#// also for the vampire verse .... i know it doesn't work /exactly/ like that but i just decided to say fuck it and take creative liberties

[finalslay]

arthur morgan alternate verses.

vampire. after  an  encounter  with  a  vampire  on  the  streets  of  saint  denis,  arthur  does  not  escape  unscathed. its fangs sink into his arm, and during the struggle, the creature's own blood ends up in his mouth.  unbeknownst to arthur at the time, this in turn sets off a chain of events that he is not remotely prepared for. when his own death occurs, arthur wakes up, but not without changes. an adversion to sunlight ... enhanced senses ... and a thirst, deep and insatiable.

fantasy. the  van  der  linde  gang  steals  from  the  rich  and  gives  to  the  poor,  up  until  the  point  where  their  leader  starts  getting  delusions  of  grandeur.  the  money  starts  being  kept  for  themselves,  the  gang  setting  up  a  base  in  a  crumbling  manor  —  their  reputation  grows,  the  crimes  becoming  more  frequent,  and  the  stories  begin  to  spread  about  how  it  dangerous  it  is  to  travel  the  forest  of  blackwater,  lest  you  be  ambushed  by  the  outlaws. modern. arthur  is  a  bartender  and  a  bouncer  at  a  shady  bar  called  dutch's.  it's  full  of  sin  and  debauchery  ;  the  owner  swindles  most  of  his  customers  at  the  poker  tables,  and  when  they  refuse  to  pay  up?  it  is  arthur's  job  to  get  them  to  hand  it  over.  he's  tired  of  it,  tired  of  the  constant  violence,  but  he  owes  dutch  van  der  linde  so  much.  he  cannot  just  up  and  leave  so  easily,  can  he?

the last of us. follows  the  backstory  of  modern  verse,  but  when  the  cordyceps outbreak  happens  and  everything  falls  apart,  dutch,  arthur,  and  the  others  who  work  for  him  all  form  a  group  of  their  own.  after  their  smuggling  ring  inside  their  quarantine  zone  is discovered,  they  go  outside  the  zone  and  become  hunters,  ambushing  people  on  their  travels  outside  of  the  zones  and  stealing  their  supplies.

star wars. follows  the  canon  storyline  /  backstory,  except  in  a  star  wars  setting.  the  van  der  linde  gang  still  exists,  outlaws  with  a  hefty  bounty  on  each  of  their  heads  after  a  job  gone  wrong.  on  the  run  from  the  empire's  bounty,  the  gang  primarily  sends  their  strongest  member  out  to  earn  them  credits  —  a  mandalorian  by  the  name  of  arthur  morgan,  one  who's  been  with  them  ever  since  his  father's  death  when  he  was  a  child. - inspired by this art.

borderlands. loyalty  is  a  fatal  flaw,  as  is  shown  by  arthur  morgan's  dedication  to  handsome  jack.  employed  as  a  personal  guard  and  soldier,  the  man  is  devoted  and  loyal  to  the  president  of  hyperion,  even  though  he  doesn't  agree  with  jack's  practices  on  pandora.  after  jack's  downfall,  he  ends  up  drifting  across  different  planets,  taking  jobs  wherever  he  can  for  a  quick  dollar. - heavily affiliated with @auroradicit's jack. i may make an alternate one as well, where he’s a vault hunter.

resident evil. a  mercenary  working  for  the  ubcs,  arthur  is  unaware  of  the  deep  corruption  that  umbrella  holds  —  and  it's  not  until  the  raccoon  city  outbreak  that  he  learns  of  the  truth.  after  managing  to  escape  the  city  before  its  destruction,  he  goes mostly  off  the  grid,  taking  odd  jobs  here  and  there  as  a  contracted  soldier,  before  eventually  joining  the  bsaa's  task  force.    

[olderthannetfic]

Sending this to you specifically because I feel like you're the only normal brained person about this series.

I read Captive Prince a couple of years ago and liked it fine, as someone who doesn't have a strong preference for or against m/m and therefore isn't well-versed enough in its clichés to notice whether it reads like something full of cliché fanfic tropes. I really liked the use of language, some of the historical/political stuff, some of the ways that the characters are made complicated or unreliable.

The problem is, I've since coincidentally read most of the books that were Pacat's inspiration and. Well. Like 80-90% of the stuff in there has direct parallels in one of those. I'm not sure if there are more than three original thoughts in there.

I am not joking, if you read 1. The Lymond Chronicles and House of Niccolò by Dorothy Dunnett; 2. The Nightrunner series by Lynn Flewelling and 3. The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice, you will find that some of the scenes were ripped off beat for beat, many jokes were taken and just lazily reworded, a lot of the character beats and arcs are at best a mashup of 2 or maximum 3 things from those books with the serial numbers filed off really poorly. There's a scene where some characters discover a suicide victim whose structure and descriptions are completely ripped off from another series, except Pacat fails to see what made the original scene so impactful. A lot of the pretty use of language is also directly copied from those, including some really really specific descriptors. It's so blatant!

And I don't see how people are okay with this! I know people who are fans of several of these works and they're totally cool with it! And honestly if it were some rando's unpublished original project I'd be cool with it too, but as a published beloved worldwide phenomenon with rabid fans? C'mon.

And another thing is, all of the other series mentioned above are balls to the wall insane. She just... she just made it bland. She took off most of the edge and reshuffled the elements into a fairly straightforward MLM love story with some light kink thrown in. It's not a BAD series, but I feel like I'm disappointed that someone read all my favourite books and THAT was their takeaway?

--

I started reading, got to the name of the series and burst out laughing.

And, wow, you brought up something totally new that I hadn't thought about! I'm impressed. Genuinely. Usually, I rant about all the reasons I hate the series while debunking the standard anti talking points.

--

I've read the Vampire Chronicles, but that was in the 90s and I read Captive Prince in like 2016 or after. I had zero recollection of common points. I haven't read The Lymond Chronicles despite years of hurt/comfort fans bugging me to do so, and I think I got like a chapter into the Nightrunner series before getting distracted...

The reason I found Captive Prince annoying and derivative is that it also reads exactly like the original m/m that was available when it was first being written, most notably the work of P.L. Nunn who was extremely famous for horny fan art but who also wrote some original m/m fantasy novels. The scene where they finally bone reminds me heavily of the one from... uh... what's the P.L. Nunn one where the prince creeps on that archer dude and he gets raped because of course and then the prince has to be ~patient~ and it's peak boring 2000s rape recovery tropes?

The rape backstory is not only lifted from Fushigi Yuugi (the author's fandom at the time) but is shared with basically 100% of original m/m from that era. It's sometimes the uncle, sometimes the stepfather. One single time that I can think of, it was the foster brother, but mostly it's that "funny uncle" type. Unless it's gang rape from a bad Gundam Wing fic. That was also everywhere.

Once somebody told me the author had previously shipped Tamahome/Nakago, I realized that they'd taken what would be a kind of unusual anime ship and made it a thousand times more boring by dumbing down the scary, tall general with the tragic backstory into an uke-appropriate waif.

So I guess what I'm saying is that there may be some inspiration you aren't familiar with, but it's the same story as what you said above: this is the blander remix.

--

As for why people are okay with this... honestly, most of the people who really adore the series whom I've talked to point to how it encapsulates the exact tropes and tone they loved in anime fic circa 2000.

As a fellow weeb, I loathed the tone of said anime fic circa 2000 and could not wait for tastes to change, so Captive Prince is a hideous blast from an unlamented past for me.

I think most people who love the series aren't familiar with its inspirations. Those that are may have consumed them quite a while ago and don't realize quite how direct the parallels are. Or, for the inspirations that aren't overtly canon m/m, the lure of it being Exactly Right may overshadow other things.

(They also mostly haven't read 90s fantasy doorstops that actually contain political intrigue, tactics and strategy. Captive Prince is a piss poor entry into this genre and should be recced for m/m, not this other stuff people constantly think is in there. None of these characters can reason their way out of a paper bag.)

More than any of that, there's a lot of love left over from when the series was a serialized original story on Livejournal in an era when we had vanishingly few original m/m works, especially long ones in a fantasy alternate world.

I think that is what gets it a pass when a new m/m novel presented as "m/m romance" or posted on one of the webnovel sites would be mocked for unoriginality. Many Captive Prince fans aren't (or weren't when they read it) all that familiar with the smorgasbord of original m/m available today. Many are unfamiliar with anime fanfic circa 2000, so this feels adjacent to the fic they've read but a little fresher... instead of like the week-old sardine tin I found it to be.

[goldeneyedgirl]

okay so since you asked here goes my main questions about Deaf Mary Alice: how was her relationship with Maria? Was she softer with her or tried to protect her in any way? Or did Jasper tried to protect Mary Alice from her? Also, was she and Charlotte and Peter friends? Did they talk to her like Jasper did?

And for what you said about Jasper not knowing how to act with her, since when I read the first snippet, I pictured him trying hard to be gentle (maybe because he had this misogynistic 19th century idea that she was a poor fragile little deaf girl) but really he doesn't know how to do that. It's like a baby monkey trying to solve a complex math problem. What I got from your last snippet (which I loved so much btw!!!) is that he didn't know if she would survive anywhere else.

But this is only my nonsese. I hope I got it right and I'd be the happiest with whatever you come up with because, again, this verse just touches my heart in a way I can't even explain, it's crazy the power that fanfiction holds

Oh I LOVE questions like these. Buckle up, I decided to ramble.

Maria

Maria's a complicated figure in Mary-Alice's life. Initially, she's tolerant of Mary-Alice - what's the point of killing her on the spot when she could be sent into battle as canon fodder? Free newborn without three days of screaming? Maria isn't going to say no.

Maria's been around a long time and she's seen vampires adapt to almost any circumstance. A deaf vampire is a new flavour, but not an insurmountable one.

So when Mary-Alice not only learns to fight with the other newborns, but makes her through her first few battles in one piece, Maria is suitably taken with her. She's completely useless for scouting, and not particularly helpful with hunting for the army, but she's a powerhouse on the battlefield, and a quick study at battle plans. Maria definitely suspects there might be some kind of gift at work.

But also on that side of the coin is that Maria accepted Mary-Alice into the army, and kept her after the newborn year. That's effectively claiming Mary-Alice as one of her own creations, which is about as affectionate as Maria gets towards her soldiers.

And Maria has a hard time dealing with Mary-Alice's positivity. She's so clearly pleased to be amongst them, and is loyal to them, that being nasty or violent towards her is kind of futile. It makes more sense when Mary-Alice can communicate enough to explain that she has no memories of her life or change. Maria might have an ounce more patience with Mary-Alice than hearing vampires, and she ends up carrying a flashlight to get Mary-Alice's attention urgently in battle situations, but that's about the most grace she gives her until Jasper leaves.

That's when Maria kind of promotes her, gives her more privileges, because she knows exactly how much of Mary-Alice's life relied on Jasper translating for her. It gets harder, the more time goes on, because Maria does not have the inclination to teach anything more than basic commands in sign language to newborns once a year, and the newborns often aren't interested.

Ultimately, Maria lets Mary-Alice leave for various reasons: officially, she's become a liability because no one can communicate with her effectively, and deserves a reward for her staunch loyalty to Maria's cause. Kind of a PR stunt with the rest of Maria's soldiers.

Unofficially, Maria realises that she's made mistakes in the past with her people, and she's learned from that. It would be nice if one of her people left the army considering Maria a friend and ally. It's also a gesture of peace and goodwill to Jasper - Maria took care of Mary-Alice, the person that Jasper prized most in the army. Now that he's healed and in a place Maria deems acceptable, Mary-Alice is following him.

Does that make sense? I hope so.

Peter & Charlotte.

Both Peter and Charlotte can speak to Mary-Alice, not as fluently as Maria, but Jasper really is the only person who can converse with Mary-Alice without her having to resort to lip-reading at some point. Peter is far more fluent than Charlotte.

Peter has a far better relationship with this version of Mary-Alice. She follows Jasper around like a puppy, and Jasper's somehow both embarrassed and kind of flattered by it. Most of the newborns were too frightened of the Major to hit on him, and here's Mary-Alice just trotting along at his side.

Peter and Mary-Alice joke with each other a lot, tease each other a lot, and competed a lot in training. The most you could say is that Mary-Alice was pissed that Peter picked a fight with Jasper the night he and Charlotte left because if Peter had used his damn words, Jasper probably would have let them go.

Peter's the first one to realise that Jasper's caught feelings when they're figuring out sign language, and he kind of just leaves it alone - but he definitely works double-time in battles to make sure Mary-Alice stays alive, and protects her from other newborns that see her as an easy target.

Charlotte doesn't get as much time with Mary-Alice, but sees her as some kind of magic - she caught Jasper and Mary-Alice together in her newborn year, and the way he went all soft and kind when she spoke to him. And then it's Mary-Alice who tells Peter that he needs to take Charlotte and go North as soon as possible. It's Mary-Alice who intercepts the fight between Jasper and Peter when they do try to leave.

Peter is the one that asks Maria if they can take Mary-Alice to Jasper. He's willing to negotiate, and he's kind of surprised that Maria agrees as easily as she does. Kind of a full-circle 'she got them out safe, so they returned the favour'.

If something were to happen to Jasper, Peter would insist that Mary-Alice leave the Cullens and join him and Charlotte. (That's not a spoiler; just kind of the dynamic Peter has with Mary-Alice.)

Jasper.

Jasper was exactly like a monkey trying to do algebra. Not once since he was changed did he have to be gentle. Everyone was terrified of him aside from Peter and Maria. By 1919, the only time he touches anyone is to destroy them. And he's so, so tired.

And Mary-Alice just looks at him and smiles. There is immediate trust there, and he has no idea what to do with that. He's doubtful Maria will even let her live if she can't hear. But Maria does, and he's put in charge of communicating with her. Suddenly, he's spending hours with this girl who has no fear of him. Who will grab him to point at something, whose face lights up when he returns from boundary runs. And the only thing he feels like he can offer her is to build her a language and train her to fight like the devil. The first scar she ever gets from a bite, she literally laughs and tells him they match now.

She forces him to remember how to be a man and not just an executioner, and it's hard. He does everything he can not to care but he does so, so much.

Jasper leaves her behind for two reasons; one is the depression. He's holding on by the skin of his teeth. He's barely making it through battles himself, he cannot protect her any longer. And then there's the fact that the North is a total unknown. Maria has always doubled-down on the idea that it's worse than the South, that it's a full death wish to leave Texas. He always thought Peter and Charlotte were destroyed when they left. But when Peter comes back, he's willing to take the chance on Peter's promises that it's safer and better - but only for himself.

The idea he could take Mary-Alice with him and get her killed, or have her harmed in any way, made him sick. He had no idea what he was running to, so he was going to leave the one person he loved best with Maria, the one person who knew how to survive no matter what. And he made this decision in about a minute, because Peter was begging him to just run.

The only thing Jasper ever really wanted was to keep the girl that looked at him like he was everything she ever hoped for safe, even if that meant he had to leave her behind.

Anon, I run with every little thing. You can just hit me with a question and I will get out my diagrams and pinboards and all my notes. I love getting into the details so much.

And I am genuinely touched that this little riff has had such an impact on you. I love trying out new stuff, especially things that make Twilight a little bit more diverse and nuanced than canon. Trust me when I say a lot of my weird little snippets and verses wouldn't continue without people who were invested in them <3

[r3dblccd]

character info sheet.

Tagged by: @mxldito

Tagging: @dozenrozez, @frxgmcnts, @formorethananame, @mournus, @luneblush, @temporalobjects

name.

Seol Yongsun

name meaning.

Eternal, goodness, dragon. Ironically enough, he's anything but that, he's far from having the characteristics of a dragon like being wise, just or serene. In a sense, he is strong for overcoming all the things the things that had hit him like a truck, but he sees himself as more pathetic than anything else. He also considers himself rather selfish, although anyone who knows him well enough knows that's not true despite all his flaws.

alias( ses ).

Leo (used only at his work space), also a certified catboy

two pictures you like of your character.

I cheated, you get 3

three headcanons you never told anyone.

Every once in a while Yongsun walks down usually abandoned train tracks as the sun sets. For some reason the setting reminds him of something, but he can't quite make out of what exactly. But nevertheless he remembers or not, he still finds the quiet in places like this nice.

He tries to keep his relationships with his clients purely professional, but there were a few instances where he actually dated some of them.

And here's my time to write the big plot twist where he actually's killed someone in his main verse! Jk, jk, he hasn't killed anyone in that verse... Yet, who knows what would happen in the future lol. But on a more serious note, Yongsun still dwells on the past from time to time, about whether or not he actually wants to remember parts of it one day, and whether if anything differently would have changed something (I know, very hypocritical for someone who always to not look back and to not give a single fuck in the world, but we're talking about the king of the hypocrites out of all my muses here).

three things your character likes to do in their free time.

Sleep, eat and repeat, baby! He also enjoys going to parties and leaving them with the first attractive person he finds or whatever.

three people your character loves.

Evan (@frxgmcnts)! Does that even need an explanation?! He's easily one of the first and most prominent people who saw through him and instead of leaving when he started pushing him away out of fear, insecurity and overall feeling overwhelmed, Evan did not budge and brought him back to reality. And Yongsun is well aware that he's quite handful, but he set his mind on making it worth it,

Scarlet, Zander, Fenris, Wolf and Seb (@dozenrozez) (yes, I know that going over the limit of 3 people he loves, I don't care). Obviously I had to add here the megaship with them and Nini's Evan & Sunny. Let's just say that it never gets old in their house lol He's genuinely happy to be there and be a little menace.

Coyote. He's giving a shout out to them and sends the most annoying air kiss possible.

I'm cheating again, can't you tell. Rowan (@formorethananame). That's his baby in his vampire verse and he would not think twice to kill someone if they hurt him. Both of them have been through a lot and have some touchpoints that they could relate to each other. He couldn't have imagined to be able to open up to someone as much as he did to Rowan, but him coming into his life was enough proof that it wasn't impossible and that he could trust him.

Talking about his vampire verse and that I'm already breaking the rules, shout out to Seth (@mournus). Sorry about Yongsun giving him headaches, it will happen again jbvfhfghj

two things your character regrets.

Pushing so many people he cared about away. He says that it's better this way, that it is what it is. But deep down he knows that, no, it isn't 'it is what it is' at all. But his belief that he's not worthy of love (be it platonic or romantic) and that there are much better than him, people who would ruin those people's lives and make them feel miserable (a lie in reality, but a truth in his mind) so those thoughts just keep clashing together.

