#unfortunately initiative did not favour us

[gettingnowherefaster]

I'm proud of the chaos B*tch has sown

The set-up:

And also Minthara after ❤️‍🔥

[champagnefountains]

I have a request if they're still open.

Alastor decides to hire Reader as a radio intern. He first did it for entertainment, sending them out to do ridiculously hard and long tasks for his own amusement, like fetching him coffee from the other side of Hell in a super short period of time or proof reading scripts that he purposely made completely illegible to anyone but himself, but had slowly begun to fall for them the longer they stuck around.

ALASTOR - H.H.

Prompt: Being Alastor's radio intern.

Thank you for your request anon! I hope you'll enjoy this one!

Word count: 1.5k+ words. Genre/other tags: Fluff. Humour. Warnings: None.

You were unfortunate to have your soul be owned by the renowned Radio-Demon. Tough luck. You were merely a desperate soul who needed a major favour to be done by yours truly, and are now forever tied and forced to do his bidding. You initially expected a life-time of torture and pain, but was pleasantly surprised when he had requested for you to be his personal radio-intern-slash-assistant.

"Dear Charlie and I have been so, so busy and I just need an extra hand is all...and that's where you come in!" He chimed, pinching your cheek. Alastor explained that he needed someone to assist in managing his radio-broadcasts and schedules while he was out playing hotelier. And just as you thought that you were off the hook, it turns out that this had been his own, little way of torturing you.

Alastor made you do the most ridiculous and tedious tasks ever – like fetching a cup of coffee from a cafe situating on the other side of Hell, or obtain some weird, obscure item from sketchy shops in the most dangerous and chaotic districts in all the Nine Circles, only for it to have little to no significance to him at all. Of course, you did some actual radio-intern-related tasks, but it didn't make things any easier for you. More so than often, Alastor would give you a stack-pile of his broadcast scripts to proof-read. The only problem was that all of it was mostly illegible, almost appearing like chicken scratch. It was then that you knew for certain he was doing this as some sort of sick entertainment for himself, knowing that he had the neatest penmanship amongst the entire team. Oh, and don't even get started with the ridiculous deadlines!

All in all, Alastor was constantly giving you a hard time. However, you were determined to not let him continue to walk all over you. After some time, you were slowly getting used to his strange requests and behaviours, and managed to find ways to work around them. Oh, he wanted his oddly specific order of coffee? You already had it ordered beforehand, and even had the beans supplied to have it readily brewed in the Hotel. He asked for some random-ass antique item? You had already established some connections during your previous commutes, and will have it delivered on the doorstep the next day. You needed to proof-read his scripts? You've learnt to decipher his hieroglyphics and were able to get them done hours before its deadline, whilst also adding in a few of your own critiques and comments.

Already a couple months in the job and you've already got it in the bag. And if he was being honest, Alastor was surprised with your progress. Dare say that he was even impressed! It was like no matter what he had thrown your way, you were able to catch it with ease. Yes, he had to admit: he did initially hire you for his own entertainment – you were his little play-thing when boredom struck – but you had proved yourself as an important asset and massive help towards him and the Hotel. You even went out of your way to help with tasks in the Hotel, such as tending the front desk with Cherri, assisting in the kitchen with Nifty, and even managing some group activities alongside Charlie and Vaggie.

You were incredibly hard-working, selfless and compassionate. Alastor and everyone in the Hotel could see it. It initially ticked Alastor off, seeing that his plans were foiled and were tailored to your favour, but the more you stuck around and spent time with himself and everyone else, he genuinely began enjoying your company. And vice versa. When he wasn't being the overbearing and unreasonable boss that he can be, you actually found yourself having fun in Alastor's presence, now often chuckling at his jokes and schemes.

But that wasn't the only thing that changed.

Alastor came to a stark realisation that he had developed feelings for you. It was a foreign feeling to him, which initially confused him at first but it filled him with such warmth that his cold-heart craved for. He found himself seeking your presence constantly (more than usual, that is), always making an effort to talk to you (again, more than usual), and at times, forcing you to stay in his office while he worked on his scripts, and even have you sit through his broadcasts. Even if it wasn't obvious, Alastor's feelings were overwhelming him with each passing day – he didn't know how to go about it. 

So Alastor resorted to what he does with most things – in straight-forward and curt fashion, of course. 

"S-Sir, you...y-you want me to do what?" You stuttered, a rapid and violent blush suddenly taking over your face. "I said, I want you to go out with me!" Alastor repeated nonchalantly, all the while jokingly tapping a finger on his microphone, "hello, hello? Is this thing on? Testing, testing!" You couldn't help but gawk at the deer-demon and his bluntness. He had summoned you to his office out-of-the-blue, requesting your presence urgently in the midst of an activity session you were co-hosting with Vaggie. With the way he went about it, you would've thought that there was some sort of emergency. Not...well, not this.

"...Go out with you? Like...on a walk, or something?" You slowly reiterated, trying to get a grasp on what he was trying to say. Alastor hums to himself, tapping his chin in thought. "Well, if that's what you prefer to do on our date, then I suppose that would be quite swell! We can fit that right in once we've had our dinner," He nods after a brief moment’s contemplation. It nearly sent your eyes popping out of its sockets. "Woah, woah! A-A date?! You mean, a date?! With–with me?!" You exclaimed, pointing to yourself in disbelief. The Overlord rose a brow.

"Why, of course! You're the only one in the room that I'm currently talking to, dear! Oh, hoh, you're quite silly, aren't you?" He chuckles, shaking his head. "B-But...don't you think this is like–I don't know, a bit unprofessional, sir?" You timidly ask, picking at your fingers, "you are my boss, after all..."

Alastor tilted his head to the side, humming, "Hm, perhaps. But I believe we’ve already crossed that boundary long ago, don’t you think? We’ve treated each other like good, ol’ comrades rather than just co-workers these past few months, have we not?” You blink. “I…I guess we have,” you blankly affirm.  

“Right? So, with that being said, I can't help but want something more. I do wish to properly court you. After all, it's not everyday a mortal soul such as yourself could pique my interest. That means to say that you’re quite exceptional, dear!” You couldn’t help but nervously chuckle at the flattery, shaking your head, “w-well, I don’t know about that–” 

“Oh, none of that nonsense!” He suddenly swoops in, waving a hand and shaking his head, “I don’t think I’ve met anyone who has managed to keep up at my level the way you have. It’s very impressive and admirable – take my word for it!” 

Alastor then suddenly evades your personal space, leaning down to eye-to-eye level with you. It startles you momentarily but you decidedly maintain eye-contact with him, too nervous to look away. It causes his grin to widen. "And I can bravely assume that you wouldn't mind taking up my offer...as you haven't yet made any effort or comment to decline it, hm?" He smartly comments, looking at you expectedly. 

Well..damn, he got you there, didn’t he? Because in truth, you did enjoy the playful dynamic you've established with him. You found satisfaction in the little praises and smiles Alastor would send your way whenever you accomplished something and slowly, you found yourself valuing his opinion of you. You then tried to up yourself with each passing day, and it was just as shocking for you when you came to terms with your own feelings. 

And that’s how you found yourself being courted by the Radio-Demon himself. 

After that, nothing much had changed in your dynamic with Alastor – you still continued being his radio-assistant. Well, other than the fact that he had become more openly sweet towards you. This meant calling you a variety of pet-names and giving you a little less work for you when he knows you’ve worked yourself hard enough. Small pecks and kisses will be rewarded when you would hand him his cup of coffee every morning, and he would invite you to join and sit on his lap when he would do his frequent broadcasts. He would also teasingly ask you to call him ‘sir’, knowing that it’ll fluster you so much – he just loved and enjoyed seeing you turn red all over. He even stopped with his hieroglyphics, reverting back to his usual handwriting when writing his scripts – the joke’s gone a bit stale, he says. And at the end of a long, tiring day, Alastor would have you in his arms as you happily basked in each other’s company.

[snailpaste]

Can i get some McSugarDaddy Crocodile headcannons but reader actually has feelings for croco? ive been thinking about this a little too much lately

Sugar Daddy!Crocodile x GN!Reader

CONTENT: Crocodile x GN! Reader, SFW, kind of mutual pining

AN: This isn't what i wanted but if I didn’t post it now I think it’d just go to the great fic graveyard in my drive (30 and counting) sorry for the wait ;-;

You’d caught crocodile’s eye at one of the many Gala’s he hosted (after all, charity was always a brilliant way for him to further his influence, to make connections and gain power), where he’d struck up conversation with you after asking to share a drink. It had gone well, and by the time the event had drawn to an end he’d given you his den den number and offered to pay for your taxi home.

Crocodile wasn’t one to chase after people, much more content to work on furthering himself or his many business enterprises. He simply didn’t need to – there were enough many men and women willing to fling themselves at him should he ever be in need of company – which is why he found it so strange that, not but two days after meeting you at a Gala, here he was, den-den pulled closer towards him on his desk than usual, eyes flickering to it every so often as he worked through the growing heap of paperwork.

rest under cut ->

If anyone were to ask why, not they would ever question him, he’d simply tell them he was waiting on an important business call, rather than hoping for a stranger, who’s laugh he unfortunately hadn’t been able to stop thinking about, to call.

Your arrangement started as “purely transactional,” in the words of Crocodile.

He didn’t expect sexual favours (at least, to begin with) but simply wanted your company at events, a presence beside him to help gnaw away at the tedious meetings and public appearances he endured in the name of business. You’d wake up with a voice message on your den den, telling you to be ready at 7, with details scarce aside from to check your mailbox, inside which was a new outfit fitting for whatever event he saw fit to bring you to. Over time as he learned more about you, they became more and more tailored to your tastes.

He kept things distant at the start. His touches were modest, an arm around your waist or shoulder, a hand guiding you at the small of your back, but nothing more. You found yourself begging to crave his touch, leaning into the warmth of his palm or wrapping your own around his arm.

His conversations, while interesting, never betrayed any of his true emotions, and he opted to leave you with cash rather than buying anything else for you specifically. Gradually, you began to hope might actually start to open up to you. What did he look like unguarded? How did he look when he was at peace 

As the weeks passed, you found yourself growing accustomed to his presence, the initial intimidation and curiosity replaced by a quiet comfort. Crocodile listens to whatever you have to say intently, eyes never leaving your face, always asking the right questions and relishing in the way you blush when he leans closer to you, blowing cigar smoke out the window and brushing your hair out of your face.

While Crocodile isn’t out of touch with his feelings, he does prefer to ignore them. He immediately noticed how you changed towards him, leaning your head into his hand when he cupped your cheek and laughing a little bit more openly, and sneaking looks when you thought he didn’t notice – he’d be lying if he said it didn’t make his heart feel just a little warmer.

Your dates, as you unknowingly began to phrase them much to his amusement, became far more frequent, with him using anything as an excuse to be around you for longer. Crocodile, it seemed, had an uncanny ability to understand your desires. He took you to places and events you’d been wanting to go to without you asking, such as art galleries, cosy bookstores and grand libraries, or bookings at theatres or cinemas.

Crocodile encourages you to pursue any and all of your interests- there’s nothing he admires more than when you go off on a tangent about something you’re passionate about, or your dedication. With him, money isn’t an issue, he’ll happily pay whatever fees you might need to achieve.

Your relationship progressed from you being a pretty thing draped off of his arm, another way for him to flaunt his wealth and power, to something more personal. He surprised you with a visit to something you’d mentioned excitedly to him weeks ago, booked the wing of a restaurant you fancied for just the two of you, and invited you with him to the opening evening of an exclusive art exhibition of his favourite movement.

It was only when he caught himself thinking about you with a smile while smoking his evening cigar, that crocodile decided to address how he felt– whatever it was.

After a long night that left you nodding off and leaning against him, crocodile opted to take you back to his house. He’d carried you up to a guest room with his jacket wrapped around your shoulders, placing you down in the bed and mumbling a soft good-night into your hair. It was then that, in your half-asleep stupor, you accidentally confessed your feelings, clinging sleepily to his shoulders and mumbling for him to stay with you. He didn’t make a big deal of it, but he felt his heart skip a beat, and allowed you to cuddle against his chest until you fell asleep.

The following morning he told you plainly and simply, wanting to cut the tension that ran thick as you drank him out of the corner of your eye (and how could you not, with normally slicked back hair in loose waves, ringed hands sliding you a coffee across the island, his bare chest peeking through his dark brocade dressing gown) that he was interested in you, interested in a relationship more than this.

After this, he begins to open up- lets you run your hands through his hair from behind, and stay at his house as often as you’d like. His laughs become lighter and more genuine, and you find he has a dimple in his left cheek whenever he smiles just so.

He still buys you gifts and treats you, but now they’re far more intimate, and more tailored to your tastes than ever. He takes you with him on his business trips around the globe, letting you soak in the sun or encouraging you to explore the attractions while he attends to business.

He surprises you with gifts delivered directly to your house, a box of your favourite treats, each delicately wrapped in coloured paper, a potted plant he collected from your shared trip to alabasta, or something he saw you looking at or considering buying with his own note attached. Another time, he appeared at your doorstep with an assortment of flowers, (he’s very into “classic courting”) each flower was one he picked carefully to reflect a message to you.

His love languages are quality time and acts of service, but he craves physical touch and, as you find, becomes quite clingy when he’s tired. He loves sharing baths with you, holding you to his chest and relaxing in the warm bubbles, and on his one day of rest per week, lazing around in bed with you during the early morning hours.

The time he realised he was well and truly in love with you was when you were sitting in his lap, his arm looped around your waist and hand smoothing over your cheek, as you had reached up to trace your fingertips over his raised scar. He’d felt his heart jump into his throat at the feeling, realising he’d never allow anyone else to touch him there, and when you smiled at the light dusting to his cheeks, he realised he was well and truly fucked.

[valleyof-goldenlilies]

Skori Zaldrizes Ropagon (When Dragons Fall) [Jace Velaryon x Reader]

HOTD Masterlist | Main Masterlist | 

Warnings: nothing explicit, just lots of character deaths, as in F&B canon

Word Count: 10k+

Pairing: Jacaerys Velaryon x Reader

A huge, huge, HUGE thank you to @asa-do-your-thing for the lovely artwork provided in this fic! I love both the collages you created for the teaser and the actual fic itself, and bless you for putting up with me and my slow responses 💕 this fic is dedicated to the both of us, and I hope you will enjoy it even though I was a complete hot mess struggling with writer's block when I came up with it haha. Special thanks also goes out to @ewanmitchellcrumbs for putting together this Big Bang! I'm honoured to have been a part of it.

A/N: This is the first part of my new fic, Skori Zaldrizes Ropagon, submitted for @hotd-bigbang! The rest of the parts will be released sometime soon, as I was only able to write the first part of my fic in time for the deadline haha. It's my first time writing a Jace x Reader fic, and it is rather lacking in romance, most unfortunately. Still, I hope you enjoy the fic. Thank you for supporting my mess of a writing!

Prince Jacaerys Velaryon was aged only ten and two when he heard the prophecy for the first time. 

Ever since his mother had decided to relocate their family to the ancestral seat of the Targaryens, Jace had spent much of his days with nothing but the same foreboding walls he was slowly growing tired of. He swore he knew every single crook and cranny in Dragonstone by now, having spent much of his youth traipsing through the home of his forebears, poking and exploring every inch of it. 

Dragonstone was a sleepy island, which did little to quell the young Jace’s thirst for adventure and exploration. But once every six moon turns, the inhabitants of the village located on the rocky shores of Dragonstone would come together for a festival of foods and goods. It was initially a small affair, but upon Princess Rhaenyra’s moving of her household to Dragonstone, many merchants and revellers from all parts of the Realm had flocked to the island like sheep, hoping to curry the favour of the numerous Targaryen royals currently residing at the island, or various nobles who visited the island to pay homage to their queen to be with their goods. 

And the festival was exactly where Jace found himself on the cusp of his thirteenth nameday. Sick of the constant gloomy atmosphere of the castle, he had snuck out after bribing one of the stablehands, disguising himself in the simple raiments of a peasant, along with a satchel of various coins concealed in his cloak. He had thought of bringing his dagger for protection, but he winced as he recalled the incident on Driftmark, and decided to leave it in his chambers. He wasn’t expecting any trouble tonight, anyway. All he wanted was a bit of harmless fun, and freedom, under the cloak of anonymity. Just for one night. 

The festival painted an animated and cheerful scene, so refreshing in contrast to the rather dismal air in the fortress. For a moment, Jace thought he had been transported back to the streets of King’s Landing, where the nightlife atmosphere was second to no other place in the realm. Fascination lit up his brown eyes as he bought samples of snacks from the street food vendors. Many of them were varieties of whatever fishes that could be caught in Blackwater Bay, but due to the expensive nature of imported spices from Essos, the food was seasoned rather simply. Jace enjoyed it however, the whole experience felt liberating. Here, he could just be among the commoners, someone unnoticed. 

Even though their relocation to Dragonstone after the Driftmark incident had brought some reprieve, deep down, Jace still felt tormented by the rumours of his parentage. Harwin Strong was long dead now, and so was his father, Laenor Velaryon, yet Jace still felt affected by their passings, though his mother oddly didn’t. One was his…his sire, the other the father Jace had been brought up to believe as his for his whole life, and though both men had not been present for nearly half of Jace’s life now, Jace still missed them. He remembered Laenor’s smile, his guffawing laugh, his warm touch whenever he herded them back from the Dragonpit and back to the Red keep. And he remembered Harwin’s presence - detached, as a respectful nobleman would keep in deference to a royal, but also warm and more constant than Laenor. Daemon was oft far too occupied with his mother to pay attention to him, Lucerys, and Joffrey, though he seemed polite enough to Jace. 

But what Jace craved deep down was for the presence of a fatherly figure: strong, brave, caring. And ever since his mother and Daemon have had little Aegon, Jace oft found that those fantasies of his were becoming more and more impossible to come true. Especially now, when he was coming of age soon, and was expected to bear the brunt of his duties as future Prince of Dragonstone, and heir to the Iron Throne. Little sentiment can be found in his world. 

Jace sighed, milling around and mingling with the smallfolk, trying to purge those thoughts from his head. And that was when he caught sight of it.

A caravan sat in a corner of the street, its dark red and blue exterior a stark contrast against the earthy cobblestones of its surroundings. The caravan was beautiful, even in its age, and Jace let his eyes trace over the woodwork and craftsmanship of the carvings of various celestial bodies and strange creatures on the caravan. A simple wooden sign hung outside the bright blue painted door, ‘Come have your fortune divined on this joyous day. Should you choose not to, you might not live to see the next day.’. 

Jace chuckled at the words, feeling some derision upon knowing what craft the inhabitants of the caravan possessed. He was not a faithful man, by any means. He worshipped the Seven, like any future crown prince of Westeros ought to, yet he felt no connection to those gods. His mother held a reverence for the gods of Old Valyria, and Jace had inherited that, but fortune telling? It all seemed a bit absurd to him. No one can see the future after all, He began to turn his back on the caravan. 

However, Jace was seized with a sudden urge to go inside the caravan. It felt like an invisible force was pulling him towards it, despite his disdain for such practices. What is wrong with me? I am a Targaryen prince for god’s sake- But it was like he was under a spell, as his legs moved on their own accord, much to his dismay. 

‘You know what, I came here for a night of relaxation after all. This might prove more entertaining than I expect it to be.’ 

