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star-lemonade · 3 years

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Hiiiiii can you write a fluffy day at the beach with Donghun? The weather's been so hot lately in my country and I keep wondering what it would be like to spend a day on the beach and swimming in the ocean with donghun kejendjdj Anyway thank you in advance and I hope you have a nice day/evening

Sunscreen

A.C.E Donghun x gn!Reader

Cw: none

Word count: 1.3 k

A/N: I listened to Ateez One to All album on repeat while writing this xD

It was hard to see the sand because of all the towels. It was the perfect day to go to the beach, and so everyone else thought too. The city was absorbing the heat like a battery, just to make the nights unbearable. People needed a break and at the beach where cold water was always in arm’s reach was a good place to be.

You looked around for a free space while carefully stepping between the shoes, bottles and people.

“Over there.”

Donghun pointed to a space near some rocks. It was relatively far away from the point where most people entered. As you got closer the density of towels decreased. A couple of children played on the rocks. Their laughter cut through the murmur of the crowd. The waves crashed into the rocks and splashed water into the air.

You spread your towels on the hot sand.

“I will get an umbrella. Be right back.”

Donghun left for the hut that rented umbrellas, loungers and various toys that you could use in the water. You took off your clothes to begin applying sunscreen. It was past noon already and the sun burnt down through thin clouds. The smell of the sea was stronger here. You suspected that the stagnant water that pooled on the rocks was its source.

“You need help with that?”

A shadow appeared and blocked the sun. Donghun planted the umbrella in the sand and sat down next to you in the shade. The heat wave had left him unscaved and he looked as fine as ever. He looked at you expectedly.

“Help with what?”

“Put sunscreen on your back.”

You had mindlessly speared the creamy liquid on your shoulders and lower back but the middle was impossible to reach.

“Yes, please.”

You handed him the bottle but as you did that you thought about what that meant. Donghun would rub your back. Before you could fully grasp the thought he started to spread the cool cream on your hot skin. His soft hands slid from your shoulders to your neck and down your spin. You closed your eyes and let the feeling fill your senses. He pressed down a little harder than necessary, so it was like a little massage. You did not want him to stop.

“Now me.”

Donghun’s breath tickled your neck. His hands left and you felt a bit empty. Your discontent manifested itself as a groan. You pouted even though Donghun sat behind you and could not see your face.

“I don’t want to get sunburnt. It doesn’t take long. ”

You turned around to find Donghun’s back facing you. His hair was tied up with an elastic so it was out of your way. He held the bottle up for you to take it.

“That’s not the problem.”

You squeezed some of the cream into the palm and spread it to warm it. It was unpleasant to suddenly have something cold touch your skin.

“What is it then?”

Donghun asked as you started to apply the sunscreen. For someone who always said he did not like to work out, Donghun’s back was pretty broad.

“It was nice and I didn’t want you to stop.”

You were still pouting but putting the cream on him was fun and you moved on from his back to arms. He smirked but did not say anything. You spread the sunscreen over the soft skin of his arms. First the left one, then the right. You motioned him to turn around and he indulged you with a smile on his face. The only places that were still not protected from the sun were his face, legs and the front of his upper body. You dipped your finger in the cream and dotted Donghun’s face with white spots.

“How do I look?”

He smiled. There was no real pattern to the dots but you had tried to make it symmetrical.

“Cute.”

You wanted to pull your phone out and take a photo but your hands were too creamy.

“Really?”

Donghun reached for his phone and looked at himself. He laughed and posed while taking some selfies. You giggled and added another white dot on his nose.

“Here. For you.”

Your phone buzzed. Donghun put his phone away and leaned forward so you could spread the cream on his properly. It gave him an excuse to look at you as if you were the most precious thing on earth. When you were finished with his face, Donghun took the bottle from you and said:

“I will do the rest.”

He may have been a bit worried about the intimacy of you applying the sunscreen to his chest. There were people around you but for the most part they did not pay attention to you. Nothing could stop you from looking though.

When he was done he leaned closer.

“I will give you a proper massage later, okay?”

You nodded and could not help yourself but lean in. The kiss was short and sweet. Well, sweet in feeling anyways. The sunscreen tasted bitter.

It was getting hot under the umbrella and you deemed it time to go into the water. The sand was hot, so you moved fast to the wet sand at the waterline. Even here the water felt too cold. Maybe you should only go in the sea up to your thighs?

“It gets worse the longer you wait.”

That was the last thing you heard before Donghun scooped you up into his arms. Before you had time to complain he walked deeper into the water and dove under taking you with him into the cold waves. It was a shock. The cold sea water cooled your hot skin and it knocked the air out your lungs. You began to swim instinctively and shouted at Donghun who only laughed.

“You!!!”

The water was still shallow enough for you to be able to stand. You took on a more or less secure stand and pushed water at Donghun. He was wet already, of course, but that did not matter in a water fight. You decidedly won the water fight with Donghun laughing too hard to put up much of a fight.

“Stop, stop, I surrender.”

He laughed before coughing from water getting in his mouth.

After being in the water for a while, it did not feel as cold anymore. You swam out into the sea but not too far. Although the waves were small at the moment and the tide was still hours away, the sea could be dangerous. Further away from the swimmers several small boats floated on the calm water. You turned around and swam back to shore. As you got closer the water became warmer.

Emerging from the salty sea felt like putting on weight. As you walked up the gentle slope and more of your body was outside the water than in it, your legs were almost too weak to hold you up. You were tired. It was time to lie down on the towel and rest.

You found Donghun already sitting in his place under the umbrella reading his book. He looked up as you dragged yourself up the beach.

“There you are!”

He sounded happy to see you again. You flopped down on the fluffy towel next to him. The air was warm even under the umbrella, it would not take long to dry.

“Do you want some ice cream?”

Donghun’s soft voice brought you back from almost drifting into sleep. His hand ran over your cheek as you looked down at you.

“Yes, please.”

Your mind was still in the inbetween place, not awake and not asleep, so you did not notice when Donghun left. A tub of ice cream appeared in your field of view. It was mint choco. You sat up and rubbed your face. Sand was everywhere already.

Donghun smiled and held another tub out for you.

“Don’t worry this one's for you.”

It was your favorite ice cream.

A/N: I didn't do much editing here, but i hope it's still okay, Anon ^^

#wkcnet #noonasinnetwork #donghun x reader #Donghun fluff #A.C.E fluff #a.c.e x reader #kpop x reader #a.c.e fanfic #A.C.E fics #kpop fanfic #non idol au #star writing #request #queue for the lemonade stand

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shadowdianne · 3 years

Text

Shattered [SQ one shot -I guess xd]

For you, @waknatious because we both knew all too well what would happen when you send me that post Xd I’ve cut out the angst significatively though, I would call this hurt/comfort at best. And you are one of the very few that may make me write something for these two again, sparingly, very sparingly so… Love you, always.

Lu.

Based on 6x08 I’ll be your mirror.

General reminder that I’ve done very basic editing on this one. I will maybe go back and change some things but who knows.

-.-

Her tongue felt like sandpaper when she woke up, her brain pulsing with a head-splitting migraine and Regina needed to blink a few times as she felt the touch of gravel against her face and exposed hands and forearms, her right hand still holding to a body that began to stir almost at the same time as she. She could feel nausea beginning to crawl up her throat and she did her best to swallow as she blinked twice, thrice, as she heard a shriek at her side, her own voice ricocheting against her ears as the Queen took a look at her surroundings.

In all fairness, she thought, her body tense, she hadn’t had that much time to think about what she was about to do. Her arms had moved in autopilot, calling forth every single piece of her that hadn’t been siphoned out of her back when she had split herself. When the dragon had hit the mirror, she had felt the magic calling forth from the other side of it. Emma, always reacting Emma, had probably merely answered instinctively to it, letting her own magic act like a magnet to it. She, however, had stood her ground, knowing that her other self would reach for the now hotter-than-lava glass and so when Emma had been expulsed from the world behind the mirrors, she had reached outwards, grabbing The Queen’s by the hand, and pushing them both backward, wishing the portal to close at the majesty’s back. The magic, the little sniff she had gotten from the outside world, had thankfully answered her call.

“What have you done?” The Queen’s eyes were bloodshot, her usual demeanor broken like the mirror shards that covered the wall where the mirror had been propped against, the one she -no, not she, her, not her, them- had spent so many hours prying through. With a snarl, the Queen turned to the now broken glass and frame, maybe hoping to find a piece that still showed the interior of the vault. None of them, however, showed anything beyond the clouded sky that had covered every single reflective surface ever since Regina had been there.

Chuckling, mirthless, Regina stood as well, ironing her clothes in one movement, her hands getting trapped for a moment on the small, scorched holes on the back of her blazer. The dragon seemed to be gone, perhaps suffused out like Emma had gone, returned, mayhap to the safety of his shop. That didn’t sit exactly well with the brunette, but she resolved to focus on the matter at hand; the irate Queen.

Who, now, turned towards her once more and grabbed her by the shoulders, knuckles white, seething.

“I’ve trapped you,” Regina replied, freeing herself with one quick move. She might not have her magic, but there were a few pros on being fighting with herself; knowing the extent of her own strength was one of them. “You were right, at the shore, everything I’ve dreamed, you have dreamt it. So, I thought a little surprise was in order.”

She wasn’t lying, not entirely. After all, she had seen the opportunity when the dragon had hit the mirror, but she hadn’t had any promise that the idea would work. For everything she knew, the magic could have thrown them away all the same, the imperfections the mirror had created in the fabric that kept the world beyond the glass together fragmented beyond any kind of repair. But one wasn’t at Emma’s side all this time without picking a thing or two and improvising, while wasn’t her preferable course of action, was one of those things.

The Queen, however, was having none of it, and she moved closer to her once more, her heels crunching the glass and the gravel, the tower they had been moaning perilously as she did, as if her anger could reach to the still erected beams and destroy everything at once.

“And so.” The other woman said, eyes narrowed, lips turned into a fine line, a rictus so similar to her mother’s that Regina froze for a second, a moment, anxiety seizing her muscles. The queen seemed unaware, or at least not preoccupied about it and so she kept on talking with badly disguised anger. “You thought that pushing us both here, trapping us, was the way to go?”

It was Regina’s turn to snarl, her hands at her hips as she kept a healthy distance between herself and, well, herself.

“Anything to keep you contained. I am not going to sit idle while you try…” She pointed at the shattered mirror, where Henry’s face had been, so close, yet unattainable. “Whatever you planned on doing with my son.”

The Queen blinked, momentarily stunned only to start laughing, cackling, really, as her eyes returned to the cold hatred Regina was so familiar with for she had been the one giving similar glances back when the two of them had been together.

“I was giving him a choice.” The Queen replied as the laughter ebbed away from the two of them, cascading down the dilapidated ruins around them both. “Something you have not been able to give you him.” She was looking down on her now, her face maybe covered in some residual dirt and yet managing to look every bit of the Queen she had once considered herself. Regina bit back a reply, chest forward, fingers curling as she wished for her magic to be within her reach if only for a moment. Nothing, however, came to the movement and The Queen’s lips curled as she focused on Regina’s movement, eyes turning into slits. “You are pathetic. Weak. If I could kill you I would do so in a heartbeat. You can’t expect to be his mother, you are not strong enough.”

Regina tried her best to let the words wash over her, harmless, but she still felt the distant pang of the words she sometimes said to herself while trying to fall asleep. She had been so sure, back in New York, that her choice was the right one. She missed those moments in where regret was framed by very small significant moments, a barely-there sentiment that she could push away as she kept on doing with the Queen’s voice on her head. Ever since the split, however, doubts and corrosion clouded her judgment, her own actions. The Dragon had been right, despite how much it pained her to admit it: the battle should have been kept inside herself rather than trying to externalize it as she had done. Because now she was nothing but the other side of a coin; one that had lost part of its vindictiveness, of her strength.

She hadn’t voiced it aloud, of course, with everything happening at once there was truly no moment to admit she felt her own connection to her magic different, changed. What was she going to do, she often wondered while trying to sleep, while reaching for sleep and numbness, if Emma did indeed die? What would she do if she was left alone, to take care of a Henry that would be devastated? Would he blame her for the death of his mother? Would everything she had built turn into ashes yet again?

The Queen tilted her head, sensing how her words had, indeed, touched her, and Regina cursed inwardly for every bit of her that belonged to the woman in front of her.

“What I was doing.” The Queen said, the triumph of the one knowing themselves right echoing on her tone. “Was trying to make him worthy, worthy of the title that will be his, worthy of a name and a position that you, for whatever reason, seemed to be refusing to take. I had to clean up your mess, Regina. Again.”

There was a maniac glint on the Queen’s eyes as she said this, the world around them silent, still, in an almost halted breath as she took another step towards Regina.

Regina recoiled. She had never considered how much of her own mother she had channeled when turning into the Queen, when the title and the façade had melded into one single person, the one now left behind the woman she could have been under very different circumstances. She, now, could see it; the burning devotion, the need, toxic, like gas, that spread around her her own intent for control. She could see it now, however, once more, and she felt stripped away of her strength as she faced her own face, so sure of how pain was the only path to take, the only debt that needed any kind of retribution.

“You are the one on the wrong.” She replied, but her answer felt weak even to her own ears. Doubling down, she pointed at the now broken mirror a few paces away, her muscles protesting as the headache doubled its efforts to blind her. “I managed to get you here, Queenie. Remember that. For every time you thought you had the upper hand…”

The other one interrupted her, scoffing dismissively towards her as she did so.

“This is one last attempt to stop me. Giving that you enchanted the mirror in the first place the spell will soon be dispelled. You cannot do anything right; you are nothing but a lesser part of me, one that thought she had access to feelings, memories, a life. You are a shadow, not the other way around, Regina.”

The headache grew in intensity and Regina could feel the anger beginning to boil inside her her, hotter than before. Muscles tensing, she was the one who took a step forward now, the set of rubble at her feet sliding for a second before they settled themselves once more. The sky above them, the intermittent set of clouds and starred glow, seemed to grow darker as she moved closer to the other woman.

“You live because I decided to take a potion, you wouldn’t otherwise. And as I tried once, as I did once, I will reach inside my chest and rip our heart even if it’s the last thing I do.”

The Queen laughed once more, not fazed by the words. Regina’s whole body felt aflame, the usual way in where she dispelled her anger, in how she channeled her fury, cut away from her but her fingers kept on twitching, calling forth magic she didn’t feel, knew it wasn’t there. If only she could, she thought as she stood, as the world around them kept returning to glittering mirrors, reach once, follow the words with actions…

She had made a promise, she thought with a start, Emma’s face appearing on her mind’s eye, the way the blonde’s eyes had clung to hers as the dragon roared above their heads, returning to her. The blonde had looked pale, tired, like she always looked lately, devoid of any fight herself as if already preparing herself for a funeral that wasn’t still written. And Regina, couldn’t wouldn’t really blame her. Even if with every comment, every dejected admission of how Emma didn’t see herself alive for much longer, made her want to grab the blonde woman by her shoulders and ask her why she seemed so intent on thinking there wasn’t any other way for her to survive. Why she seemed so convinced that Regina would destroy and maim and do whatever it needed to be done in order to prevent such. But, even if the Queen might have replied, Regina, the one she was, currently, never quite did that, far too many times biting her tongue and looking away as the blonde kept on glancing at the world around her as if nothing but sand compose every single thing she touched. Sand about to disappear between her fingers.

And yet, she had made a promise; “You're not sacrificing yourself, and neither am I.” One she had broken almost as quickly. But one that would keep Emma, stubborn Emma, trying to find a way to her. Because no matter what, she knew the green-eyed woman enough to know that despite everything, the blonde would actually try her damnest to retrieve her. If only to tell her how she dared. “You’ve taken this too far.” She would say to her, with fewer words, maybe, and a lot more anger. But that was the way with them both after all.

And despite how she had been the one pushing both sides of herself inside this realm, this world, she almost wanted to laugh bitterly at it; she had seen the blonde push her away from a vortex only to swallow down the darkness that threatened to take her. So, if she kept on standing, even for a moment longer, maybe a portal would be opened, maybe magic would pour inside, maybe she would be returned to her full abilities for only being able to actually pluck her heart out, finish a job that she felt was long overdue.

The only thing she needed to do was to keep on searching, keep on waiting, and study the surroundings, trying to find the mirror that would, indeed, do the trick.

The Queen had kept on talking, her voice a shrill that made its way into Regina’s ear.

“You wouldn’t dare to kill me, Regina, since I am the one that has kept you alive for so long. Or do you think mother would have kept you around after she returned from the Enchanted Forest if it wasn’t for what she saw on me? Do you truly believe that it was you who told Peter Pan that you had no remorse? Do you think, even for a second, that it was me the pathetic one, trying to get ahold of a love that seemed to be prophesized by some fairy dust? You are the one who hurt us, who kept trying to find solutions for a problem that did not even exist; I was the one reigning, I was the one that should be in control.”

Regina blinked, the ire on the other one’s words making her voice louder, almost a scream as it was now the one whose fingers twitched as if waiting for a fireball that didn’t manifest.

The movement of her eyes made them fall into the spread glass pieces around them, most of them from the mirror at her vault but others larger in shape and size. The original one they had been trying to mend. The one Sidney had been trying to use.

Maybe…

“I hurt you?” She said, moving to her left even a fraction in order to see if her suspicions were right. It was only a couple of shards, her mind told her, not enough to create the mirror, certainly not enough to escape. But if the glass was powerful enough she maybe could see where it would have directed her if they had been able to repair it. “Tragic. Last time I checked I wasn’t the one trying to hurt my son.”

That got a reaction, enough of anger directed at her rather than at her movement for Regina to position herself next to the shard. It was clouded, like every other piece, but they were close enough to the smashed one. Maybe, with any luck, there would be enough residual power for it to react if she touched it.

“You can’t expect me to apologize.” The Queen replied, raising her hands with an almost smirk curling her lips. “Not when you are a coward who refuses, again and again, to reach for what should be ours.”

That made Regina stop, a second, two, the tone had changed there, minutely, and she eyed the other brunette with renewed anger.

“Don’t.” She warned; she knew the tone all too well, knew what it would preface, and she didn’t intend to have the conversation with herself, not like this.

But The Queen sensed the blood in the water, and, like a shark, she lunged.

“Don’t? Don’t say anything? Like the million times, you have stopped yourself in a pathetic try at honor that is so risible you made every piece of me crawl?” The Queen seemed about to attack now, muscles seizing beneath her clothes, and Regina prepared herself as she bent her knees; she knew that she herself wasn’t above a physical fight if there was no other option after all, and she needed to get the shard before the Queen realized what she was doing. “You could have everything you want if you only would let me take control. You could have her, as stupid that notion is. But no, it was always better to keep being honorable, being good.”

That made Regina bare her teeth.

“What do you want me to say?” She didn’t wait for an answer, though, she truly didn’t want to listen to it. Moving down, she grabbed the piece of glass, hard enough for her skin to be pierced by one side of it while wishing for the magic to reply.

The answer, however, did come, not from the Queen, however, but from inside herself.

“That you love her. That if you were selfish enough you would tell her, you would have her. That you would keep her safe, and alive.”

It didn’t matter, of course, the moment The Queen saw what she had grabbed, realized what she was doing, any kind of physical answer was ripped out from her lips, transformed into a growl deep enough to wake every slumbering heart inside her vault. Moving towards her, The Queen reached for the glass, the one that was indeed showing pieces of what seemed to be the woods, vines, crystals colored by moonlight, tall trees surrounding a clearing.

Regina didn’t have the time to realize what the glass was showing because the Queen’s hands grabbed her by the wrists and pushed her down as the rubble moved once more, trembling, and cascading down one of the many cracks the dragon had created with its breath. She felt her feet slip as The Queen grabbed the shard as well, both of their blood trickling now from the shard as they fell through the rock.

Down, down, down.

-.-

It was always interesting to see how their little town felt almost circular on the way magic run through it. Curses were dispelled and created almost as easily as difficult they should have been, death and life following each other in a perpetual circle. Emma wasn’t one to dwell on such things, she quite rather preferred to react to things, act if needed to. Anything else, anything that would make her stop and think even more about what surrounded her, made her anxious enough to wish for a way to disappear enough for everything to fall into ruin, and despite everything, she kept on choosing to stay.

