dated the series and is easily overlooked if the reader is not a Brit of a certain age. Lily and James are bantering in that scene in the way that Beatrice and Benedick do in Much Ado About Nothing or the way that Elizabeth and Darcy have crazy sexual tension while she’s telling him that she hates him and that he’s the last person on earth she’d ever marry.

People don’t see it now because James’ approach has so many red flags that are widely acknowledged as red flags in 2024 that they see Lily’s responses as genuine disgust and dislike, instead of her getting drawn into his game because she’s interested. But it was obvious in 2003 what JKR was going for here. The implication is that Snape lashes out at her *because* he sees her half smile and her flirtatiousness in this moment, and properly realises for the first time that his ‘best friend’ is totally into the guy tormenting him in front of half the school.

None of this is to say that Lily wasn’t a) completely right to terminate the friendship and b) wasn’t overall a very decent person. But she’s supposed to be a pretty shit friend here - put any one of the trio in Lily’s shoes and imagine their response to the same situation and it becomes clear that her half assed, rather impersonal defence was indeed intended to be half assed. Now of course this is directed by JKR needing to keep the connection between Snape and Lily secret until the very end, but she makes this work retrospectively from a characterisation perspective in the Prince’s Tale by depicting a Snape who is difficult to be friends with and who doesn’t recognise what true friendship *should* be because he’s never had it, and a humanised (not a saint) Lily who’s been quietly realigning herself away from her difficult friend for a very long time without making it crystal clear to him what she’s doing. It doesn’t make her bad, it makes her a very normal 15 year old pretty, popular girl with all the positive traits that entails (confidence, vivaciousness, fearlessness) as well as the negative (thoughtlessness, a lack of empathy towards those less socially adept).

Thank you for your message, anon. 

I understand where you’re coming from, and while some people interpret the scene as flirting or as "laying the groundwork for their eventual romance," especially when viewed through the lens of classical literature and 'enemies to lovers' tropes, I see it differently. For me, attraction doesn’t automatically equal flirting. I do recognize subtle cues in Lily’s behavior that suggest she might be physically attracted to James, and yes, there’s some tension, but I wouldn’t categorize that as flirting. To me, flirting is intentional—a deliberate way to say, "Hey, I’m interested in you; let’s date.” That’s not what’s happening here. While Lily may have had some attraction to James, her intention certainly wasn’t to express that to him, particularly because his bullying and arrogance were significant turn-offs. This is consistent with the fact that she only began dating James in their seventh year when he supposedly "deflated" his ego and stopped bullying others. She valued the growth she saw in him, which made him someone she could consider dating at that point. (Whether he genuinely matured is another discussion, but I won’t delve into that here.)

I don’t deny that Lily’s conflicting feelings toward James might have influenced her defense of Snape to some extent, but to call her defense completely “half-assed" because she was supposedly “flirting” with James seems like a stretch. (Honestly, I’m considering posting the whole scene because it feels like people may have forgotten what actually happened or have only skimmed it.)

From an external perspective, Lily’s defense might appear somewhat weak or insufficient, especially given the severity of the situation. However, it's crucial to understand that this perception does not fully capture the complexity of Lily’s internal experience. Lily’s primary goal was to stop the bullying by publicly insulting and embarrassing James. She’s clearly trying to de-escalate the situation by first shouting at them, and when that doesn’t work, she takes out her wand, ready to escalate things if necessary. While it may not have been the most forceful defense, it was still a defense, and it clearly demonstrated her disapproval of their behavior. Initially, it even seemed effective, as James did perform the countercurse to the full body-bind curse. However, after Snape called Lily a Mudblood, she left, and James and Sirius resumed bullying him.

From an internal perspective, in my view, the primary factor influencing Lily’s defense was the state of her deteriorating friendship with Snape. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts and reblogs, their friendship was strained, and she likely had conflicting feelings about him. As you pointed out, she was gradually distancing herself from him due to his behavior. After years of standing by Snape, excusing his actions, and pretending everything was fine, Lily likely felt frustrated and betrayed. She was torn between her past loyalty to him and her current disapproval, making it challenging for her to respond more forcefully. While I do wish she’d done more (and she certainly could have), her feelings are understandable given everything that had transpired between them.

Regarding the notion that Snape noticed any "flirting," I respectfully disagree. Snape didn’t lash out at Lily because he saw her "flirting" with James or noticed any subtle expression. His focus was on defending himself from Sirius and James. Additionally, he wouldn’t have seen her expression since his robes were hanging over his head while he was suspended upside down:

"James whirled about; a second flash of light later, Snape was hanging upside down in the air, his robes falling over his head to reveal skinny, pallid legs and a pair of graying underpants."