With that thought, Jace found himself knocking tentatively on the door of the caravan, as the door swung open to reveal the dim interior of the caravan. He found it strange that there was no one behind the door, but shrugged it off, taking in the plush furnishings. Gas lamps and candles lit the small space up, giving the interior an inviting glow. Colourful tapestries depicting the sea were hung on the walls, and thick soft carpets covered the floors - such that Jace felt bad for wearing his dirtied boots into the caravan. But all those thoughts of guilt vanished from his mind as he laid his eyes on what was possibly the most beautiful woman in his life. 

She didn’t even look old enough to be considered a woman, no, this was a girl so beautiful, he thought that maybe he was looking at the form of the Maiden himself, descended upon this land to grace him with his loveliness. 

“Welcome, my prince.” Her voice was soft, nearly encasing him deeper into the spell that was her, until he realised how she had addressed him. Shock surged through his veins, along with a faint uneasiness. “You know who I am?” The fortune teller tilted her head, lowering the hood of her dark red cloak. The colour of spilled blood. “Of course. My god knows the true faces of all people who enter this caravan. And their fates as well.” She motioned for him to sit in front of her, and Jace obliged, sinking down on the cushion, unable to take his eyes off her. It felt like all coherent thoughts had left him. The fortune teller studied him back, her eyes glowing with the knowledge of endless possibilities. 

“My god senses some doubt in you of my abilities, my prince.” Jace was startled by her words, but he quickly recovered, a sheepish smile on his face. “I must confess I don’t quite believe in these things.” 

“And yet here you are.” “And yet here I am,” Jace echoed back. The fortune teller slid a cup of tea to him, and he wondered how he didn’t see her preparing it. He eyed the steaming tea, debating on whether he should drink it. 

“Relax, my prince, I have no reason to poison you, if that’s what you fear.” Jace was growing more unsettled, it seemed like the fortune teller was reading his mind. Was his thoughts really that obvious? He caved nonetheless, lifting the cup to his lips. Its taste soothed his nerves, and he felt some of his former rationality returning. “If I may ask, who is the god you owe your powers to?” 

The fortune teller shook her head with a smile, tapping the crystal ball between them lightly. “Does it matter, my prince?” “Well, it does, if you want me to have some faith in your readings.” The fortune teller looked amused. “You will believe what you want to believe, my prince. And my god prefers to withhold his true name from non-believers.”

Jace wanted to roll his eyes a little at that. It was clear this girl was a con-artist, but suddenly, her eyes grew sharp as her crystal ball filled with dark smoke. Jace drew back instinctively, nearly spilling the cup of tea. “W-what’s happening?” 

“My god is revealing your future,” the lightness in her voice was gone, replaced by a sort of seriousness. As sceptical as Jace was, his eyes were fixed on the swirling dark smoke. He was entranced by it when he suddenly felt a warm grip on his wrist. His eyes widened when the fortune teller tugged his hands towards the crystal ball, a slight flush in his cheeks. “Put your hand on the crystal,” her voice was filled with urgency. “There is something you must see.” 

Gripped by curiosity, Jace did as she said, placing his palms against the cool surface of the crystal. The curiosity vanished in an instant, replaced by a morbid horror as the scenes were seared in his mind. 

The sickening smell of blood. Fire everywhere, the distant roars of a dragon roaring and the screams of soldiers on the battlefield. Two opposing armies, one bearing a quartered banner with the Targaryen, Velaryon, and Arryn sigils, the other bearing a golden three-headed dragon on a black field, clashed with each other. Corpses littering the shores of a river. Three dragons lashing at each other in the sky, as one fell to the Earth with an agonised screech. And now Jace was in the sea, watching as ships were set aflame and a dragon that looked like Vermax falling from the skies. The sky was glowing with the colour of freshly spilled blood, smoke filling the air. Jace felt like he was on fire, as the soft, solemn words of the fortune teller reverberated throughout the horrific scene of bloodshed before him. “As dragons battle with each other, and fall from the skies, kin shall betray kin, kin shall murder kin, and Westeros shall burn alongside House Targaryen’s power.” 

Then, fire engulfed Jace as he jolted away in shock. The sound of a teacup clattering on the ground pulled Jace from the nightmare, and he was back in the caravan: far away from the smoke, the screams and the flames. He was still shaking as he recalled the searing sensation of fire on his skin, scorching his bones. The dark tendrils of smoke had seeped out of the crystal ball and were creeping up Jace’s fingers, and he hurriedly pulled away and shook his hands until the smoke had dissipated, feeling sick. “What in the Seven Hells was that?” His voice was tremulous with fear. 

The girl’s eyes were grim as she fixed her gaze on him. “The future of your family, and House Targaryen.” Now Jace was shaking with something much more than fear: anger. “You must be mistaken,” his words were not as steady as he had willed it to be, and he tried to correct the quiver in his voice. “Your god is a sham. All that was just illusions of the mind. You’re lying.” She must be.  

Now it was the girl’s turn to look incensed, and it was like the fury of a thousand sea storms crackled behind her eyes. “Do not dismiss the abilities of my god because of your fear, Prince Jacaerys. You know that war is inevitable between your mother and your uncle, and you would choose to play ignorant?” Her words struck him as he winced while recalling the scenes he had seen. Despite the cool night air flowing into the caravan through its small windows, Jace couldn’t shake off the dreadful feeling of being on fire. 

“...it just can’t be possible,” Jace murmured to himself, running his hands through his hair in distress. The scenes plagued his mind like a disease, and the smell of burning flesh was still ever present, making him nauseous. He reached out and gripped the hand of the girl desperately, “You said that there would be a war. My mother wins, right? She’s the rightful heir after all.” The girl looked troubled, “I cannot divulge more than what my god has allowed you to see.” 

“Not even if I paid you a golden dragon?” Jace pressed. The girl’s nostrils flared with indignation. “The visions granted to us by my god is something none of your paltry money can buy, my prince.” 

Jace was gripped with despair, as he tightened his grip on the girl’s hand, pleading, “Fine, forget about money. Just please, tell me if my family survives. I need to know, please.” Jace could see the girl’s eyes softening, and he tried to implore her even further. “Please, miss. I just need to know that. Your god has already been so merciful to show me so much, surely one more tiny bit of knowledge will not hurt?” 

The girl bit her lip, and looked downwards, as if contemplating. It was true that the prince’s future was bleak, and she knew of his eventual ending, but she must not go against her god’s limitations. And yet, she felt compelled to tell him the truth, to tell him of the bleak fate that awaited him. So she prayed to her god for leniency as she locked eyes with Jace again. Her voice was quiet as her reply echoed through Jace’s mind: which would prove to soon be his source of torment that plagued him for his next years. 

“No.” 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For years, after being told the prophecy, Jace felt like he was no longer in control of himself. His sleep and dreams no longer belonged to him. Instead, they fell victim to the visions and the prophecy that had plagued every one of his senses since that night. His attempts at seeking Maester Gerardys out discreetly for doses of Essence of Nightshade had only succeeded in eliciting the alarm of his mother and brothers, so he had stopped taking them. He found no reprieve in the dreadful tea anyway. 

Instead, Jace tried to find solace in other mediums. The library at Dragonstone had essentially turned into his bedroom now, along with the yard where he and Lucerys trained at arms. He toiled through the histories of wars and conflicts, pushing himself until blotches of crimson began to dot the ancient tomes. 

He trained at arms diligently, in an almost ruthless, cutthroat manner. Lucerys had since long given up on duelling him in arms, and the knights that had trained the both of them since they were old enough to pick up a sword had pleaded with Jace on numerous occasions to exercise more leniency on his younger brother. Jace’s only response to that was, “Will leniency be afforded to you on the battlefield, Luke?” 

To Rhaenyra, Lucerys and the rest of Jace’s family who cared deeply about him, it was admirable that Jace was pushing himself so hard. He clearly wanted to prove himself worthy of the title as future heir to the throne. But Rhaenyra could see far deeper than that. She recognised a reflection of her youth in her eldest son: the constant, debilitating need to prove himself. However, Rhaenyra did not know to whom he was trying to prove to. She had told him countless times of how proud she was of him and his prowess, but it was never enough. 

Rhaenyra had not seen a genuine, happy smile grace her son’s face since his thirteenth nameday. 

Jace could see his mother’s concern, could feel the worry of his brothers, the anxiety of Baela and Rhaena. He knew his refusal to open up had caused a slow, but increasingly noticeable rift between their relations, but how could he allow his family to witness his demons? To see the darkness that had been eating away at him like a parasite since he stepped foot into that godsforsaken fortune telling caravan? 

He couldn’t. 

He wouldn’t let the darkness taint his family’s joy, no matter what. This was a burden he must endure alone. 

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The day of Vaemond Velaryon’s petition brought out Jace’s paranoia which had been slowly building up over the years, like an ugly mountain of coal, to the forefront. 

But as it always was, fate rendered Jace’s promise useless when they received word that the Greens had repudiated the succession and crowned Aegon as King of the Seven Kingdoms in sight of the smallfolk. 

Jace nearly tore himself apart in rage, agony, and horror, at both himself and at the usurpers. How could this have happened? Jace’s mind was numb as he listened to the pained screams of his mother echo through the halls of Drgaonstone. How could he have failed so utterly in his promise to defend his family? 

He felt like beating himself up even more when he failed to get Daemon to at least accompany his mother during her labours. It seemed like such a triviality to be angry at, given their circumstances, but watching his mother’s vacant-eyed stare at the corpse of his dead sister just made him want to bash his head with a rock. He felt like a complete failure: he had failed to control his temper around his uncles and to behave in the calibre which the future heir to the Iron Throne should have acted as, he had failed to foresee and prevent the Greens from usurping his mother, and he couldn’t even effectively convince his stepfather to be there for his mother. 

And his snowballing of failures had led to the continuous, ominous echoing of the prophecy in his head. The constant feeling of being burnt alive. 

But then, the Seven, or whatever capricious deity that held the strings to his miserable life, shone a beacon of light into his life again. When his mother gave him and Luke the task of going as envoys and renewing the allegiances of various lords and ladies in the Realm, Jace was determined to use this mission to make amends. He would not fail his mother no matter what, he told himself as he swooped through the clouds, Vermax rumbling under him, as though sensing his rider’s fierce determination. 

He had landed first in the Eyrie, where he had initially received a frosty reception from the Lady Jeyne. With skillful persuasion and a reminder of the lady’s own familial ties to his mother through his grandmother, and the promise to send dragonriders to the Vale, Prince Jacaerys had just successfully completed his first envoy. 

He didn’t stay for long however, flying off the next day upon a restless sleep in the Eyrie’s chambers. Time was not on his side when it came to the prophecy, and Jace dreaded to think that every single second he took to idle or dawdle would cost his family their lives. He didn’t want to see the vacant-eyed stare his mother had at his sister’s funeral mirrored in her death. 

He then flew to Sisterton, then to White Harbour, and each time, he spoke with the lords firmly, yet charmingly, persuading them to his mother’s cause with promises and betrothals and reminders of their oaths. Jace found that he might yet be a fluent speaker in the language of diplomacy. 

However, now, despite his continuous successes, Jace never felt more nervous as he and Vermax soared above the snowy expanse of the North. Enervated grunts sounded from Vermax, and Jace felt sympathetic to his dragon. He clearly does not take well to the cold. But they couldn’t stop now, not when Jace was so close to completing his mission to his mother. He couldn’t disappoint her now. 

Cregan Stark was a man with a reputation, and not necessarily a helpful one to Jace. he was known to be stern, formidable, but the Northmen were known to be men of their word, and to have never broken an oath. But the Northern lords always had little interest in Southron politics, and Jace feared that the Wolf of Winterfell might take a stance of neutrality in the conflict instead. 

However, he couldn’t turn back now, and it wasn’t like he would do it if given the choice. The prophecy lingered over his head like a dreary cloud as of late, and Jace’s nightmares had intensified in its vivid horror. Vermax let out a shuddering grunt, as if in sync to his rider’s perturb. 

I can’t fail. I won’t fail. Jace thought to himself firmly, as Vermax’s leathery wingbeats began to slow as the structure of Winterfell loomed in the distance. ‘There has to be a way to stop the prophecy’s events from coming true somehow. There must.’ 

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Jace’s initial reception at Winterfell was as chilly as the climate in the North, even with the heat from the sauna emanating from the walls. Cregan Stark had lived up to everything Jace had been fearing, a stern, formidable man of few words, and seemingly disinterested in the brewing conflict. “The North has no place in Southron politics, my Prince,” Cregan had told Jace. Jace had a feeling he was trying to convey a sort of sympathy in his words, but the man’s face was unyielding as he spoke. 

A sentiment that Cregan had expressed had given Jace a small sliver of hope, “However,” the imposing man said, clinking down his cutlery. “Tis’ true that my late father swore an oath of obeisance to your mother. And House Stark, and the North, will honour that oath no matter what.” 

Jace had attempted to seize on that to leverage Lord Cregan’s support, but the man seemed adamant not to interfere. Jace spent the next moments picking listlessly at his meal, trying to decide the next best course of action. The Northern lord seemed as unyielding as stone, much to his growing frustrations. 

“If I may say something personal, my Prince,” Cregan’s low, thoughtful voice broke the silence. Jace’s heart leaped at the voice, coming to life with the hope for negotiations again. “Please, speak freely, my Lord.” “You remind me of my late younger brother, my Prince.” Jace tried to shove down his spike of disappointment, instead feigning politeness as he asked, “I am flattered. Do you hold fond memories of him?” Cregan nodded slowly, his eyes studying Jace’s every move like a hawk. “Many of them, in fact.” “May I ask in what way do I remind your Lordship of your late brother?” Jace inquired, out of courtesy more out of genuine curiosity. 

Cregan fixed his flinty gaze on Jace, the corners crinkling a little in memory. “The burden. The feeling of all the weight of the world on your shoulders.” 

Jace didn’t quite know what to answer to that, shrinking uncomfortably into his seat as Lord Stark’s gaze penetrated through him. He suddenly felt more aware of his age than ever. 

No other words were exchanged throughout the rest of their dinner. 

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Cregan had seen men driven by many things before: greed, anger, power, but he had never met someone quite like Jace Velaryon. A strange sense of urgency enveloped his every move, like he was racing against an invisible foe better known as time. Every one of his muscles always seemed taut in tension, his eyes broody, his mind clouded with a thousand storms of struggles. 

Perhaps it was this sense of oddity that drew him to become more sympathetic to the young prince’s cause. He had noticed that the young prince had grown more dishevelled ever since their dinner in the hall where Cregan had refused to lead troops in Queen Rhaenyra’s name. He looked like a petrified animal, leg stuck in a trap. 

Over time, Cregan began to warm up to the young Prince, taking his meals with him as Jace covertly tried to persuade Cregan into contributing his troops to his cause. Cregan was amused, but remained otherwise unswayed. 

And then, the raven from Dragonstone arrived. 

Cregan didn’t see Jace for a few days after that. The guards he had assigned to the young Prince had reported him looking nigh delirious, refusing to take more than a few bites of his meals, his eyes sunken in, and the occasional sounds of weeping coming from his chambers. 

It seemed the young Prince had been truly broken. And who wouldn’t be, with the death of their younger sibling? Innocent blood spilled at war, Cregan shook his head as he reread the letter from the maester of Dragonstone. Kinslaying was a taboo among Westeros, and rightfully so. Even Cregan had been hesitant when dealing with his power-hungry uncle a few years ago, choosing to imprison him instead of carrying out the sentence meant for treason: execution. 

When a week had nearly come and gone and Cregan had not caught sight of the Prince, he began to grow worried. The letter Cregan had received had requested for the immediate return of Jacaerys to Dragonstone, but the prince seemed to have no signs of moving in his mourning. 

Cregan was startled to see the young Prince appear while he was breaking fast in his solar on the morrow. While he had sent the young Prince an invitation, as courtesy bode, the sudden appearance of Jace had him unnerved. Jace appeared detached, polite, every inch the prim and proper Prince he was. But what sent a chill through even the hardened Northman’s heart was the look in Jace’s eyes. 

They looked steely determined, yet devoid of life, like he was a soulless shell of the person he was. The Prince before him was no man, but a wraith, worn thin by his inner turmoil.  

As Cregan offered his condolences, Jace had only smiled faintly, thanking Lord Cregan emotionlessly. “I can only hope that the usurpers will be punished by the Gods for my brother’s death,” Jace’s eyes glowed with an unearthly sort of fury, Cregan noted with concern. “My brother committed no act worthy of such a gruesome death. And for the act of kinslaying, my uncle must pay with blood.” 

“Justice will prevail, my prince,” Cregan reassured Jace, his black eyes filled with certainty. But what took Cregan aback was the hard look in Jace’s dark brown eyes: it was like wildfire, blazing and ready to consume everything in its path. And what unnerved the young Lord of Winterfell even more were the next words out of the Prince’s mouth: ‘What I desire is no longer just justice, but vengeance. I will rain fire and blood upon those usurpers who have harmed my kin, mark my words.” 

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Ever since receiving the missive informing Jace of Luke’s murder over Shipbreaker’s Bay, Jace felt like all time had ceased to exist. When once he fought to race against the clock to prevent the prophecy from coming true, now it seemed like nothing mattered anymore. 

Somehow, he managed to secure an alliance with Lord Cregan, having moved the man enough for him to pledge himself wholeheartedly to his mother’s cause. Jace should have felt relieved: that the task he had set out to do was accomplished, but now, he felt naught but a gaping hole where his heart had been. 

Luke had always been his baby brother. Joffrey was his youngest brother, but he was filled with an impish sort of charm and self-assuredness. Luke had been none of those. He was always the more serious, more sensitive of the three brothers. Jace had watched his mother place his dragon egg in his cradle. The first baby Jace had ever held in his arms was Luke. His precious, lovable, younger brother. 

And now he was gone, his remains lost forever to the sea. Along with poor Arrax, and the remnants of House Baratheon’s allegiance. With Luke’s death, it was like Jace’s heart had hardened into cold, unyielding stone once more, like it did when he had feared for Luke’s disinheritance and potential punishment during Vaemond Velaryon’s punishment. 

Dragonstone was an even drearier place now. The lingering feeling of despair that had been left in the aftermath of his mother’s stillbirth seemed to have increased tenfold, seeping into the walls and hovering above everyone in the fortress like a cloud of anguish. 

Rhaenyra had swept Jace into her arms when he had returned. Too tired to even receive her son at the doors, both mother and son held each other and cried in Rhaenyra’s chambers as they mourned Luke, their sweet boy. 

But after that, there was no time for tears. At least not anymore for Jace. Though he was still prone to walking into his younger brother’s room every morning to wake Luke up for their daily sparring sessions, he always halted in his path when he remembered. Luke was dead, and there was no coming back for him now. 

Perhaps it was this constant feeling of gloom that began to drive Jace back into his old patterns of neglecting sleep. With Daemon gone, and his mother barely a fraction of what she used to be, Jace had to take charge as the future heir to the throne. He initially felt miserable, finding it useless to fight with one part of his heart having been stolen away and smashed to pieces. 

Yet the echoing of the prophecy never ceased, and neither did the ticking of time. No, now was not the time for grief. There was still someone left to pay the price for Luke’s death, and Jace vowed that he would kill Aemond One-Eye with his bare hands, along with the rest of his traitorous kin. 

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The Hall of the Painted Table was in tumult, voices shouting over one another, loudest and most outraged among them was the voice of Lord Corlys, Jace’s grandsire. 