Often he would say he doesn't regret anything, but including point one, he also regrets biting his tongue one too many times. He come across a lot of people who he couldn't stand at all and would have loved to tell them off, but he didn't during that time to preserve himself. Why did he have to be such a coward?

three phobia's your character has.

fear of abandonment (the hypocrisy alarm is ringing 24/7)

fear of intimacy

fear of the dark

[sergeantpixie]

is new constellations named after the rynn weaver song??? that one pls if so, i love that song!

Yes it is! I also love that song tbh. It is a Dean x Elena story, but with a healthy helping of Caroline x Elena and eventually Klaus x Elena as well. I don't even know if I can sum this one up, it came together as a collision of many many vibes so maybe I'll just list off some of those:

At this point in my life it was exactly a 10 minute walk to the bus stop to commute to work so you Know I was listening to All Too Well (10 Minute Version) pretty much every day, and in particular the line "just between us did the love affair maim you too?" vibed hard for what this verse became

for some reason New Constellations' outro and the continuous repetition of "what if there's more?" has always brought to mind a woman giving birth, I can't explain it, but that's just the association for me.

How would Elena's life had gone if Stefan and Damon never entered it?

How would knowing the Winchesters for most of her life change her?

How would Klaus react to finding his doppelganger if she was pregnant?

How would Dean handle Jessica's death if he was in a serious relationship when Sam lost her in the same way they lost their mother?

What exactly does it mean to be from a bloodline of women who all seem cursed to terrible fates? Does sharing a face make them a sisterhood even if their fates are different kinds of terrible?

What would Elena's life look like if she had a relationship with Isobel and also Katherine?

What would Alaric's life look like if his reason for becoming a vampire hunter died before he found him?

All of these questions and more I attempt to answer in New Constellations, coming to you idk maybe next lifetime if the way Addendum is progressing doesn't change anytime soon.

And just as he stumbles across the first inkling that she might not stay a sweet little girl forever; Elena Gilbert finds herself, for the first time, dreaming of someone other than Dean Winchester. Instead of his teasing green eyes, easy grin, and beat-up old brown leather jacket, there's her familiar blue eyes, cherubic grin, and that shining green satin dress.

@randomestfandoms

[troublewithvampires]

@onopoeia said: 26 , 27 , 28 !

(romance headcanons - open)

//once again placing these under a cut b/c i cannot be concise to save my fucking life!!

is your muse more likely to be loud and proud about being in a relationship, or are they more quiet about it at first and open up about it over time?

this definitely depends, but overall i'd say sal likes to keep things on the down-low. he likes to be open about when someone is *his* and he can certainly be very possessive, but he doesn't like to make a huge deal about it. generally, his approach is pretty lowkey but definitely not trying to hide the fact that he's with someone. he won't scream it from the rooftops, but if asked directly he'll be honest and upfront about being in a relationship.

this is especially true in regards to relationships with men--even in verses where sal has worked through his internalized homophobia and trauma enough to have a healthy relationship with another man, sal still prefers to keep things quiet most of the time. again, not *hiding* it, but not exactly advertising it either. sal doesn't really think it's anyone's business.

buuuut like i said, he does like to be open about when someone is *his* and can be very possessive. he doesn't think random strangers deserve the details of his relationships, but he *does* want people to know that his partner(s) are his and that he's theirs. he's big on that kind of thing.

is your muse more confident or shy when it comes to approaching someone they like?

post-vampirism, sal is a bit more shy than he used to be! in the past, it definitely depended on the exact circumstances, but salvatore was certainly very bold with approaching people he was interested in (especially women, and especially women he was purely interested in sexually). however, since this is a headcanons meme about romance, i'll ignore that bit and go back to romance.

when it comes to romance, sal has always been a bit more reserved and a bit less likely to approach people. part of this comes down to him being on the aromantic spectrum--he doesn't experience romantic attraction frequently and easily, and when he *does* experience it he usually doesn't really *do* much of anything about it. however, this means that when he *does* actually do something about it, it's usually something he's put a lot of thought into and thus he's pretty bold about it.

with both of the romances sal had pre-vampirism, he made the first move. even with bruno, who he had to keep things on the down-low with, sal was the one who approached him first and actually asked him out.

post-vampirism is different though, and for the sake of ease i'll just use jason/billy (calling him billy here) for reference. billy and sal were very close for a while before anything actually romantic happened between them, for a lot of reasons. sal was still dealing with the internalized homophobia he struggles with as a result of his upbringing and trauma, and he also just. didn't want to potentially ruin his relationship with the one person he could trust at that point.

sal was still the one who made the first move, though; he kissed jason impulsively one night while the two were spending some time together. and immediately after that, he fucking panicked and tried to leave, very quickly backing down and shying away from billy. eventually, billy was able to coax him into talking to him again, but still any boldness sal felt quickly vanished and he just. kinda tried to hide.

so. wow that was a long-winded-ass answer, jesus- short summary: sal is generally more bold and sometimes even impulsive when he acts on romantic attraction to someone, but he's definitely a *lot* shyer than he used to be in many ways, especially with men.

would it bother your muse if they had differing interests from their partner(s), or would they delight in it?

i don't think it'd bother him tbh!!! i think sal would *love* to be able to share his interests with his partner(s), but he also enjoys seeing them enjoy whatever it is that makes them happy, even if it's not something he really understands (and even if he probably teases them about it sometimes lol). he also would genuinely try to engage in it with them to see what they like about it for himself, or just to make them happy.

(example: billy's love for the original mario games on the NES. sal doesn't really understand the appeal, but he'll still play with billy sometimes. he does suck at it tho LMAO so after a while he gives up and just watches billy play.)

as for his own interests, sal does *want* partner(s) who take an interest in what he enjoys as well, be it swing dancing or stargazing, but it's not a requirement. as long as you're not actively shutting him down, having the same interests isn't something that's particularly important to him.

[newfngs]

i feel like writing up some thoughts about michael's two separate vampire verses I've got going on.......

v; THOU SHALL NOT KILL This is the 'main' verse I write in when I talk about vampire Michael. Within it, the Lost Boys have been killed (as far as Michael is aware) and so has Max, but the sheer act of killing something and choosing to kill, esp while already 'vamped out' was enough to make the transformation complete. Which... you know, worst case scenario. Michael doesn't change back from being a vampire, he's no longer human. The Frog Brothers, of course, immediately try to say they need to kill Michael too, but the reaction from Sam and Lucy and (probably) Star would turn them off from that idea. It's still Michael, after all, it's not like he changed. Not really. Michael doesn't immediately get staked, but he's still a vampire. And that doesn't sit well with him. Due to the house being absolutely demolished after Paul exploded in the pipes, grandpa drove a car into the wall, and various other damages, I have to imagine Grandpa, Lucy, and Sam probably don't stay in that house for awhile while it gets fixed up, meaning it's completely empty for Michael to use to sleep in during the day. Vampires don't wake up for anything either, so repairs can be done during the day while he's asleep. At night, Michael does his own share of the work and occasionally takes long, lonesome drives. He doesn't go to the boardwalk anymore. But Michael knows this can't last. He can't sit at home and pretend everything is okay. If Michael is still with Star at this point in time, he sorta... puts a pause on it. He can't handle the idea of romance right now, especially when his entire future has just been broken apart and he needs to rebuild it. Michael plans to move out of the family's house since he doesn't trust himself to be around them, though he doesn't exactly know how to break the news to his mother or Sam. He also doesn't think the Frog brothers are too keen on letting a vampire walk free. Michael only feeds on animal blood, either getting it from animals he catches or when he manages to buy some from a butcher's shop. Due to it not being human blood, however, Michael ends up need more of it than he would if he attacked humans, nor does it taste as good.

v; ONE OF US

This is a secondary vampire verse. When David and the other Lost Boys attacked the surfers on the beach, Michael was unable to resist his blood lust and charged into the fray, tearing through the first human being he managed to get his fangs into. It was only when he heard the Lost Boys talking to him did Michael realize what he did and was so full of horror and disgust for himself he literally ran from the scene. He didn't run home, didn't run to the hideout, he gunned his bike until it was nearly dawn. Michael felt sick, horrified, disappointed, angry. He hated himself for what he did, hated that a part of him enjoyed the taste, enjoyed the power. Michael doesn't return home in this version, completely unable to face his family and in a sense turns into a 'runaway'. He doesn't return to the Lost Boys of his own accord either, though he'd be easy enough to track down. Michael struggles with feeding in this, still attempting to feed off animals. But the taste of human blood and the thrill of his first kill sits in the back of his head. It makes itself hard to ignore.

[zalrb]

Hope you're doing good Zal. I have two questions which you've covered in the masterlist but id like a bit of clarification on if possible. My first is on how ppl critique Stefan for wanting to meet Elena and inserting himself into her life. I think I kind of see merit to saying that it was wrong of him to pursue her. I think most people conflate him following her out of necessity to ascertain her identity with him consciously deciding to meet her but I can't exactly say that it's right that he didn't complete his mission and leave.

The second is on Stefan's ripperism, specifically his games/sadism. You've covered how [most of] what makes damon reprehensible is the fact that his penchant for sexual violence and mistreatment isn't inherent to vampires, and I completely understand with you covering petit morte and vampire aesthetics that Stefan's erotic elements are more genre convention than anything, but looking at it in a vacuum as ppl so often do, couldn't their arguements that bc Stefan's games and sadism are unique to him and not present in all vampires mean that he's also a predator when he resigns himself to being a ripper, have merit to them?

Hope you get this and thanks for reading it.

To be quite frank I don't think either points really need clarification from what I've said in my master list, this really seems like arguing just to argue especially because I think it's a bit ridiculous to look at things in a vacuum and not within context, that's, like, my entire thing and one of my major complaints about fandom discourse, which is why I don't participate in it unless I get asks. But I don't know what you're trying to get at here.

"bc Stefan's games and sadism are unique to him and not present in all vampires mean that he's also a predator when he resigns himself to being a ripper, have merit to them?"

Who said he wasn't a predator? Of course, he's a predator, he describes himself as a predator

What I said was that Stefan, even through his sadistic games, was more interested in the death, in the kill, in the blood and enjoying that with another vampire, and Damon deals with a lot of things by weaponizing sex

which makes him a sexual predator whereas Stefan is not.

If you want to talk about sex and vampire aesthetic "in a vacuum", the vaccum being TVD, it's still prevalent in the verse, Caroline makes out with Liam before feeding from him, and not only that, it's the arousal that triggers her hunger

Vicki makes out with Jeremy and sucks on his lip, licks off his blood, before attacking him because again, the arousal triggers the hunger

which is said in the same episode

Even when that anon brought up how the women Stefan feeds from were in corsets when he first turns, it's clear that that's for aesthetic because his number one goal is:

whereas Isobel for instance, compels humans to do sexual acts for her own amusement

like she carts them around for her own enjoyment

she forces them to have sex for her own entertainment

and giddily implies that she rapes the gay cowboy

Stefan doesn't do this.

Damon also dances with the women he feeds from

which again, Stefan doesn't do

And my issue has always been that if Stefan was meant to be that kind of predator he would be given explicit scenes like Isobel’s or dialogue like Damon’s to indicate this because Julie and co didn’t think there was anything wrong with what they were portraying.

I’ve also spoken about the "vacuum" of TVD when it comes to female victims

I don't really know what else to say about that.

As for the rest of it, I mean ... if you feel like he should've left her alone then that's how you feel? I've explained in great detail, in multiple posts why it works for me and I just don't think there's anything to expand on because it's not my goal to change your mind about something. I think everything I think is laid out in great detail in this post, so.

It doesn't work for you, that's fine.

[rainbowroadonsteroids]

Theory About Brawl Stars (Very Longwinded)

I've been thinking about this for a little too long, and so far it's been bouncing around my head like a game of Pong. This will be longwinded, and even if it only reaches a few people, that's fine. I just want to get this out of my head and put it into text.

I've only been into Brawl Stars for maybe a year or so now, courtesy of Val/comet-wire showing me Mortis. (I like cryptic vampires okay?) But since then I've been a little more confused than anything about the game itself. Maybe too this'll just be me overthinking, but I don't care. I may not be fully versed in the entirety of the lore but I am enough to know something is realllyyyy fishy. (This also might be common knowledge and I'm under the belief I know something big lmfao.)

I feel a larger chunk of this theory also lies on bloodline theories within the game; you can tell that certain characters are related, but it's never really confirmed for a while after. An example of this could be Jessie and Pam being mother and daughter, or Leon and Nita being brother and sister. (And possibly Bo being their father.)

It's likely, though not confirmed, that Belle and Byron are brother and sister. The reason for this is just through their similarities: both are around the same age range (though that doesn't inherently mean much, but in-game the age range similarity sometimes means something), the similar hairstyles they have (both have some sort of slicked back style), both have a pink-glasses style motif, and both have some correlation to money, in Belle's case she's a gunslinger and thief, and Byron is a philanthropist and, in some sense, a thief as well. (MLMs.)

And I'm going to bring up an extended theory, regarding their kids. Belle is more easy to pick apart, as she and Sam are likely the parents of Colt. (Shown through Colt having the same hair color as Belle in one of her skins, and Colt having the same X on his chin as Sam, as well as having a similar hairstyle to the both of them, having that slicked back style plus the large sideburns.) Not to mention the fact that Belle Starr, who was likely the inspiration behind Belle, was married to a Cherokee man named Sam Starr.

As for Byron, there's the possibility he's the father of Edgar. My main reasoning for this is nothing more than they both have/had darker hair, as Edgar has a sort of bluish-black hair color, and Byron has salt and pepper hair. My other reasoning is because they were added so close together in-game, both being added during Brawlidays 2020. Byron was added as a part of the Town Trio, with Piper and Barley, while Edgar was added to the Gift Shop Trio, with Colette and Griff.

Okay, that was that. But, I have one more thing to say about that. I think Colette is Edgar's sister, and Byron's daughter. Now... okay saying this, is a bit risky, for one reason. I'm jeopardizing myself regardless. It's either I'm right, and a lot of people collapse over it, or I'm not right, and I will have to make a major change to this post. (Going to pin this in case that happens.) But why do I really say that? Yes, Edgar and Colette do look very similar, both having a hair swoop and kind of funky teen personalities, but there's another reason, and the main bedding for my theory.

I think Byron is more involved in Starr Park than he lets on.

Starr Park is the central area of Brawl Stars; a weird, cryptic, and sort of unnerving theme park. I'm sure a majority of us have seen the Starr Park promo videos, which showcase really peculiar things occurring in the park.

How exactly does that tie into Colette being related to Byron, and even Edgar being related to him? The simple idea that Byron may be one of Starr Parks primary investors, if not the current owner of the park. So, he's likely having his kids work there. This could be a bit of a hint toward his cynicism, but in one of his voice lines, he straight up says "CEO of Brawl Stars." And Colette is shown to be very overly obsessed with Brawlers, wanting to get their autographs and such, and nearly killing them in the process. Not to mention that she also has voice lines which she openly mentions Brawlers/Brawl Stars itself. So it could have been something where the pair grew up in the center of all of this, and either grew a slight disdain for it (or maybe it's just because Edgar is a teen) or a sever obsession with it, respectively.

Byron does not have any lines where he outright mentions Brawlers/Brawl Stars, though he does have rather cold voice lines, such as saying "Sign here, with your life", "You broke the contract", "Your tears fuel my laughter", etc. Very bizarre.

Moving down the line on this, a lot of the lore could also prove that Brawl Stars takes place in some fucked up amusement park, as I mentioned above that Starr Park was the central area of Brawl Stars. All of this, the battles, could all just be staged. Most all of the Brawlers we know might just be actors, or possibly bizarre experiments. (Mainly pointing to the Undead Trio on that one.) It's already been shown that Mr. P is a bizarre mascot, so anything is possible.

This can be further shown through the fact that a lot of the environments seem like theme/amusement park places: The Wild West, Gem Mountain, Retropolis, Super City, Tara's Bazaar, so on.

Starr Park even has its own website you can visit. starrpark.biz

Very reminiscent to Heaven's Gate if you ask me.

Going on there, you can find all kinds of... bizarre... things. Especially in the gallery. There you can find things such as a Spike mask, Morris's shovel, a Mr. P plush and concept art for him, an Eagle Hat similar to Bo's, hairspray like what Emz uses as a weapon, spaghetti.. on a stick... a hair comb likely belonging to Colt, a funny prop head that looks suspiciously similar to Poco, a large prop gun, a Dracula-esque coffin, a mechanical monster that looks like Nita's Bear, more fucking spaghetti on a stick, a poster that has a man similar to Colt on it... it is all very unnerving.

When Starr Park was founded, I have no fucking idea. Some of the lore suggest maybe the 1960s or 1970s? I don't... know... but that seems like a good timeframe.

Starr Park likely would have been founded sometime in the later 60s, and would've definitely been a fever dream for anyone going there. Belle and Byron may have been the children of Starr Park, in the sense their parents may have been the founders. (Hint, Starr Park. Belle and Byron are likely part of the Starr family.) Byron would have been next in line to own the park after his parents retirement, and Belle likely would have wanted nothing to do with it, instead running off with her gang to do her own thing.

Byron would have taken control of the park as an adult, and likely would have cheeped out on some things so he could earn more from the park. Which likely worked! And more likely than anything, the mortality rate went up! Fun day with the family am I right?

Byron would've also introduced the concept of Brawling to the park, as a way to get more people in. Have actors duke it out and people can watch as it happens. Starr Park would constantly be added onto to make room for new fun stuff.

Eventually people began to sign up to be Brawlers, and likely had to start living at Starr Park permanently, as to not disrupt the magic. Byron would also eventually commission robots to be made for the park, usually for maintenance around the park, but also for gimmicks and other things like that.

I probably jumped around with this, but I really just needed to get this out. So, sorry if this is all scattered to Hell or doesn't make too much sense. It's fun how a melee style brawling game can turn into an analog horror right as you're looking at it.

Oh wait, not to mention the newest Brawler Gus, who's supposedly a ghost.

TL;DR: I have a theory that's probably overdone by now, Byron and Belle are siblings, Belle is Colt's mom/Sam's lover, Byron is Edgar and Colette's dad, Byron/the Starr fortune is the main mastermind behind Brawl Stars, the park constantly adds new themes, Brawlers are hired on a consistent base, this crap feels like a fever dream, spaghetti on a stick.