The more likely reason for his outburst was that he felt humiliated and emasculated by James, especially when James said, "Lucky Evans was here Snivellus —,” as he let Snape down. That likely exacerbated Snape’s embarrassment, leading him to lash out with, "I don’t need help from a filthy little Mudblood like her." It seems like he was trying to regain some dignity, and the slur slipped out in a moment of anger and shame.

All in all, you’re right—Lily isn’t a saint; no one is. And while I’m not eager to compliment JKR the TERF, I do think she did a good job of humanizing her characters. Lily isn’t as fleshed out compared to other minor characters like James, and I do wish we’d seen more of her flaws. That said, her response to the situation, while somewhat imperfect, reflects the complexities of her character, which makes her more relatable and human.

While we may not completely agree, I appreciate your interpretation and opinion, anon. Thank you for sharing your perspective. 💫

*As a side note, I want to clarify that I’m not trying to excuse Lily for not defending Snape more effectively; I’m simply trying to view the situation from her perspective, as I do with other characters when analyzing them. Additionally, I want to emphasize that I’m not hating on Snape. Some people have taken my posts and reblogs about Lily as an excuse to criticize Snape, but that’s not my intention at all. I clearly identify as a "Snape defender" in my bio. Just because I’m exploring Lily’s perspective in SWM doesn’t mean I don’t also understand Snape’s situation. I have other posts dedicated to him on my blog.

[sonderlivra]

First of all, loveee your bytham fics! Wondering what your opinions on the merge between loki and basim are. Do you think Basim is evil? You write him so soft, but it never toes the line of ooc!

First of all anon thank you for the ask! <3 I'm glad you like my lil fics I'm trying my best :)

Second of all you brought up a particular subject I love to rant/ramble about so buckle up lmao.

More under the cut. WARNING SPOILER ALERT for: AC Odyssey, AC Valhalla, AC Mirage, AC: The Golden City.

All images have alt-text :)

My opinions about the merge are varied and long, so I'll start off by answering your question first.

Do I think Basim is evil? No. Absolutely not.

This is because I really don't think it's ever as simple as someone being 'good' or 'evil'. You could say I'm getting too pedantic about it, but from the very first game in the Assassin's Creed the idea that nothing is ever just black or white has been stressed upon constantly. 

For this reason I believe Basim is a fantastic character to focus on in this series. He is the poster child of 'morally grey'.

So yeah, I've seen Basim (or Loki) being called a villain but I don't think that's true. I think he's an antihero.

But before I get to that, let's talk about the merge. I've seen the merge being described as something unfortunate, something that ripped away Basim's own personality and changed him into something he wasn't. I genuinely believe that that is not true.

Basim is who he has always been.

The thing to remember is that Loki has always been a part of him. He manifested himself as Nehal in Basim's early childhood, because young Basim was getting traumatised by nightly terrors. What he thought were visions of Djinn was, in his words, “a crippling memory from a past life”. The Djinn was Loki's nightmare, and poor little boy Basim was reliving it every single night. 

Enter Nehal.

From little asides in the game, from their own conversations, it is clear Basim and Nehal had a very close bond. She banters with him, teases him, scolds him, fights with him. In the House of Wisdom, Basim tells us he used to sneak in there as a child with his best friend, and they spent many nights reading together (this is one of my favourite things about his childhood <3). Nehal has a distinct personality of her own, with her own interests, her own perspectives, her own opinions that she offers to Basim constantly. None of it is ever forced on him, he rejects her opinions and her advice many times over the course of the game. And while she (often vocally) disagrees, she respects his choices.

Then the events of Mirage happen. Basim discovers the 'truth' about Nehal, that she's not real, that she's just a part of him. Just waiting for him to accept her.

I want to take a step to the side and bring up Eivor's potential-merge moment from AC Valhalla. Because the difference between that moment and Basim’s is astounding. Throughout the game, Odin is there as an intermittent voice in the back of her head, posing questions on her moralities and her choices specifically when she kills someone with power, whose death would have major consequences. He isn't there to give her companionship or even friendship, his appearances to her look like a political advisor offering his opinions in statecraft to a leader. (Fwiw, I have not yet taken his advice once in my Valhalla gameplay lmao).

Odin: You have earned your place here, Eivor. Seize it! Eivor: Stand aside! My people need me! Odin: I have given you everything you wanted. Everything you needed! Eivor: You gave me nothing! It was all me! Odin: Yet I cleared your path. I guided your axe! Eivor: You were a fly, buzzing in my ear! Odin: How dare you deny me! Everything you believe in stirs before you! Yet you question all! You question the very gods!

