#unless the line itself is transformative or it's a line that makes me very VERY happy!

[captainfightingflower]

Monetization be dammed; my girl CANNOT do a little trolling!

[pansear-doodles]

I gotta get this out of my chest (and i might get hate for this but whatever)

I feel like the rain world fandom as a whole is painted in a one-sided lens- thats not true because if you really take a step back and look at the entire picture of it all there are circles and subcircles of certain populations who are into specific parts of the game and its much more nuanced than what most people complain about.

You have of course people who care about the gameplay. Not all of them are into lore stuff but when it comes to fandom stuff they tend to be mixed. They are the closest to being in line with canon. They are a mostly neutral party but they have their own can of worms to feed when it comes to new players, but I'm not here to talk about that relatively speaking.

You have people who enjoy the ideas of the characters and create transformative stuff out of it. This is where most circles of fanon, headcanons and aus reside, the """fandomification""" side of rain world if you will. This is relatively new in the fandom and most new fans(post dp) reside here, and because of that factor they're always given the most flak and attention by veterans who reside in other circles. (Even though these circles can coexist)

Many veterans (though not all of them are veterans) reside in circles that are described as the more canonical and spiritual side- because of the focus of the game. They tend to be more focused on the consistency for what the game offers- making theories and discussing certain aspects and making content that most consider isnt """fandomification""" or woobifying/blorbo-ing characters. Of course, this circle has subcircles of their own

I'm not trying to antagonize people who say that they miss when the fandom was in a relatively calmer and ""non-fandomy"" state. What bothers me is that the newer fans and the ones who enjoy focusing on "the idea of the characters" and talk about it more than the spiritual complex side of the game, are the ones being antagonized usually by these circles. I have not once seen a headcanony person complain about people talking about canon (unless you count me, an individual who is always subject to these discourses albeit unwillingly but whatever)

There is an underlying reality that as a fandom grows larger, so would these circles and some would birth new subcircles (and one of which is rw shipping, which is always the subject of antagonization in fandom discourse. Funnily enough, not within the shipping subcommunity but by people who dislike and or against shipping, especially with slugcats- yes i still cant believe the shipping community is one of the most peaceful communities in all of ship communities ever and that's very telling).

Then there are the subcircles that have always existed. There are people who care more about the slugcats more than the iterators. There are people who care about the iterators more than the slugcats. There are people who care about creating oc content rather than canon content. It goes on.

Im not saying that if you dislike how rivulet for example is often portrayed as "the adhd energetic roundhouse of wawa" that you are invalid. You absolutely have the right to dislike certain aspects the fandom has.

What I don't like is that some of these circles are antagonized and treated as if they were headless chickens pushing the affinity for liking the characters in their own ways. I don't like that they often assume that we can't like or be engaged with canon and discussions surrounding the spiritual and technical aspects of the game because we were more fond of something else. I really don't like that these types of fans are seen as parasites and that they're portrayed as people who are out to ruin the fandom when in reality they're there to enjoy it in their own way. I dont like that we are being assumed that we hate rain world, the game itself.

We have our very own reasons and our very own ways to enjoy this special piece of media. You have the ability to curate your experiences in the fandom- you have the ability to create your own circles and come with your own ideas for how you feel about the game. The fandom is an entire ecosystem composed of unique individuals and fans with their own unique individual takes. That's really not that hard to fathom.

But nah clearly gay slugcat talk and "edgy aus" will turn the rain world fandom into that similar to undertale and steven universe's fandom.

[idleglowingpixels]

I kinda realised that Mr Komos' song, True Monster Heart follows the same beat as the Monster High Fright song, but the lyrics are like the corrupted version of the original.

Monster High Fright is about accepting

True Monster Heart is about rejecting

Kinda interesting when you think about it

AHHHHHH WHEN I SAW I GOT AN ASK RELATED TO THIS I FREAKED OUT DFGHNBGVFDSF TY FOR GIVING ME SOMETHING TO RAMBLE SOME MORE ABOUT ANON FOR REAL! (Also sorry for the late response, this post has been developing in my drafts for like at least a week now dfgfhng)

I absolutely agree with the conflicting messages between the two songs! I know the song focuses on the story of this universe's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the main verses, but the main focus of the song is that message of rejection of anything and everything human.

Also, because of the Jekyll/Hyde bits, it could represent the duality of where the story starts and ends in its interpretation of a "true monster heart." Instead of Mr. Hyde's human-ness making his heart "untrue," it was his utter rejection of & research into ridding himself of his Jekyll, as well as his hiding of the truth in the first place that caused him to be found out and exiled.

His heart being "untrue" had nothing to do with the fact he was half-human, because if it were, then Clawdeen and Komos's presence in and of itself within the school would've triggered its self-destruction. That was proven as a false interpretation by the story in the movie, so it's self-explanatory. A true monster heart is one of self-acceptance, despite one's flaws or differences. That's what Mr. Hyde, and Mr. Komos thereafter, had neglected to realize before Clawdeen proved the point.

Though, I've listened to both True Monster Heart and Fright Song a few times back-to-back, to try and get where you're thinking as far as the beat, but I don't hear it unfortunately (unless you meant the tempo of the song, then yes they do follow the same 120 beats per minute!).

The closest thing I can think of as far as melodic parallels between the songs is the chanting sections. The Fright Song chant is much quicker in the way it's sung compared to the chant in True Monster Heart, however. The whole of Fright Song's chant goes in 16 beats/4 measures, whereas True Monster Heart's chant takes twice as long at 32 beats/8 measures (I was a band/choir kid lol). It's mainly due to how the song kinda drags out the point, and it definitely feels like a nod to Fright Song for sure. Fright Song's chant is only there because 4/5 of the main ghouls were fearleaders, so it was sort of characterizing the cast before actually showing their characters in the webisodes.

---

Fun little headcanon/ramble that I forget if I ever mentioned about Fright Song, but with Holt Hyde being released in the 1st Signature wave with the rest of the the main ghouls and all, I think it was because he's intended to be the singer of the rap section before any subsequent content with the character was released (No offense but I don't think Holt DJs because he's a good singer sdfgbfds). This would line up with his current crush in canon with Frankie, as well as his former crush on Draculaura from either the diaries or books, maybe both? I forget. :'D Also I feel like Holt wouldn't hesitate to call Cleo vile immediately after saying she's charming either, he's very direct with his words. (I also interpret Jackson/Holt as bisexual because Deuce is included in the rap I DON'T CARE Y'ALL IT MAKES SENSE!)

Also I always interpreted the howl-like sound at the end of the rap as "Holt ran outta time/battery power for his music and transforms back to Jackson as it transitions to the rest of the song." It kinda works with how the beat kinda drops down with the howl, like a TV being shut off or something idk.

Ghoulia also debuted with Signature Wave 1 but she's only in like a second of the music video in the background, I figure it could've been budgetary reasons for the animation, to save on animating an extra character. Also I imagine flame-y hair wouldn't be very fun to animate in 2D, and Deuce's snakes moving on their own were bad enough I imagine to animate, so it begrudgingly checks out as to why Holt isn't in the animated bits with everyone else.

BUT I JUST WATCHED THE MUSIC VIDEO BECAUSE I WANTED TO FOR THE SAKE OF THIS POST AND THE GUY SINGING THE RAPPING BIT HAS, YOU GUESSED IT, A BRIGHT FRICKIN NEON RED LEATHER JACKET. He doesn't have the dual-toned shirt BUT IT'S WHITE AND THIS IS CLOSE ENOUGH FOR ME Y'ALL! XD

If any straws for these dumbasses can be found I SHALL GRASP THEM fr they're my blorbos :'D

[killerandhealerqueen]

for the ask i just reblogged from you- 4, 6, 8, 11, 12, 13, 18, 22, 24, 27, 28, 31, 35, 36, 41

Ooo damn, lots of questions! My favorite

4. How do you choose which fics to write?

Honestly, whatever idea catches my fancy is what I want to write about. Or if I'm craving something that hasn't been written yet, then I'm like "well god damn it, looks like i have to do it myself"

6. What’s the last line you wrote?

He then reached up and cupped the back of his neck before he pulled him down into a kiss

8. Post an out-of-context spoiler from a wip.

               “I didn't know anything about any gate code.  And besides, I couldn’t have killed Matthew.  I’m vegan.  I would never touch raw meat” one woman argued as she sat before Eric and Walter, Walter testing her hands for animal blood.  Eric hummed.

               “Good to know” he grumbled as Walter shook his head.

               “She is negative for animal blood” he declared.

11. Do you write scenes in order, or do you jump around?

I tend to write scenes in order, it's very rare that I jump around, unless a particular scene is screaming to be written first. Then I'll usually write it and put it to the side to be pasted in later

12. Do you outline your fics?  If yes, how detailed are your outlines?  How far do you stray from them?

Honestly, my outlines are just the fics in bullet form. Like I will write the dialogue, the scenes, and all the lovely stuff in bullet form and then go back and transform it into the actual fic. But that's only for oneshots. For multi-chaptered fics, I will have like...the general idea for what I want a chapter to be about, unless I'm doing a multi-chaptered fic inspired by a tv show or manga. Then the chapters just sort of flow how the show flows and the cuts and what not, if that makes sense.

13. Do you listen to music while you write?  If yes, what have you been listening to recently?

I do, sometimes. But sometimes the music that I listen to either throws off my groove or throws off the vibes I'm going for, so I'll turn it off. Or it distracts me. But, since I'm currently working on a mafia au, I'm listening to songs that have that sort of vibe, so like

or

(her songs really scream mafia vibes and honestly, love that for her and me)

18. Do you enjoy research?  Which fic of yours required the most research?

I do enjoy my research every now and then. The fic of mine that required the most I would have to say is my CSI: Jing City au, just because I have to know some of the testing that they're doing and how to break down what they're doing into layman's terms. Of course I understand what I'm writing about, but most normal people don't have a background in forensics, nor do they have degrees in them, so I gotta make it scientific enough to fit with the story but in layman's terms so that my readers aren't confused by the procedures and what not.

