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#this time they are expressing their feelings but saying the wrong things? that makes no sense anyway it makes for pretty good tv
catawonkus · 2 days
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Ok I have read everyone’s thoughts and I think I get it, this is a compilation of my favorite smart things other people said. Writing it down so I can understand it.
73 yards spoilers
Break a fairy circle, get yoinked by fairies. That’s what happened to the doctor. Yoinked out of the narrative.
Everything else is Ruby. She had to make this make sense, she had to create rules to fix it. And she has magic.
So she created a time loop and placed herself as the haunted one. She heard the doctor mention a prime minister that nearly started a nuclear war and then 30 seconds later read the name Mad Jack, so she creates that story. She feels abandoned her whole life so she subconsciously “pushes people away”; she’s created her own perception filter that convinces everyone that she is what she fears she is— an unlovable monster.
The Woman perhaps was nothing more than that fuzzy filter (Carla says she is who she appears to be), which causes people to look at Ruby and then perceive her differently.
But then, in an act of self love, she brings the story home by catching up with the time loop, expressing affection for her young self and seeing herself as she really is. She places her old self a few seconds before everything went wrong.
It’s the equivalent of doing something dumb and thinking “man I wish I could turn back the clock 3 seconds” but she has magic so she can. Unfortunately she also has self image issues and she has to overcome them before she can help herself.
I’ve connected the dots. I’ve connected them.
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snzleclerc · 3 days
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hair love ♥️
cl masterlist
summary: you are not feeling very well, and your boyfriend decides to cut his hair, but that only makes things worse…
charles leclerc x gf! reader
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As the Monaco Grand Prix approached, you grew more nervous. Yes, this is your boyfriend Charles's home race, and his biggest dream is to win here, which is already quite complicated. But there's something else that terrifies you.
The fact that he's going to cut his hair.
Recently, Charles has been letting his hair grow, and it has never looked so good. His shiny brown waves gleam in the light, so radiant you could sleep in them, they're so soft.
Your PMS didn't help when Charles mentioned he'd be going to his mom's salon in a few days. During this time, everything makes you irritable and want to cry for no reason, and hearing this from him only made things worse.
Sitting on the couch in your shared apartment, you hear the sound of a key in the door, knowing your boyfriend has arrived. You immediately try to hide your slightly red eyes and nose to keep Charles from worrying.
"Good morning, mon bébé." His strong arms wrap around your shoulders. But when he kisses your cheek, he realizes something is wrong. You didn't say good morning, and you're a bit cold, which happens when you've been crying.
He turns you towards him and asks with a concerned look, "What happened, my love?" Though he hadn't done anything wrong, he feared you were hurt or upset with him.
You wipe your face with the back of your hand to stop more tears from falling. "It's just PMS, Charles." You cross your arms and turn away from him again.
Charles knew it wasn't normal for you to call him by his full name—it was always Cha, Baby, Char, but never Charles.
On normal days, you wouldn't be like this, but right before your period, your mind turns upside down, and you sometimes end up being unintentionally rude.
He crosses the couch and sits beside you, holding your hands. "Mon amour, what's wrong? You're not okay, tell me." Again, you don't answer, but instead, you start running your hand through his beautiful hair. You love this hair more than anything about him.
Quickly, Charles starts to understand the reason for your sadness and can't help but smile a little. You were upset, yes, but the reason made him feel loved and attractive.
"Oh, my love, you don't want me to cut my hair, do you?" he says calmly, and you nod, your eyes getting even shinier and wetter.
He pulls you into a hug and starts kissing your entire face. Your hair, your eyes, your nose, your mouth, your cheeks, everywhere. You feel the tears start to fade and a smile begins to form on your face.
Noticing that his actions are making you happy and forget the problem, he starts to tickle you. At the beginning of the relationship, you hated it, but now you see it as a way to express love and laugh randomly with him.
"Don't worry, chérie, I won't cut it anytime soon."
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tawnysoup · 2 days
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I ADORE your art and how well you match the ISAT artstyle. I've been being alot of studies to try replicate the style and draw characters 3d but stylised. Are there any tutorials that have helped you, studies you do, or things you keep in mind whilst drawing to make the characters look so 3d?
Oooaaahh thank you!!! This is a really good question. I say that because I feel like I "2D cheat" ISAT art a lot. It's very comfy to draw bc my normal art is like that too, with angles that shouldn't be able to exist but look right bc it's 2D so your brain forgives it. Design of the art > accuracy of the anatomy, y'kno?
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The hair kind of gives it away in most cases. It's meant to be such a specific shape, it kind of stops looking like the character if it gets too 3D? But drawing it more 3D has huge utility too, especially for animation n stuff. It's just something I've noticed about the style! It's very designed for 2D. It's very "the shape of the lines" > "the shape of the 3D object"
It's helpful to remember that ISAT characters are all made up of really simple shapes. Like Siffrin's head is just a ball from nearly any angle but the side. Their body is a cylinder but one end is wider than the other. Odile's face is a ball but the bottom is long, like an oval. Isa's is a ball but his chin is square, it has soft corners. Even Bonnie's face is a ball you just add a cheek bump. Etc etc.
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^Notice how i can't simplify the hat down into a consistent 3D shape bc otherwise it just. kind of. doesn't look like Siffrin's hat LOL
If you have the simple 3D shapes down then the rest of it is all 2D cheating and focussing on details! Having character refs nearby at all times especially when ur tryna figure out how to draw the character is KEY so you can keep looking at it and comparing. Try to pay attention to the little quirks of the art style that differ from yours and try to mimic them. But don't be afraid to let your style infect it a bit if it helps you to create something more dynamic looking.
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It helps that i've been drawing for ages. I know 'practice' is the age old advice but here's my spin on it: just draw, keep drawing what u want no matter if it looks bad or if some professional artist tells you you're doing it wrong. So long as you keep drawing you are learning. Indulge and draw what you want so you get to keep all the motivation and keep going.
oh and PUSH YOUR POSES/EXPRESSIONS!!! By this I mean, draw it once, and then lower the opacity and draw it again on top but pushing everything a little bit further. If a pose feels stiff this tends to fix it.
uhmmm i rambled on for ages but i hoped it helped u Tea (or anyone else reading)! thank u for the excuse to draw a bunch of funny isat doodlies :D keep going you have GOT THIS!!! THERE IS NO WRONG WAY TO MAKE OR ENJOY ART! YAY
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astrologiayadumu · 2 days
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Part two a)
As someone who went to a girl's high school, I’ve learned a lot about the personalities of different astrological signs/aspects so these are some of my observations :
1. 3H Mars - Riot grrlsss - I mean the people who are always ready to start a riot ( or strike as we call it in my country) at any minor inconvenience by the school. The rebellious types who never followed school rules. Also you can't do anything secretly, every action you take or anything you do is talked about.
2. 12H moons - always in some drama.Always has all the tea about everything and everyone in school.
3. 8H moons - Know a lot of secret things that go on that nobody knows about. They rarely tell tho, you have to be tight.
4. 10H/ 1H Mercury - known for their words/what they say. Good luck spilling secrets or being a gossiper with this one. Everyone will know what you said.
5. Jupiter in the 9H - deeply religious. Will always be involved in religious activities in school. Very strict and serious about their beliefs.
6. Scorpio risings tend to be really short.
7. Lilith in the 1H- Hottest in the room. makes other girls uncomfortable once they express their sexual side. Like twerking when music is being played( other people do the same but they don't receive the same reaction). The silent stares and judgment are extreme. It’s probably jealousy but people do a lot to shame them. Since its a girl's school, a lot of girls want to try you out. ( this needs its own post there is so much to say)
8. Taurus suns -least likely to like school food.
9.Aquarius Mars- social media influencers. Always up to date with trends. Also those people who everyone I the school knows and follows their socials.
10. Venus in the 5H - generous with their items more than most.
11. Leo suns carry themselves like royalty. It's funny sometimes when no one takes them seriously💀 Very big personalities can be too much sometimes. They’re very regal tho in their demeanor. Most likely to join the school pageant (and win)
12. Moon in the 2H - make having money their entire personality. Will tend to respect people according to how rich their family is like a religion. Never broke tho.
13. Lilith in the 10H/6H - everyone wants you but can't have you unless you want them first.
14. Lots of Leo energy, like being a. Leo rising, Leo degrees, - extreme attention seeking. Oh you will not have peace until you give them your attentions.
15. Pisces suns are too scared to live without any form of religion or spiritual belief. They are very indifferent to irreligious people. They pray before doing anything.
16. Best dancers- Gemini mars and Sagittarius mars.
17. Capricorn moons are so focused on their life goals. Will never waste time on something that’s not beneficial to them. Like if everyone is doing something just to pass the time or out of idleness they'd rather read or do something constructive. Their parents are so strict about their grades.
18. Sun conjunct Lilith- I’m sorry you just can't do anything shady and get away with it. Everybody talks and points out your sins. They never let them slide. Tends to be the outcasts in their classes. (not social class) You also can't participate in drama or beef like everyone else when it blows over you're the only one who will be crucified. Very rebellious energy tho, rubs teachers the wrong way. People fell its easiest to pick on you the most because everyone naturally doesn't like you. ( I'm not trying to be mean, sorry)
19. Mars in the 5H - like to fight. Not someone people like to provoke always 2 seconds from throwing a punch.
20. Mars in the 2H - eat a lot. We used to share food communally and you guys were a problem to your table members.
21. Lilith in the 2H - people feel like they deserve your possessions. Like someone would borrow money from you and feel offended if you ask for it back. Or if they want something instead of getting it themselves would feel obliged to take yours instead. On the bright side, people give you things easily, and people who don't have the same luck as you may try to make you feel guilty.
22. Mars in the 7H/Libra Mars- love coming in between two people who get along and causing disharmony. It stems from jealousy tho because they can't seem to get along with anyone without constant conflict. The literal definition of ‘I hate peace I want problems always’
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atelierlili · 3 days
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I always wondered why Katniss factored marriage and children into the equation when it came to reciprocating Peeta’s feelings for her. It’s a rather large leap, especially when Peeta himself never expresses wanting children at any point in the story. He uses children as a tool to persuade Katniss and the Capital to save her life, but the only time we see him express any desire/feelings of having one of his own is when he’s crying after the baby bomb. But we never hear his real thoughts.
But you wanna know who does express wanting children? Gale.
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It’s one of the first thing he mentions in chapter one. And it pisses her off so much.
(I also want to add that Gale reframes/establishes the dynamic of Katniss and him caring for their siblings from something that is sibling-sibling to parent-sibling. And he is not wrong. Katniss doesn’t refute him. Both Katniss and Gale are surrogate parents to their siblings. Which is also why Katniss love and affection of Prim, is not just sisterly. I’ve seen people say Katniss is only sisterly to Prim- but she’s not. She’s parentified their relationship to the point she subconsciously see Prim as her child, which makes this a tragedy because she’ll loose her first child no matter what she does by the end of the story.)
But Gale’s phrasing here elevates himself as a potential suitor to Katniss by placing them both as the parental roles to these children. (Which irritates her a lot ). Which is why she brings the topic up with her relationship with Peeta. Because she’s subconsciously aware of Gale’s efforts and knows it will be a point of contention between them. It hangs over her head in a way.
With Gale, children are extra mouths to feed. (But Gale will do fine. He can work. He can hunt.) It’s all framed with calculated survival in mind. But it’s also not something she had planned in the future at any point.
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But Peeta’s children? Oh they deserve to be born because Peeta deserves to be a father. He would be such a good father. They deserve to exist in a world where they can be safe and happy. (Even if it’s not with her.)
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This is also why I think she subconsciously sees Peeta’s baby as her own. And I don’t think of it as a cruel/heartless thing, it’s just you’d be more protective of your own child compared to someone else’s. Katniss sees Gale as a reliable person who’s equipped to look after a kid. She doesn’t express the same kind of maternal instinct/yearning for the Baby Hawthrone’s safety as she does with the idea of Baby Mellark, because she doesn’t think of Gale’s child as her own. She never hopes for a better future for them, but she does with Peeta because he and that baby gives her hope. And she loves him that much.
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ja3yun · 20 hours
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bro imagine tdh heeseung telling yn to come over real fast bcs he practically owns her and when she arrives he gave yn a bouquet of flowers just because like crazy but heeseung’s new cover just STUCK IN MY MIND
okaaaay my mind went wild with this so this might not be what you are looking for (sorry!)
warnings: heelzebub, smut (mdni), leg humping, coercion, blood, mentions of killing, not proofread
wc: 1.4k
the doll house masterlist
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As you step into Heeseung’s room, the first thing you notice is his tall, broad back. His imposing stature always leaves you feeling unsettled. Each time he summons you, a sense of dread accompanies you, anticipating what task he might have in store. So far, it’s been manageable—spending time with Soonyeol, bringing her hard-to-find snacks, and anything else that might make her happy.
It would almost be endearing, if not for his persistent attempts to lure you into bed each time you cross the threshold.
You take a deep breath and prepare yourself for whatever Heeseung has planned today. He turns around, his gaze locking onto yours with an intensity that always makes your heart race.
"You're here," he says, his voice low and smooth.
Nodding, you hang your tote bag on the bannister of his bed and walk towards him. “With five minutes to spare,” you snide, crossing your arms. “So, what’s wrong with her now? You didn’t ask me to bring anything.”
His eyes trail over your body, taking in the sundress that perfectly hugs your curves. Delight paints his face, his tongue instinctively running along his bottom lip as visions of your naked form cloud his mind.
“You look breathtaking, baby. A vision in yellow,” he mutters, his eyes fixated on your cleavage. A sly smile spreads across his face as he takes a step closer, his presence overwhelming. "Wait here for a moment," he says, his voice a blend of command and charm.
Before you can respond, he turns and walks out of the room, leaving you standing there. You hear the faint sound of a door opening and closing, then silence. Your curiosity piqued, you glance around the room, taking in the expensive furnishings and the subtle scent of his cologne lingering in the air.
Moments later, Heeseung returns, his hands behind his back. As he approaches, he reveals a stunning bouquet of flowers, an array of vibrant colours and fragrant blooms. The sight takes you by surprise, and for a moment, your breath catches in your throat.
"These are for you," he says softly, extending the bouquet towards you. The gesture is unexpected, and you can’t help but feel a flicker of warmth beneath your guarded exterior.
You take the flowers, their delicate petals brushing against your fingers. "What's this for?" you ask, unable to hide your curiosity.
Heeseung's expression softens, a rare glimpse of sincerity breaking through his usual demonic demeanour. "Just a little something to show my appreciation. For all you do for Soonyeol. And for putting up with me."
But you don’t buy it, knowing that this is buttering you up for something worse than just a girl's day with his minder. You shiver at the thought, thinking the worst as your mind swirls with possibilities.
He sees your doubtfulness and snickers, “Baby, you don’t trust me?”
"I don’t, no," you reply bluntly, meeting his gaze with unwavering suspicion.
That causes Heeseung to laugh out loudly, shaking his head in disbelief. He knows you have no reason to trust him, but hearing you say it outright fills him with amusement.
Taking one of the petals between his thumb and forefinger, he watches it as it crumbles beneath his harsh touch, his signature smirk reappearing on his face. Something delicate like this deserves a gentle touch, something Heeseung is incapable of.