And later:

Eivor: Your corpse hall is nothing but a dream! Odin: Nothing but a dream? A dream is as real as anything in this world! Do dreams not inspire? Do dreams not make us fearful? Do they not push men to their greatest glories! Eivor: Then I am done with dreaming! Odin: Stand and face me, you feeble-armed thrall!Leave me now and you are nothing! With me you have wisdom! Glory! Power! What more do you need! Eivor: Everything else.

Compare it to Nehal and Basim’s:

Basim: It is done. Nehal: No, Basim. It is only the beginning. For us. For what lies ahead. A deeper understanding of the world we left behind. And our place in it. Basim: All my life I wrestled with who I was. Who I was meant to be. And there you were. All this time. The side of me I resisted. A reflection of who we once were. Nehal: Of who we shall be once more. There is so much that awaits us. A new world. Let me show you. Basim (shakily): I will never see you again, will I? Nehal: (shakes head) Basim: Will I be… alone? Nehal: You are never alone.

So there it is. Odin tries to make Eivor choose him. He tries to bend her will, tries to trap her, to tempt her and goad her into accepting him. 

Loki/Nehal does none of those things to Basim. Instead, he/she offers Basim companionship. A complete understanding of his self. Purpose and surety in his life. Something that Basim has been lacking, has been desperate to find his entire life.

Basim is scared, sure. Who wouldn't be? But he asks if he will ever be alone. And Nehal tells him, never. He will never be alone.

Because, and now we come to Loki, he won't be.

Let's talk about Loki. Is he evil? And you know what anon, I have to give you a resounding no for that too.

Loki is, let's face it, a bit of a pathetic asshat. He gripes, he connives, he grumbles and makes annoying faces behind Odin's back. But he's not evil. He just, idk, really loves his gf and his kids man.

From one of my many conversations with @project-zorthania on discord:

Odin (who is also an asshat lbr) condescends to Loki. None of the Aesirs treat Loki with any trust or respect. Now I'm not saying Loki was completely innocent. I'm not sure how much of the original Norse mythology is supposed to be canonical in this series, and by all accounts Loki is a hell of a troublemaker. But at the core of it all is the fact that the Aesir have never trusted him because he's half-Jotunn. He's always been the outsider.

Loki's wife Sigyn is mentioned once (and not by name) in this series, so the central point of his motivations is his mythologically canonical girlfriend, Angrboda. Aka Aletheia.

(Side note I adore Aletheia. Every time I saw her in Odyssey I lit up like a light bulb. She's so badass. Dikastes of Atlantis who was instrumental in getting Juno banished for human experiments, a human-sympathising Isu who was also a hacker. And now she's also a mother of three. Hot damn.)

Loki is already unhappy with the Aesir. The one truly joyful facet of his life is his lover and their children. He loves his kids, wants to keep them safe and spend more time with them. He tries to sneak his son into Asgard to keep him close. Odin discovers the son and imprisons him.

The interesting thing about Asgard (and Elysium/the Underworld/Atlantis in Odyssey) is that we don't truly know what they looked like. All these mythical places are seen through the lens of the protagonists, our player characters. Sure, there's some Isu-ness in the architecture, the dialogues, the 'devices'. But on the whole, Atlantis still has ancient Greek architecture, the people still wear chitons and sandals because that is what Kassandra expects to see. Similarly, Asgard is just a more grand, magical version of what a Norse city would look like.

I am stressing all this because we know that that's not actually the case. The Isu were an advanced civilisation, sure, but they weren't actually gods. The Nornir were confirmed to be compilers of a great calculating software. Yggdrasil was a simulation chamber. Thor's hammer was probably an advanced weapon with, idk, sci-fi electric laser stuff going on. 

Loki's son was probably not a giant wolf.

I would like you to picture a young boy being snuck into a new strange place by his father. Imagine him being locked up instead. Imagine a teenage boy breaking his chains and trying to run. Imagine Odin beating that boy bloody and chaining him again, all because a probability machine told him that the boy would be the cause of his (eventual, inevitable) death.

That is what happened to Fenrir. Is it so hard to imagine Loki's rage? How he lost what little respect and faith he had in the Aesir?

Here’s some notes found in Urdr’s Well in Asgard, clearly written by Loki to Fenrir. The first is from my own gameplay taken a week ago, the second is from Zorthania’s stream from last year:

Here's a snippet of conversation between Loki and Angrboda (from one of the Animus Anomalies):

Lastly, here is a picture of a Literal Baby 🥺:

I could go on about this for hours, man. There’s so many more notes and hints and conversations that paint a picture of a flawed (Isu) man just trying to look out for his family.