It had been hours after the Battle of Rook’s Rest, and the Black council was in chaos, as Lord Corlys raged and screamed at Rhaenyra, who looked passive and sickly despite being seated at the head of the table. 

“It should have been you,” Lord Corlys had screamed, his face a tangled mess of pure unadulterated rage and grief. Even Jace himself could not find the courage to stop his grandsire’s tirade, having experienced the death of Luke not too long ago. But an uncomfortable tingling plagued him as he watched his grandsire hurl curses at his already frail mother. He wasn’t sure whose side to take in this argument, so he kept silent, despite his reluctance. 

The Battle at Rook’s Rest had not been the only blow they’ve suffered. Earlier, Ser Erryk had been slain, by the hands of none other than his turncloak brother, Ser Arryk. The bloody discovery had sent jolts of alarm through Jace, as he soon came to fear for the safety of his younger siblings, who were vulnerable should Dragonstone be infiltrated by any more knights such as Ser Arryk. 

The seeds Jace had scattered on his laborious trip as an envoy had begun to bear fruit, and not a moment too soon. Quickly, Jace made arrangements for Luke’s betrothed, Rhaena, to make way to the Vale. going with her would be Joffrey, along with his mount Tyraxes. Too small to ride, yet Jace found a greater purpose in sending him as part of his promise to Lady Jeyne. The Vale was the most secure place in the realm, Jace had reassured his petulant brother, who did not wish to be apart from his family. When that did not work, Jace had instead convinced Joffrey that he was being sent to the Vale so that he may defend it against any of the usurper’s dragons, to which Joffrey eventually reluctantly acquiesced, though with a pout. 

Barely had Joffrey and Rhaena been sent away then did Jace start making preparations to send both Aegon and Viserys away as well. Both of them were even younger than Joffrey, and should be kept the in the safest and furthest place possible, lest the usurper tried to use them as hostages. This time, Jace enlisted the help of Lord Corlys, mending the broken bonds between them by naming his grandsire Hand of the Queen, a position Jace knew he had long coveted. With his grandsire’s help, they had made arrangements to send Aegon and Viserys to Pentos. It was more secure than anywhere else in Westeros, his grandfather had reassured him as they sent them both off. 

All this had been accomplished within the matter of a few days, yet Jace still felt restless. An unpleasant knot had formed in his stomach at Joffrey and Rhaena’s send off, and it only multiplied in its discomfort as Aegon and Viserys set sail. But I’ve done it , Jace thought, trying to console himself. That fortune teller can’t get all of my family now. I made sure that they were sent to the safest places in the whole of Westeros and Essos. I’m safe. We are all safe. 

Convinced, Jace had settled into bed that night, shutting his eyes with a grim sort of victory pumping through his veins. See how your god is a falsehood, he wanted to taunt the fortune teller, triumphant in his victories. 

He didn’t feel so victorious, however, when he fell into a deep slumber, and came face to face with the fortune teller’s face. This time his dream was tranquil, with no signs of fire anywhere. Jace had nearly hollered in sheer, utter relief, thinking he was free from the nightmarish landscape of that night’s visions at last. 

A slender hand reached out to Jace, and Jace levelled a baleful glare at the fortune teller, who only serenely shrugged and continued holding out her hand. “It is rude to refuse a lady’s hand, my Prince.” That voice that had once enticed him, that had been the source of his dread for the past few years. 

He couldn’t tell whether he wanted to throttle the woman or kiss her. 

She had looked much unchanged since their encounter in the caravan, Jace thought as he took her hand, slightly relishing in the warmth of it. That certainly didn’t feel like a dream. He looked around, registering nothing but rolling grass fields of an unnatural blue-green hue and trees with leaves of the same colour. Frosty pink roses dotted the landscape ever so often, and their sickly sweet nectar wafted through the air. 

“Is this real?” The woman tilted her head, and Jace’s eyes couldn’t help but follow the movement of her neck. Damn, he cursed himself internally. He needed to get a hold of himself. Keep himself focused on whether this was reality. 

“It’s as real as my god deems it to be, Prince Jacaerys,” she informed him, and a harsh laugh rolled off Jace’s tongue. “Your god, is nothing but a falsehood, my lady,” Jace informed her, his voice dripping with venom at the thought of what he had lost. Luke. His mother’s joy and happiness. His mother’s and his rightful birthright. Though Jace knew it was the greed of the Greens that drove them to such straits, Jace couldn’t help but feel resentful to this unknown, eldritch god who had driven his paranoia for the past few years. 

The woman’s face did not show any visible indicators of outrage, but a thunderous flicker in her stormy eyes made Jace feel a little cowed. He did not believe in the god that this woman did, yes, but he knows that there is something unearthly about the woman before him. Her eyes already narrated such an expressive story, Jace wondered about what would happen if all the power swirling in her was put on display in its full fury. 

“I’m sure you thought you’ve evaded sailing into the eye of the storm,” the woman began to walk. Jace stared after her, perplexed, but began to walk with her nonetheless. The sweet smell in the air began to dissipate, and Jace felt a wave of nausea in his abdomen as he began to smell burning flesh again. But it was gone in an instant, replaced by the more calming scent of something like honeysuckle. 

“A man seized by fear may do something moronic in the spur of the moment.. A man who allows fear to take control of him is as good as dead.” Anger bubbled in Jace, though he tried to tamp it down, worried that if he broke the serenity of their talk, the nightmarish scenes of fire consuming everything in its path and the dead faces of his family would return. Not that. Anything but that.  

“Had your god not shown me those visions, do you think I would have become a man ruled by fear?” Jace retorted in a calm voice, as they strode into a meadow, dotted with red roses. Jace was desperate to keep this conversation going, to know if he had been successful in tricking the heavens. He knew this woman held the answers to his success in the palm of her hand. He just wished he could stop his eyes from wandering and admiring her visage instead of the scenery. 

“Every man is ruled by fear, my Prince,” the woman’s voice was amused. “And are you telling me you regret seeing those visions? Would you rather have remained blissfully ignorant?” 

“Maybe,” Jace reached out to pluck a blood red rose, admiring its crisp petals. “Perhaps if I did, then I wouldn’t have to watch the ones I love die in my dreams, slaughtered by our enemies. Maybe then, I wouldn’t have to watch my worst nightmares come to reality, to see Lucerys die and be helpless to stop it.” 

“But it’s over now,” Jace and the fortune teller turned to face each other. Her impassive look unnerved Jace slightly, but still, against his better judgement and by some raw, magnetic pull of the universe, he tucked the rose he had plucked free of thorns in the woman’s hair. 

“Joffrey and Rhaena are in the Vale, the safest place there can be in the realm. And Aegon and Viserys are in Pentos. Or soon to be.” He tilted his head upwards cockily. “I have beaten your god. And he would never be able to get the rest of my family. Not now, not ever, and if he wants to, he’ll have to spit on my dead, cold corpse.” 

Jace had intended to provoke the woman, to goad her into admitting that he had played his cards right and well, but her next words caught him off-guard. 

“And what of King’s Landing? The Greens and their dragons?” She reminded him. “The murderer of your brother and unborn sister still remain at large, and the usurpers will live to breathe another day, the same as the rest of your family. Tell me, is your happiness truly just relegated to the safety of your family?” 

“You know you desire more, Jacaerys Velaryon.” 

The meadow filled with an eerie silence. The fortune teller’s eyes pierced through Jace’s, as if extracting all his deepest secrets with just a single, searing glance. 

“...you’re right,” Jace gritted his teeth. “It’s not enough. And I will raze the usurpers to the ground, every single last one of them, for conspiring against my mother. For murdering my brother.” 

“But if it’s a choice between vengeance and the safety of your family?” The woman’s voice was playful, a stark contrast to the subject matter they were discussing. “Is that your god’s way of telling me that I am doomed to follow one path or the other?” Jace asked sarcastically. He noticed that when he got more worked up, the familiar smell of burning flesh became stronger, before being quickly suppressed by a sickly sweet scent. 

“Mortals cannot have it all, Jacaerys Velaryon. We must make compromises.” Jace thought of Luke, poor, sweet Luke, losing his life at the hands of their uncle, thinking of his mother and the pain she had suffered through his miscarriage, hot white anger blinding him. But he also thought of Joffrey, Baela, little Aegon and Viserys, his mother, his grandsire, and Daemon. For all the wrongs the Green had wreaked upon them, if Jace ever came to the position where he had to choose between taking off Aemond’s head with his sword and protecting Joffrey, say, would he hesitate? What would he choose? 

“Not any more,” Jace forced out. “I will be controlled no longer by your god’s visions. By the fear he had instilled in me.” 

“My family has the power. We have the dragons and strength in numbers,” Jace’s voice rose in conviction. “The rest of my family are safely stowed away. What’s to stop us from raining blood and fire upon the usurpers?” The overwhelming smell of burning flesh was overtaking his senses again, and not even the sickly sweet scent of the meadow could hide it anymore. “I will prove your god wrong, my lady,” he informed her, a crude sort of determination in his voice. “The Targaryens are closer to gods than to men, after all.” 

The roaring in his ears grew louder and louder, and suddenly Jace was back in the battlefield of bodies again, the sky filled with shrieks as dragons plummeted to the ground. It was as if the fortune teller’s god was striking him down for his challenge to it. The hellscape blistered with smoke and fire, but Jace was insistent, continuing to yell. “You’ll see! You’ll all see.” 

Jace fought back the urge to flinch as he felt the burning sensation of fire engulfing him, forcing his screams of pain down his throat. That nightmare again. So he hadn’t escaped after all. His breathing grew heavier, as the flames grew greater in intensity and temperature. He could barely see anything now, and it felt worse than all the previous nightmares he had had. Was he wrong to have challenged the fortune teller’s god so boldly? To want to turn the tides of fate? 

“I will prove you and your god wrong!” Jace shouted, thrashing and trying to wrangle himself free from the prison of flames. “You will not touch my family no matter what! No more of them! I swear this on all my ancestors of Old Valyria, that you will have my family’s lives only if you spit and step on my dead body! Just try it!” 

A fiery burst of flame blinded his eyes, and Jace let out an agonised scream as he felt himself being burnt alive.

And then he was falling into an empty pit, his limbs outstretched and his heart seized by terror. 

A figure bolted upright from the lavish four-poster bed in one of the more secluded rooms in Dragonstone, gulping in the fresh air greedily. His sheets were stained with sweat as Jace wearily wiped a hand down his face, dismayed but not surprised to see a patch of scarlet stain his palm as a steady trickle of blood dripped from his nose. 

His heart thudding, Jace tried to recollect himself as his heart thudded in his chest. Yet again, the fortune teller’s calm, flowing voice filled his head as he recalled the last words he heard while he was hurtling through the empty vortex. 

“Dragonseeds.” 

A warning, Jace started, or another prophecy. But what does it mean? 

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Jace couldn’t quite find the steely strength that used to take hold of him every morning as he walked down to the Hall of the Painted Table. His vivid dream and talk with the fortune teller the night before had not yielded his intended result, to say the least. 

His grandsire was holding court as usual, and they immediately settled on their newest problem now that the younger children were away and out of the castle: the problem of their dragons. While the Blacks did have strength in numbers, having Syrax, Caraxes, Vermax, and even Baela’s Moondancer, as she insisted, against Aemond One-Eye’s Vhagar, the battle to retake King’s Landing or to withstand an assault by Vhagar would be a risky one. The loss of Meleys had been a devastating blow for the Black council’s earlier plans to take back King’s Landing as soon as possible, for it remained a key symbol of legitimacy that supported Aegon the Usurper’s rule. 

Jace sat stoically in his chair as Baela and his grandsire fielded suggestions and assessments on the risk factor of taking King’s Landing with their current dragons, lost in thought. His mind was focused on the dream he had last night, of death and battle and destruction that somehow felt more real and close to any dreams he had in the previous years, but also because of that fortune teller. 

That darn woman. With her mysterious words, her expressive eyes, her solemn wisdom falling from her very kissable lips- 

“Jace.” Jace wanted to kick himself for even thinking about such thoughts, when his betrothed was right next to him. Baela arched an eyebrow, clearly noticing how distracted he was. “My apologies, did you address me?” Jace murmured lowly to her, averting his grandsire’s disapproving gaze. 

“I asked what you thought about attacking King’s Landing with our current forces,” Corlys’ lips were pressed in a thin line, looking slightly displeased that his grandson had been caught lacking in his duties. Jace was about to repeat just about what everyone in the room had voiced out, when the fortune teller’s words from last night rang through his mind. 

Dragonseeds. Wild, untamed dragons on the island. 

Seven fucking Hells. 

“I would like to make a proposal.” 

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Lord Corlys had been dubious but intrigued about the plan of the Sowing of the Dragonseeds, but the Black council, including Baela, had seemed receptive to the idea. Particularly the Council. Jace wondered if he had made the right call when he saw the shifty looks on the various councillors’ faces, clearly hoping to claim a dragon of their own. After all, the Targaryens boasted their dragons as their might, should they be lucky enough to get the chance to bond with one…

The gold and knighthood Jace had planned to offer along for anyone successful enough to tame the dragons would pale terribly in comparison to a dragon. 

Jace was alone on the balcony with a view of the eastern slopes of the Dragonmont, musing, when he suddenly heard the doors slide open. His eyebrows shot to his hairline and his heart pounded with delight when Rhaenyra Targaryen emerged on the balcony, garbed in black. She had only been wearing black ever since Luke’s funeral, or the makeshift one they were forced to arrange without his remains. 

“Mother,” Jace greeted, moving to bow, but Rhaenyra halted his movements, moving to take his hands. “Oh my son,” she murmured softly, stroking Jace’s hair like she used to do when he was younger. “My strength and my consolation.” 

Jace felt a fluttery feeling in his heart, but also a deep pit of longing and sadness in his stomach. This was the mother he had missed sorely, not the one tucked away behind the vacant-eyed stare, face subdued during council meetings and always looking preoccupied with her own thoughts. 

“Mother. Have you heard of my plan about the Dragonseeds?” Jace asked softly, a warmth spreading across his cheeks as his mother gently stroked his hand with her thumb. His mother smiled, “I have. I think it is a sensible plan. More dragons on our side is never a bad thing.” Her eyes glittered with pride as she reached out and cupped Jace’s face in her hands gently. 

Taken aback but not at all averse to the gesture, Jace let himself be soothed, letting all the nightmares, that nonsense about the prophecy be evaporated into thin air. All he needed was his mother’s comfort. 

“Oh, my sweet boy, how I have let you down,” Rhaenyra spoke tenderly, sorrow in her voice. Jace felt something in the spell break, Rhaenyra was speaking to Luke. Not to Jace. A bit of Jace’s happiness gave way to sadness. 

“You haven’t let me down, Mother,” Jace tried to reassure her, but his voice came out a little croaky. “I should be fighting for you. It is my duty as your son and heir to the throne.” 

A little of the vacantness slid back into Rhaenyra’s lilac eyes. “I’m glad you know that, Jace,” she said quietly, but it broke Jace’s heart to see how far away she was. How her heart never fully repaired after Luke. 

But for now, Jace was content in acting as a placeholder for Luke, if it meant that his mother would return to him bit by bit. How long it took did not matter, he just wanted his family to be able to heal, to survive. He would shoulder a thousand burdens if it meant he would see them all safe and sound. 

The prophecy rumbled through his head again, but he tamped it down, not wanting it to poison his moment with his mother. 

“You’ve grown skinnier, Jace,” the pads of Rhaenyra’s fingers gently traced under Jace’s undereyes, where his eyebags were more prominent than ever. “Are you well? You need not feel too troubled, you know. We will win the war, because I am the rightful heir to the throne. The rightful queen of the Seven Kingdoms.” His mother’s voice was so full of conviction, so much like the mother he had known, that Jace didn’t have the heart to tell her that conviction did not win wars. 

Whomever favoured fate did. 

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The Dragonseeds plot had worked its magic, and soon enough, four of the six wild dragons had been tamed. While Jace had not come to trust them just yet, he felt a little abashed. Was he just treating them with mistrust just because they were of bastard birth? He knew he had no prerogative to think in that shameful manner, after all, wasn’t that being a little bit of a hypocrite himself? 

There was no time to dwell on guilt however. With the sowing of the Dragonseeds, Jace, Rhaenyra and Corlys had been advancing the plan for the taking of King’s Landing at breakneck pace. Jace felt a warm relief spread through him as he began to see his mother participate more actively in council meetings, and he could see how much it invigorated the council too. The former self-assured, rosy glow his mother had would never quite be the same, but Jace was content to settle for this for now. 

Alas, all good things did not last. 

They had underestimated the strength of the Greens’ alliance with the Triarchy, as demonstrated when his younger brother, Aegon, returned on a faltering Stormcloud, in terror after having been attacked by Triarchy warships in the Gullet, and losing his younger brother, Viserys in the ensuing melee. 

Rhaenyra turned pale as soon as she heard the news of Viserys’ disappearance, collapsing into her chair and no longer speaking another word. Still, she listened and watched as Jace and Corlys began discussing plans to counter the threat of the Triarchy, knowing that if House Velaryon’s hold on the Gullet broke, it would be a resounding strategic win and gain in resources for the Greens. 

Thus on the fifth day of the new year of 130 AC, a flurry of dragons and ships departed from Dragonstone, all headed for the Triarchy. Jace commanded Vermax, along with the other Dragonseeds, his lips pressed in a thin line and eyes haggard with lack of sleep. His nose had been bleeding oft as of late, even now, as they drew closer to the Gullet, but Jace only wiped it away with a fierce look on his face. 

It was his first battle as the heir to the Iron Throne, and he was going to show those Triarchy bastards they had chosen the wrong side to back. 

Swooping down on a line of Lysene warships, Jace narrowed his eyes as he heard the alarmed calls of “dragon!” among the crew. Good. 

“Dracarys!” Hungry dancing flames licked the wooden remains of the Lysene warships, as chaos broke out throughout the fleet of Triarchy warships. “Hold your formations!” Jace could hear the soldiers scrambling, but more frenzied shouts began filling the air, as the shapes of Vermithor, Sheepstealer, Silverwing and Seasmoke appeared in the skies. 

“Fire!” Jace barely had time to react before a Myrish crossbolt had nearly struck Vermax’s underbelly. His dragon let out an enraged shriek as it swooped for the offending vessel, burning it to ashes. Jace gritted his teeth, they had clearly learnt this tactic from their time in dealing with Daemon in the Stepstones. 

Egging Vermax on with a roar, he bade Vermax to destroy as many vessels loaded with crossbolts as possible. Already, some ships were beginning to turn, a good sign for them. Jace was confident that the battle would end in a resounding victory for them. 

Just then, he flew past Seasmoke, whose rider, Addam Velaryon, looked ashen. Jace’s gaze shot to where he was staring at, where the ships were headed straight for Driftmark and Dragonstone. Fuck. 

“Stay here!” He yelled a command to Addam, already directing Vermax to head back to defend Dragonstone and Driftmark. “I’ll handle this. Burn every ship that has one of those fucking crossbolts, and don’t fly too close to the water.” 

With that, Vermax’s leathery wingbeats headed for Dragonstone once more. Please, Jace begged, hoping to make it in time. No more of my family. Not my mother, or little Aegon. Please no. 

Perhaps if Jace was more careful, more alert, he would’ve noticed the squadron of ships, veiled by the smoke of the fires Jace had set earlier. Perhaps if he hadn’t chosen to fly so close to the edge of the water, hoping to conceal Vermax’s presence and sneak an attack from behind instead of from above, he would’ve noticed the crossbolt aimed at Vermax’s eye. 