“You’re right not to trust me, angel,” he whispers thoughtfully, his hooded eyes meeting yours and eliciting a flutter of butterflies in your stomach. “Just like pretty roses. They’re beautiful on the surface,” he continues, his voice low and hushed as though sharing a deep secret. Taking one of your hands, he guides it to the exposed stems, squeezing your hand tightly around them.
That's when you feel the sharp cuts of the thorns digging into your palm, making you wince. His strength overpowers yours as you try to fight his hold. As you look up at him pleadingly, feeling the blood rush out and coat both your hand and his, he does nothing but stare intensely at you. “But they’re sinister the deeper you go.”
Your heart pounds as the pain sharpens, the cruel irony of the beautiful flowers cutting into your flesh not lost on you. Heeseung's eyes, dark and unyielding, seem to drink in your discomfort.
Tears prick at the corners of your eyes, not just from the pain, but from the helplessness of the situation. He finally releases your hand, and you immediately pull it back, cradling it against your chest. Blood seeps from the punctures and onto your dress and chest, only to the elation of Heeseung.
Taking your hand, he kisses your wounds tenderly, licking the blood from you with greed. You gasp as you feel his tongue slowly and tantalisingly heal you, causing you to hold back a moan. This shouldn’t be turning you on, yet as always with Heeseung, even things deemed evil have a way of making you feel lustful.
He focuses his attention on your chest now, licking the drops of blood from the flesh of your tits, dragging it up to your neck, sinking his teeth into you - not enough to puncture you but enough for you to wish he had.
That makes you mewl out, dropping the flowers as you press your body to his and cling to him. His aura pulls you in time and time again, making you a victim to his allure each and every time you see him.
But this feels more desperate than the other times, you need him now, more than you have ever; and Heeseung knows this.
Placing his leg between yours, he ruts his knee up to meet your pulsing cunt, offering you some relief as you grind down on him. “There you go,” he whispers in your ear, his hands holding you steady as you find a rhythm you’re comfortable with, “Doesn’t it feel good to give in? To surrender to your sins rather than keep your morals?”
You are so lost in the feeling of his knee and thigh and the pleasure you’re receiving from it that you simply nod, agreeing with him. You can’t deny this feels incredible, you aren’t a liar.
Kissing along your jaw, you feel his wicked grin as you comply with his words. “You want to give in, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You want to come back to me and live here with us again, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You want Soonyeol out of the picture, don’t you?”
“Yes!”
You feel your orgasm approaching as he guides your hips to grind your clit in the perfect position, picking up speed. You haven’t realised what you agreed to, too lost in the ecstasy that your mind isn’t thinking straight.
That only makes Heeseung happier as he has you exactly where he wants you. Pawing at your ass, he moves his body in tandem with yours, his focus to get you off and have you succumb to his offer, that one that has been hanging over your head since the first time he had you.
With your high approaching, you grip his shoulders and move your hips faster, that familiar coil in your stomach tightening and your heart picking up speed.
“Kiss me, seal in your well-deserved fate,” he coaxes you as you start to release over his leg. Shocks of pleasure rip through you as you cry out his name and your body crumbles where it stands.
But much like post-nut clarity, you somehow come to when his lips are a centimetre from yours, teasing you with the opportunity to have Soonyeol’s life once more. Quickly, you push him away before he can seal your deal, panting as your chest rises and falls in time with your heart.
“What the fuck, Heeseung!” you exclaim, frantically gathering your bag and scrambling away from him, “Don’t fuck with me like that.”
His eyes are flushed with that crimson hue that you hate to love so much, his hand palming over his cock. “Baby, I can seal it another way if you want, if you bring that pretty pussy over here I can make your dreams come true.”
Shaking your head, your back reaches the door and you open it, “I sold my soul to you for my dream, this is nothing but a fantasy.”
“I can sell you a fantasy, Y/N. Anything you want,” he chides, moving closer.
But before you get lost in him once again, you bolt out the door, hurriedly walking down the hallways. You can’t believe what you’ve just done, what you almost did, you betrayed Sunghoon and Jaeyun while almost getting Soonyeol killed, all for your own pleasure.
Poking his head out, Heeseung laughs, “Baby, you forgot your flowers.”
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corvidcrossbow · 2 days
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Daryl's the kinda guy to have a small table in the living room that has the puzzle he's been slowly working on for practically months set out on it – he delicately moves it in front of the couch then sits and silently works on it some evenings, expect for little grunts of understanding when he finally figures out a certain section he was stumped on.
He gets so flustered when you come over to look, standing beside the couch and rubbing his shoulder for a little bit while admiring his work, and he so shyly says a thanks, sheepishly reaching for the next piece while you watch for a little.
He likes to go do it some nights where he can't sleep and feels like he's gonna disturb you by just lying awake next to you in bed, usually when he's having a harder time emotionally – this gives him something to do rather than sulk, even though the thoughts still do get to him while he's working on it sometimes.
Oh god and once he probably went to do that, but Dog came over and had a bit too much energy and knocked the table just enough for everything to slide off and crumble to the floor, ruined.
He just sat there for a moment, looking at the 3d triangular shape his nearly finished puzzle landed in. He didn't even sigh in defeat; he just got up and trekked his way back to your bedroom, gently waking you up by crawling into your arms.
And he buried his head into your neck, breathing you in uneasily and trying to steady himself. But as you rubbed his back and scratched his scalp, asking him what's wrong, he couldn't help but cry a little cause he already felt so negative and now felt sort of crushed, the time and effort he put into that for nothing. It makes him feel stupid; like why is he crying over a damn puzzle? He's a grown man, in a fucking apocalypse. He doesn't have time to cry over something so childish, let alone be doing a puzzle in the first place.
But your soothing helped to wash away his self loathing, tenderly reminding him it's okay to be upset about those kinda things: that it may be small in the perspective of the world, but it meant something to him. He put his time and his effort into it, and that's what made it something big.
That made him cry harder, your confirmation that it's okay to cry, getting that allowance to. His father surely banned crying, even over major things like his moms death, telling him there's no reason for a man to ever cry – and every time he'd beat him he would repeatedly demand he stop crying, until he eventually did: and the only times he ever cried were when he'd escape to be deep in the forest, sit alone and let his walls down for a little before having to put them all back up and face his homelife again, and shamed himself for doing such in the first place.
You're what finally let him express his love for the little things, and express how he felt when bad things happen with said little things.
He definitely didn't have many toys growing up, so he turned to things like puzzles – secretly doing them in his room late at night then shoving them under his bed when he wasn't working on it cause he knew Merle or his dad would make fun of him for it or destroy it – so doing puzzles now heals his inner child, and it getting knocked over hurt him even more cause it brought him back to those memories.
This was not meant to get sad but now I'm tearyeyed at 4:30 am while writing this. He's just tryna mend the kid his childhood broke :(
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FEM!READER WITH AN ABUSIVE/TOXIC EX (ft. aaron taylor johnson characters)
warnings: mentions of being in a toxic/emotionally and physically abusive relationship with someone, mentions of violence, sexual themes
includes - in said order
~ James Potter - harry potter marauder's era (yes ik it's technically a fancast but 🥺 he's my baby)
~ Tangerine - bullet train
~ Dave Lizewski - kick-ass
~ Count Alexei Vronksy - anna karenina 2012
~ Tom Ryder - the fall guy
~ @trollsareadorable hope you like this lovie! 🫶 ~
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• James is very intuitive. It doesn't seem like he is, but he is. He's just a really caring person so he notices things that others don't.
• If you were friends first, he would have definitely already known that your ex was toxic/abusive and would have hated his guts. "You deserve better than him," or "he doesn't treat you like a gentleman should," type of conversations.
• If you weren't friends first and you were flirting after your break-up, he wouldn't initially think your shyness or your nerves were because anything bad had happened. Instead, he'd find it cute and would be super patient with you and be down to take things at your pace.
• James is a gentleman. His mom raised him right (Euphemia is a queen!) and so the idea of hurting a woman, especially one you're supposed to love, is unthinkable.
• So when you tell him about your ex, about his emotional/physical abuse, he'd be livid.
• James is extra careful with you after that, to the point where you have to tell him you're fine so he'll stop treating you like you're made of glass.
• When you run into your ex one night at a party, James notices you're acting strangely. "Love, are you alright? You look like you're gonna be sick," he'll say as he rubs small circles on your back.
• When you don't answer, he'll ask again. If you snap at him, he'll be hurt but he'll know something is wrong instantly.
• "You can tell me, dove. What has happened?"
• At the first sight of your tears, James's heart breaks and he ends up ushering you into a bathroom and soothingly caresses your cheeks with his thumb. When you tell him you saw your ex, it takes everything in him not to leave you and beat his sorry ass. He could—he has the build for it (okay Quidditch Captain 😵‍💫)
• Instead, he stays by your side and hugs you as you cry into his shirt.
• You're embarrassed for making a mess and crying like a baby but James isn't having it. "Don't be sorry, lovely. It's okay to have feelings and to show them," he'll reassure you. Maybe your ex didn't like when you cried so you tried to hide it from him but James knows you better.
• "C'mon, let's continue having some fun so you can forget about that bloody wanker," he'd kiss your forehead and take your hand, making sure you're next to him all evening. You've never felt happier and safer and your ex is completely forgotten.
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• Tangerine has a temper. We all know this—and we all know he also has a potty mouth.
• Maybe you were coworkers first and he noticed how sensitive you were when he would raise his voice, or use some curse-words, but he starts to notice something is really wrong when you're visibly afraid to talk to guys at bars, even if it's just for fun.
• So, he would talk to you about it in private when he has the chance. "Hey, darlin', are ya okay? 'Cause you don't seem okay, y'know that guy at the bar wasn't tryin' to hurt ya, he just wanted to flirt. Did he make ya uncofmrotable," Tangerine's voice would be softer than usual.
• You open up to him, touched he cared enough to ask, and the moment he hears about your ex, he sees red. Tangerine is many things but he would never emotionally hurt or lay a hand on someone he loved ever.
• He looks at you with wide eyes, imagining your fearful expression at the hands of your ex, and his blood boils even more.
• He makes it his mission to help you feel safer around men—around him—and eventually, he falls in love with you and you fall in love with him. It takes you some time to fully trust him, but Tangerine eventually earns your trust because he shows you genuine love.
• He refrains from yelling around you and he doesn't use curse words that would remind you of the disgusting things your ex would call you. He adjusts.
• He's adaptable 😏🍊
• If you see your ex at the bar while you're refilling your drink one evening, you come back to Tangerine and you're friends and you're really quiet. More quiet than usual.
• In the beginning Tangerine is oblivious because he's joking with his friends. However, when you grasp his arm, watching your ex move across the room, he knows something is wrong. He sees where you're looking and turns you towards him gentle, one hand cupped under your chin.
• "Where'ya lookin', luv?" he'd ask and frown when he sees your glossy eyes.
• Tangerine hates when you cry—not because he's mad at you but instead because he hates knowing you're sad enough to cry. It makes him feel helpless, like he'd failed you.
• When you lean into him for comfort and tell him you saw your ex, he frowns and his eyes snap up to find your ex in the crowd. You tell him you're okay and you just want to go home, but Tangerine isn't having it.
• "That bastard hurt you. He doesn't get to get away with it," Tangerine hisses and kisses your forehead, "I'm just gonna go have a little chat with him."
• By little chat he means punching your ex so hard he breaks his nose—which leads to you, Tangerine, and your friends being kicked out of the bar.
• You're secretly very pleased to see your ex in pain and you feel all warm and fuzzy inside knowing Tangerine is willing to protect you like that. You aren't mad at him, especially when he cuddles you back at your shared apartment.
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• Dave is shy just like you, so in the beginning of your relationship he doesn't take your shyness as something bad. He likes that you're nervous, because he's also nervous.
• However, he also picks up on cues that something is really wrong—like when you over apologize, or do anything in your power to please him when he's being snappy/in a bad mood.
• Alarm bells ring in Dave's head and he asks you why you feel the need to constantly apologize or make yourself small when you think he wants it.
• Because he could never want that.
• When you tell him, he doesn't know how to react. His blue eyes go wide and his mouth opens. He feels angry and sad and confused all in one overwhelming ball of emotion.
• Who would dare hurt someone as kind and lovely as you? Dave simply doesn't understand.
• "Baby, I'm so sorry that happened to you," he whispers and holds your hand, squeezing, "I promise you I will never ever do anything like that to you. Ever, you hear me? You don't have to walk on eggshells around me."
• If you saw your ex at a party?! Dave would know immediately because you would find him and tell him. You trust him more than anyone and would need him comfort instantly.
• "Shh, you're okay, baby. We can leave if you want, yeah?" he'd say and kiss your cheek, holding your closer to him and ignoring his friends wanting him to stay.
• You see, Dave doesn't confront your ex. Dave isn't a confrontational person. Plus, he'd much rather make sure you're okay than go fight someone. He doesn't want you to see him be violent because it's such a contrast to his usual sweet self.
• But Kick-Ass? Kick-Ass can teach your ex a lesson without any questions or hesitation (he'll def ask Mindy for help bc she'd also be livid that someone hurt you).
• So that's what happens.
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• Alexei is a very composed person. He's doesn't often show his anger and he never screams at you. Perhaps you were friend's first and then eventually he asked you to marry him—and that's when he began to see the signs that someone had been very ungentlemanly with you.
• You flinch when you accidentally break his crockery and it makes your cry—apologizing more than necessary which to Alexei isn't normal.
• He's wealthy after all! He can easily afford a new set and something like this shouldn't cause you any distress.
• Then, he sees how you cling to him during social events and always reassures him that when you speak to other men, you have no intention of being unfaithful and they're just friends. You would sound desperate, your eyes pleading with him to understand.
• Alexei never imagined you would and he frowns. "Whatever makes you think I'd assume you would play with another man? I trust you, sweetheart," he would whisper in your ear that evening, kissing your cheek.
• When you finally tell him the cause of your distress—an ex-husband (maybe he died)—and you tell him how he'd treat you extremely poorly and was extremely jealous and possessive.
• Alexei is shocked and disgusted but he is also offended that you would think so low of him and think he'd treat you the same way.
• However, he doesn't become angry and instead sees you need comfort and he whispers soothing words into your ear. "My darling dove, I would never lay a hand on you or make you feel dirty and less than me because you have friends. I am secure in this marriage. I know you only have eyes for me—as I only have eyes for you."
• Steamy, gentle, passionate sex to remind you that you deserve to be praised and worshiped and as your husband it's his duty to do just that. 😛
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• Tom is an asshole. His ego is through the roof, he's immature, he mostly thinks of himself, he can be stupid, and he can be inconsiderate and crude. All these things are very very true.
• However, he also craves genuine intimacy and love. He's insecure like that (probably wasn't hugged enough as a child) so he's immediately drawn to your kindness.
• Say you're on the crew of his new movie (a camera girl? Makeup artist? Low ranking actress) and you're visibly nervous around him both because he's Tom Ryder and simply because of his reputation as a player.
• Players make you uncomfortable.
• He sees this and in the beginning, he likes teasing you. He thinks it's funny seeing you become flustered and hide from him.
• He thinks it's funny until one of his jokes goes too far and he makes you cry. Now, it's anything but funny and he feels like an asshole. He's not used to feeling like he's an asshole (he usually thinks too highly of himself).
• So, reluctantly he decides to apologize to you.