When Loki merges with Basim, he is driven by two things: vengeance, and the need to bring his family back together. He needs to accomplish these goals no matter who or what stands in his way. But he’s more than just Loki now. He is Basim, and Basim has more than just these goals. If there’s a greater cause that’s not in the way of his own personal ones, then he’ll gladly and enthusiastically work for it.

And that brings me back to my final point. Basim is not a hero, he is not a villain. He is an antihero. This is from the Wikipedia article for antihero:

Post-merge, Basim continues to do his work as a Hidden One. He does so well, in fact, that despite whatever qualms Rayhan must have had about him (making Hytham spy on him even lol), Basim is made the bureau leader for Constantinople. Sure, his personal agenda is very much active. But at the same time, he fights the Order of the Ancients on behalf of the Hidden Ones. He ensures their strong presence in Constantinople by the end of TGC. He recognises that Kjotve is a major problem because he’s a high-ranking member of the Order. 

During Valhalla, you see him ensure that Hytham’s place in Ravensthorpe is secure, that their shared mission of re-establishing the Hidden Ones in England is successful. You see hints and implications of Basim finding more resources and information that could be important for the Hidden Ones and forwarding them to Hytham. He’s still a Hidden One. He’ll always be one.

From the ending of AC Valhalla:

William Miles: So what next? Where will Basim go? Basim: As far as I can, William. William Miles: I feared as much. Basim: Do not. I cherish the Creed that guides us. I always have.

I do not think Loki and Basim are two different beings at this point. After the merge, Basim is just Basim, just an “Enhanced” version. Basim always refers to himself as himself, even when he could be talking about Loki. He speaks of Fenrir as if he was his own son. And yet he never claims the name Loki for himself. I’ve always thought that was so fascinating. It implies a true and complete merge of the two personalities, and yet, Basim was not the one consumed in that merge. Loki is accepted, but Basim continues to be the dominating identity.

Basim is who he has always been in both Valhalla and Mirage, and no, that doesn’t mean he was always evil. It means he never was just ‘the bad guy’ and that he was and continues to be a flawed, selfish, kind, helpful, dangerous, charismatic, complex man.

Thank you for the ask and sorry for the HUGE ramble lol! <3 you are so brave if you managed to read the whole thing <3

[fumifooms]

was not expecting how head over heels i'd fall for marchil- i stg there's something they put in the sauce like goddamn! and i've loved seeing your posts analyzing their dynamic, really helped articulate what i was feeling. i was wondering if you had any fic recs, or any recommendations for ships with a similar vibe? i'm hungry for them...

I know right, marchil gripped me in a chokehold out of nowhere and still hasn’t let go… The sauce was designed by the demon for me to get addicted specifically. It’s been too long since I haven’t written fic for them. I’m still chipping away at my Marcille & Chil arc analysis I know I always mention it and I started the draft in January but I SWEARRR… Season 1 is ending next week :/ On the upside I’ll probably be more focused. After that analysis, which is only analyzing in depth like one aspect/half of their intertwined arc btw so who knows there might be a part 2 one day, I kept thinking it’d prob be my last marchil analysis but let’s be real, probably not. Every week I find something new to point out about them aah…… Dungeon food, ahh, dungeon food…

Fanfic rec wise, well first I have my own marchil fics, to which I mostly recommend Grind Me Down Sweetly, and then feel free to browse my marchil bookmarks for what seems good! I don’t know what your tastes are but Shroomyystar makes super good angst (and smut), my favorite being 'Til our fingers decompose, keep my hand in yours about Marcille getting deathly sick and the dilemma to confess or to not confess, incredibly haunting piece of bittersweet but soul-crushing angst AND character study. Like wow! Chilchuck I need to throw you in a river. I want you beside me is cute bedsharing banter. From me to you makes my head spin and makes me shake my screen. And- *gets dragged off before I can mention more* Meanwhile on the flipside, Anita_Amai (the first ao3 marchil writer, still going strong 👏👏) is especially great at offering short and sweet pieces, the tone is usually light and comedic and it always makes me smile and giggle, gives me fluff attacks, the fics always a strong good scene or theme idea too. Just browse and pick any, it’s a good time. There’s soo many more. Honestly I recommend just diving into the ao3 tag and start reading. You can start by kudos and read the highest ones first to dip your toes and get the community classics one out. Early on there was a recurring anon writer who did great bittersweet domestic confession stuff like this one, lifespan angst oughh... Wherever you are now thank you for all your work 😭💖 A lot of new marchil writers are starting to post too! A csm asaden fanfic writer legend just joined the tag so marchil will probably finally get some multi-chaptered fanfics haha~ But yess there’s unrequited angst, there’s self-sabotaging angst, there’s domestic fluff, there’s falling in love and bantery fluff, bunch of good stuff <3