22. Do you title your fics before, during, or after the writing process?  How do you come up with titles?

Oo, good question. I usually title my fics after the writing process, but sometimes a title will just come to be before hand. As for how I come up with titles, I usually use like a dialogue or a sentence from the fic itself. Sometimes the titles are inspired by song lyrics, or my fics are titled after the tv show or manga I'm taking inspiration from

24. How do you choose whose POV to write in?

I like third person past tense to read in, so that's what I write in. I'm not really a big first person writer/reader (like if I see it's in first person, I nope the fuck out) so I don't write a lot of fics in that pov. Sometimes third person present, but only for headcanons

27. What area of writing do you feel strongest in?

Dialogue, I guess? It just flows so easily and comes to me no problem, so...dialogue. And maybe understanding the characters? Like, not being ooc? If that's an area of writing idk

28. What area of writing do you want to improve in?

Action scenes maybe? Because my Killer and Healer rewrite has a lot of action scenes and while I can see them in my head, translating that into words fucking sucks ass

31. Do you use a beta reader/editor?

Not usually, only when I've stared at a fic for too god damn long and I'm starting to hate it. Then I'll ask @ahhhnorealnamesallowed to look it over for me. She's honestly the best when I need a new pair of eyes

35. What’s your favorite fic you’ve posted?

That's not fair, I love all of my fics that I've posted...I can't pick a favorite

36. What fic are you proudest of?

Oh, 恨君不似江楼月 | Killer and Healer 100%. Just the amount of time, energy, and love I've poured into this fic...this fic is my baby and I love her

41. Who’s your favorite character you’ve written?

Ah, I love writing about Jiang Yuelou and Chen Yuzhi. They're honestly a packaged deal at this point. I can't choose one over the other, they are packaged. Do no separate. They're both just so complex and they work well in any au that I throw at them so...they're great. I love them

Fanfiction Writing Asks | send me asks

[arthurmorganwateringhole]

I'm genuinely curious but why do you care if people headcanon that Arthur is himbo? I'm not trying to start a fight, sincerely. I'm coming from the perspective that we should let people have their headcanons, y'know?

Yeah, I get that! I guess, to answer this question, I have to talk about my philosophy (if you can call it that) when it comes to media consumption and my critical takes on fandom culture writ large. So if you have time, buckle up!

I should point out that I both don't care and care very much about people's hc's when it comes to my favorite characters. I don't care, in that I'm not going to get upset or get my panties in a wad if you headcanon something that is easily proven to be inaccurate wrt the canon. Like, if you want to headcanon Arthur is bad at reading, go for it. Lol, I'm not going to be upset or go out of my way to stop you.

However, I care enough to point out when this is inaccurate, especially when it enters into my sphere of fandom interactions. Now, this is where I get into trouble? A lot of people feel when I point out something is wrong or inaccurate, that I'm invalidating them or censoring them? Lol, like it's okay to be wrong/inaccurate. It's not the end of the world! If you choose to adjust your headcanons so that it's more canon compliant/accurate, then good for you. If you choose not to, also good for you! I promise, Lia isn't going to come after you :)

That said, in general, people need to be more open-minded if they're 'corrected.' Like I said, it's not the end of the world. Take the note and move on with your life.

Now, let's get to the larger, heftier part of this question. This need fandom has to transform their favorite man into a himbo (when he isn't) is a projection issue to me? Like, the unspoken assumption here is that it's safe and unproblematic to like himbos. Force this character into the himbo mold, and you can stan unproblematically! A couple of issues here:

As a Marxist, I should point out that there is no such thing as ethical consumption. It's fool's gold, and you're better off abandoning this all-or-nothing way of thinking and accept that life has its compromises WHILE still trying to work on yourself and your habits

Flanderization often leads to more problematic representation, as it erases the nuance that went into the writing of Arthur. He is a very complex dude. A lot of his sense of humor is subtle and off-the-cuff. Many people mistake it for genuine stupidity, and that's just... unfair? Like my boy did not just whip out witty repartee that belittles the presumptuous upper class of America for you to dismiss it as stupidity.

Now, as for himboism itself...

Okay, I love himbos. Kronk from Emperor's New Groove is a great and lovable example of a himbo? Big beefy dude with a big beefy heart but of very little brain UNLESS it involves his favorite pastime: home-making and cooking. Himbos aren't necessarily dumb, btw, they're just not considered conventionally intelligent (the way Yzma is). The charm of the himbo is that their kindness overpowers our traditional valuations of intelligence, and it reminds us that emotional intelligence (which, stereotypically is not recognized in cis men) is worth appreciating.

The problem here is that Arthur Morgan is both emotionally and intellectually intelligent. To overemphasize the former at the expense of the latter makes you miss a lot of his more complicated and unsavory personality traits?

For instance, one of the MAIN character traits (recognizable anywhere) of a himbo is that a himbo would never say a nasty word to ALL women. Now, don't get me wrong, Arthur is indeed a feminist who respects women, but a himbo would not be caught dead saying this line (credit to @papaue00 for reminding me it exists):

It's worth listening to how Roger Clark deliver those lines. Arthur speaks with malice here :)

Now, the point isn't, "Arthur is sexist! Cancel him!" Because that is NOT true. He's not sexist. Rather, he has moments where he gives in to petty malice? And he goes out of his way to demean her by bringing up sex work (i.e. she isn't a lady so she doesn't deserve his respect) to get back at the embarrassment and irritation he feels given the situation.

If you insist on him being a himbo and read him as only himbo, you miss out on his flaws. His flaws are key to understanding why he is the way he is; why he is perfectly capable of making his own choices and making the wrong ones. An unintended bias people have of Arthur as himbo (and therefore wholesome and unproblematic) is that they end up blaming other characters for his decisions. A famous example is Mary's missions. The fandom writ large tends to blame her for stringing Arthur alone, solely because he uses the phrase, 'play me like a fiddle' in his journal. Rather than reading that phrase as self-deprecatory (he's poking fun at himself while also expressing a vulnerable side of him that still loves her), they take that to mean she's manipulating poor helpless Arthur who is totally unaware of what she's doing to him.

Another example, someone wrongly attributed Arthur's pedantic interests to Dutch in one of my reblogs. Dutch and Hosea may have taught the boys how to read, but Dutch has no interest in botany. A quick conversation overhead between him and Lenny shows that his intellectual pursuits are actually just grandstanding and peacocking. He doesn't know and understand wtf he's talking about. Not once does Dutch even talk about botany. Arthur, though? Loves drawing plants. Can identify them. And he has a book of it by his bedside. Like, reading him as 'an idiot' sincerely (and not with a hint of irony, as Arthur does) misattributes his strengths and weaknesses to others, and that's just... unfair to the writers who WENT OUT OF THEIR WAY TO WRITE THOSE LINES OF EMULATED 19TH-CENTURY SCIENTIFIC PROSE!!! Like, people worked hard to characterize him environmentally. Don't let their efforts be in vain!

Do you see why I care a little bit if people mischaracterize him? It's like, I care in the sense of: okay have a good life. But I also care enough to point out an inaccuracy if I see one. I know it's more polite to not say anything, but it's also condescending of me to treat you like you're a child and just give a bemused smile from behind my screen. I think it's more helpful??? when I point out things you might have missed in game or are deliberately erasing when you choose to ignore the game.

I don't really care about being polite. I care about having good, healthy discussions and endless obsessions over my faves. So yeah there's your answer.

[chronichlesofnillory]

Mystical Stitches book review

If you have any history with actively doing your own embroidery or working knot magic in any way I would not recommend this book*

If you have any personal experience working with sigils or "mystical symbols" I would not recommend this book*

Who this book might be for: 🧵someone who has the very basics of embroidery down (there are pictures of stitches throughout the book but sometimes drawings of stitches aren't workable for everyone. Youtube can usually help there) 🧵someone who doesn't enjoy making their own sigils and doesn't own any resources that act as a "dictionary" of "mystic symbols" 🧵someone who enjoys or needs specific projects presented to them (such as the "oroboros of transformation" suggested that includes three separate symbols) 🧵someone very early on in their practice that doesn't have their own color associations or practice specific symbolism.

Unsurprisingly the book doesn't go into more than the basic stitches, it isn't a stitch dictionary after all. Surprising to me though is that there is no mention other than "how it looks" as to why you might energetically choose a certain stitch. When creating a border in a piece you might want something that has no gaps in the thread (maybe a chain stitch so it overlaps itself?), or maybe you want a very thick line so that it feels like there is a buffer between the energy outside the border and that inside. When working on my endless knot piece I wanted something that would feel good as I traced the piece over and over with my fingers. This book focuses heavily on the aesthetics of a stitch though.

Towards the end of the book there's a chapter dedicated to "The Art of the Ritual" and I will mention here that because the author keeps reminding the reader throughout the book that they aren't trying to present one path or way, most of the suggestions come across as very wiccan/new age influenced because that tends to be the default. There's smoke cleansing your thread and fabric, put your intention into it (I will admit that the author does suggest this can be a type of prayer) and that's what makes it magic, visualizing a certain outcome, "traveling between realms" (astral travel?? idk).

Overall 2/5

Would check out for free from library, would not spend money on it.

If you're looking for a more in depth project based book I'd suggest "Paint with Thread: A step-by-step guide to embroidery through the seasons" by Emille Ferris. She goes very into detail over how to do each project (from stitch breakdown to colors chosen) and talks about why she chose the subjects she chose for each season.

When it comes to "witchy" books for things like embroidery magic or knot magic or any kind of project based magic I am very weary. They tend to be very watered down because there's no room to present what the concepts the author is working on outside of buzzwords. They are also trying to appeal to as wide of an audience as possible so if there are projects involved they aren't specific enough to anything I'd actually use (no tarot bag project in this book when that would literally be the first thing I'd teach another person to do)

*(unless you're borrowing it from the library or kindle/everand etc.)

[thedragonagelesbian]

For the BG3 character development asks: 1 , 10, and 19 (sorry!).

1: Where in the Faerûn is your Tav from?

Main timeline Cyrus is from Baldur's Gate (with the caveat that he spent the first ~25 years of his life on the move across the Sword Coast with his mother and father).