• He finds you outside the bathrooms, eyes teary and puffy. "Listen, babe, I didn't mean to make you cry so hard, kay? You look much prettier without all that snot on your face so gimme a smile, huh?" he say, still sounding like a bit of a jerk—he can't help himself—but he's trying.
• You're vulnerable so you end up spilling with a shaky voice that his joke reminded you of something your ex would say and you ramble on and on, unable to calm your mind.
• Tom's speechless (for once) as he listens.
• He may be an asshole, but he isn't abusive towards anyone he truly cares for so he doesn't understand your ex. He's now mad at himself and he's also secretly honored you opened up to him.
• He isn't use to sincerity or someone truly revealing themselves to him. He likes the feeling.
• Over the next weeks, he's kinder to you and he writes you little sticky notes and leaves them in your trailer/locker/wherever your stuff is with weirdly endearing messages.
• It's kinda sweet and eventually you crack.
• Tom Ryder is a surprisingly decent boyfriend. Sure, he still has an ego and he's still sometimes a jerk—but it's obvious he genuinely cares for you.
• He's by your side whenever you can be, reassures you when you're insecure and nervous around him and he's gentle with you.
• He knows you need that.
• "My sweet girl," he whispers in your ear between takes, making you feel like the only girl in the world, "So good for me, aren't you? I love you so much."
• And if he ever sees your ex and you end up crying or upset because of the jack-ass, he'll get his security team to hurt him. Badly.
• And then he'll buy you whatever you want to make you feel better! He likes spoiling you and he obviously has the money to do so.
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vickyvicarious · 3 days
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Lucy starts out this letter thanking Mina for her sympathy, but she herself seems to be a fount of it. She feels so badly for the two suitors she has to reject. She not only cries in the moment, but after the fact when she thinks about them again. She laments that she couldn't agree to marry all of them - not even because she seemed to really love all three, but simply because then they wouldn't have to be sad.
However, as much as I do believe Lucy is a sympathetic/empathetic individual who clearly feels things very strongly no matter how little she can express them at times... I think there's more going on here. I think she is self-critical and feels guilty about not being able to please others. Both are traits that seem to go along with her role in society and the likely expectations for her socially: to be pleasant and socially adept. I imagine her mother has taught her how to control her own behavior first. There are several little lines supporting that later on, and also their whole relationship just is suggestive of the roles they feel like they have to embody.
There are a few lines which make it clear that a little part of her is enjoying getting three proposals in a single day. Not in a cruel way, but just kind of an exciting ego boost that you kind of want to giggle about with your friends. But she feels that would be wrong to do too freely, and certainly doesn't want this gossip to spread beyond Mina, because she cares too much about the individuals involved. In fact, another aspect of her tears this entry that I don't think gets enough focus is her sadness at the loss of two friends:
Being proposed to is all very nice and all that sort of thing, but it isn't at all a happy thing when you have to see a poor fellow, whom you know loves you honestly, going away and looking all broken-hearted, and to know that, no matter what he may say at the moment, you are passing quite out of his life. My dear, I must stop here at present, I feel so miserable, though I am so happy.
Even though Lucy clearly didn't seem to view Seward in any romantic light, even in a "what-if-I-weren't-already-in-love" way (her "what-if" for him wasn't for herself but rather for Mina), she definitely seems to have liked spending time with him. She liked him as a friend. And she feels so certain that in rejecting him she has lost this friendship that it upsets her to the point she stops the letter altogether for a while. Quincey made much more of a point of emphasizing that he would be her friend for life and that was a good thing, and she didn't write an outright denial of that one, but she still felt deeply upset about it.
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youremyheaven · 1 day
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The Severity, Spirituality and Stoicism of Saturnians ✊🏼🧎‍♀️💁🏼‍♀️
I will be criticizing Saturnian men throughout this post, if you don't like that, stop reading right now <3
Saturn is the planet of karma, justice, discipline, and order. In Claire's video about Saturnian men, she observed that "in Saturnian men you will find an exact duality contained here in breaking rules and doing strange stunts, pranks and having outbursts etc but also paradoxically find themselves submitting to ideologies, cults, political parties, motivational affirmations etc"
I feel like I touched upon this a bit in my first post about Saturn and in this post I'd like to go into different manifestations of this tendency along with some other things I've observed with Saturnian men.
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Timothee Chalamet, UBP Moon
Full disclosure, I've never liked him lmao,, I think the hype he gets is undeserved and 90% bc of the fact that there is a dearth of young charismatic actors in Hollywood.
But anywayyys, Timmy Tim first attracted controversy for working with Woody Allen even though he's since expressed regret for it or whatever,, then he received flak for having sex in a pool during the height of the pandemic and manyyyy blinds about him giving women chlamydia 💀💀started making the rounds and he was lowkey exposed for being a whore
Then last year he drew criticism for smoking indoors at a Beyonce concert (where smoking is prohibited) and he's literally talking to Kylie and blowing smoke ??? at the same time?? which is sooo filthy?? who tf does that??
His silence on the Armie Hammer issue and pretty much all issues lol have also been criticized. Everybody thought he'd be some woke liberal activist but he's just been dead quiet and pretty self absorbed the whole time. He loves to lap attention and give absolutely nothing in return to the community.
The thing with Saturn however is that, bad behaviour does not go unpunished. Timmy Tim has been getting A LOT of flak and the total rose tinted obsession people had with him is slowly fading (even tho he still has legions of fans). People are now starting to see his true colors.
But anyway, this is a very minor issue compared to all the other Saturnians I'm going to mention next.
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Jeffrey Epstein, UBP Moon, Anuradha Rising
I'm assuming most of you are familiar with sex offender Epstein. He has trafficked thousands of underage girls over the course of decades and to satiate numerous high profile paedophiles.
He committed suicide while in prison. One thing about Saturn is that, if you stray, are immoral, unfair, undisciplined, corrupt, foul, evil etc it WILL punish you. The truth is Saturnians know deep down that what they're doing IS wrong, they're not like Moon dominants who are completely convinced their corrupt evil idea is a "good" one. Saturnians know full well what they're doing and they do it anyway and they suffer its consequences.
Inviting Saturn's wrath upon oneself is basically how these natives find "balance", they feel like they get away with too much and they're constantly pushing their limits to see how far they can go before this wrath comes for them.
Epstein had been doing this for decades without much consequence, working with extremely high profile people including politicians and royalty. Eventually, he was caught and the truth of his immorality was exposed for all to see AND he ended his own life.
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Salvador Dali- UBP Moon
Dali was known for being an eccentric and a weirdo and you can say that the way he pushed his boundaries as an artist is a more "positive" manifestation of Saturnian individuals and their need to test limits.
However, Dali was also a pretty messed up guy
Dali admitted on several occasions to having sadomasochistic tendencies. As a child he enjoyed throwing himself down the stairs, explaining that “The pain was insignificant, the pleasure was immense”. Shockingly, he once pushed his childhood friend off of a 15-foot bridge – as his friend lay injured, Dali apparently sat calmly eating cherries.
Pleasure and pain seemed intimately entwined. Dali wanted both. One other childhood incident of note included a wounded bat. It was kept in Dali's washhouse hideaway and stayed there overnight. When Dali returned to it was being devoured by a mass of ants. He impulsively bit into the seething mass delirious with pleasure. 
I had briefly mentioned how Saturnians tend to be sadomasochistic in my previous post about Saturn and these examples just confirm it further.
When he is an adolescent a girl falls desperately in love with him. He kisses and caresses her so as to excite her as much as possible, but refuses to go further. He resolves to keep this up for five years (he calls it his ‘five-year plan’), enjoying her humiliation and the sense of power it gives him. He frequently tells her that at the end of the five years he will desert her, and when the time comes he does so.
When he first meets his future wife, Gala, he is greatly tempted to push her off a precipice. He is aware that there is something that she wants him to do to her, and after their first kiss the confession is made:
I threw back Gala's head, pulling it by the hair, and trembling with complete hysteria, I commanded: ‘Now tell me what you want me to do with you! But tell me slowly, looking me in the eye, with the crudest, the most ferociously erotic words that can make both of us feel the greatest shame!’ Then Gala, transforming the last glimmer of her expression of pleasure into the hard light of her own tyranny, answered: ‘I want you to kill me!’
He is somewhat disappointed by this demand, since it is merely what he wanted to do already. He contemplates throwing her off the bell-tower of the Cathedral of Toledo, but refrains from doing so.
George Orwell once described Dali this way:
"The two qualities that Dali unquestionably possesses are a gift for drawing and an atrocious egoism."
Art historian and critic Brian Sewell has also claimed that Dali once asked him to lie naked in front of one of his sculptures and masturbate whilst he watched.
He was also obsessed with Hitler in a perverse way.
While the vast majority of the Surrealist group professed far-Left political leanings, Dali kept curiously quiet during his early career, before being kicked out of the group for being a Nazi sympathiser, which he denied. Dali went on to make artwork addressing the Hitler, including “The Enigma of Hitler” (above) and “Hitler Masturbating”, once detailing that he “often dreamed of Hitler as a woman” and that the Nazi dictator “turned [him] on”.
He was a big old fascist who also supported the Spanish dictator Franco which made Picasso stop talking to him for the rest of his life. Orwell who fought in the Spanish civil war called Dali a "disgusting human being".
At age six, Dalí writes in his autobiography, he pre-meditated a "terrible kick" to his three-year-old sister's head "as though it had been a ball." Not simply childish not-knowing-better, this baseless cruelty continued as Dalí got older.
Here is an article that says more about his shitty behaviour.
Here is another article about his fcked up relationship with his sister
Saturn never fails to punish tho. It will let you fck up but punishment is imminent.
Dali died in his 80s, almost penniless, completely alone, as he had driven all his friends off decades prior, his wife had already passed and he was seriously ill and bedridden. He used button to call his nurse and one day that button short circuited and set him/the bed on fire. He suffered second and third degree burns all over his body. He lived for another four years in severe pain before passing away.
Just because you go a whole lifetime avoiding punishment, does not mean it isn't coming. People who suffer in old age have it the worst because you suffer 100x more
Dali was a Saturn defying narcissistic, violent, abusive person and guess what Saturn did? It saved it all up for the very end and left him without any kind of mercy. Friendless, penniless, bedridden, in excruciating pain, FOR YEARS until he finally died.
Saturn punishes you/is a harsh teacher because it wants you to uphold the Saturnian qualities of virtue, justice, fairness, doing your duty etc, you may never see the rewards of your good actions, so it may feel like a waste of time to keep being so principled but if you decide to just do whatever and disobey, you best believe Saturn will come through with that wrath. You have to keep being virtuous and morally upright even if you don't see yourself being "rewarded" for it. No one may recognise your goodness but keep being good anyway.
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Alexander Graham Bell, Venus in UBP in 2h, Saturn in Shatabhisha in 1h
He is the guy who invented the telephone but he was also a very controversial deaf educator in his time.
Bell's father was a teacher of the deaf. His method of teaching the deaf was coined "Visible Speech." Bell's mother was deaf/hearing impaired and he would often speak to her by placing his mouth close to her forehead, believing the vibrations from his voice would help her distinguish speech more clearly.
Although he married a deaf woman, a former speech pupil, Mabel Hubbard, Bell strongly opposed intermarriage among congenitally deaf people. Bell feared "contamination" of the human race by the propagation of deaf people even though most deaf people statistically are born to hearing parents.
Bell applied his study of eugenics to his goal of preventing the creation of a deaf race and presented his paper Memoir Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race to the National Academy of Sciences in 1883.4
Bell stated, "Those who believe as I do, that the production of a defective race of human beings would be a great calamity to the world, will examine carefully the causes that will lead to the intermarriage of the deaf with the object of applying a remedy."
In this paper, he proposed to reduce the number of the deaf by discouraging deaf-mute to deaf-mute marriages, advocating speech reading and articulation training for an oral-only method of education, removing the use of deaf teachers and sign language from the classroom.
Suggestions were made to enact legislation to prevent the intermarriage of deaf-mute people or forbidding marriage between families that have more than one deaf-mute member. His preventative strategies for deaf marriage included removing barriers to communication and interaction with the hearing world.
I feel like Saturnians often have a tendency to subconsciously make things harder for themselves and for others. Getting things easy is not Saturn's style. And this can manifest in sooooo many different ways. Bell grew up with a father who taught deaf people/children, his mother was deaf, he married a deaf woman YET he believed that they did not deserve to have separate schools that used communication tools specifically designed for them to make their lives easier. He spent his entire life working with deaf people but still somehow did not want things to be easier for them???
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Steve Jobs, UBP moon
He had a pretty stellar reputation for being a major asshole. He was an extremely difficult person to work with and often terrorised his employees and was a toxic vile asshole to the women he dated.
Jobs was given up for adoption by his parents and later in life, he abandoned his girlfriend and baby after he got her pregnant.
His daughter Lisa later said that her mother felt uncomfortable leaving her with Steve alone after an incident in which he questioned and teased the then-nine-year-old Brennan-Jobs about her sexual attractions and proclivities.
Once, as Jobs groped his wife and pretended to be having sex with her, he demanded that Lisa stay in the room, calling it a "family moment."
It is well known that Steve Jobs was really good at conceptualizing things and coming up with ideas (touch screen phones, macbooks, iMacs etc) but he lacked the technical expertise to build anything. His partner, Steve Wozniak was the actual brains behind all of the creations to put it simply.
Early in his career, Jobs worked for the game developing company Atari who promised him a bonus of $5000 for developing a game called Breakout. Jobs did not have the know-how to execute this, so he made his friend Wozniak who worked at a different company stay up all night for 4 nights to design this whole ass game. He gave him $350 for it and told him he was giving him half of what the company paid him. Wozniak only found out much later that Steve basically stole his ideas, used him AND gave him a paltry sum as compensation.
Before Apple went public, Jobs refused to give any major shares to the many many developers and engineers who played a crucial role in pioneering the company. Wozniak gave those employees HIS shares so that they could make a profit when the company went public.
I'm not going to detail all the ways he tormented his employees and staff. You can google it.
Eventually, Saturn's karma started kicking in and Jobs was fired from the company he founded and for 10 years, he had to stay away from Apple. This experience humbled him a bit.
Apple really suffered in his absence and they brough him back in 1997 and we all know the kind of groundbreaking work he did in the next decade there. (hint: iphones, ipods etc)
In 2011, he found out he had terminal pancreatic cancer and resigned from his position and died 6 weeks later.
He refused to get surgery and chemo and chose "alternate treatments" until his disease had progressed so far that, there was no saving him.
He would eat a single thing and only that for weeks. Like apples. He'd eat only apples for three weeks. He was convinced that made him superior to everyone else and that it made him have no body odour, so he never showered either. This made it really hard for others to be around him.
Now back to his daughter, he was incredibly abusive to Lisa. She said she was forced to move home over 13 times before age seven as her mother struggled to pay the bills through a series of cleaning positions, while Jobs, then already a multi-millionaire, refused to help.
During one visit she innocently asked if she could be given his Porsche after learning the flashy vehicle had a scratch and needed to be replaced. His scowling response shocked Lisa, then aged seven.
“‘Absolutely not,’ he said in such a sour, biting way that I knew I’d made a mistake,” she remembers. “I understood that perhaps it wasn't true, the myth of the scratch: maybe he didn’t buy new ones. By that time I knew he was not generous with money, or food, or words; the idea of the Porsches had seemed like one glorious exception. I wished I could take it back. We pulled up to the house and he turned off the engine. Before I made a move to get out he turned to face me.