Family was always and always had been a fickle, complicated, difficult term for her. She rather wanted to keep what she had created and found. Even if that in itself made her throat seize and close whenever she thought twice on the realness and proximity of her death.

She had said it to Aladdin herself after all; she had indeed tried to escape once. Or twice. But who was counting?

Her knee bounced as she kept on checking her watch and phone, the incessant beep on the room keeping everything, from the white corners, the hospital bed, the bright lights, that surrounded her a stark reminder of how she now couldn’t do anything but wait and sit still.

The moment she had crossed the glass she had turned, grabbing for Henry a second too quick to realize what had happened. The boy had melted into her hug, and she could very well picture him a tad younger, hugging her, close strong enough to almost hurt. She had, as she always did, imagined how many hugs she would miss from then on, but she had pushed through the thought, turning to her side where she expected for Regina to be, hugging just as tightly. The place, however, had been vacant and when she regained enough of her senses to focus on something beyond the boy, she had seen that they both were the only ones on the vault, the mirror broken in pieces and no Regina nor The Queen in sight.

“No!” She had whispered, turning towards where the anvil had been, about to smash it to pieces if needed. Henry had blinked and turned as well; his jaw set in such a mirror image of his other mother that it made Emma bit down her lip. “She didn’t cross.” She had muttered them, for the boy to shake his head and point where a few pieces of glass had been ripped away from the left side of the mirror’s frame. “She grabbed her; she made her fall to her.”

Emma had blinked then, anger rising inside of her, ozone filling the air as her magic returned in full force to her, dirty white clouding her pupils for a moment.

“I told her” She had said, still eyeing the mirror, as if expecting Regina to appear behind it. “I told her that the deal was to none of us needed to sacrifice themselves.”

At the end, they had tried just about everything they could do and when Hook had appeared, hook blazing “I thought the place for her Majesty to be would be the vault, that’s why I came.” He had made her leave the vault. Which she had done not after grabbing a shard of glass and keep it, resolved to find a way to get to Regina.

They had gone to Rumple, even, the man far too preoccupied with Belle and the Sorcerer’s wand to truly give them any more information. But they were short on magic users and Emma had insisted, arguing with Hook when the man had tried to placate her. She needed to return Regina to Storybrooke, she had said with gritted teeth and magic spilling out of her in thick blobs of ire and despair. No matter who she talked to.

“You can’t save them.” Rumple had said, however, eyes focused on the spun gold he had hexed, and Emma had wished to be able to be quick enough to punch the man before his own magic guards reacted to her. “It was already a miracle the mirror at her vault reacted to you alone and that was majorly because the Queen was on this side. She merely tapped onto Regina’s magic. But you can’t, not from here.”

She had stormed out of the shop, going back to her place only to stare at Snow as the woman told her that they were indeed going to liberate Regina, but they would need time.

“I don’t have time.” She had replied, fiercely, and pretended not to see the looks both Hook and her mother gave to each other. Henry had nodded just as fiercely, still on the clothes of the dance he had been supposed to go and Emma felt pain as she thought on how proud Regina had looked when staring at him, how worried she had been for his safety. She had admitted she didn’t know how to raise him but, honestly, as she watched him, she realized they had indeed done a good job, Regina had, indeed, do a good job. And she was planning on telling her that herself. “I don’t have the time, mom, to wait. And Regina doesn’t deserve to be kept on waiting with,- with her! Have you forgotten what she has done, already? What she has given away for us? They, you! All saw what she did when I thought my mind was too far gone, clouded by darkness. She kept on believing I could dial back, turn back. I’m not going to leave her just because it is not the best moment to find her. I will do it even if I need to reenact a curse myself.”

She had felt breathless after her speech, realizing with a numb afterthought that it had been a while since she had talked for so long without being interrupted. She had squared her shoulders and turned back, despite the pain of seeing her parents like they were she couldn’t keep still, idle, she refused so. She pretended not to listen to Hook as the man called for her and with Henry in tow, she closed the door of the apartment with a swish of her own magic, her boots heavy on the floor as she walked out.

It had been then when she had felt a blip, a distant call of a magic that felt mauve and purple and had a distinct scent, and her mind, her own magic, reacted to it as it exploded just behind her eyelids.

She had found both Regina and The Queen at the clearing where they had left the Glass coffin, its frame destroyed as parts of what it had been surrounding the two brunettes who were still holding a piece of it with bloody hands and wrists. They had been unconscious, eyes closed, and for a moment, a far too long one, Emma had feared the worst.

They still had a pulse, however, and when she had knelt next to Regina, very little had mattered the verdigris staining her clothes as she tried to see if her heart was still beating. The brunette had a gnash on her forehead and was far too pale for Emma’s liking. She had instructed for Henry to call an ambulance, his eyes panicked, his own blazer quickly turning into a short blanket over Regina’s form as they waited for the medics to arrive, a quick array of questions and answers being thrown into anyone who would listen to her and then, later, after getting a phone from one of the medics that had brought both Regina and The Queen, to her father as her mother had kissed him awake a few minutes prior.

And so, now, she waited. Still. Unable to do anything but wait.

The Queen was now being watched by her father and a reluctant Hook. When he had tried to follow her to Regina’s room she had stood her ground on wishing to be alone. Regina had gotten out, the man had told her, pointing to the sleeping form of the brunette. Yes, she had, Emma had replied, but she had been unable to tell him that part of the anger that still burned within her came from the fact that she had been factually unable to help her; Regina had gotten out by a mix of luck and magical practicality, a loophole within a loophole created by her blood and the Queen’s on the shard of the mirror that had been not other than the reflective surface of the glass coffin. Blue had been quite succinct at the explanation since she wasn’t versed on witch matters but Emma had caught the gist of it; given that it had been Regina who had created the original hex tying her to the place and how the object Sidney’s mirror had been tied to had ended up being the coffin, the magic of the original curse, the one that still lay dormant around Storybrooke, had called forth the Regina that had cast it originally, both sides of her.

That or she truly needed to study more magic; theory wouldn’t, after all, help her with her current conundrum: knowing that if it hadn’t been for that set of events she wouldn’t have been able to save the woman that now laid next to her. And that, in itself, was a far worse concept than any magical theory they could throw at her.

What kind of savior was she, she considered, fingers intertwined, clasped, knuckles white, feet firmly planted on the floor, knee perpetually bouncing, if she couldn’t help with something as straightforward as a magical jail? What kind of path was she in that she felt even more helpless than when she had first learned she had magic running through her? The title, and what came with it, stung, and weighed her down more these days, with each passing moment the never-ending realization that she wasn’t good enough to even be considered anything despite how her days had an end that kept on looming closer and closer.

There could be a myriad of other details she could be focusing on, of course, but she kept on returning to that point of her logic, not entirely sure what she was supposed to do. Henry had asked to stay, and she had complied, but Violet had appeared a few minutes in and had managed to get him out for five minutes to eat something, to talk. Emma had insisted on Henry to go; “If anything happens I’ll let you know.” She had said, lips thin, voice brittle, and Henry had stood his ground for a few more minutes before sighing. He, too, seemed to be eager to do something, anything, beyond waiting. And Emma couldn’t quite blame him. She at least hoped Violet would make him talk, if only so his feelings didn’t end up exploding inside of him, like bonfires. Which was precisely what she felt like: a straw puppet about to succumb.

“Why do you care this much?” Hook had asked her the moment she had told him to leave her be. “They are too far gone! They will probably not wake up until a few hours at least.”

But that hadn’t been the correct question because it held an answer Emma didn’t want to even consider, not aloud, not for herself and herself alone. So, she had shaken her head, pointed him to the door and turned.

Now, however, with the beep ringing on her ears and nothing to do but wait and count the lines and cracks on the floor, she felt her mind circle back to the question, the multiple ways in which she could have answered it. None of them felt right, not entirely, the multiple concepts of co-parenting, of friendship, correct but lacking. And so, she rose her hands and covered her eyes with them, pressing her fingertips against them until everything she was able to see was black upon black with dots and lines of colors that changed too fast for her mind to fully name them all.

“I told you, I trusted that you would be the one for him once I’m gone.” She mumbled, hoping for her voice to be sufficiently muffled. The noose around her neck tighter and tighter still as she tried to swallow, to form words that seemed too big for her lungs. “Fuck, Regina.”

She glanced up, her vision needing a few seconds upon adjusting, the scent of the hospital room not strong enough to dissolve the ozone and the scent that was Regina’s magic on itself, a soft cloud that had covered the brunette’s body ever since Emma had found her and The Queen, residual and just as weakened as its master, but still there. She now reached for that magic, for Regina’s forearm as her own felt as if pooling on her wrist, around her fingertips like cracks of electricity breaking through the air. If anything would have asked her, she wouldn’t have known why; neither she nor Regina touched each other that much. Touch, like everything else, was done following a pattern: one out of necessity, of high tension. They were economical in their interactions, perhaps because allowing themselves the luxury of simply reaching for the other would be too close to admitting that they wanted to simply be. Emma hadn’t exactly considered it, she had merely replied to what Regina gave her, knowing the fragility of what had been, at best, a truce at first. She now, however, reached for the other woman softly, index finger touching the other woman’s body in a shadow of a caress that felt far too short-lived.

Especially because the moment she did her magic burst out of her in tendrils that felt both gas and liquid in nature, wrapping themselves around Regina’s arm and ascending to the other woman’s mouth as they deposited themselves into her skin, glowing and turning from dirty white to purple a second before disappearing into her.

There was a beat, a second, and then brown eyes opened, searching for Emma’s hand, and clutching them tightly as, down the hall, David’s voice could be heard “She’s awake!”.

[They didn’t hear The Queen’s response for it was said through gritted teeth and breathless whispers, but the majesty’s eyes also glowed with dirty white quickly turning purple, electricity solidifying itself and turning into a plume that enveloped the woman, a final “I know the truth now” an echo that didn’t register to the ones in the room as they scrambled and tried to restrain her to no avail.]

No, they didn’t hear any of it, for it was later retold by David to Henry who had entered the moment screams could be heard, Violet in tow. But Emma kept her hand on Regina’s arm a little longer, eyes glowing, as the brunette coughed up a “Seems that sacrificing myself didn’t quite work.” That made Emma flush, worry renewed.

“We are in this together.” She lowered her voice, as steps echoed outside. “Don’t you dare to pull another one of this on me.”

Regina had smirked then, weak but awake enough for the line to form. “Understood.”

Because if anything happens to you there’s no rock I will turn nor a soul I will not destroy.

-.-

PS: *raises head from what they are reading* Oh, you expected them to kiss? Come on, it’s me! I didn’t call myself a little tease for anything during all the years I wrote for these two Xd Consider this a lost scene, a what if that could have happened. Despite my own personal head canons on when Regina actually started to realize she might be in love with Emma I always liked the scene of Regina at the vault as she and Emma got out of the mirror and Hook came into play. There were plenty of layers there that were always delightful to consider. I needed to do some twists on what happened canonically on this one -and I’m pretty sure the glass coffin ended up in another place rather than being kept at the clearing- but I’m not going to start considering OUAT cannon as something important to follow now, uh? Anyway, this has been written for W and also as a way of a writing exercise for me. As always and forever, comments are very much appreciated. General reminder that me writing for these two every other half a year or so doesn’t mean I’m back to the fandom but I will be delighted to listen to what you think of this one. And please, go and read waknatious’ stories because she is a truly amazing creator, and she deserves the love.

Dianne out

#swan queen #SwanQueen #now back to my studying

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traditional-with-a-twist · 3 years

Text

xxxi. Beauty and Her Beast - REWRITE

@the-pompous-potato awww, so glad to hear that you love all of it! It’s like reading through the chapter with you, hearing all the moments that caught your eye. Yeah, I really wanted to bring Mitsuhide back into this arc - he hasn’t been mentioned lately, but he is missed.

@bubblesthemonsterartist XD these are factors that were not taken into consideration but the advice is undeniably sound!

<<Previous || first arc || second arc || AO3 || Next>>

A/N: Dear readers, you’ve been both patient and supportive. Please consider this both an apology and a thank you: the wedding arc just wasn’t coming together. I had fought my way to the climax only to discover that the key moment fell flat. There was no way to recover - it had all started off on the wrong foot. So I scrapped everything starting with Ryuu’s chapter and started afresh. I will edit the AO3 chapters for the sake of preserving comments, etc, but may post the original version as an attached fic if you’re interested in seeing how it lurched to the finish.

The good news is, the entire arc is now written, so you can expect more regular updates for the next little while!

...

Ryuu had left the castle in spring, and now it was autumn.

The plants had changed seasons in his absence - some had gone to seed, others flowered, and still others were breaking the soil. He had the curious sensation of life going on without him, of decisions made and friends lost, all while he was away, out of sight.

...

Some things hadn’t changed: stone moves only slowly; it shrinks as the wind carries particles of it away once the sun has baked it hard and crumbly, layer and layer, altering its shape not with a hammer and chisel but fine trickles of dust.

Stone moves so slowly that it is invisible; in a human’s lifetime, he will see only one shape. Even though it alters, his eye alters with it; he perceives nothing.

In that way, Ryuu had carried the walls of Wistal with him, in his mind’s eye, and erected them anew on his return.

The ceiling rested overhead; the walls held the room together; Garrack worked at her desk; Yatsufusa greeted them every morning.

Some things hadn’t changed.

...

Some changes he had expected: the leaves turning to gold, painting the trees’ faces a new color with their reflected light.

Clustered around the outskirts of the castle and extending deep into the countryside, the trees hung over everything in their new agedness, come too soon for Ryuu.

The trees in the port town, warmed by the nearby water, had not finished turning; their transformation was not yet complete but now that he was home, he found all the trees here different - wearing new faces, losing their green luster in preparation for winter, overnight and prematurely.

So it seemed to him, returned to find that mourning had set in like an early autumn in Wistal.

No one spoke of it anymore, as they might have when the leaves first shed the color of life; now it went unacknowledged and yet omnipresent in the unfamiliar shadows the change had cast over them all.

...

These changes - known but unseen, or anticipated but unwelcome - would have been more than enough for Ryuu.

His acute sensitivity to the currents of nature, was matched only by his awareness of the energies of the people around him - except that nature he had learned to explain, to give a precise account of, while people continued to speak in languages largely foreign to his ear, and to behave in patterns that he could no more explain than he could wish them away.

He felt their fluctuations through an instinct too deep for words - which meant that he could seek no help for the confusion it caused him, any more than he could give voice to the questions he wished answered.

How could he receive answers when he could not articulate the questions?

Unable to decode, decipher, or analyze with the aid of his mind, Ryuu instead absorbed the turmoil he sensed, holding it inside himself like a human capacitor, until the charge diffused.

...

This took time - but time was what no one could give him, even if they had understood how badly he needed it.

Change - precipitous and shattering as a lightning bolt - had struck in his absence, permanently altered the sphere of his existence, and left him hopelessly behind in recognizing and tracking its movements.

It had come and gone before he knew anything of it. Now he was left to make sense of what remained in its wake.

...

It was not that Ryuu was unhappy that Shirayuki and Obi would marry. It would not cross his mind to approve or disapprove of their decisions.

He did not wonder, why so soon? He did not ask, was it proper? He did not compare Obi to Zen or wonder at Shirayuki’s change of heart, at Obi’s sudden revelation of passion.

He did not think the worse of them for it.

He would have preferred not to think of it at all.

...

He didn’t have the tools to approach it; he withdrew in confusion and fear from what had once given him delight and fed his heart and his mind with warmth and curiosity.

Shirayuki had been a source of joy to him - as startling as the red of his favorite flower at first, then comforting in her quiet consistency. Day after day, she had worked beside him, gentle and understanding, keen and quick in her thinking, yet soft as petals in her presence.

She had been transplanted too soon, trading away her uniform out of season for another dress, and he had missed her - but now she was something else entirely, inexplicable.

He had thought he knew her; now she felt further from him than ever, slipping away when he wasn’t looking, and he couldn’t bear to look.

...

Then there was Obi: like the too-tall branches of a tree, Obi had been out of sight, then out of reach - stretching overhead, impressive and other, to the point of intimidating Ryuu with his strength and presence.

He and Obi belonged to different worlds, though they might occupy the same space: Ryuu grounded, Obi somewhere above - skyward, tending free and waving in the mind. Obi was challenging and supple yet also somehow vulnerable when bent to the point of breaking.

It wasn’t until Ryuu had risked enough to test his weight against Obi that he realized this laughing stranger could support him, bear him up, lift him to new heights unimagined, out of his comfortable places and into the clouds - not as blank and terrifying a place as Ryuu had imagined but full of wind and sun and new life.

...

He hadn’t looked for either of them to break the soil in his life, and now he didn’t want them to leave.

Be perennials, he wanted to beg them, and come again after this season of death and destruction and dormancy.

He knew, nonetheless, that some flowers only bloom once in a lifetime. He knew, but at the same time could not know it, could only wish it untrue in the very admission of it.

The knowledge was too awful for words, especially now with the charge of change built up so high in Ryuu that language failed him and left only a mute unrest.

...

It was in this state that Obi found him.

Obi was a frothing mix of anticipation and impatience; he was on a mission to conscript witnesses for the ceremony.

Shirayuki said it ought properly to be his blood brother; Obi wouldn’t know where to find such a man even if he existed, so then he had thought of Little Ryuu.

...

He thought almost guiltily of Ryuu because Obi had felt his silence since the announcement and felt it impenetrable.

No matter how much Obi filled that silence with his own voice, the words ran away, like drops of rain over a parched earth that would not drink.

Then when Shirayuki spoke of brothers, Obi had thought of Ryuu.

...

Obi hoped this gesture, this invitation, would speak for him and say more than his words could when he said the miss would be very pleased if Ryuu would stand for them at the wedding.

Really he was saying, Would you be my brother?

Brothers, as far as Obi could understand them, were forever.

...

Obi hoped for a yes, or at least a smile, but then Ryuu wasn’t a talker.

He didn’t say yes, but he didn’t say no.

He had always been quiet, and so Obi had to content himself with silence.

#Akagami no Shirayukihime #obiyuki #PurePassion #Beauty and Her Beast #reboot #take two on Ryuu's inner world

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kerikaaria · 3 years

Text

Borahae Slimes Haul #4!

Oh hey look at me doing this within a more timely fashion than the others haha. I ordered every slime from this restock, so get ready for a really long one!

LOOK AT ALL THAT STUFF! All seven slimes: What’s Your Dream, The Most Beautiful Moment In Life, Lost in a Maze, U Wrong Me Right Ddaeng, Shine Dream Smile, Beautiful Prison, and Not Seven With You. Plus EXTRA candies and goodies because Dean went all out for the anniversary, the photocards and stickers, a thank you card and even a recommended playlist of a bunch of BTS’ most-loved songs over the years! To say I was excited to dig in is an understatement! I was in the middle of getting ready to move (in less than a week at the time I got the package) but I couldn’t help but get into these gorgeous slimes immediately!

As always, you can check out the Instagram (BorahaeSlimes) or blog (@borahaeslimes) for updates! Items are on sale on the Etsy shop by the same name whenever a new restock is up. Dean has been selling out INSTANTLY so be ready to buy at launch to make sure you don’t miss out on the slimes you want! And of course, if you are 18 or older, Dean writes some really awesome mxm fics over at @eternalseokjin! Alright, time to get into the slimes!

Also, I’M SORRY I can’t make the pictures side by side.... I tried editing on mobile to do that but tumblr is dumb and keeps giving me an error and not making the changes v.v

What’s Your Dream

What’s Your Dream is based off of BTS’ debut song, No More Dream. It smells very much of a teenage boy who loves his cologne a little too much (kudos to Dean for making it a smell I can enjoy even though I usually hate cologne smells XD). The bingsu and little crystals give it a lovely texture. Even if I don’t have too much to say about some of the slimes, they’re all really great!

The Most Beautiful Moment In Life

The Most Beautiful Moment In Life is of course inspired by the albums of the same name, and the storyline they started. I had to ask Dean how what I was supposed to do with a “jelly float” slime because I was confused lol. It was kinda cool to see the gray slime just float inside of the clear red before mixing it :) When mixed, it’s still very much a red color, just a little deeper and less clear. The smell is kind of confusing to explain. Dean describes it as “the grey city streets and the sweetness of dying youth.” It does have a bit of an underlying sweetness to the smell, and I think the other part is reminding me of an incense? Overall a very unique and pleasing smell! (Also the charms were perfect and I love the lollipops!)