[shotforfavor]

assigning a mychem song to each tma entity :o)

i dont have anything for dark and buried. umm. also i dont know how to put a cut in a post sorry

corruption- demolition lovers. the relationship isnt good for either of them, but hes still willing to die for her ("im trying to let you know just how much you mean to me, after all the things we put each other through") all of his expressions of love for her are violent in nature ("id end my days with you in a hail of bullets" "you're the only one, like a bed of roses theres a dozen reasons in this gun") their love is built on violence, its hurting both of them, yet he still wants to die with her to prove his love and devotion to her

desolation- early sunsets over monroeville. life is perfect, him and his lover are on a mall date, feels like a movie. ("then holding hands and life was perfect") then it all comes crumbling down out of nowhere when a zombie outbreak kinda thing happens and said lover is bit. ("not knowing you'd change from just one bite, i fought them all off just to hold you close") he can't exactly leave the mall he's hiding in, ("trapped in by all these mountains") and now he has to kill the one good thing he has left. then he's just defeated. he has nothing else worth living for. "but does anything matter if you're already dead?"

end- the end. obvz. "when i grow up i want to be nothing at all" most of the song to me is him expressing he wants to die/he knows hes going to, and he takes it very casually, buttttt the very end of the song... "save me, get me the hell out of here, save me, too young to die my dear, you cant take me" hes afraid of death when actually facing it

extinction- scarecrow. this ones about a nuclear bomb and trying to run from your death and look at things positively even though you know everyones going to die. but theres kind of an acceptance at the end- "love wont stop this bomb, run, run, bunny, run" after this point, the only lyrics are saying to run and hide. no more "i'll keep you safe tonight", no more romanticism that makes the destruction sound poetic and almost beautiful. just running and hiding and hoping someone makes it out alive

eye- teenagers. me personally i think this one fits. "because they sleep with a gun and keep an eye on you, son, so they can watch all the things you do" he feels like he's constantly being watched by the adults in his life, and they're just waiting for him to make one wrong move that they can use to justify calling him a bad person. he stands out, his classmates make fun of him and spread rumors about him. in the context of the song, the lyrics are all rebelling against all of this, but on their own, they sound very paranoid about what others think of them

flesh- cancer. i think this one works, the patient expresses a lot of hatred for what his body is becoming due to the disease in verse 2 especially. "turn away, cause im awful just to see" its got the aspects of insecurity and physical change out of ones control characteristic of the flesh.

hunt- vampires will never hurt you. this one isnt really a fear of being prey, but rather his fear of becoming the hunter. "can you stake my heart?" "i'll never let them hurt you, i promise" he feels that his vampirism is a different side of him completely, one thats out of his control. he'd rather be killed now than lose control and make his loved ones his prey.

lonely- ghost of you. he lost someone important, and he can't stop thinking about it and replaying their memories in his head because he doesn't want to forget them, but dwelling is only making him miss them more. ("if i died, we'd be together now, i can't always just forget her") he just replays her death over and over in his head, constantly reminded that he's now alone. ("i remember now, at the top of my lungs in my arms, she dies" "all the things that you never ever told me, all the smiles that are ever gonna haunt me, never coming home, never coming home")

slaughter- mama. i mean its literally about a soldier who did awful things during a war and his mother can't help but hate him for it. "but there's shit that i've done with this fuck of a gun, you would cry out your eyes all along" he acknowledges that he fought his hardest because he thought he'd die at war ("so raise your glass high, for tomorrow we die") and his mother would be even more terrified of him than she already is if she knew the full extent of it. the song even ends with her sobbing

spiral- drowning lessons. after the death of his lover, he is haunted by a manifestation of his guilt that takes her form and makes him relive the day over and over again ("lets say goodbye a hundredth time and then tomorrow, we'll do it again"). he desperately wants it to go away but his own mind wont leave him be ("without a sound, i wish you away" "i adore every inch of sanity, all im asking for"). a lot of things in the song also sound like hes experiencing visions of her death, twisted by his brain- describing her as a "twisted shell" and saying "these hands, stained red from all the times that ive killed you"

stranger- blood. i dont know this one just really fits to me? "well they encourage your complete cooperation, send you roses when they think you need to smile" "so give them blood, blood, gallons of the stuff, give them all that they can drink and it will never be enough" does this not give the image of like weirdly happy all the time doctors who keep doing procedures on you but you dont know like what exactly they're doing ever. also the very fun chipper tone and its contrast with the disturbing lyrics is very stranger core to me

vast- disenchanted. this one might be a stretch? after all his attempts to make life meaningful, he's left thoroughly disappointed. he realizes at the end of his life that everything has all been meaningless. he thinks life itself is overrated.

web- the jetset life is gonna kill you. this ones about drug addiction but the song portrays that as a woman who's controlling his life. "gaze into her killing jar, id sometimes stare for hours" she has him completely trapped and in the palm of her hand. "alright, she wants it all to come down this time"

very much willing to discuss any of these

[monstermoviedean]

Hello I saw your tags on a post ab how you have a theory where tfw is still trapped by Chuck and was wondering if you have posts ab it because I’d love to read it

hi first of all this made me smile so big thank you for asking!!! second i haven't posted anything major recently (and if i had i doubt i'd be able to find it) so i'll summarize! and feel free to reply/send other asks if you have questions or want to talk more about it! (under a cut because it got long)

i didn't invent chuck won theory and i'm not sure who did but basic theory is that jack absorbed chuck's powers but also part of chuck himself, which took control of jack's body and mind. my spin on chuck won theory is that everything in 15x20 takes place in an alternate universe or pocket dimension similar to changing channels, in which chuck is calling the shots and controlling the winchesters' actions. my theory is that chuck saw what gabriel did in changing channels (forcing the winchesters into a different part of space/time, changing their surroundings to torture them, recycling characters from their past) and decided to do it again. make the winchesters feel like they'd won while also keeping them miserable.

the first thing i'd like to point to is the running on empty montage at the end of 15x19. it was weird, jarring, out-of-place, better suited to the actual finale than the penultimate episode. the music was weird. the message was incomprehensible. it was supposed to be like "look at all the good times!" but primarily highlighted how alone and miserable dean and sam were. strong contrast to an episode that repeatedly stated that dean especially is feeling hopeless. so that could have been chuck wrapping up the show, the winchester gospels. it feels like it would fit tonally with changing channels.

second is the 15x20 morning routine montage, for the same reasons. it doesn't feel right! we know for a fact that dean and sam have both lost their loves and that the majority of their friends and family are dead so why are we doing this? the tone is off again - it's "look they're almost normal!" when everything is screaming that this is wrong. the things that always get me worst are 1) dean hugging miracle like a lifeline and 2) dean's room full of empty bottles. they both state "dean is not well" and then? the episode does nothing with it? it feels like a sitcom opener montage, which again, would fit with changing channels.

third, the pie thing. sam pieing dean in the face directly after he brings up his dead love is something a bad sitcom would do for cheap laughs.

fourth, everything about the case they're working, which makes no sense. it's random. things are thrown together. vampires? mimes? kidnapping kids? an unsolved case of john's? john thought vampires were extinct. it makes no sense noooooo sense! exactly what chuck would do. put them in a dangerous situation for no reason and throw in some slapdash elements that make it seem like a full story.

fifth and finally, jenny the vampire. jenny the fucking vampire. this is what got me on this changing channels 'verse thing in the first place, because 1) jenny is not named in her original appearance, 2) dean never spoke to jenny in 01x20, 3) sam tried but all she could do was scream, and 4) the episode was about finding the colt, not saving her. point being, jenny the vampire was no one to the winchesters, and not even in their usual acceptable civilian casualties sort of way. she wasn't even named. so to have dean recognize her, call her by name, is absurd. he doesn't know her. how could he?

so here's my best (only) piece of evidence: jenny the vampire's actress also appeared in changing channels as a character in dr. sexy. it actually makes more sense that dean would recognize her as dr. ellen piccolo than as jenny the vampire.

so what i'm saying here is that chuck is just recycling people and faces from the winchesters' real(ish) lives in order to make the illusion seem more real. he's built this universe or dimension or personal hell or whatever, and he's filling it with familiar faces. it feels real to the winchesters but to us it's just to the side of real. (side note: i want to know who was under the mimepire masks! did someone with cas' face kill dean???)

this setup gives chuck endless time and space to fuck with the winchesters. he can kill them as many times as he wants, run through as many scenarios as he wants, and just reset them. i think after the bridge scene he zapped them back to start, wiped their memories, and tried killing sam first this time. and they never know, because it looks and feels real enough. and the person who would notice, cas, is locked up in the empty. chuck can play with his little dolls until he gets bored with them, and they will never know the difference, and more importantly, never try to challenge chuck again.

[fell-in-love-didnt-you]

Carry Me Away With You: SnowBaz Fanfic

Simon Snow doesn't expect much from life. His father has drilled into him from the beginning two things: work alone and never trust vampires. Simon breaks both rules in a matter of days. After he collapses at the doorstop of an unknown house, he's pulled into a world he has no idea how to escape from. The question is: does he want to?

...

AH! This is my Carry On Big Bang 2020 fic. I'm so excited to have finally posted it. It also comes with AMAZING artwork by the extremely talented @thehoneyedhufflepuff on tumblr (who's also a fantastic writer on Ao3 with the @ The_Honeyed_Hufflepuff - I'd definitely recommend the Fire-verse fics). Please, please, PLEASE show them some love both on here and tumblr. The artwork is magnificent and exactly as I envisioned Simon and Baz in this time period. (scene from fic) (title scene-isn't is beautiful?!)

Here’s the link to the tumblr post!

Thank you @carry-on-big-bang for giving me the opportunity to work with such an amazing artist and fellow fic writer and for putting on such a wonderful collaboration project. I have truly enjoyed every interaction I had with @thehoneyedhufflepuff and encourage everyone reading this to go give them a follow and read their amazing work on Ao3. 

As always, here’s the link to the Ao3 version in case you prefer to read that way: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26150491/chapters/63625177

On to the fic! 

Lover.

 The word felt foreign on Simon’s tongue, like a heavy alcohol or a long-rusted coin that played on the tip of the tongue. There was nothing else, though. ‘Fling’ felt like a small blanket: it covered the important parts (the lovemaking, the flirtatious smiles, the sharing of a bed), but it also left out the parts that made Simon’s legs turn to jelly (the deep conversations, the sweet cheek kisses, the touches that lingered for hours afterwards).

 Partner, however, did not fit either. Partner implied official courting, and this…was not that. Official courting entailed walks in the park with a supervisor, love letters sent in perfumed envelopes, and an eventual proposal of marriage.

 It did not entail laying bed together with only centimeters of space between, breaths mingled in the shared space. It certainly did not entail what had occurred a mere half-hour before now. ‘Partners’ did not entail premarital relations, and those relations certainly did not occur between a supernatural creature of nightmares and a boy raised to kill such creatures.

 Simon placed his hand tentatively on the side of Baz’s face. His eyes were closed, but Simon knew better; sharing a bed for the past month had taught him when Baz was truly gone to the world. The pounding pulse point and flickering of eyes gave the vampire away. He was resting, but not out.

 “Darling,” Baz drawled, and it made Simon flush (not that he wasn’t already red from head-to-toe; Baz had that effect on him). Baz’s eyes cracked open, and he flashed a smile that forced Simon to see what made vampires so alluring to the regular eye. “Darling, do you have any idea what time it is?”

 A laugh bubbled out of Simon’s chest, and he looked past Baz’s head to stare at the grandfather clock that stood ominously in the corner of the room. It was one of Simon’s favorite objects: dark blue, a sun and moon facing opposite each other, stars sliding past as did the hours of the day. Baz had bought it for him a mere three months ago, placing it in their shared chambers so Simon knew the time.

 Baz was weird like in the sense that there were no clocks beside this in the manor. Time is cyclical, he had explained to Simon once. He hated it because it reminded him that of what he was: stuck moving forward in his mind while his body remained in the past. Simon progressed forward, though, and he had been adamant about having at least one way of telling time. He’d even withheld himself from Baz until the vampire had conceded, a glare on his face the entire time.

 Simon often stared at that clock as they made love.

 The clock read slightly past two in the morning, and Simon told Baz as such. Baz hummed in response and placed his hand on Simon’s neck, thumbing a mole that rested above his pulse point. Often, that mole would have a ring of purpled bruises around it after nights like this, and the very thought had Simon suppressing a smile. Baz, however, did not conceal his affection, and he placed a long, slow kiss to Simon’s lips.

 Simon had long ago (give or take three months) begun to categorize the kisses they shared. The most common were the ones shared in private that would have the public outraged: brushes of lips against cheeks and foreheads even though they were not married. What a scandal, Simon thought distantly. Those kisses occurred in passing when one of them would be running to the study or just about to leave the house for some reason or another. Simon adored these brushes of affection that had no real bite; it meant whatever this thing that was happening was more than sex.

 Simon ached for the bruising crush of lips that occurred when they fell into bed. He yearned for the swelling of lips and clashing of teeth and maybe the accidental cut of a fang-on-lip. Even the tiniest bit of venom would set his body aflame, and Simon likened it to the fever, only where Death had touched him before, Baz now did.

 The ones Simon treasured above all others were these kisses: no heat, no bite, but also not something entirely platonic. A feather-light kiss on the cheek could be taken romantically if it were between a man and a woman, but Simon knew that, if ever caught, Baz would claim brotherly affection for Simon, explain that that’s how his Parisian family acted, that physical affection was common between two friends. These kisses, on the other hand, would have them thrown in jail. Simon would be forced to flee over the crime of homosexuality, and Baz would pay his way out of a scandal.

 There was no denying that these kisses that occurred in this bed were of the utmost romantic quality and kind and would put many husbands and wives to shame.

 Baz drew back and smiled, his eyes still pleasantly closed. He sighed through his nose, and Simon allowed himself to steal a glance. This was so new, and he was afraid that one wrong look would shatter the beautiful bubble he’d surrounded himself in. Baz had probably done this with many people before. He was…older. That’s all Simon knew. There was no discernable year or century to pin him down in, but Simon realized months ago that Baz had seen the sun rise on this Earth possibly over one-hundred-thousand times.

 Baz had probably been in love before. The thought made Simon blue. Baz was his first everything; Simon was Baz’s first nothing.

 It is probably love, Simon thought as Baz slowly peeled his eyes opened. There was no explanation other than a spell of sorts (not like a witch’s spell, but like a spell of sickness) that Baz’s vampiric charm had placed Simon under. His father used to warn him that vampires were excellent charmers and that the only way to save oneself from their grasp was to remain alert at all times.

 Simon’s father would be rolling in his premature grave right about now.

 The sheets shifted between Simon’s legs as he pressed closer to the lukewarm body across from him. Baz never ran hot; his skin was usually cold to the touch. Nights like these, however, coerced the little blood in Baz’s body to rise to the surface, turn him a color like the living, and make him vampirically burn up (though vampirically burning up meant room temperature for humans).

 Baz pressed his lips into the mop of curls atop Simon’s head and breathed in deeply. His arms came to wrap around Simon’s back, and his hands splayed across Simon’s shoulder blades. He said something, though it was muffled by Simon’s hair.

 “Hm?” Simon asked, turning his face upward to look directly at Baz. He pushed the raven hair out of Baz’s eyes. “What did you say?”

 Baz subconsciously turned his cheek into Simon’s touch, and Simon bit at his lip to keep in a smile. “I said,” Baz murmured, turning back to Simon, “that we are spending Christmas in the Surrey House this year. I forgot to tell you this morning.”

 Simon giggled at that, and Baz lightly slapped his side. Of course Baz had forgotten to say that this morning; other…happenings had occurred. Simon had also giggled because calling it the Surrey House put the building to shame. In Dorking, the manor (as it should be called) sat on acres of sprawling land that included part of a natural river, a small section of local woods, and a large field. Baz’s family’s business was still a mystery to Simon, but he at least knew how Baz made his money. Wine was apparently very expensive in large quantities, and the cellar of the manor could hold the worth of an entire village.

 The manor itself was no laughing matter. Crafted with the finest cobblestone, it had stayed in Baz’s family for centuries, and even with what little Simon actually knew of Baz’s family, the amount of rooms in all the property Baz inherited gave away enough to know that many children had been born. Because Baz was the eldest (cue laughter) and had lived the longest (cue even more laughter), all the property had been passed to him.

 And now Simon reveled in it. The large London townhouse they occupied for the majority of the year was Simon’s favorite. The memories here were richer than any fine chocolate or wine that Baz could procure.

 “Why can’t we spend Christmas here?” Simon asked quietly, his fingers idly playing with the long strands of Baz’s hair. “We’ve never just stayed-“ Simon stopped himself prematurely. He wanted to say ‘home’ but couldn’t let that word slip from his mouth. He’d stayed with Baz in this house for almost three years, and he’d never left to live elsewhere, but the word ‘home’ insinuated something Simon would not admit to himself. He started again: “We’ve never had Christmas here.”

 Goosepimples raised on his arms as Baz’s hands drew nonsensical lines across his back. Baz lowered his head down, and his lips were pressed against Simon’s forehead as he explained, “We’ve never done a lot of things, darling.” The pet name caused Simon to blush and stutter, and he could feel Baz’s smile against forehead. “We always spent Christmases in our other properties when I was little.”

 Simon thought about that for a moment. He did not have very memorable Christmases growing up. His greatest gift as a child had been a stocking with three ripe oranges in it. Simon had known the money his father had sacrificed to buy such fruit. With Baz, however…he’d never had such wonderful gifts in his entire life, and they hadn’t even been given to him for celebrations.

 Simon recalled one morning where he’d complained of his weathering shoes, and not even four hours later, Baz had presented him with the nicest pair of leather boots he’d ever seen. Sure, they were not to be worn in public (Simon had received an entire outfit from Baz’s…sister? ...for going out in), but they were gorgeous and, no doubt, expensive.

 Then there was the jewelry - the gorgeous amethyst ring that sat on the bedside table had been a birthday present last year. In truth, Simon had not expected anything from Baz in any capacity when they’d decided he could stay in the house for an indefinite amount of time. He’d not expected that, in the middle of the hottest summer in a long time, Baz would nonchalantly pass him the most expensive thing Simon had ever set eyes on and insist he keep it. He’d not expected Baz to tell him it was an heirloom dating back at least one-hundred years, and he’d not expected to later cradle it to his chest and cry.