“‘You’re not getting anything,’” he said. “‘You understand? Nothing. You’re getting nothing.’ Did he mean about the car, something else, bigger? I didn’t know. His voice hurt—sharp, in my chest.” (an excerpt from her memoir 'Small Fry')
Saturn may delay punishment but it will punish and whether or not you learn from it, is up to you. Some individuals are not very malleable and they suffer the most. They make the same mistake over and over again and never learn. Steve died of any entirely preventable disease but he refused treatment. He was in excruciating pain towards his end and was completely bedridden. He expressed regret about not having gotten treatment sooner but :/
It's really scary how your karma catches up with you. Its the worst when it comes for you and leaves you with no time to remedy anything, so you just suffer agony knowing there is nothing you can do.
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Woody Allen- Anuradha stellium (Sun, Mercury & Jupiter)
He molested his step daughter Dylan Farrow and is currently married to his former step daughter from the same marriage Soon Yi.
There has been a lot of misinformation regarding him molesting Dylan as a child even though the fact that he is literally married to one of his stepdaughters should be reason enough to suspect him
 Allen had been in therapy for alleged inappropriate behavior toward Dylan with a child psychologist before the abuse allegation was presented to the authorities or made public. Mia Farrow had instructed her babysitters that Allen was never to be left alone with Dylan.
 Allen refused to take a polygraph administered by the Connecticut state police. Instead, he took one from someone hired by his legal team. The Connecticut state police refused to accept the test as evidence. The state attorney, Frank Maco, says that Mia was never asked to take a lie-detector test during the investigation.
(Here is a link to the full article)
But again, Saturn's karmic lessons come through. Numerous actors have refused to work with Allen, he has been publicly condemned, lost all his reputation during #MeToo Actors such as Greta Gerwig, Colin Firth, and Mira Sorvino have recently apologized for accepting roles in Allen’s films, while many of his most avid fans have turned against him.
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Johnny Cash, Rahu in UBP in 1h
Johnny was a drug addict and very abusive to his first wife. He creepily pursued June Carter while he was still married and despite her rejecting him MANY times, he did not give up. She was in a financially unfortunate position and he gave her the opportunity of touring with him, which she had to take up to make ends meet and finally in front of a live audience, he proposes marriage to her and basically forces her to say yes.
They remained married for 50 years and died within a year of each other so idk if they had a happy marriage or a troubled one but the Saturnian persistence was coming thru.
Cash's whole life is super Saturnian. His career came to a standstill in the 70s after a stellar decade long run in the 1960s, all throughout which he was abusing drugs.
In the early 1980s, Cash had eye surgery, broke several ribs, and damaged a kneecap, all on separate occasions, and again became addicted to pills. He was hospitalized in 1983 with internal bleeding that almost killed him. Upon regaining strength, he checked into the Betty Ford Clinic and remained clean until his death.
In 1994, after a looooong period of zero hits and chart play. He collabed with Rick Rubin (the GOAT) and then released a number of successful albums until he passed away in 2003 and from 1997 onwards he had been struggling with autonomic neuropathy and was frequently hospitalized.
Its interesting to me how between 1954 to 1973, Cash was undergoing his Saturn mahadasha and this period brought him enormous success and also made him completely addicted to substances. In 1965, he started a forest fire that burned off 500 acres of forest land and killed 49 of the refuge's 53 endangered condors. When confronted about it, he said "I don't care about your damn yellow buzzards".
From 1973-1990, he was undergoing his Mercury dasha, and this was a very low period in his career as he suffered major setbacks.
As he's sobering up at the Carter's family ranch, he's walking along a path. One of their ostriches is standing in the path. Well Cash thinks to himself "Hell if I'm moving" and tries to move it, so the bird starts trying to headbutt/peck at him, so he swings a punch at the bird, it responds by splitting his goddamn abdomen open with it's talon, from top to bottom. (he said the only thing that stopped the talon was it got stuck on his leather belt and couldn't go further). So he's laying on the ground, and grabs a branch (or an old fence post, can't remember) and starts beating it from the ground until it runs away.
Its interesting how his major highs in life were during his Saturn MD (He has Saturn in Uttarashada in 11h) and his biggest blows came during his Mercury MD (he does have Mercury in Shatabhisha in 12h 😬).
Mercury is not an inherently difficult dasha the way Saturn is. But what we sow, we shall reap. Saturn gives you 19 years to get your shit together and if you don't really learn during this period, it gets on your ass long after that. Jennie from Blackpink ended her Saturn MD in 2019 and some of her career's biggest moments have come since then but so have the controversies (she's currently in her Mercury MD) and it's as though the lingering after effects of the Saturn dasha really dictates how we experience our Mercury dasha.
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Winston Churchill, Anuradha Sun
In 1943 in Bengal, over 3 million people died due to starvation and Churchill was directly responsible for this.
Churchill deliberately ordered the diversion of food from starving Indian civilians to well-supplied British soldiers and even to top up European stockpiles, meant for yet-to-be-liberated Greeks and Yugoslavs (all of this happened during WW2 for context)
He basically said, this is none of my business. Even though millions of Indian soldiers fought for the British during WW2 and were British subjects until India gained independence in 1947. Also btw India was the biggest contributor to the Empire's GDP. they looted and plundered us and left us to starve, basically.
In the book, Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II, written by Madhusree Mukerjee, Churchill was quoted as blaming the famine on the fact Indians were “breeding like rabbits”, and asking how, if the shortages were so bad, Mahatma Gandhi was still alive. 😡🤬😠he was a racist imperialist pig to say the least.
Some people are Churchill defenders and genuinely believe that the Bengal famine was a necessary sacrifice to win the war, and that those who critiqued him were unfair and had little insight about WWII. Aka: the colonized are expendable in a war between essentially imperialist, genocidal and fascist states. And they can kiss my ass.
To Indians, Churchill is a Hitler-like figure and rightfully so.
"I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."
Winston Churchill to Peel commission in 1937. 
Here is a thread that elaborates the many fcked up things he did.
When I talk about how cruel, brutal and callous Saturnian men can be, this is what I mean. Saturn restricts, limits and binds. This can easily mean Saturnians subject themselves and others to unnecessary rules, restrictions and limits.
Steve Jobs thought he was superior to others bc he only ate one type of food for weeks and months. Just because someone has discipline, does not automatically mean its good to have it. Free range parents can suck because they dont protect you or shelter you but disciplinarian parents also suck. Both Jupiter and Saturn struggle to learn "balance".
An unevolved Saturnian will be stingy af, very partial, biased and ill mannered. They act like cave men.
Churchill struggled with his mental health his whole life. He referred to it his “black dog:” fits of melancholia that followed Churchill throughout his life and often left him bedridden, suicidal and unshakably depressed for months at a time. It may sound cruel to say poor mental health is "karma" for his actions. (He also suffered 7 strokes and the final one, killed him). But the ways in which we are punished are often not materially obvious??? We may see terrible people thrive but often they are really suffering on the inside. Saturn often punishes by depriving you of peace of mind :/
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Thomas Alva Edison, Anuradha Rising
In 1884, Nikola Tesla moved to New York City to meet Edison, who was famous for his low-voltage, direct-current electricity. Tesla believed the higher-voltage alternating current electricity was superior and suggested creating an AC-powered motor, but Edison claimed it was too dangerous. Instead, Edison promised the recent immigrant $50,000 (over $1 million today) if he could improve upon his DC generators, or “dynamos.”
After toiling for several months and making significant advances, he returned for his reward, only for Edison to say, “When you become a full-fledged American, you will appreciate an American joke.” Tesla quit—but the bullying didn’t stop there.
George Westinghouse had purchased Tesla’s patents and became the pioneering force behind AC power and its widespread implementation. Edison, who was ideologically and financially invested in his own DC power, began a publicity campaign against AC power. The campaign was ruthless; he wanted to prove that the high voltage of AC power was too dangerous for public use, so he and his cohorts began publicly electrocuting animals—stray dogs and cats, cattle and horses, and even, notoriously, “Topsy” the elephant. (you can hate me for pointing out how unevolved Saturnians abuse animals all you want but it will not stop it from being true<333)
The story gets worse. Edison was asked whether electrocution was a humane method of execution. In reply, he claimed that with Westinghouse’s AC power, it was indeed a humane and reliable execution. Westinghouse of course tried to prevent such an association, but Harold Brown, one of Edison’s employees, was hired by the state of New York to build the first electric chair. Obviously, he used AC power.
The execution—the first use of the electric chair—took place on August 6, 1890. AC power proved neither reliable nor humane. The first, 17-second-long charge failed to kill the man, an alleged axe murderer; after waiting for the generator to recharge and amping up the voltage, the next charge at last brought an end to the horrible, 8-minute long ordeal. Westinghouse, disgusted, reportedly said, “They would have done better with an axe.”
For his last two years, a series of ailments caused his health to decline even more until he lapsed into a coma and died at the age of 84.
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Bo Burnham, Venus/Jupiter/Ketu in Pushya and Anuradha Rising
He does have a reputation for being a dick but I wanted to mention him because I think his sense of humour is VERY Saturnian. He has this tendency to humble his audience and its super Saturncoded to me. Like his whole shtick is serving you with a reality check in a slightly condescending way which is extremely Saturnian.
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He often makes "ironically" misogynistic jokes or whatever and its laced with that Saturnian bitterness except he's slightly self aware I guess.
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Aziz Ansari, Venus & Mars in UBP and Jupiter in Anuradha
Tbh other than the fact that his stand up comedy routines are hella lame, I dont really have much dirt on him.
However, he did sexually assault a woman in 2018 and nobody has heard much from him since tbh. I guess its an example of "instant karma".
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Mads Mikkelsen, Anuradha Sun conjunct Ketu
Mads aka the man who made a career out of playing the bad guy
This isn't about Mads but about his most well known role, playing Hannibal Lecter.
Hannibal imo is very very Saturncoded
 He is highly intelligent and cultured, with refined tastes and impeccable manners. He is deeply offended by rudeness, and often kills people who exhibit bad manners; according to the novel Hannibal, he "prefers to eat the rude". Hopkins described Lecter as the "Robin Hood of killers", who kills "the terminally rude".
Saturnians are either extremely refined or very unkempt. There is no in-between. You can always tell when someone has an imbalanced Saturn influence based on how disorderly, messy and chaotic they are.
In the novel Red Dragon, the protagonist, Will Graham, says that psychologists refer to Lecter as a sociopath "because they don't know what else to call him". Graham says "he has no remorse or guilt at all", and tortured animals as a child, (👀) but he does not exhibit any of the other criteria traditionally associated with sociopathy. Asked how he himself would describe Lecter, Graham responded, "he's a monster. I think of him as one of those pitiful things that are born in hospitals from time to time. They feed it, and keep it warm, but they don't put it on the machines and it dies. Lecter is the same way in his head, but he looks normal and nobody could tell."
Hannibal embodies the disciplined, orderly conduct of an evolved Saturnian along with the cruelty and harshness of it.
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Charlie Puth, Anuradha Sun & Mars
half of this guy's discography is about how he hates women from LA. He literally has one song called "Nothing But Trouble (Instagram Models)" and it's just about how instagram models make problems. He has another song called "L.A. Girls" about how women in LA are fungible. It's like yeah maybe instagram models do suck but no one made you date them??? 
These are lyrics from the song LA Girls:
"There was Nikki, Nicole, Tiffany, and Heather But there's only room for you in my world But you say that I changed like the east coast weather How the hell did I get caught up? Messin' with these LA girls"
When I tell you the Madonna-Whore complex runs DEEP with Saturnian men. They will fool around with you and think of YOU as "cheap" for doing so and fall for the girl who never gives it up. The double standards of Saturnians are 🤮🤢
They will get frisky and frivolous with you and judge you for it :/
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Woody Harrelson, Pushya Sun, Anuradha Moon
When I think of unkempt Saturnians, I think Woody Harrelson lmao
While filming in London in 2002, Harrelson found himself at a bar when two women approached him. According to the actor, the women asked if he wanted to "take a walk on the wild side." To which Harrelson replied, "I guess I do." A third woman joined in the fun, and the foursome returned to Harrelson's accommodations and enjoyed what the outlet described as "whatever-happened-next." Unfortunately for the Rampart star, "a paparazzo was able to snap a photo that soon hit the tabloids." The worst part — his then-girlfriend and future-wife Laura Louie saw these photos in the press. This "led to a good bit of groveling on Harrelson's part," and the couple worked past the incident.
I think I have noticed about manyyyy Saturnian men is that they often have enabler wives who put up with their shit + encourage it. Steve Jobs' wife, Laurene Powell was like that. Steve was such a perfectionist that he did not even buy furniture for their house and yk what?? she was okay with that lol and they remained married until his death even though literally everybody who has ever known him describes him as an asshole.
Woody Allen's still married to Soon Yi who is also entirely defensive about him. Same goes for Harrelson's wife I guess. How on earth does someone work past a foursome??? wtf
"I used to go to bars and fight the guys I thought were bullies. I've got scars everywhere," he revealed to The Hollywood Reporter. His fighting ways continued even after becoming a famous actor. Like when he once punched a reporter and claimed he thought the photographer was a zombie. 
Saturnians never beating the abusive rumours 😩
On a different note, I've noticed how many Saturnian musicians make sad boy music with a ✨spiritual essence ✨
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Sufjan Stevens is a UBP Moon
This is from a 2015 interview:
"I still describe myself as a Christian, and my love of God and my relationship with God is fundamental, but its manifestations in my life and the practices of it are constantly changing. I find incredible freedom in my faith. Yes, the kingdom of Christianity and the Church has been one of the most destructive forces in history, and there are levels of bastardization of religious beliefs. But the unique thing about Christianity is that it is so amorphous and not reductive to culture or place or anything. It's extremely malleable."
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Tamino, UBP Moon
He said in an interview:
"We like to look at religious texts from all over the world, [and] they always share a lot of similarities. That's not because they necessarily influenced each other, it's more that our inherent experience as humans comes out through storytelling. It's awesome. So that's something that's really interesting: the story that we need to tell. And the stories that we tell will always survive longest. I think it sort of gives them a higher truth, a metaphysical truth, which makes religion quite beautiful to me. You don't have to necessarily believe in every little thing that's described in a book. I'm not a practicing believer—not in the classical sense. But I do have faith. I think a lot of people have faith without realizing [it]. Even waking up and starting your day, we all have like these little acts of fate throughout our lives without even noticing."
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Hozier- Anuradha Moon
Faith is a big theme in their work and their lives and I feel like they are some evolved Saturnian men who have embraced the stoic spirituality of Saturn and poured it into their creativity.
In one interview, Hozier described Quakerism as a doctrine which taught him during childhood “to look for the God in each person” and “the spark of the divine that’s in every individual.” In particular, Hozier seeks this spark in his lover.
Its interesting to me how all 3 of them use religious metaphors often to speak of love because the ultimate form of love is devotion and Saturnians who have transcended the grips of limitations imposed by Saturn understand this more than anybody. They know what its like to love like their life depends on it.
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Arnold Schwarzenegger, Pushya Sun
Many Saturnians love to talk about working hard and kicking ass. Arnold is one of them, although I will say his preachiness comes from his Punarvasu stellium lmao
Arnold is a good example of a man who has worked very very hard and abided by every Saturnian principle to climb the ladder to the top. Yet he cheated on his wife with his housekeeper. He however did not deny paternity of the son he fathered with her. He has also expressed his regret about cheating and how he lost his marriage.