Lost in a Maze

Lost in a Maze is based off of Young Forever and is a basic slime with a mini fence and some feathers for accessories. I didn’t dare let those feathers anywhere near the slime (lol), but the items certainly match the song! The smell is very soft and refreshing, so it’s a great slime for someone who wants something simple!

U Wrong, Me Right, Ddaeng

This slime was one of the ones I enjoyed the most! U Wrong, Me Right, Ddaeng is based on Ddaeng and is one of his more intricate slimes. The overall texture is so nice and the little pops of color still show through the black really easily even after being fully mixed. The smell is kind of musky. Definitely similar to an incense but personally it reminds me of some of my family’s birthday and holiday parties growing up. I had some relatives who smoked a lot and kept their house completely closed off so those smells would kinda just stick around... That sounds really gross but I promise this scent is a much cleaner smell! The slight muskiness to it just reminds me of that. :)

Shine, Dream, Smile

Shine, Dream, Smile is GORGEOUS. LOOK AT HER. SO BEAUTIFUL. So much glitter and sequins and just uuuggghhhh I love it! Definitely very fitting for a slime based on Mikrokosmos! The purple is so pretty while staying very clear, and it has a very clean, light smell that just puts a smile on my face.

Beautiful Prison

Next up is Beautiful Prison, inspired by ON. When I tell you I had a mini freak out when I saw the state that my slime came in.... It was by no fault of Dean’s! But the clay topper settled a tiny bit into the slime and there was a thin layer of slime covering it. I was so worried! But then I started to very lightly scratch at it and I luckily was able to uncover the topper good enough to get some good pics! When I say that cracking the clay topper is satisfying, I mean it. I’m not a fan of ASMR (it gives me the wrong kind of shivers, more like the kind you get from nails scratching a chalkboard lol), but those little cracking sounds were so satisfying to hear even as I felt bad for destroying that beautiful piece of art. It’s hard to describe the scent, but it is a soft, kind of nature-like smell and I really like it!

Not Seven With You

The SHOWSTOPPER of the release! Not Seven With You is of course, based on We Are Bulletproof: The Eternal and it is AMAZING! So much detail and thought went into this beauty! I was SO upset when the slime was too sticky (because it was HOT that week) when I took it out to put the clay checkboard in the bottom because that meant I’d have to let it sit overnight for the bubbles to come out. But I patiently waited until it was clear enough to get a decent picture. Not perfect, but that’s because I was just too excited to finish playing with it the next morning!

The cloud slimes that come with it provide the lilac and lily scents, and it smells so soft and beautiful! I took my time to play around with it before fully mixing. It’s just so pretty!

When I finally took all the slime out and began to mix, I felt bad for ruining that clay (once again lol) and would have missed the cloud slime texture if I didn’t get some more cloud slime as the free extra! It looked really cool and marbled as I mixed it, so of course I took another picture of that. The ending color is a purple-tinted grey because the black from the checkerboard is just too overpowering. But you’re left with a TON of slime and it’s such an AWESOME texture! I seriously adore it! It’s soft and smooth from the clay, and also airy from the cloud slimes. Kind of like a butter slime, but lighter and softer! This slime was SO AMAZING! My only regret is that I can’t undo the mixing to play with all the individual parts again lol.

Extra Slime

For the extra slime, Dean gave me a white little cloud slime that smells sweet, kind of like bubblegum! I love playing with it because I adore the soft, fluffy texture of cloud slime now that I’ve had a taste of it!

So that’s it! Another AMAZING release from the one and only Dean! Check out the shop on Instagram or here on tumblr for updates when new releases will be coming so you can be sure to get some of his amazing slimes next time!

Also, here’s a bonus. As I mentioned at the beginning, I recently moved. And I got some shelves set up to proudly display all the slimes I’ve gotten from Dean. Here’s a picture of that!

#slime #borahae slimes #slime review #keri chats #bts inspired #bts slimes #bts inspired crafts #eternalseokjin #lovely mutuals 💜#dean baby 💜

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maerrybom · 4 years

Note

Your OC’s Crushes walk in on them having a nightmare? Little reverse XD

oh gOSH I’m not ready for this jsadjsjks ;w; thank you for this ask !! this is a lil long to make up for my absence + not edited yet oops sorry for mistakes

also forgive me for my inactivity;; I returned to learning in school grounds a while ago but then decided to back online for a week since someone tested positive :/ stay safe lovelies !!

found in masterlist

Maye’s Route:

‘...Did I push her too hard with training?’

Johann aimlessly paced around the dorm in silence, trying to draw up conclusions to how Maye had suddenly fallen ill. The pinkette was perfectly fine yesterday, performing at her usual best during training with no complications until she had fallen over at one point and never got back up again. As her senior, of course it was my responsibility to look after her right now.

But where did it go wrong? Was the training programme too much for her body to handle? Has she been eating properly in the past few days? Have I been ignorant to her well-being? Why hasn’t she told me she wasn’t feeling well? I thought she could handle herself well, so I allowed her to do as she wishes for as long as she keeps up the routine with no trouble.

“...I thought I told you to reside in me.�� Johann muttered under his breath as his gaze lingered onto Maye’s unconscious form with dejection evident in his aureate eyes.

Clouded with his broody concern, Johann carefully sat on her bedside as his eyes remained fixed onto the girl’s flushed visage, making sure not to disturb her much needed slumber from his movement. Maye’s usual ivory skin had lost its warmth as all of its been transferred and set ablaze to her reddened cheeks. She was sweating and shaking profusely, quiet yet heavy breaths leaving through her parted mouth. Johann never thought he’d see this girl look so vulnerable and weak when she was always so tough and faced through obstacles with a head strong mindset.

He gently reached over to take the damp washcloth already placed on her forehead before leaning over to the side to wet it once again with cool water. Johann then wiped her sweat away using the cloth with a feathery touch, but also took the time to observe her features. Her warm breath ran through the side of his hand whenever it was near her mouth. One of her eyes would twitch in response when the cold cloth came in close contact with her temple. The way her luscious lashes would kiss the top of her cheeks with every breath she took, suddenly realising that she had a small beauty mark found under her left eye.

Johann couldn’t look away ━ he couldn’t look away from how tired Maye looked. He shouldn’t have pushed her into this state.

“Guh...” Maye’s calm expression morphed into one in pain, biting down on her lip.

“...Maye?” Johann whispered and quickly pulled his hand away, afraid that he might have woken her up by accident. He was sure she didn’t want him to see her in this state, preparing himself to bolt out of the room once her eyes began to open.

But her eyes never opened, yet her face remained in disdain. Maye’s shaking got worse and began to whimper under her breath, shuffling her head from side to side as if she was trying to escape from something. Something Johann couldn’t identify at first before realisation struck.

‘A nightmare? Of course, it must be.’

“Mmph...” Maye whimpered, tears began rolling down her cheeks. “Please don’t... You’re all... I have left...”

Johann’s eyes widened at her whimpers, feeling tremendous sadness weighing down at his shoulders. This feeling was familiar. He understood well.

He then grabbed one of her gloved hands and held it close to his chest, using his other hand to caress her loose fringes away from her tear-stricken face. This was something he faintly remembered his mother did for him as a child whenever he had nightmares that left him thrashed in fear.

“Maye,” He spoke in a hushed voice. “Don’t be afraid anymore. I am here to stay by your side.”

Johann rested his palm onto her cheek, feeling its warmth melt the iciness of his chilly touch. He raised her gloved hand to his lips and laid a gentle peck onto her nimble fingers. He wasn’t sure why he was doing this in the first place. At first, it was simple concern for his junior but after today, he wanted to protect her youth and her life. Johann knows she doesn’t need nor asked for it, but he felt like he needed to stay by her side. And with that, Maye’s painful whimpers reduced to quiet breaths and was sent back into a peaceful slumber once again.

“...I’m sorry I was neglectful. I’ll take this responsibility even more seriously from now on.”

Take as long as you need. I’ll be waiting for you.

Sol’s Route:

“Luminous? Where are you taking that blanket?”

“Oh hey, boss!” Luminous greeted the blonde, “Sol was working her shift as a bartender all night and immediately crashed onto the couch. I was about to cover her up━”

“Give it to me.” Caesar cut him off and motioned to the blanket with his hand.

“Huh━Oh okay?” With no second questions asked, Luminous quickly handed it over with confusion clear in his eyes.

“I’ll do it. Johann is calling for you anyways.” Caesar huffed before walking away from the younger male.

“...Al...right?” The brunette scratched his head as he stared at the Caesar’s back before dismissing his odd behaviour, leaving the bar after the strange exchange.

It was already the early hours of morning, so no one else was downstairs at the bar. Caesar found Sol laid dead sleep on her back with her hands intertwined on her stomach as gentle puffs of air left through her partially parted lips. She must’ve been so exhausted to have decided to sleep on the couch with her uniform still on.

“...You shouldn’t sleep here, flower. You’ll crumple up your petals.” Caesar spoke to her as if she was awake. “You’ll feel terrible once you’ve awaken.”

Caesar then decided to carry her upstairs, so she can rest comfortably in her room. It wouldn’t sit right with him if he left her out here in the open when she’s vulnerable. Who knows what kind of wolf would attack her in her sleep? No way was he leaving her in this state. And so, the blonde quickly and cautiously wrapped her up into a ‘burrito’ with the blanket he took before carrying her like a princess. He could already hear and imagine Sol’s embarrassment if she’d been awake and it’d be wrong of him to simply touch her without her permission, so this is the best he could do for now.

“Mm...” Sol mumbled something under her breath but remained in her deep slumber, causing him to sigh in relief.

Once they’ve reached their destination, Caesar managed to open the door to her room despite having his hands full and fumbled to open the lights to avoid tripping over with Sol still in his arms. That wouldn’t be very ideal.

“...And down we go.” He made sure to take her shoes off in an attentive manner before partially undoing the blanket he wrapped her with initially and then covered her with another blanket found on her bed. She should be warm at least. He didn’t want her to catch a cold, especially knowing how Sol doesn’t look after herself often since she’s busy taking care of everyone else around her.

Caesar scanned over her sleeping form to make sure she’s well tucked in. He then reached over to unclip her hair and made sure to move her hair away from her face. As he did so, his cerulean eyes gazed at Sol with warmth and silently wished for her to have a sweet, peaceful dream.

“Ah...!”

But once he decided to turn around to leave the room, something had suddenly grasped onto his hand that caused Caesar to gasp in surprise. Sh!t, did he wake her up? After being so careful not to━

“...I didn’t kill.” Sol whispered in fear, her hand gripped Caesar’s in a tight hold. “...I’m sorry... I’m sorry.”

“Another nightmare...?” Caesar muttered under his breath, worry and uncertain coated his thoughts.

He knew about her nightmares, but that was only because Sol would often have dark eyebags under her eyes every time he asked if she had been sleeping properly. Sol would only dismiss it and describe it as her feeling ‘restless’ or was ‘too excited for the next day’ to sleep, so he didn’t think much of it.

Seeing her in this state made him feel a variety of emotions he couldn’t describe with one word. Caesar didn’t get a clear grasp of Sol’s mysterious past and asking Anjou wasn’t much of help. All he knew from her was that it was something she didn’t want to be reminded of. Although he wanted Sol to trust him and be open with her feelings, he wanted to make sure Sol was ready and that she would be comfortable talking about it first before anything.

That’s how much he respected this girl.

“...Just this once.”

Caesar then kicked his shoes off to the side with Sol keeping her hold onto his hand for dear life. He managed to find a way to lay down next to her side on top of the blankets and kept some space between them while holding onto each other’s hands. As the blonde got comfortable, he attentively observed her expression as he caressed her hands to soothe her in a calming manner. All he could thought of how horrible it must have been for her to be dealing with this in silence and how much smaller and colder her hands were in comparison to his. Caesar kept does this until Sol was at peace and loosened her grip onto his hands.

But, he made no move to let go nor leave the room. Caesar didn’t want Sol to be alone right now.

“...When the world turns its back on you,” Caesar whispered as he laid her hands against his beating chest. “I’ll be there for you no matter what, Sol.”

You deserve more than a peaceful slumber.

Thalia’s Route:

“...Where is that girl?”

Classes have ended at this time. The setting sun brought life upon the campus as students move around like sweeping shoals of fish. Indistinct chatter from the busy crowd enveloped Luminous’ bewildered form as he tried to search through the blur for a certain red-head but to no avail.

“Um... excuse me? Have you seen a short girl with long red hair? Kind of mean-looking?” Luminous attempted to ask one of the students that passed him.

“Oh? The witch?”

“Ah, no.” The brunette smiled awkwardly. “She usually wears a sport black headband and has bandages covering her arms━”

Once he gave that description, the student looked at him alarmingly. “The witch’s apprentice?!” He yelped, scurrying away from Luminous in panic. “I-I don’t know!”

“W-Wait..!”

Luminous sullenly stared at the students’ retreating form from a distance until they disappeared out of his sight. He turned around, shaking his head and let out the deepest sigh. Thalia, what exactly have you done to the point where everyone fears the mention of your presence?

“Luminous? What are you doing standing there?” A familiar voice called out to him.

With that, Luminous turned around to face none other than the sun herself, Sol. The tall greenette looked at his wide-eyed expression with a warm smile upon her gentle features. The sun’s rays enveloped her presence, creating a halo around her form and making her look like she had dropped from the heavens to aid him. At least that’s how she looked like in his eyes.

‘My saviour!’ He wept internally. “Oh Sol!” Luminous snapped himself back to reality. “I was looking for... a friend?”

“Pfft.” Sol giggled, covering her mouth with her hand. “What’s with the questionable tone? Are they really your friend?”

“Ahh, it’s complicated.” He sighed, “I’ve been trying to look for her, but I can’t find her anywhere. I thought she was training, but Nono told me she didn’t even show up.”

“Oh?” The girl wondered for a while before realising who he was talking about. “Are you talking about my roommate, Thalia?”

Luminous almost screeched out of surprise. Roommate? With Thalia? How is this girl alive? “O-Oh, she’s your roommate?”

Sol only laughed at his dumbfounded face, “hahaha, yes! That sweet girl is my roommate.”

Sweet? Was she talking about the same Thalia? Or was she brainwashed?

“I was actually about to head back to the dorm to drop her off some food.” She continued, lifting her arm to show the brown bag she was carrying. “She messaged me earlier that she’ll be resting in and I happened to be cooking at that time, so I thought I’d make her food.”

Luminous simply gaped at the girl and Sol simply continued to smile at him.

“...But, I actually need to do something beforehand with Caesar about the festival we’re preparing.” Sol said while giving him the brown bag. “Do you mind dropping this off to her? There’s extras too so you can eat together! Also, here’s the key to the dorm in case she doesn’t let you in.”

“Wait━!”

“Thanks in advance!” Sol chirped before frolicking away from his flabbergasted form. “The food is still warm, so make sure that you both eat it soon! Bye~!”

Luminous had no choice but to comply.

By the time he stood at Thalia’s dorm room, he sighed for the umpteenth time before knocking the door. However, there was no response. Was she not in yet? Did she leave before he got the chance? Why was he even here in the first place?

After a moment of convincing himself to stay, he pulled out the key given and unlocked the door before entering in a hushed manner. Thalia’s dorm was exquisitely neat and proper, everything had been placed away in an orderly fashion. The lights were open when he entered and placed the bag down on her tiny kitchen table, but there was no signs of Thalia to be found.

“..Sniff... Sniffle.”

Luminous turned towards the direction of her room as soon as he heard muffled grunts and whimpers. He already felt uncertain about invading her dorm and was already getting ready to leave once he dropped off the food, but it sounded like Thalia was in pain.

“M-Mother...” Thalia’s cries were getting louder with every step he took towards her room. “...die.”

As soon as her stepped into her dimly lit room, Luminous found Thalia weeping in her sleep with her head sticking out from the duvet she had wrapped herself in. He wasn’t sure what he was doing but the next thing he knew he was already sitting by her bedside, reaching over to wipe her tears away.

“Mother..!” Thalia cried desperately, “don’t leave me..! I’m scared...”

“Shh...” Luminous hushed the sleeping girl, caressing her hair in a comforting way. “It’s only a nightmare...”

His heart somehow ached for the red-head and found himself relating to her in a way. He never really knew who his parents were, but at one point in his life he had questioned them for abandoning him. This world was swollen with humanity and barbaric beings that aim to create chaos upon society. How was he━no, how were they expected to survive this tyrannical world on their own?

Luminous always had a difficult time trying to cooperate let alone speak to her without instigating a fight. But at this moment, he shoved all his bitter feelings for the girl and replaced them with determination to try to get her to trust him at least. Seeing Thalia cry like a child left an aching feeling in his heart and it’d leave him miserable if he had chosen to leave her alone. As Luminous continued to comfort the motionless girl, she seemed to have calm down and had rested her cheek against the palm of his warm hand, snoozing off to la la land. Now, he really had no choice but to stay.

“...The troublesome things you make me do.”

I’ll be here with you, no matter what.

Elena’s Route:

“Mmf...”

“Master, I can━”

“It’s fine, Sakura.”

Chisei shifted Elena on his back who was currently dosing away with her face buried on his shoulder. He was trying his best to hide away his embarrassment, but the way she breathed gently at his ear and smelt the sweet essence of cinammon coat his nostrils almost sent him into cardiac arrest. Elena was forced to accompany him by Caesar to a small mission during their stay at Japan, so she wasn’t very thrilled and complained the whole way. To make amends, Chisei asked her what she’d like and she quickly demanded with no hesitation to give her a piggy back ride while she took a nap during their way back to the palace.

And so, here they were with Sakura tailing behind him as they made their way to drop the unconscious girl at her assigned room.

“Sakura, go ahead and prepare her room to sleep comfortably in.”

“Understood.” And she was gone.

As he was now left alone with the girl, he let out an audible huff and readjusted Elena again once he felt her slowly slipping off his hold. Chisei didn’t even know how or why he agreed to this, or why he even asked what she wanted in the first place.

Chisei further plunged deeper into his thoughts about the girl on his back. If anyone had to describe Elena in a way, it would be that she’s free-spirited. She was possibly the only person who had openly mocked & flirted with him right at his face with no ounce of shame. She was a strange bundle of eagerness and determination, especially in times where he would’ve had no other option but to choose the latter.

In his eyes, Elena felt like a daydream: typically childish, careless at times but powerfully vivid and joyful. A daydream he could never imagine himself.

“...ken.”

His ears perked at the sound of her mumbling, “Elena, are you up?”

“...Chicken tenders!”

Nevermind. She’s fast asleep.

Elena inaudibly continued to mutter and grumble about some ridiculous dream she’s currently having, causing Chisei to sigh once again. Even in her sleep, she still manages to talk his ear off until she suddenly goes silent. The hands that held the side of his shoulders tightened their hold and felt her breathing go heavier with every breath.

“Papa..?” She shakingly whispered, “w-where did you go..? C...ome back home.”

Chisei paused his footsteps, processing the words she just said. Was she dreaming about her father?

“...Sniffle. Why...” Elena started to sob in her sleep, “...leave me... alone?”

Her silly childish dream turned into a dark & dreary nightmare. Chisei wasn’t sure what to do, but ‘purposely’ nudge her awake. That should be enough.

“...Mm?” He felt Elena shift her head against his shoulder. “...Are we back yet?”

Chisei was silent at first before responding with a nod of his head, “yes, did you have a good dream?”

He couldn’t tell what expression Elena was making right now and didn’t want to turn to see if she was fine. The way she was starting to cry in his arms left an odd feeling in his heart, twisting his stomach in an unfamiliar way.

“...” It was Elena’s turn to go silent before letting out a forced chuckle. “Sleeping on the shoulders of the High Patriarch is the best, huh?”

She dodged the question and joked around, returning to silence and laid her head on his shoulder once again. Chisei knew she might’ve also been forcing a smile at him when she replied. He felt conflicted: on one side he felt relieved that she didn’t tell him the truth and played it off like nothing. He was never the type to be sympathetic towards others, especially with one that was fated to be his enemy one day.

But on the other hand, Chisei wished she told him the truth. He wanted her openly trust him like she’s always been open with her thoughts and emotions. He wanted to get to know her better. However, but it was too much to ask for the both of them.

“I’ll drop you off to your room so you can continue to rest.” Chisei mentioned after a while, “Good job today.”