A loud roar filled the air, one which could be heard all the way across from Dragonstone. Vermax shrieked and flailed, as both squadrons of ships attacked at the same time, loosing crossbolts at him. Jace panicked, trying to redirect him to fly up, to escape, to flee, but a horrific screech erupted from Vermax as a crossbolt pierced his eye. Jace was gripped with fear as he began to unbuckle his saddle as Vermax careened for the waters. 

In his frenzied fury of pain, Vermax loosed several fireballs, which hit the ships in front of him, destroying the back of some of the squadron headed for Dragonstone. The ships splintered into pieces as they exploded, and the remaining ships shouted orders to row away from the firing range of the dragon. 

As Vermax hit the waters with a loud crash, Jace finally got loose of his saddle. Spotting an adrift, large shipwreck near him, he leaped free…

And landed on the shipwreck, barely clinging on in the freezing waters. He struggled to keep afloat as Vermax continued thrashing about in the waves, and his heart ached as he watched his beloved dragon suffer. 

Then, a sharp, excruciating pain filled his left chest, and Jace looked away from Vermax to see an arrow lodged in his chest, piercing his dragonriding leathers. 

Fuck. 

Jace tried to make himself look smaller, anything to seem less conspicuous, but a volley of arrows were shot in his direction. Most of them missed in the dark, but the pain was blinding to the point where Jace’s feeble grip on the wood slowly loosened, and he thrashed about wildly in the cold sea waters, gasping for breath. The weight of his dragonriding leathers and scarce amount of armour did not work well in his favour however, and the treacherous waves soon dragged him down, into the deep dark depths of the ocean. 

I cannot die now, Jace thought, sputtering for air desperately. My family, my mother needs me. She cannot lose another son- 

The currents were getting harsher and harsher, as Jace bled out helplessly on the water. Armour, he needed to dislodge his armour- he frantically attempted to remove it, but as he lost more and more blood, his limbs grew number and number, and soon, he could barely retain consciousness. 

‘I’ve failed. I’ve failed them all.’ was Jacaerys Velaryon’s last thought as he was pulled beneath the currents by invisible tendrils of water, into the murky depths below. 

‘I’m sorry I failed to protect everyone.’ 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In his dreams, Jace was at the meadow again. The woman was nowhere to be seen, but he could feel her presence all around him. A light, serene sort of happiness filled him, and he felt the phantom feeling of warm arms wrapped around him from behind. 

It was something he hadn’t felt in years. An eerily calm sense of bliss. But Jace didn’t care, he was too busy relishing in the moment where his mind was free of his demons. Free from worrying about his family’s survival, about the prophecy, and about the war. 

In his blurred senses, he could see someone smiling at him, a tender, playful one. A warm breath grazed his ear and the voice from his sweetest dreams and most horrid nightmares spoke in that calm, flowing manner of hers. 

“The living are not quite done with you yet, Jacaerys Velaryon.” 

And that was the last thing he heard before darkness consumed him once more. At least this time there was no pain. 

The first thing Jacaerys registered when he woke up was the faint scent of snapdragons. He groaned as he awakened, feeling an agonising pain in his shoulder as he tried moving. 

Aren’t I supposed to be dead? Jace remembered the events of the battle of The Gullet, where he had watched Vermax flail about in the sea, screeching as he fought not to drown in the cold depths of the ocean. His heart ached at the loss. Another one of my family gone, in the blink of an eye. And in the sea too. He wondered how the battle ended, did they win? 

But that soon became a minor concern as he began pondering…where exactly was he? He looked around, trying to sit up, but the pain in his shoulder forced him to fall back onto his pillow with a groan. So he was still alive then. Sudden panic gripped him. Had he been taken hostage by the Green forces? But if he had, then he would be in a far worse state than he was now. 

He glanced around the small space, noting that he was in a cottage of sorts. The smell of salt was heavy in the air, and the sky outside was grey and gloomy. Had some fisherman rescued him when he washed upon the shore? And if so, where in the Seven Hells was he now? The Crownlands? He definitely didn’t wash ashore on Dragonstone, or he would have been handed over to his mother. His heart ached as he wondered how his mother must have reacted to the news of his death. Once he ascertained his whereabouts and who had saved him, he would fly home for Dragonstone immediately….Jace sighed when he remembered that Vermax was dead now. He would send a raven or any messenger bird he could find then. 

The sound of the front door to the cottage opening caught Jace’s attention and he tried bolting upright, but yelped when his shoulder pain acted up again. He waited with bated breath as the door to his room opened, and revealed his saviour and possible enemy. However, the sight before him left him thunderstruck.

In that instant, Jace’s heart felt like it had stopped and then had been jolted forcefully back to life again by a tight grip. 

No. No, no, no, it was impossible. He had died, had felt the arrows pierce through his chest near his heart, before he fell prey to the treacherous waves of the Gullet, drowning in his failure. This has to be some false afterlife, set up to torment me. 

And yet, the pain in his lungs was overbearing, and definitely real, as he sat on the bed like he had been bolted to it, tightly clutching the coarse bedsheets in his fists. 

The whole world seemed to stand still as his eyes took in the familiar figure, holding a basket of herbs in her arms. Garbed in simple peasant clothing, yet that did not diminish her otherworldly beauty. 

“ You. ” 

“Me.” An insouciant, wry grin graced her lips, and it was like Jace’s most horrible nightmares and his dreams were blossoming before his very eyes. 

“Welcome back to the world of the living, Prince Jacaerys.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

published as part of the HOTD Big Bang 2023

Part 2 will be published soon! If you made it this far, thank you for reading! 💗

[llamagoddessofficial]

Sorry if this was obvious. But did Skull eat Kevin in Tilikum? If so, that's super dark, I love it

Maybe this will explain things. From Edith's secret logs.

---

(Sirenus) Hadocephalopoda Tenebri - Incident Log 9 - audiofile b

“Audiofiles are incredibly tedious to keep and sort. But I can’t risk this being in text format, that’s far too easy to leak. 

So. Kevin... is dead. S3 made short work of him. I can’t say I didn’t expect this to happen, it had been too long since the last attack and Kevin was getting increasingly more arrogant with the sirens. I think he genuinely believed we had tamed them. Ultimately, what happened was his fault, and I really can’t say he’ll be missed all that much.

... This was a very unique kill, though. Worth fully logging. The same initial chain of events occurred, just like all the others- somehow, S3’s sirensong is still getting through its enclosure. What is this thing made of? The glass for S1 and S2 is half the thickness, and we consider that overkill. But it’s undeniable... in the security footage, Kevin is clearly under sirensong influence. He enters the room, then something happens to make him ascend the stairs, open the tank and stand at the very edge until S3 launches its attack. The unique part is that this time around, S3 did not consume any part of the body. In fact, S3 removed the body from the water of its own volition and left it on the edge for us to collect. Everything was intact... even the fingers, which are usually the first to go. My current theory is that this attack was out of malice, not hunger, like the other ones seemed to be. He’s akin to S1 in that respect.

... We still have no idea what to expect, after all this time. That’s what I don’t like about S3. What happened to Kevin was definitely... unfortunate. It’s always a pain to lose a member of management, no matter how low in the chain. But equally, it’s preferable to lose a management member, rather than a member of the hands-on team. It’s much easier to cover the tracks of someone who knew all the risks.

Perhaps it’s for the best that this happened with S3, when it did. Kevin was becoming a liability. His arrogance certainly would’ve led to him being killed by another siren in a much more public manner.

...

Now... onto the interesting part.

I was right. S3 won’t harm her, none of them will. My theory is looking more and more plausible. Even close to his next feeding and a few hours after having attacked another staff member, S3 was careful and playful with her. He knows his own strength, and the fact that he chooses to be gentle shows a higher level of intelligence than we initially suspected. The rest of the board refused to see the utility of her ability to calm/charm them, but now, I’m certain they’ll let me push my ideas through. She swam with S3, for fuck’s sake- why are we having her sitting around with the rest of the afterhours crew? The possibilities are endless.

I have so much to plan. For all S3’s faults, with this one... he did me a massive favour.”

[mymoonagedaydream]

Part 5

Pairing: Bucky x y/n

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: V strong language, PG13 smut, another creepy guy what fun

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4

---

The mixture of shock and residual anger made your body tense up. Your hands shot up to his chest, but only in an attempt to maintain some kind of distance while you decided how to respond, whether to reciprocate. 

The wall was cold against the back of your head and your arms, the sensation clashing with the warmth of his body pressed firmly up against you. His breath tasted faintly of liquor, dutch courage maybe. You could've used some yourself.

After the initial shock faded, the one thought that clouded your mind was that this wasn’t fucking fair. He could hop in and out of your life whenever he felt like it, teasing you with affection before stealing it away again, while all you could do was sit around and wait for his whims to change. You felt dizzy thinking about having to stay on his emotional roller coaster any longer. This whole ordeal had been so incredibly draining but, the very worst part was, you couldn’t even blame him for it. He genuinely believed he was doing you a favour by trying to stay away. He was a good guy, he just gave in to his feelings too easily.

Unfortunately, you had a habit of doing the same. You kissed him back. His stubble was rough against your face. His chest started heaving, pushing you further into the wall as it did so. 

You couldn’t count the hours you’d spent thinking about this back at that shitty little apartment, the nights you’d laid awake, barely able to stop yourself from tearing through to the living room and tearing into him. The reality was even better than you'd imagined.

He lifted your legs to circle his waist and pulled you away from the wall, blindly walking towards your bedroom with his mouth still locked onto yours. You briefly wondered how the hell he knew where he was going, how long he’d been occupying your apartment before you arrived home this evening, but all of that fell out of your head when he dropped you onto the bed, pulled his shirt off and climbed on top of you. Nothing else mattered after that.

---

You had no idea what this meant.

You carefully rolled over and eyed the completely bare  man that was fast asleep in your bed. The sun had set while you’d been tangled together, so the only thing illuminating him now was the pale moonlight that streamed through the blinds in thin, uniform lines. He almost looked like he was carved out of stone. It was a sight that, a few weeks ago, would’ve filled you with excitement and delirium. Now you were just confused.

A million questions streamed through your mind. Had anything actually changed? Was everything now just going to go back to how it was before? Were you going to be left pining again while Bucky watched you from a tree or a bush to make sure you didn’t accidentally die?

Admittedly, you’d been in less healthy relationships but, still, not ideal.

You had no idea how long you’d been lying awake. An hour, at least, maybe two. Sighing and rubbing your eyes, you climbed off the bed and headed towards the door. Bucky stirred, a deep whisper coming from behind you.

“You alright?”

“Yeah, just need to pee.”

He grunted softly. You glanced over your shoulder to see him roll onto his back, eyes still closed, one hand moving to rest behind his head while a contented smile spread over his face. Well, at least he was happy.

Your clammy feet stuck to the cold bathroom tiles, the unheated air in the apartment nipping at your bare skin. You braced yourself against the sink and splashed cold water over your face. There was no way you could keep doing this. If you allowed it, there’d be countless more nights spent lying awake, driving yourself crazy wondering what the fuck was going on inside his head. No, it was time to get some answers.

You made a plan. If he was awake when you got back to the bedroom, you’d confront him now but, if not, you’d do it first thing in the morning. Letting yourself delay it any further than that would inevitably lead to pussying out completely and standing by while this situation spiralled out of control again.

You tiptoed back towards the bedroom, hoping to god that he'd fallen back to sleep.

“Buck?”

“Mhmm?”

Shit.

You slipped under the sheet and lay down beside him, using your arm to prop your head up. He looked over to you, nervous anticipation dancing over his face, blue eyes lit up by a slither of moonlight. Your words got caught in your throat. They quivered when they eventually escaped, your well-planned confrontation quickly derailing into an anxious ramble.

“I’ve been thinking, and I was, uh, wondering,” you couldn’t bring yourself to meet his gaze, “what kind of life can you have?”

“Hmm?”

“You said, about the time we spent in that apartment, that you could never have that kind of life. Right?”

“Right.”

You tried your best to prompt him with your expression but you had a feeling he was being wilfully ignorant. Yes, this conversation was going to be painful, but you’d get him to talk even if you had to drag him over hot fucking coals to make it happen.

“So, what can life look like for you, realistically?”

“Just… fighting, I guess.”

“Sounds lonely.”

“It has to be.”

“Says who?”

“Says the guy who almost got you killed twice.”

He winced as he said it, turning his head so his face was pointing up towards the ceiling. You could tell that, as far as he was concerned, that was the conversation over. Well it wasn’t. He’d played that ace one too many times and it just didn’t have the same impact anymore. You were in too deep now to care.

“You don’t think that, just maybe, you’re worth the risk?”

“No, I don’t.”

“And what if I do?”

“Then you’re wrong.”

He sat up and swung his legs out of bed. You slid yourself towards him and placed a hand gently on his shoulder, a feeble attempt to pull him back into the conversation, but it fell limp against the sheets when he stood up and started to gather his clothes.

“So that’s it, then? You’re just gonna disappear again?”

You got no answer, he just began to silently dress himself. You could’ve argued more, could’ve blocked the door and forced him to hear you out, but your bitterness got the better of you. He was leaving, again, and you let yourself hate him for it. You lay down and turned your back to him. Light footsteps padded away and the front door clicked, then silence fell again.

It could only have been a few seconds before a crashing wave of regret hit you.

Grabbing hold of the sheet and wrapping it around yourself, you jumped to your feet and bolted after him. Your heart was thudding against your ribs. You yanked the front door open and stepped out into the icy night air, squinting towards the only working streetlight in view. There was no sign of him. The rain was battering against the sidewalk, the thunderous sound deadening any attempt to scream his name.

You weren’t sure what you’d been expecting, he didn’t exactly have a habit of hanging around and there was no way you’d be able to catch up to him without clothes or shoes. It was a futile gesture, standing there in the cold, but you waited and clung to the tiny ounce of hope that maybe he’d change his mind and come back. Maybe if he found you there, soaked and shivering, he’d realise that you were willing to fight for him- that he was worth fighting for.

You’d lost all feeling in your fingers and toes by the time you gave up.

---

Days had passed since you’d seen him, each one making you more and more desperate to talk to him, to apologise for letting him go. You cursed yourself for how you acted that night. You needed to make it right.

There was, you figured, only one guaranteed way to make him show his face. It was unbelievably stupid and he’d hate you for it but, at this point, you were desperate enough to try anything.

You finished work, cleaned up and locked the door, just the same as you did every day. You took the few steps towards the sidewalk and looked around. No sign of him, obviously. With a deep breath, you set off walking in the opposite direction to your apartment. You knew exactly where to go.

You’d dated your fair share of assholes since being in the city and the very worst of them, an unemployed narcissist who still lived with his ex-wife, used to drink at the shittiest dive bar you’d ever had the misfortune to visit. Fortunately for you, that bar was only a ten minute walk from the coffee shop.

Rounding the corner, you scanned your eyes over the clientele smoking in the alleyway outside. It looked like a meetup for men whose mothers’ would describe them as disappointments. Squaring your shoulders, you picked out the biggest, ugliest one and made a beeline directly towards him.

“Hey.”

“Hey there, sweetheart.” The look that spread over his face made you immediately start regretting this plan, but you just swallowed harshly and stuck to it. “Where’d you fall from, heaven?”

“No, actually, I just came straight from your mom’s house.”

Jesus, really? Was that the best you could come up with? You cringed at yourself.

“What now?”

“Did she give you that tattoo?” You pointed as confidently as you could to a green, wrinkled blotch on his arm.

“No.”

“Well it looks pretty fucking amateur to me.”

He laughed, probably more out of shock than anything else. “Are you high or somethin’?”

“Man, I wish. Then maybe your breath would be more bearable.”

“It tastes better than it smells, baby.”

“Funny, that’s exactly what your mom said about her cunt.”

Now that’s more like it. You braced yourself, expecting at any second to feel a calloused old fist crash into your face, but nothing happened. He just threw his cigarette on the ground and turned away from you.

“Piss off, stupid bitch.”

Well, god fucking damn it. Why was it that, when you were just minding your business and trying to get home, psychos were attracted to you like flies to shit but, when you were actively encouraging them to throw hands, they go all shy? You were really starting to hate this fucking city.

It was no good, time to up the ante. You scanned your eyes over the ground, picked up the closest piece of shrapnel you could find and launched it towards his head. Your aim wasn’t great, so it hit the wall behind him with a loud clunk, but it seemed to do the job. He swivelled round with murder in his eyes.

“You tryin' to die tonight, bitch?” Not quite, you thought, but stayed silent. “What’s your fuckin' problem, huh?”

He stormed towards you. It took all of your courage to stay planted on the spot, arms and legs beginning to tremble. He didn’t hesitate for a second when he reached you, a gnarled hand shooting out and wrapping itself around your throat, squeezing with immense force. He kept shouting but your eardrums felt like they were full of water and your vision was starting to blur.

Right, okay, so you actually might die here. What a idiotic way to go, how fucking typical.

You were so busy regretting every life decision that had led up to this point, you barely noticed that he’d managed to lift you clean off the ground, the pain around your neck becoming almost unbearable. You thought you vaguely heard a dull thunk before the pressure was suddenly released.

The last thing you felt was your limp body slamming into the ground, then everything went black.

---

Part 6

---

[fics-by-em]

Amorous Facades - Chapter Seven

A wild night out leaves the lives of Jamie Tartt and Ophelia Adams more intertwined than they ever would have imagined.

Will their decision to try and use the situation to their advantage work out in their favour or will they realize that they should have cut their losses when they had the chance?

———-

previous chapter

———-

Despite her initial embarrassment, Lia had grown to accept the fact that no matter how far away Jamie was when she fell asleep, she always woke up either wrapped around him or pressed tightly against his side. She couldn’t be sure whether it was the warmth he exuded or if she just subconsciously searched for the comfort of a cuddle while she was asleep, but it happened almost every night without fail.

However, while their cuddle in Jamie’s childhood bed had started out as one of comfort, it quickly became obvious that it was a necessity if one of them didn’t want to end up on the floor. They spent the entire night intertwined with each other, but as Lia slowly roused from sleep early the next morning she realized that the contact felt different than it had when Jamie had first crawled into bed.

Without the vulnerability of Jamie’s wounded emotions, the intimate way they were wrapped around each other had the air growing thick with a different kind of tension and as Jamie nuzzled into her neck with his sleepy breaths ghosting over her skin, Lia felt a flicker of heat building inside her. She swallowed hard as she fought against it, but the increasing temptation to give in and enjoy the sensation was hard to resist. The way he’d pulled her thigh over his waist had her pressed firmly against him with only the thin material of her underwear between them and the urge to shift her hips and create a little friction was almost overwhelming. The thought alone was enough to make her blush and she tried to push the idea from her mind as she wondered if there was some way she could sneak out of bed - and maybe splash some cold water on her face - before Jamie could notice the effect that their close proximity was having on her.

Unfortunately, before she had the chance to unravel herself, Jamie stirred, shifted, and unwittingly ground against Lia in the exact way her imagination had her dreaming about. Her breath hitched as the sensation had a warmth of pleasure rushing through her, but she tried to hold it together even as Jamie stretched and pressed himself even closer.

“G’morning,” he murmured, his voice raspy with sleep in a way that made his accent even more pronounced and sent another flush of heat through Lia. “Sleep well?”