Ranger Cyrus is... uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

/crawling out of the forgotten realms wiki five hours later covered in blood/

I am (with immense hesitation and tentativeness for fear that ed greenwood may strike me down) going to claim the city state of Iriaebor as the providence of the dispossessed noble that Cyrus pledges himself to. [redacted] who uses him to violently reclaim and maintain power while assuring him that it's for the greater good (and who Cyrus eventually kills before vowing to root out as much of their influence as possible). What existing lore there is for the city includes its lawful ruler being ousted by the Zhentarim, which seems to me to be a perfect set up for the lord's daughter/son* to have need of a paladin who could very easily be convinced that the Zhentarim must be expelled by whatever means necessary.

This also means Cyrus' decision to leave that life behind lines up with the city coming under the influence (but not the direct control) of a recently established Elturguard, and I can't help but wonder if that might've had something to do with it-- a reformed and redeemed Champion of Iriaebor being hailed as a symbol of the city's independence or something.

As for his exile cottage, I think it makes the most sense for that to be in the Wood of Sharp Teeth for its proximity to Baldur's Gate, putting him in decent tadpoling range (and, unlike the other place I was considering, the Reaching Woods, THIS woods doesn't have a thing about gnolls very recently slaughtering all the other humanoids because canon D&D lore is just fucking like that sometimes.)

*I don't have a definitive identity for [redacted] yet, but depending on the day/mood, they're based either on Cullen or Meredith............................

10: Are they proficient in playing any instruments?

Nope-- in any timeline or game, Cyrus doesn't consider himself to be particularly creative (or intellectual for that matter), and it's not like a full-fledged point of insecurity, but he's much happier to leave it to others

(Unless he gets drunk and starts singing)

19: How do you think they'll meet they're end?

Hmmmmmm not sure for shadow sorc and ranger Cyrus-- while I have a pretty strong idea of ranger Cyrus' immediate endgame (living a very good life with Duke Wyll), I haven't thought at all about what things will look like after Wyll passes (do we know if the devil transformation has affected his lifespan at all?).

And as for shadow sorc Cyrus........................................ well. He's a sword. That situation will resolve itself SOMEHOW, but I haven't planned much beyond some vague ideas of it involving a Wish spell (ESPECIALLY if Astarion has to choose to use it to help Cyrus instead of curing himself of his vampirism...)

As for our darling main timeline oathbreaker, I am quite content imagining him living a long and happy life with Halsin in the recovering Shadowlands, with all the work and the joys that are entailed in trying to rebuild an ecosystem that sustains and nurtures more equitable relations and communities. I just love the idea of this high leveled Oath of the Ancients paladin and archdruid pair planting deep, unshakeable roots and becoming mythic quest givers a la Keyleth of the Air Ashari (and also fucking nasty all day everyday).

In which case, if Cyrus doesn't martyr himself protecting the land and its people (which Halsin won't let happen easily), I imagine his death is a peaceful one of old age.

[furtiveseal]

@lutiaslayton tagged me to share the last seven lines of my current WIP, which I wasn't expecting but very much appreciate <3 (also go check out her stuff if you're into Professor Layton she does a bunch of really really cool things including a great fanfic, translating a bunch of the Japan-exclusive content, and hosting a website with a bunch of stuff)

The closest thing I have to a WIP right now would be Wild Magic and Wilder Witches, my The Owl House-inspired TTRPG project built around improvised magic and dicebuilding. It's still very much a work in progress (I've barely started working on chapter 2 of the 7 I planned on writing for the core book) but here's a sneak peek of the latest thing I wrote (a bit more than 7 lines admittedly, I'm putting it under the cut because this is gonna be long):

Mana types

In order to cast any spell, you will need mana, raw magical energy that emanates from the Isles.

There are 6 types of mana, and all but one of them are associated with a specific type of magic.

Wild mana is the purest form of mana as it exists before coming into contact with anything else. True to its name, it is ever-changing and hard to consistently use, but its nature allows it to be used for any type of magic.

Elemental mana is mana transformed by contact with raw elemental forces : fire, water, wind and earth, but also rock, thunder, snow, sand and ice. Elemental magic allows one to both conjure and manipulate the elements, shaping them into whatever form is needed or combining them into a powerful, if unstable, spell. By itself, elemental magic is ephemeral, and even solid constructs will rarely last more than a minute unless the caster is focusing on them.

Life mana is mana that was changed by the primordial force of life that permeates all living things, plants and creatures alike. Life magic lets its users bend the laws of nature, growing plants in the blink of an eye and bending them to their will, temporarily giving physical form to mana by summoning animals, healing wounds in a matter of seconds or transforming one’s body with claws, wings, gills or anything else they might need. While the plants created by life magic can often keep existing long after their original spell was cast, animals and other types of sentient life, along with bodily transformations, are harder to stabilize and will turn back into mana if not given proper care and focus.

Illusion mana was shaped by dreams, nightmares, and the way all living beings experience the world through their senses. Through illusion magic, Witches can make you see and feel things that aren’t there, producing illusions both frightening and enchanting, manipulating senses by changing something’s color, smell, taste or texture - sometimes turning things invisible -  or even getting directly involved with dreams. Illusions are volatile by nature, but take very well to efforts to keep them active.

Creation mana is the most stable of all the mana types, as it was changed by contact with physical matter and Witch-made things, as opposed to those born of the Isles. Creation magic allows one to manipulate the essence of creation itself, bending its rules via teleportation, the modulation of gravity, changing the size of objects, or turning mana into solid matter, whether ephemeral constructs of pure crystallized energy or permanent items and materials. The spirit of creation can also be imbued into items to animate them so that they may pursue their specific purpose on their own. Soul mana is mana transformed by the souls, thoughts and spirits of the sapient denizens of the Isles. Soul magic is powerful and dangerous, as it lets one get in direct contact with their and other’s souls, allowing for wordless telepathic communication, mind control, siphoning the very life force of another being through vampirism, or harnessing strong negative emotions into spells meant exclusively to kill or destroy. Soul magic also isn’t limited to the realm of the living, as it can allow Witches to interact with the spirits of the dead, or emulate a soul to reanimate a corpse temporarily.

If you liked that, I post updates about the project under the "seal makes a ttrpg" tag, but be warned that progress is slow and inconsistent.

Anyway, I'm not entirely sure who amongst my mutuals has a WIP of any sort, so I'm just gonna tag @spiderkunst, @raph-lachouette and maybe @iknaenmal too, but if you weren't tagged and have stuff you want to share please do and tag me so I can see it!

[onewomancitadel]

Why do you think ppl nowadays are so against redemption and forgiveness? From your POV ofc, and if you want to answer only

I have talked about this a lot so I might end up repeating myself but there are multivaried and probably chaotic variables contributing to it. I'm never going to be able to comprehensively cover it but I can make an attempt at what I think are the cultural strokes in the West underpinning the discourse. The caveat I want to add is that online discourse and writers' rooms are never going to be entirely reflective of much much broader General Audience attitudes, and for that matter in the online sphere you're going to (largely) be encountering the dedicated unless you're in the YouTubes comments sections.

So I also think it's not wrong to say that some of this is simply a result of fringe, intense, over-thought discussion. On the other hand there is a real pop culture bleed effect into the GA with, most significantly, Game of Thrones (see that quote from the showrunners about themes being for book reports in school), and attempts by the MCU to legitimise itself culturally by 'being serious' (and at times choosing not to do so and finding success where it doesn't) narratively (e.g. The Winter Soldier, Civil War, most prominently with Infinity War which ends with you know what, then Endgame deciding to kill the villain... have that not be the solution... then do it again anyway, what joy. Feel what you feel about the MCU, and try to say it's reforming itself now, but I'm not discussing my opinions on the MCU here and I really don't want to hear about it - I think pop culture is interesting and I'm part of that audience myself - but I'm just remarking on its influence and reaction to perceived narrative trends).

Some trends that I might say broadly contribute: cynical storytelling; anti-storytelling ("It's just not realistic,") - see the Game of Thrones discourse (and I'm not saying this is 1:1 with the books but there is certainly room there to criticise); contrarianism to a perceived predominant attitude, ("Actually, I just like when people are bad, I don't feel the need to 'redeem' villains,") so people basically just being edgy and that will always happen; probably some genuine effect from people being unable to believe in redemption in their real lives (because bad people are always bad and maybe that's their genuine experience and their fictional response is 1:1 with their real life attitudes) and then, to be generous and acknowledge criticism of redemption arcs, redemption arcs can ask really uncomfortable questions about forgiveness and morality and what that looks like in your own life or if you even believe in that or also feel that the cultural attitude of redemption (which is very Christian) doesn't mesh with your personal religious beliefs etc., though I do think the idea of villain reformation to heroism can, structurally and narratively, exist independently of such cultural ideas. It's just basic narrative turncoat.

Corporate storytelling and cynical storytelling also go hand in hand. If you need to keep resetting character arcs you can't tell a comprehensive character arc - you need them to go backwards, and you need to maintain the status quo. Radical story transformation is impossible. You need it to be profitable, and more importantly you also need to maintain brand image. There's the evil one, and there's the good one. To use an example close to home and so MCU fans leave me alone, you can't have Kylo Ren and Ben Solo co-existing, it's confusing. They need to keep the evil one (Kylo Ren), that's why Ben Solo also has no voice lines in TROS and is just a battery charger. Bottom line is merchandise.

But actual group perception of redemption arcs... people love a good headline, and talking shit about villains - especially in Kylo Ren's case, an easy controversial character which gets clicks - gets clicks. It really does come down to something that simple.

The memetic hatred of redemption arcs and villains online also gets you in-group bonuses. Us vs. them, I say and do the right things and I'm part of the cool kids club. There's nothing really controversial about Reylo, for instance - it's Baby's First Enemies-to-Lovers - and there are ships 'worse' than Reylo where such shippers mock and condemn it anyway, write posts word for word which describe Reylo and then add, 'Reylos DNI'. It's not about Reylo, it's about making sure someone else doesn't put you on a list or think you have the wrong opinions.

So it's just useful to have territory to demarcate where you stand. Are you good or bad? Will you read my article? Undergirding that is cynical storytelling - romance is stupid and for girls repackaged into 'romance is unrealistic', heightened storytelling is dead, why does the hero persist? He should just be dead already. (Because you... are telling a story for a reason...)