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Kim Kardashian, UBP Moon
She came under fire for her comments about "get your ass up and do the work" but honestly it's just Saturnian tough love
Kim is a good example of someone who has turned every single setback into a career opportunity. She is a true hustler. Obviously she's extremely privileged yada yada yada but she was Paris Hilton's assistant at one point and was at the bottom of the ladder. In 20 years she's built a fortune for herself and her family. Like, if it were Kourtney in Kim's place 🤡they wouldn't be where they are rn. Kim is a worker and its hard to deny that.
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Rose- UBP Moon
In her interview with Vogue Australia, she said:
“I ended up fighting for my life, training for my life. Because I couldn’t accept the fact that I’d just be cut and sent back, so I had no time to slack off. I remember I took every minute and every second to work on my craft so that I [could] make it,” 
“When I got [to Korea], I was like, ‘This is quite intense,’” she said of the early period of training. “I notice[d] that there [were] 12 other girls who had been training day and night for about five years. And I had just gotten there.” She feared that if she didn’t catch up to the other she would be cut and sent back to Australia, where she’d already told her school friends that she was dropping out to work on her music. "
“I [had] left and I didn’t want to fly back [to Australia] without having achieved anything,” she said of her worry at the time. “And I think it was a good drive. Just the fact that I had flown all the way from Australia gave me more strength [and] determination to strive.”
Hardworking Saturnians ✊🏼🙏🏼🧎‍♀️making the most of that Saturnian determination and reaping its rewards OOF
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sokkastyles · 2 days
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Zutara Month Day 20: Accidental Kissing
Upon request, a continuation of this.
Or, the Continuing Adventures of Katara and Her Embarrassing Crush on Naked Zuko.
A few moments after Katara had knocked, the huge, heavy door to the firelord's chambers opened with a loud screech of old hinges that seemed louder in the moonlight, and she was greeted by Zuko, draped in a crimson robe that was tied loosely at the waist, giving her a glimpse of his exposed collar bones and...stop that. He was barefoot, his black hair mussed and longer than she remembered it being. Or was she just used to seeing it only in its topknot now?
She wasn't here to muse on Zuko's hair, Katara reminded herself. He was looking at her expectantly, his lips slightly parted as he spoke.
"Oh. Hi, Katara."
Was he blushing, his cheeks slightly flushed perhaps from the heat? That robe looked rather heavy for this sort of weather, didn't it? For her part, she'd come clothed in what she was able to find among her things that was both breathable and suitably modest. Had there been a hint of a question she detected in the way he said her name, waiting for her to say something?
So she began. "Hi. I was just. I wanted to check on you after last night, just to make sure..." she stumbled over an explanation of how busy the day had been. She'd been helping to oversee plans for a housing project in the former colonies, and she'd thrown herself into the project with abandon. She hadn't thought about Zuko all day, nor had she thought about the night before, the image of him standing over the would-be assassin, his pale body in the moonlight...
The truth is that she had felt guilty, both for not checking in on him after he had almost been killed, and for the treacherous places her mind went when she thought of her friend.
"What I mean is, I was worried about you, being so vulnerable like this, " and that was the wrong word, Katara. "Not that I think you can't," she hurried to say, "can't handle yourself," she was not looking at his crotch. "But - "
Katara's mouth was still open, yet no words were coming out. Zuko's expression over her fumbling was unreadable as he stood unbearably patiently, although it might have been her imagination that he seemed somewhere between bewildered and amused by her ramblings. She didn't know which was worse. But that wasn't why the words weren't coming now.
Katara was looking past his shoulder at a shadow that was slowly and carefully in the process of detaching itself from a dark corner of his bedroom, near an open window.
"Zuko!"
He ducked down as her water whip flew past him and at the shadow figure. Zuko whirled around, his fists lighting as Katara pursued the fleeing assassin, who she could just make out by the light of Zuko's fire as he rushed past her, trying to shove her aside. He was still the same stubborn idiot, no matter his state of undress. And he was letting the assassin get away, because of some dumb idea that he needed to protect her. She had come here to protect him (and that was the only reason), and she would not be pushed aside like a child. As she tried to make her way between Zuko, the huge firelord's bed, and the open window, she glimpsed the assassin disappearing into the night at the same time that her legs entangled with Zuko's and he fell back against the bed.
Katara fell roughly on top of him, one knee between his legs and rubbing up against something underneath his robe, her palms flat on either side of his shoulders to catch her fall, but not before her lips pressed to his for a brief moment before she collapsed on top of him, both of them panting in a way that Katara felt was both completely unnacceptable and strangely exhilerating, like the feeling of perfecting a new bending move.
She practically flung herself off of the bed, her brain just registering a slight spicy flavor on Zuko's lips, the heat of his body beneath hers. "They got away," she gasped in between breaths. The adrenaline pumping through her now had nothing to do with Zuko sprawled on the bed, his red robe hiked up to his knees in a distinctly un-firelordly way.
"I hate it when they get away," Zuko said, adjusting his bedrobe, a finger moving to touch his lips. Katara wondered if she had hurt him, but he was looking at her with something that seemed suspiciously like curiosity.
She really needed to find that cold bath.
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cxffecoupx · 3 days
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love languages: hong jisoo
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hong jisoo × gn reader fluff, headcanon warnings: mentions of food, soft shua word count: 463 author's notes: i think it's kind of unfair that there's only one joshua in this world.
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words of affirmation:–
in times of trouble, hong jisoo becomes your personal hypeman. he's always quick to notice any changes in your behaviour. when you seem unusually quiet and disturbed, he's by your side in a moment, asking you what the matter is and how he can help. no matter what the trouble is, he makes sure you know how much he loves you, and that he's always by your side to assist you, or to let out all your frustrations to. he uses his whole vocabulary of endearments for you, if that's what's needed for him to have you feel better.
"things just feel so wrong to me right now. the work i am doing, the assignments i'm completing, the food i'm trying to cook... none of it is going well." "you know, baby, sometimes, things don't go the way we want it to. but that's okay. because we can figure it out together."
acts of service:–
for jisoo, actions speak louder than words. when he feels he cant express his emotions through words, when speech fails him, he acts according to them. he makes breakfast in the morning if you went to sleep late last night; he charges your phone if it's dead; packs you extra heat packs when he expects it to get cold later; pre-booking a book of your favourite author. for a man with 999+ unread messages, he responds to yours instantly. if that isn't true love, then i don't know what is.
"shua, what are you..." the question is left hanging as you walk to the dining table and see jisoo standing there, arranging the bowls of cereal. "you were sleeping, so i decided to make breakfast this morning."
physical touch:–
just like actions, jisoo loves to express his love through touch, more so when he's drunk. he's almost always holding you somehow; either he's holding your hands, or your waist. he gives you little head pats when he's feeling especially enamoured by you, little nose boops when you're too cute for him to bear, or little pinches on your cheeks when he's feeling goofy. when he's drunk, he becomes extremely clingy (i've been seeing so many in-the-soop-drunk-shua vids), leaning onto you, or running to pull you into a bear hug, cuddling you as he tries to sleep. but when the mood is a bit more serious, he pats your back to calm you, or caresses your face in his hands when you're wallowing in self-doubt. hong jisoo is just someone who'd rather show his love, than speak of it.
"ynnn...," shua slithers towards your side of the bed, where you're scrolling though the phone. "i love you," he says with a cheeky grin. "i love you too, shua." "really?" he says and cuddles into you. "really."
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Stressful Situations
Hello! The fic below the cut was written by the lovely @suueeeeeee ! They messaged me asking if I would be willing to edit and post this for them and after reading this delightful fic I had to say yes!
To the 2 people who requested fics! They are in the works but may take a little longer as I'm leaving for the weekend! Thank you so much for the love and support y'all!!
It was yet another day, another rehearsal and another stressful session of Andrew and the band trying their best to make sure they’re all set for today’s concert.
Ever since (y/n) had started to accompany Andrew on tour, she’s been nothing but a delight in everyone’s eyes. She made sure they all ate, stayed hydrated, and well-rested and genuinely cared for them as if she was their mother.
She sat down on the side watching them with those eyes that said ‘I’m so fucking proud’. She enjoyed every part of this tour, everything about it made her happy. She loved Andrew and therefore watching him do what really makes him happy tickled her insides and made her all giddy.
She noticed how on edge he was today, and how he was taking it out on everyone else. She felt bad for everyone but she bad for him specifically. Poor lad’s been extremely tired and exhausted. Anyone would be the same if they’d been touring nonstop for almost 2 months now, and having to put so much energy into shows every couple of days.
She felt bad for Andrew but also for the band, they were trying their best but for some reason something was messed up every now and then which resulted in Andrew cursing loudly, not at anyone in particular but just out of frustration.
She sighed and got up, heading towards him. She placed a hand on his back, stroking it softly.
“Love, take it easy, don’t stress yourself much, it’ll be okay.”
She says with a soft smile attempting to comfort him and calm him down a little bit. She felt a vein was about to pop in his forehead and he’d get a headache from frowning so much. He looked up at her with a blank expression.
“(Y/n), please. The last thing I need is distractions. Don’t tell me what to do, we have shit to get done.”
He snapped at her and this was the first time within their 9 month relationship that he had done something like this. She was taken back a little. This attitude definitely was weird cause Andrew never behaved this way even in times he was stressed out the most. She gulped and nodded her head, fighting off the tears.
“Yes yes, of course. I apologize, ehm- I’ll just wait in one of the dressing rooms, sorry guys.”
She looks at them with a sad smile and Alex turns to Andrew with the angriest glare.
“The fuck is wrong with you?”
Alex spit at Andrew and slung off his guitar then followed her immediately. They weren’t particularly close but he appreciated her taking care of Andrew and of the whole band. The woman was sweet and kind and it hurt him to see Andrew speak to her that way. He ran after her and he could see her shoulders shaking which confirmed his thoughts that she was crying.
“(Y/n/n), wait.”
He calls for her by her nickname and places a hand on her shoulder. She turns around to look at him with teary eyes and a wet face. She wipes her eyes quickly and sniffs not wanting to seem weak or like a crybaby. He just takes her in for a hug.
“He didn’t mean it, you know he’s crazy about you, but he’s just stressed. It’s not an excuse though. You have every right to be upset just don’t take it to seriously, okay? I’ll kick his ass.”
She pulls back, chuckling a little then nods her head with a sigh.
“I know, Alex. I’m not upset with him, I’m just upset for him. He’s been so exhausted and it’s starting to take a toll on him. I’ll just give him some time. Maybe after tonight’s show he’ll feel a little less stressed.”
Alex blinks at her and wonders how the fuck someone could be this peaceful and kind. Now, Alex was 10x angrier with Andrew for hurting her feelings and he intended to give him a piece of his mind but after tonight’s show. He softly rubs her shoulder.
“Just go get yourself something to drink and don’t think about it much, I’m sure he’ll apologize in no time.”
She nodded and thanked Alex and walks away, but it was obvious she was still upset. He sighed and walked back to the main stage area to find Andrew still strumming the guitar with the same frown except it was now deeper. The tension was too thick and the vibes were really bad unlike how it would normally be. He picked up his guitar again and when Andrew noticed they started rehearsing again.
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One time while performing, Andrew finished his water bottle and he kept on looking around for someone to refill it for him but for some reason everyone was busy with technical difficulties going on so she took it upon herself to get him another water bottle. She didn’t think much of walking on stage as she just wanted to get Andrew his water cause poor thing’s vocal cords must’ve been screaming for help.
When she walked on stage, everyone was confused, including Andrew himself. She handed him the water bottle, took the empty one with a smile. His heart exploded at that moment and he instantly reached out and hugged her which caused her to blush deeply. He was openly hugging her in front of everyone, which was something she wasn’t used to, which also caused the fans to go crazy for that moment. After he let go, she ran backstage, but ever since that moment, (Y/n) made an appearance every concert when handing Andy his water bottle which was always thanked by a side hug.
Andrew was thinking to himself, would she do their ritual tonight even though he was a total ass towards her? He openly admitted to himself that he was mean and rude towards her, but his energy lately had been so low. He’s starting to get exhausted from the constant traveling and performing. Therefore, he decided to get her some flowers and take her out for dinner after they’re done with the show. However, he was upset at the fact that there’ll be no water bottle from her tonight which will get the fans talking and it’ll just create a hassle he’s in no mood for.
Much to his surprise, amidst his performance, he heard loud screams and cheers which confused until he felt someone place a water bottle down on the floor in front of him and he looked and saw his beautiful partner. She looked up at him with a tight smile then walked back. At this point, his heart exploded with so much love for that woman and his love for her grew a million times.
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The show was an absolute success, the vibes were very nice despite everything happening prior to the performance and everyone was happy with how everything came out.
Everyone was putting their things back in place and was making sure they’re all set to retire to their rooms to relax after a long, stressful and emotionally draining day.
Meanwhile, (y/n) was in the tour bus, packing a small backpack to spend the night in a hotel. She kept reminding herself that he never meant it and it was his tired mind talking but she just couldn’t accept the fact that someone spoke to her that way in front of the whole band. Had they been alone, she would have just ignored it, joked about it and teased him until he became less grumpy but the fact that he snapped at her like that, for some, reason felt humiliating.
She walked out of the tour bus when Alex was going in. He saw her bag then frowned.
“Where are you going? It’s late.”
He asked her, feeling genuinely worried. He started thinking the worst. Is she going to leave Andrew? Is she going to fly back to Dublin for a break? She was the one mostly keeping their times fun on this exhausting tour leg and particularly keeping Andrew’s strength to keep going despite the exhaustion.
She sighs, looking away, not really knowing what to say.
“I’m spending the night in the hotel around the corner, Alex. I don’t think I could be around Andrew tonight. I might say something I regret and make things worse.”
“Did you at least let him know?” He knows he can’t change her mind but he also thought this was a good solution cause as chill as they both seemed to be. When they get angry, they’re monsters.
“Well- that’s going to be your job. Don’t you dare tell him where I am, Alex. Just tell him I’m fine. Let me torture him a little.”
She grins evilly and Alex lets out a laugh. That was her typical behavior, managing to make fun and humor out of dark situations.
“Alright, but let me know when you check in and come back first thing in the morning.” He pulls her in for hug then lets her go before watching her walk away.
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She got settled in and changed into her night shirt, getting into bed. She decided to scroll down through instagram for a little, seeing that Andrew posted snippets from today’s concert as he does every time. She liked them but it was obvious to her that he wasn’t really in his normal state. She pouted, starting to feel guilty for leaving him when he’s feeling like this. She was supposed to support him through everything and the first time he does something like this, she reacts like this? Then again, he was rude towards her in front of other people. Her mind was racing with thoughts and she was feeling as if she was drowning in this dilemma when she heard knocking at the door.
She curses to herself, knowing it’s probably Andrew, cause Alex couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Deep inside, she was hoping he’d come to her. When she peaked through the door, it indeed was the one and only Andre Hozier-Byrne. She sighs, opening the door and steps to the side, nodding for him to come inside.
He walks in silently and she sees the flowers in his hands. He got her Verbenas, her favorite. He clears his throat and hands them to her.
“Ehm- I got you these.”