 As if to add to their conversation about Christmas, Simon looked over towards the window and saw snow falling outside. The snow had been coming down steadily over the last few months, but it had only begun to stick recently. He smiled to himself as he watched the windowsill become more and more covered. Snow had brought him here in the first place; it was only natural he be thankful for it now.

  …

  He was almost dead; that Simon Snow was sure of.

 He could not feel his toes, and the crystalline breath puffing out from his mouth was becoming smaller by the minute. He was dizzy, hungry, and more tired than he’d even been in his short life. A cut on his forehead trickled blood into the snow beneath his feet, and he barely had time to register why or where he was bleeding before he fell onto the pavement beneath him.

 Thank Christ he was in an alleyway. Had he been in the street, feet would have stepped over and onto him, and he might crack a rib. Although, Simon thought to himself, this was a fate worse than death. Perhaps he should let the Lord have Their way with him. If this was to be his death, then why not welcome it?

 Simon could not go home. His father would never accept a defeat like this. Simon could practically hear the frustration that would be present if he tried to make his way back to their little house on the outskirts of town. How was it that Simon had been out hunting vampires for three months and not caught a single one? How was it that Simon had left a strong, capable, young man with fervor in his eyes and returned a skeleton of his former self?

 The truth was simple: Simon was very nearly dead. He knew he’d caught the scarlet fever, and Simon also knew it would kill him like it had killed thousands of other.

 Simon dragged himself to his feet and rounded out of the alleyway, turning onto a dimly lit street lined with houses. This is not such a bad place to die, he thought to himself. Maybe no one would pilfer his body for the money that did not exist or the jewelry that was absent. Perhaps he’d retain some dignity in his death.

 Simon stumbled barely two meters in front of himself before he fell down against the door of a nice house. He could feel the warmth through the door. It was almost sad to die on such a lovely doorstep. Telling by the clickity-clack of footsteps from behind the door, he’d probably disturbed the lady of the house. Somehow, Simon could not find it in himself to care as he slid into what must be death.

 But it was not death. Indeed, Simon had lapsed into a comatose state, but he awoke to the sounds of a plate clattering onto a table. The room was warm, and when Simon tried to move his hands, he found himself between a lovely down comforter and an even lovelier mattress. A fire burned brightly in the corner of the room, and he watched as a silhouette of a man moved in front of the flame.

 “Am I dead?” Simon asked, his voice hardly above a whisper.

 The man laughed, and he sat down beside the bed. His face came into view, and Simon saw the most beautiful person God had ever created. Then the beautiful man brought a cool washcloth down on Simon’s forehead, and Simon then realized how much he was burning up.

 “Lord above, no,” the man answered. His touch was gentle across Simon’s aching head, and he placed the towel down a moment later to instead bring a glass of water to Simon’s lips. Simon arched into it, and a pained noise escaped his lips as the water slid down his throat. When was the last time he’d had water? Did brown snow count?

 After the glass was drained, Simon began to take in his surroundings. The room looked to be one of a rich man: the walls were lined in beautiful wallpaper, plush rugs were laid down across the wood floor, and the size of the room was larger than the house Simon had grown up in. The man wore a waistcoat with a gold pocket watch, and his hair was swept back neatly from his face, though a piece was falling into his eyes. Could Simon even call him a man? Upon further inspection, he could not be older than his mid-twenties, and even that was a stretch. There were no wrinkles or stress lines, and his eyes held a kind light.

 “Are we,” Simon started, his voice cracking on the second word. A second glass of cold water was placed to his lips, and Simon began again. “Are we sure I am not dead?”

 The man smiled. “Who are you?” he asked, brushing back matted curls from Simon’s head. Simon internally hoped he did not look too worse for wear. “How did you come to be on the streets?” the man continued.

 Simon did not know how to answer that. His name would be a good place to start, though he wouldn’t give his full name. “I am Simon.”

  …

  The packing for the Surrey manor proved to be more difficult for Simon than he’d originally anticipated. They’d be gone for the second half of December and a little into January, and the capacity of Simon’s suitcase was being tested to the highest degree because of his coats (courtesy of Baz’s…sister?). Baz had not said to pack lightly, but Simon didn’t like the idea of bogging down the carriage with an extra suitcase. Plus, Baz had already sent ahead a few trunks of clothes and other things to the manor earlier in the week.

 Speaking of the devil, Simon nearly leapt out of his skin as cool arms surrounded his middle. Of course, there was no need to be frightened. Simon had long since been used to both the temperature of Baz’s skin and Baz’s ability to be deathly silent.

 Baz’s chapped lips brushed against the nape of Simon’s neck, and he pressed a chaste kiss there. “Packing?” he asked, as though he did not see the myriad of clothing strewn about the room. The wardrobe was open haphazardly, revealing Simon’s messy side. He never put away his clothes with care like Baz did. They were clothes. Why did they deserve such high care?

 Simon placed his arms over Baz’s and leaned into the embrace, closing his eyes and resting his head atop Baz’s shoulder. The fact that Baz was a behemoth had once bothered Simon, but now it made lounging together easier. Simon could always fit his head neatly onto Baz’s shoulder, and Baz’s hands fit perfectly in the dip of Simon’s lower back.

 “Unsuccessfully,” Simon replied, sighing through his nose. “If we were not going for so long, I would not require so much clothing.” Baz chuckled behind him, and Simon smiled to the ceiling. He ran his hands idly over Baz’s exposed forearms. Today, Baz had stayed inside the house and, therefore, had not changed into any outerwear or even bothered to keep his long sleeves down to his wrists. Truly, it was a state of undress Simon had never expected of the wine merchant to be capable of. Simon had expected the ‘young’ business tycoon to always be dressed in a matching frock and waistcoat and buttoned up to the nines, but formalities had long since disappeared between them.

 “Is there also business to attend to in Surrey?” Simon wondered aloud, pulling himself away from Baz and turning in his embrace. When they were this close, Simon had to tip his head up to look Baz in the eye. Baz nodded, and Simon sighed. Work plagued the both of them.

 “Not on Christmas,” Baz reassured, bringing up a hand to tip Simon’s chin up. “Not in the whole week before or after Christmas. I cleared all of it for us.”

 Us. The word made Simon swallow thickly. He nodded, walking away from the warmth of Baz’s hold (that he got from Simon’s body heat) and rummaging through the wardrobe. Simon heard Baz sigh, and after a few moments of silence, he assumed Baz had left. However, a whisper only a hair’s width away surprised him.

 “Pack what I brought you from France,” Baz whispered, pressing another chaste kiss to that mole on Simon’s neck. Then he was gone.

 A furious blush ravaged Simon’s cheeks, and he needed a few moments to steady himself. France. Baz’s purchase in France. That trip alone turned Simon’s internal temperature up a few notches. It seemed like ages ago, but it had really only been two months since France. The French had strange ideas of erotica, and Baz had seemed to be in line with all of them. Pack what I bought you from France. Christ, Simon hadn’t looked at it since France for a reason. It embarrassed him, and the fact that he liked that embarrassment made him even redder.

 Simon opened a small (locked) drawer on his side of the wardrobe meant for expensive jewelry and priceless cufflinks and pins, and he pulled out what Baz had bought him in France.

  …

  The paperwork piled nearly a meter high from the floor. Baz entrusted the various receipts, warehouse reports, and paperwork tracking of the wine to Simon. Officially, Simon was brought into Baz’s household to deal with the paperwork that accumulated at the end of each month. Unofficially, Simon had been brought into the house to die.

 Simon admitted to himself that this was a much better outcome. When he’d fallen against the door five months ago, who could have known he’d end up with a well-paying job? So well-paying, in fact, that Simon was able to send lumpsums of money back to his father under the pretense that it was payment for hired slayings. His father was none the wiser as to the actual situation of Simon’s employment.

 As Simon crossed some ‘t’s and dotted some ‘i’s, his thoughts ran to Baz. They had been doing that more often as of late, and while Simon had once been able to pin it down on acquainting himself with his employer (friend), he could no longer fall under that umbrella. The thoughts (once just about the upkeep of Baz’s hair and the price of his clothing) now turned to running his hands through that hair and peeling away that expensive clothing until it lay on the floor beneath them.

 Simon cleared his throat and refocused on the task ahead. He’d lost track of a sentence concerning a shipment of sherry to a port in Boston. As Simon read about a spilled barrel, a hand on his shoulder jolted him from his thoughts.

 Baz’s chuckle reassured Simon, and he looked up from the candlelit paperwork ahead of him. The stack on the floor had to be completed and filed within the week. An entire day of Simon sitting at the desk had already elapsed, and he could guess why Baz had entered this small study that had been given to him.

 “Have I missed supper?” Simon asked, looking back at the death certificate of the sherry. Baz’s hand lingered a moment longer before falling away, and Simon missed the cool touch through his thin shirt.

 Baz came to lean over him and stare at the document in front of Simon. “No,” he replied, his breath ghosting over the shell of Simon’s ear. Simon’s eyes flicked to the side, and he was met with a Baz deep in thought. “I’ll have to speak to my Boston warehouse manager. Sherry is too expensive to be wasted.” Baz turned to look at Simon, and the close proximity of their lips had Simon’s face heating up. Hopefully the candlelight covered the flush of Simon’s neck and face.

 Simon turned away and pulled a separate document out, and responded, “You were compensated with the price of a barrel and a half for the ruined barrel.” He pointed to the line in question where the price was brought up, and Baz hummed noncommittedly in his ear.

 Very suddenly Baz was standing behind Simon, and Simon floundered to turn in his chair and face him. Baz was still deep in thought, though Simon couldn’t imagine why. Sherry was not Baz’s largest exports if the receipts were to be believed, and even if it was, why would it give him such a headache? A single barrel in six months was nothing compared to what some other merchants lost in a single day.

 “Something on your mind?” Simon asked. Baz’s eyes slowly ghosted over to Simon, and Simon had the distinct feeling of being seen but in a distant sort. Like Baz had recognized a version of Simon that existed before and was instead remembering that Simon.

 After a moment of silence, Baz regained composure and smiled. His canines flickered in the light, and Simon fought the urge to cover his neck. Of course, there was no reason for alarm. Growing up with his father, however, left some stones Simon was willing to leave unturned, at least where it concerned Baz.

 Who was not a creature of evil.

 “We should eat,” Baz suggested, looking towards the door of the study. “It should be about time.” As if on cue, the bell signaling supper rang, and Baz smiled again. “Join me?” he asked, as though Simon could deny.

 Simon had picked up on the habits of his employer (friend) in the first few weeks of living together, but they seemed to become stranger as time went on. Baz hardly ate, and when he did, it was only a few bites. Most of his diet (in front of Simon, at least) consisted of wines and cheeses. No substantial food ever made its way into Baz in front of Simon. That was not to say that Baz could not eat sometimes later when Simon was not around, but it made no sense to Simon that Baz would invite him to eat in the dining room only to actually eat later.

 Unless…

 Simon shook the thought from his head, and it was soon replaced with images of a rather biblical sense.

  …

  The Surrey manor was alive and bustling when they arrived. The snow had nearly postponed the trip, but it had let up in time for the carriage to safely carry Baz and Simon to the manor. The Surrey manor had more servants than their normal lodgings did, and when Simon had first asked why years ago, Baz had not answered.

 Simon partially knew why now. The part he knew was that Baz kept his more expensive wines in the cellars beneath the manor. That answer used to satisfy Simon, but now it caused him to wonder more and more. They had promised honesty once after Baz’s nature had been revealed. The promise had been broken only once, and it had been by Simon, so he didn’t have a right to question Baz’s extra patrolling of this particular property.

 The trunks were carried to the room by two men Simon had met briefly last year at the manor, and then Baz was swept away into work. Tonight, a key investor was scheduled to dine with Baz, and while Baz hadn’t directly said it, Simon was to remain scarce throughout the night. At least he’d brought a few packets of paperwork that needed doing.

 The room he’d previously occupied here was locked, and a servant instead directed Simon to a room he knew Baz had occupied the last time they were here. The bed, while not as comfortable as the one back in London, welcomed Simon comfortably, and he laid down to rest for a few moments. As it often happened when Simon was left alone with his thoughts, they turned to Baz. The investor coming over tonight both invested in and bought the most wine from Baz. That was the only reason Simon had to be scarce tonight. Usually, Baz showboated him until Simon’s feet grew tired, but with the higherups, a previous street boy who did the paperwork usually set them on edge. How could they trust their money with a boy of no more than twenty-one who only knew basic economics and had not studied traditionally a day in his life?

 A soft knock at the door had Simon sitting up, and a servant walked in carrying a tray of supper. Simon then noticed the lighting had changed significantly and realized he had fallen asleep while thinking about wine investors. He thanked the servant and ate in silence, staring around the room. An ornate, golden clock stood in the corner, and Simon laughed quietly. A floor length mirror occupied another corner, and a dark wood wardrobe already filled with their clothing sat against the wall. Overall, it was a plain room in comparison to their normal lodgings, but Simon felt the hints of Baz in the room. The comforter was a deep, wine red, and the bedframe was made of cherry wood. Ornate carvings decorated the tops of the posters of the bed.

 The Surrey manor deserved to be a real home, Simon thought. He and Baz used it for maybe a month out of an entire year, and it sat empty for the rest of the time. About every two weeks, Baz would send a few servants to tidy the place, but other than that, these two weeks were the longest anyone lived here. Simon had to wonder if this had once been Baz’s childhood home. It was simply too large and too grand for it to be a getaway or a vacation home. The location was optimal, the plot of land was supreme, and the aura exuded warmth. This had to have been something to Baz. Otherwise, he’d have sold the property long before Simon came into the picture.

 A servant came to collect his plates, and Simon was once again left in silence. The bustle of London - people shouting, carts rolling by, factories churning - usually lulled Simon and comforted his always anxious mind. Now, there was only the occasional laugh from downstairs and the chirping of a bird here and there. The silence chilled him to the bone.

 Simon set to work on the stack of papers before him, deciding that the scratching of pen on paper would soothe his weary soul. The monotonous chore that was paperwork left Simon feeling purposeful. If Baz trusted him enough with finances, then he would do a damn good job at it. Of course, this was a far cry from what his father would have wanted.

 Simon’s mind often turned to his father these days. If Simon remembered the date correctly, his father’s birthday had just passed. They’d never celebrated when Simon lived with him; there was too much training and prepping to be done. At the end of the night, maybe his father would allow Simon to have a sip of port, but that had happened perhaps three times over the years. Celebrations just were not important when there were vampires to hunt and kill. His father had instilled the idea that vampires were virgin defilers into Simon’s mind, and while true for the situation between Baz and himself, Simon had come to realize that most vampires simply wanted to be left alone.

 His vampire just so happened to want the opposite of that. A hand at the back of his neck caused Simon to nearly spill his inkpot, and perhaps doing paperwork on the bed was stupid. Baz laughed as Simon carefully closed the inkpot, placed the wet paperwork on the bedside table, did away with the pen, and finally looked up.

 Baz’s tense face seemed alight when he looked down at Simon, and Simon smiled as he rose up on his knees. The mattress only added to their already obvious height difference. Simon came to rest at Baz’s shoulders, his knees sinking into the duvet. He did not mind, however, as it was the perfect height for him to place his hands atop Baz’s shoulders and rub. The muscles there seemed knotted with stress, and Simon sighed.

 “Are you ever not wound up like a clock?” Simon asked, dragging Baz onto the mattress. As tonight’s outfit included a three-piece suit, the act of stripping Baz took longer than Simon would have liked. Finally, pale skin exposed itself, and Simon kept his shudder at the sight of Baz’s back to himself. They had spoken of it once before: the scars had been from a brutal whipping exactly once in his childhood, but his vampire skin had not healed properly because of what he was whipped with. Now, scars littered the expanse of his broad shoulders, and Simon pressed chaste kisses to each. It was routine now.

 “You know how I hate clocks,” Baz replied. Simon laughed and pressed one last kiss to Baz’s back, lingering for only a few extra seconds. Luckily, someone had placed oil in the bedside table, and Simon slowly warmed it between his hands as he sat on Baz’s thighs. At the first press of Simon’s hands into Baz’s lower back, Baz let out a groan loud enough to shake the house.

 “How was supper?” Simon asked, working a knot in the lower of Baz’s back until it loosened. This was his absolute favorite (non-sexual) thing to do to Baz. It was another way of being useful, and Simon prided himself on the fact that only he could provide this relief to Baz.

 “Long,” Baz replied, groaning again at the pressure of Simon’s palms. “He wanted to withdraw his investment because of that fucking barrel of sherry.” Simon dug the heel of his palm into the middle of Baz’s back, and the crack that sounded through the room caused Baz to let out an orgasmic sound. “Fuck, I love it when you do that.”

 Simon’s face flushed, and he coughed as he continued rubbing circles into Baz’s back. The silence did not stretch on uncomfortably, but there was something in the air neither of them were able to address. “So, he wanted to leave because one of my fucking stupid warehouse managers dropped a barrel. I told him about the price for breaking a contract, and he still seemed to want to leave. Thank God for whiskey, because I think that’s what got him to stay.”

 As Simon lazily rubbed the excess oil into Baz’s skin, he found himself listening to Baz’s sherry problems and not even being bothered by how boring they were. He logically knew that if someone else was telling him about the trials and tribulations of shipping sherry, he’d fall asleep, and the realization made his stomach lurch. He knew what this was, and Baz knew, too. When would one of them say it, though?

  …

  They had fought before. Once, Simon had forgotten to do a few pieces of paperwork that nearly cost Baz a key investor, and they had dished it out for a good half-hour before both going out for some time to decompress. Simon apologized, and Baz did, too. Simon had been tired during that round of paperwork; Baz had been stressed all day before finding out about Simon’s mistake.

 But this was different. This wasn’t about paperwork or investors or wine. This was about Simon and Baz. This was about feelings, and Simon sucked at feelings. He’d inherited it from his father. Being raised to be a vampire slayer could do that.

 This was also, coincidentally, about vampires.

 “You lied to me!” Simon shouted, hastily packing his belongings into a trunk. Granted, there were not many things to be gathered. It was more for show than anything else. “I’ve lived with you for nearly two years, and you’ve lied to me the entire time!”

 Baz stood in front of the fireplace, jaw clenched and hands balled into fists. He was strangely composed for such an explosive conversation. Simon wanted to throw something at him, punch him, make him respond, make him yell. It wasn’t fair that he was the only person angry. This wasn’t going to be a one-sided argument.