She returned to him with a muffled reply, “...thank you, Chisei.”

Once Chisei dropped her off and exchanged their farewells for the night, he walked off with his head up in the clouds and had a serious expression evident on his features. Even though not asking about it was for the best, he couldn’t help but feel disappointed in himself. He should’ve at least━

“...No, it’s a waste of my time. I should be content with where we are for now.”

I hope our worlds never collide. It’s for the best.

#dragon raja #dragon raja johann chu #dragon raja caesar #dragon raja chisei gen #dragon raja writing #dragon raja oc #my writing #ask prompts #asks #maye #sol #thalia #elena

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antihero-writings · 4 years

Text

Stolen Sunlight (Ch3)

Fandom: Tangled | Tangled the Series | Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure

Fic Summary: Arianna never thought she'd find herself afraid of a fourteen-year-old boy, but the events of Secret of the Sundrop won't seem to leave her.

She needs to talk to Varian in prison. Not for his sake...but for her own.

Character focus: Arianna

Notes:

Aaand here comes another internal monologue-heavy chapter XD

This was probably the chapter that gave me the most trouble when attempting to edit over the years, so this feels really good to finish! (At least a version of it, I may edit it more as time goes on XD). I would have liked to cut down the internal monologue, but I decided to just keep it in for now. I also kind of wanted to split this chapter into more than one to make it more palatable, but the ideas tie into each other so much I felt like I couldn't really do that? By the time the next chapter came out, the connections between ideas would be lost? I don't know...

The next chapter should have more dialogue XD But be warned it may take longer, as now we're getting to the part I haven't really written.

All your support for this fic has been such a HUGE help in giving me motivation to continue!! I definitely wouldn't have posted the next chapters so fast without all your support!! So thank you all so so SO much!!!!

Also! I forgot to mention the songs I like for this story! I've been writing this for so many years I have a list of songs for this fic XD but the two songs I thing fit most for this fic (especially the themes in this chapter) are "Towards the Sun" by Rihanna and "The Sun is Rising" by Britt Nicole.

P.S. I’m thinking of creating a Tangled-specific side blog (mostly as a Tangled-only writing blog, but I’ll likely reblog other Tangled related things there too), do you guys have any ideas for urls? The one I like the most right now is “two-words-where-one-will-do” XD

Chapter 3: Burglarize, Criticize, Sympathize

When she arrives at the dungeon’s door, carrying notebook between her hands, it is almost nightfall. The last of the day is at her back, urging her onwards. Her shoes tick against the tiles as she ventures down the hall.

Everything looks different during the day. At night the navy air was a haze, clouding her thoughts, magnifying all the negative feelings within her. Now her head is clear, and the waning blue day urges her onward, fueling all the positivity and determination in her.

“Your majesty,” the guards hold their halberds higher, puffing out their chests, as if to show they’re strong for this kingdom, “Is there something we do for you this evening?”

“Thank you, Stan, Pete.” She folds her hands and inclines her head in a sort of bow to each of them. “There is, in fact.”

They stand expectantly for her request.

“You can let me into the dungeon.”

They glance at each other.

“Of course, your majesty,” Stan bows, reaching for the door.

“Um…May we ask what this is about?” Pete steps forward, more hesitant.

Perhaps servants ought to do what their masters ask without hesitation. But, in a way, it was only fitting—some might say even more in line with their duties—for him to be apprehensive. He is concerned for his monarch’s well being after all. It wasn’t exactly normal for her to go down to the dungeon, nor is it a place a Queen would be most welcome.

“You know Varian is down there, right?” Pete speaks behind his hand when she doesn’t answer.

“I am aware. In fact, he’s the reason I’m going down there in the first place.”

Their eyes widen, then they give each other a look.

She steps forward before they can say anything more. “He’s just a boy,” she says softly.

“Uhh, yeah, a boy who fed me evil cookies!” Pete exclaims. “And let’s not forget, he kidnapped you!”

“Well…yes, that’s true. But he’s still just a boy.” She looks down at the notebook and runs her fingers along the cover. “He’s hurting, he needs help” she says half to the air, “…Besides, he can’t hurt me from behind bars.”

“But—with all due respect—your majesty—“

“I appreciate your concern,” she says in a conversation-ending way, stepping forward and placing her hand on his shoulder, “but…this is something I must do.”

They glance at each other once more, before lowering their heads and opening the doors, reluctance in their motions.

Her shoes sound against the winding stone staircase, leading her down, down into the realm beneath the castle. The last dregs of day drip from the open door along the staircase a few steps ahead of her, as if saying Hey, come on! Follow us! Don’t be afraid! We’ll be with you each step of the way.

Arianna is not doing this for him. She reminds herself of this. He was not gentle that day, and she knows prison is unlikely to have made him any tamer. He never asked for her forgiveness, whether or not he wants it, and he will not likely be kind in his responses, like the boy she had once met in the castle halls above. He no longer belongs to those halls; he haunts the space beneath them. At least, that’s what everyone thinks…including him.

She’s trying not to.

She must admit, she is doing it for him in some way; in that she, even now, even after everything he did to her, even after—or perhaps because of—the sleepless nights… she cares. Some would say it’s one of her fatal flaws. She wants him to realize there is more to him than this cell, these chains, and a few black—and one amber—rocks sticking up from the floor. He is more than metal and moonlight.

But she also knows if this is for him and him alone, she will fail in her endeavor. If she thinks she is saving a poor, lost boy’s soul, she will lose both their souls in the process, and leave them wandering in the dark.

Forgiveness has never been about the one who did the crime.

“Your majesty!” the guards patrolling the dungeon bow low. “What an honor! What can we do for you on this fine evening?”

“Thank you.” She inclines her head in return, then says without a hint of hesitation or anxiety, “You can take me to see Varian.”

“You’re…here to see… Varian?” They glance at each other. “Your majesty, with all due respect, are you sure you want to do that? Varian he…hasn’t been very cooperative.”

She gives a small, sad smile. “I understand. I’ll be very careful.”

They stand on either side of her, leading her to him.

This was something important, something she had to do. For her state of mind, and of her soul and conscience, even if no one else understood. The bars and chains would be enough to keep him from any attempts at action, and the guards would be ready to act at the moment anything went wrong.

On her walk to his cell, the other prisoners spit in her face and footsteps, laugh her name as she strides by. She had come to accept their attitudes and actions, and ignore them, a long time ago; let them have their threats, a few pitiful insults are all they have left in here, and they are not enough to make a dent in her pride anyways.

Varian is not some beast, like the one he sent after those she loved that day—(then again…neither was that creature truly a beast)—he won’t claw through the bars.

Still, as she draws nearer, her heart speeds up.

Why does stone and metal seem so feeble now, when it was unbreakable, when it was alive, then?

Maybe its the one who was using the metal; he was someone who understood what it was made of, sympathized with its chemistry.

She may know nothing of metal…but she knows what he is made of.

And she sympathizes.

They bring her to the furthest cell from the door.

Her expression softens when she sees him; he’s on the bench in the corner of his cell, hugging his knees, like the world forgot him.

Fractures of light drain across the form of a boy—even smaller and weaker than before, his hair greasy and long—and sizzle on the cold, stone floor. Though the rays dance, urging him to come play with them, as they had with Arianna, they can’t seem to cut through the shadows upon his face. Already it seemed he had told himself the sun couldn’t reach him down here, even when it was draped across his eyes.

They even chained his hands …which is more than he did with her.

She can’t exactly blame them. He is the most dangerous person in the kingdom, after all. Or so he’s called. And, being here in his presence—or, more so the presence of the memories seeing him brings—she isn’t exactly complaining about the extra precaution.

But he is still just a fourteen-year-old boy.

—(Or was it fifteen now? Had he had his birthday in this cell? She hates to think of that, of a young boy spending his birthday without presents, or parties, or a cake, or even so much as a nice wish from his dad. She tells herself that he must be fourteen still to ease the pain.)—

Sitting in the dungeon he hasn’t changed; hasn’t transformed into some sort of monster just by being caged and fed scraps. He is still so young. Just a boy, who deserved better. Fourteen years old, all rage, and pain, and grief.

The queen holds the notebook she brought—the reminder of her intentions in coming here—tighter to her chest, which itself is growing tight.

She is a queen, yes, but also a mother. Not his, but something motherly in her sees his hurt, and wants to comfort it, sing to it, read to it, hold it close, and tell it everything will work out in the end, even if she isn’t sure it will. She knows what it’s like to lose family, to have tragedy in your heartbeat.

Kindness, childhood innocence, is something people take for granted. Everyone has their troubles—more pressing matters—so, there are times when everyone brushes this kindness by, knocks it to the cobblestones, in the presence of the problems we must face and fix, here and now, while we are still young—(though we are no longer innocent ourselves). At some point everyone denounces something so bright and precious as their own conscience, as naiveté and ignorance, so as not to regret their actions. They don’t mean it, actively think it, but it’s there, all one must do is stop looking away. That compassion was all he had, all he was, at one point. A heart full, forgiving and, kind. The mistakes he made were just that; mistakes. Not some purposeful show of capability, and control.

That was before. Before the storm, and the amber, the broken promises, and the flower.

Fourteen years old, yes. But he is not a child. Maybe he wasn’t before either, but it’s different now. He’s different now. Something’s missing. Something important to making you a child. He’s missing something…someone. She knows what that’s like. She once missed someone. Something important to making her a parent.

She knew Rapunzel never meant any harm, never meant to break her promise, and that she had had to make the hardest decision of her life that day, the day she and Frederic were gone—(oh how she wished they had never left). She also knew Rapunzel hadn’t chosen wrong, nor had she chosen right, she had simply chosen, and that’s what being queen is all about. What being human is all about. …And that is everything wrong with being queen. Everything wrong with humanity. Rapunzel had just learned that too early, or perhaps too late. (Everything always felt too late when it came to Rapunzel, and it made Arianna feel sick sometimes).

The fact that the breaking of a promise, and the breaking of a heart, is enough to cause an entire kingdom falter in one night, is not something one can ever really get used to, no matter how long the crown has been sitting on their head.

But maybe—something bright, hopeful…naïve? in her wonders—though it isn’t Rapunzel’s fault… maybe it isn’t completely Varian’s either.

Maybe there isn’t ever only one at fault. Maybe the fault lines run along each of us—much like the black rocks jutting up from their kingdom’s ground—they are everywhere, in all of us alike, creating cracks in solid relationships, there’s no pattern to them, no way of really breaking them. The best we can do is try to understand them instead of ignore them. We can only hope to build bridges, and that we won’t burn them down as we cross them.

There aren’t a lot of people like Varian. In the kingdom, in the world, she supposes; fourteen-year-old boys with heads full of knowledge, and hands that liked to slip, a heart full to the brim with nature of a good kind, but a bit too bittersweet, a little too easy to break. And when his hands didn’t do what he told them, important things, like glass, and trust, shattered upon the floor. There were fourteen-year-old boys who were smart, and ones who were kind, there were clumsy ones, and funny ones, and inappropriate ones, and sly ones, but this one, with all the kindness, and intelligence, in tandem with all the clumsiness, and the grey, was a rarity. It was rare for someone to be so bright, and so dark. Most people are just one or the other.

They didn’t take into account the messes he made, how he could wreck his hometown on accident, simply because he had…what was it? a vision? a dream? an ambition? a simple hypothesis? A plot, a plan, a ploy. All depends on the word you use; words are like spells, sometimes creating the affect you intend simply by repeating them enough. He could destroy a town on accident, all because there was something, something good he wanted to do, a problem he wanted to solve, and he miscalculated a percentage. They didn’t take into account that they really should have been asking themselves, if this was a miscalculation… what kind of damage can he cause when he does the math right? If this was an accident…what kind of damage can he do on purpose?

They all shared blame for the unasked question. But when Rapunzel came home that first day she met him, Arianna never took a second to—instead of smiling at her stories, and the drawings in her journal—ask if maybe that made him dangerous.

And when her daughter came to her after the storm—her hands curled into fists, waging war against the tears in her eyes, and ran to her, burying her face in her chest, her arms around her, saying she didn’t think she wanted to be queen after all—she never once thought to ask if maybe they should send someone to go check on Varian.

Then, on that day he was not the flowery drawings Rapunzel made of him in her journal, not the boy she had met once, on a sunny afternoon, not the desperate child crying for someone to save his dad in the midst of the storm. He was still confident, and stubborn, and his words were still playful… but without the smile. He was still desperate, without a single tear, or plea for help, he was everything he once was, without the light. He was a mask, the color green shimmering in her eyes, her title, and a command to sleep. He was a cause, a curse, misguided conviction, desire, and grief. Not a fourteen-year-old boy, not compassion, not kindness, or naiveté, just that stubbornness, that desperation. Everything else, even those things that he once would never touch with his disobedient hands, became means to his end.

“I’ll make them hear me!”

…Was that all he wanted? If that was all, why couldn’t they listen? Why couldn’t they just go check on him, and see if maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t okay? They should have listened to him. One of the saddest things in the world is to watch a child’s words fall on deaf ears; to watch a child standing in a crowd, going after person after person, tugging at their clothes, trying so hard just to be heard. And eventually, if they never are, the scene either inevitably ends with anger or tears. All they had to do was listen. It would have been so simple.

When Arianna was younger, first growing accustomed to the weight of a crown, they told her that villains would topple the woman beneath, spill her blood, to reach the jewels. She would receive threats, some real—backed with blades and armor—and others empty as the hearts who made them, and she would have to learn to tell the difference. Frederic had said in a show of sweet, but somewhat sappy, sentiment, that she was ‘the kingdom’s most precious jewel’, and her protection was his first priority, no matter the cost. She was grateful for the gesture, but being an adventurer, she was perfectly capable of handling herself. Adding a crown to the weight of the life she already knew how to protect didn’t rattle her.

She never imagined that one day, she would be kidnapped, and the one to succeed would be, not bandits on the road, or separatists, or sorcerers, but…a kid.

When she woke up in his lab, chains around her ankles, the blue of his eyes not much better than the pale, emotionless glow of the mask, she still couldn’t believe the sweet kid she had once met was behind that ice. No, not this boy. Not this villain. Maybe she didn’t know him before, but when they did meet, it had struck her how bright his eyes had been. His eyes, his voice, his smile... Without that light he seemed like a different person.

“Any moment now, your highness.” he had hissed, before singing that he had made a pact with the darkness, that they deserved all this, and they he might not be ready, but he was as ready as he’d ever be…

Varian scared her.

There was no other word for it, no other way to describe it. She would have tried to deny it; it seemed silly, after all, to be afraid of a fourteen-year-old boy who had once posed no threat, who she had even joked with. In fact, she would have once laughed at the very thought that he would one day scare her. But there came a point where there was nothing left to think but the truth.

When all it took was a drop of a mistake, a mistake he made that led to the rest, a mistake her daughter made that led to a test, an amber crypt, a few hurt-soaked words…that scared her, he scared her.

Because there came a time when that green chemical he had teased her with fell and burned on the black, turning amber and solid, cracking, crawling—not inanimate crystal, but some creature, alive, after all the things she held dear—towards her…

Watching orange and golden spires crackle closer, her heart couldn’t remain steady. And, yes, it would have been scary for anyone; to sit there while imminent imprisonment, or demise—(they couldn’t know which)—crept ever closer, while they were tied to the floor, with no means of break or escape….but that wasn’t quite enough to cause this sort of reaction.

She’d faced life-threatening situations; her own death or imprisonment before. One could never face it with a steady heart, breath, and sense of reason, but there was an exhilaration to it too; being close to death made life closer too. When the bandits put swords to her throat, or some creature took her back to its lair, yes she was scared, but sometimes she’d smirk at Willow, and, as she cut herself down, as she clashed swords with the villains, she would feel so very alive.

There was nothing exhilarating this time, nothing exciting, nothing that made life feel as close as death. She’d had no one-liners or fun strategies…was she just getting old?

He was very different from the bandits she had once faced in her travels. He wasn’t some sniveling storybook villain, or routine thug just looking for some extra cash. He had much deeper reasons for doing this.

He told them that they deserved this. All this pain. That sweet boy in the sunlight thought they deserved to be torn from each other, and used for their parts. Was that possible? Was any of this possible?

He had much deeper reasons for doing this. He was hurting. He was human. And that makes for a far more terrifying villain; the toughest villains to face are not the strongest, or the most powerful… but the ones we can see ourselves in. Because we have to break the mirrors, and that may just give us seven years’ bad luck. Break our views of ourselves. Break our views of the other. And maybe see them as people like us, worthy of being saved, of forgiveness. How had it had taken her thirty-odd years to learn that?

It wasn’t he himself she was afraid of. What made fear truly latch on to her, was just how easy it all was. How one drop of his solution could create a prison of amber. How one choice could lead to a path of hatred. How easy it was for him to watch his father become entombed in a prison of gold, to lose a parent, then turn to face her daughter, and attempt to take a parent from her. All because she broke a promise; chose to save the kingdom over him. That was enough for him, enough for him to find a place for that pendulum of blame to land. What scared her more than her own peril was how easy it was for him, for this compassionate, sunlit boy, to throw everything else aside, away, shut off the light, and plunge himself into darkness.

—(And, if he was human, didn’t that mean she could do that too?)—

And, as far as the life-threatening went, what scared her most was not her fate; not he amber, nor the chains, not the kidnapping, nor the blame. Her own peril may have unsteadied her heart, but what made her blood run cold as that storm with both fear and anger was her daughter’s life and safety being teased before her. How easy it was for him to hold his friend’s life in the balance. The way she cried out in pain as he hooked her hair up to that machine—(he once did so long ago with no ill intent)—the way she cried out in pain in that lab, that lab that lab—

This fear for her daughter, more than own well-being, had been a part of her for a while now. Ever since Rapunzel was born. Even more since she came back. When she was told of the dangers of wearing a crown, she wasn’t afraid for her own fate. But when Rapunzel was born everything changed.

It was Rapunzel. Always Rapunzel. When their daughter was born, she learned there was a jewel worth more than her life, and the weight of a crown. Suddenly Frederic’s statement about ‘the kingdoms most precious jewel,’ the lengths he went to save her life, made sense.

And all too soon, she learned then what it was like to have someone you love snatched from you, without warning, or threat, or a second glance.

That night, when Rapunzel was stolen from them, just like she was another jewel.

That night, when the wind was quiet, but fast, and cold, and the moon was full, and their little sundrop was stolen away by a woman in a cloak of night.

She knows how hard it is to forgive that person. She could understand that. How hatred and revenge burn in your gut, and can corrode through your heart if left unchecked. The weight of the faultline is a heavy one. She could understand how, especially when you’re young, it would be difficult to accept such a weight upon yourself. That one might do anything and everything in their power to slough it off, to keep from breaking the mirror. And if you are simply looking for someone besides yourself to place the burden of blame on, how everyone could suddenly seem at fault. But she also knows how to move beyond vengeance, into forgiveness—or, perhaps not so far as forgiveness, but at least something that isn’t unforgiveness.

This boy is not Gothel. He is different. She knows that. He is just a boy, a boy who is unbelievably smart, a boy who was kind, but whose kindness they mistook for naiveté, and brushed aside, enough that he forgot himself. He is a boy who lost someone, just like she did. He is grieving, and misled within his own head, just like she is. And she knows how much easier it is to hate someone else, than to admit you were wrong. That they’re gone, and even if you didn’t mean to, even if it was by mistake, some of the fault lies with yourself…

She could have hated him for what he did to her. She could have hated him more for what he did to her daughter. She could have chosen revenge, and unforgiveness. No one would have faulted her for it—she wouldn’t even have to bear the weight of the faultline.

But that wasn’t her. She wasn’t going to turn around and do to him what he did to them. It had taken this long to forgive—(or something close enough)—Mother Gothel, to choose the fact that she had Rapunzel back, the light, over wallowing in the dark. She wasn’t going to throw away what she learned then, now, especially not when she knew that that light hadn’t abandoned him, even if he had tried to abandon it.

She wasn’t going to abandon him.

It was a parent he lost, and it was a parent he needed.

What mattered was not what Gothel took her from her, it was that she has Rapunzel now.

What mattered to him—whether he knew it or not—she was sure, was knowing that there was still hope, still something, someone there for him now. She had to help him realize that it was not about what he had lost, but what he still had—(which was more than they all thought. A mustard seed of kindness is more than most of us have). She wished they had arrived soon enough to teach him that earlier. She hoped she could still show him that now.