Truth be told, he didn’t know what to say, as the situation was awkward and it was the first time they'd dealt with something like this. They both were really chill and peaceful, when they disagree about something they just leave it and agree to disagree without forcing their own views on each other or anything like that. They both always treated each other with respect whether they were alone or with other people. She accepts the flowers, placing them on the bed next to her where she sits as he takes a seat in front of her on the small sofa.
“Love, I’m incredibly sorry. I know what I did was wrong, but I’m just so down, exhausted. I don’t feel the best. I know that this isn’t an excuse and you have every right to be mad, but please, don’t leave me.”
She could hear the desperation in his voice and she looks at him, surprised.
“Andrew, are you insane? Why the fuck would I leave you? Yes, I’m upset. I understand your point, but still upset. For you to apologise and acknowledge your mistake is more than enough. It’d take much much more than this for me to leave you. You’re stuck with me.”
She grins, sitting next him and taking him into her arms. He cuddles against her, resting his head on her chest, enjoying the feeling of her fingers combing through his hair. This was the only thing he needed. To be alone with his beloved after a long day, wrapped around each other.
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ivanttakethis · 2 days
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top 5 worst ivan mischaracterizations ( aka could you list five worst traits people give him that are just totally wrong) i love to hear people complain but if you don't want to you can ignore this ask have a good day
Anon I am SO glad that you asked!
Ivan is my favorite character in Alien Stage because he’s really complex.
I could talk about him and his characterization/mischaracterization all day and still have more to say after that. Now you’ve given me the perfect opportunity to write a bunch of my thoughts down.
These complaints are in no particular order and are ultimately subjective.
Also, I’m not a Patreon supporter, so I can’t comment on anything that might’ve been confirmed or debunked over there.
Top 5 Worst Ivan Mischaracterizations:
Ivan is an unfeeling and emotionless person
Ivan was trying to kill himself and Till during Round 6
Ivan hates Mizi
Ivan is arrogant
Ivan is violent
This is going to be a long one, so I’m putting everything under the cut. Let’s begin!
1. Ivan is an unfeeling and emotionless person.
I find this mischaracterization to be one of the most frustrating because there is so much evidence to the contrary.
As a child, Ivan is described as someone who struggles to express his emotions and connect with others (imo he’s neurodivergent-coded, but that’s a whole other discussion). But notably we’re not told that he doesn’t experience emotions.
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This official art kills me every time I see it because it shows that Ivan knows he’s different from the other children and that it probably makes him stick out and he wants to fit in somehow so he tries to practice/fake it so maybe he won’t be so alone (the imitating behavior is also coded imo).
Beyond all of that, we see plenty of times throughout the series that he feels things, rather intensely even. He’s wistful about the stars and meteor showers and the thought of freedom. He has a curious nature, observing others, wanting to learn more about how they work; how he can emulate them.
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And then there’s all of the feelings that well up when it comes to Till. The most obvious is that Ivan loves Till, in his own fucked up way. But there’s more to it.
He wanted attention from Till (maybe the first time he’s ever wanted something in that way). He did everything he could just to get Till to even so much as glance in his direction. All of the fighting, and the bickering, and the instigating was because Ivan craved reciprocation. He grew obsessed.
When Ivan managed to free both himself and Till, he was thrilled!
And when Till let go of Ivan’s hand to return for Mizi, he was very clearly heartbroken.
Ivan felt jealous of Mizi and Sua’s relationship, knowing that he would never have that chance with Till.
Ivan felt lonely because he thought Sua was just like him, only to realize that wasn’t true (because Mizi loved Sua back) and he had no one to relate to.
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Also, the entirety of Black Sorrow?? Hello??? He was yearning for more than what he could get. He was resigned to his minuscule place in Till’s life. The song is full of mourning and sadness and grief.
In Round 6, I believe Ivan knew what he was going to do.
He was desperate for anything he could get from Till in his final moments. I think that’s part of why he kissed Till. If his only goal was to deliberately lose, why not skip the kissing and go straight to choking?
Ivan was a dying man overwhelmed with emotion and he desperately wanted Till to look at him, see him, make him feel content for the first (and last) time in his life.
Even if some of these emotions are not necessarily healthy, it shows that Ivan was capable of feeling something.
So… yeah. That’s why I really dislike the emotionless characterization of Ivan. There’s so much depth to his emotions and character, but some people just skim the surface and reduce him down to nothing more than a cold and stoic person.
2. Ivan was trying to kill himself and Till during Round 6.
This one is probably more often a misunderstanding than a mischaracterization of Ivan. I think some people may have seen IvanTill referred to as “toxic” or “obsessive” love when it came to how Ivan felt and behaved around Till and thought Ivan was on some “if I can’t have you, no one can” shit, but that completely ignores the wider context of his character. Ivan was devoted to Till to a fault.
To Ivan, Till was his reason for being. Till was his universe. His god. Till was something to be revered, protected, and worshipped. Ivan couldn’t live without Till. That’s why he sacrificed himself, so he wouldn’t have to continue on in a world without him in it. But he also wanted to protect Till, no matter the cost.
Pretty much everything Ivan did was to protect or care for Till: trying to escape Anakt Garden with him, watching over him after Till was attacked by the aliens in the club, freeing him from his collar over and over and over again, every chance Ivan got.
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Nothing about Ivan’s feelings or behaviors toward Till suggests that he would ever harm him, let alone kill him. There’s a reason why when Ivan was “choking” Till it didn’t look like he applied any pressure, there was no struggle for air on Till’s end (even if he had mentally given up, physically there will be some sort of reaction to having your airway compressed), and we don’t see any marks on Till’s neck afterwards.
It didn’t matter what happened to Ivan as a result. Till was the only person who mattered to him.
He would do anything for him. He would quite literally rather die than have anything happen to his god.
Ivan only ever knew how to give all of himself to Till, giving up his life was inevitable.
3. Ivan hates Mizi
I’ve seen this one more so in fan fiction, usually for angsty circumstances, but this just completely sidesteps their canon relationship, which is positive and, dare I say, friendly.
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He gave her piggyback rides when they were kids! In the lead up to Alien Stage, we see them chatting and Ivan being pleasant towards her in a sort of “big brother” type way without hiding some sort of darker emotion behind it.
Now, is Ivan envious of the relationship Mizi has with Sua? Yes. Does he hate that he’ll never get to have the connect they have with Till? Yes. But Ivan hasn’t given any indication that he hates Mizi herself. And I think that’s an important element of his characterization.
Yes, he has negative feelings surrounding Mizi, but he never takes them out on her or lets himself feel negative towards her as a person.
Edit: I started writing this section BEFORE we got the official art of Ivan hanging out with Mizi, but holy fuck am I glad I took so long to finish this because now it’s canon that Ivan got along well with Mizi and they were even close as kids despite the fact that Ivan loved Till and Till loved Mizi.
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In conclusion, Ivan and Mizi were reasonably close and (imo) would’ve been besties in slightly different circumstances. Ivan is NOT a Mizi hater!!
4. Ivan is arrogant
Yes and no. On the surface, Ivan comes across as mature, confident, and in some cases arrogant, but as we see more from his perspective it quickly becomes clear that the arrogance is just a mask he wears for others.
Deep down, Ivan is very insecure and his self-esteem is almost nonexistent. He views himself as insignificant, twisted, unworthy. He vilifies everything that he feels and does. (“Thank you for being a victim of my shallow emotions” anyone?) Ivan fully convinced himself that Till wouldn’t give a shit about him if he died to keep him alive. That’s not the behavior of an arrogant person. Far from it.
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His arrogant mask acts as a shield to keep others from seeing the monster he thinks he is. He’s even kept parts of himself out.
I think that’s also where his tendency to be an asshole comes from. Keeping people away, not wanting or knowing how to drop the arrogant mask, internalizing everything, projecting onto others (like that whole talk with Sua about self sacrifice).
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So basically:
Characterizing Ivan as an insecure person who hides behind false confidence/arrogance to keep people from seeing the real (and somewhat fucked up) him? Great. Fantastic. Love to see it.
Characterizing Ivan as an arrogant asshole “just because”? Terrible. Hate it. You burned my crops and killed my cow.
5. Ivan is violent
I don’t know how this one came about, but it rubs me the wrong way so I’ll touch on it here.
We know Ivan instigated physical fights with Till when they were kids because that was the only way to consistently get Till’s attention (not saying I condone that btw). But outside of that, I don’t think Ivan has been violent with anyone else? And would he even be violent with Till like, recently?? I would say no.
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Now I do think Ivan would resort to violence to protect Till, but nothing beyond that. I don’t don’t even think he would use violence to protect himself.
He’d probably just revert back to being a “perfect” obedient pet to avoid or diffuse confrontation. That’s what he did as a child; while Till fought back every chance he got. Till’s fighting spirit is probably one of the things Ivan loved about him. Maybe in part because he couldn’t find it in himself.
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Anyways, those are my Top 5 worst Ivan mischaracterizations! Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk 🖤💙
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xoxochb · 3 days
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please please please some extreme fluff with Leo and a daughter of Apollo! Like he sees you talking to your friends/siblings at the bonfire and he's just admiring the way you talk and how your face lights up when you smile! Thank you so much!
˗ˋ feeling lucky today, got the sunshine, could you tell me what more do I need? ˊ˗
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warnings: literally none, although this is extreme tooth-rotting fluff, you may need to see a dentist
pairing: leo valdez x daughter of apollo
summary: the request has it all!!
A/N: I SCREAMED when I saw this omg omg!!! this is the cutest thing ever, I’m crying 😭🤍 also I apologize for this being longer than anticipated, I got carried away
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she wore the scent of early spring on her delicate neck and every kiss I stole tasted of bright yellow flowers and buzzing bees.
- michael faudet
- ☀️ -
leo was in deep
at first he thought it was some silly crush, and it would go away after a few days
but he was wrong- very wrong
his love for you got greater every second he was with you, and seeing you now with the orange light of the bonfire illuminating onto your face was not helping
seeing you laugh- oh gods your laugh, he loved to take time out of his day to tell you a joke because it was truly heaven on earth hearing your laugh
and your smile radiated comfort and sunshine, he swore he could live without the sun if he could only have you
and he loved the way your face lit up when you talked about one of your interests, which he assumed was what you were speaking to one of your siblings about because your smile was brighter than the sun
and he loved it
he would do anything to see you smile
he also loved the way your hair fell into place like dominoes. If he didn’t know better he would’ve thought you were a daughter of aphrodite, because your beauty was unlike any others
lost in thought, he failed to realize you meeting his gaze from across the bonfire
you knew right then that you were in deep, and a crimson color quickly made its way to your cheeks
you saw his lovesick expression, and reminisced on all the times you had been with him, and they way he spoke with you, they way he looked at you, the things he made for you, and the way he treated you
yeah, you were definitely in love
you stood up from your seat, excusing yourself from the conversation, making your way over to him
when leo rejoined reality, he saw you making your way over to him. he also saw his hands sparking with flames
oh gods, not now! why now?
“hi leo!!” you beamed, taking a seat next to him
“hey y/n, what brings you here on this fine evening?” he asks, meeting your gaze yet again
“well, I finished a painting today, and since your my best friend, I wanted you to be the first to see it”
best friend
you cringed at your words. why couldn’t you just tell him you were madly in love? things would be so much easier
“oh- yeah, sure, of course! let’s go!” he exclaims, standing up, holding his hand out for you
and you’re quick to take it, intertwining hands, making your way to cabin seven
- ☀️ -
“alright, I left it on my bed, come see” you say, flipping up the light switch before quickly making your way to your bed, “here it is! how do you like it?”
leo averts his gaze from you to the artwork, a painting of a lake, the sun shining on it, trees- wait… he knows that spot, he would know that spot anywhere
it was where you first met
“it’s amazing! I love it! how long did it take?” he says turning towards you, but your gaze was already on him, so the space between you two was very small
a large grin makes its way to your face, “this morning. I woke up early, the lake always looks the best at sunrise” you whisper
“how long?” he asks again
“3 hours…” you break eye contact “for you. you’re always making things for me, I wanted to make something for you”
upon hearing those words he knew it was now or never so he closed the small distance, kissing you gently.
you stood in shock for a moment, unsure of what to do, but this was your crush, your best friend, you’ve been waiting ages for this, so you allowed him to wrap his arms around your waist, leaving yours to go up to his neck, deepening the kiss
he pulled away for a moment, “this was definitely worth the wait”
“idiot” you laugh and pull him back in for another kiss
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Text
Never Not Mine
Summary: Elain Archeron has been betrothed to the seventh born son of Autumn for as long as she can remember. With her family's reputation in the balance, Elain is resigned to her fate.
That doesn't mean she has to like it…or that she has to make it easy for him.
Chapter 1 | Read on AO3
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Feyre and Nesta come to Autumn the night before Elain’s wedding, tanned and a little blonder than normal. It was too late to intervene—Elain had already been fitted for the dress she’d wear tomorrow and was, essentially, under lock and key. No guards, but an endless parade of servants that seemed to pop up any time she tried to leave the room.
Elain knew that was Lucien’s doing. He’d been sleeping on the sofa she now sat on each night, keeping watch so she didn’t try to escape and vanishing before she woke up. They’d barely exchanged a sentences worth of words since she’d foolishly climbed over the balcony.
“How are you feeling?” Feyre asked as Nesta paced back and forth. If she told her sisters the truth, they were likely to do something foolish. Something that got them all in trouble. Nesta was already trying to angle out of her marriage and didn’t need Elain mucking that up. 
“Excited,” she lied, catching the way Nesta’s eyes narrowed. “And nervous, of course. We barely know each other.”
“Is he kind?” Nesta demanded, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Yes,” Elain replied, not bothering to add that he was rude in equal measure. 
“All mother talks about is how handsome the Vanserra’s are,” Nesta said with a dark scowl. “I see nothing special about them.”
Feyre shrugged. “They’re not ugly.”
“They’re hardly beautiful, either,” Nesta argued. If Feyre said the sky was blue, Nesta would argue it was gray and if Nesta thought the Vanserra’s were ugly, then Feyre found them to be impossibly beautiful. They had always been that way, leaving Elain to mediate.
“There is a charm to them, certainly,” she agreed, not taking any particular stance. “I am acclimating well. How are things at home?”
“Dull,” Feyre said as Nesta opened her mouth. “I paint and Nesta plays piano and we wither away, waiting for our turn to be good, dutiful wives.”
“They’ve banned arranged marriages in Summer,” Nesta said sharply, her tone rife with implications. Run to Summer, she seemed to say. As if Summer would risk a war with their neighbors simply to harbor her. 
“Perhaps other courts will follow suit,” Elain said noncommittally. It was too late for her. Tomorrow she’d walk willing with Lucien through a priestesses temple, watched by her family and his as they pledged fidelity and honor to the other. It was a farce and one Elain was committed to seeing through, now. If her sisters managed to escape their own prescribed fates, she wished them well.
But there was no more escape for her. 
“Have you seen anything?” Feyre questioned. Elain bit her bottom lip.
Yes, she wanted to say. How did she explain that what she’d seen was a particularly steamy affair with the man she had sworn she wouldn’t touch until she was forced to. Elain refused to think about it lest Lucien scent the accompanying arousal that always followed and got the wrong idea.
Visions were imprecise, a snapshot of what could happen and not necessarily what would. A wrong turn, a different word spoken and the entire world rearranged itself. 