What makes a story realistic isn't mortal threat. It's emotional versimilitude. Achieving that is a lot harder than simply making situations genuinely threatening for a hero; it actually means you need to be good at the craft of writing itself and conveying your ideas.

Much easier to distract by talking about 'realism', focussing on elements which don't necessarily improve it, but instead open you to real criticism on a front which is uncomfortable to negotiate. To use an example from G/RRM's A Song of Ice/ and Fire: his depiction of the Dothraki has been well-critiqued for the ahistorical and nonsensical depiction of them with little to no research evidently done. I believe his response to the criticism was that his realism was more from the angle of 'historical realism' with the politics. It was a very weak excuse when I read it, and I'm sure many really don't give a shit, but there's clearly a line that he draws himself in depicting 'realism'. It's also very evident throughout the books he employs narrative symmetry, and there's clear mythical and literary influences at play; nothing doesn't happen for a reason. So for all the talk of realism is in his books, he still uses familiar literary devices.

That's the frustrating thing about 'realism', it's not about making it 1:1 with real life and it never is. It's the effect of believability.

There's pseudo-intellectual posturing about realistic/cynical storytelling predominant in the discourse. I think it's also fair to say that there's an influence of the real world on our storytelling trends: when people can't control real life they want to control the way others respond to fiction. It's probably not an accident that with real-world recessions and wars and being inundated with news you can't do anything about has something to do with more controlling measures of others in fandom spaces. That's the bizarre intersection of luxury beliefs and real-world backdrop.

It would be remiss of me not to include that a lot of people don't believe in reformation or the steps it takes to better yourself IRL and most people have their own personal conception of 'too far', and the attitude that stories are real and the only battleground we can control bleeds into things here. I don't struggle with this, the bad wizards are allegory/metaphor for higher things.

But I think the pseudo-intellectual, key-to-storytelling, 'I read things realistically' might be the attitude really motivating things here and might be the thing I can talk most broadly about. It's always said with such smugness and I've encountered it years on-end. Part of it is Baby's First Media Criticism and part of it is that it's a prepackaged opinion you don't need to think too hard about but makes you sound cool at parties. It's easier to say, "I just don't find happy endings realistic," than it is to think about what role should endings serve in a story? What do they say about the story's beginning? It's uncomfortable not to know things. Exploratory story response or having to think about something might make you look dumb.

So it's really multivaried, and clearly something which is motivated by our online platforms, corporate storytelling, in-groups and out-groups, the uncomfortable questions that redemption arcs raise. Also, redemption arcs - if you don't know how to write them - can be really hard. That's probably my final point. That's probably contributing to the Vader and Zuko blueprints being bandied around. They are technically demanding. That means bad ones can make redemption arcs in general seem poor. Redemption arcs are challenging because they make you think about heroism and villainy. They make you think about storytelling structure and individual motivations, and whether your enemy is like you or not. This is genuinely challenging stuff, it's easier to see the world in black and white.

Writing that is harder, because if the villain could be the hero, how do you realise the story in a satisfying way? You have to know your themes, know your story, believe in your story.

I am willing to allow audience reception of redemption arcs is genuinely informed by that, and I actually think that popular taste is not often always that bad - and filters good things into our cultural memory - it's the condescension of corporate storytelling which really annoys me.

Honestly? I think that online fandoms and clickbait journalists are in the ultimate minority. People love a good redemption arc. It's not controversial. Most people not terminally online that I've talked to IRL were nominal fans of Reylo and thought Kylo Ren was cool and liked that a Stormtrooper, Finn, was actually a good person and did the right thing. It's potent. That's why it's an enduring idea, despite.

[argyrocratie]

“There was considerably more intellectual substance to the counterculture than appeared to superficial observers. While there were indeed lots of stereotypically naïve and passive flower children (particularly among the second wave of teenagers, who adopted the trappings of an already existing hip lifestyle without ever having to have gone through any independent ventures), many hip people had broader experiences and more critical sense, and were engaged in a variety of creative and radical pursuits.

Some people may be surprised at the contrast between the scathing critiques I made of the counterculture in some of my previous writings and the more favorable picture presented here. It’s the context that has changed, not my views. In the early seventies, when everyone was still quite aware of the counterculture’s radical aspects, I felt it was necessary to challenge its complacency, to point out its limits and illusions. Now that the radical aspects have been practically forgotten, it seems equally important to recall just how wild and liberating it was. Alongside all the spectacular hype, millions of people were making drastic changes in their own lives, carrying out daring and outrageous experiments they could hardly have dreamed of a few years before.

I don’t deny that the counterculture contained a lot of passivity and foolishness. I only want to stress that we were aiming at — and to some extent already experiencing — a fundamental transformation of all aspects of life. We knew how profoundly psychedelics had altered our own outlook. In the early sixties, only a few thousand people had had the experience; five years later the number was over a million. Who was to say that this trend would not continue and finally undermine the whole system?

While it lasted it was remarkably trusting and good-natured. I’d think nothing of hitching with anyone, offering total strangers a joint, or inviting them over to crash at my place if they were new in town. This trust was almost never abused. True, Haight-Ashbury itself didn’t last very long. (The turning point was around 1967, when the “Summer of Love” publicity brought a huge influx of less experienced teenagers who were more susceptible to exploitation by the parallel influx of ripoff artists and hard-drug dealers.) But elsewhere the counterculture continued to flourish and spread for several more years.

Personally, I was interested in “mind-expanding” experiences; mere mind-numbing escapist kicks had little appeal for me, and most of the people I hung out with felt the same way. Apart from an occasional beer, we scarcely even drank alcohol — we had a hard time imagining how anyone, unless extremely repressed, could prefer the crude and often obnoxious effects of booze to the benign aesthetic effects of grass. As for hard drugs, we scarcely ever heard of them — with the one notable exception of speed (amphetamine). In moderate doses, speed isn’t much different than drinking a lot of coffee, and most of us had occasionally used it to stay up all night to write a school paper or to drive across the country. But it doesn’t take much to become dangerous. It ended up killing Sam.

In 1966 he had begun taking a lot of speed, and by 1967 he was becoming increasingly manic and paranoid. This paranoia found expression in his discovery of the Hollow Earth cult, which holds that the inside of the earth is inhabited by some sort of mysterious beings and that (as in the rather similar flying saucer cults) the powers that be are keeping this information secret from the general public. At any mention, say, of the word “underground” Sam would give a sly, knowing nod; in fact, just about anything, whether a line in a poem or a phrase in an advertising jingle, could, with appropriate wordplay, be interpreted as a hint that the author was among those in the know about the Hollow Earth.

One of the most painful experiences of my life was seeing my best friend slowly become more and more insane without any of my attempts to reason with him having the slightest effect. One time he slipped out of the house naked in the middle of the night, and his wife and I ran around the neighborhood for hours before we found him. Another time he was found hitching down the highway so out of it that the Highway Patrol took him to the state mental hospital at Napa. Eventually his wife took him back to Missouri.

Over the next couple years his condition varied considerably. Sometimes his general exuberance and good humor made people think that perhaps his verbal ramblings were not really meant seriously, but were just playful poetic improvisations. At other times he slipped into severe depressions and was hospitalized. When I last saw him, he was calm but pretty wasted looking (probably on tranquilizers); he didn’t seem like the Sam I had known since earliest childhood. A couple weeks later I got a call informing me that he had hung himself. He had just turned 27.

Rexroth often remarked that an astonishingly high proportion of twentieth-century American poets have committed suicide. The presumption is that their creative efforts led them to become unbearably sensitive to the ugliness of the society, as well as laying them open to extremes of frustration and disillusionment in their personal life. The fact remains that the Rimbaudian notion of seeking visions through the “systematic derangement of all the senses” has often inspired behavior that is simply foolish and self-destructive. Whatever social or personal factors may have contributed to Sam’s insanity, the immediate cause was certainly all the speed he was taking.

Psychedelics may also have been a factor, but I doubt if they were a significant one. Despite a few widely publicized and usually exaggerated instances of people going insane during trips, millions of people took psychedelics during the sixties without suffering the slightest harm. To put things into perspective, the total number of deaths attributable to psychedelics during the entire decade was far smaller than those due to alcohol or tobacco on any single day. In some cases psychedelics may have brought latent mental problems into the open, but even this was probably more often for the better than for the worse. I suspect that far more people were saved from going insane by psychedelics, insofar as the experience loosened them up, opened them up to wider perspectives, made them aware of other possibilities besides blind acceptance of the insane values of the conventional world.

I certainly feel that psychedelics were beneficial for me. I had one truly hellish trip (on DMT), but just about all the others were wonderful, among the most cherished experiences of my life. If I stopped taking them in 1967, it was because I came to realize that they are erratic and that the salutary effects don’t last. They just give you a glimpse, a hint of what’s there. This is why so many of us eventually went on to Oriental meditational practices, in order to explore such experiences more systematically and try to learn how to integrate them more enduringly into our everyday life.”

- Ken Knabb, “Confessions of a Mild-Mannered Enemy of the State”

[anemcia]

@viopolis​​ asked: Honeydew still feels very new to me so I wouldn't take this as a comprehensive opinion but; everything you've told me about Celldew feels extremely grounded in canon regarding what kind of person Cell would take interest in- and the prospect of dealing with one stubborn earthling that just won't stay down not only confronts his ideas about perfection, but also gives more weight to earthlings when the setting itself seems to undercut them most of the time. There's an underlying theme there that I think lines up well w/ DB as a whole ( earned skill vs inherent; at least, that feels like it was a theme earlier on lmao ) and its gratifying all on its own, too.  I've thought about it on and off for a bit and saw this opportunity to gesture at it, I guess, hahaha Honeydew's neat ( + I absolutely look forward to finding out more about her- her relationship with Flint, their relationship with the red ribbon army / Commander Red, and did I see an AU where she's an underground fighter? that sounds tight af )

anonymously or not, please tell me what you think of my oc! - [ACCEPTING]

//YES, THAT IS ALL CORRECT!! As you and everyone I’ve spoken with know, I take great pride in tailoring their relationship as closely with canon as possible. Fanfiction works like mine aren’t perfect, but I do feel mine IS one that works faithfully with his characterization. I’m not sorry when I say this; but having Cell be super friendly and flirty with your OC (or other canon character) is just LAZY writing. I’ve ranted about this very subject countless times and tbh IT STILL needs drilling in. Call me a buzzkill or whatever, don’t care. I enjoy CellDew being brutal and unforgiving before it gets to the good stuff.