He is still fourteen-years-old. Still a kid. A kid, lost, and hurting. Despite her own animosity, she could detect the desperation in his voice, the pain flickering behind his anger when he cried “It’s not my fault! None of it is!” And when those blue eyes blew out their circuits, and swiveled to their daughter, all rage and pain, looking for somewhere, some place, someone, to blame, and his voice became so much like a beast’s growl that the adventurer in her wanted to hunt him down—

“It’s her fault.”

…But he was—he is—not a beast. Even then.

That’s what made it so scary, after all; that he was still human. It would have been easy to call him a monster. That would have made things easier on the rest of them at least, to forget he was human. Easy to lock him up and leave him. But what was scary was that he was human, and she would never be able to forget that. What made it so scary was the pain behind the growls. If she had forgotten, she could have left him here in the dark without guilt or precedent.

The part of her that wants to denounce him as a beast doesn’t want to admit there is something else there, something searching to be redeemed, searching for any last hope, and…And that was something she understood. Despite the fear, how easy it was, she knew what it was to look for anything, any single shred of hope to cling to. And how even a spiderweb of hope can save lives.

And wasn’t the ease the other thing that scared her about him? How he turned to the dark so quickly?

So no, she wasn’t going to go gently into that goodnight.

He wasn’t completely right then, about Rapunzel. But he wasn’t completely wrong either. Some of the blame didn’t find its home with him. It didn’t justify the lengths he went, and how easy it was for him to leap them, but they had left him, after all. Someone should have gone to see him, to make sure he hadn’t lost his way in the storm.

This, and one other small fact led her to believe that he wasn’t completely gone; he never chained her hands. Just her feet. He didn’t do it kindly, and she was sure he didn’t intend it to display mercy. Others may have called it an empty gesture, said So what? You were still chained, what’s the difference?

Thinking about it later, it was the smaller gestures like this that mattered, that betrayed the spiderweb’s difference between hope and despair.

It’s the hands that are dangerous; they’re what slip, and let things break, and catch us all the same. He only chained her method of escape, not her hope to twist his plans—(almost if deep down he wanted her to twist those plans, like he was giving her that thread of hope himself).

He is a fourteen-year-old boy, and they left him there, in the dungeon. And that is not something she can live with. She was the one he kidnapped, so perhaps she is the one with the most right to be angry.

But they left him to rot in here, like the Flower she hadn’t known Frederic had kept.

He stole a flower to save the one he loved…that sounded like another story she knew well, and that story had ended in disaster too.

The more she thought about, Frederic couldn’t see how, when Arianna herself was dying, he would have done anything to save her life, and how Varian, in a way, was doing the same thing. That didn’t excuse his methods, but, still, the similarities gave her pause. They were both angry, both afraid, desperate to save those they love. But Varian wasn’t a king, and his methods were not so pure, so he was left to the dungeons, his father still trapped, and the king walked the halls above, his wife safe and well, without punishment, even though they both stole the sun in the hopes of healing the hurt, making the clock reverse.

She wouldn’t have necessarily wanted things to turn out differently, still, she had to admit there was irony in the situation.

If she had been angry, if she had come down here to spit in his face, they might have called it justice.

But that is not who she is. Who she wants to be. Forgiveness may not be a word she can quite use with Mother Gothel, but she did everything she could to fight the dark then. When Rapunzel came back, she did everything she could to stop herself from locking her up and keeping her safe from everything that dared hurt her.

She let her go out and make friends with him…but letting people in meant giving them the chance to betray you. The only way to keep her completely safe was to lock her away. …But doing so would have made her the villain. And she of all people knew danger was the name of living.

Forgiving him doesn’t mean she approves of what he did. Doesn’t mean she isn’t afraid, or angry, or has fully recovered. It just means that she isn’t going to let the darkness that had taken him so easily have its way with her too. She didn’t want to leave him, she wanted him to be better, she believed that he could be—she had seen what was right in him, she had seen what was left of him. She needed to let him know that someone cared, that she believed he was human, like the rest of us. Not a villain, not a monster, and that she didn’t think he deserved to be left behind in chains. …But he had to see it too.

When she appears before him, a progression of bars and some well-trained guards don’t seem like quite enough—though once upon a time she talked to him without the bars, or the animosity, and he had seemed more than harmless then.

There are no words of respect. He doesn’t bow, or even address her, or look at her at first. She isn’t a queen here, to him, anymore; she is simply the mother of the girl who never broke a promise, except the one she made to him. She is simply a chess piece he once chained to the floor of his lab.

He doesn’t give her any sign of respect, or that he’s even noticed her. But he also doesn’t throw curse at her feet like many of the other prisoners did.

At first, he remains silent. His eyes both have somehow lost their fire, and are as electric as they were that day, glowing in the cold grey of the room.

Everything grey. No black or white here.

“Varian.” Her voice is steady and sober.

“Your highness.” His response pounces, sharp as a claw through the bars.

His words are grey too.

He merely addressed her, but there is a bite behind her words. That sting doesn’t feel so empty in his mouth as it did in those of the other prisoners—(just like how he felt different as a villain, now he feels different as a prisoner)—but the words are worn, ragged, from his voice being kept too long silent. A quiet resolve. A lost, broken conviction, but standing nonetheless. He doesn’t hiss the phrase like he did then—all dauntless, and confident he is right, and they’re all wrong, sure he cannot, will not, lose—but he also doesn’t say it kindly, in any way that asks for forgiveness, or implies respect. Nothing betrays the fact that he is a broken boy, lost and hurting. It is simply stated as a fact, hanging there in the air; she is her highness, she walks the castle high above him, and he is here, in this cell fading in the darkness below.

But she is no angel, and he is no demon, even if everyone else treats him like one.

He is just a boy. She has to remind herself of that. Over, and over, until it finally sticks. That, and that she is not doing this for him.

She is doing this for herself. For her own heart. If she doesn’t forgive him, if she tells herself that the light cannot—or worse, should not—reach him down here, she really is letting darkest parts of herself win.

Forgiveness has never been about the one being forgiven, but about the one doing the forgiving.

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emerald-amidst-gold · 3 years

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Ngl whenever I see OC asks I'm tempted to just ask all of them lmao

Buuut, let's see... from the OC creation asks, maybe 12, 15, 19? And for the other one, 1, 8, 52, 69? For any OC you'd like ~

I’m not shitting you when I say, DO IT.

It’s my favorite time of the day~! Do you think I’ll ever shut up? Not likely, so let’s gooo! >:D

***

12. What have you found to be most difficult about creating art for your OC (any form of art: writing, drawing, edits, etc.)?

You know, I always think about this to be fair because it’s something that can be a bit of a block for me when writing any of my OCs since they’re all really different personality wise. Fane, in particular, is a bit of a challenge. Especially when it’s not his POV. He’s hard to explain at times, and it’s why I take so long to create one shots or chapters because I want to make sure I’ve been as clear as possible with him or how other’s perceive him. I have to think in my head, ‘How would such and such really feel about Fane’s personality? How would they respond to his outbursts or his views on the world?’ It takes a lot of reviewing banter from Inquisition and seeing how characters interact with one another for me to confidently piece together dialogue in regards to Fane, and at times, my mind wanders into non canon territory to where I then have to yank it back. Fane lets my mind explore, but the wanderlust gets to be a bit..much. I think so, at any rate. Lol.

On a more personal level, Fane is also me, in a way. He’s a persona that allows me to express what I tend to go through mentally at times. While it’s a sort of comfort for me to get things off my chest through him, I also have to take a step back and breathe, especially if my mind that day isn’t in the best of places. I mean, I want to write during those times, but it can be incredibly difficult to formulate words with enough sensitivity so it doesn’t hit too hard for anyone else and come off wrong.

15. What is something about your OC can make you laugh?

I’m gonna use Estoria for this because one thing I’ve created with her always makes me smile and giggle like a madman. That thing is, is the fact that she’s a flirter, but if it’s directed at her then she’s a bumbling fool. She’s all miss big bad mercenary elf until someone says, “You’re eyes are truly a delight.’ and then she just laughs nervously and nearly crumbles into a ball at their feet.

And you bet your ass that Solas’s smooth talk kills her to where she actively has Cullen syndrome and runs away--tripping and stumbling over her own feet because she can’t. Then, when she does manage to get away she just sits on the floor and goes with all the enthusiasm of a teenager, “He..he thinks I’m graceful? He thinks I’m graceful!” Then she just rolls around on the floor, kicking her legs like a happy little flower. :3

19. What is your favorite fact about your OC?

That Fane has a sweet tooth. Hands down. Man becomes a literal puppy around cake, cookies, anything sweet. I have it in my fluffy little head that he swipes those things from Skyhold’s kitchen without anyone seeing because he’s embarrassed. He’ll try to be all sneaky and slick, but someone always stumbles upon him stuffing his face and then..well, you know. Fane becomes Aterian and Solas has to be called to tame a dragon before the walls come down. *smiles pleasantly*

1. What is/are your OC’s nickname(s) and how did it come about?

We’ll go down the line for this one!

Fane is ‘Tempest’ due to his ‘calm before the storm’ demeanor when in battle. Varric gave it to him when he saw how fast Fane could move despite his size, and how hard he could hit once closing in. He’s literally a lightning bolt as he’s never in the same place twice and he does it all without batting an eye like how a real storm can destroy everything in its path, but when the clouds part, it’s calm, controlled without a shred of guilt towards the wreckage.

Estoria is ‘Snapdragon’. He adoptive father gave it to her as a sign of affection and to let her know that she is strong, even if the world believes she’s just a delicate little flower to be set on a window and forgotten. It also came about whenever he saw just how fierce a fighter she could be and how passionate she would get towards specific topics--’snapping’ like a dragon does with their treasure hoard or young.

Mhairi is ‘Snow bird’ or ‘Fawn’. Courtesy of Varric and Dorian! Snow bird is Dorian’s nickname for her and it’s mainly due to her proclivity towards ice magic. Fawn is Varric’s choice due to how wide eyed and curious Mhairi is, like a newborn fawn discovering the world for the first time.

8. How does your OC talk/what does your OC’s voice sound like?

This is Fane’s. Fane’s, Fane’s. Only because I have so many thoughts about his voice that I have to try to explain it! All right, so his voice is deep, obviously. However, it’s gruff, it’s tired, and it rumbles like the softest of thunder. You can take the man out of the dragon, but you can’t take the dragon out of the man. He always has a slight growl to his voice, even if he’s not irritated. He does have an accent, more or less along the lines of what the game gives us, but it’s deeper, has more timbre and husk to it. It drops dangerously low when he’s furious--almost warbling with the natural growl. It jumps a slight octave when he’s flustered--sometimes cracking on specific syllables. When he speaks Elvhen though..well, let’s just say Solas has an existential crisis to where he blanks for a good twenty seconds because how the words just roll near perfectly from a deep, deep, near criminally seductive grave. It’s a good time. *waggles eyebrows*

52. What are some of your OC’s motivations?

Oh god. Well, it is time to try and explain why Fane does the shit that he does! Namely, why the hell he supports the destruction of the Veil, even if he knows it could kill people he loves.

One: Fane is heavily devoted to Solas. Centuries of bonding and losing each other does that, after all. He strives in every fashion to lessen the burden on Solas’s shoulders because he’s seen it happen before. He’s seen and felt Solas practically scream for an end. So, he refuses to abandon him again to that torture, even if he has to bloody his hands from those he had come to consider friends. It’s a difficult road for both of them, but Fane tries to keep a tiny shred of hope in his heart that everything will be okay in the end--that they’ll be okay. He just wants to protect Solas with everything he has, even if it brands him a monster. So, in a way, Solas’s continued presence motivates Fane to keep pushing, even if it’s indirectly.

Two: Fane is passionate towards his kin. He wants to free them from the world they are forced to endure. Another reason for why he supports Solas beyond their close bond. He knows that dragons are needed for the world to survive. So, the thought of his kin being able to show what they are truly made to do is what guides him to endure a lot of the heart break and a lot of the words that are eventually hurled at him. It doesn’t make fighting them any easier though.

Three: Fane is heavily mired with family or those he considers family. He took Mhairi’s place in his father’s experiments because he wanted to protect her, not himself. He throws himself in front of blades, magic that’ll make him ill, and kin bearing claws just to keep those close to him alive because he can’t stand the thought of their eyes going dead and grey. He doesn’t want to kill; he wants to preserve, even if eventually, he’ll have to turn his back because of necessity.

69. What is your OC’s favorite kind of weather?

Fane likes snowy, cold, frigid weather. He was a snowy dragon. Who lived on mountain. Had ice in his lungs. Boy melts in the desert, trust me. Besides that, he just likes the way the world looks when its blanketed with snow and ice. It’s still and quiet. Those aren’t things he’s used to, so he greedily indulges in them when they’re present.

Estoria is the opposite. She loves the heat, but primarily she loves rain. She’ll stand out and just look up at the sky with a huge smile on her face--completely unconcerned that she could get sick. All because it reminds her that the world is still moving along, even if the people in it believe it’s not. It’s still growing, flourishing, thriving, and that gives her comfort and joy.

***

Wowee! That was a lot, but damn was it fun! Thank you for the ask, as always! I can ramble, ramble, ramble like my life depends on it! XD

#dragon age #oc: fane lavellan #oc: estoria lavellan #oc: mhairi lavellan #oc asks #all my children today!#well except for ONE #but they won't be revealed until my next chapter comes out #eheheh~#ask

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rambleandbabble · 4 years

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Mallow Mania: A Review of the Happy Skin Lip Mallow Mousse #3

I gotta be honest with you: when the Lip Mallow Mousse first came out, I wasn’t as hyped as the others were. Upon first swatching them at the mall, I came to the conclusion that they were local versions of the 3CE Velvet Lip Tints in terms of formula and colors, and while the colors of the initial release were flattering on most Filipina skin tones, it wasn’t enough to convince me to actually buy one, especially at the price of Php 549.00.

So what convinced me to buy this time around?

Happy Skin released the Coffee Edition of the HS Lip Mallow Mousse, which were mostly nude / mlbb colors. When I watched the swatch video of these babies on Johnreyslife, the colors blew me away. And although I told myself I wasn’t gonna buy them, when the opportunity arose one day, I decided to try the Lip Mallow Mousse for myself and ask, “Is Mallow Mania a real thing?”

Today, we’ll find out.

Today, we will be reviewing the Happy Skin Lip Mallow Mousse in the shade, Iced Coffee.

According to the Happy Skin Website, the Lip Mallow Mousse claims to have “A velvety air-whipped formula that wraps the lips in a weightless cloud of smooth color with a cushion-soft powder matte finish.”

The Lip Mallow Mousse included ingredients such as:

Marshmallow Extract, for anti-inflammation;

Coffee Arabica Seed Oil, for added moisture on the lips and;

SPF 15, for protection from sun damage.

SHADE COMPARISON

As described by Happy Skin, the Lip Mallow in the shade, “Iced Coffee”, is a pink brown shade: its overall color is brown, but it has hints of pink to add a more youthful appearance overall.

Happy Skin Cooling Lip & Cheek Tint in Latte Fix: Comparing Iced Coffee to Latte Fix, both lip colors are quite similar - the main color was brown, however the difference lies with the undertones. Latte Fix is described as a ginger nude, and is leaning towards orange undertones as compared to Iced Coffee, which has pinkish undertones.

BLK Cosmetics Creamy All Over Paint in Daffodil: These two shades are awfully similar. I think they come from the same spectrum, except that Daffodil was leaning more towards the pink spectrum while Iced Coffee was more in the brown spectrum. A preferred alternative if you find browns intimidating or unflattering, and prefer a more pinkish color on the lips but with brown undertones.

Colourette Colourtint in Liv: Liv is a straight up mauve-rose pink, and offers little to no brown tones as compared to Iced Coffee. Most easily smudged and removed together with Latte Fix.

PRODUCT REVIEW

Upon opening the item, I immediately noticed the small doe-foot applicator. It’s pretty sturdy, and the small doe-foot gives you the freedom to fill in your lips in a more precise manner as compared to a big doe-foot applicator.

Upon application on the lips, the lip mallow mousse felt like a light blanket on the lips. First layer application provides that weightless feeling as claimed by HS. It still feels pretty much lightweight when you add two to three more layers, but not to the point of your conventional lipstick formulas where you could feel the layers atop your skin. This... really feels like you’re wearing nothing at all. It’s pretty opaque upon first swipe, but if you want to further saturate the color and bring out the brown hues, I suggest going for a second or third layer.

The formula is close to a mousse texture rather than a liquid lipstick, and it does leave a stain when you wipe the product off with makeup wipes. However, the stain power here varies, given that the shade I’m using is a nude shade, as compared to the more pigmented shades offered by HS. I’m emphasizing the fact that it is a mousse formula because I’ve encountered liquid lipsticks claiming to be tints (Hi 3CE Velvet Lip Tint), and liquid tints claiming to be liquid lipsticks (Hi L’oreal Rouge Signature Lipstick). If you’re not a fan of the 3CE Velvet Lip Tints because they can feel heavy on the lips after 2-3 applications (because they are, in fact, liquid lipsticks), I suggest you try the HS Lip Mallow Mousse, which is quite similar in formula, except that it’s more lightweight than the 3CE Velvet Lip Tint.

Another thing that’s different about the Lip Mallow Mousse when compared to 3CE’s Velvet Lip Tint was the added moisture to the lips. I definitely felt the coffee arabica seed oil on my lips, and truly enough, it did retain some moisture on my lips. I still needed to apply lip balm prior to use on some days, but there are days when I can manage without the lip balm and my lips would still feel moisturized with just the Lip Mallow Mousse.

Because of the presence of coffee arabica seed oil in the product, there was this sheen to it when swiped. It dries down to a satin-matte finish, and has a slight blurring effect on the lips. The overall effect of it resembles that of a liquid lipstick, but the texture and consistency is mousse all the way.

And because I am a multi-use maniac, I had to try it out on the eyes and cheeks.

Products Used: Happy Skin Lip Mallow Mousse in the shade, Iced Coffee, on the eyes, cheeks and lips | Maybelline Lash Sensational Mascara on the eyes

I followed the application technique as demonstrated by Johnreyslife in her video, where she applied it at the back of her hand and patted her finger onto the product, dispersing it before putting it on the cheeks and eyes, instead of applying the product straight to the cheeks. The Lip Mallow Mousse provided me this light wash of color on the cheeks, and gave the impression of healthy and glowing skin. The finish was matte, but it didn’t cling onto any dry patches on my face. And despite having it on for more than 8 hours, the pigment was very much still there, especially in the eyes. The next day, however, is a different issue. I had one tiny breakout on my cheek around the same area where I had applied the Lip Mallow Mousse. This seems to be an inconsistent occurrence though, as I had tried applying the Lip Mallow Mousse on my cheeks on different occasions and did not break out every time, so up to you if you’d want to use it on the cheeks. It’s supposed to have anti-inflammatory skin benefits anyway, but I’m not sure if my skin reacted that way because of the ingredients or the pigment present.

When puckering up, the Lip Mallow Mousse does not clump and sets well on the lips. The staying power is alright. It fades gracefully throughout the day. I wouldn’t say it lasts as long as the L’oreal Rouge Signature Lipstick or the Maybelline Superstay Liquid Lipstick, but for the amount of comfort and the effort they’ve put on to create shades with beautiful undertones that would cater to the local market, I think the HS Lip Mallow Mousse is a product that is worth the splurge in its own right.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Well...not really much of a recommendation, but more of a preference: I wish there was more product in it for Php 549.00. That’s it. XD I have no complaints about the formula whatsoever.

RATING

Packaging: 5/5 (very chic and appealing)

Pigmentation: 4.5/5

Formula: 5/5

Longevity: 4.5/5

Skin Comfort: 5/5 (I considered the tiny breakout on my cheek, but then again, this is a lip product after all. It’s not meant for the cheeks, so I’m only evaluating this area based on comfort on the lips.)