That did nothing to remove the image of Lucien without his clothes shifting over her, or the expression on his face—
“Elain?”
She blinked. “No, nothing. I haven’t looked, though, either.”
“Well, maybe you should tonight,” Feyre suggested. Elain only smiled, certain she did not want to know what the next day had in store for her. Let it remain a mystery, even from her. If she saw herself beneath him, she’d panic and never make it down the aisle. 
There was something she wanted, though, and Elain found exactly how to get it later that afternoon. Cadmus poked his head in, expression guarded.
“Lady Elain?” The second eldest Vanserra looked the most like his father, his red hair browner, his russet eyes lacking some of the ringed gold the rest of his brothers had. Even his features were those of the sharp elegance of the High Lord rather than the softer edges the Lady bore. “How are you?”
“I…” A dagger glinted off Cadmus’s belt, silver hilt inlaid with vibrant rubies. “Can I borrow that?”
Cadmus looked down at his body, hands hovering over the weapon. “My dagger?”
Elain made her eyes big and round as she bit her bottom lip, and hoped Cadmus was no better than the males back home. “I don’t know how to use it, if you’re worried for your brothers safety”
“What’s to know? Stick the sharp end in anything soft,” he said with a wry smile before unstrapping the hilt. “If you do stab my brother, try not to kill him.”
Elain blinked. “Just…just like that?”
“It’s become almost a tradition to provide my new sisters with a weapon to use against my brothers. I’m starting to think Vanserra’s like to be threatened.”
She frowned. “It’s not like that.”
“For you, maybe,” he chuckled, watching as Elain quickly hid the dagger beneath an ornate pillow. “If you’re frightened, though, you could tell me.”
That was curious. “Why? What would you do?”
“What any good brother would do. Knock him around like he’s a youngling again, and hope his good sense returns to him.”
“That’s…unexpectedly kind,” she murmured. 
“We’re nearly family, right?” he said gruffly, glancing back toward the hall. “Anyway ah…don’t kill him. And uh…if you need any help, ask Arina. You know, for plausible deniability.”
“Right,” she agreed, holding back the urge to laugh. The Vanserra’s could be so unintentionally funny when they wanted to be. Absently, Elain wondered what Nesta would make of Cadmus. Nothing positive, she decided.
Nesta was supposed to marry a High Lord, which was a tragedy given how she hated all of them. Maybe all men, truthfully—Elain had never once seen her sister betray any interest despite the numerous men who had been interested in her. 
Elain hid the dagger beneath her pillow once Cadmus left, just in case Lucien decided to try anything. Elain knew she was likely going to have to let him touch her, but if he tried anything she didn’t like, she’d whip the dagger out just to remind him that he might be married to her, but he didn’t own her. 
It made her feel a little better, though only marginally. As she made her way through the palace, Elain found servants hanging floral arrangements and cleaning every surface for the upcoming spectacle. Everything smelled like cinnamon somehow and if Elain was braver, she might have made her way to the kitchen to see what they were cooking.
If she was braver still, she might have asked to help.
Instead, Elain emerged into the gloomy afternoon with a heavy sigh. It felt like the world was mourning, too. She intended to meander through the apple orchard again, kicking the rotting fruit on the ground with the toe of her boot until she didn’t feel so angry anymore.
Instead, she found Connall and Tanwen standing off to the side, flanked by two smoke gray dogs, each holding a rather large axe. When they saw her, their eyes lit up.
“Baby sister!” They called in unison, making their way toward her. “Want to smash some pumpkins with us?” “Smash some what?” she repeated as one of the large dogs wound its way through her legs, sniffing at her clothes with curiosity. 
“Pumpkins,” Connall said, russet eyes glinting with mischief. 
“It’s an old tradition,” Tanwen added. Of the two, Tanwen was taller and built more like a warrior. Connall was slighter, with a prettier face and hands that didn’t look like they’d done a hard day's work in their life. Tanwen’s hair was longer and braided off his face while Connall sported a shaggier look that seemed like it was popular with whoever he was courting.
With a face like that, Elain guessed everyone. 
“Smashing pumpkins is a tradition?”
They nodded solemnly. Connall added, “Whenever the Forest House is overrun, we come out here and destroy the heaviest looking pumpkins we can find. C’mon, join us. Beats sulking through the grounds.”
“I wasn’t sulking,” she replied, though she fell into step between them. 
“Sure you weren’t,” Tanwen said, elbowing her gently. “I’m sure you are merely contemplating the marital bliss you’re soon to find with little brother.”
“I don’t know how to swing an axe,” Elain admitted. Connall’s smile sharpened.
“We’ll teach you.”
The pair, accompanied by a dog she later learned technically belonged to Arina—Apollo—and another that Tanwen was fond of—Artemis—made their way toward a sprawling pumpkin patch. Elain was fascinated as Tanwen and Connall picked out three large pumpkins, hauling them each one by one before dropping them at her feet.
“Ladies first,” Tanwen said, cheeks ruddy from exertion.
Elain considered them, before pointing at one that was still a little green and covered in warts. Connall picked it up for her and set it atop a tree stump before handing her the smooth, wooden handle of the axe.
“Hold it like this,” Tanwen began, positioning himself behind Elain so his arms were wrapped around her. Warm, callused hands covered her own as he positioned them on the handle.
“Pull it back like this—not too far or you’ll drop it and hurt yourself. Use the power from your thighs, okay? And then swing hard—”
“What the fuck are you doing?!”
The three turned and Elain realized Tanwen and Connall must have known Lucien was nearby. He looked furious, though it was hard to take him seriously with Arina skipping merrily at his side.
“I’m debauching your wife, what does it look like I’m doing?” Tanwen said, throwing a rather charming wink in her direction. “She doesn’t know how Autumn Court females treat a male on their wedding night—”
A snarl ripped from Luciens throat before he settled himself, running a hand through his windblown hair. “Shut your fucking mouth.”
“Am I not allowed to be here?” Elain demanded, pointing the axe at her soon-to-be husband. 
“Lucien’s just grumpy—”
“I’m not grumpy,” Lucien interrupted as Arina laughed, hands clasped in front of her body.
“Your sisters gave him a good dressing down.”
“It was pretty funny,” Eris Vanserra chimed in, wrapping an arm around his wife's neck to kiss the top of her head. “Nesta Archeron has a barbed tongue and no sense of propriety.”
“That’s not true,” Elain protested, interested in what her sister said. “You’re thinking of Feyre.”
“It was both of them,” Lucien grumbled as he rubbed his jaw. “I thought the ladies of the Spring Court were sweet.”
Elain took that moment to swing, her sharpened blade slicing easily through the pumpkin. Tanwen whooped as Connall and Eris laughed and Lucien…Lucien merely watched, his expression unreadable. 
“Who told you that?” Elain asked him, dress covered in pumpkin guts. 
It felt good, though, in that moment, to wipe the look off his face. She was sweet. 
Just not for him.
LUCIEN:
Lucien tugged at the golden cuffs on his maroon jacket. He was deeply uncomfortable and somehow sweating despite how early it was.  He hadn’t slept at all the night before and given the noises coming from behind the door that they were about to share, Elain hadn’t either. It hadn't been crying, exactly…but something akin to mourning had been happening. It occurred to him that perhaps Elain had her own Jesminda that she missed.
Lucien couldn’t bring himself to care much. Instead, he perched himself in a tree outside the palace, closed his eyes, and prayed. 
Bring her back to me. Please, I’ll do anything. I’ll give you anything.
Easy words for a male who knew the Mother would not indulge this request. Lucien would have traded anything to see Jesminda right then. To hear her tell him it was going to be okay and somehow, someway this was all going to work out in their favor. He wanted to feel her hands on his face, her mouth slanted against his. He wanted to bury himself inside her and sob into her shoulder as he told her about the nightmare he was living.
And to do so would be the ultimate betrayal of the love he felt for her. To see her was to condemn her to death. She was gone, and Lucien knew she wouldn’t come back, and if she did, he wouldn’t touch her. Wouldn’t acknowledge her.
Wouldn’t look at her.
It didn’t stop him from pretending anyway. What kind of male was he, he wondered? His wife was inside preparing herself to marry him and he was outside wishing she was someone else. Daydreaming about another female. Would he think of Jesminda as he betrayed her later that night? 
Lucien half hoped Jesminda hated him. He certainly hated himself.
Lucien remained outside until Eris tracked him down, dressed in a deep brown jacket and cream colored pants. His brother swung himself easily into the tree, grunting softly as he sat on the opposite branch. “Brooding?”
It was almost comical. It was a scene they’d played before, only in opposite roles. Lucien had once gone looking for Eris the day of his wedding, finding him in the same tree likely with the same look of frustration on his face. Eris had wanted a way out, too, and he’d known what was waiting on the other end for him was his mate. There was something to work toward, at least.
Lucien didn’t care what Arina said—he didn’t believe he could love someone as deeply as he loved Jesminda and not be mates. 
“Just thinking,” Lucien said, wishing Eris would mind his own business. 
“You’ve got ten more minutes to find a last minute loophole,” Eris warned. “Though, I think you should marry her.”
“Of course you do.”
“She’s better than the females at court. Do you want father to pick one of them?”
“I want him to let me choose my own wife,” Lucien snarled, unable to keep his anger down.
“Love is for the lesser fae,” Eris said, ignoring the fact that he was in love with his wife. That was merely luck, Lucien supposed. “You are simply a cog in fathers political machinations. You know that.”
“Why not Tanwen? Or Cadmus?”
“Because Elain is a second daughter with no magical ability, unlike her sisters,” Eris reminded him, a cold edge creeping into his voice. He ought to have known better than to look for comfort from his brother. Eris had done his duty no matter how little he’d wanted to, giving Eris a mate and Beron a foot in the solar courts. “He needs sons he can marry off to all his most important nobles. Count yourself lucky that isn’t your fate”
“Is this luck?”
“Elain is nice,” Eris reminded him. “She’s not scheming and you’re unlikely to find her in Tanwen’s bed.”
“Are you sure about that?” Lucien asked, a surge of jealousy flooding through him. He didn’t want her, and yet didn’t want anyone else to want her, either. She was merely off limits. If he could have, he’d have ordered them all not to speak to her, either. 
Swinging his legs out of the tree, Eris landed smoothly back on solid ground. The world was mocking him—after two weeks of rumbling thunder and moody fog, the sun had come out blazing, igniting the world in a golden glow. 
“I’m certain. Now get down before father realizes you’re missing and takes the lash to your back on your wedding night.” Lucien considered it only briefly, but ultimately chose to join Eris on the ground, heart thudding painfully in his chest. 
Eris didn’t look at him at all, adorned in a crown of burnished leaves similar to the one Lucien wore. As they stepped back into the Forest House, Lucien felt the full weight of it for the first time in his life. Never had he ever felt more like a High Lord's son, the weight of his responsibility and duty dragging behind him like chains wrapped around his ankles.
He was drowning, and it didn’t matter. Lucien followed Eris through the labyrinth of halls toward the adjoining temple that spiraled deep into the ground, housing their family jewels and a private library you need permission to enter. Lucien knew on any given day, Arina would be down in the dark reading by faelight. 
Priestesses historically were not welcome in Autumn. Beron found them too scheming, but feared angering the mother by shutting them out entirely. His solution was using daughters of Autumn, deemed unlikely to marry by their families, and making them priestesses with fathers that had a vested interest in curbing their ambition. Housing them in the palace allowed the High Lord to keep a watchful eye on them via his wife, who was charged with overseeing the priestesses along with the ladies at court. 
Now the head priestess stood at the end of the temple, adorned by multicolored light from the stained glass behind her. Rows of benches held their families, though Beron sat behind the priestess on a throne built specifically for him, lest anyone forget the true power of Autumn. 
Elain was waiting in the atrium just outside, dressed, hilariously, in a fluffy gown of white lace and pale pink ribbon. Her hair was piled high atop her head, as if someone with a grudge had decided to try and make the beautiful Elain as unappealing as possible.
It was working, too. Lucien couldn’t help his barking laugh when he saw her, the sound echoing off the vaulted ceilings overhead. Elain turned, eyes wide with horror that melted into irritation.
“Be quiet,” she hissed, shoving the traditional red ribbon of Autumn against his chest. His brothers filed in behind them, not daring to make eye contact or otherwise react. 
“Who did you piss off?”
“This was my mothers wedding dress,” Elain informed him, chin held high in the air. “And the traditional bridal clothes of Spring.”
Lucien only shook his head, thinking of how lovely Arina had looked draped in red. There was no point in starting his marriage by telling his wife she looked awful, but…well. Lucien wondered if Elain felt beautiful right then.
“Come on,” he murmured, offering her his arm. Elain took a breath, eyes glassy, but otherwise nodded her head. She had more conviction on her expression than Lucien felt, and it was sobering. This was happening, he realized. Under the watchful gaze of not just his father, but the High Lord of Spring, Lucien was marrying this stranger. Lucien could barely breathe, couldn’t think as he stood in that beam of light, eyes trained on Elain without actually seeing her. Elain seemed to be employing similar tactics, repeating the words when demanded but otherwise standing utterly still.
Something was building, some emotion Lucien thought must be radiating out of him. It wasn’t fear and it wasn’t hatred, though it felt somehow like both mixed together. Holding the ribbon in his hand, Lucien began winding it around their wrists until the long sleeves of her ugly dress pushed upward, pressing them skin to delicate skin. 
The scene of Elain invaded his senses once again, making him dizzy. He needed fresh air, to get far, far away from her. Elain looked up at him through dark lashes, their eyes connecting just as the priestess pronounced them married. Something solid slammed into him. 
No, not slammed.
Snapped.
Lucien stumbled backwards, forgetting for a moment they were still tied together. Elain came with him, falling into his chest and oh, he wished she wouldn’t touch him just as his traitorous body ignited with pleasure.
Touch her, smell her, taste her—
Lucien righted Elain, trying to apologize but unable to get the words out. If he spoke, he might just blurt the truth out. 
You’re my mate.
If Elain knew, she was doing a far better job than he was hiding it. Her expression was one of confusion but not of recognition. If she didn’t know, good. There must be some way out, he reasoned, even as every other part of him rebelled at the thought. The Mother was mocking him. Elain Archeron was mocking him, with her beautiful face half lost under the weight of her gown and hair. Who had done this to her?
Lucien wanted to kill them.
“Are you okay?” Elain whispered, ignoring the crowd promptly descending upon them.
It wasn’t a lie when he said, “No. I’ve never been less okay in my life.”
And it was all her fault.
ELAIN:
Elain wanted to cry. The Lady of Autumn had done her best to try and make Elain look presentable, but it had been her mothers wishes to see her dressed like a traditional bride of Spring—the sort that had fallen out of fashion centuries before. She could still hear Lucien's barking laugh in her ear and the look of disgust on his face once he’d tied that ribbon around them.
It shouldn’t have mattered, truthfully, but Lucien had looked every inch an Autumn Court prince and she…she’d looked ridiculous. Embarrassing. Only her mother was happy, which seemed to be the only thing that ever mattered. Who cared if Elain was suffering internally so long as everyone else got what they wanted? 
Stomping from the great hall, where a lavish feast in her honor had been prepared, Elain made her way outdoors into the sunshine. It was only there that she began pulling pins out of her hair like a petulant child, tossing them to the leaves with reckless abandon. 