As to ships with similar vibes: The closest I’ve seen so far is honestly weirdly close, it’s the protagonists from a romance comedy josei called Dame na watashi ni koishite kudasai or Please love useless me! I don’t want to spoil but there’s even the guy needing to move on from a doomed love + emotional distance issues and the gal slowly invading his personal life/social circle and my god… They were coworkers, he was rude, he’s a workaholic, he’s reliable, she’s sunshine and needs to get some reality checks... The banter. THE BANTER. He represses and she copes by simping for fictional characters. He made, like, a mutual aid community for ex-gangsters. They dress up in silly costumes sometimes. They’re weeeird about each other in an unlabelable way before dating in a way (in a fun marchil in canon way). It’s so funny she’s cracking open his convoluted personal drama like her morning newspapers. There’s more there’s so much more. Give up on your dreams, make money, love loses 🔥🔥 It’s honestly just a great fun read, it’s such a mood. Haven’t read the sequel yet but there’s one so really if it hooks you you’ll be fed well and for a while. The greatest bits are too spoilery but here, have the vibe.

Howl’s Moving Castle, specifically the book, and there’s a ton of themes and narratives that are so fitting for them that I couldn’t possibly all list, I already made a post on it here if you’re interested in all the details and similarities and my AU thoughts haha.

Teen Titans 2003 the show, Beast Boy x Starfire. THAT’S RIGHT I’M A BBSTAR, BAM! 💥🫶 Jokester that’s dependable x sweet and idealistic but strong and protective. Short gremlin and tall beauty. Friends-coworkers to lovers. Very soft fluffy slice of life ship I like it a lot, and I wrote a fic for it hehe. Might do more one day, I have a bunch of prompts written down and a series I really wanted to get to sob.

I almost forgot to mention Shrek. It’s SO FUNNY how well it goes sometimes… Chil Shrek, Laios Donkey, Marcille Fiona. I want to say Mickbell could be Farquaad but even Mick doesn’t deserve this slander… Shrek 2 fear that he’s not prince charming enough for her oughh. Laios getting to be a horse good for him good for him. Winged Lion singing I need a hero. Someone stop me.

There’s also zenmiyo from Touge Oni but no one reads that </3 I gotta get to my review/lore analysis about that manga it’s sooo good a fave read of mine from last year. Like it’s so fucking good. It keeps just ramping up and getting more crazily good. Scrolling through some pages rn and it’s a unique blend of comedy, philosophy and awe-inspiring visuals and creativity. Well, sort of like late Dunmeshi actually. If it had a fandom any bigger I’d be all over it constantly. And I’d also recommend Harahara Sensei / Timebomb Teacher if it had any english translation, one of my fave mangas also. It’s about mafia, and a goody two shoes willing to go through a corruption arc to save her sister x stern rude mafioso who’s there bc he’s poor and on a revenge mission, never had any other option growing up etc etc. Ok he’s not that Chilchuck but the dynamic does have that "grow up and see the world for what it is, a shithole. It’s been hell for me" vs "ok you have a point. But also have you considered not sacrificing your humanity and emotions in a self-destructive pursuit" (not that she’s in the position to talk lmaoo) like ohh my goood him throwing his popsicle stick in the fire that she lit over a corpse, it haunts me.

From the marchil Discord it’s also fun to notice ships some of us share… Csm asaden, some combination of LotR elf x short guy, fair amount of dunmeshi ships overlap too. Haven’t found the overall common thread quite yet and I’m forgetting many that have come up but lol some off the top of my head.

[brynnterpretations]

I hope you feel better soon! 💙 Thank you for all that you do for the fandom! I especially love your headcanons!

Would it be alright to request a The Boys ship? I'm a bi girl with blue hair, blue eyes, freckles, and im covered in tattoos. I love reading and writing (like so much lol), I bake, swim and listen to all genres of music (and sing along horribly!). I'm in school studying to be an English teacher and I'd love to be a writer on the side. I'm really shy and quiet, I try to be as kind as possible, though I come off sarcastic/use sarcasm as flirting. I try to be as optimistic as possible too. I adore horror movies and carry at least two books with me wherever I go. I could go on forever about my favorites. The beach is my happy place and I hope to move closer to the ocean after I graduate! My favorite colors are blue and yellow and green. I love studying languages and am trying to learn as many as possible (I speak three and im studying two more). I live for poetry tho I am awful as writing it. I'm a Ravenclaw and my intelligence is really important to me :) I love learning so much, I have such a great passion for it!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! 💙 Again I hope you feel better soon!!!