Price: 4.5/5

SUMMARY

The Happy Skin Lip Mallow Mousse truly lives up to its name and its claims. Weightless, non-drying (75% of the time), with a satin-matte finish to it, the lip mallow mousse is an impressive product in terms of shades and undertones, and making sure it stays comfortable and moisturizing on the lips as the day goes by. I feel like with such a product, so much time, effort and research has been put into this to ensure its quality, and it truly is a great product to have in your makeup collection. For Php 549.00 and 3ml worth of product, I understand that the price is quite hefty for a lipstick made locally, but you get what you paid for in terms of formula and shade. I don’t think I’d mind if they increased the price so long as they added more product because I see myself using this everyday for the next few months, and it feels like it’s gonna run out soon. XD Would I repurchase this? Absolutely, but not until I run out of my current purchase. It is expensive, after all, so I need to save up.

So is mallow mania a real thing? Mallow mania is a real thing. Go get your own lip mallow and experience it for yourself.

#makeup #review #post #makeup ph #Happy Skin #Lip Mallow #Lip Mallow Mousse #Iced Coffee #Swatches #Lip products

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freckled-words · 4 years

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Count The Teeth - Part Eleven

I am just. I don’t even know? I swear I remember posting this final chapter last year with the whole series, I swear I did, but as far as my tumblr account can tell, it doesn’t exist.....I hate tumblr sometimes, I really do. So if this is already in existence, then let’s just roll with this being an odd duplicate.

I’m not going to post all the prior links here, as I’m setting up another post that will have EVERYTHING on it, including the original one shot ‘Smoke and Blood.’

I can’t even remember if this was edited. Regardless, enjoy this random end chapter XD

It had been the oddest thing when you left NateMare licking his wounds.

You’d gone to the driveway and found a taxi waiting for you. The driver said the fare had been taken care of and he was to take you wherever you wanted. When you asked him who had covered the tab, he said a well spoken gentleman had done so.

Seeing your disheveled appearance in pajamas, the taxi driver became curious as to why you were there.

You went with an elaborate story. It was your birthday, and your asshole brother had kidnapped you and brought you here for a spooky adventure. You’d gotten fed up with his childish antics and had decided to leave. You added that it was likely your brother’s friend that had paid the taxi driver.

When you got home, you took a long, luxurious, hot shower and collapsed into bed. Your exhaustion was deeper than you’d thought, leading you to sleeping for a straight 12 hours.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

4 months later…

It had taken him a month, but Mercer had kept his word. He’d found each of his victims that had been put into a coma, and brought them out of it. When questioned about what had happened to send them into the coma, they all had the same story. They’d been out at night, and they came across a man looking for directions. After they sent him on his way, they’d become dizzy and passed out.

Authorities believed that the victims had been distracted by the man asking for directions, then jumped by a second person that knocked them out and then drained them for blood. Reddit was running rampant with theories about a team collecting blood for the black market.

You supposed it was better than them getting freaked out about a rampaging vampire. The last thing the city needed were civilians taking up guns, pitch forks, torches, and stakes to go after people that were innocent.

In the following months, you remained on alert. NateMare’s promise of retribution had left a fairly strong impression. Armed with the knowledge of something to use against him, you’d set up a collection of weapons throughout the apartment.

In the kitchen, you had a bucket of blessed water by the sink. In the living room, you had a Super Soaker loaded with the stuff and in your bedroom, you had a spray bottle at the ready. You knew it would annoy and delay him at best, but at least it was better than just standing around and letting him curse you again.

You were so intent on watching for hints of a smoke cloud, you didn’t think to watch for any bats.

Which was how Mercer caught you off guard.

You’d spent the day out with one of your friends, and had lost track of time. It was dark when you made the walk home. The night was overcast and the wind was much colder as winter was settling in.

Despite your thick jacket, you still felt the chill. Your hands were stuffed into your pockets and your shoulders were hunched up to your ears. Your attention darted between the people walking towards you on the sidewalk and the people that were walking parallel to you across the street. Leaving no room to focus on your surroundings behind you.

An arm went around your shoulders, pulling you in against a tall frame. Startled you made a noise that was barely a word and some kind of squeak.

A familiar voice chuckled, making the hair on the back of your neck stand on end. You didn’t dare look up, not wanting to get caught by his eyes.

“What are you doing here Mercer?”

Mercer’s arm squeezed a little tighter, guiding you forward to keep walking.

He was greatly enjoying himself. You could tell from his voice as he replied, “Well hello to you too. Can’t a friend just come around for a visit now and then?”

“We’re not friends.”

“Oh, you wound me.” He lamented, without an ounce of actual dismay.

“Did you come here to get some payback for soaking you?” It was the first thing that came to mind, and you were kicking yourself for not bringing your tiny spray bottle with you when leaving earlier.

You caught sight of Mercer’s hand as he waved that thought off, “Not at all. I’ve gotten over that little trifle. As I said, I’m just here on a friendly visit.”

“At what point between you and NateMare trying to kill each other, did you and I become friends?” You could see your apartment building up ahead, and at this point, you were just utterly perplexed as to what was happening with Mercer right now.

He ignored your question, “I had some time to think while I went from hospital to hospital, and I’ve come up with a fun idea. One that I’m sure you’ll see the benefits of.”

You knew it was stupid, you could hear yourself calling it stupid, but when you both stopped in front of your building, you looked up.

The bugger was genuinely amused, smiling brightly and in all innocence. There was no glow to his eyes and you didn’t feel any part of you go numb. He was playing nice. For now.

You shrugged off his arm and moved around to stand in front of him, “And what idea is this?”

“Well, as we’re both aware, my dear, baby brother is all in a huff about you letting me go. The set of lungs on that boy, I swear. My ears were throbbing for an hour after his hollering.”

You winced, but you weren’t surprised Mercer had caught that.

“I was thinking to myself about how much trouble you and he were, going around and messing about in my handiwork. Good job on digging up the family history by the way. Anyways, I thought I should probably keep tabs on my brother, make sure he doesn’t come barging in on me at some point unexpectedly. The only problem is that I’m terrible at tracking idiots.”

You shuffled on the spot, getting colder by the minute. Mercer was clearly intent on dragging this out, and you doubted he’d just let you walk away. But you had no intention of inviting him inside.

“So I came to the only logical conclusion: You! I knew he was bound to come knocking on your door at some point and figured I’d keep watch. I tell you, watching a mortal for a month is boring. Which is why we’re having this chat. Much more engaging than just hovering about bored out of my mind.”

Your blood pressure rose at his declaration of stalking you for the past month. You thought you’d felt eyes on you, and it made you twice as jumpy. Knowing it was this nuisance didn’t make you feel any easier.

Processing everything he was saying all together, you just about threw your hands up.

It was the same damned position you’d been in 5 months before, only now it was reversed!

“Clearly you two are related.” You grouched stomping your feet. The cold was seeping through your boots and socks, making your feet ache.

“I am not helping you find NateMare. You are not hanging around here to wait for him to show up! And I’m not getting involved with either of you again!” You didn’t care if the neighbors heard, for all they’d understand, it sounded like a romantic issue.

You spun on your heel and stomped up to your apartment door.

Just as you put the key into the lock, a decent sized bat flew around you and clung onto your chest. You looked back over your shoulder and saw no sign of Mercer. Glaring down at the bat, you hissed, “You are not coming inside, let go and go away.”

The bat merely wiggled its ears, and much to your chagrin, he nuzzled against your coat. Even worse, it was adorable.

You heard people, more tenants that belonged to your building, coming up behind you.

Suppressing a frustrated scream you unlocked the door, and kept your body turned away from the approaching people.

You wrapped your arms around yourself, concealing Mercer as best you could, and made a beeline for the staircase.

Huffing up the stairs you swore at him, “You’re in so much trouble. I have a bucket filled with holy water in my kitchen and it has your name all over it buddy.”

The impudent bastard gave a tiny squeak. One that conveyed no distress in the slightest.

A glance down and there was no mistaking a smug smile, even on a bat.

You didn’t stop until you were inside your apartment, at which time you were breathless and sweaty under your coat.

“You make one damn comment about me being out of shape, and I will seriously drown you.”

“I’d very much like to see you try.”

You’d been locking your door, putting your back to the living room.

It hadn’t been Mercer that had replied.

Stiffly, you hit the light switch next to the door frame and peeked over your shoulder.

NateMare lounged back on your couch. His body was relaxed, but his expression was one that read murder.

The sound of dripping drew your eye to the kitchen. Your bucket of holy water was on the floor, along with a puddle of water and some that was dripping off the sink's cabinet doors.

“NateMare-”

“Shut it.”

He got to his feet and stalked towards you, “You should consider yourself very lucky. Had I gone after you that same day, I would have happily ripped your esophagus out of your throat.”

You swallowed thickly.

“But I took some time to calm down, recover, and think about it. I changed my mind.”

He stepped closer, leaving two steps of distance between you, “I’ve come to realize that I enjoy having a minion doing my bidding. Unlike some other… people… I could name, I don’t have a host popping out brothers every damn holiday. Plus, you’re already semi-trained.”

He smirked and held up a hand. Smoke gathered in his palm, and formed a thick section of chains.

“Hell. To. The. No.”

You’d done this song and dance and you were not doing it again.

Turning to face him, you pried Mercer from your chest and shoved him into NateMare, “Here, talk to your brother. Take it outside!”

Stunned, NateMare had dropped the smoke chain and grabbed Mercer on reflex.

Unprepared, Mercer didn’t have a chance to resist being shoved into NateMare’s hands.

The two stayed frozen and dumbstruck to the spot while you threw off your coat and went to get your mop and bucket.

There was another second of silence until you heard, “WHAT THE FUCK?!”

There was enraged squeaking, a bit of scuffling, the sound of a grunt, and then silence.

When you returned to the kitchen, you found the two were gone, and your balcony door wide open.

You were in the clear. For now.

#I'm honestly so proud of this #Mercer Battle #NateMare Battle #NateMare #Reader insert #I hate tumblr #deleting my shit #fanfiction #Count The Teeth #Part 11 #natewantstobattle

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writteninsunshine · 4 years

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Walking At Night Alone - Roche/Cloud Strife - SFW

Title: Walking At Night Alone Author: Donnie Fandom: Final Fantasy VII Remake Setting: Sector Seven Slums, Cloud’s Apartment Pairing: Roche/Cloud Strife Characters: Roche, Cloud Strife, Zack Fair, Marco, Tifa Lockheart, Marle’s Dog, Biggs, Sephiroth Genre: Romance/Hurt/Comfort Rating: T Chapters: 1/1 Word Count: 2733 Type of Work: One-Shot Status: Complete Warnings: Gay, Slash, Yaoi, MLM, Past Zack Fair/Cloud Strife, PTSD, Hallucinations, Insomnia, Sweetness, Roche is full of nicknames, Fluff, Cats still hate Cloud Disclaimer: I don’t own anything. Summary: Roche finds Cloud when he really needs it. AN: Hey guys, it’s me again! Just thought I ought to say, if you want vague updates and to talk to me more, I have Twitter and Tumblr, too! Twitter is Sunshinecackle, and Tumblr is Writteninsunshine! I also have a writing Discord that is currently pretty dead. xD I can PM it to people who want it on FFN, for everyone else, it’s here: discord.gg/FyaWw25 I’m part of team Cloud Needs Some Sleep 2020, and so is Roche. At any rate, I hope you guys like this! I’m hoping that it being so long will be better than the last one, so that there’s more content for you guys! I do plan on working on some more for these two, but Sephiroth/Genesis is next up on who I’m gonna write. xD I hope you guys are looking forward to that, too! Just a warning, this only received one edit, I didn’t have anyone to look over it the last time that I usually do, so it might have a couple of issues. Let me know if it does and I’ll fix it!

Final Fantasy VII Fic Masterlist Walking At Night Alone ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Another cat hissed, swiped for his foot and bolted down the path to the pipe that lead to the park, and Cloud had only just barely left his apartment. Marle's dog stood steadfast beside her door, panting softly and relishing in the slight breeze breathing life into its fur. The wind rustled Cloud's hair, and he sighed softly, just shy of content as he glanced towards the office.

It was late enough that Chadley and Wymer were both gone, likely bedded down for the night, but there was nary a night where Cloud could get a full nights' rest. Letting his guard down for just a second could prove disastrous; Sephiroth haunted him in waking and dreaming hours alike. Marco had been making a whole host of strange noises again, and to avoid another incident where he might hurt someone, he’d deigned it a better idea to walk the slums. Nighttime didn’t mean much, even in Sector 7 it seemed because there were still people gathered around shopfronts, talking in the streets. Cloud didn’t know the time, but from the relative darkness, he supposed it was late enough that he should have been sleeping. He bet if he swung by Biggs’ place, the man would be asleep instead of sprucing up the dirt in front of his door. Even Tifa was probably long out, dreaming of a better day. Pausing in front of the bar, he stared up at the wooden sign, scrutinizing it for something that wasn’t going to be there, even if he stared for hours. Things like memories never appeared when you could actually handle them, in his experience. Though, sometimes, they did rush back when he needed them. For a second, he could have sworn he heard a chuckle behind him, a very specific tone followed by boots crushing the dirt beneath their feet. When he turned, however, he let out a breath he hadn’t noticed he’d been holding. What had he been thinking? Zack was just as gone from him as Sephiroth was. There was no way he’d come around as often, either. Good memories tended to stay in the past, even if he still had nightmares about that rainy day, screaming at nothing while wearing Zack’s blood on his face. Shaking his head almost violently, Cloud balled his fists to give himself something else to focus on, turning away and starting for the station. It was better than walking circles this early into his evening, he supposed. The brisk night air, the abundant lack of people, it all melted into the background, even as he appreciated it silently. His arms felt chilly, maybe even numb, and the fact that he could just be there and feel that made his night that much more impressive; He hadn’t lost all of his senses quite yet. Waiting around at the station landing for twenty minutes hadn’t been part of the plan. Trains hadn’t been running for the last day or so, and even the hopefuls that still thought their husbands, sisters, fathers, mothers, whatever would come back had all but left. Maybe it was the hour, or maybe it was too much to hope for. What did he even expect to happen? Someone would come to talk to him that shouldn’t have been there? Shaking his head again, Cloud crossed his arms and pushed off of the wall, frowning heavily as he stomped back towards the road leading to the main portion of the slums. Maybe a solid night in Scrap Boulevard would do him some good. He might be tired in the morning, whenever it came, but it would be better than just waiting for something that wouldn’t, or even couldn’t come. It wasn’t until he had passed the factory that he heard what could only be called determined footsteps behind him. Itchy fingers tensed against his own biceps and Cloud hugged himself tighter. If anyone had followed him, they were probably in just as much of a bad spot as he was. Tifa had warned him that he needed to ask questions first, after what had happened with Marco. Someone innocent didn’t need to die because he wasn’t in his head when he attacked them. But the stubborn footsteps followed him past the bar, up the way he usually took towards the school. Another cat yowled somewhere to his right, bolting and clambering into a seemingly innocuous pile of scrap and buckets. The crashing had Cloud on high alert, and his hand bolted to the comfort found in the grip of his sword. Closing around the familiar haft, he turned enough to see who had been following him so doggedly. What he found surprised him more than anything else he could have seen in that dark alley. Standing in the dim light was none other than Roche, that pesky Third Class SOLDIER from the other night. He kicked a bucket away from his feet, firmly placed them in the dirt and gave a wink and the kind of blinding smile that would have made the sun lamps jealous, then waved. Altogether, Cloud could see the man was trying but was he really ready to deal with this? He hadn’t slept in what felt like lifetimes. “Roche, right?” Cloud asked, narrowing an unhappy, almost accusatory glare on the blond swordsman. “Oh, Sunshine, you remembered~!” Somewhere in the excited tone of his voice, Cloud could see that the other was trying his best to keep his voice down. The time and Cloud’s desire not to get caught like this was probably the biggest reason for that. “I didn’t think I’d ever be able to find you, and then guess who I saw hanging around the train station?” “You shouldn’t be here.” Cloud’s voice was a hiss, not unlike the cats that fled from him, and his arms crossed once more. Roche would give him a fair fight, at the very least, he knew that much; it was the only reason he felt safe without his hand on his sword. If he was here for another dance, they certainly weren’t about to do it in a cramped slum alleyway. Even if Roche didn’t care about the casualties, Cloud sure did. Innocent people didn’t deserve to die because Roche was an excitable puppy. The word crossing Cloud’s mind made his lips twitch in a frown and his gaze drifted slightly to the side of Roche’s head. “Well, it’s common practice that I tend to end up in places I shouldn’t be.” Roche offered a kind smile, stepping a little closer and holding out his hand. “I was thinking, maybe, it was time for another dance. I haven’t been able to get you out of my head. It’s been a long time since someone got my blood pumping the same way that you do, Sunshine.” “Shouldn’t you still be topside?” Cloud shifted his weight to his right foot, leaning away with a huff as a show of annoyance. “But you aren’t topside, now, are you, Kitty-Cat?” Taking a couple of lazy steps forward, Roche bent just slightly at the waist to meet those downturned eyes, and his hands took the other’s cheeks in the soft leather of his gloves. “Had to come to find you… You’re intoxicating.” Surprising himself, Cloud did nothing to shake free of the other’s hands, and he pursed his lips slightly, frowning instead seconds later. There was a certain familiarity in the way that Roche invited himself into his life, into his personal space, and he found it oddly comforting to lean into those hands. “If you’re going to be down here, you’re going to have to--” “I already hid my bike, don’t worry.” Roche grinned, perking considerably as he pulled Cloud into a hug. The sudden grip around him had him stiff, jaw clenched and hands held tight at his sides. What was this even supposed to be? “It feels good to have you close, Sunshine.” He whispered against Cloud’s ear, and he gulped slightly. “Can we go somewhere to be alone?” Still stiff but maybe less so, Cloud sighed, feeling just how fatigued he was when Roche had to put more effort into holding him up. Cloud was half tempted to tell him the bar, but instead, he found himself lifted with a stunted shout on his lips. In a quick set of motions, he pulled the sword off his back and held it out in front of them, though he turned a deadly, narrowed-eyed glare on the other. “I got you, Sunshine.” How had Cloud not asked him to stop calling him that by now? “Where’re you staying? You look like you need a three-day nap.” “I-- It’s-- I’m o--” Cloud’s stilted hesitation was silenced with a skeptical look and he sighed, thunking his head into the other’s armored shoulder. “If you follow this alley all the way to the end, it’ll let out near the apartments I’m staying at.” “Okay, Kitty-Cat, be there in a blink.” At least, that had been the plan, until Cloud’s grunt of surprise at the start of his mad sprint had Roche bouncing in place, suddenly anxious. “Uh-- No running?” He asked, bashful, and Cloud nodded, his glare lightening just slightly. “You’re going to drop me or we’ll hit a wall. Take it slow or put me down.” While Cloud’s voice wasn’t a threat, it almost sounded like one. Take it slow, which forfeited his favorite force in the world, speed… Or put Cloud down? The only acceptable amount of time apart right now seemed to be none, so Roche slumped for a second, sighing and collecting his pride from the floor, before readjusting Cloud in his arms and walking like a normal person. Feeling at least a little bit safer in the other’s arms, Cloud relaxed enough to give the illusion of being too tired to fight him, closing his eyes and letting the cool night air wash over him as he was jostled in the younger’s hold. “You sure we can’t just, uh, go a little bit faster?” Roche finally asked as they passed by the schoolyard, and Cloud snorted slightly, rolling his eyes. “Taking it slow for once isn’t going to kill you. If everyone went as fast as you do, we’d never see the small stuff.” “Small stuff?” The thought of missing things had never occurred to Roche, and he looked down with those wide eyes to try and catch the look on Cloud’s face. Cloud looked away, eyes on the dirt in front of them, though they were unfocused. Had he just run through that mission with Zack, there would have been so many things that they both would have missed, and it would have been such a shame. “Like…” Finally turning back to look at him, his eyes locked on Roche’s and he sighed, “Your eyes. If I didn’t take the time to look…” Cloud sucked in a deep breath, “They’re… Really teal. And not too bright, yet.” Roche blinked a couple of times in rapid succession before focusing a bit more on Cloud’s eyes. Now, those were the eyes of a SOLDIER. “Is that bad?” “No.” Cloud shook his head, “His eyes weren’t like mine, either.” “His?” Shit. Of course he’d mess himself up by saying something about Zack too soon. “Just… Someone I used to…” Trailing off, Cloud sighed a little. “It’s not important.” “He sounds important.” Roche replied, ducking slightly around a corner to hide his face from Cloud’s eyes. “But you can tell me when you’re ready. If you’re ready at all.” Those eyes caught Cloud’s attention again when they peeked up, and the only thing that kept him from commenting was the sudden light above their heads. Cloud glanced over to the path they’d have to take to the apartment, pointing the way with the hand not holding his sword. “Over there. Once we get to the clearing with the apartments, mine’s the second one on the second floor.” “Gotcha.” Roche smiled sweetly, readjusting Cloud’s weight in his arms once more before taking the slight right that the blonde pointed him towards. “You need someone to stay the night? It could be fun.” “I have neighbors.” Cloud answered, maybe too quickly, “Thin walls. I can hear one of them coughing all the time…” “I didn’t say we had to do anything,” Roche replied, brows drawing in like curtains over his bright-- but not too bright --teal eyes, “I have every intention of making sure you actually sleep. Even if that means I have to sit outside and tell everyone off very quietly.” He was grinning again, winking theatrically, “Or if it means I have to hold you close and make sure that you sleep, I’ll do that, too. Sometimes having someone to watch your six while you sleep helps.” The way he said it sounded like Roche had experience with that need, and Cloud didn’t doubt it. That did make sense. Cloud had never had a lot of issues with insomnia before Zack’s death, but sleeping with someone around always did make him feel safer. But there was really no reason for him to be willing to be that vulnerable with this man; Roche was supposed to be the enemy, wasn’t he? But a fellow SOLDIER, he supposed, someone who had some inkling of what he was going through, it was something he couldn’t pass up. The safety in numbers with someone who might actually understand him struck him quiet. And he’s a goddamn puppy, too. Cloud couldn’t get the thought out of his head that Roche and Zack would have gotten along swimmingly. “Yeah… Maybe it will.” At this point, he was willing to try anything once if it meant he could actually rest. When was the last time he’d actually slept and not just drifted in and out of consciousness for three hours before getting up? Always exhausted and always exerting himself, that was his lot in life over the last few months. Even Roche could have been fooled by the time flying by when he was stopping in front of Cloud’s apartment not even a minute later. He let Cloud reach for the doorknob, and didn’t let him out of his arms until the door was closed behind them again and the bed was all he could fathom putting him on. While the blond looked up with a raised eyebrow, Roche grinned and shook his head, pulling all of his hair over his right shoulder. “You stay in bed, just a sec.” Setting both swords against what he assumed was a closet, he paused halfway back to the bed, where Cloud sat on his hip with one hand on the mattress. “You’re beautiful.” And Roche was breathless. “I-- Shut up.” Cloud’s delivery was swift and stilted, and he looked away with a pensive frown, biting the inside of his cheek. Roche was almost too much. When he found himself scooting into the wall to accommodate the other SOLDIER, he sighed softly, rolling onto his side to face it. Roche scooted in nice and close behind him, wrapping a strong arm around his waist. “Alright, Kitty-Cat. This is where I bid you goodnight. We can dance another night away.” Roche whispered, kissing Cloud’s ear absently as he nestled into his back, one leg up and over his hip to hold him in place. Despite himself, Cloud found that this was possibly the most comfort he had felt in this bed, and that left an odd taste in his mouth. Maybe this wouldn’t be such a bad thing, he thought, finding his mind growing dizzy, thoughts faint, and then fading to black. He slept until the sounds of children running and laughing outside jolted him awake and Roche simply shifted to give him a kiss on the cheek, holding him in place. “‘S okay, Sunshine.” He told him, “You can still get some shut-eye if you can.” Cloud surprised himself by nodding, eyelids sinking closed once more as he snuggled into the warmth the other man offered. He didn’t even need his thin, threadbare blanket with the other man wrapped around him like this. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ AN: Welp, there we go! This one was definitely longer than the other one, and I hope you guys liked it! I know I had a lot of fun writing this, it was super sweet and I think Cloud deserves understanding and kindness. Roche is a little over-eager but he’s a good boy, I promise! I hope to see you in the next one! I’m also looking for another beta-reader, if anyone is interested! Please let me know, through reviews/comments/joining my Discord/asks or messages on Tumblr!