Why couldn’t she make peace with what was happening? Everyone else in her position had. Arina and Eris were in love, her parents were in love, the Lady of Autumn and the High Lord…tolerated each other. And Elain couldn’t even muster that. 
She hated Lucien with a passion that clawed at her chest and threatened to strangle her. She didn’t want him to touch her, not like this. Not when the sight of him cringing away as he disentangled himself from her and promptly walked away without so much as a reassurance that things would be okay.
She’d left him downing a cup of wine and imagined he’d be so drunk he was incapacitated for the night. That was a good thing, right? So why did it make her feel so awful? So ugly, so…so unwanted. Cast aside by everyone, loved by no one. She wanted to curl up somewhere and wait to see how long it took them to notice she was missing.
Elain turned her attention to the forest, determined to march right in. She bet Lucien noticed when it was time to do his husbandly duty. Then he’d be missing her. That's all she was good for anyway, right?
Elain didn’t make it two steps before someone stopped her. It wasn’t Lucien or his brothers, nor was it her sisters or anyone from the Spring Court. The male standing before her oozed darkness, with shadows trailing after him like a cape and eyes so vividly blue they looked like twinkling, violet stars.
Elain took a step back on instinct. “You shouldn’t be here,” she said, knowing exactly who stood before her. She’d never met him, nor his father, though she had heard the rumors about the High Lord of Night. They said he’d killed Tamlins father.
They said Tamlin killed his. 
Rhysand didn’t need to wear a weapon to seem lethal. Tall and powerfully built, she was certain if he wanted to, he could end her right there. His lips curved upward into a smile and too late, she remembered the people in his court were rumored to read minds.
“I hear congratulations are in order. Married to little Lucien…how delighted you must be.”
“I…” Elain trailed off, heart hammering like a jack rabbit. 
“I don’t think I’d leave my new bride to wander the grounds,” Rhysand continued, jamming his hands into his pockets absently. “But perhaps the males of Autumn are more…liberated…here.”
Elain’s mouth was dry. “Can I help you with something?”
Rhysand cocked his head, a lock of blue black hair trailing into one of his eyes. “Can you help me?” he asked, pondering this question with faux concentration. “I suppose you can. I’m looking for—”
“Rhysand!” Eris Vanserra barked, crunching onto leaves without ceremony. “Decided to show your ugly face for once? Or will I find your spy lurking in my woods again?”
“There’s no need for hostility,” Rhysand purred, eyes trailing behind Eris toward Feyre, who’d clearly been trailing Eris. “I’ve come to speak with your father.”
“Does Elain Archeron look like the High Lord of Autumn?” Eris demanded, his annoyance plain.
“She is far lovelier, I’ll admit, though your father has his charms—”
“Stop talking,” Eris muttered, nodding his head toward the doors so Rhysand would follow. Elain watched the High Lord of Night even when Eris’s fingers curled around her wrist, dragging her back inside with him. Rhysand was looking at Feyre in her spring green gown, hair half braided off her face. There was something curious about his expression—as if he’d never seen a female before and wanted to study her.
Feyre wrinkled her nose back, betraying her unguarded disgust before turning on her heel and flouncing back inside and to Elain’s surprise, Rhysand chuckled. He didn’t know how skilled Feyre was with a weapon, training in secret with a sentry she’d once been friends with before Tamlin found out and had him sent to the border. It was too late, then. Feyre was a menace with a bow and arrow and not horrible with a sword, either. No one could control her and in truth, not many tried.
Elain wondered what Tamlin would do with a wife that liked to stalk the woods for monsters. Monsters like Rhysand, Elain thought, wondering if Feyre hadn’t sensed his presence and come looking for the disturbance. She half wanted to see the showdown, if only to watch a High Lord get trounced by a noble's youngest daughter.
Feyre was nowhere to  be found by the time they all landed in the Great Hall. The once lively feast fell silent—even the musicians stopped their playing to watch, wide-eyed, as Rhysand strolled into the room. His eyes slid over the long tables piled with food, the people stopped mid-dance, and those that sat at tables holding goblets, drinking until their fair skin was ruddy from wine.
He grinned when he saw Beron. “Sorry I’m late,” he said, not sounding very sorry at all. Beron looked murderous, though he stood quickly while eyeing Eris trailing just behind. Elain watched as Cadmus fell into step beside his elder brother, the two flanking their father when he came down the elevated platform that held the throne he’d been lounging on. Everyone tried to pretend this was merely business as usual.
The music restarted and chatter resumed as Beron and Rhysand made their way out of the room, but Elain knew every immortal ear was straining to hear what was whispered between them. Why now, she wondered? Tamlin was gripping his goblet so tightly Elain could see the whites of his knuckles and Nesta’s eyes danced with silver flames, arms crossed over her chest.
Elain started to make her way to Nesta to ask when Lucien caught her attention. He was drunk, she realized. Stumbling forward, he grinned broadly not at her, but at someone behind her. Elain didn’t turn to see the female he was making eyes at, unwilling to even acknowledge how humiliating his behavior was. 
“You reek,” Elain hissed, catching Lucien by the arm and turning him around. “Go drink some water.”
“Telling me what to do already?” he asked, eyes strangely glassy as he looked down at her. There was an intensity to his expression she didn’t think she liked. It was as if he was undressing her with his gaze. 
“Yes. Water. Now,” she hissed quietly enough that no one but Lucien could hear.
“And if I say no?” he challenged. Elain wanted to cry. 
“You are not the only one experiencing misery, Lucien, and yet am I out here making a fool of you?” she demanded, hating the way her voice cracked beneath angry tears. “You could at least keep it behind closed doors.”
Lucien considered this. “You’re right. I…” he swallowed, sliding his hand over hers in the crook of her elbow so she had to join him as he went for water. “Sit down and eat something.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Do it, or I’ll feed you from my hand like a baby bird,” he threatened, pulling out a chair from a neglected, empty table. Lucien dropped beside her, gulping down icy water as Elain picked food from a platter in front of her and spread it over two plates.
“Here,” she said, pushing a plate toward a wide eyed, strangely ashen looking Lucien.
“I—I’ve eaten already,” he said, gingerly moving the plate further from view. “You’re kind to offer, though.”
He was so strange, she decided. If he didn’t want to eat, he could suffer, then. No one could say she hadn’t tried, though. Elain began chewing, lost in thoughts of Rhysand just outside the forest grounds and her family that would vanish before the night was over. Her stomach tumbled as she thought about what the night had in store for her. Perhaps if she closed her eyes tightly it would be over quickly without a lot of fuss.
“Was there another male?” Lucien asked abruptly, interrupting Elain’s considerations. Looking at him, she found that same burning intensity from a few moments before. She didn’t think she liked when he looked at her that way.
“What?”
“Back in Spring. Was there a male you…preferred?”
Elain shook her head, though she wanted to ask why it even mattered? She was here, wasn’t she, wishes be damned? 
“None?” 
“No, Lucien. I’ve been set aside for you my entire life.”
“Sure, but…” he rubbed the back of his neck. “That didn’t mean you had to…”
Elain wished a hole would open beneath her and swallow her up. Surely he wasn’t implying that he wished she’d been with someone else mere hours before he was about to be with her? If she’d been less of a lady, she might have launched herself across the table to throttle him. 
“Please do not worry about it,” she implored, desperate for this conversation to end. “Let’s just…lets just get through this afternoon.” Lucien eyed her dress again, but kept whatever comments he had to himself. “Fine.”
His reluctant compliance was better than expected. And Elain would take what she could get.
LUCIEN:
“You’re acting strange,” Arina said, catching Lucien in the hall on the way to his new bed chamber. His old one had been cleared out without ceremony, and he’d bet if he went to Elain’s room, he’d find her folding his clothing like a good little wife
“I’m not,” he lied. Lucien was desperately trying to avoid his brother and Arina, if only because he was afraid that might see him and just know somehow. Or smell it, more likely—the way he could currently smell the mating bond Arina and his brother shared wrapped around her like a lingering perfume.
It smelled like sex. Lucien hated it. It was like a warning pushing up against him, reminding him that she belonged to someone—a male who might rip Lucien’s throat out, should he feel like it. Elain seemed oblivious to what was happening which was the only mercy Lucien could find in their miserable situation. How long could he keep her in the dark before she realized? Before she felt the pull, the urge to touch him, too? Before someone scented him on her and told her? 
“What’s going on?”
“Besides being actually married to a stranger, nothing at all. I, for one, have never been better—”
“Don’t use that tone with me,” Arina snapped, clearly irritated. “There’s something else about you.”
“I’m just…” Lucien ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “It's my wedding night, Arina, and my wife hates me. Put the pieces together.”
“I doubt she’ll be upset if you put it off.”
“Or she’ll run and tell her father to get out of the marriage,” Lucien retorted, though truthfully, Elain simply didn’t seem like the vindictive sort. His mind drifted back to lunch, watching as she put together two plates as his mind warred. On the one hand, the part of him driven by instinct had been screaming and clawing for him to simply accept it from her, thus cementing the bond before she ever had a choice.
The other, more rational part of him, wanted to throw that plate across the room before cursing at the Mother for what she’d done. It was supposed to be Jesminda. It was Jesminda. Lucien’s heart beat erratically at the realization that all the times he’d laid with her and sworn she was his mate, when they’d laced their fingers and talked about when it might snap…all of it had been a farce. 
Lucien couldn’t stop thinking about Jes’s own mate. He was out there somewhere. Maybe she’d find that male and she’d realize what they had paled in comparison. Would she laugh a little at their silliness? How young they’d been, how foolish to believe what they had transcended the gods.
Lucien would have left Elain if Jes appeared right then. If she’d asked him—he wouldn’t make her beg—he would have left. Damned Elain, his life, his mating bond, just to see her again. And he knew that if Jes learned he had a mate, she’d bow out entirely. When the bond snapped, there was a finality to it. 
He was a mated male. He owed it to Elain to try and make things work, and maybe he owed it to himself, too. That didn’t mean Lucien wanted it, either. Gods, he didn’t know what he wanted other than to drink himself into oblivion and wait for some obvious answer to present itself.
“When Eris informed you that you were his mate, what did you do?” Lucien asked, interrupting Arina’s self-important lecture about being a good husband.
“I suffocated the air in the room until he got on his knees and apologized,” she said, eyes gleaming with amusement. “That’s different, Lucien.” Elain probably couldn’t nearly kill him—he’d been told she had no magic to speak of—but he imagined her reaction would go nearly as well. 
“Just…let me deal with my marriage my way, okay?” Lucien ordered, unwilling to be nice to Arina at that moment. Butt out, he wanted to add, though slipping into his bedroom and closing the door behind him was response enough. 
Inside was something out of Lucien’s personal hell. Elain rose to her feet when she saw him, eyes bright from what seemed to be some amount of crying. Her hair was unbound and artfully arranged around a night dress that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. Lucien blinked, frozen in place as his eyes moved of their own accord.
BETRAYER
“I—put on a robe, please,” Lucien managed, turning in a circle like some kind of animal. She was his. He had no claim to her at all. The competing desires threatened to unmake him. Lucien heard Elain sniff.
“Shouldn’t we…”
“Not like this,” he breathed, certain he would have felt that way even without the mating bond. “I—we could just…go to bed?”
“What about…you know?”
Lucien took a steadying breath and turned again, relieved to find Elain had wrapped a throw around her body. Her face had a little more color, her eyes a little less red. 
“If I offered to just…pretend…would you tell someone?”
“No,” she breathed with the saddest look of hope on her face. “I would swear we did.”
Oh, thank the Mother. “Then we’ll turn the lights off, get into bed, and in the morning go about our business as if we did.”
Elain nodded, dropping the blanket gently to walk to their bedroom. Lucien nearly choked at the sight of her from behind. Mother spare him, she’d be the death of him. Lucien didn’t need to like a female in order to admit she was appealing and Elain…Elain was just as pretty from behind as she was from the front. His eyes slid down her spine, landing on the soft curve of her waist, the flare of her hip, the sway of her ass. 
Cauldron damn him.
Elain turned as Lucien steadied himself on the frame, wondering if sleeping beside her was a good idea at all. Servants talked—and everyone was nosy. If he was caught sleeping on the sofa, his father would know and put Lucien in a deeply uncomfortable position. Lucien wouldn’t put it past his father to demand to watch. He’d like enjoy knowing that he ruined every other coupling they’d ever have.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she warned, holding up a trembling finger. Was he looking at her in some particular kind of way? Lucien was certain he wasn’t. Still, he merely crossed his arms over his chest as he eyed his new wife. 
“I was lost in thought,” he said, forcing himself to look only at her face. As if that made things any better. She was so heartbreakingly beautiful it made his teeth ache. She’d always been beautiful, which had warranted the space—if he spent too much time in her presence, he might find he liked her, and liking the woman who’d been forced upon him felt like giving in to his fathers demands.
Or worse, admitting Beron might have been right about him. 
Elain still eyed him warily as he crossed the room, grabbing a pair of linen pants neatly folded in a drawer that had her scent all over it. In the bathroom, Lucien splashed cold water on his face and ordered himself to get together. The mating bond was making him stupid. He didn’t want her…and yet he did. Physically, anyway. Lucien wondered if he could get away with escaping to one of the nearby cities for a few weeks just to clear his head long enough to stand in her presence. 
He returned to find Elain dividing the bed in half using pillows. “That’s not necessary,” he mumbled, reaching over her to toss one to the floor. “And obvious.” “I don’t want you getting any ideas,” she replied in that prissy way of hers. 
Lucien bared his teeth. “Trust me, lady. My only idea is sleep.”
“I thought all males wanted—”
“I’m not an animal,” he growled, fully aware he was a liar. “I don’t relish the thought of forcing myself on someone, wife or otherwise.”
“And if I never want you?” Elain asked, eyes narrowed to slits.
“I’ll tell all of Pyrthian you are terribly infertile and I’m a martyr—”
Elain launched a pillow at his face. “You’re not funny.”
Lucien flopped into bed, one hand thrown over his face. “You wound me.”
“I don’t believe anything could wound that over inflated ego of yours,” she responded. Lucien was learning that despite her meek appearance, his wife had a sharp tongue. He rather liked it, if only because it absolved him of any guilt he might feel for his own remarks. 
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” Lucien said, settling against the pillow. “You could tell me, you know. If there was another male.”
“There wasn’t. There isn’t.” There was something bitter about her tone.
“Never?” he questioned, his curiosity making him stupid.
“Never.”
“You’re not…?” Shut up shut up shut up— “You’re not curious?”
“Stop talking, Lucien.”
“If it were me—”
“I know where you’re going with this, and I’m telling you to stop while you’re ahead,” Elain gritted out. “Find someone else, if you’re feeling frustrated, but don’t try and frame my lack of experience as an opportunity.”
“Cauldron, Elain, I wasn’t…” But he was. Lucien knew it was a bad idea. If he got himself in her with the mating bond pounding in his chest, he was likely to take things too far, to do something he regretted. He couldn’t help himself no matter how badly he wanted to, and her proximity was clouding his judgment. He tried to pull up an image of Jes, but his mind shifted to Elain in sheer white lace and the rosy pink of her nipples—
Lucien rolled over, frustrated more with himself than anything else. There was no way he was going to sleep, no way he trusted his dreams not to betray him.
Not for the first time, he wished he was dead.
But maybe it was the first time he’d wished for it the loudest.
And the gods did nothing.
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