 “Do you have anything to say to me?” Simon demanded, finally stopping his movements and just…standing there. His shoulders slumped. There were tears in his eyes.

 Baz turned slowly on his heels. Finally, Simon saw his face. It gave away nothing; Baz was always stoic during moments of high tensions. When Simon had nearly died those first few weeks, Baz’s face had remained a blank sheet. When his…sister? ...had died in childbirth and the letter had been delivered, Baz had said nothing and simply locked himself away. Now, though, there was no room to separate the two of them. There was no veil of death that cleaved them apart. There was only three meters of wooden floor and carpet.

 Baz closed his eyes, and Simon watched as a few tears slipped down his cheeks. “You lied to me, too, Simon,” Baz finally murmured. The orange light of the fire made him look like a statue on fire. His eyes seemed to be ablaze, though that could be literal given the circumstances of his humanity. “I’ve lived with someone raised to be my murderer for nearly two years. How do you think I feel?”

 Honestly, Simon had not thought of it that way. However, the part of his brain that his father had trained screamed at Simon that Baz killed innocents to live and that he was probably more than a few lifetimes older than Simon. It unfortunately cast everything into a clearer light: why Baz did not eat in front of Simon, why he left for days at a time on ‘trips’, why he had so much property and no living family.

 “Have you killed people, Baz?” Simon asked. He desperately wanted to leave the house and never turn back. He should have listened to his gut. It had screamed at him for over a year that Baz was not human. Simon should have taken his father’s lessons to heart. He could be dead now. It was only a miracle that Baz had spared him.

 “How dare you!” Baz snarled stomping away from the fireplace. Finally, Simon thought. Finally, this anger could be mutual. He stopped just a foot short of Simon, hand pointing directly at Simon’s face. “You don’t know shit, Simon Snow! How dare you say that! How dare you!” Up close, Simon saw more tears gather in Baz’s eyes. “Are you asking yourself why I haven’t killed you yet?”

 “Fuck you!” Simon retorted, pushing Baz’s hand out of his face. “You’re a fucking liar, Baz Pitch!” Simon didn’t know why he was crying so suddenly. Well, he did know why. He’d just thought that Baz would be honest with him concerning everything, and this felt like a betrayal of the deepest kind. “You…you lied to me!”

 Simon covered his face with his hands, feeling the dampness soak the sleeves of his shirt. Damnit, he thought. Why couldn’t he keep it together for ten minutes?

 His hands were pulled away from his face, and before Simon could curse Baz for it, cold lips were pressed against his own. He vaguely understood that this was a kiss. Simon had never kissed anyone before. Training to kill vampires ruined any chance of his social life. Baz’s hands, still holding his wrists, slowly travelled down to Simon’s waist, holding him steady as he pulled back.

 Simon was still crying, though no choked noises were escaping his lips anymore. “I don’t understand,” he whispered, because he really didn’t. Simon was not a product of fine breeding. He did not have status or wealth. He was human. He was male. But Baz’s lips on his own had felt realer than anything else in his life prior had ever felt. Simon rested his hands on Baz’s biceps, feeling the warmth leave his fingertips. “I don’t understand,” he repeated, looking up at Baz through clumped lashes and tears.

 In response, Baz smiled down at him softly. There was no malice, and while Simon did see canines, he was not afraid. “Do you really believe I would have kept you here if I did not care for you?” Baz asked, running a soothing hand through Simon’s hair. “Even just a little bit?”

 Simon burrowed into the space where Baz’s shoulder met his neck and hiccupped, feeling fresh tears spill down his cheek. Baz’s hand stalled in Simon’s hair, and he hastily began to apologize, which made Simon cry heavier.

 Hours later, with the candles extinguished and the anger from the day gone, Simon realized Baz had never truly answered any of his questions.

[zayray030]

Iris West Allen Birthday Headcanon

Barry Allen-Her Husband

Barry wakes up at the crack of dawn and always gives makes her the best birthday breakfast ever. He also runs around preparing the area for her when she wakes up.

And when Iris wakes up, it's always to the amazing smell of food and sees her house full of iris's.

Barry tries to stop her from leaving the house, using some *ahem* conventional methods.

(The turtle necks can be unbearable but she'll survive the rest of the day with dignity considering her friends are crazy.)

Team Citizen (Linda, Cynthia and Chester included)

Confetti is poped the moment she walks into the room.

A ton of pictures are taken and put on everyone's insta.

They all sing her happy birthday. No matter how off key it is.

They all make a group effort to make her a cake. She tries not to judge it by its cover and was so happy that she didn't.

Chester makes her a fancy gadget. (Be creative on what it can be cause I honestly don't know.)

Allegra always makes her a nice card, gives her a hug and gives her a cool leather jacket.

Kamilla shows her a scrapbook of all the photos that she's taken of Iris. Some are sexy, some are goofy and and some are cute. She looks good in every single one of them.

Linda let's her use her account for a week to buy as much coffee as she wants. That's probably the greatest gift given, considering how many articles that girl has.

Cynthia alway breaches over and gives her something unique from another earth. (The multiverse exists. Fuck you bitch)

West Family

Her dad always sings her the most unique birthday songs that has everone in tears by the end of it.

Cecile always makes sure to drop in subtle hints about new cases she can work on. (Joe hates it but the look of pure happiness on Iris's face stops him from talking)

Wally gives her an important gem or rune from his travel that symbolises something important. He also squeezes her real tight in a hug to remind himself that it's actually Iris there.

Joe also gives her a huge hug and tells her a story about her mother before the drugs happened. She's always grateful.

Jackie (fuck you she's a West) gives her some pretty clothes and make up that suits her skin tone.

Jenna (although young) gives her a hand drawn card and it's the cutest thing ever.

Team Flash

Oh my Lord, it's humiliating.

Cisco, while amazing, can't sing. It's basically a screach.

Iris just sits there and takes it because he seems so happy.

Well at least until Killer Frost has enough and threatens to throw an icicle at him.

(he takes the hint quickly)

Caitlin gives her a pare of really nice earrings and a nice jacket. She also brings a note with it that says sorry.

(Iris has tried to get her to stop but she won't listen.)

Killer Frost gets her an icicle pendant along with a chocker. She also makes her a custom ice sculpture. She also has a little note that says sorry for killing her. She also grants her infinite hugs for the rest of the day.

Cisco, my boy, gets her 3 different outfits. 1) Work. She needs to look elegant but he adds his own Cisco twist to it. 2) Meta fighting. Even though she doesn't have powers she's a bad ass and he makes sure her outfits are useful to fight. 3)Lounge wear. That boy knows comfy mood and he's got her

Ralph always gives her some new article to work on and they team up for one day any day when Iris wants.

Sue gets her beautiful jewellery .

(she still doesn't know whether she stole it or not)

All the Wells team up to help give a iris her gift. They always either tell her a story, give her beautiful relics or write up a book for her. She's always grateful for them.

Team Arrow

It's madness.

They all like to pretend that they have this in the bag.

But they don't.

They're scared that something would go wrong after Oliver (who's alive) brought her a mirror.

(it was the scariest moment of everyones life when she dropped it and started screaming and crying.)

So after that they always panic and try to get her a perfect gift.

Thea always gets her clothes. She makes sure that they would suit her skin type and limited make up.

Roy, bless his soul, gives her mint chip chocolate and is instantly swarmed with a hug.

(he didn't comment on the small tears.)

Felicity gets her 2 bottles of expensive wines from the Queen cellar along with with chocolate strawberry.

Oliver always gives her an exclusive interview and a really expensive gift.

(he tried to joke that he would show her his abs but when Barry zoomed over and his eyes crackled with lighting he shut his mouth up. Barry's scary when someone else tries to make a move on Iris.)

Laurel gets her purse and a gift bag. In the gift bag there's a small knife and gun along with jewellery.

Diggle and Lyla team up on the gift. They give her a pretty ring that Diggle made (Oliver gave him lessons.) Lyla also makes sure to fill her on in what happens at ARGUS.

The rest all buy her a chocolate cake.

Rogues

Lisa gives her a hug and a golden accessory.

(the gold goes really well with Iris's skin tone and Lisa is always jealous.)

Snart gives her an ice sculpture and teaches her a few words in Russian.

Mick writes her a book. It ranges from writing a list of reasons why people like her to a fantasy story about vampires.

The rest of the rogues make sure not to attack Central City to the week leading up to her birthday to the week after the birthday.

Team Supergirl

Kara gives her a huge hug. No matter what. Iris will always get a hug and a fly around Metropolis.

Alex gets her a gun. She knows it's not exactly normal but she knows it'll protect Iris against aliens that don't take a hint.

Mon-El (fuck you. Him and Kara are amazing) gets her a gift bag full of twizlers.

The rest of the team make a bunch of cupcakes.

Winn makes her some new tech and tries to out make Chester and sometimes Cisco to see who can make the best gift.

Lois gives her a coupon to an amazing spa because she understands the pain of having an idiot husband who's a superhero.

Clark gives her an exclusive for CC Citizen.

Batwoman

Mary makes sure that she gives Iris a shout out on her Insta because she adores her newspaper.

Kate gets her the most expensive gifts and tries to out do Oliver. It's always a competition between those two.

Luke makes her some fancy gadgets and bakes her some cookies.

Everyone teams up to get her a ton of bottles of wine, a dozen boxes of chocolates and a ton of roses.

Legends

Sara gets her artifacts from the different time lines even if it ruins the time line.

Ray gets her a pair of heels

(the first time he does it it was inside joke between him and Iris. After it became a tradition)

John Constantine makes sure to ward her. He places a ton of protective spells around her.

(everyone's grateful)

The rest of the Legends get her books.

Charlie gets her make up knowing what will suit her skin tone.

All Together

It's a fucking nightmare.

There's balloons and tinsel everywhere.

The mess is unreal.

They get dumb drunk.

They sing her happy birthday.

They eat all the cake.

(they're all glad that everyone bought Iris so much cake with Barry and Wally there along with Jesse.)

All criminals are taken care of by the rogues

In the end Barry helps Iris carry all her gifts home and as they lay down she remembers she's still loved and everyone will always protect her.

Iris West Allen is fucking loved.

Spread the fucking word.

#Iris West is loved #fuck anyone who doesn't think so #i love this queen #A lot of references to the mirror verse #im still fucking salty #protect iris West Allen #Iris West deserves better.

[animes-trash]

Servamp Theory Game

This is a “summary” with an explanation of every reference in Servamp, spoilers included !

Hello guys~ ! Holy heck, it litteraly took months to make. Like, I started in September (I’m also lazy since lots of weeks though). So, as you may know, Servamp has a lot, and I mean, a lot, of references coming from a lot of different things such as myths from various mythology, plays, books, poems and else. I tried to find and explain them as best as I could, even though I'm not an expert about some of them.

Also, this has been written the BIG HELP of my dear friend @amaranight ! All of the tarot cards and the Mikuni parts are from her ! I want to thank her A LOT for the help and also for the emotional support XD

Remember, this is not an exhaustive list. I don't know all of them, though I tried to find the most I could. Also, I didn't want to say wrong things so there are references I wrote less about, even though I still searched a lot for every of them. Yes, there are things probably already have been explained somewhere in the fandom.

ALSO ! The manga isn’t finished yet. I’ll edit this post when there’s a new reference or if some of you have things to say to complete what I say or if modifications need to be made.

Forgive me if there’s typos, spelling mistakes or whatever. This post is really long and there’s still things I couldn’t correct, and note that I’m french so English isn’t my first langage, so pardon me if some things sounds weird. 

Here is a table of contents

Alicein family and Servamps

Greed Pair 

C-3 Arc 

Tarot cards

Basically, that’s how I cut this thing. There are some things that aren’t related to the C-3 but happen in the arc so I also put them under it. 

This is a very long post (+10 000), everything is under the cut !

Alicein family and Servamps

Lust Pair

I found something about Misono and Lily’s attack. When they fight Belkia (vol. 2, chap. 7/ ep. 3), Lily "cuts" Belkia's head. When doing so, it is written "Good Night Sweet Dreams, execution block of the Red Queen". The first part doesn't mean anything, it's just saying good night because Belkia ends up... knocked down.

What's interesting is the second part : "execution block of the Red Queen". Given that it's about cutting heads, I thought it could be something about Alice In Wonderland, which would fit the Lust Pair. (I mean, Lily's mail is "Alice-In-The-Garden"). But when I searched, I learned that it wasn't that. In Alice In Wonderland, the queen who's always like "Off his head !" is the Queen of Hearts, and not the Red Queen. In fact, there's a Red Queen in Through The Looking Glass (Kind of a "volume 2″ ? of Alice in Wonderland). But she's not like the Queen of Hearts, she doesn't cut head and all.

So I kept searching and I found who is the Red Queen. It is Marie Stuart, queen of Scotland (1542 - 1587). She was put to death because she was plotting to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I, queen of England. Her head had been cut off on the scaffold.

That's not all. Her last word were "in manus tuas domine commendo spiritum meum", which means in english "into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit". After "cutting" Belkia's head, Lily says "The thing I destroy is not the body, but the mind." So, it kind of connects with her last words with the spirit thing.

Most of all, in the anime when Lily cuts Belkia's head, things are written in japanese and there a crown that's put on one of the Kanji, I screened it.

This is the same crown as Marie Stuart. (In one of the paintings of her, she wears a crown like that, made of gold with a Christian Cross.) This is all I had to say about this one.

Mikuni Alicein

East of Eden - 1

In an official art, we see Mikuni (and others) reading. Mikuni is reading "East of Eden". Though we don't know the author, we can easily guess who it is. First because there isn't any other known books with that name, and second because you'll see that all fits. 

It is "East Of Eden" from the author John Steinbeck. (1902 - 1968). it's a book that refers to the verse of the Bible about Caïn and Abel, but we'll talk about it later. This book talks about two families : the Trasks and the Hamiltions and interwoven stories. We can do some parallels with Mikuni's family.

Mikuni / Adam, son of the first marriage of their father, who remarried with a maid and had another son : Misono / Charles. The oldest, Mikuni / Adam leaves the house to engage in the army / C-3.

Another parralel : the mother of Mikuni / Adam becomes crazy because of a supernatural thing. (Religion in the book, the Servamp of Envy in Servamp.)

Some themes are quite similar too. In the book we have : individualism, Mikuni thinks he's better alone, without people to bother him in his projects, and freedom, which is what Mikuni assumes to have when he leaves the house.

The parralels are pretty hard to tell if you only read a summary of the book. You can find one online if you want to know more about it, but it might confuse you. I advise you to read the book if you want to fully understand all the parralels.

East Of Eden - 2

This time, I'm talking about Caïn and Abel. For those who are unfamiliar with that story, it's a biblical myth. Caïn and Abel are the sons of Adam. (Adam, like Adam and Eve.) The brothers don't get along, and Caïn ends up killing Abel. He is known as the first killer of the World. To punish him, God bannishes him and makes him immortal (with the Mark of Caïn, but it doesn't matter here). Then, Caïn leaves and go to the East of Eden, more precisely to the Land of Nod.

So, first of all, his doll is named Abel. I think it already makes things pretty clear. Second, we know that Servamp has a game, who takes place in Mikuni's shop, who is litteraly called “The Land of Nod”.

Do I need to say more ? "Nôd" means "to wander". When Mahiru first meets Mikuni (vol. 2, chap. 9 /he doesn't  say it in the anime) he says to him "I'm just a poor antique dealer, whose hobby it's to travel the world". He is wandering.

That all we had for these two part of East of Eden. Even if these fits with Servamp, there are still differences, things are not exactly the same. But, it's like that for each references, everything isn't exactly like in the books / myths.

My Fair Lady

Now it’s about Mikuni’s attack. When he fights with Tsurugi in chapter 44, we see his attack, which is called “My Fair Lady”. It comes from the musical / operetta of the same name. I won’t talk about it because it doesn’t matter now. What’s interesting is the reference of the musical. 

It is inspired by the greek mythology. More precisely bya myth from the Metamorphoses, a book by the Roman poet Ovid. The myth we’re talking about here is the one of Pygmalion and Galatea. 

So, Pygmalion wasa telented sculptor who decided to stay single. Though, he dedicated himself to his work and created Galatea, a statue of a woman. He found his statue so perfect that he deeply fell in love with it. Aphrodite, the goddess of love took pity on Pygmalion and decided to give life to Galatea. The sculptor lived happily with her.

Now, think about Mikuni and Abell, his doll. Though they aren’t in love, it fits the story. Look at Abell’s form when Mikuni attacks :

She looks like a woman that could be a statue. Also, look at how Mikuni treats Abell. Once again, there isn’t love or anything, but we see that he cares a lot about her. About the judgment thing, I think it’s just because of the title, my “fair” lady, with the idea of justice and all. Okay, maybe this one is a bit extrapolated but when we think about it, it makes sense.

Alice in Wonderland

So, I'm going to talk about the whole Alicein family and their servants now. They are all, or almost, from the famous book Alice in Wonderland, written by Lewis Caroll. Though, apart from Misono and Lily, they others don't really have a character development  or even a backstory, so we can't really develop. And even, at this point of the story, we didn't know a lot about Misono and Lily either.

So, firstly, Misono is Alice, and Lily the White Rabbit. Misono is "the center" of the family and the others focuses on him, he has all the attention. It's not really a common point with Alice, just that they are the "protagonist" of their story. Also, Lily's item is a pocket watch, like the White Rabbit. Lily is the "supernatural creature" that kind of drags Misono into other supernatural things, even if Misono already lives in a house full of vampires.

For Dodo, he's a reference to The Dodo. Yeah, it was a bit obvious. Though, only their name is similar. The Dodo being a caricature of the author, and isn't well developed.

For Mitsuki, she's a reference to the March Hare. This time, it's in the name again. In kanji, her name is "三月", "Mitsuki", which means March. So yeah, March Hare.  

For Hattori, he's a reference to the Mad Hatter. Once again, the almost only thing they have in common is their design. But, in Through The Looking Glass, there's another character that is Mad Hatter, but called "Hatta" (why, I don't know). Hatta / Hattori,you see.

For Yamane, she's a reference to the Dormhouse. If you only saw the movies by Tim Burton, she's called Mallymkun, or just Mally. This time, the two have the same "fighting style". Mally fights with a pin, and Yamane fights with that, which looks like a big pin.