#Final Fantasy VII Remake #Final Fantasy VII Remake Fanfic #Final Fantasy VII Remake Fanfiction #Final Fantasy VII Remake Cloche #Cloud Strife #Roche #Final Fantasy VII Remake Roche

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rollercoasterwrite · 4 years

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Seriously tumblr is so shit it even cuts off asks now. 22, 31, 40.

22. Choose a passage from one of your earlier fics and edit it into your current writing style. (Person sending the ask is free to make suggestions).

This is an excerpt from my fic It Started With a Song - I always felt like it was not one of my best written fics, so that’s why I chose it. It’s from four years ago... I can definitely see how different my writing has become. XD

Original :

It was a Thursday afternoon. The sky was grey and the clouds thick and heavy. A recurrence over the last couple of days. A man with an expression matching the spreading darkness above was walking down a busy street, minding his own business. His thoughts were filled with loneliness and self-deprecation, something that happened quite too often for someone who always put on a happy face. It was his well guarded secret; he wasn't a man content with his life, he was a man who was just going through it with the hope that one day he'd find what he was looking for. But at 26 years old he was starting to think that his hope was a ridiculous thing.

He walked and walked and walked, his head tilting downwards. He was tired and hungry, but he had no desire to satisfy those basic needs. He wanted something to pull him out of his routine, to make him remember why it was important for him to stay alive. He just needed something new. He turned the corner, freeing himself from the horde of people that was invading his personal space. This street was almost empty and so he could hear his steps echo against the concrete, the sound relieving him from the tension accumulating in his body. He was almost too focused on it to hear anything else, but he couldn't block out the voice that suddenly reached him. He stopped in his tracks and looked ahead. There was another man there. He was sitting on the sidewalk, a guitar in hand, his voice coming out sweet and melodious for the world to hear.

He remained still for a few seconds, just watching. He didn't know the song, but he was instantly drawn to it. He was still far away so he couldn't fully make out the words that were leaving the other's mouth, but he could gather that the song wasn't about gambolling in the park. He finally started walking again, his gaze still straight ahead, his mind putting aside all the sorrow he had been wallowing in to give his full attention to the song he could hear better and better with every step he took.

He was now standing before him, watching his profile as he kept singing with a passion that sent chills down his spine for a brief second. The other's eyes were closed, making him oblivious to his presence which made it much easier for him to just enjoy his voice. As well as his soft-looking blonde hair, his sharp jaw line and high cheekbones and last but not least, his attire which was constituted of a white t-shirt, ripped at the knee skinny jeans and Timbs. It was a far different look than his sky blue dress shirt, black trousers and lacquered shoes. He was totally fitting in while the other proudly stood out.

Their eyes suddenly met. The other had finally picked up on his presence and had stopped to look right at him. Silence stretched out for a few seconds, neither of them breaking the contact their gazes provided.

Edited to my style now :

It was a Thursday afternoon. Usually, that day meant a weekend soon to come, but for one particular man it was a day like any other. It was another page turned in the never-ending book of his life. Every breath he took, every step he made, gave him the false impression that he was walking towards something, that the book actually had meaning, and some days, he actually bought into that illusion.

But not today.

Maybe it was the grey sky that stretched above them or maybe he was just tired and hungry, but something about this particular day made it incredibly hard for him to find any meaning to his life. To any outsider, these very thoughts would’ve come as a shock. To any outsider, he probably looked like one of the happiest men alive.

But that was a lie.

The biggest one he had ever told and that he would probably continue to tell. Until…

He took a deep breath as the familiar swell in his chest bloomed like a flower. He hated this version of himself. The one that was always longing for more, but never knew where to look. All he could see right now were hordes of people buzzing around him, filling his space uninvited. He wanted out.

His body instinctively turned to the right, engaging him on another sidewalk, on another street. He felt himself breathe a little more easy as the emptiness of this one stretched out before him. He kept walking, enjoying the sound of his heels clicking on the concrete, making him almost forget about his previous musings.

He was almost too engulfed in the pleasures of quasi-silence to notice other sounds at first, but his body was brought to a sudden halt as a voice reached him, airy but poignant. His gaze shifted towards it and that’s when he saw him. The other man. One who was sitting on the sidewalk, guitar in hand, lost to his own voice and music.

He had no choice but to remain still, just watching, feeling. The song didn’t ring any bells, but he instantly felt drawn to it. The words didn’t fully make it to where he was, but the sound of it told him everything he needed to know. It was like the song was meant to match his own sorrow, his own existence.

He had no choice but to start walking again, to hear it better, to feel it closer. It was only a few steps before he was standing before him, gazing upon his profile as he kept singing with a passion that sent chills down his spine.

The other’s eyes were closed, making the bridge between their two worlds not yet tangible. But the bridge was there through his voice travelling to his ears, to his soul. It couldn’t have been more perfect. In this moment, he realized how different they were, despite not knowing anything about the other.

There was just something about the way he looked and the way he sang that let him know that this man wasn’t afraid of living life. The completely opposite of him.

Before he could keep on with his observations, the song fell silent as their eyes suddenly met. He had been caught.

Silence stretched out for a few seconds, neither of them looking away.

___________________________________________

31. Do you take liberties with canon or are you very strict about your fic being canon compliant?

I definitely take liberties XD Like I try to give a faithful portrayal of the characters as I view them though, but I love to experiment with these portrayals in different settings, situations and show their personal characteristics in different lights.

40. Write an alternative ending to [insert fic title] (or just the summary of one).

[SPOILER ALERT FOR THE SELFISHNESS OF OUR HEARTS]

I’m going to share the summary of the original ending actually that I had thought of even before writing the fic. And I’ve shared it on AFF before, but I’ll share it here too.

So, basically, the original ending was that Jinki was going to leave and actually never meet up with Jjong again, because their love simply felt impossible. Then a few weeks later, Jjong would’ve gotten a package in the mail and when he would’ve opened it in his apartment, he would've found Jinki's book (The Selfishness of Our Hearts) in it (and it would've been completed).

So the very last scene, was actually Jjong crying over the fact that they could never be together and holding the book tight as he realized that it would be the only keepsake left from the love for each other (which is why Jinki sent it to him).

I chose differently in the end. hahahaha

Thank you so much for these!!! <333

#quagmireisadora #shinee fic #ask #writer stuff #sara stuff #jongyu #shinee #shawols #babywols #that first question made me want to rewrite the whole fic XD

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thecursedhellblazer · 4 years

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{ @imthebatman }

(( Look at me actually managing to respect a deadline outside university ones...well, more or less ^^” In my defence, this turned out to be much more than I had planned for it to be, but well, it’s done xD Good thing you told me about the bday thing in advance, otherwise I would have never been able to put this together and I would have gone for something easier and less time consuming >.> ))

(( So, first of all have a shitty edit of a Beebo ready to party: ))

(( But the real present is under the cut. I was kind of tempted to post it elsewhere, like on Ao3, because it came out much longer than I thought and Tumblr posts kinda sucks, but I decided to shove it down here anyway. And yep, I did write you a song fic u.u ))

(( Happy b-day, Palps! ))

“Everyone of us hides a story made of scars and sometimes shelters in a corner„

Thick grey clouds cover the sky, heavy with a rainstorm they might never truly deliver, not a single crack of blue in sight. Then again, the sun has never been a common presence in the sky of Gotham. It would feel out of place in the gloomy atmosphere that surrounds the city and among its many, dark moods. There’s little space for light when the air is so heavy, even in the moments of apparent peace. They are, after all, nothing but an illusion, yet another calm before the tempest comes back raging again, just as the silence of that slowly dying afternoon is.

John Constantine lights up a cigarette, letting the flame linger on its as he inhales the first mouthful of smoke. In the descending darkness, his mind finds it easy to overlap the hostile skyline that stretches before his eyes with his memories of London. Another city known for her gloomy weather, for the fog that so often lingers over her buildings, soaking the people she shelters in her bosom with humidity and cold. If he closes his eyes and tries hard enough, he can still feel it, that wet sensation that dives deeper and deeper, until it settles in your bones with the silent promise of never leaving you, no matter how far from it life will take you.

He lets his head fall back slightly, slowly blowing out the smoke towards the sky, watching as it fades, confusing itself with the clouds. He misses London, hell, he misses England in general. The country was never been kind with him and most of his worst memories belongs there, together with all the unsatisfied and sometimes vengeful ghosts he has left behind, but whether he likes it or not, it still is and will always be home. Assuming that there is a single place, in this world and all the others, that he can call such. He can’t deny that it’s fitting, though. A land that has brought him mostly pain and regrets, just as the physical house he has grown up in has been his personal hell ever since he can remember.

The magician grits his teeth, mouth curling in a frown. That is a whole other set of memories that haunts him and he doesn’t even need to make an effort to recall them. Every sleepless night spent in terror. Every hit, every bruise, every insult. Every time those hands touched him, brutal, merciless, unrelenting. The images and the sensations can get vivid enough to make his stomach turn and his hands shake, even after so many years. That’s the reason why he doesn’t dwell on them, the reason why he never talks about it. Repressing is easier. It’s almost like forgetting, with the different that the phantom burden never goes away. However, the heaviness Is something he is almost used to, by now, since he is constantly carrying on his shoulders the weight if not of the world, at least of all his mistakes and bad choices. And damn, most of the times he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the two.

“So vulnerable, human heart’s an animal that doesn’t want to break cover„

It makes him wonder why he is still there. He has closed his case, the umpteenth clusterfuck that has brought him back to that city and to its lurking shadows. He has no reason to linger, especially not when that darkness calls his personal one out, causing it to resonate in tune with it. And yet there he is, perched on the railing of that balcony, skin and clothes stained with mud and blood. Not his own, for the most. It almost never is and, even when that’s the case, he always finds a way to be the last man standing, at the end of the day. The price for his life? Everything that can be taken from him and, especially, from the people who are unlucky enough to be around him, and then some more.

Constantine’s eyes slide close as he brings the cigarette back to his lips. The truth is that, despite what he tells himself, despite all the horrors and the losses he has faced, despite every lesson he has sworn to learn, he is weak. Selfishly so. He is so quick to deny others, and he is so harsh and unmovable in doing it, but with himself, oh, he has always been far too lenient. How that fits with his constant self-hatred, he isn’t completely sure. Perhaps it’s because he inevitably ends up losing everything he allows himself to have and keep, one way or the other. They have a cost, those indulgences, one that he cannot pay because he doesn’t have the means to do it. So Fate or Chance or whoever for them comes and snatches them away, sudden and violent, leaving yet another tear in his already far too broken core.

He bites back a scoff. The approaching night he’s watching now is nothing but yet another of indulgences. He knows where he wants it to lead him and he knows that he doesn’t deserve it. He should climb down the way he has climbed up, like the thief he is, and leave Gotham without looking back. He should and he would if he was enough of a decent person, but it’s been years since he has had any real shred of decency left in him. So, instead, he’ll stay and wait, as he always does. He’ll stay and take everything he can get his hands on, enjoying comforts and pleasures he has done nothing to earn. He’ll take and take and take, until the day when the tiny breach he has been using to crawl inside that small world where he doesn’t belong will be closed and he will find himself in the dark once again, alone and with yet another deep crack in his soul.

Blue eyes lock on the grey, threatening sky. It will happen, eventually, but not tonight. So, for now, he sits and soaks himself in the advancing shadows, his back to the lights that start to colour the windows of the manor. The symbolism isn’t lost to him, it never is, even if most of the times he pretends not to notice it, just to end up mulling over it later on. It’s a taste of what’s waiting ahead for him, once his time would have run out. It won’t be this quiet, though, and it won’t be this painless. The torment that fills his chest, however, that will be there, his eternal companion in death as it has been in life.

“If you want to back down I’ll try to understand but I just can’t help it I would, if I could give you a new innocence so, please don’t fear my caress„

The hand that descends on his shoulder is expected and by now very familiar, just as is the figure that presses up against his side. He has heard, or rather felt, the other man approaching him, even while lost in his thoughts, but he hasn’t turned around. He hasn’t needed to, not when he can easily imagine the whole scene in his mind without having to see it taking place in reality. Oh, his bloody imagination is just that good, but it’s a double-edged sword. His nightmares and lucid dreams are proof enough of what it can do, just as it is of how much it can wreck him when it chooses to.

Strong fingers travel down along the magician’s spine, taking in the tension that lingers in his muscles and the new tears that have been ripped in the worn material of his trench coat. However, in particular, they don’t miss how the exorcist initially reacts, stiffening even more under the touch, struggling until he manages to make himself accept it. It’s been months since they have agreed to let that thing between them officially exist, but the doubts and the reluctance are still almost as palpable as the bumps of his vertebrae.

Bruce bits back a sigh, deciding to pay no mind to it. He has almost resigned himself to the fact that there will always be a part of Constantine that will never accept his most gentle touches. The magician seems to instinctively recoil from them, as if they somehow hurt or as if he expected to get pain out of them. He has tried to bring the subject up, but John can be as stubborn as Batman himself when he chooses to and that has never led them anywhere, if not into an ugly fight. He is tempted to try again, but by now he knows the older man well enough and he can tell that, whatever he has faced that day, has been hard on him. A fact that inevitably destroys the already limited fertile ground there usually is for discussion. So, instead, the vigilante just keeps caressing, until the body under his palm has become as pliant as it’s capable of being.

“You’re a mess, Constantine,” he comments at that point, one eyebrow slightly raised and the lightest hint of amusement in his voice. What he doesn’t say is that he knows. He knows about the missing pieces and the darkness, about the stains and the scars. And he is fine with them, whether John likes to believe it or not, because he himself is far from being unblemished. He will be fine with them as long as the magician is aware that there’s no reason why he should fear Bruce and what he is willing to offer. He isn’t going to press, not even if he wishes he could, not even when he has all the rights to. And he isn’t going to ask for things that Constantine cannot give in exchange. What he demands, however, is to not be shut out and that’s something that it’s not up for discussion.

The exorcist finally turns to face the vigilante, an unimpressed look on his face. It’s a mask, a façade to hide all the thoughts that have been storming inside his mind, and they both know it. However, from Bruce’s indulgent expression, John can tell that, at least for that night, he will be allowed to keep his act up without having to try hard. It makes him feel both relieved and pained, because he has once again wrapped his hands around something he hasn’t earned and he will shamelessly drain that privilege until there will be nothing left to get out of it. Story of his life, really.

“Are we playin’ again that bloody game where we state the obvious? I know ‘m a mess, Wayne. But now, when am I not, hn?” He shoots back with an exaggerate eyeroll. He is hyperaware of the skilful hand that’s still working on the length of his spine. Bruce’s touch is always so warm and welcoming, despite the fact that he is always abusing the younger man’s time, his patience, his presence. That awareness is yet another torture for him, but at the same time he can’t help being greedy for it. “How did you know I was up ‘ere? Didn’t come in through the main door.”

The vigilante rolls his eyes, clearly making an effort to mimic exactly the gesture that has just been addressed to him. “Oh, you know. Alfred mentioned that he has seen someone in a dirty trench coat climbing along the front of the mansion,” he replies and his fingers dig in the magician’s side. It’s a playful gesture and he is pleased to see the obviously exaggerated reaction his lover offers, to play along with him. “I guessed that it had to be you.”

“Bullocks.” Constantine scoffs and turns his eyes back towards Gotham’s skyline, bringing the cigarette back to his lips. “The ol’ codger ‘s always in my bloody way. Damn him.”

“Everyone of us has to face more than once that feelings are just a delusion„

Bruce’s lips curl in the shadow of a rare grin at the comeback, but when the silence threatens to fall upon them, he doesn’t stop it. Instead, he removes his hand from the older man’s back in favour of leaning against the railing with his elbows, eyes locked on the slowly darkening horizon before them. He makes sure to keep touching, his side still pressed up against the magician’s, close enough to feel him twitching and shifting. Movements so subtle that would have been lost to him if he hadn’t made sure that they shared the same space.

He bows his head slightly, to be able to run a hand through his dark hair. It’s odd to be there, willing and somewhat content, with someone who’s so radically different from. John Constantine is a continuous, often rabid flood of energy, always moving, always changing, and he has, more often than not, felt like a rock in the middle of a turbulent river. Unmovable in its stillness, because that’s what he is compared to the other man, firm and steady where the exorcist is constantly shifting and fluctuating. However, even the sturdiest rock is fated to be affected by the constant, abrasive touch of the water and, to an extent, he has known it since the very first time their paths have crossed, among the smoke and the loud music of a London night not so different from many others. Of course, he didn’t realise it, back then, but it has taken him to meet John again, several years later, and be faced with a much darker version of him to understand how deeply under his skin the other had already crawled.