//Aaaanyway, as for Honeydew, I’m also satisfied with her growth from ordinary to extraordinary with discipline and practice. Humans are unanimously undervalued by the fandom unless they’re enhanced by android tech, so my aim was always to challenge the narrative by creating a human that could rival a saiyan’s strength. This series was built on the idea of shattering limits and transformations, so why not apply that with humanity? I certainly DON’T want to venture into sue territory by giving her too many perks, but I don’t want to restrict her either. For Honey, she’s all about adapting to her situations with rapid success, which makes her VERY likely to surpass Tien, Yamcha and Krillin. Cell is an excellent teacher and motivator, giving her necessary experience to achieve those goals realistically.

//ALSO YES, HER RELATIONSHIP WITH HER DAD IS SO COMPLICATED LMAO. She doesn’t hate him, but they’re largely on negative terms with each other since dropping out of university. I DO intend on exploring deeper aspects of her Red Ribbon roots with Red, but Flint is definitely the key to all that. Plus, Gero being his ex-mentor adds to that strange family history. OH AND HAHA YEAH, the underground fighter AU I’m doing with Momo is gonna be fun. It’s basically just a big ‘what if’ scenario if Cell never showed and her farm is facing bankruptcy. To save her livelihood, she ends up working for Nappa as a professional fighter in illegal underground tournaments. Big prize pools, lots of cash to earn with blood on every Zenni~

[thetrinitarianmystery]

Guest Submission: The Moon Shining Through My Bedroom Window

The Moon Shining Through My Bedroom Window

The moon shining through my bedroom window Such gentle and consoling light Like liquid silver does it flow Filling the empty black of night It sets the tile floors aglow And makes my darker thoughts now bright

Though I know not what each day will bring There is this which I do not doubt Each night the moon will make my room sing When all the lights have been turned out These books and shoes and everything Made beautiful as they lay strewn about

For who needs light when light abounds? But in the dark it is so rare It shines to say "just look around And see anew your life if you dare" In me are both moon and earth, sky and ground The dark and the light which now shimmers everywhere

A lesson in perspective Is what it's trying to show Everything will be dark until you give It a little glow I am grateful that I might live With the moon shining through my bedroom window ----------------

Today I am honored and overjoyed to feature our first guest submission! My aim is respond to every guest submission with a reflection on the poem, unless the author would prefer that I post it as-is. I’d like to start this first guest submission with a general word about my approach to poetic analysis in this context. There are a couple ways in which I may look at a poem: the first is by considering what it means, and the second is by considering how it means. In pondering what the poem means, it is of course inescapable that I am answering what it means to me. It is my opinion that “meaning” is always “meaning-to,” and that ultimately subjectivity is necessary to grant intentionality (or “about-ness”) to symbols. I don’t believe that there is objective meaning of words in the sense of a deterministic correspondence of symbols to reality. At the same time that I cannot step outside of myself to an “objective” view of the poem, I will endeavor to treat each poem as an encounter with the Other; and I will ask of the poem, “What are you trying to tell me?” This is to say that I enter into the reading with an openness to mutual transformation: as the poem discloses itself to me, I offer my experience to the poem; and together we co-create a response. I will intentionally not ask the author him or herself what they mean by the poem, for that is the beauty of poetry: it is an act of self-transcendence. In speaking a poem into existence, the author transforms into “the speaker,” and every sense of meaning-to proliferates prismatically from the original event of meaning, or intending. In considering how the poem means, I will look more at formal aspects of the poem; and reflect on how they work together to evoke a response in me. Obviously this is not strictly independent from the sense of meaning-to. So let’s begin!

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

At first pass, this poem is a beautiful slice of life. The rhyme scheme and nighttime setting create a nursery rhyme-like air, which belies a considerable depth of meaning. Let’s take each stanza in turn.

The moon shining through my bedroom window Such gentle and consoling light Like liquid silver does it flow Filling the empty black of night It sets the tile floors aglow And makes my darker thoughts now bright

Immediately from the first lines I am drawn in. The first line sets the scene, and the second sets the mood: “Such gentle and consoling light.” Such gentle and consoling diction! And with it comes a question: about what is the speaker in need of consolation? What is this emptiness into which the light now pours as “liquid silver”? For the pouring of liquid silver into a mold is an act of creation: an act of harnessing what is raw and unformed and setting it into a functional or beautiful form. And is this not like the very act of writing this poem? The author takes this raw, unformed yearning and the moon’s bare light, and in the mold of his own mind forms this work of beauty.

Though I know not what each day will bring There is this which I do not doubt Each night the moon will make my room sing When all the lights have been turned out These books and shoes and everything Made beautiful as they lay strewn about

Here there is a juxtaposition of uncertainty and disorder with the constancy of the moon’s light. We see in this an answer to our previous question regarding what consolation the speaker needs. The speaker “know[s] not what each day will bring,” and finds himself or herself in a disorderly environment with “books and shoes and everything / …. strewn about.” By contrast, the moon is constant and beautiful, making of this cacophony a quiet chorus each night.

For who needs light when light abounds? But in the dark it is so rare It shines to say "just look around And see anew your life if you dare" In me are both moon and earth, sky and ground The dark and the light which now shimmers everywhere

This stanza is perhaps the philosophical heart of the piece. It begins by making a commentary on duality: the light is only appreciated in terms of the dark. If light were everywhere invariant, then we would not need a notion of lightness at all. But embroiled in one’s “darker thoughts,” the power of light is seen. By the moonbeams’ selectively illuminating some aspects of the disorderly whole, a certain order comes upon the scene. The darkness becomes a frame by which the objects in the scene are put into a place of privilege. From this, we see the potential for order amid chaos: an invitation to “‘see anew your life if you dare’” by adopting new frames of thought. And then the turn: “In me are both moon and earth, sky and ground / The dark and the light which now shimmers everywhere.” We see echoed here a sense of encompassing and transcending seeming opposites, that ancient sense of being a microcosm of and continuous with the whole cosmos. I have written about this myself elsewhere, and I find it especially beautiful when the same feeling appears in others’ writing.

A lesson in perspective Is what it's trying to show Everything will be dark until you give It a little glow I am grateful that I might live With the moon shining through my bedroom window

The assertion, “Everything will be dark until you give / It a little glow” speaks to me about meaning-making: it is to say that meaning and purpose do not “fall out” of life automatically; rather, one must choose meaning and create purpose. The final lines bring the poem to a fitting close: what began with consolation ends with gratitude. And we can infer from the rest of the poem that this gratitude encompasses all that “the moon shining through my bedroom window” entails: both the darkness and the light, which by each other are known; the chaos and the order than can be carved out of it; the emptiness and the filling; the silence and the poem.

That’s all for today’s post! I’m extremely grateful to the author for this wonderful submission. As always, thank you for reading!

[lavender--fairy]

Your Entire Life Is A Placebo Effect

Your Entire Life Is A Placebo Effect

Did you know your entire life is a placebo effect. What is a placebo: A placebo is something that seems fake or ineffective that you use to trick your mind into believing that something is working, making a change, or that something specific will happen if you use or do it. Most commonly used in medicine. They give a sugar pill to patients telling them that it would help cure them of something, this would convince people that it was working and naturally they would trick their minds subconsciously into healing the body because the subconscious believes that the pill works. (The sugar pill has no effects, it doesn’t do anything at all.) What is the subconscious: the subconscious is the part of your mind that is in charge of 95-99% of your entire life. it stores your beliefs, memories, everything you have ever heard or seen, it keeps your body regulating itself without you having to think of it, heals your body of any sicknesses, broken bones, cuts, and bruises. It's the secret to the most successful people they vocalize this a lot, maybe not specifically using the term subconscious but they often speak on beliefs and mindset. These things are both controlled by the subconscious, you learn to master your mind then you can master the world and everything around you. Your subconscious mind gives very much confirmation bias. It will look for proof and evidence of all of your beliefs. If it does not find proof, it will create it. Its job is to make sure your life lines up with your belief system/mindset. If you believe you struggle to get or make money, your subconscious will continue to prove that, if you say you can’t afford a specific car or house, your subconscious will make sure that everything in your life prevents you from getting that car or house. For example, a lot of people like to say that whenever they get a little money their car breaks down. That is an example of a placebo, you believe that getting extra money means your car will break down. This is just like the sugar pill, people believed that whenever they took it, their body was being healed so it worked. If we can just create a belief that doing one thing will cause something to manifest, we could potentially see amazing results. Another example in my personal life, every time I wear my blue light glasses from Target, I have convinced myself that they make me really focused and productive. As someone with ADHD that placebo was a lifesaver. So how is your entire life a placebo effect? Whatever you believe about yourself, your life, things, and other people your subconscious will make sure that it is facts in your life because that’s its job. Nothing has meaning unless you assign it. If you believe that someone is mean, they will be mean. If you believe that you are popular and loved, that’s how everyone will treat you. Why because your subconscious mind's job is to make sure all your beliefs good or bad are proven true. Whether you believe in something true or false, your subconscious will make sure it happens. Just as patients assume that when they take the sugar they are getting better every day. See how it all works. Life is what you perceive it be. a certain way they will.. If you believe the sugar pill works then it will. Life is what you perceive it be So change what you believe about things, people, money, and life in general and how your life transforms. video version credits: Aiva manifested that on youtube and on her website i recommend watching her videos

[random1amfics]

Demon Tyrant of France (3)

Adrien didn’t like how Marinette was acting.

At first he thought that she might have just been lashing out because Lila’s lies hadn’t been exposed yet. She had been showing signs of being stressed and frustrated before she gave him her signature smile a week ago.

There was also one option he didn’t want to consider. That Marinette was an akuma. It makes sense with the new clothes, her chosen name and her new attitude. But Plagg said that she didn’t feel like an akuma.

Adrien tugged at his hair, pondering about her. He risked a look to the back of the class where Marinette sat.