For Julie & Marie, they are a reference to Tweedledum & Tweedledee. Just because... well, they both are twins. I told you, these ones aren't that complex.

For Mikado, he's a reference to the White King. The people in the Alicein family call him the King already. He's the White King, and not the Red King, because he's on the "good" side. (The Red King being on the "evil" side, as an antagonist).Alice and the others are with him, like Misono and the others are too.

That's all we know for them. For Mikuni, he has his own reference to something else, that I already talked about here.

Greed Pair

Shakespeare

You waited for it. Even though Lawless does quote Shakespeare a lot, his character is a reference to one play, Hamlet. Now, I'm going to explain what's Hamlet about, in the big lines : Hamlet's father, the king, died a week ago. He was killed by his brother, Claudius (but nobody knows), who becomes the king and marries Hamlet's mother. Hamlet learns that Claudius killed his father and only wants one thing, revenge. His thirst for it will drive him crazy. He loves Ophelia, and some people tells that it's the reason he's crazy, because he doesn't have her. In the end, he's killed by Ophelia's brother, Laertes, by a poisoned rapier.

Now, I'm going to compare the characters from the plays to the characters from the Greed Team, by explaining their character traits.

Hamlet - He is melancholic, bitter and very cynical. He is full of hatred for his uncle's scheming and so loses faith in humanity. Though, he's thoughtful and studied at the university. On one hand, he's hesitant and doesn't know what to do, and on the other hand he's very impulsive and do rash acts.

Lawless is a lot like Hamlet. When he meets Kuro again after all these years, he isn't angry and serious, he does bitter and sarcastic jokes. He doesn't take it seriously. We can also see him as melancholic, sort of. He is stuck in the past and refuses to turn the page. A major difference is that he's full of hatred for humanity, and not someone in particular. The other common points are his "bipolar" tendencies. When he's with his eves, at least the ones before Licht, he's rather calm. (Like, he doesn't kill every moving thing). But at the moment he gets bored, he becomes impulsive and violently kills them. When he was back to the castle, after the others decided to kill sensei, Lawless was very lost and didn't know what to do.

Ophelia - She'd the daughter of Polonius, a friend of the king. She is a beautiful, sweet and young woman. She obeys her father and the other men in her life, as long as she thinks it's for the good. Her father doesn't want her to be with Hamlet. When her father dies, she's the one who becomes mad. Not long later, she's found dead in a river.

Our Ophelia is also like the one from the play : sweet and caring for the others. She does what she's told to, like when she accepts to marry the prince of the other country, because she thinks it's a good thing to do. What changes is that our Ophelia doesn't become crazy, and she doesn't drown in a river.

Guildenstern and Rozen Kranz - They are Hamlet's friends since he is young. Though, the king turns them against him when he tells them that he's crazy. Later, Hamlet is send to England and the two have to go with him, the king wrote a letter saying that Hamlet shall be executed there. When Hamlet finds it, he thinks that his friends betrayed him. Which is wrong, they didn't know about the letter. So, Hamlet changes the names on the letter and escapes the ship they're on. The two ends up being executed in England, by mistake.

We can't really make parralels between them, exept that they're good friends. Maybe for Guildenstern who was with Lawless for a long time. Appart from that, they aren't really similar.

Now, I want to talk about the scene where Lawless goes back to the castle, or what remains of it. (chap. 34, vol. 7 / ep. 10). Because it is, for me, one of the most interesting scene with Lawless.

So, what happens ? When he returns to the ashes of the castle, he sees Ophelia's statue falling into pieces. Then, he hug the bust of the statue. That's from here that he becomes crazy. He starts dancing and singing. He sings "she is dead and gone, lady. She is dead and gone...", "Lord, we know what we are, but not what we may be !", and "Sweets to sweet, farewell !".

Now, what's interesting : in Hamlet, it's not Hamlet who says all that nonsense. No, it's Ophelia. After her father died, she goes in the Queen's room and says "he is dead and gone, lady. He is dead and gone". She talks about her father. She then starts talking nonsense. She talks about a baker's daughter who became an owl, and says that "we know what we are, but now what we may be". Then, she starts singing and dancing.

Lawless is quoting Ophelia in his madness. (Litteraly quoting, he’s a fan of Shakespeare and probably already read Hamlet). When he says, "she is dead and gone", he compares his love for her with the Ophelia from the play's love for her father, who was known to be immense. And I find that beautiful. Sad, but beautiful.

I also want to make a parralel with Hamlet and Lawless's duel with Higan. (Chap. 36, vol. 7 / ep. 11). It is like the duel between Hamlet and Laertes, Ophelia's brother. He wants to kill Hamlet because he thinks it's his fault if his sister died. (Technically, it is. Hamlet killed Ophelia's father, but not on purpose). They fight with a poisoned rapier and both of them die at the end, because of the poison. The "atmospheres" are similar. Though, this scene is more a reference to next thing I'm going to talk about.

The Phantom Of The Opera

Also an obvious reference, but this time with Licht in it. I’m now going to talk about The Phantom Of the Opera. More known for its musical comedy, it comes from a book with the same name, written by Gaston Leroux (1868 - 1927). Basically, someone is damaging the opera, the people are calling him "the Phantom". However, plays and comedies are still playing. Christine, a singer, will sing in an upcoming play. But she's afraid because, at night, someone comes in her room and sings to her with a beautiful voice. She calls him her “Angel Of Music”. She tells that story to the viscount Raoul De Chagny, who secretly loves her. They both find out that this "Angel" is really the Phantom, a man named Erik. He has an hideous face and is considered as a monster, he lives under the Opera. In love with Christine, he kidnapps her and drag her under the opera. Soon, Raoul comes to save her. A swordfight happens and Raoul wins, but doesn't kill the Phantom.

So, while fighting with Higan, Licht starts playing the theme of The Phantom Of The Opera on his piano. Because of the magic, both Higan and Lawless are wearing capes and masks, which are the costume of the Phantom. 

I guess we all assume that Lawless was the one compared to the Phantom ? Because it's wrong. Lawless tells to Higan "I have a verse that fits you perfectly. 'Ah, secretly, secretly. The loathsome gargoyle who burns in hell, but secretly years for heaven !'".

This quote is talking about the Phantom. Lawless is comparing Higan to the Phantom. The ugly beast with a beautiful voice. So, does that make Licht Christine ? It would make sense. Christine was kidnapped by the Phantom, Licht was kidnapped by Higan, exept that he isn't in love with Licht. Raoul fights for saving Christine, and that's, sort of, what Lawless is doing : he's moving forward. He doesn't want Licht to get killed. That's also in this scene that Hyde is telling himself "I want to change !". He, now, wants to protect what's important to him, like Raoul protects the one he love. (My mind wants to scream "LAWLICHT" do damn fucking loud but I'm going to stay serious). So, the "final duel" between Lawless and Higan is also a reference to the swordfight between the Phantom and Raoul.

I thought Licht was compared to "The Angel Of Music", that would makes sense. I mean he's an angel pianist. But no, the Angel of Music is the Phantom of The Opera. Well, after all, everything isn't like in the reference, so I guess it's still refering to Licht.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

This reference is not only about Licht and Hyde’s attack, but rather about themselves. It comes from the novel "The Strange Of The Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", written by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894). It talks about the Dr. Jekyll, a famous Doctor known for his kindness. Philosopher obsessed with dual personality, he creates a liquid that separates Good from Evil in someone. Except that when he drinks it, instead of being two people, he turns into Mr. Hyde, who looks like Dr. Jekyll but smaller, more hideous and a lot uglier. Jekyll chooses to turn in Mr. Hyde at night so he can do whatever he wants without being reconized. In the end, he randomly transforms and the others are about to find out, so he kills himself.

This novel is about he duality of Humans. The Good and the Bad, what is one and what is the other. It's about the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, so different yet the same person. There's not a "right" one and a "wrong" one. It's the two perspectives of the same reality, seen by two different opinion. The two faces of a same coin.

It's exactly like Licht and Lawless. They are the two opposites and they perfectly complete each other. Licht is the Angel and Lawless is the Demon. Licht is the Good and Lawless is the Bad. Licht is the introvert and Lawless is the extrovert. Licht is the optimistic and Lawless is the pessimistic. Licht is the dreamer and Lawless is the stuck-in-the-past. Licht and Lawless' versions of the world couldn't be more different, but neither of them are “right” or “wrong”. Just two points of view. Even in their character design : Licht's hair has a white stripe, Lawless's hair has black stripes. In his hedgehog form, Lawless is black and his stripes are white, exactly like Licht.

In their attack, it's almost as if they were really the same person doing the same attack, when they almost can't stand each other.

And also, I mean, their fucking name. Licht JEKYLLand Todoroki and HYDE.

C-3 Arc

Oh dear, the C-3 is so damn full of references. Their spells have, generally, some verses of a true poem/nursery rhyme, some verses invented by Tanaka Strike to fit the charachter and things like that. Some of their spells are easy to find where they come from, but some other are either hard as hell or just aren't a reference to something. There's some where I didn't find anything, so I tried to interpret it, because why not. There’s also all the norse mythology things, not gonna lie it was a pain to write.

Tsurugi Kamiya

Norse mythology

At the C-3, his code name is Baldr. Baldr is a God in the Norse Mythology. He is loved by all, handsome and gracious. At least, most of the versions say he's like that, but they forget to mention his love for fighting and for war. Some people even say he's a God of War. One day, he begins to have dreams of his death. People laugh at that because he's an immortal being, so they just throw things at him. He is finally killed by Hodr, his brother. Hodr didn't mean to kill him : Loki, the guileful trickster of the gods, made an arrow with misteltoe (that can kill Bladr) and told Hodr, who was blind, to throw it at Baldr, and he did it without knowing it would kill him.

Knowing that Hodr is Yumikage's code name, it would mean that Yumi's going to kill Tsurugi. We can't say if it'll happen or not. The death of Baldr is very famous though. It could make sense, Yumi and Tsurugi are almost like brother, but it doesn't mean anything.

spell

When Tsurugi uses his spell (vol. 8, chap. 44.) it's "against" Kuro. It puts a kind of necklace / choker around their neck. A string of around 200 meters stops Kuro from running away and Tsurugi has power on him.

The spell is : « I want you to read pictures books to me by my bedside. I want you to pat my head and say 'goodboy, good boy'. Then hold me kindly, and say you love me. I am your treasure. 'Neverland' don't leave me alone ! »

I didn't find where it comes from. Not even some verses. Still, we can say that this poem talks about a child who doesn't want to be left alone, and to be loved, probably by the love of a parent. We can say with because of the pictures books by the bedside, who's usually a parental gesture. This poem is rather childish, and that's one of the reason we can relate it to Tsurugi, who couldn't grow up. He basically stayed alone, but with Touma. Even if he has bad influences on him, Tsurugi doesn't want him to leave him alone.

Another interesting thing is the "Neverland". Neverland is the magical land in Peter Pan. Once again, we have the parralel with the child who couldn't grow up, exept that Peter Pan didn't want to grow up.

Other

Here's a little thing I noticed. I don't really know how to call it or if it's even a reference but anyway.

In that pic (chap. 48, vol. 9), the white bubbles are Tsurugi's words. The two first are a quote from Martin Luther (1483 - 1546). Well, it's not the exact quote. The exact one is "Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree."

This quote talks about the fact that you should be happy now, instayead of wasting your life searching happiness. It has a sense, I promise.

What's interesting is the "I wonder what kind of tree it was...". The tree represents the "happiness", Tsrurugi is asking himself how to be happy. He doesn't know how to be. He wants to stop asking himselft how to be happy and plant that tree. But, which tree does he need to plant ?

Also, maybe a small parralel to The Mother's farm with her apple trees ? I don't know. 

Yumikage Tsukimitsu

Norse mythology

His code name is Hodr. We don't know a lot about this god, compared to the other ones. Though, we know he was seen as very strong, even too strong.

The most famous story about him is the death of Baldr, as I explained earlier in Tsurugi's paragraph. I'm not going to repeat it here. Though, I want to point something. It is said that Hodr was blind, when he killed Baldr. Buuut- he wasn't really. Buuuut- maybe he was. People aren't really sure about it, it depends of the versions. Though, most people tend to say that he wasn't really blind and that it was rather for the symbolism.

He is killed by Baldr's avenger, Vali. Vali almost has been made to kill Hodr.

Spell

His spell creates a kind of sphere, like a moon, of light. He can throw them and it seems to be very powerful. We see it he's fighting Touma. (chap. 70)

His spell is : "Who killed Cock Robin ? You said it was you. Cast away the green eyes ! Flee, cowardly Lion ! Everyone shall grieve your absence. The tree is swaying from the flight of birds, making the hanging craddle fall down. Kill your mother, kill your father, kill your friends, kill your teacher. Kill everything and end up alone. Crawl the sky drowned in spilled blood. Cry for the Moon."

So, so, so. The first two verses come from a nursery rhyme called "Who killed Cock Robin ?". Yeah, it was pretty obvious. This rhyme talks about the death of the Cock Robin, who was killed by Sparrows. Basically, the animals of the forest talk about his death and what will happen next (who will burry him, etc). It has many interpretations. One of them being the death of Robin Hood. But it's not the one I'm going to talk about now. The other one, is the death of Baldr by Hodr. Baldr/Tsurugi would be the Cock Robin, killed by Hodr/Yumi, who would be the Sparrow. Here again, the sparrow didn't kill him on purpose. It was by mistake.

Seriously, all tends to say that Yumi will end up killing Tsurugi, by mistake, yes, but still. Tanaka please ;;

We can notice is the "cowardly lion", a character that comes from The Wizard of Oz. The "green eyes" could be the Green Witch, but she doesn't have green eyes. Though, it is said that the “green eyes monster”, in Shakespeare’s plays represents the Jealousy.

Now, here's something else. The verse "The tree is swaying from the flight of birds, making the hanging craddle fall down." I think it's a reference to the nursery rhyme "Rock a bye baby", who's... one of Touma's spell. You know what, I'll talk about it in Touma's part, to get it less confusing. I'm putting a little (1).

Jun'ichirou Kurumamori

Norse mythology

His code name is Thor. Well, I think you all know who's Thor, at least his name. Still, I'm going to developpe. Thor is the god of lightning / thinder. He is the warrior. He's the loyal and honorable fighter of the other gods and their world. His sense of duty and courage are unshakeable. Doesn't that sound like Jun ?

Also, Thor has a charriot carried by goats. What is Jun's tarrot card ? The charriot. He also has his famous hammer. I'm going to talk about it right after that.

Spell

His spell can "summon" a big hammer. Like, a really big one. This hammer is obviously Mjölnir, Thor's hammer. In theory, only Thor should be able to hold the hammer. That's maybe why he's that big in that scene, like only the one who casts the spell can hold it. Here, he's fighting against Tsurugi. (chap. 53, vol. 10)

His spell is : "Let's talk about the past. Let's talk about when you smiled. Let's talk about when you got mad. Let's talk about when you were here. I still can't believe in all those things we called the past. Ring a Ring, the Wheel of Fate !".

I didn't find where any of those verses come. If they come from something XD. But I still have things to say there. I believe that this spell talks about Tsurugi, a bit. Since Jun is fighting with him, it's almost as if he's "blaming" him. Jun is talking about the past, when he smiled, got mad, was here, etc, so, when he had emotions. Maybe, when they were younger, Tsurugi was less... sick ? I don't know how to call how Tsurugi is doing now. In the past, when Tsurugi still had, at least a little more, emotions. But here, I'm just speculating.

There's another thing I want to say here. Touma is watching the whole scene on his screens. He says "even if he's not as good as the previous Thor, he's using Mjölnir better than I thought he would". That implies that spells can be transmitted from one to another.

Touma Taishi

Touma doesn't have a norse mythologic reference. He has more spells than the others, though. Most of his spells don't have an affect on himself, but on Tsurugi. Like, a boost of power.  Let's go in chronogical order.

Spell - 1

In chapter 53, when Tsurugi is fighting with Jun, Touma uses one of his spells.

It goes like : "You were born in a room with no windows. Today is the senventh you'll crawl on the ground. Instead of crying like an infant, scream out. Clutch your throat and yell. Breath five times in one second. Meanwhile, a single adult will die. 'Baby in the Dark', 'the black bird of Kensingston'".

The only reference I see is the "black bird of Kensingston". It comes from the book "The little white bird, or adventures in Kensingston Gardens". Written by James Matthew Barrie (1860 - 1937). This book is where Peter Pan comes from. In the first chapters at least, the next is someone else. As most of you know, Peter Pan's story is in Neverland. But in the beginning, Neverland was just the Kensingston's gardens in London. Barrie changed the name afterward.

Though, the title of the book says "white bird". But in Touma's spell it's "black bird". Touma could be compared to a darker version of Peter Pan, probably his shadow, given of one of his last spells.

One of the interpetation of Peter Pan's shadow, is that it is his inability to grow old. It would represent the spirit of a dead one, who's still tied to earth. For the first thing, it could Touma and Tsurugi. Tsurugi is Peter Pan, the one who couldn't grow up because of his shadow, Touma.

For the rest of the spell. Touma is probably refering to Tsurugi, also because his spells can make Tsurugi "stronger" to fight. But, it could also be referring to Touma, for we also know that he had a bad childhood.

Spell - 2

In chapter 70, Touma and Tsurugi are fighting against Yumikage and Kuro. (Well, Tsurugi doesn't want to fight with Touma, but he forces him).When Yumi attacked them with "cry for the moon", Touma fights back with his spell. Once again, the spell affects Tsurugi, and not really Touma.

The spell is : ... well there isn't really one. I mean, not a long thing. But that seems already enough. It is "Rock-a-Bye-Baby ! 'sleep, little one, go to sleep'".

So, Rock-A-Bye-Baby is a nursery rhyme. The most common version used today is "Rock-a-bye baby, on the tree tops, when the wind blows, the cradle will rock, when the bough, breaks, the cradle will fall, and down will come baby, cradle and all."

This nursery rhymes has some interpretations, but no one really suited the story in any sort.

Though, it talks about chidlren. That's probably why it fits with Tsurugi, who's still like a little child. I don't have anything else to say, exept maybe that the last thing "sleep, little one, go to sleep" comes from one of Mozart's lullaby. Same in that case, the only parralel is the child state of Tsurugi.