It was a simple question, but she felt a flood of panic wash over her as it required her to organize her thoughts enough to come up with an answer at a time when calming her racing heart so he didn’t hear it pounding through her chest was already taking all of her concentration. She briefly wondered if the thin material of her underwear would be enough to hide any other signs of arousal and the thought of him potentially feeling any heat or slickness that might be growing between her legs was enough to snap her back to reality as if she’d been doused with a bucket of cold water.

“I did, yeah,” she nodded. “Did you? I hope you had enough space.”

“I was fine,” Jamie assured her with a lazy smirk on his face. “Almost slipped off a few times, but luckily you were grippin’ me so tight that I couldn’t get very far.”

“Shut up,” Lia huffed despite the way she felt her cheeks flushing again as she knew it was probably true. “It was just for your safety.”

Jamie let out a hum of thought, but as he slid his hand along Lia’s thigh until his fingers were just dipping under the hem of the shirt she was wearing - which was already riding dangerously high and barely covering her bum - she felt like every nerve in her body was on edge as she anticipated his next move, torn between whether she wanted him to push her boundaries or respect them.

“Was it? Or am I just too irresistible?”

It was cocky - a hint of the side of Jamie that he was trying so hard to change - and while such a comment would have usually earned a roll of her eyes, Lia couldn’t deny that in that moment she found his confidence nothing short of incredibly attractive. Her mouth felt dry as her brain struggled to formulate any kind of response, but as he moved his hand a little higher and she felt a twitch of something in the briefs he was wearing stirring beneath her thigh, she was once again snapped back to her senses.

Moving with enough speed to surprise them both, Lia quickly rolled over Jamie and sprung away from the bed as soon as she was able to get her feet on the floor. The distance helped her keep her resilience - despite the little desperate voice in the back of her head trying to coax her to climb straight back into bed and get the satisfaction that she so clearly craved - and she shot him a playful glare as she picked her jeans up from where she’d left them folded on a chair.

“It was just for safety,” she insisted, knowing it was hard to believe after the way her body had reacted to his brief touches. “I can resist you just fine.”

Her claim and the huff it was said with had a chuckle falling from Jamie’s lips, but Lia managed to wiggle into her jeans and change the subject before he had time to comment.

“I’m going to go downstairs,” she informed him, lifting her hair into a messy bun on the top of her head. “Will you be joining me?”

The smug look was still firmly on Jamie’s face as he nodded and assured her he’d be down shortly after he took a quick shower and Lia hurried from the room with her feelings more muddled than ever. 

He seemed so eager. It would have been so easy for her to let herself indulge and pretend that his fondness for her was growing just as hers was for him, but he was Jamie Tartt. His desire to slide his hands up her shirt likely wasn’t indicative of any feelings other than horniness and getting carried away would just leave Lia with a mess to clean up when she found herself too attached.

Even though she was starting to think she was getting a little too attached already even without the added complication of relieving any sexual tension.

She cursed Jamie as she wandered down the stairs and towards the comforting smell of coffee wafting from the kitchen, but she had to admit that her inner turmoil was handy for one thing as it had her completely distracted from any anxiety she had about being around Jamie’s mum and Simon. Which was very helpful considering her worry was completely unfounded - a fact she was reminded of the moment she stepped into the kitchen.

“Good morning,” Georgie grinned, immediately pushing herself away from where she’d been leaning on the counter to greet her. “Did you sleep well? Would you like some coffee?”

“I did sleep well, thanks, and I would love some coffee.”

The kitchen was small and Lia tucked herself into a little corner out of the way as Simon darted around, moving between the stovetop and various cupboards until Georgie handed her a mug.

“Milk? Or sugar?”

“Neither,” Lia assured her. “Just black is perfect, thanks.”

“Breakfast will be sweet enough,” Simon chimed in. “I’m making french toast!”

It was clear that he was already in the middle of preparing it, but Lia couldn’t help but protest the kind gesture.

“Oh, you don’t have to cook for us!”

“Nonsense,” he waved her off. “You’re our guests and we always like to spoil Jamie a bit when he comes home. Will he be down soon?”

“Yeah,” Lia nodded. “He just wanted to take a quick shower.”

Almost as if on cue, the sound of running water could be heard from above them and the smile that slid onto Georgie’s face gave Lia the feeling that just knowing that he was home was enough to make her very happy.

“Did you two have enough space last night?” She asked as she grabbed her own mug and leaned beside Lia. “I tried to convince Jamie to sleep on the couch, but he was in such a big hurry to get upstairs to you.”

The thought of Jamie’s fragile state when he’d crawled into bed made her heart ache, but Lia found herself in a situation that was somewhat difficult to navigate. She didn’t doubt that Jamie had found comfort in her the night before - the same way that she’d found comfort in him after her fight with Katie - but she didn’t feel that she could take too much credit for the situation. He hadn’t necessarily been eager to rush upstairs to her, he’d just rushed upstairs to find solace in some skin to skin contact with a friend. She knew it sounded strange, but it was the situation that they’d found themselves in and it wasn’t one she was eager to try to explain to Jamie’s mother.

“We made it work,” Lia assured her, choosing her words carefully. “He needed a bit of a cuddle so we didn’t need much space, but I think his conversation with you probably helped more than anything I could do. I felt a little out of my depth.”

“Don’t be silly, he has been so much brighter since he met you. Hasn’t he, Simon?” It was a claim that Lia was skeptical of, but Simon enthusiastically agreed and Georgie continued before she could argue. “He’s been so happy - like a real weight has been lifted off his shoulders - and he’s working so hard on himself, really showing the world that he’s the sweetheart I’ve always said he is. You’re inspiring him to do that and making him feel safe and supported enough that he doesn’t feel like he needs to have his guard up all the time and I’m so grateful to you for that, it’s so lovely to see”

It was more credit than Lia felt like she’d earned, but the genuine emotion in Georgie’s voice and the glossiness growing in her eyes had her own emotions rising.

“He is a sweetheart and I’m glad more people are starting to see it,” Lia agreed. “But he helps me too. He takes good care of me and it’s nice to know that he’s always in my corner.”

Reflecting on their time together over the last few weeks, Lia realized that there was a genuine honesty in her statement. After he’d stepped up during her time of need, she really did feel like he had her back and she had enjoyed having someone to go home to every night who seemed to be genuinely interested in hearing about her day. The realization also had her mind drifting to how much she would miss it - miss him - when their arrangement was over and the ache that thought caused in her heart must have been written all over her face as Georgie reached out to softly rub her shoulder.

“You’re a good match,” she smiled. “I’m glad he found you.”

“Me too.”

Lia sipped her coffee as she matched Georgie’s smile and she knew that despite their complicated situation, she really meant it.

——

“What is the worst date that you’ve ever been on?”

The question came about half an hour into their drive back to London.

They’d spent the morning relaxing with Georgie and Simon and Lia was relieved to see how some time with family members that loved and respected Jamie had helped to quell the turmoil that his dad had caused the night before. They’d had a brief debate about whether or not to visit Lia’s aunt and uncle while they were in town, but eventually they decided to save that for another day when Jamie had at least met her dad first. 

So, they’d said their goodbyes and started the journey home in the early afternoon, but there hadn’t been much conversation until Jamie blurted out his question and with a raise of her eyebrow Lia answered with a very confused, “What?”

“What is the worst date you’ve ever been on?” He repeated before letting out a sigh when he glanced over to see her confused face. “I’m tryin’ to get to know you!”

“Well, you picked a strange question to start with,” Lia teased before letting out a hum of thought. “Let me think…there was this one time that I met someone in a bar and then only a few hours later I decided to marry him. That was pretty questionable.”

“Oh, c’mon,” Jamie rolled his eyes despite the hint of a smirk on his lips. “That was the best night of your life.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Lia laughed before giving him the real answer. “Anyway, it was probably a date I went on with a man I met on some dating app. He was really nice, but halfway through dinner I realized his reactions were all quite over the top and a bit put on like he was laughing too hard at my jokes and stuff like that. Eventually I questioned him about it and he admitted that his ex-girlfriend was on a date a few tables over and he’d only invited me out that night to make her jealous.”

“What a fucking twat.” Jamie shook his head. “What did you do?”

“I asked for the bill and left immediately.”

“Should’ve left him to pay for it.”

The huff in Jamie’s words had a smile sliding onto Lia’s face.

“I definitely thought about it,” she admitted. “But what about you? What’s your worst date?”

“Well, it wasn’t so much a date, but my worst romantic moment with a lady -” His thick accent on the word ‘lady’ had Lia biting back a giggle. “- ended with her trying to take pictures of my cock. She was acting like she was just a bit kinky, but turns out she was hoping to get something she could sell.”

“Oh my god, that’s horrible! Would people actually buy that?”

“Probably,” Jamie shrugged. “I don’t get it myself, but some websites are trashy enough to buy anything.”

“That’s true,” Lia nodded before flashing him a smirk. “So if you notice a camera in the shower, just ignore it, okay? It’s probably nothing.”

“Funny girl…”

Jamie shook his head, but he couldn’t help but chuckle as a giggle slipped from Lia’s lips.

——

“If you could be any animal, what animal would you be?”

The second question came from Lia and she saw a smile slide onto Jamie’s face as he realized she was joining in with his game.

“Human beings are animals, yeah?” He answered after a moment of thought. “So I’d just wanna be me, why would I wanna be anything else?”

“Okay, well, obviously no one would really want to be turned into an animal,” Lia agreed with a roll of her eyes. “But if you absolutely had to choose, what would you want to be?”

“I dunno, never really thought about it.”

His words were said with a shrug, but Lia was undeterred. 

“You wanna know which animal you remind me of?” She asked, biting back a smile as she wasn’t entirely sure how he would take the answer. “I saw a picture of you from last year - think it was before you went back to play for Manchester City - and I thought you looked kinda like a meerkat.”

“A what?” The displeasure was clear in his tone despite his uncertainty about the animal Lia had mentioned and she quickly picked up her phone to find a picture, bracing for his annoyance when he glanced at the screen. “Fuck off! Those are weak little babies!”

“They’re cute!” Lia insisted, giggling at his outrage. “And I think they’re supposed to be surprisingly tough for their small stature.”

“I’m not short!”

“I didn’t say you were!”

“Sounds like what you were trying to say,” Jamie huffed. “If I had to be an animal, I’d be something like a cheetah. They’re fast and sexy and girls love them.”

“Do they?”

“Yeah, they’re always wearing cheetah print shit.” His reasoning had Lia rolling her eyes again despite her amused smile and Jamie turned the question back on her. “What would you wanna be?”

“Well, Katie always said that I reminded her of a timid little mouse,” she admitted. “But I think if I could choose, I’d want to be something tougher. Maybe a lion, or a porcupine with all those spikes to keep people away from me.”

“I think you’d be a good bear,” Jamie mused. “Your cuteness makes people think you’re soft, but you’re well tough when they piss you off.”

It was an observation that Lia thought was very sweet even if she felt it wasn’t entirely earned. She wasn’t particularly tough even when she was annoyed and she was surprised that her falling apart and crying after Katie had let her down gave him the impression that she was.

“I think I’d like to be a bear,” she accepted his answer. “But I still think you’re more of a meerkat than a cheetah.”

Jamie scoffed, but when he looked over to see the grin on her face and realized she was teasing, he shook his head as another chuckle slipped from his lips.

——

“What film do you think is the sexiest?”

They’d been asking questions back and forth through any lull in their conversations until they’d almost made it back to London, but as soon as the word ‘sexiest’ left Jamie’s mouth, Lia felt herself grow flustered.

“What? Like pornography?”

Her question had Jamie letting out a bark of laughter that did nothing to ease her embarrassment.

“No! I mean, feel free to share if that’s what you wanna talk about, but I just meant like a normal film that got you feelin’ a little sexy.”

“Oh…” Lia tried to appear unbothered as she took a moment to think of the answer, but when it hit her she realized she’d be better off trying to think of a way to avoid the question. “I don’t know, it’s hard to think of something off the top of my head.”

“Oh, c’mon! You can tell me, this is a safe space.”

The cheeky grin on his face left Lia inclined not to believe him and she continued to play dumb.

“I can never answer questions like that when I’m put on the spot.”

Unfortunately, it seemed that refusing to answer just made Jamie more intrigued than dissuaded.

“It must be a good answer if you’re being so secretive,” he mused. “What’s that kinky one all the mums like? Is it that one?”

“Fifty Shades of Gray? No! I’ve never even seen that!” She hadn’t, but she knew enough about it to know that he was actually fairly close to the right answer. “But if it’s so easy then why don’t you share your answer?”

“It is easy,” Jamie insisted. “American Pie.”

“Wow,” Lia laughed, shaking her head. “I should have guessed that.”

“Because it’s the best answer?”

“No, it’s just very on brand for you.”

“Yeah, it is on brand for me to be right ‘cause I’m brilliant,” Jamie agreed as if it was obvious, but before Lia could argue that he’d misunderstood her, he circled back to her. “But now that I’ve shared, it’s your turn.”

“Okay, I think I’d have to say that one Captain America film when he grabs the helicopter out of the sky,” Lia decided, sharing a different answer than the more scandalous one she’d originally thought of. “His bicep bulges up and is probably bigger than my head. That’s pretty sexy.”

It was quite a cop out of an answer and Lia expected Jamie to point out that it was more about a person she found sexy than a film, but she was surprised when he didn’t comment on that.

“Biceps aren’t that impressive,” he huffed. “Most of those guys just have muscles for vanity anyway, can’t actually lift much and don’t look like that all the time.”

“I know it’s not realistic, it’s just a fantasy, I guess. American Pie isn’t really all that realistic either, is it?” Her question was met with a sulky shrug and a smile slid onto Lia’s face. “Are you jealous?”

“Jealous? No!” His protest was immediate but the indignation in his voice wasn’t very convincing. “Why would I be jealous of a weak little baby pretending to be strong when I’m me?”

“Because you want women to drool over you and fantasize about your beautiful body?”

“Babe,” Jamie smirked. “They already do.”

His cockiness earned a roll of Lia’s eyes, but she did have to admit that he was probably right.

——

By the time they got home, the exhaustion of the last couple days seemed to hit them full force. 

The emotional rollercoaster and the hours of driving had them both feeling very drained and ready for a quiet night at home. Leaving Jamie to order them some dinner, Lia dragged herself upstairs to take a shower, but when she walked out of the bathroom half an hour later - refreshed and wearing nothing but a towel - she was surprised to see Jamie sitting on their bed.

“Hi,” he smiled. “Food should be here soon.”

“Great, thanks for ordering it.” Lia stood awkwardly, lingering by the bathroom door as his eyes trailing over her practically naked body left her feeling increasingly exposed. “You alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good,” Jamie nodded as he rose from the bed and moved towards her. “I just wanted to thank you. You know, for helping me last night.”

“Oh, you’re welcome. It was the least I could do after everything you’ve done for me.”

“I dunno, I think you’ve done way more for me,” Jamie argued. “I owe you big time just for agreeing to this whole situation.”

His arm slid around her waist as he pulled her into a hug and Lia found herself wondering again if he was able to feel the way her heart was pounding in her chest, but the sincerity and vulnerability in his voice had her unable to resist the urge to settle into his warm embrace. She silently prayed that she’d tucked the towel together tightly enough for it to stay in place as she let her arms slide around his neck to squeeze him as tightly as he was her.

“You don’t owe me anything,” she murmured against his chest, breaking the silence that had settled around them. “We’re helping each other and I think we’re making a pretty good team.”

At first, Jamie’s only response was a hum of agreement, but when he leaned back enough to prompt Lia to tilt her head up to look at him, she noticed a flicker of emotion on his face. She was trying to puzzle out exactly what it was, but before she could figure it out, Jamie dipped his head lower to press his lips against hers.

It was a gesture that had become familiar over the last few weeks so Lia naturally responded and let her lips move softly against his, but when he moved back and searched her face for approval, she realized the meaning behind it. 

There was no audience. No crowd to perform for. There was no one watching, waiting for signs that they weren’t truly a couple.

They were alone. In the bedroom that they shared. Doing something that was purely for their own benefit.

And the thought had Lia’s entire body tingling with excitement as she quickly pressed forward to connect their lips again.

It was different than any other time. Jamie had never held back when he kissed her even if it was just for show, but his earnestness in that moment was enough to take Lia’s breath away. She was grateful for his arm around her waist as her knees felt weak enough to buckle underneath her and she was powerless to hold back the whimper of pleasure that slipped out as Jamie traced his tongue along her lips. The burning need she’d felt that morning when she woke up his arms was back in full force as she felt like every nerve in her body was buzzing with anticipation, but as Jamie’s hand drifted up towards the knot at the front of Lia’s towel, the anticipation shifted into fear.

The reality of what was happening hit her and her mind suddenly flooded with all the negative possibilities. Jamie was vulnerable. He’d just been through a hugely emotional weekend and had shown her the night before that he sought comfort in physical affection. Taking advantage of his weakness would not only be morally wrong, but would leave Lia alone and humiliated when he was feeling better and no longer needed her support.

The thought was enough to drag her out of the moment and she sharply pulled back from Jamie as panic washed over her.

“Jamie,” she panted, feeling the remorse twisting her stomach into knots. “We can’t…”

“Sure, we can,” Jamie grinned down at her. “We can do whatever we want.”

“I know,” Lia swallowed hard, trying to work up the courage to stay strong and resist the urges coursing through her. “But we shouldn’t.”

Jamie’s smile faltered then as he realized that she was being serious and he respectfully let his hands drop back down to her waist - a move that only made Lia want him even more.

“Why not?”

“This is a business arrangement,” Lia argued, her soft voice showing her reluctance to believe her own words. “We’re working together, we need to keep things professional.”

The reason she gave was certainly a factor in her decision, but not the entire explanation because there was something about admitting “I don’t want you to break my heart” that just felt a little too honest. However, if Jamie had any inkling that she was holding anything back, he didn’t show it as he stepped away from her as fast as if she’d shoved him away.

“Yeah, sure, whatever you want.” He looked crestfallen and Lia felt her anxiety quickly giving way to guilt, but when she softly murmured his name to keep his attention, he held up a hand to stop any further explanation. “It’s alright, I get it. You’re probably right.”

Again, Lia opened her mouth to try and justify what she’d said, but the sound of the doorbell echoed through the house before she could speak.

“That’s the food, I’ll get it,” Jamie informed her. He walked towards the door, but paused before he walked through. “No hard feelings, yeah?”

Lia nodded, but as Jamie left the room, she was left wondering if she’d just royally messed things up.

Her head was telling her that it was just a quick fix for Jamie - that he’d wake up in the morning satisfied and more emotionally levelheaded and safe in the knowledge that Lia would be there just to physically console him whenever he was feeling down - but her heart was insisting that it was worth the risk. He did seem genuinely disappointed by the boundaries she’d put in place, but with no way of knowing if that disappointment was from the realization that he wouldn’t be getting laid or from something more heartfelt, Lia just had to stand firm in her belief that she was making the right decision.

-----

chapter eight

[justfinishedreading]

My Wondering Warrior Existence by Nagata Kabi

Warning: Spoilers Trigger Warning: Mention of Sexual Abuse

When I saw the cover I freaked out: she (maybe ‘they’, the author’s not quite clear on this yet) couldn’t possibly be getting married, last I’d heard Nagata Kabi had written about recovering from alcoholism and had yet to have her first proper romantic relationship.