Blue heart anon! I totally forgot to mention I would like to be shipped with a guy from The Boys. My apologies! So sorry about that! 💙

Thank you so, so much for the kind words and well wishes! This brought a smile to my face, and you seem like an absolute sweetheart. Also... we have a lot in common, so DM me if you'd ever want to be mutuals (hope that's not weird). I hope you like this and thank you for the request!

I ship you with...

Frenchie ♡

Boyfriend

GIF Source: @vcugifs ★ (link)

You and Frenchie meet in line at the Jitter Bean near the hideout. He strikes a conversation with you because you seem interesting — the guy loves tattoos, both for the artistry and what people usually do to get them, and when he spots a book in your bag, he gets pretty curious.

After you both order your coffee and head over to the pick-up counter (bro's not going to slow down the line), he starts a conversation with you, asking you about the meaning of one of your tattoos.

Through that, you two have a pretty good conversation, where he's able to glean what books you like and dislike. From that, he very smoothly asks if you'd like to go out to a nearby secondhand bookstore around the corner once the weekend swings by.

After that, he gets your number — he typically has a policy of "ask for date first, then number" — and then takes you on a date to the secondhand bookstore. Through that, you learn about each other's tastes, and he falls even harder, especially because of your taste in poetry. He's mostly a Neruda, Mistral, and Huidobro guy, and whether you share the same tastes, he'll love getting to know your style.

He'll sneak-buy you a book (as well as paying for anything you choose, because he's a gentleman), and throughout the talking stage and dates, would surprise you with books you like or have mentioned getting.

Frenchie likes horror, but is pretty limited in his tastes; mostly, he likes the old-school stuff (he's a huge fan of Alfred Hitchcock's more suspenseful work, even if it's not up to today's horror standards) so he gets a far more expansive

While the dude would be shell-shocked at first, because even if he's seen his fair share of violence IRL, seeing it on the screen would be a lot (like, people do this for fun?)... he'd start to really, really love it, especially because you're able to explain what makes you passionate about it and any plot points/motifs/etc. he missed.

But... he'd grow to love it. He'd definitely become one of those people who shout "you're an idiot, don't go in there/do that!" in any films you watch (in a French accent, of course).

Absolutely adores your sense of humor, especially because it allows him to banter, and the guy loves banter.

After six or more dates, he'd ask you to be official upfront, likely over a meal cooked by him and a well-worded talk about how much he values you, your kindness, and your intelligence in his life. And, when you say yes?

Expect queen treatment.

He's a very physical person, so he'll always have an arm around you or a hand in yours, as long as you're comfortable with it.

Loves, loves, loves your freckles, calling them "petites constellations" and kissing them, no matter how cheesy it is.

Loves picking up things for you that remind him of you, whether big or small, particularly seashells that they sell at those hippie nature stores (he goes to them to stock up on incense) and, as mentioned, books.

I'll be honest: Frenchie is actually really, really scared of the ocean (I mentioned this in another ship, but it's because the expansiveness freaks him out), but he'd try his best to get over it — or at least reduce it — for you. On special occasions, he'd take you to the NYC beaches, and while... a bit awkward... he'd put on ocean documentaries and the like since you're a very intellectual person.

Is insanely into you learning other languages, and would love to sit by your side when you learn them. Also would 100% encourage you to learn French, even if you only learned a couple phrases.

And, on that note: does not care if you sing songs "badly", the guy thinks it's the cutest, most beautiful thing ever. If there are any

Frenchie doesn't have any tattoos due to not really having the time to get them, and would very curiously ask you about yours. He loves how they look, and based on your advice on the best tattoo shops, would get one as long as you were by his side.

Also mentioned in a lot of ships and also his dating HCs is his complete openness about The Boys. He'd introduce you to them once you became official and bring you around as much as he could, as long as it didn't put you in any danger.

That brings us to...

The Boys ☻

Friends

GIF Source: @homielander ★ (link)

Kimiko loves you (and I was really, really close to shipping y'all until I got the second message). She thinks you are the sweetest person, and, like Frenchie, digs that you know multiple other languages.

She's not that judgmental of a person, IMO, and would teach you as many signs as she could, and wordlessly, kindly adjust anything you did wrong.