HANG OOON, THE LITTLE (1) IS NOW. So, in Yumi's spell was the sentence "The tree is swaying from the flight of birds, making the hanging craddle fall down." I think the hanging craddle is the same as in this nusery rhyme. We have the same idea of the wind who makes a craddle fall down from a tree. Maybe it's only a coincidence, maybe not. Still, I find it funny to tell.

Spell 3

Now, we're in chapter 74. Touma is fighting against Tsurugi, Kuro and Mahiru. Tsurugi is still a bit fighting against Kuro and Mahiru, because of Touma's previous spells. This time though, Touma's spell has an affect on himself, and not on Tsurugi. He can turn himslef into a shadow and attack people.

The spell is : "Do not open the lock, do not go outside. There's no place for you in the world. Tonight as well, monsters with the same face are bringing agony. Laughing in a world where I do no exist, there won't come a day when I can forgive you. The world is full of pain. Daddy Long Legs, 'nobody knows'".

Exept the litterature reference that I'll explain just after that, let's talk a bit about the spell in itself. It could be refering to Touma and Tsurugi, but it's rather for Touma I'd say. It talks about him. We know that Touma mostly had a shitty childhood, and let's say it a shitty life. I think the "onsters with the same face are bringing agony" sentence is referering to humans in general. He is full of hatred toward the others, he won't forgive them, as it's said. I don't think I need to say more, it speaks about itselft.

Now, the daddy long legs thing. Daddy Long Legs is a book written by Jean Webster (1876 - 1916). It talks about a girl, Judy who lives in a very poor orphanage. They live thanks to donor donations. When she's around 17, she wants to go to college, but she can't because of money. But, a mysterious donator offers to pay for her studies because he thinks she can become a wonderful writter. The only condition, she ahs to write a letter to him every month. She named him "daddy-long-legs because she never saw him and knows nothing about him, she only saw his shadow. To college, she has two friends. A kind and humble girl and a rich / snobinard girl. She not friend with the second in the beginning, but later.

Judy is obviously Tsurugi. He lives only from what he's given. (Even clothes, like Judy). And the Daddy-Long-Legs is Touma, even if now he's not someone good for Tsurugi, we can't forget he litteraly saved him and helped him a lot in the past. Also, Judy has two friends, like Tsurugi. The more humble one, like Jun, and and the snobinard one with whom she becomes a friend only later, like Yumikage.

Also, Touma has fucking long legs man.

Shuuhei Tsuyuki

For now, the only references we have for Shuuhei is his spell and his tarot card. Well, I wonder if he could be Loki, from the norse mythology, because Iduna calls him like that. But I don't see any parralel he could have with Shuuhei, so I'm not gonna speak about that, because, well, I just have nothing to say.

Spell

While he is fighting with Shamrock, in chapter 62, he uses his spell that he seems to have inherited from his father. Shamrock says they have the same eyes, and his power are a thing with the view, so maybe he inherited it.

The spell is : "I am thy law. Thou art a demon. Thou art corrupt. Fall from the rye field's cliff. Where no one will find you. You cannot return, even if you hold tightly to the 6 pence that you gave me. Four and Twenty black-birds. 'nobody in the rye'".

His spell gives him the power to have an unobstructed bird's view. He can know the position of objects and people and their behavior up to 10kms away, this power is called "Hayabusa", or "Hawk Eyes". The hawk is one of the bird that has the sharpest vision.

The "four and twenty black-birds" come from a nursery rhyme, who's not really one but we'll call it like that, who's called "Sing A Song of Sixpence". The rhyme goes like :

"Sing a Song of Sixpence, pocket Full of Rye, four and Twenty Black Birds, baked in a Pie. When the Pie was opened, the Birds began to Sing, wasn't that a dainty Dish, to set before the King ? The King was in the counting, house counting out his money, the Queen was in the Parlour, eating Bread and Honey, the Maid was in the Garden, hanging out the Clothes, when along came a Blackbird and snipped off her nose"

It has many interpretations, but the one that I find the better and who fits more Shuuhei is that the rhyme was Blackbeard's Alert.

Blackbeard was a famous and succesful pirate. Unlike most of the others, he paid the member of his crew. He paid each man 6 pence a day and a packet of rye whiskey. Like every crew on a ship, there was around twenty-four men. Given it was Blackbeard's crew, they were called the black-birds. Thanks to his many sources, he could usually know exactly were a ship would be.

(Blackbeard was the King, the Queen was his ship, the Maid would be the ship about to be attacked and it was in the garden, a specific area which was useful for Pirates. It was hanging out the clothes, meaning under sail. The black-birds were Blackbeard's mean hidden in the ship/pie.) The part in parenthesis isn't really important for the explanation, just for culture, if that interests you.

It fits Shuuhei because of Blackbeard's ability to know where every ships would be. The men are also the called "birds", and the hawks are birds. Also maybe, Shuuhei used to have black hair. And blackbeard had, well, a black beard.

Shamrock

We don't know much about him. We know a bit about his past, like the fact he was german. Like some subclasses, he has a special attack. In that case, it transforms him into a kind of... beast, that seems to be a bird, at least. Which species, I don't know. A kind of hawk, maybe.

His attack is called "Die Verwandlung. 'the nighthawk star'".

"Die Verwandlung" is a german novel written by Franz Kafka (1883 - 1924). In english "the metamorphosis". Basically, here's what happened. Gregor Samsa, a salesman, one day, wakes up, transformed into an insect. He has a sister and his two parents. Because of his "insect" state, he can't go to work and ends up fired. His sister is the only one who tries to help him (like, to feed him and all. He's not a little insect like we see everydays, he's a human sized insect). His parents are too frightened to help him. One day, his father throws an apple at his back, which ends up causing an infection. Now, even his sister stopped help him. He will die alone in his room because of the infection, he thinks of his death as a sacrifice to help his family to move on.

This novel is about the transformation. Gregor Samsa was abandonned because he became an insect. He was still the same man, but had another body. And because it was ugly to see, disgusting even, the others let him alone. It fits Shamrock, somehow. He didn't became an insect, but a vampire. Though, Tsubaki didn't let him. Yoshimasa did, but he wasn't a vampier yet. But we can still make the parralel of the abandonment. That's all I had to say for that.

"The nighthawk star" is a popular Japanese children's story written by Kenji Miyazawa (1896 - 1933). Here's a summary of what happens. There's a Nighthawk, who is a nightjar (another species of bird, but who isn't an hawk). He is bullied and hated by the others because he is descibed as "ugly". The "real" Hawk dislikes him because the nightjar has "hawk" in his name and demands him to change it. But the Nighthawk refuses. He is very sad to see that the others hate him just because of his appearance. He ends up dying, alone, while flying. He became a star and shines.

We have the theme of the reject because of the appearance back, and the theme of the birds that goes with the Tsuyuki family. It could be that the "real" hawk is Yoshimasa or Shuuhei, that hates the nighthawk/nightjar, so Shamrock, because he is an ugly beast/monster.

Shuuhei does hate him because he is a vampire. (Well, also because he killed his father, but the fact that he is a vampire has something to do with it). Yoshimasa didn't hate him, we can say that he abandonned him, but before he was a vampire.

Because of his attack, Shamrock does transform into something else. The two of his references reflect what happened/happens to him, and one if it is tied to the Tsuyuki family. Now, I'm done with him. Let's move on.

Wrath Pair

I didn't know if I can call Iduna and Freya like that, but for now I will. Their references are related. They have references to the norse mythology and an attack. Let's begin.

Norse mythology

I'll begin with Iduna.

Iduna, mostly called Idun, is the goddess of youth and fertility in the norse mythology, pictured with long blond hair. We don't know a lot of things about her, sadly. In her best-knows, and only, tale, she is the owner of a fruit that gives immortality. People accord to say that this fruit was apples. Whoever eats one of her apples finds his youth back.

Take makes a parralel with Freya's backstory, we knew she married a man that planted apples. Also both Idunas have long blond hair. Apart from that, there's nothing else to say. Let's go with Freya now.

Freya, also written Freyja, is the goddess of love, fertility and beauty. Her name would be a derivative from the german word "Frau", which means "lady". We have more stories about her than about Iduna, but it'd be too long to tell them. Also, they're not interesting for this post and for the parralels we're trying to make.

Freya und Iduna don't really have stories in common. Well, there's one book. It's called "Freya, Iduna & Thor : vom Charme der germanischen Göttermythen" (Freya, Iduna & Thor: from the charm of Germanic myths of the gods, in english). It's a book of some tales for chidlren about the gods. But it doesn't really speak about the two goddess together.

Attack

When Freya und Iduna are fighting against Shamrock, in chapter 76, they have a special attack called "Maiden of Orleans ! 'war maiden, take the sword !'".

Their special attack creates a bunch of light swords. Freya is fighting with them while Iduna seems to control the swords as well.

"The maiden of Orlean" is a reference to Joan of Arc, who had that nickname. She was a french girl who was born in 1412 and died at age 19 in 1231, burned at the stake. She was considered a heroine in the history of France and a saint by the Catholic Church (though she had been canonized like 500 years after her death).

At this time, the Hundred Years' War was going on between France and England. At age 17, Joan of Arc, who was the daughter of farmers, began to have hallucinations. She thought the angels (such as St. Micheal) told her she was the one who had to save France from the british. She went to see the future Charle VII, son of the previous France's king. He accepted that Joan join his troops and gave her and an armor. In the end, at age 18, she led the the French army to victory in the battle of Orléans. She was captured one year later by the British and had been burned alive.

The parralel obviously the fact that "Hey, I'm a girl and I can kick your fucking ass". (A sentence is better than a hundred of words, sometimes. XD). Because, I think y'all can agree with me, Freya is fucking badass, like Joan of Arc was. Iduna is strong too, but here it focuses more on Freya. She's the one with the swords and the shield, who were two of Joan's attributes.

Johaness Mimir Faustus

Norse mythology

This tall scientist is a reference to Mimir. He is the counselor of the gods and known to be exceptionally wise. We don't have a lot of sources on him, and the ones we are have are contradictory. For example, we don't know if he was a God himself, or just a Giant. Tanaka Strike seems to have choosed the second option, because Johaness is the tallest of the manga, with 2 meters and 11 cms. (Or 6'9'', in feet. Basically, fucking tall.) The vikings thought of him like "the one who helped the gods retain the wisdom of tradition".

Though Johaness is more seen as the "crazy scientist", we know he has a lot of knowledge, especially over vampires. His words also help Mahiru a lot, sort of, he acts as a counselor. So yeah, some people could consider him as a wise, in some ways. I already talked about his height, but I still want to say again that us, people, call tall people like him giants.

The Lion and the Unicorn

There's something else about Johaness but I don't really know where to put it. Given that it's Johaness who talks with Mahiru, I'll put it here. Also, it happens in the Greed Pair Arc, sooo yeah kinda confusing

So, in chapter 29, Johaness helps Mahiru to... hum, should should I say this... get into Kuro. Well, his mind. And before throwing him, Johaness says "I'll recite a poem for your journey !"

Here's the poem : "The Cat and the Unicorn, were fighting without the crown. The Cat beat the Unicorn, all about the town. Some gave them no flowers, and sent them out of town."

This poem is adapted from this one : "The Lion and the Unicorn, were fighting for the crown. The Lion beat the Unicorn, all around the town. Some gave them white bread, and some gave them brown. Some gave them plum cake, and drummed them out of town."

The real peom (who's a bit longer, but the last four verses aren't interresting here), also called nursery rhyme, is about the United Kingdom. As you may know, the Lion and the Unicorn are one of its symbol. Even before the unification of England and Scotland, in 1603, the Lion was England's symbol and the Unicorn was Scotland's smybol. When they unified, they combined. And this nursery rhyme was created.

Though, the rest of the poem, well... doesn't really have a signification. Some people say there was a battle between the two country and that England (the lion) beat Scotland (the Unicorn). but they officialy unified as equals. Soo, I'm kind of lost with this.

In Johaness' version, it is the Cat and the Unicorn. The cat is obviously Kuro, but for the Unicorn... I can't really say.

This one is kind of confusing. The rhyme talks about "fighting for the crown", but there wasn't a war or anything, they unified, as I said, as equals. It's pretty hard to make parralels when you can barely understand the base.

I did some research and asked friends, and it appears that the Lion and the Unicorn are two characters from Through the Looking Glass. (Who're also a reference to the original rhyme). It was surprising because the Alice's references are rather for the Alicein, but here it's in the Greed Pair arc, said by Johaness and to Mahiru. But hey, that's the only clue I have so let's go that way.

The Lion and the Unicorn are fighting for the White King's crown, which is pretty absurd because both of them are on the White side. There, the Lion is pictured as a rather slow, even stupid, but the better fighter. The Unicorn sees Alice as a monster, but he says he'll believe in her if she believes in him first. The Unicorn also "attacks" Alice, but the Lion protects her.

We know the Lion/Cat is Kuro. Now, here is my interpretation. I don't know at all if it really meant. I thought that Lawless could be the Unicorn, and Mahiru Alice. (Even if Alice is already Misono, buuuuuut, this and the Alicein aren't related, not in here.)

It could make sense, with Lewis Caroll's version and the Servamp one, combined (?). Kuro and Lawless are on the same side, sort of : they're against Tsubaki. They aren't fighting for a crown. Lawless doesn't believe in Mahiru, he stills thinks humans life are meaningless, etc. Though, Lawless doesn't talk about believing in him later. Also, Lawless attacks Mahiru, not the first time they meet, but after, in the concert hall, and Mahiru protects him.

In both versions of the rhyme, they end up kicked out of the town. But I don't see anything that speaks about that. Not even in the original meaning the rhyme. I guess it's just... there, with no meaning behind.

Now the question is why the fuck does Johaness tells Mahiru that, when he doesn't even know what the fuck is going on between the others and Lawless. I'm talking about Johaness' later, he's a reference to a wise being, so we can say he doesn't tell things with no meaning. Once again, it's only my interpretation there, but Johaness could be telling Mahiru that the fights between Sloth and Greed are absurd, just like the Lion and the Unicorn's ones (at least those from Lewis Caroll's).

Mahiru Shirota

So, the sunshine finally's got a reference to something. Bye bye norse mythology, we're now in greek mythology.

In chapter 75, Mahiru and Kuro are fighting against Touma. Mahiru's attack/spell is "Elpis". (I don't know how to call that. It is formuled like a spell, but spells are only for magicians, if I'm right. So maybe it's an attack with Kuro, or maybe Mahiru has magician blood ? Anyway, it doesn't matter here) It is a reference to Pandora's myth, with the infamous Pandora's box. Basically, here's the myth in the big lines.

Pandora was said to be the first woman. She was created by the gods, beautiful and sweet but also curious. She was what we could call a poisoned gift for the human, given by Zeus. She was sent with a small box, but with the ban to open it. But, because of the curiousity, she opened it and all the sins were released in the world.

She was so sad and cried, her husband came to comfort her and asked what happened. She opened the box again to show him, but this time Hope came out. (Depending of the versions, people says it was Hermes, another god, placed Hope in the box without Zeus (the god of the gods) knowing).

"Elpis" is Hope. It is the way to call it, and also the personification.

This myth means a lot of things. One of the most important, it tells you that you shouldn't be curious. I mean, see what it did. Also, when Pandora talked to her husband and showed him the box, hope came. She opened up to him, and it helped.

We already saw these black boxes in the manga. Everyone has their Pandora's box. Touma's one already opened and the sins came out. Touma says it himself, he's a bad person. It is said the key of his box is lost, so the box can't open anymore, can't release the hope. But, here's Mahiru. His spell made the key. Now the box will open again, and Touma will be able to release his Hope. (With a bit of chance, still). He and Mahiru will probably talk (or talking while fighting, we'll see). Maybe Touma will open up to Mahiru and, like the lesson the myth teaches us, find hope.

Nothing more about the sunshine boy, for now at least.

Yggdrasill 

This time, this isn't a reference to a character in particular. Rather to... the C-3 in itself. As you all know now, the C-3 is full of references to norse mythology. Let me explain, in chapter 42, we have this picture :

I don't know why there's a bunch of triangles on the ground, but that doesn't matter. The interesting thing is the tree. It is Yggdrasill, the Tree of Life, also called the World Tree. It is in center of the Norse spiritual cosmos, and the it leads to the nine worlds of the said cosmos. The Tree is connected to the worlds in all ways : if the Tree is bad, the worlds are bad. It is said that the Tree has three main roots, one leading to Asgard, the world of gods, to Midgard, the world of humans and to Helheim, the world of the deads.

It's not surprising to see the Tree in the C-3. After all, there's so many characters with a reference to the norse mythology in it. The C-3 probably represents Asgard, the world of gods, because all of the references are gods. Asgard is the fortress of the Aesirs (the people of Asgard). The C-3 is also kind of a fortress, and also the home for some of the members, such as Tsurugi (Bladr).

C-3′s building and Servamp - Eve distance limitation

Okay so I really didn’t know where to put that, but I wrote something about the Servamp - Eve distance limitation and about the size of C-3′s building here.

Gilbert Weasel

His attack is called "Forbidden Lover ! Dying in Venice !". He seems to be able to "shot" water. It is pretty powerful, even if it doesn't sound like it. So, this is a reference to the book called "Death In Venice", by Thomas Mann. (1875 - 1955). Here's a summary.

A writer, Aschenbach, goes in vacation in Venice. In his hotel, he sees a Polish teenager called Tadzio. Achenbach falls in love with him, finding him just... perfect. Though, they never spoke a word to each other, just stares. When he learns that Tadzio has to go back in his country because of a disease that spreads fast in Venice, Achenbach goes to look at him one last time on the beach and then dies, of the said disease that he catched.

We understand the "forbidden lover", now. The forbidden love between a 14 years old boy and a man. Though, there isn't a real link between this story and Gil. Except maybe the fact the italian is often seen as "the lover, the romantic" in a lot of stories, and Gil and Ray are both kind of gentlemen.

We also have the thing with the water. As you may know, Venice is called the city of water, and the story of the book happens in Venice.

Ray St. Crazy Rabbit

Ray's attack is called "Illumination ! Betraying the Sun and the Moon !", it seems that Ray can prevent the person from moving, for some seconds, in a small space, as if taking a picture. All colors, light and black, disappears from this small space.

For this one, it's more complicated than for Gil's. "Death in Venice" is a famous book, and was pretty easy to find. If Ray's attack has a literary reference, it's more hard to find, if you don't know the book at all. It's also complicated to search, because the sun and the moon are very common in italian litterature. It's like looking for a needle in a haystack.