Turns out at the start of the manga Nagata had gone to a friend’s wedding and felt overwhelming joy at the general happiness of the event, leading her to want to experience the joy of a wedding, but without an actual marriage. Cue a specialist fake-wedding photo shoot, where you can hire a wedding dress and get your picture taken as a bride. Now for all of us more “clued in” we might think how silly, it is not a wedding dress or a party that creates that real feeling of happiness, the genuine feeling of love emitting from a couple and the pride their family feels. And yet how many of us are seduced by the glamour and dream-like nature of a wedding, ignoring relationship issues in favour of an opportunity to wear a wedding dress and have that ONE special day?

Perhaps a fake bride photo shoot isn’t silly at all, perhaps it’s genius, it’s genius for those that can separate their desire to wear a beautiful gown from those that have the main intention of legally cementing a relationship. Power to those that can see through the consumerist crap about romance and understand that what they are really finding attractive is the dress, the flowers, the engagement ring, the special day, and so on. Not the marriage, the everyday mundane relationship stuff.

Unfortunately, the author isn’t quite there in the understanding of all of the above, she starts off by believing that the photo shoot will bring similar happiness to that of a wedding with genuine love between the couple, friends and family, but it does not, then throughout the book she discovers that real love does exist, she thought it was all a collective illusion. A lot of confusion basically.

Now speaking from personal experience I have often wondered whether true romantic love really exists, and whether it can exist long-term, having no real examples of happy long relationships in my family, so like the author, who also comes from a family with unhappy couples, I can understand the questioning of the existence of real love. However while I’ve come to the conclusion that it can exist and long-term too, love simply takes many form throughout a couple’s life, Nagata Kabi on the other hand is still stuck on understanding that first stage of love, that intense attraction love. To her all the words of love songs, and love stories were assumed to be artificial.

There are other things I can identify with, like Nagata Kabi when I first set up an online dating profile in my early 20s, my profile was perhaps “too honest” in presenting my negative qualities, not to the extent that Nagata Kabi has gone to, but over the years I have seen a lot of profiles like that, of people who are insecure and feel the need to highlight everything that they feel is bad right at the start. It’s a sort of self-defence strategy; before you confront me with my failings, I’m going to list them all, and if you initial accept them then that’s resolved. Things aren’t like that, what we think as our worst failings are not necessarily what others are going to think are our worst faults. Nagata is taking a step forward in setting up an online dating profile, but taking two steps back by writing an overly negative profile of herself which she believes will discourage anyone from reaching out to her.

That’s point one. Point two is her surprise that people, lots of people did reply to her profile. Why? Because some people just want to get laid and don’t care if they like the other person or not. Because some people don’t really read the profiles and instead just send generic messages to everyone they come across. Because some people will read an insecure person’s profile and not take the issues seriously, imagining that the person is simply insecure, and with their help this insecure person will cheer right up. And lastly because some people do relate to what’s in the profile and genuinely think meeting up is worth a try.

The first third of the manga is relatable to me on a personal level. The second third is very sad to read, the author discusses being molested by a stranger as a child, and the attitudes of those around her that made her feel responsible for being a victim, in particular teachers using the assault year after year as a warning to other children, bringing it up in classrooms and assemblies. This is only described in about 5 pages but says a lot about it in a very straightforward way.

After that section there’s a lot of over-thinking about the nature of romantic relationships and the hurdles stopping the author from pursuing a relationship: lack of faith in people, trying to figure out what’s her type when she’s never really gone out with anyone, trying to figure out her gender, her sexual orientation and so on. While it’s good to think about these things, and this book will help a lot of like-minded people, thinking will only take you so far with certain things. For example 4 books after My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness (published 2016, My Wandering Warrior Existence published 2020), the author is still not sure what her sexual orientation is, now of course everyone is figuring themselves out at different speeds, the author does not owe us an answer about her sexuality, but perhaps instead of more thinking it might be helpful for Nagata to meet different types of people, to interact with them, spend time with them, and through social experience help figure out what her type or types are.

I think a good, honest thing that the author has done is to dedicate a chapter to a letter a reader wrote to her, it explains attraction and love, and since these are concepts that the author herself is working to understand she’s decided to simply share what this reader wrote to her. A lot of what is explained of love and romantic relationships can seem like common sense to the majority of us, but I’m sure there are a lot of people, perhaps who are autistic, neurodivergent or lack experience, or are asexual or many other things that I don’t yet know about, that will really appreciate this book, the explanations, and identify with the author’s struggles.

The manga does end with a few points that even the most ‘with it’ person often fails to realize, such as you need to love yourself first before you’re able to love others, if you bully yourself you learn that behaviour and you may end up bullying other people, be it a partner or even children and friends.  

And then there’s the importance of children in a family, children bring joy to a family, as family members get older and grumpier, more disillusioned or tired with life, seeing children react with joy and wonder at all that is new to them can invigorate the mood of the family. As the author considers this and her guilt for not providing her parents with grandchildren I am grateful for her mother’s interjection: grandchildren don’t automatically fix everything. She gives an example of an acquaintance who doesn’t have a satisfying relationship with her grandson… and Nagata’s mother comments that a dog would be cuter than a grandchild. While that may seem shocking to some people, the thing to take away from that is that not every human is meant to be a parent, nor every parent makes a good grandparent.

The manga ends on a happy note, although to many it may seem like nothing much happened, and the revelations the author reached aren’t particularly special, and to me it did feel at the time like perhaps the book was written to stretch out the success of the previous books, but without much to say. It fares better on a second reading, for some of the reasons I’ve already discussed, it’s a good book and a comfort to those who find it difficult to understand love, relationships and attraction on a basic level, and it is a reminder to all of us that life is not lived out in the simple plot of a story, when an author writes something autobiographic we should not expect all issues to be neatly tied up, we should not expect for questions about the nature of love to automatically result in a marriage by the end of the book… or by the end of book 5.

Review by Book Hamster

[zaewriteshere]

Late Night Confessions

AO3 Link

“Fade, if you ever run out of nightmares, seek me out. I will gladly share mine.”

Deadlock’s words kept on being repeated over and over in the dream seeker’s mind.

It wasn’t often that somebody offered their own suffering and trauma to Fade, much less eagerly or even so nonchalantly.

It took her off guard.

She didn’t expect to take her on the offer as well.

---

When Fade joined the Protocol, while she knew and was warned that it would take a while for her to gain the trust of the agents, she didn’t imagine just how hard it would be to even have a singular person she could consider a friend.

Sure, she was certainly in Omen and Cypher’s good books, as far as she could tell, but besides them… Nobody was very much willing to be close to her. 

During missions, the other agents would not lose too much time during communications, and that was probably the only time they spoke to her. 

She wasn’t going to lie, it stung. She was aware that what she had done was wrong, but she also didn’t know any better. Now she did, and was willing to do anything and everything to make it up to those she wronged.

The other agents were not as eager as the dream seer however. So, when new agents came after her arrival, she started to gain hope.

Unfortunately for her, her introverted nature and her resting bitch face didn't play in her favour most of the time. 

She did manage to make a neutral acquaintance out of Harbor, since she was working for Realm as well before joining the Protocol. They managed to bond over it, and for a while, it was enough for her. 

When Gekko came around, she thought she could bond with him and his little critters, just as she did with the newest addition to the controllers. 

Unfortunately, Fade wasn't right. The newest initiator was immediately told about the nature of her powers, and that was enough for him to be weary about her. 

It kind of aggravated her, this tendency that the other agents had with her. Maybe it was coming from a place of care, but she felt truly isolated, more so now than ever.

Her frequent nightmares certainly didn't help her situation, forcing her to stay awake for longer and longer as she consumed more and more coffee each day. 

Of course this behaviour didn't go unnoticed by Cypher, and most importantly Sage. The latter immediately pulled her aside as she started to question the dream seer about her lack of sleep and addiction to caffeine. 

So, Fade had to put all of her cards on the table and be honest about what exactly was the price for her to commune with nightmares. Empathetic, the healer offered her help in those sleepless nights, or to be there to assist in case she couldn't stay awake any longer.

Fade simply shrugged at the offer, not truly believing the Chinese agent's words. She was used to empty words and promises about her situation, after all.

It was too much to ask.

It was always too much.

She didn't hold it against anyone, however.

It was often too much even for her, so could she really blame anyone but her ?

When the new agent, Deadlock, joined Valorant… Well, Fade and her didn't really interact with each other much, if at all. She heard rumours about her upbringing, and there was always… 

This shadow looming around the sentinel. 

The dream seer knew what it was.

The newest agent was filled with nightmares, just like her. 

It made her wonder what her bad dreams looked like.

Unfortunately for her, she was too introverted to ask. It was also hard to tell if this question would be taken well or not ; even though the Norwegian agent was blunt and didn't mince her words, Fade wasn't really wanting to ruin her chances with someone so soon. 

By a stroke of luck, Deadlock's first missions always included the dream seer as well, and they got to know each other through them. 

Once back from the third mission, Deadlock finally spoke to her for the first time since she became a member as she was about to go out of the Falcon : 

“Fade, if you ever run out of nightmares, seek me out. I will gladly share mine.”

She didn't even get the chance to reply before the sentinel exited the aircraft to go to who knew where. 

To say that she wasn't expecting the offer would be an understatement. 

She didn't think that anybody else offered this since she joined the Protocol all those months ago. 

It intrigued her. What did Deadlock see in her ? Or was it just in the hopes of getting rid of what haunted her ?

Either way, she kept the offer in mind. 

So much so, in fact, that Fade regularly found herself thinking about those same words, and stealing glances at the new agent.

She thought – and hoped – that she was being sneaky about this change of behaviour.

Unfortunately for her, Cypher noticed.

“My, my little dream seer, you seem to have taken an interest in our newest addition, hm ?” He observed, his tone teasing, a laugh in his voice. She tensed, then forced herself to relax, knowing very well she wouldn’t be able to hide anything from the spy.

“I’m just curious, that’s all,” She answered, not meeting his gaze. She heard him hum in contemplation, before he seemingly dropped the subject.

He probably knew that he wouldn’t get anything out of her that easily.

She sighed to herself, shaking her gently. 

She would need to either be more stealthy in her staring, or come up with a reason satisfying enough for the sentinel to not continue poking at her motivations.

One evening, the dream seeker was just walking around the base, bored out of her mind, when she heard a muffled scream coming from one of the rooms. 

Worried about a colleague being in a state of danger, she rushed to the source of the noise. 

Slamming the door open, she quickly scanned the room, fist clenched and ready for a fight.

When she saw nothing out of the ordinary, she looked around for her colleague.

Finally, Fade noticed a figure curled up beside the bed, shaking as she heard quiet sobs. 

She would recognise this blond hair anywhere.

The fact that Deadlock hadn't taken note of her arrival until now was alarming to the dream seer.

“Deadlock ?” She hesitantly called out, slowly inching closer. She didn’t see any change in behaviour.

So she repeated herself once again, louder this time while trying her best to not startle the Norwegian woman. 

It wasn’t until she slowly and gently put her hand on the sentinel’s shoulder once she sat down that she finally took notice.

She gasped, startled, as she was trying desperately to wipe her tears away. 

They both knew that the initiator saw them, however.

The blond probably just wanted to save what remained of her dignity.

Wordlessly, the brunette assessed the situation of the woman in front of her.

She seemed shaken up, her lips still trembling and her eyes still watery. Shaking from head to toe, it was obvious what had happened.

Despite being someone who was used to communing with nightmares, Fade wasn’t someone who knew how to comfort someone after a nightmare. 

Not knowing what to say, she stayed quiet, staring into blue eyes.

“Did I wake you up ?” Awkwardly asked Deadlock, finally tearing her gaze away from hers.

“I don’t tend to sleep very often, don’t worry,” She replied, trying to sound reassuring. Realising that she didn’t give a clear answer, she quickly added : “And no, you didn’t wake me up. I was already awake when I heard your scream.”

Her interlocutor winced, curling up on herself tighter. 

Alarmed at such different behaviour than she’s used to seeing in the woman next to her, the dream seer felt herself panic internally.

So, she decided to try and help the way she knew how : 

“Want me to try to commune with it ?” She enquired hesitantly. 

She didn’t answer immediately. 

“What would it do ?” She retorted, glancing back at her.

“Sometimes it can help to face your biggest fears, or nightmares, in a controlled environment,” Fade answered, trying to appear nonchalant. 

She wouldn’t want to admit it, but seeing the sentinel so vulnerable and scared did something to her.

She didn’t like the sight.

The woman took a moment to consider it, alternating between looking at the initiator and the void.

After a while, she slowly nodded, hesitance clear in her eyes but determination written on her face. 

“Alright, let’s do this,” She announced, trying to sound confident.

“I have to warn you, it is intense. We’re going to go deep. It isn’t for everyone,” She replied, her tone serious.

Deadlock paused.

“Do you think I’ll be able to handle it ?” She questioned, searching for something in her mismatched eyes. 

She took her time to consider her answer.

She could be truthful, and say that she didn’t know. 

No one could, after all.

But telling her that she knew the Norwegian was strong would not be a lie, either. 

She decided to play cards on the table.

“I don’t know. It depends for everyone, and making assumptions will be detrimental,” She saw the hesitance in the sentinel’s gaze. “What I do know is that you are strong.”

“I just hope that I’ll be strong enough,” The woman muttered, looking away from Fade.

“If you don’t feel ready, or in the right mental state… Hell, even if you don’t want to, just tell me. It’s okay, since there’s no time limit for it,” She finally stated, trying to sound empathetic.

It was not like she wasn’t empathetic, she had just a very hard time expressing herself as well as her emotions. 

Nodding, Deadlock didn’t immediately give her answer.

The dream seer could feel her weighing the options presented for her.

After another minute of silence, she locked gaze once again.

The hesitance in her eyes was gone, replaced by a determination and sense of will at its purest.

There it was, she could finally see the sentinel she grew attached to and respected.

Nodding as she let a small smile creep up on her lips while she gestured the sentinel to lay down on her bed. 

Doing as told, the Norwegian was clearly very stiff and tense. 

“I’ll need you to go to sleep, so please relax and close your eyes,” The initiator said as gently as she could.

“Will you be there ?” She immediately asked, panic clear in her eyes.

That was new.

Never before had someone asked if the dream seer would be present to help them through their subconscious struggles.

Taken aback, she studied Deadlock’s expression carefully.

She could see worry, fear… But also desperation, as if she was terrified of going to sleep alone.

Considering her options, she took a moment to think.

Fade technically could be present in the dream, but if she wasn’t used to it and could easily get overwhelmed by the intensity of the host – in this case, Deadlock – if she wasn’t careful. 

“I’ll be there if things go south. I’ll always be watching over you though, promise,” She replied, trying to sound confident and reassuring.

She felt like she was doing a very poor job at that, but she decided to ignore that feeling.

The sentinel smiled weakly, before slowly relaxing onto the soft bed and evening her breath as the initiator watched quietly. 

Once asleep, she didn’t make a move immediately, simply watching over the agent peacefully sleep.

It was dreamless – she could feel it – but there was something about it that she couldn’t quite pinpoint. 

“Nightmare,” She called out with a whisper as now she could feel their presence in the room. “I’ll need your help.”

“Like you always do, dear host,” They giggled while Fade could feel their presence wrapping around her body.

She suppressed a shiver.

“Go on, touch her. I’ll help you, like I always do,” She could hear the smile in their voice, but she complied despite uneasiness.

It didn’t take long for the demon to take action upon Deadlock’s dreamless slumber. 

Slowly, the dark room changed form, morphing into a familiar area ; the Valorant Protocol HQ. 

The sleeping sentinel wasn’t alone in her dream as the dream seer heard the familiar but alien noises of Gekko’s critters. 

She expected to see the cute and goofy looking little friends, but when the initiator looked over the direction of the noise, she felt her eyes widen.

That wasn’t what Wingman normally looked like. 

His appearance was now pure nightmare fuel, his then tiny cute claws were ginormous, and he all but looked like a monster. 

Was this the host’s vision of the little Wingman ?

Speaking of which, she was staring in disarray and horror at the monstrous form, terrified out of her mind.

Was this always what she dreamt about ? 

Wingman being the monster that she always thought he was ?

What a saddening sight.

Fade heard gunshots, and some grunts of pain.

Deadlock was shooting at the monstrous form, and the dream seer could tell it wasn’t what she was supposed to do.

But she guessed that it was a reflex, how she’s always dealt with it, how she was coping with her nightmares.

She thought about how to proceed and communicate that violence wasn’t the answer in this case without disturbing the natural course of actions.

“Deadlock, you have to stop shooting, you’re only making things worse,” She tried, unconfident in her communication.

“I’d like to see you face something like this,” She immediately replied, shooting her last bullets in her panic.

She then braced for impact as the monstrous version of Wingman leaped on her, sensing her fear and aggression.

She was screaming in pain and in rage, and Fade knew that she wouldn’t get through to her like this.

Deciding to take a physical form, she appeared next to the two of them.

They both barely paid her any mind at all, too engrossed in their fight. 

She took a while to gather her bearings, the fear and anger overwhelming her for a minute or two.

She needed to focus.

“Deadlock,” She started as they both froze, slowly looking at her in sync. Ignoring the weirdness of the movement, she continued, trying to hit at the solution. “With aggression you are just going to repeat what always happens. Try something else.”

“I’d like to see you try with this creature trying to eat you alive,” She muttered, wincing when Wingman bit down more on her arm.

“Look at him. He’s just as scared as you are,” The initiator continued, gesturing vaguely to the beast.

After a while of staring at each other, it finally seemed to click for Deadlock as she understood what she was supposed to do. 

She slowly relaxed onto the hard concrete floor, and as if on cue, the monster changed appearances, morphing into the wingman Fade was used to seeing.

Now on her belly, the little critter looked up at the host curiously, as if assessing her once again. 

She could tell she was doing the same to him. 

Slowly, the radiant creature presented his hand to her, as if he wanted her to shake it.

Hesitantly, the sentinel did so, and the dream seer could tell the dream was ending as Deadlock was awakening. 

When they both opened their eyes, she immediately locked gaze with the Norwegian agent, a small smile on her lips.

“How do you feel ?” She asked after a minute of staring.

She didn’t get an answer right away as the woman looked lost in thoughts, assessing her state.

“I’m… Okay. Better,” She finally replied after a while. 

“Good, good,” She nodded, about to leave her side to let her sleep, but she was stopped as her hand got grabbed.

“Will you stay ?” The new sentinel asked, a hint of desperation in her voice.

She didn’t answer immediately, weighing her options.

She could accept and risk having a bad dream if she fell asleep – which she did not want to happen – or she could leave and risk Deadlock having another nightmare.

While the chances of the latter happening were slim to none after this small session, she knew that the woman wasn’t asking her for reassurance, but mayhaps company.

She shrugged in acceptance, laying on the bed next to the blond. 

Keeping her distance, she gasped softly when the other immediately wrapped her strong arms around her and nuzzled her nose into the crook of her neck. 

“Thanks for helping me today,” She said, sleepily.

“No worries,” She replied after a hot minute, not knowing what to do with herself.

She relaxed a bit when she could feel the other agent sleeping peacefully, and resigned herself to just watch her sleep as she could feel Nightmare’s presence in the room.

Fade didn’t know how this relationship would blossom, and frankly, she didn’t really care.

All she knew was that she probably got herself a good friend that night.