Kimiko doesn't have much interest in horror movies, mainly because she's seen enough of it herself, but really, really loves novels, and horror novels in particular. She'd seek out a lot of recommendations in you and recommend you some herself; she's a big fan of Stephen King, particularly Pet Sematary.

And, unlike Frenchie? The woman loves the ocean, and would 100% go there with you as much as she could to have picnics with you.

Butcher loves you (platonically), particularly because of your sense of humor. He really enjoys people who are sarcastic and hardworking — it's how he and M.M. bonded in the first place, even though they have disagreements now that both have started pretty different lives — and loves to banter with you.

And, like Kimiko, will seek recommendations from you (except for movies, not books)... and, when you give them to him, he will turn them off, and wonder what on Earth is going on in your brain.

While the man faces a lot of horrors IRL, they are real, and not... that... so he'd definitely be confused, but would have a lot of respect for you, because... what the fuck. Not a lot of people can make him think that, at least in a "they're a good person, but what did I just get myself into" way, opposed to "they're a bad person, and what did I just get myself into". Butcher likes that. When you're dealing with Homelander, that is refreshing.

He wouldn't ask you to hang out outside when you visit The Boys, but if you ever stayed over while Frenchie was working on a recipe, he'd go out of his way to talk to you.

Annie struggles a lot with writing — she's well-spoken, but not well-worded, if that makes sense — so she'd start talking to you more intentionally once she became in charge of the Starlight Foundation. Of course, she would introduce herself to you upfront, but she's a busy woman, and wouldn't have a lot of time to talk to you one-on-one.

Through that, you two would become close. Both platonically and romantically (purely platonic for you), she has a thing for artsy types, and would think you're the most genuine, sweet person ever. Like Kimiko, she'd make a constant effort to hang out with you, mostly at coffee shops or, during late nights, at the Starlight Foundation, where she'd order takeout on her just to talk.

She really clicks with her sense of humor, particularly because she can sense the vibe of you being a sweet personat heart, and would also be another to banter with you.

(And, on one night where she had a bit too much to drink, even as a Midwesterner, would confide in you her fears about going to college and seek advice. She'd apologize to you the day after, but feel proud that the woman confided something to you that she had't even confided in Hughie).

Hughie would have more free-time with you, and would like you a lot (especially with Annie talking you up, which she does 24/7 — that woman would die for you). Unlike the others, while Hughie would respect your interests, he's terrified of horror (he caught a glimpse of "Alien: Resurrection" when he was young and it really, really scared him, to the point he can't engage in horror-SciFi, or even horror in general) so he wouldn't engage... but he would love to hear your recommendations for books, and would essentially start a "The Boys Book Club" with you.

He's really, really not a reader, but he wants to be, and he'll take your advice like Jesus'.

M.M. would start out pretty reserved, but would open up to you a lot more the more you swung around, mainly because he needs familiarity before he really opens up, but would become a friend after a good month or two.

He wouldn't be as close of a friend as Kimiko or Annie, but he'd be a friend, for sure. He really, really loves your kind nature — it's a refreshing change of pace in "The Boys" Universe — and, as a huge reader, would love to hear your taste in books and any recommendations.

M.M. is also an extremely well-regarded and popular user on Goodreads, so if you have it, he would follow you, promote you, and constantly interact with your posts.

All in all: Frenchie loves you, and so do the rest of The Boys. Keep being you.

[masque-of-plague]

what was one of ur fave scenes in supercritical to write?

FIRST OFF!! Omg hi?? 🥺🥺 Thank you for the ask!! 💕I'm so happy to have the platform to talk endlessly about supercritical asdfjals;djf

OUGH HARD QUESTION!! Specifically my favorite to write? I think my answer has to be the end of Chapter 5, with Xisuma's backstory. That scene is so much different than my normal way of writing and I really enjoyed having the opportunity to tell a short story within a longer story. It didn't matter that things were brief and vague, that was the style hehehehe I liked being able to drop little details without having to worry about resolving them or properly developing them over time. Like Three and Four can have mild homoerotic tension! Four's a grumpy tsundere who loves his wife, his daughter, and his best friend and just about nobody else. Little details that I can just say outright or include with off-handed details and either way works. In general, I just love a corruption arc as well, so that was very fun. And of course, I buried myself in Falsuma feels 😂 And now I have to live with the knowledge that if I want more supercritical!Falsuma, I have to create it. The Curse sdfasjdf

My favorite part to have written, even if I was complaining the entire time about the process of actually writing it is probably towards the end of Chapter 6. The Grian jumping scene was one of the first clear ideas that flashed through my brain when the plot came to me (I wasn't joking when I said that the plot of this story came to me fully formed skfadfj) so the reward of getting to finally write it was amazing. Along with that, I enjoyed Evil X being very very sadistic towards Grian. Might've had a little too much fun if I'm being honest 😂 And then of course their reunion and kiss 💕 Writing endings is something I put a lot of effort in, so again, the process of actually writing it was....grueling at time, but I was SO HAPPY to have written it. @mellioops illustrated the finale smooch and it felt like a part of my brain could rest happily, being able to visually see Scarian bloody and bruised but holding each other like nothing else mattered.