She had resigned as class president effective immediately. When Mme Bustier took her outside for a talk, the teacher came back pale-faced and had agreed to accept her resignation. The class didn’t take it well. Mostly him, Lila and Alya were being very vocal about it. The rest just looked resigned and stayed silent.

So far, she hadn’t accused Lila of lying at all. Just outright ignoring the Italian unless Lila was claiming something about Marinette doing something to her to which Marinette shuts it down with her solid alibis which made Lila angry. That wasn’t good at all. Lila would get akumatized and it was his job as Chat Noir to prevent that from happening. Marinette and him had talked about taking the High Road and she promised before this bizarre change. He was going to talk to her about it later, maybe she just needs a reminder that she was their ‘Everyday Ladybug’. Even if she wasn’t acting like it at the moment. They would all talk about it over and the class would get back to normal.

The bell rang, signalling the start of lunch break and bringing back Adrien out of his thoughts. He brushed out Lila’s and his friend’s offers of having lunch together but he needed to solve the Marinette/Demon Tyrant Problem.

“Hey, Marinette. I want to talk to you about-” Adrien said as he met her at the door.

“Lila. I know Agreste. I am surprised it took you this long before making your move.” Marinette replied in a cold tone, which was so unlike her that it made him a little uneasy.

“Look, I know Lila has been hard on you.”

The Tyrant snorted, it was an understatement. In the final days of Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Lila had turned her ‘friends’ against her, painted her as a villain and tore apart her sketchbook. Thankfully, it wasn’t the one with her commissions which she had been smart enough to leave at home. The reason she still technically won the bet was because Chloe was there from the start, witnessing everything Marinette does in any situation, good or bad and making sure she followed the rules. (It also led to her inevitable reveal as Ladybug with Chloe’s nosy behaviour. That is a whole another story for later.)

Adrien continued with that stupid ‘everything is fine’ smile, “But you shouldn’t let her get to you like that.I mean this whole Demon Tyrant thing isn’t you. Resigning as class president. Not helping our classmates. You aren’t acting yourself. And if there is anything that I can do to help you-” He reached out to put his hand on her shoulder which she grabbed before he could.

“Keep your hands to yourself, Agreste. Don’t touch me unless you want a broken hand.”

Adrein frowned.

He pulled his hand back and gestured towards her, “See. This is what I am talking about. If you keep doing this, you are going to push all of our friends away, Marinette.”

“Agreste, you can’t address me by that name. You have lost that privilege when you stopped being my ‘friend’. I resigned and stopped helping because I can’t do things for a class that doesn’t appreciate my efforts. Furthermore, I am not pushing them away at all. They are all staying away because it took the Demon Tyrant to come back to get back to their senses and realize what they had done wrong the last few months. Well, most of them are. If they finally get the courage to apologize, I might forgive them but we won’t be friends. I am still fair in some cases.”

“Anyways, the main thing you should know is this,” she said as she gestured to herself, “has always been me. I don’t need ‘help’ to be the Marinette you have always known because News Flash, she was just a part I played to win a bet. An act. And before you pull any crap about faking to be your friend, you asked to be my friend and when you stop tending the flower, it will wilt. If you are worried about me exposing Lila, I always keep my word. I am not going to expose her. Now if you will excuse me.”

The Tyrant walked past him, not sparing him any further glances.

Adrien was left alone in the classroom.

Well, not quite alone.

“Plagg, what do I do?”

The kwami stayed silent. He had heard about the Demon Tyrant when a worried Tikki came to him one night. Marinette had told her about her past. She also told Tikki to take the earrings away and go find someone else better. Tikki came to him because she had little to no experiences with bad wielders, compared to Plagg.

Honestly, unless someone incurred her deserved wrath, she wasn’t so bad. Marinette or the Demon Tyrant was a great wielder for the Ladybug Miraculous and possibly, a better Black Cat than his current one.

×××××××××

Alya sat down in the cafeteria.

Lost for words at the new dynamics of the class, everything was different and nothing makes sense anymore. She can’t correlate between this bitchy Demon Tyrant and the sweet, kind and clumsy Marinette who was her best friend. Although, she hasn’t been acting herself the past week, accusing poor Lila of being a liar and bullying and threatening the new girl every chance she got.

On second thought, yes, she can.

It explains a lot about Marinette’s one-eighty degree change in attitude now.

And Alya had fallen for the act, hook, line and sinker that very first day. She wondered why Marinette did it. Did she get some sick thrill of luring people in with a nice facade with the smell of pastries, telling them that they were friends and when the time comes, dump like discarded toys?

Some journalist she was, she should have dug deeper, not just trust what was on the surface. Journalists were supposed to expose the corruption and she never saw it hiding itself right in front of her.

She was so deep in her rage of being deceived that she didn’t notice her classmates telling her to calm down or scrambling away from the black butterfly that was headed towards her.

“Hello, Shepherdess. I am Hawkmoth. You can’t trust wolves in sheep's clothing and there were wolves hidden in your flock. I will give you the power to expose the wolves before they hurt the sheep. In exchange, you will get me Ladybug’s and Chat Noir’s miraculouses.”

“Yes, Hawkmoth.”

Dark energy covered the reporter, transforming her into an akuma.

(Because I suck at describing clothing, Alya’s akuma looks the same as Bo Peep in Toy story 4. But with a darker colour scheme. She has a shepherd's staff. Her power is to expose people’s true self by changing who stays true to themselves as sheep and those who do not as wolves. The sheep are made into her minions and the wolves are…..slaughtered.)

×××××××××

Tag: @buginetye, @fidget-eep, @hunnibear-x

[forcebewitht]

The Loving Curse Of A Wicked, Beautiful Queen Of Mean (Overblot!Vil Schoenheit X Reader)

(Fanart Link: https://twitter.com/mtzk00/status/1349799061218488322?s=19)

A sigh was all too quick to escape your lips as you observed the spectacle that was going on. You had been receiving bad vibes from Vil here and there for quite a bit now- and it was finally time. You just knew. Grim and yourself decided to hide behind a corner to spy on Vil. His body was honestly rather rigid...yet loose as he walked. Like a doll that had learned to walk and was preparing to swing out a long, thin arm at any moment. Vil delivered some swift knocks to Neige's door within the hallway of the backstage area of the arena currently being used for the VDC. You were quick to shush Grim and peer around the corner. Vil's expression was…void. Utterly barren of any and all emotion, as though the great star was finally beginning to dim out. Neige soon opened the door, and an exchange between the two was given. Vil had tried giving Neige some apple juice as a "gift"....that is, until Rook strided in on the scene. The sound of Rook calling Neige's name down the hall sent a shock through Grim, Vil, and even Neige himself. You noted that Vil's eyes grew a bit too large, a bead of sweat running down his forehead. "NEIGE!" Rook was quick to stride over. The gentle, sweet boy named Neige soon turned his head to Rook as he walked over. Rook smiled a bit at Neige as he approached, a faint dazzle being seen in his eyes simply by looking at the boy. "I am sorry to disturb you. One of the staff members is looking for you- they wished to ask you something about the performance. Roi Du Neige….-ah. I mean Neige." Neige peered curiously at Rook. He allowed his head to angle to the side, his skin as pale and precious as snow and his hair as black as the night sky itself. "Roi Du….the way you speak…..are you, perhaps…?" Rook suddenly was very quick to exclaim after Neige's odd observation. "A-AH! I apologize, I just simply am so thirsty after searching for you for such a long time! Ah…but that apple juice you are holding looks delicious. Care to help me out a bit and give it to me, Ro- ahem. Neige? Please?" Neige blinked numerous times, already handing the juice over as humbly asked. "Y-yes, of course! Not a problem at all! Here you go." You notice Vil's posture go even more rigid at the sight of this event. His eyes grew just a bit larger, and you could have sworn that you heard a suppressed grunt. Your eyebrows furrow. He…..he looked like a schemer who had just been caught...nay….a murderer who had just been caught in the act.