[littlewolfieposts]

Only One Way to Find Out (Little do they know #2)

word count: ?

pairing: kang taehyun (txt) x moon seo-yeon (female!idol!oc)

summary: a tipsy conversation leads to some discoveries for Taehyun as things start heating up between him and Seoyeon.

warning: talk about sex, first times, suggestive conversation, not revised

disclaimer: minors dni

________________________________________

Ever since Taehyun's first blowjob experience, things shifted in the relationship.

Although shy sometimes, Taehyun was more confident in taking initiatives on physical interactions with his girlfriend. His hands stayed on her longer, venturing more, his lips were bolder, and he became a pro in leaving her breathless and panting for more.

Unfortunately for them, sexual activities didn't progress as well as that since either schedule or their members would interrupt their private moments.

Seoyeon was getting frustrated. Since she had a taste of him, it felt like a new gate opened up, and she wanted more, so much more. The feeling of his lips moving against hers, sliding down her neck, his fingers grazing against her skin, hands grabing her hips, pulling you close... Her fingers and vibrator did the best they could with those imageries, but in the end, she still wanted more.

He wasn't much different. Everytime he needed to relieve himself, all he could think about was Seoyeon on her knees, taking him into her mouth so pretty. All he could imagine- more like remember, was her eyes looking up at him, asking how he felt as her hands slid up and down his cock. He remembered the warmth of her mouth and the desire to want to feel that again was enough to make him cum in the shower, noises muffled away from his members.

He wanted more. He wanted to experience more with you. Have her experience more with him. He really wanted to repay her favour to him, but most of all, he really wanted to have sex with her.

Taehyun wasn't the most emotional out of his friends, rather describing himself as more pragmatic and direct than that. He didn't see his virginity as something so profound and special that you have to lose and gift it to someone, and he couldn't imagine himself preparing to lose it in a candle lit room with roses on the bed - he would leave that to Yeonjun. He didn't care much about the concept of virginity and losing it, but at the same time, he knew he only wanted to have sex with someone he felt connect with, not really finding the appeal of doing it with a random person.

He told Seoyeon as much in one of their dates after his first sexual experience with her, after they pondered venturing more into this aspect of the relationship before being interrupted by his members barging into the dorm.

The two were in TXT's living room, sitting by the coffee table with a variation of korean Street food and soju in between the two.

The conversation surrounding the topic didn't feel as awkward anymore, and Taehyun decided to take advantage of it.

Sipping on his maekju, he asked, "How experienced are you?"

Seoyeon wasn't a virgin, that much he knew, but he couldn't phantom the extent of her knowledge in this area, and he was curious.

"Hm," she mumbled, feeling her face heat up as she took a shot to dissipate de awkwardness. Seoyeon wasn't used to talking openly about it, but seeing the look and genuine curiosity from Taehyun, she didn't feel as uncomfortable. "Not that much, really. I had a somewhat relationship before, as you know, and most things I did was with him"

"Was he... your first in everything?"

"No," she shook her head. "My first kiss was with somebody else, but he was my first time, yeah"

Taehyun nodded quietly, processing her words.

"Was it special?" he asked. Pausing for a moment, he followed with, "Nevermind. Don't think I wanna hear about you having sex with another guy"

Seoyeon laughed at that, watching amusedly as Taehyun averted his eyes, hair falling over them as his cheeks darkened a little, and his lips formed a pount. Cute.

"It was very awkward, actually," she said, gaining his attention back.

"Really?"

Seoyeon nodded, "First times are usually awkward and not that great, even more so if it is the first for both. So, yeah" she shrugged. Picking up her chopsticks again to take a piece of tteoppokki, she throw a question, "How would you like your first time to be?"

Taehyun mouth fell open in surprise, an 'ah' falling from his lips as he thought. Mind running wild as his heart skip a beat, sending blood downstairs at the thought.

"I... I don't really have scenerario in mind," he shrugged. "If you are there, it's perfect for me"

"Oh," Seoyeon bit her lip hard to prevent the smile from blossoming on her face, blood rushing to her cheeks as she subtly clenched her thighs together. "You don't want a nice date before, maybe candles and some nice music?"

Taehyun shook his head with a boyish smile, "Only you"

This time, the quirk on her lips appeared in a shy yet pleased smile, making his smile stretch a bit further as he bit his lip as he averted his gaze.

"Hm... Good to know," she glanced at him, before turning her attention to the food, trying to distract herself from the giddiness she was feeling.

A moment of silence fell around them after that as they tried to distract themselves from Taehyun's direct answer. He watched her movements quietly, enjoying how good he felt talking with her about this.

"So our first time has a high chance of being awkward and not great," he stated, and Seoyeon choked a bit on her food.

Clearing her throat, she tilted her head to the side. Taehyun was already looking at her, sipping on his drink as he did so to help with the nerves. His heart was racing at the prospect of having sex with her, and Seoyeon wasn't much different. Her body felt hotter all of the sudden.

"I don't think so..." she said catching his gaze, a small smirk appearing on her lips, "I have a good feeling about it. But... there's only one way to find out, right?" she added, biting her lips.

The implication of her words and the look on her eyes made Taehyun's breath hitch, and his pants tightened. He slid his glass on the table as he watched her lick her lips off the sauce, slowly crawling on her knees towards him until their faces were mere inches apart. They didn't kiss yet, but he felt breathless already with the tension.

Tilting his head up just a little bit, he brushed his lips against hers, and Seoyeon breathed in, closing her eyes. Taehyun's fingers entangled into her hair, stopping her from moving as he leaned in.

The moment, unfortunately, was broken the moment Yeonjun's loud voice boomed from the corridor, followed by Kai's loud cackle. The newcomers joined the couple as soon as the saw the food and drinks on the table and the tension that build up, slowly dissipated in the room, but the glances at each other didn't.

Maybe next time. They thought, catching each other's glance, fingers tightening around each others.

[masschase]

chase, i am once again in your ask box begging for lore.

18 and 23 for the ask meme if you haven’t done them and i hope you have the best day today :3

I'm so sorry this took 2 days! My brain just didn't seem able to finish 🥲

Ask me about muh girlie

18. What was your character’s presidency like? How did they campaign?

OOH THIS QUESTION IS SO EXCITING :D

OK I'll start with her campaign.There were huge calls for the person who disabled the nuke to be the President at first.

The tv cut to news footage of the Boss on the screen, still in her suit in the slightly destroyed Oval Office being hounded by press. "I'm sure you'll get to know me soon enough. For now, just know this. I'm the leader of the Saints. If you've ever doubted us or our brand in the past, remember this: I just saved the BLEEP world BLEEPs. So you better show us some BLEEEEP respect.". The news cut to footage of crowds chanting while the anchor spoke again. "People are calling for the leader of the Saints to enter the running as President- if we can only get a hold of them..."

Pierce, Shaundi and Kinzie meet Casey in DC the following day and set up a press conference for the day after that. Funnily enough they do discuss the possibility of Pierce posing as the leader but he declines for personal reasons mostly regarding his sexuality and his overall safety. Casey decides she's just going to have to go for it and they talk about the angle they're going to take.

She thought for a second. "Is there any chance they're gonna buy that I'm a sweet wholesome Michigan girl?" Pierce raised an eyebrow. "Absolutely zero." he confirmed. "Yeah, I thought so..." she mused, thinking to herself again.

They decide they have a better chance at going with strength. Power. The fact that the Boss is not afraid to get her hands dirty to get shit done.

Unfortunately, the media manages to dig stuff up before the press conference. Kinzie was very thorough at encrypting Casey's name and real age (now 25) when she discovered them back in 2014. However there are pictures of her various aliases, her fake age (28, still too young to be president) and some of her exploits all over the news.

Pierce calls in a favour (he seems to "know a guy" in every city and I think we all know why) to makeover the Boss while he tries to persuade her to dress with a little more class, and eventually they give her a new image (something she mostly managed to swerve when the Saints hit fame by encouraging Pierce into the limelight.)

At the press conference they focus on strength, security, defense, and most importantly, finding ways to appeal to both sides. Overall the Saints policies are fairly left-wing, some more radical than the Dems but they pay lip service to the right too. I'm actually planning a post on this press conference soon; initially I was going to write it as a transcript but I find it way, way more interesting as a fully written piece because Casey's thoughts and feelings during in make it far more interesting. Here's a snippet.

"Yeah, sure, maybe I have been a little intense at times. But I'm not a violent person.". Hoo boy, that was hard to say with a straight face. All politicians lied though, right? She bit her lip a little but managed to compose herself a little. "I am not an attacker. I'm a defender, and I will stop at nothing to defend my country. I will kick terrorism's ass. I will beat poverty into submission. I will put a bullet in the gun violence in this country.". Ooh, she still really liked that part. She looked around at the approving crowd. "As for the most marginalised in our society... if you are downed... I will Pick. You. Back. Up. Again."

It's all ridiculously cheesy to be honest, but what else did you expect? The speech was written primarily by Pierce but with input from the other three (a bullet in gun violence was Shaundi's idea which means it was actually iamkinzie's idea in our rp) and Casey did ad-lib the odd part. She manages to deal with questions fairly well at the end, though the final one basically refers to her being spotted with women so she makes the decision to come out as bi and takes a clear pro LGBTQ+ stance (I can really see this appealing to some of the disillusioned Bernie Sanders fans). She relies on more platitudes to balance this out.

"If you have any kind of issue with this, I urge you to try and remember what country we are in. I want to ask you what freedom-" she emphasised. "'-means to you. Because the last I checked... this was America."

Cringe cringe. Yes a lot of this probably wouldn't work in real life. But c'mon guys she's a fucking Saints Row IV Boss. At times her tumblr version reaches full cartoon character. She had to win somehow, I'm just rationalising that the best I can. 🤣

The Saints were doing well for an independent, but overall it wasn't enough to swing things, even as late as mid-2016. They also still needed to do something about the age on the constitution. This is where the 4th July party came in. This is where the Saints manage to gain much of the support and investment needed to get the age changed as well as step up their campaigns for a greater share of votes.

This is also the same time the fake relationship for the media between Casey and Pierce began. The idea was to present it as a "we can't be public with this because of our work but awww we're secretly in love 👉👈" thing to cover up Pierce's then-closeted queerness and Casey's promiscuity, and they had relative success with it tbh.

I think it was never a dead cert, but once the amendment passed, it sent a very clear message they were likely to win. There was still a little uncertainty right up until Novemver. But they just about scraped the win.(woooo fuck Trump!)

The actual presidency? I think she was competent enough actually, at least with the team she had around her. I don't imagine the promised vision came around overnight, but they were getting there. Trouble was, she stopped giving a fuck about her public image. She started dressing more like herself, giving less of a fuck about speeches, put less effort into covering up the drinking, drugs and sex. Kind of leading into what we see in IV with the really low approval ratings.

Casey would not have gotten a second term. In the unlikely event she did, Pierce had already resigned effective then (he's already made it clear he's not her second in command anymore, and Kinzie and Oleg would've probably would've left together too.

If anything, this was why she had to spend much of Saints Row IV earning back her friends' respect.

23. How did you structure the series’ timeline for your character?

Ooh so I don't know if this means what is the timeline or why I chose the timeline? I have answered an ask on this before but I can't find the link and I love my timeline so always happy to talk about it 😊

2006: Saints Row, spread across the summer probably June-Aug/Sept? Obviously SRIV says "the Saints made themselves known to the world in 2006" or something to that effect, obviously the game came out in 2006 and I just think it is mostly agreed that's when that took place

2011: Saints Row 2, July/Aug to Oct. I can't see the coma being exactly 5 years and this too seems to take place over the summer. Fairly easy decision, I didn't use any particular dates from the game I don't think.

2012-2014: Saints rise to fame.

2014: Saints Row the Third: September-December. In-game news reports span autumn/winter.

2015: SRIV Zero Saints Thirty/disabling of the nuke. Probably around September/October time. This is when the presidential campaign starts. I decided on the date because SRTT dlc stuff is apparently the first half of 2015, and just to make the other dates work.

2016: Main past section of my fanfic in June/July. Casey elected President, November obviously. I think maybe it's implied in a jokey way that the Boss just fell into the job but then it's also clear they're still in their first term 5 years later so... really this makes sense and is in line with actual election dates.

2020: Main bulk of Saints Row IV. March-May. Obviously it needed to be before November and I'm not quite sure why I settled on March but yeah, earth was invaded by the Zin on the 3rd March. Just for fun, some of the character's rescue dates: 6th Mar-Casey 9th Mar- Matt 17th Mar- Shaundi 25th Mar- Pierce 15th Apr- Johnny So again it's not actually a full 5 years, but I feel like it's close enough that one would term it "5 years later"

2021: Gat out of Hell. Idk I felt like placing Kinzie's birthday in May and it fit for story reasons and stuff. I'm not the biggest fan of GOOH. On balance it does add some important stuff to my story but... meh.

2022: Start of my fanfic future section. (February) I feel like I could add more and more dates but as time goes on, the reasoning for where they're placed becomes more and more of a case of "because I said so" 🤣

[kyndaris]

Foreign Influence

Like many North East Asian countries, Japan was quite insular when it came to trade with western nations. During the Edo period, under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate, though, nearly all foreign nationals were banned from entering Japan. At Dejima, an artificial island built off Nagasaki, I learned that despite these restrictions, Japan did occasionally trade with the Portuguese. This petered off and the Dutch stepped in. And, in fact, it was Japan's relationship with the Dutch that saw the nation expand its knowledge and begin to incorporate more Western-style thinking to medicine, science and technology.

Later, as the history books tell us, Japan fully opened up in the Meiji era and beyond.

Waking up early, after enjoying a delicious hotel breakfast, bleachpanda and I headed to Dejima (which, thankfully, was very close to our hotel at Shinchi Chinatown). After paying the entry fee, we meandered through the reconstructed island, peeking into warehouses and exhibits showcasing the history of the place.

These were usually in the form of videos or placards on the side. Unfortunately, most of them were solely in Japanese, making it harder for me to appreciate the items on display - although most were very identifiable.

What stood out to me, as we were making our way through the recreated warehouses, was the focus made on the copper the Japanese traded with the Dutch, and how these were smelted into the form of bars, which were later weighed, before being sealed into their boxes. The sheer number of copper that went through Dejima was extensive.

Then, of course, there were the large number of pottery on display. Like many nations, the Dutch also favoured the iconic blue and white ceramics from China. And in Nagasaki, Japanese artisans were encouraged to imitate the style for the benefit of trade.

All in all, Dejima was a worthwhile place to visit as it served as Japan's gateway to the wider world despite the restrictions imposed by the Tokugawa shogunate at the time. But it also spoke of how the Western world engaged with other nations in the latter half of the Age of Exploration. Plus, there's a mini Dejima one can look out over! And there were even models of ships and one of the very first badminton racquets!

From Dejima, bleachpanda and I headed to Glover Garden. What we hadn't expected when we got there was just how extensive the gardens were. Based on the map of Nagasaki I obtained while at the JR station, I had initially assumed Glover Garden would be a small place and within 10 minutes, I'd have snapped all the pictures I would need. But Glover Garden, to my dismay, was a sprawling complex dedicated to a Scottish merchant, known for bringing news of the Industrial Revolution to Japan.

Thomas Blake Glover, for whom the Gardens are named after, came to Japan in 1859 and founded Glover and Co. three years later. He engaged in trade with the locals and would contribute to the modernisation of Japan including the construction of Kosuge Slip Dock and cooperating with the Saga domain to establish Japan's first modern coal mine.

More importantly, though, Glover Garden also hosted the oldest Western-style house in Dejima!

By the time we finished touring the gardens, it was nearly 2 PM (far later than I had initially anticipated). And so, wanting to enjoy a decent meal, bleachpanda and I headed to a family restaurant nearby: Bikkuri Donkey. which is known for its hamburger steaks and patties.

Once full, we then headed to Oura cathedral. Alas, it cost 1000 Yen for admittance. Given that bleachpanda and I live in Australia were there are many cathedrals open to the public - and which many might argue are more impressive in design (St Mary's Cathedral and St Andrew's)- I couldn't justify the price for entry. Refusing to pay, bleachpanda and I spent the rest of the afternoon ducking into the local shops that lined the street leading up to the cathedral wherein quite a few purchases were made - although only for small things.

After pulling bleachpanda away from purchasing even more earrings she didn't need, we retreated back to our hotel to count our spoils before heading out again to check out Amu Plaza, located next to Nagasaki JR station (and where I took a photo of the red dragon chasing the golden ball). As usual, bleachpanda spent more than expected on her small trinket accessories while I had a look at belts because I wanted to replace the one I was wearing as it was falling apart at the seams.

It should be noted that my purchases cost me less than what bleachpanda ended up spending. So, one more point to Kyndaris!

We then had a simple dinner at a restaurant adjacent to the station before heading back to Candeo Hotel for a good night's rest. After all, we were headed to Hiroshima the next day! And our very first Pokemon Centre stop (I tried to convince bleachpanda to make a pitstop at Fukuoka again but she refused).

[zutraeumen]

The Fourth Course

HE KNEW.

Her mind panicked.

BUT HOW MUCH?

Her mind reasoned.

Taking a calming breath that betrayed her rising restlessness, she looked herself dead in the eye through the pristine bathroom mirror. 

The woman before her wasn't the same one who was known after a terrifying fable. 

Bloody Mary was a woman of violence, tough as leather hard as steel, precise and lethal in her criminal dealings. A product of an unfortunate childhood, shaped and misguided by people who held her leash and operated in the shadiest corners of the world.

Adele Cole was the polar opposite, a small-end assassin of the High Table. A good friend to the manager of New York Continental and his concierge Charon, living in the shadow of much greater assassins.

All things sinful came into her life before she knew how to tell between right and wrong, and set her on a soulless existence. One where a person has been robbed of everything they would never know belonged to them, or anyone else for that matter. 

Until her path crossed with Baba Yaga, a phantom of her previous life that served as an acute reminder of what she had lost in the first place.

Her rival, her idol, her partner, her friend - the journey of change had been long for her.

She only didn't realize how long after she had a chance to look in the mirror and see herself after 49 gruesome years...

Stop your pity party and go to work.

Good advice, she was getting senile with old age.

She retreated into the bathroom because he knew something. The fact that he knew each and every one of his guests wasn't anything remotely unusual, but the lovely tacos were a sign that he dug too deep for comfort.

Slowik was aware that she was here at Anne Liebbrandt's behest, and that Doug Varrick wouldn't have denied one of his regulars such a menial request (especially an extra bill to pay). That alone shouldn't have caused her any worry, but did he know that she was hired as a guard?

Because from that email alone, there wasn't a reason to suspect he did. But he somehow must have, otherwise, why would he want her empoisoned out of anyone else? She didn't see anyone else having oleander floating around in their wine! Why was she to die first? Would the rest follow after? 

There wasn't much that speculating would reveal for her other than the fact that he had different plans in store for her than the rest - even Margot.

Either way, his resourcefulness posed a greater threat to her than she initially thought. 

The Chef was not one to be underestimated, he knew more than he let on. Hell, there may be a chance he knew even more than she did, and with the sneaking suspicion that there was more to this evening than anticipated, it left her at a grave disadvantage.

So, she would continue on as she did up until this point, hoping it would give the impression that Adele was none the wiser about all of this, just as the rest continued to be. Let the Chef hold the reins of power for a little while longer, Adele would use this time to figure out a way to switch the situation in her favour, just as she had done countless times before.

It would only be a tad more difficult this time around, without a real weapon at her disposal, but nothing she couldn't handle so far. 