His mind flies back in time, to the years that have preceded that fateful meeting and to the ones that have followed it. He remembers the people who have touched his life, the women he has courted, mostly for fun and to keep his reputation up. Their names are mostly lost to him, aside from the two he’ll never forget, because, despite the bitter end those relationships have met, they have played an essential part in making him into whom he has become.

Selina was everything his younger self has never been allowed to have before her abrupt arrival in his life. Freedom and mischief, broken rules and total disregard for the conventions of the society he has grown up in. She was the adventure, the thrill of the forbidden. Her kisses used to taste like fresh air and carelessness. Her touches were sweet oblivion from the responsibilities. Taking her hand was stepping into new, unexplored worlds. In the end, she had slipped from his fingers while he was distracted by Gotham’s call, going where he couldn’t follow, just as the wild animal she has always been.

Rachel, on the other hand, was sweetness and stability. She was a bright light against Gotham’s endless gloominess, a gentle warmth capable of heating up the coldest night. Kissing her brought back, for the illusion of a moment, the innocence he lost at a far too young age. The way her hands moved on his body whispered promises of a home where he could have, if not forgotten, at least finally moved on from the pain and the losses. Holding her hands used to bring him comfort as nothing else in his life ever has. In the end, she had been a painful but necessary sacrifice, because the world she was promising him, as desirable and tempting, would have implied abandoning his cape and his duty to the city.

“So much wasted time making a fool of our pride just to come to the bitter conclusion„

Bruce slowly licks his lips. Now, both women are gone from his life. They linger, though, as ghosts from his past, reminding him of how fleeting feelings can be and what delusions they charm you with. Leaving them behind has been hard, it has taken a long time and, in the aftermath, it has pushed him to come to the conclusion that the only one he would always be faithful to, the only one he would never be able to resist would be Gotham.

Thinking about it now, he can tell that it has been easier than expected, to choose to wear the mask and the cape and to dedicate all of himself to the Night. She has always welcome him with open arms, with her secrets, her dangers, her battles. It has always felt right, like nothing else ever has. And so he has been fighting the madness that sprouts from her shadows ever since. Or, perhaps, the truth is that he has started his fight much before choosing to become Batman. Perhaps he has been sworn to the city and to its darkness since that night in that alley, when he has been left on his knees, between the lifeless bodies of his parents, screaming at the sky in agony for what had been so brutally stolen from him. Maybe it has been then that he signed his destiny, without even realising it.

A bitter, pained smile touches his lips at those thoughts. Even nowadays, despite everything he has gone through, he can tell without a doubt that he has found his calling and that the prices he has paid to follow it have been worth what he has got. It doesn’t make the sacrifices less painful, it doesn’t make the solitude less heavy to bear, but he is aware that, at the end of the day, the regrets won’t be burdening him enough to cause him to fall in the abyss he can see under his feet.

“I know, it hurts to mend all the shattered hopes but would you truly tell me that it isn’t worth pricking yourself with its thorns if it’s done to pick a rose?„

Bruce’s eyes leave the now dark sky and land on John once again. The man sitting next to him is the one variable he could have never predicted. He materialised on his path like a bolt from the blue, and definitely as dangerous as one. A walking bunch of cigarettes and arrogance, dressed in a trench coat that has seen much better days, incomprehensible but powerful words between his lips and nothing less than real magic on his fingertips. A ticking bomb shaped like a man, dragging the chains of a mysterious and yet obviously wrecked past and of his literally damned future. And yet, there he stood, still managing not to give a flying fuck about everything and everyone.

He remembers very clearly his own reaction, the first time they met after so many years. Batman was utterly annoyed by his flamboyant, caustic attitude and Bruce, from behind the mask, wondered where the messed up but still somehow hopeful young man he had found himself entangled with in London ended up. Constantine is not what he used to be, not even close, not even behind the parts of his act that are just for show. The sharpness and the cynicism in his eyes immediately made it clear, more than any rude word or flare of anger could ever have.

Peeling off all those crusted layers of smugnesss and exaggerated self-confidence hasn’t been easy, especially since the magician has fought him back at every step, but, all considered, it hasn’t taken too long for the self-loathing, the scars and the endless pit of regrets to emerge. John hasn’t lied, with his earlier answer. He always is a mess, a bunch of shattered pieces held together by a lot of bravado and willpower, and none of them is where it should be. He has seen the never healed wounds and the blood on the magician’s fingers, the only results of his vain attempts to get the shards back into a semblance of wholeness. And, before he could realise it, he was being overwhelmed by the urge to reach out and take his hands, mend the cuts, stop him from giving up on himself over and over again.

The truth is that he is still trying. Trying to make himself respect the limitations he has been given, trying to make it be enough, despite wanting so much more. However, Constantine has been adamant and he knows what it would mean breaking the rules he has willingly accepted. For all the contingency plans Batman has, Bruce himself tends to be defenceless, when his feelings are on the line. And he has seen how vengeful John can be, never above playing dirty, never above stomping over every single boundary, if it means achieving his goal. He would have found a way to get back at him, of course, eventually, but the irreparable damage would have been done anyway.

On good days, he tells himself that seeing the shock on the older man’s face that day, when he has chosen to put his heart in his callous hands, when he has chosen that “nasty piece of work” over everything else the world has to offer, has, on its own, almost made it worth the fights, the pain, the struggling. Then, there are the rare times when he has been allowed to see John blooming, with power, wits and a determination as bright as the light of his spells. In those moments, watching his shattered soul soaring, even if just through the hellish sky it is trapped in, aside from making him fall a bit more in love each time, vanishes every lingering doubt.

“I can’t promise you eternity but bare your soul for me Whatever it takes, you won’t regret having yourself let go once again„

“I’ll never bleedin’ get what you find so enticin’ ‘bout this soddin’ place.”

The exorcist’s voice breaks the silence and he turns to find Bruce staring at him. Oh, he has been aware of those eyes locked on him for some time now and that’s the reason why he has decided to speak up. There is something, in the younger man’s expression, that’s making him uneasy. He knows that look far too well by now and that’s the problem. His lover gets it every time he is thinking about something deep, something that involves him, or, rather, them. It doesn’t always lead to an attempt of conversation, thankfully, but it always gets too close to his sore spots for comfort.

His words gain him a raised eyebrow and he shakes his head because, despite what he has chosen to say, he doesn’t want to have that kind of conversation. Also because, among the other things, it would have forced him to admit that his statement is, for the most, a lie. He does understand the dark charm of Gotham far too well, not because he experiences it himself, hell no. As much in tune as that place can be with his own darkness, he is more than content to fuck off somewhere else whenever he has a chance to. No, the reason why he understands the strength of Bruce’s sense of duty, the reason why he knows exactly why the city will be, always and anyway, the younger man’s first priority is what John himself feels about magic. It’s not the same, and in his eyes Batman’s mission would always be, in spite of everything, much purer, less selfish, less corrupted. However, it’s the closest thing to a reflection of his own twisted existence that he has ever found in someone else’s life. And it’s why, perhaps, he shouldn’t be so surprised to see how willing the vigilante is to keep him around, to cherish him, despite all the deadly warning signs. They can be together while still prioritising their respective calling over everything else.

He chews the butt of his cigarette for a moment, and his eyes are looking lost once again. What they have couldn’t be further away from perfect, but, then again, it couldn’t be otherwise when people like them, all bruised and broken in different ways, are involved. It’s part of the reason why it works, even if all the odds are against it. And yet, he still feels bitter, now that he knows the stories behind Bruce’s past relationships. The way life has forced the younger man to choose or put a limit to the time he had to enjoy the bright sides of those bonds. John might have given up, at least for the most, on trying to push his lover to not choose him, but he cannot do the same with the time limit. There’s a clock ticking above his head, eating up, one by one, the seconds that separate him from that spot in Hell that has had his name for a long time now. And he will get himself damned again and again and again, endlessly, before he takes Bruce down with him. Denying the so often sung shared eternity of love is a gift, in their case.

He sucks in the last mouthful of smoke, hard enough that he can feel the burning down his throat and against his fingers, where his skin meets the burning hand of the now finished cigarette. There is no space for wistful poetry in what they share. Everything is harsh and desperate, ruled by the awareness of its limits, even in their quieter, warmer moments. Their shared passion always tastes like stolen time, and each kiss might as well be the last. It’s all just another story damned to end in tragedy, in flames, swallowed by the darkness. And yet, despite what he keeps saying, despite what he believes, there is still a part of him who wants to make it worth. For Bruce, mainly, but for himself too. He ascribes it to a streak of his selfishness, because that’s all it is…isn’t it?

But can it really be just selfishness, when you are fighting to make things better, even knowing that you won’t get to get an advantage for yourself out of it?

“Take me and make me as you want I’ll feed your dreams with my love„

Bruce feels the change in the mood even before John moves. There’s a sudden spike in the buzzing energy that constantly surrounds the magician and it usually indicates that he is about to do something either reckless or stupid. Or both, since when Constantine is involved the two things are, in most cases, the same. He isn’t sure what to expect, because his lover has the bad habit of being too hard to predict, and that’s one of the many things that Batman hates about him, because it makes the exorcist an incredibly volatile, untrustworthy ally. However, there is no cape or spell standing between them in that moment, and so, when the older man climbs off the railing, sets his feet down on the balcony and then lunges at him, he lets him, without a split moment of hesitation.

The kiss is bruising, hard, merciless. All teeth and tongue, no finesse, no patience, no softness. But it’s filled with scorching heat and the vigilante can’t stop himself from going weak, even if he would never admit it, because, when he can’t hold back the intensity that characterises all he is, John Constantine kisses both like a drowning man, lacing to the last gulp of oxygen he is being allowed, and like a starved demon, hellbent of devouring his soul.

Despite the force of the contact, though, he can feel the magician’s hands shaking, from where they are wrapped in the front of his jumper, pinning him against the railing. If it wasn’t so tragic, he could have appreciated the irony in seeing someone so arrogant and bold, a man who has gone as far as conning the Devil himself and mostly got away with it, so terrified of something as natural as love should be. If Bruce didn’t know exactly how it feels like, he would have been fascinated by how something human as emotional closeness can rip apart every barrier Constantine has so carefully built around himself, revealing the vulnerabilities, the fragility and the open wounds that are hidden under it.

He knows all of that, just as John is aware of it as well. It’s a struggle for the magician to keep himself there in those moments, because there is nothing he dreads more than feeling so exposed. It makes him want to fight and, if he can’t fight, then it makes him want to run. And he has, at first, denying the feelings he felt coming from Bruce, denying the ones that have been growing inside his own chest. Now, trying not to is part of the terms of their deal he has to respect, even when the instinct screams so loud inside his mind that he can’t hear his own thoughts.

And yet, here he is. And yet here he stays. It might be a selfish choice, it might be stealing what he doesn’t deserve, but there is more to it, for them both. There is a something new budding in the time and in the space they shared, stubborn as just the two of them can be. It’s a feeling, it’s a reality, it’s a dream. Its nature is hard to tell, so foreign and yet so familiar. One thing, though, seems certain: it might be doomed to meet a tragic ending, but that doesn’t stop it from fighting to survive everything that’s coming in its way.

“You’re trembling and I can see what you feel inside you a shy bud’s already blooming„

#(( true seeing stone ::ooc:: ))#theprinceof-gothamcity #* Let's fall in love for the Night and forget in the Morning * ::John&Bruce:: {theprinceofgothamcity}#(( let's say this is from John's part too ))#(( even if the wanker did nothing aside from ))#(( breathing over my neck and judging ))#(( please ignore whatever damn typo might be in it ))#(( I swear I check it but ))#(( can never find them all x.x ))

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shadowdianne · 5 years

Text

Ok people. Time has come. Let’s be ominous and extra on main

So the order for me posting all my WIPS at once will probably be.... the order in where I finish doing all the editing. I’m currently in my last prompts. I’ll still answer the ones I recieve by the end of the week if there is anyone feeling like sending me some.

Aside from that ...

A few months ago I posted a really rambling text about me leaving the SQ fandom writer wise after the SuperNova was over. In the way it’s over once we all put the fics where they will, later on, be revealed. The full explanation of why I’m doing this is even more rambly than the one I gave and is full of nuances that I’ve talked about a little bit with a few of you.

However, I want to say something about it either way. Because words are the way I communicate the most with. And that’s something that I guess is obvious about myself in a myriad of different ways; not only with my fics.

As I’ve said a few times before, SwanQueen was not my first fandom. If I need to pin it to the moment when I actively began to search for fandom-related things, of how I first stumbled into fics and what that entailed…

Going really back in time my first fandom experience was with Sailor Moon and Card Captor Sakura. Yup, that. I was really into anime back in the day and, don’t ask me how, I stumbled into a website that no longer exists that had these pages upon pages on something people called “fics”.

It was around the same time I was building my own sexual identity so you can imagine the mess; I devoured those fics. Most of them were not even good. Most of them had some questionable themes thrown around. Most of them had language on them that I needed a few years until I realized that was hurtful. But some others taught me what “angst” meant, what “hurt/comfort” was, why “fluff” was about or why “smut” at my tender age of 12/13 was something I wasn’t entirely grasping.

Again, I devoured those fics, I searched for more, I found livejournal and ffnet. By the time I started fully diving into fanfiction livejournal was slightly abandoned so at the end I focused entirely on ffnet and from there… Pretty Cure (another anime) Strawberry Panic and the even more dubious Kannazuki no Miko followed. I found some amazing writers I still follow today and whose stuff I will forever adore on MaiHime/MaiOtome and, eventually, Kim Possible. I still didn’t write though. Probably because my English at the time wasn’t the best, my writing voice in Spanish was barely a murmur and while I had always been the “weird kid who likes to write poetry and if you ask her nicely she will write you a story on the spot” I had never truly considered… writing and posting on the internet.

Funny thing is that this kind of things are like that and those who are content creators will probably understand that: You NEED to create. So, eventually, slightly older, and full on the whole Twilight era, I wrote a very… cringey fic. And then another. And another. And another.

At first I didn’t know shit about editing. My actual first review told me I was horrible at writing, that I was a mess, that I should stop. But my second review told me: “Hey, if you do this and that on the editing process it will help you and this will be more readable.” And I followed that comment. I eventually became friends with that second reviewer but, as life tends to be, I lost contact with her years ago. I still hope she is doing ok though.

Eventually, I started working, if working is something that one can say about writing a chapter in 20 minutes and throw it every Wednesday while your mother is at work, not monitoring what you are doing and you have the internet for yourself back when the internet went through the phone, in a multichaptered story. It is in Spanish, it is awful, characterization is horrible… but it also made me meet the person that became a very important person. And still will be for that younger version of me.

From twilight and the occasional writing on the HP fandom with the Hermione/Ginny pairing [Yeah, I wonder what younger me would think of my current main pairing on that fandom] I “graduated” to Glee. Lots and lots of Glee.

And then I stopped. Completely. Not a peep from me. Not a word, not a line. For over a year.

I was a fan and a shipper, however, of this little show called Once Upon a Time. I started watching in the pilot, in a very shoddy link a friend sent me over gmail. I fell in love with the characters but while I loved them I couldn’t… or wouldn’t really, put myself into writing. At the time my English was slightly better but my confidence levels were even lower than currently are. And the ones who have talked to me can safely say how horrible I am at taking compliments.

Yet, I had a very meaningful conversation, one I don’t know if she remembers still, in where I was told: Writing is you. If you want to write… like you did when we first met, why don’t you do it? I tried with a wip that is still there, buried beneath other stories now, that I never fully took off. And then I said fuck it and wrote several others, badly written, even worse characterized, but ones that helped me say… why not.

Disney World Family Business (in case there’s even someone here who read that mess) comes from there. Interview with the (Evil) Queen does too. Dancing Ring (who I’ve seen people roasting me over it and it’s fine because it was awful) was too. Texts on the cloud was there too, Coffee Black News… Eventually, I wrote a fic I’ve erased since then called The Holiday. Over 2k per chapter every day. I did it under a month.

It was… interesting. It was exhilarating. It was magical in many ways. And I had my favorite writers of course. Those who I followed religiously. Who I absolutely admired. And who I, to this day, still admire. And I even get to call them friends now which my younger self would probably be having a meltdown about now xD

I had opened my tumblr account way before that but I had never truly used it. I didn’t know how. Eventually, though, I dusted it off. I put some cringey theme there and I posted, after being sent a couple of random prompts here and there over ffnet pm’s the first “prompts anyone?” post I ever did.

It’s funny because now I’m a tease but the first time I asked for prompts I did it asking for words that I promised I’d make a smut ficlet out of them.

Words of Desire was born. Is, to this day, the one I feel cheekier about. Even if the writing is awful xd I even got my ffnet account in the line of “am I going to get deleted?” after I posted a story called “Lips”

Why I’m writing all of this you guys probably don’t care about? Because that post led to another. And another. And another.

Point is. I felt drunk on the sudden realization I could still tell stories. And so I kept doing it. At some point I opened my a03 account. Don’t remember exactly when in this story but I was crossposting some of my stuff at some point bother in ffnet and a03 so… who knows really. And then I kept asking for prompts. Or I got them asked. And so I did.

And I met other writers, and other content creators. And I loved it. I absolutely loved watching OUAT and then shit on the show and then create fix it fics at 3am on a Sunday. And I learnt about the narrative process outside class. How fanfiction truly is its own genre. I started developing my own ideas. I started looking at books, at people, at places around me with a critical eye I later on developed further to be able to specialize myself in literature. Because, at the end, that’s what I minored in.

I had roleplayed, I had written conjoined narratives. But fic writing at the scale SwanQueen was during the OUAT was still airing was something else. It still is in a way, but different now. And I think those who were around during the fucking show that basically did us a lot of bad in many ways was a different approach that currently is.

During those years not everything was good of course. I hit several walls, I didn’t have the ability to create the stories I wanted. It is not the reason why I’m leaving, I’ve spoken about the reasons -plural- with some of you. So I won’t bother you all more than I’m already doing.

I still love these ladies. I still don’t know how I will open a doc and not write their names. Maybe I relapse from time to time, who knows. Yet, the constant feeling of not being enough, of not being good enough, has devoured pretty much all my creative juices.

I was talking a few months ago with a writer I absolutely adore and I can’t tell her this enough and we were talking about writer’s block. And she said something that is devastatingly true. “You don’t have a creative block now. You’ve had it for a long time now.”

And I didn’t even hesitate when I answered “Yes. I know.”

How do you have a block when you keep posting? Well. By choosing safer options, options you know you will do on autopilot, without emotion even if you know you should be feeling it. And while writing is part of who I am and a huge part of my own emotional stability the fact that I simply cried when I saw the numbers and the stats while being bombarded with anons that I deleted most of them the second I got them… well. It’s far too much I guess.

I love SwanQueen. And to those of you who I’ve created a friendship over the years with I’m not leaving tumblr and I’m not walking out on you. I’m remaining here. You guys are going to need to do more than this to get rid of me Xd

But I do need that. Otherwise I will keep picking safer options, options that I know will take me shorter and shorter time for me to write. And that’s not quality. And not what I want to write. Because while I love writing about them the pressure and the fear and the rejection and the many other little details have outweighed the good.

Regina is a stubborn woman. No matter what fic you guys are reading or writing. I’m a little bit like her in that department Xd

I’ve finished my wips and I gave myself a few months after that first post so I could create closure and, you know, give you all the best I could do. I felt more relaxed at having a date set. I still feel dread at losing my ability to write now that, probably, the number of prompts will be smaller. But I hope I will still get news from you all. And don’t be mistaken. Me not writing doesn’t mean me not reading. I’ll be actually able to read more so expect lots and lots of fic recs on my side and comments on those fics. So hey, everyone wins.

To those anons, those gatekeepers.

I hope you all wake up one day and realize you are alone in the pit you’ve created for yourselves.

To fellow content creators: There’s always this game I play, on trying to find those headcanons that are truly yours, the ones that repeat themselves on every fic. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a headcanon per se. It can be a word, a special mannerism. I treasure those. I often link you to those in my mind when I’m thinking about you all. Thanks for creating. And thanks for being you.

To everyone really: It has been a few amazing years. Thank you all.

VIVA LA SWAN QUEEN

-Dianne out.

#swan queen #SwanQueen #swen

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