Rook beamed out a dazzling smile to Neige, now continuing on with the juice bottle in his gloved hands. "Ah….thank you, Neige. Now, run along to the stage. And….don't come back again." The sudden shift in Rook's tone took you a bit off guard, now watching him a bit more closely. Neige seemed just as confused, for he bats his eyelashes faintly, his already precious, large doe-like eyes widening just a bit. "...Eh? What do you m-mean by that…" After Neige's delayed question, Rook's body seemed to seize up. He suddenly shouted a bit right at the boy, and you could see his eyebrows furrowing under his bangs. "GO, NOW- HURRY UP!" Neige was quick to listen to the instructions and take off in a sudden sprint. Vil's eyes were locked on Neige as he ran away, now slowly fluttering over to Rook. His lavender eyes squint at his Vice Dorm Leader, the star seeming to back up a bit. "Rook….why…" The Vice, however, did not listen. He seemed to be sniffing the bottle's contents with a content smile, his emerald eyes shutting promptly. "Mmmmm~....what a fresh scent. I simply smelled this alluring beverage for a mere moment, and a delicious, prime, red apple just appeared within my very mind. This product from Epel's hometown is really wonderful!" Rook's eyes soon snapped open, the Vice locking eyes with Vil. He seemed to smile, but a dim in his eyes was evident as well. His tone suddenly became more dry yet heightened, as though a mere zombie under the whims and gaze of the Schoenheit male. "I'll drink all of this without sparing a single drop….Roi Du Poison…" Rook began to tilt the bottle up to his lips. Vil seemed to panic, his eyes widening even more as he rose a hand and backed up some more. You and Grim almost ran out, yet the voice of another stopped you both in your tracks- it was Kalim! "ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOK! STOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPP- NO!" The leader of the Scarabia Dorm suddenly dashed over to Rook with an intense speed. His hand flew out and was quick to smack the bottle out of Rook's hand entirely. The contents splashed onto the nearby wall. Rook backed up in shock, now locking his confused gaze onto Kalim. "Roi D'or?! What are you doing here?! Wait...Grim and [Y/n] are here, too!" You and Grim ran over and stopped before the small group. Grim was the first one to speak, his bright blue eyes widened. "Kalim, did you just smack that bottle that Rook was holding?! Why?!" You were quick to fold your arms over your chest and straighten, staring at Kalim's freakishly serious expression. "He would not have done so without a good reason." Kalim was currently out of breath, gasping for air. "Ah...haaaa…..I made it in time!" Vil's eyes widened evermore, now taking yet another step back. "What….are you….doing…?" Suddenly, an odd squelching sound was heard from the wall where the juice had shattered and splashed. The contents of the juice began to both darken and thicken considerably, the juice itself now a deep, sickly green shade. Your eyes widened as you almost immediately were able to lock onto what was going on thanks to your dreams- it was poison! Grim soon expressed his concerns with the juice's appearance while Kalim turned his head to Vil. Even still, the normally bright boy looked utterly serious. "...Vil. This is the juice that you put a curse on with your Unique Magic, right? I had a bad sensation that something was going to happen concerning you….when I saw your expression whilst watching Neige's rehearsal performance." Kalim's voice deepened a bit, now allowing his eyes to faintly squint at Vil from his current position. "....It is the same expression Jamil had on his face before he Overblotted during the holidays." You turn your head to look at Vil- and freeze. He had locked his gaze right back onto Kalim...there it was again. A bone-chilling, void, utterly vicious stare. His body seemed stiff as his arms rested at his sides. He didn't even look to be breathing, a shadow now being cast over his eyes. This soon changed slightly as he turned his head to Rook. "....Rook. Why did you want to drink the juice? You should know better than anyone….that you would not have remained alive if you drank it." You and Grim shared a worried look- so he was going to murder Neige! Rook blinked a few times at the question, soon giving his answer with the utmost confidence and grace. "I wanted to believe you. The star that has been shining and streaking so far across the sky to reach the top. I believed that you would never commit such a crime and hinder your precious beauty...but. At the same time, if your precious magic and hands had crafted such a wicked tool of vengeance to smite your opponent...I wished to taste it only once. The taste of your poisonous fruits of your obsession for beauty!" Vil backed up a bit more, the sweat running down his forehead once more. Kalim was quick to retort, now worried himself. "What are you talking about, Rook?! I will not let that happen! Hey, Vil! Do you understand how stupid your actions were?! Let's show the other team a performance that will make them feel like worthless potatoes in a sack...Didn't you say we have to win the contest with our show-stopping performance?! Why?! Why would you try to kill Neige just to succeed?!" Vil's expression had shifted back to the blank one as Kalim spoke. Suddenly, upon the last few lines, he began to chuckle. "Heh...heheh…I wish to know the answers myself. But...I have come to realize….THAT I WON'T BE ABLE TO WIN AGAINST HIM! That's w-why I...i wanted to end his life...by my own hands!" Vil's voice trembled and shook with raw power and rage as he boomed out his reply throughout the halls. You gasped as you felt a sudden, odd shift in the air. The poisonous juice upon the ground was beginning to shift into a deeply purple appearance, now. A smoke began to build up from it, already beginning to restrict the proper patterns of breathing from the members of your little team. Kalim began to cough, closing his eyes as Rook warned everyone not to inhale it. "[Y/n], Kalim, Grim! Do not inhale it! This is Vil's Unique Magic- Fairest One Of All! He can put a curse onto any object. That poisonous juice has now been transformed into this restricting mist! If we breathe in a certain amount, our bodies will become paralyzed within an instant! But….one bottle of this could not have turned into this mess….unless….no!" Vil began to back up even more. His eyes widened, tears pricking at his eyes. "D-don't look at me like t-that...STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT! Why….I wanted to become the most beautiful being in the world...but...why am I so...ugly...ugly….UGLY!"

Rook and Kalim began to jump to Vil's defense and say that he didn't kill anyone...but you could already feel the truth of what he was feeling. Vil had acted….like a villain. He was going to murder someone just like one. Your expression was quick to morph into one of raw pity, now watching Vil with a worried expression. He looked so panicked. Like a little boy who had lost his mother within a candy store, or a deer caught in headlights. The male's voice suddenly trembled at Kalim's declaration and boomed out again. "SHUT UP! WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT ME?!" Your group began to panic, now watching the juice bubble and fizz into more mist. Vil let out a bone-chilling, deeply crazed laugh of triumph at the sheer fear. "AHAHAHAHAHHA! T-that's right! That's what I want! If everyone else around me becomes ugly….finally...finally….I CAN BECOME THE FAIREST ONE OF ALL!" The air around Vil began to shift. He beamed out a devilish smile. You stumbled backwards- and that was your mistake. Vil's head was quick to whip over to you and lock on. His eyes dazzled as he stared at you. Oh, [Y/n]. Sweet, sweet little [Y/n]. He had to admit, he actually had so deeply wished to allow you to be on his team and not be shunned to the sidelines with that pest of a monster. And yet, you counted as one student. Thus, if he let you in, Grim would have to come along with you. Oh, how he despised that little rule. Vil got a good look at you, his head tilting to the side. My, my...even with that fear, the darling had a certain grace about them that was almost too rich for Vil to ignore. His lips perked up into an even bigger grin. He began to stalk forward, you feeling your legs begin to shake from the sheer intensity of his stare. And just like that...the boy began to sing out a declaration of his own. "I'm so tired of pretending….where's my happy ending? I followed all the rules, I drew inside the lines...I never asked for anything that wasn't mine. I waited patiently for my time...but when it finally came….they called his name. And now, I feel this overwhelming pain! I mean, it's in my veins! I mean, it's in my brain! My thoughts are running in a circle like a toy train...I'm kind of like a perfect picture with a broken frame...and I know exactly who to blame." Vil began to stalk towards you, stepping over his own juice as Kalim and Rook began to cough even further. They began to attempt to fire spells at him to keep him back, but it was useless. He was utterly transfixed on you, now. "I never thought of myself as mean...I always thought I'd be like the Queen! And there's NO INBETWEEN! 'Cause if I can't have that? Then I shall be the leader of the dark and the bad….now there's a devil on my shoulder where the angels used to be….and they're calling me the Queen.." You began to backtrack a bit further. Vil was quick to  suddenly grab you by the arm, now slowly dragging you towards him. You fought and struggled against his vice grip, your eyes wide in confusion and sheer panic. Grim got riled up and began firing more fire spells- but Vil's mist seemed to dissipate most of them. Vil smiled down at you with a bright grin that could make even the toughest of people's blood run cold. "Being nice was my pastime...but I've been hurt for the last time...and I won't ever let another person take advantage of me- the anger burns my skin, third degree. Now my blood's boiling hotter than a fiery sea! There's nobody getting close to me! They're gonna bow to their Evil Queen! Their nightmares are my dreams! Just wait until they fall to my wicked schemes~" Right as Vil had gone to caress your cheek, you were able to jerk yourself from his grip. You stumbled back into the wall, now slowly backing up with the still sputtering Kalim, Grim, and Rook. Vil just smiled even brighter. "I never thought of myself as mean...I always thought that I'd be the Queen! And there's NO INBETWEEN! 'Cause if I can't have that? I would be the leader of the dark and the bad. Now, there's a devil on my shoulder where the angels used to be...and he's calling me...the Queen of Mean….the Queen of Mean!" Vil's head suddenly snapped over to the shattered apple juice bottle, as though he heard a voice. He slowly bent down and picked up a shard that had an apple on the front of it with part of Epel's family name. "The Queen of Mean…." His head slowly craned up, that blank stare back once more. Then, his lavender gaze trailed back to you. He slowly began to stalk forward once more, his head tilting. "Something is pulling me….it's so magnetic. My body is moving...unsure of where I am headed...all of my senses have left me defenseless...this darkness around me is promising vengeance. The price that I'm willing to pay is expensive- there's nothing to lose when you're ugly and friendless. So...my only interest...is showing that 'princess'...THAT I AM THE QUEEN AND MY REIGN WILL BE ENDLESS!"

The mist whipped around your group and knocked Kalim, Rook, and Grim back into the nearby wall. The poisonous substance along with some ink whipped around Vil's form. You gasped, watching the transformation take place. Vil had now Overblotted. He beamed out an even larger smile than before, raising his hands which displayed long, flowing, dark pieces of fabric that attached to the rest of his form. His right eye erupted in a deep purple, fiery glow, a veil upon his head. He looked...wickedly beautiful. Vil's hands raised as his eyes widened, the sheer power that was now coming off of him in waves utterly taking your breath away. "I WANT WHAT I DESERVE! I WANT TO RULE THE WORLD! SIT BACK AND WATCH THEM LEARN! IT'S FINALLY MY TURN!" Suddenly, the whipping of a carpet's tassels in the wind combated with a shouting voice cut through the air- it was Jamil! "EVERYONE, QUICKLY, HOP ON!" Kalim's gaze lit up at his Vice Dorm Head, and he did not hesitate to get on. Rook followed, then Grim. Right when you were about to join- a hand with sharp, claw-like nails curled around your top and yanked you back a bit. Vil made extra careful care with you to ensure that you did not puncture yourself upon the oddly sharp, jagged knive-like belt around his waist. The others began to cry out to you, but you soon locked eyes with Jamil. The boy stiffened, taking heed in your current gaze...and he understood. He was quick to get the flying carpet out of there. You were far more cunning than you looked. You could handle this. Vil seemed to laugh in his triumph, now allowing his hands to trail down your waist and watch the group go... they could wait. "If they want a villain for a queen...I'm gonna be one like they've never seen. I'll SHOW THEM WHAT IT MEANS! HAHA! Now that I am that! I shall be the ruler of the dark and the bad…'cause the devil's on my shoulder where the angels used to be...and he's calling me~" Vil pulled you even closer to him, gently arching your back a bit so that you would not injure yourself upon the belt on his form. He began to trail kisses along your neck in a sickly sweet manner, taking his prize for his wickedness. He chuckled at the feeling of your soft skin against his lips, keeping the motions up. Soon, Vil gently pulled away and spun you around to face him. You felt as though you could shrink under that gaze. "The Queen of Mean….the Queen of Mean…..I WANT WHAT I DESERVE!" Vil's lips suddenly smashed upon your own as he yanked you closer to him. Right as he did so, a crackle of lightning seemed to rumble and shake the grounds of the very stadium, a sudden burst of that mist shooting out past the two of you. Your eyes widened as he kissed your lips, his lips irresistibly smooth, soft, and plump. And funny enough...his lips tasted like apples. Perhaps this was his own, personal poison...the loving curse of a wicked, beautiful queen of mean.