Her eyes perked up imperceptively as they registered aggravated footsteps nearing the bathroom. The door swung open as Margot entered the bathroom, then stilled abruptly, taken aback by Adele's presence - good to know she still had a silent step - she did not let it stop her from entering the stall and seeking some privacy.

Adele had kept her gaze on her hands all the while, washing them in the sink to appear as if she had done anything else but gaze at her own reflection for the few past minutes. Margot ignored her, too encapsulated in her ire (must have been because of Tyler) as she opened the small window to let in some fresh air, the flick of a lighter almost bypassing her ears when the door opened once again.

The air suddenly became denser as Chef Slowik casually invited himself in, looking as intimidating as a drill instructor at boot camp. Adele pushed the gum under her tongue.

Dulled, light-blue eyes sought out Margot first, then carefully landed on Adele, "Miss Cole, may I ask you to give me a moment of privacy with Miss Mills?"

Never one to lose her cool, Adele levelled her dark-brown orbs at the Chef. She thought nothing could slip past her control, but the Chef saw a flicker of apprehension escape her nonetheless. She was reluctant to leave Margot alone.

Her womanly senses tingled in alarm. The bathroom was a sort of safety point for women in public. Every woman knew it was part of the code to look after another fellow woman out in the streets, after all, their strength resided within numbers. Especially if it was against men - if you weren't Adele, that is...

Just kidding... (but actually not.)

Margot's timid shuffling made her realize it might be a good time to stop her staring and offer the expectant Chef an answer before he became suspicious, "As you wish, Chef Slowik."

He thanked her with a prideful nod once she brushed past him but not before throwing the redhead a reassuring glance. Chef Slowik caught onto the unspoken words between them, and locked the door from the inside. 

She'd have to trust the man's honour not to try something funny with Margot while she waited outside. Adele was prepared to jump to her rescue in case.

But of course, the rest of the staff wouldn't be satisfied with that. Already hearing Elsa's heels clicking against the floor, ready to lead her back to her seat, Adele tried to appear busy by interacting with her smartwatch and hoped for the best.

Adele considered it a success when Elsa didn't approach her, discreetly adjusting her earpiece to her smartwatch until she heard the first traces of audio, "I would like to know specifically what it was about the last course that you did not enjoy. You've barely eaten your food. Why? I need to know. Why don't you eat?"

Adele straightened against the wall, straining intently for Margot's voice as it replied after a moment, "Why do you care?"

"I take my work very seriously and you're not eating. That wounds me."

It did actually sound like it pained him. The assassin thought it strange for a world-star chef to admit something like that but if his monologues taught her anything, then it was the fact that Julian Slowik was a most peculiar individual with motives just as ambiguous. Another tense silence followed by a bit of rustling on the side.

The next time the redhead spoke it was much stronger and clearer, "I guess I am just not that hungry."

Margot sounded wary, Adele knew she wasn't the only one who could sniff out that something was going on around here. If not from their confrontation earlier, then by the time the third course happened. If only she knew what the evening held in store for her.

"I told you who I am, I am Julian Slowik and I am a chef here, now who are you?"

His voice might have passed as soft, but there was a strong demand thickly laced within. So he had no clue about Margot's strictly hidden identity, the one hidden behind her profession as a high-end escort. Though she wouldn't put it past his cunning to find out eventually. 

Adele could feel Margot's distress through the locked door as she meandered from the sink to the serviettes, "I am Margot Mills."

He wasn't buying it at all, "So where are you from, Margot?"

"I am from Grand Island Nebraska. Now does that make you feel better? You want the address for Mom's trailer-park you asshole?!"

The redhead fired back boldly, almost as if the Chef offended her. He must have struck the wrong cord in Margot for her to react so clearly upset. Adele tutted at the woman regardless, she shouldn't poke a dragon. Men in such situations were dangerous, but men with fragile egos were even more so. 

At any rate, until Adele had this shit here figured out, Slowik looked like a man not to be crossed lightly. For all she knew he could be a cult leader or something. And the girl was currently writing her own death warranty if she kept that tone up. 

"No, not who you want me to think you are. Who are you?"

Even though her usual game wasn't working, and they both knew it, she insisted regardless, "I am Margot."

"You shouldn't be here tonight."

Thanks for the heads-up.

"Please get the fuck out of my way."

Goddamn, she was not making this easy. But after a moment, Slowik did let her pass and both women shared a silent, but brief exchange of glances. Margot was thankful that she had her back. Adele stayed back to mute her smartwatch, it had been a brilliant idea to bug Margot's dress while they were within arm's reach. 

The assassin acted dismissive of the chef that followed after the redhead. Perhaps he wouldn't notice her if she stood still enough, but that wasn't the case.

"You are looking pale, Miss Cole, is everything all right?"

He was testing her, checking if the oleander was slowly doing its job, and in hindsight gave her a perfect excuse to have gone to the bathroom, "I do feel a bit queasy after the boat ride, perhaps the oyster didn't sit well with my stomach. So much in fact that it refused to let me taste any of your exquisite dishes, I hope I have not offended your cooking, Chef Slowik."

The brunette man tipped his head up slightly to appear as if he was looking down at her, even though they were technically around the same height, then subtly sneered, "It's perfectly all right. Now, if you could please return back to your seat. Perhaps the next dish will suit your delicate stomach better."

There was a joyful tilt to his voice that unnerved her more than the pure contempt he tried to hide behind a mask of professionalism. 

That precarious feeling from before came back, stronger than last time. The storm was near, something was about to happen soon... very soon.

Heeding his suggestion, she moved slowly back to her seat, catching a few furtive glances, Margot's among them, until she sat down. Slowik's mother was busy gulping down the last bits of her white wine and Adele prepared for the worst. 

The patrons silently watched two servers methodically unrolling a tarp across the middle of the floor and smoothing out all the wrinkles. Other servers arrived with decorative baskets and proceeded to cover it with sea fennel and edible flowers.

Ted and Lillian were already deconstructing the whole prep work, "Theatrical. But minimalist, like in the Japanese minimirasuto style."

"Mm. They were being playful, yes? With the tacos?"

To the hitman, it looked like a crime scene.

She had seen a lot of those in her career. Caused most of them actually.

The chef stood in waiting, feet planted and arms crossed behind his back, unmoving like a statue. Now that she carefully looked around, everybody, even Madam Elsa and the Sommelier stood still and out of the way.

Here it comes.

Chef stepped up, right in the centre of the rectangular tarp and clapped, but this time, nobody jumped for they were all done eating and observing the staff for a good while anyway, "I am excited. We're ready for our next course, which I think you will find-"

A chair scraped quite loudly on Adele's right as Soren swiftly rose from his seat, with Elsa already walking up to him from behind, "Excuse me. But what the hell is going on?"

Adele was expecting the man to be met with another withering glare just as Tyler had been. However, the chef's authentic, and quite sudden, enthusiasm couldn't be tampered down even by this transgression.

"Yes, if you would let me finish?" he motioned for him to sit, "Thank you."

Elsa calmly re-folds the tech bro's napkin for him. It did have a certain calming effect or maybe he was just more intimidated by the small maître d' rather than the Chef himself that he sat down. 

"Ladies and gentlemen, please meet sous-chef Jeremy Louden."

A chef around thirty strode out of the kitchen and stood where Slowik had stood. He stared straight ahead, stoic. Adele's table was the only one that had a proper back-view of the scene, so she was the only one to notice what the man had in his hands crossed behind his back - a gun.

An actual, real fucking gun.

The alarm bells were blaring in full alarm now. 

Her survival sense kicked in full-time just as her reflexes were all primed for any sudden movements.

"Jeremy created this next dish. It's called 'The Mess'. Originally from Sparks, Nevada, Jeremy studied at the Culinary Institute in Hyde Park. Jeremy's goal, as he wrote in a heartfelt letter, was to work for me here at Hawthorn. Isn't that right, Jeremy?

"Yes, Chef," Jeremy agreed obediently, like a soldier would to his sergeant. Like a loyal son would a father.

Adrenaline spiked as her fists clenched under the table. Would it be fight or flight?

"Jeremy is talented. He's good. He's very good. But he's not great. He'll never be great. He desperately wants my prestige, my job, my talent. He aspires to greatness, but he'll never achieve it. Correct, Jeremy?"

"Yes, Chef."

Suddenly all the pieces fell together.

The island. The barracks. The ridiculous regime. The collective mindset. 

This wasn't a restaurant anymore. This was a fucking CULT.

"Like me at his age, Jeremy has forsaken everything to achieve his goals. Like mine, his life is pressure. Pressure to put out the best food in the world. And even when all goes right, and the food is perfect, and the customers are happy, and the critics are, too, there is no way to avoid the mess. The mess you make of your life, of your body, of your sanity, by giving everything you have to pleasing people you will never know."

Slowik turned directly to his cook, but Jeremy continued to stare right ahead. 

Placing a concerned hand on his shoulder, the Slowik asked him softly, "Jeremy... do you like this life? This life that you dreamed about?"

"No, Chef." Jeremy's voice broke at the end, revealing how much the emotional strain the chef was pushing him through with his words. 

She couldn't see the shame, despair, and then hopelessness that passed through this young man's empty eyes. Perhaps if she had seen it with her own eyes like the rest of the patrons, she would have dropped the facade and prevented what was about to happen.

But that was not how the Ruska Roma taught her.

"Mmm-hmm. And do you want my life? Not my position, nor my talent. My life." 

"No, Chef."

The gun in his dominant hand trembled. And it dawned on her then, he was going to kill himself. 

Chef Slowik nodded a few times, as if resigning himself to the fact that his follower was really going through with it. Then he went in front of the sous-chef to look him directly at him, eye-to-eye. He leant into the younger man carefully, pecking each cheek with tenderness, then stepping away.

White curtains were drawn to shield the kitchen but she was sure nobody even noticed as the air became charged with anticipation.  

"Ladies and gentlemen, your fourth course, sous-chef Jeremy's The Mess."

Everyone held their breath, Tyler clapped excitedly.

The next moments played out fast, but for Adele it might have already been an eternity as the young man bowed and then shot himself through the head, blood splattering into the curtain and some even landed on Adele who was probably the only one who hadn't flinched from the gunshot.

The bubble was popped.

Patrons sprung from their seats, shell-shocked and horrified alike. Servers and cooks rushed out to block their way, more reassuring than threatening. Heavy angst permeated the atmosphere like a plague and things became much more serious. 

The kitchen staff all looked, head bowed in mourning for a second, then returned to work. The Chef just stood among the panicking hens, grimmer than the Reaper itself, but largely unfazed. 

"Please. Please. Sit. Please. Everything's fine. It's all part of the menu. It's part of the show-"

"- SHOW?!" Felicity and George shouted at him in unison.

"This is what you're paying for."

As the shocked diners were corralled back to their tables by the cooks, servers approached the tables with perfectly-folded moist washcloths so diners could wipe their faces. Other servers fanned out with plates for the menu to resume.

In the meantime, Slowik walked over to the hitman's table and Adele was almost too late to pretend to gag in her seat as Slowik cleaned the still-warm blood off his mother's cheek. The assassin avoided the chef's gaze when she resurfaced and broke into a visible tremble as Slowik shouted forcefully, "EAT!"

This was supposed to be an easy-going, lovely evening with great food and without any action whatsoever, and at the end of her career Adele was thrown into this chaos.

Seriously, the gods must have it out for her.

[goonlalagoon]

Somewhere different, something new || SpiritTea

I know I wanted somewhere that would be different to the city, thought Sen through a daze, but I wasn't quite expecting this.

This was the charming if remote village of Yokae, which she had rolled into two days before in the dead of night - that unfortunate pre-dawn stage where it wasn't even just late or middle of the night but edging towards being simply very early the next morning, and she'd spent most of the walk through town half listening to Miko's patter and mostly thinking oh spirits how little sleep am I going to have to meet all my new neighbours on??

It was a small, sleepy village; a little run down in places but overall very...quaint. Picturesque. Just what she'd been looking for: somewhere without the distractions of the city, and without the price tag of a city apartment to go with it. She could deal with living in an old fashioned house for the amount she was paying for it, even if it was going to take some getting used to, and the walk from one end of the village to the other if she wanted a cup of coffee was probably good for her all things considered. The silence was probably the hardest thing to adjust to, as she tossed and turned and tried to get used to sleeping on a futon. In the city there was always noise - the roar of traffic outside, even at night, the blare of sirens in the distance or too-loud chatter of people meandering home in varying levels of inebriation. In Yokae, the only sound was the creak of the roof in the wind and the rustle of leaves, the occasional chirping of an insect. When a fox barked in the distance Sen found herself sitting up, heart racing, as she tried to place where she was.

It had turned out to be a good thing she'd braced herself for handling introductions while bleary eyed, because there was a strong implication that if she didn't meet them all on the first day there was going to be Some Kind Of Problem. And in a place with apparently only twenty-five residents - twenty-seven if you included the dogs, which she did - she really, really didn't want to be known as “the rude one”. She knew what reputation city-folk often had in places like this, and was determined not to fall into it. With a population this small, making a bad impression on anyone would surely get spread around, and before she knew it everyone would be side-eying her and muttering about how she was anti-social and didn't fit in.

That would come anyway, she was sure, once she was out of her writing rut and head down in a project and forgetting that things like eating and shopping and sleeping and going outside were needed. Sen would need all the good feeling she could get when the inevitable flow of inspiration caught her, so that no one would take it personally and might even knock on her door occasionally to check she was in fact alive.

So: Yokae, initially, seemed about what she was expecting.

Then came the floating cat, which she was definitely blaming on the local tea. But the idea that it was a hallucination was - well. It was appealing, but she honestly wasn't sure how this would be what her brain came up with. And she had, absolutely, seen a rice ball float up into the air and vanish in chunks as though something was eating it just the day before. 

Working theory seemed to be that the floating cat was, in fact, real, and that she was, in fact, somehow becoming responsible for running a bathouse. Another point in favour of the cat being real was the pile of towels it had floated into and sent crashing to the ground, because that seemed like the kind of thing a floating cat would definitely do and it wasn't like she'd imagined the towels for it to be a hallucination. She could pick them up and feel the rough texture, and she was pretty sure she couldn't imagine that so convincingly.

So: Yokae, on examination, a little different to original expectations.

Sen scurried to and fro as ordered, carving chunks out of a regrowing root to fuel the boiler and alternating between washing and drying towels, leading spirits over to the steaming tub and trying desperately to work out which ones would be offended by sitting next to each other. Because apparently this was her life now.

So much for free of distractions.

[bohemian-nights]

It’s king of funny because the show basically foreshadowed how D would act with R with his marriage to Laena(but ofc the stans were happy gloating how D didn’t love Laena and hooked up with and married R because she was his soulmate🙄)Both are free spirited Valyrian/Targaryen riders who were attracted to D being all rogue prince,etc while he used and groomed both of them as teenagers which lead to later enabling his behaviour unfortunately. For over a decade Laena put up with his behaviour towards her as well as favouring one of their daughters over the other probably because initially life with him was exciting (until he became depressed)but the min she started confronting him over his BS he started getting angry and defensive and we only see him calming down when L basically tells him she misses the man she married.With R she didn’t care to learn about his life or his mental state for that matter and also wanted him to be his older self enabling his worst self both in ep.5 and 7. It’s a very fucked up situation where he groomed these girls and then later on want him to be the person he’s trying not to be? Another example of how incest and grooming screws over the Targs. If D knew how to have a healthy relationship with s non Targ that also doesn’t consist of manipulation and grooming he might have become a different person.

Yeah Daemon is protrayed as a severely emotionally damaged/ stunted man who does not know what a healthy relationship is to save his life.

Being a second son in addition to the Targs taking incest to the extreme seemed to have really screwed him up. He feels like he doesn’t really belong (he says this at least twice in the show in reference to house Targaryen, but you can tell that he really means himself) or have a place anywhere.

If he had been born a girl he would have married Viserys and that would have been that, but he wasn’t so he’s gotta forge his own path. As a result he’s obsessed with being worthy in his brothers eyes, the person he could have had in another life, but he’s stuck in this life so 🤷🏽‍♀️

None of Daemon’s marriages have been truly loving on the show. I don’t think any of the women he’s been with “understand him” before it’s too late. On the surface(especially to young impressionable girls like L and R) he appears to be this exciting man who is worldly, but inside he’s little “unloved” boy with emotional issues.

They got swept up in the fantasy and did not pull back the curtain to see what’s underneath which isn’t exactly pretty🫠 By the time they realize things they are pretty much stuck with him(lol unless they want to break out the divorce 🪨)

A leopard does not change its spots. People for the most part do not change no matter how much you want them to. You kinda just have to accept them as they are 🤷🏽‍♀️ They have to want to change for themselves.

If Daemon was not so obsessed with being a Valyrian supremacist in his youth/proving himself he would have been much better off, but there is still hope for him in the future (cough cough Nettles) that he can grow and become a healthier person

[leggerefiore]

Cyrus meeting his subordinates ancestors would be really funny

I kinda wrote that in my Cyrus in Hisui fic! I mostly think they're like infatuated with him (it's genetic or something). At least, I feel like Arezu would probably start getting a crush on him like Mars clearly has. They are pretty similar minus the whole. being evil kinda thing with Mars. Here's some general thoughts.

Arezu thinks he seems like a cool guy with a mysterious aura and desperately, so desperately, wants to style his hair. (He says no.) He probably honestly thinks she's just Mars and gets confused why she's acting like she doesn't know him. Unfortunately, due to her seeing Dialga as a god, she probably isn't as susceptible to being initiated into Team Galactic. That doesn't mean it's impossible, however. Adaman would probably have to stop her. One cult to the next, it seems.

Coin is... different. She and Saturn obviously share certain traits with being overconfident and a bit easily annoyed, but they are pretty far from each other. Coin probably immediately dislikes Cyrus because he looks like Cyllene and thinks he seems full of himself. Yet, much like her descendant, she might be swayed by his grander ideals and not being some kind of "goody-two shoes" as she called Irida. Though, just like Saturn, she probably won't know the full extent of what it entails. She definitely ends up a bit enamoured with him as Saturn was in that, though.

Whoever Jupiter's ancestor might be is truly a mystery. One option may be Melli due to a connect with sort of similar hair and a favouritism towards Skuntank, but another is her being descended from a female Security Corps member due to how much their design seemingly favours her own. Whoever they are, they probably instantly are drawn to him for his strange feeling of authority. Maybe their suggestion for a new, perfect world interests them. Of course, it's hard to say with no idea of who it could be.

Charon's ancestor... Choy... Well, he clearly doesn't really have any of the similar drive to make a name for himself or take over Galsctic, but he probably would find Cyrus interesting nonetheless. A strange person with strange ideals and an eerie similarity to the Captain of the Survey Corps. He's a shopkeeper with little reason to focus too much on him, however. Though, he does note how Cyrus stares at him curiously without saying anything. Choy wonders what he's thinking. He will probably never know. They don't really click since Charon and Cyrus don't really click and only did because Charon wanted to use Cyrus.

Not a subordinate, but Volo and Cyrus are water and oil towards each other. No matter how similar their plans ultimately are and how they parallel one another, they ultimately despise each other. Volo thinks Cyrus's plans are dumb. Removing spirit? This guy has issues that he won't allow him to get in his way. Cyrus dislikes Volo because of his already distaste towards Cynthia and then even more when he finds out Volo intends to do what he does. Do not put them in a room together. They will kill each other.