If it does refer to something, I didn't find. But, I had another idea. As I said, it's almost as if Ray was taking a picture.

His attack is like the old way of taking pictures. Look, the time is stopped in a small space, and Before having the photo, we only have the negative, that we'll have to develop. If mangas were with colors, we could easily tell if it is the negative version of the old pictures, or just something in black and white, which would be something else then. The negative version of a photo reverse the colors, here, it works.

Tarot Cards

A lot of characters, almost all from the C-3, got references to Tarot Cards. All the following has been written by my amazing friend, I'll go character by character. For almost every of the, their tarot card was said in a chapter title, exept for Mikuni, it is the cover of a chapter who’s the same as a card.

Yumikage Tsukimitsu - THE MOON

Indicates that you are kind of "lost in thought", that you have something to overcome even though you refuse to face it directly (because it's in your subconscious).  =  Yumikage is shown to be kinf of self-conscious about the choices he made. Despite not helping Tsurugi at first, because he didn't think he could / didn't really want to care, but he was still always there for him

The Moon shines less bright than the sun, but its light is more persistent. In the night as in the day, it's the moon that you can see. In the end, it's the moon that shows you the way between the Towers, helping you to deal with your tamed aspects and your wild aspects  =  Yumi's role is very important for Tsurugi. Mahiru did a great job reaching out to Tsurugi, but, at the end, Yumi's the one really pushing Touma (the Tower) once and for all, so as to soothe his friend's anxietes.

Taishi Touma - THE TOWER

Chaos and destruction  =  Touma is no good news. It seems nothing good can be coming out of him. He tries to take everybody down with him.

Solid but shaky  =  Touma is a strong opponent, if not the strongest. However, his core is based on false, or at least biased assumptions. Is he really the monster he claimed to have become ?

Desperate situation but it is possible to be saved  =  Touma claims to be a "purebred villain", and seems to have done everything to be one and to stay as such, but is there really no way to make him realize that he's blinding himself, living a life that will destroy him ? Maybe he has already realized it. Persevering in his wicked ways will without a doubt lead to a disaster (for him and everyone else), but maybe the sun will clean the tempest.

Iduna Nobel - THE STAR

Highly feminine card, water everywhere which means fertility, renewal.  =  Iduna is one of the few female characters. The chapter named "The Star" focuses on her bond with The Mother, another female lead.

The Star also follows the Tower in the Tarot Deck  =  After the chaos Touma made, Iduna is there to fix her superior's bullshit, which she can do with her loving and pure energy.

Inner resources and and intuition  =  Iduna is shown to be able to adapt very quickly. She is a scientist, and a talented one, very creative.

Hope and faith  =  She seems to be quite good at helping people and guiding them on a better path. "You're open minded and want to help the others, and you should not feel down about it. Even if you do, you have to stand up and show that you can handle the situation". Which Iduna does quite well for someone who hasn't gone through some personal shit and is not used to fight.

Tsurugi Kamiya - THE HANGED MAN

Martyrdom, sacrifice to the greater good  =  Tsurugi's relationship with Touma (or how Touma abuses Tsurugi). He is to become the ninth Servamp, and his life doesn't matter as a human being, for he has to serve this higher purpose.

Ultimate surrender  =  Tsurugi's passivity regarding, like, his life in general. He doesn't choose things. They are imposed to him, and he doesn't care because he judges it's not his role. He is willingly serving Touma.

Break, new perspectives, letting go  =  However, at some point, Tsurugi really suffers of his situation. The Mother, his friends and Mahiru make him realize that maybe he's not really doing what's best for him. Maybe he just has to take a break and let go of everything stalling him. But, he has to be ready to make this decision, and not to be forced to, or he'll just end up killed, like the Hanged Man. If he takes the leap, things are sure to go better, though it won't come from nobody but him.

Mikuni Alicein - THE HIGH PRIESTESS

Highly feminine card  =  Mikuni, do you have something to tell us ? XD This card maybe as well be about Abel, at this point.

Sacred knowledge, secrets, silence, subconscious, withdrawal  =  Mikuni is the guy knowing the most of stuff (with Johaness, maybe). But he doesn't share them easily, if not at all. Even his own self is full of secrets, maybe even for himself. It's more likely than you think that the guy pulling the strings from behind is actually the one having the most troubles to settle with himself. He will help you if you're ready to hear him, but it is not said that following him will grant you what you were looking for, maybe Mahiru will do as well to trust himself more than relying on Mikuni.

BJ - entrance of the Temple of Solomon (B = Boaz, "in his strenght", J = "he will establish"), duality  =  Very likely, Mikuni holds the answers our main characters are looking for. However, they are his strenght, that is, he is the one making "good" use of the,. The heroes have to be ready to face him. Moreover, he's ready to do anything to prove his point, and has a kind of God Complex. "He will establish", no matter what it takes.

Jun'ichirou Kuromamori - THE CHARRIOT

Lack of direction  =  Jun has gone through hard times, and didn't know what to do in crisis. He was really despaired when he was left alone with his son, when his wife died.

Brave warrior, determination, willpower  =  Jun has faced life with all his strenght, despite having lost his wife and having to raise his kid alone.

Mahiru Shirota - THE MAGICIAN

Numer one  =  Mahiru is the protagonist, aka the most important character. It's also the number of new beginnings and opportunities. The infinity symbol and the snake biting his own tail around the magician's waist also stand for the unlimited potential and the blossoming of ideas and intentions in the character.-

White robe for purity and red cloak for worldly experience and knowledge  =  Despite being only a child (at least it's how he considers himself), Mahiru has experienced a lot of things in his life and acts in a very mature way, especially in the way he takes responsibility for things/ of the others.

The magician brings you the tools, resources and energy you need to make your dreams come true, he's a source of inspiration for many people who are still insecure about what they should do/ who they should be, and make them realise that what they want to achieve is possible if they make efforts to do so. The magician will help you gathering everything you've learned so far + establishing a clear vision of what you can and want to do  =  Like Mahiru with Kuro especially.

However the focus, to be efficient, must be on one thing it's easier and allows you to eliminate whatever disturbs you  =  "Thinking simply" is Mahiru's motto. The Magician can also help to question one self.  

Shuuhei Tsuyuki - THE HIEROPHANT

The Hierophant is the masculine counterpart to the High Priestess (Mikuni’s card) = Even if we don’t know a lot about their relationship, they are linked. Mikuni offers his help to Shuuhei (though it maybe isn’t a good idea)

The other things don’t really fit Shuuhei, but he isn’t that developped yet so maybe there’s more to come. 

[ifuckinglovestvincent]

Switching Lanes With St. Vincent

By Molly Young

January 22, 2019

Jacket (men’s), $4,900, pants (men’s), $2,300, by Dior / Men shoes, by Christian Louboutin / Rings (throughout) by Cartier

On a cold recent night in Brooklyn, St. Vincent appeared onstage in a Saint Laurent smoking jacket to much clapping and hooting, gave the crowd a deadpan look, and said, “Without being reductive, I'd like to say that we haven't actually done anything yet.” Pause. “So let's do something.”

She launched into a cover of Lou Reed's “Perfect Day”: an arty torch-song version that made you really wonder whom she was thinking about when she sang it. This was the elusive chanteuse version of St. Vincent, at least 80 percent leg, with slicked-back hair and pale, pale skin. She belted, sipped from a tumbler of tequila (“Oh, Christ on a cracker, that's strong”), executed little feints and pounces, flung the mic cord away from herself like a filthy sock, and spat on the stage a bunch of times. Nine parts Judy Garland, one part GG Allin.

If the Garland-Allin combination suggests that St. Vincent is an acquired taste, she's one that has been acquired by a wide range of fans. The crowd in Brooklyn included young women with Haircuts in pastel fur and guys with beards of widely varying intentionality. There was a woman of at least 90 years and a Hasidic guy in a tall hat, which was too bad for whoever sat behind him. There were models, full nuclear families, and even a solitary frat bro. St. Vincent brings people together.

If you chart the career of Annie Clark, which is St. Vincent's civilian name, you will see what start-up founders and venture capitalists call “hockey-stick growth.” That is, a line that moves steadily in a northeast direction until it hits an “inflection point” and shoots steeply upward. It's called hockey-stick growth because…it looks like a hockey stick.

Dress, by Balmain

The toe of the stick starts with Marry Me, Clark's debut solo album, which came out a decade ago and established a few things that would become essential St. Vincent traits: her ability to play a zillion instruments (she's credited on the album with everything from dulcimer to vibraphone), her highbrow streak (Shakespeare citations), her goofy streak (“Marry me!” is an Arrested Development bit), and her oceanic library of musical references (Kate Bush, Steve Reich, uh…D'Angelo!). The blade of the stick is her next four albums, one of them a collaboration with David Byrne, all of them confirming her presence as an enigma of indie pop and a guitar genius. The stick of the stick took a non-musical detour in 2016, when Clark was photographed canoodling with (now ex-) girlfriend Cara Delevingne at Taylor Swift's mansion, followed a few months later by pictures of Clark holding hands with Kristen Stewart. That brought her to the realm of mainstream paparazzi-pictures-in-the-Daily-Mail celebrity. Finally, the top of the stick is Masseduction, the 2017 album she co-produced with Jack Antonoff, which revealed St. Vincent to be not only experimental and beguiling but capable of turning out incorrigible bangers.

Masseduction made the case that Clark could be as much a pop star as someone like Sia or Nicki Minaj—a performer whose idiosyncrasies didn't have to be tamped down for mainstream success but could actually be amplified. The artist Bruce Nauman once said he made work that was like “going up the stairs in the dark and either having an extra stair that you didn't expect or not having one that you thought was going to be there.” The idea applies to Masseduction: Into the familiar form of a pop song Clark introduces surprising missteps, unexpected additions and subtractions. The album reached No. 10 on the Billboard 200. The David Bowie comparisons got louder.

This past fall, she released MassEducation (not quite the same title; note the addition of the letter a), which turned a dozen of the tracks into stripped-down piano songs. Although technically off duty after being on tour for nearly all of 2018, Clark has been performing the reduced songs here and there in small venues with her collaborator, the composer and pianist Thomas Bartlett. Whereas the Masseduction tour involved a lot of latex, neon, choreographed sex-robot dance moves, and LED screens, these recent shows have been comparatively austere. When she performed in Brooklyn, the stage was empty, aside from a piano and a side table. There were blue lights, a little piped-in fog for atmosphere, and that was it. It looked like an early-'90s magazine ad for premium liquor: art-directed, yes, but not to the degree that it Pinterested itself.

Coat, (men’s) $8,475, by Versace / Shoes, by Christian Louboutin / Tights, by Wolford

The performance was similarly informal. Midway through one song, Clark forgot the lyrics and halted. “It takes a different energy to be performing [than] to sit in your sweatpants watching Babylon Berlin,” she said. “Wherever I am, I completely forget the past, and I'm like. ‘This is now.’ And sometimes this means forgetting song lyrics. So, if you will…tell me what the second fucking verse is.”

Clark has only a decade in the public eye behind her, but she's accomplished a good amount of shape-shifting. An openness to the full range of human expression, in fact, is kind of a requirement for being a St. Vincent fan. This is a person who has appeared in the front row at Chanel and also a person who played a gig dressed as a toilet, a person profiled in Vogue and on the cover of Guitar World.

The day before her Brooklyn show, I sat with Clark to find out what it's like to be utterly unstructured, time-wise, after a long stretch of knowing a year in advance that she had to be in, like, Denmark on July 4 and couldn't make plans with friends.

“I've been off tour now for three weeks,” she said. “When I say ‘off,’ I mean I didn't have to travel.”

This doesn't mean she hasn't traveled—she went to L.A. to get in the studio with Sleater-Kinney and also hopped down to Texas, where she grew up—just that she hasn't been contractually obligated to travel. What else did she do on her mini-vacation?

“I had the best weekend last weekend. I woke up and did hot Pilates, and then I got a bunch of new modular synths, and I set 'em up, and I spent ten hours with modular synths. Plugging things in. What happens when I do this? I'm unburdened by a full understanding of what's going on, so I'm very willing to experiment.”

Coat, by Boss

Jacket, and coat, by Boss / Necklace, by Cartier

Like a child?

“Exactly. Did you ever get those electronics kits as a kid for like 20 bucks from RadioShack? Where you connect this wire to that one and a light bulb turns on? It's very much like that.”

There's an element of chaos, she said, that makes synth noodling a neat way to stumble on melodies that she might not have consciously assembled. She played with the synths by herself all day. “I don't stop, necessarily,” she said, reflecting on what the idea of “vacation” means to someone for whom “job” and “things I love to do” happen to overlap more or less exactly. “I just get to do other things that are really fun. I'm in control of my time.” She had plans to see a show at the New Museum, read books, play music and see movies alone, always sitting on the aisle so she could make a quick escape if necessary. But she will probably keep working. St. Vincent doesn't have hobbies.

When it manifests in a person, this synergy between life and work is an almost physically perceptible quality, like having brown eyes or one leg or being beautiful. Like beauty, it's a result of luck, and a quality that can invoke total despair in people who aren't themselves allotted it. This isn't to say that Clark's career is a stroke of unearned fortune but that her skills and character and era and influences have collided into a perfect storm of realized talent. And to have talent and realize that talent and then be beloved by thousands for exactly the thing that is most special about you: Is there anything a person could possibly want more? Is this why Annie Clark glows? Or is it because she's super pale? Or was it because there was a sound coming through the window where we sat that sounded thrillingly familiar?

“Is Amy Sedaris running by?” Clark asked, her spine straightening. A man with a boom mic was visible on the sidewalk outside. Another guy in a baseball cap issued instructions to someone beyond the window. Someone said “Action!” and a figure in vampire makeup and a clown wig streaked across the sidewalk. Someone said “Cut!” and Clark zipped over for a look. It was, in fact, Amy Sedaris, her clown wig bobbing in the 44-degree breeze. The mic operator was gagging with laughter. It seemed like a good omen, this sighting, like the New York City version of Groundhog Day: If an Amy Sedaris streaks across your sight line in vampire makeup, spring will arrive early.

Blazer (men’s) $1,125, by Paul Smith

Another thing Clark does when off tour is absorb all the input that she misses when she's locked into performance mode. On a Monday afternoon, she met artist Lisa Yuskavage at an exhibition of her paintings at the David Zwirner gallery in Chelsea. Yuskavage was part of a mini-boom of figurative painting in the '90s, turning out portraits of Penthouse centerfolds and giant-jugged babes with Rembrandt-esque skill. It made sense that Clark wanted to meet her: Both women make art about the inner lives of female figures, both are sorcerers of technique, both are theatrical but introspective, both have incendiary style. The gallery was a white cube, skylit, with paintings around the perimeter. Yuskavage and Clark wandered through at a pace exclusive to walking tours of cultural spaces, which is to say a few steps every 10 to 15 seconds with pauses between for the proper amount of motionless appreciation.

The paintings were small, all about the size of a human head, and featured a lot of nipples, tufted pudenda, tan lines, majestic asses, and protruding tongues. “I like the idea of possessing something by painting it,” Yuskavage said. “That's the way I understand the world. Like a dog licking something.”

Clark looked at the works with the expression people make when they're meditating. She was wearing elfin boots, black pants, and a shirt with a print that I can only describe as “funky”—“funky” being an adjective that looks good on very few people, St. Vincent being one of them—and sipped from a cup of espresso furnished by a gallery minion. After she finished the drink, there was a moment when she looked blankly at the saucer, unsure what to do with it, and then stuck it in the breast pocket of her funky shirt for the rest of the tour.

A painting called Sweetpuss featured a bubble-butted blonde in beaded panties with nipples so upwardly erect they actually resembled little boners. Yuskavage based the underwear on a pair of real underwear that she'd constructed herself from colored balls and string. “I've got the beaded panties if you ever need 'em,” she said to Clark. “They might fit you. They're tiny.”

Earrings, by Erickson Beamon

“I'm picturing you going to the Garment District,” Clark said.

“There was a lot of going to the Garment District.”

As they completed their lap around the white cube, Clark interjected with questions—what year was this? were you considering getting into film? how long did these sittings take? what does “mise-en-scène” mean?—but mainly listened. And she is a good listener: an inquisitive head tilter, an encouraging nodder, a non-fidgeter, a maker of eye contact. She found analogues between painting and music. When Yuskavage mourned the death of lead white paint (due to its poisonous qualities, although, as the artist pointed out, “It's not that big a deal to not get lead poisoning; just don't eat the paint”), Clark compared it to recording's transition from tape to digital.

“Back in the day, if you wanted to hear something really reverberant”—she clapped; it reverberated—“you'd have to be in a room like this and record it, or make a reverb chamber,” Clark said. “Now we have digital plug-ins where you can say, ‘Oh, I want the acoustic resonance of the Sistine Chapel.’ Great. Somebody's gone and sampled that and created an algorithm that sounds like you're in the Sistine Chapel.”

Lately, she said, she's been way more into devices that betray their imperfections. That are slightly out of tune, or capable of messing up, or less forgiving of human intervention. “Air moving through a room,” Clark said. “That's what's interesting to me.”

They kept pacing. The paintings on the wall evolved. Conversation turned to what happens when you grow as an artist and people respond by flipping out.

“I always find it interesting when someone wants you to go back to ‘when you were good,’ ” Yuskavage said. “This is why we liked you.”

“I can't think of anybody where I go, ‘What's great about that artist is their consistency, ” Clark said. “Anything that stays the same for too long dies. It fails to capture people's imagination.”

Coat (mens), $1,150, by Acne Studios

They were identifying a problem with fans, of course, not with themselves. It was an implicit identification, because performers aren't permitted to critique their audiences, and it was definitely the artistic equivalent of a First World problem—an issue that arises only when you're so resplendent with talent that you not only nail something enough to attract adoration but nail it hard enough to get personally bored and move on—but it was still valid. They were talking about the kind of fan who clings to a specific tree when he or she could be roaming through a whole forest. In St. Vincent's case, a forest of prog-rock thickets and jazzy roots and orchestral brambles and mournful-ballad underlayers, all of it sprouting and molting under a prodigious pop canopy. They were talking about the strange phenomenon of people getting mad at you for surprising them. Even if the surprise is great.

Molly Young is a writer living in New York City. She wrote about Donatella Versace in the April 2018 issue of GQ.

A version of this story originally appeared in the February 2019 issue with the title "Switching Lanes With St. Vincent."