((Hello hello, my lovely Readers! The day has finally arrived, as this fanfiction has! Rook, Kalim, Neige, and Vil were honestly a welcome surprise to write for! I hope everyone enjoyed this, and I shall see you in the next one~ <3

[anyoneseenadam]

Hii

Can you please write something for fenrys? first meeting maybe? And the bond clicks? Thank you 🥺🥺

pairing: Fenrys x reader (throne of glass)

warnings: implied smut, kissing and nudity, lil bit of blood and injuries but mainly pure fluff

a/n: fenrys is my fave and u can tell in the fic omg!! i hope you enjoy it cause it’s probs my fave one i’ve written yet :))) (i also made it a teensy bit ddlg but that’s just cause i want Fenrys to baby me lol)

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Shit

Fenrys pressed his hand to the wound in his side, feeling the slow pump of blood seeping between his fingers as he stumbled through the woods. He had won the fight. The other guy now lying in the dirt, however not without consequence. And he wasn’t entirely sure he would stay alive unless he could find a healer soon.

He stopped to lean against a tree, breathing heavily as he held himself together. He transformed into a wolf, moving faster, and trying to pick up a scent, any scent, that could possibly help him, when he caught the sweetest smell he ever had. It was a female, smelling like peonies and blackberries, sweet but with an underlying smoky smell. She smelled of long days in flowers fields and even longer nights beside campfires, evenings spent curled in hand woven blankets and mornings spent drinking dark coffee and eating sweet toast.

He whimpered and began running in the direction of the scent. If he wasn’t so focused on not bleeding out he may have stopped to consider why the scent was pulling him in the way it did. He would have considered the direction he was running into, the direction of his future, his past and his present. But he just kept up, going as fast as his injured body would allow, concentrating on the sweet smell and putting one foot in front of the other.

He felt the change almost immediately, the cold snow and rough bark being swapped for cool moss. The pine trees swapped for tall, oak trees teeming with life. The silence of a frozen forest swapped for the rustling of bushes as nocturnal animals moved silently under the guise of darkness. The chill of the snow-covered woods swapped for the warmth of a summer evening. He pushed between two bushes and found himself facing a clearing, in the middle of which stood a wooden cottage, the wood dark and the roof covered in more moss, flowers growing from every surface and ivy peeking out of the crevices in the house. He stumbled down the path to the cottage, turning back into a male and crossing a small bridge over a stream that separated him from the intoxicating scent he chased.

He let out what he could only describe as a bark, calling for the female that carried the scent he was growing addicted to, collapsing onto his knees, feeling his conscious fade as he held to the side of his stomach, searing pain replaced by fiery veins as his head swayed. He barely heard the door open, only noticing the scent get so much stronger. He attempted to look up, the movement making his head spin as he collapsed, the last thing he saw, a girl in the halo of the moon.

--

Fenrys awoke in a foreign bed. An unbelievably comfortable bed, but foreign all the same. He pushed up on his forearms, gritting his teeth at the reminder of his wound.

The room he was in was dark, not just in light source, but also in décor. The window was cracked open with lacy curtains half closed, there was a tall bookshelf sat next to a desk with leather-bound books lining it, and tall candles flickering and casting the room in a golden glow. The bed he was in was small, clearly just for one, but so soft. He had blankets surrounding him and copious amounts of pillows, some that appeared hand made. In fact, upon closer inspection, a lot of the room looked handmade. Art covering the walls depicting crying women or bloody scenes that he presumed had been done by the owner of this house, given the pallet and assortment of brushed he saw on the windowsill.

And then there was that scent. It was stronger here and he pressed his face into a pillow tentatively, breathing in through his nose as he picked up on the deeper undertones. Fresh picked daisies, melted wax, the pages of old, worn books and something he couldn’t describe. Something so intoxicating he felt tears spring to his eyes, his body reacting in an unheard-of way, so overcome with emotion from scent alone.

He heard footsteps approaching the closed door and hastily put down the pillow, sitting up straight and readying himself to fight whoever it was if they were an intruder. But when you entered he faltered.

Mate. The word clanged through him as he came face to face with an angel. You were wearing a dark brown broderie dress with white hearts lining the hem, your feet bare and toenails painted black. Your hair was falling around your face, messy and untamed, and you had dark smudges around your eyes, makeup that accentuated your features and made you look like a character from the scary books he read as a boy. However right now you looked more like a teddy bear.

He briefly remembered the tail of a witch he had read. An evil witch who lured men into her house with whispered words and sweet kisses, only to steal their hearts and use their blood to keep her skin young and eyes bright. This girl however was no witch, you had elegantly pointed ears and a graceful way of moving that only came from being Fae. He watched as you moved to his side, silent on your feet, putting a tray down beside him before moving an opening the curtains further, letting in more natural light.

“How are you feeling?” your sweet voice interrupted his thoughts. His mind coming to a halt as he heard you speak.

“I- er fine..?” His voice was rough, and you smiled, a reserved smile. Moving to his side and sitting at the edge of the small bed he was on, pouring him a glass of water from a small decanter you had brought through.

“(Y/n.)” you answered his unspoken question.

“Fenrys.”

He muttered a thanks as you passed the glass to him, noting the crystals that hung around your neck and adorned your fingers.

“Crystals?” he asked, and you looked down, playing with the rings you wore nervously.

“My mother taught me about their meanings, they’ve always helped me.” You bit your lip and Fenrys decided he would never meet anyone as cute as you again, it simply wasn’t possible.

“Me too, my mother used to carry them everywhere.” You smiled at him shyly, a beat of silence passing between the two of you as he listened to the birds outside.

“Can I see your wound? I want it make sure it’s healing properly.” You asked and he nodded, pulling the blankets down slightly, grinning as your eyes widened as you took in his physique.

“I’m presuming you’re the healer I have to thank for letting me see another day.” He flirted playfully but you shook your head,

“I’m not a very good healer I’m sorry, but I did stitch it up and it should do the rest itself.” You pressed gentle fingers against the skin surrounding his wound and he glanced down, seeing it was already practically healed.

“You still saved my life.” He said, completely serious and you looked up at him with wide, innocent eyes.

“I’ll let you rest.” You said quietly, standing to walk away and he smiled, feeling more at ease than he ever had since the war, watching his little mate leave.

--

He woke up again a few hours later, wound completely healed and puckering into a scar. Standing he stretched his arms above his head, not bothering with a shirt as he left the room in search of the girl that had occupied his dreams.

The rest of the house was alike your room, tall candles and worn books everywhere. He passed a kitchen filled with copper utensils and a living room with an old armchair, a half-filled mug left next to it, but still no you. He saw the front door was cracked open and wandered over to it, pulling it open and stepping into the fresh air, barely feeling the chill on his body as he found you kneeling on the moss-covered ground facing away from him.

You were muttering under your breath and as he got closer he saw you were cradling a small bird with a broken wing. He watched as you closed your eyes, the ground and air seeming to still as you called upon your magic, a soft white light flowing from your hand into the bird until its wing was healed and it could flutter away.

“I thought you said you weren’t a healer,” he broke the silence and you turned to him with a small smile.

“I said I wasn’t a very good healer.” You replied, standing with green stained knees, your hair now piled atop your head and lip gloss coating your soft lips.

“What are you then?” he came closer to you, unable to resist holding his mate, even if you weren’t aware yet.

“My mother said we were natural faeries.” You said, looking at him shyly, “we derive our power from the earth, crystals, sea water, dirt, fire, stuff like that.”

He hummed, “So technically you could have any type of magic?”

“I guess, but I’m not very good at magic,” you muttered, hands fiddling with your rings again as he wrapped his arms around your waist. “Fenrys?” you asked, all pouty lips and wide eyes.

“Have you realised yet darling?” he asked, and you bit your lip. He knew he could tell you, but he wanted to hear you say it.

“I- we’re mates I think.” You were practically shaking, and he didn’t know why he suddenly had this burning desire to scoop you into his arms and protect you against the horrible world that was out there. He nodded with a smile, watching as awe took over your stunning face.

“Can I kiss you princess?” he asked, and you felt your face heat up, looking down as he pulled you closer. “Have you ever been kissed before angel?” he asked, his face hurting from the grin that was spreading over his face when you shook your head.

He tilted your head up to his, looking deeply into your eyes as your breaths came out quicker. “Not many people can find our cottage, my mother put up wards when she got ill, our family wasn’t well liked by the king. You probably only got here because we’re mates,” You muttered.

“Can I kiss you?” he asked again, running a soft hand over your head, smoothing your hair away from your face as you nodded sweetly.

He smiled before leaning down and kissing you gently. Pulling away and feeling as smug as a thief when your lips followed his, pouting at the loss of contact so quickly. He chuckled at your put out expression and leaned down to kiss you again, deeper this time, his tongue slipping into your mouth when you gasped against his lips, quickly beating your own in a battle for dominance and taking his time exploring your mouth.

He laid you down that morning and took you for the first time in the soft moss. Then again in your even softer bed. Now you were sitting in his lap, eating strawberries of a bush you had in your back garden as he pressed dizzying kisses into your neck, both of you still as bare as the day you were born, Fenrys having forgot how much he missed skin to skin contact, when you suddenly remembered.

“Fenrys?” he hummed in response, completely enamoured with the feel of your soft skin against his rough calluses. “Why were you hurt last night?”

“I didn’t tell you my job did I angel?” he asked, the pet name making you giggle as you shook your head, “I work for the queen of Terrasen.”

You gasped, “But she was killed!”

“Oh angel, when was the last time you left this cottage?” he asked, worry coming over him as he realised you had been holed up alone for so long.

“Not since my mother died. She said the king was dangerous and that he would hurt me if he found me,” your bottom lip was wobbling and Fenrys quickly kissed it away, shushing you as it dawned on him just how innocent his little girl was.

“No baby, he’s gone now, the new king of Adarlan is a very kind man and the Queen of Terrasen is wonderful,” he promised, “Will you let me take you to meet them?”

You nodded enthusiastically, bouncing slightly in his lap making him groan. He nipped at your ear lobe and you squealed as he pushed you down. You could meet them another day, today he was too busy with his little mate.