In GENERAL, I'd say the parts I enjoyed writing the most were definitely the office interludes with the reporters bantering with Grian. I loooove writing some silly banter. Similarly, Cub and Grian being catty at each other always made me laugh to write.

Honorable mentions for favorite scenes to write include:

The festival date where I got to be heavy handed with some metaphors and symbolism >:P Illustrated by @all54321

Their first flight where Grian goes from freaking out and being upset with Scar to actually really enjoying himself. Inspired a little bit by the time I made one of my friends go on a roller coaster with me which she hated until made her open her eyes and then we rode it again because of how much fun it was. 💕

Their first kiss scene which is ALSO NOW ILLUSTRATED BY @flykering WAHHHHH

afkasjdfa I know you asked for one scene anon but uhhhh I took the opportunity to talk about many 😂 Thank you again for the ask!! 💕

[yennas-stuff]

Whats your ship? gwynriel/elucien 🥰

When was the moment you shipped them?

What are your top 3 reasons why you ship them?

What is one thing you'd love to see in their book?

Hi anon!

I absolutely love this ask. 🫶

1) What's your ship?

I would definitely say I ship both, but I am mostly an elucien shipper. I just love Lucien so much and think he would be an amazing romantic lead. I think Elain has a lot of potential to be a great pov.

When it comes to gwynriel, I love Gwyn's character. We've only had one book so far with her, so I need to know more. Azriel, tho... I have many conflicting thoughts about him, haha. I just don't know much about him, so in order not to project my own bs on him, I can't claim him as my favorite yet. The most we had of his character was in the bonus chapter and some people might hate him for it and criticize his kinda toxic way of thinking, but I have to be honest, I thought it was perfectly aligned with his character and what I thought about him before I read it. I love that he's not a perfect guy. He is disturbed and dark and needs a lot of healing. And that's what i like. The potential of it all.

I also think elucien is my preferred ship because... I like it when men lead the romance and woo their partners. Sue me, lol. I already know that Lucien is charming but full of self-esteem issues and doubt. And I'm sure I will thoroughly enjoy him being down bad (in a romantic angsty way) for Elain.

2) When was the moment you shipped them?

For Elucien, it was just before Elain was dropped into the Cauldron. The tension was already there for me when Lucien behaved the way he did and when Elain looked at him.

With Gwynriel, tbh when they first saw each other during the training. I just never felt anything from E/riel. I always thought they were so obviously boring and lacking chemistry. Sorry. And I love the "like calls to like" rule of Sjm's world. They never gave me that, so when I saw someone new in Azriel's periphery, I was hooked. And then we got the ribbon scene, and I was sure they were endgame. No bonus chapter needed.

3) What are your top 3 reasons you ship them?

For both of these ships my 1st answer would be

✨️it's all about the potential✨️

Elucien is the perfect romance for me. The reluctance on Elain's part and the fact that she's still such an enigma only makes it sweeter. When we get her POV, it will feel like such a reward.

I love the compatibility of these two pairings. I love that they can make each other into the best versions of themselves.

Elucien also has this amazing thing of being undervalued and looked over. Nobody realizes their potential for greatness. They can discover their powers t o g e t h e r, at the same time. They are truly equals in that sense. Lucien with his Day Court powers, and Elain with her whole seer thing. They are both extremely loyal. They look for the good in people others deem worthless or irredeemable.

They just fit each other like the enchanted glove fits Elain's hand.

Gwynriel is all about finding your worth and seeing the light in your own darkness. The religious vibes and singing are just a cherry on top of that.

Are these 3 reasons? I have no idea, I can't count these jumbled thoughts, sorry.

4) What is one thing you would love to see in their books?

Elucien = Elain realizing she loves everything about Lucien despite the bond, SLOW BURN, yearning. Very heated moments, meaningful looks, and a chance to see Lucien being a badass and standing up for her.

Gwynriel = Azriel healing, him fixing his approach to beautiful women lol, friends to lovers, BANTER, Gwyn being confident and smooth af, Azriel being flustered and out of his depth.

Thank you, Anon! Sorry for yapping this much. I would yap more, but I doubt anyone would read it.